Art And Judaism In The Greco Roman World

Publisher Description

Art, History, and the Historiography of Judaism in Roman Antiquity explores the complex interplay between visual culture, texts, and their interpretations, arguing for an open-ended and self-aware approach to understanding Jewish culture from the first century CE through the rise of Islam. The essays assembled here range from the “thick description” of Josephus’s portrayal of Bezalel son of Uri as a Roman architect through the inscriptions of the Dura Europos synagogue, Jewish reflections on Caligula in color, the polychromy of the Jerusalem temple, new-old approaches to the zodiac, and to the Christian destruction of ancient synagogues. Taken together, these essays suggest a humane approach to the history of the Jews in an age of deep and long-lasting transitions—both in antiquity, and in our own time. "Taken as a whole, Fine’s book exhibits the value of bridging disciplines. The historiographical segments integrated throughout this volume offer essential insights that will inform any student of Roman and late antiquity." Yael Wilfand, Hebrew University, Review of Biblical Literature, 2014.

This survey of ancient Jewish art traces Tabernacle implements and their iconographic development from the Second Temple period until late sixth century CE. It examines appearances of seven-branch menorah, Torah ark, and other motifs found in archeological discoveries of burial art synagogue decorations.

Hard to believe but true: - The Passover Seder is a Greco-Roman symposium banquet - The Talmud rabbis presented themselves as Stoic philosophers - Synagogue buildings were Roman basilicas - Hellenistic rhetoric professors educated sons of well-to-do Jews - Zeus-Helios is depicted in synagogue mosaics across ancient Israel - The Jewish courts were named after the Roman political institution, the Sanhedrin - In Israel there were synagogues where the prayers were recited in Greek. Historians have long debated the (re)birth of Judaism in the wake of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple cult by the Romans in 70 CE. What replaced that sacrificial cult was at once something new–indebted to the very culture of the Roman overlords–even as it also sought to preserve what little it could of the old Israelite religion. The Greco-Roman culture in which rabbinic Judaism grew in the first five centuries of the Common Era nurtured the development of Judaism as we still know and celebrate it today. Arguing that its transformation from a Jerusalem-centered cult to a world religion was made possible by the Roman Empire, Rabbi Burton Visotzky presents Judaism as a distinctly Roman religion. Full of fascinating detail from the daily life and culture of Jewish communities across the Hellenistic world, Aphrodite and the Rabbis will appeal to anyone interested in the development of Judaism, religion, history, art and architecture.

This volume presents the most important portions of Erwin Goodenough's classic thirteen-volume work, a magisterial attempt to encompass human spiritual history in general through the study of Jewish symbols in particular. Revealing that the Jewish religion of the period was much more varied and complex than the extant Talmudic literature would lead us to believe, Goodenough offered evidence for the existence of a Hellenistic-Jewish mystic mythology far closer to the Qabbalah than to rabbinical Judaism. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Christian cultures across the centuries have invoked Judaism in order to debate, represent, and contain the dangers presented by the sensual nature of art. By engaging Judaism, both real and imagined, they explored and expanded the perils and possibilities for Christian representation of the material world. The thirteen essays in Judaism and Christian Art reveal that Christian art has always defined itself through the figures of Judaism that it produces. From its beginnings, Christianity confronted a host of questions about visual representation. Should Christians make art, or does attention to the beautiful works of human hands constitute a misplaced emphasis on the things of this world or, worse, a form of idolatry ("Thou shalt make no graven image")? And if art is allowed, upon what styles, motifs, and symbols should it draw? Christian artists, theologians, and philosophers answered these questions and many others by thinking about and representing the relationship of Christianity to Judaism. This volume is the first dedicated to the long history, from the catacombs to colonialism but with special emphasis on the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, of the ways in which Christian art deployed cohorts of "Jews"—more figurative than real—in order to conquer, defend, and explore its own territory.

The Greco-Roman world was one of multi-aspected Paganisms, with their consciousness of myriad gods and goddesses, daimons and spirits. In that world the Hebrew-Israelite-Judaean tradition struggled to assert itself-and ultimately split into what became Judaism and Christianity. Verbal distinctions that we take for granted-such as those between magic and religion, myth and theology, superstition, heresy and true belief, astronomy and astrology-had not yet assumed the place to which they eventually arrive within our vocabulary. This volume offers an account of how Judaism and Christianity emerged as distinct, related faiths each claiming to be the proper continuation of the Hebraic tradition. It considers how their theological relationship-their competition with respect to the Truth regarding divinity and its relationship to humanity-is affected by both their mutual interface and their theological relationships with Paganism, and also by the political context of the pagan Roman Imperium in which they develop. The book seeks to understand what comprise the key elements that distinguish and join these traditions, why and how the vocabulary of religion and magic emerges and evolves, and how the shaping of that vocabulary has affected and continues to affect our sense of what Judaism and Christianity are. The book examines ancient texts, some well-known (like the Bible and Homer's Odyssey) and others fairly obscure (such as the Greek Magical Papyrae and the Book of Secrets ascribed to Noah); it also explores a number of modern discussions, either of some of these texts or of some of the concepts that this book addresses. It offers a uniquely broad and integrated perspective on two interwoven issues-magic, superstition and religion, on the one hand, and, on the other, the way early Judaism and Christianity were facing each other while confronting paganism and the evolving concept of heresy.

Leading scholars in early Christianity, Judaic studies, classics, history and archaeology explore the ways that memories were retrieved, reconstituted and put to use by Jews, Christians and their pagan neighbours in late antiquity, from the third century B.C.E. to the seventh century C.E.