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Rabbinic Universalism in the Second and Third Centuries*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Marc Hirshman
Marc Hirshman
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University
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Extract

In the eye of a protracted political storm, the rabbinic sages of the first centuries of the common era preserved and nurtured their Jewish heritage. This was not a univocal heritage, but one of significant diversity. Although these rabbis were fully aware of the divisiveness that had plagued Jewish religious attitudes over the centuries, they turned debate and dissent into their very trademark. Whether in matters legal, ethical, or theological, differing and even contradictory opinions were the norm. A natural result of this rabbinic posture is that the entire rabbinic corpus is anthological. We do not possess individual works of the rabbis, great as they might have been. We have instead catenae or collections of statements. Sometimes they represent real conversations between sages, but other times they reflect an editorial juxtaposition of opposing views. These characteristics of rabbinic literature create a formidable challenge for those who wish to treat rabbinic thought systematically.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 93 , Issue 2 , April 2000 , pp. 101 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2000

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References

1 See Hirshman, Marc, “The Greek Fathers and the Aggada on Ecclesiastes: Formats of Exegesis in Late Antiquity,” HUCA 59 (1988) 137–65.Google Scholar Most recently, see “The Anthological Imagination in Jewish Literature,” Prooftexts 17 (1997 [special issue]) 1–63Google Scholar.

2 See Kalmin, Richard L., “Friends and Colleagues, or Barely Acquainted,” HUCA 61 (1990) 125–58Google Scholar; revised and reprinted in , idem, Sages, Stories, Authors, and Editors in Rabbinic Babylonia (Scholars Press, Atlanta, 1994) 175–92Google Scholar.

3 No less problematic were the efforts to locate or assess ideas in their historical context. The dating of rabbinic works was arguably the main thrust of Zunz's nineteenth century Wissenschaft des Judentums movement and has occupied Talmudic scholarship ever since. Historical reconstruction is impossible without accurate dating of traditions, as Neusner and his students have hammered home. Yet, 150 years of academic study of the Tannaitic texts holds that the bulk of these works can be attributed reliably to the second or third century. See M. Kahana's persuasive comments on the dating of Mekilta de R. Yishmael in the appendix to his article , “The Critical Editions of Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael in the Light of the Genizah Fragments,” Tarbiz 55 (1986 [Hebrew]) 515–20 and his recently published volume,Google ScholarParashat Amalek in the Mechiltot (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999 [Hebrew]).Google Scholar Jay Harris's important work, How Do We Know This? (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 1995) casts some doubt on the firm division of the Yishmael and Akiba materials, but Kahana's book and my own research deflect some of his criticisms, at least as far as the Tannaitic midrash is concernedGoogle Scholar.

4 Smith, Jonathan Z., “A Matter of Class: Taxonomies of Religion,” HTR 89 (1996) 387–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Ibid., 395.

6 Levenson, Jon D., “The Universal Horizon of Biblical Particularism,” in Brett, Mark R., ed., Ethnicity and the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 1986) 143–69.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., 144-45.

8 Chadwick, Henry, “Christian and Roman Universalism in the Fourth Century,” in Wickham, Lionel R. and Bammel, Caroline P., eds., Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 1993) 39.Google Scholar

9 Stern, David, Midrash and Theory: Ancient Jewish Exegesis and Contemporary Literary Studies (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1996) 31.Google Scholar

10 Mekilta de R. Yishmael, Bahodesh 1 (, Lauterbach, ed., p. 198), my emphasis.Google Scholar

11 See Schlier, Heinrich, “παρρησία,” TDNT 5 (1967) 871–86.Google Scholar

12 Jon D. Levenson analyzes the relationship of these two biblical covenants in his “On the Promise to the Rechabites” CBQ 38 (1976) 510Google Scholar.

13 I have rendered the third person masculine of the verb “to give a nickname,” adding the subject God rather than translating more literally “he” (God) or “it” (scripture) named them.

14 The manuscript tradition is divided over whether the second equation begins with “Beloved are priests” or again with “Beloved are Israel.” It would seem, however, that even the tradition that reads “priests” alludes to the same possibility that the people of Israel are called priests, if one applies the transitive principle. Since the people of Israel are called priests and priests are called angels, therefore the people of Israel are also called angels.

15 A central word in most of the sources cited in this article is the Hebrew word “ādām” which can mean Adam or a human being. In this article, I have generally translated the word “adam,” a person.

16 This scriptural prooftext is appended in the margin of the pristine Kaufmann manuscript of the Mishna, p. 341 of the Makor reprint, which is the text I have translated here. A facsimile edition was published by Beer, G., Faksimile-Ausgabe des Mishnacodex Kaufmann A 50 and reprinted by , Makor, Jerusalem 1968 (two volumes) p. 341.Google Scholar The scriptural prooftexts are probably secondary as noted by Melammed, EzraZion, Essays in Talmudic Literature (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988 [Hebrew]) 213–14Google Scholar.

17 I refer to Avot 3:12-13 following the Kaufmann manuscript reading of kol-rō(')š rather than kol-rō(')š. R. Yishmael advocates a joyous, “light headed” bearing, while R. Akiva warns that such behavior might lead to promiscuity.

18 Note that this is the same verse from the Sifre above, a verse rarely cited in all of Tannaitic literature.

19 R. Yirmiyah, a sage mentioned only a few times in Tannaitic literature, is identified by Epstein, Jacob Nahum (Prolegomena ad Litteras Tannaiticas [Jerusalem: Magnus, 1957] 572)Google Scholar as possibly belonging to the school of R. Yishmael.

20 Some commentators (Tosafot, 'Aboda Zar. 3a) locate the basis of this comparison in a homily on a different verse. We might speculate that the trigger for the comparison was the proximity of Lev 16, which is the elaborate description of the service of the high priest on the Day of Atonement, and our statutes at the beginning of Leviticus 18.

21 Qimron, Elisha and Strugnell, John, miqsāt ma 'aśê tôrâ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). See especially p. 139Google Scholar and n. 42 on the word ma 'aśê.

22 The only catch here is that R. Yirmiya is echoing the words used in Leviticus, which certainly informed his own usage. The context in scripture is fulfillment of the laws.

23 Other versions read “that you should not take leave of them,” but the intent of both versions is that one's study should only be in the words of Torah to the exclusion of all else.

24 This intense polemic of this section of the Mekilta d'Arayot against association with the Gentile ethos, wisdom and laws, contrasts neatly with the preceding section of the Sifra, attributed to the Akiva school, which exegetes the same verses but limits itself to the stated scriptural theme of sexual mores. Because of the literary juxtaposition of two distinct sources on Leviticus 18, that of the Mechilta and that of the Sifra, we have a double introduction to this same biblical injunction against the ways of the non-Jews. The Sifra, usually attributed ot the Akiva school, limits itself to a harangue against the sexual mores of the nations. The Mekilta d'Arayot, attributed to the school of Yishmael, was inserted into the Sifra here, since i t contains a complete exegesis of the laws of illicit relation, which the Akiva school thought to be a restricted subject of study, pursued only in very small groups. See M. Hag. 2.1.

25 Macmullen, Ramsay, Paganism in the Roman Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981) 97–99Google Scholar ; Hirshman, Marc, A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996) 114–15Google Scholar.

26 Marmorstein, A., Studies in Jewish Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950) 77–92 [Hebrew section].Google Scholar

27 The literature on this is extensive. See Lieberman, Saul, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York: Feldheim, 1965) 81–90. It is Lieberman and Marmorstein who present a vivid portrayal of Gentile participation in Jewish ritual, while the former concentrates on the Rabbinic response to the phenomenonGoogle Scholar ; Feldman, Louis, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) 342–82Google Scholar ; Cohen, S. J. D., “Crossing the Boundary and Becoming a Jew,” HTR 82 (1989) 14–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Joshua Levinson shared his thoughts with me on this subject, which will appear in a forthcoming article entitled, “Bodies and Bo(a)rders,” to be published in HTR later this year.

28 This is the reading of the Oxford MS 151.2 of the Mekilta.

29 I point out that the “bringing to Torah” is an unusual phrase used only here and in one other place.

30 Sifra Hova 1; Tsav 10; Sh'mini 4; Emor 14; Sifre Deut 76. 343; Midrash Tannaim 32. 28. The single appearance in the Yishmael midrashic corpus is in a non-legal passage and is attributed to a sage from the last generation of , Tannaim, Elazar, Shimon b., at Mekilta de R. Yishmael (Bahodesh 5; , Lauterbach, ed., 235–36).Google Scholar Compare b. Sanh. 57b, which attributes the category to Lieberman's brief but provocative account of the laws, Noahide in Greek in Jewish Palestine, >81–82.81–82.>Google ScholarNovak's, D., The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism: An Historical and Constructive Study of the Noahide Laws (New York: Mellen Press, 1983)Google Scholar attempts to conceptualize the category especially in light of medieval sources. More recently, see Fraade, S., “Navigating the Anomalous: Non-Jews at the Intersection of Early Rabbinic Law and Narrative,” in Silberstein, Laurence J. and Cohn, Robert L., eds., The Other in Jewish Thought (NY: New York University Press, 1994) 145–65Google Scholar , especially n. 2.

31 See Pierre Bourdieu's strictures on the detemporalization of scientific practice in , idem, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977) 3–10Google Scholar.

32 Weinfeld, M., “The Universalist Trend and the Isolationist Trend in the Period of the Restoration to Zion” Tarbiz 33 (1964 [Hebrew]) 228–42.Google Scholar This article is cited in Levenson, “The Universal Horizon of Biblical Particularism,” who refines the notion of biblical universalism. See also Wodecki, B., “Der Heilsuniversalismus bei Trito-Jesaja,” VT 33 (1982) 258–59Google Scholar.

33 Following again the Kaufmann manuscript. The word for “people” in Hebrew is “b'riot.”

34 Cohen, Gerson D., “Esau as Symbol in Early Medieval Thought,” in Altmann, Alexander, ed., Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967) reprinted inGoogle ScholarCohen, Gerson D., Studies in the Variety of Rabbinic Cultures (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991) 247Google Scholar.

35 Segal, Alan, Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986) 173.Google Scholar However, Segal's presentation of rabbinic Judaism is marred by an attempt to present it in a monolithic manner, smoothing out the inherent debate in the academy. Thus Segal introduces R. Yirmiah's position, equating the Gentile who does Torah with the high priest, with the words “the consensus in rabbinic Judaism shortly became …” (p. 168). There are insufficient grounds for this generalization. If a generalization were to be made, it would probably have to be the opposite: that rabbinic Judaism adopted an isolationist view. So, too, on the following page when Segal states that “most rabbis thought it impossible that whole sections of humanity could be condemned to perdition by a just and merciful God” (p. 169). There is no documentation of this sweeping, if noble, claim. In my book, I have tried to show that this universalist strain is peculiar to one school of Tannaitic thought, and at least in this matter later rabbinic tradition seems to adopt the opposing school's view, that Torah was for Jews alone. For a balanced presentation of rabbinic universalism, see Moore, George Foote, Judaism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962) 219–34.Google Scholar The very specialized position taken by the midrash Seder Eliyahu Rabbah is outside the purview of this article.

36 Ibid., p.173.

37 Compare Mekilta de R. Ishmael, Shirta 8 (, Lauterbach, ed., 59–60),Google Scholar in which all the nations are portrayed as singing God's praise at the sea and abandoning their gods. The exegetical flourish here is having the nations say “who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods,” (Exod 15:11). Here also the Mekilta foresees a time at the end of history when this recognition will happen once again.

38 Thus, if there is any connection between the midrashic sources attributed to the school of R. Yishmael and R. Yishmael himself, the latter is on record as discriminating against the non-Jew on the grounds that the Torah teaches to adjudicate fairly only between one's brethren! (Sifre Deuteronomy piska 16; [, Finkelstein ed., pp. 26–27].Google Scholar This position is disputed by the patriarch Shimon ben Gamliel. On the tyranny of universalism, see Berlin, Isaiah, The Crooked Timber of Humanity (New York: Knopf, 1991) 14-16, 175-84, 245.Google Scholar

39 Chadwick, Henry, “Christian and Roman Universalism in the Fourth Century,” in , Wickham and , Bammel, eds., Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy, 34.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., 41.

41 I have presented the full argument and documentation in a volume in Hebrew entitled, Torah for All the World's People (Hakkibutz Hamuchad, 1999).Google Scholar It is clear that the opposing view in Tannaitic times, that Torah was only for the Jews, became the more prevalent view in the later rabbinic era. A recent and interesting overview of this subject is Goldenberg's, RobertThe Nations That Know Thee Not (New York: New York University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

42 Compare Goodman, M., Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar and , Segal, Rebecca's Children, 177. Both attempt to bring the diverse rabbinic sources to speaking in a single voice. Goodman attempts to show that all the sources point to an absence of proselytization while Segal, who turns R. Yirmiah into the consensus, determines that conversion was no longer necessary. It is quite clear to me that at least this strain of rabbinic Judaism was fervently proselytizingGoogle Scholar.

43 I have not developed in this essay the opposing school's view, but alluded to the Akiva position above. In the next centuries we are witness to emphatic statements prohibiting the Gentile from studying Torah or keeping the Sabbath. See , Marmorstein, Studies in Jewish Theology, 84–85 (n. 22)Google Scholar.