The Memory of the Temple in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature

Download or read book The Memory of the Temple in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature written by Nathan S. Schumer and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I provide close readings of three stories in which figures from the Second Temple period (who often seem to have been real individuals in the Second Temple period) are transformed into moral exemplars, embodiments of moral virtues or vices. Chapter 4 turns to another discourse around the Second Temple past, which is found in the Yerushalmi and Eichah Rabbah (ER). I argue that this discourse, the “Romanization” of the Second Temple period, uses the Roman convivial meal and the Roman province of Palestine to describe the greatness of the Jews in the Second Temple period, projecting these institutions back onto the Second Temple past. This strategy of displaced anachronism and misremembering commemorates Jewish greatness in the Second Temple period, a potential form of resistance to Roman rule, but the highly Roman means for doing so show the degree to which the rabbis are embedded in their Roman provincial context.