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The present paper highlights some crucial aspects of Philo's Legatio ad Gaium, a work of the Alexandrian Platonist that grants some interesting clues into his life at the time of Gaius Caligula's reign, especially concerning his attempt to stop Gaius' plan to install a statue into the Jewish Temple and his claim to be worshiped as a god in the East. The paper argues that the Legatio shares some important features both with Platonic political philosophy and the portrayal of the tyrant in particular (that we find, for instance, in the Republic), and also with the works of the Latin authors Seneca and Lucan, who depicted the Emperors Claudius and Nero as devious and dangerous rulers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses "polemical triangulation," a common rhetorical and polemical device in Antiquity, through which an author attacks a person or a group of persons who are not the explicit addressees of a text or speech. It looks at its use and diversity with examples from Melito of Sardis and Ignatius, in the context of polemics against the Jews and the Docetists. In all cases, these models imply the existence of a marked anti-Judaism in Ignatius and his addressees. Some well-known methodological questions are addressed, such as the author's knowledge of the persons attacked, his or her relations with them, and other more or less consciously used sources of information. Finally, the paper draws conclusions about the relevance of the concerned statements for a historical study of the adversaries, their thinking or the arguments attributed to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period of the Crusades has often been considered as an epoch of eschatological fervor for the Christians who participated to this enterprise, a mission that aimed to reconquer the holy places from the Muslims. Such a zeal, however, did not affect only Christians, but also the Jewish communities that lived in Europe, in the Byzantine empire and in the Holy Land. This paper focuses on the Jewish literary production during the Crusades, aiming to demonstrate that the eschatological texts were functional in order to explain persecutions, battles, clash of civilizations and religions. These happenings were interpreted as events anticipating the final era, the time of the advent of the Messiah(s) who would gather the exiles, redeem the Jewish people, reconquer Jerusalem and restore the supremacy of Israel. In other words, this period of crisis was understood as a sequence of events that were part of a divine plan leading to the redemption of Israel. The texts that are taken in consideration are Aggadat Mašiah, The Prayer of R. Šim'on b. Yoh'ai and 'Otot ha- Mašiah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the early reception of the famous story from bGiṭṭin 68b by Slavic re-tellers in the Palaea Interpretata, which preserves elements of early understanding of the story and sheds light on the processes of transmission and the reception of Talmudic tales. The Palaea Interpretata is an original Slavonic composition, which includes apocryphal, exegetical, and anti-Jewish polemical material, compiled around the thirteenth century. The story of Solomon and his demonic helper is part of a long cycle of the so-called Courts of Solomon, preserved in Slavonic in the Palaea Interpretata and presumably created in the Balkans in the time when Old Slavonian culture was flourishing. Comparing the Talmudic and the Slavic versions of the story, I conclude that the transmitter of our story from its Mesopotamian context to the Slavic came from the Mesopotamian cultural realm, where the story was told and retold. There is no proof of an intermediary version of the story between the Talmudic version and the Slavic one. Thus, I presume that the narrator of the story in the Slavonic literary work got it directly from some Jewish informant, probably from one of the Jewish communities in the Balkan lands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nativity narrative of the first two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew contains stories about a newborn king of old lineage, but humble origins, the cruelty of a declining ruler and client king of Rome, court intrigues and foreign dignitaries. As such, it can offer an ideal vantage point for investigating Matthew's portrayal of political power. A number of modern commentators read these stories as Matthew's attempt to sympathise with the marginalised and oppressed provincial masses, and as evidence of a wider anti-Roman and anti-imperial purpose of the Gospel, seen as a work of resistance and a political counter-narrative. Moving beyond an interpretation of the Matthean infancy narrative as a mere rejection of Rome's imperial ideology and its power structures, this paper argues that references to marginality and the marginalised in Matthew's nativity do not necessarily imply resistance to Roman imperialism and its rhetoric. They can in fact be construed as an attempt to replicate discourses about marginality that characterised the language of imperial rhetoric between the age of Augustus and the emergence of the rule of the Flavians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first two books of Maccabees and Flavius Josephus dedicate several pages to King Antiochus Epiphanes and they constitute the sources for a reconstruction of the history of the relationships between Antiochus and the Jews, but they are marked by a pronounced ideological perspective. The death of the king is recounted in three different ways in the two books of Maccabees. Those who are intent on historical reconstruction limit themselves to considering as worthy of trust only the elements shared by all three accounts. Those who are interested in the message examine, rather, the differences among these texts that claim to report the same event. In this paper the three accounts are first compared with extra-biblical sources. The identification of a conventional model to account for the king's death raises a question: What is the story's function in the overall narrative? The death of Antiochus has a strategic placement in the narrative. The literary and ideological aspect of the story emerges from this analysis. Finally, it is emphasized that even modern interpretations are conditioned by ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Life of Nikephoros i, patriarch of Constantinople, is a long and rhetorically elaborate text written by Ignatios the Deacon. This paper reconsiders the interpretation of the education excursus contextualizing the section within a longer textual segment. It shows that N. studied at a monastery on the Asian side of the Bosporos and that Ignatios was not underlining the fact that his curriculum comprised secular and sacred topics, but rather that it included both Jewish Classical tradition and Christian perspectives. I argue for this revised interpretation through close readings that reveal several significant intertexts, principally Themistius's Oration to the Nicomedians. I conclude that the education excursus was designed to portray the background of the future patriarch beyond the topics of his studies, delineating his lineage as a 'Nazarene', i.e. a person following traditional Jewish and Christian customs. More research is required in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on Leo the Great's sermons that allow to glimpse the intertwining between anti-Judaic and anti-heretical controversies. As part of the formulation of his doctrine, both Trinitarian and Christological, Leo strongly aimed to contrast both Judaism and the different heretical currents circulating at his time. In his dialectical procedure Judaism is often combined to other heresies (in particular, Manicheism), considered in a progressive removal from orthodoxy: Leo contested several heresies, for which the controversy against the Jews is proposed as an origin and as a model. He mixes pagans, Jews, and heretics according to polemical strategies functional to his ideological and religious conceptions. In particular, Jews are considered as a potentially dangerous enemy as Manichaeans. Although, in fact, the devil has exercised his dominion over all heretical doctrines, he has mainly caused the madness of the Manichaeans, in which the worst distortions of the true faith have flowed: the profanity of pagans, the blindness of Jews, the illegal practices of magic and, moreover, sacrilegious and blasphemous elements shared with other heresies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short paper focuses on the historically inaccurate characterization of Queen Zenobia as a Judaizer in ancient Christian sources, in relation to the heresy of Paul of Samosata. After surveying different presentations of the relationship between Paul and Zenobia and interrogating their significance, it argues that by weaving together Paul's xenophilia, Judeophilia, heresy, and appreciation for powerful women, a series of authors - Athanasius; Philastrius of Brescia; John Chrysostom; Theodoret; the author of a fragment attributed by Athanasius; those responsible for the invention of a work To Zenobia (or for attributing spurious excerpts of Paul to a lost work with this title); Photius; Michael the Great; Barhebraeus; and Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos - labored at painting the reversed image of the Christian intellectual tradition they knew and cherished: fully identified with the Roman Empire, ruled by a male emperor; separated from the scholarly practices of Jewish literate elites; and entrenched behind the wordy barricades of orthodoxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the several religious phenomena in light of which scholars have suggested viewing the origins of Manichaeism (usually Christianity and Zoroastrianism), Judaism has been too often excluded from the discussion. Nevertheless, there are reasons to think that Jewish traditions and ideas had an influence on the emergence of this religion in the 3rd century CE. In the light of some research recently conducted by a growing number of scholars, the modest aim of this paper is to carry out a reassessment and update aimed at clarifying the relationship between two phenomena (Judaism and Manichaeism) which played such a crucial role in the discourses on heresy in Late Antiquity and the Middle Age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines how medieval Hebrew translators, scribes, and scholars engaged with the Arabic term ilhām (divine inspiration) in different contexts. The launching point for discussion is the term's perplexing appearance in the Arabic translation of Themistius's paraphrase of Aristotle's Metaphysics 12, in which it marks the actualization of form in the process of biological generation. The occurrence confused the Hebrew scholars, who rendered it into Hebrew by several terms. An examination of other texts and manuscripts reveals that over twenty terms were used to translate ilhām, effectively eliminating its original semantic field and infusing it with various new meanings. This complex case study enables us to retrace various practices of translation, copying, and interpretation, which are emblematic of medieval Hebrew philosophical activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Greek verb deî appears several times in Luke-Acts and in different contexts of 'necessity': the necessity of the mission and the passion of Jesus and Paul; the necessity of the fulfilment of the Scripture; the necessity of moral or religious obligations as well as other necessary actions. The Peshitta does not translate all of occurrences of deî in Luke-Acts in the same way but chooses various verbs and expressions. The most frequent translation is the verb wāle ("to be right", "to be convenient", "one must"), which translates deî in different contexts. Another word used with a certain frequency is the passive participle ʻatid ("one must", "to be necessary", "to be destined"). However, the usage of this word, rich in theological content, is restricted to particular contexts. This paper seeks to give a precise explanation for how the Peshitta deals with the translation of deî in Luke-Acts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a first insight into Jesus' trial as it is reported in the Latin translation of the Talmud, known as Extractiones de Talmud and appointed by Christian authorities after the Paris disputation in 1240. The paper specifically examines a famous passage from tractate Sanhedrin, offering a philological and trans-cultural comparison between the Latin translation, the corresponding censored passage from the Vilna edition, and the uncensored (or partially censored) manuscripts Munich and Florence. The Latin translation provides not only a precise rendering of manuscript material from the 13th century but also additional pieces of information - such as the arrangement of similar material in parallel tractates and some glosses that have eventually been removed from the Vilna edition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to interpret the liturgical role of a rare form of horizontal scrolls found in the Cairo Genizah. These liturgical fragments all share a unique combination of features: the scrolls follow the Palestinian textual and codicological tradition, focus exclusively on holiday prayer services, and incorporate a very narrow selection of liturgies based entirely on biblical passages and psalms. It is suggested that these liturgical scrolls may represent an early form of prayer books -- an intermediate phase between Scriptural scrolls used in liturgical context and standard prayerbooks, emerged at times when only biblical liturgy was recorded in writing. Alternatively, the scrolls may be counted among other biblical scrolls used publicly for liturgical purposes (such as Haftarah and Targum scrolls), and might have served for the ceremonial reading of liturgical passages of special significance to the Palestinian prayer tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a transcription, and discusses material and textual aspects of a Hebrew fragment from the Cairo Genizah, kept today in the British Library under the shelfmark MS Or 5558A.6. This fragment comes from an anthology of Rabbinic texts, including a version of the Derekh Erets, a concise essay on simple rules of religious, ethical, social and sexual etiquette which was later included into the corpus of the Babylonian Talmud, as one of its 'minor tractates'. This fragment is of a special interest for book historians for two reasons: it conveys variant versions of the Derekh Erets and other rabbinic text and it stems from a book in the shape of a horizontal scroll. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article addresses a famous passage from Tractate Gittin of the Babylonian Talmud that depicts Jesus' punishment in hell in boiling excrements. First, the paper offers a close reading of the original Hebrew-Aramaic version. Then, it offers an innovative interpretation of the text elaborating on some glosses to be found in the Latin translation of the passage extant in the Extractiones de Talmud. Finally, the paper discusses Peter Schäfer's well-known explanation for Jesus' bizarre form of punishment, emphasizing the legal-theological implications of the passage that are often neglected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of textual fluidity, albeit most helpful to underline the existence of an important aspect of the textual history of the Hebrew Bible, does not enable us to assess its scope or its manifold manifestations. While it is often noted that some scribes were conservative and others were creative, this paper takes a passage in the Books of Kings as an illustration of the fact that the situation is still more complex than that. Even in the framework of the creative approach, various degrees of creativity should be distinguished. Similarly, in the framework of the conservative approach, inadvertant changes led to meaningful, creative rewriting. As a result, a variegated understanding to scribal activity is suggested. We should think in terms of a spectrum and go beyond the simple opposition between conservative and creative scribal approaches, to recognize that there were various shades of creative activity. Textual fluidity was itself a fluid phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hebrew manuscripts of Ben Sira from Qumran, Masada and the Cairo Genizah present numerous variants between the different Hebrew witnesses, as well as in the marginal readings of manuscript B. One salient feature of these variants is that most represent "synonymous readings." In this paper, we would like to examine this phenomenon more closely by looking at the different textual Hebrew witnesses of Ben Sira, while focusing on three main points: (1) In what way these synonymous variants may be comprehended from an historical-linguistic point of view; (2) How this typical feature may inform us about scribal practices from antiquity to the medieval period; (3) Whether a comparison of this phenomenon with similar features in the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, which Shemaryahu Talmon highlighted in his "Synonymous Readings" article, might show that these textual variations can serve as a paradigm highlighting scribal practices in textual transmission in antiquity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to give an outline of the scribal activity in the Second Temple period, this paper will begin by delineating the figure of the scribes, that is to say those who were mainly in charge of the scribal activity. From a number of sources we may assume that the soferim covered a wide spectrum of functions. Subsequently some examples of scribal activity within and outside what is today the Hebrew Bible will be given, highlighting how and to what extent this scribal acritivity is responsible of the textual fluidity that characterizes the Second Temple literature. Moreover a possible link between Enochic and Qumran literature will be investigated through the shared interest in the scribal activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In my paper I seek to trace the long and varied processes by which the earliest Homeric epic poems gradually took shape in the mouths of singers as they were performed and reperformed, all the while increasing in complexity and scope. At some point the knowledge of writing came to have an impact on the transmission, leading to multiple transcribed versions of parts of the "text." Subsequently those whom we might call scholarly editors began their work of comparing and collating and commenting upon these differing versions, leading eventually to magnificent manuscripts such as the tenth-century Venetus A, containing as it does one version of the Homeric text along with copious marginal notes (scholia), which include discussions of variant readings and the reasons for preferring one over another. Modern editions frequently draw upon such manuscripts as a basis for their own printed texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lipographies (accidental omissions of signs) are, it has several times been observed, legion in Babylonian and Assyrian writings. But signs could also be omitted intentionally, to abbreviate the spelling of words. This latter phenomenon has again been remarked on (usually in ad hoc comments by editors), but never subjected to wide-ranging scrutiny and systematisation. Such is the aim of this paper. Drawing on examples from multiple periods and textual typologies ('genres'), we will distinguish abbreviation at the level of spelling from other forms of abbreviation, and enquire after the rationales and practices attaching to abbreviations in spelling. The resulting picture, which both challenges and refines previous statements on the subject, is a first attempt at systematising a phenomenon which offers great potential for the detailed study of individual text corpora. As studies of abbreviation in the Hebrew Bible demonstrate, there may well ultimately be significant implications for textual criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focusses on the diversity of proverbs that originate in practical and everyday life and convey ideas of philosophical or religious value. However, of more importance is the performativity of these short sayings that are easy to remember, so that they are a major instrument of transmission and encounter of cultures. As such, proverbs contribute to an universal scope of wisdom. For early Church Fathers and even earlier in the Greek Translation of the Old Testament (Septuagint), the question arises of to what extent this classical sapiential Literature could have been helpful for the knowledge of God and for conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The semantic investigation of the figurative usage of... within the Hebrew Bible has shown a transition from the positive meaning of protection to the negative meaning of transitoriness. The analysis of the Septuagint renderings has disclosed a special approach in handling such imagery: the translators refrained from using the obvious equivalent ... in those contexts involving the idea of protection as a social relation. The semantic variance registered both within the Ancient Hebrew texts and cross-linguistically in the Septuagint shows how language mirrors contrasting cultural speculations about the same natural phenomenon, which may overlap and replace one another over time and across different discourse traditions. The paper aims at setting these different cultural ideas in a larger framework; at inquiring how they could come about within the Ancient Hebrew literature; at investigating why the usage of ... may have caused semantic clash in Greek in the Septuagint translators' mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the tales in parabiblical and Rabbinic Literature about the fate of Jewish infants during Egyptian captivity, comparing them with contemporary legal and homiletic texts about infancy, birth, and exposure of infants. The story of infants exposed and raised by angels is put in parallel with the Babylonian poem Atra-Hasis, advancing the hypothesis of an original myth about birth and overpopulation behind Exodus' infancy stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to provide an overview of the funerary practices and places reserved for infants in Visigothic Spain, between the late Roman period and the Arab Conquest. It investigates in particular some of the most important necropolises of the Meseta, the core of the Iberian Peninsula and the land occupied by the Goths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The child is a liminal subject in Italian archaeological research, still limited and discontinuous about it. Italian archaeology, particularly of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, seems in fact to be more affected by the critical issues and difficulties concerning the analysis of this specific age, reserving for it a marginal place in studies dealing with this topic. This paper focuses in particular on studies of infant funerary practices that are considered most indicative of the child's material presence in the ancient society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to give a brief overview of some strategies for the inclusion of children in the Egyptian society, with particular regard to sons who do not have a biological relation with their parents but who are acquired through assimilation practices, such as the adoption of an orphan or the emancipation of a young slave. For this purpose, some literary attestations will be examined in order to show how in ancient Egypt a "nobody's child" could turn into a legitimate child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to outline how the child was conceived and perceived in ancient Mesopotamian society. This overview will be outlined by examining the juridical documentation, which will allow us to know how much the child's status was closely linked to the protection of the family institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In ancient Mesopotamia, infancy is an elusive category. Although vaguely defined from a lexical viewpoint, the concept of childhood is almost entirely absent from literature, and seldom represented in non-literary textual sources. Texts regarding childbirth, however, constitute an exception to this. Several sources, from mythological accounts of creation (anthropogonies) to therapeutic texts and omens, shift their attention to birth and the baby. Taking this fact into account, in this paper I focus on the role that children bodies play in divination. More specifically, I analyze how the appearance of the baby different body parts conveys a message that can concern both the baby - as carrier of his/her individual destiny written in his/her body (physiognomy), and the whole community (teratomancy), the child becoming at the same time both the message and messenger of the gods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the preliminary findings of the examination of dates in legal documents of the First, and Second (Bar Kokhba) Revolts, the Ba-batha archive, the Salome Komaise archive, and other civil documents from lay Jewish communities found in the Cave Letters in Nahal Hever, Wadi Murabba 'at and other sites. It is proposed that a pattern of dates that occurs in the documents may indicate an interest in fortunate days to sign legal contracts. These apparent repetitions occur in secular and religious (marriage-related) legal documents written in Hebrew and Aramaic in the mid and late first century, and in Greek under the Roman administration in the early second century. They seem to occur irrespective of the different calendars used. After testing the hypothesis of "lucky days " by examining the dates in some marriage contracts the paper suggests that more research is needed to investigate possible Jewish interest in hemerologies, and the belief by lay people and rebels alike that some days of the month, or those with particular numbers, were better for sealing agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hezekiah's prayer is an expression of refined biblical literary art, with many of its words and images having created divergences of interpretation over the centuries. One of these is the meaning of dôr in Isa 38:12. This study addresses its three different interpretations - "dwelling", "generation" and "life" - considering, above all, that the term is here used as a target of a metaphor whose source is, instead, the shepherd's tent. In particular, an analysis of the tent as a source in other biblical metaphors (Isa 30:20; 40:22; 54:2-3; Jer 10:20) highlights its versatile denotative valency, and leads to a better understanding of dôr within this specific context. This paper proposes to interpret the occurrence of dôr within Hezekiah's prayer not as "dwelling", as is generally believed by modern commentators and translators, but as "generation" or "life". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Qumran manuscripts as well as the LXX and its secondary versions contribute to identifying two or more editions in some biblical books or sections of a book. The historical and prophetical books are those which better match a model of editorial pluralism. Books which circulated in Qumran times in two or more different Hebrew editions are basically the same which form the "Kaige-Th. group" of the Septuagint: Exodus (chaps. 36-40), Joshua- Judges, Samuel-Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Job, Song of Songs, and Daniel. In these books the OL version witnesses the oldest LXX text, reflecting a Hebrew text different from MT. The OL attests at times readings unknown to the rest of the textual traditions, both in Hebrew and in other ancient versions. The paper ends with a discussion of cases of interpolations or alternative Hebrew readings in Kings reflected in the Greek textual transmission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of Syriac Christianity (4th-8th century CE), the use of choral singing was very common right from the beginning. Although it has not always been appreciated by sources, it unquestionably appears as a practiced and effective instrument in numerous theological and doctrinal disputes that shook Syriac Christianity. Through the sweetness of a heavenly song the groups of women approached God, indirectly affirming the authority of the doctrinal principles that inspired their songs. This paper aims to investigate this complex phenomenon through the analysis of some written texts and iconographic elements available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a survey of the presence of female figures in some Byzantine visions of the other world. In describing the torments of sinners in hell, these tales present several women being punished for their sexual misconduct. The same attitude can be observed in the Life of St Basil the Younger (10th century), where even a woman ultimately destined to heaven is shown guilty of sexual misdemeanors. The anonymous authors of these works (be they male or female) apparently share the mysoginist prejudices commonly found in Byzantine literature, where women are often depicted as naturally lecherous and lascivious temptresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the main aspects of empress Eudocia's (400-460 CE) life and literary production, focusing especially on her formation and cultural program. After receiving a traditional classical education, probably related also to some pagan sympathies of her father, Eudocia became Christian and married the emperor Theodosius ii. For all her life, in Constantinople and later in Jerusalem, she had an engaged literary activity, producing epic panegyrics, verse paraphrase of the Optateuch, an hagiographic poem on Cyprian of Antioch, and she was involved in the project of the Homerocentones, a patchwork of Homeric lines rewriting the NT. Especially the poem on saint Cyprian, a verse paraphrase of a hagiographical dossier (known by Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Ethiopian versions), raises many interesting questions from the literary and religious point of view. Nevertheless it remains one of the most undervalued product of Late antique literature, despite some excellent recent studies. I argue that the S. Cyprian was an attempt to demystify secular wisdom and transforming in Christian sense the language of the epic tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feminine universe in the ancient Near East is a research topic that has been widely debated at least since the 1960s and that has seen an acceleration in Italy thanks in part to the important data from Mature Early Syrian Ebla, from the texts of the Royal Archives and the production of female sculptures made with different materials, distinctive works in the known documentation of the 3rd millennium BC. This paper aims to offer some considerations on female figures and their roles, in both the divine and human spheres, on the basis of data from the visual documentation and the textual sources. It seems clear that women achieved various levels of visibility depending on their rank and/or role, and that in some cases they stood out for their remarkable power in the sphere of cult or the political management of the kingdom. Here we will focus instead on those female subjects of "second rank" who may provide clues of help in outlining the social hierarchy in the archaic cultures of Mesopotamia and Syria. Among the data that have emerged we can note that among the multitude of anonymous women, prisoners of war, there is an improvement in status for those skilled at writing, who achieved the rank of scribe within the temple apparatus and the families who owned them. The female workforce seems to have had specific skills already in the 3rd millennium BC and represented an important resource for the state economy. One specific category that still requires full definition in the social hierarchy are wet nurses, not all of whom are anonymous, who enjoyed privileged status and a degree of power in the elite class, also indicated by their ownership of seals with their names on them and the display of their image on royal seals. The famous inscribed Akkadian seal of the wet-nurse Takunai, in the retinue of her mistress in a classic presentation scene, raises the question of whether and in how many other similar scenes on seals, the women - albeit anonymous - were such devoted servants of high ranking women. Similarly, attention is devoted to that flock of "minor figures" of women who are unknown but still part of the social hierarchy, crowded onto reliefs, seal impressions and inlaid panels. They are increasingly present in the visual communication at the time of the city-states, alongside the images of wealthy women in the statuary deposed in the city temples. A significant feature in the social hierarchy of archaic Near-Eastern cultures as concerns women, already noted some time ago thanks to an analysis of the sources, is that their basic roles are generally defined by a family relationship with a prominent male, through which the identity of female subjects becomes recognizable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper tackles the issue of demographic change during the Neolithic period. The common belief that a move from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural society automatically brings to an increase in population is tested on specific case studies in Central and Eastern Anatolia. Isotopic analyses from human bones of women and infants from three different Neolithic sites are considered with the aim of comparing weaning age as an indirect marker of fertility: a late weaning is taken to suggest greater distance between births, whilst early weaning would imply higher fertility. Through this comparison it appears that the change to a domestic economy (agriculture and pastoralism) on its own cannot be advocated as the sole reason for demographic increase. Sedentarisation and mobility, as well as social organisation and beliefs, are probably major motors of fertility rates. It is furthermore pointed out that social behaviour regulating women's fertility rates does not appear to depend upon the single women's and babies' health and survivorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the many attempts by various scholars to identify the speaker in what is known as the Self-Glorification Hymn from the Qumran corpus (4Q471b, 4Q491, 4Q427, and 1QH XXV-XXVI). After reviewing the difficulties posed by the various theories, it offers the possibility of understanding the Self-Glorification Hymn as a "Hymn of Enoch" not originating in Qumran. The paper raises the possibility of this hymn constituting a form of creative literary meditation - a poetic excursus reflecting traditions within ancient Judaism similar to those later appearing in the Book of Parables (which was eventually incorporated into 1 Enoch) - rather than representing the mystic expressions of an actual historical figure or Qumran author. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers together two scholarly controversies that have hitherto been considered separately, and suggests a crossover point. The first concerns the 364-day calendar whose pattern resonates throughout the Dead Sea Scrolls, and whose pre-Qumranic origins have been debated since the 1950's. The second concerns the origin of the perpetual seventhday Sabbath observance (which I will refer to as the "weekly Sabbath"), a debate which dates back to the nineteenth century. The paper proposes that a 364-day calendar similar to those best known from the Qumran Mishmarot texts was put into use in the Jerusalem Temple during the Persian Period, quite possibly as part of the sabbatarian reforms implemented by Nehemiah, and that this was key to the successful institutionalization of the weekly Sabbath. It may even be the case that the 364-day year was a catalyst for the conception of the perpetual weekly Sabbath, rather than vice-versa as is almost universally assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes a Jewish legend involving an ancient institution known as the Synagogue of Severus. Attested in the medieval exegetical treatise Bereshit rabbati, the legend alludes to a Torah scroll supposedly transferred from Jerusalem to Rome and deposited in that synagogue, later to be examined by the second-century sage Rabbi Meir, who noted the variances of its text with the proto-Masoretic text of the Pentateuch. Arguing against the likelihood of its historicity, I contend that that the Severus legend was invented to impart authority upon the text-critical project of an anonymous Masoretic scribe attuned to the cultural sensibilities of the ancient rabbis. I conclude by proposing to locate the legend's geographical correlates with reference to the remains of the synagogue of ancient Ostia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whenever referring to Jewish traditional literature in his dialogus contra iudaeos Petrus Alfonsi used the word doctrina. By avoiding any explanation of the different literary genres contained in the Talmud, like halakhic and aggadic texts, Petrus wanted his Christian readers to perceive each and every part of the Talmud as religiously authoritative. In the frame of the Christian- Jewish controversy the concepts of halakha and aggada were an issue for the first time in the so called first disputation of Paris in 1240. As the encounter was carefully planned by the Christians they also dealt with the terms talmud, halakha and aggada before the debate really happened. The paper shows the way this was done and the impact it had on the Jewish side. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the highlights of papers presented during the international conference on scholar Paul Kahle held in Turin, Italy from April 10-11, 2014. Topics mentioned include the importance and meaning of the term masora and Kahle's understanding and misunderstanding of the history of the Biblical text.

Scholarly debate about E. P. Sanders' concept "covenantal nomism" has usually implicitly assumed that the concept can only be used to analyze Judaism, particularly Second Temple Judaism. This paper tests whether the concept can be used to analyze non-Jewish texts from the Greco-Roman Culture(s) of the Roman era, and concludes that the concept is a good heuristic tool for cross-cultural comparison. Behavioral sciences are used as a heuristic aid in the analysis of the concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about several papers discussed at a conference held April 16-17, 2010 sponsored by the Department of Classics at the University of Texas on the role of Roman memory in history and literature. Topics include the social memory, evidences for Ennius statue, and the transformation of Rome's religious landscape during Augustus period. The conference featured several scholars including Eric Orlin, Brigitte Libby, and Lisa Mignone.

Information about several papers discussed at a symposium titled "2009 Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting" on the role of biblical studies is presented. Topics include the function of apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings in early Judaism and early Christianity and the translation of Philo's allegorical hermeneutics. The symposium featured several professionals including Benjamin G. Wright, Tessa Rajak and Kenneth L. Schenck.

Information about several papers discussed at a bilingual (German-English) international conference with a concept on Judaeo-Christianity is presented. Topics include the relationship between Jews and Christians, canonical Gospel of John and the rabbinic story of the Messiah Menahem. The symposium featured several professionals including Gesine Palmer, Folker Siegert and Andreas Bedenbender.

Information about several papers discussed at a symposium organized by the World Union of Jewish Studies with themes from the Bible and its world contemporary Jewish Society and Jewish Education. Topics include the aspects of and/or scrolls within the Qumran library, the rabbinic halakhah in light of the Qumran Scrolls and the psalmodic literature from Qumran. The symposium featured several professionals including Aharon Shemesh, Lawrence H. Schiffman and Daniel Schwartz.

Information about several papers discussed at a symposium of the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions with an aim on facilitating conversations among scholars working on different aspects of ancient religions. Topics include the disciplines in classics, religion and anthropology from the range of Pharaonic Egypt imperial Rome time periods. The symposium featured several professors including Steven Gregory, Lauren Petersen and Laura Gawlinski.

Information about several papers discussed at a meeting titled "2009 International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature," with topics on Heroch. Topics include the Qumran section, the historical issues of Jewish identity both from a Rabbinic and a Hellenistic perspective and the relationship of Judaism with Rome. The meeting featured several professors including Ranon Katzoff, Rivka Ulmer and Bennie H. Reynolds.

Information about several papers discussed at the fifth Enoch Seminar sponsored by the University of Michigan on 2 Enoch and the three mediatorial figures Enoch, Adam, and Melchizedek in the Second Temple Judaism is presented. Topics include the discovery of Coptic fragments known in the Slavonic manuscripts and its classification as well as the connection of 2 and 3 Enoch. The seminar featured several 2 Enoch's leading scholars including Christfried Böttrich and Grant Macaskill.