a nation in flux #4

The 4th century

Beginning of the century

• Roughly 3 million Jews scattered throughout the Roman Empire
• Jews lived in coastal areas
• Jewish communities spanned most of the known world.
• Rabbi Yochanan dies in 288, succeeded by Rav Ami and Rav Asi

Israeli Scholars

• Rabbi Zeira - Great scholar from Babylon who made aliyah
• Highlights divergent paths in the way that Torah was learned and taught
• Rav Yehuda Nesiya II dies in 305CE in Tiberius. The last Nasi to be quoted in Bavli
• Rabbi Abahu's yeshiva closes in Caesaria in 310CE

Diocletian

• 284-305CE: Diocletian's rule brings relative stability
• He distributes power into 4 regions with separate governments.
• Abdicates in 305 to ensure a smooth transition
• Under his reign, Judaism was tolerated, Christianity is persecuted
• Christians number 5-7million

Roman cival war

• Constantine moves to march on Rome, and conquer Maxentius
• 28 October 312 -Vision of the Cross
• Constantine consolidates the Roman Empire and declares Christianity the official religion.

Eusebius of Caesarea

• Bishop until 339CE - became the official historian of Christianity
• The Crucifixion becomes the central focus of the religion
• Jewish rejection presents an existential problem for Christinity
• 315CE - Converstion to Judaism is outlawed (later a capital crime)

council of nicea - 325CE

• The final break with Judaism
• Nicene Crede is established:
• Divinity of Christ
• Separate Christian calendar
• Clarification of the Trinity

Helena

• Mother of Constantine
• 326-328CE - Travels to Jerusalem to find the Cross
• Finds Cross, Nails and Holy Tunic
• Builds Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Constantinople

• 330CE - Shifts the center of the Empire to his new city
• Constantine splits the Empire into east and west
• Holy Roman Empire and Roman Catholic

jewish Learning in the 4th century

• Rav Yirmiya reopens the yeshiva in Tiberius - only 15 years
• Rav Chisda and Rav Huna are in Sura
• Rabba and Rav Yosef were in Pumpedisa
• Shapur II reigns for 69 years
• 326CE - Abaye becomes the Rosh Yeshiva in Pumpedisa
• Rava is Rosh Yeshiva in Mechoza mentioned 2000 times in the Talmud

JEWISH LEARNING cont.

• After Abaye and Rava, Rav Papa becomes the Rosh Yeshiva - a brewer by profession
• Reforms Jewish education
• The settlement in Israel declines to insignificance

Legacy of israel

• Talmud Yerushalmi is written on 4 out of 6 sections of Mishna
• Terse aramaic, not used for primary study
• 359CE - Hillel II declares the Institution of the Jewish Calendar

The Jewish Calendar

• Lunar Months and Solar Years
• Talmud says that a lunar month is 29 days, 12 hrs, 793 chalakim (A chelek is 3.3 seconds). 29.530594 days
• NASA calculates it as 29.530588 days - a difference of 6 millionth's of a day.
• 19 year cycle, with 7 leap years.
• Rambam: Still based on Israel

Julian

• After Constantine's death, war rages. The sole survivor was Julian (the Apostate)
• 360CE Julian renounces Christianity, and attacks Shapur II.
• 361CE Julian allows Hillel II to build the Temple
• 363CE Julian is killel attempting to conquer Partia

End of semicha

• Hillel II understands that Semicha is not going to continue, and thus declares the calendar. Responds to masacre of Israeli Jews
• 378-395CE Teodocius I & II
• Bavel is stable, giving rise to the Talmud Bavli

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