Ishay Rosen-Zvi on Modern Study of Mishnah
The Shalom Hartman Institute has an article by Ishay Rosen-Zvi, “Orality, narrative, rhetoric: New directions in Mishnah research.” The article originally appeared in the AJS Review, V. 32 No. 2, November 2008.
The appearance in recent years of an impressive series of books, articles, and mainly dissertations on various aspects of the Mishnah, collectively signifies something greater then the sum of its parts. These works herald the emergence of a new wave of Mishnah research. While differing significantly in their themes and methods, all the works discussed below share some basic methodological assumptions which are not shared by more “traditional” studies. Among these are: a holistic attitude to the Mishnah as acomposition; interest in questions of variegation of genre and style (narratives, rituals, lists, etc.); sensitivity to literary devices and techniques; and the use of new interpretive paradigms from rhetoric, cultural and performative studies.
…There is yet another, more fundamental, feature shared by many of these new studies: their return to the most basic questions regarding the nature and character of the Mishnah; questions which stood at the center of academic scholarship of rabbinic literature from its very inception, but have been largely abandoned gradually in favor of more local philological and interpretive studies.
…What characterizes the Mishnah as a composition? What kind of project is it? What is the place of midrash within it? What kind of historical value does it hold? What are its relationships to older traditions? Or, in short: what is mishnah?
March 18th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
R-Z writes that “Sussman’s paper is itself not without problems.” It’s too bad that the footnotes are not there because I would be interested in learning what the problems are and who had the temerity to claim to have found them.
March 18th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
i can tell you without seeing either the sussman paper or the footnotes that sussman is just making things up. how does he have the temerity to sit at his desk, dream up a theory and then declare it faultless? oh, right, he is sussman.
March 19th, 2009 at 3:45 am
Thanks for linking. We will supply footnotes for Ishay’s article to anyone who asks. Just write to shi@shi.org.il and ask for them. We didn’t post them on the site simply because online footnotes are a pain to post and code (at least on our CMS).
Alan Abbey
Internet Director
Shalom Hartman Institute
PS: I invite you to comment on the article directly on the Hartman site, as well.
March 19th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
tzvee, sussman may have other faults, but he does not “sit at his desk and dream up a theory.” His work represents some of the most rigorous, tedious research the field has seen – to a fault! Have you ever read a sussman article in its entirety including the footnotes?