Friends of ASOR present the next webinar of the 2025-2026 season on October 29, 2025, at 12:00 pm EDT, presented by Dr. Ory Amitay. This webinar will be free and open to the public. Registration through Zoom (with a valid email address) is required. This webinar will be recorded and all registrants will be sent a recording link in the days following the webinar.

The episode of Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem is familiar mostly through the story of Flavius Josephus. This version of the story dominates not only the public imagination but also scholarly discussion. It is generally assumed that Josephus’ story is derived from the earliest source(s) relating the story; it is consequently also the most often discussed in scholarship, mostly at the expense of any discussion of the other versions of the story. A main conclusion of Dr. Amitay’s recent book, Alexander the Great in Jerusalem: Myth and History (2025, Oxford UP), is that among the four different versions of the Alexander in Jerusalem story – which are quite different from one another – Josephus’ version is not the earliest but rather the latest, and clearly relies on two earlier versions. A second conclusion, which conforms with the consensus of previous scholarship, is that the story, in all its versions, cannot be regarded as history; it is a political myth. Therefore, rather than look in the stories for clues that might reveal some details about the history of Alexander, Dr. Amitay analyzed each of the stories for indicators that would reveal the respective contexts of their creation.

All these contexts taken together bring us to the third major conclusion, a common denominator that dominates the tradition as a whole: new stories of Alexander in Jerusalem (at least the ones that reached us) were born as a result of a major change in the relationship between the people of Judea and their foreign rulers. These major changes include the Seleukid takeover of the southern Levant, the first arrival of Roman arms in Judea, the abolishment of Judean kingship and the institution of provincia Judaea, and the rearrangement of Judea as an independent province after the destruction of the temple. Given the continued status of Judea as a province of some empire or other during the second temple period (Hasmonean period excluded), and the suddenness and totality of the change brought about by Alexander, it is small wonder that his arrival in Jerusalem became the subject of political myths dealing with major shifts in the relationship of Judea with its foreign rulers.

For the last twenty odd years, Ory Amitay has been teaching and conducting research in the University of Haifa. His research is situated at the intersection of two crossroads: one between myth and history, the other between various peoples of the ancient west. The topic of his new book, and of this lecture, is a clear example. Amitay’s main research strategy in analyzing historical (or rather pseudo-historical) myths is locating the obvious false factoids – parts of the story that are in blatant contradiction to known historical facts – and interpreting them not as the products of carelessness or ignorance, but rather as intentional fabrications. As such, they have both a context, where they make sense historically, and an agenda. The underlying assumption is that false factoids are fabricated with a purpose in mind. The goal is to identify both context and agenda.

In terms of teaching, Amitay has taught courses on the Hellenistic world; Archaic Rome; Imperial Rome; Athenian Democracy and Empire; Hellenistic History; Second Temple Judaism; Myth and History; and is the author of an online course called The Ancient West, treating the area from eastern Iran to the Atlantic, from the Neolithic Revolution to the age before the rise of Islam. He has also led field coursework in Rome and Athens.

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Friends of ASOR is pleased to announce that the first webinars of the 2025-2026 season will once again be free and open to the public with a goal to raise $10,000 so that the entire webinar season will be free. Will you support this outreach effort with a tax-deductible contribution? All donors/sponsors with gifts of $100 or more will be recognized in subsequent webinars. Help ensure these webinars stay free and available to all by donating today!

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