JAMNIA (JABNEH), COUNCIL OF. The concept of the Council of Jamnia is a hypothesis to explain the canonization of the Writings (the third division of the Hebrew Bible) which resulted in the closure of the Hebrew canon.
—
A. Jamnia Theory and the Canon
b. the city
C. Jamnia Meetings
D. Study of Jamnia and the Canon
—
A. Jamnia Theory and the Canon
H. Graetz first cautiously proposed and defended the theory in his Excursus to Qoheleth (1871: 155-56), a theory later positively affirmed by F. Buhl, HE Ryle, Robert Pfeiffer, O. Eissfeldt, and others. According to the hypothesis, based on an interpretation of m. Yad. 3:5, the OT canon was closed for all time by the specific religious authority of 72 elders when R. Eleazar ben Azariah became head of the Academy at Yavne about AD 90. The hypothesis rendered great services in transforming scholars of earlier positions that the canon was fixed by Ezra or by the Great Synagogue.
Despite the absence of significant support in ancient Jewish, Christian, or classical texts, the hypothesis became fashionable in the 20th century by repetition rather than proof. Varying degrees of dogmatism are found in the claims about the council’s actions, such as slamming the canon shut and excluding the apocrypha.
After the concept that the council closed the canon was accepted, some scholars projected that the standardization of the Old Testament text also took place in a formal action at Jamnia (also called Jabneh or Yavneh). According to S. Talmon (1970: 174-79), the 19th century began with Rosenmueller’s claim that the MT had returned to a recession. De Lagarde then projected that all texts depended on an example that was considered developed after the rise of the Judeo-Christian controversy. Standardization later joined the exegetical method of Jamnia and R. Akiba. Olshausen defended a deliberate choice made by some official Jewish body, while Noeldeke defended the use of a readily available manuscript as the basis for the standard text. An investigation of the rabbinic citations revealed more variety of texts than previous scholars had known. P. Kahle, after studying the Cairo Geniza manuscripts, postulated vulgar text types that existed alongside the standard text; the latter he conceived of as shaped by rabbinic activity in Jamnia. After the discoveries of Qumran,
S. Krauss (1893) proposed that the birkat hammı̂nı̂m (a prayer against sects) in the 18 blessings must originally have come within the term nôṣrı̂m (Jewish Christians). The theory, considered supported by the appearance of –mı̂nı̂m– and –nôṣrı̂m– in a Geniza text of the blessing, was popularized by I. Elbogen (1931: 36) and later accepted by many Christian theologians. In Johannine studies, by considering -casting out of the synagogue- (aposynagogos; John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2), the council is credited with bridging the gap between Judaism and Christianity. The birkat hammı̂nı̂m, composed by Samuel the Younger at the time of Gamaliel II (n. Ber. 28b-29a), is considered to have been introduced in the 18 blessings to expose and expel the Christian Jews even though the tradition is not attested neither in the Mishnah nor in the Tosefta. Some Johannine scholars have hypothesized that the Fourth Gospel is a Christian response to Jamnia.
In short, the Council of Jamnia and its supposed date of about AD 90, in the absence of attestation in specific texts, is used in scholarship as a convenient symbol for the culmination of long processes in early Judaism. Sometimes used for any development between AD 70 and 135, the terminology has the disadvantage of inviting the uninformed to take official action taken at specific meetings on specific dates.
b. the city
Yavneh (LXX: Iabne; Vg: Iabniae), a Philistine city whose walls Uzziah demolished, is mentioned between Gath and Ashdod (2 Chronicles 26:6) and is conjectured to be identical with Jabneel (LXX: Iabnel; Vg Yebnehel: Josh 15 : 11; cf Josephus Ant 5.1.22 who describes it as a city of Dan) mentioned earlier in the border list of Judah. The city does not appear again in the city lists of Judah until the Maccabean period, but it may be Jemnaan of the book of Judith (2:28) included among the coastal cities whose people feared Holofernes.
That Josephus sometimes mentions Jamnia as a coastal city ( Ant 13.15.4 ) and sometimes as an inland city ( Ant 14.4.5 ; JW 1.7.7 ) suggests that the inland city also had a port. Both Pliny (NH 5.13.68) and Ptolemy (5.16.2) suggest that there are 2 cities. Strabo (16.759) describes Jamnia as so populus that with its surrounding villages it could supply an army of 40,000 capable soldiers. See also JABNEEL; YAVNEH-YAM.
Eusebius (Klostermann ed., 106) places Jamnia between Diospolis (Lydda) and Azotos (Ashdod). The bishops of the church of Jamnia participated in the councils of Nicaea, Chalcedon and Jerusalem. Benjamin of Tudela, identifying Ibelin or Jabneh as the seat of the Academy, places it 5 parasangs from Jaffa, but commented that there were no Jews there in his day (Adler 1907: 27). E. Robinson (1841-57: 2420), mentioning Jamnia in discussing the location of Gath, comments that “Yebna is situated on a small eminence on the west side of the Wadi Rubin, an hour or more from the sea.” Robinson also notes that “The Crusaders built the fortress of Ibelin here” (3.22, 23, n. 2).
Jamnia experienced various vicissitudes during its later history. In the Maccabean period, Judas, learning that the inhabitants of Jamnia intended to murder the Jewish inhabitants (as those of Joppa had previously murdered its Jewish inhabitants), attacked the city at night and burned the port and the floats so that the brightness of the fire was seen in Jerusalem 240 stadia away (2 Mac 13: 8, 9). Georgias, commander of Jamnia, defeated the troops of Joseph and Azariah, whom Judas had left in command while he was in Galaaditis (Josephus Ant 12.8.6). Following Judas’s defeat of Georgias troops, Judas went to Adullam. After the Sabbath his men went to retrieve the bodies of the dead for burial only to discover that under each man’s shirt were consecrated objects from the idols of Jamnia (2 Mac 12:40), a fact that the author of 2 Maccabees considers the cause of their deaths.
Later, Simon (142-135 BC) captured Jamnia (Josephus JW 1.2.2; Ant 13.6.7) from the Syrians; and by the time of Alexander Jannaeus it was occupied by the Jews as well as other coastal cities (Joseph. Ant 13.15.4).
Jamnia was included in the cities that Pompey freed from Jewish rule, returning it to its Syrian inhabitants and annexing it to the province of Syria under the administration of Scarus (JW 1.7.7; Ant 14.4.4). So Gabinus (57-55 BC), after defeating Alexander Jannai, rebuilt cities he found in ruins (including Jamnia) and repopulated them with settlers (Ant 14.5.3; JW 1.8.1).
Although it is conjectured that Augustus must have given Jamnia to Herod around 40 BC. C. (Avi-Yonah 1977: 87), no actual record survives. It was a Judean toparchy (Avi-Yonah 1977:96). Herod in 4 a. C. left the toparchy of Jamnia, Azoto and Phasaelis in his will to his sister Salome (Ant 17.8.1, 11.5; JW 2.6.3). When Salome died (ca. AD 9-12), she bequeathed the city and its territory to Julia (Livia) the wife of Augustus (Joseph. Ant 18.2.2; JW2.9.1). On her death it became the property of Tiberius, who entrusted a special procurator (apparently residing in Jamnia) with the administration of it as an inscription found at Jamnia (Avi-Yonah 1946:84f, no. 1) and Josephus (Ant 18.6.3) testify. Jamnia is described by Philo as one of the most populous cities in Judea, mostly Jewish, but also with others from extraterrestrial races (Gaium 30).
Under King Agrippa, Cestius sent the tribune Neopolitanus to investigate the charges against the Jews. Neopolitanus joined King Agrippa (returning from Egypt) at Jamnia. The chief priests of the Jews and the chief citizens of the council also went to Jamnia to receive the king (Joseph. TJ 2.16.1-2).
Following Caligula’s assertion of his divinity, the new settlers of Jamnia made themselves contemptible to the indigenous inhabitants by making an altar out of bricks which the Jews promptly tore down. The non-Jews complained to Herennius Capito, the imperial procurator of Jamnia, who was in direct contact with the court of Rome (Ant 18.6.4), and sent a report to the emperor. Capito, fearing an investigation into his finances, wished to blacken the Jews in the eyes of the emperor (Philo Gaium 199). Gaius (Caligula) then ordered the erection of a gold statue of himself placed in the temple in Jerusalem (Philo Gaium 30); but Caligula’s assassination in Rome (January 24, AD 41) ended the crisis (Tacitus Histories 5.92) before the order was executed.
During the Jewish revolt, Vespasian first subdued Jamnia after the fall of Gamla (JW 4.3.2. Then, while waiting for Jerusalem to destroy itself (AD 68-69), departed from Caesarea, occupied Antipatris and captured Lydda and Jamnia, quartering over them a suitable number of residents from elsewhere who had surrendered, and stationed the 5th legion outside Emmaus ( JW 4.8.1 ).
After the war, Jamnia was one of the cities made autonomous by Vespasian, as evidenced by coins minted under the later empire (G. Hill 1914; Avi-Yonah 1977:111).
C. Jamnia Meetings
In the absence of contemporary documents on the Yavneh (Jamnia) period, an account of Yavneh’s actions must be drawn from sources written in a later period without any objective way of knowing how much the information has been distorted in the process of transmission. . The legend was developing and one is never sure what is a legend and what is a fact. Existing materials do not allow writing biographies of any of the meeting participants. The sources differ in details from each other. The nature of the sources makes it impossible to be specific about the nature of the Yavneh gatherings, as well as their enactments, especially in the 3 areas discussed above: canon, text, and the exclusion of Christians.
In tradition, R. Yohanan ben Zakkai, already an old man of possibly 70 years, was carried out of besieged Jerusalem as dead by his 2 students Eliezer and Joshua. Yohanan asked Vespasian about Yavneh and his scholars. Qualified for leadership only by his knowledge and teaching from him, Yohanan and his associates at Yavneh began the reconstruction of Judaism…