Books by Azzan Yadin-Israel
The third installment in my Intuitive Vocabulary series, devoted to Ancient Greek.
How did the apple, unmentioned by the Bible, become the dominant symbol of temptation, sin, and t... more How did the apple, unmentioned by the Bible, become the dominant symbol of temptation, sin, and the Fall? Temptation Transformed pursues this mystery across art and religious history, uncovering where, when, and why the forbidden fruit became an apple.
Learning the vocabulary of a foreign language is difficult. Intuitive Vocabulary: Spanish pairs S... more Learning the vocabulary of a foreign language is difficult. Intuitive Vocabulary: Spanish pairs Spanish and English cognates, providing a familiar and easy introduction to thousands of Spanish words. A wonderful resource for anyone learning Spanish or curious about the roots of English.
A study of the biblical and theological motifs in Bruce Springsteen's works.
A lexicon of English-German cognates, intended to facilitate the study of German for students who... more A lexicon of English-German cognates, intended to facilitate the study of German for students who are speakers of (or more familiar with) English
Papers by Azzan Yadin-Israel
The Journal of Popular Culture, 2024
The Star Wars franchise's commercial and cultural vitality is remarkable in scope and duration. I... more The Star Wars franchise's commercial and cultural vitality is remarkable in scope and duration. Its cinematic offerings include three core trilogies and several spin-offs (Rogue One, Solo, and the animated Clone Wars), and Disney is currently producing and planning additional films and series. There are also some twenty animated or live-action television series (with a half-dozen more in production), over one hundred Star Wars novels, fifty children's books, dozens of video games, numerous Star Wars-themed conventions, and more. This abundance may seem a natural response to the explosive popularity of the first Star Wars (1977) film, 1 which earned over $1.5 billion, making it one of the most successful films of all time. 2 However, as other 70s and 80s blockbusters illustrate, the correlation between box office success and enduring cultural relevance is fickle. The Exorcist (1973) earned $1.28 billion, Jaws (1975) secured over $1.4 billion at the box office, while Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and E.T. the Extra Terrestrial (1982) grossed approximately seven hundred million dollars and $1.1 billion, respectively. Economically, these films are comparable (though not equal) to Star Wars, yet none have achieved the same staying power. Raiders of the Lost Ark enjoyed several successful sequels, but the Indiana Jones franchise never became a cultural phenomenon on par with Star Wars. There are forgettable sequels to The Exorcist and Jaws and none to E.T. 3 Clearly, boxoffice success does not guarantee enduring popularity and cultural relevance. Star Wars' success is not due to its cinematic quality. While Star Wars movies are full of action and fun, they also feature stilted dialogue, stock characters, and plot twists visible from
David Stern Festschrift, 2024
A contribution to the ongoing discussion regarding polysemy and early rabbinic Literature. The es... more A contribution to the ongoing discussion regarding polysemy and early rabbinic Literature. The essay argues that the debate surrounding this question has been hampered by a terminological incommensurability: one side of the argument employs the term in the literary-critical sense introduced into rabbinics by Susan Handelman, David Stern and Daniel Boyarin; the other employs the term in the sense developed in linguistics.
The essay is followed by an appendix that proposes a textual emendation to Mishnah Eduyyot 1.5.
Gary Rendsburg FS, 2023
This paper examines some of the core assumptions of historical linguistics and the innovative app... more This paper examines some of the core assumptions of historical linguistics and the innovative approach proposed by Salikoko Mufwene, using as a test case the Rabbinic Hebrew deponent. The essay presents the views of Joshua Blau and Abba Bendavid, who see the deponent as "native" versus "borrowing," respectively, framing the debate in terms of historical linguistics' difficulty accounting for language change. The final section introduces the approach of Salikoko Mufwene as a way to overcome these difficulties.
"What is the Mishnah?" Conference Proceedings, 2023
A survey of scholarship on the relationship between the Mishnah and the halakhic midrashim. Then,... more A survey of scholarship on the relationship between the Mishnah and the halakhic midrashim. Then, expanding on this survey, I argue that the
halakhic midrashim offer a valuable corrective to the regnant tendency to
study the Mishnah as a canonical work. From the Harvard "What is the Mishnah?" Conference.
Blackwell Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism, 2020
A linguistic survey and a discussion of language ideology (or lack thereof).
The Rise of the Early Christian Intellectual, 2020
A study of the relationship between non-textual religious authority (prophecy, received tradition... more A study of the relationship between non-textual religious authority (prophecy, received tradition) and textually-grounded authority in Late Antique Christian, Jewish, and Pagan sources.
Knowledge and Profanation: Transgressing the Boundaries of Religion in Premodern Scholarship, 2019
Essay examines pagan commentary on the Hebrew Bible and some interpretive practices and hermeneut... more Essay examines pagan commentary on the Hebrew Bible and some interpretive practices and hermeneutic assumptions common to early rabbinic midrash and contemporary pagan commentary to Homer.
Marginalia Review of Books, 2019
A short piece on the structural similarities between the role of the Jews in Augustine's theology... more A short piece on the structural similarities between the role of the Jews in Augustine's theology and of the poor in some contemporary defenses of American capitalism.
Journal of Ancient Judaism, 2019
The field of contact linguistics has produced valuable insights into the ways languages behave in... more The field of contact linguistics has produced valuable insights into the ways languages behave in contact environments, and the present essay represents an attempt to adapt a number of these insights to the study of cultural contact more broadly. The historical phenomenon under discussion is a theological strand shared by rabbinic and late antique Platonist sources, namely, the attempt to formulate a theory of sacrifice that does not entail an anthropomorphic conception of (the highest) God. After adducing some of the key sources that represent this attempt in the respective traditions, the essay examines how best to conceptualize such similarity, absent shared terminology, explicit cross-tradition citations or references, or any other traditional markers of "influence." Here I employ the contact-linguistic category of areal diffusion, that describes the tendency of languages in contact over time to gradually adopt common features, even though it is not possible to determine which language "borrowed" from the other. Taking the theological critique of sacrifice as the cultural analogue to a linguistic feature, it is possible to see how the feature is evident in certain streams within rabbinic Judaism, platonic Paganism, and early Christianity. The essay then turns to examine some of the ramifications of a contact-linguistic approach and, drawing on the work of Salikoko Mufwene, puts forth two arguments: that the distinction between internally-and externally-induced change is both theoretically and analytically inadequate; and the need to examine cultural continuity no less than cultural change as the result of contact dynamics. The present article attempts to apply insights from the field of contact linguistics to the motif of anti-anthropomorphic critique of sacrifice, and then to use this analysis as an entrée into a broader methodological discussion of contact. 1 Critique of sacrifice is of methodological interest for two reasons. First, it is attested in both rabbinic and pagan-philosophical sources, without explicit evidence of either source's familiarity with the other-no direct quotes, shared terminology, references to authors, or the like. This characteristic paves the way for a discussion of cultural contact that is not manifested through the introduction of foreign elements, but through contact-induced modification of native elements-essentially the cultural equivalent of a calque-including areal diffusion that occurs when different cultures are in close proximity over an extended period of time. Second, the critique of sacrifice is attested in the Hebrew Bible, particularly in the writings of certain prophets, raising the 1 This paper is part of a larger project involving the adaptation of analytic categories developed in contact-linguistics for use in the study of cultural contact more broadly. I want to thank Annette Yoshiko Reed and Jae Han for their insightful and helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay.
Though halakhic pluralism is often lionized, my paper argues that many rabbinic authorities have ... more Though halakhic pluralism is often lionized, my paper argues that many rabbinic authorities have sought to minimize the force of pluralistic statements such as "these and these are the words of the living God."
My submission to Daniel Boyarin's Festschrift. An attempt to frame some of the issues I've been w... more My submission to Daniel Boyarin's Festschrift. An attempt to frame some of the issues I've been working on in rabbinic and Second Temple sources in literary theoretical terms, focusing on the concept of authorship.
A preliminary attempt at outlining a theoretical framework for cultural contact based on insights... more A preliminary attempt at outlining a theoretical framework for cultural contact based on insights from contact linguistics, and particularly the work of Salikoko Mufwene.
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Books by Azzan Yadin-Israel
Papers by Azzan Yadin-Israel
The essay is followed by an appendix that proposes a textual emendation to Mishnah Eduyyot 1.5.
halakhic midrashim offer a valuable corrective to the regnant tendency to
study the Mishnah as a canonical work. From the Harvard "What is the Mishnah?" Conference.
The essay is followed by an appendix that proposes a textual emendation to Mishnah Eduyyot 1.5.
halakhic midrashim offer a valuable corrective to the regnant tendency to
study the Mishnah as a canonical work. From the Harvard "What is the Mishnah?" Conference.