Table Of ContentGEDALYAHU ALON
JEWS, JUDAISM AND THE CLASSICAL WORLD
GEDALYAHU ALON
JEWS, JUDAISM AND THE
CLASSICAL WORLD
Studies in Jewish History
in the Times of the Second Temple and Talmud
Translated from the Hebrew by
ISRAEL ABRAHAMS
JERUSALEM 1977
THE MAGNES PRESS, THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY
©
By The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University
Jerusalem, 1977
Printed in Israel
at Central Press, Jerusalem
INTRODUCTION
by Shmuel Safrai
Gedalyahu Alon was bom in 1901 in the town of Kobryn, Bielo-
russia; he died suddenly in Jerusalem in the year 1950, without
having reached the age of fifty. In his youth he had attended the
Slobodka Yeshivah in Lithuania, and had become known as a brilliant
student. He immigrated to Eretz Israel, and was a member of the
first graduating class of The Hebrew University (1931) taking his
degree in Talmud and Classics. Later on, and until the day of his
death, he taught Talmud and Jewish History at The Hebrew University.
During his lifetime he published a considerable number of scholarly
articles in the various learned periodicals and similar publications
that appeared in Eretz Israel in his time. After his death, his lectures
on Jewish history were collected, edited, and published in two volumes
under the (Hebrew) title “History of the Jews in the Land of Israel
During the Period of the Mishnah and the Talmud” (1953-55). A
few years later his published articles were gathered up between covers,
in two more volumes entitled “Studies in the Jewish History of the
Second Commonwealth and the Mishnaic-Talmudic Period” (1957-58).
In his teaching, as well as in his research, Alon’s distinguishing
characteristic was an extraordinary combination: mastery of Torah,
that is, the whole compass of Jewish learning in the best tradition of
the yeshivot, coupled with a profound scholarship in all branches of
classical literature and history. He was at home in the Greek and
Latin sources, from the epics of Homer to the codes of Justinian.
He knew Roman law, and was at the same time familiar with the
literature of Christian origins, from the New Testament to the last
of the Church Fathers. Of course, he was equally in control of the
whole gamut of Hellenistic Jewish literature.
Not only was he thoroughly familiar with all this material; he
was also able to take passages relevant to his researches and analyze
them, both linguistically and historically, so as to illuminate the picture
he was trying to reconstruct. This is true of his various research
articles and studies; it is true as well of his history of the Jewish
people after the Destruction (his volumes on that subject are due to
appear soon in English translation). Alon analyzed every detail of his
source-material in depth, to the degree that such analysis was necessary
for dealing with the problem he had under study. But this care for
detail never obscured the broader view; in spite of his attention to
the trees, the forest always remained visible.
His use of the text-critical method in handling the variegated Greek
and Latin sources, by the application of philological and historical
criteria, taught him to do the same with the Talmudic sources, always
adjusting the method to the varying nature of the material. This
combination of methodology with vast learning enabled him to clarify
many important problems in the history of the Jewish people during
the last few generations of the Second Commonwealth and the fol
lowing period, the Mishnaic-Talmudic age. His researches centered
on the nature and structure of Jewish society, as exemplified by the
essay “Par’irtin” dealing with the High Priesthood during the last
generations of its existence; or the study “Sons of the Sages,” which
concerns itself with the emergence of a socio.1 class of learned scholars
during the second century and the beginning of the third.
A number of Alon’s studies are devoted to the socio-political forms
in which Jewish communities were structured during the Mishnaic-
Talmudic period. Examples of this kind of investigation are: “The
Strategoi in the Cities of Israel During the Roman Occupation” and
“The Appointment of Judges in the Land of Israel During the Tal
mudic Period.” In these studies the reader learns about the various
kinds of social and religious leaders, and the levels of society from
which they came; and he finds out how they exercised their leader
ship against the background of the prevailing governmental set-up;
whether it was during the last days of the Temple, or later on, during
the sunset years of classical civilization.
Some of these studies bring up questions that are central to the
political and religious history of the Jews during the days of the
Temple, like “The Attitude of the Pharisees to Roman Rule and the
House of Herod,” or the chapters that deal with Rabban Johanan ben
Zakkai’s exit from besieged Jerusalem, and his leadership at Jabneh.
Others are dedicated to questions in the history of the halakhah, such
as the essay dealing with Philo, and the studies that investigate the
implications of the laws of ritual purity and impurity. In handling
the complicated questions connected with these matters, the author
is able to adduce much of the cultural history and religious practice
of the age, and at the same time to illumine whole chapters in the
relations between the Jewries of the dispersion and the Jewish people
in its homeland, as well as between the various Jewish sects and
parties. These relationships in their turn shed a great deal of light
on the early years of Christianity and on the way in which some
Jewish traditions passed over to the daughter religion and became
Christian traditions.
Alon’s studies were published in collected form some twenty to
twenty-five years ago, so that it is only now that we can begin to
measure his decisive influence on instruction and research at univer
sities in Israel and elsewhere, in the many aspects of Jewish history
and culture during the several centuries preceding the Christian era
and during the first five or six centuries that stand at the beginning
of that era. His researches opened up new areas of study, indeed
wrote whole new chapters in the history of the Jews during those
hundreds of years; but what is perhaps even more important, they
set the tone for subsequent teaching and historical research. During
the past few decades, anybody who has read any literature in English
investigating the Jewish history of those centuries has been influenced
by Gedalyahu Alon, whether the reader recognized the fact or not;
whether Alon was specifically quoted by the author or not; whether
Alon’s influence on the methods and the conclusions was direct or
indirect. Now at last, the reader of English can turn the pages of
the present volume and confront a selection of the author’s studies
in their full stature. It is to be hoped that in so doing he will discover
for himself the unique approach, the penetrating grasp and the broad
perspective that were so characteristic of Alon.
Everyone interested in the field will surely be grateful to the late
Prof. Israel AbrahamS, who translated most of the essays but was
unfortunately not spared to complete the task; and to Rabbi A.
Oshery, who finished the translation. Thanks are also due to Mr. J.
Schwartz who prepared the index, and to The Hebrew University Press
and its directors, Mr. Hayyim Toren and Mr. Ben-Zion Yehoshua,
as well as to Mrs. Janet Shvili and the Central Press printers,
all of whom have spared no pains in the production of this book.
Shmuel Safrai
The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
The Faculty of Jewish History
Menahem Av, 5736
CONTENTS
page
Did the Jewish People and its Sages Cause the Hasmoneans
to be Forgotten? 1
The Attitude of the Pharisees to Roman Rule and the House
of Herod 18
Par’irtin 48
On Philo's Halakha 89
On the Halakhot of the Early Sages 138
The Levitical Uncleanness of Gentiles 146
The Bounds of the Laws of Levitical Cleanness 190
By the (Expressed) Name 235
The Burning of the Temple 252
Rabban Johanan B. Zakkai’s Removal to Jabneh 269
The Patriarchate of Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai 314
Ga’on, Ge’im 344
The Origin of the Samaritans in the Halakhic Tradition 354
Those Appointed for Money 374
The Sons of the Sages 436
The ‘Strategoi’ in the Palestinian Cities During the Roman
Epoch 458
