Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Supporting your high street Find out how »
Imperialism and Jewish Society : 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E., Paperback / softback Book

Imperialism and Jewish Society : 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. Paperback / softback

Part of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World series

Paperback / softback

Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks

Description

This provocative new history of Palestinian Jewish society in antiquity marks the first comprehensive effort to gauge the effects of imperial domination on this people.

Probing more than eight centuries of Persian, Greek, and Roman rule, Seth Schwartz reaches some startling conclusions--foremost among them that the Christianization of the Roman Empire generated the most fundamental features of medieval and modern Jewish life.

Schwartz begins by arguing that the distinctiveness of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and early Roman periods was the product of generally prevailing imperial tolerance.

From around 70 C.E. to the mid-fourth century, with failed revolts and the alluring cultural norms of the High Roman Empire, Judaism all but disintegrated.

However, late in the Roman Empire, the Christianized state played a decisive role in "re-Judaizing" the Jews.

The state gradually excluded them from society while supporting their leaders and recognizing their local communities. It was thus in Late Antiquity that the synagogue-centered community became prevalent among the Jews, that there re-emerged a distinctively Jewish art and literature--laying the foundations for Judaism as we know it today.

Through masterful scholarship set in rich detail, this book challenges traditional views rooted in romantic notions about Jewish fortitude.

Integrating material relics and literature while setting the Jews in their eastern Mediterranean context, it addresses the complex and varied consequences of imperialism on this vast period of Jewish history more ambitiously than ever before.

Imperialism in Jewish Society will be widely read and much debated.

Information

Save 18%

£42.00

£34.35

Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
Add to Basket
Sign in to add to wishlist
 
Free Home Delivery

on all orders

 
Pick up orders

from local bookshops

Information