3. Sardis

8. Arye Edrei and Doron Mendels

9. “A Split Jewish Diaspora: Its Dramatic Consequences” “Most of the scholars who have dealt with the Jewish diaspora during this period [after the destruction of the Temple] have blurred the distinction between the eastern and western diasporas, explicitly or implicitly assuming that the knowledge about the one diaspora could inform the other….[W]e…suggest that the distinction between the two diasporas was not only geographic, but actually reflected a much more substantive split.” (pg. 92)

11. Edrei’s and Mendels’ Claims The new post-Temple centers of Judaism were inaccessible to the Greek (western) Jewish Diaspora – Two separate corpora of literature developed: Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha in the West and the Mishnah and Talmud in the East – The number of places in the western diaspora mentioned in Rabbinic literature are severely limited. – We find no reference to the Amidah prayer in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha literature “It is our contention that…two Judaisms arose with an ever-growing gap developing between them.

12. What’s Next? Epigraphy Hamath Tiberias Sardis

13. Ritual Objects Hamath Tiberias Sardis

14. Decorative Art Hamath Tiberias Sardis

15. Thank You!