The Use of Rabbinic Traditions about Rome in the Babylonian Talmud

The article claims that the Talmud of Babylonia uses ancient traditions about Rome in order to create a fantasized world-system in which Rome and Israel function as two complementary and eternal rivals. The analysis of several Talmudic sources shows that the Babylonian rabbis inherited the complicated image of Rome together with the rest of the rabbinic traditions that arrived in Babylonia from Palestine during the 3rd and 4th century CE. It further shows that the Babylonian rabbis reworked the Palestinian rabbinic image of Rome and transformed it into the structural parallel of Israel. Thus, they sustained the symbolic power of the Roman empire, even though they lived outside of it. Rome became for them a mirror image of Israel, which, in turn, became a “spiritual” Empire, protected by the highest King – God

Ancient history · Art · Empire · Judaism · Kingdom · Late Antiquity · Order (exchange) · Palestine · Power (physics) · Roman Empire · Talmud · Theology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Classics · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Philosophy

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