Human infections with Plasmodium knowlesi have been misdiagnosed by microscopy as Plasmodium malariae due to their morphological similarities. Although microscopy-identified P. malariae cases have been reported in the state of Sarawak (Malaysian Borno) as early as 1952, recent epidemiological studies suggest the absence of indigenous P. malariae infections. The present study aimed to determine the past incidence and distribution of P. knowlesi infections in the state of Sarawak based on archival blood films from patients diagnosed by microscopy as having P. malariae infections. Nested PCR assays were used to identify Plasmodium species in DNA extracted from 47 thick blood films collected in 1996 from patients in seven different divisions throughout the state of Sarawak. Plasmodium knowlesi DNA was detected in 35 (97.2%) of 36 blood films that were positive for Plasmodium DNA, with patients originating from all seven divisions. Only one sample was positive for P. malariae DNA. This study provides further evidence of the widespread distribution of human infections with P. knowlesi in Sarawak and its past occurrence. Taken together with data from previous studies, our findings suggest that P. knowlesi malaria is not a newly emergent disease in humans.

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This article compares the understanding of angels in the sectarian scrolls from Qumran with the angelomorphism of Joseph and Aseneth. The sectarian Qumran scrolls are used as a comparator with Joseph and Aseneth because they are all clearly Jewish and predate the fall of the Temple in 70 CE. For the Qumran texts the views of D. Dimant (1996), B. Frennesson (1999) and C.H.T. Fletcher-Louis (2002) stress the communion of the community with the angels and even the possibility of human angelomorphism. When set alongside the angelic transformations of Joseph, Aseneth and Jacob as described in Joseph and Aseneth, it is possible to argue that this dominant feature of the narrative, especially Aseneth’s ‘conversion’, helps to date the text to a similar time as the sectarian scrolls over against the fourth-century CE date argued for by R.S. Kraemer, who misrepresents as an adjuration Aseneth’s prayer leading to her conversion.

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This article places the contributions of the thematic volume in the larger research context where the Dead Sea Scrolls and early Christian source texts have been juxtaposed and compared with each other. Whereas earlier scholarship was keen on identifying direct links and dependencies or, alternatively, underlining dissimilarities between the Scrolls’ Judaean priestly movement and the Galilean non-elite Jesus movement and its diaspora follow-up, this thematic volume represents more nuanced attempts to contextualise the similarities and differences in appropriate ways and find new ways of thinking that illuminate both textual corpora.

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