Talmudic academies in Syria Palaestina
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The Talmudic academies in Syria Palaestina were yeshivot that served as centers for Jewish scholarship and the development of Jewish law in Syria Palaestina (under the Romans), and later Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda. The academies had a major influence on Judaism through the development of the Jerusalem Talmud, or Palestinian Talmud, which was compiled into book form in around 350–400 CE.[1]
Council of Jamnia
The Roman
Moreover, it reared a new generation of similarly gifted men, whose task it became to overcome the results of the Bar Kokhba revolt. During the interval between these two disasters (56-117), or, more accurately, until the Kitos War under Trajan, the school at Yavne was the recognized tribunal that gathered the traditions of the past and confirmed them; that ruled and regulated existing conditions; and that sowed the seeds for future development. Next to its founder, it owed its splendor and its undisputed supremacy especially to Gamaliel II, a great-grandson of Hillel. To him flocked the pupils of Johanan ben Zakkai and other masters and students of the Law and of Talmudical hermeneutics. Although some of them taught and labored in other places – Eliezer ben Hurcanus in Lod; Joshua ben Hananiah in Peki'in; Rabbi Ishmael in Kfar Aziz, Rabbi Akiva in Bnei Brak; Haninah ben Teradion in Siknin – Yavne remained the center; and in "the vineyard" of Yavne, as they called their place of meeting, they used to assemble for joint action.
Levantine Judaism restored
In the fertile ground of the Yavne Academy the roots of the literature of tradition —
Location of the Patriarchate
In the time of Shimon ben Gamaliel II, the seat of the Patriarchate frequently shifted location; its first move being from Usha to
Centers of learning
After Judah's death Sepphoris did not long remain the seat of the patriarch and the Academy. Gamaliel III, the unpretentious son of a distinguished father, became patriarch; but Hanina bar Hama succeeded him as head of the school, and introduced the new order of things that commenced with the completion of the Mishnah. In Hanina's lifetime the last migration of the Sanhedrin occurred. His pupil, Johanan bar Nappaha, settled in Tiberias, and the patriarch Judah II (grandson of Judah I) soon found himself compelled to remove to that city. The imposing personality and unexampled learning of Johanan rendered Tiberias for a long period the undisputed center of Levantine Judaism, the magnet which attracted Babylonian students.
When Johanan died in 279—this is the only settled date in the whole chronology of the Amoraim—the renown of the Tiberias Academy was so firmly established that it suffered no deterioration under his successors, although none of them equaled him in learning. For a time, indeed, Caesarea came into prominence, owing solely to the influence of Hoshaya, who lived there in the first half of the third century, and exercised the duties of a teacher contemporaneously with the Church Father Origen, with whom he had personal intercourse. After Johanan's death the school at Cæsarea attained a new standing under his pupil Abbahu; and throughout the whole of the fourth century the opinions of the "sages of Caesarea" were taken into respectful account, even in Tiberias. Sepphoris also resumed its former importance as a seat of learning; and eminent men worked there in the fourth century, long after the disaster to the city wrought by the forces of the emperor Gallus. From the beginning of the third century there had been an academy at Lydda in Judea, or "the South," as Judea was then called. This academy now gained a new reputation as a school of traditional learning. From it came the teacher to whom Jerome owed his knowledge of Hebrew and his insight into the Hebræa Veritas. But neither Caesarea, Sepphoris, nor Lydda could detract from the renown of Tiberias.
Tiberias accordingly remained the abode of the official head of Judaism in the Land of Israel and, in a certain sense, of the
The Jerusalem Talmud
The imperishable monument to the school of Tiberias is the Jerusalem Talmud (or Palestinian Talmud), of which Johanan ben Nappaha laid the foundation; for which reason he is generally styled, although erroneously, its redactor or author. In point of fact, however, this work was not completed until nearly a century and a half after Johanan's death; and its close is undoubtedly connected with the extinction of the patriarchal office (about 425). But Tiberias did not therefore cease to be a seat of learning, although very little of its subsequent activity is known.
The Tiberian punctuation
Further importance was gained by Tiberias as the seat of the
See also
- Talmudic Academies in Babylonia
- Firuz Shapur, modern-day Anbar, a town adjacent or identical to Nehardea; academy of Pumbedita was moved to this town for half of the 6th century
- Mahuza, modern-day Al-Mada'in; the academy of Pumbedita was relocated to Mahuza during the time of the Amora sage Rava
- Nehardea Academy (in Nehardea)
- Pumbedita Academy (in Pumbedita for most of its history, near modern-day Fallujah)
- Pum-Nahara Academy
- Sura Academy, in Sura (city) – the political center of Jewish Babylonia after Nehardea
Notes
- ^ C.E. Hayes, Between the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, accounting for halakhic difference in selected sugyot from Tractate Avodah Zarah (New York 1997), p. 20–1.
- ^ Rosh Hashana 31b.
References
- Bacher, Wilhelm. "Academies in Palestine". Jewish Encyclopedia. Funk and Wagnalls, 1901-1906.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. {{cite encyclopedia}}
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