"Marx-Wolf demonstrates that these Platonist thinkers were closely connected despite the fact that one is a Christian and the other three are non-Christian. To this end, she reads these Platonists not in terms of different social or religious affiliations, but in terms of a shared paideia (2-3). She contends that this common formation explains elements of their thought that might otherwise be “surprising” such as Porphyry’s rejection of animal sacrifice."
Read MoreBook Note | The Scriptural Universe of Ancient Christianity
"Stroumsa makes a subtle move here, however: rather than suggesting, as many before him have, that there was a transition from cult-centered religion to book-centered religion, he argues that book becomes cult."
Read MoreBook Note | In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of An Islamic Empire
"Of course, explaining the rise of an Islamic empire as a response to decline in the Roman and Sasanian empires is not a novel approach. Hoyland departs in analyzing the Arabs as a “peripheral people” that had specific political ties to both the Roman and Sasanian empire and thus gained a broader perspective for their own political ambitions."
Read MoreBook Note | Jewish Messiahs in a Christian Empire: A History of the Book of Zerubbabel
"Himmelfarb’s incisive reading of Sefer Zerubbabel greatly enriches our understanding of Jewish messianism between the Second Temple period and the rise of Islam. By exploring common themes and figures in a wide range of sources, Himmelfarb works “backward” to uncover a vibrant “Judaism” that actively appropriates key elements of the Christian messianic narrative, much to the consternation of the rabbis."
Read MoreBook Note | Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches
"This is the theoretical point Morgan is interested in proving with this volume – that in the endless growth of language into new meanings, there are very few grand leaps and very many infinitesimal steps. The earliest Christians did not (yet) redefine faith, Morgan insists, but changed its focus – toward God and Christ alone, rather than that “shared circle of reasoning” that pistis/fides spun among gods and humans (p. 123)."
Read MoreBook Note | The People Beside Paul: The Philippian Assembly and History from Below
"How does an orientation towards “a people’s history,” following Howard Zinn, help scholars ask new questions about the context and content of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, a brief but important text in the Pauline corpus?"
Read MoreLearning to Read Talmud: Bridging Scholarship and Pedagogy
"Much as we write about the Talmud itself, we pay far less attention to the significance and contribution of writing about our teaching. With our book, Learning to Read Talmud, we aim to expand the research agendas of Talmudists to include scholarship on the teaching of rabbinic literature."
Read MoreBook Note | Late Ancient Knowing
"What these essays offer instead are provocative and stimulating inroads into the task of recognizing just how different the late ancient world may have actually been."
Read MoreBook Note | The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity
Jillian Stinchcomb booknotes Eva Mroczek's The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity, developing how Mroczek "presents a convincing native theory of text production."
Read MoreBook Note | Power, Ethics, and Ecology in Jewish Late Antiquity
California drought, 4th year via Bluesbby via Flickr CC 2.0.
Hylen - A Modest Apostle: Thecla and the History of Women in the Early Church
Saint Thecla and the Wild Beasts (ca. 5th century, Egypt)
Saint Thecla and the Wild Beasts (ca. 5th century, Egypt)
Since the 1980s, the story and figure of Thecla have featured in vibrant currents in scholarship. This new publication brings a fresh perspective to Thecla’s depiction in light of social expectations for women in the Greco-Roman world.
Read MoreAnthony, Crucifixion and Death as Spectacle
Crucifixion and Death as Spectacle argues that "the crucifixion that happened in the Umayyad era was undergirded by meaningful Islamic ideas that nevertheless had important precedents in late antiquity."
Read MoreKalleres, City of Demons
City of Demons "explores how demonically embattled cityscapes in the late Roman world were creatively structured and restructured by Christian ecclesiastical leaders."
Read MoreSmoak, The Priestly Blessing in Inscription and Scripture
Smoak argues that in writing the Priestly Blessing in the literary space of the book of Numbers, the authors – likely priests – found a novel way to solidify their ritual authority in blessing Israel.
Read MoreNeis, The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture
Neis’s book stands as a corrective to a long tradition that has assumed “a Jewish resistance to, or even incapacity for, vision” (p. 1).
Read MoreGager, Who Made Early Christianity?
John Gager's Who Made Early Christianity? The Jewish Lives of the Apostle Paul makes the case for Paul's commitment to Judaism.
Read MoreBook Note: Magness, Archaeology of the Holy Land
It shouldn’t take very long for the reader to recognize that a career’s worth of knowledge has been condensed and organized into this outstanding textbook—she had wanted to write this book for “more than twenty years” (p. xii).
Read MoreWilkinson, Women and Modesty in Late Antiquity
Kate Wilkinson’s Women and Modesty in Late Antiquity argues that Christian ascetic modesty was challenging work.
Read MoreKosmin, The Land of the Elephant Kings
Paul Kosmin’s Land of the Elephant Kings is an attempt to understand the royal ideology of the Seleucid dynasty, examining how this vast empire was constituted and imagined by its rulers.
Read MoreEdelman and Ben Zvi, Remembering Biblical Figures in the Late Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods: Social Memory and Imagination
Remembering Biblical Figures in the Later Persian & Early Hellenistic Periods is a new edited volume examining the biblical texts through the theoretical lens of social or collective memory.
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