(no subject)

[badstar]

So I get to the Grove today and was out back talking to Deirdre, Will and a new person, and Deirdre starts talking about these Odyssey classes at Hopkins...they're these Adult ed, non-credit classes. And there's one that I really wanted to take, on Greco-Roman religion and magic. And I had mentioned how as long as I get a job in the next few weeks, I was planning to register and take it (It's a weekend intensive class, a Friday evening and all day Saturday, costs $162)...and Deirdre told me that the Witan had already decided that they were going to pay for it for me (It was on the Grove forum, and I had commented about wanting to take the class)...the condition being that afterwards, I had to come up with a workshop on what I learned.

I think I can manage that.

The class is in October.

http://odyssey.jhu.edu/depts.cfm?CourseID=6569&MajorCode=LArt&action=CourseList

Comments

[seaya.livejournal.com]

The way in which it describes Judiasm is weird. Judaism existed before that time and was a reaction to Middle Eastern dieties such as those of Ugarit, not Greek/Roman ones.

[fuego.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I didn't read it like that at all.

"It was also one in which the Israelite-Judaean tradition competed with paganism and struggled to define itself, ultimately splitting into what became Judaism and Christianity."

I read it as saying that there was the Jewish presence in Greek and Rome, and there were the polytheistic presences in Greece and Rome...and eventually, some of the Jews and the pagans became Christians.

But I can see where the weirdness coems from. We'll see what they teach in the class. Likely the person that teaches the class isn't the one that wrote the blurb.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Maybe.

I'm glad you can see how it sounded like Judaism originated at that time.

They may be referring to the split between Israel and Judea and maybe they think of Rabbinic Judaism as being what split off...but even that came way later. So, yeah.

[fuego.livejournal.com]

it never even occured to me that they might be saying that judaism originated in that time frame until you pointed it out, and honestly...i had to read it several times over to be able to construe it that way...hmm...thought I'm kinda curious as to how many other people might take it as you did. that could be an interesting experiment to take that blurb and ask people what they think it's saying...

[resident-geek.livejournal.com]

The latter is the most likely case--in academic discussion, I see a trend towards referring to pre-Second Temple Judaism as "Israelite-Judahite tradition", mostly because we have relatively little hard evidence for the beliefs it encompassed. We can only properly put the name Judaism on that which we know represents the set of beliefs that it comprises, and Second Temple/Rabbinic Judaism is the only real candidate.

Topically, I got some good pictures of the mosaic at a Hellenistic synagogue at Bet Alpha, which give evidence of much stronger pagan influence than could be determined from textual sources. Fascinating stuff.

[psyilax.livejournal.com]

not fair!

[fuego.livejournal.com]

hehe...yeah, well. ya know.

[sunneyone.livejournal.com]

that is so cool. :) i'm glad they did that.

[hekatatia.livejournal.com]

Nice! That's very generous of them.