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| | About this title |
In his brilliant introduction on the Mishnah, Jacob Neusner asks:
How do you read a book that does not identify its author, tell you where it comes from, or explain why it was written – a book without a preface? And how do you identify a book with neither a beginning nor end, lacking table of contents and title? The answer is you just begin and let the author of the book lead you by paying attention to the information that the author does give, to the signals that the writer sets out.
As Neusner goes on to explain, the Mishnah portrays the world in a special way, in a kind of code that makes it a difficult work for the modern reader to understand. Without knowing how to decode the Mishnah, we may read its works without receiving its message.
Neusner, one of the world's foremost Mishnaic scholars, demonstrated that the Mishnah's own internal logic and structure form a solid foundation on which to build an understanding of this vitally important Jewish work. Using examples of how the Mishnah's language, logic, and discourse associate and categorize behaviors, events, and objects, Neusner opens the Mishnah to readers who would not otherwise be able to grasp its most fundamental concepts.
Since the Mishnah forms the basis of both the Babylonian and the Palestinian Talmuds (which are, in Neusner's elegant terms, “the core curriculum of Judaism as a living religion”), study of the Mishnah is essential to an understanding of Judaism. Drawing on his own new translation of the Mishnah and displaying the enthusiastic dedication that has sparked a whole new body of Mishnaic research, Neusner allows readers with no previous background to join Jews who have studied, analyzed, and delighted in the wisdom of Mishnah for centuries.
In addition to giving us a thorough exploration of the Mishnah's language, contents, organization, and inner logic, Neusner also provides us with a broad understanding of how it communicated its own world view – its vision of both the concrete an spiritual worlds. The Mishnah: An Introduction gives us a tour of this sacred Jewish text, shedding light on its many facets – from its view of life to its conception of God and His relation to our world. |
| About author |
Jacob Neusner —
Jacob Neusner is a leading figure in the American academic study of religion. He revolutionized the study of Judaism and brought it into the field of religion, and he built intellectual bridges between Judaism and other religions, thereby laying the groundwork for durable understanding and respect among religions. He has advanced the careers of younger scholars and teachers through his teaching and publication programs. Neusner's influence on the study of Judaism and religion is broad, powerful, distinctive, and enduring.
The real measure of Jacob Neusner's contribution to the study of religion emerges from the originality, excellence, and scope of his learning. He founded a field of scholarship: the academic study of Judaism. He built out of that field to influence a larger subject: the academic study of religion. He created durable networks and pathways of interreligious communication and understanding. And he cared for the careers of others. Ever generous with his intellectual gifts, Neusner is one of America's greatest humanists. In all aspects of his career, he exemplifies the meaning of American learning. In all he has done, Jacob Neusner fulfills the distinctive promise of the academic study of religion in an open and pluralistic society that values religion as a fundamental expression of freedom. -from the Encyclopaedia Judaica, second edition
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| Contents |
Preface
Acknowledgements and Permissions
1. The Mishnah as Literature
Identifying the Mishnah
Mishnah Tractate Berakhot 1:1
Mishnah Tractate Uqsin 3:11
Using the Evidence in Hand
The Contents and Organization of the Mishnah
An Outline of the Topical Program of the Mishnah
The Rhetoric of the Mishnah: Patterning Language
The Logic of the Mishnah: Proving Propositions
The Meaning of the Mishnah's Rhetoric and Logic
The Purpose of the Mishnah: Law Code or Schoolbook?
2. The Mishnah as Religion
Defining a Religion and a Judaism
The Mishnah's Judaism before 70 C.E.
The Mishnah's Judaism after the Destruction of the Temple: 70-132 C.E.
The Mishnah after 135 C.E.: The System Seen Whole
The Judaism of the Mishnah
3. The Mishnah's Social Vision: Means of Production, Market, Wealth
The Building Block of Society in the Mishnah's Social Vision
The Household: Baba Batra Chapter 3
The Market: Baba Mesia Chapter 4
Wealth: Baba Mesia Chapter 5
The Steady-State Economy in a Static Social World
4. The Mishnah's Social Vision: Woman and Caste
Women in the Household
Women: Yebamot Chapter 10
Case Structure: Qiddushin Chapter 4
The Social Vision of the Mishnah
5. The Mishnah's Theological and Philosophical Vision
History and the Laws of History: Rosh Hashanah Chapter 4, Taanit Chapter 4, Zebahim Chapter 14,
Sotah Chapter 9
Israel and God, Partners in the Land: Maaserot Chapter 1
Intention: Makhshirin Chapter 4
Humanity in Crisis: What Can Israel Do?
6. The Mishnah and the Torah: The Impact of the Mishnah on the Formation of Judaism
The Problem of the Mishnah
Tractate Avot Chapter 1
The Mishnah and the Torah: The Theory of Tractate Avot
The Yerushalmi Talmud's Theory of the Mishnah
The Mishnah and the Judaism of the Dual Torah
The Relevance of the Mishnah to Judaism in the Twenty-First Century
Structure of the Mishnah
Index |
| Reviews |
| “For 70 years I have studied Mishnah virtually every day of my life. Yet there is hardly a page in Professor Neusner's monumental work, The Mishah: An Introduction, that did not reveal for me a new and often exciting insight.” — Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, Bar-Ilan University
“Professor Neusner offers us far more than an introduction to the Mishnah. With the patience and shrewdness of a detective, he guides the reader through the text to uncover the presuppositions and intentions of its unknown authors.
“Neusner is a master teacher. He goes to the text itself and under his skillful, inductive probings, allows it to reveal its autonomous logic. Following him, the reader gains insight into the interdependence of ‘ethos, ethics, and ethnos' that supports the intellectual structures of Mishnah Judaism.”— Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis, Valley Beth Shalom, Encino, California
“This is a great book, a major contribution of exceptional magnitude to Jewish learning and to the scientific study of religion. As a remarkable introduction to the Mishnah, it is yet another tribute to Jacob Neusner as the mature Herculean scholar who revolutionized rabbinic scholarship in the twentieth century. In it he soars to new heights of brilliance as an interpreter of the rabbinic mind, and as a writer of unusual beauty and style, as a prophetic voice in the wilderness.”— Samson H. Levey, Professor of Rabbinics & Jewish Religious Thought, Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles
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