Catherine Hezser Bücher

Catherine Hezser zeigt, dass sich die jüdische und christliche Kunst der Spätantike in kontinuierlichem Austausch mit und Bezugnahme auf die künstlerischen Ausdrucksweisen und theologischen Ansichten der jeweils anderen religiösen Gemeinschaft befand. In römisch-byzantinischer Zeit entwickelte sich im Judentum und Christentum eine Kunst, die im Gegensatz zum biblischen Bilderverbot figürliche Darstellungen verwendete und bestimmte in der griechisch-römischen Umwelt geläufige mythologische Motive aufnahm. Diese neue jüdische und christliche Ikonographie wird vergleichend im Kontext der griechisch-römischen und früh-byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur untersucht. Dabei sind den exegetischen, mythologischen und identitätsstiftenden Darstellungen jeweils eigene Kapitel gewidmet.

While rabbinic literature enables us to know more about the rabbis than any of the other members of the Jewish population of Roman Palestine, the social structure of the rabbinic movement remained largely unexplored. In the present study Catherine Hezser combines a critical analysis of the available literary, legal, and epigraphic evi-dence with a selective employment of sociological models. She examines the definition of the boundaries of the rabbinic movement, deals with the nature of the relationships amongst rabbis, and investigates the relationship between rabbis and their contemporaries, that is students, the community, and the patriarch.

Ancient Palestinian and Babylonian rabbinic literature developed in a context of constant exposure to and challenge by the dominant Graeco-Roman and Babylonian cultures. Rabbinic legal thinking is unlikely to have constituted an exception in this regard. Yet the positivistic search for influences is increasingly seen as inappropriate in recent scholarship. What is much more important is to investigate the ways in which rabbinic legal thinking participated in ancient Graeco-Roman and Near Eastern legal thinking, to determine which legal topics and forms were shared, where similar conclusions were reached, and where differences can be discerned. In this way the boundaries between ancient Jewish and non-Jewish legal traditions become increasingly blurred. The contributions to this volume, which is the outcome of an interdisciplinary conference held at Trinity College Dublin in March 2002, address a variety of issues. Both internal and external aspects of legal texts are investigated, documentary texts are discussed alongside literary texts, and the Graeco-Roman context of Palestinian legal traditions is supplemented by the Sasanian context of Babylonian halakhah. In addition, the general legal situation in the Roman Empire at large and Roman Palestine in particular is elucidated.

Exploring the use of slavery metaphors in ancient Judaism and Christianity, this Element delves into the social realities of slavery and the implications for modern abolitionism. It employs historical-critical methods to analyze ancient texts, shedding light on how these metaphors shaped religious thought and societal norms. The work provides a nuanced understanding of the intersection between ancient beliefs and contemporary ethical discussions surrounding slavery.