Torah Law versus Magian Law
R. Yoḥanan says, “Jerusalem was destroyed only because they adjudicated cases on the basis of Torah law.” Should they rather have adjudicated cases on the basis of magian law?!
Translated by Shai Secunda.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.
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The Law of the Kingdom Is the Law
Jews enjoyed relative autonomy in the Sasanian Empire. Jewish courts were a viable option for legal proceedings, and rabbinic courts competed for litigants in the empire’s legally pluralistic environment. Certain cases may have been judged in Jewish courts outside of rabbinic jurisdiction. The Babylonian Talmud continued the rabbinic bias against non-Jewish courts and also recorded a number of specific pejorative references to Persian and Zoroastrian law under the authority of the magi, Zoroastrian priests. The following text illustrates a rabbinic view that the law of the magi is the perfect opposite of Torah law.
