Exemplarity, Exegesis, & Ethnography: Abraham in Pseudo-Hegesippus as a Test Case for Biblical Reception in Christian Late Antiquity
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Carson Bay
Abstract
Exemplarity, ethnography, and exegesis are three forms of cultural practice well known to the ancient Mediterranean world. The use of role models, the ‘writing’ of peoples, and the interpretation of authoritative writings (i.e. “Scriptures”) were ways in which many authors of Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian antiquity situated themselves and others within history. Here I argue that the biblical patriarch Abraham, as received within the late antique Christian text called Pseudo-Hegesippus (On the Destruction of Jerusalem), provides a quintessential example of these scribal-rhetorical habits in action. The upshot of this study is that key figures like Abraham were integral tools for doing the things that certain interested ancient writers were trying to do, and as such these figures constitute appropriate, even necessary, objects of research for those seeking to understanding ancient Mediterranean texts, authors, and readers.
Funding source: Swiss National Science Foundation
Research funding: Funding for this article was provided in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF, Sinergeia Project 180217) as part of the project “Lege Iosephum: Ways of Reading Josephus in the Latin Middle Ages”.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Receiving the Word in Image: Federico Zuccaro’s the Annunciation Broadcast by Prophets (1565) and the Reception History of the Bible in the Counter-Reformation
- Exemplarity, Exegesis, & Ethnography: Abraham in Pseudo-Hegesippus as a Test Case for Biblical Reception in Christian Late Antiquity
- The Recovery of the Nazirite in Carolingian Discourse
- Lot’s Wife is Still Standing: In Search of the Pillar of Salt
- The Most Significant Book of the Netherlands — And Its Ordinary Readers
- Book Review
- Lisa M. Bowens: African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Receiving the Word in Image: Federico Zuccaro’s the Annunciation Broadcast by Prophets (1565) and the Reception History of the Bible in the Counter-Reformation
- Exemplarity, Exegesis, & Ethnography: Abraham in Pseudo-Hegesippus as a Test Case for Biblical Reception in Christian Late Antiquity
- The Recovery of the Nazirite in Carolingian Discourse
- Lot’s Wife is Still Standing: In Search of the Pillar of Salt
- The Most Significant Book of the Netherlands — And Its Ordinary Readers
- Book Review
- Lisa M. Bowens: African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation
