Other Jewish texts are perhaps more difficult to directly compare with Plutarch, yet Edwards’ approach may contribute towards the examination of comparative forms of exemplarity for readers in different ancient Mediterranean cultures and languages.
Read MoreThe Boundaries of Jewishness in the Southern Levant 200 BCE–132 CE: Power, Strategies, and Ethnic Configurations
The key concept which Van Maaren brings to the study of ancient Jewish ethnic identity is Andreas Wimmer’s approach of ethnic boundary making, outlined in Wimmer’s 2013 book. This approach gives less focus to the question of what makes an ethnicity, and more to how such attempts to create and define ethnicity are important.
Read MoreBook Note | Land and Temple: Field Sacralization and the Agrarian Priesthood of Second Temple Judaism
While studies of the economy in Palestine during Tannaitic and Amoraic periods have a great quantity of textual evidence to draw upon, including but not limited to rabbinic sources, there is much less material available from the Second Temple period available for such an analysis. As such, Gordon’s work attempts to examine a wide range of both textual and archaeological evidence in order to flesh out our knowledge of the Jerusalem Temple economy.
Read MoreDissertation Spotlight | Religious Identity and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee
Ritual immersion pool in a domestic context at Magdala: Photo Credit - Joseph Scales
Ritual immersion pool in a domestic context at Magdala: Photo Credit - Joseph Scales
This thesis answers the following two questions: how did ancient Jews create meaningful spaces of religious activity in ancient Galilee, and how did those spaces in turn influence the constitution of ancient Judaism?
Read MoreBook Note | Synagogues in the Works of Flavius Josephus: Rhetoric, Spatiality, and First-Century Jewish Institutions
This nuance does not help scholars reconstruct detailed synagogue practices, but helps us understand an idea of what synagogues could mean for Jews of the first-century CE.
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