The Jews Among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (review)

120 SHOFAR Spring 1993 Vol. 11, No.3 another. All of these factors, each linked to Scripture, are essential criteria in the Bavli's search for the Divine element. Finally, Kraemer does not account for scholarship that diverges from his own. While citing such noted writers as David Halivni and Jacob Neusner, he does not engage other scholars who present divergent views of the talmudic process. For example, Isaac Hirsch Wise, in' his classic Dar dar v'darshav, accounts for the lengthy discussions found in the later stages of the Bavli as an outgrowth of scholasticism and artificiality. Wise may be wrong and Kraemer right, but opinions such as Wise's are never engaged. In conclusion, there is no substantial proof that the later generations of the Amoraim or Saboraim regarded logic, reasoning, or argumentation as equal (not to say superior) to scripture. Kraemer is right on one point. Logic and reasoning constitute a basic element of the talmudic tradition. Nevertheless, Kraemer's book is eminently readable. It deserves the attention of scholars and laymen alike.5 Ben Zion Wacholder Professor of Talmud Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion Cincinnati, OH The Jews Among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire, edited by Judith Lieu, John North, and Tessa Rajak. London: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, 1992. 198 pp. $39.95. A monochrome picture ofJudaism, Christianity, and paganism in the Roman Empire has emerged in the modern popular mind. Back then, a Jew was a Jew, a Christian a Christian, and a pagan was a pagan, as simple as that. They were the ancient counterparts to the contemporary religious troika of "Protestant, Catholic, and Jew," a division that is descriptive of very little, as we all know. There are many expressions ofJewishness, some of which are non-religious; Catholicism has a wide spectrum of adherents; and Protestantism has so "disintegrated," to use Hans Kung's term, as to make it an ambivalent category. One might suggest that there is hardly a common plausibility structure bonding all Jews, or all Catholics, or all 'I thank Edward S. Boraz for his assistance in the composition of this review. Book Reviews 121 Protestants. Yet we use the three terms as though they describe clear and distinct religious categories of the modern world. It should come as no surprise that there may well have been similar diversity in the Roman Empire. When discussing Judaism, at least after G. F. Moore published his three-volumeJudaism (1927-30); scholars have noted the broader spectrum of expressions of early Judaism. No longer do serious scholars write about" normative Judaism." Scholars ofthe early Church have long noted the differences between the early "Christianities," even though "historic orthodoxy" has been treated as the "normative" form of the faith, the stemma to which all other expressions of Christianity, e.g., the Ebionites, Marcionites, or Christian Gnostics, are compared. Students of the nonJudaeo -Christian axis of faith have been aware of the variety within paganism. But there has not been significant study of the interplay of the varieties of these religious expressions. Often enough stereotypical forms of each of these three categories of religion were compared with stereotypes of the other religious categories. The produce of these comparisons may describe nothing an ancient person would have recognized as the situation in her world. Furthermore, the religious history of the Roman Empire has often been reduced to an account of the triumph of Christianity over paganism (e.g., Pelikan's The Excellent Empire: The Fall of Rome and the Triumph ofthe Church), with Judaism being a third category of religion, a dying one at that, that served principally as the seed-bed for Christianity. This book, intended for the general reader as well as for scholars, offers a persuasive alternative way to look at this period of religious history. Its contributors bear in mind the varieties found within the traditional three categories of religion in the ancient world. The unifying interest in the essays is the varied life ofJudaism, in particular, within the marketplace of religions in the Roman Empire. What was the life of the Jews like in this marketplace, particularly in places outside the leading cities where the Jewish communities were out of...