Alicia J. Batten, Kelly Olson, Dress in Mediterranean antiquity: Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians. London; New York: T&T Clark, 2021. Pp. 424. ISBN 9780567684653 $175.00.A long review of what sounds like a quite comprehensive book. It appears that I have not noted it before. You can find the publisher's notice here.Review by
Grace Stafford, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz. gracestafford15@gmail.com
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Priests, Tongues, and RitesThis an old book, but it is only recently out in paperback. The Greek Magical Papyri are Greco-Egyptian, but they show a good deal of interest in ancient Jewish traditions.The London-Leiden Magical Manuscripts and Translation in Egyptian Ritual (100-300 CE)
Series: Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, Volume: 153
Author: Jacco Dieleman
This book is an investigation into the sphere of production and use of two related bilingual magical handbooks found as part of a larger collection of magical and alchemical manuscripts around 1828 in the hills surrounding Luxor, Egypt. Both handbooks, dating to the Roman period, contain an assortment of recipes for magical rites in the Demotic and Greek language. The library which comprises these two handbooks is nowadays better known as the Theban Magical Library. The book traces the social and cultural milieu of the composers, compilers and users of the extant spells through a combination of philology, sociolinguistics and cultural analysis. To anybody working on Greco-Roman Egypt, ancient magic, and bilingualism this study is of significant importance.
Prices from (excl. VAT): €58.00 / $70.00
Copyright Year: 2005
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-47-40674-7
Publication Date: 01 May 2005Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-14185-8
Publication Date: 01 May 2005Paperback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-46417-9
Publication Date: 02 Sep 2021
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
For those who aren’t familiar with the Toledot Yeshu narrative, can you tell us a bit about it and its different versions?I noted an article on this subject by Dr. Goldstein here. Follow the links from there for more PaleoJudaica posts on the Toledot Yeshu.It’s a parody on the life of Jesus, composed by Jews at some point in Late Antiquity, originally composed in Aramaic and dealing only with the very last part of Jesus’ life (known as the Pilate version). It was subsequently translated into Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic, and the narrative was expanded to include an account of Jesus’ birth and childhood, as well as parodies on later events in the spread of Christianity. ...
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Archaeologists agree that the temple was built during the time of King Herod, over 2,000 years ago. The big question is whether it was one of the four temples the king built during his lifetime, as described by the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus Flavius.One was the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The other three were reportedly built to honor the Roman emperor Augustus: one is in Caesarea and another in Samaria, as has long been known. Is the temple at Omrit, near the Banias (the biggest city in the region during the Second Temple period, and named for the god Pan) the “lost” one? This is a matter of some argument.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
According to Old Testament scholar Yigal Levin, Nimrod is best understood as a composite character that reflects the glory of the ancient Sargonid kings, the title of Kish as a name that represented divine authority, and the Neo-Assyrian motif of the king as a great hunter who protects his people from harm (Levin, pp. 364–366). He was originally seen as a positive character who probably received his kingship from Yahweh, and not as the villain of the Tower of Babel story that biblical interpreters turned him into.For an essay by Dr Levin on this subject, see here. PaleoJudaica posts on Nimrod are collected here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
In the annals of archaeology, it ranks as the most bizarre excavation team. Led by a handsome British aristocrat, its members included a Swiss psychic, a Finnish poet, an English cricket champion and a mustachioed Swede who once piloted a steamboat on the Congo River. None had any training in the field.And it all went downhill from there.Nor was the object of their search ordinary. This motley assemblage arrived in Jerusalem in 1909, when the Holy City was still under the authority of the Ottoman Empire, ruled from Istanbul. They sought nothing less than the famed Ark of the Covenant, along with treasures gathered by King Solomon 3,000 years ago that, according to legend, were later hidden.
[...]
For countless PaleoJudaica posts on the Ark of the Covenant, the legends surrounding it, and the numerous fruitless (at least so far) attempts to find it, start here (cf. here) and follow the links.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
The search for treasures in the Holy Land has wreaked a remarkable amount of archaeological ruin. For an example that outdoes this one by miles, see the next post.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
The Reception of Jewish Tradition in the Social Imagination of the Early ChristiansJohn M.G. Barclay (Anthology Editor), Kylie Crabbe (Anthology Editor)
Hardback
$115.00$103.50Ebook (PDF)
$103.50$82.80Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
$103.50$82.80Product details
Published Sep 23 2021
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 272
ISBN 9780567695994
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Publisher Bloomsbury PublishingDescription
The contributors to this volume take as their theme the reception of Jewish traditions in early Christianity, and the ways in which the meaning of these traditions changed as they were put to work in new contexts and for new social ends. Special emphasis is placed on the internal variety and malleability of these traditions, which underwent continual processes of change within Judaism, and on reception as an active, strategic, and interested process.
All the essays in this volume seek to bring out how acts of reception contribute to the social formation of early Christianity, in its social imagination (its speech and thought about itself) or in its social practices, or both. This volume challenges static notions of tradition and passive ideas of 'reception', stressing creativity and the significance of 'strong' readings of tradition. It thus complicates standard narratives of 'the parting of the ways' between 'Christianity' and 'Judaism', showing how even claims to continuity were bound to make the same different.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
The Feminine MessiahKing David in the Image of the Shekhinah in Kabbalistic Literature
Series: The Brill Reference Library of Judaism, Volume: 68
Author: Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel
In The Feminine Messiah: King David in the Image of the Shekhina in Kabbalistic Literature, Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel presents an in-depth study focusing on the centrality of the figure of King David in Jewish culture and mystical literature. King David is one of the most colorful, complex, and controversial personalities in Jewish lore. While numerous studies have focused on David's centrality to biblical literature and late antiquity, to date no comprehensive scholarly attempt has been made to investigate his image in Jewish kabbalistic literature. This innovative study also contributes to the understanding of the connection between the mystical and psychoanalytic perception of the self, as well as illuminating issues of gender fluidity, identity, and sexuality in medieval kabbalistic literature.
Copyright Year: 2021
Prices from (excl. VAT): €107.00 / $129.00
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-46219-9
Publication Date: 30 Aug 2021Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-46218-2
Publication Date: 02 Sep 2021
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
There was an exhibition on Jewish Magic at the Bible Lands Museum in 2010 and one on ancient Jewish amulets at Moriah Galleries in Manhattan in 2013.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Jewish Law and Early Christian Identity
Betrothal, Marriage, and Infidelity in the Writings of Ephrem the SyrianAUTHOR: Yifat Monnickendam, Tel-Aviv University
DATE PUBLISHED: January 2020
AVAILABILITY: In stock
FORMAT: Hardback
ISBN: 9781108480321Description
Ephrem, one of the earliest Syriac Christian writers, lived on the eastern outskirts of the Roman Empire during the fourth century. Although he wrote polemical works against Jews and pagans, and identified with post-Nicene Christianity, his writings are also replete with parallels with Jewish traditions and he is the leading figure in an ongoing debate about the Jewish character of Syriac Christianity. This book focuses on early ideas about betrothal, marriage, and sexual relations, including their theological and legal implications, and positions Ephrem at a precise intersection between his Semitic origin and his Christian commitment. Alongside his adoption of customs and legal stances drawn from his Greco-Roman and Christian surroundings, Ephrem sometimes reveals unique legal concepts which are closer to early Palestinian, sectarian positions than to the Roman or Jewish worlds. The book therefore explains naturalistic legal thought in Christian literature and sheds light on the rise of Syriac Christianity.
- Explores the rise of Syriac Christianity through a focus on marriage, sexual relations and family law
- Uses sources from three different fields: Roman law, early Christianity and Talmudic literature
- Translates all primary sources and assumes no specialized knowledge of late antique Syriac Christianity
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
After escaping Sodom, Lot and his daughters hide out in a cave. Believing they were the last humans on earth, the daughters get their father drunk, and conceive children with him while he is asleep. But since when do daughters rape their fathers? A womanist midrashic reading retells the story from their perspective.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
The Ambiguous Figure of the Neighbor in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Texts and ReceptionsEdited By Marianne Bjelland Kartzow
Copyright Year 2021
Hardback
£120.00eBook
£33.29ISBN 9780367637835
Published September 13, 2021 by Routledge
242 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
Available on Taylor & Francis eBooksBook Description
This book examines an undertheorized topic in the study of religion and sacred texts: the figure of the neighbor. By analyzing and comparing this figure in Jewish, Christian and Islamic texts and receptions, the chapters explore a conceptual shift from "Children of Abraham" to "Ambiguous Neighbors."
Through a variety of case studies using diverse methods and material, chapters explore the neighbor in these neighboring texts and traditions. The figure of the neighbor seems like an innocent topic at the surface. It is an everyday phenomenon, that everyone have knowledge about and experiences with. Still, analytically, it has a rich and innovative potential. Recent interdisciplinary research employs this figure to address issues of cultural diversity, gender, migration, ethnic relationships, war and peace, environmental challenges and urbanization. The neighbor represents the borderline between insider and outsider, friend and enemy, us and them. This ambiguous status makes the neighbor particularly interesting as an entry point into issues of cultural complexity, self-definition and identity. This volume brings all the intersections of religion, ethnicity, gender, and socio-cultural diversity into the same neighborhood, paying attention to sacred texts, receptions and contemporary communities.
The Ambiguous Figure of the Neighbor in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Texts and Receptions offers a fascinating study of the intersections between Jewish, Christian and Islamic text, and will be of interest to anyone working on these traditions.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Let's unpack this story.
First El-Araj is one of the two main contenders for the site of the city of Bethsaida in the time of Jesus. The other is et-Tell. Both have longstanding excavations and both excavation teams are fully confident that their site is the site of Bethsaida. I have been following the debate for years. Both cases sound completely convincing to me. I take no position on who is correct. For many posts on the subject, start here and follow the links.
The discovery of a Byzantine-era church building at El-Araj was announced in 2019. This discovery was important because an eighth-century writer mentioned a church built on the site of the house of Peter and Andrew located at Bethsaida. It is possible that this building is that church, although there was no specific evidence of its connection with Peter.
The new inscription is exciting. It clinches the identification of the building as a church. But as far as I am aware (fact check me on this), no one had disputed that.
Do the inscriptions prove that this was Church of the Apostles and that the site was actually Bethsaida? Nope.
We still have no proof of a connection of the church with Peter and Andrew. And even if it is that church, this would only tell us that people seven hundred years after the time of Jesus thought the site was Bethsaida. That's a long time for mixups to happen.
That said, the discovery of this church does add weight to the identification of El-Araj as Bethsaida - unless and until the excavators of et-Tell can produce a Byzantine-era church on their site.
As I have said before, I don't think that this debate will be resolved conclusively unless we find a first-century sign at one of them that says "Wecome to Bethsaida."
Meanwhile, both sites are uncovering important information about the area in the Roman era and other periods. The contribution of both excavations is signficant, whichever site is the real Bethsaida.
I wrote the above before seeing the Haaretz article by Ruth Schuster: ‘Church of the Apostles’ in Bethsaida Mysteriously Buried, Archaeologists Discover. Researchers at the Sea of Galilee find inscriptions proving they found a major church, shoring up their belief that this was the church of Jesus' disciples, the real Bethsaida (HT Rogue Classicism). It has a good account of the discovery, with more information than in the press release. It also gives a balanced assessment of the evidence from both sites.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
The Septuagint from Alexandria to ConstantinopleCanon, New Testament, Church Fathers, Catenae
Gilles Dorival
Description
- An authoritative study of the reception of the Septuagint in Alexandria and in the Christian tradition, based on Gilles Dorival's Grinfield Lectures
- Explores the significance of the differences between the Septuagint and the Hebrew Bible
- Investigates the development of the canon of the Hebrew Bible
- Examines the Jewish nature of the Deuterocanonical books and their importance to the study of early Judaism
The Hebrew Torah was translated into Greek in Alexandria by Jewish scholars in the third century BCE, and other 'biblical' books followed to form the so-called Septuagint. Since the Septuagint contains a number of books and passages that are not part of the Hebrew Bible, the study of the Septuagint is essential to any account of the canon of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. However, the situation is complex because the Greek text of the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament and in the Church Fathers does not always match the Septuagint text as given by the earliest codices. Furthermore, it must be asked to what extent these texts of the Septuagint may have been Christianized.
Up until the fifth century, the Old Testament of the Church Fathers was exclusively the Septuagint—except in the Syriac area—either in its Greek form or in a language translated from this Greek form. The Septuagint thus formed a much more important role in the building of Christian identity than it is usually recognised. After Jerome's Vulgate prevailed in the West, the Septuagint remained the reference text of the catenae. These Byzantine compilations of extracts of Patristic biblical commentary were produced first in Palestine, then in Constantinople and its dependancies between the sixth and fifteenth centuries and became the most important media for the transmission of patristic commentary in these centuries. The patristic extracts in the catenae provide a remarkable witness to the text of the Greek Old Testament as it was known and used by the Church Fathers.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Genesis describes Nimrod as a great hunter before YHWH and a powerful king. In late Second Temple writings, Nimrod is connected to the Tower of Babel and seen as a rebel against God. This negative view of Nimrod persisted through the centuries in the writings of the Church Fathers, and was further expanded in rabbinic midrash and medieval Islamic literature.Thanks to Bugs Bunny, he also has a reputation for being clueless.
Other PaleoJudaica posts on Nimrod are here and here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
For more on the balsam vs. persimmon plants, see here.
For more posts on ancient bling, see here and links, here, and here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.