Shepherds part 9

Now we come to what the Mishna has to say about shepherds. But first I want us to remember that the Mishna was not compiled in the first century, nor does it stand alone. It is part of the Talmud. The Mishna is essentially rabbinic commentary on the Torah (the law of Moses) , handed down by word of mouth, until it was compiled and written down about 200 C.E. Other parts of the Talmud are rabbinic commentary on the Mishna. They were written later. So we've got rabbinic commentary on rabbinic commentary that some rabbis were taught other rabbis had said. All of it is part of a complex legal code that was produced after the fall of Jerusalem and led to modern rabbinic Judaism.  How relevant is what was eventually written to actual life for ordinary Jews in the first century of Jesus's time, before this rabbinic law was codified?

We have seen from first century Philo of Alexandria's work "On Husbandry" that Philo implies shepherds are ordinary men. (XIV:62) He says the rich Egyptians look down on anyone who has an ordinary occupation. I suspect that this was may have also been the case of the rabbis who wrote what we will be examining in the Mishna and Talmud. They weren't necessarily rich in wealth, but they did hold a priveledged position in the Jewish community. The  rabbis were experts in the Jewish legal code and presided over local courts. They ultimately decided how the law was to be interpreted in daily matters and disputes.

I think it is important to note that not once in my research into what these rabbinic writings say have I seen shepherds called despised, unclean, or the lowest of the low. It is true that they do have some legal disadvantages, as did other occupations.  These strictures did not seem to carry a connotation of spite, but a merely an obssession with legal codification of absolutely every circumstance that could be imagined in ancient Jewish culture. I certainly could not find any passage that said anything about not helping a shepherd who fell into a pit as Mr.Alcorn suggests in his article. Nevertheless, I could be wrong.

My main source for finding passages in the Mishna and Talmud is the Jewish Virtual Library. I conducted searches using the word shepherd. I will post the names of tractates where the word shepherd is found. You can do a page search for the word shepherd. I will give a brief summary of what applies to shepherds in the tractate. Notice that the tractates will divide the mishna up into chunks with detailed commentary on each chunk from the Gemara. Many of the references are in the Gemara sections.

Yoma 6- wierd paradoxical questions about shepherds and lions
Yoma 8- a story about a gluttonous man who robs a shepherd
Beitza  3- regulations about what can and cannot be done on festivals days. Shepherds can't carry pouches. A person can go to a shepherd of his acquaintance and ask for a goat or sheep, but can't mention prices.
Beitza 5-regulations about what labor can be performed on festival days. Shepherds can only drive cattle as far as the owner of the amimals may go.

To be continued.

Shepherds part 8

In paragraph 9 of Mr. Alcorn's article Shepherd's Status, we read "In the course of 400 years, the Egyptians prejudiced the  Israelite's attitude toward shepherding." Again, there are no sources to back this up and no reasons to believe it is true.

In paragraph 10, we see a statement that shepherding in Palestine decreased after the Israelites occupied the land and settled down. Again, no sources to back this up. Not surprisingly, Mr. Alcorn seems unaware of the current scholarship, supported by archaeology, that shows the Israelites probably originated and developed  from within the Canaanite people. They were Canaanites to begin with.

Mr. Alcorn continues to make statement after statement of dubious historicity, with no sources given. In paragraph 12, this claim is made: "In the days of the prophets, sheep herders symbolized judgement and social isolation. (Zephaniah 2:6)."   I don't think Mr. Alcorn read the context of that passage in Zephaniah very well. The shepherds represented Yahweh's people, the remnant of the house of Judah. They were supposed to show god's loving care for his chosen ones.

We are given Dr. Joachim Jeremias as a source for the statement that shepherds were "despised in everyday life." We are not told in which of Dr. Jeremias's writings we would find this, or where he got his information.

Paragraph 13 says, "Shepherding had not just lost its widespread appeal; it eventually forfeited its social acceptability. Some shepherds earned their poor reputations, but others became victims of a cruel sterotype. (Sources ??) The religious leaders maligned the shepherd's good name; rabbis banned the pasturing of goats and sheep in Israel, except on desert plains." We will see there is a small kernel of truth in the last statement when we examine the Mishnah's statements about shepherds. But it is not the whole truth.

The article goes on to say, "The Mishnah, Judaism's written record of the oral laws, also reflects this prejudice, referring to shepherds in belittling terms. One passage describes them as 'incompetent'; another says no one should ever feel obligated to rescue a shepherd who has fallen into a pit. Mr Alcorn does not tell us where in the mishnah we can find these statements. My guess is he didn't actually check to see if they are there.

If you read the Wikipedia article on the Mishnah you will see that it is a collection of documents about oral traditions and laws, supposedly passed down from through the ages. They were written and edited by rabbis, combined with other documents written and edited by rabbis. Some of the documents are comentaries on the Mishnah. All together, the collection is called the Talmud, and there are two versions of that. Think of the whole thing as a kind of law library reference encyclopedia.

In the next post I will attempt to uncover just what we can find about shepherds in these documents.

Shepherds part 7

We are on paragraph seven of Randy Alcorn's article Shepherd's Status. Here he states, "Egyptians considered sheep worthless for food and sacrifice. Egyptian art forms and historical records portray shepherds negatively. Neighboring Arabs—their enemy—were shepherds, and Egyptian hatred climaxed when shepherd kings seized Lower Egypt."  As usual, he gives no sources.

 I did a Google search of "shepherds in Egyptian art" and saw a few depictions of actual Egyptian shepherds. I saw no negative depictions of shepherds. I did a search of "sheep in egyptian art" and hit a jackpot, including a photo of a ram mummy. The caption under the photo explains the role of sheep in ancient egypt. There are multiple paintings and relief carvings depicting sheep in agricultural settings. I also found that there was a ram headed god named Khnum. There are also sheep headed sphinxes. The shepherd's crook was an Egyptian symbol of kingly authority and is found in many depictions of pharoahs. I can find no negative depictions of shepherds.

Jewish historians in the article "Sacrificing a Lamb in Egypt" suggest that the Egyptians held sheep sacred to the god Khnum. Therefore, they might have not have been happy with the Israelite's practice of sacrificing rams. The article seems biased in favor of the historicity of Moses and the Exodus but it brings up some interesting points. 

The Wikipedia article on "Ancient Egyptian Cuisine" includes mutton as a meat food for Egyptians. It give the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt as a source. Unfortunately, you have to pay to access the encyclopedia online. Other articles say the Egyptians ate mutton, but I couldn't find some that provide sources. 

Here are some more articles of interest:
Ancient Egyptian Bestiary:Sheep
The Sheep in Ancient Egypt (Sources not given, but some interesting pictures)

About the shepherd kings that Mr. alcorn refers to, they were the Hyksos, referred to as shepherd kings by Josephus. Josephus associated them with the Israelites and the Exodus. If you read the article thoroughly, you can see that the origin of the Hyksos and their occupation of parts of Egypt are somewhat shrouded in mystery. The term "shepherd kings" comes from Josephus and was a mistranslation on his part. The actual meaning of hyksos appears to have been "foreign kings." There doesn't seem to be any other reason to identify them as shepherds. 


Mr. Alcorn's statement above appears to fall apart when we take closer look at actual Egyptian Art and history. He has taken the Biblical account of Genesis as fact, without doing the research to see if it lines up with what can be known through historical evidence.

To be continued.

Aron Ra and the Mythical Man

I recommend  a video that Aron Ra just posted. It is a lecture he gave about his thoughts on the mythical Jesus. His basic premise is that if Jesus did exist, he wasn't the Jesus we find in the Bible stories. That man is probably a compilation of multiple historic Jesuses combined with mythological and legendary elements. The video is 40 minutes long but worth watching.

Shepherds part 6

Let's take another look at the article Shepherd's Status. We have seen that Mr. Alcorn offers no evidence for his statement, in paragraph four that shepherds were on the bottom of the Palestinian social ladder in the first century.

Paragraph five goes on to show that Genesis and Exodus imply shepherding is a noble occupation because many of the so called patriarchs were shepherds. I would add Abel, Abraham, And Moses to the list of notable Bible shepherds.

Paragraph six says that the Egyptians despised shepherds because they were agriculturalists. Mr. Alcorn gives no resource for that information. It is true that in Genesis 43 we are told the Egyptians would not eat with the Hebrew because it was detestable for them, but it does not say that it was because they were Shepherds. In chapter 46, we are told that shepherds were detestable to the Egyptians but it doesn't say why. Nevertheless, in chapter 47, Paroah allow the Hebrews to settle in the land of Goshen and tells Joseph that some of them can take care of the Pharoah's own livestock. Here is proof that the Egyptians of the Bible were not solely agriculturalists. Perhaps Philo was correct in saying that it was the rich ruling class of Egyptians that considered shepherds beneath them in social value.

Here is a very interesting article, "Shepherds and Eating with Hebrews: An Abomination to the Egyptians?" Its authors are Jewish and have expertise in Jewish and Egyptian history. They explain that the kind of purity of the table mentioned in Gen. 43 did not happen until later in Egypt's history than when Joseph would have been alive, if he lived. The authors then describe what form these purity rules took.

Mr. Alcorn also implies that a historical enmity between shepherds and farmers goes back to Cain's murder of Abel. I am not disputing that there have been grievances between farmers, or land owners, and shepherds. We will encounter that prejudice in other forms as we continue. However, I would like us to remember that the Cain and Abel story is mythology. Plus, the historicity of the Genesis account is dubious at best, and was written hundreds of years after the supposed events, probably by Israelite religious leaders. Could those religious leaders have had a reason for portraying Egyptians as despising shepherds, the main occupation of the Israelites' legendary patriarchcal leaders? Could the story of Cain the farmer murdering Abel the shepherd have been symbolic of how the Israelites, who saw themselves as historically nomadic shepherding people, felt about those who were farmers and land owners. In other words, a classic case of projection. We do have only one side of the story in the bible. It has often been assumed the biblical account  is the right/true side and the only side that matters. Life is more complicated than that.

To be continued.