Customer Reviews

From Text to Tradition, A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For those who have wondered how the Jewish religion transformed the practice of animal sacrifice depicted in the Bible to the one we know today, this book is for you. Professor Schiffman writes a careful, thoughtful history of Jewish religious thought from the time of return from Babylon (about 560 B.C.E.) to the closing of the Talmud (about 200 C.E.). Focusing on the Greek and Roman periods, the reader is treated to the historical facts that account normative rabbinic Judaism. This is not a flashy read, but it is always engaging. Highly recommended.

Although no single book exists that covers everything one would want to know about the second temple period in the development of Judaism and also immediately following the destruction of the temple, this is a really good book related to that subject. My Rabbinics teacher really likes it as one of the textbooks for the class (for its historical treatment of that era). We use it in conjunction to studying the Talmud. This allows you to understand some of the trends, traditions and historic events that led to the development of Rabbinic Judaism that we all love today.

This text can only be completely understood when used in conjunction with Schiffmans other book, Texts and Traditions : A Source Reader for the Study of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism. He is a scholar on the dead sea scrolls so that portion is particularily well covered, and maintains objectivity throughout, distancing himself from the history and religion, yet thoroughly covering both and their relaiton to one another.

This is a very important book on a somewhat tricky topic, probably of interest to anyone interested in Jewish History but particularly to Jews looking to better understand how Tanach turned into now. Very interesting. And, as with all books like this, read critically.

I was not disappointed with this book and learned a lot I didn't know. I think for the money, it is an excellent value. If you look up some of the books Schiffman lists in his bibliography, you can't get them for under $50, so this one is a steal. Now that I have a basic understanding of the period, I can do some more in depth reading. Two things I learned, 1) that the Jews were self-governing in Israel (even though they might have been part of an Empire) for many more years than one would think given the way people today seem to portray the Jews as "stealing" the land for the State of Israel, and 2) things really didn't get bad bad bad for the Jews until Christianity became prominent, really until Rome became officially a Christian state. The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is because it is an overview.

I purchased this book for a course about Ancient Israel, and Schiffman was the professor. Taking this course and reading this textbook only confirmed my belief that professors should not use their own textbooks in their courses. It's not a terrible book, but he spends far too much time going into the derivations of words, etc. and not enough time discussing the history of Judaism after the destruction of the First Temple, which is what the book's supposed to be about. The chapters are divided in such a way that one chapter will deal with the history of a period, the next the literature, etc., which could work if the different topics were tied together better. In addition, often when he discusses the texts of a particular period, he does not take care to clearly define each text but jumps into a discussion of its development and impact on the culture. I found this particularly striking in the discussion of the rabbinic texts, whose divisions were so confusing I couldn't even follow it! Like I said before, it's not a terrible book, but it's not a particularly good one, either.