Let Them Eat Fish: Food for the Poor in Early Rabbinic Judaism

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-270
Author(s):  
Gregg E. Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Fish Food ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Tiered System ◽  
Social Separation ◽  
Material Requirements

Abstract Recent scholarship has shown how investigations into food and poverty contribute to our understanding of late-antique Judaism and Christianity. These areas of inquiry overlap in the study of charity, as providing food was the preeminent way to support the poor. What foods and foodways do the earliest texts of rabbinic Judaism prescribe for the poor? This article examines Tannaitic discussions of the foods that should be given as charity, reading these texts within their literary and historical contexts. I find that they prescribe a two-tiered system whereby foods for the week aim to meet the poor’s biological needs, while those for the Sabbath fulfill religious requirements. These rabbinic instructions, however, also reinforce social separation and deepen the poor’s sense of exclusion. This article contributes to scholarship on poverty and charity in late antiquity, the use of food in the construction of rabbinic identity, and the tensions that arise from establishing material requirements for religious observances.

The Comparative Study of “Scholasticism” in Late Antique Mesopotamia: Rabbis and East Syrians

AJS Review ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam H. Becker
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Great Distance ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Transmission Of Knowledge ◽  
History Of

Now is an appropriate time to reconsider the historiographical benefit that a comparative study of the East Syrian (“Nestorian”) schools and the Babylonian rabbinic academies may offer. This is attributable both to the recent, rapid increase in scholarship on Jewish–Christian relations in the Roman Empire and late antiquity more broadly, and to the return by some scholars of rabbinic Judaism to the issues of a scholarly exchange of the late 1970s and early 1980s about the nature of rabbinic academic institutionalization. Furthermore, over the past twenty years, scholars of classics, Greek and Roman history, and late antiquity have significantly added to the bibliography on the transmission of knowledge—in lay person's terms, education—in the Greco-Roman and early Christian worlds. Schools continue to be an intense topic of conversation, and my own recent work on the School of Nisibis and the East Syrian schools in general suggests that the transformations and innovations of late antiquity also occurred in the Sasanian Empire, at a great distance from the centers of classical learning, such as Athens, Alexandria, and Antioch. The recently reexamined East Syrian sources may help push the conversation about rabbinic academic institutionalization forward. However, the significance of this issue is not simply attributable to its bearing on the social and institutional history of rabbinic institutions. Such inquiry may also reflect on how we understand the Babylonian Talmud and on the difficult redaction history of its constituent parts. Furthermore, I hope that the discussion offered herein will contribute to the ongoing analysis of the late antique creation and formalization of cultures of learning, which were transmitted, in turn, into the Eastern (i.e., Islamic and “Oriental” Christian and Jewish) and Western Middle Ages within their corresponding communities.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Sexual Practices ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Cultural Ideals

Definitions for and tests designed to demonstrate female virginity have as much to do with cultural ideals of masculinity as they do with concerns about sexual practices or women’s bodies. A wealth of scholarship in recent years on masculinity in late antiquity generally and Rabbinic Judaism specifically is thus helpful in framing this study. Unlike earlier studies, however, attention to chronological and geographical variety within late antique Judaism helps sharpen our understanding of masculinity in this work. The introduction concludes with brief discussions about the problem with the terms “virgin” and “hymen,” and about methodological issues concerning working with edited Rabbinic texts. An outline of the book’s contents follows.

Social Justice in Rabbinic Judaism

2019 ◽  
pp. 536-552
Author(s):  
Tzvi Novick
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
Law And Ethics

The category of social justice can be understood to encompass both protection of the vulnerable from abuse and support for the poor (charity). The chapter surveys aspects of social justice, conceived in these broad terms, in the classical rabbinic corpus (c. second to sixth centuriesce). After reviewing methodological challenges, important contributions, and scholarly lacunae, the chapter turns to the conceptualization of charity in rabbinic literature, and the light that rabbinic literature sheds on charity practices in Jewish late antiquity. The final section examines rabbinic interpretation of biblical verses mandating protection of the vulnerable from abuse, with particular attention to the liminal status of such provisions between law and ethics.

Apollonia-Sozousa in late antiquity: some remarks on thecaput provinciaeof Libya Superior

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 159-168
Author(s):  
Christian Barthel
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Political Background ◽  
Roman Military ◽  
Failed Attempt ◽  
Late Roman

AbstractThis article examines the available archaeological and historical data on the Late Antique city of Apollonia-Sozousa, with a particular focus on the date of its elevation to the capital of Libya Superior. Contrary to recent scholarship that stressed intrinsic evidence in the form of a combination of Berber raids and a deficient Roman military infrastructure, this article seeks to reintegrate the local conflicts of late Roman Cyrenaica to the major historical events of the fifth century AD. It is argued that the failed attempt of AD 468 to conquer Vandal Africa and the subsequent retreat of the Roman forces out of Tripolitania in AD 470 serves as a more likely political background to date the relocation of the capital from Ptolemais to Apollonia-Sozousa.

Inscriptions, Synagogues and Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-277
Author(s):  
Fergus Millar
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Medieval Manuscripts ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Written Form ◽  
Epigraphic Evidence ◽  
A Current

AbstractThe numerous works of “rabbinic” literature composed in Palestine in Late Antiquity, all of which are preserved only in medieval manuscripts, offer immense possibilities for the historian, but also present extremely perplexing problems. What are their dates, and when did each come to be expressed in a consistent written form? If we cannot be sure about the attribution of sayings to individual named rabbis, how can we relate the material to any intelligible period or social context? In this situation, it is natural and right to turn to contemporary evidence, archaeological, iconographic and epigraphic. The primary archaeological evidence is provided by the large (and increasing) number of excavated synagogues. But, it has been argued, rabbinic texts are not centrally concerned with synagogues or the congregations which met in them. So perhaps “rabbinic Judaism” and “synagogal Judaism” are two separate systems. Alternatively, the epigraphic evidence attests individuals who are given the title “rabbi,” and these inscriptions, on stone or mosaic, include some which derive from synagogues. But perhaps “rabbi,” in this context, was merely a current honorific term, and these are not the “real” rabbis of the texts? It will be argued that this distinction is gratuitous, and that in any case the largest and most important synagogue-inscription, that from Rehov, both is “rabbinic” in itself and mentions rabbis as religious experts.

The Polemic of Individualized Appellation in Late Antiquity

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-214
Author(s):  
Paul Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Entire Group ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Identity Constructions ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Group Construction

This article describes rhetorical innovations in late antique Christian polemic around the construction of orthodoxy/heresy and Christianity more broadly. Late antique Christian polemicists label groups as heretical by using their founders' names as eponymous proxies for an entire group and set of ideas: Marcionism/ites, Valentinianism/ites, and so forth. This type of group construction, which I term the polemic of individualized appellation due to the pejorative labeling of a group after an individual founder, is an intentional and often artificial type of elite, literary polemic put to service in the wider creative mythmaking and boundary/identity construction by heresiologists such as Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Eusebius, and Epiphanius. In identifying both precursor ingredients in various ancient Mediterranean comparanda and novel developments in the Christian heresiologists' discourse, I also engage with recent scholarship on heresy, orthodoxy, and identity constructions in Late Antiquity. I explain why the polemic of individualized appellation was especially effective in constructing difference, its role in this particular late antique context, and its function in effacing apparent similarities in widespread practices and beliefs. I conclude with a methodological discussion, arguing that scholars in religion and history should reject their sources' categories of group identity construction due to their inherent bias.

The Egyptian Gods in Midrashic Texts

2010 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rivka Ulmer
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Rabbinic Judaism ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
Wissenschaft Des Judentums

The engagement with Egypt and the Egyptian gods that transpired in the Hebrew Bible continued into the texts produced by rabbinic Judaism. Rabbinic texts of late antiquity and the early medieval period frequently presented images of Egypt and its religion. One of the critical objectives of these portrayals of Egypt was to set boundaries of Jewish identity by presenting rabbinic Judaism in opposition to Egyptian culture. The Egyptian cultural icons in rabbinic texts also demonstrate that the rabbis were aware of cultures other than their own.1 The presence of Egyptian elements in midrash had previously been noted to a very limited extent by scholars of the Wissenschaft des Judentums (the science of Judaism), and it has not escaped the attention of more recent scholarship.

Late Antique Letter Collections

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
The Social ◽  
Letter Writer ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Letter Collection ◽  
Latin Letter

This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the extant Greek and Latin letter collections of late antiquity (ca. 300-600 C.E.). Bringing together an international team of historians, classicists, and scholars of religion, it illustrates how letter collections advertised an image of the letter writer and introduces the social and textual histories of each collection. Nearly every chapter focuses on the letter collection of a different late ancient author—from the famous (or even infamous) to the obscure—and investigates its particular issues of content, arrangement, and publication context. On the whole, the volume reveals how late antique letter collections operated as a discrete literary genre with its own conventions, transmission processes, and self-presentational agendas while offering new approaches to interpret both larger letter collections and the individual letters contained within them. Each chapter contributes to a broad argument that scholars should read letter collections as they do representatives of other late antique literary genres, as single texts made up of individual components, with larger thematic and literary characteristics that are as important as those of their component parts.

Liturgical Poetry in the Late Antique Near East

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ophir Münz-Manor
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Near East ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Biblical Poetry ◽  
Contemporary View ◽  
Cultural Dialogue ◽  
The One

The article presents a contemporary view of the study of piyyut, demonstrating that Jewish poetry of late antiquity (in Hebrew and Aramaic) was closely related to Christian liturgical poetry (both Syriac and Greek) and Samaritan liturgy. These relations were expressed primarily by common poetic and prosodic characteristics, derived on the one hand from ancient Semitic poetry (mainly biblical poetry), and on the other from innovations of the period. The significant connections of content between the different genres of poetry reveal the importance of comparative study. Thus the poetry composed in late antiquity provides additional evidence for the lively cultural dialogue that took place at that time.

Unearthing Houses in Porphyreon and Chhim. Structure, Spatial Development, and Decoration of Domestic Spaces in Late Antique Phoenicia

2020 ◽  
pp. 173-195
Author(s):  
Tomasz Waliszewski ◽  
Julia Burdajewicz
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Research Team ◽  
Wall Painting ◽  
Domestic Architecture ◽  
Functional Study ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
Domestic Spaces ◽  
Residential Architecture

Porphyreon (Jiyeh/Nebi Younis) and Chhim were large rural settlements situated on the coast of modernday Lebanon, north of the Phoenician city of Sidon. As attested by the remains of residential architecture, they were thriving during the Roman Period and late Antiquity (1st–7th centuries AD). This article presents the preliminary observations on the domestic architecture uncovered at both sites, their spatial and social structure, as well as their furnishing and decoration, based on the fieldwork carried out in recent years by the joint PolishLebanese research team. The focus will be put on the wall painting fragments found in considerable numbers in Porphyreon. The iconographical and functional study of the paintings betrays to what extent the inhabitants of rural settlements in the coastal zone of the Levant were inclined to imitate the decoration of the urban houses known to them from the nearby towns, such as Berytus, but also from religious contexts represented by churches.

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