The Mediterranean Diaspora In Late Antiquity

Download or read book The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity written by Ross Shepard Kraemer and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity examines the fate of Jews living in the Mediterranean Jewish diaspora after the Roman emperor Constantine threw his patronage to the emerging orthodox (Nicene) Christian churches. By the fifth century, much of the rich material evidence for Greek and Latin-speaking Jews in the diaspora diminishes sharply. Ross Shepard Kraemer argues that this increasing absence of evidence is evidence of increasing absence of Jews themselves. Literary sources, late antique Roman laws, and archaeological remains illuminate how Christian bishops and emperors used a variety of tactics to coerce Jews into conversion: violence, threats of violence, deprivation of various legal rights, exclusion from imperial employment, and others. Unlike other non-orthodox Christians, Jews who resisted conversion were reluctantly tolerated, perhaps because of beliefs that Christ's return required their conversion. In response to these pressures, Jews leveraged political and social networks for legal protection, retaliated with their own acts of violence, and sometimes became Christians. Some may have emigrated to regions where imperial laws were more laxly enforced, or which were under control of non-orthodox (Arian) Christians. Increasingly, they embraced forms of Jewish practice that constructed tighter social boundaries around them. The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity concludes that by the beginning of the seventh century, the orthodox Christianization of the Roman Empire had cost diaspora Jews--and all non-orthodox persons, including Christians--dearly.

Download or read book The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity written by Ross Shepard Kraemer and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity' examines the fate of Jews living in the Mediterranean Jewish diaspora after the Roman emperor Constantine threw his patronage to the emerging orthodox (Nicene) Christian churches. By the fifth century, much of the rich material evidence for Greek and Latin-speaking Jews in the diaspora diminishes sharply. Ross Shepard Kraemer argues that this increasing absence of evidence is evidence of increasing absence of Jews themselves. Literary sources, late antique Roman laws, and archaeological remains illuminate how Christian bishops and emperors used a variety of tactics to coerce Jews into conversion: violence, threats of violence, deprivation of various legal rights, exclusion from imperial employment, and others.

Download or read book Travel and Religion in Antiquity written by Philip A. Harland and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Travel and Religion in Antiquity considers the importance of issues relating to travel for our understanding of religious and cultural life among Jews, Christians, and others in the ancient world, particularly during the Hellenistic and Roman eras. The volume is organized around five overlapping areas where religion and travel intersect: travel related to honouring deities, including travel to festivals, oracles, and healing sanctuaries; travel to communicate the efficacy of a god or the superiority of a way of life, including the diffusion of cults or movements; travel to explore and encounter foreign peoples or cultures, including descriptions of these cultures in ancient ethnographic materials; migration; and travel to engage in an occupation or vocation. With interdisciplinary contributions that cover a range of literary, epigraphic, and archeological materials, the volume sheds light on the importance of movement in connection with religious life among Greeks, Romans, Nabateans, and others, including Judeans and followers of Jesus.

Download or read book Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity: The Eastern Diaspora 330 BCE-650 CE written by Ṭal Ilan and published by Mohr Siebeck. This book was released on 2002 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this lexicon Tal Ilan collects all the information on names of Jews in Palestine and the people who bore them between 330 BCE, a date which marks the Hellenistic conquest of Palestine, and 200 CE, the date usually assigned to the close of the mishnaic period, and the early Roman Empire. Thereby she includes names from literary sources as well as those found in epigraphic and papyrological documents. Tal Ilan discusses the provenance of the names and explains them etymologically, given the many possible sources of influence for the names at that time." "In addition she shows the division between the use of biblical names and the use of Greek and other foreign names. She analyzes the identity of the persons and the choice of name and points out the most popular names at the time. The lexicon is accompanied by a lengthy and comprehensive introduction that scrutinizes the main trends in name giving current at the time." --Book Jacket.

Download or read book A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism written by Gwynn Kessler and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-03-26 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative approach to the study of ten centuries of Jewish culture and history A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism explores the Jewish people, their communities, and various manifestations of their religious and cultural expressions from the third century BCE to the seventh century CE. Presenting a collection of 30 original essays written by noted scholars in the field, this companion provides an expansive examination of ancient Jewish life, identity, gender, sacred and domestic spaces, literature, language, and theological questions throughout late ancient Jewish history and historiography. Editors Gwynn Kessler and Naomi Koltun-Fromm situate the volume within Late Antiquity, enabling readers to rethink traditional chronological, geographic, and political boundaries. The Companion incorporates a broad methodology, drawing from social history, material history and culture, and literary studies to consider the diverse forms and facets of Jews and Judaism within multiple contexts of place, culture, and history. Divided into five parts, thematically-organized essays discuss topics including the spaces where Jews lived, worked, and worshiped, Jewish languages and literatures, ethnicities and identities, and questions about gender and the body central to Jewish culture and Judaism. Offering original scholarship and fresh insights on late ancient Jewish history and culture, this unique volume: Offers a one-volume exploration of “second temple,” “Greco-Roman,” and “rabbinic” periods and sources Explores Jewish life across most of the geographic places where Jews or Judaeans were known to have lived Features original maps of areas cited in every essay, including maps of Jewish settlement throughout Late Antiquity Includes an outline of major historical events, further readings, and full references A Companion to Late Ancient Jews and Judaism: 3rd Century BCE - 7th Century CE is a valuable resource for students, instructors, and scholars of Jewish studies, religion, literature, and ethnic identity, as well as general readers with interest in Jewish history, world religions, Classics, and Late Antiquity.

Download or read book Trade in the Ancient Mediterranean written by Taco Terpstra and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How ancient Mediterranean trade thrived through state institutions From around 700 BCE until the first centuries CE, the Mediterranean enjoyed steady economic growth through trade, reaching a level not to be regained until the early modern era. This process of growth coincided with a process of state formation, culminating in the largest state the ancient Mediterranean would ever know, the Roman Empire. Subsequent economic decline coincided with state disintegration. How are the two processes related? In Trade in the Ancient Mediterranean, Taco Terpstra investigates how the organizational structure of trade benefited from state institutions. Although enforcement typically depended on private actors, traders could utilize a public infrastructure, which included not only courts and legal frameworks but also socially cohesive ideologies. Terpstra details how business practices emerged that were based on private order, yet took advantage of public institutions. Focusing on the activity of both private and public economic actors—from Greek city councilors and Ptolemaic officials to long-distance traders and Roman magistrates and financiers—Terpstra illuminates the complex relationship between economic development and state structures in the ancient Mediterranean.

Download or read book Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora written by John M. G. Barclay and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 546 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Barclay's study corrects the traditional oversight that would equate early Judaism with Palestinian Judaism. This highly readable introduction . . . brings together material that is otherwise available only in regional studies or highly technical works. Barclay strikes a rare balance between local conditions and broad issues, and between supporting detail and coherent argument. It is hard to imagine how the chronic need for a synthesis of the Mediterranean Diaspora might have been better satisfied."—Steve Mason, Pennsylvania State University "The book reflects the best of contemporary scholarship and is likely to become an indispensable source of information and reflection on the problems Jews encountered with living in a frequently hostile environment."—A. P. Hayman, Edinburgh University "This is a superb book which has lifted our discussion of Jews in the Diaspora to a new plane. Since understanding the Diaspora is vital to comprehending a good deal about early Christianity, Barclay has also made a significant contribution to this latter field of investigation."—Paul Trebilco, University of Otago