Books by Simcha Gross
The History of the ‘Slave of Christ’: From Jewish Child to Christian Martyr offers the first crit... more The History of the ‘Slave of Christ’: From Jewish Child to Christian Martyr offers the first critical editions and English translations of the two Syriac recensions of this fascinating text, which narrates the story of a young Jewish child, Asher, who after converting to Christianity and taking the name ʿAḇdā da-Mšiḥā (‘slave of Christ’) is martyred by his father Levi in a scene reminiscent of Abraham’s offering of Isaac in Genesis 22. In a detailed introduction, the authors argue that the text is a fictional story composed during the early Islamic period (ca. 650–850) probably in Shigar (modern Sinjār). Building upon methodology from the study of western Christian and Jewish texts, they further contend that the story’s author constructs an imagined Jew based on the Hebrew Bible, thereby challenging the way that previous scholars have used this text as straightforward evidence for historical interactions between Jews and Christians in Babylonia at this time. This ultimately allows the authors to reevaluate the purpose of the text and to situate it in its Late Antique Babylonian context.
Edited Volumes by Simcha Gross
Aaron Michael Butts and Simcha Gross (eds.), Jews and Syriac Christians: Intersections across the... more Aaron Michael Butts and Simcha Gross (eds.), Jews and Syriac Christians: Intersections across the First Millennium (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020).
Scholarly interest in intersections between Jews and Syriac Christians has experienced a boom in recent years. This is the result of a series of converging trends in the study of both groups and their cultural productions. The present volume contributes to this developing conversation by collecting sixteen studies that investigate a wide range of topics, from questions of origins to the development of communal boundaries, from social interactions to shared historical conditions, involving Jews and Syriac Christians over the first millennium CE.
Peer Reviewed Articles and Chapters by Simcha Gross
Journal of Jewish Studies , 2022
The exilarch is widely believed to have held a supra-leadership position over
Babylonian Jewish s... more The exilarch is widely believed to have held a supra-leadership position over
Babylonian Jewish society during the Amoraic period, a position which persisted into the medieval period. One of the exilarch’s chief responsibilities and privileges was overseeing the Jewish legal system, and more particularly appointing and authorizing judges. Despite the prevalence of this understanding of the exilarch, it is primarily predicated on a single extended discussion in b. Sanhedrin 5a. This article argues that b. Sanhedrin 5a is a late redacted and tendentious source that reflects not the power enjoyed by the exilarch during the Amoraic period, but a later attempt to retroject his increasing authority into the Amoraic past. Following an in-depth analysis of the Talmudic discussion, the article reconsiders the position of the exilarch in the Amoraic and post-Amoraic periods, calling for further work that reconsiders the main scholarly tenets of the nature of Babylonian Jewish society.
Journal of Near Eastern Studies , 2022
This paper centers on two authors who instead appealed to the late antique past, to the memory of... more This paper centers on two authors who instead appealed to the late antique past, to the memory of by-then defunct geographic, imperial, and historical partitions—which helped constitute these communities originally—in order to maintain boundaries in the early post-Islamic period. These two authors are John of Fenek (bar Penkāyē) and Pirqoi ben Baboi, a Christian and a Jew respectively, both writing in Aramaic in Iraq between the late seventh and early ninth centuries. Their parallel projects of construction and deployment of memory reflect the similar challenges and circumstances which Christian and Jewish communities faced in light of radically new social conditions of the post-conquest Near East and the changing constructions of the past made possible by new imperial realities. Drawing from and adapting earlier traditions, memories, and texts of their communities, these works produced discourses that most closely resemble those of their contemporaries from other communities. Yet given their distinctive communal experiences and memories, the details of the two authors’ narratives are mirror images of one another, even as the shape of the narratives in which they were emplotted were alike. When studied in isolation, these authors are often treated as natural extensions and amplifications of earlier discourses. By examining them together, it emerges that these authors shared responses to a new historical moment, and the need it generated to reconfigure the memory of the past for present ends.
Studies in Late Antiquity, 2022
This article reexamines the evidence underlying the widely cited identification of a late ancient... more This article reexamines the evidence underlying the widely cited identification of a late ancient synagogue in Qanīʾ (modern Biʾr ʿAlī, Yemen), challenging its identification and the historical narrative built around it. We first assess the epigraphic, archaeological, and literary evidence used to identify a synagogue, and therefore a community of Jews, in fourth- through sixth-century Ḥimyar. We suggest that none of the evidence can bear the weight of the identification. We then discuss the reception of this tenuous claim by a wide variety of scholars—including those who have questioned its underlying rationale—and the way that it has been used to buttress wishful claims about an early and powerful Jewish presence in South Arabia. Ultimately, the mirage of Qanīʾ’s Jews serves as a cautionary tale, illustrating how surprising conclusions that bolster exciting historical narratives can result in speedy and unanimous acceptance of interpretations deserving of skepticism.
Journal of the American Oriental Society , 2021
The Provincial Capitals of Ērānšahr, a medieval Zoroastrian Middle Persian text, recounts how the... more The Provincial Capitals of Ērānšahr, a medieval Zoroastrian Middle Persian text, recounts how the daughter of the Jewish exilarch married the Sasanian king Yazdgird I and gave birth to Wahrām Gōr, his successor. While the historicity of the text has been largely undermined, scant attention has been given to its authorship and purpose. This article proposes that the story’s creators were members of the exilarch’s household in the tenth through eleventh century who internalized the broader concern with (invented) Sasanian pedigree during the period known as the Iranian intermezzo in an effort to appeal to Iranian Jews and other elites alike. Studying this text and its origins provides evidence of contact between Jews and Zoroastrians during this period and offers a new suggestion about the cultural context of the Zoroastrians who produced The Provincial Capitals.
The field of Bavli studies benefits when open to the full array of sources present in the Bavli’s... more The field of Bavli studies benefits when open to the full array of sources present in the Bavli’s larger Iraqi context (Zoroastrian, Sasanian, Syriac Christian, Armenian, Mandaean, Manichean, and more), when it explores the full implications of parallel texts, and when it compares tandem strategies of neighboring communities separately negotiating a shared imperial context.
Sherira Gaon's Epistle has been the most important source for the study of Babylonian Jewish hist... more Sherira Gaon's Epistle has been the most important source for the study of Babylonian Jewish history, and yet scholars have often relied too heavily on this work. This article argues that Sherira Gaon's Epistle must first be situated in its contemporary context, which reveals the many historiographical assumptions about the past that Sherira shared with both Arabic and Syriac historiography from the same period. In particular, analysis of Sherira's account of the Arab Conquest shows that it is not a historically accurate report of the past. Instead, Sherira is indebted to widespread assumptions of his time that viewed the Conquest as a watershed moment. Moreover, his celebrated account about an encounter between Ali ibn Abi Talib and the Jews of a certain town conforms to other apocryphal conquest accounts, composed in order to secure the material and cultural capital derived from such reports.
“Rethinking Babylonian Rabbinic Acculturation in the Sasanian Empire,” Journal of Ancient Judaism... more “Rethinking Babylonian Rabbinic Acculturation in the Sasanian Empire,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 9 (2019), 280-310.
Introduction to Aaron Michael Butts and Simcha Gross (eds.), Jews and Syriac Christians: Intersec... more Introduction to Aaron Michael Butts and Simcha Gross (eds.), Jews and Syriac Christians: Intersections across the First Millennium (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 180; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020).
"A Long Overdue Farewell: The Purported Jewish Origins of Syriac Christianity," in Intersections ... more "A Long Overdue Farewell: The Purported Jewish Origins of Syriac Christianity," in Intersections between Judaism and Syriac Christianity eds. Aaron Michael Butts and Simcha Gross (Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 121-144.
Aramaic Studies 18 (2020) 171-197, 2020
The provenance of the opening Aramaic portion of the Passover Haggadah has confounded practitione... more The provenance of the opening Aramaic portion of the Passover Haggadah has confounded practitioners and scholars for centuries. Little evidence has come to light to explain the origins of this passage or the fluctuations in its attending practices over time. This article argues that additional evidence, found in some neglected Talmudic manuscripts and in incantation bowls, reveals that the core recitational and practical elements of this passage were originally unrelated to Passover or Jewish ritual. Instead, they were part of a recognised social script in late antique Jewish Babylonia that was integrated into the Passover Haggadah. With changes in Babylonian Jewish society, and with the transmission of this section and its associated practices to Jewish communities outside of Babylonia, the original social and cultural context of this sentence was forgotten. Untethered from the setting in which it was culturally legible, it developed through encounters with new actors in different contexts.
Studies in Late Antiquity, 2021
Over the past several decades, scholars have challenged longstanding assumptions about Christian ... more Over the past several decades, scholars have challenged longstanding assumptions about Christian narratives of persecution. In light of these revisionist trends, a number of scholars have reconsidered the “Great Persecution” of Christians under the fourth-century Sasanian king Shapur II. Where scholars previously argued that the cause of Sasanian imperial violence against Christians was a perceived connection between them and the increasingly Christian Roman Empire, these new accounts reject this explanation and downplay the scope of violence against Christians. This article reexamines Sasanian violence against Christians in the fourth century, navigating between the proverbial Scylla and Charybdis of positivist and revisionist approaches. It argues that the accusations against Christians must be situated within the broader Roman-Sasanian conflict. In this context, fifth-column accusations were a pervasive anxiety, animated—and deployed—by empires and inhabitants alike. Yet, rather than inexorably leading to indiscriminate violence against all Christians, fifth-column accusations operated in a variety of ways, resulting in targeted violence but also, it is argued, in imperial patronage. Seen in this light, concerns for Christian disloyalty were responsible for the drastic vacillations in Christian experience under Sasanian rule during the fourth and early fifth centuries, unparalleled for other non-Iranian Sasanian communities, such as Jews. It was the particular circumstances of Christians, caught between the Sasanian and Roman Empires, that account for their experience under Sasanian rule.
Jewish Quarterly Review, 2022
Since their discovery, the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls have typically been unders... more Since their discovery, the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls have typically been understood to represent “popular” Jewish religious practice that stood in marked contrast with the scholastic rabbinic elite. As a result of this characterization, the usefulness of the bowls for understanding Babylonian Jewish society and the position of the rabbis within it has remained largely unexplored. With the continued publication and study of the bowls, however, the dichotomy between the world of the learned elites and the masses allegedly responsible for the bowls has become increasingly difficult to maintain. This article argues that the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls do not constitute a single corpus; rather, they were produced by different groups of scribes, some of whom consistently employed recognizable Jewish literature from a variety of genres and eschewed non-Jewish invocations. Moreover, we demonstrate how some bowl scribes invoke in an unprecedented manner not only rabbis of the distant past but also local rabbis, the rabbinic class, and even rabbinic academy heads. This evidence suggests that some bowls scribes had greater intellectual and social proximity to the rabbis, rendering a more complicated depiction of Babylonian Jewish society.
Papers by Simcha Gross
Aethiopica, 2022
In an article published in this journal in 2010, Norbert Nebes argued that ʾbk wdm is an apotropa... more In an article published in this journal in 2010, Norbert Nebes argued that ʾbk wdm is an apotropaic formula, which can be translated, for instance in the case of RIÉ 9, as ‘und Waddum ist dein (göttlicher) Vater als Schutz vor einem Widersacher’ (wʾbk wdm [b]n ʿtkm). In contrast, it is proposed here that ʾbk wdm continues the previous list of deity names, as already suggested in 1976 by Roger Schneider. Key to this argument is the distribution of the concluding prepositional phrases bn kl mrʿm, ‘from everyone who is malicious’, and bn ʿtkm, ‘from an adversary’, which only occur in inscriptions that have b-s¹qt, ‘by the protection of’. Thus, the following formula is proposed: b-s¹qt DN(s) bn X, ‘by the protection of divine name(s) from X’.
Contribution to Review Forum of Daniel Boyarin, Judaism: The Genealogy of a Modern Notion (Rutger... more Contribution to Review Forum of Daniel Boyarin, Judaism: The Genealogy of a Modern Notion (Rutgers University Press, 2018)
Book Reviews by Simcha Gross
Review of Aryeh Kofsky, Serge Ruzer, with Reuven Kiperwasser, Reshaping Identities in Late Antiqu... more Review of Aryeh Kofsky, Serge Ruzer, with Reuven Kiperwasser, Reshaping Identities in Late Antique Syria-Mesopotamia: Christian and Jewish Hermeneutics and Narrative Strategies (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2016), in Church History 87 (2018), 172-174.
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Books by Simcha Gross
Edited Volumes by Simcha Gross
Scholarly interest in intersections between Jews and Syriac Christians has experienced a boom in recent years. This is the result of a series of converging trends in the study of both groups and their cultural productions. The present volume contributes to this developing conversation by collecting sixteen studies that investigate a wide range of topics, from questions of origins to the development of communal boundaries, from social interactions to shared historical conditions, involving Jews and Syriac Christians over the first millennium CE.
Peer Reviewed Articles and Chapters by Simcha Gross
Babylonian Jewish society during the Amoraic period, a position which persisted into the medieval period. One of the exilarch’s chief responsibilities and privileges was overseeing the Jewish legal system, and more particularly appointing and authorizing judges. Despite the prevalence of this understanding of the exilarch, it is primarily predicated on a single extended discussion in b. Sanhedrin 5a. This article argues that b. Sanhedrin 5a is a late redacted and tendentious source that reflects not the power enjoyed by the exilarch during the Amoraic period, but a later attempt to retroject his increasing authority into the Amoraic past. Following an in-depth analysis of the Talmudic discussion, the article reconsiders the position of the exilarch in the Amoraic and post-Amoraic periods, calling for further work that reconsiders the main scholarly tenets of the nature of Babylonian Jewish society.
Papers by Simcha Gross
Book Reviews by Simcha Gross
Scholarly interest in intersections between Jews and Syriac Christians has experienced a boom in recent years. This is the result of a series of converging trends in the study of both groups and their cultural productions. The present volume contributes to this developing conversation by collecting sixteen studies that investigate a wide range of topics, from questions of origins to the development of communal boundaries, from social interactions to shared historical conditions, involving Jews and Syriac Christians over the first millennium CE.
Babylonian Jewish society during the Amoraic period, a position which persisted into the medieval period. One of the exilarch’s chief responsibilities and privileges was overseeing the Jewish legal system, and more particularly appointing and authorizing judges. Despite the prevalence of this understanding of the exilarch, it is primarily predicated on a single extended discussion in b. Sanhedrin 5a. This article argues that b. Sanhedrin 5a is a late redacted and tendentious source that reflects not the power enjoyed by the exilarch during the Amoraic period, but a later attempt to retroject his increasing authority into the Amoraic past. Following an in-depth analysis of the Talmudic discussion, the article reconsiders the position of the exilarch in the Amoraic and post-Amoraic periods, calling for further work that reconsiders the main scholarly tenets of the nature of Babylonian Jewish society.