The latest issue of the journal Zion has just been published. Yehudah Cohn’s book, Tangled up in Text, is reviewed (once again!), now by Yonatan Adler. This time around, the reviewer is far more skeptical (and ironically, therefore, traditional). It seems like a good and constructive review that does more than outline the book and praise it. It asks some serious questions, which Cohn is obviously well aware of.
Also in the issue, Michal Bar-Asher Siegal publishes an article, “The Making of a Monk-Rabbi: The Background for the Creation of the Stories of R. Shimon bar Yohai in the Cave,” which is based on her 2010 Yale University dissertation.
Thanks for the shout outs on the reviews! I’m thrilled to be in Zion, and enjoyed Adler’s critique, although it does I think contain an epistemological flaw. He seems let down by the absence of proof beyond a reasonable doubt – but nothing about the ancient world is known beyond a reasonable doubt …