Guide
Real and Imagined "Others" in Ancient Jewish Literature
4th Century BCE–6th Century CE
By Carol Bakhos
Related Primary Sources
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The Noahide Laws
8:4. Concerning the seven commandments that were prescribed to the children of Noah: Setting up courts of justice, [prohibitions against] idolatry, blasphemy, fornication, bloodshed, robbery, and…
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Unequal Treatment under the Law
Simeon ben Shetaḥ was working with flax. His students said to him, “Let us ease things for you. We will buy you a donkey, and you will not have to work as hard.” They went and bought him a donkey from…
Primary Source
Wisdom of Solomon on Idolatry
For the idea of making idols was the beginning of fornication,
and the invention of them was the corruption of life. [ . . . ]…
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Josephus on Greek Mythology
Then the Lysimachuses, Molons, and other such disreputable sophists, those deceivers of young men, revile us as the most inferior of men. I, on the other hand, would not have wished to inquire into…
Primary Source
Letter of Aristeas on Separation from Non-Jews
“You observe,” he said, “what kind of result is produced by conduct and associations, since people who associate with evildoers become perverted, and they are miserable in the whole of life. But if…
Primary Source
Philo on Separation from Non-Jews
But also, he says, do not enter into the partnership of marriage with a member of a foreign nation, lest some day conquered by the forces of opposing customs you surrender and stray unawares from the…