Mishnah and Tosefta: A Synoptic Comparison of the Tractates Berakhot and Shebiit (review)

Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 365 Reviews Antonine Caesars "changed greatly with the advent of the Severan Caesars" (p. 177) is not only overly reductionist, but relies entirely on the conclusions of Alon, whose general method she has spent much of the book attacking (cf. pp. 5-6)! Although the writing and argument could hardly be clearer, this is not an easy book. It will mainly interest scholars in the field and advanced graduate students, although others who work directly with the sources that Hayes discusses will want to consult it. Christine Hayes has done the field a service, but there is still much work left. Michael L. Satlow University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903 mls4n@virginia.edu MISHNAH AND TOSEFTA: A SYNOPTIC COMPARISON OF THE TRACTATES BERAKHOT AND SHEBIIT. By Alberdina Houtman. Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 59. pp. xi + 255. TUbingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1996. Cloth. MISHNAH AND TOSEFTA: A SYNOPTIC COMPARISON OF THE TRACTATES BERAKHOT AND SHEBIIT. Appendix Volume . By Alberdina Houtman. Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 59. pp. iv + 92. Ttibingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1996. Paper. Although the Tosefta has attracted much attention in academic Talmudic research, many of the literary questions that were posed by pioneering scholars in the nineteenth century remain unanswered today. Foremost among these is the elusive issue of the relationship between the Mishnah and the Tosefta, a matter that is intricately connected to such issues as the structure of the Tosefta; the relationship between the work that currently bears that name and the term that is mentioned in Talmudic works; as well as several other topics relating to the time and purpose of the Tosefta's redaction (for example, the Talmud's cryptic identification of Tosefta with the teachings of the Tanna Rabbi Nehemiah). As Houtman demonstrates in her exhaustive review of previous scholarship , theories about the Tosefta's origins abound, particularly among the older practitioners of Wissenschaft des Judentums. The prevailing tendency has been to treat the Tosefta as a supplement to the Mishnah, as would appear to be implied by the name itself and by the standard Talmudic usage. Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 366 Reviews An obstacle to this approach lies in the discrepancies between the orders of the two works. In consequence of this and other difficulties, alternative explanations have been proposed, some of which might strike us as naive and best forgotten. Although Houtman is sensitive to all the interrelated literary and historical methodological issues, she focuses on one particular question as the key to her investigation: Is it possible to challenge the conventional wisdom that sees the Tosefta as ancillary to the Mishnah and hence having no independent structure of its own? Towards this end, she presents a new synopsis of two representative tractates of the Mishnah and Tosefta (Berakhot and Shebiit), leaving open the question of whether one work is a commentary on the other-or, for that matter, whether we have before us two autonomous , parallel works. In the end, this methodical exercise is of scientific relevance only if we choose to give serious credence to M. Zuckermandel's assertion that our Tosefta is made up of portions of the original Mishnah that were subsequently removed from the Babylonian recension that later became standard . Although such a theory could merit attention in a more primitive era of rabbinic scholarship, subsequent advances in the textual history of the Mishnah and the Yerushalmi, assisted by the availability of reliable Palestinian Mishnah manuscripts, would seem to remove that theory from any serious consideration. (In her investigation she frequently simplifies Zuckennandel's thesis as if he were arguing that the Mishnah was based on the Tosefta, which is somewhat misleading.) At one time such an open-ended synoptic comparison would have placed onerous obstacles in the way of the researcher who wished to experiment with alternative possibilities of arranging the texts. Houtman has exploited the power of computers in order to minimize the mechanical labor, allowing for a flexible manipulation of the respective texts that reflects the complexity of their literary interconnections. However the question becomes more tangled if we take into account the problematic status of the "pisqa'ot," the...