Synopses & Reviews
Textual reasoning is the name that a group of contemporary Jewish thinkers has given to its overlapping practices of Jewish philosophy and theology. This volume represents the most public expression to date of the shared work, over a period of twelve years, of this society of textual reasoners. Although the movement of textual reasoning is diverse and multiform, it is characterized at bottom by the pursuit of the claim that there are significant affinities between Jewish forms of reading and reasoning and postmodern thought. These affinities are presently being pursued by scholars throughout Jewish studies, in fields such as the Bible, Talmud, Midrash, medieval philosophy, Kabbalah, and the Jewish phenomenology of Rosenzweig and Levinas, among others. As the essays in this book amply convey, their work has stimulated a lively and creative reengagement with the philosophical dimensions of Jewish texts and, even more, with the textual dimensions of Jewish reasoning. In large part, this new energy has come,from conceiving of the postmodern as a place where some of the most distinctive features of Jewish reasoning can be elucidated as well as challenged. A fine addition to the Radical Traditions series, "Textual Reasonings" provides a superb review of contemporary Jewish thought.Contributors: Eugene B. Borowitz Zachary Braiterman Virginia Burrus Aryeh Cohen Michael Fishbane David F. Ford Steven D. Fraade Tikva Frymer-Kensky Robert Gibbs David Weiss Halivni Daniel W. Hardy Martin Kavka Steven Kepnes Nancy Levene George Lindbeck Shaul Magid Jacob Meskin Peter Ochs Randi Rashkover Michael Zank Laurie Zoloth
Synopsis
This is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable. "Textual reasoning" is the name that a group of contemporary Jewish thinkers has given to its overlapping practices of Jewish philosophy and theology. This volume represents the most public expression to date of the shared work, over a period of twelve years, of this society of "textual reasoners."
Although the movement of textual reasoning is diverse and multiform, it is characterized at bottom by the pursuit of the claim that there are significant affinities between Jewish forms of reading and reasoning and postmodern thought. These affinities are presently being pursued by scholars throughout Jewish studies, in fields such as the Bible, Talmud, Midrash, medieval philosophy, Kabbalah, and the Jewish phenomenology of Rosenzweig and Levinas, among others. As the essays in this book amply convey, their work has stimulated a lively and creative reengagement with the philosophical dimensions of Jewish texts and, even more, with the textual dimensions of Jewish reasoning. In large part, this new energy has come from conceiving of the postmodern as a place where some of the most distinctive features of Jewish reasoning can be elucidated as well as challenged.
A fine addition to the Radical Traditions series, Textual reasonings provides a superb review of contemporary Jewish thought.
Contributors: Eugene B. Borowitz, Tikva Frymer- Kensy, George Lindbeck,
Zachary Braiterman, Robert Gibbs, Shaul Magid,
Virginia Burrus, David Weiss Halivni, Jacob Meskin,
Aryeh Cohen, Daniel W. Hardy, Peter Ochs,
Michael Fishbane, Martin Kavka, Randi Rashover,
David F. Ford, Steven Kepnes, Michael Zank,
Steven D. Fraade, Nancy Levene, Laurie Zoloth,
Table of Contents
Anthological midrash and cultural paideia: the case of Songs Rabba 1.2 / Michael Fishbane -- 'The kisses of his mouth': intimacy and intermediacy as performative aspects of a midrash community / Steven Fraade -- Fishbane's commentary to Song of Songs Rabba as analytic textual reasoning / Steven Kepnes -- Revelation revealed: the doubt of Torah / Tikva Frymer-Kensky -- Revelation revealked or reveiled?: 'Jewish' and 'Christian' interpretation in late antiquity / Virginia Burrus -- Response to 'Revelation revealed' / Aryeh Cohen -- Gold and silver: philosophical Talmud / Robert Gibbs, Peter Ochs -- Rabbis of gold and sages of silver: a response to 'Philosophical Talmud' / Shaul Magid -- Why Talmud: renewing response / Robert Gibbs -- Talmudic scholarship as textual reasoning: Halivni's pragmatic historiography / Peter Ochs -- Response to 'Talmudic scholarship as textual reasoning' / David Halivni -- Textual reasoning and Jewish philosophy: the next phase of Jewish postmodernity? / Eugene Borowitz -- Textual reasoning, modernity and the limits of history / Jacob Meskin -- Textual reasoning and cultural memory: a response to Jacob Meskin / Martin Kavka -- Exegesis, redemption and the maculate Torah / Randi Rashkover -- Elu ve-elu: textual difference and sublime judgement in Eruvin and Lyotard / Zachary Braiterman -- Seeing the doubting judge: Jewish ethics and the postmodern project / Laurie Zoloth -- Franz Rosenzweig, the 1920s and the email moment of textual reasoning / Michael Zank -- Progress in textual reasoning: from Vatican II to the conference at Drew / George Lindbeck -- Responding to textual reasoning: what might Christians learn? / David Ford -- Textual reasoning: a concluding reflection / Daniel Hardy -- Epilogues / Nancy Levene, Peter Ochs.