17th cent icon of Elijah and Enoch in Historic Museum in Sanok, Poland. Przykuta [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
17th cent icon of Elijah and Enoch in Historic Museum in Sanok, Poland. Przykuta [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Hilla Alouf's dissertation argues that "the Elijah traditions reflect the influence of not only the Torah-Centered wisdom tradition which viewed the law as the source of wisdom, but also the Apocalyptic-Centered and the Spirit-Centered wisdom traditions."
Read MoreSaint Ignatius of Antioch - 10th century ceramic (Turkey) courtesy of The Walters Museum
Saint Ignatius of Antioch - 10th century ceramic (Turkey) courtesy of The Walters Museum
Sometime near the end of the fourth century, an anonymous scribe carefully read and revised the Ignatian epistles, extensively amending many of the letters and adding a few of his own in Ignatius’s name.
Read MoreLouvre Reproduction of the Law Code of Hammurabi via CC BY-SA 2.0 Mary Harrsch
Louvre Reproduction of the Law Code of Hammurabi via CC BY-SA 2.0 Mary Harrsch
When viewed in conjunction with the wealth of pertinent biblical and ANE sources, the biblical law of bailment can tell us about a law in its many contexts, about divine justice and compassion, about the interactions of law with literature, about everyday life in ancient societies, and about the earliest articulations of a legal topic whose relevance has persisted into the modern era.
Read MoreVincent van Gogh - Wheatfield with Crows (1890) Wikimedia Commons
Vincent van Gogh - Wheatfield with Crows (1890) Wikimedia Commons
"Rarely does the evidence available in textual remains invite us to see the underlying, generative way that conflict and competition textured religious cultures in the late ancient world. This study is an attempt to read Jewish and Christian history in the 2nd-3rd centuries, CE by and seeing the points of overlap and confrontation that can be seen beyond the frame."
Read MoreThe River Nile. Michael Gwyther-Jones, 2008.
The River Nile. Michael Gwyther-Jones, 2008.
"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."
Read MorePaul preaching in Beroia - Wikipedia Commons (Contributor: Edal Anton Lefterow)
Paul preaching in Beroia - Wikipedia Commons (Contributor: Edal Anton Lefterow)
"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."
Read MoreMichelangelo - The Torment of Saint Anthony
Michelangelo - The Torment of Saint Anthony
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.
Read MorePsukhai that Matter: The Psukhē in and behind Clement of Alexandria’s Paedagogus aims to investigate the ideology and mechanics of the ancient soul’s materiality.
Read More"This project investigates the meaning and usage of a particular set of linguistically related Talmudic terms in order to show how and in what cultural context the Talmud began to take shape in the emerging scholastic centers of rabbinic learning in late Sassanian Babylonia."
Read MoreGospel of Rabbula via Wikimedia Commons
Gospel of Rabbula via Wikimedia Commons
James Walters argues that "Aphrahat articulates an uncompromising vision of Christian identity, dependent upon yet distinct from its Jewish roots."
Read MoreDura Europas Synagogue | Marsyas CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dura Europas Synagogue | Marsyas CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
"The dissertation argues that rabbis in Babylonia developed closer relationships with ordinary Jews over the course of the rabbinic period."
Read MoreQumran Mikveh by Teqoah CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Qumran Mikveh by Teqoah CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Carmen Palmer argues that the Qumran movement includes Gentile converts to Judaism by means of mutable ethnicity.
Read MoreJohn Penniman's dissertation argues that "for ancient Jews and Christians, nourishment symbolized a transformative process, a transfer of essential qualities and characteristics that could mold the one being fed into the likeness of the one doing the feeding.
Read MoreYonatan Miller presents priestly violence as “proto-martyrdom” and illustrate how this paradigm prefigures the highly stylized discursive functions of its better-known successor.
Read MoreSt. Paul, St. Chrysostom, and St. Basil. Carlo Crivelli, 1493.
St. Paul, St. Chrysostom, and St. Basil. Carlo Crivelli, 1493.
In “Paul’s Therapy of the Soul: A New Approach to John Chrysostom and Anti-Judaism,” I argue that Chrysostom appropriates Paul’s Jewishness in order to amplify his own fourth century characterization of Jews as diseased and of Paul as an exemplar of non-Jewish Christian orthodoxy.
Read MoreThough scholars have largely overlooked demons as a source of information about rabbinic law, cross-cultural interaction, and theology, this dissertation has asked how the inclusion of rabbinic demonology enriches our picture of rabbinic discourse and thought in Late Antique Sasanian Babylonia.
Read MoreEl Mestizaje by Oswaldo Guayasamin
El Mestizaje by Oswaldo Guayasamin
In Borderlands/La Frontera of the Late Ancient Egyptian Desert: Space, Identity, and the Ascetic Imagination, I consider the descriptions of desert space in Christian hagiography from Late Antiquity.
Read More‘Ezra Reads the Law’
‘Ezra Reads the Law’
This project examines the implications of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch in understanding Jewish leadership in the period following the destruction of the second temple in 70 C.E.
Read MoreSt. Felix
St. Felix
"Living in a Martyrial World" demonstrates the necessity of recognizing that, in Christian traditions, martyrdom does not always require death.
Read MoreConstantine the Great presents the city (Constantinople) and Justinian the Great presents Hagia Sophia to the Virgin, mosaic
Constantine the Great presents the city (Constantinople) and Justinian the Great presents Hagia Sophia to the Virgin, mosaic
Falcasantos, Rebecca. “A Land Cleansed of Heretics”: Cult Practice and Contestation in the Christianization of Late Antique Constantinople. Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 2015.
Read More![17th cent icon of Elijah and Enoch in Historic Museum in Sanok, Poland. Przykuta [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5449167fe4b078c86b41f810/1514987405965-Y10A3AY8PH8635QUSHX3/1024px-MHS_Eliasz_i_Enoch_XVII_w_p.jpg)
