A baraita cited in both the Palestinian and the Babylonian Talmud 2 (pKetubot 12:3, 34d-35a = pKil'aim 9:4, 32a-t>; bKetubot 103a-b) describes Rabbi's dying testament to his sons. In the Babylonian version, Rabbi designates his elder son, Gamaliel, as his successor, and his younger son, Shimeon, as the next hakham} In its analysis of this part of the testament, the BT interprets Rabbi's declaration, which begins, curiously, with the younger
The 1980s saw the introduction of postmodern literary theory into the field of rabbinic literature, in particular into the study of midrash, which began to be explored as anticipating or aligning with many of the claims of modern literary theorists. This new interest intersected oddly at times with the prevailing historicist mode of inquiry. For many scholars, the notion of textual indeterminacy supported the idea of the interpreter of the text as essentially an “eisegete,” who reads the text from his or her own historically embedded perspective, rather than as an exegete, who at least attempts to find out what the text “really means.” Thus, scholars who embraced this new perspective often rejected an inquiry into midrash as biblical interpretation in the classic sense of the word. “No one believes anymore,” someone pointed out to me after a session on midrash in a conference during the mid-1980’s, “that texts have meaning.”
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