Skip to main content

David Goodblatt

David Goodblatt taught at UCSD since 1988. He received his A.B. from Harvard in 1963, an M.H.L. from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1966, and a Ph.D. from Brown University in 1972. He worked on the history of the Jewish people, Judaism and the Middle East in the millennium preceding the rise of Islam.

  1. Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia.  (Leiden: Brill, 1974).
  2. The Monarchic Principle. Studies in Jewish Self-government in Antiquity.  (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994).
  3. Historical Perspectives: from the Hasmoneans to Bar Kokhba in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, co-edited with A. Pinnick and D.R. Schwartz (Leiden: Brill, 2001).
  4. Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
  5. "The Jews in Babylonia 66-235 CE," The Cambridge History of Judaism Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 82-90.
  6. "The History of the Babylonian Academies," The Cambridge History of Judaism Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 821-839.
  7. “The Political and Social History of the Jewish Communities of Palestine c. 235-638,” The Cambridge History of Judaism Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 404-430.
  8. “Dating Documents in Herodian Judaea,” Herod and Augustus, ed. D.M. Jacobson and N. Kokkinos, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009, pp. 127-154.
  9. “Population Structure and Jewish Identity,” Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine, ed. C. Hezser, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 102-121.
  10. “’The Israelites who reside in Judah’ (Judith 4:1).  On the Conflicted Identities of the Hasmonean State,” Jewish Identities in Antiquity. Studies in Memory of Menachem Stern, ed.L.I. Levine and D.R. Schwartz, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010, pp. 74-89.
  11. “Neusner and the History of the Jews in the Land of Israel and Babylonia,” Henoch 31 (2009), pp. 2-13.
  12. “A Generation of Talmudic Studies,” The Talmud in Its Iranian Context, ed. C. Bakhos and M.R. Shayegan, Tübingen: Mohr Siebcek, 2010, pp. 1-20.
  13. “Tannaitic Traditions and Dating Documents in Second Temple Judah,” Halakhah in Light of Epigraphy, ed. A.I. Baumgarten et al., Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011, pp. 185-202.
  14. “Varieties of Identity in Late Second Temple Judah (200 B.C.E.-135 C.E.),” Jewish Identity and Politics between the Maccabees and Bar Kokhba. Groups, Normativity and Rituals, ed. B. Ecckhardt, Leiden and Boston, 2012, pp. 11-27.
  15. “The Jews in the Parthian Empire: What We Don’t Know,” Judaea-Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity, ed. B. Isaac and Y. Shahar, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012, pp. 263-278.
  16. “Who is the Brother of Jesus? On Tripartite Naming Formulas in Ancient Jewish and Middle Aramaic Inscriptions, Envisioning Judaism. Studies in Honor of Peter Schäfer, ed. R.S. Boustan et al., Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013, pp. 147-165.

Hasmonean-Herodian Judah: Identity and Culture.

  • HINE 102. The Jews in their Homeland in Antiquity.
  • HINE 103. The Jewish Diaspora in Antiquity.
  • HINE 108. The Middle East Before Islam.
  • HINE 170. Special Topics in Jewish History.
  • HITO 104. The Jews and Judaism in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds.