Why is the Talmud the Only Rabbinic Work from Babylonia?

[Secret Alias]

http://thegemara.com/why-the-talmud-is- ... babylonia/

[John2]

That's interesting. I hadn't thought about that before. I wonder if Alon mentions this in "The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic Age." It's one of my favorite books but I haven't read it in awhile.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php? ... 0674474956

[John2]

Regarding Babylonia, Alon does note, for example, that:

Most historians take the view that the authority of the Palestinian institutions was contested, and finally overcome, by the power of the great Jewish community of Babylonia. According to this reading, the two communities were engaged in a fairly balanced rivalry for the leadership of Judaism ... Then the Babylonians gained the upper hand, and Palestine was pushed right out of the picture. This view is certainly not without foundation, and is supported by a number of facts. But taken as a whole, it can be shown to be untrue. At no time up to the Moslem conquest did Babylonia capture the leadership. What is more, Babylonian Jewry remained in most respects subject to Palestinian authority up to the very end of the period we are discussing ... Babylonian Jewry was in many decisive respects still subject to the central institutions of the Mother Country -not only in legal theory, but in practical fact as well ... Furthermore, even though the Babylonian academies themselves soon became great centers of learning whose scholars were on occasion bold enough to dispute legal traditions reported from the Palestinian yeshivot -nevertheless the arrival of an igarta, an official missive from the Palestinian authorities, was enough to settle the matter ... It is worthy of note that in the steady flow of correspondence between the two countries on matters of Jewish law and learning it is always, with one or perhaps two exceptions, the Babylonians who ask the questions and the Palestinian scholars who give the answers ... It is apparent from historical evidence of the Amoraic period that the Babylonian Jews accepted this situation no less than, say, the Jews of Antioch.

His book really turned me around from viewing post-70 CE Judea/Palestine as inferior to Babylon, and this now seems reflected by the latter only producing the Bavli (even if it came to surpass the Yerushalmi), which, again, I hadn't thought about before.

[John2]

In light of this I've been wondering where the Targums fit into the picture. I had the impression that their creation (or at least use) had something to do with Babylonia, and it turns out that while the latter is true (for Jonathan and Onkelos), they are seen as ultimately coming from Israel:

]the official eastern (Babylonian) targum to the Nevi'im. Its early origins, however, are western (i.e. from the Land of Israel), and the Talmudic tradition attributes its authorship to Jonathan ben Uzziel (circa 50 BCE). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targum_Jonathan

the official eastern (Babylonian) targum (Aramaic translation) to the Torah. However, its early origins may have been western, in Israel. Its authorship is attributed to Onkelos, אונקלוס, a famous convert to Judaism in Tannaic times (c. 35–120 CE). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targum_Onkelos[