How the text traditions of early Judaism and rabbinic literature integrated Greek and Roman representations of advocacy with longstanding Jewish traditions of intercessory speakers constitutes the overarching focus of the present study. The limited scholarly discussion of advocates in early Judaism likely derives from similar research shortages in the closely related sphere of intercessory speech. In early Jewish texts, the act of speaking on behalf of an individual or group often involved a legally oriented form of intercessory appeal. It follows, therefore, that this specialized form of intervention would receive even less scholarly attention than the broader subject of intercession itself. Turning to rabbinic literature, scholars have focused largely on the rabbis’ opposition to supporting speakers for hire, generally as an important means of distinguishing between Jewish inquisitorial and Roman adversarial courtroom procedure. There has been minimal distinction, however, between the terms, synēgoros (συνήγορος/סניגור), paraklētos (παράκλητοςפרקליט/), patron (פטרון/pātrōnus) andʿōrēḵ dīn (עורך דין) in discussions of the meaning and function of a supporting speaker in rabbinic writings. Nor has a satisfactory treatment of rabbinic advocates appeared in relation to late ancient Jewish soteriology, specifically concerning theological principles of election, expiation, covenant preservation, redemption from exile, and eschatology. Finally, an abundant amount of scholarship has addressed the intercessory attributes of the law court prayer pattern, a formula of human appeal to the divine spanning from biblical through rabbinic literature. This begs the question of why such an important liturgical performance has not been considered more closely in relation to late ancient Jewish representations of supporting speech. These considerations form the basis for the current thesis, which argues that late ancient Jewish constructions of advocacy, reflecting a tension between ancient biblical and later Greek and Roman traditions, performed a soteriological function, both in the post-temple theatre of expiatory performance as well as in the religiously constructed divine courtroom. Furthermore, when advocates appear as intercessors through formal speech in late Second Temple and rabbinic texts, they frequently act to preserve Israel’s election in both the present and in the world to come, a move deemed requisite in light of Israel’s limited ability to be vindicated through her own merit. The collapsing of time common to several cases of rabbinic supporting speech indicates the strong eschatological component characteristic of intercessory advocacy. Whether the eschatological orientation is realized, inaugurated, or imminently urgent, the advocate speaks on behalf of an Israel whose salvation in the world to come cannot fully materialize through the accumulation of divine merits. The looming presence of crisis reveals a broken relationship between Israel and her God where unilateral divine intervention, at times orchestrated by a supporting speaker, remains the surest path to corporate deliverance. Adopting a soteriological approach to the question of advocacy in early Judaism and rabbinic literature helps to nuance certain preconceptions and overgeneralizations regarding late ancient Jewish approaches to law and salvation. A great portion of rabbinic discourse, for example, involves the presentation of a legal tradition or scriptural text, each of which initiates both exegetical interpretations and legal-theological discussions. In the case of halakhic principles, discussions aiming to determine the correct legal opinion have an underlying motive of preserving a community in proper relationship with their God, where righteous behaviors ensure the ongoing election of Israel in both the present world and the restoration to come. Yet rabbinic theology, like its biblical and Second Temple predecessors, understood the limits of human action and provided safeguards for moments where halakhic observance proved insufficient for staving off divine condemnation or imminent crises. Acknowledging the soteriological aspects of advocacy, therefore, yields two immediate takeaways First, the number of narratives where advocacy confronts the uncertain and at times tenuous nature of Israel’s existence reveals that late ancient Jewish advocacy occurs quite frequently within the imaginary divine courtroom. Recent scholarship attune to this phenomenon has emphasized the rhetorical skills employed in such occurrences of supporting speech; yet scholars often overlook the soteriological motives presupposing these forms of argumentation. Absent of the core principles of ancient Jewish salvation doctrine, the crafting of advanced arguments before God loses its substantive meaning. Second, the unilateral actions undertaken by God and mediated by the advocate demonstrate the limitations on human merit within rabbinic teachings. This challenges the preconceptions of antinomian thinkers, who have characterized rabbinic theology as overly legalistic and over reliant on human action as a means to salvation.

The nonhuman animals and creatures featured in what may be called the Danielic corpora are some of the most memorable and influential in early Jewish literature. The collection presents episodes of a king’s theriomorphic transformation, violent confrontations with lions and serpents, the judgment of mythic-hybrid monsters, and domestic animals in conflict, each of which this study examines. With attention to the unique expressions of animality and foreignness of each episode—how animality reflects foreignness and foreignness reflects animality—this investigation demonstrates the diverse ways in which early Jewish communities negotiated identity and worked out their conceptions of self and other. The diversity of these expressions is a reflection of the heterogeneity found in the Danielic corpora, which remains a complex and palimpsetic set of traditions that preserves linguistic, generic, and compositional distinctions which cannot be reduced to the categories often applied to them. In the same way, this investigation maintains that the animals, creatures, and monsters who often portray foreign others in the Danielic texts cannot be simplified into one understanding of foreign kings, empires, and gods as bestial aggressors and monsters of chaos. Moreover, this study argues that the instability and malleability of the human-nonhuman binary is evinced in how Jewish literary imagination of the early centuries BCE employed and interacted with nonhuman interlocutors, and provided a mirror in which Jewish groups could view and review themselves, foreign others, and divine sovereignties.

As the primary stratum of the rabbinic corpus, the Mishna establishes a dynamic between rabbinic authority and olam haba that sets the course for all subsequent rabbinic discussions of the idea. The Mishna Sanhedrin presents the rabbis as arbiters of the afterlife, who regulate its access by excluding a set of individuals whose beliefs or practices undermine the nature of rabbinic authority and their tradition. In doing so, the Mishna evinces the foundational tenets of rabbinic Judaism and delineates the boundaries of `Israel' according to the rabbis. Consequently, as arbiters of the afterlife, the rabbis constitute Israel and establish normative thought and practice in this world by means of the world to come.

There have been surprisingly few studies on the afterlife in rabbinic literature. Many of the scholars who have undertaken to explore the afterlife in Judaism have themselves remarked upon the dearth of attention this subject has received. For the most part, scholars have sought to identify what the rabbis believed with regard to the afterlife and how they envisioned its experience, rather than why they held such beliefs or how the afterlife functioned within the rabbinic tradition. This dissertation will seek to fill the lacuna in the treatment of this topic.

The central argument of this dissertation is that rabbinic discussions of olam haba can be situated within the larger discourse of rabbinic authority and that the rabbis' purported regulation of olam haba is part of a constellation of efforts by the rabbis to assert their authority and define post-Temple Judaism. This dissertation will demonstrate the complex interplay between rabbinic authority, Torah and theodicy and the ancillary function of olam haba for each of these. My analysis of rabbinic sources will demonstrate that, whether as a means of delineating the boundaries of Israel, as a reward for Torah study or as a mechanism of theodicy, olam haba served to establish, reinforce and perpetuate rabbinic authority and the tradition of the rabbis.

This dissertation approaches the afterlife with an altogether different set of questions and contends that the examination of what the rabbis sought to uphold or negate by means of olam haba and their reasons for doing so can provide essential clues about the rabbis themselves, how they constructed their tradition and how they conceived of Israel.

The biblical Solomon narrative that appears in the Book of Kings offers a complex portrait of Solomon as both the wise Temple builder as well as an idolatrous sinner. Solomon’s story poses the problem of how the wisest of all men to whom God spoke could have come to worship other gods. Over history, Jewish literature has had to contend with Solomon’s mixed legacy. It has done so by either ignoring the difficult aspects of his narrative, by apologizing for Solomon’s conduct, or by criticizing him for his errors. Even within Tanakh, we see multiple and disparate responses to the Solomonic problem presented in Kings. Chronicles offers a cleansed portrait of Solomon, focusing on his role as Temple builder. Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, both attributed to Solomon, play a large role in the evolution of Solomon’s character in Jewish thought. Arguably they were written as critiques of Solomon, of his arrogant reliance on wisdom and his failure to maintain faith in God. Yet this purpose seems to have been lost by the time of the rabbis of late antiquity. Instead, the rabbis designate these works, which they presume to have been written by Solomon, as divinely inspired. This in turn ultimately establishes a basis on which to redeem Solomon, the rabbis construing his works as expressions of penitence. Solomon’s prophetic status is amplified by the targumic treatment of those works. The popularity of the Targum to the Song of Songs and its use by Rashi in his commentary to the Song, granting its ideas even greater circulation, promoted a highly laudatory reading of Solomon in the Middle Ages. In addition, admiring portrayals of Solomon in Christianity and Islam may have influenced Jewish perceptions. These factors made castigation of Solomon increasingly difficult for the Jewish medieval exegetes. Thus, an apologetic image of Solomon gains ascendance in the Middle Ages which has colored Jewish perceptions of Solomon ever since. As such, we see Jewish exegesis responding to its own theological needs as well as responding to external exegetical influences.