Das The Parthian Empire and its Religions Das Partherreich und … articles/The... · The Parthian Empire and its Religions. Studies in the Dynamics of Religious Diversity / Das Partherreich

Peter Wick / Markus Zehnder

The Parthian Empire and its ReligionsStudies in the Dynamics of Religious Diversity

Das Partherreich und seine ReligionenStudien zu Dynamiken religiöser Pluralität

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ISSN 1432-542XISBN 978 3 940598 13 4

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PietasHerausgegeben von

Andreas GutsfeldPierre Villard

Band 5

Computus druck satz & verlag2012



Herausgegeben vonPeter Wick und Markus Zehnder

unter Mitarbeit von Jan Schäfer

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The Parthian Empire and its Religions. Studies in the Dynamics of Religious Diversity / Das Partherreich und seine Religionen. Studien zu Dynamiken religiöser Pluralität.Herausgegeben von Peter Wick und Markus Zehnder unter Mitarbeit von Jan Schäfer.(Pietas, 5), Gutenberg: Computus Druck Satz & Verlag 2012.

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Verantwortlicher Herausgeber:

Andreas Gutsfeld

Mit freundlicher Unterstützung von:Käte Hamburger Collegium for Research in the Humanities

“Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe”und dem Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

Inhalt

Foreword / Vorwort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9by Peter Wick and Markus Zehnder

Aspekte religiöser Vielfalt im Partherreich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17von Dieter Metzler

Religionspolitik im antiken Vorderen Orient: Assyrer und Parther . . . . . . . . . . . . 27von Markus Zehnder

Seleukidische Vorbilder der parthischen Münzikonographie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53von Linda-Marie Günther

Parthian Coins: Kingship and Divine Glory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67by Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis

Feindeskinder an Sohnes statt. Parthische Königssöhne im Haus des Augustus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

von Meret Strothmann

Religious Dynamics in the Parthian Empire: The Cases of Hatra and Arbela . . . 103by Markus Zehnder

The Jews of Parthian Babylonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141by Geoffrey Herman

Jewish Acculturation to Persian Norms at the End of the Parthian Period . . . . . 151by Yaakov Elman

Frühe Christen in der Begegnung mit dem Zoroastrismus: Eine Orientierung . . 163von Marco Frenschkowski

Weltentstehung und Schöpfung bei Bardaisan von Edessa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195von Peter Bruns

Index of Ancient Sources / Stellenregister . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

The Contributors / Die Autoren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

The Jews of Parthian Babylonia

by Geoffrey Herman

This paper concerns the state of our knowledge about Babylonian Jewry in the Parthian era.1 One cannot underestimate our task. By the time the Arsacid dynasty was replaced by the Sasanians, it had existed for over half a millennium, and had ruled directly over the Babylonian Jews for some 350 years. Its impact on the Jews must undoubtedly have been great. And yet our knowledge of this period is remarkably limited. This leads to the princi-pal purport of this paper. Even as our sources are meager and the potential significance of each source is thereby enhanced, it is incumbent upon the historian to carefully appraise the quality of each and every source. I shall review the main sources of our knowledge on this subject2 and probe the kind of information that can be gleaned from them as well as note their limitations. I shall address, in turn, the contemporary non-rabbinic sources on the Jews of Parthian Babylonia; the contemporary rabbinic sources; and the Sasanian rab-binic sources.

1 Contemporary Non-rabbinic Sources on the Jews of Parthian Babylonia

The Parthian takeover of Babylonia occurred in the latter half of the second century BCE. Although there is little question that Babylonian Jewry, descendents of the Judean exiles inhabited Babylonia at the time in substantial numbers, we have almost no information about them for much of the Parthian era. They go unmentioned in the works of the early Greek and Roman authors as well as by the indigenous Babylonian cuneiform sources composed in the Parthian era. We have to wait until Josephus to receive some explicit data about Parthian Jewry. He provides various snippets of information but also length-ier digressions. For instance, he reports on the huge number of Jews living beyond the

1 For earlier studies on Parthian Jewry see the items listed in Herman 2006, 245, n. 1. Add Widen-gren 1966, pp. 139–177. Particularly important is the recent survey article, Goodblatt 2006, pp. 82–90. Some additional studies will be cited below.

2 I have no intention, however, to offer an exhaustive survey of the sources here.

142 Geoffrey Herman

Euphrates,3 on their maintenance of high standards of lineage4; the fact that there was a tomb built by Daniel the prophet in Ecbatana where the kings of Persia, Media, and Par-thia, are buried “until today” and that it is kept by a Jewish priest;5 and the honour given to the exiled Hasmonean, Hyrcanus, by the local Babylonian Jews.6 Much of his informa-tion concerns Babylonian Jews in Judaea or elsewhere in the Roman Empire: the appoint-ment of the Babylonian Hananel as high priest in the Jerusalem temple7 and the flight of Zamaris with 500 skilled military horsemen under his command and 100 relatives from Babylonia, and Herod’s inducement for them to settle in Batanea.8 But he also has two more detailed exposés on eastern Jewry. One relates to the conversion to Judaism of the royal house of Adiabene9, and so it is not strictly pertinent, but the other, his digression on the exploits of Anilaeus and Asinaeus, is probably the single most significant portrayal of Babylonian Jewry in the Parthian era. The account, which more than likely derives from a local source, was apparently written by a devout Jew from the region of Nehardea in the early first century CE.10 Essentially an account of the rise to fame and fall of two hum-ble Jewish brothers from the area of Nehardea, it reveals much about Babylonian Jewish society. The account is heavily imbued with Parthian cultural influence, and reflects val-ues in accord with the value system promoted in the ambient Parthian society. Although the story has at some moment the Jews in conflict with the Parthians, it does not regard the Parthians as the real enemies of the Jews, but rather focuses on the long-lasting antag-onism between the Jews and the native Babylonian population.11 It views this pagan Baby-lonian population as constituting the vast majority of the population of the region. It stands to reason, then, that contact between the Jews and these Babylonian pagans would have been great, precisely in the Parthian era, and might be responsible for much of the distinctive character of Babylonian Jewry we recognize in the Sasanian period. It is how-ever, a challenge that has yet to be taken up fully, to properly explore this possible avenue.12

There are sources that speak of a Mesopotamian Jewish uprising against the Romans during Trajan’s invasion of the region. The information, however, is unclear.13

3 Jos. AJ 11,5,2 (134). 4 Jos. c. Ap. 1,7,31. 5 Jos. AJ 10,11,7 (265). 6 Jos. AJ 15,2,2 (15). 7 Jos. AJ 15,2,4 (22); ibid. AJ 15,3,1, (40). 8 Jos. AJ 17,2,1–4. On this episode see Neusner 1965, I pp. 38–40; Appelbaum 1970, pp. 79–88 (in

Hebrew). 9 Jos. AJ 20,17–96. It provides some limited information on the peripheral communities in Adia-

bene, to the north of Babylonia, and mentions a Jew in Spasinou (Charax) in Mesene, to the south of Babylonia.

10 See Herman 2006; and Goodblatt 1987, pp. 605–622; and for references to additional studies.11 See Herman 2006, p. 267.12 An example of the potential may be seen from the studies that trace the preservation of Akka-

dian knowledge in the Babylonian Talmud. See, for instance, Geller 1991, pp. 102–112; Geller 2000, pp. 13–32; idem 2004.

13 See Pucci ben Zeev 2005, pp. 190–217.

143The Jews of Parthian Babylonia

Other sources that were probably composed in the Parthian empire, albeit not neces-sarily in Babylonia, may reveal something of the impact of Parthian religion and culture on the Jews. They include some late biblical and post-biblical Jewish compositions. One thinks of the biblical books of Esther14 and Daniel that were probably composed within the Parthian cultural orbit. There has been much speculation concerning possible Per-sian influence on Second Temple Judean Judaism. Much of this impact is placed in Par-thian times, although even when the signs of such influence are more impressive we lack a solid link to Babylonian Parthian Jewry.15 In addition, some theological notions may have reached Jewish sources from Zoroastrianism in the Parthian era.16 Certain Syriac com-positions of eastern provenance have been thought to shed some light on the nature of Judaism in the Parthian sphere, but upon closer inspection their contribution is at best minimal, or otherwise questionable. An example of the former is Bardaisan’s allusions to Jewish practice in his Book of the Laws of the Countries, which contain only generalities about Judaism; an example of the latter is the Chronicle of Arbela attributed to Meshiha-zekha, for which an early date of composition is no longer tenable and the credibility of which remains problematic.17

2 Contemporary Rabbinic Sources on the Jews of Parthian Babylonia

The contemporary rabbinic sources on Parthian Babylonian Jewry are all of Palestinian provenance.18 They mention a number of rabbis of Babylonian origin such as Hillel the Elder, R. Natan, Yadua the Babylonian and R. Hiyya.19 By nature the focus of such sources tends to be Palestine and if they do mention Babylonian Jews, it is usually when they are in Palestine, either as immigrants, or as pilgrims and priests visiting the Jerusalem tem-

14 On possible Zoroastrian influence in the Book of Esther see Shaked 1982, pp. 292–303; Hintze 1994, pp. 34–39; Russell 1990, pp. 33–40.

15 For a summary of the issue and references see Herman 2005, p. 284, n. 5.16 See, e.g., Hintze 2008, pp. 9–36.17 For earlier use of the Chronicle of Arbela to characterize northern Mesopotamian Jewry cf.

Neusner 1966, pp. 144–150. For a positive assessment of this work see Chaumont 1988, pp. 29–38, and the references to a very long list of scholarly debate on this chronicle. The last word on the subject is apparently Jullien 2001, pp. 41–83.

18 Theories of halakhic midrashim originating in Babylonia, e.g. Neusner 1965, I pp. 113–135, have been debunked. See Gafni 1990, pp. 81–86.

19 The Babylonian origin of some of these rabbis is attested only in amoraic compositions. With regard to Hillel’s Babylonian origins, attested first in the Palestinian Talmud, the distance between his floruit and the earliest attestation of Babylonian descent in a source is rather great, calling for some suspicion. Some figures have been given a Parthian provenance by modern scholars whereas the ancient sources appear unaware of such origins. If Nahum the “Mede” (MDY) came from Media the sources seem indifferent to this fact. His agreement with Samuel’s view on the law in the Diaspora for withholding commerce with Gentiles close to their festivals (bAZ 7b) cannot be used in support of Median origins.

144 Geoffrey Herman

ple.20 These sources do, however, sometimes relate to religious laws as practiced in Babylo-nia, including agricultural laws such as the separation of tithes.21 Here, too, their perspec-tive is undoubtedly Palestinian.22

Another issue worthy of mention is the depiction of the Parthians themselves in Jew-ish sources from this period. If, as we noted above, Parthians are not depicted with hostil-ity by Josephus in his account of Anilaeus and Asinaeus, we find in some rabbinic sources messianic hopes actually linked to a Parthian victory over Rome.23 An example is the dec-laration by the second century rabbi, R. Simeon bar Yohai: “When you shall see a Persian horse tethered to the graves of the Land of Israel, expect the feet of the royal Messiah”.24 Although this correspondence between the hopes expressed in Josephus and in rabbinic works is suggestive and may lead us to granting a greater degree of credibility to the attri-bution and the date of certain rabbinic sayings, it is also true that this and other sources enthusiastic of a Parthian victory over Rome have all come down to us in rabbinic works redacted in the course of the Sasanian era and are not immune from contamination result-ing from the passage of time.25

3 Sasanian Rabbinic Sources on the Jews of Parthian Babylonia: embellishment, invention, elevation

The third major category of sources that has information on Parthian Jews in Babylonia is the Babylonian Talmud and to a lesser extent the Palestinian Talmud and midrashic literature. Earlier scholarly works treated the Jews in the Parthian era in some detail, utilizing the Talmudic sources. Scholars today recognize that the later rabbinic sources systematical ly develop and invent traditions concerning earlier rabbinic heroes for vari-ous purposes. With this in mind, it is necessary to acknowledge that Talmudic sources,

20 mTann 1:3 (on pilgrims returning to the Euphrates); mYom 6:4, and mMen 11:7, on Babylonian Jewish priests serving in the Jerusalem temple. On pilgrimage from Babylonia see Safrai 1981, pp. 71–77. Cf. Acts 2,9. Cf. mSheqaMS Munichlim 3:4; tSheq 2:3 (Zuckermandel edition, p. 175). This corresponds with Josephus’ interest in Babylonian Jews as pilgrims to the Jerusalem temple. See Jos. AJ 17,2,2 (26); 18,9,1 (310–313).

21 mYad 4:3 assumes that Babylonian Jews separate the Second Tithe on the Sabbatical year. (= tYad 2:15 (Zuckermandel, p. 683); tShab 2,3 (Zuckermandel, p. 111) on the Babylonians’ exclusive use of sesame seed oil for illumination.

22 E.g. mHal 4:11 on temple devotions brought from Babylonia; mYev 16:7 which describes R. Aqi-ba’s journey to Nehardea where he encounters Nehemia of Beth Deli. (It is curious that nothing more is made of this Nehardean “tanna”.) They either serve to confirm the views of the Palestin-ian sages, or to exemplify a law that is not acceptable.

23 On the issue of Jewish-Parthian relations, especially as reflected in the works of Josephus, see Pucci 1982, pp. 117–129. And see, more generally, Darmesteter 1894, p. 53; Avi-Yonah 1984, p. 66; Neusner 1966, I pp. 30, 79; Gafni 1990, p. 28; Mor 1991, p. 240

24 Lamentations Rab. 1, 13 (Buber ed., 77); Cant. Rab. 8, 10.25 On this particular statement and its reworking in a Babylonian parallel tradition see Herman

2010, pp. 51–52.


even when they do purport to offer traditions from the Parthian era, are in reality usu-ally informing us about the Sasanian era.26 This realization has lead to a striking change in our perception of Parthian Jewish society. Thus, for instance, much of the first volume of Jacob Neusner’s A History of the Jews in Babylonia, which is devoted to the Parthian Era, is dependent upon precisely such sources that must now be set aside.27

This said, it would be useful to summarize the way in which rabbinic literature from the Sasanian era imagines Babylonian Jewry in the Parthian era. Broadly speaking, in this Palestinian literature one encounters both idealizing sources and those that portray Par-thian Babylonian Jewry in a less than complementary manner. The Babylonian Talmud (henceforth: BT) generally tends to idealize, but it, too, can creatively manipulate sources in the service of contemporary concerns. An illustrative example is a story that appears in yQid 3:4 (64a).28 It depicts the hostile reception of two second century CE Pales tinian rab-bis who are visiting Babylonia. When this story is retold in the BT, however, the aversion is neither annulled nor reversed but rather redirected towards the exilarchate, functioning as an inner-Babylonian polemic.29 Much of the manner in which the BT portrays Parthian Jewry can be summed up as the embellishment or elevation of earlier traditions, or even the invention of tradition with these aims in mind.

One of the ways in which the BT reshapes the image of Parthian Jewry is to elevate the stature of tannaim whose Babylonian origins are alluded to in the earlier sources. Examples of this tendency involve such figures as Shamaya and Avtalion,30 Hillel, Rabbi Natan;31 and Rabbi Hiyya.32 This process is, in fact, already recognizable in the Palestin-ian Talmud where it seems to promote an anti-patriarchal agenda. It is also well known that many Babylonian rabbis lived in Palestine in the Sasanian era and might be behind these sources. This tendency of the BT to aggrandize Tannaim of Babylonian ancestry is responsible for the material that has served as the fodder for scholarly speculation on the existence of the exilarchate in the Parthian era, a speculation that otherwise has little to support it.33

26 Cf. Goodblatt 2006, p. 85: “The major theme of this survey will be how little one can say for certain about the Jews of Babylonia during the years 70–235”.

27 The same holds true for the series of articles that Neusner published in this field, e.g. Neusner 1962/3, pp. 298–305; id. 1963, pp. 40–59; id. 1976, pp. 46–69. Cf., too, for example, Oppenheimer 2004, 125–139 that exami nes contacts between Mesene and Palestine in the Tannaitic era, but is based almost entirely on amoraic sources; Oppenheimer 1999, pp. 491–503, and others.

28 There is a parallel in yGit 1:5 (43d).29 bGit 14a–b. For a detailed comparison of these stories see my forthcoming article, “Mid gets and

mules, elephants, and exilarchs: On the metamorphosis of a polemical amoraic story”, to be pub-lished in a volume dedicated to Comparing Babylonian and Palestinian Jewish Cultures, (title still to be determined) edited by R. Nikolsky and T. Ilan.

30 bSan 96b.31 E.g. bHor 13b–14a.32 The development of his literary character in the rabbinic sources is neatly revealed in its use to

lambast Judah I. See Meir 1999, pp. 69–106. 33 The question of the existence of the exilarchate in the Parthian era is treated in detail in my

book, A Prince without a Kingdom (forthcoming Tübingen 2012).

146 Geoffrey Herman

In what follows I shall describe one example of how the Babylonian Talmud utilizes tannaitic characters with a Babylonian identity to advance a pro-Babylonian agenda. In b. Pesahim 3b we find the following story that relates how a Gentile, who boasted before Rabbi Judah, the son of Bathyra in Nisibis about eating Passover sacrifices in Jerusalem, was caught red-handed after being set-up by R. Judah the son of Bathyra:

A certain Aramean34 who used to go up and eat of the Passover sacrifice in Jerusa-lem said: It is written “No foreigner shall eat of it”; “no uncircumcised person may eat of it” (Exodus 12:48, 43) and I ate of the finest [part]. Rabbi Judah, the son of Bathyra said to him. Did they feed you from the fat-tail? He said, No. When you go up there, tell them: ‘feed me from the fat-tail!’. When he went up there he said to them: Feed me from the fat-tail. They said to him, The fat-tail goes to the Most High. They said to him: Who told you that? He said to them, Rabbi Judah the son of Bathyra. They said: What is this before us? They investigated and found that he was an Aramean and killed him. Then they sent to Rabbi Judah the son of Bathyra, Peace be with you, Rabbi Judah the son of Bathyra, you are in Nisibis and your net is spread in Jerusalem.

This fanciful story has occasionally been evoked as evidence of the contacts between Nisi-bis and Jerusalem in the Second Temple period, and the existence of a Torah centre in Nisi-bis under his leadership.35 Since other tannaitic (Parthian) sources refer to a rabbi of a sim-ilar name in Nisibis in the middle of the second century CE,36 some have seen this source as confirming a successive rabbinic presence in this city in antiquity. And yet, although it is set in the Parthian era, there is, in reality, little reason to accept it as an accurate histor-ical source capable of enlightening us about the Parthian era. A number of doubts were already raised by Isaiah Gafni. He noted that it had not survived in the many tannatic col-lections; it is not presented in the format of a tannaitic source, but appears in Aramaic as a legendary tale. He also noted that it uses a stock phrase known from elsewhere in the BT, »the fat-tail goes to the Most High«. This phrase occurs in a legal discussion found in the same tractate that this story appears, Pesahim (84b), where it is attributed to the fourth century Babylonian rabbi, R. Nahman b. Isaac. There, too, in fact, the Passover sacrifice is also referred to.37 In this same tractate (109a), furthermore, there appears a tradition in the name of the same Rabbi Judah the son of Bathyra that refers to the temple. Hence, we see that some of the elements in this story are also found elsewhere in the same tractate. It is fairly common practice for the Babylonian Talmud to construct a fictional story from »locally quarried« material – that is, from sources found in the same tractate. These liter-ary signs support the artificial nature of this story itself. Furthermore, it is possible to trace

34 In the manuscripts the reading is goy (Gentile) here (and further on) rather than Aramean. Other variants between the printed edition, which is the version presented here, and the manu-scripts are relatively minor and it is unnecessary to address them for the concerns of this paper.

35 See, e.g., Segal 1964, pp. 38–39; Oppenheimer 2004, p. 320ff. 36 E.g. yYev 12:1 (12c); bYev 102a; 108b; bSan 32b; 96a.37 Gafni 1999, p. 77.


some additional sources that apparently served as building blocks for the construction of this story. One of these is the following anecdote that appears in bHul 94b–95a:

There was a certain butcher who said to his fellow: Had you made peace with me would I not have given you from the fattened ox that I prepared yesterday. He said to him: I indeed ate from the finest [part]! He asked him: Whence [did you acquire it?] He replied: The Gentile so-and-so sold it to me and gave it to me. He said to him: I made two, that one was terefa.38

The exact phrase “I indeed ate from the finest [part]” appears in the above story. One can observe how the Gentile, who in the Hullin story sells the terefa animal to the Jew, has become the Gentile who boasts of eating the Pascal sacrifice in the Pesahim story. Our story also involves an exchange between the Temple authorities of Jerusalem and Rabbi Judah the son of Bathyra. His ingenuity draws the admiration of the Palestinian authori-ties. This side of the story appears to have been inspired by yet another source. In yKil 1:6 (27a)39 we find the following tale:

Rabbi Aha [stated] in the name of Resh Laqish: Wherever it is written [in Scrip-ture] lemineihu (according to its kind) the laws of Kilayim apply. Kahana raised the objection: Behold, with regard to the animals of the sea it is written concern-ing them “according to its kind” – so does now Kilayim apply to them?! Rabbi Yose be-Rabbi Bun remarked: Here Kahana caste forth his net over Resh Laqish and caught him.

In this exchange Kahana succeeds in refuting Resh Laqish. Here, too, we find the image of the casting of net and trapping someone. In this case, however, the image is particularly apt since “with a question regarding sea creatures, Rav Kahana ensnared Resh Laqish in his net.”40 This is not the scenario in the Pesahim story. The ancient talmudic author, how-ever, may have taken note that Kahana was a rabbi of Babylonian extraction whereas Resh Laqish was a Palestinian. Reading this source as a case where the Babylonian rabbi bests the Palestinian, he also took over the image of casting a net and applied it to our story.

The BT has the authorities of Jerusalem acknowledge the service rendered by the dis-tant rabbi. It appears to treat Rabbi Judah the son of Bathyra of Nisibis as a symbol for Baby lonian Jewry. The trouble is that Nisibis is not located in Babylonia. It was, how-ever, for much of the Parthian and Sasanian era under their respective empires. Baby-lonian Jewry, wishing to construct for itself a respectable history for the dark Parthian period of its history when we have much information about the rabbis in Palestine, but next to no thing about Babylonia, may well have mobilized data from wherever possible and for the current need Nisibis was good enough. Judah the son of Bathyra was theirs in the sense that his abode was within the political border of the Sasanian Empire (for the most part). It could serve as an example of a pre-talmudic Torah centre in the Babylonian

38 Rendered ritually unfit for kosher consumption.39 Cf. Genesis Rab. 7 (Theodor-Albeck edition, p. 53).40 Friedman 2002, p. 267.

148 Geoffrey Herman

sphere.41 This was not, however, the first time. In another story related in ySan 1:2 (19a) R. Judah b. Bathyra of Nisibis is enlisted to persuade the Babylonians to accept Palestinian authority over the calendar. The implied meaning being that even the distinguished “Bab-ylonian” rabbi acknowledged the prerogative of Palestine. That, of course, was the Pales-tinian perspective.

4 Conclusions

Parthian Jewish history is at a triple disadvantage: there are few contemporary Parthian Jewish sources; the contemporary non-Parthian Jewish sources that might shed light on Parthian Jewry are also few and far-between; and this poverty is accentuated by the rela-tively glamorous state of Jewish sources in its immediate follower – the Sasanian era which offers a relatively large number of traditions set in the Parthian era. The aim of this article is to stress the need to recognize the distinctive perspective of each of these; to affirm the need to reconcile ourselves with this situation; and to underscore the need to maintain the distinction between these three resources.

If we glimpse at the Babylonian Jewry of the late Biblical literatures, and this Jewry in the Sasanian era, we can appreciate the tremendous change that inevitably occured in the intervening period. However, with the paucity of sources we are almost at a loss when asked to trace this evolution. There can be little question that much of the answer lies with the indigenous Babylonian culture, but it, too, has left us with little to use for the Parthian era, particularly for the first centuries of the Common Era.

The contemporary Babylonian sources that we do have present an interesting portrait of a community: established, settled; suggesting continuous settlement over a long period; interaction with the local majority Babylonian population; perhaps polemicizing with them; supporting the Parthian rulers against Roman invasion; proselytizing; and deeply assimilated in the local Babylonian and, to a lesser degree, the Parthian culture. It is with this image of Parthian Jewry that any further historical investigation must begin.

41 In MShem 10,3 (S. Buber edition, p. 35) the link to Babylonia is completed, connecting Rabbi Judah the son of Bathyra with Abba b. Abba, the father of Samuel, and Samuel, the first genera-tion amora. It relates a story where Samuel’s father comes to Nisibis, meets Judah the son of Bathyra who then prophecies the birth of Samuel.


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— 2004, Akkadian Healing Therapies in the Babylonian Talmud, in: Max-Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Preprint, 259, Berlin.

Goodblatt, D. 1987, Josephus on Parthian Babylonia: Antiqui ties XVIII, 310–379, in: JAOS 107.4, pp. 605–622.

— 2006, The Jews of Babylonia, 66 – 235 CE, in: St. T. Katz (Hg.), Cambridge History of Judaism IV: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, Cambridge, pp. 82–90.

Herman, G. 2005, Ahasuerus, the former stable-master of Belshazzar and the wicked Alexander of Macedon: Two Parallels between the Babylonian Talmud and Persian Sources, in: AJS Review 29.2, pp. 283–297.

— 2006, Iranian Epic Motifs in Josephus’ Antiquities, (XVIII, 314–370), in: JJS 57.2, pp. 245–268.

— 2010, ‘Bury my Coffin Deep!’ Zoroastrian Exhumation in Jewish and Christian Sources, in: Tiferet leIsrael: Jubilee Volume in Honor of Israel Francus, New York, pp. 31–59.

Hintze, A. 1994, The Greek and Hebrew Versions of the Book of Esther and Its Iranian Background, in: S. Shaked/A. Netzer (Hg.), Irano-Judaica III, Jerusalem, pp. 34–39.

— 2008, Treasures in Heaven: A Theme in Comparative Religion, in: Irano-Judaica VI, Jerusalem, pp. 9–36.

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Meir, O. 1999, Rabbi Judah the Patriarch. Palestinian and Babylonian Portrait of a Leader, Tel-Aviv (in Hebrew).

Mor, M. 1991, The Bar-Kochba Revolt: Its Extent and Effect, Jerusalem.Neusner, J. 1962/1963, Arda and Arta and Pyly Bryš, in: JQR 53, pp. 298–305.— 1963, Parthian Political Ideolo gy, in: IA 3, pp. 40–59.— 1965, A History of the Jews in Babylonia, I, Leiden.

150 Geoffrey Herman

— 1966, The Conversion of Adiabene to Christianity, in: Numen 13/2, pp. 144–150.— 1976, The Jews East of the Euphrates and the Roman Empire I. 1st–3rd Centuries A.D.,

in: ANRW II, 9.1, Berlin/New York, pp. 46–69.Oppenheimer, A. 1999, Von Jerusalem nach Babylonien: Der Aufstieg der babylonischen

Judenheit in der parthisch-sassanidischen Epoche, in: J. Renger (Hg.), Babylon: Focus mesopotamischer Geschichte, Wiege früher Gelehrsamkeit, Mythos in der Moderne, Saarbrücken, pp. 491–503 [= N. Oppenheimer (Hg.), Between Rome and Babylon, Studies in Jewish Leadership and Society, Tübingen 2005, pp. 374–383].

— 2004, Contacts between Eretz Israel and Babylonia at the Turn of the Period of the Tan-naim and the Amoraim, in: I. M. Gafni (Hg.), Center and Diaspora: The Land of Israel and the Diaspora in the Second Temple, Mishna and Talmud Periods, Jerusa-lem, pp. 125–139 (in Hebrew) [= N. Oppenheimer (Hg.), Between Rome and Baby-lon, Studies in Jewish Leadership and Society, Tübingen 2005, pp. 417–432].

Pucci, M. 1982, On the Tendentiousness of Josephus’ Historical Writings (Hebrew title translates: ‘The Contacts between the Jews and Parthians in the Eyes of Josephus Falvius’), in: U. Rappaport (Hg.), Josephus Flavius, Historian of Eretz-Israel in the Hellenistic-Roman Period, Collected Papers, Jerusalem, pp. 117–129.

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292–322.Segal, J. B. 1964, The Jews of North Mesopotamia before the Rise of Islam, in: J. M.Grintz/

J. Liver (Hg.), Studies in the Bible presented to M. H. Segal, Jerusalem, pp. 32–63.Widengren, G. 1966, Iran and Israel in Parthian Times with Special Regard to the Ethio-

pic Book of Enoch, in: Temenos 2, pp. 139–177.

The Contributors / Die Autoren

Dr. Peter Bruns is Professor of Church History and Patristic Studies at the University of Bamberg, Germany (Lehrstuhl für Kirchengeschichte und Patrologie, An der Universität 2, 96045 Bamberg). He is also the director of the research centre for Christian-Oriental Studies at the Catholic University of Eichstätt. Research interests: Syriac sources of the history of Eastern Christianity, Catechetical Homilies of Theodore of Mopsuestia, treatises of Aphra hat, Church History of John of Ephesus.

Dr. Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis is Curator of Middle Eastern Coins at the The British Mu seum, United Kingdom (Department of Coins and Medals, The British Museum, London WC1B 3DG). Research interests: Religious and royal iconography of the coins of ancient Iran, especially Parthian and Sasanian periods.

Dr. Yaakov Elman is Professor of Judaic Studies at Yeshiva University, USA (500 West 185 Street New York, NY 10033). Research interests: Jewish biblical commentary, rabbinic intellectual history, Pahlavi texts.

Dr. Marco Frenschkowski is Professor of New Testament at the University of Leipzig, Germany (Otto-Schill-Str. 2, 04109 Leipzig). Research interests: Early Christianity, religion in Antiquity, new religious movements, traditions of magic and esotericism, religion and literature, interreligious dialogue and other fields.

Dr. Linda-Marie Günther is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Bochum, Germany (Historisches Institut, GA 6/157, Universitätsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum). Research interests: Ancient Greece.

Dr. Geoffrey Herman is an independent scholar, living in Jerusalem, Eretz Israel (home page: http://geoffreyherman.webs.com). Research interests: Ancient Jewish history, classical rabbinic literature; Babylonian Jewry; Eastern (Syriac) Christianity, Zoroastria-nism in the Sasanian Empire.

Dr. Dieter Metzler is Professor em. of Ancient History at the University of Münster, Germany. Research interests: Cultural transfer on the Silk Route, religious history, the legacy of Antiquity.

218 The Contributors / Die Autoren

Dr. Meret Strothmann is Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Bochum, Germany (Historisches Institut, GA 6/160, Universitätsstr. 150, 44780). Research interests: Religion in ancient Rome, the Roman Empire from Augustus to Late Antiquity.

Dr. Peter Wick is Professor of New Testament at the University of Bochum, Germany (Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät, GA 8/147, Universitätsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum). Research interests: Paul, the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of John, dynamics in early Christian history, interreligious encounter in Antiquity, the functions of mysteries, New Testament ethics.

Dr. Markus Zehnder is Professor of Biblical Studies at Ansgar College and Theological Seminary (4635 Kristiansand, Norway) and Assistant Professor of Old Testament at the University of Basel (4051 Basel, Switzerland). Research interests: Various aspects of the history and languages of the ancient Near East, with a special focus on the Hebrew Bible.

Pietas

Bisher sind folgende Bände erschienen:

Band 1Stefan Sommer: Rom und die Vereinigungen im

südwestlichen Kleinasien (133 v. Chr. – 284 n. Chr.)Hennef: Buchverlag Marthe Clauss, 2006 – ISBN 3-934040-08-X

Band 2Volker Herholt: Antisemitismus in der Antike.

Kontinuitäten und Brüche eines historischen PhänomensGutenberg 2009 – ISBN 978-3-940598-05-9

Band 3Elena Köstner: Tod im Trevererland.

Interkulturelle Beziehungen zwischen Römern und Kelten. Eine historisch-archäo logische Gräberanalyse in der civitas Treverorum

zwischen 150 v. und 100/120 n. Chr.Gutenberg 2011 – ISBN 978-3-940598-10-3

Band 4Katja Wedekind: Religiöse Experten im lokalen Kontext.

Kommunikationsmodelle in christlichen Quellen des 1.–3. Jhs. n. Chr.Gutenberg 2012 – ISBN 978-3-940598-11-0

ISSN 1432-542X

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Das The Parthian Empire and its Religions Das Partherreich und … articles/The... · The Parthian Empire and its Religions. Studies in the Dynamics of Religious Diversity / Das Partherreich