"A great voice that did not cease"

About this book

The work shows the growth of various rabbinic methods of interpreting the Torah in order to draw legal conclusions from it. The use style, and format of these methods changed from their earliest beginnings during the Tannaitic period (c. 90-220 CE) until the end of the talmudic period (late 6th-early 7th century). Chernick sees these changes as due to successive generations viewing the work of their predecessors as a form of divine revelation. This meant that later rabbinic generations treated the results of former generations interpretations and legal conclusions as if it were Scripture itself. This allowed later rabbinic sages to apply methods of interpretation once reserved for Scripture to earlier rabbinic works and interpretations. Chernick focuses on six midrashic hermeneutics: outright midrashic resolutions of contradictions in scripture; distinguishing between what constitutes true scriptural proof and what is merely a support text; a midrashic hermeneutic that transfers the rules of one rubric to another; two hermeneutics that limit interpretive extensions of halakhot; and, the claim that two redundant pentateuchal rubrics are needed to ward off incorrect analogies. Chernick not only analyzes and illustrates these hermeneutical methods in great detail. He highlights the significant changes that occurred in rabbinic legal hermeneutics from the tannaitic through post-amoraic strata of rabbinic literature - some 500 years at least - as well as the persistence and continuity of rabbinic hermeneutical interests evidenced through such changes.