Smith, Luke and the Jewish Other (Routledge)

NEW BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE:

Luke and the Jewish Other
Politics of Identity in the Third Gospel

By David Andrew Smith
Copyright 2024

Hardback
£104.00

eBook
£31.19

ISBN 9781032450483
230 Pages

Description

Luke and the Jewish Other takes up the debated question of the orientation of Luke toward the Jewish people. Building on recent studies in the social history of early Jewish-Christian relations, it offers an analysis of Luke’s portrayal of Jewish and Christian identities that challenges the common assumption that the construction of religious identity in antiquity necessarily depended upon antagonistic relations with others. Taking account of the deep and often divisive difference that belief in Jesus made in Luke’s community, the author argues that Luke hoped to bring about both a rapprochement with and the conversion of contemporary Jews. Through this account of identity and alterity in the Gospel of Luke, the book cuts across boundaries of biblical studies, history, theology, and social theory, proposing a way forward for the study of Luke’s relation to Judaism and of the "parting of the ways" between Jews and Christians in the early Common Era.

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Biblical Studies Carnival 214

THE PURSUING VERITAS BLOG: January 2024 Biblical Studies Carnival (Jacob J. Prahlow).

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

The author on Ritual and Religious Experience in Early Christianities

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Ritual and Religious Experience in Early Christianities (David J. McCollough).

David J. McCollough. Ritual and Religious Experience in Early Christianities: The Spirit In Between. WUNT II (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022).

Interest in ritual behavior and religious experience is a fundamental concern in anthropological approaches to religion. Giovanni Bazzana’s recent study of spirit possession among the early Christ Groups demonstrates the applicability of these questions to the early Jesus Movement.[1] My research participates in this ongoing conversation by exploring fresh methodological approaches to uncover the ways New Testament literature bears witness to ritual practices among early Christians.

[...]

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What exactly did Ezra do with (or to) the Torah?

DR. REBECCA SCHARBACK WOLLENBERG: Did Ezra Reconstruct the Torah or Just Change the Script? (TheTorah.com.

In the second century C.E., 4 Ezra and Irenaeus tell a story of how the Torah was burned by Nebuchadnezzar and reconstructed by Ezra through divine inspiration. Rabbinic texts know of this tradition, but in their version, Ezra’s contribution is changing the Torah into Aramaic writing, or even Aramaic language.

This essay gives some fascinating background to 4 Ezra in Christian and Rabbinic tradition which I didn't know about.

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Epistemic supersessionism in the Epistle to Diognetus

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Anti-Judaism, Meddlesomeness, and Epistemic Supersessionism in the Epistle to Diognetus (Chance E. Bonar).

In this article, I want to contextualize the term polupragmosunēas it is used in the works of other writers in the Roman imperial period (particularly Plutarch, Apuleius, Lucian, and Tertullian) and demonstrate how polupragmosunē is a key component of Diognetus’s anti-Jewish rhetoric and construction of uniquely Christian knowledge. ...

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Only non-Israelites bless God in the Pentateuch?

"STAFF EDITORS": Baruch Hashem: Only Non-Israelites Bless God in the Torah (TheTorah.com).

Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham’s servant, Laban, and Jethro all bless YHWH, but, as Rabbi Pappias notes in the Mekhilta, the Israelites don’t. Only later in the Bible do we find David and Solomon blessing YHWH, but so do Hiram King of Tyre and the Queen of Sheba.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

The authors on Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Jewish and Christian Women in the Ancient Mediterranean (Shayna Sheinfeld, Sara Parks, and Meredith Warren).

When AJR reached out to see if we (Shayna Sheinfeld, Sara Parks, and Meredith Warren) would be willing to outline why we saw the need for a textbook on ancient Mediterranean religions that did not ignore or compartmentalize Jewish and Christian women, but instead centered them, we jumped at the chance. It was a need–both practical and ethical–that we keenly felt during our first teaching experience. In this piece, we’ll explain the steps that led to the process of building a collaborative textbook, and provide some ideas for how colleagues might use it.

[...]

I noted the publication of the book here and an AJR review here.

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Review of Sauvage & Lorre, À la découverte du royaume d'Ougarit (Syrie du IIe millénaire)

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: À la découverte du royaume d’Ougarit (Syrie du IIe millénaire): les fouilles de C.F.A. Schaeffer à Minet el-Beida et Ras Shamra (1929-1937).

Caroline Sauvage, Christine Lorre, À la découverte du royaume d'Ougarit (Syrie du IIe millénaire): les fouilles de C.F.A. Schaeffer à Minet el-Beida et Ras Shamra (1929-1937). Contributions to the archaeology of Egypt, Nubia and the Levant, 7; Denkschriften der Gesamtakademie, 89. Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2023. Pp. 472. ISBN 9783700179986

Review by
Mark S. Smith, Princeton Theological Seminary. mark.s.smith@ptsem.edu

... Thanks to this volume, students of ancient Ugarit now enjoy yet another important resource for understanding different dimensions of its culture. Often noting information lacking in or missing from Schaeffer’s records, the editors and authors are to be applauded for their wonderful excavations of his excavation materials housed in the MAN.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

The "killer wife" in Judaism, from antiquity to the present

DR. ELAINE GOODFRIEND: Qatlanit: The “Killer-Wife” (TheTorah.com).

Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law, is twice-widowed, but the Torah still expects Judah to allow his third son Shelah to marry her. In the Second Temple period book, Tobit marries his seven-times widowed cousin upon the advice of the angel Raphael. And yet, the Talmud prohibits marrying twice widowed women, for fear they are dangerous.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

On the ancient balsam industry

PERFUMERY AND DECORATIVE MALEDICTION ART: Buildings In The Desert, and A Curse Written Into A Synagogue Mosaic In Ein Gedi (crownheights.info).

In the course of a survey of the Judean Desert carried out a few years ago by the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Ministry of Heritage, and the Civil Administration Staff Officer for Archaeology in Judea and Samaria, a group of buildings dating to the last days of the Kingdom of Judah was discovered alongside the road ascending from Ein Gedi to the Judean Mountain ridge and the major cities of Hebron and Jerusalem.

Saar Ganor, Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist and researcher of the First Temple period proposes that these buildings may have safeguarded the route along which convoys transported the coveted expensive persimmon perfume.

This would be balsam (צרי), the biblical "balm of Gilead," which in the Mishaic period was apparently also known as "persimmon" (אפרסמן). (I think I have that right.) For more on balsam in the Second Temple period, see here and here. (There is also the claim that the balm of Gilead came from the resin of the pistachio tree.)

I had heard of the Aramaic Ein Gedi synagogue curse mosaic, but this article gives additional details.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Online Workshop: Exploring the Apocrypha (etc.)

EVENT: Online Workshop: Exploring the Apocrypha: Uncovering Hidden Christian Texts (Medievalists.net).

The Orthodox Academy of Crete, Medievalists.net, and After Constantine Journal are inviting you to join the online international workshop “Exploring the Apocrypha: Discovering Hidden Christian Texts.”, which will take place on Zoom on February 18, 2024, at 11:00 (Eastern US time).

Some details:

In this course we will discover biblically adjacent texts that present themselves as scriptural revelation by named biblical authors but which are not accepted as such (the pseudepigrapha ‘spuriously attributed writings’), books accepted by some traditions but not others (deuterocanonical books), and works that provide supplementary background information, alternative versions of events, or which expand on biblical narratives, episodes, and figures (apocrypha in the broadest sense). Through a series of mini-lectures, activities, and group discussions, this one-day programme will grapple with the historical, theological, and cultural significances of a wide body of Jewish and Christian writings that fall outside the Bible.

In other words (1) by "apocrypha" the title means what PaleoJudaica would call New Testament apocrypha, Old Testament pseudepigrapha, Old Testament Apocrypha (Deuterocanonica), and more; and (2) despite the title, the workshop looks at both Jewish and Christian texts.

One of the instructors, John J. Gallagher, is also an honorary lecturer in the School of English at the University of St. Andrews.

The cost of the one-day workshop is USD $69.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Review of Hadas-Lebel, Les Pharisiens

RELIGION PROF: Review Of Mireille Hadas-Lebel, Les Pharisiens (James McGrath).

On the whole Hadas-Lebel offers a presentation of the Pharisees that recognizes their diversity, their positive contributions in their era, and the resemblance of Jesus of Nazareth to them. In seeking to adjudicate between an array of literature with polemical features, it is perhaps inevitable that the Pharisees, what became Christianity, and other groups will all at times be cast in a negative light because the only lens through which we can view them is one provided by their opponents. That Hadas-Lebel for the most part manages to avoid this is remarkable. ...

For more on the Pharisees, see here and follow the links.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Regina tombstone on loan to British Museum

ARAMAIC WATCH: The South Shields tomb is on loan to the British Museum (Muhammad, Pi News).

The Regina tombstone featured in the recent BBC Radio 4 series ‘Being Roman’ by renowned historian Mary Beard was erected by a man named Barates from Palmyra, Syria.

Originally from southeast England, Regina was a slave, but Barates freed her and later married her. When she died at the age of 30, he made her an expensive tombstone.

... A replica of the tombstone is currently on display at the British Museum, but is now acquiring the original for a major new exhibition Legion: Life in the Roman Army, which looks at what it was like to be in one of the most elite fighting forces. ...

The stone has two epitaphs, one in Latin and one in (Palmyrene) Aramaic. Follow the link for photos.

There is a long PaleoJudaica post on this tombstone here.

Cross-file under Exhibition.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.