David Grossberg - Scholar of Religion - Heresy

David Michael Grossberg

Ph.D., Religions of Late Antiquity

Princeton University, Department of Religion, 2014

dmg325@cornell.edu

Select Publications (click image to read)

“‘God Is One’ or ‘the One Is God’ in Hellenistic Jewish and Greco-Roman Theology,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 15 (2024)

“God is one” is the theological foundation of many of the world’s religions. The Greek version of this expression, heis theos, was especially significant to ancient religious development. Past scholarship has tended to place its emergence early, among the sixth century BCE Presocratic philosophers. In this article, I argue that the expression “God is one” in Greek likely develops later, in Jewish writings of the Hellenistic period. My work supports a minority opinion in the scholarship that attributions in second century Christian apologetics of this expression to Presocratics such as Xenophanes should not be relied upon. Rather, I suggest that the expression heis theos emerged in the context of second to first century BCE Alexandrian Jewish theology in conversation with ideas from Greek philosophy.

“One God, Two Powers, and the Rabbinic Rejection of Subordinationism,” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 53 (2022)

This article furthers our understanding of rabbinic theology through an examination of its characteristic modes of expression. I demonstrate that although the rabbinic literature frequently polemicizes against perceived deviant theologies, it refrains from explicit expressions of God’s unity. This disinclination derives from the target and intent of rabbinic theological polemic. The rabbis’ opponents were not Christian binitarians who believed in multiple divine persons, but what I will refer to as Jewish subordinationists who believed in created divine agents through which God acts in the world. The rabbis were therefore less concerned with the ontological nature of God’s unity than they were with distancing all other beings from God’s sole sovereignty. My work provides additional textual support for the growing scholarly consensus that Jewish proponents of Logos theologies were among the rabbis’ earliest opponents, but it challenges the current convention that interprets these theologies in a primarily Christian binitarian context.

“Is there a Doctrine of Heresy in Rabbinic Literature?” TheGemara.com (2018)

M. Sanhedrin 10:1 is considered to be the most important statement of rabbinic heresiology in tannaitic literature. However, a close examination of this text’s development suggests that it is not a straightforward expression of c. 200 C.E. rabbinic doctrine at all, but a reworked tradition from an earlier sectarian milieu.

Heresy and the Formation of the Rabbinic Community (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017)

Between the first and sixth centuries C.E., a community of rabbis systematized their ideas about Judaism in works such as the Mishnah and the Talmud. David M. Grossberg reexamines this community's gradual formation as reflected in polemical texts. He contends that these texts' primary aim was not to describe real rabbinic opponents but to create and enforce boundaries between rabbis and others and within the developing rabbinic movement.

· Review: Review of Biblical Literature 23 (2021), Joshua Schwartz, Bar-Ilan University (click to read)

· Review: Journal of Ecclesiastical History 70 (2019), 838–389, Catherine Hezser, University of London (click to read)

· Review: AJS Review 42 (2018): 451–53, Jonathan Klawans, Boston University (click to read)

· Review: Reviews of the Enoch Seminar (2018), Andrew Higginbotham, Ivy Tech Community College (click to read)

Genesis Rabbah in Text and Context (ed. Sarit Kattan Gribetz, David M. Grossberg, Martha Himmelfarb, Peter Schäfer; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016)

Genesis Rabbah, the earliest rabbinic commentary on the book of Genesis, was composed in Roman Palestine around the fifth century CE and continued to be studied throughout medieval and modern times. In this volume, an international team of scholars explores the literary formation and textual transmission of this work as well as the historical, cultural, religious, and political contexts in which it was composed.

“On Plane-Trees and the Palatine Hill: Rabbi Yishmael and the Samaritan in Genesis Rabbah and the later Palestinian Rabbinic Tradition,” in Genesis Rabbah in Text and Context (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016)

In this paper, I trace the development of a single narrative that first appears in Genesis Rabbah 81:3, which I argue dates from a relatively early period, perhaps as early as the third century, and whose form appears to have remained relatively stable over time. I will demonstrate that a secondary version of this same tradition is also preserved in Genesis Rabbah and that this secondary version came about at least partly through misreading and recontextualization of the earlier version already in late antiquity. I will show how this secondary narrative grew and evolved over time and how these changes have misled modern readers regarding the kinds of historical details that we can reasonably obtain from this narrative.

“Between 3 Enoch and Bavli Hagigah: Heresiology and Orthopraxy in the Ascent of Elisha ben Abuyah,” in Hekhalot Literature in Context: Between Byzantium and Babylonia (eds. Ra'anan Boustan, Martha Himmelfarb, Peter Schäfer; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 117–140

In this paper, I show how two texts, 3 Enoch from the Hekhalot literature and b. Hagigah from the classical rabbinic literature, although narrating a similar tale, present the narrative in strikingly dissimilar ways. I argue that these differences can be categorized generically as a primary emphasis on orthodoxy and orthopraxy respectively, a distinction whose precise definition, limits, and applicability to Late Antiquity is explicated in detail.

“Orthopraxy in Tannaitic Literature,” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 41 (2010), 517–561

M. Sanhedrin 10:1 is well-known as a succinct statement of rabbinic doctrine. Yet as a statement of doctrine, this mishnah’s language is remarkably pragmatic: it proscribes saying certain things but does not explicitly proscribe believing them. I propose that this use of practical rather than doctrinal phraseology was an intentional editorial stance of the Mishnah’s compilers. A close philological examination of parallel texts in the Tosefta and Seder Olam reveals that earlier generations of the textual tradition underlying this mishnah phrased these same prohibitions using doctrinal terms such as “denying” or “not acknowledging.” Moreover, this choice of pragmatic language is evident throughout the Mishnah, even when fundamentals of Judaic faith such as belief in one God and in the oral Torah are being addressed. The Mishnah’s compilers, perhaps in response to trends like early Christian antinomianism and heresiology, chose to produce a work dedicated to orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy.

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“MitzvaMan 613,” 1996

An educational game that I wrote over 20 years ago. Click to download “MitzvaMan.exe” to a Windows PC desktop and double-click to install. Open MitzvaMan folder and double-click on “MitzvaMan.bat” to run. Mouse tracking is slow, but use the “Alt” key combined with the underlined letter of each menu to open (Alt-G, Alt-Q, etc.). Use the arrow keys and enter to select menu items and arrow keys to play the game. Will not work on a tablet or smartphone.