Donderdag 22 oktober 2026 om 18.00 uur
Prof. dr. Katell Berthelot - Aix–Marseille University
Lezing in het Engels.
Lezing in lokaal R.012, Rodestraat 14,
2000 Antwerpen.
Deelname is gratis.
Inschrijven via e-mail: ijs@uantwerpen.be.
The history of ancient Israel is to a great extent a history of encounters with powerful empires. The Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Macedonians, and the Romans successively conquered Judea and subjected it to their rule. In this lecture, we will consider whether Roman domination differed from that of its predecessors from a Jewish perspective. If so, what were the reasons and how did it differ?
We will argue that there was indeed something unique about Rome, beyond the fact that the Romans destroyed the Second Temple. Taking as a starting point the rabbinic identification of the Romans with Esau, Israel’s twin brother, we will explore the reasons behind this remarkable choice and analyze the extraordinary ideological challenge that Rome posed to Jews, long before the Roman Empire became Christian.
Katell Berthelot is a CNRS Professor at Aix–Marseille University (France). Her research focuses on the history of Jews and Judaism in the Greco-Roman world; the history of the reception of biblical texts; Jewish literature in Greek; and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Her publications include In Search of the Promised Land? The Hasmonean Dynasty Between Biblical Models and Hellenistic Diplomacy (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), and Jews and their Roman Rivals: Pagan Rome’s Challenge to Israel (Princeton University Press, 2021), which won the National Jewish Book Award (USA) in the category “Scholarship” in 2021.