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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What happened to the Ark of the Covenant and the Temple treasures?

FOR TISHA B'AV: Where are the Ark of the Covenant and the lost Temple treasures?Ancient texts place the Ark beneath the Temple Mount, historical accounts trace the menorah from Jerusalem to Rome, and archaeologists reject claims that the Vatican holds the sacred vessels, leaving one of Judaism’s greatest mysteries unresolved (Itzchak Tessler, Ynet News).

As you might guess, this article does not answer the questions. It does interview some archaeologists etc. and ask some more pretty good questions.

I suspect the Ark of the Covenant was melted down for its gold by the Babylonian conquerers. Jeremiah 3:16 implies it was already gone in Jeremiah's time. The Temple treasures may or may not have been evacuated and survived the destruction of Herod's Temple. If they did, they are likely irretrievably scattered and lost. But, naturally, there are proposals to the contrary.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the Ark of the Covenant, start here and follow the links. There are a great many posts, so many that it's hard to pick out key ones. Overal, I think, they cover just about every proposal about what happened to the Ark.

For posts on the Temple treasures, see here (cf. here) and many links. Some notable more recent posts are here, here, here, and again, follow the links.

The legendary Treatise of the Vessels (Maasekhet Kelim, not to be confused with the Mishnaic tractate), which tells the supposed story of the fate of the Temple treasures and the Ark after the Babylonian destruction of the Temple, comes up in these posts. For more on it, see here and links. I published an English translation of it in MOTP1.

The website of the Temple Mount Sifting Project is here. I have linked to it many times.

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Two Tisha B'Av essays

TWO TISHA B'AV ESSAYS have been posted at TheTorah.com:

Did They Fast on Tisha B’Av During the Second Temple Period? (Prof. Tova Ganzel).

In the early post-exilic period, the people ask the prophet Zechariah whether they should still fast to commemorate the destruction of the Temple now that it was being rebuilt. Zechariah, in a long collection of oracles, explains that the fasts will eventually be cancelled, once the people (7:9–10) “Execute true justice; deal loyally and compassionately with one another; do not defraud the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the poor; and do not plot evil against one another.” So, did they ever cancel the fasts?

The Temple That Survived Its Destruction (Prof.Joshua Schwartz).

Josephus, an eyewitness to the Temple, defends its splendor and its laws to the Greco-Roman world. He takes the reader on a tour of the building in its heyday, explaining details such as how far Non-Jews and women were permitted to proceed and what lay inside, while also countering Apion’s slanderous depictions of donkey worship and human sacrifice within its walls. By opening the Mosaic constitution with the Temple and grounding its rituals in Torah law, Josephus presents it as an enduring foundation of Jewish tradition, whose significance outlives the building itself.

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Tyre added to list of world heritage sites in danger

PHOENICIAN WATCH: UNESCO adds war-hit Lebanese city of Tyre to list of world heritage sites in danger. The ancient coastal city has been caught up in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, and one of two protected sites suffered a direct hit from an Israeli strike in June (AFP and Lazar Berman via ToI).

For more on the Israeli strike on Tyre in June, see here. I noted an earlier strike on the city in April here. For more on the history and archaeology of Tyre more generally, see the links collected there.

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Tisha B'Av 2026

TISHA B'AV (THE NINTH OF AV) begins this evening at sundown. An easy fast to all those observing it.

The Ninth of Av is not specifically a biblical holy day. Rather, it commemorates a number of disasters that happened to the Jewish people, traditionally all on that same day of the year. These include the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Babylonians, the destruction of the Herodian Temple by the Romans, and the fall of Betar during the Bar Kokhba revolt.

Last year's Tisha B'Av post is here, with links.

More recent posts related to the day are here, here, and here.

UPDATE (23 July): More here and here.

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Did P know about the centralized sanctuary?

DR. HACHAM ISAAC S. D. SASSOON: Deuteronomy or the Priestly Text: Which Is the Later Torah Source? (TheTorah.com).

In the 1950s, Yehezkel Kaufmann challenged the regnant Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis that the Priestly Text was the final Pentateuchal source to be written, and that it dates to the Post-Exilic Period. One pillar of his argument is that the Priestly Text seems wholly ignorant of Deuteronomy’s 7th century B.C.E. law of centralization of worship, and thus dates to earlier in the First Temple period. And yet, a closer look at P’s laws shows that it is simply taking centralization for granted.

I agree. Deuteronomy had to have Moses argue for one centralized sanctuary in Israel. P assumes a centralized sanctuary, in the guise of the Tabernacle in the time of Moses, but its nature makes best sense in a small community around Jerusalem. For example, in Leviticus 17:3-7 (contrast Deuteronomy 12:15) P requires all slaughtering of animals for meat to take place at the sanctuary. Practical for a local community, but not a national sanctuary.

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Amar, "Psalm 45 and the Achaemenid View of the Ideal King" (JANES 38, 2026)

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Psalm 45 and the Achaemenid View of the Ideal King. Notice of a New Article: Amar, Itzhak. 2026. Psalm 45 and the Achaemenid View of the Ideal King. Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 38: 1-18.

There is a link to the JANES article, which is open access and downloadable as a pdf. It does not have an abstract, but its conclusion can serve as one:

Conclusions
In this article, I endeavored to elucidate the origins of the concepts and linguistic elements present in Psalm 45. I presented two potential scenarios. The first posits that the author was directly influenced by Achaemenid ideology, as evidenced in inscriptions and iconography from Persepolis, which presumably circulated throughout the empire. An alternative possibility is that the author was indirectly influenced through other biblical texts, such as the Books of Chronicles, whose authors had assimilated this ideology and disseminated it further, given the limited cultural environment of the scribes active in Yehud and Jerusalem. Examining the psalm within an Achaemenid context offers a more comprehensive understanding of the depiction of the king’s throne as God’s throne and of the two seemingly disparate sections of the psalm.

Incidentally, JANES is an fully open-access journal. See the AWOL Blog here.

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More on the Temple-era burned beams in Jerusalem

SCORCHED ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE: The burned beams found recently in the Givati Parking Lot which date to First and Second Temple times have been getting a lot of media attention. This article is notably informative:

Archaeologists Reveal More Massive, Charred Beams From Babylonian Attack on Ancient Jerusalem This is the second set of wooden roofing found in a mysterious building that burned down in 586 B.C.E., but when was it erected? (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

This has lots of new details about the artifacts and other objects found in the building, including wealthy material culture, administrative seals, Babylonian arrowheads, and even an unlucky 10th-century BCE bat🦇.

Background here. The article mentions 2020 discoveries published in 2024. I noted them here.

Also,the Givati Parking Lot excavation continues to provide fascinating discoveries. For more, see here and links.

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Thomas, ... Comparing Qumran Aramaic Job and Old Greek Job (SBL)

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS;

Transformations in Translation: Comparing Qumran Aramaic Job and Old Greek Job

Alun Morton Thomas

ISBN 9781628378238
Volume SCS 81
Status Available
Publication Date June 2026

Paperback $80.00
Hardback $100.00
eBook $80.00

Using insights gleaned from translation studies, Alun Morton Thomas compares the earliest known Aramaic and Greek translations of the book of Job to explore how translators dealt with idiomatic and linguistic difficulties in translating the Hebrew text. Thomas demonstrates that many of the scribal techniques used in both the Qumran and Old Greek versions of Job resemble practices attested in other Second Temple Jewish texts. The scribal choices Thomas reveals provide insights into early interpretations of the book of Job which stem from the Second Temple period. The volume also delves into how earlier Aramaic and Greek translations relate to later translation attempts in these two languages. Transformations in Translation is a critical resource for scholars and students interested in some of the most difficult passages to translate from Hebrew.

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Four books from the Israel Numismatic Society

NEW(ISH) BOOKS FROM THE ISRAEL NUMISMATIC SOCIETY:

New Publication November 2025:

New Publication:
A Corpus of Samarian Coinage from the Persian Period, Volumes I & II
By Haim Gitler, Mati Johananoff, and Oren Tal
Numismatic Studies and Researches (NSR) XIII and XIV, Jerusalem 2025

A Comprehensive Re-evaluation of Ancient Levantine Coinage This two-volume monograph, A Corpus of Samarian Coinage, is the definitive culmination of a major research program focused on the Samarian minting authority during the Persian period. This coinage represents one of the earliest and most varied official coinages produced in the southern Levant, likely being issued from the late fifth century BCE until after the Greco-Macedonian conquest.
While building on earlier scholarship, this work offers a substantive re-evaluation of the field. It incorporates numerous newly identified coin types and establishes a robust, modern classification system essential for all future study. The data is based on an exhaustive, multi-year study of the entire corpus of known Samarian issues, involving the global examination of specimens in publications and in public and private collections. ...

Pricing (Two-Volume Set)

$200 or €175 (+ shipping and bank transfer charges) Note: All proceeds are dedicated to supporting future publications by the Israel Numismatic Society. ...

New Publication:
The City of Gaza in the Roman Period: The Numismatic Evidence (First Century BCE–Third Century CE)
Corpus Nummorum Palaestinensium VI
Yoav Farhi, Jerusalem 2025

This book is a comprehensive discussion examining the production and significance of the coinage struck by the city of Gaza under Roman rule from the conquest of this region by Pompey (64/3 BCE) to the end of the municipal minting in the second quarter of the third century (241/2 CE).
The data presented are based on the study of some 4494 bronze and silver coins minted in Gaza during the Roman period. As many specimens as possible were located during some 20 years of a through and wide search, at various publications and in public and private collections especially in the Middle East, Europe and the USA. The catalogue presents 318 types with hundreds of variants and the photographs of 833 coins.
This is the first time that such comprehensive research has been conducted regarding a polis in Roman Palestine with a vast volume of minting as in the case of Gaza. This research, which examines the coinage of the largest and most important city in southern Roman Palestine, contributes not only to a better understanding of the city itself, but also can offer new perspectives on the broad subject of city coins of the Roman period, and especially those of this region.

The book is hardcover, elegantly designed and includes 500 pages and 102 illustrations, plates and maps, most of them in color. It was published by the Israel Numismatic Society in a limited edition (see attached file).

Pricing

$175 or €155 (+ shipping)
Note: All proceeds are dedicated to supporting future publications by the Israel Numismatic Society. ...

The Yehud Coinage
A Study and Die Classification of the Provincial Silver Coinage of Judah

Haim Gitler, Catharine Lorber and Jean-Philippe Fontanille

This volume presents a die study of the provincial silver coinage of Judah in the late Persian, Macedonian, and early Hellenistic periods. It offers correct descriptions of the coins, their designs, and their inscriptions; enumerates the obverse and reverse dies identified for each of the 44 recorded types; and explains the probable sequence of the issues as deduced from iconographic associations and die links.

The iconography of the coin types is examined in depth, with comparisons to motifs in Greek, Persian, and ancient Near Eastern art, including other local coinages and sources in Judahite material culture. The monograph also analyzes data relating to the metrology, metal content, and circulation of the coinage. Overall, the study attempts to place the Yehud coinage in its historical context and to define its role in the economy of the ancient province of Judah.

Pricing

$150 or €125 (+ shipping and bank transfer charges)
Note: All proceeds are dedicated to supporting future publications by the Israel Numismatic Society.

Follow the link for further details and ordering information.

Via TAU Archaeology, HT the AWOL Blog.

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Temple-era burned beams in Jerusalem

SCORCHED ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE: Days before Tisha B'Av: Charred wooden beams from First Temple’s destruction unearthed in Jerusalem. The First Temple, built by the biblical King Solomon, was destroyed in 586 BCE at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar II, the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (Miriam Sela-Eitam, Jerusalem Post).

Massive wooden beams charred by the fire that destroyed Jerusalem and the First Temple were unearthed during a recent dig at the Jerusalem Walls National Park in the City of David, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Monday morning. ...

IAA and Tel Aviv University archaeologists discovered the burnt beams inside a building that had collapsed in the fire.

"The beams appear to have served as the roof of an inner courtyard in a building from the First Temple period,” noted IAA Excavation Director Efrat Bocher.

The headline is technically correct, but a little misleading, since it could be read to say that the beams are from the First Temple complex. They are not. They are from a building in the City of David near the Temple Mount, but not part of it. The building was destroyed in, presumably, the same fire that destroyed the Temple.

There are also some unburnt cedar beams from the actual Temple Mount which may have part of the First and Second Temple complexes. Noted here and here and links. They have been known about for quite a while.

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An Aramaic ostracon from the Amman Citadel Excavation

NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY: An Achaemenid-era administrative Aramaic ostracon has been belatedly recovered by the Amman Citadel Excavation. The ostracon has been published in Syria 102 (2025) and the French article is open access at the link. I give the English version of the abstract below.

Un ostracon araméen de la citadelle d’Amman : une lecture à la lumière du corpus iduméen
An Aramaic Ostracon from the Amman Citadel: An Interpretation in the Light of the Idumaea CorpusBR> أوستراكون آرامي من قلعة عمّان : قراءة في ضوء مدوّنة نصوص إدوم

Mitchka L. M. J. Shahryari
p. 69-80
https://doi.org/10.4000/16kx0

This article presents an unpublished Aramaic ostracon (AC-2568) discovered at the Amman Citadel during the 1989 French-Jordanian excavations and identified only in 2023 during pottery sorting. Though the stratigraphic context is mixed, the ostracon likely dates between the Iron Age and the Hellenistic period. The text, painted in ink on a small limestone fragment, is short and fragmentary. It seems to be a record of an economic transaction and displays strong paleographic and typological affinities with Achaemenid-period Aramaic texts from Idumea. As the first Aramaic inscription from the site, it seems to testify the administrative use of Aramaic in the region.

For more on the Amman Citadel Excavation, see here, with links on ancient Ammon and Ammonite.

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The Deists and the lost scriptures?

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: The Deists’ Revolution (Philip Jenkins).

I have been working on the discovery of alternative scriptures and ancient heretical movements during the Enlightenment, between about 1690 and 1740. Central to this phenomenon were a group of philosophers and thinkers generally called the Deists, who were a loose network rather than any kind of organized movement. For modern audiences, what is shocking about them is just how very daring and skeptical they were on their speculations about religion, and how very early historically. For present purposes, what matters is not that the Deists necessarily talked a lot about such “lost gospels,” but rather that they created the environment in which such ideas could flourish.

[...]

I think we can count this post as another turbo footnote to Prof. Jenkins's Lost and Found Scriptures series, for which see here and links.

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Recalcati, The Egyptian Background of the Septuagint (Brepols)

NEW BOOK FROM BREPOLS:

The Egyptian Background of the Septuagint
Lexical Items in Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus

Camilla Recalcati

Pages: 263 p.
Size: 156 x 234 mm
Illustrations: 6 tables b/w.
Language(s): English, Greek, Hebrew
Publication Year:2026

€ 80,00 EXCL. VAT
RETAIL PRICE
ISBN: 978-2-503-61800-5
Paperback
Available

€ 80,00 EXCL. VAT
RETAIL PRICE
ISBN: 978-2-503-61801-2
E-book
Forthcoming

A first systematic study of the Egyptian influences on the vocabulary of the Septuagint of Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus

Summary

It is generally accepted that the Greek translation of the Pentateuch was undertaken in Egypt, in the 3rd century BCE. Then, it is only logical that the translators and the translation itself were influenced by the environment the translation took place in, by its languages, its usages and beliefs. Nevertheless, previous scholarly endeavours only partially address the issue of these contextual influences on the Greek translation. Although some valid attempts to uncover echoes of the Egyptian environment in the Septuagint translation have been made in the past century, no systematic study had been produced. In the wake of a renewed interest for Egyptian features in the Septuagint translation, the present volume aims at offering the first systematic study on Egyptian influences in the first three books of the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus. An accurate analysis of various translational choices reflected in lexical elements which have been influenced by the Egyptian milieu such as proper names, toponyms, geographical images, job titles, weights and measures, animal names, realia, and theological accents demonstrates to what extent the translators were acquainted with the environment they lived in. Examining this phenomenon, which might initially appear marginal, reveals itself to be a pressing issue in the emerging trends of Septuagint studies.

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Litwa, HERMETICA I (Fount ULTD)

IN THE MAIL:

M. David Litwa, HERMETICA I: The Corpus Hermeticum, Asclepius, and Nag Hammadi Hermetica Ordered as a Path of Initiation (The Definitive Edition) (QC Canada: Fount ULTD; Rev. ed. 2026)

This new English translation of the philosophical Hermetica has been out for a while, but I've only recently ordered a copy. Copenhaver's translation, with notes, is unrivaled for use when you are working through the Greek and Latin Hermetica line by line. But the latter makes relatively little effort to evaluate each tractate as whole, asking what it says and what that means.

Litwa's approach is different. He orders the tractates, not in the traditional order as passed down in medieval manuscripts, but by sense, in what he reconstructs as their likely order when used as a path of initiation. His commentary at the end of each tractate takes into account the scholarly literature, but it focuses on what the text is saying and what it meant (and means) for practitioners. He also includes a Coptic text from the Nag Hammadi Library which was not covered by Copenhaver. Using both translations gives a nice rounded view of the surviving, more or less complete, classical philosophical Hermetica.

Litwa has also published a second volume of translated philosophical Hermetica, which I have already noted here. It collects the surviving fragments and quotations of and testimonies about the otherwise lost texts.

There was also a substantial corpus of "technical Hermetica," which dealt with astrology, alchemy, and magic. There are English translations of varying reliability of many of the major works, but they have to be tracked down individually.

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