Joan Taylor            

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The Wivenhoe Encyclopedia

    Joan Taylor 
         Writer and Historian

Joan Taylor (sometimes publishing as Joan Norlev Taylor) is an Anglo-Danish New Zealander who has lived in Wivenhoe since 2000. She has written many articles and a number of books on her specialty subjects of ancient religion (particularly Christian origins and early Judaism) and archaeology, and sometimes appears on television or radio talking about such topics. (For list of publications see bottom of this page). In terms of Wivenhoe, she was filmed in 2005 in St. Mary’s Church, for In Search of John the Baptist (MPH Entertainment, History Channel), with the main stained glass window shown as a feature.


She is also a published writer of poetry and fiction and is part of the organising support team for poetrywivenhoe (http://poetrywivenhoe.org). In 2008 she co-edited their first collection, poetrywivenhoe (Wivenbooks), and also worked as production editor on Adrian May’s collection, An Essex Attitude (Wivenbooks, 2010).

She is co-editor of the latest Wivenbooks publication, KJV: Old Text ~ New Poetry, which contains work from some of Britain’s most interesting contemporary poets (click here for link).

Joan Taylor’s novel Conversations with Mr. Prain (Melville House Publishing/Hardie Grant, 2006) is an elegant literary mystery story that explores the relationship between writers and publishers, art and commerce, as it follows the drama of a young writer, Stella, who is invited to the country mansion of a wealthy publisher, Edward Prain, for reasons other than she had supposed. This book is now being re-released by MHP with reading group questions and a new cover (http://mhpbooks.com/book.php?id=505)

Dr. Joan Taylor is a Lecturer in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King’s College London and Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Waikato , New Zealand .

Her first book, Christians and the Holy Places (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993) won a prestigious Irene Levi-Sala Prize from Ben Gurion University for a work on Israel’s archaeology. For further on her academic work see http://kcl.academia.edu/JoanTaylor.
 

Books - All available for ordering at the Wivenhoe Bookshop (www. wivenhoebooks.co.uk) or from catalogues under Joan Taylor or Joan E. Taylor
To contact Joan:   by e-mail:   taylorjoan@btinternet.com

     

 

 

 

 

The Englishman, The Moor and the Holy City: The True Adventures of an Elizabethan Traveller

 

Hardcover: 264 pages

Publisher: Tempus Publishing Ltd 

 

ISBN: 0752440098

Available from: Amazon and the Wivenhoe Bookshop

 

Click here for more about the book

 

In 1601, an English traveller sets off into the unknown to discover the East. Leaving behind a wife and children, he journeys to Alexandria, overland to Cairo and then to Gaza, encountering plots against his life and racing camels along the way. But Henry Timberlake then meets a companion who will change his life. A Moroccan Moor on his way to Mecca saves Timberlake's life, not once, but twice, and they become friends and travelling companions as the Moor detours to join the explorer in his voyage of discovery. In this fascinating true story of a seventeenth-century adventurer, Joan Taylor explores the relationship between East and West, Islam and Christianity at the foundation of the modern world. She provides a vivid picture of Jerusalem and the old Middle East at the time of the Ottoman Empire, and brings to life the true tale of friendship between two very different people whose paths happened to cross on the road to adventure...


 Click here for an article by Peter Kennedy about Joan and the book 

 
Fiction:

 

Conversations with 
Mr. Prain

Paperback, 236 pages

Melville House Publishing (May 1, 2006)

ISBN: 1933633026

Note: This book has also been published by Hardie Grant in Australia

A young New Zealand writer, Stella, visits an English publisher, Edward Prain, in his country mansion near Banbury, apparently to talk about her work. As conversation progresses, Stella discovers that Mr. Prain has other reasons for inviting her to his house. Stella is soon embroiled in a strange game in which she must use her wits – and her imagination - if she is to win. In this literary mystery that explores art and commerce, the world of Mr. Prain is – for true poetry - a dangerous place.

For a great review see: http://www.eclectica.org/v10n2/gray.html

     

   Non-Fiction:

 

 

 

 

 

Jewish Women Philosophers of First-Century Alexandria  

Paperback, 440 pages (January, 2006)

Oxford University Press

ISBN 0199291411

 

 

 

 

The first-century ascetic Jewish philosophers known as the 'Therapeutae', described in Philo's contemporaneous treatise De Vita Contemplativa, have often been considered in comparison with early Christians, the Essenes, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. This study, which includes the author’s translation of De Vita Contemplativa, focuses particularly on issues of historical method, rhetoric, women, and gender, and comes to new conclusions about the nature of the group and its relationship with the allegorical school of exegesis in Alexandria . It is argued that the group represents the tip of an iceberg in terms of ascetic practices and allegorical exegesis, and that the women described point to the presence of other Jewish women philosophers in Alexandria in the first century CE. Members of the group were 'extreme allegorizers' in following a distinctive calendar, not maintaining usual Jewish praxis, and concentrating their focus on attaining a trance-like state in which a vision of God's light was experienced. Their special 'feast' was configured mystically in terms of service at a Temple , in which both men and women were priestly attendants of God.
     

 

 

 

 

The Onomasticon by Eusebius of Caesarea translated by G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville, indexed by Rupert L. Chapman, edited and introduced by Joan E. Taylor

Hardcover, 214 pages (March 1, 2003)

Carta, Jerusalem  

ISBN 9652205001  

 

This is the first-ever translation into English of the Onomasticon by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine (ca. 260-339), in parallel with Jerome's Latin translation and expansion of the same work, from the edition of Erich Klostermann. By comparing the two works we can see how Christian Palestine developed between the early 320s and the late 380s. Eusebius endeavoured to list every place mentioned in the Bible (though mainly the Old Testament) and locate each one in the lands he knew. In this edition, appendices, indices and maps provide information about the sites and their placement, in order to enable archaeologists and historians to use Eusebius’ information as easily as possible.
     

The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism  

Paperback, 376 pages (April 19, 1997)

Eerdmans Publishing Company

ISBN 0802842364

===

Hardcover, 371 pages (October 30, 1997)

SPCK

ISBN 0281051267

An historical portrait of one of the most fascinating figures of the Gospels: John the Baptist. Joan Taylor brings the world and work of this strange wandering ascetic to life, and seeks answers to some intriguing questions such as what was the origin of baptism as a symbol for repentance.
     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christians and the Holy Places

Hardcover, 406 pages (April 1, 1993)

Clarendon Press

ISBN 0198147856

 

 

 

Note: 

Winner of an Irene-Levi Sala Book Prize (on the archaeology of Israel), 1995

 

 

 

The origins of Christian holy places in Palestine and the beginnings of Christian pilgrimage to these sites have seemed obscure. From a detailed examination of literature and archaeology Joan Taylor finds no evidence that Christians of any kind venerated 'holy places' before the fourth century. While scholarly Christians visited certain Biblical sites out of historical and exegetical concerns, and there was veneration of the bones of saints, specific sites were not considered holy, or the visitors considered 'pilgrims'. Instead, the origins of Christian pilgrimage and holy places rest with the emperor Constantine, who established four basilicas in Palestine c. 325-30 and provided two imperial matrons, Helena and Eutropia, as examples of a new kind of pious pilgrim. Pilgrimage to sacred shrines had been a pagan practice, which was grafted on to Christianity as a means of uniting the empire. Many Jewish, Samaritan, and pagan sites were thereafter appropriated by the church and turned into Christian holy places. This process helped to destroy the widespread paganism of Palestine and mark the country as a 'holy land'.

     
Beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Palestine Exploration Fund Monograph Series Major, Volume 1)  

Shimon Gibson and Joan E. Taylor

Paperback, 102 pages (January 1, 1994)

Palestine Exploration Fund

ISBN 0903526530

This book is available directly from the Palestine Exploration Fund, 2 Hinde Mews, Marylebone Lane, London W1M 5RR  

This study explores the archaeology and early history of traditional Golgotha, which is located beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem . Additionally, it questions whether the so-called ‘Jerusalem ship’ painting, found in recent excavations, is an example of early Christian pilgrim art and presents an alternative hypothesis that situates the painting in the 2nd century construction of Aelia Capitolina.

 

 

Last updated:
31 October 2011

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