New Books in Ancient History

Although the Epistle of Barnabas may be best known for its Two Ways Tradition or its anti-Jewish use of Scripture, its contents reveal much that will be of interest to anyone studying Christian origins. In keeping with other contributions to the Apostolic Fathers Commentary Series, Jonathon Lookadoo's book The Epistle of Barnabas: A Commentary (Cascade Books, 2022) not only introduces readers to critical issues such as date, authorship, and opponents but also reflects on the multifaceted scriptural interpretations at play within the argument and sketches the theological beliefs that underlie the text. The commentary also provides a fresh English translation of the Greek text while endeavoring to highlight the internal literary connections within the Epistle of Barnabas. In so doing, this book provides a knowledgeable and accessible interpretation of a fascinating early Christian document. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World (W. W. Norton & Company, 2022) by Anthony Sattin tells the remarkable story of how nomads have fostered and refreshed civilization throughout history. Moving across millennia, Nomads explores the transformative, sometimes bloody, sometimes peaceful and symbiotic relationship between settled and mobile societies. Often overlooked in history, the story of the umbilical connections between these two ways of living generates a radical new view of human civilization. From the Neolithic revolution to the twenty-first century via the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the great nomadic empires of the Arabs and Mongols, the Mughals and the development of the Silk Road, nomads have been a perpetual counterbalance to the empires created by the power of human cities. Exploring the evolutionary biology and psychology of restlessness that makes us human, this sweeping history charts the power of nomadism from before the Bible to its seeming decline in the present day. Connecting us to mythology and the records of antiquity, Nomads explains why we leave home, and why we like to return again.Maggie Freeman is a PhD student in the School of Architecture at MIT. Her work focuses on histories of nomad-state relationships and uses of architecture in nomadic contexts, with a focus on the Middle East. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of New Books in Buddhist Studies, Dr. Richard Salomon speaks about his book The Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhāra: An Introduction with Selected Translation (Wisdom Publications, 2018). One of the great archeological finds of the 20th century, the Gandhāran Buddhist Texts, dating from the 1st century CE, are the oldest Buddhist manuscripts ever discovered. Richard discusses his pioneering research on these fascinating manuscripts, how the then obscure Gāndhārī language was deciphered, the historical and religious context from which these texts emerged, and the Gandhāran influence on other parts of the Buddhist world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 399 BC, the Greek philosopher Socrates was on trial. He believed in free-thought and sought truth by questioning everything, including society. And the Athenian government decided he was dangerous. Plato’s Apology is a first-person account of Socrates’ trial written in the form of a “dialogue,” an exploration of philosophical ideas through real and imagined conversations. Steven Smith is a professor of Political Science and Political Philosophy at Yale University. His research focuses on the problem of the ancients and moderns, and he is the author of books such as Modernity and Its Discontents and Reading Leo Strauss. See more information on our website, WritLarge.fm. Follow us on Twitter @WritLargePod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Babylonian Talmud is full of stories of demonic encounters, and it also includes many laws that attempt to regulate such encounters. In Demons in the Details: Demonic Discourse and Rabbinic Culture in Late Antique Babylonia (University of California Press, 2022), Sara Ronis takes the reader on a journey across the rabbinic canon, exploring how late antique rabbis imagined, feared, and controlled demons. Ronis contextualizes the Talmud's thought within the rich cultural matrix of Sasanian Babylonia, placing rabbinic thinking in conversation with Sumerian, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Syriac Christian, Zoroastrian, and Second Temple Jewish texts about demons to delve into the interactive communal context in which the rabbis created boundaries between the human and the supernatural, and between themselves and other religious communities. Demons in the Details explores the wide range of ways that the rabbis participated in broader discussions about beliefs and practices with their neighbors, out of which they created a profoundly Jewish demonology.Sara Ronis is Associate Professor of Theology at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas.Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press, 2020). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite decades of research into the historic settlements of Mainland Southeast Asia, our understanding of the region’s long-term settlement history remains incomplete. We know, for example, that mainland Southeast Asia was home to the world’s most extensive pre-industrial low-density urban complex at the site of Greater Angkor in Cambodia – but we don’t know how the site, and its low-density configuration, fits within the broader settlement history of the region. Yet understanding these settlement histories is important not only for understanding what happened in the past, but also for how we interpret settlement patterns developing across the region today. Joining Dr Natali Pearson on SSEAC Stories, Dr Ben Dharmendra takes us on a journey spanning millenia to explore the long-term history of settlement development across Mainland Southeast Asia.About Ben Dharmendra:Ben Dharmendra recently completed his PhD at the University of Sydney. His research is focused on how human settlements develop through time and the effects they create. His PhD project involved reconstructing the long-term history of Mainland Southeast Asian settlements and how this history influenced the development of the region from around 500BCE to 1900CE.For more information or to browse additional resources, visit the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre’s website: www.sydney.edu.au/sseac. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Imagine you could start from scratch and create the ideal city. How would you design it? Who would be in charge? This thought experiment was explored almost 2,400 years ago in the Republic, a text written by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Plato poses this hypothetical in order to get a deeper understanding of justice and human behavior and what it would look like to create a more just society. Demetra Kasimis is an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. She teaches on democratic theory and the history of political thought, particularly in classical Athens. See more information on our website, WritLarge.fm. Follow us on Twitter @WritLargePod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most of our information about Herod the Great derives from the accounts found in Josephus' Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities. Together they constitute a unique resource on one of the most famous personalities of ancient history. But from where did Josephus get his information? It is commonly agreed that his primary source was Nicolaus of Damascus, Herod's court historian, though the extent to which Josephus adapted his material remains disputed. Herod in History: Nicolaus of Damascus and the Augustan Context (Oxford UP, 2021) takes a modern, source-critical approach to Josephus' extensive account of Herod's reign to suggest that Josephus did indeed rely heavily on Nicolaus's work, but that previous scholarship was mistaken in seeing Nicolaus as a mere propagandist. Nicolaus may have begun his Universal History while Herod was alive, but he finished it after his death and so had no reason to write propaganda. This makes his work all the more interesting, for what we have instead is something rather different: a Syrian intellectual claiming a place in Augustan Rome, by telling a story about what the Augustan World looks like on the Eastern periphery. Kimberley Czajkowski and Benedikt Eckhardt delineate Nicolaus' approach to various critical topics in Herod's reign in order to reveal his perception of client kingship, the impact of empire, and the difficulties involved in ruling Judaea. This study uncovers an Eastern intellectual's view on how to succeed and how to fail in the new Augustan world order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The book of Exodus played a significant role in forming the identity of the Jewish people, with exodus traditions appearing throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. As the paradigmatic act of redemption, the exodus event is featured prominently not only in Israel’s prophetic corpus, but also in literature throughout the Second Temple period. The storyline of Exodus even provides the narrative framework for some New Testament texts, written by Jewish authors within a context of hoping for a new exodus.Join us as we speak with Seth Ehorn about Exodus in the New Testament (T&T Clark, 2022)Seth M. Ehorn teaches Greek language and linguistics in the department of Modern and Classical Languages at Wheaton College, USA.Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus (IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old and New: A Biblical Theology of Redemption (IVP Academic, 2020). He can be reached at mmorales@gpts.edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Iliad is among the oldest surviving works of literature, but for a long time The Iliad wasn’t written down. It’s a story that has influenced the world for over three thousand years, but for the ancient Greeks, it was history. One man, Homer, is credited with writing The Iliad, but it’s more likely that The Iliad was composed by many ancient storytellers—a lot of whom were women. Gregory Nagy is the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard University. His books include Homer: The Preclassic and The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours. See more information on our website, WritLarge.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices