“Was there Science in Ancient Judaism? Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Religion and Science” more

Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses http://sir.sagepub.com Was there science in ancient Judaism? Historical and cross-cultural reflections on "religion" and "science" Annette Yoshiko Reed Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 2007; 36; 461 DOI: 10.1177/000842980703600303 The online version of this article can be found at: http://sir.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/36/3-4/461 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: The Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion Additional services and information for Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses can be found at: Email Alerts: http://sir.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://sir.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Citations http://sir.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/36/3-4/461 Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 Was there science in ancient Judaism? Historical and cross-cultural reflections on "religion" and "science" ANNETTE YOSHIKO REED Summary: This article considers the place of scientific inquiry in ancient Judaism with a focus on astronomy and cosmology. It explores how ancient Jews used biblical interpretation to situate "scientific" knowledge in relation to "religious" concerns. In the Second Temple period (538 B.C.E.-70 C.E.) biblical interpretation is often used to integrate insights from Mesopotamian and Greek scientific traditions. In classical rabbinic Judaism (70-600 C.E.) astronomy became marked as an esoteric discipline, and cosmology is understood in terms of Ma’aseh Bereshit, a category that blurs the boundaries between "science" and "religion." Whereas modern thinkers often see Judaism and "science" as incompatible, medieval Jewish thinkers built on these ancient traditions; some even viewed themselves as heirs to a Jewish intellectual tradition that included astronomy, cosmology, medicine and mathematics. Cet article aborde la place de la connaissance scientifique, l’astronomie et de la cosmologie, dans le juda&iuml;sme ancien. Plus pr&eacute;cis&eacute;ment, l’objet de la recherche est l’utilisation de l’interpr&eacute;tation biblique pour situer la connaissance scientifique en lien avec des questions religieuses. Pendant la p&eacute;riode du second Temple (538 av. E.C.-70 E.C.), l’interpr&eacute;tation biblique est souvent utilis&eacute;e pour int&eacute;grer des &eacute;l&eacute;ments des traditions scientifiques m&eacute;sopotamienne et R&eacute;sum&eacute;: notamment de Annette Yoshiko Reed is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania; e-mail: reedann@sas.upenn.edu. Research for this article was supported by grants provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities (USA), McMaster University Arts Research Board and the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada. An earlier version of this article was presented to the interdisciplinary Science and Religion Group at McMaster University. The author wishes to thank John Robertson for this opportunity and the members of the group for their feedback, and is also grateful to Leora Batnitzky, Benjamin Fleming, Jonathan Geen, Louis Greenspan, Travis Kroeker, Dana Hollander, Craig Perfect, Steven R. Reed, Donna Seamone, Karl Shuve, Kimberly Stratton, Dove C. Sussman and the anonymous readers at SR for their many critiques and suggestions. The author offers special thanks to Patricia Crone for her methodological contributions. &copy; 2007 Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion / Corporation Canadienne des Sciences Religieuses Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 462 grecque. &Agrave; l’&eacute;poque classique du juda&iuml;sme rabbinique (70-600 E.C.), l’astronomie est per&ccedil;ue comme une discipline &eacute;sot&eacute;rique et la cosmologie est vue comme Ma ’aseh Bereshit, une cat&eacute;gorie qui brouille la distinction entre la science et la religion. Alors que les penseurs modernes consid&egrave;rent souvent que le juda&iuml;sme et la science sont incompatibles, les penseurs juifs m&eacute;di&eacute;vaux ont repris ces traditions. Certains se consid&eacute;raient m&ecirc;me comme les h&eacute;ritiers d’une tradition intellectuelle juive qui embrassait l’astronomie, la cosmologie, la m&eacute;decine et les math&eacute;ma- tiques. At this stage in the history ot research, it is not yet possible to locate scientific interests and inquiry within the cultural landscapes of ancient (Morowitz 2005; Peterson 2000: 19-21; Samuelson 2005; also Engler 2003: 416-19, 446-56). Treatments of &dquo;science&dquo; in the context of Jewish history, participation ofJews in the scientific endeavors of other civilizations; studies have discussed individual Jews who happened to be scientists and scientists who happened to be Jews during the flowering of Islamic sciences in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance in Christendom and the Scientific Revolution in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries (Ruderman 1995: 14-15). Despite the disproportionate quantity of such figures, a sustained scholarly interest in Judaism and the sciences has emerged only recently.2 In our ancient Jewish sources, there are many passages of potential relevance to the broader discussion, including evidence from the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, Hellenistic Jewish writings, classical rabbinic literature and Hekhalot corpus (Ruderman 1995: 375-82). Yet, so far, historical research on the place of the sciences inJewish cultures has been largely limited to the medieval and modern periods (Ruderman 1995: 375; Sela 2003: 3). On the rare occasions that ancient sources have been brought to bear on discussions of Judaism and &dquo;science,&dquo; they have not been examined on their own terms. These discussions have focussed on those traditions that would later become normative, appealing to the classical rabbinic literature (compiled ca. 200-600 C.E.) 3 while disregarding pre-rabbinic and non-rabbinic writings (e.g., Fisch 1997; Neusner 1988; Singer 2004; cf. Alexander 2002). Rather than locating rabbinic sources in their own cultural contexts, moreover, studies have mined them for background to later developments and/or for support in contemporary debates (e.g., Lamm 1990). At this stage in the history of research, it is not yet possible to locate scientific interests and inquiry within the cultural landscapes of ancient moreover, have been framed in terms of the Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 463 Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 464 cited by Jewish philosophers, ethicists and scientists in the of debates about bioethics, creationism, and &dquo;religion&dquo; and &dquo;science&dquo; (e.g., Gould 1999; Kass 1985; Pollack 2000; Samuelson 2001; 2002; 2005; Schroeder 1997; 2001). Some use the ancient Jewish encounter with Greek sciences to discuss the challenges faced by modern Jews in North America (e.g., Singer 2004), while others collect biblical and rabbinic references to medicine, mathematics and astronomy to celebrate the antiquity ofJewish contributions to the sciences (e.g., Dobin 1977; Feldman 1965; Rosner 1995; cf. Patai 1994). Rabbinic precedents play a particularly prominent role in the efforts to find common ground between Jewish tradition and modern sciences in the discourse about Torah u-Madda among Orthodox Jewish scientists (on which see Rosenberg 1988). Just as many discussions of &dquo;science&dquo; and ancient Judaism are oriented towards contemporary concerns, so it is difficult to avoid apologetics, even in the course of historical investigation. Relevant in this regard is the concern to defend Judaism against the charge, common in antiquity and modernity alike, that the Jews as a people contributed nothing of their own to the scientific, political, philosophical, and artistic development of world civilization (e.g., Josephus, Against Apion 2.135-36, 146). The importance of this issue within modern Jewish thought can be seen, for example, in the writings of Hermann Cohen (1842-1919), the neo-Kantian philosopher who first systematized the idea of Judaism as &dquo;ethical monotheism.&dquo; In his Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism, Cohen asserts that &dquo;The Jewish law ... is to be understood and judged fairly only from the viewpoint of the ethical onesidedness which had as its consequence abstention from any independent interest in natural sciences&dquo; (Kaplan [trans.] 1972: 346). In his view, this paucity is both negative and positive. Within human history so far, Judaism’s &dquo;ethical one-sidedness&dquo; has resulted in a lack of any Jewish contribution to the sciences. According to Cohen, however, this blinkered focus on the ethical had the benefit of freeing the Jewish people from polytheism and &dquo;magic,&dquo; which go hand-in-hand with the human fascination with nature. For him, the alleged Jewish antipathy towards the natural sciences signals the potential for a modern philosophy based in Judaism to transcend &dquo;science&dquo; and bring humankind-Jewish and non-Jewish alike-nearer to truth and our potential to know it. Cohen’s views on the topic are of course complex, and their ramifications for discussions of &dquo;religion&dquo; and &dquo;science&dquo; quite fascinating in their own right. For our purposes, what proves significant is that the same concerns arise in historical scholarship on ancient Judaism. Perhaps the clearest example is &dquo;Why No Science in Judaism?&dquo; (1988) by Jacob Neusner, one of the most prominent and prolific historians of ancientJudaism today. The essay begins with the observation that those Jews who were &dquo;nurtured by the canonical writings ofJudaism&dquo; made no contribution to framing modern sciences; Neusner thus turns to the classical rabbinic literature to explain what he sees as &dquo;the failure of Judaism in terms of its own indigenous logic to generate philososources are binic course Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 465 Neusner’s 1988 essay is clearly meant to provoke. His bold claims have met with much critique and have sparked much needed discussion (e.g., Alexander 2002: 226; Fisch 1997; Ruderman 1997: 4).5 For our purposes, his essay proves helpful inasmuch as it addresses head-on many issues left tacit in other treatments of &dquo;science&dquo; and Judaism. Also notable, in my view, is the principle of selectivity that Neusner applies to the evidence, as it relates to the broader question of how cultural specificities factor into our discussions of &dquo;science&dquo; and &dquo;religion.&dquo; In effect, Neusner defines ’Judaism&dquo; as non-scientific. He acknowledges that some Jews have participated in scientific endeavors, but he reads their involvement in scientific endeavors as an abandonment ofJudaism in favor of the logics and minds of other cultures (e.g., 1988: 45). In defining the Judaism from which Jewish scientists allegedly depart, he is also selective. He privileges classical rabbinic Judaism and singles out a specific text, namely, the Bavli (I.e., the Babylonian Talmud). In his view, the Bavli determined normative Judaism from its inception to the present day, inculcating the modes of thinking now native to Judaism (Neusner 1988: 53).Just as he slips from describing &dquo;the mind of the Judaism of the dual Torah&dquo; to making generalizations about &dquo;the mind ofJudaism,&dquo; so he begins by characterizing the Bavli and ends up characterizing normative Judaism, even in the present day, as the continuation of the discourse begun in the Bavli, within the constraints determined by the Bavli. Also significant is Neusner’s contrast between the ethical and &dquo;religious&dquo; orientation ofJewish modes of thinking and the philosophical and &dquo;scientific&dquo; of the Greek modes of thinking, which he sees as inspiring all sci- orientation L. Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 466 . I-I - - W 1.-- -- ,- - W . &dquo; ...:. j’ 1 .- - . . of both Jerusalem and Athens (Alexander 2001; 2001: 29-49; Meeks 2001: 18-20;). To be sure, Neusner has very different reasons for contrasting the Hebrew and the Hellene. In one sense, however, his approach to Judaism and &dquo;science&dquo; is an inversion of the same dichotomy. Rather than denigrating Judaism’s allegedly strict limitation to the realm of the religious, helike Cohen-celebrates it. As a result, however, he must downplay the diversity of our ancient Jewish sources and the diversity of intellectual interests displayed within them. This selectivity is characteristic of the broader discussion, as is the contrast between the &dquo;religion&dquo; and ethics of the Jews and the &dquo;science&dquo; and rationality of the Greeks (e.g., Caizza 2005; Morowitz 2005; cf. Samuelson 2005; Singer 2004: 81). As noted above, the place of &dquo;science&dquo; in ancient Judaism has been mainly explored for apologetic, rather than historical, aims. Discussions have thus focussed on texts that are now normative and approached the past in terms of models with which to understand the Jewish encounter with Western secularism in the modern day. Such issues have current relevance, ~nr1 ,m<;-mr Tpurich C&dquo;l1rrpc Martin -i,,y ,m ;m--rr,mr -,rr in ,-mr----r,-, r1icrllc- Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 467 tive connotations and subordinated in status to the twin disciplines of Theology and Philosophy, which took more theoretical approaches to the structure of the cosmos and the causes of natural phenomena. Inasmuch as our modern concepts of &dquo;science&dquo; were shaped by the interpenetration of these disciplines in the early modern period, it would be anachronistic to approach the study of ancientJudaism with a notion of &dquo;science&dquo; as distinct from &dquo;religion&dquo; and &dquo;magic.&dquo; Indeed, recent research in the History of Science has demonstrated the importance of &dquo;magical&dquo; disciplines in cultivating the observational and experimental approach to nature upon which modern Western sciences are founded; pre-modern cultures rarely share our current concepts of the boundaries between astrology and astronomy, alchemy and chemistry, magic and medicine (Lindberg 2002: 49-55; Lloyd 2002: 2143 ; Ruderman 1995: 376-82; Sela 2001). In his groundbreaking research into Jewish attitudes towards &dquo;science&dquo; in the early modern period, David Ruderman thus critiques &dquo;theoreticaltypological discussions&dquo; such as Neusner’s that &dquo;reduce reality to a single categorization or abstract definition, flattening the differences of specific times and places into homogenous, immutable, and predictable entities called science and Judaism&dquo; (1995: 4). Likewise, it may be best to approach ancient Judaism with a broader definition of &dquo;science,&dquo; which encompasses the many different ways in which knowledge gained from the observation of the natural world was systematized in specialized discourses within pre-modern cultures (Alexander 2002: 224-25; Lloyd 2002: 1-3, 21,142-47). In contrast to a reified and essentialist definition of &dquo;science&dquo; that assumes its autonomy from the religious, political and cultural values of a society, such an inclusive def inition prompts us to look to our ancient sources to determine their own categories-as well as the social place and intellectual status of these modes of inquiry in relation to other domains of expertise (Barton 1997: 8-20; cf. ’ Engler 2003). the &dquo;Jewish-ness&dquo; of scientific material? Here with other cultures may be helpful. Our evidence suggests too, comparison that intercultural exchange contributed significantly to scientific developments . in the diverse cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. It is somewhat specious to dismiss references to scientific interests in ancient Jewish sources as merely the taint of foreign influence on Judaism, since it is nearly impossible to extricate any other culture’s sciences from the web of foreign influences that shaped them (Cumont 1960: 9-16; Evans 1998: 343; Neugebauer 1957: 67-68, 86-87, 169-71,187; Sabra 1987). Accordingly, it is problematic to speak of &dquo;Greek science,&dquo; &dquo;Babylonian science,&dquo; or ’Jewish science&dquo; in any essentialist manner; we can discuss culturally distinct disciplines and traditions of scientific inquiry, but the production and products of scientific knowledge are not limited to any single culture. The cross-cultural pollination of scientific knowledge is explicitly discussed in our ancient sources. A number of Greek authors, for instance, Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 How, then, do we determine 468 ’a _ of certain sciences could have only taken place in civilizations of great antiquity with stable, monarchic systems that enabled the long-term observation of the planets and the stars (e.g., Diodorus 1.9.6; 1.9.6; 1.81.4-5; Herodotus, Histories 2.4; Plato, Timaeus 22c-23b;). The assertion of the Greek debt to ancient nations like Egypt and Babylonia is thus coupled with the critique of oriental monarchy as a primitive stage in the political evolution of humankind, at the pinnacle of which stand the younger but more civilized Greeks. When we investigate ancientJudaism, we should similarly be attuned to the culturally distinctive ways in which scientific knowledge-both foreign and indigenous in origin-was integrated within Jewish cultural systems and justified with appeal to Jewish traditions. Some Jews appear to have been actively involved in the cosmopolitan, cross-cultural exchange of knowledge in Hellenistic, Roman and Persian empires. Porphyry, for instance, quotes a passage by Theophrastus (ca. 300 B.C.E.) that depicts the Jews as philosophers who engaged nightly in astronomical observations (On Abstinence 2.26). That this image of the Jew is not.merely a variation on the Hellenistic trope of the foreign sage is suggested by our evidence for ancient Jewish scientists. Galen uses the Hippocratic commentaries of the Jewish physician Rufus of Sam aria (ca. 1st c. C.E.), and Zosimus (Sync. 297) and others make mention of the Alexandrian alchemist &dquo;Mary theJewess&dquo; (ca. lst/2nd c. C.E.), who is widely credited with the invention of several kinds oflaboratory apparatus.6 Likewise, we find references to astronomers and physicians as well as astronomical, geographical, mathematical and medicinal topics in ancient Jewish literature, including-and perhaps especially-in the Bavli (Feldman 1965; Beller 1988). For our purpose, however, the more pressing question is how these areas of expertise were perceived in relation to other kinds of knowledge that were more obviously marked as ’Jewish.&dquo; In what follows, we will investigate this question by considering the examples of astronomy and cosmology. References to both are widespread in Jewish literature. Moreover, such references occur in connection with what is perhaps the most paradigmatic of Jewish discourses, namely, biblical interpretation.7 By examining the intersections between astronomy and cosmology, on the one hand, and biblical interpretation, on the other, we may be able to shed light on the ways in which these scientific practices were perceived within ancientJewish cultures. We will begin with the example of astronomy. The ancient Jewish study of the stars seems to have combined foreign and native elements. Accordingly, as we shall see, biblical interpretation was used to claim aJewish pedigree for Babylonian, Egyptian and Hellenistic astronomy, but also to read astrology -- L_~1 c-- LL- __L~_n1_L:_- -c ,--.:-1- .1--------- r&dquo;t.n- ___1:_~.. --~.. 1-:1-i:--1 Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 469 Mesopotamian sciences into Jewish calendrical astronomy. Hellenistic Jewish references assume Jewish involvement in the cross-cultural production and dissemination of knowledge about the stars in the Greco-Roman world. References in the classical rabbinic literature may attest the development of a native Jewish tradition of mathematical astronomy, which was both celebrated and shrouded in secrecy. Further to illumine the place of scientific inquiry in classical rabbinic culture, we will consider the example of cosmology. Our discussion will centre on the interpenetration of exegetical and scientific inquiry in the rabbinic discourse about Ma’aseh Bereshit (lit. &dquo;Work of Creation&dquo;). Tellingly, this term denotes both (1) the story of God’s creation of the cosmos in the first chapter of Genesis and its investigation through biblical interpretation and (2) the cosmos and its investigation through observation and analysis. This rabbinic category combines elements of what we call &dquo;religion&dquo; and what we call &dquo;science.&dquo; The category is, moreover, marked as esoteric. By considering rabbinic references to Ma’aseh Bereshit in light of post-Talmudic scientific treatises and medieval claims to know the secrets of rabbinic sciences, we will investigate whether and how these claims may speak to the social location of the study of the cosmos and its cycles within classical rabbinic culture. Astronomy and astrology: Jewish identity and the study of the stars Although almost wholly absent from the Hebrew Bible (Bar-Ilan 2004), an interest in the study of the stars can be found across virtually the entire continuum of pre-modern Jewish literature. Astronomy is, in fact, the topic of our earliest extant extra-biblical text, the Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 71-82). This Aramaic apocalypse dates from the 3rd century B.C.E. and describes the reception of secret knowledge about the movements of the sun, moon and stars by the biblical figure Enoch during his tour of heaven. Interestingly, its astronomy is based on an ancient Babylonian system and reflects none of the new advances that had, at that point in time, been adopted in the rest of the Hellenistic world (Neugebauer 1985: 58-61; Stone 1988:161-63). With regard to the issue of scientific knowledge.and cultural specificity, this proves particularly intriguing, hinting at a situation far more complex than Neusner’s view of &dquo;science&dquo; as Greek as opposed to Jewish knowledge: if the authors of the Astronomical Book resist the encroachment of Hellenistic culture in Ptolemaic Palestine by rejecting Greek sciences, they ironically do so by preserving Babylonian sciences (Reed 2005: 67-69; Stone 1988; 163-64; cf. Alexander 2002: 231-36). Furthermore, the Astronomical Book places a Jewish stamp on this wisdom by means of biblical interpretation. By appealing to the terse yet suggestive comments about Enoch in Genesis, it uses a biblically based etiology to present its own teachings about the cycles of the heavenly luminaries as revealed wisdom. True knowledge about the heavenly luminaries is traced to Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 470 revelations received by this mysterious, ancient figure-who, according to Genesis, lived for 365 years, &dquo;walked with God,&dquo; and was taken by Him in the days before the Flood (Gen. 5:21-24). The &dquo;scientific&dquo; concerns of the Astronomical Book have &dquo;religious&dquo; motivations, apparently rooted in its priestly concern for cosmic order and the calendar (VanderKam 1984: 90-106). Similarly, the Book of the Watchers (3rd c. B.C.E.) uses Enoch to proclaim the cycles of the stars and seasons as paradigms for human ethics ( 1 Enoch 2-5), while the Book ofjubilees (2nd c. B.C.E.) uses him to argue for the correctness of the solar calendar for determining the proper times forJewish fasts and festivals (4:17-18; 6:32-38). In the latter, for instance, Enoch is depicted as the first man who learned to write and who &dquo;wrote down the signs of heaven according to the order of their separate months&dquo;; he is the one who &dquo;set in order the months and recounted the Sabbaths of the years as we [i.e., the angels] made known to him&dquo; (Jubilees 4:17-18). The relevance of Enochic astronomy for the sectarian disputes of the Second Temple period is clear from the preservation of these books by the Qumran community, alongside a number of documents concerning the proper calculation of the calendar (CD 16,2-4; 4Q317; 4Q319-330; Glessmer 1999; Talmon, Ben-Dov and Glessmer 2001). In the Book of the Watchers and Jubilees, the celebration of astronomical wisdom is paired with the denigration of the observation of the celestial bodies for divinatory aims (1 Enoch 8:3;jubikes 8:2-4; Reed 2005: 37-44).8 In the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, we find astrological and other mantic materials (e.g., 4Q186, 4Q318, 4Q534, 4Q561) alongside astronomical and calendrical materials. Whereas the authors of the Book of the Watchers and jubilees seem to bear suspicions towards celestial divination, the Qumran community appears to have included those with interests in a broader range of sciences, including astronomy as well as astrology and physiognomy. Taken together, these Aramaic and Hebrew texts attest a range of interests not represented within the Hebrew Bible, evincing the cultivation of Mesopotamian scientific traditions among Judaean scribal and priestly circles in the Land of Israel (Albani 1994; Ben-Dov and Horowitz 2005; Geller 1998; Glessmer 1996; VanderKam 1998: 71-90; also Albani and Glessmer 1997). In Jewish literature penned in Greek, we also find cases in which the conceptualization of &dquo;religious&dquo; knowledge integrates &dquo;scientific&dquo; traditions. Just as the Astronomical Book and Book of the Watchers use Enoch to integrate Mesopotamian sciences, so Jews in the Diaspora appealed to biblical heroes to express their participation in the multi-cultural scientific enterprises of the Hellenistic world. Building on the international character of the ancient Israelite Wisdom tradition, for instance, the Wisdom of Solomon (1st c. C.E. Egypt) appeals to King Solomon to voice its view of divine wisdom as including topics treated by Hellenistic philosophers, physicians and astronomers: Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 471 eties of plants and the virtues of roots. (7:17-21) uses the biblical trope’of God’s six days of creation and the extrabiblical trope of Enoch’s tours of heaven to articulate a version of the Enochic calendar, astronomy and cosmology shaped by dialogue with Greek and Egyptian ideas. Some Jews also engaged in the broader discourse about the place ofvarious nations within universal history. Just as the Egyptian and Babylonian historians seem to have cultivated the Greek view of their nations as reservoirs of ancient wisdom in order to assert their superiority over the regnant culture, so Hellenisic Jewish historians defended the Jewish contribution to world civilization (Reed 2004: 136-45; Sterling 1992). In Greek discussions about the antiquity of &dquo;barbarian&dquo; nations, scientific knowledge played a major role (e.g., Diodorus 1.69.2-7,1.96.1-3,1.98.1-4; Herodotus 2.4.1-2; Vitruvius, On Architecture 9.6.2). Likewise, Egyptians and Babylonians claimed credit for the invention of technai like astronomy, mathematics and writing (e.g., Berossus apudSync. 29. l l-16, 53-36, 390; Chaeremon, frg. 2, in van der Horst 1984: 8-13). In response, some Jews appealed to Abraham to argue too for the antiquity of the Jews and’ their participation in scientific discourses more ancient than the Greeks. A pivotal proof text was Genesis 12:10-20, which tells of Abraham travelto Egypt soon after arriving in the Promised Land. Al though the biblical ing account contains no reference to the stars, a number of exegetes read Abraham’s origins in &dquo;Ur of the Chaldees&dquo; (Gen. l l : 28, 31) in terms of the study of the stars, consistent with the astrological associations of the term for &dquo;Chaldean&dquo; in Aramaic, Greek and Latin. Writing in the 2nd century B.C.E., for instance, Artapanus (apud Eusebius, Praep.ev. 9.17.2-9) and PseudoEupolemus (apud Eusebius, Praep.ev. 9.18.I ) understand this biblical narrative in terms of their own cosmopolitan contexts: they depict Abraham as a Chaldean scientist and suggest that his sojourn in Egypt was the occasion for the patriarch’s transmission of Mesopotamian astrological and/or astronomical wisdom to Egypt, from whence the Greeks came to learn it.9 The father of the Jews is thus depicted as ultimately responsible for the scientific achievements of the Egyptians and Greeks. In the writings of the first-century C.E. Jewish historian Josephus, we similarly find cosmopolitan conceptions of &dquo;science&dquo; exploited for the sake of cultural prestige. Josephus follows earlier Jewish exegetes in locating the origins of systematic astronomical observation with long-lived patriarchs from before the Hood-in his case, with the sons of Seth (Antiquities 1.69-70). He also follows Artapanus and Pseudo-Eupolemus in interpreting Abraham’s Similarly, 2 Enoch (lstc. C.E. Egypt?) Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 472 sojourn in Egypt in Genesis 12:10-20 as the occasion for his transmission of Chaldean mathematics and astronomy to Egyptian priests (Antiquities 1.154-68; Reed 2004: 129-36). Josephus, however, simultaneously uses scientific wiselevate Abraham and uses Abraham to undermine scientific wisdom. Answering Genesis’ silence about God’s motivation for choosing Abraham, Josephus recounts how Abraham deduced the truth of monotheism from the observation-based conclusion that the heavenly luminaries cannot be divine, since their movements across the heavens are irregular (Antiquities 1.155-56; cf. jubilees 12:16-22). According to Josephus, the Egyptians-and, hence, the Greeks-owe their scientific achievements to this Jewish sage. Yet Abraham’s astronomy led him to discover something far greater, namely, the very monotheism that sets the Jews apart from other nations (Reed 2004: dom to 127-29). In Josephus’ account of Abraham, no mention is made of the study of the stars for divinatory purposes. In other first-century sources, such as the Third Sibylline Oracle (218-228) and Philo of Alexandria’s On Abraham (69-71), it is astrology, more specifically, which serves as a foil for articulating Abraham’s chosenness. These authors use astrology to delineate the differences between Israel and other nations. In adopting this attitude towards astrology, however, they also participate in a trans-creedal discourse about &dquo;science&dquo; and the study of the stars-albeit in a different way than Artapanus and PseudoEupolemus. It is perhaps not coincidental that Jewish denigration of astrology peaks at the same time as the devaluation of astrology in the Roman Empire, after its sudden rise in prominence as a tool of imperial propaganda under Augustus and its subsequent marginalization due to fears about its potential misuse as a tool of rebellion (Barton 1997: 27-62; Reed 2004: 145-56). The first-century Roman author Pliny, for instance, makes pointed efforts to distinguish between astronomy, which he elevates to the status of &dquo;science,&dquo; and astrology, which he depicts as tainted both by its non-Roman origins and by its association with &dquo;magic&dquo; (Natural History 30; Reed 2004: 153-56; Veltri 1998). Likewise, Josephus associates Abraham with the scientific study of the stars, but he laments the popularity of the divinatory study of the stars by the Jews of his time; he even associates the outbreak of the Jewish Revolt against Rome with the misinterpretation of celestial signs ( War 6.288-309). We find a similar dynamic in the classical rabbinic literature (Veltri 1998). In the context of discussions about astrological determinism and the chosenness of the Jewish people, late antique Rabbis connect Abraham with the sciences of his Chaldean past. In rabbinic tradition, the discussion is dissociated from Abraham’s Egyptian sojourn (e.g., Genesis Rabbah 40.6), and no explicit reference is made to the scientific traditions of any other nations. Rather, Abraham’s relationship to the study of the stars is explored through Genesis 15, which recounts God’s establishment of the covenant with Abraham and which includes his statement to Abraham to &dquo;Look toward heaven, ’ and number the stars&dquo; (15:5). , Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 473 The 5th-century Palestinian midrashic compilation Genesis Rabbah preseveral interesting examples. In one tradition, attributed to R. Samuel b. Isaac, Abraham is depicted as an astrologer, and astrological determinism is both confirmed and circumvented: serves And Abram said: &dquo;Behold! To me you have given no seed&dquo; (Gen.15:3). R. Samuel b. Isaac commented: &dquo;[Abraham said:] My planetary fate [mazzal] oppresses me and declares, ’Abram cannot beget a child.&dquo;’ The Holy One, blessed be he, said to him: ’Let it be even as your words: Abram and Sarai cannot beget. But Abraham and Sarah can beget! &dquo;’ ( Genesis Rabbah 44.10) Even as R. Samuel asserts that God freed Abraham and Sarah from the childlessness fated to them by planetary forces, he does not dismiss the efficacy of astrology. It is only by means of a divine name-change (i.e., Abram to Abraham and Sarai to Sarah; Gen. 17:5, 15) that the patriarch and his wife are granted new fates. Although God is more powerful than the stars, he still works with the astrological system. Other traditions are more explicit in reading God’s chosenness of Abraham in terms of his freedom from the bondage of astrological determinism: &dquo;And he brought him forth outside&dquo; (Gen.15:5). R.Joshua said in R. Levi’s name: &dquo;Did he then lead him forth from ’outside’ the world, that it says, ’and he brought him forth outside’ (Gen.15:5)? It means that he showed him the streets of heaven, as you read [in Scripture]: ’While as yet he had not made the earth nor the outer spaces’ (Prov. 8:26).&dquo; R. Judah b. R. Simon said in R. Johanan’s name: &dquo;He lifted him up above of heaven; hence he says to him, ’Look nifies to look down from above!&dquo; &dquo; now toward heaven’ (Gen. 15:5). the vault ’Look’ sig- Sages said: &dquo;[God said to him]: ’You are a prophet, not an astrologer,’ as it says [in Scripture] : ’Now therefore restore the man’s wife, for he is a prophet’ (Gen. 20: 7). In the days of Jeremiah, the Israelites wished to entertain this belief [i.e., in astrology], but the Holy One, blessed be he, would not permit them. Thus it is written : ’Thus says the Lord: ’Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven,’ etc. (jer. 10:2)-[meaning that God said to them: ].’your ancesThe tor Abraham wished to entertain this belief long ago, but I would not permit him! &dquo;’ (GenesisRabbah44.12) Like Enoch in the Astronomical Book, Book of the Watchers, Jubilees, and 2 Enoch,. Abraham is here granted knowledge of the stars that surpasses any earth7 bound scientist-after all, he has ascended to heaven (so too Pseudo-Philo, L.A.B. 18.5). Unlike the Chaldeans of his homeland, the father of the Jews has stood in heaven’s streets and peered down at the stars from above its vault. As in Josephus’ reading of Genesis 12:10-20, however, this knowledge is simultaneously devalued. Not only is Abraham literally lifted out of the sphere of the stars’ sway, but the prophetic power of the patriarch and his progeny is contrasted with the divinatory practices of other nations. In the end, then, this midrash appeals both positively and negative to Abraham’s associDownloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 474 Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 475 In the classical rabbinic literature, we also find hints of a view of the s’tudy of the stars that is closer to what we might call &dquo;science&dquo;-not only in its content and method but also in its level of social prestige. After the destruction of the Second Temple (70 C.E.), the calendar remained a contested emblem of religious legitimacy (m. Rosh Hashanah 2.9; b. Berakhot 63a-b), and the fixing of new moons became a means of asserting the halakhic authority of the nascent rabbinic movement (e.g., m. Rosh Hashanah 1.7). Initially, new moons seem to have been set by observation alone (e.g., m. Rosh Hashanah 1.5-7; 2.8; t. Sanhedrin 2.2-3). During Late Antiquity, however, Rabbis appear to have used mathematical methods for calculating new moons and tequfot (i.e., equinoxes and solstices) so as to determine the intercalation of months needed to maintain their lunisolar calendar (Beller 1988).12 Not only are the necessary calculations complex, but Jewish calendrical requirements seem to have prompted the development of new methods of mathematical astronomy, independent from Babylonian and Greek astronomical traditions (Beller 1988; Neugebauer 1949: 322-24).13 Whereas the first-century R. Gama~liel, for instance, is said to have had lunar diagrams to show witnesses to the phases of the moon (m. Sanhedrin 2.8), the 3rd-century Mar Samuel is depicted as calculating the tequfot (b. Eruvim 56a; b. Rosh Hashanah 20b). .. Interestingly, the Bavli includes the results of such calculations but no record of how they were reached (Feldman 1965). It does, however, attest the intellectual and social prestige granted to those who possessed such skills. In contrast to Second Temple literature, the classical rabbinic literature does not justify calendrical knowledge with appeal to heavenly ascent, angelic revelation, or biblical heroes; rather, late antique Rabbis legitimize mathematical astronomy largely with reference to rabbinic heroes like Mar Samuel. 14 Knowledge of how to intercalate years and fix new moons is associated with wisdom (b. Sukkah 28a). The rarity and the importance of such skills are evident in a saying attributed to Rav, to the effect that one may not speak to someone &dquo;who is able to calculate the tequfot and planetary courses [mazzalot] but does not&dquo; (b. Shabbat 75a).. The lack of details about this inner-Jewish scientific tradition in our sources may reflect rabbinic attitudes towards this knowledge. Astronomical knowledge is celebrated but also guarded. Intriguing is the Bavli’s reference to a baraita (i.e., a first-century rabbinic tradition) called the &dquo;secret of the calendar&dquo; (sod ha-ibbur) in tractate Rosh Hashanah 20b (cf. b. Ketuboth 112a). This baraita would become a topic of much interest in the Middle Ages, as would the other astronomical traditions to which the Bavli refers. The postTalmudic treatise Baraita de-Shmuel (ca. 8th c. C.E.), for instance, came to be circulated as a record of Mar Samuel’s wisdom, and it provides details about the calculations behind some of the Bavli’s terse calendrical statements (so too Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer 5-7). Likewise, medieval Jews such as Abraham Bar Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 476 Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 477 1, ’ with earlier Jewish tradition. status of Ma ’aseh Bereshit is first articulated in the Mishnah. The An anonymous ruling in tractacte lfagigah 2.1I reads: The laws of prohibited sexual relationships may not be expounded (drsh) by three, nor Ma ’aseh Bereshit by two, nor the Merkavah by one, unless he is a sage and understands on his own. continuities special Anyone who speculates into four things, it would be merciful for him ifhe had not come into the world: what is above, what is below, what is before, what is after. Anywho has no concern for the honor of his Creator, it would be merciful for him ifhe had not come into the world. one ’ The focus on the act of interpretation (derashah) suggests that Ma ’aseh Bereshit is here being used to refer to the biblical account of creation (Halperin 1980: 24-25). Read as such, this mishnah aims to limit the public exegesis of Genesis I in a manner that falls between the proscription concerning sexually-explicit material in Leviticus (aravot) and the proscription concerning material that can readily be interpreted in a mystical light, namely, the description of the merkavah (I.e., God’s chariot) in the Book of Ezekiel (chaps. I and . 10). One might ask, however, why Genesis I finds itself in such company. Inasmuch as the divine creation of cosmos is so central to the Jewish under- standing of the power and singularity of God, one might wonder why late antique Rabbis made efforts to distinguish the exegesis of Ma’asehBereshitfrom the rest of their midrashic endeavors, marking it as an esoteric discourse not fit for the ears of an uneducated public. Scholars have answered this question in different ways. At one extreme is Nicholas Sdd, who interprets this mishnah as an early rabbinic attempt to suppress an ancient, non-rabbinic Jewish tradition of &dquo;mystical cosmology&dquo; (1981). He finds hints of this tradition in a wide variety of texts and constructs its doctrine by drawing from a broad range of sources, from the 3rd century B.C.E. Astronomical Book to post-Talmudic texts such as Midrash Konen and Seder Rabbah di-Vreshit. The latter explicitly claim to record the contents Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 478 lIle lenIl Wft’U vu’-UUft’U 111 BJell..1;,,).&dquo; BJU1SIle11-BJUll,1Slell1 J U1SUlle1S Ill1S vel y 11111- , ited reading of the mishnaic proscription with appeal to the semantic range of Ma ’aseh Bereshit. In his view, the term Ma ’aseh Bereshit &dquo;is not suited to a description of esoteric teaching&dquo; precisely because &dquo;it is hard to believe that an esoteric teaching would be signified by the same term used to refer to physical reality revealed to all&dquo; (1995: 197-98; cf. Halperin 1980: 98-99). Sdd and Goshen-Gottstein voice differing views of the meaning of Ma ’aseh Bereshit in ancient Judaism. Both, however, assume that the key issue is the relationship between this category of knowledge and merkavah mysticism. This focus is consistent with the overwhelming interest in the merkavah in the scholarly discussion of Mishnah ijagigah 2.1and its parallels. At least since the time of Gershom Scholem, scholars have attempted to mine these passages for evidence of ancientJewish practices akin to the &dquo;descent to the chariot&dquo; described in the Hekhalot literature. For our understanding of the rabbinic discourse about Ma ’aseh Bereshit, however, the category of &dquo;mysticism&dquo; may not prove so helpful. In scholarship on ancient Judaism, this term is often so laden with connotations of social marginality, spiritual authenticity and experiential religiosity that it has lost much of its usefulness for historical description; moreover, it often functions within the scholarly discourse as an umbrellaterm for any esoteric field of knowledge or practice, thereby encouraging the conflation of different phenomena and the imposition ofless rigorous standards for judging the historical continuities between similar phenomena that occur in diverse times and places (Reed 2005: 274-76). These tendencies are evident, in my view, in S[d’s reading of the evidence, which equates esotericism with mysticism and, thus, treats the Mishnah’s ruling about Ma ’aseh Bereshit as evidence for a single tradition of mystical cosmology with an unbroken development from the Second Temple period to the Middle Ages. Goshen-Gottstein is surely correct to expose the scant scaffolding of evidence upon which Sdd’s conclusions are hung. In divorcing the exegetical meaning of Ma ’aseh Bereshit so wholly from its cosmological connotations, however, he may go too far in the other direction. Goshen-Gottstein sees a conflict between the use of the term Ma ’aseh Bereshit to denote both the visible world and an esoteric tradition about the creation Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 479 ¿ the rabbinic discourse about Ma ’aseh Bereshit only in terms of its relation to mysticism, it might thus be better to consider it in terms of the types of interplay between secrecy, scientific inquiry and biblical exegesis explored above. When approached from this perspective, the Mishnah’s assertion of the esoteric nature of biblically-based cosmology need not hint at any mystical practice. The Mishnah’s attitude towards Ma ’aseh Bereshit may be more akin to the Bavli’s reference to the baraitaabout the &dquo;secrets of the calendar&dquo; (sod ha-ibbur): the rhetoric of secrecy may reflect an effort to articulate, isolate and elevate a certain domain of expertise, while enhancing the authority and intellectual prestige of those few who can master it. Moreover, some connection with scientific interests is suggested by the cases in which the term Ma ’aseh Bereshit denotes the product of the six days of creation. In its instructions about when to bless God as &dquo;the one who made Ma’aseh Bereshit,&dquo; the Mishnah includes only the observation of &dquo;mountains, hills, seas, rivers, and deserts&dquo; (m. Berakhot 9). The commentary in the Bavli, however, adds occasions of observation that assume intimate familiarity with rabbinic mathematical astronomy. According to the Bavli, one should also bless God as &dquo;the one who made Ma ’aseh Bereshit&dquo; when one &dquo;sees the sun at its turning point (tequfah), the moon in its power, the stars in their orbits, and the constellations (mazzalot) in their orderly progress&dquo; (b. Berakhot 59a). This is followed by R. Abaye’s explanation of when exactly this occurs: &dquo;Every twenty-eight years when the cycle [tequfah] begins again and the tequfat Nisan falls in Saturn on the evening of Tuesday, going into Wednesday&dquo; (b. Berakhot 59a; see also Leviticus Rabbah 23:8). The proclamation of wonder at Ma’aseh Bereshit is linked to astronomical observation and calculation. For the issue of secrecy, most notable are the rabbinic traditions surrounding Mishnah Megillah 4.10. This passage lists potentially problematic biblical pericopes, including a series of pericopes that should be read but not translated in public. Genesis I is absent from the list in the Mishnah. It is the first element, however, in the parallel passage in the Tosefta (t. Megillah 3. 31-38) and in the commentary in the Bavli (b. Megillah 25a-b). Both agree that one can read Genesis I in public and in translation. Interestingly, however, the Bavli then goes on to explain why exactly this point must be clarified: if we were not told otherwise, we would surely assume that Ma’asehBereshit (I.e. , Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 480 -. =-- , ~ , . o o , . , E., ~’t0 . ,- .- , -=-=- - Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 481 , . , , , , . ,-_J--I=-L-= -= =--- - - - .. , ..... - ~- Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 482 . Jewish sources, we find retellings, interpretations and commentaries on Genesis I that integrate &dquo;scientific&dquo; elements. InJubilees, for instance, calendrical comments are appended to the description of God’s creation of the heavenly luminaries on the fourth day (2.2-16). In 2 Enoch, a retold hexaemeron is similarly used to convey &dquo;scientific&dquo; knowledge (24-32). Even the Bavli contains an example of the redeployment of the hexaemeron to express the continuity between Torah and &dquo;science&dquo;; as noted above, b. Shabbat 156a records a passage from RJoshua b. Levi’s notebook that uses Genesis I to foretell the character and fate of a person based on the day of the week on which s/he was born. In post-Talmudic midrashic and cosmological traditions, the six days of creation playa similar role. Midrash Konen and Seder Rabbah di- Vreshit, two cosmological texts that were probably written soon after the compilation of the Bavli, begin with an extended hexaemeral retelling (cf. Sefer Yetzirah). This biblical framing device, interestingly, here introduces descriptions of the structure and contents of the heavens and the earths that draw heavily on the Bavli-and, specifically, its comments about the heavens in its commentary on m.lfagigah 2.1 (Schäfer 2004). These post-Talmudic texts, in effect, derive their &dquo;religious&dquo; and &dquo;scientific&dquo; authority from Ma ’aseh Bereshit in every sense of the term: they appeal to the Torah’s account of creation but also claim to reveal the secrets of a tradition of rabbinic inquiry into the cosmos. Likewise, the expansive paraphrase of Genesis I in Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer (chaps. 3-11; ca. 8th-10th c.) combines elements from the homilectical interests of Genesis Rabbah with the scientific knowledge associated with Ma’aseh Bereshit and sod ha-ibburin the Bavli. Astronomical information is seamlessly integrated into midrashic traditions. When discussing the fourth day of creation, for instance, Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer includes a lengthy and detailed astronomical section (chaps. 5-7) that discusses the cycles of the sun, moon, constellations and tequfot. Like the Baraita de-Shmuel (to which its astronomy is closely related), Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer makes explicit many of the details of the mathematical astronomy left unexplained in the Bavli and earlier literature. In content, the hexaemeral retelling of Pirqe Rabbi Eliezerthus exemplifies the combination of &dquo;scientific&dquo; (astronomical, calendrical) and &dquo;religious&dquo; (TY&dquo;o~r1&dquo;’’’’’’h~’’’ &dquo;&dquo;f’h~,....,1 ..,..,,,.,,,,1n.1.,,,&dquo;&dquo;;,....,1B &dquo;&dquo;1&dquo;,,TY&dquo;o&dquo;&dquo;&dquo;’f’,,~.., +K- ,-BB;-;, r1~&dquo;,..n.n&dquo;’’’A -B-,,+ Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 Talmudic 483 - - --~-- 17 ~...... ._-~---. -------- &dquo;’&dquo;----~- >-- ~ kept silent. , In my view, the rabbinic discourse about Ma ’aseh Bereshit provides a poignant response to Neusner’s contrast between Judaism and &dquo;science.&dquo; In the classical rabbinic literature, as well as post-Talmudic sources, it seems that scientific interest is rooted precisely in the &dquo;search for God whose being formed the unity, the simplicity, the order, the regularity, to which, in the mythic language of faith, sanctification in the world and salvation at the end of time referred&dquo; (Neusner 1988: 69). Rabbinic opinions on Ma’asehBereshit may differ, but all presuppose that the human effort to understand the visible products of God’s creation is inseparable from the practice of interpreting the Torah. Inquiry into the cosmos and the Torah, moreover, are both understood in rabbinic terms and linked to the authority of the Rabbis (Sch£fer 2005). There may be efforts to guard Genesis I against the hermeneutical whims of anyone deemed uneducated or &dquo;heretical,&dquo; but the Rabbis themselves appear to resist the imposition of any limits on their own midrashic endeavors-and, perhaps more surprisingly, they seem to resist the imposition of any limits on observation-based and speculation-based inquiries into cosmogony and cosmology, even beyond the bounds of the biblical accounts . (Sch£fer 2005).. Like astronomy, cosmogony and cosmology is initially cordoned off as an esoteric discourse in rabbinic culture. These realms of inquiry are deemed too dangerous and important to be public; they must be protected from Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 484 that learned Rabbis should guard this knowledge from uneducated Jews, just as the philosophers of other nations veil their teachings in metaphors to hide them from the populace (Guide I 17, Pines [trans.] 1933: 42-43). Whether or not the content of this secret knowledge has shifted, its social status and prestige remains the same. sage to assert perspectives on &dquo;science&dquo; and ancient Judaism At first sight, the inner-Jewish orientation of rabbinic astronomy and the rabbinic strictures on cosmological speculation might seem to stand in contrast to the more open perspectives of earlier Jews, who lived under Hellenistic rule, and later Jews, who lived under Islamic rule. Were we to assume, like Neusner, that &dquo;science&dquo; is essentially foreign to Judaism, we might be tempted to downplay the place of scientific inquiry in classical rabbinic culture, explaining Hellenistic and medieval Jewish perspectives on &dquo;science&dquo; primarily with reference to Jewish participation in other cultures. The example of Josephus, however, demonstrates the continuity between rabbinic views of astronomy and astrology and those of earlier Jews writing under Roman rule. Furthermore, the astronomical and cosmological materials in the classical rabbinic literature point to the possibility that Rabbis were actively involved in developing and cultivating scientific traditions in Late Antiquity. No doubt, the secrecy surrounding these traditions has rhetorical purposes, serving to enhance the intellectual prestige of the rabbinic movement in the eyes of the populace as well as to mark their scientific practices as distinct from those of their non-Jewish neighbors (e.g., b. Pesahim 94b). Nevertheless, the nature of the rabbinic references to this knowledge does lend plausibility to the claim that late antique Rabbis developed and taught scientific skills, which were perceived as esoteric knowledge and which were thus not included in full in the literature of classical rabbinic Judaism. If so, then post-Talmudic texts such as Baraita de-Shmuel, Seder Rabbah diVreshit, Midrash Konen and Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer may .preserve part of a process, begun already in the Bavli, whereby scientific discourses that were deemed esoteric in classical rabbinic culture (sod ha-ibbur; Ma ’aseh Bereshit) began to be consolidated in written form. These post-Talmudic texts number among a group of understudied Hebrew sources that exhibit scientific concerns.19 Written between the 8th and 10th centuries C.E., these sources are distinguished by their explicit and detailed discussion of the scientific concerns referenced in the Bavli and earlier rabbinic literature. For the most part, they are anonymous or pseudonymous in authorship. They discuss scientific traditions using rabbinic literary forms (e.g., using midrash and/or written in the style of the Mishnah) and make explicit reference to classical rabbinic tradition. As noted above, Baraita de-Shmuel and Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer claim to know the &dquo;secret of the calendar,&dquo; while Seder Rabbah di-Vreshit and Midrash Konen claim to convey Ma ’aseh Bereshit. Our earliest extant Hebrew text on mathematics Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 Conclusion: Medieval 485 ... - - became integrated into rabbinic culture-including jubilees and parts of the Enochic literature as well as the writings ofJosephus. This makes it all the more intriguing that the accounts of the Jewish origins of the sciences in post-Talmudic texts seem to find their closest parallels in Second Temple sources. Like the Astronomical Book and Josephus, Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer associates calendrical knowledge with biblical figures who lived before the Flood. And, in a manner reminiscent ofjubilees (10:12), Asafha-Rofe explains the origins ofmedwith reference to Noah . icine -- The consolidation of ancient Jewish scientific traditions around this time is similarly suggested by Sefer Yetzirah (early 9th c.?; Langermann 2002; cf. Alexander 2001: 229). Although this text presents a detailed and complex cosmology that is largely unconnected with rabbinic tradition, it similarly circulated under a title that recalls a tradition in the Bavli, namely, a reference to ., , r .. ,, ’J ..,.,.,,, . : ,,. ,. , , - T T...T&dquo;’It. &dquo;............. Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 486 Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 487 1 Recent research in the History of Science has increasingly problematized the assumption that the modem Western notion of "science" is a universal and timeless category, questioning traditional approaches to the History of Science as a univalent narrative about inevitable progress towards the modern West. I am wary, however, of adopting a relativist view that wholly eschews "science" as a comparative category, not least because of the cross-cultural character of scientific inquiry and its results (see below). Hence, I attempt to follow the middle approach mapped by scholars like Peter Dear. In response to the "the twin dangers of hyperhistoricization and essentialist universalism," Dear stresses the need to "acknowledge[e] that science is not one thing, a natural kind, while at the same time recognizing that the symbol ’science’ is culturally very real indeed" (2005: 405). In his view, we can study the prehistory of modern Western sciences without assuming it is "an essentially timeless subject, always and everywhere the same kind of thing"; it can, rather, be approached as "a subject constituted by its temporal story" (2005: 405). I attempt to embody this approach in my terminology. Dear proposes that "something might be gained from using the plural term ’sciences’ ... for collections of individ... Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 488 ual 2 3 knowledge enterprises (whether qualitative or mathematical), and using the blanket ‘science’ only to designate this kind of ideological construct" (2005: 406). Accordingly, I use the plural term to denote the investigation of the natural world and systemization of knowledge about it. I use the singular term, surrounded by quotation marks, to denote the conceptual category of "science," as configured differently in different historical and cultural contexts; the singular term "religion" is used in the same manner. See Ruderman 1987; 1995; Langermann 1999 (esp. I). Note also the issues of Science in Context (10 nos. 3-4) dedicated to "Judaism and the Sciences" in 1997 as well as the journal Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism, founded in 2001. See the foreword by Gad Freudenthal to Aleph 1 no. 1. Aleph has helped to synthesize the results of research on this topic from different fields as well as to help communicate the rich results of Israeli research to North American and European scholars. By "classical Rabbinic literature," I here mean the Mishnah (ca. 200 C.E.), Tosefta (ca. 300 C.E.), the Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud; ca. 500 C.E.), and Bavli (Babylonian Talmud ; ca. 600 C.E.), together with the midrashic collections compiled in the period between term an the Mishnah, the first authoritative document of the rabbinic movement, and the Bavli, extensive commentary on the Mishnah that serves as the summa of classical rabbinic Judaism. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Contrast Neusner 1989, which tries to find emic Jewish categories akin to the modern Western triad "religion," "science" and "magic" within the classical rabbinic literature. There, the term "science" is used interchangeably with "rational learning" (esp. 68). Menachem Fisch, for instance, penned an extended response to Neusner written from the perspective of the Philosophy of Science (1997; see esp. xiii-xv). Fisch focusses on the suggestion that rabbinic logic is different from other systems of thought and counters Neusner’s arguments by highlighting the similarities between the rationality of the Rabbis and the modes of thinking that have sparked scientific and technological discoveries in other cultures (1997:3-39). Many elements of Fisch’s argument are persuasive. Nevertheless, their usefulness for historical inquiry may be undermined by his focus on "logic" and "rationality," which risks imposing modern values on ancient texts that took form in socio-historical contexts very different than our own (cf. Singer 2004; Neusner 1989). Fisch replicates, moreover, Neusner’s focus on the classical rabbinic literature. Most notable among the inventions attributed to "Mary the Jewess" is the double-boiler (still called the Bain-Marie in French). Interestingly, she is associated with a position that holds that only Jews can practice alchemy. See Patai 1994: 60-94. On Rufus, see my entry in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists: The Greek Tradition and Its Many Heirs, edited by Paul Keyser and Georgia Irby-Massie (London: Routledge, 2008). Also significant&mdash;and understudied&mdash;are the intersections between science and halakha in ancient Judaism, on which see, e.g., Veltri 1997; 1998. Interesting, however, are the contrasting attitudes towards medicine in 1 Enoch 7-8 and Jubilees 10. In the former, root-cutting is taught by the fallen angels; in the latter, God reveals to Noah how to "cure by means of the earth’s plants" (10:12) to protect him and his sons against demons. Jubilees, Like Pseudo-Eupolemus asserts that the study of the stars was invented by Enoch, whom he equates with the Greek mythological figure of Atlas (apud Eusebius Praep.ev. 9.18.1), thereby underlining that the antiquity of the Jews and their historical records. The practice of other types of astrology by late antique Rabbis is clear from a tradition attributed to Mar Samuel in b. Eruvin 56a, which predicts the weather in a season with reference to the planet of a tequfah as well as the planet of the preceding new moon. See Beller 1988: 65. Cf. the astronomical explanation for the Flood in b. Rosh Hashanah 11b-12a. R. Joshua explains that God made the constellation of Pleiades rise at daybreak and removed two stars from it, thereby causing the Flood to come upon the earth. This is presented as an &mdash;here, example of God’s "change of Ma‘aseh Bereshit" it is for the sake of juspce that God changes creation. Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 11 489 12 Le., tequfat Nisan autumn vernal equinox; tequfat Tammuz summer solstice; tequfat Tishri equinox; tequfat Tebeth winter solstice. On tequfot see e.g., b. Sanhedrin 11b-13a; = = = = Beller 1988; Stern 1996:104-9. In order to reconstruct such methods, scholars must sup- 13 14 plement the classical rabbinic material with details from writings of later medieval Jews. At times, however, it can be unclear to what degree they accurately preserve methods used by late antique Rabbis and to what degree they use other scientific traditions to explain the Bavli post facto; compare, e.g., Neugebauer 1949 and Beller 1988. Some self-consciousness of differences between rabbinic and non Jewish astronomy is suggested, e.g., by b. Pesahim 94b: "Our Rabbis taught: The Sages of Israel maintain: ’The galgal (celestial sphere?) is stationary, while the planets (mazzalot) revolve.’ But the sages of the nations of the world maintain: ’The galgal revolves and the planets are stationary’ The Sages of Israel maintain: ‘The sun travels beneath the sky by day and above the sky at night.’ But the sages of the nations of the world maintain: ‘It travels beneath the sky by day and below the earth at night.’ Rabbi said: ‘And their view is preferable to ours, since wells are cold by day but warm at night! "’ The lunisolar calendar was, however, naturalized by means of a connection, via Genesis 1 and related chronographical traditions, to the creation of the world as well as key moments in Jewish history; see, e.g., b. Rosh Hashanah 8a-l la. The use of this system of intercalation in patriarchal times, by the tribe of Issachar, is posited in Genesis Rabbah 72.5 and Esther Rabbah 4.1, and its practice by Solomon is assumed by Exodus Rabbah 15.21. Examples of the use of the tequfot biblical interpretation include Genesis Rabbah 13.12 and Levitiin ... 15 16 17 18 19 cus Rabbah 26.4. Bar Hiyya pens a calendrical treatise called Sod ha-Ibbur, which explicitly discusses ancient calendrical traditions not preserved in the Bavli (93-94). Maimonides depicts the "secret of the calendar" as part of the Oral Torah given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai (see Goldstein 2001: 36-37). Cf.Judah Halevi, Kitab al Khazari IV 25 (Hirschfeld [trans.] 1905: 173, 232-33). Goshen-Gottstein here cites the case of Ben Zoma, who is said to have speculated about Ma’aseh Bereshit, inferred from reading Genesis 1:2 that barely a hand’s breadth separated the upper and lower waters there mentioned, was declared a heretic by R. Joshua, and then promptly died (t. Hagigah 2.6 ; y. Hagigah 77a-b; b. Hagigah 15a; Genesis Rabbah 2.4; GoshenGottstein 1995:190-91,198-201; cf. Sed 1981). When the Tosefta, Yerushalmi and Bavli restate the problem, they use the verb from Deut 4:32 (sheal, meaning "ask" or "inquire") in place of the verb used in the Mishnah ( derash, meaning "interpret" or "expound")&mdash;a lexical shift that underlines the claimed connection between the biblical and mishnaic passages, while also enhancing the connection between exegesis of the story of creation at the beginning of Genesis and scientific inquiry into the structures of the cosmos. See Langerman 2002: 169-76, which offers a brief but programmatic treatment of Baraita Sefer Yetzirah, Mishnat ha-Middot and Yetzrat ha-Walad as attesting the "first chapter in the history of Hebrew scientific literature" (p. 170). He notes that these texts are distinguished from lat&eacute;r medieval Jewish scientific writings by their anonymous authorship and their anthological collection of diverse traditions in a manner akin to the Mishnah de-Shmuel, (pp. 174-75). 20 Asaf ha-Rofe, for instance, puts a Jewish stamp on Greek medicine (Lieber 1984), and Mishnah ha-Middotbears a close relationship to al-Khw&amacr;rizm&imacr;’s Algebra (Langermann 2002: 172). 21 The’earliest commentaries on Sefer Yetzirah (10th century Sa’adia Gaon, Dunash Ibn Tamim, Shabbetai Donnolo) all treat this text as a "scientific" work; see Alexander 2002: 227-28; Langermann 1999: II 11-12; 2002: 172. Note also Donnolo’s appeal to Baraita deShmuel as a work of Jewish astronomy, on which see Scharf 1976: 14-51, and Halevi’s ref erence to Pirqe Rabbi Eliezer "a famous work on astronomy, calculation of the spheres and as earth and other profound astronomical subjects" in Kitab al Khazari III 65 (Hirschfeld = Downloaded from http://sir.sagepub.com by on February 5, 2010 490 [trans.] 1905:189), on which see Goldstein 2001: 44, 47, 55-57. Goldstein follows David Luria in suggesting that the passages to which Halevi refers are not present in extant forms of the midrash, even despite the presence of these concerns in chapters 5-7. It is not improbable, however, that it once included even more astronomical and astrological material, especially in light of the textual fluidity of this midrash and its close relationship to Baraita de-Shmeul. References . Albani, Matthias 1994 Astronomie und Sch&ouml;pfungsglaube: Untersuchungen zum astronomischen Henochbuch. Neukirchen: Neukirchen-Vluyn. 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