Kenneth Jones

Education

• Ph.D., Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology, University of California, Berkeley, 2006
• M.A., Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology, University of California, Berkeley, 2002
• B.A. Classical Languages, University of California, Berkeley, 1999, with highest honors

Specialties

Ancient History; Roman Near East; ancient perceptions of the Roman Empire

Research Interests

Dr. Jones’s main research interests lie in the Roman Near East and especially the interaction of Romans with the peoples and kingdoms of the Near East. His first book, Jewish Reactions to the Destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70: Apocalypses and Related Pseudepigrapha (2011), examined seven Jewish apocalypses and related texts written in the wake of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. The texts included 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, 3 Baruch, 4 Baruch, Sibylline Oracles 4 and 5, and the Apocalypse of Abraham. The study explored the variety of Jewish attitudes toward the Roman Empire in the decades after the cataclysmic events of A.D. 70. Dr. Jones is now beginning work on a monograph tentatively entitled Regional Politics and Roman Policy in the Near East, 192 B.C.-A.D. 117. The book will provide a general survey of Roman policy and activity in the Near East over three centuries from the Antiochene War through the death of Trajan. In particular it will examine the ways in which Roman policy in the area was formulated in response to the competing aims and aspirations of regional powers, both friendly and hostile to Rome. The study will focus primarily on the Roman experience in Syria and Mesopotamia. Another aspect of the study will be to see the ways in which Rome’s great eastern commanders personally shaped Roman policy in the region.

Selected Publications

Books

• Jewish Reactions to the Destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70: Apocalypses and Related Pseudepigrapha. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 151. Leiden: Brill, 2011.

Journal Articles

• “The Figure of Apion in Josephus’ Contra Apionem.” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 36 (2005): 278-315.
• “Alcaeus of Messene, Philip V, and the Colossus of Rhodes: A Re-examination of Anth. Pal. 6.171.” Classical Quarterly 64 (2014), 136-51.
• “Lycophron’s Alexandra, the Romans, and Antiochus III.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 134 (2014), 41-55.

Invited Lectures

• “Violence and Sentiment in History: Trojans, Greeks, Stormtroopers, and Mafiosi”, UTC Lecture in the Humanities, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, March 21, 2013.

Recent Papers

• “The Conflict of East and West in Propaganda of the Roman Period.” Association of Ancient Historians, Annual Meeting, April 10-13, 2008, University of South Florida, Tampa.
• “The Conflict of East and West and the Greek Understanding of Foreign Invasion.” Historical Studies Colloquium, April 25, 2008, Baylor University.
• “Provincial Attitudes toward the Roman Empire.” Classical Association of the Middle-West and South, Annual Meeting, April 1-4, 2009, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
• “Lessons from the Past: Coping with Rome in the Greek and Hebrew East.” Plutarch and the Second Sophistic, International Plutarch Society, American Philological Association, Annual Meeting, January 6-9, 2010, Anaheim, California.
• “Persia and Babylon: Understanding Rome in the Greek and Jewish East.” Historical Studies Colloquium, March 26, 2010, Baylor University.
• “The Conflict of East and West as Propaganda during the Antiochene War,” Classical Association of the Middle-West and South, Annual Meeting, April 6-9, 2011, Calvin College and Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids.
• “The Role of Armenia in Roman-Parthian Relations during the Julio-Claudian Period.” American Schools of Oriental Research, Annual Meeting, November 14-17,2012, Chicago.
• “The Aims of Antony’s Parthian War of 36 B.C.” American Philological Association, Annual Meeting, January 3-6, 2013, Seattle.
• “Regional Politics and Roman Policy in the Near East: Rome, Parthia, and Armenia.” Saint Louis University, February 4, 2013.
• “Marcus Antonius’ Parthian War and the Dynastic Politics of the Near East.” American Schools of Oriental Research, Annual Meeting, November 19-22, 2014, San Diego.