2. This achievement must be credited to Yaakov Elman, who has campaigned most intensely for a broadening of focus in talmudic studies. Aside from his many articles listed here, with this goal in mind, he has presented papers and organized sessions at conferences and meetings in the United States, Israel, and Germany.

3. See Herman, Geoffrey, “Ahasuerus the Former Stable-Master of Belshazzar, and the Wicked Alexander of Macedon: Two Parallels between the Babylonian Talmud and Persian Sources,” AJS Review 29, no. 2 (2005): 283–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an earlier example, see Sperber, Daniel, “On the Unfortunate Adventures of Rav Kahana: A Passage of Saboraic Polemic from Sasanian Persia,” Irano-Judaica, ed. Shaked, Shaul and Netzer, Amnon (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1982), 83–100Google Scholar. In an article published in the same volume, E. S. Rosenthal strongly urges Talmudists to study Middle Persian language and literature. See his “La-milon ha-talmudi: Talmudica Iranica,” in Shaked and Netzer, Irano-Judaica, 38–134 (Hebrew section).

4. For the Bavli's response to the theological debates that animated Zoroastrian and Manichaean religious polemic, see Elman, Yaakov, “Acculturation to Elite Persian Norms and Modes of Thought in the Babylonian Jewish Community of Late Antiquity,” in Neti‘ot le-David, ed. Elman, Yaakov, Halivni, Ephraim Bezalel, and Steinfeld, Zvi Arie (Jerusalem: Orḥot, 2004), 31–56Google Scholar; idem, “Rav Yosef be‘idan ritḥa, Bar Ilan 30–31 (2006): 9–20; and idem, “‘He in His Cloak and She in Her Cloak’: Conflicting Images of Sexuality in Sasanian Mesopotamia,” in Discussing Cultural Influences: Text, Context, and Non-Text in Rabbinic Judaism, ed. Rivka Ulmer (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2007). To my knowledge, no one has compared Manichaean and rabbinic legal or ritual systems.

A preliminary study of the uses of Nestorian literature for understanding the Talmud can be found in Gafni, Isaiah, “Ḥiburim nestorianim ke-makor le-toldot yeshivot bavel,” Tarbiz 51 (1982): 567–76Google Scholar. Adam Becker has advanced the research on these Christian schools in ways that will directly affect scholarship on the Bavli; see his Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006). Naomi Koltun-Fromm looks at the relationship between Eastern Christian and rabbinic exegesis in her doctoral dissertation, “Jewish-Christian Polemics in Fourth-Century Persian Mesopotamia: A Reconstructed Conversation” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 1994). More recently, see Koltun-Fromm, Naomi, “Zippora's Complaint: Moses Is Not Conscientious in the Deed! Exegetical Traditions of Moses' Celibacy,” in The Ways That Never Parted, ed. Becker, Adam and Reed, Annette Yoshiko (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 293–307Google Scholar. Daniel Boyarin has generally emphasized the role of Christianity on the formation of Rabbinic Judaism. However, he does not limit his research to the Bavli and Eastern Christian writings. Still, in his “Hellenism in Jewish Babylonia,” in Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, ed. Charlotte E. Fonrobert and Martin S. Jaffee (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 336–63, he hints most explicitly at the role of Eastern Christian learning in influencing what he calls the Bavli's “indeterminacy.”

5. See Elman, Yaakov, “Marriage and Marital Property in Rabbinic and Sasanian Law,” in Rabbinic Law in Its Roman and Near Eastern Context, ed. Hezser, Catherine (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 227–76Google Scholar; idem, “‘Up to the Ears’ in Horses' Necks (B.M. 108a): On Sasanian Agricultural Policy and Private Eminent Domain,” Jewish Studies: An Internet Journal 3 (2004): 95–149; idem, “Yeshivot bavel u-vatei din parsiyim ba-tequfah ha-amorayit veha-batar amorayit,” in Yeshivot u-batai midrash, ed. Emanuel Etkes (Jerusalem: Mercaz Zalman Shazar, 2007), 31–55; and idem, “Returnable Gifts in Rabbinic and Sasanian Law,” in Irano-Judaica VI, ed. Shaul Shaked and Amnon Netzer (Jerusalem: Makhon Ben Zvi, 2008). See also Macuch, Maria, “Iranian Legal Terminology in the Babylonian Talmud in the Light of Sasanian Jurispudence,” Irano-Judaica IV (1999): 91–101Google Scholar; and idem, “The Talmudic Expression ‘Servant of Fire’ in Light of Pahlavi Legal Sources,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 26 (2002): 109–29. For an early example that deals primarily with loanwords, see Spicehandler, Ezra, “בי דואר and דינא דמגיסתא: Notes on Gentile Courts in Talmudic Babylonia,” Hebrew Union College Annual 26 (1955): 335–39Google Scholar.

6. Following Lieu, Samuel N. C., Manichaeism in Mesopotamia and the Roman East (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 25Google Scholar.

7. Elman, “‘Up to the Ears,’” 96–101.

8. Recent editions that are important for Talmudists include Williams, A. V., The Pahlavi Rivāyat Accompanying the Dādestān ī Dēnīg (Copenhagen: Munksgard, 1990)Google Scholar; Kotwal, Firoze M. and Kreyenbroek, Philip G., The Hērbedestān and Nērangestān, 3 vols. (Paris: Association pour l'Avancement des Études Iraniennes, 1992–2003)Google Scholar; Macuch, Maria, Rechtskasuistik und Gerichtspraxis zu Beginn des siebenten Jahrhunderts in Iran: Die Rechtssammlung des Farrohmard i Wahrāmān (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1993)Google Scholar; Cereti, Carlo G., The Zand ī Wahman Yasn (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1995)Google Scholar; Jaafari-Dehaghi, Mahmoud, Dādestān ī Dēnīg (Paris: Association pour l'Avancement des Études Iraniennes, 1998)Google Scholar; and Amouzgar, Jaleh and Tafazzoli, Ahmad, Le cinquième livre du Dēnkard (Paris: Association pour l'Avancement des Études Iraniennes, 2000)Google Scholar.

9. This collaboration has Talmudists studying Middle Iranian languages with Iranists, resulting in the formation of working groups that consist of Iranists and Talmudists and two recent international conferences during which Talmudists and Iranists met together—the Sixth Irano-Judaica Conference at the University of Hamburg in September 2006, and a conference entitled “The Talmud in its Iranian Context,” held in May 2007 at the University of California, Los Angeles.

10. Hayes, Christine, Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)Google Scholar. For a brief summary of the positions of both schools, see Berkowitz, Beth A., “Decapitation and the Discourse of Antisyncretism in the Babylonian Talmud,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70 (2002): 743–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Berkowitz argues for dissolution of the “hermeneuticist”/historian divide and, interestingly enough, grounds the modern scholarly debate in the Bavli's own struggle. My task in this article is to demonstrate methodologically how mutual engagement with hermeneutical and historical tools might appear.

11. B. Niddah 19a–21a. This term was coined by Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert in her Menstrual Purity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000).

12. Samuel Secunda, “Dashtana—‘ki derekh nashim li’”: A Study of the Babylonian Rabbinic Laws of Menstruation in Relation to Corresponding Zoroastrian Texts” (PhD diss., Yeshiva University, 2007), 61–108.

13. We have no record, Sasanian or otherwise, of a queen mother named Ifra Hormiz, though our sources seldom provide details of the Sasanian royal family. The name appears as a client in a Mandean incantation bowl. See Goodblatt, David, “’ypr’ hwrmyz Mother of King Shapur and ’pr’ hwrmyz Mother of Khusro: A Note on the Name ’ypr’/’ypr’ hwrmyz,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 96, no. 1 (1976): 135–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. Ms Vatican 111 substitutes כמה.

15. בתווני] Ms Vatican 113 (and similar in Antonin). Mss Vatican 111, Vatican 127 Munich 95: בתוונא.

16. The term ke-suma be-arubah also appears at B. Bava’ Batra' 12b, where it, too, seems to connote a fortuitous circumstance. However, its precise meaning has not yet been determined. Michal Bar-Asher-Segal, “Ifra Hormiz Imma de-Shavor Malka” (unpublished paper, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2003), 14, lists three possible meanings for the phrase: (1) Rashi's (ad loc., s.v. ve-lav ta‘ama ka-amar), that it refers to a blind man who stumbles upon a chimney (following Hosea 13:3). (2) In Middle Hebrew, the term means a ceiling window. Thus, the phrase perhaps refers to a situation where a blind man stands next to a ceiling window yet cannot see in. (3) In Ecclesiastes 12:2, arubah refers to the white of the eye. Accordingly, because only the pupil “sees,” the phrase refers to the “blindness” of that portion of the eye.

17. The Aramaic term ist‘aya miltah (the matter was successful) is ambiguous and may imply heavenly intercession or pure luck.

18. Later, I will discuss the significance of Ifra Hormiz, a non-Jewish woman, sending her menstrual blood to a rabbi for examination. Notably, Ifra Hormiz is depicted elsewhere in the Bavli as participating in Jewish commandments. See B. Bava' Batra' 8a (financial support for “a great commandment”—interpreted by Abaye as redeeming Jewish captives) and B. Zevahim 116b (an animal sacrifice to be brought in the name of the Jewish God). Regardless of the historicity of these accounts, they contribute to our understanding of Ifra Hormiz's character in rabbinic culture. Not only was she seen as in awe of the Jews' supernatural powers (B. Ta‘anit 24b and B. Niddah 20b) and financially supportive of individual rabbis (B. Bava' Batra' 10b, which, from a literary perspective, may be connected to B. Hagigah 5b), but also she participated in some Jewish practices as well. Accordingly, I consider the depiction of Ifra Hormiz's initial sending of menstrual blood to Rava as not simply a test of Rava's ability, but an expression of genuine concern for her menstrual purity. On the other hand, her subsequent sending of sixty blood samples should be understood as a test, which, like the anecdote recorded at B. Ta‘anit 24b, was initiated by her son, King Shapur.

Further research needs to be conducted on the cultural meaning of Ifra Hormiz‘s image in rabbinic texts and differing conceptions of King Shapur's wife in Syriac literature. For the time being, see Jong, Albert de, “Zoroastrian Religious Polemics and Their Contexts: Interconfessional Relations in the Sasanian Empire,” in Religious Polemics in Context: Papers presented to the Second International Conference of the Leiden Institute for the Study of Religions, ed. Hettema, T. L. and van der Kooij, A. (Assen: Royal van Gorcum, 2004), 48–63Google Scholar.

19. Literally, “a comb that kills lice.”

20. Rava's gift of a delousing comb should not be seen as bizarre. Because Zoroastrianism commands its adherents to destroy xrafstar (noxious creatures), which include lice, the gift would have been quite appropriate. See Skjærvø, P. Oktor, “Of Lice and Men and the Manichean Anthropology,” in Festschrift Georg Buddruss, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 19 (1994): 269–86Google Scholar; Macuch, Maria, “On the Treatment of Animals in Zoroastrian Law,” in Iranica Selecta, ed. Tongerloo, Alois van (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 167–90Google Scholar; and Moazami, Mahnaz, “Evil Animals in the Zoroastrian Religion,” History of Religions 44 (2005): 300–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Notably, an almost “religious” disdain for lice seems to have been absorbed by some Babylonian rabbis. See B. Shabbat 12a: “Rabbah killed [lice], and R. Shesheth killed them. Rava threw them into a basin of water. R. Nahman said to his daughter, ‘Kill them and let me hear the sound of the hated ones’” (emphasis added). See also Elman, “He in His Cloak.”

21. Ms Vatican 113: אסי. (in both instances)

22. B. Bava' Meẓi‘a' 84b. The Hebrew text is a transcription of Ms Hamburg 165.

23. The critical method that I employ here and throughout the paper assumes the predominance of the role of the stammaim—the Talmud's anonymous redactors—in the shaping and transmitting of the Bavli's traditions. Building on the research of previous scholars such as Julius Kaplan, Hyman Klein, and Avraham Weiss, this approach was more completely developed by Shamma Friedman and David Halivni-Weiss primarily for talmudic legal passages, and then applied to talmudic narratives by Jeffrey Rubenstein. See, e.g., Friedman, Shamma Yehudah, “Perek ha-isha rabbah be-bavli, be-tziruf mevo klali al derekh heker ha-sugya,” in Meḥkarim u-mekorot, vol. 1 (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1978)Google Scholar; Halivni-Weiss, David, Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara: The Jewish Predilection for Justified Law (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 76–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rubenstein, Jeffrey, Talmudic Stories (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

24. Friedman, Shamma, “A Good Story Deserves Retelling—The Unfolding of the Akiva Legend,” Jewish Studies: An Internet Journal 3 (2004): 55–93Google Scholar.

25. Alternatively, Ms Vatican 113 records “R. Assi.” The interchangeability in the manuscripts of these two close colleagues is a common phenomenon. Although R. Elazar and Rav Ammi were close contemporaries, R. Elazar gained recognition as his teacher's colleague (talmid ḥaver) and would thereby have obtained a position superior to R. Ammi. See Albeck, Chanokh, Mavo la-talmudim (Tel Aviv: Devir, 1969), 224–28Google Scholar. In any case, the image of R. Ammi sitting in front of R. Elazar is the classic image of a student in the Bavli.

26. Aderet, Rabbi Shlomo b., Ḥidushei Rashba: massekhet niddah (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1989), columns 111–12Google Scholar, and R. David Luria (ad loc. in the Vilna edition).

27. The narrator assumes that as a result of R. Elazar b. R. Shimon's declaration that all of the blood samples were pure, the women were permitted to engage in sexual relations with their husbands, from which the “baby Elazars” were conceived.

28. Boyarin, Daniel, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 197–226Google Scholar; Friedman, Shamma, “La-aggadah ha-historit ba-talmud ha-bavli,” in Sefer ha-zikaron le-Rabi Sha'ul Lieberman, ed. Friedman, Shamma (Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1993), 119–64Google Scholar, esp. 122–32.

29. Boyarin, Carnal Israel, 204–206.

30. Of course, the stories are about two different rabbis. B. Bava' Meẓi‘a' concerns the fourth-generation Tanna R. Elazar b. R. Shimon Bar Yoḥai, while Niddah I is about the second-generation Amora R. Elazar b. Pedat.

31. In addition, the fact that both Elazars (B. Bava' Meẓi‘a' and Niddah I) declare the bloodstains to be pure, while we are not told in the second half of Niddah II whether Rava rules that the samples are pure or impure, indicates that the relationship between the two Elazar tales is at times even “stronger” than the correlation between the B. Bava' Meẓi‘a' story and its otherwise more direct parallel found in the second half of Niddah II.

32. I assume that it is more compelling to assume that the latter half of the Rava tale was composed from the final form of the B. Bava' Meẓi‘a' material (i.e., after it was reworked to fit the story cycle in B. Bava' Meẓi‘a') than to propose that the second half of Niddah II was an earlier reworking of Niddah I that was later assimilated into the R. Elazar b. R. Shimon complex in B. Bava' Meẓi‘a'.

33. As is common in talmudic narratives, there are no clear historical references. Accordingly, we can only assign a relative date to these texts based on source-critical analysis.

34. Rashi, B. Niddah 20b; s.v. Ifra Hormiz; Charlotte Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity, 260–61; De Jong, “Zoroastrian Religious Polemics and Their Contexts”; and Neusner, Jacob, A History of the Jews in Babylonia (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984), 4:37Google Scholar.

35. At this point, it is worth noting that as curious as it might seem to the modern student, Ifra Hormiz's sending of lice blood to Rava should not be read as a sort of “trick” question. The examination of bloodstains was intended to determine whether the blood was uterine, and therefore impure, or whether it stemmed from a wound in the vaginal cavity or from an external source altogether and therefore did not affect the woman's purity status. M. Niddah 8:2 and T. Niddah 7:4 describe lice blood as a potential alternative explanation for the appearance of blood on a cloth, and B. Niddah 14a, 19b, and 58b–59a continue this inclination as well. Indeed, later in the development of halakhah, “lice blood” becomes the typical attribution of blood when rabbinic deciders wish to rule leniently. See, e.g., Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, hilkhot issurei biah 9:21.

36. בי פיקאר] Following Ms Herzog. This word is a loanword from Middle Iranian *paykār, “dispute.” See Sokoloff, Michael, Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Gaonic Periods (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002)Google Scholar, 903 s.v. פיקאר.

37. דמחוזא] Following Ms Herzog.

38. Cf. Avot de-Rabbi Nathan B 25.

39. See, e.g., B. Eruvin 104a; B. Bava' Bata' 127a; B. Zevahim 94b; and B. Niddah 68a. I am grateful to Yaakov Elman for these references. For further discussion, see his “The Socioeconomics of Babylonian Heresy,” in Studies in Mediaeval Halakhah in Honor of Stephen M. Passamaneck, ed. Alyssa Gray and Bernard Jackson (Lanham, MD: Jewish Law Association, 2007).

40. B. Ta‘anit 24a–24b.

41. Regarding the relationship between halakhic sugyot and the narratives emended and adjacent to them, see Jeffrey Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories, 265–67; and Barry Scott Wimpfheimer, “Legal Narratives in the Babylonian Talmud” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2005).

42. B. Niddah 20a.

43. B. Niddah 20b.

44. See Jamsheed K. Choksy, Purity and Pollution (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989).

45. See Boyce, Mary, A History of Zoroastrianism (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 1:294Google Scholar.

46. Cantera, Alberto, in Studien zur Pahlavi-Übersetzung des Avesta (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004), 164–239Google Scholar, proves the Sasanian provenance of the Zand.

47. These include the end of the fifth book of the Dēnkard and scattered comments in post-Sasanian responsa (rivāyats).

48. This term follows Elman's, Yaakov description of the Babylonian rabbinic community in “Orality and the Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud,” Oral Tradition 14 (1999): 52–99Google Scholar. For a brief discussion of the centrality of orality in Zoroastrianism, see Kreyenbroek, Philip, “The Zoroastrian Tradition from an Oralist's Point of View,” in K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, Second International Congress Proceedings (5th to 8th January, 1995), ed. Desai, H. J. M. and Modi, H. N. (Bombay: K.R. Cama Oriental Institute, 1996), 221–37Google Scholar. See also my “The Sasanian Stam: Orality and the Composition of Babylonian Rabbinic and Zoroastrian Legal Literature” (forthcoming).

49. See, e.g., Dan Shapira, “Studies in Zoroastrian Exegesis” (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1998), for a comparison to the biblical targums. See the brief comments of Russell, James, “The Sage in Ancient Iranian Literature,” in The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East, ed. Gammie, John G. and Perdue, Leo G. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 91Google Scholar.

50. Pahlavi Widēwdād (PV) 15.7, 16.5, 16.6, 16.14, 16.17., 18.67, and 18.69.

51. Following the convention in Iranian studies, glosses are marked with square brackets.

52. It is possible that zard is not what we call “yellow,” but rather is a specific color property. See, e.g., Ardā Wirāz Nāmag, ed. Fereydun Vahman (London: Curzon Press, 1986), 141, 207: “And I saw many people whose heads and beards were shaved and their faces were pale [zard], bodies rotten all over, and reptiles were creeping over their bodies.” Notably, this use of zard is similar to Hebrew yarok (green-yellow, but when describing human expression, it probably means “pale”). See, e.g., T. Niddah 5:3.

53. There are three meanings for the word tahīg in the sixteenth chapter of PV. One is “airspace” (perhaps this should be read as tūhīg, as it is spelled elsewhere in manuscripts). Tahīg may also be a legal term referring to an extra day of waiting after the cessation of the menstrual flow—as it clearly means in later Pahlavi literature. Finally, it can refer to a type of menstrual discharge. While this final meaning is only a possibility in PV 16.11.2–4 and 16.12.3, it is conclusive in 16.14.

54. Shaul Shaked has tentatively suggested that tahīg might be some sort of colorless substance, again related to its “primary” meaning of “emptiness” (private communication, June 2005). In other words, zard may mean “pale,” and tahīg may mean “clear.”

Alternatively, Oktor Skjærvø has suggested that tahīg renders Avestan daxštauuaiti on account of the Zoroastrian mythological origins of menstruation. Specifically, Bundahišn 4.5 describes the world's first onset of menstruation as a sign of Ahriman's kiss of the primal whore. This resulted in some kind of invisible (tahīg) impurity that forever accompanies menstruation.

55. Space does not permit me to delineate the rabbinic exegesis of the bloodstains. See Sifra Leviticus; Sheratzim 11:4; Zavim 4:1; Sifre Deuteronomy 152; Y. Niddah 2:3 (50a); B. Niddah 19a; and my discussion in Secunda, “Dashtana,” 62–85.

56. See Elman, “Acculturation to Elite Persian Norms,” 40 n. 13; Yuhan Vevaina's doctoral dissertation, “Studies in Zoroastrian Exegesis and Hermeneutics with a Critical Edition of the ‘Sudgar Nask’ of ‘Denkard’ Book 9” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2007), 99–135; and Kugel, James, The Idea of Biblical Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 103–104Google Scholar.

57. For a similar example, see PV 18.67 regarding a man who copulates with a menstruate:

The Zand explains the seemingly redundant Avestan terms of cognition by rendering them as knowledge of the facts and knowledge of the law, respectively.

58. See, e.g., Iain Ruairidh Mac Mhanainn Bóid, Principles of Samaritan Halacha (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 144.

59. See Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity, 103–27.

60. For a related passage, see PV 18:67.

61. See Tavadia, Jehangir C., Šāyast nē Šāyast: A Pahlavi Text on Religious Customs (Hamburg: Friederichsen, de Gruyter, 1930), 79Google Scholar, in reference to this passage: “which gloss, it may be added, does not explain the original.”

62. PV 16.14–15.

63. 3.19.

64. In PV 16.11.1, Kay-Ādur-Bozēd interprets the Avestan statement in 16.11 to rule that a menstruant must wait at least four days before examining herself, and only then may she purify herself, at the earliest, on the fifth day. In PV 16.11.2, Sōšāns explains that purification within the first three days is impossible because there is a concern for tahīg—in other words, that she will emit this particular substance and it will render her menstrually impure. In addition, tahīg discharge is the concern that forces a woman to wait an extra day following the cessation of her menstrual flow, provided that this occurs within nine days of the flow's commencement.

65. In the larger context of PV 16.11.2 as it has come down to us, the phrase refers to a woman whose period has started again, either after a break in her menstrual flow or after she has menstruated through an entire cycle. PV considers both of these cases (harw čiš) as if she has began her menstrual cycle anew (ēdōn bawēd čiyōn daštān), and she must wait an extra day (tahīg) before purification is possible. However, it seems that Šāyest nē šāyest understands or uses this phrase differently.

66. An interesting method of checking an aborted substance for signs of human development is discussed in PV 5:49 and in subsequent Zoroastrian literature. It is worth noting that this method, which consists of soaking the fleshy “knot” in bull's urine, is similar to methods recommended in the Bavli (B. Niddah 22b) that have the woman soak unidentified birth-like discharges in lukewarm water. Still, there is no similar technique recommended for determining the nature of vaginal discharges—a matter certainly more common and important for everyday Zoroastrian observance.

67. See B. Ta'anit 22a; and B. Avodah Zarah 18b, 24b.

68. אמר ליה] Following Ms Herzog. However, Ms Munich 95, ed. Barko, Yalqut Shimoni, and Ra'avan all connect this passage with the previous one and read: ליה … והיינו כדאמר.

69. כסוגות שושנים] Following Ms Herzog. Ms Munich 95: בסוג' של שוש'. ed. Barko: בסוגה בשושנים. Ra'avan: כסוגה של שושנים.

70. Weiss, I. H., Dor dor ve-doreshav (Vilna: Rom, 1921), 2:14Google Scholar; Ahdut, Eli, “Jewish-Zoroastrian Polemics in the Babylonian Talmud,” in Irano-Judaica IV, ed. Shaked, Shaul and Netzer, (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1999), 29–30Google Scholar [Hebrew numbering]; and Elman, “He in His Cloak,” 136–37.

71. Recent work by Yaakov Sussman demonstrates that previous claims that min connotes only Christian groups are unfounded. See his “Ḥeqer toledot ha-halakha u-megillot midbar Yehudah: hirhurim talmudiyim rishonim le-‘or megillat ‘miqṣat ma‘ase torah,’” Tarbiz 59 (1990): 11–76. See also Hayes, Christine, “Displaced Self-Perceptions: The Deployment of ‘Mînîm’ and Romans in B. Sanhedrin 90b-91a,” in Religious and Ethnic Communities in Later Roman Palestine, ed. Lapin, Hayim (Bethesda: University Press of Maryland, 1998), 249–89Google Scholar. For a more general study of the phenomenon of literary deployment of “Others” in rabbinic texts, see Hayes, “The ‘Other’ in Rabbinic Literature,” in Fonrobert and Jaffee, The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, 243–69.

72. For the daštānistān, see Modi, J. J., The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Parsees (Bombay: British India Press, 1922), 170–73Google Scholar; and Secunda, “Dashtana,” 210.

73. Our interpretation follows Ms Herzog and the larger redactional scheme of the sugya. However, Rashi (ad loc., s.v. sugah) explains that the hedge of lilies refers to lenient biblical legislation, such as the menstrual laws, which permits a husband and his menstruant wife to be secluded together despite the danger that they might become intimate. Rashi's interpretation does not take into account Rav Kahana's opening phrase, “the Torah testifies of us …”—which implies that the lily metaphor is applied to the Jews themselves and not to their laws. More problematic, according to Rashi's explanation the continuation of the sugya is incomprehensible. The sugya proceeds by citing Reish Laqish and R. Zera's teachings as offering alternatives to Rav Kahana's teaching:

The phrase “rabbi X said from here (פלוני אמר מהכא),” means that Rabbi X suggests an alternative prooftext to convey the same idea as the previous authority. If Rav Kahana's statement is concerned with the weakness of some biblical prohibitions, it is hard to see how Reish Laqish and R. Zera's description of the value of “empty” and “traitorous” Jews supports his idea.

74. See Daniel Boyarin, “Shnei mevo‘ot lemidrash shir hashirim,” Tarbiz 56 (1986–87): 479–500.

75. See Sokoloff, Michael, Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 36Google Scholar, s.v. אדר. According to the Mishnah, the Sanhedrin met in a chamber on the Temple Mount (M. Sanhedrin 11:2). The rabbis refer here to the Temple Mount as a threshing floor since according to tradition, King David bought the land from Arvana the Jebusite who used it for that purpose. See II Samuel 24.

76. This is probably a reference to the semicircle seating arrangement of the Sanhedrin. See textual parallels.

77. The meaning of this term is contested. See Steinfeld, Z. A., “Mufla shel beit din,” Sinai 82 (1978): 24–40Google Scholar.

78. M. Niddah 2:7.

79. The meaning of this term is unclear. See Sokoloff, Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, 298 s.v. מזוג.

80. Canticles Rabbah 7:3. Cf. Pesikta Rabbati, Parshat Ki Tissa §10.

81. Cf. Canticles Rabbah 7:3; Psalms Rabbah 2:15; Pesikta Rabbati; Ki Tissa 10; Avot de-Rabbi Nathan A (ARNA) 2; Avot de-Rabbi Nathan B (ARNB) 3; and B. Sanhedrin 37a.

82. I assume this based on this derasha's placement in a midrashic collection devoted solely to the Sanhedrin, and also based on parallels with ARN. Nevertheless, the meaning of the clause is somewhat unclear. See also Rabbinovicz, Raphael N. N., Dikdukei sofrim, 2 vols. (New York: M.P. Press, 1976)Google Scholar, Sanhedrin, 21, note daled.

83. Note that Ms Herzog does not record the linking terminology, “ve-haynu ke- (and that is like …)” found in other manuscripts and witnesses that introduce the Rav Kahana anecdote as supporting the first exegesis of Songs 7:3.

84. ARNB 3 (ed. Schechter 112, cf. Becker, Hans-Jürgen, Avot de-Rabbi Natan: Synoptische Edition beider Versionen [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006], 323Google Scholar) states,

85. Canticles Rabbah 7:3.

86. This dramatization draws from a Leviticus Rabbah tradition (19:6 and parallels) about the Judean King, Yohayaḥin, who withstood a similar test after being granted a conjugal visit with his wife in prison.

87. We should also add that Richard Kalmin has recently demonstrated that stories told about minim in the Bavli are often taken from Palestinian sources. See his Jewish Babylonia between Persia and Roman Palestine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 98–101. Because these minim stories are subsequently reworked in the Bavli, the evidence that they provide has more bearing on rabbinic Sasanian Mesopotamia than on rabbinic Roman Palestine.

88. It is possible that this description is intended to act as a warning. Still, no warning is explicated.