Writing and the Art of Talmudic Maintenance: How the Shift from Orality to Writing Concretized Talmud as Text rather than Process

SEMINAR ON RELIGION AND WRITING
Tuesday, 23 April 2013The eighth meeting of the Columbia University Seminar on Religion and Writing will take place on Tuesday, April 23, 2013, in the Faculty House of Columbia University.

Dr.David Brodsky of New York University will lead a discussion entitled:

Writing and the Art of Talmudic Maintenance: How the Shift from Orality to Writing Concretized Talmud as Text rather than Process

Talmudic literature developed when orality was the dominant form of transmission of holy texts in Babylonia. With the Muslim conquest, writing began to be privileged over orality. This presentation will argue that this shift had a major effect on the ossification of talmud as a text rather than a genre, a form, a process. The first two chapters of Kallah Rabbati are the only extant text that derives from amoraic Babylonia, proving to be an older sister to the Babylonian Talmud, which also developed in amoraic Babylonia, but was not concretized until the post-amoraic period (indeed, David Weiss Halivni has recently pushed its redaction well into the Islamic Period). Comparisons of parallel passages between Kallah Rabbati and the Babylonian Talmud reveal the talmudic passages to be a product of the oral transmitters, who were re-producing the text as they re-cited it. Parallels with Geonic (i.e., early medieval) literature, once writing had begun to take hold, reveal a text that had ossified after a specific performative moment. While errors and changes still arose, they no longer lent themselves to the kinds of re-creation of the passages that orality had once fostered. Rather, writing seems to have marked the shift from talmud as genre to Talmud as a concretized text.

We will gather after 5.30 pm either in the bar, if the bar is open, or on the second floor, where dinner will follow at 6:00 pm. The talk will begin at 7:00 pm sharp.

Directions to Faculty House can be found at

http://universityseminars.columbia.edu/resources/directions-to-faculty-house/ If you would like to attend the dinner prior to Dr. Brodsky’s presentation, please confirm by notifying the rapporteur Hannah Barker ([email protected]) no later than TUESDAY, April 16.

For further information about the Seminar on Religion and Writing, please visit our website at https://researchblogs.cul.columbia.edu/islamicbooks/religionwriting/

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