Is the Minor Tractate Tzitzit Early or Late?

• In Event: Re-envisioning the Ancient Book

Abstract

In Michael Higger's critical editions of Seven Minor Tractates published in 1929, he indicated that amongst the first scholars of the Middle Ages to cite from any of these was Ramban (Nachmanides). By phrasing the matter in the way he did, Higger set the standard by which these tractates were generally and widely attributed to the post-Talmudic period, that is, primarily to the Gaonic period. Indeed, Higger was part of a larger group of scholars led by Hanokh Albeck who saw such compilations (as well as Tosefta) relegated to the post-Talmudic period. Albeck’s opinion regarding Tosefta has long since been abandoned by most scholars. There is a growing school of opinions that sees Tosefta as occasionally prior to mishnah somewhat like seeing musical as contrapuntal.
This correction by and large has not taken place in reference to the Seven Minor Tractates. In a recent work entitled "Tangled in Text" on Tefillin, the author dismissed use of Tractate Tefillin for studies of Qumran and Tannaim because it was gaonic, hence too late to reliably assess in reference to the timeframe of his study. In my review I demonstrated how a contrarian viewpoint of its earliness leads to some surprisingly interesting results. In the proposed paper I shall focus on Hilkhot Tzitzit (Fringes). I propose a series of arguments and methods to demonstrate the high likelihood that at least that tractate is tannaitic. The results are part of a larger study on the history of tzitzit laws and the publication of medieval manuscripts on the topic of tzitzit. The proper placement of this tractate within such a history is a critical issue in continuing scholarship on the topic. This paper will apply various methods and controls to demonstrate the dating of Tractate Tzitzit. In the conclusions I shall offer some speculation as to why this tractate is not part of Mishnah or Tosefta proper. Hopefully this research will encourage other scholars to reevaluate the dating of the other Minor Tractates.

author

• Harry Fox, University of Toronto