Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-134).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 243-257).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Harvard University, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 259-282).

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1988. / Microfilm (positive) of typescript. Ann Arbor, Mich. : University Microfilms International, 1988.--1 reel ; 35 mm. Sponsor: A. Harry Passow. Dissertation Committee: Joseph Lukinsky. Includes bibliographical references: (leaves 291-300).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Dropsie College, 1919. / Cover title: Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Mühlhausen, the apologete, cabbalist and philosophical writer and his books Haeshkol and Kawwanath hatefilah. Edited from unique manuscripts, by Judah Kaufman.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1933. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 138-143) and index.

This dissertation analyzes the performance of rabbinic expertise in the cultivation of donor and social networks in late antiquity. Through analysis of narrative depictions of rabbis and donors in Palestinian Rabbinic literature, I illustrate the social relationships created and maintained through gift-giving. I argue the rabbis used social networks to cultivate the legitimacy of the rabbinic project, facilitated by the authorizing power of donations. I demonstrate how donations to rabbis served as a means of legitimizing the rabbinic office as they formed into a self-conscious guild whose authority rested on the performance of expertise. These donations were not so simply received, however, as the rabbis disdained reciprocal forms of patronage associated with the broader Roman empire. Therefore, I demonstrate how the rabbis drew from systems of donation in the biblical text in order to assuage the association of their donors with formal patronage. In drawing from the biblical system and applying to their own historical times, the rabbis blended the gift types of tithes, charity, benefaction, and patronage. In this way, narrative accounts of tithes, charity, and informal gifts to rabbis can be read for the dynamics of reciprocal expectations sometimes encoded in the narrative account. With careful attention to rabbinic exegetical strategies, I trace the reception of biblical ideas about giving to their manifestation within the particular context of Roman Syria Palaestina.

The first chapter of Mishnah tractate Sotah (m. Sot) records rabbinic elaboration and interpretation on the sotah ritual contained in the Hebrew Bible, Numbers 5:11-31. Specifically, the nine mishnayoth that compose m. Sot 1 discuss the circumstances for invoking the trial of the “bitter waters” and the overall treatment of the suspected wife during the trial. This paper argues that, when read together, m. Sot 1 describes an entire economy of justice and punishment that must be imposed on a wife who is merely suspected of adultery, quite apart from whether she is—or is not—guilty of adultery. Through a close reading of m. Sot 1 and by examining the current gender discourse surrounding this text, this paper maintains that the rabbis sought to justify and explain these aspects of the sotah ritual by elaborating their understanding of suspicion and drawing them under a larger conception of measure for measure justice.

The first chapter of Mishnah tractate Sotah (m. Sot) records rabbinic elaboration and interpretation on the sotah ritual contained in the Hebrew Bible, Numbers 5:11-31. Specifically, the nine mishnayoth that compose m. Sot 1 discuss the circumstances for invoking the trial of the “bitter waters” and the overall treatment of the suspected wife during the trial. This paper argues that, when read together, m. Sot 1 describes an entire economy of justice and punishment that must be imposed on a wife who is merely suspected of adultery, quite apart from whether she is—or is not—guilty of adultery. Through a close reading of m. Sot 1 and by examining the current gender discourse surrounding this text, this paper maintains that the rabbis sought to justify and explain these aspects of the sotah ritual by elaborating their understanding of suspicion and drawing them under a larger conception of measure for measure justice.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1993. / Includes tables. Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: John P. Allegrante. Dissertation Committee: H. Jane Rogers. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-99).