Winter 2012 Class Descriptions

As of 5/18/2013 3:17:18 AM

Rabbinics/Ancient Jewish Law

Ancient Jewish Law, History, Religion

This course provides an opportunity to study Jewish legal, ritual and narrative texts produced in the first sixth centuries of the Common Era in Palestine and Babylonia. We will focus on classical rabbinic legal texts including the Mishnah and the Talmud. Our study will not only address their legal contents and contexts, but also their literary and formal features and their value as historical sources. As such we will pay some attention to the Greco-Roman, Christian, Persian and Zoroastrian contexts in which the rabbis created Jewish law, lore and ritual, reading selections from the New Testament and the writings of the Early Church Fathers, as well as Zoroastrian religious law.