Читать книгу A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East онлайн

190 страница из 236

Later Midrashim, most especially Genesis Rabbah (fifth–sixth century CE) and Leviticus Rabbah (c. fifth century CE) also furnish indirect historical information about Jews in later Roman Palestine. Assessment of their significance as historical sources, however, is greatly complicated by their relationship to the Jerusalem Talmud (a matter of considerable dispute among scholars) and other rabbinic texts. With rather less legal contents than the other Midrashic compositions noted here, they might be expected to offer items of value to the historian; yet again, however, the primary concern of these Midrashim is not historical, but exegesis of Scripture and discussion of matters affecting the religious and social life of the Jewish people (Neusner 1988). Indeed, all the texts noted here serve to emphasize and underscore a view widely held amongst students of Rabbinic literature, a view succinctly articulated by Philip Alexander: “There is now a consensus that rabbinic literature requires very heavy processing before its potential as a historical source can be realised. The extent to which scholars engaged with this literature have done the preliminary work remains patchy” (Alexander 2010: 19). That said, Alexander is not unhopeful about future developments in the exploration of the Rabbinic writings in attempts to discover historical data. The way forward, he suggests, will be provided by “triangulation,” as he terms it: a rigorous cross-checking of information provided by Rabbinic texts with similar information found in Christian writings and pagan documents. Already there are those who are keen to follow his lead.