Religious Studies Professor Helps Make Ancient Discovery

Religious Studies Professor Helps Make Ancient Discovery
 

Jodi Magness, UNC Kenan Distinguished Professor of religious studies, was recently featured on CBS17 news. During the newscast, Professor Magness discussed her ongoing excavation at Huqoq, an ancient synagogue in Galilee. CBS17’s Russ Bowen reports…


GALILEE, Israel (WNCN) — Buried in the earth for centuries and revealed slowly and methodically are the remains of a synagogue at Huqoq — an ancient Jewish village in Israel’s lower Galilee.

“I feel both lucky and very privileged because you know, my team and I are looking at mosaics and other things actually that have not been known of or visible to anybody, for hundreds and hundreds of years,” said Jodi Magness, UNC Kenan Distinguished Professor of religious studies.

“I started excavations there with the hopes of clarifying the nature of the fate of Jewish settlement in this part of Galilee against the background of the rise and spread of Christianity,” she added.

Magness said the journey also began with the hopes of excavating a kind of a synagogue building called the Galilean Type Synagogue.

That, she said, is “basically a very large basilica, kind of a rectangular building with columns inside to support the ceiling. That is best represented by the synagogue at Capernaum, which is just a couple of miles away from us.”

Magness and her team have discovered a well-preserved mosaic panel that decorates the floor just inside the main entrance. Included are what’s believed to be the names of artists or donors.

“It is actually not unusual to have donor inscriptions at the entrance to ancient synagogues when you have mosaic floors. So, I like to say that some things in Judaism haven’t changed in the last 1,600 years, because if you go into a synagogue today and I’m sure churches as well, for example, the first thing that you see is the list of the donors,” Magness said.

But that’s only part of what they’ve unveiled…


To read more of CBS17’s story and to see a clip from the newscast, CLICK HERE!

Posted in News & Events on July 14, 2023. Bookmark the permalink.

Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth, with Professor Jodi Magness

Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth, with Professor Jodi Magness
 

Jodi Magness, Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism, recently appeared on an episode of Sparks of History. Generally, this podcast focuses on the intersection between Jewish and world history, and features a wide range of insightful, informative and entertaining video interviews and podcasts with renown authors, historians and rabbis. For more information, click here!

Click here, to watch the entire interview and learn from Professor Magness about Masada, the famous site and story of the last stand of a group of Jewish rebels who held out against the Roman Empire. To read her book Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth, click here.

Posted in News & Events on May 24, 2023. Bookmark the permalink.

Professor Hugo Mendez releases new book, The Cult of Saint Stephen in Jerusalem: Inventing a Patron Martyr

Professor Hugo Mendez releases new book, The Cult of Saint Stephen in Jerusalem: Inventing a Patron Martyr
 

Congratulations to Religious Studies professor Hugo Mendez on the publication of The Cult of Saint Stephen in Jerusalem: Inventing a Patron Martyr (Oxford Early Christian Studies, 2023)! 

As the site of only a small and obscure Christian population between 135 and 313 CE, Jerusalem witnessed few instances of anti-Christian persecution. This fact became a source of embarrassment to the city in late antiquity―a period when martyr traditions, relics, and shrines were closely intertwined with local prestige. At that time, the city had every incentive to stretch the fame of its few, apostolic martyrs as far as possible-especially the fame of the biblical St. Stephen, the figure traditionally regarded as the first Christian martyr (Acts 6-8). What the church lacked in the quantity of its martyrs, it believed it could compensate for in an exclusive, local claim to the figure widely hailed as the “Protomartyr”, “firstborn of the martyrs”, and “chief of confessors” in contemporary sources.

This book traces the rise of the cult of Stephen in Jerusalem, exploring such historical episodes as the fabrication of his relics, the construction of a grand basilica in his honour, and the multiplication of the saint’s feast days. It argues that local church authorities promoted devotion to Stephen in the fifth century in a conscious attempt to position him as a patron saint for Jerusalem―that is, a symbolic embodiment of the city’s Christian identity and power. 

     

Posted in News & Events on April 13, 2023. Bookmark the permalink.

Professor Waleed Ziad’s book shortlisted for the British Association for South Asian Studies book prize!

Professor Waleed Ziad’s book shortlisted for the British Association for South Asian Studies book prize!
 

Join us in congratulating Religious Studies professor Waleed Ziad. His book entitled Hidden Caliphate: Sufi Saints Beyond the Oxus and Indus (Harvard, 2021) has been shortlisted for the British Association for South Asian Studies book prize!

Hidden Caliphate (winner of the Albert Hourani Award from the Middle East Studies Association and shortlisted for the Bloomsbury Pakistan book award) examines the development across Asia of Muslim revivalist networks from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.

For more information CLICK HERE!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in News & Events on April 13, 2023. Bookmark the permalink.

Jocelyn Burney: Digging into the lives of ancient Jewish communities

Jocelyn Burney: Digging into the lives of ancient Jewish communities
 

Religious studies Ph.D. student Jocelyn Burney relishes the public humanities aspect of her graduate work — from contextualizing a pottery exhibit in Carolina Hall to teaching the Hebrew Bible at a Raleigh women’s prison to supervising the work of undergraduate students at an archaeological dig in Israel.

Jocelyn Burney is used to getting up early. Really early. For the last 10 years, her summer mornings have begun promptly at 4 a.m. as an area supervisor for an archaeological dig at Huqoq in Israel’s Lower Galilee.

Burney is a Ph.D. student in religious studies who got hooked on archaeology as a 19-year-old undergraduate at Carolina when Kenan Distinguished Professor Jodi Magness first took students to Huqoq. (Magness is now her dissertation adviser.)

After traveling to the site and setting up shade tents, work begins around 5 a.m. to avoid the blistering heat. There’s a morning respite for breakfast at 8 a.m., then another fruit/hydration break affectionally called “elevensies” at 11 a.m. Burney supervises a group of students — teaching them, taking photographs, helping to document the excavation — as the team continues to unearth nearly 1,600-year-old mosaics in an ancient Jewish synagogue. It’s intense, physical work that wraps up around noon each day. Afternoons for students involve lectures and lab work — washing and cleaning pottery — while Burney spends the time writing up reports of the day…

To read more of this article CLICK HERE!

Posted in News & Events on April 12, 2023. Bookmark the permalink.

Professor David Lambert on Podcast “The Bible for Normal People” hosted by Peter Enns

Professor David Lambert on Podcast “The Bible for Normal People” hosted by Peter Enns
 

David Lambert, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible in its Ancient Near Eastern environment, recently appeared on an episode of the well-known podcast The Bible for Normal People. In this episode entitled “Is the Bible ‘Scripture'” Professor Lambert talks with hosts Peter Enns and Jared Byas about how scholars define “scripture,” how communities throughout history have changed the meaning and nature of biblical texts, and whether or not the Bible can ever be universally understood as scripture.

CLICK HERE to listen to the podcast as they explore the following questions:

  • What do we mean by “scripture”?
  • What kind of assumptions do people make about scripture?
  • What do scholars think about how and when the Hebrew Bible became viewed as sacred text?
  • How did ancient people throughout history understand what was going on with the books and writings that are now known as the Bible? How does that connect or relate to how we talk about it now?
  • How can we move toward a hermeneutic or a view of scripture that allows for a diversity of assemblages?
  • What does David mean by scripture being a “colonial project”?
  • What does David mean by the phrase “the tyranny of canonical assumptions”?
  • For religious communities moving into the future, or people who read the Bible devotionally, what does it mean if the Bible is (or isn’t) actually scripture? How does that change how people interact with the Bible?
  • Will there ever, or can there ever, be a universal understanding of what the Bible is?

Lambert         The Bible For Normal People

Posted in News & Events on April 5, 2023. Bookmark the permalink.

Professor Bart Ehrman on NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross

Professor Bart Ehrman on NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross
 

Bart Ehrman, the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor in Early Christian History, has recently appeared on NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross. In this episode, Professor Ehrman discusses his new book Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End (Simon and Schuster, 2023).

As Terry Gross states, “Bible scholar Bart Ehrman says interpretations of the Book of Revelation have created disastrous problems — from personal psychological damage to consequences for foreign policy and the environment.”

You can read the transcript and listen to the episode by CLICKING HERE!

Ehrman     NPR - Wikipedia     Armageddon

Posted in News & Events on April 5, 2023. Bookmark the permalink.

Witch Please Podcast: Holocaust Studies, Prof Andrea Cooper

Witch Please Podcast: Holocaust Studies, Prof Andrea Cooper
 

Professor Andrea Cooper, Leonard and Tobee Kaplan Scholar in Modern Jewish Thought and Culture, has recently appeared on an episode of Witch Please.

In this episode we bring in a guest, Andrea Dara Cooper (she/her), to talk about Holocaust Studies. Andrea is Associate Professor and Leonard and Tobee Kaplan Scholar in Modern Jewish Thought and Culture at UNC-Chapel Hill — and she is the author of Gendering Modern Jewish Thought (Indiana University Press, 2021). Tune in for a conversation about the function of allegory in Harry Potter. When does it work in this series? When does it fall short? What are the political implications of relying on the Holocaust to make new meaning in a fantasy world both chock full of stereotypes and severely lacking in diversity? If you enjoyed our episodes on Animal Studies, Eugenics, and Werewolves as Metaphor (just to name a few!), this is required listening!

Check out the podcast here!

Cooper

Posted in News & Events on March 30, 2023. Bookmark the permalink.

Summer 2023 Classes!

Summer 2023 Classes!
 

Check out a few of our upcoming course offerings for the summer. For a complete list, click here!

Posted in News & Events on March 26, 2023. Bookmark the permalink.

Podcast: Gendering Modern Jewish Thought, Prof Andrea Cooper

Podcast: Gendering Modern Jewish Thought, Prof Andrea Cooper
 

Professor Andrea Cooper, Leonard and Tobee Kaplan Scholar in Modern Jewish Thought and Culture, has recently appeared on a podcast discussing her book Gendering Modern Jewish Thought (Indiana University Press, 2021).

Check out the podcast here!

The idea of brotherhood has been an important philosophical concept for understanding community, equality, and justice. In Gendering Modern Jewish Thought (Indiana UP, 2021), Andrea Dara Cooper offers a gendered reading that challenges the key figures of the all-male fraternity of twentieth-century Jewish philosophy to open up to the feminine.

Cooper offers a feminist lens, which when applied to thinkers such as Franz Rosenzweig and Emmanuel Levinas, reveals new ways of illuminating questions of relational ethics, embodiment, politics, and positionality. She shows that patriarchal kinship as models of erotic love, brotherhood, and paternity are not accidental in Jewish philosophy, but serve as norms that have excluded women and non-normative individuals.

Gendering Modern Jewish Thought suggests these fraternal models do real damage and must be brought to account in more broadly humanistic frameworks. For Cooper, a more responsible and ethical reading of Jewish philosophy comes forward when it is opened to the voices of mothers, sisters, and daughters.

Gendering Modern Jewish Thought (New Jewish Philosophy and Thought) by [Andrea Dara Cooper]

Posted in News & Events on March 24, 2023. Bookmark the permalink.