yehudah cohn | New York University (original) (raw)

Papers by yehudah cohn

BRILL eBooks, Nov 9, 2023

This book locates the Jewish tefillin ritual within the cultural matrix that engendered its origi... more This book locates the Jewish tefillin ritual within the cultural matrix that engendered its origins and development, with particular focus on the reception history of relevant biblical passages, the archaeological evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and detailed investigation of rabbinic literature to the third century C.E. All these sources are evaluated against the backdrop of comparative data for the use of magical amulets in the ambient Greco-Roman world, in the light of which the author demonstrates that tefillin originated and persisted as popular protective amulets, and were an invented tradition of the Hellenistic era. His conclusions are used to explain why the practice developed as it did, to clarify its distinctive features and to analyze its meaning in the early rabbinic period.

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 135–700 CE, 2013

This chapter describes the following Midrashic texts: Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael; Mekhilta DeRabbi... more This chapter describes the following Midrashic texts: Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael; Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon bar Yoṭai; Sifra; Sifre Numbers; Sifre Zuta (Numbers); Sifre Deuteronomy; Mekhilta Deuteronomy (Midrash Tannaim); Sifre Zuta (Deuteronomy); Baraita DeMelekhet HaMishkan; Genesis Rabbah; Leviticus Rabbah; Pesiqta DeRav Kahana; Lamentations Rabbati; Shir HaShirim Rabbah; Esther Rabbah; Ruth Rabbah; and Qohelet Rabbah. For each of these texts, details on the contents, dating, language, printed editions, translations, commentaries, bibliography, electronic resources and manuscripts are covered.

Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 135–700 CE, 2013

This chapter describes the following Talmudic texts: the Mishnah; the Tosefta; the Talmud Yerusha... more This chapter describes the following Talmudic texts: the Mishnah; the Tosefta; the Talmud Yerushalmi/Palestinian Talmud; the Talmud Bavli/Babylonian Talmud; Minor Tractates; and external tractates (Tractate Derekh Erets Zuta and Pereq HaShalom, Tractate Derekh Erets Rabbah, Tractate Kallah, Kallah Rabbati, Tractate Soferim, Tractate Semaṭot, Avot DeRabbi Natan and (Sefer) HaMaasim). For each of these texts, details on the contents, dating, language, printed editions, translations, commentaries, bibliography, electronic resources and manuscripts are provided.

Jewish Studies Quarterly, 2007

The Memory-Prediction Framework (MPF) and its Hierarchical-Temporal Memory implementation (HTM) h... more The Memory-Prediction Framework (MPF) and its Hierarchical-Temporal Memory implementation (HTM) have been widely applied to unsupervised learning problems, for both classification and prediction. To date, there has been no attempt to incorporate MPF/HTM in reinforcement learning or other adaptive systems; that is, to use knowledge embodied within the hierarchy to control a system, or to generate behaviour for an agent. This problem is interesting because the human neocortex is believed to play a vital role in the generation of behaviour, and the MPF is a model of the human neocortex. We propose some simple and biologically-plausible enhancements to the Memory-Prediction Framework. These cause it to explore and interact with an external world, while trying to maximize a continuous, time-varying reward function. All behaviour is generated and controlled within the MPF hierarchy. The hierarchy develops from a random initial configuration by interaction with the world and reinforcement learning only. Among other demonstrations, we show that a 2-node hierarchy can learn to successfully play ''rocks, paper, scissors'' against a predictable opponent.

... by Yehudah B. Cohn Page 4. TANGLED UP IN TEXT TEFILLIN AND THE ANCIENT WORLD Yehudah B. Cohn ... more ... by Yehudah B. Cohn Page 4. TANGLED UP IN TEXT TEFILLIN AND THE ANCIENT WORLD Yehudah B. Cohn Brown Judaic Studies Providence, Rhode Island Page 5. © 2008 Brown University. All rights reserved. No part of ...

Material Aspects of Reading in Ancient and Medieval Cultures, May 5, 2020

For fifty years or so, after the Qumran tefillin and mezuzot first came to light, scholarly focus... more For fifty years or so, after the Qumran tefillin and mezuzot first came to light, scholarly focus centered on the biblical texts they contained, and on the relation of these artifacts to practices later discussed by post-destruction rabbis.1 More recent works by Adler and Cohn have treated material features independently of the rabbinic corpus, alongside textual ones,2 and here I will "reread" material features. To put it slightly differently, my goal in this article is to highlight the extent to which material considerations have informed the analysis of the Qumran tefillin and mezuzot-including instances where the material record shows less than has sometimes been claimed.3 Material Considerations in Identifying the Tefillin and Mezuzot The items concerned consisted of some forty-five leather slips, preserved in fragmentary form, inscribed with excerpted biblical text.4 In addition there were around twenty-five tefillin housings, only two of which contained decipherable written content when found.5 1 References for the official publications of the texts are as follows: Barthélemy 1955, with plate XIV; Kuhn 1957 (these four texts were republished in DJD 6 by Milik 1962 [see below] together with the rest of the Cave 4 tefillin. Milik had identified further fragments as being from the same slips as those published by Kuhn, and also corrected some of the latter's readings. The four slips concerned have recently been republished in

Journal of Jewish Studies, 2008

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2012

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2012

BRILL eBooks, Nov 9, 2023

This book locates the Jewish tefillin ritual within the cultural matrix that engendered its origi... more This book locates the Jewish tefillin ritual within the cultural matrix that engendered its origins and development, with particular focus on the reception history of relevant biblical passages, the archaeological evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and detailed investigation of rabbinic literature to the third century C.E. All these sources are evaluated against the backdrop of comparative data for the use of magical amulets in the ambient Greco-Roman world, in the light of which the author demonstrates that tefillin originated and persisted as popular protective amulets, and were an invented tradition of the Hellenistic era. His conclusions are used to explain why the practice developed as it did, to clarify its distinctive features and to analyze its meaning in the early rabbinic period.

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 135–700 CE, 2013

This chapter describes the following Midrashic texts: Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael; Mekhilta DeRabbi... more This chapter describes the following Midrashic texts: Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael; Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon bar Yoṭai; Sifra; Sifre Numbers; Sifre Zuta (Numbers); Sifre Deuteronomy; Mekhilta Deuteronomy (Midrash Tannaim); Sifre Zuta (Deuteronomy); Baraita DeMelekhet HaMishkan; Genesis Rabbah; Leviticus Rabbah; Pesiqta DeRav Kahana; Lamentations Rabbati; Shir HaShirim Rabbah; Esther Rabbah; Ruth Rabbah; and Qohelet Rabbah. For each of these texts, details on the contents, dating, language, printed editions, translations, commentaries, bibliography, electronic resources and manuscripts are covered.

Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 135–700 CE, 2013

This chapter describes the following Talmudic texts: the Mishnah; the Tosefta; the Talmud Yerusha... more This chapter describes the following Talmudic texts: the Mishnah; the Tosefta; the Talmud Yerushalmi/Palestinian Talmud; the Talmud Bavli/Babylonian Talmud; Minor Tractates; and external tractates (Tractate Derekh Erets Zuta and Pereq HaShalom, Tractate Derekh Erets Rabbah, Tractate Kallah, Kallah Rabbati, Tractate Soferim, Tractate Semaṭot, Avot DeRabbi Natan and (Sefer) HaMaasim). For each of these texts, details on the contents, dating, language, printed editions, translations, commentaries, bibliography, electronic resources and manuscripts are provided.

Jewish Studies Quarterly, 2007

The Memory-Prediction Framework (MPF) and its Hierarchical-Temporal Memory implementation (HTM) h... more The Memory-Prediction Framework (MPF) and its Hierarchical-Temporal Memory implementation (HTM) have been widely applied to unsupervised learning problems, for both classification and prediction. To date, there has been no attempt to incorporate MPF/HTM in reinforcement learning or other adaptive systems; that is, to use knowledge embodied within the hierarchy to control a system, or to generate behaviour for an agent. This problem is interesting because the human neocortex is believed to play a vital role in the generation of behaviour, and the MPF is a model of the human neocortex. We propose some simple and biologically-plausible enhancements to the Memory-Prediction Framework. These cause it to explore and interact with an external world, while trying to maximize a continuous, time-varying reward function. All behaviour is generated and controlled within the MPF hierarchy. The hierarchy develops from a random initial configuration by interaction with the world and reinforcement learning only. Among other demonstrations, we show that a 2-node hierarchy can learn to successfully play ''rocks, paper, scissors'' against a predictable opponent.

... by Yehudah B. Cohn Page 4. TANGLED UP IN TEXT TEFILLIN AND THE ANCIENT WORLD Yehudah B. Cohn ... more ... by Yehudah B. Cohn Page 4. TANGLED UP IN TEXT TEFILLIN AND THE ANCIENT WORLD Yehudah B. Cohn Brown Judaic Studies Providence, Rhode Island Page 5. © 2008 Brown University. All rights reserved. No part of ...

Material Aspects of Reading in Ancient and Medieval Cultures, May 5, 2020

For fifty years or so, after the Qumran tefillin and mezuzot first came to light, scholarly focus... more For fifty years or so, after the Qumran tefillin and mezuzot first came to light, scholarly focus centered on the biblical texts they contained, and on the relation of these artifacts to practices later discussed by post-destruction rabbis.1 More recent works by Adler and Cohn have treated material features independently of the rabbinic corpus, alongside textual ones,2 and here I will "reread" material features. To put it slightly differently, my goal in this article is to highlight the extent to which material considerations have informed the analysis of the Qumran tefillin and mezuzot-including instances where the material record shows less than has sometimes been claimed.3 Material Considerations in Identifying the Tefillin and Mezuzot The items concerned consisted of some forty-five leather slips, preserved in fragmentary form, inscribed with excerpted biblical text.4 In addition there were around twenty-five tefillin housings, only two of which contained decipherable written content when found.5 1 References for the official publications of the texts are as follows: Barthélemy 1955, with plate XIV; Kuhn 1957 (these four texts were republished in DJD 6 by Milik 1962 [see below] together with the rest of the Cave 4 tefillin. Milik had identified further fragments as being from the same slips as those published by Kuhn, and also corrected some of the latter's readings. The four slips concerned have recently been republished in

Journal of Jewish Studies, 2008

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2012

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2012