Inscribing devotion and death : archaeological evidence for Jewish populations of North Africa / by Karen B. Stern.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stern, Karen B.

Series:

Religions in the Graeco-Roman world ; v. 161.

Religions in the Graeco-Roman world, 0927-7633 ; v. 161

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Jews--Africa, North--History--To 1500.

Jews.

Jewish sepulchral monuments--Africa, North.

Jewish sepulchral monuments.

Tombs--Africa, North.

Tombs.

Death--Religious aspects--Judaism.

Death.

Judaism--Africa, North--History--To 1500.

Judaism.

Judaism--History--Post-exilic period, 586 B.C.-210 A.D.

Africa, North--Antiquities, Roman.

Africa, North.

Africa, North--Ethnic relations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (360 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Reliance on essentialist or syncretistic models of cultural dynamics has limited past evaluations of ancient Jewish populations. This reexamination of evidence for Jews of North Africa offers an alternative approach. Drawing from methods developed in cultural studies and historical linguistics, this book replaces traditional categories used to examine evidence for early Jewish populations and demonstrates how direct comparison of Jewish material evidence with that of its neighbors allows for a reassessment of what the category of “Jewish” might have meant in different North African locations and periods and, by extension, elsewhere in the Mediterranean. The result is a transformed analysis of Jewish cultural identity that both emphasizes its indebtedness to larger regional contexts and allows for a more informed and complex understanding of Jewish cultural distinctiveness.

Contents:

Toward a cultural history of Jewish populations in Roman North Africa

Locating Jews in a North African world

Naming like the neighbors: Jewish onomastic practices in Roman North Africa

Inscribing the dead to describe the living: reading Jewish identity through funerary language

Questioning "Jewishnesss" in the North African synagogue: Hammam Lif as a case study

North African Jewish responses to death: choosing appropriate gods, neighbors, and houses in the afterlife.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [315]-334) and index.

ISBN:

1-281-93699-5

9786611936990

90-474-2384-4

OCLC:

312933554

Publisher Number:

10.1163/ej.9789004163706.i-342 DOI