The Jewish Revolt against Rome: History, Sources and Perspectives
By Mladen Popovic
The Jewish Revolt against Rome: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. M. Popović; Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism Vol.154 (Leiden: Brill, 2011)
Introduction: The pursuit of history involves asking questions about the past, which is obviously no longer directly accessible. New data thus generates new questions; however, old data may also attract new questions and new perspectives. Thinking about history is to an important extent determined by contemporary interests and circumstances. As these interests and circumstances change, perspectives and the questions asked change. Setting aside traditions and historical memories, what remains of the ancient past are the contemporary sources that are available to us: literary, documentary, numismatic, epigraphic, iconographic and archaeological. However, these sources are not always simply or directly available to us. Some have been handed down by tradition, which is the case for most of the literary texts, while others have been actively retrieved by modern exploration. What the extant sources share is that they represent only a small part of all source material that was once in existence. Nevertheless, the available sources are the building blocks for scholarly study of the past. The study of each of these sources entails its own methodological requirements, difficulties and possibilities.
Click here to read this article from Academia.edu
