Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Joel Rembaum on Jewish Ethnocentricism in the Second Temple and Talmudic Ages


Commenting on Jewish attitudes to Gentiles during the Second Temple and Talmudic ages, Joel Rembaum wrote the following:

. . . many of the Jews of the late Second Temple period (ca. 150 B.C.E.-70 C.E.) and the talmudic age (ca. 70-500 C.E.) maintained strongly negative views of pagans and pagan society. Not only were the Jews heirs to the biblical traditions but their experiences with the Greco-Roman and, later, Persian civilizations were often bitter and antagonistic. Greeks, Romans, and Persians were, in the eyes of many Jews, no different from the peoples whom the Bible paints in negative colors. So, for example, in the Mishnah we read:

Cattle may not be left in the inns of the gentiles since they are suspected of bestiality; nor many a woman remain alone with them since they are suspected of lewdness; nor may a man remain alone with them since they are suspected of shedding blood. The daughter of an Israelite may not assist a gentile woman in childbirth, since she would be assisting to bring to birth a child of idolatry (Av. Zar. 2:1).

In a long midrashic account of the day of divine judgment at the end of time, the gentiles are depicted as having been unworthy of receiving the Torah (BT Av. Zar. 2bff.) Elsewhere, they are considered to be infected with lasciviousness (BT Shab. 145b-146a) and sexually immoral (BT Ket. 13b). Further we read: “All the charity and kindness done by the heathens is counted to them as sin, because they only do it to magnify themselves . . . [and] to display haughtiness (BT BB 10b) . . . According to Rabbinic tradition, six of the seven commandments of the children of Noah actually had been given to Adam: prohibitions against idolatry, blaspheming God’s name, murder, incest, and stealing and the obligation to establish courts of law . . . These commandments, for all intents and purposes, were the Sages’ principles of universal ethical monotheism . . . On occasion, the Sages’ critical view of the pagan world made them sceptical of the gentiles’ ability to fulfill even these few, very basic obligations (BT BK 38a; Lev. R. 13:2). (Joel Rembaum “Dealing with Strangers: Relations with Gentils at Home and Abroad” in Jacob Blumenthal and Janet L. Liss, Etz Hayim: Study Companion [Jewish Publications Society, 2005], 201-11, here, pp. 208-9)

Such “us vs. them” attitudes and ethnocentricity is part-and-parcel of ancient texts and cultures, so it is not unusual that one finds such attitudes amongst the Nephites towards the Lamanites in the Book of Mormon—yes, the Book of Mormon (and the Bible and other texts, including the Jewish texts referenced above) are ethnocentric and the like; no, the Book of Mormon is not KKK-like racist.

For more, see, for e.g.: