Tag: Irano-Judaica

Categories
Books

The Iranian Talmud

Secunda, Shai. 2013. The Iranian Talmud: Reading the Bavli in its Sasanian context. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

For the book, see here. Short abstract:

Although the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, has been a text central and vital to the Jewish canon since the Middle Ages, the context in which it was produced has been poorly understood. Delving deep into Sasanian material culture and literary remains, Shai Secunda pieces together the dynamic world of late antique Iran, providing an unprecedented and accessible overview of the world that shaped the Bavli.

Categories
Articles

The fractious eye

Secunda, Shai. 2014. The fractious eye: On the evil eye of menstruants in Zoroastrian tradition. Numen 61(1). 83–108.

Read the article here. Abstract:

Like all religions, Zoroastrianism evolved, and its rich textual record provides us with the material to trace some of its developments across the centuries. This article attempts to reconstruct an ancient Iranian myth preserved in Zoroastrian tradition about the dangerous powers of the gaze of menstruating women, and traces its development as it grows out of the Avesta and interacts with Western philosophical traditions in the Middle Persian writings of late antiquity and the early middle ages.