(MK 16a) in the Babylonian Talmud (AD 500-550). Cf. Haim Hermann Cohn, "Herem", in
Encyclopedia Judaica
(Jerusalem: Keter, 1971), 8:350. The Mishnah's version of Moed Katan's excommunication refers only to
ywdn
and not to
!rj
.
!rj
is clearly used by later rabbis of the Talmudic and post-Talmudic periods as a severe form of excommunication.
This culminated with the famous ban of Baruch Spinoza in 1656. For more on the history of the use of
!rj
in Judaism from Talmudic times to the present, see Cohn, "Herem", 350-5; Ze'ev Gries, "Heresy," in
Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought: Original Essays on Critical Concepts, Movements, and Beliefs
, ed. Arthur A. Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr (New York: Macmillian, 1987), 341-2; Nathan Ausubel,
The Book of Jewish Knowledge
(New York: Crown, 1964), 151-2.
39
Behm, "anathema," 354-5. Cf. Lightfoot,
The Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians
, 78.
40
South, "Corrective Discipline in the Pauline Communities," 199; J. E. Mignard, "Jewish and Christian Cultic
Discipline to the Middle of the Second Century" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston University, 1966), 34-41.
41
South, "Corrective Discipline in the Pauline Communities," 199-200.
42
Lightfoot,
The Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians
, 78.
43