The Mind of the Talmud: An Intellectual History of the Talmud (review)

116 SHOFAR Spring 1993 Vol. 11, No.3 n. 23), even though he strictly limits his own inquiry. Also, his analysis is much more sober than some, which find many more redactional levels than he does. However, the question still must be asked as to the ultimate profitability of this approach-even when practiced by as skilled and careful a critic as McKenzie-and as to what its ultimate goal is, whether it is to reconstruct a hypothetical original text at some one level, and then, presumably, to explicate its meaning, or to do so at every pre-existing level, or to do so at the final level. The historical-critical method, unfortunately, has given short shrift to the last of these, and, in the process, a sense of the biblical narrative has been lost, as Frei (The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative) and many others have noted. David M. Howard, Jr. Old Testament and Semitic Languages Trinity Evangelical Divinity School The Mind of the Tahn~d: An Intellectual History of the Tahnud, by David Kraemer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. 217 pp. $32.50. In his book, David Kraemer sets forth the thesis that the rabbinic communities of the Tannaim, the Amoraim, and the Saboraim recognized that divine truth could be approached but never fully obtained. Reason became the primary tool through which limited truth could be ascertained.. Thus, the importance of Scripture as a source of truth, once primary, decreased in significance while the resort to reason increased. Kraemer's theory is based on a methodology which encompasses bO,th statistical analysis and a discussion of specific Talmudic passages. Kraemer covers a history that extends from the composition of the Mishnah from the third through the sixth century when the Bavli was redacted. He divides the six generations of Amoraim into three divisions: early, middle, and late Amoraic. Kraemer builds his argument on a premise first developed by Jacob Neusner. According to this supposition, the editor of the Mishnah, Rabbi Judah HaNasi, constructed his magnum opus of Jewish law independent of Scriptural authority. Kraemer writes: Book Reviews The questions and problems that infonned their [the editors of the . Mishnah1agenda were, rather, wholly their own and, in this sense, their authority-independent of Scripture-was most significant (p. 13). 117 The lack of scriptural citations is evidence that R. Judah HaNasi and his associates sought to establish their own authority as a basis for Jewish tradition. Through a statistical analysis of the Amoraic discourse (which this reviewer is unable to evaluate), Kraemer deduces the existence of a progressive reliance on reason that reaches its climax in the Saboraic period. The early Amoraim clearly admitted the centrality of the Mishnah but supplemented it with their own rulings without reference to Scripture or reason. In the middle Amoraic period, there was a shift in the source of authority from Mishnaic and Scriptural precedents to reason and argumentation, which peaked in the last Amoraic generations. He writes: R. Ashi participates in midrashic debate in a way unmatched by his predecessors. His methods are creative, and he is even willing to favor reason over scripture as a source for law (p. 49). According to Kraemer, reasoning (sevara) actually superseded scriptural proofs as the central criterion for the development ofJewish law. He says. If divine truth could be approached (though never fully realized) only through human endeavor, then human reason, and the process by which it is applied, had to become central; the human effort, even when in error had to be affinned (pp. 121-122). According to Kraemer, Amoraic thought tended to place reason in the center and Scripture at the periphery. He stresses citations in Yevamot 46(b) and Bava Metzia 59(b). Kraemer's work gives the appearance of being thorough and scholarly. But hjs theory is not convincing. First, though the Mishnah and Talmud employ reasoning, both works affirm religiosity. The Oral Law and its explication was not an independent assertion of rabbinic authority. The early Amoraic enterprise did not draw its authority outside of the Scriptural realm. Instead, the Bavti's use of argumentation and reason was to find harmony within Scripture while appending it to the Oral Law...