Yonatan Adler is associate professor in the department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Ariel University in Israel. He has served as a member of the State of Israel’s Council for Archaeology since his 2018 appointment by the Minister of Culture.
“The list of practices Adler investigates is determined by the
nature of the surviving evidence and by Adler’s expertise in
archaeology as well as in history. . . . Thorough and
learned.”—Martin Goodman, University of Oxford, in Times Literary
Supplement
“The Origins of Judaism is an engrossing read, well written and
extensively documented.”—Ari Zivotovsky, Jerusalem Post
“A most extraordinary book. . . . Adler’s methodology is
impeccable.”—Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament
Winner of the Society for 2024 Society for American
Archaeology Popular Book Award
“The intellectual parameters of this ambitious project are nothing
short of breathtaking. This is a very serious work that calls for
much admiration and praise.”—Eric Meyers, Duke University
“An impressive and important book—the rare case of the ability of
one scholar to master the textual sources and the archaeological
data, combine them into a comprehensive thesis, and arrive at a
well-argued and persuasive solution to one of the thorniest
questions in the history of Judaism.”—Amihai Mazar, Hebrew
University of Jerusalem
“This pioneering and provocative book constitutes a major
contribution to contemporary scholarship on the origins of Judaism.
Adler carefully juxtaposes archaeological and literary evidence on
key aspects of ancient Jewish identity formation, reframing the
debate on the origins of Judaism in terms of what can be
established—the facts on the ground. Anyone seriously interested in
Judaism’s origins will want to engage with this book.”—Jonathan
Klawans, Boston University
“Yonatan Adler’s challenging and judicious analysis of a wealth of
archaeological and textual data argues convincingly for the
profound significance of the early Hellenistic period in the
formation of Judaism as we know it.”—Lawrence Schiffman, New York
University
“Based on a fascinating and comprehensive analysis of texts and
archaeology, Adler concludes that Judaism emerged either in the
early Hellenistic period or in the period following the Maccabean
revolt, when, he argues persuasively, the Hasmoneans adopted
Pentateuchal law to unify the population of the new Jewish
state.”—Jodi Magness, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill
“Uniting archaeology with the written sources, Yonatan Adler has
illuminated the practice and piety of ordinary Jews of the Second
Temple era. Drawing on this work, this book proposes a bold and
original thesis for when the Torah became the foundation text,
setting the standards for the lives of Jews.”—Albert I. Baumgarten,
Bar-Ilan University
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