Profiling Jewish Literature in Antiquity: An Inventory, from Second Temple Texts to the Talmuds

This book introduces a new system for describing non-biblical ancient Jewish literature. It arises from a fresh empirical investigation into the literary structures of many anonymous and pseudepigraphic sources, including Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha of the Old Testament, the larger Dead Sea Scrolls, Midrash, and the Talmuds. A comprehensive framework of several hundred literary features, based on modern literary studies and text linguistics, allows describing the variety of important text types which characterize ancient Judaism without recourse to vague and superficial genre terms. The features proposed cover all aspects of the ancient Jewish texts, including the self-presentation, perspective, and knowledge horizon assumed by the text; any poetic constitution, narration, thematic discourse, or commentary format; common small forms and small-scale relationships governing neighbouring parts; compilations, and dominant subject matter. By treating works of diverse genres and periods by the same conceptual grid, the new framework breaks down artificial barriers to interdisciplinary research and prepares the ground for new large-scale comparative studies. The book introduces and presents the new framework, explains and illustrates every descriptive category with reference to specific ancient Jewish texts, and provides sample profiles of Jubilees, the Temple Scroll, Mishnah, and Genesis Rabbah. The book's publication is accompanied by a public online Database of hundreds of further Profiles (literarydatabase.humanities.manchester.ac.uk). This project was made possible through the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Alex Samely is Professor of Jewish Thought at Manchester University. He is trained as philosopher (MA, Frankfurt) and Jewish Studies scholar (DPhil Oxford) and has worked on the literary and hermeneutic constitution of Targums, Midrashic works, and the legal discourse of Rabbinic Judaism. He has also published on Spinoza and Husserl, and convenes a Levinas Reading Group at Manchester.
Philip Alexander is Professor Emeritus of Post-Biblical Jewish Literature at Manchester University and a Fellow of the British Academy. He has published widely on Second Temple period Jewish literature, Midrash, Targum and Mysticism, including the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Rocco Bernasconi is Lecturer of Jewish Literature at the Facoltà di Teologia di Lugano. He is trained in Politics (BA, Bologna) and Jewish Studies scholar (MA, Manchester, PHD, Bologna and EPHE (Paris)). He has worked on the history and literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism. He has published articles on Jewish identity and Tannaitic literature, as well as a study of the literary structure of the Genesis Apocryphon. Articles on the literary constitution of the Sefer Yetsirah and the relationship between Mishnah and Tosefta are forthcoming.
Robert Hayward is Professor of Hebrew at Durham University. He has published on Targum, Midrash, and Jewish biblical exegesis of Second Temple times, and has worked on the relationship between Jewish biblical exegesis and early Christian Bible interpretation, particularly with reference to the writings of Jerome.