The Jews among the Greeks and Romans: A Diasporan Sourcebook / Edition 1

by Margaret Williams

Overview

As one of the few groups in the Greco-Roman world to resist cultural assimilation, the Jews remained an object of fascination throughout antiquity. Greek and Roman writers devoted much space to them, but few bothered to learn the facts about Jews, preferring to report stereotypes and rumor. Evidence does exist, however, to show what real Jews were like in antiquity and how they interacted with the Greeks and Romans, both pagan and Christian.

In The Jews among the Greeks and Romans, Margaret Williams assembles, assesses, and contextualizes literary and archaeological evidence relating to Jewish communities outside the land of Israel. The sourcebook covers the period beginning with the Diaspora that resulted from the chaos of Alexander the Great's death in 323 BCE and concluding with the demise of the Jewish Patriarchate around 420 CE. This was a time which saw, first, the rapid opening up of opportunities for Jews and then, in the century after Constantine, the gradual but inexorable raising of barriers against them.

Newly translated from the Greek and Latin, the documents cover a broad array of topics, including religion, customs, festivals, repression, citizenship, military service, economics, intermarriage, and conversion from Jew to Gentile and Gentile to Jew. While previous collections have concentrated on literary texts, the present volume gives prominence to papyrological and epigraphic source material. Composed in accordance with Greco-Roman epigraphic conventions but written by Jews, these texts--some only recently discovered--constitute an extraordinarily rich source of information about the values and practices of Jews in antiquity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801859380
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	06/19/1998
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Margaret Williams is a research associate at the Open University in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Table of Contents

	Preface	xi
	Acknowledgements	xiii
I.	The Jewish Diaspora in the Hellenistic and early Roman imperial periods	1
	Introduction	1
1.	Its extent in prophecy and actuality	1
2.	Reasons for the diffusion of the Jews	4
3.	Evidence for Jewish mobility within the Graeco-Roman world	10
4.	Statistical information about Diasporan Jews	13
5.	Location of Jewish communities	15
6.	Occupations of Diasporan Jews	19
7.	Terminology for Diasporan communities	27
II.	Life inside the Jewish Diasporan community	33
1.	The synagogue as the focal point of community life	33
2.	Officials and dignitaries	37
3.	Community structures other than the synagogue	50
4.	Community values	51
5.	Distinctive Jewish practices	54
6.	Jewish festivals	59
7.	Divisions within the Jewish community	64
III.	Diasporan Jews and the Jewish homeland	67
1.	Pilgrimage to Jerusalem	67
2.	Payment of ancestral dues and taxes	68
3.	Offerings to the Temple by Diasporan Jews	70
4.	Diasporan charitable and military aid to Palestinian Jews	71
5.	Diasporan Jews and the transmission of information to Jerusalem	72
6.	Immigration to Judaea of Diasporan Jews	73
7.	Diasporan burials in Judaea	75
8.	The Judaean authorities and the Diasporan synagogue	78
9.	The Patriarchs and the Diaspora	81
10.	Palestinian influence on the language of Diasporan inscriptions	83
IV.	Jewish interaction with Greek and Roman authorities	87
1.	Jewish honours for Ptolemaic rulers	87
2.	Ptolemaic and Seleucid privileges for the Jews	87
3.	Jews in the service of the Seleucids and Ptolemies	88
4.	Jewish honours for Roman Emperors	91
5.	Privileges for Jews who were Roman citizens	92
6.	Roman protection of the Jewish way of life	93
7.	Jews in the service of the Roman government	95
8.	Measures taken or threatened against the Jews by the Roman authorities	98
V.	The Jews among the Greeks	107
1.	Jews as citizens of Greek cities	107
2.	Jews as councillors, magistrates and official envoys	109
3.	Jewish influence upon Greek civic life	111
4.	Jewish involvement in Greek cultural life	112
5.	Greek cultural influences on the Jews	116
6.	Intermarriage between Jews and Greeks	131
7.	Friction between Jews and Greeks	131
8.	Jewish relations with Christians in the Greek East	137
VI.	The Jews among the Romans	143
1.	Jews and the Roman citizenship	143
2.	Jewish involvement in local government in the West	146
3.	Jewish involvement in Roman cultural and religious life	148
4.	Roman cultural influence on the Jews	148
5.	Jewish interaction with Christians in the Roman West	153
VII.	Pagans and Judaism: academic and real-life responses	161
1.	Two academic views of the Jews and Judaism	161
2.	Pagans sympathetic to Judaism	163
3.	Pagan converts to Judaism - the proselytes	169
4.	Other adherents to Judaism - instances of disputed status	172
5.	Syncretist cults	176
	Notes	181
	Appendices	203
1.	Main events mentioned in this sourcebook	203
2.	Select list of rulers	205
3.	Egyptian months and their Julian equivalents	207
4.	Glossary of selected names	207
	Abbreviations	209
	Bibliography	211
	Concordance of sources	217
1.	Literary texts	217
2.	Inscriptions	219
3.	Papyri	222
4.	Legal texts	222
5.	Coins	222
6.	Modern collections of ancient legal and literary texts	223
	Indices	225
1.	People	225
2.	Places	227
3.	Jewish community terminology	230
4.	Jewish occupations	231
5.	Miscellaneous topics	232

Editorial Reviews

Collects and translates into English sources for the history of the Jews in the Western Diaspora during the Greco-Roman period, emphasizing epigraphic materials, a particular strength of this collection in comparison to other sourcebooks . . . An excellent introduction to Jewish experience in the lands of the Western Greco-Roman Diaspora.
--Religious Studies Review

From the Publisher

Collects and translates into English sources for the history of the Jews in the Western Diaspora during the Greco-Roman period, emphasizing epigraphic materials, a particular strength of this collection in comparison to other sourcebooks... An excellent introduction to Jewish experience in the lands of the Western Greco-Roman Diaspora.

Religious Studies Review

This compilation consists of new translations from the Greek and Latin of documents connected with a wide range of activities--e.g. religion, customs, festivals, repression, citizenship, intermarriage--that illuminate in some way what Jews were like in antiquity and how they interacted with the Greeks and Romans, both pagan and Christian. Coverage includes the period beginning with the Diaspora, which resulted from the chaos of Alexander the Great's death in 323 B.C.E., and concludes with the demise of the Jewish Patriarchate around 420 C.E. Williams (classical studies, Open University, England) provides commentary. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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