Persia and Rome in Classical Judaism

examines the representation of Rome and Persia (Iran) in the successive groups of documents that comprise the Rabbinic canon of late antiquity. Neusner considers how diverse documents of Rabbinic Judaism represent Rome and Iran and presents the way in which documentary differentiation affords perspective on the history of Judaism. Axial events of the age—the destruction of the second Temple in 70 and the defeat of the effort to restore it in 135, the transformation of the Roman Empire into a Christian state in the fourth century, the failure to rebuild the Temple when the opportunity arose in the reign of Emperor Julian, and the delegitimation of Israelite institutions in Byzantine Rome—allow us to examine in historical and political context the evidence of the formation of normative Judaism.