Shai Secunda
I hold the Jacob Neusner chair in the History and Theology of Judaism at Bard College, where I teach Jewish and Religious Studies, including Zoroastrianism, in the Interdisciplinary Studies of Religions program. I am a student of late antique Judaism, rabbinic literature (especially Talmud), Iranian studies, and comparative religion.
My first book, "The Iranian Talmud: Reading the Bavli in its Sasanian Context" (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) argues that the foundational document of Judaism, the Babylonian Talmud, is best appreciated when read firmly within its late antique Iranian context. "The Iranian Talmud" describes the vibrant world in which the Talmud was produced and suggests a set of hermeneutical practices for reading it contextually.
My second book, "The Talmud's Red Tent: Menstrual Impurity and Difference in Babylonian Judaism and its Sasanian Context," (Oxford University Press, 2020) shows how rituals and beliefs concerning menstruation in the Babylonian Talmud and neighboring Sasanian religious texts were animated by difference and differentiation.
My current book-length project is entitled "Sea of Babylon: The Talmudic Anthology in the
Sasanian Sphere". The book reconsiders the Talmud's unusual anthological habit, where it constitutes the sprawling and singular compilation of Babylonian rabbinic Jewry. I consider the evolution of *Babylonian* learning as a distinctive practice; re-examine the shape and feel of the texts available to the Talmud's compilers; and take stock of the Talmud's persistent inclusion of material unrelated to the interpretation of the Mishnah and its themes. As in prior work, I use both philology and contextualization (including Middle Persian texts and the Aramaic incantation bowls) to illuminate how the Talmud became an embracing, sea-like anthology within the space of Sasanian Mesopotamia.
My first book, "The Iranian Talmud: Reading the Bavli in its Sasanian Context" (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) argues that the foundational document of Judaism, the Babylonian Talmud, is best appreciated when read firmly within its late antique Iranian context. "The Iranian Talmud" describes the vibrant world in which the Talmud was produced and suggests a set of hermeneutical practices for reading it contextually.
My second book, "The Talmud's Red Tent: Menstrual Impurity and Difference in Babylonian Judaism and its Sasanian Context," (Oxford University Press, 2020) shows how rituals and beliefs concerning menstruation in the Babylonian Talmud and neighboring Sasanian religious texts were animated by difference and differentiation.
My current book-length project is entitled "Sea of Babylon: The Talmudic Anthology in the
Sasanian Sphere". The book reconsiders the Talmud's unusual anthological habit, where it constitutes the sprawling and singular compilation of Babylonian rabbinic Jewry. I consider the evolution of *Babylonian* learning as a distinctive practice; re-examine the shape and feel of the texts available to the Talmud's compilers; and take stock of the Talmud's persistent inclusion of material unrelated to the interpretation of the Mishnah and its themes. As in prior work, I use both philology and contextualization (including Middle Persian texts and the Aramaic incantation bowls) to illuminate how the Talmud became an embracing, sea-like anthology within the space of Sasanian Mesopotamia.
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The paper then focuses on a remarkable Talmudic source which describes the composition of the Babylonian rabbinic endeavor, called simply “Babylonia,” as a mixture of Scripture, Mishnah, and talmud, while an immediately adjacent teaching refers to the “talmud of Babylonia.” It is suggested that this source developed from earlier precursors, dates to a relatively late point in the Talmudic era, and perhaps, in its final form, is the work of post-amoraic sages who thought that the principle of anthological “mixing” was central to the identity of the rabbinic discourse, or talmud, of Babylonia—a discourse that would ultimately crystalize into the Babylonian Talmud as we know it.