July 17, 2018

Early Christian Theological Anthropology and the Work of Classification: A Response to Todd S. Berzon

Section of the Tabula Peutingeriana featuring Eastern Dacia and Thrace, 1-4th century CE. Facsimile edition by Conradi Millieri, 1887/1888 (Wikimedia Commons)

Todd Berzon’s Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Heresiology, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity is a great book—sophisticated in its approach, challenging in the intricacy of its arguments, creative in its interdisciplinarity, and surprising in the ways in which it takes a genre that is easy to dismiss as trite and clichéd—that is, heresiology—and offers us a new lens with which to view it.

July 15, 2018

Book Note | At the Temple Gates: The Religion of Freelance Experts in the Roman Empire

by Brigidda Bell in Book Notes

Wendt brings together, in accessible prose, a series of fascinating characters that have been neglected by many classical scholars, and who are largely absent in early Christian studies, under the etic category of “freelance religious expert.”

July 13, 2018

Week in Review (13/7/2018)

by Ancient Jew Review

The Flavian Amphitheatre (Colosseum) | Rome, completed by Titus in 80CE | Image Source

This Week: New Huqoq mosaic, Jews in Rome, Nag Hammadi codices, Marginalia Origin Forum bonanza, heresy, Sinai palimpsests – and more!

July 10, 2018

Classifying Christians : An AJR Forum

by Ellen Muehlberger in Articles

Andreas Cellarius: Harmonia macrocosmica seu atlas universalis et novus, totius universi creati cosmographiam generalem, et novam exhibens. Plate 3. (Wikimedia Commons)

Taking the ethnographic disposition as a starting point allows us to see how heresiologists acted in line with many other ancient writers, beyond or before Christianity, who also meant to know the world around them.

July 8, 2018

Classifying Christians : An AJR Forum

by Heidi Wendt in Articles

In 2017, the Religious Worlds of Late Antiquity SBL section organized a review panel to discuss Todd Berzon's Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Heresiology, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity. During the month of July, AJR will feature the panelists' responses.

June 28, 2018

Week in Review (6/29/2018)

by Ancient Jew Review

Foot of the Constantine colossus | Courtyard of the Musei Capitolini, Rome | Image Source

This Week: Dead Sea Scrolls bonanza, big private money and biblical scholarship, the Alexamenos graffiti, Melania, Roman usurpers – and more!

June 26, 2018

Made Tyrants by the Victory of Others

by Adrastos Omissi in Articles

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!