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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
The older and younger contemporaries of Gamaliel II and their disciples and successors in the next generation are the fundamental authorities of normative Judaism as we know it in the literature which it has always esteemed authentic. One main division of their learned labors was the definition and exact formulation of the rules of the unwritten law (Halakah), as they had been received through tradition, or were adapted to meet new conditions, or were developed by biblical exegesis or casuistic discussion. Along with this ran the minute study, in course, of the written law in the Pentateuch from Exodus to Deuteronomy, in primary intention a juristic exegesis with constant reference to the Halakah.
211 Say, from 80 to 140 A.D.
212 These books contained the “tradition” (Kabbala) by the side of the Law (Torah), from which parallels, explanations, and illustrations were drawn.
213 Topical treatment of parts of the material was older; Akiba carried it through the whole.
214 In the rules about extension and restriction, of which he made a great deal, he had a predecessor in Nahum of Gimzo.
215 Attention has been so focussed on these curiosities that Akiba's real merits as an exegete are seldom recognized.
216 They are prefixed to Sifra. For purposes of homiletic “improvement” the strict logic of legal deduction is not insisted on.
217 רכרה חורה כלשון כני ארם. Sifrè Num. § 112 (ed. Priedmann, p. 33a, end).
218 Was there a deliberate irony in dedicating this temple to the god to whom, since Vespasian, the Jews had had to pay the didrachm poll tax previously levied for the temple in Jerusalem?
219 From coins it is learned that his name was Simeon. In Jewish sources he is called Bar Koziba, probably from the name of his native town. Not all his colleagues shared Akiba's enthusiasm. When he declared Bar Koziba to be the Messianic king, Johanan ben Torta replied, “Akiba, grass will be growing on your cheeks long before the son of David comes.”
220 Matt. 24, 29 ff. (Dan. 7,13 f.); Acts 1, 11.
221 See Matt. 5, 17 ff.; 23, 2.
222 See Tos. Yadaim 2, 13; Tos. Shabbat 13 (14), 5; (Jer. Shabbat 13c; Shabbat 116a in uncensored texts).
223 See above. Part I, p. 373.
224 Apology, c. 31. Justin was a native of Neapolis in Palestine (Shechem), and a contemporary.
225 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. iv. 5–6.
226 Later controversy is with Catholic Christians.
227 More of them are preserved in the Tosefta than in any other source.
228 Usha and the neighboring Shefar'am were probably outside the jurisdiction of the governor of Judaea.
229 Ten successive migrations of the high court are enumerated in Rosh ha-Shanah 31a–b.
230 Cant. R. on Cant. 2, 5. R. Judah (ben Ila'i), R. Nehemiah, R. Meir, R. Jose (ben Ḥalafta), R. Simeon ben Yoḥai, R. Eliezer son of R. Jose the Galilean, and R. Eliezer ben Jacob.
231 See above, Part I. p. 350.
232 Jer. Horaiyot 48c.; Eccles. R. on Eccles. 2, 8; 6, 2. All three are quoted in Jer. Pesaḥim 37c., and in Pesiḳta (ed. Buber) f. 122a. It is worthy of note that all these Great Mishnahs are later than our Mishnah.
233 E.g. Eccles. R. on Eccles. 6, 2.
234 Judah ha-Nasi; generally cited simply as “Rabbi.”
235 Third century.
236 Sanhedrin 86a, and elsewhere.
237 The third of his masters was Elisha ben Abuyah, with whom, to the scandal of some of his colleagues, he remained in intimate relations even after the revered teacher became an infidel.
238 ‘Erubin 13b; cf. 53a. This is given as the reason why, although he had no equal in his generation, it was not decided that the rule (Halakah) is as defined by R. Meir.
239 Jer. Kilaim 32c, below. His tomb is now shown in Tiberias.
240 That he was of proselyte parentage is an independent legend.
241 “A contemner of all things divine and human.” Julian, Orat. vi. (199 A). — Gadara and Tiberias were within an easy day's journey of each other.
242 Ab Bet Din.
243 Those which deal with the worship in the temple were probably composed in the generation following the destruction from the tradition of priests (of whom there were in the schools a number who had ministered in the temple) to preserve the tradition for the expected restoration.
244 It is known that certain scholars were regarded as special authorities on particular subjects or fields of the law.
245 Sanhedrin 86a.
246 Sherira Gaon (died ca. 1000). See the Epistle of Sherira, ed. Lewin, p. 6 and p. 34.
247 R. Asi, Lev. R. c. 7, 3 (end).
248 The name in the Greek Bible, τὸ Λευιτικόν is equivalent.
249 In the Babylonian Talmud also Sifra de-Be Rab, the School Book, and much more frequently Sifra for short, by which title it is now commonly cited.
250 Sanhedrin 86a, quoted above, p. 8.
251 “Extraneous Traditions,” i.e. such as are not contained in the official Mishnah.
252 The Response is dated in the Seleucid year 1298, corresponding to 987 A.D. Two recensions exist, which are contradictory on this point. They are printed side by side in Lewin's edition, p. 18, cf. p. 23. Comparison leaves no uncertainty as to the authenticity of the so-called Spanish recension.
253 Nissim, Samuel ha-Nagid, Abraham ben David, Maimonides, and others, See Strack, Einleitung in Talmud und Midraseh, 5th ed. (1921), p. 15.
254 The inquirers asked whether the beginnings of the written Mishnah go back to the Men of the Great Synagogue.
255 On the whole question reference may be made to Strack, op. cit., pp. 9–16, ‘Das Verbot des Schreibens.’
256 See D. Hoffmann, Zur Einleitung in die halachischen Midrasehim, 1887.
257 The history of Moslem tradition is an instructive parallel.
258 A similar theory is set forth by Maimonides in the Introduction to his Mishneh Torah.
259 Sifrfè Deut. §§ 158–154; and more fully Midrasch Tannaim, ed. Hoffmann, on Deut. 17, 11.
260 R. Johanan (3d century) objected to mixing the two by using biblical words or conforming to the biblical gender of nouns instead of following the usage of the school language: לשון חורה רעצמה ורשון חכמים רעצמה. Ḥullin 137b; ‘Abodah Zarah 58b; cf. Jer. Nazir 51a. Another name for biblical Hebrew is “the holy language,” ושון הקרוש.
261 Aquila is said to have made his version under the auspices of R. Eliezer (ben Hyrcanus) and R. Joshua (ben Hananiah), contemporaries of Rabban Gamaliel II (Jer. Megillah 71c): in another place (Jer. Kiddushin 59a, above) he is associated with Akiba. The version would thus be earlier than the war under Hadrian. The first reference to it by name in a Christian author is in Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. iii. 24.
262 The custom was believed to go back to the time of Ezra (Neh. 8, 8). Jer. Megillah 74d; Nedarim 37b.
263 אונקלם is a Babylonian pronunciation of עקילם (‘Ακύλας, Aquila), whose Greek version is repeatedly mentioned in the Talmudic literature. What in Jer. Megillah 71c (near the top) is said of this version is in the Babylonian Talmud (Megillah 3a) erroneously transferred to the Aramaic translation (Targum).
264 See A. Berliner, Targum Onkelos, Theil 2, pp. 224–245.
265 Edom is, as often, Rome, and the “city of the nations” is here taken in the same war. See also the messianic interpretation of Gen. 49, 8–12.
266 The Mishnah in the Jerusalem Talmud has איש כרלא. The natural inference from the context is that the meeting took place at Nehardea, wherever the man came from.
267 M. Yebamot 16, 7. The question was whether a woman whose husband was reported dead might remarry on the testimony of a single witness to the husband's death.
268 See Bacher, Tannaiten, ed. 2, I, 385–389.
269 Temurah 16a.
270 See above, p. 8.
271 With a certain restriction in the authorization. Sanhedrin 5a–b; Weiss, Dor, III, 131.
272 Nehardea was the chief centre of Babylonian Jewry, residence of the Exilarch. It was situated not far from ancient Babylon, to the south. Sura was one or two days' journey farther south, in the vicinity of the later city of Kufa. Pumbeditha, the third great seat of a Jewish academy, was near Nehardea.
273 Sifrè Deut. § 80.
274 Above, p. 19.
275 Ishmael ben Elisha, later famous head of a school, is said to have been one of these; see, however, Bacher, Tannaiten, I, 166.
276 On the numbers of Jews sold into slavery at different times see Juster, Les Juifs dans l'empire romain, II, 17 f.
277 The references to this journey and what happened on it are collected by Bacher, Tannaiten, I, 79. See Vogelstein und Rieger, Geschichte der Juden in Rom, I, 23 f.
278 Yoma 53b–54a; Me'ilah 17a–b.
279 Niddah 67b–70a.
280 Eusebius, Hist, eccles. iv. 2. The fate of the Armenians in the eastern provinces of the Turkish empire in the recent war, who were deluded into a like adventure may give a modern illustration.
281 See Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 18; Eusebius, Hist, eccles. iv. 2; Cassius Dio lxviii. 32. Juster, Les Juifs dans l'empire remain, II, 182–190.
282 The ‘religious persons’ (σεβόμενοι) of the New Testament.
283 The Jews in the Parthian empire (Babylonia, Mesopotamia, etc.) had a similar civil head, the Resh Galuta, ‘Chief of the Exile,’ for whom, as for the Patriarchs in Palestine, Davidic ancestry was claimed; but in religious matters the authority of the Patriarch was recognized.
284 Sheluhim, ἀπόστολοι; in Roman law apostoli.
285 The Theodosian Code calls it aurum coronarium.
286 See the letter of Rabban Gamaliel (II) to the Jews in Babylonia, Media, Greece, etc., announcing the intercalation of a thirteenth month, Jer. Sanhedrin 18d.
287 Eusebius on Isa. 18, 1.
288 Zoroastrianism, represented by about 100,000 Parsees in India, chiefly in Bombay and the vicinity, and perhaps 10,000 in Persia, is the sole exception.
289 Philo, De migratione Abrahami c. 16 (ed. Mangey, I, 450 f.).
290 M. Soṭah 7, 1; Tos. Soṭah 7, 7; cf. Shabbat 12b. Maimonides, Hilkot Tefillah 1, 4.
291 Novel. 146 (558 A.D.). See Juster, Les Juifs dans l'empire remain, I, 369 ff.
292 See above, Part I, pp. 323 ff.
293 Ezek. 18. Hosea 14, 2–10. cf. 2, 16–25.
294 See Encyclopaedia Biblica, IV, cols. 4223–4225 (§§50–52).
295 Superficial acquaintance with Philonic conceptions was apparently mediated in the third century by contact with Christian theologians in centres like Caesarea.
296 So Plato also.
297 Especially in such passages as Exod. 34, 5–7; Deuteronomy, passim, and among the prophets particularly Hosea and Jeremiah; cf. also 1 Kings 8.
298 Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 14.
299 Ezek. 36, 25 ff.; cf. 11, 19 f.; Jer. 31, 31 ff.; 17, 14; Psalm 51, 9, 12. See M. Yoma 8, 9, R. Akiba: Blessed are ye, Israelites. Before whom are ye purified and who purifies you? Your Father who is in heaven. (Ezek. 36, 25 ff., combined with Jer. 17, 14).
300 Psalms of Solomon 2, and especially 17.
301 “The Messiah”, without any thing more, is not found in the older services.
302 The Nasi (E.V. “Prince”) in Ezek. 40 ff. has no such general commission.
303 This caution was perhaps accentuated by the disillusion of the Bar Cocheba war. Akiba had deduced in his way that the deliverance was due. See Sanhedrin 97b.
304 For the latter see Isa. 14, 4 ff.; Ezek. 32, 17 ff.
305 Adherence to the true religion is, as in Zoroastrianism, a weighty factor in this judgment, but that upright Gentiles have a lot in the Future World is an opinion frequently expressed.
306 There were various opinions about its duration, of which the thousand years (millennium) in the Revelation of John is one.
307 The necessity of this initiation led in time to the baptism of infants.