"The oblique nature of Paul’s references to the Abraham Narrative suggests that his implied readers, in fact, do know the basic contours of that story. Paul’s allusions to Genesis, therefore, must represent his efforts to get them to read or hear the Abraham Narrative very differently than they currently do."
Read MoreWeek in Review (7/21/2017)
Solomon Schechter at work, in Cambridge, on the Cairo Genizah fragments | Cambridge, 1898 | Original photograph image
Solomon Schechter at work, in Cambridge, on the Cairo Genizah fragments | Cambridge, 1898 | Original photograph image
This Week: Christians in Sasanian Iran, the Jewish Paul, the Talmudic Second Temple, firefighting, graffiti, digital humanities up the wazoo - and more!
Read MoreDescription, Redescription, and Textual Practices: Thiessen’s and Kaden’s Critical Interventions
The Apostle Paul from St. Sophia of Kyiv (Wikimedia Commons)
The Apostle Paul from St. Sophia of Kyiv (Wikimedia Commons)
"Description and Redescription – the classic interrelated activities that animate critical scholarship on religion. This roundtable affords the chance to examine two books that push the descriptive and redescriptive envelopes in their sectors of biblical studies."
Read MoreBook Note | A State of Mixture: Christians, Zoroastrians, and Iranian Political Culture in Late Antiquity
"With careful attention to detail and broad usage of a wealth of sources, Payne systematically deconstructs this idealistic bifurcation between Christianity and Sasanian culture. However, Payne dismantles this historiographical narrative, while simultaneously offering a completely new perspective on Persian Christianity by examining the various ways that Christians participated in, transformed, and even claimed Iranian culture as part of Christian identity."
Read MoreWeek in Review (7/14/2017)
Menorah relief from the Arch of Titus, Rome | Image source
Menorah relief from the Arch of Titus, Rome | Image source
This Week: Zoroastrianism, A Handmaid's Tale, pre-modern anti-Semitism, menorahs, Hypatia, Vindolanda discoveries - and more!
Read MoreHow Faith Affects the Incorporation of the Gentile
!["The Conversion of St. Paul" Benozzo Gozzoli on view in The MET 5th Ave Gallery 603 [public domain].](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1499706383897-RN9T2V6L61GA2B7F6ID0/image-asset.jpeg)
"The Conversion of St. Paul" Benozzo Gozzoli on view in The MET 5th Ave Gallery 603 [public domain].
"The Conversion of St. Paul" Benozzo Gozzoli on view in The MET 5th Ave Gallery 603 [public domain].
"Ultimately, I believe that a full understanding of Paul combines both of these interpretations, though with one additional element. It is perhaps a function of my age that I am more cynical than our two authors, but I am inclined to agree that Paul’s offer of cosmic rule for gentiles of faith has the ring of a marketing ploy."
Read MoreWeek in Review (7/07/2017)
Fish swallowing soldier at the parting of the Red Sea | Fifth-century synagogue mosaic, Huqoq | Image source and credit to Jim Haberman
Fish swallowing soldier at the parting of the Red Sea | Fifth-century synagogue mosaic, Huqoq | Image source and credit to Jim Haberman
This Week: Helsinki, digitalized rabbis, Huqoq discoveries, reconstructing monuments, Mithra, Peter Berger – and more!
Read MoreSBL 2016 Pauline Epistles Review Panel
The SBL 2016 Pauline Epistles Review Panel including J. Albert Harrill, Christine Hayes, and Stephen Young with Matthew Thiessen and David Kaden responding.
Read MoreTwo Approaches to Pauline Discourse
Saint Paul Writing his Epistles by Valentin de Boulogne (ca. 1618 - 1620) Wikimedia Commons
Saint Paul Writing his Epistles by Valentin de Boulogne (ca. 1618 - 1620) Wikimedia Commons
"Reading Thiessen and Kaden synoptically thus fosters debate over how best to relate globalization studies and biblical studies."
Read MoreWeek in Review (6/30/2017)
Enamel plaque, St Paul and his Disciples | English(?), ca. 1160-80 | On display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Enamel plaque, St Paul and his Disciples | English(?), ca. 1160-80 | On display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
This Week: Digital Palmyra, maps on shields, the Temple Mount, holy women, micrography, ancient letters about wine – and much more!
Read MoreBook Note | The Life of Saint Helia
"While we cannot say that the text reflects actual debates that proponents of a virginal life were having, we can certainly point to it as an example of debates that they imagined they could or would have had similar confrontations. A close engagement with The Life of Saint Helia might therefore provide some insight into how the community—whether it be Priscillianist, Jeromian, or otherwise—attempted to locate themselves within the tradition of Scripture and its interpretation."
Read MoreWeek in Review (6/23/2017)
Gold leaf and glass bowl base, with Menorah, Shofar, and Torah Ark | Roman, ca. 300-350, currently on display in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
Gold leaf and glass bowl base, with Menorah, Shofar, and Torah Ark | Roman, ca. 300-350, currently on display in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
This Week: Dunhuang online, new journals, ancient Jewish sarcophagi, Chinese Christianity, intellectual history – and much more!
Read MoreDissertation Spotlight | Sean P. Burrus
Seasons sarcophagus with menorah in the clipeus. From the Vigna Randani catacombs, Rome. Musei Nazionale Romano, Terme di Diocleziano, Inv. No. 67611. (Photo: Author).
Seasons sarcophagus with menorah in the clipeus. From the Vigna Randani catacombs, Rome. Musei Nazionale Romano, Terme di Diocleziano, Inv. No. 67611. (Photo: Author).
"The use of sarcophagus burial by Jewish patrons was a highly variable mode of cultural interaction, representing an ongoing negotiation of Jewishness by different individuals from different communities in the context of enduring cultural exchange."
Read MoreBook Note | The Sentences of Sextus
Zachary Domach with an overview of Wilson's translation and commentary of The Sentences of Sextus: "his commentary exemplifies how a study of Sextus—and wisdom literature in general—reveals the intertwining of Greek, Jewish, and Christian thought as “actual ‘life’” in Late Antiquity."
Read MoreUnexpected Influences | Michael Swartz and Michael Satlow
Louis Armstrong, Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3c27236.
Louis Armstrong, Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3c27236.
Dr. Michael Swartz and Dr. Michael Satlow share a book that was an "unexpected influence" upon their academic work.
Read MoreWeek in Review (6/9/2017)
Mary and the Disciples at Pentecost | Rabbula Gospels, fol. 14b | Image credit: Everett Ferguson photo collection
Mary and the Disciples at Pentecost | Rabbula Gospels, fol. 14b | Image credit: Everett Ferguson photo collection
This Week: Heresy, Mithras, a Herodian fortress, race and polychromy, "#digitalhumanities galore, a double book note - and more!
Read MoreBook Note | Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Heresiology, and the Limits of Knowledge
"One of Berzon’s constant reminders is that powerful ideologies and strategies of representation often strive to hide their own seams and points of tension, but that it is in the process of highlighting these very points of tension that they find themselves at their most reproducible but also at their most frail. The late ancient heresiologists cultivated strong rhetorics of exceptionality and mastery—the heresy hunter excelled at making discoveries and at flaunting erudition—but also rehearsed a discourse of fear of contagion, vulnerability, and epistemic overload."
Read MoreBook Note | Bundvad, Time in the Book of Ecclesiastes
"With one eye on Barr’s critiques and another on Guy Deutscher’s more recent linguistic work, she avoids a lexical-based approach and posits that a better method for identifying reflective thought on time is to appeal to an author’s syntax and “habital use” of language—ways by which the author directs the reader to concentrate on certain aspects of the world—and an author’s ability to do this transcends the sum of her lexical stock.
Read MoreWeek in Review (6/2/17)
St. Paul disputing with the Jews and the Greeks | Enamel gilding, copper plaque, made in England ca. 1170-80 (probable) | London, Victoria and Albert Museum 223-1874
St. Paul disputing with the Jews and the Greeks | Enamel gilding, copper plaque, made in England ca. 1170-80 (probable) | London, Victoria and Albert Museum 223-1874
This Week: Jewish identity, Open Access wonders, frescoes, endangered Ethiopian archives, material religion - and much more!
Read MoreBook Note | Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority: Platonists, Priests, and Gnostics in the Third Century CE
"Marx-Wolf demonstrates that these Platonist thinkers were closely connected despite the fact that one is a Christian and the other three are non-Christian. To this end, she reads these Platonists not in terms of different social or religious affiliations, but in terms of a shared paideia (2-3). She contends that this common formation explains elements of their thought that might otherwise be “surprising” such as Porphyry’s rejection of animal sacrifice."
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