ABSTRACT
It is an irony that a field that its founders thought would help to lift the veil of ignorance from Jewish culture and civilization and thereby reduce antisemitism has itself in some ways been afflicted by the very scourge it intended to help obliterate. The study of ancient Judaism raises numerous issues regarding antisemitism such as Greco-Roman antisemitism and early antisemitic (or anti-Judaic) literature, early Jewish-Christian relations, and antagonism to the Jews in Babylonia. What has been lacking in research is a meta-analysis that seeks to show how antisemitism has affected the study not only of ancient anti-Judaism but of ancient Judaism and Jewish history in Late Antiquity as a whole. The manifestations of antisemitism in the study of ancient Judaism, whether intentional or simply the result of bad scholarship, are not the entire story.
