This article is a discussion of two Greek loanwords found in the Rabbinic text Song of
Songs Rabbah. It shows that these words are best identified and explained through a
comparison with a Stoic theory of fire, described and refuted by Philo of Alexandria.
That these words, both hapax legomena in Rabbinic literature, are used in the…[Read more]

For centuries, the legal rate of interest in the Roman Empire was “one- hundredth”: 1 percent of the principal of the loan was added to it each month. Although Christian leaders and writers in the Greek and Latin west did not approve of this practice, Syriac-speaking Christian communities in the eastern Roman Empire incorporated the rate of “on…[Read more]

A review of Social Stratification of the Jewish Population of Roman Palestine in the Period of the Mishnah, 70–250 CE, written by Ben Zion Rosenfeld and Haim Perlmutter

The Biblical Hebrew word פללים is rare and cryptic. Various readings have been פללים offered for it in its long reception history. Ancient readers of Scripture read in Exod 21:22 in two distinct ways. Some read it as “judges,” whereas others associated פללים with requests, pleas, petitions, and prayers. This latter under- standing of the wo…[Read more]

Review of Katell Berthelot, Jews and Their Roman Rivals: Pagan Rome’s Challenge to Israel. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021. Pp. 552. ISBN 9780691199290. $45.00.

Benjamin Porat’s Justice for the Poor differs from these books not only in that it is written in Hebrew (from the list above, only Wilfand’s 2014 book has been translated into Hebrew), but also because it envisions rabbinic charity as a branch of “law.” Porat is a law professor, and his book is jointly published by a law school, a think tank an…[Read more]