🕍 Today we kick off a five-part series on the Geonim, exploring these crucial, yet yet at times obscure, years from c. 500-c. 1000, an era that laid the foundations for Rishonim's cultural worlds.
Thanks for the great intro to an important yet obscure period, as you described. I've always marveled how the obscurity of Jewish history from that period (c. 500-1000 CE) runs parallel to general history. Early medieval history is always so opaque, unreliable, and patchy - even more than late antiquity before it. Do we have anything from that era that can compare in breadth and profundity with the Greek and Roman classics - or the Mishna, Talmud, and Midrash?
The moral of the story, if my assessment is correct, is that history doesn't always go in straight lines. There can be hundreds of years where we go backward. And that can happen again.
(This is all, of course, besides the geographical disconnection to Europe - as you showed, the Geonim lived deep inside the Middle East, far from the late-medieval Spanish and French scholars from whom survive exponentially more manuscripts.)
I also see history as wonky - not straight lines for sure. From my perspective, even positive developments come with attendant effects, not all of which are positive in themselves (and vice versa). I do think that valuation (or meaning-making), though it's unpopular among academic historians, is an important aspect of how real people experience and live with history. So I agree that the lines of growth can be evaluated and can, unfortunately, go backwards, though I am generally optimistic that we are on an upward spiral. The key is to remember that it's a spiral, not a circle or a line.
Thanks for the great intro to an important yet obscure period, as you described. I've always marveled how the obscurity of Jewish history from that period (c. 500-1000 CE) runs parallel to general history. Early medieval history is always so opaque, unreliable, and patchy - even more than late antiquity before it. Do we have anything from that era that can compare in breadth and profundity with the Greek and Roman classics - or the Mishna, Talmud, and Midrash?
The moral of the story, if my assessment is correct, is that history doesn't always go in straight lines. There can be hundreds of years where we go backward. And that can happen again.
(This is all, of course, besides the geographical disconnection to Europe - as you showed, the Geonim lived deep inside the Middle East, far from the late-medieval Spanish and French scholars from whom survive exponentially more manuscripts.)
What do you think?
I'm so glad it resonated and brought some light!
I also see history as wonky - not straight lines for sure. From my perspective, even positive developments come with attendant effects, not all of which are positive in themselves (and vice versa). I do think that valuation (or meaning-making), though it's unpopular among academic historians, is an important aspect of how real people experience and live with history. So I agree that the lines of growth can be evaluated and can, unfortunately, go backwards, though I am generally optimistic that we are on an upward spiral. The key is to remember that it's a spiral, not a circle or a line.