People of the Book

Halbertal offers a sophisticated analysis of the development of Jewish text-centered cultures. His work is an important study for the history of interpretation within Judaism, though its significance as a model of how text-centered religions think extends even beyond Judaism...The work would make an excellent classroom introduction to the nature of the role that canonization plays in religions whose experience of the divine is mediated by the interpretation of sacred texts. This book is best suited to the philosophically sophisticated lay reader and to students or scholars of the sociology of religion. It should certainly be included among the holdings of all general, theological, and religious studies research libraries. -- Robert H. O'Connell Library Journal At once an introduction to Jewish hermeneutics, a reflection of canonicity, and a survey of Jewish politics of interpretation, this volume is lucidly composed and amply documented...This work is especially significant for its balanced and nuanced consideration of the "canonization of controversy" in Jewish thought. Particularly successful is Halbertal's use of his preferred expository device, the extended interpretation of selected controversies. Such closes analyses as, for example, those on R. Yair Bakhrakh and on the Maimonidean controversy are especially interesting. His probing review of philosophical and Kabbalistic challengers to Talmudism and his reflections on the Zionist turn from Talmud toward the Bible are careful and informative, yet also provocative. A desirable addition to undergraduate and graduate libraries. -- Steven M. Wasserstrom Religious Studies Review