The Jews in the diaspora of the Roman empire

Abstract

There is little literary evidence and archaeological sources pointing to a high degree of contact partly in the sense of Hellenization of Judaism and partly in the sense of Jewish apologetics and Jewish influence on the non-Jewish world. But there is also evidence – the Jewish struggles and revolts and the Rabbinic literature – pointing in the opposite direction of conflict and isolation. In both the diaspora and in Palestine the Jews were involved in a tense and strained dialectic relationship with their non-Jewish fellow-citizens, and in both cases did this relationship produce significant events and important literature. As in other periods, the Jews in the Roman period formulated their beliefs and ideas, and reached their social positions by the way of various forms for dialectic interaction and communication with the non-Jewish world. They shaped their social, political, ethnic, religious and cultural identity in the process of exchange with the non-Jewish.  Accordingly, in their relations with the non-Jewish world the Jews and Judaism were important parts of the on-going acculturation process in Hellenistic and Roman times.