"10 Important Biblical Archaeological Finds"

LISTICLE: 10 Important Biblical Archaeological Finds (J.D. Cohen, Aish.com).

This is a good list. You can find more on most of these items in PaleoJudaica posts. See the blog search engine.

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

Why aren't Torah scrolls vocalized?

DR. ELIAV GROSSMAN: Why Don’t Torah Scrolls Have Vowels? And why do the letters have crowns? (TheTorah.com).

At that precarious moment in the history of rabbinic authority and Jewish textuality, certain rabbis sought to maintain a distinction between the Torah scroll and a codex, protecting the Torah scroll as the privileged ritual object of liturgical reading.

A deep dive into the background of Masoretic vocalization, punctuation, and ornamentation of Torah scrolls.

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

God of justice and mercy or mercy and justice?

PROF. RABBI HERBERT BASSER: YHWH and Elohim: One God, Different Attributes (TheTorah.com).

Why does Elohim, and not YHWH, create the world? Philo and the rabbis—though in opposite directions—each read the two names as two divine attributes, one beneficent and one that judges. The kabbalists see these as the sefirot דין Judgment and חסד Lovingkindness—while Ramchal further unites them as two colors in the prism of the divine crystal.

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

On the Bar Kokhba Revolt

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: What Is the Bar-Kokhba Revolt? Judah’s other great revolt against Rome (Lauren K. McCormick).

Rome put down one Jewish uprising in Judea that lasted from 66 to 74 CE, called the First Jewish Revolt. It culminated in the burning of the Jerusalem Temple by the then-general (future emperor) Titus. Afterward, tensions over taxation, sacrifice, and imperial policy still plagued the province, and erupted again in 132 in the Bar-Kokhba Revolt.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the Bar Kokhba Revolt see the links collected here (cf. here).

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

The Israelite Samaritan Torah app

THE AWOL BLOG: The Israelite Samaritan Torah.

Yep, there's an app for that too.

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

On Ashoka and his Aramaic edicts

BUDDHIST ARAMAIC WATCH: Ashoka, History, Edicts, Inscription, Policy of Dhamma, Death (Vajiram & Ravi).

Explore Ashoka the Great's reign, including his Kalinga War, Dhamma policy, administration, edicts, and efforts to promote Buddhism. Learn about his economic policies, societal reforms, and cultural contributions to ancient India

These study notes for the 2026 UPSC Civil Services Examination in India give a good detailed account of the reign of Emperor Ashoka the Great, including, of course, his Aramaic Dhamma edicts.

Earlier PaleoJudaica posts on or involving Ashoka and his Aramaic are here (but links rotted), here, here, here, and here.

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

Hezse & Willems (eds.), The Talmud Yerushalmi’s Civil Law in Its Ancient Legal Context (Harrassowitz)

THE AWOL BLOG: The Talmud Yerushalmi’s Civil Law in Its Ancient Legal Context: Rabbinic Law – Roman Law – Hellenistic Law.

Notice of a New Book (with open access): Hezser, Catherine / Willems, Constantin (eds.). The Talmud Yerushalmi’s Civil Law in Its Ancient Legal Context: Rabbinic Law – Roman Law – Hellenistic Law. Harrassowitz, 2026.

Follow the link for abstract and access link.

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

Taylor Swift's Babylon?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Taylor Swift’s Babylon. Excavating the life of a symbol (Lauren K. McCormick ).

The song “Babylon” is a meditation on leaving home, having success, and coming to appreciate what you had only in hindsight. The chorus turns on the realization: “You never knew that it was Babylon ’til it was gone.”

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the archaeology, history, and legends of ancient Babylon, see here and links, here, here, and here and links.

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

CFP: Jewish Scriptures in Earliest Christianity

UPCOMING CONFERENCE:

Jewish Scriptures in Earliest Christianity
Call for Papers
18 March to 20 March 2027
Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham
Deadline: 11 December 2026

The 2027 Seminar for the Jewish Scriptures in Earliest Christianity will meet at the Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham, UK, B15 2QH (www.queens.ac.uk), from the evening of Thursday 18th March (starting with dinner at 6pm) to the afternoon of Saturday 20th March 2027 (finishing with lunch at 1pm). ...

Posted by the British New Testament Society. Follow the link for further particulars and instructions for paper proposals.

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

Simcha Gross appointed to named Penn Chair

ANNOUNCEMENT: Penn appoints inaugural named professor in Jewish Studies following $3M gift (Gina Park, The Daily Pennsylvanian).

Penn named its inaugural Georgia and Jesse Feldman Associate Professor of Jewish Studies last week following a $3 million gift.

The School of Arts and Sciences received the donation from 2000 College graduate Georgia Feldman and her husband, Jesse Feldman, to expand its Jewish Studies program. Simcha Gross — an associate professor of Ancient Rabbinics — was appointed to the professorship role, according to an Oct. 13 announcement. ...

His research focuses on Jewish communities during the first millennium of the Common Era — specifically focusing on their relationships with the Roman, Persian, and Islamic empires. Gross explained that his studies examine how Jewish people are “categorized and treated in different eras and different societies.”

Congratulations to Professor Gross and to the University of Pennsylvania. For more on his work, see here and here and links, and here.

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

The Nephilim were (Ethiopic) flesh?

PROF. MICHAEL SEGAL: The Nephilim Were Flesh—Beshagam בְּשַׁגַּם, a Biblical Hapax Legomenon (TheTorah.com).

YHWH declares that His spirit will not endure forever among the Nephilim—demigods born from the union of divine beings and human women—בְּשַׁגַּם הוּא בָשָׂר beshagam hu basar (Genesis 6:3). What does this phrase mean?

This explanation is possible. But it requires emendation of the text on the basis of a hypothetical cognate, with limited payoff.

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

DSS exhibition coming to Houston

COMING SOON: Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition returns to Houston in November. Members gain early access on November 20, while a discount is offered to the first 1,000 general admission tickets purchased (Rachel Estrada, CW39 Houston).

There are currently few details on the specifics of the exhibition.

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

AUC day conference on Coptic studies

COPTIC WATCH: AUC Hosts Global Dialogue On Coptic History And Heritage With International Conference (AUC press release).

Cairo, October 18, 2026 - The American University in Cairo (AUC) hosted From Tomb to Text: Talks on Coptic History, a one-day international conference on Coptic archaeology that brought together leading scholars from Egypt, Europe and the United States to showcase the latest research in Coptic art history, heritage, textiles, settlement archaeology and archaeobotany. The conference was supported by the Gratus Foundation by Mary and Bishoy Azmy, founded by AUC Trustee Bishoy Emad Azmy ’02 and Mary Habib ’05.

[...]

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

Fitzgerald, Women in Greco-Roman Jewish Novels (300 BCE–100 CE) (SBL)

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:

Women in Greco-Roman Jewish Novels (300 BCE–100 CE)
Katharine L. Fitzgerald

ISBN 9781918358261
Status Available
Publication Date February 2026

Hardback
$98.00

This monograph offers the first sustained study of female protagonists as central agents in the construction of Jewish identity in early Jewish narrative literature. Focusing on the Greek texts of Esther, Judith, Susanna, and Aseneth, Fitzgerald demonstrates that these narratives do more than entertain—they participate in complex discourses about what it meant to be Jewish in the Greco-Roman world.

Drawing on literary-critical and gender-informed approaches, this monograph examines four key dimensions of identity—foodways, sexuality, kinship, and community—to illustrate how Jewish authors used female characters to negotiate cultural boundaries and articulate forms of belonging. Rather than treating women as marginal or merely symbolic figures, Fitzgerald argues that these protagonists function as primary sites through which Jewish authors imagined, contested, and maintained Jewishness in literary texts.

By situating these texts within their broader Greco-Roman and Second Temple contexts, the book challenges longstanding assumptions about the androcentric nature of Jewish identity formation. It demonstrates that narratives centered on women are not peripheral to discussions of Jewishness but are essential to understanding its diversity and fluidity in antiquity.

Engaging critically with major scholarship on Jewish identity, diaspora, and ancient gender systems, Women in Greco-Roman Jewish Novels bridges the gap between studies of Jewishness and gender in antiquity. It offers a new framework for reading early Jewish literature—one that takes seriously the literary construction of women and the interpretive possibilities these figures open for reconstructing ancient Jewish thought.

This book will be of interest to scholars and students of early Judaism, biblical studies, gender studies, and ancient Mediterranean literature.

SBL Press is the North American distributor for Sheffield Phoenix Press. ...

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

Lam, Divinised Humans in Ancient Judaism (T&T Clark)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

Divinised Humans in Ancient Judaism

Daniel Lam (Author)

Hardback
$120.00 $108.00

Ebook (PDF)
$108.00 $86.40

Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
$108.00 $86.40

Product details

Published Sep 17 2026
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Pages 232
ISBN 9780567729477
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series The Library of Second Temple Studies
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

Description

Exploring the fluidity of divine–human boundaries in ancient Judaism, Daniel Lam challenges the assumption of a rigid divide between God and humanity. Drawing on prototype theory and texts from across millennia of Jewish and Christian literature, Lam argues that divinity was conceived as a graded category rather than an absolute state, suggesting that figures such as Adam, Enoch, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus were imagined as crossing the divine threshold through immortality, metamorphosis, and exaltation. By situating these traditions within their wider Mediterranean context, Lam reframes debates on monotheism, deification, and early Christology.

Lam engages deeply with primary sources, including Genesis and Psalms, Wisdom of Solomon, and the Life of Adam and Eve; Enochic writings such as the Book of the Watchers and Book of Parables; and New Testament passages like Philippians 2 and Hebrews 1. In addition, he examines lesser-known materials such as the Testament of Abraham, Qumran fragments, and 2 Enoch, highlighting motifs of angelomorphism, luminous transformation, and enthronement. These case studies illuminate how ancient authors negotiated divine identity and challenge the notion that divinisation was exclusively a “pagan” concept, offering a fresh methodological framework for understanding divinity as a fluid and multivalent phenomenon.

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

Cutino & Cerami (eds.), The Twelve Tribes of Israel (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Twelve Tribes of Israel

Jewish-Christian Interpretations between Ruptures and Continuities (1st–5th centuries)

Series: Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series, Volume: 44

Volume Editors: Michele Cutino and Calogero Cerami

The theme of the twelve tribes of Israel is one of the key points for observing the continuity and discontinuity between Judaism and Christianity, which derives from it. It is therefore a very sensitive topic of ‘the parting of the ways’, which surprisingly has not aroused much interest among critics. This volume aims to fill this gap by first placing the twelve tribes of Israel in their historical context within Jewish culture, then moving on to the various, often contradictory, interpretations that Christians have given to this concept since the early centuries, before finally using this model to refer to the Church as the new Israel.

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-75769-1
Publication: 18 Aug 2026
EUR €135.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-75768-4
Publication: 16 Sep 2026
EUR €135.00

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