Saint Ambrose and Augustine of Hippo | Altarpiece from Michael Wolgemut, Nuremberg c. 1495-98 | Image Source
Saint Ambrose and Augustine of Hippo | Altarpiece from Michael Wolgemut, Nuremberg c. 1495-98 | Image Source
This Week: Mira Balberg on Classifying Christians, heresy in Milan, Huqoq mosaics, scribality and the Dead Sea Scrolls, philology and provenance – and more!
Read MoreJerusalem on the Madaba Map ca. 570 (Wikimedia Commons)
Jerusalem on the Madaba Map ca. 570 (Wikimedia Commons)
In offering this innovative way of thinking of early Christian heresiology, Classifying Christians gives us an incisive (and indeed, troubling) outlook on contemporary academic practices and disciplines.
Read MoreGerard Seghers (1591-1651) - "The Four Doctors of the Western Church, Saint Ambrose" (Wikimedia Commons)
Gerard Seghers (1591-1651) - "The Four Doctors of the Western Church, Saint Ambrose" (Wikimedia Commons)
Drawing on this scholarly paradigm shift, Williams argues that understanding Christianity in the Milan of Ambrose’s time requires manoeuvring around an object, “heresy,” successfully conjured into existence by Ambrose’s rhetoric.
Read MoreThe Aqedah (the “Binding of Isaac”) | Mosaic in a sixth-century Beth Alpha synagogue | Image Source
The Aqedah (the “Binding of Isaac”) | Mosaic in a sixth-century Beth Alpha synagogue | Image Source
This Week: Forum on Berzon’s Classifying Christians continues, new book note, Dead Sea Scrolls, Eusebius meets digital humanities, the Moschus Ioudaios inscription – and more!
Read MoreSection of the Tabula Peutingeriana featuring Eastern Dacia and Thrace, 1-4th century CE. Facsimile edition by Conradi Millieri, 1887/1888 (Wikimedia Commons)
Section of the Tabula Peutingeriana featuring Eastern Dacia and Thrace, 1-4th century CE. Facsimile edition by Conradi Millieri, 1887/1888 (Wikimedia Commons)
Todd Berzon’s Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Heresiology, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity is a great book—sophisticated in its approach, challenging in the intricacy of its arguments, creative in its interdisciplinarity, and surprising in the ways in which it takes a genre that is easy to dismiss as trite and clichéd—that is, heresiology—and offers us a new lens with which to view it.
Read MoreWendt brings together, in accessible prose, a series of fascinating characters that have been neglected by many classical scholars, and who are largely absent in early Christian studies, under the etic category of “freelance religious expert.”
Read MoreThe Flavian Amphitheatre (Colosseum) | Rome, completed by Titus in 80CE | Image Source
The Flavian Amphitheatre (Colosseum) | Rome, completed by Titus in 80CE | Image Source
This Week: New Huqoq mosaic, Jews in Rome, Nag Hammadi codices, Marginalia Origin Forum bonanza, heresy, Sinai palimpsests – and more!
Read MoreAndreas Cellarius: Harmonia macrocosmica seu atlas universalis et novus, totius universi creati cosmographiam generalem, et novam exhibens. Plate 3. (Wikimedia Commons)
Andreas Cellarius: Harmonia macrocosmica seu atlas universalis et novus, totius universi creati cosmographiam generalem, et novam exhibens. Plate 3. (Wikimedia Commons)
Taking the ethnographic disposition as a starting point allows us to see how heresiologists acted in line with many other ancient writers, beyond or before Christianity, who also meant to know the world around them.
Read MoreIn 2017, the Religious Worlds of Late Antiquity SBL section organized a review panel to discuss Todd Berzon's Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Heresiology, and the Limits of Knowledge in Late Antiquity. During the month of July, AJR will feature the panelists' responses.
Read MoreFoot of the Constantine colossus | Courtyard of the Musei Capitolini, Rome | Image Source
Foot of the Constantine colossus | Courtyard of the Musei Capitolini, Rome | Image Source
This Week: Dead Sea Scrolls bonanza, big private money and biblical scholarship, the Alexamenos graffiti, Melania, Roman usurpers – and more!
Read MoreThe colossal head of Constantine from the Capitoline Museum. This image of the emperor was recarved from a portrait of his fallen rival Maxentius, after the latter's death in battle against Constantine. (Wikimedia)
The colossal head of Constantine from the Capitoline Museum. This image of the emperor was recarved from a portrait of his fallen rival Maxentius, after the latter's death in battle against Constantine. (Wikimedia)
It would not be a mischaracterisation or an exaggeration to say that the late Roman state was a polity defined by civil war. Roman leaders at this time approached their rule ever cognizant of the fact that sooner or later, one of their subordinates could don the purple robe, stand before a provincial army, and be proclaimed emperor.
Read MoreMelania, then, is a testament both to the impact the Melanias had on the nascent Christianity of the fourth century as well as the impact that Elizabeth Clark has had in shaping the study of that very world.
Read MoreBen Ezra Synagogue | Site of the Cairo Geniza, Old Cairo | Image Source
Ben Ezra Synagogue | Site of the Cairo Geniza, Old Cairo | Image Source
This Week: Sex in Sasanian Iran, the Cairo Geniza, Jubilees palimpsests, ancient birds, massive digital exhibitions – and more!
Read MoreA History of Judaism, while marketed as a ‘popular book,’ needs also to be considered for its ‘innovative conservatism,’ that is, its between-the-lines critique of current academic tendencies, and its active decision to step back towards a historiographical approach to the study of religion that has mostly lost its holding among current scholars.
Read MoreSixth-century mosaic of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman | Santa Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna | Image Source
Sixth-century mosaic of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman | Santa Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna | Image Source
This Week: Anatomy and virginity in late antiquity, Roman-Jewish tomb discoveries, Samaritans, false etymology, Pentateuch mysteries, papyrus furore – and more!
Read MoreRoman Votive of a pregnant female, ca. 200 BCE - 200 CE (Wikimedia Commons)
Roman Votive of a pregnant female, ca. 200 BCE - 200 CE (Wikimedia Commons)
The multiplicity of virginity and the rise of anatomical definitions created both opportunities and problems for late ancient Christian reasoning.
Read MorePoster ad for the 1959 film, Solomon and Sheba | Starring Yul Brynner and Gina Lollobrigida, directed by King Vidor | Image Source
Poster ad for the 1959 film, Solomon and Sheba | Starring Yul Brynner and Gina Lollobrigida, directed by King Vidor | Image Source
This Week: Teaching biblical epic, Jesus’ foreskin, ancient Israelite legal petitions, robots, Achaemenid Persepolis, early Christian inscriptions – and more!
Read MoreCharlton Heston in The Ten Commandments (1956).
Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments (1956).
“The trickiest part of the review assignment is getting students to understand what it means to perform expertise as a biblical scholar.”
Read MoreThis book represents a step forward in Prudentian scholarship by situating the Peristephanon in its social and historical context.
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