Diptych of Rufus Gennadius Probus Orestes, Ivory, ca. 530 CE (Victoria and Albert Museum)
Diptych of Rufus Gennadius Probus Orestes, Ivory, ca. 530 CE (Victoria and Albert Museum)
Unlike these Gothic queens, Amalasuintha was more than an instrument of diplomacy: she was diplomacy, a ruling mother who dealt with legates directly, without an interpreter since she knew so many languages
Read MoreTabula Peutingeriana
Tabula Peutingeriana
“Like a Roman idol marking a crossroads in a way that makes visible the danger and domination that was always there, focusing on travel allows writers ancient and modern a vantage point on interplays between materiality and ideology that otherwise might slip by us.”
Read MoreAnnouncement of the resurrection of Christ, from a C13 Peshitta Gospel | State Library of Berlin, Sachau 304, parchment manuscript 195 Bl., f.106v | Image Source
Announcement of the resurrection of Christ, from a C13 Peshitta Gospel | State Library of Berlin, Sachau 304, parchment manuscript 195 Bl., f.106v | Image Source
This week we return from break: forgery, apocrypha, disreputable professions, Syriac, material ancient religion, a liberal sprinkling of Samaritans – and more!
Read MoreIn fact, Bond argues, it is in part because of the indispensability of these professions that they were so stigmatized. The lowbrow, servile nature of these labors disqualified members of the elite from practicing them, but the dependency of civic institutions and day-to-day well-being upon them brought great wealth and power to those within the trade.
Read MoreEnglish Hebrew Psalter, open at Ps. 6:7-9:19, with extensive French and Latin annotation | MS. Bodl. Or. 621, f.2b, early thirteenth-century | Image Source
English Hebrew Psalter, open at Ps. 6:7-9:19, with extensive French and Latin annotation | MS. Bodl. Or. 621, f.2b, early thirteenth-century | Image Source
This Week: The resurrection, Bulgarian Byzantium, the Jewish Bible, Gospel books (or not), open access digital tools - and more!
Read MoreIgnoring, or at least unaware of, the disjointed discourses about gospel textuality and authorship within the first centuries of the Common Era, modern historians of ancient Christianity speak about first century gospel texts in ways unknown in the first and second century discourses about the gospel.
Read More“As Elledge’s book capably demonstrates, it is the diversity, complexity and adaptability of resurrection belief—the very attributes that make it so difficult for scholars to pin down—that characterized and facilitated its growth in early Jewish thought.”
Read MoreSo-called “carpet” page from the Burgos Bible | Dated 1260, from Burgos in Spain | Image Source
So-called “carpet” page from the Burgos Bible | Dated 1260, from Burgos in Spain | Image Source
This Week: Dissertation spotlight on the rabbinic bible, Pauline gift exchange, the Arabic Bible, tools for Hebrew, Bodmer papyri online, Judeo-Persian, piyyutim – and more!
Read MoreJulius Fehr (German, 1860-1900) “A Rabbi scholar in his study”
Julius Fehr (German, 1860-1900) “A Rabbi scholar in his study”
“I argue that that the rabbis are deeply concerned with the form, format, and divisions of the biblical text, and that these aspects of the text have a crucial role in rabbinic understandings of the formation and transformation of the reader.”
Read MoreA Spiritual Economy is a helpful addition to recent studies in gifts in the letters of Paul, and its multidisciplinary engagement contributes to the study of religion in antiquity and to broader conversations in history, sociology, and anthropology about gift exchange.
Read MoreSixth/seventh-century incantation bowl with Aramaic inscription | From Nippur, currently in the Met Collection L1999.83.3 | Image Source
Sixth/seventh-century incantation bowl with Aramaic inscription | From Nippur, currently in the Met Collection L1999.83.3 | Image Source
This Week: Responses to anti-Semitism, forged scrolls, Constantine’s daughter, commemoration in Roman Syria, Antioch through time, a menagerie of ancient fauna – and more!
Read MoreTower Tombs located in Palmyra, Syria (Wikimedia Commons)
Tower Tombs located in Palmyra, Syria (Wikimedia Commons)
Whereas most archaeologists of Roman Syria focus on discrete regions, de Jong is the first to undertake a systematic study of burials from across the province.
Read MoreThe basalt Tel Dan stele, C9-C8BCE | On display at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem | Image Source
The basalt Tel Dan stele, C9-C8BCE | On display at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem | Image Source
This Week: Ancient Jewish identity, Ioudaios in John, a crash-course in angels, assassins, Holy Land photography, collaborative apocrypha – and more!
Read MoreIvory casket that illustrated Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land, 900–1000 CE. At the Metropolitan Museum of New York.
Ivory casket that illustrated Joshua’s conquest of the Promised Land, 900–1000 CE. At the Metropolitan Museum of New York.
“In Judaism, as we saw, a bad Jew was still a Jew. The belief in shared ancestry was the anchor that permitted some to drift without breaking loose.”
Read MoreBut decoding slanderous language is not just a complicated task for modern scholars; the Gospel of John’s earliest interpreters also chewed over the anti-Jewish language in the text. In Exegeting the Jews, Michael Azar examines the earliest reception of John’s anti-Jewish language.
Read MoreMosaic of a philosopher sitting on a rock | Likely sixth century, currently housed in the Great Palace Mosaic Museum, Istanbul | Image Source
Mosaic of a philosopher sitting on a rock | Likely sixth century, currently housed in the Great Palace Mosaic Museum, Istanbul | Image Source
This Week: Full-body resurrection, rhetorician rabbis, invented Christianity, computational digital humanities, heaps of ancient pots, even more apocrypha - and more!
Read MoreBy shifting away from the relationship between resurrection and embodiment, I read “behind” or at least “around” the flashpoints surrounding the nature of the resurrected body.
Read More“Whether they received these forms from Cicero or came to them independently, the fact that the rabbis are not alone in producing these forms makes clear that the strategy is effective, and Hidary’s rhetorical analyses ably show what that strategy is. A literary work need not be efficient or conclusive to be persuasive.”
Read MoreSolidus of Constantine I (326CE, Rome) | Exhibited in the Bode-Museum, Berlin | Image Source
Solidus of Constantine I (326CE, Rome) | Exhibited in the Bode-Museum, Berlin | Image Source
This Week: Double book notes, Constantine and miracles, even *more* noncanonical scriptures, manuscripts everywhere, the Nubian Tomb of Peniut – and more!
Read MoreSarah Bond reviews Donna Zuckerberg’s Not All Dead White Men: “A new generation of classicists, archaeologists, and premodern historians have begun to realize that an insulated approach to scholarship is itself a form of privileged monasticism that we can no longer retreat to. In Not All Dead White Men, Zuckerberg looks into the crevices of the internet and into academia with a jussive command: “Fiat lux” (Let there be light). It is up to us to keep the lights on.”
Read More
