A Survey of Recent Studies in Rabbinic Literature

Abstract

This brief survey presents some central problems in the recent study of rabbinic literature, as the social structure of the rabbinic movement in Palestine and the necessity to read the rabbinic works separately as individual documents instead of being part of the «sea of the Talmud». Main questions are how to understand the redaction of rabbinic works and the role of the redactors, at what degree we can speak of a final redaction and a finished work and to what extent we can speak of «creative copyists» producing a new redaction with every manuscript of a work. An appendix presents the main contributions of Spanish specialists in the field.