Abstract

This chapter aims to define to state of investigation of research into rabbinic literature. It describes the most important approaches in research on the basis of which rabbinic literature has been and is being studied. These include the traditional halakhic approach, the exploitative-apologetic approach, and the thematic approach. This chapter concludes that the questioning of the redactional identity of the individual works of rabbinic literature inevitably also disavows the research approach to the work at the level of the final redaction.