Jerusalem Campus

Conferences yield many published volumes but few coherent works. The book under review deserves to be regarded as such for its cogency, quality, range, and focus. In June 2005 scholars convened at the University of Scranton to discuss the contemporary theological implications of the Jewish encounter with the religions of the world. Fourteen of these scholars, many of them from the first rank in their respective fields, have contributed twelve chapters, and Alon Goshen-Gottstein has provided important reflections both at the book's opening and at its conclusion.

Quotation is a feature of cultures throughout history and across continents. The purpose of this article is to present a phenomenology of quotation in Jewish culture, where it has had pride of place for millennia. Following a brief historical overview, six functions are discussed: quotation as 1) an engagement with tradition; 2) a means of resuscitating the quoted source; 3) legitimization of the quoter; 4) enrichment and embellishment of a text or oral performance; 5) an act of community-building; and 6) an incantatory act, a means of effecting change. In conclusion, the article suggests that quotation performs a rhapsodic function in the original sense of sewing together fragments in the creation of a thick fabric. Through quotation the Jew is in conversation with past, present, and future.