The Long and Terrifying History of the Blood Libel

From The Nation - review by David Nirenberg:

Among the more unpleasant mythemes that one group of humans has devised about another is the blood libel: the claim that Jews murder Christian children, often around Easter, and use their blood in Passover rituals. Bits and pieces of this myth date back to ancient times. 

But the specific ingredients of the blood libel—innocent children murdered by conspiratorial Jews for blood rituals—were not baked into narrative until a child’s corpse was discovered in 12th century England and an enterprising monk accused the local Jewish community of murder. That first accusation sputtered out, but others soon followed in France and Germany that sometimes resulted in the execution of entire communities. With the invention of the printing press, the myth spread even more widely, throughout Eastern Europe and, with colonialism, into the Middle East and beyond. 

Magda Teter’s terrifying and learned new book, Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth, examines some of the long history of this pernicious idea. Her focus is firmly on the past and especially on the death in 1473 of one toddler, Simon of Trent. Teter sets out to document how the information about Simon’s death circulated during and after the trial and how it eventually flowed into Eastern Europe, where the myth put down some of its deepest and cruelest roots. She certainly succeeds in that historical task. While her claims are specific and circumspect, her book can be read more broadly as an allegory for our age, a story about how technological change, religious beliefs, struggles for power, and a politics of demonization can produce memes capable of transmitting the potential for violence across vast amounts of time and space.

read more here @ The Nation

The Restoration of Rome by Peter Heather

In 476 AD, the last of Rome's emperors, known as "Augustulus," was deposed by a barbarian general, the son of one of Attila the Hun's henchmen. With the imperial vestments dispatched to Constantinople, the curtain fell on the Roman empire in Western Europe, its territories divided among successor kingdoms constructed around barbarian military manpower. 

But, if the Roman Empire was dead, Romans across much of the old empire still lived, holding on to their lands, their values, and their institutions. The conquering barbarians, responding to Rome's continuing psychological dominance and the practical value of many of its institutions, were ready to reignite the imperial flame and enjoy the benefits. 

As Peter Heather shows in dazzling biographical portraits, each of the three greatest immediate contenders for imperial power--Theoderic, Justinian, and Charlemagne--operated with a different power base but was astonishingly successful in his own way. Though each in turn managed to put back together enough of the old Roman West to stake a plausible claim to the Western imperial title, none of their empires long outlived their founders' deaths. Not until the reinvention of the papacy in the eleventh century would Europe's barbarians find the means to establish a new kind of Roman Empire, one that has lasted a thousand years.

A sequel to the bestselling Fall of the Roman Empire, The Restoration of Rome offers a captivating narrative of the death of an era and the birth of the Catholic Church.

Ancient Women - Three Studies

Queen Salome: Jerusalem’s Warrior Monarch of the First Century B.C.E. by Kenneth Atkinson

As the ruler of Judea from 76 to 67 B.C.E., Queen Salome Alexandra (ca. 141 B.C.E.–67 B.C.E.) appointed the kingdom’s high priest, led its men in battle, subjugated neighboring kings, and stopped the religious violence that plagued her society. Presiding over Judea’s greatest period of peace and prosperity, she shaped the Judaism of Jesus’ day as well as our own. Virtually unknown today, Queen Salome remained so unique that historians have largely ignored her rather than try to explain the perplexing circumstances that brought her to power. This volume recreates Queen Salome’s fascinating life and the time in which she lived—an age when women ruled the Middle East.

Perpetua of Carthage: Portrait of a Third-Century Martyr by William Farina

This is a study of the life and times of Saint Perpetua, Saint Felicity and their companions, all martyred at Carthage in A.D. 203. Unlike most early Christian saints, whose lives are often shrouded in legend and myth, Perpetua left an authentic prison diary, later completed by an anonymous eyewitness to her execution, that is now considered a classic of Christian, Latin and feminist literature. Perpetua was also unusual in that she was wealthy, educated, married, and a young mother. The book includes the first English translations of French archaeological scholarship covering the discovery of the martyrs’ tombs.

The Queen of Sheba: Legend, Literature and Lore by Deborah M. Coulter-Harris

Part I of this book begins with a scriptural study of all Sheba references, particularly the origins and genealogy of the name and its connections with Hebrew patriarchs such as Abraham and kings Saul and David; it later explores the literature and legends surrounding king Solomon and his trade negotiations with Sheba. The text analyzes theories and links between the Queen of Sheba and Pharaoh Hatshepsut, and concludes that Sheba may well be the Pharaoh based upon linguistic associations and the related stories from a multitude of regions and countries. Part II travels into ancient Arabian, Yemeni, Ethiopian, and Eritrean tales of the Queen of Sheba, and examines the mention of Sheba in an array of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim texts. It scrutinizes associations between ancient gods and pharaohs, particularly the similarity of their iconographic representations, the meaning of their symbols and signs that connect with Sheba legends and Hatshepsut’s history, the real extent and location of her vast empire.

Royal Books and Holy Bones by Eamon Duffy

From The Church Times:

This tremendous read is a collection of essays published (and lectures given) in the past two decades, some revised for inclusion here. The book is given unity by grouping them under thematic headings, but the profounder unity of these studies lies in Duffy’s remark that “Christianity is a material religion.”

A great strength of the author’s work has always lain in his ability to put theology in its place in the practical realities of Christian living, especially during the Middle Ages and the Reformation.

This is a book for the general reader, spiced throughout with Duffy’s profound scholarly understanding of the giant subjects with which each essay grapples. There are robust challenges to the conclusions of some other modern scholars.

The book is not cluttered with footnotes; it is selectively referenced chapter by chapter at the end. The excellent illustrations are in colour.

Book review: Roman burial art reveals forgotten women of Christianity

From National Catholic Reporter:

Is there such a thing as reverent glee? If so, then that's how I would have described St. Joseph Sr. Christine Schenk as she bounded among the ruins of ancient Cenchreae, the location of the house church of the deacon Phoebe during a travel program I led. There is something about standing in the place mentioned in our Scriptures that stirs us, and reminds us that our ancestors in the faith were real, historical folks. In this case, a first-century woman whom the Apostle Paul called "our sister, who is [also] a diakonos of the church at Cenchreae" (Romans 16:1).

It is this sense of immediacy that permeates Crispina and Her Sisters: Women and Authority in Early Christianity. This connection across the expanse of time makes what could have been a recitation of dusty facts into an engaging read.

While her work makes a valuable contribution to the conversation about women's authority roles within the early church, Crispina and Her Sisters does a mitzvah for academics who investigate early Christian burial practices. Schenk analyzed 2,119 images and descriptors of sarcophagi (stone coffins) and fragments from the third to fifth centuries — "all currently available images of Christian sarcophagi and loculus plates" — focusing on the portraits and their accompanying iconography.

The Darkening Age by Catherine Nixey

From Financial Times:

Palmyra, Syria. “The destroyers came from out of the desert . . . and utter destruction followed.” Wearing beards and dressed in black, the religious zealots entered the temple and attacked the statue of the goddess Athena. When they were done, “they melted out once again into the desert. Behind them the temple fell silent.” 

With this nifty, cinematic opening Catherine Nixey draws an equivalence between today’s Islamic extremists and vicious bands of Christian thugs in 385AD. Her aim is to tell the “unknown” story, as she puts it, of the collapse of late Hellenic and Roman antiquity, thereby exposing the truth about the inherent violence and ignorance of early Christianity. As she puts it: “The story of Christianity’s good works in this period has been told again and again . . . The history and sufferings of those whom Christianity defeated have not been.”

read more here @ Financial Times and @ The Guardian

Who Really Wrote the Book of Job?

Who Really Wrote the Book of Job? - Jewish World - Haaretz - Israel News Haaretz.com

The Book of Job is quite possibly the strangest book in the Hebrew Bible, and is notoriously difficult to date.

In essence, Job is an essay on the problem of evil. The book starts with God and Satan discussing Job, a “perfect and upright” man who “feared God and eschewed evil” (1:1). Satan tells God that Job is only virtuous because he is well off; were he to suffer, he would surely “curse thee to thy face” (1:11). God accepts the challenge and gives Satan permission to destroy Job’s life.

Since the story lacks any historical context and no historic individuals are mentioned, it is very hard to date.

There's a snag, though. The language in Job is unlike any other found in the Bible, or outside it. True, the book is written in Hebrew, but it is very strange Hebrew indeed. It has more unique words than any other book of the Hebrew Bible. The language is archaic, which would indicate that it was very ancient: but it is also heavily influenced by Aramaic, which would make it relatively late.

Read more: Haaretz News