Religion and Society in Roman Palestine: Old Questions, New Approaches

by Douglas R. Edwards (Editor)

Overview

This collection of papers combines important archaeological and textual evidence to examine diverse aspects of religion and society in Roman Palestine.

A range of international experts provide an unprecedented look at issues of acculturation, assimilation and the preservation of difference in the multicultural climate of Palestine in the Roman period.

Key themes include:

* the nature of ethnicity and ritual
* the character of public and private space in Jewish society
* the role of gender and space
* the role of peasants
* the impact of Roman rule
* ritual and the regional framework of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Religion and Society in Roman Palestine will be relevant to ancient historians, interpreters of the historical Jesus and subsequent Jesus movements, and those interested in the development of Judaism from Qu'ran to the rabbis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781134402885
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/05/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

The author is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Puget Sound. He has directed or co-directed excavations at Khirbet Qana and Yodefat/Jotapata in Israel and Chresonesos in the Ukraine. Past publications include Religion and Power: Pagans, Jews and Christians in the Greek East and an edited volume entitled Archaeology and the Galilee: Texts and Contexts in the Greco-Roman and Byzantine Periods.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations, List of contributors, Foreword MARTIN GOODMAN, Acknowledgments, List of abbreviations, 1 Constructing the world of Roman Palestine: an introduction, 2 First century Jewish Galilee: an archaeological perspective, 3 Jewish settlement in the southeastern Hula Valley in the first century CE, 4 The Galilean response to earliest Christianity: a cross-cultural study of the subsistence ethic, 5 Language and writing in early Roman Galilee: social location of a potter’s abecedary from Khirbet Qana, 6 Dionysos and Herakles in Galilee: the Sepphoris mosaic in context, 7 The first-century synagogue: critical reassessments and assessments of the critical, 8 City coins and Roman power in Palestine: from Pompey to the Great Revolt, 9 Imagined households, 10 Gender, difference, and everyday life: the case of weaving and its tools, 11 Why scroll jars?, 12 Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls: the contention of twelve theories, 13 Opening up our view: Khirbet Qumran in a regional perspective, Index