IOUDAIOS-L Basic Bibliography

The intended purpose of this bibliography is to provide introductory readings that will orient non-specialists to the various areas germane to the study of Judaism in the Greco-Roman period.

This bibliography is a group project, edited by Rochelle Altman and Jay Treat. It is in the beginning stages of construction. IOUDAIOS-L members are invited to continue contributing to it.

It has become clear that "introductory readings" vary according to one's perspective. Some of the "introductory readings" listed in the current form of the following bibliographies are relatively advanced for someone who is just starting to become familiar with a area of research. Some of them would be appropriate for undergraduates with no background; others will challenge seasoned scholars. In some cases, these materials have been tagged with codes as follows:

Code	Appropriateness of Material
[u]	appropriate as an introductory textbook for undergraduates with no prior reading in the field
[g]	appropriate introduction for graduate students or others with background in the field
[a]	more advanced material

Contents

• Introductions to Judaism in the Greco-Roman Period
• General Reference Works
• Methodological Considerations
• General History
• Flavius Josephus
• Philo of Alexandria
• Hebrew Bible/Tanakh/Old Testament
• Septuagint/Old Greek/Greek Jewish Scriptures
• Targumim
• Biblical Writing "Style"
• Early Christian Literature
• Variety in Early Christianity
• Gnosticism
• Canon
• Rabbinic Literature and Oral Tradition
• Hellenization
• Archaeology, Material Culture
• Palaeography, Epigraphy
• History of Scholarship

Introductions to Judaism in the Greco-Roman Period

The following works each provide a useful overview of the field and the problems involved in studying it.

• Grabbe, Lester L. _An Introduction to First Century Judaism: Jewish Religion and History in the Second Temple Period_. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996.
• Grabbe, Lester L. _Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian_. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.
• Jaffee, Martin. _Early Judaism_. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997.
• Kraft, Robert A. and George W. E. Nickelsburg, editors. _Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters_. Philadelphia: Fortress Press; Atlanta: Scholars Press; 1986. [g]

General Reference Works

Relevant encyclopedia articles often give a useful first orientation as well as further bibliography.

• Achtemeier, Paul J., ed. _HarperCollins Bible Dictionary_ (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996).
• Freedman, David Noel, editor-in-chief. _The Anchor Bible Dictionary_. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland: Doubleday, 1992.
• _Encyclopaedia Judaica_. Jerusalem: Encyclopaedia Judaica; New York: Macmillan, 1971-1972. Corrected edition: 1982.

Methodological Considerations

The following articles will be useful to graduate students and above in grappling with some of the methodological problems of our field.

• Kraabel, A. Thomas. "The Roman Diaspora: Six Questionable Assumptions." In _Essays in Honor of Y. Yadin_, ed. G. Vermes and J. Neusner. _Journal of Jewish Studies_ 33 (1982): 445-464. [g]
• Kraft, Robert A. "Reassessing the 'Recensional Problem' in Testament of Abraham." In _Studies on the Testament of Abraham_, ed. George W. E. Nickelsburg, 121-137. SBL Septuagint and Cognate Studies 6. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press. [g]
• Kraft, Robert A. "The Multiform Jewish Heritage of Early Christianity." in _Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults: Studies for Morton Smith at Sixty_, Vol. 3, ed. J. Neusner. Leiden: Brill. 174-199. [g]
• Sandmel, Samuel. "Parallelomania," _Journal of Biblical Literature_ 81 (1962): 1-13. [g]
• Smith, Jonathan Z. _Divine Drudgery: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity_. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990. [g]
• Smith, Morton. "Terminological Boobytraps and Real Problems in Second- Temple Judaeo-Christian Studies." In _Traditions in Contact and Change: Proceedings of the 14th Congress IAHR_, ed. P. Slater and D. Wiebe. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1983. [g]
• Colwell, E. C. "Genealogical Method: Its Achievement and Its Limitations,"_ Journal of Biblical Literature_ 66 (1947): 109-133. [g]

General History

• Dodgeon, Michael H. and Samuel N. C. Lieu, editors, _The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars (A.D. 226-363): A Documentary History_. London; New York: Routledge, 1991.

  This one is nifty: all the data is from stelae, etc. and they give the inscriptions, along with translations and context. -Thomas Longstaff)

• Potter, David S. _Prophecy and History in the Crisis of the Roman Empire: a Historical Commentary on the Thirteenth Sibylline Oracle_. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
• Millar, Fergus. _The Emperor in the Roman World: 31 BC - AD 337._ Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.
• Millar, Fergus. _The Roman Near East: 31 BC - AD 337._ Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993.
• Isaac, Benjamin. _The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East_. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
• Whittaker, C. R. _Frontiers of the Roman Empire_: A Social and Economic Study_. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

Flavius Josephus

• Barclay, John. _The Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora From Alexander to Trajan_ (Clark, 1996), pp. 346-368.
• Begg, Christopher. _Josephus' account of the early divided monarchy, (AJ 8, 212-420): rewriting the bible_. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1993.
• Bilde, Per. _Flavius Josephus between Jerusalem and Rome : his life, his works and their importance_. Sheffield : JSOT, c1988.
• Cohen, Shaye J. D. _Josephus in Galilee and Rome: his vita and development as a historian_. Leiden: Brill, 1979.
• Feldman, Louis and Gohei Hata, eds. _Josephus, the Bible, and history_. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989, c1988.
• Josephus, Flavius. _Complete works. Translated by William Whiston_. Foreword by William Sanford LaSor_. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1960.
• Lindsay, Dennis R. _[Pistis] und [pisteuein] als Glaubensbegriffe in den Schriften des Flavius Josephus und im Neuen Testament_. English. Josephus and faith : [pistis] and [pisteuein] as faith terminology in the writings of Flavius Josephus and in the New Testament. Leiden, The Netherlands; New York : E.J. Brill, 1993.
• Rajak, Tessa. _Josephus, the historian and his society_. Philadelphia : Fortress Press, 1984, c1983.
• Schwartz, Seth. _Josephus and Judaean politics_. Leiden; New York: E.J. Brill, 1990.
• Villalba i Varneda, Pere. _The historical method of Flavius Josephus_. Leiden : E.J. Brill, 1986.

Philo of Alexandria

• Morris, Jenny. "The Jewish Philosopher Philo." In vol. 3, pt. 2 of Emil Schuerer, _The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.-A.D. 135)_, rev. and ed. Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, and Martin Goodman. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1987, pp. 809-889.
• Sandmel, Samuel. _Philo of Alexandria: An Introduction_. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Hebrew Bible/Tanakh/Old Testament

The following books introduce the Tanakh and its world. The Bible dictionaries listed above provide short, useful introductions to individual movements, writings, and authors.

• Anderson, Bernhard W. _Understanding the Old Testament_. Third Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1975. [u]
• Knight, Douglas A. and Gene M. Tucker. _The Hebrew Bible and its Modern Interpreters_. Philadelphia: Fortress Press; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985. [g]
• Sabo, Magne (ed.). _Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of its Interpretation. Bd. I/1, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996.

The following works cover textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible:

• Tov, Emanuel. _Textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible_. Minneapolis : Fortress Press ; Assen/Maastricht : Van Gorcum, 1992.
• Barrera, Julio Trebolle and Luis Vegas Montaner, editors. _The Madrid Qumran congress: proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid 18-21 March, 1991_. Volume 1 (Leiden: Brill; Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 1992).

Septuagint/Old Greek/Greek Jewish Scriptures

The following books introduce Septuagint and cognate studies. They assume a background in the history and literature of early Judaism.

• Jellicoe, Sidney. _The Septuagint and Modern Study_. Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1968. [a]
• Swete, H. B.: _An Introduction to the OT in Greek_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900); revised. ed. R. R. Ottley, 1914 (reprinted New York, 1968). [a]
• Harl, M., G.Dorival et O. Munnich. _La Bible Grecque des Septant; du Judaisme Hellenistique au Christianisme Ancien (Initiations an Christiasme ancien)_. Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1988 (see also La Bibla de Alexandrie)
• Tov, Emanuel. _The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research._ Jerusalem: Sinor Ltd., 1981. (A general introduction to the use of the Septuagint for Biblical Studies)

For people who are not specialists in Septuagint and cognate studies, but want to know how the Greek Jews of Alexandria understood the Hebrew text, the basic books -- discussed verse by verse -- are published by Scholars Press in the Septuagint and Cognate Studies (SCS) series. For the Torah, these are as follows:

• Wevers, John W. _Notes on the Greek Text of Genesis_ (SCS, 35). Scholars Press, 1993.
• - - - . _Notes on the Greek Text of Exodus_ (SCS, 30). Scholars Press, 1990.
• - - - . _Notes on the Greek Text of Deuteronomy_ (SCS, 39). Scholars Press, 1995.
• - - - . _Notes on the Greek Text of Leviticus_ (SCS, 44). Scholars Press, 1997.
• - - - . _Notes on the Greek Text of The Book of Numbers_ is forthcoming.

For more advanced studies of the textual history of the LXX/OG see:

• Wevers, John W. _Text history of the Greek Genesis_. (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1974)
• - - - . _Text history of the Greek Exodus_. (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992)
• - - - . _Text history of the Greek Leviticus_. (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986)
• - - - . _Text history of the Greek Numbers_. (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982)
• - - - . _Text history of the Greek Deuteronomy_. (Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1978)

For more extensive bibliography, consult:

• Dogniez, Cecile. _Bibliographie de la Septante (1970-1993)_. Avec une preface de Pierre-Maurice Bogaert. Leiden ; New York : E.J. Brill, 1995.

Targumim

• Alexander, Philip. "Targum, Targumim" in the _Anchor Bible Dictionary_.
• Flesher, P.V.M. "Targumim," in J. Neusner's, _Introduction to Rabbinic Literature_. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

Biblical Writing "Style"

• Alter, Robert. _The Art of Biblical Poetry_. New York: Basic Books, Inc. 1985.
• Freedman, David Noel. 'Another Look at Biblical Hebrew Poetry' in _Directions in Biblical Poetry. Ed. Elaine R.Follis. Sheffield: JSOT, 1987.
• Korpel, Marjo C. A. and Johannes D. de Moor. "Fundamentals of Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry," in _The Structural Analysis of Biblical and Canaanite Poetry_. Willem van der Meer & Johannes C. de Moor, eds. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament (JSOT). Supp. Ser. No. 74. Sheffield: University of Sheffield Press, 1988.
• Watson, Wilfred G. E. _Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to its Techniques_. Sheffield: JSOT, 1984.
• Porter, Stanley E. (ed.). _Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period (330 B.C.-A.D.400)_. Leiden: Brill 1997.

Early Christian Literature

The following textbooks introduce the New Testament and its world. Koester, Ehrman, and Tyson also give an overview of other early Christian literature. The Bible dictionaries listed above provide short, useful introductions to individual movements, writings, and authors.

• Duling, Dennis C. and Norman Perrin, _The New Testament: Proclamation and Parenesis, Myth and History_, Third Edition (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1994). [g]
• Ehrman, Bart D. _The New Testament: a Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. [u]
• Kee, Howard Clark. _Understanding the New Testament_, Fifth Edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993). [u]
• Koester, Helmut. Introduction to the New Testament. 2nd ed. New York : Walter de Gruyter, 1995. [g]
• Tyson, Joseph B. _The New Testament and Early Christianity_, New York: MacMillan Publishing Company; London: Collier Macmillan Publishers, 1984. [u]

Variety in Early Christianity

• Walter Bauer, _Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity_. Translated by a team from the Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins and edited by Robert A. Kraft and Gerhard Krodel. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971.
• D. Harrington, "The Reception of Walter Bauer's _Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity_ during the Last Decade," Harvard Theological Review 73 (1980): 289-298.
• T. Robinson, _The Bauer Thesis Examined: The Geography of Heresy in the Early Christian Church_. Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity. Lewiston: Edwin Mellon, 1988.

Gnosticism

• Layton, Bentley. _The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions_. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987.
• Robinson, James M., director. _The Nag Hammadi library in English_. Translated by members of the Coptic Gnostic Library Project of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont, California. 3rd completely rev. ed. San Francisco : Harper & Row, c1988.
• Williams, Michael A. _Rethinking "Gnosticism": An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category_ Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996

Canon

• Leiman, Sid. _The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture: The Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence_. 2nd ed. New Haven: Connecticut Academy of Arts & Sciences, 1991.
• Davies, Philip. _Scribes and Schools: The Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures_. Westminster/John Knox, 1998(?). [ISBN: 0664220770] (see "Loose Canons: Reflections on the Formation of the Hebrew Bible")

Rabbinic Literature and Oral Tradition

• Alexander, Philip S. "Orality in Pharisaic-Rabbinic Judaism at the Turn of the Eras," in H. Wansbrough, ed., *Jesus in the Oral Gospel Tradition* (Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), pp. 159-184
• Jaffee, Martin S. "How Much Orality in Oral Torah? New Perspectives on the Composition and Transmission of Early Rabbinic Tradition," in _Shofar_ 10 (1992), pp. 53-72.
• Neusner, Jacob. "Oral Tradition and Oral Torah: Defining the Problematic", in J. Neusner, ed., *Method and Meaning in Ancient Judaism* (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979), 59-78
• - - - . _The Oral Torah: the sacred books of Judaism: An Introduction_. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986.
• - - - . _Introduction to Rabbinic LIterature_. New York: Doubleday, 1994.
• - - - . _The Midrash: An Introduction_. Northvale, NJ: J. Aronson, 1990.
• - - - . _The Mishnah: An Introduction_. Northvale, NJ: J. Aronson, 1989.
• Porton, Gary. _Understanding Rabbinic Midrash: Texts and Commentary_. Hoboken, N.J.: Ktav Pub. House, 1985.

Hellenization

• Hengel, Martin. _The 'Hellenization' of Judaea in the First Century after Christ_. London: CSM Press; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989.
• - - - . _Jews, Greeks, and Barbarians: aspects of hellenization of Judaism in the pre-Christian period_. (Trans. John Bowden). Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980.
• Horst, Pieter Willem van der. _Hellenism, Judaism, Christianity: Essays on their Interaction_. Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1994.
• Feldman, Louis H. _Studies in Hellenistic Judaism_. Leiden; New York: E.J. Brill, 1996.

Archaeology, Material Culture

For a good introduction to archaeological theory (including the processual and post-processual alternatives) an excellent resource is:

• Renfrew, Colin and Paul Bahn. _Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice_. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991

While there are dozens of textbooks in archaeology available, a very useful one which focuses on field methods in archaeology (but does little with archaeological theory) is:

• Hester, Thomas R., Harry J. Shafer, and Kenneth L. Feder. _Field Methods in Archaeology_. 7th edition. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1997.

For Judaism in the Greco-Roman period:

• Dever, William G. and H. Darrell Lance, editors. _A Manual of Field Excavation: Handbook for Field Archaeologists_. New York: Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, 2nd printing, 1982.
• Shanks, Hershel and Dan P. Cole. _Archaeology and the Bible: The Best of BAR_. Volume One: _Early Israel_; Volume Two: _Archaeology in the World of Herod, Jesus and Paul_. Washington: Biblical Archaeology Society, second printing 1992.

Palaeography, Epigraphy

Tcherikover provides an excellent introduction to the significance of papyri in reconstructing the history of Jews in Egypt.

• Tcherikover, Victor A., editor. _Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum_. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1957.
• Frey, P. Jean-Baptiste. _Corpus of Jewish Inscriptions: Jewish Inscriptions from the Third Century B.C. to the Seventh Century A.D_. New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1975.
• van der Horst, Pieter W. _Ancient Jewish Epitaphs_. Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1991.
• van Haelst, Joseph. _Catalogue des papyrus littéraires Juifs et Chrétiens_. Série "Papyrologie"--1. Université de Paris IV Paris-Sorbonne. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1976.

Hebrew:

• Naveh, Joseph. _Early History of the Alphabet: An Introduction to West Semitic Epigraphy and Palaeography_. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1982.

Greek:

• Pestman, P. W. _The New Papyrological Primer; being the fifth edition of David and van Groningen's Papyrological primer_. Leiden ; New York : E.J. Brill, 1990.
• Thompson, Edward Maunde, Sir. _An Introduction to Greek and Latin palaeography_. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1912.
• Metzger, Bruce Manning. _Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: an Introduction to Palaeography_. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
• Turner, Eric Gardiner. _Greek Papyri: an Introduction_. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968.
• Turner, Eric Gardiner. Greek manuscripts of the ancient world. 2nd ed., rev. and enl. Edited by P.J. Parsons. London: University of London, Institute of Classical Studies, 1987.

Latin:

• Greetham, David C. _Textual Scholarship: An Introduction_. New York : Garland Pub., 1994.
• Brown, Michelle P. _A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600_. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.

History of Scholarship

• Knight, Douglas A. and Gene M. Tucker, editors. _The Hebrew Bible and its Modern Interpreters_. Philadelphia: Fortress Press; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1985.
• Eldon Jay Epp and George W. MacRae, editors. _The New Testament and its Modern Interpreters_. Philadelphia: Fortress Press; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989.
• Kraft, Robert A. and George W. E. Nickelsburg, editors. _Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters_. Philadelphia: Fortress Press; Atlanta: Scholars Press; 1986.
• Levenson,Jon. _The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies_. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993.
• Hans W. Frei, _The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics_. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974.
• Klaus Scholder, _The Birth of Modern Critical Theology: Origins and Problems of Biblical Criticism in the Seventeenth Century_. London/Philadelphia: SCM/TPI, 1990 [German original, 1966].

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