hensible. Thus, I offer the theoretical and conceptual propositions outlined
at the beginning of this chapter and the accompanying methodological
consideration as a means of making sense of the data without resorting to
made-to-measure historical explanations. Ultimately, the real test of the util-
ity of such propositions is the extent to which they are portable to other data
concerning religious rivalries in the Levant in the first four centuries of
the Christian era.
THIRD-CENTURY GALILEAN RABBINIC PERSPECTIVES ON
JEWISH-GENTILE RELATIONS: MISHNAH AVODAH ZARAH 1
ANDTOSEFTA AVODAH ZARAH1–3
TheToseftais a rabbinic legal document organized as an explanatory sup-
plement and companion to the Mishnah.From the time of its promulgation
in the early third-century CErabbinic guild, the Mishnahbecame the guild’s
founding text. Most of the Tosefta’s materials, and perhaps even their redac-
tion in the current extant document, are immediately post-Mishnaic. That
is, they stem from the mid- to late-third century CEGalilean rabbinic guild,
during the first hundred years of the pro-rabbinic patriarchate in that area.
TheToseftamay be subdivided into three literary categories, as Neusner
(1991) has demonstrated. Toseftan pericopes either (1) cite and gloss the
Mishnah,(2) complement Mishnaic passages in ways that demonstrate
direct dependence on the Mishnah,or (3) provide material that supplants
theMishnah’s agenda altogether. The last-mentioned materials show little
or no literary dependence upon the text of the Mishnah.
Elsewhere, I have attempted to demonstrate the pervasive influence of
theMishnah’s particular form of rhetoric (Lightstone 1997, 283n. 21; cf.
Neusner 1981). Its lyrical, litany- and clock-like, permutative rhetorical fea-
tures encourage the spinning out of hypothetical, highly laconic exempla,
which are classified by specifying whether one rule or another applies.
These exempla are ideal, in many senses of the word. Indeed, they some-
times appear to be generated more through rhetorical necessity or conven-
tion than because of their utility in differentiating even an ideal, divinely
ordered world. Moreover, as a corollary, other hypothetical exempla that
might serve as interesting bases for exploring the rabbinic legal principles
of world mapping are often not dealt with, because the aesthetic of Mish-
nah’s rhetoric would be diminished in the process.
TheTosefta,on the other hand, does not replicate fully the Mishnah’s
rhetorical features. Especially where it glosses or directly complements the
Mishnah,theToseftadoes exhibit a tendency to explore, extend or even