Thesis advisor: Ruth Langer / One of the enduring legacies supersessionism has imparted to Christianity in general, and evangelical Christianity in particular, is a complicated relationship with the legal material of the Hebrew Bible. There is a common belief that since Christians follow the New Covenant, these laws are deemed null or fulfilled by Christ, and therefore do not require attention, or at least not the same level one would grant other biblical texts. The issue with this belief is that the legal material is part of the Christian canon, and therefore—doctrinally speaking—deserves serious attention. In seeking a robust and enduring reason to engage the legal material, I propose that evangelicals adopt a rabbinic concept that interrogates and develops one’s disposition toward Torah. This rabbinic concept is תורה לשמה (Torah lishmah), or “Torah for its own sake.” In this rabbinic understanding, when one studies Torah, one should study it lishmah, “for its own sake”—and no other. I argue that Torah lishmah for a Christian can mean to study Torah—especially the legal material—not simply because it might be personally or communally beneficial, but because it is divine teaching, because it is given to be studied and known intimately in all its detail, in both its theological and embodied aspects, because studying it is an act of lovingkindness toward God, a giving of oneself out of love and loyalty. How do evangelicals learn how to adopt Torah lishmah? I suggest that we have the rabbis to guide us: a vast array of texts from late antiquity onward, documenting the attempts of numerous rabbis to engage Torah lishmah. I propose that we read these texts alongside our own biblical commentaries, so that we might learn what Torah lishmah is and how it might positively affect our approach to the legal material. To begin this process and to help illustrate my proposal, I start at Mount Sinai and the giving of the Ten Words—that is, the Decalogue, as it appears in Exod 20:2-17. The rabbinic midrashic commentary I use to engage the Decalogue is known as the Mekhilta d’Rabbi Ishmael, a tannaitic halakhic commentary on the Book of Exodus. To help contextualize and ground my explication, I compare the Mekhilta’s interpretations with those of Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE), one of the most influential theologians and exegetes among the Church Fathers, and certainly one of the most important progenitors of evangelical Christianity. Together, the Mekhilta and Augustine’s interpretations are then brought into conversation with contemporary evangelical commentaries on the Decalogue. I compare especially each genre’s presuppositions, contexts, interests, insights, and methods. Through these comparisons, I underscore key insights Christians might learn from the rabbinic interpretations. Most importantly, through these comparisons, I determine the meaning and significance of Torah lishmah for an evangelical. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Jesus was a healer, but what may not be as obvious is that he started a legacy of healing. He passed on his skills and abilities to his followers at least three times. Though not as frequently, they continued to heal through the Book of Acts. The legacy continued in the Apocryphal Acts and other apocryphal materials spanning the early centuries of the common era. Secondary literature looks at modern scholarship and leans heavily into Rabbinic literature. Up to this point, other English-language works in healing have sorely lacked luster in providing. The exploration of the healing legacy of Jesus shifted to meet the skills and needs of the healers, patients, and communities involved. Further, the healings had a substantive resultant impact on various levels of socioeconomics for the parties, which is explored by reexamining each group type of healings, from lameness and paralytics to possession and resurrection, and more. The hope is that taking a holistic approach to these healings as possible will allow readers a new way of experiencing the early common era and these events that permeated everyone's lives at one time or another.

Previous researchers of Jewish history in the Roman Empire have imperfectly employed Greco-Roman sources to describe Roman perceptions of Jews and Judaism by relying on a handful of Greek and Latin written and visual components without attempting to quantify or comprehensively explore this abundant material. Utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, this dissertation analyzes the vast array of Greco-Roman written and visual sources about Jews and Judaism from the first century BCE to the end of the third century CE. While qualitative reviews of Greek and Latin texts help eliminate potential inconsistencies in the data, computational tools like text-mining analysis quantify the information into calculable results. The addition of visual source material into the framework helps further refine the quantified textual material. Reviews of this data reveal the general traits imperial leaders within the Roman Empire knew about the geography and history of Judaea, Jewish religious beliefs and cultural practices, and Jewish communities in general. Further reviews of the data note regional and, more importantly, temporal variations connecting them to changes both in imperial rule and Judaism. This process presents a more detailed and coherent conception of Roman knowledge of Jews and Judaism than scholars have previously recognized. In addition to highlighting imperial knowledge, this dissertation also demonstrates how Roman authorities drew on this information while ruling over Jewish communities. From this analysis, it is clear Roman imperial authorities formed a complex knowledge of ethnic and religious communities like Jews and applied this information to their rule over these populations.

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Grâce à sa vaste production littéraire, le judaïsme rabbinique, d’abord minoritaire, est devenu l’orthodoxie juive à la fin de l’antiquité. Les écrits rabbiniques ne cherchent pas à faire rire, mais nous avons constaté que les études académiques sur l’humour des rabbins de l’antiquité contribuent de manière significative à la compréhension des textes rabbiniques. Ces études ainsi que les théories modernes sur l’humour, les outils d’analyse littéraire et notre propre développement méthodologique, nous ont permis d’analyser les récits humoristiques dans les écrits tannaïtiques. Les résultats des travaux sur l’humour dans le Talmud Yerushalmi, le Talmud Babli et le midrash aggada, trouvent un écho dans les résultats de notre étude. Nous avons découvert dans la Mishna et la Tosefta une très grande variété de formes et de fonctions de l’humour. L’étude exhaustive des récits humoristiques dans ces deux corpus nous a permis de développer des nouvelles perspectives sur ces textes et leurs protagonistes, notamment concernant les polémiques internes et externes au mouvement rabbinique, les traits de caractère de certains sages et leur manière d’étudier, l’évolution de l’humour entre la Mishna, la Tosefta et les Talmudim. La grande majorité des récits que l’on trouve dans la Mishna et la Tosefta n’est pas humoristique, mais cette proportion est inversée dans certaines thématiques : dans les polémiques internes au mouvement tannaïtique nous avons noté un équilibre entre les textes humoristiques et sérieux, et de surcroît, dans les polémiques avec des groupes extérieurs au mouvement tannaïtique, les textes humoristiques sont majoritaires. L’humour des tanna’im s’avère être complexe et varié, il permet de faire remonter les origines de l’humour juif à l’époque tannaïtique, d’expliquer certains textes énigmatiques, et de mieux connaître la pensée des tanna’im. / Thanks to their extensive literature, the rabbinic movement which was a marginal minority during the early centuries CE became, by late antiquity, the Jewish mainstream, and the rabbinic practice of Judaism became Jewish orthodoxy. Rabbinic writings do not aim to make one laugh, but we have noticed that academic research into the ancient rabbis’ humor contribute significantly to the understanding of rabbinic writings.Our tools for analyzing the humor in tannitic texts are based on previous studies, modern theories about humor, literary analysis techniques and our own personally developed methodology. The research results about humor in the Talmud Yerushalmi, the Talmud Babli and in Midrash Aggada are echoed in the results of our work.We have found in the Mishna and the Tosefta humor in various forms and functions. A comprehensive study of humorous anecdotes in these two textual corpora lends a new perspective about the rabbis and their writings: it also sheds light on the rabbis’ personalities and the house of study atmosphere, struggles within the rabbinic movement as well as with outside opponents, and the evolution of humor between the Mishna, the Tosefta and the Talmudim. The large majority of the stories found in the Mishna and the Tosefta are not humorous, but this proportion is reversed in certain themes: in polemics within the tannaitic movement we find an equal number of humorous and serious texts, and in polemics with opponents to the tannaitic movement, humorous texts are predominant. The tannaitic humor is complex and diversified, it traces the origins of modern Jewish humor not only to the Talmud but back to the tannaitic period, it helps explain some enigmatic texts, and to better know the tannaitic ideology.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-27T13:49:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Claude Valentin Rene Detienne.pdf: 6137168 bytes, checksum: a08610a90e81c490c0dba1ec489d10e5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006-08-30 / The objective of the present dissertation was to compare a Jewish commentary (Midrash Rabbah) and two Syriac commentaries (Ephrem s commentary and an anonymous one) on the book of Exodus, especially on Ex 2,23-3,15. The study revealed some similarities that could be explained by a Jewish origin of some Syriac exegetical elements. But on the whole the Syriac commentaries are very different from the Jewish one. The Syriac exegetes, in the line of the Antiochene litteralist and historicist exegetical tradition, seldom show the same richness as the Jewish commentarist. The latter displays both a deep respect for the text in its tiniest details and much freedom to create new meanings from the text. That difference finds an echo in the modern hermeneutic reflection, which tries to find a balance between the intentio auctoris and the intentio lectoris. / Esta dissertação teve por objetivo de comparar um comentário judaico (Midrash Rabbah) e dois comentários siríacos (comentário de Efrém e comentário anônimo) do livro do Êxodo, e particularmente do trecho Ex 2,23-3,15. Embora tenham aparecido alguma semelhanças que poderiam se explicar por uma origem judaica de alguns elementos exegéticos siríacos, os comentários siríacos são muito diferentes do comentário judaico. Os exegetas siríacos, herdeiros da tradição exegética literalista e historicista antioquena, raramente mostram a mesma riqueza criativa do que o comentarista judeu. Este demonstra ao mesmo tempo um profundo respeito pelo texto, nos seus mínimos detalhes, e uma grande liberdade para criar sentidos novos a partir do texto. Dessa diferença parece fazer eco a reflexão hermenêutica moderna, quando tenta achar um ponto de equilíbrio entre intentio auctoris e intentio lectoris.

Hermeneutic rules (so-called middot), which developed during the process of the rabbinic literature formation, partially under sopherims' or Greek influence, provided with one of the main viewpoints of hypotext choice in poetry, ruled a combination and an arrangement of elements in poetry. These principles, differenciated during the 2nd century A.D. into two systems - r. Yishma'el's and r. Eli'eser b. Josi ha-gelili's lists (for halakhic and aggadic interpretation) underwent a process of contraction in piyyut. From the recent point of view is the rabbinic hypotext identification possible at most half, since partially poets advanced on the basis of the midrashic texts available, different from extant textual versions. On the basis of original textual variants connected with the identification of the hypotext, this thesis arrived at a comparative work on the development and the understanding of implicite and explicite application of hermeneutic rules. The synagogal poetry assumed a didactical function and historical remembrance function following pre-classical period. As a result of poetic activity the originated the didactical text, which instructed, assisted at the preservation of lessons and topoi taught in yeshibot (Ashkenaz), scholarly circles (Rome, Apulia, Calabria) and later on in synagogues.

本文嘗試以法國哲學家列維納斯的宗教作品為主要素材，探索其他勒目詮釋的詮釋學蘊義。首先，本文探索這詮釋工作的傳統面向。筆者將從拉比猶太教的詮釋傳統出發來定位列維納斯的詮釋工作，釐清詮釋作為保存、翻譯、接待、抵抗等基本特徵的傳統根源，這些特徵都將在之後的論述中獲得進一步的開展。其次，本文探索這詮釋工作的時代面向。筆者嘗試釐清列維納斯的他勒目詮釋在當代猶太意識中所扮演的角色，這將把焦點放在猶太與希臘間的翻譯關係上，並將這論題推進到以以色列國為焦點的政治論域中。最後，本文探索這詮釋工作的哲思面向。筆者試圖關聯起列維納斯的哲學主題，在「同一─他者─第三方」的基本架構中，考察「詮釋者─文本─人民」的詮釋關係，藉由詮釋的倫理學與詮釋的社會學之建構，將列維納斯的詮釋工作界定為是一種「為他的詮釋學」，其基本特徵乃是一種「藉由文本走向他者」的詮釋行動。 / As a well-known interpreter of the Talmud, Emmanuel Levinas created a new paradigm of interpretation of this collection of Jewish law. In this thesis, I attempt to argue that there are some hermeneutical implications in his works on the Talmud. First, in the traditional dimension, I claim that rabbinic Judaism as the root of Levinas's religious works characterizes his interpretations of the Talmud as conservation, translation, hospitality and resistance. Second, in the contemporary dimension, I point to the role that Levinas's thought plays in the Jewish consciousness today by illustrating the relation of translation between Judaism and Greek culture and the problem of the state of Israel. Third, in the philosophical dimension, I try to construct the threefold hermeneutical model "interpreter-text-people" based on the conceptual structure of "the same-the other-the third" in Levinas's philosophical works. My final point is that Levinas's hermeneutics is a "hermeneutics for the other", which is characterized as an interpretive action of "from the reader to the other through the text."

La thèse a pour objet d’étudier le phénomène de création festive qui traverse les communautés juives de l’Antiquité à partir du VIe siècle av. J.-C. Ces fêtes nouvelles, de par leur typologie, leur théologie, leurs rites et leurs fonctions, s’écartent du modèle biblique tout en le revendiquant. Leur multiplication à l’époque hellénistique, sensible à travers leur mention dans la littérature juive hellénisée, témoigne d’évolutions qui, même si elles peuvent procéder d’une dynamique interne au judaïsme, témoignent d’interactions avec les communautés religieuses du monde grec puis romain. D’essence essentiellement locale, elles constituent un critère de définition identitaire et sont instrumentalisées pour servir des intérêts variés, notamment en termes de légitimation de l’autorité. Leur caractère récent leur confère une souplesse qui permet une actualisation constante de leur signification au gré des conjonctures, que ce soit à l’échelle locale ou au sein de courants transversaux comme le judaïsme rabbinique. Elles fonctionnent donc comme un révélateur du degré d’intégration ou d’exclusion des communautés juives dans leur environnement politique, social, culturel et religieux. / This dissertation aims at studying festive creativity within ancient Jewish communities from the VIth century B.C. onwards. From a typological, a theological, a liturgical and a functional viewpoint, these new festivals divert from Biblical tradition even though they claim not to. Their increase during the Hellenistic period, a phenomenon made clear in Jewish Literature written in Greek, attest to an evolution which, even though it could, in some cases, proceed from an inherently Jewish dynamic, fall within the category of cultural and religious interactions with other religious communities from the Greek and Roman world. Of an essentially local provenance, they are instrumental to a community’ self-definition and are often used to legitimate their founder or their organizer’s authority. Since they only appeared recently, their meaning can be updated to reflect various situations, either regarding a specific place and time or within such movements as Rabbinic Judaism. New festivals bring light to the place of a Jewish community within its milieu, be it political, social, cultural or religious.

This synoptic analysis of verses from Job chapters 37-39 in 11Q10, the Peshitta version (PJob) and the rabbinic targum (RJob) aims to identify the translators’ methods for handling the Hebrew text (HT) and to assess the apparent skills and knowledge brought by them to their task. Additionally, the study engages with recent discussion which challenges the nature of 11Q10 as targum. To this end, PJob and RJob provide accepted models of ‘translation’ and ‘targum’ alongside which to assess 11Q10. The following translation methods are identified, described, compared and contrasted in the three versions: selection,extension, alternative translation, expansion, substitution, adjustment of the consonantal HT, adjustment of the Hebrew word order or division, omission, and conjecture. PJob is confirmed as an attempt to transpose the difficult Hebrew of Job into Syriac. RJob is confirmed as a conservative translation with clear underpinnings in allusion to scripture and to rabbinic traditions attested elsewhere. Significant observations are made regarding an interpretative quality in 11Q10, and new light is cast on its richness and subtlety as an allusive translation. It is proposed that the translation displays deep knowledge of scripture and skill in applying this knowledge. It is further proposed that careful comparison with methods which have been identified in Onqelos is warranted. 11Q10 is identified as an important early witness to scripturally-based motifs which are also found in other intertestamental and rabbinic sources. It is argued that 11Q10’s nature suggests that its purpose was not simply to translate but to understand and subtly explicate the HT, and that it was intended for use alongside it, not as a replacement. The study refutes the categorization of 11Q10 as ‘translation’ rather than ‘targum’, and agrees with its orginal editors that its value lies in its unique witness to the early nature of targum.