The Price of Holiness: Torah Scrolls in the Tannaitic Marketplace

This paper situates Tannaitic attitudes toward the market for Torah scrolls within the larger historical context of Roman Palestine over the first two centuries CE. After developing a historical picture of how that market may have functioned, it explores the rabbis’ literary treatment of Torah scrolls within the Mishnah and Tosefta. Tannaitic text and context reveal a tension between two modes of thought, the “idealist” and the “pragmatist” viewpoints. On one hand, the Torah scroll stands sui generis, wholly separate from mundane considerations of economic profit. On the other, the rabbis reluctantly conceded to the reality of the market, however much they may have wished to ignore it.