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Birkat Ha-Minim Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2009

Joel Marcus
Joel Marcus
Affiliation:
Duke Divinity School, Box 90967, Durham NC 27708 email: jmarcus@div.duke.edu
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Abstract

J. Louis Martyn and others have argued that a decision by late first-century rabbis to introduce a liturgical curse against heretics (Birkat Ha-Minim) provides the background for early Christian passages about Christians being excluded from and cursed in synagogues. More recent scholars, however, have challenged the assumption that the earliest form of Birkat Ha-Minim referred to Christians and that the rabbis controlled the synagogues. The present article defends the basics of Martyn's reconstruction while nuancing the extent of rabbinic control in the early Christian centuries. It also suggests, however, that the original of Birkat Ha-Minim may have been a Qumranian curse on the Romans.

Keywords

Birkat Ha-MinimMinimEighteen BenedictionsJewish ChristianityYavneh
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 523 - 551
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 Schechter, Solomon and Abrahams, I., ‘Genizah Specimens’, JQR 10 (1898) 656–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 The phrase ברכת המינים first occurs in the baraita in b. Ber. 28b–29a, although the printed texts here, including that in the Soncino Talmud, have ברכת הצדוקים = ‘the benediction (=cursing) of the Sadducees’, a reading that reflects medieval censorship; cf. Luger, Yehezkel, The Weekday Amidah in the Cairo Genizah (Jerusalem: Orhot, 2001 [Hebrew]) 133Google Scholar. Several earlier passages, however, use the shorthand של מינים = ‘[the benediction] of the heretics’ (see t. Ber. 3.25; y. Ber. 2.4 [5a]; 4.3 [8a]; y. Ta‘an. 2.2 [65c]).

3 On נצרים/נוצרים as a term for Christians, see Kimelman, Reuven, ‘Birkat Ha-Minim and the Lack of Evidence for an Anti-Christian Jewish Prayer in Late Antiquity’, Jewish and Christian Self-Definition. Vol. 2. Aspects of Judaism in the Greco-Roman Period (ed. Sanders, E. P.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981) 232–44Google Scholar; Pritz, Ray A., Nazarene Jewish Christianity from the End of the New Testament Period Until its Disappearance in the Fourth Century (StPB 37; Jerusalem: Magnes; Leiden: Brill, 1988)Google Scholarpassim; de Boer, Martinus C., ‘The Nazoreans: Living at the Boundary of Judaism and Christianity’, Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity (ed. Stanton, Graham N. and Stroumsa, Guy G.; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1998) 239–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the question of whether the נצרים in Birkat Ha-Minim are Jewish or Gentile Christians, see below, pp. 533–34.

4 I give the text as transcribed in the original publication by Schechter and Abrahams, ‘Genizah Specimens’, 657. The arrangement into sense-lines, however, follows that of Luger, Weekday Amidah, 132–43. The translation is my own.

5 For an influential example, see Schürer, Emil, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 135) (ed. Vermes, Geza et al. . ; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1973–87) 2.460–1Google Scholar.

6 Ehrlich, Uri and Langer, Ruth, ‘The Earliest Texts of the Birkat Haminim’, HUCA 77 (2005) 63–112Google Scholar. A few years before the appearance of this article, Luger, Weekday Amidah, 135 looked at a smaller number of Genizah manuscripts and sorted them into three versions.

7 See Heinemann, Joseph, Prayer in the Talmud: Forms and Patterns (SJ 9; Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1977) 66–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ehrlich, Uri, ‘The Earliest Version of the Amidah: The Blessing About the Temple Worship’, From Qumran to Cairo: Studies in the History of Prayer. Proceedings of the Research Group Convened Under the Auspices of the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1997 (ed. Tabory, Joseph; Jerusalem: Orhot, 1999) 38Google Scholar (Hebrew); Luger, Weekday Amidah, 15–17.

8 See Ehrlich and Langer, ‘Earliest Texts’, 96–7. We will return to this point below, p. 532.

9 Horbury, William, ‘The Benediction of the Minim and Early Jewish-Christian Controversy’, Jews and Christians in Contact and Controversy (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998 [orig. 1982]) 68Google Scholar. Horbury cites Ismar Elbogen, Adolf von Harnack, Marcel Simon, W. D. Davies, and W. H. C. Frend as influential exponents of this view.

10 On the ambiguity of the word συναγωγή (synagogue or Jewish community?) and hence of ἀποσυνάγωγος, see Cohen, Shaye J. D., ‘Were Pharisees and Rabbis the Leaders of Communal Prayer and Torah Study in Antiquity? The Evidence of the New Testament, Josephus, and the Early Church Fathers’, Evolution of the Synagogue: Problems and Progress (ed. Kee, Howard Clark and Cohick, Lynn H.; Harrisburg: Trinity, 1999) 91–2Google Scholar, 99–100.

11 Martyn, J. Louis, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox, 3rd ed. 2003)Google Scholar. For Martyn's predecessors in connecting Birkat Ha-Minim with the Johannine ἀποσυνάγωγος passages, see D. Moody Smith, ‘The Contribution of J. Louis Martyn to the Understanding of the Gospel of John’, in Martyn, History, 7 n. 14.

12 See Elbogen, Ismar, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History (Philadelphia/New York/Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society/Jewish Theological Seminary, 1993 [orig. 1913]) 31Google Scholar; Kuhn, Karl Georg, Achtzehngebet und Vaterunser und der Reim (WUNT 1; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck] 1950) 10Google Scholar; more recently Segal, Alan F., Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (SJLA 25; Leiden: Brill, 1977) 6Google Scholar; Levine, Lee I., The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (New Haven and London: Yale University, 2nd ed. 2005) 209Google Scholar.

13 For a good summary of the response to Martyn's thesis, including criticism about his use of Birkat Ha-Minim, see Moody Smith, ‘Contribution’; cf. more recently Hakola, Raimo, Identity Matters: John, the Jews and Jewishness (SNT 118; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 41–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 See Martyn, History, 71, with reference to John 16.2.

15 This anxiety is indirectly acknowledged by Lieu, Judith M., ‘Anti-Judaism in the Fourth Gospel: Explanation and Hermeneutics’, Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel (ed. Bieringer, Reimund et al. ; Louisville/London/Leiden: Westminster John Knox, 2001) 114Google Scholar.

16 Horbury, William, ‘Benediction’, 67–82Google Scholar.

17 Similarly now Hakola, Identity Matters, 46 and Teppler, Yaakov Y., Birkat HaMinim: Jews and Christians in Conflicts in the Ancient World (TSAJ 120; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007) 50Google Scholar. I have not entered into detailed conversation with the latter monograph, which is riddled with errors, difficult to follow, and frequently incoherent; cf. Reif, Stefan C., ‘Review of Yaakov Y. Teppler, Birkat HaMinim’, JJS 59 (2008) 326–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Kimelman, ‘Birkat Ha-Minim’, 233; Katz, Steven T., ‘Issues in the Separation of Judaism and Christianity after 70 C.E.: A Reconsideration’, JBL 103 (1984) 66–7Google Scholar; Katz, Steven T., ‘The Rabbinic Response to Christianity’, The Cambridge History of Judaism. Vol. 4. The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period (ed. Katz, Steven T.; Cambridge University, 2006) 283Google Scholar.

19 Katz, ‘Issues’, 69–74; cf. Katz, ‘Rabbinic Response’, 280–7.

20 Langer, Ruth, ‘Early Rabbinic Liturgy in its Palestinian Milieu: Did Non-Rabbis Know the ‘amidah?’ When Judaism and Christianity Began: Essays in Memory of Anthony J. Saldarini (ed. Avery-Peck, A. J. et al. ; Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004) 425–6Google Scholar.

21 Langer, Ruth, ‘The ‘Amidah as Formative Rabbinic Prayer’, Identität durch Gebet. Zur gemeinschaftsbildenden Funktion institutionalisierten Betens in Judentum und Christentum (ed. Gerhards, Albert et al. ; Studien zu Judentum und Christentum; Paderborn/München/Wien/Zürich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2003) 133Google Scholar.

22 For doubts on the historicity of this tradition, see Boyarin, Daniel, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Divinations; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2004) 68–71Google Scholar; for critique of Boyarin, see Miller, Stuart S., ‘Review Essay. Roman Imperialism, Jewish Self-Definition, and Rabbinic Society: Belayche's Iudaea-Palaestina, Schwartz's Imperialism and Jewish Society, and Boyarin's Border Lines Reconsidered’, AJS Review 31 (2007) 353–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Miller points out that elsewhere Boyarin himself affirms the historicity of a baraita from the Babylonian Talmud about Gamaliel (b. Ket. 103b) and that the general picture of Jewish consolidation in the wake of the destruction of the Temple makes good historical sense.

23 See Finkelstein, Louis, ‘The Development of the Amidah’, JQR 16 (1925) 2–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Fleischer, Ezra, ‘On the Beginnings of Obligatory Jewish Prayer’, Tarbiz 59 (1990) 397–441Google Scholar (Hebrew).

25 See Heinemann, Prayer, 13–26.

26 This is the conclusion of Hakola, Identity Matters, 41–86.

27 See Ehrlich, Uri, ‘On the Early Texts of the Blessings “Who Builds Jerusalem” and the “Blessing of David” in the Liturgy’, Peʿamim 78 (1999) 16–41Google Scholar (Hebrew); cf. Ehrlich, ‘Earliest Version’, 33. See also Instone-Brewer, David, ‘The Eighteen Benedictions and the Minim Before 70 CE’, JTS 54 (2003) 34–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who makes similar points, apparently independently, though he does cite Reif, Stefan C., ‘Jerusalem in Jewish Liturgy’, Judaism 46 (1997) 164–7Google Scholar.

28 On the Sirach parallels, see Kohler, K., ‘The Origin and Composition of the Eighteen Benedictions with a Translation of the Corresponding Essene Prayers in the Apostolic Constitutions’, HUCA 1 (1924) 393Google Scholar; Joseph Tabory, ‘The Precursors of the ‘Amidah’, Identität durch Gebet (ed. Gerhards et al.) 123–4. On the Qumran parallels, see Talmon, Shemaryahu, ‘The “Manual of Benedictions” of the Sect of the Judaean Desert’, RevQ 8 (1960) 491–4Google Scholar.

29 See Van der Horst, Pieter W., ‘Was the Synagogue a Place of Sabbath Worship Before 70 CE?’, Japheth in the Tents of Shem: Studies on Jewish Hellenism in Antiquity (Biblical Exegesis and Theology 32; Leuven/Paris/Sterling, VA: Peeters, 2002 [orig. 1999]) 55–82Google Scholar.

30 See Miller, Stuart S., ‘The Rabbis and the Non-Existent Monolithic Synagogue’, Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue (ed. Fine, Steven; London: Routledge, 1999) 57–70Google Scholar; Miller, Stuart S., ‘On the Number of Synagogues in the Cities of ᾿Ereẓ Israel’, JJS 49 (1998) 64–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miller, ‘Roman Imperialism’, 345–6.

31 See Miller, Stuart S., Sages and Commoners in Late Antique ᾿Ereẓ Israel: A Philological Inquiry Into Local Traditions in Talmud Yerushalmi (TSAJ 111; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006)Google Scholar; Schremer, Adiel, ‘Seclusion and Exclusion: The Rhetoric of Separation in Qumran and Tannaitic Literature’, Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 7–9 January, 2003 (ed. Fraade, Steven D. et al. ; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006) 127–45Google Scholar.

32 See already Neusner's pioneering work, Neusner, Jacob, From Politics to Piety: The Emergence of Pharisaic Judaism (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prenctice-Hall, 1973)Google Scholar. More recently, Cohen, ‘Pharisees’ takes seriously the light that the early Christian evidence can shed on the question of the influence of the Pharisees and rabbis.

33 See Berrin, Shani L., The Pesher Nahum Scroll from Qumran: An Exegetical Study of 4Q169 (STDJ 53; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2004) 98–9Google Scholar.

34 Cf. Schremer, ‘Seclusion’, 140.

35 Justin Dial. 16.4; 96.2, and cf. the passages from Epiphanius and Jerome on the cursing of the ‘Nazoreans’ (Epiphanius Pan. 29.9.2; Jerome in Esaiam 2 [on Isa 5.18–19]; 13 [on Isa 49.7]; 14 [on Isa 52.4–6]; in Amos 1 [on Amos 1.11–12]; cf. Origen Homilies on Jeremiah 19.12.31: ‘Enter the synagogues of the Jews and see Jesus flagellated by those with the language of blasphemy’ (cited in Kimelman, ‘Birkat Ha-Minim’, 236). For discussion of these passages, see S. Krauss, ‘The Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers’, JQR 5–6 (1892–4) 122–57, 82–9, 225–61; Kimelman, ‘Birkat Ha-Minim’, 235–40; Horbury, ‘Benediction’, 72–4. Some of the texts are also given in Klijn, A. F. J. and Reinink, G. J., Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects (NovTSup 36; Leiden: Brill, 1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Cf. Elbogen, Liturgy, 46.

37 Ehrlich and Langer, ‘Earliest Texts’, 79.

38 Kimelman, ‘Birkat Ha-Minim’, 235–6. Cf. also Katz, ‘Issues’, 65–6 and Katz, ‘Rabbinic Response’, 283–4, who points out that the term ‘Nazarenes’, while attested by two later church fathers, Epiphanius (Panarion 29.1.1–9) and Jerome (in Esaiam 8.11–15 et passim) is absent in the works of two earlier ones, Justin and Origen. He also observes that the Johannine ἀποσυνάγωγος texts contain no specific reference to cursing or to a liturgical context, and hence he disputes their link with Birkat Ha-Minim. These, however, are both entirely arguments from silence, and hence not as weighty as Kimelman's objections.

39 So Bobichon, Philippe, Justin Martyr: Dialogue avec Tryphon. Édition critique (Paradosis 47/1-2; 2 vols.; Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2003) 1.551Google Scholar; cf. μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας, in Matt 27.63; Mark 8.31; 9.31; 10.34.

40 For μετά + accusative = ‘according to’, see LSJ 1109 (CIII); PGL 848 (A1c); see, for example, μετὰ νόμον in Chrysostom hom. 3.2.2 in Ac. (9.250B).

41 Cf. PGL 848 (A1 h) on the instrumental use of μετά + accusative in patristic texts.

42 I prefer to see both nuances (out of the synagogue/Jewish community) in ἀποσυνάγωγος in John (on the ambiguity, see above, n. 10). The two Johannine usages of συναγωγή (‘synagogue’) seem to refer to the building, not just to a gathering of Jewish people (see 6.59; 18.20). And ἐξέβαλον αὐτὸν ἔξω in 9.34–35 suggests a concrete nuance for ἀποσυνάγωγος in 9.22. But anyone banned from the synagogue was effectively excluded from the Jewish community, so the term is probably a double entendre.

43 Katz, ‘Rabbinic Response’, 284 n. 84, summarizing Kimelman, ‘Birkat Ha-Minim’, 234–5 and 396–7 nn. 56–7.

44 See above, pp. 525–26, on b. Ber. 28b–29a and y. Ber. 5.3 (9c). As a reminder, the Yerushalmi passage speaks of intensive scrutiny of the way in which a congregant recites Birkat Ha-Minim, and the Bavli one of ‘removing’ him (מעלין אותו) on suspicion that he is a min, if he errs in his recitation. This overlaps with the basic picture in the Johannine passages: expulsion from the synagogue because of demonstrated belief in Jesus.

45 אמר רבי יוחנן: לא גלו ישראל עד שנעשו עשרים וארבע כיתות של מינים.

46 Kimelman, ‘Birkat Ha-Minim’, 228–32. A possible exception is provided by y. Ber. 1.4 (3c), in which it is said that the Ten Commandments are no longer recited every day ‘because of the claim of the minim: so that they should not say, Only these were given to Moses on Sinai’. As Philip S. Alexander, ‘Jewish Believers in Early Rabbinic Literature (2d to 5th Centuries)’, Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries (ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik; Peabody MA: Hendrickson, 2007) 675–6 points out, if the minim in question are Christians, they are probably non-Torah-observant Gentile Christians rather than Jewish ones, since ‘[t]he evidence suggests that Jewish Christians continued to observe many of the laws (circumcision and kashrut) which are not part of the Ten Words’. In a more recent article, Kimelman argues that Didascalia Apostolorum ch. 26 (Kimelman mistakenly cites it as ch. 16) implies the existence of Jewish Christians who revere only the Decalogue, not the ‘Second Legislation’, which includes prescriptions for sacrifices, abstention from certain meats, bathing after intercourse and menstruation, etc. (see Kimelman, Reuven, ‘The Shema' Liturgy: From Covenant Ceremony to Coronation’, Kenishta: Studies of the Synagogue World [ed. Tabory, Joseph; Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2001], 70–1Google Scholar n. 213). As Anders Ekenberg points out, however, while the author of the Didascalia and some of his addressees are probably from a Jewish background, most of them are probably Gentiles who have never tried to observe the Mosaic law in its fullness (see Anders Ekenberg, ‘Evidence for Jewish Believers in “Church Orders” and Liturgical Texts’, Jewish Believers in Jesus [ed. Skarsaune and Hvalvik], 649–53). It is therefore doubtful that the Didascalia should be cited in an unnuanced way as evidence for ‘Jewish Christianity’.

47 Segal, Two Powers in Heaven, 58 n. 40.

48 For a penetrating analysis of this passage, see Boyarin, Daniel, Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism (Figurae; Stanford University, 1999) 22–41Google Scholar.

49 On these passages and others, see Kimelman, ‘Birkat Ha-Minim’, 228–32 and Alexander, ‘Jewish Believers’, 665–87.

50 See Alexander, ‘Jewish Believers’, 672–3.

51 See Boyarin, Border Lines, 56; Alexander, ‘Jewish Believers’, 682–6.

52 Kimelman, ‘Birkat Ha-Minim’, 232. I had long puzzled over the apparent conflict between this conclusion and Kimelman's title; if Jewish Christians were prominent among the targets of Birkat Ha-Minim, how could evidence for an ancient anti-Christian Jewish prayer be lacking? When I asked Kimelman this question in a conversation at the SBL Annual Meeting in Boston in November 2008, he responded, ‘But they [the Nazarenes] were Jews!’—and thus, seemingly, not Christians. But to dichotomize the terms ‘Jewish’ and ‘Christian’ in this way reflects the modern situation more than the ancient one.

53 Segal, Two Powers in Heaven, 7 n. 7.

54 The text does not call this מינאי a Samaritan. Segal notes that he ‘is usually identified as a Samaritan’ because he criticizes Alexander for standing up before a Jew, and ‘Samaritans are reported in other legends to have criticized the Jews before Alexander’. The reasoning is somewhat circuitous, and in any case the word מינאי is not present in the authoritative edition of Margolioth but only in the less reliable Vilna version.

55 See Segal, Two Powers in Heaven, passim. An early proponent of the view of minim as Jewish Gnostics was Friedländer, Moriz, Der vorchristliche jüdische Gnosticismus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1898)Google Scholar, whose views were given a thorough critique by Herford, R. Travers, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (repr. 1903; Clifton, NJ: Reference, 1966) 368–76Google Scholar.

56 Herford, Christianity, 368–70.

57 See, for example, Segal, Two Powers in Heaven, 70 on b. Sanh. 38b and116–18 on b. Ḥul. 87a. On pp. 70–3, Segal considers the possibility that the minim combated by R. Idi in b. Sanh. 38b may be Merkabah mystics, but he considers this somewhat less likely than that they are Christians, ‘because nowhere else are Merkabah mystics explicitly called “minim” ’ (p. 73).

58 Boyarin, Border Lines, 56. See also Simon, Marcel, Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations Between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire AD 135–425 (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization; London: Valentine Mitchell & Co., 1996 [orig. 1964]) 192–6Google Scholar, who shows that exegetical debates between rabbis and ‘two power’ heretics often center on biblical texts that were central to Christian polemic against Judaism.

59 See, for example, King, Karen L., What is Gnosticism? (Cambridge MA and London: Harvard University, 2003) 175–87Google Scholar.

60 אין מחזירין אותו חוץ ממי שלא אמר מחיה המתים ומכניע זדים ובונה ירושלים. אני אומר: מין הוא (‘They don't make anyone return [to the bema] except for the one who does not say “who makes the dead to live” or “who subdues the arrogant” or “who builds Jerusalem”; I might think that he is a min’).

61 The argument in Goodman, Martin, ‘Sadducees and Essenes After 70 CE’, Judaism in the Roman World: Collected Essays (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007) 153–62Google Scholar is, as the author recognizes, essentially negative, relying not on hard and copious evidence of the continued existence of these groups but on an inability to identify good reasons for thinking that they would have disappeared after 70 CE.

62 See Kimelman, ‘Birkat Ha-Minim’, 227; Katz, ‘Issues’, 74–5.

63 Alexander, Philip S., ‘ “The Parting of the Ways” from the Perspective of Rabbinic Judaism’, Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways A.D. 70 to 135. The Second Durham–Tübingen Research Symposium on Earliest Christianity and Judaism (Durham, September 1989) (ed. Dunn, J. D. G.; WUNT 66; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck] 1992) 9–10Google Scholar n. 14; Alexander, ‘Jewish Believers’, 666, 674.

64 See, for example, Aristophanes Nubes 413 ὦ Ζεῦ καὶ θεοί (‘O Zeus and the [other] gods’); cf. Smyth, H. W., Greek Grammar (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1956 [orig. 1920])Google Scholar §2869.

65 Cf. Marcus, Joel, Mark 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 27; New York: Doubleday, 2000) 226Google Scholar.

66 Matt 5.20; 12.38; 23.2, 13–15; Luke 5.21; 6.7; 11.53; cf. John 8.3. The hypothesis that the καί here is generalizing is supported by several Synoptic passages that speak explicitly of scribes who belong to the Pharisaic party (Mark 2.16; Luke 5.30; Acts 23.9).

67 ‘Levites’ here is usually understood as a designation for lower-level descendants of Levi than priests (who also were descendants of Levi), but the καί could be generalizing. Cf. 1 Clem 32.2, ἱερεῖς καὶ λευῖται πάντες οἱ λειτουργοῦντες τῷ θυσιαστηρίῳ, ‘the priests and all the Levites serving at the altar’.

68 βασιλεῖς καὶ ἡγεμόνας (‘kings and [other] leaders’) in Luke 21.12; οἱ βασιλεῖς…καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες (‘the kings…and the [other] rulers’) in Acts 4.26 (cf. Ps 2.2); οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς καὶ οἱ μεγιστᾶνες (‘the kings and the [other] great ones of the earth’) in Rev 6.15.

69 On this interpretation of the phrase, see Alexander, ‘Jewish Believers’, 682.

70 Earlier attestations of this interpretation of הנצרים והמינים include Riessler, Paul, Altjüdisches Schrifttum ausserhalb der Bibel (Heidelberg: F. H. Kerle, 1928) 9Google Scholar; Simon, Verus Israel, 198; Martyn, History, 63; and Levine, Synagogue, 209. Kimelman, ‘Birkat Ha-Minim’, 233 notes such paraphrases but rejects them because they require inserting a word not found in the text (‘other’) and because he considers the phrase ‘Jewish Christians and heretics’ to be redundant. Moreover, he berates the updaters of Elbogen's book for paraphrasing הנצרים והמינים as ‘the minim in general and the noṣrim in particular’ (cf. Elbogen, Liturgy, 36) a rendering that ‘gives the erroneous impression that the text reads first minim and then noṣrim rather than the reverse’ (394 n. 41). But the phrase ‘the Nazarenes and the heretics’ is not redundant if the former is a subset of the latter, and the evidence adduced above shows clearly that putting the subset first was a common way of getting this idea across.

71 Therefore Schäfer, Peter, ‘Die sogenannte Synode von Jabne. Zur Trennung von Juden und Christen im ersten/zweiten Jh. n. Chr’, Studien zur Geschichte und Theologie des rabbinischen Judentums (repr. 1975; AGJU 15; Leiden: Brill, 1978) 60Google Scholar and Katz, ‘Issues’, 74 are attacking a straw man when they argue that Birkat Ha-Minim was not directed exclusively at Jewish Christians.

72 Translation by Maurice Simon from Epstein, Isadore, ed., Hebrew–English Edition of the Babylonian Talmud (London: Soncino, 1990)Google Scholar.

73 ‘Samuel the Lesser arose and composed it’, which renders עמד שמואל הקטן ותקנה.

74 Jastrow, Marcus, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (New York: Judaica, 1982 [orig. 1886–1903]) 1691–2Google Scholar. Arguing in favor of the nuance ‘repair’ here is Lieberman, S., Tosefta Ki-Fshuṭah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1955 [Hebrew])Google Scholar Zeraʿim 1.54, on the basis of the passage from t. Ber. 3.25 to be discussed below.

75 I am grateful for this comparison to my colleague Kalman Bland.

76 See Lieberman, Tosefta, Zeraʿim 1.54; cf. Horbury, ‘Benediction’, 85–6.

77 Alexander, ‘Parting’, 8.

78 See y. Ber. 5.3 (9c) quoted above, n. 60, citing R. Simon, a third-generation Amora, in the name of R. Joshua b. Levi, a first-generation Amora.

79 See, for example, the baraita cited by R. Jose in y. Ber. 4.3 (8a) כולל של מינים ושל פושעין במכניע זדים, ‘One includes [the benediction of] the minim and of the sinners in [the benediction ending], “He who subdues the arrogant” ’ (my translation). See also Tanḥuma (Warsaw) Korah 12 (5) which speaks of ברכת הזדים שתקנו ביבנה (‘The benediction of the arrogant, which [the sages] fixed at Yavneh’). For other instances, see David Flusser, ‘4QMMT and the Benediction Against the Minim’, Judaism of the Second Temple Period. Vol. 1. Qumran and Apocalypticism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007 [orig. 1992]) 93 n. 67.

80 See Ginzberg, Louis, A Commentary on the Palestinian Talmud: A Study of the Development of the Halakah and Haggadah in Palestine and Babylon (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1941 [Hebrew]) 3.282–3Google Scholar; Kuhn, Achtzehngebet, 18–19, 21–2; Lieberman, Tosefta, Zeraʿim 1.54–55; Luger, Weekday Amidah, 145–7.

81 Ehrlich and Langer, ‘Earliest Texts’, 77–8. The text appears on pp. 72–3: למשומדים אל תהי תקוה ומלכות זדון מהרה תעקר בימינו. ברוך אתה יי שובר רשעים ומכניע זדים. (‘For the destroyed ones may there be no hope, and may the dominion of arrogance be quickly uprooted in our days. Blessed are you, O Lord, who shatters the wicked and subdues the arrogant’).

82 As noted above (n. 79) y. Ber. 4.3 (8a) does speak of the insertion of ברכת המינים into מכניע זדים, but this is probably secondary to the form of the saying in t. Ber. 3.25; see Lieberman, Tosefta, Zeraʿim 1.53–54.

83 On Pharisaic revolutionaries, see Ant. 18.23, where Josephus says that adherents of the Fourth Philosophy agree in everything with the opinions of the Pharisees except their unconquerable passion for liberty, and 18.4, where the co-founder of the movement is identified as a Pharisee named Saddok. On Essene participation in the revolution, see Bell. 2.152–53; cf. Hengel, Martin, The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I until 70 A.D. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1989 [orig. 1961])Google Scholar General Index s.v. ‘Essenes, and Zealots’ and ‘Pharisees, and Zealots’. On the relation between the Qumran sect and the Essenes, see Magness, Jodi, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2002)Google Scholar.

84 Translations are based on, but sometimes altered from, Tov, E., ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library (Salt Lake City: Brigham Young University, 2006)Google Scholar, which also provides the Hebrew citations.

85 The verb אבד (‘to perish’) is also present in both the Qumran evidence and Schechter's Genizah version of Birkat Ha-Minim, but as Ruth Langer has pointed out to me, it seems to belong to a later layer of the Genizah evidence. I am grateful to Prof. Langer for her helpful critique of an earlier version of this article.

86 See Flusser, ‘4QMMT’, 103–7; cf. Boyarin, Border Lines, 70, 260 n. 182 and Schremer, ‘Seclusion’, 128–32.

87 Burns, Joshua Ezra, ‘Essene Sectarianism and Social Differentiation in Judaea After 70 C.E’, HTR 99 [2006] 260–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Among the passages Burns cites for overlap between rabbinic descriptions of minim and descriptions of the Essenes/Qumran sect in Philo, Josephus, and the Qumran literature are the following:

  1. 1)

    1) Use of an alternate calendar: see m. Roš. Haš. 2.1; cf. CD 3.13–15; 6.18–19; 12.3–4; 16.2–4, etc.

  2. 2)

    2) Dressing in white: m. Meg. 4.8; cf. Josephus Bell. 2.137.

  3. 3)

    3) Practicing variant sacrificial rites: m. Ḥul. 2.9; t. Ḥul. 2.19; t. Yoma 2.10 (cf. Mek. Amalek 4 [Lauterbach 2.187]); cf. Josephus Ant. 18.19.

  4. 4)

    4) Fastidiousness about water rituals related to purity: t. Parah 3.3 (cf. the Mekilta passage referred to above); cf. Josephus B. J. 2.129, 138, 150; 1QS 3.4–6, 9; 5.13, etc.

88 See Yuval, Israel Jacob, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California, 2006) 115–17Google Scholar, who links Birkat Ha-Minim with Qumran curses, citing 4QD-a (=4Q266) 11.17–18. Other Qumran curses are found in 1QS 2.4–18; 3.1–6; 4QBer-a (4Q286) 7 a 2,b-d; 4QCurses (4Q280); cf. Arnold, Russell C. D., The Social Role of Liturgy in the Religion of the Qumran Community (STDJ 60; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2006) 159–64Google Scholar.

89 The anonymous NTS reviewer of this article objects that the other genitives in t. Ber. 3.25—‘of the heretics', ‘of the proselytes’, ‘of the elders’, and ‘of David’—all seem to be objective rather than subjective. I am not convinced, however, that the objective sense is unambiguous in the case of the benediction ‘of the elders’, which in the earliest versions does not bless the elders but ‘the righteous and the pious’ (cf. Elbogen, Liturgy, 47; Luger, Weekday Amidah, 147). This opens up the possiblity that ‘of the elders’ in t. Ber. 3.25 may be a subjective rather than an objective genitive, designating a liturgical text handed down from days of yore (cf. m. ᾿Abot 1.1, and Luger, Weekday Amidah, 146, who says that most researchers trace the benediction back to the time of the Antiochene persecutions). ‘The benediction of the elders’ therefore may mean ‘the benediction that comes from the elders’, just as according to my hypothesis ‘the benediction of the separatists’ means ‘the benediction that comes from the separatists’. The resulting mixture of subjective and objective genitives in the Tosefta passage as a whole may seem confusing, but we are obviously dealing here with abbreviated catchphrases, and that means that the benedictions and the significance of their names may have been well-enough known that small grammatical inconsistencies would not have been considered awkward.

90 The same subjective genitive interpretation applies to the expression in the singular, ברכת כוהן (ה)גדול (‘the blessing of the High Priest’) in m. Soṭ. 7.2; t. Men. 6.12, etc.: this is the blessing recited by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement, as m. Soṭ. 7.7 establishes. Other subjective genitives include ברכת מושה, ‘the blessing of Moses’ (Ber. Rab. 97.5) and the phrases from Gen 49.26, ברכת אביך and ברכת הורי (‘the blessings of your father’ and ‘the blessings of my parents’) which are quoted in Ber. Rab. 99.5 (98.20).

91 The subjective genitive interpretation of ברכת הדיוט is made explicit by the context in b. Meg. 15a: ואמר רבי אלעזר אמר רבי חנינא: לעולם אל תהי ברכת הדיוט קלה בעיניך, שהרי שני גדולי הדור ברכום שני הדיוטות ונתקיימה בהן (‘Rabbi Eliezer said, R. Ḥanina said: Let not the blessing of an ordinary person be lightly esteemed in your eyes, for behold, two men great in their generation received from ordinary people blessings that were fulfilled in them’—citing the examples of David being blessed by Araunah [2 Sam 24.23] and Daniel being blessed by Darius [Dan 6.17]).

92 One passage, b. Sof. 19.8 [12], distinguishes ברכת האבלים from the mourner's Kaddish, but this distinction may be late. That the terminology was confusing is shown in b. Meg. 23b, which raises the question of what ברכת האבלים is. Another passage, b. Ket. 8b, speaks of a prayer with regard to mourners (כנגד אבלים) that ends ברוך מנחם אבלים, but it does not explicitly identify this as ברכת האבלים, contrary to the Soncino editor's note on b. Sem. 2.1. The two seem to be conflated in y. Meg. 4.4 (74c–75a) but many sources seem to distinguish ברכת האבלים from תחנוני האבלים (‘the consolation of the mourners’; see, e.g., m. Meg. 4.3; y. Pes. 8.8 [35b]; y. M. Qat. 1.5 [80d] b. Ber. 16b; b. Meg. 23b; b. Sem. 12.4; 14.14; cf. Lieberman, Tosefta, Zeraʿim 1.49). This would seem to open up the possibility that the genitive in ברכת האבלים originally was not objective.

93 See, for example, Jeremiah's appropriation of his opponents' slogan, ‘the temple of the Lord’ (Jer 7.1–15); the Qumran designation for the Pharisees, ‘Seekers of Smooth Things’ (דורשי חלקות, which is probably an ironic pun on their self-designation, ‘Interpreters of Halakhic Rulings’ (דורשי הלכות); and the jab in Rev 2.24 against those who boast about knowing ‘the deep things of Satan’, which is probably a reversal of their claim to know ‘the deep things of God’. Paul frequently recycles traditions that come from his opponents. In 1 Corinthians, for example, he takes up and qualifies several slogans of the Corinthian Christian community (‘all things are lawful for me’, ‘food for the stomach and the stomach for food’, ‘it is good for a man not to touch a woman’, and ‘all of us have knowledge’). And Galatians is full of reappropriations of the slogans and traditions of Paul's opponents, such as ‘the blessing of Abraham’ in 3.14, the curse on the ‘hanged man’ in 3.10–14, the allegory of Sarah and Hagar in 4.21–5.1, and part or all of the concluding benediction, ‘Peace upon the Israel of God’ in 6.16 (cf. Martyn, J. Louis, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 33A; New York: Doubleday, 1997]Google Scholar, passim). Among the church fathers, Eusebius transforms the name of the Jewish-Christian Ebionites (=‘poor ones’), which probably started out as an honorific self-designation, into a reference to the group's deficient opinions (Hist. eccl. 3.27) and Tertullian takes up the title of Marcion's main work and claims to have fashioned ‘antitheses’ that demolish those of the heresiarch (Marc. 2.28–29). A famous rabbinic example is m. Sanh. 10.1, which first cites an old tradition that categorically proclaims the salvation of all Jews, then qualifies it, ‘And these are they who have no share in the world to come…’

94 An allusion to the book by Davies, W. D., The Territorial Dimension of Judaism (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California, 1982)Google Scholar.

95 Alexander, ‘Parting’, 22–3.

96 On the rootage of the ‘Amidah in the Temple liturgy, see Heinemann, Prayer, 219–20. Evidence includes the testimony of Tannaitic texts (m. Tamid 5.1; m. Yoma; t. Yoma 3.18) as well as the parallels between Sir 51.12 (Heb. B) and the ‘Amidah (see above, p. 530 and n. 28) which may reflect Sirach's priestly status or linkage with priestly circles; see Carr, David McLain, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (New York: Oxford University, 2005) 207Google Scholar.

97 Levine, Synagogue, 543.

98 See Goodman, Martin, State and Society in Roman Galilee, A.D. 132–212 (Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies; Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1983) 98Google Scholar; cf. Boyarin, Border Lines, 257.

99 Cohen, Shaye J. D., ‘The Significance of Yavneh: Pharisees, Rabbis, and the End of Jewish Sectarianism’, HUCA 55 (1984) 27–53Google Scholar.

100 See, for example, his conclusion on pp. 35–36 that ‘70 CE was a major transition point in Jewish sectarianism. Perhaps some sectarians, aside from the Samaritans and Christianizing Jews, lingered on for a while, but Jewish society from the end of the first century until the rise of the Karaites, was not torn by sectarian divisions’.

101 Shakespeare King Lear 5.3.

102 Cf. Martyn's report (in Martyn, History, 60 n. 69) about Wayne Meeks's suspicion that the Johannine ἀποσυνάγωγος scenes ‘portray as punctiliar events in Gamaliel's time what was actually a linear development stretching over a lengthy period and culminating in the pertinent formulation of Birkath ha-Minim, perhaps quite a bit later than Gamaliel’. Martyn makes a good counterargument that something significant probably did happen at Yavneh under Gamaliel. But even if that is so, the enactment formulated there was probably received in different ways in different localities, in some of which the rabbis probably had considerable power, in others not; cf. Rensberger, D., Overcoming the World: Politics and Community in the Gospel of John (London: SPCK, 1988) 26Google Scholar; Smith, D. M., ‘Judaism and the Gospel of John’, Jews and Christians: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future (ed. Charlesworth, J. H.; New York: Crossroad, 1990) 86Google Scholar.

103 See Levine, Lee I., ‘The Sages and the Synagogue in Late Antiquity: The Evidence of the Galilee’, The Galilee in Late Antiquity (New York/Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992) 201–22Google Scholar; Cohen, ‘Pharisees’, 104.

104 On the question of rabbinic ‘ownership’ of the ‘Amidah, see Langer, ‘Early Rabbinic Liturgy’.