Essays on Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity in Honour of Oded Irshai

Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, Martin Goodman (eds)

Pages: 308 p.
Size:156 x 234 mm
Illustrations:9 b/w

Language(s):English
Publication Year:2023

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Essays on Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity, with a focus on the theological, political, and social issues which confronted Jews and Christians in late Roman Palestine and surrounding regions.

Subject(s)

Review(s)

“Readers will find that the essays cover a tremendous amount of ground, from divine imagery to ecclesiastical competition to pilgrimage to Jewish responses to empire. Should such a vast array of offerings seem too broad to those readers, it should be noted that these are topics all covered by Irshai himself, as the footnotes amply attest: as good Festschrifters, the authors here build on their honoree’s intellectual versatility and generosity.” (Andrew S. Jacobs, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 13/08/2024)

BIO

Professor Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony teaches in the Department of Comparative Religion in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her many publications on the history of Eastern Christianity in Late Antiquity have focussed in particular on pilgrimage, monasticism and prayer.

Martin Goodman is Emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies in the University of Oxford. He has written extensively on the history of Jews and Judaism in the Roman period.

Summary

Leading scholars in the study of Late Antiquity discuss the religious landscape of the eastern Roman Empire, with expert discussion of the theological, political, and social issues which confronted Jews and Christians in late Roman Palestine and surrounding regions. Individual chapters analyse in depth the rabbinic, patristic, and archaeological evidence to produce a sophisticated account of religious lives in provincial societies in which rabbinic Judaism took root within a Roman world increasingly dominated from the early fourth century CE by competing Christian power structures, particularly within Palestine. Detailed studies investigate, among other topics, rabbinic speculation about the origins and nature of the Roman state; the implications of the sharing of urban space by different religious traditions and the sharing of religious iconography; competition both within Judaism and Christianity and between Jews and Christians in light of the political pressures exerted by the Christian Roman state; and both similarities and differences in speculation by Jews and Christians about the nature of the expected end of days.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAULA FREDRIKSEN, with OSNAT RANCE — Ode to Oded

MARTIN GOODMAN — Introduction

Religion and the Visual

YONATAN MOSS — The Emperor’s New Clothes: the ‘Jewish Helios’ Enigma in its Christian Imperial Context

NOA YUVAL-HACHAM — Between Heaven and Earth: The Hand of God in Ancient Jewish Visuality

ZEEV WEISS — Shaping Religious Space: Pagans, Jews and Christians in Ancient Sepphoris

Christian Perspectives

YONATAN LIVNEH — Cyril’s New Jerusalem and His Omission of Local Church History

JACOB ASHKENAZI — Eudocia, Pulcheria, and Juvenal: Competition in the Field of Religion and the Built Environment of Jerusalem in the Fifth Century CE

OSNAT RANCE — ‘Although Their Names Escaped Me’: Local Patriotism and Saints Commemoration in Late Antique Syria

ARYEH KOFSKY and SERGE RUZER — Rethinking the Eschatological Ingathering of Israel in Early Christianity

ORA LIMOR — Divina Vestigia: Tracking the Early History of Jesus’ Footprints at the Mount of Olives

DANIEL R. SCHWARTZ — Reinach and Stephanus, Philo and Josephus: A Note on the Testimonium Flavianum

Jewish Perspectives

JOSHUA LEVINSON — When in Rome

EYAL BEN-ELIYAHU — Where were the Two Huts of Remus and Romulus in Rome?

Influence and Competition

HILLEL NEWMAN — The Hebrew Book of Elijah and Commodian’s Carmen de duobus populis

ISRAEL JACOB YUVAL — And the Rest is History: Sabbath versus Sunday

List of Contributors

Subject Index