Saturday, August 14, 2021

Maimonides on true and false prophets

PROF. JAMES A. DIAMOND: How Do We Know a True Prophet? Jeremiah vs. Hananiah (TheTorah.com).
Jeremiah urges Judah to submit to Babylon while Hananiah claims that Babylon will soon fall. Both use the same prophetic tropes to convince their listeners. Maimonides reads this story as a blueprint for distinguishing true prophets from false ones.

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Friday, August 13, 2021

The Van Kampen Collection

VARIANT READINGS: The Fate of the Van Kampen Collection (Brent Nongbri).

I know next to nothing about the Van Kampen Collection. I see that I have blogged a couple of times on the Holy Land Experience theme park (see final paragraph of this post). One of those posts from 2007 mentions the Scriptorium museum, which consisted of biblical manuscripts owned by the Van Kampen family.

In any case, Brent Nongbri tells us that the collection includes pages from a late-antique Coptic codex with Jeremianic biblical material. Cross-file under Coptic Watch

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Judaism in ancient Crete

Ancient Greek synagogue resurrected in Crete After decades in ruins, Nikos Stavroulakis set out to revitalize Jewish life on the Greek island of Crete (ALEXANDRA ARIOTTI/NATIONAL LIBRARY OF ISRAEL, Jerusalem Post).

I don't see a clear indication that this synagogue is itself "ancient," at least in the way I use the term. But the Jewish community in Crete goes back to antiquity. For on the complicated question of an ancient synagogue at Delos, see here and here.

This article gives a brief history of the Jewish community in Crete from antiquity to the present.

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Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Liverani, Historiography, Ideology and Politics in the Ancient Near East and Israel (Routledge)

NEW BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE:
Historiography, Ideology and Politics in the Ancient Near East and Israel
Changing Perspectives 5

By Mario Liverani, Niels Peter Lemche, Emanuel Pfoh
Copyright Year 2021

Hardback
£96.00

eBook
£29.59

ISBN 9780367742485
Published July 16, 2021 by Routledge
338 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations

Book Description

In this volume, Niels Peter Lemche and Emanuel Pfoh present an anthology of seminal studies by Mario Liverani, a foremost scholar of the Ancient Near East.

This collection contains 18 essays, 11 of which have originally been published in Italian and are now published in English for the first time. It represents an important contribution to Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies, exposing the innovative interpretations of Liverani on many historical and ideological aspects of ancient society. Topics range from the Amarna letters and the Ugaritic epic, to the ‘origins’ of Israel.

Historiography, Ideology and Politics in the Ancient Near East and Israel will be an invaluable resource for Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical scholars, as well as graduate and post-graduate students.

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Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Toher, Nicolaus of Damascus (CUP)

NEWLY IN PAPERBACK FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS:
Nicolaus of Damascus: The Life of Augustus and The Autobiography

Edited with Introduction, Translations and Historical Commentary>

REAL AUTHOR: Nicolaus of Damascus
EDITOR AND TRANSLATOR: Mark Toher, Union College, New York
DATE PUBLISHED: July 2021
AVAILABILITY: Available
FORMAT: Paperback
ISBN: 9781107428324

£ 39.99
Paperback

Description

Nicolaus of Damascus, the chief minister of Herod the Great, was an exact contemporary of the first Roman emperor Augustus; he spent considerable time in Roman society and knew Augustus. The extensive remains of his Bios Kaisaros contain the earliest and most detailed account of the conspiracy against Julius Caesar and his assassination. The Bios also presents the most extensive account of the boyhood and early development of Augustus. This edition presents the Greek text and translation of the Bios and Nicolaus' autobiography, along with a historical and historiographical commentary. The Introduction situates the text in relation to the considerable evidence for the life and career of Nicolaus preserved in the works of Josephus, addresses the problem of its date of composition, analyses the language and narrative technique of Nicolaus and discusses the Bios in relation to the evidence for Greek biographical encomium.

  • The first critical text of the Life of Augustus in almost a century, based on a re-examination of the manuscript tradition and providing a full apparatus criticus
  • Provides an edition and translation of the fragments of the author's autobiography, which is virtually unavailable in English
  • The introduction and commentary provide an historiographical analysis of the text that is crucial to understanding its value as an historical document
This book was pubished in Hardback in 2016, but I didn't note it then and it is worth noting. For more on Nicolaus of Damascus, see here and here.

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Monday, August 09, 2021

Gröger, Wellhausen's Forerunners (Mohr Siebeck - in German)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Martin Gröger. Wellhausens Wegbereiter. Studien zur alttestamentlichen Hermeneutik im 19. Jahrhundert. [Wellhausen's Forerunners. Studies on Old Testament Hermeneutics in the 19th Century.] 2021. XIII, 416 pages. Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 202. 119,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-160662-5.
Published in German.
Julius Wellhausen, probably the most famous representative of nineteenth century Old Testament scholarship, cannot be understood without those who blazed a trail before him. Martin Gröger examines the works of de Wette, George, Ewald, Graf, Vatke, Kuenen, and Geiger to show that Wellhausen's studies on the religious-historical development of the Old Testament takes further the findings of these researchers.

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Schick, Intention in Talmudic Law (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:
Intention in Talmudic Law

Between Thought and Deed

Series: The Brill Reference Library of Judaism, Volume: 65

Author: Shana Strauch Schick

In Intention in Talmudic Law: Between Thought and Deed, Shana Strauch Schick offers the first comprehensive history of intention in classical Jewish law (1st-6th centuries CE). Through close readings of rabbinic texts and explorations of contemporaneous legal-religious traditions, Strauch Schick constructs an intellectual history that reveals remarkable consistency within the rulings of particular sages, locales, and schools of thought. The book carefully traces developments across generations and among groups of rabbis, uncovering competing lineages of evolving legal and religious thought, and demonstrating how intention gradually became a nuanced, differentially applied concept across a wide array of legal realms.

Copyright Year: 2021

Prices from (excl. VAT):€112.00 / $135.00

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-43304-5
Publication Date: 29 Jun 2021

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-43303-8
Publication Date: 01 Jul 2021

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Sunday, August 08, 2021

Pouchelle et al. (eds.), The Psalms of Solomon: Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts (SBL)

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:
The Psalms of Solomon: Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts
Patrick Pouchelle, G. Anthony Keddie, Kenneth Atkinson, editors

ISBN 9781628374049

Volume EJL 54

Status Available

Publication Date June 2021

Paperback $49.00

eBook $49.00

Hardback $69.00

Explore new approaches to the Psalms of Solomon

The Psalms of Solomon: Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts explores a unique pseudepigraphal document that bears witness to the 63 BCE Roman conquest of Jerusalem. Essays address a variety of themes, notably their political, social, religious, and historical contexts, through the lens of anthropology of religion, cognitive science, socioeconomic theory, and more. Contributors include Kenneth Atkinson, Eberhard Bons, Johanna Erzberger, Angela Kim Harkins, G. Anthony Keddie, Patrick Pouchelle, Stefan Schreiber, Shani Tzoref, and Rodney A. Werline.

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Röhrig, Innerbiblische Auslegung und priesterliche Fortschreibungen in Lev 8–10 (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Meike J. Röhrig. Innerbiblische Auslegung und priesterliche Fortschreibungen in Lev 8–10. [Inner-Biblical Interpretation and Priestly Additions in Lev 8–10.]2021. XII, 277 pages. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 128. 79,00 € including VAT. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-160686-1.
Published in German.
Meike J. Röhrig demonstrates in a redaction-critical study how several layers of priestly additions and »inner-biblical interpretation« have successively formed the stories about the investiture of the Aaronides (Lev 8–10). The results contribute to a clearer demarcation of the term »inner-biblical interpretation« among multiple forms of diachronic text-text-relationships.

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