Jewish Communities in Asia Minor

Scholarly assessment of Jewish communities in the Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman Diaspora has generally been dominated by our knowledge of the large and influential communities in Rome and Alexandria. This is the first study to draw together the evidence for significant Jewish communities in another part of the Diaspora, namely Asia Minor. By collating archaeological, epigraphic, classical, New Testament and patristic sources, the book provides an invaluable and coherent description of the life of Jewish communities in Asia Minor, and so gives a more complete picture than has been available hitherto of Jewish life at the time. By describing the strength, vitality, and diversity of Jewish life in Asia Minor, the author is able to point to the retention of their Jewish identity by these communities, despite their close relations with the wider pagan society in which they lived. A degree of integration did not, therefore, mean the abandonment of an active attachment to Jewish tradition. The survey the book provides thus makes a notable contribution to an area of great significance for our understanding of the new Testament and of early Christianity.