| Classical rabbinic literature presents us with a textual world of law and narrative, a weaving of one genre into the other, and a use of one genre in the service of the other. Despite this literary evidence, scholarship has, until recently, tended to focus either on law, halakhah, or on narrative, aggadah. Such a dichotomy prevents us from a full understanding of the rabbinic cultural world and, in particular, the ways in which the ancient rabbis formed their legal nomos. Addressing this scholarly lacuna, this dissertation examines the uses of Biblical narrative for classical rabbinic law. More specifically, the dissertation focuses on selected narratives from the book of Genesis and analyzes how they are utilized in the process of law creation.; Drawing on legal theory connected to the Law and Literature movement, this dissertation demonstrates two main points. First, while rabbinic sources debate the readings of particular verses and larger Scriptural narratives, they do not question the use of Scriptural narrative for law. Second, rabbinic legal exegesis is linked with a wider web of aggadic exegesis. I argue that legal interpretation of Scriptural narratives does not necessarily rely on the atomistic analysis of selected verses but is instead consonant with a larger world of aggadic interpretation.; Chapter 2 analyzes Genesis 22, the binding of Isaac, as a source for law concerning ritual slaughter. Chapter 3 analyzes Genesis 24, the marriage of Rebecca, as a source for marital law. Chapter 4 analyzes Genesis 50, the death of Jacob, as a source for mourning law. While these three Genesis narratives do not mark themselves as legal texts, rabbinic literature certainly understands them in such a way. In each chapter, I focus on a Palestinian and a Babylonian text, indicating the comparative nature of this work. This dissertation offers a model for the way in which, through the process of rabbinic reading, Biblical narrative becomes intimately linked with rabbinic law and the significance of that connection: law's integration of deep narrative resonances. |
