Brent Nongbri— Late in 1907, it was publicly revealed that the American businessman Charles Lang Freer (1854–1919) had acquired a group of four early Christian books from an antiquities dealer in Egypt. Freer, who made a fortune from the production of railcars in Detroit during the 1890s, had established himself
Ronald Hendel and Jan Joosten— The age of the Hebrew Bible is a complicated and controversial topic. For traditionalists, the age of a book is the age of its author – Moses for the Pentateuch, David for the Psalms, Solomon for the Song of Songs, and so on. For modern
Michael Satlow— Imagine Jesus as a boy. Growing up with his brothers and sisters in a Jewish home in the sleepy town of Nazareth, in lower Galilee, he almost certainly would have been circumcised, followed Jewish dietary rules (kashrut), and observed the Jewish Sabbath and festivals. He would have grown
Michael Coogan— In 2001, Roy Moore, the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, installed a massive monument featuring the Ten Commandments in the courthouse rotunda. When ordered by a federal judge to have it taken away because it violated the establishment clause of the U. S. Constitution, Moore refused, and
Follow @yaleRELIbooks Read Michael Coogan’s post on the politics of the April 27 canonization of John XXIII and John Paul II Despite the Ten Commandments’ enduring power as either the purported word of God or a document of great historical significance, few would support following a literal interpretation of them
Follow @mlsatlow Follow @yaleRELIbooks Though it is easy to see the Bible today as a singular work – one text held as holy by many religious believers – it has a less straightforward history. The Bible was compiled over time from the writings of religious figures whose influence depended on
We all know the story of the Garden of Eden. God created Adam, then Eve, and he told the two not to eat fruit from a certain tree. But the snake tempted Eve to taste the forbidden fruit; she, in turn, seduced Adam to do the same, and this led
Read an excerpt from The Shadow of a Great Rock The recent furor over a newly discovered Coptic text in which Jesus appears to refer to his own wife has put the Bible and Biblical interpretation back in the news. Scholars, skeptics, and believers are weighing on how to understand this
National African American History Month! Yale Press has a wide range of books covering this topic for you to check out. Here’s just a sample: Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, edited by Susan Earle In paintings, murals, and book illustrations, Aaron Douglas (1899–1979) produced the most powerful visual legacy of
For Immediate Release: September 25, 2007 Yale University Press Acquires Anchor Bible Series from Doubleday New York and New Haven— The Anchor Bible Series, a prestigious collection of more than 115 volumes of biblical scholarship, has been acquired by Yale University Press from Doubleday. Yale University Press will publish all