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“In the west, they laughed at him:” The mocking realists of the Babylonian Talmud

“In the west, they laughed at him:” The mocking realists of the Babylonian Talmud In the present article I examine the rhetorical function of the phrase “in the west (the Land of Israel), they laughed at him/it” found in dialectical halakhic contexts in the Babylonian Talmud. I argue that the literary motif of “mocking westerners” allows Babylonian rabbinic authors/redactors to voice reservations about the nominalist or anti-realist orientation of some rabbinic legal interpretation as seen in the use of legal fictions, contrary-to-fact presumptions and judgments, a high degree of intentionalism, and acontextual interpretive techniques. The ability of Babylonian rabbinic authors/redactors to depict the rabbis’ nominalist approach as the object of mockery by various external and, in this case, internal others indicates a high degree of rabbinic self-awareness regarding legal interpretative assumptions and methods. The paper concludes by suggesting that rabbinic nominalism flows from a distinctive and somewhat scandalous rabbinic understanding of divine law—one that self-consciously rejects an ideal of divine law that assumes its truth and verisimilitude. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Law, Religion and State Brill

“In the west, they laughed at him:” The mocking realists of the Babylonian Talmud

Journal of Law, Religion and State , Volume 2 (2): 137 – Jan 1, 2013

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Subject
Articles
ISSN
2212-6465
eISSN
2212-4810
DOI
10.1163/22124810-00202002
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In the present article I examine the rhetorical function of the phrase “in the west (the Land of Israel), they laughed at him/it” found in dialectical halakhic contexts in the Babylonian Talmud. I argue that the literary motif of “mocking westerners” allows Babylonian rabbinic authors/redactors to voice reservations about the nominalist or anti-realist orientation of some rabbinic legal interpretation as seen in the use of legal fictions, contrary-to-fact presumptions and judgments, a high degree of intentionalism, and acontextual interpretive techniques. The ability of Babylonian rabbinic authors/redactors to depict the rabbis’ nominalist approach as the object of mockery by various external and, in this case, internal others indicates a high degree of rabbinic self-awareness regarding legal interpretative assumptions and methods. The paper concludes by suggesting that rabbinic nominalism flows from a distinctive and somewhat scandalous rabbinic understanding of divine law—one that self-consciously rejects an ideal of divine law that assumes its truth and verisimilitude.

Journal

Journal of Law, Religion and StateBrill

Published: Jan 1, 2013

Keywords: realism; nominalism; interpretation; reflexivity

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