Jewish reactions to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 : apocalypses and related pseudepigrapha /
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The Roman destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 was a watershed event in the religious, political, and social life of first-century Jews. This book explores the reaction to this event found in Jewish apocalypses and related literature preserved among the Pseudepigrapha (4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, 3 Baruch, 4 Baruch, Sibylline Oracles 4 and 5, and the Apocalypse of Abraham). While keeping the historical context of their composition in mind, the author analyzes the texts with a view to answering the following questions: What do these texts tell us about Jewish attitudes toward the Roman Empire? How did Jews understand the situation in post-70 Judea through the lens of Israel's past, especially the Babylonian sack of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.?
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Fairly substantial revision of the author's thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 2006. :
1 online resource (x, 305 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [281]-293) and index. :
9789004210448 :
1384-2161 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Jewish identity and politics between the Maccabees and Bar Kokhba : groups, normativity, and rituals /
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The 300 years between the beginning of Maccabean resistance against Seleucid rule and the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt were formative for the development of Jewish identity in antiquity. The frequent political changes (from Seleucid to Hasmonean, Herodian and Roman rule) presented profound challenges to Jewish self-understanding. Political adjustments were coupled with internal reconfigurations. We witness the invention and reinterpretation of rituals, the emergence of new religious groups, and the use of scripture as argument. This volume brings together the perspectives of scholars of different background in order to make use of the multifaceted evidence. The interdisciplinary approach leads to a comprehensive picture of the interrelation between identity and politics in this crucial period of ancient Jewish history.
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1 online resource (vi, 282 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004218512 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Judaism and Hellenism reconsidered /
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This book is a collection of 26 previously published articles, with a number of additions and corrections, and with a long new introduction on "The Influence of Hellenism on Jews in Palestine in the Hellenistic Period." The articles deal with such subjects as "Homer and the Near East," "The Septuagint," "Hatred and Attraction to the Jews in Classical Antiquity," "Conversion to Judaism in Classical Antiquity," "Philo, Pseudo-Philo, Josephus, and Theodotus on the Rape of Dinah," "The Influence of the Greek Tragedians on Josephus," "Josephus' Biblical Paraphrase as a Commentary on Contemporary Issues," "Parallel Lives of Two Lawgivers: Josephus' Moses and Plutarch's Lycurgus," "Rabbinic Insights on the Decline and Forthcoming Fall of the Roman Empire."
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [813]-843) and indexes. :
9789047408734 :
1384-2161 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Jewish education from Antiquity to the Middle Ages : studies in honour of Philip S. Alexander /
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In Jewish Education from Antiquity to the Middle Ages fifteen scholars offer specialist studies on Jewish education from the areas of their expertise. This tightly themed volume in honour of Philip S. Alexander has some essays that look at individual manuscripts, some that consider larger literary corpora, and some that are more thematically organised. Jewish education has been addressed largely as a matter of the study house, the bet midrash. Here a richer range of texts and themes discloses a wide variety of activity in several spheres of Jewish life. In addition, some notable non-Jewish sources provide a wider context for the discourse than is often the case.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004347762 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Was 70 CE a watershed in Jewish history? : on Jews and Judaism before and after the destruction of the Second Temple /
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The destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE, which put an end to sacrificial worship in Israel, is usually assumed to constitute a major caesura in Jewish history. But how important was it? What really changed due to 70? What, in contrast, was already changing before 70 or remained basically - or "virtually" -- unchanged despite it? How do the Diaspora, which was long used to Temple-less Judaism, and early Christianity, which was born around the same time, fit in? This Scholion Library volume presents twenty papers given at an international conference in Jerusalem in which scholars assessed the significance of 70 for their respective fields of specialization, including Jewish liturgy, law, literature, magic, art, institutional history, and early Christianity.
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"This volume presents revised versions of lectures given in January 2009 at a Jerusalem symposium sponsored by Hebrew University's Scholion Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Jewish Studies"--Preface. :
1 online resource (xiii, 548 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004217447 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies in the cult of Yahweh.
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These two volumes collect some of the most influential and important scholarly essays by the late Morton Smith (1915-1991), for many years Professor of Ancient History at Columbia University in New York City. Smith was admired and feared for his extraordinary ability to look at familiar texts in unfamiliar ways, to re-open old questions, to pose new questions, and to demolish received truths. He practiced the \'hermeneutics of suspicion\' to devastating effect. His answers are not always convincing but his questions cannot be ignored. The essays of Volume I center on the Hebrew Bible (\'Old Testament\'), Ancient Israel and Ancient Judaism, of Volume II on the Christian Bible (\'New Testament\'), Early Christianity and Ancient Magic. Volume II also contains an assessment of Smith's scholarly achievement and a complete list of his publications.
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1 online resource (viii, 334 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004295872 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies in the cult of Yahweh.
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These two volumes collect some of the most influential and important scholarly essays by the late Morton Smith (1915-1991), for many years Professor of Ancient History at Columbia University in New York City. Smith was admired and feared for his extraordinary ability to look at familiar texts in unfamiliar ways, to re-open old questions, to pose new questions, and to demolish received truths. He practiced the \'hermeneutics of suspicion\' to devastating effect. His answers are not always convincing but his questions cannot be ignored. The essays of Volume I center on the Hebrew Bible (\'Old Testament\'), Ancient Israel and Ancient Judaism, of Volume II on the Christian Bible (\'New Testament\'), Early Christianity and Ancient Magic. Volume II also contains an assessment of Smith's scholarly achievement and a complete list of his publications.
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1 online resource (viii, 292 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004301443 :
0927-7633 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Manières de penser dans l'antiquité mediterranéenne et orientale : mélanges offerts à Francis Schmidt par ses élèves, ses collègues et ses amis /
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Francis Schmidt's works in various fields of religious studies (mainly ancient Judaism), can be characterized by three words: historiography, anthropological history, and comparatism. In that respect he placed himself in the continuation of previous French scholars, such as Maurice Halbwachs or Pierre Vidal-Naquet. Francis Schmidt also played an essential role in transmitting to a new generation of scholars the complex issues and debates concerning the Dead Sea scrolls and Qumranic research. The papers offered in this volume share all the same interest in ancient religions and the methodological devices previously mentioned. They offer a rare example of a large comparatism between Assyrian, Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian approaches of some essential social or intellectual issues, by some of the most competent specialists in each field.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047428633 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The Jewish dialogue with Greece and Rome : studies in cultural and social interaction /
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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.
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1 online resource (xix, 579 pages cm) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047400196 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Galilee through the centuries : confluence of cultures /
: Papers presented at the 2nd International Conference on Galilee in Antiquity held at Duke University and North Carolina Museum of Art on Jan. 25-27, 1997. : xiii, 429 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm. : Includes bibliographical references and indexes. : 157506040X
The second Jewish revolt : the Bar Kokhba War, 132-136 CE /
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In The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar Kokhba War, 132-136 C.E. , Menahem Mor offers a detailed account on the Bar Kokhba Revolt in an attempt to understand the second revolt against the Romans. Since the Bar Kokhba Revolt did not have a historian who devoted a comprehensive book to the event, Mor used a variety of historical materials including literary sources (Jewish, Christian, Greek and Latin) and archaeological sources (inscriptions, coins, military diplomas, hideouts, and refuge complexes). The book reviews the causes for the outbreak while explaining the complexity of the territorial expansion of the Revolt. Mor portrays the participants and opponents as well as the attitudes of the non-Jewish population in Palestine. He exposes the Roman Army's part in Judaea, the Jewish leadership and the implications of the Revolt.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789004314634 :
1571-5000 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Studies in Hellenistic Judaism /
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This volume consists of 23 essays that have appeared in 19 different journals and other publications during a period of over 40 years, together with an introduction. The essays deal primarily with the relations between Jews and non-Jews during the period from Alexander the Great to the end of the Roman Empire, in five areas: Josephus; Judaism and Christianity; Latin literature and the Jews; the Romans in Rabbinic literature; and other studies in Hellenistic Judaism. The topics include a programmatic essay comparing Hebraism and Hellenism, pro-Jewish intimations in Apion and in Tacitus, the influence of Josephus on Cotton Mather, Philo's view on music, the relationship between pagan and Christian anti-Semitism, observations on rabbinic reaction to Roman rule, and new light from inscriptions and papyri on Diaspora synagogues.
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1 online resource (x, 677 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 603-605) and indexes. :
9789004332836 :
0169-734X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
From Scrolls to Traditions : A Festschrift Honoring Lawrence H. Schiffman /
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This Festschrift in honor of Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman, a renowned authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism, includes contributions by twenty of his former doctoral students, now colleagues. The volume is divided into two sections, the "Biblical and Second Temple Period" and "Rabbis, Other Jews, and Neighboring Cultures." The diverse topics covered and the wide range of interdisciplinary approaches employed reflect Professor Schiffman's success in cultivating a school of scholars who are making unique contributions to the study of the Jews and Judaism.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004443891
9789004443884
Ancient Judaism in its Hellenistic Context /
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This volume explores the ways in which Jews lived within the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman contexts, how they negotiated their religious and social boundaries in their own distinctive manner. Scholars demonstrate how the Jewish encounter with Hellenism led not to a conscious struggle with alien forces but rather in many instances to an active re-tailoring and re-shaping of tradition in light of their material, ideological and philosophical surroundings. That is to say, the Jews, a minority people, maintained their identity by adapting the trappings, to varying degrees, of their milieu. These essays also reflect many issues that emerge when we study the development of several aspects of Jewish Civilization through the ages in light of broad socio-political, cultural and philosophical contexts.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047414537
9789004138711
Proximity to Power and Jewish Sectarian Groups of the Ancient Period : A Review of Lifestyle, Values, and Halakha in the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Qumran /
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This book deals with the values, lifestyle and code of law of four Jewish sectarian groups in the Hellenistic and Roman (Second Temple) period, in the land of Israel. It reviews the groups according to their proximity to power, highlighting the fact that political involvement has a decisive impact on the life and development of these social groups. The groups under review, the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and Qumran, receive a new historical description, from the viewpoint of their proximity to power. The issue of what determines the course of a social group, whether normative or sectarian, is discussed, and the traditional terminology is re-examined. Original terminology is established. The first part of the book deals with the question of terminology, the available sources and the presentation of the different groups.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047408352
9789004146990
Ancient Jewish Diaspora : Essays on Hellenism /
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The fifteen papers collected in this volume all tackle the complex cultures of Jewish Hellenism. The book covers a wide range of topics, divided into four clusters: Moses and Exodus, Places and Ruins, Theatre and Myth, Antisemitism and Reception.
In the Hellenistic period, Jews participated in the imagination of a cosmopolitan world and they developed their own complex cultural forms. In this panoramic and multifaceted book, René Bloch shows that the ancient Jewish diaspora is an integral part of what we understand as Hellenism and argues that Jewish Hellenism epitomizes Hellenism at large. Relying on Greek, Latin and Hebrew sources, the fifteen papers collected in this volume trace the evidence of ancient Jews through meticulous studies of ruins, literature, myth and modern reception taking the reader on a journey from Philo's Alexandria to a Roman bust in a Copenhagen museum.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004521896
9789004521889
Flavius Josephus, translation and commentary /
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Volume 1b in Brill's Josephus Project contains Book 2 of Josephus' Judean War (translation and commentary). This book deals with a period of enormous consequence: from King Herod's death (4 BCE) to the first phase of the war against Rome (66 CE). It covers: the succession struggle, the governments of Herod's sons, Judea's incorporation as a Roman province, some notable governors (including Pilate), Kings Agrippa I and II, the Judean philosophical schools (featuring the Essenes), various rebel movements and the Sicarii, tensions between Judeans and their neighbors, events leading up to the revolt, the failed intervention of the Syrian legate Cestius Gallus, and preparations for war in Judea and Galilee. The commentary aims at a balance between historical and literary issues.
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Issued also in a smaller paperback edition with imprint: Boston : Brill Academic Publishers with titles of individual works only.
Vol. 9 includes maps on 2 folded leaves (24 x 68 cm.) in pocket. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047442219 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Torah centers and rabbinic activity in Palestine, 70-400 CE : history and geographic distribution /
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This book analyses the data about Torah centers and rabbinic activity in Palestine during Mishnaic and Talmudic times, 70-400 CE-the Roman and early Byzantine periods. The research is an interdisciplinary inquiry. It encompasses rabbinic literature as well as archeology, geography, and sociology, thus enriching the discussion of the history and scope of rabbinic activity in the different regions of Palestine. Arranged in chronological order, the book highlights the changes generated by historical events, in particular the relocation of rabbinic centers following the upheaval of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. In spite of this upheaval, Torah centers continued to develop in Palestine for several hundred years, until the end of the period under discussion.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and indexes. :
9789047440734 :
1384-2161 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Josephus and the politics of historiography : apologetic and impression management in the Bellum Judaicum /
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Although Josephus' debt to the traditions of Greco-Roman historiography is widely recognized, the classical elements in his Bellum Judaicum are still often dismissed as just formal ornatus . This study reconsiders Josephus' intellectual affiliation to his predecessors in the genre and argues that the work's classical complexion, and in particular its distinctive color Thucydideus , are integral to the intellectual and ideological design of BJ . Deployed typically at crucial points where Josephus deals with the motives of the Jewish insurgents, the classical elements directly subserve the work's apologetic and polemical tendencies, subtly predisposing the reader to a particular interpretation by applying the rationalist and psychological categories of 'scientific' Greek historiography. In this sense the classical form of BJ is interpreted in light of the historian's partisan political agenda.
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1 online resource (x, 172 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-166) and index. :
9789047400233 :
0169-8958 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The despoliation of Egypt in pre-rabbinic, rabbinic and patristic traditions /
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This work examines the role played by the biblical motif of the despoliation of Egypt in the understanding Gentiles had of Jews, and how Jews defended themselves, their heroes and their God in the face of anti-Jewish slander. It also examines the manner in which Christians learned from their rabbinic counterparts how to defend Moses and his God against the gnostic challenge. Beginning with Philo and based on haggadic additions, the embarrassment of the episode was 'healed' through allegory and became a critically important biblical justification for the Christian appropriation of the 'Egyptian treasures' of their Greco-Roman cultural heritage. This work describes how Christians borrowed exegetical traditions from rabbis not only to defend their sacred texts against gnostic attacks but to justify their interest in and appropriation of non-Christian philosophy in their theological understandings.
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1 online resource (viii, 305 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 281-298) and indexes. :
9789047433569 :
0920-623X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.