Religion, Italo-Roman, Archaeology of

2014 ◽  
pp. 6289-6296
Author(s):  
Jean MacIntosh Turfa
Keyword(s):  
Roman Archaeology

Archaeology, Greco-Roman

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Roman Archaeology ◽  
Historical Material ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Social ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Insight Into

Greco-Roman archaeology is an indispensable source of scholarship for biblical scholars. Those who work in a largely textual discipline benefit from conversation with archaeologists to situate literary data within its historical material contexts. Greco-Roman archaeology can also provide insight into the economic, social, political, and religious lives of persons in the ancient world, including marginalized persons whose lives are often obscured by elite literary material. Lastly, Greco-Roman archaeology and biblical studies have intertwined histories and entanglements with colonialism, and comparative work helps to uncover those legacies, especially where they are still operative in the present. While biblical scholars might long for evidence that directly connects to specific individuals in the earliest Christ communities (and thus to the texts of the New Testament), archaeological evidence most often provides evidence for context and not positivist truth claims. Biblical scholars looking, for example, for a particular building where Paul might have slept or where the first Christ communities may have met will be disappointed by the archaeological evidence. Though this evidence is rich and diverse and specific, it does not tell us about the particular individuals biblical scholars so often seek. In other words, the questions biblical scholars ask of Greco-Roman archaeology are often unanswerable. A better use of Greco-Roman archaeology is to guide biblical scholars in asking better questions and learning about the social, economic, and material context from which texts and communities emerge.

From One Colonialism to Another

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Mattingly
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Essential Point ◽  
Roman Archaeology ◽  
British Military ◽  
Military Administration ◽  
Modern Context ◽  
Modern Experience ◽  
Remote Past ◽  
Made In

This chapter demonstrates how theories of modern and ancient colonialism have become interwoven and how this has affected the development of Roman archaeology in the independent countries of the Maghreb. Morocco (1956), Algeria (1963), and Tunisia (1957) gained their independence from France. The Italians held Libya (or parts of it) from 1911 until 1942, when the country fell under the British Military Administration until independence was achieved in 1951. There are inevitably “discrepant experiences” of imperialism and colonialism in the modern context, far from positive for the indigenous people (though nationalist movements grew out of resistance), while some of the old colons still peddle the myth about a lost golden age. It is inevitable in these circumstances that the modern experience should have an impact on the debate about the more remote past. The essential point made in this chapter is that all these different viewpoints must be understood in their modern as well as ancient contexts and that however wrongheaded some theories now appear we should not exclude them from debate.

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