From major seminal works like the Mishnah or the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, to Biblical commentaries, translations of Biblical books into Aramaic or relatively little-known mystical, liturgical or apocalyptic writings, here is a complete guide to the rich tradition of Jewish literature in the second to seventh centuries of the Common Era. Each work is described in a succinct and clearly structured entry which covers its contents, dating, language and accessibility (or otherwise) in print or online. The aim throughout is to cover all of this literature and to answer the following questions. What Jewish literature, written either in Hebrew or Aramaic, has survived? What different genres of such literature are there? What printed texts, or translations into any modern language, or commentaries (either in Hebrew or a European language) are there? And, for those who want to enquire further, what are the manuscripts on which modern editions are based? This handbook will be of value to scholars and students of Jewish Studies and historians of Late Antiquity, as well as scholars in neighbouring disciplines, such as Near Eastern history or Theology.

Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity, 135-700 CE

Literature & Fiction

Millar, Fergus

Ben-Eliyahu, Eyal

Cohn, Yehudah

History & Criticism

British Academy

This book explores the way in which different ethnic, religious and linguistic communities co-existed and conflicted in the Roman Near East in the three centuries between the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity in 312 and the beginning of Muhammad's preaching in about 610. In the fourth century a major role was played by Greek-speaking pagans, most notably the great orator, Libanius, from Antioch in Syria. After about 400, however, the public observance of pagan rituals died away under the pressure of Christianity. But the Greek language, as used in the Church, remained dominant. Pagan Aramaic is curiously invisible in this period, but the dialect of Aramaic used by Jews in Palestine is found in very extensive use, along with Hebrew, in a mass of religious literature, including the Palestinian Talmud, Aramaic versions of books of the Bible, and in inscriptions from synagogues. Most of the synagogue inscriptions come from their often quite elaborate mosaic floors, some of which contain visual representations of scenes from the Bible. Jews used Greek also, even in the inscriptions from synagogues, and so too did Samaritans, who were a powerful force in Late Antique Palestine, mounting two major revolts against the Empire. Outside Palestine, the most notable development in the culture of the region was the emergence of Syriac (a particular dialect and script of Aramaic) as a language of Christian culture and belief. "Syrians" however were not a distinct ethnic group. The group which was most distinct from the others was made up of the unsettled and warlike peoples on the fringes of the Empire whom almost invariably, call "Arabs," but who in Late Antiquity were far more often referred to as "Saracens." By the end of the period, many of them had converted to Christianity. The major puzzle which the book poses is what is the relation between this process of conversion and the rise of Islam.

Religion and Community in the Roman Near East: Constantine to Muhammad (Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology)

History

Ancient Civilizations

It has often been thought that Roman politics was dominated by a governing class, or even aristocracy, and it has sometimes been presumed that the Senate was a legislative body. The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic takes a dramatically new tack, and explores the consequences of a democracy in which public office could be gained only by direct election by the people. And while the Senate could indeed debate public matters, advise other office-holders, and make some administrative decisions, it could not legislate. An office-holder who wanted to pass a law had to step out of the Senate-house and propose it to the people in the Forum--where there were few guarantees. In this important study, Fergus Millar explores the development of the Roman Republic, which, as it drew to a close in the middle decades of the first century B.C.E., had come to cover most of Italy. There were nearly a million adult male voters in the time of Cicero, but there were no constituencies, and no absentee ballots. To exercise their rights, voters had to come in person to Rome and to meet in the Forum. Millar takes the period from the dictatorship of Sulla to Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon and shows how the politics of the crowd was central to the great changes that took place year after year, and altered the Republic forever. The originality of Millar's highly accessible work lies first in its serious treatment of the importance of open-air oratory in Roman public life, and second, in its use of the narratives of events that evidence provides. Third, it refuses to interpret these narratives in the light of modern theories about the importance of the client-patron system, or the domination of the Senate. This work questions how we should understand the Roman Republic: as a network of aristocratic families dominating the people, or an erratic and volatile democracy in which power was exercised by the tiny proportion of citizens who actually came to listen to speeches and to vote. This work speaks to those interested in ancient history and its consequences in the modern world. Fergus Millar is Camden Professor of Ancient History, Brasenose College, Oxford University.

The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (Volume 22) (Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures)

Americas

University of Michigan Press

It has often been thought that Roman politics was dominated by a governing class, or even aristocracy, and it has sometimes been presumed that the Senate was a legislative body. The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic takes a dramatically new tack, and explores the consequences of a democracy in which public office could be gained only by direct election by the people. And while the Senate could indeed debate public matters, advise other office-holders, and make some administrative decisions, it could not legislate. An office-holder who wanted to pass a law had to step out of the Senate-house and propose it to the people in the Forum--where there were few guarantees. In this important study, Fergus Millar explores the development of the Roman Republic, which, as it drew to a close in the middle decades of the first century B.C.E., had come to cover most of Italy. There were nearly a million adult male voters in the time of Cicero, but there were no constituencies, and no absentee ballots. To exercise their rights, voters had to come in person to Rome and to meet in the Forum. Millar takes the period from the dictatorship of Sulla to Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon and shows how the politics of the crowd was central to the great changes that took place year after year, and altered the Republic forever. The originality of Millar's highly accessible work lies first in its serious treatment of the importance of open-air oratory in Roman public life, and second, in its use of the narratives of events that evidence provides. Third, it refuses to interpret these narratives in the light of modern theories about the importance of the client-patron system, or the domination of the Senate. This work questions how we should understand the Roman Republic: as a network of aristocratic families dominating the people, or an erratic and volatile democracy in which power was exercised by the tiny proportion of citizens who actually came to listen to speeches and to vote. This work speaks to those interested in ancient history and its consequences in the modern world. Fergus Millar is Camden Professor of Ancient History, Brasenose College, Oxford University.

The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (Jerome Lectures)

In the first half of the fifth century, the Latin-speaking part of the Roman Empire suffered vast losses of territory to barbarian invaders. But in the Greek-speaking half of the Eastern Mediterranean, with its capital at Constantinople, there was a stable and successful system, using Latin as its official language, but communicating with its subjects in Greek. This book takes an inside look at how this system worked in the long reign of the pious Christian Emperor Theodosius II (408-50), and analyzes its largely successful defense of its frontiers, its internal coherence, and its relations with its subjects, with a flow of demands and suggestions traveling up the hierarchy to the Emperor, and a long series of laws, often set out in elaborately self-justificatory detail, addressed by the Emperor, through his officials, to the people. Above all, this book focuses on the Imperial mission to promote the unity of the Church, the State’s involvement in intensely-debated doctrinal questions, and the calling by the Emperor of two major Church Councils at Ephesus, in 431 and 449. Between the Law codes and the acts of the Church Councils, the material illustrating the working of government and the involvement of State and church, is incomparably richer, more detailed, and more vivid than for any previous period.

A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408–450)

Religion & Spirituality

University of California Press

Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408–450) (Volume 64)

Critical presentation of the whole evidence concerning Jewish history, institutions, and literature from 175 Bc to Ad 135; with updated bibliographies.

The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, Vol. 1

Vermès, Géza

Schürer, Emil

T&T Clark

Critical presentation of the whole evidence concerning Jewish history, institutions, and literature from 175 BC to AD 135; with updated bibliographies.

The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, Vol. 2

Bloomsbury T&T Clark

Emil Schürer's Geschichte des judischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, originally published in German between 1874 and 1909 and in English between 1885 and 1891, is a critical presentation of Jewish history, institutions, and literature from 175 B.C. to A.D. 135. It has rendered invaluable services to scholars for nearly a century.The present work offers a fresh translation and a revision of the entire subject-matter. The bibliographies have been rejuvenated and supplemented; the sources are presented according to the latest scholarly editions; and all the new archaeological, epigraphical, numismatic and literary evidence, including the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bar Kokhba documents, has been introduced into the survey. Account has also been taken of the progress in historical research, both in the classical and Jewish fields. This work reminds students of the profound debt owed to nineteenth-century learning, setting it within a wider framework of contemporary knowledge, and provides a foundation on which future historians of Judaism in the age of Jesus may build.

The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ: Volume 3.i

The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ: 175 B.C.-A.D. 135, (Volume III Part 2)

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