"Wasted seed", the history of a rabbinic idea
The many advances in source-criticism of the Babylonian Talmud can be a valuable tool in the study of the intellectual history of the rabbis. Here I attempt to combine source-criticism with philological and comparative methodologies to show that the idea that the non-procreative emission of semen is...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
College
1994
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| In: |
Hebrew Union College annual / Jewish Institute of Religion
Year: 1994, Volume: 65, Pages: 137-175 |
| IxTheo Classification: | BH Judaism |
| Further subjects: | B
Rabbinic Judaism
B Halacha |
| Summary: | The many advances in source-criticism of the Babylonian Talmud can be a valuable tool in the study of the intellectual history of the rabbis. Here I attempt to combine source-criticism with philological and comparative methodologies to show that the idea that the non-procreative emission of semen is in itself condemned is limited to the redactorial strata of the Babylonian Talmud. This difference might be due to differing assumptions about the nature of semen: for Palestinian rabbis, like their non-Jewish counterparts, sexual self-control and procreation were areas of concern, not semen per se. Later Babylonian rabbis, on the other hand, may have assumed that semen possessed special powers. This thesis is developed through: (1) close reading of the most important text on this idea, b. Nid. 13a—b; (2) examination of other occurrences of this idea in rabbinic literature, especially where they are paralleled in other rabbinic documents; and (3) comparison of the rabbinic assumptions revealed in these sources to non-rabbinic texts on the same topic. |
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| ISSN: | 0360-9049 |
| Contains: | In: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Hebrew Union College annual / Jewish Institute of Religion
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