Filozof, Imma Szalom i Gamaliel

Abstract

The Treatise Shabbat 116a-b of the Baylonian Talmud contains a colourful story about a Christian Gentile, called Philosopher, about Imma Shalom and her brother Gamaliel II. The topic concerns the right of daughters to get a part of the heritage and seems to refer to the Sermon on the Mount or to its part, albeit in a shape older than the text introduced in the Gospel of Matthew 5-7. Contrary to a tendentious interpretation of the passage, the story does not aim at ridiculing the New Testament, but it shows the somewhat hesitant attitude of Gentile Christians towards the Torah at the end of the first century A.D. and the amusing reaction of their Jewish neighbours.