What are the rules of cogency, of coherent discourse, that everybody in the normative documents takes for granted, that is, what defines the self-evidence of the intellectual system of Rabbinic Judaism embodied in the formative canon, Mishnah through Bavli?

In these two volumes Neusner explains how the authoritative, canonical documents of Rabbinic Judaism in its formative age signal self-evidence: the generative logic that animates all active thought embodied in those writings.

This project condenses two monographs on the foundations of self-evidence in Rabbinic Judaism: The Making of the Mind of Judaism and The Formation of the Jewish Intellect: Making Connections and Drawing Conclusions in the Traditional System of Judaism.

The studies are connected, with the second carrying forward the problem of the first, and they are meant to be read in sequence.