More on Boethusians: Why a Debate about the Date of Shavuot?

After having received a communication regarding the Boethusians from my previous posts (I & II), I wanted to go back and quote some more from Raymond Harari's PhD dissertation on the Boethusians. This posting is specifically on the instance that gets the most mention in Jewish discussions throughout the year - that of the dating of the holiday of Shavuot. The Boethusians disputed with the Pharisees regarding the dating of the holiday, but no reason is given for this dispute in rabbinic literature. The crux of the argument one can easily hear nowadays is that the Boethusians denied the Oral Law, however, "at no point are the Baytusim characterized as a group which denied the overall authority of the Oral Law."¹
He continues by saying that

Even if the arguments of the Baytusim were based on the biblical verse (as the Scholion presents it), we are not told that their interpretation was part of a general tendency towards literalistic understandings of the Bible or motivated by a {208} rejection of the sages' authority to interpret the Bible.²

(For a continuation of the text, see below.)
After a lengthy discussion, Harari concludes, saying that

It seems more likely, therefore, that the Baytusim are not depicted as having questioned or rejected the entire calendar determination employed by the Court. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case; having accepted the way in which the months were consecrated, the Baytusim wanted to prevail upon the sages or Perushim with respect to the determination of the holiday of Shavuot. What social or {225} political motivations underlies the view of the Baytusim is never made clear. In fact, only the Scholion provides us with the scriptural base of their argument. Nonetheless, their argument appears to have been viewed as one over a particular detail of rabbinic law and not over the determination of the calendar as a whole or the general authority of the Oral Law.³ (emphasis added by Drew)

(For the immediately preceding section, see below.)
Okay, I realize that Shavuot has passed for this year (2008/5768), but, for next year, it's up. So it may not be that the Boethusians fundamentally rejected the Oral Torah.
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Here is the continuation from above:

This contrasts with the approach taken by some scholars such as J.M. Grintz and M.D. Herr.
This view of the Baytusim has been explained by scholars as having been motivated by a variety of factors. As we have seen above with respect to the reaping of the 'omer, A. Geiger argues that the biblical reading of the Perushim is actually older and presumably more in keeping with the plain meaning of the verse. The Baytusim rejected the Perushi interpretation out of resentment to the Perushim for having arrogated the power of the court. A. Guttman, while seeing both the Baytusi and Perushi interpretations as within the peshat (plain meaning) of the biblical verse, argues that the Baytusi reading must have been older, given the general leaning to literal interpretation on the part of the Seduqim. S. Zeitlin argues that the Jewish calendar was originally solar, with Shavuot always falling on Sunday. (Zeitlin apparently understood this calendar to consist of 364 days, divisible by seven.) With the change to a lunar-solar calendar, the Seduqim interpreted the verse literally, thereby {209} maintaining the celebration of Shavuot on Sunday.

L. Finkelstein characteristically sees this controversy as social in nature. The dispute between the Pharisees and the Sadducees (--for Finkelstein, the views of the Seduqim and Baytusim were identical) represent yet another example of the influence of each group's social standing and place of residence. The Pharisees, who were urban plebians unconnected to the soil, attempted to find meaning in the fixing of the date of Pentecost. For them, the revelation at Mount Sinai, commemorated on the sixth of Sivan, was paramount. Consequently, they reinterpreted the biblical verse so that Pentecost would fall on that same date every year. The Sadducees (actually the Baytusim), on the other hand, who were rural farmers, saw no need for such a tradition.

A fuller understanding of the view of the Baytusim regarding the dating of Shavuot and the reaping of 'omer is possible only by an understanding of sectarian calendars present during late Second Temple times. Relevant sectarian calendars are recorded, or alluded to, in the Pseudipigraphical books of Jubilees and 1 Enoch and in {210} several scrolls and fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. After a brief survey of the calendars employed in these works, we will be able to better determine when exactly the Baytusim are viewed to have placed the 'omer ceremony and the holiday of Shavuot and whether this dating was perceived as apart of an overall departure from the calendar employed by the sages and rabbis.⁴

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Here is the section immediately preceding the conclusion from this section:

Nothing in rabbinic sources can conclusively decide this issue. Complicating the task is the fact that the stipulation that "the reaping of the 'omer is not [done] at the conclusion of the festival" is so vague that it can only be assumed to imply that the ceremony had to take place on Sunday. In other words, it can only be assumed {223} that rabbinic views of the Baytusim regarding the 'omer and Shavuot may be harmonized. Nevertheless, indications seem to be that the rabbis viewed the Baytusim as having chosen the Sunday of Passover and did not perceive the Baytusim as having adopted the Qumran-Jubilees calendar, or for that matter, any other non-rabbinic calendar. Several factors account for this:

First, had there been a more fundamental dispute between the sages and the Baytusim regarding the method of calendation, one would have expected some mention of it in one of the sources under study in this chapter. Instead, these sources limit the controversy with the Baytusim to the dating of the 'omer and Shavuot. Moreover, there is absolutely no allusion to any other calendar dispute between the two groups elsewhere in rabbinic literature. As we have seen, on many occasions, the rabbis freely criticized the Baytusim for erroneous halakhic and theological opinions. It would appear that a sweeping criticism such as this would not have been missed.

Secondly, parts a-c and f of the Scholion to Megillat Ta'anit introduce rabbinic criticism of the position of the {224} Baytusim, specifically targeted at their dating of Shavuot. These parts may admittedly represent a later layer. Nevertheless, the present location of these parts indicates that their aim was to refute the claims of the Baytusim regarding Shavuot. This specific focus conveys, therefore, at least one rabbinic perception that the challenge of the Baytusim related specifically to the determination of the date of shavuot. Thirdly, part c, which reads "And if so [i.e. if it is on Sunday], it will be found that sometimes it will be fifty-one, sometimes fifty-two until fifty-six" would not be understandable if the Baytusi calendar were equivalent with Jubilees-Qumran calendar. That calendar always had the same number of days betweren Passover and Shavuot.⁵

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Notes:

1 Raymond Harari, "Rabbinic Perceptions of the Boethusians" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1995), 207.
2 Harari, "Rabbinic Perceptions of the Boethusians," 207-208.
3 Harari, "Rabbinic Perceptions of the Boethusians," 224-225.
4 Harari, "Rabbinic Perceptions of the Boethusians," 208-210.
5 Harari, "Rabbinic Perceptions of the Boethusians," 222-224.

Who Were the Boethusians? II

A piece of scholarship on the Boethusians that was published two years after the one I quoted in my posting from last week, is Adiel Schremer's "The Name of the Boethusians: A Reconsideration of Suggested Explanations and Another One", Journal of Jewish Studies 48, number 2 (Autumn 1997): 290-299. After going through most of his article discussing textual variants, trying to refute the idea that the name Boethusians in Hebrew, ביתוסין/ביתסין is a compound of the words בית סין, making the name the Boethusians to be Essenes, he then proposes on the last page of his article the following interesting suggestion:

...perhaps ביתסים might be a pejorative term created by the distortion of a word. That is, originally, this group was connected to a person called בויתס/בייתס, but the sages created a distorted and corrupt form of the plural of the name in order to mock them; instead of בית בויתס (which, according to this conjecture, was apparently the group's own name for itself), they treated בויתס as a noun, and instead of constructing the plural as בויתסים, they distorted the name to ביתסים in order to express disdain for this group.
What is the source of the mockery in the distorted form? The Greek name "Boethos" is derived from an adjective meaning "helpful, supportive, of assistance", which in many places is used to describe God. The distortion of this name may therefore allude to the fact that the ביתסים are not as their name would indicate. We can understand the name of the Sadducees in a similar way: it is a distortion of צדיקים, and expresses disdain towards those who consider themselves righteous men, but are not. As we know, the scholarly literature has suggested that the term פרושים, which is used by the group's opponents, also serves as a pejorative appellation. The conjecture which I have proposed is in line with this train of thought.

As a disclaimer, I have omitted the footnotes, not to mention all of the supporting material and ideas with which he introduces this clever proposal ten years ago. For those who are interested, I have provided the location of his article and you can read this ten-page article.

Who Were the Boethusians?

Indeed, who were the Boethusians? A year and a half ago at the YU library, I found the May 1995 PhD dissertation of Raymond Harari, entitled Rabbinic Perceptions of the Boethusians. For now, I just wanted to quote an excerpt from the introduction and an excerpt from the conclusion.
From pp. 11-12 in the introduction:

In all, however, it appears that the Baytusim may be authentically traced to twelve different contexts. Some of these contexts include two rabbinic sources that mention the Baytusim, while some have parallel passages that do not refer to the Baytusim at all. In sum, the Baytusim passages include one from the Mishnah, seven from the Tosefta, two from the Palestinian Talmud, four from the Babylonian Talmud, two from the Scholion to Megillat Ta’anit, and one from Avot de-Rabbi Natan.

The traditions assign, often with polemical overtones, views or actions to the Baytusim or to one of the members of the group on a broad array of topics. While most of the traditions present views or actions of the Baytusim on halakhic matters, at least one tradition presents the argument of the Baytusim in what may be regarded as a theological context. The halakhic contexts within which we find the views or actions of the Baytusim expressed include Temple-related items such as the incense-offering of the high priest on the Day of Atonement, judicial issues such as the punishment deserved by the zomemim (refuted) witnesses and ritual issues such as the willow branch ceremony celebrated in the Temple on Sukkot (Tabernacles).

and from pp. 320-322 in the conclusion:

In search of some unifying characteristics, some historians have proposed sociological explanations of the views of the Baytusim. More often, however, the Baytusim have been portrayed as having taken a literalist approach to Biblical verses and as having rejected the general validity of the Oral Law. Virtually every rabbinic passage which refers to the Baytusim has been interpreted in this light. The Baytusi interpretation of three Biblical verses in the Scholion to 4 Tammuz clearly presents the Baytusim as advancing a literalist position. The ARN portrayal of the Seduqim and Baytusim as having departed from the Torah has also been taken as equivalent to a rejection of the Oral Law. Moreover, most of the other traditions – dealing with the status of the Baytusim with respect to ‘eruv haserot, their understanding of the manner of incense offering on Yom Kippur, their rejection of the sages’ Sukkot ceremonies, their alternate dating of the ‘omer ceremony and the festival of Shavuot, and their disagreement with the sages regarding two court procedures – have also been understood as emanating from a general rejection of the Oral Law. This approach has found support amongst medieval commentators as well as modern historians.

In truth, however, while it is clear that the conclusions of the Baytusim are presented as differing from those of the sages or the Perushim, it is not clear that rabbinic sources view the Baytusim as having offered a sweeping rejection of the Oral Law and as having adopted a consistently literalist approach to the reading of the Bible. First, two of the three literalist interpretations attributed to the Baytusim in the Scholion are offered by tannaim elsewhere in rabbinic literature. Secondly, the ARN assertion that the Baytusim “departed form the Torah” appears to mean that they departed form the mainstream of the sages; it does not appear to imply any rejection of a general methodology or direction. Thirdly, in each of the other passages, there is never even an allusion to a rejection of the Oral Law. Rather, the arguments of the Baytusim are presented as independently-formulated opinions with which the sages or the Perushim took issue. Fourthly, in at least one case – T. Kippurim 1:8 and P. Yoma 39a-b – historians have recognized that the opinion of the Baytusim is not more literal than that of the sages. Finally, if the Baytusim were indeed viewed by the rabbis as being literealists, it is somewhat puzzling to understand why they are not presented as citing and explicating more Biblical verses. In point of fact, the Baytusim are perceived as having offered Scriptural proof in only three instances: the Scholion to 4 Tammuz, T. Kippurim 1:8 and P. Yoma 39a-b, and the Scholion to 8 Nisan. Indeed, even the parallel passage to the Scholion to 8 Nisan – B. Menahot 65a-b – does not cite the Biblical verse.