Subject: JUICE History 5: The Jews in Babylon
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 01:46:12 +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 5
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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: 5/12
Lecturer: Prof. Howard Adelman
To all JUICE subscribers: We will not be sending out lectures next week,
due to the Passover holiday. Our next lectures (no. 6) will be sent to you
on Tuesday, April 21. Happy Pesach.
Lecture 5: The Jews of Babylonia
The study of the early history of the Jews of Babylonia is important for
several reasons. Babylonia was a major center of Jewish life that
continued to flourish under several world empires for over 2,000 years.
There the Babylonian Talmud, which would become the central text for
subsequent Jewish discourse, was produced by the rabbis, making
Babylonia, from the vantage point of rabbinic Judaism, not just a
diasporan Jewish community but the model diasporan Jewish community. A
study of the community in which the Talmud emerged helps understand the
nature of talmudic discourse and its relevance to subsequent Jewish
development. The study of the Jews of Babylonia, however, cannot be
confused with what is sometimes called the rabbinic or talmudic period of
Jewish history. While this became the dominant aspects of the period for
subsequent generations, our concern in this lecture is the larger context
from which the rabbis emerged, but did not dominate.
The geographical area between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers was
variously known as Mesopotamia, Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia,
Parthia, Persia and now Iraq and Iran. Jews first lived there after the
destruction of the first Temple in 586 BCE and began to settle in large
numbers after the destruction of the second Temple in 70. In general,
the Jews there flourished except during limited periods of persecution.
A. History
Very little information about the Jews of Babylonia is available. The
main source, the Babylonian Talmud, contains very little historical
information. Additional primary sources include, for the early period,
some references in Josephus, the ruins of early synagogues, especially
the rich illustrations from Dura Europos, and for the later period, some
magic bowls. The major history of the Jews of Babylonia remains Jacob
Neusner's five volume study, which he summarized in a one volume work
called There We Sat Down, and in a brief article in the Encylopaedia
Judaica.
In 586 BCE the Neo-Babylonian Empire (626-333 BCE), led by Nebuchadnezzer
III (605-561 BCE), destroyed the First Temple and the city of Jerusalem
and brought Jewish captives to settle in Babylonia (Psalm 137). In 540
BCE, Cyrus, leader of the Achemenids of Iran, who had conquered much of
the world and desired to establish a military presence in the west and to
win the loyalty of the Jews, as he had of other minorities in his new
empire, allowed a small return of Jews from Babylonia to Jerusalem under
Zerubabel, Nehemiah, and Ezra. These events are recorded, with much
confusion, in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Hebrew Bible.
For similar reasons, in 525 BCE the Persians established a colony of
Jewish mercenaries in Elephantine (Yev in Aramaic) in Egypt on an island
in the Nile near the present site of the Aswan Dam (built in fact with
rubble from this colony). Not relevant to our point here about the role
of Jewish colonizing and military forces under the Persians, is the
fascinating story of the Jewish temple which existed in Elephantine from
the seventh till the fifth centuries (Isaiah 19:19), the role of the
goddess in Jewish worship there, and the ability of Jewish women to
dissolve their marriages unilaterally, to testify in court, and to run
their own businesses. This history has been preserved in the Aramaic
papyri archives discovered there during the twentieth century. (See the
books by Cowley, Kraeling, and Porton and the selections in Pritchard's
Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 491-2).
In Babylonia itself the Jews flourished as farmers, artisans, and traders
in a multi-cultural, multi-linguistic, and multi-ethnic empire in which,
until the third century of the common era, their history remains
obscure. Under the Seleucids (320 BCE-140 BCE), who, upon the break up
of the empire of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE, became
one of the successor empires to it with its capital in Seleucia, slightly
north of the city of Babylonia, Jews rose to positions of power in the
army. They displayed their loyalty and appreciation to the Seleucid
empire by not becoming involved in the Maccabean uprising in Palestine
against the Seleucids from 168-165 BCE. The Jews adopted the Seleucid
calendar for almost a millennium (with many Jews using the "year of the
documents," shenat hashetarot).
Subsequently, the Parthians (248 BCE - 226 CE), an Iranian people led by
the Arsacid dynasty, finally replaced the Seleucids as rulers in
Babylonia and established their capital at Ctesiphon-Seleucia and for a
time rivaled Rome, including a brief conquest of Jerusalem in 40 BCE.
The Jews flourished, some enjoying noble status and demonstrating
military might. One such example was Zamaris or Zimri a Jew from
Babylonia who settled in Jerusalem during the reign of King Herod with a
retinue of 500 soldiers who, according to Josephus, could shoot their
bows and arrows while riding on horseback. There were also Babylonian
Jewish nobles who had the authority to have Jews arrested and killed.
Others traveled back and forth between Babylonia and Palestine for
religious and commercial reasons, including the silk trade which extended
between the Roman and Parthian empires. From about 20-35 CE two petty
Jewish tyrants, Anilaeus (Anilai) and Asinaeus (Asinai), established a
small Jewish state in the region that was recognized by Parthia. In
about 40 CE, Queen Helen of Adiabene and her son Izates, the rulers of
another state in northern Babylonia near Syria, became Jewish,
information reported in both Josephus and the Talmud. In 46 she traveled
to Palestine and distributed much aid, later being some of the few
Babylonian Jews who supported the Palestinian Jewish rebels against Rome
from 66-73, despite Parthian opposition to Rome. In fact, one of the
reasons Josephus wrote his history, as he stated at the beginning, was to
explain Roman behavior to the Jews of Babylonia and to keep them from
joining the uprising. However, in Babylonia itself, when the Roman
emperor Trajan invaded from 114-117, destroying also the kingdom of
Adiabene, Jews attacked his forces as they did in other diasporan
communities such as Cyprus, Egypt, and Cyrenaica. During the Bar Kochba
revolt from 132-135, because of peaceful relations between Rome and
Parthia, the Jews of Babylonia did not support the rebels in Palestine.
In 135, after the Bar Kokhba revolt, Jews fled from Palestine to
Babylonia and opened rabbinic institutions, including schools for the
training of native Babylonian rabbis, often staffed by graduates of
rabbinic academies in Palestine. By the second century, the office of
the Exilarch, the Resh Galuta, had been established. Soon Babylonia was
rivaling Palestine as a center for Jewish scholarship and authority in
matters such as setting the calendar. In 219 Rav -- Abba bar Avina-- a
disciple of Judah hanasi, the Patriarch in Palestine, established an
academy in Sura. At about the same time his friend and rival, Samuel,
held a similar position at the academy at Nehardea, a major center of
Jewish life on the Euphrates. (In 259 Nehardea was razed and the academy
moved to Pumbedita, and another blossomed at Mahoza, another major center
of Jewish life on the Tigris near the capital.) The Mishnah, recently
edited and promulgated by Judah Hanasi in Palestine, was studied at these
academies.
The Sassanian dynasty, rooted in a Persian priestly family, assumed power
in 226 (226-640) under Ardashir I (224-241). This strong central monarchy
was closely linked to Zoroastrianism, the religion of Zarathustra, based
on reforms of ancient eastern religions, including monotheism as well as
a dualism that stressed the battle between good and evil. Their early
rule included attempts to convert the minorities of the empire and
contempt for Jews, especially when they exercised too much judicial
independence. From 241 to 271, Shapur I created a prosperous, urban
regime, during which, Mani founded Manichaeism, a dualistic religion that
tried to unite the followers of many of the empire's religions. The
Babylonian rabbinic authority Samuel (d. 260) established close relations
with Shapur and, as a consequence of the newly restrictive political
climate in Babylonia toward minority rights, Samuel articulated clearly
the principle in Jewish law that "the law of the land is the law," dina
demalkhuta dina. According to this principle, never fully stated in
Palestine but certainly adumbrated by some Palestinian rabbis during the
second and third centuries, the Jews accepted Persian law, taxes, court
documents, and military obligations, in exchange for which they received
internal communal autonomy. In addition the rabbis also sought to limit
Jewish messianic expectations by postponing them (AZ 9b). As a
consequence, when, as part of a raid in Asia Minor, Shapur killed 12,000
Jews, as a sign of his loyalty to the Sassanian state, Samuel would not
mourn the death of the Jews.
After the death of Shapur I in 271 there followed a series of weak kings
which led to political instability, foreign wars, and Zoroastrian
religious reaction, which included the execution of Mani in 275. Shapur
II, who ruled from 309 to 379, including a minority rule from 309-337,
executed rebellious Arab tribes, tax resisters, and Christians, who
suffered especially after the Edict of Milan in 311, which marked their
toleration by the Roman emperors, their expanded attempts at
conversionary activity in Persia, and their support of Rome, making them
less trusted or accepted in Parthia. The Jews do not seem to have been
molested. When Julian the apostate emperor of Rome invaded Babylonia in
363, despite his promises to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, the Jews of
Babylonia nevertheless fought against him, possibly because he had razed
some Jewish towns, where he may have encountered resistance, or because
those who did support him may have been massacred by the Persian government.
>From 455 to 475, according to later rabbinic chronicles (such as the
Letter of R. Sherira Gaon, the Seder Tannaim veamoraim, and Sefer
hakabbalah), the Sassanians under the emperors Yazdagird II and Peroz
attacked the Jews and banned synagogues, Jewish schools, observance of
the Sabbath, and the Torah. In addition to many Jews, the Exilarch was
killed and his position suspended. Jewish children were seized and
converted. This period, especially 468-86, was exactly 400 years after
the destruction of the Temple (associated with the year 68 in rabbinic
literature), a time which was ripe for the messianic speculation
postponed by the rabbis several centuries earlier (AZ 9b), as a result of
which, according to a much later Iranian historian, the Jews of Isfahan
may have flayed alive some Zoroastrian priests. These political and
religious measures against the Jews may have been the way the Sassanians
sought to suppress a Jewish messianic movement. By 530, stability
returned to Babylonia for the Jews. In 624, the Jews fought with the
Sassanians to conquer the land of Israel, and, in doing so, as part of
the messianic fervor that accompanied such a conquest, they massacred
many Christians who lived there. In 651, the last Sassanian king was
killed and the Jews of Babylonia were then under the authority of the
Muslims.
B. Jewish Society in Babylonia
There were three basic often competing but interrelated estates among the
Jews of Babylonia: the Exilarch and his administration, the rabbinate,
and the Jewish masses.
1. The Exiliarch, Resh Galuta, or Nasi, was the administrative head of
the Jewish community. Appointed by and accountable to the Sassanian
government, he and his administration mediated relations between the Jews
and the state. The position, begun in at least the first century, was
not filled by rabbis, unlike the Jewish Patriarch or Nasi or Palestine.
The Exilarch controlled the Jews by appointing judges, market inspectors,
and tax collectors, many of whom enjoyed tax exemptions. He had the
support of armed enforcement and the authority to resort to capital
punishment to implement the will of the government (Git. 7a). The
position, filled by davidic heirs (Hor. 11b), offered the Jews great
symbolic significance in terms of traditional messianic and political
aspirations (Gen. 49:10).
2. The rabbis constituted a distinct religious estate, although it was
open to every Jew on the basis of his attainments in matters of learning
and piety. The source of their studies was the movement of rabbinical
students and teachers in both directions between the schools of Palestine
and Babylonia. The rabbis, a minority trying to impose its power without
any authority or coercive devices, did not control the synagogue or
ritual, a task that any Jew could fulfill, or criminal law, which was
under the authority of the Exilarch and the Sassanian authorities. The
rabbis, gradually engaged by the Exilarch to support his administration,
believing they were heirs to the priestly caste as intermediaries between
heaven and earth, vehemently felt entitled to be tax exempt like those
officials appointed by the Exilarch (BB 8a, Ned. 62b). The Exilarch,
however, was not willing to suffer this loss of prestige or income,
especially if more tax burden would fall on the poor and increase their
anger against the Exilarch. The rabbis' source of power was their role
as teachers of what they saw as the pre-existent Torah and the Mishnah,
that is the written and oral heavenly teachings that are replicated by
holy men on earth. Their supernatural holy and magical powers, based on
the Torah, in medicinal, occult, ethics, and atonement, matters connected
with the minor details of ritual and daily life, made them popular with
the Jewish people and useful to the Exilarch who saw them as an important
aspect of legitimizing his authority and supporting his administrative
functionaries. In turn, they received from the Exilarch the authority to
judge certain cases and to administer some punishments. Rabbinic courts
could only judge in minor cases of personal status and small property
matters. Rabbinic courts competed with those of non-rabbinic judges, the
Exilarch, and the Sassanians. In the main, the rabbis served the Exilarch
as administrators in civil matters not dependent on rabbinic law. For
most matters the rabbis did not have access to police support, but they
could administer floggings, excommunications, and, in two cases,
dismemberments--cutting off hands for violence or masturbation. There are
only three cases of rabbinic involvement in actual capital cases in the
Talmud so that most of their discussions were purely theoretical. One of
the most dramatic aspects of the power that the rabbis arrogated to
themselves was the ability to take extra-legal measures by summarily
executing Jews because of the needs of the hour, especially against those
who informed against the Jewish community to the governmental authorities
(moser) or who in their judgment posed a danger to the Jewish community
(rodef), principles that are still invoked today.
The legacy of the Babylonian rabbis is preserved in the Gemara,
transcriptions of their discussions about the Mishnah, which they edited
as part of the Babylonian Talmud which contained the Mishnah and their
Gemara. This process was undertaken by Rav Ashi and Ravina during the
fifth century and was finished during the sixth by the Savoraim, the last
generation of editors.
3. About the Jewish masses of Babylonia very little is known. It seems
that many of them, poor and ignorant, did not follow rabbinic practices
concerning diet, menstrual purity, sabbath observance, and the honor due
to rabbis. The Talmud regularly juxtaposed the am haaretz, the ignorant
and violent peasant, with the rabbi, and tried to establish clear
boundaries between the two estates (Pes. 49b). The Talmud, therefore,
reflects the deliberations of the rabbinic class and its attempts to
define itself and to exercise power among the people; it does not
represent a report about Babylonian Jewish life.
C. The Babylonian Talmud
The Babylonian Talmud grew out of the study of the Mishnah and beraitot,
tanaitic statements not found in the Mishnah, from the third to the sixth
centuries by the amoraim, the rabbis, of Babylonia. It was prepared in
Aramaic in Sura and Pumbedita, Mahoza, Naresh, Mata Mehasya, and
Nehardea. While there are sixty three tractates of Mishnah, the
Babylonian Talmud only has Gemara on thirty-seven tractates. The
Babylonian Talmud comprises about two and a half million words. About a
two thirds of it is aggadah, rabbinic legends, Bible study, and folklore;
one third is halakhic discussion.
By comparison, the Palestinian Talmud, compiled in the Galilee during the
fifth century by the amoraim there, comprises Gemara on thirty-nine
tractates of the Mishnah. It amounts to a quarter the size of the
Babylonian Talmud, about 750,000 words, because it contains only about
one sixth aggadah since much of the rabbinic materials in Palestine had
been edited into separate collections of midrash on the Bible while in
Bablylonia these had been included in the Talmud itself. The Palestinian
Talmud was also redacted earlier. The Babylonian Talmud became the Talmud
and definitive for world Jewry, perhaps because it better reflected
diasporan conditions or simply because it had been edited with more care.
The talmudic text is more than a treasure house for Jewish religious
lore, much of it with little systematization. But rather it represents
the consistent attempt for the rabbis to elevate themselves to be the
mediators not only of the biblical text but of God's word itself.
Despite the fact that the Talmud is often characterized by its logical
methods, often caricatured as hairsplitting, the logic is never
complete. The texts will take the reader on a logical cul-de-sac where
the final conclusions will be derived not by logic but through the
authority of a tradition as taught by a particular rabbi. The story that
best illustrates this is called the Oven of Aknai about Rabbi Eliezer who
brought forward every possible argument to make his point but the other
rabbis would not accept them. He had carob trees move, streams flow
backwards, buildings incline, and even the divine voice from heaven speak
on his behalf. To all this the one other rabbi said, quoting the Torah,
"It is not in Heaven." Another argued: "That the Torah had already been
given at Mount Sinai; we pay no attention to a heavenly voice, because
Thou has long since written in the Torah at Mount Sinai, 'After the
majority must one incline.'" These rabbis thus told God himself that he
had no business interfering in their deliberations (Baba Metzia 59b).
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