Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Physiognomic Knowledge in Qumran and Babylonia: Form, Interdisciplinarity, and Secrecy

Physiognomic Knowledge in Qumran and Babylonia: Form, Interdisciplinarity, and Secrecy PHYSIOGNOMIC KNOWLEDGE IN QUMRAN AND BABYLONIA: FORM, INTERDISCIPLINARITY, AND SECRECY MLADEN POPOVIC ´ * Qumran Institute, University of Groningen Introductory Remarks The manuscripts 4Q186 and 4Q561 give us a unique glimpse of a physiognomic tradition in Second Temple period Judaism, the exis- tence of which was unknown before the Qumran manuscript discov- ery. 1 Although these documents are in a fragmentary state, they provide an interesting insight into the existence and dissemination of certain kinds of learning in Palestinian Judaism at the time. In antiquity the general idea of sympathy between character and body found detailed expression in a body of knowledge which we call physiognomics, derived from the Greek fusiognvmon¤a . 2 In general, phys- iognomics can be de fi ned as the means to discern another person’s character, disposition or future from his physical features. We shall see it was also believed possible to learn other things from reading the * Most of the research for this article was done while I was a research a ffi liate at Yale University Divinity School during the spring semester of 2004. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to John J. Collins for making that possible and for http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Dead Sea Discoveries Brill

Physiognomic Knowledge in Qumran and Babylonia: Form, Interdisciplinarity, and Secrecy

Popović, Mladen
Dead Sea Discoveries , Volume 13 (2): 150 – Jan 1, 2006
Download PDF
27 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/physiognomic-knowledge-in-qumran-and-babylonia-form-KfuT9zAgA0

References (2)

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2006 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0929-0761
eISSN
1568-5179
DOI
10.1163/156851706777842961
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

PHYSIOGNOMIC KNOWLEDGE IN QUMRAN AND BABYLONIA: FORM, INTERDISCIPLINARITY, AND SECRECY MLADEN POPOVIC ´ * Qumran Institute, University of Groningen Introductory Remarks The manuscripts 4Q186 and 4Q561 give us a unique glimpse of a physiognomic tradition in Second Temple period Judaism, the exis- tence of which was unknown before the Qumran manuscript discov- ery. 1 Although these documents are in a fragmentary state, they provide an interesting insight into the existence and dissemination of certain kinds of learning in Palestinian Judaism at the time. In antiquity the general idea of sympathy between character and body found detailed expression in a body of knowledge which we call physiognomics, derived from the Greek fusiognvmon¤a . 2 In general, phys- iognomics can be de fi ned as the means to discern another person’s character, disposition or future from his physical features. We shall see it was also believed possible to learn other things from reading the * Most of the research for this article was done while I was a research a ffi liate at Yale University Divinity School during the spring semester of 2004. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to John J. Collins for making that possible and for

Journal

Dead Sea Discoveries – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 2006

There are no references for this article.