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Rabbi and the Origins of the Patriarchate* journal of jewish studies, vol. liv, no. 2, autumn 2003 Rabbi and the Origins of the Patriarchate * Sacha Stern School of Oriental and African Studies, London urn it and turn it, for all is in it’ (Avot 5:26). The Jewish patriarchate ‘T of late antiquity has been the object of much revisionism in the last decade, not least in recent issues of this journal. Without any new sources coming to light, the same evidence from rabbinic literature, epigraphy, and Graeco-Roman and patristic literature has been turned and turned again in a kaleidoscopic fashion, yielding each time new models and new configurations. In spite of its inherent repetitiveness, this pursuit has not been in vain. Some of the most fundamental aspects of the patriarchate have been questioned and challenged, to the effect that the field appears, at present, to have again become wide open.1 This article joins the revisionist bandwagon, with the familiar ambition of radically transforming the accepted view. My argument can be summarised as follows: 1. The title of nasi, and the patriarchate as a form of socio-religious lead- ership, only began with Rabbi. 2. Rabbi was not the son of R. Simeon b. Gamaliel, but an entirely ‘new man’, who subsequently founded a new dynasty. 3. Rabbi’s origins were probably a local, Galilean aristocratic family. 4. The patriarchate itself was an aristocratic concept superimposed upon the rabbinic movement, which may have had formative, long-term ef- fects on rabbinic Judaism. This theory will appear unlikely at first sight, but it is based on a close as- * An earlier version of this paper was presented at Martin Goodman’s seminar in Wolfson College, Oxford; I am grateful for his and other participants’ comments. This paper was writ- ten with the help of a research leave award from the Arts and Humanities Research Board. All references to the Tosefta are to the Zuckermandel edition. 1 Important contributions in the last decade include L. I. Levine, ‘The status of the Patri- arch in the third and fourth centuries: sources and methodology’, Journal of Jewish Studies 47, 1996, 1–32 (see also idem, ‘The Jewish Patriarch (Nasi) in 3rd century Palestine’, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, II.19.2, 1979, 649–88; and idem, The Rabbinic Class of Ro- man Palestine in Late Antiquity, Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi and New York: JTS, 1989); E. Habas Rubin, äéèñàðéã ìù äéúåãìåúì Ñ úéèðæéáÐúéîåøä äôå÷úá àéùðä, PhD Diss. Tel Aviv Univer- sity, 1992; eadem, ‘Rabban Gamaliel of Yavneh and his sons: the patriarchate before and after the Bar Kokhva revolt’, Journal of Jewish Studies 50, 1999, 21–37; D. Goodblatt, The Monar- chic Principle: Studies in Jewish Self-Government in Antiquity, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994; M. Jacobs, Die Institution des jüdischen Patriarchen: Eine quellen- und traditionskritische Studie zur Geschichte der Juden in der Späntantike, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995; C. Hezser, The So- cial Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997; S. Schwartz, ‘The Patriarchs and the Diaspora’, Journal of Jewish Studies 50, 1999, 208–22. Note in particular Schwartz’s challenge to the notion that the patriarchate constituted a formal ‘in- stitution’. In this article, I shall use the term ‘patriarchate’ in a loose sense, without necessarily implying the institution which Schwartz rightly questions. 194 journal of jewish studies sessment of all the evidence. Many of its features are not original: thus (1) has already been suggested by Martin Goodman, and then more forcefully by Martin Jacobs.2 Indeed, it would not surprise me if many components of my theory were found somewhere in the vast secondary literature of the last fifty years. These ideas have not been articulated, however, into a single coher- ent theory, and their broader historical significance has not yet been properly realised. More importantly, many of these ideas have been floated as possibil- ities, but without satisfactory substantiation. My debt to Martin Jacobs, for instance, can hardly be concealed—his work is insufficiently known, perhaps because he wrote it in German—but many of his ideas can and should be substantiated through a more detailed analysis of rabbinic sources. For only a strict, empirical approach can lead, in my view, to a reasonable measure of acceptance and scholarly consensus. In one respect, my approach will be everything but revisionist: most of this study will be based on the ‘evidence’ of rabbinic sources. It must be made clear that I am not making any claim about their historicity. In many cases, it will be shown that specific passages must be regarded as literary constructions; and there would certainly be a case to argue, by extension, that the whole of rabbinic literature falls into this category. If this were true, nothing historical could ever be said about Rabbi or the origins of the patriarchate.3 This po- sition, however, would be rather extreme. Rabbinic sources presumably have some relevance to the historical reality that produced them, even if this rele- vance is difficult to ascertain. It is legitimate, therefore, to use them for histor- ical purposes, provided one remembers that the historical thesis that emerges does not go beyond what it is: a history of the patriarchate as inferable from rabbinic literature. 1. The Origins of the Title ‘nasi’ Textbooks of Jewish history present a chronological list of the patriarchs run- ning from Hillel the Elder (late 1st century BCE) to the last R. Gamaliel (early 5th century CE). Dates in this list are mostly round figures; they vary slightly from one textbook to the next, and are anyway intended as only approxi- mate:4 Hillel I the Elder 20 BCE–20 CE R. Gamaliel I the Elder 20–50 CE R. Simeon b. Gamaliel I died 70 CE 2 M. Goodman, State and Society in Roman Galilee, AD 132–212, 2nd edn, London: Vallen- tine Mitchell, 2000, 111–18; Jacobs, op. cit. 99–123. 3 See in particular O. Meir, úåøåñî ìù ïúëéøò éëøãá ïåéò ºéáø ìù åúøéèô øåôéñ,inMeh. qerei Yerushalayim be-Sifrut Ivrit 12, 1990, 147–77. For a general discussion, see J. L. Rubenstein, Tal- mudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture, Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. 4 The list below is drawn from L. H. Schiffman, From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism, Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1991, 205. It can be traced back to the works of Graetz, in the 19th century. See also Jacobs, op. cit. (n. 1), 205–11. Habas, op. cit. (n. 1) 1992, 138–69, accepts this model with little questioning. rabbi and the origins of the patriarchate 195 R. Gamaliel II of Yavneh 96–115 R. Simeon b. Gamaliel II 140–170 R. Judah I the Patriarch (‘Rabbi’) 170–220 R. Gamaliel III 220–230 R. Judah II the Patriarch 230–270 R. Gamaliel IV 270–290 R. Judah III 290–320 Hillel II 320–365 R. Gamaliel V 365–385 R. Judah IV 385–400 R. Gamaliel VI 400–425 The list implies that the patriarchate originated at least in the 1st century BCE, that Hillel the Elder founded a dynasty that lasted until R. Gamaliel VI, and that the patriarchs succeeded each other from father to son, continuously (at least from R. Simeon b. Gamaliel II), over the period of nearly half a mil- lennium. Early origins, patrilineage, and continuity are comfortable historical notions which we should view, however, with suspicion. As we shall see, there is little evidence in contemporary rabbinic sources to support this model. This sequence of patriarchs, assumed by most modern historians, is only a tradi- tion going back to the synthesising activity of late Geonic Babylonian rabbis, in whose works (e.g. the Seder Tannaim we-Amoraim, Kahan ed., pp. 2–3) this list (or a similar one) is attested for the first time. The integration of early rab- binic history into a simple structure is a specifically Babylonian trend which, as we shall see, is already manifest in various forms in the Babylonian Talmud. Recent revisionists have argued that the patriarchate did not begin, in fact, before Rabbi (R. Judah I). Goodman has largely relied, for this, on external evidence. The earliest reference, in external sources, to something like a Jewish patriarch is in Origen’s famous letter to Africanus, dating from c. 230–240 CE; whilst most of the external evidence (e.g. Roman imperial legislation) dates from the 4th and early 5th centuries.5 External evidence, however, runs counter to early rabbinic literature, which has plenty to say on patriarchs until R. Judah II in the mid 3rd century, but virtually nothing thereafter. Preference for one or the other body of sources has lead historians, not surprisingly, to opposite conclusions.6 This article is not about the 4th and 5th centuries, but about the origins of the patriarchate. I shall be largely restricted, therefore, to rabbinic sources. Nevertheless, I shall show that rabbinic sources confirm, on close examina- tion, the contention that the first patriarch was Rabbi. This contention depends, to a great extent, on what is meant by ‘patriarch’. Patriarchs are usually identified in terms of two criteria: (1) their position as leaders; and (2) their title of ‘patriarch’ or nasi. (1) The functions, scope, and effectiveness of patriarchal leadership has been subject to intense debate in recent years: it is unclear, for example, 5 Goodman, op. cit. (n. 2), 111–18. 6 See on this the disagreement between B. Rosenfeld, §ãä äàîá ìàøùé õøàá úåàéùðä øáùî äøéôñì, Zion 53, 1988, 239–57, and Jacobs, op. cit. (n. 1), 123.
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