ABSTRACT
In 1994 Neusner began to teach at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, as Professor of Religion. It is around this time that we begin to see the mature expression of Neusner’s thought as he began to reflect upon a lifetime of working with rabbinic texts. Having redefined the academic study of Judaism in general and rabbinic texts in particular, he now begins to examine these texts on a more philosophical level. In terms of his own self-described typology, something that I have reproduced as my own guiding frame of reference to his massive oeuvre, this represents the so-called “theological” phase. His interests have moved, as we have seen, from (1) historical and (2) literary reconstruction to (3) how all these texts fit together and now, finally, to (4) the coherent structure that this totality of texts represents. As symbolic of these changes we may note that in 2006 Neusner was appointed as “Distinguished Service Professor of the History and Theology of Judaism” at Bard, the last academic position that he was to hold. 1 This interest in theology, commencing in the 1990s, albeit with much earlier adumbrations, would play an important role in the remainder of his career.
