New book — From Prophet to Miracle-Working Saint: Dynamic Approaches to Elijah in Ancient and Medieval Cultures

Edited by Vlad Bedros, Barbara Crostini, Andrei Dumitrescu, and Chana Shacham-Rosby

Brill, 2026

From the publisher: The versatile figure of Elijah as Jewish prophet, Christian saint and Muslim “green man” plays at once a controversial and a unifying role across cultures. This collection of essays delves into the rich Elijah traditions that connect late-antique Mesopotamia to modern Europe. It emphasizes how Elijah’s many-sided character cannot be explained by his sparse mentions in the Bible. His enormous popularity rather depends on a network of artistic and performative interpretations that developed in different traditions and were divulged through cultic practices and feasts in which Elijah was the protagonist.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Maya Soifer Irish (December 3, 2025). New book — From Prophet to Miracle-Working Saint: Dynamic Approaches to Elijah in Ancient and Medieval Cultures. medievalJewishStudiesNow! Retrieved March 7, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/159zm


About Maya Soifer Irish

Dr. Maya Soifer Irish an Associate Professor of History at Rice University, whose research focuses on religious violence and toleration, and explores the legal, social, and economic situation of religious minorities in Iberian Christian societies. She is the author of many articles, including “Beyond convivencia: Critical Reflections on the Historiography of Interfaith Relations in Christian Spain.” Her first book, Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile: Tradition, Coexistence, and Change, explores the changes in Jewish-Christian relations in the kingdom of Castile between the 11th and 14th centuries. She is currently working on a new book, The Politics of Persecution in Medieval Spain: Toward the Anti-Jewish Riots of 1391. Between 2018 and 2021 she served as President of the American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain (AARHMS).