Jeremiah 7 and Flavius Josephus on the First Jewish War

Ferda, Tucker S.

doi:10.1163/15700631-12340372

Cited by 27 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…But afterwards, when they could not do that, they had them cast down from the walls into the valleys beneath [so that there was] thick putrefaction running about them” (5.12.3–4). Although Jeremiah 7 may have influenced Josephus’s larger account (Ferda 2013) thus also shaping its framing here, his vivid description may attest actual trauma in Hinnom, as well as any traditions about past wars.…”

Section: Hell Gehenna Refusementioning

confidence: 99%

Gehenna Trauma, Prison Hell

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2021

Religious Studies Review

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Maia Kotrosits's brilliant new book, The Lives of Objects, considers how ancient objects are created, negotiated, ingested, discarded, destroyed, and rebuilt. Kotrosits contemplates the indeterminacy between real and fantasy objects as they become scriptural and theological truths; these produce, in turn, materiality that bears the marks of ancient power relations. Of particular interest to me is Kotrosits's account of the way that ancient and contemporary people integrate the trauma of conquest into their interaction with physical and psychic objects. She reads literal ruins alongside fragments of the psyche; both are "vital and active participants in social life" (44). Kotrosits shows how ancient objects are animated through fantasy, in their ancient contexts and on into the present, including in racialized contexts. I am inspired by this work to explore themes of trauma, ruination, and refuse as they pass through scripture to influence contemporary carceral structures that discard and consume racialized communities.In this short essay, I draw on Kotrosits to argue that the materialities of ancient war trauma and bodily ruin live on in the idea of Gehenna and hell, which are amplified and concretized in the twenty-and twenty-first-century inferno of the prison industrial complex. In the 1980s and 1990s, when the US prison system began its rapid growth, there was an explosion of evangelical discussion about whether punishment in hell is eternal or whether the damned are eventually annihilated. As many evangelical theologians defended eternal punishment, courts allowed longer sentences in smaller spaces, and the prison population grew larger. In political discourse, John DiIulio coined the term "superpredator" and told a Senate Subcommittee on Youth Violence that black youth were a "horde from hell " (1996). This reverberation between secular and religious spheres created an environment that normalized pain for "the wicked" in the human realm of prisons.

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Section: Hell Gehenna Refusementioning

confidence: 99%

Gehenna Trauma, Prison Hell

Runions

2021

Religious Studies Review

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“…Ferda (2013) argues that there are verbal, syntactical, and thematic parallels between the BJ and Jeremiah 7, concluding that the latter influenced Josephus' account of the war. Den Hollander (2014) 91-105 offers an elaborate discussion about Josephus' prediction to Vespasian, but deliberately avoids the question Josephus' views on prophecy and prophets (see p. 91 n.114).…”

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confidence: 99%

Flavius Josephus' Self-Characterization in First-Century Rome: A Literary Analysis of the Autobiographical Passages in the Bellum Judaicum

Glas¹

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People tend to dislike those who talk too much about themselves, especially in praise of their own virtues. Contemporary examples of those attracting such opprobrium are Donald Trump 1 or the Dutch politician Thierry Baudet. 2 In spite of conventions about self-praise, Thierry Baudet has gained himself a prominent place in the Dutch parliament. Donald Trump has become President of the United States. Even if their claims have caused strong responses in various media, 3 for Baudet and Trump the media attention apparently outweighs the drawbacks to self-praise. The proverbial expression that "there's no such thing as bad publicity," frequently associated with the 19 th century American showman Phineas T. Barnum, seems too apply in such cases: bad press is better than no press at all. 41 Twitter, the platform that President Trump regularly employs to share his thoughts about national and international politics, is fruitful hunting ground. He recently has called himself "so great looking and smart" and " a true Stable Genius (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2019.) and congratulated "Mr. President" because he had done so well regarding US energy policies ("Because we have done so well with Energy over the last few years (thank you, Mr. President!), we are a net Energy Exporter, & now the Number One Energy Producer in the World. We don't need Middle Eastern Oil & Gas, & in fact have very few tankers there, but will help our Allies!" -Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 16, 2019). 2 The Dutch politician Thierry Baudet tends to call himself the greatest intellectual of the Netherlands: "Zeg @WilmerHeck & @DerkStokmans: ik publiceerde geen twee maar acht boeken. Ja, je wordt niet zomaar de belangrijkste intellectueel van NL!" -Thierry Baudet (@thierrybaudet), September 29, 2016. 3 Google search "Trump" in combination with "self-praise" and one comes across articles and videos about Trump's "straightforward bragging" and "dubious," "narcissistic" habits. See e.g.

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The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism

Staples

2021

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In this book, Jason A. Staples proposes a new paradigm for how the biblical concept of Israel developed in Early Judaism and how that concept impacted Jewish apocalyptic hopes for restoration after the Babylonian Exile. Challenging conventional assumptions about Israelite identity in antiquity, his argument is based on a close analysis of a vast corpus of biblical and other early Jewish literature and material evidence. Staples demonstrates that continued aspirations for Israel's restoration in the context of diaspora and imperial domination remained central to Jewish conceptions of Israelite identity throughout the final centuries before Christianity and even into the early part of the Common Era. He also shows that Israelite identity was more diverse in antiquity than is typically appreciated in modern scholarship. His book lays the groundwork for a better understanding of the so-called 'parting of the ways' between Judaism and Christianity and how earliest Christianity itself grew out of hopes for Israel's restoration.

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Jeremiah 7 and Flavius Josephus on the First Jewish War

Cited by 27 publications

References 1 publication

Gehenna Trauma, Prison Hell

Gehenna Trauma, Prison Hell

Flavius Josephus' Self-Characterization in First-Century Rome: A Literary Analysis of the Autobiographical Passages in the Bellum Judaicum

The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism

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