Ritual Purity in Daily Life after 70 CE: The Chalk Vessel Assemblage from Shuʿafat as a Test Case

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Yonatan Adler
Keyword(s):  
Interwar Period ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
First Century ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Southern Levant ◽  
The Temple

Abstract Chalk vessels became common at Jewish sites throughout the Southern Levant beginning in the late first century BCE, apparently because Jews considered stone to be impervious to ritual impurity. It is commonly thought that a drastic decline in the phenomenon occurred after 70 CE as a direct result of the temple’s destruction—on the assumption that the central motivation for Jews’ observance of the purity regulations was the temple cult. These notions are reconsidered here in light of an impressive assemblage of chalk vessels recently unearthed at Shuʿafat, occupied during the brief 70–132 CE interwar period. The character of this assemblage, presented here preliminarily, suggests that both use and production of chalk vessels continued unabated for decades after 70 CE, contradicting the notion that the chalk vessel industry was reliant on a functioning temple and that observance of the purity laws was inexorably linked with the Jerusalem cult.

Sacred Space Becomes Public Space

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deonnie Moodie
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
First Century ◽  
Tourist Attraction ◽  
Public Interest Litigation ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Temple

At the turn of the twenty-first century, middle-class men and women formed non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and filed public interest litigation suits (PILs) in order to expand temple space, knock down buildings that block views of Kālīghāṭ’s façade, and remove undesirable materials and populations from its environs. Employing the language of cleanliness and order, they worked (and continue to work) to make Kālīghāṭ a “must-see” tourist attraction. Scholarship has shown that India’s new middle classes—those produced through India’s economic liberalization policies in the 1990s—desire highly visible forms demonstrating their modernity as well as their uniqueness on the international stage of urban space. The example of Kālīghāṭ indicates how India’s new middle classes build on the work of the old middle classes to deploy the temple as emblematic of both their modernity and their Indian-ness. In so doing, they read the idioms of public space onto sacred space.

Biosurveillance: A Modern Look

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Lee Brooks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Homeland Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Current State ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Security Operations

AbstractThe early part of the twenty-first century saw a revolution in the field of Homeland Security. The 9/11 attacks, shortly followed thereafter by the Anthrax Attacks, served as a wakeup call to the United States and showed the inadequacy of the current state of the nation’s Homeland Security operations. Biodefense, and as a direct result Biosurveillance, changed dramatically after these tragedies, planting the seeds of fear in the minds of Americans. They were shown that not only could the United States be attacked at any time, but the weapon could be an invisible disease-causing agent.

The People of the Book, 200 BCE–200 CE

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maristella Botticini ◽  
Zvi Eckstein
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Schools ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
First Century ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
The People ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Jewish Religion

This chapter discusses the well-documented shift of the religious norm that transformed the Jews into the People of the Book. During the first century BCE, some Jewish scholars and religious leaders promoted the establishment of free secondary schools. A century later, they issued a religious ordinance requiring all Jewish fathers to send their sons from the age of six or seven to primary school to learn to read and study the Torah in Hebrew. With the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish religion permanently lost one of its two pillars (the Temple) and set out on a unique trajectory. Scholars and rabbis, the new religious leaders in the aftermath of the first Jewish–Roman war, replaced temple service and ritual sacrifices with the study of the Torah in the synagogue—the new focal institution of Judaism.

Advanced Education

2019 ◽  
pp. 141-164
Author(s):  
William M. Schniedewind
Keyword(s):  
School Curriculum ◽  
Southern Levant ◽  
Advanced Education ◽  
Gettysburg Address ◽  
Flexible Part ◽  
Second Millennium Bce ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Scribal Tradition

Advanced education was the most flexible part of the scribal curriculum. It could be tailored to the particular specialty of the scribe: the palace, the temple, commerce, military, etc. The advanced curriculum was often taken from other spheres, such as temple hymns or rituals, and used for scribal study (much like the Gettysburg Address or the “Star-Spangled Banner” might be reused as part of a school curriculum). There is evidence of cuneiform literature including Gilgamesh, Adapa, and law codes like Hammurabi that have been excavated in the southern Levant dating to the second millennium BCE. This provides a tangible vector of transmission for these traditions into the early alphabetic scribal tradition.

scholarly journals Religion and covenantal praxis in first century Judeanism

2007 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Cromhout
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
First Century ◽  
Social Domains ◽  
The Temple ◽  
Cultural Features

This article indicates how the two cultural features of religion and covenantal praxis helped foster or shape Judean ethnic identity in the first century CE. It focuses on socialization into the three social domains of the Temple, the synagogue and the home. In these domains, Judean ethnic identity was dominated by the requirements of the Torah. At the same time the presence of Romans, the Herodians and the Gentiles within the ancestral land helped shape Judean identity as well.

The Sense of Nonsense in Fielding's Author's Farce

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-54
Author(s):  
Susan K. Ahern
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Deceptive Behavior ◽  
The Temple ◽  
The Way

Henry Fielding's Author's Farce, performed forty-one times in the spring and summer of 1730, was the hit of London's theatrical season. In this, his third play, Fielding turned away from the stylized realism of his Love in Several Masques (1728) and The Temple Beau (1730). In the earlier plays, and indeed throughout his career, he perceived and judged social behavior by comparing people who play roles in daily life to actors who assume roles on stage; in particular, he scrutinized the theatrical rituals and fashionable deceit of courting couples. By adopting the techniques of burlesque in The Author's Farce, he exposes simultaneously the false roles of courtship in daily life and the way that the theatre itself portrays such love-making. Understanding the technique by which Fielding criticizes courtship clearly reveals his larger purpose — to criticize the deceptive behavior and mercenary values, implicit in the stage's conventions, which the theatre fosters and endorses in real life.

The Acts of the Apostles and the Beginnings of Simonian Gnosis

1987 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 420-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerd Lüdemann
Keyword(s):  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Second Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
German Origin

The person of Simon encountered in Acts 8 has been a controversial figure ever since the rise of historical criticism. The range of opinions in the history of research varies from denying his existence to regarding him as the instigator of the gnostic movement that threatened the nascent early church in the second century. These contradictory results reflect the particular difficulty of the Simon question, which consists not least in the span of time that lies between the two oldest sources (Acts and Justin). Furthermore, an orderly report of Simon's gnostic teaching is encountered first in Irenaeus. In modern research, Simon Magus has been treated more or less as a test case for the larger question about gnostic backgrounds of the NT or about the existence of a first century Gnosis. With conscious or unconscious reference to this first century Gnosis, the majority of investigators (especially of German origin) has affirmed the existence of a first-century Gnostic Simon, and has neglected the above mentioned chronological problem. Only recently has the following judgement begun to gain dominance: ‘All attempts so far made have failed to bridge the gap between the Simon of Acts and the Simon of the heresiologists.’ This statement points to the lack of Simon's companion Helen (= ἔννοια) in Acts 8 and to the fact that the expression ‘great power (of God)’ (Acts 8. 10b) is not gnostic as such.

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