The Rabbinic and Roman Laws of Personal Injury

Abstract

This paper studies the varied forms of interaction between the rabbinic and Roman legal systems by investigating similarities between the laws of personal injury found in the eighth chapter of Mishnah Bava Kamma and the contemporaneous Roman law. The rabbinic shift away from the talion happened under the influence of the Roman statutes that had replaced the talion with monetary compensation centuries earlier. Roman norms of shame prompted an expansion of the significance of shame in the rabbinic reckoning of damages. Influence, however, is rarely a matter of the passive reception by a minority culture of the dominant culture's norms. The rabbis adapted and reshaped Roman norms in line with the Torah's discomfort with the concept of personal honor. Personal injury laws in the Babylonian Talmud also bear a striking resemblance to the classical Roman laws, though this should not be attributed to direct Roman influence on the rabbis. The Babylonian rabbis shared the Romans' discomfort with evaluating free people as slaves in order to determine compensation for injury. Because rabbinic statements are terse and enigmatic, whereas Roman law is elaborated in detail, the Roman laws shed light on obscure rabbinic teachings and the cultural concerns that they reflect.