Хагига 10: Мишна с плавающей точкой.

[nedosionist]

В развитие предыдущей темы. Точка в этой Мишне (см. текст ниже, после “BUT MANY LAWS.”) - поставлена как в классическом “Казнить нельзя помиловать”; но еще лучше. О нее спотыкаешься, как о камень лежащий посреди дороги, и перечитываешь текст с недоумением. Откуда это здесь?

Comments

[nedosionist]

Would you care to find/cite other places ... a textologically valid line of argument ... rather ask professionals
Actually I mumbled this very point, even though it is a valid argument. Restatement: Afaik, Gemara simply does not 1) sarcastically 2) shrugs Mishna off. Now you're right, that the corpus of the text, is huge and therefore I reserve the possibility of unusual etc., so I'd be curious if you or someone were able to show me otherwise. (I implied the first point, and it came across a bit harder.) I didn't mean to lay a discovery burden on you here, since healthy dose of ignorance and humility can be assumed in our discussions. :))

But barring this my first point stands - we can assume this doesn't happen; we could imagine it happening, but there's no evidence for that. Hence, you didn't disparage Mishna, of course, but you've imagined an attitude of Amoraim which would be close, and highly unlikely. ("Double affirmative cannot mean a negation." - "Yeah, right."). Again, I'm ok with such blasphemy here :), but the point is - your preferred reading depends on it, and thus faulty. May be you'd like to revisit the Gemara, and the alternatives you laid out?

Scribal errors etc. are irrelevant here, as I said just before: you're claiming a fundamental substantive error, there were multiple sources, there was a process of compilation, and Gemara in general purports to clarify established Oral tradition.

Shabbat Shalom.

[brotherinlaw]

sarcastically: the implied sarcasm of the Gemara is obviously not directed towards the Mishna statement but to those readers who rush to accept it at its face value.

Scribal errors etc. are irrelevant here - so they are relevant to all written traditions but irrelevant to ours. This leaves us without commonsensical grounds.

healthy dose of ignorance and humility can be assumed in our discussions - which assumption is belied by this very discussion. Without a proper knowledge of what the Talmud is we are reduced to arguing on what it should be. (In other words, reduced to fencing, if you excuse this pun.) I therefore suspend discussing this Mishna/Gemara until I a obtain some external scholarly help.

[nedosionist]

implied sarcasm of the Gemara .. to those readers who rush to accept it at its face value
Well, as opposed to what? ;)

so they are relevant to all written traditions but irrelevant to ours
I've already outlined the differences here. Parallel processing can reliably eliminate random noise.

until I a obtain some external scholarly help
Surely, extra knowledge would help. But, - in both of these posts I'm addressing pshat construction. If you end up having to rely on drash commentary to form even basic grammatical understanding of what is being said, then it defeats the purpose: you effectively deny that pshat is readable. My reading, and your 1st alternative still stand.

We can continue fencing using weapons of your choice and time of your convenience. :)

[brotherinlaw]

I've already outlined the differences here. A reference to your previous argument does not make it more valid, nor does it invalidate my objections. (Now we are going circles explicitly - some progress:-/)

as opposed to what? to seeing an unsolved textual problem.

[brotherinlaw]

If you end up having to rely on drash commentary to form even basic grammatical understanding I wish I knew why a scholarly help should be a priori suspected of abuse of scholarship. Let me, rather, reveal my own (a posteriori) suspicion about your post: it (unwittingly) attempts to smuggle an improper drash (contra "акцент делается на ритуалы и гражданское право; это подход 'иудаизм - это не религия'") under the cover of the "discovery" of a nonexistent intended ambiguity.

[nedosionist]

Why, quite wittingly, Вы уместно видите связь между этими постами. :) Но в данном случае contra не моя, а Хазаль. ;)

Oк, будем ждать Вашу ученую кавалерию. :)

[brotherinlaw]

не моя, а Хазаль. ;) It may be soothing to know that you have dignified predecessors in such erring:) Averroes liked to claim that in his dead-end development of peripatetic philosophy he was merely repeating Aristotle himself.

external scholarly help

[nedosionist]

У нас есть три основных варианта интерпретации этой мишны (в основном последней фразы, и гемары):
1. Все законы Торы равны, Мишна не права/искажена, гемара ее поправляет.
2. Какие-то законы важнее, и это третья группа.
3. Какие-то законы важнее, и это не третья группа (т.з. поста).

Традиционная т.з. близка к Вашей, если Вам нужна кавалерия. :) Собственно, в этом-то и проблема. ;))
Вторая позиция несколько аргументирована, напр. Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth, p.86, fn.8 p.190. У него есть дальнейшие ссылки.

Возможно, переход от первой позиции ко второй (как промежуточный шаг) проще, чем сразу к третьей.

Re: external scholarly help

[brotherinlaw]

2 and 3 are (a) utterly foreign to the tradition and (b) have nothing to do with the topic considered in the Mishna, which is the relative amount of the scriptural basis for different groups of commandments, NOT the relative importance of those groups. Jaffee, too, is within the scriptural basis theme and not the "importance" theme. Your identification of his position with 2 is thus incorrect. E.g.: "In any event, the real point comes at the end: 8. Abba Yose b. Hanan says: these eight topics of Torah are the essence of the halakot (/M. Hag.1:8.4)."

However, 1 is not necessarily true. The Mishna's statement may mean "These [the last group of laws] constitute the bulk of the corpus of Pentateuch laws." This differs from my uneducated guess, perhaps favorably, but not essentially. In any event, a conjecture of this kind is largely consistent with both your references. The implication is that studying this last group of laws can be done on the basis of the Pentateuch itself. (Your 1st reference, though it quotes the Gemara correction (?) of the Mishna, implicitly accepts this or a similar conjecture: "for a doubt in Hilchos Ohalos, he should look in the Mishnah, and for a doubt in Hilchos Nega'im, he should look in the Torah".)

Re: external scholarly help

[nedosionist]

The implication is that studying this last group of laws can be done on the basis of the Pentateuch itself.
"for a doubt in Hilchos Ohalos, he should look in the Mishnah, and for a doubt in Hilchos Nega'im, he should look in the Torah".
So, would you be willing to accept this thesis as a shared working hypothesis, as a move forward? :)

Re: external scholarly help

[brotherinlaw]

This is not a thesis, still less a hypothesis, but a statement of the fact. I doubt a move forward can be achieved so cheaply:\

Re: external scholarly help

[nedosionist]

If you are in doubt about anything concerning leprosy-signs search the Bible, but if you are in doubt about anything concerning tent-covering search the Mishnah.
1. Would you say that this is how it's done nowadays? Does Tradition actually keep following this fact/guidance?
2. Where does the authority of Mishna seemingly independent from the Scripture comes from?
3. Notice that your own phrasing that I cited just above is consistent with Soncino, and Ok; but daf-yomi makes an important (and improper) typical pseudo-synonymic substitution.
4. Does the Mishna as written equates these two (re: 2-3 here)?

5. R. Papa said: It means as follows: Leprosy-signs have considerable Scriptural basis and few laws, tent-covering has scant Scriptural basis and many laws.
Based on this phrase, and Mishna, to which groups of laws (1-3) in the Mishna you'd allocate respectfully leprosy-signs and tent-covering?

One spoon of sugar little fact goes a long, long way. :) That's just for starters.