Virgin Mary and child | Apse mosaic, Santa Maria Assunta, Venice | Image Source
Virgin Mary and child | Apse mosaic, Santa Maria Assunta, Venice | Image Source
This Week: On anti-Jewishness, #digitalhumanities, palaeography online, photo archives, lullabies, Second Temple Torah – and more!
Read MoreSaint Augustine (Wikimedia Commons)
Saint Augustine (Wikimedia Commons)
To call a gentile Christian a “Jew” was likewise to accuse him of being un-Christian, indeed of being anti-Christian. The heretical Christian “Jew” – whatever current Christian doctrinal enemy that might be – was thereby identified with the scriptural enemies of Paul, of Jesus, and of God.
Read MoreOriginally 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 MoreDetail of mother feeding child | Sarcophagus of Marcus Cornelius Statius, c.150CE, currently in the collection of the Louvre | Image Source
Detail of mother feeding child | Sarcophagus of Marcus Cornelius Statius, c.150CE, currently in the collection of the Louvre | Image Source
This Week: Fragments, #pedagogy, ancient medicine, visualizing Jesus, talking race – and more!
Read MoreFragmentary Colossal Head of a Youth, Greek, Hellenistic Period, 2nd century B.C.E., Marble
Berlin, Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (AvP VII 283) / Antikensammlung
Fragmentary Colossal Head of a Youth, Greek, Hellenistic Period, 2nd century B.C.E., Marble
Berlin, Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (AvP VII 283) / Antikensammlung
Whose voices from the past have been preserved, whose voices have been lost, and what is at stake, ethically and methodologically, for whose voices, past and present, we choose to hear today?
Read MoreRoman marble plaque showing parturition scene, 400BCE - 300CE (Ostia, Italy) - UK Science Museum
Roman marble plaque showing parturition scene, 400BCE - 300CE (Ostia, Italy) - UK Science Museum
Lehmhaus’s talk pointed to exciting possibilities for future scholarship which grapple with how to fully understand the multipolar functions, within rabbinic literature and beyond it, of discrete bits of scientific or medical data embedded in rabbinic texts.
Read MoreMosaic inscription from Rehov Synagogue | Beth Shean Valley, C6-C7CE | Image Source
Mosaic inscription from Rehov Synagogue | Beth Shean Valley, C6-C7CE | Image Source
This Week: #digitalhumanities, Museum of the Bible, magic and apotropaic amulets, classification and classics, podcasts – and more!
Read MorePhoto courtesy of author
Photo courtesy of author
Perhaps we should trip in the same way on that word “museum.” We should attend to the stories museums and colonies tell about themselves; we should be cognizant of their designs on the body.
Read MorePhoto courtesy of Jill Hicks-Keeton
Photo courtesy of Jill Hicks-Keeton
The issue that concerns this paper is not how the MOTB lends credence to creationist claims, although this must be addressed to some extent, but how the MOTB becomes party to a disturbing misrepresentation of Jews and Judaism at the AiG attractions.
Read MoreVaulted ceiling painting | Bathhouse at Qusayr Amra, Jordan | Image Source
Vaulted ceiling painting | Bathhouse at Qusayr Amra, Jordan | Image Source
This Week: Museum of the Bible, ancient Christian martyrs, demons, race and ethnicity, #digitalhumanities 3D monasteries – and more!
Photo courtesy of the author
Photo courtesy of the author
"While making pretenses to neutrality, the Museum of the Bible is fundamentally a political project attempting to define what the Bible is and who owns it."
Read MoreThis panel sparked further discussion among scholars and the broader public, such as in a Washington Post article. In collaboration with AJR, scholars from this panel will be sharing their work with the larger scholarly community and the public.
Read MoreHans 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 MoreBen Sira, from the Fugger Honorary | Illustration from the workshop of Jörg Breu, c.1545-49 | Image Source
Ben Sira, from the Fugger Honorary | Illustration from the workshop of Jörg Breu, c.1545-49 | Image Source
This Week: Reviews galore, Cairo Genizah, #pedagogy, a fabulous digital festschrift for a pivotal scholar of Second Temple Judaism – and more!
Read MoreSean Adams (“On Ben Wright and the Modeling of Scholarship”) engages Ben’s work on genre theory to consider how the Letter of Aristeas might be read alongside Greek symposia, and offers a retrospective on the work and example of an inspiring teacher.
Read MoreJudgement of Solomon by Antoine Sallaert in Stedelijke Administratie Roeselare. Public Domain.
Judgement of Solomon by Antoine Sallaert in Stedelijke Administratie Roeselare. Public Domain.
James Nati (“Solomon, the Septuagint, and Second Temple Studies”) illustrates how crossing generic and canonical boundaries—in his case study, reading Ben Sira and the Septuagint side by side—can reveal new insights about how early Jewish traditions developed.
Read More11th Century Manuscript of Letter of Aristeas from Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
11th Century Manuscript of Letter of Aristeas from Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
Jason M. Zurawski (“Education as Demonstrated and Education as Discussed in the Letter of Aristeas”) shows how we might enrich our understanding of ancient education by reading both for a text’s ideology and rhetoric, and for its unwittingly revealed social context, while knowing the difference between these two kinds of evidence.
Read MoreZodiac mosaic at the Beit Alpha synagogue.
Zodiac mosaic at the Beit Alpha synagogue.
Francis Borchardt (“Erasing the Hyphen from the Study of Early Judaism”) builds on Ben’s work on Hellenistic Jewish ethnicity to discuss how to think about Jewish self-definition in the Hellenistic period, in light of the great diversity of the sources, practices, and communities we call Jewish.
Read MorePrint introducing Sirach from 17th century Claes Janszoon Visscher Dutch Polyglot Bible
Print introducing Sirach from 17th century Claes Janszoon Visscher Dutch Polyglot Bible
Elisa Uusimäki’s essay (“Emulation in Ben Sira and its Hellenistic Context”) shows how the idea of the sage might be better understood by reading Jewish texts like Ben Sira together with non-Jewish Greek philosophical writing on how to learn virtue.
Read MoreThe Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. Attribution: © Hans Hillewaert
The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. Attribution: © Hans Hillewaert
Stewart Moore (“The Translation of the Torah in Alexandria and the Relevance of the Rosetta Stone”) engages Ben’s scholarship on the purpose of the Septuagint translation, highlighting its possible implications for the ethnic identity of Judeans in Egypt.
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