Zachary Braiterman is Professor in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University. He is the author of The Shape of Revelation: Aesthetics and Modern Jewish Thought and (God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought and coeditor of The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy: The Modern Era. He lives in New York City.

"Braiterman's project is daring and innovative; his reading of the Babilonian Talmud fresh and unexpected yet simultaneously well-backed by his own studies and the erudite knowledge of the cutting-edge talmudic interpretations."—Agata Bielik-Robson, University of Nottingham"This book returns the power of the virtual to the image, as far as the Babylonian art of Talmud is concerned. . . . Images have been either denied reality or considered the only real that only is. Against this traditional bifurcation, Braiterman turns to the life lived and cast by the late ancient rabbis in their art of Talmud in order to retrieve the virtual as the core of what image is. The outcome is the departure from the traditional pigeonholing of the image into an idol and the return to image as no longer an object – either in or in opposition to reality but rather as the virtual through and in which the reality of life is first taking place."—Sergey Dolgopolski, SUNY Buffalo

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Philosophical Talmud & Phenomenology of Religion1. Image-Talmud-Cinema2. Human (In Utero)3. Place (Beit Ha'Mikdash)4. The Image of God5. World (Image, Not Idol)Conclusion: Truth of an ImageNotesBibliographyIndex

Zachary Braiterman is Professor in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University. He is the author of The Shape of Revelation: Aesthetics and Modern Jewish Thought and (God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought and coeditor of The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy: The Modern Era. He lives in New York City.

"Braiterman's project is daring and innovative; his reading of the Babilonian Talmud fresh and unexpected yet simultaneously well-backed by his own studies and the erudite knowledge of the cutting-edge talmudic interpretations."—Agata Bielik-Robson, University of Nottingham"This book returns the power of the virtual to the image, as far as the Babylonian art of Talmud is concerned. . . . Images have been either denied reality or considered the only real that only is. Against this traditional bifurcation, Braiterman turns to the life lived and cast by the late ancient rabbis in their art of Talmud in order to retrieve the virtual as the core of what image is. The outcome is the departure from the traditional pigeonholing of the image into an idol and the return to image as no longer an object – either in or in opposition to reality but rather as the virtual through and in which the reality of life is first taking place."—Sergey Dolgopolski, SUNY Buffalo

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Philosophical Talmud & Phenomenology of Religion1. Image-Talmud-Cinema2. Human (In Utero)3. Place (Beit Ha'Mikdash)4. The Image of God5. World (Image, Not Idol)Conclusion: Truth of an ImageNotesBibliographyIndex

Zachary Braiterman is Professor in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University. He is the author of The Shape of Revelation: Aesthetics and Modern Jewish Thought and (God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought and coeditor of The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy: The Modern Era. He lives in New York City.

"Braiterman's project is daring and innovative; his reading of the Babilonian Talmud fresh and unexpected yet simultaneously well-backed by his own studies and the erudite knowledge of the cutting-edge talmudic interpretations."—Agata Bielik-Robson, University of Nottingham"This book returns the power of the virtual to the image, as far as the Babylonian art of Talmud is concerned. . . . Images have been either denied reality or considered the only real that only is. Against this traditional bifurcation, Braiterman turns to the life lived and cast by the late ancient rabbis in their art of Talmud in order to retrieve the virtual as the core of what image is. The outcome is the departure from the traditional pigeonholing of the image into an idol and the return to image as no longer an object – either in or in opposition to reality but rather as the virtual through and in which the reality of life is first taking place."—Sergey Dolgopolski, SUNY Buffalo

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Philosophical Talmud & Phenomenology of Religion1. Image-Talmud-Cinema2. Human (In Utero)3. Place (Beit Ha'Mikdash)4. The Image of God5. World (Image, Not Idol)Conclusion: Truth of an ImageNotesBibliographyIndex