This paper assesses the evidence for the collapse or otherwise of the northern frontier of Britannia, including Hadrian’s Wall, relative to received paradigms of ‘the end’ of Roman Britain.

This paper examines structural changes to stone-built granaries at fort sites along Hadrian’s Wall, with particular attention given to the latest phases of alterations that indicate a demolition or changed use of granary buildings.

The comparison of Qoheleth and Gilgamesh begins with the so-called carpe diem advice of Siduri and Eccl 9:7-9. Additionally, the rhetoric of kingship evoked through Gilgamesh’s narû (“stele”) at the beginning of the epic parallels the royal voice of Qoheleth beginning in Eccl 1:12. Yet these similarities raise several historical issues. First,…[Read more]

This paper offers an alternative approach to Luke 2:1-7, assuming for argument’s sake that Luke’s presumed chronology agreed with modern reconstructions in placing Quirinius’ census some years after Herod’s death. It is proposed that, on this basis, a coherent reading of the text is feasible in which the reference to Quirinius marks 2:1-5 as a…[Read more]

The aim of this contribution is to review some of the major areas of current research on the Arabic Bible, along with the factors and trends contributing to them. Also we present some of the tools that are currently under development in the Biblia Arabica team, Munich.

We provide here a very condensed survey of the transmission of traditions,…[Read more]

The aim of this contribution is to review some of the major areas of current research on the Arabic Bible, along with the factors and trends contributing to them. Also we present some of the tools that are currently under development in the Biblia Arabica team, Munich.

We provide here a very condensed survey of the transmission of traditions,…[Read more]

This textual crux all modern editors unanimously and silently emend, from the Folio “he”, their copy text, to the Quarto “you.” Although they find F so nonsensical as to deserve no comment, Shakespeare, his company, and his audience found it not only sensible in a play involving jealousy, but also powerful. The difference between then and now…[Read more]

Transcription of a tract on the plague from a German manuscript from ca 1463, Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. germ. 1, fol. 51ra-rb.

This is a book review (pre-print) of the 2013 CIPL edited volume on scriptoria.

This is a book review (pre-print) of the 2014 book by Lifshitz.

This is a book review (published version) of the 2015 book on Carolingian monasteries edited by Becker, Licht and Weinfurter.

This chapter examines a particular miscellany manuscript’s strategies for arranging its texts for ease of use, legibility and coherence. It argues that such manuscripts were purposefully compiled and that their texts were enhanced by others produced in the same codicological context, showing that early medieval book-making was an innovative and…[Read more]

This essay explores the different ways parts of the Hebrew Bible have been described as historiography. It’s an old essay whose usefulness is limited to giving the reader a snapshot of the state of the question in biblical historiography at the height of the maximalist-minimalist debate.

The Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics by the Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) has been treated by commentators as wide-ranging as Borges, Renan, and Kilito as an exemplary case of the failure of translation. Critics who presume Ibn Rushd’s failure often concentrate on his rendering of Aristotle’s tragedy and comedy by praise…[Read more]

This essay looks at how the Persian authorization to rebuild of Jewish temple at Elephantine reflects imperial policy and sheds light on post-exilic Judaism.

During the older excavation of Messene by Anastasios Orlandos a quite original smaller than life-size marble statue of a Roman emperor wearing a short tunic and holding in his left hand the orb had been located and dated to the 4th c. AD. Further exploration of the area by Petros Themelis in the 1990s unearthed a magnificent Roman urban domus of…[Read more]

This dissertation considers how Peter the Venerable, the abbot of Cluny from 1122 to 1156, implemented reform through a textual program. Peter’s abbacy witnessed a period of fundamental reconstruction, in which not only the practices of Cluniac monasticism, but also its mentality and institutional ethos underwent dramatic change. This period e…[Read more]

This is a preprint draft of the chapter appearing in the De Gruyter volume, Friendship in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age.

Both in terms of its content and its methodology, Pious Irreverence is a pioneering work. Weiss artfully employs all the tools of textual analysis developed over the last four decades of rabbinic scholarship and brings them to bear on TY, a largely neglected corpus. Tanhuma-Yelammedenu has never been studied as a work of theology, nor from a…[Read more]

Both in terms of its content and its methodology, Pious Irreverence is a pioneering work. Weiss artfully employs all the tools of textual analysis developed over the last four decades of rabbinic scholarship and brings them to bear on TY, a largely neglected corpus. Tanhuma-Yelammedenu has never been studied as a work of theology, nor from a…[Read more]