various Jewish disability communities, the recognition of LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) Jews, the phenomenon of intermarriage (which, while much studied statistically, has no consensus of opinion across either Jewish scholarship or in Jewish communities at large).
As a final issue in our study of Judaism, we have neglected the persistence of poverty in the global Jewish community. This latter issue is dispiriting, for one might have hoped that as the Jewish community recovered from the depredations of the Second World War and that as there was substantial regrowth of the Jewish communities in America and Israel, poverty might have receded. But as the Bible itself prophesies, »the poor will never cease from the land« (Deuteronomy 15:11). Sadly, the disparity between rich and poor in the modern State of Israel is disturbingly high. But the poor are further disenfranchised by the fact that it is the wealthy and the well-educated who write the histories and the sociological studies. Thus, the poor remain largely invisible within the broader world of Jews and Judaism.
8 What is in these volumes
We turn now to examine what is in these three volumes, briefly epitomizing each chapter in its author’s words. This overview will show the groupings of essays into Jewish history, literature, and culture. Here it is helpful to note that for this three-volume compendium, »Judaism« is essentially Rabbinic Judaism. This will include Rabbinic Judaism’s immediate forebears, opponents, and even modern cultural manifestations. Thus we begin with »Judaism, Hellenism, and the Maccabees.«
8.1 Judaism I: History
1 Judaism, Hellenism, and the Maccabees
In this chapter Dr. Hermann Lichtenberger of the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, covers many aspects of the history of the period from the onset of Hellenism in the fourth century BCE and continues up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. He begins by invoking the landmark research of Martin Hengel, already fifty years ago, which proved that Palestinian Judaism of the ancient period is, in fact, Hellenistic Judaism. Dr. Lichtenberger then surveys Greek language usage and education within the Jewish community, along with an overview of Greek philosophy and literature in Jewish Palestine.
The chapter considers Greek translations of Jewish works, such as the Bible, with particular attention to traditions regarding the Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Torah into Greek. Lichtenberger then turns to the history of the Maccabean revolt, and how historiography of the period has changed in the half-century since the work of Elias Bickermann. The events of Hasmonean history are reexamined in detail. The debate regarding the internecine conflict over Hellenization is considered. Finally, there is a section of this part of the discussion dedicated to the various narratives of the »mother and her seven martyred sons.«
Lichtenberger reviews the place of the Samaritans during this period and their relations with the Jewish community. He then turns to the place of the Jerusalem Temple in Jewish life and contrasts it with those Jewish communities—among them the Samaritans—that did not share the Jerusalem cult as constitutive of their Jewish identity. This sets the stage not only for the Dead Sea Scroll community of Qumran, but also for post-70 CE (rabbinic) Judaism. The community of Qumran and its leadership is discussed along with the role of the biblical and non-biblical writings discovered there.
Lichtenberger then turns to the early synagogue and its various roles in Jewish practice. He concludes with an overview of Sacred Writings in Judaism of the Hellenistic-Roman Period, and the emergence of the biblical canon as an anchor of Judaism.
2 Jews in the West: From Herod to Constantine the Great
The story of the Jews from the Herodian kings until the advent of Constantine is explored by Dr. Natalie Dohrmann of the University of Pennsylvania. She looks at the rise of Judea as a Roman client kingdom under Herod the Great and the loss of Jewish political autonomy under the procurators, culminating in two devastating wars against Rome. She traces Jewish responses to the loss of the Jerusalem Temple, the priestly aristocracy, and the cult.
The chapter also examines the Jewish diaspora, parts of which fared poorly in this era. The Jewish community of Alexandria was destroyed in the early 2nd century—along with several other diaspora communities—when a wave of revolts in Jewish Mediterranean communities failed to defeat Trajan’s forces. Yet Jews continue to live and fare well in Rome, Antioch, and elsewhere. In Palestine, scholars are divided about the nature of the relationship between rabbinic Judaism and the Roman world. For the remainder of events described in this chapter, we do not have access to any Jewish source comparable to Josephus. Dohrmann reconstructs events from other people’s history, fragmentary material remains, documents, polemical materials by non-Jews, and religious, legal, liturgical, and other genres of literature never meant to tell history.
Dohrmann takes up the events between the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE and the Bar Kokhbah revolt of 132–135, considering the legal status of the Jews under Roman rule thereafter. She considers the role of Jews in the western Diaspora, describes the great Jewish centers in Alexandria and in Rome, and offers pagan perspectives on Jews and Judaism. She shares an aside on the Jesus movement and early Christianity, but then sharpens her narrative with the emergence of the rabbinic movement. Dr. Dohrmann concludes that Jewish history under pagan Rome represents perhaps the most radically transformative period in the history of the faith. Judaism shifted from a temple-based nation ruled by client kings and priests to a religion based on a sacred text, beginning to reorganize itself around a lay leadership in the form of the nascent rabbinic movement.
3 The Resilience of Jews and Judaism in Late Roman-Byzantine Eretz Israel
Prof. Dr. Lee I. Levine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem discusses the rabbinic movement and the Jews in the Land of Israel, challenging the traditional view of decline with an exposition of the vibrance of Judaism, as Christianity emerges in the Byzantine Empire. Levine explains that two phenomena from the Late Roman period have gained wide acceptance over the past generation and have revised our understanding of Jewish history. The first is a reassessment of the economic, political, and cultural situation in the province generally and of the Jews in particular. The second and third centuries—the Judea-based Bar-Kokhbah revolt notwithstanding—were a period of peace and stability throughout the province. Not only did the Jewish cities of Tiberias and Sepphoris expand in this era, but synagogue buildings were constructed in the third century following a hiatus of several centuries.
The second phenomenon that has revolutionized our understanding was the establishment of the Jewish Patriarchate, a new political-communal office recognized by Rome and intended to instill a sense of autonomy and confidence within the Jewish community. Rome, for its part, welcomed Jews into the municipal curiae with the provision that nothing was to interfere with their religious observance. Traditions reflecting sympathetic relations between Severan emperors on the one hand and the Jews and Judaism on the other are noted in the fourth century.
The third century also marked a new stage in the development of art as a form of religious expression, appearing on mosaic floors, walls, and architectural elements in pagan and Jewish contexts. Literary activity among the rabbis found expression in the compilation of tannaitic halakhic and midrashic treatises, including at least one that was influenced by a genre known in the Roman world. The archaeological finds from more than one hundred synagogues in ancient Palestine, almost all in the Galilee and Golan dating to Late Antiquity, in addition to the rich variety of artistic and epigraphic remains, demonstrate the multifaceted cultural and religious components within these communities. The construction of monumental synagogue buildings points to political standing and economic means of these Jewish communities.
4 Judaism in Babylonia
Dr. Geoffrey Herman, of the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, surveys Judaism in Babylonia from 226–650 CE. Our foremost source is the Babylonian Talmud. Indirect sources are classical authors, Persian epigraphic sources, or Syriac-Christian literature.
Jewish communities were found from the southern boundary of Mesene to Anbar in the North