I have moved this blog and consolidated it with my other websites. Please update any feeds and keep visiting, at http: //www.mlsatlow.com! I look forward to seeing you there. Read More »

I had the good fortune of recently attending “The Enoch Seminar ,” which this year was devoted to study of the books of 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra . These two books are both thought to originate in first or second century Palestine, written in Hebrew by Jews. Read More »

The phrase “Judeo-Christian” – as in, “America is based on Judeo-Christian values” – is a strange beast. Read More »

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a workshop at Yale University on the term “belief”. The focus was on whether, how, and why “belief” remains a useful category for discussing and explaining religion today. The day of conversation was immensely interesting and I will make no attempt here to convey its richness. Read More »

In an essay discussing his new book, In Defense of Flogging , Peter Moskos wants to begin a conversation. Prisons, we all know, don’t work as well as we would all like. Around .5% of all Americans are currently in prison , an extraordinary number when considered by any measure, and one that is up nearly four-fold since 1980. Read More »

My essay on “The Pope, the Jews, and the Vatican Museums,” was just posted online at “The Forward,” and will appear in the next print edition. Read More »

The following announcement will soon be going out widely. Please feel free to circulate!Workshop Call for PapersFebruary 13-14, 2012Brown University The Program in Judaic Studies in collaboration with the Brown University Library’s Center for Digital Read More »

Yes. Kind of. Maybe.Thus is the status quaestionis as it emerged from a mini-symposium at Harvard University yesterday. Firmly on one side of the question was Shaye Cohen and Moshe Halbertal . Both pointed to the radical difference between the Mishnah and Jewish literature of the Second Temple period. Read More »

Academic conferences tend to peter out. The time is late; all are tired; even some of the panelists have already left for home. There is thus often little time or energy at the end for reflection, synthesis, and robust discussion. The Talmuda de’Eretz Israel conference was no exception. Read More »

Today was a full day of papers. So without further ado: Shawn Zelig Aster , Yeshiva University, Mishnah Baba Metzia 7,7 and the Distribution of the Phoenician Jar: The Relationship of Mishnaic Hebrew to Northern Biblical Hebrew and to Phoenician Read More »

This week Yeshivah University is hosting a 2-day conference entitled, Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antiquity . Read More »

Over half a century ago, the great Jewish historian Salo Baron famously declared an end to the lachrymose view of Jewish history. By this he meant that prior Jewish historians had an almost unremittingly bleak view of Jewish history. Jews, in these narratives, were always the persecuted victims, living tenuously in a hostile world. Read More »

The traditional legal definition of a Jew is well-known: the child of a Jewish mother or a convert. Sure, there is a little fuzziness around the edges as Orthodox Jews in Israel in particular debate what makes a kosher conversion, and whether conversions can be retroactively revoked . Read More »

Last month I saw the exhibit Figuratively Speaking: A Survey of the Human Form at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. What was particularly interesting to me about this exhibit was the chronological progression. The earliest, Renaissance and early modern works attempted to portray the human form realistically. Read More »

I have long been interested in ways in which modern technology can enhance what I do, as a scholar and a teacher. In the classroom I have used podcasts and wikis, and I continue to work on a digital collection of inscriptions from Israel/Palestine that date from antiquity. Read More »

I just presented the Larry Axel Memorial Lecture at Purdue University. The talk was entitled, “Big Givers: The Origins of Jewish Philanthropy.” The publicity paragraph reads: Whether by naming buildings, erecting plaques, or publishing name-lists, our practice of recognizing donors is so common that we hardly notice it. Read More »

Tonight Rosh HaShanah begins. It is probably safe to say that many Jews associate the holiday with two theological themes. The first, emphasized especially in children’s books and early Jewish educational settings, is the birthday of the world – the day on which God created the world. Read More »