Households, Sects and Origins of Rabbinic Judaism

FAIN: FT-52437-04

Alexei Mikhailovich Sivertsev
DePaul University (Chicago, IL 60604-2201)

This study traces the historical transformation of Rabbinic Judaism from family embodied practice to abstract text studied and transmitted within disciple circles. It will discuss how a family-based social structure of early sectarian movements changed into disciple circles structure of Rabbinic Judaism, where the traditions were no longer "owned" by particular families, but were transmitted from teachers to their students and studied as abstract sets of religious law. This process of "alienation" of household practices eventually resulted in their transformation into the "Oral Law" of mature Rabbinic Judaism.