The Mishna on Idolatry "Aboda Zara"

ISBN: 9781592448340

出版社: Wipf & Stock Publishers

出版年: August 2004

页数: 136

定价: 20USD

装帧: paper

内容简介

No. 2 (Texts and Studies: Contributions to Biblical and Patristic)

Avodah Zarah (Hebrew: "foreign worship," meaning "idolatry" or "strange worship") is the name of a tractate in the Talmud, located in Nezikin, the fourth Order of the Talmud dealing with damages. The main topic of the tractate is laws pertaining to Jews living amongst Gentiles, including regulations about the interaction between Jews and "idolaters" (who represented most of the Gentile population during the time of the Talmud), both for distancing Jews from the act of idolatry in every shape as well as distancing Jews from the threat of cultural assimilation.

Because of its subject matter, Avodah Zarah has probably been the most controversial tractate in the Talmud, and historically it has been the subject of severe Christian animosity and censorship. Christians saw the polemic of the tractate as being directed at them, and as painting them as idolaters and immoral people. The traditional Orthodox attitude has been that the tractate was authored in times of the Roman persecution and that this is what is generally meant by "idolatry" in the tractate.