Bibliography
| Title: Joseph and Aseneth and the Jewish Temple in Heliopolis Type: Thesis Year: 1994 Abstract: "This study seeks to identify the historical context of Joseph and Aseneth, a Jewish novel from Greco-Roman Egypt. The first chapter consists of a close reading of Joseph and Aseneth's central scene (the honeycomb scene), which, we claim, contains a symbolical description of Onias' flight to Heliopolis, Egypt, and the establishment of a Jewish temple there. The second chapter is devoted to an analysis of this historical episode - Onias IV's arrival in Heliopolis (or, as Josephus says at one point, Leontopolis), in the wake of Antiochus IV's persecution of the Jews and the subsequent Maccabean revolt. Onias reveived large tracts of land from Ptolemy VI Philometor and settled with his followers in several locations in the Heliopolite nome. He also erected a temple there, which was later destroyed by the Romans in 73 or 74 CE, and whose physical remains habe never been found. Chapter three deals with Onias' Jewish opponents, who objected to the erection of a second Jewish temple and shrine, and with his Egyptian opponents, who objected to the Jewish settlements in the Heliopolite nome. Chapter four examines what sections of Joseph and Aseneth, other than the honeycomb scene, are better interpreted once their Oniad context is brought into play. Different elements (e.g. Levi's prominence, Aseneth's "field of inheritance", Aseneth's description as an eschatological Jerusalem, etc.) are analyzed and explained. In chapter five we analyze Joseph and Aseneth as a whole as Oniad literature, and ask who its author may have been (a supporter of Onias's temple, perhaps even a preist in that temple), when he may have lived (probably in the mid-second century BCE), and which audience he had in mind (a Jewish audience, well-versed in the biblical stories). We also try to assess how Joseph and Aseneth could serve the needs of its Oniad readers by replying to some of their opponents' claims. There are three appendices, on Joseph and Aseneth's textual history, on other stories of Heliopolis' distant past, and on the possible location of Onias' temple". Keywords: Hellenism, Hellenistic Judaism, Philo |