This work deals with the Jewish warfare in the Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity from the point of view of the religious rites which, for the Ancients, were a necessary part of all social activity. The author rejects the traditional concept of "Holy War" and prefers to emphasise the diversity of representations of war in the Judaism of the Second Temple. The book deals with questions linked to the status of warriors and priests who were involved in war with regard to purity laws. It analyses the rituals specific to military operations. It deals with the Sabbath, with the war oracle of the ourim...

This collection of essays by a group of well-known international scholars deals with the complex and fluid ways in which biblical traditions are transmitted in a variety of contexts focusing especially on the versions, the pseudepigrapha and Qumran, and early Christian literature.

The book presents a variety of topics relating to the market in Roman Palestine. The book deals with the main elements of commercial life - the different types of markets and the entities and figures that played a part in it. It portrays the process by which the flow of goods in the market occurs - from the end of the production process, via the entire range of middlemen, to the end user. A chapter is devoted to the pricing of merchandise in the economy of Roman Palestine. It offers a comprehensive framework which includes the techniques by which prices were determined and enforced. Other...

Archaeology has unearthed the glories of ancient Jewish buildings throughout the Mediterranean. But what has remained shrouded is what these buildings meant. Building Jewish first surveys the architecture of small rural villages in the Galilee in the early Roman period before examining the development of synagogues as "Jewish associations." Finally, Building Jewish explores Jerusalem's flurry of building activity under Herod the Great in the first century BCE. Richardson's careful work not only documents the culture that forms the background to any study of Second Temple Judaism...

This volume contains the proceedings of the first of an international series of conferences on the deuterocanonical literature organised by the Shime'on Centre in Papa, Hungary. Renowned international scholars of the field treat questions of text in the Book of Tobit, the underlying traditions and theological questions. The importance of the deuterocanonical corpus is widely recognised in contemporary scholarship. This is marked by the growing number of related publications. Yet it remains important to create an opportunity to work through the entire deuterocanonical material as such. These...

A collection of twelve essays on the Jewish encounter with Hellenism, both in the Diaspora and in the land of Israel, including studies of several individual texts.

This book suggests a new approach to the social history of Jewish religious movements in the Second Temple and early Rabbinic periods. It argues that most of these movements and their traditions emerged within the context of complex interaction between traditional families and disciple circles.

A systematic study of the canonical construction of Rabbinic categories, Halakhic, then Aggadic, followed by a comparison of the theological category-formations in Rabbinic Judaism, generative vs. inert, primary vs. subordinate.

With a rigorous use of the sources, the book throws new light on the High Priesthood (301-152 BCE). Setting this institution in the widest contest of the interaction between the Judaic and Hellenistic world, it gives a valid contribution to the international research in this field.

The book deals with the process of canonization of the Greek Torah; the use and abuse of the translation(s) of Aquila in Patristic and Rabbinic literature and the substitution of Aquila by Onkelos in Babylonian academies.