Antiquitopia

In the Marginalia, Adele Reinhartz has a short  article critiquing the recent growing tendency to translate Ioudaioi as "Judeans" rather than "Jews," the end of which she cites the most authoritative of sources to indicate when "Judean" (or "Judaean" for you Brits) should be retained: Let us restore Judean to its primary geographical meaning, as pertaining to the region of Judea and its residents. Political designations such as the Judean People’s Front, the People’s Front of Judea, the Judean Popular People’s Front, or the Popular Front of Judea would also be appropriate, as per one authoritative source (see Monty Python’s Life of Brian). Let us not make the mistake of defining Jews only in religious terms. Let us rather understand the term Jew as a complex identity marker that encompasses ethnic, political, cultural, genealogical, religious and other elements in proportions that vary among eras, regions of the world, and individuals. Let us...

For my exams a couple years ago now, I developed a syllabus for a course that I would have loved to take but have never seen offered: "Jews in Ancient Egypt." If anyone is interested in this subject, I would highly recommend Joseph Mélèze Modrzejewski, T he Jews of Egypt: From Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995) [ Les Juifs d’Egypte, de Ramsès II à Hadrien (Paris: Editions Armand Colin, 1992)]. This is perhaps the most comprehensive and readable guide. Modrzejewski bases his observations in papyrological and evidence, but uses other types of documents to fill in the overall picture. He covers everything from biblical stories, the military colony of Elephantine, and Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt to reminiscences of Egyptian Judaism in late antique Egyptian papyrological documents, Rabbinic Judaism, and Christianity. Perhaps his most interesting chapter is on the LXX. One of my interests in the subject was, especially...

Obama's overturning of Bush-era restrictions on stem-cell research has had an interesting religious response according to AP . The interesting aspect of it is its complexity and ambivalence. Firstly, the divide is largely between killing innocent life and the importance of alleviating suffering (all quotations from AP): The embryonic stem cell research debate is steeped with religious arguments, with some faith traditions convinced the research amounts to killing innocent life, others citing the moral imperative to alleviate suffering, and plenty of religious believers caught somewhere in between. The expected Catholic response of opposition came from Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia: Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, called Obama's move "a sad victory of politics over science and ethics." "This action is morally wrong because it encourages the destruction of innocent human l...