ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I

WOULD LIKE to thank the following people for having read and com-
mented on parts of this manuscript: Roger Bagnall, Benjamin Gampel,
Catherine Hezser (who read parts of the book in early versions, and the
entire manuscript for the Press), Martha Himmelfarb, Richard Kalmin, Nata-
lie Kampen, Hayim Lapin, Lee Levine, Ivan Marcus, Bruce Nielsen, and
Jeffrey Rubenstein. Leslie Kurke read and made crucial suggestions about the
introduction, as did Juliet Fleming, who has furthermore been a source of
inspiration throughout the overlong gestation of this book. Martin Goodman
not only endured my stumbling presentations of primitive versions of seg-
ments of this book at his seminar in Wolfson College, Oxford, but also read
it in its entirety for the Press and made many important comments. Keith
Hopkins read nearly the entire manuscript, talked me through its writing and
rewriting, and has been infinitely encouraging and provocative. Without Keith
I could never have written this book.
I have been fortunate to have lived and taught in environments—King’s
College, Cambridge, and the Jewish Theological Seminary—richly endowed
with colleagues and students who made it fun to work out the argument of
the book. I will not attempt to provide a full list, since it would contain hun-
dreds of names if it could be compiled. However, I should thank especially
the conveners of the King’s College Research Centre, Martin Hyland and
Alan Macfarlane, for enabling me to begin the book; Simon Goldhill for his
friendship, generosity, and stimulation during the period of its composition;
and the chancellor and provost of the seminary, Ismar Schorsch and Jack
Wertheimer, for enabling me to complete it, by granting me a premature
sabbatical leave. The generosity of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation allowed me to extend the leave to a full year.
Components have been presented at conferences and seminars in (from
east to west) Jerusalem, Berlin, Heidelberg, Cambridge, London, Oxford,
New Haven, New York, and Princeton; I am indebted to the organizers and
participants for invitations and comments. Finally, I thank Mark Cohen and
Shalom Sabar for timely advice.