The common thread running through all these projects on the Bavli’s adaptation of other sources is the scholarly realization that as creative as the Bavli is, that creativity is at least partly (a big part) expressed through the incorporation and reworking of other sources, whether texts or motifs. There are methodological variations within these various studies, and these variations exhibit both tension and complementarity. If we focus (again, non-exhaustively) on studies of the Bavli in relation to the Yerushalmi, there are methodological variations worth noting.I noted the introductory essay in this series here.
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