Jacob Neusner, a noted scholar and prolific author on Jewish literature, history, and religion, believes that Jews and Christians do well to seek in their encounter with the teachings of the living God, the wisdom, imagination, and insight of the ages. "In this book," he writes in the Preface, "I want to contribute some modest measure of my own faith, Judaism, as that faith may add to the faith of our Christian neighbors, for all of us now dwell together in the new catacomb, the darkness of disdain for our common faith in one God, creator of heaven and earth, judge of all humankind. This is a book of religious faith."

During the formative age of Judaism, the first seven centuries CE, the great rabbis thought deeply about beginnings in light of endings. They imposed upon their sequential reading of each passage the accumulated results of their reflection about all passages. Thus, they encompassed Scripture, so as to describe the world as God had intended it to be.This act of intellect resulted in two distinct, ahistorical media of thought and expression, the Halakhah, law, and Aggadah, lore. The author provides three systematic accounts of the Halakhic reading, and two Aggadic accounts. The Halakhic accounts cover [1] Work and Rest, [2] Ownership and Possession, Eden and the Land, and [3] Ownership and Possession in the Household. The Aggadic accounts pertain to [1] the Six Days of Creation, and [2] Adam and Eve.

This book is the first volume in Jacob Neusner's ground-breaking trilogy, "The Foundations of Judaism: Method, Teleology, Doctrine." This Part One - "Method" - offers the first systematic explanation of why the midrash collections - that is, books of rabbinical exegeses of Scripture - were written. Neusner investigates the circumstances in which the earliest midrash collections were organized around the Pentateuch, and explains both the purpose of the work and its historical context.

About the Author Jacob Neusner is Research Professor of Religion and Theology Bard College Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Product description