Scholarly Articles by Annette Y. Reed
À l 'encontre les idées reçues concernant le dépassement du sacrifice par le christianisme primit... more À l 'encontre les idées reçues concernant le dépassement du sacrifice par le christianisme primitif, les recherches récentes ont révélé la rareté du rejet complet du sacrifice dans le monde méditerranéen ancien; même parmi les chrétiens, la critique de l 'immolation d'animaux consacrés apparaît le plus souvent comme une revendication d'autorité concernant sa bonne exécution ou sa pratique idéale. À la lumière de ces recherches, on réexamine dans cet article l 'attitude négative de la littérature pseudo-clémentine à l 'égard du sacrifice animal dans la Bible et dans le monde païen, analysant les dynamiques du rejet pseudo-clémentin du sacrifice comme étant tout à la fois une théorisation du sacrifice.
The full publication of 4Q208 and 4Q209 in 2000 has enabled a renaissance of research on the Enoc... more The full publication of 4Q208 and 4Q209 in 2000 has enabled a renaissance of research on the Enochic Astronomical Book, illumining its deep connections with Babylonian scholasticism and spurring debate about the precise channels by which such "scientific" knowledge came to reach Jewish scribes. This article asks whether attention to Aramaic manuscripts related to the Astronomical Book might also reveal something about Jewish scribal pedagogy and literary production in the early Hellenistic age, particularly prior to the Maccabean Revolt. Engaging recent studies from Classics and the History of Science concerning astronomy, pedagogy, and the place of scribes and books in the cultural politics of the third century BCE, it uses the test-case of the Astronomical Book to explore the potential significance of Aramaic sources for charting changes within Jewish literary cultures at the advent of Macedonian rule in the Near East.
Recent decades have seen an intensive reassessment of older scholarly categories within the disci... more Recent decades have seen an intensive reassessment of older scholarly categories within the discipline of Religious Studies, spurring a turn toward more microhistorical approaches in the study of ancient Judaism and Christianity in particular. With an eye to the power and limits of scholarly practices of categorization, this article reflects upon the pairing of "Apocalypticism" and "Mysticism" in modern scholarship on premodern Judaism, focusing on two works commonly cited as exemplary of their connection-1 Enoch and 3 Enoch. Drawing insights from interdisciplinary research on the History of the Book/Material Texts, it experiments with situating scholarly acts of categorization in relation to other practices of constructing continuity, both ancient and modern. It highlights the potency of anthologies and related textual practices for naturalizing certain categories of comparison and certain trajectories of retrospective connection-for modern scholars no less than for ancient and medieval readers.
Annette Y. Reed, “Enoch, Eden, and the Beginnings of Jewish Cosmography,” in Charles Burnett and Jill Kraye, eds., Enoch, Eden, and the Beginnings of Jewish Cosmography (London: Warburg Institute Colloquia, 2016), 67-94 Abbreviations used in this essay: Gr Pan = Codex Panopolitanus MT = Masoretic LXX = Septuagint 1 ... more Abbreviations used in this essay: Gr Pan = Codex Panopolitanus MT = Masoretic LXX = Septuagint 1 I.e., as reflected in biblical texts and traditions from before, during, or in the wake of, the Babylonian Exile (586-538 BCE) -or, in other words, in materials that are generally accepted to preserve pre-exilic and exilic perspectives, even if their 'final' forms might be later. Inasmuch as my focus here falls on the contrast between these 'early' materials and the Jewish literature that took form during and after the 3rd century BCE, I shall leave it for others to debate the precise dating of Genesis 2-3, the redacted Pentateuch, etc.
This essay reflects on the relationship between the study of the origins of Christianity and the ... more This essay reflects on the relationship between the study of the origins of Christianity and the discipline of Religious Studies in conversation with William Arnal's ''What Branches Grow out of this Stony Rubbish? Christian Origins and the Study of Religion,'' published in Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses in 2010. Extending Arnal's call for specialists in the New Testament and early Christianity to engage Religious Studies, it explores a reorientation of perspective, towards the aim of a doubled lens from and upon both Christian Origins and Religious Studies. Particularly promising may be the interrogation of ancient and modern practices of periodization and categorycreation, especially as they intersect with imperial and anti-imperial discourses about ''origins,'' knowledge, and power.
This essay explores the place of parabiblical literature in biblical studies through a focus on N... more This essay explores the place of parabiblical literature in biblical studies through a focus on New Testament apocrypha. Countering the assumption that the significance of this literature pivots on its value for understanding the origins of Christianity, this essay calls for fresh attention to the afterlives of these writings. The first section traces the genealogy of the notion of the NT apocrypha as countercanon, as well as the history of the debate over whether "apocrypha" preserve secret or suppressed truths about Jesus and his earliest followers. It points to the influence of post-Reformation anthological efforts and new concerns for forgery and censorship in the wake of the advent of printing, especially for popularizing a disjunctive model whereby "apocrypha" are imagined to have been systematically suppressed by ecclesiarchs during the Christianization of the Roman Empire. The second section surveys evidence for the elasticity of such writings and for their reception in contexts as far-flung as medieval Christian art and contemporary Japanese anime. This evidence points to the value of alternate approaches to NT apocrypha, reread as an integral part of the making of the memory of the biblical past from late antiquity to the present. Why should scholars of biblical studies care about parabiblical literature? In the case of those parabiblical writings associated with patriarchs and prophets in the Tanak, recent research has emphasized their potential both to shed light on the origins of Christianity and to add to our knowledge of the history of biblical interpretation. Fragments discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed the antiquity of some of these writings, affirming their utility for filling the gaps in our knowledge of Judaism before and during the time of Jesus. In addition, many JBL 133, no. 2 (2015): 401-425 doi: http://dx.
Today-more than sixty years after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls-it is commonplace to hera... more Today-more than sixty years after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls-it is commonplace to herald a new era in the study of the apocalyptic tradition.1 Older studies had treated the Book of Daniel as the paradigmatic apocalypse and, as a result, had privileged the historical and eschatological components of the apocalyptic tradition. Fragments discovered at Qumran, however, revealed the greater antiquity of two apocalypses attributed to Enoch, namely, the Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72-82) and Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36). In contrast to Daniel and other "historical apocalypses" from the second century BCE, these third-century BCE apocalypses focus on the antediluvian age and the structure of the cosmos. With fresh attention to these and related works have thus come new views of the emergence of the literary genre of the apocalypse as well as a new sense of the seminal place of cosmology, protology, and theodicy in the apocalyptic tradition of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity.2
This essay uses a focus on meat and animals to illumine ancient and modern discourses about sacri... more This essay uses a focus on meat and animals to illumine ancient and modern discourses about sacrifice and "civilization." It suggests that attention to recent research on meat-production and the "sociology of the slaughterhouse" might open new perspectives on the range of ways in which the sanctified ritual slaughter of animals has been understood by its proponents, critics, and theorists-both ancient and modern. It begins by historicizing the rise of modern scholarly interest in animal sacrifice, with reference to dramatic shifts in the production and consumption of meat in modern European societies. Then, it looks to the Vedas and the Torah/Pentateuch to reflect upon the place of meat and animals in two of the best documented of ancient sacrificial systems. Lastly, it considers some trajectories in their Nachleben with an eye to the value and limits of dominant narratives about the cessation, interiorization, or spiritualization of sacrifice.
Inasmuch as new Coptic evidence for 2 Enoch lends confirmation to the priority of the shorter rec... more Inasmuch as new Coptic evidence for 2 Enoch lends confirmation to the priority of the shorter recension and adds plausibility to the theory of its Egyptian provenance, this discovery invites us to shift from the compilation of parallel motifs towards more integrative approaches to contextualizing this enigmatic apocalypse. This essay is an experiment in situating 2 Enoch within the intellectual culture of early Roman Egypt. It explores the possibility that the short recension reflects the translation of the Mesopotamian astronomy and Jewish cosmology of earlier Aramaic Enoch writings into Greek language and idiom in interaction with philosophical and "scientific" concerns with the cosmos current in early Roman Egypt.
at first sight, gender might seem to play an altogether unremarkable role in Jewish and Christian... more at first sight, gender might seem to play an altogether unremarkable role in Jewish and Christian traditions about the fallen angels, unfolding according to well-worn patterns of ancient misogyny and long-standing stereotypes associating women with "magic, " demons, and the dangers of the flesh. The terse account of "sons of God" and "daughters of men" in Genesis 6 might strike us as pregnant with such possibilities, with the male associated with the heavenly and the female with the earthly, and "daughters" figured simultaneously, if tacitly, as temptresses and victims of sexual violation. Their presumed violation, moreover, might seem to invite interpretation as the violation of earth by heaven, with sexual violence foreshadowing the diluvian chaos subsequently unleashed by the crossing of cosmic lines of difference. Seen from this perspective, it might seem unsurprising that later versions of the myth might make explicit, not just the identity of the "sons of God" as angels, but also the culpability of women in tempting them down to earth. Nor might it seem so strange that the sexual temptation and transgression of angels, their pollution by female blood and flesh, and their siring of monstrous hybrids might be joined with accusations about the fallen angels' revelation of corrupting skills and secrets to their wives. After all, the association of women and "magic" now seems as natural as the image of the witch. 1 To be sure, some traditions about fallen angels do indeed seem to follow such patterns. The Testament of Reuben, for instance, is explicit in interpreting the myth of the fallen angels as a warning to men about the dangers of temptation by womanly wiles. 2 It seems to take for granted that angels can be likened to men, rather than women, and it argues that women are to blame for the lust of men and angels alike. To do so, it proposes that the "daughters of men" caused the angelic Watchers to come down from heaven, citing their example as a lesson in of the Watchers, a Jewish apocalypse from around the third century bce (1 Enoch 1-36, esp. 6-16). Tertullian, for instance, explicitly cites this "scripture of Enoch" as his source for the inclusion of cosmetics among the teachings of the fallen angels. 7
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Scholarly Articles by Annette Y. Reed