Review of Rediscovering the Apocryphal Continent

CENTER FOR ANCIENT CHRISTIAN STUDIES BLOG: BOOK REVIEW: REDISCOVERING THE APOCRYPHAL CONTINENT: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON EARLY CHRISTIAN AND LATE ANTIQUE APOCRYPHAL TEXTS AND TRADITIONS (Shawn Wilhite).

In 2004 and 2006, three conferences were held in Groningen, Edinburgh, and Ottawa. Both Groningen and Edinburgh were part of the SBL International Meetings; whereas the meeting in Ottawa was a funded event. Rediscovering the Apocryphal Continent is the product of such meetings. Editors, Pierluigi Piovanelli and Tony Burke, helpfully gathered and edited such ad hoc papers from these gatherings to highlight methodological and literary studies on Christian Apocrypha (hereafter CA). Seasoned and nascent scholars convened to present a host of papers—of which, Rediscovering the Apocryphal Continent is a by-product.

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I noted the publication of the book here. As I mentioned there, I have an article in it.

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Review of new Mary Magdalene film

CINEMA: 'Mary Magdalene': Review. Rooney Mara plays a rehabilitated Mary Magdalene opposite Joaquin Phoenix as Jesus (FIONNUALA HALLIGAN, Screen Daily). Excerpt:

On viewing this clearly well-intentioned, attractive, wistful-to-the-point-of-inertia film, it’s easy enough to see why Mary Magdalene has languished: if it’s not exactly a hot-ticket for the Catholic faithful, neither is it something the arthouse might yearn to see. And if the casting of Joaquin Phoenix as Jesus seems odd, well, it is odd and hard to move past the casting as a glassy-eyed Phoenix looks to the heavens for inspiration, delivering sermons in his unmistakable American-accented voice. Rooney Mara - the palest fisherwoman the Middle East is ever likely to see - puts her all into playing Mary Magdalene as a drippy doe-eyed empath, awarded a stock-issue back-story in which her desire not to marry puts her at odds with her loving but uncomprehending family.

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Report on the Beit She'arim excavation

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST TODAY: The New Excavations of Beth She’arim (Adi Erlich).

The origin and decline of the Jewish Galilee is the subject of considerable debate. Some scholars see a period of decline in the mid-4th century CE (whether the 351 Gallus revolt or the 363 earthquake), while others maintain there was no crisis and that it continued to flourish throughout the Byzantine period. The story emerging at Beth She’arim offers a middle way; the settlement recovered for a short time, but no longer flourished after the mid-5th century, and probably was small and insignificant in the Late Byzantine period. The cemetery was probably still in use, but the town no longer existed.

But Beth She’arim also stands out in the Jewish Galilee with its large public buildings decorated with marble slabs and well-planned town, atypical for Galilean towns. The large gate we have discovered, probably the town’s main gate, is also unique in Roman Galilee, attesting to the high status of Beth She’arim. Other features are unique to Beth She’arim, such as the double cisterns and large reservoirs. The special place of Beth She’arim as a living Jewish town, the home of Rabbi Judah and the Sanhedrin, is now coming into better focus.

For past PaleoJudaica posts on Beit She'arim (Beith Shearim) see here and links.

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Pleins with Homrighausen, Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary by Conceptual Categories

RELIGION PROF: Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary by Conceptual Categories (James McGrath). Looks useful.

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Women scholars etc. - Jewish-Christian-Islamic Origins

NEW AT 4 ENOCH (THE ENOCH SEMINAR'S ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA): Category:Women Jewish-Christian-Islamic Origins -> Women.

The page: Women, includes (in chronological order) biographical information about Women Scholars, Authors, & Artists who have contributed to the study of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Origins, from the mid-15th century to the present. It also provides access to scholarly and fictional works authored by Women, by the time and by the language of their composition.

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What happened at Pentecost?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Speaking in Tongues in the Bible. What happened at Pentecost? (Megan Sauter). This essay is an introduction to Ben Witherington's 2015 BAR article, "Speaking in the Tongues of Men or Angels?" The article itself is behind the subscription wall.

Also, here's a PaleoJudaica post from some years ago which also deals with the speaking in tongues at Pentecost.

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Should Moses have shattered those tablets?

RABBI UZI WEINGARTEN: Moses Shatters the Tablets – in Anger (TheTorah.com).

The Talmud famously has God congratulating Moses for shattering the Tablets. A midrash, quoting the verse, “Anger resides in the bosom of fools” (Ecclesiastes 7:9), criticizes Moses. Tosafot take this a step further and suggests Moses had a better option.

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Purim in the Thedosian Code

SOCIETY FOR CLASSICAL STUDIES: Blog: The Jewish Holiday of Purim in the Late Roman Empire (Catherine Bonesho).

In her monthly column, Catherine Bonesho will feature discussions of Greco-Roman age Judaism, the Roman Near East, as well as the American Academy in Rome. For her first monthly column, she explores the Roman context for the Jewish holiday of Purim.

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John William Wevers LXX Prize 2018

COMPETITION: The John William Wevers Prize in Septuagint Studies (IOSCS).

The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) offers an annual prize of $350 to be awarded to an outstanding paper in the field of Septuagint studies. The prize has been named in memory of John William Wevers to honor his many contributions to Septuagint studies.

Follow the link for further particulars. The submission deadline is 15 August 2018.

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Conference on transmission of Oral Law at Bar Ilan

COMING SOON: Bar-Ilan University Talmud Conference - "Transitions": Exploring Transmission of the Oral Law from the Tannaitic Period to the Present (H-Judaic).

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Trump and Cyrus - the coin

NUMISMATICS? Israeli group mints Trump coin to honor Jerusalem recognition. Mikdash Educational Center creates 1,000 coins with US president's image alongside King Cyrus, in move likely to rile Iranians (AP/Times of Israel). Probably not only them.

Note that this is an AP story. It is also running in Newsweek and it has been around for a while. It isn't a Purim joke.

Various people have compared President Trump to Cyrus the Great at one time or another (cf., e.g., here). I haven't noted any of those stories in past posts, but I did link to a reference to Cyrus by the White House last year. See the links at that post for some reservations about invoking Cyrus in modern political contexts.

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Reviewlet of Gallagher and Meade, The Biblical Canon Lists

LARRY HURTADO: Biblical Canon Lists: A New Book. I noted the publication of the book last year here. And, by the way, it's not too late to win a free copy of the book.

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Did Purim come from an Assyrian calendrical ritual?

MORE SERIOUSLY FOR PURIM: On the Origins of Purim and Its Assyrian Name (Dr. Amitai Baruchi-Unna, The Torah.com).

In the book of Esther, the name for the holiday Purim derives from Haman’s pūr (פּוּר, “lot”) to determine what day to attack the Jews. The name Purim predates the story of Haman’s lot, and may originate in a forgotten Assyrian calendrical celebration, when the new year was named with a pūru.

Could be.

And least serious of all, TheTorah.com also provides this for Purim.

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Newly deciphered Esther scroll from Qumran! (Purim edition)

DR. RABBI ASHER TOV-LEV Newly Deciphered Qumran Scroll Revealed to Be Megillat Esther (TheTorah.com).

The discovery upends decades of research addressing the question of why the Book of Esther is missing from Qumran.

I remember Professor Frank Moore Cross once commenting that there were so many Qumran fragments that consisted of just one letter, you could reconstruct any text you wanted from them.

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Purim 2018

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

Last year's Purim post is here, with links. Posts on Purim since then are here, here, here, and here, plus more today.

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Another review of Pachoumi, The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Eleni Pachoumi, The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri. Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum, 102. Tübingen​: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Pp. xvi, 258. ISBN 9783161540189. €79.00 (pb).Reviewed by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, Bryn Mawr College (redmonds@brynmawr.edu).

Pachoumi’s study of The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri adds to the growing number of recent works that probe in detail the fascinating and mysterious collection of papyrus texts from Roman Egypt known (somewhat misleadingly) as the Greek Magical Papyri.1 Building upon a number of articles she has published in the last few years, Pachoumi assembles a set of analyses of specific spells within this collection of magical recipes that illuminate the underlying understanding of divinity within the ritual recipes. While Pachoumi claims that the overall picture reveals a basic consistency of ideas across the corpus, it is the rich diversity of concepts of the divine that emerges from her analysis that makes the study appealing. In the chapters of the book, Pachoumi analyzes three kinds of characterizations of divine figures within the Greek Magical Papyri: the personal daimon, the paredros divinity, and the assimilations of deities with one another. The book concludes with a wealth of appendices, indices, and bibliography, and Pachoumi provides an introductory treatment of the corpus of the Greek Magical Papyri and the study’s approach to the concepts of the divine within the syncretic context of magical ritual practice. ...

I noted the publication of the book here and another review of it here.

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Interview with Eilat Mazar

ARCHAEOLOGY: OPHEL EXCAVATION DIRECTOR DISCUSSES BIBLICAL DISCOVERIES, TEMPLE MOUNT. “The Ophel was built by King Solomon in the 10th century, and it was the biblical equivalent of an acropolis in Jerusalem where royalty ruled from” (Daniel K. Eisenbud, Jerusalem Post).

Days after announcing the discovery of what may be a seal impression from Prophet Isaiah unearthed at the foot of the Temple Mount, the archeologist in charge of the Ophel excavations discussed her find, as well as the politics that surround her field in Jerusalem.

Dr. Eilat Mazar, a senior researcher from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s department of archeology, has been involved in the Ophel excavations since 1981, where she initially worked under the supervision of her grandfather, former Hebrew University president Dr. Benjamin Mazar.

[...]

Past posts on the bulla of (possibly the prophet) Isaiah are here and links. For earlier posts on discoveries at the Ophel excavation, see the links here.

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The Talmud on assimilation

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: On the Perils of Assimilation. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study, patrolling the boundaries between Jewish and pagan society.

As a result, Tracate Avoda Zara is really less about idol-worship than it is about how Jews should relate to pagans in general. Idol-worship is one of the worst sins in Judaism, but in this section of the Talmud, the rabbis don’t seem much disturbed by the possibility that a Jew might be tempted to commit it. Rather, they are concerned with patrolling the boundaries between Jewish and pagan society, using idol-worship as a kind of all-purpose excuse to enforce Jewish self-segregation. At moments, however, the excuse wears thin and the rabbis’ real concerns can be glimpsed: not just idol-worship, but what we now call “assimilation,” the possibility that a Jew would become so well-integrated into gentile society that he would stop being Jewish.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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Medieval St. Nicholas ring found in Galilean garden

DISCOVERY: Israeli Gardener Born on Christmas Day Finds 700-year-old Ring With Image of St. Nicholas. Artifact may date from after the Crusader period and could have been worn by a pilgrim hoping for the saint’s protection during a quest to the Holy Land (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

A gardener weeding a lot in northern Israel has found a bronze ring from the Middle Ages bearing the image of St. Nicholas, the bishop of ancient Myra, Turkey, and the inspiration behind the tradition of Santa Claus. Nothing quite like it has been found in Israel before.

In one of those bizarre coincidences, the finder, Dekel Ben Shitrit, 26, was born on Christmas Day. His girlfriend’s name is Nicole, he adds.

[...]

Naturally he posted a photo on Facebook.

This is the most comprehensive article on this story, but it is a premium piece in Haaretz, so when you get to it it may not be available anymore. But here are a couple more articles.

Galilee gardener digs up medieval ring bearing smiling St. Nicholas. 700-year-old bronze band is emblazoned with image of patron saint of pilgrims, whose reputation for gift-giving turned him into Santa Claus in Christian West (SUE SURKES, Times of Israel)

Found: A 700-Year-Old Ring Adorned with St. Nicholas. It was probably lost by a medieval pilgrim on his way to the Holy Land (Vittoria Traverso, Atlas Obscura)

I know this ring isn't ancient, but it's old and very cool.

Some past posts on St. Nicholas are collected here.

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New stretch of ancient incense route found in Negeb

NABATEAN (NABATAEAN) WATCH: Previously Unknown Stretch of 2,500-year-old Incense Route Found in Israel's Negev Desert. The path of the overland trading route from southern Arabia to Gaza was known to researchers, but they thought this 7-kilometer stretch lay elsewhere (Nir Hasson and Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

A section of the ancient Incense Route, stretching seven kilometers and marked with weather-beaten Roman-era milestones, has been discovered in the barren heart of Israel’s Negev desert.

The path of the trading route has been known all along, mainly from remnants rather than well-preserved tracks and signage. The exception was the section in the Negev – it was assumed that it had been destroyed by modern development. It turns out this was not the case. Surveyors now realize they had been looking for it in the wrong place.

[...]

The overland Incense Route was plied by the Nabateans, who were initially disorganized nomadic tribes roaming northern Arabia and the southern Levant and later became a slightly more organized kingdom, which never had clear boundaries.

From around the 3rd century B.C.E. to the 2nd century C.E., Nabatean traders, often on camels, transported incense from Arabia to the Mediterranean Sea coast, and returned with other merchandise.

[...]

Some past PaleoJudaica posts on the Nabatean incense route are here, here, here, and here.

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BHD on the Golb case

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: SCOTUS Declines Dead Sea Scroll Case. Is the son of a University of Chicago professor off to jail for impersonating Dead Sea Scroll scholars?

Background here and many links.

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BHD on the Isaiah bulla

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Isaiah’s Signature Uncovered in Jerusalem. Evidence of the Prophet Isaiah? (Megan Sauter).

Excavations in Jerusalem have unearthed what may be the first extra-Biblical evidence of the prophet Isaiah. Just south of the Temple Mount, in the Ophel excavations, archaeologist Eilat Mazar and her team have discovered a small seal impression that reads “[belonging] to Isaiah nvy.” The upper portion of the impression is missing, and its left side is damaged. Reconstructing a few Hebrew letters in this damaged area would cause the impression to read, “[belonging] to Isaiah the prophet.”

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Maybe. This essay is a good quick summary of a Biblical Archaeology Review article that, unusually, is available in full online for free (here). But do also read the additional discussion here and links. So far epigraphers are not convinced that the Isaiah of the seal is the same as Isaiah the prophet, although most do not rule it out either.

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Briant, From Cyrus to Seleukos

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: From Cyrus to Seleukos: Studies in Achaemenid and Hellenistic History. Notice of a new book: Briant, Pierre. 2018. From Cyrus to Seleukos: Studies in Achaemenid and Hellenistic History (Ancient Iran Series). UCI Jordan Center for Persian Studies.

Follow the link for TOC etc.

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Review of Roberts, Hannibal's Road

BOOK REVIEW: Hannibal's Road: The Second Punic War in Italy 213-203 BC, by Mike Roberts (A. A. Nofi, The Strategy Page).

Barnsley, Eng.: Pen & Sword / Philadelphia: Casemate Publishers, 2017. Pp. xxvi, 262. Illus., maps, notes, bibio., index. $39.95. ISBN: 1473855950.

Hannibal’s Italian Campaign

One would think that the Hannibalic or Second Punic War (218-201 BC) had been well covered, but in this book Roberts, who has written on Alexander’s “Successors”, the Hellenistic age, and other subjects in Classical Antiquity, shows that operations in Italy from 216 BC – not, as the title indicates 213 – onwards have been largely over-looked, but demonstrate the Carthaginian’s remarkable abilities and help explain his ultimate failure.

[...]

Cross-file under Punic Watch.

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Bloggers on the Isaiah Bulla

THE ISAIAH BULLA has gone under the scrutiny of Hebraist and epigrapher bloggers since the announcement of its discovery last week. Here are some recent blog posts on it.

ROLLSTON EPIGRAPHY: The Isaiah Bulla from Jerusalem: 2.0 (Christopher Rollston)

In any case, within this post, I wish to emphasize certain things that I mentioned in the previous post and also especially to flesh out some of the possibilities for the second word, that is, word, or word fragment, that is present on the third register: nun, bet, yod. As with my previous post, this will be done in brief. I will publish a full journal article on this bulla at a later date in the near future. In any case, my view is that this second word could be a patronymic (in which case this bulla is certainly not Isaiah the Prophet’s as his father was Amoz), a title, or a gentilic.

WITH MEAGRE POWERS: Have we found the seal of the prophet Isaiah? (George Athas)

t’s possible, and certainly plausible that this is Isaiah’s seal. But I don’t think it’s probable. I think it’s the second most likely explanation. I believe in this case we simply have the seal of another, less historically illustrious Isaiah, who was the son of Nabiah.

REMNANT OF GIANTS: Why “Isaiah” of the Isaiah Bulla is not the Prophet Isaiah (Deane Galbraith)

Therefore, given the evidence of Bulla #693, the better conclusion is that the ‘Isaiah’ of the Isaiah bulla is “Isaiah [son of] Nobai”, possibly a brother of “‘Oreb [son of] Nobai”, and not “Isaiah the prophet”.

I think two points from these posts are especially worth underlining. First, none of the above sees a compelling case for this seal being the signature of Isaiah the son of Amoz, the eighth-century Judean prophet. At best this is a possibility. And all three bloggers see pretty much the same problems with the identification.

Second, Dr. Galbraith's (unprovenanced) Bulla #693 appears to provide us with a contemporary son of NBY whose signature may have iconographic connections with the seal of Isaiah. If Deane's conclusions are upheld, it become much more likely that our Isaiah is a relative of the owner of the Oreb seal and had nothing to do with the prophet.

Interesting times. Watch this space.

Background here and here.

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Who was Hannibal?

PUNIC WATCH: THE ELEPHANT HAN Who was Hannibal, when did he cross the Alps with his elephant army and where was Carthage? He is seen as one of the greatest commanders in military history and famously marched across the Alps and into Italy (David Hughes, The Sun). This isn't the Sun's usual fare. But for some reason they have taken an interest in Hannibal Barca. The wordplay in the headline is commmendably dreadful.

There are many past posts on Hannibal in PaleoJudaica's archives.

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That first-century Mark manuscript again

THE ETC BLOG: Gary Habermas on First-Century Mark (Peter Gurry). I agree with Professor Gurry that the proposed date range is too narrow to be credible. If the claim was that the manuscript had been paleographically dated to, say, 50-150 CE, I would take it more seriously. And more seriously still if someone would publish the manuscript.

There's nothing new here, but as long as the claim about the early date continues to be repeated, we should continue to respond to it. The fragment was supposed to have been published five years ago.

It is not promising that the dating of this Mark manuscript to 80-110 CE appears alongside that claim that the Rylands fragment of the Gospel of John (P52) dates to c. 125 CE. On that, see here, here, and here, and links.

For more on the supposedly first-century manuscript fragment of the Gospel of Mark, see here and links.

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Seleucid Bibliography 1870-2017

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Seleucid Research Bibliography, 1870-2017.

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