The Rabbinic "Enumeration of Scriptural Examples": A Study of a Rabbinic Pattern of Discourse With Special Reference to Mekhilta D'R. Ishmael (Studia Post-Biblica,) 9004037446, 9789004037441

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STUDIA POST-BIBLICA VOLUMEN VICESIMUM SECUNDUM

STUDIA POST-BIBLICA INSTITUTA A P. A. H. DE BOER

ADIUVANTIBUS

T. JANSMA

ET

J. SMIT SIBINGA

ED ID IT

J. C. H. LEBRAM VOLUMEN VICESIMUM SECUNDUM

LEIDEN

E.

J.

BRILL 1973

THE RABBINIC "ENUMERATION OF SCRIPTURAL EXAMPLES" A STUDY OF A RABBINIC PATTERN OF DISCOURSE WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO MEKHILTA D'R. ISHMAEL BY

WAYNE SIBLEY TOWNER

LEIDEN

E.

J. BRILL 1973

ISBN 90 04 03744 6 Copyright 1973 by E.

J. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands

All rights ,reserved. No Part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche or any other means without written permission from the publisher PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

CONTENTS PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

IX

ABBREVIATIONS AND TRANSLITERATION.

XI

l. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND.

1

II. How TO STUDY THE NuMERICAL TRADITIONS IN T ANNAITIC LITERATURE. . . . . . .

14

Excursus on Method A. Assumptions Regarding the Nature of the Literature B. Is the Method of Form-criticism apptopriately applied to Rabbinic Literature? C. The Source of Examples for This Study D. Method III. FROM OBSERVATION TO EXEGESIS. i. "Proverbial" or Non-exegetical Enumerations . Nez. xiii: 50-94 Seven Kinds of Thieves . Vay. vi: 53-60 Ten Things Created on the Eve of Sabbath. Vay. vi: 81-85 Three Things Which Elijah Will Restore ii. Enumeration Passages Which Appear Both in Nonexegetical and Exegetical Forms Vay. vi: 60-64 Seven Things Hidden from Men. Bah. v: 98-101 Three Things to Which the Torah is Likened Nez. xiii: 59-61 Three Thefts of Absalom (=Shir. vi: 135-138). iii. The "Regularization" of the Enumeration Pattern. A. Assumptions and Hypotheses. B. Possible Sources for the Exegetical Enumeration Pattern of the Rabbis IV. THE "ENUMERATION OF SCRIPTURAL EXAMPLES" IN TANNAITIC LITERATURE i. Commonsense Analysis of an Individual Text Besh. iii: 128-136Four Groups oflsraelites at the Red Sea

23 27 48 53 59 59 60 66 71 76 77 80 82 86 86 95 118 118 119

VI

v.

CONTENTS

ii. Hermeneutical Analogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Besh. iii: 118-128 Three Told Not to Return to Egypt Vay. vii: 39-55 Three Things About Which Israel Used to Complain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amal. i: 62-67 Three Things That Returned to Their Original Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amal. ii: 16-137 Four to Whom Hints Were Given . . Bah. vii: 17-27 R. Ishmael's Four Distinctions in Atonement . . . . . . . . . . . . Besh. v: 1-14 Ten Miracles at the Sea . iii. Lexical Analogy . . . . . . . . . . Besh. i: 178-187 Seven Clouds . . . . Bah. x: 41-52 Three Good Things Given to Israel at the Price of Chastisements . . . . . . . Shir. i: 15-81 Ten Songs. . . . . . . . Shir. ix: 118-126 Four Called Possessions Shir. vii: 70-78 Four Called Mighty. . . 1v. Syntactical Analogy. . . . . . . . . . Shir. i: 34-63 Three Things to Which Moses Devoted His Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amal. iv: 132-147 Three Things Given Conditionally v. Legal Analogy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bah. xi: 53-65 Three Unconditional "Ifs" in the Torah ( = Kaspa 1 : 1-10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nez. vi: 37-46 Three Expressions in the Torah Which R. Ishmael Used to Interpret as Being Figurative (=Nez. xiii: 13-19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi. Technical Exegetical Analogy . . . . . . . . . . . Amal. i: 104-113 Five Uncertain Constructions in the Torah. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pis. xiv: 64-77 (Thirteen) Passages Which They Changed When Writing the Torah for King Ptolemy . . . . .

120 121

NON-RABBINIC "ENUMERATIONS OF SCRIPTURAL EXAMPLES"

214

A. Jewish and Samaritan Writings . 1. Pseudo-Philo. . . . . . . . 2. The Samaritan Memar Marqah

126 131 135 140 145 154 155 161 164 168 175 180 181 184 188 188 194 198 199 206 217 217

221

CONTENTS

B. Early Christian Writings. 1. New Testament . 2. Apostolic Fathers. 3. Origen . . 4. Aphraates. . . . VI.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS •

APPENDIX

VII

229 229

231 234 237 244

Examples of Stereotyped Patterns of Discourse in Mekhilta d'R. Ishmael 251 .

256

REFERENCE INDEX.

263

INDEX OF AUTHORS

274

BIBLIOGRAPHY

.

PREFACE This study intends to do three things. First, it carries into midrash and talmud scholarly research on numerical sayings in Hebrew literature, most of which has hitherto concerned itself only with the Old Testament. Second, it develops and applies a type of formcritical method which is both appropriate to the special features of rabbinic literature and capable of achieving some of the goals reached by the method in the study of the Old and New Testaments. Third, it provides short commentaries on the form and content of some thirty-five pericopes of Mekhilta d' R. Ishmael. If, as the result of the three-sided effort of this essay, I can make small contributions to three scholarly endeavors-the study ofnumerical sayings, of the form-critical method as such, and of Mekhilta-, I shall count myself trebly fortunate. I wish to thank Prof. Judah Goldin of Yale University, who contributed both to my knowledge and to my spirits when this book was yet only an incipient dissertation, and Prof. Nils A. Dahl, also of Yale, whose serious reading of the manuscript and ensuing suggestions were both timely and invaluable. In these latter days, I have greatly benefited from the encouragement of Prof. Jacob Neusner of Brown University. Readers of this volume will discover that I am greatly indebted to his work as well. To my wife, Jane, and daughters Ann and Hope I dedicate this work. For them as much as for me it is a piece of the past and a share in the future. Oxford, Pentecost, 1971

w.

SIBLEY TOWNER

ABBREVIATIONS AND TRANSLITERATION Mekhilta tractate -kh 0

D

-f

~

-?

p -- ~

-s

w- s

l7

e -p l'l,

ID -sh n -t

No attempt has been made to indicate vowel-quality. The transliterated article ha- is set off with a hyphen. In the cases of a few commonly transliterated proper names (e.g., R. Akiba), I have used the conventional spelling.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Students of the Old Testament have long been aware of the presence within it of many kinds of lists. The very first thirty-four verses of the Torah are essentially a list of the activities of God on the seven days of creation. Genealogical lists are a hallmark of the priestly framework of Genesis through Numbers. Lists of towns and of tribes are an important part of the historical narrative in Joshua. Pentateuchal lists can be as highly expanded as the narrative of the ten plagues of Egypt, and as terse and stereotyped as the recurring lists of the three patriarchs and the twelve sons of Jacob. In legal materials one finds lists functioning as epitomes of the codes themselves; these include the Ten Commandments and the lists of curses and blessings in Dt. 27. The prophets employ lists to their own ends, particularly in the oracles against the nations. There are lists of chronological periods involving numerical elements in the apocalyptic materials. 1 Finally, lists are an essential part of the literary style of the wisdom writings in the Old Testament. The only kind of list which one does not find in the Old Testament itself is the very one which is the subject of this essay, the "enumeration of scriptural examples". The Old Testament is simply not engaged in commenting upon itself in the way in which a literature does when it looks back upon sacred and canonical writings of the past. 2 In spite of the prominence of list-patterns in the Old Testament, scholars paid little attention to their origins, forms, or functions until fairly recently. As was the case with so many other literary forms, it was the recognition of similar patterns in other literatures which finally aroused interest. One of the first scholars to discuss the stereotyped form and intercultural affinities of at least one kind of Hebrew 1 Cf. Dan. 7: 3ff., 11: 2ff. The number in these apocalyptic lists is itself significant in an esoteric sense. The lists themselves are not so much devices for systematizing data by the use of analogy, but units to be taken as coherent wholes by means of which all of history can be allegorically understood. 2 Each succeeding stratum of Old Testament tradition is, of course, aware of the preceding accumulation of material and gives evidence of this~even to the point of paraphrasing earlier tradition (e.g., the books of Chronicles). Occasionally one even finds what appear to be quotations of one Old Testament book in another (Jer. 31 :29; cf. Ez. 18:3, Is. 2:4; Micah 4:3). But never is earlier scripture systematized by means of a list of texts.

Studia Post-Biblica, XXII

2

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

list was the multicompetent Religionsgeschichtler and philologian, Franz Dornseiff. 1 In a 1935 article, he argued that the "priamel" 2 form was the basic structure of such passages as Am. 3: 2 ff., Job 8: 11 ff., and Job 28. He could account for the similarities in the use of this pattern in Job on the one hand with that of such Greek writers as Tyrtaeus and Xenophon on the other, only in terms of intercultural borrowing. Nor was it a case of Greek literature influencing Hebrew, but quite the contrary: "For the history of the form the lines clearly go back from the Greek into the ancient Orient, to whose para!le!ismus membrorum the juxtaposition of parallel examples in the priamel is so excellently comparable". 3 Scholarly generations after Dornseiff have grown more cautious in drawing hard and fast conclusions about intercultural exchange of literary forms; however, we have benefited from his effort to set one kind of list-pattern in Hebrew in the context of similar patterns in the literatures of the surrounding peoples. Work even more important for understanding the extra-biblical sources of Hebrew "list-science" was done in the first third of this century with the other literatures of the ancient Near East. Studies by H. Zimmern, 4 L. Matous, 5 and W. von Soden6 demonstrated the importance in ancient Mesopotamia of lists ranging from mere series of words to encyclopedic analyses of knowledge. The publication of Ancient Egyptian Onomastica by Alan H. Gardiner 7 made graphic the importance of "list-science" among scribes and wisdom circles in that ancient culture. Concerning the Onomasticon of Amenope (a 20th Dynasty text, probably not earlier than Ramses III, i.e. after 1198 B.C.), Gardiner wrote, " ... Amenope had in mind a 1 "Das altorientalische Priamel", in Greifswalder Beitriige 10, 1935. Reprinted in his Kleine Schriften I: Antike und alter Orient Interpretationen, Leipzig, 1956, pp. 379-393. 2 This is one of those German terms which scholars occasionally use in English without italics, but which has yet to be entered in any standard English dictionary. Grimm defines it as "a short, popular, 'epigram' (Spruchgedicht) in which several similar or contrasting clauses build up to the specific point of an idea, [providing] both the basis for it and a prelude to it." 3 Ibid., p. 381. 4 F. D. H. Zimmem, Zur Herstellung der grossen babylonischen Gotter/isle An = (ilu)Anum, Leipzig, 1911. 5 L. Matous and W. von Soden, eds. Die lexikalischen Tafelserien der Babylonier und As.ryrer in den Berliner Museen, 2 vol., Berlin, 1933. 6 W. von Soden, "Leistung und Grenze sumerischer und babylonischer Wissenschaft", Die Welt als Geschichte 2, 1936, pp. 411-467, 509-557. 7 2 vol. and plates, Oxford, 1947.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

3

sort of catalogue of the universe, professing to enumerate the most important things in heaven, on earth and in the waters ... [Here] we have ... three lists of entities, very crude attempts to cope with the endless variety of the world, but nonetheless first steps in the direction of an encyclopaedia." 1 In all, Gardiner counted some 610 entities enumerated in the text and categorized under such headings as sky, water, earth, persons, court, offices, occupations, classes, trjbes, towns of Egypt, buildings, agricultural land, cereals, beverages, and parts of an ox. 2 A scholar who pulled together the newly discovered evidencefor the existence of a "list-science" in the ancient Near East, and suggested an application of this evidence to certain Old Testament texts, was Albrecht Alt. 3 Alt defended the proposition that the origin in Israel of the type of nature wisdo111 for which Solomon was famed (I Ki. 5: 9-14, Heb.) lies in the encyclopedic list-tradition of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Whether Solomon actually uttered any of the nature-wisdom traditions preserved in the Old Testament is not the issue; the problem is to discover the background of such passages as Ju. 9:8-15, Job 38-41, Prov. 30:15-31. Alt believed that the most important single parallel to this literature is precisely the Onomasticon of Amenope. The influence of such stereotyped and ubiquitous Egyptian list-literature would have been greatest in Israel precisely at the end of the second millennium B.C. and in the beginning of the first-i.e., before and during Solomon's time. The Egyptians somewhat earlier would have learned this list science from Babylon, probably in the mid-secondmillenniumB.C. atwhichtimetheBabylonian nature wisdom lists had already achieved canonical form. 4 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 1. The works mentioned above by no means deal with all the evidence which bears on the "science" of list-making in the ancient Near East. A survey of the contents of ]. B. Pritchard, ed. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament 3 , Princeton, 1969, reveals lists of all forms and functions: Asiatic countries under Egyptian rule, Sumerian, Assyrian, and Seleucid King-lists, an annotated list of non-scribal trades from Egypt, etc. Actually, list-making as a kind of primitive scientific activity is not so much a function of antiquity as of a stage of cultural development. This means that it is quite possible to discover analogies to the Egyptian and Mesopotamian lists even today among peoples whose tradition is essentially oral. Cf. C. Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind, London, 1966, pp. 1-33. 3 "Die Weisheit Salomos", TL 76, 1951, pp. 139-144. Reprinted in his Kleine Schrijten, Vol. II, Munich, 1953, pp. 90-99. 4 Ibid., p. 95. The Babylonians may, in tum, have learned the traditions of nature-wisdom "list-science" from the Sumerians, who had engaged in it from the early third millenium B.C. 1

2

4

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Alt did not propose a close link of specific Old Testament wisdom forms with these extrabiblical list-patterns; instead, he saw the latter simply as the vehicles through which conventional knowledge about the world was conveyed to Israel. I believe he did well to exercise such caution, for even though it is true that in (list) form and (nature-wisdom) content the literatures in question show affinities with one another, any attempt to propose a generic link would face difficulties. If one looks closely at any of the onomastica, for example, one finds there nothing more than an extremely basic notation of various entities in nature with occasional minimal categorizing rubrics. Such lists are far removed from the expanded, poeticallystructured, and theologically motivated nature-wisdom of Job 38-41. Even the organic link alleged to exist between the Egyptian onomastica and the older Mesopotamia JjAR-ra = l].ubbullu series of encyclopedic lists is tenuous. It is more correct, I believe, to draw no conclusions regarding the literal ancestory of one list-science tradition to another, but merely to set the texts alongside each other in order to underscore the minimal similarities in form and content which do in fact exist. However, one type of rather close comparison between these two literatures is warranted. Functional comparisons can be made, down lines such as those discussed in the preface to this work. This is possible because of the intrinsic logic and extrinsic serviceability which "lists" inevitably exhibit. Both in Egypt and in Israel, lists were used as devices for systematizing observations about nature, geography, and man, and as pedagogical and mnemonic tools for conveying this information to students and posterity. One can assert such a functional comparability without being able to prove any historical or organic continuity between the two bodies of literature whatever, and without glossing over the very wide formal discrepancy which exists between, for example, a primitive onomasticon and a piece as highly literary and sophisticated as Job 38-41. I stress this point here because the same situation-no hard evidence of generic relationship and definite functional comparability-exists between the rabbinic "enumeration of scriptural examples" (the major subject of this essay) and the numerical lists of the Old Testament (to which I now turn). The problem of the origin, form, and function of lists in the Old Testament has been given its fullest treatment to date in the book by W. M. W. Roth, Numerical Sqyings in the Old Testament: A Form-

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

5

Critical Stutfy. 1 As his title indicates, Roth limits his study to those lists which specify an exact number for the entities to be described by the interpretive remark; the book examines all such sayings in the Old Testament (and, as it proves, many extra-biblical sayings as well). As far as I am concerned, Roth's very complete assemblage of data pertaining to the use of numerical lists in the Old Testament nearly suffices as background material for the study of the rabbinic enumeration pattern. Old Testament numerical devices are relevant to midrashic list-patterns, but mostly as functional and (to a smaller degree) formal analogues. As stated above, they cannot be presented simply as the direct literary forbears of the rabbinic device; therefore, a study such as this need not exhaust itself in antecedents. With this clarification of my own presuppositions on the matter, I turn to a somewhat detailed review of Roth's work-a review intended not only to survey the Old Testament data as he presents them but to explore certain methodological problems and pitfalls which confront us both. Taken as a whole, Old Testament numerical lists constitute, according to Roth, a distinctive and separable literary pattern. " ... It is ... evident that the numerical saying is not merely a figure of speech but represents an oral and literary 'Gattung'. Hence this genre merits a form-critical study." 2 A brief review of the type of study Supplement to Vetus Testamentum 13, Leiden, 1965. Ibid., p. 1. The conviction that the numerical sayings of the Old Testament and post-biblical Jewish literature constitute a "Gattung" or ,,genre" leads Roth into three difficulties fundamental to his entire work. (1) By sweeping all the numerical lists in this literature together Roth creates a category so multiplex in origin (cf. infra, p. 10, note 1), and so radically diverse in function (cf. infra, p. 11ff.) that it ceases being identifiable as a single literary form. Only on grounds of the general formal and logical features intrinsic to lists as such can Roth declare such a wide selection of lists to be a single "genre", and even then the relationship of one pericope to another proves to be too loose and too purely formal to warrant any conclusions about the intention or setting of their respective authors. (2) At the same time, Roth can be challenged for excluding from his "Gattung" lists and enumerations which are similar in form and function but which for one reason or another happen not to include a numerical element in their interpretive remarks. Why is the absence of the number in some texts not merely a formal variation, or a textual error? Cf. infra, p. 10, note 3. (3) According to the usual canons of form-criticism, the identification of a genuine "Gattung" or "genre" of literature enables-no, requires-one to demonstrate particular historical or institutional settings (Sitze im Leben) in which the pattern originated and was preserved. It is doubtful that Roth has been able to establish such a setting for the whole corpus of numerical sayings in the Old Testament and post-biblical Jewish literature. The final sentence of the book will hardly do: "The reflective numerical saying was more at home with the wise, the hortatory use of the genre 1

2

6

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

which the Old Testament numerical sayings have in fact received shows that scholars have been concerned primarily with the question of extra-Israelite "origins".1 This concentration on origins is made even more one-sided by a further stress on the history of one particular type of list, the so-called "graded numerical dictum". Found only in poetry, this type features a distichal interpretive rubric (Roth: "title-line") in which the numerical element always takes the pattern X/X+ 1. "There are six things which the Lord hates, seven which are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and a man who sows discord among brothers". 2 is found both with the wise and the priests" (ibid., p. 100). Without a setting-inlife in which a pattern begins and which accounts for its maintenance as a successful vehicle for the communication of tradition, one probably has not got a single and unified "Gattung"-nor is one really doing "form-criticism". I raise these essentially methodological points against Roth only because the same issues prove to be important in my own study of the rabbinic enumeration patterns. 1 Among the six theories regarding the origin of numerical sayings which he canvasses, Roth favors the already-mentioned position of A. Alt, though he reveals some ambivalence about it. On pp. 2-3, Roth merely summarizes Alt's position and notes that such scholars as Weiser and von Rad accept it. Later on, he agrees with von Rad that behind the present structure of Job 28 must lie some kind of onomasticon similar to that of Amenope, but qualifies his assent with the remark that," ... it is not possible to show direct connection (italics mine) between them [the numerical sayings of Prov. 30: 15-31] and any onomasticon-like 'Vorlage"' (p. 25). This suggests that Roth would loosen the relationship alleged by Alt to exist between the Hebrew numerical saying and the Egyptian background. However, in his conclusion Roth once again endorses Alt's position. "The suggestion which was first made by Alt, and later adopted by other scholars, to the effect that the numerical sayings of the collection Prov. 30: 15-31 are formulations of early Hebrew nature wisdom of encyclopedic character, proves to be acceptable in the light of the study presented above ... Alt has ... opened the way for the appreciation of the genre of the numerical saying as a whole" (p. 99). In my view, Roth would have done better to have put the Egyptian list-science forward merely as an interesting analogue to, but not the ancestor of, the "genre" of Hebrew numerical sayings. A position similar to this is takenby J.-P. Audet in a review of Roth's book, RB 73, 1966, pp. 454-456. Audet argues that the biblical numerical sayings, even those in Prov. 30, can hardly be called ,,encyclopedic" in the sense applicable to the Egyptian onomastica and their parallels. Unlike the latter, the biblical sayings are not early representatives of a "science of the concrete'', but merely another type of proverb, cleverly expressed, ad hoc and systematic within a very narrow framework only. 2 Prov. 6: 16-19, R.S. V. The Old Testament contains at least 43 different

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

7

This "graded numerical dictum" has attracted special attention from scholars not only because of its striking and remarkably fixed form, but also because an exact formal parallel to it is available outside Hebrew literature, namely, in Ugaritic. 1 From the numerous scholarly studies of this relationship, Roth singles out for discussion the monograph by G. Sauer on Prov. 30. 2 In his view, the fault with Sauer's work is not that he argues for the extra-Israelite background of the "graded numerical dictum", but that he wishes to treat that pattern without regard to the larger genre of which it is a part. "[Sauer] ... argues that the pattern of the graded numerical saying belongs to the North-Canaanite literature. This may readily be granted as far as the graded numerical saying is concerned; the problem is only whether the graded numerical saying can thus be isolated from the general pattern of the numerical saying. Sauer argues that the graded numerical saying developed out of numerical sequences; he does not consider the pattern as an oral and literary genre comprehensively and in its own right." a examples of the pattern, including the small collections of five pericopes in Prov. 30:15ff, and nine in the "oracles against the nations", Am. 1-2, 4:8. (Although the latter are all introduced by the standard formula of the graded numerical dictum, they are defective as lists because the appropriate number of examples is never appended. Cf. Roth, op. cit., p. 63, note 3.) The pattern is also employed seven times in Sirach. Cf. the complete list of examples in Roth's earlier article, "The Numerical Sequence X/X + 1 in the Old Testament'', VT 12, 1962, p. 301. 1 M. Pope puts the relationship concisely in his article, "Number, Numbering, Numbers", Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. III, p. 564: "The collocation of a numeral with its sequel within the same clause, either syndetically or asyndetically, is related to a similar rhetorical device in north-west Semitic poetry in which the consecutive numbers stand in synonymous parallelism. This usage is common in Ugaritic and Old Testament poetry and appears to be relatively rare elsewhere." 2 G. Sauer, Die Spriiche Augurs. Untersuchungen zur Herkunft, Verbreitung und Bedeutung einer biblischen Stilform unter besonderer Beriicksichtigung von Proverbia c. 30 (Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament V, 4), Stuttgart, 1963. The considerable extent of the literature on the "graded numerical dictum" ( = his "Zahlenspruch") is indicated in Sauer's very full bibliography. Apart from Roth's book, which appeared after Sauer's, I would add only the discussion of the Ugaritic examples by E. Vogt in Verbum Domini 17, 1937, pp. 153-160, and H. L. Ginsberg's, "The History of the 'Graded Numerical Dictum' " [in Hebrew], in S. Assaf, et al, Minf;ah le David: Essays in Honor of D. Yellin, Jerusalem, 1935, pp. 78-82. In this article, Ginsberg gave strong support to an earlier suggestion by M. H. Segal [in "On the Poetic Form of the Literature of the Proverbs" [in Hebrew], Tarbi~ 1/4, 1929/30, pp. 1-19] that the number in the second hemistich of the interpretive rubric of these dicta should be the ordinal. Cf. Sirach 50: 25-26, Heb. text. 3 Roth, Numerical Sayings, p. 4.

8

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Roth carefully avoids this error in his own study. Except in the discussion of form itself, he never treats the graded numerical dictum as a separate category, but always as merely a poetic variation of the larger "genre" of numerical sayings. His methodological principle is clear: because the pattern functions in ways comparable to other numerical lists, it should be treated under the same functional categories as they are. The formal peculiarity of the "collocation of numerals" in the interpretive remark (a sequence which Roth wishes to attribute to the mere necessities of poetic parallelism) is finally not of major significance to the study of numerical sayings in the Old Testament. 1 Following his discussion of the scholarly literature on Old Testament numerical sayings, Roth devotes a chapter to establishing the normal form of these lists and listing its principal variations. Form, however, must defer to function as the basis for categorizing and analyzing the whole corpus of these numerical sayings. The rest of the book proceeds on this principle; the three large categories and numerous sub-categories into which he sorts the lists are all functional groupings. The three large categories are narrative sayings, reflective sayings, and hortative sayings. With the former, the function in view is what I have earlier called the extrinsic one, i e. the role played by a pericope in its narrative or dialectical context; the latter two categories seem on the whole to refer to the intrinsic work of a list apart from any context. (Roth does not draw this distinction himself in any sharp sense.) Narrative numerical scryings may contain genealogical materials (e.g., I Sam. 1 :3, the two sons of Eli; Gen. 35:22b-26a, the twelve sons of Jacob). 2 They may make social groupings (e.g., Job 2:11a, Job's 1 It should be noted here that Roth's insistence on viewing the "graded numerical dictum" only within the larger field of what he calls "the genre of the numerical saying" (ibid., p. 19, italics mine), coupled with his admission of the likelihood of a special North-Canaanite background for it alone among the Hebrew list-patterns, involves him in a logical difficulty. Can a single "genre" of literature have originated in a variety of cultural contexts? Can numerical sequences, some of which may reflect Egyptian models, and some North-Canaanite, finally coalesce into a single Hebrew literary genre? Roth seems to doubt this possibility himself, and, in his concluding pages, hedges on his earlier admission of Sauer's claim that U garit is the point of origin of the graded numerical dictum. He writes (p. 96), "There can be no doubt that the headline of the graded numerical saying has stylistic affinities to the [Ugaritic] numerical sequence, even though the present writer prefers not to speak of 'development'. Stylistic figures of speech can be used in different settings without being necessarily dependent upon each other!" 2 The examples cited here and following are only illustrative of Roth's much fuller lists.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

9

three friends; Mk 3: 14-19, the twelve disciples of Jesus; A bot 2: 8, the five disciples of Yol).anan b. Zakkai). 1 They may even offer geographical groupings (e.g., Josh. 15:61£., the six cities in the wilderness which belonged to the tribe of Judah). Regardless of the content of numerical sayings of this type, however, their function will be to assist a larger narrative by systematizing and clarifying elements of a story. In Roth's summary characterization of them, narrative numerical sayings form "an integral part of the context", exhibit "effortless formulation", list "concrete items, self-evident", using a "number given in history or nature". They employ "past verb forms", and are "informative". 2 Reflective numerical scryings deal with all aspects of human experience. If experience of the natural world is at issue, they may take up matters of zoology (e.g., Prov. 30:29-31, the proud bearing of four kinds of animals); or general science (e.g., Prov. 30:18-19, four natural things which are too wonderful to understand); or geography (e.g., Gen. 2: 10-14, the four rivers which flowed from the Garden of Eden); or meteorology (e.g. Enoch 76:1-14, the twelve winds which blow from the twelve corners of the earth). If experience with the social and intellectual worlds is the subject of the reflection, these numerical sayings may take up society as such (e.g., Prov. 30: 1 This series-Job, Mark, Abot-is Roth's own. It obliges me to raise one of the strongest objections I have to his procedure. In theory, and very correctly, he avoids postulating any generic or otherwise unqualified relationship between biblical and extra-biblical numerical sayings, or any developmental sequence of form between the former and the latter. In theory, parallel examples are set down simply as illustrations of the functionally equivalent ways in which numerical sayings are employed in different cultures and eras. This limited claim Roth makes clear in an occasional methodological statement such as, "The parallels from other cultures show that similar observations led to similar formulations elsewhere" (p. 30). In fact, however, intertestamental, New Testament, and rabbinic parallels often are brought directly into the discussion of one or another category of Old Testament numerical sayings and are treated without further qualification as further examples of the category. Cf. my discussion of his category "Reflections on Canonical Scripture", infra, p. 11f. 2 Ibid., p. 98. The term "effortless formulation" confirms one's suspicions that there is less to a number of the narrative numerical sayings than meets the eye. When examined in their respective contexts, such passages as I Sam. 1: 13 and Gen. 10:25 do indeed appear to be "effortless formations'', necessitated merely by the facts of the story and in no way shaped by a literary genre of numerical sayings. Roth practically admits this in his concluding remarks about the narrative numerical sayings when he says, " ... the numerical sayings employed in this manner are means to an end and not an end in themselves. If they were the only examples of the pattern of the numerical sayings found in the Old Testament, they could not even be designated a literary pattern but would have to be considered simply a convenient figure of speech" (p. 94).

10

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

21-23, four unbearable types of people); or man (e.g., Prov. 20: 12, the two organs of human perception); or the attributes of God (e.g., Ps. 62: 12-13 [Heb.], God's two qualities of power and "loving kindness" 1); or history (e.g., Jer. 2:4-13, an oracle which concludes a review of Israel's perfidy in history with the charge "my people have committed two evils ... "). Regardless of the content of numerical sayings of this type, however, their function is always the same. By reflection on experience, they define the orders which exist in the physical or spiritual worlds, and "fix the results" (p. 19) of this reflection for the benefit of future generations. In Roth's summary characterization of them, reflective numerical sayings are "separable from the context" in which they appear, have a "formulation ... achieved by philosophical reflection", list "abstract items, not selfevident" in a number "gained in reflection". They employ "present verb forms", and at the root are "philosophical" in impulse. 2 Finally, hortative numerical sayings deal in what Roth variously calls "didactic", "normative", or "legal" materials. The content of lists functioning in this way may be case law (e.g., Ex 21: 7-11, three obligations of a master to his slave-girl); or ritual requirements (e.g., Ex 23: 14-16, the three annual pilgrimage feasts); or covenant stipulations (e.g., various decalogues 3 and dodecalogues); or simply counsels of wisdom (e.g., Prov 22:20-24:22, a lengthy list of thirty precepts introduced by the obscure Hebrew word shilshom or shiilishtm [22:20], which most scholars take to be she/oshim, "thirty"). 4 Regard1 Roth's claim (ibid., p. 56) that in this text, " ... the genre of the numerical saying ... became the vessel for ... dogmatics in a nutshell", may seem a bit excessive. Nonetheless, it is striking how often numerical lists are used to sum up key doctrinal texts. Such epitomes can certainly have powerful importance, for they are simple and memorable formulations which not only pull together the essence of a long train of religious thought, but exercise important influence in the shaping of the thought of subsequent generations. In a modest way, Psalm 62:12£. does for God's "power" and "hesed" what 1 QS 3:17-19 does for the two spirits of truth and falsehood, and what I Cor .13: 13 does for "faith, hope and charity". 2 Ibid., p. 98. 3 The difficulty mentioned supra, p. 5, note 2, confronts Roth in his treatment of Ex. 20: 1-17 (Dt. 5: 6-21). The Decalogue is the prime example of a summary of covenant law in list form; however, though the pericope comes to be known as the "Ten Words" or "Ten Commandments", it contains no numerical element in its "title-line". Roth is forced to admit (ibid., p. 82), "The (do-)decalogues are not numerical sayings as far as their outward form is conceived ... " Yet, he includes them in his treatment in spite of the fact that the numerical element is the most important specific formal element to characterize his "genre" of numerical sayings as a whole. 4 Ibid., p. 88.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

11

less of their exact content, however, all lists of this type exhort their reader or hearer to moral behavior and obedience even to the point of giving a numerical element to designate the "frequency or extent of such actions". 1 In Roth's summary characterization of them, hortative numerical sayings are "usually [formally] independent of the context", have a "formulation ... achieved by ethical reflection", list "desirable actions, not self-evident" in a number "gained in reflection, mnemotechnical". They employ "future verb forms . ", and are "ethical" in impulse. 2 In my summary of the three functional categories into which Roth divides all the numerical sayings of the Old Testament, I have deliberately omitted one subgroup. This is the category of "reflection on canonical literature" which Roth includes under the functional heading of reflective numerical sayings. 3 As I observed at the very outset, the systematization of canonical literature by means of lists is an activity which must necessarily lie almost entirely outside the chronological period and literary framework of the canon itself. And so it has to be for Roth. None of the materials which he includes in this category are biblical; in fact, nearly all are Tannaitic "enumerations of scriptural examples" 4 , together with some materials found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now it is certainly possible to draw at least one very broad functional comparison between rabbinic "reflections on canonical scriptures" and the whole corpus of numerical lists in the Old Testament: like all lists everywhere both groups function to reduce to manageable order a welter of data. 5 But we are surely not entitled, on grounds of this functional comparability alone, to lump the rabbinic enumeration pericopes into a single, unified "genre of [Old Testament] numerical sayings". Rabbinic numerical sayings do not belong there. They neither emanated from the same institutional circles as did the Old Testament materials, nor did they grow out of those older materials in any organic and necessary sense; furthermore, the data which they organize are mostly very different Ibid., p. 77. Ibid., p. 98. 3 Ibid., pp. 70-76. 4 As his source for these references Roth acknowledges the catalogue of rabbinic numerical sayings by A. Wunsche, "Die Zahlenspruche in Talmud und Midrasch", ZDMG 65, 1911, pp. 57-100, 395-421; 66, 1912, pp. 414-459. 5 However, the high frequency of numerical sayings in rabbinic literature is surely not to be accounted for simply by means of the axiom, "the greater the mass of phenomena to be ordered and mastered, the more numerical sayings appear" (ibid., p. 95). 1

2

12

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

in character. At best there is some formal resemblance and some (but only some) functional overlap between the various types of numerical sayings in the Old Testament and the various types of rabbinic numerical dicta. Roth's category of "reflection on canonical literature" does the disservice of implying a genuine continuity between these materials when in fact there is only this minimal functional overlap. It is not even correct to speak of rabbinic numerical sayings as constituting a "genre" in themselves, let alone carrying on an Old Testament one. A sharp distinction needs to be made between those numerical sayings in the rabbinic corpus (non-exegetical or "proverbial" enumerations) which undertake to order experience with nature or man or God (and which therefore more closely resemble Old Testament numerical lists), and exegetical numerical sayings. Except for their formal resemblance to the former, the latter have the marks of a different "genre" (if indeed they constitute a genre at all, and not merely a rhetorical and logical device commonly employed within the framework of the greater genre, midrash haggadah). These criticisms notwithstanding, my work is indebted to Roth's, partly because of the thoroughness with which he assembles all the materials relevant to a discussion of numerical sayings in the Old Testament and apocryphal Jewish literature. This provides us with a full picture of the numerical lists which would have been known to and highly regarded by the rabbis of the first centuries of the common era. Furthermore, Roth's functional categories prove to be an effective means of organizing the large body of material in such a way as to demonstrate the variety of ways in which a particular rhetorical pattern can be made to serve. Following his lead, I have employed functional categories in the study of rabbinic enumerations which follows, in preference to the formal analysis which earlier I had used. 1 (Of course, the particular functional categories which the midrashic pericopes suggest are necessarily different from those employed by Roth.) Furthermore, his work provides for mine a convenient starting point, not chronological as much as contentual in character. In chapter three, I begin about where Roth left off, namely, with a look at certain creative and exuberant analyses of experience, done by l The Rabbinic Enumeration Form: A Form-Critical Stuqy of a Rabbinic Pattern of Discourse, With Special Reference to Mekilta d' R. Ishmael. Unpublished Dissertation, Yale University, 1965.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

13

Tannaitic rabbis in a style and spirit not unlike those of the lists of Old Testament wisdom literature. However, I quickly move on from these into the large body of numerical dicta which, though equally creative but often learned and even technical as well, seek to impose order on the holy scriptures themselves. Formally the latter are related to the first, but in origin and function they comprise a separate rhetorical pattern, the "enumeration of scriptural examples". By virtue of its intrinsic interest as well as its high frequency in rabbinic literature, this pattern deserves detailed study in its own right. But before this study can begin, it is necessary to present an overview of the materials relevant to the study of the rabbinic enumeration pattern, both primary and secondary, and to outline the method appropriate to the study.

CHAPTER TWO

HOW TO STUDY THE NUMERICAL TRADITIONS IN TANNAITIC LITERATURE Tannaitic literature is almost entirely couched in stereotyped patterns of discourse. This sentence has been so often said as to have become a stereotype in itself; perhaps less well known, however, is the fact that a large number of the Tannaitic rhetorical patterns are lists of various kinds. 1 Furthermore, one of the most ubiquitous and flexible of these list-patterns-indeed, one of the most common of all haggadic rhetorical devices--is the numerical saying, or, as I prefer to call it, the "rabbinic enumeration pattern". Even this pattern has two major sub-types in midrashic literature, each of which I shall be dealing with separately and in due course, namely the "proverbial" enumeration, and the exegetical enumeration. The former lists entities, names, ideas; the latter organizes biblical texts in one way or another. At the outset, I shall discuss those formal and functional features which these two sub-types have in common. The rabbinic enumeration pattern, like the biblical numerical saying before it, is made up of an interpretive remark2 together with a list of entities or proof-texts which support it. Although the interpretive remark is not characterized by any single stereotyped rubric 3 , it is nevertheless immediately recognizable because it specifies the exact number of examples about which it intends to make an affirmation : "there are seven kinds of thieves ... ", " ... there were ten songs ... ", " ... three good gifts were given to Israel". The 1 Cf. Appendix for a catalogue some of the more distinctive and frequent stereotyped patterns of Mekhilta d' R. Ishmael (hereafter referred to as Y). Lists of various kinds are exhibited separately. 2 The function of this remark is to state the area wherein the appended entities or scripture texts are analogous to one another; in other words, it acts as a kind of ':i':i:i ("general rule") to which the examples are l"li1'.,!:l ("particulars"). A useful discussion of the notion of 'O.,~, '?'?::> as a method far transcending the hermeneutical devices which specifically employ it is found in B. Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity 1, Uppsala, 1961, pp. 136-148. 3 In this respect it differs from many of the most common rabbinic patterns of discourse. The "testimony pattern", for example, is marked by the rubric 1:ii N~:rn':) ill1N ("And so you find"); the "refrain testimony" has .,~,N ill1N i:i N:Si•:i ("in the same manner you find ... "), etc. Cf. Appendix.

HOW TO STUDY THE NUMERICAL TRADITIONS

15

number of the entities or proof-texts which follow should correspond to the number of instances specified in the interpretive remark (although more than one text may be offered to support a particular item in the list). 1 This structure lends a fixity of scope to the form which helps it to retain its content and outline in whatever Nachahmungen it may have. Although this characterization of the form of the enumeration pattern can be regarded as "normative", it must immediately be noted that a number of variations are standard as well. Apart from the major bifurcation of the pattern already noted (into lists which do not employ proof-texts and lists which do), the enumerations divide into those which list their data in a simple, direct series of correlative examples and those which move from less to more significant illustrations of the theme of the interpretive remark. The latter exhibit what I call "climactic logic". Some lists are subdivided into sets of examples; these sets may be antithetical in character, or they may illustrate different aspects of the point made by the interpretive remark. Enumeration pericopes often acquire formulae from other stereotyped patterns of discourse, sometimes leading to combined patterns which are so common as to become standard deviations from the norm. 2 On the whole, however, the simple structure of the enumeration pattern proves resistant to contaminations of this sort, and seems to be only marginally affected by being made to fulfil various different functions. Although enumerations are scattered throughout the haggadic portions of the halakhic midrashim, the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Talmudim, they are found especially frequently in certain collections. Chief among these is the Mishnah tractate Piri}e Abot. The very first statement in Abot contains a short numerical list: Moses received the Law from Sinai and committed it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the Prophets; and the Prophets committed it to the men of the Great Synagogue. They said three things: Be deliberate in judgement, raise up many disciples, and make a fence around the Law. 3 1 Some principle of selection, not necessarily stated in the interpretive rubric, may be employed to enable the author of the list to draw the requisite number of entities from a larger body of potentially suitable examples. Cf. infra, p. 156 et passim. 2 Cf. infra, pp. 168-180 for a discussion of the enumeration with an attached paronomastic formula. 3 Danby ed., p. 446. Cf. Taylor ed., Hebrew section, p. 1.

16

HOW TO STUDY THE NUMERICAL TRADITIONS

The enumeration pattern is used in this very early bit of rabbinic literature to set forth in lapidary style an epitome of the teaching of those traditional early forbears of the rabbis, the Men of the Great Synagogue. Although it shares with the exegetical enumerations an interest in the systematic presentation of tradition, its greatest functional and formal affinities are with the "reflective" and "hortative" numerical sayings of the Bible which precede it, and the whole wealth of rabbinic "proverbial" enumeration pericopes which follow it. This "proverbial" sub-type of the enumeration pattern appears more frequently than the other in Abot; 1 however, there are exegetical enumeration passages with proof-texts2 and without texts, 3 as well. It comes as no surprise to cliscover that ARN, sometimes called the "gemara" of the tractate Abot, is rich with enumeration passages. As in Abot, these enumerations are both non-exegetical and exegetical (with or without texts). 4 A particularly good example of the former type is found in chapter 28: Rabban Gamaliel says: By four things does the empire exist: By its tolls, bathhouses, theaters, and crop taxes. 6

The last few portions of ARN are largely constructed on the basis of the enumeration pattern. Chapters 34-35 contain ten enumeration lists of ten's, chapter 36 is built around lists of seven, chapter 39 contains a list of five and three lists of six's, chapter 40 contains lists 1 The three sayings of Simeon the Just in Ab. 1 :2; the injunction of Rabbi to consider three things in 2: 1; the list of the three sayings of each of the five disciples of Rabban Yol).anan b. Zakkai in 2:10-14; the saying of Akabya b. Mahalaleel in 3: 1 ; the three crowns of R. Simeon in 4: 13; the ten wonders wrought for the fathers in the Temple in 5: 5; all of the group of four lists of seven's and six lists of four's together with the three excellencies of Abraham and the three sins of Balaam that make up the latter part of chapter 5. Cf. Roth, op. cit., pp. 45-47. In the late addition to Abot, Kinyan Torah-long printed as a sixth chapter-there is a long list of wisdom material cast in the enumeration pattern (6:6), as well as an exegetical enumeration (6:10). 2 The saying of Rabban Simeon b. Gamaliel (1: 18) and the list of five in Kinyan Torah. Cf. infra, p. 172f. 3 These are numerical analyses of biblical material which paraphrase rather than quote directly from the text. In seven cases in Abot only the interpretive remark is preserved, and there is no enumeration of the individual items (5: 1-4). An eighth is preserved in full (5: 6-cf. infra, p. 67ff.). 4 A particularly interesting example of the exegetical use of the form with texts is ARNA, ch. 4 (Schechter ed., pp. 18-21). Here M. Abot 1 :2 is taken as the interpretive remark of an enumeration, and the commentator simply supplies the necessary texts. The effect is to transform the wise saying of Simeon the Righteous into an exegesis of scripture. 6 Goldin ed., p. 116. Cf. Schechter ed., p. 85.

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17

of four and three, and chapter 41 is an assortment of lists of three, four, and five. Among these lists are found all the formal sub-types of the rabbinic enumeration pattern. Very brief mention must be made of the two interesting uses of the enumeration pattern found in the ancient liturgical document, the Passover Haggadah. One of these is the familiar list of four sons: The Torah speaks about four sons. One is wise and one is wicked; one is simple and one knows not how to inquire. 1

The assertion that the Torah speaks of these four "sons", who posed questions about the significance of the passover service, is based upon the appearance in the Torah of three questions asked by the "sons" of the generation of the exodus about the passover observance2 and an instruction on the proper manner of teaching the significance of the feast 3 In the Passover Haggadah, these four separate etiological remarks are woven artfully into a dramatic enumeration which is at once exegetical and-because it creates the setting in which theology is taught-highly parenetic4 Pir~e d'R. Eliezer 5 makes extensive use of the enumeration pattern, employing both of its major sub-types. Most, 1f not all, of these lists are reflections of the older tradition. The most striking groupings of the rabbinic enumeration pattern outside of Abot 5 and the last chapters of ARN are found in three late midrashim. The first of these, Midrash lvla'aseh Torah, contains nothing but enumeration lists arranged in order from three's to ten's. 6 A second midrash built entirely upon the enumeration pattern 1 E. D. Goldschmidt, Haggadah she/ Pesafi, Jerusalem, 1960, p. 118. See his detailed treatment of this passage on pp. 22-29. It is not my purpose here to enter into the scholarly discussion of this passage but only to acknowledge it as another important enumeration pericope. Nothing further need be said about the second enumeration pericope of the Haggadah. It is simply a straightforward list of the ten plagues of Egypt. 2 Dt. 6:20; Ex. 12:26; Ex. 13:14. 3 Ex. 13:8. 4 The tradition here embodied in the Haggadah is paralleled and even expanded upon in Y (Pis. xviii: 118-130). Cf. infra, p. 187, note 2. 5 Probably an eighth or ninth century Palestinian work. Cf. L. Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vortriige der juden 2, Frankfurt a/M, 1892, pp. 283-290; H. Strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, Philadelphia, 1931 (tr. from the 5th German ed., Munich, 1920), pp. 225-226. 6 The text of the midrash was published by A. Jellinek in Bet ha-Midrash 2 , Jerusalem, 1938, Vol. II, pp. 92-101. It was translated into German by A. Wunsche, Aus Israels Lehrhallen, Leipzig, 1909, Vol. IV, pp. 277-300.

Studia Post-Biblica, XXII

2

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HOW TO STUDY THE NUMERICAL TRADITIONS

is Midrash Sheloshah va-Arba'ah. 1 In spite of its title, this midrash collects traditional enumeration lists not only on the numbers three and four, but on 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 18, 24, and 70 as well. The fourteenth century yal~ut-type work of R. Israel ibn al-Nakawa, Menorat ha-Maor, contains selections from a work called J:Iupat Elijahu Rabbah which is similarly built up upon lists of 3 through 15. 2 This brief survey of the incidence of the enumeration pattern throughout the corpus of rabbinic literature has revealed its importance as a device for organizing knowledge. Another way of demonstrating the same thing is to catalogue as many of the rabbinic enumeration pericopes as possible; this was exactly the attempt made by A. Wiinsche in the article upon which a number of scholars (including Roth) have depended so heavily. 3 Wiinsche argued that numerical sayings are simply one among the many mnemonic devices necessitated by the ever greater mass of materials which the Tannaitic rabbis had to organize and transmit. That they usually employed numbers between 2 and 10 may or may not have something to do with the widespread contemporary interest in numerology and in Pythagorean number-mysticism; 4 however, it is significant that it is not the number but the entities enumerated which have primary significance in the rabbinic lists. These entities range over all aspects of learning-religion, cult, ethics, history, nature, medicine. In searching for the origin of the rabbinic practice of employing numerical dicta, Wiinsche looks to the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, and "more exactly ... Maschal poetry". 6 However, a more detailed comparison of the biblical numerical sayings with the rabbinic ones enables Wiinsche to draw only three limited conclusions: "1. that the latter exactly like the former revolve around Cf. A. Wertheimer: Bate-midrashot 2 , Jerusalem, 1953, Vol. II, pp. 47-73. H. G. Enelow, Menorat-ha-Maor, New York, 1932, Vol. IV, pp. 452-92. Enelow points out a number of other midrashic works which are built upon this principle, including Pir/;e Rabbenu ha-lf.adosh and a section in the Hurwitz ed. of Mal)zor Vitry. 3 "Die Zahlenspriiche in Talmud und Midrasch". Cf. supra, p. 11, note 4. 4 In my own view, any actual list of entities or texts which exceeds the number of fingers on both hands is very likely to fail to be a successful mnemonic device. Numbers in the three to seven range are most common. It is no accident that preachers from Simeon the Just to Billy Graham have tended to make three points per sermon! • Ibid., p. 59. 1 2

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19

the units [1-10]; 2. that the graded numerical dictum (der doppelzahlige Spruch) almost entirely disappears in the latter [for the simple reason, he believes, that the rabbis did not employ parallelismus membrorum]; 3. that because of its mnemono-didactic purpose, its use became ever more common." 1 Such an important vehicle for transmitting rabbinic tradition should be studied in its own right. However, though traditional commentators made collections of traditions cast in the rabbinic enumeration pattern from very early on (e.g. Abot 5, ARN), no exhaustive catalogue employing careful identification of sources had been made. Wiinsche's collection of over 600 enumeration pericopes, organized by their numerical elements from two's to numbers over ten, was intended to meet this need. Clearly, it succeeded, for (as I have already noted) many later students of the rabbinic enumeration pattern acknowledge their debt to his long catalogue. Yet the essay had flaws. Aside from the fact that it was not as exhaustive as it implied it was, 2 Wiinsche's work designedly made no attempt at analyzing the materials beyond simply sorting them into the numerical categories of two's through over-ten's. This limited his discussion of the origin, setting, forms and functions of the enumeration pattern to a few generalizations. Apart from an en passant reference by W. B. Stevenson3 to rabbinic numerical sayings which bear some resemblance to the biblical graded numerical dictum, and Roth's rather brief and superficial Ibid., p. 61. Another secondary source to provide a catalogue of enumeration pericopes in traditional rabbinic literature is the index volume of L. Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews 2 , ed. B. Cohen, Philadelphia, 1938. Excluding calendrical lists, measurements, and all doublets or parallel recensions of the same tradition, the index notes approximately 720 lists of three's through ten's. Even though not all of these are expressed in the proper enumeration pattern, this catalogue would still make it appear that Wtinsche had failed to account for all the evidence. This judgment is borne out by my own examination of the enumeration pericopes in Y. Of the approximately 35 examples which occur in that single Tannaitic midrash, 19-fully half-are not recorded by Wtinsche. In most of the 16 examples which he does note, he omits mention of at least one parallel recension. On the other hand, Wtinsche includes texts which, because they do not actually append a list of entities, cannot properly be called numerical sayings. Roth counted 36 of these, together with all enumerations of 40 or more (none of which append lists of examples). Cf. op. cit., p. 71, note 2. 3 "A Mnemonic Use of Numbers in Proverbs & Ben Sira", Transactions of the Glasgow University Oriental Society 9, 1938-39, pp. 26-38. Like Roth, Stevenson acknowledges heavy dependence for his rabbinic examples upon Wiinsche's catalogue. 1

2

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HOW TO STUDY THE NUMERICAL TRADITIONS

treatment of much of the corpus under the rubric "Reflection on Canonical Scripture", the only other scholar of recent years to devote special attention to the rabbinic enumeration pattern was G. Nador. In his 1962 essay, "Some Numerical Categories in Ancient Rabbinical Literature: The Numbers Ten, Seven and Four'',1 Nador moves well beyond Wiinsche's catalogue of pericopes to a contentual functional analysis of some examples. Although his sample is arbitrarily limited to enumerations occurring in Abot 5 and "all the pertinent texts of the Aboth de-Rabbi Nathan", and in fact only to those which fall into the numerical categories of ten, seven, and four, he is prepared to advance some general remarks about the relation of the form of the enumeration pattern to its function. For Nador the aspect of "form" that matters is the numerical element itself, and not any minor variations in the mode of expression of the interpretive remark or in the manner of appending the relevant entities. The category of the number ten is, for example, especially apt to convey materials related to numerical mysticism. This is so because ten has "a religious and theological halo ... a theological nimbus ... " 2 The enumeration pericope beginning, "By ten sayings was the world created" (Abot 5: lff.), exemplifies this function. "The sentence savors of Neo-Platonism," believes Nador; "behind this mysticism lurk ancient beliefs." 3 However, the Mishnah tries " ... to tone down these ancient motifs of Gentile origin; it tries to rationalise ethically the use of the number 10 ... " 4 So, too, with the enumeration of the ten names of God and the ten names of the idols (ARNA 34). These " ... suggest the inference that we have here the peculiar survival of ancient polytheistic traditions ... "/' still numinous and mystic in their rabbinic articulation chiefly because they are expressed in a list of ten. Ten can also be used to organize sequences of history (because the Bible itself organizes the generations from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, and other happenings, by ten's). Finally, because of the powerful formative influence of the Decalogue (itself presumably formed under the influence of cultural respect and awe for the number ten), ten becomes a category suitable for framing ethical teaching in the enumeration pattern: "There are ten things 1

2 3 4

5

Acta Orientalia (Budapest) 14, 1962, pp. 301-315. Ibid., p. 303. Ibid., p. 304. Ibid. Ibid., p. 305.

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21

the weight of which equals all the prohibitions of the Torah . .. " (ARNB 38). In a similar manner, Nador examines the intrinsic relation of form (i.e. numerical element) to function in the cases of enumerations of seven and four. He finds the former appropriate for the organization of materials exhibiting qualities of "numerical mysticism" ("seven properties are serving before the Throne of Glory ... " [ARNA 37]), "theology and ethics" (seven deadly sins [Ab. 5:11]), "riddles" (ARNA 36, as restated in question form to read, "Who are the seven persons that are excluded from the world to come?"), and what he calls "typology"-the analysis of human psychological make-ups into various "types" (the qualities of spirit which mark a wise man [Ab. 5: 10]). The number four, because of its relation to the four cardinal points of the compass and "the desire of man to orientate himself in the world of spatial experience", 1 as well as its well-known philosophical and mystical values, has many functions. It organizes materials displaying qualities of "numerical mysticism" ("The throne of Glory has four banners" [ARNB 43]), ethics ("there are four good works ... "[ARNA 40]), riddles ("For four it is difficult to perform the act of love-making" [ARNA 41), possibly originally in question form), and "typology" (the four types of foolish persons and four types of cool-headed people [ARNA 40]). Nador's method obviously has basic flaws. His attempt to establish functional categories for the rabbinic enumeration pattern on basis of highly speculative assessments of the intrinsic interpretive values of numbers is unconvincing, especially with such a small sample. Without gainsaying the vitality of numerology and number-speculation in the Hellenistic milieu of the first centuries of the common era, it seems naive to find psychological depths and mystical overtones (not to mention "theological haloes") with every number used to indicate the scope of an interpretive remark. Nonetheless, Nador's work is suggestive in at least ·one respect. He has made the effort (not attempted by Wilnsche nor pursued far enough by Roth) to divide the mass of rabbinic enumeration pericopes into functional sub-categories. In the process, he has demonstrated: 1. that the single stereotyped pattern, varied only at the point of the numerical element, can organize content as varied as metaphysical speculation, ethics and theology, law; 2. that changes in form, however slight, might 1 Ibid., p. 311, citing E. Cassirer, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Vol. II, Berlin, 1925, p. 182 ff.

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HOW 1'0 S'I'UDY 'I'HE NUMERICAL TRADI'I'IONS

effect changes in function; 3. that the pattern is most at home in the Gattung midrash haggadah; 4. that the pattern can always be termed a pedagogical device (in the sense that it is designed not simply to organize but to make available and convincing both data and their interpretation) and often a mnemonic device (in the sense that it organizes material in a way designed to facilitate memorization). Quite apart from the criticisms already offered, the articles of Wiinsche and Nador both run into difficulty because they fail to draw the obvious but necessary distinction between the non-exegetical or "proverbial" enumerations and the exegetical ones. The distinction is necessary because it has both formal and functional implications; the lists which employ or systematize scripture are actually performing tasks different from those performed by enumeration pericopes of a more non-technical, popular character. Furthermore, in both form and function the exegetical sub-pattern is more nearly unique to rabbinic literature than the "proverbial"-a fact which Nador in particular should have taken seriously. A second shortcoming in both the articles in question is their failure to take into detailed account the synoptic situations in which individual pericopes are found. Wiinsche, it is true, offered marginal notes on some of the more significant variations in parallels from the texts printed in his catalogue. But neither writer really made the effort to discover the "normative" form of particular enumeration pericopes (or even of the pattern itself), much less describe deviations therefrom resulting from tendentious modifications of the tradition or simply from error. Finally, neither of these writers took the opportunity to state "laws of transmission" for a stereotyped device such as the enumeration pattern, and--within the framework of these laws-to detect lines of development of individual pericopes in the course of their tradition-histories. Yet such histories alone can provide the evidence necessary to sustain the argument that the enumeration pattern is a successful mnemonic device and to demonstrate convincingly the propensity of the pattern toward this or that function. Upon him who charges his scholarly predecessors with failures lies the burden of stating and pursuing the correct procedure. It is now my responsibility to present a method for the study of the rabbinic enumeration pattern which will: 1. recognize the corpus of biblical numerical sayings as constituting the background and pre-history of the rabbinic enumerations, without insisting on a

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literal developmental relationship between them; 2. make the necessary formal and functional distinction between the non-exegetical and exegetical sub-types of the rabbinic enumeration pattern; 3. offer some suggestion as to how these two types came to be distinct from one another; 4. provide an adequate set of rubrics by means of which each of these larger categories can be further analyzed and refined; 5. take full advantage of any synoptic situations which disclose the standard form of particular pericopes and variants of it; 6. do the tradition-history studies necessary to test the success of the enumeration pattern as a mnemonic and structural device and to state the laws governing transmission of tradition by means of such a device. EXCURSUS ON METHOD

A. Assumptions Regarding the Nature of the Literature Stereotyped rhetorical patterns are the property of oral literature. The presence of a high degree of stereotypization in Tannaitic and Amoraic literature indicates, therefore, that this literature had a period of oral transmission-probably quite lengthy-before it was set down in its present written form. 1 This is true both of halakhic materials (juristic discussions, largely emanating from the academies 1 Cf. the traditional summary statement of the transmission of the "learned" tradition of the Jews in Abot 1-4. A number of scholars have concerned themselves with the mode of transmission of tradition in Tannaitic literature. Perhaps most important among them is W. Bacher, whose works Tradition und Tradenten in den Schulen Paliistinas und Babyloniens, Leipzig, 1914, and Die exegetische Terminologie der judischen Traditionsliteratur, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1899-1905, are still basic handbooks. Basic also is the work of I. H. Weiss, Dordor ve-dorshav, Berlin, 1924. A concise contribution to the discussion is that of H. L. Strack. op. cit., Ch. II, "A Sketch of the History of the Talmud", pp. 8-25. More recent works on the subject include L. Finkelstein, "The Transmission of Early Rabbinic Tradition", HUCA 16, 1941, pp. 115-135; G. Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism, Leiden, 1961. A number of scholars have pointed out that the transmission of tradition by the Tannaim (and their predecessors the "Pairs" and the "Scribes") involved both the written Torah and the oral tradition. The latter appears often to have accompanied the former in any teaching context as the authoritative interpretation of the written text. See inter alia I. L. Seeligmann, "Voraussetzung der Midraschexegese'', in Supplement to Vetus Testamentum 1, 1953, pp. 150-181; J. Weingreen, "The Rabbinic Approach to the Old Testament'', in Bulletin of the john Rylands Library 34, 1951, pp. 166-190. J. N. Epstein, Meboot lesifrut ha-Tannaim, Jerusalem, 1957, p. 505, remarks, "In this way, the midrashic way, the Scribes taught the Torah, and in this way they transmitted to the students the received traditions and halakhot together with the written Torah."

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and law courts), 1 and of haggadic literature (homiletical in character, primarily associated with public teaching and proclamation). 2 However, each of these large genres exhibits stereotyped patterns peculiar to itself in addition to those common to both. Until recently it has been widely felt that the "oral Torah" (torah she-be'al peh) was taught and preserved in the familiar stereotyped patterns from the very beginning. The tradition itself suggest this. Abot 1 establishes the chain of transmission of (oral) Torah from Moses at Sinai to the first head of the rabbinical academy a.t Y abneh, Rabban Gamaliel I, although this claim may be intended to apply only to the content and not the form of the tradition. The most famous talmudic passage on the question commands, " ... matters received as oral traditions you are not permitted to recite from writing and ... written things you are not permitted to recite from memory ... you may not write traditional laws!" 3 Furthermore, much of modern scholarship either assumes this or argues for it. 4 Even though the Tannaitic and Amoraic rabbis may have had access to written notes (f?ypomnemata) designed to ensure accurate transmission of parts of the tradition, 5 many scholars do not doubt that Tannaitic tradition was from the very beginning characteristically oral. It was for this reason expressed from the beginning in patterns of discourse -such as lists-which, by reason of order and structure, facilitated memorization. 6 1 For a fuller definition of ha!akhah, see J. Jacobs in JE, Vol. VI, p. 163, and the article by J. Theodor on "Midrash halakah", ibid., Vol. VIII, pp. 569-580. See also J. N. Epstein, op. cit., pp. 497-588. 2 For a fuller definition of haggadah see J. Jacobs in JE, Vol. VI, p. 141, and the article by J. Theodor on "Midrash Haggadah", ibid., Vol. VIII, pp. 550-569. A basic investigation of the origin and nature of haggadah is that found in the already-mentioned classic study of rabbinic literature of L. Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vortriige der Juden. This work is now translated into Hebrew, with notes, by C. Albeck, Ha-derashot be-:Jisrael, Jerusalem, 1947. An important recent study of haggadah is that of I. Heinemann, Darke-haggadah, Jerusalem, 1953. A concise and refreshing description of haggadah as a religious expression is that of J. Goldin in "The Period of the Talmud'', in The Jews: Their History, Culture, and Religion 3 , ed. L. Finkelstein, New York, 1960, pp. 161-164. 3 Temurah 14b =Git. 60b. 4 Prominent among the latter is the 1961 thesis of B. Gerhardsso"'l, Memory and Manuscript, op. cit. 5 A thorough discussion of this matter is found in the chapter entitled "The Publication of the Mishnah" in S. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine 2, New York, 1962, pp. 83-99; all the relevant citations from the sources are given there. See also G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, Cambridge, Mass., 1927, Vol. I, pp. 97-99. 6 !bid., p. 150.

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Unfortunately, three difficulties with this traditional point of view are often overlooked. First, the texts which present the picture of a Pharisaic/rabbinic literature entirely oral from the very outset may well emanate from a time somewhat later than that beginning. Though they may very accurately reflect the practices and convictions of their own time regarding the work of "traditioning", they do not therefore necessarily have an accurate account of what went on before 70 A.D., much less in the time of Ezra or Moses. 1 Second, synoptic studies with individual traditions sometimes suggest the presence of a written source behind different recensions, including early ones. 2 Third, the numerous references in talmudic literature to "books" of haggadah and even written halakhot should not be overlooked (including that which follows the classical statement on the prohibition of writing in Temurah 14b, to wit: "R. Yol;anan and Resh La~ish used to peruse the book of Aggadah on sabbaths .. "). 3 Fourth, it would be patent nonsense to argue that the original authors of individual pre-Tannaitic or Tannaitic traditions always and on principle uttered their teachings in one or another of the relatively limited number of stereotyped patterns of discourse in which the literature is now almost entirely expressed. Most scholars would agree, I think, that the stereotyped form is likely to be secondary to the content of a given Tannaitic teaching. But if the very form 1 One can argue that a text such as 'Erub. 54b, so often cited as evidence for the ancient Jewish mode of rote teaching of Torah (cf. Gerhardsson, op. cit., pp. 116-121), only reflects-and intends to reflect-the practices of lower school and academy in its own time, i.e. mid-second century A.D. 2 Two articles by L. Finkelstein support the thesis that Tannaitic redactors had access to written notes rather more substantial then mere hypomnemata. In "Studies in the Tannaitic Midrashim", PAAJR 6, 1935, p. 206ff., Finkelstein argued that the respective versions of the same haggadic texts preserved in the two Mekhiltas show, through similar errors which occur in both of them, that written texts lay behind them. In "The Transmission of the Early Rabbinic Traditions", op. cit., he extended the principle to Tannaitic baraitot-specifically excluding Mishnah texts. He proposed five stages in the transmission of tradition, through as many as four of which an individual tradition might pass: 1. anecdotal (oral repetition of basic idea); 2. semi-normative (catchwords have fixed form in all versions, but tradition is still oral); 3. normative (oral tradition fully formulated and memorized verbatim); 4. earliest written form (like no. 2, but catchwords are written; may derive from 2 or 3); 5. the present written text (may derive from 3 or 4). Even apart from the question of written versions behind extant recensions, this scheme underscores the fluidity of the tradition in its early stages. 3 It is chiefly on this ground that Strack, op. cit., pp. 12-20, (Ch. II, para. 2, "The 'Interdict on Writing Down,' ")expresses substantial reservations about the universal observance of the ban on writing, even of halakhot.

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which was designed to ensure accurate oral transmission was absent at the beginning of a tradition's history, how was it accurately transmitted at the outset? Was it remembered and repeated in a loose form, perhaps even in two or three versions? Was writing sometimes used as a protection against error? Following up ideas expressed by Morton Smith in an attack upon B. Gerhardsson's support of the traditional view of the oral transmission of early rabbinic literature,1 Jacob Neusner now advances impressive evidence that the practice of transmitting traditional rabbinic teachings orally arose only after the great disruption of Jewish life in 70 A.D. 2 The repertoire of stereotyped rhetorical devices in which the tradition came subsequently to be cast was the creative work of the Yabnean school; before Yabneh, scarcely any of these patterns were regularly used, and the traditions of the pairs and the Houses were in much more fluid form. Many of them may have been preserved in written form as well. Although Neusner's answer to the question of why this anachronistic reversion to oral transmission took place late in the first century A.D. is not entirely convincing,3 his arguments on behalf of a post70 A.D. terminus a quo for most of the rhetorical patterns of midrash and mishnah, including, presumably, the enumeration pattern, deserve careful consideration. 4 Because most if not all of the pericopes 1 M. Smith's, "A Comparison of Early Christian and Early Rabbinic Tradition", ]BL 82, 1963, pp. 169-176, is an attack upon Gerhardsson's Memory and Manuscript. See also Gerhardsson's reply, Tradition and Transmission in Early Christianiry (Coniectanca Neotestamentica 20), Lund, 1964. 2 The Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70, 3 Vols., Leiden, 1971. 3 Neusner (ibid., III, p. 174ff.) argues that the rabbis deliberately adopted this anachronistic mode of publishing their Mishnah on analogy to the manner in which the tradition was originally given on Sinai-orally. The claim of Mosaic authorship for the rabbinic Torah, which also supported the claim of authority by the Tannaitic custodians of that Torah, tended thus to be authenticated by the very manner and form of its transmission. 4 I find no evidence which would suggest that the exegetical pattern was in use by the rabbis prior to the general reorganization of the Torah she-be'al peh into stereotyped, mnemonic patterns during the Y abnean period. The exegetical enumeration appears to be one of the means devised at that time to facilitate oral transmission of the tradition, although my studies in non-rabbinic parallels to certain exegetical enumeration pericopes suggest that a few traditions subsequently cast in that pattern were known by 70 A.D. in a looser but clearly related form (Cf. infra, p. 96ff. [Jubilees], and p. 217ff. [Pseudo-Philo]). The non-exegetical enumeration, on the other hand, was undoubtedly in use among the predecessors of the Tannaim. This seems likely not only because of the wide

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with which I am dealing in this study originate after 70 A.D. the issue of written vs. oral transmission prior to Y abneh does not bear directly on this book. I assume that most of the exegetical enumeration traditions attested in Y did circulate orally from the time of their original formulation until they began to be written down in the 5th-7th centuries A.D. However, Neusner's suggestion that originally loosely expressed traditions came, after Y abneh, to be expressed more and more routinely in standard stereotyped patterns agrees with evidence arising out of my own work. As I shall show in due course, traditions initially loosely cast or later recast in the enumeration form experience as a general rule a "regularization" of form in the course of their transmission. Their later recensions are more rather than less stereotyped in form; furthermore, the relationship of the exegetical sub-pattern to the non-exegetical has something to do with this process as well. One can almost speak of a slow taming of less disciplined materials by the ever more "normative" enumeration pattern. This would seem to be a logical extension of the literary-historical innovation attributed by Neusner to the Yabnean period, namely, the development of stereotyped patterns designed to facilitate the newly emphasized oral transmission. B. Is the Method of Form-criticism appropriately applied to Rabbinic Literature?

Given the postulate that the characteristically stereotyped forms of rabbinic traditions arose in and because of a period of oral transmission (due account being taken of the reservation just discussed), it follows that some kind of "form-critical" method could fruitfully be employed to clarify the development (if not the origin) of individual units. More specifically, it follows that a form-critical treatment of the rabbinic "enumeration of scriptural examples" using a method comparable to that which Roth applied to the biblical numerical sayings, but modified to take account of the special problems posed by rabbinic literature, could be expected to yield valuable insight into the form, function, and history of that rhetorical pattern. Before this suggestion can be pursued, however, I think it necessary to make a brief review of the methods of form-critics of the Old and New use of analogous patterns in earlier Hebrew literature, but also because the device is used in those strata of midrash and Mishnah which are thought to be earliest-the houses-disputes of M.