On Weitzman, The Origin of the Jews

REVIEW AND INTERVIEW: To dig up genesis of the Jewish people, a scholar goes back to the sources. National Jewish Book Award winner Steven Weitzman's 'The Origin of the Jews' is an odyssey into a nation's most basic need: To understand where it comes from (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

It was time to get to the root of the matter. Faced with conflicting narratives and dueling creation stories for the Jewish people, Prof. Steven Weitzman began an academic odyssey, going back to beyond the start of the Bible, to explore the Jews’ actual genesis.

The twists and turns found in Weitzman’s “The Origin of the Jews: The Quest for Roots in a Rootless Age” at once entertainingly educate — and shake up centuries of charged beliefs and scholarship.

With dense, informative chapters, Weitzman takes a multi-disciplinary approach in his quest, delving into genealogy, linguistics, archaeology, psychology, sociology and genetics. In eight chapters, he deftly gives a wide-ranging overview of both traditional and irreverent thinking on the origins of the Jews.

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The article also includes a long interview with Professor Weitzman. And this is worth noting and worth congratulations:

The synthesis of academia and the personal has proven successful: On March 6, Weitzman, the University of Pennsylvania’s director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, was honored by the Jewish Book Council as its winner in the category of Jewish Education and Identity.

This is not the first award the book has received. Background here and links.

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Language enrollments drop in USA

THE DOWNWARD SLIDE CONTINUES: Foreign Language Enrollments Drop Sharply. From 2013 to 2016, enrollments fell 9.2 percent. Declines include Spanish, still the most commonly taught language (Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed). Ancient Greek and biblical Hebrew have now slipped behind Korean. Latin is the only ancient language still in the top ten (9th place).

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Frey et al. (eds.), Dualismus, Dämonologie und diabolische Figuren (forthcoming)

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Dualismus, Dämonologie und diabolische Figuren. Religionshistorische Beobachtungen und theologische Reflexionen. Hrsg. v. Jörg Frey u. Enno Edzard Popkes unter Mitarb. v. Stefanie Christine Hertel-Holst. 2018. Ca. 530 Seiten. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. ca. 90,00. ISBN 978-3-16-155811-5.

[Dualism, Demonology and Devilish Figures. Observations from the History of Religion and Theological Reflections.]
2018. Approx. 530 pages.
forthcoming in May

Published in German.
Dualistic worldviews and demonic or devilish figures make frequent and varied appearances in both early Jewish and early Christian texts. By setting out the background and charting the development of these notions in Second Temple Judaism, this volume explains New Testament traditions within early Jewish contexts, focusing on issues of the origins of evil and its eschatological removal, the role of eschatological opponents and the function of demons. Textually, the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Second Temple texts are highlighted alongside the Jesus tradition. Four concluding contributions reflect the place of demonological ideas in present theological thought and problems of handling them in church practice.

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Schiffman on what the DSS say

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Lawrence H. Schiffman on the Dead Sea Scrolls’ History. What do the Dead Sea Scrolls say? (Robin Ngo). As usual, the actual article by Professor Schiffman is behind the subscription wall. But this essay does give you a taste of it.

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Special Report on the Ain Dara Temple

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Special Report: Current Status of the Tell Ain Dara Temple. ASOR Cultural Heritage Initiatives (Michael D. Danti, Darren P. Ashby, Marina Gabriel, and Susan Penacho).

ASOR CHI geospatial analysis indicates that an explosion damaged the Ain Dara temple in northwest Syria on or before January 22, 2018. The Ain Dara temple is the best-preserved example of Syro-Hittite religious architecture from the late second and early first millennia BCE. It is elaborately decorated with basalt sculpture and reliefs. Larger-than-life human footprints carved into the temple’s stone thresholds are unique to the building. It is also considered to be a close parallel to the contemporary Temple of Solomon, which is known from descriptions in the Old Testament.

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Background on the Ain Dara Temple is here and, sadly, here.

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Reed on forgotten Jewish History

LECTURE SERIES AT BERKELEY: Series on forgotten Jewish history coming to Magnes (The Jewish News of Northern California)

How texts can be lost, found, mistranslated, abandoned and put aside — thus changing the course of history — is a topic professor Annette Yoshiko Reed will tackle at the upcoming 2018 Taubman Lectures at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life in Berkeley.

The program is titled “Forgetting: The Jewish Past between Rupture and Renewal,” and the three lectures are slated to take place in a four-night period starting Monday, March 12.

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This history has been forgotten by some, but not by PaleoJudaica readers. This sounds like an excellent series and if you are in the Berkeley area, be sure to attend.

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New Year in Nisan

FESTIVAL: The First of Nisan, the Forgotten Jewish New Year (Joel S. Davidi Weisberger, Jewish Link of New Jersey). It does look as though a spring New Year was once a thing in ancient Israel. But I didn't known about the Seder Al-Tawhid rite. Some somewhat related posts (on the Akitu, the Babylonian spring New Year festival) are here and links.

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Syriac Christians in the US and Mexico

MODERN ARAMAIC WATCH: If Trends Hold, There May Be More Syriac Christians in US and Mexico Than in Iraq. Trends generally don't hold, and I hope conditions in Iraq improve. But meanwhile, I'm glad they're somewhere.

On improving trends in Iraq, see Friar trains Iraqis to preserve 'treasures' rescued from IS (Sammy Ketz, AFP). Background here and links.

On Aramaic-speaking Christians in New Jersey, see Talkin' Aramaic in New Jersey: The Strength of an Ancient Faith. How cool would it be to walk into a church filled with worshipers all speaking the same language that Jesus and His apostles spoke? Take a drive up the New Jersey Turnpike to find out! (Eric Metaxas and Roberto Rivera, The Christian Post). And some related posts are here and here and links.

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The history of BAR

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Raising the BAR. The history of the Biblical Archaeology Society (Susan Laden). Excerpt:

The article on the incised handle was eventually published in the Israel Exploration Journal. Hershel also wrote a short guidebook on the City of David. Most important, he developed the idea for contributing a column on Biblical archaeology to a magazine in the U.S. The column was to be his reason for returning to Jerusalem and maintaining a relationship with the archaeological community there.

The column proposal was rejected. Never one to take rejection, Hershel morphed his archaeology column concept into an archaeological newsletter, and then into an archaeology magazine, before pen ever hit paper. Hershel had originally planned to call his publication Biblical Archaeology Newsletter. But one evening in the living room of scholars Carol and Eric Meyers, Carol objected to the negative acronym—BAN—created by Biblical Archaeology Newsletter. She countered that because Hershel was a lawyer, there was obviously only one choice for the title—Biblical Archaeology Review, or BAR. Just like that, a magazine was born!

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Paul, boxing, and Vindolanda

THE HOLY LAND PHOTOS' BLOG: Beating the Air — 1 Corinthians 9:26 (Carl Rasmussen). On the background of Paul's use of martial imagery.

This is a good excuse to flag the recent discovery of a pair of ancient Roman boxing gloves at Vindolanda: Roman boxing gloves unearthed by Vindolanda dig (BBC).

A great many Roman-era documentary texts in Latin have been excavated at Vindolanda, the site of an ancient Roman fort in northern England. I have mentioned Vindolanda from time to time and visited it back in 2006. In July of this year I'm planning to visit it again. I'll post on that in due course.

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144th Biblical Studies Carnival

THE PURSUING VERITAS BLOG: February 2018 Biblical Studies Carnival (Jacob J. Prahlow). And congratulations to the Biblical Studies Carnival on its twelfth anniversary!

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The Denver DSS exhibition is coming very soon

REMINDER: "Dead Sea Scrolls" Coming To Denver.

DENVER, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "Dead Sea Scrolls," the exhibition that has captivated millions around the world, will open at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science on March 16. The presenting sponsor is the Sturm Family Foundation, with major support from Henry and Lorie Gordon, and GHP Investment Advisors.

The regional premiere of this exhibition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see authentic Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient manuscripts that include the oldest known biblical documents dating back over 2,000 years. Ten scrolls will be displayed when the exhibition opens. Due to strict preservation requirements, 10 different scrolls will arrive halfway through the run to replace the 10 initial scrolls. This will make it possible to see a total of 20 scrolls while the exhibition is in Denver. Each rotation includes a scroll that has never before been on public display.

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Background here and links.

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Looters of Horbat Mishkena sentenced

CONSEQUENCES: Antiquities robbers sentenced to jail for destroying 2,000-year-old graves. In light of irrevocable damage to Second Temple Jewish settlement, Israel Antiquities Authority hopes prison terms will prove a deterrent (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

Three antiquities robbers were sentenced to four to nine months’ jail time by the Nazareth Magistrate’s Court last week for destroying 2,000-year-old burial caves in an ancient village located in the Lower Galilee between Tzippori and Tiberias.

On March 14, 2017, three adults and two minors were discovered using a backhoe to dig into graves at Horbat Mishkena, a ruined Jewish settlement that dates from 1st-6th century CE, in search of potentially valuable burial objects.

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I noted the report of the apprehensions in this incident here. Horbat Mishkena (Horvat Mishkena) has not had an easy time of it. There were also looting apprehensions there in January 2017 and in December 2016. I hope these prison terms etc. do deter further looting.

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The women, their mirrors, and the Tent of Meeting

DR. RACHEL ADELMAN: A Copper Laver Made from Women’s Mirrors (TheTorah.com).

Who were these women and what were these mirrors used for? Reconstructing the narrative: the historical-critical method vs. midrash.

There have been lots of explanations from antiquity to the modern era.

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Preliminary report on the Megiddo Prison excavation

LARRY HURTADO: The Megiddo Mosaics and “Prayer Hall”: The Preliminary Report. The link to the report posted at Academia.edu is here.

Background here and links.

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Coffee makes everything better

THE ETC BLOG: Coffee and Origen’s Hexapla at Southeastern (John Meade). Some recent posts on Dr. Meade's work on the Hexapla are here and links. If you happen to be in this part of North Carolina on 22 March, his lecture would be worth attending.

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Review of van Bladel, From Sasanian Mandaeans to Ṣābians of the Marshes

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note | From Sasanian Mandaeans to Ṣābians of the Marshes (Jae H. Han).

In his recent book From Sasanian Mandaeans to Ṣābians of the Marshes, Kevin T. van Bladel reopens old questions on the origins of Mandaeans and, armed with his characteristic erudition, fixes the topic on more secure historical and social footings. He has three major arguments: 1) the Mandaeans emerged as a distinct community in fifth-century Sasanian Persia not in the third century, as is widely assumed; 2) Mandaeans not only absorbed earlier teachings and texts from an earlier group called the Nazoreans, but they also distinguished themselves from a rival “sister” community called the Kentaeans; 3) The Sasanian emperors had a habit of pillaging pagan temples, which led to their decline and the emergence of Mandaeans, Kentaeans, and other types of “Syro-Mesopotamian” groups. Methodologically, van Bladel breaks with other scholars of Mandaeism by moving away from a “comparative religions” approach that approaches the emergence of Mandaeism through other “Syro-Mesopotamian” religions in favor of a historical approach that tracks the development of Mandaeism “with respect to larger social contexts situated in specific times” (4). Van Bladel thus works from within the Mandaean tradition and with a careful eye to external references to uniquely Mandaean ideas in order to tease out a reliable historical scaffolding for the emergence of Mandaeism.

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I noted the publication of the book here in 2016.

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Newsweek on Taylor, What Did Jesus Look LIke?

BOOK REVIEW: WHAT DID JESUS LOOK LIKE? POPULAR IMAGES OF WHITE SAVIOR ARE WRONG, NEW BOOK CLAIMS (Melissa Matthews, Newsweek).

Background here and links.

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De Gruyter and Gorgias collaborate

PUBLISHING NEWS: De Gruyter and Gorgias Press enter partnership.

Gorgias Press and De Gruyter have formed an editorial and commercial partnership for Gorgias Press titles. Through this agreement, eBook versions of all Gorgias Press titles will be available on degruyter.com.

Gorgias Press has published over 3,000 titles in history, language and religious studies, with specific areas of expertise in the Ancient Near East, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Archaeology, Biblical Studies, Classics, Early Christianity, Jewish Studies, Linguistics, and Syriac. Gorgias Press is based in Piscataway, NJ, USA.

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Congratulations to Gorgias and De Gruyter on what I trust will be a fruitful collaboration. Cross-file under Syriac Watch.

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Latest on the Sarajevo Haggadah

THE SARAJEVO HAGGADAH is now on permanent display in the National Museum of Bosnia: An ancient holy book symbolizes the fate of Sarajevo's Jews (AFP).

The Sarajevo Haggadah is a 14th century manuscript with a long and variegated history. It survived the Bosnian war in the 1990s. In 1992 it was rescued by a Muslim librarian named Enver Imamovic. He and some police officers recovered it from the museum, under gunfire and at great personal risk. You can read that story here. The Haggadah became well know, not least due to a 2007 historical novel by Geraldine Brooks, The People of the Book.

Much additional background is here and here and links.

The National Museum of Bosnia was closed for a while due to lack of funding. I'm glad to hear it's open again and that this precious manuscript is on display.

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Goliath's skeleton? No.

SNOPES: Is This 'Goliath Skeleton' Real? Some of the images in a collage purporting to show the discovery of a "Goliath skeleton" date back to a 1993 tabloid article. I've seen such images over the years and have posted on them occasionally. (See the links here and the "not so much" link here.) Snopes gives a detailed account of the origins of one group of images which has been circulating lately.

I know of no credible reports of the excavation of skeletons of giants. Big guys maybe, but no giants.

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Hurtado on the Megiddo Prison mosaics

LARRY HURTADO: The Megiddo Mosaics . . . Again? He is skeptical that the much publicized mosaic that refers to Jesus as God is as early as the third century.

Background here and links

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Latest on the THEOT Project (Ethiopic manuscripts)

ETHIOPIC WATCH: Garry Jost Presents at International Conferences. Dr. Garry Jost presented at the International Society of Biblical Literature Meeting in Berlin, Germany, and in Boston at the Annual Meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion in 2017 (Marylhurst University).

Dr. Jost’s research is part of the Textual History of the Ethiopic Old Testament (THEOT) project comprised of colleagues in North America, Africa and Europe. This project analyzes manuscripts written in Ge`ez, which is the ancient language of Ethiopia and the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The manuscripts date from the 14th through 20th centuries.

Background on the THEOT Project is here and links.

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The Megiddo Prison site is becoming an archaeological park

THIS HAS BEEN IN THE WORKS FOR A LONG TIME: A Jew, an Early Christian and a Roman Meet in Archaeological Park to Be Built on Evacuated Prison. ‘God Jesus Christ’ mosaic, ancient Jewish-Samaritan village of Othnay and Roman command center in Galilee park replacing Megiddo Prison; inmates to move to huge new facility (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

A prison built by the British on an archaeological site in northern Israel in the 1940s is finally going to be evacuated. The walls and barbed wire of Megiddo Prison will be replaced with an archaeological park featuring one of the earliest-known houses of Christian worship, which was found in the ancient Jewish village of Kefar Othnay (a.k.a. Kfar Otnai), as well as the remains of a vast Roman army base across the Qeni river, Megiddo Regional Council announced this week.

The new park will also encompass seven Ottoman-era flour mills built along a stream, the council says.

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Background here and links.

UPDATE (5 March): Bad background link now fixed. Sorry about that. For a note of skepticism about the early date of the above-mentioned mosaic, see here.

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How many times did the rooster crow?

THE ETC BLOG: A Rooster Crowing Once and Twice - Mark 14 (Dirk Jongkind). Some years ago I went through the variants in this story. I remember concluding that the most likely original text of Mark was one in which Jesus predicted that Peter would deny him three times before the rooster crowed twice. But then Mark only mentioned one crowing after Peter's third denial. There's no particular reason why it couldn't have happened that way, and technically Jesus' prediction would have been correct. But the mention of "twice" was a messy loose end.

This was unsatisfactory to Matthew and Luke, who both omitted the reference to "twice." That left Jesus predicting that Peter would betray him three times before the rooster crowed. Peter did so and then the rooster crowed. This is a tidy story.

Some of the scribes who copied Mark also found Mark's story to be messy. They tidied it up either by omitting any mention of a second crowing (Matthew's and Luke's solution) or else by expanding with a reference to a first and second crowing in the event. The latter solution is implausible, because we are supposed to believe that the rooster crowed just after Peter denied Jesus the first time, Peter didn't notice and he went on to deny Jesus twice more, then the rooster crowed a second time. Only then did Peter remember Jesus' prediction. This is psychologically unlikely. But it at least removes the original loose end of "twice" in Jesus' prediction.

As the text of Mark continued to be copied, other scribes corrected it back and fourth, making the manuscript tradition a bit messy again.

I don't know if my reconstruction is correct. But it is tidy.

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New series of Arabic biblical and apocryphal texts

GORGIAS PRESS: BIBLICAL AND APOCRYPHAL CHRISTIAN ARABIC TEXTS SERIES.

Gorgias Press is delighted to launch its latest series: Biblical and Apocryphal Christian Arabic Texts (BACA). The series brings to the scholarly world reliable editions of unpublished texts based on a single manuscript. The series will prooduce edited volumes on Biblical and Apocryphal literature of the various Christian-Arabic ecclesiastical traditions, preceded by substantial introductory studies covering the socio-historical, theological, literary and linguistic aspects connected to the texts. Ultimately, this series seeks to present a varied and comprehensive map of texts that represent the rich and vast field of biblical and apocryphal literature in one of the Christian languages, Arabic.

This looks like a promising series. The forthcoming biblical volumes include the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Isaiah. Old Testament pseudepigrapha include the History of Adam and Eve and the History of Joseph, son of Jacob.

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Review of Imhausen and Pommerening (eds.), Translating Writings of Early Scholars in the Ancient Near East ...

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Annette Imhausen, Tanja Pommerening (ed.), Translating Writings of Early Scholars in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece and Rome: Methodological Aspects with Examples. Beiträge zur Altertumskunde, 344​. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. Pp. x, 611. ISBN 9783110447040. $168.00. Reviewed by Jan P. Stronk, Universiteit van Amsterdam (j.p.stronk@uva.nl).

In summary, Imhausen and Pommerening and the other contributing authors (in collaboration with the series-editors and De Gruyter, I presume) have created a book that deserves to be on the desk of anyone working in the field of translating ancient texts—not merely texts on astronomy/astrology, arithmetic, or medicine.

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