The wisdom of the fathers : a commentary on tractate Avot / Günter Stemberger

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stemberger, Günter, 1940- author.

Series:

Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft ; 565.

Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft ; volume 565

Language:

English

Hebrew

Subjects (All):

Mishnah. Avot--Commentaries.

Mishnah.

Mishnah. Avot.

Genre:

Commentaries

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Berlin : De Gruyter, [2025]

Language Note:

In English, with Hebrew quotations and translations into English

Summary:

"Tractate Avot of the Mishnah is generally dated in the third century and is considered the basic text of rabbinic Judaism. The present commentary proposes a critical re-evaluation of this position. The commentary obviously tries to interpret the individual sayings of Avot as to their literary characteristics, their cultural context and their original meaning. But above all it tries to contextualize the tractate within rabbinic literature, to analyse its language/phraseology and to trace its earliest evidence and its use in later rabbinic literature. This approach will demonstrate that some sayings are well known even outside Avot already in the earliest rabbinic tradition, but that many other sayings do not reflect general rabbinic theology and seem to be almost unknown in rabbinic tradition before the late eighth century. This leads to the conclusion that only a kernel of the text existed already in the time of the Mishnah; its greater part grew in the following centuries. Only in the eighth century the tractate as we know it, reached its nearly final form and became soon popular due to the introduction of its text into the reading of the synagogue"-- De Gruyter Brill

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes

Online resource; title from PDF title page (De Gruyter Brill, viewed June 17, 2026)

Contains:

Container of: Mishnah. Avot

Container of: Mishnah. Avot. English

Other Format:

Print version: Stemberger, Günter, 1940- Wisdom of the fathers

ISBN:

9783111557281

3111557286

9783111556994

3111556999

9783111556864

3111556867

OCLC:

1526228440

Publisher Number:

CIPO000242695

CIPO000242694

9783111556864

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license