Contents

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter I
2. Preface V
3. Contents VII
4. A question of identity: Introduction 1
5. Part I: Ancient Mesopotamia and Further East
6. 1. In His Majesty’s Service 23
7. 2. Judean Identity during the Exile 43
8. 3. Issues in the Historical Geography and the Ethno-Linguistic Character of the Zagros and Adjacent Regions 71
9. 4. Going West 111
10. 5. Jewish Identity in Babylonia in the Period of the Incantation Bowls 131
11. 6. The Quest of the Historical Metatron: Enoch or Jesus 153
12. Part II: The Hellenistic and Roman World
13. 7. Priests in Exile 165
14. 8. Iron Wall or Common Feast? 183
15. 9. Ptolemy II Philadelphus in the Letter of Aristeas §§1–27 201
16. 10. Literary Genres and Identity in the Letter of Aristeas 223
17. 11. Monotheism as an Identity Norm 245
18. 12. Material Culture and Ethnic Identity in Hellenistic-Period Galilee 265
19. 13. “How Fine are the Works of this People”? 291
20. Part III: Religious and National Identities in a Complex World
21. 14. The Context of Conversions in Early Modern Europe 315
22. 15. So What’s Really in a Name? Theology of Etymology in Sixteenth-Century Arian Thought 337
23. 16. “It’s All Hebrew to Me” 349
24. 17. Social and Spatial Borders between “Us” and “Them” 365
25. Contributors 389
26. Index 391