Conference handout from NAPS 2012 paper

Drawing on rabbinic sources redacted in the early third and late fourth/ early fifth centuries, this paper tracks the intertwined lives of divine image-things and rabbis living in late Roman and Byzantine period Palestine. The paper argues that the religious image-things of others (or avodah zarah, in rabbinic terms) pressed in different ways on…[Read more]

Argues that Qohelet’s famous bit of speech on the seasons at 3:1-8 mimics and mocks proverbial poetry, as part of his larger, prosaic denial that life has discernible and usable rhythms and rhymes.

Part of a panel discussion in the Use and Influence of the New Testament seminar

This paper describes a catalogued but rare manuscript (call number 170/307) held by the Charles Young Research Library at UCLA, in which one can find the by-laws of a barely known medieval confraternity, located in the city of Teruel and devoted to St. Julian.
Most of these by-laws were written around 1402, although it does also…[Read more]

The manuscript Codex germanicus 1 (Cod. germ. 1) of the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek (State and University Library) Hamburg is a fifteenth-century German-language manuscript. It comprises two codicological units and has an especially complex developmental history. To trace this developmental history, neglected until now in the research…[Read more]

Hand-drawn illustration of a ‘Iudaea Capta’ coin, after LIMC ‘IUDAEA’ 14 (and BMCRE 117)

Hand-drawn illustration of a ‘Iudaea Capta’ coin, after LIMC ‘IUDAEA’ 14 (and BMCRE 117)

How should we understand the naming of legendary figures like Solomon in biblical titles? The ancient practice of attribution is often obscured by scholars committed to the modern construction of authorship. Texts such as 11QPsa XXVII (“David’s Compositions”) demonstrate an altogether different understanding of this ancient practice. Using Prov.…[Read more]

The Gospel of John is not unique in representing Jesus as performing miracles, but the way that John uses signs to point to Jesus’s Christological identity stands out among the canonical gospels. In John, when Jesus is called χριστός—Christ, messiah—it is often in the context of a sign being performed. However, the relationship between Jesus…[Read more]

This essay offers an introduction to select disciplinary developments in the study of history and in historical study of the Hebrew Bible. It focuses first and foremost on “cultural history,” a broad category defined by nineteenth- and twentieth-century developments in anthropology and sociology, literary theory and linguistics, and other fie…[Read more]

Marco Heiles, The Medial Determination of German Edition Philology, in: Hannes Bajohr, Benjamin Dorvel, Vincent Hessling und Tabea Weitz (Hg.), The Future of Philology. Proceedings of the 11th Annual Columbia University German Graduate Student Conference, Newcastle upon Tyne 2014, S. 183-193.

Edition and commentary of an German chiromantic text from about 1464 in the manuscript Linz, Landesbibliothek, Hs. 139, fol. 1r-5r.

Marco Heiles, Eine bisher unbeachtete deutsche Chiromantie in der Landesbibliothek Linz, in: Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 145 (2016), S. 70-81.

Precirculated paper for 10th Nangeroni Seminar, experimentally reflecting on the gendering of knowledge in ancient Jewish literatures (esp. third and second centuries BCE) and modern scholarship upon them.

Conference presentation expanded for publication

Prepared for T&T Clark Companion to Second Temple Judaism

The book of Jubilees stands out for its combination of length, antiquity, and coherence. The structure of the book is considered from four perspectives: as a rewriting of Genesis and Exodus, as a chronology, as an apocalyptic revelation, and as a literary unity that shows seams from the process of reconciling a variety of sources already in…[Read more]

For length, coherence, and antiquity, Jubilees is one of the most significant works of early Jewish literature. It represents a major stage in Jewish history, as Jerusalem emerged from a crisis of confrontation with Hellenistic culture and empire. Jubilees finds a plan for Jewish identity in the interpretation of the traditional books. At the same…[Read more]

Jubilees exhorts Israelites to separate from Gentiles in every way. Jubilees does not simply repeat familiar arguments that Gentiles will lead Israelites to sin if they adopt their ways. Rather, Jubilees argues that merely being in the presence of Gentiles is dangerous because they are liable to a violent death at any moment for their abhorrent…[Read more]