Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period (2000 Grabbe), book

Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period (2000) is a book by Lester L. Grabbe.

Abstract

In a massive undertaking, Grabbe provides an synthetic history of the religion of the Jewish people during the Second Temple period, drawing upon nearly all of the secondly literature to aid in his in-depth analysis. He divides the book into two sections. The first half is divided into historical time periods, from the Persian Period to Yavneh. The second is devoted to special topics in religion, such as, but not limited to: The Temple and Priesthood; Scripture, Prayer, and Synagogue; Sects and Movements; The Deity and the Spirit World; Prophecy and Apocalypticism; and Messiahs. Noteworthy is his emphasis on the need to include the Persian Period in any study of the Second Temple Period, and his minimization of the role of the Pharisees, and his insistence that the majority of Jews, prior to 70 A.D., continued to look to the teachings of the temple priests for the majority of their religious ideology and practice. – Deborah Forger, University of Michigan

Editions and translations

Published in London: Routledge, 2000.

Table of Contents

• Preface

• List of Abbreviations

• I. Introduction

Part I: Chronological Survey

• II. Persian Period (539-333 BCE)
• III. Early Greek Period (333-200 BCE)
• IV. Later Greek period and Hasmoneans (200-63 BCE)
• V. Under Roman rule (63 BCE – 70 CE)
• VI. Transition to rabbinic Judaism: Yavneh

Part II. Special Topics

• VII. Temple and Priesthood
• VIII. Scripture, prayer, and synagogue
• IX. Sects and movements
• X. Concepts of the Deity and spirit world
• XI. Prophecy, apocalypticism, the esoteric arts, and predicting the future
• XII. Eschatologies and ideas of salvation
• XIII. Messiahs
• XIV. Jews and Judaism in the Hellenistic world

Part III. Conclusion

• XV. Judaism in the Second Temple period: a holistic perspective

• Bibliography
• Indexes