Prof. Ishay Rosen-Zvi is Professor of Rabbinic Literature in the department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud at Tel-Aviv University, and a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Kogod Center. He holds a Ph.D. in rabbinic literature from Tel-Aviv University and was elected to the Israel Young Academy of Sciences in 2013. Among his many publications are Demonic Desires: Yetzer Hara and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity (2011); Body and Soul in Ancient Judaism (2012); and Goy: Israel’s Others and the Birth of the Gentile (2018, with Adi Ophir).
Last Updated
June 3, 2020
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The plagues and the drowning of the Egyptians were designed to showcase YHWH’s power throughout the world (Exodus 9:16). Both the Wisdom of Solomon (1st cent. C.E.) and Mekhilta (2nd cent. C.E.) develop systematic interpretations of the plagues, showing how the details were measure-for-measure punishments, they differ on the meaning of the lesson when it comes to non-Jews.
The plagues and the drowning of the Egyptians were designed to showcase YHWH’s power throughout the world (Exodus 9:16). Both the Wisdom of Solomon (1st cent. C.E.) and Mekhilta (2nd cent. C.E.) develop systematic interpretations of the plagues, showing how the details were measure-for-measure punishments, they differ on the meaning of the lesson when it comes to non-Jews.
The Mishnah adds further humiliation to the biblical sotah ritual for a suspected adulteress. Other rabbinic texts from the same period critique this expansion, as well as the gender inequality inherent in the ritual itself.
The Mishnah adds further humiliation to the biblical sotah ritual for a suspected adulteress. Other rabbinic texts from the same period critique this expansion, as well as the gender inequality inherent in the ritual itself.
Conversion to Judaism as we know it is a rabbinic development, but what, then is the biblical ger, and why does he need to be circumcised in order to eat from the paschal offering?
Conversion to Judaism as we know it is a rabbinic development, but what, then is the biblical ger, and why does he need to be circumcised in order to eat from the paschal offering?