Illustration of Christ directing John to write the Book of Revelation | Spanish Beatus manuscript, ca.1180, currently held in The Cloisters | Image source
On AJR
Dissertation Spotlight: Olivia Stewart Lester, “Prophets and their Rivals: Interpretation, Gender, and Economics in Revelation and Sibylline Oracles 4-5,” (Yale University, 2017)
Lester: “My book underscores the widespread and interrelated power dynamics of producing prophecy in the ancient Mediterranean. Appeals to true prophecy tap into broader networks of political, economic, and religious legitimacy. With respect to gender, I argue that John and the Jewish writers who produced Sibylline Oracles 4–5 use prophecy to create imagined worlds that participate in a larger ancient Mediterranean discourse of divine violence against prophets.”
Book Note: Mark Leuchter, The Levites and the Boundaries of Israelite Identity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)
Schwartz: “The reader who finishes Leuchter’s study might wonder whether they have in fact read a book about the Levites. After all, the book ranges so widely across both space and time, touching on so many central issues in biblical scholarship, that at certain moments, the Levites seem quite far from view. Yet whereas this could conceivably be articulated as a criticism, I suspect that Leuchter would tout it as a mark of success.”
Articles and News
Terrific piece by Michael Satlow on Rosh Hodesh from Bible to Talmud.
Recording of Eibert Tiglechaar talking ancient scribes, Dead Sea Scrolls, and dealing with “beautiful” versus “ugly” bookhands.
Dead Sea Scrolls Discoveries continues its release of articles for free download, celebrating its twenty-fifth issue.
Open access monograph on archaeology and the Egyptian desert during the Greco-Roman period.
Check out the Online Critical Pseudepigrapha, including its electronic critical editions.
STECA blog launches – intended as a hub site for early career researchers of Second Temple Judaism.
Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20) exhibited for the first time in seventy years.
National Geographic feature on extraordinary elite Middle Bronze Age Canaanite tomb at Megiddo.
Joint project between Sefaria and Penn Jewish Studies publishes Passover Haggadah interspersed with identified Genizah fragments.
If you are defending or have a student defending a dissertation in Ancient Judaism, including Hebrew Bible, Rabbinics, 2nd Temple or Late/Antiquity, Dead Sea Scrolls, or another related field, DM me about publishing a dissertation spotlight in @ancientjew!
— Krista N. Dalton (@KristaNDalton) 22 March 2018
Some musical/dancing goats for #InternationalGoatWeek #earlymusicday pic.twitter.com/ueF4IoQ3I2
— Tamsin Lewis (@Passamezzo) 21 March 2018
Academics: I give you my blood, sweat, tears, and very best ideas in small vials.
— Maia Kotrosits (@maiakotro) 15 March 2018
Publishers: Here’s $20 and an extra copy of your work.
Academics: OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH.