Who was the real Pontius Pilate?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Jesus Before Pilate: Who was the real Pontius Pilate? (Marek Dospěl). As usual, the full article on Pontius Pilate by R. Steven Notley is only available to paid subscribers to BAR. But the BHD essay has some good general information.

Some past PaleoJudaica posts on Pontius Pilate are here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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Crowdsourcing Chinese epigraphy

AN ARMY OF EPIGRAPHERS: A Chinese Museum Is Offering Big Money to Whomever Can Decode This Ancient Script. The going rate is $15,000 per character (MICHAEL WATERS, Atlas Obscura).

IT’S NOT BOUNTY HUNTING, BUT it’s close: The National Museum of Chinese Writing in Anyang, Henan Province is offering a large monetary reward to anyone who can decode a 3,000-year-old script. The writing, which dates to the ancient Shang dynasty, is one of the “earliest written records of Chin­ese civilization,” according to the South China Morning Post.

[...]

No, this has nothing to do with ancient Judaism. I mention it because its another example of a project that only became possible in the internet era, when photos of hundreds of thousands of partially deciphered inscribed objects could be made public for next to nothing.

PaleoJudaica has been following the similar Ancient Lives Project, in which an army of papyrologists is working on deciphering the many thousands of fragmentary Oxyrhynchus papyri. Only in this case they are doing it for free. For background, start here and follow the links. Cross-file under Technology Watch.

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

Böhm, Die Rezeption der Psalmen ...

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: CHRISTIANE BÖHM. Die Rezeption der Psalmen in den Qumranschriften, bei Philo von Alexandrien und im Corpus Paulinum. [The Reception of the Psalms in the Qumran Cave Scrolls, Philo of Alexandria's Writings, and the Pauline Corpus.] 2017. XII, 284 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 437. 84,00 €, sewn paper, ISBN 978-3-16-154664-8.

Published in German.
In this study, Christiane Böhm examines the interpretation of the Psalms in the trio of 11QPsa, Philo's allegorical commentary and the Pauline letters, each of which constitutes paradigmatic text corpora representing the various strands of ancient Judaism, and provides a specific understanding of the Psalms.
The interpretation of the Psalms in Qumran, Philo and Paul reflect an inner-Jewish discourse on their capacity to disclose reality and their identity-imparting function in the interpretive horizon of group-specific belief systems. The three examined text corpora reveal a different view of the Psalms. It also becomes apparent how the sense potential inherent in the psalter is fully exhausted.

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Collected essays by the late Alan Segal

LARRY HURTADO: A.F. Segal: “The Other Judaisms of Late Antiquity.”

I’m very pleased to have my gift-copy of the re-publication of some key works by Alan F. Segal in one handy volume: The Other Judaisms of Late Antiquity, Second Edition, which now includes also his major essay, “Heavenly Ascent in Hellenistic Judaism, Early Christianity, and Their Environment” (which originally appeared in the series, Aufstieg und Niedergang der roemischen Welt, 1980).

[...]

Follow the link for TOC etc.

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Why did Elazar interrupt Moses?

DR. RABBI ZEV FARBER: Elazar Speaks Once in the Torah: Why Does He Interrupt Moses? (TheTorah.com).

Moses tells the soldiers returning from the Midianite war that they must purify themselves from corpse impurity. Elazar then jumps in with a unique law in Moses’ name about the need to purify metal in fire. Critical and traditional scholars alike—including the scribes of the Samaritan Pentateuch—were troubled by why Elazar and not Moses teaches this law.

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DNA analysis of manuscripts

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Goats, bookworms, a monk’s kiss: Biologists reveal the hidden history of ancient gospels (Ann Gibbons, Science Magazine). This article is about DNA analysis of medieval Gospel manuscripts, but the techology is potentially of considerable interest for ancient historians. Many medieval manuscripts contain copies of ancient texts, and the social background of the manuscripts can be important for understanding the transmission of these texts. And the technology could be applicable to some ancient manuscripts.

The article describes a non-invasive technique for gathering material from a parchment for DNA analysis. It touches on how bacteria (e.g., from sneezes - ugh!) left on the manuscript can tell about its past users. It also discusses how the remains of parasites in the bindings and the manuscripts can give all sorts of useful information about the artifact. Excerpt on some possible applications:

[Biochemist Matthew] Collins is seeking advice on what to do with any DNA his team finds and sequences. What hypotheses should they address? "We're fishing for proteins and DNA and catching a lot of stuff," Collins says. "But we scientists come up with questions humanities scholars think are dumb," such as the cause of a death already described in mortuary records. And scientists and humanities scholars have different approaches: Given the concerns about DNA contamination, scientists prefer to touch books only with gloves. But among humanities scholars, the tradition is to use bare hands to ensure that people handle the pages gently; those wearing gloves are thought be rougher.

Some scholars at the Bodleian meeting had lofty ideas—would it be possible to get DNA of famous people such as Isaac Newton, who left behind many diaries and documents? Others were more interested in the bookworms. Hedges announced that the wormholes he measured in the Gospel of Luke were 1.3 millimeters in diameter, suggesting that they were made by Anobium punctatum, a northern European beetle. That would confirm that the book was made in the United Kingdom or northern Europe, rather than in southern Europe. The DNA of bookworms "can provide clues as to when and where objects such as books originated and were transported," Hedges says.

Some medievalists are enthused about the idea that biologists might be able to aid their studies, filling in the blanks left by written records. "I look at handwriting and dialect analysis to figure out a manuscript's age—ridiculous!" laments Stinson, given the Herculean effort required to do so. Now, he says, "I could go ask a biologist."

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Conference: Being Jewish, Writing Greek

UPCOMING: Being Jewish, Writing Greek: Literary Form and Cultural Identity.

— Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge —

Wednesday 6th September–Friday 8th September 2017

Being Jewish, Writing Greek is a conference at the University of Cambridge which aims to explore the literary aspects of Jewish texts in Greek in the Hellenistic and Imperial period (ca. 3rd century B.C.E. to 3rd C.E.). We believe that a focus on literary form, in addition to content, has the potential to better our understanding of the negotiations of culture and identity articulated in these texts.

Supported by the Faculty of Classics, the School of Arts and Humanities, and the St. Thomas Aquinas Institute in Zagreb, the conference has developed out of a seminar series in Cambridge organised by Max Kramer and Max Leventhal for the 2016–17 academic year, also entitled: ‘Being Jewish, Writing Greek’. Motivated by the belief that the large body of Jewish texts in Greek are an under-valued literature, we felt that the topic deserved further exploration in a full-scale international conference.

If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us at the following address: organisers@beingjewish-writinggreek.co.uk.

Follow the link for registration information and further particulars.

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Kaden on "Law" in Pauline discourse

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Why "Law" in Pauline Discourse (David Kaden).

With this theoretical caveat, my project compares cross-cultural relations of power that cause law, or law-like practices in indigenous contexts, to surface as objects of discourse with a view to answering a fundamental question, “Why law”? I argue that this comparative grid can be applied to such disparate cultural practices as: Ilongot headhunting, court proceedings among the Talean Zapotecs in Mexico and the Dou Donggo in Indonesia, Roman legal fiction, Philo and Josephus’ descriptions of Judean laws and customs authorized by Roman legal precedent, modifications to indigenous law during the colonization of 19th century Hawaii, and Matthew and Paul’s views of Judean law. By putting all of this together, I am defamiliarizing for us as scholars Matthew and Paul on the topic of law.

Another unpublished PhD thesis written under my supervision might be of interest in this context: Kathleen Burt, “Ritual in the Damascus Document and the Gospel of Matthew” (University of St. Andrews, 2014). Dr. Burt applied Catherine Bell's typology of ritual to the Damascus Document and Matthew as a way of moving beyond discussion of "Law" in relation to ancient Judaism and the New Testament.

The above is another (presumably the last) essay in AJR's series from the SBL 2016 Pauline Epistles Review Panel. I noted earlier essays in the series here and links. The panel reviewed Matthew Thiessen’s Paul and the Gentile Problem and David Kaden’s Matthew, Paul, and the Anthropology of Law.

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The Green Collection and Classics: "Brace Yourselves"

THE ROGUE CLASSICISM BLOG: The Hobby Lobby Settlement: A Gathering Storm for Classicists? David Meadows has a meticulously documented post on the Classics-related manuscripts in the Green Collection, their importance for scholarship, the complicated background of their acquisition, and the growing difficulties with their associations. There is mention in passing of manuscripts of the New Testament and ancient Jewish works.

It's a very long post, so read (or skim) it at your leisure. For now, just two excerpts, one from near the beginning and one from the end.

But when reading about the travails of Dr Blumell, I couldn’t help but reflect on what we know about the amassing of the Green Collection from a Classics point of view. I also could not help adding to that reflection that 2017 has become the year when social media really came of age, what with a President’s tweets being actually newsworthy, and the whole news cycle becoming essentially a tool of ‘fake news’ or alternatively, confirmation bias. And so, in what follows, I hope to demonstrate how several years of antiquities acquisition by Scott Carroll merge with the spectacular announcements of a new Sappho papyrus a few years ago by Dirk Obbink, and suggest that the series of events presages potentially very difficult times for plenty of people in the Classics profession, including graduate students who were given amazing research opportunities through their (or their supervisors’) ties to the Green Scholars program.

[...]

Meanwhile, there are Classicists — undergraduates, graduates, and supervisors — dealing with these texts that clearly should have been published by now. But given the current climate created by the Hobby Lobby legal decision, it seems it is going to become even more difficult to publish anything associated with them, especially if there is no rock solid collection history for whatever is being published. And even if the collection history does appear solid (as with the Sappho papyrus … it’s about as solid as anything else coming out of Christie’s), the stories attached to the finds will inevitably be questioned (“private collector approaches noted scholar” sounds barely one step up from ‘Anonymous Swiss Collector’ no?). And how many of them might find themselves in the same position as Lincoln Blumell, being put on the defensive for being a scholar. As the meme says, “Brace Yourselves” …

Background on the Green Collection, the Museum of the Bible, and the recent Hobby Lobby settlement with the U.S. Justice Department is here and follow the many links. Past posts on the new Sappho fragments are here and here and links.

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Magdala — an ancient priestly refuge?

ARCHAEOLOGY: New finds suggest Second Temple priests who fled the Romans kept up holy rituals in the Galilee. After seven years of excavations at Magdala, four rare ritual baths and a unique carved stone point to importance of ancient fishing town to priestly class (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

The hometown of the most popular sinner of the New Testament may also have been the seat of one of the priestly families that fled Jerusalem to the Galilee after the fall of the Second Temple at the hands of the Romans.

A combination of recent findings at Magdala — home of Jesus disciple Mary Magdalene (who was recently celebrated by Catholics on her July 22 feast day) and the Jewish historian Joseph Flavius — point to a developed priestly culture with echoes of ancient Jerusalem at the site.

The question scholars are now exploring is just how much of the Temple practice the priests took along with them when they fled.

[...]

With special attention to the excavation work by archaeologist Marcela Zapata-Meza of Universidad Anáhuac México.

Past PaleoJudaica posts on the ritual baths at Magdala are here and here. A past post on the discovery of that bronze "incense" shovel is here. And for many more posts on the Magdala Stone and the site of Magdala, start here and follow those links.

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Textual Plurality conference at Metz

UPCOMING: TEXTUAL PLURALITY BEYOND THE BIBLICAL TEXTS: International Conference, Metz, October 17-19 2017.

Argument of the conference

The discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the middle of the 20th century, and of the Cairo Genizah, at the end of the 19th century, have shed new light on the question of divergent textual forms, not only for the texts that constitute the Hebrew Bible, but also for cognate ancient Jewish literature. While 19th century scholars addressed the problem of divergences between textual witnesses through the concept of an alleged Urtext, this response is no longer satisfactory. New paradigms are needed to accommodate textual plurality and textual development.

While such a problem has been mainly dedicated to the study of the history of the biblical text, the present conference aims to focus on the so-called non-biblical texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls and their development in antiquity (or on texts in the margin of the biblical canon). We are perfectly conscious that the distinction between biblical and non biblical texts is artificial in the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and that the conference will focus precisely on texts on the border of what will become the biblical canon (as Jubilee, the Temple Scrolls or the Reworked Pentateuch, etc.)

The aim of this project is to rethink the textual plurality and to theorize the phenomenon and its theological, legal, political, social and cultural implications. Papers of this conference will address the following issues: (1) divergent textual witnesses from the same linguistic tradition; (2) when divergences implicate to stop considering texts as a “copy” of another text and start to be a “new” composition; (3) the phenomenon of translation and cultural transfers it entails; (4) semantic and conceptual transformation through transition from one language to another, from one socio-cultural identity to another; (5) implications of textual variants between the different witnesses, but also with comparison to rabbinical and patristic traditions; (6) in-depth study of scribal practices, at codicological level: paratextual elements, corrections, marginal notes as witnesses of a hermeneutical process through text transmission. Obviously, the transmission of the text is intertwined with its transformation, under the impact of scribes, translators, and commentators.

Follow the link for registration information and details on the papers and participant.

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New findings from the Babylonian destructions of Jerusalem

ARCHAEOLOGY: New evidence from Babylonian destruction of the First Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.​ The findings depict the affluence and character of Jerusalem, the capital of the Judean Kingdom, and are mesmerizing proof of the city's demise at the hands of the Babylonians (IAA press release posted by IMFA).

2,500 years have passed since the destruction of the First Jewish Temple by the Babylonians and yet evidence from this time in history keep coming.

On the eve of Tish'a Beav, a day of mourning marking the destruction of both, the First Temple by the Babylonians and the Second Temple by the Romans in Jerusalem, new evidence of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians were found in the City of David.

In the excavations, conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority at the Jerusalem Walls National Park , structures dating to more than 2,600 years ago have been unearthed after they have been covered over by collapsed layers of stone. Nestled within the collapse, many findings have surfaced. These findings depict the affluence and character of Jerusalem, the capital of the Judean Kingdom, and are mesmerizing proof of the city's demise at the hands of the Babylonians.

[...]

There are some cool small finds.

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Reeves and Reed, Enoch from Antiquity to the Middle Ages

REMNANT OF GIANTS: Enoch from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Deane Galbraith notes a forthcoming book: John C. Reeves and Annette Yoshiko Reed, eds., Enoch from Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Sources From Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Volume I. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

I remember that Professor Reeves mentioned to me that he was working on this project and that he expected it to take a long time. That was over twenty years ago. It is a huge undertaking. I'm glad to see that the first volume of results is coming out soon.

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Isbell on Paul & Judaism

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION: Paul & Judaism. By Charles David Isbell, Louisiana State University, July 2017.

Further, if Paul had been a Sadducee from the beginning, his subsequent laxity with respect to rules and rituals that were precious to Pharisees makes more sense. His extremism and his arrogance in presuming that he alone knew better than the ruling authorities how the new faith should proceed also make more sense coming from an elitist. And it would offer a new wrinkle to the change of heart Paul experienced on the road to Damascus. He did not lose beliefs precious to a Pharisee, for subsequent events describe no scintilla of internal struggle over his abandonment of circumcision, kashrut, Shabbat, and torah.

I note that this essay does not interact with the vast recent (i.e., within the last decade or so) secondary literature on Paul. I am not an expert on Paul and I have no idea what a specialist in Pauline studies would make of it. I link, you decide.

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Paul and the Stegosaurus

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Pauline Paleontology (Matthew Thiessen).

A few concluding words about dinosaurs, fossil remains, and Paul’s letters. Apparently my research interests have broadened from the study of Paul and circumcision to paleontology and dinosaurs. No doubt I have my five-year-old son to thank, since he has appointed me his unpaid research assistant to aid him in his own burgeoning scholarly endeavors as a paleontologist. I have labored, though, to compare Pauline studies to paleontology because I think it beautifully illustrates the real problems we face in the interpretation of Paul’s letters. We simply have very little evidence upon which to base our work. These gaping holes in the Pauline fossil record make it difficult for us to form a consensus with regard to the entire skeleton or structure of Pauline thought: we have Lutheran camps, new perspective camps, radical new perspective camps, apocalyptic camps, and other camps unnamed or uncharted. Such disagreements are long standing and often heated because for many Pauline interpreters we are excavating no mere dinosaur, but, forgive the mixing of metaphors, a sacred cow. ...

Read on at the link for the Stegosaurus. The dinosaur metaphor gets a lot of use in this essay!

This is another essay in AJR's series from the SBL 2016 Pauline Epistles Review Panel. I noted earlier essays in the series here and links. The panel reviewed Matthew Thiessen’s Paul and the Gentile Problem and David Kaden’s Matthew, Paul, and the Anthropology of Law.

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

Ancient wine press excavated at Ramat Negev

ARCHAEOLOGY: 1,600 years ago, soldiers may have quaffed wine from this desert press. A large Byzantine-era wine press uncovered in the Negev region is only the second of its kind to be found (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

During digs near the Ramat Negev Regional Council, a team of Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists discovered a large Byzantine-era structure dating to the fourth century CE, inside of which was the remains of a wine press. The archaeological dig was continued with a team of youth from a Yerucham yeshiva, in an effort to connect the young men with with the country’s physical history.

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Daf Yomi: starting tractate Sanhedrin

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Reading Torah Against the Grain. Daf Yomi: Do Talmudic rabbis seek justification for givens by retrofitting biblical text to their needs? The case of the Sanhedrin courts.

The new tractate we began this week, Tractate Sanhedrin, focuses on the role of judges and courts in Jewish law. Fittingly, it is named after the body that held supreme judicial power in the Land of Israel during the Second Temple period and beyond. The Great Sanhedrin was a body of 71 judges sitting in Jerusalem; it appointed various Lesser Sanhedrins, made up of 23 judges, to hear cases in the towns and provinces of Judea. The Great Sanhedrin survived the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE and continued to meet in other locations until the fourth century CE.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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The Menorah exhibition and the history of Roman Jewry

VATICAN MENORAH EXHIBITION:St. Peter’s Menorah. How the Vatican warmed to Jews over the last century (Fredric Brandfon, Tablet Magazine). This article uses the current Menorah exhibition in Rome as a launching point for surveying the history of Jews in Rome since the end of the Great Revolt in CE 70. Excerpt:

Those papal processions were in turn modeled after the ancient Roman triumphs, such as the one memorialized in the Arch of Titus. In fact, upon the election of each new pope, the pontiff would march triumphantly through Rome, reiterating the Roman tradition of a triumphal procession that is depicted in the Arch. Homage was paid to the pope by a Jewish delegation carrying a Torah scroll. They would present the scroll to the pontiff, probably at the Arch. The new pope would ceremonially accept the Torah, but, at the same time, volubly reject the Jewish interpretation of it. He would then either throw the Torah to the ground or pass it unceremoniously to an underling.

The Arch would serve doubly to remind Roman Jews of their subservient status; first, as a people humbled by the Romans, and second, as a subordinated community under papal hegemony. When, in the 16th century, Jews were no longer required to present the new pope with the Torah, they instead had to lavishly decorate the pope’s processional route, including bedecking the Arch of Titus with tapestries and banners. Not surprisingly, these humiliations gave rise to a well-known Roman Jewish custom: Jews prohibited themselves from walking beneath the Arch of Titus.

That custom remained in place until Dec. 2, 1947, three days after the United Nations decision to partition Palestine and allow a Jewish state. On that day, Roman Jews and Jews from across Europe awaiting transport to Palestine gathered at the Arch. Led by Rome’s chief rabbi, David Prato, they again placed a banner on the Arch. But this time it was a blue-and-white Jewish banner with two dates: the date of the Roman destruction of the Second Temple and the date of the UN decision to partition Palestine. After the singing of Hatikvah, the assembled crowd deliberately broke with tradition and marched through the Arch from west to east toward Jerusalem, in the opposite direction of the Jews who had come to Rome as slaves of Titus in 70 CE.

For past PaleoJudaica posts on the Vatican Menorah exhibition, start here and follow the links. For past posts on ancient menorahs and representations of menorahs, start here and follow the links.

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Oy va-avoy!

YONA SABAR: Hebrew Word of the Week: oy va-avoy "oh dear; woe, alas" אוי ואבוי. An onomatopoetic expression formed from the combination of two biblical Hebrew words of lamentation.

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What is Tisha B’Av?

COMING NEXT WEEK: What is Tisha B’Av? It is one of the saddest days in the Jewish calendar, but why - and how - do we mark it? (Daniel Sugarman, The Jewish Chronicle).

Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, is a fast day, commonly known as the saddest day in the Jewish calendar.

It commemorates the destruction of both the First and Second Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, the first by the Babylonians, circa 587 BCE, and the second by the Romans in 70 CE. However, the fast has also become associated with other tragedies which have taken place over the course of Jewish history.

[...]

A good introduction to this multifaceted fast day.

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The Shikhin excavation 2017

ARCHAEOLOGY: SAMFORD EXCAVATION IN ISRAEL SHEDS LIGHT ON ANCIENT LAMP WORKSHOP (The Alabama Baptist). I have been following reports on the excavation at Shikhin for the last several years. This article has some information on the discoveries this year.

[Excavation director James Riley] Strange, [ associate director Mordechai] Aviam and a team of students and volunteers have worked on the site for six seasons. Their recent excavations in May and June uncovered part of the house and workshop of an oil lamp maker.

Although the house was typically simple — with packed earthen floors and, probably, mud plaster on the walls — it held a unique surprise. In an area thought to have been a courtyard, the team discovered a special kiln for firing oil lamps and other small vessels, with two complete, identical oil lamps and a small bowl still inside.

Many kilns from various periods have been discovered in Israel — all of them used to fire jugs, storage jars, cooking pots and other large vessels.

These usually measure more than 16 feet in diameter. The kiln in the Shikhin potter’s house, the first of its kind found in Israel, measures less than three feet in diameter, with a central pillar made of stone and brick that supported an upper floor.

There is also a little information on a coin find.

Past posts on the Shikhin excavation are here, here, here, here, and here.

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Commemorating Jonah's (traditional) Tomb in Iraq

THREE YEARS: ISIS Destroyed Jonah’s Tomb, but Not Its Message. Iraqis of Armenian, Arab, Assyrian, and Jewish descent recall what the shrine symbolized on the third anniversary of its destruction. (SARA FARHAN, ATOOR LAWANDOW, AND SIGAL SAMUEL, The Atlantic).

But the tomb was much more than a tourist destination; it was a constant, potent symbol. Overlooking the city, it reminded all Maslawis of the interconnectedness of Iraq’s diverse religious populations. It was the antithesis of sectarianism. As such, ISIS’s decision to blow it up read as an attempt to erase the shared history of the many religious populations that Mosul housed, and to erase the very notion that such populations can share anything at all. But now that Mosul has been liberated from ISIS, we—three Iraqis from different religious backgrounds—hope all our communities will have a hand in rebuilding the city and its holy sites.

I noted the destruction of the (traditional) Tomb of Jonah just after it happened here. For other past posts on the Tomb of Jonah, go here and follow the links. Past posts on the (traditional) Tomb of Nahum are here and links. And for past posts on the Yazidis, start here and follow the links.

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Jerusalem survey results

THE BIBLE PLACES BLOG: Survey Results: Favorite Site in Jerusalem (Todd Bolen). I noted the survey here last week.

I was the one who voted for the Shrine of the Book. But I thought carefully about Hezekiah's Tunnel, which got the most votes. I also thought carefully about the Dome of the Rock, which apparently didn't get any votes.

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T. Solomon: Solomon's women, plus some more demons

READING ACTS: Testament of Solomon: Several Biblical Expansions (Phil Long). Dr. Long's past posts on the Testament of Solomon were noted here.

For past posts in his ongoing series on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, follow the links in the latter post. Lately he has been writing about the Testamentary literature. Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch.

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A panel discussion on Hannibal's failure

PUNIC WATCH: Why did Hannibal ultimately fail? A history of the Punic Wars. Tommy Graham interviews an expert panel in a Talking History podcast. I don't have time to listen to it right now, but I thought I would draw it to your attention.

For many past PaleoJudaica posts on Hannibal and the Punic Wars, start here and follow the links.

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

Charity in the Rabbinic literature

PROF. GREGG E. GARDNER: How Tzedakah Became Charity (TheGemara.com).

“Tzedakah” in the sense of communal charity, civic benefaction, and an individual form of giving came into being during the tannaitic period, with the help of the Greeks and a little-known king named Munbaz.

Munbaz was a real king: Monobazus, the son of Queen Helena of Adiabene. The Kingdom of Adiabene was located at the site of Erbil in modern Iraq. Helena and her family converted to Judaism in the first century CE. The story about Munbaz in the Tosefta is presumably legendary, but it is instructive in some ways nonetheless.

For past posts on Erbil and the House of Adiabene, see here and links.

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Tamruqim

YONA SABAR: Hebrew Word of the Week: tamruqim "cosmetics, perfumes, ointments" תמרוקים. Used in the Bible of Esther's cosmetics.

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Ancient lemons and citrons

CITRUS: Sour Note: In Ancient Rome, Lemons Were Only for the Rich (Laura Geggel, Live Science). The title may seem unpromising, but this article does have an angle of interest for ancient Judaism. The citron has been important as part of the celebration of the festival of Sukkoth since antiquity. The article has images of a late-antique synagogue mosaic and some ancient Jewish coins which feature citrons.

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Seizure of Aramean land in Turkey still unresolved

ASSYRIAN (MODERN SYRIAC) WATCH: Legal Limbo of Turkey's Assyrian Christian Properties Still Unresolved (Barbara G. Baker,WorldWatch Monitor via AINA).

In less than two weeks, the Mardin Governorate had stepped back from its decision to give the Christian properties over to control of the Muslim directorate. Calling together representatives of the three Syriac foundations whose properties had been confiscated, the governorate cancelled the transfer on 3 July; but that left the disputed properties back again under treasury control.

The Mardin Governorate's original court order transferring the Syriac deeds to the Religious Affairs Directorate was dated 12 August 2014. The Syriac church had not been informed of this judicial action taken nearly three years ago.

The 3 July cancellation order specified that a legal amendment was required "for the problem's exact solution". The Syriac community agreed, with the Syriac foundation chairmen sending a formal petition that same day, requesting Ankara to take a second step: transfer the ownership of all the church property deeds currently held by the treasury over to their respective Syriac foundations.

To date, the Syriac community has received no response to their petition from Turkey's central government.

Unless Ankara agrees to return the seized properties to official church ownership and amends the law, the Syriac community is left with only one alternative: file 100 or more separate court cases to gain back their centuries-old properties, a very expensive and lengthy option that would take years to complete.

"They can give them back to us, or not; it's up to them!" one Syriac leader who wished to withhold his name told World Watch Monitor. "It's out of our hands. We can't do anything unless they reveal the realities!"

"But always," he sighed, "they are coming to us with a club! You have taken them away from us. Now are you going to give them back? Or do you just want us to leave?"

The actions of the Turkish Government could be taken to look that way. Whatever the full merits of the case, and I cannot myself claim to have complete information, the world is watching. It needs to be resolved.

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