Author: Sylvie Honigman
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520383141
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 570
Book Description
In the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great, the ancient world of the Bible—the ancient Near East—came under Greek rule, and in the land of Israel, time-old traditions met Greek culture. But with the accession of King Antiochos IV, the soft power of culture was replaced with armed conflict, and soon the Jews rebelled against their imperial masters, as recorded in the Biblical books of the Maccabees. Whereas most scholars have dismissed the biblical accounts of religious persecution and cultural clash, Sylvie Honigman combines subtle literary analysis with deep historical insight to show how their testimony can be reconciled with modern historical analysis by conversing with the biblical authors, so to speak, in their own language to understand the ways they described their experiences. Honigman contends that these stories are not mere fantasies but genuine attempts to cope with the massacre that followed the rebellion by giving it new meaning. This reading also discloses fresh political and economic factors.
Tales of High Priests and Taxes
Author: Sylvie Honigman
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520383141
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 570
Book Description
In the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great, the ancient world of the Bible—the ancient Near East—came under Greek rule, and in the land of Israel, time-old traditions met Greek culture. But with the accession of King Antiochos IV, the soft power of culture was replaced with armed conflict, and soon the Jews rebelled against their imperial masters, as recorded in the Biblical books of the Maccabees. Whereas most scholars have dismissed the biblical accounts of religious persecution and cultural clash, Sylvie Honigman combines subtle literary analysis with deep historical insight to show how their testimony can be reconciled with modern historical analysis by conversing with the biblical authors, so to speak, in their own language to understand the ways they described their experiences. Honigman contends that these stories are not mere fantasies but genuine attempts to cope with the massacre that followed the rebellion by giving it new meaning. This reading also discloses fresh political and economic factors.
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520383141
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 570
Book Description
In the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great, the ancient world of the Bible—the ancient Near East—came under Greek rule, and in the land of Israel, time-old traditions met Greek culture. But with the accession of King Antiochos IV, the soft power of culture was replaced with armed conflict, and soon the Jews rebelled against their imperial masters, as recorded in the Biblical books of the Maccabees. Whereas most scholars have dismissed the biblical accounts of religious persecution and cultural clash, Sylvie Honigman combines subtle literary analysis with deep historical insight to show how their testimony can be reconciled with modern historical analysis by conversing with the biblical authors, so to speak, in their own language to understand the ways they described their experiences. Honigman contends that these stories are not mere fantasies but genuine attempts to cope with the massacre that followed the rebellion by giving it new meaning. This reading also discloses fresh political and economic factors.
Shifting Images of the Hasmoneans
Author: Vered Noam
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192539396
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
The shifting image of the Hasmoneans in the eyes of their contemporaries and later generations is a compelling issue in the history of the Maccabean revolt and the Hasmonean commonwealth. Based on a series of six Jewish folktales from the Second Temple period that describe the Hasmonean dynasty and its history from its legendary founders, through achievement of full sovereignty, to downfall, this volume examines the Hasmoneans through the lens of reception history. On the one hand, these brief, colorful legends are embedded in the narrative of the historian of the age, Flavius Josephus; on the other hand, they are scattered throughout the extensive halakhic-exegetical compositions known as rabbinic literature, redacted and compiled centuries later. Each set of parallel stories is examined for the motivation underlying its creation, its original message, language, and the historical context. This analysis is followed by exploration of the nature of the relationship between the Josephan and the rabbinic versions, in an attempt to reconstruct the adaptation of the putative original traditions in the two corpora, and to decipher the disparities, different emphases, reworking, and unique orientations typical of each. These adaptations reflect the reception of the pristine tales and thus disclose the shifting images of the Hasmoneans in later generations and within distinct contexts. The compilation and characterization of these sources which were preserved by means of two such different conduits of transmission brings us closer to reconstruction of a lost literary continent, a hidden Jewish "Atlantis" of early pseudo-historical legends and facilitates examination of the relationship between the substantially different libraries and worlds of Josephus and rabbinic literature.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192539396
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Book Description
The shifting image of the Hasmoneans in the eyes of their contemporaries and later generations is a compelling issue in the history of the Maccabean revolt and the Hasmonean commonwealth. Based on a series of six Jewish folktales from the Second Temple period that describe the Hasmonean dynasty and its history from its legendary founders, through achievement of full sovereignty, to downfall, this volume examines the Hasmoneans through the lens of reception history. On the one hand, these brief, colorful legends are embedded in the narrative of the historian of the age, Flavius Josephus; on the other hand, they are scattered throughout the extensive halakhic-exegetical compositions known as rabbinic literature, redacted and compiled centuries later. Each set of parallel stories is examined for the motivation underlying its creation, its original message, language, and the historical context. This analysis is followed by exploration of the nature of the relationship between the Josephan and the rabbinic versions, in an attempt to reconstruct the adaptation of the putative original traditions in the two corpora, and to decipher the disparities, different emphases, reworking, and unique orientations typical of each. These adaptations reflect the reception of the pristine tales and thus disclose the shifting images of the Hasmoneans in later generations and within distinct contexts. The compilation and characterization of these sources which were preserved by means of two such different conduits of transmission brings us closer to reconstruction of a lost literary continent, a hidden Jewish "Atlantis" of early pseudo-historical legends and facilitates examination of the relationship between the substantially different libraries and worlds of Josephus and rabbinic literature.
Times of Transition
Author: Sylvie Honigman
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 1646021452
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
This multidisciplinary study takes a fresh look at Judean history and biblical literature in the late fourth and third centuries BCE. In a major reappraisal of this era, the contributions to this volume depict it as one in which critical changes took place. Until recently, the period from Alexander’s conquest in 332 BCE to the early years of Seleucid domination following Antiochus III’s conquest in 198 BCE was reputed to be poorly documented in material evidence and textual production, buttressing the view that the era from late Persian to Hasmonean times was one of seamless continuity. Biblical scholars believed that no literary activity belonged to the Hellenistic age, and archaeologists were unable to refine their understanding because of a lack of secure chronological markers. However, recent studies are revealing this period as one of major social changes and intense literary activity. Historians have shed new light on the nature of the Hellenistic empires and the relationship between the central power and local entities in ancient imperial settings, and the redating of several biblical texts to the third century BCE challenges the traditional periodization of Judean history. Bringing together Hellenistic history, the archaeology of Judea, and biblical studies, this volume appraises the early Hellenistic period anew as a time of great transition and change and situates Judea within its broader regional and transregional imperial contexts.
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 1646021452
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
This multidisciplinary study takes a fresh look at Judean history and biblical literature in the late fourth and third centuries BCE. In a major reappraisal of this era, the contributions to this volume depict it as one in which critical changes took place. Until recently, the period from Alexander’s conquest in 332 BCE to the early years of Seleucid domination following Antiochus III’s conquest in 198 BCE was reputed to be poorly documented in material evidence and textual production, buttressing the view that the era from late Persian to Hasmonean times was one of seamless continuity. Biblical scholars believed that no literary activity belonged to the Hellenistic age, and archaeologists were unable to refine their understanding because of a lack of secure chronological markers. However, recent studies are revealing this period as one of major social changes and intense literary activity. Historians have shed new light on the nature of the Hellenistic empires and the relationship between the central power and local entities in ancient imperial settings, and the redating of several biblical texts to the third century BCE challenges the traditional periodization of Judean history. Bringing together Hellenistic history, the archaeology of Judea, and biblical studies, this volume appraises the early Hellenistic period anew as a time of great transition and change and situates Judea within its broader regional and transregional imperial contexts.
The Open Sea
Author: J. G. Manning
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691202303
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 442
Book Description
"In The Open Sea, J. G. Manning offers a major new history of economic life in the Mediterranean world in the Iron Age, from Phoenician trading down to the Hellenistic era and the beginning of Rome's imperial supremacy. Drawing on a wide range of ancient sources and the latest social theory, Manning suggests that a search for an illusory single "ancient economy" has obscured the diversity of lived experience in the Mediterranean world, including both changes in political economies over time and differences in cultural conceptions of property and money. At the same time, he shows how the region's economies became increasingly interconnected during this period." -- Publisher's description
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691202303
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 442
Book Description
"In The Open Sea, J. G. Manning offers a major new history of economic life in the Mediterranean world in the Iron Age, from Phoenician trading down to the Hellenistic era and the beginning of Rome's imperial supremacy. Drawing on a wide range of ancient sources and the latest social theory, Manning suggests that a search for an illusory single "ancient economy" has obscured the diversity of lived experience in the Mediterranean world, including both changes in political economies over time and differences in cultural conceptions of property and money. At the same time, he shows how the region's economies became increasingly interconnected during this period." -- Publisher's description
Bridging the Testaments
Author: George Athas
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
ISBN: 0310520959
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 684
Book Description
An accessible introduction to the historical and theological developments between the Old and New Testament. Bridging the end of the Old Testament period and the beginning of the New Testament period, this book surveys the history and theological developments of four significant eras in Israel's post-exilic history: the Late Persian Era (465-331 BC), the Hellenistic Era (332-167 BC), the Hasmonean Era (167-63 BC), and the Roman Era (63-4 BC). In doing so, it does away with the notion that there were four hundred years of prophetic silence before Jesus. Bridging the Testaments outlines the political and social developments of these four periods, with particular focus on their impact upon Judeans and Samarians. Using a wide range of biblical and extra-biblical sources, George Athas reconstructs what can be known about the history of Judah and Samaria in these eras, providing the framework for understanding the history of God's covenant people, and the theological developments that occurred at the end of the Old Testament period, leading into the New Testament. In doing so, Athas shows that the notion of a supposed period of four hundred years of prophetic silence is not supported by the biblical or historical evidence. Finally, an epilogue sketches the historical and theological situation prevailing at the death of Herod in 4 BC, providing important context for the New Testament writings. In this way, the book bridges the Old and New Testaments by providing a historical and theological understanding of the five centuries leading up to the birth of Jesus, tracking a biblical theology through them, and abolishing the notion of a four-century prophetic silence.
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
ISBN: 0310520959
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 684
Book Description
An accessible introduction to the historical and theological developments between the Old and New Testament. Bridging the end of the Old Testament period and the beginning of the New Testament period, this book surveys the history and theological developments of four significant eras in Israel's post-exilic history: the Late Persian Era (465-331 BC), the Hellenistic Era (332-167 BC), the Hasmonean Era (167-63 BC), and the Roman Era (63-4 BC). In doing so, it does away with the notion that there were four hundred years of prophetic silence before Jesus. Bridging the Testaments outlines the political and social developments of these four periods, with particular focus on their impact upon Judeans and Samarians. Using a wide range of biblical and extra-biblical sources, George Athas reconstructs what can be known about the history of Judah and Samaria in these eras, providing the framework for understanding the history of God's covenant people, and the theological developments that occurred at the end of the Old Testament period, leading into the New Testament. In doing so, Athas shows that the notion of a supposed period of four hundred years of prophetic silence is not supported by the biblical or historical evidence. Finally, an epilogue sketches the historical and theological situation prevailing at the death of Herod in 4 BC, providing important context for the New Testament writings. In this way, the book bridges the Old and New Testaments by providing a historical and theological understanding of the five centuries leading up to the birth of Jesus, tracking a biblical theology through them, and abolishing the notion of a four-century prophetic silence.
The Literature of the Sages
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004515690
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 672
Book Description
This volume abandons the document-based approach of standard introductions and investigates aggregates of classical rabbinic texts through three broad perspectives – intertextuality, east and west, halakhah and aggadah – generating fresh insights that will reset the scholarly agenda.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004515690
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 672
Book Description
This volume abandons the document-based approach of standard introductions and investigates aggregates of classical rabbinic texts through three broad perspectives – intertextuality, east and west, halakhah and aggadah – generating fresh insights that will reset the scholarly agenda.
Galilean Spaces of Identity
Author: Joseph Scales
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900469255X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 423
Book Description
We understand the world around us in terms of built spaces. Such spaces are shaped by human activity, and in turn, affect how people live. Through an analysis of archaeological and textual evidence from the beginnings of Hasmonean influence in Galilee, until the outbreak of the First Jewish War against Rome, this book explores how Judaism was socially expressed: bodily, communally, and regionally. Within each expression, certain aspects of Jewish identity operate, these being purity conceptions, communal gatherings, and Galilee's relationship with the Hasmoneans, Jerusalem, and the Temple in its final days.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900469255X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 423
Book Description
We understand the world around us in terms of built spaces. Such spaces are shaped by human activity, and in turn, affect how people live. Through an analysis of archaeological and textual evidence from the beginnings of Hasmonean influence in Galilee, until the outbreak of the First Jewish War against Rome, this book explores how Judaism was socially expressed: bodily, communally, and regionally. Within each expression, certain aspects of Jewish identity operate, these being purity conceptions, communal gatherings, and Galilee's relationship with the Hasmoneans, Jerusalem, and the Temple in its final days.
The Boundaries of Jewishness in the Southern Levant 200 BCE–132 CE
Author: John van Maaren
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110787458
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 334
Book Description
Recent research has considered how changing imperial contexts influence conceptions of Jewishness among ruling elites (esp. Eckhardt, Ethnos und Herrschaft, 2013). This study integrates other, often marginal, conceptions with elite perspectives. It uses the ethnic boundary making model, an empirically based sociological model, to link macro-level characteristics of the social field with individual agency in ethnic construction. It uses a wide range of written sources as evidence for constructions of Jewishness and relates these to a local-specific understanding of demographic and institutional characteristics, informed by material culture. The result is a diachronic study of how institutional changes under Seleucid, Hasmonean, and Early Roman rule influenced the ways that members of the ruling elite, retainer class, and marginalized groups presented their preferred visions of Jewishness. These sometimes-competing visions advance different strategies to maintain, rework, or blur the boundaries between Jews and others. The study provides the next step toward a thick description of Jewishness in antiquity by introducing needed systematization for relating written sources from different social strata with their contexts.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110787458
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 334
Book Description
Recent research has considered how changing imperial contexts influence conceptions of Jewishness among ruling elites (esp. Eckhardt, Ethnos und Herrschaft, 2013). This study integrates other, often marginal, conceptions with elite perspectives. It uses the ethnic boundary making model, an empirically based sociological model, to link macro-level characteristics of the social field with individual agency in ethnic construction. It uses a wide range of written sources as evidence for constructions of Jewishness and relates these to a local-specific understanding of demographic and institutional characteristics, informed by material culture. The result is a diachronic study of how institutional changes under Seleucid, Hasmonean, and Early Roman rule influenced the ways that members of the ruling elite, retainer class, and marginalized groups presented their preferred visions of Jewishness. These sometimes-competing visions advance different strategies to maintain, rework, or blur the boundaries between Jews and others. The study provides the next step toward a thick description of Jewishness in antiquity by introducing needed systematization for relating written sources from different social strata with their contexts.
Is There a Text in this Cave? Studies in the Textuality of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of George J. Brooke
Author: Ariel Feldman
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004344535
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 598
Book Description
This volume is offered as a tribute to George Brooke to mark his sixty-fifth birthday. It has been conceived as a coherent contribution to the question of textuality in the Dead Sea Scrolls explored from a wide range of perspectives. These include material aspects of the texts, performance, reception, classification, scribal culture, composition, reworking, form and genre, and the issue of the extent to which any of the texts relate (to) social realities in the Second Temple period. Almost every contribution engages with Brooke’s own remarkably wide-ranging, incisive, and innovative research on the Scrolls. The twenty-eight contributors are colleagues and students of the honouree and include leading scholars alongside promising new voices from across the field.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004344535
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 598
Book Description
This volume is offered as a tribute to George Brooke to mark his sixty-fifth birthday. It has been conceived as a coherent contribution to the question of textuality in the Dead Sea Scrolls explored from a wide range of perspectives. These include material aspects of the texts, performance, reception, classification, scribal culture, composition, reworking, form and genre, and the issue of the extent to which any of the texts relate (to) social realities in the Second Temple period. Almost every contribution engages with Brooke’s own remarkably wide-ranging, incisive, and innovative research on the Scrolls. The twenty-eight contributors are colleagues and students of the honouree and include leading scholars alongside promising new voices from across the field.
The Cambridge Companion to the Ancient Greek Economy
Author: Sitta von Reden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108278507
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 509
Book Description
This is the most comprehensive introduction to the ancient Greek economy available in English. A team of specialists provides in non-technical language cutting edge accounts of a wide range of key themes in economic history, explaining how ancient Greek economies functioned and changed, and why they were stable and successful over long periods of time. Through its wide geographical perspective, reaching from the Aegean and the Black Sea to the Near East and Egypt under Greek rule, it reflects on how economic behaviour and institutions were formed and transformed under different political, ecological and social circumstances, and how they interacted and communicated over large distances. With chapters on climate and the environment, market development, inequality and growth, it encourages comparison with other periods of time and cultures, thus being of interest not just to ancient historians but also to readers concerned with economic cultures and global economic issues.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108278507
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 509
Book Description
This is the most comprehensive introduction to the ancient Greek economy available in English. A team of specialists provides in non-technical language cutting edge accounts of a wide range of key themes in economic history, explaining how ancient Greek economies functioned and changed, and why they were stable and successful over long periods of time. Through its wide geographical perspective, reaching from the Aegean and the Black Sea to the Near East and Egypt under Greek rule, it reflects on how economic behaviour and institutions were formed and transformed under different political, ecological and social circumstances, and how they interacted and communicated over large distances. With chapters on climate and the environment, market development, inequality and growth, it encourages comparison with other periods of time and cultures, thus being of interest not just to ancient historians but also to readers concerned with economic cultures and global economic issues.