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The monetary fund that the apostle Paul organized among his Gentile congregations for the Jewish-Christian community in Jerusalem was clearly an important endeavor to Paul; discussion of it occupies several prominent passages in his letters. In this book David Downs carefully investigates that offering from historical, sociocultural, and theological standpoints. Downs first pieces together a chronological account of Paul's fund-raising efforts on behalf of the Jerusalem church, based primarily on information from the Pauline epistles. He then examines the sociocultural context of the collection, including gift-giving practices in the ancient Mediterranean world relating to benefaction and care for the poor. Finally, Downs explores how Paul framed this contribution rhetorically as a religious offering consecrated to God.
This is the second volume of the projected four-volume history of the Second Temple period. It is axiomatic that there are large gaps in the history of the Persian period, but the early Greek period is possibly even less known. This volume brings together all we know about the Jews during the period from Alexander's conquest to the eve of the Maccabaean revolt, including the Jews in Egypt as well as the situation in Judah. Based directly on the primary sources, which are surveyed, the study addresses questions such as administration, society, religion, economy, jurisprudence, Hellenism and Jewish identity. These are discussed in the context of the wider Hellenistic world and its history. A strength of the study is its extensive up-to-date secondary bibliography (approximately one thousand items).
The contents of this book cover Egypt in the first millennium BC, the historical understanding of the Ptolemaic state, moving beyond despotism, economic planning and state banditry, shaping a new state, and much more.
What can the architecture of ancient ships tell us about their capacity to carry cargo or to navigate certain trade routes? How do such insights inform our knowledge of the ancient economies that depended on maritime trade across the Mediterranean? These and similar questions lie behind Sailing from Polis to Empire, a fascinating insight into the practicalities of trading by boat in the ancient world. Allying modern scientific knowledge with Hellenistic sources, this interdisciplinary collection brings together experts in various fields of ship archaeology to shed new light on the role played by ships and sailing in the exchange networks of the Mediterranean. Covering all parts of the Easter...
"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
This volume of 'The Cambridge Ancient History' embraces the wide range of approaches and scholarships which have in recent decades transformed our view of late antiquity.
The Handbook of Economic Sociology, Second Edition is the most comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of economic sociology available. The first edition, copublished in 1994 by Princeton University Press and the Russell Sage Foundation as a synthesis of the burgeoning field of economic sociology, soon established itself as the definitive presentation of the field, and has been widely read, reviewed, and adopted. Since then, the field of economic sociology has continued to grow by leaps and bounds and to move into new theoretical and empirical territory. The second edition, while being as all-embracing in its coverage as the first edition, represents a wholesale revamping. Neil Smelser and Ri...
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...
A new assessment of the ancient Athenian economy relying on fresh documentary evidence
The topic of inquiry is a political, military, and economic history of ancient Macedon during the reign of Philip II (359–336) in the fourth century BC. The first two chapters analyze the early history of Macedon and the development of the political, military, social, and economic institutions of the Macedonian kingdom. The balance of the book discusses the rise of Macedon from a small kingdom on the periphery of the Greek world to become the master of ancient Hellas and the Balkan world south of the Danube River. The central figure of the book is Philip II who ascended the throne as a young man in his early twenties after the defeat and death of his brother and six thousand Macedonians by...