This volume is devoted to different forms in which ancient Judaism was shaped. As is well known, Judaism in antiquity was a religion in constant flux with different perspectives on essential categories, such as Tora, Temple, and the Holy Land. Consequently, what was regarded as »Judaism« or »Jewish« was not fixed, but had to be constantly negotiated.
The present volume contains the proceedings of a conference held in October 2018 at Humboldt University Berlin. The articles reflect the different categories of describing Judaism of the Second Temple Period in view of their sustainability in characterising an ancient religious community in different historical situations and discuss relevant (re)constructions of ancient Judaism in the history of scholarship. Since the Persian period, ancient Judaism existed in a world which was in constant flux regarding its political, social, and religious contexts. Consequently, Judaism was subject to permanent processes of change in its self-perception as well as its external perception. In all complexity, however, the Torah, the Temple(s) as a place where heaven meets the earth, and the 'holy' or 'promised' land as the dwelling place of God's people can be regarded as institutions to which all kinds of Judaism in the Babylonian and Egyptian dispora as well in Israel/Palestine were related in some way or another.
Table of contents:
Jens Schröter/Markus Witte/Verena Lepper: Introduction -
Peter Schäfer: Judaism or Judaisms: The Construction of Ancient Judaism -
Benedikt Hensel: Debating Temple and Torah in the Second Temple Period. Theological and Political Aspects of the Final Redaction(s) of the Pentateuch -
Sebastian Grätz: The Golah, the Temple and the Torah in the Book of Ezra: Biblical and religious-historical perspectives on Judah and Jerusalem in post-exilic times -
Stefan Schorch: »Mount Garizim is the house of God and the dwelling place for his glory«: The origins and early history of Samaritan theology -
Karel van der Toorn: The Religion of the Elephantine Jews -
John J. Collins: Jewish Communities in the Dead Sea Scrolls -
Charlotte Hempel: The Dead Sea Scrolls: Challenging the Particularist Paradigm -
Robert Kugler: Finding »Judaism« in Documentary Papyri: The Case of the Petitions from the Herakleopolis Archive -
Lutz Doering: Torah and Temple in Judaean Pseudepigrapha From Jubilees to Fourth Ezra and Second Baruch -
Gabriele Boccaccini: What Does the Forgiving Jesus Have to Do with the Unforgiving Enoch? Forgiveness of Sins in the Enochic Traditions -
Maren R. Niehoff: Constructing Temple and Torah in Philo of Alexandria -
Martin Goodman: Paul as Persecutor and the History of Judaism -
Adela Yarbro Collins: What Sort of Jew is the Jesus of Mark? -
René Bloch: Jew or Judean: The Latin Evidence -
Werner Eck: Die - fast - unsichtbare jüdische Diaspora im Westen des Imperium Romanum vor der Spätantike -
Shaye J.D. Cohen: Jews and Judaism in Antioch as Portrayed by John Chrysostom and the Rabbinic Sages -
Catherine Hezser: The Contested Image of King David in Rabbinic and Patristic Literature and Art of Late Antiquity
