One significant bone to pick with Donald Uitvlugt's otherwise very
informative and instructive posting --
Donald Jacob Uitvlugt wrote, among other things:
> ...
> As for the Jews, the canon was only agreed upon toward the end of the 1st
> c./beginning of the 2nd c. of the Christian era, with the rabbinical
> councils at Jamnia. ...
> ...
> Donald Jacob Uitvlugt
The very designation "council of Jamnia/Yavneh" (usually in the singular,
although DJU's plural may get closer to reality) is misleading, and
largely a (Christian) scholarly construct. There is no evidence for any
"council" in the sense of a broad base of Jewish community leaders
convoking specifically to hammer out religious problems such as "the
canon." There apparently was an early, proto-rabbinic, Jewish "academy"
established at Yavneh by Johanan ben Zakkai and his adherents who had
escaped the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 ce (if the later rabbinic
traditions can be trusted); the structure is vague and doubtless changed
with the times and perhpas with the succession of Gamaliel II as leader
around 90 ce. The early adherents became revered as "sages" (probably with
broader influence on some areas of Judaism) and discussions were
apparently intermittent over the years, focusing especially on legal
(halakhic) matters, including the ritual purity (sacredness? authority?)
of certain books such as Esther, Song of Songs, Qohelet, Ezekiel (details
are foggy, and various claims are made in the secondary literature!). It
is not at all clear how broadly such discussions and decisions affected
Judaism at large (including Greek speaking Judaism), or how quickly. By
the time rabbinic literature and its traditions become dominant in
emerging "classical" Judaism centuries later, of course, the impression is
left that these early sages spoke for all of Judaism. That is far from
likely, but little else remains to challenge their voices!
Bob
--
Robert A. Kraft, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
227 Logan Hall (Philadelphia PA 19104-6304); tel. 215 898-5827
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http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rs/rak/kraft.html
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