New book on Queen Julia Berenice

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

The Troubled Memory of Rome’s Jewish Queen

Berenice—Herod the Great’s great-granddaughter—was far more than the silent royal cameo in Acts: she was a devout Jewish political actor who took a Nazirite vow, publicly confronted the Roman governor Gessius Florus to defend Jerusalem and the Temple, and later rose to extraordinary influence through her relationship with Titus. Both Jewish and Roman male sources distorted her memory through misogyny, political bias, and slander, so recovering her story sheds new light on Judaism, early Christianity, and the nature of female power in the first-century Roman world.

See also Berenice: Queen in Roman Judea (Yale University Press, 2026).

By Bruce Chilton
Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion
Bard College
March 2026

Cross-file under New Book.

For more on Julia Berenice (Berenike), see here and links, plus here. In the recent ancient-Rome Prime series Those About to Die, her troubled relationship with Titus was a major plot element.

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

Report on the Amman Citadel excavation

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST TODAY: Excavating the Royal Capital of Ammon: A New Research Project on the Amman Citadel (Katharina Schmidt).

Today, the Citadel of Amman is one of the few Iron Age royal capitals in the southern Levant that remains accessible for archaeological excavation; Jerusalem and Damascus, for example, lie buried beneath their modern counterparts. Its exploration provides important insights into the archaeology, history, and social dynamics of the region during the Iron Age. Ammon was not an isolated kingdom, but part of a complex network of political alliances and trade connections. Through the renewed excavations we hope to gain further perspectives on power, representation, daily life, and cultural interaction in the Iron Age southern Levant. The results of the Amman Archaeological Project already show: the southern Levant is on the one hand diverse but on the other highly interconnected. Amman, the modern center of Jordan, proves to be a central place in the depth of its history, a hub between antiquity and the present.

Cross-file under Archaeology and Norwest Semitic Epigraphy.

For more on the ancient kingdom of Ammon see here and here. And for more on the ancient Ammonite language, see here.

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

Experiencing Ancient Synagogues

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Experiencing Ancient Synagogues. How everyday objects reveal the sights and smells of Jewish sanctuaries (Marek Dospěl).

Focusing on what archaeology and written sources can tell us about the use of lighting and incense, [Prof. Karen B. Stern's] BAR article explores how ancient people experienced synagogues through their senses of sight and smell. To address these questions, Stern turns to smaller artifacts from ancient synagogues that were used for lighting and burning of incense or other aromatics. These include various types of lamps, incense burners, and ritual shovels.

The BAR article is behind the subscription wall, but this BHD essay summarizes it.

For more on Professor Stern's work, notably on ancient Jewish graffiti, see here and links.

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

Jodi Magness: autobiographical retrospective

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Jodi Magness: Retrospective for The Ancient Jew Review.

I am honored by the invitation to write this retrospective, despite initially being taken aback by the realization that I am old enough to be asked to write one. I am also in awe of Adele Reinhartz’s piece, which was recommended to me as a model. My retrospective is less thematic and more personal than hers, as I cannot think of a better way to document my academic trajectory and research interests.

[...]

For many PaleoJudaica posts on Professor Magness and her wide-ranging work, including the remarkable Huqoq excavation, start here (cf. here) and follow the links.

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

The Hannibal movie starts filming in 2026

CINEMA MEETS PUNIC WATCH: Denzel Washington’s Yet-Untitled Hannibal Movie Starts Filming in Rome in June (Shubhabrata Dutta, The Cinemaholic).

After years of being pushed back, two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington and acclaimed director Antoine Fuqua are moving ahead with their highly anticipated feature, based on the life of the Carthaginian Warrior Hannibal. The filming of the yet-untitled Netflix historical epic will take place in Rome, Italy, between June 29 and October 9 this year. John Logan wrote the script.

[...]

More than twenty years ago Vin Diesel announced his plan to make a movie about Hannibal Barca and the Second Punic War. The plan then was for Diesel to play Hannibal and for the script to be in the relevant ancient languages, Mel Gibson style, including "Maltese," by which I think he meant Punic. He continued to bring up the film idea off and on for many years, noted by PaleoJudaica. In 2010 (cf. in 2012), Denzel Washington was mentioned as possibly playing Hannibal's father Hamilcar.

Now Diesel seems no longer to be involved. At least he is not mentioned. Instead, Washington,with Fuqua and Logan, are getting ready to film a Hannibal movie, with Washington apparently playing the role of Hannibal. I am baffled by this casting. Hannibal was in his late 20s to mid-40s during the war and he died in his mid-60s. Washington is 71.

In 2010, Washington in the role of Hamilcar (who died in his mid-40s ten years before the Second Punic War) made some sense. Him as Hannibal in 2026, less so. It would be nice to have some explanation, but meanwhile I will keep an open mind.

No word on whether this script uses any ancient languages.

I noted the announcement of the Washington production back in late 2023, with comments on the age discrepancy. Follow the links from there for posts on Diesel's planned movie.

I'm glad to hear that filming is finally scheduled. I look forward to the movie.

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

Was John the Baptist as popular as the Beatles?

RELIGION PROF: John The Baptist Was Once More Famous Than Jesus (James F. McGrath).

Candida Moss has a new article out in National Geographic titled “Why John the Baptist Was Once More Famous Than Jesus.” She quotes me in the article, and since I answered some brief questions with very long answers as she was writing it, most of which wasn’t included in the article, I thought I would share my full responses here, in case they are of interest.

For more on Professor McGrath's research on John the Baptist, see here and links.

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

A Crusader-era Judeo-Arabic apocalypse fragment from the Cairo Geniza

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH (FEBRUARY 2026): National Library of Israel, Ms. Heb. 577.2/6 (Sebastiano Crestani, Friederike S. Schmidt).

A manuscript written in Judeo-Arabic sheds light on Jewish messianic and eschatological expectations in the late Middle Ages and connects them to the phenomenon of the Crusades. This manuscript, although fragmentary, must be understood within a body of messianic and eschatological literary texts that flourished from the 7th century onwards and reached one of its peaks between the 12th and the 13th centuries, i.e. during the period of the Crusades.

[...]

This is a Crusader-era text, but it develops a tradition going back to the end of late antiquity. Some of the ideas in it are very old. Compare its battle on the Euphrates to Revelation 8:8-9; 9:13-19. And it's interesting enough on its own terms to merit mention.

For many PaleoJudaica posts noting Cairo Geniza Fragments of the Month in the Cambridge University Library's Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, start here and follow the links.

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

More on that new Syriac (Arabic) world chronicle

SYRIAC WATCH (SORT OF): Alex Hourani’s translation of the latter half of the new “Maronite Chronicle of 713” now online! (Roger Pearse).

The discovery of a new Syriac Chronicle (in Arabic translation) and publication in Medieval Worlds 23 (2025), pp.155-167 by Adrian Pirtea caused Alex Hourani to upload a transcription, as I reported in my last post here.

The Chronicle is a new source for the early history of Islam, found in a manscript on Mount Sinai. The discovery highlights the importance of Christian Arabic literature, and the real need to fund more work on it.

[...]

The post includes an extended excerpt of Hourani's new and improved translation. Hourani also wants to date the chronicle a little earlier than the previous dating.

Background here.

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

Verrijssen, The Liturgical Targum (Brill, open access)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Liturgical Targum

The Aramaic Translation of the Torah in Mahzorim

Series: Supplement to Aramaic Studies, Volume: 21

Author: Jeroen Verrijssen

What happens when a community continues to recite and transmit sacred texts it no longer understands? The Targum, or Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible, found its origins in the first centuries CE, and yet Jewish communities continued to transmit its contents well into the Middle Ages, when knowledge of Aramaic was considered to be scarce. This book explores the Liturgical Targum as it appears in festival prayerbooks (mahzorim). Drawing on previously unpublished manuscript fragments, it traces how different Jewish communities adopted and adapted the Aramaic translation in their liturgies. Readers of this book will discover how layers of copying, reinterpretation, and scribal creativity shaped the textual history of the Targum.

Copyright Year: 2026

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-51745-5
Publication: 12 Jan 2026

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-74882-8
Publication: 12 Feb 2026
EUR €99.00

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

Video panel review of Najman, Scriptural Vitality

THE OTTC BLOG: Scriptural Vitality Book Panel (Drew Longacre).

The Oxford Interfaith Forum has posted a video recording of a book panel reviewing Hindy Najman's new book on Scriptural Vitality.

Follow the link for the link to the video.

I noted the publication of the (open-access) book here.

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

Oxford post on the Herculaneum papyri

HERCULANEUM WATCH:

Teaching and Research Associate in Herculaneum Papyrology
Two-year post at Oxford

The Faculty of Classics – University of Oxford seeks to appoint a Research Associate in Herculaneum Papyrology to join the Humanities and AI Virtual Institute–funded project ‘Meeting the Vesuvius Challenge’, a collaboration between the Faculty of Classics and the Vesuvius Challenge. The postholder will conduct advanced papyrological research on texts extracted from the Herculaneum scrolls and contribute to the refinement of innovative AI-assisted text extraction techniques. The role combines high-level scholarship, graduate teaching, and collaborative research within an internationally significant interdisciplinary initiative.

This is a full-time, fixed-term post (24 months) from October 2026 to September 2028, based in the Faculty of Classics. The post is Grade 7: £39,424 – £47,779 per annum.

[...]

Follow the link for further particulars. Note: "The closing date for applications is 12 noon on Monday, 16 March 2026. Only applications received before this time can be considered."

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 (additional posts collected here) and follow the links.

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

Purim parallels to the Iran war?

THE BIBLE AND POLITICS: Death of Iranian leader just before Purim revives Book of Esther parallels. The timing of Israel’s strike, days before the holiday, prompted religious and political figures to invoke themes from the biblical story set in ancient Persia (Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTA).

Purim is itself a strange mixture of the deadly serious and the wildly playful: a story of a thwarted genocide celebrated with carnival antics, including costumes, a raucous reading of the Book of Esther interrupted by noisemakers, and even a tradition of getting drunk. For millennia, it was often a release for a beleaguered minority in strange and often hostile lands. But as Israel emerged as a military power, scrutiny from within and without the Jewish community has often focused on the real-life implications of the story’s purported lessons.

It was hard not to notice the timing of the strike, intentional or not. This article has a good overview of the range of the comparisons with the Book of Esther.

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

Esther in Jewish art

FOR PURIM: Queen Esther in Jewish Art: From Antiquity to Modern Times (Dr. Barry Dov Walfish).

From a shadowed queen in the third-century synagogue frescoes of Dura-Europos to a defiant heroine recast in the shadow of the Holocaust, Esther’s image has never stood still. Across centuries of Jewish art—medieval manuscripts, early modern megillot, linocuts, mosaics, and mystical modern paintings—artists have reshaped her image from demure beauty to decisive leader. Each generation paints the Esther it needs.

The Dura-Europos synagogue frescoes are the example from antiquity.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on and involving the ancient city of Dura-Europos, especially its synagogue and its decorative art, start here (cf. here) and follow the links.

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

Purim 2026

HAPPY PURIM to all those celebrating! The festival begins tonight at sundown. Stay safe!

Last year's Purim post is here, with links.

PaleoJudaica has nothing specifically on Purim more recently, but posts on the Book of Esther are here and here.

UPDATE (5 March): More here and here.

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

Israel's museums are back in safeguard mode

BACK TO THE BUNKERS: Moving Isaiah: For fourth time since October 7, museums pack up artworks for safekeeping. As sirens sound throughout Israel and Iranian missiles rain down, curators and staff get to work, putting away valuable artifacts and art (Jessica Steinberg and Rossella Tercatin, Times of Israel).

Thursday morning, Israel Museum guards carefully counted off 25 visitors to enter the climate-controlled gallery holding the seven-meter-long Great Isaiah Scroll, the oldest near-complete biblical book ever found, near the beginning of several-month exhibit.

Two days later, the entire scroll and other pieces of ancient parchment and books were relocated to a secure location as sirens sounded, warning of incoming missile attacks from Iran, a spokesperson for the Israel Museum told The Times of Israel on Sunday.

[...]

More on the Israel Museum's display of the Great Isaiah Scroll, now on indefinite hiatus, is here and links.

Earlier safeguarding closures of Israels museums were noted here and here.

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

Animating Maimonides?

EXHIBITION: Maimonides from Scratch? Manchester exhibition opening 11 February 2026 (Iona Hine and Anastasia Badder, Geniza Fragments Blog).

A new exhibition is opening at Manchester Jewish Museum this month, exploring the legacy of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, aka Maimonides.

Maimonides from Scratch began as an interdisciplinary effort to explore Jewish and Muslim presence and place in Manchester and Marseille through creative practices. The team come from backgrounds in art, anthropology, literature and religious studies. Over the last couple of years, through workshops at the Manchester Jewish Museum, in schools, and at the Marseille city museum, the team has developed a stop-motion film about the life of Maimonides, scholar, physician, philosopher and community leader. Though more than 800 years have passed since his death (1204), Maimonides’ work continues to resonate in and beyond Jewish spaces.

[...]

Some of the Cambridge fragments of Maimonides' works are also be on display. The collection hold some autograph fragments, but I don't know if any are display items.

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

Another review of Belief and Unbelief in the Ancient World

THE CHURCH TIMES: Book review: Belief and Unbelief in the Ancient World, edited by Taylor O. Gray, Ethan R. Johnson, Martina Vercesi. Melanie Marshall finds proof of the elusive character of beliefs.

The study of belief and unbelief in the ancient world is an exercise in methodology: what counts as evidence, how it can be interpreted, and which theoretical frameworks apply. All the contributors to this collection handle these questions in more or less detail, and Thomas Harrison proves a particularly illuminating guide. The methodological dimension gives some unity to an otherwise eclectic volume. Subjects range through the Hebrew Bible, St Paul, and St Augustine, to archaic Greek art, Aramaean epigraphy, and, of course, Judaean figurines.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the book and the St. Andrews conference behind it, see here and links.

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

Göppinger, ... Exempla in Flavius Josephus' Antiquitates Iudaicae (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Moribus antiquis res stat Iudaea virisque. Exempla in Flavius Josephus' Antiquitates Iudaicae

Series:
Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism, Volume: 222

Author: A. Judith Göppinger

Josephus’ Antiquities retell the entire Jewish history from the creation of the world to the outbreak of the Jewish War. But who makes this history? This study examines the literary construction of Moses, David, Judas Maccabee, and Agrippa I. through the lens of Roman exempla, showing that Josephus created these four Jewish protagonists in shape and form compatible with them, without turning the Jewish heroes into Romans. In this way Josephus proves not only the similarity of Jewish and Roman exemplary men, but he outdoes the Romans in their own categories of superiority, old age, and flawless virtuousness.

Josephus’ Antiquitates erzählen die gesamte jüdische Geschichte von der Entstehung der Welt bis zum Ausbruch des Jüdischen Kriegs. Aber wer macht diese Geschichte aus? Die vorliegende Studie untersucht die literarische Charakterkonstruktion von Moses, David, Judas Makkabäus und Agrippa I. auf Basis römischer exempla und kann zeigen, dass Josephus die vier jüdischen Protagonisten römischen exempla gleichend konstruiert, ihnen aber „ihr“ Judentum belässt. Damit beweist Josephus nicht nur die Vereinbarkeit von jüdischer und römischer Tradition, sondern kann die RömerInnen hinsichtlich Überlegenheit, langer Tradition und tadelloser Tugendhaftigkeit sogar in den Schatten stellen.

Copyright Year: 2026

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-74835-4
Publication: 08 Dec 2025
EUR €133.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-74834-7
Publication: 10 Dec 2025
EUR €133.00

The volume is in German.

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

Hybrid "Ancient Poetry Slam" event at U of C

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Ancient Poetry Slam: Sumerian, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic Translations.

Join us for an ancient poetry slam featuring four members of the Divinity School and Department of Middle Eastern Studies as they throw down translations of ancient Sumerian, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic poems, followed by an open discussion. Featuring Simeon Chavel (Divinity School), Pamela Klasova (Middle Eastern Studies), Jana Matuszak (Middle Eastern Studies), and Erin G. Walsh (Divinity School). Pizza and drinks will be provided.

This event is free. It takes place on 4 March. Follow the link for time and venue information. If you can't make it in person, you can register to watch on Zoom.

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

Crawford & Wasserman (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Textual Criticism of the Bible

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The Oxford Handbook of Textual Criticism of the Bible

Sidnie White Crawford and Tommy Wasserman

Oxford Handbooks

£115.00

Hardback
Published: 13 February 2026
736 Pages | 16 illustrations
248x171mm
ISBN: 9780197581315

Also Available As:
E-book

Description

Oxford Handbook of the Textual Criticism of the Bible provides an overview of the disciplines of textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament as practiced in the twenty-first century. This volume first explores overarching issues like the formation of the Jewish and Christian canons; philosophical presuppositions in the methods and goals of textual criticism; the complex relationship between literary criticism and textual criticism; and how related fields of Book History, New/Material Philology, and paratextual criticism pose challenges and enrich traditional biblical textual criticism. Subsequently addressed is the textual criticism of the books of the Hebrew Bible, a field which has undergone a paradigm shift since the discovery of the Judean Desert scrolls. Each chapter discusses this shift in various ways, representing different philosophies of and approaches to the ways in which textual criticism can be practiced in a "post-Judean Desert texts" world. Finally, the text discusses the textual criticism of the New Testament and provides chapters concerned with the Greek manuscripts and the indirect evidence of the text in early versions and citations, as well as past and current methods for evaluating this evidence including the Coherence-Based Genealogical Method (CBGM).

The electronic version of this one has been out for a while. But I have been holding off on posting on it until the hardback came out. I blinked and it came out and was sold out. But follow the link to sign up for a notification of when the reprint is available.

I noted a preview of the volume here.

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