Antiquitopia

Larry Hurtado continues to raise questions about the utter silence on the so-called Jesus' Wife Fragment, which begins to elaborate a sad state of scholarship in which scholars do not read those who take a different perspective than they do nor admit (alleged) fault. See further comments by Mark Goodacre .

Anthony LeDonne and Chris Keith asked me to offer some memories of Alan as his final Ph.D. student that he saw to completion in honor of their book giveaway of Two Powers in Heaven .  I thought I would reproduce what I wrote for them for my readers here. My reflections of Alan Segal as his final Ph.D. student.  Alan was a brilliant man. He was the stereotypical absent-minded professor with his head in the clouds. Often I would walk into his office to discuss my research projects with him, and he seemed to be in another world. Nonetheless, months later he could quote what I said to him back to me verbatim. Who knows how many languages he knew!? He could recite poetry and/or order a meal in most of them. As an advisor, he let his students develop their own ideas and follow them wherever they led. That is, one thing I really appreciated was that he was not trying to create carbon copies of himself or make us elaborate his ideas, but was there to guide our very different pro...

Anthony LeDonne and Chris Keith are giving away a copy of my late advisor, Alan Segal's first book, Two Powers in Heaven here .  Three and a half decades after it was first published by Brill, it remains a foundational book that discusses intermediation, Christology, and the interrelationships between the emergent Rabbis and emergent Christians.  A seminal work, Baylor University Press has now republished it in a far more affordable form.  So now we can actually assign it in a graduate course!

Larry Hurtado asks an important question: What has happened to the Jesus' Wife Fragment ?  Perhaps as Anthony Le Donne's newest book, The Wife of Jesus , gets more circulation, scholars will continue to want to know (even if - or especially because - the popular hype has subsided). (I have just started reading this book, by the way.  Thought it would be some good, light reading.)

We have been begging for this for years now.  We have all noticed the similarities.  "Hit me, baby, one more time" is basically the same message as "turn the other cheek."  "I'm a slave for you" is clearly about being a servant (as Jesus was in the Last Supper in the Gospel of John).  "Oops, I did it again," is really about all of the mysterious repetitions of miracles in Mark's gospel.   Finally, someone has done it.  Look out Jesus Christ Superstar.  Watch it Godspell.  Someone has turned Britney Spears music into a story--an opera no less--about Jesus called SPEARS: The Gospel according to Britney.  See the information here .   Here is the official website. It appears that the creator developed this originally for Columbia University! From the creator, Pat Blute: So many of the heartaches, loneliness, and miscommunications that we feel are direct results of not listening. We don’t listen to the pleas for help. We don’t...

Coming from the St. Louis area, I always knew that the movie the Exorcist was based upon events that occurred in St. Louis.  Recently, a group of Jesuit scholars at St. Louis University gave a public presentation discussing those events to a packed house.  You can read about it here .

Christopher Skinner has a review of Anthony LeDonne's newest book, The Wife of Jesus , on his blog Peje Iesous.  Check it out here .

Dorothy King of PhDiva has written an extensive post on the European burials of "vampires" and/or "zombies" (the differentiation of which she repeatedly notes is a more modern invention) for this holiday season.  Check it out here .

Jim Davila posts about an upcoming paper by Seth Sanders from a talk he gave a few years ago. Seth writes (from 2009): "I am Adapa, Sage of Eridu" How and Why did Mesopotamian Exorcists Embody their Ancestors? Rencontre Assyriologique paper,  coming to Paris this summer! The modern “Friday Apostolics” of Zimbabwe actually embody their revealers, speaking as Moses and St. Paul; by contrast, ancient Jews did not directly embody Moses in performance. But did Mesopotamian exorcists become the mythical fish-man who revealed their secrets? The semi-human sage Adapa might be considered the patron saint of Mesopotamian ritual. He also became the mediator of privileged knowledge  par excellence —a culture hero for the scribes who managed writing and ritual for Mesopotamian courts. But ritual experts were not satisfied to inherit his knowledge—in certain texts they claim to not just be descended from him but to be him. Beginning with its roots in archaic Sumerian art and ritual,...

Again, a painting I finished just before moving to Mississippi: Green Pumpkin.  Appropriate for the upcoming fall season.

One of the latest studies I did before moving to Mississippi: Sunburst.

My latest painting, for my newly born niece, Jaryn.

Last week we were reading 1 Maccabees in one of my classes.  We began to discuss the work's bias.  As anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with the text knows, it is highly pro-Hasmonean.  It constantly praises the activities--and, at times, the excesses--of Judah Maccabee and his brothers.  But we also began to discuss some underlying critiques.  Or, if one is writing a history of the Maccabean Revolt while under Hasmonean rule, perhaps as the court historian, how could one possibly offer a critique?  It would have to be in allusions and hints throughout.  For example, throughout the text, the Hasmoneans are likened to Phinehas from Numbers 25:1-15 for their zeal, which is often how some rather excessively violent episodes are justified.  In response to his zeal, Phinehas receives a perpetual priesthood (Num. 25:13).  Likewise, so does Simon, the brother of Judah Maccabee, "The Jews and their priests have resolved that Simon should b...

Andrei Orlov, one of the few scholars working on Slavonic Pseudepigrapha, just asked me to forward this information to publicize his newest book.   Based on the price, it looks like something to order for your institution's library. By the way, we need more scholars learning, studying, and publishing on the Slavonic Pseudepigrapha! Andrei A. Orlov,  Heavenly Priesthood in the Apocalypse of Abraham (Cambridge University Press, 2013) 224 pages. ISBN: 110703907X, 9781107039070. Description from the publisher: The Apocalypse of Abraham is a vital source for understanding both Jewish apocalypticism and mysticism. Written anonymously soon after the destruction of the Second Jerusalem Temple, the text envisions heaven as the true place of worship and depicts Abraham as an initiate of celestial priesthood. Andrei A. Orlov focuses on the central rite of the Abraham story - the scapegoat ritual that receives a striking eschatological reinterpretation in the text. He demonstrat...

I just finished reading Caroline Schroeder 's Monastic Bodies : Discipline and Salvation in Shenoute of Atripe , which I recommend to anyone studying late antique Egypt, ancient monasticism, or uses the body as a critical lens of analysis.  I do not offer a comprehensive review here, but a series of impressions as I now step away from the book. There is, indeed, too little scholarship on Shenoute, and Caroline Schroeder, through some close analyses of key documents, draws out Shenoute's concept of the body. She relies upon much similar work done on the body and how it relates to larger groups (Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger ; Peter Brown, The Body and Society ; Dale Martin, The Corinthian Body ) as well as Foucault's analyses on discipline and discourse (e.g., Discipline and Punish , and I believe some History of Sexuality was involved as well), as a broader lens by which to read Shenoute's writings. If I read Schroeder correctly, Shenoute makes a series of correspo...

Or vice versa.  Think about it...

I will be giving a public talk about some of the research I worked on this summer sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Mississippi a week from today (September 18).  If anyone is around Oxford, MS, please come by! Here are the details: From Ignorant to Inspired: Moses in Gnostic Literature Abstract: How did various early Christians groups understand Moses?  How did they interpret his prophetic authority and his divine visions?   Why did it matter?  Of all Christian groups, Gnostic Christians supposedly have at first glance the most negative view of Moses, treating him as the ignorant prophet of his equally ignorant master, the Demiurge or Creator of this world.  A closer look at the evidence produced by both Gnostics themselves and their enemies, however, demonstrates a much greater diversity of perspectives.  Far from always being the puppet of the ignorant Demiurge, some Gnostics portrayed Moses as the ...

Christopher Skinner offers a brief review of Nicola Denzey Lewis's new introductory textbook, Introduction to "Gnosticism": Ancient Voices, Christian Worlds  (OUP, 2013) on his blog Peje Iesous .  It is quite a glowing review for the book's potential usefulness in a classroom setting.  I have been thinking I need to read (and order) the book for my "Forbidden Scriptures" course for a while now.  I recently read her monograph, Cosmology and Fate in Gnosticism and Graeco-Roman Antiquity: Under Pitiless Skies (Brill, 2013 ), which I thought was a very good study of pronoia and heimarmene (and shockingly short).

Evidently in a tweet, current Iranian President has surprised everyone by wishing a blessed Rosh Hashanah to Jews, particularly Iranian Jews.  Still processing this one.  Read more about it here .

I am reviewing (looking over, not writing an official review) of Morton Smith's book, Jesus the Magician, for a project on Magic, Popular Religion, and the New Testament I am working on.  Whatever you think of Smith, you have to admit that he can be a hoot to read. Commenting on a saying attributed to Jesus by the Rabbis ("From filth they came and to filth they shall return"), Smith writes, "The saying may be early--it resembles many of the Q sayings in being antithetical, vague, and pompous...." (Smith, Jesus the Magician , 46) If anyone wanted a primer on what Morton Smith thought of Q, one could not be any more succinct!

Morton Smith wrote a controversial book on Jesus:   Jesus the Magician .  I don't want to go into the details of his argument, which, ultimately, teaches one a lot of interesting and important things about the terminology of magic, and how magic was perceived and understood in the ancient world, though perhaps rarely discussed anymore for "historical Jesus" studies.  Perhaps it is more important for understanding the nachleben of stories of Jesus, how Jesus was perceived by friends and enemies in the second century onwards in Jewish, Christian, and other sources (such as the Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri, etc.), though Smith wouldn't see it the same way.   Anyway, to get to an insightful quote about Jesus in ancient Galilee, and the quests for the historical Jesus that divide the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith, and place all of the "mythological material"--not just myths about Christ, but mythological presuppositions that Jesus may make in ...

As you can see by my sidebar, I have added numerous ancient (and some medieval) Jewish manuscripts, texts, and translations.  Because of the sheer number and range of materials, I have not placed them in my typical order of digitized manuscripts, original language texts, and then translations, but largely in Chronological order and by collection: see ancient Jewish materials (Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Philo, and Josephus) and then Rabbinic Materials (Mishnah, Talmud, etc.). There is plenty here, but if you know of any good websites, especially having digitized manuscripts or original language materials, please pass along the information. Moreover, check out the earlier sections (Biblical and early Christian), because I have added some materials to those as well.

"Jesus is far too important a figure to be left only to the theologians and the church." (Jaroslav Pelikan, J esus through the Centuries , xv) I'll be thinking on that as I go to my Jesus and the Gospels class today.

I have posted a special section for Early Christian texts more generally.  This includes apocryphal works as well as what we used to call "patristics." For texts, I have PG Migne and PL Migne.  For translations, the websites of Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) and Early Christian Writings.  There is also a little link to gospels.net that has a translation to a few extra-canonical gospels. I didn't notice any high resolution photographs for original manuscripts for this section, but would love to hear of any website that has them. I will put more up as I find more or as people send links to me.

For my second installment of updating my sidebar to make it more useful for those seeking to find online resources for ancient manuscripts, texts, and translations, I have now added a section for Nag Hammadi and Relate Literature.  For manuscripts, all I have are the Tchacos Codex high resolution photographs.  If the digitized manuscripts Nag Hammadi Codices, Berlin Codex, etc., are also online, I am unaware of it. I didn't see anything for the Coptic text itself online.  But there are a couple online translations.  I have a link to both English and French translations of the Nag Hammadi Literature. If anyone has any other links for texts or translations for Nag Hammadi and related works, please send them to me and I will add them to my website.

Larry Schiffman has a brief post on the significance of extra-canonical books for the study of ancient Judaism.  It is extremely relevant for my current course, "Forbidden Scriptures," in which we read several of the texts he discusses there.  Check it out!

In an effort to make my blog not merely a place where I offer occasional news or offer up an initial essay (in Montaigne's sense) of my thoughts on an ancient text from time to time, but a place that can be useful for students of the ancient world, I have begun to organize my sidebar to be a database for online resources for ancient manuscripts, texts, and translations. My first category is, naturally enough, Biblical Manuscripts, Texts, and Translations.  I have a few listed toward the top of my sidebar. Perhaps the most significant digitized manuscripts for the Bible I have come across are the Codex Sinaiticus and the Aleppo Codex.  This summer, Trinity College of Dublin also made their famous Book of Kells available online.  If anyone knows of any other biblical manuscripts available in high resolution photographs online, please let me know, and I will create a link to it here. I have also placed Nestle-Aland's 28 for the New Testament text.  Unfortunately, ...

I posted several years ago an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education on the relative merits of using blackboard versus using blogs.  I had, at the time, never used blackboard as an instructor, but now I am at an institution that does use Blackboard.  I have, nonetheless, been toying around with creating a blog for some of my courses for students to present material to one another, comment on each other's work, and ultimately present it in a format that is accessible outside of the university in a public (hyper)space. For disseminating course materials, I think one would have to supplement a blog with dropbox or google docs, but I think it is worth reconsidering. Here is the old link .

After publishing my recent book , I am of course in need of a hiatus from Hebrews and am off to different research projects, particularly my Christian Moses stuff.  But when I return to Hebrews--and I shall return--it will likely be because of Hebrews 9:23, a line that has bothered me every time I've read it.  Quoting from the RSV: "Thus it was necessary for copies of the heavenly things to be purified by these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these." Before this in chapter 9, there is a conflation of several sacrificial rites from the Day of Atonement (Lev 16) to the blood used to establish the covenant (Exod. 24:6-8), etc.  These rites established and purified the earthly sanctuary (the copies of heavenly things).  But that is not the part that bothers me; it is the second phrase.  While the better sacrifices refers to Jesus', why, oh why, would the heavenly things / heavenly sanctuary need to be purified at all?  ...

My book, The Sabbath and the Sanctuary: Access to God in the Letter to the Hebrews and Its Priestly Context, is now printed, published, and available for purchase from Mohr Siebeck!  Check it out here  and order it for your libraries today!

In a Nation piece full of gems, Elizabeth Castelli summarizes many of the critiques Bible scholars have been making of Reza Aslan's new book, Zealot.  The final paragraph is worth reproducing: Simply put,   Zealot   does not break new ground in the history of early Christianity. It isn’t clear that any book framed as a “the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth” could, in fact, do so. Indeed, if it had not been thrust into the limelight by an aggressive marketing plan, the painfully offensive Fox News interview, and Aslan’s own considerable gifts for self-promotion, Zealot would likely have simply been shelved next to myriad other examples of its genre, and everyone could get back to their lives. As it is, the whole spectacle has been painful to watch. And as it is with so many spectacles, perhaps the best advice one might take is this: Nothing to see here, people. Move along.

I haven't wanted to wade into the fray of Reza Aslan that I have seen raging online, on television, and by all my scholarly friends on facebook for two reasons: (1) I haven't read the book; (2) I have been busy moving from Illinois to Mississippi for my new job at the University of Mississippi.  But Jim Davila has a nice roundup of relevant and interesting posts, ranging from positive to negative views of Reza Aslan's book.

It has been long observed that Deadheads have the makings of a religious movement.  I remember as an undergraduate reading Catherine Albanese's America: Religion and Religions , in which she included the Grateful Dead.  Evidently, at the moment, we are in the most important part of the Deadhead liturgical year: the Days Between.  Named after a Grateful Dead song, it is the days between August 1 (Jerry Garcia's birth) and August 9 (his death).  So, there is a short article in the Huffington Post reminding us of this enduring movement: Every religion struggles to redefine itself after the death of its charismatic founder. Often times, this process takes the form of establishing and edifying the authoritative scriptures and commentaries of the tradition. For Jerry Garcia, evangelizing did not happen through sermons or speeches, but rather through his concert performances. Accordingly, Garcia's numerous concert recordings endure as the foundational texts of the Gratefu...

James McGrath has noted that Trinity College Dublin has digitized and placed the Book of Kells online.  You can see it here .

The Chronicle of Higher Education has released its " Great Colleges to Work For 2013 " guide, and my new institution this fall, University of Mississippi, made their " Honor Roll ," that is, the top ten in its category (as a large 4-year university).  They received the honor roll for good ratings in the following categories: Collaborative Governance; Confidence in Senior Leadership; Facilities, Workspace, and Security; Job Satisfaction; Professional/Career Development Programs; Respect and Appreciation; Supervisor or Department Chair Relationship; Tenure Clarity and Process; Work/Life Balance. Areas where they did not score as highly include:  Compensation and Benefits; Diversity; Teaching Environment. Congratulations to Ole Miss for doing so well.  

Evidently, anyway.  According to a Huffington Post article focusing on how Polish exorcists have been worried about Madonna, it mentions that requests for exorcists and, evidently, for Catholic clergy to receive exorcism training is on the rise not only in Eastern Europe, but also in the U.S.  I wonder why there is such an upsurge in interest?

Larry Hurtado notes here that my late advisor's first book, Two Powers in Heaven, is now being re-printed by Baylor University Press at an affordable cost. Here is the blurb on BUP's site: In his now classic   Two Powers in Heaven , Alan Segal examines rabbinic evidence about early manifestations of the "two powers" heresy within Judaism. Segal sheds light upon the development of and relationships among early Christianity, Gnosticism, and Merkabah mysticism and demonstrates that belief in the "two powers in heaven" was widespread by the first century, and may have been a catalyst for the Jewish rejection of early Christianity. An important addition to New Testament and Gnostic scholarship by this much revered scholar, Segal's   Two Powers in Heaven   is made available once again for a new generation.

“For when they saw and heard him, he let them taste him and smell him and touch   the beloved Son” (30,23-31,35; trans. Marvin Meyer in Nag Hammadi Scriptures: International Edition ).   I have been reading a lot of the Nag Hammadi Codices lately, since many of my current research projects seem to intersect there.  While re-reading the Gospel of Truth, I found that it was full of multi-sensory language.  The Gospel of Truth, a profoundly original Valentinian homily (some even think it derives from Valentinus himself), effectively engages all five senses.   Indeed, in some ways, this one line encapsulates one’s relationship with the divine in this text: once you see and hear (initial steps), one then came come closer and taste, smell, and touch the divine, all indicating intimacy if not union. Throughout the entire sermon, the speaker/author invokes sensory language.   There is, of course, a lot of visionary and auditory language, bu...

There is a nice review of Robert Alter's newest installment of his translation of the Hebrew Bible in the Tablet. In   Ancient Israel , Alter has reached the part of the Bible with the most to say about history. The Pentateuch begins in myth and ends in moral exhortation; its most famous legends are precisely that, legends, which can only be accepted as true by an act of faith. Adam eating the apple, Abraham sacrificing Isaac, Moses parting the Red Sea—these are not the kinds of things that can be corroborated with outside evidence. Starting with the Book of Joshua, however,   Ancient Israel   moves into a more recognizable world of power politics, in which the main events are wars between tribes, states, and empires, and the intrigues of kings and courtiers. Toward the end of Kings, when we read of the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrian Empire and the sacking of Jerusalem by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, we are dealing with events that...

It is a few days old, but Philip Jenkins has an interesting informative  post  (definitely worth the read) on Protestants and "Apocrypha."

Reported in BBC News :   The University of Bologna in Italy has found what it says may be the oldest complete scroll of Judaism's most important text, the Torah. The scroll was in the university library but had been mislabelled, a professor at the university says. It was previously thought the scroll was no more that a few hundred years old. However, after carbon dating tests, the university has said the text may have been written more than 850 years ago. The university's Professor of Hebrew Mauro Perani says this would make it the oldest complete text of the Torah known to exist, and an object of extraordinary worth. The university says that in 1889 one of its librarians, Leonello Modona, had examined the scroll and dated it to the 17th Century. However, when Mr Perani recently re-examined the scroll, he realised the script used was that of the oriental Babylonian tradition, meaning that the scroll must be extremely old. Another reason for the dating is that the text has ma...

There have been several discussions of the project spearheaded by Hal Taussig called A New New Testament .  See the description here: It is time for a new New Testament.   Over the past century, numerous lost scriptures have been discovered, authenticated, translated, debated, celebrated. Many of these documents were as important to shaping early-Christian communities and beliefs as what we have come to call the New Testament; these were not the work of shunned sects or rebel apostles, not alternative histories or doctrines, but part of the vibrant conversations that sparked the rise of Christianity. Yet these scriptures are rarely read in contemporary churches; they are discussed nearly only by scholars or within a context only of   gnostic  gospels. Why should these books be set aside? Why should they continue to be lost to most of us? And don’t we have a great deal to gain by placing them back into contact with the twenty-seven books of the traditional New Tes...

New studies have traced the mitochondrial DNA, which traces maternal lineage, of Minoan remains to determine their racial background, at least partially so. And, of the bones and teeth that they could get a sample, it has a stronger correlation to European DNA than others.  See this article by a person with a spectacular last name.

According to Stephanie Dalley of Oxford, whom most of us know from her  Myths from Mesopotamia , the hanging gardens belong to an engineering feat of the Assyrian King Sennacherib rather than the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar.  From the Guardian : She [Dalley] was astonished to find Sennacherib's own description of an "unrivalled palace" and a "wonder for all peoples". He describes the marvel of a water-raising screw made using a new method of casting bronze – and predating the invention of Archimedes' screw by some four centuries. Dalley said this was part of a complex system of canals, dams and aqueducts to bring mountain water from streams 50 miles away to the citadel of Nineveh and the hanging garden. The script records water being drawn up "all day". Recent excavations have found traces of aqueducts. One near Nineveh was so vast that Dalley said its remains looked like a stretch of motorway from the air, and it bore a crucial inscription: ...

When did late-antique Egyptians have the most sex?  Evidently that is a question some archaeologists are asking.  From the Huffington Post : So far, researchers have uncovered 765 graves, including the remains of 124 individuals that date to between 18 weeks and 45 weeks after conception. The excellent preservation let researchers date the age of the remains at death. The researchers could also pinpoint month of death, as the graves were oriented toward the rising sun, something that changes predictably throughout the year. [ See Images of the Ancient Egypt Cemetery ] The results, combined with other information, suggested the peak period for births at the site was in March and April, and the peak period for conceptions was in July and August, when temperatures at the  Dakhleh Oasis  can easily reach more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius).  The peak period for the death of women of childbearing age was also in March and April (exactly mirro...

I just saw on Jim Davila's blog that Geza Vermes has passed away.  I only met him once, when he spoke at Barnard College at the invitation of Alan Segal.  He was immensely polite and, while a bit quiet, was very engaging. He will be best known for his work on the Dead Sea Scrolls, especially his affordable English translation, which was my own introduction to the Scrolls, as well as his extensive work on Christian origins and the historical Jesus. UPDATE (5/8/2013):  I just saw that Mark Goodacre has some reflections here , including some important notes on his contributions to the study of Jesus.  He has more here  and here . UPDATE (5/9/2013):  James Tabor has further reflections here . UPDATE (5/10/2013):  I just saw that James Crossley has some provocative thoughts on how Jesus and NT scholars more generally have been both profoundly impacted by Vermes (even when we don't know) and have in many ways failed to learn the lessons Vermes teac...

I am thinking of revamping some aspects of my Jesus and the Gospels course.  And I was considering ending the semester (next time I teach it) with a representation of Jesus found in a modern novel.  What novels do you think would be particularly good for this?  Either because it is a good piece of writing, or because it would stimulate conversation, or because it is a fun read, etc.?

In a recent article in the Atlantic , Noah Berlatsky attempts a comparison between modern discussions of gay marriage and the 19th Century marriage experiments, mentioning Mormons and Shakers but focusing on John Humphrey Noyes's Oneida Community (which, the article omits, is the origin of Oneida silverware, though originally the company made animal traps). As  Jillian Keenan  reiterated last week at  Slate , gay marriage opponents often assert that allowing same-sex marriages will lead us to polygamy and other perversions. It's an odd rhetorical move, inasmuch as, in terms of chronology, the slippery slope from gay marriage to polygamy appears to run in the wrong direction. The major American experiment with multiple wives in one marriage, occurred, after all, in the 19th century with the early Mormon Church. To talk about polygamy, then, doesn't raise the specter of a dystopic future. It points instead to the past. And it also underlines the extent to which marriage ...