Illustration of Galen and other ancient medics | Vienna Dioskorides (ca.512), f. 3v | Image source

On AJR

Ancient Medicine Forum continues: Disability Studies and Rabbinic Resistance to the Roman Conquest of Jerusalem

Belser: “I read rabbinic texts through the prism of disability studies theory, in order to probe the cultural and political significance of physical and mental difference in early Jewish culture. Rather than taking disability as a straightforward medical category, disability studies hones critical tools to analyze how societies construct and contest notions of normativity and deviance, illuminating the way disability becomes a site for negotiating stigma and social power. In rabbinic accounts of the destruction of Jerusalem, the disabled Jewish body serves both as a visceral occasion for lament and a potent site of protest against empire.”

Book Note: George J. Brooke and Ariel Feldman (eds.), On Prophets, Warriors, and Kings: Former Prophets through the Eyes of their Interpreters (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016)

Matson: “When pieced together, these essays create a mosaic about biblical interpretation that is illuminating, challenging, insightful, and beneficial for any scholar related to the texts or reception of the Hebrew Bible.”

Articles and News

New version of massive database project, Clerical Exile.
On the difficulties of writing exhibit labels with the particular case of the Bamiyan Buddhas.
Spectacular shots of the Jerash theatre at the Manar al-Athar project.
Classical imagery and the Greeks in Bladerunner 2049 over at Eidolon.
Lily Singer-Avitz on the mechanics, risks, and potential rewards of radiocarbon dating for contextualizing the biblical past.
Worth visiting the Vatican Library online again, as they hit at 15000 digitized manuscript milestone.
Sarah Bond writes on Tyrian purple and indigo dyes, and those who worked with them.
A Museum of the Bible press conference report by the Biblical Archaeology Society.
Fantastic visual timeline of 3000 years of Arabic, from beginnings to the internet.

Twitter

Unfinished relief of Hercules carved in the 3rd century AD into a limestone block in a quarry outside of Nicaea (Iznik, Turkey). pic.twitter.com/RmPKilK2fs
— Following Hadrian (@carolemadge) 22 October 2017

The Golden Canon Tables, Add MS 5111, ff 10r-12r, Constantinople, 6th-7th centuryAD.... #history #medieval pic.twitter.com/eW3K506cWB
— GroovyHistorian (@GroovyHistorian) 25 October 2017

Just ordered one of these for the icon wall in my office // Saint Yoda Icon https://t.co/bieQaPrpKF pic.twitter.com/Ut1lSRieyM
— Eric Vanden Eykel (@evandeneykel) 26 October 2017