Second Temple Studies: The Past, Present, and Future of the Ioudaioi

In this essay I have advanced three propositions. First, the strength of Second Temple studies is due chiefly to a paradigm shift. Freed from Christian domination or refraction through rabbinic literature, this extraordinary period in the Western past appears to us now a virtually untouched field, with sources long known and newly discovered bursting with illumination as we apply new methods and contexts to their interpretation. Second, this vitality opens the question of Second Temple Judaism’s optimal place in the academy. Universities increasingly include it in the broadening study of ancient history, itself liberated from long prejudice that admitted only Greek and Roman classics. Third, as the roots of Second Temple Judaism intertwine more securely with other components of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean world, we must reckon with a new, horizontal dimension to our research, over against both traditional study within Judaism and Christianity and the external or social-scientific analysis of traditions in religious studies.