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ANCIENT JEW REVIEW

March 13, 2018

PSCO 2017-18: Snakes in the Garden: Sexuality, Animality, and Disability in the Rabbinic Garden of Eden

by Matthew Chalmers in Articles


Albrecht Dürer - "The Fall of Man" (1504) | Image Source

Albrecht Dürer - "The Fall of Man" (1504) | Image Source

Albrecht Dürer - "The Fall of Man" (1504) | Image Source

Albrecht Dürer - "The Fall of Man" (1504) | Image Source

How do the rabbis conceptualize the biblical “cleverness” of the snake? How do such ideas map onto larger questions of human and animal embodiment?

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March 7, 2018

Dissertation Spotlight | Nathan Schumer

by Nathan Schumer in Articles


The Torah Shrine at Dura Europas via Wiki Commons

The Torah Shrine at Dura Europas via Wiki Commons

The Torah Shrine at Dura Europas via Wiki Commons

The Torah Shrine at Dura Europas via Wiki Commons

"Why does the Mishnah get so many historical details about the Second Temple period right?"

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TAGS: dissertation


February 27, 2018

Arius Redivivus, Yet Again

by Robin Whelan in Articles


"Vandal" Horseman Mosaic from Carthage (ca. 450-550 CE) - Courtesy of the British Museum

"Vandal" Horseman Mosaic from Carthage (ca. 450-550 CE) - Courtesy of the British Museum

"Vandal" Horseman Mosaic from Carthage (ca. 450-550 CE) - Courtesy of the British Museum

"Vandal" Horseman Mosaic from Carthage (ca. 450-550 CE) - Courtesy of the British Museum

My book aims in part to connect debates between Nicenes and Homoians in Vandal Africa—and across the post-imperial West—to those wider developments in the historiography of late ancient Christianity from which they have been peculiarly absent.

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TAGS: publications


February 20, 2018

Curiouser and Curiouser: In Search of the Rabbis' Ethnography

by James Redfield in Articles


John Tenniel (1865). 

John Tenniel (1865). 

John 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?

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TAGS: essays


February 13, 2018

Augustine and “Thinking with” Jews: Rhetoric Pro- and Contra Iudaeos

by Paula Fredriksen in Articles


Saint Augustine (Wikimedia Commons)

Saint Augustine (Wikimedia Commons)

Saint 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.

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TAGS: essays


February 7, 2018

Voices, Fragments and Selves: Preserving Ancient and Contemporary Multi-vocality in Our Classrooms

by Sarit Kattan Gribetz in Articles


Fragmentary Colossal Head of a Youth, Greek, Hellenistic Period, 2nd century B.C.E., MarbleBerlin, Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (AvP VII 283) / Antikensammlung

Fragmentary Colossal Head of a Youth, Greek, Hellenistic Period, 2nd century B.C.E., Marble

Berlin, Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (AvP VII 283) / Antikensammlung

Fragmentary Colossal Head of a Youth, Greek, Hellenistic Period, 2nd century B.C.E., MarbleBerlin, Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (AvP VII 283) / Antikensammlung

Fragmentary Colossal Head of a Youth, Greek, Hellenistic Period, 2nd century B.C.E., Marble

Berlin, Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (AvP VII 283) / Antikensammlung

Whose voices from the past have been preserved, whose voices have been lost, and what is at stake, ethically and methodologically, for whose voices, past and present, we choose to hear today? 

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TAGS: pedagogy


February 4, 2018

PSCO 2017-18: Nurses, Midwives, Healers, and Talmudic Medical Encyclopaedism

by Jillian Stinchcomb in Articles


Roman marble plaque showing parturition scene, 400BCE - 300CE (Ostia, Italy) - UK Science Museum

Roman marble plaque showing parturition scene, 400BCE - 300CE (Ostia, Italy) - UK Science Museum

Roman marble plaque showing parturition scene, 400BCE - 300CE (Ostia, Italy) - UK Science Museum

Roman marble plaque showing parturition scene, 400BCE - 300CE (Ostia, Italy) - UK Science Museum

Lehmhaus’s talk pointed to exciting possibilities for future scholarship which grapple with how to fully understand the multipolar functions, within rabbinic literature and beyond it, of discrete bits of scientific or medical data embedded in rabbinic texts.

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January 30, 2018

Incompatible Sites: The Land of Israel and the Ambulant Body in the Museum of the Bible

by Sarah Porter in Articles


Photo courtesy of author

Photo courtesy of author

Photo courtesy of author

Photo courtesy of author

Perhaps we should trip in the same way on that word “museum.” We should attend to the stories museums and colonies tell about themselves; we should be cognizant of their designs on the body.

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January 28, 2018

The Creationist MOTB: Judaism and Judaica at the Answers in Genesis Creationist Facilities

by James Linville in Articles


Photo courtesy of Jill Hicks-Keeton

Photo courtesy of Jill Hicks-Keeton

Photo courtesy of Jill Hicks-Keeton

Photo courtesy of Jill Hicks-Keeton

The issue that concerns this paper is not how the MOTB lends credence to creationist claims, although this must be addressed to some extent, but how the MOTB becomes party to a disturbing misrepresentation of Jews and Judaism at the AiG attractions.

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January 24, 2018

The Museum of Whose Bible? On the Perils of Turning Theology into History

by Jill Hicks-Keeton in Articles


Photo courtesy of the author

Photo courtesy of the author

Photo courtesy of the author

Photo courtesy of the author

"While making pretenses to neutrality, the Museum of the Bible is fundamentally a political project attempting to define what the Bible is and who owns it."

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January 23, 2018

The Museum of the Bible as Mediator of Judaism

by Jill Hicks-Keeton in Articles


This panel sparked further discussion among scholars and the broader public, such as in a Washington Post article. In collaboration with AJR, scholars from this panel will be sharing their work with the larger scholarly community and the public.

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TAGS: conference


January 18, 2018

On Ben Wright and the Modeling of Scholarship

by Sean Adams in Articles


BenFedora.jpg
BenFedora.jpg

Sean Adams (“On Ben Wright and the Modeling of Scholarship”) engages Ben’s work on genre theory to consider how the Letter of Aristeas might be read alongside Greek symposia, and offers a retrospective on the work and example of an inspiring teacher.

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January 18, 2018

Solomon, the Septuagint, and Second Temple Studies

by James Nati in Articles


Judgement of Solomon by Antoine Sallaert in Stedelijke Administratie Roeselare. Public Domain. 

Judgement of Solomon by Antoine Sallaert in Stedelijke Administratie Roeselare. Public Domain. 

Judgement of Solomon by Antoine Sallaert in Stedelijke Administratie Roeselare. Public Domain. 

Judgement of Solomon by Antoine Sallaert in Stedelijke Administratie Roeselare. Public Domain. 

James Nati (“Solomon, the Septuagint, and Second Temple Studies”) illustrates how crossing generic and canonical boundaries—in his case study, reading Ben Sira and the Septuagint side by side—can reveal new insights about how early Jewish traditions developed.

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January 18, 2018

Education as Demonstrated and Education as Discussed in the Letter of Aristeas

by Jason M. Zurawski in Articles


11th Century Manuscript of Letter of Aristeas from Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

11th Century Manuscript of Letter of Aristeas from Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

11th Century Manuscript of Letter of Aristeas from Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

11th Century Manuscript of Letter of Aristeas from Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

Jason M. Zurawski (“Education as Demonstrated and Education as Discussed in the Letter of Aristeas”) shows how we might enrich our understanding of ancient education by reading both for a text’s ideology and rhetoric, and for its unwittingly revealed social context, while knowing the difference between these two kinds of evidence.

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January 17, 2018

Erasing the Hyphen from the Study of Early Judaism

by Francis Borchardt in Articles


Zodiac mosaic at the Beit Alpha synagogue. 

Zodiac mosaic at the Beit Alpha synagogue. 

Zodiac mosaic at the Beit Alpha synagogue. 

Zodiac mosaic at the Beit Alpha synagogue. 

Francis Borchardt (“Erasing the Hyphen from the Study of Early Judaism”) builds on Ben’s work on Hellenistic Jewish ethnicity to discuss how to think about Jewish self-definition in the Hellenistic period, in light of the great diversity of the sources, practices, and communities we call Jewish.

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January 17, 2018

Emulation in Ben Sira and its Hellenistic Context

by Elisa Uusimäki in Articles


Print introducing Sirach from 17th century Claes Janszoon Visscher Dutch Polyglot Bible

Print introducing Sirach from 17th century Claes Janszoon Visscher Dutch Polyglot Bible

Print introducing Sirach from 17th century Claes Janszoon Visscher Dutch Polyglot Bible

Print introducing Sirach from 17th century Claes Janszoon Visscher Dutch Polyglot Bible

Elisa Uusimäki’s essay (“Emulation in Ben Sira and its Hellenistic Context”) shows how the idea of the sage might be better understood by reading Jewish texts like Ben Sira together with non-Jewish Greek philosophical writing on how to learn virtue.

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January 17, 2018

The Translation of the Torah in Alexandria and the Relevance of the Rosetta Stone

by Stewart Moore in Articles


The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. Attribution: © Hans Hillewaert

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. Attribution: © Hans Hillewaert

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. Attribution: © Hans Hillewaert

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. Attribution: © Hans Hillewaert

Stewart Moore (“The Translation of the Torah in Alexandria and the Relevance of the Rosetta Stone”) engages Ben’s scholarship on the purpose of the Septuagint translation, highlighting its possible implications for the ethnic identity of Judeans in Egypt.

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January 16, 2018

The Role of Wisdom for the Scribe and Scholar

by James Tucker in Articles


"The Librarian" by Guiseppe Arcimboldos. Public Domain. 

"The Librarian" by Guiseppe Arcimboldos. Public Domain. 

"The Librarian" by Guiseppe Arcimboldos. Public Domain. 

"The Librarian" by Guiseppe Arcimboldos. Public Domain. 

James Tucker (“The Role of Wisdom for the Scribe and Scholar”) considers how our understanding of the Qumran Community Rule and the Damascus Document might be informed by critiques of traditional philological concepts of “original text” and “work,” considerations familiar from Ben’s work on the complicated textual history of Ben Sira.

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January 16, 2018

Ben Sira as a Baby: The Alphabet of Ben Sira and Authorial Personae

by Jillian Stinchcomb in Articles


Betty Blythe as the Queen of Sheba, 1921

Betty Blythe as the Queen of Sheba, 1921

Betty Blythe as the Queen of Sheba, 1921

Betty Blythe as the Queen of Sheba, 1921

Jillian Stinchcomb (“Ben Sira as a Baby: The Alphabet of Ben Sira and Authorial Personae”) shows how the persona of the sage and “author” we see in the early Jewish book of Ben Sira takes surprising--and sometimes shocking--turns in Ben Sira’s medieval afterlife.

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January 16, 2018

Voice and Presence in the Genesis Apocryphon

by Jacqueline Vayntrub in Articles


"Sarai Is Taken to Pharaoh's Palace" by James Tissot. The Jewish Museum of NYC. 

"Sarai Is Taken to Pharaoh's Palace" by James Tissot. The Jewish Museum of NYC. 

"Sarai Is Taken to Pharaoh's Palace" by James Tissot. The Jewish Museum of NYC. 

"Sarai Is Taken to Pharaoh's Palace" by James Tissot. The Jewish Museum of NYC. 

Dr. Jacqueline Vayntrub (“Voice and Presence in the Genesis Apocryphon”) considers how the voice and agency of Sarai in the Genesis Apocryphon, an Aramaic text from Qumran, complicates our ideas about the authoritative first person voice in Second Temple Jewish texts.

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