March 26, 2019

Unexpected Influences | In the Eye of the Animal: Zoological Imagination in Ancient Christianity

Lion, detail of mosaic, Mount Nebo (Mosaics of Jordan, fig. 219 on p. 169). Chapel of the Priest John at Khirbat-al-Mukhayyat, Jordan 565 CE. Courtesy of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Mount Nebo, and the American Center of Oriental Resear… — Lion, detail of mosaic, Mount Nebo (*Mosaics of Jordan*, fig. 219 on p. 169). Chapel of the Priest John at Khirbat-al-Mukhayyat, Jordan 565 CE. Courtesy of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Mount Nebo, and the American Center of Oriental Research, Amman. Permission obtained by author.

The intellectual climate had changed, and I saw that I needed to situate my work as an historian in contemporary animal theorizing in order to be responsive to the interpretive richness of this new cultural moment in scholarship and to develop a vocabulary that might enable a reading “otherwise” of ancient Christian texts that feature animals.

March 25, 2019

Book Note | Patristic Theories of Biblical Interpretation: The Latin Fathers

by James Walters in Book Notes

Pietro della Vecchia, A Dispute among (possibly) the Four Doctors of the Church (1654) Wikimedia Commons

The selection of ancient authors covered in this volume is governed by the explicit criterion that the ancient author must discuss something that may be surmised to be a “theory” of biblical interpretation. That is, the articles included do not simply survey how exegesis was practiced amongst Latin authors in late antiquity. Rather, they concern themselves specifically with Latin authors who articulated their hermeneutical method.

March 21, 2019

Week in Review (3/22/19)

by Ancient Jew Review

Mordechai and Esther | Painted wood synagogue panel, Dura-Europos (Syria) | Image Source

This Week: Chag Purim Sameach, Esther under Islam, renewing philology, global history, deathbed moments, Sasanian manuscripts – and more!

March 21, 2019

What can pre-modern Muslims tell us about the Hebrew Bible?

by Adam Silverstein in Articles

King Ahashverush and the maidens, Shahin, Ardashir-nameh, Persia, 2nd half of the 17th century (Berlin, Staatbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz) — King Ahashverush and the maidens, *Shahin, Ardashir-nameh*, Persia, 2nd half of the 17th century (Berlin, Staatbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz)

“There is evidence that Persian Muslims and Jews shared notions about the story that united them on the one hand and distinguished them from their coreligionists elsewhere on the other.”

March 18, 2019

Book Note | Secret Groups in Ancient Judaism

by James Tucker in Book Notes

James Tucker reviews Michael Stone’s Secret Groups in Ancient Judaism: “An analysis of the insider and outsider sources can illuminate how secrecy and esotericism were realized apropos the social practices of initiation, graded revelation, and hierarchical structure.”

March 15, 2019

Week in Review (3/15/19)

by Ancient Jew Review

Limestone statue of Heracles | C1st-2nd CE, excavated at Hatra (Iraq), on display in Tokyo National Museum | Image Source

This Week: Marriage in Arabia, martyrs, Jewish Coptic magic, Syriac offerings galore, Geniza crowdsourcing, papyrus petitions – and more!

March 13, 2019

Creating Christian Marriage in Early Islamic Arabia

by Lev Weitz in Articles

xWeitz,P20book,P20cover.jpg.pagespeed.ic.xgxuSR-qQ9.jpg

"Do Christians have to marry in churches? Historically, many Christian theologians have said “yes.” But they haven’t always. It wasn’t until the tenth century, for example, that the Byzantine emperor made a church ceremony a required element of marriage for Orthodox Christians. Nor was Constantinople at the forefront of the matter.”

March 11, 2019

Book Note | Christian Martyrs under Islam

by Josh Mugler in Book Notes

Sahner’s book fills a noteworthy gap in studies of martyrdom, which have generally been limited to the earliest centuries of Christianity and have ignored later developments.

March 7, 2019

Week in Review (3/8/19)

by Ancient Jew Review

Greco-Roman statue of a philosopher, associated with Apollonius of Tyana | Late second-third century CE, currently at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum | Image Source

This Week: More goyim, narrative and ritual, Ezekiel’s tomb in Iraq, burning papyri, Apollonius of Tyana, Geniza transcription crowd-sourcing, Assyriology online – and more!

March 6, 2019

Dissertation Spotlight | Story and Sacrifice: Ritual, Narrative, and the Priestly Source

by Liane Feldman in Articles

Joshua passing the River Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant by Benjamin West, 1800 — *Joshua passing the River Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant* by Benjamin West, 1800

Liane M. Feldman, “Story and Sacrifice: Ritual, Narrative, and the Priestly Source,” PhD Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2018.

March 4, 2019

Paul, the Gentiles, and the Other(s) in Jewish Discourse

by Cavan Concannon in Articles

The Apostle Paul in St. Sophia of Kyiv via Wiki Commons.

Cavan Concannon responds to Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi’s book, Goy: Israel’s Multiple Others and the Birth of the Gentile in the AJR review forum.

February 27, 2019

The Goy: A Synchronic Proposal

by Christine Hayes in Articles

“Moses receiving the law” in the Basilica of San Vitale is a church in Ravenna, Italy, — “Moses receiving the law” in the Basilica of San Vitale is a church in Ravenna, Italy,

Christine Hayes responds to Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi’s book, Goy: Israel’s Multiple Others and the Birth of the Gentile in the AJR review forum.

February 25, 2019

Ethnic and Cultural Identities in the Rabbinic Goy Discourse

by Yair Furstenberg in Articles

Isaac, Jacob, and Esau at Cathedral of Monreale, Italy via Wiki Commons.

Yair Furstenberg responds to Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi’s book, Goy: Israel’s Multiple Others and the Birth of the Gentile in the AJR review forum.

February 20, 2019

The Perils of Polarization

by Cynthia Baker in Articles

Portrait of Ezra, from folio 5r of The Codex Amiatinus. © Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana

Cynthia Baker responds to Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi’s book, Goy: Israel’s Multiple Others and the Birth of the Gentile in the AJR review forum.

February 18, 2019

Goy: An AJR Forum

by Ancient Jew Review in Articles

The AJR review forum of Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi’s book, Goy: Israel’s Multiple Others and the Birth of the Gentile. With responses from Cynthia Baker, Yair Furstenberg, Christine Hayes, and Cavan Concannon.

February 18, 2019

Why Goy?

by Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi in Articles

Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi open the AJR review forum of their book, Goy: Israel’s Multiple Others and the Birth of the Gentile.

February 11, 2019

Book Note | The Origins of Midrash

by Yitz Landes in Book Notes

Yitz Landes reviews Paul Mandel’s The Origins of Midrash: From Teaching to Text.

February 7, 2019

Week in Review (2/8/19)

by Ancient Jew Review

Ca. early fourth-century painting of a woman | Catacomb of Calixtus, Rome | Image Source

This Week: Hypatia, translational twists and turns, Job and reparations, the problem with “Judeo-Christian,” JQR behind-the-scenes, Cairo Genizah – and more!

February 7, 2019

Affect and Early Christian Identity

by Ancient Jew Review in Articles

Papers from the 2018 Society of Biblical Literature’s review panel on Maia Kotrosits’s Rethinking Early Christian Identity: Affect, Violence, and Belonging (Fortress, 2015).

February 7, 2019

Job, White Privilege, and the Case for Reparations

by Thomas M. Bolin in Articles

The Figure of Job - Folio 46r from the Syriac Bible of Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale, MS syr. 341) Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Nevertheless, I characterize the book as more protean. It resists reductive readings, always offering a counter-text to any interpretation (including the one in this essay.)