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Christine Hayes: by Dongni Wu 4 January 2022

Christine Hayes is a renowned scholar of Talmudic and Midrashic studies. She received her BA from Harvard University and her PhD from UC Berkeley. Hayes is currently the Sterling Professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica at Yale University. Her book "What's Divine about Divine Law?" analyzes how ancient thinkers responded to competing concepts of divine law from Greek and biblical sources. Hayes argues the Talmudic rabbis developed a third approach that was intentionally different from the dominant Hellenistic and Pauline views of divine law. The book provides insight into ancient debates that have shaped Western thinking about the nature of law and authority of scripture.

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61 views9 pages

Christine Hayes: by Dongni Wu 4 January 2022

Christine Hayes is a renowned scholar of Talmudic and Midrashic studies. She received her BA from Harvard University and her PhD from UC Berkeley. Hayes is currently the Sterling Professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica at Yale University. Her book "What's Divine about Divine Law?" analyzes how ancient thinkers responded to competing concepts of divine law from Greek and biblical sources. Hayes argues the Talmudic rabbis developed a third approach that was intentionally different from the dominant Hellenistic and Pauline views of divine law. The book provides insight into ancient debates that have shaped Western thinking about the nature of law and authority of scripture.

Uploaded by

Dongni Wu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Christine Hayes

By Dongni Wu
4 January 2022
Early Life & Academic Background
● Born 1960 in the United States
● Academic Background:
○ BA in the Study of Religion from
Harvard University (1984)
○ MA from the University of California,
Berkeley (1988)
■ Included a year of graduate work at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
○ PhD in Talmudic and Judaica Studies
from the University of California,
Berkeley (1993)
Career
● One of the foremost American academics focusing on
Talmudic and Midrashic studies and Classical Judaica
● The Sterling Professor of Religious Studies in Classical
Judaica at Yale University
○ One of the highest academic honors that Yale
University bestows
● Awards such as the Sidnoie Miskimin Clauss Prize for
teaching excellence in Humanities
● Published works include several books and many articles
● Active in academic organizations
Areas of Research Specialization and
Teaching Competence
Research:
- Rabbinic and Talmudic Studies
- History and Literature of Judaism in Late Antiquity
- Hebrew Bible
- Midrash

Additional Teaching areas:


- Second Temple Judaism
- Medieval Jewish Exegesis
- Legal Theory
- Hebrew and Aramaic Languages
What’s Divine about Divine
Law?
(Princeton University Press, 2015)

"Christine Hayes confronts one of the most fundamental questions of


the nature of law with a rare combination of conceptual depth and
meticulous scholarship. Her analysis of the rabbinic understanding of
divine law located in response to alternative notions developed in
Greco-Roman culture is a brilliant and seminal achievement."
―Moshe Halbertal, author of Maimonides: Life and Thought
The Content of
“What’s Divine about Divine Law?”
➢ Main focus: How ancient thinkers respond to the
competing concepts of divine law
➢ The classical and biblical roots of the Western idea
of divine law - emerged in antiquity and
confronted one another in the Hellenistic period
○ For the Ancient Greeks: by virtue of its
inherent qualities of rationality, truth,
universality, and immutability
○ For the Biblical Authors: grounded in
revelation with no presumptions of rationality,
conformity to truth, universality, or
immutability
Cognitive Dissonance & A Third Path
The Second Temple and the Hellenistic Jewish authors:
● Minimizing the distance between classical and biblical understandings of divine law
● Attributed to the Torah the defining characteristics of the Stoic tradition as the divine natural law
Saint Paul (in his letters to the early Christian church):
● Widening the gap
● Represented the Torah of Moses as possessing none of the traits of the Hellenistic divine/natural law
and all of the traits of conventional positive law.

A third path taken by the Talmudic rabbis:


● Insisted on a construction of divine law intentionally at odds with the Hellenistic and Pauline
conceptions that would come to dominate the Christianized West.
The Significance of
“What’s Divine about Divine Law?”
★ Provides critical views on the ancient debates that have shaped the fundamental
thinking of the West

★ Informs contemporary views on the nature and purpose of law and the nature and
authority of the Bible

★ Arouses people to think about how early Rabbinical concepts of divine law
continue to resonate in the modern debate in Judaism
‫תודה רבה‬
‫❤‬
‫️‬
‫תהיו בריאים‬

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