The Talmud: A Methodological Introduction

The historical range of the different centuries of rabbinic literature makes it possible to take note of changes in the ways the different rabbis thought about the Bible and law. This module will demonstrate how later rabbis have a more abstract way of thinking about law while simultaneously having a more restrictive way of reading the Bible.

Rabbinic literature consists of multiple works in three genres—Midrash, Mishnah and Talmud. This module introduces each of these different genres with a comparative analysis of texts related to false testimony in works of each type.

The Talmud contains many stories that feature historical figures from the rabbinic period. In this module we will demonstrate the difficulty of reading these stories as history and model the use of literary tools for reading such materials.

While some of the material we have studied is unsettling, we need to bear in mind that much of it is rabbinic idealization or fantasy. This module goes through both the fantasy of rabbinic power and the realities of the importance of the Talmud in the post-Talmudic age.