My 2024 Lag B'Omer post is here with links.
For the biblical and rabbinic background of the holiday, see here and here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
E-mail: paleojudaica-at-talktalk-dot-net ("-at-" = "@", "-dot-" = ".")
My 2024 Lag B'Omer post is here with links.
For the biblical and rabbinic background of the holiday, see here and here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
The Ezekiel Papyrus, our protagonist, opens two universes of great interest, two issues that are intertwined in this exhibition. On the one hand, production and on the other, dispersion. On the one hand, a very ancient codex of the Greek Old Testament, exceptionally well preserved, which presents a biblical text prior to certain processes of textual regularization in the third century CE, therefore a very valuable witness. On the other hand, it is a clear example of the processes that during the 20th century tore cultural heritage to shreds through purchases and dispersal in poorly regulated antiquities markets.HT Rogue Classicism and the OTTC Blog.
For more on Papyrus 967 (p967) see here and here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
This post provides a guide for reading sequentally through ethnographic passages from Diodoros of Sicily’s Library of History (ca. 36 BCE) on this website: ...Diodorus (Diodoros) preserves some material from what I call the Greek Fantasy Babylon tradition. For examples from Diodorus himself, see here and (quoting Ctesias) here.
Diodorus also gives an account of the Maccabean Revolt.
And for more on him and his work, see here and links plus here.
For more on Philip Harland's blog, see here and links and here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Consolatory Rhetoric in Hellenistic JudaismI noted the publication of the book here and an essay on it by the author here.Hellenistic Jews needed to pick and choose between the various methods of consolation within their biblical heritage and their Greco-Roman culture to interpret suffering, offer comfort, and issue advice about how to behave in hardship.
See also Hellenistic Jews and Consolatory Rhetoric: 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, 1 Thessalonians, and Hebrews (Mohr Siebeck, 2023).
By Christine R. Trotter
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
Georgetown University
May 2025
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Bernard, Chams BenoĆ®t. 2025. An Early Judeo-Persian Rabbanite Text: Vat. Pers. 61, Its Linguistic Variety, Its Arabic Vocabulary, and the Targum Onqelos. Journal of Jewish Languages 1–55.Follow the link for the abstract and a link to the open-access full text of the article.
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Despite the unpromising headline, this is nice collection of photos with informative captions which tell the story of discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and some of their subsequent history.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
A new archaeological dig at the ancient site of Sebastia in the West Bank was inaugurated on Monday in the presence of several government officials.The Jerusalem Post Staff and their AI are pleased:Sebastia – known in Hebrew by its biblical name, “Shomron” – is thought to have been the capital of the northern Israelite kingdom in the 9th and 8th centuries BCE.
The excavations will be led by Uzi Greenfeld, an archaeologist from the Archaeology Unit of the Civil Administration.
[...]
Haaretz, not so much:
Politics aside, I hope the new excavation finds more inscribed Samaria ostraca.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Here's an "Enigma" for you: What links Alan Turing, famed cracker of Nazi codes, to rare butterflies and Hebrew names from the First Temple period?Sounds like an interesting study, albeit one that squeezes the last bit of inference out of very limited data. The Haaretz article gives lots of helpful background. The underlying article is also covered in:The answer is that a team of researchers has revealed new information about the history of the biblical kingdoms of Judah and Israel by studying the Hebrew names scribbled on pottery or etched on personal seals during the First Temple period. The analysis used statistical methods first developed during World War II by Turing and colleagues to decode Germany's Enigma cipher, and which have since been applied by ecologists to study rare species.
[...]
What’s in a name? Diving into the ancient names of biblical Israel. Ancient name data reveals Israel was more diverse than Judah, offering new insight into biblical-era societies through a modern statistical lens (JOANIE MARGULIES, Jerusalem Post)
Ancient Israelites were more worldly than their insular Judean cousins, study shows. Using statistical methods from field of ecological biodiversity, Israeli scholars analyze 1,000 First Temple period names and find that the northern state was likely more ‘cosmopolitan’ (Rossella Tercatin, Times of Israel).
A Hebrew University press release is published at Phys.org:
Name diversity sheds light on social patterns in ancient Hebrew kingdoms.
I cannot comment on the underlying article, because, oddly, it is no longer up at the PNAS site. The link is correct, shared by all the above articles, but it goes to a dead end. And neither the title nor the author show up in a search of the site. But you should check the link again. Perhaps it is back up when you read this.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
In 1896, in a forgotten storeroom above the ancient Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Jewish history changed forever.It's good to re-tell this story from time to time.The room was dark, dry, and filled with dust—and also with nearly 400,000 fragments made of paper and parchment that had remained untouched for centuries, preserved by Egypt's arid climate. When scholars, notably Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University, first began sorting through this treasure, they unearthed something profound—a time capsule preserving nearly a thousand years of continuous Jewish life and rare texts previously thought to be extinct.
[...
Especially notable for PaleoJudaica's purposes:
What makes the Cairo Geniza genuinely unparalleled is how it preserved texts once thought lost forever. Among its most significant discoveries is the Damascus Document, an ancient Jewish sectarian manuscript previously known only through medieval copies but later found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Geniza's fragment predates the Dead Sea Scroll version by centuries.Likewise, the most complete manuscript of the Aramaic Levi document, from the same period and with more fragmentary manuscripts also found at Qumran. And some Psalms of David, arguably from late antiquity or even older. And Sefer Ha-Razim, a Hebrew magical tracate from the Talmudic era. All three have been published in new translations, two by me, in MOTP1 and MOTP2.Similarly, it contained the original Hebrew text of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus), a wisdom book composed around 180 BCE that had vanished from Jewish tradition for nearly a millennium.
For more discoveries from the Cairo Geniza, see here, here, here, here, here and many links.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
For PaleoJudaica posts on the Testament of Solomon, see here and links and here. Perhaps also here. The Testament of Solomon is a late-antique Christian work that knows material from the New Testament, but which also is familiar with Jewish traditions. I view the Christian contribution as considerably more than "limited Christian edits."
For more on Philip Harland's blog, see here and links and here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
... Who is the Teacher of Righteousness? This enigmatic figure appears in at least two of the major works from Qumran and has, at times, been thought to be the author of many others. Yet, as discussed by Angela Kim Harkins in her article “Are We Still Searching for the Teacher of Righteousness?” published in the Spring 2025 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, we might never know the teacher’s true identity. That is, if there ever was one. ...The article by Harkness is behind the subscription wall, but this BHD essay goes on to summarize it.
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I have noted other posts in the series here and links.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
ForbiddenAs noted on the Agade List, the Washington Free Beacon has a review of the book:
A 3,000-Year History of Jews and the Pigby Jordan D. Rosenblum
Published by: NYU Press
Imprint: NYU Press
272 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in, 15 b/w figures
HARDCOVER
9781479831494
PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 2024
$30.00EBOOK
9781479831500
PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 2024
$30.00DESCRIPTION
Winner of the 74th National Jewish Book Award: The Jane and Stuart Weitzman Family Award for Food Writing and Cookbooks
A surprising history of how the pig has influenced Jewish identity
Jews do not eat pig. This (not always true) observation has been made by both Jews and non-Jews for more than three thousand years and is rooted in biblical law. Though the Torah prohibits eating pig meat, it is not singled out more than other food prohibitions. Horses, rabbits, squirrels, and even vultures, while also not kosher, do not inspire the same level of revulsion for Jews as the pig. The pig has become an iconic symbol for people to signal their Jewishness, non-Jewishness, or rebellion from Judaism. There is nothing in the Bible that suggests Jews are meant to embrace this level of pig-phobia.
Starting with the Hebrew Bible, Jordan D. Rosenblum historicizes the emergence of the pig as a key symbol of Jewish identity, from the Roman persecution of ancient rabbis, to the Spanish Inquisition, when so-called Marranos (“Pigs”) converted to Catholicism, to Shakespeare’s writings, to modern memoirs of those leaving Orthodox Judaism. The pig appears in debates about Jewish emancipation in eighteenth-century England and in vaccine conspiracies; in World War II rallying cries, when many American Jewish soldiers were “eating ham for Uncle Sam;” in conversations about pig sandwiches reportedly consumed by Karl Marx; and in recent deliberations about the kosher status of Impossible Pork.
All told, there is a rich and varied story about the associations of Jews and pigs over time, both emerging from within Judaism and imposed on Jews by others. Expansive yet accessible, Forbidden offers a captivating look into Jewish history and identity through the lens of the pig.
Why Jews Don’t Eat Pork (Though Some Do). REVIEW: ‘Forbidden: A 3,000-Year History of Jews and the Pig’ by Jordan D. Rosenblum (Meir Y. Soloveichik).
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Characterization in Midrash and Medieval Jewish Bible Commentaries
Sivan NirISBN 9781628376142
Volume BibRec 8
Status Available
Publication Date December 2024Paperback $78.00
Hardback $98.00
eBook $78.00Sivan Nir meticulously examines the reimaginings of the biblical figures Balaam, Jeremiah, and Esther in a wide range of Jewish texts from second-century rabbinic sources to medieval Jewish biblical commentaries. Nir’s unique approach analyzes the continuity, or lack thereof, that emerges when characterization is viewed in relation to and in contrast with its cross-cultural context, including the contemporary conventions found in Hellenistic rhetoric and novels, Byzantine Christian literature, Islamic adab and Mu‘tazila literature, and more. Such an approach reveals a transition from typological depictions to richer, more lifelike portrayals—a transformation shaped by rival notions of literature and history. Nir translates the sources into accessible English for students and scholars of not only Jewish exegesis but also those in Christian theology, Islamic studies, and world literature.
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Welcome to Professor Aaron Koller who will join the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the end of September 2025 as the newly appointed Regius Professor of Hebrew.Yeshiva University also has an announcement of his departure:[..]
Professor Koller to Depart YU, Join Cambridge as Regius Professor of Hebrew (Daniel Kohn, YU Commentator).
Professor Aaron Koller (YC ‘97, BRGS ‘09), instructor for Near Eastern Studies at Yeshiva University, will join Cambridge as Regius Professor of Hebrew next fall.Congratulations both to Professor Koller and to Cambridge University on the new appointment.[...]
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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, The Cleopatras: the forgotten queens of Egypt. New York: Basic Books, 2024. Pp. 384. ISBN 9781541602922.For many PaleoJudaica posts on Cleopatra VII (the Cleopatra), who reportedly spoke Hebrew and Aramaic, start here (cf. here) and follow the links.Review by
Deirdre Klokow, University of Texas at Austin. deirdre.klokow@austin.utexas.edu... Although a much-needed update to John Whitehorne’s 1994 The Cleopatras, Llewellyn-Jones’ chronicle of the foundations laid by the ascent to power of these often-ignored royal women is hindered by a novelistic style and less-than critical approach to the complexities of the source material. ...
PaleoJudaica posts involving Cleopatra V Tryphaena, who likely was the mother of Cleopatra VII, are here and here. And comments on Cleopatra I Syra and Cleopatra III are here, and more on Cleopatra I is here and here. The latter two Cleos are mentioned in the Book of Daniel (I) and in 1 Maccabees (III).
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This article introduces a classroom activity called a Text Lab, which helps students engage critically with ancient texts while familiarizing them with the tools and scholarship necessary to analyze these sources. While this has been applied to the specific fields of its authors (biblical studies), it is applicable to any field within the humanities involving source media (e.g., literature, classics, history, philosophy, etc.), just as its predecessor does, the “gobbet.” After introducing what a Text Lab is, we outline the details of how it works, before concluding with a brief discussion of why it works.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.