Die Opferung/Bindung Isaaks, Bd. 2, Gen. 22, 1-19 in fruhen rabbinischen Texten

Die Opferung/Bindung Isaaks, Bd. 2, Gen. 22, 1-19 in fruhen rabbinischen Texten, by Lukas Kundert. WMANT 79. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1998. Pp. x + 218. DM 98.00. This book pleasantly surprised me. The modern trends in North American books that investigate midrash generally deal with literary analysis or sociology but rarely with midrash in its own right. This book does precisely that and therefore it deserves just recognition. As a work of scholarship there is much to admire in it. The translations are precise, except for a few awkward literalisms and some other minor quibbles. The texts are based on the best manuscript evidence available and the Hebrew originals and German translations are lined up admirably. The summations of past scholarship that are pertinent to the book's topics are excellent. The discussions of the passages are intelligent, cogent, and as good as anyone else might venture. In sum, this short work (without the Hebrew columns the book would be considerably shorter) accomplishes what the young, thirty-year-old author intended it to do. It deals with the issues pertinent to midrash through a thorough examination of rabbinic traditions dealing with Abraham's "binding of Isaac" trial in the Talmuds and midrashic compilations. Kundert tells us what we need to know about dating textual traditions, determining the sense of rabbinic usages of Hebrew, understanding midrashic methods, tracing materials through earlier writers such as Josephus and Philo, and deciding the best readings among various manuscript families. He clarifies the theological motifs that lie hidden in these texts. He is to be congratulated for spending so much energy upon details in arcane and archaic texts in a world of scholarship that is deplorably indifferent to these "trivial details." It is precisely upon these details that the entire edifice of academic research into the writings of the ancient rabbis should depend. I particularly appreciated his efforts to show how some Christian writers are misguided in regard to what is authentically Jewish. The author illustrates how midrash establishes its models in thoroughly Jewish contexts. His overviews, presentations of text, and commentaries provide an excellent venue to appreciate his careful detailing of pertinent features in the many texts he examines. His introduction and conclusions are to the point, as are his notes and annotations. He provides very thorough indices. Nevertheless, the book suffers from atrocious Hebrew typesetting. The typesetter mistook similar looking letters of the Hebrew alphabet and too often confused them for each other. Also, the scribal abbreviations in the manuscripts should have been noted as to what they signify because nonspecialists will certainly be confused by the conventions of medieval copyists. I was not overly troubled by mistakes here and there in the translation of simple words that have specialized usages in rabbinic Hebrew because they are generally innocuous and such things happen to the best of us. …