Welcome to Judaism demystified a podcast for the perplexed.
Join us as we explore some of the most fascinating Jewish and
Torah related topics, with our esteemed guests by tackling some
of the biggest questions you likely won't find addressed
elsewhere. We aim to shed light on
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enjoy the show. Thank you for joining the
Judaism demystified podcast. We are joined by Dr. Marcus
simkovich again, Dr. Simkovich. We thank you so much for joining
us again. We really had a blast through
the first time and we actually had so much feedback.
So many people message us, email us sent us messages that they
loved this episode and we have to have you on again and we're
so happy. We're able to do this again.
So if you could just tell our audience a little bit about
yourself, if they have missed the first episode and what
you're up to That sounds great. First of all it's good to see
both of you. Thank you for having me back.
I think that when we recorded that first podcast, I was a
professor of Judaism at Catholic theological Union, and I was a
director of Catholic Church studies there for 10 years and
I've left, I've left a year ago, I'm now the Editor in Chief of
the Jewish publication society and a visiting professor at
Yeshiva, University's Revel, graduate school for Jewish
studies. So, a little bit of a pivot for
me, I'm now facing the Jewish world and still having fun.
Beautiful. Excellent.
So we want to touch about we want to talk about your eye
opening book, discovering second, temple literature, why
did you think it was so important to detail to the
readers? The events that surrounded?
The finding of the Cairo ganesa and Dead Sea Scrolls and what
did you hope the readers would take out of it?
first of all, I had a little bit of a, Of a thought that maybe
opening up with some fun intriguing, journeys of
Discovery would grab the reader. So there's just the the cheap
answer that these are incredible stories of how modern Scholars
explorers religious leaders serendipitously Came Upon a body
of literature that opened them up into this world of second
temple. Judaism that really was not a
discipline. It was not a field until
relatively recently and entering into this world.
And answered many questions. About how we get from the world
of the Tanakh, the world of the Hebrew Bible, or for Christians,
the world of the Old Testament, into the world of the early
Common Era for Jews. That would be the world of the
rabbis for Christians. It would be the life of Jesus,
but we're talking about 600 centuries.
Sorry, 600 years or so, from the end of the Babylonian exile
which ends in around 5:38 BCE until the temple Falls in 70 CE.
That's a huge amount of time. Just to conceptualize how much
time we're talking think about before Shakespeare write you
wouldn't understand the English that people spoke maybe there
was some kind of English, but you wouldn't recognize that that
society as belonging to you, I don't think.
And again, of course, what's Society?
Am I talking about Shakespeare's England, am I talking about
other parts of Europe? I'm not even sure, but the point
is is that whatever the world looked like here in America or
in Europe or elsewhere or Israel, whatever.
The world looked like was totally different than the world
that we know today. And sometimes we forget that and
we think about this is an inconsequential era of Jewish
history. We don't really need to know it,
the literature that Jews produced during this time mostly
was not canonized or preserved by the rabbis therefore is of
little or no religious value. And so what we do is we jump
from the end of the Tanakh, the beginning of the rabbinic era
and we kind of connect, those late biblical figures figures,
like Ezra and Danielle to the world of the wrap eyes and in
doing so. We turn those late figures into
Essentially, Proto rabbis this. is helpful in a way because We
had this kind of vacuum this, we're at least a vacuum in our
minds what takes place in between.
But these stories are again, incredible stories of discovery
that all. So tell us how random and
serendipitous and surprising and unpredictable the the collection
of data can be this really is not a story of systematic
research. And it reminds us that what we
know today about the second temple era and other errors in
Jewish history is really the product of a lot of serendipity
and a lot of luck. And it also reminds us that
there is So much, that is lost. If we have a couple thousand
pages of Jewish literature from the Hellenistic era that
survived over two Millennia, you can safely assume that there are
hundreds of thousands of pages or millions of pages that were
produced by Jews of religious nature that were not preserved.
So, what we have is a reflection of serendipity, or you could
say, Gaga of luck but I think it's humbling to know that
probably there's more waiting to be discovered or tragically that
will never be discovered. Yeah.
And as I was going through those chapters I believe it was three
chapters. You have one on the Cairo knees.
And then you have the fascinating situation with the
monks and the monastery from namaste in and then going on to
the Dead Sea Scrolls. Like, you could see like the
highs, like it's like a lot of things have to fold together.
I really, really suggest that the readers get the book and
they'll enjoy these chapters because you, you really get a
inside. Look at exactly how much when
down to get what we have in our possession today.
It is truly incredible. And if it's okay, I would just
jump in and add that a lot of the people who were involved in
gathering these ancient texts, especially in the late 18th and
19th centuries. These were Pious Christians,
mostly Protestant Christians who were interested in these texts,
because for them, these texts had religious value in that they
informed the world about The Life and Times of Jesus.
And so many of these texts even the Dead Sea Scrolls, which
were, which were discovered in the middle of 20th century were
initially analyzed through the lens of Early Christianity, but
from the Jewish perspective, many of these texts actually
testify to the piety and the continuity of Jewish tradition.
Yeah. And, and, and the third part of
the book, and hopefully, we'll talk a little about, in the
past, in the, in the podcast, when you go through all the
different discoveries of different texts and Testaments
and you see, like a lot of like me, Josh, and a lot of this type
of stuff, you start to see how they kind of shape off of each
other. It's kind of interesting.
We'll get into the later on, in the podcast.
I wanted to ask you about What to me when I read it it was it
was it was truly incredible. Regarding the sheer volume of
times that the Jewish people were faced with adversaries
during the second temple period. The second part of your book,
the Jews of Alexandria specifically, I wanted to ask
you about because the way you sketch the second double history
leaves. One at a loss for words, as how
Israel was able to survive that period, let alone have the
temple stand for so long. One.
Motif that strongly plays out in your presentation of its history
is the unique standing of Jews as being citizens of their host
Empire while concurrently having limited sovereignty over Judea,
it is demonstrated in your book. That a lot of the hostilities
were caused by them animosity and suspicion of what was
perceived to be dual citizenship and dual loyalties privileged
privileged to the Jews. If you can discuss this
recurring tension of identity which both defined in
Challenger, Jewish people in second temple period, I'd be
grateful. When did, but I I wanted people
to get there. When I wrote the question I
wanted, I wanted to be able to understand, you know, the the
backdrop to the to the question. To properly answer your
question. I think there might have been a
dozen questions in there to properly answer the question.
You know it would take a book length answer so I'm going to
Instead try to give you something.
Yes and feel free to cut in. If there's something I say
that's interesting, you could just interrupt me and ask me to
focus on that. So, first of all, you mentioned
that Jews were citizens in the Hell in a world.
That's a very tricky subject, the question of Greek and Roman
citizens ship is, is it's a complicated one, and many Jews
enjoyed the Privileges of living under their host Empires.
But not all of them had citizenship so I'll put that
aside and you're right to say that by the second century BCE
Jews live throughout the Hellenistic World.
They live in North Africa, they live to the north of the land of
Israel. They live in the Greek Islands.
They live in Italy. Even going into Europe in the
Backwater, they live. Up north.
And, of course, there's a whole community of Jews to the east
along, the Euphrates and Tigris. We don't have a good tracking of
these Jews, but these are Jews, who presumably never left that
region following the Babylonian exile.
And then that kind of re-emerges into prominence in the rabbinic
era, but the Jews who live, let's say, along What's called
the Levant along this Mediterranean Coastal lines.
It's true that they encounter extraordinary challenges and
I'll talk about that in a second.
We also have to keep in mind that there must have been some
good time, some opportunities for Upward mobility.
And we assume that because of the kind of shocking level of
optimism that we find in some of the texts that are produced by
Jews, living outside the land of Israel specially in Egypt.
These are Jews who unsync Lee believe in the future of their
Unity's and in the notion that maybe today, they're not
accepted, but down the road, one day, they're will see and
appreciate all the many contributions that the Jewish
people make to their host Empires.
We also know that there were very powerful Jews in, in Egypt,
especially in talimichi. We know at least from Josephus
and other sources that he seems to have been Pious or at least
observant of his ancestral laws and anias force son's hockey and
hananya are advisors to Queen to one of the Queens named
Cleopatra, we have other references to very influential
Jews, living in A Egypt under Greek and Roman rule.
Some of these Jews might have been observant, others were
probably totally assimilated, biological Alexandria, very
famous philosopher, who we have every reason to think observes
his ancestral laws, observe Shabbat and cash route and and
other practices. But he had a brother who was a
very important politician in Egypt that likely abandoned his
observance of Judaism. We have a letter written by
authorities in Jerusalem to the Jews of Egypt at the end of the
second century, BCE imploring them to observe a holiday that
will become known as Hanukkah. And this letter specifies, that
they are their addressing the Jews of Egypt, but they're
asking in particular named Aristotle's to read this letter
and our establishes identified, as the tutor of King Ptolemy the
Tudor Who is Jewish and works in the court of the king named our
established. So again, you know, we have
figures who are Jewish in these positions and I want to say a
little bit about why and Why Jews would have been ambitious?
Presumably to attain these positions.
I think we can fairly assume that Jews needed channels of
influence in this difficult. And often dangerous World, they
need channels of influence because they have to obtain
protections when there is no distinction between religious
life and public life, and there was no distinction between
religious life and public life and ancient world.
If you don't attend the Festival of Dionysus, then you are a bad
Greek. If you don't attend the Festival
of Jupiter, then you are a bad Roman.
So when Jews are staying home from public festivals, they are
the object of public resent and critique and accusations, what
you think you're better than us. You take all the advantages of
living in our society, and then you don't participate.
You reject your ideals, you reject, our claims you reject,
our our practices and and our, you know, are ideals are values,
Etc. So very early on In the
Hellenistic era Jews are finding themselves to be the object of
resentment and accusations of misanthropy.
Misanthropia of course is a Greek word which means anti
people and I person. So the Jews need channels of
influence to obtain certain protections and permission to
not attend these public festivals celebrating the God.
Now there's an ironing and the irony is the more influence you
know exactly what I'm going to say.
And it sounds very contemporary and very resonant.
The more influence the Jews obtain or suspicion.
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
The more they are critiqued, the more they are resented, the more
they are marginalized or one might even say demonize by some
is being outside or infiltrating society and then using
improperly their influence and then ironically, the more
protection the Jews need So they find themselves in a very
challenging cycle where they need protection and then the
more influence they get, the more they are accused of having
undeserved power. I'm happy to stop there.
I'm also happy to keep going. Keep going, keep going.
This is okay. Keep going.
Um, despite these difficulties the Jews take great pride in
being members of their broader societies.
And I'm not talking about assimilated Jews.
I'm not talking about Jews who are abandoning the observance of
their ancestral laws. I'm talking about Jews who
probably observed what we would call common Judaism, these are
Jews who kept Shabbat who kept Castro, who practiced me?
La on their baby boys who gathered regularly in synagogues
to read the Torah and interpret the Torah.
So these are practicing Jews. who took pride in living in
broader societies where they could contribute and so, The
reason why I'm saying this is because there was an aspiration.
I don't think it was actually a reality.
I think it was an aspiration that Jews could successfully
have some kind of dual loyalty and be accepted by their host
Empire, and by their kin in Judea, this is the challenge of
diaspora Judaism is, you know, triangulating.
These two relationships, the relationship with their host
Empire and their relationship with their kid in the land of
Israel. And the way that Jews outside
the land of Israel Express, their hope that they could
achieve this to a loyalty, which really is such a difficult.
If not impossible, tight rope to walk the way that they express
this aspiration is by producing biblical interpretations, where
they can look at past Heroes and say, look, you see those people
did it? and the four main figures, I
think, That are really subject to admiration in the Hellenistic
era and we find the mentioned over and over again, in biblical
interpretations by Jews outside of the land of Israel is
Abraham, Yosef Moshe and Danielle.
These are four very important figures and Yosef, and Daniel in
particular, are heroes to the Jews who live outside the land
of Israel because they look at these stories and they say, oh
look at these great examples. I don't know that they had a
phrase that's equivalent to do a loyalty but look at Yosef who
was so beloved and admired by Egyptian, so trusted by Paro.
And yet never sways never veers from his Devotion to his
ancestral law. And of course, at Danielle the
same. So we have all this interesting
literature biblical interpretations and novellas
about these figures. That essentially are making a
claim about what Jews can. Do outside the land of Israel
and how they are legitimate. So now, I think I will stop
unless you want examples that I can keep going, you love
examples, you love examples, okay?
There is a fantastic. Writer named arpa news.
We don't know so much about him, except that he is cited by
Church. Father eusebius.
And you see these talks about Dr. Panasonic's biblical
interpretations are topus, is likely a Jew, living in the
second century, BCE who describes Abraham and, and the
abrahamic family as making extraordinary contributions.
To broader Society. So and also I should say our
Japanesse does the same thing with with Moshe So, for example,
our Japanesse argues or, or describes the way in which
Abraham in Egypt be friends, the Egyptian king and teaches him
astrology. Now.
It's really fascinating because other biblical interpreters of
the same time who think astrology is idolatrous.
Say Abraham fought against astrology, that's what Philo
says. So a lot of this is kind of a
mere into the values of the writers if you like astrology,
then I haven't invented astrology.
If you think it's pumpkin, if you think it's a joke that I was
combating, it, If Abraham and again, these other figures are
really mirrors through which through which Diaspora Jews can
project the best of themselves. They become what we would call
Exempla embodiments of every virtue, every positive character
trait. So, Moshe is the ideal Warrior
for writers who admire physical prowess, a philosopher for the
philosophical writers. And so on our Japanesse is just
one example of this in their so many others.
The used, you know, they use the characters from the Torah as
like a way to teach active lesson on.
You know, people's people are familiar with Moshe so they they
explained kind of like their worldview through these
characters. Yeah.
I'll just pull off a little line
from our Japanesse about Moshe again, it's excited and you see
it's, he says, Moshe Moses was the teacher of Orpheus as a
grown man. He bestowed many useful benefits
on mankind. He invented boats.
And devices for stone construction, and the Egyptian
arms and the implements for drawing water and for Warfare
and philosophy. So, you know, you can imagine it
upon a sitting there, you know, with his Papyrus, his stylist or
whatever. And he's looking around, he's
Seeing, you know, maybe he's, he's like on the coast of, you
know, he's, he's in Alexandria. So he, he's seeing the island of
pharaohs. The lighthouse Island.
He's looking at the waters, and he's seeing these boats, and
he's Imagining the contributions of his Jewish ancestors in the
same place or nearby, you know, by the Nile, but then he just
kind of tosses it all in, you know, starting with the most
specific, the boats and the devices.
And then he's like, you know what, he just in all philosophy.
That's one of my favorite lines in our tops because you see, he
just getting increasingly ambitious as the sentence goes
on. So fascinating to see how they
how they how they viewed everything, how they how they
how they approach and related with with the text that the
torah's. So fascinating.
And I I could see why you'd want to do this, it's really to be
able to go through this stuff all day and and to think about
it and to write about it and, you know, it's it's fascinating
stuff. It's just so fun and it's fun.
But it's also deeply important and I think that we make a
mistake. When we dismiss this literature
as heretical or irrelevant, there are actually some
fascinating examples of second temple Traditions that are
preserved in text, like our Tapas that then show up again
and drastic tradition, the famous image of baby Moshe on
paro's. Lap is one, that is mentioned,
it's a different version of it but it's one that is mentioned
in Josie FIFA's. And I think that's really
significant because the method, you know, if you want to be an
obnoxious academic about it, then he Josh that talks about
that tradition is And, and recorded and transmitted
centuries. After Josephus, sat down and
wrote his Antiquities of the Jews, which is in the 90 CE.
And so, for for Josephus, to be describing baby.
Moshe sitting on the lap of Paro and being tested by The
courtiers Who are threatened by him and then it shows up in
shemale robot. Well, you know, the truth is she
about Rob is early medieval, it's really late.
So when I look at Josephus and I say, wow, a very close version
of the story was recorded by first century Jew my my face in
the veracity and trustworthiness of these Traditions are actually
deeply enforced. There's a continuity.
You know, there is to be honest, there are also some interesting
variations and we should take seriously.
But yes, there's a continuity. Yeah, that's so interesting that
you take it away. Yes.
So, um, in your chapter on sectarianism you explain how sex
were actually minority groups. As there was indeed, a majority
common strand within the Jewish people, can you discuss what the
majority of Israel looked like how the minority sector played
within the majority and the basic description of each of the
sex Again, this is a huge question and their libraries
worth of books. both on sectarianism in the Hellenistic
World specifically and also in in terms of what I called
earlier, common Judaism so, I'll start with sectarianism because
I think that when people are asked about second temple
Judaism very often, their minds go straight to Pharisees,
Sadducees, a scenes. The Dead Sea Scrolls.
What we know many of us. Comes from collections of
literature that represent a tiny tiny percentage of Jews and
Jewish thinking in the ancient world.
So, when we talk about the Dead Sea Scrolls, we're not even
talking about what, we're likely a scenes.
We're talking about an extreme subset of the Asian community
and maybe in a day, the number of people who lived on the
Northwestern corner of the Dead Sea at kumran where the Dead
Sea, Scrolls were discovered. Maybe he was a 150, so we can't
exactly know how many Jews were living in the second.
And first centuries BCE and the first century CE.
But we know it was a whole lot more than 150 Jews.
It was probably over a million Jews.
So we have to be very careful when we talk about sectarianism
Josephus does give us the numbers.
Josephus says that there were 6,000 Pharisees 4000.
I think 4,000 scenes and 3,000 Sadducees Josephus is known to
inflate his numbers. He's not walking around, taking
a census, counting a scenes, and Sadducees and Pharisees.
These are his estimations, he doesn't know exactly.
I would venture to Guess that maybe there were even fewer than
that if you're estimating 600 to 800,000 Jews in the land of
Israel. Even in Israel alone, you're
talking about a very small percentage.
Now they have a high profile so I don't want to Discount their
influence. The Sadducees were known to be
priests who had administrative authority over the temple.
The Pharisees of course are the antecedent of the rabbinic
community, not exactly the rabbis but certainly their
predecessors. So these are teachers, these are
people who are in the public eye, the public religious.
I these are important people but they're not representing the
majority. So what does it mean to be a Jew
in the ancient world? How did you practice your
Judaism? How did you show others that you
were Jewish? And this is it's an especially
pressing question. When you want to understand
Jewish life outside the land of Israel where we don't even know
of any a scenes, or Sadducees and Pharisees.
Those secretary groups are really specific to the land of
Israel. Now, Philo of Alexandria, does
talk about some other groups. He talks about the therapeutic,
a group of Jewish Scholars who go out to the Wilderness to
study tour and philosophy. That's not exactly a sect.
You might call that more a tightly knit community and we
can talk about how to define a sect.
But these are not people who are thinking about the end of days,
they're not rejecting other groups of Jews on the basis of,
you know, fundamental, disagreements.
So we really don't think that sectarianism was a diasporan
phenomenon to be a practice in Jew in the ancient world.
You absolutely do. Not need to be in a sect.
What it meant. I think for most Jews was to
practice the three main identifying markers of Jewish
practice in the ancient world and that is Shabbat kashrut,
Brit Milah. Now, on top of that, I always
use this image of those are the recipe.
Those are the ingredients in the cake and the frosting like what
you see the thing that enhances it, that's so important that you
can't do without it. The frosting is the Torah.
I don't even know if this is a good metaphor, but metaphor that
I use the frosting is the Torah. The interpretation is the
sprinkles. I don't know, I don't know.
But in any case, the most important thing is the regular
gathering together in synagogues and reading and interpreting the
Torah. There are Shoals in the second
temple era. They are not we don't think
Places for normative prayer. And I, we can get into this
question of, you know, the gemara brachos that talks about
Abraham inventing shacarri and you talked in so on, but in the
second temple era, most likely Shoals were places, were Jews
gathered to read and interpret the tour there was Prior Up.
But prayer was less normative. And this is a complicated
question. There's certainly was Prior in
qumran in the Dead Sea Community, but maybe they didn't
have an exactly like other observant shoes.
But but The main thing that you would do in a show, is read the
Torah and interpret it. So there were things that you
could do anywhere, you didn't have to be in proximity to the
bathtub mcdows. You didn't have to be in
proximity to Jerusalem or even live in the land of Israel.
You didn't have to see the land of Israel for your entire life,
to practice. As a Jew, you needed to, to have
some access to studying the Torah and people did that in
synagogues, interesting. So, so the the temple itself was
already sort of, not as Central as it used to be.
There's already kind of like a, like a new identity that can be,
that can be carved out. That's not.
So Temple dependent in that out of me.
Last Shabbat and Katrina and the Gathering for the synagogue or
reading the Torah and interpreting and that kind of.
So we're looking at like the beginning stages of the shift
away from the temple Focus. it's a really, really good question
and I agree that I agree that we're shifting away in the sense
that there is a reality on the ground and the reality is that
the majority of Jews do not live in proximity to the temple, but
the temple retains its centrality in Jewish literature.
And again, I think that you could find later parallels with
this and rabbinic texts and medieval Jewish texts.
And so the temple in Jewish literature is really, really
important. And it's more than just the
literature. There are tens of thousands of
Jews, if not more, who are making the pilgrimage.
To Jerusalem on the holidays, of course we know this.
We've got so much evidence for this both in terms of the text.
But also in terms of the archaeological evidence, we've
got a pedestrian Rose leading to Jerusalem so we know that Jews
were going to make the pilgrimage.
What so interesting to my mind is that they know how to get
there. They have their you know, they
don't have ways but they have their Maps, they know how to go
and then they go back home. we don't have any evidence of a
mass of a mass migration Of Jews to the land of Israel, as far as
I know. But Jerusalem is very important
to them. The temple is very important to
them. But it's different because they
don't feel that they need to Worship in the temple in order
to kind of actualize themselves as practicing choose.
I understand it's a yes, I the way I freeze.
It might have might have. Yeah, I didn't mean to take it
to that extreme, of course. Yes, the temple was still was
still a huge part and I was just trying to make note of like, How
would you feel as a Jew without the temple and kind of the way
you answered it with with what they, what they were what they
focused on? And I feel like today we're kind
of in the same boat know. I mean for the most part how do
you know that a person takes his religious duties him?
Seriously if we're not gonna get into labels which I hate labels
like you know Orthodox, I'm not into that.
But like you see a guy keeping kashrut, keeping Shabbat you
understand the guy takes his real like you know that that
speaks very much today as much as I think it did back then.
I still like, you know, the choices of which we're we choose
to kind of like show our our Jewish identity good, do you my
on the right track Maybe Absolutely on the right track to
me, this is all very resonant. There's lots of conversation
today about who has the right to say things about the state of
Israel and what happens in Israel and the Jews in Israel
and there's all kinds of controversies about what
Authority Jews in the diaspora should have when it comes to
Israel. Those same conversations were
happening in the ancient world in both directions.
We have some really interesting texts, some letters that I
actually discuss in my more recent book that come from
Jerusalem and are sent to very prominent Jews in Egypt, where
there are essentially making the point, that religious Authority
comes and always will come from the land of Israel.
Doesn't matter how well you are. Does it matter how Pious you are
doesn't matter how well regarded, you are.
You're in Egypt, so Authority, simply Cannot come from there.
Excellent, thank you for before we move on.
To the next question, you did touch upon like one part that
was interested in, which is that there was a group, let's say of
maybe like a small community of people who would go to the
farest and study philosophy, right?
Or go to the Wilderness, what what makes it, what?
Why do you not get considered as a sect?
Like, what does it that defines a group of the sect?
It's a great question. The.
Subject of how to define effect is not widely agreed upon.
In other words, there are debates about how to understand
a sect. I really appreciate and
recommend album Gardens book on sectarianism.
Which which takes this question head on now.
And John Collins has written about it as well.
I would say a very A very, very extreme definition of how to
define sectarianism is to say, you are in a sect.
When you believe that your community most fully and
authentically embodies the true Israel, Now, the members of
kumaran of the Dead Sea sect. Again, we're living this out in
the most extreme way we know from their literature.
That they believe that Outsiders were not members of the polity
of Israel. In other words, they wouldn't
enjoy the same blessings. In the end time they were
keeping the wrong calendar, the Quran Community kept, the solar
calendar, and so they are literally claiming that
Outsiders are eating on, Yom Kippur, you know, if you think
about how important a calendar was and the ancient world, if
everyone is keeping a different calendar, that you're the only
one who's properly observing Yom Kippur So that's an extreme.
That's kind of the limit case of sectarianism to say.
We are the true Israel and all of you you're actually not, you
are not embodying. You're not inheriting those
covenantal promises we are. Now there are more nuanced
levels. I suppose of sectarianism where
you might say, well, we are fully and most properly living
out the the task. That was given to us in the
covenantal relationship. And so we are kind of at the
center of the policy of Israel, the therapeutic This, the stakes
are lower and the boundaries are looser.
I think that in terms of the rules of Entry, it was much more
relaxed. Again, we only know about the
therapeutic from Philo, so have to be careful to you.
When you only have one source, you have to be a little bit
more. A little bit more gentle in your
claims, but these are people who just had a passion for learning
for Torah study for philosophy. They were in community with each
other and Philo, has a lot of disdain for City Life.
He feels that it distracts and corrupts and a lot of
intellectuals in the ancient world did have a disdained for
City Life, so if you want to live a life of the Mind, there
was an ideal to get out of the city to get away from those
material distractions. And so, the notion that these
Jews, who were probably financially comfortable and had
the luxury to be able to do this, the idea that they went
out into the Wilderness to study Torah, this was considered to be
very very admirable. Is it a sect?
Are they making a claim that they and only they are the
recipients of divine beneficence and separates them from the rest
of world? Jewry I don't think so I want to
take it that far. yeah, what's interesting to me always is that
You hear for example, like, okay, based on your description
right now and you can consider you could consider Christianity
at least early on is a sect. But, but like, for example, the
Samaritans are never thrown into that category for some reason,
you don't hear like, the, the scenes, the, you know, the
Sagittarius and they're already considered out, you know, beyond
the pale. So I'm just curious to know why
that distinction is made. Maybe there is no, maybe maybe
I'm just, you know, wrong about this.
But I'm just curious to know why.
That's really interesting. I don't know why the Samaritans
would not be considered a sect. I would defer to someone who is
really a scholar of the Samaritans.
Maybe, there's an answer on that question that I don't know.
To me, it's more of like a religious brand.
Yeah. That's a great question.
I'm going to have to defer it because I don't have the answer,
all right. All right, so Ben's take the
next one. All right.
So in your chapter, expanding the Bible, you give us a tour of
the fascinating documents we have found from that period,
which expand the Bible. The Testaments being a great
example. Can you tell us about some of
the most important Testaments and other documents?
What was the likely reason they were ridden and how these
Testaments evolved into the time of Hazel?
This is my favorite part by the way.
You can only say that after I answered because I might give
you a really dry and boring answer.
I hope that I don't there's just so much.
They're so many texts that I want to tell you about but you
specify the Testaments. And so I'll tell you about the
Testaments. This is a genre of literature
actually becomes very important and early Christian tradition,
but it starts we think in Jewish literary circles at the end of
the second temple era, a testament is a document.
We find them first written in Aramaic actually.
And then mostly later in Greek, assessment is a text that
recalls the wisdom imparted to one's children and grandchildren
on a deathbed. And so this is a very, very
popular mode of writing and we find it in the context of
yakov's 12 sons. So the very earliest Testaments
that we find are found a kumran found at the dead sea caves and
their scraps of The Testament of naphtali.
And I believe, as well, The Testament of Levy.
I am pretty sure we have as well in Aramaic.
What ends up happening is that probably multiple writers added
to these early texts that by the first century CE, we have a
collection that becomes known as the Testaments of the 12
Patriarchs. I know how Christian this
sounds, I don't mean that offensively, but when we talk
about Testaments, it's not a word in the Jewish lexicon.
And so it does sound kind of far in the Testaments of the 12
Patriarchs. Um but that's why it's so
important to emphasize that we have these Aramaic documents and
we don't have a full collection of the Testaments as well
Patriarchs in Aramaic. But we do think that pretty
early on let's say by the end of the first century, there's a
collection of these speeches of the 12 sons of yaakov.
One of these in their deathbeds. We think that they are kind of
Completely composed and collected as as one unit by the
first century by the end of the first century in Greek.
In other words, these texts were circulating and being
transmitted and shared in our make.
And at some point you start to translate the Greek or write new
ones in Greek. Unfortunately, what ends up
happening is that in the second and third, centuries, editors,
who are Christian, are copying these documents Onto new
manuscripts and their interpolating references to
Jesus and the Trinity into their editions.
And so by the time you get to the Medieval Era, the
manuscripts of the Testaments, I don't want to say the word
corrupted but they present as Christian techs, I'm not the
only historian who would say These texts were very likely
originally written by Jews and it's not only that we have
Aramaic, scraps of them found at qumran, but there are really
interesting allusions to Jewish law that are not fully excised
from the text. So for example, I believe it's
in the Testament of Oh no. I think Shimon, I think she
owned that talks about the morning laws of the Jews.
M, o u r n. I n g the morning laws of the
Jews that the people that his descendants.
You know, I don't want to say this because I don't have it in
front of me, I don't know who they are.
Mourning, are they more morning? Shimon or they mourning someone
else but in any case there's a reference to those laws and what
laws we don't know because this text would have predated
rabbinic documents about a loop. So what are they talking about?
You know, we don't know. We've got little golden nuggets.
Little reference is to practices that would have been transmitted
orally because we don't have legal codes at this early stage.
We don't have a lot of literature.
We have a little bit, actually, again from Quran, but we don't
have a lot. so, the Testaments Are very serious texts they have
a lot of ethical content and they're catered towards the
biblical story. So we find fascinating biblical
interpretation within them. For example, in The Testament of
you who da, we have references to the story of Tamar and and in
that Testament Chastity and and propriety is highlighted in The
Testament of Yosef. We have other values that are
highlighted that correlate with his life as it is told Embrace
sheet. So these were written by very
close readers of the text and and I want to be clear again.
I don't read these texts as heretical or as sloppy or Or or
as disrespectful. I think that this was the
highest Level of homage and reverence.
That you could pay in the ancient world.
In other words, there's a playful element and there's a
creative element in these texts but there's all Extraordinary
reverends and and love for the biblical account.
So I don't think that these That these tests are in any way
trying to replace. Bracelet or the scriptures in
general, nor are they presenting themselves as authoritative as
scriptural. I think it's pretty clear that
these texts are not that and so if you want to call it
protimeter drastic, you can. But I think that they come from
a place of respect, So, yeah, totally see it as photography.
What I like to know is, you know, you mentioned that over
time there were, you know, kind of like a Christian.
Attachments to these Testaments. But is there a way we can?
Let's say learn these things today in their original form and
how much of the original is actually intact.
In. English editions of the
Testaments the 12 Patriarchs. You will really struggle to find
that kind of ortex that original Jewish version. because the
English editions are translated from manuscripts that were
either written in Greek or in as an ethiopic language or other
languages that in turn, derived from the Greek, So the the
process of discerning what is Jewish?
What is a later? Interpolation is a really
fraught. I don't recommend it.
I think that this can become very circular you know if you
decide oh a certain feature is Christian.
Then every time you find that feature you'll say it's
Christian and vice versa. Oh it's a law that must be
Jewish. Oh it's ethical that must be
Christian. You know you can get very
speculative, very fast. That is why the scrap.
From Quran are so important because they're early.
Another way to enter into this question, is to look for
citations of the Testaments. but unfortunately, we have very few
Because by the second century, like I said, it's entering into
the Christian imagination and I think at some point rabbinic
writers, say, you know what, you can have those, you know, there
is this kind of what we call The Parting of the ways where there
are certain texts that two of Jewish origin.
But because they become so Central to Christian Community,
the rabbi sort of let them go. Interesting.
There was one of the second temple literature books.
He talked about the featured avraham and how he kept all the
Torah. What was the name of that one?
I don't remember, offhand. Are you talking about the
Testament of Abraham? Which estimate of Abraham?
That's okay. Favorite text.
My favorite. I could talk about it all day.
I believe that's very exactly. I've heard you talk about it.
I think it was either on Orthodox conundrum or 1840, like
it was probably a few years ago but it was so entertaining.
So I would love to hear about it.
If you don't mind, I'm always worried about repeating myself
on podcast because I don't want to bore people and I don't want
to say the same thing so I'm always thinking in advance of a
podcast, okay? What can I say that?
I've never said before, this is something that bothers me and so
I appreciate that. You're inviting me to be
repetitive. That's very gracious of you and
I guess I don't know if I should apologize to listeners.
If I'm gonna pour it. This is just so Fun.
I should have, I should Have gotten the text next to me, is
it okay, can I take 10 seconds to grab?
Yeah. Okay.
Hold on a second. Thanks.
I love how she's so into it. Right.
Okay, I got it now. All right.
So the there were Jews, there
were Jewish writers and ancient world who had really great
senses of humor. And the writer of The Testament
of Abraham was one of them. This is a writer who knows very
intimately the genre of the Testaments and wants to subvert.
The genre, the genre is very serious.
Yeah, you mentioned that. So, it's very serious and this
one, I remember this now is it was, it's a comedy.
So it's very interesting. Yeah.
It's a comedy because everything that you expect to happen
doesn't happen, and so that kind of element of surprise makes it
shocking and funny, we know from the biblical tradition that
Abraham is a trusting servant of God.
Yes, it's true. He argues with God in Bracey in
tet and in Genesis 19 with the story of Sodom but he's doing so
out of Integrity out of a love for human, kind of a sincerity,
a sense of Brotherhood. Forgiveness, Abraham is pious.
I think we could all agree on that.
Abraham is a Pious servant of God.
There's a reason why he's chosen by God.
And of course, the paradigmatic example, is embracing a bet with
the akeda now, Whoever wrote this book wanted to surprise and
shock his readers by depicting Abraham as just an utter doofus.
And so what he does is he uses the Testament genre to say, I'm
going to tell you a story where everything goes wrong and you're
going to think you're getting a story of Abraham's Testament.
In other words, Abraham was about to die and so the reader
is going to expect solum. Ethical wisdom.
The greatest insights to be imparted inspirational, right?
Because it's Abraham, he's the most important of all the
Patriarchs of all the heroes in the Bible.
And instead we have a story where Abraham is about to die.
And he refuses to. So the truth, I haven't looked
at this in a long time, but the story opens up with God.
Sending me hael the Ark. Angel to Earth to gently bring
Abraham into the heavens. God loves Abraham so much.
He wants him to have a gentle death, a death may be that is
similar to the death of Aaron or Yahoo but a gentle death.
And so how the Archangel Michael goes to Abraham and says all
right Abraham your time is calm. I'm here to take you into the
world to come to take you into this.
You know this new this this new existence you're going to die.
And what we have afterwards is a series of Comedies in which
Abraham Maneuvers out of Michels, way to evade death and
so Mikhail says, you know, your time has come and and, and
Abraham says, that's great, you know, I'll just I'll be right
back and kind of like slips out the back of his tent.
This happening Michelle keeps trying to get Abrams.
Come with him. Abraham is like pretending to be
on board but absolutely will not go near him mihail gets so
desperate. And frustrated, he goes back to
Heaven. He's like God I just I can't
like he's such a pain in the you know, I can't do it and so God
is like all right, you know what you're you're you're doing your
best but clearly, you're not to the task, I'm gonna send the
angel of death and the book ends with the angel of deaths,
tricking avraham into touching him and I'm dies.
But before that happens. Abraham gives me hell a series
of false promises. If you do X, I'll go with you
and then you called us and the arms like actually and I'm going
to and so one of the things that I've ever said is you know I'll
go with you all I'll go into heaven but you need to first
take me on a chariot ride over all of human kind because I want
to see what's going on in the world.
And so they go on this Chariot and they see all these terrible
things. This is the climax of the book
is, is before we call, it gives up an opera and goes back.
And says he got us on the angel of death.
Avram is still kind of leading Michelle along and saying like
I'm with you just here's another thing I do.
Here's another thing you got to do.
So at one point From asks, for this Chariot over the heavens,
they go in the Chariot and they Glide over the Earth and they're
observing human kind. And what do they see?
They see sin after sin after sin, you're looking down.
And, you know, in one place a man is committing adultery and
another place someone is stealing and another place.
Someone is murdering. And every time around looks
below and sees more debauchery and and criminal activity,
everyone says, you gotta kill that person, you sinning, you
got to do something. I mean, he was like wait a
second, like I thought you were Opera home, you know, the
highest generous and I was like, no, stop it with that.
Like, no, you gotta kill this guy and he was like, oh no.
So Mikhail because he has these special Angelic.
Abilities is like, throwing, you know, is like zapping these
Sinners below and After a while you know avram is like
instructing Miata to kill these Sinners after a while.
God intervenes basically a buckle voice comes out from him
and says all right stop the Chariot ride.
This is getting out of control. If you let avraham keep going
like this, he's going to destroy all of human kind and because I
was like, I thought you never say that has been terrible for
me and so that's how the Chariot ride ends.
I mean, just goes on and on with these various Misadventures
avraham leading, you know, along through this kind of just
endlessly frustrating Epic story.
So, The Testament of April. I'm like, why in the world?
This is this book about first of all, well, I'm curious to know
what you think but Yeah. I mean I just yeah go ahead.
Yeah I just it seems like almost like a Torah fanfiction that was
written at the time because there's just having good time
with it you know right. So fanfiction for sure that's a
phrase that I love look. This is not Um, this is not.
Authoritative this is not sacred.
I don't think I don't think it was read as sacred texts or not
even close to canonical. I don't think that this was a
text that was read with. Reverence there is a kind of a
teasing this Of. Oh you think our home was so
perfect? You think that the you know,
these biblical Heroes were You know, Flawless, let me tell you.
What you know what would have been if if Abraham was really
you know, was really tested. So, I think that this is a story
for entertainment. But it plays with pietistic
themes and throughout the work, you can see words and phrases
and sometimes full verses being lifted off from the tenac.
In other words, whoever wrote this was deeply intimate with,
with the Torah. And you can like, literally go
through line by line and see where there are quotations.
Illusions references. Not just to safer Bracey but to
kimote to heskel because there's a kind of angelic Chariot scene.
To other parts of Tanakh. So here's someone who's like
probably going to show, you know, probably getting some kind
of formal Jewish Education knows how to practice their their
traditions and knows their scriptural stories.
And yet at the same time, produces a text that is, you
know, totally a reference He's voicing his his inner doubts.
There is a. Serious question here.
You want to say more? He's what's the things that I
mean, like you said he's he's very much connected with the
text so he's not only familiar with it but deeply entrenched in
it and we can see that by the amount of verses and and themes
that he that he's that he's putting in playing with.
But from what you were saying, it seems like he he has a hard
time. He has a hard time with with
certain theological aspects of piety.
And like, the feeling I was getting, was he was, he was kind
of in a manner of Comedy, but, but in a sort of like, you know,
you know, expressing his, his inner perplexities complexities
or however, you'd want to call it.
So I think that's true. Yes, I think that the book is
struggling with the Odyssey. This is the question of why do
good people suffer and why do good people die?
Abraham doesn't accept. Okay, that's that's the point.
And so this is specific to the question of what a good things
happen to bad people, why things up the good people.
I think Abraham is a very powerful moral voice here.
He's protesting God and he saying, look, these people are
sinning, they need to be punished.
You can't let bad people get away with things and, hey, I'm a
good person. I've listened to you all my life
now. Chasing me across the Earth,
trying to get me to die, you're ignoring the debauchery, you're
ignoring the thief, you're ignoring all these people and
you're chasing me he's protesting against what he seems
to be he seen. He feels is the Moreland Justice
and he's kind of like a job and in my mind this is this is an
evil kind of story but it's funny right.
There isn't an answer. I think that the questions here
are deeply, serious questions avram.
Expresses his his fealty, his loyalty to his ancestral God but
he doesn't accept reality on the ground.
And I think the message is that if you are Pious, if you care
about this, right? If, if you are loyal to God, if
you are committing here as a social traditions, Protest.
It's these are questions that the writer doesn't have the
answer to, and I think that he's projecting that.
That difficulty on to avraham who is asking these these very
same questions. We are living in a world where
good people do seem to suffer and bad.
People do seem to go unharmed and Aaron doesn't like it and he
wants it to change and God says, Ah, but what you don't
understand is that if I ruled with Justice, the world would be
destroyed and he comes to his own solution via the story.
He comes to his own resolution or one that he could live with
at least and in the end avraham dies, right?
In the end. He's not right in the end.
God doesn't say, you know what? That's a really good point.
Here's another 40 years. Now, he dies.
From doesn't win the argument. So what the author is doing is
asking really serious questions, but honestly who in the first
century is reading, EOS. I don't know, I don't know that
your average even observant Jew in the ancient world, it's also
a very difficult book in general.
The language is, is very very difficult.
If you're not an educated Jew that knows like you know, high
level Biblical Hebrew, you're not, you can't learn eov, that's
exactly right. And the level of subversion that
the authors is administering, here is so it's so interesting
because he's taking the one character that is known for
arguing with God for the opposite.
Right saving lives. It's very smart, right?
Not he said, but but Justice, the voice for, you know, a
desire for justice. What's really interesting is
that? In the third or fourth century
Christians stopped reading this for entertainment and humor, and
they produced a new version of it, that was much more serious.
And so later, as we moved closer to the Medieval Era, there's a
new version of The Testament of Abraham, that's totally serious
and practicing and essentially was red and Christian
communities as another Testament.
So it was stripped over the humor and then it became the
story that I was actually very, very serious and doesn't have
the kind of mocking tones and and doesn't depict michela's
bumbling and and clueless. So, at some point it became a
serious book and Christian tradition.
Well, what they got? They got something right.
You got to leave the comedy to the Jews, you know, the one,
when I, um, I'm kicking myself for not realizing the specific
correlation to, to human suffering and the problem of
human suffering. Like, it's so obvious, right?
When you said I'm like, oh my God, yes, it's exactly what he's
doing. But as you were explaining the
whole thing, I just I went back to her by sacs Roberts.
I think was like he on the topic of human suffering and what a
good people suffer and why do you know?
I feel like he had the most refined response, you get a lot
of answers but then when it comes to our bestie, Give you an
answer, he gives you a, he gives you a channel from which to
consider something. If you know what I mean.
You know what I mean? He doesn't he doesn't just hear.
Here's an answer and gives like some technical reason or way to
make it all work. He kind of just he opens up a
discussion and you mentioned protest and that's exactly the
whole point, right? Like sex that we said that the
whole like, you know, we have to protest The the idea that
people, the good people suffer, we need to protest that as human
beings. We shouldn't be satisfied with
any theological technical answer that we can give.
And then like, as you were saying this, I was thinking that
was like, that's exactly what this, what he was doing.
He was he was screaming his, he was protesting this.
This this this some basic question that was probably
consuming him and I just found it to be incredible, right,
right. And what's interesting?
I agree with all of that and, you know, as much as the writer,
I think, really treats the Torah and torch tradition with.
I think a kind of respect, I don't think he respects the
Testament. Genre, I don't think that he
liked the testes. If I had to guess I think that
he probably rent speeches very serious speeches and The
Testament of Ruin and The Testament of, you know, whatever
lady and he probably said, you know, these are So confident
these documents about how to live your life and, you know,
you will enjoy Divine blessings and protection.
If you do X, Y and Z, and he looked around and he said, no,
that's just doesn't resonate with me.
But he's like, polymer, sizing the Testaments with a testament.
Yeah, exactly. But something else and, and you
know what? Maybe even Abraham would agree
with me right. There are good people in the
world who suffer even over. How we saw that, right?
Arm saw that we know that from the Torah um and we don't have
to accept it, right? We could be the moral Voice Even
if we know the answers going to be you just don't get it.
You're a mere mortal. You know, even if the answer is
going to be, you could use a little humility but still we can
ask the question. Yep, I think that I think the
interesting connection to e of also is that in the tradition,
there's also this idea that avraham is the author of severe.
Of oh yes, I didn't think about that.
And and either it's about that he wrote it or there's or or
there's something about his life that there's certain values that
are connected to avraham. So I think your textual links
but the textual links because intro textural links.
So I I think that that's probably why the author chose to
use the Odyssey as his Focus here.
It's interesting. Very fascinating, that is really
interesting, pure speculation obviously, very cool, very cool.
I really that was so enjoyable. So before we wrap up, we'd love
for our listeners to get a taste of your latest work letters from
home. Could you tell us briefly what
the book is about? What inspired it and what kind
of conversation you hope it'll Spark Ah, thank you for asking
about letters from home. It was published in summer 2024
and the the book, essentially addresses.
The question of, what was the Israel diaspora relationship
like in the ancient world? How did Jews within?
And without the land of Israel, think about each other.
And the core argument of the book is that I asked for it is a
category that is invented by Jews in the land of Israel.
The word diaspora is very very rare.
We only find it 15 times in all of surviving second temple
literature and it's seems to me that most or all of those times
derive from the land of Israel or were written by people with
close ties to the land of Israel.
The notion that there's a meaningful category that
designates all of Jewish life outside the land of Israel and
that, that category has a particular theological.
Meaning that is negative, is a Judean idea Jews in the actual
diaspora. And I say, I asked for their,
with quotation marks. Do not.
Use the word or think with the category.
And in fact, make the argument that Jewish life outside, the
land of Israel is is Is making a contribution to human kind, that
Jews in the land cannot make by bringing knowledge of the
universal God to the foreign Nations.
So, part of the, what the book does is it traces, the
development of the word diaspora links it to Judean way of
thinking, and says, well, actually, you know, we take this
word to be kind of self-evident of a particular reality, but the
category of diaspora was contested from the time that it
was invented. That is fascinating.
And we hope to we hope to do a separate podcast on that book in
a future time. And we just wanted to first of
all singer Praises. We think that you are such an
important voice in the Jewish world.
Because there's not many women, especially who do what you do.
And it's takes a lot of Courage. It's all so, something like I
would hope for my own daughter's to, you know, pursue such a
career because, of course, it's not, it's not so simple, you
know, being an orthodox Jew and getting involved in this stuff.
So we really appreciate it. I think we think you're awesome
and we hope that we keep getting more and more great content from
you more great books and wishing you.
The best. That is so gracious.
Thank you very much for this kind words and thank you for
having me on. It, thank you so much.
Keep up the good work. Thank you.
You too you too. Take Care.