Scenes from the life of Jesus depicted on a fragment of an early Christian sarcophagus (4th century CE) Narbo Via Museum [Wikimedia].
Scenes from the life of Jesus depicted on a fragment of an early Christian sarcophagus (4th century CE) Narbo Via Museum [Wikimedia].
In this article, I want to contextualize the term polupragmosunē as it is used in the works of other writers in the Roman imperial period (particularly Plutarch, Apuleius, Lucian, and Tertullian) and demonstrate how polupragmosunē is a key component of Diognetus’s anti-Jewish rhetoric and construction of uniquely Christian knowledge.
Read MoreImage by calumetak on Freepik.
Brice Marden, Untitled from Five Plates (1973) The Art Institute of Chicago.
Brice Marden, Untitled from Five Plates (1973) The Art Institute of Chicago.
What did she want us to see and know differently? How did she want to shape us?
Read MoreDr. Steven D. Fraade wrote this article while on sabbatical in 1988. It was accepted for publication soon after, but the journal wanted substantial cuts due to the space constraints at the time. AJR is pleased to give this article a permanent home and hope it will inspire future work on this important subject.
Read MoreRoman geometric mosaic floor, from Conimbriga, Portugal. Image by Carole Raddato.
Roman geometric mosaic floor, from Conimbriga, Portugal. Image by Carole Raddato.
When it came to material culture, I faced another set of accessibility-related roadblocks. I had come to internalize the perspective from the opening of this essay: material culture constituted an evidentiary corpus for which vision was a precondition for insightful analysis. Such an opinion has an ancient pedigree.
Read MoreDrawing of Fragment E prepared by Dangerfield Lithography (London, 1883).
Source: Dershowitz, Idan (2021). The Valediction of Moses: A Proto-Biblical Book. Forschungen zum Alten Testament.
Drawing of Fragment E prepared by Dangerfield Lithography (London, 1883).
Source: Dershowitz, Idan (2021). The Valediction of Moses: A Proto-Biblical Book. Forschungen zum Alten Testament.
Michael Press on the myth of Moses Shapira as a master forger: “So we are left with the image of Shapira — and that image, of a master forger and genius, is now entrenched. It seems impervious to the reality that he forged almost nothing himself, that he mostly sold fakes made by others. It seems unaffected by the fact that he and his collaborators were actually poor forgers.”
Read MoreMany modern collections of Christian apocrypha group texts under headings such as “gospels,” “acts,” “epistles,” and “apocalypses.” But do these conventional genre categories help or hurt?
Read MoreDemons look out from Hades in this detail from the frescoes of the Cappella Spagnuolo, Santa Maria Novella in Florence by Andrea di Bonaiuto (1365–1368). [Full image courtesy of Wikimedia].
Demons look out from Hades in this detail from the frescoes of the Cappella Spagnuolo, Santa Maria Novella in Florence by Andrea di Bonaiuto (1365–1368). [Full image courtesy of Wikimedia].
Apocryphal narratives and traditions about the apostle Peter abounded among early Christian communities.
Read MoreUntitled painting by the Master of the Magdalen (ca. 1280–1285), Gallerica dell'Accademia, Florence, featuring canonical and noncanonical episodes from the life of Mary Magdalene. [Wikimedia]
Untitled painting by the Master of the Magdalen (ca. 1280–1285), Gallerica dell'Accademia, Florence, featuring canonical and noncanonical episodes from the life of Mary Magdalene. [Wikimedia]
The mingling of competing versions of the Magdalene’s life also tells us about how emerging veneration for her competed with and complemented cults of the Virgin Mary.
Read MoreRoman road in Hippos [Image courtesy of the author].
Roman road in Hippos [Image courtesy of the author].
This essay thus explores Paul as a mediating intellectual who uses the space in his letters to imagine a new social form, and likewise to establish it in the minds of his audience in a persuasive way.
Read MoreFour Gospels in Armenian (1434/5 CE) - MET Collection
Four Gospels in Armenian (1434/5 CE) - MET Collection
This exhibition aims to showcase Armenia as an artistic civilization in its own right rather than a postscript to the more prominent and the better-known achievements of Byzantium or Near Eastern cultures.
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 MoreA 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.
Read MoreJohn Tenniel (1865).
John Tenniel (1865).
Are there patterns among these descriptive detours, the rabbit-holes of the rabbinic imagination? Do they point to consistent interests? Retrace stock motifs and techniques? How can we map their interconnections, and how are they linked to normative projects–broadly defined–at the nerve-center of this rabbinic canon?
Read MoreSaint Augustine (Wikimedia Commons)
Saint Augustine (Wikimedia Commons)
To call a gentile Christian a “Jew” was likewise to accuse him of being un-Christian, indeed of being anti-Christian. The heretical Christian “Jew” – whatever current Christian doctrinal enemy that might be – was thereby identified with the scriptural enemies of Paul, of Jesus, and of God.
Read MoreFig.: The yellow indicates the vagal nerve running from the nervous system to the stomach (from Gray’s Anatomy, plate 793; Wikimedia commons [public domain]).
Fig.: The yellow indicates the vagal nerve running from the nervous system to the stomach (from Gray’s Anatomy, plate 793; Wikimedia commons [public domain]).
"What is intriguing about such statements as cited above—and one can list many similar cases with other authors—is that in them we witness how health, physiology, and anatomy are structured by means of social and cultural discursive formations. In this case, the discourse of slavery, which I have termed doulology,[iv] structures the dynamics between mental and gastric health. By their extension into the realm of the material psychē, these dynamics, in turn, shape the self. You are how you eat."
Read MoreGalen and Hippokrates from Anagni Italy. Photo: Nina Aldin Thune via wikimedia commons.
Galen and Hippokrates from Anagni Italy. Photo: Nina Aldin Thune via wikimedia commons.
Dr. Lennart Lehmhaus shares a rabbinic case study in order to reflect upon the history of science and rabbinic texts: "A careful study of the discursive strategies and the embeddedness of such medical knowledge within their broader contexts of theology or religious law (Halakhah), allows one to highlight the differences in form and content in the variants of this narrative."
Read MoreDr. Caroline Wazer shares her work on Roman public health in the AJR forum on Ancient Medicine, concluding "that Roman ideas of what could and should be done in the interest of public health were more intimately connected to political climates than they were to the state of scientific knowledge, such as it was."
Read MoreDetail of polychrome fragments showing Christ dressed and posed as a philosopher, Museo Nazionale Romano - Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome, ca. 300 CE (photo: Arthur P. Urbano)
Detail of polychrome fragments showing Christ dressed and posed as a philosopher, Museo Nazionale Romano - Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, Rome, ca. 300 CE (photo: Arthur P. Urbano)
"The appearance of the philosopher type in early Christian art was part and parcel of developments in late antique education, intellectual culture, and philosophical competition."
Read More
![Demons look out from Hades in this detail from the frescoes of the Cappella Spagnuolo, Santa Maria Novella in Florence by Andrea di Bonaiuto (1365–1368). [Full image courtesy of Wikimedia].](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1619439910335-BZBZCPLILWQBN1SM9P3S/Descent_of_Christ_to_Limbo_WGA.jpg)
![Untitled painting by the Master of the Magdalen (ca. 1280–1285), Gallerica dell'Accademia, Florence, featuring canonical and noncanonical episodes from the life of Mary Magdalene. [Wikimedia]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1616265163066-GHH5VMCQ1PQFEE206W44/512px-Maestro_della_maddalena%2C_maddalena_e_otto_storie_della_sua_vita%2C_1280-1285_178x90cm_B.jpg)
![Roman road in Hippos [Image courtesy of the author].](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1589476300762-L2Q4ARU6LNAWDM9ME19W/GetAttachmentThumbnail.jpg)
![Fig.: The yellow indicates the vagal nerve running from the nervous system to the stomach (from Gray’s Anatomy, plate 793; Wikimedia commons [public domain]).](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1506362512031-CY0T2K6AEF0K345F70S4/Untitled.jpg)
