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  3. Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud
  • Cited by 20
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    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      05 December 2013
      23 December 2013
      ISBN:
      9781139149419
      9781107023017
      9781107557109
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139149419
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.46kg, 242 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (229 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.38kg, 246 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Judaism, Religion
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    • Selected: Digital
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    Subjects:
    Judaism, Religion
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    Book description

    This book examines literary analogies in Christian and Jewish sources, culminating in an in-depth analysis of striking parallels and connections between Christian monastic texts (the Apophthegmata Patrum or 'The Sayings of the Desert Fathers') and Babylonian Talmudic traditions. The importance of the monastic movement in the Persian Empire, during the time of the composition and redaction of the Babylonian Talmud, fostered a literary connection between the two religious populations. The shared literary elements in the literatures of these two elite religious communities sheds new light on the surprisingly inclusive nature of the Talmudic corpora and on the non-polemical nature of elite Jewish-Christian literary relations in late antique Persia.

    Awards

    Winner of the 2014 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Book Award

    Reviews

    'The comparisons that Bar-Asher Siegal makes between the rabbinic texts and Christian monastic texts are extraordinarily enlightening and thought-provoking …'

    Joshua Kulp Source: Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History

    'This book will certainly be a necessary reading not only for Talmudic scholars, but for students of Christian monastic literature as well.'

    Jonathan L. Zecher Source: Reviews in Religion and Theology

    'This book is a truly pioneering endeavor. … The excitement of this book is in its particular readings of well-studied talmudic narratives, and its demonstration of how points of obscurity (either known or unknown unknowns) are illuminated when compared with stories from the Desert Fathers. One of the most impressive of these is her work on the Bavli’s narrative of the conversion of Resh Lakish: Resh Lakish was some sort of brigand and perhaps a gladiator as well as a pursuer of women.'

    Daniel Boyarin Source: Los Angeles Review of Books

    'Few first books of a scholar based on a doctoral dissertation can be described as both pioneering and outstanding. While it might be an exaggeration to state that Michal Bar-Asher Siegal has established a brand new cutting-edge field in talmudics, she has come close … Bar-Asher Siegal’s groundbreaking work is just the beginning. It sheds light not only on talmudics and rabbinic literature but also on the understanding of the history of Jew and Christian and their religions in the ancient world and the relationships between them. One looks forward to the future work of the author as well as of those who will also continue the study of the cultural and historical phenomena that she began.'

    Joshua Schwartz Source: Reviews of Biblical Literature

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    Contents

    Contents

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