Overview

Despite the Talmud being the richest repository of medical remedies in ancient Judaism, this important strain of Jewish thought has been largely ignored—even as the study of ancient medicine has exploded in recent years. In a comprehensive study of this topic, Jason Sion Mokhtarian recuperates this obscure genre of Talmudic text that has been marginalized in the Jewish tradition since the Middle Ages to reveal the unexpected depth of the rabbis’ medical knowledge. Medicine in the Talmud argues that these therapies represent a form of rabbinic scientific rationality that relied on human observation and the use of nature while downplaying the role of God and Torah in health and illness. Drawing from a wide range of both Jewish and Sasanian sources—from the Bible, Talmud, and Maimonides to texts written in Akkadian, Syriac, and Mandaic, as well as the incantation bowls— Mokhtarian offers rare insight into how the rabbis of late antique Babylonia adapted the medical knowledge of their time to address the needs of their community and in the process narrates an untold chapter in the history of ancient medicine.

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9780520389410

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"""Integrating and analyzing with clarity and depth an immense range of sources, Mokhtarian painstakingly shows the emergence of rabbinic medical culture. . . . This book, which one peruses with undiminished attention from cover to cover, is a fine piece of scholarship that addresses a large and diverse audience."" * Religious Studies Review *"

Author Information

Jason Sion Mokhtarian is Associate Professor and Herbert and Stephanie Neuman Chair in Hebrew and Jewish Literature at Cornell University. He is author of Rabbis, Sorcerers, Kings, and Priests: The Culture of the Talmud in Ancient Iran.

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