Dark on the archaeology of Nazareth

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

The Archaeology of Nazareth in the Early First Century

The combined evidence of these three sites indicates that Nazareth was inhabited from at least the early first century, and probably the Late Hellenistic period onward, as a Jewish community, including family groups, judging from the finds and house plans.

See Also: Roman-Period and Byzantine Nazareth and its Hinterland (Routledge, 2020).

By Ken Dark
Professor, University of Reading
July 2020

The article has a particular interest in first-century Nazareth for obvious reasons.

Past PaleoJudaica posts on the archaeology, topography, and epigraphy of Nazareth are here (on Ken Dark's book) and links, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

For the archaeology of nearby Sepphoris (Zipori//Tzipori/Tzippori/Zippori), generally mentioned alongside Nazareth, see here and links.

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Coins of Herod the Great

NUMISMATICS: Coins of Herod the Great – CoinWeek Ancient Coin Series (Mike Markowitz). These are all small denomination coins.

I have mentioned an Herodian prutah here (bottom of post). That one is not featured in this article.

For more on the half-prutah, see here.

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Review of More New Testament Apocrypha 2

READING ACTS: Tony Burke, ed. New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. 2: More Noncanonical Scriptures (Phil Long).

Conclusion. As Burke observes in his introduction to the volume, Christian apocrypha provides an insight into the diversity of early Christian beliefs. Some of this literature is Christian interpretation of canonical documents, some seek to associate current practice with the earliest apostolic community. This second volume of “More Noncanonical Scriptures” is a window into how the early church developed both in practice and in theology. New Testament Apocrypha series will continue to serve scholarship for years to come. I look forward to volume 3!

I noted the publication of the book here.

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Seth Ehorn - Baylor LXX Handbook interview

WILLIAM A. ROSS: THE NEW BAYLOR HANDBOOK ON THE SEPTUAGINT SERIES: AN INTERVIEW WITH SETH EHORN.

For notice of Dr. Ross's previous interviews with Septuagint scholars, see here and links, here, and here.

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The two destructions of Jerusalem

ONE MORE FOR TISHA B'AV: WATCH: Physical proof of twice razed and rebuilt ancient Jerusalem explained. For Tisha B’av, Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Joe Uziel presents how new scientific techniques are changing what we know today about the two major destructions (Times of Israel). There is a long, well-illustrated article to go with the video.

PaleoJudaica's Tisha B'Av 2020 posts are collected here.

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Fire at Susya

SUSPECTED ARSON: Major fire breaks out at Susya archaeological site in Hebron hills. The site features a unique 1,700 year-old synagogue. In the past decades, the area has been a focal point of tensions between the Palestinian and the Israeli population in the West Bank (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

Based on a first survey of the site, the fire seems to have caused no significant damage.

Good.

Past PaleoJudaica posts on Susya are here and links. The site was embroiled in a political controversy five years ago and it suffered vandalism a few years ago.

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Second-wave sifting straits

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT: THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT BETWEEN THE STRAITS .

When life started to return to normality in the early summer, we invested in advertising and marketing channels in optimistic preparation for a stream of sifting participants during the summer and the school vacation. Then came the second wave of the coronavirus outbreak. Without your generous response to this appeal, we will have to reconsider the scope of our activities, including the possibility of ceasing the sifting and this may also cause us to lose some our best trained staff.

You can support the sifting project with a direct contribution or, if you are local, by signing up for their volunteer program.

For many, many PaleoJudaica posts on the project, start here and follow the links. If the project is new to you, see the BHD article noted here for introduction and orientation.

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Bye bye Babylon

READING ACTS: A Lament for Fallen Babylon – Revelation 18:1-3. Phil Long continues his blog series on the Book of Revelation, now on the final seven visions. We continue with the first vision in chapter 17. Please excuse the error. We are now on the second vision in chapter 18.

For notice of previous posts in Phil's series on Revelation, see here and links.

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More for Tisha B'Av

THE NINTH OF AV (TISHA B'AV) is today, as already noted. Here are some additional articles:

A mystery for Tisha B'Av. If consensus is reached on the location of an ancient synagogue built beneath the Temple Mount, it could prove that Jews have been praying at the Western Wall for 1,000 years (Nadav Shragai, Israel Hayom - HT Joseph Lauer).

Time and forgotten history have limited what is known about the secret of the "Cave," an ancient synagogue beneath the Temple Mount that was used by the Jews of Jerusalem. Still, scraps of information, crumbling historical documents, and existing research are gradually shedding light on one of the more intriguing mysteries in Jerusalem.

The only part of the synagogue's story about which there is consensus took place in the first half of the Hebrew month of Av in the year 1099, when Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders. ...

Did Early Christians Mourn the Destruction of the Temple? (Prof. Eyal Regev, TheTorah.com).

When the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in the summer of 70 C.E., the Jews lost their religious and political center. Practically speaking, this did not adversely affect Jesus’s followers, who continued to grow and flourish in this period. But what did they feel about the Temple’s destruction?

Judaea’s Leaderless Revolt Against Rome (Prof. Eric Orlin, TheTorah.com).

The Second Temple was destroyed in the course of the Judaean Revolt (66–73 C.E.) against Rome, and looms large in Jewish history for the way in which it decisively shaped the future of Judaism. But how different was it from other revolts against Rome? Are there elements that mark the Judaean Revolt as unique and essentially different?

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Reviewlet of Jacobson, Agrippa II: the last of the Herods

STRATEGYPAGE: Book Review: Agrippa II: The Last of the Herods (A. A. Nofi).

by David M. Jacobson

New York: Routledge, 2019. Pp. xxiv, 232. Illus., maps, chron., stemma, tables, appends., notes, biblio., index. $124.00. ISBN: 1138331813

A Long-Neglected King of Judea

I noted another review of this book, with additional links on Agrippa II and related figures, here.

Herod Agrippa II had responsibility for the Jerusalem Temple at the time of the Great Revolt against Rome. That offers an indirect connection with today's observation of Tisha B'Av. See the essay by Prof. Eric Orlin noted in the next post.

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Phoenician feud on Seleucid coins

NUMISMATICS MEETS PHOENICIAN WATCH: TALK AMONGST YOURSELVES.

At the Pocket Change blog, Oliver Hoover has an informative post on Phoenician coins of the Seleucid era which display an escalating propaganda feud between two major Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon. The coins were minted during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid king whose persecution of Jews led to the Maccabean revolt.

I have noted coverage of coins of the Seleucid era here, here (which discusses Antiochus), here, here, and links.

For more on the Seleucid dynasty and its importance for biblical studies, start here and here and follow the links.

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Met relabels "amulet" as "phylactery"

OOPS CORRECTED: So long, ‘amulet.’ Hello, ‘phylactery.’ The Met Museum has updated that tefillin description (Philissa Cramer, JTA Quick Reads).

Joseph Lauer has drawn my attention to this latest development. It sounds like progress. But, like Joe, I would like to know more about the grounds for dating the object to as early as the sixth century and whether there are still scriptural texts inside it. They could be informative about the date, etc.

Background here and here.

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Tisha B'Av 2020

TISHA B'AV (THE NINTH OF AV) begins this evening at sundown. An easy fast to all those observing it.

The Ninth of Av is not specifically a biblical holy day. Rather, it commemorates a number of disasters that happened to the Jewish people, traditionally all on that same day. These include the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Babylonians, the destruction of the Herodian Temple by the Romans, and the fall of Betar during the Bar Kokhba revolt.

The following is just out:

What did Jerusalem look like at the time of the original Tisha Be'av? (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post)

And Joseph Lauer has noted the following online events in one of his e-mails:

On Wednesday, July 29, 2020, Erev Tisha B’Av, at 8:30 pm Israel Daylight Time (UTC+3) [1:30 PM EDT], a Zoom lecture will be presented in Hebrew by Dr. David Gurevitch, as described below. The subject is “Why Did Vespasian And Titus Destroy the Temple?” [?מדוע אספסיאנוס וטיטוס הרסו את בית המקדש]
The ticket fee is NIS 25 for adults, free for children. [And it appears that payment for more than one adult viewer is on the honor system.]
The site for paying the fee is at https://il.funzing.com/funz/28045 or https://tinyurl.com/y3xsa5p9 (not the clickable one in the article below). [The latter link is here - JRD]

Another video interview, this for signed-up The Times of Israel Community members, is scheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday, July 29, at 1 p.m. Eastern/8 p.m. Israel. “ToI’s Jewish World and Archaeology editor Amanda Borschel-Dan speaks with Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Joe Uziel about the destruction of ancient Jerusalem in honor of the Tisha B’Av fast day. *** Uziel will discuss new finds that have recently hit newspaper headlines, as well as the two major periods of widespread destruction in Jerusalem during the fall of the First and Second Temples.” See “For Tisha B’Av, learn about the archaeological proof of Jerusalem’s destructions -- Access Wednesday’s Behind the Headlines webinar by becoming a ToI Community member today” at https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-tisha-bav-learn-about-the-archaeological-proof-of-jerusalems-destructions/

PaleoJudaica's 2019 Tisha B'Av post is here. The 2018 post has some links.

UPDATE (30 July): More here and here.

UPDATE: (31 July): More here.

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Sixth-century church (monastery?) excavated near Mount Tabor

ARCHAEOLOGY: Large 6th century church compound uncovered near site of Jesus’ transfiguration. Israel Antiquities Authority salvage excavations ahead of construction of playground in Galilee village of Kfar Kama reveals hitherto unknown possible monastery (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

The IAA press release refers to it as a "1300-year old church." But it sounds as though it is a little older than that. According to Prof. Moti Aviam, one of the excavators, it was built in the 500s and abandoned in the 600s.

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Writer's Prize for Tigay's Shapira book

CONGRATULATIONS TO MR. TIGAY: Journalist and SFSU professor Chanan Tigay wins Cowan literary prize for Biblical whodunnit (Laura Paull, Jewish News of Northern California).

Journalist and San Francisco State University associate professor Chanan Tigay has won the 2020 Anne and Robert Cowan Writer’s Prize for “The Lost Book of Moses: The Hunt for the World’s Oldest Bible,” it was announced this week.

[...]

Regular readers of PaleoJudaica will be familiar with Mr. Tigay and his book on the Shapira scroll affair. For previous posts on the book, see here and here and follow the links. Those links also lead back to additional posts on the Shapira scroll. And there is one more recent one here.

I have not read Mr. Tigay's book. Evidently it contains the revelation of a "most important discovery." That discovery clearly was not any surviving portion of the Shapira scroll. I would have heard about that.

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Vandalized ancient fort at Yehoram repaired

VOLUNTEER RESTORATION: Yeroham residents help give 2,000-year-old archaeological site a makeover. A small fort, which served as a way station for travelers on ancient trade roads, was already damaged and neglected before vandals spray-painted graffiti on its walls (Yori Yalon, Israel Hayom). This project is all the more impressive in the pandemic era.

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Pip-counting, plague, and pyroclastics

ARCHAEOBOTANY: Plague and climate change triggered a severe economic downturn in the Byzantine Empire 1,500 years ago, grape pips reveal (Ian Randall, Daily Mail).

Plague and climate change triggered a severe economic downturn on the fringe of the Byzantine Empire 1,500 years ago, a study of ancient grape pips has revealed.

Researchers from Israel examined thousands of grape pips and cereal grains, as well as ceramic sherds from waste heaps in the Negev left behind in the mid-6th Century.

They found evidence for the rise and fall of wine-making — with the latter likely linked to an outbreak of bubonic plague, as well as global cooling and local flooding.

[...]

Fortunately, 2020 has not seen any major, climate-busting volcanic eruptions. Let's hope it stays that way.

For more on the fascinating field of archaeobotany (archaeo-botany), see here.

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When tattoos go bad

RELIGION PROF: Vspph, Vphdph, Vphcph.

James McGrath shares a photo-meme (via Meredith Warren) of a particularly unfortunate Greco-Latin tattoo disaster. He also shares the following meme, which he created. If it's a meme, I am assuming he doesn't mind if I reproduce it. But I will be happy to take it down if he wants me to.


For many PaleoJudaica posts on tattoos involving ancient languages, start here and follow the links. Most are amusing, whether intentionally or otherwise.

Oh, and for more on the Sogdian language, see here and links. I don't do tattoos, but a Sogdian one sounds cool. Maybe a quote from the Book of Giants ...

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More on those mislabeled tefillin

OOPS UPDATED: Twitter debate ensues after Metropolitan Museum of Art labels tefillin as Egyptian amulet (Marcy Oster, JTA).

I suppose a phylactery (tefillin) could be called an amulet, depending on your definition of amulet. But I prefer to use the more precise, and therefore more descriptive, term.

This is a photo of the object (link here, creative commons license). It is clearly a phylactery/tefillin.


Thanks to Joseph Lauer for the references.

Background here.

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The de-anti-enthronement of the great prostitute

READING ACTS: The Fall of the Great Prostitute – Revelation 17:15-18. Phil Long continues his blog series on the Book of Revelation, now on the final seven visions. We are still on the first vision in chapter 17.

For notice of previous posts in Phil's series on Revelation, see here and links.

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What and where was Ar Moab?

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: Ar Moab (Dr. David Ben-Gad HaCohen, TheTorah.com).

The Israelites travel to the east of Moab, through the wilderness, specifically to avoid encountering them. And yet, we are told that they travel through Ar-Moab, and even buy food and water from the locals. Do they walk through Moabite territory or not?

For more on "The Book of the Wars of the Lord," a Lost Book quoted in the Bible, see here and here.

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Yahwistic Diversity and the Hebrew Bible (ed. Hensel et al.)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Yahwistic Diversity and the Hebrew Bible. Tracing Perspectives of Group Identity from Judah, Samaria, and the Diaspora in Biblical Traditions. Edited by Benedikt Hensel, Dany Nocquet, and Bartosz Adamczewski. 2020. VIII, 337 pages. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 120. 94,00 € including VAT. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-158304-9.

Published in English.
The underlying perspective of the present volume contributes to the recent historical debate on Yahwistic diversity in the Persian and the Hellenistic periods. A broad variety of different Yahwistic (and not necessarily Jewish) groups existed inside and outside Judah during the sixth to first century BCE, for example in Egypt (Elephantine/Jeb and Alexandria), Babylonia (al-Yahudu), Samaria, and Idumea.
The main objective of the volume lies in the literary-historical implications of this diversity: How did these groups or their interactions with one another influence the formation of the Hebrew Bible as well as its complex textual transmission? This perspective has not been sufficiently pursued in the more religious and historically oriented research before.
The volume comprises thirteen articles by renowned international specialists in the field, which aim at closing this gap in the scholarly discussion.

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Vreugdenhil, Psalm 91 and Demonic Menace

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Psalm 91 and Demonic Menace

Series:
Oudtestamentische Studiën, Old Testament Studies, Volume: 77

Author: Gerrit C. Vreugdenhil

In Psalm 91 and Demonic Menace Gerrit Vreugdenhil offers a thorough analysis of the text, structure and genre of Psalm 91. Already in its earliest interpretations, Psalm 91 has been associated with the demonic realm. The use of this psalm on ancient amulets and in magic texts calls for an explanation. Examining the psalms images of threat from a cognitive science perspective, Vreugdenhil shows that many of these terms carry associations with sorcery and magic, incantations and curses, diseases and demonic threat. The psalm takes demonic threat seriously, but also draws attention to the protection offered by JHWH. Finally, the author proposes an outline of the situational context in which Psalm 91 might have functioned.

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

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-42789-1
Publication Date: 13 Jul 2020
Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-42788-4
Publication Date: 09 Jul 2020

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BAR, Fall 2020

UPCOMING: Fall 2020 Issue of BAR. In early August, the new issue of Biblical Archaeology Review arrives. Most or all of the articles will be behind the subscription wall, but Bible History Daily will presumably summarize some of them. Meanwhile, here is a preview of the issue.

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Magen Broshi, 1929-2020

SAD NEWS: Passing of Dr. Magen Broshi (Shalom Berger, H-Judaic).

H-Judaic is saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. Magen Broshi (1929-2020), archeologist, scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and longtime curator of Israel's "Shrine of the Book."

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Mislabeled tefillin at the Met

OOPS: Met Museum mislabels Jewish phylacteries as 6th-century Egyptian amulet. The tefillin acquired by the museum is kept in the Islamic Art department. (Tamar Beeri, Jerusalem Post).

The article isn't phrased very clearly, but I think it says that the tefillin do date from about this period (500-1000 CE). It would have been helpful to have included a photograph of the object(s).

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More on those hanging gardens

ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS: We know where the 7 wonders of the ancient world are — except for one. The true location of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon remains an unsolved mystery, but the latest research suggests looking in a different place (J. L. MONTERO FENOLLÓS, National Geographic).

That place, of course, is the Assyrian capital Nineveh. I have already covered this story in a couple of posts (see here and links), but this article lays out the details of the situation very well.

Cross-file under Greek Fantasy Babylon.

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HUCA 90

H-JUDAIC: TOC - Hebrew Union College Annual Volume 90. There are lots of articles on Moses and lots of articles of interest for ancient Judaism.

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