Journal of Biblical Literature - Society of Biblical Literature
Journal of Biblical Literature - Society of Biblical Literature
Journal of Biblical Literature - Society of Biblical Literature
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386 <strong>Journal</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Biblical</strong> <strong>Literature</strong><br />
pure search for truth and illumination, but a pursuit <strong>of</strong> the participating scholars for personal<br />
advancement in the institutional hierarchy. Each colleagues’ greatest fear is the<br />
shame which might be brought on by his inability to respond correctly; hence such violent<br />
discourse is both typical and yet institutionally discouraged. Although academic<br />
ability is essential toward promotion, genealogical descent from other scholars is not a<br />
negligible consideration. The male scholars <strong>of</strong> such institutions find it burdensome to<br />
conduct family lives while being totally dedicated to their academic pursuits. Their<br />
superior intellectual abilities lead them to disdain the simple, uneducated folk.<br />
Rubenstein is not describing a modern university; these scholars are not young<br />
assistant pr<strong>of</strong>essors seeking tenure nor are they tenured pr<strong>of</strong>essors sitting in the ivory<br />
towers <strong>of</strong> elite universities. Rather Rubenstein is describing the elusive cultural world <strong>of</strong><br />
the academy <strong>of</strong> the redactors <strong>of</strong> the Babylonian Talmud, coined Stammaim by David<br />
Weiss Halivni, after the fact that they do not identify themselves by name.<br />
According to Rubenstein, at some time in the late fifth to early sixth century, Babylonian<br />
Torah study was formally institutionalized, leading to transformations in the<br />
structures in which their oral Torahs were preserved and significant editorial changes in<br />
the very literary style <strong>of</strong> these traditions. The establishment <strong>of</strong> a formal academy (or perhaps<br />
academies) is reflected in many <strong>of</strong> the Babylonian aggadot, and especially in those<br />
which purport to portray earlier Palestinian sages. The emphasis placed in these stories<br />
on dialectical ability is a reflection <strong>of</strong> an academic setting in which sages debate each<br />
other in public, each attempting to “conquer” the other, and thus rise through the hierarchy,<br />
which inevitably accompanies a more established academy. Sages who fail are<br />
shamed, and hence these stories frequently warn <strong>of</strong> the consequences <strong>of</strong> shaming others.<br />
These qualities are featured prominently in later Babylonian aggadot and are much<br />
less prominent in Palestinian literature and in earlier strata <strong>of</strong> the Babylonian Talmud.<br />
Hence, although they purport to portray life in Palestine in the second and third centuries,<br />
in reality they are pseudepigraphic. According to Rubenstein, they are cultural<br />
artifacts <strong>of</strong> the Stammaitic period, the period that fell between the end <strong>of</strong> the Amoraic<br />
period and the beginning <strong>of</strong> the Geonic period. The late dating <strong>of</strong> these stories, established<br />
through philological tools and source criticism, allows us to correlate them to historical<br />
changes that occurred between the Amoraic and Stammaitic periods.<br />
We should appreciate that Rubenstein is attempting to solve one <strong>of</strong> the greatest<br />
mysteries in talmudic scholarship, and perhaps one <strong>of</strong> the great conundrums <strong>of</strong> all <strong>of</strong><br />
Jewish history: who edited the Babylonian Talmud, why was it completed (as opposed to<br />
continuing to grow in a more amorphous form), and why don’t we know their names?<br />
Since the beginning <strong>of</strong> Wissenschaft des Judentums, entire books have been dedicated<br />
to this issue and multiple theories have been <strong>of</strong>fered. For several generations, these theories<br />
typically attributed the redaction/completion <strong>of</strong> the Talmud to various political/<br />
religious persecutions, although such persecutions have never been convincingly identified.<br />
I once heard a teacher suggest that a great comet which landed in Babylonia<br />
around this time may have contributed to a depression in Torah learning, and that the<br />
accompanying loss <strong>of</strong> authority caused rabbis to withhold their names from their talmudic<br />
traditions! In my opinion, Rubenstein’s suggestion that formal academies rose during<br />
this period is the most compelling suggestion that has been <strong>of</strong>fered to solve this<br />
puzzle. Redaction is a product <strong>of</strong> cooperation between sages, formalization <strong>of</strong> their