The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (review)

Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 368 Reviews THE GEONIM OF BABYLONIA AND THE SHAPING OF MEDIEVAL JEWISH CULTURE. By Robert Brody. pp. xxii + 382. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. Cloth, $42.00. This book offers a superb introduction to the study of the Geonic period , long-awaited especially in the Anglo-phone world. It covers five centuries from the end of the sixth century to the middle of the eleventh century. The last attempt at such a survey of the cultural and literary activity of the Geonim is represented by L. Ginzberg's magisterial Geonica of 1909. It should be obvious that the field has changed since the beginning of the century, especially with the continuing publication and analysis of more and more sources from the Genizah. Even today many of the manuscripts have not yet been evaluated (p. 33), thus leaving our understanding of the Geonic period somewhat in flux. Brody's book, therefore, also provides an important survey of the current status of scholarship concerning the Geonim. The book is divided into three parts. The first is dedicated to providing a brief historical background. This part is characterized by Brody's extreme caution with respect to our actual historical knowledge of the period. His caution expresses itself in the fact that the basis for all his discussions is a very careful and comprehensive discussion of the sources that are available to us. The style of his book in general is marked by his precise definitions of what we do know and what we do not know. Each chapter begins with a discussion of textual problems of manuscripts, dating and authorship , linguistic aspects of the texts. problems of authorial or editorial biases in the sources. and hence, "misrepresentations" of facts in the sources. Since the most important source for our historical understanding of the period is still the Epistle of Sherirn Gaon of 986n. along with a report by an otherwise unknown Rabbi Nathan the Babylonian about the functioning of a Geonic academy, and the texts from the Genizah, Brody devotes a whole chapter to discuss and evaluate the current scholarship on these texts. In the remaining chapters of the first part. he discusses the institutional structures of the Geonic period. such as the academies themselves, the exilarchate . the role of the Geonim themselves and their struggles to establish their hegemony in the Jewish world against claims by sectarians, the Palestinian establishment. and the exilarchate. Finally, Brody successfully delineates some of the cultural changes that distinguish the Geonic from the Talmudic period. such as the canonization of the Babylonian Talmud as the basis for all subsequent halakhic discussions and the increasing institutionalization of the academies (p. 38). Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 369 Reviews However, the main energy of the book is invested in the latter two parts, which provide an introduction to Geonic literature. Here, Brody presents the results of his own scholarly work of the past years. At the same time, it is clearly here that Brody's passion is invested. From a literary point of view, he rightly divides the period into two parts, the classic period and the post-Se'adyah Gaon period. The fonner is characterized by the Geonim's threefold effort to supervise the transmission of the Babylonian Talmud, its interpretation, and the facilitation of its practical implementation (p. 162). Much of the literature of this period can be explained as a product of this effort. Brody devotes a chapter each to the responsa literature, the She'Utot and the earliest legal codes, such as, the Halakhot Pesuqot and the Halakhot Gedolot. In Brody's assessment, it is the responsa which fonn the "literary expression most characteristic of the period" (p. 185), both from a literary and social point of view. As to the fonner, the responsa represent a new stage in the history of Jewish literature in tenns of style and genre. Further , they represent the halakhic unification of the international Jewish community during the Geonic period. Again, Brody is very careful in pointing out the difficulties of historical reliability, because of doubtful authorship attributions and corruption of texts by later copyists. Similar caveats apply to the other two genres of text of...