A review of Karel van der Toorn’s Becoming Diaspora Jews: Behind the Story of Elephantine (Anchor Bible Reference Library). New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019. Pp xi, 270. Hardcover: $65. ISBN: 9780300243512.

Julius Wellhausen proposed a “sharp break” between ancient Israelite religion and early Judaism: for him, the eighth-century prophets were the “spiritual destroyers of old Israel” and the forerunners of early Judaism. The biblical theologian Brevard Childs rejected Wellhausen’s reconstruction and insisted instead that “very strong theological…[Read more]

Julius Wellhausen proposed a “sharp break” between ancient Israelite religion and early Judaism: for him, the eighth-century prophets were the “spiritual destroyers of old Israel” and the forerunners of early Judaism. The biblical theologian Brevard Childs rejected Wellhausen’s reconstruction and insisted instead that “very strong theological…[Read more]

I wrote the first version of this guide in the summer of 2018. For the first time in my career I had received a multi-year fellowship, and I had been told that the position had a good chance of continuing beyond the initial fellowship period, if not of becoming permanent. So, since I did not expect to have to search for employment again, it seemed…[Read more]

As the Pāṇḍava brothers move through the forest in the third book of the Mahābhārata, they hear stories of fantastic transformations and journeys: a band of gods all masked as the same prince, dice that become thieving birds, a sage turned into a hunted deer, a woman who traverses Yama’s realm. These tales recast and elucidate the condit…[Read more]

Recent research demonstrates that maternal grief functions paradigmatically to epitomize despair and sorrow in the Hebrew Bible. These literary uses of maternal grief reinforce the stereotype of womanhood, defined by devotion to children and anguish at their loss. In 1–2 Kings, narratives about unnamed bereaved mothers are used politically to c…[Read more]

Recent research demonstrates that maternal grief functions paradigmatically to epitomize despair and sorrow in the Hebrew Bible. These literary uses of maternal grief reinforce the stereotype of womanhood, defined by devotion to children and anguish at their loss. In 1–2 Kings, narratives about unnamed bereaved mothers are used politically to c…[Read more]

Wir verfügen insgesamt über wenige Quellen zur Verfassungsgeschichte und dem
Rechtswesen im vandalischen Nordafrika. Die vorherrschende Sicht lässt sich in etwa
folgendermaßen zusammenfassen: Das vandalische Afrika war ein zweigeteiltes Gemeinwesen.
›Germanische‹ Vandalen und ›Romanen‹ lebten nebeneinander und jede dieser
Gru…[Read more]

Syllabus for a level 2 course on Health, Healing and Religion: Comparative Views. To be taught online Fall 2020.
Please contact me if you want more details of the online content (there are 4 short videos per module, plus other resources)

Overview of demons and monsters in Mesopotamia, highlighting works in the Yale Babylonian Collection.

In the winter of 476 A.D. the Ostrogoths, hungry and exhausted from wandering for months along the barren confines of the Byzantine Empire, wrote to Emperor Zeno in Constantinople requesting permission to enter the walled city of Epidaurum and just kinda crash and charge their phones. Closer to home, Orpheus walks Eurydice through a suburban…[Read more]

This first note introduces the need to flush out a robust interdisciplinary method to analyse fragmentary manuscript corpora in general and the Judaean Desert Scrolls and Cairo Genizah manuscripts in particular.

Interview with Martha Hennessy, the granddaughter of Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker, on her life, her anti-nuclear and peace activism, and ongoing trial as part of the Kings Bay Plowshares 7.

This article asks the question how post-exilic readers would have read 1-2 Samuel in Yehud. It answers the question by looking at ancient Mediterranean models of textual authority and education.

The iconography of the Horus cippus, an amulet popular in Egypt from the late Third Intermediate Period to Roman times (8th century BCE – 2nd century CE), is unexpectedly recapitulated in bronze “goddess plaques” of the 7-8th centuries CE made by Permian peoples – Finno-Ugric groups from the Ural region of northern Eurasia. The likely expla…[Read more]

The relationship of the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament is explored by means of apocryphal and pseudepigraphical texts, using the ethical issue of interpersonal forgiveness as a test case.

Contemporary aspects of consumerism are considered through biblical reflections (HB/OT and NT) on the analysis of Colin Campbell of five common critiques of consumerism.

This essay explores how and why three early Christian figures–Epiphanius, Romanos the Melode, and Ambrosiaster–have, at various times, been imagined as former Jews. By applying a hermeneutics of conversion, this essay argues that the significance of these three Christians’ ex-Jewishness lies not in its historicity (or falsity) but in the way…[Read more]

A description and edition of a fragment of the early rabbinic work Sifre Numbers, miscatalogued as a different work, found in the university library, Wrocław.