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Jewish Travel in Antiquity . By Catherine Hezser. (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 144). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011. Pp. x, 529. Cloth with dust jacket. €139.00. ISBN 978-3-16-150889-9.

Jewish Travel in Antiquity . By Catherine Hezser. (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 144).... Monographs on ancient travel are surprisingly few and far between, a situation more severe within the study of ancient Judaism. Catherine Hezser begins to fill the lacuna with a substantial and valuable work. Though she frames the book as refuting understandings of ancient Judaism as an essentially “sedentary” society, Hezser accomplishes much more, offering scholarship valuable for any interested in the material aspects and literary perceptions of ancient travel. For Hezser, the very existence of rabbinic literature and culture depended on the mobility and trans-regional connections that characterized life and learning among Palestinian and Babylonian sages. The book comprises two major parts: a survey of the material realities of ancient travel and an analysis of Jewish literary texts on travel, with an emphasis on Rabbinic literature composed in Palestine or treating journeys between Palestine and Babylonia. The first part begins by discussing how ancients perceived geographic space. Reliance on itineraria as opposed to maps may have yielded a more linear and relational (or “landmark and distance” [44]) conception of the locations as opposed to a “cartographic” vision. Since the rabbinic period commenced with the loss of Jerusalem as its religious and cultural center, rabbinic geographic mindsets within Palestine http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal for the Study of Judaism Brill

Jewish Travel in Antiquity . By Catherine Hezser. (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 144). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011. Pp. x, 529. Cloth with dust jacket. €139.00. ISBN 978-3-16-150889-9.

Journal for the Study of Judaism , Volume 44 (3): 407 – Jan 1, 2013

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Subject
Review of Books
ISSN
0047-2212
eISSN
1570-0631
DOI
10.1163/15700631-12340013
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Monographs on ancient travel are surprisingly few and far between, a situation more severe within the study of ancient Judaism. Catherine Hezser begins to fill the lacuna with a substantial and valuable work. Though she frames the book as refuting understandings of ancient Judaism as an essentially “sedentary” society, Hezser accomplishes much more, offering scholarship valuable for any interested in the material aspects and literary perceptions of ancient travel. For Hezser, the very existence of rabbinic literature and culture depended on the mobility and trans-regional connections that characterized life and learning among Palestinian and Babylonian sages. The book comprises two major parts: a survey of the material realities of ancient travel and an analysis of Jewish literary texts on travel, with an emphasis on Rabbinic literature composed in Palestine or treating journeys between Palestine and Babylonia. The first part begins by discussing how ancients perceived geographic space. Reliance on itineraria as opposed to maps may have yielded a more linear and relational (or “landmark and distance” [44]) conception of the locations as opposed to a “cartographic” vision. Since the rabbinic period commenced with the loss of Jerusalem as its religious and cultural center, rabbinic geographic mindsets within Palestine

Journal

Journal for the Study of JudaismBrill

Published: Jan 1, 2013

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