Neo-Assyrian astronomical terminology in the Babylonian Talmud.

• Author: Ben-dov, Jonathan
• Position: Report

It is an ongoing scholarly endeavor to detect the afterlife of ancient Mesopotamian traditions in the late antique literature of Syria and Mesopotamia. (1) Local Mesopotamian traditions did not cease with the demise of the cuneiform culture but rather persisted into the Aramaic-speaking cultures that flourished in Mesopotamia subsequently. Special significance should be given to those cases where an Akkadian term is reduplicated in Aramaic usage--either as a loanword or as a translated cognate--thereby attesting more clearly to the cultural continuation.

This short note highlights one such case in which, albeit not without difficulties, the technical vocabulary of cuneiform scientists is adopted by a Jewish sage of the late third to early fourth century C.E. It also supplements the discussion by Wacholder and Weisberg, (2) who reflected on the similar methods of proclaiming the new moon in ancient Mesopotamia and in the rabbinic tradition. While these two authors claimed quite specifically that the Jewish calendrical tradition is dependent upon its Mesopotamian roots, their argument proves little more than generic similarity of an observation-based lunar calendar. In the text discussed here, however, the case for direct continuity is clearer, due to the use of a technical term and to the fact that the Jewish sage in question lived on Mesopotamian soil.

A statement by Rav Nahman is reported in the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Ros Hassana 21a (quoted according to ms JTS Rab. 108/1-35):

[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] R. Nahman said to the seafarers: "You do not know when the new moon is fixed (lit., 'do not know the fixation of the month')--when the moon completes the day clear away the leaven (for Passover)." (question): When does it become full? on the fifteenth (day of the month)! But we clear away (already) on the fourteenth! (answer): For them, who have a clear view (lit., 'the world is revealed to them'), it completes already on the fourteenth. This passage reports a statement by Rav Nahman followed by a scholastic discussion by the editors of the pericope, added as late as two or three centuries afterwards. (4)

RAV NAHMAN'S STATEMENT

Rav Nahman instructs the seafarers who sail away before the new moon of the month Nisan is fixed, and thus do not know when the proper time to clear away the leaven falls, on the fourteenth of the month. (5)

The central indication for them should be the moment when the moon [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], lit. "completes the day." In Sokoloff's dictionary the phrase is translated "when the moon completes the sun [i.e., the moon remains visible until sunrise]." (6) While the bracketed elucidation more or less conforms to common astronomical terminology (see below), Sokoloff's first elucidation is not clear to me. A somewhat different translation was offered by Neusner following Rashi: "when you see the moon ceases shining with daylight." (7) This translation construes the root [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE...