From Sermon to Commentary: Expounding the Bible in Talmudic Babylonia

Conclusions

Of the thirty-two disputes between Rav and Samuel that were examined in this study, we were able to identify or surmise parallel Palestinian traditions for twenty-four . This fact is remarkable of itself, when we bear in mind that the scriptural texts that were interpreted span the Bible’s full range, including not only the Torah but also verses from Joshua, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, Esther, Ezra, and Chronicles—texts that were not necessarily central to the liturgical reading of the Bible in the synagogue.i These passages were formulated according to stereotypical dispute formats that bore a closer resemblance to the structures of halakhic discourse than to distinctive aggadic models. For this reason, no significant purpose would be served here by subjecting them to aesthetic, literary, or rhetorical analysis. Rather, they must be studied for their content, primarily as instances of biblical interpretation . When viewed from this perspective, most of the comments contained in them were exegetically unsatisfying. The few explanations that approximated literal exegesis were too obvious to be of interest. They did not deepen our understanding of textual difficulties or enhance our sensitivity to the subtleties of scriptural narrative. The non-literal explanations were usually so far-fetched that they inspired more confusion than enlightenment. It is instructive to note how frequently the ingenuity of the Talmud’s traditional commentators was channeled towards contriving hypothetical problems in the biblical verses that might have provoked Rav’s and Samuel’s comments. Almost one quarter of the examples fall into the category of midrashic nameetymologies , usually involving the identification of two different biblical figures2 by means of the pattern “x was her/his name, and why was her/his name called y?”3 Many dozens of these expositions are strewn across rabbinic literature , and there is nothing distinctive about the ones that are ascribed here to Rav and Samuel.4 A useful point for comparison would be the many exegetical disputes between Rabbi Judah and Rabbi Nehemiah that are scattered throughout talmudic literature .5 Some 180 of these disputes have been preserved,6 distributed through Mekhilta, Sifré,Tosefta, classical and late midrashic compendia, and baraitot in the two Talmuds.7 The Judah-Nehemiah disputes share many literary features of standard tannaitic halakhic discourse. They are usually formulated in Hebrew in a succinct 129 Conclusions style. Although the disputes are occasionally embedded by editors into proems and other rhetorical structures, it is evident that they were originally the products of an academic process of scriptural interpretation, one that involved a thoroughgoing study of the Bible. As regards halakhic arguments in tannaitic literature, particularly in post-Yavneh sources we are often unable to determine whether the dispute forms were imposed upon their opinions by the redactors, or if they indeed reflect original face-to-face discussions between the rabbis. In several of the Judah-Nehemiah aggadic disputes we are given indications of live debates, as rabbis challenge one another with objections and proof texts.8 The Rav-Samuel disputes, whether in halakhic or aggadic matters, are indistinguishable from tannaitic traditions. In general, this means that they do not display signs of face-to-face encounters. Thus, among the pericopes examined here there was not a single instance where Rav or Samuel responded to his counterpart’s words; whatever argumentation appeared in the talmudic passages was added by anonymous formulators or redactors. Nor did we encounter cases where their opinions were cited or argued by named amora’im of later generations. A full study of the Judah-Nehemiah passages would exceed the bounds of this study.9 Nevertheless, I can offer some general observations by way of comparison of those disputes with the Rav-Samuel pericopes under discussion here. Most of the exegetical disputes ascribed to Rabbi Judah and Rabbi Nehemiah relate to legitimate questions of interpretation that emerge from the biblical texts when approached from a midrashic perspective. Those disputes that are not exegetical are transparently homiletical and dwell on familiar themes that are based on conventional rabbinic value-concepts. In the Rav-Samuel disputes, on the other hand, most of the interpretations seemed superfluous and cryptic. That observation lends support to the thesis that the Rav-Samuel passages evolved out of earlier versions—out of scriptural interpretations that figured in homiletical discourses (as was suggested in detailed comparative studies of the individual passages). By contrast, the logical coherence that typifies the JudahNehemiah pericopae demonstrates that, for the most part, they...