Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2011
Since John Lightfoot's contributions to the interpretation of the New Testament from Rabbinic sources a large literature has grown up on the subject, and in Strack and Billerbeck's recent commentary on the gospels an immense amount of erudition is stored up. Yet in spite of the invaluable labors of these scholars more light can still be thrown on the understanding of the New Testament from the study of the halakah underlying it.
1 Driver, Commentary on Deuteronomy, 1895, p. 269.
2 According to Halberstain's view, quoted by Marx, Jewish Quarterly Review, N. s., XIII, 353, these were note-books used by scholars, in which the teachings of the oral law were written down for private use.
3 This view is also presupposed by Josephus, Ant. iv. 8, 21 and by the regulation attributed to Joshua that one may pluck herbs everywhere, as recorded in Baba Kama 81a; see Bloch, M., Shaare Torat Hatakanot, volume I, Vienna, 1879, pp. 56–58.Google Scholar
4 Midrash Tannaim (ed. Hoffmann), p. 153; Sifre (ed. Friedmann), p. 121b; Baba Mezia 87b. The later halakah is supposed to be reflected in the story of Reuben, who went out to pick ‘dudaim’ only at the time of harvest, when this was permitted to ereryone; see Sanhedrin 99b, and Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, I, 366; V, 298 note 190; cf. Targum Onkelos and Targum Jonathan to Deut. 23, 26.