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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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,

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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

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Stefanut, The Therapeutae as the Best Paradigm for the Contemplative Life (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Romulus D. Stefanut

The Therapeutae as the Best Paradigm for the Contemplative Life

A Contextual Reading of Philo of Alexandria's De Vita Contemplativa

2026. 235 pages.
Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe (WUNT II) 659

€79.00
including VAT

sewn paper
available
978-3-16-157048-3

Also Available As: eBook PDF

Summary

In this study, Romulus D. Stefanut offers a contextual reading of Philo's De vita contemplativa, exploring its background, genre, composition, and function beyond the so-called »apologetic and historical works« of Philo. Often, scholars have lost the hermeneutical focus of the treatise itself and have concentrated their attention solely on the historical existence of the Mareotic community described in the treatise, advancing arguments related to its historicity or lack thereof. The author therefore suggests that the purpose of De vita contemplativa is meant to offer the best Jewish Alexandrine expression of a way of life, well-known from ancient Greek philosophy as the theoretical or contemplative life. It is composed in relation rather than opposition to the lost first half of the treatise, dedicated to the practical life of the Essenes. Simultaneously, there might be a friendly polemic between Philo's description of the Therapeutae versus the Essenes.

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Does the "Pilate" ring mention Pilate after all?

PESKY PONTIUS PILATE RING PHILOLOGY: What’s in an ‘O’? New UCLA research may unlock mystery of ring tied to Pontius Pilate. Drawing clues from the ring’s inscription, UCLA professor Catherine Bonesho rebuts previous scholarship about the 2,000-year-old relic (Sean Brenner, UCLA Newsroom).

Key takeaways

• One letter changes the story. UCLA professor Catherine Bonesho, in studying an ancient ring thought to be tied to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who figures prominently in the story of Jesus, has proposed a new theory about the ring’s inscription.
• Who was the owner? Bonesho’s research suggests the ring was likely worn by a lower-status Judean worker carrying out administrative business connected to Pilate.
• A window into ancient Judea. The findings offers new clues about who actually performed the everyday work of Roman rule in Judea.

I don't know if she's right, but her interpretation is plausible.

The underlying technical PEQ article is open access. But the press release also covers her argument in informative detail.

The Pilate Ring: A Reconsideration

Catherine E. Bonesho
Published online: 30 Jul 2026
Cite this article https://doi.org/10.1080/00310328.2026.2695544

ABSTRACT

A copper alloy ring from Herodium was published by Amorai-Stark et al. (Citation2018), who read the ring’s inscription of ‘ΠΙΛΑΤΟ’ as a possible reference to Pontius Pilate. The ring’s low quality, imagery and the spelling of the inscription have raised many questions: does ‘ΠΙΛΑΤΟ’ actually refer to Pilate himself (Eck and Ecker Citation2023), who wore the ring (Graves Citation2019) and where was it made. Building on evidence of language learning in the Roman provinces, I argue that ‘ΠΙΛΑΤΟ’ with its omicron spelling is best understood as the Latin dative form ‘PILATO’ transliterated into Greek, meaning ‘for / belonging to Pilate’. Informed by the roles of local elites and enslaved workers in Roman Judea, this study posits that local elite(s) commissioned the ring for an enslaved worker to use at Herodium for various tasks related to Pilate’s administration. This reconstruction plausibly accounts for the ring’s features and has the potential to illuminate the quotidian administration of Roman Judea.

PaleoJudica posts on the "Pilate" Ring are here, here, here, and here. We last saw it argued in 2023 that its inscription should be read as bearing two names, not one, but without any confidence about which two names.

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Hopkins &. Fassberg (eds.), A Handbook of Neo-Aramaic (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

A Handbook of Neo-Aramaic

Series: Brill's Handbooks in Linguistics, Volume: 6

Editors: Simon Hopkins and Steven E. Fassberg

The Handbook of Neo-Aramaic aims to provide an introduction to, and details of the complex world of Neo-Aramaic. This large family of endangered Neo-Semitic languages is (or until recently was spoken by Jewish, Christian and Mandaean minorities in parts of the Middle East. Most members of these communities now live in various diasporas.
Following a series of general chapters dealing with historical background, classification, salient linguistic features, Neo-Semitic context, contact languages (Kurdish, etc.), manuscripts and printed texts, Neo-Aramaic in the media etc., the book presents grammatical sketches of 15 different Neo-Aramaic dialects (some never described before), followed by a series of maps, illustrations, and a bibliography.
The book hopes to provide material of interest both to the beginner and the more advanced specialist.

Contributors are: Werner Arnold, Roberta Borghero, Michael L. Chyet, Eleanor Coghill, Alinda Damsma, Steven E. Fassberg, Samuel Ethan Fox, Charles G. Häberl, Simon Hopkins, Otto Jastrow, Olga Kapeliuk, Geoffrey Khan, Nineb Lamassu, Alexey Lyavdansky, Alessandro Mengozzi, Matthew Morgenstern, Hezy Mutzafi, Yona Sabar, Shabo Talay, Aziz Tezel, and Michael Waltisberg.

Copyright Year: 2026

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-72512-6
Publication: 20 Jul 2026
EUR €269.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-72511-9
Publication: 06 Aug 2026
EUR €269.00

HT Drew Longacre at the OTTC Blog.

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Review of Redfield, Plato's Seventh Letter

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Plato’s Seventh Letter.

James M. Redfield, Plato's Seventh Letter. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2026. Pp. 128. ISBN 9781647922566.

Review by
Colin C. Smith, Creighton University. colinsmith2@creighton.edu

... The Seventh Letter is the longest and most significant of the 13 letters attributed to Plato in Thrasyllus’ canon. In it, an author writing in Plato’s voice tells the tale of his (?) ill-fated trips to Syracuse in Sicily during the rulerships of Dionysius the Elder and Younger in cooperation with the politician Dion, indirectly leading to Dion’s execution. Spanning just under 30 Stephanus pages, the dense narrative touches on key themes like Plato’s biography, connections between philosophy and political rule, the problem of faction, some complexities of moral psychology, the nature of the virtuous life, and technical ways in which a philosophical education grants non-propositional insight into truth that seem crucial for understanding the esoteric aspects of Platonic philosophy. ...

Not PaleoJudaica's usual fare, but of background interest for the recently recovered biography of Plato at Herculaneum, which I noted here (cf. here, here, and here).

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How did Prof. Emanuel Tov change his mind?

SYMPOSIUM: I CHANGED MY MIND: Revised Editions: What Right Do I Have to Try and Convince You Again? (Prof. Emanuel Tov, TheTorah.com).

On a more emotional level, I was also apprehensive about having misled a generation of readers with views that I expressed authoritatively but no longer subscribe to. With every publication of a revised edition of my work, I sensed a feeling of satisfaction. But this was mixed with some feelings of guilt that I had provided readers of previous editions with incorrect or incomplete data, or tried to convince them of perspectives that I had now abandoned.

For more on the series, see here.

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Journal of Greco-Roman Judaism and Christianity (JGRChJ).

THE AWOL BLOG: Open Access Journal: Journal of Greco-Roman Judaism and Christianity (JGRChJ).

I'm glad to see that JGRChJ is still active. Mentioned previously here and here.

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