The Jewish Bible is divided into three sections: Torah (Pentateuch), Nevi’im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings). But are all prophecies actually found in the section called Prophets? Did the completion of the Bible mean that no more prophecies would occur?
In the Hebrew Bible, to be a prophet meant that you were a mediator between God and humankind. It was a divine calling but it was also a job. According to 2 Kings 2:3, biblical prophets seem to have had professional guilds, and some prophets served in official positions in local or national government (see 2 Samuel 7:2, for example).
On today’s daf, however, the rabbis distinguish between prophets and prophecy.
Rabbi Avdimi from Haifa says: From the day that the Temple was destroyed prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to the sages.
Rav Avdimi seems to be saying that with the destruction of the Temple, the job title of prophet ended, but the act of serving as prophetic mediator between human and divine continued through the rabbis. Of course, the Talmud, which sees the sages as the ultimate (and maybe even eternal) leaders of the Jewish people, rejects the idea that sages weren’t already prophets in the time of the Temple.
Is that to say a sage is not a prophet? This is what he is saying: Even though prophecy was taken from the prophets, it was not taken from the sages.
As the rabbis read Rav Avdimi, there used to be two kinds of prophets: professional prophets and sages. When the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, professional prophets ceased, but the sages continued to channel divine will and messages.
The Talmud next offers us a radically different take on what happened to prophecy.
Rabbi Yohanan said: From the day that the Temple was destroyed, prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to the mentally incompetent and children.
For Rabbi Yohanan, the contemporary prophetic voice is found not in rabbis but in those who are not considered fully-fledged agents of the rabbinic legal system. And this perspective leads to one of the most charming stories in the Talmud.
What does it mean that prophecy was given to children? Like this daughter of Rav Hisda, who was sitting on her father’s lap. Rava and Rami bar Hama were sitting before him. He said to her: Which of them would you want? She said: Both of them. Rava said: And me last!
Rav Hisda’s daughter appears numerous times in the Talmud — and she’s even inspired a fictional novelization of her life! She’s often depicted having conversations with her father or husband, and is also quoted as reporting her father’s teachings (Hullin 44b, for example). As an adult, Rava describes her as an expert in specific halakhic details — and on today’s daf we get a hint as to why: because as a young girl, she sat on her father’s lap and paid attention while he was teaching his students. One day, her father jokingly asks which of his two students she’d like to marry, and she responds: both!
The context in which the story is told implies that her answer is prophetic — she is accurately predicting what will happen with a degree of divine insight not available to the adults in the room. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t believe her. Rava is quick to jump in and hope that he’s her second husband, not her first. (After all, a first marriage must end in death or divorce for a second marriage to take place.) And indeed, we know from other talmudic stories that she does marry both, is widowed upon the death of Rami bar Hama and then has a second marriage with Rava characterized by mutual love and respect.
In all these cases, the rabbis are faced with two realities: a recognition that the profession of prophet no longer exists and a belief that God must continue to communicate with humankind (and especially with the rabbis) as part of the divine-human relationship. But we see two different understandings of how that communication happens: at the center, through the rabbis themselves, or at the margins, through those you might least expect — like small children. And perhaps, in including both traditions, the Talmud takes inspiration from Rav Hisda’s daughter and hopes that both are possible.
Read all of Bava Batra 12 on Sefaria.
This piece originally appeared in a My Jewish Learning Daf Yomi email newsletter sent on July 7, 2024. If you are interested in receiving the newsletter, sign up here.
