[First posted in AWOL 20 November 2014, updated 3 April 2017]
Ancient Jew Review
Ancient Jew Review
The Ancient Jew Review is a non-profit web journal devoted to the study of Ancient Judaism. In this respect, AJR incorporates scholarship from a wide range of fields, including Roman History, Persian History, Biblical Studies, Ancient Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism, and the Second Temple. AJR is committed to regularly showcasing content from these respective fields, interviewing scholars on past and future projects, and discussing new publications in hopes of furthering the collaborative resources of scholarship in antiquity.Editors
Krista Dalton is a PhD student at Columbia.
Simcha Gross is a PhD student at Yale.
Nathan Schumer is a PhD Candidate at Columbia.
See AWOL's full List of Open Access Journals in Ancient StudiesCultural Heritage at Risk in LibyaPhilip Kenrick, author of the Libya Archaeological Guides to Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, describes the threatened antiquities in Libya."Himmelfarb’s incisive reading of Sefer Zerubbabel greatly enriches our understanding of Jewish messianism between the Second Temple period and the rise of Islam. By exploring common themes and figures in a wide range of sources, Himmelfarb works “backward” to uncover a vibrant “Judaism” that actively appropriates key elements of the Christian messianic narrative, much to the consternation of the rabbis.""This is the theoretical point Morgan is interested in proving with this volume – that in the endless growth of language into new meanings, there are very few grand leaps and very many infinitesimal steps. The earliest Christians did not (yet) redefine faith, Morgan insists, but changed its focus – toward God and Christ alone, rather than that “shared circle of reasoning” that pistis/fides spun among gods and humans (p. 123).""How does an orientation towards “a people’s history,” following Howard Zinn, help scholars ask new questions about the context and content of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, a brief but important text in the Pauline corpus?""Water was not simply part of the background of Jewish experiences in Egypt; rather, it was central to their lives as they developed new perspectives towards the land.""Around seven hundred homilies authored in Syriac survive from the fourth through sixth centuries. Yet most have resisted efforts to identify their dates, locations, and liturgical settings. By attending to these texts, we are forced to confront the difficulty of interpreting the seemingly de-contextualized remains of most sermons from late antiquity."Despite their general agreement regarding demonic pervasiveness, Christian writers often disagree concerning the nature of the demonic, particularly vis-à-vis the demons’ physical appearance and substance.Dr. Todd Berzon tackles the ambiguity of identity and suggests "the use of identity operates to conceal analysis rather than illuminate it. The term is not simply under-explained (and under-theorized), but its imprecision hints at a more fundamental problem: identity usually means something else entirely."Dr. Alyssa Gray reports on the Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud panel from SBL's 2015 Annual Meeting.AJR and @TWUDSSI’s first forum celebrating the 70th anniversary of the discovery of the Qumran scrolls with pieces by Reinhard Kratz, Drew Longacre, Menachem Kister, Charlotte Hempel."In modern scholarship Epiphanius has thus been routinely maligned as hell-bent on sniffing out heresy wherever it could be found, fanatical, narrow-minded, intransigent, aggressive, theologically inept, and even given to buffoonery. But is there more to this figure than these caricatures suggest?"SBL's History of Rabbinic Literature's 2016 review panel of Dr. Christine Hayes'What's Divine About Divine Law?The Ancient Jew Review interviewed Dr. John Ma of Columbia University about inscriptions and the accounts of the Maccabees.Brian Davidson interviews Andrew Perrin about his book The Dynamics of Dream-Vision Revelation in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls (V&R, 2015).Dr. Sarit Kattan Gribetz shares her strategies for teaching the Mishnah to students with no exposure to rabbinic texts."Most of my contributions to Mandaean studies engage topics in Mandaean texts for these topics’ own sake. That means trying to take the literature on its own terms, in accordance with its own religious logic, and avoiding flights into the hallowed sanctuaries of comparisons.""To pronounce the future of a field is a weighty task. To conjure the future is beyond me. What I can do is gesture towards a future, a future in which I think I could have fun studying Paul again. The future that I conjure is not a neutral one. I am apartisan in the battles over Pauline studies."In a two-part series, Dr. Adam McCollum addresses the possibilities for the field of Judeo-Persian language and literature. Part Two includes a helpful bibliography and four text samples.In a two-part series, Dr. Adam McCollum addresses the possibilities for the field of Judeo-Persian language and literature. Part One addresses the state of the field.Beth Berkowitz and Ishay Rosen-Zvi share a book that was an "unexpected influence" upon their academic work.Dr. Elizabeth Clark and Dr. Tal Ilan share a book that was an "unexpected influence" upon their academic work.
