orthopraxy tannaitic literature

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© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI: 10.1163/157006310X503621

Journal for the Study of Judaism 41 (2010) 517-561brill.nl/jsj

Journal for the Study of Judaism

Orthopraxy in Tannaitic Literature *

David M. Grossberg Judaic Studies, University of Connecticut,

405 Babbidge Road Unit 1205, Storrs, C 06269-1205, [email protected]

Abstract M. Sanhedrin 10:1 is well-known as a succinct statement of rabbinic doctrine. Yetas a statement of doctrine, this mishnah’s language is remarkably pragmatic: itproscribessaying certain things but does not explicitly proscribebelievingthem.I propose that this use of practical rather than doctrinal phraseology was anintentional editorial stance of the Mishnah’s compilers. A close philologicalexamination of parallel texts in the osefta andSeder Olam reveals that earliergenerations of the textual tradition underlying this mishnah phrased these sameprohibitions using doctrinal terms such as “denying” or “not acknowledging.”Moreover, this choice of pragmatic language is evident throughout the Mishnah,even when fundamentals of Judaic faith such as belief in one God and in the oral

orah are being addressed. Te Mishnah’s compilers, perhaps in response totrends like early Christian antinomianism and heresiology, chose to produce a

work dedicated to orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy.

Keywordsheresy, tannaim, Late Antique Judaism, Mishnah, orthodoxy, orthopraxy

Te purpose of this paper is to examine m. Sanh. 10:1, the supposed locusclassicus of tannaitic heresiology. Tis mishnah enumerates what mightbe construed as a list of heresies against rabbinic Judaism: denying theresurrection, denying the orah, and Epicureanism.1 Tat this list is an

*) I would like to thank Stuart S. Miller, Pamela Weathers, and the readers at JSJ for theircomments and corrections on earlier versions of this paper.1) I use “Epicurean” for aʾpiqoros here and elsewhere in this paper for the sake of simplic-ity. It is generally accepted that the word derives from the GreekἘπίκουρος (the Greekphilosopher Epicurus); see Jenny R. Labendz, “‘Know What to Answer the Epicurean’: A



518 D. M. Grossberg / Journal for the Study of Judaism 41 (2010) 517-561

oddity in a corpus otherwise concerned primarily with practical and legalmatters—with praxis rather than doctrine—is widely recognized.2 Perhapsfor this reason,m. Sanh. 10:1 has been the focus of so much attention; itgives us a glimpse into what the tannaimbelieved rather than into whatthey did . And yet, as a statement of doctrine,m. Sanh. 10:1 is remarkablypragmatic. Read literally, its rst two proscriptions, the one who says

Diachronic Study of the ʾApiqoros in Rabbinic Literature,” HUCA 74 (2003): 175-214,esp. 177. However, there is some debate regarding to what extent the rabbis were aware ofthe actual teachings of Epicurus. See n. 51, below. It has also been suggested that the wordis derived from the rootפ.ק.ר meaning “putting off” in the sense of “putting off the yokeof orah.” Tus, Maimonides writes in his commentary to m. Sanh.10:1 (ed. Qa h ̣; repr.in 3 vols.; Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 2006-2007) [Hebrew only; my translation]:ם י ח י נ ך מ כ י פ ל ה, ו ר ו ת י ה מ כ ח ו ה ר ו ת ל ו ז ל ז ה ה ו ל ק ה ה ה נ י נ ת ע י מ ר ה ל י מ ס, ה ו ר ו ק י פ ת ל מם י מ כ ד ח י מ ל ה ת ז י ו ם י מ כ ח ת ה ה ז ו מ ה ר ו ת ת ה ו ד ו ס י ן י מ ו מ נ י י ש ל מ ם ע ת ס ה ם ז שו ו ר ה י ה י And the word“ :ש aʾpiqoros : it is an Aramaic word; its idea is disrespect andcontempt for the orah or for Sages of the orah; and, therefore, this name is placed ingeneral on one who does not believe in the principles of the orah or who disparages theSages, or anyone learned in the orah, or his teacher.” Similarly, see Marcus Jastrow, ADictionary of the argumim, the almud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature,1:104 s.v. ס ו ר ו ק י However, the root .פ dates from the rabbinic period and seems פ.ק.ר

likely to have been derived from the Biblical rootפ.ר.ק which means “putting off” in themore literal sense of putting down a burden. Tis transposition of root letters may havecome about under the in uence of the connection in rabbinic thinking between Epicurean-ism and heresy in general. Tat is, the Hebrew ס ו ר ו ק י which is derived from the Greek פἘπίκουρος may have gone on to cause a modi cation to the Hebrew rootפ.ר.ק into a formthat serves as a plausible Hebrew derivation for the Greek term. See Avraham Even-Sho-shan, MillonʾEven Shoshan (ed. Moshe Azar et al.; 6 vols.; el Aviv: ha-Millon he-H ̣adash,2003), 5:1523 s.v. ר ק .פ2) Tus, William Scott Green in Approaches to Ancient Judaism: Teory and Practice (ed.

William Scott Green; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1978), 78, quotes Jacob Neusner, A His-

tory of the Mishnaic Law of Purities Part en, Parah: Literary and Historical Problem (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 230: “[ ]he Mishnaic rabbis express their primary cognitive state-ments, their judgments upon large matters, through ritual law, not through myth or the-ology, neither of which is articulated at all.” Similarly, E. P. Sanders writes inPaul andPalestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977),151: “We should observe the curious character of the exclusion [ofm. Sanh. 10:1]: itexcludes on the basis of abelief . Tis is both striking and odd in a religion which generallyinsists far more on orthopraxy than on orthodoxy.” Also, see Adiel Schremer, “Midrash,Teology, and History: wo Powers in Heaven Revisited,” JSJ 39 (2008): 230-54, esp. 231and nn. 5-6, where he criticizes the presumption that doctrine was the primary concern ofrabbinic religious thought. Cf. however, Alan F. Segal, wo Powers in Heaven: Early Rab-binic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden: Brill, 2002), x, where he stressesthe rabbinic concern with theological orthodoxy.



D. M. Grossberg / Journal for the Study of Judaism 41 (2010) 517-561519

“there is no resurrection of the dead” and “there is no orah from heaven,”mention nothing about what a person must believe. Tey specify what aperson must refrain from doing.3 Believing in the resurrection and in the

orah are not, apparently, required; what is required is refraining fromsaying certain things about them.4 And this is not merely an incidentalmatter of phraseology. A close study of parallel tannaitic texts in both the

osefta and Seder Olam reveals that the predecessors of the textual tradi-tion underlying m. Sanh. 10:1 used phraseology more consistent withaddressing matters of doctrine, such as “denying” or “not acknowledging.”Furthermore, a detailed examination of the entire Mishnah shows thatostensibly doctrinal matters are consistently addressed in the language ofpraxis. Te reasons for this choice of practical over doctrinal phraseologyare difficult to determine with any certainty, although I will suggest anumber of possibilities in the conclusion to this paper.5 However, mymain objective is to establish that the Mishnah’s editors intentionally stan-dardized pragmatic phraseology whenever doctrinal matters are at issue.

And thus the Mishnah, strictly speaking, has no doctrinal content at all;it is, consistently, a work of orthopraxy rather than of orthodoxy.6

3) Te third proscription, Epicureanism, is simply obscure (as mentioned above) and willbe examined in the course of this paper. In the interest of brevity, I will refer to the subjectof the rst proscription as the “resurrection” or (literally from the Hebrew but somewhatredundantly) the “resurrection of the dead” rather than the “resurrection of the dead fromthe orah.” See n. 7, below.4) See Menachem Kellner, Must a Jew Believe Anything? (London: Littman Library of

Jewish Civilization, 1999), 33-38. Based on this distinction between saying and believingand other evidence, Kellner concludes that this mishnah is not a statement of dogma butpart of a tannaitic polemic against various opponents.5) I discuss two possibilities in the conclusion. Brie y, I suggest that the pragmatic tone of

the Mishnah may have developed in tension with trends such as early Christian antinomi-anism, for example in the teachings of Paul and his successors. It is possible that the rabbischose to focus exclusively on the practical observance of orah partly as a rejection of ideaslike the Pauline concept of justi cation by faith. Alternatively, the Mishnah itself maynever have been intended as a guide to practical Judaic observance at all: much of it isconcerned with issues such as emple sacri ce and purity laws, which were no longerpracticable in the tannaitic period, and it frequently presents contradictory opinions with-out determining which is binding. If, for example, the Mishnah was intended as a studyguide in abstract legal methodologies, as some scholars have concluded, it may be thattheological or doctrinal issues were not stylistically or thematically relevant. See n. 82,below.6) By orthopraxy, I mean only that the Mishnah intends to establish correct practice ratherthan correct belief. Tis is not necessarily to say that there are no foundational beliefs




1. Diachronic Study of Tannaitic Texts

In this section, I examine the evolution of the textual tradition thatunderlies m. Sanh. 10:1.7 While there are no tannaitic texts that preciselyparallel this mishnah, there is a text which broadly parallels and expandson m. Sanh. 10:1-3 in t. Sanh. 12:9-13:12. Tere is also a text in SederOlam that parallelst. Sanh. 13:4-5.8 Te purpose of this study is to estab-lish that m. Sanh. 10:1 is actually a highly edited version oft. Sanh. 13:5and the parallel text in Seder Olam. Yet, these earlier generations of this

underlying tannaitic Judaism. As I will discuss, practices such as the reciting of theShema seem to imply speci c beliefs (in this case, the belief in one God). However, whenever theMishnah addresses beliefs, it carefully does so through the establishment or proscriptionof speci c practices rather than the establishment of doctrine. I will address why this mayhave been the case in the third section of this paper.7) Tere are some notable textual variants of m. Sanh. 10:1, none of which are especiallyimportant for my thesis. Kaufmann is generally considered to be the most reliable ofthe available manuscripts. See H. L. Strack and G. Stemberger,Introduction to the almudand Midrash(trans. Markus Bockmuehl; Edinburgh: & Clark, 1991), 158. Tere aretwo main differences between Kaufmann and modern printed texts of the Mishnahand the Bavli. Te latter typically begin “All Israel has a portion in the world to come as it

is said, ‘Ty people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, thebranch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glori ed’” (Isa 60:21, KJV)and have the words “from the orah” after the phrase “the one who says there is no resur-rection of the dead.” Te opening sentence “all Israel has a portion” up to “inherit the landforever” (the complete quote from Isaiah is only present in the printed texts) is missingentirely from Kaufmann and Cambridge, but it is present in whole or in part in others.See Herbert Danby, ractate Sanhedrin Mishnah and osefta: Te Judicial Procedure of the Jews as Codi ed owards the End of the Second Century A.D.: ranslated from the Hebrew Brief Annotations (New York: MacMillan, 1919), 120 n. 2; Louis Finkelstein, Mavoʾ le- Massekhtot ʾAvot ve- ʾAvot de-Rabbi Natan (New York: Jewish Teological Seminary, 1950),

104-5 and n. 159. Parma and the Yerushalmi have “All Israel has a portion in the worldto come” but leave off the quote from Isaiah (ibid.). Te Naples edition, the editio princeps of the Mishnah, includes the full sentence (Samuel Krauss,Te Mishnah reatise Sanhedrin:Edited with an Introduction, Notes and Glossary [Leiden: Brill, 1909], ix, 25). See Finkel-stein, Mavoʾ, 104-11, for an interesting discussion of these textual variants. Also, see Charles

aylor, An Appendix to Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1900), 132. I am using ed. Albeck (6 vols.; Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1988) form.Sanh. and ed. Zuckermandel (Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1963) for t. Sanh.8) I will only consider parallel texts that appear in tannaitic works. I do this in order tolimit the scope of this paper and to avoid difficult and contentious questions regarding thedating of tannaitic material cited in amoraic texts. Parallel texts also appear in the follow-ing post-tannaitic works: ʾAvot de-Rabbi Natan A 36 and 41, b. Roš Haš . 16b-17a, y. Sanh. 10:1, 27c, and y. Pe aʾh 1:1, 16b.




textual tradition use what I will refer to as the language of doctrine, “theone who denies” or “the one who does not acknowledge,” rather thanm.Sanh. 10:1’s language of praxis, “the one who says.” I take this as imply-ing an intentional choice by the editors of this mishnah to reject the ear-lier language of doctrine in preference to its own language of praxis. I willstart with a synoptic comparison ofm. Sanh. 10:1-3 and t. Sanh. 12:9-13:12. Refer to the appendix for a formatted parallel presentation of therelevant texts.

A tradition dating to at least the tenth century Iʾggeret Rav SheriraGa ʾon explains that the osefta was written later than the Mishnah as acommentary and expansion of it.9 Contemporary scholarship, however,has revealed a more complex picture of mutual in uences and paralleldevelopment between the two works.10 In the case of these two texts, a

9) Sherira Gaon writes in his letter:ן מ ל י י ס ל מ ה ו צ ר ו ת י ה ד י : ו י ר‘ ח פ‘ ד ס ו ן ת י נ ע ל וה צ ר ת ו נ ת נ ש ת מ ו כ ל ן ה צ ר ת ר ד ת ק פ ל ס ל ה י ר ת ו ה צ ר ר‘ ת י‘ ד מ ו י י ת ל י מן י י נ ן ת ו ה י ל ע ן ו ו נ י‘י נ ת ר מ ת ן ד ר י ת‘ר פ ס ו ת י ד ל י מ ת ו פ ס ו Regarding the osefta of Rabbi“ :תHiyya: certainly he arranged it; but, we do not know if in the days of Rabbi [Yehudah thePatriarch] he arranged it or afterwards. However, without a doubt, after the laws of ourMishnah were arranged, the osefta was arranged, and the words of the osefta are clari -

cations after the Mishnah and were taught on it.” (ʾ Iggeret Rav Sherira Ga ʾon [ed. B. M.Lewin; Haifa, 1921], 34, my translation of the Spanish recension).10) Sherira’s letter is the rst known written explanation for the existence of the osefta,and it is the basis for the traditional account of its relationship to the Mishnah (Strack andStemberger, Introduction to the almud and Midrash, 138-39). Te 19th-century Germanscholar of the osefta, Moses Zuckermandel, was one of the rst modern scholars to offera radical alternative to this traditional theory, suggesting that the osefta was the remnantof an original Palestinian Mishnah (ibid., 171-72; Alberdina Houtman, Mishnah and

osefta: A Synoptic Comparison of the ractates Berakhot and Shebiit [ übingen: MohrSiebeck, 1996], 12-13). More recently, scholars have expressed a number of divergent

opinions on the matter. Jacob Epstein, for example, sees our current osefta as being basedon an earlier osefta that was written by Rabbi Nehemiah as a commentary on an earlierversion of the Mishnah that his teacher Rabbi Akiva wrote. See Abraham Goldberg,“Te osefta—Companion to the Mishna,” in Te Literature of the Sages, First Part: Oral

ora, Halakha, Mishna, osefta, almud, External ractates (ed. Shmuel Safrai; Assen: VanGorcum, 1987), 283-302, esp. 292; J. N. Epstein, Mevoʾot le-Sifrut ha- anna iʾm: Mish-nah, osefta ,ʾ u-Midreshei Halakhah (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1957), 242-46. Judith Haupt-man, Rereading the Mishnah: A New Approach to Ancient Jewish exts( übingen: MohrSiebeck, 2005), 14-16, offers a succinct summary of other recent scholarship, as follows.

Albeck places the osefta in the amoraic period and says that it both supplements andcontains parallel materials to the Mishnah. Te well-known osefta commentator SaulLieberman apparently never directly expressed a position on the issue, but his works seemto imply an opinion similar to Sherira’s, that the osefta is an addition to or commentary




cursory comparison shows that they are clearly dealing with the samematerial. And for the most part, it looks like the osefta is aware of ourMishnah and is either commenting on it or presenting variant material.Te osefta passage begins with the expression “Tey added to these,”hosifu in Hebrew, which indicates awareness of an earlier list that is beingadded to; and there is no reason to suppose that this earlier list is anythingother than the list in m. Sanh. 10:1. Epstein sees this type of language asclassically indicative of the function of the osefta, hence its etymologicalconnection:

Already in the Mishnah it is said regarding tannaim like Rabbi Akiva, ‘hosifrabbi aʿqiva .ʾ’ And also ‘hosafot ’ to the Mishnah that later tannaim added(she-hosifu) are brought in the osefta in this language: ‘hosifuʿaleihem.’11

Epstein is explaining that the osefta functions as atosefet , an “addition,”to the Mishnah and that the term hosifu appears several times in the

osefta indicating this function. Among several examples, Epstein citest. Sanh. 12:9. And indeed, the Yerushalmi ( y. Sanh. 10:1, 27c) explicitlycomments on m. Sanh. 10:1 with a text that differs only slightly fromt. Sanh. 12:9. Tere, the passage clearly intends to add to the list inm. Sanh. 10:1. Tus, at least regarding t. Sanh. 12:9-11, it seems reason-able to suppose that the osefta postdates and is aware of the Mishnah.

A similar kind of relationship is apparent betweenm. Sanh. 10:3 andt. Sanh. 13:6-12. Te osefta includes parallels for all of the instances ofthose who have no portion in the world to come that appear in the Mish-nah, typically in variant versions and with additional commentary. Again,it seems reasonable to suppose that the osefta here is aware of andexpanding on the Mishnah. Tis would mean, of course, that at least

regarding these passages, the text of the Mishnah is primary and theosefta is commenting on it, which accords with the traditional concep-tion of the relationship of the osefta to the Mishnah.

Tis is true regarding all of the osefta passage except fort. Sanh. 13:1-5. Tis section has no parallel in m. Sanh. 10:1-3, and it appears tobe out of place in the ow of what comes previously and subsequently in

on the Mishnah. Goldberg and Neusner present similar opinions in their works on thematter. Friedman and Houtman allow a more nuanced intertextual relationship with somemutual in uence of material. Hauptman sees the osefta as a commentary on a third,unknown, work, which roughly parallels our current Mishnah.11) Epstein, Mevoʾot le-Sifrut ha- anna iʾm, 241, my translation.




the osefta. . Sanh. 12:9, the hosifu text, matches m. Sanh. 10:1 both instyle (it ends “have no portion in the world to come”) and thematically(it begins hosifu, indicating that it is adding to a previously known listof those without a portion in the world to come). Similarly, t. Sanh. 12:10-11 parallelsm. Sanh. 10:1-2 closely in substance and style. At thispoint in the osefta text, however, something peculiar occurs. . Sanh. 13:1-5 begins a discussion that is broadly related thematically but unprec-edented in its speci cs. After this digression,t. Sanh. 13:6-12 again picksup closely paralleling the Mishnah. Tis seems to indicate either an agga-dic expansion or perhaps an interpolation of thematically related materialfrom another source.

I would like to suggest thatt. Sanh. 13:1-5 is neither a commentary onm. Sanh. 10:1-3 nor an aggadic expansion oft. Sanh. 12:9-11 but repre-sents an earlier generation text, which the editors of the osefta insertedinto their composition. One indication of this is the fact that a text whichclosely parallelst. Sanh. 13:3-5 appears by itself inb. Roš Haš. 16b-17a yetdoes not appear in b. Sanh.ch. 11 where m. Sanh. 10:1-3 is discussed atlength. Tis may indicate an independent tradition that did not circulate

with the mishnayot of m. Sanh. 10:1-3.

Additionally, both m. Sanh. 10:1-3 and t. Sanh. 12:9-11 and 13:6-12follow a consistent layering structure, which is abruptly interrupted byt. Sanh. 13:1-5. A close analysis of the layering structure of the parallelsections of the Mishnah and osefta reveals a scheme in line with thatexplained by Abraham Goldberg.12 According to Goldberg, although theMishnah as it now stands was edited by Rabbi Yehudah in the third cen-tury, the teachings of earlier generations of tannaim can still be discernedas layers in the text. Te rst layer contains “late Second emple teachingsas formulated by the rst Yavne generation,”13 for example Gamliel,

Eliezer, and Yehoshua. Te second layer, representing the second Yavnehgeneration, contains Akiva’s formulation of the teachings of these rstgeneration tannaim. Te third layer contains Akiva’s teachings as formu-lated by the rst Usha generation, primarily Akiva’s students, for example,

Yehudah, Nehemiah, and Abba Saul. And the fourth and nal layer con-tains “the teachings of the disciples of R. Akiva, as formulated under the

12) Abraham Goldberg, “Te Mishna—A Study Book of Halakha,” in Safrai, Te Litera-ture of the Sages , 211-62, esp. 216-22, 235-38.13) Ibid., 216.




aegis of R. Yehuda the Patriarch.”14 Tus, the Mishnah is “essentially thebook of R. Akiva,”15 as it contains primarily either his formulations ofearlier teachings or the teachings of his students. While Goldberg’s con-clusions are not entirely acceptable to many scholars,16 they do offer anexcellent paradigm with which to analyze the texts under discussion. AsI will now demonstrate, this pattern of layers and this focus on Akiva’steachings is clearly discernible both inm. Sanh. 10:1-3 and in t. Sanh. 12:9-11 and 13:6-12. osefta Sanh. 13:1-5, in contrast, breaks this patternand returns to teachings in the name of rst generation Yavneh sages.

In order to clearly discern the layers of thesemishnayot , it must benoted that m. Sanh. 10:1 and m. Sanh. 10:2 each contain one distinct

judgment regarding groups that have no portion in the world to come. Mishnah Sanh. 10:3, although construed as one mishnah in ed. Albeck,actually contains seven judgments of groups that have no portion (“thegeneration of the ood,” “the generation of the dispersion,” etc., shownas separate paragraphs in the appended translation). Kaufmann andParma have most of these judgments as individualmishnayot .17 Consid-ered individually, each of these nine judgments follows a similar pattern:

rst, either an anonymous opinion or the opinion of Rabbi Akiva is pre-

sented. Ten, in response, an argument or expansion is often presentedeither in the name of one of Akiva’s students18 or in the name of Eliezerben Hyrcanus, Akiva’s older contemporary and teacher who argues here

14) Ibid., 217.15) Ibid., 236.16) For example, see Yaakov Elman, “Order, Sequence, and Selection: Te Mishnah’s

Anthological Choices,” inTe Anthology in Jewish Literature (ed. David Stern; Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2004), 53-80, at 65: “In a large sense, Goldberg’s scheme is

merely an adaptation of R. Yohanan’s principle that the major tannaitic compilations, ashe and we know them, were ‘all according to the opinion of R. Akiva [b. Sanh. 86a].’ Whether the solution works as an explanation of the Mishnah’s purpose and arrangementis another question.”17) Note, however, that neither of these manuscripts have “the generation of the disper-sion” or “the spies.” Te third mishnah in both of these manuscripts deals with both “thegeneration of the ood” and “the men of Sodom,” which ts with the fact that Nehemiah’sresponse addresses only these two judgments. Te fourth mishnah then goes on to discuss“the generation of the desert.” Te editio princeps , the 1492 Naples edition, has all ninesections, though “the generation of the dispersion” comes after “the spies” (Krauss,Te Mishnah reatise Sanhedrin, 26). Te Romm Vilna Bavli is similar to ed. Albeck.18) Abba Saul, Rabbi Yehudah, and Rabbi Nehemiah. In two cases, unnamed sagesrespond to Akiva’s students.




in each case against Akiva. Tus, m. Sanh. 10:1-3 is focused around theteachings of Akiva, primarily representing the third or fourth layers inGoldberg’s scheme.

osefta Sanh. 12:9-11 and 13:6-12 follow this same pattern. Most ofthe material that is presented anonymously in the Mishnah is also pre-sented anonymously in its parallel material in the osefta; and most ofthe material that is presented in Akiva’s name in the Mishnah is also pre-sented in Akiva’s name in its parallel material in the osefta.19 Te oseftamaterial that responds to this anonymous/Akiva layer is, for the mostpart, not attributed to the well-known second and third generation sagespresented in the Mishnah but to less common later generation tannaim.20 Te fourth generation of tannaim, according to Goldberg, “ gures mostprominently in the osefta.”21 Still, this material serves the same purposein the layering structure as does the parallel material in the Mishnah ofresponding to the Akiva layer, and the same overall layering scheme ispreserved.

osefta Sanh. 13:1-5 diverges from this pattern, presenting opinions inthe name of earlier generation sages exclusively and not preserving anyconsistent layering throughout. First, opinions are presented by Gamliel,

Yehoshua, and Eliezer, then by the schools of Shammai and Hillel, andnally, a lengthy anonymous section is presented. Inasmuch as these attri-butions can be trusted, this section represents an earlier layer than thepreceding and subsequent material and is thus unlikely to represent anexpansion of that material. More importantly, although perhaps no singleconsistent layering structure can be imposed on the entire Mishnah or

osefta, the fact that m. Sanh. 10:1-3 and t. Sanh. 12:9-11 and 13:6-12follow each other so closely in this regard, with onlyt. Sanh. 13:1-5

19)

Te one exception to this is “the ten tribes,” which is presented anonymously in theosefta and in the name of Akiva in the Mishnah.20) Rabbi Yehudah ben Beteira: third/fourth generation (presumably, as the second gener-ation tanna of the same name is often mentioned with Yavneh sages, whereas in this casethe next opinion is brought in the name of a fth generation tanna; Shulamis Frieman,Who’s Who in the almud [Northvale, N.J.: Aronson, 1995], 347), Rabbi Menahem benRabbi Yose (ben Halafta): fth generation (ibid., 208-9), Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korhah:fourth generation (ibid., 340-41), Rabbi Shimon ben Menasya: fth generation (ibid.,283), Rabbi Shimon ben Yehudah iʾsh kefarʿakus : fth generation (ibid., 287). Rabbi

Yehudah ben Peteira of t. Sanh. 13:9 is likely a variant spelling of Rabbi Yehudah benBeteira from t. Sanh. 13:6 (cf. Danby’s translation of t. Sanh. 13:9 in ractate Sanhedrin Mishnah and osefta , 127).21) Goldberg, “Te Mishna—A Study Book of Halakha,” 236.




abruptly diverging from this pattern, is suggestive of an interpolationfrom an external textual source.

Also suggestive is the fact that this section of the osefta discusses“gehinnom,” a word which does not appear anywhere else in the discus-sion.22 Elsewhere, the discussion revolves around “the world to come,” orthe “resurrection of the dead,” or “standing in judgment.”23 Gehinnom isonly brought up in t. Sanh. 13:1-5 (more precisely,t. Sanh. 13:3-5; it isalso worth noting that this section does not use the term “world to come,”

which returns again att. Sanh. 13:6 with the text that picks up parallelingthe Mishnah). Were this section a commentary onm. Sanh. 10:1-3 or anaggadic expansion oft. Sanh. 12:9-11, it would have been expected tomake use of the language of the texts on which it was based.

Finally, t. Sanh. 13:4-5 contains redundant information. In its list ofthose who are locked up in gehinnom, it includes the aʾpiqoros ,24 the per-son who denies the orah,25 and the person who denies the resurrection.

Yet, these were already enumerated in the Mishnah on which the oseftais ostensibly commenting. It has been suggested that the second list ismeant to add an additional severity to the rst but, as I will explain below,this understanding is not sustainable.

For these reasons, I suggest thatt. Sanh. 13:1-5 represents a distincttextual tradition, which the editors of the osefta inserted into the exeget-ical material that makes up most oft. Sanh. 12:9-13:12.26 Moreover, theevidence just presented does not point to a heterogeneous text. Only in

22) Te term gehinnom does appear elsewhere in the Mishnah and the osefta: m. ʾAbot 1:5, m. ʾAbot 5:19, 20, m.ʿEd. 2:10, m. Qidd. 4:14, and t. Ber. 6:11.23) Several terms referring to the world to come appear throughout these texts:ʿolamha-ba ,ʾ h ̣eleq la-ʿolam ha-ba ,ʾ h ̣ayyei ha-ʿolam ha-ba ,ʾ h ̣ayyeiʿolam, h ̣ayyin la-ʿolam ha-ba ,ʾ loʾ

h ̣ayyin ve-lo ʾniddonin, h ̣arafot le-dir ʾon ʿolam, gehinnom, yordin le-gehinnom ve-niddoninbah, gehinnom nineʿlet bifneihem ve-niddonin bah. Te two central categories that seem tocome out of these variants are “living” in the world to come versus “standing in judg-ment.” See n. 53, below.24) See n. 1, above, and n. 51, below, for a discussion of the termʾapiqoros .25) Note that t. Sanh. 13:5 does not have the phrase “from heaven,” which appears inm. Sanh. 10:1 but, considering the other parallels and similarity of concept, it should beconsidered a parallel phrase.26) See Chaim Milikowsky, “Gehinnom u-Foshʿei Yisra ʾel aʿl pi ‘SederʿOlam,’” arbiz 55(1986): 311-43, esp. 328 n. 69 and 335 n. 104, where he states that t. Sanh. 13:4-5 is

clearly not a continuation of what came previously and argues against Lawrence H. Schiff-man assuming so inWho Was a Jew? Rabbinic and Halakhic Perspectives on the Jewish Christian Schism (Hoboken: Ktav, 1985).




the osefta as a commentary on the Mishnah, some scholars have triedto read t. Sanh. 13:5 as commenting on m. Sanh. 10:1. Tus LawrenceSchiffman suggests that this list in the osefta “represents an expansion ofthe list found in the Mishnah, adding certain offenders whose transgres-sions had such major consequences as to cause the loss of their portion inthe world to come and to bring upon them eternal punishment.”28 Tat is,the Mishnah presents a list of those who lose their portion in the world tocome (they presumably are annihilated after death), and the osefta pres-ents a list of those who not only lose their portion in the world to come butalso receive an eternal punishment. Tis suggestion must be rejected fortwo reasons. First, the toseftan list repeats items from the Mishnah. Sec-ond, the transgressions listed in the toseftan list do not add to the severityof the transgressions listed in the Mishnah in any clear and consistent

way.On the rst point, both lists contain the ʾapiqoros . Moreover, both lists

contain the one who denies the resurrection and the orah (with theimportant modi cations that I will now discuss). Tese repetitions meanthat the additional punishment of the second list cannot be a commentaryon the rst. Were it not for the aʾpiqoros , perhaps the claim could be made

that the two other ostensible repetitions are actually an additional severity. As mentioned earlier, the phraseology of the Mishnah is quite precise:ha-ʾomer , the one who says “there is no resurrection of the dead” and“there is no orah from heaven.” Te Mishnah is proscribing a verbal actrather than belief in a heterodox bit of dogma. Te osefta, on the otherhand, speaks of “the ones who do not acknowledge” (she-ʾein-modim) or“the ones who denied” (she-kafru) the resurrection and “the ones whodenied” (she-kafru) the orah. Te osefta’s phraseology is more indicativeof an obligation to believe.29

28) Schiffman,Who Was a Jew?46.29) “Te ones who denied the resurrection of the dead” is according to Erfurt. Viennaand the editio princeps of the osefta have ve-she-eʾin modin/modim bi-teh ̣iyyat ha-metim:“the ones who do not acknowledge the resurrection of the dead.” See ed. Zuckermandel,434. Te latter is to be preferred as “the Erfurt is marred more than the others by adap-tations to the Babylonian almud,” and the Vienna is superior (Goldberg, “Te

osefta—Companion to the Mishna,” 298). Note that the Hebrew word kofer means “todeny” or “to reject” but is often used in the speci c context of rejecting religious beliefs.In the context of the osefta here, the sense ofkofer is clearly the denial of a principle ofdoctrine. Te sense of the word ʾomer , in contrast, is entirely neutral, meaning “to say”

with no other connotation. Furthermore, while the Mishnah never uses the expressionskofer or ʾein modeh in this sense, these expressions do appear in baraitot in both the




In order to read the list in the osefta as indicating a more severepunishment resulting from a more serious transgression, we would haveto consider this difference in terminology as specifying a more heinoussin. Tat is, merely saying “there is no resurrection of the dead,” whichresults in a loss of one’s portion in the world to come, would have tobe considered less severe than disbelieving or not acknowledging theresurrection, which results in a portion in gehinnom. Tis is certainly notself-evident and even if this could be established, other elements of thesecond list, for example separating oneself from the community, do notseem to be more severe transgressions. And even were this possible toestablish, the problem with the repetition ofʾapiqoros would remain.

Tus, my earlier question remains unanswered. What is the relationshipbetweenm. Sanh. 10:1 and t. Sanh. 13:5? As it is self-evident that the textsare related, and as the evidence indicates that one is neither a commentaryon nor an exegetical expansion of the other, these two texts must representstages in the evolution of a single textual tradition.30 Tat is, one textmay be an edited version of the other, or, more likely, both evolved froman earlier text. Given the number of manuscript variations on the basicthemes presented in these two texts, it is not possible to reconstruct a precise

development of this tradition. However, it is possible to ask which ofthe texts is likely to be primary, which is likely to represent the earlierversion.

Yerushalmi and the Bavli. See, for example, y. Sanh. 10:2, 29b (my translation):ם ד י ז ח י גת י י ח ת ה ד ו ה מ י ל ה ה ו ו ר ע ץ ו ר פ ה ו ר ן צ י ם ע י ר ה ד ש ל ו ש ו י ה ל ש ה י ה ה ר ו ת ר ו ג ם י ת מ ,Gehazi was a man mighty in orah, but he had three [faults]: a lack of generosity“ :הlewdness, and he did not acknowledge the resurrection of the dead.” See alsob. Sanh. 90a(my translation):ם י ת מ ת ה י י ח ת ק ל ו ח ה ל י ה ך ל י כ י פ ם ל י ת מ ת ה י י ח ת ר פ ו כ he denied“ :הthe resurrection of the dead, therefore he will not have a portion in the resurrection of the

dead.” Te latter is especially notable as it is the Gemara’s initial response tom. Sanh. 10:1;the Mishnah’s choice of the language of praxis stands in contrast to the Gemara’s languageof doctrine.30) While the possibility must be allowed that these are entirely independent formulationson the general theme of heresy which circulated in the rst centuries of the common era,their close similarity is most reasonably taken as indicating some kind of dependency. Allthree of the proscriptions enumerated in m. Sanh. 10:1 are mentioned in t. Sanh. 13:5using very similar language. It is also to be noted that the relationship of these texts wasclear to the editor of the osefta, who positioned the latter as an ostensible commentaryon or expansion of the former. Another possibility is that, although related, their temporalsequence is not indicated in the language of these texts in such a way as to be amenable tophilological or historiographical analysis. I endeavor in what follows to argue that it is. Seen. 33, below, on Milikowsky’s analysis of these texts and his conclusions.




. Sanh. 13:5 is paralleled by a text in the third chapter ofSeder Olam,an examination of which will help reveal a possible avenue of evolution ofthis textual tradition (actually, all oft. Sanh. 13:4-5 is paralleled, but myprimary concern is 13:5).

ן י פ י נ ח ה ת ו ו ר ו ס ו מ ה ן ו י ד מ ו ש מ ה ם ו י נ י מ ן ה ו ג ר כ ו י י צ כ ר ד ו מ ש ר פ י ש ל מם נ י ה ם ג י מ ש ן ה ה) מ ו(ר ן ת י ו ר מ ש ם) ו י י(ת מ י(ת) ה ח ת ו ר פ כ ן ש י ס ר ק פ ה ו

ם). י ל(מ ו י ע מ ל ו ע ל ם) ו ו(ל ע ה ל כ ו ת ן י נ ו ד י נ ם ו ה י נ פ ת ל ע נ י

But the ones who separated from community norms, for example, the sec-tarians, and the apostates, and the informers, and the atterers, and theaʾpiqorsin who denied the resurrection of the dead and who said, “there is noorah from heaven”: gehinnom is locked before them and they are judged

within it forever and for all eternity.31

Seder Olam is generally recognized as a tannaitic text, but the precise rela-tionship betweenSeder Olam, the osefta, and the Mishnah is uncertain.32 It is clear that this material fromSeder Olam 3 is very similar tot. Sanh. 13:5 and that m. Sanh. 10:1 contains only a small portion of this material.It seems, in any case, thatm. Sanh. 10:1, t. Sanh. 13:5, and Seder Olam 3represent variant versions of a single textual tradition in various phases of

31) Chaim Joseph Milikowsky, Seder Olam: A Rabbinic Chronography (Ph.D. diss., YaleUniversity, 1981), 230-31, my translation. Cf. Heinrich W. Guggenheimer, Seder Olam:Te Rabbinic View of Biblical Chronology: ranslated and with Commentary (Northvale,N.J.: Aronson, 1998), 42-43.32) See Judah M. Rosenthal, “Seder Olam,” Encyclopaedia Judaica 2nd ed.(ed. MichaelBerenbaum and Fred Skolnik; 22 vols.; Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007),18:235-36. See also, Milikowsky,Seder Olam, abstract: “In the Babylonian almud SederOlam is ascribed to Rabi Yose ben H ̣alaphta (2nd century C.E.). After an analysis of inter-

nal and external evidence the historicity of this statement is accepted.” Guggenheimer writes, “Te text of the osephta is not derived from Seder ‘Olam, neither is Seder ‘Olam from the osephta ” (Seder Olam, 45). However, he points to m. ‘ Ed. 2:10 as the sourcefor the concept of twelve months of punishment, which appears in both the osefta andSeder Olam: “Te entire theory of 12 months’ punishment is due to Rebbi Aqiba who isreported in Mishnah ‘Idiut [sic ] 2:10 to have declared: ‘ . . . the judgment of evildoers inhell is 12 months . . . ’” (ibid.). Dov Ber Ratner dates this osefta as post- almudic: “In myopinion, the osefta before us was edited after the closing of the Gemara. And thus wealways nd in the osefta later additions according to the conclusions of the amoraim”(Samuel K. Mirsky, Midrash Seder Olam: A Photostatic Reproduction of Ber Ratner’s Editionof the ext, Notes, and Introduction [New York: almudic Research Institute, 1966], 82, mytranslation). Milikowsky tends to seeSeder Olam as predating the osefta (Milikowsky,Seder Olam, 13).




its evolution. Based on a close examination of these variants, it is possibleto speculate on the general parameters of this evolution.33 osefta Erfurt34 has:

י כ ר ד ן מ י ש ר ו פ ש ה ו ר ו ת ו ר פ כ ש ן ו י ס ו ר ו ק י פ ת ו ו ר ו ס מ ה ם ו י ד מ ו ש מ ה ן ו י נ י מ ל הם . . . י ת מ ת ה י י ח ת ו ר פ כ ש ר ו ו י צ

One possible translation of this text as it stands is: “But the sectarians,and the apostates, and the informers, and ʾapiqorosin,35 and those whodenied the orah, and those who separate from community norms, andthose who denied the resurrection . . .”36 As it stands, however, the text isgrammatically problematic; a precise translation would be syntacticallyawkward:

But the sectarians, and the apostates, and the informers, andʾapiqorosin, andwho denied the orah, and who separate from community norms, and who denied the resurrection . . .

Te difficulty is with the pre x shein Mishnaic Hebrew (ve-she-kafru . . .ve-she-porshin . . . ve-she-kafru: “and who denied . . . and who separate . . .

33) Milikowsky’s concise yet comprehensive analysis of these texts in “Gehinnom u-Fosheʿi Yisra ʾel,” 335 n. 104, lays the groundwork for the following argument. I build on his workby adding a somewhat more systematic look at the grammatical anomaly under discussionand by adducing additional arguments in support of his conclusion that m. Sanh. 10:1 issecondary. Milikowsky’s main points are that this text inSeder Olam 3 may provide us

with a tannaitic de nition of Epicureanism and that any thematic analysis of texts such asthese can only be done after a careful examination of textual development reveals what the

original content might have been. My interest in Milikowsky’s work is what it may revealregarding changes in the phraseology of these prohibitions between the various strata ofthis textual tradition.34) osefta textual variants from Bar Ilan University’s public database:ח ס ו נ י ה ד ר ע צ ות י נ ת ת ה ו ר פ ס .ל35) Te manuscripts vary in how they render the term aʾpiqorsim. My translations arefaithful to the manuscripts, but in the discussion I will consistently useʾapiqoros oraʾpiqorsim.See n. 1, above and n. 51, below, for a discussion of the termʾapiqoros .

36) My translation. Cf. Danby, ractate Sanhedrin Mishnah and osefta , 123: “But the her-etics and renegades and traitors and Epicureans, and those who denied the Law, or sepa-rated themselves from the ways of the congregation, or denied the resurrection of thedead.” Danby’s translation of the Mishnah and the osefta of tractate Sanhedrin is basedon ed. Zuckermandel, which is based on Erfurt.




and who denied”), which is serving an ambiguous purpose. It may be act-ing as a relative pronoun with an implied antecedent, intending:

ן י ש ר ו פ ה ש ל ה ו ר ו ת ו ר פ כ ה ש ל ן ו י ס ו ר ו ק י פ ת ו ו ר ו ס מ ה ם ו י ד מ ו ש מ ה ן ו י נ י מ ל הם . . . י ת מ ת ה י י ח ת ו ר פ כ ה ש ל ר ו ו י י צ כ ר ד מ

But the sectarians, and the apostates, and the informers, and aʾpiqorosin, andthose who denied the orah, and those who separate from community norms,and those who denied the resurrection . . .

As a relative pronoun, however, theshe pre x typically has an explicitantecedent, such as I inserted into the text here but which does not appearin Erfurt.37 Alternatively,she may be referring back to the wordʾapiqoros ,intending something like:

י כ ר ד ן מ י ש ר ו פ ש ה ו ר ו ת ו ר פ כ ן ש י ס ו ר ו ק י פ ת ו ו ר ו ס מ ה ם ו י ד מ ו ש מ ה ן ו י נ י מ ל הם . . . י ת מ ת ה י י ח ת ו ר פ כ ש ר ו ו י צ

But the sectarians, and the apostates, and the informers, andʾapiqorosin who denied the orah, who separate from community norms, and who denied theresurrection . . .38

In this case, denying the orah, separating from the community, and denyingthe resurrection are speci c attributes of the more general appellation,

37) Tus, M. H. Segal, A Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), 205, writes: “In [Mishnaic Hebrew,she ] must always have an antecedent.” Even so, it wouldprobably not be entirely correct to say that this is a grammatical error, especially seeing as

this type of usage does occur elsewhere in tannaitic literature, for example,m. H ̣ul. 3:5(ed. Albeck, 5:125, my translation): י, נ פ ו ד ר ה ה ל כ ש ת, ו נ נ ו צ מ ה ת, ו נ ש ו ע מ ה ם, ו ד ת ה ז ו ח

ה ר ש ם—כ י ע ר ם ה י ת מ ת ש ו ש ן, י ל ו ג נ ר ת ת ה ו ה צ ל כ ש that is attacked by [An animal]“ :וcongestion, one that was exposed to smoke, one that became chilled, one that atehar-dufni , or one that ate chicken manure or drank bad water: [these are] kosher.” However,here also vary betweenve-she and she . In biblical Hebrew, this type of construct occurs

with the relative pronoun ʾasher , for example Judg 1:12 (my translation):-ר ש ל , ר כ מ י וה ש י, ל ת ה ס כ ת-ע ו י ל ת ת נ ה—ו ד כ ל ר ו פ ת-ס י ר ת-ק ה כ And Caleb said ‘the one that“ :יstrikes Kiryat Sefer and captures it, I will give Achsah my daughter to him as a wife.’”

With an explicit antecedent, we might expect something like:ה כ ר-י ש ש י , ה ל ר כ מ י .וSee Ronald J. Williams and John C. Beckman,Williams’ Hebrew Syntax: Tird Edition ( oronto: University of oronto Press, 2007), 164-65.38) My translation.




aʾpiqoros , rather than distinct individual categories of transgressors. Tissecond possibility is almost precisely what we see inb. Roš Haš. 17a:39

ם י ת מ ת ה י י ח ת ו ר פ כ ש ה ו ר ו ת ו ר פ כ ם ש י ס ר ו ק י פ ה ת ו ו ר ו ס מ ה ן ו י נ י מ ל הר . . . ו י צ כ ר ד ו מ ש ר י פ ש ו

But the sectarians, and the informers, and the ʾapiqorsim who denied theorah, denied the resurrection of the dead, and separated from community

norms . . .40

Te simple addition of a vav before the rst she-kafru changes the textconsiderably. With no vav , what follows theshin are a series of attributesof the ʾapiqoros . With a vav , the text is grammatically problematic andseems to be a much longer list of proscribed beliefs and behaviors. Tisgrammatical awkwardness may have resulted in a number of interestingmanuscript variations. For example, osefta Vienna has:

י כ ר ד י מ ש ר ו פ ה ו ר ו ת ן י ר פ ו כ ה ם ו י י ס ו ר ו ק י פ ת ו ו ר ו ס מ ה ן ו י ד מ ו ש מ ה ן ו י נ י מ ל הם . . . י ת מ ת ה י י ח ת ן י ד ו ן מ י ש ר ו ו צ

But the sectarians, and the apostates, and the informers, andʾapiqorosiim and

the ones who deny the orah and separatorsfrom community norms and thatdo not acknowledge the resurrection . . .41

And the editio princeps 42 has:

י כ ר ד י מ ש ר ו פ ה ו ר ו ת ם י ר פ ו כ ה ן ו י ס ו ר ו ק י פ ה ת ו ו ר ו ס מ ה ם ו י ד מ ו ש מ ה ם ו י נ י מ ל הם . . . י ת מ ת ה י י ח ת ם י ד ו ן מ י ש ר ו ו י צ

39) Ed. Vilna and other printed editions of the almud have she-kafru; Munich andother haveve-she-kafru. See Rabbinovicz,diqduqei sofrim (Munich, 1871). Rabbino-vicz cites several textual witness to the latter and notes that he believes the printed editionsto be incorrect. Cf. Milikowsky, “Gehinnom u-Foshʿei Yisra eʾl,” 335 n.104, who offerssupport for ed. Vilna.40) My translation.41) My translation; the clumsy expression “separators from community norms” and theawkward nal phrase “and that do not acknowledge” are literal translations of the text asit stands.42) Te editio princeps of the osefta is from the 1521-22 Venice edition of Alfasi on the

almud (Strack and Stemberger, Introduction to the almud and Midrash, 178; Goldberg,“Te osefta—Companion to the Mishna,” 298).




But the sectarians, and the apostates, and the informers, and the piqorosin,and the ones who denythe orah and separatorsfrom community norms and

that do not acknowledge the resurrection . . .43

Between the Bavli and the various editions of the osefta both of the pos-sible readings (either the relative pronoun has an implied antecedent or itis referring explicitly toʾapiqorsim) of the non-standard grammatical usagein Erfurt are represented in odd and suggestive combinations, which I

will discuss shortly. Te parallel text in Milikowsky’s critical edition ofSeder Olam, cited above, is similar to the Bavli.

ן י פ י נ ח ה ת ו ו ר ו ס ו מ ה ן ו י ד מ ו ש מ ה ם ו י נ י מ ן ה ו ג ר כ ו י י צ כ ר ד ו מ ש ר פ י ש ל מם . . . י מ ש ן ה ה) מ ו(ר ן ת י ו ר מ ש ם) ו י י(ת מ י(ת) ה ח ת ו ר פ כ ן ש י ס ר ק פ ה ו

But the ones who separated from community norms, for example, thesectarians, and the apostates, and the informers, and the atterers, and theaʾpiqorsin who denied the resurrection of the dead and who said, “there is noorah from heaven” . . .44

A close examination of these variants will indicate that the original versionof this textual tradition was probably similar toSeder Olam and to theBavli.45 First, it seems unlikely that a non-standard grammatical usage suchas that seen in osefta Erfurt is primary.46 On the other hand, it isreasonable to suppose that it represents a corruption of an earlier textsimilar to Seder Olam. Te corruption would require nothing more thanthe addition of a singlevav . Tis vav would then transform the text intosomething suggestive of a longer list of transgressors, which subsequentgenerations would try to correct, the results of which are seen in Vienna and in the editio princeps . In both of these texts, we seeha-kofrim,

43) See n. 41, above.44) My translation.45) Tough, of course, the Bavli text is likely rather late andSeder Olam primary among thetwo.46) Tus, Milikowsky notes that he believes ve-ha-ʾapiqorsin she-kafru, etc. is the correct textfor Seder Olam 3 although it only appears in Leningrad. One of the reasons he cites isthe grammatical anomaly under discussion. See Milikowsky, “Gehinnom u-Foshʿei Yisra eʾl,”335 n. 104. Of course, the opposite argument could also be made, that later texts wouldimpose grammatical uniformity on variant textual traditions. In this case, given the addi-tional evidence adduced, it seems more likely that the grammatical anomaly here is second-ary.




“the ones who deny,” rather thanshe-kafru, thus correcting the ambiguousshe pre x and making the list clearly contain additional elements.47

Also suggestive is the fact that the initial elements of the list up toaʾpiqorsim in Erfurt and Vienna are all de nite, butʾapiqorsim isinde nite. It is an anomaly that theeditio princeps corrects by making theinitial alef of ʾapiqorsim into a he , transforming the Greek aʾpiqoros into thecorrupted piqoros .48 However, if aʾpiqorsim is a general appellation followedby a list of speci c attributes, the inde nite grammatical form ofʾapiqorsim is ne. With aʾpiqorsim inde nite, it would read: “But the Sectarians, the

Apostates, the Informers, and aʾpiqorsim who denied the orah, separatedfrom community norms, and denied the resurrection.” In this reading, theinde nite form is used because the term requires additional de nition.

With aʾpiqorsim de nite (as in the Bavli andSeder Olam), it would read“But the Sectarians, the Apostates, the Informers, andthe ʾApiqorsim, whodenied the orah, separated from the ways of the community, and deniedthe resurrection . . .” In this reading the additional de nitions are aparenthetical gloss. Both possible readings are ne. In Erfurt and Vienna, on the other hand, the inde nite grammatical form ofʾapiqorsim is merely anomalous.

It is also reasonable to suppose that the termʾapiqoros , unlike the otherterms in the list, was in need of a series of de nitive attributes. All of theother terms in the list are Hebrew and would likely have had clearly de nedmeanings to the rabbis and their contemporaries (although the implicationsof some of these terms are not clear to modern readers; the precise meaningof the term min, for example, has been the subject of generations of lively,and as of yet unresolved, scholarly disagreement).49 ʾApiqoros , in contrast,

47) Note that both of the texts retain the second she pre x, which still presents a grammati-

cal awkwardness, as seen in my translations, above.48) See n. 1, above.49) See Daniel Sperber, “Min,” Encyclopaedia Judaica 2nd ed., 14:263-64. Te Hebrew

word min is related to the word for “species” or “kind,” so “sectarian” seems a fair enoughtranslation. Tough if so, then the implication would be a Jewish sectarian, yet the term isnot used exclusively of Jews. Tus, the word is sometimes translated more generally as“heretic.” As this term is used in rabbinic literature over several centuries, it is unlikely onthe face of it that it refers consistently to a single group throughout this period. See Segal,

wo Powers in Heaven, 4-7. Much of the debate has focused around whether minim were Jewish Christians, particularly in connection withbirkat ha-minim. See Reuven Kimel-man, “Birkat Ha-Minim and the Lack of Evidence for an Anti-Christian Jewish Prayer inLate Antiquity,” in Jewish and Christian Self-De nition, Volume wo: Aspects of Judaism inthe Graeco-Roman Period (ed. E. P. Sanders, A. I. Baumgarten, and Alan Mendelson;




derives from the Greek philosophical school, Epicureanism.50 Its exactoffense against rabbinic teachings may not have been immediately obvious,thus the need for a list of details specifying their misdeeds. Furthermore,as Epicureanism was a philosophical school, it is consistent to attribute tothem doctrinal positions such as denying the orah and the resurrection.Te Greek philosopher Epicurus is known primarily for his denial of divineprovidence, a position consistent with the denial of a divinely written orahand the divine reward or punishment implied by resurrection.51

Te most reasonable conclusion, therefore, is that the primary readinghas those who deny the orah and the resurrection not as additionalcategories of transgressors but as details of the general transgression ofEpicureanism. If this is correct, then any text which separatesʾapiqoros and what follows into distinct categories, most importantlym. Sanh. 10:1,is a later generation text. Te primary text was corrupted, perhaps bythe simple addition of a single lettervav , and went through a number ofversions that attempted to correct the resultant grammatical peculiarity.Eventually, the editors of the Mishnah received this text and edited itdown to the three categories which we see inm. Sanh. 10:1: the one whosays that there is no resurrection, the one who says that there is no orah

from Heaven, and the aʾpiqoros .

Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 226-44. Also, see Schiffman,Who Was a Jew? 53-61; MarcelSimon, Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Christians and Jews in the RomaEmpire (AD 135-425) (trans. H. McKeating; London: Littman Library of Jewish Civiliza-tion, 1996), 179-201; Stuart S. Miller, “Te Minim of Sepphoris Reconsidered,”H R 86(1993): 377-402, esp. 400-401. For a recent extended study of the subject, see Yaakov Y.

eppler, Birkat haMinim: Jews and Christians in Con ict in the Ancient World (trans. Susan Weingarten; übingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007).50)

See n. 1, above.51) “Epicurus . . . endorsed religious observance but denied earthly involvement of the per-fect gods and with it providence, presage, punishment, and penitential prayer” (Henry

Albert Fischel, “Epicureanism,”Encyclopaedia Judaica 2nd ed., 6:463). Cf. Labendz, KnowWhat to Answer the Epicurean, 179: “Tis understanding of Epicureanism corresponds toLieberman’s assertion that the most blatant disagreement between Epicurean and Jewishtheologies seems to have been the former’s denial of divine providence.” Also, cf. SaulLieberman, exts and Studies(New York: Ktav, 1974), 223: “[ ]he Rabbis probably heardthat the Epicureans said: τὸν κόσμον αὐτομάτον εἶναι” and “Te Epicurean doctrine thatthe gods care about nothing and nobody, thereby denying reward and punishment formen’s actions, was regarded by the Rabbis as worse than atheism.” Lieberman’s point is thatthe rabbis probably knew very little about the teachings of Epicurus beyond these “currentgeneral phrases.”




ha-ʾomer . Te osefta, Seder Olam, and even the Sifre and baraitot thatappear in the almuds, in contrast, tend to use the more heresiologicalterms.54 For some reason (I will suggest two possibilities in section 3,below), the editors of the Mishnah chose to standardize phrases indicativeof praxis such as “the one who says” even when discussing questions thatare ostensibly concerned with doctrine.

2. Synchronic Study of the Mishnah

Having established that the use of the phrase “the one who says” inm.

Sanh. 10:1 represents an intentional modi cation of an earlier text whichused a phrase such as “the one who denies” or “the one who does notacknowledge,” I will now demonstrate that the phrase “the one who says”also appears in the Mishnah in other contexts relevant to doctrine andheresy. I suggest that the editors of the Mishnah standardized this speci cphraseology as a way of expressing doctrinal issues in terms of praxis.Indeed, the Mishnah, in contrast to other tannaitic works, never usesterms such askofer and ʾein modehin connection to matters of doctrine.

One example of this ism. Meg. 4:9. Tis mishnah enumerates a numberof forbidden liturgical practices divided into three categories, apparentlyindicating levels of severity.55

ר כ ז ו י ל ט ע ך, ו י מ ח ו ר ע י ג ר י ו פ י ן צ ל ק ת; ע ו נ י מ ך ה ר ו ד י ז ר ם, ה י ו ך ט ו כ ר ר: י מ ו ה ר: מ ו ו. ה ת ו ן י ק ת ש ת, מ ו י ר ע ה נ כ מ ו. ה ת ו ן י ק ת ש ם—מ י ד ו ם מ י ד ו ך, מ מ ש

54) See n. 29, above, for examples from the Bavli and Yerushalmi (b. Sanh. 90a and y. Sanh. 10:2, 29b). See the discussion of idolatry, below and in n. 67, for examples fromSifre (Sifre Deuteronomy §54 and Sifre Numbers §111). Cf. Maimonides, hilkhot teshuvah 3:14

( Mishneh orah [ed. Qa h ̣; Kiryat Ono: Mekhon Misnhat ha-Rambam, 1983-96], mytranslation): ם ע ש ל ר ד ו ל ג ן ע י נ ו ד נ , ו ן י ד ו ן ו י ת ר כ ל נ ה , ם ל ו ע ק ל ל ן ח ה ן ל י ו ש ל ו ת י ח ת ם י ר פ ו כ ה ה, ו ר ו ת ם י ר פ ו כ ה ם, ו י ס ר ו ק י פ ה ם, ו י נ י מ ם. ה י מ ל ו י ע מ ל ו ע ל ם ו ל ו ע ם ל ת ט ח וה ש ו ע ה ר, ו ו י צ כ ר ד ם מ י ש ר ו פ ה ם, ו י ר י ה י ט ח מ ם, ו י ד מ ו ש מ ה ל, ו ו ג ת ה י ם י ר פ ו כ ה ם, ו י ת מ הי כ פ ו ש ם, ו י מ ם ש ש ל ל ר ש ו צ ל ה ה ע מ י י ל י ט מ , ו ן י ר ס ו מ ה ם, ו י ק י ו ה י י כ ס ה ר פ ה מ ד ר י ת ו ר ע ו ת ל ר ך ע ש ו מ ה ע, ו ר ן ה ו ש י ל ל ע ם, ו י מ ,And these have no portion in the world to come“ :דthey are cut off and lost, judged because of their great wickedness and sins forever and forall eternity: heretics, Epicureans, those whodeny the orah, those who deny the resurrectionof the dead, those who deny the coming of the redeemer, apostates, those who cause themultitude to sin, those who separate themselves from community norms, those who sinarrogantly in public like Jehoiakim, informers, those who terrify the community not for thesake of heaven, murderers, slanders, and a person who submits to epispasm.”55) Ed. Albeck, 2:367-68, my translation.




ן י ק ת ש , מ ת ו י מ ר ר ע ן ל ת ך ל ת ע ר ז מ ך, ו ל ו מ ר ל י ע ה , ל ן ת ך ל ת ע ר ז מ וה. פ י ז נ ו ת ו

Te one who says, “good ones shall bless you”—this is the way ofminut .[Te one who says,] “your compassion extends even to a bird’s nest,” “yourname shall be recalled for good,” “we give thanks, we give thanks”—he is tobe silenced. Te one who allegorizes [the biblical texts] of forbidden relation-ships—he is to be silenced. Te one who [interprets the biblical verse] “Donot give of your offspring to take across to Molekh” [as] “Do not give ofyour offspring to take across to the ways of the Arameans”—he is to besilenced with a rebuke.

Several practices, some obscure, are described. Te rst is rejected asminut ,the next four are punished by being silenced, and the last is punishedby a rebuke. Te rst practice involves a statement, presumably said inprayer, the meaning of which is unclear: “Good ones shall bless you.” Whoare the “good ones,” and who is being blessed? Rashi explains that the“good ones” are righteous people and God is being blessed; the reasonthis is denounced is that “it does not include the wicked in the praisingof the omnipresent.” Tat is, it implies that only the righteous can praiseGod. Arguably, this idea is somewhat contradictory to the generallyinclusive nature of Judaism;56 yet it is hard to understand why it shouldbe described asminut , a term usually used to describe somewhat moreaberrant heterodoxy.57 Te Mishnah does not clearly indicate whether thisprayer is to be considered a more or a less severe transgression than whatfollows; it is the only practice described asminutand the only one notsilenced or punished. According to Rashi’s reading, it seems that this isto be understood as a less severe transgression; thusminut , although notdesirable, does not require silencing or rebuke.

osefot offers an alternate reading: “Because it appears as if there are twopowers, that is, good gods.”58 osefot is reading the statement as “may theGood Ones bless you,” where the Good Ones are some kind of a divinemultiplicity.59 Tis prayer is forbidden, obviously, because it contradicts a

56) Inclusive in the sense that all Jews are considered to be bound by its authority.57) See n. 49, above, and n. 61, below.58) On the accuracy of the translation ofת ו י ו ש י ר ת ,as “two powers,” see Segal ש wo Powersin Heaven, 7-8 n. 8.59) Rabbi Hananel ben Hushiel (11th c.) and Rabbi Nissim ben Reuben (14th c., in hiscommentary to Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi) read this passage the same way. Similarly, seeSimon, Verus Israel , 199, and eppler, Birkat haMinim, 329-36, who both read this




basic principle of Judaic faith, the belief in one God. Tis reading iscompelling in light of m. Sanh. 4:5: “For this reason Adam was createdalone . . . so the minin will not say ‘there are many powers in heaven,’ ”60

which explicitly connectsminim to the concept of divine multiplicity. Although there has been much scholarly debate regarding whom the termmin refers to, or if, indeed, it consistently refers to a single group, it isreasonable to suppose that the Mishnah, at least, consistently has a moreor less well-de ned set of beliefs and practices in mind.61 Our ambiguous

mishnah as referring to “two powers.” Schremer, “Midrash, Teology, and History,” 233n. 11, seems less certain; I attempt to address one of his concerns, below. Note that mypoint here is not to determine which speci c permutation of belief in divine multiplicityis at issue. It could be an early Christian, gnostic, or even Zoroastrian binitarianism, alater Christian trinitarianism, or a pagan polytheism (not that all of these are equallylikely!). Te only point is that this prayer compromises the belief in one God.60) Ed. Albeck, 4:182, my translation. Tat is, had God created many people all at oncerather than just creating Adam (this word could also be translated generically as “man”), it

would have been possible to conjecture that there are many gods, each of which created itsown human being. Note that the problem here is “many” powers, not speci cally twoor three.61) See n. 49, above. While there is general agreement that the termmin does not refer to a

single group throughout all of the several centuries of rabbinic literature, in the narrowtime-frame of the early third century when the Mishnah was edited, the term likely had amore speci c and generally understood connotation. Tere are only seven relevant refer-ences tominim in the Mishnah (excludingSot ̣ah 9:15, which is thought to be a later inter-polation; see Kimelman, “Birkat Ha-Minim,” 392 n. 18): m. Ber. 9:5, m. Roš Haš . 2:1,m. Meg. 4:8-9 (I count this as a single reference as 4:9 is clearly a continuation of 4:8),m. Sanh. 4:5, m. H ̣ul. 2:9, m. Parah 3:3, and m. Yad.4:8 (ed. Albeck and other printededitions have “Sadducee” for the latter two references, Kaufmann and other havemin). Te meaning of many of these references is obscure and open to interpretation,but most of them imply a circumscribed set of beliefs and practices: belief in only “one

world” (m. Ber. 9:5), heterodoxy in regard to the lunar calendar (m. Roš Haš. 2:1), belief insome form of a divine multiplicity and a heterodox method of putting on te llin (m. Meg. 4:8-9, m. Sanh. 4:5), heterodoxy regarding the slaughter of animals (m. H ̣ul. 2:9), etc.Tis kind of speci city does not point to the conclusion that the term was being used inthe general sense of “heretics,” irrespective of whether the heretics in question were Jewishor non-Jewish, whether gnostic, Christian, or pagan. On the other hand, given the gener-ally amorphous borderlines of religious affiliations and the rapidly changing political andsocial circumstances at the time of the Mishnah’s editing, it is also possible that a numberof related groups or a heterodox tendency expressed in these beliefs and practices byloosely affiliated Jews outside of the sphere of the rabbis is being addressed. Te importantpoint is that the Mishnah is addressing a circumscribed set of beliefs through the estab-lishment of a uniform practice rather than through the establishment of a uniform doc-trine. As Segal, wo Powers in Heaven, 98, writes on m. Meg. 4:9 and m. Ber. 5:3: “Te




reference to a practice ofminut in m. Meg. 4:9 is best understood in termsof the beliefs of theminim of m. Sanh.4:5. Mishnah Meg. 4:9 is condemningthe theological beliefs of a speci c sect or of a set of related sects bycondemning a liturgical practice that re ects these beliefs.

Furthermore, the Mishnah itself seems to indicate that the prayer beingdescribed here was part of an established sectarian liturgical form. Mishnah Meg. 4:9 is a continuation of the previous mishnah, which ends with thecondemnation of another practice asminut : the placement of te llin in

ways other than those dictated by the rabbis.62 It appears as if we have aseries of known practices and beliefs which were associated with sects thatthe rabbis are rejecting.

Te possibility that the practice of saying “may the Good Ones blessyou” is being condemned because of a suspected association with sectarianliturgical formulations is made more compelling by the prohibited practiceof saying modim modim, “we give thanks, we give thanks.” Accordingto b. Meg. 25a, the problem with this practice is that it may be taken asasserting “two powers” (the repeated phrases might be taken as beingaddressed each to a distinct god). Yet this is not rejected asminut butmerely silenced, perhaps owing to it not being associated with heterodox

practices but merely suggestive. Tus, in y. Ber. 5:3, 9c, Rabbi Shmuel rulesthat saying “we give thanks, we give thanks” is forbidden only in public,but in private it is just a supplicatory prayer. Adiel Schremer commentsthat Rabbi Shmuel’s ruling “casts serious doubt” on the assumption thatthis saying was forbidden because it re ects a belief in “two powers” becauseif so it would not be allowed even in private.63 On the contrary, perhaps itis condemned only if said in public because it is similar to the liturgy ofsectarian groups which were already infamous for holding such views.

According to this reading, then, this practice would be less severe than the

mishnayot describe relevant heretical practices under the rubric of forbidden prayer.”Tere, Segal examines these two mishnayot at length. See eppler, Birkat haMinim, 187-230, for an extended discussion ofminim in the Mishnah. eppler concludes that theseminim are early Christians: “[A]lthough every one of the sources in the Mishnah dealing

with these bans and restrictions can be explained in various ways, together these bans canonly be understood as re ections of the polemic with the early developments in Christian-ity” ( eppler, Birkat haMinim, 229). I expect that this conclusion will not be met with

widespread agreement.62) See eppler, Birkat haMinim, 193-203.63) Schremer, “Midrash, Teology, and History,” 233 n. 11.




previous one, requiring silencing only but not considered full edgedminut .

In any case, it does seem clear that the issues involved in a numberof the liturgical proscriptions of this mishnah are doctrinal. Tere arecertain de nite beliefs, most likely involving compromising the beliefin divine unity, which this mishnah is setting out to condemn. And yet,to return to the point with which I started this section, although theMishnah is ostensibly concerned with preventing the entertainment ofheretical doctrine , it actually only proscribes speci c liturgical practices .Te Mishnah does not explicitly forbid believing that there are “manypowers in heaven.” Such a blatant prohibition would be the establishmentof doctrine, which is inconsistent with the tone of the Mishnah. Rather,prohibited is “the one who says” may the “Good Ones” bless you.Presumably, this liturgical practice is being suppressed in order to preventheresy, yet the heresy itself is not explicitly forbidden or even directlyaddressed.

Mishnah Ber. 5:3 contains a section of the same text which makes thesame point, so it is not necessary to discuss at length.64

ן י ק ת ש ם—מ י ד ו ם מ י ד ו ך, מ מ ר ש כ ז ו י ל ט ע ך, ו י מ ח ו ר ע י ג ר י ו פ י ן צ ל ק ר ע מ ו ה ה. ע ה ש ת ו ן ר ה ס ל י ו, ו י ת ח ר ת ח ר ו ע ה—י ע ט ה ו י ת י ה נ פ ר ל ו ע ו. ה ת ו

ה. ה ע ט ה ש כ ר ת ה ל י ח ת ל? מ י ח ת ו מ ן ה י י נ מ

Te one who says, “your compassion extends even to a bird’s nest,” “yourname shall be recalled for good,” “we give thanks, we give thanks”—he is tobe silenced. One who passes before the ark and makes an error, another shallpass in his stead; and do not demur in such an instance. From where shallhe begin? From the beginning of the blessing in which [the other] made anerror.

For our purposes, this mishnah’s salient points repeat those ofm. Meg. 4:9. Again, the same point is being made: an ostensibly heterodox beliefis being proscribed through a proscription of “heterodox” practice.

Tus we see the same phrase “the one who says” that appears inm. Sanh. 10:1 (which was, according to my reading, intentionally changed from anearlier text that directly forbade the entertainment of forbidden doctrine)also appears in bothm. Meg. 4:9 and m. Ber. 5:3 in a similar context ofheterodoxy, yet it forbids practice rather than doctrine. Again, rather than

64) Ed. Albeck, 1:22-23, my translation.




choosing to address beliefs directly, the tannaim chose to address actions.Tis suggests an overall tannaitic orientation towards orthopraxy andaway from orthodoxy.

Against this suggestion, it might be claimed that the point of thesetwo mishnayot is liturgical rather than doctrinal and for this reason theydiscuss verbal acts rather than belief; liturgy obviously involves articulatingspeci c prayers. However, this is exactly my point. Te fault underlyingthe proscribed liturgy is doctrinal; it expresses a binitarian or otherwisepolytheistic belief. Tese mishnayot seem designed to prevent this type ofbelief from spreading. Had the rabbis been prepared to impose doctrinedirectly through the establishment of creeds—as we see in the case ofthe church fathers in Late Antiquity, most notably in the establishment ofthe Nicene Creed in the early fourth century—this would have been amore direct way to bring about the desired outcome.65 Indeed, this wasMaimonides’ approach to a similar problem centuries later (and, it is tobe noted, his attempt was markedly unsuccessful for several subsequentcenturies). Te editors of the Mishnah chose a different approach, anapproach that marks the entire Mishnah, an approach that focuses onpraxis rather than doctrine.

65) Tus, contrast the 325 . . Nicene Creed: Πιστεύομεν εἰς ἕνα ΘΕΟΝ ΠΑΤΕΡΑ

παντοκράτορα , πάντων ὁρατῶν τε καὶ ἀοράτων ποιητήν : “We believe in one GODFA HER almighty, maker of everything both visible and invisible” (Philip Schaff,TeCreeds of Christendom, Volume 2 [repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966], 60); with a contem-porary version of the aʾni ma aʾmin: ר ו ו ו ה מ ך ש ר ת ר י ו ה ה ש מ ל ה ש נ ו מ ן י מ י מ נם י ש ע מ ל ה כ ה ל ש ע י ה ו ש ו ע ה ו ש ו ע ד ו ל ה ם ו י ו ר ל ה כ ג ל י ה נ מ I believe with complete faith“ :וthat the creator, may his name be blessed, he creates and directs all creation and he alonedid, does, and will do all deeds” (Siddur Yitzchak Yair Hashalem [Brooklyn: Mesorah,2000], my translation); with the rst halakhah of the Mishneh orah: י ו צ ם מ ש ש י ע ש ד י ל

ל ו צ מ ל נ ן ה י נ י ה ש מ ץ ו ר ם ו י מ ן ש ן מ י צ מ נ ל ה כ . ו צ מ נ ל ה י כ צ מ ו מ ה . ו ן ו ש ר ו צ מ ת ה ת מ to know that there is a rst existing; and he causes the existence of all that“ :מ exists; and all that exists from the heaven and earth and what is between them, does notexist apart from the truth of his existing” (ed. Qa h ̣; my translation; cf. hilkhot teshuvah 3:14 in n. 54, above); with pragmatic liturgical formulations such theShema , whichinclude no explicit statement of belief and only minimal predication of God (see n. 79,below). Among possible differences between “believing,” “believing with complete faith,”“knowing,” and “saying” are the amount of latitude they allow for individual interpreta-tion and the extent to which they constrain freedom of rational inquiry. It is, of course,difficult to know exactly what the Mishnah’s editors had in mind, and my intention is nei-ther to overstate mishnaic tolerance for doctrinal heterodoxy nor to impose modern con-cepts on ancient thinkers. But, given the Mishnah’s precision of language, choices such asthese are surely signi cant.




Another example of orthopraxy in the Mishnah can be seen inconnection to idolatry. A rejection of idolatry has been the de nitivecharacteristic of Judaic law since the time of the ancient Israelites.66 Tisrejection nds its most succinct expression in tannaitic literature in theSifre (Sifre Deuteronomy §54):67

ל כ ה ד ו ה מ ר ה ז ד ו ע ר פ ו כ ל ה כ ה ו ל ו ה כ ר ו ת ל ה כ ר פ ו ה כ ר ה ז ד ו ע ה ד ו מ ל ה כה. ל ו ה כ ר ו ת ה

All who acknowledge idolatry, deny the entire orah; all who deny idolatry,acknowledge the entire orah.

Tis text uses the sort of language we might expect to nd in connection with what has always been, arguably, the central and perhaps only truedoctrine in Judaism. It is self-evident that a theological stance underliesthis rejection of idolatry: at the very least a belief that there is one God.“Acknowledging idolatry” in theSifre means rejecting this belief and thusrejecting the entire orah, which is based on this belief. Te approach ofthe Sifre can be sharply contrasted to the approach of the Mishnah inm.Sanh. 7:6:68

ך, ס נ מ ד ה ח ר, ו ט ק מ ד ה ח ח, ו ו ז ד ה ח ד, ו ו ע ד ה ה—ח ר ה ז ד ו ד ע ו ע הף פ ג מ ל ה ה. ת י ו:ל ר ל מ ו ה ה, ו ו ל ו ל י ל ו ע ל ק מ ד ה ח ה, ו ו ח ת ש מ ד ה ח ו ה. ש ע ל ת ר ו ל—ע י ע נ מ ה ש ו י ל מ ך, ה ס ץ, ה י ח ר מ ה ץ ו ר מ ה ד ו כ מ ה ק ו ש נ מ ה ו

66) See Ephraim E. Urbach, Te Sages: Teir Concepts and Beliefs (trans. Israel Abrahams;Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 19, 21: “Te monotheistic concept of OneGod, beside whom there is no other, was at the beginning of our epoch the heritage of the

whole Jewish people” and “Te belief in the One God nds expression in the completenegation of every other deity—in Rabbinic phraseology, of ‘strange service’ (i.e. idolatry)—this is to say, of any form of worship that is not unquali ed ‘service’, which means serviceof the Lord.”67) Ed. Finkelstein (repr., New York: Jewish Teological Seminary, 1969), 122, my transla-tion. Cf. Sifre Numbers §111 (ed. Horovitz; Leipzig, 1917), 116:ה ד ו מ ל ה כ ר ש מ ו ה ת ן י נ מת ו ר ד ת ה ר ש ע ר פ ו ה כ ר ה ז ד ו .ע 68) Ed. Albeck, 4:192, my translation. Tis mishnah is a continuation of m. Sanh. 7:4,

which begins: “Tese are those who are [liable to the death penalty by] stoning.” Temishnah then proceeds to enumerate an extended list of sins liable to the death penalty,among which is “the one who commits idolatry.” Te subsequent mishnayot to the end ofm. Sanh. 8 expand on these categories. M. Sanh. 7:6, then, is the explanation of thecategory “the one who commits idolatry” fromm. Sanh. 7:4.




י ו ה ר, ז ו ע ל פ ע ו ל מ צ ר ע ע ו פ ה. ה ש ע ל ת ר ו ו, ע מ ש ם י י ק מ ה ו, ו מ ש ר ד ו נ הו. ת ד ו י ע ו ה ס, ז י ל ו ק ר מ ן ל ק ר ו ז ו. ה ת ד ו ע

Te one who commits idolatry—it is the same [punishment of the deathpenalty for] the one who worships, the one who sacri ces, the one who offersincense, the one who offers a libation, the one who bows down, and the one

who accepts it upon himself as a god, saying to it “you are my god.” But, theone who caresses, the one who kisses, the one who honors, the one who

washes, the one who anoints, the one who dresses, and the one who shoes[an idol], [only] transgresses a negative commandment. Te one who makesa vow in its name or ful lls [a vow] in its name, transgresses a negative com-mandment. Te one who opens himself wide 69 to ba ʿal pe ʿor , this is its proper

worship. Te one who throws a stone at marqulis , this is its proper worship.

Even though the problem underlying idolatry is doctrinal, this mishnahonly addresses praxis. It de nes idolatry in terms of speci c practices,establishing a hierarchy of severity. Te obligation to believe that there isone God or to reject the belief that the idol is a god is not explicitlyaddressed.70 Te closest this mishnah comes to addressing the doctrinalissue is again done in the language of praxis, “the one who says.” After along list of idolatrous practices—sacri cing, prostrating, etc.—the rstsection of the mishnah ends with: “Te one who accepts [the idol] uponhimself as a god, saying to it ‘you are my god.’” Belief is not directlyaddressed; only the practice of saying “you are my god” is prohibited.Believing that an idol is a god is not clearly speci ed as a forbidden doc-trine, but “the one who says” to an idol “you are my god” is undertaking aforbidden practice.

69)

“Opens himself wide” is a literal translation. Tis appears to be a play on words: pe ʿor ,the name of this idol, is similar to the Hebrew poʿer meaning to “open wide.” Rashiexplains this as defecating in front of the idol. See also,b. Sanh. 64a and Rashi there.70) It is not addressed here, nor is it addressed inm. ʿAbod. Zar . As explained in n. 68,above, this mishnah details the meaning of the phrase “the one who commits idolatry”from m. Sanh. 7:4, which enumerates misdeeds for which the punishment is death bystoning. M. ʿAbod. Zar . addresses practical and business dealings with idolaters and theirpossessions. Although it might be argued that bothm. Sanh. and m. ʿAbod. Zar . only setout to rule on a few practical details of the laws of idolatry, so issues of belief do not needto be addressed, m. Sanh. 7:6 does specify “saying” as a type of idolatry, which is onlypractical in the sense that I am arguing here. It would not have been inherently inconsis-tent for the Mishnah instead to have speci ed “acknowledging” or “not denying” idolatryas we see in theSifre .




One point which might argue against my thesis is the fact that accord-ing to some interpretations of this mishnah, accepting an idol as a god,even without any further action, is considered idolatry. Tis is one possi-ble reading of ha-meqabbeloaʿlav le-ʾeloah ve-ha-ʾomer loʾeli ʾattah (“theone who accepts it upon himself as a god, and the one who says to it youare my god”): that it is discussing two distinct transgressions. Te rst isaccepting an idol as a god, and the second is saying to the idol “you aremy god.” Tus, the rst might conceivably be construed as involving onlya belief with no act.71 However, this reading is problematic because thedistinction being drawn between the two is not at all clear. It seems unlikelyon the face of it that the mishnah wants to forbid both accepting an idolas a god and saying that you accept it as a god while perhaps not reallyaccepting it.72

It may have been this difficulty that led Rashi to read this line as a sin-gle phrase, “one who accepts [the idol] as a god, saying to it ‘you are mygod.’” Te second part of the sentence explains the rst. Rashi offers twopossible interpretations for this somewhat redundant grammatical struc-ture: either the second part of the sentence is specifying how one acceptsan idol as a god or the second part of the sentence is referring to saying

“you are my god” in the idol’s presence, and the rst part of the sentenceis referring to saying, presumably, “this idol is my god,” while not actuallyin the idol’s presence.73 Te former explanation is more faithful to theplain meaning of the text.

71) Tus, Rodkinson (Boston: New almud Publishing, 1903) translates this as, “or acceptsit as a god, even without any other act. And also if he only says: Tou art my god.” Cf. ed.Soncino (London: Soncino, 1994): “[A]ccept it as a god, or say to it, ‘thou art my god.’”In contrast, see ed. Neusner (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988): “[A]nd the one

who accepts it upon himself as a god, saying to it ‘you are my god.’”72) Also supporting my reading is the repeated wordʾeh ̣ad in Hebrew (ʾeh ̣ad ha-ʿoved,ʾeh ̣adha-zoveah ̣, etc.), which stands as a marker before each category, indicating that each ofthese categories has the same punishment: literally, it is one [punishment] for one who

worships, one who sacri ces, etc. Tis marker only appears once before the entire phraseve-ʾeh ̣ad ha-meqabbeloaʿlav le-eʾloah ve-ha-ʾomer loʾeliʾattah, which indicates that this is tobe read as a single transgression. Otherwise, we should expectve-ʾeh ̣ad ha-meqabbeloaʿlavle-ʾeloah ve-eʾh ̣ad ha-ʾomer loʾeli aʾttah. Interestingly, Kaufmann and Parma haveve-ʾeh ̣adha-mishtah ̣aveh ve-ha-meqabbeloaʿlav le-eʾloah ve-ha-ʾomer loʾeli aʾttah which, according tothis reading, would mean that accepting as a god and saying you are my god are all detailsof the transgression of bowing down to the idol: “the one who bows down, accepting itupon himself as a god and saying to it ‘you are my god.’”73) Tus Rashi on b. Sanh. 60b comments on the phrase ha-meqabbeloʿalav le-eʾloah (mytranslation): “And even merely speaking, for example,ha-ʾomer loʾeli aʾttah, because




rabbis say to construct them.75 Te former is signi cant because, by reject-ing the idea that the orah teaches the wearing of phylacteries, the rebel-lious elder is essentially rejecting the concept of the oral law.76

Tere has been much scholarly debate concerning the exact meaning of“oral law” among the tannaim, and it certainly took on a much broadermeaning among the amoraim and the stammaim.77 But even in its narrow-

75) According to the rabbis, the te llin that is worn on the forehead must have four cham-bers, each containing a small parchment scroll on which is written a verse from the orah.Here, the rebellious elder is teaching that the head-te llin should have ve chambersrather than four, but he is not denying the obligation to put on te llin.76) Although the rebellious elder in the rst case is not liable to death by strangulation, thecontext makes it clear that this is an instance ofר ו ס ל ר ו ט ”.not liable but forbidden“ :פTis is a common heuristic characteristic of the Mishnah: an act which is forbidden butnonetheless cannot be punished explicitly owing to some subtle point of Judaic jurispru-dence is contrasted to an act which is forbidden and punishable. Cf., for example,b. Šabb. 3a: ר ו ס ל ר ו ט ת פ ש י ד ר ו ט ל פ all of the ‘not liable’ rulings of tractate Shabbat mean“ :כ‘not liable but forbidden.’” Te point here seems to be that nullifying the teaching of phy-lacteries entirely is so extreme that it is not in danger of being accepted as a rabbinic teach-ing, whereas modifying the teaching slightly is likely to be more in uential and thus moredisruptive to rabbinic authority. Maimonides explains in his commentary on this mishnahthat one who rejects the teaching of phylacteries is not liable as a rebellious elder but is

liable to the death penalty as a Sadducee.77) Te contemporary traditionalist conception of the oral law is of a complete body ofobservances that is said to have been taught to Moses along with the Pentateuch. TeMishnah itself gives no evidence that the tannaim understood their teachings in this way.However, the concept of the existence of some sort of extra-biblical tradition goes back atleast to Josephus: “[ ]he Pharisees had passed on to the people certain regulations handeddown by former generations and not recorded in the Laws of Moses.” (Josephus, Ant. 13.297 [Marcus, LCL]). Te Mishnah does not use the term “oral orah,” though it doesuse a phrase suggestive of an extra-biblical tradition: “halakhah to Moses from Sinai.”Similarly,m. ʾAbot presents a chain of succession for “ orah,” which leads from Moses to

the tannaim (though the precise meaning of “ orah” here is uncertain, see Martin S. Jaf-fee, orah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral radition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE-400CE [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001], 84-85). M. H ̣ag. 1:8, in contrast, seems tostress the independence of many of the Mishnah’s teachings, at least from the text of the

anakh. It is not clear from these examples whether the tannaim conceived themselves asteaching a received tradition or an innovation based on an ancient chain of authority. SeeDavid Weiss Halivni, Revelation Restored: Divine Writ and Critical Responses (Boulder:

Westview, 1997), 54-57; Jacob Neusner,What, Exactly, did the Rabbinic Sages Mean by “TeOral orah”? An Inductive Answer to the Question of Rabbinic Judaism (Atlanta: ScholarsPress, 1998), 10; Shmuel Safrai, “Halakha,” inTe Literature of the Sages , 121-209, esp.180-85. Te phrase “oral orah,” torah be-feh or torah she-be-aʿl peh, rst appears in thetannaitic midrashim, for example,Sifre Deuteronomy §351 and Sifra on Lev. 26:46, thougheven here it appears that the meaning of the term was still evolving. See Jaffee,orah in the




est sense, all of rabbinic Judaism is founded on the notion that the entirebody of rabbinic law, whether explicitly expounded in the anakh or not,is, in some meaningful way, orah. Tis is a fundamental belief of rabbinic

Judaism, which groups like the Sadducees rejected. Indeed, one possiblereading of m. Sanh. 10:1’s proscription against saying “there is no orahfrom heaven” is that it is speci cally referring to the oral orah and that itis directed against this Sadducean belief.78

Tus, the rebellious elder described in m. Sanh. 11:3, by teaching thatthe wearing of phylacteries is not commanded by the orah, is rejectingthe validity of the oral law and is transgressing thelocus classicus of rab-binic doctrine, m. Sanh. 10:1. But again, althoughm. Sanh. 11:3 is osten-sibly addressing doctrinal heterodoxy, it does not talk about “acknowledging”or “denying” the oral law. It only addresses “the one who says” that “thereis no [obligation to put on] te llin.” Although belief is clearly at issue,it is not directly addressed. Te Mishnah consistently works to establish auniform practice intending to discourage heterodox beliefs rather thanestablishing creeds forbidding heresy.

In all of these ve cases,m. Sanh. 10:1, m. Meg. 4:9, m. Ber. 5:3, m.Sanh. 7:6, and m. Sanh. 11:3, although the underlying issues are doctrinal

(belief in the divine orah, the resurrection, the divine unity, rejectionof idolatry, and belief in the oral orah), the discussion revolves aroundpractice and always uses the same expression: “the one who says.” Tis,combined with evidence adduced in the last section which indicates that

Mouth, 91-92. And it appears to have continued to evolve throughout the amoraic andstammaitic period, eventually developing into the all-encompassing concept mentioned atthe start of this footnote. See Halivni,Revelation Restored , 59-63; Neusner, What, Exactly,did the Rabbinic Sages Mean, 215-17. For a detailed summary of the relevant issues and

scholarship, see Stuart S. Miller,Sages and Commoners in Late AntiqueʾErez ̣ Israel: A Philo-logical Inquiry into Local raditions in almud Yerushalmi ( übingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006),207-8 n. 224. In any case, the tannaim certainly presented their teaching as authoritativeand binding, no less so than the written orah.78) Sanders,Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 150-52, and Epstein, Mevoʾot le-Sifrut ha- anna iʾm,56, both see at least the statement regarding resurrection inm. Sanh. 10:1 as directedagainst the Sadducees. Also, see Schiffman,Who Was a Jew? 42, and Kellner, Must a JewBelieve Anything? 36. If we read the three proscriptions ofm. Sanh. 10:1 as denying theresurrection, denying the oral orah, and denying divine providence (see n. 51, above)and as being directed speci cally against Jews (a reasonable assumption, especially if theopening phrase “all Israel” is to be accepted as primary), then we have the three main char-acteristics of the Sadducees as described by Josephus ( J.W. 2.164-65, Ant. 13.173, 297)and the Christian scriptures (Mark 12:18).




this expression inm. Sanh. 10:1 was an intentional modi cation of anearlier textual tradition that used heresiological language such as “theone who denies” or “the one who does not acknowledge,” convincinglydemonstrates that the Mishnah’s editors consistently chose to approachproblems of heterodoxy through the establishment of orthopraxy ratherthan through the imposition of orthodoxy.

It is worth noting that this orthopraxic approach is evident in tannaiticteachings in a positive as well as a negative sense. Not only is heterodoxyprevented through forbidding speci c practices, but orthodoxy is maintainedthrough the obligation to perform speci c practices. Tat is, in general,to the extent that Judaism as described in the Mishnah includes de nitebeliefs, they must be realized in praxis. A prime example of this tendencyis the reciting of theShema . Te obligation to recite the Shema is not acommandment to believe that a certain descriptive term “one” can bepredicated of God.79 Such a commandment would be the establishment ofa creed, which the Mishnah carefully avoids. According to what I suggest inthis paper regarding the Mishnah’s approach to Judaism, the orah onlycommands a practitioner of Judaism to declare theShema ; it does notdictate a speci c interpretation of these words. Tese words have been

interpreted as a declaration of strict philosophical monotheism as well as79) Although it would be fair to say that this is the common understanding of the meaningof the declaration, it is not universal. On the theological difficulties inherent in predicatingordinary adjectives (such as “one”) of God, see Maimonides, Moreh Nevukhim 1.57 (ed.Ibn ibbon; Vienna, 1828, my translation): ר ל ש ת, מ ט ו ש פ ת ה ו י צ מ י ה י ו ח מ ם ה נ מ

ת, ו ד ח ה ה ר ק ו מ י ל ר ע ק ש ן ה ו מ ן ה י, כ ו ר ה ה ר ק ו מ י ל ר ע ק ש ן ה ו מ ה ו ש מ ל, כ ל ה כ ר ו ה ה ג י ש תם י נ י י נ ע ו ה ל ו נ נ ו ת ל י ת, ו ו ד ח ד ל ח ו ל ה ו, מ צ ל ע ף ע ס ו ן נ י י נ ת ע ו ד ח ן ה י י ר‘‘ל כו נ ר צ י י ה, כ ע ט ה ה ל ו ד ג ה ה ס ם ה ר ה ש ת, ו ג ו ה נ ת ה ו ל מ ל כ ש ן ה ו מ ר צ י ט ש ע מ ם כ י ק ד ה־ ו ה ו ל נ ל ד ת ש ר ה ש כ ר. ו ו ד ל ה ק ה ל ו ה ן ה י י נ ע ר ה י י צ ל נ ד ש ן ע ו ש ל ל כ ד ד מ ר מ ו ד ה

י ל י ד מ ה מ ר ה ה ד ו ח ה ע‘‘פ ש ד ו ח ל ר מ ר ל מ ו ל ה כ ו ה ל י ר ה ל ה ו ל ת ה ו י ל ה ת ע ו רת ו ד ח ד ל ח ו נ ר מ ר ד ת ה ת מ ל ל כ ש ה ה ד ו נ ן ו י י נ ע ן ה י ה נ ז ל ת. ו ו מ כ Indeed, the one“ :ה

who has a necessary existence that is truly simple, whom multiplicity cannot encompass atall: as the predicate ‘multiplicity’ is a type of falsehood in regard to him, so also the predi-cate ‘unity’ is a type of falsehood in regard to him. Tis is to say that unity is not an addi-tional concept in regard to his essence, but he is one not by virtue of unity. And we cannotexamine these ideas, which are so subtle as to be almost inapprehensible by the intellect, incommon words, which are the greatest cause of error. For speech in every language is sovery constrained so that we can only describe the matter by oversimplifying. And when weendeavored to indicate that the divine is not many, only ‘one’ can be said, even though‘unity’ and ‘plurality’ are terms that distinguish quantity. By this, then, we can understandthe subject, and the intelligence can acknowledge the truth of the matter when we said ‘onenot by virtue of unity.’”




a declaration of henotheism, binitarianism, and trinitarianism. What isprimary is the obligation to make this declaration twice a day. Te range ofacceptable interpretations of these words, while important and certainlylimited, is never clearly speci ed.80

3. Conclusion

In this paper I suggested that the editors of the Mishnah chose to phrasematters in terms of practice that would have more relevantly been expressedin terms of belief and doctrine. Furthermore, they intentionally modi ed

existing textual traditions which were phrased in terms of belief and doc-trine to harmonize them with this same pragmatic tone. Tis stands incontrast to other works of tannaitic literature and baraitot, which tend touse the language of doctrine.81 Tis re ects the overall orthopraxic charac-ter of the Mishnah. Tis is not to say that the Mishnah avoids doctrinalconcerns. Fundamental beliefs that are typically associated with Judaismsuch as the unity of God, the divinity of the orah, the resurrection of thedead, the validity of the oral orah, and the rejection of idolatry are alladdressed in the Mishnah. However, they are never addressed directlythrough the establishment of a creed but indirectly through the proscrip-tion of verbal acts, liturgy, and heterodox teaching. Our study of the dia-chronic development of the textual tradition underlyingm. Sanh. 10:1 as

well as our synchronic study of the Mishnah as a whole shows that theMishnah’s editors aimed for a document which carefully avoids establish-ing Judaic doctrine. Te texts themselves reveal this fact. Te difficultquestion remains of why they may have chosen this approach.

My primary aim has been to establish the functional parameters ofMishnaic orthopraxy rather than to determine the social-historical forcesbehind this phenomenon; I have been dealing with the “what” rather than

80) Cf. Urbach, Sages , 19: “Te monotheistic concept of One God, beside whom there is noother, was at the beginning of our epoch the heritage of the whole Jewish people. It was notgiven a new formulation as a dogma, but the duty was introduced to read the verse Deuter-onomy vi 4 (‘Hear, O Israel’, etc.) twice a day, and the very act implied the establishmentof the belief in the Unity of God as the supreme creed.” Also cf. Segal, wo Powers inHeaven, 152: “Te midrash to Deuteronomy points out that the Shema (Dt. 6:4 f.),together with its antiphonal answer, were also seen as the pronouncements par excellence against ‘binitarian’ heresy.”81) As in the osefta and Seder Olam passages discussed in Sections 1 and 2. See n. 29, 54,and 67, above, for additional examples.




the “why.” However, my work will be incomplete if I do not offer somesuggestions on the latter, even if more research will be required to placethese suggestions on rmer footing. Te question, again, is why the Mish-nah’s editors may have chosen the language of praxis even when dealing

with matters of doctrine.Te answer to this question will likely be found either in the purpose

that the editors of the Mishnah intended for the document itself or in thecultural milieu of second to third century Palestine. On the former point,several scholars have noted that the Mishnah is a peculiar document inthat much of it is concerned with issues such as temple sacri ces, which

were not practiced in the time of its editing. Moreover, it typically enumer-ates a number of contradictory opinions on an issue without determining

which one is authoritative. Tis all raises the question as to whether theMishnah was ever intended to be observed as a practical way of life at all.82 If the Mishnah was merely an academic exercise of some sort or a trainingmanual in a certain type of legal tradition, explicit establishment of doc-trine may simply have been stylistically inconsistent with its purpose.

A better explanation for the orthopraxic tone of the Mishnah is thereligious and cultural background in which the Mishnah was compiled.

Given the vehemence with which early Christian thinkers such as Pauland, later, Justin Martyr attacked the idea of practical orah observance as

82) Strack and Stemberger (Introduction to the almud and Midrash, 151-54) have anextended discussion on this question, which offers three possible terms describing the pur-pose of the Mishnah: a collection of sources, a teaching manual, or a law code of currenthalakhah. Albeck is cited as being of the rst opinion: “Te redactor collected the sourcesand clari ed the most important readings . . . but he did not change them and did notinsert his own opinions.” Goldberg is cited as rejecting the possibility of a law code basedon “repetitions and linguistic irregularities” within the Mishnah. Instead, he “sees M as a

teaching manual designed above all on the basis of pedagogical criteria, which offers themost material in the shortest possible form.” According to Goldberg: “[Te editor of theMishnah’s] aim in choosing a source is always its pedagogic value for the preparation of anofficial text of study for the academy, regardless of whether the source chosen is theaccepted law or not. Te editor does not commit himself to any particular point of view,other than a general acceptance of the Akivan line in the Hillelite tradition” (Goldberg,“Te Mishna—A Study Book of Halakha,” 227). Finally, Strack and Stemberger citeEpstein as holding to the “most widespread opinion of M as a legal canon in which theanonymous decisions respectively represent the current halakhah, even if in a given casethe legal decision of M may not be immediately apparent.” Tey conclude that “Giventoday’s knowledge, it is no longer possible unequivocally to determine whether M wasoriginally conceived as a collection, a teaching manual, or a law code.” See also AJSR 32(2008): 221-97 for a series of recent articles on the question “What is (the) Mishnah?”




a valid expression of religious sentiment, it seems reasonable to supposethat this was a signi cant point of contention. Te tension between praxisand doctrine, between works and faith, between law and grace, eventuallybecame central to Christianity’s self-perception. Perhaps, just as Paul andhis successors were staking out an early position for Christianity on theside of faith and doctrine, the rabbis were staking out their position onthe side of action and practice. Te seeds for the much discussed “partingof the ways” between Judaism and Christianity may have been planted asearly as the rst and second centuries. And, the primary issue involvedmay not have been theological—whether there are one, two, or three“powers in heaven”—but practical: the observance of the practice of orahversus the embracing of religious doctrine. Te borderlines that scholarssuch as Daniel Boyarin see being mutually established between the rabbisand the church fathers in the fth and sixth centuries on issues concern-ing the nature of the divine may already have been established in the sec-ond and third centuries on more practical issues.

Certainly the idea of the “old testament” as “legalistic” and “works right-eousness” eventually became central to Christianity’s view of Judaism.Tese concepts are meant pejoratively, but they are not so inherently. As

Seth Schwartz writes regarding the “theologically loaded debate about whether Judaism was ‘legalistic’”: “the correct answer is, Of course, and what of it?”83 Perhaps Judaism was a legalistic religion and proud of it.84 Ifso, the Mishnah’s editors, rather than rejecting traditional observance infavor of the doctrinal adherence that the early Christians were espousing,may have chosen to embrace tradition in a very positive sense, as a spiritual

83) Seth Schwartz,Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Princeton: Princ-eton University Press, 2001), 63 n. 36.84)

Cf. E. P. Sanders, “Common Judaism Explored,” inCommon Judaism: Explorations inSecond- emple Judaism (ed. Wayne O. McCready and Adele Reinhartz; Minneapolis: For-tress, 2008), 11-23, at 13: “Paul and Palestinian Judaism resulted in a long pause in theChristian assertions that Judaism was a legalistic religion of works-righteousness, thoughnow some scholars wish to resurrect the old depiction of Jewish legalism under the rubricof ‘merit theology.’” Te idea that some scholars would feel that the term “merit theology”is somehow an improvement on the perhaps more explicitly pejorative term “works right-eousness” shows that these scholars are entirely missing the point. It is only the patristicChristian rejection of the idea of orah/nomos/practice and the forced dichotomy of lawversus grace which created an unpleasant odor around the idea of orthopraxy. Arguably,the Mishnah’s ideal of religious observance for its own sake is a higher spiritual aim thangrace and salvation because the latter is not, by de nition, for its own sake; it is supposedto bring a de nite bene t, salvation, to the religionist.




Appendix—Synoptic Presentation of m. Sanh. 10:1-3 and t. Sanh. 12:9-13:12

Note: one passage of the osefta has been rearranged to line up paralleltexts.

M. Sanh. 10:1-3 (ed. Albeck, my trans-lation)

. Sanh. 12:9-13:12 (ed. Zuckermandel,my translation)

10:1 All Israel have a portion in the world to come, as it is said, “And yourpeople, all of them are righteous, forever

will they inherit the land, a shoot frommy groves, the work of my hands, toglorify myself.” And these have no por-tion in the world to come: the one whosays, “Tere is no resurrection of thedead from the orah” and “Tere is no

orah from heaven,” and an Epicurean.

12:9 Tey added to these: the one who puts off the yoke, the one whobreaches the covenant, the one who

reveals aspects of the orah, and theone who pronounces the Name accord-ing to its letters, who have no portionin the world to come.

Rabbi Akiva says, “Even the one whoreads external books, and the one who

whispers over an injury and says, ‘Everysickness that I put on Egypt, I will notput on you because I am God yourhealer.’” Abba Saul says, “Even the one

who pronounces the name accordingto its letters.”

12:10 Rabbi Akiva says, “Te one whotrills his voice in Te Song of Songs in

a house of feasting and makes it a kindof song has no portion in the world tocome.” Abba Saul says in the name ofRabbi Akiva, “Even the one who whis-pers over an injury, ‘As it is said, everysickness that I put on Egypt I will notput on you,’ and spits, has no portionin the world to come.”

10:2 Tree kings and four common-

ers have no portion in the world tocome. Tree kings: Jeroboam, Ahab,and Manasseh. Rabbi Yehudah says,“Manasseh has a portion in the worldto come, as it is said, ‘And he prayedto Him, and He was reconciled tohim and He heard his plea and Hereturned him to Jerusalem to his king-ship.’” [Te sages] said to him, “ o

his kingship He returned him and Hedid not return him to life in the worldto come.” Four commoners: Balaam,Doeg, Ahithophel, and Gehazi.

12:11 Four kings, Jeroboam, Ahab,

Ahaz, and Manasseh, have no portionin the world to come. Rabbi Yehudahsays, “Manasseh has a portion in the

world to come, as it is said, ‘His prayerand His reconciliation to him, and allof his sin and his trespass, and the placesin which he built alters and erected theʾasherim and the statues before his sub-mission: these are written inTe Book

of the Seer .’ Tis teaches that He wasreconciled to him and He brought himto life in the world to come.”




M. Sanh. 10:1-3 (ed. Albeck, my trans-lation) . Sanh. 12:9-13:12 (ed. Zuckermandel,my translation)

[Tere is no parallel text in the Mishnah.] 13:1 Little children, the sons of theevil-doers of the land have no por-tion in the world to come, as it is said,“Behold the day is coming, burninglike an oven, and all the unrepentantand everyone that does evil will be[like] straw”; [these are] the worlds

of Rabban Gamliel. Rabbi Yehoshuasays, “Tey come to the world to come.Further on it says, ‘God is a guard ofthe foolish’ and further on it says, ‘Cutdown the tree and destroy it but leaveits primary roots in the ground.’” Rab-ban Gamliel said, “How then shall Iexplain ‘in order that root and branchshall not remain to them?’” He said tohim, “Tat the Omnipresent does notleave them amitzvah or the remains ofa mitzvah— to them and to their fathersforever.”

[Tere is no parallel text in the Mishnah.] 13:2 Another thing: “root”—this is thesoul; “and branch”—this is the body.Children of the evil-doers of the nationsdo not live and are not judged. RabbiEliezer says, “None of the nations havea portion in the world to come, as it issaid, ‘Te evil-doers will return to Sheol,all of the nations that forget God.’‘Te evil-doers will return to Sheol’—these are the evil-doers of Israel.” Rabbi

Yehoshua said to him, “If the versehad said, ‘Te evil-doers shall returnto Sheol, all of the nations,’ and wassilent, I would have said according toyour words. Now that the verse says,

‘that forget God,’ there must be righ-teous people among the nations thathave a portion in the world to come.”

(cont .)





[Tere is no parallel text in the Mishnah.] 13:3 Bet Shammai says, “Tere arethree groups, one for eternal life; onefor shame, for eternal disgrace (theseare completely evil); those who are bal-anced go down to gehinnom and seetheand come up from there and are healed,as it said, ‘And I brought the third-part

in re and I re ned them as re ningsilver and I assayed them as assayinggold. He will call my name and I willbe his God.’ And about them Hannahsaid, ‘God causes death and resurrects,brings down to Sheol and raises up.’ ”Bet Hillel says, “‘most compassionate’—he tends towards compassion; and con-cerning them David said, ‘I loved thatGod will hear’; and concerning them,this entire section [of the Psalms] wasspeaking.”

[Tere is no parallel text in the Mishnah.] 13:4 ransgressors of Israel with theirbodies and transgressors of the nationsof the world with their bodies go downto gehinnom and are judged there twelvemonths. After twelve months, theirsouls are annihilated and their bodies

are burnt, gehinnom regurgitates themand they become dust, and the winddisperses them and scatters them underthe feet of the righteous, as it is said,“You will trample out the evil-doers,for they will be dust under the feet ofthe righteous in the day that I am mak-ing, says God of hosts.”

[Tere is no parallel text in the Mishnah.] 13:5 But, the sectarians, and the apos-

tates, and the informers, and Epicure-ans, and [those] who denied the orah,and [those] who separated from com-munity norms, and [those] who denied

(cont .)





the resurrection of the dead, and every-one who sinned and caused many tosin—for example, Jeroboam and Ahab—and who set their terror on the land ofthe living, and who reached out theirhand against the emple: gehinnomis locked before them, and they are

judged there for generation after gen-eration, as it is said, “Tey will go outand see the corpses of the people whotransgressed against me, for their worm

will not die and their re will not beextinguished, and they will be a dis-grace for all esh.” Sheol wears out andthey do not wear out, as it is said, “Andtheir form will wear out Sheol.” What

caused this to them? Tat they reachedout their hands against the emple, asit is said, “from zevul to him.” Andzevul always means the emple as it issaid, “I have certainly built a house ofzevul for you, a district for your dwell-ing forever.”

10:3 Te generation of the ood hasno portion in the world to come and

does not stand in judgment, as it issaid, “My spirit will not judge manforever”—neither judgment nor spirit.

13:6 Te generation of the ood hasno portion in the world to come and

does not live in the world to come, asit is said, “He wiped out all beings who were on the face of the earth”—in this world; “and they were wiped out fromthe land”—in the world to come.Rabbi Yehudah ben Beteira says, “Godsaid, ‘My spirit will not judge man for-ever’—neither ‘will he judge’ nor ‘myspirit’ for them forever. Another thing,‘God said . . . will not judge [ yadon]’—the Omnipresent said, ‘I will not returntheir spirit to its sheath [nadan].’ ” RabbiMenahem ben Rabbi Yose says, “‘will

(cont .)





not judge’—the Omnipresent said, ‘Ido not judge while I pay good recom-pense to the righteous, but the spirit ofevil-doers is harder on them then any-thing else,’ as it is said, ‘Teir spirit is a

re that will consume them.’ ”

Te generation of the dispersion hasno portion in the world to come, as itis said, “And God scattered them fromthere over all the land.” “And God scat-tered them”—in this world; “and fromthere, God scattered them”—for the

world to come.

13:7 Te generation of the ower hasno portion in the world to come anddoes not live in the world to come, asit is said, “And God scattered themfrom there over all the land”—in this

world; “and they ceased to build thecity”—in the world to come.

Te men of Sodom have no portion inthe world to come, as it is said, “And

the men of Sodom were very much eviland sinners to God.” “Evil”—in this world; “and sinners”—for the world tocome. However, they do stand in judg-ment. Rabbi Nehemiah says, “Neitherof these stand in judgment, as it is said,‘Terefore, evil-doers will not stand upin judgment and sinners in the assem-bly of the righteous.’ ‘Terefore, evil-doers will not stand up in judgment’—this is the generation of the ood; ‘andsinners in the assembly of the righ-teous’—these are the men of Sodom.”[Te Sages] said to him, “Tey do notstand in the assembly of the righteous,but they stand in the assembly of the

wicked.”

13:8 Te men of Sodom have no por-tion in the world to come and do not

live in the world to come, as it is said,“And the men of Sodom were evil andsinners”—in this world; “to God, verymuch”—in the world to come. Anotherthing: “evil”—a man regarding his fel-low; “sinners”—regarding sexual impro-priety; “to God”—regarding idolatry;“very much”—regarding murder.

Te spies have no portion in the worldto come, as it is said, “And the men,the ones who put out evil slander aboutthe land, died in a plague before God.”“And they died”—in this world; “in aplague”—for the world to come.

13:9a Te spies have no portion in the world to come, as it is said, “And allthe ones that despise me will not see it.”

(cont .)





—Te following text has been moved from below —

Te generation of the desert has noportion in the world to come and doesnot stand in judgment, as it is said, “Inthis desert you shall cease and there

you will die”; [these are] the words ofRabbi Akiva. Rabbi Eliezer says, “Con-cerning them it says, ‘Gather to me mypious ones, the ones who establishedmy covenant over offerings.’”

13:10 Te generation of the desert hasno portion in the world to come anddoes not live in the world to come as itis said, “In this desert you shall cease

and there you will die.” “In this desertyou shall cease”—in this world; “andthere you will die”—in the world tocome. And it says, “Which I swore inmy anger lest they will come to myrest”; [these are] the words of Rabbi

Akiva. Rabbi Eliezer says, “Tey cometo the world to come, and concerningthem David said, ‘Gather to me mypious ones, the ones who establishedmy covenant over offerings.’”13:11

What does it teach saying , “I swore inmy anger”? “In my anger I swore, andI repent myself of it.” Rabbi Yehoshuaben Korhah says, “Tese words werenot said, apart from regarding genera-tions [to come], as it is said, ‘Gather tome my pious ones’—for they did withme acts of kindness; ‘the ones who

established my covenant’—for they were cut because of me; ‘over offer-ings’—for they exalted me and they

were slaughtered because of me.” RabbiShimon ben Menasya says, “Tey come[to the world to come]. Regardingthem it says, ‘And the redeemed ofGod will return, and they will come toZion in joy.’”

Te assembly of Korah is not destinedto rise up, as it is said, “And the landcovered them up”—in this world;

13:9b Korah and his assembly have noportion in the world to come and donot live in the world to come, as it is

(cont .)





“and they were lost from among theassembly”—for the world to come;[these are] the words of Rabbi Akiva.Rabbi Eliezer says, “Concerning themit says, ‘God causes death and resurrects,brings down to Sheol and raises up.’ ”

said, “And the land covered themup”—in this world; “and they werelost from among the assembly”—in the

world to come; [these are] the wordsof Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Yehudah benPeteira says, “Tey come to the worldto come, and concerning them it says,

‘I strayed like a lost sheep; seek yourservant!’ It is said here ‘loss’ and it issaid further on ‘loss’; just as the ‘loss’that is said further on is a loss that issought, so the ‘loss’ that is said here is aloss that is sought.”

[13:10. “Te generation of the deserthas no portion in the world to come,”has been moved above to match up with

the corresponding text in the Mishnah.]Te ten tribes are not destined to return,as it is said, “And he sent them toanother land as this day.” Just as thisday goes and does not return, so theygo and do not return; [these are] the

words of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Eliezersays, “Just as the day darkens and bright-ens, so the ten tribes; as it darkened for

them, so it is destined to brighten forthem.”

13:12 Te ten tribes have no portionin the world to come and do not livein the world to come, as it is said,“And God uprooted them from ontheir land with anger, fury, and greatrage”—in this world; “and he sentthem to another land”—in the worldto come. Rabbi Shimon ben Yehudah

iʾsh kefarʿakus says, “It said, ‘as thisday.’ If their deeds are as ‘as this day,’they come [to the world to come] andif not, they do not come.” Rabbi says,“Both of these have a portion in the

world to come, as it is said, ‘And it willbe in that day; and the lost ones willcome in the land of Assyria and theexiled ones in the land of Egypt, andthey will bow down to God in the holymountain and in Jerusalem.’ ”

(cont .)

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