Identita e menmoria nell' Israele antico.

• Author: Liverani, Mario
• Position: Book review

Identita e menmoria nell' Israele antico. By GIAN LUIGI PRATO. Biblioteca di storia e storiografia dei tempi biblici, vol. 16. Brescia: PAIDEIA EDITRICE, 2010. Pp. 326. [euro] 33.60 (paper).

This book contains a collection of articles previously published by the author in various journals or collective volumes during the period from 1983 to 2002 (plus one quite recent: 2008). The range of topics includes basic problems of historical relevance, such as the relationship between Biblical, Near Eastern, and Greek history writing (chapter 1), the place of ancient Israel in the Near East (chapter 2), the status of foreigners (chapter 3), the role (both negative and positive) of Babylon in the Jewish exile (chapter 6), the conflicting Jewish and Roman ideologies in the Maccabaean period (chapter 7), religious persecutions under the Maccabees (chapter 8). Abraham and Moses in extra-Biblical (early Jewish) historiography (chapter 10), the relationship between Judaism and Hellenism (chapter 11), and also detailed treatments of some Old Testament passages or topics, relevant to the building of a national identity, such as the Tower of Babel (chapter 4), the Table of Nations and other geographical texts (chapter 5), wisdom vs. Torah in Ben Sim (chapter 9), and the foundation of Babylon in Rupolemos and other Hellenistic historians (chapter 12).

The decision to republish these articles (in non-updated form) is to he welcomed, since the original publication had been either in Festschriften (chapters 4-6 and 12)--all of them of religious orientation--(Romano Penna. Francesco Vattioni. Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, and Alonso Schad), or, more often, in the proceedings of periodic Biblical conferences in the Italian religious (Roman Catholic) milieu, not easily accessible abroad: the "Settimane Bibliehe" (chapters 1, 3. and 9), the "Studi Veterotestamentari" (chapters 8 and 10). the "Seminari invernali" (chapter 11), and in one case in the series "Da Roma alla Terra Roma" (chapter 7). Perfectly addressed to the specific audience of Italian Bible scholars, these contributions had run the risk of remaining outside of common use in the wider fields of Oriental and Classical historical studies. Of course the Italian language is also an additional (or better said: preliminary) problem outside of Italy, and the volume of collected articles would have had a more decisive function if published in English translation.

In fact the collection of essays reveals the...