"The Librarian" by Guiseppe Arcimboldos. Public Domain.
"The Librarian" by Guiseppe Arcimboldos. Public Domain.
James Tucker (“The Role of Wisdom for the Scribe and Scholar”) considers how our understanding of the Qumran Community Rule and the Damascus Document might be informed by critiques of traditional philological concepts of “original text” and “work,” considerations familiar from Ben’s work on the complicated textual history of Ben Sira.
Read MoreBetty Blythe as the Queen of Sheba, 1921
Betty Blythe as the Queen of Sheba, 1921
Jillian Stinchcomb (“Ben Sira as a Baby: The Alphabet of Ben Sira and Authorial Personae”) shows how the persona of the sage and “author” we see in the early Jewish book of Ben Sira takes surprising--and sometimes shocking--turns in Ben Sira’s medieval afterlife.
Read More"Sarai Is Taken to Pharaoh's Palace" by James Tissot. The Jewish Museum of NYC.
"Sarai Is Taken to Pharaoh's Palace" by James Tissot. The Jewish Museum of NYC.
Dr. Jacqueline Vayntrub (“Voice and Presence in the Genesis Apocryphon”) considers how the voice and agency of Sarai in the Genesis Apocryphon, an Aramaic text from Qumran, complicates our ideas about the authoritative first person voice in Second Temple Jewish texts.
Read MoreFrancis Borchardt and Eva Mroczek introduce the "alternative Festschrift" in Dr. Ben Wright's honor.
Read MoreNine contributors consider many facets of Ben’s scholarship on translation, authorial personae and voice, concepts of text and transmission, wisdom and the sage, and Jewish identity in the Hellenistic world.
Read MoreMosaic of Mary and Angelic Court | Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna | Image Source
Mosaic of Mary and Angelic Court | Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna | Image Source
A New Year & Ancient Jew Review returns! This Week: Papyrus mystery, graphic novels, infinity, Elijah, Romanos, podcasts – and more!
Read MoreSilver Mirror (4th c. CE) - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Silver Mirror (4th c. CE) - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
If Gregory describes the aim or perfection of the Christian life as “never to stop growing towards what is better and never placing any limit on perfection,” how does mīmēis (Greek: imitation, representation) function within that endless pursuit?
Read MoreIn 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 More17th cent icon of Elijah and Enoch in Historic Museum in Sanok, Poland. Przykuta [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
17th cent icon of Elijah and Enoch in Historic Museum in Sanok, Poland. Przykuta [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Hilla Alouf's dissertation argues that "the Elijah traditions reflect the influence of not only the Torah-Centered wisdom tradition which viewed the law as the source of wisdom, but also the Apocalyptic-Centered and the Spirit-Centered wisdom traditions."
Read MoreMedieval Byzantine mosaic of Mary, with child and genealogy | Church of the Holy Savior in Chora, Istanbul | Image Source
Medieval Byzantine mosaic of Mary, with child and genealogy | Church of the Holy Savior in Chora, Istanbul | Image Source
This Week: Forgery, golems, posthumanism, medieval Africa, Jewish supernatural, #BigData antiquity – and much more!
Read MoreSaint Ignatius of Antioch - 10th century ceramic (Turkey) courtesy of The Walters Museum
Saint Ignatius of Antioch - 10th century ceramic (Turkey) courtesy of The Walters Museum
Sometime near the end of the fourth century, an anonymous scribe carefully read and revised the Ignatian epistles, extensively amending many of the letters and adding a few of his own in Ignatius’s name.
Read MoreM 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 MoreChrist preaches to the Cynocephali | From the Kievan Psalter (1397) | Image source
Christ preaches to the Cynocephali | From the Kievan Psalter (1397) | Image source
This Week: Ancient Animal Knowledge, Dead Sea Scrolls, piyyut and #Hanukkah2017, illustrated papyri – and more!
Read MoreCentaur - Bestiary, Royal MS 12 C XIX; 1200-1210 | Image source
Centaur - Bestiary, Royal MS 12 C XIX; 1200-1210 | Image source
How do claims, explicit or implicit, about what animals are—and what they do, suffer, or feel—reflect assumptions about what people are? And what types of knowing engage animals?
Read MoreTogether the essays of this volume explore the themes of Scriptures and Sectarianism from a variety of lenses, ranging from close study of specific texts to broad assessments of scriptural authority and meaning-making in the Second Temple Period.
Read MoreDetail of the sixth-century Hippolytus Mosaic | Madaba, Jordan | Image Source
Detail of the sixth-century Hippolytus Mosaic | Madaba, Jordan | Image Source
This Week: Syrian cultural heritage, Arab conquest, subversive biblical sexuality, Ecclesiastes, lived #lateantiquity – and more!
Read MoreLouvre Reproduction of the Law Code of Hammurabi via CC BY-SA 2.0 Mary Harrsch
Louvre Reproduction of the Law Code of Hammurabi via CC BY-SA 2.0 Mary Harrsch
When viewed in conjunction with the wealth of pertinent biblical and ANE sources, the biblical law of bailment can tell us about a law in its many contexts, about divine justice and compassion, about the interactions of law with literature, about everyday life in ancient societies, and about the earliest articulations of a legal topic whose relevance has persisted into the modern era.
Read MoreIn 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 MoreThe Oval Forum, Gerasa | Image source
The Oval Forum, Gerasa | Image source
This Week: Apocrypha upon apocrypha, German royalty, Jewish catacombs, pigeons in antiquity, biblical epic – and more!
Read MoreView inside of an arched burial niche or arcosolim inside of the Villa Torlonia catacombs. The walls, vault, and even the insides of the burial troughs were originally plastered and painted, but were subsequently damaged by additional burials in the back wall and above the original tomb covers. Photo: International Catacomb Society
View inside of an arched burial niche or arcosolim inside of the Villa Torlonia catacombs. The walls, vault, and even the insides of the burial troughs were originally plastered and painted, but were subsequently damaged by additional burials in the back wall and above the original tomb covers. Photo: International Catacomb Society
Ironically enough, at the time these stories, literally, made history, the catacombs for Jews remained "secret" and known to a minimal extent. Nevertheless, they, too, were seen as collective responses to ritual needs and distinctly Biblical traditions.
Read More
![17th cent icon of Elijah and Enoch in Historic Museum in Sanok, Poland. Przykuta [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1514987405965-Y10A3AY8PH8635QUSHX3/1024px-MHS_Eliasz_i_Enoch_XVII_w_p.jpg)
