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Shamma Friedman (; born March 8, 1937) is a scholar of rabbinic literature and is Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS).
In his scholarship, Friedman has highlighted the creative literary intervention of the transmitters of talmudic texts, which is represented in all the historical layers of the Talmud and reaches its greatest expression in the Talmud. For example, in his detailed analyses of Mishnah and Tosefta parallels, in a series of articles and in his book, Tosefta Atiqta, Friedman has argued that for specific examples, the Tosefta version of a tradition is earlier than its later reworked Mishnah parallel. According to this thesis, select Tosefta traditions may preserve the ‘raw’ material from which later Mishnah traditions were fashioned. Regarding Baraita found both in tannaitic collections and in the Talmuds, Friedman has argued that the parallel baraitot show the degree to which Tosefta baraitot were transformed in the Babylonian Talmud and to a lesser extent the Jerusalem Talmud during the process of transmission from their original tannaitic literary contexts to their later Amoraim and post-amoraic contexts. Friedman has also authored numerous studies on the literature of the Rishonim, especially on the contributions of Rashi and Maimonides. Furthermore, Friedman consistently provides a framework for highlighting how critical understandings of the Talmud provide important insights into the interpretive contributions of the Rishonim.
In 2010, Friedman received the Mifal Hapayis Prize in the field of Rabbinic Literature . In 2014, the Israel Prize in Talmud. The Friedmans have four children, ten grandchildren, and a great-grandson. His brother is the Cairo Geniza scholar, Mordechai Akiva Friedman.
Tosefta Atiqta: Synoptic Parallels of Mishna and Tosefta Analyzed with a Methodological Introduction (Pesah Rishon), Bar-Ilan University Press: Ramat Gan, 2002
Talmud Arukh, BT Bava Metzi’a VI: Critical Edition with Comprehensive Commentary, Text Volume and Introduction, Jerusalem, 1996.
Talmud Arukh, BT Bava Metzi’a VI: Critical Edition with Comprehensive Commentary, Commentary Volume (Hebrew), Jerusalem, 1990
Talmud Ha-Igud, BT Gittin Chapter IX, The Society for the Interpretation of the Talmud, Jerusalem 2020.
Talmudic Studies, Investigating the Sugya, Variant Readings, and Aggada, New York and Jerusalem: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2010
Studies in Tannaitic Literature, Methodology, Terminology, and Content (Asuppot VII), Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 2013
Studies in the Language and Terminology of Talmudic Literature, Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2014
“Rashi’s Talmudic Commentaries: Revisions and Recensions” (Hebrew, English Summary), Rashi Studies, ed. Z. A. Steinfeld, Ramat Gan, 1993, pp. 147-175
“The Holy Scriptures Defile the Hands – The Transformation of a Biblical Concept in Rabbinic Theology”, Minhah le-Nahum – Biblical and Other Studies Presented to Nahum M. Sarna in Honour of his 70th Birthday, ed. M. Brettler, M. Fishbane, London, (1993), pp. 117-132.
“Were Rashi’s Talmud Commentaries Indeed Unknown to Maimonides?”, Rashi, the Man and his Works (Heb.), ed. A. Grossman et. al., The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, Jerusalem 2008, pp. 403-464.
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