Torah in the Mouth.pdf

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.
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