Jacob Neusner

Jacob Neusner (born July 28, 1932, Hartford, Connecticut) is an influential as well as controversial academic scholar of Judaism, and the most prolific. He has written or edited over 924 books about the Torah, Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmud, Midrash and other Jewish writings.

Biography

Neusner was educated at Harvard University, the Jewish Theological Seminary (where he received rabbinic ordination), the University of Oxford, and Columbia University.

Neusner is often celebrated as one of the most published authors in history (he has written or edited more than 900 books.)

He has taught at Columbia University, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Brandeis University, Dartmouth College, Brown University, University of South Florida, and Bard College.

Neusner is a member of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, and a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. He is the only scholar to have served on both the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. He also has received scores of academic awards, honorific and otherwise.

Since 1994, he has taught at Bard College.

Scholarship

Neusner's scholarly activity is vast. Generally speaking his research centers around rabbinic Judaism of the Mishnaic and Talmudic Eras. He was a pioneer in the application of "form-criticism" approach to Rabbinic texts. Much of Neusner's work has been to de-construct the prevailing approach viewing Rabbinic Judaism as a single religious movement within which the various Rabbinic texts were produced. In contrast, Neusner views rabbinic documents as individual pieces of evidence which can only shed light on the more local Judaisms of that specific documents place of origin and the specific Judaism of the author. His Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah (Chicago, 1981; translated into Hebrew and Italian) is the classic statement of his work and the first of many comparable volumes on the other documents of the rabbinic canon.

Neusner’s method of studying documents individualy without contextualizing them with other Rabbinic documents of the same era or genre, led to a series of very important studies on the way Judaism creates categories of understanding and how those categories relate to one another, even as they emerge diversely in discrete rabbinic documents. Neusner’s work shows, for instance, how deeply Judaism is integrated with the system of the Pentateuch, how such categories as "merit" and "purity" work in Judaism, and how classical Judaism absorbed and transcended the destruction of the Jerusalem in 70.

Neusner has translated into English nearly the entire Rabbinic canon. This work has opened up many Rabbinic documents to scholars of other fields unfamiliar with Hebrew and Aramaic. His translation technique utilizes a "harvard-outline" format which attempts to make the argument flow of Rabbinic texts easier to understand for those unfamiliar with Talmudic reasoning.

Neusner's enterprise has been aimed at a humanistic and academic reading of classics of Judaism. Neusner has been drawn from studying text to context. Treating a religion in its social setting, as something a group of people do together, rather than as a set of beliefs and opinions.

Theological works

In addition to his historical and textual works Neusner has also forayed into the area of Theology. He is the author of "Israel:" Judaism and its Social Metaphors and The Incarnation of God: The Character of Divinity in Formative Judaism.

Contributions to Academia

In addition to his scholaraly activities, Neusner has been heavily involved in the shaping of Jewish and Religious Studies in the American University. He has sponsored a number of conferences and collaborative projects that drew different religions into conversation on common themes and problems. Neusner’s efforts have produced conferences and books on, among other topics, the problem of difference in religion, religion and society, religion and material culture, religion and economics, religion and altruism, and religion and tolerance. These collaborations build on Neusner’s intellectual vision, his notion of a religion as a system, and would not have happened otherwise. By working in the realm of Judaism and Jewish Religion, he developed methods and theories applicable to the study of Religion generally.

Neusner has written a number of works exploring the relationship of Judaism to other religions. His A Rabbi Talks with Jesus (Philadelphia, 1993; translated into German, Italian, and Swedish, attempts to establish a religiously sound framework for Judaic-Christian interchange. It has earned the praise of Pope Benedict XVI.

He also has collaborated with other scholars to produce comparisons of Judaism and Christianity, as in The Bible and Us: A Priest and A Rabbi Read Scripture Together (New York 1990; translated into Spanish and Portuguese). He has collaborated with scholars of Islam, conceiving World Religions in America: An Introduction (third edition, Nashville 2004), which explores how diverse religions have developed in the distinctive American context.

He also has composed numerous textbooks and general trade books on Judaism. The two best-known examples are The Way of Torah: An Introduction to Judaism (Belmont 2003); and Judaism: An Introduction (London and New York 2002; translated into Portuguese and Japanese).

Throughout his career, Neusner has established publication programs and series with various academic publishers. Through these series, through reference works that he conceived and edited, and through the conferences he has sponsored, Neusner has advanced the careers of dozens of younger scholars from across the globe. Few others in the American study of religion have had this kind of impact on students of so many approaches and interests.

Neusner has aimed to make Rabbinic literature useful to specialists in a variety of fields within the academic study of religion, as well as in ancient history, culture and Near and Middle Eastern Studies. His work has concerned the classic texts of Judaism and how they form a cogent statement of a religious system.

Critical Assessment of Neusner's Work

Although he is highly influential, Neusner has also been criticized by many scholars in his field of study. He has even been criticized by some of his own professors, such as Saul Lieberman, Solomon Zeitlin and Morton Smith. In general, these scholars are critical of Neusner's methodology, claiming that many of his arguments are circular or attempt to prove so-called "negative assumptions" from a lack of evidence (e.g., Cohen, Evans, Maccoby, Poirier, Sanders). Furthermore, many scholars are critical of Neusner's reading and interpretations of Rabbinic texts, often finding that his account is forced and highly inaccurate (e.g., Cohen, Evans, Maccoby, Poirier and in detail, Zuesse). They believe Neusner to betray a hostile bias toward traditional Jewish practice, and that this bias has influenced his examination of Pharisaic and early Rabbinic Judaism.

Several studies critical of Neusner's scholarship are listed below. The most elaborate and thorough book-length methodological and historical critique of Neusner is by E.P. Sanders. Neusner had tried to show that the Second Commonwealth Pharisees were actually a marginal sectarian group centered on "table fellowship" ritual food purity practices, and uninterested in wider Jewish values or social issues, contrary to the contemporary or near-contemporary testimony of Josephus, the New Testament, the "Grace After Meals" liturgy developed by the Pharisees, and early Rabbinic literature. Zeitlin and Maccoby challenged this account, but in the most detailed treatment Sanders found that many of Neusner's interpretations of Pharisaic discussions and rulings are inaccurate and arbitrary, and his findings questionable (e.g., Neusner claims that 67% of the debates between Pharisaic "houses" dealt with ritual food purity; Sanders finds that less than 1% do -- see Sanders, below, p. 177).

Shaye J. D. Cohen,"Jacob Neusner, Mishnah and Counter-Rabbinics," Conservative Judaism, Vol.37(1) Fall 1983 p. 48-63 Craig A. Evans, "Mishna and Messiah 'In Context'," Journal of Biblical Literature, (JBL), 112/2 1993, p.267-289 Saul Lieberman, "A Tragedy or a Comedy" Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol.104(2) April/June 1984 p. 315-319 Hyam Maccoby, "Jacob Neusner's Mishnah," Midstream, 30/5 May 1984 p. 24-32 Hyam Maccoby, "Neusner and the Red Cow," Journal for the Study of Judaism (JSJ), 21 1990, p. 60-75. John C. Poirier, "Jacob Neusner, the Mishnah and Ventriloquism," The Jewish Quarterly Review, LXXXVII Nos.1-2, July-October 1996, p. 61-78 E.P.Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah. Philadelphia, 1990. Solomon Zeitlin, "A Life of Yohanan ben Zakkai. A Specimen of Modern Jewish Scholarship," Jewish Quarterly Review, 62, 1972, p. 145-155. Solomon Zeitlin, "Spurious Interpretations of Rabbinic Sources in the Studies of the Pharisees and Pharisaim," Jewish Quarterly Review, 62, 1974, p. 122-135. Evan M. Zuesse, "The Rabbinic Treatment of 'Others' (Criminals, Gentiles) according to Jacob Neusner," Review of Rabbinic Judaism, Vol. VII, 2004, p. 191-229 Evan M. Zuesse, "Phenomenology of Judaism," in: Encyclopaedia of Judaism, ed. J. Neusner, A. Avery-Peck, and W.S. Green, 2nd Edition Leiden: Brill, 2005 Vol.III, p. 1968-1986. (Offers an alternative to Neusner's theory of "Judaisms.")

Books by Jacob Neusner

A complete list of books by Professor Jacob Neusner may be found here:

• Jacob Neusner bibliography

External links

• Prof. Jacob Neusner's homepage
• Scholar of Judaism, Professional Provocateur, Dinitia Smith, The New York Times, April 13, 2005