Rejoicing, Mourning, and Empire: Emotions and History in Ancient Judaism

Abstract

This article critiques the appeal to psychological models as an interpretive gambit in the study of ancient Judaism. It shows how scholars ascribe an emotional profile to the ancient Jews to narrate the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE as a movement from mourning to joy. Then, the article models an alternative approach to emotions in ancient Jewish history by rereading a narrative on Jewish life under Roman rule in the Palestinian Talmud. Ultimately, the article seeks to demonstrate that although mourning and rejoicing are problematic as the scaffoldings of a meta-narrative of Jewish history, these categories nevertheless provide a new perspective on the political potency of emotions in the lives of religious minorities in the Roman empire.