Torah, temple, and transaction : Jewish religious institutions and economic behavior in early Roman Galilee / Alex J. Ramos.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ramos, Alex.

Contributor:

Bloomsbury (Firm), publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bible. Pentateuch.

Bible.

Judaism--Israel--Galilee--History.

Judaism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxxvii, 251 pages) : illustrations

Distribution:

New York : Bloomsbury Publishing (US), 2025.

Place of Publication:

[Place of publication not identified] : Fortress Academic, 2019.

Summary:

"In this book, Alex J. Ramos examines production, consumption, and transaction in the regional economy of Galilee during the Early Roman period. Drawing on literary sources-including biblical texts, Josephus, and the Mishnah-and archaeological evidence, he assesses the ways that the Roman and Herodian states, settlement patterns, and Jewish religious obligations would have shaped household economic behavior. Approaching the topic through new institutional economics, Ramos considers the role of state institutions of administration and taxation and religious institutions derived from the Torah and the Temple in structuring for Galilean Jews the incentives, priorities, and costs of economic decision making. In contrast to classical economic assumptions of what is economically "rational" behavior, he considers the ways that the laws of the Torah defined the bounds of rational and socially permissible approaches to economic production, consumption, and transaction. Ultimately, Ramos argues that state institutions played a rather indirect and weak role in shaping the economy through much of the Early Roman Galilee; religious institutions, by comparison, played a more formative role in defining economic behavior." --From publisher's description.

Contents:

Institutions of administration and taxation in early Roman Palestine

Movement and trade in Galilee's regional economic network

Mosaic laws and cultivating piety in an agrarian economy

The temple, pilgrimage, and household economic resource management.

ISBN:

1-9787-2003-3

1-9787-0451-8

OCLC:

1501682296