Periodization is a critical tool for historians, but it is also practice fraught with difficulty. As scholars have come to recognize, the division of historical narratives into broad analytic rubrics is anchored in the ideological commitments—often implicit and unrecognized—of their authors. A great deal of work has been devoted to examining these questions as they...

With the exception of the cross, the apple—as the forbidden fruit—may be the most widely-recognized biblical image. Yet the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew original does not name the species of fruit that caused the Fall of Man, nor do any of its many translations. While early Christian and rabbinic commentators identify various species...