Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud

Michal Bar-Asher Siegal is the Rosen Family Chair in Judaic Studies in the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She is a graduate of the Talmud department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem (BA, MA) and the department of Religious Studies at Yale University, Connecticut (PhD). She was a Harry Starr Fellow in Judaica at Harvard University, Massachusetts and held a joint Postdoctoral Fellowship in Jewish Culture in the Ancient World at Haifa, Bar Ilan, and Tel Aviv Universities. Her articles have appeared in journals such as the Journal of Jewish Studies, Aramaic Studies, Harvard Theological Review, Zion, and Shenaton leHeqer haMikra. She has taught at Smith College, Massachusetts, Yale Divinity School, Haifa University, Bar Ilan University, Israel, and Tel Aviv University.

• 1. Christianity in the Babylonian Talmud: an introductory discussion; 2. Monasticism in the Persian Empire; 3. Common themes in the Apophthegmata Patrum and rabbinic literature: form, style, and themes; 4. Common themes in the Apophthegmata Patrum and rabbinic literature: narrative; 5. The making of a monk-rabbi: the stories of R. Shimon bar Yohai in the cave; 6. Repentant whore, repentant rabbi: the story of Elazar B. Dordya; Conclusions.

'The comparisons that Bar-Asher Siegal makes between the rabbinic texts and Christian monastic texts are extraordinarily enlightening and thought-provoking …' Joshua Kulp, Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History