Jerusalem Obscured: The Crescent on the Temple: The Dome of the Rock as Image of the Ancient Jewish Sanctuary

To begin with, what is it? In order to answer this question one must, of course, qualify it by asking—to whom? Pamela Berger in The Crescent on the Temple: The Dome of the Rock as Image of the Ancient Jewish Sanctuary has done a great service by supplying us with a history of the iconographic representation of Jerusalem\u27s Dome of the Rock (the Qubbat al-Sakhrah). While no publication could ever exhaustively summarize the countless visual and literary portrayals of this world heritage site, Berger not only makes a valiant attempt at such but necessarily changes the way that almost all scholars and untrained alike look at this edifice in the present. The images she examines are worth far more than a thousand words. Various depictions of the holy site perched on Mt. Moriah in the al-Haram al-Sharif (“the Noble Sanctuary”) found across the world in Islamic homes and public buildings, on advertisements produced by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, and memorabilia purchased by pilgrims—make this little understood but extraordinarily beautiful structure one the most well-known on the planet. Rising above white marble and once multicolored gold and glass mosaic, its famous, now gold-covered Dome has captured the attention of those looking upon the old city of Jerusalem from several directions since the end of the seventh century. Inside marble and elaborate mosaics, the largest preserved set from before the twelfth century anywhere in the area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, provide a glorious ring around sacred rock and cave. Frankly, upon consideration of its long history and Berger\u27s work on the history of its representation, this review author doesn\u27t even know where to begin

Pilgrimage in Turbulent Contexts: One Hundred Years of Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

In this paper, I review select developments in the last one hundred years of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic pilgrimage to sites found today in Israel and the Occupied Territories. I argue that only by viewing the pilgrimages under analysis as dissipative systems, is one able to explain historical change in this most turbulent of contexts. When combined with an understanding of pilgrimage as social action, this approach enables historians of religions to account for not only the restructuring of pilgrimages over time but also to understand dynamics surrounding ritual birth and death. Furthermore, the political strategies of traditionalists and revivalists who attempt to authenticate contemporary ritual behavior by linking it up to purportedly longstanding, unchanged practices are undermined. After initially focusing upon changes in pilgrimage catalyzed by socio-political events, I discuss the birth of distinctively new pilgrimages associated with the rise of the State of Israel as well as the demise of several other pilgrimages in the years since 1948

Using Bourdieu to Answer Spivak: On the Study of Historical Subaltern Religious Practices

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, in her 1988 publication “Can the Subaltern Speak?,” famously challenges the ability of scholars—educated and operating within the dominating power structures of oftentimes European colonizing transnational political and religious movements—to ever grasp subaltern religion. This skepticism logically extends to the work of historians investigating the obscured religious traditions of past cultures that have been overlooked, overwhelmed, and suppressed. In this paper, I lay out a restrained strategy inspired in part by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and based upon my own historical work for circumventing some forms of historical blindness that conceal subaltern pasts. In conclusion, a plea is made for robust protections securing access to evidence about the historical past

The Battle for Jerusalem: Marcel Dubois\u27 Challenge to Roman Catholics, Israeli Jews, and Christian Zionists

For several decades, the face of Christian Zionism in Jerusalem was not the International Christian Embassy or John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel but a French/Israeli Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University—the Dominican priest, Fr. Marcel-Jacques Dubois. In this paper, Dubois’ once influential form of Christian Zionism is discussed. While few today outside of Israel and Rome are familiar with his brand of non-premillenial dispensationalist Christian Zionism, I will lay out the persuasive relevance and challenge of his work for those making claims on Jerusalem today

New Israeli power broker seeks to rewrite history to justify violence against Palestinians

A right-wing Israeli politician is trying to recast a key part of American history. That’s not a usual subject for an Israeli Cabinet member. But Itamar Ben-Gvir is trying to make his anti-Palestinian movement seem less extremist and more appealing to Jews and the international community. A rewrite of American history could help him do it. In a November 2022 speech in Jerusalem after the recent Israeli elections, Ben-Gvir memorialized Rabbi Meir Kahane, an ultranationalist leader from the U.S. who moved to Israel and was both elected to Israel’s Parliament and convicted of terrorism before being assassinated in 1990. Ben-Gvir declared that Kahane and his followers saved Jews from the Soviet Union’s antisemitism during the 1970s and 1980s. Kahane is best known in the U.S. as the founder of the Jewish Defense League, which was originally headquartered in New York City. From the 1960s through about 2001, this group was responsible for numerous terrorist and racist attacks against African Americans, Muslims, Jewish academics and public figures, as well as foreign diplomats

Archaeologists as Activists - M. Jay Stottman

Archaeologists as Activists: Can Archaeologists Change the World? is comprised of papers edited by M. Jay Stottman—many of which were initially prepared for a session at the 2004 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology in St. Louis. The focus of this volume is “activist archaeology” as theorized and performed by archaeologists working in the last few decades in the United States. While the specific topics addressed are quite local, the questions raised and practices deployed are highly significant for archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians engaged in international settings. First, I must make a few disclaimers. This reviewer is neither a field archaeologist nor a specialist in American history. Instead, I am a historian of ancient religions with an expertise in the ethics of historical belief regularly working in Jerusalem. I am especially interested in the application of the authors’ various forms of “activist archaeology” in this alternative turbulent setting where the representation of the past is regularly a tool in the service of political, economic, religious, as well as other societal and human interests

Levinas, Adorno, and the Ethics of the Material Other by Eric Nelson, SUNY Press, 2020 pp. 480

This is a number of reviews and responses to Eric S. Nelson\u27s Levinas, Adorno, and the Ethics of Materials Other (2020) SUNY Press. This includes: The Relation of the Ethics of the Material Other to the Rights of the Stranger by Emilia Angelova Nelson\u27s Defense of Asymmetrical Ethics: On Religion and Human Rights by Curtis Hutt On Nelson and East Asian Philosophies by Leah Kalmanson Author Response: The Ethics of the Material Other and the Right of the Other by Eric S. Nelso

The Sorrows of Mattidia: A New Translation and Commentary

This volume offers a new translation of the Pseudo-Clementine family narrative here known as The Sorrows of Mattidia. It contains a full introduction which explores the obscured origins of the text, the plot, and main characters, and engages in a comparison of the portrayal of pagan, Jewish, and Christian women in this text with what we encounter in other literature. It also discusses a general strategy for how historians can utilize fictional narratives like this when examining the lives of women in the ancient world. This translation makes this fascinating source for late antique women available in this form for the first time.https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/gchr_books/1000/thumbnail.jp

John Dewey and the Ethics of Historical Belief: Religion and the Representation of the Past

Uses the thought of John Dewey to address the ethics of historical belief within religious and critical historiographical traditions.John Dewey and the Ethics of Historical Belief addresses the ethics of the representation of the past with a focus on the justification of historical belief within religious and critical historiographical traditions. What makes a belief about the past justified? What makes one historical belief preferable to another? A great deal rides on how these questions are answered. History textbook wars take place across the globe, from California to India. Cultural heritage protection is politicized and historical research is commonly deployed in support of partisan agendas.This book explores not only John Dewey’s relatively unknown contribution to this topic, but also the leading alternatives to his approach. Author Curtis Hutt focuses attention on the debate among those most influenced by Dewey’s thought, including Richard Rorty, Richard Bernstein, James Kloppenberg, Wayne Proudfoot, and Jeffrey Stout. He also reviews the seminal work of Van Harvey on the relationship between historians and religious believers. Dewey is cast as a vigorous opponent of those who argue that justified historical belief depends upon one’s religious tradition. Strongly resisted is the idea that historical belief can be justified simply on account of acculturation. Instead, Dewey’s view that beliefs are justified as a result of theorized historical inquiry is emphasized. In order to prevent moral blindness, the responsible historian and theologian alike are advised to attend to witnesses to the past that arise from outside of their own traditions.https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/gchr_books/1002/thumbnail.jp