Thesis and stuff

[theyellowhobbit]

I met with Ben today for what ended up being slightly over 2 hours. First we talked about grad schools and then we talked about the thesis.

In regards to grad schools, I'm only applying to 5- Bar Ilan, Hebrew U (Rothberg), Harvard Divinity, and then something in NY (either NYU or Columbia) and something in the DC metro area (either GWU, American, or UMD college park.) I'm looking more towards anthropology degrees and focusing on archaeology within that, since I believe that archaeology should be done from an anthropological perspective, with the goal to be to learn as much as we can about the culture that has left these items behind. It makes so much more sense to have it there as opposed to Near Eastern studies or Art History or regular history.

The thesis is...thesisy. We talked a lot about Neusner, and when I gave him all my printed stuff that I've worked on in the past 2 weeks, he thought that it was a lot, even though I didn't agree. I'm only about halfway done with Neusner, but that's ok.

And all of these ideas came out. Like the fact that neither Neusner nor Douglas pay much attention to the material culture, while Ronny Reich barely looks at the culture. A friend of Ben's is writing a dissertation on the subject, but she's looking at it through a perspective of Roman/Greek influence. I'm looking at the halacha. But if she finishes her dissertation in December I can read it and use it as a source. And Ronny Reich's dissertation is supposed to come out in English soon.

I'm only now finding all these flaws in Neusner's argument. For example, he talks about how it was important for the Pharisees to eat their meals in purity, as though the table was the Temple. But this can't be practical at all if they were really required to keep that same status of cultic Temple purity. What if someone touches a dead body? They'll be impure for a week. Do they just not eat? Or a woman who has just given birth to a baby girl and is impure for 80 days. Or a menstruating woman-should she starve during her period? (Oh the irony of today being a fast day...) Surely there must have been a distinction between this purity and Temple purity, but beyond the logic of practicality I'm not sure how to prove it.

And I want to look at Pharisaic material culture, but I'm not sure if it has been excavated and published. (I want to talk about class differences, and the contrasting ideas of purity in the different sects, and the struggle between them all for legitimacy.) maric23 do you know anything about this? Do you want to be my bestest friend in the world and get me some material sources on Pharisaic purity? Can you go dig up a Pharisaic house in Jerusalem? Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease*? I'll give you a lot of fresh chocolate chip cookies and a big thank you in the acknowledgements section of my thesis...

If it will be helpful, I would love to go to Israel during winter break in order to do further research. But I can't just pull out a trowel and patiche and start digging. OMG they finally have the patiches back in stock!!! Which size should I get, maric23 and yadfothgildloc (yadfothgildloc - what size was Rebecca's)? (I think they're totally worth the 33$ investment, and I can totally spare that much money after all the mashing I've been doing. It's basically the 25$ head mash bonus plus a bit of extra money....) I totally need to get one so I don't have to use the ginormous hand-picks that they have at Safi. And it would just be shiny to carry around. I could hit people excavate with it.

Anyways, back to the thesis: people usually ask the question of the cultural logic behind purity laws. I think that this is a problematic question. Sure, rabbis have been trying to find the taamei mitzvot (reasons behind the laws, specifically the ones that don't make sense) for centuries, but to rely on that as the sole meaning could put you in a quandary as soon as that meaning is removed. For example: once upon a time, kosher slaughtering was the quickest, most painless way to kill an animal. But now non-kosher meat uses techniques that might be more humane. So does that mean we should abandon kosher slaughter and use electrical shocks or whatever they use to kill cows? No! Of course not! Why do we eat kosher meat? Because we believe that God told us to. So too with the purity laws. There's no objective reason why immersing dishes in the Schukyll would purify them while soaking them in a bathtub of boiling water wouldn't. It's the Schukyll!!!! There are 3-headed fish there! But that's the way the law works, and we recognize that it doesn't make sense. And yet we do it anyways.

So that's where my thesis is going right now. I want to argue against all the experts and the methodologies they use. This isn't so crazily obscure as cynara_linnaea and honkyredvan's Chinese theses, but it is quite an undertaking. But at least I have an arguement, however vague and unfocused it might be. And I got away with not finishing the work I said I would do.

And Ben has a carrel which he's letting me use. I don't think I can sign books out to it, but he can. And the space itself is nice, with an outlet and a light and a window.


*Looking at it written out a billion times, "please" is a funny word to write.

Comments

[masteraleph.livejournal.com]

Regarding the question of cultural logic- this is presumably the reason that halacha follows the mishna/gemara, rather than midrash halacha.

Just make sure that you're careful vis-a-vis purity laws and halachic assumption- despite any belief you may or may not have in torah she be'al peh, the sources can't be assumed to be accurate to what was practiced at the time (the mishna is probably better in regards to this than the gemara).

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Oh, I already knew that. Neusner points out that the mishnah and gemara can't be taken as accurate sources for practices of that time and before. This is why I want the (perhaps non-existant) archaeological evidence.

[arctic-alpine.livejournal.com]

I'd go one step further than saying that the mishna and gemara aren't evidence that the laws were followed.
People only pass laws if they're being broken, or followed incorrectly. I'd consider the possibility that the more they say on it, the less it was being absorbed.

[maric23.livejournal.com]

Can't help much on the pharisaic mat culture.

Also, in re: neusner and his students... they sometimes have interesting ways of reading the mishna and gemara on occasions... Go to JSTOR, AJS 1999, look for a review article by Haym Soloveitchik on Peter Haas' Responsa. Ask Brad if you need help finding it.

The discussion of how to treat with idealized descriptions of practice is common enough in ethnohistory. Even if one is not speaking of practice, one is still speaking of a recorded version of it. If that version is seen as idealized that too is useful. All too often though, rather than it not being accurate, we find out that there were details they didn't feel the need to mention, cause obviously everyone knew what was being spoken of. Like the engraved opening for courtyard mezuzot in mishnaic period structures, etc.

Oh... And patiche... never used one. 3 pronged mattocks of doom are great for breaking up dirt, but for clearing it, I'll stand by a 45-5 marshalltown, wood handle, either sharpened or with a sharpened divot for roots, as well as a handled flat shovel, sharpened on the top. Trowel is the only one I tend to carry. The mattock makes some difference, but the real huge difference is in the shovel, and that is just a pain to transport.

[rivka-m.livejournal.com]

I'd be cautious with Rothberg-- talk to as many people who've done that specific program as you can. curious-- why rothberg, and not regular HU? youre applying to BI, so youre clearly not terrified of the real live israelis.

UMD-- I bet Koach would love to have you :) of course, by next year, you might want to commute from some place cooler like DC anyways