Books by Moshe Blidstein
Scriptures, Sacred Traditions, and Strategies of Religious Subversion: Studies in Discourse with the Work of Guy G. Stroumsa, 2018
Moshe Blidstein, Serge Ruzer, and Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra (eds.), Scriptures, Sacred Traditions, an... more Moshe Blidstein, Serge Ruzer, and Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra (eds.), Scriptures, Sacred Traditions, and Strategies of Religious Subversion: Studies in Discourse with the Work of Guy G. Stroumsa (STAC 112, 2018)
Resources by Moshe Blidstein
The ISF project Josephus Christianus: Mapping and Analyzing the Christian Use of
Josephus in Gree... more The ISF project Josephus Christianus: Mapping and Analyzing the Christian Use of
Josephus in Greek Texts (2nd c.-14th c. CE) is offering a Doctoral Fellowship and/or
a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Haifa, beginning October 2024.
Please share with students and scholars who might be interested in applying. The details are in the attachment.
We are looking forward to receiving applications!
An attempt to use Google Data Studio for an interactive visualization of bibliography with geogra... more An attempt to use Google Data Studio for an interactive visualization of bibliography with geographical and subject tags
Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database provides access to references to an... more Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database provides access to references to ancient texts according to topic, mostly on religion, c. -800 BCE to 800 CE in the Mediterranean area. In some cases, direct access to full text is also available. Topic tagging is based on existing subject indices from scholarly books, allowing highly detailed topic resolution. The site is in development, and currently includes 27,016,381 references keyed to 209,546 subjects.
The construction of the database is based on the following method. Many research volumes in ancient history are published with two indices: one for subjects, topics or terms, and one for ancient text references (the latter is also known as an index locorum). Using these indices, each page of the indexed book can be identified as relating to specific subjects as well as specific ancient texts, indicating with a certain probability that these text references can be tagged as related to these subjects. In order to bring this probability closer to 100%, we assess the overlap from a number of books of this connection between text reference and subject. These tags are combined to create a general database of subjects of ancient texts. The database is thus based on existing expert-made indices, unified and assisted by digital means.
There are types of searches: for validated results, where the reference is tagged with the subject in more than one book; and for non-validated results, where the reference is tagged with the subject only once, in one book.
Any feedback is welcome.
Attached is an example of a database search with the keyword "honey".
Papers by Moshe Blidstein
Vigiliae Christianae, 2024
In this article, I will examine the functions of oaths in narratives of encounter, confrontation ... more In this article, I will examine the functions of oaths in narratives of encounter, confrontation and polemic between religious communities in late antiquity, especially Jews and Christians. Through an analysis of these narratives, I hope to show that oaths had several functions: specific oath formulae were strongly associated with specific religious identities, and as such could be used to highlight distance between religious groups. However, oaths could be used to demonstrate the permeability of religious boundaries, or even be deployed cunningly to conceal one’s identity or subvert expectations of its performance.
Journal for the Study of Judaism, 2024
The fires of the Jerusalem temple altar were said to be perpetual. Various writers from the fourt... more The fires of the Jerusalem temple altar were said to be perpetual. Various writers from the fourth century BCE to the third century CE added explanations and perspectives to this practice: the argument that the fire came from heaven, that it continued even during the destruction of the temple, or that it remained lit only when the high priest was righteous. Though these texts are well known, they were never examined in a comparative context: how special were these practices and discourses in their Mediterranean and Persian contexts? Maintaining a perpetual fire on the altar or lamps was a known practice in Mediterranean sanctuaries. The discourses surrounding these fires, developed especially by Greek and Roman writers of the first century BCE and the first century CE, are in many ways similar to those in the Jewish texts. I will consider in detail the differences and similarities and their significance.
Digital Studies / Le champ numérique, 2023
Mapping fields using co-citation information is a common endeavour in many disciplines but has ra... more Mapping fields using co-citation information is a common endeavour in many disciplines but has rarely been performed in the humanities. In this article, I use data from 417 back-of-book source indices to map the field of ancient Mediterranean religion on three levels: sub-discipline, ancient work, and references in ancient works. The method innovatively makes use of primary text references, rather than research articles, to construct the co-citation network. After mapping the overall relationships between sub-disciplines, I show how the data can be used to identify two types of ancient works that bridge these sub-disciplines: works which are central for the whole network, and works which are not central overall but cited more often with specific sub-disciplines. The article provides an understanding of the structure of the field of ancient Mediterranean religions, and more generally of the challenges and advantages of methods to map scholarship in historical disciplines. La cartographie des domaines à l'aide d'informations de co-citation est une entreprise courante dans de nombreuses disciplines, mais elle a rarement été réalisée dans les sciences humaines. Dans cet article, j'utilise les données de 417 index de sources de livres pour cartographier le domaine de la religion méditerranéenne ancienne à trois niveaux : la sous-discipline, l'ouvrage ancien et les références dans les ouvrages anciens. La méthode utilise de manière innovante des références de textes primaires, plutôt que des articles de recherche, pour construire le réseau de co-citation. Après avoir cartographié les relations globales entre les sous-disciplines, je montre comment les données peuvent être utilisées pour identifier deux types d'oeuvres anciennes qui font le lien entre ces sousdisciplines : les oeuvres qui sont centrales pour l'ensemble du réseau, et les oeuvres qui ne sont pas centrales dans l'ensemble mais qui sont citées plus souvent avec des sous-disciplines spécifiques. L'article permet de comprendre la structure du domaine des religions méditerranéennes anciennes et, plus généralement, les défis et les avantages des méthodes de cartographie de l'érudition dans les disciplines historiques. Digital Studies/Le champ numérique is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by the Open Library of Humanities.
Digital Humanities Quarterly, 2023
Tiresias (https://tiresias.haifa.ac.il/) is a free database designed and constructed as an effici... more Tiresias (https://tiresias.haifa.ac.il/) is a free database designed and constructed as an efficient tool to access and understand ancient texts for research purposes. It uniquely associates end-of-book subject indices with the index locorum. Based on indices of about 460 scholarly books in fields such as history, religion, biblical studies and more, Tiresias is multilingual, contains about 140,000 subject tags and about 16.4 million references to ancient primary sources, including non-digitized sources. It is especially helpful for comparative research between areas, cultures or languages, or for scholars working on long-term trends, who are therefore less familiar with sources which are not in their area of specialization. The paper describes three usage scenarios employing this newly available resource as an integral part of historical research and study. Tiresias provides inspiration for the construction of other databases making use of multiple book indices in various areas of the humanities and social sciences.
Religions, 2022
Many early Christian and late Second Temple texts describe deceit as impurity. In this article, I... more Many early Christian and late Second Temple texts describe deceit as impurity. In this article, I delineate the development of this discourse and argue that it derived its power from several characteristics: mixing deceit impurity with other types of moral impurity; an implicit link between the structures of defilement/purity and falsehood/truth; localization of impurity in specific body loci; demonization; and a connection with Greek discourses on sophists and magicians. Some of these features are present already in the earliest texts such as the Hebrew Bible, but others developed only in the Hellenistic period
Mediterranean Historical Review, 2022
Perjury – swearing to a false statement or not fulfilling a promissory oath – attracted universal... more Perjury – swearing to a false statement or not fulfilling a promissory oath – attracted universal condemnation in Antiquity, as well as promises of harsh divine retribution. Human responses to perjury, however, varied among the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean. This article surveys these responses, locates their cultural contexts, and explains them by examining perjury as an affront to honour. Legal penalties, expiation rituals, and other social responses highlight the various ways that society reifies, performs, and transforms the changing social status of the perjurer.
Scientometrics, 2022
Citation network analysis is one of the most developed techniques in science mapping. Various typ... more Citation network analysis is one of the most developed techniques in science mapping. Various types of citation analysis have been proposed in the literature such as direct citation, co-citation and bibliographic coupling. Networks based on these citation analysis types have been used to reveal discipline structure, central players and emerging trends in STEM and social sciences. However, in the humanities large-scale citation network analysis is still underexplored, mainly due to the lack of comprehensive data sources and varying publication practices. In this paper, we investigate the unique characteristics and needs of citation analysis in the historical humanities and propose a generic framework for systematic generation and analysis of different types of citation networks based on several variables and the essential distinction between citations of primary and secondary sources. The proposed methodology was applied to a corpus of over 15,000 (both primary and secondary) books related to the research field of ancient Mediterranean religions. The obtained results show that in order to gain a deep and comprehensive understanding of a discipline’s structure it is beneficial to compare and combine the findings of several types of networks rather than focus on a single network analysis. Comparative community analysis of the networks reveals the existence of a disciplinary core only in the primary literature corpus and a hierarchical sub-discipline structure of the examined research field.
Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, 2016
Numen, 2021
This article examines Roman-era oaths invoking nondeities, especially persons. It argues that rat... more This article examines Roman-era oaths invoking nondeities, especially persons. It argues that rather than invoking quasi-deities or persons to be punished by the gods in case of perjury, as usually understood in the past, these invocations could have two concurrent functions: honoring the invoked persons and affirming a statement. Though such invocations had limited legal power, they were commonly practiced throughout the period, as demonstrated in various textual genres, including Latin poetry and rhetoric, texts of the Second Sophistic, Jewish rabbinical writings, and 5th-century Christian sermons. Furthermore, nondivine invocations were frequently combined and mingled with divine invocations, with only theologically inclined authors attempting to define them clearly as a separate category. This interpretation has significance for understanding some equivocal oaths, such as the oath by the emperor, as well as for our perception of oaths in general as a speech act with functions go...
In this article I analyze Van Gennep’s understanding of purity, impurity, and purification and it... more In this article I analyze Van Gennep’s understanding of purity, impurity, and purification and its relationship with ancient Christian texts discussing these subjects. Through this comparison, I show how modern and ancient theories of ritual can illuminate each other, and more specifically, how purification was a problematic and ambivalent concept for both ancient Christian writers and for Van Gennep, making it a fruitful one for investigating the thought of both.
The article examines a tradition in late antique Christian writings and exegesis, according to wh... more The article examines a tradition in late antique Christian writings and exegesis, according to which even in the period between the sin of the golden calf and the coming of Jesus the Jews were not truly obligated to perform the law, despite the voluminous scriptural evidence stating otherwise. This is adduced from actions of patriarchs and prophets, which can be seen as going against Torah laws, interpreted as intentional subversions of the law, intended to show that it is not in fact obligatory. Some of these arguments can already be found in Marcion, in the second century, but despite his castigation as a heretic, they resurface in “orthodox” Christian writings of the third to the seventh centuries. This tradition exemplifies the greater weight given in Christian exegesis to the actions of core biblical figures over the actual laws ordained by God, with one genre of scripture is pitted directly against another. The choices made in these strategies have repercussions for other religious dimensions, such as conceptions of history and the role of the saint or patriarch.
Uploads
Books by Moshe Blidstein
Resources by Moshe Blidstein
Josephus in Greek Texts (2nd c.-14th c. CE) is offering a Doctoral Fellowship and/or
a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Haifa, beginning October 2024.
Please share with students and scholars who might be interested in applying. The details are in the attachment.
We are looking forward to receiving applications!
https://sites.google.com/site/mosheblidstein/resources/oaths-database
The construction of the database is based on the following method. Many research volumes in ancient history are published with two indices: one for subjects, topics or terms, and one for ancient text references (the latter is also known as an index locorum). Using these indices, each page of the indexed book can be identified as relating to specific subjects as well as specific ancient texts, indicating with a certain probability that these text references can be tagged as related to these subjects. In order to bring this probability closer to 100%, we assess the overlap from a number of books of this connection between text reference and subject. These tags are combined to create a general database of subjects of ancient texts. The database is thus based on existing expert-made indices, unified and assisted by digital means.
There are types of searches: for validated results, where the reference is tagged with the subject in more than one book; and for non-validated results, where the reference is tagged with the subject only once, in one book.
Any feedback is welcome.
Attached is an example of a database search with the keyword "honey".
Papers by Moshe Blidstein
Josephus in Greek Texts (2nd c.-14th c. CE) is offering a Doctoral Fellowship and/or
a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Haifa, beginning October 2024.
Please share with students and scholars who might be interested in applying. The details are in the attachment.
We are looking forward to receiving applications!
https://sites.google.com/site/mosheblidstein/resources/oaths-database
The construction of the database is based on the following method. Many research volumes in ancient history are published with two indices: one for subjects, topics or terms, and one for ancient text references (the latter is also known as an index locorum). Using these indices, each page of the indexed book can be identified as relating to specific subjects as well as specific ancient texts, indicating with a certain probability that these text references can be tagged as related to these subjects. In order to bring this probability closer to 100%, we assess the overlap from a number of books of this connection between text reference and subject. These tags are combined to create a general database of subjects of ancient texts. The database is thus based on existing expert-made indices, unified and assisted by digital means.
There are types of searches: for validated results, where the reference is tagged with the subject in more than one book; and for non-validated results, where the reference is tagged with the subject only once, in one book.
Any feedback is welcome.
Attached is an example of a database search with the keyword "honey".
est une publication scientifique avec comité de lecture. Tous les
textes proposés seront soumis à l’évaluation du Comité scientifique.
Ils doivent répondre aux normes éditoriales disponibles à l’adresse
www.asdiwal.ch. Les propositions peuvent être envoyées sous format
électronique à l’adresse [email protected]. La revue peut accueillir, dans
ses numéros thématiques, des actes de colloque. La revue ASDIWAL,
émanation de la Société genevoise d’histoire des religions, paraît
chaque année depuis 2006. Son siège est établi à l’Université de
Genève, Faculté des lettres, Unité d’histoire des religions.
A survey reveals that these spaces served two opposite functions. Most commonly, they served as areas or rooms for specialist temple functions (such as treasuries) or for accessory services for priests or other temple personnel. In these cases, the activity in the space beyond the temple reinforced the authority and hierarchy of the temple personnel. In other cases, however, such spaces allowed non-priests to glimpse or eavesdrop (even if not to enter) the holiest parts of the site, circumventing the usual sacred axis and hierarchy, and creating an alternative means to approach the gods. A comparison of temples from different periods and cultures may provide indications to the factors controlling these different scenarios.
Two hypotheses were proposed. First, that the main function of the oath is to enhance the swearer’s power, and that this power is at times (but not always) used to create trust in a social situation. Oaths create power by drawing upon assets of the swearer which are not currently present. Second, that changes in religious and social realities in this period would be reflected in changes in oath practice and discourse.
I examined several dimensions of changes and continuities in oath practice: the deities invoked, gestures, the role of the Roman Emperor in oaths, discourse and arguments about oaths, the concept of sacrament and exorcism. Relating to the first hypothesis, I argued that for certain dimensions a perspective on the oath as an instrument for creating power was found more helpful, while in others trust appeared more central. Relating to the second, I found more continuity than change in oath practice, and posed the question of why this is so.
This Christian discernment between natural impurity and impurity rooted in the human conscience called for an exegesis of the biblical texts, which inserted human moral agency into passages ostensibly dealing with ritual (non-moral) status. Allegorisation of the biblical texts, which dismissed altogether the dietary laws' implications for ritual purity, was one of the common methods used. However, writers also employed ascetic and demonological explanations, which integrated the dietary laws into the Christian worldview and gave them a significant role in Christian ritual life.