MÁSTER EN ESTUDIOS INGLESES Y COMUNICACIÓN MULTILENGÜE

The Mishnah

All Israel have a portion in the World to Come, for it is written: “Your people are all righteous; they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorifi ed” (Isa 60:21).

Th e following have no portion in the World to Come: He who denies Resurrection as a biblical doctrine, he who maintains that the Torah was not divinely revealed, and an apikoros. Rabbi Akiba added: One who reads external books. Also one who whispers [a charm] over a wound. . . . Abba Saul said: Also one who pronounces the Divine Name as it is spelled.¹

Th e above statement, made at the beginning of chapter Heleq of tractate Sanhedrin, is somewhat perplexing. Th e affi rmation that “All Israel have a portion in the World to Come” seemingly contradicts the basic premise of the rabbinic concept of reward and punishment, as well as those biblical concepts that assign critical signifi cance to strict observance of God’s com-mandments. If all Israel have a portion in the world to come, what then is the importance of the Torah? What is the point in observing the minutest details of the halakah if, at the end of time, when the dead shall arise and be judged by God, all will have a portion in the world to come?²

Th is far-reaching assertion was among the catalysts for the theory ex-pounded by Ed Sanders, explaining the crucial importance of the covenant between Israel and God from the rabbinic point of view in terms of the concept of reward and punishment. In his classic book Paul and Palestinian Judaism, Sanders writes,³

Every individual Israelite who indicates his intention to remain in the covenant by repenting, observing the Day of Atonement and the like, will be forgiven for all his transgressions. Th e passages on repenting and atoning in order to return to God . . . presuppose the covenantal relationship between God and his members of Israel. . . . Th e Israelite in the covenant will be punished for transgressions—by suff ering, by death and even aft er death if necessary—but he is saved by remain-ing in the covenant given by God. . . . Th is describes God’s behaviour within the covenant, not how one is saved.⁴

Th is analysis is characteristic of Sanders’s approach, which describes the sote-riology of rabbinic Judaism as covenantal nomism, according to which the status of the Israelite is determined by his commitment to the covenant. Th is commitment obliges him to keep God’s commandments, whose observance is then rewarded; by contrast, transgression brings punishment followed by the hope for atonement. Nevertheless, even transgression cannot annul the Israelite’s commitment to the covenant nor his hope for salvation. According to Sanders, this view was not a late invention of the Sages, but was accepted among the Pharisees even before the destruction of the temple.⁵

Here I wish to examine this Mishnah and its accompanying talmudic discussion from a diff erent perspective. It is obvious that the Mishnah con-sists of at least two, if not three, layers.⁶ Th e all-encompassing statement assuring every Israelite a portion in the world to come belongs to the later layer, which attempts to formulate a new defi nition of Jewish identity to cope with the challenge posed by early Christianity.⁷ I therefore intend to follow here the line of my previous studies, in which I see the polemic with Chris-tianity as a central factor in the molding of Jewish self-identity in classic rabbinic literature. Th is perception of Christianity as a leitmotif in rabbinic literature in no way confutes the signifi cance or validity of other factors.

It is clear that the environment of the Sages was not exclusively Christian and included, among others, Samaritans, Gnostics, pagans, Hellenists, and Stoics. It is thus only natural to assume that talmudic literature refl ects the constant friction among many and varied factors. My focus on Christianity stems from my consciousness of the fact that the threat posed by Chris-tianity greatly overshadowed that posed by any other religious sect.

Th e text of our Mishnah includes three late additions, marked by italics in the citation above. Th e fi rst addition (“All Israel . . .”) does not appear in all the manuscripts and must thus be seen as a later addition.⁸ Th is is also evident from a literary point of view: the list of those who have no portion in the world to come includes some who are not included in “Israel,” such as Balaam or the generation that perished in the fl ood. Th e inclusion of non-Jews in the list of exceptions to the rule indicates that the rule itself,

“All Israel . . . ,” is not original and was added later on.

Th e sentence is based on a midrash of Isa 60:21. Th e Jewish exegete in-terprets the words μlw[l (“forever”) and ≈rah yrçw (“shall inherit the land”) in an eschatological sense.⁹ As previously noted by David Flusser, this mid-rash should be read as a parallel to Matt 5:5: “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the land,” where inheritance of the land is likewise given an es-chatological meaning.¹⁰ But the above two exegeses refer to diff erent verses.

Jesus interprets Ps 37:11 (“But the meek shall inherit the land”), and his conclusion is similar to interpretations from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which predict the inheritance of the land by the chosen people, that is, members of the sect.¹¹ Our Mishnah, by contrast, interprets Isa 60:21, in particular the comparison between ˚m[ (“your people”) and μyqydx (“righteous”), as giving a carte blanche to any Israelite, thereby creating a distinction not between the righteous man and the sinner, but between the Israelite and the Gentile. Th is is a new self-defi nition.

Th e second addition consists of the phrase “as a biblical doctrine,”

which appears immediately aft er “He who denies Resurrection.” Th is ad-dition only appears in the Babylonian versions of the Mishnah, and served as the basis for an extensive discussion in the Babylonian Talmud, which we shall examine later. Th e third addition consists of the three additional categories, specifi ed by Rabbi Akiba and Abba Saul, of those who have no portion in the world to come.

Reading the Mishnah without these three additions, the earlier, au-thentic, original version comes to light, appearing well within the context of the previous chapters in the tractate: “Th e following have no portion in the World to Come: He who denies Resurrection, he who maintains that the Torah was not divinely revealed, and an Apikoros [lit. Epicurus, i.e., the philosopher or skeptic].” Our chapter thus forms a natural sequel to the discussion about those who are sentenced to death by the Court (“Th e fol-lowing are sentenced to death”), even using a similar style: “Th e following have no portion. . . .” What we expect here is a list of particularly severe sins and, indeed, the group in the early version is exactly that: “He who denies Resurrection, he who maintains that the Torah was not divinely revealed, and the Apikoros.” Th ese three sins relate to tenets of faith and are thus likely candidates to serve as criteria for disqualifi cation from a portion in the world to come. Th ey refl ect an age-old internal and external polemic: internally with the Sadducees, who deny the resurrection of the dead; externally with pagans who deny the authenticity of the Torah and the unity of God.

Th e second list, containing three relatively mild transgressions, is in-herently diff erent. Th is group is a late addition, appended to an anonymous Mishnah that states, “Rabbi Akiba added: One who reads external books, also one who whispers [a charm] over a wound.” Immediately thereaft er, Abba Saul adds the sixth transgression: “Also one who pronounces the Divine Name as it is spelled.” In face of this new troika of sins, one cannot help wondering why all Israel, including the worst sinners, are privileged to enjoy the world to come, whilst mere browsers in external books, charm whisperers, and magicians are doomed. What made Rabbi Akiba and Abba Saul brand as God’s most dangerous enemies these poor and innocent folk who were doing little more than trying to relieve pain by means of a harm-less charm? Or, if we accept Sanders’s conclusion, why should the repentant whisperer of charms fare worse than the repentant murderer?

My claim, based upon an interpretation suggested by Travers Herford, is that this second, additional group of three sins alludes to Jewish Chris-tians.¹² Th eir exclusion from those who have a portion in the world to come is an attempt to brand them as a heretical group. Th ese three sins may hence be seen as a reference to Jewish Christians.

Th e fi rst category—reading of “external” books—may be explained as reading books other than the canonical Bible—that is, the New Testament.

Another possibility is that this refers to the Apocrypha. But while in the Jerusalem Talmud references to “external” books were interpreted as referring to the book of Ben-Sirah or to (the somewhat obscure) Ben-La’anah, in the Babylonian Talmud they are taken to refer to “books of the minim [lit., sec-tarians],” a term generally used for Christians.¹³ As we shall see, the polemic with the Christians is in fact more apparent in the Babylonian discussion.

Th e second category—“one who whispers a charm”—refers to a char-acteristic commonly attributed to the early Christians in Talmudic litera-ture. Jesus himself was considered a magician with healing powers.¹⁴ Th e Sages used this to justify his crucifi xion: “On the eve of Passover, Jesus was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried: ‘He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery.’ ”¹⁵ His followers and disciples were similarly viewed as healers by charms.¹⁶ Th e Jerusalem Talmud tells of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi’s grandson, who was cured by a Christian healer using the name of Christ: “A certain person uttered the name of Jesus Pandera and he was healed.”¹⁷ A similar story is told of Rabbi Eliezer ben Dama:¹⁸

Th ey brought: “No man should have any dealings with the Minim, nor is it permitted to be healed by them, even [in order to save] temporal life.” It once happened that Rabbi Ishmael’s nephew, Ben Dama, was bitten by a serpent. Jacob of Kefar Sekaniah came to heal him, but Rabbi Ishmael did not allow him to do so, whereupon Ben Dama said,

“Rabbi Ishmael, my brother, leave him be so that he may heal me; and I can even cite a verse from the Torah that it is permitted.” But he did not manage to complete his saying when his soul departed and he died, whereupon Rabbi Ishmael exclaimed, “Happy are you, Ben Dama, that your body was pure and your soul departed in purity; nor have you transgressed the words of your colleagues, who said, ‘He who breaks through a fence, a serpent shall bite him’ (Eccles 10:8).”

Th e parallel version in the Yerushalmi explicitly states that the Jacob men-tioned in this story used Christ’s name when healing: “Jacob, a native of Kefar Sama, came in the name of Jesus Pandera to heal him.”¹⁹

Th irdly, “one who pronounces the Divine Name as it is spelled” is also a euphemism for Jesus in talmudic literature. According to a Jewish ver-sion of Jesus’ biography entitled Toldoth Yeshu, he did in fact work miracles through use of the Divine Name, which he stole from the temple: “Th ere was a stone [even shetiyah] in the Temple upon which God’s Name was written, and anyone who knew the Name was able to do all he wished.

Jesus came and copied the Name onto a piece of parchment. He tore open the fl esh on his thigh, placed the parchment in the gash, and restored the torn fl esh to its place.”²⁰ Th is tradition is clearly connected with the beraita cited in the name of Rabbi Eliezer concerning ben Stada (or ben Pandera), stating that “he brought forth witchcraft from Egypt by means of scratches upon his fl esh.” According to the Babylonian Talmud, Ben Stada is none other than Jesus.²¹

Th e assumption that the addition to the Mishnah was directed against Jewish Christians implies that the other addition, at the beginning of the Mishnah—“All Israel have a portion in the World to Come”—was also in-serted in the context of polemic with Christianity.²² Indeed, this statement sounds very much like a Jewish counterpart to the well-known Christian maxim, extra Ecclesiam nulla salus or, as phrased by Cyprian of Carthage in the fi rst half of the third century, salus extra ecclesiam non est (“there is no salvation outside of the church”).²³ Th e source for this idea lies in Paul’s soteriology, which sees belief in Jesus as an essential condition for salvation.

Only believers will be saved, while those who do not believe in Jesus are doomed to ruin even if they are righteous in all other ways. Paul’s soteri-ology is thus intended exclusively for Israel spiritualiter (“Spiritual Israel”), that is, those who believe in Jesus.²⁴

At least this was how Paul’s followers understood his ideas. Paul him-self seems to have perceived the status of the Jews in a somewhat more complex and not altogether consistent way.²⁵ His famous statement in Rom 11:26, “and so all Israel will be saved,” uses rhetoric similar to the state-ment in our Mishnah: “all Israel have a portion in the World to Come.”

Th us, this addition appears to be an adoption of a parallel concept to the one expounded by Paul.²⁶ Th e Mishnah distinguishes between “Israel” and those who are not “Israel.” Th e former are automatically worthy of salva-tion, exactly as was promised the believers in Jesus. However, our Mishnah obviously refers to Israel carnaliter (“carnal Israel”), that is, the biological

descendants of those present at Sinai. In the face of the threat posed by the all- encompassing Christian promise of salvation to all believers, our Mish-nah suggests an alternative, rival conception. Its adoption of the Pauline formula does not stem from agreement, but specifi cally from competition for the hearts of the believers. Th is is not religious concord but harsh and bitter rivalry.

But is it not possible that Paul was reacting to the opinion expressed in our Mishnah? Th is claim is easily answered. Paul’s views as regarding the inheritors of the earth are novel, not inherited. Th ey essentially contradict not only the views of the Pharisees, who believed that only the righteous shall be worthy of a place in the world to come, but also that propagated by Jesus himself, whereby the meek shall inherit the earth—which is, never-theless, an ethical and personal criterion. Paul replaced the personal crite-rion with a general one that included all believers in Jesus, that is, the new Israel. Th e addition to the Mishnah in Heleq is thus an attempt to pose an alternative soteriology that may be understood historically only as part of a dialogue with the new Pauline criterion, to which it responds: Indeed, all Israel shall inherit the earth; however, this refers to Israel carnaliter, and not Israel spiritualiter.²⁷

The Babylonian Talmudic Discussion

Let us now turn to the third addition to the Mishnah—the words “as a biblical doctrine”—and the ensuing discussion in the Babylonian Talmud.

Th e discussion begins by asking why those who do not believe in the res-urrection of the dead are barred from the world to come: “And why such [severity]? A tanna taught: Since he denies the Resurrection of the Dead, therefore he shall not partake in that Resurrection, for all the measures [of punishment and reward] taken by the Holy One blessed be He are based on measure for measure.” Th e question raised here is entirely justifi ed: nowhere does the Torah mention any obligation to believe in resurrection, and what-ever eff orts were made by the Sages to unearth hints of it in the Scriptures do not suffi ce to elevate it to a suffi ciently important religious tenet so as to disqualify Israelites who deny it from their “natural right” to a portion

in the world to come. Th e Talmud’s answer is a technical one: “measure for measure.” If someone does not believe in something, that person shall not gain from it.

A surprisingly similar argument is invoked by Paul in 1 Cor 15:12–19:

“Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” Paul confronts people who are willing to believe that Christ rose from the dead, but who refuse to believe that the dead in general will rise at the end of time. Th e singular occur-rence involving Christ does not suffi ce for them to infer the eschatological occurrence—that is, they “deny the Resurrection of the Dead.” To this Paul replies: “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain!” (1 Cor 15:13–14). Denial of the resurrection of the dead leads, according to Paul, to denial of Christ’s resurrection, and hence to denying his being the son of God. It is at this point that Paul adds: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:17). Paul argues that disbelief in Christ’s resurrection results in the loss of salvation, for only one who believes in Christ shall be saved. His argu-ment begins with those who deny the resurrection of the dead and ends by proclaiming that they shall not be saved—an argument perfectly parallel to the Tannaitic passage with which this talmudic discussion begins.

Th ere is, however, a diff erence between the two sources: Paul’s argu-ment is based on fi rm inner logic: belief in Christ assures salvation, but one cannot believe in Christ without believing in the resurrection of the dead.²⁸ Th us, Paul presents belief in the resurrection of the dead and in salvation of the soul as a package deal. By contrast, the talmudic discussion, which uses the reasoning of measure for measure, is purely technical:

Paul: Denial of Resurrection of the Dead “ Denial of Christ’s resurrection “ Loss of salvation

Talmud: Denial of Resurrection of the Dead “ Loss of salvation

Th e assumption that the additions to the Mishnah were inserted with Chris-tianity in mind seems just as germane to this Tannaitic source, at the

Th e assumption that the additions to the Mishnah were inserted with Chris-tianity in mind seems just as germane to this Tannaitic source, at the