Ideas of divine retribution in Tannaitic Literature

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The present monograph aims at tracing back origin, formation, and development of the Tannaitic ideas of divine retribution and at understanding the historical, religious, and cultural reasons for their usage. The monograph particularly focuses on the contribution of the ideas of divine retribution to the development of the self-conception of Tannaitic Judaism, or rather to to the creation of a Tannaitic identity as against a punishable otherness. Does God happen to punish or to reward the "other" because of his otherness? Who are "the others"? What happens, on the opposite, with the domain of identity? Are these conceptions of divine retribution able to provide a satisfactory explanation of the troubled Tannaitic era, to make possible a successful continuation of the tradition of the fathers, and to grant, in this way, the survival of the Tannaitic community? These are only a few questions which the present monograph intends to address.