Carved marble sarcophagus section | 3rd-4th century, currently held in the Jewish Museum (New York) | Image Source
On AJR
Dissertation Spotlight! Sarah Emanuel, “Roasting Rome: Humor, Resistance, and Jewish Cultural Persistence in the Book of Revelation” (PhD Dissertation, Drew University 2017)
Emanuel: “As the title of this project suggests, Revelation “roasts” Rome—both humorously and via imagined incendiary flame (see Rev. 17:16; 18:8)—to the extent of creating a new world order in which the implied Jewish Other reigns supreme over and against the Roman imperial order. Rather than wallow in the repeated diminishment of a Jewish marginal self, the text combats Rome and Roman sympathizers via parodic and venomous depictions of them. In short, the text creates a comic counterworld—one in which Rome is fool and its implied Jewish counterparts thrive (or so they hope) under God’s new Empire.”
Book Note: Julia Watts Belser, Rabbinic Tales of Destruction: Gender, Sex, and Disability in the Ruins of Jerusalem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)
Tong: “Nevertheless, what remains most impressive, in my mind, is Belser’s willingness to wrestle with the moral ambiguity presented by her texts. As she notes in her postlude, Bavli Gittin presents a God who cares deeply about the suffering of individual Jews, while at the same time attenuating the presence of society’s most vulnerable: ‘This is a history of unshed tears, of unheard cries: the wronged wife, the raped whore, the slave boys bound to Roman beds, the daughters drowning in the sea––all the silenced voices that linger like a haunting in the margins of these tales.’”
Articles and News
Tony Burke on an adventure for Johannine Apocalyptica in Old Church Slavonic.
New review of the hugely important resources available at Papyri.info.
The first Philadelphia Society of Christian Origins meeting for the year, featuring Egyptology, Bible, and Blackness, now available online.
The 2017-2018 Frankel Institute annual is up, with contributions from Fellows for the year’s theme “Jews and the Material in Antiquity.”
Discovery of an elaborately painted Greco-Roman tomb in Jordan, replete with Aramaic inscriptions in Greek script.
Natalie Dohrmann at the Katz Center blog discusses the backstory and future of the Jewish Quarterly Review short note.
The Hill Museum and Manuscript Library online site, including extensive digital humanities resources, goes fully live!
Terrific discussion between editors of six massive ongoing translation projects.
Sarah Bond talks teaching Greek augmented by “digital contact” with ancient and medieval material.
Today is the Jewish festival of Succot. Part of the tradition includes eating meals outside in temporary huts. Some people enjoy this, some, like the girl in this image from 14th C Add MS 26968 (& Miri), do not #HebrewProject #succot pic.twitter.com/BcaXxwwwMz
— BL Hebrew Project (@BL_HebrewMSS) 24 September 2018
Today is the feast day of Thecla, an associate of Paul who baptised herself in a pool of ravenous seals. She escaped death in the arena but was still known as a martyr. I guess you can have it all. #HappyBirthday #saintsday #badasswomen pic.twitter.com/a0hjbMOnNn
— Candida Moss (@candidamoss) 23 September 2018
It’s dictionary show and tell day in Syriac class. Of course I’ll also mention https://t.co/qzeQljtJSI. pic.twitter.com/LYgBeZIPpN
— James E. Walters (@jedwardwalters) 25 September 2018