Alors que tous les autres documents de la litterature rabbinique sont anonymes, de nombreux dictons sont attribues a des sages designes de facon nominative. L'A. tente d'expliciter cette contradiction apparente en montrant que les recits relatifs a ces sages revetent avant tout un caractere exemplaire

Previous articleNext article No Access"Pharisaic-Rabbinic" Judaism: A ClarificationJacob NeusnerJacob Neusner Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by History of Religions Volume 12, Number 3Feb., 1973 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/462679 Views: 15Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1973 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Raphael Dascalu Revisiting the Qur’anic aḥbār in Historical Context, Journal of Qur'anic Studies 23, no.22 (Jun 2021): 41–65.https://doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2021.0462Ryan Calder God’s Technicians: Religious Jurists and the Usury Ban in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, European Journal of Sociology 57, no.22 (Sep 2016): 207–257.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003975616000096

Rabbinic Judaism calls the Golden Rule the encompassing principle of the Torah. But when the system undertakes to generalize, it entirely ignores the Golden Rule. The faithful, this is to say, are admonished to dedicate themselves to studying the generative data of the Golden Rule. But when the system concretely invokes the Golden Rule, it does not elaborate and extend it, analyzing its implications for fresh problems. This article thus proposes that, in classical Judaism, the Golden Rule is inert, not active; it is inconsequential in an exact sense of the word, not weighty in secondary development. It yields nothing beyond itself and does not invite new questions or stimulate speculation about new problems. The Golden Rule emerges as a commonplace that the system invokes without extension and elaboration.

In 250 CE tractate Abot, The Fathers, delivered its message through aphorisms assigned to named sages. A few centuries later—perhaps in 500 CE —Abot deR. Natan, The Fathers according to Rabbi Nathan, gave flesh and blood form to those sages, recasting the earlier tractate by adding a sizable number of narratives about its named authorities. The authorship of The Fathers presented its teachings in the form of aphorisms, rarely finding it necessary to supply those aphorisms with a narrative setting and never resorting to narrative for the presentation of its propositions. The authorship of The Fathers according to Rabbi Nathan provided a vast amplification and supplement to The Fathers, introducing into its treatment of the received tractate a huge corpus of narratives of various sorts. In this way, the later authorship indicated that it found, in narrative in general, and stories about sages in particular, the preferred modes of discourse for presenting its message.

The Rabbinic literature may be compared with the Christian Scriptures and vice versa, thus providing evidence of the beliefs held by authoritative sages of the two different communities of Judaism. The Rabbinic tradition is relevant to New Testament studies insofar as the two bodies of writings appeal to the same holy Scripture. By analyzing how they respond to that Scripture, we learn the choices people face and we better understand the context in which they made their decisions. Here, by evaluating one aggadic example and one halakhic one, we see how, in their treatment of Scripture, the Rabbinic literature and the New Testament appear to intersect but primarily part company. The result is a deeper comprehension of the distinctive ideologies and values of each tradition.