12 January 2006

Writin' Papers

In the course of my searching out topics of interest in Jewish texts, I have come across some interesting topics, which has been good. I realized that some of my interests have yet to be written about. Thus, I realized I could not only altruistically contribute to the scholarship of these Jewish texts, but also garner some recognition for my ideas in understanding these things. In any event, I felt I would post about my article ideas. Most of them are not quite close to being written, though there are a couple that are.
















Article Topic Status
Biblical Sleep Ethic(s) Published
Rabbinical/Talmudic Sleep Ethics Submitted & undergoing editing
Ben-Sira's View On SleepWaiting to be written
Philo's View on SleepStill collecting data
Tannaitic Views on SleepWaiting to be written
Maimonides View on SleepStill collecting data
Early Jewish Exegetical Perspectives on Er's and Onan's Deaths (Gen. 38:7-10)Written; undergoing editing
The Jewish Prohibition on Masturbation: From the Talmud to the Shulhan ArukhMostly finished with data

collection, though I'm still looking into some secondary literature
Ben-Sira Quotes in the Babylonian Talmud (I just came up with this one today)Mostly done with data collection, but I

need to do a lot of organizing
The Vilna Gaon and Pentecost Trees: The Nullification of a MinhagShould have been written about, like, a year ago -

so, it's all but written
And It Was A Hok For Israel: Investigating the Custom Initiated By Jepthah's DaughterLast summer, I

tried to begin writing it, but then came along an interesting article relevant to it, so, I need to get away from being lazy about

it
The Doubts Harbored By the Amoraim/Stam(?) About the Origin of the Fourth Grace Blessing (I need to work on this title) I came up with the idea for this article in the summer, made some headway, then came upon a long Hebrew article, which was a huge speed bump
Tannaitic Views on the World To Come Still collecting data

4 comments:

Steg (dos iz nit der šteg) said...

Pentecost Trees? Shavuos Trees?

Drew Kaplan said...

You got it, Steg. If you look in the Rema's comments in the Shulhan Arukh about Shavuos, he mentions a custom to put up asavim, whereupon the Magan Avraham talks about putting up trees as a custom. Eventually, the Vilna Ga'on nullifies the custom because the Xians put up Pentecost trees (Pfingstbaumen). It sounds weird to us, as the Xian custom never carried over to the western hemisphere and practically no longer exists.

Abacaxi Mamao said...

How many Christians observe Pentecost these days? I've never heard of Christians observing any modified version of it at all.

Drew Kaplan said...

I don't know - I don't think that it's that big nowadays in America, anyways.