Wisdom, Politics, and Historiography: Tractate Avot in the Context of the Graeco-Roman Near East

by Amram Tropper

Overview

In third-century CE Palestine, the leading member of the rabbinic movement put together a highly popular wisdom treatise entitled Tractate Avot. Though Avot has inspired hundreds of commentaries, this book marks the first comprehensive effort to situate Avot within the socio-political and intellectual context of the Graeco-Roman Near East. Probing comparable Jewish, Greek, Roman and Christian sources, Amram Tropper interprets Avot in light of the local Jewish context as well as the ambient cultural atmosphere of the contemporary Near East.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199267125
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/20/2004
Series:	Oxford Oriental Monographs
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

Amram Tropper is a Mandel Scholar at The Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a lecturer in the university's Department of Jewish History.

Table of Contents

Introduction1. The Structure of Avot2. Avot, Wisdom, and Artistic Prose3. The Date and the Editor of Avot4. The Cultural Horizons of the Patriarchate in the Early Third Century5. Avot and the Second Sophistic6. The Graeco-Roman Literary Context for Avot7. Avot in the light of Classical Roman Jurisprudence8. Avot's Chain of Transmission and Early Christian ParallelsConclusion