“People on road to caves of Qumran where Dead Sea scrolls were found.” G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, 1958 via wiki commons.
“People on road to caves of Qumran where Dead Sea scrolls were found.” G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, 1958 via wiki commons.
“When manuscript loss and discovery is framed this way--when we tell the stories of modern discovery the same way we recite religious texts—our reverence and desire distracts us from the material reality of trade in ancient artifacts. The other kind of mystery, hidden crime, remains obscure.”
Read MoreHenri Matisse, La Danse I. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Henri Matisse, La Danse I. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
These reviews have shown me not only what I was looking at when writing Body Language, but where I was standing when I looked.
Read MoreThe Orator, 110-90 BCE. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The Orator, 110-90 BCE. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
When reading texts from the Hebrew Bible or ancient Rome, it is tempting to focus on the similarities between ‘them’ and ‘us’, our shared humanity, and the very familiar descriptions of longing, love, fear, and despair that make us identify with the peoples of the past, and ‘understand’ them.
Read MoreHannah’s Prayer, by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Hannah’s Prayer, by Julius Schnorr von Karolsfeld. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
We share with ancient readers the condition of embodied and vulnerable human existence.
Read MoreKuttamuwa’s Grave Stele, Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Kuttamuwa’s Grave Stele, Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
These ideas about representation are nearly everywhere assumed but rarely taken up for examination. But as Vayntrub points out, a glance outside the Hebrew Bible suggests the possibilities of different ontologies of representation at play in ancient West Asia.
Read MoreArchaeological stratification in the Athens Metro, Dafni Station. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Archaeological stratification in the Athens Metro, Dafni Station. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Jacqueline Vayntrub’s Body Language has a dialectical relationship to the pervasive metaphor of archeological excavation, which has indelibly shaped both the way we practice biblical scholarship and the way we encounter the self in modernity. On the surface – so goes the metaphor – we see ruins and dust, but if we dig deeper, with our spades and shovels, we can uncover valuable treasures, columns and temples, sense and vitality.
Read MoreFragment of a Head of a Queen, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Fragment of a Head of a Queen, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Voice makes moral and relational claims. It anchors awareness in the particular. The textualized voice and voiced text lay claim to the attention of their audiences in ways that defy apathy, demand engagement, and render the past both vivid and urgent.
Read MoreBeyond Brutality: Reclaiming Female Presence in Bavli Sotah reflects my scholarly journey over these many years of returning to a stance of assuming female presence. Rather than emphasizing absence, marginality, or invisibility, I choose to assume women's presence within rabbinic culture of late antiquity.
Read MoreRather than portraying the sage as a mere conduit for divine truth, these stories present Torah as emerging from the sage’s individual identity and as deeply bound up with his personality. Consequently, an injury to a sage’s honor is not merely an injury to the person himself, but also to the world of Torah learning and creativity associated with him.
Read MoreThe twelve verses about the Magi in Matthew do not invite final answers; they invite attention, patience, and the persistence to keep digging.
Read MoreT. Carisius. 46 BC. AR Denarius (17mm, 4.05 g, 4h). Rome mint. Head of Sibyl Herophile and seated sphinx. From the Alan J. Harlan Collection. Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 40 (16 May 2007), lot 558 via Wiki Commons.
T. Carisius. 46 BC. AR Denarius (17mm, 4.05 g, 4h). Rome mint. Head of Sibyl Herophile and seated sphinx. From the Alan J. Harlan Collection. Ex Numismatica Ars Classica 40 (16 May 2007), lot 558 via Wiki Commons.
The endurance of Sibyl’s authoritative voice invites analysis by students and scholars interested in gender and antiquity. Throughout the collection's literary, theological, and historical complexities, the one unifying constant is the sibyl herself, an ancient and respected woman prophet.
Read More"One difference between my first book and my most recent one is that this time I let my freak flag fly. My freak vegan flag. What Animals Teach Us about Families is, covertly, a memoir about my becoming a vegan.”
Read MoreThis book draws attention to one important but neglected concept from Hellenistic literary criticism that readers—including Christians—used to organize, describe, and evaluate narrative traditions.
Read MoreHabakkuk Pesher (1QpHab) [image source]
Habakkuk Pesher (1QpHab) [image source]
Alex P. Jassen previews his new book exploring the diverse ways social contestation and violence was perceived and imagined by the Dead Sea Scrolls Sectarians.
Read MoreThe understanding that Jews engaged with a full sweep of Islamic sciences was arguably one of the earliest insights of modern Jewish historiography; indeed, medieval Jews were sometimes explicit about turning to non-Jewish sources. But scholarship has traditionally highlighted Jewish engagement with the larger world in fields other than law, such as poetry, theology, and linguistics. Building on the work of others, After Revelation recognizes that medieval Jews and Muslims structured their traditions in similar ways.
Read MorePower in the Name contributes to this growing body of work unbeholden to the myopic strictures of materialism and (more broadly) scientism by comparatively analyzing examples of humans changing their environment (e.g., healing or hurting others) by invoking powerful divine names.
Read MoreA bowl of figs, fresco from the main triclinium at Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis.
A bowl of figs, fresco from the main triclinium at Villa of Poppaea in Oplontis.
“This book plunges us deep into the social relationships that made the production of rabbinic expertise possible. Weaving together accounts of tangible material support with sites of contact between rabbis and other people, I explore how rabbinic expertise was continually enacted and challenged through social interactions.”
Read MoreHilltop cult installation surrounded by a circle of boulders, from the Bull Site in the Samarian highlands. Credit: Photograph by Natritmeyer.
Hilltop cult installation surrounded by a circle of boulders, from the Bull Site in the Samarian highlands. Credit: Photograph by Natritmeyer.
“Cultural difference does not condemn us to incomprehension. It forces us to go beyond our own cultural horizons in an effort to make sense of what is going on in the world of others. Ancient historians must use the mindset of a cultural anthropologist, in addition to the traditional tools of their discipline.”
Read MoreCover page of Philadelphia Public Library, LJS 237 (ca. 1460)
Cover page of Philadelphia Public Library, LJS 237 (ca. 1460)
The exceptional influence and popularity enjoyed by DEH from late antiquity through the Middle Ages, and its critical interface with Jewish historiography as a work both based on and source of major Jewish histories, suggest that this work is important for scholars of pre-modern Judaism and/or Christianity to know.
Read MoreCatherine Hezser and Constantin Willems introduce the AHRC-DFG Collaborative UK-German Research Project in the Humanities (2023-26) on Rabbinic Civil Law in the Context of Ancient Legal History.
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