Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

Assessment

These long-running disputes could arise only if the Jewish communities

were a significant presence in the cities concerned. In Asia, for example, a

small and insignificant community would have been ignored by the city

magistrates or coerced into submission. But in the extant documents and

in Josephus’s narrative, one senses the presence of Jews sufficiently promi-

nent in city life for their refusal to attend court or do business on the Sab-

bath to be deemed highly awkward if not even offensive. Some modern in-

terpreters consider Jewish integration as the dominant reality and treat

controversies as minor episodes, while others suggest the opposite. In fact,

however, no real contradiction exists when social, cultural, and political

integration, on the one hand, and antagonism and conflicts, on the other,

are regarded as two sides of the same coin.

Jews, Greeks, and Roman Policy

In the regions under their rule, the Romans always tried to pursue a policy

that would give them full control but allow the inhabitants to remain rea-

sonably satisfied. That is why the existing organizational framework was

usually preserved and the local laws typically endorsed. The status quo of

the Jews was likewise preserved and their traditional rights endorsed. All

the decrees and edicts quoted by Josephus that were issued between the

middle of the first centuryb.c.e.and the middle of the first centuryc.e.by

Roman commanders, the Roman senate (the so-calledsenatus consulta),

Roman governors, and Roman emperors point in the same direction. They

all proclaim that the Jews are free to follow their traditional laws and cus-

toms: to assemble, to feast and hold common meals, to perform their cult,

to have a measure of internal administration and jurisdiction, to build sa-

cred and profane buildings, and to have kosher food in the markets of their

cities. It was not a pro-Jewish policy per se; inscriptions and papyri attest

that permission to follow local laws was usually granted to conquered peo-

ples by the Romans.

From these same documents quoted by Josephus, however, we also

understand that Roman grants had a somewhat theoretical character.

Asians, Libyans, Alexandrians, and perhaps other Greeks had their own

good reasons for ignoring the Roman ordinances and for preventing the

Jews from following their traditional customs and laws. The Jews re-

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miriam pucci ben zeev

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:16 PM