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A Talmud in Exile A Talmud in Exile The Infl uence of Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah on the Formation of Bavli Avodah Zarah ALYSSA M. GRAY Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen A TALMUD IN EXILE 1 BJS \ 140342 \ Gray \ FOR PRESS Monday, August 01, 2005 12:29:28 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Program in Judaic Studies Brown University Box 1826 Providence, RI 02912 BROWN JUDAIC STUDIES Edited by David C. Jacobson Ross S. Kraemer Saul M. Olyan Michael L. Satlow Number 342 A TALMUD IN EXILE The Influence of Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah on the Formation of Bavli Avodah Zarah by Alyssa M. Gray 2 BJS \ 140342 \ Gray \ FOR PRESS Monday, August 01, 2005 12:29:28 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen A Talmud in Exile The Influence of Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah on the Formation of Bavli Avodah Zarah Alyssa M. Gray Brown Judaic Studies Providence, Rhode Island 3 BJS \ 140342 \ Gray \ FOR PRESS Monday, August 01, 2005 12:29:28 PM A Talmud in Exile The Influence of Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah on the Formation of Bavli Avodah Zarah Alyssa M. Gray Copyright © 2020 by Brown University Library of Congress Control Number: 2019953417 Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/ Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCom- mercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. To use this book, or parts of this book, in any way not covered by the license, please contact Brown Judaic Studies, Brown University, Box 1826, Providence, RI 02912. Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen To my parents, Robert and Miriam Gray 5 BJS \ 140342 \ Gray \ FOR PRESS Monday, August 01, 2005 12:29:29 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen 6 BJS \ 140342 \ Gray \ FOR PRESS Monday, August 01, 2005 12:29:29 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Contents Acknowledgments. xi Conventions and Abbreviations . xiii Chapter 1 • Introduction. 1 I. The Question . 1 II. Factors Complicating Resolution of the Question . 3 III. Prior Research on the Relationship between the Talmuds . 8 IV. The Method of This Book. 33 Chapter 2 • B. Avodah Zarah Drew Sequences of Sugyot and Topics from Y. Avodah Zarah (Macro Analysis). 41 I. B. Avodah Zarah Tends to Appropriate Y. Avodah Zarah Sugyot (or Sequences of Two or More Y. Avodah Zarah Sugyot in the Same Order as Y. Avodah Zarah) Attached to the Same Mishnah . 43 II. B. Avodah Zarah Builds a Complex Sugya Using Some Materials Marked as Relevant by the Y. Avodah Zarah Redactors. 53 III. When Material in B. Avodah Zarah Has a Parallel in Y. Avodah Zarah and in Some Other Rabbinic Compilation, B. Avodah Zarah Tends to More Closely Resemble Y. Avodah Zarah . 59 IV. Y. Avodah Zarah And B. Avodah Zarah Place Similar Material at a Similar Point in the Tractate, Although Not Attached to the Same Mishnaic Passage . 69 vii 7 BJS \ 140342 \ Gray \ FOR PRESS Monday, August 01, 2005 12:29:29 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen V. Y. Avodah Zarah and B. Avodah Zarah Use the Same Mishnah as the Occasion to Explore the Same Legal Issue (Or Present Similar Genres of Materials) . 73 VI. Did Y. Avodah Zarah Rely on Babylonian Sugyot in B. Avodah Zarah? . 77 VII. Conclusion . 85 Chapter 3 • B. Avodah Zarah Sugyot as Secondary Reworkings of Y. Avodah Zarah Sugyot (Micro Analysis I) . 87 I. B. Avodah Zarah Reworks Y. Avodah Zarah to Introduce a Babylonian Cultural or Halakhic Perspective or Linguistic Feature . 101 II. B. Avodah Zarah Tends to Eliminate Materials of Particular Relevance to the Land of Israel or Its Roman Cultural Context . 121 III. At Times B. Avodah Zarah Organizes Materials in a More Sensible Order Than Y. Avodah Zarah . 125 IV. B. Avodah Zarah Views a Source in Connection with an Amoraic Concern That Y. Avodah Zarah Had Viewed in Connection with the Mishnah . 136 V. B. Avodah Zarah Reworks Y. Avodah Zarah Sugyot in Order to Raise Legal Issues to a Higher Level of Abstraction . 142 VI. Conclusion . 147 Chapter 4 • B. Avodah Zarah’s Awareness of Y. Avodah Zarah’s Editing (Micro Analysis II) . 149 I. B. Avodah Zarah Begins at the Point at Which Y. Avodah Zarah Leaves Off . 149 II. B. Avodah Zarah Answers a Question Left Virtually Unanswered in Y. Avodah Zarah . 160 III. B. Avodah Zarah Moves in the Same Direction as Y. Avodah Zarah, But Uses Different Sources. 163 IV. Conclusion . 172 viii 8 BJS \ 140342 \ Gray \ FOR PRESS Monday, August 01, 2005 12:29:29 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen Chapter 5 • The Provenance of Anonymous Material in the Bavli and the Role of Anonymous Material in B. Avodah Zarah’s Appropriation of Y. Avodah Zarah (Micro Analysis III) . 175 I. Precursors in the Study of the Anonymous Bavli in Relation to Palestinian Learning: Isaac Halevy and Zwi Moshe Dor . 176 II. David Halivni’s Contribution to the Study of the Anonymous Bavli . 177 III. Anonymous Statements in the Bavli Can Be Attributed to Palestinian Amoraim . 178 IV. Anonymous Material in B. Avodah Zarah That Is Also Anonymous in Y. Avodah Zarah . 182 V. Anonymous Material in the Bavli That Cannot Be Shown to Be Palestinian . 188 VI. Conclusion . 195 Appendix: The Babylonian Anonymous Bavli Shows the Influence of a Babylonian Halakhic Agenda . 196 Chapter 6 • The Historical Context of B. Avodah Zarah’s Appropriation of Y. Avodah Zarah . 199 I. Palestine in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries . 201 II. What Babylonian Generation Is Aware of Y. Avodah Zarah? . 213 III. In What Form(s) Did the Redacted Yerushalmi Exist? . 217 IV. Conclusion . 233 Appendix: The Alleged Geonic Teshuvah in the Sefer ha-Eshkol . 235 Chapter 7 • Conclusion: Y. Avodah Zarah Influenced the Formation of B. Avodah Zarah. 239 Appendix: Complete List of Sugyot Drawn from Y. Avodah Zarah by B. Avodah Zarah . 243 Selected Bibliography. 247 General Index . 259 ix 9 BJS \ 140342 \ Gray \ FOR PRESS Monday, August 01, 2005 12:29:29 PM Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen 10 BJS \ 140342 \ Gray \ FOR PRESS Monday, August 01, 2005 12:29:29 PM Publishers’ Preface rown Judaic Studies has been publishing scholarly books in all areas Bof Judaic studies for forty years. Our books, many of which contain groundbreaking scholarship, were typically printed in small runs and are not easily accessible outside of major research libraries. We are delighted that with the support of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Pro- gram, we are now able to make available, in digital, open-access, format, fifty titles from our backlist. In A Talmud in Exile: The Influence of Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah on the For- mation of the Bavli (2005), Alyssa M. Gray argues that there was an “early Talmud” created in Palestine that found its way to Babylonia, upon which later editors there based their own work. It remains a relevant and provoc- ative work that will hopefully renew interest in the relationship between the two Talmuds. This edition includes a new preface but is otherwise identical to the original text. Michael L. Satlow Managing Editor October, 2019 Preface to the Digital Edition am grateful for this opportunity to introduce A Talmud in Exile: The IInfluence of Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah on the Formation of Bavli Avodah Zarah to new readers, and to reintroduce it—by way of these retrospec- tive reflections—to the many readers who have grappled with its argu- ments since it was first published in 2005. A Talmud in Exile was the result of my systematic study of the widely known phenomenon that many Bavli tractates exhibit broad similarities to their Yerushalmi counterparts in the selection and arrangement of material. On a more granular level,- this phenomenon is made manifest in discernible striking similarities in structure and content between the Yerushalmi and Bavli gemarot to particular mishnah pericopes (in many, but not all cases). My quest in the late 1990’s to find a satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon in the excellent scholarship available at that time left me dissatisfied. I found that some scholars seemed to ignore the similari- ties in structure and content between a Bavli tractate and its Yerushalmi counterpart, focusing more on the two Talmuds’ numerous and obvious differences. These differences were proclaimed fatal to a conclusion that the Bavli tractate was in any way influenced by the Yerushalmi. Other scholars closely studied the Palestinian amoraic material common to a Bavli-Yerushalmi tractate pair and examined Babylonian amoraic recep- tion and reworking of this material. Some dubbed this Palestinian amo- raic material “talmud kadum” (“early talmud”), others called it “homer basisi amora’i kadum”(“early foundational amoraic material,” or “early basic amoraic material” as I translate it in the book) and still others labe- led it “siddur kadum” (“early arrangement”). These scholars assumed— overtly or tacitly, typically tacitly—that the similarities in structure and content between a Bavli tractate and its Yerushalmi counterpart could be explained largely, if not entirely, by this amoraic-era transmission of Palestinian amoraic material. Now, it is undeniable that Babylonian amoraim received, transmit- ted, and reworked Palestinian amoraic material.Some Babylonian amo- raim, especially those of the fourth generation and later, are portrayed as interacting with nehotei (“those who descend”; sages portrayed as traveling between Palestine and Babylonia, bearing rabbinic traditions).
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