Golden Bells & Pomegranates
Studies in Midrash Leviticus Rabbah

By Burton L. Visotzky
August 2003
Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 3-16-147991-2
207 pages, 6 1/4" x 9 1/4"
$137.50 Hardcover

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The author studies the 5th Century rabbinic anthology Midrash Leviticus Rabbah, which is a quasi-encyclopedic miscellany of rabbinic thought and commentaries on Torah and its study. He outlines the content of this text, its novel elements of style, structure and redaction, and places it at a turning point in rabbinic literature in the Greco-Roman milieu.

The results of this analysis place the text at a turning point in rabbinic literature. The author undertakes to survey and synthesize the broad areas necessary to understand Leviticus Rabbah, while at the same time offering detailed studies of both structure and content.

Contents include: Golden Bells & Pomegranates: Introduction, Structure: the Problem of Thematic Unity, Proem and Soma: Shaping Text Clusters, A Miscellany of Rabbinic Tradition, Folk literature and Aramaic, LR as Hellenistic Provincial Literature, Content: On Priests, Sacrifices and Leviticus, Leviticus Rabbinicus, Anthropology I: Body and Soul, "Anthropology" II: Women, Anthropology III: Poverty and Powerlessness, Angels and insects: Theology, Angelology, Prophecy, Eschatology, Esau, Edom, and Others, Summary and Conlclusions.

Religious History; Judaism
Texts & Studies in Ancient Judaism No. 94

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