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Zusatztext By refusing to rely solely on textual accounts of the Maccabean revolt and the ensuing reign of the Hasmoneans, Kenneth Atkinson has appealed to the myriad of resources available to scholars to reconstruct this era and handled them responsibly. The result is a work that should be one of the first taken off of the shelf when acquainting oneself with either Hasmonean rule or Flavius Josephus. Kenneth Atkinson is Professor of History at the University of Northern Iowa, USA.A comprehensive history of the Hasmonean dynasty (152 - 63 BCE) which draws on the complete range of textual, epigraphical and archaeological sources.Kenneth Atkinson tells the exciting story of the nine decades of the Hasmonean rule of Judea (152 - 63 BCE) by going beyond the accounts of the Hasmoneans in Josephus in order to bring together new evidence to reconstruct how the Hasmonean family transformed their kingdom into a state that lasted until the arrival of the Romans. Atkinson reconstructs the relationships between the Hasmonean state and the rulers of the Seleucid and the Ptolemaic Empires, the Itureans, the Nabateans, the Parthians, the Armenians, the Cappadocians, and the Roman Republic. He draws on a variety of previously unused sources, including papyrological documentation, inscriptions, archaeological evidence, numismatics, Dead Sea Scrolls, pseudepigrapha, and textual sources from the Hellenistic to the Byzantine periods.Atkinson also explores how Josephus’s political and social situation in Flavian Rome affected his accounts of the Hasmoneans and why any study of the Hasmonean state must go beyond Josephus to gain a full appreciation of this unique historical period that shaped Second Temple Judaism, and created the conditions for the rise of the Herodian dynasty and the emergence of Christianity.PrefaceAcknowledgementsAbbreviations1. Introduction2. The Foundation of the Hasmonean Dynasty 3. John Hyrcanus: His Role During Simon’s Reign and his Consolidation of Political and Secular Powers 4. Judah Aristobulus: The Creation of the Hasmonean Monarchy5. Alexander Jannaeus: A Period of Conquest and Expansion6. Shelamzion Alexandra: A Hasmonean Golden Age7. Pompey and the Hasmoneans: Hyrcanus II, Aristobulus II, and the End of the Hasmonean Monarchy8. After the Roman Conquest 9. Conclusion: Josephus, Rome, and Hasmonean History Bibliography: Primary Sources Bibliography: Secondary SourcesIndexes...
