Review of Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity

H-JUDAIC REVIEW:

Bregman on Levine, 'Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity: Historical Contexts of Jewish Art'

Author: Lee I. Levine
Reviewer: Marc Bregman

Lee I. Levine. Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity: Historical Contexts of Jewish Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. Illustrations. x + 582 pp. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-300-10089-1.

Reviewed by Marc Bregman (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)
Published on H-Judaic (August, 2015)
Commissioned by Matthew A. Kraus

Jewish History in Late Antiquity through the Prism of Visual Culture

As the title suggests, in this imposing work, Lee I. Levine of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem presents, through the prism of visual culture, a broad survey of Jewish history from biblical times (circa 1200 BCE) until the rise of Islam in the seventh century CE. In the preface, Levine surveys previous related research organized according to various methodological approaches to the history of Israelite-Jewish art and alerts the reader to the structure of his own discussion. The first four parts of his presentation proceed in chronological order, while the remaining two parts deal with art-historical and sociological issues. ...