Religious Rivalries in the Early Roman Empire and the Rise of Christianity

Contents

Acknowledgments•vii

Preface•ix

Abbreviations•xv

PA RT I •RIVALRIES?

1 Ancient Religious Rivalries and the Struggle for Success:

Christians, Jews, and Others in the Early Roman Empire

Leif E. Vaage• 3

2 The Declining Polis? Religious Rivalries in Ancient Civic

Context

Philip A. Harland• 21

3 Rivalry and Defection

Stephen G. Wilson• 51

4 Is the Pagan Fair Fairly Dangerous? Jewish-Pagan Relations

in Antiquity

Reena Basser• 73

5 My Rival, My Fellow: Conceptual and Methodological

Prolegomena to Mapping Inter-Religious Relations in

2nd- and 3rd-Century CELevantine Society Using the

Evidence of Early Rabbinic Texts

Jack N. Lightstone• 85

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