The oven of hakhinai: The yerushalmi's accounts of the banning of R. Eliezer

This article presents an analysis of the Talmud Yerushalmi's version of the story of 'The Oven of Akhnai', Mo'ed Qatan 3:1 (81c-d). The first part is a philological analysis of the Yerushalmi account which traces the development of 'The Oven of Akhnai' traditions from the Mishnah and Tosefta, through the Yerushalmi and Bavli. The second part is a literary reading of the Yerushalmi text which demonstrates that the Yerushalmi is far more sympathetic to Rabbi Eliezer and his world-view than is the Bavli. I also consider the significance of the place of this passage in a sugya about the laws of excommunication and the distinctive image of the legendary study house at Yavne, which is markedly different from that found in other rabbinic narratives about the sages of that generation.