1st Edition
Rewriting Ancient Jewish History The History of the Jews in Roman Times and the New Historical Method
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: Authenticity
Chapter 1: Can Multiple Versions of a Text be Equally Authentic?
Part II: Hermeneutics
Chapter 2: The Rabbis as Unusual Romans
Part III: Credibility
Chapter 3: An Introduction to Credibility: On Sources, Credibility and Corroboration
Chapter 4: Recovering Josephus’s Sources
Chapter 5: Josephus and History
Chapter 6: The Traditional Historical Method on the Credibility of Rabbinic Literature
Chapter 7: The Collapse of the Traditional Presumptions about Rabbinic Literature
Chapter 8: The New Historical Method on the Credibility of Rabbinic Literature: Three Case Studies
Part IV: Conclusion
Chapter 9: On Hillel the Elder’s Rise to Greatness
Epilogue
Bibliography
Biography
Amram Tropper, Ph.D. (2002) Oxford University, is Senior Lecturer in Jewish History at Ben-Gurion University. His previous publications include Wisdom, Politics, and Historiography (Oxford, 2004), Like Clay in the Hands of the Potter (Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2011) and Simeon the Righteous in Rabbinic Literature (Brill, 2013).
Amram Tropper provides his readers with an exceptionally thoughtful guide to the methods required for valid use of the primary literary evidence for the history of the Jews in Roman times, with a series of pertinent case studies discussed in full and with admirable clarity.
- Martin Goodman, Oxford University, UK
A study of this type has been long overdue. Amram Tropper skillfully explains the advances in Josephean historiography and Talmudic methodology of the last half century and makes the first systematic and thoroughly compelling case for moving beyond the "traditional historical method." Tropper’s straightforward, polemic-free, and lucid presentation of the "New Historical Method" for the study of the Jews in the Roman Period will be welcomed by Judaic Studies scholars and by ancient historians, many of whom will be convinced that a consensus is finally emerging among specialists in this era.
- Stuart S. Miller, University of Connecticut at Storrs, USA
