Hellenistic Judaism

Call For Papers: For 2018, Hellenistic Judaism is planning three sessions: 1) An invited review panel on Erich S. Gruen, The Construct of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016). 2) “Making Priests: Intersections of Discourse and Practice in the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman Eastern Mediterranean.” This OPEN call session, co-sponsored with Religion in the Greco-Roman World and Cultic Personnel in the Biblical World, seeks proposals focusing on discourses and practices that embed cultic personnel and their functions in particular social and political contexts. It is interested in studies of the various agents involved in the making of cults, including ruler cults, such as cultic personnel, paracultic role players like freelance religious experts, or entrepreneurial, smaller-scale cultic practitioners. How do cultic personnel derive and perpetuate their position? What influences and borrowings, and what appeals to traditional authority, played a role in the authority claimed by or attributed to cultic personnel in the Hellenistic and Roman periods? Proposals on Asia Minor, the Levant, and ancient Egypt are welcome. Papers will normally be circulated beforehand. 3) Another OPEN call session on “The Impact of the Hellenistic and Roman Empires upon Israel: A Comparative Perspective”: The history of the people of Israel is a history of encounters with empires. Ancient historians have emphasized continuities between the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman empire, but how did the Jews themselves, both in Judea and the diaspora, perceive these imperial powers? How much continuity did they see between them? And in what ways were the Jewish answers to the challenges posed by these different imperial contexts similar or dissimilar? We welcome studies pertaining to material culture as well as studies focusing on literary sources, such as apocalyptic literature. Relevant topics include, inter alia, calendars, rituals, law, historiography, theological and political thought.

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