Archaeologically authentic opera

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Actual Palace of Herod Antipas Stars in Opera. An authentic section of Machaerus is part of set design for staging of biblically-themed opera (Jonathan Laden).

The opera is Strauss's Salome. This is the first time I can remember hearing of a performance, although I did once note a graphic novel based on it. The opera is based on Wilde's play of the same name. I have noted adaptations and performances of it here and links.

For more on Machaerus, the reputed site of John the Baptist's beheading, see here and here and links.

Cross-file unde Stagecraft and Ancient Architecture.

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The Masorah of the Leningrad Codex in BHS

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Introduction to the Masorah | The Masorah of the Leningrad Codex in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) Edition (Daniel Mynatt).

Ancient Jew Review is pleased to host this panel, first presented at SBL 2019 in San Diego as “ A Beginner's Guide to the Masorahs of Four Great Early Manuscripts as Represented in Recent Printed Editions.”

This is part two of what sounds like a four-part series. I noted part one here. Past posts on the Leningrad Codex are here and links.

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Wagner-Durand & Linke (eds.), Tales of Royalty

NEW BOOK FROM DE GRUYTER:

Tales of Royalty
Notions of Kingship in Visual and Textual Narration in the Ancient Near East

Edited by: Elisabeth Wagner-Durand and Julia Linke
De Gruyter | 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501506895

Language: English, German
Format: 23.0 x 15.5 cm
Pages Arabic: 325
Illustrations BW: 31
Illustrations Color: 19
Publisher: De Gruyter
Year: 2020

FORMATS
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-5015-1555-2
Published: 20 Jul 2020
PDF
ISBN: 978-1-5015-0689-5
Published: 20 Jul 2020
EPUB
ISBN: 978-1-5015-0685-7
Published: 20 Jul 2020

OVERVIEW
The volume sheds light on Ancient Near Eastern kingship by focusing on its constant urge for legitimation. Thus, it highlights specific aspects like royal building activities, warfare and wisdom and frames these into material and textual expressions that take the powerful form of narratives.

The contributions made in this volume look for specific topoi of kingship and examine which shapes they took and why. The publication determines which narrative topoi have once been selected to legitimize kingship, which media have been chosen to transmit these narratives, and what kind of narrative strategies have been applied. To consider both, texts and images, in the same margin, the book is based on a dual approach: referring to certain narrative themes both philological and archaeological material will be presented.

By joining diverse perspectives of scholars of material culture and texts and their various approaches the publication promises new and special insight into the connection of narration and legitimation in Mesopotamia. It reflects Ancient Near Eastern kingship and its narrative strategies from a interdisciplinary and transmedial point of view and gives new insights into the matter of royal legitimation.

The ToC lists no articles specific to ancient Israel, although ancient Aramean kingship is represented. But many of the issues covered (legitimation, shepherd imagery, righteousness, building activities, martial valor, etc.) are of obvious background interest for Israelite kingship.

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What does holy and treasured mean?

DR. RABBI MICHAEL MARMUR: Israel, God’s Chosen People? (TheTorah.com).

In Deuteronomy, YHWH chooses Israel to be his holy (kadosh) and treasured (segulah) people. What does this mean in its original context, and can it be reconciled with contemporary universalist notions?

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Rosh HaShanah 2020

HAPPY NEW YEAR (ROSH HASHANAH - Jewish New Year 5781) to all those celebrating. The New Year begins tonight at sundown. Stay safe!

Last year's Rosh HaShanah post, with links, is here. A subsequent post (yesterday) is here. For biblical background, see here.

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Pagan imagery in late-antique synagogues

DECORATIVE ART: The Metamorphosis of the Sun God in Ancient Synagogues in Israel. What are the zodiac and other images doing in those bastions of monotheism? The answer lies in a Judaism we don’t know anymore (Elon Gilad and Ruth Schuster, Haaretz premium).

To return to the metaphor of the dinosaurs and the tiny furry animals from which we evolved, we could say that Hellenistic Judaism with its zodiac mosaics was like the dinosaurs: great at the time but destined to go extinct – in the calamitous Early Middle Ages. It was the small, at the time almost imperceptible, Rabbinic Judaism that survived these disasters and became the Judaism of later periods, much like the rodents that survived the dinosaur-killing disaster from which we eventually evolved.

The article offers a high-flyover overview of the development of Greco-Roman and late-antique Judaism, as summarized in the quoted paragraph. I don't necessarily endorse everything in the article. I have no opinion about some parts. But the general idea is sound.

For PaleoJudaica posts on ancient synagogue zodiac mosaics and related matters, see here and links. The late antique Hebrew magical tractate, Sefer HaRazim (the Book of the Mysteries) contains much literary evidence for what this article calls "Hellenistic Judaism." For posts on the Mithras cult (Mithraism), see here and links. And posts involving those elusive god-fearers (godfearers, god fearers) are here and here.

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Ancient inkwell discovered at Gush Etzion

ARTIFACT: 2nd Temple era inkwell found in Gush Etzion. Archaeological find strengthens hypothesis of high literacy rates among population of 2nd Temple era Judea (Arutz Sheva).

Ancient inkwells show up from time to time on the antiquities market, for example, currently, here. And a number of them were excavated at Qumran. There is also one in the Schøyen Collection (cf here) that is reportedly from Qumran. It is good to have another one from a controlled excavation. I hope they find some ink traces in it for analysis.

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Superheroes

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Superheroes of Old. Heroic tales from the Bible to today (John Drummond). This BHD essay summarizes an article by Nicholaus Pumphrey in the current issue of BAR. But the essay itself has some interesting thoughts.

Some potentially related posts about Jesus, Superman, etc., are here and here and links.

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The early Rosh HaShanah

PROF. KAREL VAN DER TOORN: Rosh Hashanah with the Early Israelites (TheTorah.com).

The New Year was celebrated on the festival of ingathering of grapes, accompanied by a sacrificial meal and wine. YHWH was declared to be Israel’s king and judge, and his presence, as it was manifest in the ark, was paraded before the Israelites by the king.

Rosh HaShanah begins at sundown tomorrow evening. This essay is the best overview discussion of its historical and cultic background that I have ever seen.

I have posted here and here (cf. here) some speculations about the relationship of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) to the original autumnal New Year celebration. Professor van der Toorn does not discuss that question, but much of what he says here could be used to support my ideas. That's not to say that he would agree with me. I don't know his view.

For past posts on Rosh HaShanah, see here and links. For past posts on the Gezer calendar, see here and links. For God's ritual enthronement and the New Year, see here. For lots of past posts on the fascinating Demotic-Aramaic-Canaanite Papyrus Amherst 63 (many involving the work of Professor van der Toorn) see here and links.

Also, Haaretz has reprinted Elon Gilad's article on Rosh HaShanah from a few years ago: The History of Rosh Hashanah Which Wasn't Always the 'New Year.' Much of today's traditions originated with Babylonian worship, and you have to read this to believe how a calf's head morphed into gefilte fish. I noted its original publication here. It's a good overview of the biblical and Talmudic evidence for Rosh HaShanah, with some attention to subsequent developments.

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Dinars and Dirhams - numismatic Bates Festschrift

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Dinars and Dirhams. Notice of a New Book: Daryaee, Touraj, Judith A. Lerner & Virginie C. Rey (eds.). 2020. Dinars and Dirhams: Festschrift in Honor of Michael L. Bates. Irvine: Jordan Center for Persian Studies.

Follow the link for description and TOC. There is no link to a site for ordering.

The focus is Islamic numismatics. But there is some attention to Nabatean coins and ancient Iranian stamp seals.

Cross-file under Nabatean (Nabataean) Watch.

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More on that Phoenician wine press

PHOENICIAN WATCH: 2,600-year-old Phoenician winery discovered on Lebanese coast. The site itself was well-preserved, offering a window into the past, showing exactly how the ancient Phoenicians cultivated and traded wine in antiquity (Zachary Keyser, Jerusalem Post).

This article summarizes the National Geographic story and supplements it with some information about wines in the Talmud.

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Pietsch & Rösel (eds.), Hebräisch (5th ed.)

NEW BOOK FROM DE GRUYTER:

Hebräisch
Hebrew: Instruction in Biblical Hebrew Grammar
Biblisch-Hebräische Unterrichtsgrammatik

Edited by: Michael Pietsch and Martin Rösel
De Gruyter | 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697377

Edition: 5th improved edition
Language: German
Format: 23.0 x 15.5 cm
Pages Roman: XXII
Pages Arabic: 376
Publisher: De Gruyter
Year: 2020

FORMATS
Paperback
ISBN: 978-3-11-069483-3
Published: 07 Sep 2020
PDF
ISBN: 978-3-11-069737-7
Published: 07 Sep 2020

OVERVIEW
This book is designed as an accompanying textbook for Hebrew instruction. It provides the student the greatest number of options for selecting and applying different teaching methods. The student's tasks of learning, looking up words, and reviewing are expedited through clear organization of the learning material. The work has a consistent two-color design, making unusual features easier to remember.

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Friedman reviews Sabar, Veritas

ANOTHER REVIEW: The Professor and the Con Man (Matti Friedman, Jewish Review of Books).

Background on Ariel Sabar's book, Veritas, and on the whole sad saga of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife forgery, see here and just keep following those links.

Mr. Friedman alludes to his own investigative work on the Aleppo Codex. Background on his book and his other work is here (cf. here) and links.

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Don't pick a fight with an elephant

REGICIDE FAIL: THE WEIRDEST DEATHS FROM ANCIENT HISTORY (S. FLANNAGAN, Grunge). Some pretty weird deaths are involved here, but the one that caught my eye is that of "Eleazar Avaran and the Elephant." Eleazar was a younger brother of Judah the Maccabee. His death at the battle of Beth-Zechariah is recounted in 1 Maccabees 6:43-47:

43 Now Eleazar, called Avaran, saw that one of the animals was equipped with royal armor. It was taller than all the others, and he supposed that the king was on it. 44 So he gave his life to save his people and to win for himself an everlasting name. 45 He courageously ran into the midst of the phalanx to reach it; he killed men right and left, and they parted before him on both sides. 46 He got under the elephant, stabbed it from beneath, and killed it; but it fell to the ground upon him and he died. 47 When the Jews[m] saw the royal might and the fierce attack of the forces, they turned away in flight. (NRSV)

Unfortunately for Eleazar, it turned out that King Antiochus V was not riding the elephant he attacked.

As I've mentioned before, Grunge is coming up with some pretty good popular articles on ancient history.

Beyond that, a safety tip: do not attack elephants! You are more likely to end up like Eleazar than Legolas.

By Phillip Medhurst - Photo by Harry Kossuth, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7606788

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Who were the wood choppers and water drawers?

DR. WENDY LOVE ANDERSON: Israel’s Wood Choppers and Water Drawers (TheTorah.com).

Moses extends the covenant to all of Israel, “from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water” (Deut 29). The midrash connects this group with the Gibeonites of Joshua 9, creating an anachronism which later rabbinic commentators try to resolve.

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Petra once more

NABATEAN (NABATAEAN) WATCH: Petra lost and found. In the early 1800s, a Swiss explorer tricked his way into Petra, the ancient oasis whose location had been a closely guarded secret for centuries (CRUZ SÁNCHEZ, National Geographic).

We've seen lots of of travel/history pieces on the ancient Nabatean city of Petra. But there's always room for one more. This is a good one!

(By Al_Khazneh_Petra.jpg: Graham Racher from London, UKderivative work: MrPanyGoff - Al_Khazneh_Petra.jpg, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14686572)

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De Gruyter's Handbook of Stemmatology

THE ETC BLOG: New Open Access Handbook of Stemmatology (Peter Gurry). For the textual critics among you.

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The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Quinta

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Introduction to the Masorah | The Masorah of Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ) (David Marcus).

Ancient Jew Review is pleased to host this panel, first presented at SBL 2019 in San Diego as “ A Beginner's Guide to the Masorahs of Four Great Early Manuscripts as Represented in Recent Printed Editions.”

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

Vintage Phoenicians

PHOENICIAN WATCH: 2,600-year-old wine ‘factory’ unearthed in Lebanon. The oldest press found in the country was used by ancient Phoenicians to manufacture vintages once adored around the Mediterranean (TOM METCALFE, National Geographic). The link to the underlying article in the journal Antiquity is bad. But this seems to be the article:

Phoenician lime for Phoenician wine: Iron Age plaster from a wine press at Tell el-Burak, Lebanon

Adriano Orsingher (a1), Silvia Amicone (a2), Jens Kamlah (a1), Hélène Sader (a3) ...
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2020.4Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2020

It looks as though you can access the article from Cambridge Core for free.

Lots of ancient wine presses have been found in Israel. I have linked to stories about many of them. Run "wine press" through the search engine to access them.

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SBL/AAR 2020 is going full virtual

IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T HEARD: THE SBL & AAR MEETINGS ARE GOING ONLINE IN 2020 (NSEA Blog).

I am participating in a MEGA session interacting with Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, Drawing down the moon: magic in the ancient Greco-Roman world. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019. I will be comparing his work on the Greco-Roman magic with the Jewish magical traditions in the late-antique Hebrew magical handbook Sefer HaRazim, The Book of the Mysteries.

My abstract:

Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman and Ancient Jewish Worlds

This paper will review Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World, by Radcliffe G. Edmonds. I will read the book alongside the evidence for ancient Jewish magic, with a focus on the Talmudic-era Hebrew tractate Sefer HaRazim, the Book of the Mysteries. Like Greco-Roman magic, ancient Jewish magic made use of cursing and binding spells, erotic spells, healing and protective spells, divination, and astrology. But Jewish magic developed these practices under the creative influence of biblical tradition. Both Greco-Roman and Jewish magic present us with a complicated relationship between prayer and magic. The relationship of Jewish magic to alchemy and theurgy is more complicated still and requires discussion.

I don't know the new date and time of our session, but I'll let you know when I find out.

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More from Sabar on Veritas

ANOTHER INTERVIEW: How a mysterious man fooled a Harvard scholar into believing the 'Gospel of Jesus' Wife' was real (Daniel Burke, CNN). An interview with Ariel Sabar about his new book, Veritas. It includes responses by Walter Fritz, the owner of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife fragment and a response from Harvard University. CNN reports that they contacted Professor King for comment but did not receive a reply.

I find preposterous the suggestion that Professor King may have know from the start that the fragment was fake. No specialist would risk their reputation knowingly backing a forgery that was likely to be unmasked sooner or later.

Background here and links.

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OT/HB job at Berkeley

DEPARTMENT OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, UC BERKELEY: Assistant Professor - Hebrew Bible - Department of Near Eastern Studies. A tenure-track position! The recruitment period closes on 31 October 2020.

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Oxford Archaeology Image Database

THE AWOL BLOG: Oxford Archaeology Image Database. Wow, what a site!

This website has images from many archaeological sites in Iraq and images of artifacts in some major museums. It looks extraordinarily useful.

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Tuplin Festschrift on Xenophon's Cyropaedia

NEW BOOK FROM HARRASSOWITZ:

Ancient Information on Persia Re-assessed: Xenophon’s Cyropaedia
Proceedings of a Conference Held at Marburg in Honour of Christopher J. Tuplin, December 1–2, 2017

editor(s): Jacobs, Bruno
series:
Classica et Orientalia
volume: 22
pages/dimensions: XXXII, 408 pages
language: English
binding: Book (Hardback)
dimensions: 17.00 × 24.00 cm
weight: 972g
publishing date: 05.08.2020
prices: 98,00 Eur[D] / 100,80 Eur[A]
ISBN: 978-3-447-11283-3

In the past Xenophon’s Cyropaedia has attracted the attention of scholars primarily for literary-historical reasons. It is one of the main tasks of the present publication to free discussion of the work from this relatively narrow disciplinary constraint.
As questions of genre cannot be ignored anyway, the volume opens with contributions that consider where Cyropaedia stands in relation to historiography, the novel and Socratic literature. The next group of studies deals with how Xenophon drew on material from other authors and from his own experience to develop a picture of the emergence of the Persian Empire and of the way in which power was exercised there. Investigations of this sort presuppose questions about the historië that underpins Cyropaedia, and that topic is the focus of two further contributions that deal specifically with the types of information that were available to Xenophon. A final group of contributions looks at the impact of the work in canonical and deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, in the writings of the Alexander historians and in modern literature up to the 18th century.

The Cyropaedia is also a source for what I like to call Greek Fantasy Babylon.

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Colburn, Archaeology of empire in Achaemenid Egypt

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Archaeology of empire in Achaemenid Egypt.

Henry P. Colburn, Archaeology of empire in Achaemenid Egypt. Edinburgh studies in ancient Persia. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. xix, 318 p.. ISBN9781474452366 £85.00.

Review by
Jan P. Stronk. jpstronk@planet.nl

[The Table of Contents is listed below.]

This is said to be the first study of the material culture of Egypt during the period of Achaemenid Persian rule, and its goal is to challenge the common idea that Achaemenid rule of Egypt was either ephemeral and weak or oppressive and harsh. To achieve his goal, Colburn focuses on three main tasks, (1) to describe the intellectual foundations of our knowledge of the archaeology of the 27th dynasty; (2) to assemble a corpus of visual and material records from Egypt that can be dated with confidence to the 27th dynasty; (3) to use this corpus to characterize Achaemenid rule in Egypt.

[...]

Not mentioned in the review, but the Judean community on Elephantine Island flourished during the 27th dynasty. They left us an important corpus of Aramaic papyri.

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