The Jewish Dialogue With Greece And Rome

Twenty-seven interdisciplinary essays on aspects of Judaism in the Greco-Roman world, exemplifying a wide range of techniques, by a well-known scholar. Three are previously unpublished, including a reappraisal of the Judaism and Hellenism debate and a study of the Sardis synagogue. The book's overall coherence derives from the author's long-standing interests in the analysis of texts as documents of cultural and religious interaction, and in how Jewish communities were woven into the social fabric of Greek cities in the Hellenistic and Roman East. The four sections are: Greeks and Jews, Josephus, The Jewish Diaspora and Epigraphy, and finally Beyond the Greeks and Romans, essays which extend into Christian literature and on to the nineteenth century reception of the Judaism/Hellenism dichotomy. Scholars and students from a wide variety of backgrounds will benefit. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.

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.

Two of the world's leading authorities on the classical era bring together a comprehensive treasury of sources on Judaism in the ancient period.

The Jews, as one of the Mediterranean nations, began to come into close contact with Greek civilization about the time of Alexander the Great. What has been attempted in the foregoing pages is an interpretation of certain facts of Jewish, Roman, and Greek history within a given period. The literature on the subject is enormous. A short bibliography is appended, in which various books of reference are cited. From these all who are interested in the innumerable controversies that the subject has elicited may obtain full information. Contents: Greek Religious Concepts Roman Religious Concepts Greek and Roman Concepts of Race Sketch of Jewish History between Nebuchadnezzar and Constantine Internal Development of the Jews during the Persian Period The First Contact between Greek and Jew Egypt Jews in Ptolemaic Egypt The Struggle against Greek Culture in Palestine Antiochus the Manifest God The Jewish Propaganda The Opposition The Opposition in Its Social Aspect The Philosophic Opposition The Romans Jews in Rome during the Early Empire The Jews of the Empire till the Revolt The Revolt of 68 C.E. The Development of the Roman Jewish Community The Final Revolts of the Jews The Legal Position of the Jews in the Later Empire

In this study, Michael Tuval examines the religion of Flavius Josephus diachronically. The author suggests that because Diaspora Jews could not participate regularly in the cultic life of the Jerusalem Temple, they developed other paradigms of Judaic religiosity. He interprets Josephus as a Jew who began his career as a Judean priest but moved to Rome and gradually became a Diaspora intellectual. Josephus' first work, Judean War, reflects a Judean priestly view of Judaism, with the Temple and cult at the center. After these disappeared, there was not much hope left in the religious realm. Tuval also analyzes Antiquities of the Jews, which was written fifteen years later. Here the religious picture has been transformed drastically. The Temple has been marginalized or replaced by the law which is universal and perfect for all humanity.

This book explores how the Graeco-Roman world suffered from major power conflicts, imperial ambition, and ethnic, religious and racist strife.

This volume completes the three-volume collection of Fergus Millar's essays, which, together with his books, transformed the study of the Roman Empire by shifting the focus of inquiry onto the broader Mediterranean world and beyond. The eighteen essays presented here include Millar's classic contributions to our understanding of the impact of Rome on the peoples, cultures, and religions of the eastern Mediterranean, and the extent to which Graeco-Roman culture acted as a vehicle for the self-expression of the indigenous cultures. In an epilogue written to conclude the collection, Millar argues for rethinking the focus of "ancient history" itself and for considering the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean from the first millennium B.C. to the Islamic conquests a valid scholarly framework and an appropriate educational syllabus for the study of antiquity. English translations of extended ancient passages in Greek, Latin, and Semitic languages in all the essays make Millar's most important articles accessible for the first time to specialists and nonspecialists alike.