Exoticizing Romanness: Greek and Latin in the Babylonian Talmud

• In Event: Jewish Life in 19th & 20th Century Central & Eastern Europe

Abstract

The past fifteen years have featured a deluge of scholarship on the Greco-Roman character of the Babylonian Talmud. Richard Kalmin, Daniel Boyarin, Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, and Moulie Vidas (and many more) have shown how the Bavli is in many respects western. While these studies have focused on shared literary themes, the contributions of Palestinian rabbis, and attitudes toward Greek wisdom, there has been relatively little attention paid to the presence of Greek and Latin, the languages of the Roman Empire. This lacuna is surprising yet not completely unexpected. The ubiquity of Greek and Latin in Palestinian rabbinic texts has occupied scholars for decades. Unlike a text like Genesis Rabbah which employs Greek and Latin willy-nilly, the Bavli utilizes these words strategically and contextually. When describing the Roman Empire, individual Romans, Roman festivals, or anything related to Romanness, the Bavli uses Greek and Latin. These foreign words other Romanness and enable the rabbis to depict Romans as strange imperialists with bizarre names, customs and language. Since the Bavli only seldomly uses Greek and Latin, the loanwords appear even more foreign, especially when they are haphazardly transliterated into Aramaic.

Ron Naiweld argues that Rome became a discursive empire in the Bavli; Rome was a character in literature rather than a real political entity. My research builds off Naiweld’s argument by providing specific linguistic features associated with the character Rome. Two passages from B. AZ 11a-11b demonstrate this claim. The first selection features a dialogue between Onqelos and the Roman soldiers sent by Caesar to retrieve him. Onqelos details the benefits of being Jewish with a parable full of Greek loanwords. The Romans speak to each other in what amounts to an Aramaic-Greek, hybrid jargon. The second passage describes a rare Roman festival in which the Romans publicly humiliate the Jews. The Bavli’s use of Greek in this selection exoticizes Roman culture. By emphasizing the context of rare Greek and Latin loanwords a new mode of Romanization becomes apparent. The Bavli is linguistically Greco-Roman. This research only adds to the growing recognition of Greco-Roman culture in the Bavli.

Author

• Daniel Golde, The Jewish Theological Seminary of America