Hellenistic Judaism

Call For Papers: The Hellenistic Judaism Section will organize three sessions for the 2015 Atlanta meeting. Two sessions will be by invitation only: (1) a session discussing work in progress on Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, Part IV, currently prepared for publication by Tal Ilan and Noah Hacham; and (2) a panel, co-sponsored with the Pseudepigrapha Section, organized around Benjamin Wright's commentary on the Letter of Aristeas, to be published in 2015. The third, open session (3) is entitled “Alexandria and the Jews in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.” For this session we invite papers on any aspect relating to the topic, but we are especially interested in submissions focusing on one of the two following issues: (a) “A growing intellectual hub: Alexandria and the Greek Torah as an Alexandrian book.” The early Ptolemies claimed for Alexandria an intellectual role which would challenge that of Athens. The Jews arrived in the city when this project was in the first stages of its development; the translation into Greek of their book, the Torah, occurred at the same time as the formation of the library. Was the Greek Torah a Jewish book or an Alexandrian book? We invite submissions elaborating on the accessibility and knowledge of the Greek Torah outside Jewish circles in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. (b) “Where were the Jews in Alexandria?” The presence of the Jews in Alexandria is certainly historically documented, but archaeology has as of yet been of little help to substantiate the claim of the written sources. We invite submissions discussing the archaeological evidence of Alexandria in relation to the presence of a consistent and growing Jewish community on its territory.

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