Acknowledgments
All chapters of this book (with the exception of the introduction) have been published previously elsewhere, some of them in places not easily accessible. Four chapters, originally written in German, appear here for the first time in English translation (chapters 2, 6, 12, and 14). I would like to thank Dr. Carson Bay, University of Bern, for having translated these chapters and for having provided helpful advice throughout the production of this book. Chapters 9 and 13 have been translated at an earlier stage from the German into English and are here reprinted in their English version (see the acknowledgments at the beginning of these two articles). These essays were written over the course of 25 years. I have left them unchanged, even in cases where I might see matters a bit differently today (and look back with a smile). Obvious mistakes have been corrected, the language slightly adjusted here and there. I wish to thank Judith Göppinger and Sarah-Maria Hebeisen who patiently prepared the indices.
I would like to thank the publishers of the journals and volumes in which the articles originally appeared for allowing me to reprint them here. The original places of publication are as follows:
“Alexandria in Pharaonic Egypt: Projections in De Vita Mosis.” SPhiloA 24 (2012): 69–84.
“Moses and the Charlatans: On the Charge of γόης καὶ ἀπατεών in Contra Apionem 2.145.161.” Pages 142–157 in Internationales Josephus-Kolloquium Bruxelles 1998. Münsteraner Judaistische Studien 4. Edited by Folker Siegert and Jürgen U. Kalms. Münster: LIT, 1999 (originally published in German as: “Mose und die Scharlatane: Zum Vorwurf γόης καὶ ἀπατεών in Contra Apionem 2.145.161”).
“Moses: Motherless with Two Mothers.” Pages 237–250 in Missing Mothers: Maternal Absence in Antiquity. Edited by Sabine Hübner and David Ratzan. Peeters: Louvain 2021.
“Leaving Home: Philo of Alexandria on the Exodus.” Pages 357–364 in Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience. Edited by Thomas E. Levy, Thomas Schneider, and William H.C. Propp. Cham: Springer, 2015.
“Geography without Territory: Tacitus’ Digression on the Jews and its Ethnographic Context.” Pages 38–54 in Internationales Josephus-Kolloquium Aarhus 1999. Münsteraner Judaistische Studien 5. Edited by Jürgen U. Kalms. Münster: LIT, 2000.
Show and Tell: Myth, Tourism, and Jewish Hellenism. Franz Delitzsch-Vorlesung 2015. Münster: Franz-Delitzsch-Gesellschaft and Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, 2017 (originally published in German as: “Andromeda in Jaffa. Mythische Orte als Reiseziele in der jüdischen Antike”).
“What if the Temple of Jerusalem Had not Been Destroyed by the Romans?” Pages 43–57 in “If Only We Had Died in Egypt!” What Ifs? of Jewish History from Abraham to Zionism. Edited by Gavriel D. Rosenfeld. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
“Philo’s Struggle with Jewish Myth.” Pages 107–126 in Philo of Alexandria and Greek Myth: Narratives, Allegories, and Arguments. Studies in Philo of Alexandria 10. Edited by Francesca Calabi and Ludovica De Luca. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
“Part of the Scene: Jewish Theater in Antiquity.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 8 (2017 [2018]): 150–169.
“Take Your Time: Conversion, Cofidence and Tranquility in Joseph and Aseneth.” Pages 77–96 in Anthropologie und Ethik. Frühjüdische Literatur und Neues Testament. Wechselseitige Wahrnehmungen. Edited by Matthias Konradt and Esther Schläpfer. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014.
“Antisemitism and Early Scholarship on Ancient Antisemitism.” Pages 41–62 in Protestant Bible Scholarship: Antisemitism, Philosemitism, and Anti-Judaism. Edited by Arjen Bakker et al. Leiden: Brill, 2022.
“A Leap into the Void: The Philo-Lexikon and Jewish-German Hellenism.” Pages 410–419 in Lebenskunst. Erkundungen zu Biographie, Lebenswelt und Erinnerungen: Festschrift für Jacques Picard. Edited by Konrad J. Kuhn et al. Köln: Böhlau, 2017 (originally published in German as: “Ein Sprung ins Leere: Das Philo-Lexikon und der jüdisch-deutsche Hellenismus”).
“Tacitus’ Excursus on the Jews through the Ages: An Overview of its Reception History.” Pages 377–409 in Oxford Readings in Tacitus. Edited by Rhiannon Ash. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
“Polytheism and Monotheism in Antiquity: On Jan Assmann’s Critique of Monotheism.” Pages 5–24 in Fremdbilder-Selbstbilder. Imaginationen des Judentums von der Antike bis in die Neuzeit. Edited by René Bloch, Simone Haeberli, and Rainer C. Schwinges. Basel: Schwabe, 2010 (originally published in German as “Polytheismus und Monotheismus in der paganen Antike: Zu Jan Assmanns Monotheismus-Kritik”).
“Testa incognita: The History of the Pseudo-Josephus Bust in Copenhagen.” In “A Vision for/of the Days”: Studies in Early Jewish History and Historiography in Honor of Daniel R. Schwartz. Edited by Robert Brody et al. Leiden: Brill, 2023.
I am grateful that this book can appear in the Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism (JSJS) with Brill. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and especially my colleague and co-editor Karina Martin Hogan for the always inspiring and productive cooperation we have as fellow JSJS editors. I would also like to thank Marjolein van Zuylen, our liaison at Brill, for her extraordinary support and Madelon Janse for all her help during the production of this book.
I dedicate this book to the memory of my grandmother Gitta Schmeidler-Strausz. Well educated in classical texts in pre-war Hungary, she had the talent to remind others of their imperfections in a charming, yet demanding way, always pushing for more, and insisting that the other side be considered. When as a young student I proudly mentioned Aeneas in a conversation with her, my grandmother responded: “Do you also know who Turnus was?” I didn’t know. Then I learned: in Roman myth, Turnus is king of the Rutulians and the inferior counter-part to Aeneas, the mythical ancestor of ancient Rome. I came to understand her reproach as an encouragement not only to learn more, but always try to see the whole picture, to include the other side(s) and to bear in mind the relations of power. As this book shows, the study of the Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman periods is much more than simply the reflection of a minority finding its place in the large context of the ancient Mediterranean. But it is that, too.