Egyptian records and archaeological findings shed light on the toponyms (place names) that appear in the exodus account: Ramesses, Pithom, Pi-Hahiroth, Baal-Zephon, Migdol, Sukkot, and Yam Suf.Cross-file under Topography.
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In this provocative, brilliant and original book, Josephine Quinn not only sheds new light on the ancient civilization of Phoenicia but actually questions its very existence. Quinn argues that while the Phoenicians as a people certainly existed, as did the Phoenician language, there is no historical evidence that they ever constituted an ethnic group or nation or that they ever claimed to.Past posts on the book are here (with some substantive comments) and here. And follow the links for more on Professor Quinn's work
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Zangger claimed that, in a note found after his death, Mellaart encouraged colleagues to publish these translations and artifacts after his death — and said that anyone following through with Mellaart’s request was being duped and perpetrating archaeological fraud. “I feel abused,” Zangger told LiveScience. He said that Mellaart “had no scruples when it came to harming other people’s careers.”This article has some new information on the case. The accusations remain to be verified, if they can be.
These accusations are difficult to evaluate. Mellaart died in 2012, and Zangger, whose allegations have not appeared in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, is cited as the only source in the story. Zangger did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in a statement sent to Hyperallergic after publication, he said, “Publishing a peer reviewed article on this might have taken years, if a journal is at all willing to cover the subject.”
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The project ‘Romans, Christians, and their Books, 300-486 CE’, explores how readers and writers in the late Latin west were affected by the change in book format from scroll to codex. Literary scrolls were the norm until the third or fourth century CE, but by the fifth century the codex had become the default format for books. This project explores the extent to which this change in format affected how people in late antiquity thought about literature. ...The project is run by Dr. Cillian O’Hogan and his team at the University of British Columbia. He is also teaching CNRS503, “The Ancient Book this semester.
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[Dr. Eilat] Mazar explained that there is a significant difference among the bronze coins, as in the first year when the rebels had hope and faith in their success, the inscription on the coins in ancient Hebrew script read: “For the Freedom of Zion.”
However, during the fourth year and before the destruction of the Temple, the rebels conveyed their despair by inscribing on the coins the inscription LeGeulat Tzion, meaning “For the Redemption of Zion.”
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Seth L. Sanders. From Adapa to Enoch: Scribal Culture and Religious Vision in Judea and Babylon. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 167. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017.The essay opens:
Seth L. Sanders’s recent book, From Adapa to Enoch: Scribal Culture and Religious Vision in Judea and Babylonia puts forward a new history of cultural contact between Mesopotamian and Judean scribal cultures that culminated in the Second Temple Period. Sanders revisits the question of the shared features between Judean and Mesopotamian literature (such as ascent to heaven, heavenly visions, in addition to distinctively Babylonian astronomy and metrology), but he also offers two pointed methodological correctives for the study of ancient Near Eastern scribal cultures. The first corrective addresses the question of how to write a history of scribal culture; the second, addresses the question of how to approach religious experience in the ancient world.
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Turncoat? Asylum seeker? Pragmatic visionary? Historians have long debated Josephus’s motives and character. What’s indisputable is that most of what is known about the violent encounter between Rome and Judea during this period comes out of his work. What’s astonishing is that, with a sharp eye and a bit of research, you can still walk in Josephus’s footsteps in contemporary Rome. Where but in the Eternal City is it possible to map a 2,000-year-old eyewitness account onto an intact urban fabric?For many past PaleoJudaica posts on the Arch of Titus, start here (cf. here) and follow the links. Also, a notable link on the Arch and ancient Rome is here (scroll down).
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Of all the subjects treated in Tractate Avoda Zara, the one that takes up the most space is wine. The rabbis state as a general principle that Jews are not allowed to have anything to do with wine belonging to gentiles. Not only may Jews not drink such wine, they are not allowed to buy or sell it; nor can Jews have anything to do with wine that has been in the custody of a gentile, even briefly, or that a non-Jew has stirred or handled. The ostensible reason for this wide-ranging ban has to do with idol-worship: the rabbis are concerned that a pagan will use wine to pour out a libation to his god, thus rendering it abhorrent to Jews. The ban is also, of course, an effective way of discouraging business and personal relationships between Jews and non-Jews, which is also a goal of the rabbis in this tractate.
In Chapter Five of Avoda Zara, the subject of wine leads the rabbis to take up the issue of mixtures. ...
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Apocalypticism and Eschatology in Late Antiquity
Encounters in the Abrahamic Religions, 6th-8th Centuries
Series:
Late Antique History and Religion, 17
Editors: Amirav H., Grypeou E., Stroumsa G.G.
Year: 2017
ISBN: 978-90-429-3537-2
Pages: XVIII-363 p.
Price: 94 EURO
Summary:
This volume includes papers on ancient apocalypticism and eschatology in the crucial period prior to the advent of Islam in the Mediterranean basin, and through the period (the sixth to the eighth centuries) when this new religion took roots and established itself in the area. As these were important social, religious, and cultural phenomena, the contributors to this volume - specialists in Late Antique and Byzantine, Syriac, Jewish, and Arabic studies - have investigated them from a variety of angles and foci, rendering this volume unique in terms of its interdisciplinary approach and broad scope. In this regard, Apocalypticism and Eschatology in Late Antiquity should be read as complimentary to the previous volume in the series, New Themes, New Styles in the Eastern Mediterranean, where similar goals were set and met, namely to understand not only how the Christian and Jewish populations responded to the dramatic political and military changes, but also how they expressed themselves in existing, reinvented, and new literary means at their disposal.
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How has the ancient Near Eastern city been "imagined and visualized, studied and reconstructed" (p. vii) over the past two hundred years? That is the question at the core of this wide-ranging book, originally published in Italian in 2013. According to Liverani, the answer should excite not only his fellow historians and archaeologists of the ancient Near East, but also many other scholars, including those studying the history of the city, the dynamics of colonialism and its aftermath, and, more generally, anyone interested in the biography of the cultural constructs called "East" and "West." To that list I would add historians of archaeology and ancient history.
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A History of Babylon, 2200 BC - AD 75I confess myself baffled by the reference to the fall of Constantinople, which happened in 1453 (CE!). If that event is mentioned in the book, it can't be covered very thoroughly. But in any case, the volume looks like a useful resource. The history of Babylon is important for many periods in Jewish history.
Paul-Alain Beaulieu
ISBN: 978-1-405-18899-9
Feb 2018, Wiley-Blackwell
312 pages
Description
Provides a new narrative history of the ancient world, from the beginnings of civilization in the ancient Near East and Egypt to the fall of Constantinople
Written by an expert in the field, this book presents a narrative history of Babylon from the time of its First Dynasty (1880-1595) until the last centuries of the city’s existence during the Hellenistic and Parthian periods (ca. 331-75 AD). Unlike other texts on Ancient Near Eastern and Mesopotamian history, it offers a unique focus on Babylon and Babylonia, while still providing readers with an awareness of the interaction with other states and peoples. Organized chronologically, it places the various socio-economic and cultural developments and institutions in their historical context. The book also gives religious and intellectual developments more respectable coverage than books that have come before it.
A History of Babylon, 2200 BC – AD 75 teaches readers about the most important phase in the development of Mesopotamian culture. The book offers in-depth chapter coverage on the Sumero-Addadian Background, the rise of Babylon, the decline of the first dynasty, Kassite ascendancy, the second dynasty of Isin, Arameans and Chaldeans, the Assyrian century, the imperial heyday, and Babylon under foreign rule.
• Focuses on Babylon and Babylonia
• Written by a highly regarded Assyriologist
• Part of the very successful Histories of the Ancient World series
• An excellent resource for students, instructors, and scholars
A History of Babylon, 2200 BC - AD 75 is a profound text that will be ideal for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses on Ancient Near Eastern and Mesopotamian history and scholars of the subject.
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Published in English.Cross-file under Gnosticism Watch.
This volume studies the ways modern research has tried to detect traces of Docetism in ancient sources, including the gospels and the Johannine epistles and several second-century authors. As a concept, Docetism is often used in scholarly literature for denoting loosely connected or even quite different phenomena or doctrines that all have to do with defining the nature of Christ and the reality of the incarnation and passion of Jesus. The essays presented here approach the topic from a new angle by focusing on the ancient documents themselves instead of staying on a purely theoretical or dogmatic level, while at the same time critically re-examining the historical contexts in which these were produced and first circulated. In some cases, this serves to once more reveal the hidden agendas that have guided modern scholars in their discussion of these topics.
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Kimberley Czajkowski, Localized Law: The Babatha and Salome Komaise Archives. Oxford studies in Roman society and law. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xii, 240. ISBN 9780198777335. $105.00. Reviewed by Tristan Taylor, University of New England (tristan.taylor@une.edu.au)Cross-file under New Book.
Localized Law seeks to analyze the famous Babatha and Salome Komaise archives using a different approach than one centered on the oft-examined question of what legal systems are present in the documents. Rather, in a revised version of her doctoral thesis, Czajkowski builds on developments in the analysis of legal pluralism in the Roman empire to consider the ‘varying contributions, considerations and influences that led to the papyri being written the way that they were’ (p 23). As such, the work offers a stimulating study that embraces the legally heterogeneous nature of the documents and highlights the multiplicity of potential influences in their formation—both in terms of individuals and systems—even though the documents rarely provide straightforward answers to the questions asked of them.
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Published in German.
The triad of Jews, gentiles and Christians seems clearly arranged in the religious world of the Roman Empire. However, a closer look shows that this is too simple a model in that it neither does justice to the diverse descriptions of these groups or those of others, nor to their respective concepts of identity or the varying mechanisms of inclusions and exclusions. This volume illustrates this by way of interdisciplinary individual studies on Asia Minor, but also through conceptional considerations. In summary, the editors offer new terminology suggestions.
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Core Fellow Jason Scully recently published a book entitled Isaac of Ninevah's [read "Nineveh's" - JRD] Eschatology (Oxford University Press, 2018) in Oxford's Early Christian Studies series.Also, some advice for prospective PhD students:
Once I realized how wide open the field of Syriac studies was ("you can pluck a dissertation topic from the ether," my advisor told me), I decided to write on a seventh century Syriac author named Isaac of Nineveh, a figure whose historical importance far outweighs the relative dearth of modern scholarship devoted to his thought."There is much work to be done in Syriac studies.
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Originally the Festival of Matzot was an agricultural holiday but through its association with the Pesach sacrifice, it became historicized and connected to the exodus story. This shift prompted the redaction of several biblical passages and the question “how indeed does eating matzah commemorate the exodus?”In case you didn't know, Matzot means "unleavened bread" and the biblical festival that goes by that name. That festival is associated with Passover, but is not identical to Passover.
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Published in English.
Bringing together thirteen talks given at the international conference “Memory and Memories in Early Christianity”, held at the Universities of Lausanne and Geneva in June 2016, this interdisciplinary volume explores a fresh problem in the study of the origins of Christianity and of the New Testament, namely the “work of memory” undertaken in the discourses and practices of the believers in Jesus. The studies collected here not only apply a heuristic analytical tool – “social memory theory” – to the literature and history of Christian beginnings, but also endeavour to show the socio-religious resonance of this “work of memory” in the language and ideology of the early believers. The historical Jesus, the Pauline writings, the Gospel of John, the Acts of the Apostles, Marcion, ancient Christian epistolography, Hegesippus, Irenaeus, etc. are explored by some of the world's top specialists in “social memory studies” as applied to Christian origins.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Syria filed an official complaint to the United Nations this week accusing Israel of smuggling Torah books and precious artifacts from the Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in Damascus in a secret operation with Turkey.This article basically covers the same ground as the Jerusalem Post article from last week, noted here. But it specifies that the manuscripts supposedly recovered from the Jobar Synagogue included Torahs. I would have guessed that, but this the first time I've seen it said. And there's also this:
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Theft and shelling during the Syrian civil war have damaged the ancient synagogue, one of the oldest in the world. There are conflicting reports about the fate of the artifacts in the synagogue. One report claims the rare Torah books were smuggled out of the synagogue by rebels, but were seized by the Syrian army.Who knows what the basis is for that report or whether it is credible. But there you have it.
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Egyptian sources shed light on the nature of the work described in the Torah.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.