Still a bit odd that we successfully load JPATraversableResolver (for which existence and accessibility of javax.persistence.Persistence is tested), but then fail at the isReachable() call due to javax.persistence.Persistence not being found. If you enable debug logging, you should even see "Found javax.persistence.Persistence on classpath..." in the log.

Something may still be wrong in the way how the presence of JPA is detected. In other words, we should not get to JPATraversableResolver#isReachable() at all if JPA isn't present.