Bride without a Blessing
A Study in the Redaction & Content
of Massekhet Kallah & its Gemara
Texts & Studies in Ancient Judaism, No. 118

By David Brodsky
December 2006
Mohr Siebeck
Distributed by Coronet Books
ISBN: 9783161490194         
569 pages, 6 1/4 x 9 1/4"
$247.50 Hardcover

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David Brodsky uses form and source criticism to date Massekhet Kallah and the first two chapters of Kallah Rabbati - which form a commentary on Massekhet Kallah - to the mid-amoraic period (circa 280-450 CE), and to locate their redaction in Babylonia.

This makes these two sources the only known rabbinic texts whose final redaction took place in Babylonia during the amoraic period, and establishes them as the closest extant relatives of the Babylonian Talmud.

Parallels between these two sources and the Babylonian Talmud elucidate the nature of oral transmission and of the redactional processes of Babylonian rabbinic material during this critical period, and, thereby, of the Babylonian Talmud itself. Brodsky also deciphers Massekhet Kallah's peculiar form of asceticism and explores its fascinating gender and theological implications.

Judaism; History

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