Jeremy Penner – författare

This catalogue accompanies Lives and Literacy in Ancient Egypt, an exhibition exploring the transformational role of papyrus in Graeco-Roman Egypt. In contrast to the grandeur of pyramids and temples, this exhibition catalogue features the humble papyrus, a media technology that reveals a vibrant, multilingual society navigating radical change. Hosted by the John Rylands Research Institute and Library in collaboration with the Harry Ransom Center, this exhibition highlights how writing extended beyond temples, shaping daily life, law, medicine, and religion.Featuring unique literary manuscripts, petitions, magical texts, and early Christian writings—including one of the oldest extant copies of the Gospel of John—visitors encounter how literacy influenced culture and identity, and how it facilitated international politics and shaped daily life. The exhibition traces the journey of papyrus from its production and use in education to its repurposing in mummy cartonnage, emphasizing the contingent and fragmentary nature of history. With loans from the Manchester Museum and the Egypt Exploration Society, this catalogue invites readers to rethink ancient Egypt’s legacy and the power of the written word in preserving diverse voices across time.

When thinking about psalms and prayers in the Second Temple period, the Masoretic Psalter and its reception is often given priority because of modern academic or theological interests. This emphasis tends to skew our understanding of the corpus we call psalms and prayers and often dampens or mutes the lived context within which these texts were composed and used. This volume is comprised of a collection of articles that explore the diverse settings in which psalms and prayers were used and circulated in the late Second Temple period. The book includes essays by experts in the Hebrew bible, the Dead Sea scrolls, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and the New Testament, in which a wide variety of topics, approaches, and methods both old and new are utilized to explore the many functions of psalms and prayers in the late Second Temple period. Included in this volume are essays examining how psalms were read as prophecy, as history, as liturgy, and as literature. A variety methodologies are employed, and include the use of cognitive sciences and poetics, linguistic theory, psychology, redaction criticism, and literary theory.