Horbat Burgin tunnels now open to the public

ARCHAEOLOGICAL TOURISM: Ancient tunnels that helped Jewish rebels evade the Romans now open for tourists. Horbat Burgin, in the Judean foothills, features underground passageways used to evade Roman forces, colorful church mosaics and remains spanning more than 2,000 years (Zev Stub, Times of Israel).

Now, the archaeological complex — featuring underground hiding tunnels used by Jewish rebels during the Roman period and a Byzantine-era church decorated with colorful mosaics — has been opened to the public for the first time. Some of these tunnels are preserved for visitors to climb through today, with about 200 meters accessible underground, [IAA excavator Amir] Ganor noted.

Horbat Burgin, located within Adullam–France Park south of Beit Shemesh, is one of the largest archaeological sites in the area of the Judean foothills, with numerous periods of settlement between the second century BCE, during the Second Temple period, and the Ottoman Empire of the 19th century CE, said Ganor.

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Dead Sea Scrolls are coming to Houston

COMING EXHIBTION: Dead Sea Scrolls come to Houston (AARON HOWARD, Jewish Herald-Voice).

Beginning Nov. 21, the Houston Museum of Natural Science will host the historic 75th anniversary tour of “Dead Sea Scrolls: The Exhibition.”

The exhibit will feature more than 200 of Israel’s National Treasures. Due to the fragile nature of the 2,000-year-old manuscripts, original Dead Sea Scroll fragments will rotate three separate times during the exhibition run, allowing visitors the ability to experience different texts.

The article includes some good background and an informative interview with specialist Prof. Matthias Henze.

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The Bible and Interpretation redesigned

THE BIBLE AND INTEPRETATION website has had an upgrade. Looks good. Go check it out.

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Top Ten Discoveries Related to the Book of Ezekiel

BIBLE ARCHAEOLOGY REPORT: Top Ten Discoveries Related to the Book of Ezekiel (Bryan Windle). HT the Bible Places Blog.

Ezekiel prophesied during the period of the Babylonian exile of Judah. Since he dated his prophecies, we know he ministered from roughly 593 BC (his first prophecy; 1:1) to 571 BC (his last chronologically; 29:17–21). Thus, his entire recorded ministry occurred during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar.

[...]

How much Ezekiel's oracles have been developed by later writers remains an open topic of discussion. But these ten archaeological discoveries are certainly of interest.

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Progress in machine reading of Ge'ez manuscripts

ETHIOPIC WATCH: Deep Learning Model Achieves 93.52% Accuracy in Ancient Ge’ez Manuscript Recognition (Bioengineer).

Researchers from Ethiopia have developed a deep convolutional neural network capable of recognizing characters in ancient Ethiopic Ge’ez manuscripts with an accuracy of 93.52%. Published in the journal Discover Imaging in May 2025, the study addresses the critical need to digitize historical religious texts that are currently difficult to access due to the physical degradation of the documents. The Ge’ez language, which serves as the liturgical language for the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches, is written in a script that presents significant challenges for automated recognition systems because of its complex morphology and the aging of the parchment materials.

[...]

Follow the link for a link to the underlying open-access, rather technical, 2025 article. 93.5% accuracy in transcription is progress, but it still falls pretty far short of independent machine reading. Presumably it does speed up human efforts at transcription. Let's hope for continued progress.

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Prof. Robert H. Eisenman (1937-2026)

SAD NEWS: Robert H. Eisenman. OBITUARY (Orange County Register).

Our beloved Robert Herschel Eisenman passed away at home with his family by his side on Friday, October 23rd, in Fountain Valley, California, and was buried on Tuesday, October 27th, on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem next to his great-grandfather. He was 89 years old.

[...]

Prof. Eisenman worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls and he was involved in the controversy over their full release. As far as I know, no other specialists have accepted his hypotheses about the Scrolls and their relation to early Christianity. His Wikipedia article is here. As of this posting it has not been updated to note his death. I have not fact checked the rest of it. I have disagreed with him about some important matters, and also agreed with him sometimes. But never mind all that now.

May his memory be for a blessing.

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THE MASORAH OF DANIEL AND EZRA-NEHEMIAH TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED. VOLUME 2: EZRA-NEHEMIAH (Gorgias) CROSS-REFERENCE WITH VOL ONE

NEW BOOK FROM GORGIAS PRESS:

THE MASORAH OF DANIEL AND EZRA-NEHEMIAH TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED. VOLUME 2: EZRA-NEHEMIAH
Ezra-Nehemiah

By David Marcus

Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC
Availability: In stock
SKU (ISBN): 978-1-4632-4996-0

Formats *
Hardback (In Print) ISBN 978-1-4632-4996-0
eBook PDF (In Print) ISBN 978-1-4632-4997-7 on Gorgias Mobile App (Glassboxx)

Publication Status: In Print
Series: Texts and Studies (Third Series) 35
Publication Date: Jun 15,2026
Interior Color: Black
Trim Size: 7 x 10
Page Count: 509v Languages: English
ISBN: 978-1-4632-4996-0

Price: $95.00 (USD)
Your price: $57.00 (USD)

OVERVIEW

Each masoretic note in the books of Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah in the Leningrad Codex is transcribed, translated, parsed, and annotated in this user-friendly reference work.

I have just noted Volume 1 (Daniel) here.

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Marcus, THE MASORAH OF DANIEL AND EZRA-NEHEMIAH TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED. VOLUME ONE: DANIEL (Gorgias)

NEW BOOK FROM GORGIAS PRESS:

THE MASORAH OF DANIEL AND EZRA-NEHEMIAH TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED. VOLUME 1: DANIEL
Daniel

By David Marcus

Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC
Availability: In stock
SKU (ISBN): 978-1-4632-4994-6

Formats *
Hardback (In Print) ISBN 978-1-4632-4994-6
eBook PDF (In Print) ISBN 978-1-4632-4995-3 on Gorgias Mobile App (Glassboxx)

Publication Status: In Print
Series: Texts and Studies (Third Series) 34
Publication Date: Jun 15,2026
Interior Color: Black
Trim Size: 7 x 10
Page Count: 365
Languages: English
ISBN: 978-1-4632-4994-6

Price: $95.00 (USD)
Your price: $57.00 (USD)

OVERVIEW

This volume represents the first time that the Masorah of the Aramaic sections and the Masorah of the three books of Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah in the Leningrad Codex, fully translated and analyzed, will have been presented to an English-speaking public. All biblical words and terms, whether Hebrew or Aramaic, are translated and parsed fully. For comparison purposes, the most authoritative ancient manuscripts (Sassoon 1053; Madrid M1; and Cambridge Additional 1753) and the Second Rabbinic Bible are regularly consulted.

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A children's book series on the Talmud

TALMUD WATCH: Series Makes Talmudic Stories Accessible to Young Children (Jewish Link Staff).

Highlighting: “Stones on the Road: A Story from the Talmud,” by Rabbi Elliot Goldberg. Scribal Scion Kids. November 2026. Paperback: 32 pages. ISBN-13: 979-8886650266.

... In an effort to instill in young Jewish children an interest in Talmudic stories, Scribal Scion Publishing, through its Scribal Scion Kids imprint, has begun a new series of children’s picture books for ages 5 to 8 that will present stories from the Talmud in an accessible manner. The first book in the series, Rabbi Elliot Goldberg’s new book titled “Stones on the Road: A Story from the Talmud,” is based upon a story that appears in Masechet Bava Kamma, page 50b. ...

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Restoration of the Beit Alfa synagogue mosaic

DECORATIVE ART: Preserving an ancient mosaic: Israeli specialists gather to conserve 1,500-year-old synagogue floor. Beit Alfa’s ancient synagogue was built during the Byzantine period, at the end of the fifth century CE, approximately 1,500 years ago. The mosaic floor was discovered in 1928 (Miriam Sela-Eitam, Jerusalem Post).

About 20 Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) conservation specialists gathered at Beit Alfa National Park in northern Israel earlier this week to preserve the 1,500-year-old mosaic floor of the site’s ancient synagogue.

[...]

For more on the Beit Afha synagogue and its zodiac mosaic, see here, here, and here.

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Coptic manuscripts exhibited in Manchester

EXHIBITION: John Rylands Library takes centuries-old Coptic treasures into the heart of the community. More than 400 Coptic Christians examine manuscripts at a Stockport church in rare opportunity to connect with their cultural and religious heritage (University of Manchester).

The University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library has taken a selection of its historic Coptic and Ethiopian manuscripts out of the library and into the community, giving hundreds of people the rare opportunity to encounter their heritage first-hand.

The special exhibition - held on 1 November at St Mary & St Mina Coptic Orthodox Church in Stockport - attracted more than 400 visitors and their children, many of whom travelled from across the UK to see manuscripts dating back as far as the tenth century. ...

Among the manuscripts on display were biblical texts, Coptic liturgies and a Holy Week lectionary, alongside two parchment manuscripts from Egypt’s White Monastery containing sermons by St Shenoute of Atripe, a hugely influential fifth-century monastic leader.

Visitors were also able to see fragments of an ancient Coptic translation of the Gospel of Matthew, written on papyrus, and an eighteenth-century Ethiopian manuscript recounting the life and miracles of St George. ...

For more on the work of Sarah Parkhouse, see the links collected here some time ago.

Cross-file under Coptic Watch.

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Review of Schwartz, Flavius Josephus: translation and commentary. Volume 8: Judean Antiquities, books 18-20

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Flavius Josephus: translation and commentary. Volume 8: Judean Antiquities, books 18-20.

Daniel R. Schwartz, Flavius Josephus: translation and commentary. Volume 8: Judean Antiquities, books 18-20. Leiden: Brill, 2024. Pp. xxiv, 386. ISBN 9789004703681.

Review by Carson Bay, University of Austin. cbay@uaustin.org

... But this work is far, far more than a translation. On many pages, a few lines of text sit above what is effectively a full page of detailed footnotes. For both English translation and interpretation, then, this work is now the standard resource for Books 18–20 of Josephus’ Antiquities, replacing Louis Feldman’s 1965 Loeb volumes.

On the issue of the Testimonium Flavianum, see here most recently and follow the links. For more on Schwartz's book and Schmidt's and how they deal with the TF, see here and here.

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Falla Festschrift (Gorgias)

NEW BOOK FROM GORGIAS PRESS:

I SAY IT JUST BEGINS TO LIVE THAT DAY
Essays in Honour of Terry Falla

Edited by Charbel El-Khaissi, Janet Dyk & Daniel King

Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC
Availability: In stock
SKU (ISBN): 978-1-4632-4992-2

Formats *
Hardback (In Print) ISBN 978-1-4632-4992-2
eBook PDF (In Print) ISBN 978-1-4632-4993-9 on Gorgias Mobile App (Glassboxx)

Publication Status: In Print
Series: Perspectives on Linguistics and Ancient Languages18
Publication Date: Sep 22,2026
Interior Color: Color
Trim Size: 7 x 10
Page Count: 503
Languages: English
ISBN: 978-1-4632-4992-2

Price: $114.95 (USD)
Your price: $68.97 (USD)

OVERVIEW

This Festschrift is published in honour of Professor Terry C. Falla on the occasion of his 86th birthday. A Founding Professor of the University of Divinity, Falla is widely known in Australia for his devotional best-seller, Be Our Freedom, Lord (1982), and internationally for his pioneering work on A Key to the Peshitta Gospels (KPG). He is co-founder with Beryl Turner of the International Syriac Language Project (ISLP), an international, interdisciplinary research group that has been advancing the study of ancient-language lexicography and linguistics for over two decades.

Celebrating the breadth of Falla’s intellectual interests, this collection includes twenty original essays by scholars around the world on topics of lexicography, linguistics, textual analysis in Syriac, Greek, and Hebrew, and theology. The Festschrift features a sugitho (Syriac poem) recounting Falla’s life and work, a photo section documenting his scholarly journey since the 1980s and a special foreword by his right hand and decades-long collaborator, Beryl Turner. The volume is edited by Charbel El-Khaissi, former Syriac student of Falla’s at the University of Melbourne, Janet W. Dyk, a founding member of the ISLP, and Daniel King, Series Editor of the ISLP’s Perspectives on Linguistics and Ancient Languages series.

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Bay, Contesting Jewish History in Late Antique Christianity and Early Medieval Judaism (Brill, open access)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Contesting Jewish History in Late Antique Christianity and Early Medieval Judaism

Flavius Josephus’ Jewish War between the Latin On the Destruction of Jerusalem and the Hebrew Book of Yosippon

Series:
Études sur le judaïsme médiéval, Volume: 105

Author: Carson Bay

The open access publication of this book was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

On the Destruction of Jerusalem, an anonymous Latin Christian text from Late Antiquity (c. 375 CE), paraphrased Flavius Josephus’ Greek Jewish War (ca. 75 CE) to reinterpret the Roman-Jewish War (66-70 CE) and the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple (70 CE) as proof that God had abandoned the Jews (because they had rejected Jesus Christ). No Jewish alternative to this supersessionist historiography existed for hundreds of years. Then, around 900 CE, the anonymous Hebrew Book of Yosippon rewrote this history anew, based on the narrative of On the Destruction Jerusalem. This monograph provides the first extensive comparison of these texts, showing how the Book of Yosippon biblicized, theologized, and Judaized its Latin source, overwriting the Christian narrative of late-Second Temple Judaism and underwriting a new version of that story. In so doing, the Book of Yosippon resurrected the spirit of Hellenistic Judaism, reclaiming Jewish history for the Jews in the Early Middle Ages.

Copyright Year: 2026

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-75911-4
Publication: 22 Sep 2026

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-75910-7
Publication: 14 Oct 2026
EUR €101.00

For PaleoJudaica posts on Pseudo-Hegesippus' De excidio Hierosolymita ("On the Destruction of Jerusalem"), including posts on Carson Bay's previous work on the subject, see here and links. Posts on or involving Sefer Yosippon are here, here, and here.

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