How did this happen? An early Talmudic story recounts a dialogue about
the Sabbath between the “wicked Turnus Rufus” and Rabbi ‘Aqiva. Rufus asks:
“Who tells you that this day is the Sabbath?” In response, ‘Aqiva provides three
signs: “Let the river Sabbation prove it; let the Ba’al ob [necromancer] prove it;
let thy father’s grave, whence no smoke ascends on the Sabbath [prove it].”^70
This dialogue is only one among several between the famous rabbi and
Tinnieus Rufus (Roman governor of Judea under Hadrian, r. 117 – 138 CE)to
be found in the Talmud. These dialogues, which supposedly took place when
the tyrannical Rufus sentenced ‘Aqiva to death in the wake of the Bar Kokhba
revolt of 132 – 135 CE, revolve mostly around one central question—whose law is
superior: God’s or that of the empire?^71 In this instance, Rufus claims that the
empire sets the time (and therefore determines the days of the week). Rabbi
‘Aqiva claims that God sets the time, and provides proof of his claim.
As with Pliny and Josephus, ‘Aqiva’s reference to the River Sambatyon is
not connected to the ten tribes. His position was that they were completely
lost, perished. This is further evidence that the legendary river was probably
not yet attached to the ten tribes at the time of the dialogue’s recording. It is
signifcant that the river is mentioned in the context of a fictional dialogue
with a Roman governor, which suggests that, at this period, the Sambatyon
was not uniquely Jewish but belonged in a cultural realm shared by Jews
and Romans.
The evidence connecting Saturn, the Sabbath, and the Jews in the Roman
period is vast and well known. Saturn, the seventh planet (if we include the sun
and the moon) and a Greco-Roman god, was naturally perceived as governing
the Sabbath, the seventh day or Satur(n)day.^72 Tacitus ( 56 – 117 CE), a great
believer in a relationship between Saturn and the Jews, famously speculated
that the “Jews rest every seventh day... in honor of Saturn... the seventh and
highest of the heavenly bodies.”^73 The logic is simple and hardly innovative—if
Saturn governs or at least is linked to the Sabbath, it is most probably
connected to therivus sabbatis,the Sambatyon, as well. After all, from the
Roman perspective, the river carries the very name of Saturn.
The similarities in the descriptions of the river’s behavior in Pliny and
Josephus, as in the dialogue between Rabbi ‘Aqiva and Rufus, suggest a
shared perspective; a Jewish-Roman cultural exchange existed on some
level concerning the river. Could it be that Greco-Roman mythology
dressed in Jewish lore helped to transform the Rivus Sabbatis into Sam-
batyon, the river enclosing the ten tribes? The myth of Saturn may explain
the transformation of Rivus Sabbatis, a river ostensibly governed by Sat-
urn, and in effect carrying its name, into the site of containment of the
ten tribes and other groups.
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