Lennart Lehmhaus | Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen (original) (raw)
Monographs by Lennart Lehmhaus
Seder Eliyahu Zuta (SEZ), as well as its fellow-text called Seder Eliyahu Rabba (SER), is a fasci... more Seder Eliyahu Zuta (SEZ), as well as its fellow-text called Seder Eliyahu Rabba (SER), is a fascinating work, most likely datable in Late Antiquity or early medieval times (ca. 8th – 10th centuries). The text displays a unique, though hybrid, character between moral guidebook, absorbing narrative and learned exposition.
For the first time, this dissertation provides an annotated and typographically structured German translation alongside with the Hebrew text of SEZ, based on Meir Friedmann`s edition (Vienna, 1902). The bi-lingual presentation is augmented with exhaustive annotations regarding sibling-traditions (SER/ Pseudo-SEZ), textual variants from all available manuscripts, fragments and the first printed edition as well as many Talmudic and Midrashic parallels and explanations of language(s) and context(s).
The second part of the project aimed at a thorough examination of literary-discursive, theological-ethical and socio-cultural dimensions of SEZ. Such a study has been nearly missing from scholarly discussion until now which focused solely on historically reliable facts to pinpoint an exact date and place of origin. In contrast to these attempts the dissertation employs a multi-layered approach combining theories and methods from historical, cultural and literary-discursive studies with fundamental philological questions.
Instead of following a common view of later Midrashim as stagnating and purely narrative, this study explores SEZ`s multifarious and skilful combination of literary genres, strategies (keywords/ clustering) and discursive structures. These make the text function for different audiences on different levels of comprehension. Of special importance are adoption, adaptation and innovative transformation of `classical´ rabbinic genres, of exegetical-hermeneutical techniques and language for the text’s own purposes. With intertextual sophistication the text employs quotes and references to various rabbinic traditions as literary tools in order to anchor its own discourse in the authority of the Written and Oral Torah.
The most characteristic feature of SEZ and its discursive backbone are first-person narratives about dialogic encounters with various non-rabbinic others. These passages convey essential ideas (basic knowledge of Scripture, the most important prayers and benedictions as well as moral behavior and piety) that form a core Jewish identity, rabbinically biased though. This provided an appealing and accessible alternative for Jews from different educational and social backgrounds. Furthermore, in a self-reflexive sense it attests to a growing interest in and interaction with broader society and a new (self-) understanding of the role of the sages.
Based on these findings the thematic analysis demonstrates how SEZ conveys its theological-ethical discourse in a dense and incisive way that has probably no rival in rabbinic literature. The main idea of God`s benevolence and indulgence towards man, especially Israel, is presented as a perfect role model for righteous conduct and ethical self-responsibility (Derekh Eretz). Endless divine mercy as a central theme is intertwined with a complex discourse on the suffering of the righteous (tzadiq), the ideal of poverty and humbleness, together with the ethical practice of charity (tzedaqah), solidarity and good deeds. These ideas have close parallels in Jewish ethical texts (Avot/ ARN/ DER/ DEZ) as well as in Syriac-Christian and Muslims traditions.
This dissertation raises the awareness for subtle strategies of literary transmission, adaptation, and innovation in Seder Eliyahu and other so called “later midrashim” (PRE, PesR, KohR/ Tanhuma) – broader semantic-lexical interest, construction of an author/narrator-character, and a monographic structure with exposition and conclusion made them precursors of later developments in Geonic and medieval Jewish literature. This insight will facilitate to grasp their transformative function as a link between late antique and early medieval times.
Moreover, these literary and thematic changes shed light on the historical context of SEZ. The radical socio-cultural, economic and religious transformations in the early Muslim and Geonic period, together with a greater inner-Jewish diversity, challenged and called for transformations in form and content. It seems that the text is engaged in a kind of mediation between several Jewish discourses or ideologies (Masoretic/ Talmudic-Geonic/ Proto-Karaite) of its time and various other cultural-religious formations (Arabic/ Muslim/ Syriac-Christian etc.).
The dissertation helps to allocate Seder Eliyahu within the discursive history of (rabbinic) Judaism and its socio-historical setting. In addition, the study outlines the potential role of this particular text as a rather marginal voice that probably aimed at the heart of a broader, shared discursive space in its cultural context in the early Islamicate world. The universal discourse and agenda of “minimal Judaism” would
Sourcebooks of Ancient Sciences Series. Mohr Siebeck, 2023
Dissertation by Lennart Lehmhaus
Edited Books by Lennart Lehmhaus
This new series attempts to study ancient histories of knowledge and their entanglement with reli... more This new series attempts to study ancient histories of knowledge and their entanglement with religious, cultural and socio-political aspects, while paying attention to the historicity and cultural relativity of specific figurations of knowledge.
The contributions collected here discuss the emergence, transfer and transformations of theoretic... more The contributions collected here discuss the emergence, transfer and transformations of theoretical and practical gynaecologic knowledge in ancient medical and other traditions. The authors investigate the cultural practices and socio-religious norms that enabled and constrained the production and application of gynaecologic knowledge and know-how – for example, concepts of the female body, ritual im/purity, or myth. Some studies focus more on the role and function of female patients and medical specialists – female doctors, healers, midwives or wet-nurses – as objects and subjects within ancient medical discourses.
The interdisciplinary nature of the studies provides ample opportunity for a comparative exploration of female bodies and medical expertise on them across the geographically diverse but culturally often closely entangled Ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, Persian, Byzantine, early Christian, Jewish-Talmudic, and Syriac cultures. Similarities and differences can be discerned in the various realms – ranging from the adoption of medical terminology or development of loanwords/calques, and the transfer and appropriation of certain gynaecologic theories, metaphors and concepts to more structural questions about the discursive representation of such knowledge and its (con)textual incorporation.
The volume aims to help stimulate a fruitful interdisciplinary and trans-generational exchange about the topic, drawing on a wide range of methodological and theoretical tools, including philology, linguistics, narratology/close reading, literary and discursive analysis, material culture, socio-historical perspectives, gender studies, or cultural and religious history.
The whole book is OPEN ACCESS (courtesy of the SFB 980 "Episteme" and the German Research Foundat... more The whole book is OPEN ACCESS (courtesy of the SFB 980 "Episteme" and the German Research Foundation-DFG)
https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=/ddo/artikel/81690/978-3-447-10826-3_Kostenloser%20Open%20Access-Download.pdf#pagemode=thumbs#pagemode=thumbs
The present volume brings together a group of scholars from diverse fields in Jewish studies who deal with Jewish medical knowledge from ancient to medieval times, applying a comparative approach to the subject. Based on a variety of methodological and theoretical concepts, they address strategies of interaction with earlier Jewish traditions and the deep embeddedness in other, often religiously shaped discourses (exegesis, ethics, Talmudic law and lore).
Special attention is paid to the complex interplay between literary forms and the knowledge conveyed. Diachronic approaches also explore the complex ways of transmission, transfer, rejection, modification and invention of medical knowledge. Possible contexts and points of contacts can be found in medical thinking and practices in surrounding cultures (Ancient Near East, Graeco-Roman, Byzantine, Persian-Iranian, Syriac and medieval Western Christianity, early Islamic).
Such a twofold perspective allows for assessing particularities of Jewish medical discourses within Jewish cultural history and their trans-cultural interaction with other medical traditions. Moreover, these studies may serve as a starting point to further inquiries into the role of these exchanges and entanglements, not only within a broader history of medicine, science and knowledge, but also for the history of cultures and religions at large.
With a clear comparative approach, this volume brings together for the first time contributions t... more With a clear comparative approach, this volume brings together for the first time contributions that cover different periods of the history of ancient pharmacology, from Greek, Byzantine, and Syriac medicine to the Rabbinic-Talmudic medical discourses. This collection opens up new synchronic and diachronic perspectives in the study of the ancient traditions of recipe-books and medical collections. Besides the highly influential Galenic tradition, the contributions will focus on less studied Byzantine and Syriac sources as well as on the Talmudic tradition, which has never been systematically investigated in relation to medicine. This inquiry will highlight the overwhelming mass of information about drugs and remedies, which accumulated over the centuries and was disseminated in a variety of texts belonging to distinct cultural milieus. Through a close analysis of some relevant case studies, this volume will trace some paths of this transmission and transformation of pharmacological knowledge across cultural and linguistic boundaries, by pointing to the variety of disciplines and areas of expertise involved in the process.
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Lennart Lehmhaus
Defining Jewish Medicine. Transfer of Medical Knowledge in Jewish Cultures and Traditions, 2021
FULLY OPEN ACCESS via publishers home page https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title\_1365.ahtml
Journal of Early Christian History 9,2 , 2022
Abstract According to recent studies, pain can be conceptualised both as a bodily sensation and ... more Abstract
According to recent studies, pain can be conceptualised both as a bodily sensation and as a complex sociocultural phenomenon shaped by experience, expectations, and presumptions. This article analyses descriptions of agonising intestinal and inflammatory ailments with their various sensual and socio-religious implications as specific rabbinic expressions of and reactions to broader ancient understandings of pain. The study of two talmudic narratives explores a complex network of late antique Jewish ideas about pain, especially connected to bodily swellings and bowel disease, in which religious, legal, ethical, cognitive, and medical aspects intertwine. I submit that the depiction of eminent rabbinic scholars as “suffering selves” fits well into the broader cultures of pain in the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. In these traditions, the always mediated (re)presentations of pain and experiences of suffering were often torn between fascination and aversion. Up to a certain point, the rabbis shared a cultural matrix and ideas on illness and agony with their contemporaries, especially religious experts like Christian authors, monastics, and ascetics. Therefore, these stories about self-afflicted pain and suffering were possibly formed as alternative Jewish answers reacting to and interacting with Graeco-Roman “cultures of pain” as well as emerging Jewish and Christian conceptions of martyrdom, asceticism, and the suffering self in late antiquity. Through a comparison with earlier texts, this article examines how this rabbinic counter-discourse feeds on and appropriates but also rejects Graeco-Roman and early Christian traditions about the punitive, refining, ascetic, and sanctifying purposes of bodily suffering and abdominal agony.
‘Madness’ in the Ancient World: Innate or Acquired? From Theoretical Concepts to Daily Life., 2023
In: ‘Madness’ in the Ancient World: Innate or Acquired? From Theoretical Concepts to Daily Life. ... more In: ‘Madness’ in the Ancient World: Innate or Acquired? From Theoretical Concepts to Daily Life. Edited by Christian Laes and Irina Metzler; ASH 10; Turnhout: Brepols, 2023, pp. 189–228
International Medical Historical Review VIII,2, 2023
,In: Véronique Boudon-Millot, Min Fanxiang, Yang Liqiong, eds., The Origins of Ancient Medicine: ... more ,In: Véronique Boudon-Millot, Min Fanxiang, Yang Liqiong, eds., The Origins of Ancient Medicine: Looking from East and West, International Medical Historical Review VIII,2, Peking: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2023, pp. 223–255. [In Chinese]
Jewish Quarterly Review 103,4 , 2023
L. Lehmhaus, “Bodies of Texts, Bodies of Tradition – medical expertise and knowledge of the body ... more L. Lehmhaus, “Bodies of Texts, Bodies of Tradition – medical expertise and knowledge of the body among rabbinic Jews in Late Antiquity,” in Finding, Inheriting or Borrowing? Construction and Transfer of Knowledge about Man and Nature in Antiquity and the Middle Ages; hg.v. Tanja Pommerening, Jochen Althoff, Dominik Berrens; Bielefeld: transcript, 2019, 123–166.
Defining Jewish Medicine. Transfer of Medical Knowledge in Premodern Jewish Cultures and Traditions, 2021
Defining Jewish Medicine. Transfer of Medical Knowledge in Premodern Jewish Cultures and Traditions, 2021
Representing Jewish Thought. Studies in Honour of Ada Rappoport- Albert, 2021
Pain in Biblical Texts and Other Materials of the Ancient Mediterranean, 2021
Forms of List-Making: Epistemic, Literary, and Visual Enumeration, 2022
This chapter explores the diverse manifestations of lists in rabbinic texts of late antiquity and... more This chapter explores the diverse manifestations of lists in rabbinic texts of late antiquity and their complex strategies of structuring, producing, and conveying knowledge through lists. The discussion is embedded within a broader perspective on lists as didactic and epistemic tools within ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. I argue that lists play an important role in the production of knowledge in premodern Jewish culture. The following examples aim to demonstrate that in Talmudic medical discourse, in legal prescriptions, in exegetical and in ethical midrashic texts, lists function as a versatile “epistemic form.” Lists shaped the rabbinic collections of law and lore that functioned simultaneously as cultural inventories, store houses of knowledge, and practical reference works. They thus facilitate the transfer of knowledge of the world and of the body into the world of the rabbinic study house and eventually into the quasi-canonical Talmudic corpus, an encyclopedic body of knowledge.
Seder Eliyahu Zuta (SEZ), as well as its fellow-text called Seder Eliyahu Rabba (SER), is a fasci... more Seder Eliyahu Zuta (SEZ), as well as its fellow-text called Seder Eliyahu Rabba (SER), is a fascinating work, most likely datable in Late Antiquity or early medieval times (ca. 8th – 10th centuries). The text displays a unique, though hybrid, character between moral guidebook, absorbing narrative and learned exposition.
For the first time, this dissertation provides an annotated and typographically structured German translation alongside with the Hebrew text of SEZ, based on Meir Friedmann`s edition (Vienna, 1902). The bi-lingual presentation is augmented with exhaustive annotations regarding sibling-traditions (SER/ Pseudo-SEZ), textual variants from all available manuscripts, fragments and the first printed edition as well as many Talmudic and Midrashic parallels and explanations of language(s) and context(s).
The second part of the project aimed at a thorough examination of literary-discursive, theological-ethical and socio-cultural dimensions of SEZ. Such a study has been nearly missing from scholarly discussion until now which focused solely on historically reliable facts to pinpoint an exact date and place of origin. In contrast to these attempts the dissertation employs a multi-layered approach combining theories and methods from historical, cultural and literary-discursive studies with fundamental philological questions.
Instead of following a common view of later Midrashim as stagnating and purely narrative, this study explores SEZ`s multifarious and skilful combination of literary genres, strategies (keywords/ clustering) and discursive structures. These make the text function for different audiences on different levels of comprehension. Of special importance are adoption, adaptation and innovative transformation of `classical´ rabbinic genres, of exegetical-hermeneutical techniques and language for the text’s own purposes. With intertextual sophistication the text employs quotes and references to various rabbinic traditions as literary tools in order to anchor its own discourse in the authority of the Written and Oral Torah.
The most characteristic feature of SEZ and its discursive backbone are first-person narratives about dialogic encounters with various non-rabbinic others. These passages convey essential ideas (basic knowledge of Scripture, the most important prayers and benedictions as well as moral behavior and piety) that form a core Jewish identity, rabbinically biased though. This provided an appealing and accessible alternative for Jews from different educational and social backgrounds. Furthermore, in a self-reflexive sense it attests to a growing interest in and interaction with broader society and a new (self-) understanding of the role of the sages.
Based on these findings the thematic analysis demonstrates how SEZ conveys its theological-ethical discourse in a dense and incisive way that has probably no rival in rabbinic literature. The main idea of God`s benevolence and indulgence towards man, especially Israel, is presented as a perfect role model for righteous conduct and ethical self-responsibility (Derekh Eretz). Endless divine mercy as a central theme is intertwined with a complex discourse on the suffering of the righteous (tzadiq), the ideal of poverty and humbleness, together with the ethical practice of charity (tzedaqah), solidarity and good deeds. These ideas have close parallels in Jewish ethical texts (Avot/ ARN/ DER/ DEZ) as well as in Syriac-Christian and Muslims traditions.
This dissertation raises the awareness for subtle strategies of literary transmission, adaptation, and innovation in Seder Eliyahu and other so called “later midrashim” (PRE, PesR, KohR/ Tanhuma) – broader semantic-lexical interest, construction of an author/narrator-character, and a monographic structure with exposition and conclusion made them precursors of later developments in Geonic and medieval Jewish literature. This insight will facilitate to grasp their transformative function as a link between late antique and early medieval times.
Moreover, these literary and thematic changes shed light on the historical context of SEZ. The radical socio-cultural, economic and religious transformations in the early Muslim and Geonic period, together with a greater inner-Jewish diversity, challenged and called for transformations in form and content. It seems that the text is engaged in a kind of mediation between several Jewish discourses or ideologies (Masoretic/ Talmudic-Geonic/ Proto-Karaite) of its time and various other cultural-religious formations (Arabic/ Muslim/ Syriac-Christian etc.).
The dissertation helps to allocate Seder Eliyahu within the discursive history of (rabbinic) Judaism and its socio-historical setting. In addition, the study outlines the potential role of this particular text as a rather marginal voice that probably aimed at the heart of a broader, shared discursive space in its cultural context in the early Islamicate world. The universal discourse and agenda of “minimal Judaism” would
Sourcebooks of Ancient Sciences Series. Mohr Siebeck, 2023
This new series attempts to study ancient histories of knowledge and their entanglement with reli... more This new series attempts to study ancient histories of knowledge and their entanglement with religious, cultural and socio-political aspects, while paying attention to the historicity and cultural relativity of specific figurations of knowledge.
The contributions collected here discuss the emergence, transfer and transformations of theoretic... more The contributions collected here discuss the emergence, transfer and transformations of theoretical and practical gynaecologic knowledge in ancient medical and other traditions. The authors investigate the cultural practices and socio-religious norms that enabled and constrained the production and application of gynaecologic knowledge and know-how – for example, concepts of the female body, ritual im/purity, or myth. Some studies focus more on the role and function of female patients and medical specialists – female doctors, healers, midwives or wet-nurses – as objects and subjects within ancient medical discourses.
The interdisciplinary nature of the studies provides ample opportunity for a comparative exploration of female bodies and medical expertise on them across the geographically diverse but culturally often closely entangled Ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Graeco-Roman, Persian, Byzantine, early Christian, Jewish-Talmudic, and Syriac cultures. Similarities and differences can be discerned in the various realms – ranging from the adoption of medical terminology or development of loanwords/calques, and the transfer and appropriation of certain gynaecologic theories, metaphors and concepts to more structural questions about the discursive representation of such knowledge and its (con)textual incorporation.
The volume aims to help stimulate a fruitful interdisciplinary and trans-generational exchange about the topic, drawing on a wide range of methodological and theoretical tools, including philology, linguistics, narratology/close reading, literary and discursive analysis, material culture, socio-historical perspectives, gender studies, or cultural and religious history.
The whole book is OPEN ACCESS (courtesy of the SFB 980 "Episteme" and the German Research Foundat... more The whole book is OPEN ACCESS (courtesy of the SFB 980 "Episteme" and the German Research Foundation-DFG)
https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/pdfjs/web/viewer.html?file=/ddo/artikel/81690/978-3-447-10826-3_Kostenloser%20Open%20Access-Download.pdf#pagemode=thumbs#pagemode=thumbs
The present volume brings together a group of scholars from diverse fields in Jewish studies who deal with Jewish medical knowledge from ancient to medieval times, applying a comparative approach to the subject. Based on a variety of methodological and theoretical concepts, they address strategies of interaction with earlier Jewish traditions and the deep embeddedness in other, often religiously shaped discourses (exegesis, ethics, Talmudic law and lore).
Special attention is paid to the complex interplay between literary forms and the knowledge conveyed. Diachronic approaches also explore the complex ways of transmission, transfer, rejection, modification and invention of medical knowledge. Possible contexts and points of contacts can be found in medical thinking and practices in surrounding cultures (Ancient Near East, Graeco-Roman, Byzantine, Persian-Iranian, Syriac and medieval Western Christianity, early Islamic).
Such a twofold perspective allows for assessing particularities of Jewish medical discourses within Jewish cultural history and their trans-cultural interaction with other medical traditions. Moreover, these studies may serve as a starting point to further inquiries into the role of these exchanges and entanglements, not only within a broader history of medicine, science and knowledge, but also for the history of cultures and religions at large.
With a clear comparative approach, this volume brings together for the first time contributions t... more With a clear comparative approach, this volume brings together for the first time contributions that cover different periods of the history of ancient pharmacology, from Greek, Byzantine, and Syriac medicine to the Rabbinic-Talmudic medical discourses. This collection opens up new synchronic and diachronic perspectives in the study of the ancient traditions of recipe-books and medical collections. Besides the highly influential Galenic tradition, the contributions will focus on less studied Byzantine and Syriac sources as well as on the Talmudic tradition, which has never been systematically investigated in relation to medicine. This inquiry will highlight the overwhelming mass of information about drugs and remedies, which accumulated over the centuries and was disseminated in a variety of texts belonging to distinct cultural milieus. Through a close analysis of some relevant case studies, this volume will trace some paths of this transmission and transformation of pharmacological knowledge across cultural and linguistic boundaries, by pointing to the variety of disciplines and areas of expertise involved in the process.
Defining Jewish Medicine. Transfer of Medical Knowledge in Jewish Cultures and Traditions, 2021
FULLY OPEN ACCESS via publishers home page https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title\_1365.ahtml
Journal of Early Christian History 9,2 , 2022
Abstract According to recent studies, pain can be conceptualised both as a bodily sensation and ... more Abstract
According to recent studies, pain can be conceptualised both as a bodily sensation and as a complex sociocultural phenomenon shaped by experience, expectations, and presumptions. This article analyses descriptions of agonising intestinal and inflammatory ailments with their various sensual and socio-religious implications as specific rabbinic expressions of and reactions to broader ancient understandings of pain. The study of two talmudic narratives explores a complex network of late antique Jewish ideas about pain, especially connected to bodily swellings and bowel disease, in which religious, legal, ethical, cognitive, and medical aspects intertwine. I submit that the depiction of eminent rabbinic scholars as “suffering selves” fits well into the broader cultures of pain in the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. In these traditions, the always mediated (re)presentations of pain and experiences of suffering were often torn between fascination and aversion. Up to a certain point, the rabbis shared a cultural matrix and ideas on illness and agony with their contemporaries, especially religious experts like Christian authors, monastics, and ascetics. Therefore, these stories about self-afflicted pain and suffering were possibly formed as alternative Jewish answers reacting to and interacting with Graeco-Roman “cultures of pain” as well as emerging Jewish and Christian conceptions of martyrdom, asceticism, and the suffering self in late antiquity. Through a comparison with earlier texts, this article examines how this rabbinic counter-discourse feeds on and appropriates but also rejects Graeco-Roman and early Christian traditions about the punitive, refining, ascetic, and sanctifying purposes of bodily suffering and abdominal agony.
‘Madness’ in the Ancient World: Innate or Acquired? From Theoretical Concepts to Daily Life., 2023
In: ‘Madness’ in the Ancient World: Innate or Acquired? From Theoretical Concepts to Daily Life. ... more In: ‘Madness’ in the Ancient World: Innate or Acquired? From Theoretical Concepts to Daily Life. Edited by Christian Laes and Irina Metzler; ASH 10; Turnhout: Brepols, 2023, pp. 189–228
International Medical Historical Review VIII,2, 2023
,In: Véronique Boudon-Millot, Min Fanxiang, Yang Liqiong, eds., The Origins of Ancient Medicine: ... more ,In: Véronique Boudon-Millot, Min Fanxiang, Yang Liqiong, eds., The Origins of Ancient Medicine: Looking from East and West, International Medical Historical Review VIII,2, Peking: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2023, pp. 223–255. [In Chinese]
Jewish Quarterly Review 103,4 , 2023
L. Lehmhaus, “Bodies of Texts, Bodies of Tradition – medical expertise and knowledge of the body ... more L. Lehmhaus, “Bodies of Texts, Bodies of Tradition – medical expertise and knowledge of the body among rabbinic Jews in Late Antiquity,” in Finding, Inheriting or Borrowing? Construction and Transfer of Knowledge about Man and Nature in Antiquity and the Middle Ages; hg.v. Tanja Pommerening, Jochen Althoff, Dominik Berrens; Bielefeld: transcript, 2019, 123–166.
Defining Jewish Medicine. Transfer of Medical Knowledge in Premodern Jewish Cultures and Traditions, 2021
Defining Jewish Medicine. Transfer of Medical Knowledge in Premodern Jewish Cultures and Traditions, 2021
Representing Jewish Thought. Studies in Honour of Ada Rappoport- Albert, 2021
Pain in Biblical Texts and Other Materials of the Ancient Mediterranean, 2021
Forms of List-Making: Epistemic, Literary, and Visual Enumeration, 2022
This chapter explores the diverse manifestations of lists in rabbinic texts of late antiquity and... more This chapter explores the diverse manifestations of lists in rabbinic texts of late antiquity and their complex strategies of structuring, producing, and conveying knowledge through lists. The discussion is embedded within a broader perspective on lists as didactic and epistemic tools within ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. I argue that lists play an important role in the production of knowledge in premodern Jewish culture. The following examples aim to demonstrate that in Talmudic medical discourse, in legal prescriptions, in exegetical and in ethical midrashic texts, lists function as a versatile “epistemic form.” Lists shaped the rabbinic collections of law and lore that functioned simultaneously as cultural inventories, store houses of knowledge, and practical reference works. They thus facilitate the transfer of knowledge of the world and of the body into the world of the rabbinic study house and eventually into the quasi-canonical Talmudic corpus, an encyclopedic body of knowledge.
Wissensoikonomien Ordnung und Transgression vormoderner Kulturen, 2021
https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/Wissensoikonomien/titel\_6666.ahtml
Torah Is a Hidden Treasure: Proceedings of the Midrash Section, Society of Biblical Literature, vol. 8, 2019
in: Torah Is a Hidden Treasure: Proceedings of the Midrash Section, Society of Biblical Literatur... more in: Torah Is a Hidden Treasure: Proceedings of the Midrash Section, Society of Biblical Literature, vol. 8.Edited by Rivka Ulmer and W. David Nelson; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2019, pp. 99–149.
Prostheses in Antiquity. Edited by Jane Draycott. Series: Medicine and the Body in Antiquity. Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2018, 2018
Übungswissen in Religion und Philosophie: Produktion, Weitergabe, Wandel, 2018
In der Forschung wurde über eine lange Zeit davon ausgegangen, dass es im rabbinischen Judentum s... more In der Forschung wurde über eine lange Zeit davon ausgegangen, dass es im rabbinischen Judentum seit der Antike keine Askese gegeben habe. Diese Einschätzung beruhte jedoch sowohl auf der Gleichsetzung von Askese mit dem christlichen Mönchstum als auch auf der Assoziation mit einer Körperfeindlichkeit bei Paulus und im Christentum insgesamt. Demnach wurde insbesondere jenen Ausprägungen asketischer Tradition Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt, die mit Weltabgewandtheit, körperlichen Verzichtsübungen und Selbstgeißelung verbunden sind.
Allerdings haben jüngere Studien, die neue theoretische und methodologische Zugänge nutzen, plausibel darlegen können, dass es auch in der jüdischen Tradition verschiedene Spielarten von Askese gegeben hat, die sich aus der Interaktion mit den Umgebungskulturen ergaben. Dies gilt sowohl für Übungsformen und Techniken, die mit physischen Aspekten verbunden sind, als auch solchen, welche sich eher der intellektuellen und spirituellen Sphäre zuordnen lassen.
Der Beitrag wird unterschiedliche Formen solcher intellektuellen und spirituellen Übungen anhand verschiedener Textbeispiele aus der spätantiken, rabbinischen Tradition aufzeigen. Ein besonderes Interesse gilt dabei auch der engen, zuweilen unauflösbaren, Verknüpfung zwischen einem asketischen Studium und körperlicher Askese in der Person des Gelehrten.
Exegetical Crossroads–Understanding Scripture in Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Premodern Orient, 2017
For his part, Lennart Lehmhaus investigates hermeneutical and literary appropriations in geonic e... more For his part, Lennart Lehmhaus investigates hermeneutical and literary appropriations in geonic era Midrash within a cultural and religious plurality of the formative Islamicate period. Contrary to earlier scholarship, beginning with the Wissenschaft des Judentums, which was primarily occupied with the adoption of Jewish motifs, narratives and literary elements, he draws attention to more subtle forms of exchange and processes of mutual cultural formation in early Islam.
The contribution discusses adoptions and adaptations that mirror developments Arab-Muslim and Syriac Christian traditions as well as shifts within broader Jewish culture, especially among grammarians, Scripturalists and pre-Karaite groups. In this context, an increased attentiveness to Hebrew and a ‘return to Scripture’ can be observed. Moreover, in contrast to the polyphonic discourses in classical Midrash, authorial voices emerge in later texts. Most likely, the literary and intellectual blooming among non-rabbinic Jews played a major role in linking Arab-Muslim culture with Midrashic appropriations.
“Through interaction with these and neighboring disciplines, scholars of Jewish, Christian and ot... more “Through interaction with these and neighboring disciplines, scholars of Jewish, Christian and other (late) ancient traditions will be able to explore comparatively how manifestations of knowledge (concepts, institutions, practices) impacted specific periods, and in turn were shaped by larger socio-historical, cultural and religious formations. It will require a thorough and inter-disciplinary study of many traditions (like rabbinic texts, Christian sermons, ascetic or monastic traditions) that were previously studied upon other terms (i.e. primarily as literature, philosophy, theology or religious law) in order to flesh out shared but also distinct ways of knowing.”
Collecting Recipes. Byzantine and Jewish Pharmacology in Dialogue., 2017
The basic difficulties of writing the history of pharmacology in the Greco-Roman medical traditio... more The basic difficulties of writing the history of pharmacology in the Greco-Roman medical traditions (and others, such as the ancient Egyptian or Mesopotamian tradition) become far more complicated when it comes to the Talmudic traditions. Accordingly, before delving deeper into the “sea of Talmud”, as it is often called in the Jewish tradition, to discover the pharmacological ”treasures” hidden in its depths, we first must briefly discuss the specific representation of medical information in terms of form, content, and context in Talmudic literature. Here, we must recall some important aspects that have been discussed already in the introduction. First, in contrast to the Greco-Roman medical tradition, very few texts in the Talmudic corpus contain any medical information, and we do not find any single works about medicine in Hebrew until the early Middle Ages (SeferAsaf).1 Second, in contrast to Greco-Roman technical literature, Talmudic and other rabbinic texts are characterized by anonymous and collective authorship, creating a polyphonic concert of different opinions. Moreover, since these rabbinical texts are in most cases our only extant sources, we know no more about Jewish medicine in Late Antiquity than the authors or transmitters of these works permit us to see.2 Third, we have to take into consideration the highly contextual nature of pharmaceutical knowledge that has been transferred to or integrated into rabbinic texts. As is the case with all other medical information, recipes, information about materia medica, and instructions about therapies are mentioned only in passing. Talmudic discourses about (religious) norms generally follow overarching principles that have little to do with knowledge of healing which occurs often as single teachings scattered in those broader Halakhic discussions.
Lennart Lehmhaus, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Freie Universität Berlin, examines the t... more Lennart Lehmhaus, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Freie Universität Berlin, examines the transfer of knowledge in Jewish antiquity—as well as the trajectories of that knowledge into current Jewish and Israeli culture. He is currently a Fellow at the Katz Center of Advanced Judaic Studies, exploring rabbinic approaches to medicine and science. His talk examines Talmudic healthcare as an arena of cultural competition and transfer between Jews and non-Jews.
Workshop: Performing Economies: Changing and Exchanging Goods in Pre-Modern Ritual Communities, a... more Workshop: Performing Economies: Changing and Exchanging Goods in Pre-Modern Ritual Communities, as part of the International Conference Wissensoikonomien – Order and Transgression in premodern Cultures, CRC/SFB 980 “Episteme in Motion. Transfer of Knowledge from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Period”, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt Forum, 28-30 June 2018.
Session theme: Remodeling Late Ancient Expertise, Program unit: Religious World of Late Antiquity... more Session theme: Remodeling Late Ancient Expertise, Program unit: Religious World of Late Antiquity, Annual meeting Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), Denver, Colorado, 16-20 November 2018 (11/18/2018).
Program Unit “Medicine in Bible and Talmud”, at the joint international meeting of the European A... more Program Unit “Medicine in Bible and Talmud”, at the joint international meeting of the European Association for Biblical Studies (EABS) and the Society for Biblical Literature (SBL), Helsinki, Finland, 30 July – 3 August 2018 (8/1/2018).
Abstract
Earlier scholarship on the history of medicine and science as well as on ancient Jewish history and Talmud tended to draw sharp distinction between rationale knowledge and magic or superstitious approaches to medicine and the body. Accordingly, many Talmudic passages with rather obscure recipes and therapeutic instructions have been interpreted as belonging to the latter category.
However, more recent studies into late ancient medicine, apotropaic texts and practices (e.g. , Aramaic and Syriac incantation bowls, papyri, amulets etc.) or into so-called miraculous healing in the Gospels and early Christian culture have pointed to the problematic nature of such a dichotomous approach. Projecting modern analytical distinctions between magic and medicine/science onto late ancient cultures, one risks to overlook the fluent boundaries and astonishing overlap between such ‘disciplines’ and their respective experts, even within the oeuvre of Graeco-Roman medical authors.
Moreover, Talmudic scholarship saw the rabbis in most cases as disapproving of magic and being solicitous about clear boundaries between legit religious practices and non-Jewish approaches that smacked of ‘magic’. This paper interrogates some passages with therapies and recipes that were seen as drawing heavily on ‘popular’ or ‘folk’ healing rather than on medical knowledge proper. However, reading them in light of recent scholarship, I will question usual assumptions about the exclusiveness of the spheres of medical, religious and ritual knowledge and its related practices for which ‘magic’ might be too narrow a category.
Within the Panel Section 6.01: Jewish Roots and Routes of Knowledge – Approaches to Medicine, Sci... more Within the Panel Section 6.01: Jewish Roots and Routes of Knowledge – Approaches to Medicine, Sciences and Knowledge in Pre-Modern Jewish Cultures.
Studies in the field of cultural history, (historical) anthropology, medicine, and psychology hav... more Studies in the field of cultural history, (historical) anthropology, medicine, and psychology have pointed out that pain is a complex phenomenon in which biological, cognitive-psychological and cultural dimensions overlap and intertwine. Different individuals as well as cultural and religious communities show a huge variety of reactions to and perceptions or conceptions of pain. Moreover, scholarship frequently tends to distinguish sharply between pain as a physiological fact and suffering as the culturally mediated perception of it. In Graeco-Roman traditions, we find a broad array of reactions to and representations of pain that oscillate between deep empathy, aesthetic pleasure and amazement to shock, terror and disgust. Moreover, early Christian and rabbinic traditions were equally seized with pain experience, be it as a spiritual challenge, as a task for endurance, or the idea of analgesia and imperviousness in the contexts of martyrdom, monasticism and ascetic practice.
Beyond these contexts, rabbinic traditions display a wide range of opinions regarding pain and suffering, often tied to questions of ritual, religious norms (Halakha), theology and theodicy. While touching upon those dimensions as well, the paper will focus on the specific renditions of pain as a complex, embodied experience. Talmudic and Midrashic traditions provide manifold and astonishing information on pain that affects humans and animals. Since historians of culture and ancient (medical) authors have stressed the importance but also the limits of language and verbal expression for this topic, I will discuss the nuanced terminology for pain and rabbinic ways of expressing and communicating its different manifestations. These texts also offer a glimpse into the ideas held by rabbinic authors and (possibly) larger audiences about strategies to cope (medicinally and socially) with pain or to ease and to alleviate suffering - on a personal as well as on a religious-cultural level.
Seminar “What did the rabbis know? – Exploring Jewish knowledge cultures in Late Antiquity”, 2 se... more Seminar “What did the rabbis know? – Exploring Jewish knowledge cultures in Late Antiquity”, 2 sessions, 11 papers, 14 contributors, American Association for Jewish Studies Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., 17-19 December 2017.
This paper focuses on content, form and function of medical knowledge to be found in rabbinic tex... more This paper focuses on content, form and function of medical knowledge to be found in rabbinic texts of Late Antiquity. While we find numerous texts on medicine and other technical knowledge in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman cultures, the Jewish medical discourse in (Late) Antiquity has been always embedded in other discursive contexts. So, both the earlier traditions (Mishnah/Tosefta) and the Talmudim contain many singular, and sometimes even complex and detailed passages about medical issues (e.g., physiology, anatomy, therapies, remedies, diet and regimen, etc.). Generally, this knowledge is widely dispersed within the Talmudic corpus. In some instances, however, one may discern coherent discursive frameworks, like clusters and lists providing more elaborated medical discussions, well integrated in their thematic (i.e. Halakhic) contexts.
This talk will discuss some significant passages providing theoretical and practical knowledge about cures and remedies (plants, animal parts, minerals and metals) as well as some disease classification. These therapeutic advices, mostly well embedded in their religious-normative contexts, do not only contain unexpected and sometimes puzzling details and terminology. Moreover, they display conceptual structures and literary techniques that point to a certain familiarity with technical genres (recipes and even pharmacopoeia), while deploying also traditional rabbinic discursive forms. Finally, I will compare the particularities of the discussions of similar issues in the two Talmudic traditions that might reflect different underlying cultural assumptions and medical approaches, possibly cultivated in their surroundings. This will shed some light on possible interactions with and transfers of medical ideas within ancient cultures and provides some keys to the specific ways in which the rabbis adopted, integrated and authorized such knowledge.
Earlier scholarship usually saw a sharp dichotomy between anonymous works by a collective authors... more Earlier scholarship usually saw a sharp dichotomy between anonymous works by a collective authorship of editors or compilers (the Talmudic mainstream and most Midrashim) and medieval treatises written by individual authors (like Sa’adya and several Geonim, Maimonides, Nachmanides etc.). However, these clear-cut distinctions concealed in many cases subtle developments of new forms of narration and new types of authorship in post-Talmudic texts, usually called ‘late Midrash’.
My paper will discuss some shifts and transformations of the presentation and deployment of an author-character and its authority within three different late midrashic traditions. Primarily, I will focus on Seder Eliyahu Zuta (SEZ), as well as its fellow-text called Seder Eliyahu Rabba (SER). These fascinating works (ca. 9th-10th ct.) are of a unique, though hybrid, character between a moral guidebook for righteous conduct and learned exposition (i.e. Midrash). The texts feature an exceptional figure of a first-person narrator in many passages that build the backbone of its complex discourse. While this author-persona seems at times to be an anonymous storyteller or preacher character, the text also spins many subtle links to the Biblical prophet Elijah himself. Another, nearly contemporary tradition of Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer (ca. 8th ct.) exhibits similar authorial features. The connection to R. Eliezer is elaborated upon not only in the title but also throughout the work and especially in the introductory chapters that construct an “intellectual biography” of its purported author. A third work, the so-called Alphabeta de-Ben Sira (10th/ 11th ct) introduces the whizz kid Ben Sira who grows from a witty but impudent toddler into a counselor at King Nebuchadnezzar’s court who is well-versed in all kinds of Jewish and foreign traditions. The narration follows Ben Sira’s coming of wisdom, which entails many critical side blows against some rabbinic traditions and other contemporary developments.
The paper will demonstrate the skillfulness with which those traditions employ their new ‘authors’ within different genres and micro-forms using exegetical and hermeneutical strategies which make the texts function for different audiences. Finally, a comparative perspective may shed some light on similar developments in the surrounding (Syriac-Christian, Muslim, Persian) cultures of the Geonic period that might have induced new concepts of authorship and narration in Jewish texts.
Conference “Judaism in the 7th and 8th Centuries”, Princeton University, 12-13 November 2017.
Invited lecture/seminar. Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville... more Invited lecture/seminar. Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 6 November 2017.
Abstract
Medicine, healing and healthcare in Late Antiquity were contested fields populated with a broad variety of practitioners. Their expertise often exhibit an astonishing overlap with other fields of knowledge (philosophy, religion, magic) in theory and practice. This paper will address different types of socio-medical interactions between Jews and non-Jews or rabbis and non-rabbinic experts regarding healing, pharmacology, midwifery and nursing. The discussion will also pay attention to cultural concepts and parallels in other ancient healing traditions that shaped the Talmudic discourse on practical healthcare.
Panel discussion and Workshop "Knowledge in Motion" (The Collaborative Research Center SFB 980 'E... more Panel discussion and Workshop "Knowledge in Motion" (The Collaborative Research Center SFB 980 'Episteme in Motion' in Dialogue), New York University, 16-17 October 2017.
Workshop "Jewish Studies: From an European Perspective", Mahindra Humanities Center and Center fo... more Workshop "Jewish Studies: From an European Perspective", Mahindra Humanities Center and Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University, 6 March 2017.
International Workshop 22-25 June 2024 Lausanne and Online For online or on-site participation, p... more International Workshop
22-25 June 2024
Lausanne and Online
For online or on-site participation, please register with:
dario.barberis@unil.ch
The whole world in a book-encyclopedic trends of collecting and ordering knowledge in Jewish trad... more The whole world in a book-encyclopedic trends of collecting and ordering knowledge in Jewish traditions and other cultures in the premodern world. This workshop inquires into the dynamics of encyclopaedic and compilational trends in ancient and medieval cultures and their various entanglements with bodies of law, legal text or religious texts (monastic orders, Halakha, ethical or normative discourse) and different branches of knowledge (including areas or disciplines such as architecture, agriculture, warfare, engineering etc.). Contributions may address the strategies of collecting, ordering, creating and transmitting knowledge, in encyclopaedic, compendia-like or other ways (libraries/archives/visually), and the goals as well as the (historical, political, social or religious) contexts and conditions that determined, stimulated, challenged or impeded such endeavors.
This conference will focus on the dynamics, exchanges and entanglements of important cultural (an... more This conference will focus on the dynamics, exchanges and entanglements of important cultural (and socio-political) spheres: law or legal thought, normative systems including religions, and sciences-broadly defined as areas of knowledge-in different cultures and traditions from antiquity into medieval time. This project enters into a conversation with recent scholarship that approaches legal traditions as repositories of cultural knowledge or describes the spill-over of scientific expertise into nontechnical (i.e. religious and legal) discourse. Speakers address epistemic dynamics and processes of interaction, both integration and rejection of concepts, terminology and practices in and between law/legal thinking, religious traditions, and scientific thought and practice that cross-fertilized and triggered developments in different historical contexts. Sponsored and organized by the research network Between Encyclopaedia and Epitome-Talmudic strategies of knowledge-making in the context of ancient medicine and sciences.
Conference page: https://kurzelinks.de/45fn
Food-Symbolism in Biblical and Extra-Biblical Perspective European Association of Biblical Studie... more Food-Symbolism in Biblical and Extra-Biblical Perspective
European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS), Warsaw, 11-14 August 2019
Workshop convened by Michaela Bauks (Koblenz-Landau), Christina Risch (Koblenz-Landau), Lennart Lehmhaus (Berlin)
Final Submission (proposals and travel grant applications): 28 FEBRUARY 2019
The aim of this interdisciplinary unit is to foster readings of meal and food in East Mediterranean antiquity.
EABS 2019 Meeting in Warszawa, Program Unit "Medicine in Bible and Talmud", 2019
Besides the broad scope of our research unit (Medicien in Bible and Talmud; and beyond), we invi... more Besides the broad scope of our research unit (Medicien in Bible and Talmud; and beyond), we invite for this years meeting in Warsaw proposals for individual papers and pre-organized sessions on the theme “Even the best among doctors is destined for Gehenna/Hell- ancient medical expertise and healing experts”.
Subsection (13 papers), “Jewish Roots and Routes of Knowledge – Approaches to Medicine, Sciences ... more Subsection (13 papers), “Jewish Roots and Routes of Knowledge – Approaches to Medicine, Sciences and Knowledge in Pre-Modern Jewish Cultures”, Panel Section 6.01 at the XIth Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) 2018, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, 15-19 July 2018.
Concept/Organization: Lennart Lehmhaus (Free University Berlin)
Panelists:
Monika Amsler (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Ezra Blaustein (University of Chicago, USA)
Carmen Caballero Navas (University of Granada, Spain)
Kenneth Collins (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel)
Federico Dal Bo (University Barcelona, Spain)
Magdalena Janosikova (Queen Mary University of London, UK)
Lennart Lehmhaus (Free University of Berlin, Germany)
Aviad Recht (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
Elisha Russ-Fishbane (New York University, USA)
Carsten Schliwski (University of Cologne, Germany)
Tamas Visi (Palacky University Olomouc, Czech Republic)
Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (Goldsmiths University of London, UK)
Nimrod Zinger (Achva Academic College, Israel)
Chairs:
Yossi Chajes (University of Haifa, Israel)
Lennart Lehmhaus (Free University of Berlin, Germany)
Assaf Tamari (The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Israel)
Giuseppe Veltri (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Program Unit/ 3 Panels (9 papers), “Magico-medical Knowledge and Practices among Jews and Others ... more Program Unit/ 3 Panels (9 papers), “Magico-medical Knowledge and Practices among Jews and Others in (Late) Antiquity”, Program Unit “Medicine in Bible and Talmud”, at the joint international meeting of the European Association for Biblical Studies (EABS) and the Society for Biblical Literature (SBL), Helsinki, Finland, 30 July – 3 August 2018.
Public lecture/seminar at SFB 980 “Episteme in Motion” and Research Group A03 “The Transfer of Me... more Public lecture/seminar at SFB 980 “Episteme in Motion” and Research Group A03 “The Transfer of Medical Epistemes in the ‘Encyclopaedic’ Compilations of Late Antiquity, TOPOI House Dahlem, Free University Berlin, 22 January 2018.
This seminar brings together scholars sharing an interest in an emerging subfield within rabbinic... more This seminar brings together scholars sharing an interest in an emerging subfield within rabbinic literature, in line with developments in adjacent disciplines. A growing number of projects and publications attest to an increasing awareness of new approaches (historical anthropology, cultural studies, critical science studies, gender studies) to the study of ancient sciences. Moreover, the diverse nature of ancient knowledge, its socio-historical contexts and varied ways of knowledge transfer have come more into focus.
Earlier studies typically assumed the idealized Graeco-Roman scientific thinking as the foil against which one retrieves parallels and influences, without paying attention to the plurality of cultural transfers and endemic developments in Late Antiquity. This seminar on rabbinic knowledge culture(s) from a comparative perspective engages a broader approach, asking how manifestations of different forms of ancient knowing impacted on the period under discussion, and in turn were shaped by larger socio-historical, cultural and religious formations. The contributions will inquire into different but interrelated fields of knowledge about nature and creatures (Watts Belser; Neis; Hayes), the body and medicine (Fonrobert, Lehmhaus), law, truth and philosophy (Hidary; Hayes), the senses and spatiality (Mandsager; Novick; Kalmin), and ethnography (Redfield). Special attention will be paid (e.g., by Kalmin; Hayes; Neis; Watts Belser; Fonrobert, Hoffmann Libson) to modes, practices, and concepts of knowing and reasoning (e.g., embodied knowledge; empiricism and theory; exegetical approaches) as well as to their epistemic dimensions (e.g., conceptualization of 'scientific' knowledge in ancient cultures and its embeddeness within other knowledge complexes; the "Jewishness" of knowledge in rabbinic texts). Papers will address rabbinic conceptions of knowledge transfer, acquisition or displacement with a focus on strategies of framing or representing expertise and experts in certain genres and discursive contexts (e.g., lists, de-/prescriptive narratives, Halakhic debates, compilational, encyclopaedic or epitomizing discourses).
The papers and discussions within this seminar shall help to increase the awareness for the topic within Jewish studies and beyond. Furthermore, the seminar will start a dialogue about methodological and theoretical issues at stake in such inquiries and it aims at fostering collaboration among the involved scholars and forging links between interested colleagues for future research on the topics at hand.
Program Unit/ 6 Panels (15 papers), “Literary and Discursive Framing of Medical Knowledge in Anti... more Program Unit/ 6 Panels (15 papers), “Literary and Discursive Framing of Medical Knowledge in Antiquity,” in the program unit “Medicine in Bible and Talmud” (2 co-sponsored with the EABS program unit “Early Christianity”), 7-11 August 2017, at European Association for Biblical Studies (EABS)/ SBL International Annual Meeting in Berlin/ Germany.
Outline of Panel section
Papers are invited on the theme of “Literary and discursive framing of concepts of (medical) knowledge in (Late) Antiquity”, extending from biblical and apocryphal texts, into later Jewish, Rabbinic-Talmudic traditions and beyond (i.e. early medieval time). The organizers explicitly welcome papers by scholars working on similar questions as those outlined in the following but dealing with neighboring or adjacent traditions (ancient Babylonia or Egypt; Graeco-Roman culture(s); Iranian traditions, early Christian or Syriac traditions; early Islam etc.)
Recent studies into ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman scientific traditions have emphasized the craft and artifice of those texts. On the one hand, these works can be characterized by a rather astonishing degree of literary expertise, discursive versatility and rhetorical sophistication. Ancient scientific authors were well versed not only in their very field of expertise but adopted and deployed many compositional techniques of their respective cultural milieu. On the other hand, scholars have pointed also to the complex framing of scientific knowledge in texts whose primary focus was poetic, historiographic or literary. This new trend in scholarship on ancient knowledge cultures pays attention to the complex interplay between form and content in the representations of these knowledge discourses. How does the use of rhetoric strategies, literary structures, or the choice of genres in ancient `scientific texts’ affect the ideas and concepts conveyed? In which ways does a specific hermeneutic (Listenwissenschaft/ encyclopaedism/ linguocentrism) not only serve as a ‘container’ but also as a method for knowledge acquisition
Based on these thoughts, the research unit welcomes presentations that ask how medical (and other related) knowledge is presented, or rather, represented in particular texts and contexts. Papers may address the question of how such knowledge discoursesare shaped and designed. One might ask further: who constructs this discourse and for whom? Which implicit or explicit authorial strategies and intentions might be discerned? How can the adoption or appropriation of certain textual strategies and compositional techniques rather be seen as a vital venue for knowledge transfer, rather than the actual content of the passage?
This set of questions pays attention to the embeddedness of medicine in Talmudic literature, other Jewish and further ancient traditions. So, it allows for valuable insights how medical information and other types of knowledge were integrated into different, overlapping discourses. Especially, the interplay between medical, religious, political, ethical and ritualdiscourses seems to be of crucial importance for a broader understanding of ancient knowledge cultures. Papers should be interested in a comparative approach and may apply theories and methods ranging from textual criticism and redaction history, toliteraryor discursive studies of ancient scientific texts that pay also attention to their socio-cultural framing. Jewish texts as a legacy and integral component of ancient Near Eastern cultures have to be examined carefully with regard to their concept of language, literacy/orality and their discursive techniques.
Although being primarily focused on Jewish traditions, the research unit would like to emphasize the comparative approach by inviting papers from scholars working in neighboring traditions on those and similar questions.
48th AJS Meeting, SAN DIEGO, DECEMBER 18–20, 2016, 2016
This session explores interrelated aspects of discourses on medical experts, healing and magic in... more This session explores interrelated aspects of discourses on medical experts, healing and magic in Jewish Late Antiquity in the light of their different cultural and religious milieux. The ambiguous relationship of the Talmudic rabbis as religious experts to other fields of expertise will be discussed. Competing experts and approaches challenged the rabbis' views, especially in delicate areas such as medicine, healing and magic. The comparison with non-rabbinic and non-Jewish healing cultures (magic bowls/ Christian texts/ Greco-Roman medicine) will help to figure out the particularities of the Talmudic approaches. All close readings will focus also on the literary or textual (re)presentations and the contextual integration of those discourses. Finally, the still strong dichotomy between religion and magic or (rationale) medicine and magic will be scrutinized. Shulamit Shinnar (New York) will discuss the relationship between doctors, rabbis and patients as described in the Palestinian rabbinic traditions. The talk addresses the sometimes tension-filled process of knowledge exchange between those groups with a special focus on the rabbinic attitudes. What kind of expertise do rabbis seek from doctors and in what particular circumstances? Furthermore, the particular rabbinic knowledge about the body will be evaluated through close readings against the backdrop of medical practice in the Greco Roman world. Monika Amsler (Zurich) revisits the rather puzzling question of the connections between medicine, magic and religion in Talmudic Judaism. Through a comparison with contemporary Christian attitudes to magic in the field of healing some of the distinct aspects of the pertinent discourse in the Babylonian Talmud will be fleshed out. Jason Mokhtarian (Bloomington) complements this discussion with a comparative analysis of a shared discourse on magic and medicine in late ancient Mesopotamia. By contextualizing the Jewish incantation bowls within a broader Aramaic culture of healing as attested in the Bavli, Syriac-Christian and Mandaic traditions, such knowledge and practices might have been rooted in the realm of endemic ancient Mesopotamian culture. The panel brings together fresh perspectives on complex interrelations between medicine and magic as cultural knowledge and practices in late ancient Judaism. All presenters provide innovative readings of rabbinic and other relevant sources equipped with a broad range of theoretical and methodological approaches. The presentations and the contribution of Charlotte Fonrobert, who will discuss the three papers in her response, intend to inspire lively discussions among the panelists as well as conversations with the audience interested in late ancient Jewish attitudes to medicine in Talmudic culture and beyond.
Works about regimen -proper nutrition, care of the body, and physical exercise -form a distinct g... more Works about regimen -proper nutrition, care of the body, and physical exercise -form a distinct genre in the corpus of Greek medical writings from as early as the 5th century BCE. The tradition is appropriated and re-organised in the early Byzantine medical encyclopaedias (Oribasius, Aetius of Amida and Paul of Aegina) and spread throughout the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Research suggests that most of the Mediterranean Jews espoused and adapted Graeco-Roman socio-cultural values and practices. This panel aims to examine the transfer, appropriation, and/or transformation of Greek medical theories or practices by comparing early Byzantine and rabbinic writings.
-long -up to 210 minutes, incl. a 30 min. break.
During her stay as a research fellow, Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (London) will present a lecture within t... more During her stay as a research fellow, Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim (London) will present a lecture within the framework of the Collaborative Research Center/ SFB 980 Jour Fixe on the topic:
"The Silk-Roads as a model for exploring Eurasian transmissions of medical knowledge"
(Friday, 24 June 2016, 10:00-12:00,SFB-Villa, Schwendenerstr. 8, 14195 Berlin)
Organised by Project A03/ Teilprojekt A03
"The Transfer of Medical Episteme in the ‘Encyclopaedic’ Compilations of Late Antiquity"
Sponsored by CRC/ SFB 980
"Episteme in Motion. Transfer of Knowledge from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Period"
Dr. Ronit Yoeli Tlalim and Dr. Lennart Lehmhaus will discuss and compare theories and practice in... more Dr. Ronit Yoeli Tlalim and Dr. Lennart Lehmhaus will discuss and compare theories and practice in the field of bloodletting as it appears in the Talmudic tradition and the Hebrew "Book of Asaf". Discussants: Prof. Markham J. Geller/ Tanja Hidde
Dr. Ronit Yoeli Tlalim (Goldsmiths, London) will offer a workshop on the "Book of Asaf" as part o... more Dr. Ronit Yoeli Tlalim (Goldsmiths, London) will offer a workshop on the "Book of Asaf" as part of her stay as a fellow at the Collaborative Research Center/ SFB 980 "Episteme in Motion. Transfer of Knowledge from the Ancient World to the Early Modern Period". The workshop is organised and hosted by Prof. Markham J. Geller and Dr. Lennart Lehmhaus of the research project A03 on Talmudic and Byzantine medical knowledge (http://www.sfb-episteme.de/en/teilprojekte/sagen/A03/index.html) .
Panel/ Session Organiser and Respondent: Dr. Lennart Lehmhaus Panel/ Session Chair: Prof. Charlo... more Panel/ Session Organiser and Respondent: Dr. Lennart Lehmhaus
Panel/ Session Chair: Prof. Charlotte Fonrobert
This panel examines different but interrelated aspects of discourses on bodies, health and disability in Jewish Late Antiquity against the backdrop of their cultural embeddedness in different context (i.e. Greco-Roman West and Iranian-Mesopotamian East). First, the panelists discuss the intertwinement of medical knowledge available to the rabbis and their religious and halakhic norms. Second, all presentations examine the nexus between abstract theological or scientific concepts and their more concrete implications in everyday life and cultural practices. Third, the contributions address the importance of literary and rhetoric representations of those ideas in narratives and other discursive forms.
To focus this meeting on the theme of Medical Practice will serve as a reminder that ‒ whatever e... more To focus this meeting on the theme of Medical Practice will serve as a reminder that ‒ whatever elaborate theories ancient experts might have held ‒ this was not all that mattered in the day-to-day needs of their profession. Yet, the paucity of written evidence and archaeological remains frequently tell us more about the intellectual underpinnings of ancient medicine than about actual medical procedures. Since theory and practice were of equal importance in the constitution and transmission of medical knowledge, it is worthwhile to try and tease out whatever infor¬ma¬tion is available about the reality of me¬di¬cal treatments. The conference presentations will address the different healing practices (dia¬gno¬sis, bloodletting, surgery and other forms of treat¬ment, including incantations) and the ways in which this practical medical knowledge was gained and transferred via experts, institutions and pro¬cedures. The multi-perspective comparative approach to Mesopotamian, Greek, Byzantine, Jewish-Talmudic, Chinese, Persian and Syriac medical traditions will help to sharpen the understanding of practical medicine in the Medi¬terranean across different periods and in varying socio-cultural contexts.
Courtesy of the research project A03 on Talmudic and Byzantine Medical Knowledge in Late Antiquit... more Courtesy of the research project A03 on Talmudic and Byzantine Medical Knowledge in Late Antiquity at the Collaborative Research Center SFB 980 “Episteme in Motion” at Free University Berlin.
http://www.sfb-episteme.de/en/teilprojekte/sagen/A03/index.html
International Workshop „Practical Knowledge and Medical Practice in Ancient Mediterranean Culture... more International Workshop „Practical Knowledge and Medical Practice in Ancient Mediterranean
Cultures“, Project A03/ SFB 980, Freie Universität und Humboldt-Universität Berlin, 3
November 2015
International Conference “Finding, Inheriting or Borrowing? Construction and Transfer of Knowledg... more International Conference “Finding, Inheriting or Borrowing? Construction and Transfer of Knowledge about Man and Nature in Antiquity and the Middle Ages”, hosted by the GRK/ Research Training Group 1876 "Early Concepts of Man and Nature: Universal, Local, Borrowed", 14-16 September 2016, Johannes-Gutenberg-University Mainz
Ein pluriverses Universum, 2015
Journal for the Study of Judaism, Jan 31, 2019
Journal of Early Christian History, 2022
Forms of List-Making: Epistemic, Literary, and Visual Enumeration, 2022
This chapter explores the diverse manifestations of lists in rabbinic texts of late antiquity and... more This chapter explores the diverse manifestations of lists in rabbinic texts of late antiquity and their complex strategies of structuring, producing, and conveying knowledge through lists. The discussion is embedded within a broader perspective on lists as didactic and epistemic tools within ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. I argue that lists play an important role in the production of knowledge in premodern Jewish culture. The following examples aim to demonstrate that in Talmudic medical discourse, in legal prescriptions, in exegetical and in ethical midrashic texts, lists function as a versatile “epistemic form.” Lists shaped the rabbinic collections of law and lore that functioned simultaneously as cultural inventories, store houses of knowledge, and practical reference works. They thus facilitate the transfer of knowledge of the world and of the body into the world of the rabbinic study house and eventually into the quasi-canonical Talmudic corpus, an ...
HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG Defining Jewish Medicine brings together a group of scholars from different f... more HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG Defining Jewish Medicine brings together a group of scholars from different fields within Jewish studies who deal with Jewish medical knowledge in ancient and medieval time from a comparative perspective. Based on various methodological and theoretical questions, they address strategies of interaction with earlier Jewish traditions and with other fields of rabbinic discourse (e.g. law, theology, ethics), while exploring the complex interplay between literary forms and the knowledge conveyed. The studies trace ways of transmission, transformation, rejection, modification and invention of pertinent knowledge in Jewish traditions and beyond by examining broader contexts and points of contact with medical ideas and practices in surrounding cultures (Ancient Near East, Graeco-Roman, Byzantine, Persian-Iranian, early Christian, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic and Islamic). Such a twofold perspective allows for assessing particularities of the medical discourse within Jewish his...
With a clear comparative approach, this volume brings together for the first time contributions t... more With a clear comparative approach, this volume brings together for the first time contributions that cover different periods of the history of ancient pharmacology, from Greek, Byzantine, and Syriac medicine to the Rabbinic-Talmudic medical discourses. This collection opens up new synchronic and diachronic perspectives in the study of the ancient traditions of recipe-books and medical collections. Besides the highly influential Galenic tradition, the contributions will focus on less studied Byzantine and Syriac sources as well as on the Talmudic tradition, which has never been systematically investigated in relation to medicine. This inquiry will highlight the overwhelming mass of information about drugs and remedies, which accumulated over the centuries and was disseminated in a variety of texts belonging to distinct cultural milieus. Through a close analysis of some relevant case studies, this volume will trace some paths of this transmission and transformation of pharmacological knowledge across cultural and linguistic boundaries, by pointing to the variety of disciplines and areas of expertise involved in the process.
Jewish Studies Quarterly, 2012
Collecting Recipes, 2017
The basic difficulties of writing the history of pharmacology in the Greco-Roman medical traditio... more The basic difficulties of writing the history of pharmacology in the Greco-Roman medical traditions (and others, such as the ancient Egyptian or Mesopotamian tradition) become far more complicated when it comes to the Talmudic traditions. Accordingly, before delving deeper into the “sea of Talmud”, as it is often called in the Jewish tradition, to discover the pharmacological ”treasures” hidden in its depths, we first must briefly discuss the specific representation of medical information in terms of form, content, and context in Talmudic literature. Here, we must recall some important aspects that have been discussed already in the introduction. First, in contrast to the Greco-Roman medical tradition, very few texts in the Talmudic corpus contain any medical information, and we do not find any single works about medicine in Hebrew until the early Middle Ages (SeferAsaf).1 Second, in contrast to Greco-Roman technical literature, Talmudic and other rabbinic texts are characterized by anonymous and collective authorship, creating a polyphonic concert of different opinions. Moreover, since these rabbinical texts are in most cases our only extant sources, we know no more about Jewish medicine in Late Antiquity than the authors or transmitters of these works permit us to see.2 Third, we have to take into consideration the highly contextual nature of pharmaceutical knowledge that has been transferred to or integrated into rabbinic texts. As is the case with all other medical information, recipes, information about materia medica, and instructions about therapies are mentioned only in passing. Talmudic discourses about (religious) norms generally follow overarching principles that have little to do with knowledge of healing which occurs often as single teachings scattered in those broader Halakhic discussions.
Finding, Inheriting or Borrowing?, Dec 31, 2019
The study of ancient Jewish knowledge culture(s), while still in its incipient stage, has develop... more The study of ancient Jewish knowledge culture(s), while still in its incipient stage, has developed into an emerging subfield, which seems to offer multiple opportunities of entering into a dialogue with different neighboring disciplines, as it has happened during the scholarly gathering from which this paper emerges. 1 In the wake of the cultural turn in the humanities and following the 1 I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers for inviting me to a truly inspiring conference that brought me in September 2016 to Mainz. I also would like to thank the editors of this volume for their hard work and their many efforts required for publishing this volume. Furthermore, I am indebted to Markham J. Geller and Philip van der Eijk for their constant support, as well as to my colleagues with whom I work comparatively on late ancient medical episteme (project A03) within the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Center SFB 980 "Episteme in Motion" at the Freie Universität Berlin. Parts of this paper were (re)written in 2017, the year I spent as a Harry Starr Fellow in Judaica at the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University and as a Rothfeld Fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, within the program on "Nature between Science and Religion: Jewish Culture and the Natural World". During both fellowships, this paper benefitted equally from the rich holdings of the libraries at both universities, and from inspiring conversations with colleagues from different fields. Several parts of the current chapter were presented and discussed in the Starr-seminar at Harvard, in the Ruth Meltzer-seminar at the Katz Center and at the Katz-symposium "Jews and
Journal of Jewish Studies
Infrastructural Contexts and the Licensing of Empiricism in Ancient and Medieval Mesopotamia, 2015
Attention to dreams, including rules and guides for the interpretation of dreams, and practices e... more Attention to dreams, including rules and guides for the interpretation of dreams, and practices enabling active dream cultivation, are common globally in many religions, and esotericism has been especially rich in them. This session explores the esoteric use of lucid active dreaming and dream interpretation, from medieval oneiric techniques through early modern case studies to contemporary dreamwork.
Courtesy of the research project A03 on Talmudic and Byzantine Medical Knowledge in Late Antiquit... more Courtesy of the research project A03 on Talmudic and Byzantine Medical Knowledge in Late Antiquity at the Collaborative Research Center SFB 980 “Episteme in Motion” at Free University Berlin.
http://www.sfb-episteme.de/en/teilprojekte/sagen/A03/index.html
Roundtable Discussion (30 min) Discussion (40 min) S18-230 Pauline Epistles / History and Literat... more Roundtable Discussion (30 min) Discussion (40 min) S18-230 Pauline Epistles / History and Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism
For all those going to SBL/AAR in denver 2022 now.
For all those goind to SBL-AAR in Denver for the 2022 annual meeting
AJS paper, presented at AJS Annual Conference (Online), 17 December 2024