Making God's Word Work: A Guide to the Mishnah

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A&C Black, 22 ian. 2004 - 375 pagini
"The Mishnah is the crown jewel of Rabbinic Judaism in its formative age," so says the distinguished author of this book. Initiated in the aftermath of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, and developed and amplified over the next five centuries, the Mishnah is the product of an age of calamity giving birth to a renewed search for recovery. As such, it speaks to every age, but to none more particularly and clearly than to our own which has witnessed the destruction wrought by the Shoah and the return to the land of Israel.

Nevertheless, the Mishnah does not explicitly address the agenda of the contemporary world. To reduce the social theology and legal system of the Mishnah to a specific historical setting would be to distort its religious mission which, as Jacob Neusner affirms, is to influence while transcending the world of time and circumstance.

The Mishnah is not a series of niggling precepts, as its misinterpreters contend, but neither is it simply a source of interesting information or of legal directives for shaping everyday life. Rather, the central theme of Making God's Word Work is that throughout the rules and norms of the Mishnah, and beneath their surface, is a governing theological pattern which both defines the detail relating to social conduct as well as brings to the fore a coherent system of analysis, thought, and argumen. "The Mishnah is a law code in form, a work of philosophy and theology in substance, and a work of natural history in execution. Its medium of expression and mode of thinking mark it as close to unique among philosophical and theological writings."

Making God's Word Work will be of interest not only to students of Judaica or those who practice Judaism, but also to students of the history of religions and of comparative religion. Additionally, the book will fascinate philosophers, theologians, literary critics, and humanists in general for its remarkable insights into a way of discursive analysis and rigorous argumentation that is without parallel among the foundational documents of the great world religions.

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Cuprins

A Personal Note
7
Bibliography
19
Making Gods Word Work
27
Gods Justice and the Ordeal of the Accused Wife
47
Israel and the Gentiles
63
Corporate Israel as a Moral Entity
85
Personal Autonomy
100
Ownership and Possession
118
When Intention Does Not Count
213
The Oath
231
God the Landlord Israel the Tenant
247
Israels Presence in Gods House
268
Gods Presence in the Israelite Household
286
God and the Individual Israelite
307
The Messiah
325
How the Topical Rhetorical and Logical Media
349

The Norm and the Exception
137
When Israelites Deliberately Violate the Norms
155
The Israelite Family
175
Responsibility and Intentionality
194
Making Gods Word Work Today
365
Acknowledgments 375
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Despre autor (2004)

Jacob Neusner is the author or editor of over 700 books including The Incarnation of God: The Character of Divinity in Formative Judaism.

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