The Classic Midrash: Tannaitic Commentaries on the Bible by Reuven Hammer with a Foreword by Judah Goldin.

The contents of midrashic-talmudic literature may be described as the answer to two questions. The first is, How shall we conduct ourselves and our institutions (halakah); the second is, What contemporary significance is there to the inherited records our Teachers designate as kitbe ha-qodesh, Sacred Scriptures, and that is haggadah.

Midrash is exegesis, explanation of a biblical text and commentary on it. In this latest volume in the Classics of Western Spirituality series, Reuven Hammer brings a selection of these "God-intoxicated texts" of the early rabbinic masters, the Tannaim, to a wider public and accompanies them with explanations and commentary on their theological, literary, and historical importance.

Paperback
576pp
November 1994
ISBN: 0809135035
ISBN-13: 9780809135035