This collection of translated texts is designed to introduce those interested in Graeco-Roman and Jewish culture to the realities of Jewish life outside Israel in the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the ending of the Jewish Patriarchate by the Christian emperors of Rome in the middle of the fifth century. Designed for student use, a feature of the collection is the prominence given to papyri and inscriptions. Composed in accordance with Graeco-Roman epigraphic conventions but written by Jews, these texts, some only recently discovered, should prove a rich source of information about the values and practices of real, as opposed to stereotypical, Jews in antiquity.
