Art, History and the Historiography of Judaism in Roman Antiquity (paperback)

Art, History and the Historiography of Judaism in Roman Antiquity (paperback)
Author: Steven Fine
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2013-10-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004238174

Art, History, and the Historiography of Judaism in Roman Antiquity explores the complex interplay between visual culture, texts, and their interpretations, arguing for an open-ended and self-aware approach to understanding Jewish culture from the first century CE through the rise of Islam. The essays assembled here range from the “thick description” of Josephus’s portrayal of Bezalel son of Uri as a Roman architect through the inscriptions of the Dura Europos synagogue, Jewish reflections on Caligula in color, the polychromy of the Jerusalem temple, new-old approaches to the zodiac, and to the Christian destruction of ancient synagogues. Taken together, these essays suggest a humane approach to the history of the Jews in an age of deep and long-lasting transitions—both in antiquity, and in our own time. "Taken as a whole, Fine’s book exhibits the value of bridging disciplines. The historiographical segments integrated throughout this volume offer essential insights that will inform any student of Roman and late antiquity." Yael Wilfand, Hebrew University, Review of Biblical Literature, 2014.

Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire

Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire
Author: Natalie B. Dohrmann
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2013-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812245334

This volume revisits issues of empire from the perspective of Jews, Christians, and other Romans in the third to sixth centuries. Through case studies, the contributors bring Jewish perspectives to bear on longstanding debates concerning Romanization, Christianization, and late antiquity.

Rewriting Ancient Jewish History

Rewriting Ancient Jewish History
Author: Amram Tropper
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2016-04-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317247078

Half a century ago, the primary contours of the history of the Jews in Roman times were not subject to much debate. This standard account collapsed, however, when a handful of insights undermined the traditional historical method, the method long enlisted by historians for eliciting facts from sources. In response to these insights, a new historical method gradually emerged. Rewriting Ancient Jewish History critiques the traditional historical method and makes a case for the new one, illustrating how to write anew ancient Jewish history. At the heart of the traditional historical method lie three fundamental presumptions. The traditional historical method regularly presumes that multiple versions of a text or tradition are equally authentic; it presumes that many ancient Jewish sources are the products of largely immanent forces of cloistered Jewish communities; and, barring any local grounds for suspicion, it presumes that most ancient Jewish texts faithfully reflect their sources and reliably recount events. Rewriting Ancient Jewish History unfurls the failings of this approach; it promotes the new historical method which circumvents the flawed traditional presumptions while plotting anew the limits of rational argumentation in historical inquiry. This crucial reappraisal is a must-read for students of Jewish and Roman history alike, and a fascinating case-study in how historians should approach their ancient sources.

Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity

Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity
Author: Lee I. Levine
Publisher:
Total Pages: 582
Release: 2012
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780300100891

Surveys Jewish visual culture in the Late Roman and Byzantine eras, including expression via figural images, biblical scenes and religious symbols.

Jewish Art in Late Antiquity

Jewish Art in Late Antiquity
Author: Dr Shulamit Laderman
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 86
Release: 2021-12-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004509585

This survey of ancient Jewish art traces Tabernacle implements and their iconographic development from the Second Temple period until late sixth century CE. It examines appearances of seven-branch menorah, Torah ark, and other motifs found in archeological discoveries of burial art synagogue decorations.

The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity

The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity
Author: Catherine Hezser
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2024
Genre: Jewish diaspora
ISBN: 9781315280974

This volume focuses on the major issues and debates in the study of Jews and Judaism in late antiquity (3rd to 7th c. C.E.), providing cutting-edge surveys of the state of scholarship, main topics and research questions, methodological approaches, and avenues for future research. Based on both Jewish and non-Jewish, literary and material sources, this volume takes an interdisciplinary approach involving historians of ancient Judaism, scholars of rabbinic literature, archaeologists, epigraphers, art historians, and Byzantinists. Developments within Jewish society and culture are viewed within the respective regional, political, cultural, and socio-economic contexts in which they took place. Special focus is given to the impact of the Christianization of the Roman Empire on Jews, from administrative, legal, social, and cultural points of view. The contributors examine how the confrontation with Christianity changed Jewish practices, perceptions and organizational structures, such as, for example, the emergence of local Jewish communities around synagogues as central religious spaces. Special chapters are devoted to the eastern and western Jewish Diaspora in Late Antiquity, especially Sasanian Persia but also Roman Italy, Egypt, Syria and Arabia, North Africa, and Asia Minor, to provide a comprehensive assessment of the situation and life experiences of Jews and Judaism during this period. The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity is a critical and methodologically sophisticated survey of current scholarship aimed primarily at students and scholars of Jewish Studies, Study of Religions, Patristics, Classics, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Iranology, History of Art and Archaeology. It is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Judaism and Jewish history--

Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue

Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue
Author: Steven Fine
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2005-10-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134673515

Explores the ways in which divergent ethnic, national and religious communities interacted with one another within the synagogue during the Greco-Roman period.

Jewish Culture and Society Under the Christian Roman Empire

Jewish Culture and Society Under the Christian Roman Empire
Author: Richard Lee Kalmin
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
Total Pages: 20
Release: 2003
Genre: Christianity and other religions
ISBN: 9789042911819

This book investigates the complexity, diversity, uniqueness and enduring significance of Jewish life in the Christian Roman Empire, from 312 to 634 C.E. During this period there occurred an unprecedented Jewish cultural explosion, encompassing the compilation and/or composition of such texts as the Palestinian Talmud, the main aggadic midrashim, an extensive magical/mystical literature, the revived apocalypse, a vast corpus of piyyutim and the beginnings of a practically oriented halakhic literature. Furthermore, this was the era of the florition of Jewish art, for it was only in the fourth century that a specifically Jewish iconographic language came into common use in the synagogues and catacombs, the archeological remains of almost all of which date from this period. This volume moves toward a synthesizing and contextualizing view of the Jewish cultural production of late antiquity, examining the interaction of Jews, Christians and pagans and with the emergence of new religious forms generated by such interaction.

Antiquity

Antiquity
Author: Norman F. Cantor
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2015-10-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0062444611

Bestselling author Norman Cantor delivers this compact but magisterial survey of the ancient world—from the birth of Sumerian civilization around 3500 B.C. in the Tigris-Euphrates valley (present-day Iraq) to the fall of the Roman Empire in A.D. 476. In Antiquity, Cantor covers such subjects as Classical Greece, Judaism, the founding of Christianity, and the triumph and decline of Rome. In this fascinating and comprehensive analysis, the author explores social and cultural history, as well as the political and economic aspects of his narrative. He explains leading themes in religion and philosophy and discusses the environment, population, and public health. With his signature authority and insight, Cantor highlights the great books and ideas of antiquity that continue to influence culture today.