War and Peace in Rabbinic Judaism: A Documentary Account

This book surveys the treatment of war and peace in the canon of Rabbinic Judaism in late antiquity: to what does Judaism refer when it speaks of war and peace in the context of the Hebrew words "milhamah" (war) and "shalom" (peace)? But this study is not lexical. It is categorical. "War" represents a commanding, coherent category-formation, while "peace" covers a variety of circumstances and transactions. "War" is specifically a Halakhic category and "Peace" an Aggadic taxon. Do "war" and "peace" present us with a lexical or a categorical phenomenon? War forms a category-formation and peace is a substantive - a word bearing diffuse references. With what consequence? When we come across the word "war" without further data, we know the context and intent, but "peace" covers a mass of miscellaneous, free-standing facts and diverse implications.