Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity — Four Volumes
Tal Ilan’s four-volume Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity is the definitive, meticulously documented reference for every recorded Jewish name from the Hellenistic era through the early medieval period. Part I assembles all names attested in Palestine between 330 BCE and 200 CE, drawing on literary, epigraphic and papyrological sources and offering etymologies, provenance and prosopographical readings that illuminate naming patterns and identity in the Hellenistic and early Roman period. Part II completes the Palestine series for the period after 200 CE up to the Arab conquest, adds more than 3,000 new entries (including Samaritan names), and contains significant addenda and inscriptions from sites such as Elijah’s Cave that supply dozens of otherwise lost names. Part III documents the western Diaspora (Greek- and Latin-speaking lands) from 330 BCE to 650 CE with a vast epigraphic and papyrological corpus, discussion of biblical versus foreign-name usage, and analyses of how Jews were identified within largely non-Jewish societies. Part IV covers the eastern Diaspora (Aramaic- and Arabic-speaking lands) for the same chronological span, incorporating literary sources such as the Babylonian Talmud and important epigraphic evidence (notably Aramaic incantation bowls), and combines onomasticon and prosopography to explore identity and assimilation across centuries.
Why libraries and scholars choose this set:
- Exhaustive coverage: Together the four volumes register well over 15,000 named individuals and provide immediate, citable entries for each attested name.
- Interdisciplinary utility: The lexicon serves historians, philologists, archaeologists, and scholars of religion by combining etymology, provenance, textual citation, and prosopographical interpretation.
- New and revised material: Later volumes include substantial addenda and newly read inscriptions that expand and correct earlier records, making the set a living, cumulative resource for ongoing research.
