A Minor for Zimmun (Y. Ber. 7:2, 11c) and Recensions of Yerushalmi

Abstract

The literary and historical study of rabbinic literature increases our understanding of rabbinic texts and enables us to isolate different stages in the history of traditions. Amoraic teachings, in particular, have undergone a complex process of enunciation, interpretation, transmission, adaption, and application prior to their incorporation into their present contexts. They have likewise received literary enrichment and suffered recasting in the course of their integration into wider units and of the overall compilation of gemara. Accordingly, the extant versions may not reflect the most fundamental or original use and import of a tradition. Once aware of these processes we can, moreover, better appreciate the concerns which elicited and shaped the early stages of the teachings as well as the later ones which may have contributed to the transformations.