Gittin (ed.), The Ancient Pottery of Israel and Its Neighbors

NEW BOOK FROM THE ISRAEL EXPLORATION SOCIETY:

We are very pleased to announce the publication of the first two volumes of the long-awaited ANCIENT POTTERY OF ISRAEL AND ITS NEIGHBORS FROM THE IRON AGE THROUGH THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD

Seymour Gitin, Editor

Published by:

Israel Exploration SocietyW.F.

Albright Institute of Archaeological Research

Israel Antiquities AuthorityAmerican Schools of Oriental Research

Follow the link for a PhD file with book description and order form.

HT A.D. Riddle at the Bible and Interpretation Blog: New Reference Work for Pottery from the Holy Land.

Fishbane, Jewish Hermeneutical Theology

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Michael Fishbane: Jewish Hermeneutical Theology

Edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Arizona State University and Aaron W. Hughes, University of Rochester. With an Introduction by Sam Berrin Shonkoff, University of Chicago Divinity School.
Michael Fishbane is Nathan Cummings Distinguished Service Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Trained in biblical studies and the ancient Near East at Brandeis University, he has written on rabbinic interpretation, medieval Jewish philosophy and mysticism, Hasidism, modern Jewish philosophy, and Hebrew poetry. His earlier groundbreaking historical work has provided the foundation for his more recent constructive hermeneutic theology. Among his numerous books are the award-winning Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (1985) and Kiss of God (1994), Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (2003), and Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology (2008). He is, in addition, an elected member of the American Academy of Jewish Research and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The TOC of the volume is as follows:

The Contributors
Editors' Introduction to the Series
Michael Fishbane: An Intellectual Portrait, Sam Berrin Shonkoff
Modern Jewish Theology and Traditional Hermeneutics, Michael Fishbane
Midrash and the Nature of Scripture, Michael Fishbane
Five Stages of Jewish Myth and Mythmaking, Michael Fishbane
The Bible in the Jewish Mystical Tradition, Michael Fishbane
A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology, Michael Fishbane
Biblical Hermeneutics and Philosophical Theology, Michael Fishbane
Interview with Michael Fishbane, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson
Select Bibliography

Fiensy and Strange (eds), Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods

NEW BOOK FROM FORTRESS PRESS:

Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods: Two-Volume Set
by David A. Fiensy (Author, Editor), James Riley Strange (Editor)

ISBN-13: 978-1506405124
ISBN-10: 1506405126

Paperback
$95.98

In this two-volume set, David A. Fiensy and James Riley Strange have invited an international cast of experts to provide a comprehensive analysis of past and current research on Galilee and up-to-date commentary regarding ongoing site excavations. The articles are filled with supporting photographs, maps, and diagrams to help both experts and nonexperts visualize this important period in the history of Galilee and make it come to life. Each volume contains extensive bibliographies at the end of chapters for further study and reading.

The two volumes consolidate a great deal of information that has been brought to light in various journals, field reports, and essays over the past thirty years. The editors have intentionally invited the voices of Christian and Jewish archaeologists, historians, biblical scholars, and social-science interpreters to present their varied findings and opinions. The resulting wealth of information in one single source provides rich opportunities for conversation and for further research by students and scholars of all levels.

Crawford and Wassen (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran and the Concept of a Library

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran and the Concept of a Library

Edited by Sidnie White Crawford, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Cecilia Wassen, Uppsala University
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Concept of a Library presents twelve articles by renowned experts in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran studies. These articles explore from various angles the question of whether or not the collection of manuscripts found in the eleven caves in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran can be characterized as a “library,” and, if so, what the relation of that library is to the ruins of Qumran and the group of Jews that inhabited them. The essays fall into the following categories: the collection as a whole, subcollections within the overall corpus, and the implications of identifying the Qumran collection as a library.

Some potentially related past posts on ancient libraries are here and here and links.

Lieu, Neither Jew Nor Greek

NEW BOOK FROM T&T CLARK/BLOOMSBURY:: Neither Jew Nor Greek by Judith Lieu.

A ground-breaking study in the formation of early Christian identity, by one of the world's leading scholars. In Neither Jew Nor Greek, Judith Lieu explores the formation and shaping of early Christian identity within Judaism and within the wider Graeco-Roman world in the period before 200 C.E.

[...]

Antiquities dealer charged with looting thousands of coins

ARREST: Cops bust antiquities dealer with over 3,000 ancient coins. Suspect admits to illegal sale and export of artifacts he illicitly collected in fields near Beit She’an (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel).

Police and Israel Antiquities Authority agents on Tuesday arrested an art dealer from northern Israel after finding him with over 3,000 illegally obtained ancient coins — valued in the tens of thousands of dollars.

The suspect, a resident of Kibbutz Beit Hashita and a licensed antiquities dealer, was charged with attempting to sell the objects he illegally acquired to buyers abroad, and to do so without an export permit. The IAA said in a statement on Thursday that investigators found over 3,000 coins — some over 2,000 years old — and lead and ceramic objects in the man’s home.

[...]

Most of the coins in the man’s collection dated from the Byzantine period, but the trove included rarer items from the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome — the Bar Kochba Revolt of 132-135 CE — and Roman coins celebrating the crushing of the Jewish Revolt in 70 CE bearing the words “Judaea Capta” — Judea Conquered. Other coins were from the later Muslim era.

[...]

Women and Torah study in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: The Talmud’s Deep Misogyny: No Women Allowed. There’s no way to sugarcoat it: Talmudic rabbis think women are dangerous sex fiends who should avoid Torah study—and as a consequence prescribe humiliating guilty-until-proven-innocent public shaming ceremonies.

Should women study Torah? Today, most Jews would answer that question with a resounding yes—and not only Reform and Conservative Jews. Even Chabad, on the evidence of its website TheJewishWoman.org, sees the rise in women’s Torah study as an unambiguously good thing, evidence of “women’s deep desire to achieve spiritual fulfillment through talmud Torah.” (The same source offers a reassurance that a woman’s desire to study Torah is not necessarily a product of “contentious motives,” such as feminism.) But ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, Jews still exclude women from Torah study, and in this week’s Daf Yomi reading, we saw that the rabbis themselves were divided on the issue. The basic rule is that the mitzvah of Torah study, like many mitzvot, is not binding on women the way it is on men; when women study Torah, they are not fulfilling a commandment but doing so voluntarily.

[...]

Again and again and again: the ancients lived in a very different world from ours. One that by the standards of our time was often brutal and degrading.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links. The first post at this link also includes some additional information about the use of the Sota (Sotah) ritual in the post-Temple period.

Sanders, Comparing Judaism and Christianity

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM FORTRESS PRESS:

Comparing Judaism and Christianity: Common Judaism, Paul, and the Inner and the Outer in Ancient Religion

Author: E. P. Sanders

Description
Few scholars have so shaped the contemporary debate on the relation of early Christianity to early Judaism as E. P. Sanders, and no one has produced a clearer or more distinctive vision of that relationship as it was expressed in the figures of Jesus of Nazareth and Paul the apostle.

Gathered for the first time within one cover, here Sanders presents formative essays that show the structure of his approach and the insights it produces into Paul's relationship to Judaism and the Jewish law. Sanders addresses matters of definition ("common Judaism," "covenantal nomism"), diversity (the Judaism of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Diaspora), and key exegetical and historical questions relative to Jesus, Paul, and Christian origins in relationship to early Judaism.

These essays show a leading scholar at his most erudite as he carries forward and elaborates many of the insights that have become touchstones in New Testament interpretation.

Paperback
ISBN: 9781506406077
Price: $39.00
Ebook
ISBN: 9781506406084
Release date: March 1, 2016
Pages: 526
Width: 6
Height: 9

Quotation from Isaiah found in ancient mosaic in Turkey

EXCAVATION: Mosaic with Bible inscription found in Adana (Daily Sabah).

A 120-square-meter mosaic with a quotation from the Bible in Greek has been recently found in Turkey's Adana province. It reads, ‘The wolf and the lamb will feed together, the lion will eat straw like the ox and dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on my holy mountain, says the Lord'

A new mosaic inscribed with quotes from the Bible has been discovered in the southern city of Adana during excavations jointly undertaken by the Culture and Tourism Ministry's Cultural Heritage Department and the Provincial Directorate of Museums. The 120-square-meter mosaic was found on private property located in the Karlık neighborhood of Adana's Sarıçam district. According to archaeologists, the Eastern Roman-era mosaic dates back to between the fifth and sixth centuries A.D.

[...]

As the article notes, the quotation is from Isaiah 65:25. There is no indication of what the building that housed the mosaic was used for or what its cultural context was.

Brill's Handbook of Jewish Languages

NEW BOOK: Brill Publishes Handbook of Jewish Languages.

Publishing
2015, November 06
Leiden (NL) / Boston (MA) – 6 November 2015

Brill, the international scholarly publisher, has published an exciting new reference work for the study of Jewish Languages, the Handbook of Jewish Languages.

The Handbook of Jewish Languages is an introduction to the many languages used by Jews throughout history, including Yiddish, Judezmo (Ladino), and Jewish varieties of Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Berber, English, French, Georgian, Greek, Hungarian, Iranian, Italian, Latin American Spanish, Malayalam, Occitan (Provençal), Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Syriac, Turkic (Karaim and Krymchak), Turkish, and more. Chapters include historical and linguistic descriptions of each language, an overview of primary and secondary literature, and comprehensive bibliographies to aid further research. Many chapters also contain sample texts and images.

This book is an unparalleled resource for anyone interested in Jewish languages, and will also be very useful for historical linguists, dialectologists, and scholars and students of minority or endangered languages.

[...]

Thanksgiving

HAPPY AMERICAN THANKSGIVING to all those celebrating!

What is Coptic?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: What Is Coptic and Who Were the Copts in Ancient Egypt? A short history of ancient Egyptian language (Megan Sauter). This essay introduces a BAR article by Leo Depuyt which is behind the subscription wall, but the essay is informative in itself.

Cross-file under "Coptic Watch" and "Asking The Important Questions."

The future of archaeology

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: The Future Of Archaeology Is Not Digging Anything Up. The 2016 TED Prize winner is reinventing how we discover—and preserve—the past (Jessica Leber, Fast Company).

Most archaeologists can be happy to uncover a small handful of important ancient sites in their careers. Sarah Parcak, a young professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has already pinpointed thousands, making her among the most productive archaeologist working today.

How is this possible? She hunts for evidence of buried civilizations from the vantage of space. Using satellite imagery, she can see traces of underground artifacts that no one on Earth could ever spot without a shovel. In Egypt alone, where there are 138 known pyramids, she’s identified 17 potential new ones, as well as 1,000 tombs and 3,100 unknown settlements. All of this won her this year’s TED Prize, a $1 million award announced last week, along with countless comparisons to Indiana Jones.

[...]

An example of practical application of the new technologies:

Once potential sites are identified, of course, they must be verified by humans on the ground—so most of her potential sites have yet to be explored. As a result, she collaborates with many archaeologist all over the world. She describes one recent discovery made in Tunisia: Next to a Roman-era fort from 2,000 years ago, imagery showed something unusual was nearby. Upon further investigation, they encountered dense concentrations of slag—the evidence of burning.

"What we found was a massive pottery production center," she says. The site was actually a settled center of trade, not just another of the typical forts that would have defended the ancient road in Roman times.

And this prediction:

Parcak sees a trend where the digging—can expose safely buried antiquities to looting and other dangerous becomes less necessary. "Technology is improving. At what point can we zoom in from space and see a tiny pot shard from a site? I think we’ll be there in 10 years," she says.

In 20 or 30 years, she imagines archaeologists may stop excavating entirely and send tiny robots to explore underground—-leaving the treasures undisturbed for the benefit of future generations.

What I've been saying. Non-invasive and non-destructive technologies are the way of the future. And the future is coming soon.

More on Professor Parcak's work is here.

On the history of parchment

(ANCIENT) TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Written on Beasts (Bruce Holsinger, NYR Daily).

Parchment, a medium that came into widespread use beginning in late antiquity, has for many centuries held a special place in the cultural imagination. “When you want to have the love of whatever woman you wish,” advises a medieval necromancer’s manual, “first you must have a totally white dove and parchment made from a female dog that is in heat.” In the Talmud parchment comes in for extended discussion, much of it devoted to the ritual treatment of animal skins. Tractate Shabbath, the Talmudic book that deals with rules for the Sabbath, contains rigorous rabbinical debates over the suitability of certain kinds of membranes for sacred use: the perforated skins of birds, the split hides of cows and sheep. “Can teffilin be written on the skin of a clean fish?” a rabbi asks at one point. No, answers another—but only because of the smell.

The ancient Jewish community at Djerba

HISTORY: Ancient Jewish community endures on Tunisian isle (Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff).

The Jewish community on the Tunisian resort island of Djerba traces its roots back to the Babylonian exile of 586 B.C.E., and is one of the few communities of its kind to have survived the turmoil around the creation of Israel.

Background here and here.

Spiró, Captivity

REVIEW OF A NEWLY TRANSLATED NOVEL: Zelig in Jerusalem. Uri dines with Pontius Pilate and is thrown into a cell with a certain Galilean rabble-rouser (WSJ).

Hungarian novelist György Spiró’s monumental “Captivity” (Restless Books, 860 pages, $29.99) begins in Rome’s Jewish enclave during the reign of Tiberius (A.D. 14-37). This oversized book has an undersized hero: Gaius “Uri” Theodorus, a moody, reedy 19-year-old dreamer. His prospects seem inauspicious at best until his father pulls some strings to have him included in a delegation bringing tithes to Jerusalem in time for the Passover celebration.

What follows is a case of mistaken identity. His fellow delegates, baffled by the presence of such an unimpressive figure, assume Uri is an agent and courier for Agrippa, the free-spending friend of Tiberius who is openly angling to be named King of Judaea. (Known to history as Herod Agrippa, he really did gain control of the kingdom in A.D. 41.) “Captivity” takes us from Rome to Jerusalem, Alexandria and back again during an especially fragile and eventful period of the Pax Romana.

[...]

Home

I'M BACK IN ST. ANDREWS. More tomorrow.

Abegg et al., The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, vol. 2

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, Volume 2

The Non-Qumran Documents and Texts

Martin G. Abegg, Jr. , James E. Bowley and Edward M. Cook in consultation with Emanuel Tov

The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, Volume 2, presents for the first time an index to the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek text of the non-biblical, non-Qumran Judaean Desert documents in one publication. The contents of this volume are defined by E. Tov’s Revised Lists (Brill, 2010). In the main the Concordance serves as an index for volumes II and III of the Judean Desert Studies (JDS), volumes II, XXVII, XXVIII, and XXXVIII of the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD), and volumes I, II, and VI of Masada: The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963-1965, Final Reports.

Although this is volume 2, volumes 1 and 3 are already long since published:

The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, Volume 3 (2 vols) TThe Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert (2009)

The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, Volume 1 (2 vols) The Non-Biblical Texts from Qumran (2003)

Review of Jacobson, The Lost Codex

BOOK REVIEW (NOVEL): ‘The Lost Codex’ (Elise Cooper, Military Press).

“The Lost Codex” by Alan Jacobson blends realism with a riveting story. Besides a thriller, readers will gain an understanding of the geo-political climate and the historical significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Anyone familiar with Jacobson’s characters will enjoy the return of the Operations Support Intelligence Group: FBI profiler Karen Vail, Special Forces veteran Hector DeSantos, and Aaron Uziel, the FBI Joint Terrorism Chief.

As with the real world, the government leaders appear weak, hesitant, and inept. Set in Washington DC, New York, Paris, England, and Israel, the Operations Support Intelligence Group must uncover and thwart an international terrorist plot. Their mission is to find the stolen Dead Sea documents and those responsible for unleashing coordinated and unprecedented attacks on US soil.

[...]

That's an ambitious mission.

Weiss, Cutting the Shoots

NEW BOOK FROM MAGNES PRESS:

Cutting the Shoots

The Worship of the Shekhinah in the World of Early Kabbalistic Literature

By Tzahi Weiss

Publisher: The Hebrew University Magnes Press
Categories: Jewish Mysticism, Jewish History, Jewish Studies, Religions
Publish date: October 2015
Language: Hebrew
Danacode: 45-141028
ISBN: 978-965-493-838-9
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 170
Weight: 400 gr.

The feminine divine presence, the Shekhinah, has received detailed description in the Kabbalistic literature from the time of its inception at the end of the 12th century. The present book pursues the tracks of the belief in the Shekhinah and demonstrates that the main motive of the Kabbalists was not to disseminate the belief in Her but rather to restrain and to supervise this belief which had evolved outside the Kabbalists’ sphere or in its margins.

Homolka, Jesus Reclaimed

NEW BOOK FROM BERGHAN BOOKS:

JESUS RECLAIMED
Jewish Perspectives on the Nazarene
Walter Homolka
Translated by Ingrid Shafer
Foreword by Leonard Swidler

166 pages, bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-78238-579-0 $39.95/£25.00 Hb Published (January 2015)
eISBN 978-1-78238-580-6 eBook

After centuries of persecution, oppression, forced migrations, and exclusion in the name of Christ, the development of a Jewish “Quest for the Historical Jesus” might seem unexpected. This book gives an overview and analysis of the various Jewish perspectives on the Nazarene throughout the centuries, emphasizing the variety of German voices in Anglo-American contexts. It explores the reasons for a steady increase in Jewish interest in Jesus since the end of the eighteenth century, arguing that this growth had a strategic goal: the justification of Judaism as a living faith alongside Christianity.

A grammar of Aramaic in Persian

ARAMAIC WATCH: First Persian book on three ancient languages’ grammar released (Iran Book News Agency).

IBNA – The Persian book ‘Introduction to Grammar and Dictionaries of Syriac, Aramaic and Assyrian Languages’, compiled by Sa’eed Hayati was released.

The interview with the author is not the most lucid I have ever seen and I wonder if it was translated, badly, from Persian. Anyway, the book seems to involve the grammar of a range of Aramaic dialects and it was published in Persian, and that sounds like a good thing.

HT reader Gerald Rosenberg.

Back to St Andrews

HEADING HOME after a good conference.

Open Greek and Latin Project

AWOL: Open Greek and Latin Project of the Open Philology Project.

The ultimate goal is to represent every source text produced in Classical Greek or Latin from antiquity through the present, including texts preserved in manuscript tradition as well as on inscriptions, papyri, ostraca and other written artifacts. Over the course of the next five years, we will focus upon converting as much Greek and Latin, available as scanned printed books, into an open, dynamic corpus, continuously augmented and improved by a combination of automated processes and human contributions of many kinds. The focus upon Greek and Latin reflects both the belief that we have an obligation to disseminate European cultural heritage and the observation that recent advances in OCR technology for Greek and Latin make these intertwined languages ready for large-scale work.

[...]

Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Diaspora

NOW AN E-BOOK:

Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Diaspora

Author: Rachel Hachlili
Subjects: Jewish Studies
Publication Year : 1998
Book DOI: 10.1163/9789004294042
E - ISBN : 9789004294042

Collections: Handbook of Oriental Studies: Ancient Near East Online
Volume: 35
Series: Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 The Near and Middle East

This publication provides fascinating new information about the origin, symbolism and significance of ancient Jewish synagogal and funerary art and archeology in the Diaspora, during the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods.

Information on the book in hard copy is here.

Johnson, Reading David and Goliath in Greek and Hebrew

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Reading David and Goliath in Greek and Hebrew
A Literary Approach

[David und Goliath auf Griechisch und Hebräisch lesen. Ein literarischer Ansatz.]
2015. XIV, 270 pages.
Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 82
79,00 €
sewn paper
ISBN 978-3-16-154046-2

Published in English.
Benjamin J. M. Johnson offers a literary reading of the two variant editions of the story of David and Goliath as found in the Hebrew and Greek traditions of 1 Samuel 16–18 and explores a method for reading the Septuagint as both a translation and a text in its own right.

Tigchelaar et al., Hebrew of the Late Second Temple Period

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Hebrew of the Late Second Temple Period
Proceedings of a Sixth International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira

Edited by Eibert Tigchelaar, K.U. Leuven and Pierre Van Hecke K.U. Leuven, with the assistance of Seth Bledsoe and Pieter B. Hartog

The Hebrew of the Late Second Temple Period is directly attested in the Scrolls from Qumran and other manuscripts discovered in the Judaean Desert. Indirectly, it is also found in some manuscripts copied in later times, which still preserve linguistic elements of the Hebrew from the period in which the texts were authored. Often referred to as the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls or Qumran Hebrew, and positioned chronologically between Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, its nature remains disputed. Some essays in this volume deal with linguistic and philological problems of this Late Second Temple Period Hebrew. Other papers discuss the nature and linguistic profile of the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Miller, Performances of Ancient Jewish Letters

NEW BOOK FROM VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT:

Marvin Lloyd Miller
Performances of Ancient Jewish Letters
From Elephantine to MMT

1. Edition 2015
317 pages
ISBN 978-3-525-55093-9
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Journal of Ancient Judaism. Supplements -

99,99 €
If you have placed a standing order for the series: 89,99 €

Marvin Lloyd Miller combines a wide range of approaches to cast new light on the form and function of several ancient Jewish letters in a variety of languages. He applies a new emerging field of performance theory to texts, and argues that letters and other documents were not just read in silence, as is normal today, but were “performed,” especially when they were addressed to a community. The Performance focuses closely on the ways in which the engagement of the audience during the performance of a text might be read from traces present in the text itself.

De Lange, Japheth in the Tents of Shem

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

NICHOLAS DE LANGE
Japheth in the Tents of Shem
Greek Bible Translations in Byzantine Judaism

[Japheth in den Zelten des Sem. Griechische Bibelübersetzungen im byzantinischen Judentum.]
2015. XVI, 221 Seiten.
Texts and Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Judaism 30
erscheint im Dezember

Veröffentlicht auf Englisch.
Zum ersten Mal wird in diesem Band die Rezeption und Überlieferung griechischer Übersetzungen der Bibel durch Juden im Mittelalter in diesem Umfang behandelt. Dies ist das Ergebnis von über 40 Jahren Forschungsarbeit Nicholas de Langes, der die meisten Belege selber zusammengestellt hat, hauptsächlich aus bisher unveröffentlichten Manuskriptquellen, wie den Kairoer Geniza Fragmenten.

Emanuel, Hidden Treasures from Europe

NEW BOOK FROM MAGNES PRESS:

Hidden Treasures from Europe

Volume I [In Hebrew.]

By Simcha Emanuel

The discovery of the Cairo Geniza has transformed scholarly research in multiple areas of Jewish Studies and revolutionized several disciplines. It has provided the materials for thousands of studies and is by no means exhausted. Alongside the Cairo Geniza, an additional "Geniza" is slowly emerging in Europe, one that consists of many thousands of individual pages that were torn from Hebrew manuscripts hundreds of years ago and subsequently used for bookbinding and as folders for archive files. Although the first fruits of the European Geniza appeared considerably before the discovery of its Cairo counterpart, this "European Geniza" has not been at the center of scholarly interest, and relatively few scholars have made use of it. However, in recent decades thousands of new fragments have come to light, increasing the quantity previously known to us exponentially.

Hidden Treasures from Europe seeks to bring the European Geniza to the forefront of scholarly research. Chapter One is an extensive and detailed introduction to the nature of this Geniza. The heart of the book, Chapters Two through Twelve, comprises the first publication of eleven important texts found in the European Geniza that are not extant in published editions or in whole manuscripts. These were carefully chosen from among a much broader range of previously unknown texts that were preserved in the European Geniza. Half of these compositions are Bible commentaries (Section I, Chapters Two–Six), and the other half are commentaries to the Talmud (Section II, Chapters Seven–Twelve). Most were composed in France, Germany, or Italy, while the country of origin of one early work, Sefer efeî, has yet to be determined.

A couple of possibly related past posts are here and here.

Feder, "Behind the Scenes of a Priestly Polemic"

NEW ARTICLE IN THE JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES: Yitzhaq FEDER, “Behind the Scenes of a Priestly Polemic: Leviticus 14 and its Extra-Biblical Parallels.”

Abstract: This article examines the relationship between disease, pollution and sin in the Priestly writings, focusing on the rites for the purification of sara'at in Leviticus 14. In particular, it evaluates the contested question of whether this text is implicitly polemical in light of extra-biblical texts dealing with similar subject matter, especially a ritual for the treatment of skin disease from Emar. These comparisons enable a more precise characterization of the Priestly agenda reflected in Lev 14 and suggest that the traditional notion of pollution in Israel may have been deliberately reinterpreted.

There are also some interesting 2015 reviews.

Debié, L'écriture de l'histoire en syriaque

NEW BOOK FROM PEETERS PUBLISHERS (SYRIAC WATCH):

L'écriture de l'histoire en syriaque
Transmissions interculturelles et constructions identitaires entre hellénisme et islam. Avec des répertoires des textes historiographiques en annexe

Series: Late Antique History and Religion, 12

Authors: Debié M.

Year: 2015
ISBN: 978-90-429-3237-1
Pages: XXXIV-724 p.
Price: 105 EURO

Summary:
Pourquoi et comment a-t-on écrit l'histoire en syriaque entre le VIe et le XIIIe siècle? C'est à cette question qu'essaie de répondre ce livre en tentant de comprendre les enjeux de l'écriture historique qui fut florissante en syriaque, l'une des grandes langues de culture du Proche et Moyen-Orient dans l'antiquité tardive et au Moyen Âge. Pourquoi les chrétiens des empires byzantin et sassanide puis musulmans ont-ils commencé à écrire l'histoire en syriaque alors qu'ils parlaient et lisaient toujours le grec et ont-ils continué alors que l'arabe était devenu leur langue vernaculaire et culturelle? Comment ont-ils compris et interprété leur passé en reprenant aux traditions grecques, judéo-chrétiennes et mésopotamiennes pour comprendre leur propre époque? En étudiant les acteurs, les lieux et les formes de l'écriture des chroniques et des histoires ecclésiastiques, c'est aussi aux enjeux identitaires que porte la construction de l'histoire que s'intéresse cet ouvrage.

Report on Blogger Session

JAMES MCGRATH: The Final Blogger Session #AARSBL15.

I noted the session as upcoming here.

De Looijer, The Qumran Paradigm

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:

The Qumran Paradigm: Critical Evaluation of Some Foundational Hypotheses in the Construction of the Qumran Sect (Early Judaism and Its Literature) First Edition
by Gwynned de Looijer (Author)

A fundamentally revisionist approach that leaves behind the constructed social reality of a sectarian paradigm

Gwynned de Looijer reexamines the key hypotheses that have driven scholars understandings of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the archaeological site of Khirbet Qumran, and the textual descriptions of the Essenes. She demonstrates that foundational hypotheses regarding a sect at Qumran have heavily influenced the way the texts found in the surrounding caves are interpreted. De Looijer's approach abandons those assumptions to illustrate that the Dead Sea Scrolls reflect a wider range of backgrounds reflecting the many diverse forms of Judaism that existed in the Second Temple period.

Features:

• In depth analysis of 4QMMT
  
• Reevaluation of the concept of dualism as it has been applied to Qumran texts
  
• Charts and tables illustrate complex theories, concepts, and connections

Good. This sounds like something worth doing.

Centennial Yahrzeit for Schechter

SOLOMON SCHECHTER DIED ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO THIS WEEK: מאה שנים למותו של שכטר (Yakov Mayer, The Talmud Blog).

If you don't read modern Hebrew, you can get a very rough sense of the post from Google Translate here. Some past posts on Schechter and the Cairo Geniza are here, here, and here.

Curtis et al. (eds.), The Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: On Parthian and Sasanian Empires. Notice of a new book: Sarkhosh Curtis, Vesta, Elizabeth Pendleton, Michael Alram & Touraj Daryaee (eds.). 2016. The Parthian and early Sasanian Empires: Adaptation and expansion (The British Institute of Persian Studies Archaeological Monographs Series V). Oxbow Books: Oxford.

Muraoka, A Biblical Aramaic Reader

NEW BOOK FROM PEETERS PUBLISHERS (ARAMAIC WATCH):

A Biblical Aramaic Reader
With an Outline Grammar

Authors: Muraoka T.

Year: 2015
ISBN: 978-90-429-3276-0
Pages: X-83 p.
Price: 19 EURO

Summary:
This reader is for anyone very eager to read the story of Daniel in the lions' den and many other fascinating stories in their original language, Aramaic.
A brief outline of Biblical Aramaic grammar is followed by a verse-by-verse grammatical commentary on the Aramaic chapters in the books of Daniel and Ezra. Both the outline grammar and the grammatical commentary presuppose basic knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew. Constant references are made in the commentary to relevant sections of the outline grammar. The commentary is written in a user-friendly, not overtly technical language. Some grammatical exercises with keys and paradigms conclude the Reader. Also suitable for self-study.

More on that John papyrus on eBay

ETC: A New Papyrus of the Gospel of John (Tommy Wasserman). Photos and detailed technical information for those interested.

Background here.

JSQ 22.4

A NEW ISSUE OF JEWISH STUDIES QUARTERLY (22.4) HAS BEEN PUBLISHED. TOC:

The Midrash of Jesus and the Bavli's Counter-Gospel
pp. 303-324(22)
Author: Furstenberg, Yair

CThe Mother of the Seven Sons in Lamentations Rabbah and the Virgin Mary
pp. 325-351(27)
Author: Himmelfarb, Martha

From Census to Atonement: Parshat Shekalim in Pesikta de Rav Kahana and Pesikta Rabbati
pp. 352-376(25)
Author: Atzmon, Arnon

Literary Devices in the Psalms: The Commentary of Ibn Ezra Revisited
pp. 377-402(26)
Author: Seidler, Ayelet

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