Event details
Oct
21
Kwartler Family Lecture – Calendar and Commemoration: Memorializing War in the Hebrew Bible
Join the Program in Judaic Studies for this year's Kwartler Family Lecture with Julia Rhyder on Tuesday, October 21.
Abstract
Commemorating war is such an integral part of the modern nation-state, and of the Jewish experience of the past century, that we might assume it played a similar role in antiquity. Yet the extent to which the calendar served to memorialize war, and specifically conflicts involving ancient Jews, remains an open question. While recent scholarship has highlighted the importance of war memory in shaping the physical landscape of the ancient Near East, remarkably little attention has been paid to its temporal dimension: namely, how calendars, and the festal events they prescribed, may have been used to recall military events. This talk presents an original history of how the memory of war shaped calendrical festivals in the Hebrew Bible. In the first part, I argue that early biblical festivals with martial themes did not commemorate the dates of actual historical battles but rather celebrated the cosmic victories of the Israelite God, worshipped as warrior and king. The second part then reveals a major commemorative transformation in the Hellenistic era (330–63 BCE): namely, new ceremonies that marked the dates of battles conducted by human agents. I conclude by considering the ramifications of this change for the emergence of the ancient Jewish calendar and the elevation of armed resistance to a central, though contested, place within Jewish collective identity.
Open to the public. Refreshments will be available.
More about Julia Rhyder
Julia Rhyder is Associate Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. She specializes in the Hebrew Bible, with a particular interest in ritual texts and the history of Israelite religion. Professor Rhyder’s first book, Centralizing the Cult: The Holiness Legislation in Leviticus 17–26 (Mohr Siebeck, 2019) was awarded the 2021 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise. In 2021, she was also honored with the David Noel Freedman Award for Excellence and Creativity in Hebrew Bible Scholarship for her work on the pig prohibition in ancient Judaism. Professor Rhyder is currently completing a monograph on calendrical festivals and war commemoration in the Hebrew Bible, in which she presents a new history of how war shaped the Israelite calendar from the oldest biblical traditions to Second Temple writings. In 2024, she was granted a Beaufort Visiting Fellowship at St John’s College, University of Cambridge for the book project.
Abstract
Commemorating war is such an integral part of the modern nation-state, and of the Jewish experience of the past century, that we might assume it played a similar role in antiquity. Yet the extent to which the calendar served to memorialize war, and specifically conflicts involving ancient Jews, remains an open question. While recent scholarship has highlighted the importance of war memory in shaping the physical landscape of the ancient Near East, remarkably little attention has been paid to its temporal dimension: namely, how calendars, and the festal events they prescribed, may have been used to recall military events. This talk presents an original history of how the memory of war shaped calendrical festivals in the Hebrew Bible. In the first part, I argue that early biblical festivals with martial themes did not commemorate the dates of actual historical battles but rather celebrated the cosmic victories of the Israelite God, worshipped as warrior and king. The second part then reveals a major commemorative transformation in the Hellenistic era (330–63 BCE): namely, new ceremonies that marked the dates of battles conducted by human agents. I conclude by considering the ramifications of this change for the emergence of the ancient Jewish calendar and the elevation of armed resistance to a central, though contested, place within Jewish collective identity.
Open to the public. Refreshments will be available.
More about Julia Rhyder
Julia Rhyder is Associate Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. She specializes in the Hebrew Bible, with a particular interest in ritual texts and the history of Israelite religion. Professor Rhyder’s first book, Centralizing the Cult: The Holiness Legislation in Leviticus 17–26 (Mohr Siebeck, 2019) was awarded the 2021 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise. In 2021, she was also honored with the David Noel Freedman Award for Excellence and Creativity in Hebrew Bible Scholarship for her work on the pig prohibition in ancient Judaism. Professor Rhyder is currently completing a monograph on calendrical festivals and war commemoration in the Hebrew Bible, in which she presents a new history of how war shaped the Israelite calendar from the oldest biblical traditions to Second Temple writings. In 2024, she was granted a Beaufort Visiting Fellowship at St John’s College, University of Cambridge for the book project.
Speakers
Julia Rhyder
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Date
October 21, 2025Time
4:30 p.m.Location
Louis A. Simpson International Building, A71Audience
University Sponsors
Program in Judaic Studies