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King Herod
The enigma of King Herod as a cruel bloodthirsty tyrant on the one hand, and a great builder on the other is discussed in a systematic modern historical and psychological study. It seeks to unravel the contradictory historic mystery of the man and his deeds. After A. Schalit's König Herodes, this study is a new comprehensive, pioneering study on the intriguing personality of Herod, also using the insights of psychology. Herod's mental state reached an acute level, consistent with the DSM-IV diagnosis for "Paranoid Personality Disorder". He grew up with an ambiguous identity and suffered from feelings of inferiority. Haunted by persecutory delusions, he executed almost any suspect of treason, including his wife and three sons. The Hebrew original text was Winner of the Ya'acov Bahat Prize for Non-Fiction Hebrew Literature for 2006.
Jewish Terrorism in Israel
Ami Pedahzur and Arie Perliger, world experts on the study of terror and security, propose a theory of violence that contextualizes not only recent acts of terror but also instances of terrorism that stretch back centuries. Beginning with ancient Palestine and its encounters with Jewish terrorism, the authors analyze the social, political, and cultural factors that sponsor extreme violence, proving religious terrorism is not the fault of one faith, but flourishes within any counterculture that adheres to a totalistic ideology. When a totalistic community perceives an external threat, the connectivity of the group and the rhetoric of its leaders bolster the collective mindset of members, who ...
Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman World
Jews and Christians under the Roman Empire shared a unique sense of community. Set apart from their civic and cultic surroundings, both groups resisted complete assimilation into the dominant political and social structures. However, Jewish communities differed from their Christian counterparts in their overall patterns of response to the surrounding challenges. They exhibit diverse levels of integration into the civic fabric of the cities of the Empire and display contrary attitudes towards the creation of trans-local communal networks. The variety of local case studies examined in this volume offers an integrated image of the multiple factors, both internal and external, which determined the role of communal identity in creating a sense of belonging among Jews and Christians under Imperial constraints.
The Samaritans in Flavius Josephus
The first-century C.E. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus is our main source of information for the early history of the Samaritans, a community closely related to Judaism whose development as an independent religion is commonly dated in the Hellenistic-Roman period. Josephus' two main works, Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities, contain a number of passages that purport to describe the origin, character and actions of the Samaritans. In composing his histories, Josephus drew on different sources, some identifiable others unknown to us. Contemporary Josephus research has shown that he did so not as a mere compiler but as a creative writer who selected and quoted his sources carefully and deliber...
Farewell to Shulamit
The Song of Songs, a lyric cycle of love scenes without a narrative plot, has often been considered as the Bible’s most beautiful and enigmatic book. The present study questions the still dominant exegetical convention that merges all of the Song’s voices into the dialogue of a single couple, its composite heroine Shulamit being a projection screen for norms of womanhood. An alternative socio-spatial reading, starting with the Hebrew text’s strophic patterns and its references to historical realia, explores the poem’s artful alternation between courtly, urban, rural, and pastoral scenes with their distinct characters. The literary construction of social difference juxtaposes class-sp...
New Testament Manuscripts
New Testament Manuscripts: Their Texts and Their World comprises twelve essays dealing with manuscripts of the New Testament and/or what we can learn from them today. Starting from different angles the contributors — distinguished scholars of international reputation — focus on the fascinating and thrilling stories manuscripts tell, for instance about the times they were produced in or the people who handled them. The multitude of manuscripts used for establishing the critical text of the New Testament is often only perceived as abbreviations in form of single letters or numerals, and today’s biblical scholars may hardly ever take notice of the specific features of an original manuscri...
Perspectives on New Testament Textual Criticism, Volume 2
Eldon Jay Epp’s second volume of collected essays consists of articles previously published during 2006-2017. All treat aspects of the New Testament textual criticism, but focus on historical and methodological issues relevant to constructing the earliest attainable text of New Testament writings. More specific emphasis falls upon the nature of textual transmission and the text-critical process, and heavily on the criteria employed in establishing that earliest available text. Moreover, textual grouping is examined at length, and prominent is the current approach to textual variants not approved for the constructed text, for they have stories to tell regarding theological, ethical, and real-life issues as the early Christian churches sought to work out their own status, practices, and destiny.
Ancient Synagogues
This collection of over twenty essays brings together scholars from three continents to discuss the early synagogue. It addresses the questions of: When and where did the synagogue originate? What was its early distribution? What was its role in Judaism?
Military Service and the Integration of Jews into the Roman Empire
According to Raúl González Salinero, the plurality of religious expressions within Judaism prior to the predominance of the rabbinical current disproves the assumption according to which some Jewish customs and precepts (especially the Sabbath) prevented Jews from joining the Roman army without renouncing their ancestral culture. The military exemption occasionally granted to the Jews by the Roman authorities was compatible with their voluntary enlistment (as it was in the Hellenistic armies) in order to obtain Roman citizenship. As the sources attest, Judaism did not pose any insurmountable obstacle to integration of the Jews into the Roman world. They achieved a noteworthy presence in the Roman army by the fourth century CE, at which time the Church’s influence over imperial power led to their exclusion from the militia armata.
The Jews of Ptolemaic Egypt
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.
