10446 Midrash and Aggadah

Credits: 6 intermediate credits in Oral Law

Prerequisites: none

Author: Yonah Frankel

The course introduces the student to the outlook of the Aggadah and the Rabbis. The Rabbis cast their views in literary forms, such as Midrash, story, allegory, saying. The course introduces the student to the characteristics of each genre of Aggadah type, and to the different methods of literary analysis.

Topics: Introduction; Methods of homiletic interpretation (derash); Aggadic expansion of biblical stories; Lives of the Rabbis; Allegory; Proverbs and aphorisms; Rabbinic thought; Tannaitic Aggadah; Amoraic Aggadah and late Midrash; Interpretation of Aggadah and its research.