Subject: JUICE History: The Rise of Rabbinic Judaism - #2
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 22:41:53 +0000
To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
From: JUICE Administration <juice@virtual.co.il>
To: Contemporary Jewish History <history@virtual.co.il>
Subject: JUICE History 2
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World Zionist Organization
Jewish University in CyberspacE
juice@wzo.org.il birnbaum@wzo.org.il
http://www.wzo.org.il
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Course: Medieval Jewish History
Lecture: 2/12
Lecturer: Prof. Howard Adelman
E. Responses to the Destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem
1. Rabbinic Judaism
The impact of the destruction of the Temple has been widely overestimated,
especially in Christian theology where it was taken as a confirmation of the
New Testament and a rejection of God's promises to the Jews, embodied in the
Christian reading of Genesis 49:10 which connected the coming of the messiah
with a loss of political power on the part of the Jews. However, despite
the carnage and losses, Judea had really been under Roman domination since
63 BCE, a vibrant dispersion of Jews had been flourishing around the eastern
Mediterranean and Babylonia for centuries, and, as we shall see, after the
destruction of the Temple, Jewish life continued in Jerusalem and Judea, and
especially in Babylonia. Because of the corrupt behavior of the high
priests and their collusion with the Seleucids, Herod, and the Romans, the
Temple lost much of its central place in the religious life of the Jewish
people. Nevertheless, the destruction of the Temple caused major national
humiliation--especially with the institution of the fiscus judaicus, a
special head tax on all Jews throughout the world for Jupiter Capitolinus,
in place of the voluntary "shekel" tax once paid--and religious changes
among the Jews. Sacrifices were no longer possible in the Temple and by
default, synagogues, already a growing institution, became the sacred space
for Torah study, communal gathering, and above all Jewish worship as the
rabbis transformed Judaism. The Passover also took on religious
significance as the rabbis transferred to it many of the rites of the
Temple, such as ritual purity.. The priests and the Sadducees, whose
authority came from their role in the Temple, either disappeared or joined
the growing authority of the rabbis. In retrospect, the Temple took on a
larger role in Jewish memory and hope than it enjoyed while it stood. Its
destruction may have, in many ways, as some rabbinic teachings indicate,
have been good for Jewish physical, religious, and cultural developments.
Yohanan ben Zakkai was the key Jewish figure of this critical time of
transition. Very little is known about his life, which has been embellished
greatly by later rabbinic traditions. One of the central themes about his
live involves his desire for peace with all peoples, and his distancing
himself from the Jewish nationalist extremists. Johanan's teaching stressed
the fact that without the Temple, atonement was still possible by doing acts
of lovingkindness instead of sacrifices. One story, preserved in several
different versions, captures the essence of the transformation of Judaism
after the destruction of the Temple (Avot deRabbi Natan 4, 22-24; 6, 19;
Lamantations Raba 1:5, no. 31; and Gittin 56a-b). Johanan made secret
contact with the Romans who were besieging Jerusalem. He feigned death to
escape the Zealot Jews who would not let anybody leave the city alive. In
their investigating his removal from the city they nearly put a spear
through his side to make sure he was really dead. When he was safely out of
the city he arose from his coffin and came before the general Vespasian,
whom he addressed as the emperor, a motif also found in the escape of
Josephus to the Romans. Vespasian was by now well aware of his positive
sentiments towards the Romans and granted him his request of building up the
rabbinic academy at Yavneh. This story is important on several levels. On
the most basic level, it shows not only rabbinic efforts at reestablishing
Jewish life outside of Jerusalem, but also shows that central to the
rabbinic notion of Jewish survival was a recognition of the need for
accommodation with Rome. At another level, this central myth about the
resurrection of Judaism after the destruction of the Temple has much in
common with Christianity. In both stories, a leading teacher must outsmart
Jewish fanatics and reach an accommodation with Roman leadership. In both
stories the hero emerges from what appears to be death, at the hand of the
Romans, including avoiding additional attempts to stab him while he was
supposedly dead, and arising from coffin or a tomb. Both stories attract
the accretions of many subsequent additions, embellishments, and
re-tellings. These stories are central to the foundation for both Judaism
and Christianity.
a. Midrash
To understand any subsequent form of Jewish literature, one must understand
a few basic concepts about midrash, from the Hebrew root "to seek." Midrash
appears as an attempt to deal with problems found in the biblical text:
often rabbis were troubled by an ethical, historical, legal, or textual
problem, such as contradictions, omissions, and duplications. The midrash
which was offered was an answer to the problem, often without stating what
the problem was. Midrash is based on the view that the biblical text is
sacred, divinely revealed, and fixed, yet the Jewish people live in an ever
changing world. Some of the fundamental assumptions are that every verse of
scripture has a multiplicity of meanings and layers of significance. By
finding a problem in the text, such as an extra element, a missing element,
an unusual word order, a conflict of ideas, or an element found elsewhere in
the Bible, the rabbis made an opening to bring their meaning into the text.
They used midrash, therefore, to legitimize their authority, institutions,
and practices. Through midrash the rabbis could react to the traumas of
Jewish life. Midrash facilitated the shift from a Temple based cult to a
religion based on the synagogue, rabbis, Torah study, and prayer. Midrash
was also the arena for responding to Christian usurpation of scriptures and
for polemicizing against many aspects of Christianity.
Midrash has two simultaneous and often interrelated aspects: Halakhah,
halakhic, or legal; and Aggadah, aggadic, or narrative. The standard basic
works of midrash were edited probably around the fourth century in
Palestine. These include the tanaitic (soon to be explained) halakhic works
of Mekhilta on Exodus; Sifra on Leviticus; Sifrei on Numbers and
Deuteronomy. Some of the major aggadic works include Midrash Rabbah,
Tanhuma, Pesikta de Rav Kahana, and Yalkut on the Torah, which have been
dated from the fifth century to the thirteenth. During the middle ages an
ambivalent attitude emerged towards the extent to which the midrash should
be read literally, often as a result of polemics with Christians who were
equally creative in reading the biblical text, yet the methodology informed
much of rabbinic biblical commentary, sermons, and Jewish life in general,
including not only prayer, holiday worship, and life cycle celebrations,
but also art, illumination, and iconography.
An example of Midrash: A midrash from Bereshit Rabba about young Abraham
working in his father Terah's idol shop and destroying his father's idols
answers major questions about the biblical text: Abraham is seventy-five
years old when he appears in the Bible. What was his life like before then?
What about his life or behavior made him suitable for God's call? In
Genesis 11:30 Terah was traveling with Abram and the rest of the family from
Ur-Casdim to Canaan when God called to him in chapter 12 to go--apparently
to where he was already bound. This midrash shows young Abraham working in
his father's idol store but becoming aware of the higher truth, according to
the rabbis, that the idols did not represent God.
b. The Mishnah
During this period, at the beginning of the third century, in Palestine the
Mishnah was codified under the leadership of Judah hanasi, the Patriarch of
the Jews. He is sometimes just called, Rabbi. He is sometimes referred to
as Judah the Prince although he was not prince of anything. His prestige was
enhanced by the claim that he was a descendent of both David and Hillel,
whom we shall meet shortly. By this time, the position of Patriarch was
recognized by Rome and granted some autonomy. He was used for purposes of
tax collection and control of the land.
The fundamental aspect of rabbinic self understanding and the Mishnah's
sense of itself is found in the first Mishnah of tractate Avot, part of the
order of Nezikim: "Moses received the Torah from Sinai, he transmitted it
to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the
prophets transmitted it to the men of the Great Assembly. . ." It is safe
to say that nothing is known about the Great Assembly, even whether it was
from the time of Ezra or of the Maccabees. The lists then includes Simon
the Just, perhaps from the second century BCE, whose identity remains
unclear, may have been mentioned by Josephus, Ben Sirah, and other rabbinic
texts, was presented as a high priest and a member of the Great Assembly.
Other names include Antigonus of Sokho who links Simon the Just and the
Pairs, the Zugot, the two leaders of the tradition up to the time of Johanan
ben Zakkai. That Antigonus has a Greek name and serves as such a vital link
in this tradition indicates the early, high level of Hellenization. The
Mishnah identifies, perhaps anachronistically, the two members of each Pair
as the Nasi, the Patriarch and elected head of the Sanhedrin, and that of
the Av Bet Din, the head of the court. The Pairs span the time from the
Maccabees to the persecutions under the Romans. The last of the five Pairs,
Hillel and Shammai are the most famous. Hillel, who died in about 10 CE, is
called "the elder," or "the Babylonian." Hillel is credited by later
tradition with applying hermeneutical principles to the interpretation of
Jewish law. The Mishnah mentions many controversies between what are called
the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai. The House of Hillel
established a dynasty that became dominant in Palestine for four centuries.
It was often given a Davidic ancestry. Hillel is associated with many
innovations in Jewish law, including the Prozbol, a legal fiction by which
Jews could repay debts even during the sabbatical year so that lenders will
continue to lend before the biblically mandated period of remission of debt.
He is also considered to have articulated the Jewish version of the Golden
Rule, "What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor. This is the Torah.
All the rest is commentary. Go and study." Jacob Neusner has advanced the
controversial observation that no rabbinic master of Hillel's day or even at
Yavneh ever quoted or mentioned Hillel. Neusner argues that most of the
teachings about Hillel are much later, from the second century. The
possibility that Hillel was created by later rabbis as a Jewish response to
Jesus cannot be dismissed. The rest of the tractate establishes a chain of
tradition for what is commonly called the Oral Law, teachings from earlier
sages up to the time of the Mishnah. There is a clear line of demarcation
between the sages with two groups, rarely mentioned together--one from
70-132--the first and second generations--and another, much larger group
from 135-200--the third generation. All of what is known about the Oral Law
and earlier rabbinic life is found in the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and
Beraitot, about which I shall speak in a moment.
The Mishnah is a topical collection of Jewish law. The Mishnah is in
Hebrew, more developed than biblical Hebrew with borrowings from Aramaic,
Greek, and Latin. Mishnah derives from the root shanah meaning to teach or
to repeat, the same as the Aramaic Tanah, from which comes the name of the
rabbis whose teachings are found in the Mishnah, the Tanaim. Mishnah also
means secondary, that is secondary to the Torah. The Mishnah is divided into
six orders, in Hebrew, "Shas," an acronym for "Shishah sedarim," and 63
tractates, masekhtot. The singular, masekhah, means loom or web, as does
the Latin, textus. The tractates are divided into about 530 perakim,
chapters, and then into individual mishnayot.
The conventional wisdom is that the Mishnah was promulgated orally. This
view is supported by most medieval rabbinic scholars. However, based on
evidence found within the rabbinic corpus itself some scholars, particularly
Saul Lieberman, have suggested that the Mishnah may have been written.
The six orders of the Mishnah are:
-Zeraim, seeds, concerning agriculture and prayer
-Moed, Sabbath and holidays
-Nashim, women
-Nezikim, damages and courts
-Kodashim, sacrifices and food
-Tohorot, cultic purities
Several key features of the Mishnah that are crucial for understanding
Judaism in this period and important background for understanding Medieval
Judaism are the following:
1. The Mishnah contains divergent views: Sometimes majority and minority
views, sometimes a conflict between schools of scholars such as Hillel and
Shammai who lived at the time of Jesus but whose teachings are recorded only
here. Later generations must grapple with the issue of which laws must be
followed.
2. The Mishnah is not uniform in style, content, or views. The material is
grouped by primarily topic, but also by teacher, common phraseology, and
even by common numbers of items, alphabetical order, and other forms of
association.
3. Most of the teachings in the Mishnah are not linked with prooftexts from
the Bible. However, at the end of each chapter usually there are a few
teachings linked to biblical verses, midrash. The Mishnah is really not a
commentary on the Bible but an expansion of basic biblical laws.
4. The Mishnah never systematically defines terminology. It is based on
tacit assumptions or incidental explanations. For example, the opening
Mishnah talks about when the Shema is said without ever telling what the
Shema is or that saying it is an obligation.
5. After the destruction of the Temple, the subject matter of the Mishnah
seems irrelevant to daily Jewish life since much of it deals with Temple
sacrifices and various states of ritual uncleanliness connected with the
Temple.
Many scholars have asked, Why was the Mishnah codified? What is the
Mishnah? There are several possible answers. These are important for
understanding the early stages of Jewish history.
1. The Mishnah the way to preserve the legacy of the rabbis and to
establish a curriculum for Jewish education. The material was arranged,
according to scholars such as Abraham Geiger, Zecharias Frankel, and
Heinrich Graetz, in a manner that makes it easy to learn by heart. In each
order the longest tractate is first and the shortest is last, allowing the
student to tackle the most difficult when he fresh.
2. The Mishnah according to Jacob Lauterbach was an attempt by the
developing rabbinic authorities of Palestine to make themselves
indispensable in the promulgation of Jewish law. With midrash and
commentary, found in many rabbinic works as well as the New Testament, the
Dead Sea Scrolls, and intertestamental literature, the ultimate arbiter of
religious truth was the connection of the teaching with the biblical verse
it purported to explain. When the verses were no longer cited, the sole
authority for the teaching became the person who put forth the teaching.
3. The Mishnah, according to Jacob Neusner, is a law code for a life of
holiness, sanctification of the mundane. It was written for an ideal world
with little relation to what had existed prior to 70 under the Maccabees or
Herod and more with the way the authors wanted the world to be. For Neusner
it is a document of imagination and fantasy in order to build a system of hope.
5. The Mishnah, according to Robert Seltzer, is the embodiment of the
Logos, the divine word, for the Jews. In the New Testament, according to
the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among
us . . ." For Christians Logos is found embodied in Christ. For Jews the
divine word becomes a text. For Jews God dwelled among them when they
learned the words of the Mishnah.
When speaking about the intertestamental period, Christians mean the period
between the Old and the New Testaments; Jews mean the period between the Old
Testament and the Mishnah. In fact, when comparing Judaism and
Christianity, the Mishnah would be the functional equivalent to the New
Testament. In other words, rather than comparing the Old Testament to the
New, which is often done and is meaningless for understanding the
differences between Judaism and Christianity, the New Testament should be
compared with the Mishnah. For example, many Jews question how Jesus could
teach in his own name, "I say unto you," when the Prophets taught in God's
name. However, Jesus' manner of teaching seems much more like that of
Tanaim in whose own names teachings are transmitted. Moreover, in making
comparisons between Judaism and Christianity it should be remembered that
neither religion stopped developing with its classic texts. Christianity
developed in the patristic literature and Judaism developed in talmudic
literature developed by subsequent rabbis in Palestine and Babylonia.
c. Tosefta
Tanaitic teachings can be found in two sources in addition to the Mishnah:
the Tosefta, meaning supplement, in spread throughout the Gemarah (see
below). Such extra-mishnaic tanaitic teachings are called beraitot, baraita
in the singular. The Tosefta, similar to the Mishnah, in Hebrew with some
Aramaic and Greek, with repetitions, contradictions, omissions, and lack of
overall unity, is arranged according to the order of the Mishnah with almost
every tractate of the Mishnah having a parallel in the Tosefta. The
Tosefta, however, is four times larger than the Mishnah and contains four
different types of teachings:
1. Beraitot parallel to the mishnayot
2. Beraitot parallel to the mishnayot, but different in style or terminology.
3. Beraitot dependent on mishnayot, but containing new material
4. Beraitot independent of mishnayot containing material on topics not in
the Mishnah.
Scholars have reached no consensus on the origins of the Tosefta. Several
views include the following possibilities:
1. It was once part of the Mishnah and may have been edited out.
2. It was collected in Babylonia, perhaps from material that was not
included in the Mishnah.
3. It may be earlier than the Mishnah and the Mishnah represents a later,
edited version.
4. It is a collection of glosses explaining aspects of the Mishnah.
The Tosefta was edited sometime between the third and fifth centuries and
was first published in Venice in 1521. It is not known as a work in the
Talmuds of Babylonia or Palestine, works edited in the fifth and sixth
centuries, although the term is found in rabbinic literature. One of the
main features of the talmudic commentary on the Mishnah will be the citation
of beraitot, but beraitot not necessarily found in the Tosefta. Tosefta
materials were circulated in manuscript during the middle ages and cited
regularly in commentaries upon the Mishnah.
It must also be pointed out in passing that rabbinic literature did not
develop in isolation. The rabbis' teachings were well informed by
developments in the surrounding culture including Hellenism and
Christianity. Saul Lieberman, the leading scholar of the Tosefta,
demonstrates in his books Greek in Jewish Palestine and Hellenism in Jewish
Palestine that many basic structures of rabbinic exegesis are borrowed
directly from the Greek. (For further descriptions of these tendencies, see
M. Simon, Verus Israel). The synagogue in Duro Europas in Syria, rebuilt in
244 shows a range of graphic pictorial images, perhaps inspired by the
earlier Christian frescoes in the same town. The synagogues built by Jews in
the third and fourth centuries in Palestine, Beth Alpha, Jerash, El Hammeh,
and Sheik Abrek, contain beautiful mosaics with zodiacs, pictures of the sun
god Helios, with Hebrew and Greek inscriptions. Other works produced by the
Jews at this time in rabbinic Hebrew include Sepher Harazim, a Hebrew magic
book with references to Helios.
Rabbinic materials, midrash and mishnah, are significant because they are
the foundation of subsequent rabbinic tradition. They represent two major
modes of Jewish textual development: commentary and codification. As we
shall see, throughout Jewish history there are cycles of commentary on a
classic work and then a period of codification and editing of the various
commentaries. This codification then will become the object of subsequent
commentary and the cycle will continue. The midrash represents the first
layer of commentary on the Bible. The Mishnah represents the first layer of
codification of Jewish law after the Bible.
There are tendencies to try to teach Jewish history and rabbinic history
independently of one another. Thus, on the one hand, some accounts of
medieval Jewish history often rely only on Chronicles and legislation
promulgated by the religious and the state authorities. On the other hand,
many Jewish histories often establishes chronology based on literary
developments in rabbinic texts alone. Both approaches are necessary and I
shall try to integrate them together. In particular the study of Jewish
social history, including matters of gender and family, and Jewish-Christian
relations cannot be attempted independently of rabbinic materials because it
is the rabbinic materials that reflect the private lives of Jews as well as
the extent to which these were influenced by the surrounding culture.
2. Christianity
a. The New Testament
After the destruction of Jerusalem many of the basic documents of
Christianity were formulated. The New Testament is made up of 27 books,
which include the Pauline Letters, the Deutero-Pauline Letters, the three
Synoptic Gospels, namely Mark, Matthew, and Luke, the Gospel of John, and
the book of Revelations, an apocalypse. The Pauline letters are the
earliest. The first letter of Paul, 1 Thessalonians, was written from
Corinth, west of Athens, in about 51. Galatians may have been written from
Ephesus, south of Smyrna, in about 54. 1 Corinthians also from Ephesus was
written in about 55 with 2 Corinthians following the next year. Philippians
was written sometime between 52 and 55. Romans, perhaps Paul's most
important, was written in about 57. Mark is dated around the year 70
(75-80), Matthew, between 70 and 90, Luke and Acts, a history of the early
church probably by the same author, from around 85 or 90, though some
scholars will date them in the early second century, from 110 or even
later. John is dated from 90 to 100, and could represent either the earliest
or the latest strata in the development of the New Testament. Current
scholarship indicates that Matthew and Luke are based on Mark with the
addition of a source no longer extant which scholars call Q, for Quelle,
meaning source. The Deutero-Pauline Letters, attributed to him but
considered by most New Testament scholars to be the work of others, are
considerably later and are difficult to date with precision. The New
Testament was canonized around 160-190.
There are many differences between parallel passages in different books of
the New Testament. Traditional theologians have tried to overcome the
differences in a harmonized version of the central narrative of the life and
death of Jesus and the rise of the Church. They have tried to reconcile
differences as well as ignore them. They have the luxury of quoting what
appeals to them and ignoring what may contradict it.
For critical biblical scholars there are several basic methods for
understanding the New Testament: 1) source criticism--trying to get to the
most original layer of teaching; 2) form criticism--trying to understand the
teachings as they are now written; 3) redaction criticism--trying to
understand the arrangement of the teachings. A central question for
biblical scholars is, to whom each book and passage of the New Testament
addressed?
For many Jews the New Testament is a closed book. At the most basic level
it is just not read. Moreover, it is viewed with mistrust or contempt.
Jews are afraid to read it because they are afraid that to do so will be
perceived as disloyal to the Jews and possibly even risky to their faith,
especially when most Jewish communities provide so little serious education
for their own youth. For Jews just the name of the book is seen as a threat
to the Hebrew Scriptures, often understood as the basic foundations of
Judaism and subject to being rendered obsolete or old and replacement or
supercession, as it were, by the new. Jews are contemptuous of the New
Testament because they view it as the root of much of the hatred and
oppression that they have experienced. These attitudes may be strong, but
they are not history. We will provide scholarly alternatives to both the
traditional Jewish and the traditional Christian views of the Jews based on
the New Testament.
b. The Church Fathers
The leaders of the early Church included, from 93-200, the Apostolic
Fathers, considered, erroneously, to have been disciples of the twelve
apostles of Jesus, and then the Church Fathers, from 200 to at least 450. By
some accounts the Church Fathers continued in the West until 636 and in the
East until 749. The fathers produced patristic writings in Greek, Latin,
and Syriac which determined matters of doctrine, conduct, and authority for
the medieval church. Their writings, especially in the early years, were
apologetic because all sorts of charges were leveled against early
Christians: cannibalism, atheism, and polytheism. The fathers also
developed, inspired by pagan philosophy, systematic theologies of
Christianity. Their wide-ranging and extensive writings included
discussions of the Jews, usually negative, called adversos Judaeos and
contra Judaeos. For three centuries Christian invective against Jews could
do them little harm. Christianity was a relatively small and powerless
sect, far smaller than the main body of Jews, who formed one of the major
population groups in the empire. Salo Baron has estimated that every tenth
Roman was a Jew and that east of Italy the population was twenty per cent
Jewish. When Christians gained full power over the Graeco-Roman world, the
discourse of the New Testament and of other early Christian patristic
writings took on a new meaning. What had been written in one context for
understandable historical and sociological reasons, now became the
justification to persecute Jews, even more by the populous than by the
officials of the Church. Church officials were often satisfied to see Jews
as a second-class sojourners living as a testimony to the folly of rejecting
Christ; but Christians--so it seems--gradually began to proceed against Jews
with destruction of property and life.
There are many parallels between rabbinic and patristic exegesis of the
Bible, many of which were explored during the nineteenth century by German
scholars. A long-standing and unresolved question is whether the rabbis
borrowed from the fathers, the fathers from the rabbis, or their parallel
teachings were arrived at independently. Many Jewish scholars have tried to
argue that patristic literature contains lost rabbinic teachings no longer
found in rabbinic texts. Such an assertion, however, begs the question of
whether it was only the fathers who borrowed from the rabbis.
Before looking at the major themes and the major patristic writers, there is
a fundamental question which must be addressed concerning their attitude
toward the Jews. Are these writers dealing with real Jews or with
theological abstractions? James Parkes, who pioneered research in this area
during the 1930s wrote that in the writings of fourth century Church Fathers
the Jew was "a monster," a "theological abstraction," and "not a human
being." In her important book on the subject, Faith and Fratricide, Rosemary
Ruether, argued that patristic images of the Jews were theological
abstractions and that the anti-Judaic polemic was the left hand of the
christological hermeneutic. The opposite view, put forward by Lukyn
Williams and Marcel Simon, was that the comments about the Jews in the
Church fathers reflect real controversies.
The question of whether the Church fathers had actual interactions with Jews
is closely tied up with the question of whether the Church fathers came to
their views of the Jews on their own or inherited them from the New
Testament. In this presentation, following Simon, I will try to show that
the theological anti-Judaic polemic was the result of positive, intimate
social and religious relations between Jews and Christians. Many of the
Church fathers lived in Palestine or Alexandria where they had contact with
Jews. The anti-Judaic tone of patristic literature was an attempt to define
boundaries between Jews and Christians and to make the Jews seem horrible
precisely because the christological hermeneutic was not inherently
anti-Jewish and did not deter Christians from having positive relations with
Jews. Christians not only socialized with Jews but were very interested in
many aspects of Judaism. Thus, contrary to what was once the conventional
wisdom expressed by scholars, Judaism was viable during these early medieval
centuries. It was the task of the patristic writers to undermine the
strength of Judaism, especially as it influenced Christians.