New Facebook Group Discusses Talmud from a Historical-Contextual Perspective [Talmud Tuesday]

A new Facebook group started up last week to discuss Talmud and other rabbinic literature from a historical-contextual perspective.  “The Historical-Contextual Beit Midrash” was created eight days ago by David Staum, having initially sharing the idea on another Facebook group, “God Save Us From Your Opinion: A Place For Serious Discussion of Judaism”, which just celebrated its first anniversary, and then announcing its genesis last week.

The new Facebook group, which Staum said, that he would “like this group to focus mostly on Mishna, Gemara, and later. That doesn’t mean that critical approaches to Tanach are forbidden here, but I’d like to keep them to a minimum so as to avoid excluding folks for whom text criticism of Tanach is a red line.”  So, the focus of the group is really on rabbinic literature and, to start with, the focus will be on Tractate Ta’anit (מסכת תענית), although not to the exclusion of other topics or texts.

To join, you can click here to apply to join the group (which, as of the writing of this post, has 84 members) and help add to the conversation!

Related posts:

One Who Looks Upon His Fellow’s Table (המצפה לשלחן חבירו) [Talmud Tuesday] Considering Rabbi Meir’s Famous Statement Concerning Why the Torah Stated that Niddah is for Seven Days The Talmudic Prohibition Against Manual and Pedal Adultery [Talmud Tuesday] New Website Focusses on a Historical and Contextual Approach to the Talmud [Talmud Tuesday] 2015 PhD Dissertations on Talmudic Topics [Talmud Tuesday]