Early Writings Error
Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014 10:50 pm
On the main page of 'Early Writings' you place the Talmud c. 217 CE. I think you mean the Mishnah
Ye olde BC&H forum of IIDB lives on...
https://earlywritings.com/forum/
I have some doubts about this on general principles.The Mishnah was redacted in 220 CE by Rabbi Yehudah haNasi when, according to the Talmud, the persecution of the Jews and the passage of time raised the possibility that the details of the oral traditions dating from Pharisaic times (536 BCE – 70 CE) would be forgotten.
Funny how the Talmud article drops 20 years from the Mishnah date. The date Happy mentions is 217 CE. I think this relates toThe Talmud has two components. The first part is the Mishnah (Hebrew: משנה, c. 200 CE), the written compendium of Rabbinic Judaism's Oral Torah (Torah meaning "Instruction", "Teaching" in Hebrew). The second part is the Gemara (c. 500 CE), an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Hebrew Bible. The term Talmud can be used to mean either the Gemara alone, or the Mishnah and Gemara as printed together.
- from the Mishnah wikiAccording to the Provençal Rabbi and scholar, Rabbi Abraham ben David, the Mishnah was redacted by Rabbi Yehudah haNasi, also known as Rabbi Judah the Prince, in anno mundi 3,949, equivalent to the year 500 of the Seleucid Era. This date corresponds to 189 CE.[8]
Sort of amazes me that my Rabbi wouldn't know this.Tradition ascribes the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud in its present form to two Babylonian sages, Rav Ashi and Ravina. Rav Ashi was president of the Sura Academy from 375 to 427 CE. The work begun by Rav Ashi was completed by Ravina, who is traditionally regarded as the final Amoraic expounder. Accordingly, traditionalists argue that Ravina’s death in 499 CE is the latest possible date for the completion of the redaction of the Talmud. However, even on the most traditional view a few passages are regarded as the work of a group of rabbis who edited the Talmud after the end of the Amoraic period, known as the Saboraim or Rabbanan Savora'e (meaning "reasoners" or "considerers").
These are considered the guys with the brains, comparatively speaking, but there are two ways the term can be understood.Tanna "repeaters", "teachers"[1]) were the Rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the Mishnah, from approximately 10-220 CE. The period of the Tannaim, also referred to as the Mishnaic period, lasted about 210 years. It came after the period of the Zugot ("pairs"), and was immediately followed by the period of the Amoraim ("interpreters")[2]
The root tanna (תנא) is the Talmudic Aramaic equivalent for the Hebrew root shanah (שנה), which also is the root-word of Mishnah. The verb shanah (שנה) literally means "to repeat [what one was taught]" and is used to mean "to learn".
One of the centerpieces of Halivni's argument is the amount of stuff the Reciters forgot. The idea is that the older stuff in the Talmud is where the sages are identified - "Rabbi Semiopen said..." The anonymous stuff (which is where the term Stammaim comes from) is after the Amoraic period.Second, the term can refer to the professional repeaters or reciters of the rabbinic schools. Publication during the tannaitic and amoraic periods was oral and depended, therefore, on tannaim who were, for all practical purposes, “living books” (Lieberman 1950: 83–99). Though some written records were kept, these bore no official status. Instead, when the version of a teaching needed to be checked it was the tannaim who were consulted. Accordingly, they were valued for their capacity to memorize, not for their intelligence.
The 217 CE date (I'm still not sure where this exists here) therefore comes from the death date of "our holy master" although its too bad he couldn't have finished it a year or so before and relaxed.All ancient sources are in agreement that the Mishnah was compiled by Rabbi Judah the "Prince," before his death around 217 C.E. On the author see below. It should be emphasized that--contrary to a view that appears in many histories and introductions, and which is based on the writings of medieval Spanish Jewish authorities--this redaction did not involve writing down the traditions, but merely the determining and organizing of a fixed text that was subsequently disseminated by memory. It is clear from the internal evidence of the Talmud that the teachings of the Rabbis continued to be studied orally throughout the Talmudic era, and this continued to be the practice in the Babylonian academies well into the middle ages.
I always understood that the Mishna was "written down" around 200 CE (although internal evidence suggests that at least some of it was written down earlier) and the "Talmud" between the 5th & 8th century (this almost universally refers to Babylonian Talmud). Offhand I am not sure about the date of the Jerusalem Talmud, which I think is somewhat earlier (4th-5th century CE?).semiopen wrote:The 217 CE date (I'm still not sure where this exists here) therefore comes from the death date of "our holy master" although its too bad he couldn't have finished it a year or so before and relaxed.
Regarding Peter's question, I'd change whatever the phrase is to fifth-eighth century CE.
I thought the references I've provided make it clear that they (Mishna and Gemara) weren't written. I was stunned to see this myself.DCHindley wrote:I always understood that the Mishna was "written down" around 200 CE (although internal evidence suggests that at least some of it was written down earlier) and the "Talmud" between the 5th & 8th century (this almost universally refers to Babylonian Talmud). Offhand I am not sure about the date of the Jerusalem Talmud, which I think is somewhat earlier (4th-5th century CE?).semiopen wrote:The 217 CE date (I'm still not sure where this exists here) therefore comes from the death date of "our holy master" although its too bad he couldn't have finished it a year or so before and relaxed.
Regarding Peter's question, I'd change whatever the phrase is to fifth-eighth century CE.
DCH
Rabbi and R. Nathan conclude the Mishnah, R. Ashi and Rabina1 conclude [authentic] teaching,2 and a sign thereof is the verse, Until I went to the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.'3
Rav Ashi died in 427 CE (which I think is the 5th century). However there were at least two Ravinas (the latter dying about 500 which is getting into the 6th century) and the statement itself is pretty much just wrong. However in my suggested dates, with my well known generosity, I throw the traditionalists a bone and say 5th century.Original footnotes renumbered. See Structure of the Talmud Files
1. [According to Sherira Gaon, Letter, p. 95, (ed. Lewin) the reference is to Rabina II, son of R. Huna.]
2. Rashi: Before Rabbi, the Mishnah was in no systematic order, each Tanna teaching in which order he desired. Rabbi compiled and arranged these teachings in a systematized order, admitting those which he considered authentic and rejecting others. This compilation formed the basic code of Jewish law (though Weiss, Dor. II, p. 183, maintains that he never intended it to be authoritative); subsequently scholars might define and explain it, and deduce new laws from it, but not dispute with it. In the course of time the discussions on the Mishnah grew to very large dimensions, and it was the work of Rabina and R. Ashi to compile the huge mass of accumulated material and give it an orderly arrangement. This is expressed by saying that they were at the end of authentic teaching (hora'ah), i.e., they edited the Talmud. [The signification of the term hora'ah is obscure and has been variously explained: (a) transmission of the oral Law; (b) the insertion by scholars of halachic matter in the Talmud; (c) the right to change the Talmud whether in substance or form; (d) legislative activity, v. Kaplan, op. cit., pp. 34 and 289ff.]
Modern scholars call into question the traditional views. (Perhaps we can even make a generalization that the traditional views in Judaism are always wrong)According to rabbinic tradition, the Tosefta was redacted by Rabbis Ḥiya and Oshaiah (a student of Ḥiya).[1] Whereas the Mishna was considered authoritative, the Tosefta was supplementary. The Talmud often utilizes the traditions found in the Tosefta to examine the text of the Mishnah.
The traditional view is that the Tosefta should be dated to a period concurrent with or shortly after the redaction of the Mishnah. This view pre-supposes that the Tosefta was produced in order to record variant material not included in the Mishnah.
There are profound implications to this regarding the actual traditional redaction datesJudith Hauptman argues that the Tosefta, a collection dating from approximately the same time period as the Mishnah and authored by the same rabbis, is not later than the Mishnah and its associated supplement, the Tosefta, when composing his work.
Anyway, it seems my arguments here have academic merit.Departing from the conventional view of mishnaic transmission as mindless rote memorisation, Transmitting Mishnah, first published in 2006, reveals how multifaceted the process of passing on oral tradition was in antiquity. Taking advantage of the burgeoning field of orality studies, Elizabeth Shanks Alexander has developed a model of transmission that is both active and constructive.
It seems that whatever was put into oral tradition by the Rabbis turned into shit, even if there were the best of intentions. This was even with stuff that one might figure they'd get right such as actual descriptions of the temple rituals. After all these were actual things that happened not so long before the Tannaic process started.In what follows I attempt to explore some of these new developments through two specific case studies: E. Alexander’s application of orality studies to mishnaic research, and several recent studies on ritual narratives in the Mishnah.
When I first saw DCH's post, I wasn't so sure about whether the Mishnah was written down. I'm pleased that I seem to have guessed correctly that it wasn't. There seem to be many oral traditions that had some sort of Mishnah at the bottom of it. Much of the material may have been similar but there were significant differences.One area in which these new studies seem to make a great difference is that of Temple laws and narratives in the Mishnah. The Mishnah contains nearly forty narrative-like descriptions of various rituals, most of which are related to the Temple and its cult.These descriptions – identified by their distinctive narrative-like style: a succession of verbs (e.g. the priest goes, takes, brings etc.), rather then the normal apodictic or casuistic mishnaic style - might occupy a whole tractate (Yoma, Tamid), a chapter (Pesaḥim 10, Nega‘im 14, Parah 3), a single Mishnah unit or even one part of it (Bekhorot 9:7, Zevaḥim 5:3). Several recent studies such as those by Avraham Walfish on tractates Rosh Hashana and Tamid, Yair Lorberbaum, Beth Berkowitz and Chaya Halberstam on capital punishments in Sanhedrin, Daniel Stökl Ben-Ezra on Yoma, and my own study of Sotah, undermine the naive conception of these tractates as authentic descriptions of Temple rituals, recorded when the temple was still functioning or shortly thereafter. According to the new studies these narratives are, by and large, a result of second century debates, fashioning and redaction, and should, accordingly, be taken to represent the concerns of that post Temple era. The Temple and its worship were studied, reshaped and even reinvented, as part of the second century’s all-inclusive legal system, according to the academic needs and interests of its sages.