Ancient Jewish Diaspora

Essays on Hellenism

Series: 

Author:
René Bloch
In the Hellenistic period, Jews participated in the imagination of a cosmopolitan world and they developed their own complex cultural forms. In this panoramic and multifaceted book, René Bloch shows that the ancient Jewish diaspora is an integral part of what we understand as Hellenism and argues that Jewish Hellenism epitomizes Hellenism at large. Relying on Greek, Latin and Hebrew sources, the fifteen papers collected in this volume trace the evidence of ancient Jews through meticulous studies of ruins, literature, myth and modern reception taking the reader on a journey from Philo’s Alexandria to a Roman bust in a Copenhagen museum
Copyright Year:
2023
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-52189-6
Publication:
19 Sep 2022
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Availability:
Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-52188-9
Publication:
14 Nov 2022
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René Bloch, Dr.phil (1999), is Professor of Jewish Studies at the Institute of Jewish Studies and the Institute of Classics at the University of Bern. His publications include Moses und der Mythos (Brill, 2011) and, as co-editor, Protestant Bible Scholarship: Antisemitism, Philosemitism and Anti-Judaism (Brill, 2022).
Acknowledgments

Introduction
 1 Moses and Exodus
 2 Places and Ruins
 3 Theatre and Myth
 4 Antisemitism and Reception

Part 1 Moses and Exodus



1 Alexandria in Pharaonic Egypt: Projections in De vita Mosis
 1 Moses and Philo as Politicians
 2 Moses and Philo as Philosophers

2 Moses and the Charlatans: On the Charge of γόης καὶ ἀπατεών in Contra Apionem 2.145, 161
 1 Introduction
 2 Magic and Trickery: An Anti-Jewish Accusation?
 3 Moses Before Pharaoh
 4 The γόητες in the Bellum and Antiquitates
 5 A Projection of Josephus?
 6 Γόης—An Argument from a Literary Dispute?
 7 Conclusion

3 Moses: Motherless with Two Mothers

4 Leaving Home: Philo of Alexandria on the Exodus

Part 2 Places and Ruins



5 Geography without Territory: Tacitus’s Digression on the Jews and its Ethnographic Context
 1 Introduction
 2 Anthropogeography
 3 Missing Ethnographic Topoi in ancient Ethnography on the Jews
 4 Jews and Barbarians
 5 Jewish Diaspora: Transcending Geography

6 Show and Tell: Myth, Tourism, and Jewish Hellenism
 1 Hebron
 2 Giants
 3 Rabbinic Mirabilia and Journeys to Rome
 4 Noah’s ark
 5 Andromeda

7 What If the Temple of Jerusalem Had Not Been Destroyed by the Romans?
 1 Roman Financial Policy
 2 The End of Sacrifice
 3 The Jewish Diaspora
 4 Bar Kokhba and Julian
 5 Christianity and Rabbinic Culture
 6 A Watershed in Jewish History?

Part 3 Theatre and Myth



8 Philo’s Struggle with Jewish Myth

9 Part of the Scene: Jewish Theater in Antiquity
 1 Rabbinic Condemnations of Theater
 2 Nuances in Rabbinic Discourse about the Theater
 3 Jews Attending the Theater
 4 Jewish Actors and Actresses
 5 Jewish Theater Authors: Ezekiel Tragicus
 6 Conclusion

10 Take Your Time: Conversion, Confidence and Tranquility in Joseph and Aseneth
 1 Joseph and Aseneth as a Novel
 2 Egyptian Restlesness versus Jewish Tranquility
 3 The First Greek Novel?

Part 4 Antisemitism and Reception



11 Antisemitism and Early Scholarship on Ancient Antisemitism

12 A Leap into the Void: The Philo-Lexikon and Jewish-German Hellenism

13 Tacitus’s Excursus on the Jews over the Centuries: An Overview of the History of its Reception
 1 Pagan Reception and Tertullian’s Critique
 2 Sulpicius Severus, Orosius, and Pseudo-Hegesippus
 3 Budés Reproach and the First Commentaries on the Histories
 4 Jewish Reactions in the Seventeenth Century
 5 Simone Luzzatto
 6 Isaac Cardoso
 7 Baruch de Spinoza
 8 The Eighteenth Century and the Age of Enlightenment
 9 The Nineteenth Century
 10 The National Socialist Period
 11 Conclusion

14 Polytheism and Monotheism in Antiquity: On Jan Assmann’s Critique of Monotheism

15 Testa incognita: The History of the Pseudo-Josephus Bust in Copenhagen
 1 Robert Eisler
 2 The Origins of the Bust

Index of Cited Passages
Index of Names
Index of Subjects
This book is of interest to students and scholars of Hellenism, Ancient Judaism, Diaspora Studies, Antisemitism and reception history. Moreover, the book discusses questions related to myth, theatre, sacrifice and magic.
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Publisher:
Brill
Language:
English
Pages:
xii, 373 pp.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004521896

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