It is often mentioned that Reish Lakish (Shim’on ben Lakish), one of the most important rabbis in the land of Israel during the 3rd century AD, had been a gladiator before he became a rabbi. They all base their opinion on one legend in the Babylonian Talmud, and especially one sentence in it. The current article wishes to revisit this issue and to prove that there is no concrete basis for this assumption.

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The recently published Langgut et al. article claims that there was over-exploitation of the Byzantine Negev Desert. They suggest that the over-exploitation worked in conjunction with the Justinianic Plague and the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA), and caused the decline of the Negev settlements in the middle of the 6th century CE. The current article wishes to respond to Langgut et al. article and show that what they found cannot be used to claim that there was an over-exploitation of the land. Moreover, contrary to what they suggest, their finds indicate and support the fact that the decline occurred later. As part of this rebuttal, we will also show that the dating used in this article, like the other articles published by the project titled "NEGEVBYZ," is incorrect.

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