This article discusses the reason behind Jeroboam, king of Israel, instituting a holiday in the eighth month of calendar. We suggest an approach that looks at this holiday as misplaced from the seventh month by means of an additional unauthorized leap-month.

Conference handout for CAMWS 2013 paper

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]

Data management plan submitted in the successful application for the 2014-2016 NEH Digital Humanities Implementation Grant.

Sustainability plan submitted in the successful application for the 2014-2016 NEH Digital Humanities Implementation Grant.

DH@Berkeley sponsored a faire and provided researchers with the opportunity to present work in progress. This poster represents the state of our work in 2015.

This article uses both textual and archaeological evidence to examine the role of unbuilt land in the Babylonian city. Detailed study of such land is vital not only for understanding urban living conditions but also for any attempt to estimate urban population based on density of occupation of residential areas. By classifying and investigating…[Read more]

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

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]

An essay on the Greeks in Egypt during the Archaic and Classical periods.

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 problem with using royal inscriptions as historical sources is their inherent bias. The interests of the king drive the narratives of royal inscriptions. Yet this essential feature reveals their underlying concept of history. In royal inscriptions, historical thought is defined by the life and experience of the king. This article will present…[Read more]

The problem with using royal inscriptions as historical sources is their inherent bias. The interests of the king drive the narratives of royal inscriptions. Yet this essential feature reveals their underlying concept of history. In royal inscriptions, historical thought is defined by the life and experience of the king. This article will present…[Read more]

The Samaria Ostraca contain a subset of receipts that record wine shipments from what were evidently royal vineyards. But this particular group of ostraca has been largely overlooked in the study of the Northern Kingdom, probably resulting from the fact that not all of the ostraca were published in the editio princeps. This article presents a new…[Read more]

The Samaria Ostraca contain a subset of receipts that record wine shipments from what were evidently royal vineyards. But this particular group of ostraca has been largely overlooked in the study of the Northern Kingdom, probably resulting from the fact that not all of the ostraca were published in the editio princeps. This article presents a new…[Read more]

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]

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]