Because of its breadth, Priests in Exile is bound to become essential reading, not only for those interested in Oniad history, but also for anyone interested in Egyptian Judaism or Hellenistic-Jewish literature.
Read MorePublications | Mary, Mother of Martyrs
My book is about this question: why tie mothers so easily and naturally to notions of self-sacrifice? Why assume that mothers will resemble the martyrs?
Read MoreBook Note | Divine Bodies: Resurrecting Perfection in the New Testament and Early Christianity
Doubting Saint Thomas, Béla Iványi Grünwald (unknown date); Oil on canvas. Image courtesy of Wikimedia.
“Given as a Sign”: Circumcision and Bodily Discourse
“Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time” by Joshua Koffman, currently at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia
“Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time” by Joshua Koffman, currently at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia
Dr. M Adryael Tong provides an overview of her recent dissertation, “Given as a Sign”: Circumcision and Bodily Discourse in Late Antique Judaism and Christianity: “Traditional classification of early Christian and Jewish texts on circumcision into binary opposition cannot be substantiated once we look beneath disagreement over the practice of circumcision on the surface.”
Read MoreBook Note | Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle
Trotti, Giovanni Battista, Circle of, Italian; 1555-1619. 1590-1610. Saint Paul. Drawings and Watercolors, ink with wash, Drawing, Prints and Drawings. Place: The Art Institute of Chicago, The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1922.598, http://www.artic.edu/aic/. https://library.artstor.org/asset/AMICO_CHICAGO_1031150000.
Trotti, Giovanni Battista, Circle of, Italian; 1555-1619. 1590-1610. Saint Paul. Drawings and Watercolors, ink with wash, Drawing, Prints and Drawings. Place: The Art Institute of Chicago, The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1922.598, http://www.artic.edu/aic/. https://library.artstor.org/asset/AMICO_CHICAGO_1031150000.
How does Paul come to understand himself as a messenger of Jesus? How did that message change in those hazy decades between the life of the historical Jesus and Paul’s co-writings?
Read MoreForeign Holidays and Festivals as Representative of Identity in Rabbinic Literature: a Dissertation Spotlight
Thomas Couture, Romans during the Decadence (1847). Image is under public domain.
Thomas Couture, Romans during the Decadence (1847). Image is under public domain.
Catherine Bonesho writes about the polemics of rabbinic legislation on holidays: “I find that the law sets Judaism and Christianity in competition with one another and, in the process, the law authorizes the imperial version of Christianity while asserting the nefarious qualities of Jews and Judaism.”
Read MoreBook Note | Ethics in Ancient Israel
James Nati reviews Barton’s Ethics in Ancient Israel: “Barton’s work is thus meant not at offering clarity for believers as they try to live more “biblically,” but rather to argue that ancient Israelite thinkers deserve a seat at the table among other ethical thinkers throughout history.”
Read MoreThe Samaritan Other: Representation, History, and Lost Late Ancient Difference
Top register: the Good Samaritan | Rossano Gospels, f. 7v | Image Source
Top register: the Good Samaritan | Rossano Gospels, f. 7v | Image Source
What happens when we render Samaritans as full-bodied participants in an array of representation and counterrepresentation?
Read MoreBook Note | In the Image of Origen
Hiroshi Sugito. 2005. mirror. Paintings. https://library.artstor.org/asset/LARRY_QUALLS_10312611076.
Hiroshi Sugito. 2005. mirror. Paintings. https://library.artstor.org/asset/LARRY_QUALLS_10312611076.
To whom are we entrusting ourselves when we follow a particular instructor? To what extent should our will be constrained by a teacher, friend, rabbi, abba? Or is it an image of these figures? What do we make of teaching practices that restrain habits of thinking and opinion? What is the role of Tradition?
Read MoreJustice for The Poor
Benjamin Porat provides a preview of his new book, Justice for the Poor: The Principles of Welfare Regulations from Biblical Law to Rabbinic Literature [hebrew].
Read MoreBook Note | Shifting Images of the Hasmoneans
Noam shies away from firmly positing the existence of a concrete document or text that served as the shared source of rabbinic and Josephan traditions. Rather, she suggests that we conceive of a “pool of traditions,” a shared storehouse of stories and narratives, perhaps containing multiple documents, likely written in Hebrew and Aramaic, to which the rabbis and Josephus both had access.
Read MoreWeek in Review (11/1/19)
Roman mosaic depicting Thucydides | Third-century, from Jerash in Jordan; currently held in Berlin | Image Source
Roman mosaic depicting Thucydides | Third-century, from Jerash in Jordan; currently held in Berlin | Image Source
This Week: Rhetoric, doctrine, and Gregory of Nyssa, Decian persecution, archaeology and Paul, upcoming apocrypha, King David – and more!
Read MoreBook Note | Gregory of Nyssa’s Doctrinal Works: A Literary Study
Fresco from Saint John’s Church (Karşı Kilise) in Cappadocia, Turkey (Image courtesy of Tiberio Frascari).
Fresco from Saint John’s Church (Karşı Kilise) in Cappadocia, Turkey (Image courtesy of Tiberio Frascari).
“With this steadily growing interest in Gregory, specialization in particular texts has become the norm. Radde-Gallwitz, having done some of that slow, careful work in his previous books, translations, and articles, argues that there is value in panning back to look at broader patterns, parallels, and divergences.”
Read MoreThe History and Literature of Late Antique Babylonian Rabbis
Richard Kalmin offers a retrospective of his work on the historical analysis of Talmudic narratives.
Read MoreBook Note | Arguing with Aseneth: Gentile Access to Israel’s Living God in Jewish Antiquity
Gillian Glass reviews Hicks-Keeton’s Arguing with Aseneth: Gentile Access to Israel’s Living God in Jewish Antiquity.
Read MorePublications | Christian Dialogues and Late Antiquity
The volume is conceived as a comprehensive guide to Christian dialogues composed in Greek and in Syriac from the earliest examples in the second century until the end of the sixth century.
Read MoreWeek in Review (10/11/19)
Illustration of Moses before Pharaoh | f.8r in the Syriac Bible of Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale, MS syr. 341) | Image Source
Illustration of Moses before Pharaoh | f.8r in the Syriac Bible of Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale, MS syr. 341) | Image Source
This Week: Apocalypse now, Pseudo-Matthew, imperial women and Lactantius, Allegro Qumran images online, Syriac teaching – and more!
Read More“The Time Is Fulfilled”: Jesus’s Apocalypticism in the Context of Continental Philosophy
In this book, I aim to expand beyond the traditional critical-exegetical methods (while these always remain indispensable) to show how Continental philosophy, with its emphasis on disrupting metaphysical and dualistic orders, offers a useful hermeneutical resource that poses new lines of questioning to the biblical texts.
Read MoreThe Manichaeans of Kellis: Religion, Community, and Everyday Life
Excavation at the Roman town of Kellis (Image courtesy of ISAW on Flickr)
Excavation at the Roman town of Kellis (Image courtesy of ISAW on Flickr)
When would the Manichaeans of Kellis have felt “Manichaeanness” as the most relevant factor to define their behavioral choices?
Read MoreThe Masada Myth(s)
Jodi Magness discusses the myths of Masada while offering a preview of her recent book, Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth (Princeton University Press, 2019).
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