This collection of essays draws on work done in 2011¬–2012. The author takes up several topics in the systemic analysis of Judaism, its literature, and its theology. The reason for periodically collecting and publishing essays and reviews is to give them a second life, after they have served as lectures or as summaries of monographs or as free-standing articles or as expositions of Judaism in collections of comparative religions. This re-presentation serves a readership to whom the initial presentation in lectures or specialized journals or short-run monographs is inaccessible. Some of the essays furthermore provide a précis, for colleagues in kindred fields, of fully worked out monographs.

How does the inner logic of the Aggadah, its narrative and theology (whether systematic or merely episodic) match the deepest rationality of the Halakhah, its norms and foci and points of tension and remission of tension? The answer emerges from the comparison and contrast of the large, organizing aggregates of the Halakhah and of the Aggadah. The Halakhic and the Aggadic category formations are explained fully. In the Mishnah-Tosefta-Yerushalmi-Bavli we have the best of all possible Halakhic category-formations for the purpose of defining the structure of Israel's inner life, the social order of the kingdom of priests and the holy people that God had in mind in bringing Israel into being. In the Rabbah-midrash compilations and their companions, we have the best of all possible Aggadic category formations for the purpose of narrating the working of the system of Israel's public life, the story of that kingdom of priests and holy people in history. These are presented in two distinct exercises, deductive and inductive. The dual discourse tells a continuous story.

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

Examines the evolution of the concept that Moses received two versions of the Torah at Sinai, one written and one oral, and that the oral version has been passed down, mouth-to-mouth, to the present day. Follows the chain of documents on the written side, looks at how the two Torah differ, and compares how the difference has been understood in various contexts. No index or bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

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.

Genesis Rabbah, the earliest rabbinic commentary on the book of Genesis, was composed in Roman Palestine around the fifth century CE and continued to be studied throughout medieval and modern times. In this volume, an international team of scholars explores the literary formation and textual transmission of this work as well as the historical, cultural, religious, and political contexts in which it was composed. -- From back cover.

Text: English, German, Hebrew