Le milieu rabbinique face aux diversités sociales et religieuses en Palestine romaine du Ier au IVe siècle de notre ère

One of the fascinating questions in the study of Jewish society in Roman Palestine after the Great revolt against Rome concerns the standing of the rabbis in the Jewish people. To what extent was the community subject to the authority of the Sages of the Mishnah and Talmud and their literature? Jewish society was never uniform, and although we do not possess orderly documents relating to those sectors that did not consider themselves subservient to the rabbis, these were undoubtedly important, as we learn from the trenchant theological and halakhic debates about them conducted by the Sages of the Mishnah and Talmud and archaeological finds as for instance the appearance of Sol Invictus on the mosaics of Galilean synagogues. On the other hand, the archeological discoveries, like the discovery of many ritual baths which correspond to the halakhic outlook of the rabbis concerning the purity laws, could just easily have convinced us to reach the opposite conclusions. The overall picture, therefore, seems to be ambivalent, and we must make every effort to avoid rash and sweeping conclusions concerning the relationship between the rabbis and their literature and the general Jewish society in late Roman Palestine.