First Came Marriage: The Rabbinic Appropriation of Early Jewish Wedding Ritual 9781463216832

Citation preview

First Came Marriage

Judaism in Context

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Judaism in Context contains monographs and edited collections focusing on the relations between Jews, Judaism, and Jewish culture and other peoples, religions, and cultures among whom Jews have lived and flourished.

First Came Marriage

The Rabbinic Appropriation of Early Jewish Wedding Ritual

Susan Marks

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34 2013

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2013 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2013

‫ܐ‬

9

ISBN 978-1-59333-585-4

ISSN 1935-6978

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is Available from the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents ..................................................................................... v Acknowledgments .................................................................................. vii Abbreviations ........................................................................................... ix Introduction: The Paradox of Ritual and History.............................. 1 Chapter One: Recognizing Betrothals After the Fact ..................... 11 At the Margins: The Capacity to Marry ..................................... 16 Mamzerim: Perpetual Outsiders through Marriage ................. 24 Consent and the Problem of Fleeting Evidence ...................... 38 Inchoate Marriage and other “Striking Parallels” ..................... 48 Establishing a Citizen Body ......................................................... 59 Chapter Two: Preparing the Bride ..................................................... 71 An Inscription from Leontopolis ............................................... 74 Jephtha’s Daughter in Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum ................. 80 Aseneth ........................................................................................... 88 Brides in Amoraic Rabbinic Sources: Genesis Rabbah ............... 93 Avot de Rabbi Nathan ................................................................ 96 Semahot ....................................................................................... 98 Conclusion ....................................................................................104 Chapter Three: Debating Wedding Processions, Negotiating Post-Temple Jewish Practice .....................................................107 Tannaitic Texts as Situational ....................................................110 Imminent Eschaton impacts Strategy ......................................121 Jewish Apocalypticism as Misrecognition ...............................125 Conclusion: The Future of Rabbis and Weddings, a Redemptive Hegemony ..................................................131 Chapter Four: Wedding-Feast Blessings and Rabbinic Communal Mobility............................................135 New Blessings ..............................................................................140 The Proximity of Wedding Feast and Wedding Chamber ...152 Roman Sexual Imagination and the Wedding Chamber .......157 The Guarded Wedding Chamber .............................................159 Feasting at Weddings: The Potential for Social Disorder and Social Formation .........................................................167 v

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The Babylonian Talmud’s Concern with Attending Neighboring Feasts ................................171 Parallel Concern: The Feast Strategies of Christian Clergy in Antioch and Rome.........................................................177 Confrontations concerning Marriage in Mesopotamia .........182 Conclusion ....................................................................................185 Conclusion .............................................................................................189 Excursus: Tosefta Qiddushin ................................................................193 Appendix: Selected Texts and Translations ....................................201 Bibliography ..........................................................................................207 Index .......................................................................................................251

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the book that follows I embrace the adventure of looking for the particular contexts of what later appear only as large trends in practice. I likewise, with great joy, embrace this moment to acknowledge the supportive contexts that sustained my work throughout this project. As those who preceded me, I inevitably discovered that the exigencies and rewards of teaching, living and loving continually challenged my ability to focus regularly on a book project. By rights then, each teacher, student, colleague or friend who recalled me to the excitement of learning, and thus returned me to my task, deserves my thanks here. You each do receive it from my heart, even if I cannot list each one of you. I want to thank Lynn Cohick who told me that it was time to do this. And I offer great appreciation to those of you who read and commented on chapters or sections, offering much to think about as I moved forward: Kim Haines-Eitzen, Ross Kraemer, Bob Kraft, Shira Lander, Ann Matter, David Stern, Heather White, and especially, Debra Bucher, Maxine Grossman and Sarah Schwarz, as you helped me sort out the project again and again. I have shared drafts at conferences, and received helpful feedback. I am particularly grateful for my warm welcome into the Society of Biblical Literature’s Meals in the Greco-Roman World Seminar and to Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, Lillian Larsen, Jordan Rosenblum, Dennis Smith, Angela Standhartinger, Hal Taussig and the rest of the group for providing regular scholarly sustenance as I developed the ideas in this book. I am grateful, as well, for the financial support that I received for the early research from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. The Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion provided me with an important Summer Workshop Fellowship as well as the wonderful mentors and colleagues associated with the workshop itself. New College of Florida has provided me with Faculty vii

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Development Funds associated with the Klingenstein Chair in Judaic Studies, as well as smart and eager students and colleagues. In addition, Caroline Reed and the other staff of Cook Library at New College provided important assistance. At the final stages of this process three talented editors helped make this book sparkle: Katie Van Heest of Tweed Editing, and Katie Stott and Melonie Schmierer-Lee of Gorgias Press. A version of Chapter 3, “History vs. Ritual in Time and End-time: The Case of Early Rabbinic Weddings in Light of Catherine Bell,” appeared in the 2011 Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 79, Issue 3, pp. 587–613. I am grateful for Oxford University Press and for the insightful suggestions made by Charles Mathewes and anonymous readers. As I followed traces of family observances in the ancient world I treasured my own family. David Black, Ray Marks and Laura Fisher died before they could see this in print. They are missed. I am so excited to share this book with Laura Ahearn, Adele Black, Mellie Black, Rick Black, Michelle Gross, Anna Marks, Ari Marks, Erika Marks, Jim Marks, Maya Marks, Tom Marks, Chuck Saltzman and Louise Saltzman. Finally, I dedicate this book with great love to my husband, Bruce Black, and daughter, Maddy Black, who are both talented writers and who, throughout this process, have embraced me and challenged me to write the book that I was meant to write.

ABBREVIATIONS ARN b B.C.E. C.E.

CIJ CPJ D GenRab JIGRE JIWE JPS LAB LCL m MS Mur NRSV p Q Sem t XHev/Se

Avot de Rabbi Nathan Talmud of Babylonia, for example bKetub = Babylonian Talmud Ketubbot Before Common Era Common Era Corpus Inscript Judaicarum Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum Digest of Justinia Midrash Rabbah: Genesis Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe Jewish Publication Society Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum Loeb Classical Library Mishnah, for example mQidd = Mishnah Qiddushin Manuscript Document from Wadi Murabba’at New Revised Standard Version Talmud of the Land of Israel, for example pMo’ed Qat = Palestinian Talmud Mo’ed Qatan Qumran, for example 4Q271 = text fragment found in Cave 4 at Qumran Semahot Tosefta, for example tSotah = Tosefta Sotah Documents from Nahal Hever and other Sites: The Seiyâl Collection II

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INTRODUCTION: THE PARADOX OF RITUAL AND HISTORY During the war of Vespasian they forbade the crowns of bridegrooms and the wedding drum. During the war of Titus they forbade the crowns of brides and that a man should teach his son Greek. In the last war they forbade the bride to go forth in a litter inside the city; but our rabbis permitted the bride to go forth in a litter inside the city. (Mishnah Sotah 9.14) Levi came to the house of Rabbi to the wedding feast of R. Simeon his son [and] said five benedictions. R. Assi came to the house of R. Ashi to the wedding feast of Mar his son [and] said six benedictions. . . . . (Babylonian Talmud Ketubbot 8a)

When it comes to understanding Jewish weddings in antiquity, our expectations are obstacles. Take these two epigraphs as a joint example. The first, from the second or third century C.E., describes wedding ritual prohibited: it bars grooms, brides, and families from making marriages ceremonial, sacramental, customary. In the second epigraph, from a later rabbinic period in the fourth through sixth centuries C.E., a wedding ritual is created: rabbis compete with each other over the articulation of a new wedding practice. These snippets of written history suggest an almost total reversal in the rabbis’ opinion of Jewish wedding rituals. What could be more dramatic, after all, than a stop and a start? Together, these two quotations ought to convey a story of changing ritual practice, but surprisingly they’re not usually understood that way. The fragmentary nature of the evidence makes the reversal unexpectedly problematic. When they take a historical tack, scholars disagree over whether to take seriously the 1

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early prohibitions of bridal crowns, wedding drums, and litters (raised seats used in processions). Records of ritual tend to be held suspect and passed over in scholarship in favor of other possible explanations: ritual—especially its remnants—confounds the project of historical reconstruction. Ritual always tells its own story, so common sense suggests letting other narratives trump ritual traces. Alas, we cannot discover the hidden nature of rabbinic attention to marriages without taking seriously the seemingly incongruous ritual record. By turning to ritual theory to make sense of the material, this book uncovers practices in the early history of Jewish weddings that have remained unnoticed. Complicating attempts to interpret these early texts, contemporary readers also view them through the lens of modern Jewish wedding ritual. When we think of a Jewish wedding we think of the bride and groom under a wedding canopy (called a huppah). They listen to the words of the rabbi, respond with words of their own, and, finally, break a ceremonial glass. The pervasiveness of these ritual features encourages us to accept them as continuities, but no evidence exists for any of these elements in the ancient world. We find instead that the huppah of antiquity was a room in a house, not a wedding canopy. We find even less reason to suspect the existence of a “ceremony” made of spoken words,1 or of stepping on a glass. The kind of “officiation” by rabbis (paralleling church priests and ministers) that we see in later centuries remains unattested, but our focus on those later practices causes us to overlook that the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud, who came to wedding dinners to say five or six blessings, offered a new kind of direct involvement with celebrants. We should recall that the Hebrew word for wedding (‫ )חתונה‬only occurs in medieval material, not early rabbinic sources.2 Tal Ilan writes, “very little is known about the actual wedding celebration after the bride arrived at the groom’s house. . . It can be assumed that there was a marriage ceremony” (1995: 95–6). Not all sources present their own expectations so clearly. 2 A search of rabbinic literature in the Bar Ilan Responsa Project 11 finds only one hit, and that in the compilation of J. D. Eisenstein, Ozar Midrashim (New York, 1915). 1

INTRODUCTION: THE PARADOX OF RITUAL AND HISTORY 3 When we take away modern assumptions and look at fragmentary texts that allude only to prohibitions or blessings, we might wonder whether early Jewish wedding ritual evidence can tell the historian anything at all. Debates over how to describe early wedding practice reveal the inevitable obstacles to narrating ritual history. We may even describe the situation in oppositional terms, as ritual versus history. Ritual tells one story, which often goes something like this: “This act that you or I do is a continuation of acts that others have done for time out of mind.” When considering early Jewish wedding ritual, part of us thinks, “Of course there must have been a canopy; it is a tradition, and so are words spoken under the canopy and so forth.” The repetition of ritual easily seduces us with the suggestion of how it always was. In contrast to ritual, history tells another story: “Don’t believe what cannot be proved.” The skeptical voice insists, “If we cannot find solid evidence for ritual than it cannot tell us much about the history of these times.” Ritual posits continuity. History records disjunctions. At first hearing they oppose each other at every turn—except that they belong together. Ritual and history provide us with a paradox: existing within history, ritual determinedly counters with ahistory. The historical precedents that rituals purport to perpetuate often can’t be proved. Practices, if they ever happened, can be lost to times gone by. Rituals are therefore like historical shadows: they don’t fit easily with history, but neither can they be pulled away. This paradox of ritual and history explains some of what makes ritual continually compelling: it invariably offers another perspective, enriching the smallest of events and complicating all attempts to tell only one story. Recognized or not, this paradox haunts all history-making endeavors, including histories of marriage, that have anything to do with ritualized actions. Because of this paradox, ritual presents the historian with three choices—choices that often go unnoticed. First, students of wedding ritual may write bad history, swallowing without critical challenge the grandest illusions built into ritualized action, such as the misconception that ritual repeats what has always gone before. Intentionally or not, scholars embrace this choice when they retroject modern elements of weddings into antiquity, imagining canopies and ceremonies because they accompany modern ritual. As a second choice, historians may narrate events while ignoring

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the evidence of ritual, which is deemed too unreliable. Those histories account for a great deal of what we know about earlier communities, including rabbinic ones. Those pursuing history explore everything useful they can find about their ancient-world subjects, but ritual does not present itself as useful, so histories often treat it with suspicion. Unfortunately, ignoring ritual is an approach no more balanced than anachronistically importing modern ideas onto antiquity. Skeptical histories that bracket the unruliness of ritual keep our knowledge incomplete. Recognizing the pitfalls of the first two paths, I opt for the third choice: embracing the paradox of ritual within history. Recent explorations into the nature of ritual help determine when to accept ritual at face value, when to be skeptical, and ultimately why neither alternative suffices on its own. Ritual’s flexibility and creativity, its power to create and destroy, make it worthy of our notice, and more than ever the comparative study of religion willingly considers ritual.3 Thus we can take these examinations of ritual as guides for revisiting history. Committing itself to remain aware of the chameleon-like qualities of ritual by embracing new approaches, this study reexamines the fragmentary evidence for wedding ritual and insists that a new examination of ritual offers an important correction. This study operates on two levels: On one hand, it navigates the paradoxical engagement of ritual and history, charting their dynamic play. On the other hand, since ritual and history exist in the actions of particular peoples within particular times and not in generalities, this book investigates a case study—that of early Jewish wedding ritual. In order to understand how ritual acts within history, this book considers the changes and developments within early Jewish wedding practice. The period of this study begins in the third century B.C.E., shortly after the first biblical collections, and ends in the fourth through sixth centuries C.E., with the completion of the Babylonian Talmud. Thus, we do not explore biblical practices, even though some of the narratives examined do quote biblical passages or otherwise allude to biblical material, often as foundational for their own interpretations of proper ritual 3

Ronald Grimes 1996:xiii–xv.

INTRODUCTION: THE PARADOX OF RITUAL AND HISTORY 5 performance. Much of this evidence comes from rabbinic sources such as the early Mishnah and later Talmud, so the rabbis figure importantly in this postbiblical evidence for wedding practice. Even within rabbinic sources, accounts of weddings remain limited. Ultimately, we observe important differences between the earlier rabbis, the Mishnah’s Tannaim of the second and third centuries C.E., as opposed to the later, Amoraim rabbis of the fourth century C.E. and after, who are associated with the Babylonian Talmud and several midrashic collections.4 Throughout this exploration of early Jewish weddings, a focus on ritual allows us to wrestle with ritual in slightly varied ways. In light of social theorist Pierre Bourdieu’s work demonstrating that practice naturalizes social distinctions, chapter 1 reveals the early, Tannaitic rabbis to be the key players in new constructions of betrothal—the rabbis, not the bride, the groom, or their families. The rabbis determine which statuses matter and assign themselves as supervisors of the legitimacy of marital unions. So we find that betrothal practice points in one direction, toward the bride and groom, while the impact of this action points elsewhere, toward the rabbis. In chapter 2, by way of contrast, Jonathan Z. Smith helps us observe other ritual participants and the hopes, fears, and tensions that play out in their enactments. Early on, descriptions of bridal preparations center on the turning point in women’s lives; later, the rabbis have intruded and resignified wedding preparation as important to the community—a community within which rabbis wield their influence. These different sources and different views of

In order to make this distinction, or even think at all about who the rabbis were, this book depends upon numerous histories of the rabbinic period, including fine histories of early Jewish marriage. This follows a growing recognition of these differences in recent scholarship. For instance, Seth Schwartz (2001) and Richard Kalmin (2006) consider different texts and contexts, but share a determination to explore Late Antiquity as distinct from earlier rabbinic activity. Michael Satlow (2001) supplements early studies by A. Buchler (1927 & 1956) and Jacob Lauterbach (1925). Ilan (1995) explores marriage in her study of Jewish women. 4

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brides, grooms, and families cast the Tannaim in sharp relief and as markedly different from their Amoraim successors. Ritual theorist Catherine Bell guides chapter 3’s observations of Tannaitic priorities, because cracking open the Mishnaic accounts of wedding processions relies upon her four-part conception of ritual. Bell advocated consideration of practice and ritualization, suggesting that we do without the word ritual altogether. While she later wrote another book all about the subject; ultimately finding the term inescapable, the power of her earlier work remains undiminished.5 Her observation that ritual practice is situational (and strategic, misrecognized, and redemptive) allows us to probe the allusions to end time that we find at the core of these rabbinic texts. Within this heightened context comes the determination to prohibit all unnecessary ritual elements, such a wedding crowns. By way of contrast, in the later Amoraic period, talmudic texts tell of new players. Sherry Ortner’s interest in ritual actors and change provides chapter 4 with the perfect opportunity to analyze the Amoraim and their deepening engagement. These later rabbis develop their own authority at weddings rather than relying only on their earlier role as border patrol. Together these chapters tell the story of rabbis coming late to an involvement in the wedding practices of their communities. Tannaitic acceptance of betrothals after the fact evolve into the active participation of Amoraim, who establish wedding blessings. By focusing on texts that seem useful only with a focus on ritual, we find that rabbis started their direct involvement in communal wedding ritual only in the Amoraic period, although all the while they were ritualizing their own authority. While we explore and expand the definition of ritual, let us think provisionally of it as contextualized strategic action. Bell and Bourdieu insist that the study of ritual is the study of actions, not objects. Their work concentrates on the verb ritualize and eschews the noun ritual as a shell emptied of action. By pointing toward textual and material evidence that might—or might not—designate Catherine Bell 1992:74. Later she returns to explore “a more holistic and pragmatic orientation to … ritual,” (1997:ix). See Chapter Three for further discussion of Bell’s ideas concerning practice. 5

INTRODUCTION: THE PARADOX OF RITUAL AND HISTORY 7 action, Bell’s focus on acts promises historians direction. That distinction between ritualizing and ritual becomes clear in considering the many studies of rabbinic texts that focus on meanings, for instance the meanings of the words in blessings.6 As with histories that eschewed a focus on ritual action, these foregoing textual examinations contribute a great deal to our understanding of the rabbis but often lose sight of the fact that enacted words may not convey the same ideas as words studied or read. Having decided to focus on acts, we must also determine which acts constitute early wedding ritual. For if marriage is understood as the licit union of those who meet certain qualifications, and weddings involve the processes joining marriage partners, what acts or processes existed for early Jews who married? We have already noted that weddings in the ancient world happened without stepping under a canopy, speaking words, or breaking a glass, so what is left? Chapters 2, 3, and 4 examine the key communal actions for which we have evidence: (1) preparing the bride, and perhaps the groom; (2) parading or processing; and (3) feasting. These three endeavors involve a great deal of ritual energy, engaging a number of participants. These acts seem recognizable, but only if we relinquish our expectations of these rituals can we better understand their history. We, as modern witnesses, are the only ones missing the ceremony, so to speak. A great variety of practices within ancient feasts—pagan, Christian, and Jewish—were seamlessly interwoven.7 The co-emergent practices of Christians and Jews See for instance Gary Anderson 1989. More recently Gail Labovitz brings the helpful perspective of gender to these considerations (2009). 7 Dennis Smith 2003; Hal Taussig 2009. See also the essays by members of the Meals in the Greco-Roman World Seminar of the Society of Biblical Literature in Smith and Taussig eds., forthcoming. Arnold Eisen, writing of early modern Judaism and considering wedding meals, with their speeches, songs, skits and more traditional blessings, whose own significance, rivals the official “ceremony,” challenged similar unexamined assumptions and conventions. Responding to the earlier analysis of Evans-Pritchard, who argued that one would surely 6

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emerge through chapter 4’s focus on wedding feasts; based on discussions of wedding processions, chapter 3 identifies different visions of the ritual, and chapter 2 shows the first, preparatory acts of brides, grooms, and families looking toward marriage. These early Jewish ritual acts provide evidence for big changes happening within rabbinic Judaism. The examination of wedding preparations, processions, and feasting leaves out betrothals because this practice reveals particular interpretative problems. While some families certainly wrote betrothing documents in advance of marriage, especially where families held significant economic resources, modern interpretations of early Jewish betrothals tended to, as we should expect, bring in assumptions about the ritualizing of these betrothals. In contrast to the Amoraic ritualizing of wedding feasts, betrothal reveals the Tannaim ritualizing their own authority rather than the acts of bride, groom, or family. Examining the ritualizing that the rabbis do and do not offer for early Jewish betrothals helps us pit expectation against evidence and learn to embrace the paradox of ritual within history. Four chapters, four ritual perspectives. These separate, smaller studies belong together because they tell a story of a change in the rabbinic relationship to wedding ritual, but the use of a different methodological guide for each suggests that even the answers we come up with cannot be considered the only important ideas about ritual hidden within rabbinic and other early Jewish sources. Ritual’s challenge must lead to multiple explorations and revelations rather than to the expectation of one definitive interpretation. As I write, no such multidimensional history of early Jewish wedding ritual exists. I became frustrated by the choice forced upon ritual historians: that we either let ritual exclude history or allow history to exclude the significant contributions of ritual. We know that marriages happened in early Judaism—we even know that otherwise invisible women participated in these differentiate between a wedding ceremony and the banquet that inevitably follow, Eisen disagreed, “bearing traditional Jewish practices and attitudes toward practice in mind, I am not so sure,” (1998:93). Eisen’s use of the word “practice” explicitly alludes to the work of Pierre Bourdieu.

INTRODUCTION: THE PARADOX OF RITUAL AND HISTORY 9 marriages—but we know very little about these women. It follows that examining weddings (the official beginnings of these marriages) could offer another lens, perhaps a crucial lens, through which to view occasions that shaped the lives of early Jewish women and men. I write ritual-based history to demonstrate the methodological claim that ritual can teach students of history, just as I write the study of ritual through the use of historical sources.8

Baruch Bokser’s study of the Passover seder considers the importance of ritual for understanding the history of rabbinic Judaism (1984). More recently Ithamar Gruenwald examines several topics in ritual, including the “doing-modes of Judaic Halakah,” (2003:139); David Frankfurter investigates the ritualizing of Evil (2006); Beth Berkowitz, explores the ritual significance of the rabbinic discourse concerning the death penalty (2006); Michael Penn studies the ritual kiss in early Christianity (2005). 8

CHAPTER ONE: RECOGNIZING BETROTHALS AFTER THE FACT Despite the many differences between early Jewish marriage and its modern counterpart, modern Jewish weddings do preserve and reshape traces of antiquity. Marriage rites enact the following Mishnah, which serves as the basis for ritual in the modern world (for Hebrew text see Appendix): By three means is the woman acquired and by two means she acquires her freedom. She is acquired by money or by writ or by intercourse . . . 1 mQidd 1.1. Later, in the time of the Talmud, bQidd 12b witnesses discomfort with the fact that betrothal by intercourse is equated with more formal ways of betrothing. According to Rav in the talmudic text, acquisition by intercourse is punishable by flogging, but no voice in the Mishnah challenges the presence of intercourse on the list. According to one solution of this puzzle, the reader ought not understand the list in mQidd as “she is acquired by money or by writ or by intercourse.” Rather one should read “and” not “or”: “she is acquired by money and writ and intercourse” (Louis Epstein 1927:11–12). After all the Hebrew conjunction “vav” may be read either way. According to this interpretation these are already ritualized steps that everyone must traverse. Nevertheless, such an inclusive interpretation runs into problems later in this tractate of the Mishnah. It appears that mQidd recognizes betrothals contracted by an agent. When an agent forges a betrothal by money or by writ, the betrothal already stands as valid (see discussion in mQidd 2.1 and 2.4). I have seen no attempt to argue that the agent betrothed her (on the groom’s behalf) by means of intercourse! 1

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As this evolved over time, the “money” in question became the ring; the “writ” became the ketubbah, the wedding contract, displayed or read—sometimes both—at the wedding ceremony; and “intercourse” became the seclusion of the bride and groom that took place after the rite under the canopy. Each act became an important part of a Jewish wedding, but how did this Mishnah text serve in antiquity? Did it articulate ritual actions in antiquity? In fact, it did not. No evidence suggests that the rabbis ritualized the aspects of early Jewish marriage reflected in Mishnah Qiddushin (hereafter m. Qiddushin); the evidence of the Mishnah itself suggests that the ritualizing related to betrothal, as the rabbis developed it, did not involve individual couples and their families but, rather, the rabbis policing community boundaries. This betrothal compares to modern licensing practices, but that analogy is imperfect. In the modern world, a couple acquires a license in advance, before the marriage, so that the ritual constituting the marriage will be recognized by the state and other legal systems. Since they act before the fact, couples might choose to ritualize the acquisition of such a license, but they might not. In the ancient world, by contrast, the evaluation of a marriage occurred after the fact. Authorities asked the questions: Can these two parties form a licit union? Have they done the acts that make them married? These after-the-fact examinations appear significant in the Roman context, and in the Jewish context during the Roman period as well. At this point, the rabbis acted in accordance with their neighboring cultures. They hadn’t yet distinguished themselves by enacting new practices. Why, for so long, have scholars presumed that m. Qiddushin describes betrothing ritual? When the ritual evidence is included, it is clear that most, if not all, rabbinic explanations of betrothal deserve rather to be understood as licensing—or perhaps as a previously developed betrothing ritual to which the rabbis added scrutiny but no further ritualization for the families. Part of the answer to the question of why m. Qiddushin has appeared to be ritual is that historians of early wedding practice must navigate through their awareness of later practices in order to see the ritual description for what it is. Add to that the dominant theoretical model, which also inclines us to characterize everything connected with weddings as family or personal ritual. Over a hundred years ago, Arnold van Gennep articulated the idea that moments of

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change can be understood as passages.2 Since then, the rites-ofpassage model has driven scholarly and popular speculation on weddings, naming them life-cycle events. Few theories do so well a hundred years on. The continued success of the rites-of-passage idea owes much to its capturing of the popular imagination. The modern world’s love of “passages” only became more pronounced when, in the 1960s, Victor Turner elaborated on the passage of the initiate.3 Consequently, individuals in the modern world happily see marriage as a form of initiation.4 Whole industries, from Bride magazine to catering companies and florists, support this view. Nevertheless, while the emotional passage into marriage may captivate the modern imagination, it does not adequately describe evidence of ancient weddings. The practices we find do not reflect the experience of the bride or the groom; rather, the community dresses the bride, then carries her in a procession. The ancient ritualization surrounding these events does not focus on the self-realization purported by the modern wedding industry. While we might hypothesize about the passage-like experience of the bride or groom participating in such processions, neither literary nor material evidence supports that picture. Rather, the Mishnah expresses concern only for demarcating licit and illicit unions. Recall especially that intercourse (the third option in: “money, writ or intercourse”) persisted as a litmus test for the marriage. In other words, a joining that included nothing but intercourse could still constitute licit marriage. A runaway marriage (sometimes referred to as consensual abduction) could qualify, but so could another sort of abduction, rape. This was also the case in The “rites of passage” model describes important transitions or life “passages” by means of three-stages: “rites of separation, transition rites, and rites of incorporation,” Arnold van Gennep 1908:11. 3 Victor Turner 1969:96–7. 4 Grimes explains that students in his classes: “ . . . believe they lack explicit initiation, so for them a wedding is often experienced as their first ceremonially marked transition across a major life-cycle threshold. Perhaps it will be the only rite of passage in their lifetime that they can look forward to, help design, and fully remember,” (2000:152). 2

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other parts of the Mediterranean at the time5 and, prior to the Mishnaic discussion, Deuteronomy explores how rape may lead to marriage.6 Mishnah Qiddushin makes no caveats or separate comments as to the consequences of sexual violence.7 A “wedding” resulting from rape allows for no participation on the part of the bride or even her family. In contrast to the modern world, evidence of antique Jewish culture does not lavish attention onto the subjectivities of the bride and groom. The rites-of-passage model that rules Western society today proves a poor lens for viewing early rabbinic betrothal. While most who followed van Gennep embraced the rites-ofpassage model, Pierre Bourdieu did offer an important challenge late in the twentieth century, and it turns out to be particularly apt for the present study. While he credited van Gennep for identifying a certain kind of social occurrence, Bourdieu wanted to ask “questions which concern the social function of ritual and the social significance of the line, the boundary, whose crossing, whose transgression, the ritual renders legitimate.”8 Bourdieu focuses on the demarcations that are crossed in these so-called rites of passage, opting instead for the term act of institution because the ritual separates “those who have undergone it not from those who have Judith Evans Grubbs explores the variety of abduction marriages in the Roman world (1995:183–193). In light of her work, it seems likely that at least some of the cases in which the rabbis discuss marriages in the case of rape provide evidence of individuals seeking a similar kind of alternative to an arranged marriage. Satlow explores this (2001:124–30). But Hayim Lapin in his review of Satlow’s book reminds the reader that too great a focus on the abduction of willing parties, “may allow us to deny claims of real violence” (2001b). 6 Deut 22.28–9. 7 We might imagine that the familial and communal response would also differ in the case of acquisition by intercourse. The violent or nonviolent retribution that could be expected to follow such occurrences would bear little resemblance to the preliminary festivities that might follow upon a monetary exchange or contracted betrothal. Nonetheless, mQidd makes no distinction. 8 Pierre Bourdieu 1992:80. 5

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not yet undergone it, but from those who will under no circumstances undergo it.”9 The idea of passage from one life stage to another does not obtain. The rituals serve to underscore the difference between insiders and outsiders, not between various phases along a single, insider life arc. In questioning that logic, Bourdieu recalls scholars to their job: researchers must consider not only the rites that accrue to passages in general but also the underlying nature of the particular acts, be they passage or no. Bourdieu’s model implies that the early rabbinic description of betrothals could be less about defining the betrothed against the not yet betrothed and more about who in the society may never betroth because of some sort of socially defined deficiency or outsider status. With Bourdieu as our guide through acts of institutions, we may easily see the socially defined deficiencies of the twenty-first century. When state laws (with few recent exceptions) prohibit the marriage of gays and lesbians, each heterosexual marriage enacts the distinction. Likewise, the ancient world abounded in distinctions. When slaves could not marry, each marriage affirmed the participants’ freeperson status. The rabbis had their own concerns about slavery and other boundaries. Bourdieu’s interpretation reveals this function of ritual action, which a focus on rites of passage conceals. The illusion of a passage works to reify social distinctions and make them appear natural. In pursuit of “passage,” scholars have often overlooked real historical context, succumbing “to what can be called the ritual illusion.”10 Thankfully, Bourdieu offers an alternative to this passage model, helping illuminate how, in describing betrothal, the rabbis simultaneously monitor and construct social boundaries. In order to explore how m. Qiddushin’s regulations truly functioned, we must examine the community boundaries that fueled questions of licit marriage, as well as the fragmentary material evidence for Jewish marriages occurring at the margins. These questions of boundaries constitute the first key issue surrounding licensing: capacity. The parallels between Roman and 9

Bourdieu 1992:80, italics mine. Vincent Crapanzano 1981:17.

10

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Jewish law reflect similar handling of the second key issue, consent. Pursuing this analogy between Jewish and Roman laws reveals further intriguing parallels and a history of ignoring them. With the Jewish–Roman comparison in place, a consideration of the political and social function of Roman betrothal allows us to see not the assumed ritual but that this body of law actually shapes the rabbinic citizen body.

AT THE MARGINS: THE CAPACITY TO MARRY Early rabbinic literature expands the discussion of forbidden unions mentioned in the Bible and thereby creates a deployable framework for prohibiting marriages.11 Where Leviticus and Deuteronomy prohibit sexual relations with women married to other men, between blood relations, and between Israelites and certain other peoples,12 the rabbis use this set of concerns as planks on which to build a fully reinforced platform for social policing. The breadth of these regulations reenvisions permissible unions, determining who shall make up the true Israel and provide offspring for its future glory. Their system describes status categories based on an ideal of a pure or holy Jewish elite. As a scholar of early Jewish history and literature, Shaye Cohen has considered both the signifier Jew and the qualifications of those who may enter that social-ethnic category. Cohen observes that the early meaning of the term Ioudaios is “Judaean,”13 but it gradually acquires additional meanings in the Lev 18, Deut 20.10–12, Deut 7.1–5, and Deut 23.1–8. Deut 7 lists “Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.” Deut 23 adds the Ammonites and Moabites. And Edomites and Egyptians are also prohibited, but these “may be admitted into the congregation of the LORD in the third generation” (Deut 23.9). 13 S.J.D. Cohen writes, “before the end of the second century B.C.E. Ioudaios never means ‘Jew.’ It is always used as an ethnic-geographic term, parallel to Egyptian, Phrygian, Phoenician, and other such terms,” (1999:82). Cohen also cautions agaisnt assuming too much about so-called Judaeans: “we cannot be sure that all these ‘Judaeans’ were really ethnic Judaeans from Judaea or their descendants . . . . I am struck by the fact that so few scholars have even considered the possibility that Ioudaios 11 12

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Hasmonean period, as religion and culture change and new political alliances are forged.14 He focuses particularly on how definitions of Ioudaios exclude non-Judaeans and create mechanisms for becoming Jewish.15 Caroline Johnson Hodge, a historian of early Christianity, notes further that the term Ioudaios in this period does not cease to be a marker of ethnic identity.16 In other words, the earlier Judaean and later Jew are not so distinct from one another: ethnicity was commonly identified by a set of certain cultural and religious particulars.17 Thus, the rabbis inherited an already complex Judaean, or Jewish, identity. Rabbinic discussions ultimately do more than exclude nonJews from forming licit marriages with Jews. They also exclude some Judaeans, or Jews. The text of the following Mishnah shapes eligibility to marry in profoundly new ways: prohibited categories include groupings particular to rabbinic taxonomy, such as “the offspring of forbidden unions” or mamzerim (singular: mamzer).18 Meanwhile, the rabbis also prohibit unions with people belonging to a category found throughout the Roman world—namely, slaves. These exclusions refine the nature of Jewish identity through “licensing” or, negatively speaking, prohibiting certain marriages. The Mishnah’s concerns about boundaries define marriage based on capacity. According to m. Qiddushin, some people such as slaves and Gentiles have no capacity ever to betroth Jews, or Judaeans: might be, occasionally at least, a pseudo-ethnic, and that not all Ioudaioi were in fact ‘Judaeans’”(1999:103). 14 Cohen 1999:70, 78–81, and 132–35. 15 “The Hasmonean period witnesses for the first time in the history of Judaism the establishment of processes by which outsiders can become insiders, non-Judaeans can become Judaeans, and non-Jews can become Jews,” Cohen 1999:136. See also Cohen 1989, developed as chap 4 in 1999 volume, 140–74; Cohen 1999:175–97; and Hagith Sivan 1996 and 1997. 16 Caroline Johnson Hodge 2002:154–55. 17 Johnson Hodge 2002:155. 18 Translated by Herbert , 1933 and others, as “bastard,” despite the incomplete overlap of these terms. See discussion below.

18

FIRST CAME MARRIAGE [Regarding the woman who would betroth] if her betrothal with this man was not valid, and her betrothal with others would also not be valid, the offspring is of her standing. This is the case when the offspring is by a bondwoman or a gentile woman.19

While some Jews in the rabbinic period were slaves, others were slave owners, and Gentiles and Jewish bondwomen both lacked the capacity to betroth Jewish men. Recent years have witnessed important scholarship concerning slavery in the Roman period, but the impact of slavery on Jewish marital unions has not yet been thoroughly explored.20 That capacity to marry does not invariably take the form of “always able” or “never able.” Some Jews, or Judaeans, had the capacity to betroth some Jews and not others. According to Levitical prohibitions, a sister and brother could not marry each other, but they could each marry other Jews. The Mishnah interprets these prohibitions of incestuous, adulterous, and other forbidden unions by discussing potential betrothals: If her betrothal with this man was not valid, but her betrothal with others would be valid, the offspring is a mamzer. Such is the case when a man has sexual relations with any of the forbidden degrees prescribed in the law. 21

Between these extremes, some individuals apparently had the capacity to contract valid betrothals, but those betrothals would have created unfortunate unions. Those falling into this intermediate category had the capacity to marry, and their unions would not disobey Levitical prohibitions. But their joining would mix separate categories and so transgress the boundaries being See the Appendix for the Hebrew text of mQidd 3.12; here, 4th clause, translation from Danby 1933:327. It is interesting to note how often ‫ שפחה‬appears translated as “bondwoman” even though Marcus Jastrow 1903, has no problem translating it as “slave.” 20 See discussion below. 21 mQidd 3.12, 3rd clause, translation based on Danby 1933 (I have changed his term “bastard” back to mamzer). 19

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constructed through the rabbinical refinement of these prohibitions. A mamzer may marry a mamzer but should not marry an Israelite—the biblical category used by the rabbis instead of Judaean or Jew: If the betrothal was valid but transgression befell [by reason of the marriage] the offspring follows that of the blemished party. Such is the case when a widow is married to a High Priest, or a divorced woman or one that had performed halitzah22 is married to a common priest, or a mamzer or a netinah23 to an Israelite, or the daughter of an Israelite to a mamzer or a natin.24

Thus, at the margins, union by union, m. Qiddushin 3.12 establishes the framework of who is eligible to marry.25 This focus on boundaries establishes betrothal as a point at which capacity—marriageability—can be scrutinized, at least theoretically. As the Mishnah outlines careful oversight of Israelite unions, it generates a list of outsiders, and of Jews or Judaeans excluded from betrothal and marrying. This list includes slaves and mamzerim, who despite their Israelite descent could no longer marry Halitzah means to “draw off [a sandal].” It is the rite that terminates the obligation of the childless widow and the late husband’s brother to marry each other. See Deut 25.9. For explorations of Levirite marriage in rabbinic literature see Dvora Weisberg 2009. 23 A netinah (female) and a natin (male) are Temple servants descended from Gibeonites, according to bYeb78b. See Josh 9.27, “And Joshua gave them [Hebrew: ‫ ויתנם‬from the same root as natin] as hewers of wood and drawers of water. . . ” In 2 Sam 21.2 “. . . the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel.” Talmud thus understands the natin/netinah as a kind of non-Israelite, despite his/her association with the Temple. See also lists of netinim in Ezra 2.43, Neh 3.26 and 4Q340, “4Q List of Netinim.” 24 mQidd 3.12, 2nd clause. 25 The 1st of the four clauses concerns permitted unions: “If the betrothal was valid and no transgression befell [by reason of the marriage] the standing of the offspring follows that of the male [parent]. Such is the case when a woman that is the daughter of a priest, a levite, or and Israelite is married to a priest, a levite, or an Israelite.” See the Appendix for the Hebrew of all four clauses. 22

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other Israelites. Furthermore, m. Qiddushin describes these exclusions as persisting from one generation to the next;26 as the Mishnah delineates these categories, it presents them as necessities. The rhetoric of the Mishnah obscures that these are, to a considerable extent, new categories. Only in tracing the “history” of these exclusions do we find that the rabbis created this system and reserved for themselves the right to recognize valid unions. Mishnah Qiddushin presents marital exclusions as of long duration; they are social designations that stick. Alluding to the returning Babylonian captives as the source of its categories, m. Qiddushin 4.1, which immediately follows 3.12–13, refers to these categories as biological stocks: Ten family stocks [that] came up from Babylon: the priestly, levitic, and Israelite stocks, the impaired priestly stocks, the proselyte, freedperson,27 mamzer, and natin stocks, and the shetuki28 and asufi29stocks.30

The list includes some acts-of-institution designations that we have yet to explore.31 According to this telling, the various categories had existed for hundreds of years. Regardless of the veracity of such a claim,32 the rabbis nod to this ancestry as The next Mishnah (mQidd 3.13) explores the proverbial exception that proves the rule. This issue will be considered below. 27 Note that this list includes “freedperson” (haruri), but not “slave.” 28 The next mishnah, mQidd 4.2, explains that the shetuki is “any that knows his mother but does not know his father.” This one is thus “dumb” or “silent” [shetuk] about his/her origins, hence the name. 29 A foundling (an orphan of unknown parentage) according to mQidd 4.2. 30 mQidd 4.1, trans based on Danby 1933. The text continues with an exploration of which of these stocks can and cannot intermarry with each other. 31 New to this list are impaired priestly stock, proselyte, freedperson, shetuki and asufi. 32 Satlow observes that “no evidence suggests that Jewish marital castes developed during the Persian period” (2001:140). He likewise sees the Mishnah as creating a marital caste system (2001:148). 26

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authority for their regulations. This genealogy performs the naturalizing aspects of the rabbis’ program and simultaneously obscures its constructedness. M. Qiddushin represents a rabbinical innovation, and a comparison with other texts concerning marriage among the returning Babylonian captives opens a window onto its inner workings. All marriage-delimiting texts in the early Jewish corpus attempt to preserve pure Israelite bloodlines in the face of pressures to establish other unions, and all assume the authority to articulate appropriate versus inappropriate alliances. But whereas Ezra in the biblical books Ezra and Nehemiah intervenes at one particular moment in history, the authors of the Mishnah present their categories not as intervention but as ongoing and understood regulations (albeit with particulars that can be debated). They present categories not found in Ezra and Nehemiah: Ezra spoke of the priest and the Israelite but not of the mamzer or the slave. In all likelihood, since all Israelite captives in Babylon were, or had been, essentially slaves, that category could not have distinguished one returning individual from another. Thus, for the origins of their rules, the rabbis appeal to the generation that came up from Babylon, but that origin appears largely implausible. Apparently, however, a vaguely credible pedigree proves to be superior to no pedigree. The comparison of their own regulations to the rules of the generation that came up from Babylon allows the authors of the Mishnah to present a new arrangement without acknowledging its newness. As they present a past that appears to sanction pure marriages and maintain a true Israelite hierarchy, they thereby finesse new categories, which, as we shall see, largely represent the rabbis’ own particular worldview as residents of the Roman world. Rituals—and the discourses that support them—do trade on the illusion of historicity, of precedent. While the rabbis conflate ritual and history, scholars need to be aware of this misdirecting paradox and its attendant dangers. In addition to creating new categories, or castes, rabbinic authors also constructed relationships between these regulations and the practice of betrothal. Whereas Ezra and Nehemiah asked, who should remain married? the rabbis began to ask, who marries? and who seeks to be recognized as betrothed? They focused upon the impact that licit and illicit unions would have on offspring that were in turn judged as either acceptable or deficient as members of

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Israel. In contrast, prohibited relationships in Leviticus result in capital punishment; its regulations do not consider the offspring’s status.33 In the book named for him and in Nehemiah, Ezra becomes outraged when he discovers that the Israelite men from Babylon have been taking foreign wives. He demands that the offenders expel these wives and “those who have been born of them.”34 But while the account in Ezra makes clear whom these men must not take as wives or raise as their offspring, it does not contemplate future offspring, create a list of prohibited unions, or assign betrothal or marrying as occasions for examination of these questions. Ezra and Nehemiah create significant sociopolitical boundaries, and in referring to Babylon the Mishnah links itself to that tradition of constructing differences. Regarding the Ezra traditions, scholars debate which people receive the label foreign. On the face of it, foreign would seem to imply non-Israelite status, but some challenge that default assumption.35 Jack Lightstone suggests that the Ezra-Nehemiah accounts target those Israelites who stayed behind after the Babylonian conquest and were not taken into Babylonia. Their practice does not satisfy Ezra, who sees them as having assimilated into the local Canaanite community and as living as foreigners.36 Thus, this boundary exhibits particular, critical perspectives on the situation in Palestine: that borderline either Lev 20.10–12. And although the rabbis understand Deuteronomy 23.3 as concerning offspring of prohibited relationships, this is just one interpretation of this passage, see discussion below. 34 Ezra 9–10, Neh 9. See esp 10.3. 35 Lester Grabbe 1992:1.144. Grabbe notes among other evidence, that “in later centuries the ‘people of the land’ would be seen as the Jews who were not strictly observant according to the demands of certain sects.” See also Grabbe 1998:136–38. For more traditional interpretations which assume that the threat is from foreign polytheists, see Gary Knoppers 1994:136–37; and Hyam Maccoby 1996:160–70. For a survey of other perspectives, see Tamara Eskenazi 1993. 36 Jack Lightstone 1988:27. Lightstone argues that “in fact, Ezra 6.21 may inadvertently preserve an admission of the enemies’ Israelite identity.” 33

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separates some Israelites from others or separates Israelites from non-Israelites. It all depends on how one interprets the population that Ezra defines as outside of appropriate bounds. The Paraleipomena Jeremiou transmits yet another vision of prohibited marriages, unions that compromised Israelite loyalty. In this second-century C.E. text, Jeremiah concerns himself not with the foreigners in the land of Israel but with “men who took wives from them [Babylonians] and the women who took husbands from them.”37 The Lord instructs Jeremiah to bring into Palestine only those Jews not married to Babylonians: “those who do not listen to you, do not lead them there [back to Jerusalem].” This account assumes that the foreign spouses are Babylonians: “half of those who had taken spouses from them [the Babylonians] did not wish to listen to Jeremiah.”38 Rejected from the people Israel because of their intermarriage the group attempts a return to Babylon and ends up building a desert city called Samaria.39 The texts we have from the Tannaitic rabbis, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Paraleipomena Jeremiou steel themselves against “foreign” threats differently conceived, so it makes sense that they resolves those threats differently, establishing distinctive boundaries between Israelite and foreigner. However emphatically Ezra-Nehemiah and Paraleipomena Jeremiou draw those boundaries, they regulate marriage only for immediate historical context, to solve temporarily perceived sociopolitical crises. The rabbis’ innovation was postulating timeless insider–outsider lines using more stable categories: mamzerim, slaves, offspring. By appealing to those who “came up from Babylon,” m. Qiddushin taps into ongoing concerns surrounding the question of group boundaries—concerns with precedent. But while capitalizing on this tradition of group boundaries, the rabbis reframe the problem. These accounts of the return from Babylonia consistently implore Israelites to reject foreign spouses, but each reimagining ParJer 8.3, trans. R.A. Kraft and A.E. Purintun 1972. This text, also known as 4 Baruch is of uncertain date, likely no later than 2nd century, and makes use of other traditions, see S.E. Robinson 1985. 38 ParJer 8.5. 39 ParJer 8.11. 37

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presents this intervention as a one-time occurrence. By situating prohibitions concerning marriages within a discourse on betrothal instead of immediate crisis management, the rabbis create an ongoing locus for scrutiny and thus a function for themselves. Whereas Leviticus could speak in the divine voice and Ezra acquired authority through his history of dramatic action, neither of these options is open to the rabbis. Instead, rabbis use betrothal as grounds for constructing their own prohibitions and definition of the Jewish, or Judaean, community. In other words, they create their own citizenship laws, which define a citizen pool complete with new exclusions against mamzerim and slaves. By regulating marriages, the rabbis shaped the vision of the Israel that existed around them as well as in the world to come, so it is critical that we understand what particular rabbinic vision these practices were made to enact.

MAMZERIM: PERPETUAL OUTSIDERS THROUGH MARRIAGE While the Mishnah implies that the rabbis are heirs to a longestablished control over Jewish and Judaean marriages, in fact rabbinic Judaism develops the marital prohibitions concerning the category of the mamzer in ways not found in neighboring cultures or earlier Judaisms.40 The status mamzer is a particular form of illegitimacy. Many definitions of illegitimacy involve children born outside of marriage,41 but within rabbinic Judaism, even for the In addition to mQidd 3.12 above, there is mYeb 8.3, “Mamzerim and Netinim are forbidden [to marry an Israelite] and forbidden for all time, whether they are males or females.” 41 An inclusive definition of “illegitimacy” can include, but goes well beyond, the category, mamzer, such as Jenny Teichman’s: “[An] (il)legitimate child = a child conceived and born in circumstances which do/do not conform to the rules governing birth and conception in the parents’ community,” 1982, 178. Looking at illegitimacy in Greek society, Daniel Ogden finds such a definition too broad: “Marriage is (surprisingly) omitted from the definition [above] because Teichman has implicitly decided in advance that certain disadvantaged statuses related to birth but not to marriage should count as ‘illegitimacy,’ for example the 40

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couples that were not married, children conceived within unions that were at least theoretically licit were not mamzerim. In other words, lack of marriage did not determine this illegitimacy. Rabbinic literature understands the term mamzer to refer to one conceived from either an adulterous or incestuous relationship, or a later descendant of such an individual. The definition of mamzer comes from rabbinic interpretation of Deuteronomy 23:3: No one misbegotten [no mamzer] shall be admitted into the congregation of the LORD; none of his descendants, even in the tenth generation, shall be admitted into the congregation of the LORD.42

The meaning of mamzer in this biblical verse is not transparent. The Septuagint has πόρνης as its translation, which does not specify the type of illicit behavior yielding such offspring.43 Nor does the only other appearance of mamzer in the Bible, in Zechariah 9.6, offer further clarification.44 Cohen suggests that our rabbinic sources may be unreliable here: “Perhaps mamzer was originally an Israelite designation of some foreign nation; hence mamzer is part of a list that includes Ammonite, Moabite, Edomite, and Egyptian.”45 Rabbinic interpretation of a minute amount of biblical evidence determines the meaning of mamzer, so it should be clear that the bulk of the construction comes from the rabbis. They arrogated to themselves the power to flesh out and define this alluded-to social category. The Mishnah then defines the transgressions whereby the offspring receives the status of mamzer:

status of the Jewish Mamzer” (1996:5). Ogden protests that usually “marriage and legitimacy are in fact reciprocally defined.” 42 Deut 23.3, JPS trans. 43 Cohen notes that the “Septuagint rendering is ambiguous” (2000:174, n. 3). 44 “And a ‘mongrel people’[a mamzer] shall settle in Ashdod. I will uproot the grandeur of Philistia,” (Zech 9.6, JPS trans). 45 Cohen 2000:173.

26

FIRST CAME MARRIAGE Who is accounted a mamzer? [The offspring from] any [union of] near of kin which is forbidden [in the Torah]. So R. Akiba. Simeon of Teman says: [the offspring of any union] for which the partakers are liable to be cut off at the hands of heaven. And the halakah is according to his words. R. Joshua says: [the offspring of any union] for which the partakers are liable to death at the hands of the court. R. Simeon b. Azzai said: I found a family register in Jerusalem and in it was written, “such-a-one is a mamzer through [a transgression of the law of] ’your neighbor’s wife’” [adultery], confirming the words of R. Joshua.46

Thus the mamzer is the result of an incestuous or adulterous relationship.47 Since the law allows men to engage in polygamy, the nonmarital offspring of married men are not necessarily mamzerim, as long as the mothers of those children are not married to other men. These offspring would instead belong to one of a number of other categories: If the mother had been an unmarried, free, Israelite, the offspring are merely illegitimate, according to the broader definition above (unless and until the union from which they spring becomes formalized). If the mother was a slave, the offspring were slaves, and so forth. Mamzerim are also conceived in another, more perduring way. In later generations, even when there is neither suspicion of adultery nor hint of incest, the children of mamzerim are themselves mamzerim. The Mishnah explores the open-endedness of this exclusion: R. Tarfon says: mamzer stock can be rendered clean. Thus if a mamzer married a slavewoman the offspring is a slave. If he is

mYeb 4.13. Later interpretation of this mishnah within the Babylonian Talmud offers the explanation that the use of the term in Deuteronomy 23.3 depends upon the proximate Deuteronomic discussions of incest, bYeb 49a. Joseph Levitsky 1989 considers later commentary as well. 46 47

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set free the son thereby becomes a freeman. R. Eliezer says: such a one is a mamzer slave.48

In this discusssion, the side of R. Tarfon considers a possible closure to the seeming limitless exclusion (ten generations) of a mamzer.49 In a Tosefta related to this Mishnah, the rabbis explore a different kind of limit: “‘Netinim and Mamzerim will be clean in the world to come,’ the words of R. Yose.”50 Exploring status definitions in the next world constructs the exclusions of this world as inevitable. Some interpret rabbinic consideration of the mamzer as compassionate, arguing that R. Eliezer (who appears unconcerned about the mamzer in the passage above) elsewhere tries to minimize the impact of his words. In this other dialogue concerning the ability of a mamzer to inherit, R. Eliezer merely parrots the questions directed his way rather than answer them.51 Meir Bar-Ilan interprets his behavior as indicating that “he did not want to give his real opinion that a mamzer does not inherit.”52 For him “it is clear that the sages of the Mishna and Talmud sought to limit the low status of mamzerim.”53 On the other hand, Cohen challenges Bar-Ilan for investing this literary description with too much social reality: “the author assumes throughout that legal texts reflect society as actually lived. In contrast, I would argue that, in general,

mQidd 3.13. One also cannot know if the concern of R. Tarfon involves any empathy with the problems of real people. After all such an exploration could also reflect a discomfort with the theoretical problem of a seemingly endless exclusion. 50 tQidd 5.4. 51 tYeb 3.1. 52 Meir Bar-Ilan 2000:138. Bar-Ilan concludes that m. Qiddushin views mamzerim as “real” people: “Apparently, [mQidd 4.1’s] main purpose was to establish the background of the contemporary sociological reality (at the time of the author)” (2000:130). He also suggests that: “the author of ‘Ten levels of status’ [mQidd 4.1] intended to express a sociological position rather than to give a historical accounting” (2000:129). 53 Bar-Ilan 2000:142. 48 49

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legal texts are prescriptive, not descriptive.”54 Cohen does not deny the possibility that there were actually mamzerim facing the hardships that Bar-Ilan describes, but he argues that the evidence provides many challenges to this assumption.55 Thus m. Qiddushin 3.12 alludes to a meticulously drawn category that remains historically elusive. Nonetheless, despite the absence of pre-rabbinic evidence for mamzerim, the category serves an important function within the Mishnah’s discussion of marital prohibitions. While on the one hand m. Qiddushin implies that castes or “stocks” go back some hundreds of years, on the other hand its framing of the category mamzerim illustrates how such problems continue to perpetuate themselves. The Mishnah thereby posits a situation wherein longterm control appears alongside long-term lack of control: the family stocks are figured as stable, but the mamzerim need to be regulated. The rabbinic presentation of marital prohibitions implies an only partially successful establishment of boundaries, in contrast to Ezra’s one-time, but more concrete, intervention. The rabbis in this text present mamzerim as an ongoing challenge that requires ongoing scrutiny. In a sense, the mamzer embodies prohibited marriage. His or her existence serves to establish that Israel has not attained the ideal state of purity described in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and developed by the rabbis. The presence of the mamzer reveals impurity and justifies the vigilance and thoroughness of the rabbinic system of prohibitions. Whereas the rabbis alone concerned themselves with the category of mamzer, the category of slave appeared throughout the Roman Empire. An exploration of rabbinic prohibitions concerning the union of Israelite slaves indicates that not all Cohen 2000:171. Cohen explains this: “. . . a focus on narratives rather than laws would reveal an interesting fact: as far as I know, no pre-rabbinic text contains a narrative about mamzerim and the travails they endure in Jewish society. Qumran texts, ‘Apocrypha,’ ‘Pseudepigrapha,’ Philo, Josephus, New Testament—none of them, as far as I know, tells a story about a specific mamzer. If mamzerim really were a social problem or issue in prerabbinic times, this silence is perplexing” (2000:172). 54 55

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rabbinic categories remain aloof from the world around them. Rabbinic interest in the status of slaves appears very similar to that of Jews’ neighbors. While it soon becomes apparent that outside evidence of such a category does not necessarily resolve the question of whether the Mishnah considered a practical or theoretical system, these concerns themselves situate the rabbis within the larger discursive preoccupation with elite and tainted statuses. Thus the Mishnaic exclusion of Israelite slaves from marriage with other Israelites provides an interesting comparison with that of exclusions directed at the mamzer. Until recently, studies of Jewish slavery within the Roman period took an apologetic approach and minimized references to Jewish slaves and slaveholders. No one considered the slaves mentioned in m. Qiddushin 3.12 as Hebrew slaves. They were instead understood as Canaanite (or Gentile) slaves.56 E. E. Urbach was the first scholar of rabbinic texts to challenge this erasure of evidence.57 In the last decade of the twentieth century, Dale Martin summarizes the evidence of inscriptions and papyri by and about Jewish slaves, concluding, “Jews both had slaves and freedpersons and were slaves and freedpersons. Slavery among Jews of the Greco-Roman period did not differ from the slave structures of those people among whom Jews lived.”58 In other words, failure to identify these slaves as Israelites slaves owes more to modern squeamishness than to ancient evidence. By confronting the exegetical apologetic that most typically denied the magnitude of Jewish slavery in rabbinic texts, Paul Flesher offers the final attack on earlier blindness concerning slavery. His survey reveals that despite a tradition of dismissing unspecified mishnaic references to slave as referring to Canaanite and not Hebrew slaves, only 6 of 129 mentions of slavery in the Mishnah ever apply either of these labels,

The drive towards such apologetics often overshadowed the simple reading. For example the text of mQidd 3.12 speaks of both slaves and gentiles. This kind of construction would be unnecessary if the slaves discussed were gentile. 57 E.E. Urbach 1964:1–3. 58 Dale Martin 1993:113. See also Martin 1990 and 1991. 56

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which does not appear to justify a broader application.59 Thus material and literary evidence indicates that slavery existed among Jews, and a thorough discussion of betrothal must consider prohibitions against Jews marrying slaves. In this light the m. Qiddushin particulars concerning slaves take on new meaning. If Jewish, or Judaean, slaves were pervasive, unions—or proposed unions—involving them must have occurred. Although the Mishnah discussed above does not recognize such unions as marriage, and we do not know whether the prohibitions against the marriage of Jewish slaves in m. Qiddushin 3.12 are theoretical only or had real applications, one can trace clues to the lives of certain slaves where they would have coexisted with these prohibitions. Some assume the prevalence of marriage opportunities in antiquity because occasional references to persistently unmarried, or late-married, individuals exist. Any analysis that explains away these cases as resulting from financial hardship or other, chosen pursuits (Shmuel Safrai gives Torah study as an example)60 fails to consider the whole population, however. According to rabbinic prohibitions encoded in the Mishnah, Jewish slaves could not have married, but material evidence for ancient-world slavery (although not for mamzerim) survives. We know that slaves formed unions that were like marriage but not called marriage. Even assuming that the Mishnah stood as a theoretical exploration, the collection codifies similar Roman prohibitions against slave matrimony and thus reveals the likelihood that a fair number of Jews were excluded from forming marriages. In light of recent scholarship on Paul Flesher 1988:35–40, see esp. 40, n. 22. S. Safrai 1976:748, my italics. A consideration of restricted marriage in antiquity runs counter to the prevailing modern belief in the “right” of all Jews to marry. In the modern world such assumptions mobilize responses to the plight of the aguna, the Jewish woman of unresolved marital status, whose absent husband may or may not be dead, and who thus may not remarry. Her situation is seen as the “tragic consequence of the laws of marriage and divorce,” Rachel Biale 1984:102. Such statements rest on the notion that rigorous laws of marriage and divorce should serve to protect the ability of all Jews to marry and raise children, rather than interfere. 59 60

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Roman pagan, Christian, and Jewish slavery, the Jewish men and women barred from marrying according to the Mishnah can no longer be considered scattered cases. Wars produced slaves in great numbers, and this is most certainly true of the wars in Judea.61 This was a world that took slavery for granted: as William Fitzgerald puts it, the ancient Near East was a world “permeated by the category of the slave.”62 The life of an upper-class household depended on the labor of dozens or even hundreds of people in the preindustrial age, but until Urbach’s challenge these slaves remained invisible to scholars of rabbinic Judaism.63 Studies of Greece and Rome present new insights about the integral place of slavery within these societies: non-Jewish inscriptions commemorate in stone the relationships between slaves and free persons, and between patron and client.64 The sheer volume of non-Judaean, non-Jewish inscriptions provides a clearer body of evidence for slave unions than can the smaller number of Judaean or Jewish slave inscriptions.65 While the Richard Horsley 1998:35. William Fitzgerald explores how the “category” shapes the society, (2000:1). 63 Leigh Gibson offers an overview of all these developments and a focus on manumission inscriptions from the Bosporus (1999:56–62). Gibson’s review of discussions of slavery in Philo and Josephus adds another set of evidence suggesting that Jews owned Jewish slaves (1999:81). 64 Susan Treggiari 1969, examines literary and epigraphic material in presenting an overview of slavery and its integral place in society; Keith Bradley 1994, focuses on literary evidence and provides an annotated bibliography; Richard Saller and Brent Shaw 1984 (and in response, Martin 1996), consider statistical and methodological issues regarding epigraphical evidence about families, including slaves; and Shaw 1998, and various essays in Sandra Joshel and Sheila Murnaghan eds. 1998, consider theoretical issues. 65 Treggiari 1969:1–20, esp. 15–6, 209–10 and Shaw and Saller 1984. Martin reminds his reader that “there are probably hundreds of Jews . . . hidden among the thousands of Greek and Latin inscriptions,” only they are not recognized as such (1993:114). Jewish slave marriage inscriptions 61 62

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more limited Jewish epigraphical evidence can be, and has been, overlooked, recent studies of Roman-period slavery unearth too much evidence to ignore the possibility that Judaean or Jewish slaves also occasionally formed unions with Judaeans or Jews who were not slaves. In fact, the following three inscriptionally recorded relationships do seem to involve Judaeans, or Jews either as the inscribers or as the deceased slaves or freed persons commemorated (see the Latin texts of these inscriptions in the Appendix): Claudia Aster, prisoner from Jerusalem. Tiberius Claudius Proculus(?), imperial freedman, took care (of the epitaph). I ask you to make sure you take care that no-one casts down my inscription contrary to law. She lived 25 years.66 Felicitas, a proselyte for 6 (?) years, named (?) Peregrina, who lived 47 years. Her (male) patron for the well-deserving woman.67

might also include JIWE 2 252 (CIJ 148), in which “Ursus, the grammateus” is memorialized and said to be “about to marry.” A menorah on this stone suggests that Ursus was Jewish. Again one might ask: Was he a slave? He has only one name, which is interesting, but in no way definitive. Joshel shows that slaves are more likely than freedpersons to have their occupational status included in memorials, perhaps because that was the only status they had (1992:100–6). In addition to epigraphic evidence, Martin discusses a papyrus court record (CPJ 148) which shows a slave, Martha, inheriting from her master (1993:119). 66 JIWE 1 26 (CIJ 556), provenance unknown, perhaps Naples, 1 st c. CE. David Noy notes that “this is a particularly early occurrence of the name [Esther], which seems to have no epigraphic attestation before its Greek form in BS [Beth She’arim Inscriptions]” (1993–1995:1.45). Martin also discusses this text (1993:119). 67 JIWE 2 62 (CIJ 462), Monteverde Catacomb, 3 rd–4th c. CE(?). Noy reviews earlier interpretations of the Latin letters VINVENN, which he grudgingly accepts as VI/six and “a badly written form of NOMINE,” (1993–1995:2.55). Cohen discusses the complexities of how and when proselytes were understood to be Jews (1999:160).

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For Nicetas the proselyte, worthy and well-deserving, Dionysias his patroness (had this) made.68

These stones imply intimate relationships between the ones who set the stones and the ones memorialized, but none of them names the other as spouse. Historically, patrons do not appear to have set up individual markers for well-deserving former slaves or clients; for instance, one Jewish patron in Asia Minor memorialized her slaves by establishing a collective tomb.69 Those establishing these individual stones have made other choices. In each case, someone went to a considerable amount of trouble and expense, although the nature of the relationships remains vague. If these stones witness unions, they were of the sort prohibited by systems like m. Qiddushin 3.1270 because each concerns either a slave or a freedperson. Circumstances suggest that these patrons, slaves, or freedpersons were Judaean, or Jewish: the first stone connects Claudia Aster with Jerusalem, and the other two were found in Jewish catacombs in Rome. These sources pose a challenge to apologetic interpretations that do not recognize the existence of Jewish slaves in rabbinic texts. Once one recognizes the presence of Judaean or Jewish slaves, it becomes clear that m. Qiddushin describes only the marriages of a particular elite group. The last clause of 3.12 explains that a bondswoman may neither betroth nor marry and that her offspring will be slaves. The inability to legally marry means that slave women had no way of creating recognized kinship bonds and had to forgo the privileges that came with them.71 Here are actual enslaved Jews who may not marry, according to rabbinic law. The implementation of these rabbinic restrictions on marriage (and JIWE 2 218 (CIJ 256), Vigna Randanini Catacomb, 3rd–4th c. CE(?). For instance CIJ 741, Rufina of Smyrna builds a tomb for “her freed slaves and the slaves raised in her house.” 70 Depending upon how much of the Mishnah’s argument is theoretical, the fact that mQidd feels the need to prohibit these relationships may also provide evidence that such unions existed. 71 Paul Flesher 1988:96. Flesher also discusses mGit 9.2 which indicates that the betrothal of a male bondman is also not valid (1988:97). 68 69

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their Roman equivalents) results in long-term economic and social consequences.72 At first glance, it could appear that social mobility might mitigate the impact on these slaves’ lives. When a master freed slaves, they would leave that status and would also seem to abandon many social restrictions and associated economic hardships—they could then enter marriages and so forth. But notice that gender is unspecified: acquired freedom affected men and women differently. Roman-period manumission was a very complex issue involving client obligations imposed on all freedpersons, with economic repercussions differing based on the relative poverty or wealth of a slave, the mode by which his or her freedom came about, and so forth.73 For example, Josephus Scholars debate whether the economic consequences of slavery create a class or a status. Many begin with G.E.M. de Ste. Croix’s definition, “A class (a particular class) is a group of persons in a community identified by their position in the whole system of social production” (1981:43). David Konstan emphasizes that slaves do not control their own production and are in a relationship with others that do (1986:755–7). On the other hand, Shaw reminds that slave “classes” will not look the same from one community to another, since “matters of communication, especially that of language, vitally affected economic exchange” (1984:220). In addition, as Peter Garnsey and Saller note, the amount of wealth varied markedly from community to community, most notably between rural and urban centers (1987:119). Because of the ways the patronage system worked, a slave could work forever in the mines, or, alternately, serve as the upwardly mobile manager of his master’s household slaves. Martin remarks that “what is anachronistic is to assume that an ancient person . . . would place slavery unproblematically on one side of the class dichotomy” (1991:111). These refinements expose additional gaps in available sources concerning what kinds of jobs Jewish slaves did, and how Jews became and/or owned slaves in this period. Debtors becoming slaves reflect different economic pressures than home born or captive slaves. But a more complex set of equations does not negate the impact of economic location on these lives. See also P.A. Brunt 1982 and Robert Grant 1983. 73 See Treggiari 1969 for an overview; Keith Hopkins’ study of inscriptions discusses costs and obligations (1978: ch. 3); and Gibson considers Jewish manumissions, which she concludes “were not the result 72

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describes his marriage to a captive virgin, which Vespasian forced him to do under Roman captivity. Josephus then says that she “left” him upon his being freed. He then “marries” again.74 But what of his former “wife”? She served as wife by order of the emperor and then presumably went on to other duties. The reader simply does not hear of her again, and we never learn of her marital status at the time of Josephus’s remarriage. Nor do we discover whether she was ever freed.75 Josephus’s anecdotal evidence gives us a glimpse of the different trajectories of freed male and female slaves, and differences emerge in Mishnaic codification, too. The Mishnah indicates that a slave woman, even if she was freed, could never make the same economic claims that a freeborn woman could make. A captive female over the age of three was assumed to have had intercourse, and her marital expectations were automatically affected.76 In addition, a great number of slaves never attain their freedom. of internal Jewish practice but stood alongside pagan manumissions” (1999:157). 74 Josephus, Life, 414–5, discussed in Ross Kraemer 1999:57–8. J.Thackeray, translates apalatto as “left” (1961), while William Whiston translates it as “divorced” (1987[1752]). Both meanings of the word are possible. In surveying Josephus’ other uses for this word, “left” or “departed” appear often. Elsewhere in Josephus, when Herodias separates from Herod to marry Herod Antipas, the text says that in doing so she “flouted the way of our fathers” but it only says she “separated from” (διαστασα) her husband, leaving the nature of their divorce somewhat ambiguous, Antiquities 18.136, trans. Louis Feldman 1981[1965]:92–3. See the discussion in Kraemer 2000:93. 75 mQidd 1.3 refers to a Jewish female slave who should be freed when she reaches puberty. The Mishnah does not consider the case of such a slave owned by non-Jews. 76 mKetub 1.3–4. Only if she has no intercourse after age three can she receive a full marriage settlement. Boaz Cohen emphasizes the positive: “. . . if she was manumitted before the age of three she enjoyed together with Jewish girls, the privilege of receiving a marriage settlement of two hundred zuz (1966:147, italics mine).

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The economic and marital situation of slaves who remain so is another issue. While it is clear that a free person cannot marry a slave, contradictory evidence shrouds the matter of whether two Jewish slaves may marry each other. A cursory examination of any slave system will provide the chief reason why slaves could not marry: slaves are not legal persons. Owners may choose to sell apart or otherwise separate slaves. Slaves have no control over long-term commitments.77 Flesher does note one text that uses the word marry (‫ )נשא‬in the context of slaves. Mishnah Gittin 4.5 considers the plight of one who is half slave and half free. He had been jointly owned until one owner gave the slave his freedom. The house of Shammai raises the following objection: “He cannot marry a bond-woman since he is half freedman, and he cannot marry a freedwoman since he is half bondman. May he never marry?”78 The implication here is that slaves can “marry” each other—although no other evidence supports this, so this text may only ask a hypothetical question. Flesher makes the additional point that a slave cannot control his or her sexual body.79 Even if two slaves together forged a relationship that they understood as marriage and were not sold and separated by their master, a bondswoman could not legally or practically refuse the sexual I have not discussed the children of slaves, although many of the same considerations apply, particularly those of families that were broken apart. Evans Grubbs traces some pre-Constantinian rulings that called for keeping slave families together (1995:308). On a darker note, manumission inscriptions discussed by Hopkins illustrate that freedpersons often left children behind as payment for freedom (1978:166). Since children are one of the basic goals of licit marriages, the inability to control or protect children is another way these slave “marriages” are different. 78 mQidd 4.5. The infinitive form (‫ )לשא‬of the verb is used. In considering rabbinic texts that perhaps allow for slave marriages, albeit illegitimate ones, Flesher also mentions mQidd 3.13, discussed above. This ambiguity of status appears in classical Greek and Roman sources as well. Fitzgerald notes that since “slaves were humans as well as chattel . . . living with slaves involved living with contradiction” (1988:7). 79 See Flesher 1988:96, n. 14. 77

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advances of her master (for that matter, neither could a male slave). Where Mishnah Avot specifically warns its audience not to be tempted by female slaves, we can read against the grain and imagine the consequences for female slaves in cases where this warning was ignored.80 Slaves have little if any power to deny their masters, so even if one called the union of two slaves “marriage,” it would not be governed by fidelity requirements that obligated husbands to divorce adulterous women.81 A comparable two-tiered system existed in Roman practice. Roman law recognized one type of marriage, conubium, while prevailing custom and practice also recognized a second type, contubernium,82 which involved those noncitizens ineligible for conubium. Roman tombstone commemorations reveal slaves who appear to have understood their unions as similar to marriage. These can even adopt the language of licit marriage, where one partner referred to the other as coniunx, or “spouse,” although this term was technically not applicable.83 Ultimately, class and status inflected the types of unions recognized in the Roman world, and the rabbis had their own ways of stratifying marriage. The Mishnah excluded many from the ranks of licit marriage. Belonging to the world of third-century C.E. Palestine, the Mishnah’s legislation is not likely to have governed Jewish marriages in Rome when Felicitas and Nicetas were buried there. And the case of Claudia Aster in the first century C.E. preceded the codification of the Mishnah, so Mishnaic definitions are unlikely to have challenged the three unions described by the particular Bernadette Brooten notes that mAvot 2.7 recognizes the occurrence of such conduct by male Jewish owners of slaves (1996:102, n.77). 81 mYeb 2.8. 82 Treggiari explains “in contubernium, by contrast, the will to have the sexual partner as coniunx might exist, but legal capacity was absent because at least one of the partners was a slave” (1991:52). She also remarks “Contubernales commemorate each other on tombstones far more often than a man commemorates his concubine, which suggests that the duty to do so was more strongly felt. Z.W. Falk compares Jewish marriage to conubium, but does not discuss contubernium (1974:510). 83 Treggiari 1991:54. 80

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tombstones we’ve analyzed. Nonetheless, it is harder to evaluate the impact that Mishnaic proscriptions had on the Palestinian contemporaries of Felicitas and Nicetas. If the Mishnaic rulings concerning betrothal and marriage were in fact followed, then they describe Jewish slaves compelled to remain in exploitative relationships while barring their offspring from marrying other Israelites. What appears initially as an exception to the rule for all betrothals, and thus a minor issue, would have had long-term consequences both for those remaining slaves and those freed. Even if mamzer regulations existed only in theory, in discourse, they would have contributed to the definition of whatever community read them, regardless of their enforceability. Insofar as the Mishnah defined marriage, it defined a two-tiered system—those who could contract licit marriage and those who could not—and the power of those words had real-world ramifications. In developing the importance of betrothal practices, the rabbis developed their own process of scrutiny, complete with a vision of the ideal Israelite. Their scrutiny targeted acts already habitually performed: Jewish, or Judaean, slaves were already forming unions, sometimes with one another and sometimes with free individuals. So rather than acting as guides in the manner of establishing marriages, rabbis served as clearinghouses of marital unions that were already happening. Rabbis decided which unions were legitimate and would enjoy the attendant social benefits, not which unions would happen or how they would happen. In thus framing betrothal, the Mishnah resembles Roman law, which also concerns itself with legal matters rather than ritualized acts performed by betrothing parties.

CONSENT AND THE PROBLEM OF FLEETING EVIDENCE Scholarship on Jewish betrothal and marriage assumes that marriage is a ritual and that religious ritual differed from Roman. Consequently, the field has not explored parallels between Jewish and Roman law, which we can do by investigating the appropriateness of van Gennep’s rites-of-passage model for the study of rabbinic betrothals. When we question the assumption that the early rabbis ritualized a couple’s betrothal, then the barriers to exploring these parallel law codes evaporate, and the kinds of questions that scholars of Roman law have asked and scholars of Jewish law have not yet asked can guide the exploration.

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39

To begin with, social and legal historian Bruce Frier asks whether Roman betrothal and marriage law involved ritual associated with imperial religion. He concludes that law and ritual do not in fact converge in Roman legislation: in his recent study of Roman same-sex marriage ceremonies, Frier observed that despite a lack of legal basis for marriage, detailed ceremonies suggest that some sort of long-term commitment between partners of the same sex was achievable.84 Frier emphasizes that these ceremonies included a “sobriety of intent,” noting that Juvenal takes great offence at this intent (Satirae 2.117–42). That Romans could invoke marriage by analogy without it being legitimate marriage suggested, to Frier, a “drift in conceptions” between law and ceremony that could happen because Roman law was unconcerned about process. It retroactively acknowledged marriage given certain criteria for capacity and consent rather than explicitly licensing unions beforehand, as is the case in modern law.85 His observations concerning capacity fit well with our exploration of the Mishnah, but what of consent in the Jewish context? Whereas the evidence for capacity exists long after the fact, evidence for consent vanishes with a spoken word; even if it survives in a written and witnessed contract, we know little of the processes that established consent. Consent could conceivably involve ritualization, but the evidence for that proves remarkably elusive. Frier’s observations encourage us to ask to what extent evidence of Jewish formulaic language constitutes a particularly Jewish ritualization of marriage and consent. If certain formulae were efficacious, might they be picked up and used again, beginning such ritualization? When did a spoken (or written) phrase adequately establish consent, and when did it become the ideal ritual for such a purpose? I become less and less convinced that we can answer these questions. Nevertheless, following Frier we recognize the possibility that ceremony associated with marriage did not have legal force; nor does it appear that the rabbis Bruce Frier 2002. According to Frier, John Boswell 1994 has tacitly abandoned his earlier claim that Roman law officially recognized such unions. 85 Bruce Frier 2002. See also Karen Hersch 2010:9ff. 84

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developed specific ritual requirements as they established their authority to scrutinize the unions of their day. Pre-rabbinic and rabbinic texts all remain elusive. Still, however, murky we find the pre-rabbinic evidence, we can observe that the Mishnah asks further questions about consent without advocating particular ritual practices. Statements that look like betrothal or marriage formulae appear in the second-century C.E. book of Tobit, which includes the phrase “according to the decree of the law of Moses.” This phrase draws the attention of the later reader because medieval and modern weddings includes a Hebrew variation of this phrase, ‫כדת‬ ‫“( משה וישראל‬according to the law of Moses and Israel”), which serves to establish a betrothal. Unfortunately for those hoping for a clear window into ancient practice, the literary work Tobit has its own reasons for constructing practice as it does. In Tobit, the bride’s father, Raguel, speaks for the group by demonstrating his consent and the willing participation of all parties as they exchange words and draw up of some sort of marriage contract. The drama of the story builds: Then Raguel summoned his daughter Sarah. When she came to him he took her by the hand and gave her to Tobias, saying “Take her to be your wife in accordance with the law and decree written in the book of Moses. Take her and bring her safely to your father. And may the God of heaven prosper your journey with his peace.” Then he called her mother and told her to bring writing material; and he wrote out a copy of a marriage contract, to the effect that he gave her to him as wife according to the decree of the law of Moses. Then they began to eat and drink.86

Raguel tells the groom Tobias to take his daughter, relating his expectation that Tobias will ultimately take his bride to his own home. He then oversees a written contract, so the text appears to provide an exquisitely detailed description of the joining of Sarah and Tobias. Nonetheless, the text does not say what exactly effects the union: the spoken words, the contract, the meal, all of these, or 86

Tob 7.12–14, my emphasis.

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none of them.87 The text does not anticipate the concern of later interpreters that these acts should clearly mean one thing and not another.88 In the absence of other evidence for “typical” weddings of this period, it remains hard to judge whether this attention to wedding rites is usual or completely unusual. Adding to the marriage’s distinctiveness is the fact that this is the eighth consecutive contracted union made by the bride, Sarah, and her family. A demon has killed the other seven grooms. The drama of the story raises fears for the survival of Tobias. Given this trajectory, the appearance of so many rites (words, writ, and a feast) before cohabitation primarily serves as a literary cue to the audience that Tobias has reached the point of no return. Tobias himself insists, “I will neither eat nor drink anything until you settle the things that pertain to me.”89 The tension builds. He has now established himself as either married or upon the threshold of marriage, but what is more important for the sake of the story is that he is now demon bait. In light of the demon awaiting any groom foolhardy enough to approach Sarah, it is hard to say whether the spoken formula was typical of betrothal or a dramatic addition that explicitly established their marriage for the benefit of the audience. We have too many possibilities and too little evidence to resolve this. Perhaps pre-rabbinic practice did develop an interest in ritualization including an appeal to the law of Moses—or perhaps it is just good drama. Ranon Katzoff offers a third possibility: maybe Possibly the words and contract “betroth” the couple, with the expectation that other acts (the feast and consummation) then “marries” them. Equally possible, each of these acts marries the two, and the written contract is a marriage contract. 88 Satlow interprets the ambiguity as evidence against the practice of betrothal. He argues that in Tob 6.13 Raphael [the angel] suggests the need to “establish by means of payment” rather than betroth, when he announces that “tonight we shall speak concerning the girl” (2001:71). 89 Tob 7.11. One might argue that many a groom or bride called upon a certain amount of courage to face a new union, new family and so forth and hence each wedding required multiple rites. This is of course possible, but once again the evidence of Tobit cannot provide us with an answer. 87

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the book of Tobit reminds the reader of the biblical book of Numbers, which encourages Jews to marry kinsmen.90 This third explanation of the law-of-Moses formula makes sense for some manuscripts of Tobit but not others.91 We are left with a ritual mystery. By considering the particularly salacious contingency of an engaged woman having sexual relations before marriage, Philo presents a different puzzle but no fixed picture of betrothal in his day. In his exegesis of the Ten Commandments, including the commandment against adultery, he addresses questions of breach of contract and the related issue of who can be considered an adulterer. He explains: Some consider that midway between the corruption of a maiden and adultery stands the crime committed on the eve of marriage (ὑπογάμιον), when mutual agreements (ὁμολογίαι) have affianced the parties beyond all doubt, but before the marriage was celebrated, another man, either by seduction or violence, has intercourse with the bride. But this too, to my thinking, is a form of adultery. For the agreements (ὁμολογίαι) being documents containing the names of the man and

Ranon Katzoff argues that this particular formula, “in accordance with the law and decree written in the book of Moses,” serves the story’s concern for an endogamous marriage. Katzoff also suggests that the marriage formula in Tobit “does not necessarily incorporate a presumed existing marriage formula” (1996:229). He suggests that this marriage, in contrast to the seven previous marriages is contracted in observance of the rules on inheritance in Numbers 36:6–9. 91 Two complete Greek forms of the 2nd c. CE Tobit exist. Greek I, the shorter version, includes the Book of Tobit found in the major MSS Vaticanus (B), Alexandrinus (A) and Venetus (V). Codex Sinaiticus (S) is the only complete text of Greek II, the longer version, although the Aramaic and Hebrew fragments from Cave 4 in Qumran, as well as the old Latin MSS, resemble this version (Di Lella 2000:198). The Greek II form (S) does support Katzoff’s argument, but Greek I (B, A and V) has Raguel answer Tobias “I have given her to seven men of our kinsmen, and all died” (Tob 7.11). 90

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woman, and the other particulars needed for wedlock, are equivalent to marriage.92

Philo only refers to these documents as homologiai (agreements).93 He does not indicate the nature of these marital or betrothal agreements or how they become recognized. Rather, he emphasizes that this is his opinion of the relationship of the couple rather than an inevitable interpretation.94 No formal or legal process can be inferred. Most recently, discoveries from the Judaean Desert provide evidence for the actual use of betrothal or marrying contracts and for formulae such as appears in Tobit. On the one hand, the use of contracts in the Judaean Desert does argue for their nonliterary use and their community validity. In contrast to formulae in texts such as Tobit, the inclusion of certain words or phrases in actual written contracts does testify to their currency and practice. On the other hand, having evidence for the existence of a formula does not constitute proof of its meaning, nor does it establish ritualized use. The marriage documents of the Judaean Desert reveal fragments of a formula similar to that found in Tobit, Spec leg 3.72, trans. Colson. Philo uses the word ὑπογάμιον(“eve of marriage”) to name the circumstances. He uses this word nowhere else. The passage contains enough other references to weddings that “betrothal” seems to be the most likely interpretation, especially as elsewhere Philo remarks that a priest is prohibited from marrying a virgin who has made an “agreement of betrothal” (Spec leg 1.107). Yet Philo does not appear interested in distinguishing this contract from others like it. Later interpreters continue to look for a distinction, including Epstein (1927:15) and Hans Wolff (1939:74). 94 This opinion may or may not have been typical. Satlow takes this to mean that Philo interprets counter to the majority expectation, with the implication that others would not have taken betrothal so seriously or categorized the sexual transgression of betrothal as adultery. Satlow continues: “I suggest that Philo is referring here to prenuptial agreements that have only pecuniary legal force. He [Philo] is attempting, however, to interpret these customary Greek documents in line with the biblical institution of ‘betrothal’” (2001:71). 92 93

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“according to the law of Moses and the Judaeans [or Jews]” (‫)כדין משה ויהודאי‬. This formula appears in two Aramaic marriage documents and in one divorce document.95 Each preserves a different piece of the formula: Mur 20 preserves “. . . ‫ ;”כדין מ‬NH 10 preserves “‫ן משה ויה[ו]דאי‬. . .”;96 and Mur 19 preserves “ ‫כדין‬ ‫[מש]ה ויהודאי‬.”97 Although no one document contains the entire formula, together they become fairly persuasive. It seems reasonable to suppose that some Judaeans or Jews used this language in written form to inaugurate their unions. In addition, Mur 20’s Aramaic appeal to Jewish law, follows a first-person statement: “she will be my wife according to the law of M[oses] . . .” (. . . ‫)אתהוא לי לאנתה כדין מ‬.98 The appearance of first-person phrases raises the possibility that this document was used in a performative fashion, itself constituting a marriage. Or alternatively, might it have accompanied performative speech (perhaps by the groom), a variant of the sort depicted in Tobit? Once again the evidence is suggestive but not conclusive. Students of documentary evidence are well aware that signers of documents may not pay attention to such formulaic language. Sometimes signers do not (or cannot) read the contracts they sign. Other signers may read these formulae but not give much thought to the words. In fact, the evidence of these particular documents indicates that not all parties involved could write or, presumably, read.99 While the preservation of the documents and correspondence relating to court proceedings argues for at least some careful readers (or hearers) of these documents, it is not always possible to tell how the audiences understood a particular formula. The discoveries in the Judaean Desert also reveal contracts that appeal to Greek law rather than Jewish, and thus the See Ada Yardeni 2000:54, 56–7, 119, 125, and 131. Yardeni groups documents according to function, so marriage documents appear together. 96 Or ‫ויהודאי‬. 97 Or ‫ויהודאי‬. Mur 19 is a divorce document. 98 This is the clearest example, the others are more fragmentary. 99 Babatha appears to be illiterate and has others sign for her, see pYad 15, Yardeni 1997:144–5. 95

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formula changes. The document XHev/Se 65 claims to be “in accordance with Greek law or custom and Greek manner” (νόμ[ῷ] [έλληνικ]ῷ καὶ έλλ[η]νικῷ τρόπῳ).100 In contrast to the Aramaic documents, this formula governs the maintenance of wife and children and appears in the middle of the Greek marriage documents.101 As luck would have it, over the course of time one family in the Judaean Desert used both Aramaic and Greek wedding documents, which allows us to compare the expression and efficacy of the two traditions.102 Yehudah, husband of Babatha, who himself marries with an Aramaic document, uses a Greek betrothal or marriage document for his daughter (see NH 10 and pYad 18). While a great deal remains unknown about how this contract language should be interpreted,103 the shift in this one

έλληνικῷ νόμω is attested in PYad 18. Hannah Cotton summarizes and gives bibliography for the debate as to whether the phrase έλληνικῷ νόμω should be translated as Greek law or Greek custom (1997:235). 101 Maintenance clauses also appear in Mur 115, and XHev/Se 69. 102 Scholars assign various dates to the Aramaic documents, either 66 CE or 117 CE for Mur 20; and 122 CE or 125 CE for NH 10. The Greek documents receive dates beginning with 124 CE for Mur 115; 128 CE for pYad18; 131 CE for XHev/Se 65; and 130 CE for XHev/Se 69. 103 Many theories offer to explain the various languages in these contracts. Cotton notes that the documents tell us about the relationship of villages to larger districts. She also notes that the archives only refer to the court of the provincial governor. No other court receives a mention, 153. Perhaps marriage documents followed the general trend of using the language of the nearest (only?) adjudicator. Miriam Peskowitz observes that in contrast to the custom in Aramaic documents, in alluding to Greek custom the parties of the contract assure maintenance for daughters (1997b:127–8). She implies that they may have selected such a contract for this purpose. But large questions remain unanswered. For instance, Roger Bagnall notes the surprising absence of evidence for political upheaval in these documents: “We have no way of reconciling the apparently normal life on amicable terms with Nabataean neighbors documented in the contracts [for Babatha and Salome Komaise] with whatever involvement 100

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family from Aramaic to Greek could undermine our conception of the performative power of the Aramaic formula. Because of its appearance in a modern Jewish wedding, some believe that the formula “she will be my wife according to the law of Moses” actually constitutes the beginning of betrothal. If this had been the case in antiquity, however, then wouldn’t the absence of such a formula also be significant? If we suppose that the Aramaic formula had a constitutive force, don’t we then also have to assume that when Yehudah, having recently used an Aramaic document for himself, chose a Greek document for his daughter he did not care that the Aramaic constitutive formula was missing from the Greek document? There are several possible answers that question. Perhaps the formula, or the document, did not constitute a beginning. Perhaps the formula was immaterial to the ritualized start of betrothal or marriage, and the possible betrothing function was not (or was no longer) relevant to those who used these documents. The document might have recorded a financial relationship only. Or perhaps families also changed the ritualized beginnings of their marriages when they changed from Aramaic to Greek documents. Perhaps the Greek document served just as well because it too could constitute the marriage.104 It is unclear how exactly these formulae worked, but the appearance of the Greek alternative problematizes the relationship between the Aramaic formulaic language and actual practice. Given the linguistic options attested in the Judaean Desert, one must be careful about assigning too much meaning to one specific formula or to a ritualized betrothing or marrying aspect of a document. In other words, for the most part these Aramaic and Greek contracts resemble each other, but to argue that only some of these documents indicate an enacted Jewish betrothal practice introduces unacknowledged expectations of ritual into what are primarily documents of civic

in the Bar-Kokhba revolt it was that led them to their deaths and their documents to their preservation” (1999:138). 104 Some slim linguistic evidence suggests constitutive force in the Greek documents. This interpretation appears most likely for Mur 115, but Cotton points out that it is a remarriage doc (1997:226).

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record. They all establish capacity as well as financial obligations, and make tantalizing allusions to consent. Rabbinic practices continue to reference similarly ambiguous speech acts that we cannot regard as magically conferring marriage or betrothal. Just as the written formulae cannot testify one way or another as to their spoken force, so too rabbinic texts reference speech but do not witness it.105 Instead, the main concern of these real or hypothetical speeches, and the scrutiny that the rabbis insist upon, focuses on consent. The correct speech under fraudulent circumstances does not constitute consent, and this appears most clearly in the text’s attempts to recognize falsehood and deception in approved betrothals: [If] he said, “You are betrothed to me on the condition that I am a priest,” and he was found to be a Levite; . . . or “that I am a natin [descended from a temple servant],” and he was found to be a mamzer [a type of illegitimacy]; . . . her betrothal is not valid.106

This discussion of consent weaves in familiar concerns about status and identity, determining which betrothals should be recognized while guarding against the possibility that parties of a prohibited union could later plead ignorance. Consent must be informed consent. In the above example, there is no union and never was a union, “even though she said, ‘It was in my heart to be betrothed to him.’”107 If underlying identity fraud nullifies consent, then social status for the rabbis cannot rest on either formulaic speech or seemingly official paperwork.

While the formulae in these documents do share words with modern formulae that do effect betrothal, the written versions do not clearly suggest that these words had such a performative force in the 2nd c. CE. 106 mQidd 2.3. 107 mQidd 2.3. 105

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INCHOATE MARRIAGE AND OTHER “STRIKING PARALLELS” That the Mishnah evaluates both capacity and consent without concern for specific ritual action or the generation of what we would consider evidentiary history follows Frier’s description of Roman law and suggests the productiveness of the comparison. Several scholars of Jewish marriage have noted parallels between Jewish and Roman law but have not pursued them.108 Boaz Cohen set forth a comparison of legal effects and consequences of Jewish betrothal and Roman sponsalia and observed “striking analogies” but nonetheless arrived at the opposite conclusion: that “there is a vast distinction between” them.109 He explains scholarship’s reticence, citing the work of Edoardo Volterra, who argued for the incomparability of Roman and Jewish law.110 In the 1950s Volterra Most scholars agree that the Mishnah is some sort of “law,” but they disagree markedly as to its exact nature. Jacob Epstein argues that it presents a binding legal system (1957:255–6). Hanoch Albeck argues that it is a text-book of law (1959:279–83). Jacob Neusner emphasizes its “protracted interest in gray areas of law” (1981:36). But H.L. Strack and G. Stemberger describe its contents more broadly as including in addition to law (or halakhot), interpretation of scripture and non-legal materials (haggadot) (1992:123). Although I recognize the importance of these ongoing generic considerations, I will nonetheless use the term “law,” for ease of comparison. 109 B. Cohen 1966:321–4, 326–8, 347, and 293. Cohen’s comparison of Roman and Jewish laws of persons, including slaves, concluded that “there was an interchange of legal ideas . . . , unacknowledged of course on both sides, . . . that the present state of research has as yet not revealed.” Interestingly enough, however, when Cohen treated “betrothal in Jewish and Roman law” instead he showed more ambivalence (1966:156–7). 110 Cohen 1966:280, citing Volterra 1940:1. Leo Radista also accepts Volterra’s work as a premise for his own pronouncements on the difference of Roman law which “recognizes marriage as a relationship created without the law’s interference—but with juridical consequences” in contrast to law “among the other ancient peoples” which “interfered with marriage early on and as a result figured importantly in its 108

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opened up exciting explorations of Roman law for many who followed him, but he also presented now-outdated opinions concerning the uniqueness of Roman law because he felt that Roman law was exempt from the religious influence that affected other law codes.111 Few now rely on such an idealized vision of “secular” Roman law, which depended upon an older model, isolating as it did juridical functions from other aspects of culture. Nevertheless, these unexamined assumptions of difference still impact exploration of Jewish marriage, as Cohen’s intriguing comparisons have not yet led to a comparative exploration of Jewish betrothal.112 Scrutinizing the disjunction between Cohen’s evidence and his conclusions,113 we will consider his “striking parallels” once again, but only after examining the nature of betrothal as well as earlier assumptions about what made it uniquely Jewish. While we have so far considered rabbinical after-the-fact recognition of what might be either betrothal or marrying, Jewish constitution and dissolution” (1980:307). The 1940 article by Volterra to which both Cohen and Radista refer in fact makes references only to Volterra’s own 1937 study. Citations of Volterra in these instances prove somewhat surprising, since Volterra speaks of the uniqueness of postJustinian, codified Roman law and these scholars are (to a great extent) interested in earlier Roman law. I wish to thank Ann Matter for her assistance with the Italian. 111 Volterra “suivant la conception orientale, on identifie la loi avec la volonté divine exprimée par le roi. Il faut remarquer que cette conception est tout à fait inconnue aux Romains” (1955:150). 112 Satlow also alludes to the comparison of Roman legislation and rabbinic discussion of betrothal, “the Augustan program, which asserted a state interest in the sexual behavior of its citizens, may have here further influenced the rabbis” (2001:75). 113 In a related vein, in his discussion of the matrilineal principle, S.J.D. Cohen finds strong parallels between the Mishnah and Roman law, noting that “[e]ven the language of M.Qiddushin 3.12 echoes Roman legal terminology” (1999:296). But no one has yet explored how these parallels concern acquisition in general or affect our understanding of the process of betrothing.

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and Roman laws of this period both consider betrothal only. Theoretically, betrothal takes place with the expectation that other marrying acts will follow and thus establish the final transfer of a young woman from the jurisdiction of one male to another. If we consider abduction marriages, however, we recognize that transfer does not always take place in stages. Nothing in the pre-rabbinic and Mishnaic texts on acquisition of women as wives makes it possible to rule out the combining of betrothal and marrying into one act, nor may we always determine which was the case: one or more stages. There is also evidence that betrothal and marrying could occur in separate stages. Even the language in tractate Qiddushin presents a challenge for isolating betrothal as its own stage. The most frequent word for betrothal, qiddushin, and related words like betroth (m’qadesh) do not appear in chapter 1 of m. Qiddushin.114 On the one hand, we thus might wonder whether the term acquisition, which appears instead, should be interpreted as different from betrothal; on the other hand, the word qiddushin appears in the remaining chapters of Mishnah Qiddushin (and all of Tosefta Qiddushin). Using the language of betrothal to build upon the general statements made in Mishnah and Tosefta Qiddushin 1.1 thus presents betrothal as at least associated with acquisition.115 Usually marriage erased evidence of betrothal. In the regular course of events a betrothal (if there had been a separate betrothal) either led to a wedding or was terminated in some quiet manner. Because betrothal, where it existed, was an in-between stage, for the most part it remained invisible to legal scrutiny. Even today,

The term qiddushin does not appear in association with betrothal before the rabbinic period. Epstein has argued that this chapter should be understood as a separate tractate (1957:52–3). 115 Responding to the claim that “acquisition” is already an outdated concept by the rabbinic period, Labovitz considers the comparative use of marriage related terms and concludes that: “Kiddushin thus does not stand in contrast to the metaphor of kinyan, as some scholars have claimed, but rather affirms it, modifies it, and demonstrates rabbinic culture continuing to live by it” (2009:89). 114

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one finds traces of it only where problems have occurred.116 In general, rabbinic texts appear to present betrothal as binding. In m. Qiddushin, acquisition necessitates a divorce: By three means is the woman acquired and by two means she acquires her freedom [literally “acquires herself”]. She is acquired by money or by writ or by intercourse . . . and she acquires her freedom by a bill of divorce or by the death of her husband.117

This text implies that money or writ could each on their own establish this binding acquisition. In fact, later in the Mishnaic tractate it emerges that acquisition could be established even without a clear sense of which groom had acquired the bride: [If a man said,] “I gave my daughter in betrothal but I do not know to whom I gave her,” and one came and said, “I betrothed her,” he may be believed. If one said, “I betrothed her,” and another said “I betrothed her,” they must both give her a bill of divorce; but if they were so minded the one may give her a bill of divorce and the other may marry her.118

These overlapping betrothals suggest that acquisition, or betrothal, establishes a union even without consummation or cohabitation. The text implies that after she has been “acquired” or betrothed, an equally powerful transaction must take place in order for the woman to reverse the betrothing act and gain her freedom. Over the years scholars have debated whether qiddushin (betrothal) develops out of something that scholars have called biblical inchoate marriage, an arrangement that is binding like marriage but not all the stages of marrying having been completed For instance, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania decided that the bride had to return a diamond engagement ring upon the breaking of her betrothal, once more demonstrating the tension between a spontaneous “gift” in good faith, and a monetary commitment that depends upon a projected ongoing relationship, 560 Pa. 1; 742 A.2d 643; 1999 Pa LEXIS 3498. Argued 3/8/99. Decided 11/23/99. 117 mQidd 1.1. See the Appendix for Hebrew text. 118 mQidd 3.7. 116

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(when, indeed, there are stages).119 This question of origins opens up a discussion of possible outcomes following a betrothal. Was pre-rabbinic betrothal the actual beginning of marriage to some extent, or could one walk away from a betrothal, and, without the consequences of a divorce (and the label divorcee), could one form a different marriage?120 Additionally, this focus on origins asks, was this form of betrothal unique to Judaism? If biblical betrothal was binding, and if this form of betrothal was unique, then this suggests a prehistory for rabbinic betrothal—the implication being that the rabbis built upon an earlier uniquely Jewish practice. Once again, the evidence proves inconclusive. Biblical sources provide an early example of a betrothal that is recognized as incurring the obligations of marriage: In the case of a virgin who is betrothed to a man if a man comes upon her in town and lies with her, you shall take the two of them out to the gate of that town and stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry for help in the town, and the man because he violated another man’s wife.121

In this text the betrothed woman and the man who comes to her are deemed guilty of adultery.122 This passage describes this woman as virtually married. Thus, betrothal comes to be defined as inchoate marriage, a betrothal that is tantamount to marriage.123 Albeck 1952-9:3.18; and Buchler 1956:126–36, argue that biblical law forms the basis for these regulations, while Satlow challenges this continuity (2001:73). 120 According to this type of question, marriage implies betrothal/acquisition (whether or not it was a separate stage), but not all betrothals led to marriages. 121 Deut 22.23. The phrase “a virgin who is betrothed to a man” appears as ‫ בתולה מארשה איש‬in MT and παρθένος μεμνηστευμένη ἀνδρί in LXX. 122 In Deut 22.28, the unmarried, unbetrothed, virgin, thus compromised becomes the wife of this seducer or rapist and “because he has violated her, he can never have the right to divorce her.” 123 On the other hand, the context may suggest that this passage addresses the consequences of rape rather than the specifics of betrothal. 119

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This biblical case provides the clearest expression that the betrothed woman is understood, for these purposes, as the wife of the man to whom she is engaged.124 Even regarding this case from Deuteronomy, argues Reuven Yaron, the “biblical law is altogether silent” about the specifics relating to the termination of a betrothal under ordinary circumstances.125 He explains that the usual consequences for broken betrothals in the biblical period could have reflected any of the other ancient Near Eastern codes that allow betrothals to be broken for a fee rather than the divorce required by m. Qiddushin. The sources are silent about many types of cancelled betrothal.126 In requiring divorce, the Mishnah develops its unique concern for all that might impact the capacity of Jews to form ideal unions, including prior betrothals that might otherwise remain hidden. Deuteronomy, on the other hand, makes no attempt to reveal all betrothals. The rabbis were innovating. Only a small handful of sources on betrothal practices exist for the post-Deuteronomic, non-rabbinic context, so debate is heated but speculative. The most vivid is from Matthew 1.18–19: Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace (δειγματίσαι), planned to dismiss her quietly.

Jeffrey Tigay posits that the attention to rape of betrothed girls rather than married women by the Bible and other Near Eastern laws may be because “engaged and unmarried girls were usually minors and were less likely to have deliberately sought sexual experience than were married women, who were more sexually mature” (1996:207–8). 124 Other biblical examples include Ex 22.15; Deut 20.7, 28.30. 125 Reuven Yaron 1969:112. Satlow also discusses this (2001:294, n. 4). Note the danger of circular definitions, as scholars of rabbinic texts refer back to the Bible for context, biblical scholars look to mQidd. 126 There is also a silence in mQidd about what kind of financial obligations accompanied a broken betrothal.

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This appears to resemble the practice described in Deuteronomy. Mary, who is betrothed, has become pregnant. By the biblical definition, if she was in a town and did not cry out during intercourse, she is guilty of adultery and should be put to death. The text of Matthew indicates that Joseph understands that he must put her away. On the other hand, based on this limited description it is difficult to claim that these were uniquely Jewish betrothal practices. Matthew may not be describing actual practice but rather offering a conscious, textual reference to Deuteronomy. This gospel certainly makes extensive use of earlier biblical material throughout. Alternatively, this text may describe a betrothal that invokes neither a biblical passage nor Palestinian practice. This final interpretive option depends on the complicated matter of assigning a community of origin and a provenance for Matthew.127 The public disgrace alluded to (δειγματίσαι) need not necessarily draw the label of adultery. In Roman sources such infidelity was liable for the charge of infamy and could also call for a response.128 It may be that Matthew refers to no legislated category but merely the more informal shame acquired when a groom rejects a bride because of his suspicions of her sexual misconduct. The importance of Mary’s betrothal may hint at a recognized continuity of a biblical tradition, but in and of itself it does not clearly signify either a Jewish or nonJewish interpretation, or Jewish or non-Jewish practice. The problem (that is, Mary’s pregnancy) reveals that a binding betrothal was understood but the text does not indicate where the implied expectations arise. Thus Matthew can only witness possibilities rather than some unbroken Jewish tradition of betrothal and retraction. Other communities also found the legal ramifications of betrothal complex. Roman evidence reveals instances where

Scholarly opinion about locating the community of origin for Matthew varies. For an argument situating Matthew within the Galilee, see J. Andrew Overman 1996:16–19. But Syrian Antioch perhaps remains the favored location, with its well-attested Jewish-Christian community, see John Meier 1992:624 and Helmut Koester 1982:2.172. 128 D3.2.13.3, see discussion of Roman sources below. 127

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Roman law treats betrothal as tantamount to marriage. Suetonius writes of how some abused this aspect of the law: He [Augustus] revised existing laws and enacted some new ones, for example . . . on the encouragement of marriage among the various classes of citizens. . . . And on finding that the spirit of the law was being evaded by betrothal with immature girls . . . he shortened the duration of betrothals. 129

Suetonius thus identifies a binding betrothal that some used to their advantage in order to avoid restrictions upon gifts and the higher taxes owed by unmarried men. Thomas McGinn suggests that this binding quality of betrothal was never the goal of this legislation but an outcome that prompted further response. Later legislation “closed the loophole under the lex Iulia et Papia whereby, at first, betrothal counted, without reservation, as marriage, which encouraged fraudulent behavior, such as arranging engagements with infants.”130 Whereas the Mishnah appears intentionally to establish a binding betrothal, in Roman law this particular “loophole” appears inadvertent. Nevertheless, the mechanism exists in both laws, although I have seen no one refer to the situation described by Suetonius when considering Jewish betrothal. Problems with betrothals—and betrothals themselves, perhaps—seem to have been rare, and may have been primarily handled privately. Those cases we know of were certainly exceptions to whatever was the rule in betrothal practices. Judith Evans Grubbs describes a case found in a rescript from Valerian and Gallienus (dated 259 C.E.), in which a young woman has been engaged for three years, but her sponsus is abroad and unreachable. She would like to end the betrothal but cannot communicate this to him. The suit of this young woman expresses concern that she would be liable to charges of bigamy were she to marry again.131 That such cases required judicial resolution speaks to the possibility that the mostly hidden stage of betrothal commitments were taken Suetonius, Augustus 34.1–2 Thomas McGinn 1998:71. 131 Evans Grubbs 1995:167–8. 129 130

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seriously. Evans Grubbs, however, reminds us that broken betrothals must also be situated among weightier concerns.132 In other words, some small amount of historical evidence exists to suggest that betrothals sometimes caused problems. The rest is an argument from silence. Thus pre-rabbinic and rabbinic evidence is evocative, but Roman parallels challenge the argument for a uniquely Jewish betrothal. Comparing two sets of laws can seldom if ever be an exact science. The similarities and differences reflect not only distinct texts but discrete interpretative traditions as well. Roman law was based upon an authority structure not shared by Jewish law, but both preserve legal explorations collected—and redacted—over a span of hundreds of years. McGinn writes, “it may be helpful to remind non-specialists that we cannot simply assume the entire contents of the Digest to be classical, that the texts were also vulnerable to alteration in pre-Justinianic late antiquity, and that non-Justinianic juristic collections have their own history and thus their own problems of textual transmission.”133 Likewise, the possiblity of isolating early Tannaitic

Evans Grubbs argues that: “compared to the wealth of evidence we have for Christian disapproval of divorce, the evidence for strong [Christian] disapproval of breaking a betrothal is later and much less abundant, and also appears rather localized [to]…central Asia Minor …[and] Spain” (1995:180). Canon 54, from the Council of Elvira in Spain, outlines the first known Christian concern for broken betrothals. The Council of Elvira is usually dated 295–302 CE. Evans Grubbs considers this particular canon to be a later addition, from the “last quarter of the fourth century,” although some would use these canons to argue for earlier Christian influence on Constantinian legislation, which prescribes penalties for broken betrothals. Evans Grubbs also investigates laws addressing marriage-related issues such as rights to contractual gifts; penalties for broken contracts; the statute of limitations on betrothal obligations where no marriage occurred and so forth (1995:159–60, 165–9). 133 McGinn remarks that this is in addition to the “interventions . . . by Justinian’s compilers.” He also notes that scholarship continues to revise 132

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strata within the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmudim, since later rabbis retransmitted them, remains an open question. Like the Mishnah, some of Roman law at least theoretically preserves remnants of first-century concerns. Ulpian (d. 223) was particularly interested in marriage law. He writes in an era roughly contemporaneous with the codification of the Mishnah. In addition, Justinian compiles his Code of Civil Law in the 530s, at the time of the redaction of the Talmudim.134 Yet in Roman sources, as in Jewish, even great care cannot always indicate the origins of particular aspects of larger legislative programs. Cohen compares a broad sweep of Roman and Jewish law, and in this case marriage law; he provides quite an impressive list of similar effects and consequences of the two systems of law. First, each system defines a new relationship between the betrothed and his or her family. Thus, each system articulates concerns regarding incest. Cohen notes that in Roman law “the terms father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law are properly used from the time of betrothal,”135 and “a man may not contract a legal marriage with a woman betrothed to his father, although she is not properly his stepmother.”136 The Mishnah likewise sanctions any man having intercourse with a woman engaged to either his father or his son, which expands—or at least makes explicit—the familial taboos.137 According to Cohen, in both legal codes, sexual breach by a betrothed woman makes her liable for charges against her: adultery in Jewish law and infamy in

its opinion of whether these “interventions” are just abbreviation or more invasive rewriting (1998:5). 134 Discussion and text of the digest from S.P. Scott 1932, appearing as part of the Internet Medieval Source Book, ed. Paul Halsall, 1996, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/cjc-marriage.html, accessed 7/ 13/10. 135 B. Cohen 1966:326, D 38.10.8. 136 B. Cohen 1966:326, D 23.2.12.1, cf. Inst. Of Justinian 1.10.9. Cohen also cites the examples of a woman prohibited to the father of her betrothed (D 23.2.12.2) and a man prohibited from marrying the daughter of a woman previously betrothed to him (D 23.2.14.4). 137 B. Cohen 1966:321, mSanh 7.4.

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Roman law.138 These are not identical categories, but they are not altogether different, either. In both cases, laws defining betrothal move the woman into a category where her sexual purity has legal consequence for her future family and community. Distinctions between betrothal and marriage are points of contact between the two sets of laws, too. Roman law permits gifts between betrothed parties but not between husbands and wives.139 Jewish law differentiates the property the husband will control at betrothal from that which he will possess in marriage. Both codes exclude the betrothed individuals from certain obligations to mourn members of their soon-to-be families.140 A Roman man is not obligated to give evidence against his future son-in-law.141 Likewise, a Jewish man may not be a witness if his fiancée is involved.142 These were not identical systems. Roman law allows for more ease in rupturing a betrothal,143 whereas Mishnah requires divorce.144 Roman legislation innovatively created explicit penalties D 3.2.13.3, B. Cohen 1966:327. Note that in this case the text says “punishment is inflicted in accordance with the intention of the edict.” Later it indicates that “infamia” must be “delivered as a judgment on the case before the court” not on “comments in passing,” trans. T. Mommsen, P. Krueger and A. Watson 1985:I.85. Note also, Jewish adultery concerns are not identical for the betrothed and married as the betrothed woman only suspected of adultery is not subject to bitter water, but only forfeits her marriage settlement, mSotah 4.1, tSotah 5.1, B. Cohen 1966:322. 139 B. Cohen 1966:327. 140 D 3.2.9.1, B. Cohen 1966:327; and bQidd 53a, Cohen 1966:323. 141 D 22.5.5, B. Cohen 1966:326. 142 bSanh 28b, B. Cohen 1966:324. 143 D 24.2.2.2, B. Cohen 1966:327. 144 There is little doubt that divorce is easier in Roman law, but a study of Jewish divorce is a desideratum, especially in light of XHev/Se 13, which might be a divorce document written by a woman, in contrast to rabbinic norms, Ilan 1996 and 1998, Instone Brewer 1999. Alternately XHev/Se 13 might be a waiver of claims according to Adiel Schremer 1998, and Cotton and Yardeni 1997:65. 138

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for not having children, as well as a state revenue stream made up of these penalties. Nevertheless, Cohen was correct in seeing a “striking” number of parallels. Since we need no longer share Cohen’s assumptions about the secularity—and therefore otherness—of Roman law, such parallels only seem more significant. Bourdieu’s challenge to the importance of rites of passage encouraged our investigation of these parallels. Ultimately these analogous facets support our other conclusions about rabbinic concern for policing the boundaries of their communities. In indeed striking ways, rabbis functioned like Roman officials.

ESTABLISHING A CITIZEN BODY Consideration of parallels between Roman and Jewish law has granted us more distance from Jewish law than earlier readers had. This opens the possibility of seeing after-the-fact scrutiny of marriages in both legal systems: we cannot expect that rabbis, any more than Roman officials, were involved in betrothal ritual. Their parallel evaluation of licit and illicit unions leads to an identification of what was at stake in each legal system. Scholars of Roman law have begun recognizing that the famous Augustan legislation explicitly shaped social policy through its attention to marriage. Mishnaic rules concerning marriage should likewise be viewed as social policy. By pursuing these parallels, we take Bourdieu seriously: we consider the social functions of practices surrounding marriage rather than assuming that they ritualize a rite of passage. The perpetuation of higher social classes is of particular concern to all of our lawmakers. The Roman law may have impacted Roman office holders in idiosyncratic ways, but some have argued that the lex Iulia et Papia directs itself not so much to actual office holders as to the status pool from which office holders are drawn.145 Regardless, the Mishnah plays class favorites as well. By focusing on potential office holders, Roman law creates a sometimes real and sometimes theoretical penalty for those who don’t pass on their pure-citizen status to their offspring. One such provision states: 145

Shaw 1984.

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FIRST CAME MARRIAGE Whoever is (or shall be) a senator or whoever is or shall be a son of any of them or a grandson through a son or a greatgrandson through (a grandson) born to a son, none of them, knowingly with wrongful deceit, is to have as fiancée or wife a freedwoman (or someone) who herself is or shall have been an actress or whose father or mother is or shall have been an actor or actress. No daughter of a senator . . . 146

Here Roman law assumes that the descendants of an office holder will hold office (although only a small percent do), and it limits office holding to those making acceptable marriages. Although m. Qiddushin does not speak of senators or other political offices, m. Qiddushin 4.4–5 demands that evidence of priestly stock be scrutinized in a similar manner. The concluding chapter of m. Qiddushin outlines the status categories it has assumed all along, describing ten stocks (‫)יוחסין‬ that came up from Babylonia.147 The text explores which so-called stocks can intermarry. It also explores which proof of parentage rabbis will reject and accept and how far back ancestry must be traced: If a man would marry a woman of priestly stock, he must trace her family back though four mothers. . . . [If he would marry] a woman of levitic or Israelite stock, he must trace back one additional generation. They need not trace descent beyond the Altar or beyond the Platform or beyond the Sanhedrin; and all whose fathers are known to have held office as public officers or almoners may marry into the priestly stock and none need trace their descent.148

This inspection of lineage at the end of the chapter echoes earlier concerns about deception: the background of betrothing D23.2, 44pr. in M.H Crawford 1996:807. Crawford states that, as editors, their “principal concern is with those provisions where the text is preserved” (1996: 801). 147 mQidd 4.1. 148 mQidd 4.4–5. 146

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parties must be investigated. This chapter of the Mishnah then concludes with a discussion of incest and inappropriate sexual behaviors, so that the discussion of sexual immorality recalls, in an oblique way, that many of the deficient statuses stem from adultery or incest.149 Thus, Jewish law addresses potential rather than actual office holders, as does its Roman parallel. The most prominent purpose of the legislation appears to be forbidding asymmetrical unions with regard to social class.150 Jewish and Roman laws are not equally concerned with the integrity of all classes; they each privilege the shaping of a particular elite class. Augustan policy on marriage famously addressed challenges related to procreation and citizenship, but why?151 In an oft-quoted study, historian Andrew Wallace-Hadrill considers another effect of these laws—namely, their impact upon inheritance and the consolidation of wealth.152 He considers various constellations of elite classes and the patronage system,153 particularly questions of the partibility of inheritance in Roman law, which is the ability to divide one’s own property,154 and the advantage bachelors had in the Roman system of patronage as a result of having funds but no

mQidd 4.12 M.H. Crawford 1996:801. 151 David Daube outlined and emphasized the amount of popular attention paid to this legislative program and the likelihood that it influenced Jewish ideas. He lists Horace, Odes 4.5.21; Martial, Epigrams 6.7, 21; Ovid Fasti 2.139 and Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.3.4.65 (1977:34–40). The Josephus passage makes the connection less directly. Also see Horace, Carmen saeculare 17–20; and Dio, 54.161,56.7.2 cited by McGinn 1998. 152 Andrew Wallace-Hadrill 1981. 153 Rabbinic involvement in patronage systems has begun to receive more attention recently, see Catherine Hezser 1997:446, and Schwartz 2001:196–8, but much still remains unexplored. 154 Roman law does not create primogeniture or a larger portion to the first born, but allows for property to be divided into many pieces. 149 150

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clear financial obligations.155 According to Wallace-Hadrill’s investigation, the aspects of Lex Iulia et Papia that prohibit a man from leaving property to nonfamily (unless he has fathered the requisite number of offspring) worked to create a stable elite by keeping property within an old family unless a new generation had been created.156 His model suggests that Roman law—especially marriage and property policies—could literally shape elite families. When asking how betrothal regulations of the Mishnah might also affect the transfer of property at marriage and construct Jewish elites, we find that Miriam Peskowitz has already posed these questions and explored the creation of new property owners. After examining Mishnaic dialogues about who controls the property of a betrothed woman, Peskowitz concludes that rabbis were debating the gendered effects of marriage law, and they acknowledged that “marriage will craft men and women into different types of property-owning subjects.”157 Transfers of property mold givers and recipients; therefore marriage, with its power to shape lines of kinship and inheritance, becomes of central importance to the lawmaking elites. The changing marriage and betrothal regulations allowed rabbis to engineer gender differences in unprecedented ways. Peskowitz explains that: Both the husband’s ownership of his wife’s new property, and his control of her old property designated as mulag were innovations of early rabbinic law. Neither are found in the Bible.158

Wallace-Hadrill 1981:68–70. He suggests that Dio 3.1–5 witnesses the extent to which they were “conscious of the implications of their marriage laws” (1981:71). 156 Wallace-Hadrill 1981:70–1. 157 Peskowitz 1997b:41. 158 Peskowitz 1997b:33. She explains that “old property refers primarily to gifts, private holdings, and family inheritances she received before she married.” And “old property contains a further set of distinctions . . . with mulag property, the wife maintains the title. She owns 155

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Exploring the point at which a woman’s husband or betrothed takes over the use of her property, the Mishnah does not merely ask which legal conditions of marriage take effect at betrothal159 but states as a premise that the reason a husband controls his wife’s property is that he controls her: They said before Rabban Gamliel: Since he (the husband) has authority over the woman (his wife), will he not have authority over the [woman’s] property?160

Two different rabbis cite this example.161 Each asserts “since he has authority over the woman . . . ” And twice Rabban Gamliel gives what amounts to a nonresponse that leaves this assumption of authority unexamined.162 The unchallenged and repeated point of a man’s control over his wife ultimately undergirds the outcome, Peskowitz says, although technically he does not have a legal justification regarding new property.163 This Mishnah about property becomes a Mishnah about property owners. As Wallace-Hadrill uncovered the social engineering behind Roman marriage and betrothal laws, Peskowitz shows that the rabbis are interested in legally “stabilizing” and adjusting the way property gets transmitted. The projects are different enough to make further comparison unproductive, but the possibilities remain intriguing: laws about property can be looked at as discourse concerning property the property, but the husband controls it and has usufruct (the ‘rights of fruit’).” 159 Peskowitz 1997b:34. 160 mKetub 8.1 161 First R. Yehudah and then R. Hanina ben Aqabya. 162 Rabban Gamliel responds that “concerning the [ownership and control of] new [property, where “new property” is that which comes to her after she’s betrothed to him] we are embarrassed [by the lack of legal justification], and you would burden us with [halakah for the ownership and control of] the old [property],” mKetub 8.1 translation from Peskowitz 1997b:36 and 47. 163 Peskowitz adds later that “repetition stresses the principle of male authority and makes it familiar. This makes reliance on male eyes seem like ordinary and common sense” (1997b:48).

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owners. They’re the social element of the seemingly materialistic legal reforms, so we need to look further, at how the rules about betrothal actually shaped these property owners. The Roman evidence allows speculation about the rabbis’ likely sociopolitical goals in reshaping betrothal. Despite important variations, Roman law is like the Mishnah insofar as it describes relationships between the betrothed individuals and their families, elaborates various prohibitions and obligations, and considers the impact on property and families. The comparison of Roman law and Jewish law reveals that each happens to have underlying concerns with property. And each interweaves into the textual evidence an interest in status. There is no single or simple agenda in either set of rulings, but the very complexities in Roman law provides the background against which Mishnaic concerns with these topics make sense. The rabbis’ policing of priestly lines—and safeguarding of priestly property—echoes “the near-paranoiac fixation of the first princeps on the purity and coherence of the body of Roman citizens” that Brent Shaw has identified.164 While one cannot definitively state the, or any, intent of m. Qiddushin, and while m. Qiddushin could easily have served more than one purpose, its parallels with Roman law (about which we know much more) present the shaping of status, gender roles, and property as likely goals.165 Shaw 1999:2. Wallace-Hadrill concludes “this account of the law does not seek to exclude other accounts.” He explains: “. . . the marital legislation may well have sprung from irrational feelings of anger and indignation, not from a cool calculation of the social implications of childlessness. But irrational though indignation may be, it does not operate in a vacuum; and my suggestion is that inheritance practices and their practical consequences provide the background against which Augustan indignation makes sense” (1981:71). These conclusions of Wallace-Hadrill speak to the comparative endeavor. He recognizes that he cannot know purposes, only outcomes, but seeks to find additional reasons to suppose the author (together with the surrounding culture) considered such possibilities. Likewise McGinn argues for more open mindedness as to purpose: “The very existence of marriage prohibitions shows how demographic ends might be pursued 164 165

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The rabbis’ semantic creativity is evidence that they were actively forging new legal and social ground. The Mishnaic tractate that considers betrothal takes its name, qiddushin, from the verbal form meqadesh/meqadeshet, “betroth” (using the same root, q-d-sh (‫)קדש‬, appearing within the tractate. Elsewhere verbs with this root indicate “to make holy,” and the noun form indicates “sanctification,” so assigning the proper nuances to appearances of these terms proves difficult. Deuteronomy uses erusin for betrothal, and the term continued to be used throughout the rabbinic period as well. Thus the rabbinic introduction of qiddushin prompted later interpreters to account for this special term. Talmudic expansion of the Mishnah offers the explanation that the woman is “set aside,” even as offerings for the Temple service are heqdesh (set aside).166 But the term heqdesh usually refers to property consecrated to God, not property set aside for another person—an apparently less-thanideal etymology that has caused some scholars to seek other alternatives.167 Most recently, Gail Labovitz notes that “heqdesh works very well as an explanation of kiddushin if understood as metaphor,”168 and the very idea of metaphor involves slippage— meaning is transferred from one realm to another, and for a different purpose. Meanwhile, the precise valence of the new term qiddushin remains a mystery, especially as erusin seems to be used as a synonym. The appearance of the new Hebrew term coincided with new Christian vocabulary for betrothal as well. Philip Reynolds notes that the Latin verb desponsare comes to supplement the older verb for betrothal, despondere, in the writings the church fathers, although it is sometimes used as a synonym.169 The change did not happen overnight or even in one discursive generation,170 but the within a framework determined by considerations of rank and gender” (1998:78, italics mine). 166 bQidd 2b. 167 See for instance Satlow 2001:77. 168 Labovitz 2009:87. Labovitz is interested in what this term later comes to mean and thus reviews this later rabbinic usage. 169 Reynolds 1994:316–8. 170 Reynolds 2009:318.

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introduction of a new term in both Christian and Jewish traditions may indicate underlying changes that are neither exclusively Jewish nor markedly Christian.171 Because the multivalent terminology was in flux, it seems unlikely that one can determine what the word qiddushin meant in its rabbinic context. Nevertheless, I would like to offer one more explanation, based on the observations above concerning the prevalence of status-related topics in tractate m. Qiddushin. Just as Rome had a “fixation” with “the purity and coherence” of its citizenry, so too m. Qiddushin addressed ways to preserve a holy people Israel. I would suggest that the term betroth, meqadesh/meqadeshet, functions as “betrothing into this holy community.” We might think of the sacred community appearing in the texts found near the Dead Sea, as Joseph Baumgarten has reconstructed the term holy covenant (‫ )ברית קודש‬in fragment 4Q271. Baumgarten explains that in his restoration “‫ קודש‬is comparable to the standard rabbinic term for betrothal, ‫קדושין‬.”172 The Qumran document emphasizes community in ways that may shed light on m. Qiddushin. The text of 4Q271 says that an adulterous woman shall not be brought into the “holy covenant”: a “[woman who has had] a bad [reput]ation during her maidenhood, no-one should take her unless [on inspection by] trustworthy and knowledgeable [women] selected by the command of the Inspector.”173 This requirement belongs to a larger discussion of the obligation not to defraud, as the potential bride’s physical purity reveals potential confusion concerning what is hers and what belongs to others. If her physical state were hers alone, this would not be an issue of fraud. Her uprightness is construed as a moral Labovitz, in her study of the term kiddushin, draws on linguistic theory to consider the “users of the new term” (2009:77). 172 4Q271, verse 11, Joseph Baumgarten 1996:177. Maxine Grossman describes how several manuscripts express concerns “against bringing a woman with a bad sexual reputation into ‘holy convenant’” (2004:219, n. 23). Labovitz notes the appearance here of ‘holiness’ as a modifier rather than the essence of the terminology, as in the rabbinic case” (2009:65). 173 4Q271, verse 14. See also Aharon Shemesh, who explores this examination as part of a “sectarian halakhah” (1998:254–5). 171

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issue, and m. Qiddushin likewise seeks to ascertain assurance of lineage purportedly because excluding the offspring from adulterous and incestuous unions also protects the community’s moral standing. Given their shared concerns with lineage and fraud, it makes sense that for the rabbinic communiti(es) envisioned by the Mishnah, as for the earlier Qumran communiti(es), the term “holy” is invoked not in connection with the relations between two individuals, but regarding the relationship of a particular union to the larger community. The materials in m. Qiddushin that concern lineage fit into this broader ancient Near Eastern concern with community integrity as enacted through betrothal regulations. The second chapter of m. Qiddushin draws an analogy between female and priestly holiness. A man may put away (with no penalty) a woman found to have defects because “all blemishes which disqualify priests disqualify women also.”174 The analogy of the qualified priest and the qualified bride implies that purity of each bride affects not just the groom but the people as well. Qiddushin also suggests that sacred objects—certain things dedicated to the Temple, and therefore things that ought not to be used for other purposes—may perhaps be used to establish betrothal.175 In contrast to the Talmud’s later stress on the negative, that the betrothed woman is not fit for other men, the agenda of m. Qiddushin framed positive criteria, seeking to recognize the acquisition of a woman qualified to be acquired. Mishnah Qiddushin looks not at who is temporarily set aside but at who is eligible; it reviews examples of betrothals and marriage and makes after-thefact judgments. The rabbis of m. Qiddushin may or may not be writing for a real population of Jews as they frame these theoretical ideas of peoplehood. I suggest that the rabbis consider acceptable and unacceptable betrothals as a way to envision the people Israel mQidd 2.5. mQidd 2.8–10. For instance, “If it [the betrothal] was [effected] with dedicated produce [as a substitute item of value rather than money] and he acted wantonly the betrothal is valid, and if in error the betrothal is not valid. So R. Meir. R. Judah says: If [he acted] in error the betrothal is valid, but if wantonly the betrothal is not valid.” 174 175

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in part because this manner of determining citizenship would have been familiar to them: Roman law also accepts and rejects betrothals.176 The Mishnah does not stand alone in its attention to qualification and status. To reexamine preconceptions concerning the early rabbis and their role as shapers of ritual, we must recognize after-the-fact judgments of the Mishnah as well as rabbis designating themselves as competent to scrutinize. In part this involves challenging the presumption that m. Qiddushin cannot be compared with “secular” Roman marriage law, and concluding instead that these laws address parallel concerns. Upon closer inspection m. Qiddushin appears not to style itself as marriage rites but as an after-the-fact evaluation of acceptable betrothals, and thus resembles other Roman-period marriage and citizenship law. By accepting and rejecting proposals, the rabbis of m. Qiddushin present a vision of a holy Israel to which an unacceptable partner, or member, must not be joined. This vision, like the one protecting Roman citizenship, requires the ability to resolve questions of ambiguous status and the transfer of property. Previous studies had assumed that because weddings seem to be a rite of passage, religious persons like the rabbis would have involved themselves in related practices, beginning with betrothal. But by subtracting that presumption from our equation, it becomes clear that the rabbis of the Mishnah were surprisingly unconcerned with betrothal acts, so long as they did not leave social status unresolved. Meanwhile, over time rules applied after the fact eventually impact those parties becoming betrothed. The modern transformation of m. Qiddushin’s “by money or by writ or by intercourse”—once used to determine whether an existing betrothal would be recognized but now seen as prescriptive for those wanting to create prenuptual bonds—testifies to this process. So too the Mishnah’s slightly later companion, Tosefta Qiddushin, reveals hints of the beginning of ritualizing.177 For despite the For another recent exploration of the way Jewish and Roman practice mirror each other see Berkowitz 2006. 177 See the Excursus for consideration of the slightly different approach taken by the Tosefta. 176

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rabbis’ disinterest in ritual acts by those parties set to marry, the brides, grooms, and families had other ideas. Chapter 2 contrasts this early rabbinic silence on marriage proceedings themselves with other evidence, which describes families actively preparing for weddings. What the rabbis considered a matter of social sorting and legalistic group preservation their communities thought of as sentimental moments deepened by treasured local customs.

CHAPTER TWO: PREPARING THE BRIDE O mother, it was in vain you bore your only daughter, for hell (infernus) has become my bridal bed, and my unguents will be spilt on the earth and all the oil you blended for me wasted, and the white dress my mother sewed, the moth will eat it, and the flowers in the garland my nurse plaited will wither in time, and the hyacinth coverlet I wove with my own skill, and my purple dress, worms will ruin. And my maiden friends, when they tell of me, shall weep and groan for me through the days.1 (Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 40.6)

So bemoans a young woman named Seila, on the verge of her own death. Because her father effectively promised to sacrifice her to God in return for military victory, the wedding preparations undertaken by her family and friends were made in vain. The story does not tell us whether there was an actual wedding scheduled, or whether she refers to the wedding inevitable for any young woman of her station. Through this idealized wedding that will never occur, Jephtha’s daughter, of Judges 11, presents both the horror and the heroism of her situation. Seila’s wedding is what Jonathan Z. Smith would call a “focusing lens”1 because her vision of the ceremony reveals by contrast the disordered plight of her father, her own heroic reaction, and perhaps something of the hope and fears surrounding all early Jewish weddings. 1

Jonathan Z. Smith 1982:54, Smith’s italics.

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We found in the previous chapter that rabbinic attention to betrothals established the rabbis as scrutinizers of marriages after the fact, but such legalistic attention communicated little or nothing about brides, grooms, or their families. Attending to evidence of other wedding preparations addresses that silence. Fragmentary substantiation for these preparations depicts brides and their families, and sometimes grooms. These sources (material evidence as well as literary) allude not to authorities but to the trials and tribulations of people who entered marriages, or who watched their family members do so. As we might expect, these sources all have other agendas, and that once again frustrates straightforward interpretation of the ritual practices. Nevertheless, we recognize in these presentations a piece of the story that often goes untold: participant experience. Of further interest, this collection of glimpses into wedding preparation comes from sources prior to and contemporary with early rabbinic texts, as well as from later, Amoraic rabbinic works. Given some of the similarities between one account and the next, it would be quite reasonable to assume that families preparing weddings in the early, Tannaitic rabbinic communities followed these practices as well. It must be noted, however, that none of these descriptions appear in Tannaitic rabbinic works; this represents a gap in the rabbis’ oversight, or at least interest. On the one hand, arguments from silence are fraught with difficulties; on the other, if we do choose to consider that rabbinic preparations would have been something like what we find in other, including later Amoraic, sources, then we must also note that the earlier rabbis say nothing on this topic. Recall from chapter 1 that while the Tannaitic rabbis make no comment about wedding preparations, they are not silent concerning pre-wedding events. They do address betrothals. It is thus not unreasonable to make something of the fact that the early rabbis don’t mention wedding preparations. Surely our sources’ idealized literary and polemical agendas dominate the realia in each account of wedding preparation, but according to Smith the presentation of the ideal helps us pinpoint ritual action’s object and outcome. In considering the great discrepancies between how paleo-Siberian hunters reported on the manner in which they killed bears and the manner in which they actually did it, and between the report of pygmy elephant hunters and their actual practice, Smith concludes that “we must presume”

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that they are “aware of this discrepancy,” unless we suppose them “incapable of thought.”2 He directs us to consider how “they face the gap.”3 For Smith, “overcoming this contradiction between word and deed” is the work of ritual: Ritual is a means of performing the way things ought to be in conscious tension to the way things are in such a way that this ritualized perfection is recollected in the ordinary, uncontrolled, course of things.4

In other words, ritual is never only about isolated actions. The descriptions of idealized wedding preparations in this chapter present the very tension that Smith identifies: each source offers a literary account, or uses a literary trope, in order to present the discrepancy between the ritualized vision and the “uncontrolled . . . course of things.” While reflecting on wedding preparations, each example below displays a particular agenda. The particular case may illustrate a moral lesson, a divine presence directing these preparations, or a death that cuts off the possibility of a wedding and leaves only the unfinished preparations to tell the tale. So these sources preserve accounts of wedding ritual for reasons unrelated to a need to report on actual practice. These are not self-reflective, ethnographic, anthropological descriptions. Each ritual description demonstrates what Smith describes as “its capacity for rationalization, especially as it concerns that ideological issue of relating that which we do to that which we say or think we do.”5 These texts reflect on why weddings matter. The appearance of death gives the first, second, and perhaps sixth examples particular poignancy, as they consider women (and men) who died as they were anticipating their weddings. An allusion to these aborted weddings situates the death of these young people and heightens the surrounding emotions. That marriage and death can intensify each other fuels dramas as famous as Romeo and Juliet and many such stories before and since. Certainly art influences these presentations Smith 1982:63. Smith 1982:62. 4 Smith 1982:63, his italics. 5 Smith 1982:57. 2 3

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of “life,” just as artistic tropes influence these inscriptions and narratives. Meanwhile the power of these tropes derives from real life. As the many memorials prepared by a spouse attest, marriage helps define those who have died. Bridal preparations for the deceased, described in detail, prompt reflection on human potential, family ties, and mortality. To complicate matters, the Greco-Roman, non-rabbinic, “Jewish” evidence that describes these preparations cannot stand as securely Jewish. If the probability remains that at least some of this material witnesses early Jewish reflections, it can only be said to be just that—a probability. Just as we cannot be sure we glimpse practice in the presentation of idealized visions, so too we cannot rest assured that these idealizations are Jewish. We can still learn something despite these limitations. Whether this enthusiastic vision of wedding preparations describes Jewish, Christian, or “pagan” acts, these sources still serve to remind us of all that goes into making a wedding, and they still provide contrast with Tannaitic sources, which remain silent about bridal preparation. These sources speak back to that silence.

AN INSCRIPTION FROM LEONTOPOLIS One of our most evocative, even heartbreaking, archaeological witnesses to wedding preparation of the time may not have been Jewish at all. A tombstone from Tell el-Yehoudieh (corresponding to Roman Leontopolis), Egypt, from the last two centuries B.C.E. to the first two C.E.,6 encourages passersby to mourn the passing of a daughter of marriageable age, emphasizing the place she held in family and community. It beautifully interweaves wedding and funeral imagery. As poetry, this inscription JIGRE 31 alludes to Persephone and Hades even as it pragmatically lists the age (and William Horbury and David Noy write that many of the Tell elYehoudieh inscriptions “come from the reign of Augustus” and are “less likely to have been made after the suppression of the Jewish revolt in Egypt [in 117 CE].” They thus conclude that this “would permit a date somewhere between the late 2 nd century B.C. and the early 2nd c. A.D.” (1992:62–3). 6

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presumably the name) of the deceased (for Greek text see Appendix): Weep for me, stranger, a ripe maiden who formerly delighted in a great house. For, decked in fair bridal garments untimely, have I received this hateful tomb. For when a clatter of revelers at my door announced that I was to leave my father’s house like a luxuriant rose in a garden, wetted by dew, suddenly Hades took me and carried me away. Stranger, I am twenty . . .7

Those creating this stone that memorializes this woman as “bride”8 had the wealth to afford quite a long inscription describing her as awaiting her upcoming nuptials.9 It will be quickly observed that none of the language on this stone suggests that this unfortunate bride was Jewish. Many similar stones belonged to the Jewish, or Judaean, cemetery found in Tell

JIGRE 31 (CIJ 1508), Horbury and Noy 1992:60–63. The translation is my own based on JIGRE 31 (which appears to be based on that of D.M. Lewis 1964) and including variations in other presentations of the text. E. Bernand 1969, plate xxiv, includes a photograph of the stone. There is a transcription of the stone found in C.C. Edgar 1920:223, which appears to record letters that later, with the passing of time, became even more difficult to read. 8 In fact, because the stone lacks its closing lines, no other name but “bride” survives for the deceased. Horbury and Noy explain that: “the surviving text . . . occupies two-thirds of the available field: damage to the stone makes it hardly possible to judge how far down the inscription originally extended, and it may not have filled the entire field” (1992:62). 9 Most likely her father, as her “father’s house” is mentioned on the stone. 7

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el-Yehoudieh and associated with Onias’s settlement.10 William Horbury and David Noy judge that in this cemetery more than half of the extant names are biblical, contain a divine name, or are forms of the word Sabbath.11 Because individual families sometimes used names of diverse origins—Jewish, Greek, Egyptian—Horbury and Noy admit that the predominance of Jewish names does not allow us to securely label the cemetery as Jewish, although that is the general assumption.12 The Jewishness of the tombstone above is thus based on the Jewishness of the cemetery, which is incompletely attested. In other words, the presence of some likely Judean or Jewish tombstones cannot guarantee the ethnicity of the rest. Furthermore, archaeologists did not even find JIGRE 31 in the cemetery. One of the early scholars at this site, C. C. Edgar, provides information about the discovery of this stone (and others) which should raise serious concerns: “the tombs which [our Inspector at Gizeh, Tewfik Effendi Boulos] opened proved to be full of water and destitute of antiquities; but he managed to collect from the villagers a number of inscribed stones which had been lying in their houses for a long time past.”13 Since only this imperfect association with the Jewish cemetery establishes this stone as Jewish, I will consider the possibilities both that JIGRE 31 is Jewish and that it is not. The indeterminacies of its context and content complicate the interpretation of this stone. Upon reading it, the viewer might imagine the “bride” speaking directly to him or her, the “stranger” Horbury and Noy 1992:xvii. Horbury and Noy 1992:xviii. 12 Horbury and Noy 1992:xviii. Schwartz suggests regarding Palestine that “before the third or fourth centuries C.E., it rarely seems to have crossed anyone’s mind that graves need to be marked as Jewish” (2001:50, n. 4). 13 Edgar 1920:216. Horbury and Noy only mention that “the stones [were] obtained from villagers near the site of Tell el-Yehoudieh” (1992:62). Bernand 1969 also mentions it only in passing. None of the sources consulted speak of another contemporaneous cemetery in the area. 10 11

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who passes by her stone. Was this stone along the road where a stranger might have passed it, or at the foot of a staircase in a tomb?14 This marker uses the trope of Hades and Persephone; does it also use a plea to passing strangers purely as a trope? Or is this another piece of evidence suggesting that the stone stood separately?15 The memorial develops a series of established poetic images including ripeness, gardens and hateful tombs. The inscription speaks of the bride attired in her wedding dress, so the day of her death may have been the date set as her wedding day. Or, she may be dressed in her wedding garments because her family is at any of the various stages of betrothal negotiation, or simply because she was of marriageable age and unmarried. Horbury and Noy, as well as E. Bernand, record other stones that feature people dying unmarried (agamos) or childless (ateknos), and Pieter van der Horst declares this to be “one of the most frequent expressions of sorrow over those who had died ἄωροι [untimely]” in metrical inscriptions.16 Likewise, the reference to Hades does not trouble scholars, who have long catalogued JIGRE 31 as a Jewish inscription.17 These experts appear to understand this as a standard Hellenistic Jewish reference to death. Yet this bland acceptance of the word Hades ignores an important quandary involved in interpreting the poetic language of Horbury and Noy consider evidence for tombs in Leontopolis with “a number of body-length niches radiating from an entrance at the foot of a stairway,” although some stones could only be “plausibly attributed to the site” (1992:xvii). 15 Might it even have been a separate memorial stone and not a tombstone? 16 For instance JIGRE 57 memorializes “John, son of John, bridegroom, untimely dead.” See also Bernand 1969:328, 92–3 and 200–1; Pieter van der Horst, 1994:132. Note: ateknos may also mean “without male heir,” Kraemer 1987:93. 17 Including Lewis 1964, Jean-Baptiste Frey 1936, Werner Peek 1955, and Adolf Wilhelm 1935-7. References to Hades appear frequently in LXX. As van der Horst indicates “by the Hellenistic period [Hades] has become so much of a cliché metaphor that LXX translators used it freely to refer to the Hebrew she’ol” (1994:131–2). 14

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this stone. While I agree that the reference to Hades need not negate the Jewishness of an inscription, I am nonetheless troubled by the notion of emptying all particularities from this poetic allusion. Hades takes his bride, Persephone, into the underworld for her marriage: isn’t that, after all, what is happening here? Greek drama alludes to brides marrying death and so do images painted on vases.18 The representations of these marriages range in violence from Apollodorus’s second-century C.E. description of Pluto (Hades) secretly abducting his bride on the one hand,19 to a fifthcentury B.C.E. marble stela in which Hermes acts as “a surrogate husband taking his deceased ‘bride’ to her new ‘dwelling.’”20 These representations sometimes portray the nightmare wedding and sometimes allude to all weddings. This is not generic death imagery but rather a mythical personification of death as a bridegroom. Either these mythical reflections on marriage and death offer further evidence against assigning a Jewish origin to this stone, or, if this stone is Jewish, it suggests that Jews too made use of this imagery. Because of the various possible nuances, I have translated the verbal μελαβωνas Hades “took me.” D. M. Lewis’s translation “came and snatched me away” recalls the language of Apollodorus, but the simpler translation reminds that this verb evokes both violent mythic imagery as well as the biblical accounts of patriarchs

See Rush Rehm 1994:11–42. He concludes “From vase-paintings and grave stelai, we learn that the conflation ‘marriage to death’ found in tragedy was no mere dramatic fiction, nor was it a vague idea existing at a historical or mythological remove from the audience. Allusions to wedding and funeral rituals referred to contemporary practice, not to a code of foreign behavior or a set of abstract visual conventions” (1994:42). Likewise, Margaret Alexiou and Peter Dronke 1971 trace the development of this theme in various other literary genres. 19 Apollodorus. Library 1.5.1. 20 Rehm 1994:38, figure 11. Rehm also suggests that these images confront one another (1994:39). 18

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“taking” brides.21 Thus, the language appears truly ambivalent, serving both wedding and funeral. Helping us paint a portrait of weddings at the time, the inscription JIGRE 31 also hints at bridal helpers. The word νυμφοκομοις (translated above as “decked”) suggests that others (plural) dress the bride. Similarly, weddings were evoked by various Greek grave goods, especially vases, loutrophoroi, found at funeral monuments or depicted in bridal processions that appear on grave stelai. These vases served an important function in wedding preparations. Loutrophoros technically means “someone who carries the bath-water.” A “bride helper” carried water in a loutrophoros for bathing the bride before her wedding, and thus a loutrophoros as grave gift or tomb marker alludes to the bride’s need of assistance, and, obliquely, the assistants who tend to her.22 If this stone did belong to the Jewish cemetery, it becomes one of the earliest examples of a Jewish text describing a bride with some sort of “other” or companion to dress her for her wedding. In any event, attendants are in keeping with Greek stelai. Despite these stereotyped images, or perhaps because of them, this text provokes an emotional response. The inscription asks the stranger to understand what it means to die young, and to imagine a bride who has missed out on her wedding. By casting the verse in first person, the tombstone gives the bride a voice.23 Poetic tradition appears to rely on the bride’s subjectivity in order to tap into the power of her wedding as a lost beginning for a new life. In contemplating life and death, the bride speaks for herself and for her audience, as if the audience could not appreciate the pathos of this moment without the bride serving as subject. The bride thus “speaks” in her own right, even while she describes her experience as circumscribed by males. She is acted upon. Her father owns a See for example Gen 25 “Abraham took (ἒλαβεν) another wife.” Also see the discussion of “the Jewish ketubba” as found in the Judeaean Desert, Naphtali Lewis, Yigael Yadin and Jonas C. Greenfield 1989:76. 22 Rehm 1994:14–5 and 27–9. 23 Although it appears most likely that the bride’s father commissioned this tombstone (since he is mentioned), ultimately one can’t know if the “author” was male or female. 21

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house, the groom awaits her, and usurping Hades takes her. The bride shows herself to be passive. Nevertheless, she assumes a literary voice and “speaks” for herself of the ideal wedding that she will never know. With Smith we see the ideal in tension with fears and sorrows. This tombstone offered its contemporaries a reflection on marriage, youth, and tragedy. It offers the modern viewer evidence for how a bride and community might explore preparations for a wedding. The question remains, however, as to whether this bride and community were Jewish; they may just fill out our picture of wedding dynamics in a more general way. The indeterminacy reminds us that history is never as secure as the preconceptions we bring to the evidence.

JEPHTHA’S DAUGHTER

IN LIBER ANTIQUITATUM BIBLICARUM

An exploration of Pseudo-Philo’s presentation of the lament of Jephtha’s daughter reveals many of the same tropes and doubts memorialized in JIGRE 31. Their tragic elements offset the idealized picture of wedding preparation and actually enlarge the presumed importance of such practices: In exchange for a victory in battle, a father has vowed to God a sacrifice of “whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me.”24 As the story unfolds, this first greeter proves to be his daughter. 25 A young woman approaching her death describes the bridal garments prepared in vain for her wedding. She draws near to a grave instead of a bridal chamber. Like the tombstone, JIGRE 31, Pseudo-Philo expresses this lament in the first person, with the young woman as its subject; she has a voice and a name, Seila26—a contrast with the biblical account in Judges, which does not name Jephtha’s daughter. Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum survives in manuscripts of Philo’s writings, hence the shared appellation, although by the early sixteenth century C.E., scholars realized that

Judges 11.30–31, JPS translation. Judges 11.32–35. 26 In JIGRE 31 the name had apparently become erased over time. 24 25

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there was no likely relation.27 This text exists in Latin manuscripts dating from the eleventh through the fifteenth centuries C.E. and also in fragments of a related, but not identical, fourteenth-century Hebrew manuscript.28 Some evidence suggests that the Latin is a translation from Greek, which itself follows Greek translation of an original Hebrew text, although it might also be asked whether evidence for some original Hebrew justifies conceiving of the work as Hebrew in its entirety.29 The lament in Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 40 has some parallels in Greek folk traditions, too. In any case, the extant medieval Hebrew fragments do not appear to match the hypothetical Hebrew original. Scholars do not agree on a date for this text and tend to rely upon a general evaluation of the attitude of the text in order to determine whether Pseudo-Philo wrote before or after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. If after 70 C.E. Seila’s sacrifice can be best understood in the context that Cheryl Anne Brown names: “a nation very much engaged in the process of coming to terms with a nearly fatal crisis.”30 Her argument draws on parallels between Seila and the “virgin daughter of Judah/Zion” in Lamentations, thus equating the tragedy of the unwed Seila with Jerusalem destroyed.31 While Brown describes Seila’s death as Howard Jacobson 1996:195–6. Daniel Harrington 1974:3. 29 Harrington sums up the evidence for a Hebrew original by acknowledging some skepticism concerning the importance of finding “Hebraisms” transmitted in the Latin text, and by then suggesting that “the strongest . . . argument for a Hebrew original arises from peculiarities of expression in the Latin that could have only arisen from a misreading or a misunderstanding of the Hebrew original” (1985:298–9). See also Jacobson 1996:216. 30 Cheryl Anne Brown 1992:22 and 126. Jacobson also argues for a post–70 date (1996:206–9). 31 Brown 1992:113, citing Lam. 1:15, 2:1, 13. While these comparisons are interesting, generic features of the text do not necessarily support this interpretation. Later midrashim, such as Lamentations Rabbah, explicitly create an analogy between a destroyed wedding huppah (chamber) and the destroyed Temple. In contrast, Seila’s lament offers no structural clues for 27 28

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atoning for guilt, in the words of the text Seila says nothing of atonement and only describes herself as following God’s hidden will.32 Daniel Harrington, on the other hand, argues for a date prior to the destruction of the Temple. He interprets references to “the place where they will serve me 740 years”33 as referring only to Jerusalem being taken over by Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus Epiphanes, or Pompey and suggests that Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum does not share the “theological emphases” of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch (both of which are dated post–70) despite sharing many features.34 These arguments assume not just a Palestinian provenance but also a uniformity of experience by all Jews in the land of Israel, a leap that we are trying to avoid making in this study.35 In light of its biblical allusions and the development of the Masoretic text, Harrington argues that such a “Palestinian” biblical text would likely be suppressed after 100 C.E.36 That argument, this kind of analogical reading (see David Stern for a discussion of the structural components of LamRab (1991:1–45)). 32 Brown 1992:112. 33 Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (LAB) 19:7. Translation from Harrington 1985, unless otherwise indicated 34 Harrington 1985:299. Frederick James Murphy echoes Harrington (1993:6). Kraemer notes “My work on redating Aseneth has made me hypercautious about arguments for dating in general, particularly in the absence of highly reliable indicators such as external attestation, explicit internal references, ancient manuscript evidence, and the like, although the discussions of Harrington and Murphy [re: Pseudo-Philo] seem reasonable enough on the surface” (1998:241, n. 29). Alternately, Jacobson argues that Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum must have been written no later than the 2nd c. CE because by the “close of the second century the condition of the Jews in the land of Israel . . . had begun to markedly improve” which would not explain the “gloomy present” of Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (1996:210). 35 Harrington 1985:299–300. Brown considers also a Syrian context, as such a diaspora context fits well with her other theories about the work (1992:23). Jacobson challenges her for assuming a Syrian context with a Hebrew language text (1996:210–1). 36 Harrington 1985:299.

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however, entails a leap from evidence for a preserved “Palestinian text” in about 100 C.E. to the assumption that by 100 C.E. biblical redactors were already in a position to “suppress” other types of texts. In short, speculation concerning various assumed aspects of the first and second centuries C.E. does not provide a firm foundation for assigning Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum a pre- or post-70 dating. Assigning a community of origin presents other, related difficulties. The author, or authors, knew an extensive collection of biblical stories. The parabiblical stories of Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum freely cross-reference other parts of the Bible. For instance, Seila compares herself to Isaac in her willingness to be the sacrifice that God wants. Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum certainly appears to emerge from a non-pagan context, but this reliance on biblical material does not preclude a Christian context. While M. R. James implies that Christian communities were not a factor at the time of Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, noting “the absence of anti-Christian polemic,” he also recalls the “acceptance of the book by the Christian Church, which alone has preserved it.”37 Jacobson suggests that “the Church proper did not seem to have much interest in Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum” and that “any ‘acceptance’ by the Church could be explained by the false attribution of the book to Philo.”38 A fourteenth-century manuscript of Hebrew fragments retrojected from Latin appears to be the only explicit witness of later Jewish preservation of this text, however. Thus Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum’s reports of low interest on the part of established Christian communities hardly constitutes an overwhelming denial of Christian authorship.39 Nevertheless, while nothing in Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum precludes Christian authorship, nothing seems to require it either, so a Jewish origin may be at least as likely as Christian for this text. Finally, one can only say that this text belongs to a community interested in

M. R. James 1971:33. Jacobson 1996:210. 39 Note, however, that extant Hebrew fragments appear to be best explained as later retroversions of the Latin, Harrington 1974:3. 37 38

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parabiblical material.40 Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum provides a text with Hellenistic imagery parallel to JIGRE 31, whose biblical allusions perhaps makes its Jewishness more probable, although it is not guaranteed. This version embroiders the biblical account, adding both emotional depth and details that fill out our picture of early Jewish pre-wedding activities. Seila’s lament pursues themes left unresolved in Judges, where Jephtha’s unnamed daughter responds: “Father, . . . do to me as you have vowed. . . . Let this be done for me: let me be for two months, and I will go with my companions and lament upon the hills and there bewail my maidenhood.”41 Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum develops Seila’s perspective as she explains that she aspires to be like Isaac and welcomes this obligation. The narrative then presents God reflecting upon Seila: “I have seen her to be wiser than her father, more true in feeling than all who now are wise.”42 God will thus assure “that a father may not overrule (expugnet) the daughter that he has vowed to sacrifice.”43 Finally Seila begins the lament, which reveals that she knows what she is giving up. She describes all the preparations for the wedding that she will never see (for Latin text and alternative English translations, see Appendix): But my hunger for my bridal bed has not been quenched, nor am I sated with wedding garlands. I have not been dressed in splendor, as befits my birth, nor have I used my perfume of musk,

Below I will examine one additional possibility for the authorial community of Seila’s lament. 41 Judg 11:36–7, JPS translation. 42 LAB 40.4. Translation by Alexiou and Dronke 1971:822. 43 LAB 40.5, Alexiou and Dronke 1971:823. Also see translations by James 1971 (1917), and Harrington 1985 in the Appendix, as each translates somewhat differently. After studying the linguistic structure of the text, Cynthia Baker observes that “Seila’s autonomy, which is PseudoPhilo’s own innovation and which is embodied by the other two translations, is obscured in Harrington’s text” (1989) 202–205. 40

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nor has my soul put forth its leaves, though the oil to anoint my body was prepared. O mother, it was in vain you bore your only daughter, for hell (infernus) has become my bridal bed, and my unguents will be spilt on the earth and all the oil you blended for me wasted, and the white dress my mother sewed, the moth will eat it, and the flowers in the garland my nurse plaited will wither in time, and the hyacinth coverlet I wove with my own skill, and my purple dress, worms will ruin. And my maiden friends, when they tell of me, shall weep and groan for me through the days.44

Not only does this lament present an impressive list of wedding accoutrements—garlands, sweet-smelling ointment, a white robe, plaited flowers, a purple coverlet (all now destined to decay)—it also weaves these descriptions of adornments together with the figures who would thus prepare Seila for her wedding. Mother, nurse, and virgin companions all have distinct roles.45 Cynthia Baker notes that the items all come to correspond to certain special women in Seila’s life: the mother has mixed the oil and stitched her gown, the nurse wove her blossoming garland, and the unmarried friends become posthumous chroniclers.46 Baker also notes that through this appeal to her mother and other companions Seila establishes her autonomy in an otherwise closed world. She explains: “Seila’s Lament embodies both a sense of the ideological and social constraints that the Judges fabula presumes. . . . At the same time Seila’s volition, her autonomy and the appeal to LAB 40.6, Alexiou and Dronke 1971:823. In one of John Chyrsostom’s sermons, he compares the mother witnessing the martyring of her children to a mother preparing a wedding. He alludes to similar preparations: “And exactly like the mother moving from dressing the bridal dress to weaving the crown to standing in the wedding chamber, thus … she rejoiced seeing the cutting off of the head” (Macc, my translation). 46 Baker 1989:201. 44 45

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her mother in the lament are a response to that ideology within those constraints.”47 Seila’s lament establishes her voice and the importance of her companions, who supported this expression of volition. The unspecified helpers (merely glimpsed in the story of JIGRE 31’s bride) become central to Seila’s presentation of her aborted wedding in Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum. Ultimately these “virgins of Israel” who would have prepared Seila for her wedding will perform her burial,48 and these women may even point toward a possible history and purpose for this section of text. According to Judges, “it became the custom in Israel for the maidens of Israel to go every year, for four days in the year, and chant dirges for the daughter of Jephtha.”49 As described above, situating Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum usually involves consideration of the destruction of the Temple; we should also consider that Seila’s lament emerged from an annual gathering that produced dirges to honor the memory of this biblical and legendary daughter. This application could explain the poetic form of this piece within the larger parabiblical narrative. A literary analysis by Alexiou and Dronke supports this argument, tracing the style of this lament to epitaphs, Greek literature, and folksongs.50 Unfortunately their investigation only explores modern folksongs, acknowledging the limited applicability of these to musical traditions of the past. They argue that Pseudo-Philo must have been drawing from an ambient tradition linking the loss of young female life to the (dashed) hopes of marriage.51 If there were an annual gathering such as the one alluded to in Judges, that would color our reading of Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, which might then

Baker 1989:202. LAB 40.8. 49 Judg. 11:39–40. 50 Alexiou and Dronke 1971:825–851, although they do not consider Jewish epitaphs. 51 Alexiou and Dronke, 1971:851. This raises the question of whether Pseudo-Philo was uniformly written in Hebrew, or whether material such as this lament originated in Greek. On the other hand there may be Hebrew laments which Alexiou and Dronke fail to consider. 47 48

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reflect a cyclical tradition that could have absorbed ideals embellishing wedding accounts. The possibility of a recurring occasion may answer other interpretive dilemmas as well. Seila’s song disparages men and lauds women. How do we understand such a subversion of gender hierarchy? Laura Ahearn, an anthropologist studying modern, seemingly subversive, South Asian songfests has developed a linguistic model to account for the phenomenon. The contexts she has witnessed neither support the understanding that “the women . . . express their grievances harmlessly in a way that rechannels the women unchanged back into their ‘proper’ roles,” nor do they indicate “outright resistance”; rather, they suggest an integration of the women participants’ gripes and fears with with the celebratory communal elements.52 Thus, the “songfests . . . cannot be reduced to a simple dichotomy” of “either resistance or accommodation.”53 Seila’s lament presents an autonomous woman heroically confronting an overwhelming set of constraints. Like the South Asian songs, her song too appears to offer to all who identify with Seila more than either resistance or accommodation alone. While it is not possible to view a biblical lament occasion in progress, or to hear Seila’s lament performed, the explicit biblical reference to this annual occasion and the survival of this somewhat subversive text point toward the evocative power of imagery surrounding wedding preparations. Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, like the tombstone from Leontopolis, presents a bride with companions and her own voice. Seila’s vision of how preparations ought to be includes more vivid companions and more subversive reflections than the grave marker does; she plumbs the relationship between the ideal and life’s trials. Relating this narrative to real practice remains an open question. Because of its biblical references, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum presents a kind of claim different from JIGRE 31 for belonging to a Jewish community. Together they present a more compelling argument for the Jewishness of these wedding preparations than either does alone,

52 53

Laura Ahearn 1999:78. Ahearn 1999:79.

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and they certainly give us a sense of how inflated the significance of early Jewish wedding preparation could become, at least in story.

ASENETH One more possibly Jewish source describes bridal preparations— specifically, pre-wedding ablutions, which could augment our picture of early Jewish wedding rituals. In Joseph and Aseneth,54 Aseneth dresses as a bride twice, first when she meets Joseph (even though no wedding has yet been agreed upon by either side) and later, when she marries him. The text describes her wedding garments in great detail.55 For the most part, she dresses by herself, although seven virgin companions assist her when necessary. For all these reasons Joseph and Aseneth resembles the texts discussed above. Once again, however, issues of text, author, date, and provenance as well as authorial agenda complicate attempts to read Joseph and Aseneth as a description of Jewish wedding realia. As Aseneth prepares for her marriage she asks one of her female companions, or servants, for some water. If this water is for washing, Aseneth’s request for water appears unremarkable. As we have seen, Greek custom establishes washing as part of wedding preparation, but the request for washing water appears only in the longer manuscript version of the text, which may not be the earlier version. Scholarship on Joseph and Aseneth remains divided as to which version represents, if not the original text, at least the less revised form of the text. Joseph and Aseneth survives in a shorter version edited by Marc Philonenko and a Christoph Burchard’s longer version.56 Edith Humphrey, who provides the most recent summary of divided views on Joseph and Aseneth, favors “Burchard’s careful arguments For a “critical” edition of the shorter version, see Marc Philonenko 1968. Translations below frequently rely on Kraemer 2004, which is based on Philonenko. Kraemer provides a translation of chs 1–21, see also a full translation in David Cook 1984. Elsewhere I cite the eclectic text and translation of Christoph Burchard 1985, based on the longer version. 55 Aseneth 3.9–4.2/ 3.6–4.1 [shorter version/ longer version] 56 The d text and the b text, respectively. 54

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for the superiority of the b text”57—the longer version—but she does not discuss Ross Kraemer’s presentation of evidence that the editor himself later expressed reservations about his text.58 It soon appears that neither version represents Aseneth as a typical bride. 59 Even so, the possibility of the priority of the shorter version raises additional challenges for ascertaining the actual preparations of the character Aseneth—let alone for historical reconstruction of Jewish bridal experiences more generally. In the longer version Aseneth explicitly asks for water in order that she may wash her face: “Bring me pure water from the spring, and I will wash my face.” And she brought her pure water from the spring and poured it into the basin. And Aseneth leaned (over) to wash her face and saw her face in the water. And it was like the sun . . .60

Thus an interpretation of purpose accompanies Aseneth’s request for water. But the shorter version lacks all such references to washing: And she said to her young female attendant, “Bring me pure water from the spring.” And Aseneth bent down into the water in the bowl on the conch shell. And her face was like the sun . . .”61

Here the reader must interpret Aseneth’s need for water, which means relying on assumptions.62 Because of the bowl on the Edith Humphrey 2000:21. Kraemer 1998:8. Here Kraemer cites a letter from Burchard to Robert A. Kraft dated 24 June 1991. 59 For instance, “her parents beheld her adorned as a bride of God” (4.2/ 4.1).] 60 Aseneth [long] 18.8–9. 61 Aseneth [short] 18.7. 62 Randall Chesnutt solves the problem of Aseneth not washing with the suggestion that after requesting pure (washing) water Aseneth “decides not to do so lest she wash off her great beauty” (1995:127), although the text says nothing of such concerns. 57 58

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conch shell, in this version the water appears to serve as a mirror or divining glass for revelatory seeing, complicating what we think we know about wedding preparations with questions about Jewish involvement in magical practices.63 In both versions, the reader cannot help but be struck by Aseneth’s transformation. Her foster father (or steward) has just observed that her face “had fallen from affliction and the weeping and the fasting of the seven days”; now it is “like the sun.” The washing alone cannot so easily account for such a transformation, although the long version does explicitly bring up “washing.” Further factors complicate interpretation of this as washing water for the bride, even in the longer version. First, Aseneth has already washed. Second, the events of the preceding angelic encounter together with the practices involving this water resemble ancient practices of adjuration and divination: even though Aseneth asks for water in order to wash, it is not clear that that is what she does. Kraemer suggests that “the entire episode of the tropheus [fosterfather] and his concern for Aseneth’s appearance [including Aseneth “washing”] may have been inserted [in the longer version] in order to downplay the angelic implications of this scene and to emphasize Aseneth’s transformation into a bride.”64 The actions of Aseneth may belong to a woman of the Greco-Roman period preparing for her wedding, and they may earlier have served other purposes such as divining. So the descriptions in the narrative may not fill out the picture of wedding practice in early Jewish history. Kraemer argues for “an author or authors [of Aseneth] who knowingly and intentionally drew upon the imagery of such [adjuration of angelic beings] paradigms for the construction of Aseneth . . and that the readers of Aseneth would have recognized these scenes for what they were” (1998:105). In contrast to Kraemer’s explorations of divination, Chesnutt discounts the importance of water. His interest in conversionary practices leads him to focus on the bread, cup and ointment. 64 Kraemer 1998:71. Kraemer explores parallels between angelic transformation in Enoch traditions and those found in Aseneth. She observes that [upon receiving the bowl of water and its reflection] “with ‘her face . . . like the sun, and her eyes like the morning star” (18.7 [short]), Aseneth’s angelic transformation is complete” (1998:129). 63

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A now-familiar possibility confronts us: the practices performed by Aseneth may not have been Jewish at all. Within the narrative frame, Aseneth is the daughter of an Egyptian priest. She puts on her wedding garments two times—first, when she knows nothing of Joseph. At that time her wedding clothes even include idolatrous names and images: And Aseneth hurried and put on a fine linen robe, the color of hyacinth and woven with gold, and girded herself with a gold girdle and put bracelets around her hands and feet and put on gold trousers and an ornament around her neck. And all around her, she had precious stones bearing the names of the god of Egypt, everywhere on the bracelets and on the stones; and the faces of the idols were etched in relief on the stones. And she placed a tiara on her head and bound a diadem around her temples and covered her head with a veil.65

Later, after her angelic visitor assures her of her acceptance by God, he instructs her: “So listen to me, Aseneth, and put on a wedding robe, the ancient, first robe which is in your chamber, and wrap yourself in all your favorite jewelry, and dress yourself as a bride, and prepare to meet him.”66 She again puts on her wedding dress and ornaments. Kraemer notes that “in both versions, Aseneth’s completed costume is virtually identical to the one she wore when she first expected to meet Joseph, with the notable absence of the stones bearing the images and names of the gods of Egypt, and the presence in the longer reconstruction of a scepter.”67 So, the only difference between Aseneth as an Egyptian bride and as a Jewish bride is the absence of images of other gods. The text appears unconcerned that Aseneth remains ignorant of particularly Jewish wedding preparations. Perhaps, then, the text is not Jewish—or perhaps there were no particularly Jewish preparations to speak of. Until recently no one has questioned that Joseph and Aseneth was a Jewish text, because it considers the biblical story of Joseph Aseneth [short] 3.9–11. Here the longer version is similar. Aseneth [short] 15.10. Again the longer version is similar. 67 Kraemer 1998:70. 65 66

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while making no mention of explicitly Christian concerns. But Kraemer considers many possibilities for author, date, and provenance; she concludes, “While at times it seems quite possible to me that the author was a Jew with no other religious affiliations, I also see no compelling reasons to rule out the possibility that the author was a Christian, and sometimes I think the evidence tips slightly in that direction.”68 Arguments for authorship intertwine with arguments for date and provenance. Other scholars held that Joseph and Aseneth originated in Egypt, and therefore must have been written no later than the early second century C.E., when relationships between Egypt and its Jewish communities deteriorated.69 In contrast, Kraemer uses the text and its silences to determine that the text could not have been created earlier than the third or fourth century C.E.70 She places the shorter version first, but argues that both versions were composed within a hundred years of each other.71 Moreover, no evidence other than the setting of the story supports Egypt as provenance of the text, and the biblical basis of the story alone is cause for such a setting.72 Thus Joseph and Aseneth may reveal more about another location in late antiquity—Kramer suggests Syria in light of the story’s earliest attestation73—than it does about Roman Egypt. In any case, these concerns about author, date, and provenance challenge the glib assumption that this text records typical wedding preparations on Kraemer 1998:273. Recently Michael Penn 2005 explores the relation of kissing in Christian texts and in Joseph and Aseneth, perhaps offering further support for Kraemer’s argument. 69 Philonenko 1968:108–9, Burchard 1985:187–8; and Chesnutt 1995:80–5. Gideon Bohak 1996 argues for an even earlier date based on comparisons of Aseneth and Onias’ Temple. 70 Kraemer 1998:237. 71 Kraemer 1998:239. 72 Bohak’s historical allegory has other reasons to posit an Egyptian provenance. He stresses the “historical” Onias’ temple in the angelic revelation, rather than the “mysteries of nature” (1996:17). He focuses on a political story in his argument for an Egyptian context and does not appeal to Egyptian wedding practices per se. 73 Kraemer 1998:290. 68

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the part of an Egyptian Jewish bride of the second century C.E. or earlier. This ambiguously Jewish text resembles JIGRE 31 and Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum insofar as it focuses on a bride involved in preparing for her wedding. When Aseneth dresses, she has the company of her virgin companions, as Seila has when she chooses her fate, and as the unknown Leontopolis bride has. In her story, Aseneth appears more passive or more active depending on which version of the text one reads. In each case she dresses in response to the instructions of her angelic visitor. In the short version Aseneth requests pure water, providing one more glimpse of her in the active role of adjurer of angels, whereas in the longer version Aseneth dresses herself but does so for fear of displeasing her bridegroom. In the longer version, she sighs as she requests washing water: “Woe is me, the humble, because my face has fallen. Joseph will see me and despise me.”74 The first Aseneth is more active, the second more reactive, but each idealized vision of wedding preparations presents her as having her own voice, which gives us a sense of the accepted roles for women in their own bridal experiences. Each version combines her subjectivity with an exploration of wedding preparations, as did the Leontopolis gravestone and Seila’s lament, and each version recognizes the power of wedding preparations to involve the listener in Aseneth’s story. Whatever the real relationships between brides’ families and grooms’ families at the time, the ability of this story to captivate audiences for centuries suggests that the contents were at least recognizable—and possibly aspirational—for broad Jewish audiences.

BRIDES IN AMORAIC RABBINIC SOURCES:

GENESIS RABBAH

In contrast to these brides actively considering preparations for their weddings, Amoraic rabbinic texts focus on those in authority who oversee the preparation of passive brides. Others dress the bride, and there is no evidence that these others might have been 74

Aseneth [long] 187.

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her companions, the likes of which Seila, Aseneth, and the unnamed Leontopolis bride enjoyed. Genesis Rabbah, a fifth-century C.E. midrashic collection, describes God the Creator adorning the first woman.75 In order to describe God’s lavish adornment of Eve, the first bride, Genesis Rabbah draws upon lists of jewels found in Ezekiel. God dresses her with great treasures. The text focuses on activities around Eve, but she never speaks. As one of the oldest collections of exegetical and homiletical midrashim, Genesis Rabbah frequently presents material in the form of proems, although this material concerning God preparing Eve follows a more straightforward exegetical structure. It debates the meaning of the word built (‫ )ויבן‬from Genesis 2.22, “And the LORD God built,” concerning the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib. As the rabbis discuss God decking out the bride, they make a pun on the word binyata, which can be understood as from the Hebrew root to build or the Aramaic root to plait or braid: R. Simeon b. Yohai said: [God] adorned her like a bride and brought her to him, for there are places where a braid of hair is called “binyata” or “building.”76

According to R. Simeon b. Yohai, God braided the hair of the first bride rather than built the first woman. In response, R. Hama b. R. Hanina does not deny this definition of built but presents his own preconceptions about the proper way to prepare the bride. He fears that the description of R. Simeon b. Yohai makes the first woman sound destitute: You don’t think that [God] brought her to him from under a carob tree or a sycamore tree! Surely [God] first decked her out with twenty-four pieces of finery and then brought her to him! Thus it is written, You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every Strack and Stemberger note that references within GenRab to certain Babylonian and Palestinian rabbis and to Diocletian preclude assigning a date earlier than the 4th century CE (1992:303–4). 76 GenRab 18.1. Theodor-Albeck 1965:I.161. Translation based on H. Freedman and Maurice Simon 1939. This exegesis of “built” also appears in bNidd 45b. 75

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precious stone was your adornment: Carnelian, topaz, and amethyst; Beryl, lapis lazuli and jasper; Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald; And gold beautifully wrought for you, mined for you, prepared the day you were created (Ezek 28.13). 77

With the help of the Ezekiel text, R. Hama b. R. Hanina demonstrates that God must have prepared the first bride in a grand fashion. The rabbis’ debate succeeds in framing the first woman as inevitably awaiting the authorities that would decide on appropriate clothing and other bridal arrangements for her. In keeping with the preparations we saw in the non-rabbinic texts, and in contrast with earlier rabbinic literature, which makes no assumptions about the importance of bridal preparations,78 Genesis Rabbah presents rabbis who recognize the need to prepare for the wedding. As this narrative situates itself in the time of creation and as this bride in Genesis Rabbah is the first and only woman, perhaps one cannot really expect her to have human companions; nevertheless, she does not act on her own behalf. Instead, others act upon her. Genesis Rabbah portrays the first woman as a newly created doll or puppet, with God adorning her and the rabbis in this text also taking a hand in placing her (retroactively) in the appropriate place. Further, the authors of Genesis Rabbah use these idealized preparations to establish their role in how things ought to be. They use the preparation of the first bride to establish the value of their wisdom: “You don’t think that [God] brought her to him from under a carob tree or a sycamore tree!” What results is the portrait of an ideal wedding, with the rabbis themselves as advocates. Here the focusing lens GenRab 18.1. Elsewhere in GenRab (18.13) God “blesses the groom” and “adorns the bride.” The text sets up a parallel structure. See Chapter Four for discussion of “blessing the groom.” 78 A search of “bride” in tannaitic texts in the Bar Ilan Responsa Project 11 in order to find other discussions of bridal preparations does not reveal tannaitic examples. The concern with headcoverings does appear in mSotah 9.14 (and parallels in tSotah), but these passages describe prohibitions against the bride processing in her finery rather than preparing. This will be discussed in Chapter Three. 77

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reveals tensions concerning the resources—financial and natural— required for an ideal Jewish wedding of the time.

Avot de Rabbi Nathan Awareness of the impact of wealth versus poverty also surfaces in Avot de Rabbi Nathan. While Genesis Rabbah distinguishes the first woman from the destitute bride by referring to the amount of jewelry placed upon her, she nevertheless resembles a poor bride’s passivity as she is led to her groom. Remember, the pre-Amoraic, non-rabbinic, more agentive brides we’ve examined were presumably well to do. A passage from Avot de Rabbi Nathan develops the idea of preparing the impoverished bride: Once as R. Tarfon sat teaching his disciples, a bride passed before him; he ordered that she be brought into his house, and he said to his mother and his wife: Wash her, anoint her and adorn her, then dance before her until she goes on to her husband’s house.79

Rabbi Tarfon uses this penurious woman to make a point about charity. This poor bride resembles the presumable indifference of Eve in Genesis Rabbah as she is led to her groom. The chronological relationship of Avot de Rabbi Nathan to Genesis Rabbah is in question, so it is difficult to position this poor bride as a development of the fifth-century Eve. Some would date Avot de Rabbi Nathan as an early rabbinic text, but recent research challenges that assumption, especially for version A of the text. Avot de Rabbi Nathan serves as a commentary for Mishnah Avot. The passage in question is from a series of chapters on numerical sayings, like Mishnah Avot chapter 5. 80 This passage belongs to version A and does not appear in version B.81 Scholars agree that both versions of Avot de Rabbi Nathan contain third-century C.E. ARN 41, 13, version A, translation based on Judah Goldin 1955:173. See also Claude Montefiore and Herbert Loewe 1974:435. 80 Strack and Stemberger 1992:245–7. 81 Although much of version A chap. 41 find parallels in version B chap. 48. See Goldin 1955, version A and Anthony Saldarini 1975, version B. 79

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material, but they also recognize the separate trajectories and development of Avot de Rabbi Nathan versions A and B. In the seventies, Judah Goldin suggested that “there is virtually nothing to compel a late dating.”82 Likewise, Anthony Saldarini argued for the more or less “simultaneous development of PA [Mishnah Avot] and the two versions of ARN.”83 On the other hand, a Geniza fragment of version A, which cannot be assigned a date much before the seventh century C.E., offers additional insights into the development of this text.84 Thus, more recently M. B. Lerner concluded that version A “is a product of the latter half of the seventh or the early eighth century.”85 He based his argument on “instances of direct borrowing of exempla from the Babylonian Talmud” and this fragment of Avot de Rabbi Nathan that “seems to represent a previous recension of version A, and presents us with proof positive that during the above-mentioned period this version was still in the process of being formulated.”86 Appearing only in version A, the story of the destitute bride thus appears to belong to a late reformulation. More recently still, Menahem Kister argues that both versions of Avot de Rabbi Nathan must be dated between the fifth and eighth centuries;87 he further indicates that there are no textual indications connecting the core of Avot de Rabbi Nathan with the additional material at the end of Avot de Rabbi Nathan version A (which includes the narrative of the destitute bride).88 Goldin 1971:3.984–6. Saldarini 1982:141, but he is careful not to speak of an “original text or core.” 84 Marc Bregman 1982–3, bases this judgment on a variety of features. He notes that the fragment’s script might put it at the 4th or 5th c CE. 85 M.B. Lerner 1987:378. 86 Lerner 1987:377. The major difference between Lerner and Saldarini is that Saldarini argues that the additions and development occur within a shorter period of time. He concludes “We can be certain that PA and ARN underwent a somewhat lengthy and complex development, but the exact course of that development and the precise decades in which it took place cannot be determined” (1982:142). 87 Menahem Kister 1998:220 (Hebrew). 88 Kister 1998:142 (Hebrew). 82 83

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In contrast with Seila, who alludes to her relationship with the ones who crafted the items of dress that she will wear, the poor bride of Avot de Rabbi Nathan receives strange clothing from strangers. Perhaps the underprivileged bride relished the attention, or perhaps she hated having her poverty emphasized. The reader cannot know. The text explores the rabbi’s perspective on wedding preparations, not the bride’s. Her only action in the text is that she passed (‫ )ועברה‬Rabbi Tarfon as he taught. From that point on he commands (‫ )צוה‬the women in his own family to take charge of her. While unquestionably he has more socioeconomic power than the bride does, the text concerns his beneficent use of this power. Like Eve, the poor bride has no companions of her own. Again, one may quickly infer reasons for her lack of entourage, but the two texts taken together—Avot de Rabbi Nathan and Genesis Rabbah—reveal rabbinic texts making certain choices as to which brides they will discuss. They focus on puppet brides who depend upon males to see that they are properly prepared. The picture revealed by evidence shows the Amoraim as reflecting upon bridalpreparation and attendants, but in their idealized weddings they are overseers rather than family members.

Semahot The final rabbinic text to discuss wedding preparations describes not a newly created human or a poor bride but a dead bride; thus, it recalls JIGRE 31 and Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum. But while the rabbinic minor tractate Semahot develops that theme of a young life cut short, it also presents the rabbis as overseers, as was the case in Genesis Rabbah and Avot de Rabbi Nathan but not with Seila, Aseneth, or the Leontopolis bride, where no overseers were depcited. Like our other later rabbinic texts, Semahot presents a passive bride. The name Semahot literally means rejoicing, as later commentaries used this euphemism to refer to this tractate that deals with mourning laws and rites.89 It is part of neither the Palestinian nor the Babylonian Talmud, although a collection of This text is also sometimes referred to as Ebel Rabbati, which more explicitly names its association to mourning. 89

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such materials is alluded to in the Babylonian Talmud and later Geonic literature.90 It is usually dated to the eighth century C.E.,91 but there does not appear to be a consensus. 92 In Semahot the rabbis use the idea of preparing the bride, and, in this case, the groom, in order to discuss the rules for preparing the dead. When it comes to preparing a dead bride or groom, they say: The hair of the “bride” may be let down, and the face of the “groom” may be bared, and the “groom’s” inkwell and reed pen may be placed at his side, without fear that this smacks of heathen practice.93

It appears that these dead will go forth in a manner similar to other brides and grooms. The rabbis debate the kind of food that can hang upon a huppah94 accompanying such a young bride or groom (for the Hebrew text, see Appendix): A huppah should be made for the “brides” and the “grooms” from both that which is fit and that which is unfit for food may be suspended. So Rabbi Meir. Rabbi Judah says: “Only that which is unfit for food may be suspended from it” What things may be suspended from it? Nuts unsuited for food; pomegranates unsuited for food; loaves unsuited for food; strips of purple; bottles and flasks of myrrh oil.

Dov Zlotnick 1966:1. Strack and Stemberger 1992:248–9, although some look for an earlier date because in some instances the Babylonian Talmud appears to quote from an early recension of this text. 92 Zlotnick argues that all the figures quoted in Semahot are tannaitic, and sees aspects of tannaitic “style and structure,” which for him justify a 3rd c. CE date (1966:4–9, esp. 8). Michael Higger argued that the minor tractates require further study before assigning dates (1931:13–4). 93 Sem 8.7. 94 In most cases huppah refers to a chamber rather than a canopy, but here it appears to be a portable litter of the sort that will be discussed in Chapter Three. See Chapter Four for discussion of wedding chambers. 90 91

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FIRST CAME MARRIAGE And what are the things that may not be suspended from it? Nuts fit for food; pomegranates fit for food; loaves fit for food; bottles and flasks of sweet oil. The general rule is: It is forbidden to benefit from what is hung on a huppah.95

When Semahot describes the huppah for a wedding that is not a wedding, it concludes that the structure may not use foodstuffs that are actually edible. Semahot refers to a woman and a man of a certain age as bride and bridegroom, respectively, but because this text describes a funeral and not a wedding, there can even be two bridegrooms and one bride: Two persons must not be carried out on the same bier, unless they are of equal status and must be equally acclaimed. It happened with a certain man in Usha that a house fell in on his two sons and his daughter. The incident was brought before Rabbi Judah who ruled: “Carry all three out on one bier, placing the bridegrooms at one end and the bride at the other.”96

Those in this age bracket earn the appellation bride or groom, as their funeral procession conveys something of the wedding they are of an age to experience. That the “status” of the young deceased governs their appropriate treatment underscores the point that the rabbis are aware of class distinctions. Weddings, whether for the living or as funerals, are no place to challenge social hierarchy; in fact, they seem to be sites of stratification.

Sem 8.2, Zlotnick 1966:57, Hebrew text, 216. See also Higger 1931:149. 96 Sem 11.4. To this argument, Zlotnick adds the suggestion that mB. Mesi‘a 6:1 “alludes to our text. Just as flutes may have been brought for either a living or a deceased bride, so piryafarin, a decorative litter, could have been employed in either case” (1966:15). Also see Sem 3.7, “From the age of 20 to 30, the deceased is carried out as a bridegroom.” 95

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Some confusion does remain, however, concerning Semahot’s insistence on calling dead young people brides and grooms. First, the passage concerning the huppah for the “brides” or “grooms” follows a discussion that seems to suggest that the families haven’t given up the possibility of finding a living bride or groom: “One may go out to the cemetery for thirty days to inspect the dead for a sign of life, without fear that this smacks of heathen practice.” 97 Are young women buried as brides in case they are really not dead? In addition, a discussion of liquid foodstuffs that may be drawn before these brides and grooms had led some to interpret these weddings as involving living brides and grooms needing sustenance. Semahot describes “pipes (or spouts) with wine and with oil may be drawn before brides and grooms without fear that this smacks of heathen practice, or that it is a squandering of food.” A similar passage about drawing wine and oil also appears in Tosefta Shabbat 7.16, where there is nothing to indicate that it refers to dead brides and grooms.98 Perhaps for this reason Gedalia Alon bizarrely does not interpret these “brides” and “grooms” of the huppah in Semahot as dead.99 In arguing that Semahot does not describe funeral practices, however, Alon overlooks challenging passages such as those involving processing with two grooms and a bride, which seems particularly problematic if all participants were alive. In addition, he appears unfamiliar with the idea that food hung on the huppah could belong to a larger set of rites for feeding the dead. The suspension of food “unfit for food” is key: “unripened food will not quickly decompose . . . The (relative) ‘permanence’ of foodstuffs used in this respect seems appropriate to the deceased. For even while their bodies will shortly decompose, they Sem 8.1. Sem 8.4. It is unclear whether this means paraded (or pulled) before, or, alternatively conducted through channels, like irrigation water. Another variant appears in bBer 50b. Jastrow compares tSabb 7.16 to a passage on irrigation in pMo’ed Qat 1, 80b (1903:853). 99 Gedalia Alon argues that this passage is based primarily on the confusing juxtaposition of this custom with other mourning customs (1958:2 and 102, n. 11 (Hebrew)). 97 98

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themselves, in excarnate form, have taken on the ‘garb’ of eternity in heaven. As are they, so is their food.”100 It also seems possible that unfit food might include spoiled or decayed fare,101 or perhaps unbaked bread. Jack Lightstone argues that “even the apparent obtuse piping of wine and oil finds its parallel in the pagan catacombs of Rome, where pipes were driven down from the surface into the catacombs and libations thereby poured into the tombs.”102 These practices serve the dead bride and likely differentiate her from the living, although the pipes for wine and oil have other possible implications as well. Parading the wine and oil before a bride and groom may indicate welcome or tapping into good fortune. We see the implication of good fortune in the continuations of the passages in Semahot and Tosefta Shabbat: “It happened that when Judah and Hillel, the sons of Rabban Gamaliel, came to visit Rabbi Zakkai at Cabul, the people of the city ran pipes flowing with wine and with oil before them.”103 The continuation of the text makes no reference to brides, grooms, or cemeteries. All of the practices in Semahot appears strange and unfamiliar, leaving many questions for further research. While some argue that the huppah of the “bride” and “groom” may concern living brides and grooms, the dead “brides” of both Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum and JIGRE 31 offer evidence for referring to a dead young woman as a bride, suggesting further reason to interpret the “bride” in Semahot as no longer alive—which makes sense because Semahot generally concerns itself with the dead. Zlotnick pursues the relationship of funerals and weddings, mentioning that the late Saul Lieberman has pointed out to him that the appearance of “the loutrophoros, the ‘bridal bath,’ . . . on the tomb of the unmarried

Lightstone 1984:81–2. As Seila refers to moths and worms that will decay her wedding garments. 102 Lightstone 1984:78–9. And bBer 50b. If Lightstone is correct about this text, then the appearance of the passage concerning wine and oil in a non-funerary context in Tosefta Shabbat needs to be explained. 103 Sem 8.4 and tSabb 7.16. 100 101

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pagan” conveys the same idea as the huppah in Semahot.104 If by “same idea” he means an untimely death, I agree, but, as explored above, non-rabbinic sources also use the loutrophoros to symbolize water carriers or companions. Does the huppah here imply an entourage as well? Zlotnick does not develop the possibility. When Semahot 8.7 says that “the hair of the ‘bride’ may be let down, and the face of the ‘groom’ may be bared,” the text stands as authority offering oversight of preparation for a passive young person rather than giving her a voice. Thus attendants of some sort do take part, although this dead bride does not call to her own companions. Likely, the rabbis are construing themselves as the agents shaping the proceedings for the couple: by prescribing rather than describing the details, they continue the move from after-the-fact scrutinizers (as of betrothals) to ritual officiants. What we see here is that this transition in rabbinical role is accompanied by the disempowering—the objectification—of the couple, especially the bride. Semahot, like Genesis Rabbah and Avot de Rabbi Nathan, presents the bride as an object. But uniquely it also presents the groom as an object. Though these are hardly the only deceased fiancés attested in the tradition, both are here symbols of sympathy rather than subjects with whom the reader may identify.105 Their companions prepare them according to set rules (“hair may be let down, face bared”), but the text stresses propriety rather than pathos. This Zlotnick 1966:15, n. 78. Despite the equalized presentation of bride and groom, these excerpts provide other evidence of gender distinction. In the text concerning the “man in Usha” we see a grieving father, rather than a father and mother, and only males (rabbis) make ritual decisions. In Semahot, in the case of two deaths: “A man and a woman—the funeral of the woman should be first, for she is always more easily put to shame” (Sem 11.1). Also: “The mourners’ meal should be prepared for a man in mourning, not for a woman in mourning” (Sem 11.2). Apparently gender and not age determines this status: “‘If she has small sons,’ says Rabbi Judah, ‘the mourners’ meal may be shared with them’” (11.2). A woman in mourning appears not to be ritually a “mourner” in the same sense as a man. 104 105

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substantive uniqueness of Semahot complicates assigning it a date; even a comparison of how Semahot compares to other texts treating wedding materials cannot contribute much to this question. Semahot is like Genesis Rabbah and Avot de Rabbi Nathan in its treatment of the bride, but Semahot describes a groom as well. If we were to follow those who assign Semahot to the Tannaitic period, then, on the one hand, it would be unique in its consideration of wedding preparation. On the other hand “wedding” preparations in Semahot appear to describe funerals more than marriages, so it would not necessarily run contrary to the early rabbis’ general lack of interest in wedding preparations. Late or early, the text holds for the reconstructors of early rabbinic wedding fascinating hints as well as numerous ambiguities. Other approaches must be pursued in order to date it more securely. Like Genesis Rabbah and Avot de Rabbi Nathan, Semahot presents images of a passive bride and groom made to seem even more inert when juxtaposed with active preparers. As in JIGRE 31 and Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, the bride and grooms in Semahot encounter death; in the face of untimely death, however, Semahot and the rabbis behind it hold order rather than sentimentality as ideal.

CONCLUSION From this collection of sources illustrating a variety of ways that communities of the Greco-Roman world and late antiquity described idealized preparations for weddings often in the wake of tragedy, a pattern of rabbinic encroachment upon ritual becomes apparent. Focusing on how each group performs the “way things ought to be” also revealed significant differences between nonrabbinic and Amoraic sources as they engaged wedding preparations. Non-rabbinic sources focus on the bride and those around her: in several of these sources, companions, servants, or other assistants appear important to the bride, for washing, anointing, or helping with the clothing described. The various brides serve the narrative function of eliciting pathos as “subject.” By contrast, later rabbinic texts attended to communal lessons for preparing future brides. That these teachings include wedding preparations suggests that rabbinic oversight and vision had expanded since the Tannaitic period. Nevertheless, none of the wedding preparations involved the bride as subject; instead she served as an object while others elaborated on propriety. In these

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sources the brides were passive respondents, puppets whom others prepared for reasons of their own. Just as chapter 1 concerned the rabbinic role in scrutinizing betrothal, here again we observe the rabbis enacting authority by insinuating themselves into ritual. Given disparate and overriding narrative agendas, it is hard to argue that any particular aspect of these texts coincides with actual practice, but the play of ideal against the obstacles encountered demonstrates the importance of ritual acts that prepare for weddings. In the face of tragedy, an instantiation of Smith’s “uncontrolled . . . course of things,” the ritual fortifies the participants, gives them something to focus on, and proves a stable use for rabbinic authority. The energy of these preparations reveals differing agendas, as well as a context in which we can better understand the Tannaitic response to betrothal discussed in chapter 1. There we found that when the early rabbis focused on betrothal as a moment for scrutinizing unions, we could only imagine a parallel reality in which Jewish families prepared for weddings as they had always done. In other words, according to Smith’s conception, while the rituals existed, the Tannaim did not find anything of interest in the tension between ideal and actual weddings. It appeared that rabbinic silence with regard to wedding preparations could suggest that none of the standard family or community preparations impinged on rabbinic priorities. The nonrabbinic sources in this chapter offer glimpses of preparations that support this picture of uninterested rabbis: the emotional importance of wedding preparations that appear traditional—even as the Tannaim focused on requirements that concerned status. In JIGRE 31 and Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, the preparations allow the brides and families to make sense of the deaths, which took the brides from the lives and weddings they had envisioned. In her preparations Aseneth, of Joseph and Aseneth, appears to be actively beginning a life with God and Joseph. These narrative brides have the subjectivity to assess the relationships affected by wedding events. Interestingly enough, none of these non-rabbinic narratives show clear concern that their wedding preparations be identifiably Jewish. In all cases there are plausible reasons for attributing them to Jewish communities; it may only be their lack of connection to rabbis as authors or characters that differentiates them from decidedly Jewish sources. Regardless, these wedding preparations happen without any rabbinic scrutiny.

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From these fragments it appears that only later, in the Amoraic period, did the rabbinic movement expand its vision and realize that it had something to say concerning wedding preparations. The three later rabbinic texts examined here leverage awareness of wedding preparation to help oversee funerals, to model appropriate treatment of destitute members of the community, and to develop the image of a strong, paternal God who might stand with a young bride. The late rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic texts addressed in this chapter use bridal preparations to underscore the importance of those overseeing them. They emphasize the power of these authorities and therefore their obligations leaders. Their ideals establish an effective way to involve themselves: by instituting a right way to prepare. Chapter 4 will return to these later rabbis and confirm that weddings become important to expanding rabbinic agendas, but meanwhile there is one more set of pertinent early rabbinic texts: sources discussing wedding processions. While the early rabbinic works discussed in chapter 1 reveal no historical communal response (one way or another) to rabbinic representations of betrothal, and while these same Tannaim offer no reflection on wedding preparations, we next examine a Mishnaic text that depicts conflict concerning the proper ritualization of wedding processions where the ideal resides in the past. It turns out that families had a stake in how wedding processions happened, but so did the rabbis. In the case of wedding processions, the early rabbis no longer ignored inherited ritual, but neither did they adopt it or make it more rabbinic, which suggests that something about processions treads too close to concerns that rabbis—at least some rabbis—must protect.

CHAPTER THREE: DEBATING WEDDING PROCESSIONS, NEGOTIATING POST-TEMPLE JEWISH PRACTICE The Tannaim had their own agenda with regard to marriages. They focused on evidence of community purity rather than on the process of betrothing and remained aloof from those who prepared for weddings. But there is one area of wedding practice that Tannaitic writings did engage: processions. A long debate over proper processional procedure occurs in Mishnah Sotah (hereafter m. Sotah), which promises to replace the silence observed with regard to other wedding practices. Still, care must be taken in interpreting these writings because Tannaitic discussions concerning wedding processions ultimately challenge ritual-studies methods. In the past scholars have read early rabbinic wedding processions as offering either historical information regarding political figures such as emperors1 or as identifying ongoing ritual.2 The contrasts drawn in this m. Sotah passage leave us wondering whether we can discern the author’s intended point—and whether that point tells us anything historical about ritual practice: During the war of Vespasian they forbade the crowns of bridegrooms and the wedding drum. During the war of Titus Albeck notes that some versions substitute Quietus for Titus, (19529:3.260). The 13th c. Kaufmann A 50 MS contains this variant. Quietus was a governor who lived in 117 CE. 2 Satlow 2001:171. 1

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FIRST CAME MARRIAGE they forbade the crowns of brides and that a man should teach his son Greek. In the last war they forbade the bride to go forth in a litter inside the city; but our rabbis permitted the bride to go forth in a litter inside the city.3

Michael Satlow interprets this passage as the “richest tannaitic account of the ‘paradigmatic’ wedding.” In order to do so, however, he must decide that we can identify these practices although the passage cannot tell us of surrounding political events, “as historical testimony this source has little worth, but it does indicate what its contemporary readers may have thought were standard components of a wedding procession.”4 He indicates that modern readers of this passage must make an early choice: take seriously claims to ban these wedding practices, or ignore that historical frame and instead “observe” the practices themselves. The methodology of studying ritual practice forces self-awareness concerning such a choice, since much of the study of ritual, even ancient ritual, has depended on social-scientific method, with its emphasis on first-person observations. Here the historian encounters a great difficulty: whereas the synchronous ethnographer might eventually see ritual actions repeated, the reader of a fragmentary text will not.5 So we must determine how the text situates the practices it describes. Surely a contrast exists between the forbidden ritual elements—first drums and crowns worn by men, then bridal crowns, and finally processions—and the rabbis’ apparently insubordinate tolerance of processions. But where, if anywhere, did the contemporaneous readers locate their own practices? Did they engage in wedding processionals or not? When we ignore the background of a passage like the one above, choosing to focus on ritual practice as if it were immediate and ethnographically observable while ignoring the evidence prohibiting those practices, mSotah 9.14. Satlow 2001:171. 5 Elizabeth Clark argues that “these social-scientific appropriations obscured the fact that scholars of late ancient Christianity deal not with native informants . . . but with texts” (2004:159). 3 4

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we neglect half our evidence. The study of ancient ritual should refuse the false dichotomy: this passage reflects ritual practice and its prohibition. In truth, this particular text weaves together ritual practice and historical change, offering no ground for isolating one thread over another. A more nuanced model for studying ritual is needed—one that looks beyond repeated actions. One aspect of the larger textual context is particularly edifying: references to end times. While the fragment above makes no mention, the text around this passage points to early rabbinic consideration of the coming of the End. Rabbinic literature does not often dwell on the end of days, and thus neither does scholarship on the rabbis; nevertheless, Jewish literature preceding the rabbis included a number of eschatological texts. Together with a working group of scholars, John Collins has scrutinized apocalyptic literature and articulated criteria for identifying it.6 Therefore, when we encounter apocalyptic features in the Mishnah and the Tosefta, we consequently have a productive way approaching its implications for early rabbinic weddings. As for the larger methodological quandary that pits history against ritual, Catherine Bell’s focus on process helps sort the evidence. Ritual is not a constant or fixed object7—practice changes over time—so Bell’s method recalls the diachronic, flying in the face of recent overemphasis on structural, or synchronic, modes of inquiry. She insists upon the motility of ritual, reminding the would-be interpreter that “by abstracting the act from its temporal situation and reducing its convoluted strategies to a set of reversible structures, theoretical analysis misses the real dynamics of practice.”8 This attention to movement allows for consideration of John Collins 1998. Following Paul Ricoeur 1971, Bell suggests that when Clifford Geertz 1973 and others treat an act like a text, they objectify it, thus allowing a differentiation between thought and action. Bell argues that this differentiation involves “the far more powerful act of subordination disguised as differentiation,” (1992:48–9, and 51). 8 Bell 1992:83, my emphasis, invoking Bourdieu 1977:171. Bell also alludes to the idea of misrecognition in Marx, Derrida, Althusser and DeMan. 6 7

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ritual as it interacts with historical context. A dynamic focus confirms our earlier observations that Tannaitic wedding ritual, as it appears in the Mishnah and Tosefta, deserves attention separately from Amoraic wedding ritual. The approach of end times, which for some was signaled by the destruction of the Temple, shaped the limits of early rabbis’ involvement in weddings. Still, the Tannaitic m. Sotah’s discussion of wedding processions presents real obstacles to interpretation. The threefold repetition of forbade discourages attention to these negatively presented practices, making the either–or choice between history and ritual entirely understandable. Thankfully, Bell’s focus on process offers a third way. We can instead consider the prohibitions as ritual acts in their own right, as belonging to the larger dynamic of practice. Much as Bell bases her multidimensional consideration of ritual on aspects of practice gleaned from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this examination of Tannaitic wedding processions uses Bell’s four features as a guide. According to Bell: Practice is (1) situational; (2) strategic; (3) embedded in misrecognition of what it is in fact doing; and (4) able to reproduce or reconfigure a vision of the order of power in the world, or what I will call “redemptive hegemony.”9

While each must be examined separately, taken together these features shift the focus away from the unproductive choice between ritual and history, toward recognizing the part that change plays in ritual. Ritual is not static, and it does not promote stagnation, either. Bell’s paradigm, consisting of four aspects that build on one another, leads to a new interpretation of Tannaitic wedding processions, one grounded in historical context but attuned to ritual’s push and pull.

TANNAITIC TEXTS AS SITUATIONAL Tannaitic literature contains very little exploration of anything to do with weddings. Consideration, in chapter 1, of texts concerning betrothal reveals the Tannaim taking an interest in who are 9

Bell 1992:81.

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permitted, or forbidden, as marriage partners, and in assessing the evidence for licit unions that had occurred. Their focus concerns the legitimacy of potential unions; no sustained treatment of ritual occurs. The Sotah passage reporting wartime wedding restrictions is thus relatively lengthy in contrast to other Tannaitic references to marriage rituals. Only one other substantial text refers to a procession, and that other instance discusses whether the bride’s head was covered, thereby proving her virginity at the time of marriage and thus her entitlement, if she was later widowed or divorced, to a larger payment from the husband’s estate.10 That passage alludes only to head covering and not to the crowns that appear in the passage from Sotah. In its exegesis of Exodus, Mekhilta de-rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai draws an analogy between the cloud of glory in the desert and a litter (lifted seat) for the bride.11 Additionally, a very brief passage in Mishnah and an analogous Tosefta mention that recitation of the grooms’ blessings requires a minyan.12 And one sentence in a Mishnah refers to guests returning from a wedding feast.13 In light of this dearth of evidence, the comparatively extensive discourse of processions in tractate Sotah stands alone as a sustained discussion of wedding practice. By contrast, as we glimpsed in chapter 2 and will explore further in chapter 4, Amoraic sources (of the rabbinic period after the Mishnah) reveal a much more developed interest in weddings. Interpreting the scraps of wedding-related Tannaitic literature is an exercise in reading silences and tempering assumptions. Bell’s insistence that practice is situational reminds us of the particularity of temporal location and of the importance of the frame: “When abstracted from its immediate context, an activity is mKetub 2.1: “If a woman was left a widow or was divorced and said [to the heirs or to the husband], ‘I was married as a virgin,’ and [the husband] said, ‘No, I married you when you were already a widow,’ if there are witnesses that she went forth [to the marriage] in a litter and with hair unbound [or uncovered], her ketubbah shall be 200 denars [i.e. that of a virgin].” 11 A quorum; Mek. de-Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai 16.2. 12 quorum of ten; mMeg 4.3, and tMeg 3.14. 13 mBer 1.1; see further reference to this text below. 10

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not quite the same activity.”14 We must therefore reject the idea that we can find any one meaning that will remain stable beyond its immediate situation, although Bell warns that, as interpreters, we desire to do just that. Readers looking for the roots of modern Jewish ritual mine Tannaitic and Amoraic sources. This notion of an essential ritual “Judaism” trades on the belief that rabbinic involvement in family celebrations is important, and that rabbis’ roles naturally grew to include wedding functions. While Bell does not ignore the impact of beliefs, she cautions that ritual acts do not simply express ideas: “Practice may embody determinative influences deriving from other situations, but practice is not the mere expression or effect of these influences.”15 Whatever conceptions of family and ritual the early rabbis may have shared with their later counterparts, presuming correlation only muddies the evaluation of available evidence. Despite the attractiveness of generalizing based on perceived ideological similarities with other eras, Bell challenges us to follow the intricacies of processes situated in time. When the early rabbis discussed wedding processions, they no doubt followed some understanding of what they thought these processes “meant.” Nevertheless, even if we should privilege their perspective (which is debatable), those perspectives have not been handed down. So we must resist the temptation to deduce what these rituals expressed for the rabbis and instead immerse ourselves in the complex context that their words invoke. Mishnah Sotah recalls that Roman-period wedding processions turn up in Jewish, pagan, and Christian sources, demanding that entire communities witness the unions, and it recognizes that processions could mark any significant occasion: parades celebrated the arrival of athletes, military heroes, and rulers. Literature, rhetoric, building projects, and special coinage testify to the exceptional pageantry that surrounded the adventus of the Emperor.16 In opposition to the Bell 1992:81. Bell 1992:81. 16 Brown describes how the adventus of the emperor or his representatives was “an event central to the political imagination of the age” (1992:13–4). John Matthews emphasizes the spectacle of the 14 15

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force of these prevailing habits, m. Sotah and the parallel Tosefta record attempt to forbid wedding processions. The Mishnah ascribes these prohibitions to anonymous actors: During the war of Vespasian they forbade the crowns of bridegrooms and the wedding drum. During the war of Titus they forbade the crowns of brides and that a man should teach his son Greek. In the last war they forbade the bride to go forth in a litter inside the city; but our rabbis permitted the bride to go forth in a litter inside the city.17

This wonderfully elliptical set of prohibitions conceals, but does not erase, evidence of those who sought a practice apart from dominant culture. Regardless of their agenda, those interfering with processions challenged a host of community associations. The prohibitions themselves are partial and complicated. For one thing, despite a range of prohibitions, the Mishnah and one version of Tosefta permit litters. We can therefore catch a glimpse of Jewish celebrants in the ancient world making their way from wedding house to wedding house. While they permit processions, however, both Mishnah and Tosefta prohibit certain crowns worn in these processions. The ritual is in flux. These various changes, prohibitions, and restrictions engage a complicated set of expectations and involve more than one actor and more than one act. The m. Sotah passage is not a list of rabbinic ritual practices; it is a catalogue of prohibitions that reveals unnamed subjects situated in time and in the midst of active responses. Despite the dearth of sources, it appears that the early rabbis, like everyone else, went to weddings. As an aside, Mishnah Berakhot mentions that the sons of Rabban Gamaliel returned after midnight from a wedding feast. This Mishnah focuses on their having not yet recited the evening Sh’ma.18 Because this is one of only a small handful of sources that establish the relationship that Tannaitic emperor’s superhuman, statue-like appearance in contrast to the “din” around him (1989:11, 231–2, and 254–5). 17 mSotah 9.14. Plural perfect verbs do not require a subject. See further discussion below. 18 mBer 1.1.

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rabbis had to weddings, it provides little in the way of context. Mishnah Sotah presents “our rabbis” as defending the practice of the bride going forth in a litter within the wedding procession—the text does not identify the people processing or the other individuals and groups prohibiting and permitting wedding practices. Thus later readers of the Mishnah encounter difficulties deciphering the they who “forbade the crowns of bridegrooms and the wedding drum,” and they who “forbade the crowns of brides,” and they who “forbade the bride to go forth in a litter inside the city,” especially since “our rabbis” allowed litters.19 The prohibitors and permitters appear in tension with one another. The text describes how someone forbids certain wedding practices, but the use of the plural perfect verb form, gāzrû, does not require a specified subject, so the first three sentences refer to unnamed prohibitors. In contrast, “our rabbis” permit processions and leave the bans against crowns in place. So who forbids wedding crowns? Assigning the subject in this case would be easier were it not placed in contrast with “our rabbis” at the end of the passage. If the rabbis permit litters, then whose prohibition does the text record? It is of course possible that this text describes Roman prohibitions, but then one must explain how “our rabbis” can permit that which Romans forbade.20 The Amoraic development of this portion of Mishnah in the Babylonian Talmud does not address the problem.21 Only centuries later does Maimonides (in the twelfth century C.E.) seek to resolve the difficulty by suggesting that the opposing opinion at the end of this text (attributed to “our rabbis”) should be understood as belonging to “our Rabbi,” Judah the Prince—in other words, a singular rather than a plural. Thus rabbis forbid, and Rabbi permits.22 While this later suggestion might appear to do away with mSotah 9.14. While sumptuary laws likely affected Jews as well as others in the Greco-Roman world, we must wonder how the rabbis could override a Roman prohibition. 21 bSotah 49b. 22 Mishnah ‘im perush ha-RaMBaM, Sotah 9.14 [or 9.17; numbering varies]. Neither Rashi nor Tosafot comment on this issue. 19 20

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one difficulty, the liberty that it takes with the text offers no clue as to why Rabbi came to a different conclusion about wedding customs than the rabbis did. A narrative belonging to Semahot (literature of the third through eighth centuries that may or may not preserve earlier material) explores the possibility that parading in public constituted a risk.23 While imagining friendlier times, it nevertheless describes a procession holding up traffic: If a funeral procession and a bridal procession, (both) shouting acclamations, meet one another, the deceased must make way for the bride, the honor of the living coming before the honor of the dead. In the case of a king and a bride, the bride must make way for the king. It happened that King Agrippa gave way to a bride, and the Sages praised him. They said to him: “Why did you do this?” “I wear my crown every day,” he replied, “she will wear her crown for but an hour.” 24

This text conceives of the crowned bride’s procession interfering with the king’s adversus, as a practical concern when launching a wedding procession. Did the Tannaim worry about the political consequences of publicly occupying streets and other community spaces? Perhaps, but if we read m. Sotah as demonstrating concern about processions, we would expect them to prohibit litters and processions rather than permit litters while prohibiting crowns. If they had such concerns, these were not central to their discussion. For the answer, we might turn to the related text Tosefta Sotah (hereafter t. Sotah), which addresses further particulars. In contrast to the Mishnaic passage, the Tosefta offers a more nuanced presentation of prohibited wedding accoutrements. Still, limited manuscript evidence leads to some difficulties in reading the Tosefta. While the Mishnah appears in manuscripts of Talmud and commentators which are relatively numerous and date to the tenth or eleventh centuries and following, by contrast only two manuscripts of the Tosefta exist: the Vienna and the Erfurt 23 24

See further discussion of Semahot in Chapter Two above. Sem 11.6; see Zlotnick 1966:4–9, esp. 8; see also Higger 1931:13–4.

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manuscripts. The Vienna manuscript is the more complete, dating from the fourteenth century C.E., while the Erfurt manuscript has fewer leaves and more departures from the Mishnah but originates in the twelfth century C.E.25 This could say something about the poor quality of the Erfurt manuscript, or maybe it has not been harmonized to match the Mishnah. The text of the Tosefta includes material details concerning the prohibitions of crowns and litters: 15.8A. In the war against Vespasian they decreed concerning the wearing of crowns by bridegrooms. B. And what are the sorts of bridegroom’s crowns [against which they decreed]? Those made of salt or brimstone. But those made of roses and myrtles they permitted. C. In the war against Titus they made a decree against crowns for brides. D. And what are the sorts of crowns against which they made their decree? Gold-embroidered silks [or, Erfurt MS: of gold].26 But she may go forth in a cap of fine wool.

The discussion about wedding crowns veers away from the immediate ritual and considers the particular plants, minerals, and animal products involved in their fabrication. The Mishnah and Tosefta do not share a literary structure, either. Although the Mishnah follows the discussion of crowns for the groom and bride with only a discussion of the bride’s litter, the Tosefta presents a balanced structure that includes the huppah of the bridegroom and only later the bridal litter. Such a portable huppah appears in only one other place in rabbinic texts.27 Its scarce mention belies the importance of the huppah’s relationship to the litter, and the Strack and Stemberger 1992:177–8. Note manuscript variations: the Vienna and Erfurt manuscripts criss-cross descriptions of the huppah of the groom and the crown of the bride, alternating the phrases “gold-embroidered silks” and “of gold.” See Appendix for further comparison. 27 See discussion of Sem 8.2 in Chapter Two. 25 26

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confusion of materials for crowns and huppot in the two Tosefta manuscripts (in lines 15.8D and 15.9E) has an immediate impact on interpreting wedding prohibitions in Sotah: 15.9D. After the last war, they made a decree against the huppah of bridegrooms. E. Against what sort of huppah of bridegrooms did they make such a decree? It is against those made of gold [or, Erfurt MS: gold-embroidered silks].28 But he may make a framework of laths (apifirot) and hang on it anything he wants. F. And that a bride should not go forth in a litter in the town. G. But our rabbis permitted a bride to go forth in a litter in the town [missing in the Erfurt MS].29 H. Even against pholiaton [a spiced oil]30 did R. Judah b. Baba make a decree, but sages did not concur with him (t. Sotah 15.8–9, trans. adapted from Neusner 1979, see comparison of manuscripts in Appendix).

With words changing places from one manuscript to the other, it becomes harder than ever to isolate the materials, let alone their meaning. Meanwhile, instead of the blanket prohibitions of the Mishnah, the details in the Tosefta relate specific wedding crowns to brides and grooms, focusing the prohibitions. Crowns meant a great deal in the ancient world. Emperors wore crowns, as did athletes, and the winners of other honors donned them. In discussing wedding crowns, the Palestinian Talmud31 and Acts of Thomas32 also allude to wedding guests who This is the other locus of the criss-crossing manuscript variations; see note 27 above. 29 That this phrase is not in the Erfurt MS may indicate that the Tosefta originally did not grant such permission and thus drew a harder line, or it might reflect a corrupt text. 30 Other examples of anointing oil at weddings include bKetub 17b and Acts Thom 1.4–8. 31 “R. Jeremiah plaited and put on a crown of olive branches in honor of a bridal couple,” pSotah 9.15, 46a (24 b&c). This angered Samuel, who 28

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wore crowns. Unfortunately, the prevalence of crowns does not mean that modern interpreters can easily pinpoint their significance. The Tosefta asks, “And what are the sorts of bridegroom’s crowns [against which they decreed]?” It then answers, “Those made of salt or brimstone. But those made of roses and myrtles they permitted.”33 There have been attempts to interpret what these particular crowns might have involved. Lieberman, for instance, notes that among the many descriptions of salt, that of the crocus, which gives a nice odor, might be the one prohibited in the Tosefta.34 Certainly it appears that Greek and Roman crowns displayed a vast array of textures, perfumes, and colors.35 I also wonder whether the sulfur “brimstone” was a beautiful yellow color. But even with posited possible characteristics or examples of these materials, it is difficult to know what a salt or brimstone crown would look like or why one would wear or prohibit it. The meanings of some crowns appear to have been fairly clear. Pliny describes the hierarchy of crowns rewarded for glorious deeds, culminating in the gold crown for civic honors and the grass crown for military heroics.36 On the other hand, Pliny’s interest in crown materials also reveals the complexity of the subject and its variability over time. Apparently the preference for one type of crown or another could change just as any other fashion. He describes a time when for honoring the gods, the household deities, and the dead “no chaplet was fashionable except those stitched together with genuine petals, presently only those fetched remarks “it would have been better for him had his head been removed.” Despite the description of R. Jeremiah plaiting his own crown, Pliny’s Natural History 21.3 features skilled garland makers as part of the history of crowns. 32 Han J.W Drijvers 1992:1.4–8. 33 tSotah 15.8. See the entire passage above. A slightly different version of forbidden and permitted crowns appears in bSotah 49b. 34 Saul Lieberman 1967:767. 35 C. Daremberg and E. Saglio [1887] 1969:1.2.1521–1524. 36 Pliny, Nat. 22.4. The crown is made of green grass pulled from the site where the hero rescued the besieged army.

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from India or even beyond.”37 The fact that crowns were so integral to Roman religious observance that they developed over time adds weight to Bell’s observation that rituals reflect—and maybe even enact—change. That crown-wearing survived multiple fashion changes demonstrates the practice’s enduring place in society. Pliny does not say what other materials gave way before this change, or what precipitated it. If certain materials belonged to worship, their significance would change as the practices changed. Given Pliny’s reference to India and the many professionals, from gardeners to crafts people, involved—not to mention the distances traveled in order to bring materials or products from afar—one cannot altogether separate the nature of the crown-making material from the location of source material, its designer, its political or religious associations, and the other persons who might be found wearing such items. Any one or all of these particulars could be significant or inconsequential, depending upon the fashion. Knowing the fabric, so to speak, does not mean that one knows the meaning of a particular crown.38 All these details about crown wearing in the Tannaitic period still don’t make clear why those accessories worried the rabbis. When confronted by the indeterminacy of meaning within these prohibitions, some scholars choose to ignore these prohibitions and their historical complexity. We have already witnessed the tendency to appeal to nonhistorical models that treat these various texts as snapshots of ritual. Others appeal not only to pre-rabbinic and later rabbinic practice but also to much earlier and later customs as well. When Molly Levine approaches tractate Sotah with an interest in head coverings, she elides these sources with interpretation of the earlier Greek unveiling, anakalupteria, and with the medieval Jewish practice of badecken, in which the groom checks underneath the bride’s veil before the wedding service to verify the bride’s identity.39 These interpretive frames assume that Pliny, Nat. 21.8 See for instance my discussion of the gold crown associated with the wife of Rabbi Akiba, Susan Marks 2008. 39 Molly Levine 1995:101. 37 38

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ritual continues with the early rabbis despite the dearth of evidence from the early rabbis themselves, and despite the difficulty of justifying a Yiddish term as evidence for early rabbinic practice.40 It is methodologically dangerous to overlook the discussion about prohibition that frames these descriptions of ritual acts. The Greco-Roman context for the early rabbinic textual discourse provides some of the only clues to the contours of Tannaitic processions. Crown descriptions have indeterminate meanings; recognizing their varied presentations takes prohibition seriously. While the Tosefta, which provides additional evidence, still relies on the Mishnah’s same set of crown wearers, prohibitors, and permitters, its manuscript variants confuse bridal crown materials with the groom’s huppah. One manuscript also forbids litters. While this prohibition may be a later error (and thus irrelevant to a reconstruction of weddings in the early rabbinic period), it could also suggest that the dialogue between the Tosefta’s actors did not come to the Mishnaic conclusion, where “our rabbis” allowed litters. In any case, these Tosefta variations return our focus to the actors as well as the acts, the people as well as the rituals.

The term badecken, is Yiddish, not Aramaic or Hebrew (in German badecken is a transitive verb that means “cover”). Although medieval and modern Jewish weddings include the practice of badecken (and modern readers associate the badecken with biblical figures) no rabbinic source mentions it. One can look in vain for the rabbis to prescribe headcoverings or acts related to head-coverings. Nevertheless, Levine 1995 argues that “the badecken as an act of covering, derives the custom from the precedent of Rebecca, who veiled herself when she first glimpsed her future husband Isaac (Gen 24.65).” Often modern wedding guides refer to the practice of checking under the veil as alluding to Jacob marrying Leah instead of his intended bride, Rachel, because he did not check (Gen 29.23–25). Ultimately there is no evidence to support either explanation. Note, in contrast Ilan considers these mishnaic prohibitions absolute: “Some brides would wear a crown on their heads, a custom which ended after the destruction of the Temple” (1995:95). 40

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IMMINENT ESCHATON IMPACTS STRATEGY The motivations of the actors in our short passages on weddings are not recoverable, but Bell’s model reminds us that we do not search ritual evidence for agendas so much as for improvised responses to a complex reality. Her “strategic” features of practice are the “situationally effective schemes, tactics, and strategies—‘the intentionless invention of regulated improvisation.’”41 The prohibitions or permissions in Sotah respond to a situation that demands action and prompts the rabbis’ extempore reactions. The improvisation of a jazz musician evinces the many inventions possible given any set of limitations, but each solution—each strategy—draws on earlier traditions and explorations.42 These Tannaitic presentations of prohibitions belong to a longer discussion in both the Mishnah and the Tosefta, but focus on extracting just those acts that pertain to weddings has caused readers to overlook the context to blame for the shape that the bridal rituals took. Wedding processions appeared within m. and t. Sotah as part of the rabbis’ exploration of the devolution around them—a pattern of change that signaled end times. The actors in these passages sensed limits, and those limits shaped their responses to practical matters. Fortunately, scholarship on apocalypticism assists in excavating this context. Apocalyptic engagement with end times pushed the groups who followed the apostle Paul to evaluate their individual behaviors for the sake of community.43 The threat of an imminent end prompted them to evaluate their priorities and focus their energies on the bigger Bell 1992:82, citing Bourdieu 1977:79 and 96. The analogy of the jazz musician is developed by Paul Connerton 1989:91–93, relying upon David Sudnow 1978:12–3 and 30–3. 43 Scholars of early Christianity have investigated societal expectations shaped by the vision of an approaching end-time. John Gager considered early Christian movements in light of sociological explorations of “millenarianism” (1975:20–37, see esp. 27). Wayne Meeks used these ideas as he examined the social context of Paul’s letters (1983). Around then one begins to find debates on the appropriateness of such models for Jewish apocalypses, see Christopher Rowland 1982; Baumgarten 1996; and Collins 2002. 41 42

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picture. The Tannaitic authors of m. and t. Sotah, like Paul, offered an improvised course of actions appropriate to their understanding of the pivotal times in which they lived.44 To see this improvisation as a response to imminent eschaton, the reader must look at this discussion within its larger frame. Mishnah and Tosefta Sotah each begin with an exploration of procedures that pertain to the woman suspected of adultery, the sotah. The sotah must be brought before the priest who will administer the bitter water that will test her, according to Numbers 5.11–31. Discussion then moves towards a contemplation of the end of days, noting a negative trend: “when adulterers became many [the rite of] the bitter water ceased.”45 The wars of Vespasian and Titus (Quietus), and “the last war,” which led the “prohibitors” to prohibit wedding crowns, appear to be part of this deterioration. Mishnah Sotah traces these diminishments before it presents the reductions to wedding celebrations: “Since the day that the Temple was destroyed there has been no day without its curse; and the dew has not fallen in blessing and the fruits have lost their savour.”46 This passage then foresees the approach of the Messiah in these tragic happenings that do not appear reversible: With the footsteps of the Messiah presumption shall increase and dearth reach its height; the vine shall yield its fruit but the wine shall be costly; and the empire shall fall into heresy and there shall be none to utter reproof. The council-chamber shall be given to fornication. Galilee shall be laid waste. 47

Appearing in passages both before and after Mishnaic discussion of wedding processions, this rabbinic eschatological vision frames Tannaitic reactions to weddings. The Tosefta’s consideration of wedding processions is no less eschatologically framed: the text explicitly alludes to those who saw

The category of apocalypse appears generally not to include rabbinic writing, although Saldarini 1979 explores this possibility. 45 mSotah 9.9. 46 mSotah 9.12. 47 mSotah 9.15. 44

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these signs of end times as a reason to abstain from the joys of this world: Rabban Simeon ben Gamliel [or: Rabbi Ishmael] said: “From the day when the Temple was destroyed, it would have been reasonable not to eat meat and not to drink wine.” But a court does not decree for the community concerning things they cannot bear. He said: “Since they are ordering us not to study Torah, let us make a decree against the world, that it be left desolate— That no one should marry and produce children, or have a week of celebration for a son, until the seed of Abraham cease.” They said to him, “It is better for the community to err unintentionally than intentionally.”48

As with wedding processions, here two groups differ in their visions of appropriate prohibitions: one group would forbid meat, wine, marriage, and children, while the other argues that the community will disobey these decrees and thus “err intentionally.” This protective tone obscures the actual opinion of the group that pragmatically objects to, or softens, the decree, leaving some doubt as to how much they support or oppose marriage in these heightened times. This would be frustrating if we only cared about ideas, but their improvised acts appear quite clearly. In response to the destruction of the Temple, one group acts to oppose certain marriage practices; another opposes that opposition. The juxtaposition of a ban on marriage and a ban on wedding processions reveals the intertwined impact of each move. Processions promise a future; thus Gamliel (or Ishmael) assumes that marriage leads to children and to the circumcision covenant. Just as individuals should not marry, the community should not participate fully in the celebration of marriage. Participation in processions inevitably suggests high expectations of the future, an outlook that clashes with an eschatological worldview. tSotah 15.10; bB Bat 60b, cited by Steven Fraade 1986:271. Rabbi Ishmael appears in the Vienna MS and bB Bat, Rabban Gamliel in the Erfurt MS. 48

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This evolving relationship of community, action, and “vision of the future” in the practices of the Tannaim appears in stark contrast to other rabbinic eras. Jeremy Cohen compares Tannaitic and Amoraic procreative practices and explains that—in contrast to the Tosefta, which “may have advocated sexual abstinence”— the Babylonian Talmud reads, “the son of David will not come until the guf (a stockpile of preexistent souls) has been depleted of all its souls.”49 Early rabbinic evidence shows much less support for procreation. He notes: Writers of the intertestamental period shied away from [Gen 1.28] the verse’s endorsement of human sexuality . . . This exclusion of sexual reproduction from the sphere of fundamentally important human activities undoubtedly resulted from the prevailing philosophical and religious climate of the Hellenistic period, which promoted ascetic tendencies among pagans, among Jews, and even among Christians . . . but various amoraic sages restored Gen 1.28a to center stage in their instruction, alluding repeatedly to the cosmic importance of procreation.50

With regard to procreation, the Mishnah and Tosefta do not share the agenda of later, Amoraic rabbis. As an analogue, the first-century apostle Paul, whose Jewish eschatological vision included a return of Jesus, did not ban marriage outright: like Gamliel (or Ishmael), he sees doing without marriage as the ideal, but he does not impose his own practice on others. He indicates that he himself remains abstinent: This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to Jeremy Cohen 1989:114–115, citing bYebam. 62a–63b, b‘Abod Zar 5a and bNid 13b. The passage provides a prooftext from Isa. 57.16, “For I will not contend for ever, neither will I always be wroth, for the spirit that enwraps itself is from me, and the souls which I have made.” 50 J. Cohen 1989:120–1. 49

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remain as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry that to be aflame with passion.51

With these words, Paul acknowledges that to require ascetic behavior or prohibit marriage would lead some people astray— maybe even discourage them from participating in the community at all. His comments on marriage are echoed in t. Sotah: “It is better for the community to err unintentionally than intentionally.” The analogous improvisation vis-à-vis marriage demonstrates the viability of our theory about early rabbinic concerns, and recent scholarship has begun to explore the extent and importance of rabbinic asceticism.52 Ultimately this ambivalent attitude toward procreation does not manifest itself in a ban on marriage, but discussions of extreme renunciation clearly impact other practices.

JEWISH APOCALYPTICISM AS MISRECOGNITION As we attempt to articulate the strategies for weddings that emerge in response to the recognition of end times, we must acknowledge that neither an actor nor an observer stands in a position to see the full meaning of an act. Recall Bell’s third feature—that practice is “embedded in misrecognition of what it is in fact doing.” Our search for strategic or improvised aspects of practice has revealed a fuller context, but we must not mistake this larger view for complete access to this historical moment. Bell’s interest in misrecognition depends in part on Bourdieu’s exploration of gift giving, wherein the same gift can communicate acceptance or rejection, respect or scorn.53 As Bell explains, gift giving involves more than structural relationships—no single side can command the superior position or viewpoint: What is experienced in gift-giving is the voluntary, irreversible, delayed and strategic play of gift and countergift; it is the

1 Cor 7.7–9 NRSV. Eliezer Diamond 2004; Satlow 1995; and regarding early Judaism in general, van der Horst 2002. 53 Bourdieu 1977:7–8. 51 52

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In other words, depending on timing and other relational variables, a gift will hold shifting value; its fluid worth cannot be fully appreciated from any one vantage point. The Tosefta’s various responses to end times, asceticism, and weddings depend on improvisation and relationships between the interlocutors. No participant in the discourse can know its course or his own power, let alone the ancillary outcomes. The more we examine the context of Sotah, the more wedding practice appears to be only one of many concerns. Thwarting our consideration of how this engagement and “misrecognition” function in the ancient world, however, is the recent scholarly neglect of early rabbinic apocalypticism. The tendency has been to see disjunctions between the m. Sotah discussion on end times and other, more typical Mishnaic discussions. Anthony Saldarini considered the appearance of end times in this Mishnah, although he did not consider the impact of this eschatological view upon wedding practice.55 He mentions that m. Sotah 9.15 is “commonly known as the little apocalypse,” and he found it to be uncharacteristic of the Mishnah, suggesting that it was a later addition.56 On the contrary, it appears that the Tosefta joins the Mishnah in exploring these end times rather consistently. Granted, neither sustains the interest of other full-blown Jewish and Christian apocalypses, but we should not dismiss them so summarily. Variants of the apocalyptic phrase “footsteps of the Messiah” appear in quite a number of reliable manuscripts, including both Palestinian and Babylonian manuscript families and the Kaufman A50 manuscript.57 That we find it missing in some other Bell 1992:82–3. Saldarini 1977. 56 Saldarini 1977:404. 57 In addition to the 10th–11th century Kaufman A50 MS, the phrase appears the Cambridge 470.1 of the 14th–15th century and many others. For a complete list of manuscripts as well as geniza fragments see 54 55

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manuscripts may suggest that later scribes, much like Saldarini does, found the material unusual. Furthermore, the importance of prohibitions and other tasks accomplished in this text may also explain why this text garners a reputation as only a “little apocalypse”: the rabbis do not set out to offer free-standing apocalyptic ideas. In this, the function of m. Sotah demonstrates great similarity with most other Mishnaot. Parallel explorations of end times appearing within both Mishnah and Tosefta make it hard to explain this discussion of eschatological ideas as a late addition to one text alone. In addition, since Saldarini’s studies of Jewish apocalypticism, there has been an explosion of interest in the relationship of the Mishnah and the Tosefta. Some strong voices, such as that of Judith Hauptman, have argued that, rather than commenting on the Mishnah, the Tosefta more closely resembles a hypothetical urMishnah, and thus preceded the Mishnah.58 If Hauptman is correct that something like the Tosefta existed prior to the redaction of the Mishnah, then this provides a strong reason to see m. Sotah as redacting an earlier response to end times throughout its concluding chapter, including its discussion of wedding ritual. The Tosefta reveals the various “prohibitors” and “permitters” in more vivid detail; the Mishnah offers a later, abbreviated presentation. No doubt research on the relationship of the Tosefta and Mishnah will continue, shedding more light on this point. Meanwhile, the presence of such apocalyptic material in both roughly contemporaneous texts indicates its prominence in shaping the tractate. As we recognize the importance of considering Tosefta material in order to understand the more elliptic Mishnah, we also recognize the place of misrecognition in the actions presented by the Tosefta, and then the Mishnah (albeit somewhat more obscured in the Mishnaic version). The sages do not set out to Abraham Liss 1979:2.354. For discussion of manuscripts see M. Krupp 1987:252–62, esp. 252–3. 58 Judith Hauptman posits that this urMishnah preceded both the Tosefta and the Mishnah (2005:109–132). See also edited volumes addressing the Tosefta and the relationship of rabbinic texts to each other: Harry Fox and Tirzah Meachem eds. 1999; and S.J.D. Cohen, ed. 2000.

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strategize wedding practice; they react to the actions of a more extreme group: When the Temple was destroyed abstainers (perushim)59 multiplied in Israel who did not eat meat, nor drink wine. R. Joshua confronted them saying: My sons, why do you not eat meat? They said to him: How can we eat meat when every day a Continual Burnt Offering was offered on the altar, and now it has ceased?60

In this dialogue, Rabbi Joshua determinedly engages the extreme abstainers. On one level they discuss asceticism, but all the while their involvement with each other effects the negotiation of practice, a process which may go unrecognized—or misrecognized. Steven Fraade emphasizes one particular form of this misrecognition, namely the pursuit of a political agenda whose impact on wedding practice may or may not have been recognized. According to Fraade, asceticism could have been a political liability for the rabbis, undermining their ability to bring their ideas to a larger community. Thus those rabbis who worked to broaden their leadership could have found this reason enough to confront the most extreme ascetic practices. In making this argument, some rabbis frame a political response that quiets the overzealous abstainers: [R. Joshua] said to them: So too we should not eat figs and grapes, from which First Fruits were offered on the festival of ‘Atzeret [Shavuot], and we should not eat bread, from which were brought Two Loaves and the Show-bread, and we should not drink water from which was poured the Water-offering on the Festival [Sukkot]. They were silent. He said to them: Not to mourn at all is impossible, for it has already been decreed, and Fraade notes that “the relation of the perushim mentioned in this text to the Pharisees mentioned by Josephus and the New Testament is difficult to determine” (1986:272). Schremer discusses the ascetic perushim, but does not link them to tannaitic discussions of wedding processions (2003:65–66). 60 tSotah 15.11; bB Bat 60b, cited by Fraade 1986:271. 59

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to mourn too much is impossible. Rather, the sages have said: A person should plaster his house but leave a small area uncovered, as a memorial to Jerusalem.61

Rabbi Joshua frames a powerful reductio ad absurdum that leaves the extremists “silent.” He urges more and more action, literally overwhelming the activists with action. His silencing of the abstainers takes its cue from the response to Gamliel (or Ishmael) arguing against abstaining since “it is better for the community to err unintentionally than intentionally.” When seen as situational, strategic, and misrecognized, this discourse presents two complicated sides—not just abstainer and nonabstainer, but rather the abstainer on one side and the questioner, reporter, silencer-inresponse-to-the-abstainer on the other. The second side thereby positions itself as moderate. Despite the divisions in these texts, t. Sotah depicts the more conciliatory group as thinking of the ability of the people, rather than the ascetic ideal. Cohen and Fraade highlight limits on procreation and other restraints on bodily appetites, but t. Sotah’s discussion also proves to be a discussion of social policy, challenging the extreme fasts and ultimately rejecting the possibility that no one should marry. Practice consistently interweaves an agenda that does not altogether overlap with ideology or belief. The text does not say that these rabbis themselves opposed an ascetic response. Rather, we see divided opinion: the “abstainers” present one set of restraints, and others must counter. Although these rabbis finally reject the suggestion that no one should marry, their concerns about marriage temper their investment in wedding processions. Just as they do not ban marriage, their presentation does not ban weddings—but it also does not embrace them. The group represented by Rabbi Joshua in t. Sotah concludes, “not to mourn at all is impossible,” since the events precipitating this crisis have already occurred. Nevertheless, some Jews apparently continued to have weddings as before, perhaps not interpreting these recent historical events as the beginning of a longer end-times crisis. Misrecognized and improvised responses explore a position 61

tSotah 15.11–12; bB Bat 60b, cited by Fraade 1986:271.

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between the extremes of “no marriage” and “no change to weddings.” It may be that the Mishnah account records the same negotiation, but it offers only unnamed subjects and obscures the identity of those voices in t. Sotah 15 who represent a more extreme ascetic stand, on one hand, and a moderating response, on the other. Nevertheless, if one interprets the Mishnah’s anonymous they who forbid crowns (and attempt to forbid litters) as referring to the abstainers (in t. Sotah), then it follows that “our rabbis” respond by permitting litters. The give and take in m. Sotah appears to be an abbreviated version of the discussion between the abstainers and other rabbis in t. Sotah. The parallel discussions fit with Hauptman’s arguments that the Mishnah responds to an earlier Tosefta. Here m. Sotah presents a more limited discussion of crowns. In any case, t. Sotah and m. Sotah reveal an awareness of a position more extreme than the one prohibiting aspects of wedding processions, namely that position advocating no marriage. In other words, in permitting litters “the rabbis” negotiated, whether consciously or unconsciously, a more tempered asceticism. Though it’s only alluded to, the eschatological situation behind m. Sotah and t. Sotah provides a context for understanding the rabbis as improvising a compromise position despite their catalogue of prohibitions. If the alternative was to outlaw all marriage—and that indeed is what we see eschatologically expectant ascetics advocating—then we can understand the banning of crowns as a comparatively insignificant matter. Structurally we might have been able to predict that different subgroups would engage each other over issues of asceticism. Nevertheless, without considering the element of time, we cannot recognize each group’s perception of its own power base, its relationship to other subgroups, the timing that leaves others silent, or the place of arguments about wedding ritual within the larger discussion of ascetic responses. The determination to allow litters bespeaks engagement with other groups, not an exact position on debates surrounding procreation. Likewise, a ban on litters does not indicate a firm opposition to procreation—and we must consider this possibility, especially if the line absent from the Erfurt manuscript preserves the original Tosefta with no voice permitting litters and the Vienna Tosefta manuscript has somehow adopted the Mishnah’s more moderate position. The outcome differs in

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these two versions, but the engagement over communal wedding practices and related issues of authority appear central to both possibilities.

CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF RABBIS AND WEDDINGS, A REDEMPTIVE HEGEMONY Being true to these wedding-processional practices as living processes rather than objectified rites requires the eschewal of atemporal models. The discourses of m. and t. Sotah, while situated in end-time thinking, improvise the prohibiting, or modifying, of practices involving wedding crowns and litters. These improvisations respond not only to weddings and end times but to a variety of ascetic practices and political configurations, so we realize that the prohibitors probably recognized only a fraction of their own motivations, even of those motivations that we can uncover centuries later. Situation, strategy, and misrecognition— these are the first three aspects of practice that Bell identifies. She argues that practice should include “redemptive hegemony”; it should be “able to reproduce or reconfigure a vision of the order of power in the world” because ritual has to do with “the will to act.”62 The rabbis in m. and t. Sotah redeem themselves in those end times through their compromise on wedding rites. Most vividly, Rabbi Joshua establishes the hegemony of his own practices—and those like his—by insisting upon moderation: “Not to mourn at all is impossible, for it has already been decreed, and to mourn too much is impossible.” He demonstrates the will to act, reinscribing ambivalence regarding practice rather than giving absolute answers.

Bell 1992:81 and 83. Once again Bell grounds her definition in the work of her predecessors. Kenelm Burridge writes of the redemption process for those who “attempt to discharge their obligations in relation to the moral imperatives of the community” (1969:6). Bell elaborates that these might take the form of a “construal of those relations . . . that affords the actors the sense of a sphere of action, however minimal” (1992:84). 62

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With these actions, the rabbis cement their place in the devolving world. Despite the recent dependence upon structural methodologies that encourage the isolation of ritual, historians can never divorce practices found within texts from their textual frames. With many ancient rituals, only literature can offer clues to Bell’s aspects of practice: situation, strategies, misrecognition, and the reproduction of redemptive hegemony. Relying on literature as evidence need not entail collapsing texts and events. For the early rabbis glimpsed in m. and t. Sotah, wedding ritual proves inseparable from the prohibitions that frame it. None of the them, however, supposes that the prohibitions explored in m. and t. Sotah need actually have been circulated beyond the Mishnah or Tosefta themselves. Rather, by improvising a prohibition that was never widely embraced or disseminated, the authors of the Mishnah nevertheless reshape successive practice because subsequent generations were affected by their discourse. Wearers of crowns outside the community proceed in ignorance; wearers of crowns within the community proceed in relation to the prohibition, whether they meant to modify practice or challenge the continued need for the negative attention on crowns. There is a circular relationship between practices and the context in which in which they happen. As practices are transmitted, the gap between those within and those outside of the community expands. The acts and the historical moment create each other. However much these wedding acts appear to resemble other wedding acts, the subtle differences between one wedding and another, and between one moment and the next, not only shaped their own end-time practice but also reproduced the community of practitioners over time. We cannot know what happened day by day in the early rabbinic period, but we can recognize that, with few exceptions, wedding processions did not figure much in Tannaitic texts. The language of prohibition suggests some sort of disconnect with earlier Jewish processions. Inscriptional evidence attests to preparations for early Jewish, pre-rabbinic wedding processions in the Diaspora, and later, Amoraic sources once again eagerly

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considered weddings.63 Earlier models for looking at rabbinic ritual masked the absence of Tannaitic involvement. Nevertheless, these differences between the Tannaim and their predecessors and successors reveal a great deal about how small practices shaped identities: Rabbi Joshua and others “reconfigure a vision of the order of power in the world” so that it balances asceticism with an acknowledgement that not everyone in a community can act so radically. Was there a swinging back and forth throughout the Tannaitic period between moments of wedding-ritual expansion and and moments of drawing back? Perhaps. Or perhaps not—we have so very little evidence of involvement in wedding ritual in Tannaitic sources. When we consider the contrasting Amoraic actions in the next chapter, it will appear as likely, if not more likely, that the early rabbis did not see expansion of wedding ritual as their role. It took another historical moment, with another situation, strategy, misrecognition, and reproduction of redemptive hegemony for the Amoraim to advocate more extensive wedding ritual. Because the Amoraim no longer saw the same end to their world, their situation allowed them to create wedding blessings, to use weddings as metaphors, and to see new possibilities and significances in Jewish weddings.

See, for instance, discussion of JIGRE 31(CIJ 1508), Horbury and Noy 1992:60–63 in Chapter Two above, and explorations of amoraic sources in Chapter Four. 63

CHAPTER FOUR: WEDDING-FEAST BLESSINGS AND RABBINIC COMMUNAL MOBILITY In contrast to the early Tannaic rabbis, who permitted some ritualizing of weddings as a compromise measure, the Amoraim assigned themselves an active role in communal feasts that accompanied weddings. They created new blessings for these occasions. Concerning “the blessing of the bridegrooms,” Rab Judah asks, “What does one say?” The Babylonian Talmud provides an answer: 1. “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, king of the universe [8a] who has created all things to his glory,” 2. and “the creator of man,” 3. and “who has created man in his image, in the image of the likeness of his form, and has prepared unto him out of himself a building (binyan) for ever. Blessed are you, O Lord, creator of man.”1 The blessing continues from there (see below for the texts and discussion of all six blessings). The Babylonian Talmud, compiled by the Amoraim, offers the text of six blessings. These same blessings have continued to appear at Jewish weddings until today, when they often are called the “Seven Blessings” because a blessing over wine appears before the first of the six blessings. Nevertheless, as we have found was the case throughout this study, assumptions that ritual remains the same encourage one kind of interpretation, and historical skepticism a second. Our focus is a 1

bKetub 7b–8a, translation adapted from Isidore Epstein 1936.

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third hermeneutic: considering the ritual within history, an approach that reveals elements of both continuity and change.2 Although the Talmud provides a text that later generations continue to recite at weddings, it also narrates competing practices: Levi came to the house of Rabbi to the wedding feast of R. Simeon his son [and] said five benedictions. R. Assi came to the house of R. Ashi to the wedding feast of Mar his son [and] said six benedictions. . . .3

R. Ashi’s six benedictions may resemble the six given just before in the Babylonian Talmud, or perhaps they were completely separate, an alternative collection. We do not need to posit that Levi or R. Ashi were historical figures in order to realize that something new is afoot. The Talmud records a text that we, because we have come later, know took root, yet here in the literature it appears unstable. Sherry Ortner’s work helps us focus on ritual actors in order to consider why they offer these new blessings. Without such a ritual perspective, others have misassigned these blessings to the Tannaim, whom we have established were reluctant to sanction wedding practices. Their exploration of new ritual territory seems therefore unlikely. This view helps us recognize an entirely different approach by the Amoraim. Others have used two Tannaitic lists that mention the grooms’ blessing as reason to assign the kinds of scripts recorded in the Babylonian Talmud to an earlier time: Mishnah Megillot mentions the grooms’ blessing in a long list of prayers that require a minyan, and the analogous Tosefta Megillot adds that the bridegroom can be counted in the minyan reciting the grooms’ blessing.4 A Tannaitic identification assumes that the blessings appearing centuries later in the Babylonian Talmud of the fifth through sixth centuries C.E. were the same referenced in m. and t. Megillot.5 But no text for this blessing is given in either the Mishnah

See discussion in the Introduction. bKetub 8a. 4 mMeg 4.3 and tMeg 3.14. 5 See discussion of Anderson 1992 below. 2 3

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or the Tosefta.6 Given that the earliest manuscripts of the Mishnah and the Tosefta are medieval, one might consider how easy it would have been for a scribe to add such a “logical” item to the Tannaitic lists in Mishnah Tosefta 4.3 and Tosefta Megillot 3.14. Whether or not such a retrospective harmonization occurred, we have other reasons to doubt that Tannaim did anything more than permit the continuation of earlier practices. The Amoraic creation of elaborate blessings for wedding fits much better with other concerns developing at the time. The text of the grooms’ blessing, with its emphasis on hope and marital relations, was not an inevitable development. It represents an explicit response to ascetic elements, including those within the rabbinic movement, and the submerging of other procreative visions. The trajectory of this blessing over the succeeding centuries indicates that once this text (and its use) assumed importance at the wedding feast, it only became more and more central. Yet its survival does not reveal whether the predominant (anti-ascetic) theology of the grooms’ blessing assured its place at wedding feasts: perhaps the successful placement of this practice within wedding celebrations insured its continued existence. Exploring themes within the grooms’ blessing offers clues about its authors and redactors ideals, which may help situate it, but the presence of these themes alone does not necessarily explain its success. To the compelling thematic evidence we must add the human element, and for that we turn to ritual theory. Much as Bell does, Ortner develops the practice theory of Bourdieu. In particular, Ortner embraces what she terms the “active notion of structure” found in Bourdieu.7 In order to do this, though, she introduces a more explicit focus on the actor not as a mindless reflection of his or her culture but as an individual, however unrecoverable: at the same time I think it must be recognized that an emphasis on the person as entirely a cultural product poses Satlow also notes that “nowhere . . . do tannaitic sources record the text of the blessing itself” (2001:64). 7 Sherry Ortner 1989:12. 6

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FIRST CAME MARRIAGE problems that are merely the inverse of the overly Westernized actor. It evades the problem of adequately theorizing the actor, and leaves the scene to reductionist theories in which people are either overly rationally calculating or overly propelled by biological or psychological drives.8

Ortner does not undo the insights of Bourdieu that lead to a careful consideration of context, but she does begin to shift the focus. In her study of Sherpa culture and the founding of new Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayas, Ortner asks how the actors come to take this new step. Her questions are not so different from our questions concerning why and when rabbinic participants at wedding feasts articulate new blessings. She seeks “to articulate a position that recognizes the ways in which actors are indeed cultural products, and yet that does not conflate actors’ intentions and cultural forms.”9 She demands that we pay attention both to context and to living, breathing people. Ortner’s solution is “to propose an actor who is ‘loosely structured,’” a product of his or her situation, but an independent agent.10 Following Ortner, we come to question what in the Amoraic experience structures the agents who say these blessings. We look for some balance of free will and determinism, even as we recognize that we may look for that tension without being truly able to assess it. Ortner suggests that understanding actors as capable individuals leads us to expect to see communal change when “alternatives become visible, or because actors have or gain the power to bring them into being.”11 In other words, capable actors capitalize on possibilities. Her model indicates that as power relations change over time, aware agents see a vision of “alternatives,” perhaps similar to a different “redemptive hegemony” in Bell’s framework. With this new vision, as well as

Ortner 1989:15. Ortner 1989:198. 10 Ahearn elaborates on this idea in her exploration of “agency” (2001:20). 11 Ortner 1989:201. 8 9

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the power to carry it out, the Sherpas she studied could establish new monasteries. When alternatives became visible, the Amoraim changed the practice at feasts. They already knew of wedding meals because feasts of all sorts would have been part of the fabric of their community, influenced by Jewish, Roman, and Persian traditions.12 They were thus in a good position to innovate within these feasts when they began to recognize new needs and possibilities, and to see in themselves the power to carry them out. Since Ortner would have us understand ritual acts and context before identifying the shifts that present new alternatives to those acting in these moments, this chapter considers (1) evidence offered by the grooms’ blessing and other new participation at amoraic wedding meals, (2) the nature and function of wedding feasts, and finally (3) evidence of new challenges or opportunities that might put wedding feasts in a new light. Looking extensively at context, and then especially at ritual actors as they respond, the depth of changes occurring in the rabbis’ world becomes clear. Ultimately, when we piece together our recognition of new wedding practices with other evaluations of the fourth century C.E., we find that even as the rabbis extended their own involvement in wedding feasts, other communities were increasing their participation as well. It is not possible to know whose development came first, the rabbis’ or the others’, because the evidence depicts the changes emerging together. Rabbis move not only to engage more in their own feasts but also to restrict participation in the feasts of their neighbors, suggesting that these blessings crystallize with the recognition that feasting location can secure community allegiance and participation. In the modern world, we take for granted that Jewish weddings feature particularly Jewish ritual, but that does not appear to have been the case prior One additional way in which this study is incomplete, however, is that it focuses on Roman Banquets rather than Persian; and more on the Christianities of Late Antiquity than on Zorastrian practices. This study thus makes only a start. I rely on future scholars to remedy this deficiency, while trusting that this examination establishes a foundation for future research in an area that has for too long been overlooked. 12

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to the creation of the Amoraic blessing and related practices. The change in this perspective indicates a new Judaization of weddings. According to Seth Schwartz, Judaizing behaviors developed even as shared practices in late antiquity were becoming Christianized.13 In response to their late-antique setting—a key feature of which was the growing influence of Christians—the rabbis argued against attending neighboring feasts precisely as they conceived new blessings to recite at weddings feasts. Ritual and ritual actors particularized wedding feasts in the Amoraic period.

NEW BLESSINGS Within Amoraic writings we see for the first time discussion of a blessing for recitation at weddings, a blessing that educated (male) members of their community had to learn properly. Song of Songs Rabbah records: It often happens that ten men go to a wedding feast and not one of them can open his mouth to say the bridegrooms’ blessing, until one comes who can open his mouth and say the bridegrooms’ blessing. What does he resemble? “A rose among thorns.”14

According to this midrash, awareness of this blessing surpassed memorization of it. The use of the verse from Song of Songs suggests that the majority of men had yet to learn this blessing. The many “thorns” should know the text, but do not. Their difficulty suggests either that the blessing was new or that the expectation was new.15 Prior to this evidence of new Amoraic initiatives, Tannaitic attention to Song of Songs only discussed prohibited practice. Rabbi Akiba offers a negative response to those who continued what must have been an earlier practice, that Schwartz 2001, see further discussion at the end of the chapter. SongRab 2.2.4. A parallel exists in some versions of LevRab 23.4, while other versions give a text without reference to the wedding feast, only mentioning ten men going to the house of mourning or synagogue (those segments appear before and after the above text in SongRab). 15 The grooms’ blessing also appears on a list of things a “scholar must learn” from bHul 9a, cited by Joseph Heinemann 1977:47. 13 14

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of reciting Song of Songs at weddings, and modern scholarship explores the possibility that Songs of Songs originated as some sort of wedding-song collection.16 These love songs once again, in modern times, made their way into liberal Jewish weddings. We cannot know for sure that these songs appeared in Tannaitic weddings, except that the outcry of Rabbi Akiba makes us suspect precisely that. He warns, “he who trills his voice in the chanting of Song of Songs in the house of a feast (‫ )בבית המשתאות‬and makes it like another type of song has no share in the world to come.”17 A majority of the Tannaim may not have heeded this warning, but a threat concerning what not to say stands in marked contrast to the later obligations to learn a particular blessing. The blessing recited by the virtuous “rose among thorns” in Song of Songs Rabbah need not have been identical to the six found in the Babylonian Talmud in order for us to recognize a move in a new direction. In Genesis Rabbah, another Amoraic midrash, God blesses the groom: “God took a cup and blessed . . . He blesses bridegrooms (‫ )מברך חתנים‬as it is written, God blessed. . .”18 That the rabbis of this period describe themselves and their God taking a visible role at weddings charts a major shift away from the aloof scrutinzers of the Tannaitic period. The rabbis’ relationship to wedding ritual had turned a corner. By listing six blessings and then describing one rabbi saying five instead, the redacted Talmud indicates its preference but nonetheless acknowledges that the shape of this blessing has not Marvin Pope discusses some of these theories (1977:141ff.). tSanh 12.10. Some manuscripts read ‫בבית המשתה‬, sharing the word for wedding feast from the groom’s blessings. For another text that involves singing at weddings, see mSotah 9.11, “when the Sanhedrin ceased, singing ceased at the wedding feasts (‫)מבית המשתאות‬.” 18 GenRab 8.13 (concerning Gen 1.28 “and God blessed them”), MS Paris, Bibl. Nat No. 149 adds after God blessed: “seven benedictions in the verse and the sages proceeded to ordain [the seven benedictions of the nuptial feast] on the basis of their example,” translation from J. Cohen 1989:106. See also Theodor-Albeck 1965:I.66–7. If it turns out that this is a late gloss on GenRab, this does not change the argument that here is a later rather than an earlier response to wedding practice. 16 17

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yet been securely set. Once the rabbis recorded this text, however, this began to change. Centuries later, Jews continue to use this exact text at weddings, although alternative versions are found in Gaonic letters, which indicates that the texts remained in flux for many more years.19 Meanwhile, the text of these six parts of the grooms’ blessing betrays concerns (see the Hebrew text in the Appendix; in addition, recall that later recitation of this blessing counted the blessing over wine as the first component, in which case components 1–6 become 2–7): Our Rabbis taught: “The blessing of the bridegrooms is said in the presence of ten [men/persons] all the seven days.” Rab Judah said: “And that is only if new guests come.” What does one say? Rab Judah said: 1. “‘Blessed are you, O Lord our God, king of the universe [8a] who has created all things to his glory,’ 2. and ‘the creator of man,’ 3. and ‘who has created man in his image, in the image of the likeness of his form, and has prepared unto him out of himself a building (binyan) for ever. Blessed are you, O Lord, creator of man.’ 4. ‘May the barren greatly rejoice and exult when her sons/children will be gathered in her midst in joy. Blessed are you, O Lord, who makes Zion joyful with her sons/children,’ 5. ‘May you make the loved companions greatly to rejoice even as of old you did gladden your creature in the Garden of Eden. Blessed are you, O Lord, who makes bridegroom and bride rejoice.’ 6. ‘Blessed are you, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who has created joy and gladness, bridegroom and bride, rejoicing, song, mirth, and delight, love and brotherhood, peace and friendship. Lawrence Hoffman 1996b:137–8 and A. Hildeshiemer 1942:111. Meanwhile, Palestinian evidence indicates a tradition requiring only three blessings, see a 6th–8th c. CE version found in the Geniza, Mordechai Margalioth 1937. 19

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Speedily, O Lord our God, may there be heard in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of the singing of bridegrooms from their huppot (wedding chambers) and of youths from their feasts of song. Blessed are you, O Lord, who makes the bridegroom to rejoice with the bride.’”20

This text considers the creation of the world, the role of women, Zion restored, Eden, and a vision of a glorious future. Some of these themes weave through the blessing, building one upon another. An argument sometimes made in favor of an early date for the grooms’ blessing notes that the component parts of the blessing do not fit the legally prescribed form for a string of blessings. According to patterns for blessings assumed by some talmudic discussions, only the first blessing in a series of blessing should open with “Blessed are you . . . ”21 The grooms’ blessing does not follow this pattern. Per this argument, these component parts must therefore be even older than such conventions.22 On the other hand, that presumes that the patterns were set in stone, which appears not to have been the case.23 It does suggest, however, that various pieces of a grooms’ blessing may have existed without there being a generally accepted version. The rabbinic author or redactor of the blessings in Babylonian Talmud Ketubbot made certain bKetub 7b–8a. Heinemann discusses pBer 1, 3d, which inquiries into a variation in this pattern (1977:41, n. 10). 22 Anderson urges assigning an early date to the grooms’ blessing because of what he sees as “the conservative tendencies in oral transmission of these forms of prayer” 1992:57. Anderson argues that “the variants are variants in detail, not in gross structure.” 23 Heinemann explains that “we shall observe a variety of stylistic phenomena which do not conform to the accepted halakhic rules for the formation of benedictions” (1977:7, see also 156–92). Many prayer texts preserve a collection of archaic forms and not necessarily a single “original” prayer (1977:67–9, 74 and 290). 20 21

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decisions about the grooms’ blessing based upon components whose history is not known. Lawrence Hoffman argues that “given what we know about tannaitic liturgy in general, it seems probable that originally a single blessing, known as the bridegroom’s blessing was recited . . . [and] various alternatives coexisted or were freely composed on the spot.”24 This is in keeping with our understanding that the Tannaim rarely chose to intervene formally, with the weddings going on around them flying mostly under their radar. Ultimately we must ask, do the components of the grooms’ blessing reference an older time, or do they invoke ideas important to the fourth century C.E. and later? We will address this blessing section by blessing section and look at a variety of sources for evidence relating to these themes. The second and third parts concern the creation of human beings and the related issue of the role of women. The Talmud suggests, and then immediately rejects, the suggestion that the rabbis’ argument over whether to recite five or six blessings could reflect a debate about how many creations took place: No. All agree [that] there was [only] one formation, [but they differ in this:] one holds [that] we go according to intention, and the other holds [that] we go according to the fact.

They conclude that there was never a prior creation of two human beings,25 that the so-called first creation was only intention, not an actual act: God created Adam, a single man, as a first act and not as a second attempt. After citing relevant passages from Genesis, this talmudic passage concludes that God intended the creation of male and female all along, but in the initial step of creation only formed Adam. God later created Eve as a helpmeet and “building” or binyan, alluding to the language of Genesis 2.22

Hoffman 1996a:87–88. Hoffman notes that Jewish “liturgy features a number of exceptions” to the rules for blessing strings. 25 This is one possible interpretation of Gen 1.27 “And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” See also Gen 5.2. 24

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in which “God fashioned [literally, “built”] the rib.”26 Alternative interpretations that assume different creation stories appear in early gnostic texts.27 Other scholars have explored the possibility that the creation account in the grooms’ blessing responds to the creation accounts of these other groups.28 Since, however, these alternative creation stories persist from the Greco-Roman period on through to late antiquity, they cannot offer additional clues for dating the grooms’ blessing. The allusion to Genesis 2 in the third component’s presentation of creation emphasizes that Eve was a “building” for Adam. These gendered relationships of bride, groom and community appear again and again in and around the grooms’ blessing. God created Eve for these “building” functions, the particulars of which are not spelled out in the grooms’ blessing. One midrash, however, does link this “building” quality with procreation: “R. Hisda said: [God] built more chambers in her [i.e., a womb] than in man, fashioning her broad below and narrow at the top, so that she could receive [a] child.”29 With an extra room in the form of a womb, Eve can build up Adam by birthing his descendants. Eve’s architectural role may or may not have a connection to the rabbis thinking her place in the event was mostly reserved for the wedding chamber. Nevertheless, the blessing’s assumption of Adam’s (read: man’s) centrality is born out in Amoraic wedding feasts. The choreography of the grooms’ blessing places only the groom at the feast, at the center of wedding rites. The male guests enact as well as verbalize certain gendered expectations as they recite this blessing, which is named after the groom alone. Since the blessing requires a minyan, the groom, being male, may See additional exegesis of this verse in Chapter Two. For instance, in the Gospel of Philip, God creates “male and female” preceding the “division of the two partners.” In addition, “when Eve was still in Adam, death did not exist” (68.22–3). The implications of this separation make the resulting “marriage” of male and female a cosmic and symbolic event. See for instance, Elaine Pagels 1988. 28 For example, see Bar-Ilan 1985. 29 GenRab 18.3. 26 27

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participate: “R. Nahman said [that] Rab said, ‘Bridegrooms are of the number [for the minyan officially required for recitation] and [at funerals] mourners are not of the number . . .’”30 While the blessing itself mentions the bride and the groom, in descriptions of its recitation the bride disappears from view, a development that shifts the gender dynamic in weddings. The Palestinian Talmud gives a somewhat fanciful expansion of why the groom should replace the bride at the center of wedding festivities: It has been taught: They say the grooms’ blessing31 all seven days. R. Jeremiah considered ruling that they bring the bride out all seven days. Said to him R. Yose, “And lo, R. Hiyya taught: They say the blessing for the mourners every day for seven days.” Now can you maintain that they bring the corpse out every day for seven days?32 Then what is the upshot of the matter? Just as, in the case of a death, one mourns with the mourner, so in the case of marriage, one rejoices with the

bKetub 8a. Buchler suggests that the blessing takes place before the groom leaves for the wedding chamber (1927:129). 31 I have changed Neusner’s inclusive translation, which names this the blessing of “the wedding couple.” Since the bride does not appear involved, such a fiction appears unwarranted. 32 This analogy between a bride and a corpse enlarges on a discussion of appropriate wedding days and asks why a widow should marry on Thursday. The PT quotes a baraita (parallel to t.Ned.1.1) that “they arranged that he should marry her on Thursday, so that he should remain away from work for three successive days.” The gemara responds: “Moses ordained seven days of banqueting [for a wedding] and seven days of mourning. But [there is no indication] that he ordained a thing in celebration of the marriage of a widow.” The baraita might have been taken as an argument in favor of observing three days of feasting at weddings. The strong response of the gemara could well be evidence for anxiety on this subject and a move towards fixing seven days of wedding feasts, a move that was not yet complete, even as the text and number of blessings appear not yet fully set (see above). 30

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groom. Just as in the former case, one makes mention, so in the latter case, one makes mention.”33

Thus the text suggests that during the seven days of celebrating the wedding, one need only make mention of the absent bride much as one might reference the deceased during the seven days of mourning. The Palestinian Talmud actually uses the parallel between weddings and funerals to illustrate why the bride need only be brought out once for one procession at the beginning, although the groom can be counted in a minyan for seven days. It argues that too much exposure of the bride is absurd, since the groom is the true subject of wedding rites. The implied negative answer to R. Hiyya indicates that the groom must be the subject because the bride (like the corpse) cannot act. The groom and the mourner have responsibilities, and likewise the events are for their benefit.34 The fourth component of the grooms’ blessing moves from the female bride to the female who had been the “barren one” but is now blessed with children. The unfolding text reveals that the barren one is Zion, as depicted in Isaiah 54.1: “Shout, O barren one . . . For the children of the wife forlorn shall outnumber those of the espoused, said the LORD.” This suggestion of numerous children builds upon the architectural hint of progeny in the previous blessing. Interestingly enough, however, the grooms’ blessing never makes a statement primarily about procreation. Even in the case of Zion rejoicing with her sons, the image from Isaiah is not first about the production of offspring: rather, the emphasis is on reversal of Zion’s fortunes and God’s love for her.35 God is the groom who will redeem Zion, who will be married and thus no longer barren. This fourth blessing component closes with

pKetub 1.1, 25a, Translation adapted from Neusner 1985:23–4. See Chapter Two for discussion of non-rabbinic texts exploring the association of weddings and funerals, where the bride is envisioned as subject, as well as an amoraic example where the bride is object rather than subject. 35 See R. Abma 1999:109. 33 34

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“who makes Zion joyful with her sons.”36 God has not abandoned Zion but rather brings her joy and children. Zion’s unhappiness will end, evidence that God takes delight in her. It is worth noting the ascetic responses to the destruction of the Temple and Zion observed in the previous chapter: here, in contrast, the grooms’ blessing envisions the future restoration of Zion as joy being returned to Israel, procreation, and human celebrations. The bridegrooms’ blessing praises God for creating marital sexual relations. In the language of the fifth component, God made “the bridegroom and bride rejoice.”37 Gary Anderson explores the sexual connotations of the word joy, demonstrating that in a variety of texts it seems to refer fairly explicitly to sex.38 It is perhaps more surprising that the blessing should allude to Adam and Eve having such joy in Eden. After all, we might assume based on accounts in Genesis that sexual relations only occurred outside of Eden.39 “The antiquity of the sexual consummation motif before the Fall” bases Anderson’s early dating of the grooms’ blessing;40 he provides passages from Jubilees where the rabbis rely on the same

‫משמח ציון‬. In the next two blessings this verb is used for brides with grooms. 37 ‫משמח חתן וכלה‬. And the sixth blessing component concludes, “who makes the bridegroom rejoice with the bride,” ‫משמח חתן עם הכלה‬. 38 Anderson alludes to ancient Near Eastern texts from Gilgamesh to Jubilees (1992:57–8). 39 After Adam and Eve are expelled, one finds Gen 4.1, “Now the man knew his wife Eve.” Louis Ginzberg argued that pre-rabbinic sources “presuppose that not only the birth of the children of Adam and Eve took place after the expulsion from paradise, but that the first human pair lived in paradise without sexual intercourse” (1925:5.134, n. 4). Ginzberg goes on to say, “Later, however, in opposition to the Christian view which considers married life as a consequence of the original sin . . . and prefers celibacy to marriage, the prevalent Jewish view was that the married life of Adam and Eve preceded their fall.” 40 Anderson 1992:62–3. He responds to Ginzberg’s argument (see note above) and seeks to show an early origin to the motif and thus to the grooms’ blessing (1992:49). 36‫בבניה‬

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“exegetical motif” when considering the first couple in Eden.41 Just because the motif of sex in Eden goes back to Jubilees, however, does not indicate that it had no later expressions. This is an example where the earliest dating may not be the strongest evidence. An early date does not negate the possible significance of this motif in later Jewish and Christian explorations of human sexuality and asceticism. The rabbis do not live in a vacuum; Jubilees was read throughout the period, so it could easily have triggered a fourth- or fifth-century C.E. response. In fact, we find one very surprising figure writing of sex in Eden: Augustine. Sermons that only came to light in the late 1990s reveal a new side of Augustine and provide a remarkable parallel to the grooms’ blessing.42 Augustine lived in North Africa and the Amoraim in Babylonia, so in considering this shared interest we do not so much find direct influence as evidence that these ideas had new and powerful currency in the fourth century. Normally we think of Augustine as a champion of marriage controlled on many levels: “God himself reinforced the husband’s authority over his wife.”43 The husband controlled himself and his wife within marriage, although he in turn depended upon God’s greater power. Because of Augustine’s influence on Christian thought, his views concerning gender have had long-lasting consequences for women’s lives, with scholars debating the relative weight of these views’ negative and positive aspects.44 Because he combined a distrust of sexual desire with a distrust of man’s ability to resist desire, he made relations between men and women a continuously vexed issue. Nevertheless, Augustine recognized the power of sexuality. He did not think the average man should be celibate.45 Some of his ideas about marriage and sexual desire took Anderson 1992:53–56. See discussion below. 43 Pagels explains Augustine’s interpretation of Genesis (1988:114). For an earlier presentation of Augustine’s interpretation of women in Genesis, see Clark 1983:27–9. 44 Ann Matter summarizes both the apologetic and the feminist interpretations of Augustine’s view of Women (1999:887–892). 45 Peter Brown 2000:392. 41 42

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shape in response to the ideas of the Pelagians, who followed Julian of Eclanum in presenting the simplicity of Eden as something that could be recaptured. In this view of Eden, there was “no irreversible Fall of Man, only a thin wall of corrupt manners stood between Julian and the delightful innocence of man’s first state.”46 Augustine took great exception to this idyllic view, emphasizing the impossibility of such purity on account of the sinfulness of humans since their fall. His concern applied to Julian’s misunderstanding of the nature of post-lapsarian sexual desire. If Eden could be recaptured, as Julian suggested, then each sin was a choice, and each sinner completely liable.47 Recently David Hunter and Peter Brown have considered the newly revealed sermons of Augustine and argue for a more nuanced view of him and sexuality: As opposed to the hard line against sexuality taken by Jerome, Gregory and Ambrose, “Augustine’s preaching and written works represent, if anything, a call to moderation. He wished for greater recognition of the physical, sexual components of human nature, and was prepared to defend the legitimate expression (if in a disciplined manner) in marriage.”48 In other words, despite the typical view of Augustine’s focus on celibacy and control, it appears that his Eden also included a more innocent sexuality than could exist after the fall: “Augustine also conceded the possibility that sexual desire, even the ‘concupiscence of the flesh,’ might have existed in an innocent form in paradise, if Adam and Even had not sinned.”49 Thus the image of sexual intercourse in the grooms’ blessing finds an echo in the thought of Augustine. The rabbinic blessing considers intercourse in Eden as a joyous foundation of marriage, while Brown 2000:384. Brown 2000:464 48 In a new section of this updated work, Brown writes, “the Dolbeau sermon of 397 on marriage confirmed my impression that the pace of his thought on sexuality was set by firm if courteous disagreement with other Christians and upholders of radical ascetic ideals, most notably with Jerome” (2000:500-1). He cites David Hunter 1994. See also Hunter 2007:282–3. 49 Hunter 1999:537. 46 47

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Augustine struggles to draw the distinctions between life before and after the fall, but both conceive of an Eden the other might recognize. Brown explains the importance of this idea to Augustine in his updated biography: I did not appreciate at that time [of this biography’s first appearance] that the debate between Augustine and Julian was so sharp because Augustine himself had already ventured some two decades previously, into what was largely uncharted territory. He had come to envision, in a manner far more consequential than many of his Christian contemporaries, Adam and Eve as fully sexual beings, capable of intercourse in the Garden of Eden—a glorious intercourse, unriven by conflicting desires, without the shadow of sin upon it. 50

Augustine shared with the grooms’ blessing a view of Eden. While he differs from the Babylonian Talmud in distinguishing between the hypothetical relations of the first couple and the sexual relations known by the bride and groom, both present and accept Edenic intercourse. In the increasingly integrated fourth and fifth centuries, Augustine provides an outside source of evidence for the ideas within the rabbinic grooms’ blessing. The sixth and final blessing component evokes the future and thereby also a vision of the present. In describing the celebration “in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem” this blessing refers to Jeremiah 33.10–11.51 In Jeremiah, and in this blessing, is a vision of restoration that follows destruction. Brown 2000:501. Jer 33.10–11: “Thus said the LORD: Again there shall be heard in this place, which you say is ruined, without man or beast—in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without man, without inhabitants, without beast—the sound of mirth and gladness, the voice of bridegroom and bride, the voice of those who cry, ‘Give thanks to the LORD of Hosts, for the LORD is good, for His kindness is everlasting!’ as they bring thanksgiving offerings to the House of the LORD. For I will restore the fortunes of the land as of old – said the LORD.” I have indicated in bold those sections that appear in the grooms’ blessing. 50 51

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Nevertheless, as we saw in chapter 3, Jews, and even rabbinic Jews, had at times challenged each other regarding the future likely after the Temple’s destruction and the actions that Jews should take in the meantime. Some voices in Tannaitic literature urged ascetic behavior in preparation for the end of days, while others recognized the need for more progeny. The grooms’ blessing links weddings to a vision of procreation as part of a Jewish future. Luckily the grooms’ blessing not only develops themes; it also hints at its own location. In words reminiscent of Jeremiah but not found in the biblical book, the sixth blessing component situates “bridegrooms” in “their huppot” and youths at their “feasts of song.”52 Passages that appear before and after the text of the grooms’ blessing elaborate upon the physical location and situation of the blessing. Prior to the blessing “another [Baraitha] teaches: The grooms’ blessing is said in the house of the groom.”53 Then, immediately following the text of the blessing, we see that “Levi came to the house of Rabbi to the wedding feast of R. Simeon his son [and] said five benedictions.” The Babylonian Talmud presents the blessing (and debate) as taking place at the feast. Thus, the Talmudic blessing takes place at the groom’s house, at the wedding feast, and at the center of communal activity. It describes a firmly situated script.

THE PROXIMITY OF WEDDING FEAST AND WEDDING CHAMBER54 In considering early Jewish wedding ritual we have looked at preparations, processions; we now turn to pure sustenance— wedding feasts. With no evidence for any freestanding “ceremony,” the procession and feast become the focus of wedding activity. 52

‫ממשתה נגינתם‬. bKetub 7b. 54 In translating huppah I have chosen to avoid the more typical English phrase “bridal chamber” because it misdirects the reader to focus only on the bride rather than on the couple. I thank Jeffrey Tigay for suggesting this clarification. 53

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Most accounts assume the importance of the feast rather than discuss it directly; this should only reinforce our sense of its significance. As we saw in chapter 1, sons of Rabban Gamaliel return from a wedding in the early morning. The Mishnah only asks whether it’s too late to recite the evening Sh’ma;55 it takes for granted wedding feasts and festivities. The fact that women in the rabbinic period were entitled to attend wedding feasts—a man must divorce his wife rather than prohibit her from all “houses of mourning and houses of (wedding) feasting56—attests to their communal value. The Talmud uses this assumed context to situate and articulate its wedding blessings. We can’t evaluate the possibility that these blessings were responses to very familiar wedding feasts without first stepping back to observe what makes Roman and Jewish weddings feasts, in fact, wedding feasts. We may then understand more about the nature of the Amoraic response of developing these blessings. It seems logical that the framework of a wedding banquet provides a situation for a particularistic, new action like the recitation of this extended blessing. Relying on Bourdieu’s theory of practice, Ortner recognizes that practice belongs to a behavioral loop wherein action shapes the actors, who then perpetuate the action, and so forth.57 In this model, outsiders do not successfully step in and make changes that fit well. Thus, when observing the long-term success of the blessings articulated in the Talmud, it makes sense to consider the rabbis as both shaping and shaped by the feasting practices of their time. As participants, the rabbis could create a text that drew directly upon their own engagement in these feasts. The wedding feast would have marked a new practice as “wedding” practice. This situation could set the stage for a new presence (rabbis as significant guests), or new theological ideas (Jewish redemption linked to celebrating marriage) without being rejected as inappropriate. Clues from the text of the grooms’ blessing as well as this

mBer 1.1 mKetub 7.5. 57 Ortner 1989; see also Bourdieu 1977:72 and 214, n. 1. 55 56

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particular feasting context allow us, aided by theory, to speculate on the success and motivation of the rabbis. All sorts of feasts and feasting behavior punctuated the ancient world.58 A Jewish wedding feast shared many traits with feasts of other occasions, but with one key difference: a wedding feast includes separate but adjacent space for consummating the marriage. This nearby chamber set the tone for the feast. In antiquity, this space appears to have been a solid structure that assured a certain amount of privacy for the bride and groom.59 Medieval commentaries regarded the wedding canopy as a recent, or at least questionable, novelty.60 Before 136 c. C.E., bringing the bride into the groom’s house established the marriage.61 But later on, a more technical definition of this shift was called for and one first sees mention of the couple entering the huppah, which was understood as part of the husband’s domain, whether physically attached to his house or not.62 At that ritual moment, a betrothed couple officially became wed for the purpose of determining ownership of property and so forth.63 In the pre-rabbinic Tobit, the wedding chamber appears to be nothing other than a room of the house. Sometimes in rabbinic texts, it appears that this room was added on and plastered for the occasion.64 This building process becomes an For extensive explorations of dining in general in the ancient world see the SBL’s Meals in the Greco-Roman World Seminar website: http://www.philipharland.com/meals/GrecoRomanMealsSeminar.htm. See also William Slater 1991; Peter Foss 1994; and Matthew Roller 2003. 59 After reviewing talmudic references, Buchler argued that a huppah was “generally taken to mean . . . a room” (1927:83). 60 Solomon Freehoff notes that even Isserles [in the 16th century] explores the meaning of the word chuppah, wondering whether it can include the definition “canopy” (1963:187–8). 61 Buchler observes that in “none of these cases is ‫[ כנס‬enter] followed by the word ‫[ לחופה‬into the huppah]” (1927:95). 62 Buchler 1927:117. Buchler applies great sensitivity to the particular descriptions of houses, rooms and specially built chambers. 63 Buchler 1927:113–7. 64 LamRab 4.11. 58

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important element in parables that compare the physical destruction of a huppah with the destruction of the Temple. 65 In a version of this paradigm in Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin, a father who builds the special chamber destroys it upon the death of his son, saying, “Now that he is dead, what do I need this wedding chamber for?”66 In another Amoraic text, Genesis Rabbah, God is understood as the huppah’s builder. As would a king who “plastered, paneled, and painted,” God builds one for Adam; it has gold walls and jeweled beams.67 In later centuries a huppah becomes a canopy open to the view of the community. In chapters 2 and 3 we did find some ambiguous references to huppahs for dead brides and grooms, and one made “of crimson silk embroidered with gold” for the bridegroom.68 This latter, tent-like huppah appears analogous to the bride’s litter. We also considered the many textual problems attending the interpretation of the huppah described in Semahot, which also has a late date.69 It is worth considering the possibility of a tent-like huppah as a substitute for rooms in alfresco situations—although they would have to be enclosed tents, and no evidence for such tents at Jewish banquets exists.70 Rabbinic reflections on the near impossibility of holding a wedding in a sukkah make clear that a huppah could not have been merely a symbolic room within sight of the community. Babylonian Talmud Sukkah responds to the difficulty of For a discussion of LamRab and variants, see Stern 1991:24–9. bSan 108a, translation adapted from Stern 1991. 67 GenRab 18.1. Buchler considers GenRab 18.1 and GenRab 28.6 together (1927:84). 68 Semahot 8.2 and tSotah 15.8. The art historian, Joseph Gutmann, accepts Buchler’s conclusion that the couple was indeed led into the huppah. Gutmann, however, would include in that description either “a special room or a nuptial tent, at times made ‘of crimson silk embroidered with gold’” (1988:50). 69 See discussion in Chapter Two above. 70 Although elsewhere we see evidence for outdoor banquets, such as th a 4 c. CE Italian mosaic panel reportedly found in Ostia, Christine Kondoleon 2000:184, Catalogue # 68. 65 66

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celebrating both the wedding and observing the holiday Sukkot (The Feast of Booths): R. Abba b. Zabda also said in the name of Rab, A bridegroom and the attendants and all the wedding guests are free from the obligation of the Sukkah all the seven days [of wedding festivities.] —What is the reason? —Because they have to rejoice. —But let them eat in the Sukkah and rejoice under the huppah? —There can be no real rejoicing except where the banquet is held. —But why should they not put up a huppah in the Sukkah? Abaye says, [This is impossible] because of [the need for] privacy . . .71

According to the rabbis, the small size of the sukkah jeopardizes the privacy of the huppah. The text goes on to debate what “privacy” means and whether that can really be the issue. It appears that the limited size of an area appropriate for the building of a sukkah (on a rooftop, perhaps) presented a challenge for the construction of both the sukkah for the feast and the wedding chamber. Reb Zera responds, “I had the banquet in the Sukkah and rejoiced under the huppah,” so somehow it is possible, but the text does not clearly present how Reb Zera constructed these spaces. More typically the wedding chamber was further removed from the feast. One story demonstrates a case where this distance has tragic consequences, for there was “a man whose wedding chamber caught fire [as he was in it with the bride] at the close of his wedding feast, and his wife cried ‘look at my husband . . .!’ When they came near they saw a charred body.”72 The rabbis debate whether anyone can adequately identify him by these remains. They presume the potential witnesses could not instantly arrive at his door. Such separation no doubt depended upon the 71 72

bSukkah 25b. bYeb 115a.

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wealth of the family and the size of the house. Yet, despite whatever physical distance existed, the major impact of the wedding chamber and the feast belonging to the same house would have been the psychological proximity of these spaces. It is that psychological—or sociological—impact that seems to account for the intercultural appeal of nearby wedding chambers, the examination of which fills out the picture of the broader culture in which rabbis transformed the wedding feast ritual.

ROMAN SEXUAL IMAGINATION AND THE WEDDING CHAMBER Roman literary evidence depicts explicitly bawdy wedding feasts, and discussions of these wedding banquets make significant reference to the proximity of the wedding couple. Poem 61 of Catullus (first century B.C.E.) gives voice to the guests outside the nearby wedding chamber: Now husband, you may approach: your wife is in your bedroom, shining with her flowery little face, like to the white chamomile or the yellow poppy. . . Play as you please, and produce children soon. It is not right for so ancient a name to be lacking in children, but rather it should always be reproduced from the same stock . . . I would like to see a miniature Torquatus from the bosom of his mother reaching out his fresh young hands smiling sweetly at his father with his little lips half open . . . Maidens, close the doors: we have played enough. Good wedded people, live well and

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The guests escort bride and groom to the chamber and sing outside the open door for a time. Whether these songs accompanied real weddings or fictitious ones, they suggest the public importance of wedding feasts.74 One can only speculate concerning the line that divided real from imagined, as weddings spurred the artistic imagination. Describing the wedding banquet of the gods, Apuleius (second century C.E.) offers an outrageous portrayal of how closely the feast and the marriage consummation related. At the wedding of Psyche, after she becomes immortal, males and females recline: “Instantly there appeared a rich wedding-banquet. The bridegroom reclined on the couch of honour, clasping Psyche in his arms. Jupiter with his wife Juno were similarly placed, and then all the gods in order of rank.”75 This portrayal incorporates the sexual intimacy of the wedding chamber into the feast itself.

Selected verses from lines 184–228, translated by John Godwin 1995. Earlier parts of the song display a still more mocking tone: “Boys, raise up the torches:/ I can see the bridal veil approaching./ Come sing in unison:/ O Hymeneal Hymen, O Hymen Hymeneal/ Let not the unrestrained Fescennine/ jesting keep silent for long,/nor may the pretty boy refuse to give nuts to the boys/when he hears of the master’s/abandoned love . . ./ Bride, you too must beware of refusing/ what your husband will seek of you,/ in case he goes off to seek it elsewhere./ O Hymeneal Hymen . . . ,” lines 114–123 and 144–148. 74 Having considered the genre of the wedding song from Homer onwards, Godwin comments that it is “unlikely that the poem [Poem 61] was actually sung to accompany the wedding itself: attempts to match the words to the actions of the Roman wedding ceremony are unconvincing, if only because the poet would hardly have timed the text to synchronize with the actions. What we have instead is a literary artifact which incorporates the elements of a Roman wedding and comments on them in a mock-realistic manner” (1995:100). See such an attempt in Ole Thomsen 1992, reviewed by M.J. Edwards 1993. 75 Apuleius, Metamorphoses 6.24. 73

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The nominally Christian Ausonius (fourth century C.E.), creates a wedding song in which, after describing the party that escorts the bride and groom to their chamber, he goes on to imagine what takes place inside.76 His first musings display a modicum of reserve as he describes how the groom “fondles her in his soft embrace” and “while thus he speaks, she for a long while keeps her eyes turned away.” But then the groom “casts [hesitation] aside, and breaks the chains of shyness.”77 Ausonius then inserts a digression in which he describes the physical intimacies of the unseen bride and groom in more graphic detail, including the adventures of the groom’s “hot-blooded” erection.78 The unseen bride and groom become the subject of public imagination. Above all, Roman wedding feasts had strong sexual overtones. Even when the wedding chamber is off limits to the literary observers, the activities imagined therein are close to their thoughts. The guests enter that chamber in their imaginations, and this focus has an impact on the feast, although no one seems physically to enter the wedding chamber when the bride and the groom are inside.

THE GUARDED WEDDING CHAMBER Likewise, Jewish wedding feasts focus a good deal of attention on the nearby wedding chamber. Rabbinic sources, in fact, reveal the effort that went into keeping others out of the special chamber. Often shoshvinim (attendants) were set to guard the wedding chamber until the couple emerged.79 Ultimately, much of the role of the shoshvinim appears vague. Did they have any other functions in the rite besides guarding? Perhaps they also had a role in the procession, but the texts do not tell us. Heaven and earth served as Danel Sheerin 2002 speaks of Ausonius’ Cento as a “ludicrous” lifting of familiar texts. 77 Ausonius, A Nuptial Cento, 7 (LCL 384–7). 78 Ausonius, A Nuptial Cento, 8. In the LCL edition, 1919, Latin faces Latin for section 8, 386–91, with no English translation. 79 tKetub 1.4, pKetub 1.1, 25a and bKetub 12a. See below for discussion of the possibility that they also served as advocates in cases where a guard could witness that the chamber had not been breached. 76

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shoshvinim for the union of God and Israel, according to one midrash.80 God was Adam’s shoshvin, leading Eve to him (as it says in Gen. 2.22).81 Attendants also appear to have been expected to offer certain kinds of gifts, but these obligations depended upon the nature of the wedding.82 Guests may also have focused on the wedding chamber with the expectation that they would then view evidence of hymeneal blood from this first intercourse of a virgin. Some rabbinic texts discuss this blood at length, but it is not always possible to determine whether their contemplation is theoretical or describes actual practice. For instance, R. Judah offers the case of certain families that tended not to produce nuptial blood: “Every vine has its wine, and that which does not produce wine.”83 In some cases, the shoshvinim were also associated with insuring the evidence of virginity. The accounts obscure whether attendants or guards inspect the bride and wedding chamber, protect against the possibility of tampering with evidence of hymeneal blood, or merely serve for the sake of appearances.84 The Babylonian Talmud does not describe a public viewing of this bloody evidence. A late, DeutRab 3.16. GenRab 18.3. The midrash explains: “Happy the citizen for whom the king is the groomsman!” 82 According to BT, the attendant, returning the favor to his friend, the groom, might have difficulty if his own wedding had been “public” and this wedding “private” since both gifts and obligations appear different in these instances. In general wedding guests should bring gifts equivalent to the amount of what they consume, bB Bat 145b. Rehm considers gift-giving at Athenian weddings (1994:141–2). 83 An eating grape did not produce much “blood” or “wine,” pKetub 1.1, 25a. 84 pKetub 1.1, 25a. Ilan describes these texts as “garbled,” thus allowing the reader “glimpses into practices opposed to the general ethos of the rabbis” (1995:256). One such account, pKetub 1.1, 25a, provides an additional insight into the importance of the feast, suggesting that grooms will not always reveal the lack of evidence of virginity because “A man is not likely to lay out all the costs of a meal and then to give his wife a bad name.” 80 81

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Gaonic text, however, considers the appropriateness of reciting a blessing over the “tokens of virginity”: After emerging from the wedding chamber, the bride and groom must produce this evidence of blood in order for the blessing to be said.85 We cannot know if there is a link between this ninth-century C.E. practice and such a vague fourth- through-sixth-centuries C.E. precursor. Whether or not the feasting party viewed actual “tokens of virginity,” however, they directed their thoughts to the exploits going on behind closed doors. One story concerning guests’ attention to the wedding chamber disguises its interest in metaphorical language. The story concerns the wedding of the daughter of Rabbi Akiba and her presentation of what happened at the wedding feast. The Talmud gives a voice to women rarely enough that we take notice when it happens.86 Astrologers had told Rabbi Akiba that “on the day [his daughter] enters the wedding chamber, a snake will bite her and she will die.”87 Although the story appears as one of a series that illustrate how charity delivers from death, the titillating drama takes its audience into the wedding chamber. The narrator explains: On that day [of her marriage] she took a brooch [and] stuck it into the wall [of the huppah] and by chance it penetrated into the eye of a serpent. The following morning, when she took it out, the snake came trailing after it. Ruth Langer 1994:174–94 and 253–62. Although the daughter of R. Akiba is not referred to by name, neither is her groom. It is not clear whether the groom was aware of the forecast danger to his bride, but he does not speak for her about these events. This story is one of a series of three in which the one surviving tells his/her tale. Perhaps this accounts for the voice of R. Akiba’s daughter here. 87 bSabb 156b. For a sense of the pervasiveness of fears at the time of weddings, note the parallels between this story and the predictions of Psyche’s death in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses. There the father of Psyche seeks an oracle regarding his daughter. The oracle says: “Set out your daughter, king, on a lofty mountain crag,/Decked out in finery for a funereal wedding./Hope not for a son-in-law born of mortal stock/But a cruel and wild and snaky monster,” 4.33. 85 86

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When the narrative gaze moves into the wedding chamber, it finds a woman undressing and battling with a snake.88 Her father later asks: “What did you do?”—meaning “what did you do that you escaped your fate?” She replies: A poor man came to our door in the evening and everybody was busy at the banquet, and there was no one to attend to him. So I took the portion which was given to me and gave it to him.

The bride explains that she was in a position to give charity because she was not “busy” with the feast. Either she was present at the periphery or she ate her “portion” of the wedding feast elsewhere, which raises questions about women’s visibility at wedding feasts.89 In any case, she heard and responded to the door that went unnoticed by others. Her charity helps her survive her danger; her story lets other imagine the inside of a wedding chamber. The many allusions to the distance and protection that kept the wedding chamber apart from the feast combine with the voyeuristic imaginings to make it difficult to think that blessings could have been said in or under this structure. That impression must come from medieval and modern examples of the huppah retrojected onto ancient sources. If the chamber was closed and private, then—in contrast to the later definition of huppah as “canopy”—it did not reveal to the rest of the community what It should also be noted that the snake of this wedding chamber shares some features with the demon in Tobit. The snake/demon threatens the bride in one case and the groom in the other, but in both cases he occupies the wedding chamber. Haim Schwarzbaum 1974 describes Tobit as fitting folktale type AT934B, “the Hero Predestined to Die on his Wedding Day.” 89 For a more extensive exploration of women at Greco-Roman wedding meals see my essay in Smith and Taussig eds, forthcoming. See also the more skeptical opinion of Jordan Rosenblum 2010:127. Minor tractate Kallah in particular presents the argument that the bride should not share drink (and food?) with men, for discussion of this tractate see David Brodsky 2006. 88

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went on within. The spontaneous blessing spoken by Tobias in Tobit provides the only evidence of a Jewish blessing said in a wedding chamber. Tobias’s blessing appears nothing like the grooms’ blessing, and he says it himself following his victory over the demon.90 No Tannaic or Amoraic evidence at all exists for a third party offering a blessing in the huppah.91 The first example of such appears in Pirqe de Rabbi Eliezer, a ninth-century C.E. midrashlike text, and concerns Adam and Eve’s wedding: The Holy One blessed be He, was like a precentor (hazzan). What is the custom observed by the precentor (hazzan)? He stands and blesses the bride in the midst of her wedding chamber (huppah).92

Based on the term precentor (hazzan), instead of rabbi, it appears that this passage must be a later writing: the evidence of a hazzan associated with prayer does not emerge until the Gaonic period from the late sixth through mid-eleventh centuries.93 Scholarship has presented a confusing portrait of rabbinic involvement in Jewish weddings. Scholars of later Jewish wedding Tob 8.5–8. It should also be noted that Raguel says a spontaneous blessing (not in the wedding chamber) when he finds that they are alive the next morning. See Chapter One for additional discussion of the text of Tobit. 91 The fragmentary text 4Q502 has also been interpreted as describing a third party officiant participating in a wedding liturgy (although it does not specify a huppah). Note, however, that the argument that 4Q502 describes a wedding rather than a “Golden Age Ritual” or a “New Year Festival” depends upon the assumption that the grooms’ blessing in bKetub 8a constitutes a wedding “ceremony” rather than a blessing said at a feast and thus provides a parallel. This study calls such a premise into question. See Maurice Baillet 1982; Baumgarten 1983; and Satlow 1998 for the three different presentations of this text. James Davila presents a useful overview (2000:181–207). 92 Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer 12.29, Gerald Friedlander 1981. 93 Friedlander 1981:90. Note also that the text gives no reason to believe that the blessing of the bride should be interpreted as the grooms’ blessing explored in this chapter. 90

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practice often mention that weddings held under the direction of a local rabbi were a medieval innovation, implying that no evidence of rabbinic presence at these occasions exists before the Middle Ages.94 This pervasive argument presents a red herring that distracts readers with the wrong question: the evidence for almost any kind of Jewish wedding blessing after Tobit comes from rabbinic literature, so of course these events included rabbis. Because these weddings appear in rabbinic sources, they surely involved rabbis, colleagues, and sons and daughters of rabbis as grooms and brides. Our question about rabbis at Jewish weddings should be, when does rabbinic participation begin to set them apart from any other guest? As we observe the innovative nature of blessings offered at wedding feasts, we may rightly suspect that we are watching the beginning of such a transition. If rabbis said blessings that no one else could say, then perhaps it became more important to have them come even to weddings that did not involve colleagues or family. This still does not mean that they directed these occasions, as the medieval era seems to introduce the off-stage scrutinizing discussed in chapter 1 into the public occasion. Nevertheless, we recognize that a rabbi leading blessings instead of just the mere presence of a rabbi constitutes an Amoraic innovation that perhaps led to more and more of a rabbinic role in later centuries. A contemporaneous Christian texts offers a final clue that we should not expect Amoraic evidence for rabbis entering the huppah or wedding chamber. In this mystical account, which cannot serve as evidence of practice, finding guests in the wedding chamber causes great surprise. It is clear that at this time blessings given in the wedding chamber were far from normal. The Acts of Thomas includes a vivid presentation of wedding festivities. First attested at the end of the fourth century C.E. (as one of five noncanonical books of apostolic acts), its transmission and provenance prove complicated.95 The scene, set in the first century C.E., focuses on Z.W. Falk 1966:64. Cited also by Esther Cohen and Elliott Horowitz 1990:229. 95 First attested by Philaster of Brescia at the end of the 4 th c. CE. The original Syriac version has not survived, and Greek MSS exist from the 94

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the apostle Thomas arriving at Andrapolis, a royal city. Thomas finds the community at a great feast celebrating the marriage of the king’s only daughter. The text echoes the mandatory wedding invitation in Matthew 22. Thomas learns that “the king has sent out heralds to proclaim everywhere that all should come to the wedding, rich and poor, bond and free, strangers and citizens; but if any one refuse, and come not to the marriage that one shall be accountable to the king.’”96 The banquet is full of celebrating guests with the bride and groom already gone from the feast and in their wedding chamber. In the next scene, the king, hearing that Thomas is an apostle, says: “Arise and come with me, and pray for my daughter! For she is my only child, and today I give her in marriage.” But the apostle would not go with him, for the Lord was not yet revealed to him there. But the king led him away against his will into the wedding chamber, that he might pray for them [the bridal pair].97

This blessing, by an apostle and in the wedding chamber, offers the earliest example of an officiant actually entering the chamber to bless the couple. In apocryphal acts, people often ask blessings of the apostles wherever they find them. Quickly the audience learns, however, that the joke is on the king, who thinks he can commandeer God’s blessing for his own purposes. The king, who anticipates a fruitful union, grandchild and heir, has just made a disastrous move in inviting Thomas to participate, as he comes to discover. Meanwhile, the feast goes on, and this blessing does not appear to have an audience other than the attendants and the king. After blessing them, Thomas leaves the chamber. The text makes sure the reader knows that everyone has left: “The king 11th c. and following. Drijvers suggests, however, that while the extant Syriac version “displays a catholicising revision . . . [it] also preserved much that is original” (1992:323–4). 96 Acts Thom 1.4–8, translation adapted from Drijvers 1992:340–3. 97 Acts Thom 9.

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required the attendants to go out of the wedding chamber. And when all had gone out and the doors were shut . . .” This careful departure may not be common wedding practice—here it serves the dramatic function of clearing the stage for the Houdini-like reappearance of Thomas (or rather Jesus’s appearance in the guise of his twin, Thomas): The bridegroom lifted up the veil of the wedding chamber that he might bring the bride to himself. And he saw the Lord Jesus in the likeness of the apostle Judas Thomas, who shortly before had blessed them and departed from them, conversing with the bride, and he said to him: “Did you not go out before them all? How are you now found here?”98

This appearance of Jesus in the guise of Thomas evokes the resurrection appearance of Jesus in the locked room in John 20.19– 29. In this episode, however, Thomas is not the doubter. Rather, he is the one through whom Jesus leads the couple to a holy life. Jesus-Thomas sits the couple down on the bed and urges that they “abandon this filthy intercourse” and “become holy temple[s].” Following his advice, they enter a celibate union. In the morning, they reveal their new relationship to the furious king. Just at the moment when one would have expected the consummation of this marriage, Jesus-Thomas enters the chamber. This intrusion interrupts the intended union as surely as the demon in Tobit had. The intrusion into the wedding chamber in Acts Thom ultimately disrupts rather than furthers the sexual and procreative union of bride and groom. An ascetic Christian might see it as saving the couple at a highly dramatic moment, which is played up by the surprise. One may safely conclude that the text means for its audience to feel the contrast between the private wedding chamber and the outside intervention. Beyond this, interpretation of the scene becomes more complicated. Given its challenge to marriage, it seems unlikely that this text advocates having representatives of Christ bless wedded couples as they enter the marriage bed. Could this scene allude (perhaps mockingly) to other Christian groups who do bless marrying couples rather than protect them from 98

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“filthy intercourse”?99 Some evidence suggests that certain Christian officials in the late fourth century C.E. did bless couples, although nothing indicates that they actually entered the wedding chamber. Either the Acts of Thomas knows of a bedside practice for which there is no surviving evidence or it changes the typical location of blessing rituals for dramatic or polemical effect. Perhaps the entire scene, blessing and location, deviate from tradition. It certainly seems plausible that certain Christians who advocated celibacy would have rejected those who offered wedding blessings, regardless of where they offered them. Even if many Christians recognized the need for both celibate and reproducing adherents, they might have stopped short of blessing human marriages. Regardless of how exactly this text reflects reality, if at all, it does offer a counterpoint to the notion that blessings were routinely offered in the wedding chamber. As we have already seen, no rabbinic evidence before the ninth century C.E. presents blessings at any place other than the feast. 100

FEASTING AT WEDDINGS: THE POTENTIAL FOR SOCIAL DISORDER AND SOCIAL FORMATION As the feast becomes the locus of more rabbinic participation, however, we also see evidence of greater concern regarding the wildness of weddings. As they do today, weddings created their own momentum: in antiquity, families began to spend a good deal of money on wedding feasts. One Amoraic legal decision recognizes this by determining that in the case where the father of Dyan Elliott notes that although all the Apocryphal Acts describe “radical interference with the marriage bond,” this couple is: “one of the few instances of a joint conversion between spouses that was amiably resolved by a chaste marriage. Generally hostility between the sexes is maximized” (1993:29 and 40). 100 In fact, in the Middle Ages, where one does find huppot (canopies) under which a rabbi blesses the wedding couple within view of family and guests, there develops a separate chamber which takes over the function of offering privacy to the bride and groom. In a practice called yihud the modern wedding couple may seclude themselves together in a chamber (no longer referred to as the huppah) after other parts of the ceremony. 99

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the groom or the mother of the bride dies suddenly, despite obligations to mourn (and thus not feast) the wedding would continue as planned if “the water had [already] been put on the meat, but if water had not [yet] been put on the meat, it is to be sold [and the wedding postponed].”101 If the wedding cannot be postponed due to the expense of the feast, wedding and funeral rites must accommodate each other. As we have seen repeatedly, the proximity of the wedding chamber colored what went on at the feast. Talmudic strictures warn: “All know for what purpose a bride enters the wedding chamber, yet for one who speaks obscenely [about these things], even a confirmed sentence of seventy years’ happiness is reversed [and replaced with one] for evil.”102 The rabbis seem to be revealing that the challenge was to celebrate this great procreative opportunity without becoming bawdy—or at least too bawdy. Ironically, the grooms’ blessing appears to speak of what the bride does in the wedding chamber. So we see that this warning against vulgarity either points to an internal rabbinic contradiction, differing practices among rabbinic groups, or one rabbinic group making a distinction between an authorized text of the grooms’ blessing and other inappropriate speech. A Mishnaic account tells of rabbis and their disciples who stayed at wedding feasts until after midnight, but it says nothing about the late-night celebration.103 Exploration of wildness at wedding feasts appears in a later talmudic story of two rabbis who each break a glass: Mar son of Rabina made the wedding feast for his son. When he noticed that the Rabbis were very wild, he brought a precious cup worth four hundred Zuz, and broke it before them and they immediately became sad. R. Ashi made the wedding feast for his son. When he noticed that the Rabbis

bKetub 4a. bSabb 33a. 103 mBer 1.1 considers whether this makes them too late for the recitation of the evening prayer (sh’ma). 101 102

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were very wild, he brought a cup of wine and broke it before them and immediately they became sad.104

This text situates its action at the feast. It identifies excessive wildness as a source of concern and offers a remedy. Modern wedding guests actually expect a broken glass at a Jewish wedding: perhaps this cup story was the prototype, perhaps not. The Talmud offers nothing more than the narrative itself.105 The text shows rabbinic-era rowdiness at a wedding feast as well as a possible rabbinic response. Another rabbinic account tells of death and mayhem as the hour grows later and later: “The prudent among them began leaving during the ninth hour of the day. . . . Others rose to leave at sunset. . . . Others left during the second and third hour of the night, while some shops were open and others were closed. . . . Those remaining were overcome with wine and fell to killing and wounding each other.”106 Contemporaneous Christian clerics also expressed concern about excess at weddings, but it appears that most of the comparable occasions remained festive and enjoyable. One comment reveals that scholars returned from wedding feasts with oil on their heads, which somehow broadcast to the community that the bride was a virgin.107 Perhaps if weddings were only wild, their dangerousness might outweigh their importance, but obviously weddings are also special events. A parable that appears in rabbinic accounts, and interestingly enough in the fragments of the Apocryphon of Ezekiel, bBer 30b–31a, translation adapted from Lauterbach, 1925. Lauterbach observes that “no express comment is made in the Talmud about this strange performance on the part of these two rabbis.” He interprets their strange action as intending “to avoid the danger of provoking the envy of the demons by deceiving them and making them believe that the people were sad” (1925:362). 106 Sem 8.10. 107 bKetub 17b. This is one of many indications that communities celebrated more extensively for the weddings of virgins. Note also how tSotah 15.9 (discussed in Chapter Three above) prohibits anointing oil. The rabbinic heads anointed with oil recall the feasting scene in the Acts of Thomas, where Thomas is surrounded by guests putting oil on their heads, beards and bodies, Acts Thom 1.5. 104 105

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which is preserved in Christian sources, shows the communal importance of a feast.108 The story tells of a lame man and a blind man who seek revenge because they were not invited to the banquet celebrating the wedding of the king’s son. They help each other and then get caught. Their adventures relate only to the feast, which provides the site of their exclusion or inclusion. They display no thought for the bride and groom;109 it is the public forum that captures their attention. As ambiguous as the origin may be, this story’s appearance in both Christian and Jewish accounts only serves to underscore shared communal concerns around feasts. In addition, some stories concerning Jesus may describe Jewish traditions concerning the behavior of wedding guests. In Matthew 22, a king invites guests who do not respond to his invitation. Then he invites people off the streets, one of whom appears at the feast dressed inappropriately and receives punishment for his attire. The parable tells us that the wedding is like “the kingdom of heaven,” and concludes that “many are called, but few are chosen.”110 In this and other stories like it, there is good reason not to expect verisimilitude or descriptions of real practice. At the very least, however, it appears that feasts provide a setting for communal gathering and the staging area for messages of communal import. Likewise, in the Gospel of John, the mother of Jesus calls upon her son when the wine runs out at the wedding in Cana. He provides a miracle, changing water to wine, and the wedding continues. The action takes place around the feast, including servants and guests.111 The feast, with its thirsty guests, becomes a fitting “stage” for this story, which takes on grand proportions. The wedding feast appears also to have been a locus for acts of philanthropy. A mosaic inscription found in an ancient synagogue describes itself as a building contribution that was

The Apocryphon is cited by Epiphanius, Panarion 64.70.5–7, discussed in Bejamin Wright 1998:292. See also Bregman 1991. 109 Or for the wedding chamber. 110 Matt 22.1–14. 111 John 2.1–11. 108

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promised at a wedding dinner.112 Rabbi Isi haKohen, the honorable Birabbi, “vowed at the (wedding) feast of Rabbi Yohanan haKohen the Sopher Birabbi his son” to build the mosaic and plastering the walls of the synagogue.113 In rabbinic literature the undefined term feast frequently refers to weddings. There seems little doubt in this case since the father gives the feast for his son; the inscription records both the vow and the occasion. As philanthropy can become a cornerstone of community, its place here cements the feasts’ social centrality. Roman, Jewish, and Christian accounts of feasts depict great energy, sometimes even wildness. The proximity of the wedding chamber certainly contributes to the atmosphere of the feast, but for all but the bride and groom the real action occurs at the feast itself. Since the Amoraic texts articulate the grooms’ blessing for these weddings, the literature is further evidence of Amoraim envisioning their presence at weddings, as well as their anxiety about what else goes on there. Using Ortner as one guide, we see that the feasts didn’t dictate the rabbis’ behavior. On the contrary, rabbis navigated the feast’s challenges and potentially dangerous energy, shaping their own roles. Blessings were an important enough opportunity to balance these continuing concerns. Perhaps the opportunity to insinuate their participation into these occasions might alone account for their behavior. Jewish banquets did not exist alone in the world, however, and feast-related competition ensued, an indication that these occasions did indeed come to be considered constitutive of group identity.

THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD’S CONCERN WITH ATTENDING NEIGHBORING FEASTS Positing that Amoraic rabbis come to include themselves more often and more explicitly in Jewish feasts helps explain their growing anxiety regarding the feasts of other communities. Each Lee Levine indicates that this synagogue in Susiya was built in the c. C.E. (2005:177). 113 Joseph Naveh 1978:115, #75; translation S.J.D. Cohen 1981:6. See also Levine 2005:364 and 522. 112

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individual account of a wedding feast may or may not prove interesting, but together they disclose the communal importance of these occasions. Christine Hayes’s research on talmudic prohibitions about Jews attending the wedding feasts of Gentiles shows that Amoraic rabbis grew stricter in prohibiting Jews from attending the feasts of their neighbors, where we might have expected growing leniency. While the Tosefta establishes moral grounds for Jews not attending non-Jewish weddings, the Babylonian Talmud expands these prohibitions,114 forbidding even accepting Gentiles’ invitations, rather than avoiding consuming their food: . . . Surely this applies only when there is actual consumption [and not just acceptance of the invitation]? Rava said, “If so, the verse would have said only ‘and you will eat of his sacrifice.’ Why then does it say ‘and invite you?’ (Exod 34.15). This extends the prohibition to the time of his attendance (generally).”

It’s not just Gentile feasts that ruffle the Amoraic rabbis’ feathers. The Babylonian Talmud recognizes dangers posed by wedding feasts specifically: Thus, all 30 days [of the feast celebration], whether or not it is mentioned that the feast is connected with the wedding, it is forbidden. From then on, however, if it is stated that it is connected with the wedding, it is forbidden, while if connection with the wedding is not stated, it is permitted.115

Observing the stringency of the Babylonian Talmud,116 Hayes reads the expansions made by this later text as prohibitions against social interaction: Christine Hayes 1997:160, discussing tAbod Zar 4.6. bAbod Zar 8a, translation Hayes 1997:162. 116 Hayes writes: “in regard to the social question, the Bavli utilizes an aggadic tradition to establish a halakhic standard (although in Palestinian sources this step is not made), allowing the development of a set of remarkably stringent halakhot unprecedented in the Palestinian sources” (1997:154). 114 115

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It should also be pointed out that what is prohibited here is social interaction, specifically accepting hospitality (i.e. food and drink) from a non-Jew around the time of a feast that could feature idolatrous worship or sacrifice. . . . Thus we see that a Palestinian aggadic text expressing disapproval of Jewish acceptance of hospitality extended by non-Jews, even if precautions are taken to ensure that no impure foods are consumed, has become in the Bavli the basis for a series of extremely strict halakhot discouraging Jews from eating at the homes of non-Jews for extended periods around a private wedding feast.117

These rulings display a remarkable new concern about Jewish feast-goers, even though older theories lead one to expect a leniency. This contradicts the earlier, “widely held theory that prohibitions on Jewish-Gentile relations were relaxed in the [Babylonian] diaspora.”118 Because of this new rabbinic concern with Gentile feasts, we cannot assume a simple, liberalizing trajectory in Amoraic social initiatives.119 Babylonian evidence locates significant action and therefore significant danger in feasts, so Hayes calls for new explanations, noting that the only exception to the earlier consensus was E. E. Urbach, who proposed that Jews responded to some new danger of assimilation, prompting them to distinguish and distance themselves from Gentiles and their lifestyles.120 The evidence in this chapter points to the rabbis perceiving new danger because they saw more clearly the importance of weddings. After all, their own rabbinic movement was in the process of redefining its relationship to weddings. As active participants in Jewish weddings, they put themselves in a position to understand the social impact that neighboring Christian feasts could have on their Jewish guests.

Hayes 1997:164, italics hers, my emphasis in bold. Hayes 1997:154. David Freidenreich considers these stringencies in light of his explorations of foreigners and food (2011:74–6). 119 Hayes 1997:165. 120 Hayes 1997:169. 117 118

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Dietary precautions alone could not protect against the real threat of these feasts. The Babylonian Talmud does not name its neighbors as Christians. The continued presence of “pagan” weddings could explain a consistent anxiety concerning attending outside weddings, but it cannot explain an increase in that anxiety.121 The rabbis’ concerns grow stronger in the Amoraic period. Throughout our consideration of the contexts and challenges that led to the rabbinic development of the grooms’ blessing at Jewish weddings, we have uncovered many reasons why the rabbis would wish participants in rabbinic practices would avoid the weddings of their non-Jewish neighbors. A feast provides a powerful social arena. Weddings serve as a communal context wherein the families of the groom and bride and their guests can view revenge, glimpse punishment, observe philanthropy, overhear theological debates, and witness miracles. Stories like those of Mar son of Rabina throwing the glass and the riotous aftermath of the wedding in Semahot show that while the rabbis may not have had much control at these functions, by the time of Babylonian Talmud they chose to be players nonetheless. The displays of wealth and power at these functions may have been reason enough to offset the associated risks, but also to alert them of the allure of non-Jewish weddings for their followers. Ultimately there is little evidence of danger from “pagan” sources. Satlow has suggested that some Jews offered sacrifices at weddings in the manner of their “pagan” neighbors (2001:174). The possibility seems reasonable enough, but there is no real evidence for the practice, as the Jewish action that Satlow interprets as a “sacrifice” was made by Tobias in the Book of Tobit, and is open to other interpretations. 121 When Tobias is confronting the demon that has killed Sarah’s earlier grooms, he follows directions given to him by the angel, Raphael, and throws fish entrails onto the fire, Tob 8.2–3. In Apuleius we find similar evidence for the magic use of fish against demons, Apology, 29–41. With his actions Tobias sends away Asmodeus the demon, even as the daughter of Rabbi Akiba killed the snake by sticking a pin in the wall, above. Perhaps it was also traditional to stick pins in walls prior to weddings, but no other Jewish text refers to either of these practices. 121

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The Babylonian Talmud only vaguely alludes to these dangerous neighbors who should be avoided. It does not name them. It seems unlikely that they were pagan, since the Amoraim appear to respond to a growing threat. It is quite possible that they respond to the weddings of Jewish others, since we know that the rabbinic movement grows in the third and fourth centuries, developing from an insular group to a movement achieving Roman and, later, Islamic, recognition. Perhaps these Jews with much shared history—but who have not associated themselves with the rabbinic movement—began to appear as the chief challenge as the rabbinic movement breaks away. Unfortunately, while we can imagine such circumstances, we have no evidence for that scenario. In light of their growing influence during the era in which the Talmud was redacted, the Christians seem the most likely threat, but the Amoraim do not name them directly. Many wonder why the Babylonian Talmud provides such a flat, nondescript presentation of the fabled other. Jacob Neusner notes that “so far as we are able to tell, the modes of political and social symbolization remained essentially stable in a world of change.”122 In other words, we see evidence of the changes taking place but they occur beneath a static presentation style. Perhaps those most similar to the rabbis disproportionately earned the label other.123 On a fundamental level, we most fear the proximate other. Interestingly enough, Gary Porten observes that the rabbis do not really seem to know what goes on in their contemporary Gentile cults. It may be that the rabbis really didn’t have much interaction with Gentiles and therefore had few actual encounters to go on.124 If the rabbis were vague about cult practices, it is possible that the Gentiles who interested them were Christians or Samaritans, who did not practice idolatry per se. Although the Jews in Babylonia lived among so-called pagans, they also would have encountered neighboring Christian communities and learned of the movement’s Neusner 1985:374. William Green 1985:68. 124 Porten 1985:333–4. Alternatively, Schwartz has suggested that the rabbis ignore non-cultic “paganism” and thus their representation of the cult is (metaphorically) a “misprision” (2001:164). 122 123

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impact, including the fact that Christians articulated wedding blessings. We have evidence for the first Christian blessings at weddings from the same time that the Babylonian Talmud articulates the grooms’ blessing. As historians examining the ancient world century by century (rather than minute by minute, as students of the modern world might) we cannot know whose blessing appeared first and where, or even if there was one single first. We can, however, observe this understudied co-emergence. 125 Since Christian wedding blessings occurred in the same era that rabbinic ones did, the new Christian involvement in weddings should be considered together with the Babylonian Talmud’s heightened concern for the weddings of its neighbors. In this chapter we have been following Ortner’s suggestion that we can only expect to see change in practice when “alternatives become visible, or because actors have or gain the power to bring them into being.”126 So far we have observed the emergence of new players, and the importance of weddings as a stage. Recognizing a neighboring threat, in addition, would certainly have helped make their own actions visible to the rabbis. Even if they had already begun saying blessings, the recognition of a contest for the attention of participants may have fueled their articulations and expectations for this practice. As they saw threat, they also saw promise, and a reason to act. This argument could also work from the other direction as well: as the rabbis were prescribing blessings at weddings, they made these “alternatives” visible to Christian officials, who would also have more incentive to act. The rabbis would have required sufficient authority to act. In fact, the perceived threat from the “other” could have helped lend credibility to the rabbis. As the stature of neighboring Christian authorities grew, some Jews who had previously been uninterested in the rabbinic movements may have come to “need” the rabbis in

For a discussion of the relationship of Christian and Jewish sources see Adam Becker and Annette Reed 2003. 126 Ortner 1989:201. 125

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new ways.127 If the Romans saw the rabbis as somewhat analogous to Christian clerics, then perhaps they appeared so to these other Jews as well. In the changing Roman Empire, their particular training in scriptural interpretation may have made them of more interest to other Jews. Even as Christianity posed a more powerful challenge to Judaism, it provided an opportunity for rabbis to exercise their new authority.128 Thus, talmudic concern about weddings of neighbors clues us in to possibly parallel acts and authorities and directs our attention to early Christian weddings.

PARALLEL CONCERN: THE FEAST STRATEGIES OF CHRISTIAN CLERGY IN ANTIOCH AND ROME Like their rabbinic counterparts, Christian clergy in the fourth and fifth centuries C.E. attended wedding feasts. Canon 54 of the Council of Laodicea (363 C.E.) decrees that clergy should leave weddings early: “Members of the priesthood and of the clergy must not witness the plays at weddings or banquets, but before the players enter, they must rise and depart.”129 These plays may have been different from anything observed at rabbinic weddings, but we observe a shared concern about excessive wildness. At around the same time, John Chrysostom also tells of inappropriate behavior at weddings. He preached against the excesses of his day,

Schwartz argues that “they clearly came to constitute a small professional group of some sort; by the third century they were probably far more cohesive than the scribes and priests of the first century had been” (2001:12). Schwartz builds on the work of Levine 1989, and Hezser 1997. 128 Schwartz explores other connections between Jewish and Christian leadership: “[4th c. emperors] recognized the Jews as a legitimate religious organization, with a clergy whose authority and privileges approximated those of the Christian clergy, and with the right to police their own boundaries of membership without state interference. This recognition should be seen not as traditionalism but as an innovation of the 380s and 390s, which in the end helped redefine the relation between the Jews and the state in a radical way” (2001:192). 129 In E.J. Jonkers 1954:95. 127

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which compared unfavorably with ideal weddings such as that of Isaac and Rebecca: Consider . . . how there was no sign of superfluities and inanities, no sign of devilish rites, no sign of cymbals and pipes and dances, nor their screaming—instead, complete dignity, complete wisdom, complete restraint.130

Chrysostom combined these judgments, however, with a determination to reform these events, urging that couples should have a priest offer a blessing: priests [ought to be] summoned to strengthen the harmony of the union by prayers and blessings so that the love for her spouse may be increased and the young woman’s continence may be heightened.131

He thus provides fourth-century C.E. confirmation that at least one clergyman imagined that priests might offer blessings at weddings—he also acknowledges that this was by no means a universal practice. Chrysostom’s mention of clergy and the Laodicean canon suggest to Brown that John’s suggestion was a marginal one: “Priests were rarely invited to these occasions; and those who came were advised to leave early.”132 I agree with him in interpreting Chrysostom as evidence of rare direct participation; however, the opposite may in fact be true concerning priests’ attendance of weddings. Talmudic episodes show rabbis in attendance not so much as functionaries but as members of their class who would be expected to attend such an important occasion. The Laodicean canon would hardly be necessary if Christian clergy “rarely” went to weddings.

Chrysostom, Homiliae in Genesim 48, translation Robert Hill 1992:112. 131 Hom Gen 48, translation adapted from Hill 1992:112. 132 Peter Brown 1988:313, n. 49. 130

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Before the fourth century C.E. one does not find evidence for a public marriage of an explicitly Christian sort.133 Although Matthew 19.6 includes the statement, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate,” there is no reason to believe that God’s “joining” refers to anything other than the community’s acceptance of a union. Hunter pursues the earliest traces of Christian officials offering blessings at Christian weddings. While he finds no evidence for such blessings in fourth-century North Africa, he does find sources that suggest that, in Rome, Siricius (who would become pope) and Ambrose of Milan offered blessings at weddings.134 Siricius speaks of bestowing a blessing with a veil,135 while Ambrose argues for priestly involvement and against recognizing a marriage where partners do not share their faith: Since it is necessary for the marriage itself to be sanctified by the veil (covering) and blessing of a priest, how is it possible to call this a “marriage” when there is not an agreement in faith?136

Writing in Rome, Ambrose assumes the necessity of priests’ blessings and implies that they make the difference between good unions and bad ones. Note, however, that he does not comment on when and where this blessing takes place. The scene from the Acts of Thomas discussed above seems to challenge the idea that anyone would bless the couple in the wedding chamber. So perhaps Ambrose blessed the couple at the feast, although the text does not say. All the while acknowledging the difficulty of assigning dates to sources such as Acts Thom, which may be earlier or later than the 4th c. CE. 134 Hunter 2000a:3. In asking these questions, Hunter makes apparent the need for a new study of Christian marriage practice. Korbinian Ritzer 1970, and Kenneth Stevenson 1982, both provide a lot of information, but rely on uncritical assumptions where Jewish practice is concerned. 135Siricius, ep 1.4.5 (PL 13.1136–7). 136 Ambrose, ep 62.7 (CSEL 82/2.124), my translation. “Nam cum ipsum coniugium velamine sacerdotali et benedictione sanctificari oporteat, quomodo potest coniugium dici, ubi non est fidei concordia?” 133

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Like Canon 54, like John Chrysostom, and like the rabbis who responded to wedding excess by breaking glasses, Ambrose also worries about weddings that demonstrate an inappropriate degree of wildness. He argues: There ought then to be the joy of the mind, conscious of right, not excited by unrestrained feasts, or nuptial concerns, for in such [things] modesty is not safe and temptation may be suspected where excessive dancing accompanies festivities. 137

For those officials who offer blessings on behalf of their church, the wedding feast hangs in the balance between its potential for increasing their authority and the risk that its wildness might taint all present, presumably including clergy. One final text from Rome alludes to God’s blessing, if not the blessing of Christian officials. In addition, it draws a fruitful connection between Christian ideas about marriage and Jewish practice. An unknown writer, presumably of clerical status and later given the name Ambrosiaster, speaks of a Jewish tradition as he comments upon the creation of Adam and Eve.138 Considering the question of procreation, he writes: Therefore, how could something, which receives its increase with God’s blessing and favor, be said to have come into being wrongly or not to be allowed? The tradition (traditio) of this thing has remained in the synagogue and now is celebrated in the church. The result is that God’s creature is joined under the blessing of God, and not by arrogant presumption, since the form (forma) has been given by the Maker himself.139

Thomas Fisch and David Hunter have argued that Ambrosiaster uses the word forma “to refer to liturgical formulas.” They therefore read this as an allusion to a set blessing that was Ambrose, On Virgins 3.25. I thank Shira Lander for bring this reference to my attention. 138 Fisch and Hunter consider the evidence for his identity (1994:227– 9). 139 Q 127.3, De peccato Adae and Evae (CSEL 50.400) Translation by Fisch and Hunter 1994:230. 137

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first used by Jews. In laying out this argument, Fisch and Hunter depend upon an earlier argument by Kenneth Stevenson: that Christian blessings developed from the Jewish grooms’ blessing.140 Such an argument only works, however, if one assigns an early origin to the text of the grooms’ blessing. I challenge this dating. While Fisch and Hunter observe parallel themes in Ambrosiaster and the grooms’ blessing, the contrast between the two blessings is also striking.141 As opposed to the details of the creation of Eve in the grooms’ blessing, Ambrosiaster’s treatment of the creation of woman can only be described as implied. Themes of redemption in the grooms’ blessing also find no analogue. A more minimalist interpretation would argue that this comment by Ambrosiaster need not refer to the grooms’ blessing and may only refer to the words “Be fruitful and multiply”(Gen 1.28); forma may have referred merely to the idea or practice of marriage itself.142 Nonetheless, the comments of Ambrosiaster allude to blessings shared by Jews and Christians.143 This text, together with other Roman evidence from Siricius and Ambrose, suggests that Ambrosiaster and other clerics moved to forge and formalize the tradition of blessing presentation. In casting about for reasons why this move toward blessings at weddings took place at this time, we have to consider Emperor Julian’s success as a post-Constantinian pagan emperor, however short his term. His reign gave Christian authorities reason to strengthen their position, so that the empire might continue becoming Christian. We also observe that the fourth century continued to witness Christian groups defending different positions on celibacy and procreation. Ambrose himself was a great defender of celibacy, but he did not envision a completely celibate Christian people. Rather, he may well have recognized the opportunity that Stevenson 1982:3–13. Fisch and Hunter 1994:233–5. 142 In his more recent work, Hunter 2000a, recognizes the need to reevaluate some of Stevenson’s conclusions. 143 Study of 3rd and 4th c. CE Rome also suggests there was more contact between Christians and Jews than previously recognized, Leonard Rutgers 1995:260–2. 140 141

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weddings provided for a church seeking wealthy patrons and opportunities to consolidate its authority. Blessing brides and grooms from wealthy families might make particular sense in the aftermath of Emperor Julian, “the apostate.” By appearing at the weddings of powerful families, church officials could garner visibility and goodwill for their movement.144 This tradition’s emergence in the fourth century C.E. contextualizes the parallel move and parallel blessings in rabbinic circles.

CONFRONTATIONS CONCERNING MARRIAGE IN MESOPOTAMIA While Christian clergy in Antioch and Rome insinuated themselves and built their power by saying blessings at Christian weddings, some Christians who lived closer to Babylonia appear to have directly challenged Jewish practices and ideas. In fourth-century Mesopotamia, Aphrahat wrote Demonstrations confronting the ideas of the Jews. In one set of Demonstrations dealing with questions of procreation and celibacy, he wrote, “I shall show you that virginity and sanctity were worth more before God . . . than much procreating, which profited naught.”145 He appears to respond to a perceived threat to his community by local Jews who associated purity with having a wife and procreating: I have written to you, my beloved, concerning virginity and holiness because I heard about a Jewish man who has reviled one of our brethren, the members of the church. He said to him, “You are impure for you don’t take wives. But we are holy and more virtuous for we bear children and multiply seed in the world.”146

While Aphrahat’s identification of sexual abstinence with uncleanness might seem unusual—rabbis never categorized sexual

I thank David Hunter for this suggestion. Demonstrations 18.4 146 Demonstrations 18.12, cited in Anderson 1989:122–3. 144 145

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abstainers as unclean147—we must recall that this is Aphrahat, not the rabbis, interpreting Jewish ideas. As Daniel Boyarin explains: we can see, however, that Aphrahat’s allusion is exactly correct. For the (Babylonian) Rabbis (the ones that Aphrahat’s congregation would have been in contact with), someone who was unmarried was impure, on the assumption that he would necessarily engage in impure thoughts or more probably seminal emissions, which would, of course, produce impurity in the technical sense.148

If this assumption was consonant with the idea that marriage provides an appropriate sexual outlet,149 this may suggest reason to believe that Aphrahat represents the ideas of real Jews. Aphrahat indicates that he responds because Jews attack. Jews were apparently challenging his community, saying to him: But you do something not commanded by God, for you have received a curse and have increased barrenness. You hinder generation, the blessing of righteous men. You do not take wives, and you are not husbands for wives. You hate procreation, a blessing given by God.150

Aphrahat only reports the Jewish challenge in order to counter it. Behind this description appear not only Jewish ideas of procreation vastly different from the Tannaitic ideas considered in chapter 3, nor only Christian response to an attack on celibacy, but also a hint of Christians and Jews in close proximity. Aphrahat’s words imply Christians in dialogue with Jews, or at least concerned about what each other said. Building on Neusner’s Jewish-studies Anderson 1989:122–3. Daniel Boyarin 1993:139, no. 10. Naomi Koltun also cites their exchange (1993:130). 149 Boyarin 1993:139, citing bYoma 72b. J. Cohen also seems to see this possibility when he explains that “Eusebius’ junior contemporary, the fourth century Iranian monk Aphrahat, also recorded the accusations of at least one Jewish polemicist, who cited Gen 1.28, 9.1 and 9.7 and other pentateuchal guarantees of fertility” (1989:234). 150 Demonstrations 18.1, Koltun 1993:114–5. 147 148

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focus on Mesopotamian Christianity,151 Naomi Koltun explains that the late fourth century C.E. may have been an important time for these Demonstrations because, while the Persian Empire had always offered persecutions and challenges to Christians living there, the career of the Roman emperor Julian reignited their fears of pagans—and, by extension, Jews—in power.152 She explains that “many Syriac-speaking Christians lived in the Roman empire—just over the border from Persia. This was especially true just after Julian’s death in 363 CE. Many Christians, including the famous poet and writer, Ephrem, fled over the border to [Roman] Edessa.” Jews lived in some of these same communities,153 and anti-Jewish sentiment resurged, stronger and sharper than before. The later fourth century C.E. proved a time of mounting tension between Jews and Christians in Mesopotamia. It provided an opportunity for Christians as well as Jews to see new alternatives in society. In this context of competition over ideas and power, the grooms’ blessing appears as a tool for actors engaged in a real contest. The rabbis could insinuate the blessing into the feast, a place that was accepting of social dialogue, drama, and debate. Perhaps initially allusions to sexual relations in the grooms’ blessing may have even recollected Jewish-Christian debates. Such references would have mattered because they were current, because people cared about the political need to negotiate positions, and because those attending feasts found entertainment value in contest. If the content of the blessing itself also mattered, we have no reason to believe that it was the primary concern of many participants. To say that rivalry between Jews and Christians provides an explanation for more rabbinic engagement at celebrations of marital sexual relations does not mean that the text of the grooms’ blessing found in Babylonian Talmud Ketubbot was Neusner always takes care to consider that these Jews may or may not have been rabbis (1999a:155 and 193–5). 152 Koltun 1993, citing Averil Cameron’s Lecture at Hebrew University, May 1991. 153 Koltun notes that by the 4th c. CE the Jewish communities of southern Mesopotamia grew in strength as those of the north weakened (1993:45). 151

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created with Christians in mind, nor does it preclude that internal divisions within the rabbinic movement remained, but it recognizes that neighboring Christians provided one more sociopolitical pressure. If Roman bishops, who did offer wedding blessings, were responding in some manner to the reign of Julian the pagan, in Mesopotamia Emperor Julian’s reign appears to have made a beleaguered Christian community feel even more vulnerable. Under a Persian government that had always challenged celibacy, Aphrahat’s Demonstrations represented a “digging in” with regard to these issues. Meanwhile, Jews may also have felt the need to secure their own position after Julian’s disappointingly brief rule. Perhaps Julian’s move to rebuild the Temple provided an additional impetus for the Jewish hope articulated within the grooms’ blessing: “Speedily, O Lord our God, may there be heard in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness . . .”154 Thus the fears and hopes of Christians and Jews were balanced one against the other. Koltun describes the complex interrelationship of their challenges and their communities: “The Jewish-Christian polemic contrived to bring the opponent around to the correct point of view. In the case of marriage and celibacy the differences in interpretation caused some confusion, for there were traditional ascetical precedents in Judaism as well as pro-marriage precedents among Christians.”155 Despite their similarities, however, it does appear that the Jewish embrace of procreation fit better with Persian governmental policy than did Christian celibacy, thus further disrupting relations between the two communities.156

CONCLUSION Given context, the ideas present in and enacted by the grooms’ blessing seem like appropriate responses. Internal ambivalence The sixth blessing component in b. Ketub 8a. I wish to thank Ross Kraemer for this suggestion. 155 Koltun 1993:131. 156 Koltun 1993:59–67. 154

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about weddings may have continued within rabbinic movements, but the need to defend marriage against Christian challenges grew stronger. The broad circulation, in various formats, of Christian ideas concerning weddings (such as demonstrations, transcontinental letters, and blessings) suggests a visible issue. Even if Augustine’s ideas concerning Eden and the intercourse of Adam and Eve represented only one Christian view, by featuring Adam, Eve, and Eden, Augustine’s letters reveal that the grooms’ blessing did not pursue concepts unknown at the time. Rather, the grooms’ blessing appears to fit into a trend of sorts. That some Christian clergy had begun to participate in weddings would have also made the development of appropriate Jewish blessings appear timely. The actions of each group’s leadership would have helped the other recognize the power of such gatherings. Roman and Christian wedding feasts provide a larger context in which to understand what the rabbis were doing. Rabbinic concern about neighboring feasts, together with the apparent coincidence of innovations at contemporaneous Christian wedding celebrations, comes together to suggest a fine context for the grooms’ blessing to develop. Amoraic presentations of weddings differ markedly from earlier Tannaitic comments, which may refer to something called the grooms’ blessing, but they do not discuss the words or ideas expressed in that benediction. It is possible that a prior, still unsettled statement provided the grounds for construction of this particular script, but the text, themes, and actions surrounding the grooms’ blessing, as they appear in the Babylonian Talmud, fit at least as well, if not better, in the Amoraic period in which they are found. The late rabbinic ritualizing of weddings is evidence of sweeping changes. In the fourth and fifth centuries C.E., this blessing would have been one of a number of practices indicating that the rabbis increasingly involved themselves in communal activities that were neither strictly pietistic nor judicial. Until this time, weddings were not seen as moments for “strong public affirmation of group identity.”157 In other words, many Tannaitic Schwartz has recently observed this trend in burial practices: “Indeed, if it is the case that even strongly ‘Jewish’ Jews were often buried 157

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practices that we may now think of as Jewish rites of passage were not yet conceptualized as such. The early rabbis did not serve as communal leaders at life-cycle ceremonies. Neither do we find any evidence that the community expected their attention at such moments. This begins to change in the Amoraic period, with the development of the grooms’ blessing. As scholars reconsider the nature of the rabbinic movements in the Roman period and in late antiquity—as well as the political, social and religious factors that might lead to significant changes— wedding practices provide an apt case study. As the development of the grooms’ blessing shows, exposure to the practices of different groups coincided with the emergence of self-consciously rabbinic wedding practices. Crafting the grooms’ blessing was a means whereby the rabbis could increase their involvement in the weddings that they attended anyway. They articulated this blessing only as they came to recognize themselves as actors facing new challenges that opened up new avenues. After insisting that everyone should learn the grooms’ blessing, it would have been a small step to offer to help with the recitation of this blessing at weddings of families more marginally connected with the rabbinic movements. The grooms’ blessing would have served as a perfect vehicle for rabbis to increase their sphere of influence—securing their communal roles and at the same time expanding the communities they administered.

without the accompaniment of Jewish iconography—that despite what we are accustomed to think about such liminal moments as birth, death, marriage and so on, death was not yet generally an occasion among Palestinian Jews for strong public affirmation of group identity—then Beth Shearim shows that the judaization of Jewish burial practice was now (third-fourth century) underway in some circles” (2001:154).

CONCLUSION The wedding feast ends. The bride and groom remain in the huppah. The guests go home. Our texts have suggested that some go home to say the evening sh’ma while others will sleep off too much drink. Perhaps still others will reflect on the blessings they recited at the wedding feast and their role in this changing world. We too reflect, taking a step back in order to come to terms with what we have managed to glimpse of ritual and history in early Judaism. As we knew would be the case, it was easy neither to interpret ritual as history nor to reconstruct ritual from historical fragments. Nevertheless, in each case, a determination to refuse the ahistoricism of ritual on one hand, and the extreme skepticism regarding what descriptions of ritual could offer on the other, led us to see overlooked aspects of wedding ritual. Looking at ritual with the help of four of its most incisive theorists—Pierre Bourdieu, Jonathan Z. Smith, Catherine Bell, and Sherry Ortner— revealed the contests and possibilities that had until now remained hidden. Such a method does not permit us to create a “day in the life” of a couple entering into marriage, but it does allow for insights into certain actions, as well as certain corrections to earlier histories. Each chapter addressed a different moment in wedding ritual, and each considered the limits and possibilities of the evidence. Chapter 1 looked anew at betrothals, revealing the Tannaim ritualizing their own roles as scrutinizers of unions after the fact, with little or no thought to the ritualizing done by those contracting a betrothal. We then looked further at the ritual acts that remained under the tannaitic radar, in this case wedding preparations. A small handful of Amoraic texts reveal that later rabbis did come to offer opinions on preparations of the bride, although again they reflected their own role in these matters. Rabbinic action in chapter 3 involved compromise, with Tannaitic 189

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reports revealing rabbis understanding themselves to be entering end times and thus balancing their own disinterest in wedding ritual with a recognition that they might offer moderation in the face of radicalism. Only with the Amoraim do we see intentional ritualizing, observing in chapter 4 how the rabbis established new practices and thus a new role. Together these studies sketch a progression of early Jewish ritual moments. While recent scholarship has suggested that there was a much stronger ascetic streak in rabbinic literature than had previously been considered, those observations had not been extended to include their impact on the ritualizing of family events. Only through considering ritual acts, particularly wedding processions, is it so clear that ascetic perspectives impacted Tannaitic views of weddings. Likewise, in focusing specifically on ritual, we have recognized changes marking Tannaitic and Amoraic practices. If Seth Schwartz is correct that Christianization spurs Judaization, then we are right to consider the broader context for the changes instituted by the rabbis.1 Schwartz suggests that late antiquity creates the category religion into which the rabbis had to then fit, because they could no longer rely on the world as they had known it. That change affected weddings, with new relationship between rabbis, ceremonies, and the families of those marrying as perhaps analogous to the new relationships forged in Christian circles. This change in weddings certainly deserves to be studied in concert with the other innovations and adaptations of this period. Since so much of Jewish weddings parallels Greek, Roman, and Christian practices, further insights on the ritualizing history of any of these weddings should impact how we think about Jewish ones. As scholars continue to debate the components and order of Greek weddings, analysts of Jewish practice will also wish to remain cautious about describing the Hellenistic Jewish traditions built upon those foundations. It’s now clear that earlier scholars of Christian traditions based their work upon preliminary conclusions about Jewish weddings that no longer appear valid; similarly, Schwartz 2001:179. Schwartz also argued that third and fourth centuries CE Imperial recognition of “Jews as a legitimate religious organization” redefined rabbinic authority (2001:192). 1

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scholars of Jewish practice must be careful about the descriptions of Christian weddings that they rely upon, and the extent to which they do so. In other words, scholarship on these neighboring cultures must be interdependent. Like runners in a three-legged race, these lines of inquiry must remain aware of the ever-changing whereabouts of the other “legs” or risk a fall. Changes in wedding practice throughout the ancient world therefore provide implications for the practices alluded to in rabbinic literature. Nevertheless, we have observed that such changes remained almost invisible until we began to consider the nature of practice itself. The grooms’ blessing only appeared innovative when we were willing to forgo both assumptions of ritual continuity and absolute skepticism. This insistence upon a more nuanced interpretation of ritual then helps reveal key differences between the practices of the Tannaim and Amoraim. The practical aspects of Amoraic participation insinuated rabbinic representatives into the fabric of wedding celebrations, with the public nature of their participation shaping public recognition and support for their movements. Altogether the focus on the nature of ritual reveals the innovation surrounding blessings, which helped establish a new trajectory for the rabbis. We still wonder about the men and women who married. In fact, we’ve come to recognize that their ritualizing receives almost no attention from the majority of our sources, which instead reflect the acts performed or directed by their rabbinic authors. Nevertheless, models by Bourdieu, Smith, Bell, and Ortner insist upon recognizing all players. So while our decision to read history and ritual together does not necessarily reveal the hidden women and men of the ancient world, it preserves the space in which they must have acted. This approach reveals the Mishnaic accounts of betrothal or processions as partial, coherent only if we posit interlocutors. So too the preparations of the bride and the feasts of the Amoraim tell of rabbis taking new actions, but again such a narrative only makes sense where others persist in their own practices, however invisible they remain in the eyes of our literary sources. Thus, while this ritual focus may not be able to reveal the particular actions of unnamed women and men, it does cast a light that reveals their shadows. Examination of other ritual occasions can likely reveal more about where these silent ones stood.

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If we appreciate glimpsing ritual players in the shadow of these events, we must all the more acknowledge how explicitly weddings negotiate and enact desired identity. Marrying involves status and citizenship, and we see this articulated in rabbinic scrutiny of betrothals, or at least by their vision of themselves as scrutinizers. That literary portrayals of a young woman on the verge of death should nevertheless imagine her moment as bride reveals the life-affirming power of that identity. Likewise, the rabbinic compromise with those who would ban wedding processions acknowledges the power of that communal practice. Finally, as rabbis find their places at wedding feasts they highlight the importance of these events for their communities, and of their own need to include themselves. The repetitiveness and pervasiveness of ritual might imply that all ancient-world Jews must have married, but a reconsideration of the evidence does not allow that assumption to stand. Only those who fall within the boundaries described by marriage regulations could have taken its inclusiveness for granted. In fact, the ritual push to enact the statuses we now accept signals that there are always those on the outside. In twenty-first-century America, advocates for inclusion continue to challenge state constitutions that preserve racial restrictions to marriage and prohibit same-sex marriage. Now, as then, the so-called history of weddings marches beside this history of licit marriage that by its very nature both includes and excludes. The push toward inclusivity in our own time has helped reveal exclusions that too often remained hidden in antiquity, even as we might recognize that assumptions about antiquity have helped veil modern exclusions. Weddings bring in a vast array of communal players and interests, so it should come as no surprise that narratives concerning weddings invariably conceal as well as reveal. Because of the plethora of avenues for involvement, there remains much to consider about these and other ritualized occasions. By insisting on a middle way of approaching the paradox of ritual and history, this book makes a start, thereby revealing how much more we would like to know.

EXCURSUS: TOSEFTA QIDDUSHIN Chapter 1 examined betrothals in the Mishnah. That discussion did not include exploration of the Tosefta because, while it does not contradict the patterns observed and discussed in relation to the Mishnah, it reveals slightly different developments. The Tosefta appears to offer more attention to ritualization of the actions of the bride, groom, and family. The differences between the Mishnah and Tosefta, as well as their similarities and relationship, prove intriguingly complicated. Chapter 3 offers an example of the Tosefta preserving a text that appears to precede the Mishnah. In the case of tractate Qiddushin, however, that sequencing does not seem so likely. After exploring discussions of betrothal in the Tosefta, this excursus considers the significance of the differences between it and the Mishnah, and how our understanding of the relationship of the Mishnah and the Tosefta affects our interpretation. While Mishnah Qiddushin (hereafter m. Qiddushin) focuses on clarifying status as it relates to betrothal, in contrast Tosefta Qiddushin (hereafter t. Qiddushin) devotes more attention to the acts of those betrothing. The opening of t. Qiddushin 1.1 appears to quote the opening of Mishnah 1.1 and continues: By money—how so?1 [If] he gave her money or something worth money, saying to her, “Lo, you are consecrated to me,” “Lo, you are

Note in contrast that mQidd 1.1 only asks how much money, not how a transaction with money would work. 1

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FIRST CAME MARRIAGE betrothed to me,” “Lo, you are a wife to me,” lo this one is consecrated.2 But [if] she gave him money or something worth money and said to him, “Lo, I am betrothed to you,” “Lo, I am sanctified to you,” “Lo, I am a wife to you,” she is not consecrated. [1.2] By a writ [—how so?] . . .3

The Tosefta does two things that the Mishnah does not: it defines the three ways in which a woman is acquired, and it describes correct speech in association with the acts it considers. In other words, it concerns itself with the way betrothal happens. Tosefta Qiddushin acts after the fact but describes a detailed program that might prompt further reflection about practice, whereas m. Qiddushin focuses more narrowly on criteria that apply after the fact. The difference appears most pronounced when considering betrothal by intercourse. In contrast to the bald statement in m. Qiddushin that intercourse is one of three ways, the Tosefta circumscribes betrothal by intercourse. First, t. Qiddushin 1.3 distinguishes which intercourse will serve: By sexual intercourse [—how so?] By any act of sexual relations which is done for the sake of betrothal is she betrothed.

The Tosefta tells us that not all intercourse will satisfy its requirements. Unlike the cases of money and writ, this text does not explicitly require speech with intercourse, but it does require specified “intent,” which differs from the language of m. Qiddushin. In addition, t. Qiddushin explores cases where intercourse alone is insufficient to establish betrothal: [If he said] “Lo I have sexual relations with you on condition that father approves,” even though the father did not approve, she is betrothed. These three phrases appear to be alternatives. But once again there is ambiguity and they might also be interpreted as cumulative or consecutive steps. 3 tQidd 1.1–2, trans. Neusner 2002. 2

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R. Simeon b. Eleazar says in the name of R. Meir, “If the father approved, she is betrothed. If the father did not approve, she is not betrothed. For the act of sexual relations was conditional on approval of betrothal (‫ )על תנאי הראשון‬.”4

Intercourse alone is here insufficient to establish acquisition. According to R. Simeon b. Eleazar, intercourse can be demoted from one of three ways, which establishes acquisition as an act dependent upon other conditions being met. Similarly, but concerning a different case, “R. Simeon b. Judah says in the name of R. Simeon, “Even though he had sexual relations, he has not acquired her. For the act of sexual relations was only because of the first act of betrothal (‫[ )אלא מחמת קדושין הראשונים‬which in this case was null].”5 By selecting certain rabbis to comment upon these cases, t. Qiddushin limits, or at the very least appears to limit, the applicability of intercourse as a method of betrothal, or marrying. The differences then between the Mishnah and the Tosefta are substantial. But what do they mean? What is the relationship of these two texts? The traditional answer has been that, while both are Tannaitic and thus earlier rabbinic texts, the Tosefta follows and comments upon the Mishnah.6 According to this view, the agenda of the Tosefta represents a later development. In recent years however, Judith Hauptman and Shamma Friedman have provided important evidence that challenges this set understanding. Hauptman suggests that the Tosefta served as an urMishnah, preceding both the Mishnah and a later version of the Tosefta.7 According to this theory, one version of the Tosefta is quite early, tQidd 3.7, my italics. tQidd 4.4, my italics. This case concerns an original commitment that was “something of less than the value of a perutah.” It thus turns out that the betrothal is void, even if more gifts are sent later, or sexual relations occur. 6 The medieval Shrira Gaon suggests that Tosefta was redacted a generation later than the Mishnah. Both Fox 1999, and Reena Zeidman 1999, give histories which include various medieval and modern arguments. 7 See Hauptman 2005 and discussion in Chapter Three above. 4 5

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prior to the Mishnah. The final Tosefta, according to this view, selects from material available in the early Tosefta and in the Mishnah. We see what appears to be an example of this in chapter 3, with the end-times thinking evident in m. and t. Sotah, with m. Sotah presenting somewhat of an abbreviated version. Given this debate there are at least three possible ways to understand the relationship of m. and t. Qiddushin: (1) the Tosefta is earlier and the Mishnah knows and chooses to ignore the particulars that the Tosefta discusses, (2) the Mishnah did not know the differences concerning betrothal in the Tosefta because the Tosefta is later, or (3) the Tosefta was both an early source and contains later additions. Judith Hauptman has been important in bringing forward aspects of the Tosefta that pertain to women. In her book Rereading the Rabbis: A Woman’s Voice, she focuses on the Tosefta’s inclusion of more detail about the consent of the woman being betrothed; the Mishnah reveals far less. She observes that t. Qiddushin 2.9 “makes it almost explicit that a woman must consent to the betrothal for it to be valid.”8 She further argues that this appears to be a general trend: “The Tosefta, Bavli, and Yerushalmi all require that a woman consent to an offer of betrothal, the Mishnah does not. This may be evidence of a more conservative point of view of the redactor of the Mishnah.”9 To Hauptman, t. Qiddushin 1.1 “felt it necessary to raise the possibility of a woman’s initiating the betrothal procedure,”10 although it ultimately rejects this possibility. Hauptman assumes that real practice by women prompts the Tosefta’s acknowledgement and discussion. Again, she describes a trend: “We thus see that the extent of women’s involvement in initiating and performing the betrothal ceremony expanded over time. First raised and rejected by the Tosefta, it becomes permissible, within limits, in the later amoraic period.”11 Although Hauptman 1998:70. She provides tQidd 2.9: “If he is count [out the coins] and dropping them into her hand, one by one, she may change her mind until he finishes.” 9 Hauptman 1998:70. 10 Hauptman 1998:72, see tQidd 1.1 above. 11 Hauptman 1998:73. 8

EXCURSUS: TOSEFTA QIDDUSHIN

197

this trend does not involve the Mishnah, Hauptman implies that the Mishnah knows of and ignores the idea of a female initiator.12 The Tosefta might be the earlier text, a source text, or both, and the Mishnah merely a selective one. If m. Qiddushin knows and rejects t. Qiddushin, then one finds here more evidence for contemporaneous variety in rabbinic practice and concerns. As an example of this variety, t. Qiddushin shows an interest in formulae for betrothal, an interest that m. Qiddushin overlooks in its pursuit of a description of the citizen body. If m. Qiddushin did know a proto-tosefta, then its particular agenda overrides all concerns with developing a marriage rite. In this scenario, it knows of and ignores practical limits including those designed to circumscribe betrothal by intercourse. Alternately, Hauptman’s point that Amoraic texts develops woman’s consent may place the Tosefta closer in time to the later period, suggesting that these were later additions to the Tosefta, additions not known to the redactors of the Mishnah, as alternatives 2 and 3 above might suggest. Further, we learn something about the question by taking a larger view of m. Qiddushin and especially the first chapter of m. Qiddushin, which exhibits a particularly pronounced structure. Each verse describes a different kind of purchasing, with betrothal appearing as first, and special, but nonetheless just one item on a list. Jacob Epstein has gone so far as to describe this chapter as in and of itself a separate tractate on purchases and obligations.13 In contrast, t. Qiddushin recognizes no such structure. It devotes three whole sentences to interpreting the specifics of m. Qiddushin’s first verse. It then follows with biblical exegesis concerning the wickedness of (and problems that arise from) the acquisition of an unsuitable mate. Only then does it return to the subject of other purchases. In other words, the Tosefta appears to interrupt and expand part of Mishnah,

Hauptman does not imagine why the Mishnah ignores the practice of women initiating betrothal and ignores the Tosefta’s negative comments as well. Her goal is to consider what tQidd adds to available knowledge. 13 Epstein 1957:52–3. 12

198

FIRST CAME MARRIAGE

and then return to same overall structure.14 It is difficult to imagine why the author of the Mishnah would remove some of the specifics of the Tosefta, especially with regard to limits on betrothal by intercourse but, in this case, t. Qiddushin, writing later, simply pays attention to spoken formulae and other developments that were not an issue for the Mishnah. Faced with the more unified structure of the Mishnah and the logical difficulty of dismantling safeguards against seduction and violence, I am inclined to understand the Mishnah as earlier, and that the Tosefta reflects additions to its earlier version. Hauptman argues that the Mishnah requires its audience to know the Toseftan tradition in order to make sense of it.15 I am intrigued by her argument about the sections of Tosefta that she has used as examples, and found it very helpful for dissecting the Mishnah Sotah in chapter 3. In the case of tractate Qiddushin, however, it seems that Mishnah can stand alone, or knows basic proto-Tosefta, but does not know much of the material particular to t. Qiddushin as we know it. This section of Mishnah only has gaps that need filling, if one assumes that it is about practice and for some odd reason failed to include specifics. I argue that m. Qiddushin is not merely selective but unconcerned about these practices. Instead it defines citizenship and defends the purity of the people Israel. I am somewhat uncomfortable about the methodological inconsistency Structure and style can be very subjective measures, however. Conversely, Shamma Friedman 1999 argues that the style in mQidd 1.10 is more refined than in the parallel tQidd 1.13, 120. 15 Hauptman provides an overarching challenge of the temporal priority of the Mishnah. She stresses the difficulties in making sense of the Mishnah without the Tosefta, and the logical problem of explaining why the authors of the Mishnah would write a text that was not comprehensible to its readers. After an in depth exploration of several sections of both Mishnah and Tosefta, Hauptman arrives at the conclusion that the Mishnah could not have stood alone. Instead, says Hauptman, it presents a particular view of the material, all the while depending on its audience to know the proto-Tosefta which provides background (2000:15–17). In addition, Fox 1999 alludes to a variety of arguments as to whether a proto-Tosefta would be oral or written. 14

EXCURSUS: TOSEFTA QIDDUSHIN

199

of depending upon an early Tosefta in chapter 3 and a late one here, since it comes quite close to cherry-picking, but that is what I find makes sense of these two texts. Given the volatile state of Tosefta studies, both possibilities deserve consideration. I eagerly await further developments in this area. The discrepancies between m. and t. Qiddushin provide a certain degree of real-life messiness. Perhaps some rabbis (the author-editors of t. Qiddushin) did interest themselves in process and rites, while others (the author-editors of m. Qiddushin) did not. The observations of chapter 1 stand nonetheless. The agenda of the Mishnah concerning holiness does not find contradiction in t. Qiddushin, which also responds after the fact and concerns citizenship. But t. Qiddushin brings in other interests as well, with its greater attention to female consent. Ultimately neither text prescribes a single, definitive, “acceptable” series of betrothal actions: both m. and t. Qiddushin determine which betrothals to accept. Tosefta Qiddushin’s focus on particular examples of spoken language that will and will not suffice would perhaps more quickly have led the participants to develop betrothal rites as they reshaped their acts to accommodate these standards.16 At that point in time, however, both m. and t. Qiddushin considered betrothals after the fact.

All this once again assumes participants and/or communities who accept the authority of these rabbis, which may or may not have been the case. In this case, t. Qidd also may have been largely theoretical. 16

‫‪APPENDIX:‬‬ ‫‪SELECTED TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS‬‬ ‫‪CHAPTER 1:‬‬ ‫‪m. Qiddushin 1.1:‬‬ ‫האשה נקנית בשלש דרכים‪ ,‬וקונה את עצמה בשתי דרכים‪ .‬נקנית‬ ‫בכסף‪ ,‬בשטר‪ ,‬ובביאה‪( . . . .‬וקונה את עצמה בגט ובמיתת הבעל‪).‬‬ ‫‪m. Qiddushin 3.12:‬‬ ‫כל מקום שיש קדושין ואין עברה – הולד הולך אחר הזכר‪ .‬ואיזו? זו‬ ‫כהנת‪ ,‬לויה וישראלית שנשאת לכהן ‪,‬וללוי וישראל‪ .‬וכל מקום שיש‬ ‫קדושין ויש עברה – הולד הולך אחר הפגום‪ .‬ואיזו? זו אלמנה לכהן‬ ‫גדול‪ ,‬גרושה וחלוצה לכהן הדיוט‪ ,‬ממזרת ונתינה לישראל‪ ,‬בת‬ ‫לישראל לממזר ולנתין‪ .‬וכל מי שאין לה עליו קדושין‪ ,‬אבל יש לה‬ ‫על אחרים קדושין – הולד ממזר‪ .‬ואיזה? זה שבא על אחת מכל‬ ‫העריות שבתורה‪ .‬וכל מי שאין לה לא עליו ולא על אחרים קדושין‪,‬‬ ‫הולד כמותה‪ .‬ואיזה? זה ולד שפחה ונכרית‪.‬‬ ‫‪JIWE–1 26 (CIJ 556):‬‬ ‫| ‪[Cl]audia Aster | [H]ierosolymitana | [ca]ptiva. curam egit‬‬ ‫‪[Ti(berius)] Claudius Aug(usti) libertus | [Pro(?)culus. rogo‬‬ ‫‪vos fac(ite) || [prae]ter licim ne quis | [mi]hi titulum deiciat‬‬ ‫‪cu | [ra]m agatis. vixit annis | XXV.‬‬ ‫‪JIWE-2 62 (CIJ 462):‬‬ ‫‪Felicitas proseli|ta ann(orum) VI NVENN | Peregrina quae‬‬ ‫‪| vixit ann(os) XLVII. | patronus vene || merenti.‬‬

‫‪201‬‬

202

FIRST CAME MARRIAGE

JIWE–2 218 (CIJ 256): Nikete proselyto | digno et benmerenti | Dionysias patrona Fecit. | (menorah)

CHAPTER 2: Based on JIGRE 31 (published earlier as CIJ 1508): Τὴν τὸ πρὶν ἐν μ[ε]γάλοισιν ἀγαλλ|ομένην μελά[θ]ροισι παρθένον| ἀκμαίην, ξεῖνε, δάκρυσον ἐμέ˙ | νυμφοκόμοις στολίδεσσι σὺν ε κόσμοις γὰρ ἂωρος νυμφ νος στυ| γεροῦ τοῦδε λέλογ α τάφου˙ ἡν|ίκα γάρ κώμων πάταγος πρὸς ἐμαῖ|ς δ[ικ]λίσ᾽ [ἢδ]η ἢ[γγει]λέν με λιπῖν | πατ[ρ]ὸ[ς] ἐμοῦ [μ]έλαθρ[ο]ν ὡς ῥό|δον ἐν κήπωι νοτίσιν δροσεραῖσι | τεθηλός [αἰ]φνιδίως με λαβὼ|ν ε[τ ἰὼν ίδη[ς ˙ κο[σι, ξεῖ]|νε, δ᾽ ἐγὼ ἐτέω[ν κύκλους τελέσασα]

PSEUDO-PHILO’S LAB 40.6, IN JACOBSON, 1996: Ego autem non sum saturata thalamo meo, nec repleta sum coronis nuptiarum mearum. Non enim vestita sum splendore sedens in genicio meo et non sum usa Moysi odoris mei, nec fronivit anima mea oleo unctionis quod preparatum est mihi. O mater, in vano peperisti unigenitam tuam, quoniam factus est infernus thalamus meus et genicium meum super terram, et confectio omnis olei quam preparasti mihi effundatur, et albam quam nevit mater mea tinea comedet eam, et corona quam intexuit nutrix mea in tempore marcescat, et stratoria que texuit in genicio mea de iacinctino et purpura vermis ea corrumpat. Et referentes de me convirgines mee in gemitu per dies plangant me.

Translation of LAB 40.6, Harrington, 1985: But I have not made good on my marriage chamber, and I have not retrieved my wedding garlands.

APPENDIX: SELECTED TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS For I have not been clothed in splendor while sitting in my woman’s chamber, And I have not used the sweet-smelling ointment And my soul has not rejoiced in the oil of anointing that has been prepared for me. O Mother, in vain have you borne your only daughter because Sheol has become my bridal chamber, and on earth there is only my woman’s chamber. And may all the blend of oil that you have prepared for me be poured out, and the white robe that my mother has woven, the moth will eat it. And the crown of flowers that my nurse plaited for me for the festival, may it wither up; and the coverlet that she wove of hyacinth and purple in my woman’s chamber, may the worm devour it. And my virgin companions tell of me in sorrow and weep for me through the days.

Translation of LAB 40.6, James, 1917: Yet I have not been satisfied with my bed of marriage, neither filled with the garland of my wedding. For I have not been arrayed with brightness, sitting in my maidenhood; I have not used my precious ointment, neither hath my soul enjoyed the oil of anointing which was prepared for me. O my mother, to no purpose hast thou borne thine only begotten and begotten her upon the earth, for hell is become my marriage chamber. Let all the mingling of oil which thou has prepared for me be poured out, and the white robe which my mother wove for me, let the moth eat it, and the crown of flowers which my nurse plaited for me aforetime, let it wither, and the coverlet which she wove of violet and purple for my virginity, let the worm spoil it; and when the virgins, my fellows, tell of me, let them bewail me with groaning for many days.

203

‫‪FIRST CAME MARRIAGE‬‬

‫‪204‬‬

‫‪Semahot 8.2, Zlotnick, 1966:‬‬ ‫עושין חופה לחתנים ולכלות‪ ,‬ותולין בהן אחד דברים שהביאו אוכל‬ ‫ואחד דברים שלא הביאו אוכל – דברי רבי מאיר‪ .‬ורבי יהודה אומר‪:‬‬ ‫אין תולין בהן אלא דברים שלא הביאו אוכל‪ .‬אילו דברים שתולים‬ ‫בהן? אגוזים שלא הביאו אוכל‪ ,‬ורימונים שלא הביאו אוכל‪,‬‬ ‫גלוסקאות שלא הביאו אוכל‪ ,‬ולשונות של ארגמן‪ ,‬ולגינין וצלוחית‬ ‫של שמן המר‪ .‬ודברים שאין תולים בהן? אגוזים שהביאו אוכל‪,‬‬ ‫ורימונים שהביאו אוכל‪ ,‬וגלוסקאות שהביאו אוכל‪ ,‬ולגינין וצלוחית‬ ‫שלשמן מתוק‪ .‬כללו של דבר‪ :‬כל התולי בחופה אסור בהנאה‪.‬‬

‫‪CHAPTER 3:‬‬ ‫‪Table comparing manuscripts of Tosefta Sotah based on‬‬ ‫‪Lieberman, 1955‬‬ ‫‪t. Sotah 15.8–9 Vienna MS‬‬

‫בפולמוס של אספסינוס גזרו על‬ ‫עטרות חתנים‪.‬‬ ‫ואילו הן עטרות חתנים‪ ,‬של‬ ‫מלח ושל נפרית‪ ,‬אבל של ורד‬ ‫ושל הדס התירו‪.‬‬ ‫בפולמוס של טיטוס גזרו על‬ ‫עטרות כלות‪.‬‬ ‫אילו הן עטרות כלות‪ ,‬אילו‬ ‫זהוריות מזוהבות‪ ,‬אבל יוצאה‬ ‫היא בכיפה של מלח בבית‪.‬‬ ‫ושלא ילמד אדם את בנו יונית‪.‬‬ ‫התירו להם לבית רבן גמליאל‬ ‫ללמד את בניהם יונית‪ ,‬מפני‬ ‫שהן קרובין למלכות‪.‬‬ ‫ושלא לסוד את ביתו בסיד‪,‬‬ ‫בביצת הסיד‪.‬‬ ‫אם עירב בו תבן‪ ,‬או חול‪,‬‬ ‫מותר‪.‬‬ ‫ר' יהודה או' עירב בו חול הרי‬ ‫זה טרכי סיד ואסור אם עירב בו‬ ‫תבן מותר‪.‬‬

‫‪t. Sotah 15.8–9 Erfurt MS‬‬

‫אילו הן עטרות חתנים‪ ,‬אילו של‬ ‫מלח ושל נפרית‪ ,‬אבל של וורד‬ ‫ושל הדס התירו להן‪.‬‬

‫אילו הן עטרות כלות‪ ,‬אילו של‬ ‫זהב‪ ,‬אבל יוצאה היא בכיפה‬ ‫של מלך‪.‬‬ ‫של בית רבן גמליאל התירו‬ ‫ללמוד יוונית‪ ,‬מפני שהן זקוקין‬ ‫למלכות‪.‬‬ ‫ושלא יסוד אדם את ביתו בסיד‪,‬‬ ‫ובביצת הסיד‪.‬‬ ‫ואם עירב בו תבן‪ ,‬או חול‪,‬‬ ‫מותר‪.‬‬ ‫ר' יהודה אומ' עירב בו חול‬ ‫טרכיוסיד הוא‪ ,‬ואסור‪ ,‬תבן‪,‬‬ ‫מותר‪.‬‬

‫‪205‬‬

‫‪APPENDIX: SELECTED TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS‬‬

‫בפולמוס האחרון גזרו על‬ ‫חופת חתנים‪.‬‬ ‫אילו הן חופת חתנים‪ ,‬אלו של‬ ‫זהב‪ ,‬אבל עושה הוא אפיפירות‬ ‫ותולה בה כל מה שירצה‪.‬‬ ‫ושלא תצא כלה באפיריון בתוך‬ ‫העיר‪,‬‬ ‫ורבותינו התירו שתצא כלה‬ ‫באפירון בתוך העיר‪.‬‬ ‫אף על פלטון גזר ר' יהודה בן‬ ‫בבא ולא הודו לו חכמים‪.‬‬

‫אילו הן חופת חתנים אילו‬ ‫זהוריות מוזהבות‪ ,‬אבל עושה‬ ‫הוא אפפירות‪ ,‬ותולה בה כל‬ ‫מין שירצה‪.‬‬ ‫ולא תצא כלה באפיריון בתוך‬ ‫העיר‪.‬‬ ‫אף על פילייטון גזר בן בבא‪,‬‬ ‫ולא הודו לו‪.‬‬

‫‪CHAPTER 4:‬‬ ‫‪b. Ketubbot 7b–8a:‬‬

‫ת"ר‪ :‬מברכין ברכת חתנים בעשרה כל שבעה‪.‬‬ ‫אמר רבי יהודה‪ :‬והוא‪ ,‬שבאו פנים חדשות‪.‬‬ ‫מאי מברך? אמר רב יהודה‪:‬‬ ‫בא"י אמ"ה שכל ברא לכבודו‪,‬‬ ‫ויוצר האדם‪,‬‬ ‫ואשר יצר את האדם בצלמו בצלם דמות תבניתו‪ ,‬התקין לו ממנו‬ ‫בנין עדי עד‪ ,‬ברוך אתה ה' יוצר האדם‪,‬‬ ‫שוש תשיש ותגל העקרה‪ ,‬בקבוץ בניה לתוכה בשמחה‪ ,‬ברוך אתה‬ ‫ה' משמח ציון בבניה‪,‬‬ ‫שמח תשמח ריעים האהובים‪ ,‬משמחך יצירך בגן עדן מקדם‪,‬‬ ‫ברוך אתה ה' משמח חתן וכלה‪,‬‬ ‫ברוך אתה ה' אמ"ה‪ ,‬אשר ברא ששון ושמחה‪ ,‬חתן וכלה‪ ,‬גלה‪,‬‬ ‫רינה‪ ,‬דיצה‪ ,‬חדוה‪ ,‬אהבה ואחוה שלום וריעות‪ ,‬מהרה ה' אלהינו‬ ‫ישמע בערי יהודה ובחוצות ירושלים קול ששון וקול שמחה‪ ,‬קול‬ ‫חתן וקול כלה‪ ,‬קול מצהלות חתנים מחופתם ונערים ממשתה‬ ‫נגינתם‪ ,‬בא"י משמח חתן עם הכלה‪.‬‬

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aaron, David. “Review of Paul V. M. Flesher, Oxen, Women, or Citizens? Slaves in the System of the Mishnah.” Ioudaios 2.016 (1992). Abma, R. Bonds of Love: Methodic Studies of Prophetic Texts with Marriage Imagery (Isaiah 50:1–3 and 54:1–10, Hosea 1–3, Jeremiah 2–3). Assen: Van Gorcum, 1999. Adler, Rachel. Engendering Judaism: An Inclusive Theology and Ethics. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1998. Ahearn, Laura M. “Agency.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9 (2000): 12–15. ———. “‘A Twisted Rope Binds My Waist’: Locating Constraints on Meaning in a Tij Songfest.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 8 (1999): 60–86. Albeck, Hanoch. Introduction to the Mishna. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1959. [Hebrew] ———, ed. Mishnah: Six Books of the Mishnah. 6vols. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1952–59. [Hebrew] Alexander, Loveday. “‘Better to Marry Than to Burn’: St. Paul and the Greek Novel.” In Ronald F. Hock, J. Bradley Chance and Judith Perkins, eds., Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998, 235–56. Alexiou, Margaret, and Peter Dronke. “The Lament of Jephtha’s Daughter: Themes, Traditions, Originality.” Studi Medievali 12 (1971): 819–63. Alon, Gedalia. Mehkarim Be-Toldot Yisrael Bi-Yeme Bayit Sheni UviTekufat Ha-Mishnah Veha-Talmud. Tel Aviv: ha-Kibuts haMe’uhad, 1958. [Hebrew] Althusser, Louis, and Étienne Balibar. Reading Capital. Translated by Ben Brewster. Old Woking: Gresham Press, 1977. Anderson, Gary. “Celibacy or Consummation in the Garden? Reflections on Early Jewish and Christian Interpretations of 207

208

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the Garden of Eden.” Harvard Theological Review 82.2 (1989): 121–48. ———. “The Garden of Eden and Sexuality in Early Judaism.” In Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, ed., People of the Body: Jews and Judaism from an Embodied Perspective. Albany, NY: SUNY, 1992, 47–68. Anderson, Gary. A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance: The Expression of Grief and Joy in Israelite Religion. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991. Anné, Lucien. Les Rites Des Fiançailles et La Donation Pour Cause De Mariage Sous Le Bas-Empire. Louvain: Desclée, de Brouwer, 1941. Anttonen, Pertti J. “The Rites of Passage Revisited: A New Look at Van Gennep’s Theory of the Ritual Porcess and Its Application in the Study of Finnish-Karelian Wedding Rituals.” Temenos 28 (1992): 15–51. Applebaum, Shimon. Judea in Hellenistic and Roman Times. Leiden: Brill, 1989. Archer, Leonie J. Her Price Is Beyond Rubies: The Jewish Woman in Graeco-Roman Palestine. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990. Asad, Talal. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1993. Aubin, Melissa M. “Book Review: When Aseneth Met Joseph: A Late Antique Tale of The Biblical Patriarch and His Egyptian Wife.” Church History 68 (1999): 678–80. Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962. Avery-Peck, Alan J. “Review: The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 68.4 (2000): 885–87. Badian, E. “Figuring out Roman Slavery.” Journal of Roman Studies 72 (1982): 164–69. Bagnall, Roger S. Egypt in Late Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. ———. Reading Papyri, Writing Ancient History. New York: Routledge, 1995. ———. “Review of H. Cotton and A. Yardeni, Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek Texts from Nahal Hever and Other Sites with an Appendix Containing Alleged Qumran Texts (the Seiyal Collection 2),

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———. “Talking with God and Losing His Head: Extrabiblical Traditions About the Prophet Ezekiel.” In Michael E. Stone and Theodore A. Bergren, eds., Biblical Figures Outside the Bible. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1998, 290–315. Yadin, Yigael. Bar Kohkba: The Rediscovery of the Legendary Hero of the Last Jewish Revolt against Imperial Rome. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971. Yadin, Yigael, Jonas C. Greenfield, and Ada Yardeni. “Babatha’s Ketubba.” IEJ 44 (1994). Yardeni, Ada. “Aramaic and Hebrew Documentary Texts.” In Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek Texts from Nahal Hever and Other Sites with an Appendix Containing Alleged Qumran Texts (the Seiyal Collection), Hannah M. Cotton and Ada Yardeni eds. Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 27. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ———. Textbook of Aramaic, Hebrew and Nabataean Documentary Texts from the Judaean Desert and Related Material. Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 2000. Yaron, Reuven. The Laws of Eshnunna. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1969. Yonge, Charles Duke, ed. The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged. New updated edition of 1854 translation. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1993. Young, Robin Darling. “The ‘Woman with the Soul of Abraham’: Traditions About the Mother of the Maccabean Martyrs.” In Amy-Jill Levine, ed., “Women Like This” New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991, 67–81. Yuval, Israel J. “The Haggadah of Passover and Easter.” Tarbiz 65 (1995): 5–28. [Hebrew] Zeidman, Reena. “An Introduction to the Genesis and Nature of Tosefta, the Chameleon of Rabbinic Literature.” In Harry Fox and Tirzah Meachem eds., Introducing Tosefta: Textual, Intratextual, and Intertextual Studies. Hoboken: Ktav, 1999, 73– 97. ———. “Review of Lawrence A. Hoffman, Covenant of Blood.” AJS Review 23 (1998): 256–8. Zeitlin, Solomon. “Mar Samuel and Manumission of Slaves.” Jewish Quarterly Review 55 (1965): 267–9.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

249

———. “Slavery During the Second Commonwealth and the Tannaitic Period.” Jewish Quarterly Review 53 (1963): 185–218. Zlotnick, Dov, ed. The Tractate “Mourning” (Semahot). New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966.

INDEX AUTHOR INDEX Abma, R., 147 Ahearn, Laura M., 87, 138 Albeck, Hanoch, 48, 52, 107 Alexiou, Margaret, and Peter Dronke, 78, 84, 85, 86 Alon, Gedalia, 101 Althusser, Louis, and Étienne Balibar, 109 Anderson, Gary, 7, 136, 143, 148, 149, 182, 183 Bagnall, Roger S., 45 Baillet, Maurice, 163 Baker, Cynthia M., 84, 85, 86 Bar-Ilan, Meir, 27, 28, 145 Baumgarten, Joseph M., 66, 121, 163 Becker, Adam H. and Annette Y. Reed, 176 Bell, Catherine M., 6, 7, 109, 110, 111, 112, 119, 121, 125, 126, 131, 132, 137, 138, 189, 191 Berkowitz, Beth A., 9, 68 Bernand, E, 75, 76, 77 Biale, Rachel, 30 Bohak, Gideon, 92 Bokser, Baruch M., 9 Boswell, John, 39

Bourdieu, Pierre, 5, 6, 8, 14, 15, 59, 109, 110, 121, 125, 137, 138, 153, 189, 191 Boyarin, Daniel, 183 Bradley, Keith, 31 Bregman, Marc, 97, 170 Bremen, Riet van, 211 Brodsky, David, 162 Brooten, Bernadette J., 37 Brown, Cheryl Anne, 81, 82, 112 Brown, Peter, 149, 150, 151, 178 Brunt, P. A., 34 Buchler, A., 5, 52, 146, 154, 155 Burchard, Christoph, 88, 89, 92 Burridge, Kenelm, 131 Chesnutt, Randall D., 89, 90, 92 Clark, Elizabeth A., 108, 149 Cohen, Boaz, 35, 48, 57, 58, 59 Cohen, Esther, and Elliott Horowitz, 164 Cohen, Jeremy, 124, 141, 183 Cohen, Shaye J. D., 16, 17, 25, 27, 28, 32, 49, 127, 129, 171 Collins, John J., 109, 121 Colson, F. H., 43

251

252

FIRST CAME MARRIAGE

Connerton, Paul, 121 Cook, David, 88 Cotton, Hannah M., 45, 46 Cotton, Hannah M. and Ada Yardeni, 58 Crapanzano, Vincent, 15 Crawford, M. H., 60, 61 Danby, Herbert, 18, 20 Daremberg, Charles, and Edm. Saglio, 118 Daube, David, 61 Davila, James R., 163 Di Lella, Alexander A., 42 Diamond, Eliezer, 125 Drijvers, Han J. W., 118, 165 Edgar, C. C., 75, 76 Edwards, M. J., 158 Eisen, Arnold M., 7, 8 Elliott, Dyan, 167 Epstein, Isidore, 135 Epstein, Jacob, 48, 50, 197 Epstein, Louis, 11, 43 Eskenazi, Tamara C., 22 Evans Grubbs, Judith, 14, 36, 55, 56 Falk, Z. W., 37, 164 Feldman, Louis H., 35 Fisch, Thomas, and David G. Hunter, 180, 181 Fitzgerald, William, 31, 36 Flesher, Paul V. M., 29, 30, 33, 36 Foss, Peter W., 154 Fox, Harry, 195, 198 Fox, Harry and Tirzah Meachem, 127 Fraade, Steven D., 123, 128, 129 Frankfurter, David, 9 Freehof, Solomon B., 154 Freedman, H and Maurice Simon, 94 Freidenreich, David M., 173

Frey, Jean-Baptiste, 77 Friedlander, Gerald, 163 Friedman, Shamma, 195, 198 Frier, Bruce, 39, 48 Gager, John G., 121 Garnsey, Peter, and Richard Saller, 34 Geertz, Clifford, 109 Gibson, E. Leigh, 31, 34 Ginzberg, Louis, 148 Goldin, Judah, 96, 97 Grabbe, Lester L., 22 Grant, Robert M., 34, 126 Green, William S., 175 Grimes, Ronald L., 4, 13 Grossman, Maxine L., 66 Gruenwald, Ithamar, 9 Gutmann, Joseph, 155 Harrington, Daniel J., 81, 82, 83, 84 Hauptman, Judith, 127, 130, 195, 196, 197, 198 Hayes, Christine E., 172, 173 Heinemann, Joseph, 140, 143 Hersch, Karen K, 39 Hezser, Catherine, 61, 177 Higger, Michael, 99, 100, 115 Hill, Robert C., 178 Hoffman, Lawrence A., 142, 144 Hopkins, Keith, 34, 36 Horbury, William and David Noy, 74, 75, 76, 77, 133 Horsley, Richard A., 31 Humphrey, Edith M., 88, 89 Hunter, David G, 150, 179, 180, 181, 182 Ilan, Tal, 2, 5, 58, 120, 160 Instone Brewer, D., 58 Jacobson, Howard, 81, 82, 83 James, M. R., 83, 84, 203 Jastrow, Marcus, 18, 101

INDEX Johnson Hodge, Caroline E., 17 Jonkers, E. J., 177 Joshel, Sandra R., 32 Joshel, Sandra R. and Sheila Murnaghan, 31 Kalmin, Richard, 5 Katzoff, Ranon, 41, 42 Kister, Menahem, 97 Knoppers, Gary N., 22 Koester, Helmut, 54 Koltun, Naomi, 183, 184, 185 Kondoleon, Christine, 155 Konstan, David, 34 Kraemer, Ross S, 35, 77, 82, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 185 Kraft, Robert A., and AnnElizabeth Purintun, 23 Krupp, M, 127 Labovitz, Gail Susan, 7, 50, 65, 66 Langer, Ruth, 161 Lapin, Hayim, 14 Lauterbach, Jacob Z., 5, 169 Lerner, M. B., 97 Levine, Lee I., 171, 177 Levine, Molly M., 119, 120, 1995 Levitsky, Joseph, 26 Lewis, Charles, 231 Lewis, D.M., 75, 77, 78 Lewis, Naphtali, Yigael Yadin and Jonas C. Greenfield, 79 Lieberman, Saul, 102, 118, 204 Lightstone, Jack N., 22, 102 Liss, Abraham, 127 Maccoby, Hyam, 22 Margalioth, Mordechai, 42 Marks, Susan, 119 Martin, Dale B., 29, 31, 32, 34 Matter, E. Ann, 49, 149 Matthews, John, 112

1253 McGinn, Thomas A., 55, 56, 61, 64 Meeks, Wayne A., 121 Meier, John P., 54 Mommsen, Theodor, Paul Krueger, and Alan Watson, 58 Montefiore, Claude and Herbert Loewe, 96 Murphy, Frederick James, 82 Naveh, Joseph, 171 Neusner, Jacob, 48, 117, 146, 147, 175, 183, 184, 194 Noy, David, 32, 74, 75, 76, 77, 133 Ogden, Daniel, 24, 25 Ortner, Sherry B., 6, 136, 137, 138, 139, 153, 171, 176, 189, 191 Overman, J. Andrew, 54 Pagels, Elaine, 145, 149 Peek, Werner, 77 Penn, Michael, 9, 92 Peskowitz, Miriam B., 45, 62, 63 Philonenko, Marc, 88, 92 Pope, Marvin H., 141 Porten, Gary G., 175 Radista, Leo F., 48, 49 Rehm, Rush, 78, 79, 160 Reynolds, Philip Lyndon, 65 Ricoeur, Paul, 109 Ritzer, Korbinian, 179 Robinson, S. E., 23 Roller, Matthew, 154 Rosenblum, Jordan, 162 Rowland, Christopher, 121 Rutgers, Leonard V., 181 Safrai, Shmuel, 30 Saldarini, Anthony J., 96, 97, 122, 126, 127 Saller, Richard P. and Brent D. Shaw, 31

254

FIRST CAME MARRIAGE

Satlow, Michael, 5, 14, 20, 41, 43, 49, 52, 53, 65, 107, 108, 125, 137, 163, 174 Schremer, Adiel, 58, 128 Schwartz, Seth, 5, 61, 76, 140, 175, 177, 186, 190 Schwarzbaum, Haim, 162 Scott, S. P., 57 Shaw, Brent D., 31, 34, 59, 64 Sheerin, Daniel, 159 Shemesh, Aharon, 66 Sivan, Hagith S., 17 Slater, William J., 154 Smith, Dennis E., 7 Smith, Dennis E., and Hal Taussig, 7, 162 Smith, Jonathan Z., 5, 71, 72, 73, 80, 105, 189, 191 Ste. Croix, G. E. M. de, 34 Stern, David, 82, 155 Stevenson, Kenneth, 179, 181 Strack, H. L., and G. Stemberger, 48, 94, 96, 99, 116 Sudnow, David, 121 Taussig, Hal, 7 Teichman, Jenny, 24

Thackeray, J., 35 Theodor, J., and H. Albeck, 94, 141 Thomsen, Ole, 158 Tigay, Jeffrey H., 53, 152 Treggiari, Susan, 3, 34, 37 Turner, Victor, 13 Urbach, E. E., 29, 31, 173 van der Horst, Pieter W., 77, 125 van Gennep, Arnold., 12, 13, 14, 38 Volterra, Edoardo, 48, 49 Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, 61, 62, 63, 64 Weisberg, Dvora E., 19 Whiston, William, 35 Wilhelm, Adolf, 77 Wolff, Hans J., 43 Wright, Benjamin G., 170 Yardeni, Ada, 44, 58 Yaron, Reuven, 53 Zeidman, Reena, 195 Zlotnick, Dov, 99, 100, 102, 103, 115, 204

BIBLICAL REFERENCES Genesis: 1.27, 144 1.28, 124, 141, 181, 183 2.22, 94, 144, 160 4.1, 148 5.2, 144 9.1, 183 9.7, 183 24.65, 120 25, 79 29.23–25

Exodus: 22.15, 53 34.15, 172 Leviticus: 20.10–12, 22 Numbers: 36:6–9, 42 5.11–31, 122 Deuteronomy: 7.1–5, 16 20.7, 53

INDEX 20.10–12, 16 22.3 22.23, 52 22.28–9, 14, 52 22.30 23.1–9, 16 23.3, 22, 25, 26 25.9, 19 28.30, 53 Joshua: 9.27, 19 Judges: 11, 71 11.30–31, 80 11.32–35, 80 11:36–7, 84 11:39–40, 86 2 Samuel: 21.2, 19 Isaiah: 54.1, 147 57.16, 124

1255 Jeremiah: 33.10–11, 151 Ezekiel: 28.13, 95 Ezra: 2.43, 19 6.21, 22 9–10, 22 Nehemiah: 3.26, 19 9, 22 Zechariah 9.6, 25 Matthew: 1.18–19, 53 19.6, 179 22, 165 22.1–14, 170 John 2.1–11, 170 20.19–29, 166, 1 Corinthians: 7.7–9, 125

ANCIENT NON-BIBLICAL REFERENCES Aphrahat, works of Demonstrations, 185 18.1, 183 18.4, 182 18.12, 182 Apuleius, works of Apology 29–41, 174 Metamorphoses 6.24, 158, 161 Ausonius, works of A Nuptial Cento 7, 159 8, 159

Avot de Rabbi Nathan, 96, 97, 98, 103, 104 Biblical Pseudepigrapha Acts of Thomas 1.4–8, 117, 165 1.5, 169 11, 166 9, 165 Apocryphon of Ezekiel, 169 4 Ezra, 82 Gospel of Philip 68.22–3, 145 Paraleipomena Jeremiou 8.3, 23

256

FIRST CAME MARRIAGE

8.5, 23 8.11, 23 Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, 82 Tobit 6.13, 41 7.11, 41, 42 7.12–14, 40 8.2–3, 174 8.5–8, 163 Bibliotheca PseudoApollodorus, 1.5.1, 78 Catullus, works of Poem 61:184–228, 157, 158 Council of Laodicea Canon 54, 56, 177, 180 Chrysostom, John, works of Homiliae in Genesim, 177, 178, 180 Documents from Wadi Murabba’at Mur 19, 44 Mur 20, 44, 45 Mur 115, 45, 46 Digest of Justinia 3.2.9.1, 58 3.2.13.3, 54, 58 22.5.5, 58 23.2, 60 23.2.12.1, 57 23.2.12.2, 57 23.2.14.4, 57 24.2.2.2, 58 38.10.8, 57 Jewish Inscriptions of GraecoRoman Egypt 31 (CIJ 1508), 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 84, 86, 87, 93, 98, 102, 104, 133, 202 57, 77

Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe 1 26 (CIJ 556), 32, 201 2 218 (CIJ 256), 33, 202 2 252 (CIJ 148), 32 2 62 (CIJ 462), 32, 201 Joseph and Aseneth, 88–93 Aseneth [long] 3.6–4.1, 88 18.8–9, 89 187, 93 Aseneth [short] 3.9–4.2, 88 3.9–11, 91 15.10, 91 18.7, 89, 90, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (Pseudo-Philo, work of) 19.7, 82 40, 81 40.4, 84 40.5, 84 40.6, 85 40.6, 71, 86, 202, 203 Manuscripts Erfurt (Tosefta), 116, 117, 123, 204 Kaufmann A 50 (Mishnah), 107, 126 Paris (Midrash Rabbah), 141 Vienna (Tosefta), 123, 204 Midrash Rabbah Genesis: 8.13, 141 18.1, 94, 95, 155 18.3, 145, 160 18.13, 95 28.6, 155 Leviticus: 23.4, 140

INDEX Deuteronomy: 3.16, 160 Lamentations: 4.11,154 Song of Songs: 2.2.4, 140 Mishnah Berakoth 1.1, 111, 113, 153, 168 Megillot 4.3, 111, 136 Yebamot 2.8, 37 4.13, 26 8.3, 24 Ketubot 1.3–4, 35 2.1, 111 7.5, 153 8.1, 63 Sotah 4.1, 58 9.9, 122 9.11, 141 9.12, 122 9.14, 1, 95, 108, 113, 114 9.15, 122 9.17, 114 Gittin 4.5, 36 9.2, 33 Qiddushin 1.1, 11, 51, 193 1.3, 35 1.10, 198 2.1, 11 2.3, 47 2.4, 11 2.5, 67 2.8–10, 67 3.7, 51 3.12, 18, 19, 24, 29, 49

1257 3.13, 20, 27, 36 4.1, 20, 27, 60 4.2, 20 4.4–5, 60 4.5, 36 4.12, 61 Sanhedrin 7.4, 57 Avot 2.7, 37 5, 96 Pliny, works of Natural History 21.3, 118 21.8, 119 22.4, 118 Qumran Aramaic 4Q271, 66 4Q340, 19 4Q502, 163 Semahot 3.7, 100 8.1, 101 8.2, 100, 116, 155, 204 8.4, 101, 103 8.7, 99, 103 8.10, 169 11.1, 103 11.2, 103 11.4, 100 11.6, 115 Talmud, Babylonian Berakoth 30b–31a, 169 50b, 101, 102 Sabbath 33a, 168 156b, 161 Yoma 72b, 183 Sukkah 25b, 156

258

FIRST CAME MARRIAGE

Yebamot 49a, 26 62a–63b, 124 78b, 19 115a, 156 Ketubot 4a, 168 7b, 152 7b–8a, 135, 143 8a, 136, 146, 163, 185 12a, 159 17b, 117, 169 Sotah 49b, 114, 118 Qiddushin 2b, 65 12b, 11 53a, 58 Baba Batra 60b, 123, 128, 129 145b, 160 Sanhedrin 28b, 58 108a, 155 Avoda Zara 5a, 124 8a, 172 Hullin 9a, 140 Niddah 13b, 124 45b, 94 Talmud, Palestinian Berakoth 1, 3d, 143 Mo’edQatan 1, 80b, 101 Ketubot 1.1, 25a, 147, 159, 160

Sotah 9.15, 46a, 117 9.15, 24b&c, 117 Yadaim 15, 44 18, 45 The Seiyâl Collection II XHev/Se 13, 58 XHev/Se 65, 45 XHev/Se 69, 45 Tosefta Sabbath 7.16, 101, 102 Megillot 3.14, 111, 136, 137 Yebamot 3.1, 27 Ketubot 1.4, 159 Nedarim 1.1, 146 Sotah 5.1, 58 15, 130 15.8, 118, 155 15.9, 169 15.10, 123 15.11, 128 15.11–12, 129 Qiddushin 1.1, 50, 193 1.1–2, 194 2.9, 196 3.7, 195 4.4, 195 5.4, 27 Sanhedrin 12.10, 141 Avoda Zara 4.6, 172

INDEX

1259

SUBJECT INDEX Abduction, 13, 14, 50 Aborted wedding, 73, 86 Abstinence, 123, 124, 128, 129, 130, 182, 183 Agamos, 77 Anakalupteria, 119 Ancestry, 20, 60 Apocalypticism, 109, 121, 125– 131 Aramaic, 42, 44, 45, 46, 94, 106, 120 Aseneth, 82, 88–93, 94, 98, 105 Ateknos, 77 Augustine, 149, 150, 151, 186 Babylonian diaspora, 20, 21, 173 Badecken, 119 Bar-Kokhba revolt, 46 Betrothal acts, 11–14, 38, 51, 67, 68, 193, 194, 195 By intercourse, 11, 150, 194, 195 Contracted by agent, 11 Betrothals broken, 53 Betrothals to infants, 55 Betrothal terminology, 65 Bridal preparations Ablutions, 88, 89, 90, 93, 104 Assistants, 79, 86, 93 Braided hair, 94 Crown, 1, 2, 108 (see also Crowns) Garland, 71, 84, 85, 118 Head covering, 111, 119 Jewels, 91, 94, 96 Litter, 108, 113-117 Perfume, 84, 118 Bridegroom’s crown, 1, 107 Bridegroom’s blessing, 111, 135–137, 140–152, 186–7

Bridegroom huppah, 117 Capacity to marry, 16-24 Celibacy, 148, 150, 167, 181, 182, 183, 185 Christian practice, comparisons to, 7, 54, 56, 65, 77, 74, 121, 126, 140, 148, 170, 171–187 Consent, 16, 38, 39, 40, 47, 48, 196, 197, 199 Consummation, 41, 51, 148, 154, 158, 166 Contubernium, 37 Conubium, 37 Creation, 94, 95, 143, 144, 145, 180, 181 Crowns, 1, 2, 6, 107, 108, 111, 113-120, 122, 130, 131, 132 Dance, 96, 178, 180 Death of spouse, 51 Death penalty, 9, 26, 52, 54 Death of virgin brides, 71–88, 98–104 Desponsare, 65 Divination, 90 Divorce, 19, 30, 35, 37, 44, 51, 52, 53, 56, 58, 111, 153 Egypt, 74, 76, 91, 92, 93 Emperor Julian, 182, 184, 185 Erusin, 65 Eschatology, 109, 121, 122, 125–131 Financial obligations, 47, 53, 62 Food, 99–102, 162, 172, 173 Forbidden marriages, 16-59 Adultery, 18, 15, 26, 37, 42, 43, 52, 54, 57, 58, 61, 66, 67, 122 Incest, 18, 25, 26, 57, 61, 67

260

FIRST CAME MARRIAGE

Marriages with foreigners, 22, 23 Funeral comparisons, 74, 78, 79, 100, 101–104, 106, 115, 146, 147, 168 Gay, 15 Gentile, 17, 18, 29, 172, 173, 175 Gift, 51, 55, 56, 58, 62, 79, 124, 125, 126, 160, 195 Greek law and practice, compareisons to, 24, 29, 31, 44–46, 76–79, 81, 88, 118, 119, 145, 190 Grooms’ blessing (see bridegrooms’ blessing) Guards, 159, 160 Guf, 124 Hades, 74, 75, 77, 78, 80 Halakah, 26, 63 Halitzah, 19 Haruri, 20 Hasmonean period, 17 Hazzan, 163 Headcoverings, 93, 120 Heqdesh, 65 Heterosexual, 15 Holiness, 16, 65, 66, 67, 68, 163, 166, 182, 199 Homologiai, 43 Huppah, 2, 81, 99–103, 116, 117, 120, 152–156, 161– 164, 167, 189 Hymeneal blood, 160 Identity fraud, 47 Illegitimate children, 24, 25, 26, 36, 47 Ioudaios, 16, 17 Isaac, 83, 84, 120, 178 Seila, Jephtha’s daughter, 71, 80–88, 93, 94, 98, 102 Jesus, 53, 124, 166, 170

Jubilees, 148, 149 Julian of Eclanum, 150, 151 Ketubbah, 12, 111 Lesbian, 15 Loutrophoros, 79, 102, 103 Mamzerim, 17–38, 47 Mary, 53, 54 Meqadeshet, 65, 66 Mesopotamia, 182–185 Messiah, 53, 122, 126 Minyan, 111, 136, 145, 146, 147 Mulag, 62 Music, 86, 107, 178 Nabataean, 45 Netinim, 19, 24, 27 Onias’ temple, 92 Palestine, 22, 23, 37, 54, 76, 82 Passive bride, 80, 93, 95, 98, 103, 104, 105, 147 Paul, the apostle, 121, 124, 125 Persephone, 74, 77, 78 Persia, 20, 139, 184, 185 Perushim, 128 Plays, 177 Polygamy, 26 Prenuptial agreements, 43 Procreation, 61, 124, 125, 129, 130, 145, 147, 148, 152, 180–185 Prohibitions at Gentile weddings, 170 Property ownership, 58, 61–65, 68, 154 Rape, 13, 14, 52, 53 Rebecca, 120, 178 Redemptive hegemony, 110, 131–133, 138 Remarriage, 35, 46 Rites-of-passage, 13, 14, 38 Roman comparisons, 12, 14–18, 28, 34, 37, 39, 48, 49, 54–

INDEX 64, 68, 114, 139, 157–159, 177, 181, 184–187 Samaritan, 175 Same-sex marriage, 39, 192 Sexual misconduct, 54, 57 Sexual relations, 16, 18, 42, 148, 149, 151, 159, 184, 194, 195 Shetuki, 20 Shoshvinim, 159, 160 Singing, 7, 141, 143, 142, 143, 152, 158 Slavery, 15, 17, 18, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34 Social class, 59, 60, 61, 100 Social mobility, 34 Sponsalia, 48 Tell el-Yehoudieh, 74

1261 Temple, 19, 47, 65, 67, 81, 82, 86, 91, 92, 107, 110, 120, 122, 123, 128, 148, 152, 155, 185 Ten Commandments, 42 Titus, 1, 107, 113, 116, 122 Tobias, 40–42, 163, 174 Tombstone inscriptions, 37, 38, 74, 76, 77, 79, 80, 87 urMishnah, 127, 195 Vespasian, 1, 35, 107, 113, 116, 122 Wild weddings, 167–171, 177, 180 Wine, 101, 102, 122, 123, 128, 135, 142, 160, 169, 170 Yihud, 167 Zion, 81, 142, 143, 147, 148