When Homer Met the Mishnah

Greek culture (or the Hellenistic civilization) and Judaism met in the ancient world through the expansion of Alexander the Great’s empire until his death in 323 BCE and then later the years of the Roman conquest until the destruction of Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. When one thinks about that relationship one might describe it as tumultuous.

At the same time, it would be remiss not to mention the way this clash of cultures also led to the emergence of great Jewish figures who wrote in Greek: Philo of Alexandria, Flavius Josephus, also known as Yosef Ben Mattityahu, and the Kalonymus family, to name but a few.

However, there is another aspect to this meeting between Hellenism and Judaism – the Jewish religious figures that emerged during that time period, who wrote in Hebrew and Aramaic. Chazal – sages of the Mishnaic and Talmudic eras – were not sequestered away in the Beit Midrash, closing the doors and shuttering the windows against the Greek and Roman influences.

“Homer is quoted in the Mishnah”

Education at the Melton Centre for Jewish Education, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Sages knew Greek and interacted with Greek philosophy and literature, to the point that

one can find references to them in the Mishnah. There are several places in which Greek culture appears in the literature of Chazal and influenced the writing of the Sages.

“Homer is quoted in the Mishnah,” says Prof. Hirshman. “According to Rabbi Shaul Lieberman (1898 – 1983), Tractate Sanhedrin expressly forbids reading the apocryphal literature, what we call in Hebrew sefarim chizonim – that is, literature that either mocks Torah, encourages idolatry, or was written by heretics, what Chazal called epikoros.”

Obviously, Chazal did not take their own advice or follow what they themselves forbid in the Beit Midrash. Is this a matter of saying one thing and doing another, or simply the natural interaction between cultures that end up pollinating each other? For example, the Jewish figurative term epikoros, meaning heretic, was itself adapted from Greek. And not just any Greek – the Greek philosopher Epicurus himself, a contemporary of Plato and Aristotle. Considering it was Epicurus who espoused a lack of belief in the afterlife, and viewed pain, suffering and death as the sources of evil, one can see why Chazal adapted his name to be the word that described heretics.

The rhetoric of Chazal

It is worth noting that the meeting with Greek literature and philosophy occurs not just in the name dropping. In fact, it is mostly not in the name dropping, says Hirshman. “When you explore the research of the last few years, you can see the Greek words that find their way into Rabbinic language, especially in the Jerusalem Talmud, but it is far more interesting to look at the rhetoric of Chazal and how Greek influence is reflected in the Rabbinic writings,” Hirshman explains. “Rhetoric, going by Aristotelian terms, is the art of persuading and entertaining. There are several rhetorical types. Judicial, forensic, substitution and division – all these appear in the Talmud. The sugiyot, the different self-contained passages of the Talmud that expand on a discussion of the Mishnah, could themselves have been edited according to rhetorical criteria. Chazal literature uses Agada – legend – also, literally a Telling, in order the provide the most compelling, persuasive and entertaining arguments. The way the sugiyot are argued or told, are in themselves, dictated by principles of rhetoric.

“They read Homer the same way we read the Tanakh”

This aspect of Agada, telling, relates to a development that was also influenced by the Greeks and which was adopted and adapted by the ancient Beit Midrash in the way the Torah and the tractates are learned and studied. Prof. Hirshman’s interest lies in Midrashic and Rabbinical philosophy, especially when it comes to education and pedagogy within the context of late antiquity. Prof. Hirshman mentions that Jewish education in that period was developed at the same time as the Greeks’.

“They read Homer the same way we read the Tanakh,” says Hirshman, referencing the scholar Elias Joseph Bickerman (1897 – 1981), who wrote about the Hasmonean revolt and showed that they were not as anti-Hellenistic and separatist as is traditionally thought.

The familiarity of Chazal with the Greek culture is still a debated subject among scholars. But Prof. Hirshman skillfully shows the places and spaces where they came together and it is that meeting of cultures, rather than a clash, that enables us to see the influence that remains relevant to this very day.

Prof. Menachem Hirshman is the Mandel Professor and Chair for Jewish Education at the Melton Centre for Jewish Education, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He directed the Melton Centre for Jewish Education in 1999-2002 and the joint research center on Israel of Yad Ben Zvi and the Hebrew University in 2008-2010.

Main Photo: Painting - Date early 20th century\ Wikipedia