Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire: The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity

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Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire

The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity

Edited by: Natalie B. Dohrmann and Annette Yoshiko Reed

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2013

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About this book

In histories of ancient Jews and Judaism, the Roman Empire looms large. For all the attention to the Jewish Revolt and other conflicts, however, there has been less concern for situating Jews within Roman imperial contexts; just as Jews are frequently dismissed as atypical by scholars of Roman history, so Rome remains invisible in many studies of rabbinic and other Jewish sources written under Roman rule.

Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire brings Jewish perspectives to bear on long-standing debates concerning Romanization, Christianization, and late antiquity. Focusing on the third to sixth centuries, it draws together specialists in Jewish and Christian history, law, literature, poetry, and art. Perspectives from rabbinic and patristic sources are juxtaposed with evidence from piyyutim, documentary papyri, and synagogue and church mosaics. Through these case studies, contributors highlight paradoxes, subtleties, and ironies of Romanness and imperial power.

Contributors: William Adler, Beth A. Berkowitz, Ra'anan Boustan, Hannah M. Cotton, Natalie B. Dohrmann, Paula Fredriksen, Oded Irshai, Hayim Lapin, Joshua Levinson, Ophir Münz-Manor, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Hagith Sivan, Michael D. Swartz, Rina Talgam.

Author / Editor information

Natalie B. Dohrmann is Associate Director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies and Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the coeditor of Jewish Biblical Interpretation and Cultural Exchange: Comparative Exegesis in Context, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Annette Yoshiko Reed is M. Mark and Esther K. Watkins Assistant Professor of Humanities in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, author of Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity, and coeditor of The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity.

Reviews

"This volume opens up important new intellectual avenues for students of ancient religion and empire and will undoubtedly have a tremendous impact on multiple arenas of scholarly research. There is, simply, no work that tackles the intellectual question 'How do we integrate Judaism into the Roman Empire, and vice versa?' with such depth and breadth." --- "Beginning with the editors' fundamental historiographical and programmatic essay, Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire is the most important collection of studies on Jews in late antiquity I have ever seen. In fact, it is essential reading for all students of late antiquity. Especially admirable is the book's implicit argument that late antiquity was constituted not by a single seismic shift but by the slow accretion of small changes over time."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	ix
Introduction. Rethinking Romanness, Provincializing Christendom Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	1
Part I. Rabbis and Other Roman Sub- Elites
Introduction Part I Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	25
Chapter 1. The Afterlives of the Torah’s Ethnic Language: The Sifra and Clement on Leviticus 18.1– 5 Beth A. Berkowitz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	29
Chapter 2. The Kingdom of Edessa and the Creation of a Christian Aristocracy William Adler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	43
Chapter 3. Law and Imperial Idioms: Rabbinic Legalism in a Roman World Natalie B. Dohrmann Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	63
Chapter 4. The Law of Moses and the Jews: Rabbis, Ethnic Marking, and Romanization Hayim Lapin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	79
Part II. Christianization and Other Modalities of Romanization
Introduction Part II Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	95
Chapter 5. There Is No Place Like Home: Rabbinic Responses to the Christianization of Palestine Joshua Levinson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	99
Chapter 6. Between Gaza and Minorca: The (Un)Making of Minorities in Late Antiquity Hagith Sivan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	121
Chapter 7. Christian Historiographers’ Reflections on Jewish- Christian Violence in Fifth- Century Alexandria Oded Irshai Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	137
Chapter 8. Narrating Salvation: Verbal Sacrifices in Late Antique Liturgical Poetry Ophir Münz- Manor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	154
Chapter 9. Israelite Kingship, Christian Rome, and the Jewish Imperial Imagination: Midrashic Precursors to the Medieval “Throne of Solomon” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	167
Part III. Continuity and Rupture
Introduction Part III Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	185
Chapter 10. Chains of Tradition from Avot to the ′Avodah Piyutim Michael D. Swartz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	189
Chapter 11. Change and Continuity in Late Legal Papyri from Palaestina Tertia: Nomos Hellênikos and Ethos Rômaikon Hannah M. Cotton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	209
Chapter 12. The Representation of the Temple and Jerusalem in Jewish and Christian Houses of Prayer in the Holy Land in Late Antiquity Rina Talgam Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	222
Chapter 13. Roman Christianity and the Post- Roman West: The Social Correlates of the Contra Iudaeos Tradition Paula Fredriksen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	249
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	267
Select Bibliography of Secondary Sources Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	345
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	379
Index of Selected Primary Sources Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	383
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	389

Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

October 9, 2013

eBook ISBN:

9780812208573

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

Main content:

400

https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812208573

eBook ISBN: 9780812208573

Keywords for this book

Religion; Classics; Jewish Studies; Ancient Studies

Audience(s) for this book

For universities and colleges of further and higher education

Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire

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About this book

Author / Editor information

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