Etta and Milton Leve Scholar-in-Residence

A dominant trend in scholarship about Jews in the Roman Imperial diaspora emphasizes the Jews’ achievement of a successful balance between integration and separation, and regards this happy equilibrium as essentially stable for centuries. I will argue that this view rests on a fundamental misreading of the sources. Asia Minor (modern Turkey) provided the richest evidence for the dominant view but when disentangled tells a story of conflict, instability and, above all, poverty. This rather gloomy picture changed for the better only in the fourth century CE, before a steady decline starting in the fifth. Seth Schwartz is the Lucius...

The phenomenon of “Godfearing”—adoption by gentiles, usually supposed to have been pagan—of Jewish practices including support for local Jewish communities and attendance in synagogues—has loomed larger in scholarship than it does in the sources. But the phenomenon surely existed. Some ancient writers suggest that in the first century most diaspora jewish communities had a “fringe” of gentile sympathizers who functioned for Jewish communities as protectors and mediators with local governments. Godfearing comes to the fore again in major texts of the early fifth century CE. How much of the traditional picture can be salvaged? (Spoiler: some) How continuous was fifth-century...