Krista N. Dalton, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Kenyon College, explores how early rabbis emerged as experts in Jewish Late Antiquity. She discusses the significant role of social relationships and donor networks that shaped rabbinic authority beyond mere scholarship. Dalton reveals how everyday interactions, like dinner parties, bolstered their status and expertise. She also humorously examines the complex hospitality practices that intertwined financial support with rabbinic integrity, shedding light on the enduring dynamics of trust and recognition.
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Rabbinic Expertise is Socially Constructed
Rabbi expertise formed through social networks, not just knowledge.
Public admiration and donor support shaped the rabbinic expert identity.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Figs Show Rabbis' Community Bonds
Townspeople bringing figs to visiting rabbis shows early rabbinic community ties.
The event illustrates rabbis as approachable community members, not isolated elites.
insights INSIGHT
Dinner Parties Cement Expertise and Bonds
Rabbinic dinner parties were symbols of social alliance and prestige.
Dinner with rabbis taught hosts and guests new religious and social customs.
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Social Circles and Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity
Krista Dalton
Dalton shows that these early rabbis were not an insular specialist group but embedded in a landscape of Jewish piety. Drawing on the writings of rabbis in Roman Palestine from the second through fifth centuries CE, Dalton illuminates the significance of social relationships in the production of rabbinic expertise. She traces the social interactions—everyday instances of mutual exchange, from dinner parties to tithes and patronages—that fostered the perception of rabbis as experts. Dalton describes the relational processes that made rabbinic expertise possible as well as the accompanying tensions; social interactions shaped the rabbis’ domain of knowledge while also imposing expectations of reciprocity that had to be managed.
At the turn of the common era, the Jewish communities of Roman Palestine saw the organization of a small group of literate Jewish men who devoted their lives to the interpretation and teaching of their sacred ancestral texts. In How Rabbis Became Experts: Social Circles and Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2025), Krista Dalton shows that these early rabbis were not an insular specialist group but embedded in a landscape of Jewish piety. Drawing on the writings of rabbis in Roman Palestine from the second through fifth centuries CE, Dalton illuminates the significance of social relationships in the production of rabbinic expertise. She traces the social interactions—everyday instances of mutual exchange, from dinner parties to tithes and patronages—that fostered the perception of rabbis as experts.
Dalton shows how the knowledge derived from the rabbis’ technical skills was validated and recognized by others. Rabbis socialized and noshed with neighbors and offered advice and legal favors to friends. In exchange for their expert judgments, they received invitations, donations, appointments, and recognition. She argues that their status as Torah experts did not arise by virtue of being scholars but from their ability to persuade others that their mobilization of Jewish cultural resources was beneficial. Dalton describes the relational processes that made rabbinic expertise possible as well as the accompanying tensions; social interactions shaped the rabbis’ domain of knowledge while also imposing expectations of reciprocity that had to be managed. Dalton’s authoritative analysis demonstrates that a focus on friendship and exchange provides a fuller understanding of how rabbis claimed and defended their distinct expertise.
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