Some recent book reviews

The following is some book reviews that were published during my summer vacation leave. Some of them have been noticed on other blogs, but these are some of those most relevant for studies of Philo and the Egyptian diaspora world of his times:

W.V. Harris, G. Ruffini, Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece.Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, vol. XXVI. Leiden:
Brill, 2004. Pp. 296. ISBN 90-04-14105-7. EUR 75.00.

Reviewed by Marjorie Susan Venit, University of Maryland (venit@umd.edu)

Ellen Birnbaum has an essay on Philo in this volume (see also my comments on this here). The reviewer presents her article thus:
"In "Portrayals of the Wise and Virtuous in Alexandrian Jewish Works:
Jews' Perceptions of Themselves and Others" Ellen Birnbaum explores the
self-perception of Alexandria's Jewish population and their view of the
other inhabitants of the city. She restricts her study to the qualities
of wisdom and virtue and her textual sources to the Letter of Aristeas,
the Wisdom of Solomon, and the works of Philo and determines that each
document yields a different portrayal of Jews in relation to the
dominant culture. The Letter of Aristeas incorporates the Jewish
Diaspora fantasy (a trope), portraying Jews as superior to non-Jews and
recognized as such by other Alexandrians. By contrast, in the Wisdom of
Solomon the wise and the virtuous are loyal Jews, and Egyptians are
seen as a "'a nation of oppressors'" (144). Philo, like the others,
sees Jews as wise and virtuous but, insofar as non-Jews are concerned,
limits that quality to those who inhabited the past and dwelt in lands
far from Alexandria. Concluding, Birnbaum suggests that the difference
in views, specifically that between the Letter of Aristeas and the
other two sources, reflects the social and political circumstances that
Jews encountered at the time when each document was composed."

Erik Christiansen, Coinage in Roman Egypt: The Hoard Evidence. Aarhus:Aarhus University Press, 2004. Pp. 208. ISBN 87-7288-964-0. $29.95.

Reviewed by Allen Kerkeslager,
Department of Theology, Saint Joseph's University
(akerkesl@sju.edu)

Francoise Dunand, Christiane Zivie-Coche, Gods and Men in Egypt. 3000 BCE to 395 CE. Originally published by Armand Colin, 2002. Translated from the French by David Lorton. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
2004. Pp. 367. ISBN 0-8014-8853-2. $25.95 (pb).

Reviewed by Mehmet-Ali Atac,, Department of Classical and Near Eastern
Archaeology, Bryn Mawr College (matac@brynmawr.edu)