Art, History and the Historiography of Judaism in Roman Antiquity

"Art, History and the Historiography of Judaism in the Greco-Roman World" explores the complex interplay between visual culture, texts and their interpretations, arguing for an open-ended and self-aware approach to understanding Jewish culture from the first century CE through the rise of Islam. The essays assembled here range from the "thick description" of Josephus' Bezalel son of Uri as a Roman architect through the inscriptions of the Dura Europos synagogue, Jewish reflections on Caligula in color, the polychromy of ancient Jewish artifacts and new-old approaches to the zodiac and to the Christian destruction of ancient Jewish artifacts. Taken together, they suggest a humane approach to the history of the Jews in an age of deep and long lasting transitions-- both in antiquity, and in our own time.