Introduction

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]

This article calls attention to documents relating to the early academic life of G. J. P. J. Bolland (1854–1922). During the late 1870s and early 1880s, Bolland was enthralled by the study of Old Germanic languages and Old English in particular. His endeavours soon caught the eye of Pieter Jacob Cosijn (1854–1922), Professor of Germanic Phi…[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]

A critical historiographical overview of art historical approaches to early medieval material culture, with a focus on the British Museum collections and their connections to religion.

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.

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 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 paper examines the nature and basis of the competition between the dynasty based in Moray, to which the famous MacBeth belonged, and the mainline of Scottish kings.

This article examines the evidence for Pictish kingship being transmitted through the female line.

This paper discussed the micro demography of households in later prehistoric and early medieval northern Europe.

An examination of the career of the quondam king of Dublin and Northumbria Óláfr Kvaran.

The title is a terrible editorial imposition. This article argues that the term ‘Scotland’ though not attested before the late ninth-century (for Ireland) and the early tenth (for Alba) was probably already in use as the Northumbrian English term for Dál Riata in the time of Bede and certainly by the beginning of the Viking Age.

This paper attempts to correlate Bede’s account of the British king Caedualla, to whom he attributed Edwin’s death, with the information provided by Historia Brittonum and the Harleian pedigrees. It is suggested, inter alia, that his identification with Cadwallon ap Cadfan may be in error.

This paper examines the career and reputation of perhaps the longest reigning Pictish king, Onuist son of Urguist, who was a contemporary of Offa of Mercia.

This brief note reconsiders the standard translation of a brief passage in the Annals of Ulster and considers the implications of this alternate view.

In the nineteenth century the Pictish kingdom of Fortriu and the site of
the Battle of Nechtansmere were located by scholars in Menteith and
Strathearn and at Dunnichen in Forfarshire respectively. These identifications
have largely gone unchallenged. The purpose of this article is to
review the evidence for these locations and to suggest that…[Read more]