Yigal Bin-Nun is weakened, so apparently it’s forbidden to question all the theological filth he spews from his mouth. But seriously, people who know scholarship don’t pay attention to his hollow and tendentious musings.

He definitely looks and sounds like a blabberer.
But still: can we know for certain whether these are literary figures or not?

To The Last Decisor – greetings,

What difference does it make whether Hillel and Shammai and all the tannaim existed? After all, we have one final decisor whose light we will follow until the coming of the righteous redeemer and beyond. 🙂

Best regards, Suli Paszist

Gil.

Stop using ad hominem arguments and address what he says.

Dear The Last Decisor, in order to verify a historical reality one has to compare different sources, including external sources.

Honored last questioner, see: cth 16.8.22, no. 41, 196-194.
Rabban Gamliel the Sixth.

I listened very carefully to Yigal’s lecture on the subject. The thesis he raises is baseless (speculation that is partly implausible and partly impossible. Either way, his evidence is ridiculous, and I’m still being nice), and as someone who knows a thing or two about these subjects, scholars will make mincemeat out of this research if and when it gets published. It’s a long discussion.

With God’s help, 8 Tammuz 5780

The statements of the tannaim and amoraim are quoted in many places and in many sources that are not dependent on one another. Besides the Mishnah there are also collections of baraitot (Tosefta, Avot de-Rabbi Natan, the chapter Acquisition of Torah, minor tractates, the 32 hermeneutical principles of Rabbi Yose the Galilean) and halakhic midrashim (Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael, Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, Sifra, Sifrei, Sifrei Zuta, Midrash Tannaim, etc.), aggadic midrashim (Rabbah, Tanhuma, Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, Pesikta Rabbati, Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, Seder Eliyahu Rabbah and Zuta, etc.), the Babylonian Talmud and Jerusalem Talmud, and mentions in Geonic literature and in the halakhic books of the Land of Israel.

Each and every source was edited separately, and differs in style and arrangement, and in some cases in details as well — what ‘hidden hand’ could have created such a wide variety and planted within it all these figures and their sayings?

Best regards, Shatz

As for external sources — Roman historians or Jews who did not accept the tradition and authority of the Sages would obviously have had very little interest in dealing with them and their teachings, and naturally one would not expect to find significant mention of the Sages there. Therefore, their non-mention in external sources proves nothing.

Shatz,
But Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman appeared on Ynet…
Wow, apparently the generations really are improving…

He basically did to the Sages what the Sages did to Job…

M.

Give us a taste besides all the talk and more talk. What are you saying?

Shatz, did you read my reply to the last questioner? Did you look at the source?

With God’s help, 8 Tammuz 5780

To K – greetings,

The mentions of Rabbi Steinman in the secular press are a drop in the ocean, and they exist only because he led Degel HaTorah, which is involved in Israeli politics. Obviously, his halakhic and philosophical teachings are of no interest to any journalist.

I recall the shock that gripped journalists at the funeral of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, attended by hundreds of thousands — Jews from all circles, whose halakhic rulings accompanied them in every area of life — but the journalists had never heard of him because he was not involved in politics.

Likewise, Josephus Flavius, who deals in detailed description of political and military history, focuses on those active in politics and war, and mentions Rabban Gamliel who appointed him governor of the Galilee during the revolt. But aside from him almost no one else is mentioned, because the Pharisees were accepted by the people (as Josephus describes), yet were fairly excluded from political influence in the ‘high places.’

How much more so is this true of the Roman historians. Even major events such as the Great Revolt and the Bar Kokhba Revolt are mentioned only in a few places in what has come down to us from Roman historical literature. Kings and their wars make a great noise in their own time, but giants of the spirit and their Torah endure for generations through their students and their students’ students.

Best regards, Shatz

Y

For comparison, I typed “Moshe Feinstein” into Google and found no mention at all in the secular press. When I finally ran across an article, it was about “Moshe Eichenstein”…

So maybe Rabbi Moshe Feinstein is a literary figure invented by the “religious fanatics”? A challenge for research )

Best regards, Dr. Samson Ben-Nun, author of “A Brief History of the Twentieth Century”…

Fans of debunking myths will find interest in the journal “Falsehood in the Wilderness” (edited by Haggai Misgav and Hillel Gershoni) for the study of Southwest Asia in the 20th-21st centuries. Read it and your soul will revive 🙂

Best regards, Mee Toos

A. – When I answer questions of this type on a website, I answer them as someone somewhat knowledgeable in the world of scholarship, not as someone expressing a personal opinion. And if I say I examined the matter, assume there’s something to it (which is why I don’t see a real need to justify it).

This so-called research of Yigal (assuming, of course, it is what he presented in that lecture) is an absurd idea riddled with methodological errors.

Take for example the stupid claim that some of the tannaim are literary creations because they all start out poor. Well, anyone who knows anything about the Second Temple period understands that this “proof” is complete nonsense. When Josephus described the sects, he noted that in the Second Temple period anyone rich naturally belonged to the Sadducees, while anyone poor naturally belonged to the Pharisees, since that was the sect representing the common people (not always, but usually). When Yigal claims it can’t be that they were all poor, that only shows he understands nothing about Second Temple research — if you were a poor rabbi, you automatically belonged to the Pharisees, not the Sadducees.

Beyond that, Albeck and other scholars proved (and you’re welcome to study the material and understand why) that the Mishnayot were formulated already in the Hellenistic period, and therefore to say this is a late literary fabrication is an absurd theory. Read, for example, Sussmann or Albeck and you’ll see the arguments there.

Another example: although we have no manuscripts of the Mishnah before the 9th century, we do have Geonic literature built around the order of the tractates (all in the same fixed order — interesting, why is that?) and referring to ancient halakhot they possessed (see Geonic responsa). To say there are no Jewish texts before the 9th century is sheer ignorance, and to ignore that the tannaim had before them a text of the Mishnah (which other scholars have shown is ancient) is total nonsense.

The argument that the pairs are not mentioned by Josephus is also foolish. Josephus describes sects of sages and the Sanhedrin, and he almost never mentions the names of the people who sat there. To say that Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai didn’t exist because his name isn’t mentioned is an embarrassing argument. Dozens of other sages who sat in the Sanhedrin are never mentioned either (including heads of the Sanhedrin for most of history), so that logical inference is simply ridiculous.

I’m not surprised that such nonsense came from Yigal. In his previous book he already proved that he lacks any knowledge of philological research (the book contains really embarrassing mistakes for anyone familiar with the genre), and when a literary scholar enters such a broad field without philological knowledge and makes claims like “it doesn’t make sense that…” without knowing the material in full, it’s no wonder such nonsense comes out.

I won’t get into the more severe methodological errors in his way of doing research, nor point out the fact that he is a Shinui activist trying to smash myths in order to make people leave religion (what one might call an “objective” scholar). It’s sad that this person allows himself to sneer at other scholars when he doesn’t come close to what they were by the end of their B.A. For example, his claim that Talmudic scholarship doesn’t deal with when the text was written — anyone who studied even one day in a Talmud department knows that the date of composition is one of the most discussed subjects, with real controversies around it. But sure, “nobody deals with it.”

The problem with Yigal Bin-Nun is that he’s only smart in front of weak audiences who have no clue about the material, and he builds theories on the basis of “it doesn’t make sense that…” for people who don’t know the facts and have no research experience to test whether this stands up to reality (that is, whether it matches parallels) or to the facts. No wonder that in academia almost no scholar thinks much of this babbler, but on the internet, where most people have never studied even one day of philological research or biblical scholarship, the guy is seen as an idol who proves things with signs and wonders. Too bad people think this is what research looks like, and too bad he demeans academia and tries his hand at persuading people who have no ability to grapple with the material.

M.

Still, you need to explain, and ad hominem claims don’t really interest me when I want to know. Look, you didn’t bring clear sources and evidence here. Personally, I’d need to study a lot in order to weigh what’s being said, and I admit I’m really lacking in this area. If it turns out he’s wrong, then he’s wrong. I don’t think he’s doing it intentionally; after all, his environment examines him on these matters. In any case, I wouldn’t call someone who completed two doctorates with distinction “someone who demeans academia.”

A. I suggest you ask academics about the man and you’ll hear the same answers…
Apropos, the environment that examined what he said is exactly the one that said the guy isn’t serious and raises arguments pulled out of thin air.
B. I referred you to sources; I can’t write books here. If the topics interest you, go study them. On this subject (unlike many areas of historical research), thank God, there’s no shortage of good material in Hebrew.
C. I’m just saying that, as someone knowledgeable in this field, most of the things he claimed are either unsupported by any evidence that holds water (Josephus), or contradicted by the facts (the non-existence of the Mishnah). Raising random skeptical claims (“who says X really existed, just because there’s no empirical proof from the same time?”) is not a serious argument. By that standard, I can make up whatever I want and claim that Ezra the Scribe too (a figure whose existence not a single person in academia doubts) never existed and is a literary fiction. That’s not science; it’s mockery.
D. His mistakes aren’t intentional (though I once caught him outright making things up!), but that’s exactly the problem — they stem from ignorance! The problem is that a man who is ignorant and has never engaged in Second Temple research allows himself to call Israel Prize winners insulting names, while he himself raises factual arguments that are very basic errors.

M.

What would he say about Ezra the Scribe? And based on everything you’ve learned, do you accept the existence of all the pairs and whoever counted them, etc., even though there is no empirical evidence besides the writings themselves for their existence?

According to Yigal Bin-Nun’s method, that the Mishnah is invented because its earliest manuscripts are from the 9th century, one would have to say that the writings of Josephus Flavius were also invented in the Middle Ages, since the earliest manuscripts of his books are from the Middle Ages. 🙂

What can you do? Manuscripts generally do not survive for more than a thousand years except in places with a dry desert climate, such as the Cairo Geniza or the Judean Desert. In all research one must rely on copies made centuries after the text was written. There are copying errors, but comparison of several textual witnesses can give a good indication of the authenticity of the text.

Best regards, Shatz

If he follows the same logic, he’ll reach the same conclusion. It’s the same logic that once led people to doubt the very existence of David.

I argue that since the Mishnayot preserve an ancient wording, and generally this is the oral tradition, then as far as I’m concerned they all existed unless proven otherwise. Meaning — not that it’s certain, but that this is the rational starting point (and what I said is an entirely accepted scientific argument).

Yigal basically did two things — he said he doesn’t accept the point I noted, but that’s just a skeptical argument, and he tried to present proof against it. The counter-evidence is really foolish, and the skeptical argument is just skepticism.

What probably also contradicts his claim (though in truth there is no need to do this, because skepticism is not evidence) is the ancient formulation of the Mishnayot and historical considerations of this sort.

To say there is no evidence is a bit inaccurate, because the Hellenistic formulation of the Mishnayot is significant evidence (and this topic itself consists of dozens of pieces of evidence, because scholarship has a lot of basis for it); it just isn’t proof in the form of a contemporary document.

Fine. But if so, then you also need to accept the miracles and wonders that fill the Talmud. How is this different from that?

A. Don’t compare the existence of leaders and quotations they said to stories about their lives in midrashim.
B. It does indeed mean that the stories in the Mishnah at least are very ancient; of that there is no doubt.
C. In general, please distinguish between the Mishnah and the Talmud; Yigal is claiming the tannaim are an invention..

Agent M,

You’re focusing on methodologies.
If you notice, I didn’t ask whether his methodology is correct. That doesn’t interest me at all. You can open another thread about that.

The question is whether Hillel and Shammai and the rest of the pairs existed. From everything you wrote, I didn’t see proof of that. The fact that sages are mentioned proves nothing. There are always sages. And if that’s your proof, then his proofs are already better.

The fact that you write a lot about methodology just distracts from the discussion. I hope this isn’t your habit to hide the fact that you have no proof of existence at all.

And if you do have proof of existence, I’d be happy to know, because the things he said did not sit well with me.

It follows, according to Yigal Bin-Nun’s method:

A number of books in the Hebrew Bible were written in the first century CE in the Judean Desert. The Hebrew Bible as a whole was originally written in Greek in the fourth century, since there are no earlier manuscripts. The manuscripts of the Septuagint in the Sinai Desert show that the revelation at Mount Sinai took place in the fourth century. Following that impressive event, the Roman Empire accepted Judaism.

In the 5th-6th centuries the Quran was written, since an early manuscript of the Quran is dated by carbon-14 to that period (before the birth of Muhammad). The Hebrew Bible was translated into Hebrew in the 9th-10th centuries, since only from then do we have early manuscripts of it. In the 11th century Homer’s Iliad and Josephus Flavius’s Antiquities of the Jews were written, the Mishnah was written in the 11th-12th centuries, the Jerusalem Talmud was written in the 13th century, the writings of Maimonides were written in the 13th century, and in the 14th century the Babylonian Talmud was written, which, inspired by Maimonides, reinterpreted the Mishnah to fit Maimonides’ rulings…

One more important note: regarding “Shatz Lewinger,” many comments by him were found on the site of Rabbi Michael Abraham, but no authentic manuscript of his was found. It appears that “Shatz Lewinger” is a fictional character invented by the site editors. His surname also appears in scrambled-letter forms such as “Gurlin,” “Regniol,” and “Shy Tzy Rowling.”

Best regards, Shamtzon Levinon

All your questions were explained thoroughly in my words, and I do not intend to repeat myself.

M.

And maybe the stories about their lives were also invented? And I still haven’t gotten an answer: how is this different from that? If this is invented, then those are invented too. Do you have evidence for the revelation at Mount Sinai besides the Hebrew Bible? And who told you there was a Moses?

A. I have no principled problem saying there are invented legends; the question is when they were formulated. And research on the Mishnah has shown that these things were formulated in an early period, and therefore this is certainly not a retroactive invention. For example, there probably really was a fellow named Honi about whom people told miracle stories, and the Mishnayot that mentioned him were more or less from his own time.

In addition, critical research on the Mishnah can provide strong evidence for existence itself. You see this in the connection between Jewish law as addressing the needs of its time and the lifetime of that particular tanna (and this is something discovered only in modern times, and in fact it contradicted the Talmudic tradition, thereby proving it is unlikely to have been intentional), or in consistency within the halakhic method (if you like — in the philosophy of legal ruling) of tannaim, where it is unlikely that this was a deliberate conspiracy given that the figures were simply invented. There is more evidence too, but it’s genuinely a long matter and you can’t write a book here. If it interests you, there are scholarly materials from which you can learn how they arrived at those conclusions. I’ll tell you that it’s definitely not just “because.”

M.

If the legends were formulated in an early period, then what does that mean? Do you accept those legends or not? And if you don’t accept them, how did they get integrated with those same tannaim/amoraim who at the same time were also debating verses? Or will you say that those figures existed and the writers invented legends about them?

With God’s help, 9 Tammuz 5780

Against every invention theory stands one difficult question: how do you impose an invented narrative on a scattered and fragmented people spread to the ends of the earth?

And how is the invented narrative accepted without protest by a critical and stubborn people that does not easily abandon the tradition of its ancestors, while the invented narrative rapidly conquers all the diasporas? And all the more so a narrative that imposes a demanding burden of commandments and leads to conflicts and persecutions from ‘everyone and his wife’?

We have seen that a narrative can be imposed on masses by the power of a strong political regime. Thus Christianity and Islam were imposed by mighty empires led by believers in those religions. But a scattered and fragmented people with no political leadership at all — how could it impose an invented narrative throughout the world?

Apparently, without a coercive central government, the stubborn people accepted the authority of the sages because they saw them as reliable representatives and interpreters of their deeply rooted tradition.

Best regards, Shatz

I truly have difficulty understanding why this is unclear, but I’ll explain one last time.
1. Yigal claims that the tannaim did not exist. The tannaim are, of course, the sages of the Mishnah.
2. The Mishnayot were formulated during the Second Temple period (that is, during the lifetime of the tannaim).

Now you ask: what about the legends about the tannaim?
1. In the Mishnah, as far as I recall, there really aren’t legends except maybe Honi, but let’s take his example for the sake of discussion.
2. It is indeed clear that in the days of the Second Temple there walked around the Land a fellow named Honi about whom miracle stories were told, just as there were about Rabbi Kaduri.
3. Those miracle stories also entered the sayings of the tannaim that were transmitted orally.
4. Honi’s miracle story could have been a real event, a coincidence, or an urban legend; it makes no difference. In his lifetime people told a miracle legend about him, it was formulated orally in his own time, and passed on.

So you have learned that there is no connection between whether a person existed and whether every story about him is accurate — just as there is no connection between whether Jesus had the Holy Spirit and the simple fact that there was in the Land an odd fellow named Jesus around whom legends circulated that he performed miracles (though in his case there is clear evidence that most of the miracles are a later addition, but that’s a longer discussion).

Everything has been explained and I have nothing more to add. If you won’t accept it — then you won’t.

With God’s help, 9 Tammuz 5780

Honi the Circle-Maker is also mentioned by Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews as “beloved of God,” who in the past had prayed and brought rain down. Josephus says that during the Hasmonean civil war, those besieging Jerusalem asked him to pray for their success in the war against their brothers. Honi refused, and they murdered him. In the Mishnah it is mentioned that Shimon ben Shetah reacted to Honi’s act in praying for rain, so it seems clear that both in Josephus and in the Mishnah it is the same Honi. See Wikipedia, article “Honi the Circle-Maker.”

Best regards, Shatz

According to Josephus, Honi was murdered in 63 BCE while trying to stop the civil war. What happened in the next seventy years? The house of Antipater the Idumean rose to power in Judea under Roman sponsorship. About seventy years after Honi’s murder, the rule of the house of Antipater came to an end, removed by the Romans in 6 CE.

It seems that someone remembered Honi’s attempt to stop the civil war and concluded that an ‘opportunity window’ had opened, making it possible to renew Honi’s attempt and mend the rifts in the people, in the sense of ‘bringing Honi’s spirit back to life.’ But sadly there was no willingness among the people to receive his spirit, Honi’s aspiration, and his spirit was left with no place in the world.

It is very plausible that talk of renewing Jewish unity and stopping the situation in which every side tries to bring in the Romans on behalf of its own camp could not be voiced publicly except by way of parable. The path aspiring to unity wanted to learn from the carob tree that although on this path there is much need to make peace with a less-than-ideal reality, it is worth investing in a long-term process of drawing closer in the hope that the complete fruit will come in future generations.

Best regards, Shatz [Shomer Tzfiya / “Guard of Watching”]

In paragraph 3, line 3
… the path aspiring to unity wanted to learn from the carob tree…

Fine, so Flavius doesn’t mention Shemaiah and Avtalyon. But he does mention the Pharisaic sages Sameas and Pollion. To my mind that’s close enough.