Rabbinic Literature, Syriac Patristic

Scripture assigns to Melchizedek the distinguished title of royal priest (Gen. 14:18).  Apart from this ascription and a few details related to his encounter with Abraham, the only two references to Melchizedek included in the Hebrew Bible (Gen. 14:18-20; Ps. 110) eventually furnished the source for a wide range of speculation about the mysterious priest-king. 

From the Dead Sea Scrolls through the development of rabbinic midrashim, the relative silence of the Hebrew Bible about Melchizedek gave rise to an array of Melchizedekian roles and images ranging from that of a celestial-eschatological liberator-judge to a would-be priest whose failure to properly honor the most high God resulted in his dismissal from his unique post.  The literary depiction of Melchizedek is unequivocally held in high regard prior to the rabbinic period.  The combined king-priest office as witnessed during the Hasmonean period may account for the decline in respect shown toward Melchizedek.  Further, the endorsement of Christ within the Epistle to the Hebrews as a priest after the pre-Aaronic order of Melchizedek conceivably introduced a challenge to rabbinic religious hegemony. 

This thesis provides a concise review of all extant Jewish works of the Second Temple period (e.g. Genesis Apocryphon; Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice; 11Q13 [11QMelch]; Philo; Josephus; 2 Enoch; also the Pentateuchal Targums [recorded later]), early Christian writings (e.g. the Epistle to the Hebrews; Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho; Origen, Commentary to the Gospel of John), and rabbinic sources (b. Ned. 32b; Gen. Rab. 43.6; Lev. Rab. 25.6; Num. Rab. 4.8).  The notion that Melchizedek lost his priestly role is first witnessed among rabbinic works.  The decline in respect for Melchizedek’s priesthood appears to exhibit a response to the measure of dignity attributed to the priest-king in the Epistle to the Hebrews as well as the works of later Patristic writers (e.g. Justin; Origen). 

According to Hebrews, Melchizedek’s seniority as a priest sustains preeminence over Levitical obligations which were crucial to the maintenance of halakhic obligations.  The universality of an uncircumcised Canaanite priest most likely presented further challenges to rabbinic interests. 

An additional point of contention between the two communities may be attested in the embrace of distinct scriptural renderings of Ps. 110:3.  The vocalization of the Masoretic Text suggests a different reading of the verse than construals recorded in the earlier versions of both the Septuagint and the Syriac Peshitta.  Additional rabbinic works (e.g. y. Berakhot 5; Gen. Rab. 59.9) and an excerpt from Justin’s Dialogue are considered in support of the theory.  Thus, the marginalizing of Melchizedek appears to comprise a rabbinic response, perhaps initiated by R. Ishmael, to claims of a Christological priesthood linked to the Melchizedekian order (Ps. 110:4).

In this article it is argued that the Qiblah passages in the Qur’an, which are commonly understood as referring to the direction of the prayer, are directly engaging with and interpreting the Shema passages in Deuteronomy and their Talmudic commentaries. By defining and applying the method of intertextual polysemy, nine points of intertextuality are identified between the various Qur’anic, Biblical, and Talmudic passages. Against this background, the article implies that narrations from traditional Qur’anic commentaries are lacking in their interpretation of these passages, since they do not employ any extra-Quranic contexts to explain their meaning. Through the method of intertextual polysemy, the alternative thesis propounded here is that the historical reference for the Qiblah passages is the Shema.

The article presents a contemporary view of the study of piyyut, demonstrating that Jewish po- etry of late antiquity (in Hebrew and Aramaic) was closely related to Christian liturgical poetry (both Syriac and Greek) and Samaritan liturgy. These relations were expressed primarily by common poetic and prosodic characteristics, derived on the one hand from ancient Semitic poetry (mainly biblical poetry), and on the other from innovations of the period. The significant connections of content between the different genres of poetry reveal the importance of com- parative study. Thus the poetry composed in late antiquity provides additional evidence for the lively cultural dialogue that took place at that time.

The present chapter traces how the rabbis in the tractate of Hagigah developed the biblical commands concerning cultic pilgrimage into laws for a bygone Jerusalem temple pilgrimage to see and be seen by God. Our investigation points to how the desire for, and loss of, the sight of God’s face punctuates and centers the Babylonian Talmud tractate of Hagigah. The biblical commandment to "see the face of God three times a year" allowed the rabbis to conjure forms and narratives of pilgrimage in an age of Greek and Roman "visual piety" but without the Jerusalem temple. The chapter shows how in varying ways earlier and later rabbis construct a pilgrimage of reciprocal vision (in which pilgrim and god mutually behold and are beheld), particularly in the Babylonian Talmud which emphasizes "homovisuality."

This essay focuses on liturgical texts that incorporate in sophisticated ways materials concerning the creation of the universe in rituals of atonement and consecration of holy places of worship. I argue that the employment of accounts concerning creation resulted in a powerful experience that joined the revived biblical past with the present ritual needs of the liturgy. In the case of the Christian Anaphoras and the Jewish Avodah poems, the creation narratives enhanced the ritual of what might be called verbal sacrifice and in the case of the liturgical poems for Hanukah and their Christian counterparts, the association of the place of worship with the structure of the universe validated and enhanced their cosmic understanding.

Throughout Rabbinic literature—the Talmud and the Midrash—a mysterious creature known as the Salamandra is mentioned. This creature is also mentioned by various early philosophers and scientists. It is reported to have been created in fire and therefore have fire-resistant capabilities. Other sources attribute the origins of the Salamandra to witchcraft. This discrepancy is elaborated upon and several methods of resolution are presented. Nonetheless, all these mythological stories seem to contradict the reality where no such creature is found. This paper explores and reconciles the differences between various descriptions of the Salamandra’s origin and its role in rabbinic literature. Many Classic Rabbinic sources (from Medieval to contemporary) have been used throughout this work to illustrate the Salamandra’s significance in Jewish theology and laws of purity.

We will examine texts from the Mishnah Berakhot and Bavli Berakhot whose message seems subsersive, going against the grain of the apparent overall aims of the broader context. By means of close reading I will show that the apparently subversive message of these texts is designed to lead to a more nuanced and sophisticated "reconstruction", rather than merely to "deconstruct".

Much of Mishnah Tractate Sotah consists of digressions from the titular topic. Going beyond the standard explanation of pre-existing collections included by the redactor for mnemotechnical reasons, this article will demonstrate the literary associations which connect the digressions to the main body of the tractate, suggesting deeper conceptual inks which we will seek to discover.

This paper examines the macro-redaction of a tractate, Berakhot. In previous work I have shown how the conclusion of the Toseftan tractate sums up the major themes of the tractate and integrates them into a cohesive conceptual framework. In this paper I show how additional aspects of the concluding unit interact with earlier passages, providing a fuller and richer picture of the tractate's redaction and ideas.

This is an English version of
משה שוֹשן, הדרך ללוד – סיפורו של ניצול: בריחתו של רבן יוחנן בן זכאי מירושלים על פי מדרש איכה רבה א, ה
The article presents an analysis of the story of the escape of R. Yohanan ben Zakkai from Jerusalem as it appears in Eicha Rabba. This version of the story differs markedly from the accounts found elsewhere in rabbinic literature, most notably in its lack of reference R. Yohanan's request to save "Yavne and her sages." The Eicha Rabba account focuses on the very fact of the Jews' survival rather than on the establishment of a center of Jewish study and practice to succeed Jerusalem. Torah is presented as a source of practical wisdom which gives the rabbis the ability to save a remnant of their people. The article also explores the implications of the identification of the figure of Abgar with the figure of the same name known to us from Christian legend. In light of this, the story should also be read as an anti-Christian counter narrative.

Lo femenino ha sido un tópico recurrente en los autores de la patrística y ha ocupado gran lugar en sus obras exegéticas, poéticas o históricas. Sin embargo, el interés de estos autores no solo se dirigió al análisis de cuestiones antropológicas relacionadas a la mujer, su lugar en la creación y la historia, sino que "femenino" puede identificarse como un atributo independiente asociado a ciertas conductas y procederes tanto humanas como divinas. El cristianismo evocó desde sus inicios la igualdad espiritual del varón y la mujer, generando así una gran atracción en las creyentes, quienes rápidamente se volvieron difusoras de la nueva fe; sin embargo, la retórica sobre lo femenil no acompaña este entusiasmo, ya que los autores de la patrística propiciaron discursos que en muchos casos lo asociaban a la debilidad y la inestabilidad, situaciones muy próximas al pecado. La pregunta que Jesús dirige a María Magdalena en el sepulcro, "Mujer, ¿por qué lloras?", se vuelve en nuestro mundo contemporáneo un llamado a revisitar y revisar críticamente los aportes que la primera literatura cristiana y la patrística oriental y occidental nos han legado en cuanto a imágenes y lecturas de lo femenino.

In this paper I will examine the macro-redaction of an entire Toseftan tractate Berakhot. In my previous work on the redaction of the tractate I demonstrated certain overall redactorial techniques that bind the tractate together and indicate the ideas that the Toseftan redactor sees as central to the tractate. In this paper I will argue that the strategic placement of certain parallel passages adds an important new dimension to understanding the structure and messages of the work.

The doctoral thesis examines a universal history by the 7th-century East Syriac (The Church of the East) author John bar Penkaye “Book of the Main Points, or The History of the Temporal World” in the context of East Syrian literary tradition.
“The Book of the Main Points” was written at the end of the 7th century, on the eve of the Arab dominion in the Middle East and during the second major political crisis in the early caliphate, known as Second Fitna (680-692). Besides political upheavals, the region was being shaken with natural disasters: famine and plague. John undertook this enterprise in the search of answers on the urgent questions which were put forward by his community: what brought these disasters upon us? Thus, in his work John examines the relationship between God and mankind in an attempt to find the answers and writes the history of the human race from the beginning until the last days which John was expecting to come soon. “The Book of the Main Point” is by all means an important witness to the first decades of the early caliphate and the rise of Islam. At the same time, it contains rich material on East Syriac Christianity and theology. Therefore, the research focuses on the History as a historiographical and theological work written in the Syriac speaking environment and rooted in East Syriac tradition.     
Introduction includes the discussion of the transmission of the text: what are the manuscripts, when they were copied, and how they are interrelated with each other.
The first part analyzes and summarizes the sources on John bar Penkaye’s live and his literary heritage.
The second part provides an overview of the book’s content and the historiographical framework employed by John bar Penkaye. In particular, the emergence and usage of the notion of “temporal world” in East Syrian tradition is studied as well as its relation to Theodore of Mopsuestia’s doctrine of the two ages. The last section of the second part outlines the outstanding character of Bar Penkaye’s universal history as compared to similar historiographical works produced in the Syriac speaking milieu.
The third part studies the opening section of “The Book of the Main Points” on the Creation and, generally, East Syrian cosmology, anthropology, angelology, and exegetical tradition related to Gen 1-3: the creation of the universe, primordial natures, spiritual natures (angels and demons) and the nature of man.
The thesis is in Russian but includes the table of contents in English.