The Mind of the Talmud: An Intellectual History of the Bavli (1990 Kraemer), book

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<bibexternal title="The Mind of the Talmud" author="Kraemer"/>

The Mind of the Talmud: An Intellectual History of the Bavli (1990) is a book by David Charles Kraemer.

Abstract

"This critical study traces the development of the literary forms and conventions of the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, analyzing those forms as expressions of emergent rabbinic ideology. The Bavli, which evolved between the third and sixth centuries in Sasanian Iran (Babylonia), is the most comprehensive of all documents produced by rabbinic Jews in late antiquity. It became the authoritative legal source for medieval Judaism, and for some its opinions remain definitive today. Kraemer here examines the characteristic preference for argumentation and process over settled conclusions of the Bavli. By tracing the evolution of the argumentational style, he describes the distinct eras in the development of rabbinic Judaism in Babylonia. He then analyzes the meaning of the disputational form and concludes that the talmudic form implies the inaccessibility of perfect truth and that on account of this opinion, the pursuit of truth, in the characteristic talmudic concern for rabbinic process, becomes the ultimate act of rabbinic piety."--Publisher description.

Editions

Published in New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Contents

On Writing an Intellectual History of the Bavli --; The Meaning of Literary Forms --; The Bavli: A Preliminary Description --; The Bavli's Sources: On the Reliability of Attributions --; A History of Amoraic Literary Expression --; The First Amoraic Period --; The Second Amoraic Period --; The Third Amoraic Period --; The Meaning of the Evidence --; The Preservation of Amoraic Argumentation --; The Evidence --; More Evidence and Conclusions --; The Data at a Glance --; The Data in Detail --; The Bavli Considered as a Whole --; The Urgency for Argumentation --; Building on Earlier Argumentation --; Building on Brief Traditions --; Fictional Argumentation --; Argumentation for Its Own Sake --; The Bavli and the Yerushalmi Distinguished --; The Meaning of Argumentation --; A Philosophical Analysis: The Indeterminability of Truth --; Historical Underpinnings --; Theological Underpinnings --; The Erosion of Authority in the Bavli's Sources --; The Bavli on "Truth," --; The Separation of Truth and Practice --; The Centering of Human Reason: Reason and Revelation --; Human Reason on Its Own Terms: Learning Becomes Torah --; The Bavli in Comparative Perspective --; Truth in the Classical Philosophical Tradition --; Religious Traditions and Truth --; Philosophy Meets Scripture --; In Conclusion: Why the Bavli?

External links

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