Editing Saul Lieberman (section)

== Work ==
{{Conservatism in Israel}}
In 1929, Lieberman published ''Al ha-Yerushalmi'', in which he suggested ways of emending corruptions in the text of the [[Jerusalem Talmud]] and offered variant readings to the text of the tractate of [[Sotah (Talmud)|Sotah]]. This was followed by: a series of text studies of the Jerusalem Talmud, which appeared in [[Tarbiz]]; by ''Talmudah shel Keisaryah'' (1931), in which he expressed the view that the first three tractates of the order [[Nezikin]] in the Jerusalem Talmud had been compiled in Caesarea about the middle of the fourth century C.E.; and by ''Ha-Yerushalmi ki-Feshuto'' (1934), a commentary on the treatises [[Shabbat (Talmud)|Shabbat]], [[Eruvin (tractate)|Eruvin]], and [[Pesahim]] of the Jerusalem Talmud (this was the first volume of a series that was never finished). His preoccupation with the Jerusalem Talmud impressed him with the necessity of clarifying the text of the [[Tannaim|tannaitic]] sources (rabbis of the first two centuries of the common era), especially that of the [[Tosefta]], on which no commentaries had been composed by the earlier authorities ([[Rishonim]]), and to whose elucidation few scholars had devoted themselves in later generations.

He published the four-volume ''Tosefeth Rishonim'', a commentary on the entire Tosefta with textual corrections based on manuscripts, early printings, and quotations found in early authorities.<ref>Currently this work is available in two volumes: [http://www.schocken-jts.org.il/english/bookstore/prodView.asp?idproduct=160 Tosefeth Rishonim, 2 volume set.]</ref> He also published ''Tashlum Tosefta'', an introductory chapter to the second edition of [[Moses Samuel Zuckermandel|M. S. Zuckermandel]]'s Tosefta edition (1937), dealing with quotations from the Tosefta by early authorities that are not found in the text.

Years later, Lieberman returned to the systematic elucidation of the Tosefta. He undertook the publication of the Tosefta text, based on manuscripts and accompanied by brief explanatory notes, and of an extensive commentary called ''Tosefta ki-Fshuṭah''. The latter combined philological research and historical observations with a discussion of the entire talmudic and rabbinic literature in which the relevant Tosefta text is either commented upon or quoted. Between 1955 and 1973, ten volumes of the new edition were published, representing the text and the commentaries on the entire orders of [[Zera'im]], [[Mo'ed]] and [[Nashim]].  Furthermore, in 1988, three volumes were published posthumously on the order of Nezikin, including tractates [[Bava Kama]], [[Bava Metzia]], and [[Bava Basra]].  The entire set was republished in the 1990s in thirteen volumes, and again in 2001 in twelve volumes.

In ''[[Sifri Zutta|Sifrei Zuta]]'' (1968), Lieberman advanced the view that this [[halakhic Midrash]] was in all likelihood finally edited by [[Bar Kappara]] in [[Lod|Lydda]].

Other books of his were ''Sheki'in'' (1939), on Jewish legends, [[Jewish customs|customs]], and literary sources found in Karaite and Christian polemical writings, and ''Midreshei Teiman'' (1940), wherein he showed that the Yemenite Midrashim had preserved exegetical material which had been deliberately omitted by the rabbis. He edited a variant version of Midrash [[Debarim Rabbah]] (1940, 19652).<ref>For criticism of this edition that appeared in [[HaTzofe]] see https://www.hebrewbooks.org/26799.</ref> In his view that version had been current among Sephardi Jewry, while the standard text had been that of Ashkenazi Jewry. In 1947 he published ''Hilkhot ha-Yerushalmi'' which he identified as a fragment of a work by [[Maimonides]] on the Jerusalem Talmud in a similar vein as the [[Isaac Alfasi|Rif]] is to the Babylonian Talmud. Lieberman also edited the hitherto unpublished Tosefta commentary ''Hasdei David'' by [[David Pardo (Italian rabbi)|David Pardo]] on the order [[Tohorot]]; the first part of this work appeared in 1970.

His two English volumes, ''Greek in Jewish Palestine'' (1942) and ''Hellenism in Jewish Palestine'' (1950), which also appeared in a Hebrew translation, illustrate the influence of [[Hellenistic culture]] on Jewish Palestine in the first centuries C.E.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090108003011/http://www.jtspress.org/greek-in-jewish-palestinehellinism-in-jewish-palestine.html The English edition of both books was reprinted in one volume.]</ref>

A number of his works have appeared in new and revised editions. Lieberman served as editor in chief of a new critical edition of Maimonides' [[Mishneh Torah]] (vol. 1, 1964), and as an editor of the Judaica series of [[Yale University]], where he worked closely with [[Herbert Danby]], the Anglican scholar of the Mishnah. He also edited several scholarly miscellanies. He contributed numerous studies to scholarly publications as well as notes to books of fellow scholars. In these he dwelt on various aspects of the world of ideas of the rabbis, shed light on events in the talmudic period, and elucidated scores of obscure words and expressions of talmudic and midrashic literature.

He also published a heretofore unknown Midrashic work that he painstakingly pieced together by deriving its text from an anti-Jewish polemic written by [[Raymond Martini]], and various published lectures of Medieval Rabbis. Lieberman's work was published while he headed Machon Harry Fishel.

[[Jacob Neusner]], a leading scholar of the history of rabbinic Judaism, criticized the bulk of Lieberman's work as [[Idiosyncrasy|idiosyncratic]] in that it lacked a valid methodology and was prone to other serious shortcomings (''see'' Sources below). However, ten years earlier, in an article published shortly after his death, Lieberman strongly criticized Neusner's lack of scholarship in the latter's translation of three tractates of the Yerushalmi.<ref name="JAOS">''See'' {{cite journal |first=Saul |last=Lieberman |title=A Tragedy or a Comedy |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |volume=104 |issue=2 |pages= 315–319|year=1984 |doi=10.2307/602175 |jstor=602175 }}</ref> Meir Bar-Ilan, Lieberman's nephew, accused Neusner of being biased against Lieberman due to "a personal issue".<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110721133716/https://faculty.biu.ac.il/~testsm/Lieberman.html Saul Lieberman: The Greatest Sage in Israel], note 8</ref>