Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire

The Poetics of Power in Late Antiquity

Natalie B. Dohrmann, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Natalie B. Dohrmann, Annette Yoshiko Reed

• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780812245332
  9780812245332
• eBook ISBN:
  9780812208573
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Roman Ancient History
• Index: History

In histories of ancient Jews and Judaism, the Roman Empire looms large. For all the attention to the Jewish Revolt and other conflicts, however, there has been less concern for situating Jews within Roman imperial contexts; just as Jews are frequently dismissed as atypical by scholars of Roman history, so Rome remains invisible in many studies of rabbinic and other Jewish sources written under Roman rule. Jews, Christians, and the Roman Empire brings Jewish perspectives to bear on long-standing debates concerning Romanization, Christianization, and late antiquity. Focusing on the third to sixth centuries, it draws together specialists in Jewish and Christian history, law, literature, poetry, and art. Perspectives from rabbinic and patristic sources are juxtaposed with evidence from piyyutim, documentary papyri, and synagogue and church mosaics. Through these case studies, contributors highlight paradoxes, subtleties, and ironies of Romanness and imperial power. Contributors: William Adler, Beth A. Berkowitz, Ra'anan Boustan, Hannah M. Cotton, Natalie B. Dohrmann, Paula Fredriksen, Oded Irshai, Hayim Lapin, Joshua Levinson, Ophir Münz-Manor, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Hagith Sivan, Michael D. Swartz, Rina Talgam.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: Rethinking Romanness, Provincializing Christendom
• Part I. Rabbis and Other Roman Sub-Elites
• Part II. Christianization and Other
• Part III. Continuity and Rupture
• Notes
• Select Bibliography of Secondary Sources
• List of Contributors
• Index
• Acknowledgments