In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 362 Reviews We might raise two questions about her research; the first, specific to this particular book and the second addressed to scholarship of Judaism in classical antiquity in general. As we have said, Newman responsibly justifies both the inclusion and exclusion of categories of prayer texts in her study. Nevertheless one question might be raised. Though not able entirely to avoid references to prayers of the “Bracha-form,” she has chosen not to include these in her study because (my wording) they have been co-opted by form-critical scholarship. Yet whether one’s interest is to study scripturalization for the purpose of contributing to the field of biblical hermeneutics, or, from the vantage point of biblical studies, to contribute to liturgical studies, one might question whether one should forego a study of these prayers because they have been intensively studied in another scholarly discipline. More generally, and not addressed to this work in particular, one might question the widespread periodizing determinant “Second Temple” as in “Second Temple Judaism.” It is true that the term gives us a particularly Judaic rather than Christian template, and the destruction of the Second Temple was a critically decisive factor in the development of Judaism as we know it today. But the period of the Second Temple covers the very different circumstances of Persian, Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman hegemonies, all of which brought markedly different political, economic, cultural, and social circumstances to bear on the spiritual life and development of various groups of Jewry and expressions of Judaism. Herbert Bronstein Lake Forest College Lake Forest, Ill 60045 bronstein@lfc.edu INTEGRATING WOMEN INTO SECOND TEMPLE HISTORY. By Tal Ilan. Pp. xiii + 296. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999. Paper, $24.95. With this volume, Tal Ilan, Lecturer at the Rothberg School for Overseas Students at Hebrew University, presents her “third volume in a trilogy” (p. vii) on the topic of women during Second Temple and rabbinic periods of Jewish history. The first volume appeared in early 1996, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine (Hendrickson), and was followed in 1997 by Mine and Yours Are Hers: Retrieving Women’s History from Rabbinic Literature (E. J. Brill). Integrating Women into Second Temple History was first published in 1999 in a pricy ($122.50) hardback edition by J. C. B. Mohr, as volume 76 in the series “Text and Studies in Ancient Judaism.” The Hendrickson edition is, obviously, significantly more affordable. Hebrew Studies 45 (2004) 363 Reviews Ilan’s fine work is actually a collection of ten articles, five of which have been previously published (the earliest in 1992) and so an immediate question arises as to whether the various chapters “hang together” well, and whether or not they are intended to do so. In a seven-page introduction, Ilan explains her overall conception of her project and I will say upfront that by the time I finished the book I was satisfied with her overall scheme. As a collection of studies then, we must make it clear that this work is not a general history or overview of women in Second Temple times, nor does it claim to be. In fact, Ilan has generally avoided the standard Second Temple sociological domains of women—for example, home, family—as targets of her studies. Instead, she hopes to “revise, alter and fill in some gaps in our knowledge and understanding of women’s role [sic] in Second Temple and Rabbinic Jewish history” (p. 8). These studies are unified in that each one seeks to elucidate how women (often a particular woman) were integrated into social settings and sources that were so overwhelmingly male dominated. Since this work is a collection of generally independent essays on a diverse set of sources, I will best serve potential readers of Ilan’s work by listing the titles of each article: 1. “‘Fear not the Pharisees’ (bSotah 22b): The Attraction of Aristocratic Women to Pharisaism” 2. “‘The Daughters of Israel are not Licentious’ (mYevamot 13:1): Beit Shammai on the Legal Position of Women” 3. “‘Things Unbecoming a Women’ (Ant. 13.431): Josephus and Nicolaus on Women” 4. “‘And Who Knows Whether You have not Come to Dominion for...

pdf

Share