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The Review of Rabbinic 22 (2019) 121–125

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Review Essay

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Legends of Rabbi Akiva: New “Biographies” and a Hermeneutical Study

Dov Weiss University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois [email protected]

The legends surrounding perhaps the most famous rabbinic sage, Akiva ben Yosef (ca. 50–135 CE), are well known. Born into a poor family (Avot de Rabbi Nathan version B:12), the unlearned and modest Akiva worked as a shepherd before marrying his wealthy employer’s daughter. Notably, Akiva’s wife con- ditioned their marriage on Akiva’s immersing himself in the study of (B. Ket. 62b). In a different account, Akiva discovers the grandeur of Torah not through love but after experiencing, at the age of forty, an unusual encoun- ter with the natural world (Avot de Rabbi Nathan, version A:6). Akiva became the leading Torah scholar of his generation as he ingeniously uncovered hid- den meanings to every word and letter of the Torah (B. Men. 29b). Later in life, Akiva supported the failed Bar Kokhba revolt against in 132–135 CE (Y. Ta. 4:8) and was ultimately martyred by the Romans together with other noted rabbis (B. Ber. 61b). This essay reviews and compares three new scholarly books on Akiva’s life and thought. ’s Akiba: Scholar, Saint and Martyr, published in 1936, blended together the above and other disparate—and at times conflicting— stories about Akiva dispersed throughout the and to produce a harmonious biography. The narrative inconsistencies in rabbinic literature are resolved. In recent years, scholars have criticized the way Finkelstein recon- structed Akiva’s life story and teachings. Explaining his decision to produce a

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/15700704-12341353 122 Weiss new biography of Akiva, Reuven Hammer, in his Akiva: Life, Legend, Legacy (Jewish Publication Society, 2015), laments that Finkelstein did not distinguish between earlier—and historically more reliable—rabbinic texts, and later— and less historically reliable—rabbinic texts. Contra Finkelstein, Hammer seeks to uncover, as much as possible, the actual history of Akiva’s life by side- lining late rabbinic Akiva legends. In this way, Hammer regards the earlier Avot de Rabbi Nathan tradition of Akiva’s discovering Torah through an indepen- dent experience with nature as quasi-historical, but the later Bavli traditions of Akiva’s studying Torah for love as mere fanciful legends. Although Hammer claims to present Akiva’s life by using the latest academic methods, his book echoes older approaches to rabbinics. First, Hammer relies heavily, yet uncritically, on ’s Torah From Heaven, which, while encyclopedic and theologically profound, has encountered intense resistance in scholarly circles. Second, and more important, leading Jewish studies scholars, such as (Development of a Legend, 1970) and Daniel Boyarin (Carnal Israel, 1993), have demonstrated that rabbinic nar- ratives do not teach history but rather the cultural values of those transmitting those narratives. So, for example, according to this approach, an Akivan legend found in alleging that 24,000 students of Akiva died because of their stinginess conveys more about the values of the composers of Genesis Rabbah than it does about Akiva’s actual life circumstances (see Genesis Rabbah 61:3). Judah Goldin adopts this position, too, when contending that it would be impossible “to write a [rabbinic] biography in the serious sense of the word” (“Toward a Profile of the Tanna, Aqiba ben Josef,” in JAOS 96, pp. 38–56) Thus, Hammer’s attempt to uncover the historical Akiva by jettisoning later legend- ary accretions betrays a now almost defunct nineteenth-century Wissenschaft des Judentums approach to Jewish studies. Recently, Barry W. Holtz, professor of Jewish education at the Jewish Theological Seminary, authored yet another biography on Akiva as part of Yale University Press’ Jewish lives series. Following Goldin, Holtz eschews any hope of accessing the actual history of Akiva’s life. He even claims that, while Akiva probably lived, we have no definitive proof of that (p. 12). Instead, Holtz’s book, entitled Rabbi Akiva: Sage of the Talmud, produces an “imagined biography” that does not privilege earlier accounts of Akiva’s life over later rabbinic ones, as Hammer’s biography does. For Holtz, neither earlier nor later texts are reli- able historical sources as they present only how Akiva’s life was imagined and re-imagined in different rabbinic circles over time. Holtz’s “imagined biogra- phy” is beautifully written, accessible to non-specialists, incorporates the latest scholarship on rabbinic literature and culture, and provides insightful readings on select moments in Akiva’s imagined life. Holtz cites fewer texts about Akiva

The Review of 22 (2019) 121–125