In this book, Lynn Kaye exam­ines how rab­bis of late antiq­ui­ty thought about time through their legal rea­son­ing and sto­ry­telling, and what these insights mean for think­ing about time today. Pro­vid­ing close read­ings of legal and nar­ra­tive texts in the Baby­lon­ian Tal­mud, she com­pares tem­po­ral ideas with relat­ed con­cepts in ancient and mod­ern philo­soph­i­cal texts and in reli­gious tra­di­tions from late antique Mesopotamia. Kaye demon­strates that tem­po­ral flex­i­bil­i­ty in the Baby­lon­ian Tal­mud is a means of explor­ing and resolv­ing legal uncer­tain­ties, as well as a tool to tell sto­ries that con­vey ideas effec­tive­ly and dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Her book, the first on time in the Tal­mud, makes acces­si­ble com­plex legal texts and philo­soph­i­cal ideas. It also con­nects the lit­er­a­ture of late antique Judaism with broad­er the­o­log­i­cal and philo­soph­i­cal debates about time.