
Yonatan Adler
@AdlerYonatan • 4,415 subscribers
Archaeology and Early Judaism Associate Professor @arieluniversity Author of: The Origins of Judaism (Yale 2022) Between Yahwism and Judaism (Cambridge 2025)
Videos

This is undoubtedly the most accurate film ever made about first-century Judea. I’ve long wondered whether the brilliant John Cleese and his colleagues were aware of the uncanny resemblance of this particular scene to the story in the Babylonian Talmud (Shabbat 33b) about the three rabbis who debated what the Romans had ever done for them: Rabbi Judah praised the Romans for establishing marketplaces, building bridges, and constructing bathhouses. Rabbi Jose remained silent. Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai retorted: “Everything they’ve done, they did only for themselves. They established markets as places for prostitutes; bathhouses for their own hedonistic pleasures; and bridges to collect taxes.” Mr. Cleese, was this story the source for the scene?
Yonatan Adler24,036 görüntüleme • 21 gün önce

This is the quasi-secretive bunker built for Israeli government meetings in times of crisis. Before it was constructed, I used to bike past this spot every day on my way to the National Library to work on my PhD. One day I noticed a salvage excavation and stopped to see what they’d found. Danit Levi, one of the archaeologists (together with Dr. Ron Beeri), told me they were uncovering a Hasmonean–Early Roman pottery workshop. I asked if they’d found any Jewish ritual immersion pools. She looked surprised. After I explained why I expected such pools at a pottery workshop of that era, she joked that she’d try to find me one. A few days later she emailed me that they’d found an immersion pool exactly where we’d been standing and talking! They later uncovered another one nearby. I was invited to write the report on the pools. It should be out soon.
Yonatan Adler35,036 görüntüleme • 3 ay önce
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