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Religious Lives of Image-Things, Avodah Zarah, and Rabbis in Late

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Religious Lives of Image-Things, Avodah Zarah, and Rabbis in Late Rachel Neis Religious LivesofImage-Things, Avodah Zarah,and Rabbis in LateAntique Palestine Abstract: Drawing on rabbinic sources redacted in the earlythird and late fourth/ earlyfifth centuries, this paper tracks the intertwined livesofdivineimage-things and rabbis living in late Roman and Byzantine period Palestine. The paper argues that the religious image-thingsofothers (or avodah zarah,inrabbinic terms) pressed in different ways on rabbinic notionsofanimation, materiality,agency, and represen- tation, as well as on the boundaries between the thing,the human, and the divine. Additionally, the paper argues that while rabbis attempted to neutralize the claims of such image-things, in part by exposing their materiality,their excess nonetheless es- caped such rabbinicefforts. Finally, the paper argues that in the fourth century, along with the “material turn” in the Roman world inspired by Christian engage- ment,wefind not onlyagreater sense of the excess in the thingsofavodah zarah, but also aconcomitant thingification of the rabbinicsage. Introduction Among the population of those thingsinantiquity associated with what we call re- ligion, wereimages. Religious images, especiallythoseofdivinities, presented apar- ticular conundrum for ancient Jewishsages, writers, and thinkers living in Palestine, Egypt,Rome, and Mesopotamia. This was partlydue to the legacyofthe second com- mandment in which the biblical God inveighed against the making of various arti- facts for the purposes of worship. Manyscholars have explored rabbinic ideas about images and “idols.”¹ However,insights from “thing theory” will allow me to My thankstoIan Moyer and Celia Schultz, organizers of the Midwest ConsortiumonAncient Reli- gions conferenceheld in Ann Arbor,2013, and editors of thissection, fortheir helpful comments and corrections. My appreciation also to the participantsinthe conferencefor their comments and questions,aswellastoShiraSchwartzand HarryKashdan fortheir assistance. Ialso thank the anonymous reviewer forhelpfulcomments and bibliographical references.—Forthe purposes of this essay Iciterabbinic texts in the following manner: ForMishnah and Tosefta: aprefixed m. or t. followed by chapter and paragraph. For the Palestinian Talmud: aprefixed y. followed by trac- tate, chapter,paragraph, folio, and side; for the Babylonian Talmud: aprefixed b. followed by the tractate, folio and side. Icitethe Palestinian Talmud according to the Leiden manuscript (Sussman ed. 2001); the Babylonian Talmud according to the Vilnaedition, the Toseftaaccording to the Lieber- manedition (1955–73), and the Mishnahaccording to the Albeck edition (1957–59). See recentarticles by Binder 2012,Friedheim 2009,Zohar 2009,Furstenberg2009,Rosen-Zvi 2009 and respective bibliographies. The terms “idol” (eidolon,image) and “idolatry” (eidōlon and latreia, worship) have complicated histories. Eidōlon is used in anegativesense in the Septuagint; the com- DOI 10.1515/arege-2015-0006 Brought to you by | University of Michigan Authenticated Download Date | 12/29/16 4:20 PM 92 Rachel Neis press in different ways on notions of animation, agency,and representation, as well as on the fuzzy boundaries between “thing,” human, and divinity that lie at the heart of religious image-things.² To do this, Ifocus on Palestinian rabbis and their literarysources, namelyTan- naitic texts redacted in the third century and containingthe teachingsofthe Tan- naim who livedbetween the first and third centuries CE; and later Amoraic texts re- dacted at the end of the fourth century or the earlyfifth century CE. My concern is to track some of the ways in which rabbis,living in Palestine in the late Roman and Byzantine periods, interacted with the stuff and thingsofother religions. Put differ- ently, Iwillask what happens in the encounter between religious images and rabbis in rabbinic discourse, the discourse of aminoritygroup within aminoritypopulation living under achangingimperial regime.³ Iuse the languageofencounter between images and rabbis rather than the com- monlydeployed “rabbinic attitudes towardx”because Iwish to expand the common ground of inquiry in which rabbinic subjects are summoned for their views or con- structionsofvarious and usually non-rabbinic or non-Jewish objects or concepts (material, human, or otherwise). In this respect,evenasIadmit the partial (in all senses) perspective and creative hand of rabbinic authors, Iamacknowledging (some would saygranting) the agency of those thingsthat appear in their discourse. Iamindebtedtotheorists who have madethe casefor the agency of thingsbeyond human projects for them and projections onto them, and who are still debating the terms of this recognition. Bill Brown highlights the “thingness of objects,” which he argues becomes manifest in twoways: when something happens to break the flow of habitual encounter or use, such as when the object literallybreaks (Brown, 2001, 4), or when thereissome kind of excess (“sensuous,”“metaphysical” or affective)inthe objects that “exceeds their mere materialization” (Brown 2001, 5).⁴ To differing de- pound eidōlatria is first used in the New Testament and then in Christian texts (Ellenbogenand Tu- gendhaft,2011:3–4; Büchsel 1964;Schwartz 2001:165). See Neis 2013:170 – 201. Iuse the terms “image” and “image-thing” interchangeablyinorder to emphasizethe ways in which images areatype of material artifact belongingtothe broader class of things.Images make particular types of claims,among them representational ones (see below), that maynot be shared with other types of things. Idonot want to simplify the demographicsofhumans or things herebyarguingthat image-things of others need onlybeunderstood in local Jewish versus Roman imperial terms.Therewere avariety of different ethnic and religious groups livinginPalestine besides rabbis, other Jews,and Romans.At the same time, the biblical mandatetoclear the land of other gods, and the rabbinic term avodah zarah or “foreign worship” (discussedbelow), signifies the extent to which religious things of others werebound up with territorial claims. Iuse the term “thing” as opposed to “object” in order to avoid an apriori opposition between (usu- allyhuman) subjects and (usuallynonhuman) objects that privileges the subject as the bearer of agency; Webb 2006:197,201–202. Bill Brown uses the term “thing” in some oppositionto“object” (although he softens this opposition when he refers to the “thingness of objects;” Brown 2001:4). Iamnot committed to this terminological distinction,though its underlyingHeideggerian-inspired ideas areinsightful. Brought to you by | University of Michigan Authenticated Download Date | 12/29/16 4:20 PM Religious Lives of Image-Things, Avodah Zarah,and Rabbis in LateAntique Palestine 93 grees and in different fashions Latour and Keane make the casefor astrongagency for things(Latour 2005;Keane 2006a and 2006b). Appadurai and Gell allow for a type of agency for thingsbut ultimatelycenter theirinquiries on the meaningand role of thingsinhuman lives(Appadurai 1986 and 2006;Gell 1998).⁵ Similarly, those who traditionallystudy image-things, or what might be called practitioners of the newer art history,seek to liberate the particularthing that is the image from its framing by producers,patrons,and consumers and, in the recent attention to materiality,evenfrom the strictures of formal art historical methods.⁶ Iproceed from amodulated position thatattends to how image-thingsfare when they enter human discursive space. Rather than suggesting aradical agencyfor these image- things(about which Iamagnostic), Ilook at how they interact with other entities, such as humans: human relations and meaning-making will not be absent from my analysis. Within this framework, Itrace how humans (in this case, rabbis)soughttotame and neutralize certain image-things, with mixed success, and,conversely, Isuggest ways in which these thingsescaped or exceeded rabbinic discursiveattempts at their containment.This is noticeable particularlyinthe case of thoseimage-things that are treated as, or thatclaim to be, sacred or divine. Iargue that ultimately the boundary between the rabbiand the image-thing falters, with thingsbecoming humanized and rabbis becoming “thingified.”⁷ This secondary process of rabbinic “thingification,” Iargue, is particularlypronounced in the later, Amoraic material and needstobeunderstood as part of abroader materialization of religion in Pales- tine and the Romanworld more generallyinthe fourth century and onward. 1The Tannaim and Avodah Zarah The sacred images of others entered into discourses of different kinds, pictorial and textual. In terms of the former,wemight think of the depiction of such images in the paintingsofDuraEuropos.Aparticularlyvivid example is the painting depicting the captureofthe Arkbythe Philistines(1Samuel 5: 1– 5; Goodenough 1964).The bib- lical narrative describes how the Philistines placed the captured Ark in the shrine Latour’s “actor network theory” eschews the division of humans and things intosubjects with agencyand objects without,instead, allowingfor action and agencyonthe part of both humans and things.Appadurai traces the “social life of things.” Osborne and Tanner 2007;Pantcheva2006;Friedberg1991;Elkins 1996;Gell 1998;Mitchell 1996 cf. Kumler and Lakey2012. Keane 2006:199,observes that things defined as “art” have been analyzed in moreabstract and formal ways than those defined in functional terms: “their sheer materiality is often overlooked in favour of their representational character…” Iuse the term
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