Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity

Carson Bay is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

• 1. On the destruction of Jerusalem: Christian, Classical, Biblical, Josephan; 2. Hebrew vs. Jew: identity and differentiation in De Excidio; 3. Abraham, ethnography, exemplarity, and oratory at De Excidio 5.41.2 and 5.53.1; 4. Exemplarity and national decline at De Excidio 5.2.1; 5. Jewish and Christian martyrdom at De Excidio 3.2 and 5.22; 6. King David as Christian-classical exemplum in Pseudo-Hegesippus; 7. Elisha, disaster, and extended exemplarity in De Excidio; 8. A classical world of Biblical Exempla: suicide and patriotism in De Excidio 3.16-17; 9. A Christian world of Hebrew Exempla: war and faith in De Excidio 5.15-16. 10. Conclusion.

'This book offers an important new study of an important, but neglected text, the anonymous De Excidio Hierosolymitano … First, it presents the first monographic study in English of this text, and in so doing gives scholars of late antiquity, the history of Judaism, and of late ancient historiography a fine summary and interpretive introduction to the text. Second, it offers a detailed study of the text's use of exempla as a rhetorical-historiographic strategy … As a specialist in late ancient historiography, I felt like I was learning throughout my reading of the book.' Jeremy Schott, Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University