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An Anti-Sadducee Polemic in the Palestinian Targum Tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Sheldon Isenberg
Sheldon Isenberg
Affiliation:
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. 08540
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Extract

The literature of the rabbis in its many volumes stands before the student of the rabbinic period as a resource of enlightenment and a source of frustration. A vast treasure of haggadic materials which would be invaluable to the historian of the period is too often rendered inaccessible by difficulties in dating and localizing traditions. Even when traditions are associated with particular rabbis, multiple attributions and major variants engender extreme caution if not despair in the literary critic and historian. When traditions are unattributed in a literature which has developed over centuries as is the case with the Targums, the problems are magnified.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , July 1970 , pp. 433 - 444
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1970

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References

1 For an account of some major difficulties encountered in writing a biography of a rabbi even from traditions which are largely attributed, see Netjsner, Jacob, In Quest of the Historical Rabban Yohanan Ben Zakkai, HTR 59 (1966), 391–413Google Scholar.

2 For discussions about methods for dating haggadic traditions in the Targums and other rabbinic literature, see Bloch, Renée, Note méthodologique pour l'étude de la littérature rabbinique, Recherches de science religieuse 48 (1955), 194–227Google Scholar; Déaut, R. Le, La Nuit Pascale (Analecta Biblica, 22; Rome, 1963)Google Scholar, ch. 1; Vermes, Geza, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies (Studia Post-Biblica, 4; Leiden, 1961)Google Scholar; McNamara, Martin, The New Testament and the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch (Analecta Biblica, 27; Rome, 1966)Google Scholar. On Targums in general in recent study, see ibid., ch. 1; Déaut, R. Le, Introduction à la littérature targumique (Rome, 1966)Google Scholar; idem, Les éludes targumiques: état de la recherche et perspectives pour I'exégèse de l'Ancient Testament, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 44 (1968), 5–34Google Scholar.

A review of the literature makes it clear that dating techniques are thus far effective only for very limited segments of material. If TJI has an ancient tradition concerning a Hasmonean high priest (TJI to Dt. 33:11), then the claim for a first-century B.C.E. dating applies only to that passage, for TJI also records the names of Mohammed's wife and daughter (TJI to Gen. 21:21). At this stage of research any statement made about the date of a Targum as a whole must be approached with a fair amount of skepticism.

The following abbreviations are used for references to Targums:

N = Targum Neofiti

O = Targum Onkelos

PTGB = MS. B of the Palestinian Targum fragments published by P. KAHLE in Masoreten des Western, vol. II (Stuttgart, 1930)

TJI = Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan

TJII = Targum Yerushalmi

3 An outstanding study of this type is that of J. Heinemann. See his Prayer in the period of the Tanna'im and the Amora'im (Heb., Jerusalem, 1964)Google Scholar.

4 Recent major studies of the passage are those of P. Grelot, Les Targums du Pentateuque — Étude comparative d'après Genèse, IV, 3–16, Semitica 9 (1959), 59–88, and G. Vermes, The Targumic Versions of Gen. IV, 3β16, The Annual of Leeds University Oriental Society 3 (1961–62), 81–114. GRELOT cites the Targum texts fully in a convenient table form, while Vermes cites fully in English translation. Both include the text from the complete Palestinian Targum, Codex Neofiti I, with marginal readings. Besides the complete Targums, i.e., Neofiti, Onkelos, and Pseudo-Jonathan, the passage in whole or in part is found in the various MSS. of the targumic fragment collections called Targum Yerushalmi, in a Geniza MS. (B in Kahle's notation), and in a Targum citation in David Kimhi's commentary on Genesis. For details on editions, see Grelot and Vermes. See now for N Alejandro Diez Macho, Neophyti 1: Targum palistinense, Ms de la Biblioteca Vaticana. Tomo I: Genesis. Edicion principe, introduction general y version castellana. Traducciones cotejadas: francesca por R. Le Déaut; inglesa por M. McNamara y M. Maher (Textos y estudios 7; Madrid: Consejo superior de investigaciones cientificas, 1968). See also Fitzmyer's, J. comments in his review in C.B.Q. 32 (1970), 107–12Google Scholar. Note that Diez Macho has printed an emended text of N and photographs of the MS. are still generaly unavailable. Neither Grelot nor Vermes cites Kimhi, for which see McNamara (supra, n. 2), 157. Since the full texts are readily available in such convenient form, I cite only those texts directly relevant to this study. I have also adopted Vermes' translations for convenience.

5 Philo too reports that an argument took place between Cain and Abel, but the content of that argument is totally unrelated to the Targumic tradition. See Det. I, 32–37, particularly 32:

It is evident that they are to investigate opposing views clean contrary to each other. For Abel, referring all things to God, is a God-loving creed; but Cain, referring all to himself — his name means “acquisition” — a self-loving creed.

(Colson's translation from the Loeb edition [Cambridge, 1929], vol. 2) The argument proceeds in this vein, contrasting the self-loving man and the God-loving man.

Grelot (op. tit., 71) notes that Jubilees supplies a motive for the murder. However, it comes directly from the Biblical text. The rejection of Cain's sacrifice occasioned the murder (Jub. 4:2). He also suggests that Pseudo-Philo dealt with motive, but he gives no reference, and I am unable to find it in the text.

The Midrashic tradition does not hesitate to supply reasons for the crime. See Kasher, M., Torah Shelemah,2 vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1938)Google Scholar, ad loc. Bereshit Rabbah (ad loc.) lists four possible topics for the argument, none relevant to the Targums. Midrash Aggadah (ed. Buber, Wien, 1894), ad loc, shows clear dependence on the haggadic expansion in v. 8 of the Targums as does Lekah Tov (ed. Buber, Vilna, 1884), ad loc.

6 By an exhaustive comparison of the Targums to Gen. 4:3–16 Grelot attempts to distinguish primitive and late recensions of the Targum tradition. He has one basic criterion, viz., the shorter, less elaborated text is primitive; the more elaborated text is secondary (op. cit., 63, 74). Thus TJI, the most elaborated text for this pericope, is the latest. From his study of these verses Grelot constructs a stemma. The stemma, however, is intended to represent the history of the Targums as a whole. Such overarching conclusions from a study of a few verses are unjustified. Moreover, Grelot does not allow theoretically for the possibilities of one text abbreviating another or of a later text being less elaborate because of revision to MT.

I Gen. 23:2 MT reads, wtmt śrh bqryt ᾽rb῾. TJI, with O, reproduces MT's bqryt ᾽rb῾. TJII, however, renders bqrytkwn dgybryy'. Which rendering is the more primitive? GRELOT should presumably choose O and TJI, but that would contradict his stemma. On the other hand, one could easily argue that O and TJI have revised away from TJII to MT.

Vermes (op. cit., 107) properly rejects the measurement of relative lengths of renderings as a criterion for antiquity and lateness of Targums. Moreover, he insists that each exegetical tradition should be examined individually. For our passage he concluded that “it is O that depends on IJ [TJI]” (see p. 98). VERMES arrives at this conclusion by analyzing the content of the haggadah with its parallels, showing that tradition peculiar to TJI may be found in other sources which can themselves be dated as early as the second century B.C.E. The traditions, then, are very early, but VERMES does not approach the problem of determining when the haggadah entered into the Targums. Very late sources may cite ancient materials, and in the world of Midrash and haggadah this is very often the case. It would appear that at this stage of study of the Targums one can adduce evidence for virtually any hypothesis of relation.

7 Following is the MT with variants:

8 The concurrence of the Peshitta with the other Aramaic versions in this reading is of no little significance. See my dissertation, Studies in the Jewish Aramaic Translations of the Pentateuch (Harvard University, 1968), ch. 3Google Scholar. I have also dealt with the relation of the Peshitta to the Targums in an unpublished paper on the origins of the Peshitta to the Pentateuch.

Both Grelot (pp. 70f.) and Vermes (p. 101) note the variant in passing. However, they fail to consider the possible relation of the variant and the haggadic expansion.

9 Cross's conclusions about the history of the Biblical text are found in The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies 2 (Garden City, 1961), 168–94; The History of the Biblical Text in the Light of the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, HTR 57 (1964), 281–99; The Contribution of the Qumran Discoveries to the Study of the Biblical Text, IEJ 26 (1966), 81–95. In the last, see especially 93–95.

10 There are more than ten other variants of this text-type to be found in the Targums to the Pentateuch. For the evidence see my dissertation (op. tit., ch. 2).

11 Ibid., for Old Palestinian readings in O.

12 Grelot (p. 70) accounts for O's strange omission in v. 7 by remarking that “le rédacteur de TO a brodé à sa fantaisie.” Vermes (p. 100) describes O's treatment of v. 7 as “remarkable.” Neither attempts to explain O's renderings of w. 7 and 8 in light of the Targumic treatment of the whole pericope.

13 See my dissertation, 146ft. Positing a series of revisions of the Targums accounts for two problems: first, the rarity of Old Palestinian variants in the Targums, and second, the unevenness of their distribution. Not all Targums have all variants. It stands to reason, given the historical circumstances which saw all other Biblical text-types rejected for the Massoretic within a few decades in the first century C.E., that the Targums which were in constant liturgical use could not be left untouched.

14 The Targumic Versions …, 101ff.

15 See Ber. R. 12.15. See also Vermes, The Targumic Versions …, 109–11, who notes that in the account of creation the Palestinian Targum tradition's rendering of Gen. 1:2 reads rwḥ rḥmyn for MT's rwḥ.

A. Marmorstein attributes Cain's argument to the Cainite sect, although none of our information from IRENAEUS about the Cainites suggests what position, if any, they held on God's judgment or on final judgment or on matters of eschatology. See Einige vorläufige Bemerkungen zu den neuentdeckten Fragmenten des jerusalemischen (palästinensischen) Targum, Zaw 49 (N.F., 1931), 236L On the Cainites see Grant, R. M., Gnosticism and Early Christianity2 (New York, 1966), 60f., 95, 104Google Scholar, and references there. Although Cain's polemical stance cannot be specifically associated with the Cainites, nevertheless Gnostic doctrines that assert that the world was created by an evil demiurge might be the source of the claim that the world was not created in love. But even this hypothesis goes far beyond the evidence.

16 The testimony of Josephus (War II.8.14, 165) about the Sadducean doctrines of afterlife and reward and punishment is particularly relevant to our problem:

As for the persistence of the soul after death, penalties in the underworld, and rewards, they [the Sadducees] will have none of them. (Thackeray's translation from the Loeb edition [Cambridge, 1926] vol. 2)

(ψυχῆς τε τὴν διαμoνὴν καὶ τὰς καθ αἵδoυ τιμωρίας καὶ τιμὰς ἀναιρoῦσιν.)

See also the controversy story in Mark 12:18. The Sadducean doctrines are discussed by Finkelstein, L., The Pharisees2 (New York, 1962), 121ff., 149fGoogle Scholar.

17 The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan, trans, with notes by Golmn, Judah (Yale Judaica Series, 10; New Haven, 1955), ch. 5Google Scholar. Antigonus's words are recorded in M. Avot 1.3 and repeated with a secondary addition (underlined) in the Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan:

Antigonus of Soko took over from Simeon the Righteous. He used to say: Be not like slaves that serve their master for the sake of compensation; be rather like slaves who serve their master with no thought of compensation, and let the fear of heaven be upon you, so that your reward may be doubled in the age to come.

The full text is as follows:

᾽ntṭygnws ᾽yş swkw qbl mşm'wn hṣdyq. hw᾽ hyh ᾽wmr ᾽I thyw k῾bdym hmşmşym ᾽t hrb ῾I mnt Iqbl prs ᾽I᾽ hyw k'bdym hmşmşym ᾽t hrb şl' ‘I mnt lqbl prs wyhy mwr’ şmym ‘lykm kdy şyhyh śkrkm kpwl l'tyd lb’.

Aboth De Rabbi Nathan, ed. with notes by S. Schechter (New York, 1945), ch. 5Google Scholar of version A. On the antiquity and historical value of this minor tractate of the Talmud see Finkelstein, L., Mabo le-Massektot Abot ve-Abot d'Rabbi Natan. (Text and studies of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 16; New York, 1950)Google Scholar. The saying of Antigonus with the historical commentary occurs in the Shammaite section of the work, most of which Frnkelstein considers to be very early. In other words, the information about the Sadducees and Boethusians is, according to Finkelstein, “almost totally factual” (p. 37). On the basis of this passage Finkelstein dates the schism between the Pharisees and the Boethusians/Sadducees in the first century B.C.E. Their ideological diversion, of course, occurred much earlier. See The Pharisees 3, 762ft.

It is interesting and perhaps significant that the term first used in this passage for other or future existence is ‘wlm ῾hḥr (other world) rather than the more common ‘wlm hb’ (world to come). The former designation is found in the controversy in v. 8 of the Palestinian Targum tradition. On the importance of this terminology see ibid., 769.

18 On Cain and Abel as archetypal figures in the New Testament and Josephus, see McNamara (op. cit. above, n. 2), 156–60. Finkelstein too (The Pharisees, 3 769) considers the haggadah of the Targums to v. 8 to be a Pharisee-Sadducee polemic, although he argues solely on the basis of the use of 'wlm ᾽ḥr in the Targums and in Abot de Rabbi Nathan.

19 Elisha's sayings are collected and discussed by Bacher, W., Die Agada der Tannaiten, I: Von Hillel bis Akiba (Strassburg, 1884), 432–36Google Scholar. See Ginzberg's, L. article in The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York, 1916), vol. 5, pp. 1381Google Scholar. and literature there; R. Travers Herford, Elisha ben Abuyah: An Historical Study, in Essays Presented to J. Hertz (London, n.d.), 215–25.

The animosity of the rabbis toward Elisha is manifest in their gradual refusal to call him anything but Aher, “the other one.” He was considered a heretic, but the sources are vague about the content of his heresy. The oldest tradition about Elisha is contained in a baraita in Hag. 14b which relates that Elisha, with R. Akiba, Ben Azai, and Ben Zoma entered Paradise. According to G. Scholem the story deals with the dangers confronting the practitioner of Merkabah mysticism, a form of Jewish Gnosticism. See Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism3 (New York, 1961), 33ffGoogle Scholar., and Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition (New York, 1960), 14–19Google Scholar.

In Hag. 15a the tradition comments on the statement of the baraita that Aḥer “destroyed the plants” (qyṣṣ bnty'wt). It is related that while in heaven Elisha saw Metatron and asked him whether there were in heaven two supreme powers (şm῾ ḥs wşlwm b rşwywt). The Gnostic implications of such a story are clear. Since, however, the rabbis considered the belief in more than one god a standard attribute of the minim, one may question whether Elisha really did suggest that there were two gods. See Gen. R. 8.9: “The minim asked R. Samlai, ‘How many gods created the world?’ ”

20 “At that moment Manasseh realized that the Lord is God; at that moment Manasseh said, ‘There is a Judge and there is Judgment.’”

(b'wth ş'h wyd' mnşh ky h′ hw” h'lhym b'wth ş'h ᾽mr mnşh ᾽yt dyn w'yt dyyn.) Pesikta de-Rav Kahana [ed. Buber] 181a.

21 wybz 'sṡw ᾽t hbkrh. wrah bzh ῾mh. ῾mr rby Iwy tḥyt hmtym bzh ῾mh. … The scenario for this heretical outburst is set in Pesikta Rabbati 12 ted. Friedman] 47b–48a.