The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture


Book Description

This volume focuses on a wide range of topics such as gender studies, aspects of everyday life, Roman festivals, magic, etc., hereby reflecting on the methodological problems inherent in intercultural studies.




The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture


Book Description

This volume continues the studies on the most important source of late antique Judaism, the Talmud Yerushalmi, in relation to its cultural context. The text of the Talmud is juxtaposed to archaeological findings, Roman law, and contemporary classical authors. The attitude of the Rabbis towards main aspects of urban society in the Mediterranean region of late antiquity is discussed. Hereby Rabbinic Judaism is seen as integrated in the cultural currents prevalent in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. From reviews of the first volume: The essays in this volume do not seek to establish a global approach to the task, or any general methodological principles. Caution is everywhere apparent. ... This is an excellent beginning, and more is promised. It would be good if this initiative prompted more Talmudic scholars to take the Greek background of Palestinian rabbinism seriously, and finally put paid to the tendency to consider it as in some way separated from or in conflict with late antique Hellenism.N.R.M. De Lange in Bulletin of Judaeo-Greek Studies Winter 1998/99, no. 23, p. 24




The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture II


Book Description

This volume continues the studies on the most important source of late antique Judaism, the Talmud Yerushalmi, in relation to its cultural context. The text of the Talmud is juxtaposed to archaeological findings, Roman law, and contemporary classical authors. The attitude of the Rabbis towards main aspects of urban society in the Mediterranean region of late antiquity is discussed. Hereby Rabbinic Judaism is seen as integrated in the cultural currents prevalent in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. From reviews of the first volume: »The essays in this volume do not seek to establish a global approach to the task, or any general methodological principles. Caution is everywhere apparent. ... This is an excellent beginning, and more is promised. It would be good if this initiative prompted more Talmudic scholars to take the Greek background of Palestinian rabbinism seriously, and finally put paid to the tendency to consider it as in some way separated from or in conflict with late antique Hellenism.«N.R.M. De Lange in Bulletin of Judaeo-Greek Studies Winter 1998/99, no. 23, p. 24Survey of contentsPreface - Martin Goodman: Palestinian Rabbis and the Conversion of Constantine to Christianity - Catherine Hezser: The (In)Significance of Jerusalem in the Talmud Yerushalmi - Hayim Lapin: Rabbis and Cities. Some Aspects of the Rabbinic Movement in its Graeco-Roman Environment - Giuseppe Veltri: Römische Religion an der Peripherie des Reiches. Ein Kapitel rabbinischer Rhetorik - Martin Jacobs: Pagane Tempel in Palästina; rabbinische Aussagen im Vergleich mit archäologischen Funden - Catherine Hezser: Interfaces Between Rabbinic Literature and Graeco-Roman Philosophy - Catherine Hezser: Rabbis and Other Friends. Friendship in the Talmud Yerushalmi and in Graeco-Roman Literature - Aharon Oppenheimer: The Attempt Of Hananiah, Son of Rabbi Joshua's Brother, to Intercalate the Year in Babylonia. A Comparison of the Traditions in the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds.




The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture III


Book Description

This third volume, which offers further insights into the most important source of late antique Judaism, the Talmud Yerushalmi, in relation to its cultural context, marks another step in a research project on the Talmud Yerushalmi initiated by the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Free University (Berlin) in 1994 and concluded by a conference held at Princeton University in November 2001. This volume focuses on a wide range of topics such as gender studies, aspects of everyday life, Roman festivals, magic etc., hereby reflecting on the methodological problems inherent in intercultural studies. Thus, this collection of articles could also serve as a model for similar enterprises in other studies of Judaism in various cultural contexts. From reviews of the previous volumes: »This collection reflects the state of contemporary scholarship and its struggle to understand and thoughtfully reconstruct Jewish culture in late antique Palestine. It belongs in all specialized Judaica libraries and in research libraries that collect deeply in classical civilization.«Steven Fine in Religious Studies Review 3 (1999) vol. 25, p. 331f.Survey of contentsPreface - Hans-Jürgen Becker: The Magic of the Name and Palestinian Rabbinic Literature - Gideon Bohak: The Hellenization of Biblical History in Rabbinic Literature - Daniel Boyarin: Shattering the Logos; or, the Talmuds and the Genealogy of Indeterminacy - Yaron Z. Eliav: Viewing the Sculptural Environment; Shaping the Second Commandment - Steven Fraade: Priests, Kings, and Patriarchs: Yerushalmi Sanhedrin in its Exegetical and Cultural Settings - Shamma Friedman: The Further Adventures of Rav Kahana: Between Babylonia and Palestine - Fritz Graf: Roman Festivals in Syria Palestina - Christine Hayes: Genealogy, Illegitimacy, and Personal Status: The Yerushalmi in Comparative Perspective - Catherine Hezser: The Social Status of Slaves in the Talmud Yerushalmi and in Graeco-Roman Society - Martha Himmelfarb: The Mother of the Messiah in the Talmud Yerushalmi and Sefer Zerubbabel - Tal Ilan: »Stolen Water is Sweet«: Women and their Stories between Bavli and Yerushalmi - Richard Kalmin: Jewish Sources of the Second Temple Period in Rabbinic Compilations of Late Antiquity - David Kraemer: Concerning the Theological Assumptions of the Yerushalmi - Hayim Lapin: Institutionalization, Amoraim, and Yerushalmi Sebi'it - Andreas Lehnardt: The Samaritans (Kutim) in the Talmud Yerushalmi: Constructs of »Rabbinic Mind« or Reflections of Social Reality? - Jeffrey L. Rubenstein: Some Structural Patterns of Yerushalmi Sugyot - Michael L. Satlow: Fictional Woman: A Study in Stereotypes - Peter Schäfer: Jews and Gentiles in Yerushalmi Avodah Zarah - Seth Schwartz: Rabbinization in the Sixth Century.










Between Rome and Babylon


Book Description

Between Rome and Babylon includes over thirty papers by Aharon Oppenheimer about Jewish life in Palestine and Babylonia in the period of the Mishnah and the Talmud (1st-4th centuries), dealing with leadership and society, political and military activity, relations with the authorities and historical geography. The collection is organized around three inter-connected themes: 1 Roman Palestine and its Environs; 2 The Bar Kokhba Revolt; 3 Babylonia Judaica. About two-thirds of the papers were originally published in Hebrew. They have been selected and edited for this collection, and translated for the first time into English or German. The rest of the papers originally appeared in various different languages and contexts, and they too have been selected and edited to fit the three themes. Cross-references have been added, as well as detailed indices.The aim of the papers is to cast light on Jewish history by extracting methodically historical meaning from Talmudic sources, taking into account when they were written, where they were edited, and how far they can be presumed authentic; and by looking at them in combination with Greek, Roman, Persian and Arabic written sources as well as relevant archaeological finds.




The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity


Book Description

This volume focuses on the major issues and debates in the study of Jews and Judaism in late antiquity (third to seventh century C.E.), providing cutting-edge surveys of the state of scholarship, main topics and research questions, methodological approaches, and avenues for future research. Based on both Jewish and non-Jewish literary and material sources, this volume takes an interdisciplinary approach involving historians of ancient Judaism, scholars of rabbinic literature, archaeologists, epigraphers, art historians, and Byzantinists. Developments within Jewish society and culture are viewed within the respective regional, political, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts in which they took place. Special focus is given to the impact of the Christianization of the Roman Empire on Jews, from administrative, legal, social, and cultural points of view. The contributors examine how the confrontation with Christianity changed Jewish practices, perceptions, and organizational structures, such as, for example, the emergence of local Jewish communities around synagogues as central religious spaces. Special chapters are devoted to the eastern and western Jewish Diaspora in Late Antiquity, especially Sasanian Persia but also Roman Italy, Egypt, Syria and Arabia, North Africa, and Asia Minor, to provide a comprehensive assessment of the situation and life experiences of Jews and Judaism during this period. The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity is a critical and methodologically sophisticated survey of current scholarship aimed primarily at students and scholars of Jewish Studies, Study of Religions, Patristics, Classics, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Iranology, History of Art, and Archaeology. It is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Judaism and Jewish history.




Rabbinic Body Language: Non-Verbal Communication in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity


Book Description

This study constitutes the first comprehensive examination of rabbinic body language represented in Palestinian rabbinic sources of late antiquity. Catherine Hezser examines rabbis’ appearance and demeanor, spatial movement, gestures, and facial expressions on the basis of literary and social-anthropological methods and theories. She discusses the various forms of rabbis’ non-verbal communication in the context of Graeco-Roman and ancient Christian literary sources and in connection with the material culture of Roman and early Byzantine Palestine. Catherine Hezser convincingly shows that in rabbinic literature body language serves as an important means of rabbis’ self-fashioning. Rabbinic texts create the image of a particularly Jewish type of intellectual who functioned and competed for adherents within the highly visual and body-conscious environment of late antiquity.




Jews and Their Roman Rivals


Book Description

How encounters with the Roman Empire compelled the Jews of antiquity to rethink their conceptions of Israel and the Torah Throughout their history, Jews have lived under a succession of imperial powers, from Assyria and Babylonia to Persia and the Hellenistic kingdoms. Jews and Their Roman Rivals shows how the Roman Empire posed a unique challenge to Jewish thinkers such as Philo, Josephus, and the Palestinian rabbis, who both resisted and internalized Roman standards and imperial ideology. Katell Berthelot traces how, long before the empire became Christian, Jews came to perceive Israel and Rome as rivals competing for supremacy. Both considered their laws to be the most perfect ever written, and both believed they were a most pious people who had been entrusted with a divine mission to bring order and peace to the world. Berthelot argues that the rabbinic identification of Rome with Esau, Israel's twin brother, reflected this sense of rivalry. She discusses how this challenge transformed ancient Jewish ideas about military power and the use of force, law and jurisdiction, and membership in the people of Israel. Berthelot argues that Jewish thinkers imitated the Romans in some cases and proposed competing models in others. Shedding new light on Jewish thought in antiquity, Jews and Their Roman Rivals reveals how Jewish encounters with pagan Rome gave rise to crucial evolutions in the ways Jews conceptualized the Torah and conversion to Judaism.