Textual Study and Social Formation: The Case of Mishnah

This paper examines, in context, the place of Mishnah study in the nascent rabbinic movement around the turn of the third century CE, a period of its social formation (or re-formation). The essay reviews two types of evidence: (1) attestations to Mishnah study and its mastery as a hallmark of being a rabbi and (2) Mishnah’s most pervasive literary and rhetorical traits. In so doing, the paper addresses the question, “What type of occupational or sapiential expertise is engendered by intensive study of a document with these traits?” The paper argues that Mishnah study prepares the ancient rabbinic novice to recognize and parse finely differentiated circumstances, and reinforces and further hones the same in full-fledged rabbinic masters. Mishnah models, and its study demands, “high-grid” thinking (as defined in Mary Douglas’s work) and analysis by its life-long students as an occupational set of skills, founded on knowledge of Scripture’s law and, at times, on legal traditions that intervene between the “raw” dicta of Scripture and the starting point of a mishnaic treatment of matters.