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Andrew Jacobs (he/him)

@drewjakeprof.bsky.social

2.7K followers 400 following 7.1K posts

andrewjacobs.org | Advising Fellow, virginia.edu | ed., Elements in Religion in Late Antiquity (bit.ly/cup-erla) | 👑🐝 = Queen Bee in NYT Spelling Bee

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Andrew Jacobs may refer to:Andrew Jacobs (journalist), reporter for The New York Times and documentary film director and producer Andrew Jacobs (lawyer) (1906–1992), lawyer, judge, and Congressman from Indiana Andrew Jacobs Jr. (1932–2013), lawyer, Indiana state legislator, and Congressman from Indiana Andy Jacobs, British sports personality .. more

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Philosophy 18%

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Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · Sep 20

well good morning, new followers! get ready for occasional pictures of my cat, musings/RTs of ancient religion & history, a smattering of politics and pop culture

I had two books come out last year that you might like 1/2

Gospel Thrillers: scalar.usc.edu/works/gospel...

Gospel Thrillers: Get your copy of Gospel Thrillers

Gospel Thrillers: Conspiracy, Fiction, and the Vulnerable Bible is available in print and digital formats:Directly from the publisher, Cambridge University Press (digital and print)From an indepe...

scalar.usc.edu

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 7h

Pratima! So excited to peruse.

Reposted by Andrew Jacobs

Sitcom People @sitcompeople.bsky.social · 7h

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 8h

global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Reposted by Andrew Jacobs, Andrew M. Riggsby

Pratima now has the bonies’ sense of humor @ismipratima.bsky.social · 8h

Out now in Oxford Bibliographies in Classics: My biblio on "Jews in the Roman empire." My goal was to invite classicists/ancient historians into the rich world of rabbinic literature, which can transform (if we let it) how we talk about the Roman empire

www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/docu...

www.oxfordbibliographies.com

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 10h

nothing like turning a page in a book and seeing a sentence you first wrote almost a quarter century ago staring back at you!

block quote centered on an otherwise blank page: "This Christian view was comprehensive in two senses of the word: *totalizing*, seeking to gather together all that existed into clear and definable intellectual categories; and *knowing*, seeking to create a cognitive mastery of all that existed in the Christian world."

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 10h

p.s. for those who are interested, I have a dozen or so original translations in addition to this one on my website. it's a pretty idiosyncratic collection of texts but I hear people find them interesting!

andrewjacobs.org/translations/

Andrew Jacobs: Translations

andrewjacobs.org

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 11h

💯

Reposted by Andrew Jacobs

Shaily Patel @vox-magica.bsky.social · 11h

OMG look what was on my doorstep! i haven’t seen the print version yet, but it’s prettier than i expected!!

Picture of the box of author’s copies of my new book, _Smoke & Mirrors_.

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 11h

will be very interested to hear what you and your students make of it!

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 11h

well that was a fun little moment thinking the webpage I just put up suddenly wouldn't render any non-ASCII characters *including Greek* before I found the right switch to flip

Reposted by Andrew Jacobs

New Dominion Bookshop @ndbookshop.bsky.social · 12h

Thank you so much to everyone who came out to support the authors and our local literary community this fall. Pictured here, our last two author events of the year: Hannah Rosenberg's event for Same, and Inger N.I. Kuin's event in conversation with @aristofontes.bsky.social for Diogenes.

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 13h

bake sales

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 13h

cheers!

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 13h

hmm that is weird. i'll make sure it's set to normal unicode! (it was showing up fine on my machines but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 14h

thanks, I'll see what I can do! it seems to auto-generate every time I save the file (it's the "free visual html editor" plugin for chrome, btw).

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 14h

there are echoes of many other texts (Thecla, naturally!, looms large) & thought short it's a fascinating contemplation of transformation and fixity, embodied and otherwise, in late antiquity!

enjoy it over some turkey & stuffing with loved ones!

andrewjacobs.org/translations...

8/8

Life and Martyrdom of Susanna

andrewjacobs.org

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 14h

congratulations!

Reposted by Andrew Jacobs

Matt Delmont @mattdelmont.bsky.social · 14h

Excited to share that my new book is available for preorder! "Until the Last Gun is Silent: A Story of Patriotism, the Vietnam War, and the Fight to Save America's Soul" is out January 27, 2026 from @vikingbooks.bsky.social www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/736800...

Until the Last Gun Is Silent by Matthew F. Delmont: 9780593655870 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

The untold story of the Black patriots—from soldiers in combat to peace protesters—who ended the Vietnam War and defended the soul of American democracy, from a pre-eminent civil rights historian...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 14h

... we are told she lived as John for 20 years in a monastery of men! most of her adult life. likewise she was Jewish for 15 years of her life. how do we imagine the "fixity" of these boundaries if we decompress those unnarrated stretched of time?

7/x

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 14h

narratively it is easy to read the Life of Susanna as affirming fixed sex: the Greek never refers to her with male endings (although she does of herself) and her sex is twice forcibly reaffirmed

but that is a kind of narrative sleight of hand since ... 6/x

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 14h

conversion narratives are all about the uncertainty (yet necessity!) of boundedness (Judaism & Christianity must be different or else "conversion" makes no sense)

is binary sex being evoked to affirm the boundedness of religions? or do the two disrupt each other?

5/x

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 14h

but the Life of Susanna adds the (seemingly unnecessary) detail that Susanna was raised Jewish & converted to Christianity as a young adult

how do these transitions (Jew>Christian) (female>male) relate? why is one front & center throughout while the other vanishes w/o further mention?

4/x

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 14h

now they are part of a more sophisticated & evolving archive of trans history

stories of monks who cross back & forth across sex states (like Susanna) complicate default modes of cisness similar to the ways @postrafelite.bsky.social has analyzed rabbinic lit

www.ucpress.edu/books/when-a...

3/x

When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven by Rafael Neis - Paper

Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.

www.ucpress.edu

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 14h

As Bodnaruk points out, there is a fascinating history of how the variety of "male monks born as woman" have been treated

when I was coming up in grad school these were still "cross-dressing saints" only beginning to be read through gender studies

2/x

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 14h

I came across the Life of Susanna last year in this (very interesting!) article on "transgender materialism":

muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

1/x

An ambiguity lays at the heart of late antique religious literature, and in particular trans saints’ lives: the celebration of what is ordinarily prohibited in both canon law and imperial legislation. These popular late-antique narratives include the anonymous Life and Passion of Susanna, which depicts a literary character of a trans monk, virgin, and martyr in the mid-fourth-century Palestinian setting. Such texts and images mediate social identities, albeit their treatment is constrained due to the ramifications of the literary genre and iconographic traditions. Examining this rarely discussed vita, which has not yet been translated in full into any modern language, and the concomitant hagiographic iconography, this article investigates late antique social and religious identities at the intersection of ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. It begins with critical historiography of scholarly accounts of the late antique “trans saint” that drew on methodological paradigms of psychoanalysis, structuralism, and poststructuralism, often interpreting these saintly figures as transhistorical and literary constructions. The article argues for an intersectional-materialist transfeminist analysis of these texts as a heuristic approach to the historical record attentive to material life after the end of the linguistic turn in the humanities.

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 15h

FYI, just posted the full translation (with a big thank you for pointing out the CTh law!)

andrewjacobs.org/translations...

Life and Martyrdom of Susanna

andrewjacobs.org

Reposted by Julia Hillner

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 16h

This is a late ancient (5-7th c.?) Greek account of the life of a rich woman who was raised Jewish, converted to Christianity when her parents died, lived for 20 years as a male monk named John, was discovered & made head of a woman's monastery, & was later martyred

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 16h

well, what the heck. it's the tuesday before thanksgiving, and whoever is on here deserves a treat: the first new translation I've posted in a long while: the Life and Martyrdom of Susanna:

andrewjacobs.org/translations...

Life and Martyrdom of Susanna

andrewjacobs.org

Reposted by Andrew Jacobs

Gorgias Press @gorgiaspress.bsky.social · 16h

Enter our #giveaway! Like, share, AND tag a friend for your chance to win a copy of 'Brouria has Spoken Wisely' Studies in Christian Late Antiquity and Syriac Literature in Honor of Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony. Ends Friday! www.gorgiaspress.com/brouria-has-... #lateantiquity #christianity

'Brouria has Spoken Wisely'

In this volume, Brouria Has Spoken Wisely, specialists in the history of late Roman Christianity come together to honor their dear colleague, friend, and mentor Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, the Martin Bu...

www.gorgiaspress.com

Reposted by Annette Yoshiko Reed

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 16h

Life and Martyrdom of Susanna

andrewjacobs.org

Andrew Jacobs (he/him) @drewjakeprof.bsky.social · 16h

okay this is now annoying. i've resorted to using Chrome's HTML editor plug-in (sigh) since it's mainly clean-up but every time I save it it adds this annoying "\n" that I cannot delete. what is happening??

$screenshot of the upper portion of a beautifully formatted webpage with a stray "\n" in the upper corner$

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