The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Law

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Law

Zev Eleff, Roberta Rosenthal Kwall, and Chaim Saiman

Oxford Handbooks

£142.50

Hardback
Published: 03 March 2026
828 Pages
248x171mm
ISBN: 9780197508305

Description

Jewish law, known as halakhah, is a unique legal system that has developed over nearly two millennia, across multiple continents, and in innumerable different contexts. Dealing not only with ritual, Jewish law extends to virtually every aspect of life, including ethics, business, war, and sex. This Handbook highlights foundational questions about the nature of Jewish law, emphasizing what distinguishes it from other legal systems and illuminating its vitality throughout history.

The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Law navigates core issues such as halakhah's authority, interpretation, and the meaningfulness of an ancient legal system in a modern period. With contributions from an interdisciplinary cast of authors, the Handbook spans law, history, sociology, and religion. Its chapters draw from a wide range of sources, including traditional texts such as Mishnah and Talmud, rabbinical codes, and legal opinions known as responsa. Moreover, chapters addressing pressing modern issues cover the material from diverse denominational perspectives.

As halakhah remains deeply woven into the fabric of Jewish life and scholarship, The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Law offers readers an in-depth understanding of this rich and enduring legal tradition.

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The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 3

NEW BOOK FROM YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 3
Encountering Christianity and Islam, 600-1200

Edited by Arnold E. Franklin

Series: Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization 1464 Pages, 8.00 × 10.00 in, 93 color + 117 b-w illus.

Hardcover
9780300186277
Published: Tuesday, 10 Mar 2026
$150.00

Description

This volume of the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization covers the religious, political, economic, and geographic transformations of Jewish life through the early Middle Ages

Volume 3 of the Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization presents a time of tremendous vibrancy for Jews and Judaism in the early Middle Ages, with a comprehensive historical introduction to the period in over a thousand source texts, alongside the extant visual and material culture. The sources offer an unprecedented range of voices—male and female, religious and secular, mystical and rationalist, learned and commoner—from a historical period that is thoroughly unfamiliar to modern audiences. The volume captures passionate political controversies, virtuosic liturgical poets, learned scientific and medical texts, and spiritually uplifting philosophical and theological discussions, all alongside the plaintive voices of Jewish mothers writing to their sons, real-life cases of commercial transactions, legal contests, and the details of domestic disputes.

I noted the publication of Volume 1 here and of Volume 2 here.

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The Copper Scroll in the news

NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE: A viral social media post is reminding the world that one Dead Sea Scroll is not scripture but a copper-engraved inventory of billions in buried treasure (Elroy Fernandes, Startup Fortune).

A TIL post circulating across social platforms this week has reintroduced millions of people to one of archaeology’s most tantalizing anomalies: a scroll discovered in 1952 that reads less like religious scripture and more like a treasure map written by someone who really did not want to forget where they buried everything. The document in question, formally designated 3Q15 and known as the Copper Scroll, was found in Cave 3 at Qumran and is unlike anything else recovered from the Dead Sea region , in material, in content, and in the questions it refuses to answer.

[...]

The "TIL post" is in the "Today I Learned" subreddit on Reddit, posted yesterday (16 April). You can read it here. It became something of a Reddit hit, with more than 10K upvotes in less than 24 hours.

This brief Startup Forture article is quite good. It describes the scroll and its contents, discusses why no one has yet found the treasure, and prudently advises investors not take the story as a "market signal."

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the Copper Scroll, start here (cf. here) and follow the links.

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

Review of Karla and Konstan, Life of Aesop the Philosopher

BYRN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Life of Aesop the Philosopher.

Grammatiki A. Karla, David Konstan, Life of Aesop the Philosopher. Writings from the Greco-Roman world, 50. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2024. Pp. 260. ISBN 9781628373271.

Review by
Marcus Ziemann, Florida State University. mziemann@fsu.edu

I noted the publication of the book here, with notes on the connections of the Aesop traditions with the Mesopotamian sage Ahiqar, who was adopted into the Jewish apocryphal tradition.

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

Safaee, Women of the empire (Brill)

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Women of the Empire. Notice of a New Book: Safaee, Yazdan. 2026. Women of the empire: Life and labor in the Achaemenid Persepolis Archives (Ancient Iran Series 20). Leiden: Brill.

As the post indicates, Yazdan Safaee is one of the regular contributors to Bibilographia Iranica.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on Persepolis, the ancient Achaemenid ceremonial capital city, start here and just follow those links.

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

Moses of Crete, "the drowning messiah"

MESSIANISM: Moses of Crete: The ‘Messiah’ Who Promised to Part the Sea and Led Hundreds to Death (Nick Kampouris, The Greek Reporter).

In the midst of this upheaval, during the reign of Emperor Theodosius II, [402/408-450 CE] the figure later known as Moses of Crete began to attract attention. He did not merely present himself as a prophet but claimed to be the biblical Moses returned in the flesh, sent directly from Heaven. Over the course of roughly a year, he moved along the rugged coastline of the island of Crete, rallying local Jewish communities with an extraordinary promise: a new Exodus. He declared that he would part the Mediterranean Sea just as the Red Sea had once been parted, leading his followers back to the Promised Land on dry land.

As implausible as it sounds, his message proved deeply persuasive. Entire families abandoned their homes, livelihoods, and possessions, choosing instead to follow a man they genuinely believed to be Moses himself.

As you might guess, it did not go well.

Another PaleoJudaica post dealing with Moses of Crete and other "failed messiahs" is here. And for messianic figures in the late Second Temple Period, see here and here.

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

The siegeworks of the Roman conquest of Jerusalem

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: The Roman Conquest of Jerusalem. How were the siegeworks deployed around the city? (Clinton J. Moyer).

The Roman army’s conquest and destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 is well documented, both in contemporary written sources like Josephus and in the archaeological record. ...

Yet, despite all this evidence, little is known about the layout and organization of the protective walls, garrison camps, and other defenses that made up the Roman army’s siegeworks during the conquest of the city. In his article entitled “Under Siege: How Rome Conquered Jerusalem,” published in the Spring 2026 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, archaeologist Győző Vörös pieces together the available evidence to develop a clearer picture of the disposition of the Roman forces.

The article is behind the subscription wall, but this BHD essay give a substantial summary of it.

For the work of Győző Vörös on the site of Machaerus (the reputed site of the execution of John the Baptist), see here and links.

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

Pharaoh Tiberius?

EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY: Ancient Egyptian stone monument depicting a Roman emperor as a pharaoh discovered in Luxor. A stone slab depicting the Roman emperor Tiberius was found during restoration work at the Karnak temple complex in Luxor. (Margherita Bassi, Live Science).

For more on Tiberius as a god and a son of god, see my report on the 2016 St. Andrews Symposium on Divine Sonship, and also here.

Yet another important epigraphic discovery at the seemingly comprehensively explored Egyptian site of Luxor. What else is out there? Follow the link for discussion of implications.

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

On biocodicology

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: How DNA forensics is transforming studies of ancient manuscripts. Scientists are exposing the biological information hidden in ancient parchments without leaving a mark (Marla Broadfoot, Scientific American, reprint from Nature Magazine). HT Drew Longacre's OTTC Blog.

In May 2006, Tim Stinson travelled to England to tour the libraries of London, Oxford and Cambridge. ...

Nearly two decades later, that curiosity has helped to give rise to a new field. The development of non-destructive sampling methods, alongside advances in genomics and proteomics, have made it possible to extract biological information from ancient parchments without visibly damaging them. The emerging discipline — known as biocodicology — combines molecular biology with codicology, the study of books as material objects.

The results are transforming how scholars understand human history. By analysing parchment, researchers are uncovering evidence of trade networks, animal husbandry, medical and ritual practices, climate change, epidemics and floods.

In the process, they have found that ancient parchments preserve more than just words.

All of the examples in the article involve analysis of medieval manuscripts, the earliest from the eighth century. But applying the process to more ancient manuscripts sounds possible, assuming researchers can find a non-destructive way to harvest the samples.

I noted a recent unrelated project (at pre-print publication stage) which applied such methods to the Shroud of Turin here. I see that Scientific American has also published a response to it:

DNA analysis claiming new origins for the Shroud of Turin doesn't hold up, experts say. A metagenomic study of this cloth, controversially purported to bear the imprint of the body of Jesus Christ, has little to say about the relic’s origins (BY STEPHANIE PAPPAS EDITED BY JEANNA BRYNER).

Cross-file under Paleogenetics.

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

More on that Ark of the Covenant docudrama

CINEMA: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: 'Legends of the Lost Ark' docudrama: Archaeologist Chris McKinney investigates fate of the biblical artifact. McKinney discusses the history, legend and mystery surrounding the Ark of the Covenant (All Israel News).

A key element of “Legends of the Lost Ark” is its effort to move beyond modern speculation and instead reconstruct the conversation around the Ark through ancient traditions and early textual sources. McKinney emphasized that the goal is not to chase sensational theories, but to understand how ancient communities themselves wrestled with the Ark’s disappearance after the destruction of the First Temple.

In the interview, McKinney explained that the film is anchored in three early post-exilic traditions that consistently connect the prophet Jeremiah to the Ark’s concealment. While the sources differ on where it was hidden, they converge on several core ideas – including that the Ark was hidden before Jerusalem’s fall and that it is destined to be revealed in the future.

That sounds like a prudent approach.

The trailer is overdone, but trailers often are. I do not have time to listen to the whole interview now. This article has excerpts, plus links to trailer and interview.

I noted the film as upcoming here. Follow the links from there for many posts on the Ark of the Covenant and the many places where it is claimed to be. The film is currently, briefly, in the cinemas. I believe today is the last day.

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

U of Iowa project funded to reconstruct ancient manuscripts

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: UI professor repairs damaged ancient manuscripts with AI. Paul Dilley received a $500,000 grant from Schmidt Sciences to develop AI tools that can reconstruct missing sections of ancient manuscripts (Jacob Calvin, The Daily Iowan).

Dilley said even as multispectral imaging continues to advance, there is a limit to what it can decipher.

“If the manuscript has already been damaged, imaging obviously doesn’t help you see the missing parts,” he said. “That’s where AI comes in.”

Dilley said editors will train the AI to perform a process called infilling, or suggesting restorations for letter fragments. Generative AI will also be used to infer and suggest new text for lacunas, or portions of manuscripts where all text is missing.

For his current study, Dilley said the AI will be trained to perform infilling and restore lacuna for Greek, Latin, and Celtic languages.

“The plan is to publish the models open access and to make it extendable to other languages,” he said. “The basic pipeline should be extendable to other languages.”

The funding of this project is very good news.

The article mentions the Herculaneum papyri and the Dead Sea Scrolls in passing, but it does not specify which texts or manuscripts the project will work on.

Cross-file under Algorithm Watch.

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

What's in the Herculaneum papyri? What might be?

HERCULANEUM WATCH: The Latin Problem: BYU's Roger Macfarlane on What We Have — and Haven't — Found in the Herculaneum Papyri (Utah TechBuzz News).

BYU classicist, Roger Macfarlane, who has spent more than three decades hunting for lost Latin literature in carbonized scrolls came to UVU with an honest assessment: most of the discovered Herculaneum papyri is barely readable. But what we might still find could change everything.

Further:

From the moment European scholars learned that a library had been buried at Herculaneum, the speculation about what it might contain has been almost comically ambitious. A letter from 1753 — before serious attempts to open the scrolls had even begun — already expressed hope for a portion of Livy's history of Rome, most of which has been lost to time. By 1739, a German scholar was wishfully cataloging the texts he hoped to find: Diodorus Siculus, Berossus on Babylon, Megasthenes on India, Livy, Sallust, and, in a note that Macfarlane clearly relished, "the Five Books of Sallust, although in that event all the labor I have already expended in attempting to reconstruct them would itself be rendered futile."

The list has only grown since. ...

An informative article asking important questions about the Herculaneum library: What is in it? What might be? With some answers to both. I've posted my own wish list of Herculaneum books here and here.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE and its destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and on the efforts to reconstruct and decipher the carbonized library at Herculaneum, start here and follow the links.

Cross-file under Lost Books (also here).

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

Reports of bombed antiquities sites in Israel and Lebanon

THIS IS WAR: There are reports of the bombing of antiquities sites in northern Israel and Lebanon.

Hezbollah rocket hits remains of 1,500-year-old Byzantine church in northern Israel. Israel Antiquities Authority says modern-day structure preserving the mosaic in Nahariya was damaged but the ancient floor is intact (Rossella Tercatin, Times of Israel).

“Today, a meeting was held on site with the participation of archaeologists and conservators from the Israel Antiquities Authority [and] representatives of the municipality and the Property Tax Authority,” an IAA spokesperson said in a statement. “An on-site assessment indicates that the mosaic was covered by debris from the modern structure in which it had been preserved, but was not damaged.”

For more on the mosaic and on another significant discovery in Nahariya, see here and here.

Israeli airstrikes hit southern Lebanon and Tyre’s ancient citadel (Middle East Monitor).

Israeli warplanes launched a series of airstrikes on southern Lebanon on Monday, targeting the town of Qantara and the outskirts of Tibnin, while artillery shelling struck the ancient citadel of Tyre, a site listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.

According to the Lebanese National News Agency, the citadel area includes the shrine and tomb of Prophet Simeon the Just, raising concerns over damage to cultural and historical heritage.

[...]

Some PaleoJudaica posts on the history and archaeology of the city of Tyre are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and links. There was a big fire at the site last year.

It sounds as though the bombing damage was to post-Phoenician remains.

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

39 more Lebanese sites under enhanced cultural protection

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: 39 Sites in Lebanon Gain UNESCO Protection. Why it matters for biblical history and beyond (Lauren K. McCormick).

In a decision prompted by a request from the Lebanese government, UNESCO granted enhanced protection status to 39 sites across Lebanon under the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The designation places these sites under the highest level of legal safeguarding during armed conflict, meaning that any intentional damage could be considered a war crime. UNESCO has committed over US$100,000 for measures on the ground, including training for staff and military personnel.

[...]

Lebanon has lots of biblical connections. Also, cross-file under Phoenician Watch.

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

Review of The Oxford handbook of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: The Oxford handbook of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East.

The Oxford handbook of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East Rubina Raja, The Oxford handbook of the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. Oxford handbooks. New York: Oxford University Press, 2025. Pp. 944. ISBN 9780190858155.

Review by
Céline Debourse, Harvard University. cdebourse@fas.harvard.edu

[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]

This impressive collection of essays brings together a wide range of scholarship dealing with the Near East under Hellenistic and Roman rule, from Alexander’s death in 323 BCE into the eighth century CE. Its overarching aim, in the editor’s words, is to apply “both local as well as global lenses” to bring “new perspectives on this central region” (abstract). In fifty chapters covering 940 pages, Rubina Raja and her contributors do indeed deliver a breath-taking overview of topics in sectors as diverse as geography, climate, economy, religion, politics, and culture.

[...]

Apparently the volume does not include Egypt and it oddly neglects Mesopotamia. But in the TOC I see many articles of interest to PaleoJudaica: on Judea and the Galilee (several), Edessa, Europos-Dura (sic), Palmyra, Phoenicia, Petra, and more.

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

Eight 3,000-year-old scrolls excavated in Egypt

YET ANOTHER SCROLL DISCOVERY: Valuable discovery in Egypt reveals 3,000-year-old scrolls with secret messages still unread. Cache of coffins also found stacked in a rock-carved funerary chamber nearby (Andrea Margolis, Fox News).

Excavators found the ancient scrolls in a large pottery vessel, with some even bearing their original, 3,000-year-old clay seals.

"They vary in size and are considered a valuable source of information, with the world awaiting the results following their restoration and translation," the translated release said.

The coffins of Amun chanters — temple singers dedicated to the god Amun — were found stacked in a rock-carved rectangular funerary chamber [on Luxor's West Bank].

Fox News appears to have broken the story in the English-speaking world. No word yet on the contents of the scrolls. Reading the texts will be a laborious and painstaking process.

As I have said before, it is remarkable that Egypt continues to produce substantial scroll discoveries. Several have been found at Saqqara, one of the most thoroughly explored sites in the world. This one was in Luxor, at the other end of Egypt, but comparably explored already. For other recent Egyptian scroll discoveries, see the links at the bottom of this post. If I may quote myself from the first link in this paragraph:

And if there are intact 16-meter ancient scrolls still lying around in Egypt, what does that say about the potential for new scroll finds in Israel? Israel has fewer areas that have the right climactic conditions to preserve scrolls. But there are still promising regions. Besides the Dead Sea region and Samaria, both of which have produced remarkable scroll discoveries, both Megiddo and the Timna Valley have potential. I have discussed the matter here.

Since then, an even earlier textile fragment (c. 1500-2000 BCE) has been recovered from one of the Judean Desert caves. See my commentary at the link for some implications.

The sites in Israel whose climate could preserve ancient scrolls have been extensively explored. But there may still be surprises in them. Keep looking!

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

How old is the layout of the MT Hebrew Bible?

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH (FEBRUARY 2026): Scrolls, Stratigraphy and the Song of the Sea: Re-examining Ashkar-Gilson (Kim Phillips).

This fascinating essay is quite technical and hard to excerpt. The main issue is the question of how ancient the layout (as opposed to the text itself) of the Masoretic Text is. The specific examples are the dots placed over some of the words and the division of the five lines preceding the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15.

The answer, the author concludes, is that the the division of the five lines is earlier than the Ashkar-Gilson manuscript, which dates to the seventh or eight century CE. So, very old indeed.

For PaleoJudaica posts on Ashkar-Gilson fragments of Exodus, start here, here, and here, and follow the links.

For many PaleoJudaica posts noting Cairo Geniza Fragments of the Month in the Cambridge University Library's Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, start here and follow the links.

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