In 2016-17, The Maccabees Project held two hybrid (in-person/zoom) discussions at Boston University’s Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, and three dialogues, at Boston University and Boston College.
Professor Leibner and colleagues present results from the excavations at Khirbet el-Eika, a strategic fortified site in Israel’s lower Galilee that—like several other sites throughout the land—was destroyed and abandoned suddenly around 144/143 BCE.
New Discoveries from Mazor
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Oct. 26th, 2016
Speakers: Yehiel Zelinger (Israel Antiquities Authority), Donald Ariel (Israel Antiquities Authority), and Gerald Finkielsztejn (Israel Antiquites Authority)
IAA archaeologist Yehiel Zelinger and colleagues present results from the excavations at Mazor, a wealthy rural estate in the hills north of Mode’in that—like several other sites throughout the land—was destroyed and abandoned suddenly around 144/143 BCE.
DIALOGUES
Revolutions in Time: The Invention of Era-Counting in the Seleucid Empire
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Dec. 1, 2016
Boston College
Speakers: John Collins (Yale University) and Paul Kosmin (Harvard University)
Professors Collins and Kosmin discuss the clash between Seleucid imperial time-keeping and “Jewish” time, its possible relationship to the social and political conflicts that arose in Judea in the 2nd c. BCE, as well as to other seemingly disparate contemporary developments, such as the rise of Jewish apocalyptic attitudes and writings.
Debating 1 Maccabees: Archaeology vs. Literature vs. History
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April 5, 2017
Hillel House, Boston University
Speakers: Andrea Berlin (Boston University), Steven Weitzman (University of Pennsylvania), and Benedikt Eckhardt (University of Bremen)
Professor Berlin discusses the implications of new archaeological evidence from northern Israel for an historical reading of 1 Maccabees chapters 9-12; Professors Weitzman and Eckhardt respond with their own ideas of how to relate the material remains to the ancient written accounts.
Imagining the Maccabees
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April 6, 2017
Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, Boston University
Speakers: Steven Weitzman (University of Pennsylvania) and Benedikt Eckhardt (University of Bremen)
Professors Weitzman and Eckhardt discuss the methods and consequences of bringing a modern literary approach to the text of 1 Maccabees, and consider how such an approach invites reflection on the fictive dimensions of our modern scholarly reconstructions.