McGrath interviews Sabar

RELIGION PROF: Interview with Ariel Sabar about his new book, Veritas. James McGrath:

I asked Sabar some questions with a view to posting them this morning when the book became available to the public, to highlight why academics should read it, since I have no real doubt that the public in general will do so.

Background on Sabar's new book and on the long story of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife is here and many links.

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God on screen

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

The Judeo-Christian God on Screen

How do filmmakers go about depicting God on screen? How does one present a non-anthropomorphic god in the visual medium while still maintaining his lack of physicality? Although Christianity does allow for an element of anthropomorphism in the figure of Jesus, the issue is not without complication, for it necessitates making visually clear the idea that this is a divinity made flesh. A range of techniques has been used to show both God and Jesus over the years, with some fascinating changes in the portrayal of these figures on screen in recent depictions.

See Also: Screening Divinity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019).

By Lisa Maurice
Associate Professor
Department of Classical Studies
July 2020

I noted a review of the book here.

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Mark Awabdy - SEPT Leviticus interview

WILLIAM A. ROSS: NEW SEPT VOLUME ON LEVITICUS: AN INTERVIEW WITH MARK AWABDY.

The volumes in Brill's Septuagint Commentary Series each focus on a single major manuscript of a single biblical book.

I have noted the publication of Dr. Awadaby's commentary on Leviticus, as well as the volume on Isaiah and the one on Proverbs.

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

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Mighty Baal – Smith Festschrift

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Mighty Baal

Essays in Honor of Mark S. Smith

Series: Harvard Semitic Studies, Volume: 66

Editors: Stephen C. Russell and Esther J. Hamori

Mighty Baal: Essays in Honor of Mark S. Smith is the first edited collection devoted to the study of the ancient Near Eastern god Baal. Although the Bible depicts Baal as powerless, the combined archaeological, iconographic, and literary evidence makes it clear that Baal was worshipped throughout the Levant as a god whose powers rivalled any deity. Mighty Baal brings together eleven essays written by scholars working in North America, Europe, and Israel. Essays in part one focus on the main collection of Ugaritic tablets describing Baal’s exploits, the Baal Cycle. Essays in part two treat Baal’s relationships to other deities. Together, the essays offer a rich portrait of Baal and his cult from a variety of methodological perspectives.

The Harvard Semitic Studies series publishes volumes from the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. Other series offered by Brill that publish volumes from the Museum include Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant and Harvard Semitic Monographs, https://hmane.harvard.edu/publications.

Prices from (excl. VAT): €210.00 / $252.00

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-43767-8
Publication Date: 13 Jul 2020
Hardback
Availability: Not Yet Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-43766-1
Publication Date: 16 Jul 2020

Congratulations to Professor Smith!

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Nongbri reviews Sabar's Veritas

VARIANT READINGS: Ariel Sabar’s Veritas: Some First Reactions. Brent Nongbri focuses on the failings in the scholarly peer-review of the early research on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife. I have not read the book, but what I am hearing about this process is disturbing.

I have defended scholarly peer review many times as the imperfect, but best way we have to advance human knowledge. A few relevant posts are here, here, and here.

I still think peer review is the best process we have, but Sabar's account, assuming it is accurate, puts a spotlight on the imperfections.

Background on the book is here, here, and here, with more comments and with many links on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife.

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More on that stone table

UPDATE: Israeli archaeologists discover 2,000-year-old decorated table (Xinhua via the Lebanese Star).

JERUSALEM, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Israeli archaeologists have discovered an ancient stone table with decorations on its side, the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank said Thursday.

[...]

So we now know that it is a decorated stone table.

There is also an article in Israel's News1. Joseph Lauer says it seems to be a translation, with mistakes, of a Hebrew article in Arutz Sheva: A rare archeological find from the Second Temple period was discovered in Benjamin. Joe corrects the name Hanania Hizmi [חנניה היזמי] for “Hanania the Entrepreneur” in the article.

That article includes a photo of the table.

As far as I can tell, the major English-speaking media have not yet shown any interest in the discovery.

Background here.

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Incense-route milestones

ANCIENT ROAD SIGNS: Inscriptions, milestones shed light on ‘lost’ part of Negev trade route. The previously unknown section of the Incense Route was unearthed in 2018 west of the eastern range of Mount Grafon (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post). This article summarizes a specialist article in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly.

In 2018 I noted the discovery of that missing part of the Negev incense route. And here a post on ancient Roman milestones. Cross-file under Material Culture.

By the way, let me pause for a word of praise for Rossella Tercatin. I first encountered her work in 2016 in the Times of Israel. Early in 2020 she began publishing high-quality articles on the archaeology of Israel in the Jerusalem Post. She has produced dozens of them this year. I appreciate her work.

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Tal, Tibåt Mårqe (Samaritan midrashim)

NEW BOOK FROM DE GRUYTER:

Tibåt Mårqe
The Ark of Marqe Edition, Translation, Commentary

Series: Studia Samaritana, 9

Edited by: Abraham Tal
De Gruyter | 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110436433


From £109.00
FORMATS
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-3-11-044232-8
Published: 21 Oct 2019
PDF
ISBN: 978-3-11-043643-3
Published: 21 Oct 2019
EPUB
ISBN: 978-3-11-043484-2
Published: 15 Jan 2021

OVERVIEW
Tibåt Mårqe is a collection of midrashic compositions, which, in the main, rewrites the Pentateuch, expanding its sometimes laconic presentation of events and precepts. Most of it aims at providing the reader with theological, didactic and philosophical teachings, artistically associated with the passages of the Torah. Here and there poetic pieces are embedded into its otherwise prosaic text. Tibåt Mårqe is attributed to the 4th century scholar, philosopher and poet, Mårqe. This publication of Tibåt Mårqe follows the monumental Hebrew edition of Ze’ev Ben-Hayyim, Tibåt Mårqe, a Collection of Samaritan Midrashim (Jerusalem 1988), based on a 16th century manuscript. Though he recognized the precedence of an earlier manuscript, dated to the 14th century, Ben-Hayyim was compelled to prefer the former, given the fragmentary state of the latter. He printed its fragments in parallel with the younger one, to which his annotations and discussions chiefly pertain. With the recent discovery of a great portion of the missing parts of the 14th century manuscript, this edition endeavors to present the older form of the composition. The present book may be relevant to people interested in literature,language, religion, and Samaritan studies.

Cross-file under Samaritan Watch

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President Rivlin escorts the Scrolls to the Shrine of the Book

THEY BELONG IN A MUSEUM! President Rivlin accompanies the return of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum. President Rivlin: At times like this we thirst for the works of art and archeology at this special museum, and we have a responsibility to our cultural institutions which are the spiritual foundations of the Jewish and democratic State of Israel (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

It is good to see the Scroll out of their strong-room and back on display.

Background here.

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Ancient stone table excavated near Beit El

ANCIENT ARTIFACT: Table from Second Temple period discovered in Beit El (Arutz Sheva News Brief). The stone table was found near Beit El at Khirbet Kefar Mur. No further details given.

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Review of The Jewish-Greek tradition in antiquity and the Byzantine Empire (ed. Aitken and Paget)

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: The Jewish-Greek tradition in antiquity and the Byzantine Empire.

James K. Aitken, James Carleton Paget, The Jewish-Greek tradition in antiquity and the Byzantine Empire. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. xxii, 359 p.. ISBN 9781107001633 $112.00.

Review by
Robert A. Kraft, Emeritus University of Pennsylvania. kraft@sas.upenn.edu

[...]

Despite such caveats, this is an excellent work, highly recommended to serious students of the subjects covered. That it is not perfect is no surprise, but many of the shortcomings can be overcome by informed/experienced use of the internet. It greatly advances our knowledge, and suggests many new avenues to explore.

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Porter & Pitts (eds.), Johannine Christology

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Johannine Christology

Series: Johannine Studies, Volume: 3

Editors: Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts

Johannine Christology provides a snapshot of the foremost investigations of this important topic by a selection of scholars representing a range of expertise in this field. The volume is organized into four major parts, which are concerned with the formation of Johannine Christology, Johannine Christology in Hellenistic and Jewish contexts, Christology and the literary character of the Johannine writings, and the application of Christology for the Johannine audience and beyond.

The fifteen contributors to this volume comprise an international set of Johannine scholars who explore various ways of both describing and then pursuing the implications of Johannine Christology. Their contributions focus primarily upon the Gospel, but involve other key texts as well.

Prices from (excl. VAT): €153.00 / $184.00

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-43561-2
Publication Date: 13 Jul 2020

Hardback
Availability: Not Yet Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-42736-5
Publication Date: 16 Jul 2020

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More on Sabar, Veritas

ARIEL SABAR'S BOOK, VERITAS, continues to receive media attention. Here are a couple more articles:

The Harvard Professor Who Told the World That Jesus Had a Wife (Mark Oppenheimer, New York Times).

The New York Times headline is, of course, incorrect. It is disappointing when that happens.

Professor King did not say that Jesus had a wife. She did not say that the GJW proved that Jesus had a wife. At most she thought it likely that an ancient text from long after Jesus' time told a legend about Jesus having a wife.

I was complaining about this media misunderstanding five years ago. Evidently even the NYT does not yet get this nuance.

I do not hold the writer of the review responsible for the headline. But some editor should get in trouble over it. Many more people will read the headline than the article.

The review itself tries too hard ("It’s a barely believable tale, crazier than a tweed-sniffer in the faculty lounge"). But otherwise it seems basically sound.

What Ever Happened to the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife? (Amy Weiss-Meyer, The Atlantic).

The Atlantic broke Mr. Sabar's breakthrough article on the GJW back in 2016.

This piece has a long interview with Mr. Sabar. It recaps the story and includes lots of background to the book. And it reveals who has the GJW fragment now. That will surprise you. At least it surprised me.

Background here and links.

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The Azekah archaeological babysitting service

INNOVATION: Archaeologist moms are provided with a babysitter at Azekah biblical dig. "I really want to send young female archaeologists the message that they can combine career and family and should not give up their dreams,” Tel Aviv University Prof. Oded Lipschits told the Post (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

Well good!

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Israel Museum reopening

EXHIBITIONS: Art, artifacts back on display for Israel Museum reopening. (ILAN BEN ZION, AP). And among them are the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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The "mayor of underground Jerusalem"

INTERVIEW: Meet the man in charge of archaeology in Jerusalem. Yuval Baruch has headed the Jerusalem division at the Israel Antiquities Authority for over ten years (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

“Archaeology is not just an academic issue, it has to be part of the society, of the heritage, of the city’s life,” he concluded. “I think the way people are looking at it is completely changing.”

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Moss on Sabar on the GJW. Plus I boast and speak wisdom.

CANDIDA MOSS: Anti-Catholic Porn Producer Scammed Harvard Professor With Gospel of Jesus’ Wife (The Daily Beast). With reference, of course, to the recent release of Ariel Sabar's book Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus' Wife.

If you want just one thing to take away from the story of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife, let it be that experts make mistakes. Experts are usually the people to listen to first and carefully, but they are fallible like everyone else.

By the way, as soon as I heard the announcement, I correctly called it that the GJW was probably a forgery. I maintained that position through the whole adventure. This was not because I had any expertise in Coptic or papyrology or ancient ink. I do not. I applied the rule that if it's too good to be true, it probably isn't. The GJW was exactly what the Zeitgeist called for. It was too perfect.

I like to call this the lottery rule. If you get a call telling you that you won a big lottery, you should be cautious. Maybe you did, but the bigger the pot, the more likely it's a scam.

My general expertise in antiquity did help me make that call. I could tell what was too perfect. But the lottery rule works in any area of life as long as you know enough to weigh the probabilities.

Background here and a great many links.

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A university class visits a cemetery

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Materiality of Death and Afterlife: Visit to Local Cemetery (Hanna Tervanotko).

While drafting the syllabus of my course “Death and Afterlife in Early Judaism and Christianity,” I started to brainstorm ideas for experiential learning components. This course introduces students to images of death and afterlife in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. ... Therefore, I decided to take the students to a site visit in a local cemetery where they could compare the ideas reflected in the ancient texts to contemporary traditions and material artifacts.

This is a good idea.

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Lamps, burial caves, and ancient Jewish identity

MATERIAL CULTURE: In Hasmonean times, lamps and burials became a symbol of Jewish identity. Archaeological findings indicate a concentration of the phenomena in the region of Jerusalem and the Judean hills (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post). Based on a recent article in Palestine Exploration Quarterly.

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Review of Eckhardt, Private associations and Jewish communities ...

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Private associations and Jewish communities in the Hellenistic and Roman cities.

Benedikt Eckhardt, Private associations and Jewish communities in the Hellenistic and Roman cities. Supplements to the Journal for the study of Judaism, 191. Leiden: Brill, 2019. 227 p.. ISBN 9789004405370 €105,00.

Review by
Ryan Boehm, Tulane University. rboehm@tulane.edu

This volume offers a fresh reappraisal of a longstanding debate: did Jewish collectivities in the Hellenistic and Roman periods belong to the wider phenomenon of Greek and Roman private/voluntary associations or were they sui generis? ...

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Steinsaltz obituary in the NYT

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, Who Made the Talmud More Accessible, Dies at 83. He wrote more than 60 books, but his crowning achievement — he called it his hobby — was his 45-volume translation of a key Jewish text (Joseph Berger and Isabel Kershner).

Background here with links.

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Today's Zoroastrians

THE LONG READ: The last of the Zoroastrians. A funeral, a family, and a journey into a disappearing religion (Shaun Walker, The Guardian).

It is a long read.

PaleoJudaica tries to keep up with the ancient Zoroastrians. (For example, the immediately preceding post.) If you would like to know what is happening with Zoroastrians in 2020, have a look at this article.

The demographics look grim in the long run. But demographic projections are rarely correct. Let's hope these aren't.

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Zoroastrian Dualism in Jewish, Christian, and Manichaean Perspective

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Zoroastrian Dualism in Jewish, Christian, and Manichaean Perspective. Journal issue:

Volume 96, issue 2 (2020) of Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses is dedicated to the subject of Zoroastrian dualism in Jewish, Christian, and Manichaean perspectives.

Follow the link for the ToC.

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Sabar, Veritas – now out

BOOK REVIEW: Review: 'Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus' Wife,' by Ariel Sabar. NONFICTION: "Veritas" tells the true story of a Harvard academic who fell for a biblical fraud. (Or did she?) ( Katherine A. Powers, Star Tribune).

PaleoJudaica followed the whole story of the so-called Gospel of Jesus' Wife (GJW) from beginning to end. I noted the book as forthcoming here. For relevant posts about the story and about Ariel Sabar and his work, see the links there. The book is now out and the reviews are starting to come in.

As for what Mr. Sabar has been up to lately, see here.

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The magnetometry of the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Scholars trace Earth’s magnetic field in 586 BCE through Jerusalem’s ruins. In August 586 BCE, after months of siege, the Babylonian troops breached the walls of Jerusalem and proceeded to destroy and burn the city, including the Holy Temple (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

When objects containing magnetic minerals burn at a very high temperature, those minerals are re-magnetized and therefore record the direction and the magnitude of the field in that precise moment. Artifacts like pottery, bricks and tiles, which are fired in furnaces, ovens and kilns, can all provide these records. However, as precise as their dating can be, it usually spans of at least a few decades. On the contrary, if documented by historical records, destruction lawyers can be pinned down to a very specific moment – in the case of Jerusalem in 586 almost to the date - providing a unique opportunity.

According to the Bible (2 Kings 25:3-4), the wall of Jerusalem was breached on the ninth day of the fourth month. This is the basis for the holy day the Ninth of Av. Traditionally other days of the disaster for the Jewish people took place on the same date, including the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 CE and the fall of Betar, the center of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, in 135 CE.

The PLOS One article where this research is published is: The Earth’s magnetic field in Jerusalem during the Babylonian destruction: A unique reference for field behavior and an anchor for archaeomagnetic dating (Yoav Vaknin , Ron Shaar, Yuval Gadot, Yiftah Shalev, Oded Lipschits, Erez Ben-Yosef).

Abstract

Paleomagnetic analysis of archaeological materials is crucial for understanding the behavior of the geomagnetic field in the past. As it is often difficult to accurately date the acquisition of magnetic information recorded in archaeological materials, large age uncertainties and discrepancies are common in archaeomagnetic datasets, limiting the ability to use these data for geomagnetic modeling and archaeomagnetic dating. Here we present an accurately dated reconstruction of the intensity and direction of the field in Jerusalem in August, 586 BCE, the date of the city’s destruction by fire by the Babylonian army, which marks the end of the Iron Age in the Levant. We analyzed 54 floor segments, of unprecedented construction quality, unearthed within a large monumental structure that had served as an elite or public building and collapsed during the conflagration. From the reconstructed paleomagnetic directions, we conclude that the tilted floor segments had originally been part of the floor of the second story of the building and cooled after they had collapsed. This firmly connects the time of the magnetic acquisition to the date of the destruction. The relatively high field intensity, corresponding to virtual axial dipole moment (VADM) of 148.9 ± 3.9 ZAm2, accompanied by a geocentric axial dipole (GAD) inclination and a positive declination of 8.3°, suggests instability of the field during the 6th century BCE and redefines the duration of the Levantine Iron Age Anomaly. The narrow dating of the geomagnetic reconstruction enabled us to constrain the age of other Iron Age finds and resolve a long archaeological and historical discussion regarding the role and dating of royal Judean stamped jar handles. This demonstrates how archaeomagnetic data derived from historically-dated destructions can serve as an anchor for archaeomagnetic dating and its particular potency for periods in which radiocarbon is not adequate for high resolution dating.

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van den Hout (ed.), Discovering New Pasts: The OI at 100

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST TODAY: From “An” to “The”: The OI at 100 (Theo van den Hout).

Celebrating a new book edited by the same author: Discovering New Pasts: The OI at 100 (Oriental Institute Press).

In celebration of the OI’s centennial year, over sixty different authors and contributors have come together to provide a personalized history of the OI’s work past and present. In these pages we invite you to join us on an adventure. Explore the legacy of James Henry Breasted and the institute he founded. Discover the inner workings of the OI and its museum. Travel across multiple continents to learn about groundbreaking research. Enjoy a unique collection of nearly six hundred images, all in one publication for the first time. Learn the story of the institute’s development—from being one man’s dream to becoming one of the world’s preeminent authorities on over ten thousand years of human civilization.

You may download a free copy for your personal use.

I noted the centenary of the Oriental Institute in 2019.

Also, I just noted the online publicat of a biography of James Henry Breasted here in the immediately preceding post.

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Filial biography of James Henry Breasted online

THE AWOL BLOG: New from the Oriental Institute: Pioneer to the Past: The Story of James Henry Breasted, Archaeologist, Told by His Son Charles Breasted. You can download one complimentary copy for your own personal use. For you, special deal!

Cross-file under Egyptology.

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Bühner, Hohe Messianologie

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Ruben A. Bühner. Hohe Messianologie. Übermenschliche Aspekte eschatologischer Heilsgestalten im Frühjudentum. [High Messianology. Superhuman Aspects of Eschatological Figures of Salvation in Early Judaism.] 2020. XIV, 394 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 523. 94,00 € including VAT. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-159606-3.

Published in German.
Messianic expectations in Second Temple Judaism included not only human, but also very different kinds of superhuman aspects. Ruben A. Bühner discusses all relevant early Jewish sources and offers the basis for new approaches for conceptualizing the origin and development of early Christology.

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