June 26, 2018

Made Tyrants by the Victory of Others

The colossal head of Constantine from the Capitoline Museum. This image of the emperor was recarved from a portrait of his fallen rival Maxentius, after the latter's death in battle against Constantine. (Wikimedia)

It would not be a mischaracterisation or an exaggeration to say that the late Roman state was a polity defined by civil war. Roman leaders at this time approached their rule ever cognizant of the fact that sooner or later, one of their subordinates could don the purple robe, stand before a provincial army, and be proclaimed emperor.

June 25, 2018

Book Note | Melania: Early Christianity Through the Life of One Family

by Jeannie Sellick in Book Notes

Melania, then, is a testament both to the impact the Melanias had on the nascent Christianity of the fourth century as well as the impact that Elizabeth Clark has had in shaping the study of that very world.

June 21, 2018

Week in Review (6/21/18)

by Ancient Jew Review

Ben Ezra Synagogue | Site of the Cairo Geniza, Old Cairo | Image Source

This Week: Sex in Sasanian Iran, the Cairo Geniza, Jubilees palimpsests, ancient birds, massive digital exhibitions – and more!

June 19, 2018

A History of Judaism: Martin Goodman at the Center for Jewish History

by Erez DeGolan in Articles

A History of Judaism, while marketed as a ‘popular book,’ needs also to be considered for its ‘innovative conservatism,’ that is, its between-the-lines critique of current academic tendencies, and its active decision to step back towards a historiographical approach to the study of religion that has mostly lost its holding among current scholars.

June 18, 2018

Book Note | Sexuality in the Babylonian Talmud

by Noah Bickart in Book Notes

The conclusion remains, as it does with many other cultural studies,[2] somewhat banal: Babylonian rabbis were caught somewhere between Christian Roman Palestine and Zoroastrian Persia.

June 14, 2018

Week in Review (6/15/18)

by Ancient Jew Review

Sixth-century mosaic of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman | Santa Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna | Image Source

This Week: Anatomy and virginity in late antiquity, Roman-Jewish tomb discoveries, Samaritans, false etymology, Pentateuch mysteries, papyrus furore – and more!

June 12, 2018

Dissertation Spotlight | Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity

by Julia Kelto Lillis in Articles

Roman Votive of a pregnant female, ca. 200 BCE - 200 CE (Wikimedia Commons) — Roman Votive of a pregnant female, ca. 200 BCE - 200 CE (Wikimedia Commons)

The multiplicity of virginity and the rise of anatomical definitions created both opportunities and problems for late ancient Christian reasoning.

June 7, 2018

Week in Review (6/8/18)

by Ancient Jew Review

Poster ad for the 1959 film, Solomon and Sheba | Starring Yul Brynner and Gina Lollobrigida, directed by King Vidor | Image Source

This Week: Teaching biblical epic, Jesus’ foreskin, ancient Israelite legal petitions, robots, Achaemenid Persepolis, early Christian inscriptions – and more!

June 6, 2018

Teaching Tactic: Critical Review of a Bible Film or Novel

by Rhiannon Graybill in Articles

Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments (1956).

“The trickiest part of the review assignment is getting students to understand what it means to perform expertise as a biblical scholar.”

June 3, 2018

Book Note | Prudentius, Spain, and Late Antique Christianity: Poetry, Visual Culture, and the Cult of the Martyrs

by Kathleen M. Kirsch in Book Notes

This book represents a step forward in Prudentian scholarship by situating the Peristephanon in its social and historical context.

May 31, 2018

Week in Review (6/1/18)

by Ancient Jew Review

Illustration of Job struck by disease | Folio 46r, Syriac Bible of Paris (BN, MS syr. 341) | Image source

This Week: Massive Syriac open access site launch, digital humanities everywhere, even more ancient animals, God’s wife, Dead Sea Scrolls – and more!

May 30, 2018

Animals in Late Antiquity

by Ancient Jew Review in Articles

An AJR forum featuring R.R. Neis, Janet Spittler, Beth Berkowitz, and C.M. Chin.

May 29, 2018

After Post, or, Animal Religion in an Age of Extinction

by Catherine Michael Chin in Articles

Ancient Roman fresco of a bird from the Villa of Poppaea, Oplontis, Italy, ca. 70 CE (Wikimedia Commons). — Ancient Roman fresco of a bird from the Villa of Poppaea, Oplontis, Italy, ca. 70 CE (Wikimedia Commons).

The human animal destroys itself through confusion over its animality, but it destroys other animals in that confusion too.

May 25, 2018

Week in Review (5/25/18)

by Ancient Jew Review

Caves cut into the rock | The site of Qumran, Israel | Image source

This Week: Grumpy donkeys, Christian milk, pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions, cult of saints, Talmud online, NAPS – and more!

May 23, 2018

The Uppity Donkey and the Distraught Rabbi: Critical Animal Studies and the Talmud

by Beth Berkowitz in Articles

Beth Berkowitz continues AJR’s Animal Forum: “Ancient texts like the Talmud allow us to take biopolitics back to their formative years, to reveal how animals came to occupy the margins of personhood and how their only partially suppressed subjectivities formed the backdrop for the emergence of the human self as we know it.”

May 21, 2018

Book Note | Raised on Christian Milk: Food and the Formation of the Soul in Early Christianity

by Dana Robinson in Book Notes

Figure from the sarcophagus of Marcus Cornelius Statius, ca. 150 CE, Louvre Museum (Image courtesy of Marie-Lan Nguyen)

Attention to the ways that the apparently natural is harnessed to specific cultural ideologies through our most basic metaphors of food is the first step in redefining what it means to “eat well.”

May 17, 2018

Week In Review (5/18/18)

by Ancient Jew Review

Roman mosaic of Dionysus riding a tiger | House of the Faun, Pompeii | Image source

This Week: Ancient Animals, Future Philology, the Acts of Thomas, Messianic Secrets, Jewish hex scrolls, state-of-field surveys – and more!

May 15, 2018

Animals in the Way

by Janet Spittler in Articles

Byzantine Mosaic, Istanbul, 5th c. CE (The Yorck Project - Image Source)

Janet Spittler continues AJR’s Animal Forum: “To be sure: the writings of many of the early Christian authors most closely associated with negative evaluations of animals are, upon closer inspection, much more complex than a cursory reading might suggest.”

May 14, 2018

Book Note | Rabbinic Body Language: Non-Verbal Communication in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity

by Erez DeGolan in Book Notes

Hezser treats body language exclusively and comprehensively, studying the phenomenon from head to toes and demonstrating its wide scope in classical rabbinic literature.

May 10, 2018

Week in Review (5/10/18)

by Ancient Jew Review

Byzantine-period mosaic of a stag | Caesarea, Israel | Image Source

This Week: Deciphering Dead Sea Scrolls, digital humanities, animals in late antiquity month, rabbinic smarts, bitesize podcasts, Greek race – and more!