Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters ed. by Matthias Henze and Rodney A. Werline

Abstract

Reviewed by: Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpretersed. by Matthias Henze and Rodney A. Werline Barbara Schmitz matthias henzeand rodney a. werline(eds.), Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters( 2nded.; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2020). Pp. xxiv + 645. $45. It was a milestone in the study of early Judaism when Robert A. Kraft and George W. E. Nickelsburg published Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters(Atlanta: Scholars Press) in 1986. It was one of the first projects that brought together the different approaches and perspectives on the Second Temple period and not only offered an overview but established it as an independent field of research. Although published in 1986, the volume summarized research from 1945 until 1980 and drew a picture of early Judaism as a varied, complex, and dynamic period. Since 1980, the study of early Judaism has vastly increased. Texts, manuscripts, inscriptions, and archaeological findings as well as their translations have been made accessible. Furthermore, new methodologies, approaches, and tools have been developed. Therefore, forty years after the first edition, Matthias Henze and Rodney Werline offer a revised second edition that offers an updated version covering the last decades of research on early Judaism. Henze and Werline organized the volume in four parts ("Historical and Social Settings"; "Methods, Manuscripts, and Material"; "Early Jewish Literature"; "The Afterlife of Early Judaism"). In the introduction, the editors outline the conceptual and methodological changes in the last forty years and discuss challenges with terminology and categories such [End Page 523]as "Judaism," "early," "Second Temple period," "Apocrypha," "pseudepigrapha," and so on. The first part, "Historical and Social Settings," includes four chapters. Chris Seeman ("Jewish History from Alexander to Hadrian") presents a historical overview focusing on three main issues: the history of the high priesthood, the question of integration and marginalization in Israel as well as in the diaspora, and the relationship between Rome and Judea. Philip Esler ("The Social World of Early Judaism") delineates the social picture, with its broad social system in Palestine, socioreligious institutions (temple, synagogue, household) and social movements and groups. He discusses the problems related to the question of Jewish/Judean identity. Erich Gruen ("Jews in the Diaspora") gives a learned insight on Jewish life in the different regions of the ancient world, with a hermeneutical shift, asking how comfortable Jews in the diaspora found themselves in the balance between the maintenance of their tradition and the adjustment to societies in which they were a minority culture. A new chapter in the volume is Françoise Mirguet's "Gender in Early Jewish Literature," contextualizing research on gender in early Judaism in the study of ancient Greece and Rome and exploring the role of women, the construction of gender, femininities and masculinities, and gender as a structuring category. The second part, "Methods, Manuscripts, and Material," includes six chapters. The first is also a new chapter, "New Methodologies," by Werline. He presents recent results from different approaches, such as spatial theory, emotions, ritual theory, postcolonial theory, and so on. Alison Schofield ("The Dead Sea Scrolls") gives an update on a field of research that has changed significantly in the most recent decades. Pieter W. van der Horst ("Early Jewish Epigraphy") is a new entry, presenting the rapidly developed specialization of epigraphy as a path to "ordinary Jewish people" in antiquity and their thoughts, hopes, griefs, and joys. His discussion of critical aspects of Jean-Baptiste Frey's Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum(Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1975) is followed by the presentation of newly published editions, criteria for identifying Jewish inscriptions and questions on geographical and chronological distribution as well as genres and languages. Similar issues are discussed in Robert Kugler's chapter, "Documentary Papyri," which gives an update of Victor Tcherikover and Alexander Fuks's Corpus Papyrorum Iudaicarum(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), covering the new findings in Egypt (e.g., Herakleopolis) and Israel. Eric M. Meyers ("The Archaeology of Early Judaism") gives an insightful overview of archaeology, starting with the Persian period and including the evolution of the Jews in Babylonia. In "Early Judaism and Modern Technology," Todd R. Hanneken describes the dramatic changes that computer-assisted research has brought to the study of early Judaism. Timothy...