Table of Contents

PROLOGUE: EXCAVATING THE BIBLE
I. A GREEK CHRISTIAN WORLD?
1: Introduction: Christians and Jews in Gerasa
2: The Late Roman Near East: Time and Space
3: . Aramaic-speaking Pagans in the Christian Period?
4: A Greek World, Pagan and Christian
5: Greek Literary Culture in the Near East
6: Greek Christianity in its Local Context: Documentary Evidence
II. JEWS AND SAMARITANS IN A GREEK CHRISTIAN WORLD
1: Introduction: Greek in Palestine
2: Religious and Ethnic Communities in Palestine: Co-existence and Conflict
3: Samaritan Religion and Culture
4: Jews and Judaism in Palestine
5: The Jewish Diaspora: (a) The Mediterranean Coast and the Orontes Valley (b) From Arabia to Mesopotamia
III. SYRIANS AND SARACENS: SURYOYE AND TAYYOYE
1: Introduction: Sixth-century Divisions
2: The Background: the Third and Fourth Centuries
3: Syriac and Greek, 373-485
4: Syriac, 373-485: Inscriptions and Manuscripts
5: Syriac Writing before 485
6: The Flowering of Syriac from 485
7: Saracens or Tayyoye
EPILOGUE: CONNECTING TO MUHAMMAD?

About the Author

Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, 1958-64
Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History, The Queen's College, Oxford, 1964-76
Professor of Ancient History, University College London, 1976-84
Camden Professor of Ancient History, University of Oxford, 1984-2002
Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow, 2002-4
Sather Professor of Classical Literature, University of California, Berkeley, 2002-3
Fellow of the British Academy

Reviews

a consistent display of dazzling erudition. One can only wish to have been present when the lectures were delivered.
*Hagith Sivan, Journal of Jewish Studies*