The Routledge handbook of Jews and Judaism in late antiquity

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[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]

This volume brings together 34 papers by 31 contributors, in addition to the editor, to highlight the major issues and debates in the study of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity (from the third to the seventh century C.E.). It analyzes the relationship between Jews and non-Jews as well as internal Jewish developments, both in Roman Palestine and in the diaspora, and compares these two worlds. Its main purpose, as Catherine Hezser remarks in her introduction, is to integrate the study of Jews and Judaism into a more complex and balanced assessment of Late Antiquity, within the wider context of the late Roman, early Byzantine and Sasanian Persian empires, and of the Graeco-Roman, Christian and Zoroastrian cultures, whose interrelationships are based on exchange as well as on competition and conflict.

The handbook consists of an introduction and seven sections: “Jews in the Byzantine Empire”; “Judaism and Christianity”; “Rabbis, Jurists, Philosophers, and Holy Men”; “The Creation of Rabbinic Literature”; “The Development of a Jewish Visual Culture”; “Rabbinic Culture in Sasanian Persia”; “The Expansion of the Jewish Diaspora.” These sections, similar in size, are made up of independent essays, each one of which is sourced from material culture and literary (both Jewish and non-Jewish) and legal texts, using an interdisciplinary approach; it concludes with an extensive and up-to-date bibliography, almost exclusively in English.

PART I, “Jews in the Byzantine Empire”, explores the topic of the Christianization of the Roman empire from the age of Constantine to the seventh century, with a focus on Roman Palestine. The section opens up with a contribution from Hagith Sivan, who describes many aspects of Christianization: the permanence of the members of the imperial family and of the Christian élite in the country, the generous imperial subsidies to ecclesiastical and monastic establishments, which transformed the landscape and appropriated biblical locality, the hunt for relics sent all over the empire, the pilgrimages. Similar topics are discussed by Seth Schwartz, who emphasizes the jurisdictional and cultural changes brought on by the Christian emperors and the use of violence to impose religious conversions, such as the actions of the Syrian monk Barsauma. Of particular interest is the demographic analysis conducted by Claudine Dauphine, who, by using above all archaeological evidence, is able to trace the movements of the various religious segments of Byzantine Palestine. Lastly, Holger Zellentin stresses the religious and political compromises that the rabbis of Palestine managed to strike in order to live in the Roman Empire, especially in relation to the emperor cult and sacrifice.

PART II, “Judaism and Christianity,” is a thorough and important contribution to the field that studies the relationship between Jews and Christians. Maren R. Niehoff analyzes key texts to reconstruct the Jewish response to emerging Christianity. Alexei Sivertsev explores some of the ways in which Christian and Jewish communities are symbolically constructed around churches and synagogues, sharing morphology, organization and decorative patterns. Thierry Murcia points out the almost total absence of the figure of Jesus and his disciples in rabbinic literature, except for a few insulting quotes. Indeed, a same “silent” attitude toward Christianity is general in Jewish sources, according to Burton L. Visotzky, “while the New Testament and the Church fathers looked always upon Judaism with an Oedipal eye” (p. 140). He lists several Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Coptic authors almost unknown even to scholars and proposes topics for further research. Hayim Lapin explains that the term “orthodoxy” unterstood as “correct” beliefs is not relevant to rabbinic scholars because it does not pay attention to conformity and praxis. He also points out that there are few distinctively Jewish institutions in Late Antiquity and few traces of “clerical” hierarchy.

PART III, “Rabbis, Jurists, Philosophers, and Holy Men,” is dedicated to the figure of the rabbis. According to Catherine Hezser, their role as intellectuals (“sages”) included biblical interpretation, moral guidance, and legal advice, putting them on par with other knowledge experts in the Roman Byzantine milieu, Christian or otherwise. Similarities can be found in teaching methods and role models, while differences emerge in attitudes toward the body, the rabbis insisting on the unity of body and soul, the preservation of body and health, and ritual purity. Yair Furstenberg argues that the emerging role of rabbis as law experts is linked to the outcome of the provincialization of Palestine and to the necessary mediation between its multiple legal traditions. Rabbinic legal knowledge enabled Jews to integrate into the Roman world, while maintaining a distinct local identity. Michael L. Satlow explains that holiness, in the very few cases where we can find it in Jewish texts, is an ethical category for the rabbis linked to abstemious behavior, not supernatural power. Joshua Levinson analyzes the function of the rabbinic travel narrative as a vehicle for exploring and producing rabbinic identity.

PART IV, “The Creation of Rabbinic Literature,” discusses the written transmission of the rabbis’ knowledge: the choice of the language used, the transition from oral to written tradition, and that from the scrolls (volumina) to the adoption of the codex, completed in the fourth century. Reuven Kiperwasser points out that rabbinic orality seems have been a powerful device in the enforcement of the master-student hierarchy. Catherine Hezser observes that late antique rabbinic compilations are encyclopedic in their presentation of multiple views on subject matters from all areas of daily life. Marton Ribary undertakes a comparative study of the Talmud Yerushalmi and Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis. Carol Bakhos focuses on related research about rabbinic and patristic interpretations of the Bible. Lutz Doering examines Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew documentary letters and their stylistic peculiarities.

PART V, “The Development of a Jewish Visual Culture,” argues for the important role of visuality in the cultural worlds of ancient rabbis, placing particular attention on how the Jews might have lived in a typically multicultural urban space. Karen B. Stern describes multiple elements in rabbinic corpora which reveal how varied rabbinic approaches to visuality were. Lee I. Levine examines the shift during the third and fourth centuries C.E. from an aniconic attitude to the creation of Jewish figural art, as displayed on the mosaic floor of synagogues and in the material culture of Palestine. The iconographic particularities attest to the degree of autonomy reached and the openness developed in the Jewish communities. Zeev Weiss explores the architecture of the synagogue in the Holy Land and in the diaspora, concentrating on the decorative patterns: mosaics, wall paintings, furnishings, illumination. Rachel Hachlili lists the iconographic motifs depicted on Jewish monuments: symbols (notably the menorah), biblical themes, and the Calendar. The similarities between the themes chosen for both synagogues and churches prove that close contacts and mutual influences between the two worlds continued to exist. Ophir Münz-Manor focuses on liturgical poems (piyyutim) and their performance as an independent and influential component of Jewish culture and society.

Part VI, “Rabbinic Culture in Sasanian Persia,” is particularly coherent in terms of theme and content. Geoffrey Herman discusses the leadership structures that emerged in Babylonia during the Sasanid era, the exilarch and the rabbinic academy. Simcha Gross evaluates the problematic sources concerning Babylonian Jewish communities, analyzing the fluid boundaries between rabbinic and non-rabbinic cultures and their deep engagement with their surrounding society. Shai Secunda explores the intersection of Babylonian Judaism with neighboring religions, especially Sasanian Zoroastrianism, an active and compelling area of research. Lastly, the essay by Jason Sion Mokhtarian examines the representation of Persia in the Babylonian Talmud, or better the rabbis’ representation of Babylonia as an exilic homeland and of the methods used to maintain Jewish identity there.[1]

Part VII, “The Expansion of the Jewish Diaspora,” is dedicated to the world of the diaspora. Samuele Rocca opens the section, drawing a quick portrait of the life of the Jewish settlement in Rome from the late Republic to the “barbarian age,” with some references to other settlements in Italy[2]. Rodrigo Laham Cohen explores three aspects of late antique Egypt: the strong relationship with the land of Israel; the key role that the cities of Alexandria and Oxyrhynchus played in the history of Egyptian Jews (well documented thanks to the surviving papyrological evidence); the Jewish communities as they appear in non-Jewish sources. Maurice Sartre describes the Jewish settlements in Syria, where their presence dates back to at least the Hellenistic period, and in Arabia, where the Himyarite Jewish Kingdom was born, analyzing communal organization and the social life of urban and rural communities. Paul Trebilco takes readers on a tour of the Jewish settlements of Asia Minor, starting from Sardis; he stresses these communities’ strong sense of identity and their active attention to tradition (even if they are rarely mentioned in rabbinic literature) and, at the same time, their integration into city life, the influence from their environment, their good relationship with the Christians and the interest in Judaism of non-Jews’ (God-fearers). Stéphanie É. Binder and Thomas Villey explore the Jewish presence in Africa: up to the second century Jews were well integrated in their surrounding society, but after Christianization the rules of the game changed and in the fifth century the atmosphere had become hostile; in the Vandal and Byzantine period it became even worse. I would have liked to have seen a contribution about the smaller and less numerous attestations from the western provinces[3] and eastern Europe.[4]

This volume provides a critical survey of the state of scholarship, main topics, and research questions, filling a gap in late antique studies. Using multiple threads of evidence, it provides a broader framework of the issues, allowing a revisiting of themes of presence and absence, mutual influences, interaction, and submission, Christianization and Rabbinization in the late antique Jewish world. Its methodological approaches and the avenues suggested for future research represent a valuable resource for students and scholars. The evident dialogue amongst the contributions gives the collected papers a coherent feel, accessible to anyone interested in Judaism and Jewish history. It is a distinct pleasure to recommend Catherine Hezser’s well-argued Routledge Handbook.

Authors and Titles

1. Introduction: Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity, Catherine Hezser

PART I: Jews in the Byzantine Empire

2. From Roman Palestine to a Christian “Holy Land,” Hagith Sivan
3. Changes in the Infrastructure and Population of Byzantine Palestine, Claudine Dauphin
4. Jews, Judaism, and the Christianization of the Roman Empire, Seth Schwartz
5. Jews and the Imperial Cult, Holger Zellentin

PART II: Judaism and Christianity

6. Jews and the Emergence of Christianity, Maren R. Niehoff
7. Synagogues and Churches as the Centers of Local Communities, Alexei Sivertsev
8. The Rabbinic Representation of Jesus and His Followers, Thierry Murcia
9. The Church Fathers on Jews and Judaism, Burton L. Visotzky
10. Institutionalization, “Orthodoxy,” and Hierarchy, Hayim Lapin

PART III: Rabbis, Jurists, Philosophers, and Holy Men

11. Rabbis and the Image of the Intellectual, Catherine Hezser
12. Rabbis and Jurists in the Roman East, Yair Furstenberg
13. Personal Representations of the Holy, Michael L. Satlow
14. Attitudes toward the Body, Catherine Hezser
15. Travel Narratives and the Construction of Identity, Joshua Levinson

PART IV: The Creation of Rabbinic Literature

16. From Oral Discourse to Written Documents, Reuven Kiperwasser
17. Antiquarianism, Scholasticism, and Rabbinic Anthologies, Catherine Hezser
18. Rabbinic Literature and Roman-Byzantine Legal Compilations, Marton Ribary
19. Rabbinic and Patristic Interpretations of the Bible, Carol Bakhos
20. Jewish Letter Writing in Late Antiquity, Lutz Doering

PART V: The Development of a Jewish Visual Culture

21. Visuality in Rabbinic Judaism, Karen B. Stern
22. The Appearance of Jewish Figural Art, Lee I. Levine
23. Synagogue Architecture, Decoration, and Furnishings, Zeev Weiss
24. A Shared Visual Language, Rachel Hachlili
25. The Liturgical Performance of Identity, Ophir Münz-Manor

PART VI: Rabbinic Culture in Sasanian Persia

26. Jewish and Persian Leadership Structures, Geoffrey Herman
27. Babylonian Jewish Communities, Simcha Gross
28. Babylonian Judaism and Zoroastrianism, Shai Secunda
29. Representations of Persia in the Babylonian Talmud, Jason Zion Mokhtarian

PART VII: The Expansion of the Jewish Diaspora

30. Jews in Late Antique Rome, Samuele Rocca
31. Jews in Late Antique Egypt, Rodrigo Laham Cohen
32. Jews in Late Antique Syria and Arabia, Maurice Sartre
33. Jews in Asia Minor, Paul Trebilco
34. Jewish Communities in North Africa, Stéphanie É. Binder, Thomas Villey

Notes

[1] On the topic, Monika Amsler, The Babylonian Talmud and Late Antique Book Culture, Cambridge 2023.

[2] It may be useful to point out two works published during the editing of this Handbook, about Venusia (G. Lacerenza et al. edd., Le catacombe ebraiche di Venosa. Recenti interventi, studi e ricerche, Judaica venusina I, Naples 2020) and Ostia (A. D’Alessio, A. Zevi edd., La sinagoga di Ostia antica. 60 anni dalla scoperta, 20 anni di arte in memoria, Rome 2023).

[3] P. Salmona, P. Blanchard, A. Sagasser, Archéologie du judaïsme en Europe, CNRS ed., Paris 2023.

[4] D. Noy, A. Panayatov edd., Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis I, Eastern Europe, Cambridge 2004.