On ancient Jewish court tales

THE BIBLE AND INTEPRETATION:

New Perspectives on Court Tales in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Literature

Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls substantially expands the extant corpus of early Jewish court tales and provides an opportunity for a major reassessment of this important literary form. Incorporating these newly available texts alongside the traditional biblical and related corpora redefines the scope of the genre, traces its historical development, and reconsiders its relationship to themes of exile, courtly wisdom, and emerging apocalyptic traditions in early Judaism.

See also The Place of Court Tales in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Literature: Form, Development, and Function (T&T Clark, 2026).

By Andrew Knight-Messenger
King’s University College (Western University)
Department of Religious Studies
July 2026

I noted the publication of the book here.

For more on the Prayer of Nabonidus, see here, and on the historical Nabonidus here, here, and here. For the recently deciphered Aramaic court tale 4Q550, which has a connection with the Behistun Inscription, see here and here. Some posts on the Genesis Apocryphon are here, here, here, and here, and here. And for more on the Story of Ahiqar, see here and links (cf. here and here). Cross-file under Aramaic Watch.

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Tanit-faced incense-burner excavated in Iberia?

PUNIC WATCH: The Face of Tanit, the Goddess of Life and Death, Returns to Alicante After 2,200 Years. The incense burner found intact in the Iberian necropolis, linked to a warrior elite, in La Albufereta embodies the great Punic protector of fields, stars, navigation, and the beyond (Adrián Mazón, TodoAlicante).

For over 2,200 years, she remained surrounded by the weapons of warriors. Falcatas, spears, knives, shields, and long javelins accompanied a small female head beneath the earth of La Albufereta, which has now once again seen the light of day.

According to initial investigations, exclusively reported by TodoAlicante, that face belonged to Tanit, the great Punic deity who protected fertility, harvests, and those embarking on their final journey.

The extraordinary incense burner was found in perfect condition during the excavation of a new Iberian necropolis located on a private plot in Alicante, as reported by this newspaper. The cemetery, dated to the last third of the 3rd century BC, consists of four tombs and two ritual areas where an exceptional collection of funerary objects has been recovered.

[...]

For the Punic (and Phoenician?) goddess Tanit (Tannit), the "Snake Lady," see here and links (cf. here, here, and here). Cross-file under Archaeology.

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Tu B'Av 2026, belatedly

THE FESTIVAL OF TU B'AV was on the 28th-29th of July this year. Best wishes to all those who celebrated.

Tu B'Av (which just means the 15th day of the month of Av) is an ancient matchmaking festival. Its first mention is in the Mishnah (Ta’anit 4). It has been revived in recent years as a kind of Jewish Valentine's Day.

For past posts on it, see here and links.

Pardon my tardiness again this year. I was away this week (hence no posting yesterday) and missed it.

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Esther in the Dura-Europos synagogue murals

CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION OF NEW ENGLAND BLOG: Dura Europos and Esther (Ruth Breindel). HT Rogue Classicism.

To conclude: the story of Esther was well known and quite loved by Jews. It has prominence in the synagogue perhaps as a tale of valor, or maybe as a story of great victory. As an adventure story, it appealed to all ages and groups. The combination of Roman, Hellenistic and Persian dress and styles speak to the multi-cultural city of Dura Europos and to us today.

This post gives a detailed analysis of the Esther murals and the graffiti associated with them.

For more on those Esther murals see here. And follow the links from there (cf. here and here) for many PaleoJudaica posts on and involving the ancient city of Dura-Europos, especially its synagogue and its decorative art.

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Tesla sent 1 Enoch to a customer instead of their solar lease contract?

WAIT, WHAT? Tesla Solar Account Glitch: The Book of Enoch, Explained in 5 Points (BASENOR Editorial Desk).

A Tesla solar lease customer logging into their account to review their contract got something considerably more ancient: The Book of Enoch, a roughly 2,000-year-old Hebrew religious text that didn't make it into most Bibles. Tesla confirmed the mix-up, apologized, and sent the correct document — but has offered no explanation for how it happened. Here's what we know.

[...]

This doesn't sound real, but someone named Fred Lambert at an outfit called electrek says he has verified it.*

The video in Mr. Lambert's X.com post show that the mis-sent file was an early English translation by Richard Laurence.

The real question is, what was a translation of 1 Enoch doing floating around on the Tesla server? Some possibilities have been suggested, the most entertaining of which involve AI.

Also, given 1 Enoch's focus on the solar calendar, is it just a coincidence that the file went to a solar lease customer?

If 1 Enoch is trendy enough that AIs are looking into it, well, things are getting interesting.

For additional examples of the current trendiness of 1 Enoch, see here and links. Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch and Algorithm Watch(?).

*Yes, I know 1 Enoch was written at least mostly in Aramaic, not Hebrew, and was translated into Greek and Ethiopic. Not important here.

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West Bank looting arrest

APPREHENDED NUMISMATICS: Thousands of ancient artifacts recovered in Judea and Samaria looting case. The suspect was found carrying metal detectors, excavation tools and archaeological finds (JNS).

(July 28, 2026 / Pesach Benson/TPS-IL) Thousands of archaeological items, including coins and artifacts from the Persian (539–332 BCE), Hellenistic (332–140 BCE) and Hasmonean (140–37 BCE) periods in the Land of Israel, were recovered from a suspect accused of looting antiquities in Judea and Samaria, Israeli authorities said on Monday.

[...]

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Arshama and the satrapal houses

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST TODAY: The House of Aršāma, Persian Satrap in Egypt (Rhyne King).

Aršāma’s was in many ways an exemplary satrapal house. Like many satraps, Aršāma had a direct connection to the king, and he controlled property both within and beyond his satrapal jurisdiction. To maintain both his house and imperial control, Aršāma relied on trusted subordinates, while unfree workers of various statuses did much of the hardest work in his house.

It is important to study these satrapal houses because they did the everyday work of maintaining imperial rule. The Achaemenid Empire was, at its time, by far the largest state in the history of the world. Understanding the mechanisms of Achaemenid power is not just a matter of Ancient Near Eastern history; it is a matter of world history. While the Great Kings like Cyrus and Darius wielded power in the imperial heartland, it was satrapal houses that maintained the empire on a material level from region to region.

We've heard of Arshama (Aršāma) before in the context of Oxford University's Arshama Project (here and links). He was a late-fifth-century BCE Persian satrap with royal blood who left an archive of Aramaic documents at Elephantine Island and (I just learned) some business records in cuneiform in Babylonia.

Cross-file under Elephantine Watch and also under New Book (noted at the end of the essay): Rhyne King, The House of the Satrap: The Making of the Ancient Persian Empire (University of California Press, 2025).

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More on that female figurine face mold from Jerusalem

ANTHROPOMORPHIC CAST-ART UPDATE: The story has been getting some attention, with two new articles worth noting:

First Temple-era mold offers clues to mystery of ‘pagan’ female figurines in Holy City. First mold discovery in Jerusalem provides evidence that enigmatic clay artifacts — possibly linked to the goddess Asherah— were manufactured in biblical capital (Zev Stub, Times of Israel). This article includes an interview with Amit Re’em, one of the excavation directors and some new thoughts and details.

“The emphasis on the face has led researchers to conclude that it probably had an important cultural or religious significance, but it is not clear what it is,” Re’em said. Most likely, they served as private idols — perhaps the fertility goddess Asherah — or household amulets intended to bring blessing, protection or fertility, similar in purpose to a Hamsa symbol.

Others have suggested these may have been common as toys, “but I don’t accept that theory,” Re’em said.

I would like to hear more about why she rejects it. I try to resist the temptation to assume that everything excavated had to do with religion.

Some years ago I noted the discovery of some horse figurines, also in Jerusalem. As I mentioned there and elsewhere, I found the front half of one of those at the Tel Dor excavation in the 1980s.

First-ever Find: Mold of a First Temple Figurine Is Discovered in Jerusalem. Figurines have been uncovered in almost every big dig in Jerusalem. Now a mold made of fired clay for creating a face was discovered for the first time (Nir Hasson, Haaretz).

This article raises a point that I raised in my post on the story yesterday:

The use of figurines during the First Temple period is still unclear. Their presence seems to contradict the biblical prohibition.

"Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness," Ben-Ami says, quoting the Book of Exodus 20:3. "We don't know exactly what the biblical prohibition refers to, but the archaeological reality is that figurines are found in every home.

But it doesn't ask the next question.

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Three lost Neo-Assyrian kings discovered?

ASSYRIOLOGY: Watch the Throne: Uncovering three new kings of Assyria. A new study co-written by Yale’s Eckart Frahm provides evidence that the ancient kingdom of Assyria had three more kings than previously thought (Lisa Prevost, YaleNews).

The discovery of what look to be three additional kings during the last stage of Assyrian history, known as the Neo-Assyrian period, “came as a surprise — no one expected there would be room for any new and unknown rulers during this time,” said Frahm, the John M. Musser Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Assyriologists: We discovered three lost ancient Assyrian kings!

Egyptologists: Haha, hold our beer. Seriously, congratulations to Prof. Frahm and Dr. Edmonds on this important discovery. The JCS article that publishes it is available open access here.

(Grok generated image.)

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Evidence of ancient Cypriot coin inflation from an Israeli beach?

NUMISMATICS: 'Debased' Cypriot Coin From 2,500 Years Ago Found on Israeli Beach Generally, the siglos was made of silver, but this one has a base metal inside, suggesting a king under stress – or ancient skullduggery (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

But wait. Sigli were made of pure silver, he notes. This one was not. The metal at its base remains to be analyzed; maybe lead. And as lipstick on a pig doth not a pretty porker make, a silver coat doesn't make a silver coin. That doesn't necessarily translate into "ancient counterfeiting," Levy adds. It could be that the treasury issuing the coinage was under stress.

When might the Grand Poobah of Wherever issue base metal covered in silver or gold? For example, when times were rough, the treasury was low, soldiers needed to be paid and silver ore was rare. The government might not have been eager to counterfeit sigli, it may have simply been scrambling to survive. Either way, the result would have been devaluation of the currency.

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First-temple-era female figurine mold excavated at Tower of David in Jerusalem

ANTHROPOMORPHIC CAST-ART: Rare First Temple mold discovered beneath Tower of David. (Israel National News).

Debbi Ben-Ami, Curator of the Iron Age at the Israel Antiquities Authority, added, "The meaning and function of these figurines are still not fully understood. The fact that they have been found in almost every household, as well as in streets and tombs, indicates that they were objects of everyday use. The identity and purpose of the Judean Pillar Figurines remain the subject of scholarly debate. They have previously been interpreted as representations of a fertility goddess - perhaps the goddess Asherah - and some have even suggested they were children's toys. However, they may instead have served as mediating or blessing figures, functioning as household amulets intended to bring blessing, protection, and good fortune. We hope that the newly discovered mold from Jerusalem will provide fresh insights and help answer some of the questions that continue to occupy researchers."

I suppose the commandment against making graven images would not be in the Big Ten unless people were making them. Then again, cast art isn't technically "graven" (פסל). Maybe that technicality is why these figurines were so popular.

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Real and forged lost ancient books of the Renaissance

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: Forging Spirituality In Renaissance Europe (Philip Jenkins).

We have all heard of the modern rediscovery of ancient scriptures, and we all know the standard stereotypes of how they are found – think of the Dead Sea Scrolls, or the Nag Hammadi library. Although such spectacular finds are not common, rediscoveries on a smaller scale are in fact quite a regular fact of scholarship, and of religious life. Moreover, that has been true for several centuries, certainly dating back to the Renaissance.

In my next several posts, I will be looking at some sensational discoveries that all belonged to a particular historical period, namely the first quarter or so of the seventeenth century, roughly between 1600 and 1625. ...

This quarter century is a fascinating period, the inflection point between Renaissance techno-Hermeticism and Enlightenment Cartesian-clockwork materialism.

For lots of PaleoJudaica posts on the Infancy Gospel (Protevangelium) of James, see here and links (cf. here). For more on the Granada lead plates, see here (cf. here and here). On the Gospel of Barnabas, see here and links.

This post is a continuation of Professor Jenkins's Lost and Found Scriptures series. For earlier posts, see here and links. I am quite enjoying the series and look forward to the coming posts.

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Binder, Tertullian and the Jews in Early Christian Literary Imagination (CUP)

NEW BOOK FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Tertullian and the Jews in Early Christian Literary Imagination

Series: Elements in Early Christian Literature
Author: Stéphanie É. Binder, Bar-Ilan University and University of Haifa
Published: April 2026
Availability: Available
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781009481779

£18.00 GBP
Paperback

£55.00 GBP
Hardback

$25.00 USD
eBook

Description

This Element explores Tertullian, the first author to write Christian theology in Latin. It focuses on the primary critical issues relevant to understanding his biography and work, with special attention to his presentation of the Jews in the wider context of early Christian literature. This topic offers the opportunity to assess how socio-historical circumstances have influenced the way that scholars, throughout the centuries, have read and understood the image of the Jews in patristic texts, thereby calling attention to the issue of objectivity in academic research. Finally, examples of the diverse treatment of the figure of the Jews in Tertullian's texts are provided to analyse the range of his perspectives, understand where he stands in relation to other Christian authors, and examine how his work reflects the state of Christian identity formation in his time.

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The Scrolls of the Torah (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

The Scrolls of the Torah

Material, Compositional and Interpretive Perspectives

Edited by Jan Christian Gertz, Julia Rhyder, Thomas Römer and Konrad Schmid

2026. 464 pages.
Forschungen zum Alten Testament (FAT) 196

€159.00
including VAT

cloth
available
978-3-16-200695-0

Also Available As:
eBook PDF

Summary

This volume brings together twenty-four contributions from leading scholars that address enduring questions about the composition of the Pentateuch in the first millennium BCE across its various cultural settings, including the southern Levant, Mesopotamia, and possibly Egypt.
The first part offers a new assessment of the scribal cultures behind the Pentateuch, examining the material and sociological dimensions of scroll production in ancient Israel, Judah, and beyond. It underscores the importance of exploring the composition of the Pentateuch in light of broader ancient Near Eastern scribal cultures, while also attending to the particularities of Israelite text production in the Iron Age and Persian and Hellenistic periods. The volume then presents a series of case studies and methodological reflections that explore the literary history of the Pentateuch and the dating and interpretation of its texts. Particular attention is given to the interrelationship of narrative and legal materials, illustrated through case studies drawn primarily from Genesis and Numbers.
Together, the contributions offer a fresh assessment of how the Pentateuch reflects the scribal strategies, socio-political challenges, and the literary and theological debates that shaped textual production in the first millennium BCE. The volume concludes with two reception-historical studies that offer new insights into current scholarly discussions concerning the formation of the Pentateuch.

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What is happening in Sebastia?

POLITICS AND ARCHAEOLOGY: ‘Weaponization of cultural heritage’: Israel accuses PA of exploiting UNESCO in bid for Sebastia. The 450-acre site, which has awaited joining the world heritage list since 2012, has a history dating back at least 3,000 years (Danielle Greyman-Kennard, Jerusalem Post).

The Palestinian Authority has increased lobbying to have the historic archaeological site of Sebastia recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site ahead of a debate in South Korea later this month, a move that the Foreign Ministry claimed on Wednesday is politically motivated and poses a threat to the ancient ruins.

[...]

I've been following this story for a while, trying to work out what is going on. Both this Jerusalem Post article and the CNN article below have their own leaning, but both make an effort to present both sides. I blog, you decide.

On this West Bank hilltop, a fight over the past will determine who controls the future (Tal Shalev, Jeremy Diamond, Zeena Saifi, CNN).

Over the past year, Israel has moved to seize roughly 500 acres of privately owned Palestinian land around the town of Sebastia, a small Palestinian hamlet with a rich archaeological site. The government allocated $10 million to develop the site into a tourist attraction.

The Palestinian Authority, in turn, is racing to get Sebastia urgently recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site, a bid the organization is debating this month in South Korea. Each side believes the land – and its past – belongs to them.

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Was Isaiah's voice in the wilderness or not?

DR. RABBI DAVID M. FREIDENREICH: “A Voice Cries Out in the Wilderness”—Isaiah, Translated and Improved (TheTorah.com).

Can translators improve texts like Shakespeare? Or the Bible? Christians, drawing on the Greek Septuagint, claimed that the voice in the wilderness (Isaiah 40:3) refers to John the Baptist. Jews, relying instead on the Aramaic Targum, viewed this verse as explicitly foretelling the return of Jewish exiles after the destruction of the Second Temple. But what did Isaiah actually mean?

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Damage to Gaza's antiquities sites

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Gaza’s Catastrophic Loss. Scores of sites in ancient coastal city damaged or destroyed (Glenn J. Corbett).

Official reports place the number of damaged or destroyed religious, historical, and heritage sites at more than 145, though local monitoring groups believe the number to be much higher. Among these are some of the most important and recognizable sites in the territory.

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