outline_for_the_volume-final

Outline of the Volume Dedicated to Comparing

Babylonian and Palestinian Jewish Cultures

 

In recent years, publications appeared[1] showing the different manner in which early rabbinic material is reworked in the Babylonian Talmud on the one hand, and in Palestinian amoraic corpora on the other.

 

Following a successful ISBL session titled “Palestine and Babylon: Two Jewish Late Antique Cultures and their Interrelation”, we, Tal Ilan and Ronit Nikolsky, decided to produce a volume, based on the best contributions and on additional contributions from renown as well as young and promising new scholars devoted to the differences between these two Jewish centers.

 

The intention is that the volume would cover a wide range of Jewish late antique and Byzantine cultures, not only rabbinic culture, but other Jewish late antique and Byzantine corpora such as Hekhalot, Liturgy, or Magic.

 

The methodology to be used can be varied, as long as it studies culture. It may be purely philological, or it may focus on folklore, on philosophy, or on the legal approaches of the two centers. The strictness of the book is in three aspects: the period, that is late antique and Byzantine periods, amoraic to gaonic, from the fourth to the tenth century; the geographical provenance, Babylonia and the Land of Israel; and the comparative approach: studying and typifying the differences between the two cultures. Since the book will place culture at its focus, halakhic issues should be discussed in as much as they have cultural significance. One may rightly argue that most, if not all, halakhic issues have such significance. The intention of this statement is for the author to stress and focus on this aspect of halakhah.

The volume will also include a comprehensive bibliography on the topic.

The planned deadline for sending the contributions is the end of May 2010; the book is planned to be out by the end of 2010.

 

---

[1] An accidental and very partial list: Cohen, S. J. D., “The Conversion of
Antoninus,” in P. Schäfer (ed. ) The Talmud Yerushalmi and Greco-Roman
Culture (Tübingen 1998) 141-71; Friedman, Sh., “The Further Adventures of Rav
Kahana: between Babylonia and Palestine,
”, in Catherine Hezser and Peter Schcaefer (eds.), The Talmud Yerushalmi and
Graeco-Roman Culture, III. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), pp. 247-271; Goodblatt, D., “The Beruriah Traditions,” JJS 26 (1975) 68-85; Hayes, C. E., Between the Babylonian and
Palestinian Talmuds: Accounting for Halakhic Differences in Selected Sugyot
from Tractate Avodah Zarah (Oxford
1997); Ilan, T., “‘Stolen Water is Sweet’: Women and
their Stories between Bavli and Yerushalmi,” in P. Schäfer (ed. ) The Talmud
Yerushalmi and Greco-Roman Culture (Tübingen 2002) III, 185-223; Kalmin, R., “Rabbinic Portrayals of Biblical and
Post-biblical Heroes”, in: Shaye J. D. Cohen (ed.), The Synoptic Problem in
Rabbinic Literature, (Brown Judaic Studies 326), Providence,
Rhode Island: Brown University,
2000, 119-144; Kiperwasser, R., D. Shapira, “Irano-Talmudica
I: The Three-Legged Ass and Ridya in B. Ta’anit: Some Observations about
Mythic Hydrology in the Babylonian Talmud and in Ancient Iran.”, AJS
Review 32:1 (2008), pp. 101–116; Lavee, M., “’Sarah Suckled Sons’: Models of
Jewish-Gentile Relations in a Midrashic Narrative”, Mishlav 37 (2002),
pp. 75-114 (Hebrew); Mandel, P., “Between Byzantium
and Islam: The transmission of a Jewish Book in the Byzantine and early Islamic
periods”, in Israel Gershoni and Yaacov Elman (eds.), Transmitting Jewish
Traditions, (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 74-106; Noam, V., 'A Captive Story: the Adventures of a
Tales between the Land of Israel and Babylonia”, Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew
Literature 19 (2003), pp. 9-21 (Hebrew).