The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt

The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt
Author: Zsuzsanna Szántó
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2024-09-23
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3111426297

This book offers a comprehensive and nuanced history of the Jews of Egypt, who constituted an important ethnic minority ever since they first appeared in the country. As part of the Greek-speaking ruling class, the Jews played an active role in the political, social and cultural life of Ptolemaic Egypt. Drawing on old and new documentary papyri supplemented by literary and epigraphic evidence, Szántó’s book focuses on reconstructing an overall picture of the Egyptian Jewish Diaspora and discusses different aspects of their life: onomastics, military life, social and legal position, religious customs and anti-Judaism. The incorporation of non-Greek (Aramaic and Egyptian) textual evidence into the research is innovative and offers new perspectives on certain topics whose understanding was previously limited. Szántó provides a diverse picture of Jewish life and demonstrates how the Jews integrated into Graeco-Egyptian society and, at the same time, preserved their ethnic identity.

Waters of the Exodus

Waters of the Exodus
Author: Nathalie LaCoste
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2018-09-11
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004384308

In Waters of the Exodus, Nathalie LaCoste examines the Diasporic Jewish community in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt and their relationship to the hydric environment. By focusing on four retellings of the exodus narrative composed by Egyptian Jews—Artapanus, Ezekiel the Tragedian, Wisdom of Solomon, and Philo of Alexandria—she lays out how the hydric environment of Egypt, and specifically the Nile river, shaped the transmission of the exodus story. Mapping these observations onto the physical landscape of Egypt provides a new perspective on the formation of Jewish communities in Egypt.

The Jews of Egypt

The Jews of Egypt
Author: Joseph Modrzejewski
Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
Total Pages: 316
Release: 1995
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780827605220

This is the story of the adventures and misadventures of the Jewish people in the land of Egypt. The author uses the clear light of scientific analysis and archaeological research to illuminate the reality underlying the images from the Biblical accounts and Jewish and pagan literary texts, through the great “love affair” between Jews and Hellenic culture. It ends with the brief but crucial episode when budding Christianity and the Alexandrian Jews parted company.

Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum

Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum
Author: Noah Hacham
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2020-09-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110674521

The edition collects and presents all papyri and ostraca from the Ptolemaic period, connected to Jews and Judaism, published since 1957. It is a follow-up to the Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (= CPJ) of the 1950s and 60s, edited by Victor Tcherikover, which had consisted of three volumes – I devoted to the Ptolemaic period; II to the Early Roman period (until 117 CE); and III to the Late Roman and Byzantine periods. The present book, CPJ vol. IV, is the first in a new trilogy, and is devoted to the Ptolemaic period. The present and upcoming volumes supplement the original CPJ. They present over 300 papyri that have been published since 1957. They also include papyri in languages other than Greek (Hebrew, Aramaic, Demotic), and literary papyri which had not been included in the old CPJ. Aside from quite a number of papyri in these categories, the present volume (of over 100 documents) includes 21 papyri from Herakleopolis in Middle-Egypt that record the existence of a Jewish self-ruling body – the politeuma. These papyri put an end to a long-standing dispute over whether such a Jewish institution had ever existed in Egypt.

The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt

The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt
Author: Aryeh Kasher
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 458
Release: 1985
Genre: History
ISBN: 9783161448294

Rev. translation of: Yehude Mitsrayim ha-Helenistit veha-Romit be-maavakam al zekhuyotehem.

Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period

Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 723
Release: 2020-10-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004435409

Israel in Egypt is an investigation into the Jewish experience of the land and people of Egypt from antiquity to the middle ages. Using contemporary sources to explore the varied experience of Egypt’s Jews, the volume brings together a rich collection of studies from top scholars in the field.

The Making of Jewish Universalism

The Making of Jewish Universalism
Author: Malka Simkovich
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2016-12-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1498542433

This book explores two kinds of universalist thought that circulated among Jews in the Greco-Roman world. The first, which is founded on the idea that all people may worship the One True God in an engaged and sustained manner, originates in biblical prophetic literature. The second, which underscores a common ethic that all people share, arose in the second century bce. This study offers one definition of Jewish universalism that applies to both of these types of universalist thought: universalist literature presumes that all people, regardless of religion and ethnicity, have access to a relationship with the Israelite God and the benefits promised to those loyal to this God, without demanding that they participate in the Israelite community as a Jew. This book opens with an exploration of four types of relationships between Israelites and non-Israelites in biblical prophetic literature: Israel as Subjugators, Israel as Standard-Bearers, Naturalized Nations, and Universalized Worship. In all of these relationships, the foreign nations will acknowledge the One True God, but it is only the Universalized Worship model that offers a truly universalist vision of the end-time. The second section of this book examines how these four relationship models are expressed in Second Temple literature, and the third section studies late Second Temple texts that employ a second kind of universalist thought that emphasizes ethical behavior. This book closes with the suggestion that Ethical Universalist ideas expressed in late Second Temple texts reflect exposure to Stoic thinkers who were developing universalist ideas in the second century BCE.