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 THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK
OF JEWS AND JUDAISM IN LATE
ANTIQUITY

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

The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity is a critical and methodologically
sophisticated survey of current scholarship aimed primarily at students and scholars of Jewish
Studies, Study of Religions, Patristics, Classics, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Iranology, History
of Art, and Archaeology. It is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Judaism and Jewish
history.

Catherine Hezser is Professor of Jewish Studies at SOAS, University of London. After her
Habilitation in Jewish Studies at the Free University Berlin she taught at Trinity College Dublin,
University of Oslo, and SOAS, University of London, and was a research professor at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. She has published numerous books and articles on Jews and Judaism in
antiquity, with a focus on social history and daily life, the Talmud Yerushalmi, and Jews within the
context of Graeco-​Roman and Byzantine-​Christian societies.
 THE ROUTLEDGE
HANDBOOK OF JEWS
AND JUDAISM IN LATE
ANTIQUITY

Edited by Catherine Hezser

Designed cover image: Proto-​Ionic capitals with seven-​branched candlestick, from Ramat Rachel,
Israel, 3rd century. (Photo by DeAgostini/​Getty Images)
First published 2024
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© 2024 selection and editorial matter, Catherine Hezser; individual chapters, the contributors
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British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Names: Hezser, Catherine, 1960– editor.
Title: The Routledge handbook of Jews and Judaism in late antiquity /
edited by Catherine Hezser.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, an imprint of
the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business, [2024] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023026174 (print) | LCCN 2023026175 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138241220 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032606149 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781315280974 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Judaism–History–Post-exilic period, 586 B.C.–210 A.D. |
Judaism–History–Medieval and early modern period, 425–1789. |
Jews–History–70-638. | Jews–Iraq–Babylonia–History. |
Talmud–Iranian influences. |
Rabbinical literature–History and criticism. | Jewish diaspora.
Classification: LCC BM177 .R68 2024 (print) |
LCC BM177 (ebook) | DDC 296.09/014–dc23/eng/20230626
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023026174
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023026175
ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​24122-​0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​60614-​9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-​1-​315-​28097-​4 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/​9781315280974
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
 CONTENTS

List of Figures ix
List of Contributors xii
Preface xv

1 Introduction: Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity 1

Catherine Hezser

PART I
Jews in the Byzantine Empire 13

2 From Roman Palestine to a Christian “Holy Land” 15

Hagith Sivan

3 Changes in the Infrastructure and Population of Byzantine Palestine 30

Claudine Dauphin

4 Jews, Judaism, and the Christianization of the Roman Empire 59

Seth Schwartz

5 Jews and the Imperial Cult 76

Holger Zellentin

v
 Contents

PART II
Judaism and Christianity 93

6 Jews and the Emergence of Christianity 95

Maren R. Niehoff

7 Synagogues and Churches as the Centers of Local Communities 111

Alexei Sivertsev

8 The Rabbinic Representation of Jesus and His Followers 126

Thierry Murcia

9 The Church Fathers on Jews and Judaism 140

Burton L. Visotzky

10 Institutionalization, “Orthodoxy”, and Hierarchy 154

Hayim Lapin

PART III
Rabbis, Jurists, Philosophers, and Holy Men 169

11 Rabbis and the Image of the Intellectual 171

Catherine Hezser

12 Rabbis as Legal Experts in the Roman East 185

Yair Furstenberg

13 Personal Representations of the Holy 203

Michael L. Satlow

14 Attitudes Toward the Body 216

Catherine Hezser

15 Travel Narratives and the Construction of Identity 229

Joshua Levinson

PART IV
The Creation of Rabbinic Literature 247

16 From Oral Discourse to Written Documents 249

Reuven Kiperwasser

vi
 Contents

17 Antiquarianism, Scholasticism, and Rabbinic Anthologies 263

Catherine Hezser

18 Rabbinic Literature and Roman-​Byzantine Legal Compilations 275

Marton Ribary

19 Rabbinic and Patristic Interpretations of the Bible 290

Carol Bakhos

20 Jewish Letter Writing in Late Antiquity 308

Lutz Doering

PART V
The Development of a Jewish Visual Culture 323

21 Visuality in Rabbinic Judaism 325

Karen B. Stern

22 The Appearance of Jewish Figural Art 338

Lee I. Levine

23 Synagogue Architecture, Decoration, and Furnishings 351

Zeev Weiss

24 A Distinct Visual Language 371

Rachel Hachlili

25 The Liturgical Performance of Identity 386

Ophir Münz-​Manor

PART VI
Rabbinic Culture in Sasanian Persia 399

26 Jewish and Persian Leadership Structures 401

Geoffrey Herman

27 Babylonian Jewish Communities 414

Simcha Gross

28 Babylonian Judaism and Zoroastrianism 435

Shai Secunda

vii
 Contents

29 Representations of Persia in the Babylonian Talmud 447

Jason Sion Mokhtarian

PART VII
The Expansion of the Jewish Diaspora 461

30 Jews in Late Antique Rome 463

Samuele Rocca

31 Jews in Late Antique Egypt 476

Rodrigo Laham Cohen

32 Jews in Late Antique Syria and Arabia 491

Maurice Sartre

33 Jews in Asia Minor 509

Paul Trebilco

34 Jewish Communities in North Africa 527

Stéphanie É. Binder and Thomas Villey

Index 547

viii
 FIGURES

3.1 The rabbinic boundaries of the Land of Israel (© C. Dauphin): 1 The

crossroad of Ashqelon; 2 the wall of Strato’s Tower; 3 the wall of Dor; 4 the
wall of Acco; 5 Kabrîta; 6 the spring of the waters of the Gaaton; 7 Gathoun;
8 Beth Zenîtah; 9 the castrum of Gelil; 10 Yôqeret; 11 qwb’yyh (peaks?)
of Aita; 12: the fort of Kurain; 13 the enclosure of Jattir; 14 Beth-​Aita; 15
Kore Rabta; 16 Nahla d-​Abatsal; 17: Ulam Rabta; 18 Misha; 19 Olashta; 20
Tafnit; 21 Nahareshet; 22 Sfinta; 23 the Tower of Harub; 24 mmsyyh
d-​Abhat; 25 Nigbata d-​’Ayun; 26 msb spnhh; 27 Upper Tarnegola of
Caesarea (Banyas); 28 Karka d-​Bar Sangora; 29 Bet Sukkat; 30 Rafah
d-​Hagra; 31 the fort of Raziza; 32 the Trachon in the vicinity of Bosra; 33
Shaqqa; 34 Nimrim; 35 Canatha; 36 Igar Sahaduta; 37 Yivka; 38 Reqem
d-​Trachon; 39 Heshbon; 40 Ammon Moab; 41 the river Zered; 42 the great
road that leads to the desert; 43 Kadesh Barnea; 44 the gardens of Ashqelon;
45 Ashqelon 32
3.2 Distribution of Byzantine sites in Palaestina against the background of
soils (Mapping S. Gibson; © C. Dauphin): (A) Terrae Rossae and Brown
and Pale Rendzinas; (B) Brown and Pale Rendzinas; (C) Pale Rendzinas;
(D) Basaltic Protogrumosols, Basaltic Brown Grumosols, and Pale
Rendzinas; (E) Hamra Soils; (F) Basaltic Brown Mediterranean Soils and
Basaltic Lithosols; (G) Hydromorphic and Gley Soils; (H) Grumosols;
(J) Pararendzinas; (K) Dark Brown Soils; (L) Calcareous Serozems;
(M) Brown Lithosols and Loessial Arid Brown Soils; (N) Loessial Arid
Brown Soils; (P) Alluvial Arid Brown Soils; (Q) Solonchaks; (R) Loessial
Serozems; (S) Brown Lithosols and Loessial Serozems; (T) Sandy Regosols
and Arid Brown Soils; (V) Sand Dunes; (W) Regosols; (X) Bare Rocks and
Desert Lithosols; (Y) Reg Soils and Coarse Desert Alluvium;
(Z) Fine-​grained Desert Alluvial Soils 34
3.3 Distribution of sites according to their religion in fourth-​century Palaestina
(Mapping D. Porotsky; © C. Dauphin) 37

ix
 List of Figures

3.4 Farj (Golan): ancient door lintel in situ engraved with Judaeo-​Christian
signs (Drawing B. Wool; © C. Dauphin) 39
3.5 Distribution of sites according to their religion in fifth-​century Palaestina
(Mapping D. Porotsky; © C. Dauphin) 44
3.6 Table 1: Distribution of sites in fifth-​century Palaestina per region and per
religion (© C. Dauphin) 45
3.7 Distribution of sites according to their religion in sixth-​century Palaestina
(Mapping D. Porotsky; © C. Dauphin) 46
3.8 Table 2: Distribution of sites in sixth-​century Palaestina per region and per
religion (© C. Dauphin) 47
3.9 Four maps showing the distribution of sites per religion in the Nahariyya
region in the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th centuries (Mapping Shimon Gibson;
© C. Dauphin) 48
3.10 Distribution of sites according to their religion in seventh-​century
Palaestina (Mapping D. Porotsky; © C. Dauphin) 50
3.11 Table 3 Distribution of sites in ca. 610 C. E . Palaestina per region and per
religion (© C. Dauphin) 51
5.1 Apotheosis of Antoninus Pius and Faustina, detail from base relief of the
column of Antoninus Pius. Creative Commons license 79
5.2 Head of Augustus, found in Ephesus, in a basilica near the market, on the
eastern side of the middle part under a sixth-​century pavement. Ephesos-​
Museum, Selçuk, Turkey, inv. no. 1891. Reprinted with permission from
Arachne, Cologne 83
23.1 Ḥorvat ‘Ammudim, north-eastern view (copyright: Z. Weiss) 352
23.2 Bet Alpha, plan of the synagogue (courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology,
Hebrew University of Jerusalem) 353
23.3 Ḥammat Tiberias synagogue, Stratum IIb (bottom) and Stratum IIa (top). 354
23.4 Capernaum, panoramic view into the synagogue. Photo: Ross Burns,
available at Manar al-​Athar, www.manar-​al-​athar.ox.ac.uk (see Capernaum) 355
23.5 Bar‘am, decorated façade of the mid-​fifth century C.E. synagogue.
Photo: Sean Leatherbury, available at Manar al-​Athar, www.manar-​al-​
athar.ox.ac.uk (see Baram) 356
23.6 Capernaum, decorated frieze. Photo: Ross Burns, available at Manar
al-​Athar, www.manar-​al-​athar.ox.ac.uk (see Capernaum) 357
23.7 Sepphoris, the synagogue’s mosaic carpet in the nave divided into
seven unequal bands and its geometric carpet in the aisle (the Sepphoris
Excavations, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) 359
23.8 Bet Shean, inhabited vine scrolls from the synagogue of Bet Leontis
(courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority; photo: Dan Bahat) 359
23.9 Bet Alpha, the synagogue’s architectural façade, menorot, lions, and
Jewish symbols (courtesy of the Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew
University of Jerusalem) 360
23.10 Ḥuqoq synagogue, mosaic depicting the crossing of the Red Sea (courtesy
of Jodi Magness, Ḥuqoq Excavation Project; photo: Jim Haberman) 361
23.11 Sepphoris synagogue, mosaic featuring the zodiac (the Sepphoris
Excavations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; photo: G. Laron) 361

x
 List of Figures

23.12 Umm el-​Qanatir, the reconstructed Torah shrine (courtesy of Y. Dray,

Restoration of Ancient Technology) 364
23.13 Ḥammat Gader, chancel screen with a menorah set within a wreath.
(Collection of Israel Antiquities Authority; photo © The Israel Museum,
Jerusalem, by Avraham Hay) 365
23.14 Sepphoris, polycandelon with six glass lamps (the Sepphoris Excavations,
Hebrew University of Jerusalem; photo: Gabi Laron; drawing: Sara
Halbreich) 365
23.15 Ma‘on, the reconstructed three-​dimensional marble menorah. (Staff
Archaeological Officer in the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria;
photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by David Harris.) 366
24.1 Bowl Fragments with Menorah, Shofar, and Torah Ark, c. 300–​350 C.E.
18.145.1a, b, Rogers Fund, 1918, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 372
24.2 Mosaic of Menorah, from Hammam Lif synagogue, Tunisia, 6th century
C.E. 05.27, Museum Collection Fund, Brooklyn Museum, Creative
Commons license 372
31.1 Document from Oxyrhynchus (P. Oxy 1205) concerning the manumission
of a Jewish slave and her children, 291 C. E. Copyright: British Library 480
31.2 Ketubah (marriage contract) from Antinoöpolis (Cologne inv. 5853), 417
C.E. Creative Commons license. 485
33.1 The apse of the Sardis Synagogue, with the bath-​gymnasium complex in
the background. Copyright Mark R. Fairchild 511
33.2 Face I, with the central section of the inscription listing “God-​fearers”,
Aphrodisias stele. Copyright Mark R. Fairchild 512
33.3 The two inscribed sides of the Aphrodisias stele. Copyright Mark R. Fairchild 513

xi
 CONTRIBUTORS

Carol Bakhos is Professor of Late Antique Judaism and Study of Religion at the University of
California Los Angeles, USA.

Stéphanie É. Binder is Lecturer in the Department of Classical Studies, Bar-​Ilan University,

Israel.

Claudine Dauphin is a retired researcher in Byzantine Studies at the Collège de France, the
French National Centre for Scientific Research.

Lutz Doering is Professor of New Testament and Ancient Judaism and academic head of the
Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum at the University of Münster, Germany.

Yair Furstenberg is Associate Professor in the Talmud Department at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Israel.

Simcha Gross is Assistant Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and
Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, USA.

Rachel Hachlili was Professor Emerita of Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology at the University
of Haifa, Israel.

Geoffrey Herman is Director of Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études of the University
of Paris, France.

Catherine Hezser is Professor of Jewish Studies at SOAS, University of London, UK.

Reuven Kiperwasser is a research associate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Ariel
University, Israel.

xii
 List of Contributors

Rodrigo Laham Cohen is Professor of History at the University of Buenos Aires and the National
University of San Martín and researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council
of Argentina.

Hayim Lapin is Professor of History and Robert H. Smith Professor of Jewish Studies at the
University of Maryland, USA.

Lee I. Levine is Emeritus Professor of Jewish History and Archaeology at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, Israel.

Joshua Levinson is Professor of Hebrew Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Jason Sion Mokhtarian is Herbert and Stephanie Neuman Associate Professor of Hebrew and
Jewish Literature in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University, USA.

Ophir Münz-​Manor is Professor of Rabbinic Culture and Dean of Academic Studies at the Open
University of Israel.

Thierry Murcia is a research associate at the University of Aix-​Marseille –​Centre National de la

Recherche Scientifique, France.

Maren R. Niehoff is Max Cooper Professor of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Israel.

Marton Ribary is Lecturer in Law at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.

Samuele Rocca is Senior Lecturer in History of Art and Architecture at Ariel University and
Lecturer at the Neri Bloomfield Academy of Design and Education in Haifa, Israel.

Maurice Sartre is Professor Emeritus of Ancient History at the University of Tours, France.

Michael L. Satlow is Dorot Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies at
Brown University, USA.

Seth Schwartz is the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Classical Jewish Civilization in the
Departments of History and Classics at Columbia University in New York, USA.

Shai Secunda is Jacob Neusner Professor of Judaism at Bard College, USA.

Hagith Sivan is Professor Emerita in the Department of History of the University of Kansas, USA.

Alexei Sivertsev is Professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University in Chicago, USA.

Karen B. Stern is Professor of History at Brooklyn College of the City University of

New York, USA.

xiii
 List of Contributors

Paul Trebilco is Professor of New Testament Studies in the Theology program of the School of
Arts at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Thomas Villey is post-​doctoral researcher at the University of Bamberg, Germany.

Burton L. Visotzky is Emeritus Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at the
Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York, USA.

Zeev Weiss is the Eleazar L. Sukenik Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, Israel.

Holger Zellentin is Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies at the University of
Tübingen, Germany.

xiv
newgenprepdf

PREFACE

The creation of this Handbook was initiated by Amy Davis-​Poynter, the former Editor for Classics,
Archaeology and Biblical Studies at Routledge. She approached me in May 2016 with the idea
of editing a Handbook on Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity, since she had noticed a gap in
existing handbooks on the (early) Byzantine period, which tend to focus on Christianity (some-
times including Islam) only. From my first considerations about the possible content, structure,
and contributors to the eventual submission of the manuscript the Handbook had a long ges-
tation period. As is probably the case with all joint volumes of this size and scope, experts in
the respective research areas willing to write the specific chapters in a set period of time were
sometimes difficult to find. Whereas a few colleagues submitted their contributions far ahead of
time, others took longer. Some withdrew years after having committed themselves to the task and
authors who might replace them could not always be found. Some contributions were perfectly
written, whereas others required extensive rewriting and editing.
Sadly, two authors died before the Handbook reached its submission stage: Yaakov Elman (died
July 29, 2018) had meant to write a chapter on Jewish communities in Sasanian Babylonia; Rachel
Hachlili (died January 12, 2019) was able to submit her chapter on a shared Jewish and Christian
iconographic language but could not send all of the images she had meant to include. May their
memory be for a blessing.
I would like to thank everyone for their contributions to this volume, especially those who sub-
mitted early and had to wait long to see their essays published, those who stepped in for others
who, for whatever reason, were unable to submit, and those who carried out revisions in a speedy
and effective way. While the goal was to cover the most important research areas, topics, and
regions, I have no doubt that gaps remain. Hopefully, they will be filled by other scholars in the
future. I would like to thank my assistant Thabo Huntgeburth for the creation of the index and
Marcia Adams for overseeing the project during its final production period.
Catherine Hezser
London, May 2023

xv
 1
INTRODUCTION
Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity

Catherine Hezser

Late antiquity, that is, the time period between the third and the seventh centuries C.E. , is a par-
ticularly interesting period as far as Jews and Judaism are concerned. Within the wider contexts
of the late Roman, early Byzantine, and Sasanian Persian Empires, in competition and conflict
with Graeco-​Roman, Christian, and Zoroastrian cultures, Jewish religious leadership structures,
institutions, and practices developed that are still relevant today. Major developments occurred
in this period –​from small teacher-​disciple circles to a distinct rabbinic group identity; from oral
instruction to written documents; from synagogues as multifunctional buildings to centers of local
religious communities; from the aniconism of the Second Temple period to the emergence of
Jewish figurative art; from a focus on the Land of Israel to increasingly significant Diaspora com-
munities –​which indicate a transition from the time after the destruction of the Second Temple
to a medieval Judaism with an established communal structure based on rabbis, synagogues, and
academies.
This transition was triggered by developments in the larger political, socioeconomic, and
cultural-​religious contexts in which Jews lived. Political and economic relations between Rome
and Persia may at times have enabled or hindered mobility and communication between Jews
who lived under these rules. The increased power and hostility of Byzantine Christians may have
felt threatening but also evoked the assertion of Jewish religious identity and self-​expression.
While the transformation of Roman Palestine into a Christian “Holy Land” involved the Christian
appropriation of space and buildings, it may also have inspired the building and decoration of
synagogues. At a time when anti-​Jewish laws were issued by Christian emperors and church fathers
appropriated biblical texts for their own ideological purposes, rabbis compiled their own legal and
exegetical traditions in the large written compilations of the Talmud and Midrash. Therefore the
earlier association of late antiquity with the “triumph” of Christianity and the “decline” and “dis-
persion” of Judaism must be corrected by a more complex and balanced assessment of the period.

1. Integrating Jews and Judaism into the Study of Late Antiquity

While a number of Handbooks, Companions, and Guides to late antiquity have been published
in the last two and a half decades (Bowersock, Brown, and Gabar, eds. 1999; Lenski, ed. 2006;
Rousseau, ed. 2009; Fitzgerald Johnson, ed. 2012; Bernheimer and Silverstein, eds. 2012), none
of these volumes devotes even one chapter to Judaism. The focus of most of these works is on
Byzantine Christianity, with some of them also covering the emergence of Islam. Jews, Judaism,

DOI: 10.4324/9781315280974-1 1
 Catherine Hezser

and Roman-​Byzantine Palestine are mentioned only incidentally, if at all. While the first part of
Fitzgerald Johnson’s Handbook of Late Antiquity (2012) deals with “Geographies and Peoples”
and is very wide-​ranging, from the western kingdoms to the silk road in the East, Jews in Palestine
and Babylonia are absent from the regional coverage. In the second part entitled “Literary and
Philosophical Cultures” education and Hellenism feature prominently, whereas rabbinic litera-
ture is not discussed. Neither is Judaism treated in the fourth part on “Religions and Religious
Identity”, with chapters on paganism, Christianity, and Islam. The volume edited by Bowersock,
Brown, and Gabar (1999) is an alphabetically arranged Guide or dictionary, covering the period
between ca. 250 and 800 C. E. While there are introductory chapters on Christianity and Islam,
there is none on Judaism. Rousseau’s Companion (2009) focuses on Byzantine Christian the-
ology and the later reception of the Byzantine period. Rather than dealing with Jews and Judaism
in their own right, this huge volume merely contains a chapter on “Jewish-​Christian Relations”.
In Lenski’s Companion to the Age of Constantine (2006) “Religion and Spiritual Life” is, again,
limited to Christianity and its “pagan” forerunners, the “traditional religions” of the Roman world.
While Bernheimer and Silverstein (2012) move the focus to the East and include chapters on
Zoroastrianism and Buddhism besides Christianity and Islam, Jews and Judaism in the Middle
East are absent from the discussion.
What could be the reasons for the absence of Jews and Judaism from these collective volumes
which claim to be comprehensive introductions and guides to late antique and early Byzantine
history, literature, and culture? Perhaps inadvertently, the traditional Christian view that the “tri-
umph” of Christianity led to the decline of Judaism and a dispersal of Jews from the Middle East
may have played a role. Since Christians claimed to be the “new Israel”, spreading monotheism
to formerly polytheistic cultures and ethnicities, the innovative aspects of the Byzantine period
were mainly associated with Christianity. This “triumphant” outlook is most noticeable in Lenski
(2006: 1), who claims that under Constantine “Christianity blossomed into a thriving offshoot of
Mediterranean religious life”, which “cast its shadow over not just religious matters but art and
architecture, philosophy and thought, literature and learning, politics and foreign relations, law
and social practice”, giving the impression of an all-​encompassing impact and domination that
marginalized and suppressed non-​Christian cultures and identities. On the other hand, Fitzgerald
Johnson (2012: xvii) stresses knowledge exchange: in late antiquity, the Middle East, the Far East,
and the West “changed into essential spaces for the movement of ideas and the creative inter-
action of religion, people, and goods”, a development out of which Islam emerged, which is now-
adays integrated into the late antique context (Neuwirth 2019; Al-​Azmeh 2014). The absence of
Jews from this discussion seems strange, especially since Christianity and Islam developed on the
basis of Jewish monotheism and the Hebrew Bible and show similarities with Judaism (Zellentin
2013, 2022).
Perhaps even more astonishing is the almost total omission of Judaism, except for a chapter
on the late antique reception of the biblical book of Esther (Patmore 2018), from A Companion
to Religion in Late Antiquity (Lössl and Baker-​Brian, eds. 2018). Again, the book heavily leans
on Christianity and the West, with individual chapters reaching out to Egypt, Arabia, and small
religious movements such as Manichaeism and Hermetism. Many aspects of Christianity in
different regions are discussed in individual chapters, yet no chapter provides a discussion of
rabbinic Judaism, late antique synagogues, and the compilation of the Talmud. Although Patmore
(2018: 258) claims to use his focus on Esther as a “heuristic tool” to explore “the shape and nature”
of late antique Judaism, this focus is much too narrow to do justice to the historical, cultural, and
religious changes that Jews experienced between the third and seventh centuries C.E .

2
 Introduction

Two volumes that are dedicated to Jews and Judaism in late antiquity may have been meant
to rectify this situation, yet the first one deals with rabbinic literature only (Millar, Ben-​Eliyahu,
and Cohn 2012) and the second one (Kessler and Koltun-​Fromm, eds., 2020) is an introduction
to Judaism in general rather than a focused treatment of the late Roman and early Byzantine
period. With their Handbook of Jewish Literature Millar, Ben-​Eliyahu, and Cohn (2012) aim at
introducing the various Jewish literary works and genres created in Roman and early Byzantine
times to nonexperts, notably classicists and ancient historians, who are usually not familiar with
them. Kessler’s and Koltun-​Fromm’s Companion to Late Antique Jews and Judaism (2020) was
published by the same publisher who brought out Lössl’s above-​mentioned Companion to Religion
in Late Antiquity, perhaps noticing that the latter, although meant to deal with the varieties of
late antique religion, did not include Judaism in an appropriate way. While the Judaism-​focused
volume addresses many aspects of Judaism (geography, languages and literatures, identity, gender,
ritual), it does not focus on late antiquity but includes the literary and material culture of the
Second Temple period. It is therefore unable to provide a proper overview of the innovations of
the third and following centuries within the context of political and cultural changes that happened
at that time. In particular, the consequences of the Christianization of the Roman Empire and
the Christian appropriation of the Jewish Bible and the “Holy Land” are not properly explored.
What did these changes mean for Jews and Judaism in terms of expressions of Jewish identity,
literary developments, and artistic and architectural competition in the public space? And how
did the situation of Jews in Sasanian Persia differ from the situation in Palestine under Byzantine
Christian rule?
A first step toward a better understanding of Jewish experience and culture in late antiquity, in
the various regions in which Jews lived, was undertaken by Laham Cohen (2018), who already
points to the sparseness of sources for Jewish Diaspora communities, except for Babylonia, where
there is at least rabbinic literary evidence available. This problem has also been noted by Kraemer
(2020: 1–​42), who has suggested to understand “the absence of evidence” as “evidence of absence”,
that is, as an indication of the decimation of Jewish life in certain regions of the Mediterranean
Diaspora under Christian rule. Since Greek-​and Latin-​speaking Diaspora Jews hardly left any
literary remains that are identifiably Jewish, “[t]‌o write their history we have only what others
said about them and an assortment of archaeological remains” (ibid. 1), most of them from Rome
(Rutgers 2021; Rocca 2022). On the basis of funerary art, architecture, and inscriptions, and the
Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum as a late antique Jewish compilation, Rutgers (2021)
reconstructs Jewish life and interaction with non-​Jews in late antique Rome. Rocca’s (2022) study
is broader, tracing Jewish history in Roman Italy from republican to late Roman imperial times,
with a focus on the legal and social circumstances Jews lived in. For historical reasons, Roman
Italy and Sasanian Persia were the regions with the largest Jewish communities outside of the Land
of Israel in late antiquity. Yet Jewish communities also continued to exist in Egypt, Syria, Arabia,
and Asia Minor and were affected in different ways by Christianization.

2. Relations between Jews and Non-​Jews

In late antique and early Byzantine times Judaism and Christianity were the main competitors in
the Roman-​Byzantine Empire, while Babylonian Jews encountered Zoroastrianism as the main
religion of the Persian Empire. The different political and religious contexts had a huge impact
on the development of Jewish communal life, literature, and identity. In the last decades scholars
have emphasized the formative role played by a “triumphant” Christianity in the development of

3
 Catherine Hezser

rabbinic literature and a synagogue-​and community-​based Judaism that increasingly asserted its
own public identity in Roman-​Byzantine Palestine. Schwartz (2001: 177–​274) has argued that
the increased Christian presence in the “Holy Land”, with the establishment of churches and
monasteries from the fourth century C . E . onwards, led to a re-​Judaization that saw the building
of lavishly decorated synagogues as the centers of local Jewish communities. In competition
with an increasingly assertive Christian leadership that propagated its ideology in visual art,
architecture, and sermons, Jews created a figurative visual art (Levine 2012) that presented their
own interpretation of foundational biblical narratives such as the Binding of Isaac (Aqedah)
(Hezser 2018: 31–​80). They used Jewish symbols such as the menorah and ritual implements
as visual markers of Jewishness (Hachlili 2018; Laderman 2021). Between the fourth and sixth
centuries, numerous basilica-​style synagogues were built in Byzantine Palestine, whose archi-
tecture and interior furnishings resembled those of churches (Levine 2000: 210–​249; Milson
2007: 162–​203).
Synagogues and synagogue art were probably the most noticeable aspects of marking public
spaces as Jewish. Yet the assertion of Jewish identity also took place in intellectual life, at least as
far as Roman-​Byzantine Palestine and Sasanian Babylonia are concerned. Rabbis had emphasized
the significance of the Torah and Torah study as the basis of Jewish life and practice after 70
C . E ., at a time when paideia-​based Greek education was the Greek and Roman educational ideal.
Rabbinic study became an alternative form of secondary education whose formal features –​small
disciple circles and oral discussion –​resembled philosophical and legal studies. Rabbis’ focus on
halakhah and their role as legal advisors in almost all areas of daily life aligned them with Roman
jurists. Especially after 212 C. E. when Caracalla’s Edict (Constitutio Antoniniana) offered Roman
citizenship to all subjects of the Roman Empire, rabbis must have feared that Roman private law
might substitute Jewish law among the Jewish citizens of the Roman Empire. The compilation of
the Mishnah as an alternative Jewish law code ensured the continued importance of rabbinic law,
at least among rabbinic circles and their sympathizers (Hezser 2022). In the late antique public
arena rabbis presented themselves as Jewish intellectuals who elicited the same respect that was
granted to Graeco-​Roman philosophers and sophists, church fathers, and monks.
Whereas the form and extent of encounters and disputes between rabbis and Christians remain
uncertain from a historical point of view, rabbinic literary sources provide evidence of rabbis’ at
least indirect interaction with Christian views and biblical interpretations. Based on an analysis
of possible references to Jesus in the Babylonian Talmud, Schäfer (2007) argued that Babylonian
rabbis constructed detailed and sophisticated polemics against Christian exegetical arguments and
christological ideas: “at precisely the time when Christianity rose from modest beginnings to its
first triumphs, the Talmud (…) would become the defining document of those who refused to
accept the new covenant, who so obstinately insisted on the fact that nothing had changed and that
the old covenant was still valid” (ibid. 2). Whereas Schäfer reckons with a familiarity with certain
New Testament texts among Babylonian rabbis, Murcia (2014) is more skeptical: the rabbinic
texts, if they actually refer to Jesus and Christians, should be read as perceptions rather than actual
knowledge. Whereas earlier accounts of Jesus and his followers as healers may reflect good neigh-
borly relations between Babylonian Jews and Christians, later misunderstandings may indicate
mutual hostilities and incomprehension.
The question of knowledge based on (Babylonian) rabbis’ access to Christian literature and
disputations with Christians is also addressed by Bar-​Asher Siegal (2019: 5), who suggests that
certain Babylonian talmudic narratives about heretics (minim) should be understood as reactions
to “very common Christian notions” the rabbis would have been familiar with. Besides rejecting
Christian biblical interpretations and theological claims, talmudic texts also show similarities to

4
 Introduction

Christian literary forms, such as the Apophthegmata Patrum (Bar-​Asher Siegal 2013) and parables
(Teugels 2019). The rabbinic and Christian adaptation of these literary forms and the sharing of
some of the topics and motifs indicate that rabbis and Christian teachers and monks lived in the
same Middle Eastern cultural context whose foundations were the Hebrew (and Greek) Bible and
Hellenism. They used the same literary forms and motifs to express religious convictions that were
usually quite different and need to be understood within the respective literary, social, and cultural
contexts. Such differences are also evident in Jewish and Christian interpretations of the same
biblical passages (Grypeou and Spurling, eds., 2009). Either directly or indirectly, late antique
Jews and Christians may have been aware of each other’s interpretations. Therefore, Jewish and
Christian scriptural exegesis needs to be read side-​by-​side to bring to light the “ powerful intertext-
uality between the two exegetical traditions” (Alexander 2009: 1).
The darker side of the late antique encounter between Jews and Christians must also be
acknowledged, however. Once the Roman Empire had become Christian, the emperors began
to side with bishops to suppress non-​Christian religious practices that might compete with
Christianity. The anti-​Jewish laws of the Codex Theodosianus (16.8.1, 5, 6, 13, and 26; 16.9.1 and
2; Linder 1987; Rabello 2000), issued by the Christian emperors since 312 C.E ., target the Jewish
public institutions of the patriarchate and synagogues, prohibiting the building of new synagogues
and the restoration of old ones. They also interfere with Jewish private matters by prohibiting the
circumcision of non-​Jewish slaves. Although their effectiveness remains uncertain, especially as
far as Byzantine Palestine at the periphery of the empire was concerned, their aim was to reduce
the public visibility of Judaism, to prevent the increase of non-​Jewish converts to Judaism, and to
generally undermine social relations between Jews and Christians.
The decrees indirectly testify to Judaism’s continuous attractiveness to non-​Jews, a phenom-
enon that is also evident in some church fathers’ anti-​Jewish polemics, such as those by the fourth-​
century writer John Chrysostom (Against the Jews). Thus, Wilken (2004: 67) writes: “By awakening
curiosity, by bearing witness to another way of life drawn from the same ancient tradition, Judaism
attracted Christians, some to the point where they actually joined with the Jews to celebrate Jewish
festivals ….” Troianos (2012) describes the relationship between Byzantine Christians and Jews
as “a love-​hate relationship”: Jews represented the biblical origins Christianity was based on, yet
Christian leaders claimed that Christianity was superior and even replaced Judaism.
Anti-​Jewish messages proclaimed by bishops and priests in their sermons instigated Christians
to attack synagogues, a phenomenon that seems to have been more common in the Diaspora than
in the Land of Israel (Rutgers 1998: 119–​21). Especially well-​known is the case of Ambrose of
Milan’s support of the local bishop’s incitement and the Christian mob’s burning of the synagogue
in Callinicum in 388 C. E . As Simonsohn (2014: 285) has pointed out, “Ambrose was a sworn
enemy of Jews and Judaism and supported violence wreaked by the incited mob upon the Jews
all over Christendom, in the East and West”. He associated Jews with Christian heretics (Letter
11.3) and slandered the synagogue as a symbol of “unbelief” (Letter 31.1). Ambrose defended the
bishop against accusations of unlawful behavior and even threatened emperor Theodosius with
unforeseen consequences, if he decided to punish the bishop, arguing that the bishop could turn
against the church and become an apostate or martyr, saying: “I openly affirm that I myself set
the synagogue on fire, or at least, that I ordered others to do so; that there might be no place in
which Christ is denied” (Letter 31.8). The Callinicum incident provides evidence of the compli-
city between local bishops and Christian mobs and the bishops’ attempts to exert pressure on the
highest political authorities (Hezser 2024). Whether they were successful depended on local Jews’
complaints to the imperial authorities, the respective emperor’s assessment of the situation, and
the relationship between local bishops and courts.

5
 Catherine Hezser

3. Internal Jewish Developments

In several regards, internal developments within late antique Judaism constituted the basis of later
medieval Jewish communal life and institutions. One of these developments is the greater public
role of the rabbi, who emerged as a Jewish type of intellectual alongside philosophers, sophists,
rhetoricians, bishops, and monks. Late antique rabbis were keen on being visible and identifiable
as scholars in the public space. They walked around in streets and marketplaces, accompanied
by their disciples and colleagues. It has been argued that from the third century onwards rabbis
became “urbanized”; that is, more rabbis lived in the cities of Roman Palestine than in the pre-
ceding century (Lapin 1999, 2000). Their increased presence in cities such as Caesarea, Sepphoris,
Tiberias, and Lydda meant that they had access to the cities’ institutions and facilities and contact
with other urban inhabitants such as wealthy Jewish grandees and non-​Jews, whether Greek or
Roman, pagan or Christian.
Especially relevant is rabbis’ exposure to the Graeco-​Roman culture of the cities, which
included performances and spectacles in theaters and amphitheaters (Weiss 2014); philosophical,
sophistic, rhetorical, and legal scholarship (Hezser 2019); and visual art in synagogues, churches,
bathhouses, temples, and private villas (Laderman 2021). From the third century onwards, rabbis
increasingly accommodated with this urban Graeco-​Roman culture by adapting their own values
and ideas to this environment, as is noticeable in the amoraic traditions of the Talmud Yerushalmi.
For example, rabbis justified their visits to Roman bathhouses with statues of the goddess Aphrodite
(Schwartz 1998); they perambulated in public spaces like philosophers (Hezser 2017: 28–​31); and
they delivered sermons that showed some familiarity with rhetorical training (Hidary 2018). Lapin
(2012) even views late antique rabbis as Romans, exploring the various aspects of the Roman pro-
vincial environment on rabbis as subalterns.
Palestinian rabbis’ increased integration into –​and reaction to –​their Graeco-​Roman and
Byzantine Christian environment led to a number of innovations and changes. While the Mishnah
already shows certain similarities between rabbinic halakhah and Roman jurists’ law, after
Caracalla’s reform in 212 C. E ., rabbis’ familiarity with Roman law seems to have grown. Rabbinic
discourse in the Talmud Yerushalmi addresses many legal areas that are also covered by Roman
private law, codified in Justinian’s Digest. When Roman citizenship and Roman law were extended
to all inhabitants of the Roman Empire, rabbis would have competed with Roman legal experts
when trying to maintain and attract Jewish clients. Knowledge of at least some aspects of Roman
law would have been advantageous in this climate. Rabbis would “try to usurp jurisdiction for
themselves, a power-​grab that attempts to reinforce the rabbis’ own authority, founded as it was in
their skills in legal interpretation” (Czajkowski 2020: 85). That they were not always successful in
persuading their fellow-​Jews to abide by their decisions is illustrated by the story about R. Abbahu
and a woman named Tamar, who preferred the jurisdiction of the Roman governor of Caesarea to
rabbinic jurisdiction (Niehoff 2019; Murray 2000).
Late antiquity was also the time when the large rabbinic compilations of the Talmud and
Midrash were created. Graeco-​Roman and Christian book cultures are likely to have inspired
rabbinic scholars to collect their predecessors’ halakhic and exegetical knowledge and preserve it
in edited written compilations. While the patriarch R. Yehudah ha-​Nasi is associated with the cre-
ation of a version of the Mishnah at the beginning of the third century C.E. , its format and wording,
including the order and number of tractates, may have been uncertain throughout the amoraic
period until the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds were created in the fourth to sixth centuries
or even longer, until the first complete Mishnah manuscripts with all six orders were written (the
Kaufmann manuscript of the 10th to 11th c. is considered to be the earliest full manuscript). In

6
 Introduction

contrast to the tannaitic and amoraic emphasis on oral instruction and transmission of rabbinic
knowledge, at some stage at the end of the amoraic period or shortly afterward scholars who
identified with the authorities of the past decided to preserve their teaching in written form to
enable future generations to access, study, apply, and further develop it. Once the large rabbinic
compilations existed, Judaism –​or at least that form of Judaism represented by male scholastic
circles –​became a “book religion”, focused on studying the Talmud in academies and yeshivot of
medieval times (Stern 2008).
The Palestinian patriarchate (nasi) was also a new development of the late second and early
third century, with R. Yehudah ha-​Nasi as its first representative (Jacobs 1995). Like the status
of priests and Israelite monarchs, the role was hereditary and remained the domain of a wealthy
aristocratic Jewish family. Rather than being acknowledged by Rome as a Jewish leader, the first
patriarch seems to have emerged out of the rabbinic movement itself as a primus inter pares or
highest-​status rabbi. Accordingly, his role and influence would have been limited, depending on
rabbis’ and the Jewish populace’s acknowledgment of his authority in areas such as the festival
calendar, internal Jewish law, and the collection of money. Traditions in the Talmud Yerushalmi
indicate that rabbis’ support of the patriarch was not unanimous. It likely depended on his schol-
arly credentials and reputation. The patriarchs of the late third and fourth centuries are not even
mentioned by name in rabbinic sources. As provincial grandees, the patriarchs are likely to have
possessed Greek paideia and socialized with other members of the elite, a phenomenon that seems
to be reflected in stories about Rabbi and an emperor called Antoninus (Krauss 1910), whom
some scholars identify with Caracalla (Levine 1996: 29). The rabbinic disregard for the later
patriarchs may have contrasted with their “prestige and power” among (Hellenized Jewish and)
non-​Jewish elites (Curran 2011: 21). While the Byzantine government eventually acknowledged
the patriarch’s status and honored him (Cod. Theod. 16.8.8, 11, 13, 15, 20), the institution ended a
few decades later for unknown reasons.
In Sasanian Persia the analogous office of the Jewish exilarch (resh galuta) emerged and continued
to exist in Islamic times (Brody 1998: 67–​82). Herman (2012), who has examined the sources in the
context of Sasanian politics and culture, calls the exilarch a “king without a kingdom”, indicating
his high status and role as “the official representative of the Babylonian Jews before the king” (ibid.
1). Several rabbinic texts address the relationship between the patriarch and exilarch, suggesting
both collaboration and competition between them. While Palestinian rabbis claimed the super-
iority of the Land of Israel and its scholars, by the late third and fourth centuries the Babylonian
rabbinic movement was well-​established and no longer dependent on Palestinian rabbis’ custody.
Nevertheless, network connections between Palestinian and Babylonian rabbis continued and were
maintained by travel and mutual visits (Kiperwasser 2021). Babylonian Judaism developed in
its Sasanian Persian context, in a religious environment that was determined by Zoroastrianism
and also included eastern Christians. The significance of this context is nowadays recognized by
scholars (see the contributions in Secunda and Fine, eds. 2012 and Elman’s list of publications ibid.
xv–​xxii), in contrast to earlier scholars’ conflation of the two Talmuds and their prioritization of the
Graeco-​Roman background for both. From the early fifth century onwards, when the Palestinian
patriarchate had ended, Babylonia became the center of rabbinic Judaism in the Middle East and
remained so in the early Islamic period. The creation of the Babylonian Talmud and the institution-
alization of rabbinic academies in the post-amoraic period of the fifth to seventh centuries may be
linked to administrative changes and cultural influences at that time (Lightstone 1994: 265).
Whereas the material culture of late antique Babylonian Jewry remains inaccessible, numerous
synagogues, private residences, and burial sites have been excavated in Israel and dated to the
fourth to sixth centuries C. E . (Levine 2016; Laderman 2021). Especially noteworthy are the two

7
 Catherine Hezser

recently excavated synagogues at Huqoq (Magness et al. 2014, 2018; Grey and Magness 2013;
Britt and Boustan 2017; Gordon and Weiss 2018; Cielontko 2023) and Wadi Hamam (Leibner
2010; Leibner and Miller 2010), which greatly expand our knowledge of synagogue art and icon-
ography in late antiquity. The depictions of elephants, workers (Tower of Babel), and a large male
figure in military gear (Samson), among others, have elicited much discussion among scholars
and different interpretations. Since elephants are never mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the scene
seems to depict a nonbiblical narrative, probably an encounter between Jews and Greeks in the
Hellenistic period. The depiction of biblical and nonbiblical narratives in Jewish art needs to be
examined both in connection with Jewish literary sources and in the context of early Byzantine art.
Although few sources are available on Jews in the eastern and western Diaspora in late antiquity
(Kraemer 2020: 21–​27), with the exception of Roman Italy (Rutgers 2021), Jews continued to live
in regions such as Syria and Egypt, North Africa, Asia Minor, and Greece. How were these mostly
Greek-​and Latin-​speaking Jews affected by the expansion of Christianity in these regions and
the eventual Byzantine political rule? At least to some extent, Jewish epigraphy and non-​Jewish
Graeco-​Roman and Christian literary sources and legal texts can be used to throw some light on
these communities. For other more western regions such as Gaul and Spain, some epigraphic and
archaeological material is available, especially related to burial practices (Laham Cohen 2018).
Obviously, the specific regional context with its population mixture, geo-​political situation, and
historical development needs to be taken into account.
This Handbook focuses on the major issues and debates in the study of Judaism in late antiquity.
It provides cutting-​edge overviews of the state of scholarship and methodological approaches and
provides bibliographical guidelines for all of the addressed topics. Especially important is the rela-
tionship between internal Jewish developments and the respective regional, political, cultural, and
socioeconomic contexts in which they took place. The chapters pay attention to the impact of the
Christianization of the Roman Empire on Jews, from administrative, legal, and cultural points of view.
They also explore how the confrontation with Christianity changed Jewish practices, perceptions,
and organizational structures, such as, for example, the emergence of local Jewish communities
around synagogues as central religious spaces. Other important aspects concern the development of
Jewish visual culture and figural art, mostly linked to synagogues, and its comparison with the pagan
and Christian use of similar imagery. Since late antique Judaism was less a “religion of the book”
than a “religion of the body”, attitudes toward the body and ritual practice also play an important role.
Since we know more about rabbis than about any other Jews in late antiquity, their comparison
with other types of “sages” and intellectuals is an important aspect of the investigation. Jews in
late antique Palestine and Babylonia lived in different political and cultural contexts. Therefore
their experiences and literary expressions have to be examined separately. To create a proper
balance, chapters on rabbis and rabbinic Judaism in Palestine and Babylonia are complemented
by chapters on other Diaspora communities. While certain gaps remain, partly due to a lack of
source material and/​or authors, the Handbook tries to provide a fairly comprehensive overview of
Jews and Judaism in late antiquity. The abbreviation of sources follows the 2nd edition of the SBL
Handbook of Style.

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