Reviews for Pseudo Hecataeus, "On the Jews": Legitimizing the Jewish Diaspora

The average rating for Pseudo Hecataeus, "On the Jews": Legitimizing the Jewish Diaspora based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-06-15 00:00:00 Brett Forrester B. Bar-Kochva has put together the most in-depth analysis and argument over the authenticity of the supposedly Hecataean treatise _On the Jews_. As you can tell from the title, he does not agree with its authenticity, but doesn't approach the issue as have so many others who have doubted the veracity of the treatise in the past (for one, this author is Israeli and not a Nazi-sympathizing German from the 1930-40s). His arguments around the treatise are sound, even if I would argue that his analysis of the excursus are flawed. Definitely worth a read if you're interested in the question of how Jewish pseudonymous writers attempted to harness past, but famous, ethnographers to buttress their standing in the Greco-Roman world and how Josephus used this author to do the same.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-01-07 00:00:00 Jason Newton A book arguing for influence from the Arabic/Islamic world literature on the European literature, especially during the Middle Ages. Probably it's intended for specialist, so despite the low number of pages it's not very easy to follow. I don't know how influential it is in the field, but as a general reader, I find it to have several weaknesses: Not enough context is provided to explain technical concepts such as muwashshaha or about works such as Decameron, and also too many repetitions of similar complain about the lack of attention in the field.