This book is the first ever monograph on the family of royal converts
from Adiabene including the broader perspective of the cultural and
political environment of Hellenistic and Parthian Adiabene. It collects,
arranges, and discusses all available sources on the topic. The study
consists of three parts. The first part is devoted to the longest
ancient account on the Adiabene royalty from all ancient literature -
Josephus, Ant. 20:17-96 (the Adiabene Narrative). It examines the
Adiabene narrative as Josephus's conscious literary product with all its
rhetorical features and ideological agendas. The second part deals with
other sources about the family of royal converts from Adiabene. One
chapter is devoted to the Rabbinic traditions about Queen Helena and
King Munbaz, another one discusses all Jewish and non-Jewish literary
sources that refer to the resting place of Queen Helena and to the
palaces of the Adiabene royalty in Jerusalem. Furthermore, it provides
an updated discussion of relevant archaeological sites in Jerusalem (Le
Tombeau des Rois and the Givati Parking Lot). The third part presents
the cultural and political environment of Adiabene from the third
century BCE to the third century CE. It discusses all available kinds of
sources: geographical and ethnographical texts, archaeological sites,
epigraphic and numismatic material, as well as onomastic evidence. One
chapter goes on to give a basic chronology of the Adiabene royalty in
the Hellenistic and Parthian periods, and the last chapter presents the
political environment of Adiabene and Judaea in the context of the
international relations between Rome and Parthia in the first century
CE.
