Language:
English
Year of publication:
2019
Titel der Quelle:
Maps and Travel in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2019) 221-231
Keywords:
Midrash rabbah. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
;
Talmud Yerushalmi. Criticism, interpretation, etc.
;
Talmud Bavli. Commentaries
;
Geography in rabbinical literature
;
Jews History 135-621
;
Jews History 70-638, Destruction of the Second Temple to rise of Islam
Abstract:
This essay charts and suggests a possible explanation for a shift in the rabbinic perception of the inhabited world. Apparently until the Bar-Kokhba revolt rabbis traveled both to the East and the West, but after the revolt their geographical focus became more restricted. An examination of reported rabbinic travels, as compared to Second Temple ‘maps,’ and rabbinic interpretations of the biblical ‘Table of Nations’ indicates a significant lessening of rabbinic interest in the West. This narrowing may be connected to rabbinic Judaism’s general retreat from, and diminished concern and connections with the Western world, as compared with their political activity in the earlier Hellenistic-Jewish period.
DOI:
10.1515/9783110588774-009
URL:
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