In the context of this collection of papers I have been tasked with discussing rabbinic perspectives on “prophecy,” ideas and approaches reflected in the vast library of late antique Jewish texts that we have come to think of as “rabbinic literature,” a literature that spans several centuries (first through the seventh century CE approximately), and the two imperial worlds of Late Antiquity, namely the Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire to the East. There, on the Eastern side of the Roman limes, the latest and the greatest of the rabbinic compilations was shaped, namely the so-called Babylonian Talmud or Bavli. Of course, I am certainly not the first scholar to undertake this particular task. Indeed, to many scholars of rabbinic thought and theology the question about the role of ‘prophecy’, about the mode of the prophetic, that is so essential to Biblical literature and its theology, is at the very core of understanding the rabbinic project, at the core of the question of Jewish continuity or continuities, and of the conversation with Christian (and Islamic) theologies.
It seems that with very few exceptions, the literature of the rabbis of late antiquity is simply not populated with contemporaneous figures, men, or women, that are either identified as prophets, or that a reader or student of this literature today would recognize as such, however s*he may identify the ‘prophetic.’ Evidently, the rabbinic sages have a lot to say about the Biblical prophets (nevi’im),1 including Biblical women that are identified as prophetesses. They devote ample amounts of energy to decoding the biblical prophetic texts known to them as Nevi’im or Prophets and ask how a Biblical prophet may have deserved to receive the gift of prophecy (nevi’ut).2 However, in their own intellectual and cultural world the rabbinic sages seem to avoid prophetic claims and, if ‘prophetic’ evokes anything like charisma, they generally stay clear of modes of the charismatic, at least certain instantiations thereof. Instead, this literature is shaped by voices of the sages (of the hakhamim) and their disciples (talmidei hakhamim), and their primary mode of engaging and – in a manner of speaking – channeling the divine is the study of Torah, talmud Torah. In Talmudic literature, prophets were prophets, and sages will be sages, or so it seems.
Nonetheless, reflections on prophecy and the mode of the prophetic are of course not entirely absent. In this paper, I will briefly sketch the intellectual and theological shifts from prophet to scholar, by focusing on two rabbinic traditions, the first an early tannaitic tradition attributable to the early 3rd century CE, and the other discourse in the later Babylonian Talmudic discussion comparing prophets and sage.
The End of Biblical Prophecy in Early Rabbinic Tradition
The trope that dominates the literature about the notion of the prophetic in the rabbinic tradition of late antiquity is the very end, or disappearance of ‘prophecy.’3 By the time of the rise of the rabbinic sages in the late first century CE and onwards, the figure of the prophet seems to have receded into the past at least to these. Indeed, the mode of learning that the rabbinic scholars and their disciples came to favor as a form of piety and intellectuality seems to be predicated on the burial of the figure of the Biblical prophet in the folds of distant memory. Generations of scholarship have been devoted to the question of how much such protestations by writers in the late so-called second Temple period and the early rabbinic texts reflect an “actual”, intellectual and historical-religious development, and perhaps even decline of prophecy “itself” in the Jewish culture of the Mediterranean, as well as to the question of what became not only of the figure of the prophet but of the very phenomenon of the prophetic.
The locus classicus in the early rabbinic textual tradition for this discussion is a much-discussed formulation whose earliest version arguably is recorded in the Tosefta4 :
When the latter prophets (nevi’im acharonim) died, [that is] Haggai, Zechariah, and Mal’akhi, the holy Spirit (ruach ha-kodesh) parted from Israel.
(Tosefta Sotah 13:3)5
This unattributed tradition notes matter-of-factly that the holy spirit (ruah ha-kodesh) departed (paska) from “Israel” with the death of the group of Biblical prophets known to this tradition as “the later” or “last” prophets.6 Here the three post-exilic7 prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Mal’achi, whose writings were part of the Biblical prophetic literature known to the early rabbinic sages, are identified as the last of the prophets, that is, the end of an era that was defined by those known as prophets.
This early rabbinic tradition is found in a larger collection of traditions identifying ruptures in the religious (hi)story of the people of Israel, most of them moments of decline.8 A specific event, such as prominently the destruction of the Temple, or the death of certain personalities of note, such as the death of the prophets or later of significant sages, are accompanied by the loss of other important aspects of Israelite and subsequently rabbinic culture.9 For example, the end of the Sanhedrin led to the end of singing at (Jewish) wedding feasts (mSotah 9:11), the death of the early prophets led to the ceasing of the urim and tummim, and the destruction of the first Jerusalem Temple to the ceasing of the mythical Shamir-worm (both mSotah 9:12), and so on. Here, the Tosefta in its own collection of similar traditions adds our tradition cited above according to which the death of the latter prophets – missing from the Mishnah’s narration – led to the departure of the holy spirit (tSotah 13:3), which – as we shall see momentarily – is in turn tied to the earliest stages of the rabbinic movement.
The dictum thus notes a fundamental, seemingly epochal, shift in the collective existence of Israel, marked as a spiritual or theological shift.10 ‘Before,’ or ‘till then,’ the holy spirit was with Israel, and ‘after’ (the death of these prophets) it departed. The metaphorical concept of the departure of the holy spirit from Israel is then linked with the death of these prophets, who in retrospect were the last ones in a line of prophetic speakers (or for that matter prophetic texts). And – we should emphasize – the causal, rather than coincidental relationship between the two events – death of the last prophets and departure of the holy spirit – is not entirely clear. Nonetheless, it seems that the presence of the ruah ha-kodesh among the people as whole is presented as a condition for the presence of prophets, and – equally possible – as long as there were prophets, (collective) Israel had the ruah ha-kodesh among them. The prophets could be prophets only because of the presence of the holy spirit among ‘Israel’ as a whole. With the prophets’ death the people of Israel lost the presence of the holy spirit among them.
However, the departure of the holy spirit, aka the death of the last prophets, is not the end of the story, as is the case with some of the earlier moments of decline. What comes to fill the void, according to this tradition, is the widely discussed bat kol:
When the latter prophets (nevi’im acharonim) died [that is] Haggai, Zechariah, and Mal’achi, the holy Spirit (ruach ha-kodesh) parted from Israel.
But even so, they ‘were made to hear’11 a bat kol.
(Tosefta Sotah 13:3)
The bat kol is perceived as a (heavenly) medium of an auditory nature12, something akin (bat) to a voice (kol). Not just a voice, the bat kol might appear subject of her own speech and not merely as medium.13 Our Toseftan narrator renders the ‘bat kol’ and hearing her14 as something lesser than the presence of the holy spirit, expression of potentially an inferior era with respect to the era of the prophets. Long ago Saul Lieberman has argued – following a later gloss of this tradition in the Talmudic discussions – that the bat kol should be understood as even lesser than a voice, as something akin to an echo (havarah).15 Whatever is precisely imagined by the concept of the bat kol,16 she indicates a relationship of relative loss, of a lesser instantiation of the presence of the holy or divine, with respect to the ruach ha-kodesh of the prophetic era. Still, inferior as she may be to the holy spirit, the bat kol as heavenly voice is understood as nonetheless (“even so”) carrying over from the spirit-filled era that had enabled prophetic speech of the likes of Haggai, Zechariah, and Mal’achi. The holy spirit may be gone, and prophets may be no more, but even so, a voice remains to communicate with ‘them’, most likely the rabbinic sages.17 Like the prophets of old, it maintains a connection with the divine.
Speaking almost as if historians of religion, then, in the late second century CE, the early rabbinic narrators of this tradition claim that the connection with the divine, captured by the notion or perhaps even textuality known as prophetic (nevi’im) in the Biblical tradition had long since ceased, namely with the end of the first Temple period, and at best the very early Biblical post-exilic period. The presence of the holy spirit among the people collectively (‘Israel’ as a whole) signifies an era, over and long gone. For the rabbinic sages who narrate and record this tradition, since the first Babylonian exile ‘Israel’ had to settle not even with merely a (divine?) voice, but perhaps with even lesser than that, an echo of a voice. To put it differently: the prophets of old channeled something substantive of the divine, a ruach or spirit, that they shared with Israel as a whole, a presence of the divine. That presence is what is lost, a divine presence now twice removed. No longer a ruach, and no longer with everyone, but only a voice, something akin to a voice, bridging the absence.
But the tradition recorded in the Tosefta does not stop here either. It continues with a narrative or significant incident (ma’aseh) – again perhaps even of epochal significance – that seems to be intended to spell out and intensify the implication of the collective loss of the holy spirit:
It happened (ma’aseh) that the sages gathered in the attic of the House of Gurya18 in Jericho when a bat kol came forth19 and said to them: There is here a person (‘adam) among you who would be worthy of the holy spirit (ruach ha-kodesh), but his generation (doro) does not deserve such.
They turned their eyes towards Hillel the Elder.
And when he died, they said about him:
Woe for this humble one, woe for this pious one, a disciple of Ezra.
(Tosefta Sotah 13:3)
The early rabbinic sage, Hillel the Elder, known as a quasi-mythical founder of the rabbinic movement in the Talmudic rabbis’ own imagination, who would have lived in the first century CE, could theoretically have channelled the holy spirit, could thus have been like a prophet of old, but the spiritual state of his generation prevented that. The narrative presents a powerful equivocation: Hillel, the individual sage, is sub specie aeternitatis on the level of the prophets ‘of old’, but even he could not capture the spirit of the holy (as did they), due to the moral inferiority of his generation, collectively. And all this is conveyed by the bat kol, the heavenly voice, the very entity that is the left-over after the collective loss of the holy spirit and heard by the rabbinical sages in their assembly. The plot signals a “something other than the era of the (Biblical) prophets” for the narrators of this tradition, but at the same time theological continuity between the prophets and the leading sage. Theoretically, Hillel is like the prophets of old, worthy (ra’ui) like them, to channel the divine. But in practice, he cannot, and cannot be perceived as such by his contemporaries, because his “generation” is simply not worthy thereof. But they all know immediately, and intuitively, who is intended by the bat kol’s pronouncement: they turn their eyes to him. His death, then, in this mythologizing narrative does not present an epochal rupture, such as the death of the last of the prophets when the holy spirit departed. Instead, he is mourned for his outstanding human qualities, his humility and piety, and for being “a student of Ezra,” the paradigmatic scribal scholar in rabbinic Judaism, a Biblical figure who stands for a very different type of authority than the prophets of old. This characterization already points towards continuity with Biblical, or at least late Biblical tradition. Hillel, the first century C.E. rabbinic sage, a founding figure in so many respects, is represented as a disciple of Ezra, of the mode of piety conveyed by Ezra (historically speaking preceding him by at least four centuries). Hillel could have been a prophet, but he is not. Instead, he is a disciple (talmid) of the archetypal Biblical scribe. The eulogy on his death-bead is for having been an outstanding disciple, not for being a would-be prophet who could not fulfil that promise.
This entire plot is duplicated in the immediately following narrative about Samuel the Little (Shmu’el ha-Katan), another late first century CE sage20 :
Again (shuv pa’am, my emphasis) ‘they’ were sitting in Yavneh and heard a bat kol saying: there is here a person (‘adam) who is worthy (ra’ui) of the holy spirit, except that the generation is not worthy.
And they turned their eyes to Samu’el the Little.
And when he died, they said about him:
Woe for this humble one, woe for this pious one, a disciple of Hillel the Elder.
(tSotah 13:4)
The emphasis on the duplication (again – shuv pa’am) points to the continuity not only of the bat kol’s divine pronouncements, but also of inspired leadership within the rabbinic movement. The location shifts from the mythical House of Gurya to the equally mythical Yavneh, both founding moments in the rabbinic movement.21 Samuel the Little replicates Hillel’s human qualities, his humility and piety, and as Hillel’s disciple, he is the next link in the chain, just as the Hillel was Ezra’s.22 At the end of the narrative, the students of Samuel the Little, without the mention of a bat kol, try to pronounce a similar eulogy over the death of Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava (early 2nd century CE), except that “the times became too troubled.”23
This final phrase has the narrative about the bat kol, announcing a person worthy of the holy spirit, a prophet-like leader, exhaust itself in the persecutions connected with the Bar Kokhba war of the mid-second century CE. To that end, the narrative about Samuel the Little inserts and reports a pronouncement on his deathbed, an utterance that remarkably poses as prophetic speech in style:
[Like his students, Samuel the Little] also spoke at the hour of his death:
“Shim’on and Yishma’el for the sword,
their colleagues for execution,
the rest of the people for plunder
and multiple troubles will follow after this.”
And in the Aramaic language he said it.
(tSotah 13:4)
Samuel here is said to predict on his deathbed the troubles that will come upon not only rabbinic leaders but the people as whole. In doing so he draws on Biblical prophetic paradigms24 and the targumic translations of Biblical prophetic language. In the sequence of our narrative, his little prophetic speech truly presents a powerful moment of ambiguity and equivocation. That is, in the midst of the extended reflection on the end of the prophetic mode, the loss of the holy spirit, and the contraction of the divine spirit into all but a voice, Samuel the Little, a sage, is made to prophesize and to announce the collective troubles that are to come, drawing on prophetic diction. In the entire rabbinic library this presents one of the few, and perhaps altogether unique moments of a rabbinic sage waxing prophetic. As if the narrator of our tradition could not quite let go of the possibility of the persistent prophetic mode of old, and allowed it to break forth one more time, even if only on the deathbed of the sage, speaking to his students in the process of eulogizing him.
Talmudic Variations on Prophetic Transformations
As noted above, the Toseftan narrative built around the dictum about the departure of the holy spirit is cited in various contexts in later Talmudic discussions, first and foremost in the relevant context of discussing the Mishnaic chapter in Talmud Sotah.25 In bSotah 48b the framing of the mostly exegetical discussion is to identify the referent of the “early prophets” mentioned in the Mishnah (mSotah 9:14), whose death is said to have rung in the end of the urim and tummim. After suggesting (and rejecting) that the Mishnah might have intended David, Samuel, and Solomon as referents for “early prophets”, the Talmudic discussion there settles on all (Biblical) prophets other than Haggai, Zekharyah, and Mal’akhi from our Toseftan text tradition as the referent for early prophets.26
Rather than turning to these discussions, none of which add up to much beyond extended glosses to some of the details of the earlier narrative,27 I want to turn here to another famous Talmudic sugya or unit of discussion that presents a concentrated effort to gauge the place of the prophetic in rabbinic culture and its scholastic inclinations. In the early tannaitic textual framing discussed above, we have traced a generally pessimistic outlook according to which the historio-theological conditions for prophecy declined, i.e., the theory that the presence of the spirit of holiness among collective ‘Israel’ had ceased with the death of the last of the prophets. Historiographically we would identify this as the early post-exilic or Second Temple period, leaving the narrator’s contemporary context fairly bleak and ending somewhere in the midst of “the troubled times,” or as the Talmudic gloss would have it, the times when “the kingdom executed” Jews, i.e., the Bar Kokhba war. According to that tannaitic perspective only traces of what had hitherto been thought of as the presence of the holy remained, in the auditory access to the divine through a bat kol. More than an ongoing guarantor of the presence of the divine, the bat kol in that context appears as a sorry substitute,28 a mere thread of connection to the prophetic era of old. We have also noted the narrators’ ambiguity about this development as decline, since at least one of the sages featured in the narrative is made to speak in prophetic mode, or to “prophesize.”
In the extended Talmudic discussion that I wish to present here if only briefly, the rabbinic narrators take a slightly different approach, in that they explicitly compare prophet and sage, and connect prophecy (nevu’ah) to the wisdom or scholarship of the sages. While some aspects of the sugya have been discussed and cited variously, especially the dicta around which the sugya is structured, the sugya itself has been side-lined, even though it is precisely in the arrangement and discussion of the dicta that Talmudic theology comes into its own.
As a sugya, this text is one of the central texts in the Babylonian Talmud on the question of the role of prophecy, arguably the central one, hence the selection for our purposes. The sugya (bBava Batra 12a-b) is populated heavily by named rabbinic sages, attributed, that is, to famous Amoraim ranging from the earlier (Rabbi Yohanan) to the latest (Mar bar Rav Ashi) generations of that period of Talmudic learning.29 Relatively brief, it is structured around two equally well-known dicta.30 The first opening dictum, attributed to Rabbi Avdimi from Haifa (fl. late 3rd century CE), holds that: “From the day that the Temple (beit ha-mikdash) was destroyed, prophecy (nevu’ah) has been taken from the prophets (nevi’im) and given to the sages (hakhamim)” (bBava Batra 12a). According to the second dictum, attributed to Rabbi Yohanan (fl. earlier in the 3rd century CE), “from the day that the Temple (beit ha-mikdash) was destroyed, prophecy (nevu’ah) has been taken from the prophets and has been given to fools and children” (bBava Batra 12b). Both of these Amoraic dicta follow the earlier tannaitic rhetorical pattern familiar from the chapters of Tractate Sotah in that they correlate a historical event (the destruction of the Temple)31 with a loss or shift in Israel’s ‘sacred’ history. Which Temple, the first or second, is intended is not immediately transparent,32 and arguably this distinction is not important to this sugya. Prophecy – here nevu’ah – is quintessentially connected with the “institution” of the sanctuary. Or, put differently and perhaps more accurately, prophet and the conformity of prophecy and prophets, are dependent on the existence of the sanctuary. The Temple as sanctuary roots the holy spirit among ‘Israel’, allowing the prophets to ‘own’ prophecy, and to be legible and interpretable. The two dicta present two variations on the theme of the transference of prophecy to categories of people who at first sight appear as anything but prophets, certainly compared to the Biblical prophets of old. In its discussion, the Talmudic sugya positions both dicta side by side non-exclusively, without dismissing either one as necessarily inferior, although certainly Rabbi Yohanan’s dictum has provoked much more puzzlement. In rabbinic tradition, therefore, both remain potentially valid options for the path that the prophetic mode took.33
The Talmudic discussion especially of Rabbi Avdimi’s dictum is worth a brief analysis for our purposes here, since it arguably touches upon the fundamental stakes of the Babylonian Talmud’s project as a whole.34 In brief, the question at the core of the Talmud’s project essentially is how to conceptualize the source of the (rabbinic) sage’s knowledge, her knowledge of Torah, of interpreting Torah, and of transmitting Torah. Differently put, in the Talmudic discussion the question is not really or not only a theological question, trying to cultivate access to the divine or revelation, albeit that perhaps also. Rather, the question is about epistemology and the production of knowledge. Prophet and sage present two types of access to the source of knowledge production.
Said Rabbi Avdimi from Haifa:
“From the day that the Temple (beit ha-mikdash) was destroyed, prophecy (nevu’ah) has been taken from the prophets (nevi’im) and given to the sages (hakhamim).”
[Anon.]: Is this to say that a sage is not a prophet?
[Anon.]: This is what he [Rabbi Avdimi] said:
Even though it [i.e., prophecy] was taken from the prophets [nevi’im], from the sages [hakhamim] it was not taken. (bBava Batra 12a)
First, the anonymous Talmudic discussants35 question the import of Rabbi Avdimi’s formulation of his dictum, since his phrasing would seem to suggest that the prophets (the nevi’im) had a gift, a form of knowledge, prophecy or nevu’ah, that at least originally was theirs and only subsequently – with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple – was transferred to the sages (hakhamim). Prophecy (nevu’ah) is detachable from the prophets, their gift taken and passed to others: “Is this to suggest that a sage is not a prophet!?” Accordingly, Rabbi Avdimi would seem to be proposing that a “sage” is something other and potentially even lesser than a “prophet,” and only secondarily receives prophetic knowledge. Apparently, this is not acceptable to the anonymous Talmudic discussants, and they suggest rephrasing Rabbi Avdimi’s dictum: “This is really what he wants to say: ‘even though [prophecy/ nevu’ah] was taken from the prophets, from the sages it was not taken”. In this version of the dictum, both sages and prophets, both types of (divine) knowledge, exist originally coequally, and both have the same source of knowledge, namely, nevu’ah or prophecy, but only the prophets loose it and disappear (with the destruction of the Temple). Here, prophecy itself or nevu’ah does not disappear altogether. Rather, the existence of sages who always already had prophecy before and after the destruction underwrite the continuity of prophetic wisdom (aka Torah) both before and after the destruction.
The sugya continues with adding a different emphasis to the comparison of sage and prophet:
Said Amemar: A sage is better (‘adif)36 than a prophet, since it is said [in Scripture]:
“And a prophet [has a] heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90: 12). Which is dependent on which? You must say that the lesser is dependent on the greater.
According to this late 4th and early 5th century Babylonian sage, it is not just that sages and prophets shared prophecy as a source of knowledge prior to the destruction. Rather, by definition the sage is superior to the prophet, which Amemar proves with a deliberate misreading of the verse from Psalm 90.37 A prophet has a heart of wisdom from which he derives his prophetic knowledge. Since the heart – here the seat of wisdom – is at the root of knowledge, wisdom or hokhmah which the rabbis generally associate with Torah knowledge is that from which the prophet derives his knowledge, not the other way around. Amemar’s dictum – that the sage and her mode of knowledge production is preferable to that of the prophet is what underwrites the self-understanding of rabbinic learning.
And now the Talmudic discussion proceeds to providing three variations of proofs that show that indeed “prophecy was not taken from the sages:
Said Abbaye:
you should know [that this is correct, i.e., that prophecy was not taken from sages]38, because a great man teaches a matter, and [this matter coincides with something that] is also taught [independently] in the name of a different great man accordingly.
Said Rava: And why would this be surprising [such as to consider this proof of the sages’ prophetic gifts]? May be these two were born under the same [astronomical] constellation. Rather,
you should know [that it is correct, i.e., that prophecy was not taken from sages], because a great man teaches a matter, and [this matter] is also taught [independently] in the name of Rabbi Akiva ben Yosef.
Said Rav Ashi: And why would this be surprising [such as to consider this proof of the sages’ prophetic gifts]? May be with regard to such a matter they were born under the same constellation. Rather, said Rav Ashi:
You should know [that is correct, i.e., that prophecy was not taken from sages], because a great man teaches a matter, and it is also taught [independently] as a halakhah that was given to Moses on Sinai accordingly.
Anon.: And perhaps he was like a blind person with a skylight?
Anon.: But did the sage now provide reason?
This vignette of a talmudic discussion (aka sugya) moves the analysis from the Palestinian source, i.e., Rabbi Avdimi’s dictum, to a discussion between Babylonian rabbinic scholars, Abbaye, Rava, and Rav Ashi. Each of these three beautifully arranged proofs are attributed to three of the greatest names and scholars in Babylonian Talmudic scholastic lore, namely Abbaye (fl. first half of 4th century) and his interlocutor, colleague and rival Rava (same period), and two generations later Rav Ashi (fl. late 4th and early 5th century CE).39 Each of these three great Talmudic scholars suggest they can demonstrate the presence of ‘prophecy’ among rabbinic sages, in the past and by implication also in their present. Each of their proofs present variations of the same pattern, namely that a teaching of a (generic but) great scholar coincides with another ‘source’ of knowledge of Torah, taught and preserved independently elsewhere, namely: either a colleague; or a teaching by Rabbi Akiva, among the greatest and perhaps the greatest teacher of Mishnaic times; or finally a source that goes back to Moses at Mt. Sinai.40 The arrangement of the proofs is one of intensification: surely, the first coincidence of a teaching of a matter of law is not surprising, as indeed two colleagues share the same intellectual universe. According to the anonymous Talmudic voice, in such a case, coincidence of independently taught knowledge may not be a coincidence, and, therefore, not a sign of prophecy, or the presence thereof. Two great minds simply think alike. Interestingly, therefore, the anonymous Talmudic voice is one of skepticism with respect to identifying scholarly insight as prophecy. The same is true for the seeming coincidence between present and past ‘sources’ of knowledge: even if one’s teaching were to coincide with an independently established teaching by Rabbi Akiva, clearly the greatest rabbinic mind of all times, the hypothetical later Talmudic sage still inhabits an intellectual universe shared with Rabbi Akiva. The same talmudic skepticism as for the previous case holds: such coincidence hardly should count for prophecy. The third and last proof, however, looks as if it might hold: the coincidence of a current sage’s teaching with an (independently sourced) teaching that is identified as a source rooted in the revelation at Sinai. Surely in such a case a coincidence is not just that, since the later scholar cannot be said to inhabit the same intellectual universe as the source of all revealed knowledge of Torah, other than by prophetic intuition. But even this is questioned as a proof of scholastic prophecy, since the Talmud’s anonymous voice of skepticism suggests that even in such a case, a scholar may have been lucky, chancing upon the proverbial needle in the haystack, which in turn is rejected as a possibility. The final note of the discussion and its seeming rationalism is worthy of a mediaeval Maimonides: If indeed the sage “provides reason” for his teaching, we may accept such a coincidence as proof of scholastic prophecy. In other words, since the scholar can provide reasoning for his intuition, he cannot be said to merely have “found” a teaching like one given to Moses by sheer luck. His ability to expand on his own intuition is what is on the level of the prophetic. But even here, we should note, some skepticism holds, since the Talmudic voice formulates this point only as a question, not as an assertion.
To summarize this segment of the sugya then: the Talmudic editors or arrangers of the sugya do agree that prophecy was not taken from the sages, from those who populate the Talmudic world. ‘Prophecy’, we might say, has turned into a form of ‘scholastic prophecy.’ A sage who coincidentally teaches something that is otherwise also identified as ‘teaching that was given to Moses at Sinai’ may prove that Talmudic sages and scholars are (still) prophets, and that prophecy has morphed into scholarship. Even if individual sages are not recognizable as prophets, the enterprise of scholarship and learning as such has in some way absorbed the prophetic.
The second part of the sugya turns to Rabbi Yohanan’s dictum, cited above: “from the day that the Temple (beit ha-mikdash) was destroyed, prophecy (nevu’ah) has been taken from the prophets and has been given to fools and children” (bBava Batra 12b). This dictum seems to be presented as an alternative to the one with which the sugya started out. Prophecy differently lives on – potentially – in fools and children. For its discussion of this dictum the Talmud switches genre, from theoretical discourse to narrative, as for both ‘fools’ and ‘children’ as post-destruction vessels of prophecy the sugya introduces an incident from the lives of the sages to illustrate the point. In both cases, the fool and the child respectively – overheard by Babylonian sages – predict a future event that is correctly interpreted by the respective sages. In the first case, the fool divines in encoded form the next head of the rabbinic academy, which the listener – Mar bar Rav Ashi – understands to be himself, causing him promptly to do everything to ensure the fulfillment. The second case, involving the (unnamed) daughter of Rav Chisda (fl. 4th century C.E.), is even less a case of divination. As her father is teaching two prominent students, Rava and Rami bar Hama, he prompts his daughter who happens to be present to choose her future husband, upon which she chooses both. And indeed, we are told by the narrator, she ends up marrying Rami bar Hama first, and upon his death Rava. Both narratives deserve a closer reading than space allows me here. The question to be raised here briefly is just what we are to make of the relationship between the two parts of the Talmudic discourse on the remains of prophecy after the destruction of the Temple. One is inclined to read the first part of the sugya on the relationship between prophecy and sagely wisdom with greater seriousness, prompted already by its discursive character as theoretical reflection on rabbinic epistemology. Is the second part, making fools and children with seemingly random albeit timely pronouncements latter-day prophets in the sense of predicting future events correctly, a polemic against the first part of the sugya, as Peter Schaefer would have it?41 Perhaps, the second part complements the first, in that it underlines the skepticism that we have already elicited from that discussion. “The” Talmud, that is, its anonymous editorial voice, remains hesitant about identifying scholastic knowledge, the knowledge produces in an academic context of studying Torah, as the product of a prophetic gift, and it certainly never identifies any particular scholarly intuition as such. Turning the fool’s and the child’s (pseudo-) divinatory pronouncements into potential instantiations of nevu’ah can then be read as lending support to that skepticism.
Conclusion
Through two extensive texts, one an early tannaitic narrative, the other a later Babylonian Talmudic sugya, we have been able to trace both the thesis of the disappearance of prophecy (or the departure of the holy spirit from collective Israel) and the persistence of the prophetic (nevu’ah) in the scholastic culture of the Talmudic scholars and their disciples. The former is a pessimistic expression of a general view of historical decline, much as the narrative ends in the Bar Kokhba war. The latter is anything but pessimistic: Although prophets as such may have disappeared, and the canon has closed on the books of the prophets, scholars continue to bear the prophetic along, although the prophetic may have been much transformed into the mode of the scholarly.
The prophetic in rabbinic analysis is not merely something underwritten by institutions, whether by the Israelite monarchy, or by the existence of the Jerusalem Temple, and the prophetic is also not merely about announcing future events. Rather, it has to do with the theological notion of maintaining a connection with the divine, and with the epistemological problem of ascertaining the source(s) of rabbinic knowledge. The intricate interplay between these two is what lies at the heart of the project of rabbinic Judaism.
As we will have occasion to consider in this paper, rabbinic literature from tannaitic traditions onwards divides Biblical prophets into the nevi’im rishonim (the first or early prophets) and the nevi’im acharonim (the later or last prophets, e.g., tSotah 13:3). The former are those aligned with the period of the First Temple in Jerusalem (e.g., mSotah 9:12, see below, and elsewhere in the Mishnah), the latter group refers to the early post-exilic prophets Haggai, Zekhariah, and Mal’akhi, on which see below.
E.g., bSanh 39b with respect to Ovadiah. Evidently, there is no real difference between the abstract noun nevi’ut or prophecy or nevu’ah, both in use in rabbinic texts. In Biblical literature only the latter appears, and here only rarely, e.g., in Neh. 6:12, where nevu’ah refers to the prophetic statement itself, and 2 Chron. 15:8 and 9:29. The former, nevi’ut, emerges in rabbinic literature only.
Sommer, “Did Prophecy Cease?,” 31–47, see 31 n.2; for scholarship that preceded him, bearing variations of the trope: Urbach, “When Did Prophecy Cease?,” 1–11; Overholt, “The End of Prophecy,” 103–15; Greenspahn, “Why Prophecy Ceased,” 37. The theme is part of many histories of Jewish theology, and theologies of early Christianity.
As a collection, the Tosefta redaction is commonly dated to the mid-third century CE, although it may contain earlier traditions. The most extensive analysis to date of this Toseftan tradition has been provided by Kuhn, Offenbarungsstimmen im antiken Judentum and more recently glossed by Stefanie Bolz’s dissertation Rabbinic Discourse on Divination in the Babylonian Talmud.
Following msVienna, see Lieberman, “The Tosefta,” repr., 231. Ms. Erfurt has only slight and arguably insignificant variations. I characterize this text as locus classicus because parts of it are repeatedly cited and glossed in the later Talmudic traditions on both sides of the limes, in the Babylonian Talmud in most extensively bSotah 48b and its parallel bSanhedrin 11a, and parts of it in bYoma 9b, as well as in the Palestinian Talmud at pSotah 9:14, 24b-c.
The Mishnah refers to the “early” or “first prophets” in a number of contexts, including ours (mSotah 9:12; and mYoma 5:2, mTaanit 4:2) without identifying the members of this early group. According to mSotah 9:12, the urim and tummim (Exodus 28:30) lost their divinatory power with the death of the “early prophets.” In the later Talmudic discussion of this passage a fourth century Babylonian sage (‘amora) is cited as defining this group as (biblical) prophets other than Haggai, Zechariah, and Mal’achi, “since these are the ‘latter’ prophets” (bSotah 48b). The Bavli then proceeds to cite our longer extended early tradition preserved in the Tosefta as a proof-text.
Late 6th and early 5th century CE.
In the Mishnah, the latter part of the ninth and final chapter of Sotah, with its parallels and additions in the same treatise in the Tosefta, which provides a much longer collection extending through several chapters through the final 15th chapter. Neither one is arranged tightly along chronological lines.
In the Mishnaic chapter, this list is opened with an acknowledgement of the discontinuation of the Biblical Temple ritual of the bitter waters for the sotah (the suspected adulteress) the mSotah 9:9, triggering a longer list of other such discontinuities.
We should note that the Toseftan collection includes a tradition of an earlier departure of the holy spirit (ru’ah ha-kodesh) tied to an extended exegesis of the story of the Biblical prophet Elijah. Here the Toseftan narrator holds that “till Elijah was hidden away, the holy spirit was plentiful among Israel” (tSotah 12:5), proven by the many “sons of prophets” mentioned in the Biblical story (2 Kings 2:1–16). Eventually, so the Toseftan narrator cum exegete holds that the holy spirit “was removed” from them (ibid.). This would make the departure noted in 13:3 a less epochal shift. However, in the earlier historical moment, the holy spirit “was removed” (nistalkah) from them, i.e., from those collective anonymous prophets specifically, but not (yet) from “Israel” as a whole.
The causative (hifil) form of the verb (“hear”) here is awkward. The talmudic citations of this tradition render the verb as mishtamshim, as in “they used to make use of” or – so Lieberman – “consult” a bat kol; Lieberman, “Hellenism in Jewish Palestine”, 195. Bolz follows Saul Lieberman, rendering mashmi’im like mishtamshin from the parallel versions in the Babylonian Talmud and translates “they would make use of a bat kol,” 73. Also Kuhn, Offenbarungsstimmen im antiken Judentum, 304. n.5. However, in tSotah 13:4 the verb is simply “they heard”. See below, n. 16.
Considering the extended treatments of the bat kol in the literature it would be ludicrous to attempt a general definition. The referent of the concept, whether as heavenly and even divine voice, or as intermediary entity to be consulted shifts in different textual context. Suffice it to say that the term is coined only by the rabbis, drawing on the many auditory connections with the divine in Biblical literature. Like the ruah ha-kodesh, the bat kol is also feminine, at least by grammatical gender.
This has led a number of scholars to consider the bat kol as one of the hypostasized divine intermediaries that populate the late antique cosmos, following the Greek logos, the Aramaic memra of the Targumim and many others.
The grammatical gender of the bat kol is feminine which has been important to Jewish feminism even since the rise of Jewish feminist theology in the 70’s and 80’. For these reasons I will refer to the bat kol in the feminine.
See Lieberman, “Hellenism in Jewish Palestine.” He bases his understanding on geonic and mediaeval commentaries.
Here I disagree with Lieberman, who connects the use of bat kol here with mYevamot 16:6 where it simply means hearsay, and even echo in mountains, rendered by him as “a voice or a word heard without seeing the person who uttered it …” ibid., 194. However, in our context a metaphysical character of sorts adheres to the bat kol as will be clear from the following story: Kuhn, Offenbarungsstimmen im antiken Judentum, 320. See also Bolz, who carefully distinguishes between the various formulations (“the divine voice came forth and said,” “they heard,” etc.). At the very least this phrasing also indicates to her a “divine revelatory voice,” Bolz, “Rabbinic Discourse on Divination in the Babylonian Talmud,” 75.
The referent of the personal pronoun ‘them’ is not immediately transparent, but from the continuation of the tradition it appears to be the (collective) sages.
Perhaps evoking the name of a well-known family in Jericho, see Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-Fshutah, VIII:736. For the House of Gorya in Jericho cp. the famous incident in mentioned mShabbat 1:4 and tShabbat 1:16 where the schools of Hillel and Shammai assemble in the upper chambers of Hanania ben Hizkiya ben Garion (or Gorion or Garon). Ancient names are common-sensically subject to multiple spellings in medieval manuscripts, and there is no way to ascertain whether the “house of Gurya” has the same historical referent as does mShab 1:4.
Samuel the Little is a well-known personality in rabbinic memory, as per Talmudic tradition he is associated with the formulation of the daily prayer liturgy which forms the backbone of the individual life of every religious Jewish man (bBer 28b) in rabbinic tradition, and since the rise of Jewish feminism of Jewish women as well.
For the myth of Yavneh as the founding rabbinic council in the first century and its various Talmudic afterlives see Cohen, “The Destruction”; Boyarin, “A Tale of Two Synods.”
Here the famous chain of transmission from Mishnah Avot comes to mind as an intertext, which starts at Mt. Sinai and Moses, has the prophets (nevi’im) early on between the elders and “men of the great assembly”. Samu’el the Little is not mentioned in that tradition, as one of Hillel’s disciples.
End of tSotah 13:4. Bolz has “but time struck it down”, 74. Kuhn has rendered “but because the hour was confused” (they could not do a public eulogy), Kuhn, Offenbarungsstimmen im antiken Judentum, 304f. He makes references to the later Talmudic version according to which no public grief was allowed for those executed by the Roman government.
Compare for instance Jer. 15:2.
The Babylonian Talmud cites our tradition in its entirety, from the death of the later prophets to the Bar Kokha war in bSotah 48b with parallel version in bSanhedrin 11a. The Palestinian Talmud cites various fragments ad loc at pSotah 9:14, 24b–c.
In bSanhedrin 11a the text tradition is cited in a context which mentions Samuel the Little and his supposed humility, upon which our text tradition is cited as a further demonstration of this sage’s humility.
Such as the explanation of troubled times as the (Bar Kokhba) wartimes, when eulogies could not be presented for those executed by the government, situating the narrative in a martyrological context (bSotah 48b).
Thus, very strongly the Talmudic narrative bYoma 9b.
Rabbi Yohanan, one of the early post-mishnaic sages in Syro-Palestina in the Roman Empire would be dated to the third century CE, while Mar bar Rav Ashi, the son of Rav Ashi featured here would be dated to the latter 5th century in the Sasanian Empire. For introductory purposes to individual Talmudic sages, Stemberger, Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch remains still the most useful reference work.
Both dicta are cited in the various studies dealing with the holy spirit, the bat kol, or prophecy, e.g., Kuhn, Offenbarungsstimmen im antiken Judentum, 312f. and literature cited there.
Although in these Amoraic cases it is entirely clear which Temple, first or second, the dicta refer to, although generally beit ha-mikdash refers to the Second Temple.
See Schäfer, Die Vorstellung vom Heiligen Geist in der rabbinischen Literatur, 100, who insists the passage has in mind the first Temple, contra Marmorstein a.o.
Pace Schäfer who surmises that R. Yohanan polemicizes with his dictum against Rav Avdimi.
This touches upon a methodological issue as well, namely on how to read and use Talmudic texts and discussions for intellectual histories. For my hermeneutic approach in this paper, I hold that when individual dicta are embedded in Talmudic discussions it is that framework which determines the resonance of the dictum in Talmudic culture.
By and large, Talmudic text historians assume that the anonymous voice(s) of the Talmud is/ are what lend the discussions and narratives anthologized in the Talmud is final Gestalt. The anonymous voice in the sugya here seems like a later discussion of Rabbi Avdimi’s dictum. However, although the academic consensus tends towards dating the group(s) sages behind the anonymous voice, the stammaim, to the latest layer of the Talmudic redaction, this cannot be taken for granted.
Some mss. have “greater than”.
The verse is actually a plea to God (attributed to “Moses, man of God” as ‘author’ of this psalm) “that we may get (navi’) a heart of wisdom.” Morphologically, the verbal form can be read as the noun ‘prophet’ (navi’) which from the context is clearly a misreading, since the poem is not concerned with prophets.
Following the mediaeval commentator, Rashi.
For Abbaye and Rava, see Kalmin, “Friends and Colleagues, or Barely Acquainted?,” 125–58, a.o. As far as Rav Ashi is concerned, inner-Talmudic tradition (bBava Metzia 86a; bBava Batra 157b, a.o.) accords him with a crucial role in the very formation of the Talmudic tradition.
On the importance of the latter as a source of law in rabbinic literature, see Hayes, “Halakhah Le-Moshe miSinai in Rabbinic Sources.”
See, n. 32 above.