Economy, Geography, and Provincial History in Later Roman Palestine (review)

Abstract

The Jewish Quarterly Review, XCIlI, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 2003) 668-674 Hayim Lapin. Economy, Geography, and Provincial History in Later Roman Palestine. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 85. Tuebingen: Mohr Siebeck , 2001. Pp. viii + 227. This is both an exciting book and an infuriating one. It is exciting because it is an attempt to penetrate and understand both rabbinic literature and relatively sparse archaeological material using tools of social science and geography, in particular "central place theory," not commonly used by either those who study the history of the rabbinic period in Palestine or the archaeology of that period.1 It is, at times, infuriating because Lapin's prose is far too heavy with unnecessary technical terminology and scientific "gobbledygook ," and after all is said and done, his conclusions often seem simple and anti-climatic. In spite of this, this book should be required reading for students of Roman Palestine, at least until Lapin, or someone else, builds on the framework that the present work seeks to provide (p. 14). Lapin begins by pointing out the desiderata of future research. He is certainly correct that it is necessary to rebuild "from the ground up" the cultural and social history of later Roman Palestine and particularly "where and how people lived on the ground, and how their living spaces and their inhabited landscapes were organized" (p. 1). Lapin points out from the very beginning that he cannot provide a definitive statement on these matters; rather he sees his work as an exploratory exercise to begin to lay the framework for a new type of historiography (p. 4). The tool of this exercise is central place theory, a set of models of geographical interaction, and the new historiography grounded in economics and, especially, political economy . While this might ultimately provide a new theory regarding where and how people lived etc., it should be pointed out from the very beginning that it is only one way of relating to these issues, and Lapin in no way even begins to approach these questions in terms of material culture, everyday life, and social archaeology. However, his perspective is certainly legitimate, and it is preferable to judge the book for what it is rather than for what it is not. Also, in spite of the title of the book, Lapin restricts his inquiry for the 1 As Lapin himself points out, he is not the first to attempt to do this. See, for example , Z. Safrai, "Le-she'elat ha-miveh ha-merhavi shel ha-yishuv ba-galil bi-tequfat ha-mishna we-ha-talmud," in A. Shemueli et al.. The Lands ofGalilee (Haifa, 1983), 1 :269-288 and Y. Portugal!, "A Field Methodology for Regional Archaeology (The Jezreel Valley Survey, 1981), Tel Aviv 9 (1982) 170-188. However, Safrai's discussion was limited and hardly represented systematic analysis, and regional archaeology of Israel, such as that described by Portugali, is popular for the most part only among those archaeologists with an affinity for the study of human geography. LAPIN, LATER ROMAN PALESTINE—SCHWARTZ669 most part to the northern Palestinian landscape (Galilee, the Beth Shean valley, and the Golan). While he might have justifiable archaeological and analytical reasons for doing so (pp. 5-6), the title of the book should reflect the content, and those readers interested in Judaea, for instance, will find rather meager fare here, although the discussion, in principle, will also be of importance to them.2 The book contains five chapters. The first (pp. 15-38) describes some of the standard formulations of central-place theory in far greater detail than is necessary for his study. The second chapter (pp. 39-77) presents the archaeological material, while the third (pp. 78-122) offers hypothetical constructions of central-place models for northern Israel. Chapter four (pp. 123-152) deals with aspects of the geography of marketing in Palestinian literature, and the final chapter (pp. 153-194) ties it all together, generating the framework of a regional history. As mentioned above, one of the problems of this book is the heavyhanded technical prose of the author. The first chapter provides the basics for the understanding of the whole work, i.e...