Copyright by Harold Glenn Revelson 2005 The Dissertation Committee for Harold Glenn Revelson certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: ONTOLOGICAL TORAH: AN INSTRUMENT OF RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL DISCOURSE Committee: ______________________________________ Aaron Bar-Adon, Supervisor ______________________________________ Abraham Marcus ______________________________________ Yair Mazor ______________________________________ Adam Zachary Newton ______________________________________ Esther Raizen ONTOLOGICAL TORAH: AN INSTRUMENT OF RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL DISCOURSE by Harold Glenn Revelson, B.S., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May, 2005 With affection to my professors and my dear friends on Shihrur St., Maoz Tzion, Israel Acknowledgements The number of people to whom I owe thanks for their support and help during my academic journey is so large that I could not possibly mention each of them individually. They were equally as important to any success that might have been achieved along the way as those named below. I appreciate all of them greatly. I wish to express thanks to my professors in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. I shall never be able to quantify the invaluable contributions that my adviser, Dr. Aaron Bar-Adon, has made to my academic and personal enrichment. From the day that I met him in July 1991, he has served as an exemplary scholar and teacher. Before the academic year of 1991-1992 began, he invited me to his office for weekly readings in Tanakh, and I have continued to glean from his storehouse of knowledge until today. His rigorous attention to detail taught me the value of penetrating texts and scholarly issues as deeply as possible. I also would like to thank Dr. Esther Raizen for her grace, help and encouragement in my struggles to master Hebrew, and for her valuable assistance in making the present volume a better and more efficient study, Dr. Harold Liebowitz for his classes that strengthened my grasp of the rabbinic mindset and midrashic texts, Dr. Yair Mazor for the new vista of modern Hebrew literature that he opened for me and Dr. Avraham Zilkha for patiently answering my questions during several telephone conversations prior to my arrival in Austin and for his contributions to my growth in Hebrew. While each of these professors excels in his or her area of specialty, I thank them even more simply for being benay adam lemofet. v Writing a dissertation is often a lonely undertaking, and the problem of long periods of solitude is only compounded when the research and writing are conducted in a foreign country. I wish, therefore, to express my heartfelt gratitude to the people on Shihrur St. in Maoz Tzion, Israel for being my support group and an encouraging team of local teachers in my ongoing Hebrew studies. I thank David and Josa Bivin and their son, Natan, his wife, Liat, and their sons, Aviad and Adir, for taking me into their hearts and for allowing me to behave as though I were a member of their family. David, who has lived in Israel for over 40 years and knows all of the pitfalls of acquiring a language as an adult learner, served as a comfort as I dealt with the initial frustrations of living in a land without mastery of the native tongue. His knowledge of rabbinic texts also aided me in my writing. In addition, our conversations about sports in his beloved Oklahoma were a welcome respite from the pressures of work. Josa’s unusual kindness and our discussions about her research into her Armenian heritage always provided relief as well. It is not an exaggeration to say that I have no idea how I would have survived without the Bivins. I owe a debt of gratitude to Israel and Rachel Schuller and their children, Itamar, Revital and Amit, that I shall never be able to repay. Rachel, my first landlady in Israel, has become one of the dearest friends of my life. The great majority of whatever level of Hebrew proficiency I have achieved is the result of her patiently enduring countless hours of conversations with a person who could barely speak or understand when we met in October 1995. I have never heard, “I do not know” as an answer to one of the endless string of questions that I have asked her about Hebrew since then, and when I leave her home even now I sometimes thank her for her language course. She truly plays her mother tongue as a concert musician plays his instrument. Her excellent food and our vi times of enjoying television programs from around the world also brought much-needed relaxation. I wish to express my appreciation to Mrs. Tovah Avram and her children Amiad, Menny and Hen for all the kindness, the hospitality and the help they have extended to me and to Ariyeh and Rivkah Mizrahi and their daughters, Tsvia, Yamit, Haviva and Batya for their uncommon generosity and help. If one wants to learn how an Israeli says “have you eaten?” he only has to enter the Mizrahi’s home and he will hear ,immediately. Thanks are also due to Shalom and Sima Barashi and their family ”אכלת ?“ Sarit, Yamit, Tal and Hezi for their friendship and encouragement and for making a visitor feel at home and to my dear friend and British English teacher, Barbara Chambers. She has watched out for me faithfully and has suffered the “American” that I speak since 1995. Dr. Randall and Margaret Buth, their daughters, Rachel and Sharon, and Sharon’s husband, Gary Alley, have also been an important part of my journey with their love and support. I cannot conclude thanking the people who became my Israeli family without mentioning two additional people. The first is Lieutenant Dror Barashi, of blessed memory, who fell in defense of the Land of Israel in October 1995. Though I was never privileged to meet him, from all that I have heard and from my relationship with the other members of his family, I know that he was an exceptional young man. The second is Mrs. Rachel Cohen, of blessed memory, known affectionately to me as “Savta.” She was a rare woman of integrity, personal elegance and character, who always placed the welfare of others well above her own. The world would be a decidedly different place if more people conducted their lives after her example. No day passes without their absences being deeply felt. vii I direct my final thanks to Iris Avivi, Yokhi Moshe and Miriam Sheffer, of blessed memory, of the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and to Beverly Benham of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Anyone who has ever attended a university knows of the bureaucratic problems that can sometimes arise. Each of these women gracefully helped me to navigate those waters on several occasions and their assistance will always be highly valued. viii ONTOLOGICAL TORAH: AN INSTRUMENT OF RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL DISCOURSE Publication No. Harold Glenn Revelson, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2005 Supervisor: Aaron Bar-Adon The literary ideological and theological controversy conducted by Jewish and Christian intellects resulted from foundational tenets that stood in antagonistic confrontation. The rabbinic Sages held that ontological Torah, as the receptacle of divine utterance, was the instrument by which God forged the universe, the means of perpetual revelation to Israel and the fountainhead of power to create the society of renewed believers who would usher in the Messianic Age when Israel would become the fifth world kingdom. Ecclesiastical spokesmen re-presented Jesus, the vessel of God’s Word in a person, the divine source of creation, revelation and salvation, as Torah’s replacement. The unbridgeable chasm between these positions occurred in large part from conflicting understandings of the same biblical passages. It constitutes the theoretical basis for this dissertation, which proposes a reading, governed by literary and historical aspects, of Jewish self-understanding from an early to mid-fifth century C. E. rabbinic perspective of a group of isolated texts from the classical midrashic compilation, Genesis Rabbah. These literary fragments, thematically linked into a whole by the ontologized ix Torah motif that had developed in Jewish literary history, display fundamental rabbinic thought concerning the heartbeat of their world, Torah and Torah study. The reading derives from setting the traditions in a dialogic, intertextual relationship with a selection of Christian writings that exhibit similar imagery, metaphysical language and a congruence of thought that communicate the orthodox view of the transhistorical Jesus from a variety of church ideologists. The historical era in which the redactor(s) framed Genesis Rabbah saw the consolidation of the momentous religious revolution that began with Constantine’s recognition of Christianity in the early fourth century C. E. This remarkable rise from persecuted sect to imperial religion presented unprecedented circumstances to the Sages. No belief system had ever hailed itself as “true Israel.” No group had espoused the abrogation of Torah, nor had a faith been able to appeal to the testimony of a historical situation to buttress its claims. The serious threat suggests the necessity for a stand in defense of Torah, and therefore, of Israel’s self-understanding, identity and the nation’s very social existence. x Table of Contents Acknowledgements v Abstract ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1. The Conflict 36 Chapter 2. Revelatory Torah 98 Chapter 3. Torah as a Metaphysical Entity 150 Chapter 4. The Suprahistorical Logos of John: 208 The Historical, Cultural, Theological and Literary Background Chapter 5.