cahn | The Jewish War: Last half of book 5

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Last week: Titus saving the day single-handedly as a millenium-old trope. The synoptic gospels foreshadowing these events, and discussion of the abomination of desolation. The Yom Kippur service description of the priest in his vestments. How much Titus might have intended the destruction of Jerusalem, and when, and how much that question may be different from how Josephus feels like he needs to justify it? A mention of R. Yochanan ben Zakkai, which all of you should definitely tell me more about :D

This week: Jerusalem is under siege. It's quite awful for those under siege, what with famine inside the city and getting crucified by Romans if they try to escape. Titus and Josephus continue to be blameless and awesome.

Next week: First half of Book 6: "...from its rebuilding by Haggai in the second year of the reign of Cyrus to its capture under Vespasian was 639 years and 45 days" (270).

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

cenozoicsynapsid

I don't really know, but I'd venture to say that the sources are likely to be independent. The earliest phase of the Talmud (the Mishnah) reflects oral laws and traditions from the land of Israel, of approximately this period. The Tannaim--- the teachers--- created and propagated a body of material which was eventually written down a bit over a century later. (The next phase of the Talmud, the Gemara, contains post-exilic commentaries; the larger and more commonly read source is the Babylonian Talmud.)

The Pirke Avot (Precepts of the Fathers) section of the Talmud starts with "Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the Men of the Great Assembly..." but by the era we're talking about, we're solidly in the territory of attested people who would have been eyewitnesses to these events. I'll let

zdenka tell you the story of how R' Yohanan escaped the siege, but "Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received [the oral tradition] from Hillel and Shammai. He used to say: if you have learned much Torah, do not claim credit for yourself, because for such a purpose were you created. Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai had five disciples and they were these: Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah, Rabbi Yose, the priest, Rabbi Shimon ben Nethaneel and Rabbi Eleazar ben Arach"." These guys are all over the Talmud; Eliezer in particular is very highly cited (https://drewkaplans.blogspot.com/2011/07/rabbinic-popularity-in-mishnah-vii-top.html, which I admit I found on Wikipedia), in many of the tractates... which I think clearly establishes that these are real people who existed, even if some of the legends about them (R Eliezer also did magic!) are not true. So we have a plausible chain of transmission from eyewitnesses to the events, down to the period when the text is written down. On the other hand, the Tannaim basically never cite Hellenistic literature. (There are some mathematical tractates which make this very clear. It's a completely independent mathematical/logical tradition--- you don't get any sense that these guys have heard of Euclid or Archimedes.) Because the Mishnah isn't a history to begin with, I don't think there's as much of a perceived value in bringing in accurate historical sources in the same way that the Roman/Greek historians use earlier books to supply what they don't know themselves.

From:

cahn

This is fascinating! I'm really glad that you guys are telling me more about this.

(There are some mathematical tractates which make this very clear. It's a completely independent mathematical/logical tradition--- you don't get any sense that these guys have heard of Euclid or Archimedes.)

Huh, this is really neat. So do they come up with something that works sort of like Euclidean geometry, or...?

From:

cenozoicsynapsid

I don't remember geometry specifically, I was talking more about the proof strategies. What I read at one point was this article: A Mathematical Proof of Kinnim 3:2, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40914641
See section seven "The role of mathematical proof" for the "quasi-inductive" nature of the arguments.