Congratulations to our alumnus Dr. Moshe Simon-Shoshan
upon being awarded Honorable Mention
in the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards!

STORIES OF THE LAW: NARRATIVE DISCOURSE AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF AUTHORITY IN THE MISHNAH
by Dr. Moshe Simon-Shoshan 

In this book from Oxford University Press, Moshe Simon-Shoshan '88 offers a ground-breaking study of Jewish law and Rabbinic story-telling. Focusing on the Mishnah, the foundational text of Halakhah, he argues that narrative was essential to early rabbinic formulations and concepts of law, legal process, and political and religious authority. Stories of the Law presents an original and forceful argument for applying literary theory to legal texts, challenging the traditional distinctions between law and literature that underlie much contemporary scholarship.  Available at Amazon.com. This book has now been awarded Honorable Mention (i.e. Second Place) in the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards of the Association for Jewish Studies, in the category of Biblical Studies, Rabbinics, and Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity for books published between 2010-2012.

The judges praised the book for combining “philological rigor with conceptual sophistication in a manner that is illuminating, disciplined and elegant” and offering readings that “are inspiring integrations of narratological analysis with careful work in historical philology.”

This book has also just been released in a new paperback edition available on Amazon.com for $23.75.