New Books in Late Antiquity https://newbooksnetwork.com en New Books Network Interviews with authors of books about Late Antiquity. Sponsored by ⁠Ancient Jew Review⁠. This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/71506a4c-7647-11f0-b0c9-a387cafa7fbb/image/5a3496137ad0d5baa7dcb97e3fe45b1b.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress New Books in Late Antiquity https://newbooksnetwork.com no episodic New Books Network Interviews with authors of books about Late Antiquity. Sponsored by ⁠Ancient Jew Review⁠. This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Interviews with authors of books about Late Antiquity. Sponsored by ⁠Ancient Jew Review⁠.

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.

Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠

Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠

Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork

]]> New Books Network marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, "War and Community in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2026) Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, War and Community in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2026) Late Antiquity (ca. 250–600 CE) was a world at war: barbarian migrations, civil wars, raids, and increasingly porous frontiers affected millions of its inhabitants. While military and political historians have long grappled with this history, scholars of late antique society and culture rarely interrogate the consequences of near constant warfare on civilian populations, fighting forces, and the built environment. War and Community in Late Antiquity responds to this oversight by assembling archeologists, art historians, social historians, and scholars of religion to examine the impact of war on communities (households, cities, religious groups, elites and non-elites) and their reactions to ongoing stressors. Topics include the violence of everyday life as backdrop to that of war; the rhetoric of warfare and its significance for Christian authors; the effects of captivity and billeting on households; communal agency and the fortification of civilian spaces; and the challenges of articulating Christian imperial power in wartime. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Susanna Elm She is the Sidney H. Ehrman Professor of European History at the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley. Kristina Sessa is Professor of History at The Ohio State University Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 27 Apr 2026 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, War and Community in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2026) Late Antiquity (ca. 250–600 CE) was a world at war: barbarian migrations, civil wars, raids, and increasingly porous frontiers affected millions of its inhabitants. While military and political historians have long grappled with this history, scholars of late antique society and culture rarely interrogate the consequences of near constant warfare on civilian populations, fighting forces, and the built environment. War and Community in Late Antiquity responds to this oversight by assembling archeologists, art historians, social historians, and scholars of religion to examine the impact of war on communities (households, cities, religious groups, elites and non-elites) and their reactions to ongoing stressors. Topics include the violence of everyday life as backdrop to that of war; the rhetoric of warfare and its significance for Christian authors; the effects of captivity and billeting on households; communal agency and the fortification of civilian spaces; and the challenges of articulating Christian imperial power in wartime. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Susanna Elm She is the Sidney H. Ehrman Professor of European History at the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley. Kristina Sessa is Professor of History at The Ohio State University Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, War and Community in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Late Antiquity (ca. 250–600 CE) was a world at war: barbarian migrations, civil wars, raids, and increasingly porous frontiers affected millions of its inhabitants. While military and political historians have long grappled with this history, scholars of late antique society and culture rarely interrogate the consequences of near constant warfare on civilian populations, fighting forces, and the built environment. War and Community in Late Antiquity responds to this oversight by assembling archeologists, art historians, social historians, and scholars of religion to examine the impact of war on communities (households, cities, religious groups, elites and non-elites) and their reactions to ongoing stressors. Topics include the violence of everyday life as backdrop to that of war; the rhetoric of warfare and its significance for Christian authors; the effects of captivity and billeting on households; communal agency and the fortification of civilian spaces; and the challenges of articulating Christian imperial power in wartime.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Susanna Elm She is the Sidney H. Ehrman Professor of European History at the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley.

Kristina Sessa is Professor of History at The Ohio State University

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 6691 no Michael L. Satlow, "An Enchanted World: The Shared Religious Landscape of Late Antiquity" (Princeton UP, 2026) In Late Antiquity (ca. 200–600 CE), the world was alive with unseen forces—divine agents who influenced every aspect of daily life. For most ordinary people, religion was not found in temples, synagogues, and churches, but in lived experience as they interacted with the supernatural in a world of uncertainty and danger. In An Enchanted World, Michael Satlow uncovers a shared spiritual landscape that stretched beyond the confines of Judaism, Christianity, and the pantheon of Greek and Roman deities. From healing rituals to protective amulets, spiritual practices were a matter of necessity, transcending religious labels. To get by in the world required being on good terms with the right supernatural beings and being able to ward off the bad ones.Rejecting traditional narratives that focus on institutional religion and theological divisions, Satlow presents a compelling case for viewing the period through the lens of “lived religion.” This was not a religion of abstractions formulated by rabbis and priests, but an enchanted world populated by divine beings who had as much—if not more—agency as any person. Drawing on archaeological evidence, historical documents, and a rich trove of magical texts, Satlow vividly reconstructs how ordinary people lived in a world that crackled with the energy of the supernatural. His account reimagines the spiritual history of Late Antiquity, centering shared human fears and aspirations and challenging preconceived notions about religious boundaries. With An Enchanted World, Satlow offers a fresh perspective on a transformative period—one that has much to teach us even today about the role that spirituality can play in the secular world. New Books in Late Anqituiy is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Michael Satlow is professor of Judaic Studies and Religious Studies at Brown University Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 13 Apr 2026 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network In Late Antiquity (ca. 200–600 CE), the world was alive with unseen forces—divine agents who influenced every aspect of daily life. For most ordinary people, religion was not found in temples, synagogues, and churches, but in lived experience as they interacted with the supernatural in a world of uncertainty and danger. In An Enchanted World, Michael Satlow uncovers a shared spiritual landscape that stretched beyond the confines of Judaism, Christianity, and the pantheon of Greek and Roman deities. From healing rituals to protective amulets, spiritual practices were a matter of necessity, transcending religious labels. To get by in the world required being on good terms with the right supernatural beings and being able to ward off the bad ones.Rejecting traditional narratives that focus on institutional religion and theological divisions, Satlow presents a compelling case for viewing the period through the lens of “lived religion.” This was not a religion of abstractions formulated by rabbis and priests, but an enchanted world populated by divine beings who had as much—if not more—agency as any person. Drawing on archaeological evidence, historical documents, and a rich trove of magical texts, Satlow vividly reconstructs how ordinary people lived in a world that crackled with the energy of the supernatural. His account reimagines the spiritual history of Late Antiquity, centering shared human fears and aspirations and challenging preconceived notions about religious boundaries. With An Enchanted World, Satlow offers a fresh perspective on a transformative period—one that has much to teach us even today about the role that spirituality can play in the secular world. New Books in Late Anqituiy is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Michael Satlow is professor of Judaic Studies and Religious Studies at Brown University Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices In Late Antiquity (ca. 200–600 CE), the world was alive with unseen forces—divine agents who influenced every aspect of daily life. For most ordinary people, religion was not found in temples, synagogues, and churches, but in lived experience as they interacted with the supernatural in a world of uncertainty and danger. In An Enchanted World, Michael Satlow uncovers a shared spiritual landscape that stretched beyond the confines of Judaism, Christianity, and the pantheon of Greek and Roman deities. From healing rituals to protective amulets, spiritual practices were a matter of necessity, transcending religious labels. To get by in the world required being on good terms with the right supernatural beings and being able to ward off the bad ones.
Rejecting traditional narratives that focus on institutional religion and theological divisions, Satlow presents a compelling case for viewing the period through the lens of “lived religion.” This was not a religion of abstractions formulated by rabbis and priests, but an enchanted world populated by divine beings who had as much—if not more—agency as any person. Drawing on archaeological evidence, historical documents, and a rich trove of magical texts, Satlow vividly reconstructs how ordinary people lived in a world that crackled with the energy of the supernatural. His account reimagines the spiritual history of Late Antiquity, centering shared human fears and aspirations and challenging preconceived notions about religious boundaries. With An Enchanted World, Satlow offers a fresh perspective on a transformative period—one that has much to teach us even today about the role that spirituality can play in the secular world.

New Books in Late Anqituiy is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Michael Satlow is professor of Judaic Studies and Religious Studies at Brown University

Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3208 no Derek Krueger "Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and the Love of God in Medieval Constantinople" (Cambridge UP, 2026) Derek Krueger Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and Love of God in Medieval Constantinople (Cambridge UP, 2026) The Byzantine Abbot Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) transgressed the homophobic norms of medieval Orthodox society. His longing for God was distinctly homoerotic, and he depicted union with the divine as a queer sort of marriage. His Orthodox theology of theosis, the deification of the entire person, meant that Symeon taught the salvation of all the parts of the body. But monks also desired the eradication of lust and the punishment of those who fell prey to it. Sermons and biblical commentary defined men who had sex with men as sodomites; and saints' lives warned of the consequences of same-sex desires. Those who renounced sex redirected their desire rather than eliminating it. Symeon's queer erotics shed light on other devotions distinctive to medieval Orthodoxy, including the veneration of saints and worship with icons. Monastic Desires makes a groundbreaking contribution to the history of sexuality and the history of Christianity. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Derek Krueger is emeritus professor of religious studies at UNC Greensboro, the author of multiple books including Liturgical Subjects: Biblical Narratives and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium, the editor of far more, and former editor of the book series Divinations: Rereading Late Antiquity. Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 30 Mar 2026 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network Derek Krueger Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and Love of God in Medieval Constantinople (Cambridge UP, 2026) The Byzantine Abbot Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) transgressed the homophobic norms of medieval Orthodox society. His longing for God was distinctly homoerotic, and he depicted union with the divine as a queer sort of marriage. His Orthodox theology of theosis, the deification of the entire person, meant that Symeon taught the salvation of all the parts of the body. But monks also desired the eradication of lust and the punishment of those who fell prey to it. Sermons and biblical commentary defined men who had sex with men as sodomites; and saints' lives warned of the consequences of same-sex desires. Those who renounced sex redirected their desire rather than eliminating it. Symeon's queer erotics shed light on other devotions distinctive to medieval Orthodoxy, including the veneration of saints and worship with icons. Monastic Desires makes a groundbreaking contribution to the history of sexuality and the history of Christianity. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Derek Krueger is emeritus professor of religious studies at UNC Greensboro, the author of multiple books including Liturgical Subjects: Biblical Narratives and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium, the editor of far more, and former editor of the book series Divinations: Rereading Late Antiquity. Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Derek Krueger Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and Love of God in Medieval Constantinople (Cambridge UP, 2026)

The Byzantine Abbot Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) transgressed the homophobic norms of medieval Orthodox society. His longing for God was distinctly homoerotic, and he depicted union with the divine as a queer sort of marriage. His Orthodox theology of theosis, the deification of the entire person, meant that Symeon taught the salvation of all the parts of the body. But monks also desired the eradication of lust and the punishment of those who fell prey to it. Sermons and biblical commentary defined men who had sex with men as sodomites; and saints' lives warned of the consequences of same-sex desires. Those who renounced sex redirected their desire rather than eliminating it. Symeon's queer erotics shed light on other devotions distinctive to medieval Orthodoxy, including the veneration of saints and worship with icons. Monastic Desires makes a groundbreaking contribution to the history of sexuality and the history of Christianity.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Derek Krueger is emeritus professor of religious studies at UNC Greensboro, the author of multiple books including Liturgical Subjects: Biblical Narratives and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium, the editor of far more, and former editor of the book series Divinations: Rereading Late Antiquity.

Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 5334 no Jake Nabel, "The Arsacids of Rome: Misunderstanding in Roman-Parthian Relations" (U California Press, 2025) At the beginning of the common era, the two major imperial powers of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East were Rome and Parthia. In this  (open access) book The Arsacids of Rome: Misunderstanding in Roman-Parthian Relations (U California Press, 2025), Jake Nabel analyzes Roman-Parthian interstate politics by focusing on a group of princes from the Arsacid family—the ruling dynasty of Parthia—who were sent to live at the Roman court. Although Roman authors called these figures “hostages” and scholars have studied them as such, Nabel draws on Iranian and Armenian sources to argue that the Parthians would have seen them as the emperor’s foster-children. These divergent perspectives allowed each empire to perceive itself as superior to the other, since the two sides interpreted the exchange of royal children through conflicting cultural frameworks. Moving beyond the paradigm of great powers in conflict, The Arsacids of Rome advances a new vision of interstate relations with misunderstanding at its center. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review. Jake Nabel is the Tombros Early Career Professor of Classical Studies and Assistant Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 16 Mar 2026 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network At the beginning of the common era, the two major imperial powers of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East were Rome and Parthia. In this  (open access) book The Arsacids of Rome: Misunderstanding in Roman-Parthian Relations (U California Press, 2025), Jake Nabel analyzes Roman-Parthian interstate politics by focusing on a group of princes from the Arsacid family—the ruling dynasty of Parthia—who were sent to live at the Roman court. Although Roman authors called these figures “hostages” and scholars have studied them as such, Nabel draws on Iranian and Armenian sources to argue that the Parthians would have seen them as the emperor’s foster-children. These divergent perspectives allowed each empire to perceive itself as superior to the other, since the two sides interpreted the exchange of royal children through conflicting cultural frameworks. Moving beyond the paradigm of great powers in conflict, The Arsacids of Rome advances a new vision of interstate relations with misunderstanding at its center. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review. Jake Nabel is the Tombros Early Career Professor of Classical Studies and Assistant Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Pennsylvania State University. Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices At the beginning of the common era, the two major imperial powers of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East were Rome and Parthia. In this  (open access) book The Arsacids of Rome: Misunderstanding in Roman-Parthian Relations (U California Press, 2025), Jake Nabel analyzes Roman-Parthian interstate politics by focusing on a group of princes from the Arsacid family—the ruling dynasty of Parthia—who were sent to live at the Roman court. Although Roman authors called these figures “hostages” and scholars have studied them as such, Nabel draws on Iranian and Armenian sources to argue that the Parthians would have seen them as the emperor’s foster-children. These divergent perspectives allowed each empire to perceive itself as superior to the other, since the two sides interpreted the exchange of royal children through conflicting cultural frameworks. Moving beyond the paradigm of great powers in conflict, The Arsacids of Rome advances a new vision of interstate relations with misunderstanding at its center.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Jake Nabel is the Tombros Early Career Professor of Classical Studies and Assistant Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Pennsylvania State University.

Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 5714 no The Augustan Revolution: On Ancient Rome with Reece Edmends In this second episode of Season 5, I interview Dr. Reece Edmends, a graduate of King’s College, Cambridge, and a junior faculty member in the Classics Department at Princeton University. Drawing on his recent PhD dissertation, “‘Liberation’ in Augustan Propaganda” (2025), we discuss the fall of the Roman Republic, the empire that Caesar Augustus forged, as well as the other fascinating figures in this story, from Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony to Brutus and Cicero. The transcript for this interview will be available on our new Substack page. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network In this second episode of Season 5, I interview Dr. Reece Edmends, a graduate of King’s College, Cambridge, and a junior faculty member in the Classics Department at Princeton University. Drawing on his recent PhD dissertation, “‘Liberation’ in Augustan Propaganda” (2025), we discuss the fall of the Roman Republic, the empire that Caesar Augustus forged, as well as the other fascinating figures in this story, from Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony to Brutus and Cicero. The transcript for this interview will be available on our new Substack page. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices In this second episode of Season 5, I interview Dr. Reece Edmends, a graduate of King’s College, Cambridge, and a junior faculty member in the Classics Department at Princeton University.

Drawing on his recent PhD dissertation, “‘Liberation’ in Augustan Propaganda” (2025), we discuss the fall of the Roman Republic, the empire that Caesar Augustus forged, as well as the other fascinating figures in this story, from Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony to Brutus and Cicero.

The transcript for this interview will be available on our new Substack page. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3805 no Moulie Vidas, "The Rise of Talmud" (Princeton UP, 2025) The rabbinic sages of antiquity are known for their sophisticated and creative reading of Scripture. But beginning in the third century CE, these sages also took on extensive commentary on another kind of text: the sages' own teachings. Focusing on the first collection attesting to this branch of scholarship, the oft-neglected Talmud Yerushalmi, The Rise of Talmud (Princeton University Press, 2025) argues that this new project presented a wide-ranging transformation of the sages' scholarly practice and self-perception. On the one hand, it engaged premises and methods distinct from those the sages applied to Scripture, such as textual criticism and the interpretation of texts in light of the individuals to whom they were attributed. On the other hand, this book shows, this distinct approach did not stem from preexisting differences in the conceptions of Scripture and rabbinic teachings: it reflected a broad reconceptualization of the tradition, diverging from how these teachings were construed by earlier generations. Recognizing these unique aspects of ancient Talmudic scholarship centers its development as a pivotal moment in Jewish intellectual history and offers a richer picture of rabbinic hermeneutics; it also allows us to situate it better among other scholarly traditions of the Greco-Roman world and to examine how different ideas, aims, and contexts shape textual scholarship—including our own. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Moulie Vidas is Associate Professor of Religion and the Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University. Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 02 Mar 2026 09:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network The rabbinic sages of antiquity are known for their sophisticated and creative reading of Scripture. But beginning in the third century CE, these sages also took on extensive commentary on another kind of text: the sages' own teachings. Focusing on the first collection attesting to this branch of scholarship, the oft-neglected Talmud Yerushalmi, The Rise of Talmud (Princeton University Press, 2025) argues that this new project presented a wide-ranging transformation of the sages' scholarly practice and self-perception. On the one hand, it engaged premises and methods distinct from those the sages applied to Scripture, such as textual criticism and the interpretation of texts in light of the individuals to whom they were attributed. On the other hand, this book shows, this distinct approach did not stem from preexisting differences in the conceptions of Scripture and rabbinic teachings: it reflected a broad reconceptualization of the tradition, diverging from how these teachings were construed by earlier generations. Recognizing these unique aspects of ancient Talmudic scholarship centers its development as a pivotal moment in Jewish intellectual history and offers a richer picture of rabbinic hermeneutics; it also allows us to situate it better among other scholarly traditions of the Greco-Roman world and to examine how different ideas, aims, and contexts shape textual scholarship—including our own. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Moulie Vidas is Associate Professor of Religion and the Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University. Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The rabbinic sages of antiquity are known for their sophisticated and creative reading of Scripture. But beginning in the third century CE, these sages also took on extensive commentary on another kind of text: the sages' own teachings. Focusing on the first collection attesting to this branch of scholarship, the oft-neglected Talmud Yerushalmi, The Rise of Talmud (Princeton University Press, 2025) argues that this new project presented a wide-ranging transformation of the sages' scholarly practice and self-perception. On the one hand, it engaged premises and methods distinct from those the sages applied to Scripture, such as textual criticism and the interpretation of texts in light of the individuals to whom they were attributed. On the other hand, this book shows, this distinct approach did not stem from preexisting differences in the conceptions of Scripture and rabbinic teachings: it reflected a broad reconceptualization of the tradition, diverging from how these teachings were construed by earlier generations. Recognizing these unique aspects of ancient Talmudic scholarship centers its development as a pivotal moment in Jewish intellectual history and offers a richer picture of rabbinic hermeneutics; it also allows us to situate it better among other scholarly traditions of the Greco-Roman world and to examine how different ideas, aims, and contexts shape textual scholarship—including our own.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Moulie Vidas is Associate Professor of Religion and the Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University.

Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4251 no Beth A. Berkowitz, "What Animals Teach us About Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature" (U California Press, 2026) Reading the Bible and rabbinic literature to reimagine the bonds between animals. Moving beyond debates about the ethics of animal consumption to focus on animals' intimate lives, Beth A. Berkowitz examines the contribution of religious traditions and sacred texts to contemporary conversations about animals in What Animals Teach us About Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature (U California Press, 2026). Reading the four "animal family" laws of the Bible alongside their rabbinic interpretations from ancient times to today, she examines the bonds that animals form with each other and reimagines family to include new forms of life and alternative modes of kinship. Humanitarian politics—and biblical law—tend to take for granted that human interests supersede animal interests and that our moral obligation extends only to avoiding unnecessary suffering, but necessity is determined by humans. What Animals Teach Us About Families looks at animal emotions, animal agency, family diversity, and human response to reconsider the obligations and opportunities the animal family presents. New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Beth A. Berkowitz is Professor and Ingeborg Rennert Chair of Jewish Studies, Department of Religion, Barnard College Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 16 Feb 2026 09:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network Reading the Bible and rabbinic literature to reimagine the bonds between animals. Moving beyond debates about the ethics of animal consumption to focus on animals' intimate lives, Beth A. Berkowitz examines the contribution of religious traditions and sacred texts to contemporary conversations about animals in What Animals Teach us About Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature (U California Press, 2026). Reading the four "animal family" laws of the Bible alongside their rabbinic interpretations from ancient times to today, she examines the bonds that animals form with each other and reimagines family to include new forms of life and alternative modes of kinship. Humanitarian politics—and biblical law—tend to take for granted that human interests supersede animal interests and that our moral obligation extends only to avoiding unnecessary suffering, but necessity is determined by humans. What Animals Teach Us About Families looks at animal emotions, animal agency, family diversity, and human response to reconsider the obligations and opportunities the animal family presents. New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Beth A. Berkowitz is Professor and Ingeborg Rennert Chair of Jewish Studies, Department of Religion, Barnard College Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Reading the Bible and rabbinic literature to reimagine the bonds between animals. Moving beyond debates about the ethics of animal consumption to focus on animals' intimate lives, Beth A. Berkowitz examines the contribution of religious traditions and sacred texts to contemporary conversations about animals in What Animals Teach us About Families: Kinship and Species in the Bible and Rabbinic Literature (U California Press, 2026). Reading the four "animal family" laws of the Bible alongside their rabbinic interpretations from ancient times to today, she examines the bonds that animals form with each other and reimagines family to include new forms of life and alternative modes of kinship.

Humanitarian politics—and biblical law—tend to take for granted that human interests supersede animal interests and that our moral obligation extends only to avoiding unnecessary suffering, but necessity is determined by humans. What Animals Teach Us About Families looks at animal emotions, animal agency, family diversity, and human response to reconsider the obligations and opportunities the animal family presents.

New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Beth A. Berkowitz is Professor and Ingeborg Rennert Chair of Jewish Studies, Department of Religion, Barnard College

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4231 no Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga, "The Chronicle of John of Nikiu: Coping with Crisis in Post-Roman Egypt" (U California Press, 2025) In the midst of profound political changes in late seventh-century Egypt, after the end of Roman hegemony and during Islamic rule, a bishop named John from the city of Nikiu sat down to pen a chronicle. It is a puzzling and fascinating work that reimagines the established Roman genre of Christian world history as a dialectic between a Roman state that often failed to maintain Christian orthodoxy and Roman citizens who attempted to nudge the state in the direction of correct theology. In The Chronicle of John of Nikiu: Coping with Crisis in Post-Roman Egypt (U California Press, 2025) Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga treats the bishop's text as a historical artifact of Egyptian cultural and intellectual history, one of the last works of an educated elite forced to use the tools of Roman education to tackle the crisis brought on by the end of Roman Egypt. Placing the Chronicle in its broader setting, Yirga positions the text as quintessentially post-Roman, arguing that it was a rearticulation of imperial ideology for and by post-Roman subjects that allowed them to explain and cope with the failure of the Roman state to maintain control of Egypt. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee Knoxville Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 02 Feb 2026 09:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network In the midst of profound political changes in late seventh-century Egypt, after the end of Roman hegemony and during Islamic rule, a bishop named John from the city of Nikiu sat down to pen a chronicle. It is a puzzling and fascinating work that reimagines the established Roman genre of Christian world history as a dialectic between a Roman state that often failed to maintain Christian orthodoxy and Roman citizens who attempted to nudge the state in the direction of correct theology. In The Chronicle of John of Nikiu: Coping with Crisis in Post-Roman Egypt (U California Press, 2025) Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga treats the bishop's text as a historical artifact of Egyptian cultural and intellectual history, one of the last works of an educated elite forced to use the tools of Roman education to tackle the crisis brought on by the end of Roman Egypt. Placing the Chronicle in its broader setting, Yirga positions the text as quintessentially post-Roman, arguing that it was a rearticulation of imperial ideology for and by post-Roman subjects that allowed them to explain and cope with the failure of the Roman state to maintain control of Egypt. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee Knoxville Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices In the midst of profound political changes in late seventh-century Egypt, after the end of Roman hegemony and during Islamic rule, a bishop named John from the city of Nikiu sat down to pen a chronicle. It is a puzzling and fascinating work that reimagines the established Roman genre of Christian world history as a dialectic between a Roman state that often failed to maintain Christian orthodoxy and Roman citizens who attempted to nudge the state in the direction of correct theology. In The Chronicle of John of Nikiu: Coping with Crisis in Post-Roman Egypt (U California Press, 2025) Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga treats the bishop's text as a historical artifact of Egyptian cultural and intellectual history, one of the last works of an educated elite forced to use the tools of Roman education to tackle the crisis brought on by the end of Roman Egypt. Placing the Chronicle in its broader setting, Yirga positions the text as quintessentially post-Roman, arguing that it was a rearticulation of imperial ideology for and by post-Roman subjects that allowed them to explain and cope with the failure of the Roman state to maintain control of Egypt.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee Knoxville

Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4875 no Christopher J. Bonura, "A Prophecy of Empire: The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius from Late Antique Mesopotamia to the Global Medieval Imagination" (U California Press, 2025) The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius was one of the medieval world’s most popular and widely translated texts. Composed in Syriac in Mesopotamia in the seventh century, this supposed revelation presented a new, salvific role for the Roman Empire, whose last emperor, it prophesied, would help bring about the end of the ages. In this first book-length study of Pseudo-Methodius, Christopher J. Bonura uncovers the under-appreciated Syriac origins of this apocalyptic tract, revealing it as a remarkable response to political realities faced by Christians living under a new Islamic regime. Tracing the spread of Pseudo-Methodius from the early medieval Mediterranean to its dissemination via the printing presses of early modern Europe, Bonura then demonstrates how different cultures used this new vision of empire’s role in the end times to reconfigure their own realities. The book also features a new, complete, and annotated English translation of the Syriac text of Pseudo-Methodius. New books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review. Christopher J. Bonura is Assistant Professor of History at Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland, and Visiting Assistant Professor Costigan Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Washington. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 19 Jan 2026 09:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius was one of the medieval world’s most popular and widely translated texts. Composed in Syriac in Mesopotamia in the seventh century, this supposed revelation presented a new, salvific role for the Roman Empire, whose last emperor, it prophesied, would help bring about the end of the ages. In this first book-length study of Pseudo-Methodius, Christopher J. Bonura uncovers the under-appreciated Syriac origins of this apocalyptic tract, revealing it as a remarkable response to political realities faced by Christians living under a new Islamic regime. Tracing the spread of Pseudo-Methodius from the early medieval Mediterranean to its dissemination via the printing presses of early modern Europe, Bonura then demonstrates how different cultures used this new vision of empire’s role in the end times to reconfigure their own realities. The book also features a new, complete, and annotated English translation of the Syriac text of Pseudo-Methodius. New books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review. Christopher J. Bonura is Assistant Professor of History at Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland, and Visiting Assistant Professor Costigan Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Washington. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius was one of the medieval world’s most popular and widely translated texts. Composed in Syriac in Mesopotamia in the seventh century, this supposed revelation presented a new, salvific role for the Roman Empire, whose last emperor, it prophesied, would help bring about the end of the ages. In this first book-length study of Pseudo-Methodius, Christopher J. Bonura uncovers the under-appreciated Syriac origins of this apocalyptic tract, revealing it as a remarkable response to political realities faced by Christians living under a new Islamic regime. Tracing the spread of Pseudo-Methodius from the early medieval Mediterranean to its dissemination via the printing presses of early modern Europe, Bonura then demonstrates how different cultures used this new vision of empire’s role in the end times to reconfigure their own realities. The book also features a new, complete, and annotated English translation of the Syriac text of Pseudo-Methodius.

New books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Christopher J. Bonura is Assistant Professor of History at Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland, and Visiting Assistant Professor Costigan Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Washington.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4586 no Susanna Elm, "The Importance of Being Gorgeous: Gender and Christian Imperial Rule in Late Antiquity" (U California Press, 2025) In this (open-access) book, Susanna Elm radically changes our understanding of imperial rule in the later Roman Empire. As she shows, the so-called eastern decadence of the Emperor Theodosius and his successors was in fact a calculated revolution in masculinity and the representation of imperial power. Here, the emperor's hard yet soft, mature yet youthfully gorgeous beauty was central. Because the Theodosian emperors were divine—gods one could see—so was their beauty: their manliness was the face and body of God. The emperors' gorgeousness, their sparkling regalia, how they wished their bodies to be seen by their elite subjects—who authored the texts on which Elm's analysis is based—were as important as laws, taxes, and armies. Their vir-ness strategically deployed male same-sex erotic desire to enhance the unity of the realm in times of tension, incorporate the signifying potency of child emperors, and create a flexible yet stable model of Christian sovereignty. New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Susanna Elm is Sidney H. Ehrman Chair and Distinguished Professor of History and Ancient Greek and Roman Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome. Michael Motia teaches classics and religious studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 05 Jan 2026 09:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network In this (open-access) book, Susanna Elm radically changes our understanding of imperial rule in the later Roman Empire. As she shows, the so-called eastern decadence of the Emperor Theodosius and his successors was in fact a calculated revolution in masculinity and the representation of imperial power. Here, the emperor's hard yet soft, mature yet youthfully gorgeous beauty was central. Because the Theodosian emperors were divine—gods one could see—so was their beauty: their manliness was the face and body of God. The emperors' gorgeousness, their sparkling regalia, how they wished their bodies to be seen by their elite subjects—who authored the texts on which Elm's analysis is based—were as important as laws, taxes, and armies. Their vir-ness strategically deployed male same-sex erotic desire to enhance the unity of the realm in times of tension, incorporate the signifying potency of child emperors, and create a flexible yet stable model of Christian sovereignty. New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Susanna Elm is Sidney H. Ehrman Chair and Distinguished Professor of History and Ancient Greek and Roman Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome. Michael Motia teaches classics and religious studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices In this (open-access) book, Susanna Elm radically changes our understanding of imperial rule in the later Roman Empire. As she shows, the so-called eastern decadence of the Emperor Theodosius and his successors was in fact a calculated revolution in masculinity and the representation of imperial power. Here, the emperor's hard yet soft, mature yet youthfully gorgeous beauty was central. Because the Theodosian emperors were divine—gods one could see—so was their beauty: their manliness was the face and body of God. The emperors' gorgeousness, their sparkling regalia, how they wished their bodies to be seen by their elite subjects—who authored the texts on which Elm's analysis is based—were as important as laws, taxes, and armies. Their vir-ness strategically deployed male same-sex erotic desire to enhance the unity of the realm in times of tension, incorporate the signifying potency of child emperors, and create a flexible yet stable model of Christian sovereignty.

New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Susanna Elm is Sidney H. Ehrman Chair and Distinguished Professor of History and Ancient Greek and Roman Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Sons of Hellenism, Fathers of the Church: Emperor Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the Vision of Rome.

Michael Motia teaches classics and religious studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4871 no Johannes Zachhuber, "Gregory of Nyssa: on the Hexaemeron: Text, Translation, and Essays" (Oxford UP, 2025) Johannes Zachhuber and Anna Marmodoro, eds., Gregory of Nyssa: On the Hexaemeron: Text, Translation, and Essays (Oxford UP, 2025) This book presents Gregory of Nyssa's On the Six Days of Creation (In Hexaemeron) as a specimen of Early Christian philosophy. It comprises Gregory of Nyssa's text in its Greek original accompanied by a new English translation, and seven accompanying essays by international specialists from diverse backgrounds. Each essay focuses on a section of the text and the arising philosophical issues. The essays complement each other in offering multiple perspectives on how Gregory's text may be approached philosophically and positioned in relation to other, more or less contiguous, philosophical theories, including the early Greeks Anaxagoras and Empedocles, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Rather than presenting a definite and exhaustive state of the art study of Gregory's text, this volume aims to open new pathways for research into In Hexaemeron. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Johannes Zachhuber is professor of historical and systematic theology at Oxford. His books include Human Nature in Greogry of Nyssa, The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics, and Time and the Soul: from Aristotle to Augustine. Anna Marmodoro is Leonard and Elizabeth Eslick Professor of Philosophy at St. Louis University. She’s written or edited half a dozen books including Metaphysics: an Introduction; Forms and Structures in Plato’s Metaphysics; Aristotle on Perceiving Objects, and most recently she co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Omnipresence. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 22 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network Johannes Zachhuber and Anna Marmodoro, eds., Gregory of Nyssa: On the Hexaemeron: Text, Translation, and Essays (Oxford UP, 2025) This book presents Gregory of Nyssa's On the Six Days of Creation (In Hexaemeron) as a specimen of Early Christian philosophy. It comprises Gregory of Nyssa's text in its Greek original accompanied by a new English translation, and seven accompanying essays by international specialists from diverse backgrounds. Each essay focuses on a section of the text and the arising philosophical issues. The essays complement each other in offering multiple perspectives on how Gregory's text may be approached philosophically and positioned in relation to other, more or less contiguous, philosophical theories, including the early Greeks Anaxagoras and Empedocles, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Rather than presenting a definite and exhaustive state of the art study of Gregory's text, this volume aims to open new pathways for research into In Hexaemeron. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Johannes Zachhuber is professor of historical and systematic theology at Oxford. His books include Human Nature in Greogry of Nyssa, The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics, and Time and the Soul: from Aristotle to Augustine. Anna Marmodoro is Leonard and Elizabeth Eslick Professor of Philosophy at St. Louis University. She’s written or edited half a dozen books including Metaphysics: an Introduction; Forms and Structures in Plato’s Metaphysics; Aristotle on Perceiving Objects, and most recently she co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Omnipresence. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Johannes Zachhuber and Anna Marmodoro, eds., Gregory of Nyssa: On the Hexaemeron: Text, Translation, and Essays (Oxford UP, 2025)

This book presents Gregory of Nyssa's On the Six Days of Creation (In Hexaemeron) as a specimen of Early Christian philosophy. It comprises Gregory of Nyssa's text in its Greek original accompanied by a new English translation, and seven accompanying essays by international specialists from diverse backgrounds. Each essay focuses on a section of the text and the arising philosophical issues. The essays complement each other in offering multiple perspectives on how Gregory's text may be approached philosophically and positioned in relation to other, more or less contiguous, philosophical theories, including the early Greeks Anaxagoras and Empedocles, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Rather than presenting a definite and exhaustive state of the art study of Gregory's text, this volume aims to open new pathways for research into In Hexaemeron.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Johannes Zachhuber is professor of historical and systematic theology at Oxford. His books include Human Nature in Greogry of Nyssa, The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics, and Time and the Soul: from Aristotle to Augustine.

Anna Marmodoro is Leonard and Elizabeth Eslick Professor of Philosophy at St. Louis University. She’s written or edited half a dozen books including Metaphysics: an Introduction; Forms and Structures in Plato’s Metaphysics; Aristotle on Perceiving Objects, and most recently she co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Omnipresence.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4153 no Daniel K. Falk and Rodney A. Werline, "Prayer in the Ancient World Vol.1" (Brill, 2027) Prayer in the Ancient World is the resource on prayer in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. With over 350 entries it showcases a robust selection of the range of different types of prayers attested from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, early Judaism and Christianity, Greece, Rome, Arabia, and Iran, enhanced by critical commentary.The Prayer in the Ancient World will also be available online.Preview of the 'Prayer in the Ancient World’ Daniel K. Falk is Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish Studies at Penn State University. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Wed, 17 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network Prayer in the Ancient World is the resource on prayer in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. With over 350 entries it showcases a robust selection of the range of different types of prayers attested from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, early Judaism and Christianity, Greece, Rome, Arabia, and Iran, enhanced by critical commentary.The Prayer in the Ancient World will also be available online.Preview of the 'Prayer in the Ancient World’ Daniel K. Falk is Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish Studies at Penn State University. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Prayer in the Ancient World is the resource on prayer in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. With over 350 entries it showcases a robust selection of the range of different types of prayers attested from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, early Judaism and Christianity, Greece, Rome, Arabia, and Iran, enhanced by critical commentary.
The Prayer in the Ancient World will also be available online.
Preview of the 'Prayer in the Ancient World’

Daniel K. Falk is Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish Studies at Penn State University.

Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2114 no Susan Ashbrook Harvey, "Ministries of Song: Women’s Voices in Ancient Syriac Christianity" (U California Press, 2025) Ministries of Song: Women’s Voices in Ancient Syriac Christianity (U California Press, 2025) is an open access tour-de-force study of the power of women's liturgical singing in late antique Syriac Christianity. Extending women's religious participation beyond the familiar roles of female saints and nobles, Syriac churches cultivated a flourishing but often-overlooked tradition of women's sacred song. Susan Ashbrook Harvey brings this music to life as she uncovers the ways these now-nameless women performed a boldly sung teaching ministry and invited congregations to respond aloud. By exploring their ritual agency, Harvey demonstrates how these choirs helped to shape the formative ethical and moral ideals of their congregations and communities. Women's voices, both real and imagined, enriched the ritual and devotional lives of Syriac Christians daily and weekly, on ecclesial and civic special occasions, in sorrow or joy, with authoritative theological significance and social and political resonance. Arguing for the importance of liturgy as social history, Harvey shows us how and why women's voices mattered for ancient Syriac Christianity and why they matter still. New books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Susan Ashbrook Harvey is Willard Prescott and Annie McClelland Smith Professor of History and Religion Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 09 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network Ministries of Song: Women’s Voices in Ancient Syriac Christianity (U California Press, 2025) is an open access tour-de-force study of the power of women's liturgical singing in late antique Syriac Christianity. Extending women's religious participation beyond the familiar roles of female saints and nobles, Syriac churches cultivated a flourishing but often-overlooked tradition of women's sacred song. Susan Ashbrook Harvey brings this music to life as she uncovers the ways these now-nameless women performed a boldly sung teaching ministry and invited congregations to respond aloud. By exploring their ritual agency, Harvey demonstrates how these choirs helped to shape the formative ethical and moral ideals of their congregations and communities. Women's voices, both real and imagined, enriched the ritual and devotional lives of Syriac Christians daily and weekly, on ecclesial and civic special occasions, in sorrow or joy, with authoritative theological significance and social and political resonance. Arguing for the importance of liturgy as social history, Harvey shows us how and why women's voices mattered for ancient Syriac Christianity and why they matter still. New books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Susan Ashbrook Harvey is Willard Prescott and Annie McClelland Smith Professor of History and Religion Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Ministries of Song: Women’s Voices in Ancient Syriac Christianity (U California Press, 2025) is an open access tour-de-force study of the power of women's liturgical singing in late antique Syriac Christianity. Extending women's religious participation beyond the familiar roles of female saints and nobles, Syriac churches cultivated a flourishing but often-overlooked tradition of women's sacred song. Susan Ashbrook Harvey brings this music to life as she uncovers the ways these now-nameless women performed a boldly sung teaching ministry and invited congregations to respond aloud. By exploring their ritual agency, Harvey demonstrates how these choirs helped to shape the formative ethical and moral ideals of their congregations and communities. Women's voices, both real and imagined, enriched the ritual and devotional lives of Syriac Christians daily and weekly, on ecclesial and civic special occasions, in sorrow or joy, with authoritative theological significance and social and political resonance. Arguing for the importance of liturgy as social history, Harvey shows us how and why women's voices mattered for ancient Syriac Christianity and why they matter still.

New books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Susan Ashbrook Harvey is Willard Prescott and Annie McClelland Smith Professor of History and Religion

Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 5251 no Maia Kotrosits, "After Transformation: Rewriting Time, Christian Late Antiquity, and the Present" (Duke UP, 2025) In After Transformation, Maia Kotrosits offers a lyrical history of Christian late antiquity as it lives on in and with the present. Recasting the monumental changes that occurred between the second and fourth centuries, when Rome transitioned from pagan to Christian worship, Kotrosits presents a condensed and evocative meditation on the profound effects of Christian imperialism across time and geography. She employs a collection of forms ranging from micro-essay and vignette to poem and fragment to capture human struggles with time and change, showing how the mundane and intimate details of our lives can themselves be conduits of historical knowing. Arguing for lyricism as a method, Kotrosits reclaims vulnerability, urgency, and storytelling in historical work to model new ways of writing the past and experiencing ourselves more fully in time. Above all, After Transformation is about the ironies of the ways that history is written against the reality of the ways that history is lived. New books in Late Antiquity is sponsored by Ancient Jew Review Maia Kotrosits is a Visiting Scholar/Researcher, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School and an expert in ancient Judaism and Christianity, writing long histories of empire, colonialism, and race. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 24 Nov 2025 09:00:00 -0000 full 11 New Books Network In After Transformation, Maia Kotrosits offers a lyrical history of Christian late antiquity as it lives on in and with the present. Recasting the monumental changes that occurred between the second and fourth centuries, when Rome transitioned from pagan to Christian worship, Kotrosits presents a condensed and evocative meditation on the profound effects of Christian imperialism across time and geography. She employs a collection of forms ranging from micro-essay and vignette to poem and fragment to capture human struggles with time and change, showing how the mundane and intimate details of our lives can themselves be conduits of historical knowing. Arguing for lyricism as a method, Kotrosits reclaims vulnerability, urgency, and storytelling in historical work to model new ways of writing the past and experiencing ourselves more fully in time. Above all, After Transformation is about the ironies of the ways that history is written against the reality of the ways that history is lived. New books in Late Antiquity is sponsored by Ancient Jew Review Maia Kotrosits is a Visiting Scholar/Researcher, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School and an expert in ancient Judaism and Christianity, writing long histories of empire, colonialism, and race. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices In After Transformation, Maia Kotrosits offers a lyrical history of Christian late antiquity as it lives on in and with the present. Recasting the monumental changes that occurred between the second and fourth centuries, when Rome transitioned from pagan to Christian worship, Kotrosits presents a condensed and evocative meditation on the profound effects of Christian imperialism across time and geography. She employs a collection of forms ranging from micro-essay and vignette to poem and fragment to capture human struggles with time and change, showing how the mundane and intimate details of our lives can themselves be conduits of historical knowing. Arguing for lyricism as a method, Kotrosits reclaims vulnerability, urgency, and storytelling in historical work to model new ways of writing the past and experiencing ourselves more fully in time. Above all, After Transformation is about the ironies of the ways that history is written against the reality of the ways that history is lived.

New books in Late Antiquity is sponsored by Ancient Jew Review

Maia Kotrosits is a Visiting Scholar/Researcher, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School and an expert in ancient Judaism and Christianity, writing long histories of empire, colonialism, and race.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3257 no Ellen Muehlberger, "Things Unseen: Essays on Evidence, Knowledge, and the Late Ancient World" (U California Press, 2025) How do you know the nature of another person: who she is, or what she is capable of? In four exploratory essays, a seasoned historian examines the mechanisms by which ancient people came to have knowledge—not of the world and its myriad processes but about something more intimate, namely the individuals they encountered in close quarters, those they knew in everyday life. Tracing previously unfathomed structures beneath the surface of late ancient Christianity, Ellen Muehlberger reveals surprising insights about the ancient world and, by extension, the modern. Things Unseen holds treasures for scholars of early Christian studies, for historians in general, and for all those who wonder about how we know what we seem to know. The book is open access. Ellen Muehlberger is Professor of History at the University of Michigan. You can find many of the other essays mentioned in the show here. She is also the editor of The Journal of Early Christian Studies. Michael Motia teaches in the department of Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 10 Nov 2025 09:00:00 -0000 full 9 New Books Network How do you know the nature of another person: who she is, or what she is capable of? In four exploratory essays, a seasoned historian examines the mechanisms by which ancient people came to have knowledge—not of the world and its myriad processes but about something more intimate, namely the individuals they encountered in close quarters, those they knew in everyday life. Tracing previously unfathomed structures beneath the surface of late ancient Christianity, Ellen Muehlberger reveals surprising insights about the ancient world and, by extension, the modern. Things Unseen holds treasures for scholars of early Christian studies, for historians in general, and for all those who wonder about how we know what we seem to know. The book is open access. Ellen Muehlberger is Professor of History at the University of Michigan. You can find many of the other essays mentioned in the show here. She is also the editor of The Journal of Early Christian Studies. Michael Motia teaches in the department of Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices How do you know the nature of another person: who she is, or what she is capable of? In four exploratory essays, a seasoned historian examines the mechanisms by which ancient people came to have knowledge—not of the world and its myriad processes but about something more intimate, namely the individuals they encountered in close quarters, those they knew in everyday life. Tracing previously unfathomed structures beneath the surface of late ancient Christianity, Ellen Muehlberger reveals surprising insights about the ancient world and, by extension, the modern. Things Unseen holds treasures for scholars of early Christian studies, for historians in general, and for all those who wonder about how we know what we seem to know.

The book is open access.

Ellen Muehlberger is Professor of History at the University of Michigan. You can find many of the other essays mentioned in the show here. She is also the editor of The Journal of Early Christian Studies.

Michael Motia teaches in the department of Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4571 no Jeremy Swist, "Julian Augustus: Platonism, Myth and the Refounding of Rome" (Oxford UP, 2025) The Roman emperor Julian (r. 361-363 CE) was a man of action and of letters, which he employed in an effort to return the Empire to the light of the pagan gods, and reverse the Christianization of the empire advanced by his uncle Constantine and the sons of Constantine. This enterprise was inspired and guided by his conversion to the Neoplatonic philosophy and radical pagan Hellenism of Iamblichus and his disciples, and promoted by his production of Greek orations, letters, and satires. These works present a coherent vision of the providentially guided history and destiny of Rome as a series of foundations and refoundations enacted by rulers such as Romulus, Numa, and Caesar Augustus. As this book demonstrates, Julian offers an Iamblichean approach to the exegesis of the legends of Rome's founding, the allegories of Plato's dialogues, and myths of his own creation in order to articulate his own role in the refounding of the Empire. Furthermore, argues Jeremy Swist, approaching the wider examination of Julian's imperial self-image on these terms ends up nuancing and challenging common assumptions influenced by the rhetoric of his contemporary proponents. In his reverence for the gods and for philosophy, the emperor's self-construction embraces the identities of a statesman and soldier more than of a philosopher, of a Roman more than a Greek, and of a mere human rather than a semi-divine being. While distancing himself from the ideal models of philosophical virtue and imperial founding that inspire his own actions, he adopts a different set of exemplary figures as mirrors of himself. New Books in Late Antiquity is sponsored by Ancient Jew Review Jeremey Swist is Assistant Professor of Romance and Classical Studies at Michigan State University. Click here for The Symposium of the Caesars, and here for his talk on Julian and Constantinople. His dissertation spotlight from AJR is here. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 27 Oct 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network The Roman emperor Julian (r. 361-363 CE) was a man of action and of letters, which he employed in an effort to return the Empire to the light of the pagan gods, and reverse the Christianization of the empire advanced by his uncle Constantine and the sons of Constantine. This enterprise was inspired and guided by his conversion to the Neoplatonic philosophy and radical pagan Hellenism of Iamblichus and his disciples, and promoted by his production of Greek orations, letters, and satires. These works present a coherent vision of the providentially guided history and destiny of Rome as a series of foundations and refoundations enacted by rulers such as Romulus, Numa, and Caesar Augustus. As this book demonstrates, Julian offers an Iamblichean approach to the exegesis of the legends of Rome's founding, the allegories of Plato's dialogues, and myths of his own creation in order to articulate his own role in the refounding of the Empire. Furthermore, argues Jeremy Swist, approaching the wider examination of Julian's imperial self-image on these terms ends up nuancing and challenging common assumptions influenced by the rhetoric of his contemporary proponents. In his reverence for the gods and for philosophy, the emperor's self-construction embraces the identities of a statesman and soldier more than of a philosopher, of a Roman more than a Greek, and of a mere human rather than a semi-divine being. While distancing himself from the ideal models of philosophical virtue and imperial founding that inspire his own actions, he adopts a different set of exemplary figures as mirrors of himself. New Books in Late Antiquity is sponsored by Ancient Jew Review Jeremey Swist is Assistant Professor of Romance and Classical Studies at Michigan State University. Click here for The Symposium of the Caesars, and here for his talk on Julian and Constantinople. His dissertation spotlight from AJR is here. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The Roman emperor Julian (r. 361-363 CE) was a man of action and of letters, which he employed in an effort to return the Empire to the light of the pagan gods, and reverse the Christianization of the empire advanced by his uncle Constantine and the sons of Constantine. This enterprise was inspired and guided by his conversion to the Neoplatonic philosophy and radical pagan Hellenism of Iamblichus and his disciples, and promoted by his production of Greek orations, letters, and satires. These works present a coherent vision of the providentially guided history and destiny of Rome as a series of foundations and refoundations enacted by rulers such as Romulus, Numa, and Caesar Augustus.

As this book demonstrates, Julian offers an Iamblichean approach to the exegesis of the legends of Rome's founding, the allegories of Plato's dialogues, and myths of his own creation in order to articulate his own role in the refounding of the Empire. Furthermore, argues Jeremy Swist, approaching the wider examination of Julian's imperial self-image on these terms ends up nuancing and challenging common assumptions influenced by the rhetoric of his contemporary proponents. In his reverence for the gods and for philosophy, the emperor's self-construction embraces the identities of a statesman and soldier more than of a philosopher, of a Roman more than a Greek, and of a mere human rather than a semi-divine being. While distancing himself from the ideal models of philosophical virtue and imperial founding that inspire his own actions, he adopts a different set of exemplary figures as mirrors of himself.

New Books in Late Antiquity is sponsored by Ancient Jew Review

Jeremey Swist is Assistant Professor of Romance and Classical Studies at Michigan State University. Click here for The Symposium of the Caesars, and here for his talk on Julian and Constantinople. His dissertation spotlight from AJR is here.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 5380 no Jennifer Barry, "Gender Violence in Late Antiquity: Male Fantasies and the Christian Imagination" (U California Press, 2025) Gender Violence in Late Antiquity: Male Fantasies and the Christian Imagination (University of California Press, 2025) by Dr. Jennifer Barry confronts the violent ideological frameworks underpinning the early Christian imagination, arguing that gender-based violence is not peripheral but is fundamental to understanding early Christian history. By analyzing hagiographical and doctrinal writings, Dr. Barry reveals how male authors used portrayals of feminized suffering to shape ideals of sanctity and power, exploiting themes of domestic abuse, martyrdom, and sexualized violence to reinforce their visions of piety. The study first traces the roots of gendered violence within the Greco-Roman and early Christian imagination, and then explores the disturbing role of male fantasies and dreams in hagiographical traditions. Dr. Barry draws on womanist scholarship and engages with trauma studies and feminist horror theory in order to challenge traditional readings of Christian texts, offering new perspectives for understanding how narratives of violence continue to shape contemporary interpretations of gender and power. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 27 Oct 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network Gender Violence in Late Antiquity: Male Fantasies and the Christian Imagination (University of California Press, 2025) by Dr. Jennifer Barry confronts the violent ideological frameworks underpinning the early Christian imagination, arguing that gender-based violence is not peripheral but is fundamental to understanding early Christian history. By analyzing hagiographical and doctrinal writings, Dr. Barry reveals how male authors used portrayals of feminized suffering to shape ideals of sanctity and power, exploiting themes of domestic abuse, martyrdom, and sexualized violence to reinforce their visions of piety. The study first traces the roots of gendered violence within the Greco-Roman and early Christian imagination, and then explores the disturbing role of male fantasies and dreams in hagiographical traditions. Dr. Barry draws on womanist scholarship and engages with trauma studies and feminist horror theory in order to challenge traditional readings of Christian texts, offering new perspectives for understanding how narratives of violence continue to shape contemporary interpretations of gender and power. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Gender Violence in Late Antiquity: Male Fantasies and the Christian Imagination (University of California Press, 2025) by Dr. Jennifer Barry confronts the violent ideological frameworks underpinning the early Christian imagination, arguing that gender-based violence is not peripheral but is fundamental to understanding early Christian history.

By analyzing hagiographical and doctrinal writings, Dr. Barry reveals how male authors used portrayals of feminized suffering to shape ideals of sanctity and power, exploiting themes of domestic abuse, martyrdom, and sexualized violence to reinforce their visions of piety. The study first traces the roots of gendered violence within the Greco-Roman and early Christian imagination, and then explores the disturbing role of male fantasies and dreams in hagiographical traditions. Dr. Barry draws on womanist scholarship and engages with trauma studies and feminist horror theory in order to challenge traditional readings of Christian texts, offering new perspectives for understanding how narratives of violence continue to shape contemporary interpretations of gender and power.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 1934 no Justin Stover and George Woudhuysen, "The Lost History of Sextus Aurelius Victor" (Edinburgh UP, 2023) This book rediscovers a lost history of the Roman Empire, written by Sextus Aurelius Victor (ca. 320-390) and demonstrates for the first time both the contemporary and lasting influence of his historical work. Though little regarded today, Victor is the best-attested historian of the later Roman Empire, read by Jerome and Ammianus, honoured with a statue by the pagan Emperor Julian and appointed to a prestigious prefecture by the Christian Theodosius. Through careful analysis of the ancient evidence, including newly discovered material, this book re-examines the two short imperial histories attributed to Victor in the manuscripts, known today as the Caesares and the Epitome de Caesaribus, and discusses a wide range of both canonical and neglected authors and texts, from Sallust and Tacitus to Eunapius and the Historia Augusta. New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review George Woudhuysen is Associate Professor in Roman History, Faculty of Arts, at the University of Nottingham Justin Stover is Senior Lecturer; Medieval Latin at the University of Edinburgh Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 13 Oct 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 106 New Books Network This book rediscovers a lost history of the Roman Empire, written by Sextus Aurelius Victor (ca. 320-390) and demonstrates for the first time both the contemporary and lasting influence of his historical work. Though little regarded today, Victor is the best-attested historian of the later Roman Empire, read by Jerome and Ammianus, honoured with a statue by the pagan Emperor Julian and appointed to a prestigious prefecture by the Christian Theodosius. Through careful analysis of the ancient evidence, including newly discovered material, this book re-examines the two short imperial histories attributed to Victor in the manuscripts, known today as the Caesares and the Epitome de Caesaribus, and discusses a wide range of both canonical and neglected authors and texts, from Sallust and Tacitus to Eunapius and the Historia Augusta. New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review George Woudhuysen is Associate Professor in Roman History, Faculty of Arts, at the University of Nottingham Justin Stover is Senior Lecturer; Medieval Latin at the University of Edinburgh Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This book rediscovers a lost history of the Roman Empire, written by Sextus Aurelius Victor (ca. 320-390) and demonstrates for the first time both the contemporary and lasting influence of his historical work. Though little regarded today, Victor is the best-attested historian of the later Roman Empire, read by Jerome and Ammianus, honoured with a statue by the pagan Emperor Julian and appointed to a prestigious prefecture by the Christian Theodosius. Through careful analysis of the ancient evidence, including newly discovered material, this book re-examines the two short imperial histories attributed to Victor in the manuscripts, known today as the Caesares and the Epitome de Caesaribus, and discusses a wide range of both canonical and neglected authors and texts, from Sallust and Tacitus to Eunapius and the Historia Augusta.

New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

George Woudhuysen is Associate Professor in Roman History, Faculty of Arts, at the University of Nottingham

Justin Stover is Senior Lecturer; Medieval Latin at the University of Edinburgh

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 5192 no Adam Bremer-McCollum, "The Pearlsong" (Harvard UP, 2025) The Pearlsong (Harvard University Press, 2025) offers the reader a beautifully translated story of a young child who goes on a journey to far away places, donning glistening garments, meeting dragons, and encountering talking letters. In addition to the translated text of The Pearlsong Syriac poem, the reader will find a thorough commentary and glossary. The appendices of the book offer further delights to explore: everything from a discussion of Syriac poetry and meter, to translations of the Acts of Thomas, to an assemblage of ancient sources about pearls. The expansive subjects, texts, and translations covered in the book will be a treasure to any reader. The Pearlsong is available as a free pdf on the Center for the Study of World Religions website. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Dr. Adam Bremer-McCollum is Series Co-Editor of the Texts & Translations of Transcendence & Transformation (4T) Series and Research Associate at The Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches Religious Studies at Spelman College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Fri, 10 Oct 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network The Pearlsong (Harvard University Press, 2025) offers the reader a beautifully translated story of a young child who goes on a journey to far away places, donning glistening garments, meeting dragons, and encountering talking letters. In addition to the translated text of The Pearlsong Syriac poem, the reader will find a thorough commentary and glossary. The appendices of the book offer further delights to explore: everything from a discussion of Syriac poetry and meter, to translations of the Acts of Thomas, to an assemblage of ancient sources about pearls. The expansive subjects, texts, and translations covered in the book will be a treasure to any reader. The Pearlsong is available as a free pdf on the Center for the Study of World Religions website. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Dr. Adam Bremer-McCollum is Series Co-Editor of the Texts & Translations of Transcendence & Transformation (4T) Series and Research Associate at The Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches Religious Studies at Spelman College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The Pearlsong (Harvard University Press, 2025) offers the reader a beautifully translated story of a young child who goes on a journey to far away places, donning glistening garments, meeting dragons, and encountering talking letters. In addition to the translated text of The Pearlsong Syriac poem, the reader will find a thorough commentary and glossary. The appendices of the book offer further delights to explore: everything from a discussion of Syriac poetry and meter, to translations of the Acts of Thomas, to an assemblage of ancient sources about pearls. The expansive subjects, texts, and translations covered in the book will be a treasure to any reader. The Pearlsong is available as a free pdf on the Center for the Study of World Religions website.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Dr. Adam Bremer-McCollum is Series Co-Editor of the Texts & Translations of Transcendence & Transformation (4T) Series and Research Associate at The Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School.

Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches Religious Studies at Spelman College.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3249 no Jennifer Barry, "Gender Violence in Late Antiquity: Male Fantasies and the Christian Imagination" (U California Press, 2025) Gender Violence in Late Antiquity confronts the violent ideological frameworks underpinning the early Christian imagination, arguing that gender-based violence is not peripheral but is fundamental to understanding early Christian history. By analyzing hagiographical and doctrinal writings, Jennifer Barry reveals how male authors used portrayals of feminized suffering to shape ideals of sanctity and power, exploiting themes of domestic abuse, martyrdom, and sexualized violence to reinforce their visions of piety. The study first traces the roots of gendered violence within the Greco-Roman and early Christian imagination, and then explores the disturbing role of male fantasies and dreams in hagiographical traditions. Barry draws on womanist scholarship and engages with trauma studies and feminist horror theory in order to challenge traditional readings of Christian texts, offering new perspectives for understanding how narratives of violence continue to shape contemporary interpretations of gender and power. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Jennifer Barry is Associate Professor of Religious at the University of Mary Washington. She is author of Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity and an expert on late ancient studies, early Christianity, later Roman antiquity, and gender studies. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studie at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 29 Sep 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 4 New Books Network Gender Violence in Late Antiquity confronts the violent ideological frameworks underpinning the early Christian imagination, arguing that gender-based violence is not peripheral but is fundamental to understanding early Christian history. By analyzing hagiographical and doctrinal writings, Jennifer Barry reveals how male authors used portrayals of feminized suffering to shape ideals of sanctity and power, exploiting themes of domestic abuse, martyrdom, and sexualized violence to reinforce their visions of piety. The study first traces the roots of gendered violence within the Greco-Roman and early Christian imagination, and then explores the disturbing role of male fantasies and dreams in hagiographical traditions. Barry draws on womanist scholarship and engages with trauma studies and feminist horror theory in order to challenge traditional readings of Christian texts, offering new perspectives for understanding how narratives of violence continue to shape contemporary interpretations of gender and power. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Jennifer Barry is Associate Professor of Religious at the University of Mary Washington. She is author of Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity and an expert on late ancient studies, early Christianity, later Roman antiquity, and gender studies. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studie at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Gender Violence in Late Antiquity confronts the violent ideological frameworks underpinning the early Christian imagination, arguing that gender-based violence is not peripheral but is fundamental to understanding early Christian history. By analyzing hagiographical and doctrinal writings, Jennifer Barry reveals how male authors used portrayals of feminized suffering to shape ideals of sanctity and power, exploiting themes of domestic abuse, martyrdom, and sexualized violence to reinforce their visions of piety. The study first traces the roots of gendered violence within the Greco-Roman and early Christian imagination, and then explores the disturbing role of male fantasies and dreams in hagiographical traditions. Barry draws on womanist scholarship and engages with trauma studies and feminist horror theory in order to challenge traditional readings of Christian texts, offering new perspectives for understanding how narratives of violence continue to shape contemporary interpretations of gender and power.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Jennifer Barry is Associate Professor of Religious at the University of Mary Washington. She is author of Bishops in Flight: Exile and Displacement in Late Antiquity and an expert on late ancient studies, early Christianity, later Roman antiquity, and gender studies.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studie at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3213 no Christine Shepardson, "A Memory of Violence: Syriac Christianity and the Radicalization of Religious Difference in Late Antiquity" (U California Press, 2025) A Memory of Violence: Syriac Christianity and the Radicalization of Religious Difference in Late Antiquity (U California Press, 2025) traces the rhetorical strategies of religious radicalization that encouraged fifth- and sixth-century miaphysite Christians to be willing to suffer physical deprivation and harm rather than abandon the church that the late Roman Empire defined as heresy after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. These Syriac texts created genealogies of orthodoxy and heresy, represented their heroes as martyr saints, and reminded their followers of God's coming judgment. Later they gained renewed relevance when they were copied and translated under the emerging 'Umayyad caliphate of Islam. This book reshapes representations of late antiquity by centering Syriac Christianity in these complex and politicized doctrinal conflicts. Tracing these rhetorical strategies not only sheds light on early Christian history in the Middle East, but also provides a rich case study of religious schism, devotion, and survival that continues to resonate today. New books in late antiquity is sponsored by Ancient Jew Review Christine Shepardson is Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Religious Studies at University of Tennessee Knoxville Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 15 Sep 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network A Memory of Violence: Syriac Christianity and the Radicalization of Religious Difference in Late Antiquity (U California Press, 2025) traces the rhetorical strategies of religious radicalization that encouraged fifth- and sixth-century miaphysite Christians to be willing to suffer physical deprivation and harm rather than abandon the church that the late Roman Empire defined as heresy after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. These Syriac texts created genealogies of orthodoxy and heresy, represented their heroes as martyr saints, and reminded their followers of God's coming judgment. Later they gained renewed relevance when they were copied and translated under the emerging 'Umayyad caliphate of Islam. This book reshapes representations of late antiquity by centering Syriac Christianity in these complex and politicized doctrinal conflicts. Tracing these rhetorical strategies not only sheds light on early Christian history in the Middle East, but also provides a rich case study of religious schism, devotion, and survival that continues to resonate today. New books in late antiquity is sponsored by Ancient Jew Review Christine Shepardson is Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Religious Studies at University of Tennessee Knoxville Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices A Memory of Violence: Syriac Christianity and the Radicalization of Religious Difference in Late Antiquity (U California Press, 2025) traces the rhetorical strategies of religious radicalization that encouraged fifth- and sixth-century miaphysite Christians to be willing to suffer physical deprivation and harm rather than abandon the church that the late Roman Empire defined as heresy after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. These Syriac texts created genealogies of orthodoxy and heresy, represented their heroes as martyr saints, and reminded their followers of God's coming judgment. Later they gained renewed relevance when they were copied and translated under the emerging 'Umayyad caliphate of Islam. This book reshapes representations of late antiquity by centering Syriac Christianity in these complex and politicized doctrinal conflicts. Tracing these rhetorical strategies not only sheds light on early Christian history in the Middle East, but also provides a rich case study of religious schism, devotion, and survival that continues to resonate today.

New books in late antiquity is sponsored by Ancient Jew Review

Christine Shepardson is Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Religious Studies at University of Tennessee Knoxville

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 5058 no Markus Vinzent, "Christ's Torah: The Making of the New Testament in the Second Century" (Routledge, 2023) This volume explores the creation of the collection now known as the New Testament. While it is generally accepted that it did not emerge as a collection prior to the late second century CE, a more controversial question is how it came to be. Markus Vinzent, who had held the H.G. Wood Chair in the History of Theology at the University of Birmingham (1999-2010) and was Professor for Theology and Patristics at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College London (2010-2021, ret.), is Fellow of the Max-Weber-Centre for Anthropological and Cultural Studies, University of Erfurt (2011-present). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Sat, 06 Sep 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network This volume explores the creation of the collection now known as the New Testament. While it is generally accepted that it did not emerge as a collection prior to the late second century CE, a more controversial question is how it came to be. Markus Vinzent, who had held the H.G. Wood Chair in the History of Theology at the University of Birmingham (1999-2010) and was Professor for Theology and Patristics at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College London (2010-2021, ret.), is Fellow of the Max-Weber-Centre for Anthropological and Cultural Studies, University of Erfurt (2011-present). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This volume explores the creation of the collection now known as the New Testament. While it is generally accepted that it did not emerge as a collection prior to the late second century CE, a more controversial question is how it came to be.

Markus Vinzent, who had held the H.G. Wood Chair in the History of Theology at the University of Birmingham (1999-2010) and was Professor for Theology and Patristics at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College London (2010-2021, ret.), is Fellow of the Max-Weber-Centre for Anthropological and Cultural Studies, University of Erfurt (2011-present).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4686 no Matthew D. C. Larsen and Mark Letteney, "Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration" (U California Press, 2025) Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration (open access) examines spaces, practices, and ideologies of incarceration in the ancient Mediterranean basin from 300 BCE to 600 CE. Analyzing a wide range of sources—including legal texts, archaeological findings, documentary evidence, and visual materials—Matthew D. C. Larsen and Mark Letteney argue that prisons were integral to the social, political, and economic fabric of ancient societies. Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration traces a long history of carceral practices, considering ways in which the institution of prison has been fundamentally intertwined with issues of class, ethnicity, gender, and imperialism. By foregrounding the voices and experiences of the imprisoned, Larsen and Letteney demonstrate the extraordinary durability of carceral structures across time and call for a new historical consciousness around contemporary practices of incarceration. The database of data is: historyofincarceration.com New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Matthew Larsen is a historian, archaeologist, and storyteller who brings the ancient world to life. A professor at the University of Copenhagen, he specializes in uncovering the real lives of the first Christians—what they built, how they lived, and what history gets wrong about them. Mark Letteney (he/him) is Assistant Professor, Carol Thomas Endowed Professor of Ancient History at the University of Washington Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 01 Sep 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 2 New Books Network Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration (open access) examines spaces, practices, and ideologies of incarceration in the ancient Mediterranean basin from 300 BCE to 600 CE. Analyzing a wide range of sources—including legal texts, archaeological findings, documentary evidence, and visual materials—Matthew D. C. Larsen and Mark Letteney argue that prisons were integral to the social, political, and economic fabric of ancient societies. Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration traces a long history of carceral practices, considering ways in which the institution of prison has been fundamentally intertwined with issues of class, ethnicity, gender, and imperialism. By foregrounding the voices and experiences of the imprisoned, Larsen and Letteney demonstrate the extraordinary durability of carceral structures across time and call for a new historical consciousness around contemporary practices of incarceration. The database of data is: historyofincarceration.com New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Matthew Larsen is a historian, archaeologist, and storyteller who brings the ancient world to life. A professor at the University of Copenhagen, he specializes in uncovering the real lives of the first Christians—what they built, how they lived, and what history gets wrong about them. Mark Letteney (he/him) is Assistant Professor, Carol Thomas Endowed Professor of Ancient History at the University of Washington Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration (open access) examines spaces, practices, and ideologies of incarceration in the ancient Mediterranean basin from 300 BCE to 600 CE. Analyzing a wide range of sources—including legal texts, archaeological findings, documentary evidence, and visual materials—Matthew D. C. Larsen and Mark Letteney argue that prisons were integral to the social, political, and economic fabric of ancient societies. Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration traces a long history of carceral practices, considering ways in which the institution of prison has been fundamentally intertwined with issues of class, ethnicity, gender, and imperialism. By foregrounding the voices and experiences of the imprisoned, Larsen and Letteney demonstrate the extraordinary durability of carceral structures across time and call for a new historical consciousness around contemporary practices of incarceration.

The database of data is: historyofincarceration.com

New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Matthew Larsen is a historian, archaeologist, and storyteller who brings the ancient world to life. A professor at the University of Copenhagen, he specializes in uncovering the real lives of the first Christians—what they built, how they lived, and what history gets wrong about them.

Mark Letteney (he/him) is Assistant Professor, Carol Thomas Endowed Professor of Ancient History at the University of Washington

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4839 Walter Scheidel, "What Is Ancient History?" (Princeton UP, 2025) It’s easy to think that ancient history is, well, ancient history—obsolete, irrelevant, unjustifiably focused on Greece and Rome, and at risk of extinction. In What Is Ancient History?, Walter Scheidel presents a compelling case for a new kind of ancient history—a global history that captures antiquity’s pivotal role as a decisive phase in human development, one that provided the shared foundation of our world and continues to shape our lives today. For Scheidel, ancient history is when the earliest versions of today’s ways of life were created and spread—from farming, mining, and engineering to housing and transportation, cities and government, writing and belief systems. Transforming the planet, this process unfolded all over the world, in Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas, often at different times, sometimes haltingly but ultimately unstoppably. Yet it’s rarely studied or taught that way. Since the eighteenth century, Western intellectuals have dismembered the ancient world, driven not only by their quest for professional expertise but also by nationalism, colonialism, racism, and the idealization of Greece and Rome. Specialized scholarship has fractured into numerous academic niches, obscuring broader patterns and dynamics and keeping us from understanding just how much humanity has long had in common. The time has come, Scheidel argues, to put the ancient world back together—by moving beyond the limitations of Greco-Roman “classics,” by systematically comparing ancient societies, and by exploring early exchanges and connections between them. The time has come, in other words, for an ancient history for everyone. New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Walter Schiedel is Dickason Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics and History Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 25 Aug 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 1 New Books Network It’s easy to think that ancient history is, well, ancient history—obsolete, irrelevant, unjustifiably focused on Greece and Rome, and at risk of extinction. In What Is Ancient History?, Walter Scheidel presents a compelling case for a new kind of ancient history—a global history that captures antiquity’s pivotal role as a decisive phase in human development, one that provided the shared foundation of our world and continues to shape our lives today. For Scheidel, ancient history is when the earliest versions of today’s ways of life were created and spread—from farming, mining, and engineering to housing and transportation, cities and government, writing and belief systems. Transforming the planet, this process unfolded all over the world, in Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas, often at different times, sometimes haltingly but ultimately unstoppably. Yet it’s rarely studied or taught that way. Since the eighteenth century, Western intellectuals have dismembered the ancient world, driven not only by their quest for professional expertise but also by nationalism, colonialism, racism, and the idealization of Greece and Rome. Specialized scholarship has fractured into numerous academic niches, obscuring broader patterns and dynamics and keeping us from understanding just how much humanity has long had in common. The time has come, Scheidel argues, to put the ancient world back together—by moving beyond the limitations of Greco-Roman “classics,” by systematically comparing ancient societies, and by exploring early exchanges and connections between them. The time has come, in other words, for an ancient history for everyone. New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Walter Schiedel is Dickason Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics and History Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices It’s easy to think that ancient history is, well, ancient history—obsolete, irrelevant, unjustifiably focused on Greece and Rome, and at risk of extinction. In What Is Ancient History?, Walter Scheidel presents a compelling case for a new kind of ancient history—a global history that captures antiquity’s pivotal role as a decisive phase in human development, one that provided the shared foundation of our world and continues to shape our lives today.

For Scheidel, ancient history is when the earliest versions of today’s ways of life were created and spread—from farming, mining, and engineering to housing and transportation, cities and government, writing and belief systems. Transforming the planet, this process unfolded all over the world, in Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas, often at different times, sometimes haltingly but ultimately unstoppably. Yet it’s rarely studied or taught that way. Since the eighteenth century, Western intellectuals have dismembered the ancient world, driven not only by their quest for professional expertise but also by nationalism, colonialism, racism, and the idealization of Greece and Rome. Specialized scholarship has fractured into numerous academic niches, obscuring broader patterns and dynamics and keeping us from understanding just how much humanity has long had in common.

The time has come, Scheidel argues, to put the ancient world back together—by moving beyond the limitations of Greco-Roman “classics,” by systematically comparing ancient societies, and by exploring early exchanges and connections between them. The time has come, in other words, for an ancient history for everyone.

New books in late antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Walter Schiedel is Dickason Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics and History

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3665 no Mariam F. Ayad ed., "Coptic Culture and Community: Daily Lives, Changing Times" (American University in Cairo Press, 2024) Coptic Culture and Community: Daily Lives, Changing Times (American University in Cairo Press 2024) brings together fourteen contributions from global scholars all considering the theme of daily life and the Egyptian Coptic Christian minority community. The essays focus on ancient, late ancient, premodern, and contemporary questions about art and resistance, poverty and wealth, gender and ecclesiastical agency, dress and power, and much more. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Dr. Mariam Ayad is Associate Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches Religious Studies at Spelman College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 19 Aug 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network Coptic Culture and Community: Daily Lives, Changing Times (American University in Cairo Press 2024) brings together fourteen contributions from global scholars all considering the theme of daily life and the Egyptian Coptic Christian minority community. The essays focus on ancient, late ancient, premodern, and contemporary questions about art and resistance, poverty and wealth, gender and ecclesiastical agency, dress and power, and much more. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Dr. Mariam Ayad is Associate Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches Religious Studies at Spelman College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Coptic Culture and Community: Daily Lives, Changing Times (American University in Cairo Press 2024) brings together fourteen contributions from global scholars all considering the theme of daily life and the Egyptian Coptic Christian minority community. The essays focus on ancient, late ancient, premodern, and contemporary questions about art and resistance, poverty and wealth, gender and ecclesiastical agency, dress and power, and much more.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Dr. Mariam Ayad is Associate Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo.

Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches Religious Studies at Spelman College.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4825 no Tatiana Bur, "Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion" (Cambridge UP, 2025) Tatiana Bur, Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge UP, 2025) This open-access book investigates the ways that technological, and especially mechanical, strategies were integrated into ancient Greek religion. By analysing a range of evidence, from the tragic use of the deus ex machina to Hellenistic epigrams to ancient mechanical literature, it expands the existing vocabulary of visual modes of ancient epiphany. Moreover, it contributes to the cultural history of the unique category of ancient 'enchantment' technologies by challenging the academic orthodoxy regarding the incompatibility of religion and technology. The evidence for this previously unidentified phenomenon is presented in full, thereby enabling the reader to perceive the shifting matrices of agency between technical objects, mechanical knowledge, gods, and mortals from the fifth century BCE to the second century CE. New Books of Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Tatiana Bur is Lecturer in Classics at Australian National University Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 11 Aug 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network Tatiana Bur, Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge UP, 2025) This open-access book investigates the ways that technological, and especially mechanical, strategies were integrated into ancient Greek religion. By analysing a range of evidence, from the tragic use of the deus ex machina to Hellenistic epigrams to ancient mechanical literature, it expands the existing vocabulary of visual modes of ancient epiphany. Moreover, it contributes to the cultural history of the unique category of ancient 'enchantment' technologies by challenging the academic orthodoxy regarding the incompatibility of religion and technology. The evidence for this previously unidentified phenomenon is presented in full, thereby enabling the reader to perceive the shifting matrices of agency between technical objects, mechanical knowledge, gods, and mortals from the fifth century BCE to the second century CE. New Books of Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Tatiana Bur is Lecturer in Classics at Australian National University Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tatiana Bur, Technologies of the Marvellous in Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge UP, 2025)

This open-access book investigates the ways that technological, and especially mechanical, strategies were integrated into ancient Greek religion. By analysing a range of evidence, from the tragic use of the deus ex machina to Hellenistic epigrams to ancient mechanical literature, it expands the existing vocabulary of visual modes of ancient epiphany. Moreover, it contributes to the cultural history of the unique category of ancient 'enchantment' technologies by challenging the academic orthodoxy regarding the incompatibility of religion and technology. The evidence for this previously unidentified phenomenon is presented in full, thereby enabling the reader to perceive the shifting matrices of agency between technical objects, mechanical knowledge, gods, and mortals from the fifth century BCE to the second century CE.

New Books of Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Tatiana Bur is Lecturer in Classics at Australian National University

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3356 no Caroline Johnson Hodge, "The God of This House: Christian Domestic Cult Before Constantine" (Penn State UP, 2025) Christianity is often thought of as a tradition of belief, interpretation, teachings, and texts. However, a scholarly focus on ideas overlooks how early Christian doctrine interacted with social exchanges in lay spaces. Author Caroline Johnson Hodge fills this gap, shifting our attention from liturgical settings to religion as it was lived outside the prescriptions of congregations. Through a careful reading of the material record alongside print sources, Johnson Hodge shows that in the first through the early fourth centuries, Christians developed household rituals akin to traditional domestic cult practices around the Roman Empire, and this continuity contributed to the success of the new cult in the Roman world. Rather than a well-organized, universal domestic cult, Johnson Hodge finds that practices were flexible and varied, ranging widely from established household observances to unauthorized rituals, gravesite venerations, and the unpatrolled movements of women and slaves. Just as important as the official representations were the small gestures at hearths and doorways, the myriad ways in which followers of Christ incorporated their divine beings into the rituals of their households, shops, and tombs. In bringing the lived-religion approach to bear on this formative period, Johnson Hodge’s study offers a fascinating portrait of a very “pagan” world within ancient Christianity. This book will be especially valuable to religious studies scholars and others interested in the origins of Christianity. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Caroline Johnson Hodge is Professor in the Religious Studies Department at the College of Holy Cross Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 28 Jul 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 303 New Books Network Christianity is often thought of as a tradition of belief, interpretation, teachings, and texts. However, a scholarly focus on ideas overlooks how early Christian doctrine interacted with social exchanges in lay spaces. Author Caroline Johnson Hodge fills this gap, shifting our attention from liturgical settings to religion as it was lived outside the prescriptions of congregations. Through a careful reading of the material record alongside print sources, Johnson Hodge shows that in the first through the early fourth centuries, Christians developed household rituals akin to traditional domestic cult practices around the Roman Empire, and this continuity contributed to the success of the new cult in the Roman world. Rather than a well-organized, universal domestic cult, Johnson Hodge finds that practices were flexible and varied, ranging widely from established household observances to unauthorized rituals, gravesite venerations, and the unpatrolled movements of women and slaves. Just as important as the official representations were the small gestures at hearths and doorways, the myriad ways in which followers of Christ incorporated their divine beings into the rituals of their households, shops, and tombs. In bringing the lived-religion approach to bear on this formative period, Johnson Hodge’s study offers a fascinating portrait of a very “pagan” world within ancient Christianity. This book will be especially valuable to religious studies scholars and others interested in the origins of Christianity. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Caroline Johnson Hodge is Professor in the Religious Studies Department at the College of Holy Cross Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Christianity is often thought of as a tradition of belief, interpretation, teachings, and texts. However, a scholarly focus on ideas overlooks how early Christian doctrine interacted with social exchanges in lay spaces.

Author Caroline Johnson Hodge fills this gap, shifting our attention from liturgical settings to religion as it was lived outside the prescriptions of congregations. Through a careful reading of the material record alongside print sources, Johnson Hodge shows that in the first through the early fourth centuries, Christians developed household rituals akin to traditional domestic cult practices around the Roman Empire, and this continuity contributed to the success of the new cult in the Roman world. Rather than a well-organized, universal domestic cult, Johnson Hodge finds that practices were flexible and varied, ranging widely from established household observances to unauthorized rituals, gravesite venerations, and the unpatrolled movements of women and slaves. Just as important as the official representations were the small gestures at hearths and doorways, the myriad ways in which followers of Christ incorporated their divine beings into the rituals of their households, shops, and tombs.

In bringing the lived-religion approach to bear on this formative period, Johnson Hodge’s study offers a fascinating portrait of a very “pagan” world within ancient Christianity. This book will be especially valuable to religious studies scholars and others interested in the origins of Christianity.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Caroline Johnson Hodge is Professor in the Religious Studies Department at the College of Holy Cross

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3885 no Andrew Tobolowsky, "Israel and its Heirs in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2025) Andrew Tobolowsky's Israel and Its Heirs in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2025) explores constructions of Israelite identity among Jewish, Samaritan Israelites, and Christian authors in Late Antiquity, especially early Late Antiquity. It identifies three major strategies for claiming an Israelite identity between these three groups: a 'biological' strategy, a 'biology plus' strategy, and an 'abiological' strategy, referring to the difference between Jewish claims to Israel premised on exclusive biological descent, Samaritan Israelite acknowledgments of shared descent, and the 'Verus Israel' tradition in Christianity, which disavows the importance of descent. Using this framework, it makes various general conclusions about the construction of ethnic identity itself, including the inadequacy of treating descent claims as the sine qua non of ethnicity and role played in any given vision of ethnic identity by the individual creativity of a given author. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Andrew Tobolowsky is Robert and Sarah Boyd Associate Professor of Religious Studies at William and Mary. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 07 Jul 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 56 New Books Network Andrew Tobolowsky's Israel and Its Heirs in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2025) explores constructions of Israelite identity among Jewish, Samaritan Israelites, and Christian authors in Late Antiquity, especially early Late Antiquity. It identifies three major strategies for claiming an Israelite identity between these three groups: a 'biological' strategy, a 'biology plus' strategy, and an 'abiological' strategy, referring to the difference between Jewish claims to Israel premised on exclusive biological descent, Samaritan Israelite acknowledgments of shared descent, and the 'Verus Israel' tradition in Christianity, which disavows the importance of descent. Using this framework, it makes various general conclusions about the construction of ethnic identity itself, including the inadequacy of treating descent claims as the sine qua non of ethnicity and role played in any given vision of ethnic identity by the individual creativity of a given author. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Andrew Tobolowsky is Robert and Sarah Boyd Associate Professor of Religious Studies at William and Mary. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Andrew Tobolowsky's Israel and Its Heirs in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2025) explores constructions of Israelite identity among Jewish, Samaritan Israelites, and Christian authors in Late Antiquity, especially early Late Antiquity. It identifies three major strategies for claiming an Israelite identity between these three groups: a 'biological' strategy, a 'biology plus' strategy, and an 'abiological' strategy, referring to the difference between Jewish claims to Israel premised on exclusive biological descent, Samaritan Israelite acknowledgments of shared descent, and the 'Verus Israel' tradition in Christianity, which disavows the importance of descent. Using this framework, it makes various general conclusions about the construction of ethnic identity itself, including the inadequacy of treating descent claims as the sine qua non of ethnicity and role played in any given vision of ethnic identity by the individual creativity of a given author.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Andrew Tobolowsky is Robert and Sarah Boyd Associate Professor of Religious Studies at William and Mary.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3450 no Jonathan Teubner, "Charity After Augustine: Solidarity, Conflict, and the Practices of Charity in the Latin West" (Oxford UP, 2025) Jonathan Teubner, Charity After Augustine: Solidarity, Conflict, and the Practices of Charity in the Latin West (Oxford UP, 2025) Through a unique blend of the personal and historiographical, Charity after Augustine is an exploration of why the Augustinian tradition’s attempts to build solidarity or social cohesion in the societies of the Latin West have ended in disaster just as often as they have brought about justice. The conceit at the heart of the book is that the concrete practices of love or charity—almsgiving, works of mercy, good works—can tell us much about how religious leaders attempted to bind and hold communities together while also, in fits and starts with some startling reversions, attempting to expand the community and incorporate others. The first part probes the ways Augustine’s understanding of love is put into practice and how this understanding informs a tradition of political action inspired by Christian concepts of love and enacted through practices of charity. In a second, more expansive part, the book turns to the ways in which the Benedictine tradition as illustrated by Gregory the Great and Bernard of Clairvaux receives this vision, invigorates it with new visions of care and leadership, and puts it into practice in radically different contexts from those of Augustine’s age. At the heart of Charity after Augustine is an attempt to find a non-idealized vision of love that can inform thick, meaningful relations within a community that are not diluted by the inclusion of others New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Jonathan D. Teubner is a Research Associate at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard. This book is something of a sequel to his first, Prayer after Augustine: A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition. Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 23 Jun 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network Jonathan Teubner, Charity After Augustine: Solidarity, Conflict, and the Practices of Charity in the Latin West (Oxford UP, 2025) Through a unique blend of the personal and historiographical, Charity after Augustine is an exploration of why the Augustinian tradition’s attempts to build solidarity or social cohesion in the societies of the Latin West have ended in disaster just as often as they have brought about justice. The conceit at the heart of the book is that the concrete practices of love or charity—almsgiving, works of mercy, good works—can tell us much about how religious leaders attempted to bind and hold communities together while also, in fits and starts with some startling reversions, attempting to expand the community and incorporate others. The first part probes the ways Augustine’s understanding of love is put into practice and how this understanding informs a tradition of political action inspired by Christian concepts of love and enacted through practices of charity. In a second, more expansive part, the book turns to the ways in which the Benedictine tradition as illustrated by Gregory the Great and Bernard of Clairvaux receives this vision, invigorates it with new visions of care and leadership, and puts it into practice in radically different contexts from those of Augustine’s age. At the heart of Charity after Augustine is an attempt to find a non-idealized vision of love that can inform thick, meaningful relations within a community that are not diluted by the inclusion of others New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Jonathan D. Teubner is a Research Associate at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard. This book is something of a sequel to his first, Prayer after Augustine: A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition. Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Jonathan Teubner, Charity After Augustine: Solidarity, Conflict, and the Practices of Charity in the Latin West (Oxford UP, 2025)

Through a unique blend of the personal and historiographical, Charity after Augustine is an exploration of why the Augustinian tradition’s attempts to build solidarity or social cohesion in the societies of the Latin West have ended in disaster just as often as they have brought about justice. The conceit at the heart of the book is that the concrete practices of love or charity—almsgiving, works of mercy, good works—can tell us much about how religious leaders attempted to bind and hold communities together while also, in fits and starts with some startling reversions, attempting to expand the community and incorporate others. The first part probes the ways Augustine’s understanding of love is put into practice and how this understanding informs a tradition of political action inspired by Christian concepts of love and enacted through practices of charity. In a second, more expansive part, the book turns to the ways in which the Benedictine tradition as illustrated by Gregory the Great and Bernard of Clairvaux receives this vision, invigorates it with new visions of care and leadership, and puts it into practice in radically different contexts from those of Augustine’s age. At the heart of Charity after Augustine is an attempt to find a non-idealized vision of love that can inform thick, meaningful relations within a community that are not diluted by the inclusion of others

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Jonathan D. Teubner is a Research Associate at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard. This book is something of a sequel to his first, Prayer after Augustine: A Study in the Development of the Latin Tradition.

Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 5085 no Stefanie Lenk, "Roman Identity and Lived Religion: Baptismal Art in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2025) Christianity is often considered prevalent when it comes to defining the key values of late antique society, whereas 'feeling connected to the Roman past' is commonly regarded as an add-on for cultivated elites.  Roman Identity and Lived Religion: Baptismal Art in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2025) demonstrates the significant impact of popular Roman culture on the religious identity of common Christians from the fifth to the seventh century in the Mediterranean world. Baptism is central to the formation of Christian identity. The decoration of baptisteries reveals that traditional Roman culture persisted as an integral component of Christian identity in various communities. In their baptisteries, Christians visually and spatially evoked their links to Roman and, at times, even pagan traditions. A close examination of visual and material sources in North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, and Italy shows that baptisteries served roles beyond mere conduits to Christian orthodoxy. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Stefanie Lenk is a postdoc the university of Göttingen, and she’s held other postdocs and fellowship at the Universities of Bern and Hamburg. And she, along with Jaś Elsner, was Curator at the Ashmolean’s of the international exhibition “Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 09 Jun 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 51 New Books Network An interview with Stefanie Lenk Christianity is often considered prevalent when it comes to defining the key values of late antique society, whereas 'feeling connected to the Roman past' is commonly regarded as an add-on for cultivated elites.  Roman Identity and Lived Religion: Baptismal Art in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2025) demonstrates the significant impact of popular Roman culture on the religious identity of common Christians from the fifth to the seventh century in the Mediterranean world. Baptism is central to the formation of Christian identity. The decoration of baptisteries reveals that traditional Roman culture persisted as an integral component of Christian identity in various communities. In their baptisteries, Christians visually and spatially evoked their links to Roman and, at times, even pagan traditions. A close examination of visual and material sources in North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, and Italy shows that baptisteries served roles beyond mere conduits to Christian orthodoxy. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Stefanie Lenk is a postdoc the university of Göttingen, and she’s held other postdocs and fellowship at the Universities of Bern and Hamburg. And she, along with Jaś Elsner, was Curator at the Ashmolean’s of the international exhibition “Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Christianity is often considered prevalent when it comes to defining the key values of late antique society, whereas 'feeling connected to the Roman past' is commonly regarded as an add-on for cultivated elites. 

Roman Identity and Lived Religion: Baptismal Art in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2025) demonstrates the significant impact of popular Roman culture on the religious identity of common Christians from the fifth to the seventh century in the Mediterranean world. Baptism is central to the formation of Christian identity. The decoration of baptisteries reveals that traditional Roman culture persisted as an integral component of Christian identity in various communities. In their baptisteries, Christians visually and spatially evoked their links to Roman and, at times, even pagan traditions. A close examination of visual and material sources in North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, and Italy shows that baptisteries served roles beyond mere conduits to Christian orthodoxy.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Stefanie Lenk is a postdoc the university of Göttingen, and she’s held other postdocs and fellowship at the Universities of Bern and Hamburg. And she, along with Jaś Elsner, was Curator at the Ashmolean’s of the international exhibition “Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2641 no Krista N. Dalton, "How Rabbis Became Experts: Social Circles and Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity" (Princeton UP, 2025) At the turn of the common era, the Jewish communities of Roman Palestine saw the organization of a small group of literate Jewish men who devoted their lives to the interpretation and teaching of their sacred ancestral texts. In How Rabbis Became Experts: Social Circles and Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2025), Krista Dalton shows that these early rabbis were not an insular specialist group but embedded in a landscape of Jewish piety. Drawing on the writings of rabbis in Roman Palestine from the second through fifth centuries CE, Dalton illuminates the significance of social relationships in the production of rabbinic expertise. She traces the social interactions—everyday instances of mutual exchange, from dinner parties to tithes and patronages—that fostered the perception of rabbis as experts. Dalton shows how the knowledge derived from the rabbis’ technical skills was validated and recognized by others. Rabbis socialized and noshed with neighbors and offered advice and legal favors to friends. In exchange for their expert judgments, they received invitations, donations, appointments, and recognition. She argues that their status as Torah experts did not arise by virtue of being scholars but from their ability to persuade others that their mobilization of Jewish cultural resources was beneficial. Dalton describes the relational processes that made rabbinic expertise possible as well as the accompanying tensions; social interactions shaped the rabbis’ domain of knowledge while also imposing expectations of reciprocity that had to be managed. Dalton’s authoritative analysis demonstrates that a focus on friendship and exchange provides a fuller understanding of how rabbis claimed and defended their distinct expertise. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Krista Dalton is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Kenyon College and an editor-in-chief at Ancient Jew Review Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Wed, 28 May 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full New Books Network At the turn of the common era, the Jewish communities of Roman Palestine saw the organization of a small group of literate Jewish men who devoted their lives to the interpretation and teaching of their sacred ancestral texts. In How Rabbis Became Experts: Social Circles and Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2025), Krista Dalton shows that these early rabbis were not an insular specialist group but embedded in a landscape of Jewish piety. Drawing on the writings of rabbis in Roman Palestine from the second through fifth centuries CE, Dalton illuminates the significance of social relationships in the production of rabbinic expertise. She traces the social interactions—everyday instances of mutual exchange, from dinner parties to tithes and patronages—that fostered the perception of rabbis as experts. Dalton shows how the knowledge derived from the rabbis’ technical skills was validated and recognized by others. Rabbis socialized and noshed with neighbors and offered advice and legal favors to friends. In exchange for their expert judgments, they received invitations, donations, appointments, and recognition. She argues that their status as Torah experts did not arise by virtue of being scholars but from their ability to persuade others that their mobilization of Jewish cultural resources was beneficial. Dalton describes the relational processes that made rabbinic expertise possible as well as the accompanying tensions; social interactions shaped the rabbis’ domain of knowledge while also imposing expectations of reciprocity that had to be managed. Dalton’s authoritative analysis demonstrates that a focus on friendship and exchange provides a fuller understanding of how rabbis claimed and defended their distinct expertise. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Krista Dalton is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Kenyon College and an editor-in-chief at Ancient Jew Review Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices At the turn of the common era, the Jewish communities of Roman Palestine saw the organization of a small group of literate Jewish men who devoted their lives to the interpretation and teaching of their sacred ancestral texts. In How Rabbis Became Experts: Social Circles and Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2025), Krista Dalton shows that these early rabbis were not an insular specialist group but embedded in a landscape of Jewish piety. Drawing on the writings of rabbis in Roman Palestine from the second through fifth centuries CE, Dalton illuminates the significance of social relationships in the production of rabbinic expertise. She traces the social interactions—everyday instances of mutual exchange, from dinner parties to tithes and patronages—that fostered the perception of rabbis as experts.

Dalton shows how the knowledge derived from the rabbis’ technical skills was validated and recognized by others. Rabbis socialized and noshed with neighbors and offered advice and legal favors to friends. In exchange for their expert judgments, they received invitations, donations, appointments, and recognition. She argues that their status as Torah experts did not arise by virtue of being scholars but from their ability to persuade others that their mobilization of Jewish cultural resources was beneficial. Dalton describes the relational processes that made rabbinic expertise possible as well as the accompanying tensions; social interactions shaped the rabbis’ domain of knowledge while also imposing expectations of reciprocity that had to be managed. Dalton’s authoritative analysis demonstrates that a focus on friendship and exchange provides a fuller understanding of how rabbis claimed and defended their distinct expertise.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Krista Dalton is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Kenyon College and an editor-in-chief at Ancient Jew Review

Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston

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]]> 3134 no Korshi Dosoo and Markéta Preininger, "Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies" (de Gruyter, 2023) Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies (de Gruyter, 2023) offers an accessible repository of edited Coptic magical texts. The book is a careful and thorough edition and philological study of thirty-seven distinct Coptic manuscripts, covering a wide range of magical applications—from love spells, to curses, to exorcisms, and healing invocations. The volume makes available a rich set of evidence of everyday concerns of love, justice, strife, and health in late ancient Egypt to readers outside of the niche community of scholars of Coptic language. You will discover ancient ritual texts including instructions for healing bowels, a formula for sleep, a spell request for a good singing voice, and a love spell for attracting the attention of a crush in a one-sided romance. You will also find a curious assemblage of divine names and a list of material objects necessary for offerings that suggest need for ingredients like sweat of a bee, foam from the mouth of a horse, frog blood, incense, or different types of plant matter. For scholars interested in history of late ancient Egypt, history of Christianities, Manichaeism, Coptic language, esoterica and magic in late antiquity, material culture, or manuscripts this monograph will provide an important resource for the study and expansion of the vocabularies, grammars, and material practices of ancient rituals.  Korshi Dosoo is is currently co-Principal Investigator of the “Corpus of Coptic Magical Formularies (CoMaF)” project based at the Julius Maximilian University Würzburg. Dr. Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches Coptic at the University of Notre Dame and religious studies at Spelman College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Fri, 23 May 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 52 New Books Network An interview with Korshi Sosoo Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies (de Gruyter, 2023) offers an accessible repository of edited Coptic magical texts. The book is a careful and thorough edition and philological study of thirty-seven distinct Coptic manuscripts, covering a wide range of magical applications—from love spells, to curses, to exorcisms, and healing invocations. The volume makes available a rich set of evidence of everyday concerns of love, justice, strife, and health in late ancient Egypt to readers outside of the niche community of scholars of Coptic language. You will discover ancient ritual texts including instructions for healing bowels, a formula for sleep, a spell request for a good singing voice, and a love spell for attracting the attention of a crush in a one-sided romance. You will also find a curious assemblage of divine names and a list of material objects necessary for offerings that suggest need for ingredients like sweat of a bee, foam from the mouth of a horse, frog blood, incense, or different types of plant matter. For scholars interested in history of late ancient Egypt, history of Christianities, Manichaeism, Coptic language, esoterica and magic in late antiquity, material culture, or manuscripts this monograph will provide an important resource for the study and expansion of the vocabularies, grammars, and material practices of ancient rituals.  Korshi Dosoo is is currently co-Principal Investigator of the “Corpus of Coptic Magical Formularies (CoMaF)” project based at the Julius Maximilian University Würzburg. Dr. Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches Coptic at the University of Notre Dame and religious studies at Spelman College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies (de Gruyter, 2023) offers an accessible repository of edited Coptic magical texts. The book is a careful and thorough edition and philological study of thirty-seven distinct Coptic manuscripts, covering a wide range of magical applications—from love spells, to curses, to exorcisms, and healing invocations. The volume makes available a rich set of evidence of everyday concerns of love, justice, strife, and health in late ancient Egypt to readers outside of the niche community of scholars of Coptic language. You will discover ancient ritual texts including instructions for healing bowels, a formula for sleep, a spell request for a good singing voice, and a love spell for attracting the attention of a crush in a one-sided romance. You will also find a curious assemblage of divine names and a list of material objects necessary for offerings that suggest need for ingredients like sweat of a bee, foam from the mouth of a horse, frog blood, incense, or different types of plant matter. For scholars interested in history of late ancient Egypt, history of Christianities, Manichaeism, Coptic language, esoterica and magic in late antiquity, material culture, or manuscripts this monograph will provide an important resource for the study and expansion of the vocabularies, grammars, and material practices of ancient rituals. 

Korshi Dosoo is is currently co-Principal Investigator of the “Corpus of Coptic Magical Formularies (CoMaF)” project based at the Julius Maximilian University Würzburg.

Dr. Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches Coptic at the University of Notre Dame and religious studies at Spelman College.

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]]> 5150 no Andrew Griebeler, "Botanical Icons: Critical Practices of Illustration in the Premodern Mediterranean" (U Chicago Press, 2024) A richly illustrated account of how premodern botanical illustrations document evolving knowledge about plants and the ways they were studied in the past. Botanical Icons: Critical Practices of Illustration in the Premodern Mediterranean (U Chicago Press, 2024) traces the history of botanical illustration in the Mediterranean from antiquity to the early modern period. By examining Greek, Latin, and Arabic botanical inquiry in this early era, Andrew Griebeler shows how diverse and sophisticated modes of plant depiction emerged and ultimately gave rise to practices now recognized as central to modern botanical illustration. The author draws on centuries of remarkable and varied documentation from across Europe and the Mediterranean. Lavishly illustrated, Botanical Icons marshals ample evidence for a dynamic and critical tradition of botanical inquiry and nature observation in the late antique and medieval Mediterranean. The author reveals that many of the critical practices characteristic of modern botanical illustrations began in premodern manuscript culture. Consequently, he demonstrates that the distinctions between pre- and early modern botanical illustration center more on the advent of print, the expansion of collections and documentation, and the narrowing of the range of accepted forms of illustration than on the invention of critical and observational practices exclusive to modernity. Griebeler’s emphasis on continuity, intercultural collaboration, and the gradual transformation of Mediterranean traditions of critical botanical illustration persuasively counters previously prevalent narratives of rupture and Western European exceptionalism in the histories of art and science. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review. Andrew Griebeler is assistant professor in the depart of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. With students and other faculty at Duke, he is also helping to document the legacy of the Duke Herbarium on Instagram (@bluedevil.herbarium) before its closure by the university. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 12 May 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 46 New Books Network An interview with Andrew Griebeler A richly illustrated account of how premodern botanical illustrations document evolving knowledge about plants and the ways they were studied in the past. Botanical Icons: Critical Practices of Illustration in the Premodern Mediterranean (U Chicago Press, 2024) traces the history of botanical illustration in the Mediterranean from antiquity to the early modern period. By examining Greek, Latin, and Arabic botanical inquiry in this early era, Andrew Griebeler shows how diverse and sophisticated modes of plant depiction emerged and ultimately gave rise to practices now recognized as central to modern botanical illustration. The author draws on centuries of remarkable and varied documentation from across Europe and the Mediterranean. Lavishly illustrated, Botanical Icons marshals ample evidence for a dynamic and critical tradition of botanical inquiry and nature observation in the late antique and medieval Mediterranean. The author reveals that many of the critical practices characteristic of modern botanical illustrations began in premodern manuscript culture. Consequently, he demonstrates that the distinctions between pre- and early modern botanical illustration center more on the advent of print, the expansion of collections and documentation, and the narrowing of the range of accepted forms of illustration than on the invention of critical and observational practices exclusive to modernity. Griebeler’s emphasis on continuity, intercultural collaboration, and the gradual transformation of Mediterranean traditions of critical botanical illustration persuasively counters previously prevalent narratives of rupture and Western European exceptionalism in the histories of art and science. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review. Andrew Griebeler is assistant professor in the depart of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. With students and other faculty at Duke, he is also helping to document the legacy of the Duke Herbarium on Instagram (@bluedevil.herbarium) before its closure by the university. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices A richly illustrated account of how premodern botanical illustrations document evolving knowledge about plants and the ways they were studied in the past.

Botanical Icons: Critical Practices of Illustration in the Premodern Mediterranean (U Chicago Press, 2024) traces the history of botanical illustration in the Mediterranean from antiquity to the early modern period. By examining Greek, Latin, and Arabic botanical inquiry in this early era, Andrew Griebeler shows how diverse and sophisticated modes of plant depiction emerged and ultimately gave rise to practices now recognized as central to modern botanical illustration. The author draws on centuries of remarkable and varied documentation from across Europe and the Mediterranean.

Lavishly illustrated, Botanical Icons marshals ample evidence for a dynamic and critical tradition of botanical inquiry and nature observation in the late antique and medieval Mediterranean. The author reveals that many of the critical practices characteristic of modern botanical illustrations began in premodern manuscript culture. Consequently, he demonstrates that the distinctions between pre- and early modern botanical illustration center more on the advent of print, the expansion of collections and documentation, and the narrowing of the range of accepted forms of illustration than on the invention of critical and observational practices exclusive to modernity.

Griebeler’s emphasis on continuity, intercultural collaboration, and the gradual transformation of Mediterranean traditions of critical botanical illustration persuasively counters previously prevalent narratives of rupture and Western European exceptionalism in the histories of art and science.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Andrew Griebeler is assistant professor in the depart of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. With students and other faculty at Duke, he is also helping to document the legacy of the Duke Herbarium on Instagram (@bluedevil.herbarium) before its closure by the university.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3684 no Monika Amsler, "The Babylonian Talmud and Late Antique Book Culture" (Cambridge UP, 2023) The Babylonian Talmud and Late Antique Book Culture (Cambridge UP, 2023) argues that the Talmud must be read and understood in the broader context of late ancient discursive and material contexts of books, rhetoric, and technology. As Dr. Amsler’s work reveals, the structure and form of the Talmud point to knowledge and mastery of rhetorical training and book production technologies they share with other late ancient books and literary compositions. Her project focuses on understanding this late ancient milieu and how the compilers of the Talmud might have thought of their own literary and compositional practices involved in the work of moving from scraps and excerpts from medical texts, commentaries, speeches, dialogues, and other source material to more composed and rhetorically stylized commentaries on lemmas from the Mishnah. Through attention to the materiality of production and composition as well as rhetoric, Dr. Amsler’s book challenges traditional narratives of the oral transmission of the Talmud. As The Babylonian Talmud and Late Antique Book Culture demonstrates, the traditional orality hypothesis misses this complexity and fails to consider the Talmud as enmeshed in late ancient book and aesthetic practices. Beyond the formation of the Babylonian Talmud, however, the book is relevant for anyone interested in ancient book production and data management processes. Monika Amsler is a Senior Research Assistant in the Department of Ancient History and Classical Tradition at the University of Bern. Dr. Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches religious studies at Spelman College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Wed, 30 Apr 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 49 New Books Network An interview with Monika Amsler The Babylonian Talmud and Late Antique Book Culture (Cambridge UP, 2023) argues that the Talmud must be read and understood in the broader context of late ancient discursive and material contexts of books, rhetoric, and technology. As Dr. Amsler’s work reveals, the structure and form of the Talmud point to knowledge and mastery of rhetorical training and book production technologies they share with other late ancient books and literary compositions. Her project focuses on understanding this late ancient milieu and how the compilers of the Talmud might have thought of their own literary and compositional practices involved in the work of moving from scraps and excerpts from medical texts, commentaries, speeches, dialogues, and other source material to more composed and rhetorically stylized commentaries on lemmas from the Mishnah. Through attention to the materiality of production and composition as well as rhetoric, Dr. Amsler’s book challenges traditional narratives of the oral transmission of the Talmud. As The Babylonian Talmud and Late Antique Book Culture demonstrates, the traditional orality hypothesis misses this complexity and fails to consider the Talmud as enmeshed in late ancient book and aesthetic practices. Beyond the formation of the Babylonian Talmud, however, the book is relevant for anyone interested in ancient book production and data management processes. Monika Amsler is a Senior Research Assistant in the Department of Ancient History and Classical Tradition at the University of Bern. Dr. Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches religious studies at Spelman College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The Babylonian Talmud and Late Antique Book Culture (Cambridge UP, 2023) argues that the Talmud must be read and understood in the broader context of late ancient discursive and material contexts of books, rhetoric, and technology. As Dr. Amsler’s work reveals, the structure and form of the Talmud point to knowledge and mastery of rhetorical training and book production technologies they share with other late ancient books and literary compositions. Her project focuses on understanding this late ancient milieu and how the compilers of the Talmud might have thought of their own literary and compositional practices involved in the work of moving from scraps and excerpts from medical texts, commentaries, speeches, dialogues, and other source material to more composed and rhetorically stylized commentaries on lemmas from the Mishnah. Through attention to the materiality of production and composition as well as rhetoric, Dr. Amsler’s book challenges traditional narratives of the oral transmission of the Talmud. As The Babylonian Talmud and Late Antique Book Culture demonstrates, the traditional orality hypothesis misses this complexity and fails to consider the Talmud as enmeshed in late ancient book and aesthetic practices. Beyond the formation of the Babylonian Talmud, however, the book is relevant for anyone interested in ancient book production and data management processes.

Monika Amsler is a Senior Research Assistant in the Department of Ancient History and Classical Tradition at the University of Bern.

Dr. Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches religious studies at Spelman College.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3822 no Christy Cobb and Katherine A. Shaner, "Ancient Slavery and Its New Testament Contexts" (Eerdmans, 2025) The institution of slavery permeated the ancient world, such that the realities of slavery and its long shadows pervade the New Testament and other early Christian texts. Yet enslavement remains an under-taught aspect of the context of the New Testament and early Christianity, leaving pastors, laypersons, and neophyte college students alike to fill knowledge gaps about enslaved persons, enslavers, living and laboring conditions, and much more with partial information, assumptions, or a range of highly technical and specialized monographs.  Ancient Slavery and Its New Testament Contexts (Eerdmans, 2025), co-edited by Christy Cobb and Katherine A. Shaner, takes on these issues, introducing readers to the textures, complexities, and material realities of slavery in the Greco-Roman world. International scholars with a range of expertise, from New Testament and early Christian studies to classics, theology, ethics, and more, contribute to a tapestry of introductory themes, topics, and interpretive frameworks with a wealth of literary, inscriptional, pictorial, and theoretical evidence from the material culture of Roman antiquity in this significant volume. Dr. Cobb and Dr. Shaner joined the New Books Network to initiate important conversations that they hope will continue in religious studies classrooms, schools of theology and divinity, and local church small group settings. Christy Cobb (Ph.D., Drew University, 2016) is Associate Professor of Christianity at the University of Denver. She is the author of Slavery, Gender, Truth and Power in Luke-Acts and Other Ancient Narratives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and has also co-edited a volume entitled Sex, Violence, and Early Christian Texts (Lexington Books, 2022). Dr. Cobb is also a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and her research and teaching interests include slavery, gender, sexuality, Acts, and Apocryphal Acts. In her recreational time, Christy enjoys reading novels, crafts, and spending time with her nine-year-old son in Denver. Katherine A. Shaner (Th.D., Harvard University Divinity School, 2012) is Associate Professor of New Testament at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She is the author of Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2018) as well as numerous articles on slavery in the New Testament. Dr. Shaner is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and regularly preaches and teaches in churches around the United States. In her free time, Katherine enjoys hiking in the mountains, reading historical fiction, cooking dinner for friends and spending time with snuggly dogs. Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Wed, 30 Apr 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 191 New Books Network An interview with Christy Cobb and Katherine A. Shaner The institution of slavery permeated the ancient world, such that the realities of slavery and its long shadows pervade the New Testament and other early Christian texts. Yet enslavement remains an under-taught aspect of the context of the New Testament and early Christianity, leaving pastors, laypersons, and neophyte college students alike to fill knowledge gaps about enslaved persons, enslavers, living and laboring conditions, and much more with partial information, assumptions, or a range of highly technical and specialized monographs.  Ancient Slavery and Its New Testament Contexts (Eerdmans, 2025), co-edited by Christy Cobb and Katherine A. Shaner, takes on these issues, introducing readers to the textures, complexities, and material realities of slavery in the Greco-Roman world. International scholars with a range of expertise, from New Testament and early Christian studies to classics, theology, ethics, and more, contribute to a tapestry of introductory themes, topics, and interpretive frameworks with a wealth of literary, inscriptional, pictorial, and theoretical evidence from the material culture of Roman antiquity in this significant volume. Dr. Cobb and Dr. Shaner joined the New Books Network to initiate important conversations that they hope will continue in religious studies classrooms, schools of theology and divinity, and local church small group settings. Christy Cobb (Ph.D., Drew University, 2016) is Associate Professor of Christianity at the University of Denver. She is the author of Slavery, Gender, Truth and Power in Luke-Acts and Other Ancient Narratives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and has also co-edited a volume entitled Sex, Violence, and Early Christian Texts (Lexington Books, 2022). Dr. Cobb is also a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and her research and teaching interests include slavery, gender, sexuality, Acts, and Apocryphal Acts. In her recreational time, Christy enjoys reading novels, crafts, and spending time with her nine-year-old son in Denver. Katherine A. Shaner (Th.D., Harvard University Divinity School, 2012) is Associate Professor of New Testament at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She is the author of Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2018) as well as numerous articles on slavery in the New Testament. Dr. Shaner is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and regularly preaches and teaches in churches around the United States. In her free time, Katherine enjoys hiking in the mountains, reading historical fiction, cooking dinner for friends and spending time with snuggly dogs. Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The institution of slavery permeated the ancient world, such that the realities of slavery and its long shadows pervade the New Testament and other early Christian texts. Yet enslavement remains an under-taught aspect of the context of the New Testament and early Christianity, leaving pastors, laypersons, and neophyte college students alike to fill knowledge gaps about enslaved persons, enslavers, living and laboring conditions, and much more with partial information, assumptions, or a range of highly technical and specialized monographs. 

Ancient Slavery and Its New Testament Contexts (Eerdmans, 2025), co-edited by Christy Cobb and Katherine A. Shaner, takes on these issues, introducing readers to the textures, complexities, and material realities of slavery in the Greco-Roman world. International scholars with a range of expertise, from New Testament and early Christian studies to classics, theology, ethics, and more, contribute to a tapestry of introductory themes, topics, and interpretive frameworks with a wealth of literary, inscriptional, pictorial, and theoretical evidence from the material culture of Roman antiquity in this significant volume. Dr. Cobb and Dr. Shaner joined the New Books Network to initiate important conversations that they hope will continue in religious studies classrooms, schools of theology and divinity, and local church small group settings.

Christy Cobb (Ph.D., Drew University, 2016) is Associate Professor of Christianity at the University of Denver. She is the author of Slavery, Gender, Truth and Power in Luke-Acts and Other Ancient Narratives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and has also co-edited a volume entitled Sex, Violence, and Early Christian Texts (Lexington Books, 2022). Dr. Cobb is also a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and her research and teaching interests include slavery, gender, sexuality, Acts, and Apocryphal Acts. In her recreational time, Christy enjoys reading novels, crafts, and spending time with her nine-year-old son in Denver.

Katherine A. Shaner (Th.D., Harvard University Divinity School, 2012) is Associate Professor of New Testament at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She is the author of Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2018) as well as numerous articles on slavery in the New Testament. Dr. Shaner is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and regularly preaches and teaches in churches around the United States. In her free time, Katherine enjoys hiking in the mountains, reading historical fiction, cooking dinner for friends and spending time with snuggly dogs.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4137 no Cam Grey, "Living with Risk in the Late Roman World" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) Living With Risk in the Late Roman World (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)explores the ever-present experiences of risk that characterized the daily existence of individuals, communities, and societies in the late Roman world (late third century CE through mid-sixth century CE). Recognizing the vital role of human agency, author Cam Grey bases his argument on the concept of the riskscape: the collection of risks that constitute everyday lived experience, the human perception of those risks, and the actions that exploit, mitigate, or exacerbate them. In contrast to recent grand narratives of the fate of the late Roman Empire, Living with Risk in the Late Roman World focuses on the quotidian practices of mitigation and management, foreknowledge and prediction, and mobilization and manipulation of risks at the individual and community levels. Grey illustrates the ubiquity of these practices through a collection of anecdotes that emphasize the highly localized, heterogeneous, and complementary nature of riskscapes: members of local communities enlisting figures of power to neutralize the hazards posed by imminent catastrophes, be it a tsunami, earthquake, or volcanic eruption; Christian holy figures both suffering and imposing bodily affliction as part of their claims to control such hazards and thereby to exercise influence in these communities; intimate experiences of seasonality and weather that shaped local practices of subsistence but also of self-representation; and geographically specific and fiercely contested claims to special knowledge and control of water. Multidisciplinary in its methodology and provocative in its argumentation, Living with Risk in the Late Roman World demonstrates that human communities in the ancient past were inextricably intertwined with the world around them, and that the actions they took simultaneously responded to and shaped the risks—both hazardous and favorable—that they perceived. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Cam Grey is Professor of Classics at the University of Pennsylvania Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 28 Apr 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 45 New Books Network An interview with Cam Grey Living With Risk in the Late Roman World (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)explores the ever-present experiences of risk that characterized the daily existence of individuals, communities, and societies in the late Roman world (late third century CE through mid-sixth century CE). Recognizing the vital role of human agency, author Cam Grey bases his argument on the concept of the riskscape: the collection of risks that constitute everyday lived experience, the human perception of those risks, and the actions that exploit, mitigate, or exacerbate them. In contrast to recent grand narratives of the fate of the late Roman Empire, Living with Risk in the Late Roman World focuses on the quotidian practices of mitigation and management, foreknowledge and prediction, and mobilization and manipulation of risks at the individual and community levels. Grey illustrates the ubiquity of these practices through a collection of anecdotes that emphasize the highly localized, heterogeneous, and complementary nature of riskscapes: members of local communities enlisting figures of power to neutralize the hazards posed by imminent catastrophes, be it a tsunami, earthquake, or volcanic eruption; Christian holy figures both suffering and imposing bodily affliction as part of their claims to control such hazards and thereby to exercise influence in these communities; intimate experiences of seasonality and weather that shaped local practices of subsistence but also of self-representation; and geographically specific and fiercely contested claims to special knowledge and control of water. Multidisciplinary in its methodology and provocative in its argumentation, Living with Risk in the Late Roman World demonstrates that human communities in the ancient past were inextricably intertwined with the world around them, and that the actions they took simultaneously responded to and shaped the risks—both hazardous and favorable—that they perceived. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Cam Grey is Professor of Classics at the University of Pennsylvania Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Living With Risk in the Late Roman World (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)explores the ever-present experiences of risk that characterized the daily existence of individuals, communities, and societies in the late Roman world (late third century CE through mid-sixth century CE). Recognizing the vital role of human agency, author Cam Grey bases his argument on the concept of the riskscape: the collection of risks that constitute everyday lived experience, the human perception of those risks, and the actions that exploit, mitigate, or exacerbate them. In contrast to recent grand narratives of the fate of the late Roman Empire, Living with Risk in the Late Roman World focuses on the quotidian practices of mitigation and management, foreknowledge and prediction, and mobilization and manipulation of risks at the individual and community levels.

Grey illustrates the ubiquity of these practices through a collection of anecdotes that emphasize the highly localized, heterogeneous, and complementary nature of riskscapes: members of local communities enlisting figures of power to neutralize the hazards posed by imminent catastrophes, be it a tsunami, earthquake, or volcanic eruption; Christian holy figures both suffering and imposing bodily affliction as part of their claims to control such hazards and thereby to exercise influence in these communities; intimate experiences of seasonality and weather that shaped local practices of subsistence but also of self-representation; and geographically specific and fiercely contested claims to special knowledge and control of water.

Multidisciplinary in its methodology and provocative in its argumentation, Living with Risk in the Late Roman World demonstrates that human communities in the ancient past were inextricably intertwined with the world around them, and that the actions they took simultaneously responded to and shaped the risks—both hazardous and favorable—that they perceived.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Cam Grey is Professor of Classics at the University of Pennsylvania

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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]]> 4286 no Shushma Malik, "The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm" (Cambridge UP, 2020) In The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm (Cambridge UP, 2020), Shushma Malik reconstructs the means by which the emperor Nero came to be identified with the New Testament's antichrist. Malik surveys the first four Christian centuries to show how Nero mythology developed, often in ways that were much more positive than we might expect, and how early Christians appropriated this tradition as an apologetic weapon, to demonstrate that their scriptures had in fact predicted the character of his reign. By the fifth century, this argument was less appealing, and largely dropped out of view among Christian expositors until its revival in the nineteenth century, by, among other writers, Oscar Wilde.  Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 21 Apr 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 171 New Books Network An interview with Shushma Malik In The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm (Cambridge UP, 2020), Shushma Malik reconstructs the means by which the emperor Nero came to be identified with the New Testament's antichrist. Malik surveys the first four Christian centuries to show how Nero mythology developed, often in ways that were much more positive than we might expect, and how early Christians appropriated this tradition as an apologetic weapon, to demonstrate that their scriptures had in fact predicted the character of his reign. By the fifth century, this argument was less appealing, and largely dropped out of view among Christian expositors until its revival in the nineteenth century, by, among other writers, Oscar Wilde.  Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices In The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm (Cambridge UP, 2020), Shushma Malik reconstructs the means by which the emperor Nero came to be identified with the New Testament's antichrist. Malik surveys the first four Christian centuries to show how Nero mythology developed, often in ways that were much more positive than we might expect, and how early Christians appropriated this tradition as an apologetic weapon, to demonstrate that their scriptures had in fact predicted the character of his reign. By the fifth century, this argument was less appealing, and largely dropped out of view among Christian expositors until its revival in the nineteenth century, by, among other writers, Oscar Wilde. 

Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast.

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]]> 2555 no Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, "The Idea of the City in Late Antiquity: A Study in Resilience" (Cambridge UP, 2025) The city was one of the central and defining features of the world of the Greek and Roman Mediterranean. Challenging the idea that the ancient city 'declined and fell', Andrew Wallace-Hadrill argues that memories of the past enabled cities to adapt and remain relevant in the changing post-Roman world. In the new kingdoms in Italy, France and Spain cities remained a key part of the structure of control, while to contemporary authors, such as Cassiodorus in Ostrogothic Italy, Gregory of Tours in Merovingian Gaul, and Isidore in Visigothic Spain, they remained as crucial as in antiquity. The archaeological evidence of New Cities founded in this period, from Constantinople to Reccopolis in Spain, also shows the deep influence of past models. The Idea of the City in Late Antiquity: A Study in Resilience (Cambridge UP, 2025) reveals the adaptability of cities and the endurance of the Greek and Roman world. Sheds fresh light on one of the most important social and cultural developments in the transition from classical antiquity to the world of the Middle Ages Explores developments through the eyes of contemporary writers and documents as well as the archaeological record Of interest to all those concerned with how cities can adapt in a radically changing world ANDREW WALLACE-HADRILL is Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge and an Emeritus Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. He is a Roman cultural historian and his books include Suetonius: The Scholar and His Caesars (1983), Augustan Rome (1993), Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (1994), Rome's Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, 2008) and Herculaneum: Past and Future (2011). Former Director of the British School at Rome, he has directed archaeological projects at Pompeii and Herculaneum. This book is the result of his project on the Impact of the Ancient City, which received funding from the European Research Council. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Wed, 16 Apr 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 47 New Books Network An interview with Andrew Wallace-Hadrill The city was one of the central and defining features of the world of the Greek and Roman Mediterranean. Challenging the idea that the ancient city 'declined and fell', Andrew Wallace-Hadrill argues that memories of the past enabled cities to adapt and remain relevant in the changing post-Roman world. In the new kingdoms in Italy, France and Spain cities remained a key part of the structure of control, while to contemporary authors, such as Cassiodorus in Ostrogothic Italy, Gregory of Tours in Merovingian Gaul, and Isidore in Visigothic Spain, they remained as crucial as in antiquity. The archaeological evidence of New Cities founded in this period, from Constantinople to Reccopolis in Spain, also shows the deep influence of past models. The Idea of the City in Late Antiquity: A Study in Resilience (Cambridge UP, 2025) reveals the adaptability of cities and the endurance of the Greek and Roman world. Sheds fresh light on one of the most important social and cultural developments in the transition from classical antiquity to the world of the Middle Ages Explores developments through the eyes of contemporary writers and documents as well as the archaeological record Of interest to all those concerned with how cities can adapt in a radically changing world ANDREW WALLACE-HADRILL is Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge and an Emeritus Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. He is a Roman cultural historian and his books include Suetonius: The Scholar and His Caesars (1983), Augustan Rome (1993), Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (1994), Rome's Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, 2008) and Herculaneum: Past and Future (2011). Former Director of the British School at Rome, he has directed archaeological projects at Pompeii and Herculaneum. This book is the result of his project on the Impact of the Ancient City, which received funding from the European Research Council. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The city was one of the central and defining features of the world of the Greek and Roman Mediterranean. Challenging the idea that the ancient city 'declined and fell', Andrew Wallace-Hadrill argues that memories of the past enabled cities to adapt and remain relevant in the changing post-Roman world. In the new kingdoms in Italy, France and Spain cities remained a key part of the structure of control, while to contemporary authors, such as Cassiodorus in Ostrogothic Italy, Gregory of Tours in Merovingian Gaul, and Isidore in Visigothic Spain, they remained as crucial as in antiquity. The archaeological evidence of New Cities founded in this period, from Constantinople to Reccopolis in Spain, also shows the deep influence of past models. The Idea of the City in Late Antiquity: A Study in Resilience (Cambridge UP, 2025) reveals the adaptability of cities and the endurance of the Greek and Roman world.

  • Sheds fresh light on one of the most important social and cultural developments in the transition from classical antiquity to the world of the Middle Ages
  • Explores developments through the eyes of contemporary writers and documents as well as the archaeological record
  • Of interest to all those concerned with how cities can adapt in a radically changing world

ANDREW WALLACE-HADRILL is Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge and an Emeritus Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. He is a Roman cultural historian and his books include Suetonius: The Scholar and His Caesars (1983), Augustan Rome (1993), Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (1994), Rome's Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, 2008) and Herculaneum: Past and Future (2011). Former Director of the British School at Rome, he has directed archaeological projects at Pompeii and Herculaneum. This book is the result of his project on the Impact of the Ancient City, which received funding from the European Research Council.


Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4339 no Mara Nicosia, "Syriac Lexis and Lexica: Compiling Ancient and Modern Vocabularies" (Gorgias Press, 2024) Syriac Lexis and Lexica: Compiling Ancient and Modern Vocabularies (Gorgias Press, 2024) publishes the papers presented at the round table on Syriac lexicology and lexicography held at the 13th Symposium Syriacum (Paris, 2022). An international group of scholars approaches this field from several new angles and shows how much remains to be done, from the creation of new lexical databases to the update of previously existing ones and the study of new lexica that have been recently discovered. The multifocal approach adopted by the contributions to this volume testifies to the richness of this field, which offers several avenues for further inquiry. The volume is designed for scholars in Syriac, as well as for those interested in the contacts between Syriac and its neighboring languages from the past and the present, such as Greek, Arabic, Iranian languages and Neo-Aramaic varieties. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Mara Nicosia is a British Academy Newton International Fellow at Durham University (UK). Trained as a Semitic philologist, she earned her PhD from the University of Naples "L'Orientale" (2020). Her primary research focus is the development of rhetoric as an academic subject in Syriac schools, but she also works on the contacts between Greek and various types of Aramaic and on technical vocabularies in comparison. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 14 Apr 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 41 New Books Network An interview with Mara Nicosia Syriac Lexis and Lexica: Compiling Ancient and Modern Vocabularies (Gorgias Press, 2024) publishes the papers presented at the round table on Syriac lexicology and lexicography held at the 13th Symposium Syriacum (Paris, 2022). An international group of scholars approaches this field from several new angles and shows how much remains to be done, from the creation of new lexical databases to the update of previously existing ones and the study of new lexica that have been recently discovered. The multifocal approach adopted by the contributions to this volume testifies to the richness of this field, which offers several avenues for further inquiry. The volume is designed for scholars in Syriac, as well as for those interested in the contacts between Syriac and its neighboring languages from the past and the present, such as Greek, Arabic, Iranian languages and Neo-Aramaic varieties. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Mara Nicosia is a British Academy Newton International Fellow at Durham University (UK). Trained as a Semitic philologist, she earned her PhD from the University of Naples "L'Orientale" (2020). Her primary research focus is the development of rhetoric as an academic subject in Syriac schools, but she also works on the contacts between Greek and various types of Aramaic and on technical vocabularies in comparison. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Syriac Lexis and Lexica: Compiling Ancient and Modern Vocabularies (Gorgias Press, 2024) publishes the papers presented at the round table on Syriac lexicology and lexicography held at the 13th Symposium Syriacum (Paris, 2022). An international group of scholars approaches this field from several new angles and shows how much remains to be done, from the creation of new lexical databases to the update of previously existing ones and the study of new lexica that have been recently discovered.

The multifocal approach adopted by the contributions to this volume testifies to the richness of this field, which offers several avenues for further inquiry. The volume is designed for scholars in Syriac, as well as for those interested in the contacts between Syriac and its neighboring languages from the past and the present, such as Greek, Arabic, Iranian languages and Neo-Aramaic varieties.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Mara Nicosia is a British Academy Newton International Fellow at Durham University (UK). Trained as a Semitic philologist, she earned her PhD from the University of Naples "L'Orientale" (2020). Her primary research focus is the development of rhetoric as an academic subject in Syriac schools, but she also works on the contacts between Greek and various types of Aramaic and on technical vocabularies in comparison.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston.

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]]> 3514 no Sarah Bassett, "Style and Meaning in Late Antique Art" (Cambridge UP, 2025) How do we best see and understand the art of late antiquity? One of the perceived challenges of so doing is that this is a period whose visual production has been defined as stylistically abstract and emotionally spiritual, and therefore elusive.  But this is a perception which – in her path-breaking new book – Sarah Bassett boldly challenges, offering two novel lines of interpretative inquiry. She first argues, by focusing on the art of late antiquity in late nineteenth-century Viennese intellectual and artistic circles, that that period's definition of late antique form was in fact a response to contemporaneous political concerns, anticipating modernist thinking and artistic practice. She then suggests that late antique viewers never actually abandoned a sense of those mimetic goals that characterized Greek and Roman habits of representation. This interpretative shift is transformative because it allows us to understand the full range and richness of late antique visual experience. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Sarah Bassett is Associate Professor Emerita, Art History at Indiana University Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 31 Mar 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 40 New Books Network An interview with Sarah Bassett How do we best see and understand the art of late antiquity? One of the perceived challenges of so doing is that this is a period whose visual production has been defined as stylistically abstract and emotionally spiritual, and therefore elusive.  But this is a perception which – in her path-breaking new book – Sarah Bassett boldly challenges, offering two novel lines of interpretative inquiry. She first argues, by focusing on the art of late antiquity in late nineteenth-century Viennese intellectual and artistic circles, that that period's definition of late antique form was in fact a response to contemporaneous political concerns, anticipating modernist thinking and artistic practice. She then suggests that late antique viewers never actually abandoned a sense of those mimetic goals that characterized Greek and Roman habits of representation. This interpretative shift is transformative because it allows us to understand the full range and richness of late antique visual experience. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Sarah Bassett is Associate Professor Emerita, Art History at Indiana University Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices How do we best see and understand the art of late antiquity? One of the perceived challenges of so doing is that this is a period whose visual production has been defined as stylistically abstract and emotionally spiritual, and therefore elusive. 

But this is a perception which – in her path-breaking new book – Sarah Bassett boldly challenges, offering two novel lines of interpretative inquiry. She first argues, by focusing on the art of late antiquity in late nineteenth-century Viennese intellectual and artistic circles, that that period's definition of late antique form was in fact a response to contemporaneous political concerns, anticipating modernist thinking and artistic practice. She then suggests that late antique viewers never actually abandoned a sense of those mimetic goals that characterized Greek and Roman habits of representation. This interpretative shift is transformative because it allows us to understand the full range and richness of late antique visual experience.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Sarah Bassett is Associate Professor Emerita, Art History at Indiana University

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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]]> 4635 no Chance E. Bonar, "The Author in Early Christian Literature" (Cambridge UP, 2025) While scholars of ancient Mediterranean literature have focused their efforts heavily on explaining why authors would write pseudonymously or anonymously, less time has been spent exploring why an author would write orthonymously (that is, under their own name). The Author in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge UP, 2025) explores how early Christian writers began to care deeply about 'correct' attribution of both Christian and non-Christian literature for their own apologetic purposes, as well as how scholars have overlooked the function that orthonymity plays in some early Christian texts. Orthonymity was not only a decision made by a writer regarding how to attribute one's own writings, but also how to classify other writers' texts based on proper or improper attribution. This Element urges us to examine forms of authorship that are often treated as an unexamined default, as well as to more robustly consider when, how, for whom, and for what purposes an instance of authorial attribution is deemed 'correct. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Chance Bonar is a postdoc at Tufts University. Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 17 Mar 2025 08:00:00 -0000 full 38 New Books Network An interview with Chance E. Bonar While scholars of ancient Mediterranean literature have focused their efforts heavily on explaining why authors would write pseudonymously or anonymously, less time has been spent exploring why an author would write orthonymously (that is, under their own name). The Author in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge UP, 2025) explores how early Christian writers began to care deeply about 'correct' attribution of both Christian and non-Christian literature for their own apologetic purposes, as well as how scholars have overlooked the function that orthonymity plays in some early Christian texts. Orthonymity was not only a decision made by a writer regarding how to attribute one's own writings, but also how to classify other writers' texts based on proper or improper attribution. This Element urges us to examine forms of authorship that are often treated as an unexamined default, as well as to more robustly consider when, how, for whom, and for what purposes an instance of authorial attribution is deemed 'correct. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Chance Bonar is a postdoc at Tufts University. Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices While scholars of ancient Mediterranean literature have focused their efforts heavily on explaining why authors would write pseudonymously or anonymously, less time has been spent exploring why an author would write orthonymously (that is, under their own name).

The Author in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge UP, 2025) explores how early Christian writers began to care deeply about 'correct' attribution of both Christian and non-Christian literature for their own apologetic purposes, as well as how scholars have overlooked the function that orthonymity plays in some early Christian texts. Orthonymity was not only a decision made by a writer regarding how to attribute one's own writings, but also how to classify other writers' texts based on proper or improper attribution. This Element urges us to examine forms of authorship that are often treated as an unexamined default, as well as to more robustly consider when, how, for whom, and for what purposes an instance of authorial attribution is deemed 'correct.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Chance Bonar is a postdoc at Tufts University.

Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston

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]]> 2898 no Isabel Moreira, "Balthild of Francia: Anglo-Saxon Slave, Merovingian Queen, and Abolitionist Saint" (Oxford UP, 2024) This book tells the remarkable life of Balthild of Francia (c. 633-80), a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon slave who became a queen of France. Described in contemporary sources as beautiful and intelligent, she rose to power through her marriage to the short-lived King Clovis II. As regent for her young son, she promoted social and political reforms in Francia that included the rescue and rehousing of Christian slaves who, like Balthild herself, had been caught up in the human-trafficking practices of the mid-seventh century. Implicated in the violent politics of the era, Balthild spent the remainder of her life in the convent of Chelles where a unique cache of surviving relics and personal items, including her hair, were protected and dispersed as relics over the following centuries. In the nineteenth century, Balthild's anti-slave trade policies were recalled for new audiences when she was adopted as an icon for the cause of the abolition of the slave trade and installed as one of the twenty illustrious women whose statues are situated in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. Although critical to her age, because of the remote time period and the specialized nature of the sources, Balthild is little known today. Balthild of Francia: Anglo-Saxon Slave, Merovingian Queen, and Abolitionist Saint (Oxford UP, 2024) will correct this oversight by shining a light on a fascinating and courageous figure whose legacy long outlived the era to which she belonged. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Isabel Moreira is Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the University of Utah Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 03 Mar 2025 09:00:00 -0000 full 39 New Books Network An interview with Isabel Moreira This book tells the remarkable life of Balthild of Francia (c. 633-80), a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon slave who became a queen of France. Described in contemporary sources as beautiful and intelligent, she rose to power through her marriage to the short-lived King Clovis II. As regent for her young son, she promoted social and political reforms in Francia that included the rescue and rehousing of Christian slaves who, like Balthild herself, had been caught up in the human-trafficking practices of the mid-seventh century. Implicated in the violent politics of the era, Balthild spent the remainder of her life in the convent of Chelles where a unique cache of surviving relics and personal items, including her hair, were protected and dispersed as relics over the following centuries. In the nineteenth century, Balthild's anti-slave trade policies were recalled for new audiences when she was adopted as an icon for the cause of the abolition of the slave trade and installed as one of the twenty illustrious women whose statues are situated in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. Although critical to her age, because of the remote time period and the specialized nature of the sources, Balthild is little known today. Balthild of Francia: Anglo-Saxon Slave, Merovingian Queen, and Abolitionist Saint (Oxford UP, 2024) will correct this oversight by shining a light on a fascinating and courageous figure whose legacy long outlived the era to which she belonged. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Isabel Moreira is Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the University of Utah Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices This book tells the remarkable life of Balthild of Francia (c. 633-80), a seventh-century Anglo-Saxon slave who became a queen of France. Described in contemporary sources as beautiful and intelligent, she rose to power through her marriage to the short-lived King Clovis II. As regent for her young son, she promoted social and political reforms in Francia that included the rescue and rehousing of Christian slaves who, like Balthild herself, had been caught up in the human-trafficking practices of the mid-seventh century.

Implicated in the violent politics of the era, Balthild spent the remainder of her life in the convent of Chelles where a unique cache of surviving relics and personal items, including her hair, were protected and dispersed as relics over the following centuries. In the nineteenth century, Balthild's anti-slave trade policies were recalled for new audiences when she was adopted as an icon for the cause of the abolition of the slave trade and installed as one of the twenty illustrious women whose statues are situated in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.

Although critical to her age, because of the remote time period and the specialized nature of the sources, Balthild is little known today. Balthild of Francia: Anglo-Saxon Slave, Merovingian Queen, and Abolitionist Saint (Oxford UP, 2024) will correct this oversight by shining a light on a fascinating and courageous figure whose legacy long outlived the era to which she belonged.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Isabel Moreira is Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the University of Utah

Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston

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]]> 3752 no Shane Bobrycki, "The Crowd in the Early Middle Ages" (Princeton UP, 2024) By the fifth and sixth centuries, the bread and circuses and triumphal processions of the Roman Empire had given way to a quieter world. And yet, as Shane Bobrycki argues, the influence and importance of the crowd did not disappear in early medieval Europe. In The Crowd in the Early Middle Ages (Princeton UP, 2024), Bobrycki shows that although demographic change may have dispersed the urban multitudes of Greco-Roman civilization, collective behavior retained its social importance even when crowds were scarce. Most historians have seen early medieval Europe as a world without crowds. In fact, Bobrycki argues, early medieval European sources are full of crowds—although perhaps not the sort historians have trained themselves to look for. Harvests, markets, festivals, religious rites, and political assemblies were among the gatherings used to regulate resources and demonstrate legitimacy. Indeed, the refusal to assemble and other forms of “slantwise” assembly became a weapon of the powerless. Bobrycki investigates what happened when demographic realities shifted, but culture, religion, and politics remained bound by the past. The history of crowds during the five hundred years between the age of circuses and the age of crusades, Bobrycki shows, tells an important story—one of systemic and scalar change in economic and social life and of reorganization in the world of ideas and norms. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Shane Bobrycki is assistant professor of history at the University of Iowa Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 17 Feb 2025 09:00:00 -0000 full 85 New Books Network An interview with Shane Bobrycki By the fifth and sixth centuries, the bread and circuses and triumphal processions of the Roman Empire had given way to a quieter world. And yet, as Shane Bobrycki argues, the influence and importance of the crowd did not disappear in early medieval Europe. In The Crowd in the Early Middle Ages (Princeton UP, 2024), Bobrycki shows that although demographic change may have dispersed the urban multitudes of Greco-Roman civilization, collective behavior retained its social importance even when crowds were scarce. Most historians have seen early medieval Europe as a world without crowds. In fact, Bobrycki argues, early medieval European sources are full of crowds—although perhaps not the sort historians have trained themselves to look for. Harvests, markets, festivals, religious rites, and political assemblies were among the gatherings used to regulate resources and demonstrate legitimacy. Indeed, the refusal to assemble and other forms of “slantwise” assembly became a weapon of the powerless. Bobrycki investigates what happened when demographic realities shifted, but culture, religion, and politics remained bound by the past. The history of crowds during the five hundred years between the age of circuses and the age of crusades, Bobrycki shows, tells an important story—one of systemic and scalar change in economic and social life and of reorganization in the world of ideas and norms. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Shane Bobrycki is assistant professor of history at the University of Iowa Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices By the fifth and sixth centuries, the bread and circuses and triumphal processions of the Roman Empire had given way to a quieter world. And yet, as Shane Bobrycki argues, the influence and importance of the crowd did not disappear in early medieval Europe. In The Crowd in the Early Middle Ages (Princeton UP, 2024), Bobrycki shows that although demographic change may have dispersed the urban multitudes of Greco-Roman civilization, collective behavior retained its social importance even when crowds were scarce.

Most historians have seen early medieval Europe as a world without crowds. In fact, Bobrycki argues, early medieval European sources are full of crowds—although perhaps not the sort historians have trained themselves to look for. Harvests, markets, festivals, religious rites, and political assemblies were among the gatherings used to regulate resources and demonstrate legitimacy. Indeed, the refusal to assemble and other forms of “slantwise” assembly became a weapon of the powerless. Bobrycki investigates what happened when demographic realities shifted, but culture, religion, and politics remained bound by the past. The history of crowds during the five hundred years between the age of circuses and the age of crusades, Bobrycki shows, tells an important story—one of systemic and scalar change in economic and social life and of reorganization in the world of ideas and norms.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Shane Bobrycki is assistant professor of history at the University of Iowa

Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4247 no Sarah E. Bond, "Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire" (Yale UP, 2024) Historian Sarah E. Bond retells the traditional story of Ancient Rome, revealing how groups of ancient workers unified, connected, and protested as they helped build an empire From plebeians refusing to join the Roman army to bakers withholding bread, this is the first book to explore how Roman workers used strikes, boycotts, riots, and rebellion to get their voices—and their labor—acknowledged. Sarah E. Bond explores Ancient Rome from a new angle to show that the history of labor conflicts and collective action goes back thousands of years, uncovering a world far more similar to our own than we realize. Workers often turned to their associations for solidarity and shared identity in the ancient world. Some of these groups even negotiated contracts, wages, and work conditions in a manner similar to modern labor unions. As the world begins to consider the value—and indeed the necessity—of unionization to protect workers, Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire (Yale UP, 2024) demonstrates that we can learn valuable lessons from ancient laborers and from attempts by the Roman government to limit their freedom. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Sarah E. Bond is the Erling B. “Jack” Holtsmark Associate Professor in the Classics in the Department of History at the University of Iowa. She is the author of Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professions in the Roman Mediterranean. She lives in Iowa City, IA. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 04 Feb 2025 09:00:00 -0000 full 37 New Books Network An interview with Sarah E. Bond Historian Sarah E. Bond retells the traditional story of Ancient Rome, revealing how groups of ancient workers unified, connected, and protested as they helped build an empire From plebeians refusing to join the Roman army to bakers withholding bread, this is the first book to explore how Roman workers used strikes, boycotts, riots, and rebellion to get their voices—and their labor—acknowledged. Sarah E. Bond explores Ancient Rome from a new angle to show that the history of labor conflicts and collective action goes back thousands of years, uncovering a world far more similar to our own than we realize. Workers often turned to their associations for solidarity and shared identity in the ancient world. Some of these groups even negotiated contracts, wages, and work conditions in a manner similar to modern labor unions. As the world begins to consider the value—and indeed the necessity—of unionization to protect workers, Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire (Yale UP, 2024) demonstrates that we can learn valuable lessons from ancient laborers and from attempts by the Roman government to limit their freedom. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Sarah E. Bond is the Erling B. “Jack” Holtsmark Associate Professor in the Classics in the Department of History at the University of Iowa. She is the author of Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professions in the Roman Mediterranean. She lives in Iowa City, IA. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Historian Sarah E. Bond retells the traditional story of Ancient Rome, revealing how groups of ancient workers unified, connected, and protested as they helped build an empire

From plebeians refusing to join the Roman army to bakers withholding bread, this is the first book to explore how Roman workers used strikes, boycotts, riots, and rebellion to get their voices—and their labor—acknowledged. Sarah E. Bond explores Ancient Rome from a new angle to show that the history of labor conflicts and collective action goes back thousands of years, uncovering a world far more similar to our own than we realize.

Workers often turned to their associations for solidarity and shared identity in the ancient world. Some of these groups even negotiated contracts, wages, and work conditions in a manner similar to modern labor unions. As the world begins to consider the value—and indeed the necessity—of unionization to protect workers, Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire (Yale UP, 2024) demonstrates that we can learn valuable lessons from ancient laborers and from attempts by the Roman government to limit their freedom.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Sarah E. Bond is the Erling B. “Jack” Holtsmark Associate Professor in the Classics in the Department of History at the University of Iowa. She is the author of Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professions in the Roman Mediterranean. She lives in Iowa City, IA.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4615 no Rafael Rachel Neis, "When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species" (U California Press, 2023) When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species (U California Press, 2023) investigates rabbinic treatises relating to animals, humans, and other life-forms. Through an original analysis of creaturely generation and species classification by late ancient Palestinian rabbis and other thinkers in the Roman Empire, Rafael Rachel Neis shows how rabbis blurred the lines between humans and other beings, even as they were intent on classifying creatures and tracing the contours of what it means to be human. Recognizing that life proliferates by mechanisms beyond sexual copulation between two heterosexual “male” and “female” individuals of the same species, the rabbis proposed intricate alternatives. In parsing a variety of creatures, they considered overlaps and resemblances across seemingly distinct species, upsetting in turn unmitigated claims of human distinctiveness. When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven enters conversations in animal studies, queer theory, trans theory, and feminist science studies to provincialize sacrosanct ideals of reproduction in favor of a broader range that spans generation, kinship, and species. The book thereby offers powerful historical alternatives to the paradigms associated with so-called traditional ideas. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Rafael Rachel Neis is Neis is a scholar, writer, educator, and artist. A Professor of History and Judaic Studies, they are Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Ancient History and hold the Jean and Samuel Frankel Chair in Rabbinics. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 20 Jan 2025 09:00:00 -0000 full 36 New Books Network An interview with Rafael Rachel Neis When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species (U California Press, 2023) investigates rabbinic treatises relating to animals, humans, and other life-forms. Through an original analysis of creaturely generation and species classification by late ancient Palestinian rabbis and other thinkers in the Roman Empire, Rafael Rachel Neis shows how rabbis blurred the lines between humans and other beings, even as they were intent on classifying creatures and tracing the contours of what it means to be human. Recognizing that life proliferates by mechanisms beyond sexual copulation between two heterosexual “male” and “female” individuals of the same species, the rabbis proposed intricate alternatives. In parsing a variety of creatures, they considered overlaps and resemblances across seemingly distinct species, upsetting in turn unmitigated claims of human distinctiveness. When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven enters conversations in animal studies, queer theory, trans theory, and feminist science studies to provincialize sacrosanct ideals of reproduction in favor of a broader range that spans generation, kinship, and species. The book thereby offers powerful historical alternatives to the paradigms associated with so-called traditional ideas. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Rafael Rachel Neis is Neis is a scholar, writer, educator, and artist. A Professor of History and Judaic Studies, they are Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Ancient History and hold the Jean and Samuel Frankel Chair in Rabbinics. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species (U California Press, 2023) investigates rabbinic treatises relating to animals, humans, and other life-forms. Through an original analysis of creaturely generation and species classification by late ancient Palestinian rabbis and other thinkers in the Roman Empire, Rafael Rachel Neis shows how rabbis blurred the lines between humans and other beings, even as they were intent on classifying creatures and tracing the contours of what it means to be human. Recognizing that life proliferates by mechanisms beyond sexual copulation between two heterosexual “male” and “female” individuals of the same species, the rabbis proposed intricate alternatives. In parsing a variety of creatures, they considered overlaps and resemblances across seemingly distinct species, upsetting in turn unmitigated claims of human distinctiveness. When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven enters conversations in animal studies, queer theory, trans theory, and feminist science studies to provincialize sacrosanct ideals of reproduction in favor of a broader range that spans generation, kinship, and species. The book thereby offers powerful historical alternatives to the paradigms associated with so-called traditional ideas.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Rafael Rachel Neis is Neis is a scholar, writer, educator, and artist. A Professor of History and Judaic Studies, they are Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Ancient History and hold the Jean and Samuel Frankel Chair in Rabbinics.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 5572 no Catherine Hezser, "Rabbinic Scholarship in the Context of Late Antique Scholasticism: The Development of the Talmud Yerushalmi" (Bloomsbury, 2024) Based on an understanding of scholasticism as a cross-cultural phenomenon, undertaken by rabbinic, Graeco-Roman, and Christian scholars in late antiquity, this book examines the development of Palestinian rabbinic compilations from social-historical and literary-historical perspectives. Rabbinic Scholarship in the Context of Late Antique Scholasticism: The Development of the Talmud Yerushalmi (Bloomsbury, 2024) focuses on the compilation of the Talmud Yerushalmi in the context of late antique scholarly practice aimed at preserving past knowledge for future generations. This book provides insight into how rabbinic scholarship in the Land of Israel participated in the wider intellectual practices of Roman-Byzantine times. Beginning with the social, educational, and legal contexts that generated rabbinic knowledge. Catherine Hezser goes on to investigate the oral and written transmission of rabbinic traditions to eventually examine the compilation of the Talmud Yerushalmi with a comparative and redaction-historical approach. Integrating Palestinian rabbinic education and scholarship into the context of late antique Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Christian scholarly practices, Catherine Hezser demonstrates how rabbinic compilatory techniques resembled but also differed from.those of Hellenistic, Roman, and Christian scholars. The book highlights how rabbinic compilations are idiosyncratic and create a distinct rabbinic identity. Overall, Hezser argues that rabbinic scholarship was an integral part of late antique intellectual life in the Near Middle East and should be recognized as an Eastern equivalent to Western, paideia-based forms of scholarship in the Roman-Byzantine period and beyond. Catherine Hezser is Professor of Jewish Studies at SOAS University of London, UK. Michael Motia teaches in Religious Studies and Classics at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 06 Jan 2025 09:00:00 -0000 full 36 New Books Network An interview with Catherine Hezser Based on an understanding of scholasticism as a cross-cultural phenomenon, undertaken by rabbinic, Graeco-Roman, and Christian scholars in late antiquity, this book examines the development of Palestinian rabbinic compilations from social-historical and literary-historical perspectives. Rabbinic Scholarship in the Context of Late Antique Scholasticism: The Development of the Talmud Yerushalmi (Bloomsbury, 2024) focuses on the compilation of the Talmud Yerushalmi in the context of late antique scholarly practice aimed at preserving past knowledge for future generations. This book provides insight into how rabbinic scholarship in the Land of Israel participated in the wider intellectual practices of Roman-Byzantine times. Beginning with the social, educational, and legal contexts that generated rabbinic knowledge. Catherine Hezser goes on to investigate the oral and written transmission of rabbinic traditions to eventually examine the compilation of the Talmud Yerushalmi with a comparative and redaction-historical approach. Integrating Palestinian rabbinic education and scholarship into the context of late antique Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Christian scholarly practices, Catherine Hezser demonstrates how rabbinic compilatory techniques resembled but also differed from.those of Hellenistic, Roman, and Christian scholars. The book highlights how rabbinic compilations are idiosyncratic and create a distinct rabbinic identity. Overall, Hezser argues that rabbinic scholarship was an integral part of late antique intellectual life in the Near Middle East and should be recognized as an Eastern equivalent to Western, paideia-based forms of scholarship in the Roman-Byzantine period and beyond. Catherine Hezser is Professor of Jewish Studies at SOAS University of London, UK. Michael Motia teaches in Religious Studies and Classics at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Based on an understanding of scholasticism as a cross-cultural phenomenon, undertaken by rabbinic, Graeco-Roman, and Christian scholars in late antiquity, this book examines the development of Palestinian rabbinic compilations from social-historical and literary-historical perspectives. Rabbinic Scholarship in the Context of Late Antique Scholasticism: The Development of the Talmud Yerushalmi (Bloomsbury, 2024) focuses on the compilation of the Talmud Yerushalmi in the context of late antique scholarly practice aimed at preserving past knowledge for future generations.

This book provides insight into how rabbinic scholarship in the Land of Israel participated in the wider intellectual practices of Roman-Byzantine times. Beginning with the social, educational, and legal contexts that generated rabbinic knowledge. Catherine Hezser goes on to investigate the oral and written transmission of rabbinic traditions to eventually examine the compilation of the Talmud Yerushalmi with a comparative and redaction-historical approach.

Integrating Palestinian rabbinic education and scholarship into the context of late antique Graeco-Roman and Byzantine Christian scholarly practices, Catherine Hezser demonstrates how rabbinic compilatory techniques resembled but also differed from.those of Hellenistic, Roman, and Christian scholars. The book highlights how rabbinic compilations are idiosyncratic and create a distinct rabbinic identity. Overall, Hezser argues that rabbinic scholarship was an integral part of late antique intellectual life in the Near Middle East and should be recognized as an Eastern equivalent to Western, paideia-based forms of scholarship in the Roman-Byzantine period and beyond.

Catherine Hezser is Professor of Jewish Studies at SOAS University of London, UK.

Michael Motia teaches in Religious Studies and Classics at UMass Boston.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3435 no Blake Leyerle, "Christians at Home: John Chrysostom and Domestic Rituals in Fourth-Century Antioch" (Penn State UP, 2024) What did it mean for ordinary believers to live a Christian life in late antiquity? In Christians at Home: John Chrysostom and Domestic Rituals in Fourth-Century Antioch (Penn State University Press, 2024), Blake Leyerle explores this question through the writings, teachings, and reception of John Chrysostom—a priest of Antioch who went on to become the bishop of Constantinople in AD 397. Through elaborate spatial and ritual recommendations, Chrysostom advised listeners to turn their houses into churches. Influenced by New Testament descriptions of the Pauline communities, he preached that prayer and chant, scriptural discussion and hospitality, and even domestic furnishings would have a transformational effect on a home’s inhabitants. But as Leyerle shows, Chrysostom’s lay listeners had different views. They were focused not on personal ethical change or on the afterlife but on the immediate, tangible needs of their households. They were committed to Christianity and defended the legitimacy of their views, even citing precedents from scripture in support of their practices By reading these perspectives on early Christian life through one another, Leyerle clarifies the points of disagreement between Chrysostom and his lay listeners and, at the same time, highlights their shared understanding. For both the preacher and his congregations, the household formed a vital ritual arena, and lived religion was necessarily rooted in practice. Elegantly written and convincingly argued, this study will appeal to scholars of theology, classics, and the history of Christianity in particular. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Blake Leyerle is Professor of Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 23 Dec 2024 09:00:00 -0000 full 283 New Books Network An interview with Blake Leyerle What did it mean for ordinary believers to live a Christian life in late antiquity? In Christians at Home: John Chrysostom and Domestic Rituals in Fourth-Century Antioch (Penn State University Press, 2024), Blake Leyerle explores this question through the writings, teachings, and reception of John Chrysostom—a priest of Antioch who went on to become the bishop of Constantinople in AD 397. Through elaborate spatial and ritual recommendations, Chrysostom advised listeners to turn their houses into churches. Influenced by New Testament descriptions of the Pauline communities, he preached that prayer and chant, scriptural discussion and hospitality, and even domestic furnishings would have a transformational effect on a home’s inhabitants. But as Leyerle shows, Chrysostom’s lay listeners had different views. They were focused not on personal ethical change or on the afterlife but on the immediate, tangible needs of their households. They were committed to Christianity and defended the legitimacy of their views, even citing precedents from scripture in support of their practices By reading these perspectives on early Christian life through one another, Leyerle clarifies the points of disagreement between Chrysostom and his lay listeners and, at the same time, highlights their shared understanding. For both the preacher and his congregations, the household formed a vital ritual arena, and lived religion was necessarily rooted in practice. Elegantly written and convincingly argued, this study will appeal to scholars of theology, classics, and the history of Christianity in particular. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Blake Leyerle is Professor of Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices What did it mean for ordinary believers to live a Christian life in late antiquity? In Christians at Home: John Chrysostom and Domestic Rituals in Fourth-Century Antioch (Penn State University Press, 2024), Blake Leyerle explores this question through the writings, teachings, and reception of John Chrysostom—a priest of Antioch who went on to become the bishop of Constantinople in AD 397.

Through elaborate spatial and ritual recommendations, Chrysostom advised listeners to turn their houses into churches. Influenced by New Testament descriptions of the Pauline communities, he preached that prayer and chant, scriptural discussion and hospitality, and even domestic furnishings would have a transformational effect on a home’s inhabitants. But as Leyerle shows, Chrysostom’s lay listeners had different views. They were focused not on personal ethical change or on the afterlife but on the immediate, tangible needs of their households. They were committed to Christianity and defended the legitimacy of their views, even citing precedents from scripture in support of their practices

By reading these perspectives on early Christian life through one another, Leyerle clarifies the points of disagreement between Chrysostom and his lay listeners and, at the same time, highlights their shared understanding. For both the preacher and his congregations, the household formed a vital ritual arena, and lived religion was necessarily rooted in practice. Elegantly written and convincingly argued, this study will appeal to scholars of theology, classics, and the history of Christianity in particular.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Blake Leyerle is Professor of Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

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]]> 2416 no A. J. Berkovitz, "A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) The Bible shaped nearly every aspect of Jewish life in the ancient world, from activities as obvious as attending synagogue to those which have lost their scriptural resonance in modernity, such as drinking water and uttering one’s last words. And within a scriptural universe, no work exerted more force than the Psalter, the most cherished text among all the books of the Hebrew Bible. A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) clarifies the world of late ancient Judaism through the versatile and powerful lens of the Psalter. It asks a simple set of questions: Where did late ancient Jews encounter the Psalms? How did they engage with the work? And what meanings did they produce? A. J. Berkovitz answers these queries by reconstructing and contextualizing a diverse set of religious practices performed with and on the Psalter, such as handling a physical copy, reading from it, interpreting it exegetically, singing it as liturgy, invoking it as magic and reciting it as an act of piety. His book draws from and contributes to the fields of ancient Judaism, biblical reception, book history and the history of reading. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review. A. J. Berkovitz is Associate Professor of Associate Professor of Liturgy and Ancient Judaism at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 09 Dec 2024 09:00:00 -0000 full 35 New Books Network An interview with A. J. Berkovitz The Bible shaped nearly every aspect of Jewish life in the ancient world, from activities as obvious as attending synagogue to those which have lost their scriptural resonance in modernity, such as drinking water and uttering one’s last words. And within a scriptural universe, no work exerted more force than the Psalter, the most cherished text among all the books of the Hebrew Bible. A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) clarifies the world of late ancient Judaism through the versatile and powerful lens of the Psalter. It asks a simple set of questions: Where did late ancient Jews encounter the Psalms? How did they engage with the work? And what meanings did they produce? A. J. Berkovitz answers these queries by reconstructing and contextualizing a diverse set of religious practices performed with and on the Psalter, such as handling a physical copy, reading from it, interpreting it exegetically, singing it as liturgy, invoking it as magic and reciting it as an act of piety. His book draws from and contributes to the fields of ancient Judaism, biblical reception, book history and the history of reading. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review. A. J. Berkovitz is Associate Professor of Associate Professor of Liturgy and Ancient Judaism at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The Bible shaped nearly every aspect of Jewish life in the ancient world, from activities as obvious as attending synagogue to those which have lost their scriptural resonance in modernity, such as drinking water and uttering one’s last words. And within a scriptural universe, no work exerted more force than the Psalter, the most cherished text among all the books of the Hebrew Bible.

A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023) clarifies the world of late ancient Judaism through the versatile and powerful lens of the Psalter. It asks a simple set of questions: Where did late ancient Jews encounter the Psalms? How did they engage with the work? And what meanings did they produce? A. J. Berkovitz answers these queries by reconstructing and contextualizing a diverse set of religious practices performed with and on the Psalter, such as handling a physical copy, reading from it, interpreting it exegetically, singing it as liturgy, invoking it as magic and reciting it as an act of piety. His book draws from and contributes to the fields of ancient Judaism, biblical reception, book history and the history of reading.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review.

A. J. Berkovitz is Associate Professor of Associate Professor of Liturgy and Ancient Judaism at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4163 no Julia Kelto Lillis, "Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity" (U California Press, 2022) Women's virginity held tremendous significance in early Christianity and the Mediterranean world. Early Christian thinkers developed diverse definitions of virginity and understood its bodily aspects in surprising, often nonanatomical ways. Eventually Christians took part in a cross-cultural shift toward viewing virginity as something that could be perceived in women's sex organs. Treating virginity as anatomical brought both benefits and costs. By charting this change and situating it in the larger landscape of ancient thought, Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity (University of California Press, 2022) illuminates unrecognized differences among early Christian sources and historicizes problematic ideas about women's bodies that still persist today. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Julia Kelto Lillis is Assistant Professor of Early Church History at Union Theological Seminary Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 25 Nov 2024 09:00:00 -0000 full 282 New Books Network An interview with Julia Kelto Lillis Women's virginity held tremendous significance in early Christianity and the Mediterranean world. Early Christian thinkers developed diverse definitions of virginity and understood its bodily aspects in surprising, often nonanatomical ways. Eventually Christians took part in a cross-cultural shift toward viewing virginity as something that could be perceived in women's sex organs. Treating virginity as anatomical brought both benefits and costs. By charting this change and situating it in the larger landscape of ancient thought, Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity (University of California Press, 2022) illuminates unrecognized differences among early Christian sources and historicizes problematic ideas about women's bodies that still persist today. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Julia Kelto Lillis is Assistant Professor of Early Church History at Union Theological Seminary Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Women's virginity held tremendous significance in early Christianity and the Mediterranean world. Early Christian thinkers developed diverse definitions of virginity and understood its bodily aspects in surprising, often nonanatomical ways. Eventually Christians took part in a cross-cultural shift toward viewing virginity as something that could be perceived in women's sex organs. Treating virginity as anatomical brought both benefits and costs. By charting this change and situating it in the larger landscape of ancient thought, Virgin Territory: Configuring Female Virginity in Early Christianity (University of California Press, 2022) illuminates unrecognized differences among early Christian sources and historicizes problematic ideas about women's bodies that still persist today.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Julia Kelto Lillis is Assistant Professor of Early Church History at Union Theological Seminary

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3723 no Matthew Elia, "The Problem of the Christian Master: Augustine in the Afterlife of Slavery" (Yale UP, 2024) The Problem of the Christian Master: Augustine in the Afterlife of Slavery (Yale UP, 2024) offers a bold rereading of Augustinian thought for a world still haunted by slavery. Over the last two decades, scholars have made a striking return to the resources of the Augustinian tradition to theorize citizenship, virtue, and the place of religion in public life. However, these scholars have not sufficiently attended to Augustine’s embrace of the position of the Christian slaveholder. To confront a racialized world, the modern Augustinian tradition of political thought must reckon with its own entanglements with the afterlife of the white Christian master. Drawing Augustine’s politics and the resources of modern Black thought into extended dialogue, Matthew Elia develops a critical analysis of the enduring problem of the Christian master, even as he presses toward an alternative interpretation of key concepts of ethical life—agency, virtue, temporality—against and beyond the framework of mastery. Amid democratic crises and racial injustice on multiple fronts, the book breathes fresh life into conversations on religion and the public square by showing how ancient and contemporary sources at once clash and converge in surprising ways. It imaginatively carves a path forward for the enduring humanities inquiry into the nature of our common life and the perennial problem of social and political domination. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Matt Elia is Assistant Professor of Theology, Race, and Environment at Saint Louis University Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 11 Nov 2024 09:00:00 -0000 full 285 New Books Network An interview with Matthew Elia The Problem of the Christian Master: Augustine in the Afterlife of Slavery (Yale UP, 2024) offers a bold rereading of Augustinian thought for a world still haunted by slavery. Over the last two decades, scholars have made a striking return to the resources of the Augustinian tradition to theorize citizenship, virtue, and the place of religion in public life. However, these scholars have not sufficiently attended to Augustine’s embrace of the position of the Christian slaveholder. To confront a racialized world, the modern Augustinian tradition of political thought must reckon with its own entanglements with the afterlife of the white Christian master. Drawing Augustine’s politics and the resources of modern Black thought into extended dialogue, Matthew Elia develops a critical analysis of the enduring problem of the Christian master, even as he presses toward an alternative interpretation of key concepts of ethical life—agency, virtue, temporality—against and beyond the framework of mastery. Amid democratic crises and racial injustice on multiple fronts, the book breathes fresh life into conversations on religion and the public square by showing how ancient and contemporary sources at once clash and converge in surprising ways. It imaginatively carves a path forward for the enduring humanities inquiry into the nature of our common life and the perennial problem of social and political domination. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Matt Elia is Assistant Professor of Theology, Race, and Environment at Saint Louis University Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The Problem of the Christian Master: Augustine in the Afterlife of Slavery (Yale UP, 2024) offers a bold rereading of Augustinian thought for a world still haunted by slavery.

Over the last two decades, scholars have made a striking return to the resources of the Augustinian tradition to theorize citizenship, virtue, and the place of religion in public life. However, these scholars have not sufficiently attended to Augustine’s embrace of the position of the Christian slaveholder. To confront a racialized world, the modern Augustinian tradition of political thought must reckon with its own entanglements with the afterlife of the white Christian master.

Drawing Augustine’s politics and the resources of modern Black thought into extended dialogue, Matthew Elia develops a critical analysis of the enduring problem of the Christian master, even as he presses toward an alternative interpretation of key concepts of ethical life—agency, virtue, temporality—against and beyond the framework of mastery. Amid democratic crises and racial injustice on multiple fronts, the book breathes fresh life into conversations on religion and the public square by showing how ancient and contemporary sources at once clash and converge in surprising ways. It imaginatively carves a path forward for the enduring humanities inquiry into the nature of our common life and the perennial problem of social and political domination.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Matt Elia is Assistant Professor of Theology, Race, and Environment at Saint Louis University

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4575 no Toni Alimi, "Slaves of God: Augustine and Other Romans on Religion and Politics" (Princeton UP, 2024) Augustine believed that slavery is permissible, but to understand why, we must situate him in his late antique Roman intellectual context. Slaves of God: Augustine and Other Romans on Religion and Politics (Princeton UP, 2024) provides a major reassessment of this monumental figure in the Western religious and political tradition, tracing the remarkably close connections between Augustine’s understanding of slavery and his broader thought. Augustine is most often read through the lens of Greek philosophy and the theology of Christian writers such as Paul and Ambrose, yet his debt to Roman thought is seldom appreciated. Toni Alimi reminds us that the author of Confessions and City of God was also a Roman citizen and argues that some of the thinkers who most significantly shaped his intellectual development were Romans such as Cicero, Seneca, Lactantius, and Varro—Romans who had much to say about slavery and its relationship to civic life. Alimi shows how Augustine, a keen and influential student of these figures, related chattel slavery and slavery to God, and sheds light on Augustinianism’s complicity in Christianity’s long entanglement with slavery. An illuminating work of scholarship, Slaves of God reveals how slavery was integral to Augustine’s views about law, rule, accountability, and citizenship, and breaks new ground on the topic of slavery in late antique and medieval political thought. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Toni Alimi is Assistant Professor at the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 28 Oct 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 276 New Books Network An interview with Toni Alimi Augustine believed that slavery is permissible, but to understand why, we must situate him in his late antique Roman intellectual context. Slaves of God: Augustine and Other Romans on Religion and Politics (Princeton UP, 2024) provides a major reassessment of this monumental figure in the Western religious and political tradition, tracing the remarkably close connections between Augustine’s understanding of slavery and his broader thought. Augustine is most often read through the lens of Greek philosophy and the theology of Christian writers such as Paul and Ambrose, yet his debt to Roman thought is seldom appreciated. Toni Alimi reminds us that the author of Confessions and City of God was also a Roman citizen and argues that some of the thinkers who most significantly shaped his intellectual development were Romans such as Cicero, Seneca, Lactantius, and Varro—Romans who had much to say about slavery and its relationship to civic life. Alimi shows how Augustine, a keen and influential student of these figures, related chattel slavery and slavery to God, and sheds light on Augustinianism’s complicity in Christianity’s long entanglement with slavery. An illuminating work of scholarship, Slaves of God reveals how slavery was integral to Augustine’s views about law, rule, accountability, and citizenship, and breaks new ground on the topic of slavery in late antique and medieval political thought. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Toni Alimi is Assistant Professor at the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Augustine believed that slavery is permissible, but to understand why, we must situate him in his late antique Roman intellectual context. Slaves of God: Augustine and Other Romans on Religion and Politics (Princeton UP, 2024) provides a major reassessment of this monumental figure in the Western religious and political tradition, tracing the remarkably close connections between Augustine’s understanding of slavery and his broader thought.

Augustine is most often read through the lens of Greek philosophy and the theology of Christian writers such as Paul and Ambrose, yet his debt to Roman thought is seldom appreciated. Toni Alimi reminds us that the author of Confessions and City of God was also a Roman citizen and argues that some of the thinkers who most significantly shaped his intellectual development were Romans such as Cicero, Seneca, Lactantius, and Varro—Romans who had much to say about slavery and its relationship to civic life. Alimi shows how Augustine, a keen and influential student of these figures, related chattel slavery and slavery to God, and sheds light on Augustinianism’s complicity in Christianity’s long entanglement with slavery.

An illuminating work of scholarship, Slaves of God reveals how slavery was integral to Augustine’s views about law, rule, accountability, and citizenship, and breaks new ground on the topic of slavery in late antique and medieval political thought.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Toni Alimi is Assistant Professor at the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3898 no Simcha Gross, "Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2024) From the image offered by the Babylonian Talmud, Jewish elites were deeply embedded within the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE). The Talmud is replete with stories and discussions that feature Sasanian kings, Zoroastrian magi, fire temples, imperial administrators, Sasanian laws, Persian customs, and more quotidian details of Jewish life. Yet, in the scholarly literature on the Babylonian Talmud and the Jews of Babylonia, the Sasanian Empire has served as a backdrop to a decidedly parochial Jewish story, having little if any direct impact on Babylonian Jewish life and especially the rabbis.  Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2024) advances a radically different understanding of Babylonian Jewish history and Sasanian rule. Building upon recent scholarship, Simcha Gross portrays a more immanent model of Sasanian rule, within and against which Jews invariably positioned and defined themselves. Babylonian Jews realized their traditions, teachings, and social position within the political, social, religious, and cultural conditions generated by Sasanian rule. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Simcha Gross about his book Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Tue, 15 Oct 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 34 New Books Network An interview with Simcha Gross From the image offered by the Babylonian Talmud, Jewish elites were deeply embedded within the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE). The Talmud is replete with stories and discussions that feature Sasanian kings, Zoroastrian magi, fire temples, imperial administrators, Sasanian laws, Persian customs, and more quotidian details of Jewish life. Yet, in the scholarly literature on the Babylonian Talmud and the Jews of Babylonia, the Sasanian Empire has served as a backdrop to a decidedly parochial Jewish story, having little if any direct impact on Babylonian Jewish life and especially the rabbis.  Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2024) advances a radically different understanding of Babylonian Jewish history and Sasanian rule. Building upon recent scholarship, Simcha Gross portrays a more immanent model of Sasanian rule, within and against which Jews invariably positioned and defined themselves. Babylonian Jews realized their traditions, teachings, and social position within the political, social, religious, and cultural conditions generated by Sasanian rule. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Simcha Gross about his book Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices From the image offered by the Babylonian Talmud, Jewish elites were deeply embedded within the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE). The Talmud is replete with stories and discussions that feature Sasanian kings, Zoroastrian magi, fire temples, imperial administrators, Sasanian laws, Persian customs, and more quotidian details of Jewish life. Yet, in the scholarly literature on the Babylonian Talmud and the Jews of Babylonia, the Sasanian Empire has served as a backdrop to a decidedly parochial Jewish story, having little if any direct impact on Babylonian Jewish life and especially the rabbis. 

Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2024) advances a radically different understanding of Babylonian Jewish history and Sasanian rule. Building upon recent scholarship, Simcha Gross portrays a more immanent model of Sasanian rule, within and against which Jews invariably positioned and defined themselves. Babylonian Jews realized their traditions, teachings, and social position within the political, social, religious, and cultural conditions generated by Sasanian rule.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Simcha Gross about his book Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4342 no Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom, "Desert Ascetics of Egypt" (ARC Humanities Press, 2020) Egypt is revered as the home of the famous Desert Ascetics, who first embraced a monastic life and established homosocial communities on the borders of their urban centres in the Nile Valley. Regarded as angels and warriors, the wisdom of the Desert Ascetics formed part of the oral and literary tradition of wonder-working saints whose commitment to asceticism was legendary and inspirational.  Desert Ascetics of Egypt (ARC Humanities Press, 2020) grounds the mythologized stories of Desert Ascetics in the materiality of the desert, demonstrating the closeness of the desert, the connections between non-monastic and monastic communities, and the exciting insights into lived monasticism through the archaeology of monasticism in Egypt. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom is the Myra and Robert Kraft and Jacob Hiatt Associate Professor of Christian Studies at Brandeis University, the Senior Archaeological Consultant for the Yale Monastic Archaeology Project, and Co-Director of Monastic Archaeology in Scotland at Lindores Abbey. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 30 Sep 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 275 New Books Network An interview with Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom Egypt is revered as the home of the famous Desert Ascetics, who first embraced a monastic life and established homosocial communities on the borders of their urban centres in the Nile Valley. Regarded as angels and warriors, the wisdom of the Desert Ascetics formed part of the oral and literary tradition of wonder-working saints whose commitment to asceticism was legendary and inspirational.  Desert Ascetics of Egypt (ARC Humanities Press, 2020) grounds the mythologized stories of Desert Ascetics in the materiality of the desert, demonstrating the closeness of the desert, the connections between non-monastic and monastic communities, and the exciting insights into lived monasticism through the archaeology of monasticism in Egypt. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom is the Myra and Robert Kraft and Jacob Hiatt Associate Professor of Christian Studies at Brandeis University, the Senior Archaeological Consultant for the Yale Monastic Archaeology Project, and Co-Director of Monastic Archaeology in Scotland at Lindores Abbey. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Egypt is revered as the home of the famous Desert Ascetics, who first embraced a monastic life and established homosocial communities on the borders of their urban centres in the Nile Valley. Regarded as angels and warriors, the wisdom of the Desert Ascetics formed part of the oral and literary tradition of wonder-working saints whose commitment to asceticism was legendary and inspirational. 

Desert Ascetics of Egypt (ARC Humanities Press, 2020) grounds the mythologized stories of Desert Ascetics in the materiality of the desert, demonstrating the closeness of the desert, the connections between non-monastic and monastic communities, and the exciting insights into lived monasticism through the archaeology of monasticism in Egypt.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom is the Myra and Robert Kraft and Jacob Hiatt Associate Professor of Christian Studies at Brandeis University, the Senior Archaeological Consultant for the Yale Monastic Archaeology Project, and Co-Director of Monastic Archaeology in Scotland at Lindores Abbey.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3577 no Philip Freeman, "Julian: Rome's Last Pagan Emperor" (Yale UP, 2023) Today I talked to Philip Freeman about his new book Julian: Rome’s Last Pagan Emperor (Yale UP, 2023). Flavius Claudius Julianus, or Julian the Apostate, ruled Rome as sole emperor for just a year and a half, from 361 to 363, but during that time he turned the world upside down. Although a nephew of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome, Julian fought to return Rome to the old gods who had led his ancestors to build their vast empire. As emperor, Julian set about reforming the administration, conquering new territories, and reviving ancient religions. He was scorned in his time for repudiating Christianity and demonized as an apostate for willfully rejecting Christ. Through the centuries, Julian has been viewed by many as a tragic figure who sought to save Rome from its enemies and the corrupting influence of Christianity. Christian writers and historians have seen Julian much differently: as a traitor to God and violent oppressor of Christians. Had Julian not been killed by a random Persian spear, he might well have changed all of history. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Philip Freeman is the author of over twenty books and is Fletcher Jones Chair of Western Culture, and Professor of Humanities at Pepperdine University Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 16 Sep 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 31 New Books Network An interview with Philip Freeman Today I talked to Philip Freeman about his new book Julian: Rome’s Last Pagan Emperor (Yale UP, 2023). Flavius Claudius Julianus, or Julian the Apostate, ruled Rome as sole emperor for just a year and a half, from 361 to 363, but during that time he turned the world upside down. Although a nephew of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome, Julian fought to return Rome to the old gods who had led his ancestors to build their vast empire. As emperor, Julian set about reforming the administration, conquering new territories, and reviving ancient religions. He was scorned in his time for repudiating Christianity and demonized as an apostate for willfully rejecting Christ. Through the centuries, Julian has been viewed by many as a tragic figure who sought to save Rome from its enemies and the corrupting influence of Christianity. Christian writers and historians have seen Julian much differently: as a traitor to God and violent oppressor of Christians. Had Julian not been killed by a random Persian spear, he might well have changed all of history. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Philip Freeman is the author of over twenty books and is Fletcher Jones Chair of Western Culture, and Professor of Humanities at Pepperdine University Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Today I talked to Philip Freeman about his new book Julian: Rome’s Last Pagan Emperor (Yale UP, 2023).

Flavius Claudius Julianus, or Julian the Apostate, ruled Rome as sole emperor for just a year and a half, from 361 to 363, but during that time he turned the world upside down. Although a nephew of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome, Julian fought to return Rome to the old gods who had led his ancestors to build their vast empire.

As emperor, Julian set about reforming the administration, conquering new territories, and reviving ancient religions. He was scorned in his time for repudiating Christianity and demonized as an apostate for willfully rejecting Christ. Through the centuries, Julian has been viewed by many as a tragic figure who sought to save Rome from its enemies and the corrupting influence of Christianity. Christian writers and historians have seen Julian much differently: as a traitor to God and violent oppressor of Christians. Had Julian not been killed by a random Persian spear, he might well have changed all of history.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Philip Freeman is the author of over twenty books and is Fletcher Jones Chair of Western Culture, and Professor of Humanities at Pepperdine University

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 2372 no Martha Rampton, "Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000" (Cornell UP, 2021) Martha Rampton, Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000 (Cornell University Press, 2021) explores how magic was perceived, practiced, and prohibited in western Europe during the first millennium CE. Through the overlapping frameworks of religion, ritual, and gender, Martha Rampton connects early Christian reckonings with pagan magic to later doctrines and dogmas. Challenging established views on the role of women in ritual magic during this period, Rampton provides a new narrative of the ways in which magic was embedded within the foundational assumptions of western European society, informing how people understood the cosmos, divinity, and their own Christian faith. As Rampton shows, throughout the first Christian millennium, magic was thought to play a natural role within the functioning of the universe and existed within a rational cosmos hierarchically arranged according to a "great chain of being." Trafficking with the "demons of the lower air" was the essence of magic. Interactions with those demons occurred both in highly formalistic, ritual settings and on a routine and casual basis. Rampton tracks the competition between pagan magic and Christian belief from the first century CE, when it was fiercest, through the early Middle Ages, as atavistic forms of magic mutated and found sanctuary in the daily habits of the converted peoples and new paganisms entered Europe with their own forms of magic. By the year 1000, she concludes, many forms of magic had been tamed and were, by the reckoning of the elite, essentially ineffective, as were the women who practiced it and the rituals that attended it. Martha Rampton is full of energy and excitement about her book and she and Jana Byars have a wonderful, spirited chat.  Jana Byars is the Academic Director of Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 09 Sep 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 12 New Books Network An interview with Martha Rampton Martha Rampton, Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000 (Cornell University Press, 2021) explores how magic was perceived, practiced, and prohibited in western Europe during the first millennium CE. Through the overlapping frameworks of religion, ritual, and gender, Martha Rampton connects early Christian reckonings with pagan magic to later doctrines and dogmas. Challenging established views on the role of women in ritual magic during this period, Rampton provides a new narrative of the ways in which magic was embedded within the foundational assumptions of western European society, informing how people understood the cosmos, divinity, and their own Christian faith. As Rampton shows, throughout the first Christian millennium, magic was thought to play a natural role within the functioning of the universe and existed within a rational cosmos hierarchically arranged according to a "great chain of being." Trafficking with the "demons of the lower air" was the essence of magic. Interactions with those demons occurred both in highly formalistic, ritual settings and on a routine and casual basis. Rampton tracks the competition between pagan magic and Christian belief from the first century CE, when it was fiercest, through the early Middle Ages, as atavistic forms of magic mutated and found sanctuary in the daily habits of the converted peoples and new paganisms entered Europe with their own forms of magic. By the year 1000, she concludes, many forms of magic had been tamed and were, by the reckoning of the elite, essentially ineffective, as were the women who practiced it and the rituals that attended it. Martha Rampton is full of energy and excitement about her book and she and Jana Byars have a wonderful, spirited chat.  Jana Byars is the Academic Director of Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Martha Rampton, Trafficking with Demons: Magic, Ritual, and Gender from Late Antiquity to 1000 (Cornell University Press, 2021) explores how magic was perceived, practiced, and prohibited in western Europe during the first millennium CE. Through the overlapping frameworks of religion, ritual, and gender, Martha Rampton connects early Christian reckonings with pagan magic to later doctrines and dogmas. Challenging established views on the role of women in ritual magic during this period, Rampton provides a new narrative of the ways in which magic was embedded within the foundational assumptions of western European society, informing how people understood the cosmos, divinity, and their own Christian faith.

As Rampton shows, throughout the first Christian millennium, magic was thought to play a natural role within the functioning of the universe and existed within a rational cosmos hierarchically arranged according to a "great chain of being." Trafficking with the "demons of the lower air" was the essence of magic. Interactions with those demons occurred both in highly formalistic, ritual settings and on a routine and casual basis. Rampton tracks the competition between pagan magic and Christian belief from the first century CE, when it was fiercest, through the early Middle Ages, as atavistic forms of magic mutated and found sanctuary in the daily habits of the converted peoples and new paganisms entered Europe with their own forms of magic. By the year 1000, she concludes, many forms of magic had been tamed and were, by the reckoning of the elite, essentially ineffective, as were the women who practiced it and the rituals that attended it.

Martha Rampton is full of energy and excitement about her book and she and Jana Byars have a wonderful, spirited chat. 

Jana Byars is the Academic Director of Netherlands: International Perspectives on Sexuality and Gender.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3276 no Laura Salah Nasrallah, "Ancient Christians and the Power of Curses: Magic, Aesthetics, and Justice" (Cambridge UP, 2023) Ancient Christians and their non-Christian contemporaries lived in a world of 'magic.' Sometimes, they used curses as ritual objects to seek justice from gods and other beings; sometimes, they argued against them. Curses, and the writings of those who polemicized against curses, reveal the complexity of ancient Mediterranean religions, in which materiality, poetics, song, incantation, and glossolalia were used as technologies of power. Laura Nasrallah's book Ancient Christians and the Power of Curses: Magic, Aesthetics, and Justice (Cambridge UP, 2023) reframes the field of religion, the study of the Roman imperial period, and the investigation of the New Testament and ancient Christianity. Her approach eschews disciplinary aesthetics that privilege the literature and archaeological remains of elites, and that defines curses as magical materials, separable from religious ritual. Moreover, Nasrallah's imaginative use of art and 'research creations' of contemporary Black painters, sculptors, and poets offer insights for understanding how ancient ritual materials embedded into art work intervene into the present moment and critique injustice. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented Ancient Jew Review Laura Salah Nasrallah is Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 02 Sep 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 32 New Books Network An interview with Laura Salah Nasrallah Ancient Christians and their non-Christian contemporaries lived in a world of 'magic.' Sometimes, they used curses as ritual objects to seek justice from gods and other beings; sometimes, they argued against them. Curses, and the writings of those who polemicized against curses, reveal the complexity of ancient Mediterranean religions, in which materiality, poetics, song, incantation, and glossolalia were used as technologies of power. Laura Nasrallah's book Ancient Christians and the Power of Curses: Magic, Aesthetics, and Justice (Cambridge UP, 2023) reframes the field of religion, the study of the Roman imperial period, and the investigation of the New Testament and ancient Christianity. Her approach eschews disciplinary aesthetics that privilege the literature and archaeological remains of elites, and that defines curses as magical materials, separable from religious ritual. Moreover, Nasrallah's imaginative use of art and 'research creations' of contemporary Black painters, sculptors, and poets offer insights for understanding how ancient ritual materials embedded into art work intervene into the present moment and critique injustice. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented Ancient Jew Review Laura Salah Nasrallah is Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Ancient Christians and their non-Christian contemporaries lived in a world of 'magic.' Sometimes, they used curses as ritual objects to seek justice from gods and other beings; sometimes, they argued against them. Curses, and the writings of those who polemicized against curses, reveal the complexity of ancient Mediterranean religions, in which materiality, poetics, song, incantation, and glossolalia were used as technologies of power.

Laura Nasrallah's book Ancient Christians and the Power of Curses: Magic, Aesthetics, and Justice (Cambridge UP, 2023) reframes the field of religion, the study of the Roman imperial period, and the investigation of the New Testament and ancient Christianity. Her approach eschews disciplinary aesthetics that privilege the literature and archaeological remains of elites, and that defines curses as magical materials, separable from religious ritual. Moreover, Nasrallah's imaginative use of art and 'research creations' of contemporary Black painters, sculptors, and poets offer insights for understanding how ancient ritual materials embedded into art work intervene into the present moment and critique injustice.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented Ancient Jew Review

Laura Salah Nasrallah is Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation.

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3868 no Laura S. Lieber, "Staging the Sacred: Performance in Late Ancient Liturgical Poetry" (Oxford UP, 2023) Staging the Sacred: Performance in Late Ancient Liturgical Poetry (Oxford UP, 2023) examines the importance of Christian, Jewish, and Samaritan liturgical poetry from Late Antiquity through the lenses of performance, entertainment, and spectacle. Laura Lieber proposes an account of hymnody as a performative and theatrical genre, combining religious and theatrical studies to examine how performers creatively engaged their audiences, utilized different modes of performance, and created complex characters through their speeches. To truly consider performance and engage with these poems fully, Lieber urges readers to imagine the world beyond the page. While poetry and hymnody from Late Antiquity are usually presented in textual form, Lieber moves away from studying the text on its own, engaging instead with how these poems would have been performed and acted. The specific literary techniques associated with oratory and acting in Late Antiquity, such as apostrophe and vivid imagery, help craft a more accurate idea of liturgical presentations. Lieber suggests ways that these ancient poets could have used their physical spaces of performance by borrowing from the gestures and body language of oratory, mime, and pantomime. A highly interdisciplinary study that will appeal to scholars across religion, theatre, literature, and beyond, Staging the Sacred proposes a novel interpretation of Late Antique hymnody and poetry as a performative genre, akin to oratory, theatre, and other modes of public performance, placing these works in their wider societal context. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Laura S. Lieber is the inaugural chair and Professor of the Transregional History of Religion at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Michael Motia in a Lecturer in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 19 Aug 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 29 New Books Network An interview with Laura S. Lieber Staging the Sacred: Performance in Late Ancient Liturgical Poetry (Oxford UP, 2023) examines the importance of Christian, Jewish, and Samaritan liturgical poetry from Late Antiquity through the lenses of performance, entertainment, and spectacle. Laura Lieber proposes an account of hymnody as a performative and theatrical genre, combining religious and theatrical studies to examine how performers creatively engaged their audiences, utilized different modes of performance, and created complex characters through their speeches. To truly consider performance and engage with these poems fully, Lieber urges readers to imagine the world beyond the page. While poetry and hymnody from Late Antiquity are usually presented in textual form, Lieber moves away from studying the text on its own, engaging instead with how these poems would have been performed and acted. The specific literary techniques associated with oratory and acting in Late Antiquity, such as apostrophe and vivid imagery, help craft a more accurate idea of liturgical presentations. Lieber suggests ways that these ancient poets could have used their physical spaces of performance by borrowing from the gestures and body language of oratory, mime, and pantomime. A highly interdisciplinary study that will appeal to scholars across religion, theatre, literature, and beyond, Staging the Sacred proposes a novel interpretation of Late Antique hymnody and poetry as a performative genre, akin to oratory, theatre, and other modes of public performance, placing these works in their wider societal context. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Laura S. Lieber is the inaugural chair and Professor of the Transregional History of Religion at the University of Regensburg in Germany. Michael Motia in a Lecturer in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Staging the Sacred: Performance in Late Ancient Liturgical Poetry (Oxford UP, 2023) examines the importance of Christian, Jewish, and Samaritan liturgical poetry from Late Antiquity through the lenses of performance, entertainment, and spectacle. Laura Lieber proposes an account of hymnody as a performative and theatrical genre, combining religious and theatrical studies to examine how performers creatively engaged their audiences, utilized different modes of performance, and created complex characters through their speeches.

To truly consider performance and engage with these poems fully, Lieber urges readers to imagine the world beyond the page. While poetry and hymnody from Late Antiquity are usually presented in textual form, Lieber moves away from studying the text on its own, engaging instead with how these poems would have been performed and acted. The specific literary techniques associated with oratory and acting in Late Antiquity, such as apostrophe and vivid imagery, help craft a more accurate idea of liturgical presentations. Lieber suggests ways that these ancient poets could have used their physical spaces of performance by borrowing from the gestures and body language of oratory, mime, and pantomime.

A highly interdisciplinary study that will appeal to scholars across religion, theatre, literature, and beyond, Staging the Sacred proposes a novel interpretation of Late Antique hymnody and poetry as a performative genre, akin to oratory, theatre, and other modes of public performance, placing these works in their wider societal context.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

Laura S. Lieber is the inaugural chair and Professor of the Transregional History of Religion at the University of Regensburg in Germany.

Michael Motia in a Lecturer in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3756 no Anna Bonnell Freidin, "Birthing Romans: Childbearing and Its Risks in Imperial Rome" (Princeton UP, 2024) Across the vast expanse of the Roman Empire, anxieties about childbirth tied individuals to one another, to the highest levels of imperial politics, even to the movements of the stars. Birthing Romans: Childbearing and Its Risks in Imperial Rome (Princeton UP, 2024) sheds critical light on the diverse ways pregnancy and childbirth were understood, experienced, and managed in ancient Rome during the first three centuries of the Common Era. In this beautifully written book, Anna Bonnell Freidin asks how inhabitants of the Roman Empire—especially women and girls—understood their bodies and constructed communities of care to mitigate and make sense of the risks of pregnancy and childbirth. Drawing on medical texts, legal documents, poetry, amulets, funerary art, and more, she shows how these communities were deeply human yet never just human. Freidin demonstrates how patients and caregivers took their place alongside divine and material agencies to guard against the risks inherent to childbearing. She vividly illustrates how these efforts and vital networks offer a new window onto Romans’ anxieties about order, hierarchy, and the individual’s place in the empire and cosmos. Unearthing a risky world that is both familiar and not our own, Birthing Romans reveals how mistakes, misfortunes, and interventions in childbearing were seen to have far-reaching consequences, reverberating across generations and altering the course of people’s lives, their family histories, and even the fate of an empire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 05 Aug 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 30 New Books Network An interview with Anna Bonnell Freidin Across the vast expanse of the Roman Empire, anxieties about childbirth tied individuals to one another, to the highest levels of imperial politics, even to the movements of the stars. Birthing Romans: Childbearing and Its Risks in Imperial Rome (Princeton UP, 2024) sheds critical light on the diverse ways pregnancy and childbirth were understood, experienced, and managed in ancient Rome during the first three centuries of the Common Era. In this beautifully written book, Anna Bonnell Freidin asks how inhabitants of the Roman Empire—especially women and girls—understood their bodies and constructed communities of care to mitigate and make sense of the risks of pregnancy and childbirth. Drawing on medical texts, legal documents, poetry, amulets, funerary art, and more, she shows how these communities were deeply human yet never just human. Freidin demonstrates how patients and caregivers took their place alongside divine and material agencies to guard against the risks inherent to childbearing. She vividly illustrates how these efforts and vital networks offer a new window onto Romans’ anxieties about order, hierarchy, and the individual’s place in the empire and cosmos. Unearthing a risky world that is both familiar and not our own, Birthing Romans reveals how mistakes, misfortunes, and interventions in childbearing were seen to have far-reaching consequences, reverberating across generations and altering the course of people’s lives, their family histories, and even the fate of an empire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Across the vast expanse of the Roman Empire, anxieties about childbirth tied individuals to one another, to the highest levels of imperial politics, even to the movements of the stars. Birthing Romans: Childbearing and Its Risks in Imperial Rome (Princeton UP, 2024) sheds critical light on the diverse ways pregnancy and childbirth were understood, experienced, and managed in ancient Rome during the first three centuries of the Common Era.


In this beautifully written book, Anna Bonnell Freidin asks how inhabitants of the Roman Empire—especially women and girls—understood their bodies and constructed communities of care to mitigate and make sense of the risks of pregnancy and childbirth. Drawing on medical texts, legal documents, poetry, amulets, funerary art, and more, she shows how these communities were deeply human yet never just human. Freidin demonstrates how patients and caregivers took their place alongside divine and material agencies to guard against the risks inherent to childbearing. She vividly illustrates how these efforts and vital networks offer a new window onto Romans’ anxieties about order, hierarchy, and the individual’s place in the empire and cosmos.


Unearthing a risky world that is both familiar and not our own, Birthing Romans reveals how mistakes, misfortunes, and interventions in childbearing were seen to have far-reaching consequences, reverberating across generations and altering the course of people’s lives, their family histories, and even the fate of an empire.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 5903 no Robin Darling Young et al, "Evagrius of Pontus: The Gnostic Trilogy" (Oxford UP, 2024) The Gnostic Trilogy is the best-known and most important work by the ascetic philosopher and teacher Evagrius of Pontus. Among the writers of his age, Evagrius stands out for his short, perplexing, and absorbing aphorisms, which provide sharp insight into philosophy, Scripture, human nature, and the natural world. The first part of the trilogy, the Praktikos (The Practiced One), provides a diagnosis and treatment of the eight tempting thoughts. It was a foundational text for monastic asceticism and was the basis for the later Seven Deadly sins tradition. The second, Gnostikos (The Knower), explains how someone who has mastered the body and mental delusions should teach others. The third, longest, and most controversial, the Kephalaia gnostika (Gnostic Chapters), ranges broadly over the origin of the universe, the nature of rational beings, and the hidden symbols of Scripture. This part was responsible for Evagrius's condemnation as a heretic and, as a result, does not survive intact in the original Greek and must be restored from ancient translations. Evagrius of Pontus: The Gnostic Trilogy (Oxford UP, 2024) presents the Trilogy in its entirety for the first time since antiquity and provides a fresh, comprehensive English translation of all three works, in all their known ancient versions, both Greek and Syriac. Detailed explanatory notes, cross-references to Scripture, to ancient literature, and to Evagrius's other writings, as well as commentary on the translation techniques of the Syriac translators, provide the necessary resources for understanding this significant but puzzling text. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Robin Darling Young is Professor of Church History at the Catholic University of America. Joel Kalvesmaki is a digital humanist and the editor of University of California Press’s book series Christianity and Late Antiquity. Find a link to his online Guide to Evagrius in the show notes. Columba Stewart is executive director of HMML, sounds like heaven, but short for the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at St. John’s University and Abbey in Minnesota. Charles Stang is Professor of Early Christian Thought at Harvard Divinity School and the director there of the Center for the Study of World Religions. Fr. Luke Dysinger is Professor of Church History and Moral Theology at St. John’s Seminary in California. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Sun, 28 Jul 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 272 New Books Network An interview with Charles M. Stang, Luke Dysinger, Robin Darling Young, Joel Kalvesmaki, Columba Stewart The Gnostic Trilogy is the best-known and most important work by the ascetic philosopher and teacher Evagrius of Pontus. Among the writers of his age, Evagrius stands out for his short, perplexing, and absorbing aphorisms, which provide sharp insight into philosophy, Scripture, human nature, and the natural world. The first part of the trilogy, the Praktikos (The Practiced One), provides a diagnosis and treatment of the eight tempting thoughts. It was a foundational text for monastic asceticism and was the basis for the later Seven Deadly sins tradition. The second, Gnostikos (The Knower), explains how someone who has mastered the body and mental delusions should teach others. The third, longest, and most controversial, the Kephalaia gnostika (Gnostic Chapters), ranges broadly over the origin of the universe, the nature of rational beings, and the hidden symbols of Scripture. This part was responsible for Evagrius's condemnation as a heretic and, as a result, does not survive intact in the original Greek and must be restored from ancient translations. Evagrius of Pontus: The Gnostic Trilogy (Oxford UP, 2024) presents the Trilogy in its entirety for the first time since antiquity and provides a fresh, comprehensive English translation of all three works, in all their known ancient versions, both Greek and Syriac. Detailed explanatory notes, cross-references to Scripture, to ancient literature, and to Evagrius's other writings, as well as commentary on the translation techniques of the Syriac translators, provide the necessary resources for understanding this significant but puzzling text. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Robin Darling Young is Professor of Church History at the Catholic University of America. Joel Kalvesmaki is a digital humanist and the editor of University of California Press’s book series Christianity and Late Antiquity. Find a link to his online Guide to Evagrius in the show notes. Columba Stewart is executive director of HMML, sounds like heaven, but short for the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at St. John’s University and Abbey in Minnesota. Charles Stang is Professor of Early Christian Thought at Harvard Divinity School and the director there of the Center for the Study of World Religions. Fr. Luke Dysinger is Professor of Church History and Moral Theology at St. John’s Seminary in California. Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The Gnostic Trilogy is the best-known and most important work by the ascetic philosopher and teacher Evagrius of Pontus. Among the writers of his age, Evagrius stands out for his short, perplexing, and absorbing aphorisms, which provide sharp insight into philosophy, Scripture, human nature, and the natural world.

The first part of the trilogy, the Praktikos (The Practiced One), provides a diagnosis and treatment of the eight tempting thoughts. It was a foundational text for monastic asceticism and was the basis for the later Seven Deadly sins tradition. The second, Gnostikos (The Knower), explains how someone who has mastered the body and mental delusions should teach others. The third, longest, and most controversial, the Kephalaia gnostika (Gnostic Chapters), ranges broadly over the origin of the universe, the nature of rational beings, and the hidden symbols of Scripture. This part was responsible for Evagrius's condemnation as a heretic and, as a result, does not survive intact in the original Greek and must be restored from ancient translations.

Evagrius of Pontus: The Gnostic Trilogy (Oxford UP, 2024) presents the Trilogy in its entirety for the first time since antiquity and provides a fresh, comprehensive English translation of all three works, in all their known ancient versions, both Greek and Syriac. Detailed explanatory notes, cross-references to Scripture, to ancient literature, and to Evagrius's other writings, as well as commentary on the translation techniques of the Syriac translators, provide the necessary resources for understanding this significant but puzzling text.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review.

  • Robin Darling Young is Professor of Church History at the Catholic University of America.
  • Joel Kalvesmaki is a digital humanist and the editor of University of California Press’s book series Christianity and Late Antiquity. Find a link to his online Guide to Evagrius in the show notes.
  • Columba Stewart is executive director of HMML, sounds like heaven, but short for the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at St. John’s University and Abbey in Minnesota.
  • Charles Stang is Professor of Early Christian Thought at Harvard Divinity School and the director there of the Center for the Study of World Religions.
  • Fr. Luke Dysinger is Professor of Church History and Moral Theology at St. John’s Seminary in California.


Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 5598 no Mark Letteney, "The Christianization of Knowledge in Late Antiquity: Intellectual and Material Transformations" (Cambridge UP, 2023) The Christianization of Knowledge in Late Antiquity: Intellectual and Material Transformations (Cambridge UP, 2023) traces the beginning of Late Antiquity from a new angle. Shifting the focus away from the Christianization of people or the transformation of institutions, Mark Letteney interrogates the creation of novel and durable structures of knowledge across the Roman scholarly landscape, and the embedding of those changes in manuscript witnesses. Letteney explores scholarly productions ranging from juristic writings and legal compendia to theological tractates, military handbooks, historical accounts, miscellanies, grammatical treatises, and the Palestinian Talmud. He demonstrates how imperial Christianity inflected the production of truth far beyond the domain of theology — and how intellectual tools forged in the fires of doctrinal controversy shed their theological baggage and came to undergird the great intellectual productions of the Theodosian Age, and their material expressions. Letteney's volume offers new insights and a new approach to answering the perennial question: What does it mean for Rome to become Christian? The book is open access at Cambridge Core. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Mark Letteney is an ancient historian and archaeologist working in the history of incarceration, book history, and the archaeology of military occupation. His second book, Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration (co-authored with Matthew David Larsen) should appear in 2025. Michael Motia teaches in Religious Studies and Classics at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 22 Jul 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 28 New Books Network An interview with Mark Letteney The Christianization of Knowledge in Late Antiquity: Intellectual and Material Transformations (Cambridge UP, 2023) traces the beginning of Late Antiquity from a new angle. Shifting the focus away from the Christianization of people or the transformation of institutions, Mark Letteney interrogates the creation of novel and durable structures of knowledge across the Roman scholarly landscape, and the embedding of those changes in manuscript witnesses. Letteney explores scholarly productions ranging from juristic writings and legal compendia to theological tractates, military handbooks, historical accounts, miscellanies, grammatical treatises, and the Palestinian Talmud. He demonstrates how imperial Christianity inflected the production of truth far beyond the domain of theology — and how intellectual tools forged in the fires of doctrinal controversy shed their theological baggage and came to undergird the great intellectual productions of the Theodosian Age, and their material expressions. Letteney's volume offers new insights and a new approach to answering the perennial question: What does it mean for Rome to become Christian? The book is open access at Cambridge Core. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review Mark Letteney is an ancient historian and archaeologist working in the history of incarceration, book history, and the archaeology of military occupation. His second book, Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration (co-authored with Matthew David Larsen) should appear in 2025. Michael Motia teaches in Religious Studies and Classics at UMass Boston. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The Christianization of Knowledge in Late Antiquity: Intellectual and Material Transformations (Cambridge UP, 2023) traces the beginning of Late Antiquity from a new angle. Shifting the focus away from the Christianization of people or the transformation of institutions, Mark Letteney interrogates the creation of novel and durable structures of knowledge across the Roman scholarly landscape, and the embedding of those changes in manuscript witnesses. Letteney explores scholarly productions ranging from juristic writings and legal compendia to theological tractates, military handbooks, historical accounts, miscellanies, grammatical treatises, and the Palestinian Talmud. He demonstrates how imperial Christianity inflected the production of truth far beyond the domain of theology — and how intellectual tools forged in the fires of doctrinal controversy shed their theological baggage and came to undergird the great intellectual productions of the Theodosian Age, and their material expressions. Letteney's volume offers new insights and a new approach to answering the perennial question: What does it mean for Rome to become Christian? The book is open access at Cambridge Core.

New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review

Mark Letteney is an ancient historian and archaeologist working in the history of incarceration, book history, and the archaeology of military occupation. His second book, Ancient Mediterranean Incarceration (co-authored with Matthew David Larsen) should appear in 2025.

Michael Motia teaches in Religious Studies and Classics at UMass Boston.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4389 no Anthony Kaldellis, "The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium" (Oxford UP, 2024) In recent decades, the study of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, has been revolutionized by new approaches and more sophisticated models for how its society and state operated. No longer looked upon as a pale facsimile of classical Rome, Byzantium is now considered a vigorous state of its own, inheritor of many of Rome's features, and a vital node in the first truly globalized world. The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford UP, 2024) is the first full, single-author history of the eastern Roman empire to appear in over a generation. Covering political and military history as well as all the major changes in religion, society, demography, and economy, Anthony Kaldellis's volume is divided into ten chronological sections which begin with the foundation of Constantinople in 324 AD and end with the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. The book incorporates new findings, explains recent interpretive models, and presents well-known historical characters and events in a new light. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Sat, 20 Jul 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 1458 New Books Network An interview with Anthony Kaldellis In recent decades, the study of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, has been revolutionized by new approaches and more sophisticated models for how its society and state operated. No longer looked upon as a pale facsimile of classical Rome, Byzantium is now considered a vigorous state of its own, inheritor of many of Rome's features, and a vital node in the first truly globalized world. The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford UP, 2024) is the first full, single-author history of the eastern Roman empire to appear in over a generation. Covering political and military history as well as all the major changes in religion, society, demography, and economy, Anthony Kaldellis's volume is divided into ten chronological sections which begin with the foundation of Constantinople in 324 AD and end with the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. The book incorporates new findings, explains recent interpretive models, and presents well-known historical characters and events in a new light. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices In recent decades, the study of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, has been revolutionized by new approaches and more sophisticated models for how its society and state operated. No longer looked upon as a pale facsimile of classical Rome, Byzantium is now considered a vigorous state of its own, inheritor of many of Rome's features, and a vital node in the first truly globalized world.

The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford UP, 2024) is the first full, single-author history of the eastern Roman empire to appear in over a generation. Covering political and military history as well as all the major changes in religion, society, demography, and economy, Anthony Kaldellis's volume is divided into ten chronological sections which begin with the foundation of Constantinople in 324 AD and end with the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. The book incorporates new findings, explains recent interpretive models, and presents well-known historical characters and events in a new light.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 3645 no Jeremiah Coogan, "Eusebius the Evangelist: Rewriting the Fourfold Gospel in Late Antiquity" (Oxford UP, 2023) The development of Christian scriptures did not terminate once, for example, following Irenaeus and other influential patristic figures, the four gospels that would later be located at the front of the church’s New Testament were accepted by most churches and transmitted together in the same codex. Instead, erudite Christian readers employed new and innovative technologies to transform reading practices, calling attention to both narrative and other thematic similarities present across the gospels, and enabling cross-referential access from one gospel’s narrative sequence to another without amending the individual texts themselves. Such practices were facilitated by the sections and canon tables of Eusebius (ca. 260–339 CE), bishop of Caesarea Maritima in Roman Palestine. In Eusebius the Evangelist: Rewriting the Fourfold Gospel in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2023), Jeremiah Coogan discusses the editorial intervention of Eusebius within gospel manuscripts, including paratextual sectioning, tables of contents, and other prefatory material, at both a technical and conceptual level, locating the overall apparatus of this “evangelist” alongside broader late ancient transformations in reading and knowledge. Dr. Coogan joined the New Books Network to discuss examples of gospel reading that Eusebius permitted via his novel contributions to the gospels, related book technologies in his contemporary readerly environment, and the overall success of Eusebius’s sections and canons during the millennium that followed him—starting with Greek and Latin gospel manuscripts of late antiquity but also appearing alongside most biblical translations into the late Middle Ages, when modern chapter divisions and versification began to assume the dominant roles for sectioning texts that they have maintained into the present day. Jeremiah Coogan (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 2020) is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Santa Clara University’s Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. His research and teaching interests span the New Testament, early Christianity, and ancient Judaism, with a particular focus on Gospels and on the social history of early Christianity. His scholarship has been published in Early Christianity, the Journal of Early Christian Studies, the Journal of Late Antiquity, the Journal of Theological Studies, and in several other journals and edited volumes, and he is currently working on a new project that investigates how early Christians deployed literary and bibliographic categories to understand similarities and differences between Gospel texts. His first monograph, Eusebius the Evangelist, received the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise in 2022. Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Thu, 18 Jul 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 161 New Books Network An interview with Jeremiah Coogan The development of Christian scriptures did not terminate once, for example, following Irenaeus and other influential patristic figures, the four gospels that would later be located at the front of the church’s New Testament were accepted by most churches and transmitted together in the same codex. Instead, erudite Christian readers employed new and innovative technologies to transform reading practices, calling attention to both narrative and other thematic similarities present across the gospels, and enabling cross-referential access from one gospel’s narrative sequence to another without amending the individual texts themselves. Such practices were facilitated by the sections and canon tables of Eusebius (ca. 260–339 CE), bishop of Caesarea Maritima in Roman Palestine. In Eusebius the Evangelist: Rewriting the Fourfold Gospel in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2023), Jeremiah Coogan discusses the editorial intervention of Eusebius within gospel manuscripts, including paratextual sectioning, tables of contents, and other prefatory material, at both a technical and conceptual level, locating the overall apparatus of this “evangelist” alongside broader late ancient transformations in reading and knowledge. Dr. Coogan joined the New Books Network to discuss examples of gospel reading that Eusebius permitted via his novel contributions to the gospels, related book technologies in his contemporary readerly environment, and the overall success of Eusebius’s sections and canons during the millennium that followed him—starting with Greek and Latin gospel manuscripts of late antiquity but also appearing alongside most biblical translations into the late Middle Ages, when modern chapter divisions and versification began to assume the dominant roles for sectioning texts that they have maintained into the present day. Jeremiah Coogan (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 2020) is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Santa Clara University’s Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. His research and teaching interests span the New Testament, early Christianity, and ancient Judaism, with a particular focus on Gospels and on the social history of early Christianity. His scholarship has been published in Early Christianity, the Journal of Early Christian Studies, the Journal of Late Antiquity, the Journal of Theological Studies, and in several other journals and edited volumes, and he is currently working on a new project that investigates how early Christians deployed literary and bibliographic categories to understand similarities and differences between Gospel texts. His first monograph, Eusebius the Evangelist, received the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise in 2022. Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices The development of Christian scriptures did not terminate once, for example, following Irenaeus and other influential patristic figures, the four gospels that would later be located at the front of the church’s New Testament were accepted by most churches and transmitted together in the same codex. Instead, erudite Christian readers employed new and innovative technologies to transform reading practices, calling attention to both narrative and other thematic similarities present across the gospels, and enabling cross-referential access from one gospel’s narrative sequence to another without amending the individual texts themselves. Such practices were facilitated by the sections and canon tables of Eusebius (ca. 260–339 CE), bishop of Caesarea Maritima in Roman Palestine.

In Eusebius the Evangelist: Rewriting the Fourfold Gospel in Late Antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2023), Jeremiah Coogan discusses the editorial intervention of Eusebius within gospel manuscripts, including paratextual sectioning, tables of contents, and other prefatory material, at both a technical and conceptual level, locating the overall apparatus of this “evangelist” alongside broader late ancient transformations in reading and knowledge. Dr. Coogan joined the New Books Network to discuss examples of gospel reading that Eusebius permitted via his novel contributions to the gospels, related book technologies in his contemporary readerly environment, and the overall success of Eusebius’s sections and canons during the millennium that followed him—starting with Greek and Latin gospel manuscripts of late antiquity but also appearing alongside most biblical translations into the late Middle Ages, when modern chapter divisions and versification began to assume the dominant roles for sectioning texts that they have maintained into the present day.

Jeremiah Coogan (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame, 2020) is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Santa Clara University’s Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. His research and teaching interests span the New Testament, early Christianity, and ancient Judaism, with a particular focus on Gospels and on the social history of early Christianity. His scholarship has been published in Early Christianity, the Journal of Early Christian Studies, the Journal of Late Antiquity, the Journal of Theological Studies, and in several other journals and edited volumes, and he is currently working on a new project that investigates how early Christians deployed literary and bibliographic categories to understand similarities and differences between Gospel texts. His first monograph, Eusebius the Evangelist, received the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise in 2022.

Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4822 no Andrew S. Jacobs, "Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible" (Cambridge UP, 2023) What if the original teachings of Jesus were different from the Bible's sanitized 'orthodox' version? What covert motivations might inspire those who decide what the text of the Bible 'says' or what it 'means'? For some who ask conspiratorial questions like these, the Bible is the vulnerable victim of secular forces seeking to divest the USA of its founding identity. For others, the biblical canon suppresses religious truths that could upend the status quo.  Such suspicions surrounding the Bible find full expression in Gospel Thrillers: a 1960s fictional genre that endures and still commands a substantial following. These novels imagine a freshly discovered first-century gospel and a race against time to unlock its buried secrets. They also reflect the fears and desires that the Bible continues to generate. In Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible (Cambridge UP, 2023), Andrew Jacobs reveals, in his authoritative examination, how this remarkable fictional archive opens a window onto disturbing biblical anxieties. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Find more information on the Gospel Thrillers here. Andrew Jacobs is Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School and the Editor of Cambridge University Press’s book series Element of Religion in Late Antiquity. His Epiphanius of Cyprus: a cultural biography of Late Antiquity (UC Press, 2016), won the Philip Schaff Best Book prize from the American Society of Church History. Andrew has also just finished a stint as President of the North American Patristics Society. Find him at @drewjackeprof.bsky.social, or on X: @drewjackeprof Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. @mikemotia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Mon, 08 Jul 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 271 New Books Network An interview with Andrew S. Jacobs What if the original teachings of Jesus were different from the Bible's sanitized 'orthodox' version? What covert motivations might inspire those who decide what the text of the Bible 'says' or what it 'means'? For some who ask conspiratorial questions like these, the Bible is the vulnerable victim of secular forces seeking to divest the USA of its founding identity. For others, the biblical canon suppresses religious truths that could upend the status quo.  Such suspicions surrounding the Bible find full expression in Gospel Thrillers: a 1960s fictional genre that endures and still commands a substantial following. These novels imagine a freshly discovered first-century gospel and a race against time to unlock its buried secrets. They also reflect the fears and desires that the Bible continues to generate. In Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible (Cambridge UP, 2023), Andrew Jacobs reveals, in his authoritative examination, how this remarkable fictional archive opens a window onto disturbing biblical anxieties. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Find more information on the Gospel Thrillers here. Andrew Jacobs is Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School and the Editor of Cambridge University Press’s book series Element of Religion in Late Antiquity. His Epiphanius of Cyprus: a cultural biography of Late Antiquity (UC Press, 2016), won the Philip Schaff Best Book prize from the American Society of Church History. Andrew has also just finished a stint as President of the North American Patristics Society. Find him at @drewjackeprof.bsky.social, or on X: @drewjackeprof Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. @mikemotia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices What if the original teachings of Jesus were different from the Bible's sanitized 'orthodox' version? What covert motivations might inspire those who decide what the text of the Bible 'says' or what it 'means'? For some who ask conspiratorial questions like these, the Bible is the vulnerable victim of secular forces seeking to divest the USA of its founding identity. For others, the biblical canon suppresses religious truths that could upend the status quo. 

Such suspicions surrounding the Bible find full expression in Gospel Thrillers: a 1960s fictional genre that endures and still commands a substantial following. These novels imagine a freshly discovered first-century gospel and a race against time to unlock its buried secrets. They also reflect the fears and desires that the Bible continues to generate. In Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible (Cambridge UP, 2023), Andrew Jacobs reveals, in his authoritative examination, how this remarkable fictional archive opens a window onto disturbing biblical anxieties.

New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review

Find more information on the Gospel Thrillers here.

Andrew Jacobs is Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School and the Editor of Cambridge University Press’s book series Element of Religion in Late Antiquity. His Epiphanius of Cyprus: a cultural biography of Late Antiquity (UC Press, 2016), won the Philip Schaff Best Book prize from the American Society of Church History. Andrew has also just finished a stint as President of the North American Patristics Society. Find him at @drewjackeprof.bsky.social, or on X: @drewjackeprof

Michael Motia teaches in Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston. @mikemotia

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

]]> 4009 no Catherine Michael Chin, "Life: The Natural History of an Early Christian Universe" (U California Press, 2024) A vivid and intimate glimpse of ancient life under the sway of cosmic and spiritual forces that the modern world has forgotten. Life: The Natural History of an Early Christian Universe (U California Press, 2024) immerses the reader in the cosmic sea of existences that made up the late ancient Mediterranean world. Loosely structured around events in the biography of one early Christian writer and traveler, this book weaves together the philosophical, religious, sensory, and scientific worlds of the later Roman Empire to tell the story of how human lives were lived under different natural and spiritual laws than those we now know today. This book takes a highly literary and sensory approach to its subject, evoking an imagined experience of an ancient natural and supernatural world, rather than merely explaining ancient thought about the natural world. It mixes visual and literary genres to give the reader a sensory and affective experience of a thought-world that is very different from our own. An experimental intellectual history, Life invites readers into the premodern cosmos to experience a world that is at once familiar, strange, and deeply compelling Mike Chin is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California Davis Michael Motia is a Lecturer in the Religious Studies and Classics Department at UMass Boston (michael.motia@umb.edu) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Sun, 09 Jun 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 266 New Books Network An interview with Catherine Michael Chin A vivid and intimate glimpse of ancient life under the sway of cosmic and spiritual forces that the modern world has forgotten. Life: The Natural History of an Early Christian Universe (U California Press, 2024) immerses the reader in the cosmic sea of existences that made up the late ancient Mediterranean world. Loosely structured around events in the biography of one early Christian writer and traveler, this book weaves together the philosophical, religious, sensory, and scientific worlds of the later Roman Empire to tell the story of how human lives were lived under different natural and spiritual laws than those we now know today. This book takes a highly literary and sensory approach to its subject, evoking an imagined experience of an ancient natural and supernatural world, rather than merely explaining ancient thought about the natural world. It mixes visual and literary genres to give the reader a sensory and affective experience of a thought-world that is very different from our own. An experimental intellectual history, Life invites readers into the premodern cosmos to experience a world that is at once familiar, strange, and deeply compelling Mike Chin is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California Davis Michael Motia is a Lecturer in the Religious Studies and Classics Department at UMass Boston (michael.motia@umb.edu) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices A vivid and intimate glimpse of ancient life under the sway of cosmic and spiritual forces that the modern world has forgotten.

Life: The Natural History of an Early Christian Universe (U California Press, 2024) immerses the reader in the cosmic sea of existences that made up the late ancient Mediterranean world. Loosely structured around events in the biography of one early Christian writer and traveler, this book weaves together the philosophical, religious, sensory, and scientific worlds of the later Roman Empire to tell the story of how human lives were lived under different natural and spiritual laws than those we now know today.

This book takes a highly literary and sensory approach to its subject, evoking an imagined experience of an ancient natural and supernatural world, rather than merely explaining ancient thought about the natural world. It mixes visual and literary genres to give the reader a sensory and affective experience of a thought-world that is very different from our own. An experimental intellectual history, Life invites readers into the premodern cosmos to experience a world that is at once familiar, strange, and deeply compelling

Mike Chin is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California Davis

Michael Motia is a Lecturer in the Religious Studies and Classics Department at UMass Boston (michael.motia@umb.edu)

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]]> 4425 no Jae Hee Han, "Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East" (Cambridge UP, 2023) In Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East (Cambridge UP, 2023), Jae Han investigates how various Late Antique Near Eastern communities—Jews, Christians, Manichaeans, and philosophers—discussed prophets and revelation, among themselves and against each other. Bringing an interdisciplinary, historical approach to the topic, he interrogates how these communities used discourses of prophethood and revelation to negotiate their place in the world. Han tracks the shifting contours of prophecy and contextualizes the emergence of orality as the privileged medium among rabbis, Manichaeans, and 'Jewish Christian' communities. He also explores the contemporary interest in divinatory knowledge among Neoplatonists. Offering a critical re-reading of key Manichaean texts, Han shows how Manichaeans used concepts of prophethood and revelation within specific rhetorical agendas to address urgent issues facing their communities. His book highlights the contingent production of discourse and shows how contemporary theories of rhetoric and textuality can be applied to the study of ancient texts. Jae Han is Assistant Professor in Religious Studies and the program for Judaic Studies at Brown University Michael Motia is a lecturer in the Religious Studies and Classics Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Sat, 13 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 260 New Books Network An interview with Jae Hee Han In Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East (Cambridge UP, 2023), Jae Han investigates how various Late Antique Near Eastern communities—Jews, Christians, Manichaeans, and philosophers—discussed prophets and revelation, among themselves and against each other. Bringing an interdisciplinary, historical approach to the topic, he interrogates how these communities used discourses of prophethood and revelation to negotiate their place in the world. Han tracks the shifting contours of prophecy and contextualizes the emergence of orality as the privileged medium among rabbis, Manichaeans, and 'Jewish Christian' communities. He also explores the contemporary interest in divinatory knowledge among Neoplatonists. Offering a critical re-reading of key Manichaean texts, Han shows how Manichaeans used concepts of prophethood and revelation within specific rhetorical agendas to address urgent issues facing their communities. His book highlights the contingent production of discourse and shows how contemporary theories of rhetoric and textuality can be applied to the study of ancient texts. Jae Han is Assistant Professor in Religious Studies and the program for Judaic Studies at Brown University Michael Motia is a lecturer in the Religious Studies and Classics Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices In Prophets and Prophecy in the Late Antique Near East (Cambridge UP, 2023), Jae Han investigates how various Late Antique Near Eastern communities—Jews, Christians, Manichaeans, and philosophers—discussed prophets and revelation, among themselves and against each other. Bringing an interdisciplinary, historical approach to the topic, he interrogates how these communities used discourses of prophethood and revelation to negotiate their place in the world. Han tracks the shifting contours of prophecy and contextualizes the emergence of orality as the privileged medium among rabbis, Manichaeans, and 'Jewish Christian' communities. He also explores the contemporary interest in divinatory knowledge among Neoplatonists. Offering a critical re-reading of key Manichaean texts, Han shows how Manichaeans used concepts of prophethood and revelation within specific rhetorical agendas to address urgent issues facing their communities. His book highlights the contingent production of discourse and shows how contemporary theories of rhetoric and textuality can be applied to the study of ancient texts.

Jae Han is Assistant Professor in Religious Studies and the program for Judaic Studies at Brown University

Michael Motia is a lecturer in the Religious Studies and Classics Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston

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]]> 4383 no Anthony Kaldellis, "The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium" (Oxford UP, 2024) In recent decades, the study of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, has been revolutionized by new approaches and more sophisticated models for how its society and state operated. No longer looked upon as a pale facsimile of classical Rome, Byzantium is now considered a vigorous state of its own, inheritor of many of Rome's features, and a vital node in the first truly globalized world. The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford UP, 2024) is the first full, single-author history of the eastern Roman empire to appear in over a generation. Covering political and military history as well as all the major changes in religion, society, demography, and economy, Anthony Kaldellis's volume is divided into ten chronological sections which begin with the foundation of Constantinople in 324 AD and end with the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. The book incorporates new findings, explains recent interpretive models, and presents well-known historical characters and events in a new light. Dr. Anthony Kaldellis is Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. His previous books include A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities; Streams of gold, Rivers of Blood; Romanland, and, as translator and editor, Prokopios’ The Secret History. In 2019, he began hosting the podcast “Byzantium & Friends.” Evan Zarkadas (MA) is an independent scholar of European and Medieval history and an educator. He received his master’s in history from the University of Maine focusing on Medieval Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, medieval identity, and ethnicity during the late Middle Ages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Sun, 07 Apr 2024 08:00:00 -0000 full 25 New Books Network An interview with Anthony Kaldellis In recent decades, the study of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, has been revolutionized by new approaches and more sophisticated models for how its society and state operated. No longer looked upon as a pale facsimile of classical Rome, Byzantium is now considered a vigorous state of its own, inheritor of many of Rome's features, and a vital node in the first truly globalized world. The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford UP, 2024) is the first full, single-author history of the eastern Roman empire to appear in over a generation. Covering political and military history as well as all the major changes in religion, society, demography, and economy, Anthony Kaldellis's volume is divided into ten chronological sections which begin with the foundation of Constantinople in 324 AD and end with the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. The book incorporates new findings, explains recent interpretive models, and presents well-known historical characters and events in a new light. Dr. Anthony Kaldellis is Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. His previous books include A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities; Streams of gold, Rivers of Blood; Romanland, and, as translator and editor, Prokopios’ The Secret History. In 2019, he began hosting the podcast “Byzantium & Friends.” Evan Zarkadas (MA) is an independent scholar of European and Medieval history and an educator. He received his master’s in history from the University of Maine focusing on Medieval Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, medieval identity, and ethnicity during the late Middle Ages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices In recent decades, the study of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantium, has been revolutionized by new approaches and more sophisticated models for how its society and state operated. No longer looked upon as a pale facsimile of classical Rome, Byzantium is now considered a vigorous state of its own, inheritor of many of Rome's features, and a vital node in the first truly globalized world.

The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium (Oxford UP, 2024) is the first full, single-author history of the eastern Roman empire to appear in over a generation. Covering political and military history as well as all the major changes in religion, society, demography, and economy, Anthony Kaldellis's volume is divided into ten chronological sections which begin with the foundation of Constantinople in 324 AD and end with the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century. The book incorporates new findings, explains recent interpretive models, and presents well-known historical characters and events in a new light.

Dr. Anthony Kaldellis is Professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. His previous books include A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities; Streams of gold, Rivers of Blood; Romanland, and, as translator and editor, Prokopios’ The Secret History. In 2019, he began hosting the podcast “Byzantium & Friends.”

Evan Zarkadas (MA) is an independent scholar of European and Medieval history and an educator. He received his master’s in history from the University of Maine focusing on Medieval Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, medieval identity, and ethnicity during the late Middle Ages.

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