The contributions of this book offer for the first time an interdisciplinary approach to a better understanding of the emergence and development of Jewish art in the Late Antiquity and Early Byzantine Period. By understanding Jewish art in the context of late pagan and Christian art, culture, and society, analogies and interactions can be identified that point to similarities as well as to different meanings. Why are there figurative representations only in Judaism of Late Antiquity? How is this art related to the Anikonism of the Bible and rabbinic Judaism? Is Erwin Goodenough right, who claimed there was a stark contrast between the art of the synagogue and the rabbis? The art of late-antiquity appears in a new light by the common consideration of literary and archaeological sources, as well as Jewish, Christian and pagan art.