Rabbinic Judaism

by Jacob Neusner

Rabbinic Judaism, in its classical writings produced from the first through the seventh century of the Common Era, sets forth a theological system that is orderly and reliable. Responding to the generative dialectics of monotheism, Rabbinic Judaism systematically reveals the justice of the one and only God of all creation. Appealing to the truths of Scripture, the Rabbinic sages constructed a coherent theology, cogent structure, and logical system to reveal the justice of God. These writings identify what Judaism knows as the logos of God--the theology fully manifest in the Torah. This work make its contribution in seeing in the principal conceptions of Rabbinic Judaism a logos--a sustained, rigorous, coherent argument. A narrative story of the Rabbinic sages' theological system sounds remarkably familiar--the age-old story of God's justice (to which his mercy is integral), of humanity's relationship with god as a possessor of the power of will, and of humanity's sin and God's response