Early Rabbis Research Articles

Issue of Jesus’ multilingualism and Mark-within-Judaism

The available evidence suggests that Jesus was portrayed as a Jewish sage, like the early Rabbis, and in his literary portrayal, he is presented as one able to speak Greek. The Aramaic phrases found in Mark and elsewhere are used in addressing God and in healing individuals who would have not spoken Greek. This implies Jesus was like other sophists, in that he was able to speak Greek. It is quite likely that his mother language was Aramaic and that he used this daily to some degree. Mark does not attempt to portray Jesus as proficient in Hebrew, something that is corrected by the later Gospel of Luke, when he portrays Jesus as reading the scrolls of the Prophets in a synagogue.

From a Conception of Territorial Jurisdiction to an Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: Uncovering a Tannaitic Legal Transition

Abstract: A legal system may limit its jurisdiction, so that its laws apply exclusively within its territorial borders. In an alternate conception, a legal system may opt to apply its laws extraterritorially, so that its subjects are bound to them in any place they find themselves. The theoretical foundations of these two conceptions of law are profoundly distinct. Using this jurisprudential framework, this article explores anew the transition from the biblical (pentateuchal) conception of law to the conception of law found in the writings of the early rabbis. It then examines whether this legal difference corresponds with a parallel theological transition. Revealing the possible relationships between these two transitions makes clear that theology and law are intertwined.

Partnership: Private Law and Political Theory in Rabbinic Laws of Neighbors

This essay offers a reading of early rabbinic laws of neighbors and reconstructs a distinctive political theory with a "partnership" concept at its heart. The thesis presented here begins with the idea that for the early rabbis, there is a form of partnership that arises spontaneously—i.e., with no need for agreement or contract—between people who live in close vicinity. In this way, individual neighbors become partners in spaces, objects, and structures situated between their private properties, and the people of the city become partners in all public matters and assets. Private-law reasoning serves the rabbis to theorize the life of the city as a whole. A major implication of this theory is that ultimate political authority lies in the hands of the people of the city, not in those of potential affluent or religious leaders. The people of the city rule the city because it is theirs in partnership. This civic theory, it is proposed, should be read in the intellectual context of Roman political thought. The rabbis are shown to exploit the gap between the views of Cicero and the Roman jurists about the city and to produce a political theory beneficial to provincial cities that would be recognizable to Roman intellectuals of their time. The people of the city, therefore, rule as equals among themselves and as autonomous vis-à-vis external imperial power. Reading the early civil legal principles in this way serves to expand the canon of Jewish political thought.

The “Long History” of Nidūy – from Tannaitic Literature to Late Antiquity

ABSTRACT The nidūy is the primary method of excommunication used by the early rabbis in the first two centuries CE. This article suggests some new readings in the earliest texts discussing this practice and their reception in Talmudic writing from Late Antiquity. By understanding excommunication as an attempt to set social boundaries and noticing the differences between the early texts, one can try to see the texts about nidūy as evidence of the social structures of the texts’ creators, or at least their views about the proper social order. I shall argue that earlier rabbinic literature reflects unorganised and non-institutional rabbinic circles that were, like other groups in the broader Jewish society, in process of formation. In contrast, the Talmudic, later texts reflect an effort to form a more organised one with clearer hierarchies and social roles.

The Scapegoat Ritual: Between Biblical and Tannaitic Law

Abstract In Leviticus 16, Aaron is commanded to bring a bull to atone for himself and his household (v. 3) along with two goats to atone for the children of Israel (v. 5). He sprinkles the blood of the bull and one of the goats in different places in the Temple and sends the second goat, the scapegoat, to “ʾAzazel to the desert.” The biblical scapegoat ritual is discussed extensively in the research community, mainly due to its similarity to ancient pagan rituals. Here, I present the interpretation of the early rabbis, which states that atonement is attained not by sending the goat away but through the confession performed on it. I also discuss the novelty introduced in the early rabbinic literature, concerning the disposition of the goat: thrown off the cliff and not just sent to the desert.

Maulid Nabi dalam Kajian Astronomi Modern

The results of this paper (this study) state that what is considered by the majority of Muslims so far is in accordance with the facts. The 9th of the early Rabbi is a date that is in accordance with the facts with indications that can be held, that is by putting 30 days because it is not possible to see the new moon at that time. The majority of Muslims consider that the Prophet Muhammad was born on Monday in the month of Rabiul beginning in 671 m there are a lot of lies in the present, this is about determining the date, month and month of the birth of the Prophet. So this article tells about boundaries and contains the selection of the strongest opinions regarding differences of opinion using the method and explanation of our philosophy (astrology) using the library research method with a historical approach (historical). And the 9th of the early Rabbis is Monday as calculated in the words of the Prophet Muhammad, the differences that occurred regarding the birth of the Prophet caused by several factors that are speculative. One of them is nasiah which is an Arabic custom.

Power, Violence, and Responsibility

ABSTRACT We are living in what some have described as an “age of protest.” Nevertheless, protesting has been around for thousands of years, and some core features of contemporary discourse are already prominent in antiquity. In this article I explore three key dimensions of protest and rebuke within early rabbinic (tannaitic) literature: power, violence, and responsibility. Although protest and rebuke overlap in many respects, tannaitic discussion of these actions diverge in significant ways that grant us greater clarity into the dynamics the early rabbis perceived to be at play when attempting to effectively confront others on the individual level. I argue that the differences between rabbinic discourse about these two types of confrontation in the three aforementioned areas stem from crucial differences in the ways these acts are perceived and received. The notable nuances between rabbinic portrayals of protest and rebuke can provide insight into thinking about effective interpersonal confrontation today.

Theologie im Tauchbad

Abstract This article surveys three centuries of rabbinic culture in Schnaittach (Central Franconia) on the basis of unexplored Hebrew sources. Located in an enclave within the Nuremberg territory, the Schnaittach rabbinate served four rural communities and variously exerted jurisdiction over large areas of Franconia, Upper Palatinate, and Bavaria. As a provincial authority, the rabbinate was oriented toward the political centers in Amberg, Munich, and Vienna, as well as toward the Jewish hubs of Fürth and Frankfurt. The rabbis of Schnaittach produced literary works in the fields of responsa and homiletics that this study contextualizes within a multilevel network of social relations. Early modern rabbis interacted with local tribunals, Christian theologians, Jewish fellow scholars, and migrant students while guiding rural Jews in their daily lives. Several documents show how they mediated, jointly with their wives, in issues of marital sexuality and cared for the female space that was the ritual bath.

Imagining the Temple in Rabbinic Stone: The Evolution of the ʾEven Shetiyah

The mythical ʾeven shetiyah, often translated as the “foundation stone,” marks the physical place where the Jerusalem temples once stood in the rabbinic imagination. In its earliest incarnation it identified the place where the ark of the covenant resided in Solomon's Temple. Over the centuries it absorbed cosmogonic and eventually eschatological meaning. In later post-talmudic rabbinic literature, it adopted another mythic trope—the seal on thetehom. I argue that these two separate narrative strands of a seal on thetehomunderthe Temple and ʾeven shetiyahinthe Temple became intertwined, but only in late (post-talmudic) rabbinic midrash. I trace this evolutionary trend and argue that while the early rabbis both innovated and reinvigorated older biblical and ancient Near Eastern cosmogonic motifs with their ʾeven shetiyah, the later rabbinic texts were influenced by Christian and Muslim competition for spiritual and earthly Jerusalem. The stone that started as a means for rabbinic self-authorization became a reassertion of God's control of history and protection of Israel and the world, but in the process displaced priestly authority.

Chronicles and intertextuality in early rabbinic literature

The call to read Chronicles ‘midrashically’ in Leviticus Rabbah 1.3 and Ruth Rabbah 2.1 challenges the contemporary understanding of intertextuality in the early Rabbis’ interpretation of Scripture. David Stern, James Kugel, and others claim that the sages considered each word of the Bible to be equal, regardless of who wrote it or when. The Rabbis’ insistence, however, that Chronicles receive special treatment contradicts this assertion. This article argues that Chronicles’ late date of composition had a dual effect. On the one hand, Chronicles’ lateness reduced its authority and led the Rabbis to give greater weight to the words of the Primary History in their intertextual readings. On the other hand, Chronicles’ retelling of the past provided a biblical warrant for the Rabbis’ own reshaping of tradition.

The Organization of Religious Signs and the Imperial Mind of Some Early Rabbis

The political combat against religious signs can be regarded as an epiphany of the biblical myth, in which a god asks his followers to eradicate all the representations of his competitors. After making this claim, I go on to criticize the too theological reading of the so-called “second commandment” that hinders its mythical substance. I then move on to the rabbinic document from the early third century, the Mishnah, in order to show how the ancient rabbis manipulated the prescription to eradicate the idols.

God as Father and Master

Summary Every year during Passover Jews commemorate the liberation of their ancestors from Egypt. It was God who ‘broke the bars of their yoke’ and who ‘made them walk erect’ (Lev 26:13). Elsewhere, however, the Torah seems to suggest that the redemption from Egypt’s service was not so much a release from slavery, as it was a change of master (cf. Ex 4:23 and Lev 25:42). This paradoxical way of thinking about slavery is perpetuated by the early rabbis in the midrashic and halakhic literature of the first centuries C.E. By means of a close reading of a parable from Sifre Numbers (chapter 115) I will clarify the early rabbinic perspective on slavery: becoming a slave of God was the ultimate purpose of the people of Israel, while being a slave of Egypt’s ruler formed its ultimate degradation. We will also see that in Sifre Numbers, as in other early rabbinic and early Christian writings, the metaphor of slavery competes with the metaphor of sonship. In Sifre Numbers the metaphor of slavery is preferred over that of sonship, due to the absolute obedience that God expects from his people, an aspect that cannot be sufficiently expressed by the relation between a father and his son. Finally, this paper will also contribute to the way we understand slavery metaphors in the New Testament, especially in Romans 6.

Potret Organisasi Tarekat Indonesia dan Dinamikanya

Riset ini bertujuan menggambarkan secara singkat dinamika organisasi tarekat di Indonesia sejak adanya Jam’iyyah Ahl al-Thariqah al-Mu’tabarah al-Indonesi (JATMI, 1957) dan Jam’iyyah al-Thariqah al-Mu’tabarah al-Nahdliyah (JATMAN, 1979) di Jawa, yang disusul dengan berdirinya Dewan Ulama Tarekat Indonesia di Solok Sumatera Barat (2016). Metode riset ini adalah telaah pustaka dengan menggunakan teknik analisis isi. Hasil riset menunjukkan, pertama, bahwa kriteria kemuktabarahan tarekat dibutuhkan dalam keorganisasian tarekat. Temuan kedua menunjukkan bahwa organisasi tasawuf (tarekat) Nusantara JATMI tahun 1957 dimotori oleh Tarekat Qadiriyah wa Naqsyabandiyah (TQN). Sementara itu, konflik internal antar tokoh Jatmi maka menyebabkan didirikannya lembaga baru dengan muatan gerakan serupa yakni JATMAN pada 20 Rabiul Awal 1337 H/10 Oktober 1985 M di Tegalrejo, Magelang, Jawa Tengah. Temuan ketiga menunjukkan bahwa dinamika organisasi tersebut juga memberi warna pada kelembagaan ulama di Indonesia.

Playacting: A D'Var Torah on Parshat Hukkat

Some historians have argued that one of the great theological innovations of the early Rabbis was to understand much of halakha as a form of spiritual discipline rather than a reflection of cosmic metaphysical reality. This view of halakhic nominalism has powerfully influenced at least major strains of the Jewish legal imagination writ large. And one possible upshot of that sort of approach is to understand the observant Jewish life as, in some sense, a form of But understanding halakhic observance as playacting does not reduce the responsibility of halakhically-committed Jews, it only deepens it. For observant Jews to admit that they are acting in a play is no excuse for them to be sloppy actors. For the Rabbis also insisted that Jews have a duty to follow the script, to be authentic and convincing actors in the drama of Jewish religious life. They need to be actors, but darn serious actors. This short talk further explores the metaphor of playacting. It distinguishes the ritual script and the moral script and emphasizes the importance of navigating their complex relationship. It also widens the lens to a brief discussion of the larger script of human life. In that context, the playacting metaphor must be read to accommodate the divine gift of human free will. In a certain sense, God is the author, or director, or stage manager, or critic, of a single-performance live show, with little in the way of rehearsal and no retakes. It can go well. And it can also go badly. As C.S. Lewis put it, Of course God knew what would happen if [human beings] used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk.

The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism

The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism

Matthew and the Mishnah: Redefining Identity and Ethos in the Shadow of the Second Temple’s Destruction by Akiva Cohen

Reviewed by: Matthew and the Mishnah: Redefining Identity and Ethos in the Shadow of the Second Temple’s Destruction by Akiva Cohen Simon Lasair akiva cohen, Matthew and the Mishnah: Redefining Identity and Ethos in the Shadow of the Second Temple’s Destruction (WUNT 2/418; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016). Pp. xviii + 636. Paper €119. This is a monumental study. Not only does it demonstrate thorough competence in Matthean scholarship specifically and Gospels scholarship generally, but it also shows a comprehensive understanding of the historical scholarship on the Mishnah. The positions Cohen draws upon are explained in detail, often in conversation with opposing viewpoints. Furthermore, through his complex and detailed exposition of his own position, C. presents a compelling argument concerning how early Christians and early rabbinic Jews understood and began to construct their communities in light of the temple’s destruction. C.’s study thus raises significant questions about early Christianity and early Judaism that will need to be addressed as discussions concerning each continue. Cohen opens with the general research question: “How do the authors of religious texts construct their community identity and ethos in the absence of their central cult?” (p. 1). The bulk of the study uses both Matthew and the Mishnah as case studies to explore this question. C. is clear in identifying significant differences in how the Matthean community addressed this concern as opposed to the Mishnah’s framers. C. draws attention, however, to an important domain of interaction between the two movements, namely, the early synagogue. From the early stages of his argument, C. firmly locates the Matthean community within the scope of Second Temple Judaisms, stating that this community was probably an offshoot of the Pharasaic movement. He justifies this position by noting that in Matthew the Pharisees are portrayed as Jesus’ most significant antagonists. He understands this to indicate that the Mattheans were attempting to distinguish themselves from the Pharisees, whose positions concerning halakah and the temple were similar to but distinct from their own. Following Anders Runesson’s notion of association synagogues as the site of general community meetings in late antique Palestine, C. argues that the distinctions from the Pharisees in Matthew had concrete social implications for how the Mattheans functioned within [End Page 704] association synagogues. Given that C. dates Matthew after 70 c.e. and also understands the synagogue as heir to the temple, Matthew’s positions concerning the temple, in C.’s estimation, are crucial for understanding how the Mattheans distinguished themselves from the Pharisees, and also from the early rabbis who saw themselves as heirs of the Pharisees. C.’s section on Matthew thus concludes with several detailed examinations of temple passages in Matthew. In his engagements with these passages, C. finds that the Mattheans were loyal to the temple but not to the point of desiring it rebuilt. Instead, after the temple’s destruction, the Mattheans’ community dynamic became open-ended, no longer focused on the concrete topos of the temple and its cult. According to C., it is this dynamic that enabled gentiles eventually to join the Matthean community. In the temple’s absence, the Mattheans were able to move beyond specifically Jewish concerns and take on viewpoints more favorable to gentile involvements in their movement. In contrast, C. argues that the Mishnah’s framers were concerned with preserving elements of the temple cult despite the temple’s absence. Following Jacob Neusner, C. sees the Mishnah as being framed structurally around temple-related concerns, the times of the sacrifices in the temple often informing the required liturgical practices throughout the rabbinic Jewish day. Moreover, C. argues that the tractates of the Mishnah explicitly concerned with describing the temple cult preserve an idealized vision of the temple and its practices, thus providing a substantial basis for the structuring of rabbinic Jewish life and liturgy; on this latter point, C. again follows Jacob Neusner. Where matters become more complicated is in C.’s discussion of the early synagogue and the many different sects and groups that would meet therein. He is careful not to argue that one single group had dominance in the synagogue; however, he does examine substantial archaeological evidence demonstrating that synagogue...

“For Mark was Peter’s Tannaʾ”: Tradition and Transmission in Papias and the Early Rabbis

The fragments and testimonia of Papias’s Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord contain a number of terms whose precise meaning remains elusive, among them auditor , presbuteroi , hermēneutēs , and parakoloutheō . These terms, and the oral-traditional ideology in which they occur, are illuminated by comparison with the terminology associated with the Pharisees and preserved in early rabbinic writings. More broadly, the ideology of received tradition preserved in the latter sources offers a better analogue to Papias’s enterprise than does Hellenistic historiography, as Bauckham has influentially argued. In addition, Papias’s explanation that he set out to collect and order the sayings of the Lord from certified tradents, marks him as an important but heretofore largely unrecognized precursor to the rabbinic establishment of the Mishnah.

Chosenness and the Imperative of Nonviolence: A Response to Aryeh Cohen on Tamares and Levinas

Abstract This essay evaluates the connection Aryeh Cohen innovatively draws between the relatively unheralded early twentieth-century rabbi and critic of Zionism from the Russian province of Grodno, Aharon Shmuel Tamares, and the midcentury French Judaic philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas. While endorsing Cohen's view that both figures progressively and somewhat provocatively interpret the covenantal exhortation in Exodus 19:5 to seek peace also entails an injunction to resist rather than match the tactics of domineering powers, it moves beyond Cohen to argue that Tamares and Levinas, both, could arguably be construed as critics of contemporary day Israel's too easy acquiescence to military options in defending its interests. In due course, the essay draws out the implications of Cohen's comparison of Tamares's “ethics of galut” (exile) to Levinas's alter-centric philosophy. Ultimately the essay suggests that Tamares and Levinas can be seen as critics of “Jewish nationalism,” and in specific, critics of the notion that tribal identity, often construed as the core such a nationalism, can ever serve as a justification for employing violent means to defend a Jewish homeland.

The Targums: A Critical Introduction. By PAUL V. M. FLESHER and BRUCE CHILTON

I n the history of ancient and medieval Jewish and Christian hermeneutics, scriptural translation into the spoken tongue/s usually served alongside the Hebrew, Greek, or Syriac source texts, orally or in written form. In most cases, the learned religious authorities of both communities perceived the Bible’s translation as ‘interlinear’ with the original. In other words, in the eyes of the literate class, the translation did not replace the original, ‘revealed’, ‘sanctified’, or ‘canonized’ text. Rather, it functioned in tandem with it as an explanative vernacular tool, either in an antiphonal liturgical (and often aural) context, or as an accompanying written aid in the classroom or for private study. In practice, however, there were cases in which the translation was so powerful that for Jews and Christians it actually took on the religious status and cultural kudos of the original and even supplanted it (e.g. the Septuagint, the King James Version). More importantly, even when this process did not happen, the general populace, who attended Synagogue or Church, effectively came to identify the content of the translated text with the source text. For many believers, therefore, the translation of Scripture became Scripture despite the practices devised by the learned to keep them apart. This paradoxical process explains the persistent allure and power of scriptural translation, on the one hand, and the authorities' need to control it, on the other. So, while in Mishnah Sotah 7: 5 the early rabbis (tanaim) envisage the closing act of the ceremony of blessings and curses on Mounts Gerizim and Ebal (Deuteronomy 27–9) to be the reception of an altar upon which the Torah is written in 70 languages, later rabbis sharply criticize those who translate a verse ‘according to its form’ ( ke-tzurato ), too literally, on the one hand, or ‘add to it’ ( ha-mosif ), too liberally, on the other (Tosefta Meg 3: 41). Eventually, the Babylonian rabbis ( amoraim ) come to restrict the use of written translations to the Greek versions alone, and Aramaic oral translations to ‘our targum’ alone, i.e. Targum Onkelos (Babylonian Talmud, Qiddushin 49a) (see pp. 306–9). Yet the historical reality was, as the authors point out, very different from the sages’ stipulations, as witnessed by the abundance of surviving Aramaic traditions, manuscripts, and fragments.

History vs. Ritual in Time and End-time: The Case of Early Rabbinic Weddings in Light of Catherine Bell

Tannaitic rabbis permit wedding processions but prohibit practices associated with these festivities, including the wearing of bridal crowns. Studies of rabbinic ritual based on social scientific models have overlooked the historical disjunction between Tannaitic and Amoraic evidence for weddings. This study explores this puzzling combination of prohibitions and permissions by making use of Catherine Bell's discussion of ritualization. Attention to practice as outlined by Bell leads to a renewed focus on the textual framing of Tannaitic discourse concerning wedding processions. This focus in turn leads to the recognition that the early rabbis create their own vision of wedding practice through negotiating their own historic moment—end-times. The larger eschatological context explored at the end of Sotah with its talk of extreme ascetic responses to end-times provides a framework for understanding Sotah's limited prohibitions concerning wedding processions and reveals a compromise reached by the various agents that remains otherwise obscured.