Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Note on transliteration
- Note on Biblical translations
- Note on the Babylonian Talmud
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 The Talmudic argument
- 2 The literary form of the Babylonian Talmud
- 3 Berērah: retrospective specification
- 4 Yeúsh she-lo mi-da‘at: unconscious abandonment of property
- 5 Rubba: probability
- 6 Davar she-lo ba le-'olam: conveyance of a thing not yet in existence
- 7 Kol she-eyno be-zeh aḥar zeh afilu be-vat aḥat eyno: whatever cannot be established in a consecutive sequence cannot be established even in a simultaneous sequence
- 8 Yesh ḥoresh telem eḥad: a single act of ploughing can result in a number of penalties
- 9 Simanin de-oraita o de-rabbanan: whether reliance on distinguishing marks for the purpose of identification is Biblical or Rabbinic
- 10 Devarim she-be-lev eynam devarim: mental reservations in contracts are disregarded
- 11 Ḥazakah: presumptive state
- 12 Gadol kevod ha-beriot: the law and regard for human dignity
- 13 Hazmanah milta: whether the designation of an object for a particular use is effective
- 14 Mitzvat ‘aseh she-ha-zeman geramah: positive precepts dependent on time from which women are exempt
- 15 Heyzek she-eyno nikar: indiscernible damage to property
- 16 Kinyan ḥatzer: acquisition by means of a domain
- 17 Palginan be-dibbura: admission of part of a testimony even though another part of the same testimony is rejected
- 18 Tadir u-mekuddash: which takes precedence: the more constant or the more sacred?
- 19 Palga nizka: the nature of the payment of half-damages to which the owner of a goring ox is liable
- 20 Patur mi-diney adam ve-ḥayyav be-diney shamayim: cases where there is liability in the eyes of God even though the human courts cannot enforce payment
- 21 Maḥal ‘al kevodo kevodo maḥul: renunciation of honour by one to whom it is due
- 22 Conclusions
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Note on transliteration
- Note on Biblical translations
- Note on the Babylonian Talmud
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 The Talmudic argument
- 2 The literary form of the Babylonian Talmud
- 3 Berērah: retrospective specification
- 4 Yeúsh she-lo mi-da‘at: unconscious abandonment of property
- 5 Rubba: probability
- 6 Davar she-lo ba le-'olam: conveyance of a thing not yet in existence
- 7 Kol she-eyno be-zeh aḥar zeh afilu be-vat aḥat eyno: whatever cannot be established in a consecutive sequence cannot be established even in a simultaneous sequence
- 8 Yesh ḥoresh telem eḥad: a single act of ploughing can result in a number of penalties
- 9 Simanin de-oraita o de-rabbanan: whether reliance on distinguishing marks for the purpose of identification is Biblical or Rabbinic
- 10 Devarim she-be-lev eynam devarim: mental reservations in contracts are disregarded
- 11 Ḥazakah: presumptive state
- 12 Gadol kevod ha-beriot: the law and regard for human dignity
- 13 Hazmanah milta: whether the designation of an object for a particular use is effective
- 14 Mitzvat ‘aseh she-ha-zeman geramah: positive precepts dependent on time from which women are exempt
- 15 Heyzek she-eyno nikar: indiscernible damage to property
- 16 Kinyan ḥatzer: acquisition by means of a domain
- 17 Palginan be-dibbura: admission of part of a testimony even though another part of the same testimony is rejected
- 18 Tadir u-mekuddash: which takes precedence: the more constant or the more sacred?
- 19 Palga nizka: the nature of the payment of half-damages to which the owner of a goring ox is liable
- 20 Patur mi-diney adam ve-ḥayyav be-diney shamayim: cases where there is liability in the eyes of God even though the human courts cannot enforce payment
- 21 Maḥal ‘al kevodo kevodo maḥul: renunciation of honour by one to whom it is due
- 22 Conclusions
- Glossary
- Bibliography
Summary
This book seeks to combine the methodological and the literary approach to the study of the reasoning and argumentation typical of the Babylonian Talmud. In the great, traditional Yeshivot, most of which today are influenced by the methods of the Lithuanian Talmudic giants – R. Hayyim Soloveitchik and his son R. Velvel; R. Simeon Skopf; R. Moshe Mordecai Epstein of Slabodka; R. Baruch Baer of Kamenitz; R. Joseph Judah Laib Bloch of Telz; R. Meir Simhah of Dvinsk; R. Elhanan Wasserman and others too numerous to mention – the Talmud is subjected to acute, logical analysis of the utmost rigour, to yield important results for the full understanding of the work. But, in these institutions, historical and literary questions are virtually ignored. Modern critical investigation is considered not so much to be taboo as irrelevant. As the old Yeshiva gibe has it, the Professor of Semitics can tell you what kind of clothes Abbaye wore but the lamdan (‘traditional scholar’) can tell you what Abbaye said. Modern critical scholars, on the other hand, in addition to their massive historical researches, have, in recent years, subjected the Talmudic texts to keen literary analysis, in which the pre-history of the Talmudic pericopae and their later formulation have been studied in order to shed fresh light on how the literary traditions have emerged and to try to solve the mystery of how the Babylonian Talmud came to assume its present form, who its authors were and how they went about their task.
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- The Talmudic ArgumentA Study in Talmudic Reasoning and Methodology, pp. ix - xPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1984