Footnote 5 – Queries & Comments

Shaye Cohen is not the only prominent young scholar Neusner has attacked. Neusner characterizes Lawrence Schiffman’s history of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism as “naive and incredulous … [a] wide-eyed report of the Judaic equivalent of UFO’s”, a book that cannot be taken “seriously” (Judaic Law From Jesus to the Mishnah [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993]).
Lee Levine, another contributor to Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism and dean of the Jewish Theological Seminary (Jerusalem), according to Neusner, has “difficulty in sustaining a coherent argument.” Levine’s book on the Rabbinic class in late antiquity, says Neusner is “a mere curiosity, of no scholarly value whatsoever.” (Neusner, Tannatic Parallels? p. 162.)