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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 February 2015
Ever since Leopold Zunz inaugurated the critical study of rabbinic literature in 1818, scholars of the school of midrash known as Tanhuma-Yelammedenu (TY) have given priority to analyzing questions of textual history, dating, aesthetics, form-critical issues, and the literary qualities of these texts. This scholarship has focused on questions of form rather than content; for the most part, the distinctive ideas of these texts, their values and theologies, have yet to be explored. In an article devoted to form-literary issues in aggadah, Yonah Fraenkel argues that “indeed there were also changes in the [Tanhuma's] ideas, like their ethical and social values and their overall world view . . . these types of issues need further research.” Unfortunately, very few scholars have responded to Fraenkel's call. In fact, two excellent scholarly works on rabbinic thought have ignored the content of the TY altogether: neither David Kraemer's Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature nor Ishay Rosen-Zvi's recent work, Demonic Desires, engage TY texts. While Kraemer and Rosen-Zvi extensively discuss sixth- and seventh-century Babylonian texts, such as the Babylonian Talmud, they do not do the same with sixth- and seventh-century Palestinian texts, such as many TY texts. These two important studies exemplify how, in a more general sense, late Palestinian midrashim have been conspicuously neglected by scholars of rabbinic literature working on content-based projects.
I want to thank the following people for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper: Arnon Atzmon, Meir Ben-Shachar, Marc Bregman, Shaye Cohen, Ari Finkelstein, Michael Fishbane, Jay Harris, Yishai Kiel, Moshe Lavee, Sara Meirowitz, Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Bernard Septimus, Zvi Septimus, Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal, Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Eliyahu Stern, and the anonymous reviewers of Harvard Theological Review.
1 For an overview of the history of Tanhuma-Yelammedenu scholarship, see Bregman, Marc, The Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Literature: Studies in the Evolution of the Versions (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2003) 3–19 (Hebrew section)Google Scholar.
2 Fraenkel, Yonah, “Remarkable Phenomena in the Text-History of the Aggadic Stories,” in Proceedings of the Seventh World Congress of Jewish Studies: Studies in the Talmud, Halacha, and Midrash (ed. Gutman, Israel; vol. 3 of Proceedings of the Seventh World Congress of Jewish Studies: Held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 7–14 August 1977; Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1981) 45–69 [Hebrew]Google Scholar.
3 The few scholars who do address the Tanhuma's content include Ira Chernus, who has shown how the Tanhuma's editors reshape earlier rabbinic traditions towards a more nationalistic orientation (see Chernus, Ira, “On the History of a Pericope in the Midrash Tanhuma,” JSJ 11 (1980) 53–65Google Scholar), and Jeffrey Rubenstein, who has demonstrated how myth is more developed in the Tanhuma corpus than in its classical counterparts (see Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., “From Mythic Motifs to Sustained Myth: The Revision of Rabbinic Traditions in Medieval Midrashim,” HTR 89 [1996] 131–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar).
4 Kraemer, David Charles, Responses to Suffering in Classical Rabbinic Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Rosen-Zvi, Ishay, Demonic Desires: Yetzer Hara and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity (Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Scholars treating the motif of protest have not noticed this tendency. See, for example, Heinemann, Joseph, Prayer in the Talmud: Forms and Patterns (SJ 9; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1977) 193–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Heschel, Abraham Joshua, Heavenly Torah: As Refracted through the Generations (trans. Tucker, Gordon; New York: Continuum, 2005) 137, 138, and 209–16Google Scholar; Kraemer, Responses to Suffering; Mintz, Alan L., Ḥurban: Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984) 77–78Google Scholar; and Stern, David, Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991) 130–45Google Scholar.
6 See Kraemer, Responses to Suffering, 184–210.
7 Moreover, Kraemer deals exclusively with rabbinic theodicy, while this paper, more broadly, treats the protest motif in general (even when not related to the suffering of the innocent).
8 See Herr, M. D., “Tanhuma Yelammedenu,” EncJud 15:794–96Google Scholar; and Urbach, Ephraim, “Tanhuma-Yelamedenu Fragments, Kovetz Al-yad 6.16 (1966) 3–54Google Scholar.
9 There is even some TY material that has been deposited in Genesis Rabbah and Pesiqta de Rab Kahana. For a listing of all extant TY texts and manuscripts, see Bregman, Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Literature, 20–96.
10 To date, we have an unpublished critical edition to the first twenty chapters of Tanhuma, Exodus; see Allen David Kensky, “‘Midraš Tanhuma Shmot: A Critical Edition of ‘Midrash Tanhuma Shmot’ (Standard Edition) through Beshallah, Based on Manuscripts and Early Editions, with an Introduction and Commentary” (Ph.D. diss., Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1990) [Hebrew]. Marc Bregman's dissertation also contains critical editions to the texts he analyzes; see Marc Bregman, “Sifrut Tanhuma-Yelammedenu” [The Tanhuma-Yelammedeunu literature] (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1991). Also see Ulmer, Rivka, Pesiqta Rabbati: A Synoptic Edition of Pesiqta Rabbati Based upon All Extant Manuscripts and the Editio Princeps (3 vols.; vols. 1–2: South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 155, 200; vol. 3: Studies in Judaism; vols. 1–2: Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997–2000Google Scholar; vol. 3: Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2002) [Hebrew].
11 On the dating of the TY literature, see Bregman, Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Literature, 1–5; idem, “Tanḥuma Yelammedenu,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica (ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik; 22 vols.; Detroit: Macmillan, 2007) 19:503–4; Chernus, “History of a Pericope,” 53–65. Rabinowitz, Zvi Meir, “Kerovot Yanai to Exodus 7:8 and the Problem of the Ancientness of the Midrashim of Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu,” Bar-Ilan University Yearbook 1 (1963) 207–9Google Scholar; Rubenstein, “Mythic Motifs,” 131–59; Strack, Hermann Leberecht and Stemberger, Günter, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (trans. Bockmuehl, Markus N. A.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996) 302–6Google Scholar; and Zunz, Leopold, Haderashot beYisra’el vehishtalshelutam hahistorit [Sermons of the Jews in their historical development] (trans. Albeck, Chanoch; Jerusalem: Bialik, 1954) 108–17Google Scholar.
12 See Bregman, Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Literature, 4–5.
13 Elbaum, Jacob, “On the Character of the Late Midrashic Literature,” in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Jerusalem, August 4–12, 1985 (ed. Goldberg, Arnold M. and Assaf, David; 5 vols. in 9; Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986) 3:57–62, at 57Google Scholar.
14 Zunz, Haderashot beYisra’el.
15 Bregman, Tanhuma-Yelammedenu Literature, 3 (English section).
16 Elbaum, Jacob, “From Sermon to Story: The Transformation of the Akedah,” Prooftexts 6 (1986) 97–117Google Scholar; Shinan, Avigdor, “Scriptural Exegesis to Liberated Narrative,” Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 5 (1984) 203–20 [Hebrew]Google Scholar. Contra Elbaum, Joshua Levinson locates the beginnings of this genre transformation in Leviticus Rabbah; see Levinson, Joshua, Twice Told Tale: A Poetics of the Exegetical Narrative in Rabbinic Midrash (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2005) 239–69 [Hebrew]Google Scholar.
17 Elbaum, “Sermon to Story.”
18 On confrontations with God in the Hebrew Bible, see Blank, Sheldon, “The Confessions of Jeremiah and the Meaning of Prayer,” HUCA 21 (1948) 331–54Google Scholar; idem, “Men against God: The Promethean Element in Biblical Prayer,” JBL 72 (1953) 1–13; Blumenthal, David R., “Confronting the Character of God: Text and Praxis,” in God in the Fray: A Tribute to Walter Brueggemann (ed. Linafelt, Tod and Beal, Timothy K.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998) 38–51Google Scholar; Crenshaw, James, “Popular Questioning of the Justice of God in Ancient Israel,” ZAW 82 (1970) 380–95Google Scholar; idem, “The Sojourner Has Come to Play the Judge: Theodicy on Trial,” in God in the Fray: A Tribute to Walter Brueggemann (ed. Tod Linafelt and Timothy K. Beal; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998) 83–92; Gemser, Berend, “The Rib—or Controversy—Pattern in Hebrew Mentality,” in Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East: Presented to Professor Harold Henry Rowley by the Society for Old Testament Study in Association with the Editorial Board of Vetus Testamentum, in Celebration of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, 24 March 1955 (ed. Noth, M. and Thomas, D. Winton; VTSup 3; Leiden: Brill, 1955) 120–37Google Scholar; Holladay, William L., “Jeremiah's Lawsuit with God: A Study in Suffering and Meaning,” Int 17 (1963) 280–87Google Scholar; Meira Kensky, “Trying Man, Trying God” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2009); Muffs, Yochanan, Love and Joy: Law, Language, and Religion in Ancient Israel (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992)Google Scholar; and Westermann, Claus, “The Complaint against God,” in God in the Fray: A Tribute to Walter Bruegemann (ed. Linafelt, Tod and Beal, Timothy K.; trans. Siedlecki, Armin; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998) 233–41Google Scholar. Also see Bright, John, “Jeremiah's Complaints: Liturgy or Expressions of Personal Distress?,” in Proclamation and Presence: Old Testament Essays in Honour of Gwynne Henton Davies (ed. Durham, John I. and Porter, J. R.; Richmond, Va.: John Knox, 1970) 189–213Google Scholar; and Stone, Michael E., “Reactions to the Destruction of the Second Temple: Theology, Perception, and Conversion,” JSJ 12 (1981) 200–2Google Scholar.
19 See Gen. Rab. (Vilna) 22:9, 41:2, 49:10, 52:6, 53:13, 55:3, 56:5, 56:11, 56:12; Pesiq. Rab Kah. (Mandelbaum) 15:4, 19:2; and Lam. Rab. proem 24, 1:37, 3:1, 5:1.
20 For more examples of this motif, see Dov Weiss, “Confrontations with God in Late Rabbinic Literature” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2011).
21 God concedes to a human challenge in Exod 32:14, Num 14:20, Exod 32:14, and Amos 7:1–3. There are also biblical moments of divine “regret” (
) that are not accompanied by a human confrontation. For example, God “regrets” () creating humanity (Gen 6:6), making Saul a king in Israel (1 Sam 15:11), and bringing evil upon Israel (Jer 42:10).
22 For a more detailed analysis of the biblical material on transgenerational punishment, see Fishbane, Michael A., Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) 333–45Google Scholar; and Greenberg, Moshe, Studies in the Bible and Jewish Thought (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1995) 25–41, at 34–39Google Scholar.
23 All translations of the Bible throughout this article are drawn from the njps.
24 The same version of the passage appears in Deut 5:9.
25 In contrast to Exod 34:6–7, Exod 20:5 highlights the harsh consequences of sin: not only will sinners suffer for their transgressions, but their progeny will be punished as well. In this passage, the doctrine is about extending punishment, rather than delaying it. See Berlin, Adele, Brettler, Marc Zvi, and Fishbane, Michael A., The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 89, 149Google Scholar; and Muffs, Love and Joy, 16–22.
26 Levenson, Jon Douglas, Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006) 277Google Scholar.
27 Jer 31:28–29.
28 Moshe Greenberg notes that while Deut 24:16 also rejects transgenerational punishment, that rejection only refers to punishments meted out in human courts, not by God. He writes that Deut 24:16 should be “recognized as a judicial provision, not a theological dictum. It deals with an entirely different realm than Deut. 5:9 and Exod. 20:5. . . . This is clear from the verb 
, ‘shall be put to death,’ referring always to judicial execution and not to death at the hand of God” (Greenberg, Studies in the Bible, 35). Some rabbinic texts, however, see this Deuteronomic passage as rejecting even the transgenerational punishments administered by God, as we shall see.
29 See, for example, the Tannaitic statement preserved in Avot R. Nat., version B, 22.
30 As a close reader of Scripture, the author of this ancient midrash derives this condition of continuity by noticing that the words “upon the third generation [
]” (v. 5) are superfluous. The lone words “upon the children” would have sufficed to teach that grandchildren would be punished for the sins of grandparents, since rabbinic literature uses the term “children” to include grandchildren. Thus, the extra words “upon the third generation” teach that for the punishment to apply, three continuous generations must be evil.
31 See Pesiq. Rab Kah. 25:3, b. Sanh. 27b, and b. Ber. 7a.
32 b. Mak. 24a.
33 In the Bible itself (Exod 34:6–7), it is unclear whether Moses or God is the one proclaiming these divine attributes; see Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 335.
34 According to Buber, this passage also appears in the earliest printed editions of Midrash Tanhuma (prior to the Mantova printing; see Solomon Buber, Midrash Tanḥuma [Vilna: Rom, 1885] 130–30 n. 384) [Hebrew].
35 Menachem Fisch emphasizes the radical nature of this midrash: “God is astonishingly described as having produced a morally deficient early draft of the Torah, [and then] Moses is portrayed as having refused to comply, and having challenged it on moral grounds .▒.▒. [the theology] is subsequently described as having been happily revised by virtue of God['s] accepting Moses’ superior moral judgment!” (Fisch, Menachem, “Judaism and the Religious Crisis of Modern Science,” in Nature and Scripture in the Abrahamic Religions: 1700–Present [ed. van der Meer, Jitse M. and Mandelbrote, Scott; Brill's Series in Church History 37; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2008] 2:525–67, at 552)Google Scholar.
36 For another late midrashic solution to the biblical notion of transgenerational punishment, see Weiss, Dov, “Between Values and Theology: The Case of Salvation through Children in Rabbinic Thought,” Milin Havivin 3 (2007) 1–15Google Scholar.
37 See, for example, Gen 17:14; Exod 12:15, 30:33, 30:38, 31:14; Lev 7:20–21, 7:25, 7:27, 17:4, 17:9, 18:29, 19:8, 22:3; and Num 9:13, 15:30–31, 19:13, and 19:20. Jacob Milgrom counts nineteen types of crimes that are punished by karet and notes that these punishments are only incurred for ritual crimes committed against God, not ethical crimes against humankind; see Milgrom, Jacob, Numbers (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990) 405–8Google Scholar. While Scripture calls the punishment 
, Jewish tradition calls it 
. For possible grammatical explanations for the term, see Propp, William H., Exodus 1–18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 2; New York: Doubleday, 1999) 403Google Scholar.
38 See Num 15:30–31. Michael Fishbane argues that these passages are a later, “revolutionary” reworking of Leviticus 4, and they reflect an attitude of “severity for all the minutiae of the law.” He maintains that the “remarkable transformation of religious ideology” (that every sin incurs karet) was produced either by the exilic or postexilic Jewish communities; see Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 192–93. While some rabbinic texts read these passages as referring only to the sin of idolatry (Sifre Num. 111, 112), Aharon Shemesh shows that the majority of rabbinic texts accept the straightforward reading that Numbers 15 refers to all types of sin; see Shemesh, Aharon, Punishments and Sins: From Scripture to the Rabbis (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2003) 91–93Google Scholar. Shemesh, therefore, reads m. Ker. 1:1, which isolates thirty-six sins that warrant karet, as only referring to types of sins that also incur the obligation of a sin-offering when committed unintentionally.
39 See Pope, Marvin H., “Excommunication,” in The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (ed. Buttrick, George; Nashville: Abingdon, 1992) 2:183–84Google Scholar; von Rad, Gerhard, The Theology of Israel's Historical Traditions (trans. Stalker, D. M. G.; vol. 1 of Old Testament Theology; New York: Harper & Row, 1962) 264 n.182Google Scholar; and Westermann, Claus, Genesis 12–36 (trans. Scullion, John J.; vol. 2 of Genesis: A Commentary; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985) 266–67Google Scholar.
40 See Rashi, b. Shabb. 25a, s.v. “we-karet” and the position attributed to Rabba in b. Mo’ed Qat. 28a, which claim that one who incurs karet would die before the age of sixty. Y. Bik. 2:1 claims that one would die before the age of fifty.
41 Rashi, ibid.
42 Ibn Ezra on Gen 17:14.
43 Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Teshuvah 8:1.
44 Jacob Milgrom understands karet as either “extirpation of the entire line of the offender,” or the inability to enter the afterlife after death; see Milgrom, Numbers, 405–8. For other treatments of this issue, see Levine, Baruch A., Leviticus (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989)Google Scholar; and Propp, Exodus 1–18.
45 Cohn, Haim H., “The Elements of Jewish Penology,” in Proceedings of the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies: The Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, Givat Ram, Jerusalem, 3–11 August 1969 (ed. Shinan, Avigdor and Peli, Pinchas; 5 vols.; Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1972) 3:191–202Google Scholar, at 200–1 [Hebrew]. Cohn writes that “the Rabbis perceived that the threat of death by the hands of God was a punishment that was too difficult to carry, and even though it was a divine punishment, it was a punishment that was inhumane” [translation mine]. Cohn sees this loophole as one example of the “humanization of punishment” in the rabbinic period (99). Also see Shemesh, Punishments and Sins, 91–93.
46 Sifre Deut. 286.
47 I am translating from the Kaufman A ms 50 (Budapest) version of the Mishnah. A similar statement is found in the Sifre: “Then your brother will be degraded before your eyes [Deut 25:3]: Hence the sages said: As soon as those who are liable to the penalty of excision are beaten, they are immediately released from this liability” (Sifre Deut. 286).
48 See also b. Meg. 7b: “Since he receives lashes [
], he is like your brother.”
49 See, for example, Lev 17:10, 18:29, 20:3, and 20:6.
50 This line draws from an earlier tradition found in b. B. Bat. 119a.
51 Also see Tanhuma (Buber), Numbers 28.
52 The rabbinic manuscripts in this study have been obtained from the online Historical Dictionary Project of the Academy of the Hebrew Language (accessed February 2012, http://hebrew-treasures.huji.ac.il) and from the Sol and Evelyn Henkind Talmud Text Databank of the Lieberman Institute of Talmudic Research.
53 As it stands, the version of this Tanhuma text is problematic because the rabbinic principle that lashes can substitute for the death penalty only applies to death at the hands of God (like karet) but not to a capital punishment administered by a human court (like stoning). Moreover, in Scripture, the gatherer of wood is eventually killed; his life is not spared through receiving lashes. Sensing this problem, I posit that some scribes (as reflected in Tanhuma ms Parma 261 and ms Jerusalem 597) replaced the vague phrase “and he will have fulfilled his obiligation [
],” as it appears in ms Cambridge 1212, with the more concrete and normative formulation “and he will have fulfilled his karet [penalty] [
].” Through this rewording, the scribes may have been attempting to cover up the seemingly problematic claim that lashes would even exempt one from being stoned. Thus, to make sense of the Tanhuma formulation as it appears in ms Cambridge 1212, we need to reconstruct the dialogue in the following way: Moses complains that God's penal system is too destructive, as so many sins incur the death penalty (either at the hands of human courts or of God). In response, God constructs a new penal system that, while not diminishing the number of humanly imposed death penalties (such as stoning), will drastically diminish the application of the karet penalty. Not surprisingly, when Num. Rab. I 5:4, a post-TY medieval midrash, rewrites the Tanhuma text, it replaces the exemption of stoning with the karet penalty to bring the confrontational narrative in line with normative Jewish law: “When the Holy One, blessed be he, defined for Moses the thirty-six transgressions mentioned in the Torah that are punishable with karet, Moses said to the Holy One, blessed be he: ‘Sovereign of the Universe! If men commit any of these sins shall they be so punished?’ So the Holy One, blessed be he, said to him: ‘Let them receive the forty stripes and escape the penalty of excision’” (Num. Rab., Munich 97, 1418). For more on the reliance of Numbers Rabbah on Midrash Tanhuma, see Hananel Mack, “Midrash Numbers Rabbah Part One” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 1991) [Hebrew].
54 This command is repeated in v. 31.
55 See Weinfeld, Moshe, Deuteronomy 1–11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 5; New York: Doubleday, 1991) 173–78Google Scholar.
56 In this analysis, I follow those Bible scholars who see the Deuteronomic account as later than the Numbers account. For the opposite view, see Seters, John van, “The Conquest of Sihon's Kingdom: A Literary Examination,” JBL 91 (1972) 182–97Google Scholar.
57 Weinfeld argues that this new tradition was established sometime during the reign of Hezekiah or Josiah (Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1–11, 177). On the status of Transjordan in rabbinic literature, see Sifre Num. 159.
58 The laws of herem are delineated in Deut 7:2, 7:26, and 20:17. For more on herem as a distinctly Deuteronomic legal doctrine, see Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 200–1.
59 Ibid., 207–8.
60 I exclude the last few verses in Deuteronomy, since even some rabbinic texts acknowledge its non-Mosaic authorship.
61 See also Midrash Tanna’im 20:10.
62 For other treatments of this Tanhuma text and its parallels, see Fisch, “Religious Crisis,” 549–51; and Schremer, Adiel, “Between Radical Interpretation and Explicit Rejection,” in Renewing Jewish Commitment: The Work and Thought of David Hartman (ed. Sagi, Avi and Zohar, Zvi; 2 vols.; Jerusalem: Machon Shalom Hartman, 2001) 2:759–63 [Hebrew]Google Scholar.
63 This translation follows Buber's (p. 16 n. 35) emendation. The manuscript erroneously cites the verse from Deut 20:19.
64 The words “I do not know” do not appear in the Tanhuma, according to ms Cambridge 1212.
65 Num. Rab. II (TY) 19:33, according to ms Paris 150.
66 To support further the claim that Moses's defiance of God over the Sihon war is an innovation of the TY, compare Lev. Rab. (Vilna) 9:9 to Tanhuma (Buber), Huqqat 51.
67 Deuteronomy 4:40 declares that those who keep God's commandments will secure a long life (
); in the very next verse (4:41), Moses establishes three cities of refuge in Transjordan. As rabbinic hermeneutics often seeks deeper connections between neighboring passages (and certainly where the second passage begins with “then [
] Moses set aside three cities . . .”), the TY author assumes that the notion of long life (for Torah observance) stated in v. 40 caused the establishment of the places of shelter presented in v. 41. That is, the Israelites exploit the value of long life to challenge the problematic unconditional right of the blood-avenger to kill the inadvertent murderer.
68 For example, Abraham's concubine Hagar reprimands God over the welfare of her child, Ishmael, and then God “immediately” (
) saves the boy (Tanhuma, Wayetse’ 5). God also accepts Sarai's complaint that God has neglected her, and forthwith God swears (
) that she will suffer no more harm (Tanhuma, Lekh lekha 5). Elsewhere, after Moses berates God for neglecting his promise to redeem Israel personally, God accepts the critique and swears (
) that he will stay true to his prior commitments (Exod. Rab. II [TY] 15:14). While these TY cases have God acquiesce to a moral challenge, the language adopted to describe the concession is relatively moderate. After hearing the critiques, God merely proclaims—sometimes with an oath (
) and sometime with urgency (
)—that he will fix the problem.
69 See Exod. Rab. II (TY) 46:4, according to ms Jerusalem 5977.
70 For a full analysis of the moral anxieties surrounding the “evil inclination” in rabbinic literature, see Weiss, “Confrontations with God,” 187–203.
71 See Lev. Rab. (Vilna) 23:9 and Tanhuma (Buber), Numbers 32.
72 Exod. Rab. II (TY) 44:9.
73 Tanhuma, Wayetse’ 8.
74 b. Shabb. 133b.
75 On the notion of imitatio hominis in rabbinic literature, see Stern, David, Midrash and Theory: Ancient Jewish Exegesis and Contemporary Literary Studies (Rethinking Theory; Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1996) 73–94Google Scholar.
76 Fisch correctly notes that “God [here] is depicted as having erred in indeed giving Leah a seventh male child. . . . God is astonishingly described as being corrected on moral grounds, admitting his mistake, and righting the morally flawed situation for which He was responsible. . . . God, the Tanhumah all but states openly, is simply not the all-perfect judge, and should not be treated as such by anyone!” (Fisch, “Religious Crisis,” 558–59 [italics in original]). Leah's sister Rachel also becomes an ethical role model for God in proem 24 of Lam. Rab. (and S. Eli. Rab. 30/28). For other instances in rabbinic literature where God learns from humans how to behave ethically, see Pesiq. Rab Kah. 15:7 (where God learns to act ethically from the evil Nebuzaradan) 16:5; Eccl. Rab. 3:16 (where God learns from Nebuchadnezzar how to be merciful); and Pesiq. Rab. 30.
77 See Tanhuma (Buber), Bo’ 8 and the first example in Num. Rab. II (TY) 19:33, according to ms Paris 150.
78 See also Gen. Rab. (Vilna) 49:10.
79 See Weiss, “Confrontations with God,” 185–243. Jeffrey Rubenstein makes a similar argument when demonstrating how TY literature develops in larger detail mythical statements found in pre-TY texts (Rubenstein, “Mythic Motifs”).
80 See, for example, Sifre Deut. 307; Mek. R. Ishmael, Wayehi 6 and Yitro 2; Gen. Rab. (Vilna) 28:4; Tanhuma (Buber), Wayetse’ 5; and Pesiq. Rab. (TY) 31.
81 For example, compare Lev. Rab. (Vilna) 20:1 to Tanhuma (Buber), Wa’ethanan 1; compare Sifre Deut. 349 to Tanhuma (Buber), Huqqat 32; and compare y. Ta’an. 3:4 (66:3) to Exod. Rab. II (TY) 46:4.
82 Laura S. Lieber, “The Play's the Thing: Theatricality in Aramaic Piyyutim” (conference paper, International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Amsterdam, July 25, 2012).
83 Brock, Sebastian, “The Dispute Poem: From Sumer to Syriac,” Bayn al-Nahrayn 7.28 (1979) 417–26Google Scholar; idem, “Dialogue Hymns of the Syriac Churches,” Sobornost 5.2 (1983) 35–45; idem, “Dramatic Dialogue Poems,” in IV Symposium Syriacum, 1984: Literary Genres in Syriac Literature (ed. H. J. W. Drijvers et al.; OrChrAn 229; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Studiorum Orientalum, 1987) 135–47; and idem, From Ephrem to Romanos: Interactions between Syriac and Greek in Late Antiquity (Variorum Collected Studies Series 664; Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 1999) 39–51, 109–19.
84 Brock, “Dialogue Hymns,” 44, 45.
85 According to Brock, the “Syriac dramatic homily tradition” is more developed in the 6th cent. than in the 5th cent., which would chronologically correspond to the TY material presented here (Brock, From Ephrem to Romanos, 82).
86 Momigliano, Arnaldo, “Freedom of Speech in Antiquity,” in Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas (ed. Wiener, Philip P.; 5 vols.; New York: Scribner's Sons, 1973–1974) 2:252–63Google Scholar.
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90 Konstan, Friendship, 167–73.
91 “There are no abstract summations of rabbinic belief in philosophical categories. One can discern definitive trends in Jewish theology, but only by examining the concrete stories about interpersonal and divine-human encounters” (Rubenstein, Richard L., The Religious Imagination: A Study in Psychoanalysis and Jewish Theology [Brown Classics in Judaica; Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merill, 1968; repr., Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985] 28; page numbers taken from the reprinted edition.Google Scholar)
92 Marmorstein, Arthur, Studies in Jewish Theology (London: Oxford University Press, 1950) 1–71Google Scholar. For rabbinic texts supporting this thesis, see Mek. R. Ishmael, Wayehi 6, 307; Sifre Deut. 307; and Gen. Rab. (Vilna) 44:1. On Marcion, see von Harnack, Adolf, Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God (Durham, N.C.: Labyrinth Press, 1990) 53–63Google Scholar; and Moll, Sebastian, The Arch-Heretic Marcion (WUNT 250; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010)Google Scholar.
93 Halivni, David Weiss, “Can a Religious Law Be Immoral?,” in Perspectives on Jews and Judaism: Essays in Honor of Wolfe Kelman (ed. Chiel, Arthur A.; New York: Rabbinical Assembly, 1978) 165–70Google Scholar.
94 Halbertal, Moshe, Interpretive Revolutions in the Making: Values as Interpretive Considerations in Midrashei Halakhah (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1999) 185 [Hebrew]Google Scholar.
95 Arthur Green, “The Children in Egypt and the Theophany at the Sea,” Judaism 24 (1975) 446–56; Stern, David, “Imitatio Hominis: Anthropomorphism and the Character(s) of God in Rabbinic Literature,” Prooftexts 12 (1992) 151–74Google Scholar.
96 See Fishbane, Michael A., Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 160–73Google Scholar.
97 Halbertal, Moshe, “If the Text Had Not Been Written, It Could Not Be Said,” in Scriptural Exegesis: The Shapes of Culture and the Religious Imagination; Essays in Honour of Michael Fishbane (ed. Green, Deborah A. and Lieber, Laura S.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 146–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
98 Idel, Moshe, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988) 156–72Google Scholar; Liebes, Yehuda, Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism (SUNY Series in Judaica; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993) 1–64Google Scholar. By presenting and unpacking these rabbinic texts, Idel and Liebes seek to challenge Gershom Scholem's claim that the Jewish origins of theurgy can only be traced back to the medieval period. See, however, Rosenberg, Shalom, who seeks to demythologize these rabbinic texts (“The Myth of Myths,” Jewish Studies 38 [1998] 145–79)Google Scholar.
99 Also see Garb, Jonathan, “Kinds of Power: Rabbinic Texts and the Kabbalah,” Kabbalah: Journal for the Study of Jewish Mystical Texts 6 (2001) 45–71Google Scholar.
100 The formulation of a “hierarchical inversion” I heard from Moshe Halbertal in spring, 2010.
101 Elbaum, “Sermon to Story,” 107.
