EC2063  FROM TEMPLE STATE TO PEOPLE OF THE BOOK: JEWISH HISTORY IN THE GRAECO-ROMAN PERIOD (A.A. 2023/2024)

• Unità Accademica

  Centro Cardinal Bea per gli Studi Giudaici

• Corso

  Licenza in Studi Giudaici e Relazioni Ebraico-Cristiane , Diploma Annuale in Studi Giudaici e Relazioni Ebraico-Cristiane

Objectives: Students should gain a basic understanding of the history
of the Jews and the development of Judaism in antiquity. In particular, they
should be able to recognize and conceptualize the distinctions between
priestly and rabbinic Judaism, between nationalist and universalist Judaism, and between state-oriented “Judeans” and diasporic adherents of “Judaism,” and to understand how Christianity and rabbinic Judaism
emerged in this period. They should also gain some familiarity with the
main ancient sources, and experience and understanding of the issues and
methods involved in philological-historical study of them.
Content: After introductory looks at the Persian period, at options
for defining Jews, and at the ancient sources and ways of using them, the
course will survey the political and cultural history of the Jews from
Alexander the Great until Constantine. It will focus on the polar dichotomies within which Jews had to locate themselves, and were located by others. These derived, basically, from the contradiction, in the first four
centuries of the period covered, between the existence of the Temple,
which seemed to imply the continued existence of a Jewish state in Judea,
on the one hand, and the fact of foreign rule in Judea, on the other. The
cultural influence of Hellenism, especially upon Jews of the Diaspora but
also within Judea, will also be analysed, and Jewish religious movements
(including “sects”) and trends of the period, including the emergence of
Christianity, will be understood on the background of contemporary political and cultural conditions. The centuries after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE will be understood, essentially, as the establishment, throughout the Jewish world including Palestine, of the basic conditions that
had already shaped the life of the Jews of the Diaspora prior to the destruction of the Temple. Accordingly, rabbinic Judaism, which came to dominate in the post-70 period, was very similar, essentially, to the Hellenistic
Judaism that was characteristic of the Diaspora in the pre-70 period. But
two new factors, namely the rise of Christianity and the relocation of the
centre of Jewish cultural productivity eastward beyond the Euphrates, impacted significantly on the Jews’ responses to these conditions.
Methodology: Lectures accompanied by selected sources, of which
the analysis, together with the students, will support and illustrate the
course’s interpretation of ancient Jewish history and also illustrate the
methods used in analysing such texts.
Evaluation: Students shall write one short paper (up to 5 pages), to
be submitted in the middle of the course, and a longer paper (up to 15 pages) submitted at its conclusion. Each paper will focus on a particular text
or pair of texts, among several alternatives offered, and use them to illustrate larger themes addressed by the course. Papers may be written in
English, French, Italian, German, or Hebrew. They supply, respectively, 30%
and 60% of the final grade; in-class participation supplies the last 10%.

• Informazioni
• Docenti
• Orario lezioni/Aula
• Bibliografia
• Appelli

Informazioni

• Semestre: 2° Semestre
• ECTS: 3

Docenti

Daniel Robert SCHWARTZ

Orario lezioni/Aula

Semestre	Giorno	Dalle	Alle	Aula	Piano	Palazzo	Note
2° Semestre	Lunedì	10.30	11.15	F104	1	Frascara	Il corso si tiene dal 21 febbraio al 22 marzo 2024. Nelle giornate di lunedì, esclusivamente nelle date: 26 febbraio e 18 marzo 2024
2° Semestre	Lunedì	11.30	12.15	F104	1	Frascara	Il corso si tiene dal 21 febbraio al 22 marzo 2024. Nelle giornate di lunedì, esclusivamente nelle date: 26 febbraio e 18 marzo 2024
2° Semestre	Mercoledì	10.30	11.15	F104	1	Frascara	Il corso si tiene dal 21 febbraio al 22 marzo 2024. Nelle giornate di lunedì, esclusivamente nelle date: 26 febbraio e 18 marzo 2024
2° Semestre	Mercoledì	11.30	12.15	F104	1	Frascara	Il corso si tiene dal 21 febbraio al 22 marzo 2024. Nelle giornate di lunedì, esclusivamente nelle date: 26 febbraio e 18 marzo 2024
2° Semestre	Venerdì	10.30	11.15	F104	1	Frascara	Il corso si tiene dal 21 febbraio al 22 marzo 2024. Nelle giornate di lunedì, esclusivamente nelle date: 26 febbraio e 18 marzo 2024
2° Semestre	Venerdì	11.30	12.15	F104	1	Frascara	Il corso si tiene dal 21 febbraio al 22 marzo 2024. Nelle giornate di lunedì, esclusivamente nelle date: 26 febbraio e 18 marzo 2024

Bibliografia

• H.H. BEN-SASSON (ed.), A History of the Jewish People. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1976, pp. 185–382;
  D.R. SCHWARTZ, Judeans and Jews: Four Faces of Dichotomy in Ancient
  Jewish History. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2014; S. SCHWARTZ,
  The Ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhammed. Cambridge, Cambridge
  University Press, 2014.

Appelli

Data	Orario	Aula	Tipo esame	da lettera	a lettera	Note
3 giu 2024	.	.	Elaborato	A	Z	La data è indicativa, per la consegna dell'elaborato rispettare le scadenze e modalità previste.