Her innovation is bringing the male prophetic body, not just prophetic words, under consideration.
Read MoreBook Note | The Invention of Judaism
Originally delivered as a series of lectures at Berkley in 2013, Collins seeks to synthesize recent scholarly debates about the nature of ancient Jewish (or Judean) identity. In particular, Collins examines the role the Torah, or Law of Moses, played in the formation of a distinct religious and cultural way of life.
Read MoreBook Note | Greek and Latin Narratives about the Ancient Martyrs
Hans Leu der Ältere - Saints Barbara, Jerome and Agnes (ca. 1495) Schweizerisches Nationalmuseum, Zürich (Wikimedia Commons)
Hans Leu der Ältere - Saints Barbara, Jerome and Agnes (ca. 1495) Schweizerisches Nationalmuseum, Zürich (Wikimedia Commons)
With respect to this important set of late antique sources, Éric Rebillard’s texts, translations, and commentary of the most ancient martyr texts preserved in Latin and Greek are a valuable addition to the scholarly toolkit.
Read MoreBook Note | The Virgin in Song
In The Virgin in Song, Thomas Arentzen demonstrates the centrality of Mary within the “civic imaginary” of sixth-century Constantinople through an examination of Romanos’s characterization of the Virgin Mother in his kontakia.
Read MoreBook Note | Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals: The Talmud After the Humanities
M Tong with a book note on Mira Wasserman's Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals: "Wasserman’s book does something very important: it sets the table for a new kind of conversation––one where the Talmud can lead to a greater understanding of theory, not just the other way around.
Read MoreBook Note | Ecclesiastes and the Riddle of Authorship
In short, Bolin argues that the well-known interpretive problems posed by the book of Ecclesiastes, and in particular the shadowy figure of Qohelet, are generative.
Read MoreBook Note | Valuing the past in the Greco-Roman World
Valuing the Past in the Greco-Roman World asks how the past was defined, accessed, and valued in that period of time so often considered “our” antiquity (18) and provides an array of fascinating examples that work together to undercut notions of the value of the past in the past as in any way uniform or monolithic.
Read MoreAdrian's Introduction: An "Antiochene" Handbook on Biblical Exegesis
Adrian’s Introduction to the Divine Scriptures, likely dated to the fifth century, is our earliest surviving “Antiochene” handbook on biblical exegesis.
Read MoreBook Note | Urban Dreams and Realities in Antiquity: Remains and Representations of the Ancient City
Indeed, central to the volume are two implicit acknowledgements: 1) that the ancient urban “realities” are inaccessible to the modern scholar except by means of imaginative approaches, and 2) that urban “dreams” no less “real” than their material counterparts.
Read MoreBook Note | Divine Deliverance: Pain and Painlessness in Early Christian Martyr Texts
Divine Deliverance contributes to the rich variety of scholarship that examines ancient texts not for historical detail but for rhetorical effect.
Read MoreBook Note | On Prophets, Warriors, and Kings Former Prophets through the Eyes of Their Interpreters
Joshua Matson with a summary of the edited volume On Prophets, Warriors, and Kings, which contains conference papers from "various scholars who explored how the Former Prophets have been read, interpreted, and utilized throughout the ages."
Read MoreBook Note | The Christian Schism in Jewish History and Jewish Memory
Joshua Blachorsky with a book note of Burns' The Christian Schism in Jewish History and Jewish Memory: "Burns continues the trend of eschewing the traditional parting model and envisioning a split only after the beginning of the 4th century. But he does so with a novel lens, focusing on the rabbinic evidence."
Read MoreBook Note | Constantine and the Cities: Imperial Authority and Civic Politics
"Lenski’s book thus offers not a picture of Constantine at all, but a series of portraits artfully arranged – some by Constantine himself, some by his image-makers, and some by contemporary scholars trying to make sense of this complex, enigmatic, kaleidoscopic character. "
Read MoreBook Note | ReOrienting the Sasanians: East Iran in Late Antiquity
"Where others might be deterred by the paucity of evidence, the range of languages and disciplines required to make heads or tails of the area, or the lack of any preceding comparable work, Rezakhani refreshingly admits these difficulties and treks on despite – and perhaps even because of – them."
Read MoreBook Note | Religious Deviance in the Roman World
"Jörg Rüpke, Vice-director for Religious Studies at the Max Weber Centre of the University of Erfurt, argues that an analysis of Roman conceptions of religious deviance such as the celebration of Bacchanalia can illuminate normative Roman religion and aid in identifying individual religious behavior in the Roman world."
Read MoreBook Note | The Bible in Arabic
"Griffith opens a window onto an earlier scholarly world, showing how the production of the earliest Arabic Bibles—and indeed the production of Arabic Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as a whole—has been from the beginning a thoroughly interreligious endeavor."
Read MoreBook Note | Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion
"In a useful introduction, Shoemaker lays out the problem and the gap he wishes to solve and fill: scholars have tended to look at doctrinal texts on Mary and have all but ignored the presence of Marian piety in the first centuries. By charting a devotional rather than theological survey about the Virgin Mary, he aims to create a new narrative about her import in the early Church."
Read MoreBook Note | A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity
"With careful attention to detail and broad usage of a wealth of sources, Payne systematically deconstructs this idealistic bifurcation between Christianity and Sasanian culture. However, Payne dismantles this historiographical narrative, while simultaneously offering a completely new perspective on Persian Christianity by examining the various ways that Christians participated in, transformed, and even claimed Iranian culture as part of Christian identity."
Read MoreBook Note | The Life of Saint Helia
"While we cannot say that the text reflects actual debates that proponents of a virginal life were having, we can certainly point to it as an example of debates that they imagined they could or would have had similar confrontations. A close engagement with The Life of Saint Helia might therefore provide some insight into how the community—whether it be Priscillianist, Jeromian, or otherwise—attempted to locate themselves within the tradition of Scripture and its interpretation."
Read MoreBook Note | The Sentences of Sextus
Zachary Domach with an overview of Wilson's translation and commentary of The Sentences of Sextus: "his commentary exemplifies how a study of Sextus—and wisdom literature in general—reveals the intertwining of Greek, Jewish, and Christian thought as “actual ‘life’” in Late Antiquity."
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