Francesco Zanella traces the origin, formation, and development of Tannaitic ideas of divine retribution in order to understand the historical, religious, and cultural reasons for their usage. He particularly focuses on the contribution of the ideas of divine retribution to the development of the self-conception of Tannaitic Judaism, or rather to the creation of a Tannaitic identity as opposed to a punishable otherness. Does God punish or reward the "other" because of this otherness? Who are "the others" anyway? And what happens, on the other hand, in the domain of identity? Are these conceptions of divine retribution able to provide a satisfactory explanation of the troubled Tannaitic era, to offer at the same time a successful continuation of the tradition of the fathers, and, in this way, secure the survival of the Tannaitic community? These are only a few questions which the author attempts to answer in this volume.
