Archaeology: The Rabbinic Period

This article comprises a bibliographical guide to the archaeology of Jewish life during the times of the rabbinic sages whose intellectual traditions fill the Mishnah, the Tosefta, the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, and the classical Midrash. When considering the history of what is commonly known as Judaism’s rabbinic period, one must bear in mind several points about their relationship with the aforementioned texts. Firstly, the rabbinic sages did not dictate the prevailing modes of Jewish thought and practice of their days. Originating in Judea following the collapse of the second Jewish commonwealth in 70 ce, the rabbinic movement migrated north into the Galilee region of Palestine following the Bar Kokhba rebellion of 132–135 ce. There it gradually took root amid the local Jewish population, concurrently expanding east into Babylonia, or central Mesopotamia, over the centuries to follow. In the meantime, the rabbinic sages spoke not for all Jews, but for the relatively few who counted themselves as their disciples. As such, the target audiences of the rabbis were adult Jewish men (as opposed to women) who possessed the time, the financial freedom, and the ideological temperament to commit to the halakhah, the devout “way” of life embodied in their teachings. The sages therefore tended to speak solipsistically, as though to a reality governed by their own ritual and ethical concerns. Conversely, theirs was a reality not entirely representative of the experiences of all the Jews in whose midst they operated. They had even less to say about Jewish life outside of Palestine and Babylonia. The critical reader of the archaeological record of ancient Judaism record must therefore proceed with caution when relating it to a literary record not oblivious to the common Jewish experience but conditioned by the uncommon sensibilities, pedagogical priorities, and rhetorical biases of its authors. In view of these caveats, the entries in this article focus not only on the namesakes of the so-called rabbinic period, but also on topics in archaeological research pertaining to the lives of all Jews of their age. Consequently, this article does not attempt to describe specific sites of Jewish habitation except where said sites furnish evidence that exemplifies aspects of the common Jewish experience. Reference to excavation reports, regional surveys, and other such technical literature will be limited. Readers seeking scholarship of that variety are referred to the volumes cited under Reference Works.