Judaism in Asia Minor

Map B VI/18 of the Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients (with the title Die jüdische Diaspora bis zum 7. Jahrhundert n. Chr.),1 shows a considerable concentration of Jewish settlements in Asia Minor, with a higher density of Jewish communities in the West than in the East. The history of this Jewish diaspora in Asia Minor is a long one. It probably started as early as the fifth century BCE and continues till the present day.2 This chapter will focus on the roughly one thousand years between the beginnings of Jewish settlement there and the end of the Talmudic period (or the rise of Islam). The literary sources at our disposal are scarce, unfortunately: we have only a handful of references in pagan literary sources, several more in Josephus and the New Testament, and also some in Church Fathers and in canons of Church Councils; on the other hand, we have no less than some 260 Jewish inscriptions, by far the most in Greek (more than 95 percent), only a handful in Hebrew.3 On the question whether or not we possess Jewish writings from Asia Minor (perhaps some of the Or. Sib. and 4 Macc.) there is no scholarly consensus at all and we have to leave this question out of account.4 Archaeological remains are not very

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