This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Edrei, A. Articles by Mendels, D. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

A Split Jewish Diaspora: Its Dramatic Consequences

Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel

Doron Mendels

The Department of History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel

This article proposes that a language divide and two systems of communication have brought to a serious gap between the western Jewish Diaspora and the eastern one. Thus the western Greek-speaking Jews lost touch with the Halakhah and the Rabbis, a condition that had far-reaching consequences on Jewish history thereafter. The Rabbis paid a high price for keeping their Halakhah in oral form, losing in consequence half of their constituency. An oral law did not develop in the western diaspora, whereas the existing eastern one was not translated into Greek. Hence it is not surprising that western Jews contributed nothing to the development of the oral law in the east. The Jewish communities that were isolated from the Rabbinic network served as a receptive basis for the development of an alternative Christian network by Paul and the apostles, which enabled it to spread throughout the Mediterranean basin. The Jews that remained ‘biblical’ surfaced in Europe in the Middle Ages.

Key Words: Eastern diaspora • western diaspora • Land of Israel • language divide • systems of communication

Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 16, No. 2, 91-137 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0951820706074303


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?