Goodman, A History of Judaism

NEW BOOK FROM ALLEN LANE: A history of Judaism: Charting our history, texts — and disputes (Simon Rocker, The Jewish Chronicle).

In the first century BCE, the Hasmonean King of Judea, Alexander Jannaeus was conducting sacrifices in the Temple of Jerusalem during Succot.

But some of his subjects were less than convinced about his High Priestly credentials and they conveyed disapproval in a novel form of protest: they pelted him with etrogs.

Judaism has “a rich history of rifts,” observes Professor Martin Goodman in A History of Judaism, published this week. But while there may have been controversy and confrontation down the ages, that is not the central theme of his 650-page book.

“It is easy to write a story of conflicts,” says the 64-year-old president of the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, “but that would be terribly misleading”.

[...]

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

Briquel Chatonnet et Debié, Le Monde syriaque

NEW BOOK FROM LES BELLES LETTRES, PARIS:

FRANÇOISE BRIQUEL CHATONNET, MURIEL DEBIÉ
Le Monde syriaque
Sur les routes d'un christianisme ignoré

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PRÉSENTATION

Le syriaque a été une langue de culture majeure en Syrie-Mésopotamie du IIe au XIIIe siècle de l’ère chrétienne. Fruit des contacts et du métissage à la frontière des Empires romain et parthe, cette forme d’araméen n’était la langue ni d’un État ni d’un peuple particulier. Mais avec la christianisation, le syriaque a connu un développement exceptionnel. Il s’est répandu de la Méditerranée à l’Asie orientale et constitue aujourd’hui encore la langue classique, littéraire et religieuse de plusieurs Églises orientales.

Le syriaque est à côté du latin et du grec la troisième composante du christianisme ancien, ancrée dans l’hellénisme mais également descendante de l’antiquité proche-orientale et sémitique. Dès les premiers siècles, dans un mouvement symétrique à celui de la tradition chrétienne gréco-latine vers l’ouest, le christianisme syriaque s’est développé vers l’est, jusqu’en Inde et en Chine. Il a aussi été la branche du christianisme la plus en contact avec l’islam au sein duquel il a continué à vivre.

Avec plus de 100 illustrations, 11 cartes en couleurs, une chronologie et de nombreux textes des différentes époques cités en encarts, cet ouvrage sans précédent invite à la découverte de plus de 2000 ans d’histoire et de culture syriaques.

Follow the link for TOC etc. and ordering information. And some additional information is here.

Cross-file under Syriac Watch.

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

Fraade Festschrift

NEW BOOK FROM VANDENHOECK AND RUPRECHT: Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Tzvi Novick, Christine Hayes (Ed.). The Faces of Torah. Studies in the Texts and Contexts of Ancient Judaism in Honor of Steven Fraade.

1. Edition 2017
660 pages
ISBN 978-3-525-55254-4
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Journal of Ancient Judaism. Supplements. - Band 022

This volume is a festschrift in honor of Steven Fraade, the Mark Taper Professor of the History of Judaism at Yale University. The contributions to the volume, written by colleagues and former students of Professor Fraade, reflect many of his scholarly interests. The scholarly credentials of the contributors are exceedingly high. The volume is divided into three sections, one on Second Temple literature and its afterlife, a second on rabbinic literature and rabbinic history, and a third on prayer and the ancient synagogue.Contributors are Alan Applebaum, Joshua Burns , Elizabeth Shanks Alexander , Chaya Halberstam , John J. Collins, Marc Bregman, Aharon Shemesh, Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Vered Noam, Robert Brody, Albert Baumgarten, Marc Hirshman, Moshe Bar-Asher, Aaron Amit, Yose Yahalom, Lee Levine, Jan Joosten, Daniel Boyarin, Charlotte Hempel, David Stern, Beth Berkowitz, Azzan Yadin, Joshua Levinson, Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal, Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Tzvi Novick, Devora Diamant, Richard Kalmin, Carol Bakhos, Judith Hauptman, Jeff Rubenstein, Martha Himmelfarb, Stuart Miller, Esther Chazon, James Kugel, Chaim Milikowsky, Maren Niehoff, Peter Schaefer, and Adiel Schremer.

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

Profile of a Phoenician scholar

PHOENICIAN WATCH: Ancient histories and new arrivals (Caroline Maas, Wofford Old Gold and Black).

Dr. Helen Dixon is one of around five Ancient Phoenician scholars in America. She is also the newest addition to Wofford’s religion department.

[...]

Dr. Dixon's Academia.edu page is here.

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Bauckham book and book-launch lecture

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: RICHARD BAUCKHAM, The Christian World Around the New Testament Collected Essays II. [Die Christliche Welt und das Neue Testament. Gesammelte Aufsätze II.] 2017. X, 757 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 386, 259,00 €, cloth, ISBN 978-3-16-153305-1.

Published in English.
Most of these thirty-one essays by Richard Bauckham, a well-known New Testament scholar, were first published between 1979 and 2015 in journals and multi-authored volumes. Two are previously unpublished and one has not been published in English before. They range widely over early Christianity and early Christian literature in both the New Testament period and the early patristic period, reflecting the author's conviction that the historical study of early Christianity should not isolate the New Testament literature from other early Christian sources, such as the apostolic fathers and the Christian apocryphal literature. Some of the essays develop further the themes of the author's books on aspects of the Gospels, such as the intended audiences of the Gospels, the way in which Gospel traditions were transmitted, the role of the eyewitnesses in the origins of the Gospels, the importance of Papias's evidence about Gospel traditions, and the relationship between canonical and Gnostic Gospels. Some of the essays relate to important persons, such as Peter, Barnabas, Paul and James. These include a full investigation of the evidence for the martyrdom of Peter and an attempt to locate the estate of Publius where Paul stayed on Malta. There are studies of the Sabbath and the Lord's Day in both the New Testament and patristic periods. There are studies that survey most of the main categories of apocryphal Christian literature, including apocryphal Gospels and Acts, and with a special focus on the non-canonical apocalypses, such as the Apocalypse of Peter and the Latin Vision of Ezra.

It happens that Professor Bauckham retired from his position at the University of St. Andrews ten years ago this week. And he is back in St. Andrews today. This afternoon he is giving a lecture on "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses Ten Years Later." This is to launch the new edition of his book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, which was also originally published ten years ago. I'm looking forward very much to his lecture.

UPDATE: Oh, yes, I also meant to link to this description of Richard's forthcoming book on Magdala.

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

Nahash the Ammonite in the DSS

TEXTUAL VARIANT: The Most Important Dead Sea Text: A Lost Paragraph From the Book of Samuel (Mitchell First, Jewish Link of New Jersey).

I wouldn't necessarily consider this fragment the most important Dead Sea text, but it is an interesting one. Most scholars seem to regard it as more original that what we have in the Masoretic Text. I did once hear a paper arguing that it is secondary, but I don't know whether that was ever published.

Last year I noted another essay by Mr. First in which he mentioned this fragment, but this essay goes into more detail.

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Isaac’s Divine Conception?

DR. RABBI SAMUEL Z. GLASER: Isaac’s Divine Conception? (TheTorah.com).

“The Lord visited Sarah” (Gen 21:1) – When God (and his angels) appears to Abraham to announce the birth of Isaac, the text implies a hidden visit to Sarah. Does this mean, as both Philo and Paul claim, that Isaac was born from a divine conception?

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Dever, Beyond the Texts

THE ASOR BLOG: Beyond the Texts: An Archaeological Portrait of Ancient Israel and Judah. William Dever introduces his new book of the same title.

Countless books have been written about ancient Israel. But this work is the first mainstream history of ancient Israel to be published in English in 40 years. It also differs from previous scholarship by attempting to prove an alternative, archaeological based history, or as the title has it, a “portrait.” I am a veteran of more than 50 years of fieldwork and research in the archaeology of Israel, with hundreds of publications. Even so, I believe that a portrait is the best that I, or anyone, can offer.

The distinguishing feature of this book is the employment of a rich array of archaeological data on ancient Israel and her neighbors as the primary evidence for illustrating the origins, the settlement horizon, and the monarchy, ca. 1300-586 BCE. In each chapter the biblical texts are brought into the picture only secondarily, and then only to compare and contrast their idealistic narratives with the “real-life” portrait that archaeology now provides.

[...]

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

Rollston again on the Jerusalem Papyrus

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: The King of Judah, Jars of Wine, and the City of Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Papyrus and the forged words on it (Christopher Rollston).

Ultimately, the case against the Jerusalem Papyrus is pretty strong. To be sure, there are, and will continue to be, people who believe that it’s ancient. But for my money, I think that it’s of recent vintage. And the modern forger is pretty good at his craft, but not perfect. And, as I mentioned, I suspect that the forger of this inscription is studying up on construct forms right now.

If Professor Rollston thinks the Jerusalem Papyrus is a forgery, that possibility needs to be taken very seriously. For concerns he raised about it last year, see here and here.

For past PaleoJudaica posts on the Jerusalem Papyrus, see here and here and links.

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

Orlov, "The Greatest Mirror," now out

NEW BOOK FROM SUNY PRESS:

The Greatest Mirror
Heavenly Counterparts in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha

Andrei A. Orlov - Author
Price: $95.00
Hardcover - 318 pages
Release Date: November 2017
ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-1-4384-6691-0

Summary

A wide-ranging analysis of heavenly twin imagery in early Jewish extrabiblical texts.

The idea of a heavenly double—an angelic twin of an earthbound human—can be found in Christian, Manichaean, Islamic, and Kabbalistic traditions. Scholars have long traced the lineage of these ideas to Greco-Roman and Iranian sources. In The Greatest Mirror, Andrei A. Orlov shows that heavenly twin imagery drew in large part from early Jewish writings. The Jewish pseudepigrapha—books from the Second Temple period that were attributed to biblical figures but excluded from the Hebrew Bible—contain accounts of heavenly twins in the form of spirits, images, faces, children, mirrors, and angels of the Presence. Orlov provides a comprehensive analysis of these traditions in their full historical and interpretive complexity. He focuses on heavenly alter egos of Enoch, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, and Aseneth in often neglected books, including Animal Apocalypse, Book of the Watchers, 2 Enoch, Ladder of Jacob, and Joseph and Aseneth, some of which are preserved solely in the Slavonic language.

Follow the link for ordering information, TOC, and further particulars.

I noted the book as forthcoming back in February. Follow the links there for related posts.

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

Biblical Studies Carnival 10/17

THE BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL FOR OCTOBER 2017 has been posted by Doug Chaplin. PaleoJudaica is well represented this month.

I should mention that October's most popular PaleoJudaica post (by far) is not included. That one was Metal codices seized in Turkey on 6 October. So far it has received over 1000 individual views.

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

The Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge

IN THE MAIL:

The Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge (Crossway, 2017)

The publishers have kindly sent me a complimentary, advance copy. The publication date is 15 November 2017. For more on the volume, see the The Greek New Testament, Produced at Tyndale House, Cambridge Blog.

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

Schiffman on the DSS at 70

ANNIVERSARY ARTICLE: SEVENTY YEARS OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956. After an initial flurry of excitement, the scrolls went into a period of quiet withdrawal (Lawrence Schiffman, Jerusalem Post).

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956. After an initial flurry of excitement, the scrolls went into a period of quiet withdrawal. When I entered the field in the 1960s, only a few of the scrolls had been published. Those were the ones that were preserved in the Israel Museum that, in 1965, built a home for them known as the Shrine of the Book. A small number of the many texts discovered in the early 1950s while the West Bank was under Jordanian administration had also subsequently appeared. I was fascinated by the study of the scrolls, a then little-known and under-appreciated group of documents.

Since then, everything has changed. The full corpus of materials found at Qumran has been released. Anyone can consult the full set of volumes, with English translations, or get digital images online of all the scrolls. If you want to see the scrolls in person without traveling to Israel, look out for an exhibit coming soon to your neighborhood. The enormous number of visitors to these exhibits throughout the world and the tremendous public interest testify to the way in which the Dead Sea Scrolls have become part of our public culture.

[...]

This long article is a good summary of the history of the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls up to their full public release in 1991. It also gives a good overview of the current scholarly understanding of them. My one criticism is that the mention of John Strugnell's infamous Haaretz interview in 1990 should have added that he suffered from bipolar disorder and that he gave the interview during a manic episode. I have commented at greater length here.

Some other PaleoJudaica posts possibly relevant to the article are collected here. A couple of other recent articles on the Dead Sea Scrolls at 70 were noted here and here.

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

Pregnant woman's body excavated at Timna

ARCHAEOLOGY: Archaeologists Startled to Find Remains of Pregnant Woman Buried in King Solomon’s Mines. Women hadn't been expected to make the arduous trek to the copper mine in the heart of the desert, but this one did, and she must have been important (Ariel David, Haaretz).

This story is a little early for PaleoJudaica, but I've been keeping a close eye on the Timna Valley excavation, for reasons explained here and links.

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

The Akeda: history of interpretation

DR. DEVORAH SCHOENFELD: Akedah: How Jews and Christians Explained Abraham’s Faith (TheTorah.com).

God promised Abraham that Isaac would be his heir, yet God asked Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. What did Abraham believe that allowed him to reconcile this divine contradiction?

A nice overview of the pre-critical history of interpretation of one of the most theologically difficult passages in the Bible.

A couple of past PaleoJudaica posts on the Aqedah are here and here.

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

An ancient Jewish art cabaret. Really.

PERFORMANCE ART (OR SOMETHING): LABA At The 14th Street Y presents DRUNK, A Night Of Art, Drinking, And Torah, 11/18 (Broadway World News Desk).

LABA, the international incubator of Jewish art and culture, presents DRUNK, its annual wine-soaked celebration of new art inspired by ancient texts. The evening will feature readings and performances by LABA fellows and a five-course wine tasting. DRUNK is a unique way to experience Jewish culture - and did we mention wine? - in a cabaret setting.

[...]

I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't April 1st, but no, this appears to be a real thing. I hope they have a good time. Cross-file under Can't Make It Up.

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

The Talmud and heresy

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: The Talmud and the Thought Police. ‘Daf Yomi’: Do heretical Jewish thinkers have a say in the World to Come?

Still, the Mishna in Sanhedrin 90a makes clear that there are a handful of crimes so terrible that they can cause a person to forfeit his share in the World to Come. Significantly, these are not crimes against fellow human beings or infractions of Torah law; rather, they are what George Orwell called thought-crimes. Specifically, they involve dissent from what the rabbis regarded as the core doctrines of Judaism: “And these have no share in the World To Come: One who says, There is no resurrection of the dead derived from the Torah, and one who says, the Torah is not from Heaven, and an epikoros.” An epikoros is a mocker of religion, someone who denies honor to God and to the rabbis, God’s representatives. It’s not clear whether the truly culpable thing here is holding these heretical opinions or “saying” them aloud, trying win adherents for them. But in any case, the rabbis make clear that a person who believes these things is in some essential way not a Jew.

Incidentally, the debate about whether the doctrine of resurrection is found in the Torah (it isn't, although there have been many efforts to read it in) also comes up implicitly in a discussion between Jesus and the Sadducees in Mark 12:18-27 and parallels.

Also, as this essay goes on to note, Rabbi Akiva is reported to have classed reading "external literature," that is biblical apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, as heretical.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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

The origins of BAR

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: (Hershel Shanks).

In 1972 Hershel Shanks took a sabbatical from his legal practice in Washington, D.C. He and his family went to Jerusalem for a year. Once there, the Shanks family became part of a network of friends and colleagues who comprised some of the archaeological luminaries in the Holy Land at the time. That year proved to be the catalyst for the creation of the Biblical Archaeology Society (BAS) and its flagship publication, Biblical Archaeology Review. Hershel reflects below on the birth, evolution and legacy of BAR.

[...]

This is an old essay: I linked to it back in 2009. But it seems worth reviving now as Hershel Shanks steps down as editor of Biblical Archaeology Review and Robert Cargill takes up the mantle.

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

Gallagher and Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity

NEW BOOK FROM OUP: New Book: The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity (John Meade , ETC Blog).

Our purpose for writing The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis is to return this evidence set to the prominence we believe it deserves in the conversation so that readers can rediscover its significance for the formation of the canon. To that end, after a substantial opening chapter in which we survey the early history (through 400 CE) of the canons of the Old and New Testament, we present the early canon lists in the original language (Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Syriac) with a parallel English translation, notes, and further commentary. The lists of Athanasius, Jerome, Eusebius, Baba Batra (yes, we include the Jewish lists of Josephus, more of a discussion than a list, and Baba Batra) et al. are all finally available in one volume. We also include a chapter on select manuscripts of the first millennium. The book concludes with a major Appendix summarizing the evidence of reception for the more popular Antilegomena and Apocrypha.

I cited some of these canon lists in an old Wish List of Lost Books.

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Review of Jenkins, Crucible of Faith

BOOK REVIEW: 'Crucible of Faith: The Ancient Revolution that Made Our Modern Religious World': the making of the modern religious mind. A religious historian explores ancient non-canonical texts (REBECCA DENOVA, Pittsburg Post-Gazette).

A recent spate of scholarly texts explores both the Jewish and Greco-Roman context of early Christianity. While many of them focus on the internal debates within the communities (orthodoxy vs. heresy), Philip Jenkins, author of “Crucible of Faith: The Ancient Revolution That Made Our Modern Religious World” (Basic Books, $30), takes us back to what he terms an earlier, “crucible” era that actually created much of the template for our modern Western religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

[...]

Past PaleoJudaica posts on the book are here and here.

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

Provenance evidence for those dubious DSS fragments

THE LYING PEN OF SCRIBES BLOG: “American Priest, later serving in Switzerland”: On Provenance (Årstein Justnes and Ludvik A. Kjeldsberg).

Most of the post-2002 Dead Sea Scrolls-like fragments come with stories. The following list presents information that we have been able to gather about their alleged provenance.

It seems that PaleoJudaica is a source of information for one of them.

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

That eclipse and Joshua again

ASTRONOMICAL PHENOMENA: Biblical Record of Eclipse 3,200 Years Ago May Rewrite Pharaonic Era in Ancient Egypt. Joshua said the sun and moon stood still: Now archaeologists think he recorded an annular eclipse in 1207 B.C.E. (By Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

I note this story because it's cool that astronomers can date an ancient eclipse so exactly that we can celebrate its 3200-year anniversary today. But for reasons I have explained here and links, I do not think that a credible case has been made that Joshua's stopped sun and moon were an eclipse.

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

Coptic metal icon seized in Egyptian airport

APPREHENDED: Hurghada airport officials foil attempt to smuggle 18th-century Coptic icon. The antique religious object was seized at Hurghada International airport as a passenger attempted to smuggle it to Germany (Nevine El-Aref, ahramonline).

This story caught my eye because this triptych icon has images and (Coptic) writing on it and is made of metal — copper, but it looks like gold in the photos.

Someone tried to smuggle it out of Egypt. I wonder if the recent recovery of smuggled metal codices in Turkey has any connection. There is certainly an antiquities market for metal books.

This object has no direct connection with the metal codices and the similarities are superficial. But I thought the incident worth flagging anyway.

Cross-file under Coptic Watch.

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

Honor Frost

ARCHAEOLOGICAL PIONEER: Honor Frost: a legacy in the field of underwater archaeology (Fabian Mangion, Times of Malta).

Honor Frost’s death on September 12, 2010, brought an end to an era. She represented the heroic period of aqualung diving and was the first person to marry it to archaeology – a double pioneer. She was also the first to promote underwater archaeology as a serious discipline and to introduce it to the world.

Frost saw aqualung-diving and the archaeological method as a necessary balance and was fond of quoting “si le plongeur savait – si l’archeologue pouvait…” (if the diver knew – if the archaeologist could) and in herself combined the two in style.

[...]

She did underwater archaeology in many places, including Tyre and Sidon. She excavated a Punic shipwreck off the coast of Sicily. She also worked with Kathleen Kenyon at the ground excavation at Jericho. Saturday was the centenary of her birth.

Cross-file under Phoenician Watch and Punic Watch.

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

Shelling near the (traditional) Tomb of Nahum

MORE FIGHTING: ANCIENT TOMB OF JEWISH PROPHET 'IN DANGER' AMID IRAQ-KURDISH TENSIONS. The origin of the tomb is often said to date back 2,700 years (Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post).

The tomb of the Prophet Nahum, which overlooks the Nineveh plains in northern Iraq, is now near the forefront of tensions between the Iraqi federal government and Kurdistan Regional Government.

Since last week Iraqi forces, including Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias, have been fighting with Peshmerga in an attempt by Baghdad to push Kurdish forces out of disputed areas and take oil fields and strategic border areas from the Kurds. Although a cease-fire took effect on Friday, tensions remain high.

Shelling in a Christian town near the Jewish tomb is the latest in years of turmoil that have affected the site.

The tomb is in the ancient Christian town of Al-Qosh, inside a complex that also served as a synagogue and has partly collapsed over the years. The Jewish community of this area of northern Iraq and Kurdistan left in the 1940s and 1950s.

[...]

I am sorry to hear that, even with ISIS now in retreat, there is still fighting in the region.

Background on the (traditional) Tomb of Nahum and its precarious situation is here and links

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

Stone, Secret Groups in Ancient Judaism

NEW BOOK FROM OUP: Secret Groups in Ancient Judaism.

Were there groups in Ancient Judaism that cultivated esoteric knowledge and transmitted it secretly? With the discovery and burgeoning study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and particularly of the documents legislating the social structure of the Qumran group, the foremost paradigm for analysis of the group's social structure has become the "sect." This is still dominant, having replacing the monastic paradigm used by some of the earliest scholars of the Scrolls.

But after studying what has been written on secret societies more generally, Michael Stone has concluded that many known ancient Jewish groups-the Qumran covenanters, Josephus's and Philo's Essenes, and Philo's Therapeutae-should be viewed as societies at the heart of whose existence were esoteric knowledge and practice. Guarding and transmitting this esoteric knowledge and practice, Stone argues, provided the dynamic that motivated the social and conceptual structure of these groups. Analyzing them as secret societies, he says, enables us to see previously latent social structural dimensions, and provides many new enriching insights into the groups, including the Dead Sea covenanters.

By examining historical and literary sources, Stone uncovers evidence for the existence of other secret groups in ancient Jewish society. This line of study leads Stone not only to consider the "classical" Jewish apocalypses as pseudo-esoteric, but also to discern in them the footsteps of hidden, truly esoteric traditions cultivated in the circles that produced the apocalypses. This discovery has significant implications, especially considering the enormous growth of study of the apocalyptic in the Judaism of the Second Temple period and in nascent Christianity over the last seventy years.

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

Review of Fritze, Egyptomania

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Ronald H. Fritze, Egyptomania: A History of Fascination, Obsession and Fantasy. London: Reaktion Books, 2016. Pp. 444. ISBN 9781780236391. $35.00. Reviewed by Maya Muratov, Adelphi University (mmuratov@adelphi.edu).

Ronald Fritze’s book joins a plethora of publications dedicated to the fascination with ancient Egypt, which fall under the wide term Egyptomania.1 The book is substantial in size and broad in scope. It is apparent that the author is much more at ease with the texts, hence the book’s emphasis on literary sources, and not on the (equally) rich visual and material culture of Egyptomania, the focus of the majority of works on the subject. Therefore it is not surprising that the illustrations are few and their selection at times seems random.

In the introduction, the author underscores the difference between Egyptomania and Egyptology2—and it is important to realize that this book deals with the former. Egyptomania is a social phenomenon that has very little to do with actual Egypt and more often than not belongs to the realm of popular culture; it is related to Egyptology only inasmuch as when new and fascinating finds or scholarly discoveries stir up the popular imagination. This particular focus on misunderstandings and misrepresentations of Egypt and its culture is undoubtedly related to Fritze’s interest in the history of pseudo-science, the subject of his earlier publication.3

The book consists of 12 chapters arranged in two parts. Part one “Egyptomania through the Ages,” comprises eight chapters, arranged in chronological order. It begins with a chapter on “The Real Egypt,” which covers the basics —geography and the environment — followed by a brief overview of Egyptian history. Chapter Two, “Ancient Egyptomania: Hebrews, Pharaohs and Plagues,” treats the Hebrew accounts of ancient Egypt, from the earliest biblical reference in Genesis through the works of Josephus.

[...]

And so on.

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

Review of Vance, Athas, and Avrahami (eds.), Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: A Reader’s Edition

THE JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL STUDIES: REVIEW OF BIBLIA HEBRAICA STUTTGARTENSIA: A READER’S EDITION EDITED BY VANCE, ATHAS, AND AVRAHAMI (David M. Smiley).

Overall, I believe that this should be the standard HB that instructors use in an intermediate Hebrew course. The information given can be understood by anyone who has had two semesters of Hebrew, and it is nearly perfect for sight reading and translating. Unlike most electronic software, this book does not enable habits that undermine the learning process. This does not, however, mean that one will lose time translating in comparison to software, especially once the parsing system is mastered. Any student of the HB will want this book on his/her shelf.

The Biblical Aramaic reader mentioned in the review was noted here.

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