Bøker av Jason Sion Mokhtarian

"Medicine in the Talmud is a growing area of interest but is understudied and undertheorized. This volume productively pushes the field forward. Considering both text and material culture, especially important evidence from the Aramaic bowls, this volume is indispensable for anyone interested in scientific knowledge in rabbinic literature or medicine in the ancient world in general."--Jordan D. Rosenblum, author of Rabbinic Drinking: What Beverages Teach Us about Rabbinic Literature "A groundbreaking study that introduces readers to intriguing Talmudic healing therapies (not to be tried at home). Mokhtarian integrates this rabbinic knowledge firmly in the interdisciplinary discourses of late antiquity, a move that refines and corrects many prevailing assumptions about these enduring traditions."--Christine Shepardson, author of Controlling Contested Places: Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy "In this easy-to-read and engaging work, Jason Sion Mokhtarian demonstrates how the Babylonian rabbis thoroughly and eagerly participated in knowledge gathering and making across ethnic and cultural boundaries in late antique Mesopotamia."--Naomi Koltun-Fromm, Associate Professor of Religion, Haverford College

Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, and Priests examines the impact of the Persian Sasanian context on the Babylonian Talmud, perhaps the most important corpus in the Jewish sacred canon. What impact did the Persian Zoroastrian Empire, as both a real historical force and an imaginary interlocutor, have on rabbinic identity and authority as expressed in the Talmud? Drawing from the field of comparative religion, Jason Sion Mokhtarian addresses this question by bringing into mutual fruition Talmudic studies and ancient Iranology, two historically distinct disciplines. Whereas most research on the Talmud assumes that the rabbis were an insular group isolated from the cultural horizon outside their academies, this book contextualizes the rabbis and the Talmud within a broader sociocultural orbit by drawing from a wide range of sources from Sasanian Iran, including Middle Persian Zoroastrian literature, archaeological data such as seals and inscriptions, and the Aramaic magical bowl spells. Mokhtarian also includes a detailed examination of the Talmud's dozens of texts that portray three Persian "e;others"e;: the Persians, the Sasanian kings, and the Zoroastrian priests. This book skillfully engages and demonstrates the rich penetration of Persian imperial society and culture on the Jews of late antique Iran.