Religious Dissent in the Roman Empire: Violence in Judaea at the Time of Nero

ISBN-13: 9780415161060 / Angielski / Twarda / 2015 / 350 str.

Vasily Rudich

Opis

Religious Dissent in the Roman Empire is the third installment in Vasily Rudich's trilogy on the psychology of discontent in the Roman Empire at the time of Nero. Unlike his earlier books, it deals not with political dissidence, but with religious dissent, especially in its violent form. Against the broad background of Second Temple Judaism and Judaea's history under Rome's rule, Rudich discusses various manifestations of religious dissent as distinct from the mainstream beliefs and directed against both the foreign occupier and the priestly establishment. This book offers the methodological framework for the analysis of the religious dissent mindset, which it considers a recurrent historical phenomenon that may play a major role in different periods and cultures. In this respect, its findings are also relevant to the rise of religious violence in the world today and provide further insights into its persistent motives and paradigms. Religious Dissent in the Roman Empire is an important study for people interested in Roman and Jewish history, religious psychology and religious extremism, cultural interaction and the roots of violence.

This is the third in Rudich's trilogy on the intellectual roots of opposition to Nero's rule.  The author's approach is based in his own experience, as a Russian exile, of the dissident mentality in the former Soviet Union, which gives the critical treatment of the sources an intriguing personal slant. 

The book begins with an historical perspective on Rome's relationship with the Greeks and the Jews from their earliest contacts through the period of expansion to the fall of the Roman republic, and further chapters are dedicated to the Principate of Augustus, Judaea's 'triple administration', the political and cultural vicissitudes of Greeks, Jews and Christians in the period between the death of Augustus and the accession of Nero, the beginnings of the Christian Church, and the conditions of the Jewish community in Rome.

Spis treści

Preface  Introduction: "The Vibrant Faith"  1. Chapter One: "The Breaking Point"  2. Chapter Two: "The Road Down"  3. Chapter Three: "The First Regime"  4. Chapter Four: "The Policies of Zeal"  5. Chapter Five: "The Dagger Men"  6. Chapter 6: "The End of the Factions"  Conclusion

O autorze

Vasily Rudich taught history and classics at Yale University in 1984-1995. He is the author of Political Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Dissimulation and Literature and Dissidence under Nero: The Price of Rhetoricization. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.