In “Impressions of Isaiah in Classical Rabbinic Literature,” Joshua Ezra Burns surveys the reception of Isaiah in postbiblical Jewish culture. Focusing on the works and folkways of the rabbinic sages, the author illustrates how early Jewish interpreters understood the book of Isaiah as a testament to the life and vocation of its ancient namesake and as a source of reassurance for future generations of Jews. Innocent of contemporary science concerning his book’s composition, the sages portrayed Isaiah as a brash prophet of unmatched visionary ability who foretold the destruction of the first Jerusalem Temple and its restoration with uncanny accuracy. The fulfillment of his visions made Isaiah’s prophecies valuable resources for liturgies, homilies, and other rabbinic literary compositions expressing hope in another national revival led by their long-promised Messiah following the loss of the second Jerusalem Temple and subjection of the Jews to Christian imperialism.

Historians of Judaism often call the first Islamic centuries the “gaonic period.” The term alludes to the gaonic yeshivot – scholastic academies in Abbasid and Buyid Baghdad, as well as in Palestine, whose leaders helped to canonize the Babylonian Talmud. However, this essay argues that these yeshivot were not commensurate across regions. I revisit the early history of the Palestinian yeshiva and conclude that it developed long after its Iraqi counterparts, likely sometime in the tenth century. The essay closes by considering briefly how this thesis might help us begin to better understand the Palestinian rabbinic culture that preceded the yeshiva–a distinct form of rabbinic Judaism that thrived in Byzantine and Umayyad Palestine during the fifth to eighth centuries, before giving way to a new brand of gaonic rabbinism imported from the Abbasid heartlands.