Michael DeVries

The Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls display a keen interest in the Israelite priesthood. Robert E. Jones' look at the Aramaic Levi Document reveals that this may have to do with the shifting fortunes of the priesthood in the 3rd cent BCE!
www.ancientjewreview.com/2025/10/17/hellenistic-context-aramaic-dss

Book cover showing classical column with title and author's name above it

My book "The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate" is now available for pre-order. Use promo code WIN26 to get 30% off. Coming January 6th 2026! yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Truth.

@meyerhoff-umd.bsky.social is hosting a lecture by Charlotte Hempel (my Doktormütter) tomorrow from 2-3:30 pm EST on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the rural economy. She has been doing some exciting work in this area. Follow the link to register.
jewishstudies.umd.edu/events/dead-...

Join us tomorrow at 2PM for an interesting discussion on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Rural Economy.

Looking forward Charlotte Hempel's lecture, The DSS and the Rural Economy on Oct 21. Follow the link for details and to register. jewishstudies.umd.edu/events/dead-... #dss #qumran

People think there are no Roman history emergencies, right up to the day a sitting president proposes a triumphal arch. Now suddenly everyone needs a good handle on Titus and Constantine.

The Pope tweets: "The poor are not there by chance or by blind and cruel fate. Nor, for most of them, is poverty a choice. Yet, there are those who still presume to make this claim, thus revealing their own blindness and cruelty. #DilexiTe" Someone replies: "I was so hopeful I could be a Catholic again after the disaster that Francis was, guess we just get Francis 2.0 now and I am heartbroken. How do I stay a Catholic now...I don't want to lose faith but I am. You belong to someone else, not God."

heartbroken to learn the pope sympathizes with the poor. how can i continue to believe in god

White House to Meet with Universities Regarding Compact The scheduled meeting follows increasingly forceful pushback to the wide-ranging proposal.

BREAKING: The White House has confirmed it's called the 5 institutions who haven't signed its compact to a meeting this afternoon. Insiders tell us it's "an effort to regain momentum by threatening institutions to sign" @knottkatherine.bsky.social has the scoop www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

Yes! I tell my students that my job is not to tell them what to think but teach them how to think.

Malinowski’s classic example is that of fishing. With lagoon fishing, Trobrianders do not employ magic as there is little danger and man can rely on his knowledge and skill for success. With open-sea fishing, where there is danger and uncertainty, extensive magical rituals abound (p. 13-14).

OR “We find magic wherever the elements of chance and accident, and the emotional play between hope and fear have a wide and extensive range. We do not find magic wherever the pursuit is certain, reliable, and well under the control of rational methods and technological processes” (p. 116).

Quote from Malinowski’s book, Magic, Science and Religion

One of Malinowski’s insights: when people find themselves in a situation in which they lack control over the outcome, they will engage in ritualized behavior to influence the outcome.

Trump Welcomes ‘Any Institution’ to Sign Onto Compact Outlining His Priorities An administration source told The Chronicle that “any institution that wants to adopt these principles” could sign onto the document, which offers a purported edge in grant funding.

Breaking: Trump's higher-ed compact is open to all, I confirmed for @chronicle.com: www.chronicle.com/blogs/the-tr...

“We welcome any institution that wants to adopt these principles to sign the compact,” a source told me.

hope we’re all paying attention to the conflation of christianity and neosegregation. hope other christians start pushing back. and i’m biased, but man, i hope schools stop shuttering their religion departments when we need them most.

Bloomberg reports this compact is being extended now to all colleges, and the first threat is withholding student loans. Multiple points clearly result in desegregating higher ed. I’ll underscore again that it bans professors from talking about “societal or political events”

UNC schools of data science and information science to merge, forming unnamed ‘School of AI’ SDSS Dean Stanley Ahalt will be made dean of the new school while SILS Dean Jeffrey Bardzell will stand as the University’s Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer and Vice Provost for AI.

*sigh*

and here goes my alma mater making terrible decisions. again.

MIT President Says ‘We Cannot Support’ Trump’s Compact The institution’s president, Sally Kornbluth, wrote: The proposal “is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.”

MIT President Kornbluth announced on Friday the university “cannot support” Trump’s compact, saying the university disagreed with a number of the principles laid out in the document, including policies that would limit freedom of expression and institutional independence.

🚨 Breaking News | MIT has rejected the Trump admin’s proposal to sign on to the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which would mandate sweeping changes across campus in exchange for preferential treatment on federal funding.

Read the full story ➡️ https://bit.ly/4h5dQgM

MIT rejects Trump administration deal for priority federal funding MIT is one of the nine schools that were asked to agree to adopt conservative priorities and policies in exchange for funding perks.

Breaking news: MIT’s president turned down the Trump administration’s offer of priority access for federal funding, publicly releasing a letter that emphasized the elite university’s values.

This is a professor at Rutgers who teaches a class on the history of anti-fascism. He also teaches about human rights. He has received multiple death threats and been doxed. He is relocating to Europe for his safety. This is where we are in the US now. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Yet another example of why I cancelled my NYT subscription.

Cover of Bronislaw Malinowski's Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays.

Revisiting ritual and anxiety reduction and decided to go WAY back in the literature. 1948 to be exact.

Joshua Schwartz's review of *The Textual History of the Bible from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Biblical Manuscripts of the Vienna Papyrus Collection* (STDJ 137) edited by Ruth Clements et al.
www.sblcentral.org/home/bookDet...

The humanities went from being seen as irrelevant to facing a crisis of literacy and critical thinking. This is why the humanities are so crucial. They provide the foundational tools and perspectives that shield us from such challenges.

Congrats! Very much looking forward to hearing about the new project!

The Child Follows the Womb - Yale University Press London A new and incisive exploration of female slavery and reproduction in ancient Rome One of ancient Rome’s most significant legacies is a legal framework...

Super-excited to see that Katharine Huemoeller's first book will be out in March!

Response to the ‘Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education’ | Office of the President

Dartmouth response to the Trump Administration Compact

president.dartmouth.edu/news/2025/10...

Sarah Mullally is named as first female archbishop of Canterbury No 10 announces decision although role will not legally be taken on until January, before an enthronement service Sarah Mullally has been named as the first female leader of the Church of England as Downing Street announced the 106th archbishop of Canterbury nearly a year on from Justin Welby’s resignation over the handling of a safeguarding scandal. This is the first time an archbishop of Canterbury has been chosen since the Church of England allowed women to become bishops in 2014. Continue reading...

Sarah Mullally is named as first female archbishop of Canterbury

Empire and Epistemicide Precisely at the times when Jews and Christians were most experiencing the violence of the Roman Empire, some of Rome’s rulers were most vociferously claiming to bring and keep peace. By Annette Yoshi...

In her essay “Empire and Epistemicide”, Dr. Annette Yoshiko Reed reflects on the Pax Romana as "an age of devastating warfare."

She finds hope in the work of HDS historian George Foot Moore (1851-1931), which served as a diagnosis and correction of past epistemic erasures.

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