This detailed, systematic classification of Rabbinic narrative supplies these facts concerning the classification of narratives and their regularities: (1) what are the types and forms of narrative in a given document? (2) how are these distinctive types and forms of narrative distributed across the canonical documents of the formative age, the first six centuries C.E.? The answers for the documentary preferences are in Volumes One through Three, for the Mishnah-Tosefta, the Tannaite Midrash-compilations, and Rabbah-Midrash-compilations, respectively. Volume Four then takes up the types of Rabbinic narratives and shows the documentary history of each of them, including the authentic narrative, the maOEaseh and the mashal.
