In two recent publications—Solomon: the Lure of Wisdom and The Origin of the Jews: a Quest for Roots in a Rootless Age—I have written works that seem to be about antiquity but are really about how we relate to antiquity from a vantage point in the present. I write as someone genuinely curious about what we can learn from ancient texts by reading them in relation to their history, and for much of my scholarly career, my goal has been to avoid casting the past as a projection of the present. In these works, however, I have tried a different approach, allowing myself into the story in the hope that doing so can lead to a deeper understanding of how we relate to antiquity. Focusing on the Origin of the Jews, I want to reflect on what I was able to learn about my subject from mixing the personal and the scholarly in this way.For more on Steven Weitzman's work, see here and links.
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