In his brilliant introduction on the Mishnah, Jacob Neusner asks:
How do you read a book that does not identify its author, tell you
where it comes from, or explain why it was written - a book without
a preface? And how do you identify a book with neither a beginning
nor end, lacking table of contents and title? The answer is you
just begin and let the author of the book lead you by paying
attention to the information that the author does give, to the
signals that the writer sets out. As Neusner goes on to explain,
the Mishnah portrays the world in a special way, in a kind of code
that makes it a difficult work for the modern reader to understand.
Without knowing how to decode the Mishnah, we may read its works
without receiving its message. Neusner, one of the world's foremost
Mishnaic scholars, demonstrated that the Mishnah's own internal
logic and structure form a solid foundation on which to build an
understanding of this vitally important Jewish work. Using examples
of how the Mishnah's language, logic, and discourse associate and
categorize behaviors, events, and objects, Neusner opens the
Mishnah to readers who would not otherwise be able to grasp its
most fundamental concepts. Since the Mishnah forms the basis of
both the Babylonian and the Palestinian Talmuds (which are, in
Neusner's elegant terms, "the core curriculum of Judaism as a
living religion"), study of the Mishnah is essential to an
understanding of Judaism. Drawing on his own new translation of the
Mishnah and displaying the enthusiastic dedication that has sparked
a whole new body of Mishnaic research, Neusner allows readers with
no previous background to join Jews who have studied, analyzed, and
delighted in the wisdom of Mishnah for centuries. In addition to
giving us a thorough exploration of the Mishnah's language,
contents, organization, and inner logic, Neusner also provides us
with a broad understanding of how it communicated its own world
view - its vision of both the concrete an spiritual worlds. The
Mishnah: An Introduction gives us a tour of this sacred Jewish
text, shedding light on its many facets - from its view of life to
its conception of God and His relation to our world.
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