The Dangerous Duty of Rebuke: Leviticus 19:17 in Early Jewish and Christian Interpretation

295 Pages·2018·1.076 MB·English

by  Matthew S. Goldstone

The Dangerous Duty of Rebuke: Leviticus 19:17 in Early Jewish and
Christian Interpretation
Supplements to the Journal for
the Study of Judaism
Editors
René Bloch (Institut für Judaistik, Universität Bern)
Karina Martin Hogan (Department of Theology, Fordham University)
Associate Editors
Hindy Najman (Theology & Religion Faculty, University of Oxford)
Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar (Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven)
Benjamin G. Wright, III (Department of Religion Studies, Lehigh University)
Advisory Board
A.M. Berlin – K. Berthelot – J.J. Collins – B. Eckhardt
Y. Furstenberg – S. Kattan Gribetz – S. Mason – F. Mirguet – J.H. Newman
A.K. Petersen – M. Popović – I. Rosen-Zvi – J.T.A.G.M. van Ruiten
M. Segal – J. Sievers – W. Smelik – G. Stemberger – L.T. Stuckenbruck
L. Teugels – J.C. de Vos
VOLUME 185
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/jsjs
The Dangerous Duty of
Rebuke: Leviticus 19:17
in Early Jewish and
Christian Interpretation
By
Matthew S. Goldstone
LEIDEN | BOSTON
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2018026297
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ל"ז רתסאו והילא ןב לאוי ןבואר ירומ יבאל
For my father, Robert Joel Goldstone z’’l
∵

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
part 1
How to Rebuke? Leviticus 19:17 in Context
1 The Moral and the Judicial Dimensions of Rebuke in the Dead Sea
Scrolls and Gospels 29
2 Boundaries of Love: Reading Lev. 19:17 in Light of Lev. 19:18 45
3 Slanderous Speech: Reading Lev. 19:17 in Light of Lev. 19:16 65
PART 2
Can One Rebuke? Rebuke in the Tannaitic Midrashim
4 An Impossible Task: Rebuke in Sifra 91
5 A Perilous Practice: Rebuke in Sifre Devarim 115
part 3
Should One Rebuke? Rebuke in Later Rabbinic and Monastic
Literature
6 An Undesirable Activity: Rebuke in Early Monastic Literature 145
7 An Unwelcome Commandment: Rebuke in the Babylonian Talmud 176
8 An Inescapable Obligation: Rebuke in Tanḥuma-Yelammedenu
Literature 205
Conclusion 236
viii Contents
Bibliography 245
Index of Ancient Sources 265
Index of Modern Scholars 272
Subject Index 276
Acknowledgements
I am forever grateful to the numerous individuals who have helped me to
complete this work. I have been fortunate to benefit from the presence of fac-
ulty, staff, and graduate students in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and
Judaic Studies and the broader New York University community: My advisor
Jeffrey Rubenstein whose support and insights have been crucial throughout
the entire project; Lawrence Schiffman, Alex Jassen, Adam Becker, and Elisha
Russ-Fishbane, the other members of my dissertation defense committee who
offered helpful feedback for revising my dissertation for publication; Marion
Kaplan who encouraged the formative stages of this project during the de-
partment’s dissertation proposal workshop; David Konstan of the Classics
Department and Gerald Heverly of the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library who of-
fered suggestions for contextualizing my topic; Caroline Gruenbaum, Zachary
Levine, Joshua Schwartz, Alex Weisberg, and other participants in the depart-
ment’s graduate student reading group with whom I shared various drafts of
chapters; the other members of my cohort, Adrian Sackson, Danielle Drori,
Judah Bernstein, and Julie Deluty, who have been especially supportive part-
ners in bringing this work to fruition from the very early stages of my prospec-
tus; and the former and present administrative staff in the Hebrew and Judaic
Studies department, Ryan Grubbs, Hannah Katz, Maddy Goico, and Nadia
Kahn for all their help.
Beyond the NYU community, this project has also benefited greatly from the
insights of a number of other scholars including Christine Hayes, Michal Bar-
Asher Siegal, and Eliezer Diamond who offered helpful comments on my dis-
cussion of rabbinic sources in light of monastic literature, Steven Fraade who
provided me with a number of sources on rebuke in the Second Temple period,
Beth Berkowitz with whom I spoke about the overall structure of my argument,
Dov Weiss whose work has proven a useful analog to my own, Marc Bregman
with whom I spoke about Tanḥuma literature, Azzan Yadin-Israel who offered
feedback on my analysis of the tannaitic midrashim, Aryeh Amihay with whom
I discussed rebuke in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Yishai Kiel who provided me with
relevant Pahlavi sources, and Carl Perkins who suggested numerous improve-
ments for my introduction.
I am indebted to the reviewer of my book manuscript for their helpful
comments as well as to the anonymous readers of my articles related to this
work who offered a number of critical suggestions. A version of part of my
argument in Chapter 2 appeared as “Rebuke, Lending, and Love: An Early
Exegetical Tradition on Leviticus 19:17–18” in the Journal of Biblical Literature