Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Prologue
- 1 The Problem of the Mishnah
- 2 Torah as a Common Noun: The Solution of the Talmuds
- 3 A Sample of Sifra
- 4 From Common Noun to Proper Noun: Sifra's Re-presentation of the Two Torahs as One
- 5 Sifra's Alternative to the Mishnah's Topical Program and Its Order
- 6 Sifra's Alternative to the Mishnah's Logic of Cogent Discourse
- 7 Sifra's Alternative to the Mishnah's Proof of Propositions through Taxonomic Classification and Hierarchization
- 8 Re-presenting the Torah: Sifra's Rehabilitation of Taxonomic Logic
- 9 Torah as Proper Noun and the Structure of the Logic of Creation
- Appendix: The Distinctive Character of Sifra among Midrash Compilations
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Prologue
- 1 The Problem of the Mishnah
- 2 Torah as a Common Noun: The Solution of the Talmuds
- 3 A Sample of Sifra
- 4 From Common Noun to Proper Noun: Sifra's Re-presentation of the Two Torahs as One
- 5 Sifra's Alternative to the Mishnah's Topical Program and Its Order
- 6 Sifra's Alternative to the Mishnah's Logic of Cogent Discourse
- 7 Sifra's Alternative to the Mishnah's Proof of Propositions through Taxonomic Classification and Hierarchization
- 8 Re-presenting the Torah: Sifra's Rehabilitation of Taxonomic Logic
- 9 Torah as Proper Noun and the Structure of the Logic of Creation
- Appendix: The Distinctive Character of Sifra among Midrash Compilations
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Thesis of This Book
This book proposes to demonstrate that the authorship of Sifra composed the one (and the only truly successful) document to accomplish the union of the two Torahs not merely formally but through the interior structure of thought. It was by means of the critique of practical logic and the rehabilitation of the probative logic of hierarchical classification (Listenwissenschaft), in particular, that the authorship of Sifra accomplished this remarkable feat of intellect. That authorship achieved the (re-)union of the two Torahs into a single cogent statement within the framework of the written Torah by penetrating into the deep composition of logic that underlay the creation of the world in its correct components, rightly classified, and in its right order, as portrayed by the Torah. Specifically, by systematically demolishing the logic that sustains an autonomous Mishnah and by equally thoroughly demonstrating the dependency, for the identification of the correct classification of things, not upon the traits of things viewed in the abstract, but upon the classification of things by Scripture, the framers of Sifra recast the two parts of the Torah into a single coherent statement through unitary and cogent discourse.
At stake, therefore, for our authorship is the dependency of the Mishnah upon Scripture, at least for the encompassing case of the book of Leviticus. So in choosing, as to form, the base text of Scripture, the authorship of Sifra made its entire statement in nuce.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Uniting the Dual TorahSifra and the Problem of the Mishnah, pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990