Rabbinic Body Language: Non-Verbal Communication in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity

Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-90-04-33905-7
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 179, 300 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 522 g

Reihe: Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism

This study constitutes the first comprehensive examination of rabbinic body language represented in Palestinian rabbinic sources of late antiquity. Catherine Hezser examines rabbis’ appearance and demeanor, spatial movement, gestures, and facial expressions on the basis of literary and social-anthropological methods and theories. She discusses the various forms of rabbis’ non-verbal communication in the context of Graeco-Roman and ancient Christian literary sources and in connection with the material culture of Roman and early Byzantine Palestine. Catherine Hezser convincingly shows that in rabbinic literature body language serves as an important means of rabbis’ self-fashioning. Rabbinic texts create the image of a particularly Jewish type of intellectual who functioned and competed for adherents within the highly visual and body-conscious environment of late antiquity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hezser, Catherine

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien Rabbinische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Geschichte des Judentums Geschichte des Judentums: Biblische & Klassische Periode

Über Autor(innen)

Catherine Hezser. Dr. theol. (1986) University of Heidelberg; Ph.D. (1992) Jewish Theological Seminary of America; Habilitation (1997) Free University Berlin, is Professor of Jewish Studies at SOAS, University of London. Her most recent monograph is Jewish Travel in Antiquity (Tübingen, 2011).