CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRACTATES:

l. INTRODUCTION

The tractate's first unit lists the prerequisites for separating and reciting the Scriptural confession. The third unit describes, in a narrative passage, the actual procedures through which this offering is designated, separated and carried to the , where it is presented to the priests. Constructed almost exclusively of Ushan materials, these two units supply all information an Israelite needs to know in order to designate and dispose of first fruits. Concerned pri­ marily with the mechanics of this operation, they provide few issues of legal interest or theoretical importance within the Division of Agriculture as a whole. As is the case for Tractate , while the 's authorities deemed it important to discuss this Scriptural offering, they did not produce an agendum of issues deeper than the surface ques­ tion of what the Israelite must do to fulfill the requirement described in Scripture. The tractate's middle unit contains a series of comparisons of rules that apply to each of the several agricultural offerings referred to in the Division of Agriculture. Irrelevant to the specific topic of first fruits, this material would, however, comprise a fitting conclusion and sum­ mary for this division as a whole. It is unclear why it has been redacted between the tractate's two units on laws of first fruits instead of in the more appropriate position at the end of the tractate. 1 Before turning to the substantive development of the tractate's law, let us review the Scriptural passages that provide the facts upon which the Mishnah's rules depend.

The first of the fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. (Ex. 23: 19)

1 A final chapter, M. Bik. 4:1-5, is found in standard printed editions of the Mishnah but is not authentic to the document. Omitted as well by Albeck, I have not included it in this discussion of the tractate. Since its contents have nothing to do with the law of agriculture, regardless of its origins, it need not detain us here. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRACTATES: BIKKURIM 325

Then the Lord said to Aaron, "And behold, I have given you whatever is kept of the offering made to me, all the consecrated things of the peo­ ple of Israel ... The first ripe fruits of all that is in their land, which they bring to the Lord, shall be yours: everyone who is clean in your house may eat of it." (Num. 18:8, 13) When you come into the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance, and have taken possession of it, and live in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place which the Lord your God will choose to make his name dwell there. And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, "I declare this day to the Lord your God that I have come into the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us." Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God. And you shall make response before the Lord your God, "A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. Then we cried to the Lord the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppres­ sion; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground which you, 0 Lord, has given me." And you shall set it down before the Lord your God, and worship before the Lord your God; and you shall rejoice in all the good which the Lord your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you. (Num. 26:1-11)

A. Bikkurim bifore 7 0 The tractate contains no materials assigned to authorities who lived before 70. Nor does the logic of the development of the law indicate that any of the ideas of the tractate, other than those taken from Scripture, derive from earlier than Yavnean times.

B. Bikkurim in the Time qf Yavneh Yavneans refer to three diverse areas of concern, leaving it to Ushans to provide the larger framework within which the laws of first fruits will be systematically expounded. Basing their considerations upon Scripture, Y avneans establish when in the agricultural year the Israelite