historical perspectives: from the hasmoneans to bar kokhba in light ...

14 DAVID GOODBLATT
priest in 63-64 and was killed about four years later by the Idumean
faction during the Judean revolt (Josephus, Ant. 20.9.4 §213, War
4.5.3 §§314-16). I concluded that while both sources may be of tannaitic
provenance, there is no reliable evidence to corroborate either
one, neither in rabbinic literature nor in sources from Second Temple
times. Perhaps more importantly, the Second Temple sources that
refer to education among the Jews do not refer to a network of elementary
schools or publicly supported teachers, but rather to private
tutors for the wealthy and, most frequently, instruction by parents
in the home.
A striking instance of silence concerning schools, in a context where
we would expect them to be mentioned, is the famous apologetic
passage in Apion 2.175-78. Josephus asserts a universal knowledge of
Jewish law by his compatriots. In contrast to other peoples, he writes,
should anyone of our nation be questioned about the laws, he would
repeat them all the more readily than his own name. The result, then,
of our thorough grounding in the laws from the first dawn of intelligence
is that we have them, as it were, engraven on our souls. A transgressor
is a rarity; evasion of punishment by excuses an impossibility.
And how was this thorough grounding beginning with the 'dawn of
intelligence' accomplished? Josephus had already explained a few
lines earlier.
For ignorance he [Moses] left no pretext. He appointed the law to be
the most excellent and necessary form of instruction, ordaining, not that
it should be heard once for all or twice or on several occasions, but
that every week men should desert their other occupations and assemble
to listen to the law and to obtain a thorough and accurate knowledge
of it, a practice which all other legislators seem to have neglected. 28
The failure of Josephus, who lived over a century after the floruit of
Simeon son of Shetah and was a contemporary of Joshua son of
Gamala, to mention schools in an apologetic context such as this is,
to my mind, a very loud silence. The evidence of Josephus accords
with what can be gleaned from Philo and other sources. From this
I concluded that the only common educational institution among the
28 The first quote is from §178, while the second is from §175. English translation
by H. St. J. Thackeray, Josephus, vol. 1, LCL (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1926), 363, 365. To §§176-77 compare the similar language used
by Josephus in his description of the septennial reading of the Torah, ordained in
Deut. 31:10 (Ant. 4.8.12 §§209-11).