Naphtali Lewis

Naphtali Lewis (14 December 1911 – 11 September 2005) was an American papyrologist who published extensively on subjects ranging from the ancient papyrus industry to government in Roman Egypt. He also wrote several social histories of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt to make his research more accessible to non-specialists. He was married to the psychoanalyst Helen Lewis, and they had two children, John Block Lewis and Judith Herman, a physician who followed in her mother's professional footsteps.

Early Studies Lewis did his undergraduate studies in classical languages and French at City College of New York (AB, magna cum laude 1930) and earned an MA at Columbia (1932). He generally found the lectures rather mechanical but his curiosity in what was to become the object of a lifelong research interest was stirred where he did course work in his final year, when he read, together with Meyer Reinhold and Moses Finkelstein, the Zenon papyri under the direction of William Westermann.

Europe, 1933–1936 Lewis pursued further postgraduate studies in Europe with a fellowship from the American Field Service. After receiving a certificate at the University of Strasbourg (1933), he went to Paris where he pursued his studies on papyrology under Paul Collart, and more generally, trained as an historian under Gustave Glotz. He published an English version of his thesis much later in 1974 under the title Papyrus in Classical Antiquity. He spoke French fluently but with a Bronx accent.

He then moved to Rome and furthered his research for 2 years at the American Academy in Rome, working on the Fouad papyri.

Selected works Judaean Desert Studies: The Documents from the Bar-Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Greek Papyri, Israel Exploration Society (1989) Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt : Case Studies in the Social History of the Hellenistic World, Oxford University Press (1986), The Interpretation of Dreams & Portents in Antiquity, Bolchazy-Carducci (c1996), Life in Egypt Under Roman Rule, Oxford University Press (1983), Papyrus in Classical Antiquity, Clarendon Press (1974), Roman Civilization: Selected Readings: The Republic and the Augustan Age (Volume 1), Columbia University Press (1951), Roman Civilization: Selected Readings: The Empire (Volume 2), Columbia University Press (1955),

Full Bibliography Ralph Keen, "Naphtali Lewis: Bibliography," Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, 15 (1978) 2–8.