Zollschan investigates the earliest relations between Rome and Judea. The focus of the book is on the embassy that the Hasmonean Judas Maccabaeus sent to Rome in 162 BC to seek the help of the Romans during the Maccabean Revolt, reported in 1 Macc 8. After providing a survey of scholarship on the question in the introduction, Zollschan argues in ch. 1 for the authenticity of the bronze tablet mentioned in the Mirabilia Urbis Romae, a medieval guidebook to Rome (ca. AD 1140), which states that attached to the wall of the church of San Basilio was a large bronze tablet “where there was written, in a suitable and conspicuous place, friendship between the Romans and the Jews in the time of Judas Maccabaeus.” This information agrees with the reference to a bronze tablet in 1 Macc 8:22 and in Josephus, Ant. 12.416 (p. 19).
In ch. 2, Zollschan...
