Argues that the rabbis of late antiquity, in the normative law set forth in the Mishnah-Tosefta-Yerushalmi-Bavli, liberated Israelite women by according them what Scripture had denied: the standing and powers of sentient beings; a role in critical transactions of their existence that, if not entirely equal to that of men, at least corresponded to it; and agency and intentionality. Few bibliographic references. No index. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

The latest in Jacob Neusner's informative series on the theology and hermeneutics of Rabbinical Judaism, The Emergence of Judaism offers insight into the development of Judaism in antiquity. Based on the author's lectures, this volume focuses on the social setting of Judaism, the Babylonian Talmud, and the Bavli.

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."

The only English-language translation of the Tosefta ("supplement"), which contains explanations and discussion not included in the Mishnah and is organized according to the same six divisions. Materials in the Tosefta are attributed to rabbinic authorities in the first and second centuries C.E., the same ones cited in the Mishnah, and as such the Tosefta is crucial to the study of formative rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. This two-volume edition, by renowned rabbinic scholar Jacob Neusner, contains the complete text of the original six-volume set. The following features enhance the usefulness of this new the text is continuously paginated, with a new preface, a single general index, and a full index of biblical and talmudic references.

Book by Neusner, Jacob

In The Economics of the Mishnah Jacob Neusner showed how economics functioned as an active and generative ingredient in the system of the Mishnah. With this new study, Rabbinic Political Theory , he moves from the economics to the politics of the Mishnah, placing that politics in the broader context of ancient political theory. Neusner begins his study with a modification of Weber's categories for a theory of politics: myth, institutions, administration, passion, responsibility, and proportion. Detailing the Mishnah's conception of politics, Neusner considers what he calls the stable and static structure and system through comparison with Aristotle. Although Aristotle's Politics and the Mishnah share a common economic theory based on the fundamental unit of the householder, they diverge in their conceptions of political structure and order. Aristotle embeds economics within political economy, while, Neusner argues, the Mishnah presents the anomaly of an economics separated from politics. Using modern political terms, this study explicates the complicated politics developed by the philosopher-theologians of the Mishnah. It is a first-rate contribution to our understanding of the intersection of politics, political philosophy, and the Mishnaic system.

From the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the Jews were a conquered nation. Yet Jewish sages and holy works preached a doctrine of both interior and exterior virtue that allowed the Jewish people to feel and believe in the dignity and nobility of their earthly condition. Neusner's book explores the attitudes in Jewish canonical writings and asks how these virtues relate to the politics of the Jews as a vanquished people. Jacob Neusner, the author of over 166 books on Judaism and Jewish history, is a frequent lecturer both in America and throughout the world. He has been a Fulbright Fellow at the Hebrew University, and twice has been a Guggenheim Fellow.