For many, many PaleoJudaica posts on the the Ark of the Covenant in the Bible and tradition and in light of archaeology, start here and follow the links. And don't miss the results of the Winter 2020 BAR caption contest here.
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The botanical finds, mostly charred seeds and other plant remains, allowed the researchers to understand not only what kind of food the ancient Canaanites ate, but also how they warmed up their houses, where their fields were located, the seasons of the crops, how work was split between agriculture and herding, and how Gath related to the contemporary commercial routes.The JP article refers to an underlying article in the Journal of Archaeological Science, but that paper does not yet appear on the journal's website.
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As a scholar whose expertise is in the social and religious history of the Greco-Roman world, Professor Stanley knows well the background of the New Testament world. My common sentiment as I read was gratitude—gratitude for the author’s careful research and his ability to weave a fascinating story. Sometimes his descriptions confirmed what I knew, but he usually delved much more deeply than I ever have, and I thoroughly enjoyed soaking it in.I noted another review by Phil Long at Reading Acts.
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HT Rogue Classicism.
Now here's some real Shapira news from Daniel Stoekl, circulated in various places:
A scholarly webinar on Idan Dershowitz' recent reassessment of the Shapira documentsI have some conflicting meetings on that day, but I shall be able to attend part of it.Please register here: https://tinyurl.com/bfdjjn9a
June 10, 2021
3-8 pm CEST // 9 am - 2 pm EDT
---------------------------
3 pm CESTDaniel Stökl Ben Ezra (EPHE, PSL), Introduction - 10'
Idan Dershowitz (U Potsdam) and Naama Pat-El (UT Austin), New
Observations and Reactions on the Valediction of Moses - 30'
Rebecca Jefferson (U Florida), Moses Shapira’s Manuscript Sales - 10'
Benjamin Sass (Tel Aviv U), A Note on the Palaeography - 10'
Matthieu Richelle (UCLouvain), Paleography- 10'Pause 30 min
4:40 pm CEST Robert Holmstedt (U Toronto), Linguistics - 15'
Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra (EPHE, PSL), Dead Sea Scrolls - 10'
Konrad Schmid (U Zurich), Is V a Literary Precursor to Deuteronomy? - 15'
Jeffrey Stackert (U Chicago), Hebrew Bible - 10'Pause 30 min
From 6 pm CEST: General Discussion
Please register here https://tinyurl.com/bfdjjn9a in order to receive the webinar link.
For background on the Shapira affair and recent reassessments arguing that his scroll was a genuine ancient artifact, see here, here, here and links.
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Hedwig Schmalzgruber, Speaking animals in ancient literature. Kalliope - Studien zur griechischen und lateinischen Poesie, 20. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2020. Pp. 619. ISBN 9783825346904 €78,00.As you would expect, the serpent in the Garden and Balaam's donkey receive attention. So do Philo of Alexandria and the Acts of Thomas.Review by
Diego De Brasi, Universität Trier. debrasi@uni-trier.de
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Glenn J. Corbett, the new Editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, answers 5 Questions about his training and experience that led him to fill this new role at the Biblical Archaeology Society. From South Carolina to Petra, it’s been an exciting journey!
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For posts on the diet of John the Baptist, see here and links.
For more on and from the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, see here and links.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
BROOKLYN (CN) — Craft chain Hobby Lobby is going to court again, this time to recover some $7 million it paid a former Oxford University classics professor for ancient fragments of the Christian gospels and other artifacts that turned out to be stolen.The full text of the federal complaint is here. The article posts, summarizes, and discusses it.[...]
Over at Evangelical Textual Criticism, Peter Gurry links to the article and complaint and has a briefer summary and discussion: Hobby Lobby Sues Obbink for $7m.
For PaleoJudaica posts on the Oxford missing-papyri scandal and its alleged connections with Dirk Obbink and Hobby Lobby, see here and here and links. For the various other problems with the provenance and authenticity of artifacts associated with the Museum of the Bible and the Green Collection, see here and here and follow the many links.
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From a talking donkey to a man being eaten by a giant fish, the Bible has no shortage of strange stories. In her new book "A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible" (Oxford University Press, 2021), Kristin Swenson, an associate professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, delves into these stories and many others. Here's a look at 20 of the more bizarre biblical stories that Swenson discusses in the book.This is a good list. The examples could, of course, be multiplied. And it leaves out some of the most disturbing stories. Perhaps that is good thing.
For more on Prof. Swenson's new book, see here.
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Miriam and Aaron speak negatively about Moses for marrying a Kushite woman. Does their issue have to do with her skin color? Miriam’s punishment may hold the key.For more on Cushites (Kushites) in the Bible, see here and here.
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His family picked up on a similar sentiment. “The minute we realized the question was values, we all went to tikkun olam,” Lander said, explaining that tikkun olam has particular resonance in his family: “What is our purpose here? Our purpose is to repair the world, to help others in need of help, to take in strangers, to have empathy.”Dr. Lander was sworn in by the Vice President yesterday.That realization, in turn, reminded Lander of an expression found in the Mishnah, the earliest collections of rabbinic interpretations of oral Jewish law: “It’s not required that you complete the work, but neither may you refrain from it.”
In scouring the Library of Congress catalog for a copy of Mishnah, however, Lander stumbled upon something a bit more specific: a 13-page volume containing the Pirkei Avot, a subset of the Mishnah that focuses on ethics and contains the expression.
Lander couldn’t help but notice the publication date: 1492, an era when Jewish populations were expelled from the Kingdom of Spain. ...
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Some 2,000 years ago, Jews used formal beautifully written biblical manuscripts for public reading, but also informal and sloppily written biblical texts for personal use, new research on the Dead Sea Scrolls has shown.For more on "The Hands that Wrote the Bible Project," see here, here, here, here, and here.In addition, some of the scrolls might be more ancient than previously thought, suggesting that the current canonical form of the Book of Psalms might date earlier than previously believed.
[...]
The Jerusalem Post article interviews Dr. Drew Longacre, whose Old Testament Textual Criticism blog I link to from time to time. He comments on the article here.
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How the Gospels Became History
Jesus and Mediterranean MythsM. David Litwa
A compelling comparison of the gospels and Greco-Roman mythology which shows that the gospels were not perceived as myths, but as historical records
Did the early Christians believe their myths? Like most ancient—and modern—people, early Christians made efforts to present their myths in the most believable ways.
In this eye-opening work, M. David Litwa explores how and why what later became the four canonical gospels take on a historical cast that remains vitally important for many Christians today. Offering an in-depth comparison with other Greco-Roman stories that have been shaped to seem like history, Litwa shows how the evangelists responded to the pressures of Greco-Roman literary culture by using well-known historiographical tropes such as the mention of famous rulers and kings, geographical notices, the introduction of eyewitnesses, vivid presentation, alternative reports, and so on. In this way, the evangelists deliberately shaped myths about Jesus into historical discourse to maximize their believability for ancient audiences.
Format: Hardcover
Price: $65.00ISBN: 9780300242638
Publication Date: August 6, 2019
312 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
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Joseph Scales, “Religious Identity and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee” (Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Birmingham, 2021).During the 2nd century BCE, the Hasmonean kingdom began to expand beyond the confines of ancient Judea. The region known as “Galilee” appears to have been incorporated into the kingdom around 100 BCE. My dissertation argues that this incorporation generated various spatial arrangements in the region that enabled Jewish expression.
[...]
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
An international archaeological study, led by researchers from the Culture and Socio-Ecological Dynamics (CaSEs) research group at Pompeu Fabra University, has advanced in the understanding and preservation of archaeological sites and in improving their analysis and surveying, thanks to the application of pXRF (portable X-ray fluorescence analysis) to anthropogenic sediments in Africa. It is a rapid, inexpensive, non-invasive procedure, which enables generating an additional archaeological record from the anthropogenic deposit by analyzing chemical elements, combined with geostatistics.I keep saying it: non-invasive and non-destructive technologies are the future of archaeology. Also see here.[...]
HT Archaeologica News (28 May) and Joseph I. Lauer. Joe also notes:
The underlying journal article, “Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: Expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites,” was published in PLoS ONE on May 12, 2021, and may be read at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250776
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0250776
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The Middle Maccabees: Archaeology, History, and the Rise of the Hasmonean KingdomAndrea M. Berlin, Paul J. Kosmin, editors
ISBN 9781628373059
Volume ABS 28
Status Available
Publication DateMarch 2021Paperback
$73.00eBook
$73.00Hardback $93.00
A focused, interdisciplinary examination of a tumultuous, history-making era
The Middle Maccabees lays out the charged, complicated beginnings of the independent Jewish state founded in the second century BCE. Contributors offer focused analyses of the archaeological, epigraphic, numismatic, and textual evidence, framed within a wider world of conflicts between the Ptolemies of Egypt, the Seleucids of Syria, and the Romans. The result is a holistic view of the Hasmonean rise to power that acknowledges broader political developments, evolving social responses, and the particularities of local history. Contributors include Uzi ‘Ad, Donald T. Ariel, Andrea M. Berlin, Efrat Bocher, Altay Coşkun, Benedikt Eckhardt, Gerald Finkielsztejn, Christelle Fischer-Bovet, Yuval Gadot, Erich Gruen, Sylvie Honigman, Jutta Jokiranta, Paul J. Kosmin, Uzi Leibner, Catharine Lorber, Duncan E. MacRae, Dvir Raviv, Helena Roth, Débora Sandhaus, Yiftah Shalev, Nitsan Shalom, Danny Syon, Yehiel Zelinger, and Ayala Zilberstein.
Features
- Up-to-date, generously illustrated essays analyzing the relevant archaeological remains
- A revised understanding of how local and imperial histories overlapped and intersected
- New analysis of the book of 1 Maccabees as a tool of Hasmonean strategic interest
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Published in English.
The articles in this volume of collected essays, written over the last two decades and all revised, updated, and supplemented with unpublished material, are grouped around two themes: Divine Secrets and Human Imaginations. The first essays deal with the production, initiation, use and function, the abduction, repatriation, and the replacement of divine images, their outer appearance, and the many facets of the divine presence theology in Ancient Mesopotamia. The essays on the second topic deal with human imaginations, human constructs, and constructed memories, which assign meaning to the past or to things or experiences that are beyond human control. Thematically, several aspects of the human condition are examined, such as the ideas associated in the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East with death, corporeality, enemies, disasters, utopias, and passionate love.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
The remains of a magnificent 2,000-year-old Roman basilica, the largest in Israel, have been uncovered in Ashkelon in an excavation conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority within a development project of the Tel Ashkelon National Park and will soon be accessible to the public, the Nature and Parks Authority announced on Monday.[...]
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Those fishy reports on ancient Israelites eating non-kosher seafood. Analysis of fish remains in ancient Israel actually confirms what the Bible tells us and indicates these laws were widely known during the biblical period (JOSHUA BERMAN and ARI Z. ZIVOTOFSKY, Times of Israel). (HT the Bible Places Blog).
The truth is that archeologists have long known that non-kosher fish remains are widely found in ancient Israel. What Adler and Lernau maintain, however, goes much further. They claim that during the first temple period, “all the fish assemblages from Judah available for analysis contained significant numbers of scaleless fish remains, especially catfish.” This, however, is not true, as brought out by the very evidence they adduce.The authors also argue that the Book of Isaiah alludes to the the kosher laws on fish.
Also, Dr. Sarah Bond addresses the study in a Twitter thread. (HT Rogue Classicism.) She does not dispute its conclusions, but she too points to earlier research that discusses the archaeology of catfish bones in the region.
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Background here and links.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
In 2018, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) mandated salvage excavations at the ruins of the Arab village, Tel Beth Shemesh (East), to allow for the expansion of Highway 38. The excavations, which I directed, were carried out by the Israeli Institute of Archaeology, on behalf of Tel Aviv University and the IAA, with the assistance of Dr. Aaron Tavger and Yoram Haimi, from 2018 to 2020. The excavations were funded by Israel’s National Transport Infrastructure Company (Netivei Israel).[i] Until our excavations, there had been no investigation of what lay under the abandoned village bordering the site on the east, except for the examination probes conducted by the IAA’s Eli Hadad and Nathan Ben Ari.This appears to be the full article from the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
For many posts on Beth Shemesh (Beit Shemesh) and its archaeology, see here and links and here.
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The Studia Philonica Annual XXXII, 2020: Studies in Hellenistic JudaismSterling is listed as a co-editor above, but that seems to be an error. I don't think he would be co-editing his own Festschrift. And at the bottom of the page Michael B. Cover is listed as the co-editor.
David T. Runia, Gregory E. SterlingISBN 9780884144878
Volume SPhiloA 32
Status AvailableeBook
$65.00Hardback
$65.00Celebrate the contributions of Gregory E. Sterling
Friends and colleagues of Professor Gregory E. Sterling offer essays honoring his life and work in this special edition of the The Studia Philonica Annual. This volume includes Sterling’s biography and a bibliography of his scholarship. Contributors include Harold W. Attridge, Ellen Birnbaum, Adela Yarbro Collins, John J. Collins, Michael B. Cover, Jan Willem van Henten, Carl R. Holladay, Andrew McGowan, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, Maren R. Niehoff, James R. Royse, and David T. Runia. Essays cover a range of topics of related to Hellenistic Judaism, including Philo, the Bible, and Josephus.
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by William WhittThere is also a link there to his other commentaries on Deuteronomy, Genesis and Samuel. The main link is to the Archive.org version. PDF versions are also available at Dr. Whitt's Academia.edu page. See the bottom of the post linked to above.
Publication date 2021-05-22
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Theoretical and Empirical Investigations of Divination and MagicManipulating the Divine
Series: Numen Book Series, Volume: 171
Editors: Jesper Sørensen and Anders Klostergaard Petersen
In Theoretical and Empirical Investigations of Divination and Magic ten leading scholars of religion provide up-to-date investigations into the classic domains of divination and magic. Spanning historical, anthropological, cognitive, philosophical and theoretical chapters, the volume’s authors invite the reader to explore how divinatory practices and magical rituals, both apart and in interaction, can be reconceptualized in line with 21st century scholarship.
Following an introduction addressing the ever-pertinent discussion of the status and epistemological value of the categories inherited from our scholarly predecessors, the volume includes analyses of divinatory and magic practices in particular historical areas, as well as comparative, theoretical and philosophical discussions, making this an indispensable volume for anyone interested in broader comparative approaches to magic and divination.
Contributors are Lars Albinus, Edward Bever, Gideon Bohak, Corby Kelly, Lars Madsen, Anders Klostergaard Petersen, Jörg Rüpke, Jesper Frøkjær Sørensen, Jørgen Podemann Sørensen, Dimitris Xygalatas.
Prices from (excl. VAT): €119.00 / $144.00
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-44758-5
Publication Date: 03 May 2021
Copyright Date: 01 Jan 2021Hardback
Availability: Not Yet Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-44757-8
Publication Date: 06 May 2021
Copyright Date: 01 Jan 2021
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