Integrating Women into Second Temple History (review)

The Jewish Quarterly Review, XClI, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 2002) 647-649 Tal Ilan. Integrating Women into Second Temple History. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 76, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999. Pp. xii + 296. In this book, the third work in her trilogy on Jewish women during the Second Temple and Rabbinic periods, Tal Ilan seeks to highlight the roles that Jewish women played in the public spaces and at the main historical events of Second Temple Judaism.1 The book is a collection of ten independent essays, of which five are revisions of previously published articles. Ilan has organized these essays in three parts: "Women and Sects" (chaps. 1-2), "Women and Sources" (chaps. 3-7), and "Women and the Judaean Desert Papyri" (chaps. 8-10); I comment on the contents of each section in turn. In chapter 1, '"Fear not the Pharisees': The Attraction of Aristocratic Women to Pharisaism," Ilan argues that Josephus's statement that the Pharisees ruled the women of Herod's court (AJ 17.41-43) should be taken seriously .2 Many aristocratic women, particularly Sadducees, she claims, were attracted to Pharisaism. The reason for their attraction remains unclear, but Ilan draws an interesting parallel to the early Christian movement, which also appears to have attracted women and which, like the Pharisaic movement , did not offer particularly "feminist" legislation. Chapter 2, "'The Daughters of Israel are not Licentious': Beit Shammai on the Legal Position of Women," asserts that within the Pharisaic movement, Beit Shammai 's legislation was particularly sympathetic to women: "Beit Shammai offered women economic independence and greater social standing, together with tighter control of all that was associated with the sexual aspects of marriage" (p. 70). Ilan explores the possibility that, if it is true that Beit Shammai supplied the ideology of the freedom movement of the first century CE, then women may have played a far more active role in the revolt of 66 ce than has heretofore been recognized. Chapter 3, " Things Unbecoming a Woman': Josephus and Nicolaus on Women," argues that whereas Josephus displays indifference toward the political role of women, one of his sources, Nicolaus of Damascus, was highly misogynistic. This recognition allows us to identify Nicolaus's contributions to Josephus's work more precisely. In chapter 4, "'And Who Knows Whether You Have Not Come to Dominion for a Time Like This?': 1 The first two works are Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine: An Inquiry into Image and Status (Tübingen, 1995) and Mine and Yours are Hers: Retrieving Women's Historyfrom Rabbinic Literature (Leiden, 1997). 2 Han's chapter titles include the sources for the quotations. For reasons of space I have excluded them from this review. 648TOE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW Esther, Judith and Susanna as Propaganda for Shelamzion's Queenship," Ilan makes the provocative claim that these three books were all produced by the Hasmonean court to prepare the people for, and justify, Shelamzion's reign. Chapter 5, "'Wickedness Comes from Women': Ben Sira's Misogyny and its Reception by the Babylonian Talmud," contends that the Babylonian rabbis liked the book of Ben Sira specifically for its misogynistic attitude . In chapter 6, " 'Beruriah Has Spoken Well': The Historical Beruriah and Her Transformation in the Rabbinic Corpora," Ilan traces the portrayal of Beruriah through rabbinic literature from her first unremarkable appearance in the Tosefta to her role in the Babylonian Talmud as "a grotesque fantasy" (p. 189). She attributes to Rashi, not the Babylonian Talmud itself, the legend of Beruriah's seduction by Rabbi Meir's student. " 'Bone of My Bones': The Use of Skeletal Remains for the Study of Gender and Social History," chapter 7, attempts to use the Jewish skeletal remains from Roman Palestine in order to answer some basic demographic questions. Han's most provocative claim here is that the remains of one or two women demonstrate spousal abuse. Chapter 8, "Julia Crispina: A Herodian Princess in the Babatha Archive" argues that the woman who appears as a legal guardian of Babatha's son is in fact the daughter of Berenice and Herod of Chalcis, and thus a direct descendent of Herod the Great. If this claim is true, it sheds...