Introduction to the Theme: The Jerusalem Temple in History, Memory, and Ritual

Abstract

The following group of essays emerged out of a seminar held at the Association for Jewish Studies conference in 2015. As section heads of Jewish History and Culture in Antiquity and Rabbinic Literature and Culture, tasked to think about how to address gaps in our fields, we recognized that despite a large amount of scholarship available on the Jerusalem Temple and its priesthood, there was a dearth of cross-disciplinary scholarly exchange, especially between ancient Jewish historians and those of us who engage in literary analysis of rabbinic sources. As a result, our divisions joined together to create “The Jerusalem Temple in History, Memory, and Ritual,” taking advantage of the “seminar” format at the conference. Twelve scholars, each working with different source material and employing different methodological approaches, participated.