The Literature of Formative Judaism

First published in 1991. This is Volume XI, Part II of a set of twenty volumes of essays and articles on the religion, history and literature on the origins of Judaism. This text looks at to the canon, or holy literature, of Judaism. That literature covers what is called "the Oral Torah." To understand the concept of the Oral Torah, we have to return to the generative myth of the Judaism that has predominated. For that Judaism appeals to a theory of revelation in two media of formulation and transmission, written and oral, in books and in memory. The written Torah is the Pentateuch and encompasses the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures of ancient Israel (the "Old Testament"). The Oral Torah is ultimately contained in and written down as the Mishnah, expanded and amplified by Tosefta, and the two Talmuds, on the one side, and the Midrash-compilations that serve to explain the written Torah, on the other.

Edited by Jacob Neuser (University of South Florida) with William Scott Green (University of Rochester).

Judah Goldin, "Reflections on Translation and Midrash," Proceedings of American Academy for Jewish Research, 1975; Judah Goldin, "The Two Versions of Abot de Rabbi Nathan,"Hebrew Union College Annual, 1946; Joseph Heinemann, "Profile of a Midrash: the Art of Composition in Leviticus Rabba," Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 1922; Max Kadushin, "Aspects of the Rabbinic Concept of Israel: A Study in the M e k i l t a , " Hebrew Union College Annual, 1946; Zipporah Kagan, "Divergent Tendencies and Their Literary Moulding in the Aggadah," Scripta Hierosolymitana, 1971; K. Kohler, "Abba, Father: Titlel e of Spiritual Leader and Saint," Jewish Quarterly Review-Old Series, 1901; K. Kohler, "The Pre-Talmudic Haggada, Part I,"Jewish Quarterly Review-Old Series, 1893; K. Kohler, "The Pre-Talmudic Haggada, Part II," Jewish Quarterly Review-Old Series, 1895; A. Kohut, "Zeus in Mishnah, Talmud, and Midrash," Jewish Quarterly Review-Old Series, 1891; Jacob Z. Lauterbach, "The Two Mekiltas," Proceedings of American Academy for Jewish Research, 1933; Raphael Loewe, "The 'Plain' Meaning of Scripture in Early Jewish Exegesis," Annual of the Institute of Jewish Studies, London (London, 1964); Bernard Mandelbaum, "Prolegomenon to the Pesikta," Proceedings of American Academy for Jewish Research, 1954; Eugene Mihaly, "A Rabbinic Defense of the Election of Israel. An Analysis of Sifre Deuteronomy, Hebrew Union College Annual, 1964; Jacob Neusner, "History and Midrash," Judaism, 1960; Jacob Neusner, "The Development of the Merkavah Tradition,"Journal for the Study of Judaism, 1971; Henry Slonimsky, "The Philosophy Implicit in the Midrash,"Hebrew Union College Annual, 1956; W. Sibley Towner, "Hermeneutical Systems of Hillel and the Tannaim: A Fresh Look , " Hebrew Union College Annual, 1983; Ben Zion Wacholder, "The Date of the Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael,"Hebrew Union College Annual, 1969; Addison G. Wright, "The Literary Genre Midrash," Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 1966.