Golden Bells and Pomegranates: Studies in Midrash Leviticus Rabbah - Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism

The author studies the 5th Century rabbinic anthology Midrash Leviticus Rabbah, which is a quasi-encyclopedic miscellany of rabbinic thought and commentaries on Torah and its study. He outlines the content of this text, its novel elements of style, structure and redaction, and places it at a turning point in rabbinic literature in the Greco-Roman milieu. The results of this analysis place the text at a turning point in rabbinic literature. The author undertakes to survey and synthesize the broad areas necessary to understand Leviticus Rabbah, while at the same time offering detailed studies of both structure and content.