Available now in Open Access — free to browse and download. I’m thrilled that this book is finally seeing the light of day. It’s been quite the journey. Many thanks to all the friends and colleagues who helped me along the way!
My dissertation proposal (tentatively titled "Invisible Hands: Despotic Fiction and Enslaved Labor in Early Rabbinic Literature") has been approved! Time to keep reading and writing. Also time to submit a condensed version of my work to SBL for November.
*gasp* this sounds fascinating!
paging @chancebonar.bsky.social @isaactsoon.bsky.social @candidamoss.bsky.social 👀
this is fantastic news! congrats, Maia!
huge thanks to @isaactsoon.bsky.social and @chancebonar.bsky.social for helping me get my head around the project, and to @candidamoss.bsky.social for the kind invitation to present it.
for those looking for a temporary reprieve from *waves hands at everything*, i’ll be giving a paper on a new project at birmingham’s biblical studies seminar on 18 Feb at 11am ET.
the paper’s entitled, “the enslaved seer: slavery and literate labour in the book of revelation.” DM for the zoom link!
screenshot of the first page of proofs for my forthcoming NTS article, "The Politics of Paul's Image Parodies: Material Epiphany, Human-Divine Reciprocity, and Social Power." Abstract: "Early Jewish parodies of ancient Mediterranean cult images have long been taken as a point of categorical difference between Jews and non‘-Jews. The basic logic can be stated with maximal brevity: Jews were ‘aniconic’, indeed ‘anti-idolic’, while Greeks and Romans were iconic. When it comes to the question of so-called ‘idolatry’ and Jewish polemics against it, Jews were ostensibly ‘unique’ within the wider world of ancient Mediterranean religion. In this article, I interrogate such claims specifically as they relate to the apostle Paul, as one such Jewish polemicist who wrote to a predominantly gentile audience well accustomed to image piety and sensitive to its internal politics. I argue that early Jewish image parodies, including Paul’s own, are better understood to be situated within an iconopolitical strategy of cultural production that was otherwise common among Greeks and Romans, no less than Jews. By caricaturing cult images as non-existent, disabled or dead, it is my contention that Paul operated within and innovated upon a widespread tradition of ancient Mediterranean image politics, which configured social power relations between humans and their gods by abducting, mutilating or destroying their images, and that Paul’s parodies were intelligible and recognisable as such among his gentile followers. After outlining the comparative problems of ‘idolatry’, I draw from classical and art-historical scholarship to theorise the epiphanic and reciprocal dynamics of images in ancient Mediterranean religion, and then redescribe Jewish image parodies in Paul’s letters as operating within these same dynamics in the very process of polemicising against them."
PROOFS DAY
i'm still a bit bewildered this paper won the achtemeier. i've presented its basic content so often that it feels slightly old to me. i'm just glad it's finally coming out so i don't need to present it or write about it anymore! but i hope someone else out there finds some use in it.
you are a wonder
me too! me too! im developing an upper level undergrad seminar for next year on magic and medicine in early christianity, and Shaily’s work will ofc be all over it.
why can’t it be both 💫
SOMEONE PUT THIS GUY ON A TENURE TRACK ALREADY HE CANNOT BE STOPPED
CONGRATS!
heyyooooo CONGRATS PROF MOSS
Just needed to see these three wonderful people’s names on the cover to know I needed to pick this book up. Looking forward to digging into this.
www.fortresspress.com/store/produc...
Picture of the box of author’s copies of my new book, _Smoke & Mirrors_.
OMG look what was on my doorstep! i haven’t seen the print version yet, but it’s prettier than i expected!!
My short Elements book "Literate Workers and the Production of Early Christian Literature" is now available on Cambridge Core. It was a lot of fun to learn from the exciting scholarship that's been happening and I hope that it's a useful resource for people. www.cambridge.org/core/element...
congrats Prof Davies! very well deserved
right back atcha, @jeremiahcoogan.bsky.social!
ding ding ding! quite right good sir
It also appears in the offshoot from the PWJ school known as Paul Within Paganism (PWP). Adam's analysis would lead one to think that PWP must be somehow at odds with PWJ, but in fact these are two complementary programs of analysis. Many scholars overlap. www.fortresspress.com/store/produc...
by which i mean JAJ
phewww this sounds gooood. congrats, Chance! can’t wait to read it. and congrats on your AJA article today, too!
Memorandum of Agreement. The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, within which is incorporated the University of Wisconsin Press ("the Publisher"), is pleased to enter into this Agreement with Chance E. Bonar ("the Author") for the publication and other exploitation of the work tentatively titled Religion and Slave Revolts in the Roman Mediterranean ("the Work"). This agreement is effective as of the date of the last signature below.
Religion and Slave Revolts in the Roman Mediterranean is under contract with the @uwiscpress.bsky.social!
Looking forward to sharing thoughts on the roles of religious cultures in catalyzing & suppressing slave revolts + how Roman writers selectively characterized the religiosity of the enslaved.
but 4 has a cute hat
🗣️ PLEASE SHARE 🗣️
I'm writing an intro & sourcebook on late ancient Gazan literature for Dar al-Kalima University Press. The press and I plan to produce an Arabic translation to make Gazan literature more accessible to Palestinians. Help me compensate the Gazan translator!
spot.fund/dn8t744sc
massive shoutout to my coeditors paula fredriksen and @slyprofessor.bsky.social, who have been a dream to work with! sorry i should’ve said that in the og post.
thank you! i hope you find something useful in the book. it very much tries to resist the danger of insulating paul from the wider religious world he inhabited.
my hand holding a hardcover book, entitled 𝘗𝘢𝘶𝘭 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘮: 𝘙𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘦, edited by Paula Fredriksen, Stephen L. Young, and an unknown, insignificant scholar who happens the have the exact same long greek name as mine.
IT’S ALIVE! today i received my advance copies of 𝘗𝘢𝘶𝘭 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘮 ahead of publication next month.
it just dawned on me last week that people might actually buy and read this book. which is mildly terrifying. yay?
