Bound by a Unifying Conflict: the Sage and the Min in Tannaitic Times
Bound by a Unifying Conflict: the Sage and the Min in Tannaitic Times

Summary/Abstract: The main historical event around which the present paper is developed is the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the year 70 CE, the emphasis being laid on the idea that a symbolic world dies together with it, a symbolic world that must be reconstructed. The Sage in this paper is the constructor of a new symbolic universe, while the Min is part of this construction. All the texts from Tannaitic times describe the relation between the Sage and the Min as a conflictual one. Starting from this point, I attempt to explain how this social category was constructed, and what its function was in the symbolical world built by the Rabbis. Taking into consideration the fact that both the Sage and the Min represent elements of a “new history”, this paper explores the idea that at the beginning of any “new history” there is no unity but diversity, the price of acquiring a “new history” being always equal with the loss of this diversity.

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