Stories the Rabbis Did Not Tell: Chapters in Late Antique and Early Medieval Jewish History

We often refer to Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages as "the Rabbinic Period," on account of the massive literary production of the rabbis, including the two Talmuds and many midrashic works. But there is a wide-ranging and rich Jewish history known from Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Arabic sources that is entirely ignored in rabbinic literature. These non-Jewish sources offer fascinating glimpses into Jewish history but they're few, and often biased against Jews. How can the historian separate real historical Jews from the symbolic Jews conjured out of Christian and Muslim theological prejudice? In this course, Professor Astren takes up that question, telling stories the rabbis did not tell.

• Readers interested in Jewish history beyond the rabbinic and Talmudic sources
• Anyone curious how Jews appear in Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Arabic historical sources
• Students of Late Antiquity, the early medieval world, or Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations
• Anyone interested in how historians read biased or hostile sources critically

• A fuller picture of Jewish history in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, beyond the "Rabbinic Period"
• Familiarity with how Jews are depicted in Christian and Muslim historical writing
• Tools for evaluating historically biased or theologically motivated sources
• A sharper sense of the line between historical Jews and symbolic ones