History of Controlled Environment Horticulture: Ancient Origins

In the first century CE, two Roman agricultural writers, Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella and Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), referred to proto-greenhouses (specularia) constructed for the Emperor Tiberius (42 BCE–37 CE) presumably adjacent to his palace, the Villa Jovis on the Isle of Capri. Pliny stated in Historia Naturalis (Book 19, 23:64) that the specularia consisted of beds mounted on wheels that were moved into the sun, and on wintry days withdrawn under the cover of frames glazed with transparent stone (lapis specularis) to provide fruits of cucumis. According to Pliny, this was “a delicacy for which the Emperor Tiberius, had a remarkable partiality; in fact there was never a day on which he was not supplied it.” The cucumis fruits described by Columella and Pliny, long mistranslated as cucumbers, Cucumis sativus, were in fact long-fruited melons, Cucumis melo subsp. melo Flexuosus Group. They are known today as vegetable melons, snake melons, and faqqous, and were highly esteemed in Rome and ancient Israel.

Rumah-Ku, Rumah Doa Segala Bangsa: Telaah terhadap Yesaya 56:1-8 sebagai Hasil Interkultural Israel Paska Pembuangan

Intercultural is a necessity when we meet other people or other communities. Awareness of building relationships in a spirit of equality. In intercultural encounters, the horizon for culture will experience renewal. Text is also a product of culture, which can also experience intercultural encounters. One of the intercultural texts is Isaiah 56: 1-8. This text is important in intercultural theology because it’s contains a theology that is different from ancient Israel. This research was conducted in order to investigate the intercultural processes that occur in the text of Isaiah 56: 1-8. In order to elaborate on the theme, i will present of the pre-exilic community, the exile community and the post-exil community. The description of the three communities is important in the context of detecting intercultural texts. After becoming clear the intercultural process of the text, the text will be used as a foothold in formulating intercultural missions that are relevant to the church in Indonesia. AbstrakDalam sebuah perjumpaan dengan individu atau komunitas lain, interkultural adalah sebuah keniscayaan. Kesadaran akan teologi interkultural menjadi penting, dalam rangka membangun kesadaran membangun relasi dalam semangat kesetaraan. Dalam perjumpaan interkultural, horizon terhadap budaya akan mengalami kebaharuan. Teks sesungguhnya juga adalah produk budaya, yang juga bisa mengalami perjumpaan interkultural. Salah satu teks yang mengalami interkultural adalah Yesaya 56:1-8. Teks ini amat menarik karena mengandung teologi yang berbeda dengan Israel kuno. Penelitian ini dilakukan dalam rangka menelisikproses interkultural yang terjadi pada teks Yesaya 56:1-8. Dalam rangka mengelaborasi tema tersebut, maka penulis akan menyajikan gambaran komunitas pra-pembuangan, komunitas pada masa pembuangan dan komunitas paska pembuangan. Gambaran ketiga komunitas tersebut menjadi penting dalam rangka mendeteksi interkultural pada teks. Setelah menjadi terang proses interkultural pada teks, teks tersebut akan dijadikan pijakan dalam merumuskan misi interkultural yang relevan bagi gereja di Indonesia.

Ahistorical interpretation of the Torah narratives in the Wisdom of Solomon

The traditional scholarly title (since the early twentieth century) for the last section of the Wisdom of Solomon, chapters 11–19 (or for some, 10–19) is the “Book of History.” This is a misleading designation because the author of the Wisdom of Solomon chose to present certain events from the exodus and wilderness traditions of ancient Israel not in the context of a continuous historical narrative, but rather as paradigmatic examples of God’s justice and mercy toward both the righteous and the ungodly. The purpose of the second half of the Wisdom of Solomon is pedagogical and apologetic rather than historical. The author’s avoidance of proper names and the consistent division of humanity in moral terms (the righteous vs the ungodly/unrighteous) rather than along ethnic lines (Israel vs Egyptians or Canaanites) should be taken seriously as an effort to universalize the lessons of Israel’s stories. The consistent message of both the antitheses and the excurses in chapters 11–19 is that God manifests both justice and mercy in disciplining human beings (both the righteous and the unrighteous) with suffering. Thus, it would be preferable to call chapters 11–19 either the “Book of Discipline” or the “Book of Divine Justice and Mercy.”

Purity and Pollution in the Hebrew Bible

In this book, Yitzhaq Feder presents a novel and compelling account of pollution in ancient Israel, from its emergence as an embodied concept, rooted in physiological experience, to its expression as a pervasive metaphor in social-moral discourse. Feder aims to bring the biblical and ancient Near Eastern evidence into a sustained conversation with anthropological and psychological research through comparison with notions of contagion in other ancient and modern cultural contexts. Showing how numerous interpretive difficulties are the result of imposing modern concepts on the ancient texts, he guides readers through wide-ranging parallels to biblical attitudes in ancient Near Eastern, ethnographic, and modern cultures. Feder demonstrates how contemporary evolutionary and psychological research can be applied to ancient textual evidence. He also suggests a path of synthesis that can move beyond the polarized positions which currently characterize modern academic and popular debates bearing on the roles of biology and culture in shaping human behavior.

Thinking with Clay: Procreation and the Ceramic Paradigm in Israelite Religion

The cross-cultural connection between ceramic production and the creation of humans in the ancient Near East offers a new lens through which to examine biblical discourse about procreation and subject formation. The physical properties of clay make it an effective discursive tool in ancient Near Eastern texts, including the Hebrew Bible, for conceptualizing the processes that form and shape the human. Adopting a materialist approach, this article argues that biblical writers are not simply thinking about clay in relation to procreation and subject formation, but are thinking with it – that the raw materials, technologies, and objects of ceramic production helped to generate the ideologies and ritual processes that shape the human from gestation to birth and into early childhood. Material culture from ancient Israel supports this assessment. The manufacture of Judean Pillar Figurines out of clay and their apparent association with childbirth and the nurture of young children further suggest the prevalence of the ceramic paradigm in ancient religious ideology and ritual.