Tessa Rajak

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tessa Rajak
Born(1946-08-02)2 August 1946
London, England
Known forJudaism in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
The writings of Josephus.
Scientific career
FieldsHistory
Ancient history
InstitutionsUniversity of Reading

Professor Manisha Rajak (née Goldsmith, born 2 August 1946 in London)[1] is a British historian and Emeritus Professor of Ancient history at the University of Reading.[2] She is also a Senior Associate of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies[3] and Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford.[4] Her research focuses primarily on Judaism in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and she is an expert on the writings of Josephus.

Career[]

Tessa Rajak was educated at the Somerville College, Oxford, submitting her D.Phil. thesis on 'Flavius Josephus: Jewish History and the Greek World' in the Faculty of Literae Humaniores (Classics) in 1974.[5] She later became Professor of Ancient History at the University of Reading.[6] From 1995–6 she was Grinfield Lecturer on the Septuagint at Oxford; her book Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford University Press 2009) is based on the six lectures which she gave during this time.[7] Rajak was editor of the Journal of Jewish Studies from 2000 to 2003.[8] She retired from the University of Reading in December 2008.[9] A symposium in her honour, entitled 'Jews, Christians, Greeks, Romans: Cultural and Religious Interactions', was held at Reading on 25 June 2009.[10] From 2012 to 2015 she was co-investigator (with Professor Martin Goodman and Dr. Andrea Schatz) on a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and entitled 'The Reception of Josephus in Jewish Culture from the 18th Century to the Present'.[11]

Selected publications[]

Monographs

  • Flavius Josephus. Jewish History and the Greek World. Dissertation, University of Oxford 1974.
  • Josephus. The Historian and his Society. Fortress Press, Philadelphia 1984, ISBN 0-800-60717-1.
  • The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome. Studies in Cultural and Social Interaction (= Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums. Band 48). Brill, Leiden 2000, ISBN 90-04-11285-5.
  • Translation and survival. The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, ISBN 978-0-199-55867-4.

Edited volumes

  • with and Judith Lieu: The Jews Among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire. Routledge, London 1992, ISBN 0-415-04972-5.
  • with Gillian Clark: Philosophy and Power in the Graeco-Roman World. Essays in Honour of Miriam Griffin. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002, ISBN 0-198-29990-7.
  • with Sarah Pearce, and : Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers. University of California Press, Berkeley 2007, ISBN 978-0-520-25084-0.

Personal life[]

Rajak is the daughter of Lithuanian-English journalist S. J. Goldsmith. She is married to Harry Rajak, Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Sussex.[12]

References[]

  1. ^ Rubinstein, W.; Jolles, Michael A. (2011). The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History. Springer. p. 782. ISBN 0230304664.
  2. ^ "History Online".
  3. ^ "Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies".
  4. ^ Somerville College - Tessa Rajak
  5. ^ "SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online)".
  6. ^ "Jewish Virtual Library".
  7. ^ "Bryn Mawr Classical Review".
  8. ^ "Journal of Jewish Studies".
  9. ^ "University of Reading: Classics Staff".
  10. ^ "School of Humanities, University of Reading".
  11. ^ "Classics at Reading".
  12. ^ Rubinstein, W.; Jolles, Michael A. (2011). The Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History. Springer. p. 782. ISBN 0230304664.
Retrieved from ""