Orientation to the History of Roman Judaea

Mason

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781498294485
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

No field of study is livelier than the history of Roman-era Judaea (ca. 200 BC to AD 400). Bold reinterpretations of texts and new archaeological discoveries prompt us constantly to rethink assumptions. What kind of religion was Judaism? How did Jews--and Christians--relate to Roman imperial power? Should we speak of Judaism or Judaisms? How should the finds at Qumran affect our understanding? Did Paul and other early Christians remain within Judaism? Should we translate Ioudaioi as "Jews" or "Judaeans"?These debates can leave students perplexed, this book argues, because the participants share only a topic. They are actually investigating different questions using disparate criteria. In the hope of facilitating communication and preparing advanced students, this book explores two basic but neglected problems: What does it mean to do history (if history is what we wish to do)? And how did the ancients understand and describe their world? It is not a history, then, but anorientationtothe history of Roman Judaea.Rather than trying to specify which questions are good ones or what one should think about them, the book offers new perspectives to help unleash the historical imagination while reckoning squarely with the nature of our evidence.

Part I

Doing History

But to attempt to paint the ancients; to elaborate in this way the development of their minds; to regard events as characters in which we may accurately read the most sacred feelings and intents of their hearts—this is an undertaking of no ordinary difficulty and discrimination, although as frequently conducted, both childish and trifling.

—Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, “History” section III

I know it will work very well in practice, but tell me John, how will it work in theory?1

Historians are famously impatient with theory.2 History is not, after all, rocket science. It may require long days poring over archival documents or texts, in difficult languages, trying to decipher inscriptions and coins, or waking at 4:00 a.m. to work on a dig. Endless reflection only postpones the necessary labor. Why not get on with it?

The problem with getting on with it becomes clear when we ask: What are we trying to achieve? What are we supposed we do with all this evidence, once we have cleaned it up? What does it mean to understand it, and how does that bear on history? In short: What is history?

In recent months I have heard professional colleagues (some no doubt speaking loosely) express such views as these. History is the past or some authoritative account of it such as the historical record. Historians must follow evidence and avoid speculation. If we have no evidence for a fact, we should exclude it from consideration: “There’s no evidence” means more or less “That did not happen.” Or it is proposed that ancient history concerns itself only with elite texts, whereas archaeologists explore the lives of common people. Or historians are grouped in ideological camps: maximalists vs. minimalists, realists vs. postmodernists, radicals vs. conservatives, or some other two-kinds-of-people scheme. Because these conceptions are common, and some readers may think that at least one of them sounds fine, I invite the reader to think with me about the historian’s task, for the study of ancient Judaea but also in general.

There is no yield in trying to characterize what all historians do or think, or should do or think. Like other disciplines, history presents considerable diversity, and for good reasons. All the same, it cannot be whatever we wish it to be. Rethinking first principles should help us at least to gain some bearings. Confusion and outright disagreement about history’s nature and purpose come from at least three directions: popular versus professional perceptions, disputes among practicing historians or philosophers of history, and peculiarities connected with Roman Judaea. The first three chapters in this section take these up in order. The fourth tries to extract from that discussion a method and a rough procedure, taking account of the difference between ancient and modern history.

1. This version of a quip, attributed to a number of scientists and economists, is credited to Irish Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald by Séamus Martin, citing A. J. F. O’Reilly, in The Irish Times, 6 July 1985, p. 14 col. 5 (http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/08/30/practice/#return-note-11897–10).

2. See Clark 2004: 9–28; Jenkins 1995: 64–66 (on G. R. Elton).

1

Popular and Academic: Tradition vs. History

We all understand that words can have technical senses at odds with common use. Most of us do not think of tomatoes, cucumbers, or peppers as fruits, even if botanists must. Medical language is a world of its own, removed from the popular categories of shin splints or heart attacks. When university students enroll in the ancient myth course offered by the Classics Department, they are not intending to learn old falsehoods, as the popular meaning of myth might suggest, but rather durable and meaning-charged stories. Specialists in all disciplines, if they are to communicate with colleagues, require a lexicon that is robust enough to hold for all cases of a type and yet precise enough to distinguish one type from another. History is also a word with senses more technical than those in common use.

In ordinary speech we use history to mean either the past or an authoritative record of it, or at the very least a creditable effort in that direction: a history of England if not the history.3 For this impression we have the support of a Columbia University Professor of History in 1922: “the word ‘history’ has two meanings. It means either the record of events or the events themselves.” Most of us who took history in school gained the impression that it happened some time ago, created by history-making people and events, and so it is now there to be learned. Since history is this blended pudding of events and “the record,” knowing it means being able to recall the important players, achievements, events, and dates. Someone who cannot cite the dates of the Battle of Hastings or the French Revolution, we say, “does not know her history.” From this perspective, the history of India under Ashoka (third century B.C.), Judaea under the Romans, or Italy under German occupation in the 1940s can all be studied in the same way. A more cynical view may hold that “the winners [get to] write history,” but this strongly reinforces that picture of history as an authoritative account. One has only to locate the record, to be found in the history books—much of which has found its way into Wikipedia entries. Historians are people who can rattle this off without looking, at least the sections pertaining to their specializations.

If in school we were expected to learn some chosen facts of history, as adults we wear a heavier mantle of guilt. For it turns out that the record does not merely sit there waiting for us. History apparently has a mind and even a personality. It must be going somewhere because people say it is best to be on “the right side of history.” Every week pundits appear on television discussing whether “history will be kind” or not to a certain politician, specifying what “history will remember” her for, and deferring to history for the hard decisions: “History will decide . . .” And history’s mind is not merely content to sit and observe us. It is nearly bursting to tell us what it knows, the facts but especially the lessons it would love to teach us, if only we would listen. “History tells us . . . ,” declares the politician, preacher, or pundit.4 Alas, most of us rudely ignore history’s efforts, avoiding even eye contact. That is why, self-destructively, we keep “repeating the mistakes of the past.”5 Our leaders assure us that history shows whatever they believe at the moment: that greed and inequality bring down empires, that troublesome foreign leaders must never be appeased, that a populace must be armed if it is to avoid tyranny, or that weapons have never resolved anything. Whatever exactly history teaches, if we would just learn t...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Part I: Doing History
• Part II: Mapping Peoples
• Bibliography