B. Sotah 34b-35a and B. Arakhin 15a-16b contain extended sugyot on the topic of lashon ha-ra. While both B. Sotah and B. Arakhin depict the sin of the desert spies (Numbers 13-14) as lashon ha-ra, in B. Sotah lashon ha-ra results in national catastrophe. In contrast, B. Arakhin turns to exhortations cautioning the individual, rather than the nation, against the sin of lashon ha-ra. This paper makes two connected arguments: First, attention to the redactional context of these sugyot at the level of their respective tractates helps to explain the similarities and differences between these two passages. Second, similarities and differences between the two sugyot cannot be explained by simplistic chronological criteria of one sugya as earlier than and influencing the other. Rather, attention to the context of the tractate reveals a more complex and non-linear compositional process.
Scholars often distinguish between two different modalities of interpretation, rewriting and commentary, frequently associating the former with the Second Temple period and the latter with the rabbis. However, as I argue in this paper, both modalities coexist in each era and, more importantly, we find evidence of a blurring of the line between these interpretative approaches at Qumran, in tannaitic sources, and in the Talmudim. I begin by examining how 4Q252 employs both modalities – coupling rewriting with distinct comments. I then move to tannaitic sources, drawing upon Steven Fraade’s gesture towards deconstructing the rewriting/commentary binary and introducing insights from the work of Azzan Yadin-Israel and Assaf Rosen-Zvi. Turning to the Talmudim, I argue that the Bavli frequently rewrites earlier rabbinic material and blurs the lines between rewriting and reinterpretation through several mechanisms. Juxtaposing the different ways through which these various works blur the line between rewriting and commentary will hopefully allow us to eventually identify shifts in the self-understanding of what it means to transmit and interpret traditions from the Dead Sea Scrolls through the Bavli.
This paper analyzes “The Amazing Adventures of Rabbi Pinḥas ben Yair” (b. Ḥul. 7a-b), in which the stammaitic storytellers inherited a palestinian, amoraic collection of unconnected stories about Rabbi Pinḥas ben Yair—now appearing in y. Demai 1:3, 21d-22c— and strung together three of those episodes to create a coherent narrative. While the babylonian reworking of the collection has been previously analyzed by Ofra Meir, Leib Moscovitz, and Yonatan Feintuch, this paper adds to their studies by exploring how and why the stammaitic storytellers replaced the original palestinian, agricultural Halakhot with different halakhic material. Against the assumption that this replacement can be reduced to recontextualizing the story from y. Demai to b. Ḥullin and Babylonian desuetude, I argue that these changes were also a result of the stammaitic storytellers’ narrative artistry, as well as their desire to finish what they saw as an incomplete narrative.
