Development and Discontinuity in Jewish Law

In Development and Discontinuity in Jewish Law, Ruth Sandberg analyzes ten biblical commandments and their interpretations in classical and medieval rabbinic sources. These texts reveal that the process of Jewish law is one of both development and discontinuity, in which biblical law can be enlarged upon and expanded, or conversely, be contracted, restricted, or even eliminated entirely. By presenting specific examples from Jewish law and tracing their process from the ancient biblical text to their codification in the sixteenth-century, Sandberg gives the reader an opportunity to see firsthand how Jewish legal texts actually operate and relate to one another.