UG lecturer of Hebrew Emmanuel Oliveiro was the first person in the world who managed to decipher Cryptic B, a secret code in two of the Dead Sea Scrolls that was considered to be indecipherable. ‘I figured someone had to do it.’I noted this story and the underlying DSD article back in December. This article give additional background, especially about the decipherer.
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Over the last few months I’ve highlighted a number of my own publications, so I thought it would make sense to point out others’ work as well.I just noted one of these books. The Italian one is new to me, but looks interesting. There is a lot going on with LXX Daniel 1-6. And the third one is forthcoming.
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Notice of a 2008 open-access book by Christian Stadel (University of Heidelberg).
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The Great Isaiah Scroll, the oldest nearly complete book from the Hebrew Bible ever found, is on display in its full length for the first time since 1968.I've already noted the exhibit as forthcoming, but now it's open and Ms. Tercatin has gone through it. This article answers my question whether the whole scroll was ever fully on display in person before. It was for a while in the 1960s. 1965-1968?The scroll features over seven meters (23 feet) of ancient text that, for more than 2,000 years, has influenced the spiritual lives of millions of people.
The special exhibition was inaugurated at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem on Monday in the presence of President Isaac Herzog.
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The announcement in early November gave the opening date as 12 December, but it appears that it was delayed until Monday of this week, with its conclusion moved forward from 12 April to 6 June.
For many PaleoJudaica posts on the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa), see the links collected at the link above.
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The question today is no longer whether archaeology should be driven by the Bible in a dogmatic sense. Few serious scholars would argue that it should. The era of excavating primarily to “prove” scripture has passed. Yet the pendulum can swing too far. If biblical archaeology dissolves entirely into generic Levantine archaeology—if the Bible is bracketed off—does something essential get lost?Burke's 2025 BAR essay is behind the subscription wall, but this BHD essay gives a summary of it.Burke argues that it does. ...
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No wonder that the Egyptians evolved a collection of about 160 incantations meant to help the dead make it to paradise. Known today as the Book of the Dead – a coinage of the 19th-century German professor named Dr Karl Richard Lepsius, which admittedly is catchier than the literal translation of the Egyptian, “the Book of Going Forth by Day” – a 2,000-year-old copy of the text is now on display at the Brooklyn Museum in a remarkable full, gilded version.The exhibition website: Unrolling Eternity: The Brooklyn Books of the Dead.“This particular book of the dead is gilded and complete, both of those are incredibly rare,” said Egyptologist Yekaterina Barbash, who, before working on this exhibition, had never seen a gilded papyrus in all her decades of researching ancient Egypt. One of only about 10 Egyptian gilded papyri known to exist, this one is particularly special, as the blank sheets bookending the start and finish of the scroll indicate that it’s a complete book.
I have not previously encountered this Egyptian Book of the Dead belonging to Ankhmerwer son of Taneferher, but it looks impressive. If you are in the vicinity, don't miss this exhibit.
The Brooklyn Museum also has at least one other manuscript of the Book of the Dead, The Papyrus of Sobekmose the Goldworker. Ironically, given its owner's profession, it is not gilded. Looks as though it is also on display. There is an excellent illustrated translation of it by Paul F. O'Rourke, which I have mentioned here. That post also has some introductory matter on the Book of the Dead.
Quite a few new manuscripts of the Book of the Dead have been discovered in recent years, in Egypt and elsewhere. Start here (cf. here) and follow the links for details. And an edition and translation of a British Museum manuscript was published in 2023.
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The Rockefeller Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem is a singular historic gem that more people are getting the opportunity to visit thanks to the guided tours, which began this year. ...And lots more. The Dead Sea Scrolls have moved, however.Among the treasures in the museum is a life-size statue of Pharaoh Ramesses III found in Beit She’an dating back to the 11th century BCE. Next to it is a large stone stela with Egyptian hieroglyphics telling of the defeat of the Canaanites by the Egyptians at the battle of Megiddo.
Finds from Jewish history include a large mosaic from the synagogue at Yafia, near Nazareth, from the 4th century, and a stone lintel with a seven-branched menorah from the Eshtemoa synagogue near Hebron from the 3rd century, with a representation of the Temple Mount.
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One other popular outlet is the Phoenicia server on Discord, a messaging server initially used by video gamers but now also by hobby groups separated geographically but brought together online.To say the group is trying to "revive" Phoenician may lead to a misunderstanding. No one is trying to make it a spoken language in Lebanon or anywhere. Their efforts to "revitalize" it are more realistic, if still ambitious.The server is run by two Lebanese users, named Loun and Aamunir (spelt 3amunir), whose interests are in Levantine culture.
They say their server is non-political, educational and dedicated to revitalising Phoenician, and that anyone is welcome to join.
"We teach the language, help with reading and understanding sentences, and with how words are spoken within certain stages of the language," Loun says, adding they mostly rely on surviving inscriptions, academic papers, and “adaptive reasoning”.There are also YouTube channels that focus on the reconstruction of the Phoenician language. One even puts "Phoenician poetry" to music.
This sounds like a fun, niche hobby. The article interviews various specialists and goes over the challenges of Phoenician studies.
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The Gordion study shows that these biblical concerns were not abstract theology. They emerged from the lived realities of ancient agricultural systems. In both archaeology and the Bible, cattle are shown to generate wealth and demand restraint. They also risk exploitation, provoking ethical reflection. Oxen did an immense amount of physical labor in ancient Israel—pulling plows and threshing grain—but they also did a lot of conceptual work, shaping how power, blessing, and communal responsibility were understood.Cross-file under Faunal Archaeology.
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Die Septuaginta – Prophetische Worte, Textwelten und VersionenThe essays are in English and German.Edited by Martin Meiser, Heinz-Josef Fabry, Michaela Geiger, Frank Ueberschaer and Martin Vahrenhorst
[The Septuagint. Prophetic Words, Text Worlds, and Versions.]
2026. 524 pages.
Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (WUNT I) 554€164.00
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€164.00Summary
Prophecy's claim to authority must be justified and can be challenged. In terms of textual history and theology, prophetic texts of the Old Testament pose special challenges for ancient translators and modern interpreters alike. Ancient Greek translations are caught in the tension between fidelity to the texts considered sacred and the need to update these texts in the light of new theological developments, e.g., an increasingly transcendent image of God and Torah-oriented ethics. This collected volume brings together studies on the development of textual traditions, translation techniques, and the contemporary and literary reception of prophetic texts.
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Visual ExemplarsBiblical Figures in the Art and Literature of Jewish Late Antiquity
Series: The Brill Reference Library of Judaism, Volume: 81
Author: Jill Joshowitz
Between the third to seventh centuries of the common era, Jewish communities throughout the Eastern Mediterranean began to adorn their synagogues with figural illustrations inspired by the Hebrew Bible. Although the Bible had long been the cornerstone of Jewish life, it was only in late antiquity that its patriarchs, prophets, and heroes entered the Jewish visual lexicon. Through careful consideration of the rich history of Jewish biblical interpretation alongside similar motifs in Near Eastern, Greco-Roman, and Christian visual culture, this book challenges the reader to consider the relationship between late antique Jewish biblical art, synagogue rituals, rabbinic teachings, and exemplary paradigms.
Copyright Year: 2026
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-75010-4
Publication: 04 Nov 2025
EUR €118.00Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-75009-8
Publication: 13 Nov 2025
EUR €118.00
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While we often speak of the “Persian Period” in Jerusalem in the context of the mid-6th to mid-4th centuries BCE, from the return from the Babylonian exile under Cyrus, and the reconstruction of the city under Ezra and Nehemiah until the toppling of the Persian Achaemenid empire by Alexander the Great, it is exceptionally rare to find artifacts from Jerusalem’s “Second Persian Period,” the brief 14-year window of Sassanid rule between 614 and 628 CE. A few dramatic discoveries from this period include the Ophel menorah medallion, likely intended as an ornament for a Torah scroll, and the “House of Menorot”, where a Christian cross was plastered over to reclaim the space. We also have the tragic evidence of the conquest’s violence found in the Byzantine mass graves at Mamilla, a somber reminder of the 614 CE siege.And now this Sasanian-era animal seal.
(Sassanian is an alternative spelling.)
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According to the statement, the bronze pan was part of a set of portable hanging scales common in ancient Israel, which included two small bowls with tiny holes along their rims suspended across a balance.Beyond "ancient," the article does not suggest a date for the object. The ruins uncovered at Sussiya (also Susya or Susiya) so far are from late antiquity and the Hasmonean period.
For previous PaleoJudaica posts on the site, see here and links.
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A.J. Berkovitz, in A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity, takes these experiential aspects seriously and asks the question: “How did Jews encounter the Psalms?” (11). He moves the question of reception away from strictly exegetical approaches that look for a history of interpretation within a world of ideas, and towards how Jews in Late Antiquity encountered physical scrolls of psalms, how they incorporated them into their liturgical practices, and how psalms played a role in practical religion (e.g., piety and magic). The exegetical emphasis in Rabbinic literature gives the sense that the sole approach to these texts in Jewish late antiquity was through the lens of interpretation, but the Psalms had a larger life than that within this corpus. The words in the scroll were heard and spoken, the scrolls themselves were touched and handled, and they were repurposed onto amulets and magic bowls for practical and personal purposes.PaleoJudaica posts on the book are here and here.
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The British Museum, the United Kingdom's most-visited attraction, has removed the word "Palestine" from some displays, after a pro-Israel group said it was used in a historically inaccurate way to describe areas in ancient Levant and Egypt.To read the full Haaretz article you need to subscribe or (for monthly access to a limited number of articles) register for free. Since I started writing this post, the Times of Israel (here), the Guardian (here), and many other media have also covered the story.U.K. Lawyers for Israel, an organization which says it "uses the law to counter attempts to undermine, attack and delegitimize Israel," said in a statement on Saturday that the museum is "reviewing and updating some gallery panels and labels" after determining that they were "in some circumstances no longer meaningful."
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UKLFL has posted its own account:
Not surprisingly, the move is not popular in some circles. This article is critical, but reviews the facts of the situation with the British Museum accurately as far as I can tell:
British Museum erases 'Palestine' label after pro-Israel complaint (Türkiye Today Newsroom).
I don't see anything particularly controversial about the reported changes in the British Museum displays, which mostly have to do with the Iron Age II and earlier.
The line taken by UKLFI, if I understand them correctly, is that where there is an emic term (i.e., one used by the ancient writers) for an ancient geographical region, that should be the preferred usage over any modern etic terms. That is a reasonable position as long as an ancient emic term is avialable.
In the case of the Land of Israel, for a long time the term "Palestine" has been used by scholars, often including Jewish scholars, as a neutral geographical term for the region in pre-Roman antiquity. See the PaleoJudaica posts, for example, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
It is a fair point, however, that political developments in the twentieth century to the present have given the term a political sense that makes it less than neutral. So traditional usage is coming up against the more recent political usage. It will be interesting to see how this debate develops. For an earlier post, see here.
And the debate raises a question for Second Temple Jewish studies which is worth exploring. Did Second Temple-era Jews have an emic term for the Land of Israel? I have poked around a little, not comprehensively, and found a few relevant passages.
It's far from a complete listing, but it does show some range, which seems to have included "Israel," "the Land of Israel," "the country of the Jews," and perhaps "the country of the Israelites" and God's "holy land."
Josephus seems to follow Herodotus' more restricted usage of "Palestine."
Philo refers to "Syria-Palestine/Palestine-Syria" etc., but it's not clear to me what exactly he means. He may well be using "Palestine" in the same sense as Herodotus. I don't know if his terminology means anything different from the term for the Roman province "Syria Palaestina" in the second century CE.
Again, this is NOT a comprehensive listing. It's just illustrative. For example, I haven't looked at pre-Roman-era numismatic evidence or the evidence of the Bar Kokhba letters. Their usages, especially of "Israel, are likely relevant.
It would be nice to sort through all that and more sometime, but I do have other things to do. Meanwhile ... I'm pretty sure that the passages I did cite are correct, but I may well have missed other important references, so don't draw any comprehensive conclusions from my list.
If you find more Second Temple (or pre-Roman) references to the Land of Israel as a whole, do drop me a note.
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