Historical Overview

Chapter 1
Historical Overview

It is not the intention here to give a detailed overview of the history of Islamic, Jewish and Zoroastrian law since it is an impossible task to do in such a short chapter and has been done prudently by others.1 This chapter restricts itself, therefore, to things which are necessary to understand the argument of this book and are relevant to the topic of the present research.

Jewish Law

Traditionally the history of Jewish law is divided into two periods, the pre-Talmudic and the post-Talmudic, each of which is subdivided into shorter periods. The pre-Talmudic period consists of the following sub-periods:

1. the Old Testament up to the activities of Ezra and Nehemiah;

2. from Nehemiah to the ‘pairs’ (zugōt), to the middle of the second century BCE;

3. from the pairs to the period of the tannaim;

4. the period of the tannaim (from the age of Jesus to the early third century), which begins with the activities of Rabban Gamalī’el, grandson of Hillel, and lasts up to the compilation of the Mishnah;

5. the age of amoraim (third to fifth centuries) – the intellectual result of this period is the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmūd;

6. the age of saboraim (up to the seventh century), when the final text of the Talmūd was completed.

The post-Talmudic period is also divided into sub-periods, among which the age of the ge’onīm (up to the eleventh century) is important here. This period was marked by the dominance of the Babylonian Academies, the heads of which (ga’ōn) gave the name to this age. At the end of the period of the ge’onīm Babylon had lost its pre-eminence in Jewish learning and gave way to local intellectual centres throughout Europe and the Islamic world.

The period of the Old Testament itself is divided into further sub-periods but there is no need to discuss them in detail. Suffice it to say in respect of the judiciary that the early judges were not heads of any law court, despite the fact that they gave their name to a separate book in the Bible (the Book of Judges). By contrast, persons called ‘judges’ were charismatic leaders who led the people and commanded military action. The stories of legendary persons (such as Samson) only further confirm this impression. In reality the administration of law was not in the hands of these judges but was the responsibility of a court of elders situated at the gates of cities, implementing customary law known by all.2

With the birth of the monarchy a more elaborated organization of the judiciary emerged. The local courts of elders continued to exist but a judiciary operated by royal officials also appeared. The king was regarded as supreme judge particularly in difficult cases (see Solomon’s judgment).³ The interrelationship of these courts cannot be identified precisely; at any rate, the king was not only an appellate forum but also could interfere in cases at any time if he considered it desirable for some reason (corruption, misuse of power etc.).⁴ At the same time the king functioned also as an appellate forum when mistakes and injustices of the administration of justice had to be corrected. Many scholars suppose that stories that can be read in different books of the Old Testament were invented to legitimize organizational changes in the juridical system. These are: the model suggested by Jethro to Moses (to appoint judges from among the leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens – which suggests an expressly military pattern: Ex. 18.13–26); the decision taken by Moses to appoint the chiefs of tribes according to Deut. 1.9–17; while, according to a third tradition, he appointed judges from among 70 elders and officials (the figures are significant because of the later rabbinic tradition). It is important to note that no traces of priestly judicial activity can be found in any of these traditions; priestly administration of justice operated inside the temple at best.⁵

The event known as the reform of Yosiah was a turning point in the history of Jewish law. It is reported on twice in the Old Testament: the backbone of the tradition is identical; only some details are given differently (2 Kings 22–3.30; 2 Chronicles 34–6). Accordingly, in the 18th year of the reign of King Yosiah (622 BCE) a ‘book of law’ was found in the temple during some reconstruction work. The text was read out immediately to the king, who turned to Prophetess Hulda to confirm the significance of the law book – which she did. Next Josiah called the people to read out the law and he took a vow that from then on he would submit himself to the stipulations of the law in every respect. This is how it happened: he had several shrines demolished, and then he celebrated Passover in keeping with the rulings of the law.

Obviously, the most important question is what was ‘found’ during the work? The majority of scholars think that the law referred to was the Deuteronomy, or a part of it.6 Maxwell Miller and John Hayes think that the original material of the Deuteronomy is in chapters 12–26 of the present Deuteronomy, which was expanded in the light of Yahwist theology and anti-Assyrian ideology only later. This second, enlarged part could be the text found during the reign of Yosiah. It is important to note that there is no reference to Moses, or to the idea of the covenant with God.⁷ On the other hand, Morton Smith considers the circumstances of the ‘finding’ extremely suspicious and holds that the work ‘found’ was probably that of High Priest Hilkīah (the finder) instead, reflecting the interests of the Jerusalem priesthood. The fact that the text was checked by Hulda, a little-known Prophetess, is a circumstance as good cause for suspicion. In his view all this was an effort of a minority, which he calls the Yahweh-alone party. This effort, however, was not a success at that time in the light of the catastrophic foreign policy of the young and not too talented king, sealed by his consequent death.⁸

The reform of Yosiah fits into the circumstances of the eighth century when Yahwist theology was gaining an increasingly emphatic role in religious and legal life. It was at that time the process Rainer Albertz called ‘the theologization of law’ (die Theologisierung des Rechts) started. In this process law was being increasingly projected as a requirement of Yahweh which addressed not only priests and elders but was regarded as the legal rule and moral standard for all Israelis. The ethical principles corresponding to the Yahwist concept lent reformist content to law-making which was primarily manifested in the protection of the poor (maximization of the duration of debt slavery, prohibition of collecting interest etc.). The reform of Yosiah fits well into this process where the king is no longer the lawmaker; the monarch only ‘finds’ the law that does not originate from him but from Moses. Thus the king is subordinated to the ‘laws of Moses’; his only task is to implement them. The role of Moses was to ensure stronger legitimacy to a more and more theologized law through a direct revelation by God. As there was no Israeli kingdom at Moses’ time the law based on his authority was of stronger legitimacy than royal law. Regarding legal life the role of the king was not abolished, but transformed into law enforcement since it was one of the most important royal duties to guarantee justice and order. This change of concept was expressed by the transformation of the central judiciary, which was originally established as a royal court of law in the ninth century to solve the more difficult cases. As a result of the reform this court became the most important institution of the judiciary which functioned as its supreme court, with directives being compulsory for lower courts of law (Deut. 17.8–13). Parallel to this, cultic activities were also centralized; sacrifices were concentrated in Jerusalem, while all kinds of religious syncretism was threatened by capital punishment.9

The Persian period is the next important turning point in the history of Jewish law. After Cyrus II put an end to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews the Second Temple period began (see above). The activities of Ezra and Nehemiah, which are narrated by two separate books of the Old Testament, are our starting points. According to the Old Testament Ezra set out from Babylon to Jerusalem on the order of the Persian King Artaxerxes (it is still disputed whether it was the first or the second Persian monarch of the same name). The king’s order is repeated word by word in the Old Testament (7 Ezra 12–26) and there is a difference of opinion about its authenticity and content.

Interpretation of verse 26 is subject to scholarly dispute. Accordingly, those who do not observe ‘the law of your God and the laws of the kingdom’ may be punished by death, exile or confiscation of property. The quotation raises two problems: are the two laws identical and which law is involved? The heart of the matter is the interpretation of ‘and’ in the above quoted phrase, which can be understood as of an explanatory nature (in this case the two laws are identical) or in a mutually exclusive sense (in which case the two laws are two different norms).

Peter Frei postulates the identity of the two laws and is of the view, therefore, that the Persian ruler lent imperial authority to the law of the Jews.¹⁰ As a result he exercised a kind of ‘constitutional’ control over Jews who otherwise had relative autonomy.¹¹ Joseph Blenkinsopp had serious reservations concerning this thesis and called attention to the fact that Frei’s hypothesis was based merely on the interpretation of a short sentence and is insufficient to prove this claim. Though Blenkinsopp does not deny the possibility that the approval of the Persian authorities was necessary for the law to come into force, he does not see it proved at all. Blenkinsopp considers it probable that divisions among the Jews may have led to requests for confirmation from the Persian ruler, and in this case the rigorist party had availed themselves of this opportunity.¹² Similarly to Blenkinsopp, Gary Knoppers also sees two separate laws in the quoted passage.¹³

The relationship between Ezra’s law and the Pentatheucus is subject to debate in modern scholarship. According to the Old Testament, Ezra was a wise man in the laws of Moses – who also taught that law (7 Ezra 6,10.). As the laws of Moses were destroyed in the siege of Jerusalem, or were forgotten for some other reason, Jewish tradition sees the renewer of the law in his person.¹⁴ Based on this tradition Wellhausen thought that the Pentatheucus was actually made in Babylon and was taken to Judea by Ezra. Though today this view is not supported by consensus, the majority of scholars still date the origin of the Pentatheucus to the Persian period, some also accepting the identity of Ezra’s law and the Pentatheucus.15 By contrast, according to Morton Smith, Ezra’s law disappeared from history together with the person.¹⁶ Despite these disputes the majority of scholars think that the Pentatheucus was already known in its present form by the end of the Persian period (early fourth century BCE);¹⁷ moreover, David Freedman is of the view that we have to deal with a textual tradition already closed down before the age of Ezra.¹⁸

According to the order of Artaxerxes Ezra had the right to appoint judges and elders who knew the law and were entitled to decide on cases of litigation (7 Ezra 25). This comes as a surprise since Ezra was not the satrap of the province. According to Lisbeth Fried, however, this is precisely what reveals the core of Ezra’s mission: as a special agent of the king he was entitled to appoint judges independently of the satrap. As the royal officials were not directly appointed by the Persian ruler but through his representatives, no extraordinary authorization can be seen in Ezra’s commission. Moreover, since the Persian king did not delegate the appointment of local officials to the satrap, he exercised control over these governors constantly striving for autonomy. Thus Ezra’s mission was the following: to appoint royal judges, Persians by birth, in the province as royal agents who were not responsible to him but to the governors and the Persian king.¹⁹

Lester Grabbe, however, does not accept anything of this theory because he holds that it is practically unimaginable that Ezra could appoint judges or assert the law while ignoring the provincial satrap. According to Grabbe Ezra’s most important mission was to teach the law; but even in this respect he was not a unique figure, only one among those who had accepted and taught the law. Had it been otherwise it would be impossible to understand why so many traditions had forgotten about Ezra’s person. On the other hand he accepts that the ‘laws of Moses’ were crystallized in their present form by the end of the Persian period due to the activities of Ezra and similar personalities.²⁰

Establishing the ‘laws of Moses’, however, did not stop legal pluralism, and different attitudes to law prevailed. We can witness during the Second Temple period various interpretations of law which resulted later in ‘legal schools’. It was this period when the Pharisees and the Sadducees, with their different attitudes to law, emerged. This was also this period when we can witness the separation of the Qumran community and the activities of John the Baptist and Jesus. Law and its interpretation were of basic importance for all these groups and persons. While everyone acknowledged the Pentatheucus, the Sadducees adhered exclusively to the laws of Moses and rejected everything that was not itemized in those books. This assumed attitude of the Sadducees would later on lead to a conflict with the Pharisees (we will return to this issue later). The Qumran community had its own legal norms (see, among others, the texts of the Damascus Covenant, the Temple Scroll, Community Rule and the War Scroll), which were also based on the laws of Moses. John the Baptist had to die because he warned even the ruler to respect the law (Mark 6.14–29), and the Pharisees constantly put questions to Jesus which were in the foreground of contemporary legal discourse (what kind of work can be done on Shabbāt, the obligation to wash hands before eating, giving wages to labourers etc.). The Sanhedrīn was formed in the Second Temple period, too. Sanhedrīn is a name of Greek origin designating a court situated in Jerusalem as the supreme forum of the administration of justice. The Sanhedrīn dealt with cases of importance and sometimes politics was also involved (details will be discussed in Chapter 3 on Jewish procedural law).

The Pharisees are believed to be a politico-religious group emerging after the Hasmonean Revolt. Their name – originating from the root ‘p-r-sh’, meaning ‘to separate’ – is meant to indicate the separate standing of that group. They believed in corporal resurrection and divine providence, both rejected by the Sadduceans representing priestly circles. The Pharisees attributed outstanding significance to issues of ritual purity and stressed the importance of teaching, particularly the teaching of law. According to the Pharisees Moses was also given an oral customary law, while the Sadduceans rejecting the customary law of the Pharisees denied that God had revealed anything else besides the written law.²¹ According to Josephus Flavius the Pharisees were filled with pride because of their knowledge of the law, pretended to be the favourites of the Lord, resisted political authorities and were also ready to fight against them.²²

The Pharisees were thought to be members of a highly influential political group for decades, but now this well-known thesis is subject to debate. According to Ellis Rivkin the term ‘p^erūshīm’ does not refer to the Pharisees in many cases but to ascetics and other ‘isolationists’, therefore data pertaining to the Pharisees should be reconsidered.²³ E. P. Sanders claims that the Pharisees were dominant during the short reign of Salome Alexandra (76–67 BCE) but not under Herod (37–34) and the Roman occupation.²⁴ Jacob Neusner applied a different method: he tried to explore the peculiarities of the Pharisees on the basis of well-known traditions referring to the Pharisees. He summarized his results in a three-volume work in which he sees the Pharisees as a ‘pure food club’ to whom the most important question was ritual purity and particularly eating daily food according to the norms of priestly purity. In his view this group was transformed into a ‘table society’ by Hillel.25 In other words, in contrast with accepted wisdom, the Pharisees did not constitute a politically influential group holding positions of religious or public authority. Sanders agrees with Neusner insofar that the old wisdom according to which the Pharisees were the most important political group of this period should be discarded; at the same time he believes that one should not see an isolated and withdrawn group in them, the truth being somewhere in between.²⁶

The Sadduceans (Ṣedūqīm), whose name originated presumably from the high priest Ñādoq, were members of an influential aristocratic group consisting mainly of priests and merchants. Their theological and legal teaching was at variance with the doctrines of the Pharisees. They denied corporal resurrection, the immortality of the soul and the existence of angels. Since they did not accept anything outside the Torāh, they did not acknowledge the validity of the oral law of the Pharisees either. The Sadduceans dominated the Sanhedrīn for a long time, since its head was the high priest, also a Sadducean. As they were primarily linked to the temple they were not only stressing the importance of prayer and learning, but also attributing a more significant role to cult than the Pharisees did. This unpopular group cultivated good relations with the Roman political elite, and was also an advocate of harsher measures against the Christians.²⁷

The interpretation of the law by the Sadduceans was believed for a long time as narrow and rigid, insisting on the literal meaning. David Daube, however, has convincingly demonstrated that this accepted wisdom should be challenged. He argued that since our sources about the Sadduceans were produced by Phariseerabbinic authors, they could be misleading. The fact, he continues, that the Sadduceans did not accept the doctrine of the Pharisees about oral law does not necessarily mean that they insisted on the literal meaning of texts. By contrast, the Sadduceans insisted on the rules set by the text, and it was the Pharisees who diverted from the text by innovations. Thus, it was not the Sadduceans who had interpreted the law narrow-mindedly but the Pharisees who diverted from written law, and to a significant extent in many cases. That the legal interpretation of the Sadduceans was not literal is proved by the fact that they were ready to interpret legal rulings broadly, even to their own detriment. An example of this thesis offered by Daube is the biblical rule pertaining to the responsibility of the owner of animals which was interpreted by the Sadduceans as a rule to be applied to damage caused by slaves as well. This interpretation is not only extensive but is also clearly detrimental to the interest of the Sadduceans because, as rich merchants, they had the largest number of slaves. Yet they were capable of making themselves independent of group interest when interpreting the law.28

Sanders continues the line set by Daube and draws the conclusion that the statement of the Sadduceans according to which they did not accept any rule outside the Bible was of a rhetorical nature because they did in fact accept traditions without textual foundation. These traditions emerged for centuries during the Persian and the Second Temple periods and everybody accepted them, irrespective of their relationship to the Bible. An example of this is the calendar accepted by both the Pharisees and the Sadduceans which was not based on the Bible. If it were true that the Sadduceans did not accept anything else but the rulings of the Bible then they could not have agreed with the Pharisees on this issue, which they did. Those who disagreed, the members of the Qumran community, did have a separate calendar. Thus Sanders came to the conclusion that the Pharisees acknowledged having extra-biblical traditions, whereas the Sadduceans did not.²⁹

Although different in interpretations and in details of law, the Pharisees and the Sadducees respected each other’s stand. There is no trace to qualify each other as ritually impure although they observed different norms. Neither the Sadducean high priest nor the sacrifice offered by him was declared impure and invalid by the Pharisees. Surely there were minor skirmishes. There is a narrative telling us that a leader of the Pharisees, Yōḥanān ben Zakk’ay, slit an ear of the Sadducean high priest just preparing for the sacrifice, trying to hinder him by this act in offering the sacrifice by making him impure (Yōḥanān’s deed also shows that the high priest was to be considered ritually pure without this act).³⁰ This was not the rule but the exception since disputes were restricted to intellectual debates, the place of which was the Sanhedrīn. The day when a fully Pharisaic Sanhedrīn emerged is celebrated as a special occasion by the rabbinic tradition.³¹

The Sanhedrīn was in fact the forum of debates. Not only legal, but religious, political and practical considerations also came to the fore in its sessions. This could be seen in legal actions taken against Christians: while the Sadduceans proposed rigorous punishment of the Apostles, Gamalī’el (the elder), a respected leader of the Pharisees, convinced the members of the court to refrain from bloodshed. As a result of his arguments Peter and his followers were released after having been flogged.³² As David Daube put it, it is unlikely that Gamalī’el was influenced by sympathy towards Christians since it was under the leadership of his grandson, Rabban Gamalī’el, head of the Academy of Yabneh, that the condemnation of Christians and other heretics was included among the daily Eighteen Benedictions. Gamalī’el was primarily terrified by the irreversibility of capital punishment.33 His view is in harmony with the effort of the Rabbis to limit acts calling for punishment and to humanize punishment. This attitude is best expressed by a saying attributed to Rabbi ^cAqībah and Rabbi Ṭarfōn (second century): ‘Were we members of a Sanhedrīn no person would even be put to death.’³⁴

Leading Pharisean legal scholars of this period were called ‘pairs’ (zugōt) by the rabbinic tradition, and played a central role in transmitting their legal tradition. According to rabbinic teaching oral law reached Shim^ceōn and Anṭīgonus through Moses, Yosiah, the elders and the Prophets; and from that time on the pairs mediated legal tradition to the Pharisees and Rabbis. Thus it is the continuity of tradition which attributes outstanding significance to the pairs. The two persons at the end of the chain of five pairs (Yōsē b. Yoezer-Yōsē b. Yōḥanān; Yoshu^ca b. Perahiah-Nitt’ay; Yūdah b. Tabbay-Shim^ceōn b. Shetaḥ; Shem^caīah-’Abtalīōn; Hillel-Shamm’ay),³⁵ Hillel and Shamm’ay, are said to be the founders of two legal schools named after them. Thus, at this juncture the unity of Pharisaic legal tradition ended (if there was unity at all previously) and legal development was determined primarily by the scholarly debates between these two camps.

Barely a few of the personal disputes of the two founder scholars were preserved, but their followers are believed to dispute about 350 legal problems concerning details of positive law. These disputes can be dated to the period between the destruction of the temple and the Yabneh period. As the leaders of the Yabneh Academy were the followers of Hillel the corpus of the positive rules of law, accepted only later, contains in huge numbers the doctrines of this school. Because of tolerated legal pluralism, however, the doctrines of both schools were accepted and regarded as valid during the first centuries CE. As they believed, both were the voice of the living God; but today it is impossible to tell what the differences between the schools were.³⁶ The view that Hillel’s school was more lenient while the school of Shamm’ay interpreted the law rigorously was already widespread as early as the age of the tannaim, but this is only an oversimplification of the matter. Some scholars assumed that there were social differences between the schools. Thus, while the followers of Shamm’ay may have been representative of the upper and richer middle classes, followers of Hillel came rather from the lower social strata. This and similar other generalizations do not explain the essence of the doctrines of the schools. At any rate, these disputes, no matter how they had been pitched, were limited to the field of law: the schools acknowledged each other as equals, which is indicated by a relatively high number of marriages between families of these schools.37

The period of the tannaim (tanna means ‘reciter of the law’) brought about political chaos and decades of sufferings, yet legal development could be witnessed even during these harsh circumstances. The destruction of the temple did not terminate legal discourse, yet at the same time the disappearance of the Sadduceans practically opened up the way towards the hegemony of the Pharisaic legal tradition. The survival of the Sanhedrīn and the emergence of new scholarly centres called Academies ensured institutional background to this.

Usually the expressions bēt midrāsh or bēt talmud were used to indicate institutions translated as Academies; the currently widespread yeshībah is only a latecomer. These Academies were established for teaching the next generations and were open to boys above the age of 13 who wanted to acquire a more profound knowledge of Jewish tradition and law. The schools of Hillel and Shamm’ay, lacking any institutional structure, could not be regarded as such Academies; they existed only on the level of a master–disciple relationship. The only exception could be the Academy at the seat of the nāśī, for it was in direct contact with the judiciary (yeshībah originally meant law court and it was the contact of the Academy with the law court which made the alteration of the meaning of this term possible). Yabneh and Usha – later on Caesarea, Sepphoris and Tiberias – became homes of the Academies, of which it was the bēt midrāsh of Tiberias that functioned up to the Islamic period.³⁸ In the period of the tannaim a new leader of the Pharisaic community, the nāśī, emerged, who headed the Sanhedrīn and was a political leader at the same time.

The period of the tannaim was hallmarked by outstanding scholars such as Rabban Gamalī’el, Yōḥanān ben Zakk’ay, R. ’Elī^cezer ben Hyrcanus (who was ultimately excommunicated for his doctrines), R. ^cAqībah (participating personally in the Bar Kokba’ revolt and cruelly executed by the Romans) and Rabbi Yūdah (also acting as nāśī). These and other legal scholars perfected the inherited legal tradition by interpreting the existing norms and by formulating new legal doctrines. Undoubtedly Rabbi Yūdah ha-Nāśī was the most famous scholar among his colleagues and was referred to as the Rabbi. As the compiler of the Mishnah he left an indelible imprint on the history of Jewish law. His personal achievement is not overshadowed even by the finding of modern scholarship which does not regard the Mishnah as his personal work, but the result of a group of legal scholars headed by R. Yūdah. This assumption also explains why a stylistic mark of a single person cannot be identified in the Mishnah.³⁹

The Mishnah (from the Hebrew verb shanah – ‘to repeat, to teach’) is defined as a compilation of oral customary law discussing legal material by subject.40 The work is arranged in six orders (sedarīm), which are comprised of tractates (masektōt). The individual orders are about a comprehensive area of law, while the tractates deal with issues of detail concerning them. Needless to say, these legal areas have nothing to do with modern concepts of the branches of law, as becomes clear by the following survey of the orders:

1. Zerāīm (seeds): rules related to agriculture;

2. Mō^cēd (festivals): rules related to religious festivals;

3. Nashīm (women): rules related to family law;

4. Nezikīn (damages): rules of private law and procedure;

5. Qodashīm (sacred things): temple rules;

6. Tohorōt (purities): rules of purification.

This classification does not show the original arrangement, because it was subsequently rearranged in keeping with the demands of the scholars of later ages.⁴¹

The aim and subject of the Mishnah is subject to debate in modern scholarship. It was taken for granted for a long time that there was an unbroken continuity between the Pharisaic and rabbinic traditions. It was Jacob Neusner who challenged this view and who has shown that the continuity between the Pharisee and rabbinic (legal) tradition is not so obvious. In his view the Mishnah can be traced back to the Yabneh Academy. Its legal material was developed by the works of subsequent generations of legal scholars during the period of the tannaim. It was the disciples of R. ^cAqībah who played the most important role in this development and only the canonization of the final texts is linked to the name of R. Yūdah. In a later work he goes even further and sees in the Mishnah the metaphysical worldview of a social group which expressed its own values in a coded language, but this theory met with refusal.⁴²

Stemberger also argues for a late emergence of the Mishnahic material since the earliest legal scholar quoted in it lived in the first century, whereas other tractates reflect a time after the destruction of the Temple. In addition he also warns that it is impossible to date the entire work, but the various tractates should be studied separately instead if the interpolations are also considered.⁴³ Next to the Mishnah the Tōsefta’, another important work of the rabbinic legal tradition, soon appeared. The Tōsefta’ is a subsidiary work compared to the Mishnah because it supplements and comments on the rules contained in the Mishnah. The subsidiary nature of the Tōsefta’ is also shown by its arrangement because it corresponds to the structure of the Mishnah.44

The development beginning with the recording of the Mishnah and continued by the compilation of the Tōsefta’ reached its climax with the birth of the Talmūd. The Talmūd (teaching) is a repository of issues, polemics and doctrines emerging during the learning and study of the Mishnah, hence it is usually characterized as a commentary on the Mishnah.

The compilation of the two Talmūdīm (the Palestinian and the Babylonian) reflects the changes which had taken place in Jewish history in late Antiquity. After the third century CE, the supremacy of the Palestinian centres was challenged by scholars living in Mesopotamia. According to ga’ōnic traditions the first Babylonian Academies emerged in the third century: the Sura Academy was founded by Rab, a younger contemporary of R. Yūdah, while the Academy of Nahardea was founded by Mār Shamū’el. After the destruction of the Academy of Nahardea the Academy of Pumbedita replaced it in the middle of the third century. In the beginning the Babylonian Academies were barely more than a network of some prominent masters and disciples gathering around them, although later sources project realities of their own times back to earlier centuries.⁴⁵

Presumably the Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmū