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3Sparks of the Logos: Essays in Rabbinic HermeneuticsBRILL. 2003.This work covers the typological relation of rabbinic Judaism to Christianity, and provides a re-examination, by going back to the roots, of a rabbinic Judaism that would not manifest some of the deleterious social ideologies and practices that modern orthodox Judaism generally does.
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415.'Lycidas': A Wolf in Saint's Clothing 'Lycidas': A Wolf in Saint's Clothing (pp. 684-702)Critical Inquiry 35 (3): 587-610. 2009.
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20The Satanic Verses and Evil in BabyloniaJournal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 30 (1): 70-89. 2022.In this article, I study several midrashic passages preserved in the Babylonian Talmud that deal with Satan. The verses that they are based on are nearly all drawn from the book of Job. I find that these midrashim strongly support the conclusions of Ishay Rosen-Zvi’s monograph Demonic Desires in several ways, notably that Satan is not the font and origin of evil in the world as he is in other branches or wings of the ancient Jewish imagination.
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14IntroductionCommon Knowledge 26 (3): 373-384. 2020.Responding to doubts expressed by contributors to the Common Knowledge symposium on xenophilia, this introduction to the seventh and final installment seeks to explain the critics’ methodological concerns in a case study of strong affect in the Babylonian Talmud. Examining the story of Rav Rehumi and his wife in Ketubot 62b, the author inquires whether differences of culture and the passage of time make it impossible for us to determine whether love is the affect involved. The case is especially…Read more
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2Anna (O)rthodox: Bertha Poppenheim and the making of Jewish feminismBulletin of the John Rylands Library 80 (3): 65-88. 1998.
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13The Subversion of the Jews: Moses's Veil and the Hermeneutics of Supersession (review)Diacritics 23 (2): 16. 1993.
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8The Politics of Biblical Narratology: Reading the Bible like/as a Woman (review)Diacritics 20 (4): 30. 1990.
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21The Concept of Cultural Translation in American Religious StudiesCritical Inquiry 44 (1): 17-39. 2017.
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13Epater L'Embourgeoisement: Freud, Gender, and the colonized Psyche (review)Diacritics 24 (1): 16. 1994.
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52The Talmud meets church historyDiacritics 28 (2): 52-80. 1998.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Talmud Meets Church HistoryDaniel Boyarin (bio)Virginia Burrus. Chastity as Autonomy: Women in the Stories of the Apocryphal Acts. New York: Edwin Mellen, 1987.———. ‘“Equipped for Victory’: Ambrose and the Gendering of Orthodoxy.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 4.4 (1996): 461–75.———. The Making Of A Heretic: Gender, Authority, And The Priscillianist Controversy. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995.———. “Reading Agnes: The Rhet…Read more
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9Patron Saint of the Incongruous: Rabbi Meˀir, the Talmud, and Menippean SatireCritical Inquiry 35 (3): 523-551. 2009.
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25Talya Fishman, Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures. (Jewish Culture and Contexts.) Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Pp. v, 413; 3 black-and-white figures. $65. ISBN: 9780812243130 (review)Speculum 88 (3): 796-798. 2013.
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Midrash and the "magic language": Reading without logocentrismIn Yvonne Sherwood & Kevin Hart (eds.), Derrida and religion: other testaments, Routledge. 2005.
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42"This We Know to Be the Carnal Israel": Circumcision and the Erotic Life of God and IsraelCritical Inquiry 18 (3): 474-505. 1992.When Augustine condemns the Jews to eternal carnality, he draws a direct connection between anthropology and hermeneutics. Because the Jews reject reading “in the spirit,” they are therefore condemned to remain “Israel in the flesh.” Allegory is thus, in his theory, a mode of relating to the body. In another part of the Christian world, Origen also described the failure of the Jews as owing to a literalist hermeneutic, one that is unwilling to go beyond or behind the material language and discov…Read more
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15Socrates and the Fat RabbisUniversity of Chicago Press. 2009.What kind of literature is the Talmud? To answer this question, Daniel Boyarin looks to an unlikely source: the dialogues of Plato. In these ancient texts he finds similarities, both in their combination of various genres and topics and in their dialogic structure. But Boyarin goes beyond these structural similarities, arguing also for a cultural relationship. In _Socrates and the Fat Rabbis_, Boyarin suggests that both the Platonic and the talmudic dialogues are not dialogic at all. Using Micha…Read more
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4Proceeding by means of intensive readings of passages from the earlymidrash on Exodus The Mekilta, Boyarin proposes a new theory of midrash that restsin part on an understanding of the heterogeneity of the biblical text and theconstraining force of rabbinic ideology on the production of midrash. In a forcefulcombination of theory and reading, Boyarin raises profound questions concerning theinterplay between history, ideology, and interpretation.
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10The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish ChristNew Press/ORIM. 2012.“[A] fascinating recasting of the story of Jesus.” —Elliot Wolfson, New York University In July 2008, a front-page story in the New York Times reported on the discovery of an ancient Hebrew tablet, dating from before the birth of Jesus, which predicted a Messiah who would rise from the dead after three days. Commenting on this startling discovery at the time, noted Talmud scholar Daniel Boyarin argued that “some Christians will find it shocking—a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology.” G…Read more
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15On the Status of the Tannaitic MidrashimThe Canonical History of Ideas, The Place of the So-Called Tannaite Midrashim: Mekhilta Attributed to R. Ishmael, Sifra, Sifré to Numbers, and Sifré to DeuteronomyThe Canonical History of Ideas, The Place of the So-Called Tannaite Midrashim: Mekhilta Attributed to R. Ishmael, Sifra, Sifre to Numbers, and Sifre to DeuteronomyJournal of the American Oriental Society 112 (3): 455. 1992.
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14Dialectic and divination in the TalmudIn Simon Goldhill (ed.), The end of dialogue in antiquity, Cambridge University Press. pp. 217. 2008.
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38Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of RevelationCommon Knowledge 19 (3): 576-576. 2013.
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30Toward a Dialogue with Edward SaidCritical Inquiry 15 (3): 626-633. 1989.As critics, a vital part of our task is to examine the ways in which language mystifies and reveals, serves and disserves human desires and aspirations. In that spirit we feel that engaging the leading Palestinian intellectual in the United States in a critical dialogue is a vital task. Although this reply takes issue with several points in Edward Said’s paper, “An Ideology of Difference” , our critique is intended as part of the struggle for increased mutual empathy. We in no way wish to deny S…Read more
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107The scandal of sophism on the epistemological seriousness of relativismCommon Knowledge 13 (2-3): 315-336. 2007.
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University of California, BerkeleyRegular Faculty
Berkeley, California, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |