Das Judentum Und der Romische Staat: Minderheitenpolitik Im Antiken Rom, by Karl L. Noethlichs

Das Judentum und der romische Staat: Minderheitenpolitik im antiken Rom, by Karl L. NoethlichsNoethlichs begins with the interesting proposition -- interesting because he sees it as self-evident, though a Canadian might not -- that every state with significant minority populations must find a balance between preserving its own identity and granting sufficient freedom to the others within. (But is a state's own identity something static?) He offers Roman-era Judaism as an example of this problem in antiquity. Acknowledging the vast literature on aspects of ancient Judaism, he presents the distinctive character of his study as its concern to look in from the outside: ancient Judaism will be examined from the perspective of the Roman authorities, in the context of their larger policies toward minorities.Specific questions to be answered (below) are: (1) How and when did the Romans first come to know the Jews? (2) What knowledge about the Jews circulated in the Greco-Roman world? (3) How were the Jewish cult, history, and way of life esteemed? (4) How were individual Jews and Jewish communities treated with respect to the law? (5) What were the grounds of conflict between Jews and gentiles in Diaspora Judaism? And (6) what effect did the Christianization of Roman society have on the official treatment of the Jews?If many of these questions are familiar to students of Judaism in the Greco-Roman world, Noethlichs' chapter divisions emphasize his ambition to sustain a Roman perspective. So, for example, the opening survey of sources puts aside both rabbinic literature and non-literary evidence as having little to say about the ways in which Romans saw the Jews. Noethlichs makes astute deductions from the rest (including lost and fragmentary Jewish authors writing in Greek, Philo and Josephus, lost Near-Eastern works concerning the Jews, and Greek authors). He notes, for instance, that the absence of works on the Jews in Latin indicates the region and social level targeted by Jewish authors (namely, das griechsprachige Bildungsburgertum); he makes a brief case for the widening influence of the Greek translations of Hebrew scripture on gentile readers; and he considers the motives for gentile interest in the Jews (namely, the roles played by Jews in wars after Alexander, and simple curiosity about different ways of life).Chapter 3 is a synopsis, the more valuable for its density and rare scope, of events in Roman-Jewish relations from the beginning (164 B.C.E.) until Justinian I (sixth century C.E.); this also includes a backward glance at the Hasmonean revolt and a forward glance into the tenth century.Chapter 4 sketches the possibilities and limits of tolerance and integration in Roman society. In the first part, Noethlichs argues that although Romans saw their own origins in a combination of various peoples, their evolving polity gave citizenship only to the thirty-five recognized tribes. Between the registration of the last tribus in 241 B.C.E. and Caracalla's extension of citizenship to the entire empire in 212 C.E., the Romans had no systematic way of integrating groups and individuals into their system proper. Before the establishment of Christianity, then, the Romans were content to live with an us-them view of the world, but one that also tolerated extreme diversity.In Chapter 5, Noethlichs mines Menahem Stern's Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (1974-84) to determine what Romans might well have known about Jews after Pompey's time, whether through direct contact with them or through having read Jewish authors. He then examines Philo and Josephus to identify passages -- again in catalogue format -- where they reflect a sensitivity to the pagan writers' impressions of Judaism.Chapter 6 considers the legal status of Jews in the empire, mainly by a careful listing and brief analysis of Josephus's record of the famous acta pro Iudaeis in Antiquities 14 and 16, along with the fallout from Claudius' edict concerning Alexandria in Ant. …

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