An Ordinance Against Images in Jerusalem, A.D. 66

Abstract

The problem of the attitude of Judaism towards art and images, at the beginning of the Christian era, has again come to the forefront of scholarly enquiry as a result of the publication of the first volumes of E. R. Goodenough's monumental work, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (vols. 1–3, New York 1953; vol. 4, New York 1954). In these learned pages, every particle of evidence bearing on the subject is carefully considered, and the author emphatically confirms as fundamental to his main thesis the accepted view: that at least up to the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70, there was a completely effective Rabbinic ban on any sort of iconographic representation for whatever purpose. (His striking conclusions with regard to the later period need not concern us here.) In this article, I would like to reconsider this matter from a slightly different point of view. I propose in it, however, to adopt a criterion which is nowadays becoming somewhat unusual: not only to confine myself to strictly contemporary testimony, but moreover to assume that the contemporaries meant exactly what they said.