Book Chapters by Dov Weiss
Jewish Culture and Creativity: Essays in Honor of Michael Fishbane, 2023
Studies in the Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Literature, 2021
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Studies in Rabbinic Narratives (Volume 1), 2021
This article challenges the scholarly consensus that the rabbis merely debated whether gentiles c... more This article challenges the scholarly consensus that the rabbis merely debated whether gentiles could deserve salvation. It claims that, while the rabbis did indeed debate this question in the tannaitic period (first and second centuries CE), the exclusivist position that the gentiles (with rare exceptions) are destined for Gehinnom reached near-unanimous consensus in later rabbinic periods (third to seventh centuries CE). That the rabbinic belief in the universal damnation of gentiles intensified over time has gone unnoticed in prior scholarship, both Jewish and Christian. The article further argues that Christian soteriological discourse impacted and eventually reinforced the rabbinic move towards greater exclusivism. Both groups now regarded salvation as determined by communal affiliation rather than moral uprightness. On the Christian side, that community was made up of believers; on the Jewish side, it was determined largely by ethnicity. The rabbis also polemically used the damnation of gentiles as a marker of Jewish supremacy; beginning in the fourth century CE, they initiated a new theological principle that all Jews, even sinners, would be saved from experiencing any of the tortures of Hell.
Black Fire on White Fire, 2017
The rabbis in a dozen or so texts declare “[whatever] the righteous decrees [of God], God fulfill... more The rabbis in a dozen or so texts declare “[whatever] the righteous decrees [of God], God fulfills.” Alternatively, the righteous are also described as being able to “nullify” the decrees of God (with their own decrees). This theological dictum, in either formulation, inverts the typical Jewish view that positions God as the one who decrees and Israel as the one who submits. This paper argues that
the rabbinic doctrine reflects not only a revolutionary hierarchical inversion between Commander and the one commanded, but an exegetical inversion between p’shat and derash. Put otherwise, this bold rabbinic theology is fueled by a bold rabbinic exegesis that relies on the very theology it generates.
Annotated Translations by Dov Weiss
Encyclopedia Articles by Dov Weiss
Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, 2023
The Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Religion, 2021
The Hebrew term midrash typically refers either to an ancient Jewish activity or a collection of ... more The Hebrew term midrash typically refers either to an ancient Jewish activity or a collection of Jewish books. As an activity, midrash (lower case m) constitutes a distinctive Jewish practice of biblical interpretation that seeks to unearth deeper meanings embedded within the Hebrew Bible (see bible, hebrew). As a collection of books, Midrash (upper case M) describes a group of rabbinic writings composed between the third and thirteenth century ce containing biblical interpretations.
Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, 2017
Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, 2017
Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, 2009
Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, 2009
Articles by Dov Weiss
Medieval Encounters 28:3, 2022
Original sin was one of the contentious issues that stood at the heart of the Catholic-Pelagian d... more Original sin was one of the contentious issues that stood at the heart of the Catholic-Pelagian debate in the early 400's. In recent years, patristic scholars have sought to uncover Cyril of Alexandria's (376-444 CE) position on this central Catholic teaching. This essay proposes that scholars have overlooked an important indicator of Cyril's view on this matter, that is, his multi-paged critique of the theological doctrine of parental sin that appears in his Commentary to the Gospel of John (9:1-3). I will argue that just as the debate over parental sin played an explicit and central role in the Augustinian-Pelagian debates on original sin, so too the debate over parental sin could shed some light on Cyril's attitude toward original sin.
From the earliest stages of Wissenschaft des Judentums, scholars of Judaism typically read statem... more From the earliest stages of Wissenschaft des Judentums, scholars of Judaism typically read statements about God in the classical sources of Judaism with a mediaeval philosophical lens. By doing so, they sought to demonstrate the essential unity and continuity between rabbinic Judaism, later mediaeval Jewish philosophy and modern Judaism. In the late 1980s, the Maimonidean hold on rabbinic scholarship began to crack when the ‘revisionist school’ sought to drive a wedge between rabbinic Judaism, on the one hand, and Maimonidean Judaism, on the other hand, by highlighting the deep continuities and links between rabbinic Judaism and mediaeval Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah). The revisionist scholars regarded rabbinic Judaism as a pre-cursor to mediaeval Kabbalah rather than mediaeval Jewish philosophy. This article provides the history of scholarship on these two methods of reading rabbinic texts and then proposes that scholars adopt a third method. That is, building on the work of recent scholarship, we should confront theological rabbinic texts on their own terms, without the guiding hand of either mediaeval Jewish framework.
This article challenges the scholarly opinion that, with regard to inherited guilt, the rabbis co... more This article challenges the scholarly opinion that, with regard to inherited guilt, the rabbis conformed to the early Christian position. By examining the rabbinic interpretations to intergenerational punishment (Exodus 20:5) with early Christian interpretations, I show, more generally, that unlike early Christian exegetes who openly valorize the ethical dimension as a hermeneutical-theological tool, the rabbis refuse to grant moral sensibilities explicit significance in their exegetical-theological project. This difference exposes a larger contrast: In early Christianity, the moral hermeneutic is presented as an unchanging exegetical principle; by contrast, for the rabbis, the moral dimension only reaches the level of exegetical impulse.
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Book Chapters by Dov Weiss
the rabbinic doctrine reflects not only a revolutionary hierarchical inversion between Commander and the one commanded, but an exegetical inversion between p’shat and derash. Put otherwise, this bold rabbinic theology is fueled by a bold rabbinic exegesis that relies on the very theology it generates.
Annotated Translations by Dov Weiss
Encyclopedia Articles by Dov Weiss
Articles by Dov Weiss
the rabbinic doctrine reflects not only a revolutionary hierarchical inversion between Commander and the one commanded, but an exegetical inversion between p’shat and derash. Put otherwise, this bold rabbinic theology is fueled by a bold rabbinic exegesis that relies on the very theology it generates.
Weiss argues that this particular Jewish relationship to the divine is rooted in the most canonical of rabbinic texts even as he demonstrates that in ancient Judaism the idea of debating God was itself a matter of debate. By elucidating competing views and exploring their theological assumptions, the book challenges the scholarly claim that the early rabbis conceived of God as a morally perfect being whose goodness had to be defended in the face of biblical accounts of unethical divine action. Pious Irreverence examines the ways in which the rabbis searched the words of the Torah for hidden meanings that could grant them the moral authority to express doubt about, and frustration with, the biblical God. Using characters from the Bible as their mouthpieces, they often challenged God's behavior, even in a few remarkable instances, envisioning God conceding error, declaring to the protestor, "You have taught Me something; I will nullify My decree and accept your word."