Chapter 35. The Oral Law Written: Yavneh, the Mishnah and the Two Talmuds

The destruction of the Temple removed the institution around which Judaism had been organised: the priesthood, the sacrifices and the pilgrim feasts. What replaced it was a religion of study, built by Pharisaic sages who had learned their traditions by heart and who, over five centuries, wrote them down as the Mishnah and the two Talmuds. This chapter follows that process from Yavneh to Babylon and to the Islamic era, when Talmudic authority became the norm across the diaspora. Because the Talmud has also been the object of sustained hostile polemic, the chapter then sets the Jewish and scholarly presentations in the library beside the hostile readings it holds, and states in each case who makes which claim.

Yavneh and the parting of the ways

Karen Armstrong describes the first generation after 70 as a slow conversion of a minority method into a national religion: “during the Second Temple period, midrash had been a minority pursuit. It would take the rabbis about twenty years to make any serious impact on the wider Jewish community. It was not easy to make textual study attractive to the masses. How could it possibly compete with the dramatic temple rituals?” The rabbis “had retained the ancient reverence for oral communication and in the early days at Yavneh did not commit their traditions to writing but learned them by heart. Graduates of the academy were called tannaim, ‘repeaters,’ because they recited the Torah aloud and developed their midrash together” [Armstrong, The Case for God, #66157]. She compares midrash to the Socratic dialogue as “a joint enterprise,” and notes that Christian pesher exegesis, like that of the Qumran sectarians, used a method “not unlike Greek ‘bricolage’ or rabbinical midrash” [ibid.].

The same period separated the two communities. Armstrong writes that “Once Christians made it clear that they were no longer members of the synagogue, they were regarded by the Romans as impious fanatics who had committed the cardinal sin of breaking” with ancestral tradition [Armstrong, The Case for God, #66157]. Douglas Reed, from a hostile standpoint, places the same break at Jamnia: “The period of government from Jamnia lasted for about a century, and then it was transferred to Usha in Galilee, where the Sanhedrin was reestablished. ‘Judaism set limitations about itself and grew ever more exclusive’; at this time the special curse on Jewish Christians was pronounced” [Reed, The Controversy of Zion, #64653, ch.14].

Mishnah, Gemara, Talmud

Isidor Epstein, whose Judaism (1959) the library holds in Romanian translation, gives the standard structure. The secular intellectual work of the schools “a sfârşit prin a se cristaliza în Ghemara (lit. ‘desăvârşire’)” (ended by crystallising into the Gemara, literally “completion”). “Ansamblul Mişna + Ghemara constituie Talmudul” (Mishnah plus Gemara constitute the Talmud), from a Hebrew root meaning “to study,” and it exists in two versions, the Palestinian (usually called the Jerusalem Talmud) and the Babylonian. “Talmudul este deci, în mod iniţial, Mişna lui Rabi Iuda urmată de un comentariu. În această calitate el este esenţialmente halahic” (The Talmud is therefore originally the Mishnah of Rabbi Judah followed by a commentary, and as such it is essentially halakhic) [Epstein, Iudaismul – origini şi istorie, #15429, “Mişna şi Ghemara”].

Epstein ties the Palestinian Talmud to imperial politics: “Sub forma sa actuală, Talmudul de la Ierusalim (din Palestina) este un produs al mediului secolului al IV-lea. La acea epocă, ca urmare a convertirii lui Constantin (306-337), creştinismul a devenit deja religia oficială a imperiului, iar Ierusalimul o capitală creştină. De acum, Iudaismul era o erezie atât religioasă, cât şi politică” (In its present form the Jerusalem Talmud is a product of fourth-century conditions; after the conversion of Constantine, Christianity had become the official religion of the empire and Jerusalem a Christian capital; Judaism was henceforth a heresy both religious and political), and “a militant Church” made Jewish life in Palestine impossible [ibid.]. Armstrong dates the two compilations a little later, the Jerusalem Talmud “compiled during the fifth century, and the more authoritative Babylonian Talmud (known as the Bavli) a century later,” and she stresses that they “were commentaries on the Mishnah” and open-ended: “The Bavli has thus been described as the first interactive text” [Armstrong, The Case for God, #66157]. Jonathan Campbell gives the round dates used in Qumran scholarship: “the rabbis who compiled the Mishnah (circa 200 CE) and the Babylonian Talmud (circa 550 CE) were at pains to establish themselves as the heirs of the Pharisees,” and “Both writings place obedience to the Torah at the heart of Judaism” [Campbell, Deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls, #62203, ch.5].

Why Babylon: Sura, Nehardea, Pumbedita

Epstein explains the shift eastward. Rabbi Judah died in 217; “with his death, as an ancient source says, ‘glory departed from Israel.'” Persecution, heavy taxation, bad harvests and epidemics closed Palestinian schools, and leadership passed to Babylonia [Epstein, Iudaismul, #15429]. There, “în anul 219, Aba Arika (175-247), care fusese discipolul lui Iuda, … a întemeiat faimoasa şcoală de la Sura, unde a şi predat Mişna maestrului său” (in 219 Abba Arikha [Rav], a disciple of Judah, founded the famous school at Sura and taught his master’s Mishnah there). “Aproape concomitent s-a înfiinţat o şcoală rivală la Nehardea, de către Samuel (180-250),” an authority in civil law and author of the maxim dina de-malkhuta dina, “the law of the State is law,” which strongly influenced Jewish civil law. After Nehardea was sacked, its school moved to neighbouring Pumbedita [ibid.]. Campbell’s summary: “Babylon, it should be noted, took over as the centre of Jewish learning from the fourth century CE, explaining why the Babylonian Talmud (circa 550 CE), rather than the Palestinian (circa 450 CE), gained the upper hand.” In the same note he cites tractate Gittin 59b as one of the rabbinic sources for a story he narrates [Campbell, Deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls, #62203, ch.5 n.54]. Epstein describes the Bavli as “written in eastern Aramaic,” setting out “the discussions held in the schools of Babylon concerning the Mishnah of Rabbi Judah” [Epstein, Iudaismul, #15429].

Consolidation under Islam and the rabbinic ethic

Epstein’s chapter 17, “Consolidarea iudaismului talmudic,” dates the Talmud’s dominance to the Arab conquests: “Influenţa considerabilă a Talmudului, mai ales a celui din Babilon, exercitată asupra evreimii din diaspora, datează aproximativ de la sfârşitul secolului VII. Este epoca în care oştirile islamului au pornit victorioase la cucerirea lumii” (The considerable influence of the Talmud, especially the Babylonian, over diaspora Jewry dates from about the end of the seventh century, the time when the armies of Islam set out to conquer the world), sweeping over Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Babylon and Persia [Epstein, Iudaismul, #15429, ch.17]. He adds that the first encounter of Jews and Islam “was not unhappy,” since Muhammad at first sought Jewish support and adopted strict monotheism, ritual prayer, fasting and charity [ibid.]. One empire now united the Babylonian academies and the diaspora, and that political fact allowed the Bavli to become the law of the Jewish world.

Epstein presents the content of that law as an ethic. Rabbinic morality extends justice “to the whole of creation, inanimate as well as animate”: the biblical ban on destroying fruit trees (Deut. 20:19) “a fost extinsă de Talmud la tot felul de lucruri utile, sub comandamentul general numit bal taşhit (să nu distrugi)” (was extended by the Talmud to all kinds of useful things under the general commandment called bal tashhit, “do not destroy”). Respect for the person forbids deceiving by lies “oricine ar fi victima” (whoever the victim may be), citing Lev. 19:11. Above the fear of God stands the love of God, “stârnită de contemplarea glorioaselor Sale perfecţiuni”; fear is recommended “as an obstacle to evil,” love “glorified as the strongest stimulus to virtue,” and love of God leads to “the sanctification of His Name” (Kiddush ha-Shem) [Epstein, Iudaismul, #15429, chapters on rabbinic ethics]. Armstrong adds that “there was no official orthodoxy in Judaism but that ideas about God were essentially private matters,” and that “To this day, theological ideas about God are private matters in Judaism and are not enforced by the establishment”; the rabbis taught that at Sinai each Israelite experienced God “according to the comprehension of each” [Armstrong, A History of God, #68999].

The hostile readings

The library also holds works that read the Talmud as a political-criminal code. They are reported here as their authors present them.

Douglas Reed (1956). Chapter 15, “The Talmud and the Ghettoes,” opens: “Whatever else is in dispute, one thing is incontestable: that great force must repose in a Law which for nineteen centuries obtains obedience from people scattered over the earth, when by an effort of will they could escape its thrall. The Talmud was (and is) such a law, and the only one of its kind.” For Reed the Talmud continues the Babylonian-era priestly redaction: “The compilation of the Talmud began at Jamnia, the part played in Babylon by Ezekiel and Ezra being played in this new revision of the Law, by the rabbi known as Judah the Holy,” and “The attack on Christianity gave the Talmud its distinctive tone and is indeed the only new thing in the Talmud. Its other teaching remains that of Ezekiel and the Pharisees.” The Pharisees at Jamnia, he writes, “invoked once more their claim to possess the oral secrets of God” and reinterpreted the commandments “so that these could be shown to apply to Christianity” [Reed, The Controversy of Zion, #64653, ch.12, ch.14, ch.15].

Nicolae C. Paulescu (Romanian, 1913). The physiologist Paulescu, credited in Romania with the discovery of “pancreine” (insulin) in 1921, is introduced by the edition’s anonymous editor in a preface that defends his nationalist politics and frames the Nobel award to Banting and Macleod as an injustice [Paulescu, Spitalul, Coranul, Talmudul, Kahalul şi Franc-Masoneria, #18519, “În loc de introducere”]. Paulescu says he read Moïse Schwab’s French translation of the Jerusalem Talmud and found in it only “interminable discussions, most often childish and ridiculous.” He insists that “the Talmud the Jews use is the Talmud of Babylon,” which “was received by all Israel” [ibid., #47481]. His charges, many sourced through August Rohling, are that the Talmud teaches dominion over other peoples (“As men rule over animals, so the Jews must rule over the other nations”), that Israel must receive the wealth of all peoples without labour, and the Purim and Passover ritual-murder accusation, which he states as fact [ibid., #47481; #18519]. His conclusion: the Talmud, “the politico-religious legislation of the Jews,” instead of fighting the passions of property and domination as the Gospel does, “pushes these vices to an unheard-of peak.” He then links it to Freemasonry: the Jews, unable to reach their aim alone, “resorted to Freemasonry, created by them precisely for this purpose,” which made the French “work at rebuilding the Temple of Solomon” in the Constituent Assembly (emancipation, 1791). This argument leads into the Freemasonry parts of this study [ibid., #18519, Concluzie].

The anonymous Talmudul — Învăţăturile criminale ale religiei Jidanilor. The library catalogues this Romanian pamphlet with a 1930 date. The scan has no extractable text, so its contents cannot be quoted here. Its title (“The Talmud: the criminal teachings of the religion of the Yids”) places it in the interwar Romanian anti-Talmudic pamphlet literature to which Paulescu’s book also belongs [Anonymous, Talmudul, #369744, catalogue record].

Shahak, second-hand. Israel Shahak’s Jewish History, Jewish Religion (1994) reaches the library only through quotation. Henry Makow writes that Shahak “confirmed my suspicion that Judaism is not a religion,” and reports Shahak’s view that “Classical Judaism (1000-1880 AD)” mediated “the oppression of the peasants on behalf of the nobility and the Crown,” and that the Jewish people “need to overcome the ‘tyranny’ of their religion” [Makow, Illuminati, #64886, “The Real Cause of Anti-Semitism”]. Edward Hendrie quotes Shahak on the halakhic distinction: “According to the Halakhah, the duty to save the life of a fellow Jew is paramount,” whereas the obligation toward a Gentile is framed by the danger that “the refusal of a Jew — particularly a Jewish doctor — to save the life of a Gentile may, if it becomes known, antagonize powerful Gentiles and so put Jews in danger” [Hendrie, Solving the Mystery of Babylon the Great, #50134, ch.7]. The quotations are Shahak’s as Makow and Hendrie report them.

Internal critics and a philosopher’s reading

Criticism of rabbinic authority also comes from inside Judaism. The Karaite Nehemia Gordon defines the “Oral Law” as the “body of information which the Pharisees claim was revealed to Moses orally on Mt. Sinai,” written down “in the form of the Mishnah, Talmud, and Midrash.” He calls “Mosaic Authority” the “Pharisaic doctrine claiming the Rabbis have the exclusive authority to interpret Scripture.” He argues that Yeshua “was speaking out against the man-made laws of the Rabbis to bring people back to the Torah which is the primary message of Karaite Judaism” [Gordon, The Hebrew Yeshua vs. The Greek Jesus, #67593, ch.4, glossary].

Mitchell Heisman reads the same system functionally: “Judaism is a form of technology in an essential sense,” and “Since Judaism is a technology, a behavioral self-corrective, Judaism can be described as a form of Jewish self-criticism.” In “Jewish thinking,” he notes, “the Yetzer ha-tov [is] the good inclination and the Yetzer ha-ra … the evil inclination,” which he compares with Freud’s id; “Jews exist because they embody this paradox of a genetic inclination to correct genetic inclination with ‘nurture’, i.e. the laws of Moses.” He finds the closest analogue in China: “Of the major religions, Confucianism might be the closest analog to early Judaism,” since both emphasise ancestral wisdom, and Confucius’ golden rule (Analects 15:23) “is virtually identical to Hillel’s” [Heisman, Suicide Note, #38252, Part II, part 80].

Key points

• After 70 the sages at Yavneh built Judaism around oral study; Armstrong notes that the rabbis needed about twenty years to win the wider community and that the Christians’ break with the synagogue cost them Roman tolerance [#66157].
• Mishnah (Judah ha-Nasi, c. 200) plus Gemara (“completion”) form the Talmud; Epstein sets the Jerusalem Talmud in the fourth century, after Constantine made Christianity the imperial religion [#15429].
• Rav founded Sura in 219 and Samuel founded Nehardea (later Pumbedita); Babylon led from the fourth century, so the Bavli (c. 550) prevailed [#15429, #62203].
• Epstein dates the Talmud’s dominance over the diaspora to the late seventh century, under the Islamic conquests [#15429, ch.17].
• Epstein presents the rabbinic ethic as bal tashhit, honesty toward every person, fear and love of God and Kiddush ha-Shem; Armstrong finds no official orthodoxy about God [#15429, #68999].
• Reed, Paulescu (who links the Talmud to Freemasonry and repeats the ritual-murder charge) and the 1930 anonymous pamphlet read the Talmud as a hostile code; Shahak’s halakhic arguments reach the library only through Makow and Hendrie [#64653, #18519, #369744, #64886, #50134].
• Gordon criticises rabbinic authority from a Karaite position inside Judaism; Heisman calls Judaism a “behavioral self-corrective” technology and compares it with Confucianism [#67593, #38252].