Antiquitopia

As you can see by my sidebar, I have added numerous ancient (and some medieval) Jewish manuscripts, texts, and translations.  Because of the sheer number and range of materials, I have not placed them in my typical order of digitized manuscripts, original language texts, and then translations, but largely in Chronological order and by collection: see ancient Jewish materials (Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Philo, and Josephus) and then Rabbinic Materials (Mishnah, Talmud, etc.). There is plenty here, but if you know of any good websites, especially having digitized manuscripts or original language materials, please pass along the information. Moreover, check out the earlier sections (Biblical and early Christian), because I have added some materials to those as well.

Michael Satlow has an interesting idea for those who study Rabbinics:  to kill it.  He writes: The fundamental problem is that “rabbinics” implies both a body of literature and a distinctive methodology or approach to that literature.  In some quarters in Israel this perhaps accurately describes, for good or bad, how rabbinic literature is studied (e.g., philologically in a “department” of Talmud).  In the American academy, however, “rabbinics” is not a discipline.  Those of us who primarily use rabbinic literature are situated in departments of religious studies (most frequently), language and culture, and history.  We are scholars trained in a particular discipline who use rabbinic texts for our data.  I do not “do rabbinics.”  I “do” Jewish history in antiquity, using rabbinic texts as one (even if it is the primary) set of sources. From there, he thinks Rabbinics scholars could take a lesson from scholars of Christianity in late a...