How can humans ever attain the knowledge required to administer and implement divine law and render perfect justice in this world? Contrary to the belief that religious law is infallible, Chaya T. Halberstam shows that early rabbinic jurisprudence is characterized by fundamental uncertainty. She argues that while the Hebrew Bible created a sense of confidence and transparency before the law, the rabbis complicated the paths to knowledge and undermined the stability of personal status and ownership, and notions of guilt or innocence. Examining the facts of legal judgments through midrashic discussions of the law and evidence, Halberstam discovers that rabbinic understandings of the law were riddled with doubt and challenged the possibility of true justice. This book thoroughly engages law, narrative, and theology to explicate rabbinic legal authority and its limits.
Chaya T. Halberstam is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University Bloomington.
Table of Contents
IntroductionPart 1. Truth and Human Jurisprudence1. Stains of Impurity2. Signs of Ownership3. The Impossibility of JudgmentPart 2. Truth and Divine Justice4. Theologies of Justice5. Objects of NarrativeNotesBibliographyIndex of Scriptural VersesIndex of Subjects
What People are Saying About This
D. B. Levy]]>
This interdisciplinary book makes a contribution to understanding the rabbinic legal process and rabbinic sensibilities, incorporating law, logic, narrative, feminism, and theology to explicate rabbinic legal authority and its limits. It is divided into two parts: 'Truth and Human Jurisprudence' and 'Truth and Divine Justice.' Halberstam asks, 'How can humans ever attain the knowledge required to administer and implement divine law and render perfect justice ...?' The author (Indiana Univ., Bloomington) deals with rabbinic juridical decision-making and standards of proof, establishing facts and evidence, rabbinic juridical procedure, and the shaping of law. She does a nice job of distinguishing between testimony that stands (qayemet) and is nullified (betalah) and a judge who either acquits (mezakeh) or convicts (mehayeb). She argues that early rabbinic jurisprudence is characterized by uncertainty—that rabbinic understandings of the law were filled with doubt, ambiguity, and indeterminacy as to the possibility of justice on the stage of human history. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above. — Choice
Stanford University - Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert
Adds an important aspect to our understanding of rabbinic legal thinking specifically, as well as to our understanding of rabbinic sensibilities and rabbinic piety in general.
D. B. Levy
This interdisciplinary book makes a contribution to understanding the rabbinic legal process and rabbinic sensibilities, incorporating law, logic, narrative, feminism, and theology to explicate rabbinic legal authority and its limits. It is divided into two parts: 'Truth and Human Jurisprudence' and 'Truth and Divine Justice.' Halberstam asks, 'How can humans ever attain the knowledge required to administer and implement divine law and render perfect justice ...?' The author (Indiana Univ., Bloomington) deals with rabbinic juridical decision-making and standards of proof, establishing facts and evidence, rabbinic juridical procedure, and the shaping of law. She does a nice job of distinguishing between testimony that stands (qayemet) and is nullified (betalah) and a judge who either acquits (mezakeh) or convicts (mehayeb). She argues that early rabbinic jurisprudence is characterized by uncertainty—that rabbinic understandings of the law were filled with doubt, ambiguity, and indeterminacy as to the possibility of justice on the stage of human history. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates and above. — Choice
