William Blake, Abraham and Isaac, 1799-1800
William Blake, Abraham and Isaac, 1799-1800
In the book’s conclusion, Raz offers weak prophecy as an alternative, reparative model, offering us doubt and circumspection instead of confident certainty, whether theological or nationalist. I would also suggest a second, complementary payoff. To me, the positing of an ancient source that is dogmatic, masculine, and assertively authoritative is one of modernity’s favorite alibis for its own violence.
Read MoreMirror Detail from the Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck, 1434. Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Mirror Detail from the Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck, 1434. Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
We gather from here that more than she wants to say something about prophecy, Raz wants to convey something about the history of its reception, about the way modern poets, and perhaps moderns, in general, think about prophets and prophecy and incorporate that thought into their poetry, utilizing poetic language or the characters of prophets.
Read MoreWilliam Blake Richmond, Song of Miriam, 1880. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
William Blake Richmond, Song of Miriam, 1880. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
With Yosefa’s book, we now have nuanced poetic language with which we may read this homily. The Rabbis were not prophets, nor singers or poets. They were strong readers. They saw reading as an opportunity to stretch out biblical scenes into their present.
Read MoreHabakkuk Pesher (1QpHab) [image source]
Habakkuk Pesher (1QpHab) [image source]
Alex P. Jassen previews his new book exploring the diverse ways social contestation and violence was perceived and imagined by the Dead Sea Scrolls Sectarians.
Read MoreThe center of the rose window from the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, France. Features the Christ of Revelation seated on a throne dressed in purple with a sword in his mouth and surrounded by lampstands and angels within churches. John of Patmos is seen at Christ’s feet [Image Source].
The center of the rose window from the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, France. Features the Christ of Revelation seated on a throne dressed in purple with a sword in his mouth and surrounded by lampstands and angels within churches. John of Patmos is seen at Christ’s feet [Image Source].
To expand thinking around performance and apocalypse, my project incorporates a consideration of gender to these categories. So, in this project, I am concerned with answering the question “is there such a thing as apocalyptic masculinity?”
Read MoreDetail from Qasr Al-Abd, a Hellenistic period palace constructed by the Tobiad family (Araq el-Emir, Jordan). [Image Source]
Detail from Qasr Al-Abd, a Hellenistic period palace constructed by the Tobiad family (Araq el-Emir, Jordan). [Image Source]
The Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls display an overwhelming interest in the Israelite priesthood, sacrificial cult, and Jerusalem temple. A look at the Aramaic Levi Document reveals that this interest may have to do with the shifting fortunes of the priesthood in the third century BCE.
Read MoreA Memory of Violence offers a useful overview for anyone interested in understanding Chalcedon and its effects at a more detailed level, as well as those interested in the history of Christianity writ large.
Read MoreHenryk Siemiradzki, The Return of the Prodigal Son (1843–1902) M. Kroshitsky Art Museum, Sevastopol [Image Source].
Henryk Siemiradzki, The Return of the Prodigal Son (1843–1902) M. Kroshitsky Art Museum, Sevastopol [Image Source].
In this study a sustained, interdisciplinary argument is offered for the presence of women in parables where they are not named or explicitly described.
Read MoreThe understanding that Jews engaged with a full sweep of Islamic sciences was arguably one of the earliest insights of modern Jewish historiography; indeed, medieval Jews were sometimes explicit about turning to non-Jewish sources. But scholarship has traditionally highlighted Jewish engagement with the larger world in fields other than law, such as poetry, theology, and linguistics. Building on the work of others, After Revelation recognizes that medieval Jews and Muslims structured their traditions in similar ways.
Read MoreMay conversations such as these prompt experiences of embodied connection, even across digital spaces, and help us to recover a bodily awareness so often buried beneath reams of paper. May we be mindful of the care and feeding not only of the prophet (and sometimes the deity), but also of the scholar, the student, the writer, and the reader.
Read MoreThe question of how many sisters were portrayed with Jesus at the Raising of Lazarus in early Christian art has not previously been explored, and interestingly, the hypothesis that Martha was added later aligns with the number of sisters portrayed in early art of the Raising of Lazarus.
Read MoreScenting a space with anointing oil and incense, creates a sensory experience of fragrant divine presence, burning a sacrifice on an alter creates the perception of a divine receiver, veiling and obscuring a sanctuary’s adyton creates a perception of an inhabitant etc.
Read MoreThe task ahead in repairing the violence done by the dualistic mind/body hierarchy—and especially the notion of some bodies and their worth as superior/inferior—is not simply an individual task, but a communal one. Indeed, the notion of text as embodied creates not only new avenues of research but also a deep responsibility to the communities who hold these texts as sacred.
Read MoreThe prophet mediates or “incarnates” divine emotions, serving as their bodily representative; in other words, the prophetic body becomes the site of the bodily prophecy.
Read MoreSo, if they are characters who may or may not replicate the experiences of a tangible historical person, then do they have a body? Are their imagined or projected bodies actual bodies that can be psychoanalyzed or engaged as if they were human? Is a character’s fictional embodiment part of its function as avatar for the audience?
Read MoreI wish to engage in an enthusiastic nudge for Portier-Young to continue to explore in subsequent volumes a theme that I consider to be one of most original insights of the book. This is the claim that the divine is sometimes represented in biblical prophetic as embodied, whether a parallel fashion with the prophetic body, or as a reciprocal intertwining with the dynamically transforming prophetic body (esp. Portier-Young 2024, 57-58).
Read MoreSBL Review Panel for Anathea Portier-Young’s The Prophetic Body: Emodiment and Mediation in Biblical Prophetic Literature
Co-Sponsored by the Religious Experience in Antiquity and Senses, Cultures, and Biblical Worlds Program Units of the Society of Biblical Literature
November 23, 2024
Gabriel von Max, The Raising of Jairus’ Daughter (1878) Montreal Museum of Fine Arts [Wikimedia Commons].
Gabriel von Max, The Raising of Jairus’ Daughter (1878) Montreal Museum of Fine Arts [Wikimedia Commons].
Scully’s book commendably demonstrates the need for renewed and careful attention to a pattern of thought that has been treated poorly, and it does so with sharp analytical clarity.
Read MoreImage from Caesarea Maritima [Wikimedia Commons].
Image from Caesarea Maritima [Wikimedia Commons].
Rather than studying the History through a literary lens, my dissertation re-visualizes the texts and the relationships therein through a process of mapping – first, by understanding the city itself and its position among trading cities on the Mediterranean Sea; as I engage with data sets and digital tools to create this method of understanding, it becomes clear how the narrative thread, style, and scope of the History played a role in the text’s reception and legacy.
Read MoreDan Hadani collection / National Library of Israel / The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Dan Hadani collection / National Library of Israel / The Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This position paper issues a call for editors and publishers with oversight over peer-reviewed publications of inauthentic post-2002 Dead Sea Scroll-like fragments to embark on the processes that would consider (and likely result in) retraction. By common consent, findings in the publications identified in this essay are unreliable at best; many present material subsequently deemed falsified. Retraction is the proper and justified measure to take regarding these publications in order to correct the academic record and alert any and all potential readers to the untrustworthy nature of their content.
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