Rabbinic Literature and Roman-Byzantine Legal Compilations

It remains uncertain whether interest and influence or ignorance and indifference are the right words to describe the relationship between rabbinic literature and Roman-Byzantine legal compilations. The chapter surveys the mostly separate study of the Talmud Yerushalmi and Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis and discusses scholarly theories about their compositional history. It argues that comparative (machine-assisted) analysis may be more likely to reveal structural and conceptual similarities rather than direct impact or mutual dependence. It proposes to ask questions for which sufficient evidence exists and to refocus on the analysis of the texts.