The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs

by Ephraim E. Urbach

"...an indespensable book for all those who are curious to know how the rabbis of the Talmud handled philosophical and theological issues. It has few peers."
--David Weiss Halivni


Based on an exhaustive study of the sources by means of philological-historical methods, the work presents a vivid picture of the religious and social thoughts of the Tanna'im and Amora'im, their absorption and rejection of extraneous concepts, their spiritual struggles and the goals they sought to achieve. The intellectual ferment marking this era crystallized principles that fashioned the Jewish national and religious image for generations.

The wisdom of the great Jewish teachers of antiquity is on display here like in no other book. Two indexes (one by topic, one by texts mentioned and both are hyperlinked to their relevant pages for ease of use) help the reader make use of the many obscurer texts that Urbach quotes, some of them virtually impossible to find in translation anywhere.

The sheer wealth of material collected in this volume is amazing. The book is well organized by 'doctrine' or belief, and Urbach does an excellent job of quoting the texts that he uses to come to his conclusions about what the Sages (Rabbis) believed, when and where they believed it, and how the belief changed over time.

The Sages is richly rewarding contribution to religious history and rabbinic thought and belief.

Genres: Judaism, Religion

1084 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Therese · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this massive doorstop of a book, scholar Ephraim Urbach explores the worldview of the rabbis of the Talmud through the primary texts. Urbach's thoroughness is an amazing achievement, and reading through just a few chapters will leave you much more enlightened about what rabinnic Judaism is all about than when you started. The big limitation of the book, however, derives largely from the nature of the rabbinic sources themselves - namely, that this literature arose out of oral traditions as a compendium of legal rulings, rather than through the systematic effort of a unified author's effort ... as a result, Urbach's careful scholarship, through no fault of his own, often is incapable of conveying a sense of historical context - instead, it often starts to read like a series of paragraphs arranged by topic that sound like: "And then R. Such-and-such said this, and then R. Whosit said that, and then R. Thingamajig said that." That said, this is a fabulous resource if you have the patience to work through individual chapters.

[فؤاد · Rating 4 out of 5]

کمابیش شبیه به کتاب گنجینه‌ای از تلمود بود، مضامین الهیاتی تلمود رو دسته‌بندی و معرفی کرده بود. با این فرق که این کتاب به‌روزتره و از مطالعات تاریخی استفاده کرده بود، مضامین تلمود رو در پس‌زمینۀ یونانی بررسی کرده بود، و به اکتشافات تاریخی مرتبط با مضامین مورد بحث اشاره کرده بود. گویا از کتاب‌های مرجع برای آشنایی با باورهای خاخام‌های تلموده.

[Brad Eastman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Given the subject of this book, I expected to be very engaged. Mr. Urbach traces the historical development of Jewish religious concepts from about 300 B.C.E to about 700 C.E. At his best, Mr. Urbach shows how Jewish thinking reflected, reacted and rejected contemporary Christian, Roman, Hellenistic and Persian analogues. The problem is that the writing style (maybe its the translation?) is so difficult that the message gets completely lost. The book is a beast, with almost 700 pages of text and 300 pages of notes. Frequently, paragraphs go for multiple pages, with erudite vocabulary that was designed to show off more than to communicate. Passages from relevant sources were frequently cited with no clear exposition of how they related to the topic under discussion. Footnotes turned into polemics against other writers' thoughts, sometimes with little or no obvious connection to the noted text. I am not sure who Mr. Urbach intended as the audience for this book. Perhaps he only directed it at scholars in the field with PhDs in ancient Jewish studies. The book was not marketed that way. I am not a scholar, but I am reasonably well read in Jewish thought and ancient history. I found this book so hard to read, that I almost quit in the middle several times - something that goes against everything I believe about reading!

[Stephie Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting enough. Provided a good presentation of the ideas that formed Judaism.