Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash

by Daniel Boyarin

Proceeding by means of intensive readings of passages from the early midrash on Exodus The Mekilta , Boyarin proposes a new theory of midrash that rests in part on an understanding of the heterogeneity of the biblical text and the constraining force of rabbinic ideology on the production of midrash. In a forceful combination of theory and reading, Boyarin raises profound questions concerning the interplay between history, ideology, and interpretation.

Genres: Jewish, Judaism, Religion, Academic

Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Daniel Boyarin, Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture and rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. His books include A Radical Jew, Border Lines, and Socrates and the Fat Rabbis. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boyarin here provides a new perspective for understanding Midrash. Indeed, he succeeds at providing a convincing model of reading midrash, and the interpretations he is able make are thicker and of more interest than simply attributing different sayings to different authors and contexts. Boyarin is concerned not simply to dissect the texts, but to inquire more deeply into what the peculiarities of midrashic reading of the Hebrew Bible are doing, and what they therefore mean. The model of intertextuality is brilliantly suited to this task both as a means for reading midrashic texts and for understanding the ways midrashic texts interpret biblical texts. Just as the midrash works with the gaps in the biblical text to find meaning, Boyarin works with the gaps in the midrashic texts to give a thicker description of what the texts means than form or source criticism is able to find. At times, Boyarin comes dangerously close to conflating 20th century literary theory and rabbinic midrashic methodology which predated Kristeva by hundreds of years. While in the last chapter Boyarin rightly interprets midrash as somewhere between history and intertextuality, the study generally favors the intertextual model, sometimes apparently blind to the (socio-)historical questions that need to be asked of the text. That said, the study is a great foundational tool for understanding midrashic texts.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

thank you, daniel boyarin (and more specifically this book) for constituting the theoretical underpinning for my whole damn thesis. i would say goddamn but it seems ironic to take God's name in vain in reference to a thesis technically about Him.

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not always the easiest read, but his insights into midrash are foundational.