Joseph Mélèze Modrzejewski – författare

Hellenistic Egypt was the setting for perhaps the first Jewish Golden Age, a time "golden" in Jewish memory as an era of vibrant cultural interaction between the Jews and their gentile hosts. This is the story of the adventures and misadventures of the people of Israel in the land of Egypt the years shrouded in the mists of biblical history under the Pharaohs; the strange intermezzo of the Jewish mercenary detachment on the island of Elephantine on the upper Nile; the apogee of Jewish culture under Ptolemies; and finally, the Jewish community's rapid decline and catastrophic disappearance under Roman rule. Joseph Meleze Modrzejewski uses scientific analysis to illuminate the reality underlying our image of the past. The biblical accounts and Jewish and pagan literary texts are juxtaposed with discoveries of a century of archaeological and papyrological research that has unearthed the edicts of emperors as well as the humble correspondence of common people. In a tantalizing epilogue, Modrzejewski probes a turning point in Western civilization: the brief but crucial episode when budding Christianity and the Alexandrian Jews parted company.

This is the story of the adventures and misadventures of the Jewish people in the land of Egypt. The author uses the clear light of scientific analysis and archaeological research to illuminate the reality underlying the images from the Biblical accounts and Jewish and pagan literary texts, through the great "love affair" between Jews and Hellenic culture. It ends with the brief but crucial episode when budding Christianity and the Alexandrian Jews parted company.

This second selection of articles by Professor Mélèze-Modrzejewski deals with the questions of personal status and family ties in Classical law, both Greco-Roman and Eastern. It covers the period up to the Christian era, with Hellenistic Egypt as its focus. The first studies examine what was held to distinguish free men, slaves and animals, as well as what constituted a ’Greek’ in Lagid Egypt. The following section looks at the legal structures of Greek marriage and, in particular, at the problem of ’irregular’ unions, whether between close relatives or with foreigners. Finally, the author deals with two aspects of a person’s estate: the State’s appropriation of this where there was no heir, and the nature of foundations in Greek law. The volume concludes with a section of additional notes. Ce nouveau recueil du prof. Joseph Mélèze Modrzejewski (pour le premier, voir ; oooo) propose un choix de dix études relatives au statut personnel et aux liens de famille dans les droits de l’Antiquité orientale et gréco-romaine, jusqu’à l’époque chretienne. La problématique du statut personnel est abordée dans quatre essais: hommes et bêtes, esclaves, Grecs et Égyptiens dans le royaume des Lagides. La deuxième partie porte sur le mariage et la famille dans le droit grec et hellénistique. Outre un essai de synthèse sur la structure juridique du mariage grec, elle s’attache en particulier au problème des unions irrégulières: mariage entre proches parents et mariage avec l’étranger. La dernière partie reprend deux travaux concernant des aspects du destin des biens de famille après la disparition du titulaire: la dévolution à l’Etat des successions en déshérence d’après la loi successorale de Doura-Europos et la nature juridique des fondations en droit grec. Le recueil est accompagné d’addenda qui offrent une mise à jour.