The Production of Literature in Judean Military Communities in Egypt
The Hunt for Ancient Israel - Essays in Honour of Diana V. Edelman - Cynthia Shafer-Elliott
Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley [+ ]
Trinity College Dublin
Anne Fitzpatrick-McKinley is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, Trinity College Dublin. She is the author of monographs on Torah and on the Nehemiah memoir as well as of a number of articles on the Persian and Ptolemaic period.
Description
Against a background of an examination of Judean military communities in Egypt this paper asks if the institution of the politeuma, or of the synagogue, or other associations of Judean military communities had libraries, and whether Judean scribes in Egypt may have been influenced by the literary culture of other groups, Egyptian and non-Egyptian, among whom they lived? Was this the context for the production, copying, preservation, and exchange of Judean-Greek stories and traditions? Did the politeuma, the synagogue, and other institutions of military communities, including private associations, provide the context for the preservation and production of literature?