Religious competition in the third century CE. Jews, Christians and the Greco-Roman world. Edited by Jordan D. Rosenblum , Lily C. Young and Nathaniel P. DesRosiers . (Supplements to Journal of Ancient Judaism, 15.) Pp. 260. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2014. €79.99. 978 3 525 55068 7

2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-134
Author(s):  
Timothy W. Dooley
Keyword(s):  
Third Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Religious Competition

The History of Ancient Science: A Personal View

2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
Physical World ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Personal View ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Ancient Science ◽  
Land Mass ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
History Of

My subject is the history of science in antiquity, where the convention I adopt for “antiquity” is that it covers everything from the earliest recorded Mesopotamian investigations in the third millennium BCE down to the end of the third century CE, by which time two particularly significant upheavals had taken place at either end of the Euro-Asia land mass. I refer to the Christianization of the Greco-Roman World and the rise of Buddhism in China. That study poses a number of distinctive problems, both substantive and methodological, which I shall go on immediately to identify. At the same time it is particularly worthwhile, in my view, for the light it can throw on very early efforts at understanding the physical world. Let me give a brief preliminary explanation of my main thesis.

Heresiology in the Third-Century Mishnah: Arguments for Rabbinic Legal Authority and the Complications of a Simple Concept

2015 ◽  
Vol 108 (4) ◽  
pp. 508-529
Author(s):  
Naftali S. Cohn
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Discourse ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Legal Text ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Simple Concept

When members of the early rabbinic group created the Jewish legal text known as the Mishnah in the late second or early third century, the concept of heresy was relatively common in the wider cultural discourse of the Roman world. Christian apologists, among others, frequently employed the Greek termhairesis(“heresy”/“heretic,” originally meaning “school of thought”/“adherent”) as part of their larger projects of drawing boundaries, defining identities, and making an argument for the authority of their own ideas and practices.

Secret Societies in Ancient Judaism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
Secret Society ◽  
Secret Societies ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Special Knowledge ◽  
Different Levels

This chapter deals with the sources available for knowledge of Jewish esoteric groups, distinguishing between “insider” and “outsider” sources. The Essenes and the Qumran covenanters as a secret society are introduced. The keeping of secrets in the Greco–Roman world and the consequent importance of archaeology in discovering these secrets are briefly discussed. Typical features of secret societies are given: gradual initiation and limitation of membership, hierarchical organization with different levels, and stages of admission to the special knowledge. The main categories are “secret–open,” not “sectarian–normative,” as in previous studies. Analogous secret cults in the Greco–Roman world are also listed.

Secret Groups in Ancient Judaism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Second Temple ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Georg Simmel ◽  
Secret Societies ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Ancient Judaism ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
Secret Knowledge ◽  
Working Out

The thesis advanced in this work is that the model of a secret or esoteric group is fruitful for studying various movements and groups in the Greco–Roman world. This is worked out in the extremely interesting case of the Essenes and the Qumran covenanters, for which we have available not only outsider descriptions but also the very documents that embody at least part of their secret teachings. This approach to analysis is not intended to supplant the sect/normative pattern for describing Ancient Judaism, but to supplement it, adding a very fruitful unexplored dimension to the analysis of ancient Jewish society. By attributing, in the footsteps of Georg Simmel, and more recently L. Hazelrigg, the organization and dynamic of secret societies to the need to guard the secret knowledge, it provides ways of understanding the organization and practice of the Qumran covenanters Essene sect, which were previously unperceived. Having established the theoretical framework, having shown that such groups existed in both non-Jewish and Jewish society in the Greco–Roman world, the book then proceeds to analyze in detail the working out of this dynamic in the cases of the Therapeutae and the Essenes, supplementing this with investigation of whether there is evidence for this same dynamic elsewhere in Second Temple Jewish society. Moreover, this analysis bears on the overall “fit” of these groups in the society of the period, so richly endowed with names of and evidence for different groups in that society.

Roman Water-Power

2020 ◽  
pp. 147-194
Author(s):  
Andrew Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The Body ◽  
First Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Water Power ◽  
The Third ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Grain Milling ◽  
Over Time

This chapter summarizes the archaeological evidence currently known for Roman water-mills, tracing the development and spread of water-powered grain milling over time across the Roman Empire. Problems of quantification and evidence bias, both documentary and archaeological, are addressed. In particular, it is argued that large discoidal millstones, formerly thought to derive either from animal-powered or water-powered mills, must come from water-mills, and that the idea of Roman animal-driven mills with discoidal millstones is a myth. This dramatically increases the amount of evidence available for water-powered grain milling, although very unevenly spread across the empire, and heavily dependent on the intensity of research in particular regions—good for Britain, parts of France, and Switzerland; poor everywhere else. The chapter also summarizes the state of knowledge on other applications of water-power—for ore-crushing machines at hard-rock gold and silver mines (by the first century AD), trip-hammers, tanning and fulling mills, and marble sawing (by the third century AD). The picture is fast-changing and the body of evidence continues to grow with new archaeological discoveries. The chapter ends with some thoughts about the place of water-power in the overall economy of the Roman world, and on the transmission of water-powered technologies between the Roman and medieval periods.

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