I have linked to Professor McGrath's notes on day one here.
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Thursday, January 14, 2021
Day 2 of the John the Baptist Enoch Seminar
RELIGION PROF: #JohnTheBaptist Enoch Seminar Nangeroni Meeting Day 2. James McGrath continues to keep us informed about the events at this conference. He also provides a link to the text of his own paper, on John the Baptist in Mandean (Mandaean) tradition.
Golb obituary
UCHICAGO NEWS: Norman Golb, renowned scholar of medieval Jewish history, 1928‒2020. Pioneer in study of Dead Sea Scrolls remembered for intellectual generosity (Sara Patterson).
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Online Workshop on Hebrew Bible and Jewish Antiquity
ONLINE EVENT: Groningen-Leuven-Oxford Network Workshop on Hebrew Bible and Jewish Antiquity (Eventbrite).
About this EventThe workshop takes place on 8-9 March 2021. It is free, but you need to book tickets in advance.Faculty, postdoctoral fellows and postgraduates will be presenting work from the three institutions of the network.
HT the Bible Places Blog.
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Wednesday, January 13, 2021
Nine ancient mosaics of Israel
PHOTO ESSAY: 9 magnificent ancient mosaics of Israel. In Roman times, a mosaic team manager earned 150 dinars a day, while a ship’s carpenter earned only 60. But the work was backbreaking (Naama Barak, Israel21c). The article includes a long interview with "Jacques Neguer, the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s art conservation department."
Cross-file under Decorative Art. PaleoJudaica has posted on many, many ancient mosaics found in Israel. I can't hope to note all of the links, but some key ones, each with more links, are here, here, here (cf. here), here, and here (cf. here).
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Enoch Seminar: John the Baptist, Day 1
RELIGION PROF: John the Baptist Enoch Seminar Nangeroni Meeting Day 1. I am not able to attend this important online conference, because I am inundated with the processing of PhD applications this time of year. But if you, like me, cannot attend, James McGrath is keeping us updated.
UPDATE: Recently I collected some PaleoJudaica posts on John the Baptist here.
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Review of Waters, Ctesias' Persica and its Near Eastern context
BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Ctesias’ Persica and its Near Eastern context..
Matt Waters, Ctesias' Persica and its Near Eastern context. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2020. Pp. 184. ISBN 9780299310943 $21.95 (pb).Ctesias was a physician who served (conscripted as a prisoner of war) with the Persian army in the fifth century BCE. He work, the Persica, is lost, but a good bit of it survives in quotations by later writers. The Persica is an important source for traditions of what I like to call Greek Fantasy Babylon.Review by Reinhold Bichler, University of Innsbrück. Reinhold.Bichler@uibk.ac.at
There has by no means been a lack of studies on Ctesias’ work published over the past few decades, but Matt Waters’s book is of special interest. The author, an expert on Achaemenid Persia and its historical and cultural background, here presents “a series of case studies that illustrate prominent Near Eastern traditions and motifs in the Persica” (p. 16), guided by a close reading “through a Near-Eastern lens”. However, which text is the basis for such scrutiny?
[...]
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Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary (T&T Clark)
NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:
Art as Biblical Commentary
Visual Criticism from Hagar the Wife of Abraham to Mary the Mother of JesusBy: J. Cheryl Exum
Published: 01-28-2021
Format: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 288
ISBN: 9780567700308
Imprint: T&T Clark
Series: The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
Illustrations: 91 colour illus
Dimensions: 6 1/8" x 9 1/4"
List price:$44.95
Online price: $40.46
About Art as Biblical Commentary
Art as Biblical Commentary is not just about biblical art but, more importantly, about biblical exegesis and the contributions visual criticism as an exegetical tool can make to biblical exegesis and commentary. Using a range of texts and numerous images, J. Cheryl Exum asks what works of art can teach us about the biblical text. 'Visual criticism' is her term for an approach that addresses this question by focusing on the narrativity of images-reading them as if, like texts, they have a story to tell-and asking what light an image's 'story' can shed on the biblical narrator's story.
In Part I, Exum elaborates on her approach and offers a personal testimony to the value of visual criticism. Part 2 examines in detail the story of Hagar in Genesis 16 and 21. Part 3 contains chapters on erotic looking and voyeuristic gazing in the stories of Bathsheba, Susanna, Joseph and Potiphar's wife and the Song of Songs; on the distribution of renown among Jael, Deborah and Barak; on the Bible's notorious women, Eve and Delilah; and on the sacrificed female body in the stories of the Levite's wife (Judges 19) and Mary the mother of Jesus.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2021
Feder & Henze, Textual History of the Bible Vol. 2A (deuterocanonical books) (Brill)
NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:
Textual History of the Bible Vol. 2AFor more on the Textual History of the Bible Series, see here.Series: Textual History of the Bible, Volume: 2A
Volume Editors: Frank Feder and Matthias Henze
Volume 2 of the Textual History of the Bible is devoted to the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, that is, to all books outside the Hebrew Bible that were considered canonical or 'useful for reading' by a church at some point. Earlier studies of the textual histories of these books focused largely on what were considered the most important textual witnesses, mostly in Greek, Latin and possibly in Armenian and Syriac, with the goal of recovering the 'original' text of the book in question. THB 2 breaks significant new ground in this regard. Rather than focusing on a small group of languages only, the goal has been to be exhaustive and to survey all known textual witnesses of all deuterocanonical books, paying particular attention to the manuscript traditions. Rather than viewing these language traditions merely as a way of reaching back to the alleged 'original' text, THB 2 takes language traditions seriously in its own right.
This new approach to the old texts requires the detailed knowledge of many experts, scholars with intimate knowledge of the language traditions and the manuscripts.
2A covers the canonical histories and the textual histories of the deuterocanonical texts in the diverse language traditions. 2B and 2C are devoted to the deuterocanonical books themselves. The chapters on each book begin with an overview article, titled 'Textual History of ...'. This introductory overview is followed by individual entries on each of the known language traditions in which the book is attested, roughly up to the tenth centry C.E.
Prices from (excl. VAT): €175.00 / $227.00
Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-35559-0
Publication Date: 21 Oct 2020
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If an Aramaic incantation bowl could speak ...
ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: “Mirror, Mirror!” Speaking Objects and Speaking to Objects in the Classroom (Reyhan Durmaz). Cross-file unde Pedagogy.
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What did Cleopatra look like?
ARTISTIC REPRESENTATION: What Did Cleopatra Really Look Like? She likely wasn’t the ravishing seductress depicted by Hollywood — but that’s what Roman propagandists want you to think (Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine). Coins, Egyptian reliefs, and perhaps some unidentified marble busts, may give us some idea of what she looked like.
Cleopatra VII has been receiving much media attention since the casting of Israeli actress Gal Gadot to play her in an upcoming movie. Background here and here.
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Stavrakopoulou (ed.), Life and Death (T&T Clark)
NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:
Life and DeathSocial Perspectives on Biblical Bodies
Editor(s): Francesca Stavrakopoulou
Published: 01-28-2021
Format: EPUB/MOBI eBook (Watermarked)
Edition: 1st
Extent: 224
ISBN: 9780567699312
Imprint: T&T Clark
Series: The Hebrew Bible in Social Perspective
Illustrations: 11 bw illustrations
List price:$103.50
Online price: $82.80
Save $20.70 (20%)About Life and Death
Life and Death: Social Perspectives on Biblical Bodies explores some of the social, material, and ideological dynamics shaping life and death in both the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel and Judah. Analysing topics ranging from the bodily realities of gestation, subsistence, and death, and embodied performances of gender, power, and status, to the imagined realities of post-mortem and divine existence, the essays in this volume offer exciting new trajectories in our understanding of the ways in which embodiment played out in the societies in which the texts of the Hebrew Bible emerged.
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Monday, January 11, 2021
Claus-Hunno Hunzinger (1929-2021)
SAD NEWS: Last member of original Dead Sea Scrolls research team dies from COVID-19. The Qumran explorer was 91 years old (Hannah Brown, Jerusalem Post).
The last living member of the Dead Sea Scrolls research team, Prof. Dr. Claus-Hunno Hunzinger, died on January 6 in Hamburg.His German Wikipedia page is here. As of this writing, it has not been updated to indicate his passing.[...]
Requiescat in pace.
I noted the deaths of John Strugnell in 2007 and Frank Moore Cross in 2012 (additional memories here). Cross was my doctoral supervisor at Harvard University and I also worked closely with Strugnell.
I also noted the death of J. T. Milik in 2006. I never met Milik or Hunzinger.
The original International Team are all gone now. The end of an era.
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Epiphany at mine-free Qasr al-Yahud
DE-MINED: Mine-free River Jordan shrine ends 50 year wait for Epiphany. Israeli de-mining efforts began in 2018 and included support from the Halo Trust, a Scottish-based mine clearance group (Reuters via Jerusalem Post). Qasr al-Yahud is a possible site for the baptism of Jesus.
I have been following the efforts to de-mine the area for some years. Last year those efforts were accelerated. See here (cf. here) and links.
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Reviews of Roberts, First Isaiah (Hermeneia)
THE BIBLICAL REVIEW BLOG: Review: “First Isaiah” by J. J. M. Roberts (William Brown).
J. J. M. Roberts. First Isaiah. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. 2015.William also links to another review of the book by Matthew Neujaur.
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Johnson, Sovereign Authority and the Elaboration of Law in the Bible and the Ancient Near East (Mohr Siebeck)
NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Dylan R. Johnson. Sovereign Authority and the Elaboration of Law in the Bible and the Ancient Near East. 2020. XVI, 367 pages. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 122. 89,00 € including VAT. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-159509-7.
Published in English.
Five Pentateuchal texts (Lev 24:10–23; Num 9:6–14; Num 15:32–36; Num 27:1–11; Num 36:1–12) offer unique visions of the elaboration of law in Israel's formative past. In response to individual legal cases, Yahweh enacts impersonal and general statutes reminiscent of biblical and ancient Near Eastern law collections. From the perspective of comparative law, Dylan R. Johnson proposes a new understanding of these texts as biblical rescripts: a legislative technique that enabled sovereigns to enact general laws on the basis of particular legal cases. Typological parallels drawn from cuneiform and Roman law illustrate the complex ideology informing the content and the form of these five cases. The author explores how latent conceptions of law, justice, and legislative sovereignty shaped these texts, and how the Priestly vision of law interacted with and transformed earlier legal traditions.
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Sunday, January 10, 2021
Zoom event: The Bible With and Without Jesus
CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA: The Bible With and Without Jesus. A conversation with Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler. A Public Webinar Discussion, Wednesday, January 27, 2021 2:00 pm EDT.
Join us for a conversation with Professors Amy-Jill Levine (Vanderbilt University) and Marc Zvi Brettler (Duke University) about their new book, The Bible With and Without Jesus. On Wed, January 27th at 2:00 pm. We will be taking audience questions.Follow the link for more details and for registration information. Cross file under New Book
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Poirier, The Invention of the Inspired Text (T&T Clark)
NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:
The Invention of the Inspired Text
Philological Windows on the Theopneustia of ScriptureBy: John C. Poirier
Published: 01-28-2021
Format: EPUB/MOBI eBook (Watermarked)
Edition: 1st
Extent: 272
ISBN: 9780567696762
Imprint: T&T Clark
Series: The Library of New Testament Studies
List price:$103.50
Online price: $82.80
Save $20.70 (20%)About The Invention of the Inspired Text
John C. Poirier examines the “theopneustic” nature of the Scripture, as a response to the view that “inspiration” lies at the heart of most contemporary Christian theology. In contrast to the traditional rendering of the Greek word theopneustos as “God-inspired” in 2 Tim 3:16, Poirier argues that a close look at first- and second-century uses of theopneustos reveals that the traditional inspirationist understanding of the term did not arise until the time of Origen in the early third century CE, and that in every pre-Origen use of theopneustos the word instead means “life-giving.”
Poirier thus conducts a detailed investigation of theopneustos as it appears in the fifth Sibylline Oracle, the Testament of Abraham, Vettius Valens, Pseudo-Plutarch (Placita Philosophorum), and Pseudo-Phocylides, all of whom understand the word to mean “life-giving.” He also studies the use of the cognate term theopnous in Numenius, the Corpus Hermeticum, on an inscription at the Great Sphinx of Giza, and on an inscription at a nymphaeum at Laodicea on the Lycus. Poirier argues that a rendering of “life-giving” also fits better within the context of 2 Tim 3:16, and that this meaning survived late enough to figure in a fifth-century work by Nonnus of Panopolis. He further traces the pre-Origen use of theopneustos among the Church Fathers. Poirier concludes by addressing the implication of rethinking the traditional understanding of Scripture, stressing that the lack of “God-inspired” scripture ultimately does not affect the truth status of the gospel as preached by the apostles.
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HIPHIL Novum
THE AWOL BLOG: Open Access Journal: HIPHIL Novum.
HIPHIL Novum is a peer-reviewed academic e-journal. It continues HIPHIL which was published in 2003-2010.Follow the link for further details and access links.The journal publishes issues that promote resources for open education for all continents, races, genders, and communities, serving the next generation of biblical research and sustainable technology.
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