Congress Volume Zurich 2022 (Brill)

NEW(ISH) BOOK FROM BRILL:

Congress Volume Zurich 2022

Proceedings of the 24th Congress of the IOSOT

Series:
Vetus Testamentum, Supplements, Volume: 201

Volume Editors: Samuel Arnet, Konrad Schmid, and Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer

This volume presents the main lectures of the 24th Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT) held in Zurich, Switzerland, in August 2022. It is written by nineteen established international scholars, whose combined research reflects the broad spectrum of contemporary biblical scholarship. The volume includes articles ranging from the study of the ancient Near East, the archaeology of ancient Israel and Judah, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, via thematic investigations and ideological readings of key texts, to studies exploring the formation, ideology, and reception of biblical books.

Copyright Year: 2025

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-74047-1
Publication: 20 Oct 2025
EUR €159.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-74046-4
Publication: 06 Nov 2025
EUR €159.00

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

Rosh HaShanah 2026

HAPPY NEW YEAR (ROSH HASHANAH - Jewish New Year 5787) to all those celebrating. The New Year begins tonight at sundown.

Last year's Rosh HaShanah post is here. For biblical background, see here.

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

Rosh HaShanah and the Akedah

FOR ROSH HASHANAH: The Ram Caught in the Thicket by Its Horns—Rosh Hashanah’s Shofar (Prof.Rivka Ulmer, The Torah.com).

At the climax of the binding of Isaac, Abraham sees אַיִל אַחַר “a ram behind” (MT)... or does he see אַיִל אֶחָד “one ram” (SP, LXX, etc.)? Both readings are developed in midrash: aḥar into Israel’s future redemption through the shofar, eḥad into the primordial ram created for the Akedah—two paths that converge in the shofar of Rosh Hashanah.

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

How did Prof. Rabbi Phil Lieberman change his mind?

SYMPOSIUM: I CHANGED MY MIND: De-anthropomorphizing God: Did It Really Begin with Onkelos? (Prof. Rabbi Phil Lieberman, TheTorah.com).

Onkelos’ choice, then, to dissolve the metaphor “fat of the land” in favor of “goodness of the land,” then, may be evidence of a broader, deliberate program eschewing metaphor more generally. That might imply that when Targum Onkelos dissolves metaphors, even about God, it has something more than deanthropomorphizing in its program: the translator appears to prefer semantic clarity to figurative language. In other words, this is part of a literary project rather than a theological one.

For more on this series, see here.

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

Interview with Schmidt on, Josephus and Jesus

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Josephus and Jesus. Evaluating the earliest non-Christian source about Jesus.

In this interview, BAR Editor-in-Chief Glenn Corbett speaks with Schmidt about his new book Josephus & Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ. After examining how ancient translators rendered Josephus’s words, how early Christian writers understood them, and who may have supplied Josephus with information about Jesus—including people present at Jesus’s trial—Schmidt offers a fresh perspective on what the earliest non-Christian historian knew about Jesus.

PaleoJudaica posts on Schmidt's book are here (with my own assessment of the Josephus and Jesus problem), here, and here.

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

On the Herculaneum scrolls

HERCULANEUM WATCH: Eighteenth-century scholars destroyed hundreds of Herculaneum scrolls trying to prise them open, because the eruption that buried the library had carbonised the papyrus shut — and in June a crowdsourced team that started as amateur contestants read an entire one, still rolled, without touching the inside. A machine-learning competition finally cracked a puzzle that had stumped scholars for 250 years: how to read ancient scrolls without destroying them (By Lab Report · Edited by Nato Lagidze, Science Blog).

This long blog post gives an overview of the history of efforts to read the Herculaeum scrolls and the current state of the question.

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. For speculation on what else we may find in the library, see here. Cross-file under Technology Watch.

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

How did Prof. Peter Enns change his mind?

SYMPOSIUM: HOW I CHANGED MY MIND: Christianity’s Origins: They Are Jewish! (Prof. Peter Enns, TheTorah.com).

To realize that Paul was actually Jewish now seems too obvious to mention, but at the time it changed everything. I walked out of class stunned with the realization that I didn’t really get Paul at all—not because I hadn’t tried, but because I hadn’t known his world.

I began asking different questions. Rather than, “How does Paul get this from the Old Testament?” I asked, “What kind of interpretive world made Paul’s reading possible?” I stopped assuming I understood what Paul and the other New Testament writers were about and started asking how and why they actually read Scripture the way they did.

For more on the series, see here.

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

Did the conqueror worm consume the Library of Alexandria?

LOST LIBRARY: What Really Destroyed the Library of Alexandria? History loves a villain, but the culprit was likely something much more mundane (Candida Moss, National Geographic).

We can’t excavate the Library of Alexandria; If it is not under water, then the other place on the peninsula where it was said to be located is currently occupied by the Egyptian military. But we do know that insects, mice, and mold were major issues for Egyptian book collectors that could only be counteracted by recopying texts. And we also know that the third century C.E. was a period of military crisis and financial upheaval that disrupted funding streams in the Roman Empire. Given the instability and currency devaluation of this period, [papyrologist Roger] Bagnall said, along with the rapid turnover of Roman prefects, budget cuts, staff losses, and ample opportunities for theft, “it’s not difficult to imagine the whole enterprise just falling apart.”

This article reviews other explanations for the loss of the Library of Alexandria and then proposes a very plausible one I have not heard before. Before the printing press, every piece of literature was within, at most, a few generations of oblivion, if no one found it interesting enough to copy.

PaleoJudaica posts on the Library of Alexandria and what may have happened to it are collected here (cf. here).

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

Matheny on ḥesed in the Hebrew Bible.

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Ḥesed in the Hebrew Bible

Ḥesed is a central theological term in the Hebrew Bible that is fundamentally relational, resistant to reduction to a single-word equivalent, and semantically multivalent. While earlier scholarship often treated this ambiguity as a lexical problem, recent studies have increasingly recognized it as a source of interpretive and theological richness. By examining its use across a variety of contexts, from covenant relationships to descriptions of God’s character and name, the semantic breadth of ḥesed contributes to its enduring theological significance throughout the Hebrew Bible.

See also Ḥesed, the Seed of the Biblical Story: New Life for Old Testament Theology (Baker Academic, 2026).

By Jennifer M. Matheny
Associate Professor of Christian Scriptures (Old Testament)
George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University
August 2026

I guess I come from the era when translating the word as "covenant loyalty" seemed to work most of the time. But this essay nuances the meaning of the term well beyond that.

That said, I think a discussion of the meaning of ḥesed (hesed) should come to terms directly with some of the more awkward verses in Psalm 137 (English versions). "Lovingkindness" or "steadfast love," which sound like someone being nice, doesn't work very well there. "Covenant loyalty," where niceness is optional, does.

Cross-file under New Book.

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

Ziemba& Poulsen (eds.), Judeans in the Land of the Nile (Zaphon)

NEW BOOK FROM ZAPHON PRESS:

Judeans in the Land of the Nile.
Papers on Achaemenid Egypt, Elephantine, and the Hebrew Bible
Presented in Copenhagen, August 19–20, 2024
Edited by Kacper Ziemba and Frederik Poulsen
Ägypten und Altes Testament 136

75.00 €

2026
VI + 181 pp.
DIN A-4 / hardcover, thread stitching
ISBN 978-3-96327-350-6 (book)
ISBN 978-3-96327-351-3 (e-book, via ProQuest, Ebsco, ISD)

HT Todd Bolen at the Bible Places Blog.

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

Extracanonical Traditions and the Holy Land (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Extracanonical Traditions and the Holy Land

Texts, Rituals, and Material Culture in Late Antique Palestine

Edited by Harald Buchinger, Laura S. Lieber, Andreas Merkt, and Tobias Nicklas, in collaboration with Andrea Ackermann and Charlotte von Schelling

2026. 331 pages.
Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum / Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity (STAC) 145
DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-163557-1

€109.00
including VAT

sewn paper
available
978-3-16-163556-4

Also Available As:
eBook PDF

Summary

The Holy Land is more than a sanctified geographical space that roughly corresponds to the Roman province that has been known as Palaestina since the end of the Bar Kochba War. Instead, it is primarily an idea and imaginative space created by a complex interaction of texts, rituals, and material culture. The authors of this volume's contributions highlight the major role that extracanonical traditions - often misleadingly called apocryphal - which were written and read, celebrated and performed, and embodied in places, buildings, and material culture, have played in the construction of the Holy Land.

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

Did scribes correct the biblical text?

DR. JUHA PAKKALA: Scribes Edited the Bible to Omit Problematic Texts (TheTorah.com).

Did Hannah stand before YHWH in the Temple? Were Israelite males to see YHWH’s face three times a year? Did Moses and the elders see God on Mount Sinai? Were there temples to YHWH at Hebron and Samaria? The evidence shows that ancient scribes edited biblical texts to omit what they viewed as theological errors.

I have noted other examples of this sort of editing by scribes (and translators) here, here, here and links, and here and links.

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

Jonah - the inner-biblical anti-prophet?

PROF. JONATHAN RABINOWITZ: Jonah the Anti-Prophet (TheTorah.com).

The book of Jonah is infused with allusions to earlier biblical characters: its prophet flees like Cain, wills the city overturned–unlike Abraham, collapses like Elijah, passes through a Noah-like storm, and quotes Moses’ words of compassion as a complaint. Taken together, the book invites readers to measure Jonah against Israel’s remembered heroes of intercession, judgment, and repentance.

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

How did Prof. David M. Carr change his mind?

SYMPOSIUM: I CHANGED MY MIND: The Limits of Memory and Scrolls: How the Torah Was Composed (Prof. David M. Carr, TheTorah.com).

I have changed my mind so often over the last decades, on so many topics, but if pressed to focus on just one instance, I would emphasize how I have come to see the formation of the Bible as part of a more complex process. ...

Instead, I began to believe that a significant amount of the oldest transmission of literary texts actually happened not by visual or aural copying—the usual focus of text-criticism—but through scribes accessing older texts through their memory of those texts. These scribes were trained by using written texts in the past or perhaps periodically, but not actively as the basis for composition. This meant that some of the indicators upon which I and others depended for source-criticism were not as reliable as we had thought.

That's a thought-provoking idea.

For more on the series, see here.

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

Tenney, Administrative Reality and Scribal Apparatus in the Middle Babylonian Period ... (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Administrative Reality and Scribal Apparatus in the Middle Babylonian Period, with Accompanying Texts

Series:
Harvard Semitic Monographs, Volume: 67

Author: Jonathan S. Tenney

This book provides editions of 325 Akkadian texts, reconstructs aspects of the political recording process, and presents evidence of legal, epistolary, and administrative intertextuality at Kassite Nippur. Combining ideas from scholars in Assyriology and Political Science, it states that scribes working for political and institutional entities in Mesopotamia used abstractions of society, geography, processes, and even time, to establish bureaucratic order over a chaotic world. If such abstractions were employed in a bureaucratic environment that practiced post factum documentation, then administrative writing presents a reductionist "administrative reality" that affects the epistemological underpinnings of Assyriological investigations into Mesopotamian history and society.

Copyright Year: 2026

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-46911-2
Publication: 29 Jul 2026
EUR €325.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-46910-5
Publication: 27 Aug 2026
EUR €325.00

HT Drew Longacre at the OTTC Blog. He suggests that the book "might be of interest for early Israelite/Judahite scribalism." I hope he will say more about this.

For PaleoJudaica posts on (later) Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid scribes and scribal culture, see here, here, here, and here,

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

Raithel, "Auge um Auge…" ("An Eye for an Eye..." (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

»Auge um Auge…«

Eine Rezeptionsgeschichte der biblischen Talionsformel im Antiken Judentum

Series:
Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, Volume: 124

Author: Jan Raithel

Kaum ein biblisches Zitat ist so bekannt – und zugleich so missverstanden – wie »Auge um Auge, Zahn um Zahn…«. Vor allem aufgrund der Auslegungsgeschichte ihrer Rezeption im Matthäusevangelium wurde die Talionsformel zur Chiffre für Vergeltung. Diese Studie zeigt jedoch, dass die Formel weder in der Hebräischen Bibel noch im antik-jüdischen Diskurs auf diese Weise eingesetzt wurde. In den Schriften vom Toten Meer, bei Philo von Alexandrien, Flavius Josephus und in tannaitischer Literatur erscheint sie vielmehr in rechtlichen Debatten über angemessene Sanktionen und Verfahrensnormen. Das matthäische Zitat fällt allein durch die sonst nicht belegte paränetische Auslegung der talio aus dem Rahmen.

Few biblical quotations are as familiar – and as misunderstood – as “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…”. Owing largely to the history of interpretation of its reception in the Gospel of Matthew, the talionic formula became a shorthand for retribution. This study demonstrates, however, that neither the Hebrew Bible nor Ancient Jewish discourse employed the formula as a code for retribution. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo of Alexandria, Flavius Josephus, and Tannaitic literature, it functions within legal debates on appropriate sanctions and procedural norms. Matthew’s use is distinctive only in genre, offering a parenetic interpretation of the talio.

Copyright Year: 2026

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-74763-0
Publication: 23 Jun 2026
EUR €159.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-74761-6
Publication: 16 Jul 2026
EUR €159.00

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