Includes bibliographical references and index.

Publications of Jan Willem van Henten -- Notes on Contributors --  Introduction --   Jacqueline Borsje and Caroline Vander Stichele -- Part 1 Terrible Tyrants -- 1 The Tyrants and the Rabbis: Persecution and the Birth of the Rabbinic Movement --   Yair Furstenberg -- 2 Think You’re Tough? Severity as a Core Value in Josephus --   Steve Mason --  3 Josephus on Land Ownership in Judea after 7 CE: the Tribulations and Sense of Jewish War 7.216–217 --   Daniel R. Schwartz -- 4 From Punished Tyrant to Enchanted King: How King Herod’s Diseases Came to Include an Irish One --   Jacqueline Borsje --  5 Storytelling and the Struggle against Repression: Hamid Ismailov’s Novel The Devils ’ Dance and the Thousand and One Nights   Richard van Leeuwen -- Part 2 Honourable Heroes -- 6 Sister Figures in the Hebrew Bible Revisited: Some Reflections --   Athalya Brenner-Idan -- 7 Intertextuality between the Book of Judith and the Lindos Chronicle --   Barbara Schmitz -- 8 Heroes of Patientia: Representing ὑπομονή in 4 Maccabees --   Silvia Castelli -- 9 Paul, Politics, and Passions: Beyond Heroics --   Jeremy Punt -- Part 3 Powerful Prophets -- 1 The Prophet’s Mantle: from Elijah to John the Baptist --   Karel van der Toorn -- 11 The Shifting Image of Elijah the Prophet in Text and Iconography --   Lieve M. Teugels -- 12 Playing Her Part: Herodias’ Role in the Gospels and Josephus --   Caroline Vander Stichele -- Part 4 Memorable Martyrs -- 13 Exemplary Death Narratives and the “Parting of the Ways” --   Adele Reinhartz -- 14 Basilides and Clement on Providence and Persecutions in Hadrianic Alexandria --   Dylan M. Burns --  15 The Passion of Dioscorus and the Authenticity of Martyrdom Accounts --   Jan N. Bremmer --  16 The Heroic Martyr and Prophet of Hermetic Renovation: Giordano Bruno in John Crowley’s Aegypt   Wouter J. Hanegraaff -- 17 Remembering the Christian Martyrs of Japan --   Carolina Ivanescu -- 18 Jewish Martyrdom and the Problem of Crucifixion --   Ruben J. van Wingerden -- 19 Das ist der Doktor Zunz! Masculine Virtues and Public Persona in the Nineteenth-Century Wissenschaft des Judentums --   Irene Zwiep -- Index of Modern Authors.

This interdisciplinary Festschrift for Jan Willem van Henten contains nineteen essays that deal with literature from antiquity to the present, covering Second Temple Judaism, Early Christianity, Hellenism as well as the reception of the Bible in medieval and modern culture. The contributions to this volume address the rich imagery present in tales and texts that feature tyrants, heroes, prophets, and/or martyrs (male, female, or other), including the, often violent, interaction between them. Tyrants have enormous political power. Heroes are characterized by immense courage. Prophets stand out because of their remarkable insight into hidden things. Martyrs have an extraordinary capacity for self-sacrifice and their lives often culminate in violent endings. In discussing, investigating, and questioning these types, this book contributes to a better understanding of premodern texts, their modern cultural impact, and intellectual history.

English

Description based on print version record.