scholarly journals A Tale of Two Hypotheses: Genetics and the Ethnogenesis of Ashkenazi Jewry

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aram Yardumian
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Genetic Data ◽  
Ashkenazi Jews ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Arthur Koestler ◽  
Jewish Ancestry ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Analytical Approaches ◽  
European Populations

The debate over the ethnogenesis of Ashkenazi Jewry is longstanding, and has been hampered by a lack of Jewish historiographical work between the Biblical and the early Modern eras. Most historians, as well as geneticists, situate them as the descendants of Israelite tribes whose presence in Europe is owed to deportations during the Roman conquest of Palestine, as well as migration from Babylonia, and eventual settlement along the Rhine. By contrast, a few historians and other writers, most famously Arthur Koestler, have looked to migrations following the decline of the little-understood Medieval Jewish kingdom of Khazaria as the main source for Ashkenazi Jewry. A recent study of genetic variation in southeastern European populations (Elhaik 2012) also proposed a Khazarian origin for Ashkenazi Jews, eliciting considerable criticism from other scholars investigating Jewish ancestry who favor a Near Eastern origin of Ashkenazi populations. This paper re-examines the genetic data and analytical approaches used in these studies of Jewish ancestry, and situates them in the context of historical, linguistic, and archaeological evidence from the Caucasus, Europe and the Near East. Based on this reanalysis, it appears not only that the Khazar Hypothesis per se is without serious merit, but also the veracity of the ‘Rhineland Hypothesis’ may also be questionable.

The emergence of bone-working and ornamental art in the Caucasian Upper Palaeolithic

Antiquity ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 84 (324) ◽  
pp. 299-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liubov V. Golovanova ◽  
Vladimir B. Doronichev ◽  
Naomi E. Cleghorn
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
New Work ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Early Modern Humans ◽  
Ornamental Art

New work from the Caucasus is revolutionising the timing and character of the shift from Neanderthals to early Modern humans in Eurasia. Here the authors reveal a powerful signal of that change from excavations at Mezmaiskaya: the abrupt appearance of a well-formed bone industry and ornaments.

The Qur’anic Calf Episode Between Orientalism and Islamic Tradition

2020 ◽  
pp. 265-317
Author(s):  
Michael E. Pregill
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
The West ◽  
Biblical Story ◽  
Golden Calf ◽  
Islamic Tradition ◽  
Western Scholarship ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Radical Revision

This chapter discusses the qur’anic Golden Calf episode as it is traditionally interpreted in both Muslim exegesis and Western scholarship. The qur’anic references to the image worshipped by the Israelites are usually understood as depicting the Calf as alive or at least possessing some semblance of life—as ? lowing image of a calf, as the Qur’an puts it. Further, the Qur’an seems to posit that the Calf was made and animated by a character called al-sāmirī—the “Samaritan”—and not Aaron as in the biblical story. Western scholars and traditional Muslim commentators have always agreed on this interpretation of the qur’anic version of the episode. However, this chapter shows that Western scholars have generally relied upon the explanation of the episode in Muslim exegesis or tafsīr, misunderstanding the role that early Muslim commentators played in introducing a radical revision of the story that was quite different in major details from the account found in the Qur’an itself. This can be demonstrated by examining historical translations of the Qur’an in the West, beginning with some of the earliest translations and commentaries of the medieval and early modern periods in Europe. In the specific case of the Calf narrative, Western scholars’ reliance on tafsīr has typically been motivated not by a desire to validate the claims of Muslim authorities, but rather by the assumption that Islam is at its root thoroughly dependent upon Judaism. This assumption has colored not only the overarching approach to the qur’anic narrative per se, but also the characterization of a number of rabbinic traditions that have been cited as the sources of that narrative.

Introduction

2010 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Sharon Flatto
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
World View ◽  
Ashkenazi Jews ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Central Aspect ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Longue Duree ◽  
Longue Durée ◽  
East And West

This chapter describes the multi-layered mystical rabbinic culture of eighteenth-century Prague. It reveals the prominence of Kabbalah in traditional life, particularly in the biography and writings of one of the towering figures of Ashkenazi Jewry named Ezekiel Landau, Prague's chief rabbi from 1754 to 1793. It also explores the deep roots of mysticism of the rabbinic culture of eighteenth-century Prague and sheds light on a central aspect of the life and world-view of a large number of early modern Ashkenazi Jews. The chapter covers the neglect of Prague's rabbinic culture, the importance of Prague as a meeting ground between East and West, and the centrality of Kabbalah for Prague Jews and its persistence over the longue durée. It reviews a wide range of kabbalistic materials and sources that influenced seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ashkenazi Jews.

scholarly journals Population structure of modern-day Italians reveals patterns of ancient and archaic ancestries in Southern Europe

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. eaaw3492 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Raveane ◽  
S. Aneli ◽  
F. Montinaro ◽  
G. Athanasiadis ◽  
S. Barlera ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Population Structure ◽  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Italian Peninsula ◽  
Nomadic Pastoralists ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
A Genome ◽  
The World ◽  
European Populations

European populations display low genetic differentiation as the result of long-term blending of their ancient founding ancestries. However, it is unclear how the combination of ancient ancestries related to early foragers, Neolithic farmers, and Bronze Age nomadic pastoralists can explain the distribution of genetic variation across Europe. Populations in natural crossroads like the Italian peninsula are expected to recapitulate the continental diversity, but have been systematically understudied. Here, we characterize the ancestry profiles of Italian populations using a genome-wide dataset representative of modern and ancient samples from across Italy, Europe, and the rest of the world. Italian genomes capture several ancient signatures, including a non–steppe contribution derived ultimately from the Caucasus. Differences in ancestry composition, as the result of migration and admixture, have generated in Italy the largest degree of population structure detected so far in the continent, as well as shaping the amount of Neanderthal DNA in modern-day populations.

ARYENS ET SÉMITES: QUEL AVENIR? ARCHÉOLOGIES, LANGUES ET VISIONS DU MONDE

Numen ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 172-189
Author(s):  
Paul-Louis Van Berg
Keyword(s):  
Black Sea ◽  
Human Body ◽  
The Black Sea ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Eastern Cultures ◽  
The Difference ◽  
North And South

AbstractFriedrich Max Mueller thought that the "absurdity" of Aryan myths could be explained by a "disease of language," that is a shift implying that metaphor was taken for reality. Thus, cosmic and meteorological phenomena came to be considered as human beings living human adventures. He found the etiology of this disease in language, and specially in the polysemy and ambiguity of Vedic Sanskrit which he opposed to the limpidity of Hebrew. While the difference between the two languages does exist, the explanation has long been acknowledged to be false. Actually, the opposition becomes understandable if we consider that Indo-Europeans and Semites belong to much wider cultural basins. Indeed, characteristics attributed by Max Mueller to the Aryans also belong to the Altaic cultures, while those assigned to the Semites are shared not only by Hebrews, but also by many other Semitic and by non-Semitic cultures of the Near East. Hence, we can define two large cultural sets north and south of the Black Sea and the Caucasus. In the northern one, Indo-European and Altaic cultures share many traits: organization of space and time, society and knowledge, unreliability of the visible world, conception of the human body, rejection of figuration, for instance. In the southern one, we find radically different conceptions shared by the indigenous Near Eastern cultures. Considering that linguistic communication and ways of thinking are only aspects of these two cultural sets, elaborated separately since the Neolithic and adapted to different conditions of life, we may expect mythologies to reflect these differences and understand that the opposition of Vedic Sanskrit and Hebrew is only a small facet of a global phenomenon.

scholarly journals Genomic microsatellites identify shared Jewish ancestry intermediate between Middle Eastern and European populations

BMC Genetics ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naama M Kopelman ◽  
Lewi Stone ◽  
Chaolong Wang ◽  
Dov Gefel ◽  
Marcus W Feldman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Jewish Ancestry ◽  
Genomic Microsatellites ◽  
European Populations

Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Dirk Moses
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Post War

This article describes the genocide concept of Raphael Lemkin. Genocide is a curious anomaly in the post-war regime of international humanitarian law, which is dominated by the discourse of human rights with its emphasis on individuals. It embodies the social ontology of ‘groupism’, because genocide is about the destruction of groups per se, not individuals per se. Lemkin thought that the Nazi policies were radically new, but only in the context of modern civilization. Wars of extermination have marked human society from antiquity until the religious conflagrations of early modern Europe, after which the doctrine that dominated was that war should be conducted against states rather than populations. Given that forty-nine members of his family died in the Holocaust, Lemkin's ecumenical approach to human suffering is at once astonishing and exemplary.

PASCAL AND MELANCHOLY

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (02) ◽  
pp. 339-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHAD A. CÓRDOVA
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
Anthropological Perspective ◽  
Medical Status ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Therapeutic Protocols ◽  
Theories Of Subjectivity ◽  
Large Corpus

This article shows how two concepts for which Blaise Pascal'sPensées(1670) are best known—divertissementandennui(often mistranslated as “boredom”)—inherited and transformed medical conceptions of melancholy along with one of melancholy's signature therapeutic protocols: diversion. Instead of limiting the genealogy of Pascal's concepts to more obvious textual sources (St Augustine, Montaigne, etc.), here they are read against the background of an epistemological paradigm dominant in his time: Galenic medicine. Drawing on a large corpus of early modern French medical texts, this article discloses how melancholy, stripped of its overt medical status, remerges in Pascal's analysis of subjectivity, which valorized melancholicennuiagainst the values of a nascent civil society subservient to the monarchic order. Once used to describe outlying temperaments and exceptional pathologies, the discourse on melancholy becomes fundamental to the human being per se in Pascal's theological and anthropological perspective. Thus transformed, the older forms of melancholy and its remedies ensured the possibility of their survival—disguised and unrecognized—in modern theories of subjectivity and psychology. Understanding melancholy's latent presence in thePensées, in other words, sheds new light on the affective aspects of Pascal's social critique and invites us to investigate the modern afterlife of early modern melancholy.

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