Another review of Mazza, Stolen Fragments

VARIANT READINGS: Roberta Mazza’s Stolen Fragments. (Brent Nongbri).

There is a palpable urgency in Mazza’s writing, and for good reason. Mazza documents the ongoing problem of looting in Egypt, and her narrative highlights the connections between looting, the trade in unprovenanced artifacts, and academics who work on unprovenanced pieces. Stolen Fragments will become a a key reference point in these discussions.

I noted another review of the book here with some background links

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The Tel Dan Stele's next move

THE JEWISH MUSEUM, NEW YORK: 5 DECEMBER 2024–5 JANUARY 2025. Tel Dan Stele.

The Tel Dan Stele is presented within Engaging with History: Works from the Collection, a selection of rarely exhibited objects from the Museum's holdings of over 30,000 works including new acquisitions from Carrie Mae Weens, William Kentridge, and others on view for the first time in dialogue with Museum treasures reflecting millenia of global Jewish culture.

The Tel Dan Stele is currently on display at Armstrong College in Oklahoma until 25 November. It then moves to the Jewish Museum in New York.

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Was Jesus short?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Jesus the Short King. Measuring up Jesus and Zacchaeus in Luke 19 (Nathan Steinmeyer).

Translating a text can be a difficult task under any circumstance. But it is all the harder when the meaning of the original text is ambiguous. Such is the case with Luke 19:3. Although most readers assume the text states that Zacchaeus was too short to see Jesus, the original Greek is less clear. Publishing in the Journal of Biblical Literature, Isaac Soon, Assistant Professor of Early Christianity at the University of British Columbia, points out that the original text makes no distinction between which of the characters is “short in stature,” and that it is instead the reader’s preconceived notions of what Jesus “should” look like that leads most to read the text as being about Zacchaeus.

[...]

The JBL article is behind a subscription wall, but you can read the abstract for free.

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Orlov, Abraham Among Golems (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Andrei A. Orlov. Abraham Among Golems. The Imago Dei Traditions in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha. 2024. XVIII, 296 pages. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism (TSAJ) 189. €149.00 including VAT. cloth available 978-3-16-164009-4. Also Available As: eBook PDF €149.00..

In this insightful book, Andrei A. Orlov examines the symbolism of the »image of God« found in early Jewish pseudepigraphical accounts, paying special attention to the cultic traditions in the Apocalypse of Abraham. The study demonstrates that the Jewish pseudepigrapha transform various biblical characters — including Enoch, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and Aseneth — into eschatological embodiments of the imago Dei. The book argues that these cultic metamorphoses preserve memories of ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian rituals involving the vivification of cultic statues. The Apocalypse of Abraham and other early Jewish pseudepigraphical accounts attempt to polemically refashion the concept of cultic statues by envisioning their protagonists as divine representations in the form of the eschatological image of God.

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Hybrid Princeton workshop on Maagarim (Historical Dictionary of Hebrew database)

H-JUDAIC: Ma'agarim Workshop at Princeton.

On Thurs, Nov 7, the Program in Judaic Studies will host an afternoon workshop on using Maagarim. This Digital Rabbinics Workshop is convened by our own Amit Gvaryahu, JDS’s associate research scholar and a cultural historian of ancient Judaism. It is open to everyone – undergraduates, grad students, faculty, and in fact anyone else. Feel free to share this invite within your circles.

Maagarim – the database for the Historical Dictionary of Hebrew, maintained by the Academy for the Hebrew Language – is an invaluable tool for the study of rabbinic and other ancient Jewish literature. It is however underutilized and not well known in the U.S. In this workshop we will learn how to use Maagarim, its advantages and limitations, practice complex searches, compare it with its manuscript sources, and use it to answer questions about our own texts.

Participants may attend in person or online. ...

For registration information etc., follow the link.

I have a post on the Maagarim database here.

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Review of Iovine, Latin military papyri of Dura-Europos (P.Dura 55-145)

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Latin military papyri of Dura-Europos (P.Dura 55-145): a new edition of the texts, with introduction and notes.

Giulio Iovine, Latin military papyri of Dura-Europos (P.Dura 55-145): a new edition of the texts, with introduction and notes. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Pp. 450. ISBN 9781009183130.

Review by
Rudolf Haensch, Kommission für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik des Deutschen Archäologischen Institut. Rudolf.Haensch@dainst.de

The documents of the cohors XX Palmyrenorum found in Dura-Europos are, alongside the wooden tablets from Vindolanda and the ostraca from the Roman guard posts in the eastern Egyptian desert (Hélène Cuvigny, Rome in Egypt’s Eastern Desert, 2 vols., New York 2021 etc.), among the most important groups of written records of the Roman army. ...

With regard to the edition of the texts, the use of new technology by Iovine has largely served to confirm the reliability of the texts of the earlier editors. He has improved them in detail, but was unable to present major new readings—this is a compliment to the earlier editors and not a criticism of him, except that the work should not be announced as grandiloquently as it was. Similarly, the commentary rarely adds much to the older ones. Unfortunately, the commentaries and the introductory sections contain a number of minor errors.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on Dura-Europos, start with the links collecte here and just keep going.

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Nodet Festschrift (Peeters)

NEW BOOK FROM PEETERS PUBLISHERS:

L'univers de Flavius Josèphe
Judaïsmes et christianismes au début de l'Empire romain. Mélanges offerts à Étienne Nodet, O.P.

SERIES:
Cahiers de la Revue Biblique, 96

EDITOR:
Leroy M.

PRICE: 85 euro
YEAR: 2024
ISBN: 9789042951952
PAGES: XXXIV-275 p.

SUMMARY:

Le frère Étienne Nodet, o.p., est décédé le 4 février 2024 à Jérusalem. Ancien élève de l’École Polytechnique, dominicain, professeur à l’École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem pendant plusieurs années, son enseignement et ses publications ont marqué plusieurs générations de chercheurs et d’étudiants. Son projet principal fut sa traduction commentée des Antiquités juives de Flavius Josèphe. Mais il aborda également des sujets aussi divers que la crise maccabéenne, les Samaritains, les origines du judaïsme et du christianisme, le Jésus historique ou les Actes des Apôtres. Ses amis et collègues ont voulu regrouper en un recueil intitulé L’univers de Flavius Josèphe. Judaïsmes et christianismes au début de l’Empire romain treize contributions ainsi qu’une biographie intellectuelle écrite par Justin Taylor, s.m. Ce volume d’hommages, qui paraît après son décès, voudrait être un témoignage de gratitude envers le frère Étienne Nodet, o.p., pour sa vie, son enseignement et sa recherche.

The articles are in French and English.

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Isaksson, The Verb in Classical Hebrew (OpenBooks)

NEW BOOK FROM OPENBOOK PUBLISHERS:

The Verb in Classical Hebrew
The Linguistic Reality behind the Consecutive Tenses

Bo Isaksson (author)

The consecutive tenses are fundamental in all descriptions of Classical Hebrew grammar. They are even basic to the textbooks on Biblical Hebrew. Being fundamental in the verbal system, and part of any beginner’s grammar, they pose a serious problem to a linguistic understanding of the verbal system, since grammars describe an alternation of ‘forms’ or ‘tenses’ in double pairs: wayyiqṭol alternates with its ‘equivalent’ qaṭal, and wə-qaṭal alternates with its ‘equivalent’ yiqṭol.

This ‘enigma’ in the verbal system is handled in the book by recognising that the alternation of the consecutive tenses with other tenses, in the reality of the text, represents a linking of clauses. The ‘consecutive tenses’ are clause-types with a natural language connective wa- directly followed by a finite verbal morpheme, a type of clause that expressed continuity in the earliest stage of Semitic. The commonly held assumption that there is a special ‘consecutive waw’ is unwarranted. The use of the ‘consecutive’ clause-types in order to express discourse continuity indicates that Classical Hebrew has retained the old unmarked declarative word order of Semitic syntax. Seen in the light of recent research on the Tiberian reading tradition, the ‘consecutive’ wayyiqṭol can be analysed as a retention of the old Semitic past perfective *wa-yaqtul, which was pronounced wa-yiqṭol in Classical Hebrew. The ‘consecutive’ wə-qāṭal (pronounced wa-qaṭal in the classical language) constitutes the result of an internal Hebrew development into a construction (in the sense of Joan Bybee) already foreshadowed in the earliest Northwest Semitic languages.

The book understands the ‘consecutive tenses’ as discourse continuity clauses, which typically form chains of main line clauses. Such chains can be interrupted by other types of clauses. This interruption is a clause linking that receives special attention in the interpretation of the Classical Hebrew verbal system. Chapter six presents a regenerated text linguistics founded on the new terminology. A clause linking approach is the central methodological procedure in this book. To this must be added diachronic typology in a comparative Semitic setting. The linguistic examples of clause linking are gathered from a large Classical Hebrew corpus, the Pentateuch and the Book of Judges, and made searchable in a database of 6559 non-archaic text records.

The pdf version of this 2024 book is open access. It is also available for purchase in hardback (GBP 43.95) and paperback (GBP 40.95).

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Yom Kippur 2024

YOM KIPPUR, the Day of Atonement, begins this evening at sundown. An easy and healthy fast to all those observing it.

Last year's post on Yom Kippur is here, with links. Biblical etc. background is here and links. Additional Yom Kippur-related posts are here and here.

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Jonah, the "rather unusual prophet"

FOR YOM KIPPUR: The Book of Jonah: God and Humanity Don’t Understand Each Other (Susan Niditch, TheTorah.com).

Jonah is an idiosyncratic prophet who disobeys, doesn’t really repent, and even gets angry with YHWH. While later interpretations seek to explain Jonah’s problematic behavior, in the book, it is Jonah who is confounded by YHWH’s actions.

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Review series on Fisch, Written for Us, part 2

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Midrash, Paul, and Difficulty (Daniel Picus).

This review essay is part of the 2023 Society of Biblical Literature's review panel for Yael Fisch, Written for Us: Paul’s Interpretation of Scripture and the History of Midrash. Find the full panel here.

Yael Fisch’s Written For Us: Paul’s Interpretation of Scripture and the History of Midrash achieves something remarkable: it is a book about Pauline hermeneutics and rabbinic literature that is both new and grounded. It gives us a new way to think about a set of old problems, and it refrains from drawing genealogical conclusions in favor of making a series of more nuanced arguments about the landscape of interpretive strategies present in first century Judaism.

[...]

I noted part one of the series here.

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Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus is back in Georgia

AND HEADED FOR A MUSEUM: Calligrapher John Zosimos’ “unique” 10th-century manuscript returned to Georgia after purchase at Christie’s by ruling party Honorary Chair (Agenda.Ge).

A “unique” 10th-century manuscript by John Zosimos, a famed Georgian calligrapher, author, translator and bookbinder monk, has returned to Georgia after being purchased by Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder and the Honorary Chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party, at the Christie's auction in London. ...

The GD press office noted Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus, a 5th-7th centuries CE manuscript compiled in Aramaic and Georgian languages, would be donated to the Georgian National Museum network.

The palimpsest is overwritten with Georgian text written by Zosimos, and preserved in its 10th-century binding from St Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, the earliest known signed, dated, and localisable binding. The manuscript will be the only masterpiece of Ioane Zosimos to be kept in Georgia. ...

This article in The Paradise gives additional information on the manuscripts current location: 10th-century Georgian manuscript arrives at Georgian Patriarchate.

Background on the manuscript and on its sale last spring, is here and here.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

NLI digitizing Ethiopic manuscripts of sacred books

ETHIOPIC WATCH: National Library announces digitization project of Beta Israel sacred manuscripts. Dozens of rare texts in Ge’ez, the ancient Semitic liturgical language used in Ethiopia, to be made available online to the public for the first time (Gavriel Fiske, Times of Israel).

These manuscripts, which are written in Ge’ez, the ancient Semitic liturgical language, include several copies of “The Orit” or Octateuch, the Beta Israel Torah, which comprises the Five Books of Moses plus the books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth.

Other material includes “the Jewish apocryphal texts of Jubilees and Enoch, prayerbooks such as the Book of Psalms, and more,” the NLI said.

For more on the Ethiopic Bible, see here and links.

Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and Digitization.

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Gaza archaeological exhibition in Geneva

GAZA ARCHAEOLOGY: Gaza cultural heritage goes on display in Geneva as war enters second year. Cultural heritage institutions mark first anniversary of Israel-Palestine conflict (Museums Association/Museums Journal).

An exhibition of archaeological finds from Gaza has gone on display in Geneva this week, a year on from the 7 October Hamas attacks and the start of the current Israel-Palestine war.

Forty-four objects from Gaza, including amphorae, statuettes, vases, oil lamps and figurines, can be seen at the Patrimony in Peril exhibition in the Swiss city's Museum of Art and History, according to the global news agency AFP.

[...]

For more on the Gaza archaeological collection in Geneva, see here.

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Did Sennacherib destroy Hezekiah's administrative center?

ARCHAEOLOGY AND HEBREW EPIGRAPHY: Recent excavations reveal King Sennacherib's military impact on the economy of the Kingdom of Judah. Excavations in Jerusalem revealed that Sennacherib’s 701 BCE military campaign impacted Judah's economy, uncovering administrative changes under King Hezekiah (ZIV REINSTEIN, Jerusalem Post).

“We found remains of a significant state administrative center from the time of Hezekiah – possibly even from his father, Ahaz,” said Neriya Sapir, Natan Ben-Ari, and Benjamin Storchin, the excavation directors from the IAA.

“This center was in use during the last third of the 8th century BCE and was then completely destroyed. This structure was intentionally buried under a massive heap of stones, on top of which another building was erected, overseeing the agricultural lands east of the Armon Hanatziv-Ramat Rachel ridge and was visible from afar,” they explained.

The working hypothesis is that this was a "political statement" by the Assyrians.

For more on the history and archaeology of Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem, start here and follow the many links.

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George Brooke awarded British Academy Burkitt Medal

ACCOLADE: George Brooke (1970) awarded British Academy Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies (St Peter's College).

St Peter’s College alumnus Professor George J. Brooke (Theology, 1970) has been awarded the prestigious British Academy Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies for his pioneering work on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[...]

Congratulations to Professor Brooke! Well deserved indeed.

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McGrath, John of History, Baptist of Faith (Eerdmans) and other news

RELIGION PROF: John The Baptist News.

James McGrath's second recent book on John the Baptist has now been published:

John of History, Baptist of Faith
The Quest for the Historical Baptizer

by James F. McGrath

Imprint: Eerdmans

486 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in

HARDCOVER
9780802883995
Publication Date: October 3, 2024
$59.99
£46.99

Buy
EBOOK
9781467467988
Publication Date: October 4, 2024

Studies of the historical Jesus typically reduce John the Baptist to a subordinate role in the story of Christian origins. This meticulous historical study focuses on John himself, revealing his extensive and enduring influence.

In the popular imagination, John the Baptist plays the supporting role of Jesus’s unkempt forerunner. But meticulous historical study reveals his wide-reaching and enduring influence on the history of religion.

The first study of its kind, John of History, Baptist of Faith sheds light on the historical John the Baptist and his world. James F. McGrath applies historical-critical methodology not only to the New Testament but also to the Mandaean Book of John, a holy text of the last extant gnostic sect. McGrath uses the teachings of John’s pupil, Jesus, as a window into his mentor’s beliefs. Along the way, he brings new clarity to questions of contention among scholars, such as John’s use of immersion as a substitute for temple sacrifice.

Bold in its claims yet careful in its method, John of History, Baptist of Faith lends fresh insight into John, Jesus, and their world. McGrath’s pioneering monograph will challenge and intrigue students and scholars of the New Testament and Second Temple Judaism.

For more on Professor McGrath's research on John the Baptist, see here and links.

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Review series on Fisch, Written for Us

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: 2023 SBL Review Forum for Yael Fisch's Written for Us.

The book was published by Brill in 2023. There are four essays in this series. The first is now posted:

“The Art of Comparison: Yael Fisch’s Written for Us: Paul’s Interpretation of Scripture and the History of Midrash” (Christine Hayes)

[...]

After reading Fisch’s book I am convinced that Paul’s general hermeneutic should not be identified as a radicalization of Alexandrian allegory, or as allegory at all. And I can accept, based on Paul’s blend of the intertextual method featured in later rabbinic midrash with the terminology and content of allegory in Gal 4, that allegory and midrash are not always diametrically opposed, at least for Paul. Nevertheless, as Fisch herself recognizes and details, allegory and midrash differ in numerous ways. Moreover, they are not blended in the vast majority of works of ancient Jewish interpretation or in rabbinic literature, which suggests that their distinction as hermeneutical systems has heuristic value. ...

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