Reviews for Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash

The average rating for Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-07-24 00:00:00 Lesley Anderson If you're looking for a "first book" to read and don't already have a working knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic (never mind Greek and Latin), don't start here. Rather, start with Jacob Neusner's Introduction to Rabbinic Literature. I mean no disrespect to this marvelous reference book. If you are going to do serious, academic study of rabbinic literature, you must consult this book. But the book assumes a general knowledge of the Bible, the ancient and medieval worlds, and a familiarity with literary-critical methods of study. Otherwise, you're going to be lost. It's an "Introduction" in same genre as "Introductions" to the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament: questions of origin, history, authorship, manuscript witnesses to the text, literary genre and more. You should also have a general knowledge of the history of Judaism in its historical context. A great value of the book is the detailed bibliography. In one sense, the book is an extended bibliographic essay on the Talmud and Midrash.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-10-09 00:00:00 Gerald Leba This book is an essential work for exploring rabbinic literature. Not only does it include a slough of important bibliographies for various topics throughout the Mishnah, Tosefta, PT, BT and Midrashim but it provides concise summaries of controversial and disputed aspects of various textual, historical and literary elements of all the above works. It provides a perfect summary for when you encounter a new particular rabbinic work (especially if it is Midrashim) and you can easily get up to date on various issues and particularities of the text in question.