Jewish costume at the time of Christ

[Arthes]

Greetings,
my aunt has asked me to investigate the clothing that the Jewish people would be wearing at around the time of Christ's death.
This is to portray a fairly authentic image for a play she has written (at least in the styles and overall impression).
Is the film The Passion of Christ fairly accurate on this as it is not an era I know much about?
I think she wants the clothes of various levels of society (nobles, merchants, working classes) including the military of this time...
I think somebody may have some images/plates from a book?
regards
Arthes

[John M McDermott]

See Matthew Amts excellent comment at:http://www.larp.com/legioxx/holyland.html

[Carlton Bach]

If you are content with seeing it through another's eyes, you might want to look for Peter Connolly's 'The Holy Land'. I bought the paperback edition and found it wonderfully useful and endlessly fascinating, and his illustrations, as ever, render it lively and palpable. Be warned, though, that not all his interpretations are universally shared, and the book is now some 20 years old.

A excavation report you should look at in greater depth is the 'Cave of Letters' at En Gedi (Nahal Hever). There were large quantities of textiles found. Yigael Yadin published an exhaustive report - be aware many people disagree with many of his interpretations as well, especially when it comes to the distinction between 'Jewish' and 'gentile' costume.

Edit: The Passion of the Christ varies from OK (for some civilian clothing) through awful (Roman soldiers) to what-on-earth-were-they-thinking!? (the Temple guards and Herod's court).

Beyond that I believe looking somewhat bweyond the borders of Judaea will be useful - sources for exactly Judaea at exactly this tiome are rare, but it appears that the differences in everyday clothing were not that great.

[Graham Sumner]

Hello Christina

You could try the following

'Living in the time of Jesus of Nazareth', Peter Connolly.
'Roman Clothing and Fashion', Alex Croom. Includes a chapter on Provincial Dress.
'Roman Costume', Eds. Sebesta and Bonfante. Collection of Essays including one on Jewish costume
'Roman Military Clothing 1', I illustrated the Centurion at the crucifixion and a soldier disguised in local Jewish civilian dress.

Graham.

P.S. Just as I posted this I noticed that Volker had also replied. The Peter Connoly Book I mention is the same one, it just appears undr different names. I think mine was an older version.

[Arthes]

Thank you for your help Gentlemen....

[tlclark]

Arthes:

The other thing you will want to do is look up is the field reports by Yigael Yadin and his excavations of the Bar Kochba caves. Several pieces of clothing and mantles were found there, all dating from the mid 2nd C. but they indicate that Jews were far more hellenized than previously thought. Also, the latest thinking on the materials found in these and other caves is that they have finds from two different periods, one following the destruction of the temple in 70 AD and the other after the Bar Kochba revolt 60 years later.

The level of helenization/romanization of Jewish costume is a big debate. The gut reaction has been that Jews differentiated themselves from the Romans, but that's a pure assumption. In truth it seems, at least to me, that clothes were not all that important and far less connected to culture than we assume. Japanese have completely assimilated Western dress for example and yet have no problem maintaining their cultural identity.

Hellenization, or the lack of it is a regional thing as well. The foundation of gymnasium in Jerusalem spawned a riot, but the cities of Samaria, the Galilee and surrounding areas are models of hellenism despite their Jewish populations.

In the north near Kinesseret, the degree of hellenization seems very pronounced, especially near Capernum, which figures importantly in the NT, and the burned house in the Jewish quarter reveals a 1st C. jewish home virtually indistinguishable from a roman one aside from a few religious concessions against overt images, and even that is debatable.

From a theatrical/pageant play perspective, it would probably be confusing to people to have the Romans and Jews dress so much alike in fashion. Costume is one way of keeping the two groups visually distinct. From a historical or re-enacting perspective a person would be entirely justified to dress in typical 1st C. Roman costume and still portray a Jewish citizen.

It's not even certain if prayer shawls and kipot (Yamulke) were used, and the tradition of long side locks and distinguishing dress, including the talita or undergrament still worn by some orthodox jews was around at the time of Christ. All of those customs may have been developed after the destruction of the temple as ways of solidifiying their Jewish heritage. In fact, much of what we regard as "Jewish" is a product of 5th C. AD rabbinicalism and not earlier Jewish practice.

I might be that a modern person would be at a total loss trying to distinguish a Jew from 1st. C. Palestine and a Roman. To modern eyes they might look identical!!

[Theodosius the Great]

Hellenization, or the lack of it is a regional thing as well. The foundation of gymnasium in Jerusalem spawned a riot

Great point. Since Jerusalem was more conservative I wonder what Jewish (non-hellenistic) garb would've looked like.

It's not even certain if prayer shawls and kipot (Yamulke) were used

Wow, that's a bit surprising. I thought those were surely around :roll:

So you can't really win if you're someone like Mel Gibson trying to show 1st C. Jerusalem :? What could he have done to improve the Jewish costumes ?

[Carlton Bach]

It's not even certain if prayer shawls and kipot (Yamulke) were used

Wow, that's a bit surprising. I thought those were surely around :roll:

So you can't really win if you're someone like Mel Gibson trying to show 1st C. Jerusalem :? What could he have done to improve the Jewish costumes ?

I'd say

1) do a thorough analysis of the early rabbinical sources on clothing. Yadin attempted something like iut for his interpretation of the En Gedi finds. With modern resources in linguistics, context dating and our understanding of how clothing is used in social interaction, we are likely to get more out of it.

2) use every Hellenistic and Syrian depiction you can get your hands on. Hellenmistic images are much easier to come by than Judaean ones for some reason, and while there may have been some distinctions in the traditional clothing of observant Jews, most people in everyday contexts probably wore whatever was standard in the area. Bear in mind that the New Testament often speaks of people stealing other peoples' clothing - hardly an issue, one suspects, if a Roman, Decapolitan or Samaritan thug would be left with distinctively 'Jewish' dress.

3) Stop being afraid of having your extras look 'Middle Eastern'. I suspect this is still a major issue with costuming departments. You don't want the Greeks and Romans - our forefathers - to look too foreign, so they get tight-fitting T-tunics. And the Jews, of course, mustn't look 'Arab', so they get recognisably 'Jewish' clothing (including, for some reason, the keffiyeh familiar from so many Bible movies its just not funny any more). In reality, if you just follow the materials at hand, both would end up looking a bit African to our eyes, with their wide tunics and wraparound mantles. (Please, no 'Moses was black' arguments here...)

But in general terms the knowledge is all out there quite readily available. There is still consioderable disagreement on details, but just about everyone who ever looked into this will be able to give you a general idea, good enough for costuming.

[Tarbicus]

Is the film The Passion of Christ fairly accurate on this as it is not an era I know much about?

There's another film on the same subject, which I worked on, called The Gospel of John, released last year. I do know the production went to great lengths to try and make it accurate (okay, forget the Romans, yadda-yadda, tight budget), so you may want to check it out. Possibly others here would contradict me on the accuracy, quite correctly, but the experts were very particular about the paintings of Jerusalem I had to do. You cannot get Region2 (Europe), so you would need a Region1 enabled / multiregion dvd player, unfortunately.

[Graham Sumner]

I do know the production went to great lengths to try and make it accurate (okay, forget the Romans, yadda-yadda, tight budget),

Hi Jim

Actually that is no excuse. I bet they were trying for the classic Legionary lorica segmentata look, when auxiliaries in tunics and cloaks without armour but carrying a fustis riot stick would have been more accurate and a lot cheaper!

Also if anyone is contemplating a Crucifixion of Jesus scene, the gospels tell us there were only four soldiers and a centurion present, so no need for an entire army either!

Graham.

[tlclark]

Hellenization, or the lack of it is a regional thing as well. The foundation of gymnasium in Jerusalem spawned a riot

Great point. Since Jerusalem was more conservative I wonder what Jewish (non-hellenistic) garb would've looked like.

Well as always you can look at it from either direction. The foundation of a gymnasium is a demonstration of just how hellenized Jews had become. The riot might have been a small minority. Which is more important, the gymnasium or the riot? Also, this have no impact on dress. It's entirely possible that Jews wearing hellenized dress were rioting about the gymnasium. Hellenism isn't an all or nothing deal. For example, the world is full of people that wear levi's drink coke, eat at mcdonalds and yet HATE America. Go fig.

It's not even certain if prayer shawls and kipot (Yamulke) were used

Wow, that's a bit surprising. I thought those were surely around :roll:

The earliest Jewish art shows individuals clean shaven and bare-headed as often as it doesn't. Almost certainly the long side curls is a product of the late middle ages. Most Jews before that considered the prohibition against cutting sidelocks to be a reference to not shaving, but then there are plenty of clean-shaven Jews. What's more, we know Gentiles were welcome in synagogues (Good thing too! since Christianity would not have spread if if hadn't been that way) Greeks and Jews were both naturally curious peoples with established "socratic" methods of a sort. I imagine that greeks and gentiles would pass easily between the gymnasium and synagogue, changing ideas and maybe even customs. Most likely the centurion in Acts 10 is the opposite of a hellenized Jew, he was probably a Hebraized Gentile. We have tantalizing snippets of history that suggest that Roman Matrons were converting to Judaism and that Romans found it troubling.

So you can't really win if you're someone like Mel Gibson trying to show 1st C. Jerusalem :? What could he have done to improve the Jewish costumes ?

Well the problem is you have to keep these two groups separate visually and thematically, and how do you do that if they are all wearing short tunics? Basically you always see Christ in white (no real reason why he should have been) and he has an ankle and wrist length tunic and sandels with a darker colored mantle. Well that isn't 1st. C. Jewish dress. That's 5th C. Aristocratic Byzantine dress! Which is exactly when the image of Christ is "solidified". But a clean-shaven Christ is a knee-length tunic with boots and no mantle probably wouldn't go over too well. :roll:

Travis

[Tarbicus]

Hi Jim

Actually that is no excuse. I bet they were trying for the classic Legionary lorica segmentata look, when auxiliaries in tunics and cloaks without armour but carrying a fustis riot stick would have been more accurate and a lot cheaper!.

Yes indeedy! :wink:

[Graham Sumner]

We have tantalizing snippets of history that suggest that Roman Matrons were converting to Judaism

Hi Travis
Nero's Poppaea was one example. Was the problem with the gymnasium an objection to the fact that the people in there would not be wearing any dress at all? I believe the synagogue at Capernaum was paid for by a Roman centurion!

Apparently one difference between Roman and Jewish dress was that the Jews did not have hobnailed sandals, so as a result they could always tell when 'Romans' in particular soldiers were approaching!!

Hellenistic images are much easier to come by than Judaean ones for some reason

Carlton
The Jews generally objected to the use of human images in art which explains the lack of pictorial references to Jewish costume until much later

Jim
AARGH I see what you mean, you should have sent them to me and I would have saved them some cash. Purple cloaks it seems were also left lying around so soldiers could drape them over prisoners when the occasion demanded it!

Nevertheless interesting to read of your involvement in the production, any more behind the scenes tidbits?

Graham.

[tlclark]

We have tantalizing snippets of history that suggest that Roman Matrons were converting to Judaism

Hi Travis
Nero's Poppaea was one example. Was the problem with the gymnasium an objection to the fact that the people in there would not be wearing any dress at all? I believe the synagogue at Capernaum was paid for by a Roman centurion!

Graham, thanks for the reference.

It's from Josephus I think, though I can't find the reference. I suspect the objection was not to nudity perse, since there were mikvehs, and bathhouses that clearly had a Jewish clientele. I think the objection was to the possibility of mixed genders/races in such contexts.

The Galilee is far more hellenized than Judea, so that's not surprising about the Capernum Synagogue. The assumption is that Jerusalem was far more conservative, though the burnt house and the homes and palaces of Herod in Jericho were very Roman, so who knows? Nazareth is one of those towns that could go either way.

A lot of this reminds me how ambiguous history can be.

Once we had a long discussion in my NT greek class on the profession of Joseph. Alternately in the greek the term could be used to mean a journeyman carpenter, or master carpenter who would presumably have apprentices and workshops, or it could mean stone mason, or it could be used to mean 'day laborer'. So Joseph could have been a wealthy tradesman, a simple neighborhood wood or stone worker, or an abject landless peasant! Take your pick. Any choice would give you a substantially different set of customs regarding dress and wardrobe.

Travis

[Tarbicus]

any more behind the scenes tidbits?

Yeah. Make sure historical advisers see the nearly final version more than 2 days before the deadline, and don't suddenly point out the walls and towers would have had a different facing :wink: And, the director also directed 'Boys From The Blackstuff'.

I never realised there were so many versions of how Jerusalem could have looked at the time. It was a fascinating project though, and although in other scenes the Roman cavalry horses are the modern big type, the cavalry horses at the gates of Jerusalem which are tiny in the shots were actually more like ponies. But you'd never be able to tell, sadly.