The Oniad Sibyl: How a Greek Prophetess Became a Revolutionary Mouthpiece for Egyptian Jews - Hardcover

by Miguel Vargas (Author)

The Oniad community was a mercenary and priestly Jewish settlement in Greco-Roman Egypt. This community recognized an exiled high priest of the Jerusalem Temple as its founder and met its end after a Mediterranean-wide uprising that shook the foundations of the Roman Empire. This monograph attributes a group of rather puzzling prophetic narratives--filled with coded language, reused lines from Greek and Jewish literature, and confused historical references--to the Oniads. The thesis of this study is that each prophetic treatise responds to crises experienced by the Oniad settlement and, as a result, evidences its unfolding historical consciousness and hybrid literary culture in distinct phases of its existence.

Author Biography

Miguel M. Vargas, Ph.D. (2022), is a historian of ancient Mediterranean Jewish communities and Greco-Roman religions. His current projects focus on notions of prophecy in blended communities and interactions between ancient Jews and pagans, with an emphasis on cultural contact, exchange, and conflict.