For over one hundred years scholars have been arguing about the different recensions of the Geonic work Halakhot Gedolot. Robert Brody described the problematic textual situation. The textual situation is very complicated and has yet to be explored in the requisite depth. The only version available for several centuries was the editio princeps (Venice 1548), [...]
Curious Jew has posted notes from of a very interesting talk giving by Prof. James Kugel at YU. (Also linked to here.) While the title of the talk was “Midrash Before Hazal: Why It’s Important For Orthodox Jews,” Kugel touches upon a number of other topics. During his talk, Kugel mentions that Julius Wellhausen resigned [...]
This past year Academic Studies Press has published a number of new books in the field of Jewish Studies. They consist both of translations into English of already published works, and new books. Among the translations that they have published is Isaac Heinemann’s The Reasons for the Commandments in Jewish Thought, a translation of the [...]
An interesting episode in Koranic scholarship. A few salient points. First, it seems that scholars of rabbinic literature from Hebrew University aren’t the only ones who keep their scholarly research hidden. Second, the theory that parts of the Koran were originally written in Syriac is interesting. I recently linked to an interesting book on early [...]
There has been an interesting exchange concerning the goals and methodology of the historical-critical method of scholarship. The catalyst for this latest discussion was a post at biblicalia which brought a quote from C.S. Lewis that included the following, The Historical Point of View, put briefly, means that when a learned man is presented with [...]
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