Professor Larry Hurtado PhD Scholarship Fund

LARRY HURTADO'S BLOG has an In memorandum posted by one of his children. It notes the founding of a scholarship fund in Larry's name.

Background here and links.

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

Review of Piotrkowski, Priests in Exile

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note | Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period (Miguel Vargas).

Meron M. Piotrkowski. Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period. Walter de Gruyter, 2019.

From the conclusion:

In sum, one truly gets the sense that Piotrkowski addresses every issue related to Onias' Temple. Because of its breadth, Priests in Exile is bound to become essential reading, not only for those interested in Oniad history, but also for anyone interested in Egyptian Judaism or Hellenistic-Jewish literature. As commented above, it is true that the evidence leaves open the possibility of competing interpretations. This is especially the case for the literary material. Nevertheless, scholars should seriously consider Piotrkowski's individual claims. ...

Earlier PaleoJudaica posts on the Jewish Temple at Leontopolis, Egypt, are here, here, here, here, and here.

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

The Sibyl's Pompeii prophecy

OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH: Could a Jewish author have been first to record destruction of ancient Pompeii? The Sibylline Oracles, likely written by a Jew post-Vesuvius eruption, ostensibly prophecy the city’s devastation as divine retribution for sacking of Second Temple 9 years prior (Julie Masis, Times of Israel).

If the fourth Sibylline Oracle was really written no later than 81 CE, it might predate by several decades the letters of Pliny the Younger, who survived the eruption when he was a teenager and wrote a lengthy account of the experience later on. Pliny published his letters between the years 100 and 109.

Still, the Sibylline Oracle cannot begin to compare with the details included in Pliny’s letters, which provide a first-person account of the disaster.

For more on Pliny's letter about the eruption of Pompeii, see here and here. And for still more posts on Vesuvius and Pompeii, follow the links in the latter post, plus see here. For a post on an apocryphal quote from the Sibylline Oracles on Pompeii, see here.

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

LXX reading plans for 2020

NOW'S THE TIME TO START: READING THE SEPTUAGINT IN 2020 (William Ross, Septuagint &c.)

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

2020!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Have a great 2020. I hope it will include frequent visits to PaleoJudaica.

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

Top-10s for 2019

RETROSPECTIVE: So far I have found two top-10 lists for 2019 of interest to PaleoJudaica.

From Jesus' Time: The 10 Most Interesting Biblical Discoveries of 2019 (Stephanie Pappas, Live Science).

Biblical Archaeology’s Top 10 Discoveries of 2019 (Gordon Govier, Christianity Today).

There is some overlap in the two lists.

If I get time (I didn't in 2019), I will post a list of top PaleoJudaica posts for the year (or two years) on the blog's anniversary in March.

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

Levine on The Jewish Origins of the Christmas Story

BELATEDLY FOR CHRISTMAS: The Jewish Origins of the Christmas Story (Amy-Jill Levine, TheTorah.com).

The narratives of Jesus’ conception and birth as presented in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke echo Jewish history and cite Jewish prophecy. In that sense, the Christmas story can be said to have Jewish origins.

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

Hanukkah and Saturnalia?

BELATEDLY FOR HANUKKAH: Did Ancient Jews Change Hanukkah to One-Up the Competition? New research into the origins of Hanukkah shows that this joyful holiday developed and evolved alongside other gentile light-based festivals like Saturnalia (Candida Moss, The Daily Beast).

At the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature conference held in San Diego last month, Dr. Catherine Bonesho, an assistant professor in Early Judaism at UCLA, presented a paper on religious competition in the ancient world. In her research, Bonesho examined ancient traditions about Hanukkah preserved in the writings of rabbinic authors in order to see what ancient Jews thought the holiday was about. Bonesho told The Daily Beast that our traditions about Hanukkah started much later than most people know. After Josephus, “the ritual of lighting lamps does not appear in textual form until the Mishnah (200 CE), nor does the tradition of the miracle of oil appear until the Babylonian Talmud (edited between 5th-7th centuries CE),” Bonesho said.

For more Hanukkah-related legends, see the immediately preceding post here.

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

Hasmonean essays from TheTorah.com

BELATEDLY FOR HANUKKAH: Channah, Daughter of Mattathias: Instigator of the Maccabean Rebellion (Prof.Rachel Adelman, TheTorah.com).

1 Maccabees recounts how Mattathias instigated a rebellion against the Greeks out of zealotry against Jewish idolatry. Later midrashim tell how Mattathias’ daughter Channah goaded her father and brothers into fighting the Greeks to protect her from being raped by the local governor.

Mariamme, the Last Hasmonean Princess (Dr.Malka Zeiger Simkovich, TheTorah.com).

The Hasmonean princess Mariamme is best known today for her tempestuous and doomed marriage to Herod the Great. During her lifetime, however, Mariamme was a Jewish celebrity in her own right. As a descendant of the Hasmonean family on both her maternal and paternal sides, Mariamme was the closest thing that Jews had to royalty.

For more on that disturbing legend involving Herod, his Hasmonean wife, and honey, see here, here, and here. And a couple of other posts involving the historical Mariamme (Mariamne, Marianne) are here and here.

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