Mira Balberg is Professor of History and David Goodblatt Endowed Chair in Ancient Jewish Civilization at the University of California, San Diego. Her most recent book is Fractured Tablets: Forgetfulness and Fallibility in Late Ancient Rabbinic Culture.

"Overall, this monograph is enjoyable and instructive. One is invited to explore related themes that, perhaps surprisingly, are never explicitly mentioned in this book and yet are clearly relevant to its argument, including the Foucauldian notion of power as ‘discourse’, the question of the struggle for cultural hegemony with Christianity, the effort to justify a religious life without a sacrificial system, and, finally, the emerging cultural rivalry between the Roman imperial religion and the rabbis’ ‘utopia’. . . . impeccable."

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Missing Persons2. Th e Work of Blood3. Sacrifice as One4. Th ree Hundred Passovers5. Ordinary MiraclesConclusion: The End of Sacrifice, RevisitedBibliographySubject IndexSource Index