This article looks at the field of Black Judaism, with a viewto understanding how scholars articulate the distinctionbetween Black Judaism and the Hebrew Israelite move-ment. The Hebrew Israelites are an autonomous AfricanAmerican movement who identify themselves as descen-dants of the Israelites and some of whom self-identify asJews, probably…[Read more]

Published in Sächsische Leute und Länder Benennung und Lokalisierung von Gruppenidentitäten im ersten Jahrtausend, and a considerably expanded version of a paper delivered at the Internationales Sachsensymposion in Leipzig, 2015.

The article considers the literary representation of Saxons in the works of the late antique authors Sidonius Ap…[Read more]

Ezekiel 37 is based upon Judean mortuary culture, and the revivification of bones is a reversal of death. Rather than a resurrection event, Ezekiel’s metaphor of Israel as a mass of dry bones is based upon the burial customs that occurred inside the family tomb.

King Manasseh of Judah is blamed for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile, a heavy mantle to carry. But as a character, Manasseh is boring—he looks like the other ordinary bad kings, even described as a “cardboard cutout,” that Kings has little literary use for. Wouldn’t we expect a more colorful villain? Is there anything in the…[Read more]

Many of the feminist readings of the Dinah story in Genesis 34 in recent years have focused on the question of whether Dinah is raped. The interpretations that perhaps Dinah was not “raped” span the spectrum from a teenage love affair between Dinah and Shechem, to a case of statutory rape, to a marriage by abduction. Guilty of exploring this que…[Read more]

During the third millennium B.C.E., Tell Mozan, ancient Urkesh, expanded to include an extensive outer city. A variety of investigations in the outer city reveal a complex urban environment: a mix of planned and unplanned activity with the environment and large municipal works acting as constraining factors on more localized activity.

Religious practice is shaped by technology. Technological practice is shaped by religion. Since the early 1990s, this parallel formation has become visible through the internet and other digitally networked technologies, as the perception of a barrier between the digital and the non-digital dissolves. Fully rendered 3D temples and churches, prayer…[Read more]

This is an enhanced compilation of relevant entries from Clavis Patrum Graecorum which was compiled by me (GS) for the “Patristic Literature in Arabic Translations” volume up to Nov. 2015. It is an embryonic version of what was later substantially enlarged and published as “A Bibliographical Guide to Arabic Patristic Translations and Related T…[Read more]

This article examines the description of Persepolis, one of the capital cities of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (ca. 550–330 BCE), by Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri (1651–1725) in his illustrated travelogue Giro del mondo (1699–1700). Gemelli Careri’s extensive description of the site—some twenty pages of text accompanied by two plates en…[Read more]

The relationship between the ‘Two Brothers’ Nakhtankh and Khnumnakht has been heavily debated since the discovery of their mummies in 1907. Re-examining the coffin inscriptions of these two individuals reveals that Nakhtankh and Khnumnakht were likely uncle and nephew.

A brief technical re-examination of a paper by George Mann on the Qau skeletons in the Duckworth collection is undertaken. Taking into account the original data and technical aspects of skeletal sexing, it is shown that old data on skeletal sexing may not always be as unreliable as previously thought. Factors that may introduce errors into this…[Read more]

It is well known the harmful effects that savage capitalism has been causing to the environment since its introduction in a sphere in which a different logic and approach to nature are the essential conditions for the maintenance of the ecosystem and its complex relations between humans and non-human organisms. The amazon rainforest is a portion…[Read more]

This article analyses the confluence of Islamophobia and anti-government conspiracy theory in the works of the far-right think tank, the Center for Security Policy (CSP). He argues that, rather than only being a contemporary form of the religious and racialized demonologies that code ‘Islam’ as being the constitutive outside of ‘the ‘West…[Read more]

In this seminar we will examine representations of health and accounts of disease in a variety of Chinese religions. We will explore the various vectors of disease, including the so-called “winds” and various types of demonic infestation. We will identify modes of
healing that employ therapies such as mineral, animal, and vegetable drugs, exo…[Read more]

In late-ninth-century China, poetry and meditation became equated — not just metaphorically, but as two equally valid means of achieving stillness and insight. This article discusses how several strands in literary and Buddhist discourses fed into an assertion about such a unity by the poet-monk Qiji 齊己 (864–937?). One strand was the aesthet…[Read more]

Much has been written on the epistle to the Colossians. Much less has been written on Colossians and rhetoric. Even less has been written on the connection of praise and paraenesis found in the epistle. If the book of Colossians can be understood as epideictic rhetoric, then a connection between its paraenesis and the encomium to Christ…[Read more]

The motif in the centre of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor (ca. 2000-1900 BCE) concerns a star that fell to earth and caused the extinction of a population of giant serpents on an enchanted island, whose location is traditionally ascribed to the Red Sea. These creatures could apparently breathe fire, but they themselves…[Read more]

This article focuses on Jewish women’s experiences of the amen meal ritual. The central intention of this meal is to achieve many recitations of the word “amen” in response to benedictions recited for different sorts of food. The women’s voices and experiences, reflected in in-depth interviews with participants and participant observa…[Read more]