"There are very few books that combine grand ambition with careful and skeptical scholarship as successfully as this wonderfully provocative book. Seth Schwartz takes on the very biggest question of Second Temple Judaism: how different were the Jews from the Greco-Roman society in which they lived? And he does so with sharp sophistication and profound learning."--Simon Goldhill, University of Cambridge"An important consideration of some vital questions in the study of Judaism in the Hellenistic period and late antiquity by one of its most original, well- informed, and intellectually rigorous historians. This book offers a new perspective on this formative period in Jewish history and will be much discussed."--Michael D. Swartz, Ohio State University"An original, interesting, and important book. Schwartz advances his arguments with much learning and methodological sophistication. I have no doubt whatever that this book will attract much notice."--Martin Goodman, University of Oxford