A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism: 3rd Century BCE - 7th Century CE (Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World)

Description

This companion volume brings together 30 scholarly essays covering many different topics within the larger subject of late ancient Jews and Judaism. Organized thematically these essays explore identity, gender, material culture, sacred and domestic spaces, as well as literary motifs and theological questions and issues within late ancient Jewish history, historiography and methodology. Chronologically these essays cover material from the third century BCE to the seventh century CE. Geographically these essays map out late ancient Jewish life and remains throughout the Mediterranean world and the ancient Middle East. The purpose of this volume is not to retell the political or social history in a linear fashion, but to explore the subject area from many facets and points of inquiry. In addition, by pulling our lens to the wider setting of "late antiquity" and our geography to Mediteranean and Middle East, these essays highlight the variety of Jews, Judaisms, and Jewish expressions that flourished across these spaces and time periods. Yet in addition, this volume demonstrate the ways in which our scholarly constructs of ancient history (e.g. "Roman," or "Hellenistic") or Jewish history ("second temple," or "rabbinic") can be reconstructed, and productively so, when studied through other varied and creative lenses.