Shifting Images of the Hasmoneans: Second Temple Legends

2018 OUP hardcover edition. Light reading wear else very good condition. A series of six Jewish folktales from the Second Temple period sets the stage for examination of the image of the Hasmoneans in the eyes of their contemporaries and later generations. On the one hand, these brief, colorful legends are embedded in the narrative of the historian of the age, Flavius Josephus. On the other hand, they are scattered throughout the extensive halakhic-exegetical compositions known as rabbinic literature, redacted and compiled centuries later. Based on these tales that describe the Hasmonean dynasty and its history from legendary founders to eventual downfall, the present volume considers the Hasmoneans through the lens of reception history. Each set of parallel stories is mined for original message, language, and historical context. The disparate natures of the Josephan and the rabbinic versions are then explored in an attempt to reconstruct the adaptation of the putative original traditions within the two corpora and to decode each one’s emphases, reworkings, and unique orientation. The compilation and characterization of these sources, which were preserved and transmitted in two such different conduits, facilitates examination of the relationship between the distinctive libraries and worlds of Josephus and rabbinic literature. Moreover, it brings us closer to reconstruction of a lost literary continent, a hidden Jewish 'Atlantis' of early pseudo-historical legends, and traces the creation of collective memory. Contents Translator’s Note Introduction 1. Nicanor’s Defeat 2. John Hyrcanus and a Heavenly Voice 3. The Rupture with the Pharisees 4. Alexander Janneus/The Priest Who Was Pelted with Citrons 5. Alexander Janneus’s Instructions to His Wife 6. The Fratricidal Hasmonean Conflict and the Murder of Onias 7. The Image of the Hasmoneans: A New Perspective.…