"When I asked what this emerging Christian food culture might have meant for the ordinary fourth century Christian, I found that it was not merely a trickle-down or oppositional model of lay vs. monastic or institutional piety. Rather, food helped early Christians negotiate among ideas across the spectrum of lived experience."
Read MoreTurning Torah Towards Proverbs: 4Q525 in Late Second Temple Perspective
Carson Bay reviews Turning Proverbs towards Torah: an Analysis of 4Q525 by Elisa Uusimäki as part of our joint #Scrollsat70 celebration with @TWUDSSI.
Read MoreWeek in Review (9/22/17)
The Virgin at the Apocalypse | Troyes Cathedral, window built 1524 | Image source
The Virgin at the Apocalypse | Troyes Cathedral, window built 1524 | Image source
This Week: Apocalypse, Sasanian Iran, the Ten Commandments, Syriac resources, ancient messianism – and more!
Read MoreRetrospective | Martha Himmelfarb
Dr. Martha Himmelfarb with a retrospective piece on her work with the Book of the Watchers and ancient apocalypses: "Thus I no longer see the ascent apocalypses as an unbroken tradition emanating from the Book of the Watchers as I did in Ascent to Heaven."
Read MoreBook Note | ReOrienting the Sasanians: East Iran in Late Antiquity
"Where others might be deterred by the paucity of evidence, the range of languages and disciplines required to make heads or tails of the area, or the lack of any preceding comparable work, Rezakhani refreshingly admits these difficulties and treks on despite – and perhaps even because of – them."
Read MoreWeek in Review (9/15/17)
Painting of the healing of a woman with internal bleeding | Fourth-century, Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter, Rome | Image source
Painting of the healing of a woman with internal bleeding | Fourth-century, Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter, Rome | Image source
This Week: Jews between Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, Jewish art, Dead Sea Scrolls, fourth-century fashion – and much more!
Read MoreFashion for the Wise: Philosophy, Clothing, and Competition in Late Antiquity
"The appearance of the philosopher type in early Christian art was part and parcel of developments in late antique education, intellectual culture, and philosophical competition."
Read MoreReading the Scrolls and Experiencing Qumran Archaeology with Hanan Eshel
As part of our joint celebration of the #DSSat70 with @TWUDSSI, Josh Matson reviews “Exploring the Dead Sea Scrolls,” a collection of essays by Hanan Eshel.
Read MoreWeek in Review (9/8/2017)
Qusayr 'Amra bathhouse frescoes | Jordan, built ca.723-743 by Walid Ibn Yazid | Image Source
Qusayr 'Amra bathhouse frescoes | Jordan, built ca.723-743 by Walid Ibn Yazid | Image Source
This Week: Syriac sources for early Islam, Qusayr Amra, not *that* Liz Clark, skeuomorphs, African American classicists – and more!
Read MoreDivine Law in Islamic Tradition
Week in Review (9/1/2017)
Remains of a Byzantine Church on Mount Gerizim | Image source
Remains of a Byzantine Church on Mount Gerizim | Image source
This Week: Religious deviants, Samaritans and Samaria, mosaic workshops, cuneiform, genetics, digitization everywhere – and more!
Read MoreThe View from the Balcony: Student Perspectives In and Beyond Class
Dr. Sarit Kattan Gribetz describes using an unexpected classroom balcony as a pedagogical tool.
Read MoreBook Note | Religious Deviance in the Roman World
"Jörg Rüpke, Vice-director for Religious Studies at the Max Weber Centre of the University of Erfurt, argues that an analysis of Roman conceptions of religious deviance such as the celebration of Bacchanalia can illuminate normative Roman religion and aid in identifying individual religious behavior in the Roman world."
Read MoreUsing Harry Potter to Construct a Canon
Krista Dalton describes an Early Christianity lecture where students construct their own Harry Potter canons as a heuristic approach to Bible canons.
Read MoreBook Note | The Bible in Arabic
"Griffith opens a window onto an earlier scholarly world, showing how the production of the earliest Arabic Bibles—and indeed the production of Arabic Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as a whole—has been from the beginning a thoroughly interreligious endeavor."
Read MoreOn Pedagogy and Playing with Fire: How (and Why) to Eat a Candle in Class!
Book Note | Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion
"In a useful introduction, Shoemaker lays out the problem and the gap he wishes to solve and fill: scholars have tended to look at doctrinal texts on Mary and have all but ignored the presence of Marian piety in the first centuries. By charting a devotional rather than theological survey about the Virgin Mary, he aims to create a new narrative about her import in the early Church."
Read MoreWeek in Review (8/11/2017)
Mosaic of either St. Laurence or St. Vincent | Fifth-century lunette from the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna | Image source
Mosaic of either St. Laurence or St. Vincent | Fifth-century lunette from the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna | Image source
This Week: soundscapes in teaching, Pompeii, hidden manuscripts, Sasanian literature, cultural heritage, looting – and more!
Read MoreSound Pedagogy
Dr. Sarit Kattan Gribetz describes how to sensitize students to the sounds in ancient texts.
Read MoreWeek in Review (8/03/17)
Ceramic Menas ampulla, for holding holy oil | Dated 610-50CE | Currently on display at the Met, New York Item No. 17.194.2291.
Ceramic Menas ampulla, for holding holy oil | Dated 610-50CE | Currently on display at the Met, New York Item No. 17.194.2291.
This Week: New journals, multi-million dollar antiquities smuggling, Huqoq, Sasanian Iran, Greek color, animality in Talmud – and more!
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