Urban (re-) organization in Late Roman Palestine and the early Rabbinic guild: The Tosefta on the city and classification of space

Abstract

Over the latter half of the 2nd century and into the 3rd century, urban institutions and administration figured ever more prominently in the organization and governance of Roman Palestine. In this context, the consolidation of the earliest guild of rabbinic masters took hold, and their Mishnah and its supplement, Tosefta, were composed. When compared with correlative passages in the more utopic Mishnah, traditions in Tosefta show decidedly greater interest in the urban setting and its constituent institutions as the territory for meaningful, ordered, human activity. Tosefta superimposes over Mishnah's utopic mapping of a world centred on one city, an "ideal" Jerusalem, a complementary mapping in which meaningful human action and interaction is centred upon one's "local city." In this respect, one might characterize Tosefta as "diasporizing" Mishnah's mapping of an ideal world centred upon a single Temple-city.