Legal Fictions

Steven D. Fraade, Ph.D. (1980) in Near Eastern Studies, University of Pennsylvania, is the Mark Taper Professor of the History of Judaism at Yale University, in the Department of Religious Studies and the Program in Judaic Studies. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow and the author of From Tradition to Commentary, winner of the 1992 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Scholarship.

"As a model expedition into the “discursive worlds” of ancient texts, the volume should be welcomed by scholars and serious students."Jonathan Henry, Princeton Theological Seminary, in Enoch Seminar Online

• I. INTRODUCTION/RETROSPECTIVE1: Introduction: Of Legal Fictions and Narrative Worlds2: Nomos and Narrative Before “Nomos and Narrative”II. DEAD SEA SCROLLS3: Interpretive Authority in the Studying Community at Qumran4: To Whom It May Concern: Miqṣat Maʿaśe Ha-Torah (4QMMT) and Its Addressee(s)”5: Rhetoric and Hermeneutics in 4QMMT: The Case of the Blessings and CursesIII. COMPARATIVE: DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND RABBINIC LITERATURE6: The Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism after Sixty (Plus) Years: Retrospect and Prospect7: Qumran Yaḥad and Rabbinic Ḥavurah: A Comparison Revisited8: Looking for Legal Midrash at Qumran9: Looking for Narrative Midrash at Qumran10: Shifting from Priestly to Non-Priestly Legal Authority: A Comparison of the Damascus Document and the Midrash Sifra11: Deuteronomy and Polity in the Early History of Jewish Interpretation12: Ancient Jewish Law and Narrative in Comparative Perspective: The Damascus Document and the Mishnah13: Theory, Practice, and Polemic in Ancient Jewish Calendars14: “The Torah of the King” (Deut 17:14–20) in the Temple Scroll and Early Rabbinic LawIV. RABBINIC LITERATURE15: Priests, Kings, and Patriarchs: Yerushalmi Sanhedrin in its Exegetical and Cultural Settings16: Navigating the Anomalous: Non-Jews at the Intersection of Early Rabbinic Law and Narrative17: Literary Composition and Oral Performance in Early Midrashim18: Rewritten Bible and Rabbinic Midrash as Commentary19: Rabbinic Midrash and Ancient Jewish Biblical Interpretation20: Rabbinic Polysemy and Pluralism Revisited: Between Praxis and Thematization21: Moses and the Commandments: Can Hermeneutics, History, and Rhetoric be Disentangled?22: Hearing and Seeing at Sinai: Interpretive Trajectories23: The Temple as a Jewish Identity Marker Pre- and Post-70 C.E.: With Particular Attention to the Holy Vessels in Rabbinic Memory and Imagination24: Local Jewish Leadership in Roman Palestine: The Case of the Parnas in Early Rabbinic Sources in Light of Extra-Rabbinic EvidenceV: AFTERWORD/PROSPECTIVE25: Afterword: Between History and its RedemptionIndex of Ancient Authors and SourcesIndex of Modern AuthorsSubject Index