1. “A Lot of Learning is a Dangerous Thing: On the Structure of Rabbinic Expertise in the Bavli,” HUCA 78 (2007): 91–107Google Scholar.

2. In the article I collect other passages in the Bavli, most famously the Akhnai story, that highlight the possibility of too much knowledge. To these we may perhaps add the Bavli texts that demonstrate a reluctance, in practice, to implement rabbinic “blood science,” according to the analysis in Samuel Israel Secunda, “‘Dashtana’—“ki derekh nashim li”'—A Study of the Babylonian Rabbinic Laws of Menstruation in Relation to Corresponding Zoroastrian Texts” (PhD diss., Yeshiva University, 2007), 61–152. Both in these texts and in the Rav story, a rarefied technical expertise that would distinguish the prohibited (sacred) from the permitted (profane) is excluded from halakhic practice, with the result that halakhic practice is more stringent than it need be. See also the story of the Harkinas brothers at B. Yevamot 16a, which echoes the Akhnai story and, more faintly, the story of Rav and the herders.

3. I treated one aspect of this inquiry in my lecture at the Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference in 2010 (“Rabbis and Butchers”), which I plan to publish in revised form in the near future.

4. The phrase איכר אומן is probably more precisely translated (pace Alon, Gedaliah, The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic Age [70–640 c.e.], trans. Levi, Gershon [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1980], 1.158–59)Google Scholar as “expert plowman.” On this figure see T. Bava Meẓi‘a 11:9, and implicitly T. Bava Meẓi‘a 7:5 (pace Lieberman, Saul, Tosefta Ki-fshutah: A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta, 3^rd ed. [New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2001], 9.249–50Google Scholar, and see Feliks, Jehuda, Agriculture in Palestine in the Period of the Mishna and Talmud [Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv: Magnes and Dvir, 1963]Google Scholar, 29); M. Bava Meẓi‘a 8:1; M. ‘Arakhin 6:3 (on which see Lapin, Hayim, Early Rabbinic Civil Law and the Social History of Roman Galilee: A Study of Mishnah Tractate Baba’ Meẓi‘a [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995]Google Scholar, 204 n. 182). For the association of the איכר with plowing see also, e.g., Jeremiah 51:23; M. ’Ohalot 6:1; T. Yom Tov 4:6; Goldschmidt, Daniel, ed., Seder ha-kinnot le-tish‘a be-’av (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1972)Google Scholar, 148 l. 9 (שור אכרים, from a qerovah by Qillir); and cf. Syriac ’KR (pael). The terms בקר (baqqār) and תוור (tavvār) in the Talmuds (on which see Ayali, Meir, Workers and Artisans: Their Labor and Status in Rabbinic Literature [Givatayim: Yad la-Talmud, 1987]Google Scholar, 32) probably refer to the same expert plowman. We may venture that a farmer would hire such an individual, together with his oxen, for the first, more strenuous plowing. See Lucius Iunius Moderatus Columella, On Agriculture, trans. Boyd, Harrison, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940)Google Scholar, 2.2.24; Hamel, Gildas, Poverty and Charity in Roman Palestine, First Three Centuries C.E. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 114–15Google Scholar and nn. 114–15, 121–22. For the notion that the plowman (arator, bubulcus), unlike the common farm laborer, must have special physical characteristics, and in particular, that he be tall enough to intimidate the cattle, see Columella, On Agriculture, 1.9.3. On the fragmentation of Palestinian estates, which incentivized hiring rather than owning draught animals, see Sperber, Daniel, Roman Palestine 200–400: The Land: Crisis and Change in Agrarian Society as Reflected in Rabbinic Sources (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1978)Google Scholar, 207, and for a remark that appears to assume the general disadvantageousness of fragmentation see Avot de-Rabbi Natan, A:8 (ed. Schechter, p. 18b) and Avot de-Rabbi Natan, B:18 (ed. Schechter, p. 20a).

5. The translation is from Xenophon, Oeconomicus, trans. Marchant, Edgar C., Loeb Classical Library (1923; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

6. Columella, On Agriculture, 1.1.13.

7. On Cicero's personal stake in the Crassus-Antonius debate see van der Blom, Henrietta, Cicero's Role Models: The Political Strategy of a Newcomer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar, 174, 177–80, 226–30, 232, 251–54.

8. On the relationship between Cicero's On the Orator and Varro's On Agriculture see Martin, René, “Ars an quid aliud? La conception varronienne de l'agriculture,” RÉL 73 (1995): 80–91Google Scholar; Kronenberg, Leah, Allegories of Farming From Greece and Rome: Philosophical Satire in Xenophon, Varro, and Virgil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 76–85Google Scholar, and especially 82 n. 21.

9. The references are to Varro, Marcus Terrentius, On Agriculture, trans. Hooper, William Davis and Ash, Harrison Boyd, Loeb Classical Library (1934; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967)Google Scholar, from which the translation and text are drawn.

10. See, e.g., Varro, On Agriculture, 1.18.8; Columella, On Agriculture, 1.4.4.

11. Philo, On Husbandry, trans. Colson, Francis H. and Whitaker, George H., Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930)Google Scholar.

12. Etymologically, ἔμπειρος corresponds more precisely to the Hebrew בקי. For the contrast between הדיוט and אומן see, e.g., M. Mo‘ed Katan 1:8, 10. On points of contact between tannaitic literature and Roman agricultural treatises see Yair Furstenberg, “Eating in a State of Purity in the Tannaitic Period: Tractate Teharot and Its Historical and Cultural Contexts” (PhD diss.; Hebrew University, 2010), 163–64.

13. For this and other citations from the Yerushalmi I use the text of MS Leiden. According to Peter Schäfer and Hans-Jürgen Becker's synoptic edition (Synopse zum Talmud Yerushalmi [Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1991]Google Scholar), באריס is much better attested than כאריס, but the latter is undoubtedly the correct reading.

14. Y. Ḥallah. 1:3 (57d); Y. Ma‘aserot. 1:1 (48d); 1:3 (49a); Y. Shevi‘it 2:7 (34a). In the last instance, R. Zeira's statement is followed immediately by the very same question (but without attribution) that R. Bun b. Ḥiyya asks in the above passage. R. Yoḥanan responds to the question differently from R. Zeira, with exegesis rather than science. R. Yoḥanan's response also occurs, in his name, in B. Rosh ha-Shanah 12b. Interestingly, in the Bavli, R. Yoḥanan's response is given a naturalistic interpretation, perhaps—the back-and-forth is unclear—by R. Zeira himself. For another case in which a rabbinic measure—the maximum size of a freewill meal offering—is explained exegetically by one rabbi or school (R. Yehudah b. Ilai, on one version), and naturalistically by another (R. Shim‘on), see M. Menaḥot. 12:4 (variants: T. Menaḥot 12:8–9; B. Menaḥot 103b). Both R. Zeira in B. Rosh ha-Shanah 12b and R. Shimʿon in the meal offering exchange end up defending the naturalistic position, in almost identical words, by conceding that the measure's bright line is arbitrary, even though the measure does in fact track a natural phenomenon. R. Zeira's defense undoubtedly depends on R. Shimʿon's. It is possible that in B. Rosh ha-Shanah 12b, R. Shimʿon's position has been reinterpreted (by R. Zeira or the stam speaking through him) so that the point is not that rabbinic measures represent arbitrary cutoffs, but that the rabbis, in implementing bright-line measures, can in fact precisely track the underlying natural phenomenon.

15. The notion that a plant's rate of growth is variable occurs also in Plutarch's “How a Man May Become Aware of His Progress in Virtue,” 77 (in the first volume of his Moralia, trans. Babbitt, Frank Cole, Loeb Classical Library [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927]Google Scholar), albeit in this case with the fastest growth at the start: “We may compare a reed, the growth of which at its beginning has a very great impetus, which results in an even and continuous length, at first in long sections, since it meets with few obstacles and repulses, but later, as though for lack of breath as it gets higher up, it grows weak and weary, and is gathered up in the many frequent nodules, when the life-giving spirit meets with buffets and shocks.”

16. Neither traditional nor modern commentators (e.g., Feliks, Yehuda, Talmud Yerushalmi: Tractate Shevi'it, 2^nd ed. [Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 2000]Google Scholar, 316) hear any undertone in the remark. There is a certain structural analogy between R. Ba's comment about R. Zeira's response and the anonymous Yerushalmi's reflection on a comment by R. Zeira in Y. Terumot 11:3 (47d). On the latter passage see Furstenberg, “Eating,” 90–91.

17. Gil, Moshe, “The Decline of the Agrarian Economy in Palestine under Roman Rule,” JESHO 49 (2006): 286Google Scholar, 301. On land ownership in Roman Palestine see also Rosenfeld, Ben Zion and Perlmutter, Haim, “Landowners in Roman Palestine 100–330 C.E.: A Distinct Social Group,” JAJ 2 (2011): 327–51Google Scholar; Safrai, Ze'ev, “The Agrarian Structure in Palestine in the Time of the Second Temple, Mishnah and Talmud,” in The Rural Landscape of Ancient Israel, ed. Maier, Aren M. et al. (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2003), 105–26Google Scholar; and for the last part of the relevant period, the second chapter of Decker, Michael, Tilling the Hateful Earth: Agricultural Production and Trade in the Late Antique East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

18. For a list of the instances in the Yerushalmi see Assis, Moshe, A Concordance of Amoraic Terms, Expressions and Phrases in the Yerushalmi (Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2010)Google Scholar, 718. In the Tosefta, the “know” formula is consistently distinguished from the “determine” formula in the following ways: (1) only the question “how does one know” ends with “whether [x is the case] or not” (אם ... אם לאו); (2) the “know” question is always in the singular (יודע), and the “determine” question always in the plural (בודקין); and (3) the “know” formula occurs exclusively in agricultural contexts, and the “determine” formula exclusively in sacrificial and purity matters. These distinctions do not hold for the Yerushalmi. The “know” formula never ends with “whether [x is the case] or not”; the Yerushalmi uses the singular for both formulae; and both formulae occur, with very rare exceptions, exclusively in agricultural cases. Another difference between the Tosefta and the Yerushalmi is that in the Tosefta, the answer to the question is almost always anonymous, whereas in the Yerushalmi it is almost always attributed. For בדק with the sense of (scientific) investigation see also Y. Ḥallah 1:1 (57a), and note (per Murray, Robert, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition [Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2004]Google Scholar, 23) that the position of bādôqâ in the Christian school at Nisibis appears to describe a teacher of secular subjects. The question “how does one do (עושה)?” sometimes occurs in the Yerushalmi in contexts close to those in which the above formulae occur. See, e.g., Y. Shevi‘it 4:4 (35b); Y. Terumot 9:1 (46c); Y. Mo‘ed Katan 1:4 (80c); Y. ‘Avodah Zarah 2:3 (41b). One instance, in Y. Yevamot 8:2 (9b), is especially noteworthy, because it concerns knowledge that is very explicitly tagged as specialized. The Yerushalmi cites a tannaitic statement (paralleled in Sifrei Devarim, pis. 247 to Deuteronomy 23:2 [ed. Finkelstein, p. 276]) to the effect that the only difference between the priest with crushed testicles and the priest with a cut member is a matter of “medical practice” (הלכות רופאין), namely, that the former is treatable while the latter is not. The anonymous voice poses the question, “how does one do,” to which a named rabbi responds with a medical procedure that addresses the symptoms of the crushed testicle.

19. Elsewhere in the Yerushalmi the term “it is certain” (דבר בריא) occurs by itself, i.e., independent from the “how does one know/determine?” question, in contexts that likewise involve technical agricultural detail. See, e.g., Y. ‘Orlah 1:4 (61a).

20. Thus T. Kelim Bava Meẓi‘a 6:13 articulates a general rule concerning “the measurements that the sages spoke of with reference to the vineyard”—that is, the four vineyard formations listed in the Tosefta pericope, as well as in M. Kil'ayim 7:3—but in the continuation appears to apply this rule to all measurements, whether of the vineyard or not. Indeed, the parallel Mishnah pericope, M. Kelim 16:10, speaks of “all the cubits,” with no reference to the vineyard. Remarkably, the same variation occurs between M. Kil'ayim 6:6 and the Yerushalmi commentary thereon. The Mishnah states a rule (one that very closely resembles the rule in T. Kelim Bava Meẓi‘a 6:13) with reference to “the measurements that the sages spoke of with reference to the vineyard.” R. Yonah, in the Yerushalmi (Y. Kil'ayim 6:6 [30c]), challenges the restriction of the rule to the vineyard. The Yerushalmi offers various responses to R. Yonah's challenge, but none survives, so that in the Yerushalmi, as in M. Kelim 16:10, a measurement rule formulated for the vineyard extends to all objects.

21. On the quincunx see also Columella, On Agriculture, 3.13.3; 15.1–2; 16.2.

22. For a case where tannaitic literature reflects a view that Roman agricultural writers characterize as the traditional but misguided view of farmers, see Furstenberg, “Eating,” 175.

23. The text is from MS Vienna. On בר see Lieberman, Saul, Greek in Jewish Palestine (1942; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of New York, 1994)Google Scholar, 51.

24. On R. Gamaliel's economic status see Cohen, Shaye, “The Rabbi in Second-Century Jewish Society,” in Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 3, The Early Roman Period, ed. Horbury, William et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)Google Scholar, 930 n. 33.

25. Saul Lieberman tentatively suggests (Tosefta Ki-fshutah, 2.626) that he is to be identified with Yose b. Dolgai, who reports (B. Yoma 39a) that his father's goats, though herded at some distance from Jerusalem, nevertheless bore the odor of the Temple incense.

26. On the connotations of הלכה see Novick, Tzvi, What is Good, and What God Demands: Normative Structures in Tannaitic Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 51–52Google Scholar. Cf. the phrase הלכות רופאין quoted in n. 18.

27. The text is from MS Munich 95.

28. The field is presumably not R. Yoḥanan b. Nuri's own. For another case in which R. Yoḥanan b. Nuri forcibly intervenes in response to a violation of the laws of mingled species of the vineyard in Ginegar, see Y. Kil'ayim 6:6 (30c). In M. Kil'ayim 6:6, he emphatically expresses his view on a matter related to the one at the center of the latter story.

29. The text is from MS Kaufmann.

30. It is worth noting that another story involving the visit of a Tanna (R. Eliezer) to his student is recorded only a few lines after the story of R. Joshua and R. Yoḥanan b. Nuri in B. ‘Eruvin 11b.

31. If the Bavli read the Yerushalmi's story against the background of the Mishnah's, it may have been led to do so not only because of the similarity of their general circumstances and the involvement in both of a R. Joshua, but also because both involve a field associated with a toponym consisting of a construct phrase governed by the word בית.

32. The words ללמדו תורה in the Bavli story could be read to indicate that R. Joshua traveled to teach R. Yoḥanan b. Nuri. All of the other extant witnesses in the Saul Lieberman Institute of Talmud Research database (version 5) have ללמוד תורה “to study Torah,” which makes far better sense—the student conventionally travels—and is almost certainly original. If the deviant formulation in MS Munich 95 in fact conveys that R. Joshua taught R. Yoḥanan b. Nuri, then it is most easily understood as a later and more radical response to the same discomfort that probably occasioned the “even though he was well versed in the laws of mingled species” qualifier.

33. I touched upon this topic in my lecture at the Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference in 2010 (“Rabbis and Butchers”), and plan to return to it at greater length.

34. Though it is generally supposed that R. Yoḥanan b. Nuri and R. Ishmael lived, respectively, in the apparently small villages Ginegar and Kefar Aziz, the only evidence linking them to these locations is the above stories, and another in the Yerushalmi (Y. Kil'ayim 6:6 [30c]) in which R. Yoḥanan b. Nuri burns mingled species in Ginegar. Other sources firmly link R. Yoḥanan b. Nuri to Beth She‘arim, a larger center a few kilometers west of Ginegar. See Rosenfeld, Ben Zion, Torah Centers and Rabbinic Activity in Palestine, 70–400 ce: History and Geographic Distribution (Leiden: Brill, 2010)Google Scholar, 68, 127. The possibility must be entertained that these rabbis lived and/or taught not in the small villages associated with their names, but near them, and traveled to the villages to instruct in and enforce agricultural law. For apt reservations about Rosenfeld's methodology see Joshua Schwartz's review in Review of Biblical Literature 2012 (http://www.bookreviews.org).

35. For the latter possibility see, e.g., the translation of Guggenheimer, Heinrich W. (The Jerusalem Talmud, First Order: Zeraïm, Tractates Kilaim and Ševiït [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001], 160–61)Google Scholar.

36. I cite MS Munich 95. A minority of manuscripts (Oxford Opp. Add. fol. 23; JTS ENA 2069.26) mistakenly attribute the statement to R. Samuel b. Naḥmani in the name of R. Yoḥanan, the authors of the statement that follows afterward.

37. Instead of ישיבה other manuscripts have יישוב.

38. For קנה in connection with the demarcation of a plot of land see also Sifrei Deuteronomy, pis. 315 to Deuteronomy 32:12 (ed. Finkelstein, p. 357). For מלו הקנה “the full length of the measuring rod” see also Ezekiel 41:8, and cf. Ezekiel 40:8. The words מלא הקנה also occur in Sifrei Zuta to Numbers 19:15 (ed. Horovitz, p. 311), where a weaver is said to bore a hole through a wall to lay down a weaver's rod, evidently lengthwise.

39. On the identification of the verse see the Tosafot, ad loc., s.v. Ḥivi. In most manuscripts, this exegesis is attributed to R. Pappa.

40. Cf. Geoponika: Farm Work: A Modern Translation of the Roman and Byzantine Farming Handbook, trans. Dalby, Andrew (Devon: Prospect Books, 2011)Google Scholar, 80 (attributed to Anatolios): “Others, not satisfied with testing [the soil] by observation, devised a method using other senses. Having dug to a certain depth at the relevant place they extract some soil, and first of all evaluate it by smell. Not yet satisfied, they put it in a vessel, pour on drinking water and carry out an examination by taste.” See also n. 52 below. Discernment of the character of the soil by sight, smell, and taste has its parallel in—and, given the pervasive correlation of womanly and earthly, may even have served as the model for—the specialized rabbinic practice of examining vaginal blood not only visually but also by smell (per B. Niddah 20b, on which see Secunda, “‘Dashtana,’” 32–44, 118–19; and cf. B. Yevamot 60b) and taste (per Jerome, on which see Hillel Newman, “Jerome and the Jews” [PhD diss., Hebrew University, 1997], 41–42).

41. On the distinctive expertise of the surveyor see, e.g., Columella's complaint (On Agriculture, 1.preface.3) that few study or teach agriculture, whereas other subjects, including “the science of surveying and mathematics” (mensurarum et numerorum modum), enjoy robust recognition.

42. Midrash Tannaim to Deuteronomy 19:14 (ed. Hoffmann, p. 115). My thanks to Michal Bar-Asher Siegal for discussing this passage with me. For what appears to be the same distinction see Y. Pe'ah 2:1 (16d). (The Bavli version of the latter, at B. Bava Batra 56a, is different.)

43. The same verse, Numbers 34:2, is cited by the “children of Africa,” descendants of the Canaanites, as proof of their ownership of the land in the trial before Alexander the Great described in B. Sanhedrin 91a and in the scholion for the 25^th of Sivan in the Fast Scroll (Noam, Vered, Megillat Ta‘anit: Versions, Interpretations, History, with a Critical Edition [Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2003], 198–205Google Scholar). The Bavli's version seems to me too vague to allow for determination of its original sense, but note that it is arguably in tension with the tannaitic comment that I have cited.

44. The entwinement of surveying and agriculture in the development of these talmudic passages is unsurprising, and attested elsewhere. Thus the second-century bce (?) Alexandrian (?) historian (?) Artapanus, immediately after crediting Joseph with dividing up the land of Egypt by means of boundaries, reports that he “made much barren land arable” (Collins, John J., “Artapanus,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. Charlesworth, James [New York: Doubleday, 1985]Google Scholar, 897 [fragment 2]). The Bavli reports (B. Bava Meẓi‘a 107b) that R. Judah exhorted R. Ada the surveyor: “Do not treat surveying lightly, for every little bit [of land] is fit for saffron.” Likewise, Mago, the Carthaginian author of the aforementioned famed agricultural treatise, is credited, perhaps incorrectly, as the source for a passage in the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum, an anthology of technical writings on surveying. See Campbell, Brian, The Writings of the Roman Land Surveyors: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary (London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, 2000)Google Scholar, 255, 445 n. 13. The occasional expectation that the surveyor take into account the fertility of different areas in dividing plots—“The lands were allocated according to an evaluation of their fertility and the nature of the terrain” (ibid., 171)—represents a practical point of contact between the two praxes. Note that in the exegesis of Genesis 36:20 in the above Bavli passage itself, the areas suitable for the planting of figs and vines are indicated with reference to the surveyor's measuring rod (קנה).

45. Both Hebrew and Aramaic גב”ל (per, e.g., Sokoloff, Michael, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period, 2^nd ed. [Ramat-Gan, Bar-Ilan University Press, 2002]Google Scholar, 119 [s.v. גבל], 829) and rabbinic Hebrew בד”י (per Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-fshutah, 4.485) belong to the semantic field of kneading (sourdough, mortar).

46. For the delineation of boundaries as a form of technological innovation cf. Artapanus's characterization of Joseph as “the first to divide the land [of Egypt] and distinguish it with boundaries” (Collins, “Artapanus,” 897). Artapanus indicates in the same context that Joseph “discovered measurements,” one of the foundations of the surveyor's science, per Columella's remark in n. 41 above. On Joseph and the other Jewish figures in Artapanus as Kulturbringer see Sterling, Gregory E., Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 175–76Google Scholar.

47. The cultural significance of crop location is conveyed by the Yerushalmi's story (Y. Ta‘anit 3:8 [66d]) about Honi, who falls into a deep sleep just prior to the destruction of the first temple, and awakes seventy years later, after the return from exile, to find “a changed world (עלמא מחלף): a place that was a vineyard was now an olive grove, and a place that was an olive grove was now a grain field.” (Amos 9:14 implies that after the return from the exile, vineyards will not be rebuilt in the same locations, but built anew in different ones.) The story presumes that it is the link between crop and location that orients human beings in the world, and indeed, that determines the identity of the world across time.

48. See also the reference to Mago in the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum (Campbell, Writings, 255).

49. See b. Sanhedrin 91, Noam, Megillat Ta‘anit, 198–205, and at length, Berthelot, Katell, “The Canaanites Who ‘Trusted in God’: An Original Interpretation of the Fate of the Canaanites in Rabbinic Literature,” JJS 62 (2011): 233–61Google Scholar.

50. In the story of the trial before Alexander the Great, on the version in b. Sanhedrin 91a and in the Parma MS of the scholion (Noam, Megillat Ta‘anit, 198–205), the “children of Africa” are said, oddly, to leave behind cultivated fields for the Jews when they flee, even though their home, in the present of the story, is not Israel, but North Africa. This motif likely depends on Deuteronomy 6:11.

51. The use of the first person in the voice of the anonymous Mishnah, especially in a purely halakhic context, is striking. The only other anonymous instances of אבותינו in the Mishnah occur in M. Ta‘anit 4:6, M. ’Avot 5:4–5, and M. ‘Arakhin 3:5, all more or less “aggadic” contexts. For two other inquiries concerning the halakhic status of crops grown by the Canaanites and seized by the Israelites see Y. Ḥallah 2:1 (58b).

52. Expertise in discernment of soil is attributed in another Palestinian source (Y. Ta‘anit 2:1 [65b]) to “the elders of Sepphoris, who, when the first rain fell, smelled the soil, and could say what the rains of the year would be.”

53. See also B. Sanhedrin 68a and especially Avot de-Rabbi Natan, A:25 (ed. Schechter, p. 41a). On this magical practice see Bohak, Gideon, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar, 360. The link between magic and agriculture is also reflected in, e.g., T. Shabbat 7:15 = T. Shevi‘it 1:10; Y. Shevi‘it 2:7 (34a); Y. Ma‘aser Sheni 5:13 (56d); Y. Sanhedrin 7:1 (25d); and cf. the practice of “chanting out crops” (fruges excantare), which the Twelve Tables proscribe, and to which Virgil refers at the end of his eighth Eclogue. On “the ways of the Amorites” see Bohak, Magic, 382–85 and Berkowitz, Beth A., “The Limits of ‘Their Laws’: Ancient Rabbinic Controversies about Jewishness (and Non-Jewishness),” JQR 99 (2009): 121–57Google Scholar.

54. Berkowitz, “Limits,” 125, 135–36.