The making of Indian secularism: book review

Professor Chandra Mallampalli of  the History Department at Westmont College (California) reviews Nandini Chatterji's "The making of Indian secularism: Empire, law and Christianity" in the Institute of Historical Research's Reviews in History

Dr. Nandini Chatterji teaches in the History Department at Plymouth University (Devon, U.K.).
Click here to read the her response to Professor Mallampalli's review

And read the book in SOAS Library at JA322.1 /737922

Hugoye (Journal of Syriac Studies) has moved!

Hugoye, the digital journal of Syriac Studies has moved to a new site hosted by the Syriac Institute at http://www.bethmardutho.org/

Click on the "Hugoye" tab at the top of the page to access the journal. Click Current Issue for the very latest articles and Index for all other content from 1998 onwards.
The Beth Mardutho site will also be developed to include more digital resources for the study of Syriac and ancient Christianity

Recent dissertations on Rabbinic literature

This posting (from last month) on the Talmud Blog gives a list of recent (2010 and 2011) dissertations on aspects of Rabbinic literature
Click here for the Talmud Blog's homepage. The blog is edited by Dr Shai Secunda and Yitz Landes and aims to"provide readers with content relating to Talmudic news, reviews, culture, currents, and criticism"

Ancient Jewish Zodiac calendar at Qumran?

Research by Dr Helen Jacobus at the University of Manchester has suggested that Qumran scroll 4Q318 was a precursor to the Jewish calendar.


"According to Dr Jacobus, the Aramaic month names used in the scroll are the same as those used in the Hebrew calendar today. They are, she says, Aramaic translations of the Babylonian month names." and "can still be used to find the moon's position in the zodiac on a given date in the Jewish calendar – "


The full article "A Jewish zodiac calendar at Qumran" is available through Manchester University's e-scholar. Click here to view

New open access journal

Relegere: studies in religion and reception is a new open-access, peer-reviewed journal from the University of Otago (New Zealand)
The journal publishes studies of the transmission, reception and effect of religious ideas, narratives and images within any medium, including oral tradition, film, television, literature and drama.
Vol.1, no.1 (2011) is now available (click "current" on the webpage)
Contents of the first issue include

• Rethinking premodern Japanese Buddhist texts: a case study of Prince Shotoku's "Sangyo-gisho" (Mark Dennis)
• Life of Brian or Life of Jesus? Uses of critical Biblical scholarship and non-orthodox views of Jesus in "Monty Python's Life of Brian" (James Crossley)

Religion and politics

Two stories highlighting the tensions where religious sensibilities and politics clash

(1) Via GoogleNews - report from Associated Press on Israel's opening up of the traditional site of the baptism of Jesus on the River Jordan to visitors on a daily basis - a scheme which is opposed by both the Jordanians and the Palestinians

(2) Report from Turkey's Hurriyet newspaper (online) on demands by Turkey's Syriac Christian community to be able to use traditional Syriac surnames (a law of 1934 had banned the use of "foreign" surnames in Turkey)

Stock moves : Jewish studies

All large and standard sized books on Jewish studies have been moved to their new location on Level B of the Library
These comprise:

• QI - Biblical studies
• QJ - Palestine / Israel (in Western languages)
• QN - Hebrew (ancient, medieval and modern)
• QO - Jews and Judaism
• QPA & QPB - Yiddish and Ladino (selected titles only)

Reference books for these subjects are still on Level C for the time being, but will be relocated to Level B shortly.