Talmuda de-Eretz Israel

Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine

Steven Fine, Aaron Koller, Steven Fine, Aaron Koller

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781614514855
• eBook ISBN:
  9781614518518
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Ancient Art

Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine brings together an international community of historians, literature scholars and archaeologists to explore how the integrated study of rabbinic texts and archaeology increases our understanding of both types of evidence, and of the complex culture which they together reflect. This volume reflects a growing consensus that rabbinic culture was an "embodied" culture, presenting a series of case studies that demonstrate the value of archaeology for the contextualization of rabbinic literature. It steers away from later twentieth-century trends, particularly in North America, that stressed disjunction between archaeology and rabbinic literature, and seeks a more holistic approach.

Joshua Weistuch and Ben Zion Rosenfeld

Tosefta Ma‘aser Sheni 1:4 – The Rabbis and Roman Civic Coinage in Late Antique Palestine

In the cities of the eastern Roman Empire, authority for the minting of bronze coinage rested with the city council - the βoυλή, comprised of the urban elite that governed the internal affairs of the city.¹⁶⁶ City councils could issue coins only with the permission the central Imperial minting authorities.¹⁶⁷ City coins are an important source for the interpretation of the history of provincial culture in the Empire, including Roman Palestine.

Little is known of the process and mechanics of the minting, issuing and circulation of coins conducted by civic authorities in Roman Palestine. Rabbinic legal sources from the Land of Israel relate to coins and manufacture of coins. The information found in this literature has yet to be properly studied and discussed on the backdrop of the research on civic and imperial mints and minting in the Roman Empire.¹⁶⁸ This essay examines Palestinian rabbinic sources that mention terminology related to minting and coins that reveal something about rabbinic perception of the process and significance of minting and issuing coins.

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1 Unique Characteristics of Civic Coinage in the Roman Empire and Roman Palestine

Butcher found that in the cities of Syria certain civic coins were legal tender only in the city in which, or for which, they were minted.¹⁶⁹ Y. Meshorer,¹⁷⁰ and following him M. Waner, reached a similar, though broader, conclusion regarding the cities of Palestine. They argue that the distribution of city coins covered very limited geographic ranges. Citing as an example a hoard of Tiberian coins discovered in Migdal, just north of Tiberias, Waner concludes: “Again and again it was found that civic coins in the Roman period circulated mainly in the area where they were minted.”¹⁷¹ In addition, civic coins stayed in circulation longer than all other coins, with an average life span of approximately 95 years.¹⁷² Thus it would seem that the scope of distribution of civic coins is an indication of the importance of the city that minted them. Civic coins can be used to detect unique municipal culture that resulted in the form the coins assumed and determined the extent of their use.

Civic coins were an outstanding vehicle for expressing the cities’ local distinctiveness, including representations of the local religion.¹⁷³ Sometimes the symbols and inscriptions on the coins served the self-promotion of urban elites.¹⁷⁴ However, unlike other areas of the Roman East, there is also no explicit data indicating that local elites sought to immortalize themselves on local Palestinian coinage. No images of government officials or of civic administration appear on coins from the cities of Palestine - only the image of the Caesar himself. The coins generally contain images of the Caesar on the recto, while on the verso more general imagery was mostly used, including gods and temples (perhaps local ones).

The βoυλή, the city council of the eastern Roman polis, possessed powers of a local authority including the authority for minting coins. This authority seems to have been granted by the Roman authorities even to cities that had a Jewish majority, like Sepphoris or Tiberias that issued local coinage. No sources prove whether these cities practiced the administrative procedures for minting such as the issuing an order, its execution, and oversight, but in light of the familiar procedure in cities of the West of the Empire, scholars have assumed that the practice was similar in the cities of the East, including those in Palestine. Sepphoris, was unique, its coins mention the local

– the holy council.¹⁷⁵ In Tiberias, the civic coins make no mention of the ,

although there is early evidence in Josephus (Life, 58), that Tiberius had a functioning

as early as the second half of the first century. The institution of the

is well known in the literature of the Sages of Palestine, already appearing in Tannaitic literature. It is mentioned most of ten in the Jerusalem Talmud, which was redacted in Tiberias that frequently serves as the backdrop for the events described in this corpus. The Jerusalem Talmud also mentions several different forms of the word, including one in the name R. Shimon Bulvata, a name that indicates a connection with the .

¹⁷⁶ It also mentioned a synagogue, apparently in Tiberias,¹⁷⁷ named after the city council: “R. Jeremiah taught in the council meeting

(knishta de’ buli).”¹⁷⁸ R. Jeremiah was a sage who apparently functioned in Tiberias at the end of the first third of the fourth century. It is likely, then, that this synagogue was located in the same city. This indicates that the council defined their group identity through use of the only Jewish public meeting place of the period, the synagogue, but on the other hand was a separate organization of civic administration.¹⁷⁹ This phenomenon of a synagogue for the civic council members is similar to other synagogues that were established by social groups such as the “synagogue of the weavers” and the “synagogue of the Babylonians.”¹⁸⁰ The earlier synagogue at Hammath Tiberias, similarly reflects the wealth of its community. One member identifies himself in an inscription as “Severos student of the illustrious patriarch,” which Joseph Baumgarten, followed by Lee Levine, associated with the circle of the Patriarch.¹⁸¹

Fig. 1: Upper. Diocaesarea – Sepphoris. Coin from the period of
Caracalla. Lower. Tiberias. Coin from the period of Trajan.

2 Coin Minting in Talmudic Sources: Tevi‘ah

In Tannaitic literature, which was completed by the mid-third century CE,¹⁸² the term tevi‘ah, “minting,” refers to civic minting. This type of minting could have been seen by the rabbis and through it they could discuss the process of minting using the technical specifics of the process for parables and examples of spiritual concepts. During the second century and the beginning of the third, the number of cities receiving minting permits grew, and others renewed their minting activities. The Jewish cities of Tiberias and Sepphoris, which minted coins on an occasional basis during the first and second centuries, resumed minting on a regular basis in the first quarter of the third century. The southern city of Lod only minted for a short period in the third century.¹⁸³ The Tannaim were quite familiar with civic coinage,¹⁸⁴ though with the decline of this practice the sages knew only imperial coins, and the old idioms developed in regard to city coins were applied by the Amoraim of the third century and onward to imperial denomination. Rabbinic sources discuss the manner in which coins were minted, and the identities of the minters. The first instance is mentioned in m. Sanhedrin 4:5:

... And to proclaim the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He: for if a man mints many coins with one stamp, they all resemble one another, but the Supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, minted every man in the stamp ...

Table of contents

• Studia Judaica
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• Mishnah Baba Metsia 7:7 and the Relationship of Mishnaic Hebrew to Northern Biblical Hebrew
• Mishnah Baba Batra 8:5 – The Transformation of the Firstborn Son from Family Leader to Family Member
• Mishnah Avodah Zarah 4:5 – The Faces of Effacement: Between Textual and Artistic Evidence
• Tosefta Ma‘aser Sheni 1:4 – The Rabbis and Roman Civic Coinage in Late Antique Palestine
• Tosefta Shabbat 1:14 – “Come and See the Extent to Which Purity Had Spread” An Archaeological Perspective on the Historical Background to a Late Tannaitic Passage
• An Illustrated Midrash of Mekilta deR. Ishmael, Vayeḥi Beshalaḥ, 1 - Rabbis and the Jewish Community Revisited
• Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 1 (71b-72a) - “Of the Making of Books”: Rabbinic Scribal Arts in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls
• Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 2,6 (20c) - The Demise of King Solomon and Roman Imperial Propaganda in Late Antiquity
• Genesis Rabbah 1, 1 – Mosaic Torah as the Blueprint of the Universe - Insights from the Roman World
• Genesis Rabbah 98, 17 - “And Why Is It Called Gennosar?” Recent Discoveries at Magdala and Jewish Life on the Plain of Gennosar in the Early Roman Period
• Leviticus Rabbah 16, 1 - “Odysseus and the Sirens” in the Beit Leontis Mosaic from Beit She’an
• Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 51b - Coloring the Temple: Polychromy and the Jerusalem Temple in Late Antiquity
• Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 16a - Jews and Pagan Cults in Third-Century Sepphoris
• The Rehov Inscriptions and Rabbinic Literature – Matters of Language
• “This Is the Beit Midrash of Rabbi Eliezerha-Qappar” (Dabbura Inscription) – Were Epigraphical Rabbis Real Sages, or Nothing More Than Donors and Honored Deceased?
• The Piyyutim le-Hatan of Qallir and Amittai – Jewish Marriage Customs in Early Byzantium
• Afterwords
• Index