Bibliography
| Title: Tribute and taxes in early Roman Palestine (63 BCE - 70 CE). The evidence from Josephus Type: Generic Year: 1996 Abstract: "Although taxation in Jewish Palestine in the early Roman period (63 BCE to 70 CE) has been an important factor in the search for the ""historical contexte"" both of Jesus' ministry and of early Christianity, there is no comprehensive study of the subject. The present study seeks to fill that lack. This is a historical investigation that has brought together and analyzed in detail the available literary and (sparse) archaeological evidence. The relationship between the questions of the administration of the Jewish state under Roman rule, on the one hand, and of Roman imperial administration generally, on the other hand, has had decisive methodological implications for the study. The Roman impire in the late Republic and early Principate was neither ordered nor homogenious. It was diverse and chaotic. The solutions applied by Rome to the problems it encountered were ad hoc and were related to a time and a place. Excluded, therefore, from consideration in this study are those sources that are dated earlier or later than the early Roman period. Parallels with other parts of the Roman empire, Egypt for instance, are drawn only where there is primary Jewish evidence. No simple continuum may be established in Palestine from the Ptolemaic, Seleucid, and Hasmonean periods to the different phases of Roman domination. The subject is consequently split and studied according to the different periods when Palestine underwent significant political changes: under Pompey, under Julius Caesar, under Cassius and Antony, and under Herod the Great and his successors. These divisions correspond with the first four chapters of the study. Of the Jewish religious taxes, only the temple tax and tithes were substantial enough to be included in the investigation. The temple tax is dealt with in the context of the efforts made by both Jewish and Roman authorities to protect the vast sums which were collected and brought to Jerusalem from the Diaspora. The fifth chapter deals with the subject of tithes in the Second Temple period. Because of lack of evidence, taxation under direct Roman rule (6 to 41 CE in Judaea, and from 44 to 66 CE in the entire territory) is not dealt with in a separate chapter. One principal result of this study is the awareness of the fact that taxation in the Jewish state during this period was intimately linked with the state's political fortunes. The Jews were favoured by Julius Caesar and Antony. Herod's taxes were not as ruinous to his kingdom as is usually assumed. The question of the oppressiveness of taxes during the period belongs to the complex problem of Jewish response to Roman imperialism." Keywords: Jewish History: Roman Era |