Rabbinic Theology and Israelite Prophecy: Primacy of the Torah, Narrative of the World to Come, Doctrine of Repentance and Atonement, and the Systematization of Theology in the Rabbis' Reading

Rabbinic Judaism affirms the Prophetic heritage and makes it its own. Indeed, the Rabbis of the formative age and canon of Rabbinic Judaism looked to Prophecy along with the Torah and the Writings to define and sustain their system. We may reasonably label the Judaic religious system portrayed in the Rabbinic canon as Prophetic-Rabbinic Judaism, the Judaism that the Rabbis formed in response to the Prophetic imperatives. In this book, the author shows how the Rabbis found in Prophecy a source not of contradiction but of conciliation and doctrinal validation. Rabbi Neusner answers the question, what do we learn about the Rabbinic system from its encounter with the Prophetic books? The four principal building blocks of Rabbinic theology addressed here take up symbolism, eschatology, immanental theology, and theological systematics. The fifth, Halakhah, has been addressed in The Rabbis, the Law, and the Prophets. Here, Rabbi Neusner takes up these matters and shows how the Rabbis found in Prophecy support for their fundamental principles.

Jacob Neusner is Research Professor of Theology at Bard College and Senior Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard as well. He is a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ and Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University, in England. He has published more than 900 books and unnumbered articles, both scholarly and academic and popular and journalistic, and is the most published humanities scholar in the world.