A minstrel plays for King Solomon | Illumination for opening verse of Song of Songs, in the Rothschild Mahzor (Florence, 1492) | Image Source
On AJR
Dissertation Spotlight! Alex Ramos. Torah, Temple, and Transaction: Jewish Religious Institutions and Economic Behavior in Early Roman Galilee. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2017.
Ramos: “This project is but a first step toward a more thoroughgoing investigation of the ways the economic decision-making was shaped by the constraints and incentives of religious institutional structures. In my conclusion, I muse about the avenues of inquiry I hope this study will open up for future research: continued study of the economic ramifications of other Torah laws; analyses of how these laws would shape economic behavior in other regions with differing ecology, settlement patterns, etc. (e.g., Judaea); or investigation of the role of other religious institutions (e.g., Christian, Egyptian, Roman) in defining economic rationality among other populations.”
Book Note: Karl Shuve. The Song of Songs and the Fashioning of Identity in Early Latin Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Papazian: “Shuve demonstrates that for some of its most prominent Latin readers, the Song was self-evidently an allegory about the Church and its purity. Origen, who justly assumes a prominent role in most accounts of early Song interpretation, was mostly irrelevant to these Latins because they did not view the Song as a mystery that required a sophisticated argument defending an allegorical interpretation. For them, the contentious matter was not whether the Bride represented the Church but what the implications of this ecclesial reading were. The central question for them was how the Bride’s depiction could help resolve problems besetting the church in particular regions and time periods.”
Articles and News
New entry at the site of the North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature – angelic investitures.
Digital Mappa 1.0 online – digital resource to facilitate linking images and texts.
New book tackles the link between secret knowledge and asceticism.
An Apollo piece on the Madaba map (from March).
Online recording of Annette Yoshiko Reed’s PSCO talk, “Forgetting Ancient Jewish Sciences.”
Shana Zaia writes about ancient Mesopotamian ways to finance a home for a god.
On the other magnificent mosaic at Lod.
Jennifer Barry reviews Todd Berzon’s Classifying Christians for Marginalia.
Augustine of Hippo in his role as patron saint of Authors Explaining Why They've Missed a Deadline. pic.twitter.com/rJh1omg1hu
— Richard Flower (@RichardAFlower) 19 April 2018
Really upset that I've discovered catawiki. I'm doomed!https://t.co/W89yoFuoLX
— Emily Steiner (@PiersatPenn) 19 April 2018
The city of Madaba in Jordan features a number of late antique floor mosaics from houses and churches, products of a local workshop. The most famous of these is the 'Madaba Map,' produced in the mid-sixth century and rediscovered in the 1890s. (1/5)
— Manar al-Athar (@ManarAlAthar) 16 April 2018
More: https://t.co/asS6Rh8eyk pic.twitter.com/JTBoZyChlV