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Dark tourism is the practice of visiting sites associated with death and disaster. Participation is increasing, yet the machinations behind dark tourism remain shrouded in mystery, and intentionally so. This book, a companion to I Am The Dark Tourist Travels to the Darkest Sites on Earth, explores the seductive premise of 'transformation' that dark tourism offers: that visiting memorials to past tragedy will ultimately lead us to become better versions of ourselves. Championed by enthusiastic governments — notably in the UK — 'must have' memorialisation provides an opportunity to engage the public with contrived grief from the past to be replaced by establishment neglect in the future. From the waters of Loch Ness to the chaos of Mexico's Dia de Muertos, H.E. Sawyer considers the questions feared by state-sponsored dark tourism, and poses one of his own: "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
This Festschrift honours Günter Stemberger on the occasion of his 75th birthday on 7 December 2015 and contains 41 articles from colleagues and students. The studies focus on a variety of subjects pertaining to the history, religion and culture of Judaism – and, to a lesser extent, of Christianity – from late antiquity and the Middle Ages to the modern era.
Scattered throughout the Talmud, the founding document of rabbinic Judaism in late antiquity, can be found quite a few references to Jesus--and they're not flattering. In this lucid, richly detailed, and accessible book, Peter Schäfer examines how the rabbis of the Talmud read, understood, and used the New Testament Jesus narrative to assert, ultimately, Judaism's superiority over Christianity. The Talmudic stories make fun of Jesus' birth from a virgin, fervently contest his claim to be the Messiah and Son of God, and maintain that he was rightfully executed as a blasphemer and idolater. They subvert the Christian idea of Jesus' resurrection and insist he got the punishment he deserved in ...
The Aramaic incantation bowls from Sasanian Mesopotamia are the most important source we have for studying the everyday beliefs of the Jewish, Christian, Mandaean, Manichaean, Zoroastrian and Pagan communities on the eve of the Islamic conquests. In A Corpus of Syriac Incantation Bowls, Marco Moriggi presents new editions of forty-nine Syriac incantation bowls that were originally published between 1853 and 2012, with accompanying introductions, translations, philological notes, photographs and glossaries. Furthermore, there is a detailed analysis of the Estrangela and Manichaean scripts as used on the bowls, together with newly drawn script charts. In gathering, organising and updating most...
Medicine on the margins -- Trends and methods in the study of Talmudic medicine -- Precursors of Talmudic medicine -- Empiricism and efficacy -- Talmudic medicine in its Sasanian context.
"In 1538, a partnership of Jewish silk makers in the city of Bologna published a book entitled Sefer òHasidim, a compendium of rituals, stories, and religious instruction that primarily originated in medieval Franco-Germany. This book tells the story of how these men came to produce such a book"--
This volume continues the tradition of New Seals and Inscriptions, Hebrew, Idumean and Cuneiform (Sheffield Phoenix, 2007) by featuring analyses by eminent scholars of some of the archaeological treasures from Dr. Shlomo Moussaieff’s outstanding collection. These contributions signal fresh approaches to the study of ancient artifacts and underscore the role of archaeological evidence in reconstructing the legacy of antiquity, especially that of the biblical period. The contributors are Kathleen Abraham, Chaim Cohen, Robert Deutsch, Claire Gottlieb, Martin Heide, Richard S. Hess, W. G. Lambert†, André Lemaire, Meir Lubetski, Matthew Morgenstern, Alan Millard, Lawrence J. Mykytiuk, and Peter van der Veen.
This volume brings together thirteen studies by as many experts in the study of one or more ancient or medieval magical traditions, from ancient Mesopotamia and Pharaonic and Greco-Roman Egypt to the Greek world, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It lays special emphasis on the recurrence of similar phenomena in magical texts as far apart as the Akkadian cuneiform tablets and an Arabic manuscript bought in Egypt in the late-twentieth century. Such similarities demonstrate to what extent many different cultures share a “magical logic” which is strikingly identical, and in particular they show the recurrence of certain phenomena when magical practices are transmitted in written form and often preserve, adopt and adapt much older textual units.
Biblical Psalms are a common heritage of Jewish and Christian cultures. Serving for the common liturgy of the Jerusalem Temple and individual prayers since biblical times they inspired Hebrew poetical language. The Qumran community, as well as Jewish and Christian communities of Late Antiquity attributed to them a special authority and apotropaic function. Quoted and interpreted in various ways in the New Testament and Rabbinic tradition they had a fundamental role in regular liturgies since the Middle Ages. Referred to in medical texts, recited on pilgrimages and at funeral vigils they represented an important aspect of folk religion and the formation of religious identity. The present volume is intended to show the many ways the Psalms were used and enjoyed a lasting popularity in regular and folk religion, collectively and individually, from antiquity until today.
In the Wake of the Compendia presents papers that examine the history of technical compendia as they moved between institutions and societies in ancient and medieval Mesopotamia. This volume offers new perspectives on the development and transmission of technical compilations, looking especially at the relationship between empirical knowledge and textual transmission in early scientific thinking. The eleven contributions to the volume derive from a panel held at the American Oriental Society in 2013 and cover more than three millennia of historical development, ranging from Babylonian medicine and astronomy to the persistence of Mesopotamian lore in Syriac and Arabic meditations on the prope...