On Saints, Sinners, and Sex in the Apocalypse of Saint John and the Sefer Zerubbabel

The Apocalypse of St. John and the Sefer Zerubbabel [a.k.a Apocalypse of Zerubbabel] are among the most popular apocalypses of the Common Era. While the Johannine Apocalypse was written by a first-century Jewish-Christian author and would later be refracted through a decidedly Christian lens, and the Sefer Zerubbabel was probably composed by a seventh-century Jewish author for a predominantly Jewish audience, the two share much in the way of plot, narrative motifs, and archetypal characters. An examination of these commonalities and, in particular, how they intersect with gender and sexuality, suggests that these texts also may have functioned similarly as a call to reform within the generations that originally received them and, perhaps, among later medieval generations in which the texts remained important

Infancy Stories of Jesus: Apocrypha and Toledot Yeshu in Medieval Europe

This conference proceeding was originally published by the University of San Francisco Press through the Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Social Thought and the Ignatian Tradition of the University of San Francisco. The Lane Center Series explores intersections of faith and social justice. Featuring essays that bridge interdisciplinary research and community engagement, the series serves as a resource for social analysis, theological reflection, and education in the Jesuit tradition. Visit the Lane Center’s website to download each volume and view related resources at www.usfca.edu/lane-cente

Latteri on Weiss, \u27Sefer Yesirah and Its Contexts: Other Jewish Voices\u27

Book Review by Natalie Latteri on Tzahi Weiss\u27 Sefer Yesirah and Its Contexts: Other Jewish Voices. This review was originally published in the Journal of Medieval Worlds, Vol. 1, Number 1, pp. 117-120

A Dialogue on Disaster: Antichrists in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses and their Medieval Recensions

This paper examines textual and iconographic representations of antichrist personae in medieval Christian and Jewish manuscripts. Through a common language of polemics, Christians and Jews conflated antichrist personae to represent a more generalized category of apocalyptic antagonist that reflected the most significant temptations and threats to each respective religious community. As will be argued here, the greatest temptation and threat for Christians and Jews alike were those posed by members of the other religious grou

Latteri on Carlsmith, \u27A Renaissance Education: Schooling in Bergamo and the Venetian Republic, 1500-1650\u27

Book Review by Natalie Latteri on Christopher Carlsmith\u27s A Renaissance Education: Schooling in Bergamo and the Venetian Republic, 1500-1650\u27, originally published on H-Education (August, 2011) and commissioned by Jonathan Anuik https://networks.h-net.org/node/14281/reviews/16231/latteri-carlsmith-renaissance-education-schooling-bergamo-and-venetia

Playing the Whore: Illicit Union and the Biblical Typology of Promiscuity in the Toledot Yeshu Tradition

Toledot Yeshu, or “Stories about Jesus,” have been transmitted by Jews for centuries but only recently have begun to garner signifcant scholarly attention as part of a tradition of anti-Christian polemic. This paper contends that the varied depictions of Jesus’ conception in the Toledot corpus refect the intracommunal issues of forced conversion, apostasy, and overfamiliarity with non-Jews. The theme was neither new to the Toledot nor a product of the late-antique and medieval contexts that Jewish stories of Jesus frst circulated in. Rather, it echoes biblical representations of, and admonishments against, illicit relationships with non-Jews which ancient authors commonly depicted through a typology of sexual promiscuity. It is only when viewing Toledot presentations of Jesus’ conception in light of both contemporary events and the Jewish biblical literary tradition that we are able to grasp their previously unnoted functions as 1) Jewish selfcriticism regarding intercommunal relations; and, 2) a didactic warning to future generations against making similar mistakes

Latteri on Anderson, \u27British Universities Past and Present\u27

Book Review by Natalie Latteri on R. D. Anderson\u27s British Universities Past and Present, originally published on H-Education (June, 2011) and commissioned by Jonathan Anuik https://networks.h-net.org/node/14281/reviews/16221/latteri-anderson-british-universities-past-and-presen

Latteri on Crook, \u27Brasenose: The Biography of an Oxford College\u27

Book Review by Natalie Latteri on J. Mordaunt Crook\u27s Brasenose: The Biography of an Oxford College, originally published on H-Education (October, 2012) and commissioned by Jonathan Anuik https://networks.h-net.org/node/14281/reviews/16258/latteri-crook-brasenose-biography-oxford-colleg

Jewish Apocalypticism: An Historiography

Chapter 3 of \u27A Companion to the Premodern Apocalypse\u27 in the series Brill\u27s Companions to the Christian Tradition, Volume: 6

Pesher, ha-Zonah, and Teshuvah in Solomon’s Apocalypse: Text and Context of The Chronicle of Solomon bar Samson

This dissertation analyzes the text and context of a mid-twelfth-century Hebrew narrative composed by a Northern European Jew writing pseudonymously as Solomon bar Samson. The so-called Chronicle of Solomon bar Samson treats the perceived reasons for and Jewish responses to the Rhineland pogroms of 1096 C.E., which were carried out by burghers, peasants, and crusaders traveling to the Holy Land. The reasons expressed range from divine retribution for Jewish transgression to Christian vengeance for Christ’s crucifixion while responses range from voluntary conversion aimed at preserving life to suicidal and homicidal martyrdom enacted in the hopes of securing atonement and redemption. Though it depicts historical events, employs elements of contemporary historical methodology, and scholars have designated it as a chronicle which lauds the victimized Jewish community as exemplars of piety, this dissertation contends that Solomon’s narrative neither represents a history nor an homage. A comparison of Jewish literary genres reveals, instead, that Solomon’s narrative bears similarities to and most likely was intended to function as an apocalypse. This emerges in Solomon’s employment 
of pesher biblical exegesis, in which apocalypticists commonly conflated periods of persecution in Israel’s history; the well-known Jewish trope of Israel as a promiscuous woman, and the related trope of Israel’s seduction by a promiscuous woman, a zonah; and the doctrine of reform, teshuvah. Through these, Solomon critiqued what he perceived to be religious leniency, both among the generation of 1096 C.E. as well as his own contemporary society, in the manner of a Jewish apocalypse. Namely, he suggested that all past moments of potential messianic redemption, including 1096 C.E., had not come to fruition because of over-familiarity with or assimilation to the dominant Christian culture. And, like all apocalypticists, he called for reform as a means of securing messianic redemption and ushering in the new and final era