Late thirteenth-century restored “Deisis” (δέησις) Mosaic | Hagia Sophia, Istanbul | Image Source
On AJR
Pedagogy month continues! Shayna Sheinfeld on Performing Apocalyptic Texts: Teaching the Eschatological Banquet from the Dead Sea Scrolls
Sheinfeld: “This type of reconstructive, engaged reading highlights the gaps in our ancient evidence as they try to recreate the motions depicted in the text, which shows students the challenge that professional historians face and helps to explain the reason for multiple scholarly interpretations. Using performance to teach apocalyptic texts is thus one way to engage our students in active, experiential learning, and to encourage them to think about these texts as artifacts of real people and communities.”
Book Note: Jordan Rosenblum, The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
Mandsager: “Moving from the Hebrew Bible, through Hellenistic sources, to Rabbinic and early Christian writings, Rosenblum investigates biblical and later Jewish dietary laws, seeking answers to this and other questions about Jewish foodways. In particular, Rosenblum compiles answers, or lack thereof, to the question of justification of dietary laws rooted in the Hebrew Bible: why do Jews eat certain foods and not others?”
Articles and News
Call for Papers for the British Association for Jewish Studies Conference 2019: “What is Commentary?”
A crash course guide to purity and holiness in ancient Judaism at Bible Odyssey.
Courtesy of Arthur Urbano, images of an Early Christian tomb on display in Thessaloniki.
Variant readings and dating problems on P.Mich inv. 5421, a manuscript of Job in Coptic found at Karanis.
Smart discussion of the use of ethnonyms in the Peutinger Table.
A remembrance of Yaakov Elman and his impact on the study of Talmud.
The Virtual Hill Museum and Manuscript Library site sees a full overhaul (still in progress!).
Superb piece at Marginalia on the complex history of the Dunhuang finds.
የእመቤታችን በዓለ ፍልሰት #Assumption of #Mary into Heaven is an ancient teaching, first found in the 5th c. The image of the Assumption might be a direct derivation from a #Byzantine iconography standard @britishlibrary Or 641 17th c @BLAsia_Africa #Ethiopian #Coptic pic.twitter.com/RXwzapDIGs
— Eyob Derillo (@DerilloEyob) 23 August 2018
Perhaps peak academic is realizing you can use article offprints of PDFs to wrap kitchenware for a move pic.twitter.com/YiN1HIjUJH
— Matthew Chalmers (@Matt_J_Chalmers) 19 August 2018
The angel provides a ram just as Abraham is about to sacrifice his son. From a late 16C copy of Jami’s Yusuf Zulaikha (IO Islamic 737) #EidMubarak #EidAlAdha #BLPerMss pic.twitter.com/gJuVh6JPFU
— BL Asian and African (@BLAsia_Africa) 20 August 2018