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drewjakeprof.bsky.social
Andrew Jacobs (he/him)
@drewjakeprof.bsky.social
2.7K followers 400 following 7.1K posts
andrewjacobs.org | Advising Fellow, virginia.edu | ed., Elements in Religion in Late Antiquity (bit.ly/cup-erla) | 👑🐝 = Queen Bee in NYT Spelling Bee
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drewjakeprof.bsky.social
nothing like turning a page in a book and seeing a sentence you first wrote almost a quarter century ago staring back at you!
block quote centered on an otherwise blank page: "This Christian view was comprehensive in two senses of the word: *totalizing*, seeking to gather together all that existed into clear and definable intellectual categories; and *knowing*, seeking to create a cognitive mastery of all that existed in the Christian world."
November 25, 2025 at 9:31 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
I came across the Life of Susanna last year in this (very interesting!) article on "transgender materialism":

muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

1/x
An ambiguity lays at the heart of late antique religious literature, and in particular trans saints’ lives: the celebration of what is ordinarily prohibited in both canon law and imperial legislation. These popular late-antique narratives include the anonymous Life and Passion of Susanna, which depicts a literary character of a trans monk, virgin, and martyr in the mid-fourth-century Palestinian setting. Such texts and images mediate social identities, albeit their treatment is constrained due to the ramifications of the literary genre and iconographic traditions. Examining this rarely discussed vita, which has not yet been translated in full into any modern language, and the concomitant hagiographic iconography, this article investigates late antique social and religious identities at the intersection of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. It begins with critical historiography of scholarly accounts of the late antique “trans saint” that drew on methodological paradigms of psychoanalysis, structuralism, and poststructuralism, often interpreting these saintly figures as transhistorical and literary constructions. The article argues for an intersectional-materialist transfeminist analysis of these texts as a heuristic approach to the historical record attentive to material life after the end of the linguistic turn in the humanities.
November 25, 2025 at 4:41 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
okay this is now annoying. i've resorted to using Chrome's HTML editor plug-in (sigh) since it's mainly clean-up but every time I save it it adds this annoying "\n" that I cannot delete. what is happening??
screenshot of the upper portion of a beautifully formatted webpage with a stray "\n" in the upper corner
November 25, 2025 at 2:54 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
I'm translating a late ancient saint's life where a prefect tries to kill the martyr this way but a miracle saves her (this is after he had her breasts cut off and an angel immediately restored them to her chest). (text & translation in alt-text, friends!)
καὶ προσέταξεν ἐνεχθῆναι λέβητα χαλκοῦν, καὶ ληθῆναι μολιβδὀν ἐν αύτῷ, εἰθ´ οὕτως ἐπιτεθῆναι χώην ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτὴς, καὶ ἐνεχθῆναι τὸν μόλιβδον βράζοντα, καὶ χεθῆναι ἐν τῷ λάρυγγι αὐτῆς. καὶ τούτου γενομένου, τῇ χάριτι καὶ δυνάμει τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὥσπερ ὕδωρ ψυχρότατον ἐν καιρῷ καύσονος, οὕτως καὶ ὀ βρασμὸς τοῦ μολίβδοῦ ἐγένετο ἐν τοῖς σπλάγχνοισ τῆς ἁγίας παρθένου. And he ordered a bronze cauldron to be brought it and lead melted in it and then for a funnel to be placed in her mouth, the molten lead to be brought in and poured down her throat. When this was done, by the grace and power of our Lord Jesus Christ, just like the coldest water in the summertime, so became also the boiling lead in the holy virgin’s viscera.
November 24, 2025 at 6:41 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
it's an interesting read but good lord do federal rulings typically have to define "an"?
The indefinite article “an” points “to a nonspecific object, thing, or person that is not distinguished from other members of a class,” Bryan A. Garner, Garner’s Modern English Usage 1195 (5th ed. 2022), so the expiration of any single Attorney General appointment satisfies the condition.
November 24, 2025 at 5:52 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
HAL-9000
November 24, 2025 at 3:12 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
look at all that late antiquity blown up into beautiful posters!
blow up of the UC Press both from the quoted post; blown up on the display are books by Ellen Muehlberger, Tina Shepardson, Mark Letteney and Matthew Larsen, Susan Harvey, Jenny Barry, Susanna Elm, and others!
November 23, 2025 at 1:12 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
wtf is Mary Worth quoting Modi about "living in the present"? cc: @jfruh.bsky.social
Sunday Mary Worth opening panel with a quote about "living in the present" by Narenrda Modi
November 23, 2025 at 12:57 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
lovely and enlightening event about @ingerkuin.bsky.social's new DIOGENES book in conversation w @aristofontes.bsky.social. there were sheet cookies with the cover!
Big cookie with the book cover on it
November 22, 2025 at 10:41 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
okay, finally deciphered the smiley face line (greek and translation in alt-text) and think it might be... an angel???
(sorry no accents), starting on the second line: ειπεν τω επισκοπω κελευσον ο αγγελοσ [weird drawing] μων [?] δια ταχουσ παρα γενεσθαι δθο διακο she said to the bishop call, o angel [something?] right away to be brought two diac(onesses)
November 21, 2025 at 6:34 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
a fun little smily face at the end of that third line!

(but honestly: what is that?)
five lines of 12th-cen. ms. Greek which I would love to transcribe for but my paleography skills are so rusty you can see through them. But at the end of the third line there is a weird smiley face character!
November 21, 2025 at 4:52 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
i will never be as comfortable as a cat and i just have to make peace with that
Giuseppe the cat sprawled on his cushioned window ledge looking cozy and positively boneless
November 21, 2025 at 1:09 AM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
I'm sorry why did they use a photo of beloved comedian and character actor Brian Posehn?
beloved comedian and character actor Brian Posehn
November 20, 2025 at 12:43 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
Greek paleography bat signal!

Acta Sanctorum reads the sentence below as: ὁ δὲ ὅσιος
ἐπίσκοπος [Κλεώπας] περιβομβηθῆναι αὐτὴν & translates it as "sanctus episcopus Cleopas curavit infamiam ejus
vulgari" but περιβομβηθῆναι is veeeeeery rare word & it also doesn't look like that here? any ideas?
November 19, 2025 at 7:53 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
with alt text:
Review panel: Trans Biblical: New Approaches to Interpretation and Embodiment in Scripture Sunday, November 23, 2025 4-6pm Hynes Convention Center 104 (Plaza Level) Plus 50% off at the Westminster John Knox Press Booth (101) in the Exhibit Hall
November 19, 2025 at 5:11 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
#SBLAAR25: there is a Trader Joe's and Star Market an easy walk from Hynes and conference hotels! stock up on breakfast and (as @vox-magica.bsky.social suggested) water and snacks for during the day!
google map screenshot showing a Trader Joe's on Boylston and a Star Market on Huntington Avenue near hotels
November 19, 2025 at 3:22 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
with alt text:
Models of Piety Informal Happy Hour 5-6pm on Nov 21st Irving Bar, Lenox Hotel @ Boston
November 18, 2025 at 5:53 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
with alt text:
Expertise in Late Antiquity Yitz Landes, Chair Daniel Picus Heidi Wendt Megan Nutzman Rivka Elitzur-Leiman Tzvi Novick Krista Dalton Sun, Nov 23 | 4:00 pm - 6:30 pm 311 Hynes Convention Center
November 18, 2025 at 5:51 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
reading through SBL/AAR abstracts and Blake Leyerle never disappoints!
The central bema in the main church of Seleucia Pieria, the port city of ancient Antioch, was surrounded by a mosaic-inlaid ambulatory. Although only fragments of the late 5th c. composition were recovered, the design appears to have featured a continuous procession of animals, punctuated by tufts of vegetation. The range of represented species is remarkable; it includes even a large elephant. Unlike earlier mosaics of staged hunts, the creatures are notably peaceful, and given their location, presumably endowed with Christian meaning. It is possible that the assemblage was intended to represent paradise as a time before sin and violence, but it seems more likely that it was primarily designed to evoke wonder. Drawing upon Rafe Neis’s analysis of the functions of the menagerie, as well as upon <highlight> contemporary studies of surprise </highlight>, this paper will argue for the liturgical utility of awe.
November 17, 2025 at 6:02 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
in addition to Young's (predictably) excellent introduction to Nicaea and its contours, the forum includes 10 "paired" scholars reflecting on the meaning and legacy of the council from various denominational perspectives
• “Reflections on the Nicene Creed from a Reformed Perspective” by Paul C. H. Lim and “The Significance of Nicaea for the Orthodox Christian Tradition” by George E. Demacopoulos • “Pentecostals and Nicaea” by Kyambi Mugambi and “One Mennonite’s Reflection on the Council of Nicaea” by Nancy R. Heisey • “Methodism and the Nicene Creed” by Rebecca Lyman and “Nicaea at 1700 and the Latter-day Saints at 195” by Benjamin Keogh • “Lutherans and the Council of Nicaea” by Christopher Boyd Brown and “The Reception of the Council of Nicaea and Its Creed in the Coptic Orthodox Church” by Mary K. Farag • “Nicaea from the Catholic Perspective” by Samuel Fernández and “The Council of Nicaea and Its Creed in the Anglican Tradition” by Mark S. Smith
November 17, 2025 at 2:43 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
with alt text
Meira Kensky: You Will Not Sustain Biblical Studies Without a $200m Endowment and Rolling Triple 7s Sat Nov 22 Wellesley (Third Floor) Marriott Copley 9-9:25AM ET S22-139-11
November 15, 2025 at 5:39 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
with alt text
S22-233 Review of Sarah E. Bond's Strike Sat Nov 22 1-3:30pm 309 (3rd Level) Hynes Convention Center 1-1:25: Jennifer Quigley, Emory University 1:25-1:50: Richard Last, Trent University 1:50-2pm: Break 2-2:25pm: Laurence Welborn, Fordham University 2:25-2:50pm: Laura Salah Nasrallah, Yale University 2:50-3:10: Sarah E. Bond, University of Iowa 3:10-3:30: Roundtable discussion
November 13, 2025 at 8:28 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
okay
Over the summer, Mack got married to Frank Meeink, a prominent former neo-Nazi who now speaks out in support of racial diversity and acceptance. The couple met in a dog park not long after Mack's release from prison in 2023. According to the podcast's host, Natalie Robehmed, Mack now goes by Allison Meeink.
November 11, 2025 at 8:05 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
with alt-text
Rabbinic Literature and Culture: SBL 2025 23-110 Vidas, The Rise of Talmus Sun, Nov 23 | 9-11:30am Independence West Sheraton S23-312 Expertise in Late Antiquity Sun Nov 23 | 4-6:30pm 311 (Third Level) Hynes Convention Center S23-333 Rabbis and the Roman Empire Sun Nov 23 | 4-6:30pm Jamaica Pond (Fifth Floor) Sheraton S24-217 Legal Theory and Rabbinic Lit Mon Nov 24 | 1-3:30pm 310 (Third Level) Hynes Conventino Center S24-355 Open Call Mon Nov 24 | 4-6:30pm Exeter (Third Floor) Sheraton
November 11, 2025 at 7:46 PM
drewjakeprof.bsky.social
screenshot: Isaac the (ex-)Jew In both ancient Christian narratives and modern scholarly histories, Jewish converts represent, interrogate, and ultimately reaffirm the nebulous religio-cultural boundaries of Christian difference. This paper examines one purported Jewish convert, Isaac.
November 11, 2025 at 6:12 PM