CSWR Common Room, Harvard Divinity School, 42 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
“How Roman is Rabbinic Halakah? A Debate with Yair Furstenberg (Hebrew U.) and Ishay Rosen-Zvi (Tel Aviv/Harvard)
Moderated by Annette Yoshiko Reed (HDS)
Special session of the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean Workshop
This event is open to Harvard affiliates only. Please RSVP.
In recent years, a new generation of Talmud scholars has rediscovered Roman law as a valuable comparative tool. Beyond localized comparisons, scholars have proposed several broad syntheses exploring the impact of Rome and the Imperial legal culture on the evolution of rabbinic Halakhah. Yair Furstenberg and Ishay Rosen-Zvi offer differing perspectives on this emerging trend and will discuss the value and limitations of understanding Rabbinic halakhah within the Roman legal order.
Recommended to read in advance [PDFs will be sent to those who RSVP]…
- Yair Furstenberg, “The Rabbinic Movement from Pharisees to Provincial Jurists,” JSJ 54 (2023) 1-43
- Ishay Rosen-Zvi, “Rabbis as Nomikoi? Questioning a New Paradigm: A Response to Yair Furstenberg,” JSJ 55 (2023) 1-13
Yair Furstenberg is the Louis Ginsberg Professor of Talmud at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research traces the emergence of early rabbinic literature and law within its Greco-Roman context. In his publications he examines the development of Jewish legal discourse during the Second Temple period and its consolidation by the Rabbis in the Mishnah. His current project Local Law under Rome, funded by the European Research Council aims to integrate Rabbinic legal activity into its Roman provincial context.
Ishay Rosen-Zvi, teaches rabbinic literature at the Department of Jewish Philosophy and Talmud at Tel-Aviv University. He is currently Gerard Weinstock Visiting Professor and a Harry Starr Fellow at Harvard. His many publications include Demonic Desires: Yetzer Hara and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity (2011); Body and Soul in Ancient Judaism (2012); The Mishnaic Sotah Ritual: Temple Gender and Midrash (2012); Goy: Israel’s Others and the Birth of the Gentile (with Adi Ophir; 2018); and Between Mishnah and Midrash: The Birth of Rabbinic Literature (2019).
Co-sponsored by Harvard Divinity School and the Center for Jewish Studies of the Ancient Mediterranean Workshop, Center for the Study of World Religions