Early Christian catacomb painting | Third-century, Catacomb of Saint Calixte (Rome) | Image Source
Early Christian catacomb painting | Third-century, Catacomb of Saint Calixte (Rome) | Image Source
This Week: Jewish and Christian figural art, Jewish mothers, endangered archives, Bible versus Classics, Byzantine Balkans – and much more!
Read MoreDr. Catherine Hezser introduces her book Bild und Kontext: Jüdische und christliche Ikonographie der Spätantike: “I examine exemplary biblical, mythological, and symbolic images in the context of Jewish, Christian, and Graeco-Roman literary sources to determine their possible uses and meanings within the multi-cultural realms of late antique society. I argue that the images were carefully chosen to engage in an ongoing visual discourse within the public sphere.”
Read MoreSari Fein reviews the edited volume, Mothers in the Jewish Cultural Imagination: “What other images of mothers exist in the Jewish cultural imagination? And, what do those images reveal about wider ideas of gender and family in Jewish culture?”
Read MoreDetail of the Madaba Map | Sixth-century, from the Church of St. George (Jordan) | Image Source
Detail of the Madaba Map | Sixth-century, from the Church of St. George (Jordan) | Image Source
This Week: Imperialism and Christian knowledge, beeswax, bioarchaeology, biblical papyri, the Madaba Map – and more!
Read MoreMy book is about reading as world-building, because reading with a grammarian in antiquity meant reading in a pool of fragmentation, displacement, and homogenization to re-arrange time and re-align filiation.
Read MoreTrajan's Column, Rome (Wikimedia Commons)
Trajan's Column, Rome (Wikimedia Commons)
In Acts of the Apostles and the Rhetoric of Roman Imperialism, Drew Billings places Emperor Trajan and the triumphal Column erected to honor his reign into conversation with the New Testament’s Acts of the Apostles.
Read MoreEncaustic wall painting from Sòlunto, Sicily | Currently held in the Museo archaeologico regionale di Palermo (Italy) | Image Source
Encaustic wall painting from Sòlunto, Sicily | Currently held in the Museo archaeologico regionale di Palermo (Italy) | Image Source
This Week: Bible beyond “Old Testament,” midrash, Sogdians online, pigment in antiquity, amethyst-mining inscriptions – and more!
Read More“One plus one plus one cannot equal one. Neither does the Old Testament equal the Tanakh. They are not one.”
Read MoreYoni Nadiv reviews Katharina Keim’s Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer: Structure, Coherence, Intertextuality: “In the absence of a critical edition, Keim argues that the literary descriptive project she undertakes is not only possible absent a critical edition but is a prerequisite for preparing one.”
Read MoreMosaic medallion of a chained lion and Dionysius | From Pompeii, currently held in the Naples National Archaeological Museum | Image Source
Mosaic medallion of a chained lion and Dionysius | From Pompeii, currently held in the Naples National Archaeological Museum | Image Source
This Week: Unexpected animals, Latin Christian exegesis, fingerprinting and bioarchaeology, multispectral Torah, Jews in Iraq – and more!
Read MoreLion, detail of mosaic, Mount Nebo (Mosaics of Jordan, fig. 219 on p. 169). Chapel of the Priest John at Khirbat-al-Mukhayyat, Jordan 565 CE. Courtesy of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Mount Nebo, and the American Center of Oriental Research, Amman. Permission obtained by author.
Lion, detail of mosaic, Mount Nebo (Mosaics of Jordan, fig. 219 on p. 169). Chapel of the Priest John at Khirbat-al-Mukhayyat, Jordan 565 CE. Courtesy of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land, Mount Nebo, and the American Center of Oriental Research, Amman. Permission obtained by author.
The intellectual climate had changed, and I saw that I needed to situate my work as an historian in contemporary animal theorizing in order to be responsive to the interpretive richness of this new cultural moment in scholarship and to develop a vocabulary that might enable a reading “otherwise” of ancient Christian texts that feature animals.
Read MorePietro della Vecchia, A Dispute among (possibly) the Four Doctors of the Church (1654) Wikimedia Commons
Pietro della Vecchia, A Dispute among (possibly) the Four Doctors of the Church (1654) Wikimedia Commons
The selection of ancient authors covered in this volume is governed by the explicit criterion that the ancient author must discuss something that may be surmised to be a “theory” of biblical interpretation. That is, the articles included do not simply survey how exegesis was practiced amongst Latin authors in late antiquity. Rather, they concern themselves specifically with Latin authors who articulated their hermeneutical method.
Read MoreMordechai and Esther | Painted wood synagogue panel, Dura-Europos (Syria) | Image Source
Mordechai and Esther | Painted wood synagogue panel, Dura-Europos (Syria) | Image Source
This Week: Chag Purim Sameach, Esther under Islam, renewing philology, global history, deathbed moments, Sasanian manuscripts – and more!
Read MoreKing Ahashverush and the maidens, Shahin, Ardashir-nameh, Persia, 2nd half of the 17th century (Berlin, Staatbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz)
King Ahashverush and the maidens, Shahin, Ardashir-nameh, Persia, 2nd half of the 17th century (Berlin, Staatbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz)
“There is evidence that Persian Muslims and Jews shared notions about the story that united them on the one hand and distinguished them from their coreligionists elsewhere on the other.”
Read MoreJames Tucker reviews Michael Stone’s Secret Groups in Ancient Judaism: “An analysis of the insider and outsider sources can illuminate how secrecy and esotericism were realized apropos the social practices of initiation, graded revelation, and hierarchical structure.”
Read MoreLimestone statue of Heracles | C1st-2nd CE, excavated at Hatra (Iraq), on display in Tokyo National Museum | Image Source
Limestone statue of Heracles | C1st-2nd CE, excavated at Hatra (Iraq), on display in Tokyo National Museum | Image Source
This Week: Marriage in Arabia, martyrs, Jewish Coptic magic, Syriac offerings galore, Geniza crowdsourcing, papyrus petitions – and more!
Read More"Do Christians have to marry in churches? Historically, many Christian theologians have said “yes.” But they haven’t always. It wasn’t until the tenth century, for example, that the Byzantine emperor made a church ceremony a required element of marriage for Orthodox Christians. Nor was Constantinople at the forefront of the matter.”
Read MoreSahner’s book fills a noteworthy gap in studies of martyrdom, which have generally been limited to the earliest centuries of Christianity and have ignored later developments.
Read MoreGreco-Roman statue of a philosopher, associated with Apollonius of Tyana | Late second-third century CE, currently at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum | Image Source
Greco-Roman statue of a philosopher, associated with Apollonius of Tyana | Late second-third century CE, currently at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum | Image Source
This Week: More goyim, narrative and ritual, Ezekiel’s tomb in Iraq, burning papyri, Apollonius of Tyana, Geniza transcription crowd-sourcing, Assyriology online – and more!
Read MoreJoshua passing the River Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant by Benjamin West, 1800
Joshua passing the River Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant by Benjamin West, 1800
Liane M. Feldman, “Story and Sacrifice: Ritual, Narrative, and the Priestly Source,” PhD Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2018.
Read More
