Mosaic representing Tabernacle with flanking menorah | Fifth-century synagogue, Tzipori | Image Source

On AJR

Dissertation Spotlight: Nathan Schumer, “The Memory of the Temple in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature,” PhD Dissertation, Columbia University, 2017.

Schumer: “The main intervention of my dissertation is to attempt to account for what rabbinic literature gets right about the past. It is just as historiographically significant that the rabbis are right about the Temple some of the time as it is that they are wrong. We need models that are able to account for both aspects of rabbinic literature.

I rely on social memory to provide a clearer model for why real memories of the Temple were retained. My claim is that the rabbis did occasionally attempt to recall individuals and figures associated with the Second Temple period and were at times successful in doing so.”

Book Note: Kevin von Bladel, From Sasanian Mandaeans to Sabians of the Marshes (Leiden: Brill, 2017)

Han: Van Bladel’s book is a significant contribution to the field of Mandaeism and will hopefully spur further interest in its neglected texts. Its interdisciplinary import is no less substantial. Indeed, if read next to recent monographs on the encounters between the Church of the East or the Babylonian rabbis with Sasanian power, van Bladel’s book demonstrates how unique the Mandaean “experience” with the Sasanians must have been.

Articles and News

Call for Papers online for the Association for Jewish Studies annual meeting!
Journal of Early Christian Studies wins the Codex Award from the MLA Council of Editors of Learned Journals.
The Newberry Library makes more than 1.7 million historical images free for fair use.
Reminder of the launch of Oxford University’s fantastic Paul and Patristics database, providing searchable access to over 27,000 entries.
March news from the Katz Center involves announcements for the annual Gruss Colloquium as well as new publications and journal issues.
A special issue podcast from the Alabama Department of Religious Studies reflecting on the life and work of Jonathan Z. Smith.
Winter issue of Jewish Quarterly Review includes excellent piece surveying benot Israel in ancient Jewish writings.
Interactive map of the Res Gestae underway, courtesy of Sarah Bond and her pedagogical escapades.
A refreshed and updated list of female writers from antiquity hosted at Sententiae Antiquae.

Twitter

For #internationalwomensday2018, we thought we would spotlight the #HebrewProject manuscript Add MS 26957, a 15th C Italian prayer book containing unique representations of women participating in Jewish rituals, you can read more about it here: https://t.co/flZIX1I3XD pic.twitter.com/GzYXc8jTml
— BL Hebrew Project (@BL_HebrewMSS) 8 March 2018

If you were designing a "Critical Intro to the New Testament" syllabus (Masters level), what textbook(s) would you use?
— James E. Walters (@jedwardwalters) 2 March 2018

When in doubt, dress in gold: John of Damascus, Cyril of Alexandria, Philo and Josephus on the margins of a 9th C. copy of Sacra parallela #Byzantium

BN Grec. 923https://t.co/vkrTjh1Pk2 pic.twitter.com/er4X8knLaP
— Mateusz Fafinski (@Calthalas) 7 March 2018