Japheth in the Tents of Shem: Studies on Jewish Hellenism in Antiquity

In rabbinic parlance, Japheth in the tents of Shem (Genesis 9:27) has become a proverbial expression for the interaction between Greek and Jewish cultures. The present volume contains 15 studies exploring a wide variety of aspects of the meeting of these cultures in antiquity. In the past 30 years the manifold manifestations of 'Jewish Hellenism' have become the focus of intensive research. The author of this book has played an active part in this field and the essays presented here are the fruits of his most recent research. He investigates, among other things, the extent to which Greek had become the daily language of the Jews (and the Samaritans) in Hellenistic and Roman Palestine; the knowledge of Greek medical lore and science among the rabbis; the development of Greek forms of the synagogal Eighteen Benedictions; the Jewish participation in the Hellenistic-Roman debate about antediluvian knowledge ('wisdom from before the flood'); the background of the surprising phenomenon of voluntary celibacy among ancient Jews; the role of the veneration of the tombs of biblical prophets in Jewish popular religion; the work of the Judaeo-Greek alchemist Maria, who happens to be the first female Jewish author we know of; the life and works of the most notorious anti-Semite from pagan antiquity, Apion, and Josephus' response to him; the Samaritan diaspora in Rome; the attractiveness of Judaism for Christians; et multa cetera. Pieter W. van der Horst (1946) is professor of New Testament and of the Jewish and Hellenistic world of early Christianity at the Faculty of Theology of Utrecht University. He published some 250 articles and books in the fields of early Judaism, ancient Christianity, and Graeco-Roman culture, with a special emphasis on their interactions. He is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.