Cho, Royal Messianism and the Jerusalem Priesthood in the Gospel of Mark

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

Royal Messianism and the Jerusalem Priesthood in the Gospel of Mark

By: Bernardo Cho

Published: 21-03-2019
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 264
ISBN: 9780567685759
Imprint: T&T Clark
Series: The Library of New Testament Studies
Volume: 607
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
RRP: £85.00
Online price: £76.50

About Royal Messianism and the Jerusalem Priesthood in the Gospel of Mark

Bernardo K. Cho investigates how Jewish messianism from the mid-second century BCE to the late first-century CE envisaged the proper relation between the Israelite king and the Jerusalem priests in the ideal future, and then proceeds to describe how the Gospel of Mark addresses this issue in depicting Jesus.

Cho responds to claims that the Markan Jesus regards the kingdom of God as fundamentally opposed to the ancient Levitical system, and argues that, just as with most of its related Jewish literature, the earliest Gospel assumes the expectation that the royal messiah would bring the Jerusalem institution to its eschatological climax. But Mark also depicts Jesus's stance towards the priests in terms of a call to allegiance and warning of judgement. Cho concludes that the Markan Jesus anticipates the destruction of the Jerusalem temple because the priests have rejected Israel's end-time ruler and thus placed themselves outside the messianic kingdom.

Follow the link for the TOC and ordering information.

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Wedding at site of ancient Italian synagogue

ARCHAEOLOGY AND MATRIMONY: Europe’s Second-Oldest Synagogue Hosts First Wedding in 1,500 (Aryeh Savir, Tazpit News Agency/Jewish Press).

The wedding took place last Tuesday in the archaeological park adjacent to the southern Italian seaside village of Bova Marina where the remains of a synagogue were unearthed in 1983 during the construction of a road. Among the artifacts discovered at the site were a mosaic floor with colorful tiles portraying images of a Menorah, a shofar, and a lulav and etrog, as well as a walled niche where the Aron Kodesh, the Holy Ark which contained Torah scrolls, once stood.

Congratulations to the happy couple!

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Enoch and the astronaut

EXHIBITION: Restored Enoch Scroll, Israeli astronaut diary now on view. Two manuscripts that survived against all odds through time and space are the focus of a new exhibition at the Israel Museum (Abigail Klein Leichman, Israel21c).

The Enoch manuscript is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I can't find information on which one specifically. The remains of the diary of Ilan Ramon, which survived the crash of the Space Shuttle Columbia, was also on display at the Israel Museum in 2008.

Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch.

UPDATE (16 June): A reader informs me that the Enoch manuscript is 4Q209, fragments of the Aramaic Astronomical Book.

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The Talmud on firstborns and fetuses

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: The Price of a Firstborn. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study, the biblical redemption of a woman’s eldest opens logical byways into cesarean sections, stillbirths, and when Jewish life begins.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links. And for more on caesarean section in antiquity, see here.

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Gemology at Bar Ilan University

MATERIAL CULTURE: Bar Ilan Expanding into Archaeological Gemology (David Israel, Jewish Press). Cross-file under ancient Bling.

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AJR: Textual Objects and Material Philology

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Textual Objects and Material Philology.

These essays were part of a panel at the Society of Biblical Literature 2018 Annual Meeting titled, “Textual Objects and Material Philology,” inspired in part by the publication of Snapshots of Evolving Traditions (eds. Lied and Lundhaug).

The individual essays are as follows:

Is Vienna hist. gr. 63, fol. 51v-55v a “fragment”? (Janet Spittler)

A Material History of the Tura Papyri (Blossom Stefaniw)

Continue to Sing, Miriam! The Song of Miriam in 4Q365 (Hanna Tervanotko)

Two languages, two scripts, three combinations: A (personal?) prayer-book in Syriac and Old Uyghur from Turfan (U 338) (Adam Bremer-McCollum)

The Plunders of Codex Bezae (Jennifer Wright Knust)

Textual Scholarship, Ethics, and Someone Else's Manuscripts (Liv Ingeborg Lied)

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Aramaic liturgical poetry for Shavuot

ARAMAIC WATCH: Dramatizing Torah Reading with Aramaic Liturgical Poetry (Dr. Abraham J. Berkovitz, TheTorah.com).

In late antiquity and medieval times, the reading of the Torah and haftara was often accompanied with an Aramaic translation and Aramaic poems. Akdamut Milin and Yatziv Pitgam are the remnants of a once vibrant collection of Shavuot poems, some of which connect specific laws of the Decalogue with biblical stories, while others dramatized the revelation at Sinai with tales of Moses’ experiences in heaven.

For more on late-antique Jewish Aramaic liturgical and non-liturgical poetry, see here and links.

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Global Coptic Day - June 1st

COPTIC WATCH: First Ever Global Coptic Day Celebrated on 1 June 2019 (Egyptian Streets). I'm very happy to hear about this new annual celebration. Unfortunately I missed it this year. But I look forward to it in future years.

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

Review of "The World between Empires" Exhibition

AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: Exhibit suggests 'peaceful pluralism' among ancient Jews, Christians and pagans (Menachem Wecker, National Catholic Reporter).

It takes more than 80 pages for Jesus to receive his first curtain call, but the exhibit and the thorough catalog address Jewish and Christian religious practices and beliefs at length. The show teases out a potential historical interpretation of Jews, Christians and polytheists living in "peaceful pluralism" on certain sites, like Dura-Europos in present-day Syria. That theory, however, is offset by another of the religions attacking each other in propagandist decorations in their sacred spaces and trying to convert one another. And even if some of the highlighted sites evidenced enviable tolerance, too many in troubled areas have been looted recently by militants aiming to erase other cultures, to make money on the black artifact market, or both.

An earlier post on the exhibition is here. I don't think I realized that it includes the Magadala Stone (cf. here), which PaleoJudaica has mentioned often. And for many past posts on Dura Europos, start here and follow the links.

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

The Temple Mount Sifting Project resumes

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Temple Mount Sifting Project reboots, aims to salvage ancient temple artifacts. At Jerusalem Day event, minister vows funds for project in which 500,000 artifacts from all eras of J’lem settlement have already been found in dirt illegally dumped by Muslim Waqf (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

After a two-year hiatus, the project, up and running again since Sunday, is now housed in a previously abandoned tree-filled grove in east Jerusalem, located at the nexus of the Mount of Olives and Hebrew University’s Mount Scopus campus. As in the previous nearby location, paying volunteers sort through a jumble of debris and earth that was illegally excavated by Muslim authorities from the Temple Mount, a site holy to all three monotheistic religions.

This is a long, detailed article, that discusses the history of the project and the current political situation around it.

For many past posts going back many years, start here and follow the links. Also, do have a look at the recent posts on the reboot and the Jerusalem Day exhibition at the Temple Mount Sifting Project Blog.

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

Resurrecting ancient Israelite beer

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: 5,000-year-old yeast is being used by Israeli scientists to brew a pretty good beer (Marcy Oster, JTA).

Over the years, I have noted various efforts to reconstruct ancient Israelite and Near Eastern beer and wine. But this takes it to the next level. The scientists used archaeologically recovered ancient yeast to brew the beer. It came from various sites in Israel dating from the fourth millennium BCE to the fourth century BCE. It's hard to get more authentic than that!

Be sure and follow the link at the end of the JTA article to read the scientific article on which it is based.

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The Talmud on donkeys and milk

A RECENT DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Blood and Milk. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi’: Why are Jews allowed to drink milk at all? Plus: what Talmudic rabbis misunderstood about menstruation and the sources of other bodily fluids. Also: the right way to sacrifice a donkey.

Other Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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

Thesis on divine knowledge in the Hodayot

HELSINKI PHD THESIS: Transmission of divine knowledge in the sapiential Thanksgiving Psalms from Qumran (PhysOrg).

A recently completed doctoral dissertation in Old Testament studies supports a notion gained through prior research, according to which scribes and wisdom teachers had a central role in transmitting divine knowledge in the Second Temple period (approximately 200 BCE-70 CE).

Katri Antin has investigated how the transmission of divine knowledge, or divination, is described in the seven sapiential Thanksgiving Psalms, part of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in the Qumran Caves.

[...]

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