Elias Bickerman was Professor of Ancient History at Columbia University and Research Fellow at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
The last posthumous work of one of the greatest of all scholars of Judaism in Graeco-Roman antiquity...Note the power and brilliance, as well as the (as ever) bold and controversial character of its representation of Judaism and Jewish history in the period between Alexander and the Maccabees.--Fergus Millar Journal of Jewish Studies