The Beginning of the Rabbinic Tradition

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
semiopen
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Re: The Beginning of the Rabbinic Tradition

Post by semiopen »

Most of the Hillel_and_Shammai disputes are pretty stupid, for example -
Hanukkah: The House of Shammai held that on the first night eight lights should be lit, and then they should decrease on each successive night, ending with one on the last night; while the House of Hillel held that one should start with one light and increase the number on each night, ending with eight.[8]
It's hard to believe that such a dispute actually happened in real life.
Charles Wilson
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Re: The Beginning of the Rabbinic Tradition

Post by Charles Wilson »

Acts 5: 34 - 40 (RSV):

[34] But a Pharisee in the council named Gama'li-el, a teacher of the law, held in honor by all the people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a while.
[35] And he said to them, "Men of Israel, take care what you do with these men.
[36] For before these days Theu'das arose, giving himself out to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him; but he was slain and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.
[37] After him Judas the Galilean arose in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him; he also perished, and all who followed him were scattered.
[38] So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this undertaking is of men, it will fail;
[39] but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!"
[40] So they took his advice, and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.

Hello SA --

I always thought that Rabbinic Judaism is recorded as starting here. Verses 38 - 39 almost shout, "Gamaliel said..."

You know the stories of the survivors. The Priests had a chance to live and at some point, the Romans said, "Ixnay, you had your chance, it's over..." The blind man is healed and sees people as trees but the key phrase is given: "He saw clearly...". "Do not even return to your village."

Zakkai and a few were spared and were allowed to teach. Zakkai especially gave...Sermons?...on the replacement Judaism to be forever in the shadow of this New Religion. There would be no Dynastic Hasmoneans. No Mishmarot Settlements in Galilee. What would be left?

S. Huller said,
"This is all Bovine Offal".

It was, however, all that would be allowed.

Best,

CW
Secret Alias
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Re: The Beginning of the Rabbinic Tradition

Post by Secret Alias »

And things from Acts count as history? For you?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Charles Wilson
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Re: The Beginning of the Rabbinic Tradition

Post by Charles Wilson »

Stephan --

You know me:

1. "Paul met Jesus in a Vision on the Road to Damascus".
Not History. It could not be.

2. "Mucianus was involved in a feud with Vespasian, until Titus interceded between the two (using their staffs) and convinced Mucianus to throw in with his father".
POSSIBLE History if a consistent Storyline could be constructed that agrees with events recorded. It doesn't follow that it WAS History, only that it could have been. The Problem is in the assertion of Symbolic Assignment.

I believe that it COULD have been History. Acts delivers the story of the 12th Legion and Mucianus. Tacitus is ALL OVER Acts. "The Queen's Eunuch" appears to be about Anicetus and the last 2 Chapters of Acts, which gives everyone fits, is an amalgam of Histories, Book 3.

Is Acts History? Not just NO but HEll, NO. If you read it as a Symbolic Tale, you find the 12th Legion in a variety of guises (Verifying that there was a book, Annals, by Tacitus) and more.

That's all I've ever claimed, Stephan. I could be wrong but if I am correct, does an explanation of the NT ever set up!

Best,

CW
semiopen
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Re: The Beginning of the Rabbinic Tradition

Post by semiopen »

John2 wrote: Mon Sep 25, 2017 6:46 am I did a little homework last night to refresh my memory on this issue and I think Cohen makes some good points. On page 155 of From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, he says regarding M. Yad. 4:6-7 (https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Yadayim.4.6?lang=bi):
This passage (as well as related ones) illustrates the rabbinic perspectives on the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The position attributed to the Pharisees is always that of the rabbis themselves. In these debates the Pharisees are always the victors, the Sadducees always the losers.
At the very least I think it can be said that Rabbinic Jews tended to agree with the Pharisees.
My initial thought was that Dr. Cohen deserved to be bitch slapped for his comments.

Paul and Gamaliel - BRUCE D. CHILTON AND JACOB NEUSNER https://www.ibr-bbr.org/files/bbr/BBR_2 ... maliel.pdf
No critical scholar these days expects to open a rabbinic document, whether the Mishnah of ca. 200 C.E. or the Babylonian Talmud (b. Bavli) of ca. 600 C.E., and there to find what particular sages on a determinate occasion really said or did. Such an expectation rests on gullibility: believing everything without criticism.2
2. A choice example of false premises for a scholarly program is supplied by Shaye J. D. Cohen, "The Significance of Yavneh: Pharisees, Rabbis, and the End of Jewish Sectarianism," HUCA 55 (1984) 27-53. To formulate and prove his theory, he has exhibited the gullibility that seems to characterize retrograde scholarship even now in the encounter with the rabbinic sources for historical purposes. Except for arbitrary reasons of his own, Cohen consistently takes at face value the historical allegation of a source that a given rabbi made the statement attributed to him. That is his starting point throughout. This is spelled out in Jacob Neusner, Reading and Believing: Ancient Judaism and Contemporary Gullibility (BJS; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986). There I show that only on the premises of believing pretty much everything as historical fact can a variety of scholars have built their constructions.
Despite my concern that three might be a crowd, I read this article in conjunction with Mr. Wilson's personal posts to his friend. Not being a Yoshkeologist, I'm not even sure if there isn't some kind of code in his messages.

It turns out that the meaning of Paul's name drop is totally unclear.

The overriding situation though is that we really do not know anything about Gamaliel/Pharisaic thought from the Jewish texts and the Paul verses aren't useful. however one interprets them.
Charles Wilson
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Re: The Beginning of the Rabbinic Tradition

Post by Charles Wilson »

semiopen --

Thank you for your thoughts.

1. There is a code in what I write: "If you look on the ground instead on in the skies you will a completely different History of the NT than you may have understood".

The Authors of the NT were VERY aware of the Mishmarot Priesthood ("Wha...?"), the Hasmoneans ("Who...?), the Settlements of the Priests in Galilee (See: Uzi Leibner, https://www.amazon.com/Settlement-Histo ... zi+leibner), Alexander Jannaeus, Queen Salome (not Alexandra!) and more.

2. Start with Hyam Maccoby, https://www.amazon.com/Mythmaker-Paul-I ... ds=maccoby

Maccoby thinks "Paul" was a liar, cheat and adventurer. I go one step further. "Existence is not a predicate". I don't think "Paul" existed.

3. The Romans did it. The end of the Julio-Claudian Line and the Ascension of the Flavians is recorded in the NT. The Romans took a Story - -it may have even been True - about a child who comes to us as "Peter". He is from the Settlement in Jabnit (maybe Meiron). He saves a Priest at the Temple Slaughter in 4 BCE when the Priest had NO CHANCE of surviving. The Romans dismembered the Story and rewrote it for the Glory of the Flavians.

4. ...and so on.

5. "Paul" is a Construct, mostly based on a Procurator of Syria named "Mucianus". Acts is a History of Mucianus and the 12th Legion. Thus, the mention of Acts 5 mentioned above and the Rise of Rabbinic Judaism is also a shallow rewrite of a possible History. YMMV.

...and so on.

6. I like Stephan's work but I think I drive him to drink...or klonopin. Or both.

Thanx again,

CW
semiopen
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Re: The Beginning of the Rabbinic Tradition

Post by semiopen »

Thanks for the clarification, CW.

As Leibner's book has at least one too many significant digits in the price for me, let me briefly comment on The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity.

It seems most likely to me that Paul is lying about being a student of Gamaliel. However, it is also quite likely that Gamaliel didn't have any students at all. We know nothing about Gamaliel I, other than his name mentioned here and there, mostly in conjunction with the questionable dynasty started with Hillel.

However, the publishers blurb goes -
If Paul was a trained Pharisee, why don't his arguments have the sound logical structure he should have learned in Pharisee School?
We know virtually nothing about the Pharisees, and certainly nothing about a sound logical structure underpinning their beliefs.

In the rather lengthy article I cited above, Chilton and Neusner spend over half reviewing early Rabbinic commentary on the Pharisees, and the best that can be said is that we know nothing more useful about them than we knew before starting the exercise.

I have no problem with Paul being an asshole, but his apparent Pharisaic deficiencies doesn't seem convincing.
Charles Wilson
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Re: The Beginning of the Rabbinic Tradition

Post by Charles Wilson »

semiopen wrote: Sun Oct 01, 2017 9:46 amWe know virtually nothing about the Pharisees, and certainly nothing about a sound logical structure underpinning their beliefs...I have no problem with Paul being an asshole, but his apparent Pharisaic deficiencies doesn't seem convincing.
Then, if we are to make progress, then maybe we may find something else about the Pharisees:

Josephus, Antiquities..., 13, 10, 5:

"However, this prosperous state of affairs moved the Jews to envy Hyrcanus; but they that were the worst disposed to him were the Pharisees, who were one of the sects of the Jews, as we have informed you already. These have so great a power over the multitude, that when they say any thing against the king, or against the high priest, they are presently believed. Now Hyrcanus was a disciple of theirs, and greatly beloved by them. And when he once invited them to a feast, and entertained them very kindly, when he saw them in a good humor, he began to say to them, that they knew he was desirous to be a righteous man, and to do all things whereby he might please God, which was the profession of the Pharisees also. However, he desired, that if they observed him offending in any point, and going out of the right way, they would call him back and correct him. On which occasion they attested to his being entirely virtuous; with which commendation he was well pleased. But still there was one of his guests there, whose name was Eleazar, a man of an ill temper, and delighting in seditious practices. This man said," Since thou desirest to know the truth, if thou wilt be righteous in earnest, lay down the high priesthood, and content thyself with the civil government of the people," And when he desired to know for what cause he ought to lay down the high priesthood, the other replied, "We have heard it from old men, that thy mother had been a captive under the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. "This story was false, and Hyrcanus was provoked against him; and all the Pharisees had a very great indignation against him..."

We are halfway to sighting the Story that was dismembered and rewritten. There may even be some mischief here. Josephus is suspect at many points in his "Histories" of the Hasmoneans and the soon-to-be-seen Alexander Jannaeus. At worst, treat this as "Historic Literature". The "ill tempered man" is named "Eleazar" and that name is radioactive:

1 Chronicles 24: 1 - 3 (RSV):

[1] The divisions of the sons of Aaron were these. The sons of Aaron: Nadab, Abi'hu, Elea'zar, and Ith'amar.
[2] But Nadab and Abi'hu died before their father, and had no children, so Elea'zar and Ith'amar became the priests.
[3] With the help of Zadok of the sons of Elea'zar, and Ahim'elech of the sons of Ith'amar, David organized them according to the appointed duties in their service.

If you would understand the NT, you simply must see the House of Eleazar: "Jehoiarib" has the Dynastic Hasmoneans assigned to them although the 16th Group Immer (the last of the Eleazar Group) believes the Hasmoneans came from them (Shulamit Elizur and Leibner).

Josephus gives a reason for the hatred of the Pharisees. They tell Hyrcanus that he does not have sufficient "Piety and Purity" to be the High Priest (Note the irony when you consider what follows with Herod and then the High Priesthood in terms of "Purity"). Jannaeus will make a decision at his death that will change the Course of Judea. Queen Salome (not Alexandra) will ascend to the Throne in exchange for the Pharisees taking over the bureaucracy of the government.

The Hasmonean's Lineal Rulers will be murdered and the Hellinistic Jerusalem Capital will be run at the exclusion of Jehoiarib and the other Mishmarot Clans. They will be marginalized until the Coup attempt at the 4 BCE Passover.

Make. No. Mistake.

The Pharisees are viscerally hated and though the Story was hacked up and rewritten, this part of the Story remains the same:

Matthew 23: 13 (RSV):

[13] "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in.

I invite you to read this as an actual event without the Metaphysics attached. The Kingdom of Heaven is a real place and it is shut before certain men, not spirits. This describes, I believe, the Passover Slaughter of 4 BCE. It points out the fiction of "Paul". Whether we know the Belief System of the Pharisees or not, they were certainly a POLITICAL Force, as Maccoby rightly points out.

CW
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