Lehrich, Jonathan Z. Smith on Religion (Routledge)

NEW BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE:

Jonathan Z. Smith on Religion
By Christopher I. Lehrich
Copyright Year 2021

Paperback
£34.99

Hardback
£120.00

eBook
£31.49

ISBN 9780367030834
Published December 31, 2020 by Routledge
184 Pages

Book Description

Jonathan Z. Smith (1938–2017) was unquestionably one of the most important and influential voices of critical reflection within the academic study of religion in the last century. His work explored the nature and history of religious phenomena across cultures—from ancient Jewish practices to Maori cults, from early Christianity to mass suicide in the twentieth century—while critiquing the assumptions underlying the very category of "religion."

This important volume offers the first full critical assessment of the influence of Jonathan Z. Smith’s thought on the subject of religion. Christopher I. Lehrich systematically examines and develops a critical overview that will assist others in engaging more fully with Smith’s scholarship.

This book is an essential reading for students and scholars interested in the work of Jonathan Z. Smith as well as the history of religion more broadly.

For more on Jonathan Z. Smith and his work, see here and here.

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The Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CDAMM)

THE AWOL BLOG: The Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CDAMM).

The Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CDAMM) is an online encyclopedia covering secular and religious expressions of apocalyptic and millenarian thinking throughout history and across cultures.

Newly launched this month.

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The Assyrians

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: 10 Things to Know About the Assyrian Empire. Who were the Assyrians? (Robin Ngo). Cross-file under News You Can Use.

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Janzen, End of History and the Last King (T&T Clark)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

End of History and the Last King
Achaemenid Ideology and Community Identity in Ezra-Nehemiah

By: David Janzen

Published: 02-11-2021
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 288
ISBN: 9780567698018
Imprint: T&T Clark
Series: The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
Volume: 713
Dimensions: 6 1/8" x 9 1/4"
List price: $115.00
Online price: $103.50
Save $11.50 (10%)

About End of History and the Last King

This book examines community identity in the post-exilic temple community in Ezra-Nehemiah, and explores the possible influences that the Achaemenids, the ruling Persian dynasty, might have had on its construction. In the book, David Janzen reads Ezra-Nehemiah in dialogue with the Achaemenids' Old Persian inscriptions, as well as with other media the dynasty used, such as reliefs, seals, coins, architecture, and imperial parks. In addition, he discusses the cultural and religious background of Achaemenid thought, especially its intersections with Zoroastrian beliefs.

Ezra-Nehemiah, Janzen argues, accepts Achaemenid claims for the necessity and beneficence of their hegemony. The result is that Ezra-Nehemiah, like the imperial ideology it mimics, claims that divine and royal wills are entirely aligned. Ezra-Nehemiah reflects the Achaemenid assertion that the peoples they have colonized are incapable of living in peace and happiness without the Persian rule that God established to benefit humanity, and that the dynasty rewards the peoples who do what they desire, since that reflects divine desire.

The final chapter of the book argues that Ezra-Nehemiah was produced by an elite group within the Persian-period temple assembly, and shows that Ezra-Nehemiah's pro-Achaemenid worldview was not widely accepted within that community.

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Solomonic-era purple cloth excavated in Timna Valley

SARTORIAL ARCHAEOLOGY: Ancient cloth with Bible’s purple dye found in Israel, dated to King David’s era. 3 scraps from 1,000 BCE, earliest such finds in region, point to Edomite kingdom described in Bible; vibrant and lasting ‘royal’ dye, mark of the elite, comes from murex sea snails (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

If you like technical things, the underlying article at Plos One is: Early evidence of royal purple dyed textile from Timna Valley (Israel).
Naama Sukenik , David Iluz, Zohar Amar, Alexander Varvak, Orit Shamir, Erez Ben-Yosef
Published: January 28, 2021https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245897

PaleoJudaica posts involving Tyrian purple dye are here, here, here, and here. And for the Israelite telekhet dye, also made from the murex snail, see here and links.

The Plos One article suggests that the fragments may have come from posh clothing. A couple of posts on clothing in ancient Israel are here and here. (Timna was Edomite, but the sartorial conventions would have been similar, at least to us.)

This discovery is further proof that delicate organic artifacts from as far back as the tenth century BCE can survive to the present in the right climate. The Timna Valley has the right climate. So does Megiddo.

Parchment and papyrus scrolls are delicate organic artifacts. If these cloth fragments can survive with their dye intact, I see no reasons why still-readable scroll fragments could not survive in the same environment. We would have to be lucky for them to survive and for us to find them. But the right conditions exist.

I have further thoughts on this point here and links and here (on the Timna Valley excavation) and here and here (on Megiddo).

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Ugaritic deserves a medal

NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY: Director of Ugarit Antiquities : The Ugaritic language deserves the International Linguistic Medal (Rawaa Ghanam, Syria Times). I think Dr. Al-Kayem's point was rhetorical. But if there is an International Linguistic Medal, I would be happy to have it go to Ugaritic.

The scholar named in the article as "Charles de Ferriol" should be "Charles Virolleaud."

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MOTB returns 5K artifact to Egypt

REPATRIATION: Museum of Bible Returns 5,000 Artifacts With “Insufficient” Provenance to Egypt. The US Department of Homeland Security returned the artifacts to Cairo yesterday, concluding Egypt’s efforts to retrieve the items since 2016 (Hakim Bishara, Hyperallergic).

The collection includes manuscripts and papyrus fragments with texts written in Coptic, hieratic and demotic scripts, and Greek. Some of the papyri feature Christian prayers written in Arabic and Coptic or Arabic only.

Other items in the collection include cartonnage funerary masks, parts of coffins, heads from stone statues, and portraits of the deceased, according to Egyptian officials. The objects will be handed to the Coptic Museum in Cairo, which is the largest museum of its kind in the world.

It sounds as though this is part of the planned repatriation of artifacts of unverified provenance which Steve Green announed last spring. See here and here. I commend Mr. Green and the MOTB for working to get their act together. But I hope there are no more problems like this.

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Judith and History

READING ACTS: Is Judith Historically Inaccurate? (Phil Long). This is what is known as a rhetorical question. Phil has a good overview of the historical problems with the book.

It's a good story though, so let's not over-think it. Imagine scholars two thousand years from now pondering what people in the twentieth century could have made of the historical inaccuracies in the Indiana Jones movies.

Background here.

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Inscriptions in Saudia Arabia

ARAMAIC WATCH (ETC.): Inscriptions from ancient Arab civilizations found across Saudi Arabia (Tareq Al-Thaqafi, Arab News/zawya.com).

The best known inscriptions are rock inscriptions on mountains, Dr. Sulaiman Al-Thiaeb, professor of ancient Arabic writings and cultural consultant at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies said.

There is an impressive variety of inscriptions. Many are in various dialects of Old Arabian, many are in Aramaic or Nabatean (Nabataean), and there are some in Palmyrene Aramaic, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Egyptian (Coptic?), and Babylonian cuneiform. If you would like to look at some of them, see the link here. And just keep following the links there for more on Arabian, Aramaic, Natabean, etc. inscriptions in Saudia Arabia and ancient Arabia more generally

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The Logos Summer Workshop 2021

THE ETC BLOG: 2021 Logos: Texts and Manuscripts (Peter Gurry).

This two-week summer workshop for up to 30 students combines lectures and workshops to advance the work of these developing scholars. Beginning in 2021, the workshop will rotate on alternating years between Oxford and Washington, DC.

Assuming things are being done on-site again, this year's workshop will be in Washington D.C. Apparently the enrolment deadline is soon, but I can't find the date anywhere.

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Review of Libraries before Alexandria (ed. Ryholt & Barjamovic)

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Libraries before Alexandria: ancient Near Eastern traditions.

Kim Ryholt, Gojko Barjamovic, Libraries before Alexandria: ancient Near Eastern traditions. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xvii, 491. ISBN 9780199655359 $130.00.

Review by
Bernhard Schneider. mcb170@gmail.com

"Before," means before the Hellenistic period, so the Qumran Library, the Library at Herculaneum, etc. are not included. But there is wide coverage of ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian libraries of the second and first millennium BCE.

I have collected some PaleoJudaica posts on the Library of Alexandria here. For more on the volume on the St Andrews conference mentioned in the review, see here. That post has additional links on ancient libraries. And for a book on ancient Roman libraries, see here.

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

The Routledge Companion to Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean World

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Women and Monarchy in Ancient Iran. Notice of a New Book: Carney, Elizabeth Donnelly & Sabine Müller (eds.). 2021. The Routledge Companion to Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean World. London: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

The post flags articles on royal Achemenid, Seleucid, Arcasid, and Sassanian women (all periods of interest for PaleoJudaica). But the book also has articles on royal women of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Macedonia, and Rome. There is an article by Lucinda Dirven on Zenobia of Palmyra and an article by Julia Wilker on Hasmonean women.

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Tu B'Shevat 2021

TU B'SHEVAT, the New Year for Trees, begins tonight at sundown. Enjoy!

Last year's Tu B'Shevat post is here, with links to earlier posts.

For biblical background, see here. The name "New Year for Trees" comes from Mishnah Rosh HaShanah 1.1. That passage gives two alternative dates for the celebration, one from Shammai and one from Hillel. Hillel's date (15 Shevat) is the one celebrated at present.

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Interview with Ariel Sabar on the GJW

RELIGION & POLITICS: Debunking the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: An Interview with Ariel Sabar (Eric C. Miller). A thoughtful and informative interview.

For PaleoJudaica posts on Sabar's recent book, Veritas, and the whole Gospel of Jesus' Wife saga, start here and follow the many links.

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

On Judith

READING ACTS: What is the Book of Judith? Phil Long offers a brief historical-critical introduction to the book.

PaleoJudaica posts on the many artistic representations of Judith are collected here. And for more on the historical background of the book, see here.

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

New editors for BASOR

ASOR NEWS: THE BULLETIN OF ASOR (BASOR) EDITORIAL TEAM ANNOUNCED. A warm welcome to the four new editors and many thanks to the two outgoing editors for their hard work.

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Höfele et al. (eds.), Chaos from the Ancient World to Early Modernity (De Gruyter)

NEW BOOK FROM DE GRUYTER:

Chaos from the Ancient World to Early Modernity

Formations of the Formless

Edited by: Andreas Höfele, Christoph Levin, Reinhard Müller, and Björn Quiring

De Gruyter | 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110655001

OVERVIEW

Chaos is a perennial source of fear and fascination. The original "formless void" (tohu-wa-bohu) mentioned in the book of Genesis, chaos precedes the created world: a state of anarchy before the establishment of cosmic order. But chaos has frequently also been conceived of as a force that persists in the cosmos and in society and threatens to undo them both.

From the cultures of the ancient Near East and the Old Testament to early modernity, notions of the divine have included the power to check and contain as well as to unleash chaos as a sanction for the violation of social and ethical norms. Yet chaos has also been construed as a necessary supplement to order, a region of pure potentiality at the base of reality that provides the raw material of creation or even constitutes a kind of alternative order itself. As such, it generates its own peculiar 'formations of the formless'.

Focusing on the connection between the cosmic and the political, this volume traces the continuities and re-conceptualizations of chaos from the ancient Near East to early modern Europe across a variety of cultures, discourses and texts. One of the questions it poses is how these pre-modern 'chaos theories' have survived into and reverberate in our own time.

From £59.00

FORMATS
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-3-11-065369-4
Published: 23 Nov 2020

PDF
ISBN: 978-3-11-065500-1
Published: 23 Nov 2020

EPUB
ISBN: 978-3-11-065398-4
Published: 23 Nov 2020

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New endowment supports the Bodleian Hebrew collection

FUNDING: Major donation secures Oxford University's famous Hebrew collections. Beyond the aforementioned works, the library holds a collection of Hebrew texts from all over the world, ranging from Western, Central and Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and China (Cody Levine, Jerusalem Post). On "the aforementioned works":

Among the collection of Hebrew-language books at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University include a catalog from 1605, in addition to a collection of early Hebrew and Yiddish printed books, a fragment of Maimonides' autograph draft of the Mishneh Torah from the Cairo Genizah and manuscripts of the Torah. Prized works held by the library also include the 15th century Kennicott Bible, still with its original goatskin box-binding and an illuminated 14th century Tripartite Maḥzor from the Michael collection.

Dr César Merchán-Hamann is the new Curator of the collection. Congratulations to him and to the Bodleian Library!

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

The Ethiopian Ark is in danger

THIS IS TERRIBLE: Fabled ark could be among ancient treasures in danger in Ethiopia’s deadly war. (Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian via MSN).

It has been hidden from view for thousands of years, and its whereabouts never proved. But if the Ark of the Covenant indeed rests in a chapel in northern Ethiopia, this extraordinary religious treasure could be at grave risk from fighting in the area.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the supposed Ark of the Covenant in this Ethiopian chapel see here and follow the links here. I am saddened to hear that the region is at war.

For many more posts on the Ark of the Covenant, start here and keep following those links.

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Cargill is stepping down from BAR editorship

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: And Now for Something Completely Different. Thank you for allowing me to serve you as Editor of BAR for these past three years (Bob Cargill). And thanks to you, Bob, for all your hard work on BAR.

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Oriental Institute Publications 1997-2020

THE AWOL BLOG: Chronological Lists of Oriental Institute Publications. The list covers the period from 1997 to 2020. Some of the publications are of direct interest to ancient Judaism, such as the Festschrift for Norman Gold, published in 2012. Many others are of indirect interest.

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Kaplony & Potthast (eds.), From Qom to Barcelona (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

From Qom to Barcelona

Aramaic, South Arabian, Coptic, Arabic and Judeo-Arabic Documents

Series: Islamic History and Civilization, Volume: 178

Volume Editors: Andreas Kaplony and Daniel Potthast

The renaissance of Arabic Papyrology has become obvious by the founding of the International Society for Arabic Papyrology (ISAP) at the Cairo conference (2002), and by its subsequent conferences in Granada (2004), Alexandria (2006), Vienna (2009), Tunis/Carthage (2012), Munich (2014), and Berlin (2018). This volume collects papers given at the Munich conference, including editions of previously unpublished Coptic, Arabic and Judeo-Arabic documents, as well as historical studies based on documentary evidence from Achaemenid Bactria, Ancient South-Arabia, and Early Islamic, Fāṭimid and Mamlūk Egypt.

Contributors: Anne Boud'hors; Ursula Bsees; Peter T. Daniels; Maher A. Eissa; Andreas Kaplony; W. Matt Malczycki; Craig Perry; Daniel Potthast; Peter Stein; Naïm Vanthieghem; Oded Zinger

Prices from (excl. VAT): €129.00 / $155.00

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-44387-7
Publication Date: 07 Dec 2020

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-44384-6
Publication Date: 10 Dec 2020

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Lim, The Earliest Commentary on the Prophecy of Habakkuk (OUP)

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS (CURRENTLY REPRINTING):

The Earliest Commentary on the Prophecy of Habakkuk

Timothy H. Lim

Oxford Commentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls

• The first major commentary on Pesher Habakkuk for forty years
• A detailed and perspicuous discussion of the scroll, from the minutiae to broad historical and theological themes
• Provides scholarship of the highest level based on the best digitized images and readings

Description

This is the first major commentary in English on Pesher Habakkuk for forty years. It elucidates the nature of 1QpHab as the earliest commentary on the prophecy of Habakkuk by a detailed study of the biblical quotation and sectarian interpretation. This commentary provides a new edition of the scroll, including new readings, and detailed palaeographical, philological, exegetical and historical notes and discussion. It shows that the pesherist imitates the allusive style of the oracles of Habakkuk and also draws on lexemes, phrases, and themes from other biblical texts and Jewish sources. It shows that the pesherist identified the Kittim with the Romans who conquered Judaea in 63 BCE, and suggests that the scroll refers to several righteous and wicked figures, including the last Hasmonean high priests.

£65.00

Hardback
This item is currently reprinting, but may be ordered now for delivery when back in stock.
Notify Me When In Stock
Published: 09 April 2020
208 Pages
234x156mm
ISBN: 9780198714118

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7th-century Mosque excavated near Tiberias

ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE: One of the World's Oldest Mosques Found in Tiberias, Israel. Beneath the city’s ancient mosque is actually an older one from the seventh century, when Judaism, Christianity and Islam lived side by side (Noa Shpiegl and Nir Hasson, Haaretz).

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