Für ein Corpus jüdisch-lateinischer Texte der Spätantike und des Frühmittelalters. Überlegungen zur Erforschung der vorrabbinischen Kultur des Judentums im westlichen Mittelmeerraum

Abstract

Toward a corpus of Jewish-Latin texts from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Reflections on research into the pre-rabbinical culture of Judaism in the Western Mediterranean Starting from a title of a Carolingian manuscript (Reims, B.M., ms. 118) indicating that the author of a Latin commentary on the Book of Kings was a Jew, this article deals with western Latin texts potentially written by Jewish authors. It refers also to the epigraphic and archaeological evidence of the western diaspora (Rome, Venosa, North Africa) and to Christian statements about Jews and their textual culture. It thereby questions the assumption that a text written in Latin must be of Christian origin and a Jewish text must necessarily be written in Hebrew. On the contrary, this article argues that at least prior to the reception of rabbinic Judaism, Latin texts with religious content do not have an explicitly Christian content ‒ such as the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum by Ps.-Philo, some works by Ps.-Jerome, the Lex Dei, and others ‒ seem to be of Jewish origin: with the result that the image of a complete spiritual and intellectual decline of Diaspora Judaism after the destruction of the Temple needs to be revised.