A political, social, and cultural history of Jews in the Greco-Roman world, this course spans the conquest of Jerusalem by Alexander the Great in 322 BCE to Jerusalem's re-founding as the pagan city Aelia Capitolina by the Roman emperor Hadrian in 135 CE. Topics include: the rise of apocalypticism, the Maccabean Revolt, Jewish sectarianism, Messianism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, religious martyrdom, the destruction of the Jewish Temple, and Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora.