Ordeal,Infidelity, and Prophetic Irony in Jeremiah 2,1-9

ABSTRACT

Jer 2,1-9 commences a -lawsuit, yet much of the imagery and many of the themes found therein have not been fully explained. For example, what is the rationale behind the metaphor of Israel as Yahweh's ‘holy thing’ () or ‘his first fruit’ () in tandem with the motif of marriage? How do these positive portrayals of Israel function within the lawsuit, and in particular how do they relate to the unflattering allegations in verses 4–9? And what is the significance of the repetition of the verbal elements “to eat” () and “to enter” () in the first two oracles of this lawsuit? It is my contention that the answers to these questions are found in the subtle allusion that Jeremiah 2,3 makes to a type of ordeal in which a consumable that was imbued with magical properties was ingested and subsequent illness served as a sign of guilt and judgment.     

Partisan politics and the public sphere: The civil war north

The Civil War North presents an interesting case study of the relationship between a highly politicized public sphere and partisan electoral politics. Although the two‐party system remained intact throughout the war, the concept and practice of partisanship was challenged by the social experience of Northerners who ‘acted politically’ when they took part in the war effort. The creation of a mass citizen army and the mobilization of women and men on the home front meant that parties lost their function as the crucial mediating channel between citizen and government. The more that politics mattered, the less partisanship seemed to be relevant. The war exposed the latent non‐partisan political energies of Northern society. These conclusions bolster the arguments of those scholars who, questioning whether partisanship was as deep or as widespread as previously supposed, have begun to suggest that the ‘party period paradigm’ does not capture the entirety of the nineteenth‐century political experience.     

Book reviews

Thomas Dublin and Kathryn Kish Sklar, eds., ‘Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1830–1930,’ http://vvomhist.Binghamton.edu.

Leonard L. Richards, The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780‐1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000). Pp.xii + 228. $39.95 (hardback); $19.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 8071 2537 7; 0 8071 2600 4.

Timothy S. Huebner, The Southern Judicial Tradition: Southern Judges and Sectional Distinctiveness, 1790–1890 (Athens: University of Georgia Press), 1999. Pp. xiii 4‐ 263. $45.00 (hardback). ISBN 0 252 0634 0.

Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin, Rude Republic: Americans and their Politics in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000). Pp.xii + 316. $35.00 (hardback). ISBN 0 6910 0130 8.

Joseph G. Dawson III, Doniphan's Epic March: The 1st Missouri Volunteers in the Mexican War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1999). Pp. xii + 325. $35.00 (hardback). ISBN 0 7006 0956.

Julie Roy Jeffrey, The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism: Ordinary Women in the Antislavery Movement (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998). $45.00 (hardback); $18.95 (paperback). Pp.xii + 311. ISBN 0 8078 2436 4; 0 8078 4741 0.

Paul Goodman, Of One Blood: Abolitionism and the Origins of Racial Equality (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998). Pp.xxi + 303. $35.00 (hardback). ISBN 0 5202 0794 7.

Mark E. Neely Jr, Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999). Pp.vii + 212. $35.00 (hardback). ISBN 0 8139 1894 4.

John C. Willis, Forgotten Time: The Yazoo‐Mississippi Delta after the Civil War (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000). Pp. xiv + 239. $55.00 (hardback); $19.50 (paperback). ISBN 0 8139 1971 1; 0 8139 1982 7.     

Without Due Process: Albert E. Pillsbury and the Hoar Anti‐Lynching Bill

The United States has never passed a federal anti‐lynching bill. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries numerous petitions and protests against lynching called for federal intervention where states, particularly in the South, were failing to prosecute lynchers effectively. This essay looks at the most significant of these calls for anti‐lynching legislation, the anti‐lynching bill of 1901, drawn up by former Massachusetts Attorney General Albert E. Pillsbury. Sponsored by Senator George Frisbie Hoar (R, MA), the bill was the template for subsequent attempts to pass federal anti‐lynching legislation. This essay analyzes the bill, why it failed at the time and illustrates how it served as a template for future attempts to pass federal anti‐lynching legislation in the United States.     

Exceptional preservation of a prehistoric human brain from Heslington,Yorkshire, UK

Archaeological work in advance of construction at a site on the edge of York, UK, yielded human remains of prehistoric to Romano-British date. Amongst these was a mandible and cranium, the intra-cranial space of which contained shrunken but macroscopically recognizable remains of a brain. Although the distinctive surface morphology of the organ is preserved, little recognizable brain histology survives. Though rare, the survival of brain tissue in otherwise skeletalised human remains from wet burial environments is not unique. A survey of the literature shows that similar brain masses have been previously reported in diverse circumstances. We argue for a greater awareness of these brain masses and for more attention to be paid to their detection and identification in order to improve the reporting rate and to allow a more comprehensive study of this rare archaeological survival.     

Two Theories of Toleration: Locke versus Mill

Abstract

In her book, Zuckert presents a new interpretation of the Platonic corpus based on the internal dramatic chronology of all the dialogues. According to Zuckert, once the dialogues are ordered in this way, then it is possible to understand Plato's story of the development of Socratic philosophy, especially in relation to the other non-Socratic philosophers: Parmenides, Timaeus, the Eleatic Stranger, and the Athenian Stranger. For Plato, Socratic philosophy is superior to these other types of philosophy because of its acute understanding of both the limitations and the erotic character of human knowledge. It is only with his account of erôs in the Symposium that Socrates was able to account for the ways in which the eternal and intelligible ideas of the noble, the just, and the good could come to be exemplified in the life of mortal human beings, via the cooperative practice of philosophic virtue.     

Bafa Zon: localising World Heritage at Chief Roi Mata's Domain,Vanuatu

This paper critically examines local reactions and responses to the design and implementation of the buffer zone for a World Heritage property held under customary tenure, Chief Roi Mata's Domain (CRMD) in the Republic of Vanuatu. The primary goal is to consider the apparent contradictions and ambiguities inherent in the highly dynamic and contested process of rendering the globalised theory and praxis of buffering in a local context. Our case study brings to light some of the ways in which this process has enabled the landowning community of CRMD to rethink, and begin to remake, the buffer zone as an entity that incorporates both development and conservation concepts under the terms of the local idiom of bafa zon. Internal and external voices compete for influence in determining the local form and further evolution of the bafa zon at CRMD, and the first phases of this contested process are charted here. By supporting locally valued and accepted buffering measures, it may prove possible to realise simultaneously the objectives of World Heritage conservation and local economic development.