Princeton UP Ideas Podcast · New Books Network

Moulie Vidas, "The Rise of Talmud" (Princeton UP, 2025)

·1 hr 11 min·5 clips
Moulie Vidas reveals why rabbis treated scripture as divine but sages as human, reshaping Talmudic interpretation.
Moulie Vidas discusses his book on the rise of the Talmud, exploring how rabbinic scholars in late antiquity developed distinct reading practices for scripture versus rabbinic teachings, emphasizing individuation, fragmentation, and textualization. He highlights shifts in attribution, citation ethics, and comparisons with Greco-Roman scholarship.

As heard by us

A careful look at how the Talmud turns contradiction into a way of reading.

Moulie Vidas frames rabbinic contradiction as a tool, not a flaw. The discussion stays close to the Talmud's habit of returning to tensions, pressing on them, and using them to sketch recognizable rabbinic voices and ideas.

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Press play for a close read of how the Talmud turns contradiction into structure.

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