is article aims to read closely the tannaitic material pertaining to judicial discretion and legal justice with the understanding that the rabbis are not simply clarifying certain specialized ques- tions about courtroom procedure but are seriously engaging a core facet of Roman imperial and Hellenistic ideology: the bene ts and de cits of the rule…[Read more]

Drawing on Robert Orsi’s view of lived religion, this chapter proposes that the discourse of law served as a vehicle in rabbinic religion to mediate relationships between heaven and earth. It argues that religious-legal practice is most similar, in Late Antiquity, to the practice of divination: an ordinary social institution that shaped human l…[Read more]