Where do the origins of the rabbinic movement lie, and how might
evidence from the early rabbinic literature be made to reveal those
origins?
In order to shed light on the early social formation of the rabbinic
guild of masters, Lightstone brings the theoretical and methodological
insights of socio-rhetorical analysis to examine Mishnah, the first
document authored by the early rabbinic movement and its principal
object of study for several centuries.
He argues that the enshrinement of Mishnah served to model, via its
pervasive rhetoric, the principal authoritative guild expertise that
qualified and marked one as a member of the rabbinic guild. Furthermore,
he establishes the social and historical venue in late second- and early
third-century Galilee.
The author concludes that the social formation of the early rabbinic
guild coalesced around the institution of the Jewish Patriarchy, for
which the early rabbis served as bureaucratic-scribal retainers. He
further suggests that the development of both the Patriarchy in the Land
of Israel and the social formation of the rabbinic guild may have been
spurred by the imposition of Roman-style urbanization in the region over
the course of the latter half of the second and beginning of the third
century.
Lightstone's approach is informed by the insights and methods of several
cognate disciplines, encompassing literary analysis, sociology and
anthropology, and history (including, in the last chapter, the history
of material culture). The book will be of interest to advanced students
in the history of Judaism, rabbinic literature, biblical studies, early
Christianity, and the history of religion and culture in the late Roman
Near East.
