DSS postdoc in Norway

THE ETC BLOG: Lying Pen of Scribes Postdoc: POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW IN DIGITAL HUMANITIES AND THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS (Christian Askeland). Follow the link for a link to the full advert. The application deadline is 1 April 2020.

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Das Buch Ezechiel (ed. Gertz, Körting, & Witte)

NEW BOOK FROM DE GRUYTER: Das Buch Ezechiel. Komposition, Redaktion und Rezeption. [The Book of Ezekiel – Composition, Redaction and Reception]. Ed. by Gertz, Jan Christian / Körting, Corinna / Witte, Markus. Series:Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 516.

99,95 € / $114.99 / £91.00*
Hardcover
Publication Date: December 2019
ISBN 978-3-11-061819-8

Aims and Scope
The volume gives an overview of current research on the Book of Ezekiel with historical-editorial commentary about key texts in this prophetic book. In addition to questions about its textual, traditional, and reception history, the authors also examine central theological themes in the Book of Ezekiel in the context of Jewish-Hebraic and early Christian literary and religious history.

One essay is in English. The others are in German.

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de Waard, Jeremiah 52 in the Context of the Book of Jeremiah

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Jeremiah 52 in the Context of the Book of Jeremiah

Series: Vetus Testamentum, Supplements, Volume: 183

Author: Henk de Waard

In Jeremiah 52 in the Context of the Book of Jeremiah, Henk de Waard offers a thorough examination of the final chapter of the book of Jeremiah. Particular attention is paid to the chapter’s relationship with the parallel text in 2 Kings 24:18–25:30, to the differences between the Masoretic text and the Old Greek translation, to the literary function of Jeremiah 52 within the book of Jeremiah, and to the chapter’s historical context.
De Waard shows that, especially in the early text form represented by the Old Greek, Jeremiah 52 is not a mere appendix to the book, but a golah-oriented epilogue, indicating the contrasting destinies of pre-exilic Judah and the exilic community in Babylon.

Prices from (excl. VAT): €115.00 / $138.00

E-Book
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-42355-8
Publication Date: 03 Feb 2020

Hardback
Availability: Not Yet Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-42354-1
Publication Date: 18 Mar 2020

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BAR Spring 2020

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY has some posts on the just-released current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (background here):

First Person: Where Is the Real Biblical Bethsaida? (Robert R. Cargill)

Excavating El-Araj—a Candidate for Biblical Bethsaida (Megan Sauter)
For some time I have been following the archaeological debate over whether et-Tell or el-Araj is the site of biblical Bethsaida. For past posts on the question, start here and follow the links.

The IAA’s Pnina Shor Retires.
An interview with BAR editor Robert Cargill. Some PaleoJudaica posts on Pnina Shor's work are here, here, and here. I wish her a happy retirement.

More Queries & Comments, Spring 2020. Readers respond to their favorite Biblical Archaeology Review articles

Spring 2020 Caption Contest

January/February 2020 Cartoon Caption Winners

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Daniel 11: those kings of the north and the south

READING ACTS: Daniel 11:2-20 – Who are the Kings of the North and South? (Phil Long).

For more on the historical details behind the kings of the north and the kings of the south in Daniel 11 (with some cool coin images), see the links here.

For notice of other posts in Phil's blog series on the Book of Daniel, often with my own comments, see here and links.

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Review of Flynn, Children in Ancient Israel

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note | Children in Ancient Israel (Kerry Sonia).

Shawn W. Flynn. Children in Ancient Israel: The Hebrew Bible and Mesopotamia in Comparative Perspective. Oxford University Press, 2018.

For related posts, see here and links.

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On the ink of the DSS

MATERIAL CULTURE: Could studying ancient ink help shed new light on the Dead Sea Scrolls? The study of manuscripts offers scholars a treasure trove of information hidden in plain sight, complementing those presented by the texts themselves (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

Could studying the ink used to pen the Dead Sea Scrolls help scholars shed light on the many mysteries still surrounding them?

According to Ira Rabin, senior scientist at the Federal Institute of Material Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin and the Center for the Studies of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) in Hamburg the answer is a resounding yes.

[...]

Some past PaleoJudaica posts on Dr. Rabin's work on ancient ink, especially of the Dead Sea Scrolls, are here, here, here, here and here. As usual, follow the links too. And this post, and links, is also relevant

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Daniel 10: the Prince of Persia and the sons of God

READING ACTS: Daniel 10 – Who is the Prince of Persia? (Phil Long)
A correction to the following:

In addition, the Masoretic text of Deuteronomy 32:8 says God has fixed the borders of peoples “according to the number of the sons of God.” The Septuagint has “according to the angels of God” (κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ἀγγέλων θεοῦ).

The Masoretic Text of Deuteronomy 32:8 says that God "fixed the borders of peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel (למספר בני ישראל)," which hardly makes sense in context. But among the Dead Sea Scrolls, 4QDeuteronomy^j (which was probably a collection of excerpts from Exodus and Deuteronomy) contains a fragment of Deuteronomy 32:8 that reads "the sons of God" (בני אלוהים).

The latter is probably the original reading. It was translated into Greek interpretively by the Septuagint. The manuscript tradition followed by the Masoretic Text did not like the reference to other divine beings. It changed the text to refer to Israel.

For notice of past posts in Phil Long's blog series on the Book of Daniel, often with my own comments included, see here and links.

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Clive Cussler (1931-2020)

SAD NEWS: Clive Cussler, million-selling adventure writer, dies at 88. (HILLEL ITALIE, AP). I have enjoyed some of Cussler's novels and movies about his intrepid marine-archaeologist hero, Dirk Pitt. I briefly reviewed one of each here. And Cussler's real life included not a little intrepid adventure. I am sad to hear of his passing.

Rest in peace, Clive.

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Review of Bull, The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW Christian H. Bull, The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus: The Egyptian Priestly Figure as a Teacher of Hellenized Wisdom. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 186. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Pp. xvi, 532. ISBN 9789004370814. €164,00. Reviewed by Korshi Dosoo, Würzburg​ (korshi.dosoo@gmail.com).

Bull’s work represents an accessible yet profound and thoughtful introduction and handbook to the Hermetica, providing both a fair and thorough summary of previous work and a lucid approach to understanding them, and it is likely to become an invaluable reference work and source of further ideas in years to come.

I noted the publication of the book here.

The Hermetic tradition is of interest for ancient Judaism in a number of ways. Notably, the Poimandres, the opening tractate in the philosophical Hermetic corpus, was written by someone who had been reading the Greek translation of the Book of Genesis.

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Burrell, Cushites in the Hebrew Bible

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Cushites in the Hebrew Bible

Negotiating Ethnic Identity in the Past and Present

Series: Biblical Interpretation Series, Volume: 181

Author: Kevin Burrell

Cushites in the Hebrew Bible offers a reassessment of Cushite ethnographic representations in the biblical literature as a counterpoint to misconceptions about Africa and people of African descent which are largely a feature of the modern age.
Whereas current interpretations have tended to emphasize unfavourable portraits of the people biblical writers called Cushites, Kevin Burrell illuminates the biblical perspective through a comparative assessment of ancient and modern forms of identity construction. Past and present modes of defining difference betray both similarities and differences to ethnic representations in the Hebrew Bible, providing important contexts for understanding the biblical view. This book contributes to a clearer understanding of the theological, historical, and ethnic dynamics underpinning representations of Cushites in the Hebrew Bible.

Prices from (excl. VAT): €138.00 / $166.00

E-Book
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-41876-9
Publication Date: 13 Jan 2020

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-41875-2
Publication Date: 30 Jan 2020

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Conference on Magic in Late Antiquity in Jerusalem

THE NSEA BLOG: CONFERENCE: MAGIC IN LATE ANTIQUITY. OBJECTS, TEXTS AND CONTEXTS JERUSALEM, MOUNT SCOPUS, MARCH 1-3, 2020. If you are in Jerusalem at the beginning of March, this looks like an excellent conference to attend.

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New BAR issue imminent

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Spring 2020 Issue Is Coming Soon! Available on Thursday (2/27) online for digital and all access subscribers. The new issue is, of course, of Biblical Archaeology Review. This note gives you a foretaste of the contents.

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1000-year-old biblical manuscript recovered in Egypt

MANUSCRIPT: Lost 1,000-year-old Hebrew Bible found on dusty Cairo synagogue shelf. While attempting to document Egyptian synagogues, an Israeli historian stumbles upon a massive, well-preserved 616-page codex that was written in 1028 (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

In July 2017, Israeli historian Yoram Meital stumbled upon a handwritten 1028 CE biblical codex that was lying abandoned on a dusty shelf in a Cairo synagogue. Wrapped in simple white paper of the sort one finds on tables in cheap eateries, at 616 pages, the Zechariah Ben ‘Anan Manuscript is one of the era’s most complete and preserved examples of the “Writings,” the third and concluding section of the Hebrew Bible. It had been lost to scholars for almost 40 years.

[...]

This article also links to the recent Jewish Quarterly Review article that announces the find formally. Happily, the full text is available for free: A Thousand-Year-Old Biblical Manuscript Rediscovered in Cairo: The Future of the Egyptian Jewish Past (Yoram Meital; JQR 110.1 [2020]: 194-219).

Cross-file under Karaite Watch.

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Linguistic dating of biblical Hebrew?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Linguistic Hints to the Age of the Hebrew Bible Can language analysis determine the initial date of the ancient Hebrew manuscripts? (Jonathan Laden ). This essay introduces an article in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review by Ron Hendel and Jan Joosten. The article itself is behind the subscription wall, but the essay gives you a taste of it.

For their book on the same subject, see here. And follow the links from there for other relevant posts. And I have some comments on the issue here.

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Ancient Sicilian Judaism

EXHIBITION: Little-known Jewish history of Sicily on display centuries after expulsion. “After 1492, Jews had to leave the island and their possessions were sold, destroyed or reused for other purposes, as it happened to many of the Jewish sites" (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

Though little survives, the Jewish presence in Sicily dates back to the Roman era and represents an important page of the island’s history, as explained in the temporary exhibit “Documenti di storia ebraica dalle collezioni del Museo Salinas,” (Documents of Jewish history from the collections of Salinas Museum) at Palermo’s Regional Archaeological Museum Antonio Salinas.

Some of what survives from antiquity:

Among the artifacts on display are several coins from the series of the so-called Iudae Capta coins minted by Titus and his father Vespasian after they conquered and destroyed Jerusalem to celebrate their victory. One of them features a woman crying and kneeling under a palm tree as a personification of the Jewish nation and the Emperor Vespasian in a triumphant attitude.
Another artifact on display is a burial inscription in Greek dating back to the 4th or 5th century CE remembering a man named Zosimiano and carrying a stylized menorah.

The article has a nice photo of the burial inscription.

For a photo of this style of Judaea Capta coin, follow the link to the BHD essay here.

For more on Jewish Palermo, see here.

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Daniel 10-11: angels and a vision of history

AT READING ACTS, Phil Long continues his blog series on the Book of Daniel.

Daniel 10 – Daniel’s Vision of a Great Angelic Being
I have some comments on chapter 10 here.

Daniel 11 and History
As Phil notes, chapter 11 is difficult to follow. It briefly deals with the Persian empire, mentioning only four of the eleven kings (v. 2). Then it refers obliquely to Alexander the Great (vv. 2-3) and the Diadochoi (v. 4). The rest of the chapter covers a span of Ptolemaic and Seleucid history without giving any actual names of the people. Indeed it gives them code names, some of which are repeated for different individuals.

In a number of PaleoJudaica posts on numismatic articles etc., I have gone through Daniel 11 and explained who many of the characters are.

For the figures in the Ptolemaic dynasty, see here, here, and here.

For the figures in the Seleucid dynasty, see here, here and here.

Phil notes correctly that the events in 11:40-45 are actual predictions, not predictions after the fact. We know that because the events in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes turned out differently. More on that here and here.

For notice of previous posts in Phil's series on Daniel, sometimes with my own comments, see here and follow the links.

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Bonner, The Last Empire of Iran

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: The Last Empire of Iran. Notice of a New Book: Bonner, Michael Richard Jackson. 2020.The Last Empire of Iran (Gorgias Handbooks). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press LLC. On the Sassanian Empire. Follow the link for description and ordering information.

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Sifting a new Temple Mount heap

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT BLOG: KI10 HERE WE COME! KI10 is a new heap of Temple Mount dirt which the project has begun sifting. It already shows a promising profile of artifacts. If you have been thinking about volunteering for the Temple Mount Sifting Project, now would be a good time.

Some background on the project is here. And for many other posts, start here and follow the links.

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Parables in Changing Contexts (ed. Poorthuis & Ottenheijm)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Parables in Changing Contexts

Essays on the Study of Parables in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism

Series:Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series, Volume: 35

Editors: Marcel Poorthuis and Eric Ottenheijm

In Parables in Changing Contexts, new venues in the comparative study of parables are addressed by scholars of Judaism, New Testament, Buddhism and Islam. Essays cover parables in the synoptic Gospels, Rabbinic midrash, and parabolic tales and fables in the Babylonian Talmud. Three essays address parables in Islam and Buddhism. The volume shows how parables are suitably adapted in terms of form and rhetoric to enhance religious identity formation. Parables serve as media, as sensational forms making the sacred present, albeit encoded or riddled, in all cases invoking the listener’s active interpretative participation and cultural imagination. Adapting a multidisciplinary approach to these gems of storytelling, parables in a particular way provide new insights in the cultures that produced them.

Prices from (excl. VAT): €127.00 / $153.00

E-Book
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-41752-6
Publication Date: 30 Dec 2019

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-41696-3
Publication Date: 19 Dec 2019

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Were Miriam, Aaron, and Moses originally siblings?

PROF. MARK LEUCHTER & DR. RABBI ZEV FARBER: Pre-Biblical Aaron, Miriam, and Moses (TheTorah.com).

In the Torah, Aaron, Miriam, and Moses are siblings; Aaron is the biological ancestor of all priests, Moses is the redeemer of Israel from Egypt, and Miriam, their sister, leads the Israelite women in song. But what can we reconstruct about who these ancient figures may have been?

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