The Dynasty of the Jewish Patriarchs

By (author) Alan Appelbaum

Book cover: The Dynasty of the Jewish Patriarchs

Extent: 257 pages

Publisher: Mohr Siebeck

Subjects: Jewish Studies

Series: Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(December 2013)

ISBN: 9783161529641

6.42 x 9.57 inches

Price: $171.00

In stock

The Patriarchs who led the Jews of late antiquity were remarkable partly because they managed to maintain the Patriarchate as a family affair for more than two centuries. For the first time, Alan Appelbaum examines the Patriarchate as a hereditary dynasty, a series of men in a specific social structure, rather than as an institution of office, and the relationships among them.


The Jewish Patriarchs were remarkable not only because they governed much of Palestine in late Antiquity, collected taxes from and sent emissaries to Jews across the Roman Empire, acted as the representative of both Palestinian and diaspora Jewry to the Roman imperial government, and achieved great prominence in Roman society. They were remarkable also because they led the Jews for more than two centuries while maintaining the Patriarchate as a family affair. In this book, Alan Appelbaum examines the Patriarchate as a hereditary dynasty for the first time, studying it as a series of men in a specific social structure rather than an institution or office. He draws on Jewish, Christian and pagan sources, including Roman law, which has not previously been utilized as it is here; and he compares the Patriarchate to other real and supposed dynasties in order to locate it among the various family arrangements of its period.

  • By (author) Alan Appelbaum

"...the work makes an important contribution to scholarship and well worth reading for anyone interested in late antique Palestine." --Joshua Schwartz, Bar-Ilan University, Review of Biblical Literature, 6.30.16