TELUGU BASHA: May 2010

Tuesday, 25 May 2010

Personal Revelation and the Process of Conversion

I encourage you to strengthen the virtues you have already acquired and resolve to develop m any others.
James E. Faust, “The Virtues of Righteous Daughters of God,” Ensign, May 2003, 108
My dear young sisters, I am overwhelmed to be in your presence because you have such a great potential for good. You are
an indispensable part of what the Church and the world will be, just as your mothers, aunts, and grandmothers w ere in
years past. You can have happiness beyond your fondest dream s and expectations.
We are especially honored this evening to have President Gordon B. Hinckley, President Thomas S. Monson, and the other
General Authorities with us. I commend Sister Tanner, Sister Beck, and Sister Dalton for their excellent messages on being
steadfast in Christ. The music by this choir of young women has also been truly outstanding.
Under the date of March 19, 2003, the First Presidency sent a letter to priesthood leaders encouraging them to help young
women in their challenging transition to womanhood. This is very important. The letter emphasizes that while parents
have the primary responsibility, bishoprics, Young Women and Relief Society leaders should work together to strengthen
our young adult women in this transition.
My dear young sisters, as I have traveled to Church assignments in various parts of the world, I have met some of you
wonderful young women and have been impressed by your steadfastness. I can say without hesitation that you can have
“a perfect brightness of hope” for your future and endless joy if you “press forward” as righteous daughters of God. 1 You
are young women of virtue and of great promise. May I encourage you to strengthen the virtues you have already acquired
and resolve to develop m any others.
Tonight I would like to speak of some of those virtues. Many people do not fully understand the meaning of virtue. One
commonly understood m eaning is to be chaste or morally clean, but virtue in its fuller sense encompasses all traits of
righteousness that help us form our character. An old sampler found in a museum in Newfoundland, stitched in 1813,
reads: “Virtue is the chiefest beauty of the mind, the noblest ornament of humankind. Virtue is our safeguard and our
guiding star that stirs up reason when our senses err.”
May I suggest 10 virtues that each of you can pursue in your quest for excellence and happiness:
1. Faith
I list the virtue of faith first because it is the most important. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ is “the foundation of all righteousness.” 2 I promise you sweet young ladies if you will strive to live the
commandments, your faith will continue to grow. In exercising faith, we become cheerful and optimistic, charitable and
courageous, because faith is the moving cause of all of these virtues.
2. Honesty
A young woman on a university volleyball team tells of the time when she and her friend Muki were playing together in a
championship match:
“I remember it being a close game. … Gracie [on our opponents’ team] rounded her approach, jumped, and smacked the
ball as hard as she could. … The line judges signaled out, and the head official raised his finger to show a point for [our
team]. We began giving our usual high fives when we noticed that Muki was hand-motioning to the official that she
touched the ball on her block. Muki was calling her own touch. The line judges … were … signaling out, [indicating] that
there was no touch.
“The quiet, withdrawn Muki had showed an act of integrity and honesty like I had never seen before. Gracie Shute was so
impressed th at she talked with Muki after the match. … M uki later gave Gracie a Book of Mormon. I don’t know if Gracie
has read the book … , but I do know that Gracie was touched by Muki’s exam ple, as w e all were.” 3
You cannot be honest with others unless you are honest w ith yourself.
3. Chastity
In “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” we read, “The sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only
between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and w ife.” 4 Furthermore, the Lord says in the Book of Mormon,
“I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women.” 5 Those who engage in physical intimacies with someone outside of
marriage are likely to suffer feelings of guilt as well as deep emotional and physical hurt. Intimate relationships between
men and women outside the bounds the Lord has set bring great misery, shame, degradation, and unhappiness to those
involved.
In contrast, when these sacred gifts are exercised as the Lord intended within the bounds of a temple marriage, they bring
us our greatest joy and happiness. We become co-creators with God in having family and posterity. Chastity before
marriage followed by fidelity after marriage is a sacred passport to self-respect and happiness for everyone. President N.
Eldon Tanner gave some good advice that I would like to repeat: “Always remember that you can go much further on
respect than on popularity.” 6 I refer you to the excellent counsel on sexual purity contained in the pamphlet For the
Strength of Youth.
4. Humility
Humility is all about keeping one’s balance. For exam ple, when you receive a compliment, receive it graciously, but don’t
let it go to your head. You young ladies have learned much, but you have more to learn. A person who is hum ble is
teachable. Indeed, the Lord has prom ised, “For my Spirit is sent forth into the world to enlighten the humble and contrite.”
7 One of my favorite sayings is this: “Learn to say, ‘I don’t know.’ If used when appropriate, it will be often.” 8
5. Self-Discipline
You must have the strength to discipline yourselves so that you can accomplish your goals and enhance your natural
strengths. Habits of self-discipline formed while you are young will become part of the makeup of your character for the
rest of your lives. The character thus formed from self-discipline will rise with you in the Resurrection. 9
The principle of work is part of self-discipline. Now, my dear young sisters, I have lived a good many years longer than
you, but even back in Grandpa’s tim e there was something to make you want to lie dow n and go to sleep—they called it
work.
6. Fairness
We need to be fair and compassionate in our dealings with other human beings. The Savior gave us the parable of the
unjust servant who owed a large sum of money. His master forgave him the debt, but that same servant went out and had
a fellow servant put into prison for a much smaller debt. Their master rebuked him for not showing the same compassion
that he had himself received, and then sent him to the same fate as his fellow servant. 10
If you will be fair to other people, they will more likely be fair to you. The story is told of a Sunday School teacher who was
teaching this principle. She told her class, “Remember, we are here to help others.” A girl in her class asked, “Then what
are the others here for?”
7. Moderation
Part of the spirit of the Word of Wisdom is moderation in all things, except those things specifically forbidden by the Lord.
It is well to avoid extremes in dress, hairstyles, makeup, conduct, speech, and music. Extremes may attract the attention of
some, but they are more likely to turn off those you rea lly want to impress.
When I was a young m an, my friends and I went to an amusement park, where we rode the flying saucer. It was shaped
something like an upside-down plate that went round and round. Most of us tried to get to the middle so we wouldn’t be
thrown off by the centrifugal force as the saucer picked up speed. Sometimes those on the edge would grab a friend who
was closer to the middle, but that would pull them both completely off the saucer. I soon recognized that the centrifugal
force w as far less powerful in the middle. I wa s quite safe in the center even though the saucer was still spinning. But it
was risky when someone on the fringe latched on to me. I learned that safety comes from staying close to the center.
8. Cleanliness
Years ago, President Howard W. Hunter, Sister Faust, and I visited with some BYU students when the study abroad
program in Jerusalem was housed in a kibbutz, an Israeli hostelry. On the door of two of the students was a notice that
read, “If cleanliness is next to godliness, welcome to purgatory!”
President Hinckley gave some excellent counsel when he said: “Be clean in dress and manner. … The age in which w e are
living now has become an age of sloppy dress and sloppy m anners. But I am not so concerned about what you wear as I
am that it be clean. … Be sure of your personal cleanliness.” 11 Remember that you and the Church will be judged in part
by your cleanliness and neatness in appearance.
9. Courage
You precious young ladies will need a lot of courage— courage to stand up to peer pressure, to resist temptation, to
withstand ridicule or ostracism, to stand up for the truth. You will also need courage to face the challenges of life. One
young woman who was a cross-country runner wrote: “I am often tempted to give up and quit during a race. During my
first race this year, when I was just about to be overpowered and stop running, the words to the third verse of ‘How Firm a
Foundation’ filled my mind. The words gave me the courage to finish the race.” 12
Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid.
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, …
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand. 13
10. Grace
We are told in the Doctrine and Covenants that we are to “grow in grace.” 14 Grace is a God-given virtue. It is a disposition
to be kind and to do good. It is a charming trait or accomplishment, “a pleasingly graceful appearance.” 15 Charm is
attractiveness which comes from a feeling of personal dignity, an inner beauty that comes from a feeling of self-worth. It
has been said that your expression is the most important thing you can wear. A fine young single man I know has a list of
qualities he is looking for in his future wife. Cheerfulness is at the top of the list.
We frequently find that the influence of good women is underrated. It is an influence that is often subtle but yet has
tremendous consequences. One woman can make a great difference for a whole nation. I cite two examples from the
scriptures, one for evil and one for good.
In the book of Ether, Jared’s beautiful daughter enticed Akish to marry her through a seductive dance. Akish was to pay
for her hand in marriage by murdering her grandfather, King Omer, so that her father could become the king. At her
urging, Akish formed oath-bound secret combinations which caused the destruction of the Jaredite nation. 16
On the other hand, Esther, a Jewess in the Old Testament, saved her people. When the Jews were in captivity, Esther was
married to King Ahasuerus. The king signed a decree that all Jews were to be put to death. Esther’s cousin Mordecai urged
her to intercede with the king on behalf of her people by saying to her, “Who knoweth whether thou art come to the
kingdom for such a time as this?” 17 Esther, at the peril of her own life, pled with the king that her people should be
spared. The king listened to her entreaty, and they were saved. One woman can make a great difference, even for a
nation.
These are challenging times. I believe your spirits may have been reserved for these latter days; that you, like Esther, have
come to earth “for such a time as this.” It may be that your most significant, everlasting achievements will be your
righteous influence on others, that your divine feminine inner beauty and intuition will find expression in your quiet
strength, gentleness, dignity, charm, graciousness, creativity, sensitivity, radiance, and spirituality. Enhance these sublime
feminine gifts. They will make you appealing and even irresistible as you serve others as the handmaidens of God.
I testify that if you practice these virtues, you will be able to “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect
brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all m en.” 18 In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

The Virtues of Righteous Daughters of God

QUOTES

Elder M. Russell Ballard
One of the things that’s important in all of this, Mike, is that I think that God’s going to
judge us according to our knowledge. And one of the greatest problems that we have in
the Church is the total—not total—but the extreme apathy—indifference. People are so
much more interested in the NBA playoffs than they are “what is my purpose here?”
(Elder M. Russell Ballard, Bloomberg Television Interview with Mike Schneider, April
18, 2008)
President Gordon B. Hinckley
(italicized text is quoting Charles H. Malik)
I respect all men, and it is from disrespect for none that I say there are no great leaders
in the world today. In fact, greatness itself is laughed to scorn…To become a leader
today, even a mediocre leader, is a most uphill struggle. You are constantly and in every
way and from every side pulled down.
…Respect for the high, the noble, the great…is gone. Respect at all is gone! If you ask
whom and what people do respect, the answer is literally nobody and nothing. This is
simply an unrespecting age—it is the age of utter mediocrity.
…You are good. But it is not enough just to be good…in this world so filled with
problems, so constantly threatened by dark and evil challenges, you can and must rise
above mediocrity, above indifference.
(President Gordon B. Hinckley, Stand Up for Truth, BYU Devotional Address, 17
September 1996)
President Gordon B. Hinckley
There is much more to be achieved than statistical improvement…Such improvement is,
of course, desirable, and must be worked for. But, more importantly, we should be
concerned with the spiritual dimension of our people and the enlargement of this
dimension. There is a tendency in all of us to ask for better statistical performance. There
is a tendency to impose quotas, behind which usually lies imposition of pressure to
achieve improved statistics. In the work of the Lord there is a more appropriate
motivation than pressure. There is the motivation that comes of true conversion.
When there throbs in the heart of an individual Latter-day Saint a great and vital
testimony of the truth of this work, he will be found doing his duty in the Church. He will
be found in his sacrament meetings. He will be found in his priesthood meetings. He will
be found paying his honest tithes and offerings. He will be doing his home teaching. He
will be found in attendance at the temple as frequently as his circumstances will permit.
He will have within him a great desire to share the gospel with others. He will be found
strengthening and lifting his brethren and sisters. It is conversion that makes the
difference.
(President Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, May 1984, p. 99)
Elder M. Russell Ballard
Brothers as sisters…focus on people and principles—not on programs. One of the most
important things we do through the gospel of Jesus Christ is to build people…Frankly,
it’s much easier to just manage programs than it is to understand and truly serve people.
Brothers and sisters…what is most important in our Church responsibilities is not the
statistics that are reported…but whether or not individual people—ministered to one at a
time just as the Savior did—have been lifted and encouraged and ultimately changed. Our
task is to help others find the peace and the joy that only the gospel can give them.
(Elder M. Russell Ballard, “O Be Wise,” Ensign, Nov 2006, 17–20)
Elder Dallin H. Oaks
Members of the Quorum of the Twelve have stressed the importance of exercising
inspired judgment in Church programs and activities…Church leaders should be aware
that Church meetings and activities can become too complex and burdensome…Stake
presidencies and bishoprics need to exercise their authority to weed out the excessive and
ineffective busyness that is sometimes required of the members of their stakes or wards.
Church programs should focus on what is best (most effective) in achieving their
assigned purposes without unduly infringing on the time families need for their “divinely
appointed duties.”
(Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “Good, Better, Best,” Ensign, Nov 2007, 104–108)
President Ezra Taft Benson
Christ taught that we should be in the world but not of it. Yet there are some in our midst
who are not so much concerned about taking the gospel into the world as they are about
bringing worldliness into the gospel. They want us to be in the world and of it.
… They do not feel the Church is progressive enough—they say that it should embrace
the social and socialist gospel of apostate Christendom. They are bothered that President
McKay believes that "the social side of the Restored Gospel is only an incident of it; it is
not the end thereof." (Letter of the First Presidency to Dr. Lowry Nelson, July 17, 1947.)
(Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, April 1969, First Day—Morning Meeting 11.)
The First Presidency
All about us we see evidence of the corrosive elements targeted to injure our youth…We
are deeply concerned.
…We call upon parents to devote their best efforts to the teaching and rearing of their
children in gospel principles which will keep them close to the Church. The home is the
basis of a righteous life, and no other instrumentality can take its place or fulfill its
essential functions in carrying forward this God-given responsibility.
…However worthy and appropriate other demands or activities may be, they must not be
permitted to displace the divinely appointed duties that only parents and families can
adequately perform.
We urge bishops and other Church officers to do all they can to assist parents in seeing
that they have time and help, where needed, as they nurture their families and bring them
up in the way of the Lord…As we strengthen families, we will strengthen the entire
Church.
(First Presidency Letter to the Church, February 11, 1999. See Ensign, June 1999, p. 80)
President Boyd K. Packer
Bishops, keep constantly in mind that fathers are responsible to preside over their
families. Sometimes, with all good intentions, we require so much of both the children
and the father that he is not able to do so. If my boy needs counseling, bishop, it should
be my responsibility first, and yours second. If my boy needs recreation, bishop, I should
provide it first, and you second. If my boy needs correction, that should be my
responsibility first, and yours second. If I am failing as a father, help me first, and my
children second. Do not be too quick to take over from me the job of raising my children.
Do not be too quick to counsel them and solve all of the problems. Get me involved. It is
my ministry.
(Elder Boyd K. Packer, “Solving Emotional Problems in the Lord’s Own Way,” Ensign,
May 1978, 91)
Elder Dallin H. Oaks
Here is a caution for families…Team sports and technology toys like video games and
the Internet are already winning away the time of our children and youth. Surfing the
Internet is not better than serving the Lord or strengthening the family. Some young men
and women are skipping Church youth activities or cutting family time in order to
participate in soccer leagues or to pursue various entertainments. Some young people are
amusing themselves to death—spiritual death.
(Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “Good, Better, Best,” Ensign, Nov 2007, 104-108)
Elder M. Russell Ballard
Don’t Waste the Days of Your Probation…In the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord gave
a similar warning in these words: “Thou shalt not idle away thy time…”
…One of the ways Satan lessens your effectiveness and weakens your spiritual strength
is by encouraging you to spend large blocks of your time doing things that matter very
little. I speak of such things as sitting for hours on end watching television or videos,
playing video games night in and night out, surfing the Internet, or devoting huge blocks
of time to sports, games, or other recreational activities.
… What will you say to the Lord when He asks what you have done with the precious
gift of life and time?
(Elder M. Russell Ballard, “Be Strong in the Lord,” Ensign, Jul 2004, 8–15)
President Boyd K. Packer
You may think that Lehi’s dream or vision has no special meaning for you, but it does.
You are in it.
… One word in this dream or vision should have special meaning to you young Latterday
Saints. The word is after…
“And after they had tasted of the fruit they were ashamed, because of those that were
scoffing at them; and they fell away into forbidden paths and were lost. . . .
And great was the multitude that did enter into that strange building. And after they did
enter into that building they did point the finger of scorn at me and those that were
partaking of the fruit also.” [1 Nephi 8:28, 33]
…All of the mocking does not come from outside of the Church. Let me say that again:
All of the mocking does not come from outside of the Church. Be careful that you do not
fall into the category of mocking.
…Largely because of television, instead of looking over into that spacious building, we
are, in effect, living inside of it…You are living in that great and spacious building.
(President Boyd K. Packer, “Lehi’s Dream and You”, BYU Devotional Address, 16
January 2007)

Plan of Salvation

Elder Boyd K. Packer, “The Great Plan of Happiness,” CES Doctrine & Covenants/Church History Symposium , BYU,
10 August 1993 —
The essential components of the great plan of happiness, of redemption, of salvation, are these:
Premortal existence
Spiritual [spirit] creation
Agency [& free will]
War in heaven
Physical creation
The Fall and mortality
Principles and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ (first principles: faith in the Lord Jesus Chirst,
repentance, baptism, …)
The Atonement
Life beyondd the grave
Spirit world
Judgment
Resurrection
OPTIONAL READING ASSIGNMENT: Read Orson Pratt’s “Plan of Salvation” on the course Current Assignments
page or from the “Documents List.”
READING ASSIGNMENT: Study D&C 20:17-34. Note: justification is forgiveness of our repented of sins by the grace
of Christ, not ourselves (we become “unguilty”); and sanctification is purification from repented of sins and of the
conditions of fallen mortality by the grace of Christ, not by ourselves. These are available to us because of Christ's
Atonement (see below). Study
• Alma 18:24-39; • Alma 22:7-14; • Mormon 9:9-14
for further examples of God’s scriptural declaration of his plan of salvation, which is: (1) God; (2) Creation; (3) Fall;
(4) Atonement—which is the plan of salvation from God’s perspective.
Premortal existence:
. God. There is an unchangeable God who is your Father. (See references under Assignment #1 above.) Who is He,
really? A purpose of life is to find out—to come to know Him. Priesthood is the word which describes His power
and authority (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 130; John Taylor, Gospel Kingdom, 129; Joseph F. Smith, Gospel
Doctrine, 136-200).
Spirit creation & agency: We were born as innocent, perfect female or male spirits of heavenly parents.
Deformities and handicaps did not exist in our spirit birth, because we were born of perfect, resurrected parents.
We started out equally at birth in the spirit world but changed through the use of free will and agency: Optional
study: Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation 1:59; D&C 93:38; Alma 13:2-5.
Free will: the mental ability to make a choice.
Agency: the ability to carry out free will; to act.
Intelligence is the stuff of the spirit world just as matter is the stuff of the physical world. Maleness and femaleness
existed in pre-existence. If you wish to read more on the subject for verification and clarification, see the
following optional readings:
• Boyd K. Packer, General Conference address, Ensign Nov 1993, 21.
• Dallin H. Oaks, General Conference address, Ensign Nov 1993, 72.
• The First Presidency, The Family—Proclamation to the World, 21 September 1995.
“Every individual born on this earth comes into a lineage according to a pre-earth life determination.” (The Basic
Doctrines of the Gospel of Jesus Christ Essential to Developing a Religious Education Curriculum as Revealed to
Ancient and Modern Prophets, approved by the Church Board of Education, March 5, 1971.) Teachings of the
Prophet Joseph Smith, 365; Harold B. Lee,Ensign, January 1974, 4-5.
Definition of “intelligence”: “2. Intelligence, or light and truth, is also used as a synonym for spirit element.” (B. R.
McConkie, “Intelligence,” Mormon Doctrine, 387.) See Preexistent First Estate on Documents List for further
documentation about keeping the first estate, intelligence & intelligences (spirits); 2 Ne 2:13-16; Abr 3:22-23.
War in heaven: READING ASSIGNMENT: Bible Dictionary “War in Heaven,” 788.
Physical creation:
A. Jesus Christ, under the direction of God the Father, created all things in a perfect, immortal, paradisiacal state:
(2 Ne 2:22-25)
1. No sin. 3. No death
2. No birth. 4. No decay, corruption, etc.
READING ASSIGNMENT: study the Bible Dictionary in your LDS edition of the Bible under the topics
“Death,” p. 655, and “Fall of Adam,”. 670.
B. Adam and Eve were born of eternal, resurrected, immortal, heavenly Parents into an immortal, “physicalspiritual”
world (no blood, but spirit). Jesus was the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh (meaning having a
mortal mother), but Adam was also begotten physically by Heavenly Father into an immortal state (Moses 6:22).
Excerpts from “Origin of Man & Organic Evolution”:
1. The First Presidency (In Melvin A. and M. Garfield Cook, Science & Mormonism [SLC: Deseret Book
Company, 1973], 156.) “In a letter to Samuel O. Bennion, February 26, 1912, Joseph F. Smith, Anthon H. Lund
and Charles W. Penrose stated: “But President Young went on to show that our Father Adam—that is our earthy
father—the progenitor of the race of man, stands at the head being ‘Michael the Archangel, the Ancient of Days,’
and that he was not fashioned from earth life and adobe but begotten by his Father in Heaven.”
2. George Q. Cannon, Millennial Star, 23:654, 12 October 1861. [Emphasis added.] He [Brigham Young]
unmistakably declares man's origins to be altogether of a celestial character—that not only is his spirit of
heavenly descent, but his bodily organization, too—that the latter is not taken from the lower animals, but from
the original celestial body of the great Father of humanity.
3. Boyd K. Packer, “The Law and the Light,” Book of Mormon Symposium, BYU, 30 October 1988.…Many who
perceive organic evolution to be law rather than theory do not realize they forsake the atonement in the
process.... And, I am sorry to say, the so-called theistic evolution, the theory that God used an evolutionary
process to prepare a physical body for the spirit of man, is equally false. I say I am sorry because I know it is a
view commonly held by good and thoughtful people who search for an acceptable resolution to an apparent
conflict between the theory of evolution and the doctrines of the gospel....When the First Presidency speaks, we
can safely accept their word.… Twice the First Presidency has declared the position of the Church on organic
evolution. The first, a statement published in 1909 entitled The Origin of Man [the first article in the “Origin of
Man & Organic Evolution” collection] was signed by Presidents Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Anthon H.
Lund. (The Improvement Era, Nov. 1909:75-81.) The other, entitled “Mormon” View of Evolution, signed by
Presidents Heber J. Grant, Anthony W. Ivins, and Charles W. Nibley, was published in 1925 (The Improvement
Era, Sept. 1925:1090-91). It follows very closely the first statement, indeed quotes directly from it. … I should
take note of one letter signed by a president of the Church addressed to a private individual which includes a
sentence, which taken out of context reads, “On the subject of organic evolution the Church has officially taken
no position.” For some reason the addressee passed this letter about. For years it has appeared each time this
subject is debated. Letters to individuals are not the channel for announcing the policy of the Church. For
several important reasons, this letter itself is not a declaration of the position of the Church, as some have
misinterpreted it to be. Do not anchor your position on this major issue to that one sentence! It is in conflict
with the two official declarations, each signed by all members of the presidency.
4. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 4:217-218. [Emphasis added.] Thus you may continue and trace the
human family back to Adam and Eve, and ask, “are we of the same species with Adam and Eve?” Yes, every person
acknowledges this; this comes within the scope of our understanding.
But when we arrive at that point, a vail [sic] is dropt, and our knowledge is cut off. Were it not so, you could
trace back your history to the Father of our spirits in the eternal world. He is a being of the species as
ourselves; He lives as we do, except the difference that we are earthly, and He is heavenly. He has been earthly,
and is of precisely the same species of being that we are....
Things were first created spiritually; the Father actually begat the spirits, and they were brought forth and
lived with Him. Then He commenced the work of creating earthly tabernacles, precisely as He had been created
in this flesh Himself, by partaking of the coarse material that was organized and composed this earth, until His
system was charged with it, consequently the tabernacles of His children were organized from the coarse materials
of this earth.
When the time came that His first-born, the Saviour, should come into the world and take a tabernacle, the
Father came Himself and favoured that spirit with a tabernacle instead of letting any other man do it. The Saviour
was begotten by the Father of His spirit, by the same Being who is the Father of our spirits, and that is all the
organic difference between Jesus Christ and you and me.
5. Brigham Young, JD 7:285-286. … Here let me state to all philosophers of every class upon the earth, When
you tell me that father Adam was made as we make adobes from the earth, you tell me what I deem an idle tale.
When you tell me that the beasts of the field were produced in that manner, you are speaking idle words devoid of
meaning. There is no such thing in all the eternities where the Gods dwell.
6. Brigham Young, JD 9:283. [Emphasis added.] Man is the offspring of God.... We are as much the children of
this great Being as we are the children of our mortal progenitors. We are flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, and
the same fluid that circulates in our bodies, called blood, once circulated in His veins as it does in ours. As the
seeds of grains, vegetables and fruits produce their kind, so man is in the image of God.
7. Brigham Young, JD 11:122. … I believe that the declaration made in these two scriptures is literally true. God
has made His children like Himself to stand erect, and has endowed them with intelligence and power and
dominion over all His works and given them the same attributes which He Himself possesses. He created man, as
we create our children; for there is no other process of creation in heaven, on the earth, in the earth, or under the
earth, or in all the eternities, that is, that were, or that will ever be.
8. Brigham Young, JD 15:137. And when our spirits receive our bodies, and through our faithfulness we are
worthy to be crowned, we will then receive authority to produce both spirit and body.
9. B. H. Roberts, Church News, 19 Sep 1936, 8. “Man has descended from God: in fact, he is of the same race as
the Gods. His descent has not been from a lower form of life, but from the Highest Form of Life; in other words,
man is, in the most literal sense, a child of God. This is not only true of the spirit of man, but of his body also.
There never was a time, probably, in all the eternities of the past, when there was not men or children of God. This
world is only one of many worlds which have been created by the Father through His Only Begotten.” (B. H.
Roberts, “The Creation of Man,” Course of Study for Priests, 1910.)
10. Bruce R. McConkie, The Bible: A Sealed Book (CES Symposium publication, c. 1981), 1, 2, 6. [Emphasis
added.] As of now, the world is not ready to receive these truths [from the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon].
For one thing, these added doctrines will completely destroy the whole theory of organic evolution as it is now
almost universally taught in the halls of academia. For another, they will set forth an entirely different concept
and time frame of the creation, both of this earth and all forms of life and of the sidereal heavens themselves,
than is postulated in all the theories of men. And sadly, there are those who, if forced to make a choice at this
time, would select Darwin over Deity....
“The Origin of Man,” by the First Presidency of the Church. (See Clark, Messages of the First Presidency
4:200-206; see also 4:199.) This inspired writing sets forth the official position of the Church on the origin of
man and therefore impinges on the evolutionary fantasies of biologists and their fellow travelers. As might be
expected, it arouses great animosity among intellectuals whose testimonies are more ethereal than real....
11. Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, 380. We were his children first in the premortal
life, and we are his children here again in this mortal sphere.
12. Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 198. [Emphasis added.] It is a decree of the Lord that
every tree, plant, and herb bearing seed should bring forth of its kind, and cannot come forth after any other law
or principle.
OPTIONAL READING ASSIGNMENT: See “Origin of Man and Organic Evolution” on the “Documents
List” (hyperlinkedon the Home Page).
The Fall & mortality:
A. Through the use of agency, Adam and Eve, who were in a state of innocence, like little children who could not
remember the pre-mortal existence, and who did not know good from evil, transgressed (they did not sin) the law of
the limits of the Garden of Eden and caused a perfect universe to become imperfect. See Moses 3:16-17; 4:1-12; 2 Ne
2:10-19. By saying “I forbid it” God removed himself from any blame from causing the fall, even though he also said
“Thou mayest choose for thyself, for it [the fruit of the tree or agency?] is given unto thee” (see Moses 3:17).
B. Birth, sin, change (corruption), and death entered the world. See 2 Ne 2:19-25; Moses 5:11.
1. Spiritual death means being cut off from God, being alienated from Him. When we reach the age of accountability
and are not baptized it is as if we are no longer part of his family (hence the need to be “born again” into the
family of God; see Mosi 27:24-31; Alma 7:14). We are all born “spiritually dead” into this world (Alma 42:7-11;
Helaman 14:16). This does not mean we are born evil or wicked or have sinned; it simply means we inherit the
conditions of the Fall in that we are cut off from His presence. See “Carnality” in Mormon Doctrine; see Bruce R.
McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary 1:141; 2:422; Joseph F. Smith, Conference Report, Oct. 1899,
72. This being born spiritually dead includes little children; however, they are covered by the atonement, or
“alive in Christ,” until they are age 8 (see 2 Ne 2:21; 9:7-9; Mosi 3:16, 19; Alma 34:9; 42:6-10; Ether 3:2; Moro
8:11-15, 19-23; D&C 29:41; 68:25, 27). Christ was the only one to be born spiritually alive, because God was
the Father of his physical body. (“Son,” Mormon Doctrine, p. 740; Doctrines of Salvation 2:325–326.) Pres.
James E. Faust, Ensign, Dec 2004, 6; Nov 2001, 19: “He [Jesus] was not subject to spiritual death.” Two major
causes exist for our being spiritually dead:
a. Caused by fall of Adam (effects everyone, even those under age 8; we are all born into this world spiritually
dead). We inherit the effects and conditions of the Fall.
b. Caused by our sins, transgressions, mistakes, ignorance, etc. Affects everyone who is accountable or past the
age of 8 years.
2. Physical death: the physical body dies; it is no longer animated (alive).
3. There is no such thing as “spirit death”; spirits cannot die, having been born of immortal, perfect, resurrected
parents; spirits are eternal. (Alma 42:9; 12:18.)
C. Purposes of mortality:
1. Obtain a physical body and be tested, tried, and proved by how we use it, treat it, take care of it.
2. Obtain experience and learning with truth and error and be tested, tried, and proved to see how we live.
3. Tutored to think like disciples of Christ, to be obedient, obtain the mind of Christ, and bring glory to God.
4. Be married in the temple and have children.
5. To give God and ourselves something to judge us by.
Principles & ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ: The plan of salvation from our perspective: faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ; repentance; baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; the laying of of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost;
obedience; enduring to the end; temple rites and rituals.
The Atonement
A. Everyone, including mortal sons of Perdition, will be resurrected. (The 1/3 part who went with Satan will not be
resurrected.)
B. Christ takes care of the spiritual death caused by Adam and all, both righteous and wicked will be brought back
physically into the presence of God for judgment. (See Alma 11:40-41; 42:23, Helaman 14:15-17.)
C. Those who have obeyed the commandments and covenants will be made perfect and dwell in the highest glory of the
celestial kingdom. The wicked remain as if no atonement had been made.
D. Justification: Not guilty anymore. Forgiven.
E. Sanctification: Cleansed, purified, made like unto God—partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4).
F. Alma 7:11-13. The atonement not only can cover physical death and repentant sins and transgressions, but it also
covers and will heal weaknesses, infirmities, sicknesses, etc.
G. Conditions if there were no atonement: 2 Ne 9:7-9—we would become devils. Latter-day Saints (living after the
resurrection of Jesus Christ) may have the hazard of taking this aspect of the atonement for granted.
Life beyond the grave
Spirit World:
After death we go into the spirit world. Two major divisions of “mental states” exists there: paradise and outer
darkness. (See Alma 40:12-14).
READING ASSIGNMENT:
A. Read in Mormon Doctrine by Bruce R. McConkie the topic “Second Chance Theory.” (Mormon Doctrine is like an
encyclopedia: everything is listed in alphabetical order.) Click on title in the Internet version of the “Plan of
Salvation Overview.”
B. Optional: For further, lengthy discussion of the fallacies of the “Second Chance Theory” see Joseph Fielding
Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 2:181-196. D&C 138:57-59.
C. Be able to answer: (1) What is the 2nd chance theory? (2) Why is it false? (3) Why can we not plan on putting off
repentance in this life and doing it all in the spirit world?
Judgment
Final Judgment. This is like a college graduation—where the formal sentencing is carried out. There are no surprises
— we will know what we deserve and what we are going to get. (See 2 Ne 9:22; Alma 33:22; 40:21; 3 Ne 27:14-15;
D&C 88:18-38; 1 Cor 15:39-42.)
Resurrections:
A. First (before & during the Millennium, starting with Christ's; see 3 Ne 23:9-13; Matt 27:52-53):
1. Celestial people (D&C 76:50-70, 92-96; 88:27-29, 96-98.)
2. Terrestrial people (D&C 76:71-80; 88:30, 99.)
B. Second or last (after the Millennium):
1. Telestial people (D&C 76:81-90, 98-112; 88:31, 100-101.)
2. Those “filthy still” and the sons of perdition (D&C 76:30-49; 88:32, 102.) These suffer the 2nd spiritual
death.

WHERE IS THE HILL CUMORAH?

WHERE IS THE HILL CUMORAH?

Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3:232–243.

SPECULATION ABOUT BOOK OF MORMON GEOGRAPHY. Within recent years there has arisen among certain students of the Book of Mormon a theory to the effect that within the period covered by the Book of Mormon, the Nephites and Lamanites were confined almost entirely within the borders of the territory comprising Central America
and the southern portion of Mexico—the isthmus of Tehauntepec probably being the “narrow neck” of land spoken of in
the Book of Mormon rather than the isthmus of Panama.1
This theory is founded upon the assumption that it was impossible for the colony of Lehi’s to multiply and fill the
hemisphere within the limits of 1,000 years, or from the coming of Lehi from Jerusalem to the time of the destruction of
the Nephites at the Hill Cumorah. Moreover, they claim that the story in the Book of Mormon of the migrations,
building of cities, and the wars and contentions, preclude the possibility of the people spreading over great distances such as
we find within the borders of North and South America.
EARTH POPULATED RAPIDLY. If we are willing to accept the Bible record, which is confirmed by the Doctrine
and Covenants, the entire civilization of the earth was destroyed in the flood except Noah and his family.2 Moreover, this
destruction took place less than 5,000 years ago, and today the population of the earth, notwithstanding wars and
destructions, is estimated at over 2,000,000,000 souls.
The population of Europe, based upon the best records available, is vastly increased over that at the time of the
discovery of America; yet upon this hemisphere are to be found hundreds of millions of people, descendants of European
and Asiatic ancestors who knew nothing of this land before the discovery by Columbus. The rapid increase of posterity is
known to every genealogist who has traced the record of the early settlers in this western country.
LOCALE OF CUMORAH, RAMAH, AND RIPLIANCUM. This modernistic theory of necessity, in order to be
consistent, must place the waters of Ripliancum and the Hill Cumorah some place within the restricted territory of
Central America, notwithstanding the teachings of the Church to the contrary for upwards of 100 years. Because of this
theory some members of the Church have become confused and greatly disturbed in their faith in the Book of Mormon. It
is for this reason that evidence is here presented to show that it is not only possible that these places could be located as the
Church has held during the past century, but that in very deed such is the case.
It is known that the Hill Cumorah where the Nephites were destroyed is the hill where the Jaredites were also
destroyed. This hill was known to the Jaredites as Ramah. It was approximately near to the waters of Ripliancum, which
the Book of Ether says, “by interpretation, is large, or to exceed all.”3 Mormon adds: “And it came to pass that we did
march forth to the land of Cumorah, and we did pitch our tents round about the hill Cumorah; and it was in a land of
many waters, rivers, and fountains; and here we had hope to gain advantage over the Lamanites.”4
EARLY BRETHREN LOCATE CUMORAH IN WESTERN NEW YORK. It must be conceded that this
description fits perfectly the land of Cumorah in New York, as it has been known since the visitation of Moroni to the
Prophet Joseph Smith, for the hill is in the proximity of the Great Lakes and also in the land of many rivers and
fountains. Moreover, the Prophet Joseph Smith himself is on record, definitely declaring the present hill called Cumorah
to be the exact hill spoken of in the Book of Mormon.5
Further, the fact that all of his associates from the beginning down have spoken of it as the identical hill where
Mormon and Moroni hid the records, must carry some weight. It is difficult for a reasonable person to believe that such
men as Oliver Cowdery, Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, David Whitmer, and many others, could speak
frequently of the spot where the Prophet Joseph Smith obtained the plates as the Hill Cumorah, and not be corrected by
the Prophet, if that were not the fact. That they did speak of this hill in the days of the Prophet in this definite manner is
an established record of history.
OLIVER COWDERY PLACES CUMORAH IN WESTERN NEW YORK. The first reference of this kind is found
in the Messenger and Advocate, a paper published by the Church in 1834-5. In a brief history of the rise of the Church
prepared by Oliver Cowdery, he makes reference to this particular spot in the following words:
“By turning to the 529th and 530th pages of the Book of Mormon you will read Mormon’s account of the last great
struggle as they were encamped round this hill Cumorah.6 In this valley fell the remaining strength and pride of a once
powerful people, the Nephites—once so highly favored of the Lord, but at that time in darkness, doomed to suffer
extermination by the hand of their barbarous and uncivilized brethren. From the top of this hill, Mormon, with a few
others, after the battle, gazed with horror upon the mangled remains of those who, the day before, were filled with
anxiety, hope, or doubt. A few had fled to the south, who were hunted down by the victorious party, and all who would
not deny the Savior and his religion, were put to death. Mormon himself, according to the record of his son Moroni, was
also slain.
“But a long time previous to this national disaster it appears, from his own account, he foresaw approaching
destruction. In fact, if he perused the records of his fathers, which were in his possession, he could have learned that such
would be the case. Alma, who lived before the coming of the Messiah, prophesied this. He, however, by divine
appointment, abridged from those records, in his own style and language, a short account of the more important and
prominent items, from the days of Lehi to his own time, after which he deposited, as he says, on the 529th page,7 all the
records in this same hill, Cumorah, and after gave his small record to his son Moroni, who, as appears from the same,
finished, after witnessing the extinction of his people as a nation….
HILL RAMAH IN WESTERN NEW YORK. “This hill, by the Jaredites, was called Ramah; by it, or around it,
pitched the famous army of Coriantumr their tents. Coriantumr was the last king of the Jaredites. The opposing army
were to the west, and in this same valley and near by, from day to day, did that mighty race spill their blood, in wrath,
contending, as it were brother against brother, and father against son. In this same spot, in full view from the top of this
same hill, one may gaze with astonishment upon the ground which was twice covered with the dead and dying of our
fellowmen….
“In this vale lie commingled, in one mass of ruin, the ashes of thousands, and in this vale was destined to consume
the fair forms and vigorous systems of tens of thousands of the human race—blood mixed with blood, flesh with flesh,
bones with bones, and dust with dust.”8
PROPHET APPROVES OLIVER COWDERY’S VIEWS. The quibbler might say that this statement from Oliver
Cowdery is merely the opinion of Oliver Cowdery and not the expression of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It should be
remembered that these letters in which these statements are made were written at the Prophet’s request and under his
personal supervision. Surely, under these circumstances, he would not have permitted an error of this kind to creep into
the record without correction.
At the commencement of these historical letters is found the following: “That our narrative may be correct, and
particularly the introduction, it is proper to inform our patrons, that our Brother J. Smith Jr., has offered to assist us.
Indeed, there are many items connected with the fore part of this subject that render his labor indispensable. With his
labor and with authentic documents now in our possession, we hope to render this a pleasing and agreeable narrative, well
worth the examination and perusal of the saints.”9
Later, during the Nauvoo period of the Church, and again under the direction of the Prophet Joseph Smith, these
same letters by Oliver Cowdery, were published in the Times and Seasons, without any thought of correction had this
description of the Hill Cumorah been an error.10
TESTIMONY OF DAVID WHITMER TO HILL CUMORAH. Another testimony of interest is that of David
Whitmer given to Elders Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith in September 1878, when they paid him a visit at his home in
Richmond. To these brethren he said:“When I was returning to Fayette, with Joseph and Oliver, all of us riding in the wagon, Oliver and I on an
old-fashioned wooden spring seat and Joseph behind us—while traveling along in a clear open space, a very pleasant,
nice-looking old man suddenly appeared by the side of our wagon and saluted us with, ‘Good morning, it is very warm,’ at
the same time wiping his face or forehead with his hand. We returned the salutation, and, by a sign from Joseph, I
invited him to ride if he was going our way; but he said very pleasantly, ‘No, I am going to Cumorah.’ This name was
something new to me; I did not know what Cumorah meant. We all gazed at him and at each other, and as I looked
around inquiringly of Joseph, the old man instantly disappeared, so that I did not see him again.”
Joseph F. Smith asked: “Did you notice his appearance?”
David Whitmer: “I should think I did. He was, I should think, about five feet eight or nine inches tall and heavy
set…. His hair and beard were white, like Brother Pratt’s, but his beard was not so heavy. I also remember that he had
on his back a sort of knapsack with something in, shaped like a book.”11
“GLAD TIDINGS FROM CUMORAH.” Who can read the words of Joseph Smith as recorded in section 128 of the
Doctrine and Covenants and not feel that he had reference to the Hill Cumorah in western New York?
“And again, what do we hear? Glad tidings from Cumorah! Moroni, an angel from heaven, declaring the fulfilment
of the prophets—the book to be revealed, A voice of the Lord in the wilderness of Fayette, Seneca county, declaring the
three witnesses to bear record of the book!”12
While in this statement it is not positively declared that the Hill Cumorah is the place where the plates were obtained,
yet the implication that such is the case is overwhelming. Moroni declaring from Cumorah the book to be revealed!
JOSEPH SMITH LOCATES CUMORAH IN WESTERN NEW YORK. Perhaps this matter could rest at this
point, but the question of the territory now embraced within the United States having been in possession of Nephites and
Lamanites before the death of Mormon, carries some weight in the determining of this matter. In the light of revelation
it is absurd for anyone to maintain that the Nephites and Lamanites did not possess this northern land. While Zion’s
camp was marching on the way to Jackson County, near the bank of the Illinois River they came to a mound containing
the skeleton of a man. The history of this incident is as follows:
“The brethren procured a shovel and a hoe, and removing the earth to the depth of about one foot, discovered the
skeleton of a man, almost entire, and between his ribs the stone point of a Lamanitish arrow, which evidently produced
his death. Elder Burr Riggs retained the arrow. The contemplation of the scenery around us produced peculiar sensations
in our bosoms; and subsequently the visions of the past being opened to my understanding by the Spirit of the Almighty, I
discovered that the person whose skeleton was before us was a white Lamanite, a large, thickset man, and a man of God.
His name was Zelph. He was a warrior and chieftain under the great prophet Onandagus, who was known from the Hill
Cumorah, or eastern sea to the Rocky Mountains. The curse was taken from Zelph, or at least, in part—one of his thigh
bones was broken by a stone flung from a sling, while in battle, years before his death. He was killed in battle by the
arrow found among his ribs, during the last great struggle of the Lamanites and Nephites.”13
HEBER C. KIMBALL TELLS OF DEATH OF ZELPH. Elder Heber C. Kimball who was present recorded the
following in his journal: “While on our way we felt anxious to know who the person was who had been killed by that
arrow. It was made known to Joseph that he had been an officer who fell in battle, in the last destruction among the
Lamanites, and his name was Zelph. This caused us to rejoice much, to think that God was so mindful of us as to show
these things to his servant. Brother Joseph had inquired of the Lord, and it was made known in a vision.”14
ANCIENT CITY OF MANTI IN MISSOURI. The following is also taken from the history of the travels of the
Kirtland Camp: “The camp passed through Huntsville, in Randolph County, which has been appointed as one of the
stakes of Zion, and is the ancient site of the City of Manti, and pitched tents at Dark Creek, Salt Licks, seventeen miles. It
was reported to the camp that one hundred and ten men had volunteered from Randolph and gone to Far West to settle difficulties.”15
The following account of the same event is taken from the daily journal of the Kirtland Camp, and was written by
Samuel D. Tyler: “September 25, 1838. We passed through Huntsville, Co. seat of Randolph Co. Pop. 450, and three
miles further we bought 32 bu. of corn off one of the brethren who resides in this place. There are several of the brethren
round about here and this is the ancient site of the City of Manti, which is spoken of in the Book of Mormon and this is
appointed one of the Stakes of Zion, and it is in Randolph County, Missouri, three miles west of the county seat.”16
NEPHITE AND JAREDITE WARS IN WESTERN NEW YORK. In the face of this evidence coming from the
Prophet Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer, we cannot say that the Nephites and Lamanites did not
possess the territory of the United States and that the Hill Cumorah is in Central America. Neither can we say that the
great struggle which resulted in the destruction of the Nephites took place in Central America. If Zelph, a righteous man,
was fighting under a great prophet-general in the last battles between the Nephites and Lamanites; if that great
prophet-general was known from the Rocky Mountains to “the Hill Cumorah or eastern sea,” then some of those battles,
and evidently the final battles did take place within the borders of what is now the United States.
There were no righteous prophets, save the Three Nephites, after the death of Moroni, and we learn that Zelph was
slain during one of these battles during the great last struggle between the Nephites and Lamanites and was buried near
the Illinois River.
In the Book of Mormon story the Lamanites were constantly crowding the Nephites back towards the north and
east. If the battles in which Zelph took part were fought in the country traversed by the Zion’s Camp, then we have every
reason to believe from what is written in the Book of Mormon, that the Nephites were forced farther and farther to the
north and east until they found themselves in the land of Ripliancum, which both Ether and Mormon declare to us was
the land of Ramah or Cumorah, a land of “many waters,” which “by interpretation, is large, or to exceed all.”17
This being true, what would be more natural then that Moroni, like his father Mormon, would deposit the plates in
the land where the battles came to an end and the Nephites were destroyed? This Moroni says he did, and from all the
evidence in the Book of Mormon, augmented by the testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith, these final battles took place
in the territory known as the United States and in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes and hills of Western New York.
And here Moroni found the resting place for the sacred instruments which had been committed to his care.18
IMPRESSIONS AT CUMORAH
LORD LED PROPHET’S FAMILY TO CUMORAH-LAND. As I stood upon these sacred places I had peculiar feelings
which I cannot describe. I always do have such feelings; I have visited the Hill Cumorah and the Sacred Grove on other
occasions. As I stood at the Smith home, I thought of the early struggles of the family, and wondered what means the
Lord might have used to get them to move from Vermont or New Hampshire, if they had not been forced from these
states by poverty. Their poverty was not the result of indolence, as the wicked have proclaimed, but the poverty and
reverses of Providence, sent to give experience and to lead the family to a better land where the Lord could perform his
work through the youthful Seer, yet to be raised up.
When the Smith family arrived in Palmyra they immediately bargained for the purchase of 100 acres of land, This is
known today as the Joseph Smith Farm and is in the possession of the Church. In that day the land was covered with a
heavy growth of timber. This had to be removed before the land could be planted and crops raised to pay for the farm. As
I stood upon this ground, I thought of the struggles this entailed. My grandfather, Hyrum Smith, and his older brother,
Alvin, were called upon to do much of this laborious task. The younger brother, Joseph, was too young at that time to
give much help, being only about 10 years of age. Nevertheless he was called to assist, and a few years later—at the time
of the vision—was under the necessity of performing labor required of a man.
The house which stands upon the farm was built by these sons of Joseph Smith, Senior; but it is not the house, as
many have been told, in which the Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith. The older house has long since disappeared, and stood several rods to the north of the present home. After the proclamation of the Angel’s visit persecution raged,
and the family were not permitted long to enjoy the land which had cost them so much to prepare, because of others, who,
through wickedness, for a season reaped the fruits thereof.
CUMORAH ONCE SITE OF CARNAGE AND DESTRUCTION. As I stood upon the summit of the Hill
Cumorah, in the midst of a vast multitude, only a few of whom belonged to the Church, I tried to picture the scenes of
former days. Here were assembled vast armies filled with bitterness and bent on destruction. I thought of the great
promises the Lord had made through his prophets concerning those who should possess this choice land, and how those
promises were not fulfilled because the people violated his commandments. Here a people perished because of their extreme
wickedness.
There must be something in the destiny of things that would cause a repetition of this terrible scene on the same spot
many centuries later. I reflected and wondered if this unhappy time would ever come when another still mightier people
would incur the wrath of God because of wickedness and likewise perish. If so, would this same spot witness their
destruction? I thought of the prophets, Ether, Mormon, Moroni, and tried to realize the sadness of their feelings as they
witnessed the mad onrushing of their peoples to annihilation.
IMPORTANCE OF CUMORAH UNKNOWN TO WORLD. We sang the song, prepared for this celebration,19
Zion-land, and I entered heartily, sincerely, into the spirit of the song:
God bless our Zion-land,
Firm may she ever stand,
Through storm and night;
When the wild tempests rave,
Ruler of wind and wave,
Do Thou Thy Zion save
By thy great might!
For her our prayers shall rise
To God above the skies,
With Him we stand:
Thou who art ever nigh,
Guarding with watchful eye,
To Thee aloud we cry,
God save Thy land.
Here it was that Moroni, commanded by the Lord, hid up the sacred records of his people. Here it was, 1,400 years
later, that he, then a resurrected being, came to Joseph Smith and committed these same records to the young man’s care.
At the time of the Prophet’s first visit to the hill, it was covered with trees; today (1923) it is stripped and bare, save for
the grass which grows abundantly. This former scene of strife and bloodshed, where two nations perished, later the sacred
repository of ancient records, today is the abode of peaceful cattle, reclining and chewing the cud. The many millions of
inhabitants of the land, who, because they love darkness rather than light, will not believe, and although an angel has
declared it unto them, they appear to have no more thought concerning the wonderful events that have taken place near
and on the Hill Cumorah, than have these cattle.20
The Messenger, July 1960, No. 51.
Bishops
“Attention Called To ‘Book of Mormon’ Maps”
Our attention has been brought in the past few weeks to certain “Book of Mormon Lands” maps which are being offered
to Church leaders and auxiliary workers by a California organization. They are apparently being distributed free of
charge.
We wish to refer bishops to the printed matter at the bottom of the map, which contains an inference that there are two,
rather than one, Hills Cumorah — one in Mexico as well as the one in New York.
The Church has never accepted this contention.
Bishops are requested to make cognizant of this discrepancy those in their wards who might be sending for these maps or
using them for instructional purposes. This concept of two Cumorahs should not be taught as official Church doctrine.
_________________
Mark E. Petersen, “A Work of Conversion,” General Conference address, in Messages of Inspiration (SLC: Deseret Book
Co., 1957), pp. 98-106.
I do not believe that we should give credence to the highly speculative theories about Book of Mormon geography.
I do not believe that there were two Hill Cumorahs, one in Central America and the other one up in New York, for the
convenience of the Prophet Joseph Smith, so that the poor boy would not have to walk clear to Central America to get the
gold plates.
Docs

Faith Precedes the Miracle

Throughout the Church hundreds of thousands of faithful Saints have truly
consecrated their lives and their energies to the work of the Lord, secure in the assurance
that thereby they please him.
It is a disappointment, however, to find many others who are not willing to trust the
Lord—or to trust in his promise when he says, "Prove me and see." I often wonder why
men cannot trust their Lord. He has promised his children every blessing contingent upon
their faithfulness, but fickle man places his trust in "the arm of flesh" and sets about to
make his own way unaided by him who could do so much.
The Lord has challenged us:
. . . prove me . . . if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there
shall not be room enough to receive it. (Malachi 3:10.)
The prophet Moroni stopped abruptly in his abridging to offer his own inspired
comments concerning the matter of faith:
I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute
not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. (Ether 12:6.)
Father Adam understood this basic principle:
. . . an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord?
And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me. (Moses 5:6.)
He showed his unwavering faith—and since the witness and the miracle follow rather
than precede the faith, the angel then sought to enlighten him, saying:
This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father. . . . (Moses 5:7.)
In faith we plant the seed, and soon we see the miracle of the blossoming. Men have
often misunderstood and have reversed the process. They would have the harvest before
the planting, the reward before the service, the miracle before the faith. Even the most
demanding labor unions would hardly ask the wages before the labor. But many of us
would have the vigor without the observance of the health laws, prosperity through the
opened windows of heaven without the payment of our tithes. We would have the close
communion with our Father without fasting and praying; we would have rain in due
season and peace in the land without observing the Sabbath and keeping the other
commandments of the Lord. We would pluck the rose before planting the roots; we would
harvest the grain before sowing and cultivating.
If we could only realize, as Moroni writes:
For if there be no faith among the children of men God can do no miracle among them. . . .
And neither at any time hath any wrought miracles until after their faith; wherefore they first believed in
the Son of God. (Ether 12:12, 18.)
John said:
But though [Jesus] had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him. (John
12:37.)
The Lord made it clear that faith is not developed by miracles.
But, behold, faith cometh not by signs, but signs follow those that believe. (D&C 63:9.)
To the scribes and Pharisees who demanded signs without the preliminary faith and
works the Lord said:
An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. . . . (Matthew 12:39.)
In our own modern times we have eloquent evidence. Sidney Rigdon did not retain
his membership in the kingdom even though he had, with Joseph Smith, witnessed
marvelous signs. Had he not participated in the great vision and had he not been the
recipient of many revelations? And in spite of all these manifestations from our Heavenly
Father, he did not remain in the kingdom.
Oliver Cowdery saw many signs. He handled the sacred plates; saw John the Baptist;
received the higher priesthood from Peter, James, and John; and was the recipient of
many great miracles, and yet they could not hold him to the faith.
Amassed evidence in signs and works and miracles failed to touch the stony hearts of
the Galilean cities:
Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they
repented not:
Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! . . .
And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty
works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
(Matthew 11:20-21, 23.)
Paul, speaking to the Hebrews, said:
By faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the
saving of his house. . . . (Hebrews 11:7.)
As yet there was no evidence of rain and flood. His people mocked and called him a
fool. His preaching fell on deaf ears. His warnings were considered irrational. There was
no precedent; never had it been known that a deluge could cover the earth. How foolish
to build an ark on dry ground with the sun shining and life moving forward as usual! But
time ran out. The ark was finished. The floods came. The disobedient and rebellious were
drowned. The miracle of the ark followed the faith manifested in its building.
Paul said again:
Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when
she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in
multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. (Hebrews 11:11-12.)
So absurd it was to be told that children could be born of centenarians that even Sarah
doubted at first. But the faith of a noble pair prevailed, and the miracle son was born to
father multitudes of nations.
Exceeding faith was shown by Abraham when the superhuman test was applied to
him. His young "child of promise" must now be offered upon the sacrificial altar. It was
God's command, but it seemed so contradictory! How could his son, Isaac, be the father
of an uncountable posterity if in his youth his mortal life was to be terminated? Why
should he, Abraham, be called upon to do this revolting deed? It was irreconcilable,
impossible! And yet he believed God. His undaunted faith carried him with breaking
heart toward Mount Moriah with this young son who little suspected the agonies through
which his father must have been passing. Saddled asses took the party and supplies. The
father and the son, carrying the fire and the wood, mounted to the plate of sacrifice.
"Behold the fire and the wood," said Isaac, "but where is the lamb for a burnt
offering?" What a heavy heart and sad voice it must have been which replied: "My son,
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. . . ." (Genesis 22:7-8.)
The place was reached, the altar built, the fire kindled, and the lad, now surely
knowing, but trusting and believing, was upon the altar. The father's raised hand was
stopped in mid-air by a commanding voice:
Lay not thine hand upon the lad. . . . now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld
thy son, thine only son from me. (Genesis 22:12.)
And as the near perfect prophet found the ram in the thicket and offered it upon the
altar, he heard the voice of God again speaking:
And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.
(Genesis 22:18.)
This great and noble Abraham—
Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the Father of many nations. . . .
And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred
years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb:
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform. (Romans 4:18-21.)
Father Abraham and Mother Sarah knew—knew the promise would be fulfilled.
How? They did not know and did not demand to know. Isaac positively would live to be
the father of a numerous posterity. They knew he would, even though he might need to
die. They knew he could still be raised from the dead to fulfill the promise, and faith here
preceded the miracle.
Paul again said to the Hebrews:
By faith they [the children of Israel] passed through the Red sea as by dry land. . . . (Hebrews 11:29.)
The Israelites knew, as did Pharaoh and his hosts, that "they are entangled in the land,
the wilderness hath shut them in." (Exodus 14:3.)
And as Pharaoh's trained army approached with all the horses and chariots of Egypt,
the escaping multitudes knew full well that they were hemmed in by the marshes, the
deserts, and the sea. There was no earthly chance for them to escape the wrath of their
pursuers. And in their terror they indicted Moses:
Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? . . .
. . . it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness. (Exodus
14:11-12.)
No hope on earth for their liberation! What could save them now? The gloating armed
forces of Egypt knew that Israel was trapped. Israel knew it only too well. But Moses,
their inspired leader with supreme faith, knew that God would not have called them on
this exodus only to have them destroyed. He knew God would provide the escape. He
may not at this moment have known just how, but he trusted.
Moses commanded his people:
Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the
Egyptians whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more for ever.
The Lord shall fight for you. . . . (Exodus 14:13-14.)
The mighty warriors pressed on. Hope must have long since died in the breasts of the
timid Israelites who knew not faith. Deserts and wilderness and the sea—the uncrossable
sea! No boats, no rafts, no bridges, nor time to construct them! Hopelessness, fear,
despair must have gripped their hearts.
And then the miracle came. It was born of the faith of their indomitable leader. A
cloud hid them from the view of their enemies. A strong east wind blew all the night; the
waters were parted; the bed of the sea was dry; and Israel crossed to another world and
saw the returning sea envelop and destroy their pursuers. Israel was safe. Faith had been
rewarded, and Moses was vindicated. The impossible had happened. An almost superhuman
faith had given birth to an unaccountable and mysterious miracle that was to be
the theme of the sermons and warnings of Israel and their prophets for centuries.
Israel was later ready to cross into the Promised Land, the productivity and beauty of
which could probably be seen from the higher hills. But how to get there? There were no
bridges nor ferries across the flooding Jordan. A great prophet, Joshua, received the mind
of the Lord and commanded, and another miracle was born of faith.
. . . and [as] the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water. . . .
. . . the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap . . . and those that came
down . . . failed, and were cut off: . . .
. . . and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.
(Joshua 3:15-17.)
. . . the soles of the priests' feet were lifted up unto the dry land, that the waters of Jordan returned unto
their place, and flowed over all his banks, as they did before. (Joshua 4:18.)
The elements find control through faith. The wind, the clouds, the heavens obey the
voice of faith. It was by and through the faith of Elijah that the drouth which devastated
Israel, prolonged for three interminable years, was finally ended when repentance had
come to Israel.
. . . Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were
before him. (1 Kings 16:33.)
And Elijah the prophet declared:
. . . there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. (1 Kings 17:1.)
The brooks dried up; rivers ceased to run; forage was scarce; famine was upon the
land; and a king and his people were begging for relief—a people who had lost
themselves in the worship of Baal. At Mount Carmel came the contest of power. At
Elijah's command, fire came down from heaven and ignited the sacrifice and shocked the
Baal worshipers once more into repentant submission.
Miracle followed faith again, and though the heavens were still clear and there was no
indication of rain on the parched land, the prophet warned King Ahab:
. . . Prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not. (1 Kings 18:44.)
With his face between his knees, as he sat on Carmel, Elijah sent his servant seven
times to look toward the sea. Six times there were cloudless skies and calm sea, but on
the seventh he reported: "Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's
hand. . . ." (1 Kings 18:44.)
Soon the heavens were black with clouds, and the wind was carrying them to
Palestine, and "there was a great rain" and a dry, parched land was drenched in moisture,
and the miracle of faith had again made good the promises of the Lord.
It was by the supreme faith of the three Hebrews that they were delivered from the
fiery furnace of their king, Nebuchadnezzar. And the king asked:
Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, true,
O king.
He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt;
and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
. . . these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither
were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them. (Daniel 3:24-26, 27.)
Now, if you would discount these miracles of the Old Testament, how can you accept
the New Testament? You would also have difficulty in accepting Paul and his associate
apostles, and the Lord Jesus Christ, for they have verified and documented those
miraculous events.
How can these stories of faith be brought into our own lives? Faith is needed as much
as ever before. Little can we see. We know not what the morrow will bring. Accidents,
sickness, even death seem to hover over us continually. Little do we know when they
might strike.
It takes faith—unseeing faith—for young people to proceed immediately with their
family responsibilities in the face of financial uncertainties. It takes faith for the young
woman to bear her family instead of accepting employment, especially when schooling
for the young husband is to be finished. It takes faith to observe the Sabbath when "time
and a half" can be had working, when profit can be made, when merchandise can be sold.
It takes a great faith to pay tithes when funds are scarce and demands are great. It takes
faith to fast and have family prayers and to observe the Word of Wisdom. It takes faith to
do home teaching, stake missionary work, and other service, when sacrifice is required. It
takes faith to fill full-time missions. But know this—that all these are of the planting,
while faithful, devout families, spiritual security, peace, and eternal life are the harvest.
Remember that Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and others could not see clearly the end
from the beginning. They also walked by faith and without sight.
Remember again that no gates were open; Laban was not drunk; and no earthly hope
was justified at the moment Nephi exercised his faith and set out finally to get the plates.
Remember that there were no clouds in the sky nor any hygrometer in his hand when
Elijah promised an immediate break in the long extended drouth. Though Joshua may
have witnessed the miracle of the Red Sea, yet he could not by mortal means perceive
that the flooding Jordan would back up for the exact time needed for the crossing, and
then flow again on its way to the Dead Sea.
Remember that there were no clouds in the sky, no evidence of rain, and no precedent
for the deluge when Noah builded the ark according to commandment. There was no ram
in the thicket when Isaac and his father left for Moriah for the sacrifice. Remember there
were no towns and cities, no farms and gardens, no homes and storehouses, no
blossoming desert in Utah when the persecuted pioneers crossed the plains.
And remember that there were no heavenly beings in Palmyra, on the Susquehanna;
or on Cumorah when the soul-hungry Joseph slipped quietly into the grove, knelt in
prayer on the river bank, and climbed the slopes of the sacred hill.
But know this, that just as undaunted faith has stopped the mouths of lions, made
ineffective fiery flames, opened dry corridors through rivers and seas, protected against
deluge and drouth, and brought heavenly manifestations at the instance of prophets, so in
each of our lives faith can heal the sick, bring comfort to those who mourn, strengthen
resolve against temptation, relieve from the bondage of harmful habits, lend the strength
to repent and change our lives, and lead to a sure knowledge of the divinity of Jesus
Christ. Indomitable faith can help us live the commandments with a willing heart and
thereby bring blessings unnumbered, with peace, perfection, and exaltation in the
kingdom of God.

THE Glory of God is Intelligence

Contents
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction xvii
1
"The Glory of God Is Intelligence"
A Theology of Torah-learning in Judaism
Page 1
2..
Cultic Piety and Pharisaism Before 70
Page 13
3
From Cultic Piety to Torah-Piety After 70
Page 29
4
The Mishnah As a Focus of Torah-Piety
Page 41
Jacob Neusner 57
General Index 63
Biblical and Talmudic Index 67

Preface
The invitation to return to Brigham Young University and to
present a series of four lectures was particularly welcome to me. For
Brigham Young University provides a unique forum for scholars of
religions, consisting, as it does, of faculty and students who take
seriously the claims of one religion, and who also preserve the
commitment to intellect and critical thought which make possible
scholarship on all religions. I was glad to accept the invitation of our
former student at Brown University, Professor S. Kent Brown, who
teaches ancient scriptures at Brigham Young University, further to
prepare lectures which might be published as a reasonably coherent
statement on a topic of common interest.
For that purpose I present four lectures on a theme of importance
to my Mormon hosts and to my topic of specialization,
Judaism. Intellectuals of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, my hosts, face the question of how through the use of their
minds in essentially academic and intellectual pursuits they may
understand themselves to be servants of God. The thought of
Judaism on the centrality of learning — learning in Torah, revelation
— in the service of God — seems to me a particularly relevant
xi
Preface
and appropriate topic. As indicated, it also permits me to draw
together some diverse, and now completed, researches of mine, so
that I may see how the results of various projects relate to a single
problem. For this purpose I draw heavily upon available writings,
reorganizing and extensively revising them for the present purpose,
which is, in sequence, theological, historical, and literary in focus.
The theme of these lectures, then, is the distinctive conception
of Judaism that we serve God through the use of our minds. The
mythic expression of that conception, contained in the words
Talmud Torah, study of divine revelation, of course makes the idea
rather particular to Judaism. My effort here is to spell out the
theological, historical, and literary traits of the ideal of Talmud Torah
as the very center and heart of Judaism. I address myself, therefore,
not to the generalized philosophical notion that intellect and worship
go hand in hand. Rather, I turn to the concrete and specific one
that Talmud Torah outweighs all other religious and moral obligations,
that the central symbol of Judaism is the scroll of the Torah,
that the heart of the liturgy of Judaism is the hearing of the Torah
read in the synagogue, and that the principal religious action called
for by Judaism is to learn Torah.
I propose to explain three things, first, the theological meaning
of Talmud Torah, second, the point in the history of Judaism that
Talmud Torah enters the center of Judaic life, and, third, the particular
document which, in addition to the Pentateuch, the written
Torah received by Moses at Mount Sinai, is deemed by Judaism to
constitute Torah, requiring study, interpretation, and concrete
exegesis in every aspect of the good life. In so doing, I propose to
draw together a number of lines of reflection and research into what
I hope is a coherent account of what I conceive to form the heart and
soul of Judaism.
I appreciate my hosts' invitation to make these lectures available
for publication. While speaking from a written manuscript, rather
than an outline, requires considerably greater preparation, the possibility
of sharing these papers with a wider audience provides ample
compensation. I have tried to produce lectures worthy of both the
excellence of their audiences in Provo and the interest and attention
of those elsewhere who may read them.
Xll
Preface
Documentation for these lectures will be found as follows: Lecture
One, Invitation to the Talmud; Lecture Two, The Rabbinic Traditions
about the Pharisees before 70; Lecture Three, Eliezer ben Hyrcanus:
The Tradition and the Man and A Life of Yohanan ben Zakkai, and
Development of a Legend: Studies on the Traditions Concerning Yohanan
ben Zakkai; Lecture Four, A History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities.
XXI, The Redaction and Formulation of the Order of Purities in Mishnah
and Tosefta and XXII, The Mishnaic System of Uncleanness: Its Context
and History.
J.N.
Provo, Utah
June 10, 1977
Sivan 22, 5737
xiii

Acknowledgments
My colleague, Professor Richard S. Sarason, Brown University,
kindly read these lectures at several stages in their formation and
offered important criticisms.
I express my thanks for the exceptionally cordial hospitality
accorded to my wife and children and to me by our hosts in Provo.
My several trips to the West in general, and to Utah in particular,
have always been happy experiences, because they provide an encounter
with people of unusual human depth and resonance and an
opportunity to learn from the spiritual understanding of thoughtful
and serious friends. My LDS hosts in Provo opened their hearts to
me, expressed their inner convictions and concerns, and opened
their minds and hearts to what I had to say as well. Israel speaks to
Israel, gentile to gentile, in a perfect confusion of roles: Provo to me
is not alien.
The work is dedicated to a former student, now himself settled
out West, who as both an educator and a scholar explores important
aspects of the ideal of Talmud Torah in Judaism.
XV

Introduction
When, on October 5, 1976, at the request of BYU's Forum
Committee I wrote to Professor Jacob Neusner to invite him to
deliver an address at a Forum Assembly of the student body, neither
he nor I could have guessed that our correspondence during the
next few months would lead to these four lectures. The overall
concept of the lectures came to him, as he typifies such strokes of
insight in his first lecture, in a "moment of inexplicable understanding
. . . in which all things fall together into a whole,... a
moment of revelation" as it were. During the first four months of
1977, the correspondence between Dr. Neusner and myself consisted
largely of suggestions and counter-suggestions regarding
topics and titles not only for the Forum lecture but also for three
additional presentations which he had graciously consented to prepare.
We were then contemplating four lectures somewhat divergent
in focus and content. Then on May 3, Professor Neusner
telephoned me to say that, inspired by the phrase "The glory of God
is intelligence," which appears as part of the logo on the University's
stationery, he had decided to offer a summary of almost a decade of
xvn
Introduction
study in four interrelated lectures on Judaism's most distinctive
aspect: learning as devotion to God.
In taking up the dictum "The glory of God is intelligence,"
Professor Neusner has brought into sharp focus the paramount
feature of the transcendence of God. The phrase, of course, derives
from Mormon scripture: "The glory of God is intelligence, or, in
other words, light and truth." (Doctrine and Covenants 93:36.) The
holy books of the Latter-day Saints are replete with the notion that
intelligence and knowledge constitute essential ingredients in the
eternal scheme of man's existence and progression. A few examples
will illustrate this point. In the Doctrine and Covenants the idea of
salvation is linked directly with the dispelling of ignorance: "It is
impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance" (131:5). Further, in
section 130 of the same book we read: "Whatever principle of
intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the
resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence
in this life through his diligence and obedience than
another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come."
(D&C 130:18-19.) One explicit directive, among others, to acquire
intelligence is found in section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants:
"Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even
by study and also by faith" (88:118). Mormons, then, possess a
theology which includes, nay, embraces the concept that the processes
of salvation, the steps to sanctification, are profoundly and
inseparably connected with the acquisition of knowledge and intelligence,
a result being that one is enabled to "comprehend even
God." (D&C 88:49.)
Almost at the dawn of the existence of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints stood the School of the Prophets, organized
by Joseph Smith in December 1832, as the educational arm
of the priesthood. The school was designed to instruct the brethren
regarding "things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the
earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must
shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are
abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments
which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and
of kingdoms." (D&C 88:79.) This concept of learning, even comxvm
Introduction
mandment to study, underscores the idea that for Latter-day Saints,
too, learning may be thought of as an act of devotion to God, an
action which possesses transcendent meaning. This notion as it
appears in Judaism forms the major focus of Professor Neusner's
Forum address, the first of the four lectures.
The next three lectures report the origin and development of
the ideal of Torah-learning in Judaism, the careful study and
scrutiny of what God revealed in the law in order that it might be
practically applied in the everyday living of Jews. Pivotal in the
development of this ideal are the events of A.D. 70, the year that saw
the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of its temple at the hands of
the Romans and their general, Titus. More than anything else, these
catastrophic events laid on Jews the onus of restructuring their lives
in the absence of the temple which was both central to and imparted
meaning to life for Israelites. The two groups that survived the fall
of Jerusalem and that achieved varied success in giving order to the
lives of their adherents after the temple's loss were Christians and
Pharisees. It is to the latter that Professor Neusner draws our attention
in these lectures.
It has been concluded almost universally by scholars of Judaism
of late antiquity that pre-70 Pharisaism had already developed the
ideal of a piety manifested in studying Torah, God's law, oral or
written. It is this conclusion that Dr. Neusner questions in Lecture
Two. There exists no evidence, he observes, for this notion in the
sources, which include the New Testament books, the writings of the
Jewish historian Josephus, and the Mishnah and Tosefta, both redacted
about A.D. 200. In fact, after one lays aside the biases in the
sources towards the Pharisees, pro and con, one discovers that
Pharisees were determined to follow a course in life that sought to
imitate the ritual purity practiced by the priests of the temple. The
religious inclinations of the Pharisees, then, were inspired by the
centrality of temple worship, as were most Jews, except with more
intensity, especially on issues that involved ritual cleanness in eating
and tithes on foods. Consequently, the idea that Pharisaic religiosity
before 70 was deeply rooted in an intense study and systematic
interpretation and application of the law cannot be sustained.
Such a phenomenon appears only in the aftermath of the war
xix
Introduction
against Rome when, in the wake of the loss of the temple and its sinofferings
and the corresponding ruin of the ideal of the temple's
purity being replicated in each home in Jerusalem, the Pharisees
restructured Jewish life by teaching that ritual offerings of the cult
could be replaced by acts of loving-kindness, the temple's purity by
cleanness in every Jew's workaday life, and, most important, worship
of God through sacrificing by study of Torah. This new synthesis,
in which stress fell on the study of Torah as the vehicle of
devotion and rabbi took the place of priest, became known as Rabbinic
Judaism. Tracing this development forms the core of Lecture
Three.
In Lecture Four, Dr. Neusner makes plain the remarkable
qualities of the Mishnah, that summary of legal commentary on
scripture which arose from the synthesizing work of the rabbis and
scribes who worked at the small academy at Yavneh during the
decades immediately before and after the second disastrous revolt
by Jews against Rome led by Simeon bar Kokhba beginning in A.D.
132. What is to be underscored, argues Professor Neusner, is the
open-ended, timeless, continually contemporaneous character of
the Mishnah which emerges from the warp and woof of its language,
its repetitive structure, grammar, and syntax. The recurrent structures
of Mishnah's language serve not only to replace the regular
and recurring symbolic acts of the now lost ritual of the fallen temple
but also to communicate order, meaning, and transcendent value to
the incidents of everyday living. In achieving this form of communication
through repetitive, holy language, the rabbis broke with the
past since they chose not to encapsulate their insights within books
which they then attributed to Adam or to Moses, such as done by
pseudepigraphists, nor did they cast their ideas into the linguistic
patterns of ancient texts, such as done by the sectarians of Qumran.
Instead, the language of the Mishnah, each time it was approached,
led its readers to fresh perspectives on one's relationship to God.
The basic vehicle to these fresh insights is the mind, the seat of
intelligence. Such is the nature of the Mishnah.
The illumining contribution made in these lectures towards
understanding the development and essential character of Judaism
is obvious to any reader. Professor Neusner has won our warm
xx
Introduction
appreciation for accepting the invitation to return to Brigham
Young University. And we express our deeply felt thanks to him for
making these significant lectures available for publication.
S. KENT BROWN
Provo, Utah
June 10, 1977
xxi

1
"The Glory of God
Is Intelligence"
A Theology of
Torah-learning in Judaism
• • hat one person means by the
religious, another understands as secular. To us Jews and to you
Mormons, food-taboos express an aspect of the religious life. To
others they do not. Religious folk may learn from one another—
which is our task this day—when we illuminate those religious convictions
and concerns which we share. One such trait, shared by the
Jewish religion and the religion of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, is the conviction that religion thrives through the
use of the mind and intellect. Skepticism and critical thinking are
friends, not enemies, of religion. That is why intellectuals of the
Mormon faith will grasp the conviction, expressed in the particular
language of Judaism, that Talmud Torah—study of divine revelation—
outweighs all else, that the human being was made to study
Torah, and many other sayings which express the same idea. In this
lecture I want to offer a theology of learning in Judaism which may
supply a fresh perspective on why learning may be deemed by
Mormons to be not merely a useful, secular value, but an act of
religion and of sanctification.
Brigham Young University came into being, as you all know,
1
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
when, in 1876, Brigham Young, President of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, gave Karl Maeser the following commission:
"You are to go to Provo, Brother Maeser. I want you to
organize and conduct an academy to be established in the name of
the Church—a Church School." And he added: "I want you to
remember that you ought not to teach even the alphabet or the
multiplication tables without the Spirit of God." No informed Jew
can find alien or strange such an ideal, an ideal expressed in the
motto of this university, "The Glory of God Is Intelligence." For the
most distinctive and paramount trait of Judaism as it has been
known for the past two thousand years is the conviction that the
primary mode of the service of God (not the sole mode, but the
paramount one) is the study of Torah. Torah is revelation. Torah,
by its content and its nature, encompasses all of God-given knowledge.
Torah must then include, in the words of Brigham Young,
even the alphabet and even the multiplication tables. (We have in
Judaism, indeed in theologies based upon revelations developed
through studies of the letters of the alphabet and of numbers, the
foundations of all learning. So the correspondence is not merely
rhetorical or metaphorical.)
II
Religions say the same thing in different ways. Let us ask, when
Judaism states, "The study of Torah—revelation—outweighs all
else," and when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
says, "The glory of God is intelligence," what is it that the two affirm
about the nature of the human being and of God? The answer
begins in the scripture, Let us make man in our likeness. Judaism
maintains that that part of man which is like God is not the corporeal,
but the spiritual, aspect of man. Man is made in God's image.
And that part of man which is like God is the thing which separates
man from beast: the mind, consciousness. When man uses his mind,
he is acting like God. So all things begin in consciousness and
self-consciousness.
Judaism's conception of man is this: We think, therefore, we
and what we do are worth taking seriously. We respond to reason
and subject ourselves to discipline founded upon criticism. Our
response consists in self-consciousness about all we do, think, and
2
A Theology of Torah-learning in Judaism
say. To be sure, man is dual. We are twin-things, ready to do evil and
ready to do good. As the talmudic warning about not interrupting
one's study even to admire a tree—that is, nature—makes clear, man
cannot afford even for one instant to break off from consciousness,
to open ourselves to what appears then to be "natural"; to be mindless
is to lose touch with revealed order and revealed law, the luminous
disciplines of the sacred. It follows from this viewpoint that,
when we use our minds, we not only serve God, we also act like God.
The imitation of God through the use of the intellect, as much as
through service to God's people, or through ethical behavior, or
even acceptance of suffering, is hardly a common perspective in the
world of religions. Yet, I think it is clear, God gives us our minds, and
that which God gives us which is distinctive to us is what in us is like
God.
It should be remembered that these rather general observations
will be given much specificity when we consider, in the fourth
lecture, precisely what we mean by using our minds, that is, what the
Jew does when he or she "studies Torah"—the document one
studies, the way in which one does the work. At this point, however,
the theological results are given, and only later, the concrete historical
and literary foundations thereof.
I ll
There are two further sides to the matter. First, we must ask
ourselves, How can we understand the notion that when we use our
minds, we imitate God? How, in Mormon words, can we maintain,
"The glory of God is intelligence"? To phrase the question in the
terms of Judaism, let me report that "study of Torah"—the Judaic
equivalent to "intelligence" of LDS language—involves highly critical
attitudes and modes of thought. Specifically, there are four ways
in which any proposition, of faith or of law, will be analyzed in the
pages of the Talmud, which, alongside the scriptures, is one of the
principal sacred books of Judaism. These four ways are (1) abstract,
rational criticism of each tradition in sequence; (2) historical criticism
of sources and their relationships; (3) philological and literary
criticism of the meanings of words and phrases; and (4) practical
criticism of what people actually do in order to carry out their
religious obligations. It goes without saying that these four modes of
3
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
criticism are entirely contemporary. Careful, skeptical examination
of answers posed to problems is utterly commonplace to modern
men and women. Historical criticism of sources, which does not
gullibly accept whatever is alleged as fact, is the beginning of historical
study. Philological study of the origins and meanings of words,
literary criticism of the style of expression—these are familiar. Finally,
we take for granted that it is normal to examine people's
actions against some large principle of behavior. These are traits of
inquiry which are both Judaic and routinely modern. That is why we
can understand Talmud Torah as an accessible human experience,
relate to the idea, and find its theology relevant to our own situation,
even though it is not that of classical Judaism. Modern men and
women use their minds in those ways in which Judaic men and
women who study Torah use theirs. But the latter deem that use of
mind to constitute an act of liturgy—work in the name and for the
sake of God.
What makes these ways of thinking different from modern
modes of thought, then, is the remarkable claim that, in the give and
take of argument, in the processes of criticism, we do something
transcendent, more than this-worldly. I cannot overemphasize how
remarkable is the combination of rational criticism and the supernatural
value attached to that criticism. We simply cannot understand
Judaism without confronting the other-worldly context in
which this so completely secular mode of thinking goes forward.
The claim is that, in seeking reason and order, we serve God.
But what are we to make of that claim? Does lucid thinking
bring heavenly illumination? Perhaps the best answer may be sought
in our own experience. Whence comes insight? Having put everything
together in a logical and orderly way, we sometimes find
ourselves immobilized. We know something, but we do not know
what it means, what it suggests beyond itself. But then sometimes
we catch an unexpected insight. We come in some mysterious way to a
comprehension of a whole which exceeds the sum of its parts. And
we cannot explain how we have seen what, in a single instant, stuns
us by its ineluctable Tightness, fittingness—by the unearned insight,
the inexplicable understanding. For the rabbis of Judaism, that
stunning moment of rational insight comes with siyyata dishamaya,
the help of heaven. The charisma imparted by the rabbinic imagina-
4
A Theology of Torah-learning in Judaism
tion to the brilliant man is not different in substance from the moral
authority and spiritual dignity imparted by contemporary intellectuals
to the great minds of the age. The profound honor to be
paid to the intellectual paragons—the explorers of the unknown,
the men and women with courage to doubt the accepted truths of
the hour—is not much different from the deference shown by the
disciple to the rabbi. So the religious experience of the rabbi and the
secular experience of the intellectual differ not in external character.
They gravely differ in the ways by which we explain and account
for that experience.
It follows that the religious intellectual, Mormon or Jewish,
pursues the disciplines of the intellect in the same skeptical and
critical spirit as does the non-religious intellectual. But the religious
intellectual understands that, when there is insight, when the parts
add up to more than the sum of the whole, then our minds have
achieved that which is transcendent. The moment of inexplicable
understanding, of rational insight, in which things fall together into
a whole, to us is a moment of revelation. And, we believe, it is God
who reveals insight and truth: "The glory of God is intelligence."
IV
Once we confront the notion that, when we use our minds, we
enter the world of transcendence, we then have to ask, What is at the
center of the intellectual task? To answer this question, we turn back
to the words of Brigham Young to Brother Maeser: "I want you to
remember that you ought not to teach even the alphabet or the
multiplication tables without the Spirit of God." Judaism, for its
part, maintains that—for a reason I shall explain—the study of
Torah encompasses each and every aspect of life. It will follow that
one cannot study the alphabet or the multiplication tables without
learning something about the world which is the Lord's. The ultimate
task of study of Torah is not solely ethical. It is holiness. To be
sure, one must do the good, but Torah encompasses more than
ethical behavior. The good is more than the moral; it is also the
well-regulated conduct of matters to which morality is impertinent.
The whole man, private and public, is to be disciplined. For no limits
are set to the methods of exploring reason and searching for order.
Social order with its concomitant ethical concern is no more im-
5
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
portant than the psychic order of the individual, with its full articulation
in the "ritual" life. All reality comes under the discipline of the
critical intellect; all is capable of sanctification.
This brings me to the issue I alluded to a moment ago. Why is it
that, for Judaism, the study of Torah encompasses each and every
aspect of life? Or why is it that the whole of a university faculty, in all
areas and subjects, may be deemed at Brigham Young University to
participate in the study of revelation? Let me begin by speaking of
the Judaic tradition alone, then generalize the frame of reference.
The single-minded pursuit of unifying truths about all reality constitutes
the primary intellectual discipline of Judaism. But the discipline
does not derive from the secular and inductive perception of
unifying order in the natural world. Order comes, rather, from the
lessons imparted supernaturally by revelation, that is, in the Torah.
The sages perceive the Torah not as a melange of sources and laws
of different origins, but as a single, unitary document, a corpus of
laws reflective of an underlying ordered will. The Torah reveals the
way things are meant to be, just as the rabbis' formulation and
presentation of their laws tell how things are meant to be, whether or
not that is how they actually are done. Order derives from the plan
and will of the Creator of the world, the foundation of all reality.
The Torah is interpreted by the talmudic rabbis to be the architect's
design for reality: God looked into the Torah and created the world,
just as an architect follows his prior design in raising a building. A
single, whole Torah underlies the one, seamless reality of the world.
The search for the unities hidden by the pluralities of the trivial
world, the supposition that some one thing is revealed by many
things—these represent, in intellectual form, the theological and
metaphysical conception of a single, unique God, creator of heaven
and earth, revealer of one complete Torah, guarantor of the unity
and ultimate meaning of all the human actions and events that
constitute history. On that account the Talmud links the private
deeds of man to a larger pattern, provides a large and general
"meaning" for small, particular, trivial doings.
Behind this conception of the unifying role of reason and the
integrating force of criticism lies the conviction that God supplies
the model for man's mind, therefore man, through reasoning in the
Torah's laws, may penetrate into God's intent and plan. The rabbis
6
A Theology of Torah-learning in Judaism
of the Talmud believe they study Torah as God does in heaven; their
schools—they maintain—are conducted like the academy on high.
They perform rites just as God performs rites, wearing fringes as
does he, putting on phylacteries just as God puts on phylacteries. In
studying Torah they beseech the heavenly paradigm revealed by
God "in his image," handed down from Moses and the prophets to
their own teachers.
If the rabbis of the Talmud study and realize the divine teachings
of Moses, whom they call "our rabbi," it is because the order
they impose upon earthly affairs replicates on earth the order they
perceive from heaven, the rational reconstruction of reality. It is
Torah which reveals the mind of God, the principles by which he
shaped reality. So studying Torah is not merely imitating God, who
does the same, but is a way to the apprehension of God and the
attainment of the sacred. The modes of argument are holy because
they lead from earth to heaven, as prayer or fasting or self-denial
cannot. Reason is the way, God's way. The holy man is therefore he
who is able to think clearly and penetrate profoundly into that
reality corresponding to the mysteries of the Torah. And, as I have
pointed out, since revelation concerns the creation of the world and
tells us its purpose and meaning, whatever intellectual efforts uncover
the character of creation and bring us closer to the Creator
and ourselves constitute a vehicle of revelation.
V
It follows that the belief that one God made the world lays
before the Jewish religious intellectual the work of discovering the
order of the well-ordered existence and well-correlated relationships.
The prevalent attitude of Talmud Torah is perfect seriousness
(not specious solemnity) about life, man's intentions, and his
actions. The presupposition of the Judaic approach to life is that
order is better than chaos, reflection than whim, decision than
accident, and rationality than witlessness and force. The only admissible
force is the power of logic, refined against the gross matter of
daily living. The sole purpose is so to construct the discipline of
everyday life and to pattern the relationships among men that all
things are intelligible, well-regulated, trustworthy—and thereby
sanctified. Judaism stands for the subjection of life to rational study.
7
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
For nothing is so trivial as to be unrelated to some conceptual,
abstract principle. All things are subject to critical analysis. But the
mode of inquiry is not man's alone. As I said, man is made in God's
image. And that part of man which is like God is not corporeal. It is
the thing which separates man from beast: the mind, consciousness.
When man uses his mind, he is acting like God. That surely is a
conviction uncharacteristic of modern intellectuals. Yet it is at the
heart of Judaic intellectuality.
This brings me to yet another dictum on the religious value of
education, Brigham Young's saying, "Education is the power to
think clearly, the power to act well in the world's work, and the
power to appreciate life." I think the power to think clearly is best
expressed, in Judaic modes of thought, through the perpetual skepticism
which is characteristic of Talmudic modes of argument. This
is expressed in response to every declarative sentence or affirmative
statement. Once one states that matters are so, it is inevitable that he
will find as a response: "Why do you think so?" or "Perhaps things
are the opposite of what you say?" or "How can you say so when a
contrary principle may be adduced?" Articulation, forthrightness,
subtle reasoning but lucid expression, skepticism—these are the
traits of intellectuals, not of untrained and undeveloped minds, nor
of neat scholars, capable only to serve as curators of the past, but not
as critics of the present.
Above all, Judaic thinking at its best rejects gullibility and credulity.
It is, indeed, peculiarly modern in its systematic skepticism,
its testing of each proposition, not to destroy but to refine what
people suppose to be so. The Talmud's first question, for example, is
not "Who says so?" but "Why?" "What is the reason?" Faith is
restricted to ultimate matters, to the fundamental principles of
reality beyond which one may not penetrate. But humility in the face
of ultimate questions is not confused with servility before the assertions,
the truth-claims, of authorities, ancient or modern, who are no
more than mortal.
The way to deeper perception lies in skepticism about shallow
assertion. One must place as small a stake as possible in the acceptance
of specific allegations. The fewer vested convictions, the
greater the chances for wide-ranging inquiry. But while modern
skepticism may yield—at least in the eye of its critics—corrosive and
8
A Theology of Torah-learning in Judaism
negative results, in the Talmud, skepticism produces measured
restraint and limited insight. The difference must be in the openendedness
of the Talmudic inquiry: nothing is ever left as a final
answer, a completed solution. The fruit of insight is inquiry; the
result of inquiry is insight, in endless progression. The only road
closed is the road back, to the unarticulated, the unconscious, and
the unself-conscious. For once consciousness is achieved, a reason
spelled out, one cannot again pretend there is no reason, and nothing
has been articulated. For the Talmud the alternatives are not
faith or nihilism, but reflection or dumb reflex, consciousness or
animal instinct. Man, in God's image, has the capacity to reflect and
to criticize. All an animal can do is act and respond.
That is why energy, the will to act, has to be channeled and
controlled by intellect: You are what you do. Therefore, deed without
deliberation is not to be taken seriously. Examination of deeds takes
priority over mere repetition of what works or what feels good. For
this purpose, genius is insufficient; cleverness is irrelevant. What is
preferred is systematic and orderly consideration, step by step, of
the principles by which one acts. The human problem in the Judaic
conception is not finding the motive force to do, but discovering the
restraint to regulate that protean force. In the quest for restraint
and self-control, the primal energies will insure one is not bored or
lacking in purpose. For the Judaic mode of thought perceives a
perpetual tension between energy and activity, on the one side, and
reflection on the other. To act without thought comes naturally, is
contrary, therefore, to the fact of revealed discipline. The drama of
the private life consists in the struggle between will and intellect,
action and reflection. If Judaism is on the side of the intellect and
reflection, it is because the will and action require no allies. The
outcome will be determined, ultimately, by force of character and
intellect, these together. And the moot issue is not how to repress,
but how to reshape the primal energy.
VI
If then I have to summarize the purpose of the intellectual life
in Judaism, it is that use of mind is the search for what is sacred. The
Talmud, for its part, endures as a monument to intellectualism
focused upon the application of practical rationality to society. It
9
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
pays tribute, on every page, to the human potential to think morally,
yet without lachrymose sentimentality, to reflect about fundamentals
and basic principles, yet for concrete purposes and with ordinary
society in mind. The good, well-regulated society will nurture
disciplined, strong character. The mighty man—"one who overcomes
his impulses"—will stand as a pillar of the good society. This is
what I understand as the result of the intellectual activity of the
moral intellect. Reason, criticism, restraint and rational exchange of
ideas—these are the things Judaism requires of the mind.
Now for contemporary man Judaism presents formidable criticism,
for by it the value, "follow your own impulse"—utter subjectivism
in all things—is rejected. Judaism gives contrary advice.
"Tame your impulse," regulate, restrain, control energies through
the self-imposition of the restraining rule of law. At the same time,
Judaism demands that a person not do "his own thing" alone, but
persuade others to make what is his own into what is to be shared by
all. Judaism therefore subjects the individual to restraints on his
pure individuality, while opening for individuality the possibility of
moral suasion of the community at large. "Unrestrained" and "individualism"
therefore are set over against "regulated" and "rationality."
For it is rationality which overcomes the isolation of the
individual, connecting one mind to another through the mediating
way of reason. Through the imposition of rational, freely adopted
rules, one restrains those destructive elements of the personality
which are potentially damaging for both the individual and the
community.
What makes this theory of the intellect as an instrument of
sanctification relevant to modern men and women is a trait of mind
of contemporary people, which is, as I said, their pragmatism and
willingness to cope with details and to take seriously the trivialities of
ordinary life. Because of this very secularity, the seriousness about
worldly things characteristic of our own day, we are able to understand
the importance of Judaism's lessons about the criticism and
regulation of worldly things. What shall we say of a tradition of
thought that lays greatest emphasis upon deed, upon a pattern of
actions and a way of living, but that is pragmatic? What shall we say
of a perspective upon the world that focuses on practical reason, but
that is worldly? What shall we conclude of a religious language that
calls honesty or charity a qiddush hashem, a sanctification of God's
10
A Theology of Torah-learning in Judaism
name, but that is deeply secular? A legal system whose deepest
concerns are for the detailed articulation of the this-worldly meaning
of love for one's fellow human beings here and now is one which
long ago brought the Jews into the pragmatic, this-worldly
framework of modernity. But with them the Jews brought their
conception of religious ontology, which holds that the secular is
susceptible to the sanctification to be effected by the human being.
The ontology of modernity and that of pragmatic Jewry are hardly
identical.
That is why Judaism and its Talmud not only relate to the
contemporary world, but stand in judgment of it. And both the
Judaic and the Mormon religions surely will judge a world willing to
reduce man to part of himself, to impulses and energies. They will
judge an age prepared to validate the unrestrained expression of
those energies as the ultimate, legitimate adumbration of what is
individual about the person, as though he had no mind, no strength
of rational thought. They will condemn a world of enthusiasts who
make an improvement and call it redemption, come up with a good
idea and, without the test of skeptical analysis, pronounce salvation.
Judaism shows a better way: It demonstrates that men have the
capacity to assess the unredemption of the world, to perceive the
tentativeness of current solutions to enduring problems, and at the
same time to hope for sanctification and to work for salvation. It is
this unfulfilled yet very vivid evaluation of the world, the power to
take the world so seriously as to ask searching questions about its
certainties which, I think, explains the Jew's capacity to love so much,
and yet to doubt: to hold the world very near and close, with open
arms. The Jew has been taught to engage realistically in the world's
tasks, to do so with a whole heart, yet without the need, or even the
power, to regard completion of those tasks as the threshold of a final
and completed fulfillment of history. Because of its mode of thinking,
Judaism teaches men to take seriously the wide range of worldly
problems without expecting that in solving them—provisionally, let
alone finally—they might save the world.
VII
But to serve the world through the intellect, we have to consider
what makes our modes of thought more than merely an expression
of practical reason, but rather, an expression of the transcendent
11
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
which is in ourselves. The world cannot ask our respective religions
to vindicate themselves by its standards. We have to bring to bear
upon the world's perceptions the sacred images of us imparted to us
by our respective religions. Let me at the end say what the Judaic
perspective is, what Judaism's sacred image of us may be. To begin
with, Judaism asks, What say you of the human condition? What is
man, but that God is mindful of him? If all we are and ever shall be is
here and now, if our minds are merely useful and if our capacity to
think entirely a secular virtue, then the Judaic mode of intellect is
unavailable to us. If through our strength of reason we pursue the
profound rationality which underlies, gives unity, and imparts
meaning to, existence, and if through our power of reflection we
then undertake the reconstruction of reality, the interpretation of
what is in terms of what can and should be, then we shall have
already entered into the Judaic situation. But when we do, we shall
thereby have undertaken all that Judaism knows as the discipline of
the sacred. We shall, in other words, have renewed the experience of
sanctification both through the intellect and of the intellect. That
experience becomes consequential when the godly perceptions of
life and interpretations of society come to possess us. I therefore
speak, without shame, of religious experience, indeed of the turning
toward God which the sages called teshuvah, insufficiently translated
as repentance, but truly meaning turning. The way of Judaic piety
and spirituality has been the path of saints—saints of former times
and of these days—a path each chooses and may choose again, in full
rationality, at life's turning.
12
2
Cultic Piety and Pharisaism
Before 70
T
JL he theology of Torahlearning,
so important in Judaism from the end of ancient times to
our own day, emerges in the pages of the Babylonian Talmud and
certainly speaks for the rabbis of the late second through the seventh
centuries and beyond. But at what point in the history of Judaism
does the ideal of Torah-learning enter the theological arena of
Judaism? Under whose auspices do we find that ideal shaped into
the important component of normative Judaic theology? The answers
to these questions are assumed in nearly all accounts of the
history of Judaism to be as follows: the rabbis of the Talmud are the
heirs and continuators of the Pharisees of the period before 70.
Since the ideal of Torah-learning is central to the theology of the
talmudic rabbis, it surely derives from, and wholly characterizes, the
Pharisees. And, it follows, wherever we find references, in connection
with the Pharisees, to a corpus of "traditions of the fathers,"
what we have is none other than those Torah-traditions, now found
in Mishnah and called "Oral Torah," traditions which are the focus
of the activity of Torah-learning. It follows that the Pharisees are
represented as a group formed around the ideal of Torah-learning,
13
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
and that their principal interest lay in the interpretation of scriptures
and their application to contemporary affairs.
In my view, that picture is not correct. My argument now
unfolds in two parts. In the present lecture, I shall discuss what it is
that the sources do tell us about the Pharisees. The next then will
deal with the beginnings of the ideal of Torah-learning and with the
context in which the ideal takes shape as a theological norm, which in
my view, is the period after 70. So let us first ask, Are the Pharisees
represented as a sect devoted to the preservation and mastery of
Torah-traditions? What, in fact, do the sources describe as the
center of Pharisaic piety?
I
Information on the Pharisees before 70 comes from three
sources, all of which reached their present state after that date: first,
allusions to the Pharisees in the works of Josephus; second, references
to relationships between the Pharisees and Jesus occurring
in the Gospels produced by Christian communities between 70 and
100; third, laws and sayings attributed to, and stories told about, the
Pharisees by the rabbis from the period following 70 and contained
in the Mishnah and Tosefta, ca. 200, and later collections. These
three sources are different in character. The first are found in a
systematic, coherent historical narrative. The second are in collections
of stories and sayings, whose polemical tendency vis a vis the
Pharisees is readily discernible. The third consists chiefly of laws and
stories arranged according to legal categories in codes and in commentaries
on those codes over a period of four hundred years and
more after 70. The purpose of Josephus is to explain that Rome was
not at fault for the destruction of the Temple and that the Jews were
misled in fighting Rome. The Gospels' interest is in the life and
teaching of Jesus. The rabbinical legislators promulgated laws of the
administration of the Jewish community. To none were the historical
character and doctrines of the Pharisees of primary concern.
Much that we are told about them anachronistically reflects the
situation and interests of the writers, not of the historical Pharisees.
Pharisaic theology before 70 is particularly difficult to recover,
because the later rabbinical documents do not distinguish the ideas
of the Pharisees before that date from those of second- and third-
14
Cultic Piety and Pharisaism Before 70
century rabbis, but assume that everyone from ancient times was a
"rabbi" and an adherent of the so-called Torah shebe al peh, the
orally formulated and orally transmitted Torah allegedly revealed
to Moses "our rabbi" alongside the written one and preserved from
his time to the present by the "rabbis" of one generation after
another.
For pharisaism before 70 our sources of information tell little of
theological interest. A number of books in the Apocrypha and
Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament are attributed by modern
scholars to pharisaic writers, but none of these documents identifies
its author as a Pharisee. We may reliably attribute a work only when a
peculiar characteristic of the possible author can be shown to be an
essential element in the structure of the whole work. No reliance can
be placed on elements which appear in only one or another episode,
or which appear in several episodes but are secondary and detachable
details. These may be accretions. Above all, motifs which are not
certainly peculiar to one sect cannot prove that that sect was the
source. No available assignment of an apocryphal or pseudepigraphical
book to a pharisaic author can pass these tests. Most such
attributions were made by scholars who thought that all Palestinian
Jews before 70 were either Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, members
of the "Fourth Philosophy," or Zealots, and therefore felt obliged to
attribute all supposedly Palestinian Jewish works produced before
that date to one of these groups. That supposition is untenable. We
therefore omit reference to apocryphal and pseudepigraphical literature.
Perhaps when scholarly progress in the study of that literature
permits, we may expand our conceptions about pharisaism
before 70.
II
Writing toward the end of his life, ca. A.D. 100, Josephus
claimed that he was a Pharisee. He says that he spent the years
between age sixteen and nineteen exploring the Jewish sectarian
life, successively as a Pharisee, Sadducee, and Essene. He also spent
three years in the wilderness with a monk, Bannus. He therefore
cannot have devoted much time to the three named sects. Entering
the pharisaic order involved a long preparation. It is unlikely that
Josephus completed it or actually became a Sadducee or an Essene in
15
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
addition. In fact, Josephus's earliest work, War, represents the
Pharisees as a political party, active in Hasmonean politics from the
reign of John Hyrcanus (134-104 B.C.) to that of Alexandra Salome
(76-67 B.C.), and as a philosophical sect. The pharisaic party is not
alleged to have dominated the affairs of Jewish Palestine. This claim
first appears in Antiquities, written some decades later.
The Pharisees of War occur first in connection with Alexandra
Salome. Josephus reports that Alexander Jannaeus left the throne
to his wife. The Pharisees are then introduced as a body of Jews
"with the reputation of excelling the rest of their nation in the
observances of religion and as exact exponents of the laws."
Alexandra Salome allowed the Pharisees to become influential in
her reign: together they put their enemies to death. Second,
Josephus asserts that Herod accused his wife of subsidizing the
Pharisees to oppose him. Finally, Josephus states that the Pharisees
are the most accurate interpreters of the laws and are the leading
sect. They attributed everything to fate and God. The soul of the
good man passes into another body; those of the wicked suffer
eternal punishment. The Pharisees are affectionate toward one
another; the Sadducees are boorish.
The foregoing account represents Josephus's view of the Pharisees
in the War, written in 75. We find no claim that the Pharisees
have a massive public following, or that no one can effectively
govern Palestine without their support. All we hear is their opinion
on two issues, fate, or providence, and punishment of the soul after
death. The Sadducees do not believe in fate or in life after death.
The Essenes, who are described at far greater length (War 2:119ff.)
hold that the soul is immortal, believe in reward and punishment
after death, and can foretell the future. Josephus adds, "Such are
the theological views of the Essenes concerning the soul, whereby
they irresistibly attract all who have once tasted their philosophy."
Later he would claim that he himself was able to resist their
philosophy and so joined the Pharisees. Here the Sadducees and
Pharisees address themselves to identical issues, and take two extreme
positions. The two parties are not very important in
Josephus's narrative. Neither one receives a significant description.
The Pharisees are seen not as a political party, but as a philosophical
school among other such schools. In 95, twenty years after he wrote
16
Cultic Piety and Pharisaism Before 70
War, Josephus greatly expanded his picture, adding important details
to familiar accounts and entirely new materials as well. To
understand the additions, we must recall that at the same time he
wrote Antiquities, Josephus was claiming that he himself was a
Pharisee.
If one reads only War without knowledge of the Life, one might
suppose Josephus took a most keen interest in the Essenes and
certainly sympathized with their ascetic way of life. That surmise
would receive support if we knew that he spent three years of his
adolescence with Bannus, whose way of living corresponded in
important ways to that of the Essenes, though Josephus does not call
him an Essene. So one might expect that the historian regards the
Essenes as the leading Jewish "philosophical school." But he does
not. The Essenes of War are cut down to size. In Antiquities, the
Pharisees are accorded a substantial description. Josephus now says
that the country cannot be governed without their cooperation, and
that he himself is one of them. Josephus had in fact been part of the
pro-Roman priestly aristocracy before the war of 66-73. But nothing
in his account suggests that he was a Pharisee, as he later claimed in
his autobiography. In Antiquities, Josephus repeats that the Pharisees
believed that certain events are the work of fate, but not all; as to
other events "it depends upon ourselves whether they shall take
place or not." He praises their simple way of living and keeping the
commandments. "They believe that souls have power to survive
death and that there are rewards and punishments under the earth
for those who have led lives of virtue or vice; eternal imprisonment is
the lot of evil souls, while the good souls receive an easy passage to a
new life." Now Josephus alleges that the Pharisees are the predominant
party:
Because of these views they are, as a matter of fact,
extremely influential among the townsfolk; and all
prayers and sacred rites of divine worship are performed
according to their exposition. This is the great tribute
that the inhabitants of the cities have paid to the excellence
of the Pharisees because of their practice of the
highest ideals both in their way of living and in their
discourse.
What is new here is the allegation that the townsfolk follow only the
17
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
Pharisees and that even the Temple is conducted according to their
law.
Clearly, Josephus's picture of the Pharisees in War greatly differs
from that in Antiquities. In the twenty years between writing the
one and the other, he discovered that the Pharisees, who play a
minor role in War, were the most influential and important party and
could break any regime which opposed them. The difference between
the view of War and that of Antiquities is explained as follows by Morton
Smith ("Palestinian Judaism in the First Century," in M. Davis, ed.,
Israel: Its Role in Civilization [N.Y., 1956], pp. 77-78):
It is almost impossible not to see in such a rewriting of
history a bid to the Roman government. That government
must have been faced with the problem [after A.D.
70.]: Which group of Jews shall we support? . . . To this
question Josephus is volunteering an answer: The
Pharisees, he says again and again, have by far the
greatest influence with the people. Any government
which secures their support is accepted; any government
which alienates them has trouble. The Sadducees, it is
true, have more following among the aristocracy . .. but
they have no popular following at all, and even in the old
days, when they were in power, they were forced by
public opinion to follow the Pharisees' orders. As for the
other major parties, the Essenes are a philosophical
curiosity, and the Zealots differ from the Pharisees only
by being fanatically anti-Roman. So any Roman government
which wants peace in Palestine had better support
and secure the support of the Pharisees.
Josephus's discovery of these important political
facts (which he ignored when writing the Jewish War) may
have been due partly to a change in his personal relationship
with the Pharisees. Twenty years had now
intervened since his trouble with Simeon ben Gamaliel,
and Simeon was long dead. But the mere cessation of
personal hostilities would hardly account for such
pointed passages as Josephus added to the Antiquities.
The more probable explanation is that in the meanwhile
the Pharisees had become the leading candidates for
Roman support in Palestine and were already negotiating
for it. .. .
In the first century A.D., individual Pharisees remained active in
18
Cultic Piety and Pharisaism Before 70
political life. But, strikingly, Josephus makes no reference to the
group's functioning as a party within the revolutionary councils. We
may conclude that Simeon and others were members of the
pharisaic group, but not the group's representatives, any more than
Judah the Pharisee represented the pharisaic group in founding the
Fourth Philosophy. The Pharisees, then, probably did not constitute
an organized political force. Evidently the end of the pharisaic
political party came with Aristobulus II, who slaughtered many of
them; so far as Josephus is concerned, after this the Pharisees as a
group played no important role in the politics and government of
Jewish Palestine.
The Pharisees are represented as a philosophical school by
Josephus, who thought of groups in Jewish society distinguished by
peculiar theories and practices as different schools of the national
philosophy. When they were a political party, the Pharisees probably
claimed that they ought to rule because they possessed true and wise
doctrines. The specific doctrines ascribed to them, however, seem
quite unrelated to the political aspirations of the group. It is not clear
why people who believe in fate and in the immortality of the soul
should rule or would rule differently from those who did not, nor is
it clear how such beliefs might shape the policies of the state. These
are matters of interest to Greek readers, to be sure. But evidently
what characterized the group—these particular beliefs—and what
rendered their political aspirations something more than a powergrab
were inextricably related, at least in the eyes of their contemporaries.
Josephus thus presents us with a party of philosophical politicians.
He gives us no hint as to the origin or early history of the
Pharisees. In fact we have no information on that question from any
source. The Pharisees claim to have ancient traditions, but these are
not described by Josephus as having been orally transmitted, or
attributed to Moses at Sinai, or claimed as part of the Torah. Nor is
the study of such traditions represented as important in their piety.
Josephus says they were excellent lawyers, marked off from other
groups by a few philosophical differences. As a party they
functioned effectively for roughly the first fifty years of the first
century B.C. While individuals thereafter are described as Pharisees,
the group seems to end its political life as a sect before the advent of
Herod.
19
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
III
The generally negative picture of the Pharisees given by the
New Testament produced, in the later history of the West, a highly
partisan caricature. "Pharisee" became a synonym for hypocrite, as
in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary:
Pharisee: One of an ancient Jewish sect distinguished by
their strict observance of the traditional and written law,
and by their pretensions to superior sanctity. A person of
this disposition; a self-righteous person; a formalist; a
hypocrite.
Historical research lacks adequate sources to verify or refute these
assertions. We do not have diaries, for example, to permit us to
compare what a Pharisee said publicly against what he said in private
and so to ascertain whether or not he was a hypocrite. Nor are we
able to assess with impartiality the claim that a Pharisee is "self-righteous."
Clearly, "pretensions to superior sanctity" are relative. If
one concedes the correctness of a theological claim, then one will
not regard it as "pretension." Nor do we know of what that claim to
"superior sanctity" would have consisted.
When we discount the hostile polemic, however, we do find in
the New Testament a number of important assertions. The
Pharisees are represented in the main, though not entirely, as a
table-fellowship sect. While Mark 3:6 and 12:13, for instance, represent
the Pharisees as allies of the Herodians, thus as a political sect
of some sort, they are characterized, particularly in sayings attributed
to Jesus, as a group of people who keep the same dietary laws
and therefore may eat together. Pharisaic table-fellowship required
keeping under all circumstances the laws of purity that normally
applied only in the Jerusalem Temple, so that the Pharisees ate their
private meals in the same condition of ritual purity as did the priests
of the cult. The Pharisees laid further stress upon proper tithing of
foods and Sabbath observance. The Gospels say much else about the
Pharisees, but these are the main points that survive when we discount
the polemic which informs the Gospels.
The Gospels' stories about the Pharisees are set in the first forty
years of the first century A.D. and derive from the second half of the
century, between ca. 70 and ca. 100. The Evangelists assume a
20
Cultic Piety and Pharisaism Before 70
violently antagonistic view of the Pharisees. At the same time, the
Pharisees are represented by Acts as a major force in the government
of the Jewish community. One learns much in the synoptic
traditions, John, and Acts about the attitudes of the early Christian
community toward the Pharisees and the relationships of the
Pharisees toward the Christians. Viewed as an autonomous sect, and
not in relationship to the early Church, however, the Pharisees are
of no great interest to New Testament writers. The first evidence on
Pharisaism derives from Paul, who describes himself "as to the law, a
Pharisee" (Philippians 3:5), and "extremely zealous for the traditions
of my fathers." (Galatians 1:14.) Acts 22:3 has Paul claim he
was brought up in Jerusalem "at the feet of Gamaliel" and that he
lived as a Pharisee (Acts 26:4), which in context is joined to the belief
in the resurrection of the dead. The substance of Paul's pharisaism
in Philippians and Galatians is not made clear. If one important
aspect was preserving purity outside of the Temple, then Paul could
not have been a Pharisee abroad, in Tarsus, for foreign territory was
by definition unclean. In that case his upbringing in Jerusalem will
have made possible his adherence to the party. The narrative of Acts
leaves no doubt, however, that included in pharisaic doctrine was
belief in the resurrection of the dead.
In the Synoptic Gospels and John we may discern five kinds of
materials pertinent to pharisaism: first, those in which the Pharisees
are represented as enemies of Jesus, forming part of the narrative
background; second, and closely related, material in which the
Pharisees criticize Jesus; third, those in which pharisaic hypocrisy is
condemned in general terms; fourth, those representing Pharisees
and Christians in agreement, either on general or on particular
matters of doctrine; and, finally, materials in which the Pharisees are
condemned for specific practices or beliefs. This last sort of material
is of greatest interest, and we turn directly to it because of its
attention to details of the Pharisees' actual beliefs and practices,
primarily as they pertain to conduct at meals. What the Pharisees do,
and what Jesus does not do, when enjoying table-fellowship, comprise
the subject of important stories. In quantity and character
these materials exhibit important differences from the rest. Jesus
and his disciples eat with sinners and tax collectors, people who do
not keep the law. (Mark 2:15-23; Matthew 9:10-17.) It is unlikely
21
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
that these people observe the laws of ritual purity at meals or tithe
their food. Rabbinic law explicitly excludes tax collectors from
table-fellowship of the haburah. (Tos. Demai 3:4.) The question of
fasting is raised. The Pharisees fast, but the Christians do not. (Mark
2:15-23.) Jesus is made to explain that fact. Another issue is preparation
of food on the Sabbath (Mark 2:15-28; Matthew 12:1-14): Is it
permissible to harvest food on the Sabbath? The story is generated
by the saying, "The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath," and the
Pharisees are not central to the account.
The most interesting group of stories explicitly concerns ritual
purity in eating. The Christian disciples do not wash their hands.
The details of the ritual purity laws are unknown. Mark assumed
that his reader would not understand that in general the Pharisees
and all the Jews wash their hands before meals, and wash cups, pots,
and bronze vessels. (Mark 7:1-13.) This is all regarded as part of the
"tradition of the elders," which the Gospels and Josephus assign to
the Pharisees. But one would not have to know a great deal about
Pharisaic purity rules to know that the Pharisees maintained such
practices. The narrator obviously has little more to report than that
simple fact. His purpose is to contrast purity rules with ethical laws,
for one is claimed to be in conflict with the other. The question of
ritual defilement through the eating of food also is raised. This is not
merely a matter of prohibited foods, such as not eating pork or
certain kinds offish, but concerns cultic purity. The moral character
of the Pharisees is further criticized. While they keep the ritual purity
laws, they neglect other important precepts of the Torah, and are
therefore incapable of bringing men to salvation. The most important
detail in the polemic against ritual tithing: Pharisees tithe
their food, but neglect "the weightier matters of the law, justice and
mercy and faith." (Mark 7:1-13; Matthew 15:1-20; Luke 11:37-41.)
But then Jesus is made to say that there is no conflict between the one
and the other.
Mark claims that Jesus annulled the pharisaic purity-rite of
hand-washing before the common meal, declaring it the "tradition
of men." Then, as an entirely separate issue, Mark 7:14ff. has Jesus
allude to the defilement of foods. Nothing which goes into a man
from outside can defile him—"Thus he declared all foods clean."
22
Cultic Piety and Pharisaism Before 70
(Mark 7:19.) Mark carefully distinguishes purity of hands from
purity of food. The one is a human invention, the other is scriptural,
but has not been correctly interpreted by the Pharisees. Matthew, by
contrast, leaves out Mark 7:19. He follows Mark in claiming the
washing of hands is not a divine commandment (Matthew 15:1-3),
and separately treats the cleanness of foods. (Matthew 15:10-19.)
But then, ignoring their differences—the hand-washing as a
Pharisaic custom, the food as a biblical injunction—Matthew links
the two in a curious fusion (Matthew 15:20): "These [iniquitous
deeds] are what defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does
not defile a man." Mark was appropriately silent on the supposed
connection between the customary washing of the hands and the
Mosaic rules on the cleanness of foods. Matthew has confused them.
By contrast, Mark has correctly kept the two matters separated:
washing was never part of the Torah, but was a pharisaic custom;
food-laws were meant to teach a moral lesson, not to be interpreted
in a literal way.
Matthew 23:25 (Luke 11:39-41) and 23:27-8 take up and develop
the contrast between inside and outside. The Pharisees clean
the outside of the cup and plate, but inside are full of extortion.
Similarly, the scribes and Pharisees are like whitewashed tombs,
outwardly beautiful but inwardly full of uncleanness. The contrast
between impurity and iniquity, on the one side, and purity and
righteousness, on the other, is commonplace. What is more interesting
is the problem of the division of the parts of the cup into insides
and outsides. For Jesus these serve as a metaphor for inner against
outer purity. What is to be kept pure is the inside of the man, a play
on the theme introduced in connection with the cleanness of foods.
Later rabbinic law distinguished between the inside of the cup,
which was highly susceptible to ritual impurity, and which, when
unclean, rendered the whole cup unclean, and the outside, which
was less susceptible and would not impart purity to the inside. But
that fact is unimportant in the interpretation of Jesus' saying. To be
sure, Jesus takes the strict view that the outside had to be clean. But
the whole saying is solely a metaphor for moral purity and is not built
upon exact knowledge of the possibly later purity-rule. If Jesus was
supposed to have known the rule and to have treated it literally, he
23
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
could not have told the Pharisees first to cleanse the inside of the
cup. That was their rule to begin with. The figurative sense is lost if
one really does clean the inside of the cup first of all.
The Gospels' account of the pharisaic critique of Jesus focuses
on three issues. First, why do Jesus' disciples eat with tax collectors?
Second, why do Jesus' disciples not fast? Third, why does Jesus
violate the Sabbath by healing on the holy day? The third theme
recurs in the specific critique of the Pharisees. The general condemnation
is composed of mere invective: the Pharisees are a
"brood of vipers"; one should beware of the "leaven" of the
Pharisees "which is hypocrisy." Pharisees love money. Pharisees
regard themselves as better than other men by reason of their
religious observances. The important data derive not from the
polemical narrative materials, but from the condemnation of the
Pharisees for specific religious practices. The most interesting information
comes from Mark 7:1-23, on ritual purity in eating and on
the dietary laws, and Matthew 23:1-36, on the Pharisees' emphasis
on ritual purity of dishes and their exact tithing. These passages take
for granted specific pharisaic rites, and direct criticism against them.
They tell us not only that the early Christian community found itself
in conflict with the pharisaic party, but that Pharisees known to the
Gospel story-tellers carried out important rites which are quite relevant
to the doctrinal issues, important to the Christians, in the
Pharisaic-Christian relationship.
IV
Rabbinic traditions redacted long after 70 refer to masters who
lived before that time. These masters are listed, for example in
Mishnah Hagigah 2:2, as patriarch (Nasi) and head of the court (Ab
Bet Din). We have in addition the names of very few masters whom
rabbinic traditions evidently believe to have lived before 70. We take
for granted that those named in Mishnah Hagigah 2:2 and other
authorities included in pericopae along with the patriarchs and
heads of the court down to 70 were Pharisees.1 We are on firm
ground in making that assumption, for at least two of the names on
1. Professor Sarason comments, "provided that the list is not a schematic
homogenization of diverse names."
24
Cultic Piety and Pharisaism Before 70
the list, Gamaliel and Simeon b. Gamaliel, are referred to as
Pharisees in non-rabbinic sources, Acts 5:34 for Gamaliel,
Josephus's Life (190, 216, 309) for Simeon, his son. The rabbinic
traditions about the Pharisees consist of approximately 371 separate
items—stories, sayings, or allusions—different versions of which
occur in approximately 655 different pericopae, or completed units
of tradition. Of these, 280 items in 462 pericopae (comprising about
75 percent of the total), pertain to Hillel and people associated with
Hillel, such as Shammai and the Houses of Hillel and Shammai.
Insofar as we know it, pharisaic law comprises those legal sayings
in talmudic literature attributed either to pharisaic masters
before 70 or to the Houses of Shammai and Hillel. A legal saying is a
statement of what one must or must not do, commonly in everyday
life. It may pertain to the adjudication of civil disputes, the conduct
of the Temple cult, the manner of issuing a writ of divorce, the way
to say one's prayers, to tithe food, to preserve ritual purity, or to
purify something which has been defiled or made unclean. Pharisaic
laws pertained to a wide range of mostly commonplace matters.
Most of the nearly 700 pericopae pertaining to Pharisees before 70
concern legal matters, and the larger number of these relate to, first,
agricultural tithes, offerings, and other taboos, and, second, rules of
ritual purity—that is, rules of sectarian interest.
Purity predominates in the pharisaic laws. Purity was the center
of sectarian controversy. The Pharisees were Jews who believed that
the purity laws were to be kept outside of the Temple. Other Jews,
following the plain sense of Leviticus, supposed that purity laws
were to be kept only in the Temple, where the priests had to enter a
state of ritual purity in order to carry out such requirements as
animal sacrifice. They likewise had to eat their Temple food in a
state of ritual purity, while lay people did not. To be sure, everyone
who went to the Temple had to be ritually pure. But outside of the
Temple the laws of ritual purity were not observed, for it was not
required that non-cultic activities be conducted in a state of Levitical
cleanness.
But the Pharisees held that even outside of the Temple, in one's
own home, the laws of ritual purity were to be followed in the only
circumstances in which they might apply, namely, at the table.
Therefore, one must eat secular food (ordinary everyday meals) in a
25
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
state of ritual purity as if one were a Temple priest. The Pharisees
thus arrogated to themselves—and to all Jews equally—the status of
the Temple priests. We assume so because they performed actions
restricted to priests on account of their status, specifically by eating
ordinary food in Levitical purity. The table of every Jew in his home
therefore was seen as being like the table of the Lord in the
Jerusalem Temple. The commandment, "You shall be a kingdom of
priests and a holy people" evidently was taken literally: everyone is a
priest, everyone stands in the same relationship to God, and
everyone must keep the priestly laws. At this time, only the Pharisees
held such a viewpoint, and eating unconsecrated food as if one were
a Temple priest at the Lord's table was thus one of the two things a
person had to do as a Pharisee. The other was meticulous tithing.
The laws of tithing and related agricultural taboos may have been
kept primarily by Pharisees. Our evidence here is less certain.
Pharisees clearly regarded keeping the agricultural rules as a chief
religious duty. But whether, to what degree, and how other Jews did
so is not clear. But the agricultural laws and purity rules in the end
affected table-fellowship. They were "dietary laws."
If the Pharisees were primarily a group for Torah-study, as the
Dead Sea Scrolls' writers describe themselves, then we should have
expected more rules about the school, perhaps also about scribal
matters. In fact, we have only one, about sneezing in the
schoolhouse. Surely other more fundamental problems ought to
have presented themselves. Neither do we find much interest in
defining the master-disciple relationship, including the duties of the
master and the responsibilities and rights of the disciple, the way in
which the disciple should learn his lessons, and similar matters of
importance in later times. The exception to this rule is the sayings in
the Sayings of the Fathers (Pirqe Abot). They do refer to Torah-study
and discipleship. Those sayings, attributed to masters before 70, are
first attested in the third century. No one before that time alludes to
any of them, while numerous other traditions attributed to masters
who lived before 70 elicit comments from authorities from 70 to the
editing of the Mishnah in ca. 200. This strongly suggests that the
Torah sayings of Abot have been attributed anachronistically to the
Pharisees before 70.
This brings us to a puzzling fact: nowhere in the rabbinic
26
Cultic Piety and Pharisaism Before 70
traditions of the Pharisees do we find a reference to gatherings for
ritual meals, or table-fellowship, of the pharisaic party, apart from
an allusion to the meeting of several haburot (fellowship groups) in
the same hall. This surely supplies a slender basis on which to prove
that the pharisaic party actually conducted communion meals, especially
since no pharisaic ritual meal is ever mentioned. By contrast,
the Qumran laws, which make much of purity, also refer to communion
meals and the right or denial of the right of access to them.
The whole editorial and redactional framework of the rabbinical
traditions is silent about ritual meals and table-fellowship. The narrative
materials say nothing on the matter. No stories are told about
how the "rabbis" were eating together, when such-and-such was
said. The redactional formula for pharisaic sayings never alludes to
a meal as the setting for a given saying. So the laws concentrate
attention on rules and regulations covering all aspects of a ritual
meal. But the myth or rites of such a meal are never described or
even alluded to. The pharisaic group evidently did not conduct
table-fellowship meals as rituals. The table-fellowship laws pertained
not merely to group life, but to daily life quite apart from a sectarian
setting and ritual occasion. The rules applied to the home, not
merely to the synagogue or Temple. While the early Christians
gathered for special ritual meals which became the climax of their
group life, the Pharisees apparently did not.
The very character of the Pharisees' sectarianism therefore
differs from that of the Christians. While the communion-meal
embodied and actualized sectarian life for the Christians, the expression
of the Pharisees' sense of self-awareness as a group apparently
was not a similarly intense ritual meal. Eating was not a
ritualized occasion, even though the Pharisees had liturgies to be
said at the meal. No communion ceremony, no rites centered on
meals, no specification of meals on holy occasions characterize
pharisaic table-fellowship. The one communion-meal about which
we find legislation characterized all sects, along with the rest of the
Jews: the Passover Seder. The Pharisees may have had Seder rules
separate from, and in addition to, those observed by everyone else.
But these hardly prove they held a communion-meal.
Pharisaic table-fellowship, therefore, was a quite ordinary,
everyday affair. The various fellowship rules had to be observed in
27
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
wholly routine daily circumstances, without accompanying rites
other than a benediction for the food. The Christians' myths and
rituals rendered table-fellowship into a much heightened spiritual
experience: "Do this in memory of me." The Pharisees told no stories
about purity laws, except (in later times) to account for their historical
development (e.g., who had decreed which purity rule?). When
they came to table, so far as we know, they told no stories about how
Moses had done what they now do, and they did not "do these things
in memory of Moses our rabbi." The sect ordinarily did not gather as
a group at all. All their meals required ritual purity. Pharisaic tablefellowship
took place in the same circumstances as did all non-ritual
table-fellowship. Members of the sect were engaged in workaday
pursuits like everyone else. This fact made the actual purity rules
and food restrictions all the more important, for keeping the law
alone set the Pharisees apart from the people among whom they
lived. Not in the wilderness, on festivals, or on Sabbaths alone, but
on weekdays and in the towns, without telling myths, or reading holy
books (Torah-talk at table is attested to only later), or reenacting first
things, pharisaic table-fellowship depended solely on observance of
the cultic law and expressed a piety formed on the analogy to that of
the cult. The relevance of all this to the point at which Talmud Torah
becomes the central Judaic symbol and action is negative: We cannot
look to the Pharisees of the period before 70 for the source of the
ideal and the motive for its serving as the center for Judaic piety.
28
3
From Cultic Piety to
Torah-Piety After 70
A
JL J L S I shall now show, the destruction
of the Temple marks the shift from cultic piety to Torahpiety,
that is, from the conception that the holy life consists in
imitating at ordinary meals the cleanness required of the priest in
the Temple, to the notion that the holy life consists in studying
Torah and carrying out its requirements (commandments). Our
task is to analyze this shift in the character of the central symbolic
structure of that form of Judaism known to us from the rabbinic
sources and assigned by them to the Pharisees before 70, hence of
"Pharisaic-Rabbinic" Judaism.
To begin with, we must remind ourselves that before the destruction,
there was a common "Judaism" in the land of Israel, and it
was by no means identical to what we now understand as Pharisaic
Judaism. We have concentrated on sects: Pharisees, Essenes, Christians.
But the common religion of the country consisted of three
main elements: first, the Hebrew scriptures, second, the Temple,
and third, the common and accepted practices of the ordinary
folk—their calendar, their mode of living, their everyday practices
and rites, based on these first two. In addition, we know of a number
29
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
of peculiar groups, or sects, which took a distinctive position on one
or another aspect of the common, inherited religious-culture.
Among these sects, the best known are the Pharisees, the Sadducees,
and the Essenes; this third group, described chiefly in the writings of
Josephus, exhibits traits in common with the group known to us
from the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls, but cannot have been identical
to it in every respect.
I
When the Temple was destroyed, it is clear, the foundations of
the country's religious-cultural life were destroyed. The reason is
that the Temple had constituted one of the primary, unifying elements
in that common life. The structure not only of political life
and of society, but also of the imaginative life of the country, depended
upon the Temple and its worship and cult. It is there that
people believed they served God. On the Temple the lines of
structure—both cosmic and social—converged. The Temple,
moreover, served as the basis for those many elements of autonomous
self-government and political life left in the Jews' hands by the
Romans. Consequently, the destruction of the Temple meant not
merely a significant alteration in the cultic and ritual life of the
Jewish people, but also a profound and far-reaching crisis in their
inner and spiritual existence.
The response to the destruction of the Temple is known to us
only from rabbinic materials, which underwent revisions over many
centuries. But these late materials referring to earlier days—that is,
fourth-century stories about first-century teachers—are serviceable,
because they give evidence of how important shirts and turnings in
the character of Judaism are recognized later on and given specificity
and concreteness in the period in which, on firmer grounds, we
conceive these changes to have taken place. One such story, about
Yohanan ben Zakkai and his disciple, Joshua ben Hananiah, captures
in a few words the main outline of what became of the
pharisaic-rabbinic vi'ew of the destruction:
Once, as Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was coming
forth from Jerusalem, Rabbi Joshua followed after him
and beheld the Temple in ruins.
"Woe unto us," Rabbi Joshua cried, "that this, the
30
From Cultic Piety to Torah-Piety After 70
place where the iniquities of Israel were atoned for, is laid
waste!"
"My son," Rabban Yohanan said to him, "be not
grieved. We have another atonement as effective as this.
And what is it? It is acts of loving-kindness, as it is said, For
I desire mercy and not sacrifice. (Hosea 6:6, Avot de Rabbi
Natan, Chap. 6).
How shall we relate the arcane rules about ritual purity to the
public calamity faced by the heirs of the Pharisees at Yavneh? What
connection is there between the ritual purity of the "kingdom of
priests" and the atonement of sins in the Temple?
To the Yohanan ben Zakkai of this story, preserving the
Temple is not an end in itself. He teaches that there is another means
of reconciliation between God and Israel, so that the Temple and its
cult are not decisive. What is the will of God? It is doing deeds of
loving-kindness: / desire mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6) means to
Yohanan, "We have a means of atonement as effective as the
Temple, and it is doing deeds of loving-kindness." Just as willingly
as men would contribute bricks and mortar for the rebuilding of a
sanctuary, so they ought to contribute renunciation, self-sacrifice,
love, for the building of a sacred community.
Earlier, pharisaism had held that the cleanness of the Temple
should be everywhere, even in the home and the hearth. Now
Yohanan is represented as teaching that sacrifice greater than the
Temple must characterize the life of the community. If one is to do
something for God in a time when the Temple is no more, the
offering must be the gift of selfless compassion. The holy altar must
be the streets and marketplaces of the world, as, formerly, the purity
of the Temple had to be observed in the streets and marketplaces.
But this is essentially a backward-looking solution. How do we contend
with the destruction of the cult, focus of the ancient piety?
There was a second perspective, the one on the future: How shall we
reshape the focus of piety, so that it is relevant to the conditions of
contemporary life, when there is no Temple, and when the cultic
analogy is no longer evocative? Pharisaic piety in the new age evokes
a certain dissonance, since it rests on the comparison between the
home and the Temple—but the Temple is no more. A new shape
and focus for piety are to be found.
31
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
11
The reconstruction of a viable cultural-religious existence is the
outcome of the next half-century, for, between ca. 70 and ca. 120, a
number of elements of the religious-cultural structure of the period
before 70 were put together into a new synthesis, the synthesis we
now call Rabbinic Judaism, with its stress on study of Torah as a
principal expression of piety. It was in response to the disaster of the
destruction that Rabbinic Judaism took shape. Part of its success lay
in its capacity to claim things that had not changed at all—hence the
assertion that even at the start, Moses was "our rabbi"—while making
the very destruction of the Temple itself into the verification and
vindication of the new structure.
Rabbinic Judaism claimed that it was possible to serve God not
only through sacrifice, but also through study of Torah. There is a
priest in charge of the life of the community, but a new kind of
priest, the rabbi. As we saw, the old sin-offerings still may be carried
out through deeds of loving-kindness. Not only so, but when the
whole Jewish people will fully carry out the teachings of the Torah,
then the Temple itself will be rebuilt. To be sure, the Temple will be
reconstructed along lines laid out in the Torah—that is, in the whole
Torah of Moses, the Torah taught by the rabbis. And, like the
prophets and historians in the time of the First Destruction, the
rabbis further claimed that it was because the people had sinned,
that is, had not kept the Torah, that the Temple had been destroyed.
So the disaster itself is made to vindicate the rabbinic teaching and to
verify its truth.
I ll
Now let us stand back from this synthesis and ask, How was it
put together? What are its primary elements? What trends or
movements before 70 are represented by these elements? Two
primary components in the Yavneh synthesis are to be discerned,
first, the method or mode of thought of pharisaism before 70,
second, the putative values of the scribal profession before 70. The
former lay stress upon universal keeping of the law, so that every
Jew is obligated to do what only the elite—the priests—are normally
expected to accomplish. Pre-70 pharisaism thus contributed the
32
From Cultic Piety to Torah-Piety After 70
stress on the universal keeping of the law, on the pretense that all live
like Temple-priests. The second component derives from the
scribes, whose professional ideal stressed the study of Torah and the
centrality of the learned man in the religious system.
The unpredictable, final element in the synthesis of pharisaic
stress on widespread law—including ritual-law, observance, and
scribal emphasis on learning—is what makes Rabbinic Judaism distinctive,
and that is the conviction that the community now stands in
the place of the Temple. The ruins of the cult, after all, did not mark
the end of the collective life of Israel. What survived was the people. It
was the genius of Rabbinic Judaism following upon pharisaism, to
recognize that the people might reconstitute the Temple in its own
collective life, just as was the case with purity before 70. Therefore
the people had to be made holy, as the Temple had been holy, and
the people's social life had to be sanctified as the surrogate for what
had been lost. The rabbinic ideal further maintained that the rabbi
served as the new priest, the study of Torah substituted for the
Temple sacrifice, and deeds of loving-kindness were the social surrogate
for the sin-offering, that is, personal sacrifice instead of
animal sacrifice.
We see that Talmud Torah is only one element in the reformation
of the symbolic structure of Judaism accomplished by the rabbis of
the period after 70. It is part of a larger system in which study of
Torah, the rabbi, the importance of moral and ethical action, all are
put together into a coherent structure, upon the foundation of the
people of Israel, the Jewish people, as the locus of the sacred in this
world. These elements—religious behavior, religious official, religious
way of life, and religious community—together form a whole
and harmonious system. When we isolate Talmud Torah, it is only to
discern how one of the several elements of the Judaic structure has
been received into the whole. And in many ways, you will agree, it is
the most distinctive element of the structure. The centrality of
community, the importance of ethics, the authority of a religious
leader qualified by learning—these are not uncommon in the religious
experience of humankind. But the idea that what everyone—
and not merely the virtuosi—must do to serve God is to study
revelation is unusual. In my view, as I hope is clear, that notion
derives from two disparate sources: the pharisaic concept that all
33
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
Israel, a kingdom of priests and a holy people, must keep the
purity-laws of the Temple; and the scribal ideal of learning as a way
of life. The method is pharisaic, the substance, scribal. But putting
the two together quite changes what each was before. And, as is now
clear, the context in which the two are put together is what accounts
for the fact that they become something entirely fresh and important.
As we saw, pre-70 pharisaism is clearly defined by the Gospels'
pharisaic pericopae and the rabbinic traditions about the Pharisees.
Both stress the same concerns: first, eating secular food in a state of
ritual purity; second, careful tithing and giving of agricultural offerings
to the priest and obedience to the biblical rules and taboos
concerning raising crops; third, to a lesser degree, some special laws
on keeping the Sabbaths and festivals; and, finally, still less commonly,
rules on family affairs. Therefore, late pharisaism—that
which flourished in the last decades of the Temple's existence and
which is revealed in the Gospels and in rabbinic traditions—is a
cult-centered piety, which proposes to replicate the cult in the home,
and thus to effect the Temple's purity laws at the table of the
ordinary Jew, and quite literally to turn Israel into a "kingdom of
priests and a holy nation." The symbolic structure of pharisaism
depends upon that of the Temple; the ideal is the same as that of the
priesthood. The Pharisee was a layman pretending to be priest and
making his private home into a model of the Temple. The laws
about purity and careful tithing were dietary laws, governing what
and how a person should eat. If a person kept those laws, then, when
he ate at home, he was like God at the Temple's altar table, on which
was arrayed food similarly guarded from impurity and produced in
accord with Levitical revelation. By contrast, the rabbi was like God
because he studied the Torah on earth, as did God and Moses, "our
rabbi" in the heavenly academy.
IV
Of the important sects known to us in the period before 70,
present at Yavneh were surely the Pharisees and probably also a fair
sampling of another sort of group, not a sect but a profession,
namely, the scribes. It is, as I said, in the amalgamation of the
method of pharisaism and the doctrine of scribism that Rabbinic
34
From Cultic Piety to Torah-Piety After 70
Judaism, with its stress on universal learning in Torah, emerges. We
have a good picture of the viewpoint of a putative adherent, after 70,
of the conceptions of pharisaism in the person of Eliezer b. Hyrcanus,
an important authority of Yavneh. I may briefly summarize
his conception of the laws necessary for the new age. Eliezer's legislation
suggests he presumed life would soon go on pretty much as it
had in the past. Issues important to pre-70 Pharisees predominate in
his laws. Issues absent in the rabbinic traditions about the Pharisees
are mostly absent in his as well. Eliezer therefore comes at the end of
the old pharisaism. He does not inaugurate the new rabbinism,
traces of which are quite absent in his historically usable traditions.
Indeed, on the basis of his laws and sayings, we can hardly define
what this rabbinism might consist of. The doctrine of the oral Torah,
the view of the rabbi as the new priest and of study of Torah as the
new cult, the definition of piety as the imitation of Moses "our rabbi"
and the conception of God as a rabbi, the organization of the Jewish
community under rabbinic rule and by rabbinic law, and the goal of
turning all Israel into a vast academy for the study of the Torah—
none of these motifs characteristic of later rabbinism occurs at all.
Since by the end of the Yavnean period the main outlines of
rabbinism were clear, we may postulate that the transition from
pharisaism to rabbinism, or the union of the two, took place in the
time of Eliezer himself. But he does not seem to have been among
those who generated the new viewpoints; he appears as a reformer
of the old ones. His solution to the problem of the cessation of the
cult was not to replace the old piety with a new one but, rather, to
preserve and refine the rules governing the old in the certain expectation
of its restoration in a better form than ever. Others, who
were his contemporaries and successors, developed the rabbinic
idea of the (interim) substitution of study for sacrifice, the rabbi for
the priest, and the oral Torah of Moses "our rabbi" for the piety of
the old cult.
V
Let us now turn to the scribes and their ideal of Torah. The
scribes before 70 form a distinct group—not merely a profession—
in the Gospels' accounts of Jesus' opposition. Scribes and Pharisees
are by no means regarded as one and the same group. To be sure,
35
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
what scribes say and do not say is not made clear. One cannot derive
from the synoptic record a clear picture of scribal doctrine or symbolism,
if any, although one certainly finds an account of the
pharisaic law on ritual uncleanness and tithing. Since the materials
now found in the synoptics were available in Palestine between 70
and 90, however, they may be presumed accurately to portray the
situation of that time, because their picture had to be credible to
Christians of the period. Now, having seen in Eliezer an important
representative of the old pharisaism, we find no difficulty in accounting
for the pharisaic component of the Yavnean synthesis. It
likewise seems reasonable to locate in the scribes the antecedents of the
ideological and symbolic part of the rabbinic component at Yavneh.
Admittedly, our information on scribism in the rabbinic literature is
indistinguishable from the later sayings produced by rabbinism. But
if we consider that scribism goes back to much more ancient times
than does pharisaism, and that its main outlines are clearly represented,
for instance, by Ben Sira, we may reasonably suppose that
what the scribe regarded as the center of piety was study, interpretation,
and application of the Torah. To be sure, what was studied and
how it was interpreted are not to be identified with the literature and
interpretation of later rabbinism. But the scribal piety and the rabbinic
piety are expressed through an identical symbol, study of
Torah. And one looks in vain in the rabbinic traditions about the
Pharisees before 70 for stress on, or even the presence of the ideal
of, the study of Torah. Unless the Torah ideal of rabbinism begins as
the innovation of the early Yavneans—and this seems to me
unlikely—it therefore should represent at Yavneh the continuation
of pre-70 scribism.
But pre-70 scribism continued with an important difference,
for Yavnean and later rabbinism said what cannot be located in
pre-70 scribal documents: The Temple cult is to be replaced by
study of Torah, the priest by the rabbi (= scribe); and the center of
piety was shifted away from cult and sacrifice entirely. So Yavnean
scribism made important changes in pre-70 scribal ideas. It responded
to the new situation in a more appropriate way than did the
Yavnean Pharisaism represented by Eliezer. Eliezer could conceive
of no piety outside of that focused upon the Temple. But Yavnean
and later scribism-rabbinism was able to construct an expression of
36
From Cultic Piety to Torah-Piety After 70
piety which did not depend upon the Temple at all. While Eliezer
appears as a reformer of old pharisaism, the proponents of rabbinism
do not seem to have reformed the old scribism. What they did
was to carry the scribal ideal to its logical conclusion.
If study of Torah was central and knowledge of Torah important,
then the scribe had authority even in respect to the Temple
and the cult; indeed, his knowledge was more important than what
the priest knew. This view, known in the sayings of Yohanan b.
Zakkai, who certainly held that the priest in Yavnean times was
subordinate to the rabbi, is not a matter only of theoretical consequence.
Yohanan also held that he might dispose of Temple
practices and take them over for the Yavnean center—and for other
places as well—and so both preserve them ("as a memorial") and
remove from the Temple and the priests a monopoly over the sacred
calendar, festivals, and rites. Earlier scribism thus contained within
itself the potentiality to supersede the cult. It did not do so earlier
because it had no reason to and because it probably could not. The
later rabbinism, faced with the occasion and the necessity, realized
that potentiality. By contrast, earlier pharisaism invested its best
energies in the replication of the cult, not in its replacement. After
70, it could do no more than plan for its restoration.
VI
Scribism as an ideology, not merely a profession, begins with the
view that the law given by God to Moses was binding and therefore
has to be authoritatively interpreted and applied to daily affairs.
That view goes back to the fourth century B.C., by which time
Nehemiah's establishment of the Torah of Moses as the constitution
of Judea produced important effects in ordinary life. From that time
on, those who could apply the completed, written Torah constituted
an important class or profession. The writings of scribes stress the
identification of Torah with wisdom and the importance of learning.
Ben Sira's sage travels widely in search of wisdom and consorts
with men of power. Into the first century, the scribes continue as an
identifiable estate high in the country's administration. Otherwise,
the synoptics' view is incomprehensible. Therefore, those who were
professionally acquainted with the scriptures—whether they were
priests or not—formed an independent class of biblical teachers,
37
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
lawyers, administrators, or scribes alongside the priesthood. We do
not know what they actually did in the administration of the country.
Perhaps Yohanan b. Zakkai's reference to decrees of Jerusalem
authorities (M. Ketubot 13: Iff.) alludes to the work of scribes, who
therefore were involved—as the Pharisees certainly were not—in
the determination of family law and in the settlement of trivial
disputes.
The New Testament references support the supposition that
the scribes were a separate group, differentiated from Sadducees
and Pharisees. The scribes occur in association with the high priests
in Matthew 2:4, 16:21, 20:18, 21:15, 27, 27:41; Mark 8:31, 10:33,
11:18,27, 14:1,43, 53, 15:1, 31, etc., with the Pharisees in Matthew
5:20, 12:38, 15:1,23:2, 13 ff.; Mark 2:16, 7:1, 5. But they are not the
same as the one or the other. The scribes are called "learned in the
law" and jurists. (Matthew 22:35; Luke 7:30, 10:25, 11:45, 52, 14:3.)
They are teachers of the law. (Luke 5:17; Aci» 5:34.)
Mishnaic literature obviously will miss the distinction between
Pharisees and scribes, both of whom are regarded as HKMYM,
sages. But we have no reason to suppose all scribes were Pharisees.
Scribes were merely "men learned in the law." There must have
been also Sadducean scribes. In fact, those passages of the New
Testament, which speak of scribes who were of the Pharisees (Mark
2:16, Luke 5:30, Acts 23:9) point also to the existence of Sadducean
scribes (Schurer). The scribes therefore represent a class of men
learned in scripture, perhaps lawyers in charge of the administration
of justice. They therefore had to develop legal theories, teach
pupils, and apply the law. Naturally, such people would come to the
center of the administration of government and law, so they could
not have remained aloof from Yavneh. Some of them may, to be
sure, have come because they were Pharisees. But others, whatever
their original ritual practices, would have come because Yavneh
represented the place in which they might carry on their profession.
Josephus—himself a new adherent of the Pharisees—does not
confuse the scribes with the Pharisees. In none of his allusions to the
Pharisees does he also refer to the scribes (grammateis) or call
Pharisees scribes. In Life 197-98, he refers to a delegation of
Jerusalemites to Galilee. Two were from the lower ranks of society
and adherents of the Pharisees, the third was also a Pharisee, but a
38
From Cultic Piety to Torah-Piety After 70
priest; the fourth was descended from high priests. These were all
able to assert that they were not ignorant of the customs of the
fathers. To be sure, the Pharisees are referred to as knowledgeable in
the Torah; and they have "traditions from the fathers" in addition to
those that Moses had revealed. But they are not called scribes. They
were (War 1:107-14) exact exponents of the laws. But again they are
not called scribes. The long "philosophical school" account in Antiquities
18:11-17 describes the Pharisees as virtuous and says that "all
prayers and sacred rites of divine worship are performed according
to their exposition"—but they too are not scribes.
When Josephus does refer to scribes, he does not refer to
Pharisees. For example, in War l:648ff. (= Antiquities 17:152), he
refers to two sophistai who ordered their disciples to pull down the
eagle that Herod had set up in the Temple. They are Judah son of
Sepphoraeus and Matthias son of Margalus, men who gave lectures
on the laws, attended by a large, youthful audience. If these are
scribes, they are not said also to be Pharisees, who do not occur in the
account. We find also hierogrammateis and patrion exegetai nomon—but
not in the context of the passages about the Pharisees. While, therefore,
the Pharisees and the scribes have in common knowledge of
the country's laws, the two are treated separately. Josephus does not
regard the scribes as wholly within the pharisaic group; he presents
the scribe as a kind of authority or professional teacher of law.
Josephus does not associate scribes with Pharisees; no scribe is a
Pharisee; and no Pharisee is described as a scribe. The two are
separate and distinct. One is a sect, the other is a profession.
Since later rabbinism found pre-70 scribism highly congenial to
its ideal, it is by no means farfetched to trace the beginnings of
Yavnean rabbinism to the presence of representatives of the pre-70
scribal class, to whom the ideal of study of Torah, rather than the
piety of the cult and the replication of that cultic piety in one's own
home, was central. At Yavneh, therefore, were incorporated these
two important strands of pre-70 times—the one the piety of a sect,
the other the professional ideal of a class.
VII
To summarize: The Pharisees before 70 extended the Temple's
sanctity to the affairs of ordinary folk, requiring that people eat their
39
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
meals in a state of purity appropriate for the sanctuary and preserve
their food from impurity originally pertinent only to the cult and
priesthood. After 70 the rabbinical successors of pharisaism treated
sacrifice itself as something to be done in everyday life, comparing
deeds of loving-kindness to the sacrifices by which sins were atoned
for. So it was an established trait of pharisaism and later rabbinism to
apply cultic symbols to extra-cultic, communal matters, thus to regard
the Temple's sanctity as extending to the streets of the villages.
This was done after 70 by assigning ethical equivalents to Temple
rites, on the one side, and by comparing study of Torah to the act of
sacrifice and the rabbi to the Temple priest, on the other. Cultic
purity was extended to the home, and, later on, study of Torah was
substituted for cultic sacrifice and deeds of loving-kindness for
sin-offering. Later it would be natural to take over the purity-rules
and to endow them with ethical, therefore with everyday, communal
significance, instead of leaving them wholly within the cult. It was a
continuation of an earlier tendency to ethicize, spiritualize, and
moralize the cult by treating the holy people—the community of
Israel—as equivalent to the holy sanctuary. The rabbis' larger tendency
thus is to preserve, but to take over within the rabbinical
system, the symbols of the Temple. The rabbi is the new priest.
Study of Torah is the new cult. Deeds of loving-kindness are the new
sacrifice.
40
4
The Mishnah
As a Focus of
Torah-Piety
N ow that we have considered
the theological and historical aspects of the ideal of learning in
Judaism, we come finally to the literary aspect. The conception of
the centrality of Torah-learning is joined, by the end of the second
century, to the notion that, at Sinai, Moses received a dual Torah,
one in writing, the other handed on through oral formulation and
oral transmission. That other half of divine revelation is constituted
by Mishnah, a corpus of laws redacted at ca. A.D. 200. Along with
scriptures, Mishnah is one of the two principal documents of that
form of Judaism which has been predominant and normative since
the third century, that Rabbinic Judaism of which I spoke at such
length in the third lecture. Rabbinic Judaism stands upon the claim
that two Torahs, together revealed at Sinai, constitute the one whole
Torah of Moses, "our rabbi." Mishnah is transmitted, it is claimed,
through processes of memorization and therefore is called "the Oral
Torah," while the Pentateuch is the written one. Accordingly, when
we come to Mishnah, we approach one of the principal foci of
Torah-learning.
The question before us is this: What is the religious world-view
4 1
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
expressed by the principal document of Rabbinic Judaism? How is
piety expressed in a system in which Torah-learning is at the
center? The first thing we have to know is that, to the formative
minds of Rabbinic Judaism, praying is not the chief expression of
piety and not the highest mode of liturgy. There is work for God
which is to be done—that is, liturgy—and it is not chiefly in praying
but in learning that that work is carried out. The view of the thirdand
fourth-century rabbis is representative: Praying concerns temporal
needs. Learning is life eternal. So, for example, when Raba
saw Hamnuna praying too long, he criticized him: "You forsake
eternal life and occupy yourself with worldly needs" (Babylonian
Talmud Shabbat 10a). Sheshet would turn aside and repeat
Mishnah-traditions between the segments of the scriptural lection,
saying, "They with theirs, and we with ours." (Ibid., Berakhot 8a.)
When Isaac asked Nahman why he did not come to the synagogue in
order to pray, Nahman replied, "I can't do so." "Why," Isaac asked,
"does R. Nahman not gather ten people to pray with a quorum at
home?" "Because," he said, "it is too much trouble." (Ibid., 7b.)
Accordingly, so far as the cited rabbis are concerned, the synagogue
as a place of praying is not a principal locus of the holy life. Eternal
life is sought elsewhere.
We know from Lecture One that to the rabbis of Rabbinic
Judaism in its formative centuries, man seeks transcendence
through Talmud Torah, learning in divine revelation as handed on by
the rabbis. Worship as liturgy, that is, work for God, is carried on not
principally through praying, which is for our selfish needs, but
through study. True worship takes its own intellectual forms. This
fact requires us to revise our definition of worship, which usually
deems worship equivalent to praying. We therefore ask, What is the
meaning of the transcendence attained through learning? We turn,
in particular, to the analysis of the religious world view of Rabbinic
Judaism as revealed in the first, and generative, document of that
form of Judaism, which is Mishnah. We treat the question in four
parts: the rabbinic understanding of transcendence, forms of worship,
modes of community, and uses of tradition.
Transcendence is the quest for something beyond oneself, the
effort to surpass one's own being and to find what, in the supernatural
world, it is that, in this world, we stand for: the effort to
42
The Mishnah As a Focus of Torah-Piety
reach outward toward, and inward into, that image in which we are
made. To the rabbis of the first seven centuries of the Common Era
and to their continuators down to the contemporary expressions of
Rabbinic Judaism, transcendence is to be attained in and through
Torah. By Torah are meant a book, on the one side, and an activity—
the act of learning—on the other. The "book" of course is the written
scriptures, the Tanakh, and the unwritten revelation of God to
Moses "our rabbi" at Mount Sinai. Thus Torah refers to "the whole
Torah of Moses our rabbi," a Torah in two parts, distinguished by
the forms of the formulation and transmission. The one part is
written down. The other part is memorized. The two together
constitute Torah, and what is done with the two is to learn Torah,
principally through memorization and critical inquiry into what is
memorized (that is, the paramount mode of the second half of
Torah). Accordingly, literary texts constitute the utensils of the
transcendent, and learning in them defines the quest for, and experience
of, transcendence. It follows that, to the ancient rabbis and
their continuators, one seeks God through the worship effected in
a particular kind of learning of a distinctive sort of literature. The
common sense of worship—praying—is, as I have emphasized, secondary
and unimportant, an essentially worldly and nontranscendent
activity.
To the rabbis Torah remains open, an uncompleted canon, as
late as the early third century, and beyond. Mishnah, after all, is
called Torah by people who know personally authorities of the
Mishnah, e.g., by Samuel and Rab, who can have known Rabbi
himself. No wonder, then, that they could deem Torah-learning to
be the chief locus of the open way toward transcendence, for it is
through the processes of qabhalah and massoret—handing down,
traditioning—that they claim in behalf of Mishnah its status as part
of Mosaic revelation: Torah-learning is a mode of attaining revelation of
Moses at Sinai, and transcendence by rabbis is defined as receiving
divine revelation. Mishnah itself is called Mosaic and assigned to
Sinai by people who stand within decades of the furious redactional
and tradental work which brought Mishnah into being, an amazing
fact. Accordingly, so far as the talmudic rabbis are concerned, Torah
is, as I said, an unfilled basket, a canon still (and, I think, perpetually)
open and uncompleted. If Judah, Meir, Simeon, Yose, and Simeon
43
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
ben Gamaliel are the main authorities of Mishnah, moreover, it
means that the third- and fourth-century rabbis cannot have supposed
the processes of revelation had closed a thousand or more
years earlier. Not for them the route of pseudepigraphy, assigning
their great ideas to Adam or Enoch or the sons of Jacob. Nor do they
even take the trouble to anachronize the language of the oral Torah
and to put it into the forms and syntax of the biblical tongue, as do
the masters of the Essene community at Qumran. They do not
imitate the forms of the sacred literature of old nor hide themselves
in the cloak of pseudepigraphic anonymity. For to them transcendence
is as available now as it had been to Moses. And nothing said to
Moses is not also said to them.
To the rabbis of talmudic times, therefore, the way to surpass
themselves and to reach out to the godly way, the path to the
imitation of Moses "our rabbi" and to the heavenly academy at which
God studies Torah, lies in the very immediate present. It is now
important to spell out the concrete modes of following or expressing
the transcendental way characteristic of Torah-learning. For we
now know that these constitute not solely salvific, but revelatory
forms. Through the way in which rabbis learn Torah they know
God, or, to be more precise, that part of God which was to be known
by man: God's will and mind.
II
The modes under discussion pertain to method. First, how is
Torah in the memorized form to be formulated and handed on?
Second, how is Torah to be learned, that is, attained? The answer to
the First question is that the part of Torah represented by Mishnah is
so formulated as to be memorized. The answer to the second is that
Torah is attained through the exegesis of Torah already attained.
The open canon allows for the inclusion of new works of Torah into
late medieval times, e.g., Zohar, Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, Joseph
Karo's Shulhan 'Arukh. That is, the corpus of books holy to Rabbinic
Judaism included not only the medieval compilations of midrash but
also later works of law and mysticism. This, of course, poses a
paradox, to which we shall have to return.
Let us dwell upon the matter of memorization. Mishnah is a
work formulated in the processes of redaction. That is, the particu-
44
The Mishnah As a Focus of Torah-Piety
lar linguistic formulation of Mishnah takes place among the men
who at the same time propose to put together the corpus of linguistic
formulations into a well-composed and orderly document. They
work with materials of the antecedent two or three centuries, but
whatever forms were imposed on these materials in earlier times are
wholly obliterated by men wholly in command of themselves and
confident of their own superior judgment of how things should be
put together and worded.
Mishnah is set out in highly stereotyped sentences, and the range
of such sentences is very limited. We can list the paramount forms of
Mishnaic language on the fingers of one hand. The patterned sentences,
e.g., If X is so, then Y is the rule, and if X is not so, then Y is not the
rule, will run on in groups of threes or fives. When the pattern shifts
to some other, so too does the topic under discussion change. The
patterns, moreover, are so worked out and put together that it is
exceedingly easy to memorize Mishnah. Accordingly, just as the
authorities of Mishnah do not take the trouble to put their ideas into
the mouths of Adam, Enoch, or e.g., their own heroes, Moses and
David, and just as they do not bother to copy the formulary patterns
of scripture, so they take stunningly decisive action to wipe out the
traces of the literary and aesthetic forms in which intellectual materials
then nearly three centuries old had come down into their own
hands. In this regard we are reminded of the work of aesthetic
innovators in the great ages of architecture, who not only declined to
imitate the buildings they saw around them, but tore down those
buildings and made their own instead.
And, it is to be stressed, what the redactors and formulators of
Mishnah do, they do only in Mishnah. The companion compilation,
Tosefta, does not reveal any equivalent traits of formulation aimed
at facilitating memorization. Nor in the later rabbinic documents do
we find equivalent traits encompassing whole chapters and even
larger units of redaction, though, to be sure, brief formularies seem
to have been memorized throughout. It follows that Mishnah is
something special and, I claim, unique. It alone is made into literature
for memorization, and in its behalf alone is the claim laid down,
"Moses received Torah at Sinai, and handed it on to Joshua, and
Joshua to the sages, and sages to the prophets," and so on down to
45
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
the named authorities who stand within the pages of Mishnah itself,
even such recent figures as Shammai and Hillel, for example.
Ill
Exactly how do the framers of Mishnah facilitate memorization?
Let me state first what they do not do. They do not give us
rhyme schemes. While the document probably was meant to be sung,
it does not follow disciplined rhythms. The principal forms of the
Mishnaic sentence consist of consistent arrangements of words in
certain syntactical patterns, not in the repetition of the same words
with some stunning variation at the start or end of a thought.
Accordingly, what makes it easy to memorize Mishnah is the presence
of recurrent syntactical patterns. These are embedded deep
within the structure of language, rather than expressed superficially,
e.g., in concrete repetition of particular words, rhythms, syllabic
counts, or sounds. The Mishnaic mnemonic is defined by the inner
logic of word patterns: grammar and syntax. Even though Mishnah
is to be memorized and handed on orally and not in writing, it
expresses a mode of thought attuned to highly abstract syntactical
relationships, not concrete and material ones. Rabbis who memorize
Mishnah are capable of amazingly abstract perceptions.
For their ears and minds perceive regularities of grammatical
arrangements among diverse words. What is memorized is a recurrent
notion expressed in diverse examples but, as I said, framed
in a single, repeated rhetorical pattern. Truth lies beneath the
surface of diverse rules. It is the unstated principle which unites the
stated cases, embedded in the deep structure of language and
thought alike. (See above, pp. 6ff.)
Mishnaic rhetoric creates a world of discourse distinct from the
concrete realities of a given time, place, and society. The exceedingly
limited repertoire of grammatical patterns in which all ideas on all
matters are expressed gives symbolic expression to the notion that
beneath the accidents of life are comprehensive, unchanging, and
enduring relationships. These patterns lie deep in the inner structure
of reality and impose structure and meaning upon the accidents
of the world.
It therefore is through how things are said, as much as through
what is said, that Mishnah proposes to express its transcendent
46
The Mishnah As a Focus of Torah-Piety
message. What is remarkable is that Mishnah expects to be understood.
It is not gibberish, composed of meaningless rhymes or repeated
words, repetition of which brings salvation. Mishnah is made
out of meaningful statements, the form of which is meant to convey
deep meaning. The framers of Mishnah, as I said, expect to be
understood by keen ears and active minds. They therefore convey
what is fundamental at the level of grammar, autonomous of specific
meanings of words and cases. Thereby they manifest confidence
that the listener will put many things together and draw the important
conclusions for himself. Mishnah assumes an active intellect
capable of perceiving implications and of vivid participation.
Mishnah demands memorizing the message, but also perceiving the
unarticulated message contained within the medium of syntax and
grammar. And the hearer is assumed to be capable of putting the
two together into still further insight. The cogent syntactical pattern
underlying statements about different things expresses a substantive
cogency among those diverse and divergent cases.
Mishnah claims to make wise and true statements, which,
moreover, apply at any time and in any place. It follows that
Mishnah proposes to describe how things truly are. And the people
who make Mishnah do so in order to put together, in a single
document and in encapsulated form, an account of the inner structure
of reality. This account is, specifically, of that aspect of reality
which, in their judgment, can and should be put into formally
patterned words. All of the diverse and changing phenomena of the
world can be reduced to a few simple, descriptive equations. These, I
repeat, are expressed in particular by deep traits of the interrelationships
of words, persistent patterns of grammar and syntax.
There are then these two striking traits of mind reflected within
Mishnah: first, the perception of order and balance, and, second,
the view of the mind's centrality in the construction of order and
balance. The mind imposes wholeness upon discrete cases. Mind
perceives meaning and pattern, because, to begin with, it is mind,
the will, understanding, and intention of man, which imparts meaning
to the world. To give one concrete example of that fact, I point
out that, to the rabbis of the second century, it is human intention,
not material reality or automatic working of mindless laws, which
defines what is unclean or clean. In one area of the law of purities
47
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
after another, the conclusion is reached that what man thinks is
determinative of what can be made unclean and definitive of the
processes of contamination. For instance, scripture states (Leviticus
11:34, 37) that if a dead creeping thing falls on food, and if the food
is dry, it is unaffected, but if it is wet, it is made unclean. The late
first- and second-century rabbis add, however, that food which is
wet down accidentally is not affected by the source of uncleanness. It
is still clean and insusceptible. Only when a man deliberately draws
water and intentionally applies it to grain, for example, does the
grain become susceptible to uncleanness. It follows that, if you have
two stacks of grain, one on which rain has fallen, another which a
man has watered, and if a dead creeping thing falls on both, only the
latter is unclean. The two sorts of grain are identical, except for
man's intention. This is one among literally hundreds of examples
of the same viewpoint. My sense is that all the oral Torah wishes to
say as its perspective of transcendence may be summed up in one
verse: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that
thou thinkest of him? Yet thou has crowned him with glory and honor and
made him little lower than the angels."
IV
Mishnah comes into being in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba
War. That fact is heavy with meaning. For it is only after Bar Kokhba
that ancient Israel knows beyond doubt the cult of the Temple in
Jerusalem would not soon be restored. From 70 for three generations
the hope was that, as 586 had been followed in three generations
by Cyrus and the return to Zion, so 70 would be followed
through divine intervention and the coming of a messiah. But with
the end of the terrible war, it was forbidden for Jews to enter
Jerusalem. Could anyone still have expected permission to rebuild
the Temple and reestablish the cult? The second half of the second
century, in which Mishnah takes over the teachings of scribes and
Pharisees before 70 and rabbis afterward and makes of those teachings
a principal component of the Torah of Moses, is the time of the
reconsideration of the meaning of worship.
Clearly, worship through prayer was already ancient for the
second-century Israelites. But worship through sacrifice also was an
old and established mode of divine service. The loss of that second
48
The Mishnah As a Focus of Torah-Piety
mode of worship cannot have been ignored. To state matters briefly:
learning in Mishnah succeeds sacrifice in the cult as a mode of
worship, and, I think, the succession is not temporal only, but bears
deep ontological meaning. To explain this point, I cite the statement,
in a lecture at Brown University, of William Scott Green,
University of Rochester:
If the performance of rituals within the Temple exposes
the lines of God's revealed reality, then thinking...
about these rituals outside the Temple, even without the
possibility of performing all of them, has the same result.
The Mishnaic rabbis express their primary cognitive
statements, their judgments upon large matters,
through . . . law, not through myth or theology, neither
of which is articulated at all. Early Rabbinism took ritual
beyond the realm of practice and transformed it into the
object of speculation and the substance of thought.
Study, learning, and exposition became . . . the basic
Rabbinic activity. . . .
Restating this view in terms of Mishnaic grammatical rhetoric, we
may say that the thinking about matters of detail within a particular
pattern of cognitive constructions treats speculation and thought as
themselves capable of informing and shaping being, not merely
expressing its external traits: Language becomes ontology.
Language in Mishnah replaces cult. Formalism of one kind
takes the place of formalism of another. The claim that infinitely
careful and patterned doing of a particular sort of deeds is ex opere
operato an expression of the sacred has its counterpart in the implicit
character of Mishnah's language. Its rhetoric is formed with infinite
care, according to a finite pattern for speech, about doing deeds of a
particular sort. Language now conforms to cult then.
The formal cult, once performed in perfect silence, now is given
its counterpart in formal speech. Where once men said nothing, but
through gesture and movement, in other circumstances quite secular,
performed holy deed, so now they do nothing. But through
equally patterned revision of secular words about secular things,
they perform holy speech. In the cult it is the very context which
makes an intrinsically neutral, therefore secular, act into a holy one.
Doing the thing right, with precision and studied care, makes the
doing holy. Slaughtering an animal, collecting its blood, butchering
49
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
it, burning incense, and pouring wine—these by themselves are
things which can be, and are, done in the home as much as in the
cult. But in the cult they are characterized by formality and precision.
In Mishnah, by contrast, there is no spatial context to sanctify
the secular act of saying things. The context left, once cult is gone, is
solely the cultic mode of formalism, the ritualization of speech, that
most neutral and commonplace action. Mishnah transforms speech
into ritual and so creates the surrogate of ritual deed. That which
was not present in cult, speech, is all that is present now that the
silent cult is gone. And, it follows, it is by the formalization of speech,
its limitation to a few patterns, and its perfection through the creation
of patterns of relationships in particular, that the old nexus of
heaven and earth, the cult, now is to be replicated in the new and
complementary nexus: cultic speech about all things.
V
How does the Mishnaic mode of liturgy—worship through
learning—affect the life of the community? It brings to the center
the importance of memorizing and carrying into everyday life the
teachings of Torah. That is to say, in a world such as Mishnah's, in
which writing is routine, memorization is special. What happens
when we know something by heart which does not happen when we
must read it or look for it in a scroll or a book is this: When we walk in
the street and when we sit at home, when we sleep and when we
awake, we carry with us, in our everyday perceptions, that
memorized saying. The process of formulation through formalization
and the co-equal process of memorizing patterned cases to
sustain the perception of the underlying principle, uniting the cases
just as the pattern unites their language, extends the limits of language
to the outer boundaries of experience, the accidents of everyday
life itself.
To impose upon those sayings an underlying and single structure
of grammar corresponding to the inner structure of reality is to
transform the structure of language into a statement of ontology.
Once our minds are trained to perceive principle among cases and
patterns within grammatical relationships, we further discern, in the
concrete events of daily life, both principle and underlying au-
50
The Mishnah As a Focus of Torah-Piety
tonomous pattern. The form of Mishnah is meant to correspond to
the formalization perceived within, not merely imposed upon, the
conduct of concrete affairs. The matter obviously is not solely ethical,
though the ethical component is self-evident. It also has to do
with the natural world and the things which break its routine. In
Mishnah all things are a matter of relationship, circumstance, fixed
and recurrent interplay. If X, then Y, if not X, then not Y—that is the
datum by which minds are shaped.
The way to shape and educate minds is to impart into the ear,
thence into the mind, perpetual awareness that what happens recurs,
and what recurs is pattern and order, and, through them,
wholeness. How better than to fill the mind with formalized
sentences, generative of meaning for themselves and of significance
beyond themselves? In such sentences meaning rests upon the perception
of relationship. Pattern is to be discovered in alertness, in the
multiplicity of events and happenings, none of which states or articulates
pattern: Mind, trained to memorize through what is implicit
and beneath the surface, is to be accustomed and taught in
such a way to discern pattern. Order is because order is discovered,
first in language, then in life. As the cult, in all its precise and
obsessive attention to fixed detail, effected the perception that from
the orderly center flowed lines of meaning to the periphery, so the
very language of Mishnah, in its precise and obsessive concentration
on innate and fixed relationship, effects the perception of order
deep within the disorderly world of language, nature, and man.
VI
In my view, we misrepresent the rabbinic mode of transcendence
when we call it "traditional." It is, I have argued, anything but
tradition, in the commonplace sense of tradition as something
handed on from of old which bears authority over us because it has
been handed on from of old. The foundation of Mishnah's world
view is the claim that revelation happens in Mishnah, which is the
work of men of the recent past. Revelation continues to happen
through learning in Mishnah.
It is the contemporaneity of Mishnah—a contemporaneity effected
through the detachment of its cases from specific time and
place and even particular linguistic context—which is its principal
51
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
claim upon transcendence, that is, Mishnah's contemporaneity, not
its status as "tradition." And the later history of Mishnah, its capacity
to generate two large Talmuds as commentaries, its unfathomed
implications stirring later generations to produce their commentaries
to Mishnah and especially to its commentaries, their responses
to specific questions of Torah-law, and their efforts to codify the
law—these testify to the permanent contemporaneity of Mishnah
down to the present day.
Accordingly, we must ask, Why is it that Mishnah, while Torah,
prevents its own encapsulation and fossilization as tradition? In my
view, the reason to begin with is to be found in the intentions of
Mishnah's own framers, who do not present their ideas as ancient
tradition but in their own names as living Torah, and who therefore
keep open the path of continuing receptivity to transcendent truth
through continuing use of mind. I think they do it deliberately, just
as they intentionally reject the names of old authorities, the linguistic
patterns of old documents, and the forms of worship established for
more than a thousand years. In this context I cite the fine insight of
S. C. Humphreys ("Transcendence and Intellectual Roles: The Ancient
Greek Case," Daedalus 104, 1975, pp. 91-117; citation: pp.
112-113), who says:
One of the factors influencing the intellectual to adopt a
transcendental perspective appears to be the need to
make his work comprehensible to an audience widely
extended in space and continuing indefinitely into posterity.
How far is our own appreciative response to these
works—and especially to the rationalism of the Greek
philosophers—due to the authors' deliberate intention of
transcending limitations of social structure and temporal
horizons? How far is this successful transcendence due to
content and how far to form, to the structuring of the
communication in such a way that it contains within itself
enough information to make it immediately comprehensible?
Is this a common quality of rational discourse and
of "classic" works of art?
What I believe Miss Humphreys wishes to emphasize is that, when
we respond to a document such as Mishnah and enter into its world,
we do so because the people who make it as it is so framed it that we
should do so.
52
The Mishnah As a Focus of Torah-Piety
Our response to the aesthetics of Mishnah—our recognition of
how it is that matters are stated to facilitate memorization and,
thereby, shape processes of cognition—is a tribute to the work of
Rabbi and his colleagues. By stating Mishnah in terms essentially
neutral to their own society (though, to be sure, drawing upon the
data of their context), Rabbi sees to it that his part of the Torah will
pass easily to other places and other ages. Through patterned language,
Mishnah transcends the limitations of its own society and
time. And, I have argued, a great part of this extraordinary creative
achievement is in form, in the "structuring of the communication in
such a way that it contains within itself enough information to make
it immediately comprehensible."
And yet, there is a second side to matters. What makes Mishnah
useful not only is its comprehensibility, but also its incomprehensibility.
It is a deeply ambiguous document, full of problems of interpretation.
Easy as it is to memorize, it is exceptionally difficult to understand.
Mishnah not merely permits exegesis, it demands it. We can
memorize a pericope of Mishnah in ten minutes. But it takes a
lifetime to draw forth and understand the meaning. Mishnah contains
within itself and, as I stress, even in its language, a powerful
statement of the structure of reality. But that statement is so subtle
that for eighteen hundred years, disciples of Mishnah, the Talmuds,
and the consequent literature of exegesis, have worked on spelling
out the meaning (not solely the concrete application) of that statement.
It is no accident at all that the most influential works of Jewish
intellectual creativity, such as the Zohar and Maimonides' legal code,
and that of Joseph Karo, link themselves specifically to Mishnah.
Zohar claims for itself the same authorities as those of Mishnah, as if
to say, "This is the other part of their Torah." And Maimonides'
Mishneh Torah, as everyone knows, is in the model of, but an improvement
upon, Mishnah itself. Nor should we forget that still a
third religious genius of Judaism, Joseph Karo, heard the Mishnah
speak to him and wrote down that the Mishnah had to say. These are
diverse testimonies to the ineluctable demand, imposed by Mishnah
itself for further exegesis. The one pseudepigraphic, the second an
imitation of the language and form, and the third a curious personification
of the document, all look backward, not forward.
53
The Glory of God Is Intelligence
For each is a way earlier taken in response to the written Torah.
The Zohar takes the model—as to its authority—of the pseudepigrapha
of the Old Testament. Maimonides, like the sages of the
Essene community at Qumran, takes the model of the inherited
linguistic choices of the holy book. Joseph Karo, of course, in his
hearing the personification of Mishnah talking, will have been at
home among those who talk of Torah or wisdom personified.
Among the greatest accomplishments of the history of Judaism,
before or after its time, Mishnah stands all by itself in throwing aside
all inherited models, even the logical potentialities of form and
content explored before its own day and, as I just said, afterward as
well. That, I think, is by far the most compelling evidence that
Mishnah, for its part, is exactly what it claims to be: the work of
revelation, fresh and surprising. It is Torah revealed to Moses at
Sinai, therefore Torah not like the other half of Torah—because it
does not have to be.
V"I
Mishnah therefore is a fundamentally ahistorical document,
because it does not appeal to the authority of the past. It does not
represent itself as an exegesis of the ancient scripture. It generates a
fundamentally ahistorical religion, that kind of Judaism predominant
from its time to ours. Mishnah lays down timeless judgments
and sets forth truths not subject to the judgment of history. Its
preference for finding abstraction and order in concrete, perennial
problems of daily life substitutes the criterion of reason and criticism
for that of history and functionality. What counts is perennial reason.
The object of reason is, first, the criticism of the given by the
standard of fundamental principles of order, and second, the demonstration
of the presence, within ordinary things, of transcendent
considerations. The ultimate issue of Mishnah is how to discover
the order of the well-ordered existence and well-correlated
relationships. The prevalent attitude is perfect seriousness about
man's intentions, therefore also about man's actions. The implicit
goal of Mishnah is sanctification of the world through the use of the
mind of men and women in the service of God. I therefore conclude
where I began: The theory of Torah-piety expressed in the forma-
54
The Mishnah As a Focus of Torah-Piety
tive centuries of the Judaism which we know as normative is best
stated very simply, "The glory of God is intelligence," to which,
Judaism will add, "intelligence in perceiving revelation in creation,
Torah in order and form, and the love and mercy of God even in our
capacity to know."
55

Jacob Neusner
The lecturer is University Professor of Religious Studies, and
The Ungerleider Distinguished Scholar of Judaic Studies at Brown
University, Providence, Rhode Island. He holds the A.B., Magna
cum laude in history, from Harvard College; the M.H.L. from The
Jewish Theological Seminary of America; and the Ph.D. from Columbia
University. He has held the Henry Fellowship at Oxford
University and the Fulbright Scholarship at the Hebrew University,
Jerusalem, as well as fellowships from the American Council of
Learned Societies and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation. Before going to Brown in 1968, he taught for four
years at Dartmouth College. He holds the following academic affiliations,
awards, and offices:
1960- Life Member, American Oriental Society
1965- Elected Member, American Society for the Study of
Religion
1967-68 Vice President and Program Chairman, American
Academy of Religion
1968-69 President, American Academy of Religion
57
Jacob Neusner
1968- Association for Jewish Studies, Member, Founding
Committee; Member, Board of Directors, 1968-
1972
1968-69 Council on the Study of Religion, Member, Founding
Committee; Delegate, American Academy of Religion.
1968- Fellow, Royal Asiatic Society (London)
1969 A.M. Ad Eundem, Brown University
1969- President, The Max Richter Foundation
1972 Elected Fellow, American Academy for Jewish Research,
1976-, Member, Executive Committee
1973- Editor, Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity (Monograph
Series, E. J. Brill, Leiden)
1974 University Medal for Excellence, Columbia University,
Conferred May 15, 1974
1975- Editor, Studies in Judaism in Modern Times (Monograph
Series, E. J. Brill, Leiden)
1975- Editor, Library of Judaic Learning (Textbook Series,
Ktav Publishing House, New York)
1976- Editorial Board, The New Review of Books and Religion
(Seabury)
1976- Editor, Brown Judaic Studies (Monograph Series,
Scholars Press)
1977 Visiting Professor of Rabbinic Literature, Jewish
Theological Seminary of America (Graduate
School, Summer Session)
He has published the following scholarly books:
A Life of Yohanan ben Zakkai. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1962. Awarded
Abraham Berliner Prize in Jewish History, Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, 1962. Second Edition, completely revised,
1970.
A History of the Jews in Babylonia. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
I. The Parthian Period (1965). Second printing, revised,
1969.
II. The Early Sasanian Period (1966).
III. From Shapur I to Shapur II (1968).
58
Jacob Neusner
IV. The Age of Shapur II (1969).
V. Later Sasanian Times (1970).
Development of a Legend: Studies on the Traditions Concerning Yohanan
ben Zakkai. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970.
Aphrahat and Judaism: The Christian-Jewish Argument in Fourth Century
Iran. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1971.
The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70. Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1971.
I. The Masters.
II. The Houses.
III. Conclusions.
Eliezer ben Hyrcanus: The Tradition and the Man. Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1973.
I. The Tradition.
II. The Man.
The Idea of Purity in Ancient Judaism. The 1972-73 Haskell Lectures.
Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973.
A History of Mishnaic Law of Purities. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
I. Kelim. Chapters One through Eleveen (1974).
II. Kelim. Chapters Twelve through Thirty (1974).
III. Kelim. Literary and Historical Problems (1975).
IV. Ohalot. Commentary (1975).
V. Ohalot. Literary and Historical Problems (1974).
VI. Negaim. Mishnah-Tosefta (1975).
VII. Negaim. Sifra (1975).
VIII. Negaim. Literary and Historical Problems (1975).
IX. Parah. Commentary (1976)
X. Parah. Literary and Historical Problems (1976).
XL Tohorot. Commentary (1976).
XII. Tohorot. Literary and Historical Problems (1976).
XIII. Miqvaot. Commentary (1976).
XIV. Miqvaot. Literary and Historical Problems (1976).
XV. Niddah. Commentary (1976).
XVI. Niddah. Literary and Historical Problems (1976).
XVII. Makhshirin (1977).
XVIII. Zabim (1977).
XIX. Tebul Yom. Yadayim (1977).
XX. Uqsin. Cumulative Index, Parts I-XX (1977).
59
Jacob Neusner
XXI. The Redaction and Formulation of the Order of Purities in
Mishnah and Tosefta (1977).
XXII. The Mishnaic System of Uncleanness: Its Context and History
(1977).
The Tosefta. Translated from the Hebrew. Sixth Division: Tohorot. New
York: Ktav Publishing House, 1977.
The Tosefta. Translated from the Hebrew. Fifth Division: Qodoshim. New
York: Ktav Publishing House, 1978.
A History of the Mishnaic Law of Holy Things. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
I. Zebahim. Translation and Explanation (1978).
II. Menahot. Translation and Explanation (1978).
III. Hullin, Bekhorot. Translation and Explanation (1978).
IV. Arakhin, Temurah. Translation and Explanation (1979).
V. Keritot, Meilah, Tamid, Middot, Qinnim. Translation and
Explanation (1979).
VI. The Mishnaic System of Holy Things: Its Context and History
(1979).
He has edited the following scholarly books:
Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough.
Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968: Supplements to Numen XIV.
Formation of the Babylonian Talmud: Studies in the Achievements of Late
Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Historical and Literary-Critical Research.
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970.
The Modern Study of the Mishnah. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973.
Soviet Views of Talmudic Judaism: Five Papers by Yu. A. Solodukho.
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1973.
Christianity, Judaism, and Other Greco-Roman Cults. Studies for Morton
Smith at Sixty. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975.
I. New Testament.
II. Early Christianity.
III. Judaism before 70.
IV. Judaism after 70. Other Greco-Roman Cults.
He has written or edited the following textbooks:
The Way of Torah: An Introduction to Judaism. Encino: Dickenson
60
Jacob Neusner
Publishing Company, 1970, in Living Religions of Man series,
edited by Frederick Streng.
Editor: The Life of Torah. Readings in the Jewish Religious Experience.
Encino: Dickenson Publishing Company, 1974, in Living Religions
of Man series, edited by Frederick Streng.
There We Sat Down: Talmudic Judaism in the Making. Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1972. Second printing, New York: Ktav Publishing
House, 1977.
American Judaism. Adventure in Modernity. Englewood Cliffs:
Prentice-Hall, 1972.
From Politics to Piety: The Emergence of Pharisaic Judaism. Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1973.
Editor: Contemporary Judaic Fellowship, in Theory and in Practice. New
York: Ktav Publishing House, 1972.
Invitation to the Talmud: A Teaching Book. New York: Harper & Row,
1973.
Editor: Understanding Jewish Theology: Classical Themes and Modern
Perspectives. New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1973.
Editor: Understanding Rabbinic Judaism. From Talmudic to Modern
Times. New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1974.
First-Century Judaism in Crisis. Yohanan ben Zakkai and the Renaissance
of Torah. Nashville and New York: Abingdon Press, 1975.
Between Time and Eternity: The Essentials of Judaism. Encino:
Dickenson Publishing Company, 1976.
Editor: Understanding American Judaism. Toward the Description of a
Modern Religion. I. The Synagogue and the Rabbi. New York: Ktav
Publishing House, 1975.
Editor: Understanding American Judaism. Toward the Description of a
Modern Religion. II. The Sectors of American Judaism: Reform, Orthodoxy,
Conservatism, and Reconstructionism. New York: Ktav Publishing
House, 1975.
Let's Learn Mishnah. Let's Make Mishnah. New York: Behrman House,
1977 (Textbook for pre-teenagers).
He has, in addition, published the following collections of essays:
Fellowship in Judaism: The First Century and Today. London: Vallentine,
Mitchell & Co., 1963.
61
Jacob Neusner
History and Torah. Essays on Jewish Learning. London: Vallentine,
Mitchell 8c Co., 1965; and New York: Schocken Books, 1965;
paperback edition, New York: Schocken Books, 1967.
Judaism in the Secular Age. Essays on Fellowship, Community, and Freedom.
London: Vallentine, Mitchell 8c Co., 1970; and New York:
Ktav Publishing House, 1970.
Early Rabbinic Judaism. Historical Studies in Religion, Literature, and Art.
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975.
The Academic Study of Judaism. Essays and Reflections. New York: Ktav
Publishing House, 1975.
Talmudic Judaism in Sasanian Babylonia. Essays and Studies. Leiden: E.
J. Brill, 1976.
The Academic Study of Judaism. Essays and Reflections. Second Series. New
York: Ktav Publishing House, 1977.
62
General Index
A
Abstract, rational criticism, 3-12
Adam, 44
Alexander Jannaeus I, 6
Alexandra Salome, 16
Antiquities, 16-18
Aristobulus II, 19
Atonement, mercy and kindness in lieu
of sacrifice, 30-40
B
Bannus, 15, 17
Ben Sira, 37-38
C
Communion, 20-21, 25-26
Community life, 50-51
D
Dietary laws, family adherence to
Temple ritual, 34; Pharisees, 20-28
E
Eliezer b. Hyrcanus, 35-37
Enoch, 44
Essenes, 15-18
F
Family life, adoption of Temple ritual in
home, 34
"Fourth Philosophy," 15, 19
G
Gamaliel, 21
Godly image of man, intellect
producing, 3-12
Green, William Scott, 49
H
Hammuna, 42
Herod, 16, 19-20, 39
Hillel, 24-25, 46
Historical source criticism, 3-4, 13-28
Humphreys, S. C , 52
63
General Index
I
Intellect, as Godly image of man, 3-12;
unifying force, 6-7, 11-12
Isaac, 42
J
Jacob, 44
Jesus, 23; and Pharisees, 14, 20-23;
scribism, 35
Jewish War, 15-18, 39
John, 20-21
John Hyrcanus, 16
Josephus, pharisaic authority, 14-15, 19,
22; Pharisees and scribes, 30, 38; as
Pharisee, 15-16
Joshua ben Hananiah, 30
Judah, 43
Judah b. Sepphoraeus, 39
Judaic theology, 13-28
K
Karo, Joseph, Shulhan 'Arukh, 44, 53-54
1.
Life, 17, 24
Literary criticism, 2-4, 29-55
M
Maeser, Brother, 2, 5
Maimonides, Mishnah Torah, 44, 53-54
Mark, 22-23
Matthew, 23
Matthias b. Margalus, 39
Meals, conduct at, 20-28
Meir, 43
Mercy and kindness in lieu of sacrifice,
30-40
Mishnah, memorization, 45-46; oral
Torah, 41-55; origins, 48-55;
structure of, 44-48
N
Nahman, 42
Nehemiah, 37
64
p
Passover, rules of, 27
Paul, 20
Pharisees, Josephus as, 15-16; New
Testament representations, 20-21;
political party, 16; and Rome, 18;
Temple cult, 13-14; Torah piety
replacing Temple cult, 29-40
Philological and literary criticism, 3-4,
29-40
Practical criticism, 3-4
Prayer and worship, 42
R
Rabbinic Judaism, community life,
50-51; replacing Temple cult, 32-40;
Mishnah and Torah study, 41-55;
tradition, 51-53; transcendence,
42-43; worship, 42, 48-50
Rabbis, theology, shaping of, 13-28;
Pharisees, 14
Rational criticism, 3-12
Reality, Torah as design for, 6
Rome and Pharisees, 18
S
Sabbath observance, family adherence to
Temple cult, 34; Pharisees, 20, 22-23,
28
Sadducees, 15-16, 18
Samuel, 43
Schurer, E., 38
Scribism, influence on Torah study,
32-40
Seder, rules for, 27
Shammai, 24-25, 46
Sheshet, 42
Simeon, 44
Simeon ben Gamaliel, 18-19, 25, 43
Smith, Morton, 18
I
Table-fellowship, 20-21, 25-28
Talmud Torah, maintaining social order,
7-8, 10; study as service to God, 3-13;
General Index
Temple cult, Torah-piety replacing,
29-40
Tithing, family adherence to Temple
ritual, 34; Pharisees, 20, 24
Torah study, scribism influencing, 32-40
Tradition and Mishnah, 51-53
Transcendence, 42-43; and tradition,
51-53
W
Worship and Rabbinic Judaism, 42,
48-50
Y
Yohanan ben Zakkai, mercy and loving
kindness, 30, 37-38
Yose, 43
Young, Brigham, 2, 5
Z
Zealots, 15, 18
Zohar, 44, 53-54
65

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Tuesday, 25 May 2010