| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Middle East and Northern Africa

Eliezer Diamond. Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004. Pp. viii, 228. $45.00.

That asceticism plays an important role in rabbinic Judaism is a truism, but what has been insufficiently studied is its extent. Eliezer Diamond's book is dedicated to the exploration of this question. Insofar as possible, the book deftly channels rabbinic Judaism's manifold ascetic streams and eddies into five pools, each comprising a chapter of his book: the ascetic discipline of Torah study; delayed gratification and avoidance of pleasure; the language of rabbinic asceticism; the asceticism of fasting; and rabbinic attitudes toward fasting in Palestine and Babylonia. In the divisions within chapters, Diamond quotes, paraphrases, or cites the pertinent rabbinic texts and analyzes them in their own context by the light of contemporary scholarship. Written with eminent readability, his book reveals a mastery of rabbinic literature and opens vistas beyond the ascetic into the rich tapestry of rabbinic thought. In addition, by comparison, Diamond adduces references to, and occasionally excerpts from the Jewish Aprocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Josephus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament and other Christian literature, and, when dealing with Babylonia, the Zoroastrian Vendidâds.

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