How a Talmudic Anecdote and an Archaeological Discovery Helped Shape Public-Safety Measures on Israeli Beaches

The tale of the Oven of Akhnai—one of the best known talmudic stories and the subject of last week’s Mosaic podcast—describes the ancient rabbis arguing with God, and winning. To the geo-archaeologist Beverly Goodman, certain details in this story support physical evidence she has gathered that the Roman port of Caesarea, on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, was destroyed by a tsunami in the 2nd-century CE. Thanks to her research, a government committee chaired by Avi Shapira has put into place plans to mitigate the dangers if a tsunami were to occur again. Goodman, Shapira, and the historian Henry Abramson explain the discovery in an interview by Peter Gwinn. (Audio, 25 minutes. Transcript available at the link below.)