"To go and marry any man that you please": A study of the formulaic antecedents of the rabbinic writ of divorce.

Abstract

The most recent generation has witnessed growing scholarly interest in the relationship between Mesopotamian civilization and the much later world of Rabbinic Judaism. Y. Muffs's work on the Elephantine papyri amply demonstrates that this type of inquiry proves especially productive with regard to legal terminology. Rabbinic Jewish legal parlance can often be traced back to the language of Mesopotamian law. The following study examines one particular phrase, the central clause of the Rabbinic writ of divorce (get), in an attempt to point to its Akkadian predecessors.