Reviewed by the members of the 1999 advanced seminar on early Judaism and early Christianity at the University of Pennsylvania conducted by Ross S. Kraemer (now at Brown University) and Robert A. Kraft [RAK, framework, ##1, 3] and attended by Susan Marks [SM, ##9, 11, 16], Debra Bucher [DB, #15], Sigrid Peterson [SP, ##6-10, 13-14], Beth Pollard [BP, ## 2, 5, 12, 14], Shira Lander, William "Chip" Gruen, Sarah Schwarz, Brad Kirkegaard, Jill Gorman, and Kim Haines-Eitzen -- the reviewers have been joined more recently by Todd Krulak [TK, #4]. Main responsibility for each review is indicated by the reviewer's initials. Final editing is the responsibility of Beth Pollard (epollard@mail.sdsu.edu) and Robert Kraft (kraft@ccat.sas.upenn.edu). We apologize for the extreme delay in making this review-anthology available, but are pleased to say that the book is no less relevant and important today than it was when it first appeared in 1999.
Overview and essay #01, "Jews,
Greeks, and Romans" by Martin Goodman
(3-14)
[RAK]
This collection of previously unpublished articles edited
by Martin Goodman opens with the question "How different from other
people in the Graeco-Roman world were the Jews?" For himself, Goodman
proposes that "the oddities of the Jews in the Graeco-Roman world were
no greater than that of the many other distinctive ethnic groups, such
as Idumaeans, Celts, or Numidians, who between them created the varied
tapestry of society in this region and period" (4-5). He wonders
(always a good PhD exam question!) "how evidence about Jews and Judaism
would be interpreted if we did not have such material preserved [by
surviving rabbinic Judaism and Christianity] for these special
religious reasons. What would be known of the Jews in this period if
there were no rabbinic or patristic texts, no biblical writings, no
works by Josephus, Philo, or other Jewish authors preserved by
Christians … and nothing about Jews from the Roman world from the
period after Constantine had placed a Christian filter over so many of
the actions of the Roman state?" (5). What if Jews were "studied with
the same tools as other peoples and other religions in the Graeco-Roman
world, on a par with Gauls or Spaniards, or the worshippers of Isis or
Mithras"? (6).
Goodman goes on to outline the sorts of primary evidence available for approaching the subject in this manner: literary references, documentary materials (e.g. papyri), inscriptions, archaeological and iconographic remains. He points out that the interpretive framework provided by the disqualified Jewish and Christian sources (in this challenging methodological game) often colors even the work of epigraphists, numismatists and archaeologists in assessing their presumably more "objective" evidence. How would we know what constituted a "Jewish" name? Do we learn anything useful from the (unexpected) appearance of a Jewish coin in a given area? When is a pool just a pool (and not a ritual bath)? Or a scene depicting a ram caught in a thicket just decoration (wallpaper, mosaic carpet)?
Judaism as known from these limited sources would appear as an esoteric cult with strange dietary customs, a peculiarly strict attitude to sacred time (the sabbath), the odd practice of circumcising boys, a peculiar avoidance of images, an objectionable refusal to worship the gods of others, and a great leader of the distant past who had been called Moses. … It would be known that Judaism was the religion of a particular nation, but also that it was possible for outsiders to become full members of the Jewish religion in the same way that they could embrace a philosophy. (11-12)
What is more, Goodman continues, such an approach would provide little awareness of "the centrality of the Bible as a sacred text, both in the sense that its words carry specially sanctified authority and in the sense that a scroll of scripture is a sacred object" (12). Except perhaps by extrapolation from the Dead Sea Scrolls (which, in transgression of his own methodological caveats, Goodman describes as "writings of the obviously strange Jews who produced the sectarian texts found by the Dead Sea"! 12), what would be known of "the centrality of the covenant between God and Israel or the importance of eschatological speculation in Judaism of this period"? (12). "Nor would historians be able to guess at the variety which consisted [existed?] within Second Temple Judaism" (12).
In short, in Goodman's scholarly world of "as if," "historians would still be aware of Jews as a distinct ethnic and religious group, but Jews would not seem anything like as marginal in the Graeco-Roman world as they do when their own, often jaundiced, views of the outside provide the basis for understanding them. Jews lived alongside non-Jews even in many parts of their homeland [Judea] to a much greater degree than scholars tend to allow" (13). "The corollary of this attempt to understand Jews without using special Jewish [and Christian] evidence [from the surviving traditions] is that, if it shows that Jews were after all not so different from other people, then the Jewish evidence itself can and should be used to illuminate wider Graeco-Roman history" (13). "The important question of the relation between public cult and domestic rituals or private emotions in ancient paganism might reasonably take the relation in Judaism of attitudes to the Temple and to personal religion as its starting point. … The main use of Jewish evidence may not be so much as an instance from which generalizations can always be made but more as a means to check or stimulate models for understanding how ancient society worked" (14).
Within this provocative methodological experiment, Goodman also provides a preview of the rest of the volume, which is divided into four parts: (1) "The Hellenistic and Roman World: Jewish Perspectives" (essays 1-4), (2) "Social Integration?" (essays 5-6), (3) "Similarities?" (essays 7-12), and (4) "Differences?" (essays 13-16). The use of question marks in these last three divisions is appropriate to the overall tone of this anthology in its attempt to ask questions and open new avenues of investigation and synthesis even while revisiting some old themes and issues. Not all of the contributors -- all of whom are recognized authorities on the subjects with which they deal -- will share Goodman's mindset as described above, but they all attempt to make better headway in their subject areas by avoiding past pitfalls and focusing on the primary evidence. As Goodman puts it at the end of his essay:
The contributors to this volume have approached their discussions of the relationship of the Jews to the rest of the Graeco-Roman world from diverse perspectives and with the benefit of a variety of techniques and types of evidence. It is a prime aim of the book to familiarize readers from different backgrounds with all such approaches and to persuade them that this material can be made mutually comprehensible both to classicists and to those primarily concerned with Jewish history. Obscurantist specialists in both fields have too often in the past used their expertise as a means to prevent others from trespassing on 'their' history. Such attitudes are now generally changing, and our intention in this collection is to help to open up and encourage research across the boundaries between these disciplines, to the benefit of both. (14)
The volume concludes with an extensive bibliography of works cited, organized chapter (essay) by chapter and thus including lots of overlap/replication (251-278), followed by a valuable subject index (279-293). Bibliographical references in each essay are somewhat cryptic, normally giving only the author's last name and the date of publication, thus necessitating frequent reference to the bibliographies. The frontmatter also provides a list of abbreviations and a page identifying the contributors by academic position and location (mostly from Britain and Israel). Doubtless numerous suggestions for additional bibliography could be made, and it would have been a good idea to preface the bibliography with a section on items of general value for contextualizing the reader. For example, missing from the bibliography, and from many contemporary discussions of the subject, is the important essay by the late Kurt Treu, "Die Bedeutung des Griechischen fuer die Juden im roemischen Reich" ["The Significance of Greek for Jews in the Roman Empire"] from KAIROS 15 (1973) 123-144 [an English translation by William Adler and Robert Kraft is available online at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/gopher/other/courses/rels/525/2.3%20Greek%20Judaism%20Article%20%28Treu%29 or http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/3839/christian.html ]
The book has few typographical or similar blemishes: correct
"Aufsteig" to "Aufstieg" on the Abbreviations page; on p.12 line 4 from
below (text), "consisted" should probably be "existed" (see above); on
p.53 line 3 from below (text), read "Reinach" (as in n. 19; not
included in the bibliography), not
"Reinarch." It is perhaps also worth noting [with SM] that the term
"Romanization" seems to play different roles in chapters 9 and 16.
Sacha Stern employs the concept of "Romanization" to indicate something
the rabbis resisted (250), while Satlow at the end of his own piece
argues that the rabbis themselves never employed such a "culture
conflict" category (143).
Part 1: The Hellenistic and Roman World: Jewish Perspectives
#01. Goodman, "Jews, Greeks, and Romans" (3-14) [RAK; see above]
#02. Erich S. Gruen, "Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the Third Sibylline Oracle" (15-36)
[BP]
In this essay, Gruen scrutinizes the Third Sibylline Oracle for what it
can tell us about "Jewish self-image" and the "means and the motives"
of the incorporation of these pagan texts by Hellenized Jews in the
Greco-Roman world. Gruen locates these within a Hellenistic and
eschatological context. To accomplish this, he deftly sifts through
arguments by past scholars on issues ranging from the "unity or
diversity of composition" (17-18), the dating of the text (18-29), and
its provenance (29-33). In addressing the issue of composition, Gruen
highlights the events from the late Republic and early empire to which
the Third Sibylline Oracle refers. He concludes that the mixture and
overlap of historical events is too confused to allow for a main corpus
which was later redacted, and suggests instead that "multiple layers
[were] built over time by diverse interests and sources" (18). In
challenging the mid-second century BCE dating of the text, which is
based on the identification the thrice mentioned seventh king of Egypt
as Ptolemy VI Philometer, Gruen discredits earlier theories that this
text represents an attempt by Egyptian Jews "to ingratiate themselves
with the Ptolemaic dynasty and to express a common basis for relations
between Jews and Gentiles in Egypt" (19). He further thoroughly debunks
attempts at identifying the so-called triumvirate and Cleopatra in the
text. Gruen unpacks the historical references to demonstrate that this
text does not represent a contemporary historical situation. Instead,
he places this text firmly in the tradition of apocalypticism; not
recording events which have happened but envisioning what will come.
Gruen concludes that this text represents Jewish resentment NOT
ingratiation and connection (29). In turning to provenance, Gruen shows
how the alleged Egyptian context has been based on the supposed
Ptolemaic references which he has problematized with his historical
analysis. The centrality of Rome as the ultimate villain in the oracle
suggests to Gruen a broader Hellenic context. Gruen locates the
vituperative attacks on Rome in the text in the eschatological
foreboding of doom awaiting the Power which has already victimized the
Greeks with whom the Hellenized Jews wished to identify and sympathize
(33). Unfortunately, "efforts to locate the message in precise time and
place, with concrete intent and expectation, lead to blind-alleys"
(33).
On the whole, Gruen tackles all these scholarly debates in order to refocus attention on the apocalypticism of the Sibyl's message and its significance for understanding Judaism in a Hellenistic context. Not surprisingly, this article will be of great use to students of Roman history, Greco-Roman religions and Hellenistic Judaism alike. Gruen has claimed this text for ancient historians who might not otherwise examine this corpus of texts, and he has placed the eschatological tradition out of which this text developed firmly within the Hellenic oracular milieu.
[RAK]
Gruen opens the door to exploring such questions as when, how, and in
what forms these sorts of Jewish materials evolved, and what they meant
to their various audiences, including possibly "pagan" and certainly
later Christian users.
#03. Seth Schwartz, "The Hellenization of Jerusalem and Schechem" (37-46)
"Thus the main use of Jewish evidence may be not so much as an instance from which generalizations can always be made but more as a means to check or stimulate models for understanding how ancient society worked. So Seth Schwartz suggests in his contribution to this volume that the experience of the Jews in the Hellenistic period provides a model of the process of Hellenization which can be applied elsewhere, and it is worth enquiring how many other (less well-documented) peoples in the Roman empire opposed the might of the state and yet, like the Jews, somehow flourished culturally, economically, and socially without ever identifying themselves with Roman society." (Goodman 14)
[RAK]
Seth Schwartz attempts to explore, admittedly more deeply than the hard
evidence permits, the dynamics involved in "the Hellenization of native
cities" in Asia Minor (Sardis) and Syria-Palestine (Jerusalem and
Shechem). "This type of city is of particular interest because it
illustrates in the most critical way possible the changing character of
ethnicity in the Hellenistic period, for it seems likely that apart
from those who, wherever they lived, could plausibly claim greek
ancestry, the prevailing definition of 'Greek' now became formal: a
citizen of a city with a Greek constitution was Greek" (37).
Schwartz is especially interested in the dynamics between "public"
and "private" as a possible explanatory lever for understanding how
earlier (native) features could survive into and even help transform
the nature of such hellenistic cities. "Greekness was now essentially a
public and formal property," so that "some preservation of the
native culture, for which there is Hellenistic evidence, must have been
taking place elsewhere than in the public sphere" (38). In terms of
externals, hellenization in these locations was based on a Greek
political structure (constitution), led to establishment of a gymnasium
and ephebate, and an appropriately hellenized temple and/or religious
awareness -- "by becoming Greek, a community reordered its
religious, cultural, political life along a new ideological
axis" which was also economically demanding since it involved "the
construction and maintanance of gymnasia, hippodromes, theatres,
bathhouses, maybe new temples" and thus "cost lots of money"
(41). Nevertheless, "the new Greekness functioned in two
different ways to preserve elements, displaced and altered, of
traditional cultures" (42). One avenue was the rather public
preservation of traditional terms, offices, languages and myths,
notably in religious contexts. But the other way, available to our eyes
mainly through analogy and speculation, is the "preservation of local
types of sexual behaviour, cuisine, medical/magical practice, even of
pre-Greek languages. ... The very public and formal character of
Greekness allowed the change to be less drastic than it might seem"
(43).
With such a reconstruction in view, based on the slivers of
pertinent evidence relating to the test cities in Asia Minor and
Syria-Palestine, Schwartz bravely moves to broader applications:
"If I am right about the heightened sense of the private created by the
diffusion of Greek culture in the third and second centuries BCE, then
Hellenization was the first of several cases of large-scale and radical
cultural transformations in the high and late antique
Mediterranean and Near East which I believe all follow a roughly
similar pattern, for reasons which I admit I do not know" (43). Thus
the Hasmonean Judaization of Palestine perhaps constitutes "a sort of
counter-Hellenization," affecting public life much more than private
where various non-Jewish survivals are in evidence (e.g. Edomite
practices). Similarly, if more grandly, the Christianization of the
Roman empire follows similar patterns -- "the character of the public
culture changed" and with it eventually even the shape of the cities as
the private values of the publicly dispossessed produced major
modifications (e.g. the once priviliged urban elite retire from their
city homes to country estates, which further contributed to the
reshaping of the cities).
Ultimately, this provocative essay is less about "the Hellenization
of Jerusalem and Shechem" than about how older cultural elements
(language, stories, characteristic practices, values) can survive and
even contribute to change even in the face of very concrete and radical
external political and social transformations. Schwartz sees the
concrete externals "creating an unpoliced private space" (44) in which
some of the older features can to some extent exist and even resurface.
This is an enormous topic which he can barely begin to explore in this
essay. His subsequent monograph (2001) on Imperialism and Jewish
Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E.
(Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World)
takes the subject and arguments further. Of course, at some levels he
is correct -- even under the most rigorous external conditions older
values and features can survive and resurface (we have several modern
examples). Exactly how and why this is true must vary significantly
with time, place, and circumstances. Differences between the Hasmonean
Judaization of Palestine and the 4th century (and subsequent)
Christianization of the Roman world are quite radical, whatever
similarities one wishes to highlight. Similarly the success of Islam,
which Schwartz wisely avoids more than mentioning in this essay,
introduces other variables. There is much to quarrel about, both
methodologically and at the level of detail. Nevertheless, allowing
Schwartz to prod one to think about these smaller and larger issues is
itself a major boon.
#04. Daniel R. Schwartz, "Josephus' Tobiads: Back to the 2nd Century?" (47-61)
"Daniel Schwartz shows succinctly in his essay on the political history of the early second century BCE how the tendency of classical historians to dismiss the evidence of one Jewish author, Josephus, about Hellenistic politics is unwarranted, but not all Jewish texts are equally valuable in this regard: reflections of political history in rabbinic texts are only comprehensible as such because that history is already known from other sources. It is hard to think of any aspects of wider political history that could ever be firmly asserted on the basis of rabbinic evidence alone." (Goodman 13)
[TK]
In an effort to demonstrate the "use of Jewish
evidence for the study of Graeco-Roman history," Daniel Schwartz turns
his attention to early second century BCE Seleucid Syria.
Following the defeat of the Ptolemaic army in
200 BCE, Antiochus III annexed Coele-Syria and, lacking any further
challenges
in the East, turned his attention towards Europe where he was met
head-on by
the newly disentangled (from the Second Punic War) Romans and
repeatedly
defeated. The subsequent Treaty of
Apamea weakened the Seleucids both militarily and economically. Schwartz wonders why, at this time of Seleucid
frailty, Ptolemaic Egypt did not attempt to reclaim Coele-Syria noting
that the "standard" solution rests upon the assumption that the union
between
Antiochus' daughter, Cleopatra I, to Ptolemy V Epiphanes (in 193 BCE)
was enough to bring some amount of stability to the region. For Schwartz, this explanation is not
entirely satisfactory as "one would normally expect that there were
some other terms to the agreement."
Further muddying the waters, perplexing evidence
from the
accounts of Polybius, Livy, and Josephus is introduced in which there
is some confusion
about who controls Coele-Syria. Livy
42.29.5 (supported by Josephus, Jewish
War 1.31) portrays Antiochus IV as an
opportunist who considered using Roman involvement in the Third
Macedonian War
(171 BCE) "to raise disputes about Coele-Syria in order to
have a cause for war (against Egypt)." But,
asks Schwartz, why is such action
necessary if Coele-Syria is firmly in Seleucid hands?
He answers his question in the following
manner (49-50):
Obviously, both of our
questions -- why did
Ptolemy
V do nothing to regain Coele-Syria, and what did Livy and Josephus mean
by
disputes Antiochus could raise about Coele-Syria -- could easily be
resolved by the suggestion that Ptolemaic Egypt had indeed received
back, from
the Seleucids, some measure of their lost interests in that
province.... Now the fact of the
matter is, that Josephus indeed reports just such a Seleucid
concession.
This concession comes in the form of Cleopatra's
dowry a generation earlier which, according to Antiquities 12.154, was
constituted of the tributes of Coele-Syria,
According to Schwartz, Jospehus' mention of the
Seleucid dowry has been universally dismissed for three reasons: 1)
Appian and
Porphyry claim that Antiochus III gave Coele-Syria (as opposed to the
tax-income
from the province) to Ptolemy V as Cleopatra's dowry; 2) Polybius
(28.20.6-10) mentions that Antiochus IV himself denied that his father
had
given Coele-Syria to Ptolemy V and convinced both himself and his
audience (of Greek
envoys) that he was right; 3) Josephus incorrectly placed the Tobiads
in the
early second century BCE rather than in the more generally accepted
mid-to-late
third century BCE. "Accordingly," writes
Schwartz, "it is explained
that Josephus thought the story concerns the second century and
therefore
invented his story of Cleopatra's dowry in order to account for
Ptolemaic
taxation after the Seleucid conquest."
The first two objections are handled in a
streamlined manner
for it is the third objection that is of the most interest to Schwartz
and to
which he responds in eight points. All
of his responses ably address the "Tobiad question,"
(although point two has some degree of circularity to it) but it is the
seventh
point that seems to be the capstone of his argument and the caution
that he
wishes to give to historians of antiquity.
Noting that there is normally a rush of "scholarly
enthusiasm" when a new item of evidence is discovered that often leads
to an exaggeration of the item's importance, Schwartz argues that this
is precisely what occurred following the 1918 unearthing of the Zenon
Papyri. The papyri "clearly
place a rich Tobias in Tranjordan, and in contact with the Ptolemaic
government, in 259 BCE.," but in their enthusiasm, argues Schwartz,
scholars contended that this Tobias was the father of the Joseph ben
Tobias
mentioned by Josephus (as having thrived in the early second century
BCE),
thereby causing a chronological discrepancy between Josephus and the
Zenon
Papyri. "The fact is,"
argues Schwartz, "that we know of Tobiads for centuries prior to the
third
century BCE and of 'sons of Tobias' in the second century BCE
as well (Ant. 12.239-40) in
the same region and with the same characteristics,
so the discovery of epigraphic evidence for any Tobias cannot, by
itself, pin down
the dating of one mentioned in the literature."
Schwartz's conclusion suggests the following:
[H]istorians might take a new look at the subject
[of
Josephus' account of the situation in Coele-Syria and the positioning
of the Tobiad account] and, while leaving those papyri in the third
century,
where they were found, leave Josephus' story where he put it -- in the
second, and receive with more of an open mind his account of
Cleopatra's dowry. If that will
help explain Ptolemaic passivity, Livy 42.29.5, and Josephus, War 1.31, so much
the better.
Schwartz's essay does the
scholar a solid service. First, it
strengthens claims
found in the works of three historians that Ptolemaic Egypt still had a
stake
in Coele-Syria, a stake that the Seleucid king Antiochus IV wanted to
wrest
from its grasp long after the former (Ptolemaic) empire's defeat at the
hands of
the latter (Seleucid) a generation earlier. Second,
the cautious note Schwartz sounds is doubly effective in that it not
only brushes
away the assumptions of an earlier generation of scholarship, but also
serves
as a reminder to modern students of antiquity not to repeat the
missteps of our
predecessors.
Part 2: Social Integration?
#05. Benjamin Isaac, "Jews, Christians and others in Palestine: The Evidence from Eusebius" (65-74)
"Jews lived alongside non-Jews even in many parts of their homeland to a much greater degree than scholars tend to allow, as Benjamin Isaac shows in this book." (Goodman 13)
[BP]
Putting aside efforts to come up with raw numerical population data or
elaborate definitions of social identity, Isaac's goal in this essay is
to employ the under-utilized (in Isaac's estimation) Onamasticon of
Eusebius, the early fourth century Christian church historian and
panegyrist of Constantine, in order to address the question of "what
was the distribution of the various population groups in Palestine:
pagans, Jews and Christians" (65). Isaac grants the "mixed" nature of
the urban population, but wants to problematize the assumption that
rural villages were "monocultures." Given this goal, Isaac's article
deals largely with justifying the relevance of the Onamasticon for
addressing the question at hand. Isaac argues that the Onamasticon
represents "consistent contemporary information" with respect to
garrisons, roads, and city territories; thus, Isaac extrapolates that
when Eusebius designates a village as either "entirely inhabited by
Christians" or a "village of the Jews," such labels must be meaningful
as well. This assumption is vital to Isaac's argument, since only
"eighteen of the hundreds of villages" are precisely labeled with such
terms by Eusebius (eleven Jewish, three Christian, and four Samaritan).
A more serious problem with the Onamasticon is that it only refers to
villages that have biblical importance. Isaac's dismissal of this with
the reasoning that the absolute number of sites considered is high "in
absolute terms" (69), is less convincing. He attempts to deal with this
problem further by comparing Eusebius' labeled Jewish settlements with
rabbinic sources (70-71), the Christian heresiologist Epiphanius (71)
and archaeological evidence of synagogues contemporary with Eusebius
(71-73).
Isaac concludes with a suggestion that villages could rarely be described as homogeneous, and that Eusebius labeled the ethnically (or religiously) distinct eighteen villages as exceptions. The norms would be villages made of a mixture of pagans, Jews, Christians and Samaritans. Given this useful exploration of a particular application of Eusebius' Onamasticon, there were a few lines of inquiry which might have strengthened the argument. First, it would have been useful if an attempt had been made to deal with what Eusebius meant when he defined a place as Jewish, Christian or Samaritan. Granted Isaac stated that he did not want to deal with the complex issue of "identity," but Eusebius' own definition of these labels should not be assumed. Secondly, Isaac might have focused a bit on what biases might have influenced Eusebius' labeling of these sites or even his purpose in writing this work. Finally, what was the relationship of this listing of biblical sites to Eusebius' other works? Despite these unanswered questions, Isaac's article exemplifies the praiseworthy goal of Goodman's collection, namely to open up disciplinary boundaries and incorporate varied evidence types to make sense of Jews in their Greco-Roman environments.
#06. David Noy, "Where were the Jews of the Diaspora buried?" (75-89)
"As David Noy points out in his chapter, there is good reason to suppose that in such areas they were generally buried alongside non-Jews except where there is specific evidence for exclusively Jewish catacombs." (Goodman 13)
[SP]
David Noy presents a review article briefly summarizing what is known
of the many varieties of Jewish burials outside Palestine, with
comparative material from Jerusalem and Beit Shearim presented as well.
His primary diaspora location for examples is Rome and its environs,
although he notes briefly the work of Trebilco in Asia Minor.
These examples are loosely stitched together along with his assumptions and those of others, without presenting his thinking in the form of argument, observations, or extended development of conclusions based on the physical facts. Such assumptions could be usefully examined, for example, as to the question of whether the people who were inhumated/entombed/cremated or otherwise had a discernible fate for their physical remains were actually Jews. Noy acknowledges the difficulty of this question, but for the examples he gives, one must take him at his word that this burial or that cremation is that of a Jew. We do not know, for example, whether (where names are available) he counts any non-semitic names as Jewish, counts some such names as Jewish if they are well-attested, or counts all names in contiguity with clearly semitic names as Jewish. Thus, this article serves best as a prolegomenon to an independent reconsideration of the phenomena associated with Jewish burials in the Diaspora.
Part 3: Similarities?
#07. Albert Baumgarten, "Graeco-Roman Voluntary Associations and Ancient Jewish Sects" (93-112)
"According to Albert Baumgarten, the distinctive parties within Judaism which emerged in the Hellenistic age were for some reason more all-embracing than equivalent non-Jewish groups: they were greedy institutions which engaged much of the identity and efforts of their members, unlike equivalent philosophical schools or clubs, which involved only a part of their members' lives." (Goodman 3-4)
[SP]
Baumgarten's article is a treat, an excellent example of complex
comparison. He begins by describing the diversity of the phenomena
being compared, and asks "How can two sets of entitites, each set
itself so multiform, usefully be compared to each other?" In order to
make such complex comparisons, for which there is a relative abundance
of ancient material,
Baumgarten needs an exceptional command of Hellenistic and
Hebrew literature, and to make sense of it all, a wide knowledge of
secondary discussions in sociology and history. Indeed,
Baumgarten has the
requisite command of material germane to the topic. With
Baumgarten at the
helm, the journey is fairly smooth, and we arrive at the destination
with a much greater depth of understanding of the similarities and
differences between Graeco-Roman voluntary associations and the Jewish
sects at the turn of the era.
Baumgarten concludes:
As is regularly the case in successful comparative studies, a point clearer on one side of the comparison will have suggested a fruitful line of investigation on the other. (110)
In this case it is the hypothesis of dislocation that accompanies urbanization of the population, fairly clear in the case of Graeco-Roman voluntary associations, that may account for the rise of the Jewish sects.
In one of the comparisons, between the Epicureans and the Essenes, Baumgarten lays out the evidence so clearly that, without needing to be explicit, it is easy to see that what has been called "monastic" is anachronistic, and that restrictive community rules were found in a number of places in the ancient world. As Baumgarten indicates, even closer similarities between the restrictive Essene community rule and that of Greek associations is found in the imaginary Greek utopias, such as that of Iambulus' Children of the Sun (101). While Baumgarten does not chase down and comment on every implication, such examples provide a space, perhaps between reality and imagination, for the Therapeutics of Philo, or the Greek and Syriac History of the Rechabites, that sound so much like the Essenes or the Qumran community.
Another comparison points up the dependence of voluntary associations, as well as sectarian Jews, on widespread literacy among their members. Unfortunately, Baumgarten does not develop the implications of this point, for many more questions can be asked.
In concluding his discussion of the rise of sects in comparison with the proliferation of voluntary associations in an environment of urban dislocation, Baumgarten concludes that:
The solution at this stage is still incomplete. To complete it, at the very least one would need to find evidence -- direct and indirect, to the extent possible -- for a migration from the cities to the towns, and to Jerusalem in particular. . . . (111)
It seems more consistent with the previous discussion to read "migration from the countryside to the towns."
#08. William Horbury, "Antichrist among Jews and Gentiles" (113-134)
"More might be culled from Jewish sources about the general history of ancient religion, not just because, as William Horbury shows in his paper, some very basic notions found among Jews were also shared by pagan Romans, but primarily because so much more is known of the workings of Judaism than of any other cult." (Goodman 13-14)
[SP]
This article deals with a fascinating topic in a less than fully
satisfying manner. Horbury
displays a mastery of the primary sources in Jewish biblical,
apocryphal, Qumran, and pseudepigraphical materials; the NT and the
early church fathers; and materials from Greek mythology. He alludes to
the earlier scholarship that has considered the figure of the
antichrist in Judaism and Christianity and the scholarly debate about
whether an antichrist figure predates the arrival of Christianity on
the world scene.
Perhaps partly due to Horbury's decision to refer to many ancient sources, the types of "Judaism" underlying his sources are largely undifferentiated. Similarly, the "Christianity" of which he speaks appears to be rather monolithic, represented by the NT and the early Church Fathers, and a few of the Jewish Pseudepigrapha obviously adopted and adapted, and transmitted, by Christians.
Horbury seems to use the term "antichrist" as an unspecific, categorical name for the opponent of some form of authority, whether God's anointed king or priest or prophet, or the long calm reign presided over by Caesar Augustus, or the Jewish theocracy of the early hellenistic period, or the less specific rule of God in the hearts of humans, or a variety of eschatological saviors. This lack of specificity makes for a relatively confusing article that leaps from reference to reference, with the possibility that the article would make more sense if one knew instantly the text of all the references in all the literature cited.
That is to say, Horbury lacks precision, first, in defining what he means by "antichrist," and, second, in distinguishing between the varieties of literary treatments of "antichrist" he has catalogued. These varieties include the following:
Horbury concludes that "despite the contrast between Christian and Jewish views drawn in much study of antichrist, Christian notions of antichrist derived from Jewish tradition ... [which], however, had many points of correspondence with non-Jewish expectations current in the Greek and Roman world. The myth of the Titans and the giants was picked out by both Christian and pagan observers as particularly close to the antichrist myth. ... [Thus] it may not be out of place to speak of antichrist among gentiles as well as Jews in the Roman empire." (132-133).
#09. Michael L. Satlow, "Rhetoric and Assumptions: Romans and Rabbis on Sex" (135-144)
"Michael Satlow shows how the assumptions of Palestinian rabbis about the social significance of particular homosexual acts were closer to those of their gentile neighbours than of their brethren in Mesopotamia." (Goodman 4)
[SM]
Michael Satlow seeks to illuminate methodological issues surrounding
description and analysis of "similarities and differences between
various groups" (135). In so doing, he considers three aspects of
masculine sexuality: homoeroticism, the concept of "wasted seed" and
rabbinic ideals of masculinity, demonstrating that the Palestinian
rabbis have more shared assumptions with elite Greek and Roman men than
they do with Babylonian rabbis. He concludes that the Palestinian
rabbis' "fundamental way of thinking at least about sexuality is
virtually identical to those they label the 'other'" (143). In this
case, argues Satlow, it makes little sense to look for "influences"
which depend on the false assumption that these groups start out with
real, discernable differences.
Satlow writes clearly and provides compelling illustrations for each of his three examples, building one conclusion upon another. Of particular interest are his illustrations of Babylonians misreading Palestinian ideas. On the one hand he does what this volume promises it will do, he offers methodological insight into how Jews relate to the rest of the Graeco-Roman world. On the other hand, the cost is to condense a host of complex arguments such as how to interpret rabbinic literature, the relationship of the Palestinian and Babylonian talmuds, the meaning of ancient rhetoric, definitions of homosexuality and the construction of masculinity. Perhaps this is inevitable, and Satlow does consider all of these elsewhere in his work. Yet the reader receives the impression that she is reading an abstract. His conclusions depend on arguments more alluded to than made. The interesting examples he develops are rather overwhelmed by this shorthand theoretical apparatus.
[SP]
Satlow compares the underlying assumptions of the men who were
Palestinian rabbis, Babylonian rabbis, and authors of (largely
unspecified) Roman sources. That is, he explicitly states his
assumption, without detailing evidence, that the authors of all his
ancient sources were men (136).
Satlow has done considerable prior work on sexuality in the ancient world, so that here he asserts, rather than documents, his findings, referring to his own earlier work. From that earlier work he draws two examples. The first describes the attitudes toward homoeroticism of the form of anal penetration shared by Palestinian rabbis and Roman authors. Specifically, the categorical view that anal penetration was humiliating and feminizing, involving lost control, was not shared by Babylonian rabbis. The second example focuses on the Babylonian redactor's phrase "wasteful emission of semen," and also concludes that neither Palestinian rabbis nor Roman authors on masculinity would have shared the assumption that such emissions, by masturbation, interrupted intercourse, or homoerotic behaviors, were by themselves cause for concern.
What does appear to be shared by all the authors, according to Satlow, is the belief that a distinguishing feature of masculinity is self-control (138-143). This self-control defines what it is "to turn a `male' into a `man'" (141). And, Satlow argues, an essential attribute of women in the rabbinic and Roman views is the inborn inability to exercise the virtue of self-control.
Satlow summarizes as follows:
The influence of the Greeks and the Romans on Palestinian rabbis went far beyond the occasional practice, linguistic oddity, or legal institution; many of the assumptions that generated Palestinian rabbinic rhetoric on sexuality almost certainly derived from those of the Greeks and Romans. . . . all share fundamental thought-categories and assumptions. (143)
To Satlow, these identifiable assumptions, often differing from the assumptions of the Babylonian rabbis/redactor(s), bespeak a shared Mediterranean world, distinct from Arab or Eastern cultures (144).
Satlow's article has some infelicities of expression. For example, he construes the English translation of a Yiddish/German injunction to "Be a mensch," as "Be a MAN," where the word actually means "be a human being" rather than "act with traits of manliness," as Satlow construes it (141). Being a human being may well involve a willingness to depart from stereotypically gendered behavior. At other points, Satlow occasionally loses control of his referents with pronouns that lack clear antecedents.
It is not clear from this article whether Satlow has discussed differences and similarities that make a difference. That is, the rabbinic world may have been a small part of late antique Judaism(s), and the Roman souces cited (Juvenal 2.54-6 and Musonius Rufus 12.3) do not seem extensive or sufficiently representative (142).
#10. Joshua Schwartz, "Gambling in Ancient Jewish Society and in the Graeco-Roman World" (145-166)
"Joshua Schwartz points to parallel practices in gambling and other leisure activities (although he claims that Jews did such things with greater moderation)." (Goodman 4)
[SP]
Joshua Schwartz gives us an informative article that surveys available
textual information on gambling, supplemented by the small amount of
archaeological information. None of the information Schwartz presents
is
unequivocal evidence from which it is easy to draw conclusions. Thus,
and admirably, he begins his chapter with an Introduction that
summarizes the major difficulties of the material. Then, as
difficulties arise, he supplements the evidence with informed
suppositions and critical observations, more often of the rabbinic
world than of the Graeco-Roman world.
This is not a minimalist approach; as S. points out, there is a "limited number of gambling sources [in rabbinic literature] . . . [so that] sometimes it will be necessary to generalize from one time to another within the Second Temple, mishnaic, or talmudic periods or from Palestine to Babylonia and vice versa (146)."
Although S. uses recognizable approaches to the rabbinic period, he does not identify them or note their critical limitations. Thus, he carefully dates three traditions (from m. Shabbat, m. Rosh HaShanah, and m. Sanhedrin) according to content and rabbinic citations, without critical awareness that this is a controversial technique among historians.
Consistently throughout the article, S. or the editor refers to Tractate Rosh HaShanah by the abbreviation R. Sh., reflecting the underlying Hebrew, where it is generally abbreviated R.H. in the English sources with which I am familiar. It is eventually clear which passage is intended, from the context, but the reader may spend some time trying to figure out if there is an unknown tractate designated R. Sh. The list of Abbreviations is of no help in this matter.
Also, S. invokes a troublesome group of unexamined assumptions in one of his conclusions. He states:
It should also be pointed out that none of the archaeological material found can be connected specifically with either women or children. Taken together with the fact that all of the Jewish literary traditions we have examined refer to adult males, it is possible that such gambling as did take place in Jewish society within the frameworks we have examined was basically a matter for adult males and not women and children. The conservative nature of Jewish society probably imposed sufficient social restrictions on such activity by women or children. This was quite different from the situation in Graeco-Roman society. (163)
What is troublesome are a) the assumption that anything not specifically associated with women or children must be the province of adult males, b) merging this assumption about the archaeological data with the textual data taken to refer only to adult males, and c) further assuming social restrictions on women and children that differed from Graeco-Roman society. On this last point see Ross S. Kraemer, "Jewish Women and Women's Judaism(s) at the Beginning of Christianity," where she repeatedly demonstrates that what we know of Jewish women's lives in the Graeco-Roman period probably does not indicate great differences from what we know of the lives of non-Jewish women (60-61, 72).
#11. Hannah M. Cotton, "The Rabbis and the Documents" (167-180)
"In many aspects of life many Jews may have behaved like gentiles even in those matters which other Jews, including rabbis at the time, believed should be performed according to distinctively Jewish rules, as Hannah Cotton suggests in her study of the Jewish marriage documents found in the Judaean Desert." (Goodman 13)
[SM]
Hannah Cotton considers marriage documents from caves in the Judaean
Desert, notes a variety of similarities and differences between Greek
and Aramaic documents, and concludes "there was no normative,
authoritative and uniform marriage contract which Jews knew that they
had to use" (177). Addressing the larger themes of the volume
Cotton argues that although the documents provide evidence for
practices which differ from later halachic norms "the writers of these
documents cannot and should not be regarded as assimilated Jews" (173).
In so far as Cotton raises questions about how to consider these
behaviors in light of later norms, and especially in so far as she uses
her expertise with these Judaean Desert texts to elucidate particular
practices, this article is very interesting. In particular, she
discusses signed oaths and the hotly debated issue of "pre-marital
cohabitation." Nonetheless, it might have been preferable if Cotton
allowed her sources to present their own problems in their own terms
rather than her trying to solve them on other (rabbinic) grounds. The
definitions Cotton offers, if satisfying her need to exonerate her
document writers for their not being "in harmony with what eventually
came to be normative Jewish law" (172), do little to further discussion
of how to think about these people and their practices. According to
Cotton: "I have not found a better definition for what is Jewish than
that such material eventually received halachic sanction, and is
present in halachic sources" (171-2). How many other writers in this
volume would accept such a definition? The explicit equating of
"Jewish" and "rabbinic" forecloses the very investigations made
possible by Judaean documents such as those Cotton considers. Are some
Judaisms more likely than others to be accepted and affirmed by the
embryonic rabbinic movement? Why? Can we articulate arenas wherein we
would expect most divergence? How is this process part of the larger
Graeco-Roman world? What ramifications does it have for general study
of this period? By choosing the definition she does, Cotton
relinquishes more than she offers.
#12. Aharon Oppenheimer, "Jewish Penal Authority in Roman
Judaea" (181-191)
"The ability of the state to turn a blind eye to Jewish penal jurisdiction, as documented by Aharon Oppenheimer in his chapter, is highly significant for the general history of the operation of Roman government in less prominent provinces." (Goodman 14)
[BP]
Aharon Oppenheimer uses Talmudic sources to investigate the extent to
which Rome "recognize[d] local law in the provinces" and the extent to
which local rulers could sentence offenders (181). Oppenheimer explores
in order the following issues: the relationship between the Roman
provinces of Judaea and Syria, the right for the Jewish courts to
decide capital cases, the police force of the Patriarch, the use of
non-Jews to carry out a sentence laid down by a Jewish court, the
ability for individuals to appeal Jewish court decisions to Roman
authorities, and the extent to which the Jews could make and enforce
judgements concerning monetary penalties among Jews.
While Oppenheimer adduces intriguing examples from rabbinic commentary relevant to the issues at hand, a step outside the Talmudic sources would greatly enhance most of his arguments and would offer much needed context. For instance, Oppenheimer recounts the visit of a few Roman soldiers to study under Gamaliel and what that might mean for the relationship between Judaea and Syria noting that "the juxtaposition of events [Roman soldiers based in Syria studying Jewish law under Gamaliel and permission of some sort being granted to Gamaliel from the governor of Syria] is certainly evidence of some sort of connection between the two [provinces of Syria and Judaea]" (183). Oppenheimer ignores the voluminous evidence from Josephus in his Antiquities and Jewish War and from epigraphic sources for the relationship between the ever-shifting status of Judaea in the first and second centuries and its provincial neighbor to the north. Josephus tells us quite a lot about the administration of Judaea, as a province from 6 to 44 CE under a praefectus of equestrian rank who operated under the imperium of the governor of Syria, although there were a few exceptions when limited local authority was granted to local rulers (Millar 1993, 47 [see below]). From 44-66 CE, the province was administered by a procurator of equestrian status and after the First Jewish Revolt it was garrisoned with a legion and placed under a legatus of ex-praetor rank. Inscriptions give us his title: leg(atus) Augusti leg(ionis) X Fret(ensis) et leg(atus) pr(o) pr(aetore) provinciae Iudaeae (ibid., 76). After the Bar Kochba revolt, Judaea and the surrounding region becomes Syria-Palestina with two Roman coloniae (Caesarea and Aelia Capitolina), two legions, and an ex-consular governor (ibid., 61 and 107). There is no need for a deduction of this relationship based solely on Mishnaic sources as Oppenheimer suggests (182-83); the evidence for the relationship between Syria and Judaea and for the occupation by Roman soldiers is quite clear.
When analyzing the ability of the Jewish authorities to rule in capital cases, Oppenheimer presents Mishnaic cases involving death sentences meted out to animals that have killed humans. While Oppenheimer does briefly include limited evidence from Origen concerning implicit, de facto rights given to the Jewish Patriarch to judge on capital cases and the use of a police guard and non-Jews to do so, he does not explore or even acknowledge what would be an intriguing application of his discussion: the trial of Jesus. Recorded in the canonical Christian Gospels, this trial is preserved in texts that are roughly contemporary with the sources which Oppenheimer considers and that are produced within communities which are, at the least, varieties of the Judaism under discussion by Oppenheimer. Even with all of the source critical issues which would have to be considered, episodes relevant to Oppenheimer's argument include the seizure and trial of Jesus by various high priests, scribes, and elders (Matthew 26.3-4, 57-68; Mark 14.43, Luke 22.52, 66, John 18.12-14), the handing over of Jesus to Pilate, the local Roman authority (Matthew 27.1-2, 11-14, Mark 15.1-5, Luke 23.1, John 18.30-31), who passes him to the Roman soldiers for punishment (Matthew 27.27-31, Mark 15.16, John 19.1-1-2), but not before a dispute over authority in which Pilate suggests that this matter is under the jurisdiction of Herod (Luke 23.6-7). In ignoring this trial, Oppenheimer also neglects a large body of scholarship concerning these proceedings in their first century Jewish context. The Gospel accounts of the trial and punishment of Jesus demonstrate that the Roman and Jewish authorities were engaged in a complicated dialogue with one another, attempting to negotiate a tenuous working relationship. This one trial touches on several aspects of Oppenheimer's argument: the right of the Jewish authorities to decide capital cases, their use of a police force, and their use of non-Jews to carry out sentences.
In terms of his final point on the extent to which Jewish authorities could make and enforce monetary penalties, Oppenheimer disregards additional epigraphic evidence which would shed more light upon the issue at hand. Several contemporaneous Jewish funerary inscriptions refer to monetary penalties which must be paid to the Jewish authorities by anyone who violates the tomb. Though from Smyrna in Asia Minor, take for instance the Rufina inscription in which those who bury someone in her tomb who is not intended to be buried there are fined "1500 denaria to the most sacred treasury and 1000 denaria to the Jewish community," with a copy of this formula having been "deposited in the public archives" (IvS I.295 = CIJ 741). Clearly, Rufina is calling on the authority of the Jewish community in Smyrna to enforce a monetary penalty. Additionally, in Asia Minor in particular, we know a great deal about the granting by the Romans of certain legal privileges to Jewish communities (Josephus Antiquities 14.12-26 and Trebilco 1991, 8-12 [see below]). The comparanda from Asia Minor for these same sorts of issues could greatly enrich Oppenheimer's interpretation of the Palestinian situation.
Oppenheimer does not offer any specific examples for parallels where the Roman legal authority co-existed with, or overlaid, local judicial practices. We should look outside Palestine not only for evidence of Jewish penal authority, as in the case of the enforcement of monetary penalties against tomb violators in Smyrna and the legal privileges of Jewish communities in Asia Minor in general, but also for parallels of Roman penal authority in dialogue with the authority of existing judicial-religious ruling authorities in the eastern and western provinces of the Empire. Examples include Roman interaction with, but ultimate annihilation of, Druidic law among the Gauls and Germans. Julius Caesar recorded how the Druids decided rewards and punishments in controversies, public and private, with respect to all crimes including murder, inheritance and boundary disputes (Gallic Wars 6.13). Druidic power was crushed by the Romans at roughly the same time as the crack-down in Judaea in response to the first Jewish revolt. An example of a more peaceful dialogue between the Roman rule and a local ruling priesthood is further provided by the overlap of Roman control onto the existing Egyptian priesthood and its legal authority. Such parallels, among many, give much greater context for the ways in which Rome interacted with existing, local judicial-religious authority.
Oppenheimer has published widely over the past three decades on Jews in the Greco-Roman Period. Much of this work has been published in Hebrew, but some has been translated into English. It appears that this article exhibits some of the same problems noted by Lester Grabbe in his mention of Oppenheimer's 1977 work, "Am ha-aretz: A Study in the Social History of the Jewish People in the Hellenistic-Roman period." There are certain "methodological deficiencies [resulting in] a harmonized picture drawn from rabbinic sources [which] is projected back into pre-70 times" and taken entirely out of the wider context (Grabbe 1992, 2.523-4, following Cohen 1978 [see below]). A broader consideration of many of these issues discussed above, as well as others such as Roman provincial law in general, would give more texture to Oppenheimer's argument. Despite, or perhaps because of, this article's limited focus on the rabbinic sources for the administration of "Jewish Penal Authority in Roman Judaea," however, Oppenheimer does bring to the forefront the relevance of this valuable source of evidence so often ignored by classical scholars of Greco-Roman Judaea.
Cohen, S.J.D. "Review of 'Am ha-Aretz by A. Oppenheimer" JBL 97 (1978), 596-97.
Grabbe, Lester. Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian Volume Two: The Roman Period (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992).
Millar, Fergus. The Roman Near East 31 BC - AD 337 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
Oppenheimer, Aharon. The `Am ha-aretz: a Study in the Social History of the Jewish People in the Hellenistic-Roman Period, translated from the Hebrew by I. H. Levine (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1977).
Trebilco, Paul R. Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
Part 4: Differences?
#13. Lee Levine, "Synagogue Leadership: the Case of the Archisynagogue" (195-214)
"This view is reinforced by the claim by Lee Levine that it is misleading to seek to understand synagogue leaders simply from parallels with the Graeco-Roman world because there is so much rabbinic evidence about such leaders that it is impossible to reconcile with the evidence about non-Jewish officials." (Goodman 4)
[SP]
In this article Levine surveys the geographical extent of the great
variety of sources attesting to the use of the title "archisynagogue."
His focus is on what information can be gathered concerning the
communal function of those who bore the title; he concludes that
over and above each source's specific concern, we have noted evidence time and again that this office included responsibilities other than religious or financial ones. An archisynagogue was looked upon by Jews and non-Jews alike as a leader and representative of his [sic] community. (212)
That is, Levine appears to conclude that the archisynagogue was a male leader of the synagogue, while quoting evidence that pairs the title with a woman's name. Indeed, he names as the first of the recent discussions of the title Bernadette Brooten's groundbreaking study Women Leaders of the Ancient Synagogue, and summarizes her contribution in one sentence, without comment. He then goes on to use neutral language, sprinkled with masculine pronouns, for the remainder of the article. He concludes with emphatic use of the masculine pronoun without ever engaging Brooten's thesis directly.
Had he wished to focus only on the function of the archisynagogue, the use of gender-neutral language would have been appropriate. As it is, the author ducks the issue, and at the same time takes a stand, without supporting his position.
In any event, L.'s article is especially valuable for the wealth of references he has collected, though one suspects that Brooten and others may have similarly exhaustive collections.
#14. Margaret Williams, "The Structure of the Jewish Community in Rome" (215-228)
"Similarly Margaret Williams argues that Jewish synagogues should not be identified with the _collegia_ in the city of Rome, claiming that Jewish communal organization had a uniquely centralized character different from that of other ethnic and religious groups." (Goodman 4)
[SP]
The article by Williams begins by reporting a "consensus" view on the
organization of the many synagogues of Rome -- that they were loosely
organized collegia, with no ruling council -- and then argues the
contrary. Williams bases her argument on her reading of Josephus and
other
sources, and argues cogently and coherently that indeed there was an
overall sense of a unified Jewish community at Rome.
While her philological argument is soundly developed, she seems to have little in the way of inscriptional evidence -- a single instance of a 3d century CE "archigerousiarch" -- to support her contention that the Roman Jewish community had a self-governing gerousia, "council." She buttresses this argument by making reference to the mode of self-government by councils found in Judaea, and surmises that this mode was similarly the source for the existence of the Alexandrian gerousia.
The evidence is not strong enough or plentiful enough to disconfirm the view that the Roman Jewish Community lacked a ruling council. Williams carries the argument as far as it can go, however, and both possibilities deserve serious attention in future discussions.
[BP]
In her essay, Williams challenges the "conventional view of the
structure of Roman Jewry," that the synagogues of the Jews at Rome were
organized as private, exclusive and autonomous collegia, ruling out any
sort of larger Jewish organization at Rome along the lines of the
gerousia at Alexandria. She advances her argument in systematic
fashion, first by countering the definition of the Roman synagogues as
collegiate associations, then by presenting evidence for a central
structure of Roman Jewry. Williams counters the collegia hypothesis by
noting the minimal overlap between terms for collegiate offices and the
terms for office holding in synagogues. In addition, she details the
conflation of a passage from Josephus (Ant.
14.215) and two from
Suetonius (Vita Iul. 42.3 and Vita Aug. 32.1), which has led, in
her
opinion, to the misidentification of synagogues at Rome as collegiate
in nature. The problems with the Josephus passage, contained in the
long list of purported decrees which Josephus argues to be evidence of
Roman favor towards the Jews are well summarized by Williams (217-220).
Williams, however, is harsher in her scrutiny of evidence against her claims of a unified supra-synagogal structure than on the sources which support her claims. She discredits the decree as recounted in Josephus, but uses Josephus as the starting point for a description of the corporate Jewish community at Rome (222-3); she points to the lack of alignment in terms used for collegia and synagogue officers (217), but allows for the absence of any explicit textual reference to a gerousia at Rome (222). In discussing Roman Jewry as an entity, Williams includes the expulsion of the Jews from Rome en masse (224). This was an action frequently taken against astrologers as well (even at the same time as Jews), yet this does not lead us to assert that there was a centrally organized group of astrologers (Suetonius, Vita Tib. 36).
As parallels to the postulated "supra-synagogal structure" of Roman Jewry, Williams offers the Sanhedrin, the organization of the Qumran sect, the Jerusalem council under James and the Apostles as represented in Acts and even Josephus' administration of Galilee in 66-67 (225). For officers in this administrative structure, Williams suggests the archigerousiarch inscription [Horsley, New Docs I (1981), no.76] as evidence. Williams' hypotheses are intriguing, but leave interesting implications remaining for consideration. In particular, what does such a supra-synagogal organization do for an understanding of Roman Jewry? It certainly suggests a separation of Jews, at least organizationally, from other inhabitants of Rome. What does such separation mean for Jewish identity, both internal and by others? Should we expect this gerousia structure outside Rome, elsewhere in Diaspora urban centers with multiple synagogues? How might such an organization change our interpretation of the larger Jewish community at sites like Sardis or Dura? Williams has certainly opened the door to new ways of understanding the corporate identity of Jews in urban contexts, even if her evidence for Rome itself remains somewhat ambiguous.
#15. Tessa Rajak, "The Gifts of God at Sardis" (229-240)
"The archaeologists who linked to the Jewish deity the huge basilica found in the centre of Sardis because of the similarities between the iconography there and that of synagogues (identified as such by inscriptions) elsewhere might have been led by the Sardis dedications to Pronoia ('forethought') to follow Varro in identifying Jupiter/Zeus as the object of Jewish worship, since Pronoia was identified with Zeus by the Stoics; [ref to Kraabel (1996), 80-82] it is only by looking at the Jewish texts which survive through the Jewish and Christian traditions, as Tessa Rajak does in her study of these inscriptions, and by adopting assumptions about Jewish monotheism, that a historian can in fact suggest that Pronoia was not (as one might have expected from the dedications) herself the object of worship in the Sardis building." (Goodman 10-11)
[DB]
Tessa Rajak's article seeks to "work towards a closer definition of the
Sardian Jews' integration" (230-231) and to examine what kept the Jews
as Jews. Basing her work on A.T. Kraabel's article "Pronoia at Sardis,"
she re-examines the sources of the epigraphic use of the term
"pronoia," concluding that the benefaction inscriptions at Sardis
"expose traces of the mechanisms of self-differentiation" and provide
evidence that the Jews of Sardis maintained their distinctiveness (231)
and were capable of deploying the forms of Jewish self-expression
available from the wider world.
Rajak's discussion of the "pronoia" inscriptions is largely concerned with refuting Kraabel's article in which he postulates that the influence of the Jewish use of the term "pronoia" at Sardis is pagan, not Jewish.[1] Rajak is especially concerned with the "theological weight" Kraabel thinks the Sardis Jews placed on "pronoia." She argues that his interpretation leads to the conclusion that Sardis Jewry was "intellectually and spiritually as well as socially indistinguishable from its pagan environment" (233). Additionally, his thesis ignores the "excellent Jewish-Greek pedigree" (233) of "pronoia." She claims that 4 Maccabees 9.24, in particular, uses "pronoia" in the same absolute sense as the Sardis inscriptions. (Kraabel disagrees; see n. 1 below.) The possible 2nd century CE dating of 4 Maccabees (235, contradicting her statement two paragraphs earlier that 4 Maccabees is earlier than Philo and Josephus and the general consensus that its dating is pre-70 CE), puts it chronologically closer to the Sardis inscriptions than other pronoia references in Hellenistic Jewish literary sources. Another reason for the unqualified used of "pronoia" is that the name of God is frequently absent in Jewish inscriptions and "this preference would in itself constitute a reason to leave pronoia unqualified" (235). And since "pronoia" is prominent in (Greek?) donor epigraphy as a "designation for the care and concern of benefactors," this Jewish usage can be seen as "re-allocating the beneficence [to God], giving current Greek terminology...a deliberate and value-laden twist" (236).
The phrase the "gifts of God" which appears in some of the Sardis inscriptions is "in keeping with what might be judged to be the general spirit of Jewish benefactions, with their tendency...to undercut the claims of donors" (236) and highlight what comes from God. What is remarkable about the Sardis inscriptions, according to Rajak, is the contrast with what was "typical." Greek donors "declare themselves...as donating <gk>ek twn idiwn</gk> ['from their own means/goods'] and expect to be thanked for it...It can only be a wholly deliberate departure when the Jews declare that it is God who should be thanked" (238).
Rajak concludes by stating that the Jews of Sardis used subtle means to mark themselves off as a group. They had to be familiar with the language of both Greek benefaction formulae and expressions employed by the wider Greek-speaking Jewry. The result was a local brand of Jewish epigraphy whose distinctiveness may or may not have been understood by the wider Sardis community.
There are several problems with Rajak's discussion. First, she misses Kraabel's main thesis: that even though the term "pronoia" may have a pagan origin, the Jews of Sardis took it and used it in a language completely their own (Kraabel, 95). He is clear that the "pronoia" texts should be understood within a monotheistic framework. Secondly, she does not find fault with Kraabel where she could. He argues that, with only one other exception, no other synagogue uses "pronoia," thereby diminishing its use by other Jews. However, this is an argument out of silence rather than hard evidence. Rajak misses this point altogether. Thirdly, even if 4 Maccabees was written in the 2nd century CE, how does this really support Rajak's thesis? The language of 4 Maccabees itself is thoroughly influenced by Greek philosophy. Would not the source of influence of "pronoia" in this text be just as suspect as that in Sardis? What makes 4 Maccabees more Jewish (less Greek) than Kraabel's reading of the Sardis inscriptions?
[1] A.T. Kraabel, "Pronoia at Sardis," in B. Isaac and A. Oppenheimer, eds. Studies on the Jewish Diaspora in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Te'uda 12. Tel Aviv: Ramot Publishing, 1996, 75-96. He bases his argument on two factors: in none of the Jewish sources does the word carry the singleness of meaning which it has in the Sardis inscriptions; and if the influence of other Jewish texts using "pronoia" was so widespread, we would find it in other synagogues as well (87).
#16. Sacha Stern, "Dissonance and Misunderstanding in Jewish-Roman Relations" (241-250)
[SM]
Sacha Stern studies the social and political consequences of
misunderstandings between Jews and Romans. In doing so, he tests the
concept that Jewish evidence is typical of conquered peoples in the
Roman world. In one case, he discusses the image of "ploughing over
Jerusalem," finding that Mishnah Taanit interprets as destructive that
which "is interpreted as a constructive act" in an Aelia coin
(243). He further argues that this coin type "was sufficiently
common to have been known to the Jews and rabbis of Palestine, and to
have played a significant part ... in the making of mishnaic tradition"
(245). Stern finds this misunderstanding interesting but of
little consequence. As a contrasting case he discusses the Jewish
rejection of a gift by a Roman on his festival day (247) because of
fears that, in accepting this gift, the Jew will cause the Roman to
offer a sacrifice. Stern stresses the distinctiveness of this
situation, concluding that "the persistence of such misunderstandings
as late as the third century was more specific to Palestinian Jews, and
resulted from their deliberate resistance to Romanization" (250).
Although Stern's second example appears only in the two talmudim, and
may or may not describe an historical occurrence, Stern explores a
nexus of exciting ideas surrounding gift-giving, including the
socio-political functions, the relative status of donor and recipient
and the extent of the "religious significance of this occasion" (249)
for the Roman sender of the gift.
Postscript [RAK]:
While numerous loose ends remain (indeed, that is clearly part of
Goodman's point in introducing the collection), we have also learned
much that is positive, if not entirely new, from this anthology:
Martin Goodman
has spent much of his scholarly career making similar points in various
ways, and this volume provides a further contribution to those efforts
especially by highlighting the complexities that pertain to life "back
then," just as to our own lives. The title makes one stop and think --
why "Jews in a Graeco-Roman World" rather than "in the"? But an even
more accurate title might be "Some Jews in Some Graeco-Roman Worlds."
//end//