Essays In The Social Scientific Study Of Judaism And Jewish Society Volume Ii

This volume asks why Jewish groups - Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes and the Dead Sea Scroll sect - flourished during the Maccabean era. It argues that such a result is uncommon, requiring special explanation. In the introduction, sectarianism is defined and its varieties in Second Temple Judaism assessed. Among the causes of the known results suggested are the encounter with an outside culture that seemed to be weakening the external national perimeter, the impact of expanded literacy, the move to the city from the farm, as well as eschatological hope aroused by Maccabean victory. In proposing these conclusions, full advantage is taken of recently published Qumran sources, such as 4QMMT. The objective is to discover the connection between context and consequence, which will explain why sectarianism was so prominent at that time.

Since Judaism has always been seen as the quintessential 'religion of the book', a high literacy rate amongst ancient Jews has usually been taken for granted. Catherine Hezser presents the first critical analysis of the various aspects of ancient Jewish literacy on the basis of all of the literary, epigraphic, and papyrological material published so far. Thereby she takes into consideration the analogies in Graeco-Roman culture and models and theories developed in the social sciences. Rather than trying to determine the exact literacy rate amongst ancient Jews, she examines the various types, social contexts, and functions of writing and the relationship between writing and oral forms of discourse. Following recent social-anthropological approaches to literacy, the guiding question is: who used what type of writing for which purpose? First Catherine Hezser examines the conditions which would enable or prevent the spread of literacy, such as education and schools, the availability and costs of writing materials, religious interest in writing and books, the existence of archives and libraries, and the question of multilingualism. Afterwards she looks at the different types of writing, such as letters, documents, miscellaneous notes, inscriptions and graffiti, and literary and magical texts until she finally draws conclusions about the ways in which the various sectors of the populace were able to participate in a literate society.

Where do the origins of the rabbinic movement lie, and how might evidence from the early rabbinic literature be made to reveal those origins? In order to shed light on the early social formation of the rabbinic guild of masters, Lightstone brings the theoretical and methodological insights of socio-rhetorical analysis to examine Mishnah, the first document authored by the early rabbinic movement and its principal object of study for several centuries. He argues that the enshrinement of Mishnah served to model, via its pervasive rhetoric, the principal authoritative guild expertise that qualified and marked one as a member of the rabbinic guild. Furthermore, he establishes the social and historical venue in late second- and early third-century Galilee. The author concludes that the social formation of the early rabbinic guild coalesced around the institution of the Jewish Patriarchy, for which the early rabbis served as bureaucratic-scribal retainers. He further suggests that the development of both the Patriarchy in the Land of Israel and the social formation of the rabbinic guild may have been spurred by the imposition of Roman-style urbanization in the region over the course of the latter half of the second and beginning of the third century. Lightstone’s approach is informed by the insights and methods of several cognate disciplines, encompassing literary analysis, sociology and anthropology, and history (including, in the last chapter, the history of material culture). The book will be of interest to advanced students in the history of Judaism, rabbinic literature, biblical studies, early Christianity, and the history of religion and culture in the late Roman Near East.

Altogether 46 essays in honour of Professor Raija Sollamo contribute to explore various aspects of the rich textual material around the turn of the era. At that time Scripture was not yet fixed; various writings and collections of writings were considered authoritative but their form was more or less in transition. The appearance of the first biblical translations are part of this transitional process. The Septuagint in particular provides us evidence and concrete examples of those textual traditions and interpretations that were in use in various communities. Furthermore, several biblical concepts, themes and writings were reinterpreted and actualised in the Dead Sea Scrolls, illuminating the transitions that took place in one faction of Judaism. The topics of the contributions are divided into five parts: Translation and Interpretation; Textual History; Hebrew and Greek Linguistics; Dead Sea Scrolls; Present-Day.

This volume is a memorial volume in honor of Alan F. Segal, featuring essays by renowned scholars of late ancient and Hellenistic Judaism, early Christianity, Gnosticism and Rabbinic Judaism.