Historians periodize the ancient past in order to better facilitate its study. From period to period, the ideas, figures and discussions that define as distinct become trapped within the walls that historians have artificially imposed. However, history is not nearly so clean, and that which we have selected to define each period may be carried forward beyond their period or retrojected into a past period. This thesis will explore how ideas and concepts travel backward and forward in time, through construction of memory and through cultural hybridity and intertextuality, by casting the royal ideology of the Hasmoneans as seen in I and II Maccabees in light of the legacy and memory of the Achaemenid Persian Dynasty. The first two chapters discuss the development of Achaemenid Royal Ideology, beginning with the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus II and his adoption of the ancient Near Eastern “Restorer of Order” literary paradigm to restructure the past for political legitimacy, and continues to the rise to power of Darius I, who in many ways built off of the Restorer of Order paradigm but innovated in establishing a new, more equal relationship between the divine and the royal receiver of the divine mandate to rule. The second two chapters begin with a discussion of II Maccabees and its use of the Restorer of Order paradigm, but goes more into detail on how it constructs an “idyllic past” that not only connects the Maccabees to mythic biblical figures but also reconstructs the Persian past of the Jewish people that mirrors and legitimizes Hasmonean royal ideology in sacred time, and ends with a discussion of how the innovations of Darius might have shaped the eventual conflict between the Hasmonean dynasty and their opponents over the correct responsibilities of the High Priest in Jerusalem.

In September of 1540 Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, while being led by Hopi Natives, came across something no European had ever seen before. One can only imagine what must have gone through his mind as he discovered the world’s largest canyon, 18 miles across and close to 6,000 feet deep. Over the course of three days, Garcia and his scouts made attempts to enter into the canyon and to taste of its river, but, after many failed attempts, they had to make their way back to their main camp for fear of dehydration and it was left unvisited by any Europeans for over 200 years.

Now I wasn’t the first one to discover the canyon, but I remember a time when I was in the fourth grade. When I stepped out of a bus that I had been in for close to four hours and took forty footsteps to end up at a small brick wall that came close to calf-height which was meant to keep me safe. I don’t know why it didn’t hit me until this point, because I had seen pictures of its grandeur and “experienced” the so called “majesty” of the Grand Canyon through the medium of the National Geographic and tasted of the beauty of one of the natural wonders of the world through the photographs of others before, but standing face to face with a five-thousand-foot cliff humbled me and brought a fear in to me that I can’t describe. Especially when a friend of mine had violently jerked me while I was close to the edge. I remember hearing fear in my father’s voice as I got a little too close to the edge for his comfort. He wanted me to be safe, but I wanted to look this canyon in the eye.
I find it really interesting though, that both my father and I feared ME getting close to the edge. I guess it’s because we both didn’t fully trust my young and feeble knees to keep me stable while I was that close to a fall that would’ve meant sure death for me. Or maybe it was because a couple of months before this, he had seen on the news that some kid was playing too close to the edge and had fallen to his death. Or maybe, it was because, for the first time, death was actually close enough to grasp something he profoundly loved. Either way, I won’t ever forget the loving strain in his voice as he sternly said “Grant! Step a little bit further back from the edge Son.”

It’s really a shame that no one knew. Or at least that no one said anything if they did know. Especially because this New canyon I stood looking face to face with was thousands of feet deeper than the one I had been close to the edge of ten years before, and had the authority to not just kill me once, but twice, if I fell.

The traditional site of Rachel's Tomb is located just south of Jerusalem on the border of Bethlehem. In recent years, Rachel's Tomb architectural appearance and cultural significance have shifted dramatically in the last two decades and the Biblical figure of Rachel has evolved in the Jewish imagination as a figure "emplaced" there as well. The original stories that have drawn visitors to the site have developed from Biblical and Rabbinic texts, yet contemporary visitors to the site have their own perspectives and stories to tell, grounded in religious tradition, nostalgia, and current political and social realities. At the traditional site of her tomb, Rachel has served for at least the last century as something like a "patron saint" for Jewish women's domestic issues, but her intercessory abilities have recently been expanded. Her special relationship to Zionism through her connections to the Biblical notions of Jewish "return" and end-times "redemption" have been recast to fit contemporary political viewpoints and contestations. In addition, she has developed into a kind of national "mater dolorosa," representing the collective grief for deaths through acts of political violence, particularly women's deaths. This project traces the ways in which current narrative and praxis at the traditional site of Rachel's Tomb have developed as well as the ways in which current perceptions of the site-and Rachel as the cultural figure associated with the space-draw upon temporally-situated interpretations of her textual tradition, as well as affective discourse and collective cultural memory.

This project serves as an extra learning tool for students enrolled in HEB 101 (Hebrew) at Arizona State University. This tool was developed using Axure Prototyping Software and can be used by anyone. The tool follows the HEB 101 course curriculum which also works alongside the textbook for the class (Hebrew From Scratch part 1). The tool fully covers the seven units that students learn in HEB 101. Each unit follows a standard structure. There is a unit title page which lays out the major concepts covered in the unit (i.e. personal pronouns, question words, prepositions, etc.) and links to different pages within the unit. Each unit has seven to ten lesson pages which introduce Hebrew concepts and provide exercises and examples to help the students practice the material they learned both in class and in the tool. Each unit also has links to Quizlet pages that have the units' vocab set up in a flashcard format so that they can study for upcoming quizzes and exams in the class. The Quizlet page for each unit also provides a randomly generated vocab quiz for the students. There is also a unit quiz for every unit which tests the students on the major concepts of the unit. There are also unit vocab pages that provide all the vocab covered in the unit. This tool provides students with numerous ways of practicing and mastering the material covered in the lectures. The main benefit of this tool for students is that it provides audio files for each vocabulary word learned in HEB 101 which will allow them to have quick access to the pronunciation of the words they are learning. This tool will be used in future HEB 101 classes.