Early Publication on Queer Biblical Interpretation
As part of my forthcoming, and long gestating, project on homonormative and heteronormative interpretations of the Healing of the Centurion’s Slave, I endeavoured to collect all references to publications referring to possible sexual subtexts to the passage (Matthew 8:5-13//Luke 7:1-10). One obscure, but important, publication I got my hands on was Tom Horner’s annotated bibliography […]
Military Industrial Complex in the Golden Age
Last night I started reading The Complete Stardust the Super Wizard, which collects the stories about a Golden Age superhero created by Fletcher Hanks. If I remember correctly, Stardust comics were produced around 1940 or so. One story that surprised me was one wherein Stardust fought war profiteers – or at least a group […]
Black Like Lois
Here’s a blog post that interacts with an article I published about the racial politics of Superman family comics in the 1970s: http://moazedi.blogspot.ca/2014/02/lois-lane-is-curious-and-black.html
The (Un)Subversive Jesus
Robert Myles has yet another fantastic blog post, this time examining the entirely conventional rhetoric of subversion in historical Jesus studies. This is good food for thought as I write about the conventionality of scholarly work on the question of taxation in the Gospel of Mark. If these scholars’ Jesus were really so radical, why […]
SBL Presentation
I will be presenting a paper at SBL in San Diego this coming weekend, titled “Centurion as Rank of Peace? Social and Ideological Underpinnings of a New Testament Trope.” It will be in the Synoptic Gospels section (S22-244) on Saturday. Here is the abstract: More than anywhere else in the New Testament, the passion […]
Update on Military Inscription Discovered in Jerusalem.
Here is the additional information I have found: Text: [1st hand] Imp(eratori) Cae[sari divi Traiani] | Parthic(i) [f(ilio) divi Nerv]ae nep(oti) | Traiano [Hadri]ano August(o) | pont(ifici) ma[x(imo)] trib(unicia) pot(estate) XIIII | c[o(n)s(uli)] III p(atri) p(atriae) | l[eg(io) X F]reten[sis] [2nd hand] [Antoninia]na{e} Translation: [1st hand] To the Imperator Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, son […]
New military inscription discovered in Jerusalem
From the Jerusalem Post. The English translation reads: To the Imperator Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, son of the deified Traianus Parthicus, grandson of the deified Nerva, high priest, invested with tribunician power for the 14th time, consul for the third time, father of the country [dedicated by] the Tenth Legion Fretensis Antoniniana. I hope […]
Bad Theology = Gnosticism
I’ve been busy, so I’ll return to the series on Jews and the Roman army shortly. I just wanted to publicly reminisce about the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the way to discredit a given theological position was by suggesting it was a form of modern gnosticism. I think that rhetorical move is […]
Jews in the Early Roman Army, Part I: Unambiguous Instances in the Diaspora
I’ve found a number of inter-related issues frustrating when writing my dissertation around the question of who constitutes relevant data for discussion of Palestine and the early Roman Empire. I’m planning a short series of blog posts around the authenticity politics of Judaism and the Roman army. To start, it is commonly assumed that Jews […]
P.Yadin 11 on Magonius Valens
Welcome to the inaugural post of my new blog. I wanted to start it off with a look at a fascinating papyrus originating from the Judaean village of Ein Gedi from 6 May 124 CE. It was published as P.Yadin 11, but the official SBL Handbook abbreviation is 5/6Ḥev 11. The monumental work of the […]