An Interview with an Academic Talmudist
AIWAC has a nice interview with Shai Secunda of the Talmud Blog.
AW: What does the field of “academic Talmud” encompass?
ShSc:
It depends on what you have in mind. I guess one of the broadest definitions, the one I like the most, is that academic Talmud encompasses all of the various disciplinary critical settings in which rabbinic literature is studied. This includes, first and foremost, the scientific tools used to study the actual text such as manuscript work, textual criticism, source criticism and redactional criticism. This also includes literary theoretical tools used to understand Rabbinic story, for instance; legal frameworks to understand the development of talmudic halakha; political and cultural history; history of religions and comparative religion which interfaces with the religion(s) reflected in rabbinic literature and so on and so forth. Still, I do think that the center of academic Talmud are those disciplines interested in reading and understanding the text – which can then be used by historians, literary scholars and others.
One of the interesting things that happens when you hold such a wide view of academic Talmud is that the line between academic and traditional learning diminishes. Some academics and traditional Talmudists don’t like this, but I find the blurring of boundaries interesting and invigorating. I would only emphasize that when an academic studies the Talmud, the only God in the room is the God of understanding the text. As such, the word “critical” (not necessarily in the “negative” sense; rather in the sense of distance between text and reader necessary for achieving a certain rationally based understanding) is crucial. Interestingly, I more or less first learned to be a critic in yeshiva, and the idea remains current in some traditional settings as well – especially in certain heirs to the Slobodka tradition.
The entire interview can be found here.