CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Roman Diaspora Judaism
Jack N. Lightstone
Methodological, Conceptual, and
Theoretical Issues
Scope of this chapter and methodological considerations
Topical scopeTo understand the scope of this study is to understand many of the methodological
issues and problems regarding the evidence for such an inquiry. This chapter focuses
on the religion and ethno-religious community of the Jews in Roman antiquity as
it manifested itself not only in the city of Rome but also in the Greco-Roman Diaspora
(from Greek meaning “dispersion”). Geographically, this includes the lands of
the Roman empire outsideof the territory in the southern Levant which the Jews
called “the Land of Israel,” or simply “the Land,” and which, until the mid-second
century, Roman authorities called “Judea” and thereafter “Palestine.” This study
examines Judaism as a case study of an ethnic, minority religion and community
within imperial Roman society – more properly deemed Greco-Roman society east
of the Italian peninsula.
Temporal frameThis chapter’s account holds in general terms for the latter half of the first century ce
through the first quarter of the fifth century ce, with the most robust body of
evidence representing the third, fourth, and early fifth centuries ce. To be sure,
Jews were already well established in Rome in noticeable numbers by the time of
Cicero (in the first half of the first centurybce) and in major Hellenistic cities of
the eastern Mediterranean basin by as much as 150 to 200 years earlier. However,
the archaeological, inscriptional, and Roman legal record for Greco-Roman Diaspora
Jews begins to burgeon in the late Roman period, near the end of the second and