The boundaries of Jewishness in the Southern Levant, 200 BCE-132 CE : power, strategies, and ethnic configurations

Author/Creator:

Van Maaren, John, author

Publication/Creation:

Berlin : De Gruyter, [2022]

Resource Type:

Book

More Details

Additional/Related Title Information

Full Title:

The boundaries of Jewishness in the Southern Levant, 200 BCE-132 CE : power, strategies, and ethnic configurations / John Van Maaren

Series Titles:

Studia Judaica, Band 118
Studia Judaica (Walter de Gruyter & Co.) ; Band 118.

Subjects/Genre

Subjects:

Jews--Identity--History
Jews--Middle East--History

Description/Summary

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction and methodology. The ethnic boundary making model : Preliminary remarks ; The ethnic boundary making model : making and Unmaking ethnic boundaries ; The ethnic boundary making model and Jewishness in antiquity -- 2. Jewishness under the Seleucids (200-129 BCE). Political boundaries of Seleucid Coele-Syria and Phoenicia ; Ethnic demographics in and around Seleucid Coele-Syria and Phoenicia ; Dynamics of change ; Literary sources as evidence for strategies of boundary making ; Ethnic configurations ; Conclusions : ethnic boundaries in Coele-Syria and Phoenicia under Seleucid rule -- 3. Jewishness under the Hasmoneans (129-63 BCE). Expanding Hasmonean political boundaries ; Ethnic demographic changes in and around Hasmonean territory ; Field characteristics : institutions, networks, power ; Dynamics of change ; Literary sources as evidence for strategies of boundary making ; Ethnic configurations ; Conclusions : ethnic boundaries under Hasmonean rule -- 4. Jewishness under the Romans (63 BCE-132 CE). Shifting political boundaries in and around Roman Judea ; Ethnic demographic changes in and around Roman Judea ; Field characteristics : institutions, networks, power ; Dynamics of change ; Literary sources as evidence for strategies of boundary making ; Ethnic configurations ; Conclusions : Jewishness under the Romans (63 BCE-132 CE) -- 5. Conclusion. Summary : Jewishness during the Seleucid, Hasmonean, and early Roman periods ; Implications. 6. Appendix 1.

Summary:

"Recent research has considered how changing imperial contexts influence conceptions of Jewishness among ruling elites (esp. Eckhardt, Ethnos und Herrschaft, 2013). This study integrates other, often marginal, conceptions with elite perspectives. It uses the ethnic boundary making model, an empirically based sociological model, to link macro-level characteristics of the social field with individual agency in ethnic construction. It uses a wide range of written sources as evidence for constructions of Jewishness and relates these to a local-specific understanding of demographic and institutional characteristics, informed by material culture. The result is a diachronic study of how institutional changes under Seleucid, Hasmonean, and Early Roman rule influenced the ways that members of the ruling elite, retainer class, and marginalized groups presented their preferred visions of Jewishness. These sometimes-competing visions advance different strategies to maintain, rework, or blur the boundaries between Jews and others. The study provides the next step toward a thick description of Jewishness in antiquity by introducing needed systematization for relating written sources from different social strata with their contexts."

Language:

English

Physical Type/Description:

XVIII, 316 pages ; 24 cm.

Additional Identifiers

Catalog ID (MMSID):

9937583596502486

ISBN:

9783110787382
3110787385

ISSN:

0585-5306

OCLC Number:

1321951088

Barcode:

300000511122