Sociological and Anthropological Approaches to the Study of the Evidence of the Mishnah: A Call to Scholarly Action and a Programmatic Introduction
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Jack N. Lightstone
Abstract
This paper originates from a Research Group bearing much the same title that has been meeting since July 2015 under the aegis of the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS). The essay was, and is, intended as a call to renew the scholarly study of the evidence of the Mishnah, but from decidedly social scientific perspectives. The modern study of ancient Judaism has always shown a sustained interest in Mishnah, the first authoritative text produced and promulgated by the early rabbinic movement near or soon after the beginning of the third century CE. Mishnah has been the object of literary critical and historical analysis, with much debate having ensued around fundamental and difficult methodological issues. Social scientific, and specifically sociological and anthropological, inquiries and approaches to Mishnah’s evidence have been, relatively speaking, less pursued. This paper both invites such inquiries and suggests three broad topical rubrics for renewed scholarship, after surveying some of the commonly discussed methodological challenges that will impinge on such work. These three broad areas of research are: 1. to try to use the evidence of Mishnah to tell us more about Palestinian Jewish social and cultural constructs generally in the era in question; 2. to analyze Mishnah to understand the social and cultural dynamics of the specific Palestinian group that produced, and thereafter studied, Mishnah as an authoritative text, namely the early Palestinian Rabbinic group; 3. to study Mishnah’s evidence in order to describe the social and cultural “world” that is imaginatively created by, and within, the document by its framers, but which may describe no historical Jewish society and culture.
© 2018 by Academic Studies Press, Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Masthead
- Table of Contents
- ESSAYS
- Sociological and Anthropological Approaches to the Study of the Evidence of the Mishnah: A Call to Scholarly Action and a Programmatic Introduction
- Family Structure, Kinship, and Life Course Transitions: Social Science Explorations of the Mishnah
- Religious Holidays, Values, and Rituals: Mishnaic Perspectives
- The Poor and Their Relief in the Mishnah: An Economic Analysis
- Rabbinic Prayer in Dialogue with Priestly Ritual: Palestinian Talmudic Aggada
- Mihnag in The Haye Adam—The Case of Kitniyot on Passover
- The Evolution of the Orthodox Jewish Community in Cleveland, Ohio, 1940 to the Present
- An 1899 Postal Card Offers a Unique Insight Into American Jewish History
- Nine Men Waiting for One More: The Psychology of the Minyan
- Consumption, Wastefulness, and Simplicity in Ultra-Orthodox Communities
- תיתכלהה תונשרפה יללכב חיש ינמסו הקיטמגרפ :'םירמוא שי' 'יכאלמ די' רפס לש
- תינויצ תידומיל תושדחתה—הנבי דעו הנבימ רדסהה תובישיב תיתד
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Mordecai Paldiel, Saving One’s Own: Jewish Rescuers during the Holocaust. Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society, 2017. 636 p
- Derek Taylor, Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler, The Forgotten Founder. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2018. xii + 260 p
- David Raab, The Democratic Evolution of Halakhah, A Political Science Perspective. Aspen, CO: Aspen Center for Social Values, 2018. 106 p
- Steven Weitzman, The Origins of the Jews. The Quest for Roots in a Rootless Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017. ix + 394 p
- Sándor Bacskai, One Step Toward Jerusalem: Oral Histories of Orthodox Jews in Stalinist Hungary. Translated by Eva Maria Thury. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2018. xxiv. + 235 p
- Wodzinski, Marcin, with cartography by Waldemar Spallek, Historical Atlas of Hasidism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. 280 p
- Jessica Roda, Se réinventer au présent: Les Judéo-espagnols de France; Famille, communauté et patrimoine musical. Preface by Edwin Seroussi. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2018. 268 p
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Masthead
- Table of Contents
- ESSAYS
- Sociological and Anthropological Approaches to the Study of the Evidence of the Mishnah: A Call to Scholarly Action and a Programmatic Introduction
- Family Structure, Kinship, and Life Course Transitions: Social Science Explorations of the Mishnah
- Religious Holidays, Values, and Rituals: Mishnaic Perspectives
- The Poor and Their Relief in the Mishnah: An Economic Analysis
- Rabbinic Prayer in Dialogue with Priestly Ritual: Palestinian Talmudic Aggada
- Mihnag in The Haye Adam—The Case of Kitniyot on Passover
- The Evolution of the Orthodox Jewish Community in Cleveland, Ohio, 1940 to the Present
- An 1899 Postal Card Offers a Unique Insight Into American Jewish History
- Nine Men Waiting for One More: The Psychology of the Minyan
- Consumption, Wastefulness, and Simplicity in Ultra-Orthodox Communities
- תיתכלהה תונשרפה יללכב חיש ינמסו הקיטמגרפ :'םירמוא שי' 'יכאלמ די' רפס לש
- תינויצ תידומיל תושדחתה—הנבי דעו הנבימ רדסהה תובישיב תיתד
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Mordecai Paldiel, Saving One’s Own: Jewish Rescuers during the Holocaust. Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society, 2017. 636 p
- Derek Taylor, Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler, The Forgotten Founder. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2018. xii + 260 p
- David Raab, The Democratic Evolution of Halakhah, A Political Science Perspective. Aspen, CO: Aspen Center for Social Values, 2018. 106 p
- Steven Weitzman, The Origins of the Jews. The Quest for Roots in a Rootless Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017. ix + 394 p
- Sándor Bacskai, One Step Toward Jerusalem: Oral Histories of Orthodox Jews in Stalinist Hungary. Translated by Eva Maria Thury. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2018. xxiv. + 235 p
- Wodzinski, Marcin, with cartography by Waldemar Spallek, Historical Atlas of Hasidism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. 280 p
- Jessica Roda, Se réinventer au présent: Les Judéo-espagnols de France; Famille, communauté et patrimoine musical. Preface by Edwin Seroussi. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2018. 268 p
