More on ancient Nazareth

ARCHAEOLOGY: New archaeological evidence from Nazareth reveals religious and political environment in era of Jesus. Nazareth, once thought to have been a small village, likely to have been a town of around 1,000 people, new evidence suggests (David Keys, The Independent).

I've already noted one article on Ken Dark's new book, Roman-Period and Byzantine Nazareth and Its Hinterland (Routledge, 2020). But this one has additional details, notably on the rather gross contrast between fertilizing practices in Sepphoris vs. Nazareth.

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The Hodayot scrolls and Cave One

VARIANT READINGS: Qumran Cave 1 Questions, Part 2: The Thanksgiving Scrolls. Brent Nongbri has a good question or two about the Hodayot scrolls commonly accepted to have come from Qumran Cave One.

I noted part one of this series here.

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Vocalization and pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew

PROF. GEOFFREY KHAN: How Was the Hebrew of the Bible Originally Pronounced? (TheTorah.com).

Three traditions of pronouncing the Hebrew Bible existed in the first millennium C.E.: Babylonian, Palestinian, and Tiberian, each with its own written vocalization system. From the later Middle Ages on, however, biblical manuscripts have been written almost exclusively with the vowels and cantillation marks of the Tiberian system while paradoxically, the Tiberian pronunciation itself fell into oblivion.

The title of this essay could be clearer. It is really about the pronuciation of the Hebrew Bible in the early Middle Ages (when the vowel points began to be added), perhaps going back to late antiquity.

The original pronunciation of Hebrew in the late Iron Age II (the First Temple Period) is another, even more difficult problem. We have some inscriptions from that period, but they are not vocalized, apart from sparse use of consonantal vowel letters (Matres Lectionis) in the later ones). We have to infer the pronunciation based on them and, mostly, on comparative Semitics and the historical grammar and phonology of Hebrew. Iron Age Hebrew probably sounded quite different from Masoretic Hebrew.

Be that as it may, this is an interesting essay on the first-millennium CE tradition of the vocalization of the Hebrew Bible. It is technical, but illuminating.

Professor Khan mentions his open-access book on the Tiberian tradition of the pronuciation of Biblical Hebrew. I also noted another book he published on the subject in 2012.

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Qimron, The Qumran Texts: Composite Edition

THE AWOL BLOG: The Qumran Texts: Composite Edition.

Elisha Qimron's edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Introduction, notes, etc. in Modern Hebrew. For free online. For you, special deal!

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Al-Aqsa Mosque to stay closed through Ramadan

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Ramadan prayers banned at Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque due to virus (Reuters).

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An arrest regarding theft of papyri in Oxford

THE LATEST ON THE MISSING OXYRHYNCHUS PAPYRI SCANDAL: Oxford professor arrested on suspicion of ancient papyrus theft. Dirk Obbink called claim about bible fragments a ‘malicious attempt’ to harm his career (Vikram Dodd, The Guardian). HT Elijah Hixson at the ETC Blog.

The story was broken by the Oxford student newspaper, The Oxford Blue: EXCLUSIVE: Christ Church professor arrested over scandal of stolen papyrus. HT Brent Nongbri at the Variant Readings Blog.

According to the Oxford Blue article, Professor Obbink was arrested on 2 March. The only source they give is a quotation from the Thames Valley Police which does not mention a name. It does, however, mention the age of the man arrested and it refers to an investigation of "a report of theft of papyrus from the Sackler Library in Oxford." That man was released "under investigation." It is not clear to me whether the Guardian article has any information about the arrest independent of the Oxford Blue article.

I note the story for information. I have no independent knowledge about it. You can decide what to make of it.

Earlier PaleoJudaica posts on this convoluted scandal are here and links.

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Dijkstra (ed.), The Early Reception and Appropriation of the Apostle Peter (60-800 CE)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Early Reception and Appropriation of the Apostle Peter (60-800 CE)

The Anchors of the Fisherman

Series: Euhormos: Greco-Roman Studies in Anchoring Innovation, Volume: 1

Editor: Roald Dijkstra

The apostle Peter gradually became one of the most famous figures of the ancient world. His almost undisputed reputation made the disciple an exquisite anchor by which new practices within and outside the Church could be established, including innovations in fields as diverse as architecture, art, cult, epigraphy, liturgy, poetry and politics. This interdisciplinary volume inquires the way in which the figure of Peter functioned as an anchor for various people from different periods and geographical areas. The concept of Anchoring Innovation is used to investigate the history of the reception of the apostle Peter from the first century up to Charlemagne, revealing as much about Peter as about the context in which this reception took place.

Prices from (excl. VAT): €116.00 / $140.00 Hardback

E-Book
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-42568-2
Publication Date: 17 Mar 2020

Hardback
Availability: Not Yet Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-42567-5
Publication Date: 26 Mar 2020

Hardback now published.

UPDATE: A reader has pointed out to me that this book can also be downloaded for free as a pdf file. Follow the link above for info.

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The fourth trumpet

READING ACTS: The Fourth Trumpet: Unnatural Darkness – Revelation 8:12. Phil Long continues his blog series on the seven angels of the Book of Revelation and their trumpets. This post deals with the fourth angel and his trumpet.

Notices of earlier posts in the series are here and links.

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Where did the Genesis Apocryphon come from?

VARIANT READINGS: Qumran Cave 1 Questions, Part 1: The Genesis Apocryphon Roll. Brent Nongbri has continued publishing blog posts on various interesting questions to do with ancient manuscript and their provenances, or lack thereof. I have not kept up with him lately. But this post looks like the first in a new series. I look forward to following it. If I get a chance, I may come back to some of his earlier posts.

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Review of Material approaches to Roman magic (ed. Parker & McKie)

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Material approaches to Roman magic: occult objects and supernatural substances.

Adam Parker, Stuart McKie, Material approaches to Roman magic: occult objects and supernatural substances. TRAC Themes in Roman archaeology, 2. Oxford: Oxbow, 2018. 135 p.; 7 p. of plates. ISBN 9781785708817 £40.00.

Review by
Frances McIntosh, Newcastle University. frances.mcintosh@newcastle.ac.uk

The volume includes a chapter on a collection of engraved magical gems from Israel. And in general the work on the material culture of magic in this book sounds important for the study of all brands of ancient magic, including Jewish magic.

Recent related post here.

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The third trumpet

WAITING FOR A STAR TO FALL: The Third Trumpet: Wormwood Falls into the Fresh Water – Revelation 8:10-11. Over at Reading Acts, Phil Long continues his series on the seven angels of the Book of Revelation and their trumpets. This one is on the trumpet of the third angel.

Background here and links.

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Faghfoury (ed), Ancient Iranian Numismatics

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Ancient Iranian Numismatics. Notice of a New Book: Faghfoury, Mostafa (ed.). 2020. Ancient Iranian Numismatics: In Memory of David Sellwood. Irvine: Jordan Center for Persian Studies.

With lots of information about Seleucid, Arcasid, and Sasanian coinage in ancient Iran.

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Schäfer, Two Gods in Heaven

NEWLY TRANSLATED BOOK FROM PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS: Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity. Peter Schäfer. Translated [from German] by Allison Brown. A book that challenges our most basic assumptions about Judeo-Christian monotheism.

ISBN: 9780691199894
Published: 03/03/2020

Contrary to popular belief, Judaism was not always strictly monotheistic. Two Gods in Heaven reveals the long and little-known history of a second, junior god in Judaism, showing how this idea was embraced by rabbis and Jewish mystics in the early centuries of the common era and casting Judaism’s relationship with Christianity in an entirely different light.

[...]

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A Temple Mount Sifting Project discovery

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT BLOG: PASSOVER UPDATE. The staff are still stifting at an appropriate social distance. And they have found what seems to be a Mishnaic-era clay sealing. It still needs cleaning before it can be fully analyzed.

Background on the Project is here and a great many links (cf. here).

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Safed spells to protect from plagues

APOTROPAIC MAGIC: Prayers, amulets and spells to ward off plagues The sages of Safed created amulets, the Jews of Italy wrote prayers and other Jews warned of less conventional plagues (CHEN MALUL, Jerusalem Post).

The sages of Safed (also spelled Zefat, Szfat, Tzfat and Sfat) flourished in the sixteenth century. Past PaleoJudaica posts on Isaac Luria and Lurianic Kabbalah are here and links.

In Jewish magic, healing spells are common, going back to late antiquity. But I don't know offhand if any include spells to ward off plague.

The Talmudic-era magical handbook Sefer HaRazim has healing rites for individuals; rites for foreknowledge of coming disasters, including abundant death among mortals (presumably plagues); and a spell to protect cities from wild animals and floods. It has nothing specific about protection from plagues.

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Ancient recipes

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Recipes from the BAR Test Kitchen. Ancient dishes from biblical times to cook and enjoy.

Download Recipes from the BAR Test Kitchen and start receiving Bible History Daily — both absolutely free!

For you, special deal!

Cross-file under Culinary Archaeology. Noted earlier here. But if you have extra cooking time now, you may want to revisit.

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Shedding light on Isaiah 53:11

THE ETC BLOG: “He will see light” in Isaiah 53:11 (John Meade). A good analysis of the text-critical evidence for a striking and probably original variant found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint.

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Review of Spittler (ed.), The narrative self in early Christianity

BYRN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: The narrative self in early Christianity: essays in honor of Judith Perkins.

Judith Perkins, Janet E. Spittler, The narrative self in early Christianity: essays in honor of Judith Perkins. Writings from the Greco-Roman world supplement series, 15. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2019. xi, 245 p.. ISBN 9781628372519 $40.00 (pb).

Review by
David Brakke, The Ohio State University. brakke.2@osu.edu

Excerpt:

This collection of twelve essays honors Perkins by exploring the ways that ancient narratives construct identities, develop ideas, and circulate through culture. The essays are framed by an Introduction that discusses the significance of Perkins’s work and by a Bibliography of the honoree’s publications through 2018. With the exception of MacDonald’s chapter on Judith, all the essays focus on early Christian works and traditions. Five of the twelve study or take as their point of departure the Acts of Thomas and its “spin-off,” so to speak, Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin. Together they validate Perkins’s view that narrative can function in powerful ways to form and disseminate religious selves and concepts.

I didn't know that there was an Acts of Thomas and his Wonderworking Skin.

Cross-file under Old Testament Apocrypha Watch and New Testament Apocrypha Watch.

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The second trumpet

I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: The Second Trumpet: A Mountain Thrown Into The Sea – Revelation 8:8-9. Over at the Reading Acts Blog, Phil Long continues his series on the seven angels of the Book of Revelation. This post is on the trumpet of the second angel.

I noted earlier posts in the series here and links.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, see here and links and here.

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Did that Western Wall ceremony violate social distancing rules?

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: U.S. Ambassador to Israel Prays at Western Wall in Violation of Coronavirus Guidelines. The prayer in which Ambassador David Friedman took part in included more than ten people. U.S. Embassy says he followed guidelines (Noa Landau and Josh Breiner, Haaretz premium).

The resolution in the photo for the first story I linked to was poor. It was hard to count the number present. But the photo in this article clearly shows more than ten people. If this article's account of the rules is accurate, they are not following the social distancing rules for public prayer. But I don't know how much the Israeli government is enforcing these rules in general.

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Virtual exhibitions revisited

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Virtually Explore Holy Land Artifacts.

These look like some good online exhibitions.

I noted this column when it came out a couple of years ago. But BAS has just republished it. Current circumstances make it worth noting again.

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Ben Ezra Synagogue in VR

CAIRO GENIZA WATCH: Ben Ezra synagogue is today’s virtual tour by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (Ahram Online).

With a breathtaking lack of common sense, this article neglects to give a link to the announced virtual tour. It took me some searching to find it on the Facebook site of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (scroll down on the timeline to 7 April). The tour seems to be posted on the website of the American Research Center in Egypt, although it displays no obvious link.

But fear not! You can access the virtual tour of the Ben Ezra Synagogue here.

Enjoy this and the many other online virtual tours while you stay home and stay safe.

The Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo is famous for its "Cairo Geniza," a repository of a thousand year's worth of worn Jewish manuscripts. The Geniza manuscript fragments are a precious primary source for Jewish history. They are as important for a later period as the Dead Sea Scrolls are for Second Temple Judaism.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the Ben Ezra Synagogue, see here and links. And for many, many posts on the Cairo Geniza and its manuscripts, see here and links and also here and links (cf. here and here).

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On Passover, Zionism, and the Bar Kokhba Revolt

FOR PASSOVER: Passover, Bar Kochba and Zionism (Dr. Tuvia Book, Times of Israel Blogs).

In contrast to the tendency of the rabbinic tradition to gloss over the revolt, early Zionists eagerly seized on the story as proof that Jews, when faced with persecution, were capable of fighting for their dignity and self-respect.

The article does also bring in a Passover connection that isn't too far fetched.

For many, many past posts on Shimon Bar Kokhba and the Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132-135 CE, start here and follow the links. A few more recent posts with related content are here, here, and here. For a famous story about archaeologist Yigael Yadin, Bar Kokhba, and the President of Israel, see here and here.

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A woman on the road to Emmaus?

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: The Missing Woman of Emmaus [Link now fixed!] (Philip Jenkins).

Various moments of the Emmaus story are very frequently represented in art, and most follow this general theme. But here is the thing. The story tells of two people walking along, and then inviting a stranger to come back to the house where they live, and giving him a meal. In the context of the time, is it not very, very likely, to the point of certainty, that such a pair would in fact be a man and a woman, a married couple, who live in their house at Emmaus? Yet in the whole history of art, I know of vanishingly few depictions that actually show such a couple, as opposed to two men.

I looked up the passage in Luke 24 just now in the Revised Standard Version. It translate's Jesus' rebuke to the couple as "O foolish men ..." But the word "men" is not present in the Greek, and the grammar of the verse could refer to two men or to a man and a woman.

I first assumed that this was a holdover from the KJV, but in fact it translates the verse with the same ambiguity as the Greek. So do the NIV and the NRSV.

Belatedly for Easter.

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Disinfecting Egypt's ancient religious sites

PANDEMIC PURGING: Egypt concludes sterilisation of major ancient religious sites. Egypt concluded the sterilisation of historical Islamic, Christian and Jewish religious sites nationwide under its campaign to disinfect all its museums and ancient sites (Ahram online).

But don't visit them yet! For now, stay home and visit the online tours mentioned in the final paragraph. More on those soon.

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Easter 2020

HAPPY EASTER to all those celebrating. My 2016 Easter post contains links leading to biblical and related passages concerning Easter and to correct information on the origin of the word. And this post gives biblical references for the Passion narrative.

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The Nazareth inscription again

EPIGRAPHY AND MATERIAL CULTURE: Hi-tech test shatters claim ancient inscription is 1st proof of Christianity. Study indicates the marble bearing the ‘Nazareth Inscription,’ a mysterious 1st century text linked by some to Jesus’s resurrection, was quarried in Greece, not the Holy Land (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

The headline, which I do not blame on the article's author, overstates the case.

The tests establish that the marble of the inscription came from the Greek island of Kos, not from Nazareth. This fails to support the claim that the inscription was produced (on imported stone) and displayed in Nazareth.

But that claim itself is tenuous. It is based on a brief provenance note left by a collector in 1925. In fact it's possible that the inscription is a nineteenth-century forgery. And even if it is genuine and it came from Nazareth, the idea that it reflects a knowledge of Jesus' empty tomb is speculative.

This is a very good article that sums up the latest on the Nazareth Inscription. Background here and links (cf. here).

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Mine blowing!

I WAS EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM. AND I GOT ONE!

A few days ago I noted a report that Qasr al-Yahud, one of the possible sites for the baptism of Jesus, had been fully cleared of landmines. Nearly 500 of them were detonated at once. The mines were placed at the site just after the Six-Day War.

I inquired about video of the detonation event, and alert reader Yehoshua Rabinowitz has supplied me with a link. The Hebrew caption says, "IDF engineering forces detonated no less than 446 mines in the northern Dead Sea."

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Saving the Jewish Chronicle?

APPEAL: Will someone please save the Jewish Chronicle? - opinion. According to its statement, the weekly newspaper ‘will not be able to survive the impact of the current coronavirus epidemic in its current form’. In truth, its problems predate the pandemic (DAVID ISAACSON, Jerusalem Post).

Background here.

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Western Wall priestly blessing downsized

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH, FOR PASSOVER: Passover blessing at Western Wall downsized due to coronavirus (Reuters). From 100,000 worshippers last year to 10 this year.

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