Jews In A Graeco Roman Environment

A collection of articles published previously.

This collection of freshly translated texts is designed to introduce those interested in Graeco-Roman and Jewish culture to the realities of Jewish life outside Israel between 323 BC and the middle of the 5th century AD.

This volume honors L. Michael White, whose work has been influential in exploring the “social worlds” of ancient Jews and Christians. Fifteen original essays highlight his scholarly contributions while also signaling new directions in the study of ancient Mediterranean religions.

The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity examines the fate of Jews living in the Mediterranean Jewish diaspora after the Roman emperor Constantine threw his patronage to the emerging orthodox (Nicene) Christian churches. By the fifth century, much of the rich material evidence for Greek and Latin-speaking Jews in the diaspora diminishes sharply. Ross Shepard Kraemer argues that this increasing absence of evidence is evidence of increasing absence of Jews themselves. Literary sources, late antique Roman laws, and archaeological remains illuminate how Christian bishops and emperors used a variety of tactics to coerce Jews into conversion: violence, threats of violence, deprivation of various legal rights, exclusion from imperial employment, and others. Unlike other non-orthodox Christians, Jews who resisted conversion were reluctantly tolerated, perhaps because of beliefs that Christ's return required their conversion. In response to these pressures, Jews leveraged political and social networks for legal protection, retaliated with their own acts of violence, and sometimes became Christians. Some may have emigrated to regions where imperial laws were more laxly enforced, or which were under control of non-orthodox (Arian) Christians. Increasingly, they embraced forms of Jewish practice that constructed tighter social boundaries around them. The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity concludes that by the beginning of the seventh century, the orthodox Christianization of the Roman Empire had cost diaspora Jews--and all non-orthodox persons, including Christians--dearly.

The first full treatment of Jewish childhood in the Roman world. Explores the lives of minors both inside and outside the home.

This study argues that the Gospel of John's anti-Judaism can be well understood from the perspective of trends apparent within the context of broader Greco-Roman culture. It uses the paradigm of collective memory and aspects of social identity theory and self-categorization theory to explore the theological and narrative functions of the Johannine Jews. Relying upon a diverse range of historical testimony drawn from Greco-Roman literature, inscriptions, and papyri, this work attempts to understand the social identities and social locations of Diaspora Jews as a first step in reading John's Gospel in the context of the political and social instability of the first century CE. It then attempts to understand John's theology, its portrayal of Jewish social identity, and the narrative and theological functions of "the Jews" as a group character in light of this historical context. This work attempts to demonstrate that while John's treatment of Jews and Judaism is multivalent at both social and theological levels, it is primarily focused upon strengthening a Christologically centered Christian identity while attempting to mitigate the attractiveness of Judaism as a religious competitor.

What was life like for Jews settled throughout the Mediterranean world of Classical antiquity--and what place did Jewish communities have in the diverse civilization dominated by Greeks and Romans? In a probing account of the Jewish diaspora in the four centuries from Alexander the Great's conquest of the Near East to the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 C.E., Erich Gruen reaches often surprising conclusions. By the first century of our era, Jews living abroad far outnumbered those living in Palestine and had done so for generations. Substantial Jewish communities were found throughout the Greek mainland and Aegean islands, Asia Minor, the Tigris-Euphrates valley, Egypt, and Italy. Focusing especially on Alexandria, Greek cities in Asia Minor, and Rome, Gruen explores the lives of these Jews: the obstacles they encountered, the institutions they established, and their strategies for adjustment. He also delves into Jewish writing in this period, teasing out how Jews in the diaspora saw themselves. There emerges a picture of a Jewish minority that was at home in Greco-Roman cities: subject to only sporadic harassment; its intellectuals immersed in Greco-Roman culture while refashioning it for their own purposes; exhibiting little sign of insecurity in an alien society; and demonstrating both a respect for the Holy Land and a commitment to the local community and Gentile government. Gruen's innovative analysis of the historical and literary record alters our understanding of the way this vibrant minority culture engaged with the dominant Classical civilization.