Talmudic Stories
Subtitle: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: September 10, 1999
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 456
ISBN-13: 9780801861468
Subjects: Jewish studies; Judaism; Literary studies: classical, early & medieval; Sacred texts; Rabbinical literature; Talmud; Religion - Judaism; Hebrew; Religion; Judaism - Sacred Writings; Judaism - Talmud; Literary Criticism & Collections / European; Aggada; History and criticism; Narration in rabbinical litera; Narration in rabbinical literature; Translations into English
First sentence: This well-known story of a heavenly voice that resolved an intractable human conflict raises a number of questions.
Description: "How should we understand the stories of the Babylonian Talmud? Where do they come from? Why are they in the Talmud? How do they relate to Talmudic law? In Talmudic Stories, Jeffrey Rubenstein deepens our appreciation for the complexity of these texts by drawing attention to the literary aspects and cultural contexts that are essential to understanding their narrative art, meanings, and importance.

Focusing on six famous stories of the Babylonian Talmud and discussing many others in relation to these, Rubenstein's analysis illuminates the ways in which the rabbis used narratives to grapple with fundamental tensions of their culture."--BOOK JACKET.