The Jewish community of Talmudic Babylonia was the largest concentration of Jews in the diaspora from the third to seventh centuries CE (Gafni 2006: 805). It was located in the area surrounding the narrow meeting of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in close proximity to Ctesiphon, and southward to the Persian Gulf. There were also Jewish settlements in northern Mesopotamia, most notably in Nisibis, probably dating back to the late Second Temple period (Segal 1964; especially map on p. 806). In these areas, as well as in Babylonia itself, Christians and Jews were living in close proximity (Fiey 1967). The two communities also shared a language, Aramaic, but spoke different dialects, Syriac for the Christians, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic for the Jews, both traditionally categorised (together with Mandaic) within the same eastern dialect branch of Late Aramaic. This group of dialects shared a number of features that set them apart from other contemporary dialects (the western branch) (Bar-Asher Siegal 2013: 21–3, 2015). Among these features are: (1) l/n as the 3m marker of the prefix conjugation, (2) the suffix -e as a masculine plural marker, (3) lack of a formal marker for definiteness, (4) apocopation of final open syllables, (5) the qtil li pattern, and (6) the development of a new tense formed from the participle with nominative pronominal suffixes (i.e. the participial conjugation) (Bar-Asher Siegal 2013: 22).
These differences of dialect and script marked out the different communities, but the close proximity of the dialects still permitted the language to serve as an important vehicle of communication between the two communities (Millar 2011; Taylor 2002). The reason for the lack of attention to Palestinian sources is largely chronological: Palestinian sources such as the Mishnah, Tosefta, and legal midrashim were all edited before or around the third century CE and thus less likely to reflect direct connections with Christian materials (Schremer 2010). On the other hand, while the Palestinian Talmud and later Palestinian midrashim may very well offer evidence of a literary relationship to Syriac sources, these parallels still need to be examined more closely in relation to both Greek and Syriac Christian sources. Unfortunately, very little work has been done on this topic (Rubenstein 2017; Siegal 2016). Recent scholarship has made clear that the significance of Christian religious groups in the Persian Empire can no longer be ignored (Payne 2015).
Rather than minimising the role of Christianity in the lives of Jews in the Persian Empire, this story has been reread variously as a rhetorical device, fiercely denying connections that actually existed between the two communities (Boyarin 2007: 358); a warning and a call to vigilance against heretical polemics (Schremer 2009: 365–6, n66; Schremer 2005: 223–4); and even as a reference to a specific group of Christians, less prevalent in the Persian Empire, who were concerned with scriptural polemics (Siegal 2013: 17–18, n63). However, even as we increasingly recognise the prevalence of Christian Syriac literature in Late Antique Persia and its importance for a full understanding of contemporary rabbinic literature, there remain major obstacles to a comparative study of Jewish and Christian texts (for more on comparative methodology, see Smith 1990). First, as noted above, most scholars have access to limited research tools.
- Still, even when literary analogies between Christian and rabbinic sources are found, one cannot always easily draw a direct historical conclusion, for several reasons. First, analogy does not necessarily indicate a genealogical connection between two sets of texts. Similarities may arise for a variety of reasons, such as for the sake of a polemical argument or satire, but at other times may just be the result of coincidental resemblance or a parallel, non-dependent, thought process, and the interpretation of such similarities often depends upon the point of view of the beholder (further discussion in Siegal 2013: 25–34). Therefore, even when a relationship is identified, the historical and textual meaning of this relationship between two sources is often contested. Second, the nature and evolution of the relationship between two texts is not always easy to identify. When one recovers a rabbinic tradition in a Syriac text, it does not necessarily indicate the author’s familiarity with the rabbinic source. It might, for example, result from a similar reading of scripture, born of either a shared background or independent – but parallel – readings.
- Nevertheless, it is now beginning to be acknowledged that the linguistic, temporal, and geographic literary relationships between the Babylonian Talmud and Syriac literature demand that scholars of rabbinics pay closer attention to Eastern Christian texts. Though the nature of the connections between the corpora is not fully understood, a side-by-side reading at the very least deepens our understanding of the sitz im leben of the Babylonian Talmud and its readers. Scriptural disputes showcase polemical interactions between the two religious communities, while incantation bowls often reveal a mélange of religious elements, suggesting shared magical traditions. Even the strong anti-Jewish polemical arguments in the writings of the Eastern church fathers show striking familiarity with Jewish midrash. These sources might be evidence for a type of Jewish-Christian interaction that served to define differences and boundaries, while at the same time offering proof of shared knowledge.
Even as late as the sixth century, we find legal texts that attest to close ties between Jews and Christians in the East. Canons issued by the Church of the East’s Synod of 585 deal with social relations between Christians and non-Christians in eastern Syria. For example, Canon 15. Canon 27 further shows that Christians in the Sasanian Empire intermarried, exchanged blessings, and even shared altars with ‘heretics’ (Chabot 1902: 158.20– 159.2, trans. 418). These rules are meant to enforce the separation of Christians from other religious groups, among them Jews, and to delineate the social lines between them. By the same token, they clearly reflect a situation on the ground in which Christians and Jews were taking part in each others’ festivals as late as the sixth century. Evidence from incantation bowls is even more suggestive of close ties. These bowls, which contain textual formulae or graphical depictions that were believed to offer protective magic, have been found placed upside-down under thresholds, in walls, and in cemeteries (Morony 2003: 83–107).
For example, an incantation bowl has been discovered containing an explicit reference to Jesus written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (Levene 1999: 290). This text, alongside other synchronistic elements in the bowls, demonstrates a mixture of Jewish, Babylonian, Hellenistic, Mandaean, Iranian, and Christian traditions. This diversity of influences has led Shaul Shaked to describe a ‘cultural koine’ in this region of Sasanian Mesopotamia reflected in the bowl texts. In this cultural context, a Jewish composer of an incantation bowl could use Christian theological elements to achieve his magical goals. As this and other bowls suggest, ‘themes and ideas, and sometimes even whole textual passages, were taken over by each group of practitioners in Mesopotamia from the neighbouring communities’ (Shaked 1999: 315–6). Jean Maurice Fiey, discussing Jewish-Christian interactions in the East, has concluded that the non-textual nature of the liturgical, homiletic, and exegetical domains of contemporary Judaism and Christianity made them natural loci for such ‘unprejudiced openness’ (Fiey 1988: 936). This shared pool of ‘popular religion’ in Mesopotamia linked Christians and Jews and was strongly denounced by the Christian bishops as a result (Shaked 1997). Tapani Harviainen has noted that this is not the case for Syriac bowls which, for example, differ in their use of specific formulae and lack references to Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. Harviainen argues that the Syriac bowls have a ‘pagan origin’ (Harviainen 1995).
An examination of liturgical traditions in early Syriac Christian communities also provides evidence for Jewish-Christian interactions. Gerard Rouwhorst’s work in this area focuses on the Jewish antecedents of the East Syrian liturgy. He cites, for example, church floor plans containing a bêma (see also ch. 28, pp. 522–6); the uncommon liturgical practice of reading selections from both the Torah and the Prophets; similarities between the Jewish grace after meals and the fourth-century Syriac Anaphora of Addai and Mari; the Apostolic Constitutions’ call to observe the Sabbath on Saturday in addition to Sunday; and the date and content of the Easter celebration, its emphasis on the passion and the death of Christ rather than his resurrection (Rouwhorst 1997). Connections have also been noted between Jewish traditions and the writings of contemporary Syriac church fathers, particularly Ephrem and Aphrahaṭ. Naomi Koltun-Fromm’s work on Aphrahaṭ has concentrated on the Jewish-Christian polemical confrontations particular to Persian Mesopotamia. She argues that these texts demonstrate familiarity with rabbinic arguments and concludes that we should take seriously Aphrahaṭ’s claims that his interpretations are based on conversations with ‘a Jew’ (Koltun-Fromm 1996). She posits an exchange of ideas, biblical exegesis, and theology in this fourth-century context and ‘an ongoing conversation between Jews and Christians in Mesopotamia at the height of the Persian persecutions on the subject of true faith’ (Koltun-Fromm 1996: 51). Koltun-Fromm (2010) makes the subtler argument that both Jewish and Christian sources demonstrate a need to deal with the tension between one’s spiritual and daily life, and that the two traditions’ attempts to resolve this tension are based on similar and shared traditions of biblical exegesis.
Most importantly, Koltun-Fromm uses her findings to venture into social history and concludes that contemporary Christian and Jewish communities were both using these exegetical traditions to define their communal boundaries and their relations to one another. Adam Becker (2003) has argued we should read Aphrahaṭ’s literary production in light of a context in which ‘the local Jewish and Christian communities were not fully distinct and separate from one another’. He points out references in Christian texts to Christians who flee to local synagogues in times of persecution and who are circumcised or refuse to eat blood; the use of the Jewish calendar in martyrs’ accounts; and the use of terms such as ‘priests’ and ‘Levites’ to describe Christian clergy. Moreover, Christine Shepardson (2008) has argued that we must read Ephrem’s anti-Jewish rhetoric in light of fourth-century intra-Christian debates. Elena Narinskaya (2010) has detected in Ephrem’s exegetical writings some dependence on Jewish traditions,3 while other scholars still contend that these Jewish traditions in Ephrem could have reached his writings orally and indirectly (Brock 1985: 20). Scholars have identified a number of Talmudic passages as possible satires or parodies of New Testament traditions: b. Shabbat 116a–b has been read as a parody on the Sermon on the Mount (Zellentin 2007); b. ‘Avodah Zarah 18a–b as a parody of Jesus’s cry from the cross (Boyarin 2012: 246–66); and a complex parody of the metaphor of Jesus as a fountain of living water has been identified in b. Sukkah 48b (Halbertal and Naeh 2006); among others (Siegal 2013: 34n46). The Christian traditions referred to in these polemical passages and satirical puns usually derive from the New Testament and could have been known to the rabbinic authors through Western sources. However, they could just as easily have been circulated in the East through Syriac sources, whether oral or written. The fact that some of these examples are only found in the Babylonian Talmud may point to the Babylonian rabbis’ familiarity with local Christian traditions.
Peter Schäfer discusses the possibility that the Talmudic authors had knowledge of these New Testament, Jesus traditions through Tatian’s Diatessaron, a Syriac work of the second century CE. This would explain why certain details of the Jesus traditions are found only in the Babylonian Talmud and nowhere in Palestinian rabbinic sources (Schäfer 2007: 129). These include, among others, the story of Jesus’s virgin birth; his association with the name of Mary Magdalene; the notion of Jesus as a teacher of Torah; healings performed in the name of Jesus; and the dating of his execution to the fourteenth of Nisan. Some studies have focused on lexical overlap, examining Syriac sources in order better to understand key passages in rabbinic literature. So, for example, Shlomo Naeh recognised a loanword from Syriac Christian literature, ḥeruta, in a Talmudic story in b. Qiddushin 82b, referring to abstinence from sexual relations (Naeh 1997). Adam Becker (2010) has recently suggested that we must undertake a broader comparative examination of the ancient sources produced by these two religious minorities in the Persian Empire, rather than looking only for Christian texts that illuminate specific rabbinic passages. In the case of Naeh’s article, his argument may have benefited from a broader survey of monastic texts in which women are viewed as incarnations of the holy man’s illicit desires and his struggles against this temptation. Such a reading could illuminate the Talmudic story of R Ḥiyya as a unique portrayal of an ascetic rabbi fighting his urges, in the mould of the monastic holy man (Siegal, forthcoming).
Differences in literary genre and chronology present methodological difficulties, but even given these difficulties a comparative analysis yields interesting parallels and analogies. One key problem is whether these Christian traditions reached the composers of the Talmudic passages via local Syriac sources or via Palestinian traditions more closely connected to Western sources. As noted above, this question is relevant to other examples of literary interactions as well, but it is particularly acute in the case of analogous stories that share literary motifs, where it is much harder to discern the ‘smoking gun’ that proves textual interaction. Nevertheless, a growing number of studies suggest a degree of Talmudic engagement with Christian literary traditions. Given the importance of Syriac Christianity in the region, it is very likely that Babylonian rabbis were exposed to Christian traditions via Syriac sources. Let us take as an example Jeffrey Rubenstein’s comparative work on the story of the death and burial of R. Eleazar the son of R. Shimon bar Yoḥai (Rubenstein 2017). This story appears in b. Baba Metsiʿa 84b and in the Palestinian midrash Pesiqta Derav Kahana 11. Rubenstein suggests reading the rabbinic traditions regarding the post-mortem treatment of the rabbi’s body in light of the Late Antique, Christian cult of the relics of holy men. As in stories of Christian holy men, and unlike in prevailing rabbinic attitudes, R. Eleazar’s body does not decay after his death, and the townsfolk refuse to allow its burial because of its protective qualities. In this case, there are parallels between Babylonian and Syriac sources and between the Palestinian midrash and Western Christian sources, but the development of the story as it appears in the Babylonian Talmud is particularly suggestive of shared literary motifs.
Siegal’s work finds literary connections between the Babylonian Talmud and the monastic traditions circulating in Syriac in the Persian Empire (Siegal 2013). The portrayal of key rabbinic figures resembles that of monastic descriptions of Christian holy men. In addition, identifying literary connections between Jewish and Christian corpora invites us to consider the historical relations between the two religious communities in the Persian Empire. The parallels between the sources are even more suggestive, since most cases she discusses are found only in the Babylonian Talmud and not in Palestinian sources. Even in cases such as these, it is still possible that the Christian source material came to the rabbis via Western traditions that did not leave a trace in Palestinian rabbinic sources. This possibility is less likely, however, than the simpler explanation that local, Syriac sources interacted with rabbinic traditions that were included in the Babylonian Talmud.
- For example, a comparison of Christian monastic sources with parallel passages in the two Talmuds on the figure of R. Shimon bar Yoḥai reveals that only the Babylonian tradition makes use of monastic motifs (Siegal 2011, 2013, ch. 5). The Babylonian passage draws on popular Christian literary themes to reshape the Palestinian story of R. Shimon into a quasi-monastic tale, portraying R. Shimon as a monastic holy man whose sojourn in a cave brings about a spiritual transformation. Since only the Babylonian version of the story includes these Christian literary analogies, it is most likely that local Christian traditions, circulating in Syriac, are at the basis of this literary reworking.
- The literary genre of martyrdom stories is an interesting test case for a comparative analysis of rabbinic and Syriac material. Daniel Boyarin (1999) has suggested viewing martyrdom stories in rabbinic sources as a reflection of a shared, Late Antique rabbinic and Christian discourse. Jeffrey Rubenstein notes in response (Rubenstein 2018) that Boyarin’s analysis relies exclusively on Christian sources from the GrecoRoman world, written in Greek and Latin. Rubenstein himself suggests examining martyrdom accounts in the Babylonian Talmud in comparison with the Persian Martyr Acts, a ‘corpus’ of about seventy stories of Christian martyrs, primarily from the Sasanian Empire. Rubenstein finds numerous parallels, attesting to a common cultural context, but he gives special emphasis to the differences between the two corpora, including the enthusiasm they express at the idea of a martyr’s death, and their treatment of the themes of tricksterism and conversion. Ultimately, Rubenstein finds the differences between the Jewish and Christian narratives to be much deeper than their commonalities.
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