Judaea-Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity

Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism
Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum
Edited by
Peter Schäfer (Princeton, NJ)
Annette Y. Reed (Philadelphia, PA)
Seth Schwartz (New York, NY)
Azzan Yadin (New Brunswick, NJ)
147

Judaea-Palaestina,
Babylon and Rome:
Jews in Antiquity
edited by
Benjamin Isaac and Yuval Shahar
Mohr Siebeck

Benjamin Isaac, born 1945; immigrated to Israel in 1972; studied in Amsterdam, the Netherlands;
currently Fred and Helen Lessing Professor of Ancient History, Tel Aviv University;
member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities; Israel Prize Laureate.
Yuval Shahar, born 1953; studied Jewish History and Jewish Philosophy at Tel Aviv University;
currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Jewish History and Head of The Multidisciplinary
Program in the Humanities, Tel Aviv University.
ISBN 978-3-16-151697-9
ISSN 0721-8753 (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism)
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie;
detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
© 2012 by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by
copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions,
translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems.
The book was typeset by Martin Fischer in Tübingen using Times typeface, printed by Gulde-
Druck in Tübingen on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier.
Printed in Germany.

Preface
In December of 2009 Tel Aviv University hosted an international conference in
honour of Aharon Oppenheimer, Sir Isaac Wolfson Professor of Jewish History,
on the occasion of his retirement. The present volume publishes most of the
papers read during the conference and it is dedicated to him by his friends and
colleagues in recognition of many years of a broad range of activities: teaching,
research, and administration, all of them carried out with wisdom, unselfishly
and honestly.
The editors wish to thank those who made the event possible, those who
participated in it and those who worked hard to make it a success. First, we
gratefully acknowledge the generous financial contributions made by various
persons and institutions: the President of Tel Aviv University, the Rector, Vice-
President for Research and Development, the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities,
the School of Jewish Studies, the Goldstein-Goren Center for Diaspora Research
and its Director, Dr Simha Goldin, the Fred Lessing Institute for European History
and Civilization and Ms Joan Lessing, and the Mortimer and Raymond
Sackler Institute of Advanced Studies.
Special mention should be made of invaluable assistance rendered by Sara
Appel and Ora Azta of the Goldstein-Goren Center who took care of all practical
arrangements in preparing the event. Their labours were instrumental in achieving
a conference virtually without practical flaws.
Susan Weingarten helped improving the style of part of the contributions. We
are very grateful for her generous assistance. Finally, cordial thanks are due to
Nili Oppenheimer for the preparation of the list of Aharon Oppenheimer’s publications
at the end of this book.
Benjamin Isaac & Yuval Shahar Tel Aviv University, September 2011

Table of Contents
Benjamin Isaac and Yuval Shahar
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Image of Jews among Non-Jews
Albert I. Baumgarten
The “Outreach” Campaign of the Ancient Pharisees:
There is no such thing as a Free Lunch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Shaye J. D. Cohen
Dancing, Clapping, Meditating: Jewish and Christian Observance
of the Sabbath in Pseudo-Ignatius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
The Image of Non-Jews among Jews
Joshua Schwartz
How Jewish to be Jewish? Self-Identity and Jewish Christians
in First Century CE Palestine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Günter Stemberger
Birkat ha-minim and the separation of Christians and Jews . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Vered Noam
Another look at the rabbinic conception of gentiles
from the perspective of impurity laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Richard Kalmin
The Evil Eye in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Peter Schäfer
Jesus’ Origin, Birth, and Childhood according to the Toledot Yeshu
and the Talmud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

VIII Table of Contents
Social History
Tessa Rajak
Reflections on Jewish Resistance and the Discourse of Martyrdom
in Josephus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Martin Goodman
Titus, Berenice and Agrippa: The Last Days of the Temple in Jerusalem 181
Yuval Shahar
Why a quarter? The Siqariqon ruling and Roman Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Susan Weingarten
How do you say haroset in Greek? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Jonathan J. Price
The Necropolis at Jaffa and its Relation to Beth She‘arim . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Youval Rotman
Captives and Redeeming Captives: the Law and the Community . . . . . . . 227
Werner Eck
The Jewish Community in Cologne from Roman Times
to the Early Middle Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Issues in Modern Scholarship
David Goodblatt
The Jews in the Parthian Empire: What We Don’t Know . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Yoram Tsafrir
The Finds in Cave 2001–2002 and Burial at Masada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Isaiah Gafni
Will the ‘Real’ Rabbis Please Stand Up: On the Repackaging of the
Rabbinic Model in Modern Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Table of Contents
Publications of Aharon Oppenheimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Ancient writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Modern scholars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
General Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
IX

Introduction
Benjamin Isaac and Yuval Shahar
This volume contains most of the papers read at a conference held in honour
of Aharon Oppenheimer in December of 2009. For decades Oppenheimer has
studied and taught Jewish history “in the period of the Mishnah and the Talmud,”
as it is called at Tel Aviv University. He has done so with much energy,
great learning, intellectual honesty and a fine sense of humour. His published
achievements are listed at the end of this volume. His contribution as a teacher,
a colleague, and editor of journals and academic publications is less easily measured,
although obvious to all who know him. When organizing the conference
it was our aim to invite a number of friends and colleagues who represent the
wide range of his publications in the field of Jewish history in antiquity. Pride of
place among these goes to the Jews in Judaea in antiquity, subject of the articles
by Albert Baumgarten, Joshua Schwartz, Yoram Tsafrir, Günter Stemberger,
and Vered Noam. To some extent Peter Schäfer’s paper also belongs in this
category. Then there are specific subjects concerning the Jews under Roman
rule, discussed by Martin Goodman, Tessa Rajak and Yuval Shahar, with the
addition of a paper in the sphere of culinary culture by Susan Weingarten, one
of the results of a project headed by Aharon Oppenheimer and Werner Eck.
From there we move to the diaspora. Aharon Oppenheimer is the author of a
major work on Jewish Babylonia, a subject revisited here by David Goodblatt.
The relationship and cultural differences between Palestinian and Babylonian
Jews is the subject of Richard Kalmin’s contribution. Aharon Oppenheimer has
published as well on Jewish burial in the diaspora and in Israel and on urban
development. Hence we include a paper by Jonathan Price on Jewish epitaphs
in Jaffa and Beth Shearim. Shaye Cohen focuses on a Christian text from
fourth-century Syria about the Jewish Shabbat. Youval Rotman examined the
attitude and practice of both Jews and Christians toward the issue of redeeming
captives. Central in the work of any historian of the Jewish people in this period
is an assessment of the role of the rabbis, or rather, the sages, as some prefer to
call them. This is the subject of Isaiah Gafni’s paper. Aharon Oppenheimer’s
personal pre-history goes back to Germany, where he has spent several years
teaching and studying. It is only fitting that Werner Eck’s contribution should
consider the presence of Jews in Cologne in antiquity, a city where Aharon
himself has found extended hospitality.

2
Benjamin Isaac and Yuval Shahar
Albert Baumgarten’s paper takes up the theme of missionary activity, focusing
on the Pharisees in the pre-70 years against the social reality of contemporary society.
In the early to mid-1990s, a series of studies argued against the then widely
prevalent view that the ancient Pharisees were engaged in a major campaign to
convert as many people as possible to Judaism in general and to the Pharisaic
way of life in particular. Those who reacted against this view argued that the
missionary activity of Jews/ Pharisees was directed internally, towards those
Jews whose attachment to the ancestral traditions seemed in need of reinforcement,
not towards outsiders. Baumgarten’s declared aim is to free the study of
the ancient Pharisees from the distortions of theological evaluation. The Pharisees
still are frequently the subject of fierce disagreement between Christian
and Jewish scholars, and among Jews as well. The paper aims to inject clarity
by analyzing three passages in the gospel of Luke: 14:1–9; 7:36–9; 11:37–41.
It is here argued that these intended to show fundamental flaws in the Pharisaic
claim of moderation, flexibility, and outreach to the larger world. This part of
the discussion therefore deals with early Christian attitudes toward Jews, one
of two in the volume to do so. It goes on with an attempt to sketch the realities
behind this criticism.
In this paper thus one of the themes of the book is represented: Jews and others.
It is an attempt to describe how a significant movement in the first century
attempted to make its mark internally rather than extend influence among non-
Jews. This, again, is an important chapter in the evolving image of first century
Judaism as projected in the early Christian sources and modern scholarship.
Shaye Cohen’s paper is the second that focuses on Christian attitudes toward
Jews. He uses patristic literature, a passage of pseudo-Ignatius (Syria, second
half of the fourth century), as evidence for the Jewish observance of the Sabbath,
one of the traditional points of friction between non-Jews and Jews. As described
in the text, Jews observe the Sabbath rejoicing in idleness, in the relaxation of
the body, eating day-old foods, drinking lukewarm drinks, walking measured
distances, and dancing and clapping. For Christians, the source asserts, the
spiritual observance of the Sabbath consisted of a) rejoicing in meditation on
laws and b) marvelling at the creative work of God. This demonstrates a contrast
between carnal Jews and spiritual Christians, a topos in Christian literature
beginning with Paul. Cohen concludes that the assertions regarding the actual
behaviour of Jews on the Sabbath presumably reflect reality. Food and drinking
are important to Jews celebrating the Sabbath. However, dancing and clapping is
less obvious as a custom, although it is attested in a few other sources: Augustine
and the Bavli. Christian sources take this a step further: good Christians actually
observe the Sabbath every day, while the Jewish Sabbath is one day out of seven.
With Joshua Schwartz’s paper we pass on to the general theme of the attitude
of Jews toward non-Jews in antiquity, for it considers the highly sensitive and
controversial topic of Jewish identity in the first century as well as Jewish at-

Introduction 3
titudes toward the early Christians. What was the character of Judaism? It was
a religion, says Schwartz, namely a religion of law and of halakhah, stressing
praxis and works. There was not as much diversity as sometimes claimed, but
the early Christians were not necessarily excluded from the Jewish community.
Like that of Schwartz, Günter Stemberger’s contribution discusses the attitudes
of Jews toward non-Jews. He renews the discussion of the birkat haminim.
The interpretation of this text is essential for an understanding of Jewish
attitudes toward non-Jews in the late first and early second centuries. A common
conclusion is that the text was formulated in the late first century by Rabban
Gamaliel in Yavneh with the explicit purpose of excluding Christians or Jewish-
Christians from participation in synagogue services. It would thus have been a
formal act separating Christians from Jews. Two questions are elementary: the
dating and the precise meaning of the term ‘minim.’ Stemberger accepts the
usual date, but concludes that it is not quite clear how widespread was the application
of restrictions mentioned in the text, nor is it obvious that ‘minim’ in
this period always refers to Christians. Rabban Gamaliel’s special status may not
have been so obvious at the time and the institution of the synagogue was not yet
universal. The birkat ha-minim would then not be evidence of a radical, formal
break with Christians in this period and the text will not have played more than
a minimal role in the separation of Christians and Jews.
Vered Noam offers a fascinating analysis of the question of gentile impurity in
Talmudic sources with particular attention to issues of corpse impurity. She has
used this as evidence for the self-image of Jews and their views of non-Jews with
particular focus on the impurity of non-Jews. The assumption is that the impurity
ascribed to non-Jews may be used as a source of information on the general
rabbinic portrait of the non-Jews and Jews. The question asked is whether non-
Jews are intrinsically impure, or only when they have been polluted by corpses;
furthermore, can they be purified or not? The Tannaitic answer to this question is
that only a captive who became a proselyte in the full sense of the law as defined
by the rabbis could contract corpse impurity and require purification like an Israelite.
A gentile, on the other hand, neither contracts nor conveys corpse impurity.
Like the domestic animal and the eight-month child he fails to meet the definition
of a human being, and is perceived as fundamentally different from a Jew. Accordingly
he is treated in categories of nature, in contradistinction to culture and
jurisprudence. By contrast, Israel was regarded as an advanced society, governed
by the law, i.e. Torah. This represents, to a certain extent, a paradox: members of
the community are liable to impurity, outsiders are not. An extreme consequence
of this was formulated by R. Shimon ben Yohai: even graves of non-Jews do not
cause impurity, for gentiles are not included within the term םדא, human being,
in the verse להאב תומי יכ םדא, “When a person dies in a tent” (Numbers 19:14).
Richard Kalmin deals with a topic that most scholars would look at askance:
the evil eye in Talmudic sources. He shows it may serve as a valuable source

4
Benjamin Isaac and Yuval Shahar
of information about the Jewish self-image as presented in Palestinian and
Babylonian sources, the views the Jews held of each other and of their non-
Jewish environment. Remarkable is the pronounced difference between these
two groups of sources. The Palestinian ones regard the evil eye as a weapon
belonging to others, not to Jews. The earlier, Tannaitic sources recognize only
its non-magic form. Post-tannaitic sources also accept the existence of the
magic version, and find that the Roman Empire is to blame for its existence.
Babylonian sources have an entirely different view: the evil eye can be Jewish
or not. It is not restricted to others, to non-Jews and it is used by Jews among
each other, even by lesser Rabbis. The Bavli recognizes means to neutralize it
as a weapon. Another distinction: the Yerushalmi attempts to brand the evil eye
as a Babylonian problem, not a Palestinian one. The Bavli does not attempt to
do the reverse. These conclusions then say as much about contemporary views
of the supernatural as about attitudes toward others and themselves amongst
the two communities.
With Peter Schäfer’s article we focus on later Jewish views of Christianity, notably
the reports on Jesus’ origins as reflected in Jewish sources, with particular
emphasis on the Toledot Yeshu, a group of mediaeval Jewish texts on Jesus (Yeshu).
The impression it gives of the image of Jesus among Jews in this period is
noteworthy. The central issue is not Jesus as blasphemer and false messiah who
pretended to be the son of god. Miriam, his mother,is depicted without hostility,
the victim of rape and not to blame for what happened. There was no virgin birth,
of course, and Jesus remains a bastard, but his mother is innocent. Jesus himself
is depicted rather as a bad Torah student, guilty of arrogant behaviour toward his
teachers. This is a remarkabe Jewish response to Christianity, although, admittedly,
the source belongs to a period considerably later than the one which is the
subject of this volume.
The subject of Martin Goodman’s study is the small number of elite Jews who
witnessed the destruction of the sanctuary not as defenders of Jerusalem, nor
from a safe distance in the diaspora, but from within (or close to) the headquarters
of the Roman general. Of these Jews one, the historian Josephus, played a
role in Titus’ dynastic ambitions as the prophet alleged to have predicted already
in 67 CE that Vespasian would become emperor. Three others – Agrippa II, his
sister Berenice, and Tiberius Julius Alexander were close associates of Titus.
While Tiberius Alexander had in fact abandoned Judaism, Josephus never distanced
himself from the Jewish people, whatever his role during the war. The
paper discusses Agrippa and Berenice in particular: they are not mentioned in
Talmudic sources, but that is not significant in itself, for, important though they
were, they were irrelevant to the central topics of these sources. Their father,
Agrippa I, is well known for his devotion to the Temple and Jewish religion.
He and his children were part of the eastern aristocracy who, at the same time,
played a role in Roman society, social and political. Goodman’s paper shows

Introduction 5
how they combined their role in Roman society with an active commitment to
their religion, the Temple cult and Judaean affairs. As such they form a rare and
vivid example of the manner in which eastern aristocracy maintained its local
ties and identity and, at the same time, was integrated in the imperial elite.
Tessa Rajak contributes a thoughtful reconsideration of a highly sensitive and
complex subject: Jewish resistance and martyrdom under Roman rule. While the
title might suggest that the discussion is limited to Josephus, the point is rather
that a proper interpretation of the evidence from Josephus has broader implications
for our views of martyrdom as a significant factor in the Jewish resistance
against Rome in the first and second centuries. To some extent this has implications
also for the interaction between Jews and Christians and thus fits the topics
of the papers concerned with these relations. At the same time it is a salutary
reminder that the interpretation of Josephus’ work is never simple.
Yuval Shahar deals with the siqariqon ruling (Mishnah Gittin v, 6) and the
conditions which allow a Jew in Eretz Israel to buy a field that was confiscated
earlier from another Jew because of anti-Roman activities. The paper deals with
a specific question that has not been asked before: why a quarter must be given
to the original owner. The ‘quarter’ plays no role in any connection with the
laws concerning sale, inheritance and the like, neither in biblical Law nor in the
post-biblical halakhah that developed until the redaction of the Mishnah. On the
other hand three historical phases in the course of the development of the Roman
law of succession show the quarter as an important element. The last stage, in
the time of Antoninus Pius, is connected with the Law of Trusts (Fideicommissa)
and extended the ‘quarter’ even to the succession to intestates. This phase in
Roman law is roughly contemporaneous with the period of Ushah and Rabban
Shimon ben Gamaliel, who enjoined that a quarter should be given to the original
owner. Many scholars have commented on the role of Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi in the
later phase of the historical process of the ruling, as one of many indications of
his policy of encouraging new positive relationships between Judaea and Rome.
In the case of the siqariqon, this policy is marked by recognition of the Roman
confiscation and an intention to reduce the difference between Jewish halakhah
and Roman law. Shahar’s analysis identifies an earlier, first step, taken in this
direction, probably by his father, much closer to the disastrous consequences of
Ben-Kosba war.
Susan Weingarten is in this book the sole representative of those who study
the history of food. Her topic is haroset, one of the traditional dishes served during
the Seder at Passover. On the basis of Talmudic sources and material from
the Cairo Genizah she concludes that haroset probably owes its origins to the
Graeco-Roman dipping sauces whose functions were to counteract the bitterness
and /or ill-effects of lettuce and endives. If this is the case, then we have a
concrete example of the interaction of Jewish and Greco-Roman customs even
at one of the most important festivals of the year.

6
Benjamin Isaac and Yuval Shahar
Jonathan Price considers the information to be derived from a comparison of
the Jewish epitaphs of the Roman period from Beth Shearim on the one hand
and from Jaffa, where the Jews were no more than a substantial minority, on the
other. We gain information about social and economic Jewish life in the period.
At Jaffa the inscriptions represent a group of people with modest professions,
including some immigrants with a relatively large component identifying their
origin as Egypt. At Beth Shearim those buried represent a broader range of economic
status, with some very wealthy tombs. Many of them were brought there
from a variety of locations in the Near East. This paper does not so much focus
on Jews and non-Jews – non-Jews were not buried at Beth Shearim and their
tombs have not been discovered in large numbers at Jaffa. It does, however, give
a lively impression of the mobility of Jews in the Near East under Roman rule.
Youval Rotman traces the remarkable differences between various communities
in their attitude toward ransoming captives, as was usual in classical Greece
and in the Hellenistic period. Common property was used for the purpose.
Prisoners of war were exchanged by states, including the Hasmonaeans. Rome,
however, ceased to ransom captives after Cannae (216 BCE). By that time it
was regarded as shameful, for in battle one is victorious or dies. Roman captives
were reduced to the status of slaves, also according to Roman law. Jewish norms
were different: here individual ransoming and private initiatives are attested, and
it was even a moral and legal obligation to ransom relatives. Talmudic sources,
attaching increasing importance to the issue, contain discussions how much
money, including public funds, may or should be earmarked for the purpose.
Christians too ransomed members of their community. The custom was closely
associated with the development of charity and almsgiving and is well attested
in papyrological material. The ideological background for the Jewish practice
was that members of their community were captured by non-Jews, while for
Christians it was that they had fallen into the hands of religious enemies, situations
comparable to a large extent. As observed by Rotman, the development
of the practice of redeeming captives by the Christian Empire developed out of
the state of war between the Empire and its enemies from the fourth to the sixth
century (Sassanian attacks; Goths). The church often took responsibility.
Werner Eck discusses the limited evidence for a Jewish presence in Cologne
in the Roman period. They are firmly attested there in a legal source of 321
which determines that they can act as decuriones. This in itself shows that there
must have been a considerable number of Jews of means in the city at the time.
However, there is no further documentation or evidence of any kind until the
eighth or ninth century when the existence of a synagogue is attested. All that
can be said is that the city existed from the fifth until the eighth century and that
there were Christians there in the earlier part of this period.
David Goodblatt’s contribution is salutary, but depressing: it argues that we
know far less about the Jews in the Parthian Empire than was thought not so

Introduction 7
long ago. There is hardly any reliable information about the Jews in Media, Elam
and Parthia under Parthian rule. For Mesopotamia / Babylonia, the situation is
not much better. The Greek and Latin sources contain little reliable information,
nor are Talmudic sources helpful for this period, according to Goodblatt. This, of
course, is an issue that has been debated frequently by modern scholars.
Yoram Tsafrir’s paper deals with quite a different topic, a matter of lively,
even fierce controversy, namely the identification of skeletons found in caves
2001 and 2002 at Masada. It represents an interesting case of modern polemics,
fed by ideology, about an ancient war. While there were personal elements
to this modern conflict, the issue of contention focused on matters of historical
interpretation and ideology, that is to say, the case of the Zealots, their role in
the resistance to Roman rule and their collective suicide in the face of defeat. At
issue were the possible presence of pig bones – very dubious, to say the least –
among the skeletons and the identification of those buried in the caves as Jews,
Roman soldiers or Byzantine monks or other Christians. Tsafrir shows that the
latter suggestions are to be excluded on archaeological grounds. That leaves two
possibilities: they could be the remains of Jews who died during the siege and
were buried there by other Jews – Tsafrir’s original suggestion which he still
prefers – or they could have been placed there by Roman soldiers after the fall
of Masada, the solution preferred by Yadin.
Isaiah Gafni’s contribution is an exercise in the history of modern scholarship,
but, again, it is marked by fierce historical and ideological controversy, namely
the development of ideas about the position of rabbis, the sages, in antiquity. He
traces the widely differing views from the early nineteenth century and how they
were affected by the spirit of the time (the Zeitgeist).
This is a collection of papers by individual contributors who were totally free
in the choice of their topics. They were not selected on the assumption that there
would be a common approach. Even so there are elements of a common approach
and joint interest among many of the contributions. Over the past decades
subjects like ethnicity, or group identity have received much attention. This has
been true for Jewish history in antiquity as well. These particular subjects are
not found in the present volume. However, central to many of the papers is a
focus on attitudes toward others and collective image: the Jews as seen by others;
Jews looking at others and at internal groups. Thus we see contributions about
the Pharisees as described in the Gospel of Luke (Baumgarten), early Christian
sources on the Shabat (Cohen), Jews on early Christians (Schwartz, Stemberger),
the inferiority of gentiles according to Talmudic sources (Noam); the evil eye
seen as typically non-Jewish among Jews in Palestine, but not so in Babylonia
(Kalmin), and mediaeval Jewish texts about Jesus (Schäfer). Another category of
articles are chapters in social and intellectual history with a sensitive and controversial
ideology in the background: elite Jews in Judaea and Rome (Goodman);
Jewish resistance and martyrdom (Rajak); the siqariqon and the status of land

8
Benjamin Isaac and Yuval Shahar
confiscated by the Romans in Judaea (Shahar); the interaction of Jewish and
Greco-Roman food (Weingarten); Jewish cemeteries as a social mirror (Price);
the ransoming or not of captives by Romans, Jews and Christians (Rotman); the
interpretation of early Talmudic sources on Babylonian Jews (Goodblatt); the
interpretation of archaeological material from Masada (Tsafrir); and evolving
views on ancient rabbis (Gafni). Another example of such a sensitive topic is the
question of the Jewish presence in Cologne (Eck).
The conference in honour of Aharon Oppenheimer was a lively event. The
editors hope that this collection conveys the mood of thoughtful, engaged scholarship
and innovation in the study of Jewish history in antiquity.

The Image of Jews among Non-Jews

The “Outreach” Campaign of the Ancient Pharisees:
There is no such thing as a Free Lunch*
Albert I. Baumgarten
Aharon Oppenheimer and I spent the academic year 1992–1993 as Fellows of the
Institute of Advanced Studies in Jerusalem. One of my pleasantest memories of
that year was the last month or so of our collaborative work, when the members
of the group he and Isaiah Gafni had assembled re-assessed the contributions of
the giants of the discipline of previous generations. We began this review on a
lark, as a way to fill time between the end of our formal collective work and the
entry of the next year’s selected fellows. It was Lawrence Schiffman, as I recall,
who was visiting Israel that summer and joined our discussions, who first helped
us recognize the potential merit of what we were doing. Several of these studies
were later published, 1 mine included. 2 In the latter paper, as part of the assessment
of Marcel Simon’s scholarship, I considered the question of whether there
was a general Jewish mission to the non-Jewish world in the post-destruction
era, in competition with the Christian mission. The current paper takes up and
elaborates the theme of missionizing, but focuses instead on the Pharisees in the
pre-70 years. Returning to a topic associated – even if a bit indirectly – with our
* The published version of this paper owes much to comments, criticisms, and suggestions
for further reading by Steve Mason then of York University, Toronto, now at Kings College,
University of Aberdeen, Scotland, offered in response to an earlier version. It was a pleasure to
be one of Mason’s instructors many years ago, when we were both at McMaster University, and
a privilege to have the benefit of conversation and consultation with a scholar of such distinction
today. As I did not dare ask Mason whether he was convinced by a revised version of the
original draft, responsibility for this paper is exclusively mine.
1 A. Oppenheimer, ‘Gedaliah Alon – zwischen der jüdischen Historiographie des 19. Jahrhunderts
und der modernen historischen Forschung’, in A. Oppenheimer, (Ed.), Jüdische Geschichte
in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit, Wege der Forschung: Vom alten zum neuen Schürer
(Munich 1999), pp. 165–180; idem, ‘Gedalyahu Alon Fifty Years On’, Zion, 69 (2004),
pp. 459– 486 (Hebrew); I. Gafni, ‘Talmudic Research in Modern Times: Between Scholarship
and Ideology’, in A. Oppenheimer, (Ed.), Jüdische Geschichte (Munich 1999), pp. 133–148;
idem, ‘Scholarship on the History of the Talmudic Period: A Generation of Achievement and
Reconsideration’, Cathedra, 100 (2001), pp. 199–226 (Hebrew); idem, ‘On Gedaliahu Alon
and his Role in the Study of Rabbinic Historiography’, Jewish Studies, 41 (2002), pp. 75–83
(Hebrew); M. Goodman,’ Jean Juster and the Study of Jews under Roman Rule’, in G. Khan
(Ed.), Semitic Studies in Honour of Edward Ullendorff (Leiden 2005), pp. 309–322.
2 A. Baumgarten, ‘Marcel Simon’s Verus Israel as a Contribution to Jewish History’, Harvard
Theological Review, 92 (1999), pp. 465–478.

12
Albert I. Baumgarten
most productive, beneficial, and enjoyable days together, is the best tribute I can
pay to a friend and colleague.
I
In the early to mid 1990s, a series of studies argued against the then widely
prevalent view that ancient Pharisees were engaged in a world-wide campaign to
convert as many people as possible to Judaism and to the Pharisaic way of life.
This conclusion rested on a number of foundations in the sources, but perhaps
most of all on Matt 23:15 – “woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For
you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a
proselyte you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”
Against the usual conclusion, and the conventional understanding of Matt
23:15, Will and Orrieux argued that Matt 23:15 represented a specific perspective
of members of the early church fighting against the successors of the
Pharisees at Yavneh. According to them, this verse was not the opening shot of
what would be a long battle, but a rear-guard action of little consequence. There
was no Jewish or pharisaic missionary campaign to convert the world. There
were converts, but they did not join the Jewish people because of the efforts
of missionaries, but because they were in close contact with large communities
of native-born Jews. There may have been many reasons this proximity
to Jewish communities bore fruit in conversions, but a mission by Jews or the
Pharisees to the gentile world was not one of them. At most, according to Will
and Orrieux, the missionary activity of Jews/ Pharisees was directed internally,
towards those Jews whose attachment to the ancestral traditions seemed in need
of reinforcement. 3
Will and Orrieux’s analysis generated significant favorable responses. A number
of scholars, Shaye J. D. Cohen for example, had argued similar conclusions
themselves, so their approval of Will and Orrieux might be discounted somewhat.
4 However, the strongly favorable review by a distinguished “outsider” to
the issues under discussion, William Chester Jordan of Princeton, a medievalist,
in the American Historical Review, was notable. 5
3 E. Will and C. Orrieux, “Proselytisme juif ”?: histoire d’une erreur (Paris 1992). Their
argument was preceded by S. McKnight, A Light Among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity
in the Second Temple Period (Minneapolis 1991). See, however, S. Mason, ‘Review of
McKnight, A Light Among the Gentiles’, Ioudaios Review, 1.001 (July 1991), available on-line
at http://listserv.lehigh.edu/lists/ioudaios-review/; J. Sievers, ‘Review of McKnight, A Light
Among the Gentiles’, AJSReview, 18 (1993), pp. 300–303.
4 S. J. D. Cohen, ‘Review of Will and Orrieux, Proselytisme Juif ?’, Jewish Quarterly Review,
86 (1996), pp. 429–434.
5 W. C. Jordan, ‘Review of Will and Orrieux, Proselytisme Juif ?’, American Historical
Review, 99 (1994), pp. 867–868.

The “Outreach” Campaign of the Ancient Pharisees
A few years after the publication of Will and Orrieux, Martin Goodman covered
much the same ground and reached many of the same central conclusions.
Thus, for example, Goodman understood the Pharisaic missionary activity to
which Matt 23:15 was referring as efforts by the Pharisees to convince as many
Jews as possible to join their movement. 6
Since the mid-nineties, however, my sense is that the main focus of scholarly
discussion has moved elsewhere. Perhaps the most obvious new centers of debate
and interest have been (1) the suggestion to replace Jews/Jewish /Judaism
with Judean and its derivatives, to understand identity as ethnic and to abandon
“religious” categories as alien to the ancient world, 7 and (2) the focus on the
“parting of the ways” between what would be Judaism and Christianity. 8 Despite
this move away from the issues concerning Pharisaic or Jewish missionizing,
I would like to return to these matters in this paper, although from a different
point of view
II
This paper has several goals: first is to present a different way of analyzing the
evidence of the Pharisees in a double context – one ancient, the other in the light
of modern social science. For lack of a more elegant term, I call this the “double
filter” through which I read the sources on the Pharisees. 9 The social scientific
aspect of the “double filter” will be discussed in greater detail immediately below
(section iii). As for the ancient filter, I refer to the fact that the Pharisees were
a group that wanted to achieve authority, status, and stature, despite the fact that
they did not begin with any of the obvious resources that would qualify them for
the role they wanted to play. For example, they were not necessarily hereditary
priests, but were a lay movement, claiming to be the most accurate interpreters
of the law, a task usually assumed to be the prerogative of priests (Josephus, AJ
6 M. Goodman, Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman
Empire (Oxford 1994), pp. 60–90.
7 See S. Mason, ‘Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient
History’, Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period,
38 (2007), pp. 457–512. Cf. however, D. Schwartz, ‘Jews, Judeans and the Epoch that
Disappeared: On H. Graetz’s Changing View of the Second Temple Period’, Zion, 70 (2005),
pp. 293–310 (Hebrew).
8 I note two seminal works on the topic: A. H. Becker and A. Y. Reed (Eds.), The Ways that
Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Tübingen
2003); D. Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia 2004).
9 For another example of this approach to the ancient Pharisees, see A. Baumgarten, ‘Die
Pharisäer und die Gräber der Propheten’, in A. Bedenbender (Ed.), Judäo-Christentum. Die
gemeinsame Wurzel von rabbinischem Judentum und früher Kirche (Paderborn / Frankfurt am
Main 2012, forthcoming).
13

14
Albert I. Baumgarten
20.264–266). 10 Nor did the Pharisees have direct access to the powers of legitimate
coercion associated with the government. They had to convince people to
take them seriously. As such, they had a number of ancient analogues, from the
late first century CE to the early third, running from the topics treated in some
of Plutarch’s essays, to Celsus’ Christians, to Lucian’s Peregrinus, Demonax,
and Alexander the False Prophet, and culminating in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius
of Tyana. Our sources on many of these analogues are hostile to them, but
some are favorable. Sometimes, they describe a one-man movement, sometimes
a group. As such, they provide a rich comparative synchronic backdrop against
which to view the Pharisees. 11
This leads to the second goal of this paper: to take advantage of the “double
filter” to free the study of the ancient Pharisees from the chains of judgmental
theological evaluation. The Pharisees are still all too often a lightning rod for
tendentious disagreement between Christians and Jews, 12 and among Jews as
well. 13 Any contribution to breaking these chains is welcome.
The third goal is a direct consequence of tendencies in scholarship over the
past generation: as methods of analysis have become more sophisticated, old
certainties about the past have rightly been called into question. The hallmark of
our time, as Steve Mason, noted is “profound historical agnosticism.” 14 Yet, this
should not mark an end to efforts to know the past. Even agnosticism should have
its limits. The historian’s métier remains to make connections. As argued by one
of the greatest historians of the twentieth century, Christopher Hill (1912–2003),
in one of his last books, as an explicit intellectual testament, quoting T. S. Eliot:
‘A poet’s mind … is constantly amalgamating disparate experience. The ordinary man …
falls in love, or reads Spinoza, and these two experiences have nothing to do with each
other, or with the noise of the typewriter or the smell of cooking: in the mind of the poet
these experiences are always forming new wholes.’ Without wishing to claim too much for
history, still less to distinguish historians from ‘ordinary men’ and women, I think there is
force in Sydney’s statement of a familiar trope: ‘the best of the historian is subject to the
10 See the ground-breaking discussion by S. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees
(Leiden 1991), pp. 89–96. See also A. Baumgarten, ‘The Pharisaic Paradosis’, Harvard Theological
Review, 80 (1987), pp. 63–77.
11 For a significant analysis of these sources, from which I have learned much, see L. Bieler,
Das Bild des “göttlichen Menschen” in Spätantike und Frühchristentum (Wien
1935); G. Anderson, Sage, Saint and Sophist: Holy Men and their Associates in the Early Roman
Empire (London / New York 1994); A. Reimer, Miracle and Magic: A Study in the Acts of
the Apostles and the Life of Apollonius of Tyana (London 2002).
12 For the distorted portrait of the Pharisees as drawn by Christians in service of their theological
agenda, see the literature that takes its lead from the classic article by G. F. Moore.
‘Christian Writers on Judaism’, Harvard Theological Review, 14 (1921), pp. 197–254.
13 See, for example, D. R. Schwartz, ‘Kingdom of Priests – a Pharisaic Slogan?’, Studies in
the Jewish Background of Christianity (Tübingen 1992), pp. 57–80
14 S. Mason, ‘Chief Priests, Sadducees, Pharisees, and the Sanhedrin in Luke-Acts and
Josephus’, Josephus, Judea and Christian Origins: Methods and Categories (Peabody, MA
2009), p. 329.

The “Outreach” Campaign of the Ancient Pharisees
poet.’ … Good – imaginative – history is akin to retrospective poetry. It is about life as
lived – as much of it as we can recapture. 15
Lest this prescription be interpreted as a legitimation of intellectual anarchy, in
which any sort of “new whole,” based on “amalgamating disparate experience”
is equally valid, Hill insisted that a historian’s work must be as contextual as
possible for the time and place studied:
The historian should not stay on the surface of events; his interest should not be limited
to State Papers, Parliamentary debates, acts and ordinances, decisions of judges and local
magistrates, still less to battles and the amours of kings. He should listen – carefully and
critically – to ballads, plays, pamphlets, newspapers, tracts, the ‘whispering of the people’,
the cipher diaries and private correspondence of MPs, spiritual autobiographies – to every
source that can help him or her to get the feel of how people lived and in what ways their
sensitivity differed from ours … The historian must listen to alchemists and astrologers no
less than to bishops, to demands of London crowds; and he or she must try to understand
the motivation of rioters, whether they are labeled anti-Catholic or anti-enclosure rioters
or simply food rioters. 16
This paper argues that aspects of the account of the Pharisees in Luke – despite
its obvious hostility, and blatant attempt to discredit the Pharisees – may teach
us something about the historical Pharisees. Read through the first of the “double
filters,” the analysis of these sources has a solid contextual basis. When combined
with the results of reading these sources through the modern social scientific
filter, we possess two independent ways of viewing the ancient evidence that reinforce
each other. When two independent ways of analysis agree, I propose, this
result is worth serious consideration to be the basis for historical conclusions. 17
III
One of the contributions of social scientific study of the various new religious
movements that flourished in recent decades has been a better understanding
of the dynamics by which people make choices to change their affiliation. We
15 C. Hill, The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution (Harmondsworth
1993), pp. 437–438.
16 Ibid, p. 437. For arguments against the limits of agnosticism specific to Jewish History
and in direct dialogue with post-modernist trends, see M. Rosman, How Jewish is Jewish History
(Oxford 2007).
17 Compare Mason’s reluctance to draw historical conclusions from the agreement of Luke
and Josephus concerning the Pharisees, ‘Chief Priests’, p. 373. Both these authors used “the
Pharisees … as part of the understood scenery of first century Palestine. Far from inflating the
Pharisees’ influence out of a desire to support them, for example, both authors assume it in order
to complain about it.” Nevertheless, for Mason, the historical hypotheses advanced thus far do
not explain the narratives as we have them, and do not offer a comprehensive interpretation
of those narratives. For that reason, “paradoxically, nearly two thousand years after … Pharisees
… flourished, we await satisfactory explanations of their lives and times.”
15

Apicius 211–213
Athenaeus 210–212
Archestratus of Gela 211, 213
Cassius Dio 183, 231, 268
Celsus 14, and Toledot Yeshu 142–145, 156,
158
Cyprian 239, 241–242
Ephraem the Syrian 51
Epiphanius of Salamis 87
Eusebius 268
Flavius Josephus 4, 5, 21, 25, 37, 57–58, 60,
62, 65, 181–183, 231; on martyrdom 165,
170, 172, 174–180, 286 (Masada); and
ransoming captives 228, 231, 235; On
Parthian Jewry (Babylonia, Mesopotamia,
Adiabene) 266–267, 269–270, 272–274
Gaius (Institutes) 197–199, 201
Gregory of Nazianzus 51
Ignatius of Antioch 29–32, 167, 241
Pseudo Ignatius 2, 29–51: passim
Ancient writers
Jerome 87, 208
John Chrysostom 33–35, 41, 49
Justin Martyr 36, 47, 86–87, 167
Lucian 17, 24
Luke, gospel of about the Pharisees 2, 7,
15–28; about the Temple 72; about Jesus
139, 147, 149
Maimonides Moses 106, 211
Paulus (Questions) 199
Philo 37, 182, 270
Philostratus 14, 22 (Apollonius of Tyana)
Pliny 211
Plutarch 14, 116, 185
Procopius 245
Raimundus Martinus 144, 158
Suetonius 183
Tacitus 183, 273
Tertullian 168, 239
Theodoret of Cyrrhus 41–42

Alon, Gedalyahu 90, 96, 295, 301–302,
304–306
Amit, Aaron 125
Avigad, Nachman 216
Be‘eri, Nurit 194
Ben-Shalom, Israel 304
Ben Yehuda, Nachman 285
Berthelot, Katell 171–173
Bijovsky, Gabriela 216
Blau, Ludwig Lajos 112
Bainbridge, William Sims 16,19
Baumgarten, Albert 61
Birenboim, Hanan 91–92
Bowersock, Glen 167
Boyarin, Daniel 64, 169
Broshi, Magen 26
Brown, Peter 134–135
Büchler, Adolf 89–90, 95–96
Carmi, Israel 284
Castelli, Elizabeth 165
Chayes, Zvi Hirsh R. 299–300
Clermont-Ganneau, Charles Simon 222
Cohen, J. D. Shaye 12, 61, 63–64, 109,
301–302
Daube, David 172
de Lange, Nicholas 211
Deines, Roland 28
Deutsch, Yaacov 143–144
Di Segni, Riccardo 142
Doran, Robert 171
Douglas, Mary 101–102
Drori, Amir 279
Ecker, Avner 216, 221
Efron, Yehoshua 306
Elliot, H. John 66
Epstein, Jacob Nahum 96
Finkelstein, Louis 300–301
Fleischer, Ezra 84–85
Ford, James Nathan 112
Frankel, Zacharias 304
Fredriksen, Paula 65
Gafni, Isaiah 11, 263–264, 266, 269,
275–277
Gil, Moshe 193, 195
Ginzberg, Louis 300
Modern scholars
Goodblatt, David 66
Goodman, Martin 13, 58, 61–64
Graetz, Heinrich 193, 304
Haas, Nico 286, 288–290
Halevy, Yitzhaq Isaac 275
Harrill, Albert 241
Hayes, Christine 91–92, 107–108
Hengel, Martin 28, 202
Herman, Geoffrey 277
Hill, Christopher 14–15
Isaac, Benjamin 306
Jordan, William Chester 12
Kahrstedt, Urlich 272
Kaplan, Jacob 215, 221, 224
Klawans, Jonathan 90–92, 107
Klingshirn, William 245
Krochmal, Abraham 298–299
Krochmal, Nachman 299
Kunitz, Moshe of Buda, R. 296
Langer, Ruth 83
Lindner, Amnon 251
Lishansky, Joseph 284, 290
Mason, Steve 14, 19, 58, 64–67
Mazar, Benjamin 216
Mullen, J. Patrick 27
Neusner, Jacob 59–60, 64, 79, 263, 271, 277
Oppenheimer, Aharon 189, 237, 267, 275,
296, 305–306
Orrieux, Claude 12–13
Osiek, Carolyn 238
Rajak, Tessa 218–5, 273
Rordorf, Willy 48
Rosenthal, Ferdinand 203
Rostovtzeff, Michael Ivanovitch 230, 274
Safrai, Chana 295
Safrai, Shmuel 192–193
Safrai, Zeev 295
Sanders, Ed 28, 57
Sanders, Jack 27
Schalit, Abraham 273
Schechter, Solomon 85
Schick, Conrad 222
Schiffmann, Lawrence 11, 269
Schorr, Joshua Heschel 297–298
Schwartz, Seth 59–61, 82, 295

Segal, Dror 284
Segal, Benjamin Judah 269
Shemesh, Aharon 101
Simon, Marcel 11
Sokoloff, Michael 158
Solodukho, Yuri Aharonovitz 301–302
Spilsbury, Paul 60
Stark, Rodney 16, 19
Stein, Siegfried 210–211
Stern, Menachem 267, 269
Teppler, Y. Yaakov 75, 82–84
Tsafrir, Yoram 279–75, 284
Modern scholars 319
Turan, Sinai 112, 121
van Henten, Jan Willem 171
Weiner, Eugene and Anita 171
Vitto, Fanny 216
Weiss, Zeev 216–217
Weitzman, Steven 66, 178
Weiss, Hirsch Isaac 300
Widengren, Geo 264, 269
Wiesehöfer, Josef 272
Will, Edouard 12–13
Yadin, Yigael 279–293: passim
Zias, Joseph 284

Abba Umana 238
Abbahu /Abahu, R. 37–38, 115, 135–136
Abbaye 40–41, 210, 236, 238, 243
Abu Kabir (Jaffa necropolis) 215–216,
220–226
Abraham /Abram (the Biblical figure/ Patriarch)
17, 130, 132–133, 146
Acta Alexandrinorum 169–170
Adiabene 188, 267–270, 273–274
Agobard of Lyons and Toledot Yeshu 142,
144, 158
Agrippa I 4, 185–186, 189
Agrippa II 4, 181–190: passim, and Judaism
187–188; and Polemo of Cilicia 188;
and The Temple in Jerusalem 187
‘Ailiesh, Rav 140
Akiva /Akiba /Aqiva R. 94, 97, 127–129,
275, 305–307; and Toledot Yeshu
147–148, 156–157, 160
Alexander, alabarch of Alexandria 182
Alexander Yannai and Toledot yeshu 147,
153, 157
Alexandria 156, 170; Jews of 175, 273
Ambrose of Milan 228–229, 242, 244–245
Amemar (a Babylonian sage) 116
Amulo of Lyons and Toledot Yeshu 142,
144, 158
Ananel, High Priest from Babylon 270
Ananias, a Jewish merchant who took part in
the conversion affair at Adiabene 269
Antiochus Epiphanes 173
Antiochus IV of Commagene 184–185
Antiochus V 170
Antonin (Andrei Ivanovich Kapustin) 222
Antoninus, Talmudic Roman Caesar and
friend of Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi 297
Antoninus Pius 5, 199–201
Aphrodisias, Jewish bouleutai of 251
Apostolic Constitutions 30, 42–48, 50, 239
Aristeas, letter of 229- 231, 246
Artabanus II / III 272
Ashi, Rav 116, 227–228, 301
Asinaios and Anilaios 271–273
Assi, Rav 196
Astrology 132–133
General Index
Augustine 2, 38–41, 49
Augustus 149, 198
Babatha, ketubba of 232–233
Babylonia /Jewish Babylonia and sages 1,
40–41, 49, 81–82, 196, 298–300, 306;
in the Parthian empire 1, 3–4, 263–278;
and Evil Eye 4, 7, 111–112, 114–125,
127–129, 131–138; and Haroset 209–210,
212–213; and ransoming captives 236,
244; in Toledot Yeshu 146–147, 149–153,
155–156, 159
Banquet as a social network and Jesus and
Pharisees 18–21; and Yosef in Toledot
Yeshu 154; and Greek and Roman culture
212
Bar Kokhba, war of 5, 193, 200, 201, 234,
253, 303, 305
Ben Kosba see: Bar Kokhba
Bar Shishakh (a gentile figure in the Babylonian
Talmud) 122–124
Berekhia, R. 37–38
Berenice 4, 181–190: passim
Beth She‘arim, necropolis of 6,
215–226:passim see also burial
Birkat ha-minim 75–88
Burial, in the Holy Land 219; Burials in
Beth She’arim from the eastern Diaspora
as far as Palmyra, Nehardea, Ezion-Gaber
and Hymiar 218; Burials in Jaffa from
Tarsus, Cappadocia, Cyrenaica, Chios,
Lycia, Egypt 225–226; Burials at Masada
279–291 see also cemeteries
Caesarea Maritima 175, 184, 186, 215
Caesarea-Philippi 183
Caesarius of Arles 245
Cairo Geniza and Birkat ha-minim 76, 78,
83–85; and Toledot Yeshu 142, 158; and
Haroset 5, 211–213
Caligula 185, 189
Candidos, bishop of Sergiopolis 245–246
Cannae, battle of 6, 230
Captives 1, 6, 8, 175, 185, 227–247: passim;
status of 230–7; and Jewish impurity law
3, 93–95
Castellum Divitiensium 255

Cemeteries 2, 8, 215–226: passim; a
Christian cemetery in Jaffa 220–221; in
Jerusalem 215, 217–219, 225; in Qumran
26; in Masada 292
Charity (tzedakah) and ransoming captives
6, 235- 239
Chosroes 246
Cologne, Jewish community of 1, 6, 8,
249–259: passim; curia of 250; Christian
community of 252, 256; synagogue
at 256–258; Praetorium at 256–52
Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium see
Cologne
Confiscated land and siqariqon 5, 8, 192,
195, 197, 200–203
Constantine 82, 87, 154, 252; constitution
of 11 December 321 of 249–255
Conversion /converts 12–28: passim, 58, 64,
72, 91; and Pesah 94–96
Ctesiphon 267
Cyprus 268
Diaspora 1, 4, 25, 70–72, 182, 189, 253,
265, 299; and Birkat ha-Minim 75, 82,
84, 86–87; and martyrdom 173–174, 179;
and burial in Eretz Israel 218, 226 (Beth
She’arim), 225 (Jaffa)
Domitian 202
Dostai son of R.Yannai, R. 276
Drusilla, daughter of Agrippa I 185,
187–188
Dura Europos 266
Earthquake of 363 217
Edessa 267–269
Egypt 6, 43, 173, 182, 225–226, 231, 268;
and Toledot Yeshu 139–140, 156–157; and
Pesah 209, 213
Elam, Jews in 7, 264–265
Eleazar, brother of Judas the Maccabee 170
Eleazar in 2 Maccabees 173, 179
Eleazar ben Yair, leader at Masada 170, 177
Eleazar, a Galilean who took part in the
conversion affair at Adiabene 269
Elazar ben Zadok, R. 205
Eliezer, R. 85, 119, 147, 148, 156, 157
Eliezer ben Yaakov, R. 94–96
Endives and Pesah 5, 206, 211–213
Ephron the Hittite 130
Epiphanius of Salamis 87
Epitaphs, Jewish 1, 6, 215–226: passim
Essenes 21, 58, 91, 177
Euphrates 253, 266–267, 270–271, 273
Evil eye 3–4, 7, 111–138: passim
Exilarchate of Babylonian Jewry 276–173
General Index 321
Fideicommissa 5, 198–202
First-fruit offerings 193–194, 201–202
Food and Shabat 2, 31–36; and Jewish purity
21 (Judith), 97; forbidden food and
Jewish martyrdom 177; and Pesach 5, 8,
205–213; remnants of food in Masada
280, 288, 290
Fourth Philosophy 57–58
Franks, at Cologne 258
Galilee/Galileans 25, 186, 217, 269; and
Jesus 66, 154, 157; and Evil Eye 129–130,
133
Gamaliel, Rabban the Elder (I) 264–265,
275
Gamaliel, Rabban de-Yavneh (II) 75–88
Gamaliel, son of Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi (III)
298
Gentile, impurity of 89–110: passim; as
belongings to nature in contradistinction
to culture 3, 100–102, 108–109
Goths 6, 245, 247
Hadrian 168, 179, 198, 201
Hagar 131
Haggai, R. 37–38
Hamnuna, Rav 298
Hananyah, Misha’el and Azariah (Biblical
Figures from Daniel) 118–119
Hananyah, the nephew of R. Yehoshua
275–276
Hanina, R. 50, 129, 136–137
Haroset 5, 205–213: passim; and the Last
Supper/Jeshu 207–208, 213
Harugei malkhut 168
Hasmonean / Maccabean period and leaders
90, 154, 186–187, 219, 228, 247; and
martyrdom 166–168, 170, 172–174, 179;
and ransoming captives 228–229; and
modern trends 303–304
Helena of Adiabene 188
Helena, Queen in Toledot Yeshu 151, 154
Herod Antipas 25, 27
Herod of Chalcis 186
Herod the Great 25, 139, 156–157, 182,
186–187, 197, 231, 270–271, 274
Hillel the Elder 274; school of /Bet Hillel
94–97, 109, 300
Hippolytus 21–22
Hisda, R. and Toledot Yeshu 140, 141; and
ransoming captives 227
Honorius 245
Huna, R. 78
Husal in Babylonia 275
Hiyyah, R. 127, 136–137

322
Hiyya b. Ba, R. 37
Hyrcanus II 187, 270
Ideology and martyrdom 172, 174, 177–
179; and modern research of Masada 7,
285–286; and modern research of ancient
Judaism 295–307
Impurity and the Pharisees 21, 23; between
Jews and early Christians 68, 71–72; of a
Gentile 3, 89–110: passim; of a corpse 3,
89, 91–99, 101, and gentile’s corpse 104–
110
Isaac (the Biblical figure) 119, 174
Ishmael (the Biblical figure) 130–131
Ishmael b. Phiabi (High Priest) 187
Ishma’el, R. School of 275
Issi, R. 208
Jaffa /Joppe/ Yafo/ Flavia Ioppe, 6; settlement
of 219–220; necropolis of 215–226:
Passim; occupations in: bakers, a carder,
a rag dealer, a linen merchant and a centenarius
see also: Burials
Jason of Cyrene 173, 179
Jerome (Saint) 87, 208
Jerusalem 25; and the Temple 69–70, 72,
201, 265–267, 270–271; and Jewish
pilgrimage 72, 264–265, 270–271; and
Parthian / Babylonian Jewry 265–267,
270–271, 274; towards its destruction
4, 181–190: passim; necropolis 215,
217–219, 225; and ransoming 229, 233,
237; and Christians 30, 84; and Toledot
Yeshu 146–147, 149–151, 153, 157, 159
Jesus/ Yeshu 4, 7, 139–161: passim, 65–68,
86, 166–167, 269; and the Pharisees 17–
20, 23–25, 27; and the Temple 70, 72,
139–140, 144, 147, 150–151; and the last
Supper 207–208, 213
Jewish Christians 3, 27, 44. 55–73; and
Birkat ha-Minim 75–76, 85–87; and
martyrdom 167
John the Baptist 22; and Toledot Yeshu 139–
140, 143, 147
Joseph (the Biblical figure) 131, 135; his
descendants 34, 114–116, 135
Josef / Yosef (Mary’s husband / lover)
139–161: passim
Joshua / Yehoshua ben Levi, R. 78, 119, 157
Judah ha-Nasi / Patriarch, Rabbi 5, 191–192,
200, 203, 216, 219, 225, 277, 296–298,
301
Judah son of Batera, R. 266–267, 274
Judaea, the whole kingdom or province171,
257–258; and ransoming 231–234
General Index
Judaea, the region and Evil Eye 129–130,
133; and Siqariqon 201–202
Judith, book and figure 21
Julius Caesar 273
Justinian 198, 245
Kiddush ha-Shem 168
Köln see Cologne
Kurdistan 266–267
Last Supper and haroset 207–208, 213
Lettuce and Pesah 5, 206, 209–213
Levi, R. 210
Levites 72, 187
Levy bar Darga, R. 242–39
Lex Falcidia 197–199
Lusius Quietus 268–269
Lydda / Lod 189, 205
Magnesians, Letter of Ignatius 30; of
Pseudo Ignatius 31
Mamzer (bastard), Jesus and Toledot Yeshu
141, 146
Mar Zutra 116
Marcus Julius Alexander brother of Tiberius
Julius Alexander and first husband of
Berenice 182, 185
Mariamme (Herod’s wife) 187
maror 205–206, 208–209, 212–213
Martus and martyrdom 167, 168
Martyrdom, martyrs 5, 7, 29, 165–180
Mary, mother of Jesus/ Miriam 4, 139–161:
passim
Masada and Cave 2001–2002 7–8,
279–293: passim; ideological debate
about 7, 285–286; bones of pigs (?) 286,
289; skeletons, identity of 7, 288, 289,
290, 292, 293
Masada and martyrdom 170–171, 177
Media, Jews in 7, 264–265
Meditation on the laws 2, 31–32, 44–48, 50
Meir, R. 94–95, 109
Mesene 269
Mesopotamia 7, 111, 238, 244, 266–268,
274
Mission, Jewish / Pharisaic of 2, 11–28 passim,
269
Nahman, Rav 243
Nahum the Mede 265
Nathan, R. 276
Nazirite 71, 188
Nehardea 136, 219, 267, 271–276
Nehemiah of Bet Deli 275
Nisibis 266–268
Nonnos, inscription of in Jaffa necropolis
224

Ono 240
Palaestina / Palestinian Jews and sages 1,
55, 64, 67–69, 72–73, 147, 173–175, 179,
194, 201, 219, 299–300, 285, 306; and
Birkat Ha’Minim 82, 84, 86–87; and Evil
Eye 125–132; and Haroset 207, 210, 213;
and ransoming captives 233–234, 237,
240–241
Pandera (Pantera / Pantiri) 140–146,
149–151, 153–154, 156, 158–159
Pappa, Rav 209
Pappos ben Yehuda and Toledot Yeshu
140–141, 144–145, 156–157, 160
Parthian Empire 182, 185, 231; Jews in 6–7,
263–278
Pascha (Christian) 51
Pesah / Passover/paschal lamb (Jewish) 5,
133, 205–213, 235; and Graeco-Roman
Symposium 210–212; and Last Supper
207–208, 213; and conversion 94–96
Patriachate/Nasi 81, 200, 277, 298, 305
see also Judah ha-Nasi and Shimon ben
Gamaliel, Rabban
Paul 184; and Judaism 2,25, 32, 42, 55, 59,
65–68, 71, 84; and martyrdom 166
Pella 84
Peter (NT) 68
Pilgrimage (Jewish to Jerusalem) 69–70, 72,
264–267, 270–271
Pharisees 2, 7, 11–28, 58, 61, 109, 131–132,
265, 300, 302, 304
Philopappus (C Julius Antiochus Epiphanes
Philopappus) 184–3
Polycarp, a letter from Ignatius 29, 241;
martyrdom of 167–168
Postliminium 230–7, 245
Praetorium at Cologne 256–258
Priests/ High Priest /priestly 13, 70, 72, 102,
104, 139, 157, 179, 183, 186–188, 194,
301–302
Prisoners of war 6, 175, 227–247: passim
Proselyte/ger 3, 12, 77–78, 93–96, 188
Prophet /prophecy 4, 20, 31–32, 34–35,
86,106, 140, 182
Pumbedita 271
Qumran 22, 26–27, 91, 104, 109–110, 177,
215
Ransoming 6, 8,227–247: passim; not
customary in Rome 6, 230–7; as an act of
Charity 6, 235–238; Jewish norms on 6,
232–238; Christian norms on 6, 238–241;
during the Later Roman Empire 6,
242–246
General Index 323
Rav/ Rab 79–80, 196; and Evil Eye 117–
120, 127–128, 136–138
Rava and Evil Eye 120–124
Rava b. R. Hanin 40–41
Ravinah and impurity of gentile corpse
104–106; and ransoming captives 226–
228
Razis 170
Sabbath /Shabbat 1, 2, 18, 29–51: passim;
68, 98; and Evil Eye 126–128; in Toledot
Yeshu 153–154, 156; and martyrdom 175;
False Sabbaths 34, 35
Sadducees 58, 61, 70, 77
Samuel /Shmuel the Small /ha-katan 78–80
Sarah (the Biblical figure) 131
Sassanians 6, 244, 247
Saturninus C. Sentius, Roman governor in
Syria 271
Seleucia 267, 272–274
Sepphoris 69, 127, 136, 215, 217
Shammai, school of /Bet Shammai 94–97,
108–109, 300, 304
Shapur I 277
Shapur II 236, 244
Shepherd of Hermas, the and ransoming
Christian captives 239, 245
Shimon ben Gamaliel, the Elder(I) 264
Shimon ben Gamaliel, Rabban (II), and
Siqariqon 5, 199–200; and Evil Eye 120–
121, 125; and Toledot Yeshu 150; and
ransoming captives 234, 243
Shimon son of Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi 298
Shimon ben Shetah, and Toledot Yeshu
146–161: passim
Shimon ben / bar Yohai, R. 3, 104–106, 110,
297
Shimon ha-Pakuli 79–81
Shmuel (Babylonian Amora) 136–137, 196
Simon the leper (NT) 17
Siqariqon 5, 7, 191–203: passim; and Roman
Law 5, 197–201
Slave/enslavement 6, 188, 194, 202,
229–234, 239–242, 246–247, 300–301
Shmoneh ‘Esreh/ Eighteen Benedictions/
Amidah 75–88
Social networks (as a conversion tool)
16–18
Socrates and martyrdom 169, 170
Stada / ben Stada and Toledot Yeshu 140,
141,158
Stephen, martyr 167–6
Sunday 31, 47, 50, 153
Sura 245, 301

324
Symposium and Jewish Pesah 210, 212
Synagogue 23, 37, 149, 217, 227, 236, 275;
and Birkat ha-Minim 3, 75–76, 78, 82–86
Temple (of the Jews) 20, 25, 59–60, 95,
173, 181–190, 201–202, 205–208, 219;
and Jesus 139–140, 144, 147, 150–151;
and pilgrimage 69–72, 264–267, 270–271
Tiberius (Emperor) 143, 151, 185
Tiberius Julius Alexander 4, 182–183, 186
Tigris 266–267; Seleucia on 272–274
Tithes 131–132, 194, 201, 235
Titus 4, 175, 181–190: passim; and Josephus
202; and the destruction of the
Temple in Jerusalem 188–88
Tobit, Book of 264
Toledot Yeshu 4, 139–161: passim
Trachonitis 271
Trajan 173, 179, 185, 189, 201, 267–268
Tzedakah (charity) 235–238
Ushah, period and sages of 5, 200, 234
Ustinov, Baron Platon von 223
General Index
Vologases I 272
Yannai, R. 50, 276
Yehoshua b. Hananiah, R. 233, 234, 235
Yehoshua ben Korha, R. 125
Yehoshua b. Perahya and Toledot Yeshu 147,
155–157, 160
Yehuda ha-Nasi, R. see: Judah ha-Nasi
Yehudah, Rav see Judah, Rav
Yehuda ben Batera see Judah ben Batera
Yohanan (Mary’s lover/ betrothed / husband
in Toledot Yeshu) 145–147, 149–156, 159
Yohanan, R. 114–115, 118, 135, 210, 298
Yohanan ben Torta, R. 305
Yosef (Mary’s husband / lover) see Josef
Yosef, Rav 236
Yossi ben R.Hanina, R. 114–116, 119
Yossi son of Kipper, R. 276
Zamaris 271–272
Zealots 7, 58, 171, 280, 285, 304
Zeira, R. 121–122, 129