About Metatron

Revealing Ancient Knowledge

An initiative of Bible and Religions of the Ancient Near East Collective (BRANE), hosted by Renewed Philology at Yale.

Metatron is a journal of modern philology and the ancient imagination offering new vistas on the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Named after the mediating angel of Jewish mysticism, it is designed to open cutting-edge research to a broad intellectual community.

As an open-access journal, Metatron is designed to be:

Conversational but Focused: each volume presents a dialogue between scholars on a current topic. Contributors of diverse backgrounds and career stages approach the question from multiple perspectives.
Rigorous but Readable: Rather than mystifying readers with bursts of recondite theory or vast footnotes, Metatron focuses on short pieces designed to provoke thought and evoke dialogue. These are combined with companion case studies that share an important text, image, or site and work through it to illuminate new aspects.

Scope:

Our scope covers ancient Western Asia and the Near East from the dawn of writing through late Antiquity and from philology and poetics to history and material culture. As an open-access publication, Metatron presents high quality works-in-progress designed to provoke creative discussion. An initial stage of double-blind peer review preserves the rigor of traditional publication, but an equally vital element of review is the discussions that make up the journal itself. The result preserves the scholarly values of traditional publication but focuses not on fully polished works but contributions that raise questions worth having a dialogue on.

Volume 1: Ancient Hebrew Literature Beyond “The Bible”

Issue 1 (Spring 2021): Towards a New Map of Second Temple Literature: Revelation, Rewriting, and Genre Before the Bible.

Issue 2 (Fall 2021) What is Scripture? Are canonical texts inevitable, or can our relationship with sacred writing form multiple patterns?

Submission Guidelines:

We invite two types of contributions: themes and case studies, to be sent to thejournalmetatron@protonmail.com.

Big questions or themes for a Metatron volume, with at least two or three proposed participants or interlocutors. Proposals should be 500-1000 words covering I. Why the topic is important II. How this volume will advance on it in a new way III. How the discussion will be organized, including at least two abstracts and participant names and IV. How the dialogue meets the BRANE principles of inclusion, rigor, the promotion of new scholars and scholarship, and public service.
Case studies. These are closer to conventional journal articles but should I. Be connected to a topic under discussion at BRANE II. linger on the source material a little longer to introduce readers to what the text or thing under discussion is and open new perspectives on why it is meaningful and III. Keep footnotes short. Submissions can be from 5-30 pages double-spaced 12-point font, following SBL format, and anonymized, in both .docx and .pdf forms.

Articles should be in English, though we welcome non-Anglophone submissions and are happy to discuss translating contributions in French, German, and other languages.