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
idiosyncratic nature of these tractates as evidence that they were completed in the first century, prior to the emergence of stylistic traits
characteristic of the Mishnah as a whole. See, for example, C. Albeck, Introduction to the Mishnah, pp. 85–87, and E. Z. Melamed,
Introductory Comments on the Talmudic Literature, pp. 58–63. Neusner, to the contrary, shows that the narrative materials can all be
explained in light of a second-century setting among the tradents responsible for the creation of other Mishnaic literary forms. See J.
Neusner, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Holy Things, Part Six , pp. 196–210.
On the connections between Yoma and Tamid in particular, see A. Goldberg, “The Tosefta to Tractate Tamid,” pp. 18–42. While the
proposition that Yoma contains parts of a “lost Tosefta” to Tamid is impossible to test, Goldberg's observations about the relationships of
the narrative materials in the tractates remain illuminating. Cf. Y. Epstein, Introduction to Tannaitic Literature, pp. 28–29.
16. Albeck's text includes two refrains (“sound of the song/sound of the shofar”) omitted from the citation of this passage appearing in Y.
Sukkah 5:3, 55b. The Mishnah version presented in B. Tamid 30b contains textual variations and repetitions but otherwise differs little
from Albeck. See M. Schachter, The Babylonian and Palestinian Mishnah Textually Compared , pp. 317–318, and Albeck, Six Orders of
the Mishnah, vol. 5, p. 426–427.
17. Later traditions extol the carrying power of Gvini's voice, reporting that King Agrippas was able to hear it from a great distance (B.
Yoma 20b: three Persian miles; Y. Sheqalim 5:2, 48d: eight Persian miles; the version of Y. Sheqalim published in the Babylonian Talmud
14a: five Persian miles).
18. R. Eliezer b. Daglai (var.: Elazar b. Dalgai [Y. Sukkah 5:3] or Yose b. Dulgai [B. Yoma 39b]) appears, according to Albeck (Six Orders
of the Mishnah, vol. 5, p. 427), in no other rabbinic sources. In light of his obscurity, it is difficult to propose a date for this figure. J.
Neusner, observing that other glosses in Tamid (3:2: Rabbi Matya b. Shmuel; 5:2: Rabbi Eliezer b. Yaaqov; 7:2: Rabbi Yehudah) bear the
names of second-century figures, assigns our authority to the same period (The Mishnaic Law of Holy Things, Part 6 , pp. 196–197).
19. That is, well beyond the boundary of Jericho. B-Z Segal, Mishnaic Geography, pp. 86–87, locates the Mikhvar range in the hill country
east of the Dead Sea midway between Moav and Amon, in contemporary Jordan. Rabbinic sources know the area as a site for the pyres
that signaled the New Moon (T. Rosh Hashannah 1:17).
20. L. Ginzberg, who regards Tamid as the oldest Mishnaic tractate to survive in its original form, follows Y. Yoma 2:3, 39d/B. Yoma 14b
in attributing its authorship to Rabbi Shimon of Mitzpeh, an obscure first-century figure (L. Ginzberg, “The Mishnah Tamid,” pp. 284–293).
Epstein, Introduction to Tannaitic Literature, pp. 29–31, also regards Tamid and Middot as early and related compilations. The views of
Ginzberg and Epstein regarding the dating of these tractates and their authorship are vigorously challenged by Neusner, who links their
themes to issues of interest exclusively to mid to late second-century authorities (History of the Mishnaic Order of Holy Things, Part Six,
pp. 203–208).
21. The lack of a Toseftan tractate Tamid makes it impossible to engage in the reconstructive activity I attempt further on in this chapter
for the narrative of M-T Parah, chapter 3.
22. The road distance between contemporary Jerusalem and Jericho is about 36 km or 22 miles. The distance is 10 Persian miles in
rabbinic computation: B. Yoma 20b/39b.
end p.196
23. A. Goldberg (“The Mishnah,” p. 215) has noted the “poetic” quality of certain Mishnaic passages, such as M. Tamid 7:3 and M.
Bikkurim 3:3, without specifying the specific context of such poetic activity.
24. The uniqueness of the stylistic traits of this song within the rabbinic corpus suggests that before us are the preserved remains of a
popular tradition which was appropriated by rabbinic participants in the larger Palestinian Jewish culture. I have not, however, found any
parallels in non-rabbinic Jewish literature of the period which confirm memories of spectacular sounds or aromas.
To the contrary, the Letter of Aristeas, 92–95, stresses the profound silence of the Temple service. Similarly, the description in 3
Maccabees 1:9–10 of Potelemy IV Philopater's entry into the Temple praises its “immaculate and dignified appearance” and “orderliness.”
The theme of extreme dignity and orderliness is carried through in Josephus, Apion 2:104–108. Nonrabbinic reports of wonders associated
with the Temple are spare, e.g., rainfall that occurred only during respites in construction (Josephus, Antiquities, 15:425) or a magnificent
fountain of water proceeding from the Temple whose sound “fills the deep channel of the stream as it exits” (Philo the Epic Poet, as cited
in Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 9.37.1–3; but cf. Ezek. 47:5).
25. Cf. Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, B39, which appends the song to M. Avot 5:5's list of ten miracles associated with the Temple service.
Indeed, both L. Ginzberg, “The Mishnah Tamid,” p. 40, and Y. Epstein, Introduction to the Tannaitic Literature, p. 30, regard the inclusion
of this material as an interpolation postdating the completion of the Mishnah as a whole. Their reasoning is grounded in two assumptions:
(1) that Tamid was completed by the late first century and (2) that the third-century Amoraic discussants of B. Yoma 39b overlook this
material because they do not know it. Neusner's discussions make a first-century setting for the tractate's completion unlikely, and the
citation of the passage in Y. Sukkah demonstrates that the material was certainly available to third-century authorities.
26. See J. Goody, Domestication of the Savage Mind , pp. 74–111, and J. Z. Smith, “Sacred Persistence,” pp. 44–52. An important
critique of Goody's overstatements regarding the impact of literacy upon list-making may be consulted in J. Halverson, “Goody and the
Implosion of the Literacy Thesis,” pp. 307–308.
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