Jewish Communities in Asia Minor

by Paul R. Trebilco

• ISBN13: 9780521030328
• ISBN10: 0521030323
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-11-02
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Scholarly assessment of Jewish communities in the Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman Diaspora has, in the past, been dominated by our knowledge of the large and influential communities in Rome and Alexandria. This book brings together the evidence for significant Jewish communities in another part of the Diaspora, namely Asia Minor. By collating archaeological, epigraphic, classical, New Testament and patristic sources, the book provides an invaluable and coherent description of the life of Jewish communities in Asia Minor, and so gives a more complete picture than was previously available of Jewish life at the time. By describing the strength, vitality and diversity of Jewish life in Asia Minor, the author is able to point to the retention of their Jewish identity by these communities, despite their close relations with the wider pagan society in which they lived. A degree of integration did not, therefore, mean the abandonment of an active attachment to Jewish tradition. The survey the book provides thus contributes to our understanding of the New Testament and of early Christianity.

Table of Contents

Preface

List of abbreviations

Introduction

Jewish communities of Asia Minor in literary sources

The Jewish communities at Sardis and Priene

The Jewish communities at Acmonia

The Jewish community at Apamea

The prominence of women in Asia Minor

Theos Hypsistos and Sabazios - Syncretism in Judaism in Asia Minor

'God-worshippers' in Asia Minor

Jewish community and Greek city in Asia Minor

Conclusions

Bibliography

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