Anna Collar (University of Exeter, UK)

This paper examines the communicative power of the network of the Jewish Diaspora in the Roman Empire and explores how, when and why it was used to diffuse new ideas about Jewish identity. The developing methodological framework of network theory focuses on the processes by which innovation spreads: how interconnectedness facilitates change. Although some innovations might be ‘superior’, viewing success or failure as the result of interplay between inherent qualities of a religious movement and the structure of the social environment in which it is embedded reduces value judgements about superiority or inferiority. Instead of assuming that there were intrinsic qualities of a movement that ensured its success, this approach focuses on the strength and connectivity of the social networks as the driving force for the spread of religious innovations. Demonstrating the value of this theoretical framework, the epigraphic data for the Jewish Diaspora is used to argue that if the rabbinic reforms were necessitated by the destruction wrought in Judaea between AD 66-135, then this cataclysm also ‘activated’ the ethnicity of the Diaspora Jews. Before the destruction of the Temple, Diaspora Jews did not need to define themselves as Jewish, because there was an inherent centre to their religious life. The destruction of the real and cognitive centre of Judaism changed Jewish existence forever. It is argued that rabbinic halakhah was swiftly transmitted across the newly activated ethnic network of the Diaspora, shown clearly in the epigraphic record as a renewed knowledge of the wider Jewish network.