Bar-Kokhba: The rediscovery of the legendary hero of the Second Jewish Revolt Against Rome

Pocket intact FPD, Private Library Plate FLEP else content appears as unread and unblemished with light brown/gold gilt, cloth covered boards displaying no significant surface/edge wear.

Yigael Yadin will remain Israel's most famed archeologist of all time. Yadin, along with 3 other scholars, were each given a section of land (much like that of the Qumran community) to dig for evidence regarding the people that inhabited the caves thousands of years earlier.

This book starts off with the historical documentation of Bar-Kokhba by writers such as Eusebius and Dio Cassius, along with commentary from the Talmud and Midrash Rabbah. Yadin goes out of his way to provide this documentation in the back of the book (with citations) and to me, was the most valuable information of the entire book, outside of the archeological dig itself.

This book is very well constructed, but could have been better written at times. While he offers first hand accounts of his archeological dig, at times the book appears to be more of a diary entry than a novel. (Yadin also provides translations of Bar-Kokhba's letters as well as photographs of them.)

Among other finds at the site, the most intriguing is saved for the last chapter of the book and interestingly, has nothing to do with Bar-Kokhba, but of a Jewish woman named Barbata. She was a widower who saved all of her legal documents in a leather bound purse that was found in the same cave as Bar-Kokhba's letters.

This is a good addition to any library, however, wish the book contained more historical documentation of the Second Roman-Jewish war and Bar-Kokhba himself, even though the letters provide an abundance of information in and of themselves.

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