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Books by Jitse Dijkstra

Much like our world today, Late Antiquity (fourth-seventh centuries CE) is often seen as a period... more Much like our world today, Late Antiquity (fourth-seventh centuries CE) is often seen as a period rife with religious violence, not least because the literary sources are full of stories of Christians attacking temples, statues and 'pagans'. However, using insights from Religious Studies, recent studies have demonstrated that the Late Antique sources disguise a much more intricate reality. The present volume builds on this recent cutting-edge scholarship on religious violence in Late Antiquity in order to come to more nuanced judgments about the nature of the violence. At the same time, the focus on Late Antiquity has taken away from the fact that the phenomenon was no less prevalent in the earlier Graeco-Roman world. This book is therefore the first to bring together scholars with expertise ranging from classical Athens to Late Antiquity to examine the phenomenon in all its complexity and diversity throughout Antiquity.

The Life of Aaron is one of the most interesting and sophisticated hagiographical works surviving... more The Life of Aaron is one of the most interesting and sophisticated hagiographical works surviving in Coptic. The work contains descriptions of the lives of ascetic monks, in particular Apa Aaron, on the southern Egyptian frontier in the fourth and early fifth centuries, and was probably written in the sixth century. Even though the first edition of this work was already published by E.A. Wallis Budge in 1915, a critical edition remained outstanding. In this book Jitse H.F. Dijkstra and Jacques van der Vliet present not only a critical text, for the most part based on the only completely preserved, tenth-century manuscript, but also a new translation and an exhaustive commentary addressing philological, literary and historical aspects of the text.

In recent years, exciting new discoveries of inscriptions and archaeological remains on the Arabi... more In recent years, exciting new discoveries of inscriptions and archaeological remains on the Arabian Peninsula have led to a re-evaluation of the peoples on the Arabian frontier, which through their extensive contacts with Rome and Persia are now seen as dynamic participants in the Late Antique world. The present volume contributes to this recent trend by focusing on the contrast between the 'outside' sources on the peoples of the frontier - the Roman view - and the 'inside' sources, that is, the precious material produced by the Arabs themselves, and by approaching these sources within an anthropological framework of how peripheral peoples face larger powers. For the first time, the situation on the Arabian frontier is also compared with that on the southern Egyptian frontier, where similar sources have been found of peoples such as the Blemmyes and Noubades. Thus, the volume offers a richly-documented examination of the frontier interactions in these two vibrant and critically-important areas of the Late Antique East.

In Ancient Egypt, especially in the Graeco-Roman period, the practice was widespread for worshipp... more In Ancient Egypt, especially in the Graeco-Roman period, the practice was widespread for worshippers to leave graffiti on the walls of temples, often with religious intentions. Graffiti from temples are therefore a treasure trove for the study of personal piety in Ancient Egypt, as well as in later periods when temples remained attractive to Christians. The present study, the first final report of the excavations at ancient Syene (Aswan) conducted since the year 2000 by the Swiss Institute for Architectural and Archaeological Research on Ancient Egypt and the Supreme Council of Antiquities, is among the first to study together all graffiti (352 in total, both figures and texts) from a single temple, the temple of Isis at Aswan, ranging in date from the 3rd century BCE until the 19th century CE, and to place them within their architectural context. The graffiti provide us with many fascinating snapshots of religious life, and other activities, in the long period in which the building was used and reused.
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This volume in honour of Jan N. Bremmer contains the contributions of numerous students, colleagu... more This volume in honour of Jan N. Bremmer contains the contributions of numerous students, colleagues, and friends offered to him on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Throughout his career, Bremmer has distinguished himself as an internationally renowned scholar of religion both past and present, including first and foremost Greek and Roman religion, but also early Christianity and post-classical developments in religion and spirituality. In line with these three main areas of Bremmer’s research, the volume is divided into three parts, bringing together contributions from distinguished scholars in many fields. The result is a diverse book which provides a broad spectrum of original ideas and innovative approaches in the history of religions, thus reflecting the nature of the scholarship of Bremmer himself.
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The famous island of Philae, on Egypt's southern frontier, can be considered the last major templ... more The famous island of Philae, on Egypt's southern frontier, can be considered the last major temple site where Ancient Egyptian religion was practiced. According to the Byzantine historian Procopius, in 535-537 CE the Emperor Justinian ordered one of his generals to end this situation by destroying the island's temples. This account has usually been accepted as a sufficient explanation for the end of the Ancient Egyptian cults at Philae. Yet it is by no means unproblematic. This book shows that the event of 535-537 has to be seen in a larger context of religious transformation at Philae, which was more complex and gradual than Procopius describes it. Not only are the various Late Antique sources from and on Philae taken into account, for the first time the religious developments at Philae are also placed in a regional context by analyzing the sources from the other major towns in the region, Syene (Aswan) and Elephantine.

This volume presents a series of case studies concerning the use and reuse of Egyptian hagiograph... more This volume presents a series of case studies concerning the use and reuse of Egyptian hagiography in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The first three contributions analyze the use of Egyptian hagiography in the context of late antique Egypt and, in particular, examine to what extent these texts can be used as historical sources for the reconstruction of traditional (“pagan”) religion. The other contributions illustrate the different contexts in which Egyptian hagiography was reused in the medieval West. The book is an important contribution to the current debate about the usefulness of Egyptian hagiography as a historical source for late antique Egypt and to the study of the reception of the desert fathers in the medieval West.

Papers by Jitse Dijkstra

Bulletin of the American Society for Papyrologists, 2022

Ninth installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Christ... more Ninth installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Christian Egypt and Nubia.

Millennium Jahrbuch, 2022

The changing sacred landscape of Late Antiquity has long been seen in terms of a monolithic devel... more The changing sacred landscape of Late Antiquity has long been seen in terms of a monolithic development 'from temple to church'. Recent scholarship, however, has discarded this picture in favour of a more complex view, in which freestanding churches (and monasteries) were increasingly built from the fourth century onwards, while at the same time various, mostly practical, ways were found of dealing with the sacred built environment of the past. The Late Antique papyri from Oxyrhynchus contain dozens of references to churches and monasteries, and, occasionally, also temples. The city thus affords an excellent opportunity to study the changing sacred landscape of this period in a local context. In previous scholarship, several lists have been compiled to collect the attestations of churches. The last comprehensive collection of the material dates back two decades, however, while the one list of monasteries is heavily outdated. Moreover, a list of temples in the Late Antique papyri has never been put together. This article, then, presents, in the appendix, a brand-new Checklist of temples, churches and monasteries of Late Antique Oxyrhynchus. It serves as the basis for the detailed analysis of the data that precedes it, which shows that these data are in perfect agreement with the now prevalent general view among Late Antique scholars of how the sacred landscape changed over
time. For comparison with the findings from the papyri, we will also briefly discuss the results of recent excavations at the site.

Eighth installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Chris... more Eighth installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Christian Egypt and Nubia.

Journal of Coptic Studies, 2021

Edition of a fragmentary Coptic tombstone that derives from recent excavations of the Institute o... more Edition of a fragmentary Coptic tombstone that derives from recent excavations of the Institute of Fine Arts/New York University and Princeton in the North Necropolis of Abydos. It belongs to a group of four other stelae of the so-called 'litany type' with a certain provenance from the site, which assures a date for our stela in ca. the sixth-eighth centuries and aids in the reconstruction of some of its missing parts.

In this article, I propose the concept of "appropriation," widely used in cross-cultural contexts... more In this article, I propose the concept of "appropriation," widely used in cross-cultural contexts, as a new approach to the process of religious transformation in Late Antiquity. This approach has the advantage that it encompasses the entire spectrum of individual responses to the impact of Christianity that characterizes the period. It is thus a particularly dynamic concept, as it accurately takes into account the interactive nature of the process and views it "from the bottom-up," highlighting human agency. The variety of responses is illustrated by three case studies from Egypt-literature, monumental architecture (temples and churches), and magic-which can be regarded as exemplary for studying similar aspects of the religious transformation process in other areas of the (Eastern) Roman Empire. In each of these cases, the topic has until quite recently been viewed in terms of a "pagan" vs. Christianity framework, which has now been replaced by a more complex picture that exposes to the fullest extent the different forms of appropriation.

‘in M.D. Adams, ‘Abydos in Late Antiquity: A View from the Shunet el-Zebib’, in E.R. O’Connell (e... more ‘in M.D. Adams, ‘Abydos in Late Antiquity: A View from the Shunet el-Zebib’, in E.R. O’Connell (ed.), Abydos in the First Millennium AD (Leuven, 2020) 79-149 at 137-48

Seventh installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Chri... more Seventh installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Christian Egypt and Nubia.

in J.H.F. Dijkstra, C.R. Raschle (eds), Religious Violence in the Ancient World: From Athens to Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2020) 286-305

in J.H.F. Dijkstra, C.R. Raschle (eds), Religious Violence in the Ancient World: From Athens to Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2020) 1-14

Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik , 2020

Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 56, 2019

Sixth installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Christ... more Sixth installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Christian Egypt and Nubia.

Bulletin of the American Society for Papyrologists, 2022

Millennium Jahrbuch, 2022

Journal of Coptic Studies, 2021

in J.H.F. Dijkstra, C.R. Raschle (eds), Religious Violence in the Ancient World: From Athens to Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2020) 286-305

in J.H.F. Dijkstra, C.R. Raschle (eds), Religious Violence in the Ancient World: From Athens to Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2020) 1-14

Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik , 2020

Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 56, 2019

Fifth installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Christ... more Fifth installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Christian Egypt and Nubia.

Fourth installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Chris... more Fourth installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Christian Egypt and Nubia.

The period of Late Antiquity has long been perceived, and is still often perceived, through the l... more The period of Late Antiquity has long been perceived, and is still often perceived, through the lens of (Christian) literary works, which tell dramatic stories of violence against temples, statues and even ‘pagans’, and may give theimpression that this was a period of widespread religious violence. Egypt, where such stories abound, has often been seen as a particularly good illustration of the pervasive nature of religious violence in the Late Antique world. This article takes a different view. By adopting a theoretical framework on religious violence from Religious Studies and including all the other sources available from
Egypt – papyri, inscriptions and archaeological remains – it argues that events were often dramatised for ideological reasons and that, when seen against a general background of religious transformation, religious violence occurred only occasionally in specific local or regional circumstances. This point will be demonstrated by discussing three iconic events that have often been adduced as symptomatic of widespread violence in Late Antique Egypt: the destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria in 391/392, the anti-‘pagan’ crusade of Abbot
Shenoute in the region of Panopolis around 400, and the closure of the Isis temple at Philae in 535–537.

Greek and Coptic from Christian Egypt and Nubia.

An overview of Dendera in the Graeco-Roman and Late Antique periods. In the Graeco-Roman period t... more An overview of Dendera in the Graeco-Roman and Late Antique periods. In the Graeco-Roman period the site was dominated by the temple of Hathor, one of the best preserved temples in Egypt and the center of her cult. During Late Antiquity the city continued to be of regional significance, as is evinced by the episcopal see that was created here, as well as the church that was built close to the Hathor temple.

Second installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Chris... more Second installment of an annual overview of published inscriptions in Greek and Coptic from Christian Egypt and Nubia.

Bibliotheca Orientalis, 2021

Despite the fact that excavations by foreign missions are currently on hold in the Dakhla Oasis, ... more Despite the fact that excavations by foreign missions are currently on hold in the Dakhla Oasis, much recent work has been conducted on the rich materials that have been unearthed in the oasis over the last several decades. In this review article, three books are discussed that came out in 2018-2019, two conference proceedings and an excavation report.

Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, 2020

Review of Biblical Literature, 2020

Vigiliae Christianae, 2020

Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 2018

Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, 2018

vigiliae christianae 69 (2015) 97-103 brill.com/vc Vigiliae Christianae © koninklijke brill nv, l... more vigiliae christianae 69 (2015) 97-103 brill.com/vc Vigiliae Christianae © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2�15 |