Borders: Terminologies, Ideologies, and Performances

What are the relevant conceptualities and terminologies marking political, cultural, cultic, or religious borders and border zones? What terms represent »border« or »border zones« and what did they signify in antiquity? In this volume, an international group of archaeologists, classicists, historians, and biblical scholars investigates various terms, performances, and qualities of borders, and ideologies of boundaries in antiquity. Their primary focus is on physical borders and border zones of political organizations as well as of sanctuaries and houses, and on borderlines which can be experienced in demarcations and their relevance for religious life. The contributions also discuss instances where definitions of external borders are renounced altogether and states are organized from the center toward the outer margins, for example, with the sub-divisions of a given territory remaining undefined. And they look into trans-boundary social relationships, investigated on the basis of archaeological finds and textual sources, and their significance for the transfer of knowledge.Introduction

I. Borders, Frontiers, and Boundaries of Land and City: Terms, Performances and Ideologies
Annette Schellenberg: »And God Separated the Light from the Darkness« (Gen 1:4) - On the Role of Borders in the Priestly Texts of the Pentateuch - Martina Kepper: What to Do with Borders When They Become Obsolete? Strategies of Re-defining Border Concepts in the Greek Text of Genesis - David L. Balch: Borders: Terms, Ideologies, and Performances. Jesus and the Samaritan/Judean Border - Harry O. Maier:Histoire Croisée, Entangled Bodies, Boundaries, and Socio-Political Geography in the Letter to the Colossians - Alexander Sokolicek: Betwixt and Between - The Cultural Roles of the Magnesian Gate in Greek-Roman Ephesus - Christine M. Thomas: The Magnesian Gate at Ephesos: Variant Readings of Monumentality at the Borders of the City - Stephan Esders:Deditio and Baptism: Religious Borders and the Integration of Barbarians in the Later Roman Empire - Susanna Elm: Response to Stefan Esders: Deditio and Baptism

II. Borders and Boundaries of Temples: Terms, Performances, and Ideologies
Barbara Schmitz: Space, Borders and Boundaries in the Letter of Aristeas - Georgia Petridou: Amorphous Epiphanies and Divine Bilingualism: Crossing Physical and Cultural Borders on the Battlefield - Anna-Katharina Rieger: Gods on the Rocks - Material Approaches to the Rock-Face at Caesarea Philippi (Mount Hermon) - Annette Weissenrieder: »Tear Down the Middle Wall of the Temple«: The Meaning of mesotoichon in Ephesians 2:14

III. Borders and Boundaries of Houses: Terms, Performances, and Ideologies
Frank Ueberschaer: Borders between Privacy and Public in the Thinking of Ben Sira - Bart Bruehler: Open and Shut: The Real and Metaphorical Doors of the New Testament in their Mediterranean Context - Ivan Varriale:Otium and negotium, a Border Breaks Down in the Imperial Villas. The study case of Pausilypon

IV. Borders and Boundaries
Barbara Böck: On the Ancient Mesopotamian Concept of »Taboo«: Transgression and Delimitation - Ingrid Lilly:Rȗaḥ Embodied: Job's Internal Disease from the Perspective of Mesopotamian Medicine - Gert J. Steyn: Crossing the Border - Reflections on Heb 13:13. »Let us then go to him outside the camp...« - Michael Bachmann: Important and Delicate: Borders According to Paul - James R. Harrison: Who is the »Lord of Grace«? Jesus' Parables in Imperial Context - Holger Zellentin: Jewish Dreams Between Roman Palestine and Sasanian Babylonia: Cultural and Geographic Borders in Rabbinic Discourse (Yerushalmi Ma'aser Sheni 55c, 15‒22 and Bavli Berakhot 56a‒b)