Christ preaches to the Cynocephali | From the Kievan Psalter (1397) | Image source
On AJR
PSCO 2017-18 reports continue: Thinking with Ancient Animals
Chalmers: “What, then, does thinking through animals get scholars of ancient religion? It opens a rich ancient archive, articulated with an alternative framework than those which we often use—religion, theology, scripture, or human history. It encourages us to engage more closely with possible relationships between religion and science. Technical knowledge, like that of divination or medicine or psychology functions within regimes of knowing entangled with non-human animals. And it cheerfully impedes taking our intellectual desires and projects for granted. If we are animals as well, what to do with conceptions of ancient religion that have space only for the human?”
Review: John J. Collins. Scriptures and Sectarianism: Essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 332. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014.
Davis Bledsoe: “The volume under review presents a collection of essays by one of the leading experts in the fields of Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Judaism. Together the essays of this volume explore the themes of Scriptures and Sectarianism from a variety of lenses, ranging from close study of specific texts to broad assessments of scriptural authority and meaning-making in the Second Temple Period. Although the emphasis of the volume is on the Hebrew Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls, at times the conversation is extended to incorporate works from the Pseudepigrapha, Greco-Roman authors, and even various Persian sources.”
Articles and News
Ophir Münz-Manor on how piyyut can add to our understanding of rabbinic-era Hanukkah.
Website up for next February’s Inscribing Death: Memorial and the Transmission of Text in the Ancient World conference at Yale.
Unearthing Idumean structures using aerial and satellite technology.
Meredith Warren discusses theological investment and the biblical bases for the Lord’s Prayer.
Ekaterina Novokhatko discusses how the legends of archangel Michael came to flower in Catalonia.
New piece in Past and Present deals with empirical approaches to miracle and Exodus in eighteenth-century scholarship.
Julia Hillner writes about tracking Empress Helena’s legendary travels to Trier.
Happy #Hanukkah from the #HebrewProject Illustration of a man lighting the Hanukkah lamp with a congregation behind him from 14th century #manuscript Add MS 26968 f101r https://t.co/xUem6vCZOh #medievaltwitter #medieval 🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️🕯️ pic.twitter.com/GETH2D4dFx
— BL Hebrew Project (@BL_HebrewMSS) December 12, 2017
I'm very excited to announce that @DrMJCWarren & @DrSaraParks and I have just signed a contract to write a textbook, "Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean" with @RoutledgeRelig Keep your eyes out in 2019! pic.twitter.com/Nf5pQV315J
— Shayna Sheinfeld (@ShaynaSheinfeld) December 11, 2017
Papyrological illuminations were often in living color. Check out this vivid late antique bear (3rd century-6th century c. CE) leaping at a pair of human legs (top left) and a circlet (top right) (P. Oxy. XXVII 2470; TM 68863). Now @britishlibrary. https://t.co/hRS7QdCN25 pic.twitter.com/l4LMc1fTBY
— Sarah Bond (@SarahEBond) December 11, 2017