The Talmud’s Persian Context

Compiled sometime in the 6th century, the Babylonian Talmud is the product of one of the Jewish people’s oldest, and for much of history, largest, diasporic communities. Yet students of this vast and demanding text rarely take note of its context: the mighty Sassanian empire with its sophisticated bureaucracy, the rabbis’ Persian neighbors, and their Zoroastrian religion. The Talmud itself encourages this omission, often giving the sense of coming out of a wholly Jewish world that revolved primarily around rabbinic law and learning. But a number of passages suggest something very different, such as a theological debate between a rabbi and a Zoroastrian cleric, a tale of a Persian queen who consults the sages about purity laws, and visions of hell that parallel those in Zoroastrian sacred texts. Shai Secunda discusses this and much else with J.J. Kimche. (Audio 61 minutes.)