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Torah in the Mouth, Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE - 400 CE Jaffee, Martin S., Samuel and Althea Stroum Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Washington Print publication date: 2001, Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003 Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-514067-5, doi:10.1093/0195140672.001.0001 utterance for embracing a vow to prohibit an object for one's pleasure. M. Nedarim 1:2–4 understands this as euphemism for qrbn; that is, the person utters the vow by referring obliquely to the Temple sacra (M. Nedarim 2:2). A rich discussion of the rabbinic terminology for vows and oaths in the context of Greco-Roman culture is offered in S. Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine, pp. 115–141. 31. The refrain that Jesus teaches with authority is stressed throughout the Gospels. It is interesting, in this connection, that Luke 4:16 –30's portrayal of Jesus' textual-interpretive practice in the synagogue at Nazareth declines to name Pharisees as among the outraged congregants. Cf. Mark 1:21–28, which has Jesus in the Capernaum synagogue besting scribes rather than Pharisees. A useful exploration of early Christian representations of Jesus' charismatic authority in contrast to rabbinic patterns is that of Hengel, The Charismatic Leader and His Followers, pp. 38–83. Hengel's confidence that rabbinic patterns are by definition also Pharisaic flaws his discussion. By contrast, Byrskog, Jesus the Only Teacher , pp. 199–236, shows that Jesus' uniqueness as a teacher is understood within the Matthean community in ways that intersect with rabbinic models of discipleship to a Sage. 32. Studies of ways in which developing rabbinic tradition deals with memories of charismatic figures in its own lineage are offered by W. Green, “Palestinian Holy Men: Charismatic Leadership and rabbinic Tradition,” pp. 619–647, and B. Bokser, “Wonder-Working and the rabbinic Tradition: The Case of Hanina ben Dosa,” pp. 42–92. 33. The main Josephan references are War 1:107–114, 571; 2:162–166; Antiquities 13:171–173, 288–298, 400–432; 17:41–45; 18:12–15; Life 10–12, 189–198. end p.178 34. The most helpful meditation on the value of Josephan and Christian accounts of Pharisaic legal expertise (akribeia) in identifying the origins of the term “Pharisees” is offered by A. Baumgarten, “The Name of the Pharisees,” pp. 411–428. 35. The rabbinic parallel to this narrative at B. Qiddushin 66a will occupy us below as 36. All translations of this passage follow that of Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees, pp. 216–217. 37. Important recent discussions include J. Baumgarten, “The Unwritten Law in the Pre-rabbinic Period,” pp. 12–14; E. Rivkin, A Hidden Revolution, pp. 36–43; and M. Hengel and R. Deines, “E. P. Sanders' ‘Common Judaism,’ Jesus and the Pharisees,” pp. 29–32. 38. See J. Neusner, “Oral Torah and Oral Tradition,” p. 70. 70, E. P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah , pp. 99–100. 39. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees, pp. 230–239. 40. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees, p. 243. 41. For text, see Qimron and Strugnell, Discoveries, vol. 10, p. 63. Qimron argues that the author of the letter is most likely the Righteous Teacher and that his addressee is the Hasmonean dynast symbolized as the Wicked Priest (pp. 114–121). Strugnell, in the same volume (pp. 204–206), is hesitant to identify the principals. D. Schwartz, “MMT, Josephus, and the Pharisees,” identifies the author as “a Qumran spokesman early in the Hasmonean period” (p. 79) and the addressee as Pharisees in temporary coalition with the Hasmonean High Priesthood (pp. 79–80). 42. The identification as “the Elder” (hzqn) is episodic (e.g., M. Rosh Hashannah 2:5, M. Orlah 2:12) and is intended to distinguish him from his grandson, of the same name, who appears to have succeeded Rabban Yohanan b. Zakkai as the guiding force of the Yavnean Academy in the 80s of the first century CE. On the problems of distinguishing the traditions about the two figures, see J. Neusner, Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70, vol. 1, pp. 341–342. The major study of the traditions of the Yavnean Rabban Gamaliel is that of S. Kanter, Rabban Gamaliel II: The Legal Traditions . 43. See the survey of the Gamaliel traditions in J. Neusner, Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70 , vol. 1, pp. 342–376. Neusner concludes that “Gamaliel was both a Temple-council member, as Acts alleges, and a leader within the Pharisaic sect, as the rabbinic traditions hold” (p. 376). In fact, it is the tradition of Acts, rather than that of the Rabbis, which explicitly names Gamaliel as a Pharisee. Nevertheless, his Pharisaic connection seems certain. 44. In rabbinic tradition, Rabban Shimon b. Gamaliel occupies a shadowy place, for no legal prescriptions are transmitted directly in his name. Many materials transmitted in the name of Rabban Shimon b. Gamaliel presuppose a post-70 setting, and therefore refer to his grandson of the same name, who flourished in the early third of the second century CE. See J. Neusner, Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70, vol. 1, pp. 377–388, for a study of the narrative traditions. 45. J. Neusner, Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70 , vol. 1, p. 159. 46. E. Rivkin, A Hidden Revolution, p. 131, points out that only texts in which prwšym and dwqym are juxtaposed provide the most secure foundations for historical reconstructions of the Pharisees. He also points out that a number of rabbinic references to prwšym refer not to Pharisees, but rather to various practitioners of pietistic disciplines that received more or less unfavorable rabbinic comment (pp. 162–173). G. Stemberger, Jewish Contemporaries of Jesus , pp. 40–45, focuses in particular on M. Hagigah 2:7, M. Sotah 3:4, T. Sotah 15:11–12, T. Shabbat 1:15, Y. Sotah 5:7, 20a (Y. Berakhot 9:7, 14b), and B. Sotah 22a. 47. See, for example: T. Rosh Hashannah 1:15, M. Pesahim 5:8, M. Yoma 1:5/T. Yoma 1:8, T. Niddah 5:3. For the occasional use of “scribes” (swprym), see chapter 4. end p.179 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2003 - 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/privacy_policy.html). Subscriber: Columbia University; date: 20 September 2011
Torah in the Mouth, Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE - 400 CE Jaffee, Martin S., Samuel and Althea Stroum Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Washington Print publication date: 2001, Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003 Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-514067-5, doi:10.1093/0195140672.001.0001 48. E. Rivkin, A Hidden Revolution, pp. 137–139, enumerates M. Makkot 1:6, T. Yoma 1:8, and B. Niddah 33b as other examples. In fact none of these supports his claim. In M. Makkot 1:6 and T. Kippurim 1:8 it is “Sages”—not “Pharisees”—who come into conflict with Sadducees or Boethusians. The term prwšym does not appear in the texts. Rivkin's equation of Sages with Pharisees thus assumes what he wants to prove. The Tannaitic passage cited at B. Niddah 33b, for its part, states that the wives of Sadducees “live in fear of the Pharisees and [w ] show their menstrual blood to the Sages.” In this passage the Pharisees and Sages are enumerated as distinct, not identical, groups. Moreover, in the parallel at T. Niddah 5:3, the term km is used exclusively, with no mention of prwšym. Even if we grant Rivkin's reading of this passage, it suggests only that a very late Babylonian version of T. Niddah 5:3 has begun to equate Pharisees and Sages. B. Qiddushin 66a exemplifies this same process, as we shall see. 49. See E. Rivkin, A Hidden Revolution, pp. 142–145. 50. J. Neusner, Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70 , vol. 1, pp. 173–176 notes and analyzes the numerous discrepancies between the two versions. In the talmudic account, the king is Alexander Jannaeus, known as Yannai the King. The Sadducee, Jonathan, of Josephus' version, is here identified merely as “a scoffer, with an evil and rebellious heart, and Elazar b. Poerah was his name.” So the Talmud differs from Josephus both on the chronology of the event that resulted in royal persecution of Pharisees and on the role of a Sadducee as an instigator. It also differs on the name and loyalty of the person who points out the king's tainted lineage. The Talmud's Yehudah b. Gederah, apparently a Sage, replaces Josephus' “evil-natured guest, Elazar” (Antiquities 13:290) as the Pharisaic figure, while Josephus' Elazar has been assimilated to the Talmud's Elazar b. Poerah. 51. For further discussion, see the recent article of A. Baumgarten, “Rabbinic Literature as a Source for the History of Jewish Sectarianism in the Second Temple Period,” pp. 36–52. 52. For discussion of the place of this passage in the larger tradition of Shimon b. Shetah, see J. Neusner, Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70, vol. 1, pp. 108–109. 53. All other references to Yannai the King occur in the Babylonian Talmud: e.g., B. Sotah 22b (which alludes to Josephus' report that Alexander Jannaeus urged Alexandra Salome to curry Pharisaic favor after his death), B. Sotah 47a (which knows of Yannai's murder of the Sages), and B. Bava Batra 133b, without earlier parallel. For discussion of the latter two passages, see J. Neusner, Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70, vol. 1, pp. 83–86, 73–76. 54. In addition to the materials of M. Yadayim 4:6–7, Pharisees are explicitly identified in M. Yadayim 4:8, T. Yadayim 2:20, M. Hagigah 2:7, and T. Hagigah 3:35. These and more debatable references to Pharisees in the Mishnah and the Tosefta are discussed in G. Stemberger, Jewish Contemporaries of Jesus , pp. 45–64. 55. I omit here the continuation of the passage at M. Yadayim 4:8. The latter shares the same formulaic complaint against Pharisees, but the disputant is identified in the best manuscripts as a “Galilean heretic” (myn) rather than a dwqy. 56. The Sadducean point here is an ironic one: sacred books render the hands unclean, while books of pagan mythology do not. Rabbinic tradition holds that sacred texts convey uncleanness to the hands (e.g., M. Kelim 15:6; M. Yadayim 3:4–5, 4:5; T. Yadayim 2:10 –14, 19 [ed. Zuckermandel, pp. 683–684]). The explanation, according to later talmudic tradition (B. Shabbat 14a), is that this is a precaution against storing biblical scrolls with priestly offerings, lest rodents attracted to the food damage the scrolls. If the scrolls are regarded as conveyers of contamination to the hands, they can then contaminate priestly offerings as well. On the sources and their explanation, see S. Leiman, The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture , pp. 102–120. end p.180 57. As earlier, the point is ironic. The bones of an unclean creature convey no impurity, while the bones of a saintly High Priest render those touching them unclean from corpse contamination. The Sadducees here would not dispute the uncleanness of the High Priests bones but would dispute the incapacity of an unclean animal's bones to convey uncleanness. Lev. 11:24 points out that carcasses of beasts convey uncleanness to those touching them. M. Tohorot 1:4/M. Hullin 9:1 indeed adds that while the flesh of dead beasts conveys uncleanness, the bones do not contribute the requisite quantity of flesh deemed capable of transmitting this contamination. On the uncleanness of the human corpse, including its bones and extruding fluids, see Num. 19:16 and M. Ohalot 2:1–3. 58. That is, if clean liquid is poured into an unclean vessel, the vessel contaminates the liquid within it and also causes the uncleanness to climb up the spout of water to contaminate the contents of the pure vessel. The Mishnaic source reflecting this view is M. Tohorot 8:9 (cf. Makhshirin 5:9). 59. Since the source of the water comes from the ground, the water cannot contract uncleanness from any corpse matter it contacts in the graveyard (cf. M. Miqvaot 1:4). The Sadducees presumably agree with this on the basis of Lev. 11:36. The point is then ironic: if the Sadducees do not believe that contamination downstream within the graveyard moves upstream to contaminate the source, why do they hold precisely this in connection with a spout? The examples are hardly analogous, however, as traditional commentaries point out (e.g., Tiferet Yisrael, ad loc.). Nevertheless, for the rhetorical purposes of the present context the point serves. 60. See M. Bava Qamma 8:4. 61. On the basis of this observation, M. Yadayim 4:8, which has the Pharisees besting their interlocuters, seems to have been appended to 4:6–7 at the penultimate stage of its reworking for the purpose of concluding Tractate Yadayim. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2003 - 2011. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/privacy_policy.html). Subscriber: Columbia University; date: 20 September 2011
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