Art, History and the Historiography of Judaism in Roman Antiquity (paperback)

Steven Fine is professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva University. He is director of the Arch of Titus Digital Restoration Project and of the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies. Fine’s Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology received the Association for Jewish Studies’ Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in 2009.

• Introduction1. “See, I Have Called the Renowned Name of Bezalel, Son of Uri . . .”: Josephus’s Portrayal of the Biblical “Architect”2. A Note on Ossuary Burial and the Resurrection of the Dead in First-Century Jerusalem3. Caligula and the Jews: Some Historiographic Reflections Occasioned by Gaius in Polychrome 4. “When I Went to Rome . . . There I Saw the Menorah”: The Jerusalem Temple Implements in Rabbinic Memory, History, and Myth5. Coloring the Temple: Polychromy and the Jerusalem Temple in Late Antiquity6. Jewish Identity at the Cusp of Empires: The Jews of Dura Europos between Rome and Persia7. “Epigraphical” Study Houses in Late Antique Palestine: A Second Look8. Furnishing God’s Study House: An Exercise in Rabbinic Imagination9. The Jewish Helios: A Modest Proposal regarding the Sun God and the Zodiac on Late Antique Synagogue Mosaics10. Between Liturgy and Social History: Priestly Power in Late Antique Palestinian Synagogues?11. The Menorah and the Cross: Historiographic Reflections on a Recent Discovery from Laodicea on the Lycus12. Jews and Judaism under Byzantium and IslamIndex

"Taken as a whole, Fine’s book exhibits the value of bridging disciplines. The historiographical segments integrated throughout this volume offer essential insights that will inform any student of Roman and late antiquity." - Yael Wilfand, Hebrew University, in: Review of Biblical Literature, 2014"[...] Fine’s book is an important contribution to the ongoing conversation on multiple symbolic systems in late antique Judaism and their possible meanings, a conversation that shows no signs of ending any time soon." - Alexei M. Sivertsev, DePaul University, in: IMAGES, 8 (2015)"This brilliant collection of twelve fascinating essays is beautifully adorned with over 64 carefully chosen illustrations revealing a highly developed aesthetic sense. [...] There is a balanced, judicious care in his tight scholarly writing that takes the reader back into the past not as a dry artifact to learn “about,” but “from” as it relates to the reader’s lived reality. [...] Recommended for all libraries." - David B Levy, Touro College, in: Association of Jewish Libraries Reviews, 4:2 (2014)"Fine hat sein Versprechen, "to project flesh and blood into three-dimensional spaces" nicht nur für die "lost world in which those people thrived" eingelöst, sondern auch für den modernen wissenschaflichen Diskurs, den er selbst mit der vorliegenden Aufsatzsammlung [...] mit großem Erfolg befördert hat." – Jürgen Zangenberg, Leiden, in: Theologische Literaturzeitung 140 (2015)