This study is a fresh analysis of a collection of scrolls and fragments grouped under the rubric, The Community Rule or Serekh ha-Yaḥad. As part of the manuscripts discovered in the Judean Desert, the Community Rule manuscripts are all fragmentary to various degrees, yet attest to important issues of legal dispute and community formation in the S…[Read more]

This article proposes a new understanding of the etymology of histrio. It is likely that it originally came from Greek histor, as has been demonstrated by Szemerényi 1975. However, the conclusions presented by this scholar must be slightly revised, in particular the distinction he establishes between histrio and ludius. While the second word has…[Read more]

Johann Joachim Winckelmann not only idealized Greek Classical art, but also the whole ancient Classical Greek world in a way that went well beyond what could be envisaged as historical knowledge. His influence on the history of contemporary literature and on classical scholarship, however, is not an obvious topic to scrutinize, since he was almost…[Read more]

This article examines the Costobar Affair, a narrative aside in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities and a moment in the history of Idumeans, to revisit the parting of the ways and the relationship of early Judaism and early Chistianity to their next-door neighbors in other Hellenistic Levantine traditions (such as “Idumaism”).

The open-cbgm library is an open-source software implementation of the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM) designed with customizability and performance on large-scale collations in mind. The library is free to use or modify and has been tested on real data from the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) of the New Testament. This presentation first…[Read more]

While analysing lexical data of Western Kho-Bwa languages of the Sino-Tibetan or Trans-
Himalayan family with the help of a computer-assisted approach for historical language
comparison, we observed gaps in the data where one or more varieties lacked forms for certain
concepts. We employed a new workflow, combining manual and automated steps,…[Read more]

Evidence for some ephemeral, Roman, ritual practices, particularly using organic materials, is lost to us. This paper will introduce a case study which has not been previously considered as a platform to explore the material relationships between invertebrates and their use in magical or medicinal practices. Through a combination of discussing the…[Read more]

Evidence for some ephemeral, Roman, ritual practices, particularly using organic materials, is lost to us. This paper will introduce a case study which has not been previously considered as a platform to explore the material relationships between invertebrates and their use in magical or medicinal practices. Through a combination of discussing the…[Read more]

This document summarizes all contributions to the blog “Computer-Assisted Language Comparison in Practice” from 2019, online also available under https://calc.hypotheses.org.

This study argues that there is a tradition, arising from a ‘Jewish milieu’, based around the exegesis of select biblical passages, indicating that the messiah bears the Divine Name. This tradition appears to predate the Christian movement, and is referenced also in rabbinic literature. In the first section we highlight a tradition regarding the…[Read more]

Workshop presentation about reconstruction of sounds preserved only in marginal daughter languages attested later than the earliest daughters

Discussion of recent new proposals for the reconstruction of the PIE sounds called “laryngeals”

Paper delivered at the University of Pennsylvania to the graduate students in religious studies on May 6, 2016

Paper delivered at Cornell University, March 7, 2013 to the Department of Near Eastern Studies.

Review of Stefan Krmnicek, Jérémie Chameroy, Money matters: coin finds and ancient coin use. Bonn: Habelt Verlag, 2019. Pp. vi, 272. ISBN9783774941755 €69,00.

When comparing the more than 7000 human language varieties spoken today, one encounters a huge diversity in all domains of language, ranging from phonology via morphology up to syntax and pragmatics. In the seminar, we explored how language diversity can be studied empirically. In order to do so, we looked at linguistic approaches to the study of…[Read more]

This is the first page only. Full article is available at https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.124.4.0523 (JSTOR subscription required) or https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/310940 (open access).

Abstract:
A wide variety of edits can be identified in the Linear B administrative documents from Mycenaean Greece. The writers of these documents…[Read more]

This is the first page only. Full article is available at https://doi.org/10.3764/aja.124.4.0523 (JSTOR subscription required) or https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/310940 (open access).

Abstract:
A wide variety of edits can be identified in the Linear B administrative documents from Mycenaean Greece. The writers of these documents…[Read more]

A three-page paper on the artistry of a bronze age ring whose discovery was reported in 2019.

Slides for a guest lecture given for Peter Gurry’s New Testament Textual Criticism class. The talk covers the approach and results of the paper “Biclustering Readings and Manuscripts via Non-negative Matrix Factorization, with Application to the Text of Jude,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 57.1 (2019) as well as some unpublished results…[Read more]