Midrash Unbound

An impressive array of the leading names in the field have together produced a volume that seeks to open a new period in the study of Midrash and its creative role in the formation of culture. With a comprehensive Introduction that situates Midrash in its historical and rhetorical setting and provides the context for the detailed considerations of different genres and applications, it should interest all scholars of Jewish studies as well as a wider readership interested in how a classical genre can inspire new creativity.

Midrash is arguably the most ancient and native of Jewish genres, forming a voluminous literature of scriptural exegesis over the course of centuries. There is virtually nothing in the ancient rabbinic universe that was not taught through this medium. This volume presents the diversity and development of that creative profusion in a new light. It covers a broad range of literary texts, from late antiquity to the early modern period and from all the centres of literary creativity, including non-rabbinic and non-Jewish literature, so that the full extent of the modes and transformations of Midrash can be rightly appreciated.

A comprehensive Introduction situates Midrash in its full historical and rhetorical setting, pointing to creative adaptations within the tradition and providing a sense of the variety of genres and applications discussed in the body of the work.

Bringing together an impressive array of the leading names in the field, the volume is entirely new in scope and content; it seeks to open a new period in the study of Midrash and its creative role in the formation of culture. It should be of interest to all scholars of Jewish studies, both broadly and specifically, as well as to a wider readership interested in the interrelationships between hermeneutics, culture, and creativity, and especially in the afterlife of a classical genre and its ability to inspire new creativity in many forms. 

Contributors
Philip Alexander, Emeritus Professor of Post-Biblical Jewish Studies, University of Manchester

Sebastian Brock, Emeritus Reader in Syriac Studies, University of Oxford; Professorial Fellow of Wolfson College, Ocford

Jacob Elbaum, Professor Emeritus of Hebrew Literature, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Michael Fishbane, Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Chicago

Robert Hayward, Professor in the Department of Theology and Religion, University of Durham

William Horbury, Emeritus Professor of Jewish and Early Christian Studies, University of Cambridge

Sara Japhet, Professor Emeritus, Department of Bible, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Ephraim Kanarfogel, E. Billi Ivry Professor of Jewish History, Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, Yeshiva University

Naftali Loewenthal, Lecturer in Jewish Spirituality, University College London

Ivan G. Marcus, Frederick P. Rose Professor of Jewish History, Yale University

Alison Salvesen, University Research Lecturer, University of Oxford; Polonsky Fellow in Jewish Bible Versions, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies

Marc Saperstein, Professor of Jewish History and Homiletics, Leo Baeck College, London

Chava Turniansky, Professor Emerita, Department of Yiddish, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Piet van Boxel, Emeritus Curator of Hebraica, University of Oxford

Joanna Weinberg, Reader in Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford; Catherine Lewis Fellow in Rabbinics, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies

Benjamin Williams, Oriental Institute, University of Oxford

Elliot Wolfson, Abraham Leberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University

Eli Yassif, Zvi Berger Professor of Jewish Folk-Culture, The School of Jewish Studies, Tel-Aviv University