Exploring the connections between bats, priests, and rabbis might sound like the beginning of a joke, but it turns out their social networks can be analyzed using network analysis, a computer science tool.
Prof. Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, a Talmud scholar from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and Prof. Yossi Yovel, a zoologist from Tel Aviv University, teamed up to apply network analysis to study Judeo-Christian relations in literature from the early first centuries CE.
Their groundbreaking study, featured in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, used passages from the Babylonian Talmud and Christian texts to perform the first network analysis of textual parallels between the two religions.
Prof. Bar-Asher Siegal explains, “Our study shows that network analysis of textual parallels using computer science tools can provide fascinating results, opening up new avenues for studying the relations between Judaism and Christianity in the common era. Analyzing larger amounts of text could unveil even more exciting discoveries.”
Prof. Yovel adds, “This interdisciplinary approach demonstrates how the use of tools from one scientific field can enrich another.”
While network analysis is not new to digital humanities, this is the first time it has been applied to the study of rabbinic and Christian literary interactions. The researchers were able to automate the analysis of textual parallels, offering new insights into the temporal-spatial-contextual relationships between Jewish and Christian writings.
The visualization of these relationships provides a clearer picture and prompts new insights. It challenges the conventional view of a “parting of the ways” between the two religions and highlights their parallel development and dialogue.
Prof. Bar-Asher Siegal elaborates, “The networks we created reveal how rabbinic sources mock and argue against early Christian sources and show wider geographical familiarity with both eastern and western Christian sources in later periods.”
More information:
Michal Bar-Asher Siegal et al, Network analysis reveals insights about the interconnections of Judaism and Christianity in the first centuries CE, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1057/s41599-023-01678-y
Citation:
What do bats, priests and rabbis have in common? Network analysis reveals insights (2023, July 17)
retrieved 17 July 2023
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