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Yoma from Babylonia to Egypt: Ritual Function, Textual Transmission, and Sacrifice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2019

Michael D. Swartz
Michael D. Swartz*
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University
*
swartz.69@osu.edu
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Abstract

As recent research has emphasized, the Mishnah tractate Yoma is a model par excellence of the category of Mishnah tractates that take the form of narrative and describe key institutions of the lost Temple and its rituals. But even among those tractates, Yoma is unique in that it served as a source for liturgical recitation in what became the Avodah liturgy. This paper will look at the complex relationships between textual transmission and liturgical recitation in the history of the tractate by examining internal and external textual evidence. In particular, this discussion includes a detailed analysis of a papyrus fragment from Oxyrhynchus that has received insufficient attention so far. It is argued from this evidence that the tractate's literary nature coalesced with the substance of the tractate to produce a virtual enactment of sacrifice for its reciters and performers.

Type
Research Article
Information
AJS Review , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , November 2019 , pp. 339 - 353
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2019 

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References

1. Cowley, A. E., “Notes on Hebrew Papyrus Fragments from Oxyrhynchus,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 2 (1915): 209–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Geller, M. J., “An Aramaic Incantation from Oxyrhynchus,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 58 (1985): 96–98Google Scholar.  As Geller notes, Cowley neglected to mention that the text was Aramaic.

3. On the liturgical fragments see also Ezra, Daniel Stökl Ben, The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 62Google Scholar.

4. Jaffee, Martin, “Writing and Rabbinic Oral Tradition: On Mishnaic Narrative, Lists, and Mnemonics,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 4, no. 1 (1994): 129Google Scholar.  To date the most comprehensive list is in Cohn, Naftali, The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 123–25Google Scholar (appendix A); previous lists are found in Krochmal, Nachman, Moreh nevukhe ha-zeman: Sefer moreh ʾemunah ẓerufah u-melamed ḥokhmat Yisra'el, ed. Zunz, Leopold (Berlin: L. Lamm, 1923), 196Google Scholar; and Epstein, J. N., Mevo'ot le-sifrut ha-tanna'im (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1957), 25–70Google Scholar. To the extent that mishnaic legal formulae are most often cast in participle form rather than imperative, they can be said to be descriptive even if they are taken by tradition to be prescriptive.  See for example, Simon-Shoshan, Moshe, Stories of the Law: Narrative Discourse and the Construction of Authority in the Mishnah (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)Google Scholar, which focuses on narrativity in the mishnaic case story (ma‘aseh); for a list of relevant passages see pp. 232–33.

5. For example, Neusner, Jacob, “Dating a Mishnah-Tractate: The Case of Tamid,” in History, Religion and Spiritual Democracy: Essays in Honor of Joseph L. Blau, ed. Wohlgelernter, Maurice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 97–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Blumberg, Herman J., “Saul Lieberman on the Talmud of Caesarea and Louis Ginzberg on Mishnah Tamid,” in The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud: Studies in the Achievements of Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Historical and Literary-Critical Research, ed. Neusner, Jacob (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 107–24Google Scholar; see especially Stökl Ben Ezra, Impact of Yom Kippur, 19–28.

6. Rosen-Zvi, Ishay, Ha-tekes she-loʾ hayah: Mikdash, midrash, u-migdar be-masekhet Sotah (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2008)Google Scholar; Rosen-Zvi, , The Mishnaic Sotah Ritual: Temple, Gender and Midrash (Leiden: Brill, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Simon-Shoshan, , Stories of the Law; Barry Scott Wimpfheimer, Narrating the Law: A Poetics of Talmudic Legal Stories (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

7. For Cohn's discussion of narrativity, see Memory of the Temple, 8–13.

8. See, for example, Neusner, Jacob, History of the Mishnaic Law of Appointed Times, vol. 3 (Leiden: Brill, 1980–83)Google Scholar; Cohn, Memory of the Temple; Stökl Ben Ezra, Impact of Yom Kippur; Swartz, Michael D., “The Topography of Blood in Mishnah Yoma,” in Jewish Blood: Metaphor and Reality in Jewish History, Culture, and Religion, ed. Hart, Mitchell (London: Routledge, 2009), 70–82Google Scholar; Swartz, , “Ritual Is with People: Sacrifice and Society in Palestinian Yoma Traditions,” in The Actuality of Sacrifice: Past and Present, ed. Houtman, Alberdina, Poorthuis, Marcel, and Schwartz, Joshua J. (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 206–28Google Scholar.

9. On this dimension of Yoma's discourse see Swartz, Michael D., “Sage, Priest, and Poet: Typologies of Leadership in the Ancient Synagogue,” in Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction during the Greco-Roman Period, ed. Fine, Steven (London: Routledge, 1999), 101–17Google Scholar; and Swartz, “Ritual Is with People.”

10. For an introduction to the Avodah as well as texts and translations of the major early Avodah compositions, see Swartz, Michael D. and Yahalom, Joseph, Avodah: Ancient Poems for Yom Kippur (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005)Google Scholar, and the bibliography there; all translations of Avodah piyyutim here are from this volume.  A comprehensive study of the Avodah service and piyyutim from the perspective of the history of Hebrew literature is Zvi Malachi, “Ha-ʿavodah le-yom ha-kippurim: ʾOfiyah, toledotehah ve-hitpatḥutah ba-shirah ha-ʿivrit” (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 1974).  For further editions and discussions of Avodah piyyutim see also Yahalom, Joseph, ʾAz be-’en kol: Seder ha-ʿavodah ha-ʾereẓ-yisraʾeli ha-kadum le-yom ha-kippurim (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1996)Google Scholar; Goldschmidt, Daniel, ed., Maḥzor le-yamim noraʾim, vol. 2, ʾAshkenaz (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1970), 18–25Google Scholar; and Mirsky, Aaron, Piyyute Yose ben Yose, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2001)Google Scholar; Swartz, Michael D., “Ritual about Myth about Ritual: Toward an Understanding of the Avodah in the Rabbinic Period,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 6 (1997): 135–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Swartz, “Sage, Priest, and Poet.”

11. Published in Elbogen, Ismar, Studien zur Geschichte des jüdischen Gottesdienstes (Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1907), 103–17Google Scholar; cf. the edition in Malachi, “Ha-ʿAvodah,” 2:127–31. For a translation see Swartz and Yahalom, Avodah, 53–67.

12. See especially “ʾAzkir gevurot ʾelohah,” in Mirsky, Yose ben Yose, 127–72; and Swartz and Yahalom, Avodah, 221–341.

13. Yahalom, ʾAz be-’en kol; Swartz and Yahalom, Avodah, 95–219.

14. For this argument see Yahalom, ʾAz be-ʾen kol and Piyyut u-meẓiʾut ba-zeman ha-‘atik (Tel Aviv: Ha-kibbutz Ha-meʾuḥad, 1999); and Swartz, “Sage, Priest, and Poet,” and “Chains of Tradition in the Avodah Piyyutim,” in Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire: The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity, ed. Dohrmann, Natalie and Reed, Annette Yoshiko (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 189–208Google Scholar.  The argument that priests constituted an organized leadership group has been called into question; see for example, Miller, Stuart, “Priests, Purities, and the Jews of Galilee,” in Religion, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Galilee: A Region in Transition, ed. Zangenberg, Jürgen.K., Attridge, Harold W., and Martin, Dale B. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 375–402Google Scholar.  This debate can be distinguished from the question of whether the prestige of the priesthood as a caste varied among centers of cultural production in this period.

15. On this function see Swartz, Michael D., “Liturgy, Poetry, and the Persistence of Sacrifice,” in Was 70 C.E. a Watershed in Jewish History?, ed. Schwartz, Daniel R. and Weiss, Zeev (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 393–412CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also below.

16. On rabbinic interpretations of the confessions see below.

17. Yehoshua Rosenberg, “Mishnah ‘kippurim’: Mahadurah bikortit be-ẓeruf mavoʾ” (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 1995).  This edition forms the basis for this article.  Rosenberg's edition is based on MS Kaufmann and its numbering; however, in this article citations of the Mishnah follow the numbering in Albeck, Chanoch, Shishah sidre mishnah (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, and Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1973)Google Scholar. Rosenberg takes MS Kaufmann to be the most authentic representation of the early mishnaic text tradition; there are, however, those who prefer MS Parma; See for example Cohn, Memory of the Temple.

18. Rosenberg, “Mishnah ‘kippurim,’” 126–42; Epstein, Mevoʾot, 971–72, Lieberman, Saul, Tosefta ki-fshutah (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1955–88), 4:753Google Scholar.

19. Sifra, ʾAḥare mot 2:2 (ed. Weiss, fol. 82b).

20. T. Kippurim 1:2, in MSS Erfurt and London. The Tosefta only lists the text of the confession once. Cf. Y. Yoma 3:7 (40d), discussed below.

21. In many of the manuscripts of the early Avodah piyyutim the full text of the confession is elided as kakh hayah ʾomer or kakh hayah ʾomer ʾanaʾ ha-shem, leaving the text of the second sentence out.  However, in Shiv‘at yamim, ba-shem is used for the second sentence in the first and second confessions; in “ʾAromem la-ʾel,” ba-shem is used for the second sentence in the third confession; in Yose ben Yose's “ʾAtah konanta ‘olam be-rov ḥesed,” ba-shem is used for the second sentence in all three confessions.

22. Lieberman, Tosefta ki-fshutah, 4:753–56; see also Lieberman, Saul, “Mashehu ‘al hashba‘ot be-Yisraʾel,” Tarbiz 27 (1958): 181–89Google Scholar, translated as “Some Notes on Adjurations in Israel,” in Texts and Studies (New York: Ktav, 1974), 21–28Google Scholar; Alon, G., “Ba-Shem,” Tarbiz 21 (1950): 30–39Google Scholar; and Albeck, Sishah sidre mishnah, 2:470.

23. Lieberman Tosefta ki-fshutah, 4:755; see also Lieberman, “Hashba‘ot.”

24. Lieberman, Tosefta ki-fshutah, 4:753, citing Tosafot Yom Tov to M. Yoma 6:2.

25. Lieberman Tosefta ki-fshutah, 4:755 cites Y. Taʿanit 3:12 (87a), in which Shimon b. Shetaḥ expresses the concern that Ḥoni's oath will lead to profanation of the divine name.  See also Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Leviticus 16:21, which Lieberman (ibid.) argues reflects this version of the high priest's confession.

26. See Lieberman, “Hashba‘ot.”

27. See also T. Pesaḥim 3:19 and T. Taʿanit 1:12; cf. Psalm 72:19.

28. On this formula and the doxology in Jewish liturgy see Heinemann, Joseph, Prayer in the Talmud: Forms and Patterns (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977), 109–11, 134–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. For example, MS Cambridge (Moses Maimonides's autograph), and in Meiri's commentary; see Rosenberg, “Mishnah ‘kippurim,’” 2:139–40; and Epstein, Mevo'ot, 971.

30. Epstein, Mevo'ot, 971; Rosenberg, “Mishnah ‘kippurim,’” 2:139–40.

31. See also B. Yoma 87b; B. Berakhot 14b and 33b; and B. Megillah 25a; cf. Y. Berakhot 9:1 (12d).

32. As Zvi Zohar points out in “U-mi metaher ʾetkhem—ʾavikhem ba-shamayim: Tefilat seder ha-‘avodah shel Yom ha-Kippurim: Tokhen, tifkud u-mashmaʿut,” AJS Review 14 (1989): 5Google Scholar, this passage does not prove conclusively that there was an early custom to recite the Mishnah's narrative of the entire Avodah.

33. This text is quoted from MS Munich 95, which extends the quote to the Mishnah's description of how the high priest would sprinkle the blood.  The Venice and Vilna editions quote the text as far as the word “curtain”; other manuscripts quote the text in shorter or abbreviated fashion.

34. Zohar, “U-mi metaher ʾetkhem,” 5.

35. For texts see Elbogen, Studien; Malachi, “Ha-ʿavodah,” 1:12–14; and Swartz and Yahalom, Avodah, 53–67.

36. See Cohn, Memory of the Temple, 46–47.

37. T. Kippurim 1:8; Y. Yoma 1:5 (39a); B. Yoma 19b.  In the Tosefta and Yerushalmi the opponents are Boethusians; in the Bavli they are Sadducees.

38. Swartz and Yahalom, Avodah, 54.

39. See Y. Yoma 5:3 (42c); B. Yoma 53b; cf. T. Kippurim 2:13.

40. Swartz and Yahalom, Avodah, 64–65; see our notes there.  This prayer is closest to those cited in the Bavli.

41. Cowley, “Notes on Hebrew Papyrus Fragments from Oxyrhynchus.”

42. See Sirat, Colette, Les papyrus en caractéres hébraïques trouvés en Égypte (Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1985), 55–58, 120, and plate 73Google Scholar. Mishor, Mordechai, “Ha-papirusim ha-‘ivriyyim: Kit‘e ha-ʾigrot,” Leshonenu 55 (1992): 181–88Google Scholar, includes a new transcription of the letter, which represents that of the Historical Hebrew Dictionary.

43. See Bowman, A. K., Coles, R. A., Gonis, N., Obbink, D., and Parsons, P. J., eds., Oxyrhynchus: A City and Its Texts (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2007)Google Scholar.  On the phenomenon of discarding sacred texts from the garbological perspective, see Luijendijk, AnneMarie, “Sacred Scriptures as Trash: Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus,” Vetus Testamentum 64 (2010): 217–54Google Scholar.

44. For surveys, see Bagnall, Roger S., Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; and Parsons, Peter J., City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish: Greek Lives in Roman Egypt (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007)Google Scholar.

45. See Kasher, A., “The Jewish Community of Oxyrhynchus in the Roman Period,” Journal of Jewish Studies 32 (1981): 151–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Epp, Eldon Jay, “The Jews and the Jewish Community in Oxyrhynchus: Socio-Religious Context for the New Testament Papryri,” in New Testament Manuscripts: Their Texts and Their World, ed. Kraus, Thomas J. and Nicklas, Tobias (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 13–52Google Scholar; and Ilan, Tal, “The Jewish Community in Egypt before and after 117 CE in Light of Old and New Papyri,” in Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman World, ed. Furstenberg, Yair (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 203–24Google Scholar.

46. Tcherikover, Victor A. and Fuks, Alexander, eds., Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), 473, 2:35Google Scholar.

47. It should be noted that there are two funerary inscriptions in Hebrew from Roman Egypt, one from Antinoopolis, and one from Middle Egypt on a mummy label.  Both contain common phrases referring to the afterlife, such as ẓeror he-ḥayim, “the bundle of life” (CIJ 1534, from Antinoopolis) and nishmetah le-ḥaye ha-‘olam “(May) her soul (have) eternal life” (CIJ 1536, from Middle Egypt).  See Frey, Jean-Baptiste, Corpvs inscriptionvm ivdaicarvm. Recueil des inscriptions juives qui vont du IIIe siècle avant Jésus-Christ au VIIe siècle de notre ère (Vatican: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristians, 1952), 2:441–44Google Scholar; and Horbury, William and Noy, David, eds., Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 204–5, 223–25Google Scholar. However, the Antinoopolis inscription could have been written any time between the second and fifth centuries CE and is similar to a sixth-century Hebrew inscription from Spain; the Middle Egyptian inscription is of unknown provenance. See Tcherikover and Fuchs, Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, 3:165.  In addition, an Aramaic marriage contract on papyrus from Antinoopolis, dated 417 CE, in the library at the University of Cologne was published in 1986: Sirat, Colette, Cauderlier, Patrice, Dukan, Michéle, and Friedman, Mordechai Akiva, La Ketouba de Cologne: Un contrat de marriage juif à Antinoopolis (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1986)Google Scholar. However, the contract does not conform to rabbinic norms for the ketubbah; see Sirat et al., La Ketouba, and Satlow, Michael L., Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 216CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48. For the name Ḥaninah; reading אנינה for Cowley's אניכה with Mishor, “Ha-papirusim,” 282.

49. Cowley adds this phrase in his translation, but the text he reconstructs does not assume this.

50. On the function of the prostatēs as patron see Brown, Peter, “Rise and Function of the Holy Man,” Journal of Roman Studies 59 (1969): 85Google Scholar.

51. Klein-Franke, Felix, “A Hebrew Lamentation from Roman Egypt,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 51 (1983): 80–84Google Scholar; and Harding, Mark, “A Hebrew Congregational Prayer from Egypt,” New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity 8 (1984–85): 145–47Google Scholar.

52. For this interpretation see Harding, “Hebrew Congregational Prayer.” Klein-Franke, “Hebrew Lamentation,” 83, argued that it commemorated a case of misappropriation of synagogue property by Christians. It should be noted that in traditional Jewish liturgy this blessing is used as the occasion to commemorate the events of Hanukah and Purim.

53. Geller, “Aramaic Incantation.”

54. MS Brit. Mus. Or 9180 A.  A photo of the fragment and a translation were first published in Petrie, W. M. Flinders, The Status of the Jews in Egypt (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1922)Google Scholar, frontispiece and pp. 43–44; it was published with a transcription in Loewe, Herbert, “The Petrie-Hirschfeld Papyrus,” Journal of Theological Studies 24 (1923): 126–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and later by de Boer, P. A. H., “Notes on an Oxyrhynchus Papyrus in Hebrew,” Vetus Testamentum 1 (1951): 49–57Google Scholar; Schirmann, Jefim, “Hebrew Liturgical Poetry and Christian Hymnology,” Jewish Quarterly Review 44 (1953): 132–33Google Scholar, was able to identify literary characteristics specific to piyyut; see also Schirmann, , “Ḥeker ha-shirah ve-ha-piyyut bi-shenat 1951,” Qiryat sefer 28 (1952): 236Google Scholar.  Petrie reported that it came from a mound that was closed in the second century. However, according to de Boer, later papyri were found at the same site, and in a personal communication to him Solomon Birnbaum dated it paleographically to the fourth century CE.

55. See Yahalom, Joseph, “‘ʾEzel Moshe’ be-papirus,” Tarbiz 47 (1979): 173–84Google Scholar.  See also Steinschneider, Moritz, “Hebräische Papyrus-Fragmente aus der Fajjum,” Zeitschrift für aegyptische Sprache und Alterthumskunde 17 (1879): 93–96Google Scholar.

56. The following transcriptions and translations and texts are based on Cowley's, supplemented by the Ma'agarim database.  Uncertain letters as designated by Maʾagarim are underlined.

57. Cf. also Isaiah 1:11 and 34:6. Interestingly, these verses are prophetic statements about the inadequacy of sacrifice to fulfil God's will in the most complete sense.

58. On these characteristics see Mirsky, Aaron, Reʾshit ha-piyyut (Jerusalem: Sokhnut Ha-yehudit, 1965)Google Scholar; and Mirsky, Ha-piyyut: Hitpatḥutah be-ʾereẓ Yisra'el u-va-golah (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1990); cf. Swartz, , Mystical Prayer in Ancient Judaism: An Analysis of Ma‘aseh Merkavah  (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 190–207Google Scholar.

59. Cf. “ʾAtah Konanta ʿolam me-rosh,” in Swartz and Yahalom, Avodah, 74–75.

60. Reading perhaps השם for דשם, although the dalet is clear in the photographs.

61. See Kasher, “Jewish Community,” 153.

62. See especially Stökl Ben Ezra, Impact of Yom Kippur, who makes the case for the influence of Christian discourse of sacrifice and the priesthood on the liturgical Avodah.

63. See Swartz, “Persistence of Sacrifice”; and Swartz, , “Koḥah u-tekifah shel ha-shirah ha-‘ivrit be-shilhe ha-‘et ha-ʿatikah,” in Continuity and Renewal: Jews and Judaism in Byzantine-Christian Palestine, ed. Levine, Lee I. (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2004), 542–62Google Scholar.