Mairs, The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek world

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World. Notice of a New Book: Mairs, Rachel (ed.). 2021. The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek world. London & New York: Routledge.. It has chapters on the Seleucid Empire, Parthia, Alexander the Great, and other areas of interest.

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Plato’s Timaeus (symposium proceedings)

THE AWOL BLOG: Plato’s Timaeus: Proceedings of the Tenth Symposium Platonicum Pragense. An open-access book with free downloadable PDF.

Plato's Timaeus, the early chapters of Genesis, and one or two other biblical passages, were the foundational components of the creation myth for ancient Demiurgic Gnosticism.

A couple of PaleoJudaica posts involving the Timaeus are here and here.

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Eberhart et al. (eds.), Tempel, Lehrhaus, Synagoge (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Tempel, Lehrhaus, Synagoge

Orte jüdischen Gottesdienstes, Lernens und Lebens. Festschrift für Wolfgang Kraus

Editors: Christian A. Eberhart, Martin Karrer, Siegfried Kreuzer, and Martin Meiser
Contributors: Hans Ausloos, Eberhard Bons, Kristin De Troyer, Christian Eberhart, Heinz-Josef Fabry, Bonifatia Gesche OSB, Anna Grill, Robert J. V. Hiebert, Jan Joosten, Martin Karrer, Siegfried Kreuzer, William Loader, Roland Marti, Martin Meiser, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, Manfred Oeming, Adrian Schenker, Gert J. Steyn, Emanuel Tov, Axel Töllner, Frank Ueberschaer, Martin Vahrenhorst, Jan Willem van Henten, and Burkard M. Zapff

Durch die weite Ausbreitung und Zerstreuung des Judentums entstanden früh Orte des Lehrens und religiösen Lebens neben dem Tempel. Der Band reflektiert die Entstehung der Synagoge, die Gelehrsamkeit und jüdische Versammlung in der Diaspora von Babylonien über Alexandria bis Rom, das Lehrhaus der Weisheit am Beispiel Ben Siras und die Ausbreitung der Lehrhauskultur nach der Zerstörung des Tempels. Er geht der Bedeutung der Schrift in ihrer griechischen Übersetzung (Septuaginta) für das Nachdenken in der Diaspora nach, prüft exemplarisch Impulse und Abgrenzungen, die bei der Entstehung des Christentums durch jüdische Lehre und Schriftworte entstanden, und greift Spuren des christlich-jüdischen Miteinanders bis in jüngste Zeit auf.

[No price specified.]

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-3-657-70349-4
Publication Date: 02 Jun 2020

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-3-506-70349-1
Publication Date: 27 Mar 2020

The essays are in German and English. Follow the link for the TOC.

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Tyre's archaeology restored

PHOENICIAN WATCH: Archaeology: recovery complete at ancient city of Tyre. In Lebanon. Italian blue helmets of UNIFIL mission at work (ANSAmed).

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A brief history of the Messiah

HISTORY OF IDEAS: How Did Jews Come to Believe in a Messiah? A Brief History. Nowhere does the Torah mention a redeemer known as the Messiah who will appear at the end of history. The origin of this belief stems from somewhere else entirely (Elon Gilad, Haaretz). This is a good overview of the development of the idea of the Messiah from its origins to the present.

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The ghost archive of Maresha

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Lasting Impressions from Ancient Maresha. The Discovery of an Archive Underneath the Hellenistic City (Marek Dospěl). The papyrus or parchment documents have long since decayed away, but the clay seals (bullae) attached to them survive. A few of bullae reportedly have Greek letters and numbers on them, but otherwise the archive is lost. Too bad for us epigraphers. They do preserve lots of artistic impressions for the iconographers.

As usual, this BHD essay summarizes a BAR article (authored by Donald T. Ariel and Ian Stern) which is behind the subscription wall. PaleoJudaica posts on the Maresha bullae are here, here, and here.

The Beit Guvrin-Maresha National Park has produced a number of Aramaic and Greek inscriptions, especially in the caves. See here (cf. here) and keep following the links.

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Mount Sinai, the bush, and the sandals

PROF. RACHEL ADELMAN: The Burning Bush: Why Must Moses Remove His Shoes? (TheTorah.com).

YHWH’s first revelation to Moses at a sneh סְּנֶה, “bush,” signifies that it is not a future site of worship and foreshadows the revelation at Sinai.

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Lipka & Wells (eds.), Sexuality and Law in the Torah (T&T Clark)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

Sexuality and Law in the Torah

Editor(s): Hilary Lipka, Bruce Wells

Published: 03-19-2020
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 344
ISBN: 9780567681591
Imprint: T&T Clark
Series: The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
Volume: 675
Illustrations: 8 bw illustrations
Dimensions: 6 1/8" x 9 1/4"
List price: $115.00
Online price: $103.50
Save $11.50 (10%)

About Sexuality and Law in the Torah

This book examines many of the laws in the Torah governing sexual relations and the often implicit motivations underlying them. It also considers texts beyond the laws in which legal traditions and ideas concerning sexual behavior intersect and provide insight into ancient Israel's social norms. The book includes extended treatments on the nature and function of marriage and divorce in ancient Israel, the variation in sexual rules due to status and gender, the prohibition on male-with-male sex, and the different types of sexualities that may have existed in ancient Israel.

The essays draw on a variety of methodologies and approaches, including narrative criticism, philological analysis, literary theory, feminist and gender theory, anthropological models, and comparative analysis. They cover content ranging from the narratives in Genesis, to the laws of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, to later re-interpretations of pentateuchal laws in Jeremiah and texts from the Second Temple period. Overall, the book presents a combination of theoretical discussion and close textual analysis to shed new light on the connections between law and sexuality within the Torah and beyond.

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Greek tombstone found in the Negev

GREEK EPIGRAPHY: Ancient Greek inscription found by chance in the Negev. The stone was found by a "Project 500" worker from the Parks and Nature Authority while cleaning and preparing nature paths in the Nitzana National Park (Hannah Brown, Jerusalem Post).

The inscription was deciphered by Dr. Leah Di Segni of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and it refers to “Blessed Maria, who lived an immaculate life” and died on February 9. The stone dates from the late sixth-early seventh centuries CE.

I saw the text of the inscription before I read any of the articles. I assumed the object was a talisman honoring the Virgin Mary. But it turns out to be an epitaph on a tombstone in a cemetery. Nonetheless, it sounds as though Maria's epitaph is meant to evoke her namesake.

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Nero's coins

NUMISMATICS: Ancient Roman Coins: The Many Faces of Nero (Tyler Rossi, CoinWeek).

Many of the coins have the phrase "Nero Caesar" in the inscription. For the importance of this phrase and the parallel "Neron Caesar" for the Nero Rediturus myth and the Number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation, see here and links.

For an attempt to reconstruct the appearance of Nero and other Roman emperors, see here. I think that reconstruction of Nero looks most like his Type II coins.

I also noted a recent book on Nero here.

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CFP: workshop on late-antique miracles & paradoxography and biblical reception

H-JUDAIC: Call for Papers (EABS Wuppertal, August 3-5, 2021): Miracles and Paradoxography in Late-Antique Literature of Biblical Reception. The workshop is interested in both Christian and Jewish literature.

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Moazami, [Zoroastrian] Laws of Ritual Purity (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Laws of Ritual Purity

Zand ī Fragard ī Jud-Dēw-Dād (A Commentary on the Chapters of the Widēwdād)

Series: Iran Studies, Volume: 19

Author: Mahnaz Moazami

Laws of Ritual Purity: Zand ī Fragard ī Jud-Dēw-Dād (A Commentary on the Chapters of the Widēwdād) describes the various ways in which Zoroastrian authorities in the fifth-sixth centuries CE reinterpreted the purity laws of their community. Its redactor(s), conversant with the notions and practices of purity and impurity as developed by their predecessors, attempt(s) to determine the parameters of the various categories of pollution, the minimum measures of polluted substances, and the effect of the interaction of pollution with other substances that are important to humans. It is therefore in essence a technical legal corpus designed to provide a comprehensive picture of a central aspect of Zoroastrian ritual life: the extent of one’s liability contracting pollution and how atonement/purification can be achieved.

Prices from (excl. VAT): €105.00 / $126.00

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-43395-3
Publication Date: 16 Nov 2020

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-43394-6
Publication Date: 19 Nov 2020

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CRINT Essay Prize 2021

H-JUDAIC: CRINT Essay Prize in Early Jewish and Christian Studies.

The Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum (CRINT) Foundation invites submissions for its bi-annual Essay Prize, to be awarded to the best paper on a topic related to the early history of Jews and Christians. Any essay illuminating how Jews and Christians shared and/or developed their own traditions and identities during the first six centuries CE is eligible. Rabbinic literature and culture have long been areas of special focus of CRINT and submissions that in some way engage or draw on these fields of study are therefore especially welcomed.

The amount of the prize is €1.000. (Post-)graduate students and scholars who received their PhD no earlier than 2016 are eligible to submit a paper.

Follow the link for full details. The submission deadline is 1 July 2021.

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Antiquities smuggling arrests in Israel

APPREHENDED: Israeli Authorities Take Down Gang Engaged in the Illegal Antiquities Trade (Aryeh Savir, Tazpit News Agency/Jewish Press). Allegedly this was an ambitious gang:

Thousands of ancient, spectacular and rare items, hundreds and thousands of years old, from both Israel and around the world, were seized on Monday in a major operation; items that were allegedly robbed from cemeteries throughout the Mediterranean basin, as well as from Africa and South America.

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David's disturbing deathbed directions

DR. DAVID GLATT-GILAD: King David’s Troubling Deathbed Instructions. (TheTorah.com).

Before his death, David commands Solomon to kill two men: Joab, his loyal general, and Shimei, his enemy, whom he had sworn not to kill.

The Deuteronomist didn't seem to mind this disturbing story. But it bothered later interpreters. Even the Chronicler leaves it out and gives David a far more pious ending (1 Chronicles 28-29). It seems the disquiet goes back to our earliest intepreter.

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Corrections to Charlesworth's OTP

BIBLICALIA: Charlesworth Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Corrigenda (Kevin P. Edgecomb). Along with a missing page from volume 2 (in all but the first edition).

HT The AWOL Blog.

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Salome's dance floor excavated?

ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE: Dance floor where John the Baptist was condemned to death discovered, archaeologist says (Owen Jarus, Live Science).

A courtyard uncovered at Machaerus is likely the place where Salome's dance was performed and where Herod Antipas decided to have John the Baptist beheaded, wrote Győző Vörös, director of a project called Machaerus Excavations and Surveys at the Dead Sea, in the book "Holy Land Archaeology on Either Side: Archaeological Essays in Honour of Eugenio Alliata" (Fondazione Terra Santa, 2020). The courtyard, Vörös said, has an apsidal-shaped niche that is probably the remains of the throne where Herod Antipas sat.

Could be. But not all archaeologists are convinced.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on Machaerus, its excavation, and its relation to John the Baptist, see here and links. For posts on Salome, daughter of Herodias, see here and links. Josephus gives her name, but the she is unnamed in the Gospel stories about her dance for Herod.

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AJR's 2020 top 10

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Year in Review: Top Ten Articles of 2020.

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William Ross has been reading and reading.

WILLIAM ROSS: MY 2020 READING.

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Talmud-translator Isidore Epstein (1894-1962)

TALMUD WATCH: Remembering Rabbi Dr. Isidore Epstein, Jewish philosopher and thinker. He wrote voluminously. When he retired and we wanted to honor him by means of a bibliography of his writings, he couldn’t remember all that he had written (Raymond Apple, Jerusalem Post).

Sixty years ago last week, on December 27, 1960, Marian and I stood under the huppah (wedding canopy) at the Bayswater Synagogue, London, to be married by her father, Rabbi Joseph Unterman. Her unterfirers (escorts to the huppah) were her parents; mine were Rabbi Dr. Isidore Epstein, principal of Jews’ College, and his wife.

[...]

Dr. Epstein was a diminutive man with a giant mind. Born in Hungary, he had come to England in his youth, and the rabbinic ordinations he earned included one from Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, who had been stranded in London because of World War I. Epstein (the students sometimes called him Eppie) was said to know the whole Talmud by heart. Only a man like that could have edited the 36-volume Soncino Talmud, the first full translation of the Babylonian Talmud into English.

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Biblical Studies Carnival 178

PETERGOEMAN.COM: Biblical Studies Carnival 178 (December 2020).

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

Did Esau sell his burial plot too?

DR.MALKA Z. SIMKOVICH: Jacob’s Funeral and Esau’s Last Stand. (TheTorah.com).

Esau’s attempt to block Jacob’s burial at the Cave of Machpelah ends in his gruesome death

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More on the passing of Norman Golb

H-JUDAIC: Passing of Prof. Norman Nahum Golb. The post includes a list of some of his main publications.

Background here.

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Sir Charles Warren

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Archaeology news: The 'real-life Indiana Jones' who uncovered an ancient Biblical artefact. (Sebastian Kettley, The Express).

ARCHAEOLOGISTS come in all shapes and sizes but Sir Charles Warren, the 19th-century British explorer, is one of a few lucky archaeologists to have been branded a "real-life Indiana Jones." A scripture expert has explained how Sir Charles came to uncover an incredible treasure of Biblical significance.

The Express has been publishing a lot of articles lately on the Bible and archaeology. This one is a pretty good account of some of Sir Charles Warren's accomplishments. For more on him, see here.

For more on the "To the place of trumpeting..." inscription see here and links.

I'm happy to share the title "real-life Indiana Jones" with Sir Charles.

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Blackwell et al. (eds.) Reading Revelation in Context (Zondervan)

RECENT BOOK FROM ZONDERVAN:

READING REVELATION IN CONTEXT

by Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, Jason Maston, Loren T. Stuckenbruck, Zondervan,

On Sale: 2019-09-10

Price: $21.99

Book Summary

Reading Revelation in Context brings together short, accessible essays by a team of over 20 top scholars that compare and contrast the visions and apocalyptic imagery of the book of Revelation with various texts from Second Temple Jewish literature.

About the Book

Reading Revelation in Context brings together short, accessible essays that compare and contrast the visions and apocalyptic imagery of the book of Revelation with various texts from Second Temple Jewish literature.

Going beyond an introduction that merely surveys historical events and theological themes, Reading Revelation in Context examines individual passages in Second Temple Jewish literature in order to illuminate the context of Revelation's theology and the meaning and potency of John's visions. Following the narrative progression of Revelation, each chapter (1) pairs a major unit of the Apocalypse with one or more sections of a thematically related Jewish text, (2) introduces and explores the historical and theological nuances of the comparator text, and (3) shows how the ideas in the comparator text illuminate those expressed in Revelation.

In addition to the focused comparison provided in the essays, the book contains other student-friendly features that will help them engage broader discussions, including an introductory chapter that familiarizes students with the world and texts of Second Temple Judaism, a glossary of important terms, and a brief appendix suggesting what tools students might use to undertake their own comparative studies. At the end of each chapter there a list of other thematically relevant Second Temple Jewish texts recommended for additional study and a focused bibliography pointing students to critical editions and higher-level discussions in scholarly literature.

Reading Revelation in Context brings together an international team of over 20 New Testament experts including Jamie Davies, David A. deSilva, Michael J. Gorman, Dana M. Harris, Ronald Herms, Edith M. Humphrey, Jonathan A. Moo, Elizabeth E. Shively, Cynthia Long Westfall, Archie T. Wright, and more.

Product Details

ISBN: 9780310566236
ISBN 10: 0310566231
Imprint: Zondervan Academic
On Sale: 2019-09-10
Pages: 208
List Price: $21.99
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
Publication Date: 2019-09-10
Trim Size: 152.000mm x 229.000mm x 14.000mm
Weight: 290.000gr
Category 1 : RELIGION / Biblical Studies / New Testament
Category 2 : RELIGION / Biblical Commentary / New Testament
Category 3 : RELIGION / Biblical Criticism & Interpretation / New Testament
Category 4 : RELIGION / Biblical Studies / Prophecy

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