Yonatan Adler’s Origins of Judaism is an impressive contribution to the intersection of Archaeology and Biblical studies. The methodology presented, starting from the archaeological rather than textual record and working backward, is praiseworthy as it eliminates many of the biases that are endemic in the more speculative end of text-centric historiography. This, however, can also present drawbacks of its own, evident particularly in the concluding chapter. My analysis of said conclusions will present questions for further investigation in the interdisciplinary space opened by scholarship such as this and the correctives it offers.
The introduction outlines methodology, including the definition of a clear boundary between the Pentateuch as text and Torah as the acceptance and interpretation of the commandments as binding obligation, thus defining Judaism by (relative) orthopraxy.1 Adler argues that this relates to the ancient term Ioudaismos, while also cleaving close to that of later Rabbinic Judaism.2 This presents issues that will be addressed in my conclusion. On each set of practices, he presents Pentateuchal sources, first century textual evidence, first century archaeological evidence, and then the same for periods prior to the first century, looking for an origin in the archaeological record.
The First chapter covers Kashrut and demonstrates that from the early Hasmonean period the consumption of both pork and non-kosher fish in Judaean communities was miniscule.3 While other dietary restrictions cannot be covered, these indicate some prohibitions were close to universally observed. The presence of pig bones before this period remains extremely low, however this pattern is not followed for non-kosher fish.4 Adler states that prior to the Hasmonean period we do not have a clear link between pork-avoidance and biblical texts outside of the texts themselves.
This is followed by chapters on ritual purity and the ban on figurative art which are both the result of expansive exegesis of the Pentateuch, rather than a simple adherence to the passages they are drawn from.5 Adler presents data covering the prevalence of mikvaot and chalk vessels, interpreted as evidence of widespread, communal maintenance of purity status. These, again, are ubiquitous in the first century and while chalk vessels are an apparent novelty, mikvaot are omnipresent in the Herodian period, and present across the Hasmonean period, but absent before this.6 Similar results are found for the ban on figurative art depicting non-plant life in all settings, not just the cultic.7 Adler points out that Pentateuchal purity regulations do not explicitly require full-body immersion, and cites a previous paper of his suggesting these laws may have previously been fulfilled in other ways, leaving no material evidence and thus their observance cannot be verified archeologically.8 He also eschews discussion of figuration in the cultic setting entirely focusing on the non-cultic.9 Other studies indicate a general trend of cultic aniconism across a long period, but also potential deviations from the broader prohibition, some of which are reflected in the biblical text, such as in descriptions of Solomon’s Temple.10
Following this are chapters on Tefillin and Mezuzot, and “Miscellaneous Practices”. The former have extremely limited archaeological evidence as they are made entirely of degradable components. The only evidence of these is from the Judean desert, mostly from first century CE.11 Textual evidence attests earlier practice, including an interesting reading of the mitzvah of Tefilin based on a possibly corrupt Greek text by Philo,12 but there is no indication of how widespread this was or what form it may have taken. The “Miscellaneous Practices” are all only evidenced in the textual record. Circumcision is assumed to be normative far before this period, but its dependence on the Pentateuch Adler considers unclear.13 Pre-Hasmonean Sabbath observance is equally uncertain, with evidence of non-compliance in Babylon and Egypt.14 Similar conclusions are reached for other practices,15 and the Four Species for Sukkot, the use of which is attached to the building of sukkot for the festival of that name in Nehemiah (8:15-17), though the iconographic examples show the lulav (bundle, not species) rather than the sukkah made from the species.16 However the data presented in toto indicates that, for the majority of the markers of what could broadly be considered Jewish orthopraxy that can be identified via material evidence, the Hasmonaean period appears to be the terminus ante quem. There are exceptions to this generalization, such as circumcision, cultic aniconism and pork-avoidance, but Adler is uncertain if these necessarily have origins in the Pentateuchal text.17
The penultimate chapter covers the synagogue, which “represents neither a practice nor a prohibition regulated by Torah law.”18 Instead, it becomes “the principal vehicle for the dissemination of the Torah, without which Judaism itself may never have taken root and spread.”19 The argument Adler presents is striking, that the synagogue by the turn of the era had transformed its primary function from a “house of prayer” into a communal centre of learning.20 He reads Philo, Josephus and the gospels as indicating this, and that the form this took was a reading from the law followed by an exegetical lesson explaining it.21 While this cannot be conclusively demonstrated archeologically the proposal of a primarily educational function is compelling.22 However here we find the problematic that comes as a result of this kind of analysis: what is the Torah, and is “the dissemination of the Torah” the dissemination of the Pentateuch? Torah appears dependent on the Pentateuch as justification, but one can learn the former without the latter.23
The final chapter proposes a hypothesis of the origin in Hasmonean legislation and promulgation.24 While elegant, this conclusion presents some difficulties, which I read as related to the restrictive methodological framing presented in the introduction. It is also not helped by perhaps-inevitable terminological slippage. For the sake of brevity, my critique of the conclusion will cover the relationship between “Torah” and “Pentateuch”, and feasibility of this Torah as Hasmonean decree invoking national unity.
In question is the character of the Torah that emerges here, and its relationship to the Pentateuch. This is compounded by what appears to be occasional slippages between Torah and Pentateuch in the later chapters of the book, and by the use of the definite article or qualifying term “Mosaic” for the former – an apparent necessity given the definition of the two terms as distinct phenomena, though also phenomena that are related to (and, in some ways, constitutive of) each other.25 The differentiation of the terms is extremely fruitful for the presentation and analysis of evidence, but becomes a difficulty for movement from this realm into a more speculative theory of origins, which necessitates a relation between the two. I am unsure of how to present a solution to this, but it does appear to be a significant impediment. A possible contribution to either the solution or the difficulties, depending on one’s perspective, will be presented in the essay following this review. In that way this book has been very fruitful for me, as these difficulties have contributed another axis to the analysis of the origins of halacha that said essay will address.
Alder approaches Ezra and Nehemiah’s historicity with deserved scepticism but does not comprehensively apply the same to the books’ polemical content.26 He speaks of how the scroll spoken of resembles “our canonical Pentateuch or an earlier Proto-Pentateuch,”27 however the account presented in both Ezra and Nehemiah has been identified as an attempt to harmonize disparate sources within whatever redaction it may have been – the use of the four species for building Sukkot are one such move,28 and this extends to the narrative – that G-d “came down onto Mt Sinai [note: not Horeb] and spoke with them from heaven”29 appears to be a harmonization of conflicting accounts of the theophany preserved in the texts (Ex 19:18ff, 24:1-18, etc; Deut 4:11-12, 36).30 Adler states that “the laws the authors … ascribe to Moses do resemble the … laws found in the Finalized Pentateuch”31 but exactly the degree to which they resemble said laws is worth asking, as resemblance is relative. This is particularly relevant regarding the blanket prohibition on exogamy, justified by analogization of the “people of the land” to the people groups in Deuteronomy who are subject to cherem, but that commandment is not invoked here.32 This question of resemblance can be extended to all the addressed practices at least to some degree, with the possible exception of kashrut.33 In the chapters on purity, the ban on images, tefillin and mezuzot, instead of working back from the Rabbinic literature, Adler presents an interpretation of how these practices may be arrived at from the Pentateuchal texts, but in each case this is not the only possible interpretation, and often includes implications beyond the plain reading. Other interpretations are attested by other later traditions, including Rabbinic orthodoxy.34 Further, the idea of a “Proto-Pentateuch” raises the question of when the redaction of such occurred, and, subsequently, of the formation of a stable text such as Emanuel Tov’s “proto-MT”, and how widely that might have been circulated given that the earliest witnesses are from Qumran which provides numerous non-proto-MT witnesses as well – evidence which implies that the existence of a Proto-MT during the Hasmonean period was concurrent with the circulation of other, non-standard text-types.35 These are often sectarian, but belong to different groups, and include the Samaritan Pentateuch. While the Proto-MT appears stable in the first century CE, we do not know exactly when this stabilization occurred, nor when it became dominant.36 The national legislation of a text that is attested in variant forms presents its own difficulties, as does, importantly in my eyes, the phenomenon of the emergence of the normative practice that Adler describes, as well as the standardization and adoption of a text that does not contain the scribal intervention in aid of harmonization present in other attested variant text-types. This appears significant, being a counterintuitive phenomenon, particularly in a period that also produces multiple harmonized Pentateuchal or Pentateuch-derived documents, and a factor that enables the further process of elaborate exegetical development that we see particularly in the Rabbinic period.
There are also clear differences between the Torah presented in 1 Maccabees and that represented by this study, the former containing kashrut, circumcision, sabbath and cultic observances, but in which purity seems restricted to the cult (2:24-46, 4:36-3, 13:47-8 regarding a place previously housing idols) and mikvaot are absent.37 Torah is more expansive in 2 Maccabees, however this appears to evidence the idea of Torah developing alongside and within the dissemination of pro-Hasmonean literature.38
The precise role of the Hasmoneans is this process difficult, as the legislation of Torah is presented as both unitive and normatively functional rather than symbolic,but I am sceptical of the practicality of asserting both simultaneously.39 For the legislation to assert normative functionality it would presumably require prior unitive interpretation, of which no contemporary evidence seems to exist. The narratives of origin may be functional as unitive myth, but the law contained therein not necessarily “solidly defined.”40 Of further difficulty is that by the time of the emergence of sectarianism and the halachic literature that survives, in the case of many of these practices at least some broad consensus appears to have already been reached.41 There is a gap between text and practice that is bridged, but how this occurs is not clear. This makes conjectures about the origins of the halachic genre and the sectarian turn problematic – the “instrument for the unification of the people,”42 if legislative, would require some level of consensus regarding interpretation, but the lack of halachic literature prior to this may indicate a more naïve decree – a unitive ideal without a unitive interpretation, and thus with limited functionality, and sectarianism arising as a result of this lack of coherence. This implies any legislation may initially be at least functionally “iconic” in a way comparable to Collins description of Torah’s role in Ben Sira.43 Thus, rather than Colins’ textual “halachic turn” being a product of this, it may perhaps be a constituent feature of the propagation of the idea of obligation, and the process of instituting such an idea.44 The nature and mechanism of the dispersal of a unitive ideal of identity and practice appears to be part of a process of development, and necessarily more complex in its manifestation than decree followed by action. Perhaps the counter-promulgation of sectarian polemic is part of this complexity – rival conceptions of a nascent normativity manifesting a tension inherent within the development of said normativity.
However, conversely (and importantly), if promulgation of Torah begins here the result appears to be simultaneously widespread popular orthopraxy and limited sectarian fracturing which subsequently grows over time, and how precisely both features occur is unclear from the limited evidence for the early synagogue (the assumed mechanism for such), and limited textual evidence of the promulgation of halacha concurrent with or prior to the appearance of these practices in the archaeological record. Though this may weigh in favour of oral promulgation, which eventually formalizes, this is precisely the kind of feature that escapes the material record. Thus any answer, as Adler rightfully acknowledges, must move from the concrete into the speculative.
The characterization of Judaism here surprisingly cleaves relatively close to later rabbinic tradition by being predicated on an expository and expansive in its interpretation of the Pentateuchal law – it is in this sense already a Judaism that “Builds a fence around Torah” (m Avot 1:1). However the definition of this as “Judaism,”45 and implication that this is simply acceptance of Pentateuchal commandments could be read as the anachronistic projection of rabbinic norms onto the period that Adler elsewhere so scrupulously avoids.46 Conversely, it could also be read as the assertion of a cultural continuity through multiple moments of large-scale social transformation: the radical recalibration of content does not necessitate a discontinuity in social form. Though it may appear to be a simple difference in definition to posit this religious formation in contradistinction to the “non-Mosaic Judaism” and related phenomena described by Collins,47 there is also a risk that this isolates tendencies that would generally be considered part of Judaism, such as the Enochian literature, which by some opinions are anomian,48 and appear to be the origin of an aspect of Jewish practice extending well into the Medieval period.49 To be sure, this is an extremely powerful methodological framework for this kind of analysis, but will require some adjustment for subsequent explication of the data produced by said analysis, at least if we are looking toward a model that would account for the entire matrix of Jewish religion.50
Additionally, the relationship between the Torah and, variously, “ancestral law” or “tradition” requires consideration,51 as the way commandments are interpreted may be influenced by extra-biblical material, also reflected in the Rabbinic corpus.52 This further raises the question of how, or whether, to establish clear unidirectional “Pentateuchal origins” for various practices, as identified by Alder regarding circumcision, pork avoidance and aniconism.53 Though tracing precise mechanism for this may be impossible, the secondary effects of this deserve consideration. Charting the relationship between the growth of the Halachic tradition and comparing the textual and material records, and what shows up when and how, and what doesn’t, may help, along with potential demographic modelling involving literacy and modelling the propagation of ideas via a secondary oral culture, as that described by Baumgarten,54 who presents a social-scientific model worthy of re-assessment. My feeling is that these kinds of considerations, alongside the context-based social-scientific models often favoured in current Rabbinic scholarship would be a fruitful addition to what Adler presents as a corrective to a purely textual-literary focus that dominates much of Biblical studies. This may also bear fruit by indicating that the kinds of processes discussed at length by Boyarin in his account of the parallel developments of Rabbinic and Patristic Orthodoxy may have their roots significantly earlier than those he presents in the 2nd Century CE.55 In aid of this are recent studies such as Michael Wise’s analysis of literacy in Roman Judaea,56 of obvious significance in the contextualization of documentary evidence.
Thus, the elegance of the Hasmonean propagation hypothesis is complicated by the necessity of delineating the intersection between “Torah” or “Pentateuch” and interpretation of the relationship between the textual corpus and the both the associated practices and the social world it inhabits. Additional questions arise regarding how Judaeans understood these same relationships, and how that changed and developed, in tandem with the limited evidence that we have available. However the evidence presented can be reframed, as this is almost entirely auxiliary to the primary point: that evidence of most of the markers of what could be termed some kind of broad “normative practice of Judaism” can be found in the early Hasmonean period, but are absent before that point.57 This is an important corrective to many readings of the Second Temple Period as pre-normative and primarily characterized by disputation, as sectarian disagreement appears to emerge within the bounds of this broader normative framework.58 Thus Adler’s study is of enormous importance in documenting this cultural shift to Pentateuchal law and its emergence with a particular socio-cultural context. And in light of this study we, in addition to dating widespread Torah observance later than Ezra and Nehemiah, must also date the turn to an exegesis-focused religion with a scholarly apparatus within literate religious leadership earlier than the often appealed to but equally mythical “radical reinvention” of Judaism at Yavneh.
Bibliography
Adler, Yonatan. The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal. The Anchor Yale Reference Library. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2022.
Baden, Joel S. The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.
Baumgarten, A.I. The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation. Leiden: Brill, 1997.
Boyarin, Daniel. "Beyond Judaisms: Metatron and the Divine Polymorphy of Ancient Judaism." [In English]. Journal for the Study of Judaism 41, no. 3 (01 Jan. 2010 2010): 323-65. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1163/157006310X503612.
———. Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
Cohen, Shaye. From the Maccabees to the Mishnah. 3rd ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014.
Collins, John J. The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul. University of California Press, 2017.
Idel, Moshe. Kabbalah: New Perspectives. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
———. Messianic Mystics. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
Knohl, Israel. The Sanctuary of Silence : The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.
Sanders, E.P. "Common Judaism Explored." In Common Judaism : Explorations in Second-Temple Judaism, edited by Wayne O. McCready and Adele Reinhartz. Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press, 2008.
Sommer, Benjamin D. Revelation and Authority : Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition. The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015.
Staples, Jason A. The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism: A New Theory of People, Exile, and Israelite Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Tov, Emanuel. "The Socio-Religious Setting of the (Proto-)Masoretic Text." [In English]. Textus 27, no. 1 (28 Aug. 2018): 135-53. https://doi.org/10.1163/2589255X-02701009.
Wise, Michael Owen. Language and Literacy in Roman Judaea: A Study of the Bar Kokhba Documents. Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. Yale University Press, 2015.
With, one would assume, the “ortho-“ being relative. Yonatan Adler, The Origins of Judaism: An Archaeological-Historical Reappraisal, The Anchor Yale Reference Library, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2022), 7.
Ibid. 5, cf. individual and communal identity and self/other differentiation in Shaye Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, 3rd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2014) 12-14, 26-30; and use of the term in Josephus’s Antiquities 11.5.7 §175 cited in Ibid. 8. Cf. Jason A. Staples, The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism: A New Theory of People, Exile, and Israelite Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021) 11-20, presenting an interesting argument against translation of the Greek noun the term is drawn from as “Judaeans”. This is worthy of consideration, if not perhaps somewhat overdrawn.
Adler, Origins of Judaism 37, 48-9.
Ibid. 48.
Ibid. 55, 74-5, 77, 81 for purity; 87-9, 111-12 for images.
Ibid. 82-5.
Ibid. 110-12.
Ibid. 83, 261 n124.
Ibid. 89.
Ibid. 91, 111-2. One could add Hosea 3:4 depending on how one reads תרפים. Note also that this attests to the expansiveness of the complete ban – the biblical ban appears to be solely a ban on images created for the explicit purpose of worshiping them.
Ibid. 118-9.
Ibid. 116.
Ibid. 135-6.
Ibid. 144-5; 205-6.
Ibid. 167-9.
Ibid. 159-60; 163. Contra the “many scholars” cited here, it is entirely possible that this is an exegetical novelty of the author of Nehemiah. Just as this may seem an odd reading, the bundled lulav being waved is also not straightforwardly “rejoicing with” the four species. See Benjamin D. Sommer, Revelation and Authority : Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition, The Anchor Yale Bible reference library, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015), 167.
Adler, Origins of Judaism 59, 135-6, 206-8, 235. It is worth considering that these practices, which do not originate in the Hasmonean period, are also many of the most distinctive markers of Jewishness noted by non-Jewish contemporary sources. This may complicate matters somewhat. While these passages all assert no direct evidence for connection to Pentateuchal obligation the difficulty of either asserting or not asserting such a relationship will be ongoing, see below. The dependence of Halacha on the Pentateuch implies both a definite Pentateuch, and that the relationship between text and practice is unidirectional. Jubilees and the Temple scroll incorporating Halachic material into a Mosaic revelation may imply this relationship is not so simple, as do the hypothesised insertions of halachic glosses into the body of the Pentateuch itself, such as Ex 12:4-6 and 9-11. See Sommer, Revelation and Authority, 162-4. This process may extend significantly into the pre-exilic period, as per Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence : the Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995) 8-14, 111-124, 199-214; Sommer, Revelation and Authority, 65-71, 346-6n32. Cf. Joel S. Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012) 144-146 (on D) and 187-8 (on P). The question at hand is precisely the social construction of obligation, and what precisely what that obligation entails, in tandem with the textual corpus that is taken as representative of said obligation. My primary concern is how this asserts itself as a social phenomenon, and whether there is a simple unidirectional causal relationship behind this. This will be elaborated on in the essay that follows this review.
Adler, Origins of Judaism 170.
Ibid.
Ibid. 187-8.
Ibid. 171-5.
There is, however, the evidence from Migdal and Masada. While this is not conclusive, it is indeed indicative.
For a contemporary example of this one only needs to look as far as modern Chareidi yeshivot, commonly focusing primarily on the study of Talmud and other halachic compendia over bible.
Adler, Origins of Judaism 228-31.
The term is defined clearly in ibid. 7, however slippage starts in the Synagogue chapter: what “reading from the Torah” (180, 181, 187) means is not clear, if the Torah is the exegesis of the Pentateuch previous described as “a more dynamic explanation or learned address presented orally” (170, this itself already broader than the concept of obligation to the laws therein) this would not necessarily be read. This blurring grows stronger in the conclusion on 190 and into 195-7 – if it is “Torah” (“the entire system of law” derived from the Pentateuch, 7) that the Persians might have authorised (196), the narrative, non-legal content of the Pentateuch (197) is presumably excepted and thus would not be an issue. Given the definition previously supplied, “Mosaic Torah” as an easily extrapolated normative practice seems conceptually closer to תורה שבעל פה than תורה שבכתב, in that it is an interpretation (or the practice of interpretation in general).
Ibid. 190-7. Cf. Staples, Idea of Israel 4-6, esp. 4n9; 142-61; ccf. Cohen, Maccabees , 135-40
Adler, Origins of Judaism 194.
Ibid. 163. As per note 15 above, cf. Sommer, Revelation and Authority, 167.
Adler, Origins of Judaism 192-3 citing Nehemiah 9:13, emphasis Sommers, as per following citation.
Sommer, Revelation and Authority. 224-5. Note also that this largely ignores P’s lawgiving which is exclusively from within the Mishkan.
Adler, Origins of Judaism, 194.
This is drawn from Deut 7:3-4, an intensification of Ex 34:16, analogizing those married with the people groups of Deut, with the same justification as Lev 20:23, however compare the language used here (עם הארצות) and in Ez 6:21 (כל הנבדל מטמאת גוי-הארץ) with 2 Kings 17:32-3 (הגוים אשר-הגלו אתם משם) – there is an apparent causative relationship implied between exile/migration and the corruption of custom which is being counter-asserted. Compare Staples, Idea of Israel, 148-50. Further, the biblical narrative broadly considered is ambivalent on this issue given how many major figures have foreign wives, including Moses himself. This is all worth considering in relationship to the conflict between Neh 13:23-4 and Ruth 4:12-15, and the subsequent compromise and justification given in m. Yad. 4.4, which would retroactively apply to the period of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Adler appears to consider the previously identified expansive ban on images as straightforward as this, Adler, Origins of Judaism 197-8. However, given the evidence of longstanding pork avoidance, but not avoidance of non-kosher fish, this may require more investigation.
Compare the extensive figurative art in medieval illuminated Haggadot, Siddurim and Machzorim, items whose use is Rabbinically mandated.
Emanuel Tov, "The Socio-Religious Setting of the (Proto-)Masoretic Text," Textus 27, no. 1 (28 Aug. 2018), https://doi.org/10.1163/2589255X-02701009. 136-140.
There is a possible terminus ad quo that can be extrapolated from the Nachal Chever, Masada and Ein Gedi finds, but these post-date at least some Qumran material, in the latter case by a fairly significant margin. The major point here however is that, while we have what appears to be a relatively stable and widely used text, we also have evidence of alternative textual traditions, of which at least two survive beyond the 2nd Temple period, those being the LXX and the SP. One text-type becomes dominant at some point, but, much as we do not have a concrete date for the redaction of the Pentateuch itself, we do not know for sure when the Proto-MT stabilized, nor when it became the dominant textual tradition of the Pentateuch in Judaea, with this possibly being as late as the destruction of the temple. That the evidence for non-MT traditions that survives post-dates the Hasmonean rebellion is noteworthy, though simultaneously that this evidence reaches us via the material from a highly sectarian site also requires balancing. Accounts of this from Tov and other scholars vary widely, from the Proto-MT originating in a Hasmonean context to its dominance being a Rabbinic phenomenon caused by the recalibration of Judaism post-70, and I have not found an account I find fully convincing as of yet.
Throughout the Maccabean literature it appears there is a function of priests purifying places, but they are not described as purifying themselves.
Also worthy of note is the continuity between Hasmonean texts and Rabbinic literature, as per the previously identified Parallel between 2 Macc 8:21-23 and M. Sotah 8:1.
Adler, Origins of Judaism, 223-4, 228-31, 233-4.
Ibid. cf. Cohen, Maccabees 145 and the presence of harmonizing textual traditions mentioned above.
Conversely, as per above, nomian behaviour is modelled in various prior narratives, in addition to the cited texts, Ruth is clearly a Halachic text, as the climax of the story is the resolution of a legal issue, and Judith also observes kashrut, and purity regulation, though the latter is solely mentioned in relation to worship (presumably at the Temple). This evidences literary consideration of halachic obligation, but, as Adler rightly asserts, is not indicative of widespread popular practice. It does, however, represent an ideal that was considered worthy of propagation by the authors of the texts.
Adler, Origins of Judaism 231.
Cited in ibid. 215.
Ibid. 229-30.
Ibid. 4-5.
It is worth noting the tentative language in ibid. 228, compare with the more emphatic phrasing on 223 and 234-6.
John J. Collins, The Invention of Judaism: Torah and Jewish Identity from Deuteronomy to Paul (University of California Press, 2017), 62-96.
Asserted by ibid., 66-73.
See the description of the mystical ascent to the hekhalot as operating “alongside” (and thus nominally independently from) halacha in Moshe Idel, Messianic Mystics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 11; and as “anomian” in Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), xv. Idel notes the continuation of this tradition into the 13th Century via the Chasidei Ashkenaz; cf. m. Ḥag. 2.1, b Ḥag 14b etc. One can even see echoes of this in the Chasidic movement of the 18th Century, in the letter authored by the Baal Shem Tov and the stories told about Avraham Hamalach. Cf. 2 Cor 12:3-4, and the long and often heated debates about Paul’s relationship to Torah. Note that anomian is distinct from antinomian, allowing the cooccurrence of anomian and nomian practices – the point here is the emphasis of Judaism including content and practice that is not necessarily contained within or extrapolated from the matrix of halacha and the mitzvot.
As per Daniel Boyarin, "Beyond Judaisms: Metatron and the Divine Polymorphy of Ancient Judaism," Journal for the Study of Judaism 41, no. 3 (01 Jan. 2010 2010), https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1163/157006310X503612. passim. I am more sympathetic to this more bounded argument than some of the (overly) broad suggestions presented in Part 1 and 2 of Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
Though there has of course already been much – whether that will be fruitful or not is an open question. As per citation of Mark 7:1-5 in Adler, Origins of Judaism, 54 and the following discussion. The similar phrasing in Col. 2:8 may also be worthy of consideration in this context, alongside such in Josephus and מסרה and תורה שבעל פה, and the apparent motion from one to the other, in the rabbinic corpus.
This is not just תורה שבעל פה, this seems to be the justificatory apparatus for a series of revisions such as in Sifre Bamidbar 133:4, stating unequivocally that “Moses knew that daughters inherit,” overriding what is stated in the Pentateuch. This is a projection of norms onto the text (and Moses himself) rather than an extrapolation from the text. The Halachic Midrashim, Mishnah and Tosefta are full of other examples.
See n4 above.
A.I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 132-6.
Boyarin, Border Lines, 37-88.
Michael Owen Wise, Language and Literacy in Roman Judaea: A Study of the Bar Kokhba Documents, Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library, (Yale University Press, 2015), particularly the statistics extrapolated in the latter chapters.
This is related to E.P. Sanders’ concept of “common Judaism” however I lean toward the language of the “normative”. Contra both Sanders and Cohen, Maccabees , 133-5, definition of the practices or religion of Judaeans already presupposes a categorical judgement of the kind ostensibly avoided by eschewing this terminology – as does the very concept of “Judaism”. However, this is a paradigm of descriptive normativity, rather than prescriptive. This is necessary in order to be analytically useful and provides descriptive functionality. This is comparable to Adler’s analysis of behaviours in relation to Torah and/or the Pentateuch, which is a description of the acceptance of prescriptive norms rather than projection of them onto the past.
As per the previous note, to speak of sectarianism itself seems predicated on describing a diremption of positions from some previously established (if broad) status quo. See in particular the paradigm described by Baumgarten, Jewish Sects, 18-26. [Note that this offers a corrective to Boyarin’s emphasis on normative Judaism being constituted by Heresiology in the Rabbinic period]. More generally, the number of conference papers and colloquium contributions I have heard, particularly on New Testament material, that have presented as a commonplace the unqualified absence of a normative core of Jewish practice/custom/law in this period is far too expansive to list here, and, of course, there is the spectre of Jacob Neusner’s wholly independent “Judaisms” (see E.P. Sanders’ remarks in "Common Judaism Explored," in Common Judaism : explorations in Second-Temple Judaism, ed. Wayne O. McCready and Adele Reinhartz (Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press, 2008) 14-16). The “within Judaism” perspective is, I think, valuable, however diversity is always relative and manifests within an orienting context, and the necessity of categorical definition for analytical usefulness is complicated by what one could call “post-post-Holocaust Christian scholarship” often taking up “Jewishness” as an apologetic marker of authenticity, while also being conveniently impossible to define or bound, thus complicating the achievements of overcoming anti-Judaism in the Biblical and theological landscape. How does the ingroup-outgroup definition of the entirely anonymous Gospel of John fit here given many passages being indistinguishable from (other?) second century Adversus Ioudaios literature? Do recent readings of Paul, largely centred on Romans 11:26, account for the qualification in 9:6-7, Galatians 3:6-5:1, or 1 Thess 2:13-16?