Ancient Afterlives

In this episode of Ancient Afterlives, Joe Scales discusses all things related to the ancient synagogue with Drs Tine Rassalle and Rick Bonnie. This is part two of a two part interview, and we are going to organise a book giveaway on our Twitter page @AncientAlives for two books related to the synagogue. For more information please head on over to our Twitter page.

Dr Tine Rassalle is an archaeologist, researcher, writer, video gamer, and biblical scholar. Her work concentrates on the intersection of religious material culture and the archaeology of the Ancient Near East, with a focus on ancient Judaism and early Christianity. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Autumn of 2021. Her thesis examined coin deposits found in synagogues in Late Antique Palestine. This dissertation can be found entirely online at www.ancientsynagoguecoins.com. Tine has spent time working for several academic and non-profit organizations, including the Kinneret Regional Project, ASOR Early Career Scholars Committee, the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, and the Save Ancient Studies Alliance. She is about to start a new position as the curator for the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans.

Dr Rick Bonnie received his PhD in Archaeology in 2014 from the University of Leuven. He is currently a University Lecturer in Museology in the Department of Cultures at the University of Helsinki, and a founding member of the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires. His research interests include museum and heritage ethics, object biographies, decolonisation and provenance issues, museum collection histories, and sensory archaeology. He is currently working on two projects: the first "Making Home Abroad: Understanding Migrant Experiences and Heritage Implementation in Finland," is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. The second: "Religious Responses to Climate Change in the Southern Levant," which is funded by a UH 3-year project.

In this episode of Ancient Afterlives, Joe Scales discusses all things related to the ancient synagogue with Drs Tine Rassalle and Rick Bonnie. This is part one of a two part interview, and we are going to organise a book giveaway on our Twitter page @AncientAlives for two books related to the synagogue. For more information please head on over to our Twitter page.

Dr Tine Rassalle is an archaeologist, researcher, writer, video gamer, and biblical scholar. Her work concentrates on the intersection of religious material culture and the archaeology of the Ancient Near East, with a focus on ancient Judaism and early Christianity. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Autumn of 2021. Her thesis examined coin deposits found in synagogues in Late Antique Palestine. This dissertation can be found entirely online at www.ancientsynagoguecoins.com. Tine has spent time working for several academic and non-profit organizations, including the Kinneret Regional Project, ASOR Early Career Scholars Committee, the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, and the Save Ancient Studies Alliance. She is about to start a new position as the curator for the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans. 

Dr Rick Bonnie received his PhD in Archaeology in 2014 from the University of Leuven. He is currently a University Lecturer in Museology in the Department of Cultures at the University of Helsinki, and a founding member of the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires. His research interests include museum and heritage ethics, object biographies, decolonisation and provenance issues, museum collection histories, and sensory archaeology. He is currently working on two projects: the first "Making Home Abroad: Understanding Migrant Experiences and Heritage Implementation in Finland," is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. The second: "Religious Responses to Climate Change in the Southern Levant," which is funded by a UH 3-year project. 

Part 2 of our interview with Dr Katie Turner (independent researcher). 

Dr Turner holds a doctorate in Theology & Religious Studies from King’s College, London. Her research interests include: the clothing and material culture of the New Testament period; and, the reception of the New Testament in art and drama. Most recently, she has published two articles for the T&T Clark Jesus Library entitled, ‘Clothing and Dress in the Time of Jesus’ and ‘Reading Christian Art: An Introduction’. Her monograph, Costuming Christ: Re-Dressing First-Century ‘Jews’ and ‘Christians’ in Passion Dramas is forthcoming with the Library of New Testament Studies. She is an advisor and contributor for Urbs & Polis, a digital hub supporting the study of early Christianity within its Greco-Roman context. She has also acted as a historical consultant for Mattel, Inc. and Rockridge Press.

You can find her on Twitter @DrKatieTurner.

Some good sources:

Turner, Katie. “Clothing and Dress in the Time of Jesus.” in Bloomsbury T&T Clark Jesus Library. London: Bloomsbury, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350928077.003.

Turner, Katie. “’The Shoe is the Sign!’ Costuming Brian and Dressing the First Century.” In Jesus and Brian: Exploring the Historical Jesus and his Times via Monty Python's Life of Brian, edited by Joan E. Taylor, 221-37. London: T&T Clark, 2015.

Cohen, Shaye D. "Those who say they are Jews and are not: How do you know a Jew in Antiquity when you see one?". In The Beginnings of Jewishness, 25-68. London: University of California Press, Ltd., 1999.

Fine, Steven. "How do you know a Jew when you see one? Reflections on Jewish Costume in the Roman World." In Fashioning Jews: Clothing, Culture, and Commerce, edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon, 19-28. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2013.

Kupfer, Marcia A., ed. The Passion Story: From Visual Representation to Social Drama. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008.

Landis, Deborah. "Scene and Not Heard: The Role of Costume in the Cinematic Storytelling Process." Unpublished PhD, The Royal College of Art, 2003.

Maeder, Edward, ed. Hollywood and History: Costume Design in Film. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987.

Taylor, Joan E. What Did Jesus Look Like? London: T&T Clark, 2018.

A return to the Ancient Afterlives feed (and future intermittent releases will be coming) - Part 1 of our interview with Dr Katie Turner (independent researcher). Dr Turner holds a doctorate in Theology & Religious Studies from King’s College, London. Her research interests include: the clothing and material culture of the New Testament period; and, the reception of the New Testament in art and drama. Most recently, she has published two articles for the T&T Clark Jesus Library entitled, ‘Clothing and Dress in the Time of Jesus’ and ‘Reading Christian Art: An Introduction’. Her monograph, Costuming Christ: Re-Dressing First-Century ‘Jews’ and ‘Christians’ in Passion Dramas is forthcoming with the Library of New Testament Studies. She is an advisor and contributor for Urbs & Polis, a digital hub supporting the study of early Christianity within its Greco-Roman context. She has also acted as a historical consultant for Mattel, Inc. and Rockridge Press.

You can find her on Twitter @DrKatieTurner.

Some good sources:

Turner, Katie. “Clothing and Dress in the Time of Jesus.” in Bloomsbury T&T Clark Jesus Library. London: Bloomsbury, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350928077.003.

Turner, Katie. “’The Shoe is the Sign!’ Costuming Brian and Dressing the First Century.” In Jesus and Brian: Exploring the Historical Jesus and his Times via Monty Python's Life of Brian, edited by Joan E. Taylor, 221-37. London: T&T Clark, 2015.

Cohen, Shaye D. "Those who say they are Jews and are not: How do you know a Jew in Antiquity when you see one?". In The Beginnings of Jewishness, 25-68. London: University of California Press, Ltd., 1999.

Fine, Steven. "How do you know a Jew when you see one? Reflections on Jewish Costume in the Roman World." In Fashioning Jews: Clothing, Culture, and Commerce, edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon, 19-28. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2013.

Kupfer, Marcia A., ed. The Passion Story: From Visual Representation to Social Drama. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008.

Landis, Deborah. "Scene and Not Heard: The Role of Costume in the Cinematic Storytelling Process." Unpublished PhD, The Royal College of Art, 2003.

Maeder, Edward, ed. Hollywood and History: Costume Design in Film. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1987.

Taylor, Joan E. What Did Jesus Look Like? London: T&T Clark, 2018.

In a slight departure from our usual releases, some of the team reflect on the first season of Ancient Afterlives.

Volume warning. Songs play intermittently throughout this episode. Please be aware that sound volumes may vary. If you'd like a version without music, please listen to the other version.

Some bonus discussion with Katherine Gwyther and Ryan Turnbull about Dua Lip and her album Future Nostalgia (2020).

This episode contains music from Spotify and is not available on other platforms.

Some bonus discussion with Katherine Gwyther and Ryan Turnbull about Dua Lip and her album Future Nostalgia (2020).

This episode contains no music from Spotify and is available on other platforms.

We are now on a short hiatus. Season 2 will arrive January 2022. A bonus episode will arrive in the near future where the team has a chat about the experience of recording season 1. 

Thanks for listening!

In this week's episode, Simeon Whiting and Michael DeVries talk about their research in this edition of Coffee Chat. We apologise for Mike's audio quality, but we didn't want to lose this fascinating conversation. Simeon has just completed his PhD at the University of Birmingham. His thesis applies trauma theory and collective memory studies to the Reed Sea story. He is interested in trauma, masculinities and how they can shed light on biblical texts, and he has also published work on Exodus commentaries and their curiously narrow views on how the Pentateuch was composed. Alongside his research, Simeon works part-time as a writer, editor and tutor. He likes long-distance running and good coffee. His Twitter handle is: @simeonwhiting

Michael is completing his PhD, also at the University of Birmingham, and an Adjunct Professor at Azusa Pacific University in California. His research is focused on the War Scroll and related material known from the Dead Sea Scrolls. He examines questions of ritual, purification and defilement in these texts. He is a contributor and the co-general editor of the conference proceedings volume Ezra-Nehemiah and the Dead Sea Scrolls (SBL Press, forthcoming) and a contributor to the edited volume Purity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: Proceedings from the 10th Schwerte Qumran Meeting (Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming). His Twitter handle is: @mike_devries

Thanks for listening!

This week’s episode of Ancient Afterlives is slightly different! In this episode of coffee chat, Joseph Scales and Katherine Gwyther discuss what they’ve been reading recently. They chat about everything from J. Cheryl Exum’s revised edition of Fragmented Women and being a feminist in biblical studies, to the recent biblical film ‘Mary Magdalene’ (2018) and representing biblical voices accurately.

Katherine Gwyther is a third year PhD student at the University of Leeds. Her research focuses on Exodus and utopia. You can find her on twitter: @katgwyther.

Joseph Scales is an independent scholar. His research is on late Second Temple Judaism. His twitter handle is: @josephdscales

Short bibliography:

Exum, J. Cheryl. Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives. Second Edition. London: T&T Clark, 2015.

Guest, Deryn. Beyond Feminist Biblical Studies. The Bible in the Modern World 47. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012.

Svärd, Saana. Women and Power in Neo-Assyrian Palaces. State Archives of Assyria Studies 23. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2015.

This episode is hosted by Katherine Gwyther and Simeon Whiting. Our guest is Dr Charlotte Naylor Davis, who is a scholar of the Bible, of Heavy Metal, of feminism, of social theories and how all these things affect and contribute to our lives. In this episode we discuss a recent chapter that Dr Naylor Davis has written on reading Octavia Butler's view of scripture in "Earthseed" (a religion in her work) and how this intersects with our understanding of the Bible. The reference for this chapter is in the bibliography below. Dr Naylor Davis has a Patreon channel: https://www.patreon.com/MetalBiblicalScholar, Twitter: @NaylorDavis, and is co-organising a conference on "Heavy Metal and Global Premodernity." The call for papers (closing September 15th 2021) can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tZy-UuyFCWYmsZx9svCGD1Qs6NNnMJ4LDekZUjTRmYY/edit.

Bibliography:

Aichele, George, and Tina Pippin. “Introduction: Why the Fantastic?” Edited by George Aichele and Tina Pippin. Semeia 60 Fantasy and the Bible (1992): 1–6.

Boer, Roland. Jameson and Jeroboam. Semeia Series. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1996.

———. Novel Histories: The Fiction of Biblical Criticism. Playing the Texts 2. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.

Feldt, Laura. The Fantastic in Religious Narrative from Exodus to Elisha. BibleWorld. Sheffield: Equinox, 2012.

Lust, Johan. “Ezekiel’s Utopian Expectations.” Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino García Martínez. Edited by Anthony Hilhorst, Émile Puech, and Eibert Tigchelaar. JSJSup 122. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Miscall, Peter D. “Biblical Narrative and Categories of the Fantastic.” Semeia 60. Fantasy and the Bible (1992): 39–51.

Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible; Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. New York and London: Metheun, 1986.

Naylor Davis, Charlotte. “Butler’s Invention of Scripture in Light of Hebrew Wisdom Literature.” In God is Change: Religious Practices and Ideologies in the Works of Octavia Butler. Edited by Aparajita Nanda and Shelby L. Crosby. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2021.

Schweitzer, Steven J. Reading Utopia in Chronicles. OTS 442. London and New York: T & T Clark, 2007.

———. “Visions of the Future as Critique of the Present.” Utopia and Dystopia in Prophetic Literature. Edited by Ehud Ben Zvi. Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 92. Helsinki; Göttingen: Finnish Exegetical Society; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006.

Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979.

Tipton, Brian James. “A Backward Glance for a Queer Utopian Future: Genesis, Climate Change, and Hope as a Hermeneutic.” BibInt28 (2020): 466–94.

Uhlenbruch, Frauke. The Nowhere Bible: Utopia, Dystopia, Science Fiction. SBR 4. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015.

Zipes, Jack. “The Messianic Power of Fantasy in the Bible.” Edited by George Aichele and Tina Pippin. Semeia 60. Fantasy and the Bible (1992): 7–21.

Thanks for listening!

This episode is hosted by Simeon Whiting and Katherine Gwyther. Our guest is Dr Tupá Guerra's (PhD University of Birmingham, UK), and in this episode we discuss her research on demonology and magic in the Dead Sea Scrolls. She has bachelor’s and Master's degree in History from the University of Brasilia. She is currently head of historical research at the Museu do TCU in Brazil and is also a podcaster, talking about topics related to demonology, antiquity, and magic. You can find her on Twitter @tupaguerra

A short bibliography around this topic is below:

Alexander, Philip S. “Magic and Magical Texts.” Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 502–504. 

Bohak, Gideon. Ancient Jewish Magic: A History. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 

Bohak, Gideon. “Mystical Texts, Magic, and Divination.” T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by George Brooke and Charlotte Hempel. Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018. 

Brooke, George. “4Q341: An Exercise for Spelling and for Spells?” Pages 271–82 in Writing and Ancient Near Eastern Society: Papers in Honour of Alan R. Millard. Edited by Piotr Bienkowski, Christopher Mee, and Elizabeth Slater. New York ; London: Bloomsbury, 2005. 

Falk, Daniel K. “Liturgical Texts.” T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by George Brooke and Charlotte Hempel. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018. 

Frankfurter, David. Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic. Brill, 2019.

Thanks for listening!

This episode is hosted by Simeon Whiting and Katherine Gwyther. In this episode we discussed a forthcoming article with Joseph Scales: “Bathing Jewish, Bathing Greek: Developing an Approach to De-Categorising Hellenism and Judaism.” For more information, please contact us on twitter @AncientAlives or our guest @josephdscales.

This episode is marked explicit due to a reference to a particular theoretical lens, which can be found in the bibliography. Works that were referenced during the episode include:

Baker, Cynthia. “A ‘Jew’ by Any Other Name?” Journal of Ancient Judaism 2 (2011): 153–180.

Bonnie, Rick and Julian Richard. “Building D1 at Magdala Revisited in the Light of Public Fountain Architecture in the Late-Hellenistic East.” Israel Exploration Journal 62 (2012): 71–88.

De Luca, Stefano and Anna Lena. “The Mosaic of the Thermal Bath Complex of Magdala Reconsidered: Archaeological Context, Epigraphy and Iconography.” Pages 1–33 in Knowledge and Wisdom: Archaeological and Historical Essays in Honour of Leah Di Segni. Edited by Giovanni C. Bottini, L. Daniel Chrupcała and Joseph Patrich. Milan: Edizioni Terra Santa, 2014.

Guest, Deryn. “From Gender Reversal to Genderf*ck: Reading Jael through a Lesbian Lens.” In Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship. Edited by T. J. Hornsby and K. Stone (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2010), 9–43.

Johnson, Mark. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Lakoff, George. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Lena, Anna. “Magdala 2008: Preliminary Report.” HA-ESI125 (2013): http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=5433&mag_id=120.

Mroczek, Eva. “The Hegemony of the Biblical in the Study of Second Temple Literature,” Journal of Ancient Judaism 6 (2015): 2–35.

Thanks for listening!