Deborah A. Green

In The Aroma of Righteousness, Deborah Green explores images of perfume and incense in late Roman and early Byzantine Jewish literature. Using literary methods to illuminate the rabbinic literature, Green demonstrates the ways in which the rabbis’ reading of biblical texts and their intimate experience with aromatics build and deepen their interpretations. The study uncovers the cultural associations that are evoked by perfume and incense in both the Hebrew Bible and midrashic texts and seeks to understand the cultural, theological, and experiential motivations and impulses that lie behind these interpretations. Green accomplishes this by examining the relationship between the textual traditions of the Hebrew Bible and Midrash, the surviving evidence from the material culture of Palestine in the late Roman and early Byzantine periods, and cultural evidence as described by the rabbis and other Roman authors.

Scent and Seduction in Rabbinic Life and Literature

The Aroma of Righteousness

Laurie Brink

Commemorating the Dead analyzes and interprets the material remains of Roman period burials in light of ancient texts. Is the move from columbaria to catacombs the result of evolving religious identities or simply a matter of changing fashions? What Greco-Roman and Jewish funerary images were "baptized" as Christian ones? In Commemorating the Dead, archaeologists, Roman historians, and scholars of Judaism and Early Christianity engage in a cross-disciplinary conversation on the mortuary practices of the late Roman empire.

Texts and Artifacts in Context : Studies of Roman, Jewish, and Christian Burials

Commemorating the Dead

"Studies aroma in Jewish life and literature in Palestine in the late Roman and early Byzantine periods. Uses the history and material culture of perfume and incense as a lens to view daily activities"--Provided by publisher.

Deborah A. Green

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