“Close reading, suggests Rosen-Zvi, resembles micro-historical study since in both cases a close look at one detail reveals large social and cultural processes that cannot be seen from a wider perspective.”
Read MoreBook Note | Enoch From Antiquity to the Middle Ages
…[O]ne of the most valuable contributions are the plentiful insights throughout this volume that have implications for a wide variety of fields, ranging from antiquity to the medieval period. And, while there are no doubt plentiful insights with regard to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, a number of observations throughout this work also hold implications for the field of Ancient Mesopotamian religion and its relation to later traditions.
Read MoreBook Note | Time in the Babylonian Talmud
Kaye suggests that time as imagined in the BT is best represented by Wassily Kandinsky’s painting, Several Circles (1926). According to Kaye, the painting’s circles of various sizes and colors represent various moments; these moments, as circles, interact both temporally and spatially and are spread across the canvas non-linearly.
Read MoreBook Note I Growing Up in Ancient Israel: Children in Material Culture and Biblical Texts
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Book Note | When Christians Were Jews
Paula Fredriksen’s newest book attempts a difficult feat: to understand the first generation of Jesus followers, despite having to do so with an eclectic smattering of passionately biased evidence that also happens to have been cherished as sacred text by almost two thousand years of interpreters.
Read MoreBook Note | The World Between Empires: Art and Identity in the Ancient Middle East
![Aedicula for Aglibol and Malakbel (236 CE) [Image courtesy of the author].](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1592830757350-KEIXL26MN5K4SZBJU9ER/aedicula-palmyrene-wbe.jpg)
Aedicula for Aglibol and Malakbel (236 CE) [Image courtesy of the author]
Aedicula for Aglibol and Malakbel (236 CE) [Image courtesy of the author]
The curators of the exhibit and authors of this catalogue resist the urge to classify objects by these two great empires (“Roman” or “Parthian”) and, instead shift the focus to the local vicinity they reflect.
Read MoreReligious Studies and Rabbinics
An exemplary conference volume for scholars of rabbinics, religious studies, and all those curious about these fields of study.
Read MoreBook Note | Votive Body Parts in Greek and Roman Religion
![Roman Votive Offering [Wikimedia Commons]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1591881576993-7PMZKLLNAKQZ8CYMIP83/Three_Roman_votive_offering_representing_faces_Wellcome_L0036388.jpg)
Roman Votive Offering [Wikimedia Commons]
Roman Votive Offering [Wikimedia Commons]
As some of the most numerous, widespread, and striking objects associated with the practice of religion in the ancient world, anatomical votives have appeared in many studies of the classical and late antique Mediterranean.
Read MoreBook Note | Jewish Childhood in the Roman World
Jewish Childhood in the Roman World provides a comprehensive review of the Palestinian rabbinic literature on the many facets of childhood.
Read MoreBook Note | The Rise of Coptic: Egyptian Versus Greek in Late Antiquity
![St. Menas with two camels, Pilgrim flask found around Alexandria Egypt (ca. 6th-7th c. CE) [Wikimedia]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1589226784624-E7CWVU5C4KCDWB3IZHM7/Pilgrim_flask_St._Menas_Louvre_MN1469.jpg)
St. Menas with two camels, Pilgrim flask found around Alexandria Egypt (ca. 6th-7th c. CE) [Wikimedia]
Book Note | Matthew Within Sectarian Judaism
John Kampen has built a meritorious career in the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament. In this book he makes an argument in which he deftly weaves together his expertise in each so as to study the gospel of Matthew as the work of a Jewish sect.
Read MoreBook Note | The Birth of Christian History
![Joseph Mallord William Turner, Rome from the Vatican (1820) Tate Modern [WikiArt]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1586094608247-LSTOEXDA5P9B02S5JC8F/rome-from-the-vatican.jpg%21Large.jpg)
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Rome from the Vatican (1820) Tate Modern [WikiArt]
Book Note | Outsider Designations and Boundary Construction in the New Testament
![Piet Mondriaan, Composition with Red, Yellow, Blue, and Black (1921) Kunstmuseum Den Haag [Wikimedia]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1585573389657-QX85KI6N3EGVRARW6V6T/Piet_Mondriaan%2C_1921_-_Composition_en_rouge%2C_jaune%2C_bleu_et_noir.jpg)
Piet Mondriaan, Composition with Red, Yellow, Blue, and Black (1921) Kunstmuseum Den Haag [Wikimedia]
Book Note | The Ways That Often Parted
![Georges Braque, Road near L'Estaque (1908) The Museum of Modern Art [Artstor]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1572645695040-YYJ2SKRLY3MUVT2MITRX/AMOMA_10312310398.jpg)
Georges Braque, Road near L'Estaque (1908) The Museum of Modern Art [Artstor]
Georges Braque, Road near L'Estaque (1908) The Museum of Modern Art [Artstor]
This collection of essays reflects a core assumption that Marcus shares with his scholarly contemporaries: the parting between Christianity and Judaism did not happen at one definite moment, but occurred in different places and at different times in different communities.
Read MoreBook Note | Christianizing Egypt: Syncretism and Local Worlds in Late Antiquity
Ceiling of the Temple of Hathor within the complex of Denderah (Image courtesy of Wikimedia).
Ceiling of the Temple of Hathor within the complex of Denderah (Image courtesy of Wikimedia).
In Christianizing Egypt, David Frankfurter continues this trend. He examines by what standards scholars should dissect the process of Christian conversion in Egypt and investigate the continued presence of traditional Egyptian religious behaviors and practices.
Read MoreBook Note | The Apocalypse of Empire: Imperial Eschatology in Late Antiquity and Early Islam
Shoemaker’s study is a contribution to a rapidly expanding body of scholarship that locates Islam firmly within the contexts of late antiquity. He points to imperial eschatology as the crucial late ancient discourse for the development of early Islam.
Read MoreBook Note | Children in Ancient Israel
Recent studies on the legal, social, and religious status of children are part of this development. Reconstructing the voices and lived realities of children and, indeed, other groups largely overlooked by biblical writers requires scholars to utilize different strategies in interpreting the extant evidence.
Read MoreBook Note | The Bible and Feminism: Remapping the Field
Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic), Francis Picabia (1913); Oil on canvas © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Edtaonisl (Ecclesiastic), Francis Picabia (1913); Oil on canvas © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Like so many feminist works on the Bible, the concern in this volume is not simply ancient gender politics, but also modern ones; as the terrain of the field shifts, so must our maps.
Read MoreBook Note | Purity, Community, and Ritual in Early Christian Literature
Christ Cleansing a Leper by Melchior Doze (1864). Oil on canvas. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Christ Cleansing a Leper by Melchior Doze (1864). Oil on canvas. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
For early Christians, questions of embodiment, ethics, and the construction of communal boundaries turned around (im)purity discourse as a central node.
Read MoreBook Note | The Merovingian Kingdoms and the Mediterranean World
Frankish Disk Brooch, mid-seventh century (Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of New York)
Frankish Disk Brooch, mid-seventh century (Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of New York)
Merovingian Kingdoms makes a cogent argument about the place of post-Roman Europe in the world of late antiquity: though no longer under the aegis of the Empire, it remained well-integrated within what could still be described as a Mediterranean-wide Roman cultural sphere.
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