And Moses Said Unto the GOP…
The other day Nicholas Kristoff published a satirical take-down of Paul Ryan and his budget priorities in the New York Times. He imagines a conversation between Ryan and Jesus, in which Ryan pushes...
View ArticleHow to Turn Your Dissertation into a Book
I will be conducting a workshop at the University of Zurich for advanced graduate students on turning their dissertations into books publishable by (mainly anglophone) university presses. It will take...
View ArticleThe New Switzerland?
Congress is, or at least should be, busy. Over the next few months it is supposed to tackle reforms to our health care system and tax code and produce a new budget. Even if not enacted in their...
View ArticleThe Dissertation: An Unnecessary Evil?
In a piece recently published in Inside Higher Ed, Christopher Schaberg and Ian Bogost discuss their experiences trying to get academics to write for broader audiences and pinpoint ten particular...
View ArticleThe Temple Mount: Conference Report
I have spent much of the last month attending conferences. Fun, but tiring. But fun. Let me offer a few thoughts on one of them, “Marking the Sacred: The Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem,”...
View ArticleLazar Gulkowitsch
In any given week of research I probably peruse scholarly articles and monographs of a dozen or more authors. Aside from the few whom I might personally know, the vast number of these authors are...
View ArticleShared, but How?
What is a “ball”? Does a ball exist when there is nobody around to see it? Over the past couple of months I have been exposed to the thought of Bruno Latour. Latour tries to thread the needle...
View ArticleNaming Rabbis: A Digital List
A little over five years ago I posted an idea about creating a social network analysis of the rabbis found in classical rabbinic literature. In the interim I have thought a lot about this project but...
View ArticleThe Meaning of “Torah”: A Report from the Enoch Seminar
A couple of months ago I attended a meeting of the Enoch Seminar in Camaldoli, Italy. The conference, which included an extraordinary range of scholars, grappled with the meaning of the word and...
View ArticleWhat are the Ten Commandments?
The “Ten Commandments” occupy an iconic place in popular imagination. Whether as a result of Cecile B. DeMille’s epic 1956 retelling or not, most of us know the basic outline of the story: Moses goes...
View ArticleSelling the Ten Commandments
I recently read Jenna Weissman Joselitt’s book Set in Stone: America’s Embrace of the Ten Commandments and discussed it with my class. The book tells a story about how and why Americans made the Ten...
View ArticlePoverty and its Relief
I recently had the opportunity to speak at Connecticut College on the topic of poverty and its relief in Jewish thought. It was great fun, in part because the discussion helped me to better articulate...
View ArticleCorporations and Covenents
Corporations are legal fictions, and recent ones at that. Growing out of royal and governmental “charters” in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, governments gave to individuals the right to...
View ArticleWhat to Wear?
Those who know me are aware that I don’t have much of a sense of fashion. Before I met my wife, in fact, the very idea that there were clothes with colors that “match,” or that certain colors look...
View ArticleWhat is Wrong with Charging Interest?
I recently published a short piece on Exodus 22:24, normally taken as the prohibition on charging interest. It appears at thetorah.com, and is “reprinted” below. My own interest in this topic (pun...
View ArticleThe “Isaiah Seal”
Biblical Archaeology Review just published this new, tiny find from the excavations at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem: a clay seal (or bulla) that seems to contain the name Isaiah with (a little more...
View ArticleLeveling the College Playing Field
The New York Times recently published a piece that noted that the college admissions process is hardly equitable and that there are a number of things that can be done in order to help students from...
View ArticleWhat is “Money”?
The Supreme Court recently heard a case that turns on the meaning of “money”: What counts as “money compensation” for the purpose of a particular kind of taxation? The case seems abstruse and the...
View ArticleCanonizing the Christian Bible: A Simulation
Every couple of years I teach a class called “How the Bible Became Holy” (and no, I do not assign my book). The past few times I have taught it I have concluded with a simulation exercise – a game,...
View ArticleCanonization: The Simulation (Conclusion)
Yesterday in class we ran two historical simulations of the canonization of Christian Scripture. The assignment and process is described here. The results of both simulations were similar, in part (I...
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