This is the second essay in a review forum devoted to Vidas, The Rise of Talmud. Access the full forum here.
Moulie Vidas’ new book has a clear thesis and argues that the Jerusalem Talmud shows for the first time a new format of rabbinic study, which came to be recognized as typical of the Talmud. This format is defined by keen attention to the learning of the rabbis themselves, as distinct from exegetical interests in the Bible. In other words, the Tannaitic sages, who were primarily perceived either as interpreters of Scripture or as transmitters of earlier insights, give way to the Amoraic sages, who become objects of study in their own right. The individual approaches of rabbis, their particular perspectives on earlier traditions and their distinct methods are presented and investigated in the Talmud. In Vidas’ own words, “the central aim of this book is to establish the unique character and impact of Amoraic commentary by tracing how it diverged both from earlier approaches to the rabbinic tradition and from the sages’ commentary on Scripture.”
Part I of the book argues that the Amoraic rabbis introduced a new and individuated understanding of rabbinic teaching. The sages developed a sophisticated set of interpretative practices and highlighted that they were shaped by their respective intellectual profile. Part II of the book argues that these scholars construed rabbinic teachings as fragmentary or imperfect attestations of the rabbinic tradition. In Vidas’ words, this part “demonstrates that pervasive patterns in the Talmud presented the transmission and composition of these teachings as subject to contingency, variance, and error” (p. 2). Moreover, the Talmudic method fundamentally differs from the Midrashic mode, which envisions one divine voice in the Biblical text rather than a plurality of human voices debating with each other: “the Amoraic turn expanded Torah study to include commentary on rabbinic teachings as texts” (ibid).
Vidas’ book is a remarkable achievement. Initially, it highlights the Jerusalem Talmud in its own right, as the first Talmud, and analyses it without framing it against its younger brother, the Babylonian Talmud that quickly attained canonical status and overshadowed it. While such an independent study of the Jerusalem Talmud derives from the chronological sequence of the two Talmuds and thus looks natural, it is still unusual in scholarship. Most scholars still tend to read the Jerusalem Talmud in light of the Babylonian one, if they indeed pay any attention to it. It may thus be no coincidence that it is a scholar from a secular background, with a record of migration from Tel Aviv to the USA, who now raises the fundamental question of what makes up the unique innovation of the Jerusalem Talmud. What indeed are the specific ingredients that characterize this compilation as Talmud and distinguish it from other genres of rabbinic literature produced in the Land of Israel? What makes it such an important forerunner of the Babylonian Talmud that deserves to be appreciated on its own?
Before I get into some details and add my own perspective, which is informed by a comparison of Talmud and Midrash, I want to celebrate two general features of Vidas’ book. Initially, Vidas has a very sharp eye for interesting passages that are overlooked by others. He identifies the significance of such passages in view of new and far-reaching questions. For example, he discusses the move from the Tannaitic to the Amoraic style of teaching by stressing that the earlier rabbis functioned mainly as transmitters of their own teachers’ sayings, based on personal encounters and direct hearing. In the Amoraic period, by contrast, rabbis transmit teachings of much earlier sages with whom they had no longer personal contacts. This is supported by a passage from y. Shab. 1.1. “Said Rabbi Zeira to R. Yose: do you know Bar Pedaya that you say teachings in his name? He said to him: R. Yohanan said them in his name” (p. 32). While it may be debated whether each of these vignettes of rabbinic literature bears the full burden of supporting Vidas’ broad conclusions and general insights into the fabric of the Talmud, nobody will question the value of drawing our attention to them and appreciating them as literary pearls.
Moreover, Vidas resists time and again the temptation to explain the particular type of commentary offered in the Talmud as a quasi-natural result of simply reading the Mishnah itself. Such retrospective justification is circumvented by a comparative perspective: “the Tosefta, which is structured as a companion to the Mishnah, and the Aqivan Midrashim, which assume their audience has detailed knowledge of its text, show that responding to the Mishnah as a foundational text did not necessarily result in the type of commentary we find in the Talmud” (p. 7). The approach offered in the Jerusalem Talmud is thus a particular choice in a particular historical moment, when other rabbis were engaged in other types of scholarly activity and redacting different kinds of compilations. The Talmud emerges as an act of self-positioning on the part of both its individual contributors and the redactors of its sygiot and overall structure. I find Vidas’ explorations enormously helpful for my own inroads into the Jerusalem Talmud.
I wish to contribute to the discussion of Vidas’ book by placing its two main topics, namely individual authorship and geographical fragmentation, into the comparative context of the Midrash. I ask to what extent the Talmud was indeed unique or rather overlapping in its approach and perhaps even in its hermeneutic details with the Midrash. Did both types of compilations engage in constructing individual authorship and pay careful attention to the scholarly work of each rabbi in a particular geographical environment? I will argue that in the Amoraic period, the Jerusalem Talmud may not have been quite so unique and innovative in a way that differs from all other rabbinic compilations. Rather the Talmud and the Amoraic Midrash may rather have participated in similar debates, often taking different stands on the same issues.
Part I of the book treats the topic of individual authorship. Vidas says on p. 31: “the cited sage is the sage with whom the teaching is distinctively associated, the sage with whom the teaching originated or whose opinion the teaching reflects, regardless of the process of transmission”. Similarly, on p. 32: “in the Amoraic period, citation was also used to associate permanently a particular sage with a particular teaching, regardless of who transmitted the teaching to the citing sage”. On p. 33: “we shall see that Amoraic scholars thought that teachings are associated with individuals and that the attribution of a teaching became significant to the way they understood and used that teaching”. Vidas argues with Foucault for an ancient notion of individual authorship, but dates it earlier than Jerome, who was chosen by the French scholar as the beginning of a new era. One could easily argue that in Judaism we see such a concept of individual authorship already among Hellenistic Jews, who were writing individual treatises in Alexandria, Jerusalem and Rome.[1]
In this context, however, rabbinic literature is our focus and thus the question of the rabbis’ notion of individual authorship, as articulated by Vidas, is at the center of our attention. He primarily points to the care taken to collect and discuss all the work of particular rabbis and understand the distinct approach of each. Vidas’ position must first be appreciated in our post-Neusnerian age, when many scholars, especially in the USA, still avoid even the very question of individual authorship, suspecting that nothing can be said beyond the input of the final redactor. Vidas thus raises a thorny question, without, however, reverting to what some identify as Israeli positivism, which assumes the historical accuracy of individual sayings and constructs on their basis individual profiles.[2] Vidas in fact invites us to build new bridges between Israeli and American scholarship, moving forward from a long stalemate. I very much welcome this call and this opportunity.
My own studies of the Midrash Genesis Rabbah in light of the Jerusalem Talmud suggest that transmission matters more than meets the eye, thus challenging Vidas’ conclusion that we can ignore “the process of transmission”. The profile of Rabbi Abbahu, the most prominent and influential rabbi of Caesarea in the third century raises intriguing questions in precisely this regard. His image seems to have become the object of intensive debates and negotiations between different rabbis, perhaps even among different schools. The rabbinic redactors seem to have been keenly aware of such debates and endeavored to shape them by transmitting particular traditions and omitting others. This construction of a rabbinic profile is most usefully studied from a comparative perspective, namely by studying the parallels and the unique traditions in both Talmud and Midrash. Since both compilations belonged to the same geographical and cultural milieu, their overlaps and differences are of particular significance.
In the case of Rabbi Abbahu, one of the controversial aspects of his individual profile was his commitment to non-Jewish learning, ranging from the Greek language to knowledge in what we would call today the natural sciences. While the Jerusalem Talmud finds his commitment to teaching Greek disconcerting, the Midrash preserves no critical comment on this matter, but on the contrary often presents Rabbi Abbahu as using Greek words to explain questions arising from the Bible. It is thus no surprise that the Jerusalem Talmud is unique in presenting the following anecdote: Abbahu relies on his teacher Rabbi Yohanan to allow “a man to teach his daughter Greek, as it is a decoration for her.” Rabbi Simon b. Abba dismisses this gesture of traditionalism in no uncertain terms: “because he [Rabbi Abbahu] wants to teach his daughters Greek, he attributes it to Rabbi Yohanan.”[3] Simon b. Abba implies that Rabbi Abbahu freely invented traditions and constructed role models as suited his interests in a given situation. The redactor of this Talmudic sugya thus reflects on his own work of building an intellectual profile of a certain sage. It exposes the tensions among the different rabbis and the debates about possible discrepancies between self-image and image of others. The politics of attribution are made clear and the Talmudic redactor self-consciously assumes a particular position on those debates. By avoiding other traditions, which depict Rabbi Abbahu as naturally using Greek, the Talmud posits itself differently than the Midrash, where these traditions are preserved and contribute to the image of Rabbi Abbahu.[4]
Another example of constructing Rabbi Abbahu’s profile concerns his knowledge of the Stoic notion of the world’s conflagration. Genesis Rabbah preserves two versions of his interpretation, which show how his successors negotiated his image and partly turned it on its head to fit later sensibilities.
“And it was evening” (Gen 1:5). R. Yehuda b. R. Simon said: “Let there be evening” is not written here, but “and it was evening”, hence we know that a time-order existed before this. Rabbi Abbahu said: hence we know that the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He went on creating and destroying worlds until he created this one. He said “this one pleases me, those did not please me.” R. Pinehas said: this is R. Abbahu’s reason: “And God saw everything that He had made and, behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31); this pleases me, but those did not please me.[5]
Rabbi Abbahu’s view of the conflagration is placed by the redactor of Genesis Rabbah between R. Yehuda’s initial analysis of Gen 1:5 and R. Pinehas’ reflection regarding his prooftext. This arrangement draws attention since R. Yehuda belongs to the fourth generation of Amoraic teachers and was thus active after Abbahu, who belongs to the third generation.[6] Historically, Yehuda’s analysis can hardly have served Abbahu as a starting point for his own view. The redactor apparently placed Yehuda’s analysis, which is not attested elsewhere in rabbinic literature, before Abbahu’s statement in order to explain the latter. The expression “hence” (מיכן) is used for both Yehuda and Abbahu,[7] and also reflects the hands of the redactor, who not only placed the two interpretations besides each other, but also harmonized their style. In the present form of the tradition, it is no longer clear whether the “hence” in the mouth of Rabbi Abbahu refers to the Biblical prooftext or supposedly to Yehuda’s preceding analysis.
Rabbi Pinehas’ reflection on the Biblical impetus for Abbahu’s position raises the question whether this fifth generation Amoraic teacher was familiar with the suggestion of Gen 1:5 as a prooftext, which would have rendered his own proposition superfluous.[8] Moreover, his prooftext does not really fit Abbahu’s statement, according to which God was content only with part, but not with all of His creation(s). Pinehas’ reaction to Abbahu thus entails a theological revision, which subordinates the idea of imperfect creations to the Biblical affirmation that one unique creation fulfilled all Divine expectations. Given these traces of redactional activity, it seems that Abbahu originally made an independent statement about the conflagration, which parallels other scientific insights transmitted in his name.[9] His view was subsequently contextualized in Biblical exegesis, Pinehas initially suggesting Gen 1:31 as a prooftext, while the redactor subsequently placed it after Yehuda’s analysis of Gen 1:5. In the parallel passage in Gen. R. 9.2 Abbahu’s view, with the same wording and R. Pinehas’ reflection, is placed after R. Tanhuma’s analysis of Eccl 3:11.[10] Here, too, Abbahu’s view does not exactly fit the context into which it has been placed, as Tanhuma, another fifth generation Amora, asserts that no prior world to this one was fitted to be created.[11] Considerable hermeneutic efforts were thus invested into accommodating Abbahu’s view and attenuating its implications, which seem to have been rather more shocking to later generations of rabbis. We may thus have to nuance the insight that individual authorship in rabbinic literature implied a rather straightforward sense of character. It definitely seems to have included debates about intellectual profiles and even a wish to reinterpret and adapt them to one’s own agendas.
Part II of Vidas’ book points to the emergence of rabbinic centers of learning in discrete geographical environments and the significance of this for our understanding of the fragmented nature of rabbinic scholarship. Building on the earlier work of Gil Klein and others,[12] Vidas argues that the rabbis were deeply aware of seeing only part of the larger picture and lacking the complete traditions. He adduces numerous fine examples of rabbinic scholars traveling to a different place and hearing there of another tradition which subsequently influences their views. At other times, a rabbinic discussion is enriched by someone arriving and offering an alternative local tradition. Vidas sees this diversity as an important part of Talmudic scholarship, based on its human nature that remains by definition imperfect, partial and fragmentary. The very attempt to collect traditions from far and wide shows that the rabbis did not see themselves as all-knowing prophets or mouth-pieces of God, but rather as humanly limited scholars, who rely on each other to reach beyond their individual limitations.
I found this part of the book extremely helpful for my own study of the rabbis of Caesarea. In fact, I have made excellent use of Vidas’ book even before it was published for writing an article in Hebrew on the expression “the rabbis of Caesarea” in both the Jerusalem Talmud and Genesis Rabbah.[13] However, in this context, too, I stress the impact of redaction more than Vidas. From my point of view, the most intriguing aspect of the references in Talmud and Midrash to the rabbis of Caesarea is the fact that this expression appears only twice in the Midrash, but ca. 145 times in the Jerusalem Talmud. While the two occurrences in the Midrash remain minimal and banal, the Talmud constructs the rabbis of Caesarea as a competing center of learning, which is associated with Greek learning, but ultimately submits to the school of Tiberias, which is situated more inwards and assumes the Hebrew-speaking, predominantly Jewish environment of Tiberias. The image of a geographical area and the traditions associated with it are thus not only a reflection of historical difference, but also of retrospective interpretation on the part of redactors. The Talmud was motivated by a different agenda than the redactor of the Midrash, who seems to have remained closer to the individual rabbis of Caesarea and therefore felt no need to construct a communal identity from afar.
To conclude, I have greatly benefited from Vidas’ book and am sure that it will inspire further research. The area where my own views differ most distinctly from his pertain to the impact of redaction. Both the individual profile of rabbis and the image of geographical centers of learning seem to me to be more complicated and filtered through cultural and political agendas. Pace Vidas, we must indeed analyze the paths of transmission and take their cultural and political dynamics very seriously. By emphasizing the role of the redactor, I complicate engrained images of modern centers of learning. Usually, it is the Americans who make this point when judging the work of their Israeli colleagues. One aspect of my analysis, however, is undoubtedly very Israeli: the acute awareness of politics.
Maren R. Niehoff is Max Cooper Professor of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University, and member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
[1] Consider, for example, Philo of Alexandria, studied by Maren R. Niehoff, Philo of Alexandria. An Intellectual Biography (Yale: Yale University Press 2018); ead., Philo of Alexandria. Every Good Man is Free. Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill and De Gruyter 2026).
[2] For a good recent example of this approach, see David Sabato, Yavneh and its Sages (Jerusalem: Magness Press 2025).
[3] ר' אבהו בשם ר' יוחנן. מותר לאדם ללמד את בתו יוונית מפני שהוא תכשיט לה. שמע שמעון בר ווה אמ' בגין דו בעה מלפה בנתיה הוא תלי ליה בר' יוחנן (jPeah 15c, ed. Sussman 79).
[4] See e.g. GR 2.2, 14.2.
[5] Gen. R. 3.7: [ויהי ערב ויהי בקר וגו'] אמר ר' יהודה בר' סימון יהי ערב אין כתוב כאן אלא ויהי ערב מיכן שהיה סדר זמנים קודם לכאן, אמר ר' אבהו מיכן שהיה הקדוש ברוך הוא בורא עולמות ומחריבן עד שברא את אילו אמר דין הניין לי יתהון לא הניין לי, אמר ר' פינחס טעמיה דר' אבהו וירא אלהים את כל אשר עשה והנה טוב מאד (בראש' א לא) דין הניין לי יתהון לא הניין לי. . Translated by Freedman (1939), with slight modifications. The Hebrew text is that of Theodor and Albeck (1965).
[6] On the dates of these two rabbis, see Stemberger, Günter 2011. Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch. 9th revised ed. Munich: C. H. Beck 2011), 105, 109.
[7] This terminology was later adapted to the style of the Halachic Midrashim, Yalk. Shim. reading מגידand the Venice print of Gen. R. readingמלמד (ed. Theodor-Albeck 1.23).
[8] On the dates of R. Pinehas b. Chama, see Stemberger (2011, 111).
[9] See, for example, his views of the Ocean and the survival of early born babies in Gen. R. 14.2; 23.7; cf. Goshen-Gottstein (1996, 71–72), who argues that Abbahu derived his idea from Gen 1:2 and identified the Tohu Wawohu with carefully designed, previous worlds.
[10] Gen. R. 9.2: “R. Tanhuma opened (his sermon): “He has made everything beautiful in its time” (Koh. 3.11). Said R. Tanhuma: the world was created in its due season and the world was not fit to be created earlier (אמר ר' תנחומא בעונתו נברא העולם, לא היה העולם ראוי לבראות קודם לכן). Said R. Abbahu: hence we know that the Holy-One-Blessed-Be-He went on creating and destroying worlds until he created this one. He said “this one pleases me, those did not please me” (אמר ר' אבהו מיכן שהקב"ה בורא עולמות ומחריבן עד שברא את אלו אמר דן הניין לי יתהון לא הניין לי). R. Pinehas said: this is R. Abbahu’s reason: “And God saw everything that He had made and, behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31); this pleases me, but those did not please me”. Translated by Freedman (1939), with slight modifications.
[11] On Tanhuma’s dates, see Stemberger, Einleitung, 112; for further details on the conflagration, see Maren R. Niehoff, “The Conflagration of the World in Philo, Josephus, and Rabbi Abbahu. Jewish Reflections on a Stoic Idea”, in M. R. Niehoff and Chr. Markschies (eds.), Aspects of Time in Jewish and Christian Exegesis (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter 2026), 53-78.
[12] See esp. Gill P. Klein, “Spatial Struggle: Intercity Relations and the Topography of Intra-Rabbinic Competition,” in Jordan D. Rosenblum et al. (eds.), Religious Competition in the Third Century (Göttingen: Van den Hoeck & Ruprecht 2014) 153–168.
[13] See Maren R. Niehoff, “The Rabbis of Caesarea: The Formation of a Group Image as Key to the Redaction of the Jerusalem Talmud and Genesis Rabbah” [in Hebrew], forthcoming in Te’uda 2026.