[NGFP-BookClub] RE: Predecessors of the Rabbis

[James Kugel]

    Dear Mr. Green:
    
    Well, that's also a very important point. These ancient interpreters
are really the predecessors of rabbinic Judaism, the teachers who taught
the teachers who taught the rabbis.
    
    When I was in graduate school, it was fashionable for academics to
say that rabbinic Judaism basically emerged out of the destruction of
the Second Temple -- that it was a product of the post-70 C.E. era. The
Mishnah, it was said, was a post-destruction reverie or a total
invention that actually knew very little of pre-destruction practice.
The idea that rabbinic interpretation and rabbinic halakhah (the
application of biblical law to everyday life) were based on old
traditions going back into biblical times was usually pooh-poohed -- in
fact, there are still a few benighted souls who continue this line of
argument.
    
    But it's gotten harder to do so. As the halakhic parts of the Dead
Sea Scrolls came to be published (some of the most important only in the
last twenty years or so), evidence began piling up that disputes
mentioned in the Mishnah do indeed go back  at least to the first or
second century BCE. One of the things my own study of ancient
interpretation has shown is that a great many bits of "rabbinic midrash"
actually can be found in the book of Jubilees or similarly ancient
sources. Thus, the Mishnah says that Abraham underwent 10 tests -- but
the same tradition is attested 400 years earlier in Jubilees.
    
    Jewish tradition holds that ancient biblical interpretation really
goes back to Moses himself. I don't think anyone will ever be able to
prove that -- but certainly the idea that the things you find in the
Mishnah or Midrash Rabba or Rashi only began around 200 or 300 or 400 CE
has been pretty roundly defeated.
    
    The "spiritual forefathers" of the rabbis were the Pharisees. As I
said in my earlier e-mail, the Pharisees were only one of several rival
groups. We "converged" on their form of Judaism, as you said, because
the Pharisees' disciples, the rabbis, seem to have won out among
different factions.
    
    The first Christians were, of course, almost all Jews. As such, they
inherited a lot of Jewish biblical interpretation and Jewish practice.
Some of the things that they adopted were built on things that we can
now associate with the Dead Sea Scrolls line of Judaism and/or with the
Sadducees; there was also a considerable influence of Hellenistic
Judaism in early Christianity. In 50 CE, Christianty officially resolved
to allow Gentiles into the church. Thereafter, the influence of other
religious and cultural traditions increased.
    
    Hope this answers your questions.
    
    STUDENTS! You don't all have to ask such sophisticated questions.
Give your old prof a break! Something easier would be appreciated. No
question too simple. Shabbat shalom.
    
    _____________
    James Kugel
    11 Efrayim St.
    93621 Jerusalem
    Israel
    Tel. 972 2 672-2197
    Fax. 972 2 673-3027
    
    -----Original Message-----
From: ngfp-bookclub-admin@lists.ngfp.org
[mailto:ngfp-bookclub-admin@lists.ngfp.org] On Behalf Of Joseph Green
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 3:03 PM
To: ngfp-bookclub@lists.ngfp.org
Subject: [NGFP-BookClub] Another question
    
    Dear Professor Kugel
    
    First I want to thank you for giving us your time. I wish I could
have
    had more time to participate but I appreciate your offering to
answer
    our question.
    
    I have a question, which is actually a related set of questions. Can
    you tlk a bit about the relationship between these first set of
    interpreters that you focus on in this course and in the book and on
    Rabbinic Judiasm? Do scholars have anything to say on why or how we
    converged ona particular type of interpretation? Also implicit in
what
    you say, one might infer that the early Jewish christians were just
    one more school of interpretation. Would you agree with that
    statement?
    
    Thanks and Shabbat Shalom
    
    Joe
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