A Rabbinic Epistemic Genre

Lehmhaus focuses on the variegated forms and functions of lists in Jewish textual traditions from late antiquity, commonly known as rabbinic or talmudic literature. As he shows, Rabbinic works deploy lists for different discursive purposes-- exegetical, homiletical, narrative-- embedded in their ancient Near Eastern surroundings and based on a long tradition derived from biblical and other ancient Jewish traditions. Lehmhaus argues that rabbinic texts deploy the versatility or affordance of the list not only for ordering knowledge but also for the very process of knowledge turning them into a powerful ‘epistemic genre’. He suggests that rabbinic authors may have arrived at certain conclusions precisely in and through lists in which specific concepts or taxonomies were tried out before becoming more manifest or substantiated. This argument is exemplified by focusing on complex types of list in two tractates of the Babylonian Talmud, which can be described as clusters, sequences, or, most compellingly, as catalogues.