Religion and Society in Roman Palestine: Old Questions, New Approaches

by Edwards,Douglas R.

• ISBN13: 9780415305976
• ISBN10: 0415305977
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-09-24
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This collection of papers combines important archaeological and textual evidence to examine diverse aspects of religion and society in Roman Palestine. A range of international experts provide an unprecedented look at issues of acculturation, assimilation and the preservation of difference in the multicultural climate of Palestine in the Roman period. Key themes include: * the nature of ethnicity and ritual * the character of public and private space in Jewish society * the role of gender and space * the role of peasants * the impact of Roman rule * ritual and the regional framework of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Religion and Society in Roman Palestinewill be relevant to ancient historians, interpreters of the historical Jesus and subsequent Jesus movements, and those interested in the development of Judaism from Qu'ran to the rabbis.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
List of contributors	xi
Foreword
MARTIN GOODMAN	xiii
Acknowledgments	xviii
List of abbreviations	xix
1 Constructing the world of Roman Palestine: an introduction	1	(6)
DOUGLAS R. EDWARDS
2 First century Jewish Galilee: an archaeological perspective	7	(21)
MORDECHAI AVIAM
3 Jewish settlement in the southeastern Hula Valley in the first century CE	28	(9)
IDAN SHAKED AND DINA AVSHALOM-GORNI
4 The Galilean response to earliest Christianity: a cross-cultural study of the subsistence ethic	37	(12)
MILTON MORELAND
5 Language and writing in early Roman Galilee: social location of a potter's abecedary from Khirbet Qana	49	(7)
ESTHER ESHEL AND DOUGLAS R. EDWARDS
6 Dionysos and Herakles in Galilee: the Sepphoris mosaic in context	56	(14)
SEAN FREYNE
7 The first-century synagogue: critical reassessments and assessments of the critical	70	(33)
LEE I. LEVINE
8 City coins and Roman power in Palestine: from Pompey to the Great Revolt	103	(10)
MARK A. CHANCEY
9 Imagined households	113	(16)
CYNTHIA M. BAKER
10 Gender, difference, and everyday life: the case of weaving and its tools	129	(17)
MIRIAM PESKOWITZ
11 Why scroll jars?	146	(16)
JODI MAGNESS
12 Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls: the contention of twelve theories	162	(8)
MAGEN BROSHI AND HANAN ESHEL
13 Opening up our view: Khirbet Qumran in a regional perspective	170	(19)
JÜRGEN ZANGENBERG
Index	189