Academic Study of the Talmud

I. History

There are three main forms of academic study of the Talmud. The first focuses on the historical aspects - the realia and its correlation to other historical information; the language and its development; the history of the Jewish community of that time; etc. This be practiced giving rabbinic literature credibility in the matter or by over-valuing external sources of information and giving little credibility to rabbinic literature. It all depends on the scholar.

II. Form

The second deals with literary analysis of the Mishnah and Gemara. Studying the literary structures - the words used most heavily and most sparingly, the placement of passages, the "flow" of the text - and trying to deduce the intent of the author/redactor in utilizing those literary techniques. For example, one might study the organization of chapters in a tractate; why is a particular Mishnah included in a chapter that seems to be on a different subject? Or why did the redactor choose to order the chapters in this particular way? When dealing with Gemara, the analysis becomes even more sophisticated. Why did the redactor(s) ask these questions on a passage in this order? Why was this question, which is easily answered, asked at all but another, more difficult question that can be found elsewhere in the Talmud was not asked at all? Additionally, no literary analysis is complete without noticing the numerical patterns in the flow of the passage. Why are groups of three used more frequently than two or four?

This type of analysis generally fails (in my opinion) because it assumes that the texts were put together consistently and with great thought, rather than haphazardly and in a disorganized fashion. If the case is the latter, then any patterns found are just random. Questions were not asked simply because they weren't. There is no underlying theme. That's just the way it was. Occasionally, literary analysis will come up with a good question and - rarely - a good answer. But it is usually of the "Oh, that's mildly interesting" fashion.

III. Source

The third type of academic study of the Talmud is where all the excitement is at, if you can call it that (personally, I find academic study of the Talmud to be deathly boring). This is the identification of various strata within the Talmud, noting who said what and when. In itself, this is very helpful in understanding talmudic passages and is intuitively done to some extent by all veteran Talmud students (at least those who actually understand the text). The next step, though, is to analyze how the earlier sources are treated by later scholars, comparing parallel texts and how the statements differ in various places. Thus, an early Tanna might make a statement that is repeated differently in various contexts, and then later Amora'im debate what he actually meant, focusing on only one version of the statement and frequently limiting it to very specific cases. The source critic would isolate the original Tannaitic statement and differentiate it from the later Amoraic reinterpretations. Used sparingly and cautiously, this is not religiously objectionable. Indeed, there are a number of examples of the classic commentators doing this. However, doing this consistently demonstrates (in my opinion) a lack of faith in the Amora'im and a rejection of talmudic methodologies.

I was recently speaking with a biographer of Prof. Saul Lieberman (the book is set to come out next year) and he emphasized how strongly Prof. Lieberman was opposed to such source criticism. Even though he was careful not to criticize his students (with the exception of Jacob Neusner), he frequently told his students not to "[surgically] operate on the Gemara," which all understood as an instruction to steer clear of Prof. Halivni's source-critical methodology. Prof. Lieberman has an excellent article (titled "Tanna Heikha Kai") in the 1940 memorial volume for Moshe Schorr in which he demonstrates that we only have brief Tannaitic statements that really come from rich contexts that were not preserved in the written tradition. As he shows, implausible reinterpretations of Tannaitic statements by Amora'im are actually attempts to place the statements in their original contexts. In the rare occasions in which we can identify those original contexts, we can see that what looked like a far-fetched reinterpretation is actually the true meaning. Of course, sometimes we do not know the original context and the Amora'im struggle to try to discover it. But rather than being a reinterpretation, it is an authentic search for truth.

R. Yitzhak Hutner (Pahad Yitzhak, Hanukah 1:3) explains that when the Tanna'im decided to codify their Oral Torah they did so sparingly, retaining only the bare minimum and keeping out the larger contexts, as well as phrasing their words to incorporate complex meanings in as few words as posible. This was intentional in order to keep the Oral Torah as oral as possible and was understood by the Amora'im, who read the Mishnah with this history in mind. Looking at the Mishnah and the Gemara as purely written texts is both anachronistic and untrue.