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The Babylonian Talmud, in three separate locations, describes to us via a story the hairstyle of the High Priest in the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The Talmud says:

Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 22b

מאי “כסום יכסמו את ראשיהם” (יחזקאל מד:כ)? תנא כמין תספורת לוליינית. מאי תספורת לוליינית? אמר רב יהודה אמר שמואל תספורתא יחידאה? היכי דמי? אמר רב אשי ראשו של זה בצד עיקרו של זה. שאלו את רבי איזהו תספורת של כהן גדול? אמר להן צאו וראו מתספורת של בן אלעשה. תניא רבי אומר לא על חנם פיזר בן אלעשה את מעותיו אלא כדי להראות בו תספורת של כהן גדול.

What is the meaning of, “They (i.e. the priests) shall only trim their heads” (Ezekiel 44:20)? – A Tanna taught: “Haircut in the Julian style.” What was that? – Rav Yehudah said in Shmuel’s name (circa 220-250 CE): “A unique manner of hairdressing.” But what was it like? Rav Ashi said (circa 400-420 CE): “The ends of one row [of hair] lay alongside the roots of the next.”

Rabbi (circa 200-220 CE) was asked: “In what fashion was the hair of the High Priest cut?” He answered: “Go and observe the haircut of Ben Elasah (Rabbi’s son-in-law) (circa 200-200 CE).” It has been taught: “Not for nothing did Ben Elasah expend money so lavishly upon his hairdressing, but to display the High-Priestly fashion.”

Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 51a

מאי בן אלעשה? דתניא לא לחנם פיזר בן אלעשה את מעותיו אלא להראות בהן תספורת של כהן גדול, דכתיב (יחזקאל מד:כ) “כסום יכסמו את ראשיהם.” תנא כעין לולינית. מאי לולינית. אמר רב יהודה תספרתא יחידתא. היכי דמי? אמר רבא ראשו של זה בצד עיקרו של זה, והיינו תספורת של כהן גדול.

What is [known of] Ben Elasah (200-220 CE)? — It has been taught: “Ben Elasah did not disburse his money for nothing, but that he may have achieve the High Priest’s style of hair-dressing, as it is written, “They shall only trim their heads. (Ezekiel 44:20)” It was taught: “[That means] in the Julian fashion.” What was the Julian style? — Rav Yehudah said: “A unique style of hairdressing.” What was it? — Ravah said (circa 300-330 CE): “The end [of one row of hair] reaching the roots of the other, and such was the hairdressing fashion of the High Priest.“

Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 9b

משנה: לא ישב אדם לפני הספר סמוך למנחה עד שיתפלל.

גמרא: דאמר רבי יהושע בן לוי כיון שהגיע זמן תפלת המנחה אסור לאדם שיטעום כלום קודם שיתפלל תפלת המנחה. לא. לעולם סמוך למנחה גדולה, ובתספורת בן אלעשה.

Mishna: One does not sit down before the barber, close to the time of the afternoon prayer, unless he has already said his prayer.

Gemara: Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Levi said: “As soon as it is time for the afternoon prayer one may not eat anything before he has recited the afternoon prayer.” No. After all [it means] near the early afternoon prayer (about 1 pm, with a few hours still left to pray), but the reference is to a haircut in the fashion of Ben Elasah.

We can deduce from these three sources a few details about the hairstyle of the High Priest:

1. It was called Julian Style.
2. It was very expensive.
3. It took a few hours (at least two) to make.
4. The hairstyle was shaped in such a way that the tip of one lock of hair touched the root of the next.

In addition to these basic points we have to assume that although the sources describing the hairstyle, such as Ravah and Rav Ashi, who are making the statement 250 and 350 years, respectively, after the Second Temple was destroyed (in 70 CE), the hairstyle that they are describing was prevalent sometime during the Temple period, most probably during its last years. As can be seen from the story, by the time of Ben Elasah, Rabbi Yehudah Hanassi’s son-in-law (200-220 CE), it was already unknown, strange, and definitely out of style. So in order to try to identify what this hairstyle was we need to focus on the time period between 50-70 CE, the last two decades of the Temple. As I already have shown in a previous article on the Temple tiles, we can generally trust the statements of later Amoraim about the details of the Temple despite the fact that the were said many hundreds of years after the fact.

The fact that the hairstyle was called Julian points to the fact that a Roman official by the name Julianus (not Julius!) wore it and did something important that would prompt the Jews to call this hairstyle after him. It is important to note that in the Hebrew/Aramaic text of the Talmud the word Julian is spelled Lulian (לולינית). It has been already pointed out by many scholars, including Marcus Jastrow in his dictionary, and by Alexander Kohut in Aruch Hashalem that Jews modified the Roman name Julianus and pronounced it Lulianus in a later time. This can be proven from the fact that the Jerusalem Talmud (Nedarim 3:2, Vilan Edition Daf 9a) in its vague description of the invasion of Persia and the Battle of Ctesiphon by the Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate, in 363 CE, calls him King Lulianus, and so from there we know that Lulianus is defintiely Julianus, as well as Lulian is definitely Julian. I will discuss that source in greater detail in a follow up article.

I would like to propose a reason why the Jews modified the name Julian into Lulian, as it is recorded in the Talmud in many places. It is a play on words from the Greek word λάλος (Lalos) sometimes spelled λάλας (Lalas), which means talkative, chatty or a babbler. See Liddell-Scott Greek-English Dictionary, entry λάλας. In fact, this word appears in the Babylonian Talmud (Avodah Zarah 18b) in a judaized form – לוליון (Lulayon), meaning little babbler or little joker. See Aruch Hashalem, entry לוליון. You may wonder what being a babbler has to do with the name Julianus, which would cause it to be corrupted into Lulianus. My theory is that this corruption took place in the 4th century during the reign of the Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate (361-363 CE). He was a philosopher  in the Neoplatonic style, which was esoteric and out of date during his lifetime, and a prolific writer. He clearly pissed off a lot of people of when he reverted Christianity as a state religion back to paganism. I would guess that the people joked about him and called him babbler as an insult to his philosophy.

Also, a particular event may have caused the Jews to specifically call him a babbler. In 363 CE, right before Julian left Antioch to launch his campaign against Persia, in keeping with his effort to foster religions other than Christianity, and Judaism in particular because it had sacrificial rite just like paganism, he ordered the Temple in Jerusalem to be rebuilt, as described by the Roman historian, and a friend of Julian, Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote the following (Res Gestae, 23.1.2–3):

Julian thought to rebuild at an extravagant expense the proud Temple once at Jerusalem, and committed this task to Alypius of Antioch. Alypius set vigorously to work, and was seconded by the governor of the province; when fearful balls of fire, breaking out near the foundations, continued their attacks, till the workmen, after repeated scorchings, could approach no more: and he gave up the attempt.

There is a theory that what caused the fires and the destruction of the project was the  earthquake in Galilee in 363 CE. It see,s that Jews were enthusiastic about the rebuilding of the Temple, since Christian historians, Ambrose (Epistles 1, 40:14-15), Sozomenus (Historia Ecclesiastica 5:22) and Bar Hebraeus (Chronography 63), all mention riots between Jews, who wanted it rebuilt, and Christians, who wanted to stop it, all over the Land of Israel and Syria in connection with the failed rebuilding of the Temple. For more information on this event and its consequences see: Adler, Michael. “The Emperor Julian and the Jews.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 5, no. 4 (1893): 591-651.

My theory is that after the failure of the rebuilding of the Temple, the Jews decided to call Julianus, Lulianus, meaning “the babbler”, or more specifically “big-talker”, because he promised to build the Temple and then failed, and so did not keep his promise. Once they started calling him that, the name Julianus in general was changed to Lulianus and all other people who shared his name were called Lulian.

I would like to propose a theory about who the person after whom this Julian hairstyle was named after. Josephus mentions a Roman Procurator of Judaea during the First Jewish War 66-70 CE, by the name Marcus Antonius Julianus, mentioned in Josephus, War 6.4.3. Josephus says, that Titus called Julianus as part of a committee to advice him what to do with the Temple, destroy it or keep it. Josephus does not say what Julianus advised Titus. But if I were to guess that he advised not to destroy the Temple, then he may have been revered a bit by later generations of Jews. Also since he was procurator during the last four years of the Temple, his hair style may have been associated with the hairstyle of the High Priest. A Roman historian, Minucius Felix (Octavius 33.4), mentions that Julianus wrote a history of the Judaean War called De Judaeis, but that work has been lost, so nothing besides this is known about him.  Unfortunately we do not have a bust or even coins of Marcus Antonius Julianus, so we do not know what he looked like. The theory remains just that, a theory.

However, we have more luck with knowing what the Julian hairstyle may have actually looked like. I wrote an email to Janet Stephens, a hairstylist at Studio 921 Salon in Baltimore, MD, who also happens to be an experimental archaeologist and an expert in historical hairdressing, who successfuly recreated on models a few different Roman hairstyles. She wrote to me in a personal communication the following description of the hairstyle based on the description of this hairstyle in the Talmud.

The description of the “tip of the curl touching the root of the curl next to it” sounds like a layered haircut, fairly short. Visualize the curls vertically , rather than horizontally.

As soon as I saw her description it struck me that it is very plausible that the hairstyle that is being described is Emperor Nero’s hairstyle.

Based on my assumption that the Julian hairstyle should be dated to the last years of the Temple, this would put it into the Late Neronian (66-68 CE) – Early Flavian (68-70 CE) periods. We do have some busts of Nero where he is shown with kind of flat curls that look like were layered tip to end, vertically. And then after him everyone else copied it, so it is very palusible that Governor Julianus had the same hairstyle as his emperor, Nero. Also, the Neronian period was prime time recording period for the Talmud to record stories about the High Priest in the Temple as known from other Talmudic descriptions of coins, such as the Neronian Selah and Tyrian “Jerusalemite” Shekel, as well as Herod’s reconstruction of the Temple, which was completed only during Nero’s reign. It seems that Nero himself copied this hairstyle from street actors whom he liked to imitate.

Roman historian Suetonius, in his description of Nero’s hair, says (Life of Nero 51):

He was utterly shameless in the care of his person and in his dress, always having his hair arranged in tiers of curls.

According to a recent article (Haas, Norbert, Francoise Toppe, and Beate M. Henz. “Hairstyles in the arts of Greek and Roman antiquity.” In Journal of Investigative Dermatology Symposium Proceedings, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 298-300. Elsevier, 2005.), they described the styling method of Nero’s haircut in the following manner:

Nero’s curls were corrugated with crimping tongs and carefully piled on each other in several rows.

It would be appear that this description of Nero’s hairstyle closely resembles the Talmud’s description of “the ends of one row [of hair] lay alongside the roots of the next.” It clearly can be seen on Nero’s busts that have survived.

It was not only the emperor who wore this hairstyle. Below is a photo of a bust of a Gallo-Roman youth who wore the same hairstyle in Gaul (modern France). Clearly Nero’s hairstyle has spread around the empire during this time period.

After the death of Nero the hairstyle continued to be in use during the reign of Vespasian as can be seen from a few contemporary depictions of young Domitian. By the time Domitian became emperor in 81 CE, the Neronian hairstyle went out of style and Domitian is already depicted with a much simple Flavian hairstyle.

So in conclusion it would seem that this hairstyle lasted for about a decade from about 64-73 CE, during the reigns of Nero and Vespasian, coinciding with the last years of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, where it was most probably was worn by the High Priest, who tried to copy the Roman Emperor, who in turn copied a street performer. How ironic life can be.

For more details on the Neronian hairstyle see Pollini, John. Two Bronze Portrait Busts of Slave Boys from a Shrine of Cobannus in Gaul. J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001, in Studia Varia From the J. Paul Getty Museum, vol. 2.

Bibliography:

1. Haas, Norbert, Francoise Toppe, and Beate M. Henz. “Hairstyles in the arts of Greek and Roman antiquity.” In Journal of Investigative Dermatology Symposium Proceedings, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 298-300. Elsevier, 2005.
2. Pollini, John. Two Bronze Portrait Busts of Slave Boys from a Shrine of Cobannus in Gaul. J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001, in Studia Varia From the J. Paul Getty Museum, vol. 2.
3. Adler, Michael. “The Emperor Julian and the Jews.” The Jewish Quarterly Review 5, no. 4 (1893): 591-651.
4. Bradbury, Scott. “Julian’s pagan revival and the decline of blood sacrifice.” Phoenix 49, no. 4 (1995): 331-356.

The Babylonian Talmud (Sukkah 51b) describes for us what the marble tiles of the Second Temple rebuilt by Herod looked like.

תנו רבנן: מי שלא ראה שמחת בית השואבה לא ראה שמחה מימיו. מי שלא ראה ירושלים בתפארתה לא ראה כרך נחמד מעולם. מי שלא ראה בית המקדש בבנינו לא ראה בנין מפואר מעולם. מאי היא? אמר אביי ואיתימא רב חסדא זה בנין הורדוס. במאי בניה? אמר רבה .באבני שישא ומרמרא. איכא דאמרי באבני שישא כוחלא ומרמרא. אפיק שפה ועייל שפה כי היכי דלקבל סידא. סבר למשעיין בדהבא. אמרו ליה רבנן שבקיה דהכי שפיר טפי דמיתחזי כאדותא דימא

The Rabbis taught: “He who has not seen the The Drawing of Water Party (Simchat Bet Hashoeva) [on the holiday of Sukkot], has not seen real rejoicing in his life. He who has not seen Jerusalem in its beauty, has never seen a beautiful city. He who has not seen the finished building of the [Second] Temple, has never seen a beautiful building.” Which one (i.e. which version of the building of the Second Temple) [is this referring to]? Said Abaye, and some say Rav Hisda: “It is [referring to] the building of Herod.” With what materials was it built? Said Rabba: “From yellow and white marble” There are some that say, “From yellow, black and white marble.” One tier of stones projected outward, and one tier of stones projected inwards in order to hold plaster (i.e. meaning “concrete”). He (i.e. Herod) wished to overlay it (i.e. the marble) with gold, but the Rabbis said to him: “Leave it alone! It is more beautiful this way, because it looks like the waves of the sea.

There is some debate as to how to translate the types of marble in this statement. I have chosen to translate them as it is translated in Marcus Jastrow’s dictionary (entry מרמרא), because as has been proven archaeologically his translation is correct.

In September 2016, the archaeologists from the Temple Mount Sifting Project, announced and publicized, at the annual Megalim Conference, in the City of David, the restored marble tiles from the Herod’s Second Temple building. The tiles have been restored over a period of nine years by Frankie Snyder, one of the archaeologists on the project. This find was externally exciting for me, because first of all I did not have to imagine anymore what this marble looked like, the tiles matched exactly what the Talmud described and I myself have participated on a couple of occasions as a volunteer for the Temple Mount Sifting Project, so this hit close to home.

Even more interestingly is the fact that the Talmud’s description of the marble is stated by Rabba, an Amora from the 4th century CE (lived approximately 270 – 330 CE), over 200 years after the destruction of the Temple. This shows that such late statements in the Talmud have been accurately passed orally for many generations and can be trusted.

In the following photos you can see various reconstructed tiles, many of which are made up from yellow, black and white marble, and some of the tiles have a pinkish, bluish wavy pattern which look like the waves of the sea. Notice that the faded pieces of marble are the actual original broken pieces retrieved from the rubble, where as the bright unfaded pieces are modern reconstructions put in as filler to make up the complete tile.

Many more types of rock were used in Herod’s Temple than were reconstructed on the tiles. Some samples are shown below. They were imported from a few different countries and match the description of the Talmud.

Of course you might wonder, how do we know that Frankie Snyder reconstructed the tiles accurately. The answer to that question is that prior to reconstructing the Second Temple tiles, she published, on December 22, 2015, reconstructed tiles from the Crusader construction of the Dome of the Rock, pieces of which were found in the same pile of rubble. Recently the Muslim Waqf published photos of the same tiles that are currently inside the Dome of the Rock and they matched exactly. So we can be pretty sure that her reconstruction is accurate.

For further reading see the detailed articles on the discovery written by the Temple Mount Sifting Project archaeologists.

1. שיחזור הרצפות הצבעוניות של חצרות בית המקדש בשלהי ימי הבית השני by Zachi Dvira, Frankie Snyder, and Gabriel Barkay.
2. Opus Sectile Foors on Jerusalem’s Herodian Temple Mount (English abstract of שיחזור הרצפות הצבעוניות של חצרות בית המקדש בשלהי ימי הבית השני) by Frankie Snyder, Gabriel Barkay, and Zachi Dvira.
3. Frankie Snyder, Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Dvira, “What the Temple Mount Floor Looked Like”, BAR Nov/Dec 2016.

The Rabbinical Jewish marriage procedure consists of two parts: Kiddushin and Nissuin. Kiddushin was understood in antiquity as a binding betrothal after which the wife was prohibited to live with all men, including her husband, and required an official divorce in case the marriage was to be dissolved. The Nissuin was the actual marriage where the wife became permitted to her husband and could now go live with him. During the Talmudic period the Kiddushin and the Nissuin were performed six months apart. After the Kiddushin was performed the wife stayed in her father’s house and the husband was obligated to send her and his new in-laws gifts for the period of six months. After the six months were up, a second procedure, the Nissuin, otherwise known as the Chupah (canopy), was performed in which the couple were officially married and the wife now moved out from her father’s house into her husband’s.

Since the medieval period and until today, both the Kiddushin and the Nissuin are performed simultaneously on the day of the wedding and the couple go to live together right after the wedding. The six months betrothal period has been abandoned once the Palestinian and Babylonian communities lost their supremacy in Halachic rulings around the 8^th century CE.

In this article I would like to propose a novel idea of the real source for the procedure of Kiddushin and how it is rooted in the Roman marriage procedure that existed during the Roman Republic that the Rabbis have adopted for the Jewish marriage in the first century BCE, while the Judeans and the Romans were on friendly terms.

The Mishna in Kiddushin 1:1 lists three options for the Kiddushin procedure:

The woman is acquired in three ways and acquires herself in two ways. She is acquired with money, and with a contract, and with intercourse. With money: Bet Shammai say, “With [at least] a Dinar or with something worth [at least] a Dinar”, and Bet Hillel say, “With [at least] a Prutah or something worth [at least] a Prutah.” How much is a Prutah? One eighth of an Italian Issar. And she acquires herself with a bill of divorce or with the death of the husband.

האישה נקנית בשלוש דרכים, וקונה את עצמה בשתי דרכים:  נקנית בכסף, ובשטר, ובביאה.  בכסף–בית שמאי אומרין, בדינר ובשווה דינר; ובית הלל אומרין, בפרוטה ובשווה פרוטה.  כמה היא פרוטה, אחד משמונה באיסר האיטלקי.  וקונה את עצמה בגט, ובמיתת הבעל.

The Mishna teaches that there are three possible methods through which the Kiddushin can be performed. The groom can purchase the bride using either money or an object that is worth money. The minimum value itself is disputed between Bet Hillel and Bet Shammai. Alternatively, the groom can write a contract to the bride in which he states that he is purchasing her through this contract. And finally, the groom and the bride can simply have sex with the intention of getting married.

This Mishna can clearly be dated by a few stated details. Bet Shammai and Bet Hillel were schools founded by Hillel and Shmmai that operated after Hillel’s death, roughly in 10 BCE until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Prutah was a Judean bronze coin, minted during the years of 132 BCE – 70 CE. See David Hendin, Guide to Biblical Coins, 5^th Edition, Amphora, 2010, p. 43. Dinar is the Roman silver coin, the Denarius. Italian Issar was a Roman large bronze coin called As. Roughly in 140 BCE the As was retariffed at 16 Ases per Denarius from the original 10 Ases per Denarius. Since the Mishna states that there were 8 Prutahs in an As, then we can deduce that there were 8*16=128 Prutahs in a Denarius. The Judean monetary system was realigned from the Greek Drachma standard to the Roman Denarius standard during the reign of the Hasmonean king Matityahu Antigonus in the years 40-37 BCE. See Daniel Sperber, Roman Palestine 200-400 Money and Prices, 2nd Edition, Bar-Ilan University Press, 1991, p. 28.

This leads us to a problem. Tosefta Bava Batra 5:4, which dates based on the names (Rabbi Akivah, Rabbi Yehudah and Rabban Shimon Ben Gamliel) quoted in it roughly to the years 100-132 CE, has an argument between the anonymous opinion and Rabban Shimon Ben Gamliel (II) whether the Prutah standard that was originally established by the Rabbis (presumably in the years 40-37 BCE) had 8 Prutot in 1 Issar and 24 Issars in 1 Dinar (anonymous opinion) or 6 Prutas in 1 Issar (Rabban Shimon Ben Gamliel II). Based on this argument in the original standard there were either 8*24=192 Prutas per Roman Denarius or 6*24=144 Prutas per Roman Denarius. The problem that clearly arises is where did the Rabbis get the fact that there were 24 Issars (As) in 1 Dinar (Denarius), when we know from Roman writings that the Roman standard only had 16 Ases in 1 Denarius during the 1st century CE. Although, Daniel Sperber does not address this issue directly he writes that this argument in the Tosefta is theoretical since the Prutah coins were not minted by this time period and therefore the Rabbis had to fix the standard artificially, based on the value of the metal content in the coins. See Sperber, ibid. pp. 69-83.

I would like to provide a resolution to this contradiction between the Tosefta Bava Batra 5:4 and the Roman As/Denarius 16:1 standard by using the reference in the Gospel of Mark 12:42 read in the original Greek:

καὶ  ἐλθοῦσα  μία  χήρα  πτωχὴ  ἔβαλεν  λεπτὰ  δύο,  ὅ  ἐστιν  κοδράντης.

A poor widow came and put in two Leptas, which are worth a Quadrans.

The Lepta was half Prutah coin minted during the Hasmonean period, most notably during the reign of Alexander Yanai and clearly still in circulation in 32/33 CE when the story of the Widow’s Mites took place. What is important that Mark states that 2 Leptas (i.e. 1 Prutah) was equivalent to a Roman Quadrans, which was the smallest Roman bronze coin. During the Roman Republic and early Roman Empire there were 4 Quadrans in 1 As, which would imply that there were 4 Prutas in 1 As. However, the Mishna clearly states that there were 8 Prutahs in 1 As. This means that when the Mishna says “Prutah”, it clearly means “Lepta”. The term Lepta was not used in Talmudic literature, because the Lepta denomination fell out of use after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. Hence, the terms Leptah and Prutah were used interchangeably. David Hendin (Hendin, ibid. p. 43) already observed that both Prutah and Leptah varied greatly in weight and therefore were not absolute denominations. This can further prove why the Rabbis in the Mishna and the Tosefta confused the terms Lepta and Prutah.

We can deduce from this analysis that when the Prutah standard was established in the years of 40-37 CE, there were 8 Leptas to 1 As, which was equivalent of 4 Quadrans to 1 As. This standard lasted probably until the year 66 CE, when the Judean government started minting their own silver shekels during the first revolt and the Prutah standard was redefined in terms of the Judean Shekel instead of the Roman Denarius. Since the term Lepta was dropped from usage after the revolt the accepted terminology just used Prutah as the lowest bronze denomination. When the revolt was over and the Judean Shekel gone, the Rabbis has to re-figure out how the Roman Denarius related to the Prutah and they discussed it as recorded in the Tosefta Bava Batra 5:4. They probably did not even realize the some of the smallest denomination coins in circulation were Leptas and some were Prutahs. They simply considered all of them Prutahs, because they looked similar and weighed similar.

Once the Rabbis decided that there were 8 Prutahs (instead of Leptas) in 1 As, they made the conclusion that there must be 24 Ases in 1 Denarius, because there were 4 Quadrans to 1 As and they reestablished the Roman standard to the Prutah standard. 192 Prutahs (really Leptas) per 1 Denarius, really means that there were 192/2=96 Quadrans (actual Prutahs) per Denarius. Then, 96 Quadrans/4 Quadrans per As = 24 Ases per Denarius. Based on this calculation the Rabbis determined that there were 24 Ases in a Denarius, when the real Roman denomination was really 16 Ases in a Denarius.

Based on this we can clearly establish the timing for when the law in Mishna Kiddushin 1:1 was originally put in place. It had to be solidified between the years 40 BCE and 10 BCE, while the Jews and the Romans were still on some what friendly terms, during the supremacy of Hillel and Shammai themselves. Once Hillel and Shammai passed away, their schools started debating the details of the recently established law of the three modes of Kiddushin. By the time of the destruction of the Temple, the original monetary system in which this law was made was already forgotten and had to be redefined by the Rabbis in Yavneh, such as Rabbi Akivah, Rabbi Yehudah and Rabban Shimon Ben Gamliel II.

Now that I have demonstrated the timing of the establishment of the law of Kiddushin, I would like to propose my novel idea on its source. I believe, that once Pompei (who was invited by the Judean leadership) took partial control of Judea in 63 BCE the Rabbis were looking for ways to modernize the Judean laws based on Roman laws. During the Roman Republic in Roman law there were four modes by which marriage was conducted: Usus, Coemptio, Farreum, and Sponsalia. See William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 2nd Edition, Boston, 1859, entry Matrimonium, pp. 735-744.

Usus, was a marriage if a woman lived with a man for a whole year as his wife. This law was already mentioned in the Twelve Tables, which is the earliest written Roman law code from around 450 BCE. Usus corresponds to the Jewish mode of marriage of intercourse, where a couple are married simply by the fact that they had sex for that purpose. The Rabbis apparently dropped the Roman requirement of duration of one year, and simply required that sex occurred with intent of marriage, even just once.

Farreum, also known as Confarreatio, was a form of marriage in which certain words were used in the presence of ten witnesses and accompanied by a religious ceremony. During the ceremony the bride said to the groom “Ubi tu Caius, ego Caia”, which means “To you Gaius I am Gaia”. For details and sources, see Smith, ibid. p. 743.

Coemptio was a fictitious sale of the woman to the husband. Witnesses had to be present during the procedure.

Clearly, the Rabbis established the ceremony of Kiddushin with money after the combination of the Farreum and Coemptio, which included witnesses, a minyan (quarum of 10 men), and a statement made by the husband, הרי את מקודשת לי, “You are betrothed to me,” after which he fictitiously purchased the bride with the money or an object of value that he gave her. The rabbis made sure that they kept the focus on the groom buying the bride and not the bride selling herself to the groom, hence it was the groom who made the statement of acquisition and not the bride as was in the Roman procedure.

Sponsalia was an written agreement to marry. It was a contract between the future husband and the man who was giving the woman away in marriage, usually the father or the brother. The Rabbis clearly adopted the practice of Sponsalia as the mode of marriage by contract.

By the time of Claudius in the 1st century CE all of these forms of the marriage procedure mostly fell out of use, especially Usus, Competio and Sponsalia and were replaced exclusively by Farreum, where a marriage was performed only by a religious ceremony, without intercourse or any kind of purchase taking place. See Smith, ibid.

It is clear from the lengthy discussion of this Mishna in the Babylonian Talmud (Kiddushin 2a-5b) that the Talmudic anonymous voice (the Stam) tries really hard to prove that the sources for these three modes are not Biblical as was suggested but rather were derived by logic, such as a Kal Vachomer (Derivation from Minor to Major). None of the Biblical sources that the Talmud cites are explicit or even implicit. The Talmudic editors had to stretch the quoted verses really far in order to try to prove that the sources for these modes are Biblical. In the end of the discussion the Talmud fails to prove any of the sources either Biblically or logically and simply accepts the fact that they exist and there are only three of them because that is what is stated in the Mishna. It seems to me that the reason the Talmud goes through this discussion and spends so much effort on trying to prove that these laws are not Biblical in origin, because somewhere in its memory of the oral tradition it vaguely remembers that these laws were Rabbinically established based on non-Biblical sources which are much closer to logic than to any kind of tradition. Hence the tradition is not Jewish, but Roman.

In conclusion, my novel proposal is that the Rabbis established the three modes of marriage as an adaptation of current Roman laws of marriage between the years of 40-10 BCE, when they established not only the law, but also the monetary standard based on the roman monetary standard of the time. Their goal was to modernize the Jewish legal system in light of the supremacy and friendship of the superpower of the time. By the time these laws got to be recorded in the oral writing of the Rabbis of the 2nd century CE, the Roman marriage traditions fell into disuse even among the Romans and the Rabbis were not familiar with them. The monetary system also has changed significantly enough that the Rabbis were not sure how the Hasmonean Prutah which already fell out of use made sense within the Roman Denarius system of the 2nd century CE. The Talmud being even further removed from the origins of these laws attempts to define them either based on Biblical sources or pure logic, but fails to do so. Finally, it did not even cross the Rabbis’ mind in the 2nd century CE that the hated Romans, their primary enemy, were the source of their laws of marriage, stemming from the fact, already long forgotten, that once upon a time they used to be friends.

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Guide to Biblical Coins
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Roman Palestine 200-400 Money and Prices
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Jewish Marriage in Antiquity	Jewish Marriage in Antiquity	Jewish Marriage in Antiquity
4. Satlow, Michael L. Jewish Marriage in Antiquity. Princeton University Press, 2001.
5. Cohen, Boaz. “On the Theme of Betrothal in Jewish and Roman Law.” In Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, vol. 18, pp. 67-135. American Academy for Jewish Research, 1948.
The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage	The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage	The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage
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