Russia has two foundings - first, as an Orthodox Christian civilization in 988 under Prince Vladimir of Kiev; second, as a Westernizing and modernizing nation under Peter the Great in the 17th and 18th centuries. In his superb Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia , Orlando Figes . . . . Continue Reading »
In her delightful Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia , Suzanne Massie has a wonderful chapter on Peter the Great. She gives a vivid portrait of his 1697 visit to the West, the first time in six hundred years a Tsar had left Russia, and the first visit a Tsar ever made to the West: . . . . Continue Reading »
“Glorious things are spoken of you, Zion, city of our God” (Psalm 87:3). What sorts of glories ( nikbadot , from kabad )? Battles won? Cultural achievements? The temple? In Psalm 87, Zion is glorious because Zion is a fruitful mother. Like Proverbs 31, Psalm 87 is a heroic celebration . . . . Continue Reading »
In an essay on Mauss’ The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies in Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory , Mary Douglas makes an intriguing comparison between Mauss and Adam Smith: Mauss “discovered a mechanism by which individual interests combine to make a . . . . Continue Reading »
In their introduction to The Culture of English Puritanism,1560-1700 (Themes in Focus) , Christopher Durston and Jacqueline Eales spend several pages discussing the role of fasting in Puritanism. The begin with Patrick Collinson’s remark that “an anthropologist wanting to describe . . . . Continue Reading »
Given the sharp separation of spheres between men and women in 19th-century America, one would not expect women to play much of a role in the expansion of American power. Empire-building was man’s work, while women tended the heart-fires back home. In an award-winning 1998 article (pointed . . . . Continue Reading »
Arthur Golding is usually credited with translating Seneca’s de Beneficiis into English, but in a 1961 article H.H. Davis described an earlier English translation: “there was an earlier translation by Nicholas Haward of this same moral essay, printed nine years before Golding’s, . . . . Continue Reading »
In a harrowing article about the reconstruction of a young man’s face after an electrical burn in The New Yorker , the author says in passing: “Reconstructive surgery is an ancient art, dating back at least to the time of the Upanishads, in India. In about 600 B.C., Sushruta, a scholar . . . . Continue Reading »
VanderKam quotes 2 Maccabees 3:1-3’s claim that “King Seleucus of Asia defrayed from his own revenues all the expenses connected with the service of the sacrifices,” and comments: This continues “the centuries-old practice that the foreign overlord of Judea pay at least a . . . . Continue Reading »
1 Maccabees famously includes a letter from King Areus of Sparta to Onias, high priest of Israel, in which it is stated that “the Spartans and the Jews . . . are brothers and are of the family of Abraham.” Scholars dismiss the genealogical connection, and many even deny that the letter . . . . Continue Reading »
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