Chilton on "The Herods"

INTERVIEW: New book plumbs the role of the Herods in forming early Jewish, Christian views. In his book “The Herods: Murder, Politics, and the Art of Succession,” Bruce Chilton, a professor of religion at Bard College, places the dynastic family that ruled Judea and Israel for the Romans front and center (Yonat Shimron, RNS).

I noted the book and an essay on it by Professor Chilton here.

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Long-form, literary, Levirate law

PROF. SARA MILSTEIN: The Levirate Law: A Marriage Contract Clause that became Legislation (TheTorah.com).

Upon a childless husband's death, Deuteronomy states "his wife shall not marry a strange man outside." This phrase originated as a contract clause, and the case was a practice exercise for scribes who were learning contract clauses.

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A Bar Kokhba coin is going into space

ASTRO-NUMISMATICS: Israeli astronaut to take 1,900-year-old Bar Kochba revolt coin to space. As part of next year’s Rakia mission to International Space Station, Eytan Stibbe says he’ll bring along ancient artifact as a ‘symbol of Jewish history’ (Michael Bachner, Times of Israel).

Israel’s second-ever astronaut, Eytan Stibbe, has chosen to take the 1,900-year-old coin with him on the Rakia mission to the International Space Station, scheduled for early next year. Stibbe said that he is taking the artifact with him as a symbol of his Jewish heritage.

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said in a statement on Thursday that Stibbe has recently visited the IAA’s Dead Sea Scrolls laboratory in Jerusalem, where he was shown various artifacts, including the coin, as well as 2,000-year-old fragments of the Book of Enoch.

That book tells the story of Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah, who ascended to the heavens and was accompanied by angels who showed him the sun, the moon and the stars.

Stibbe ultimately elected to take the coin along, rather than the ancient fragments.

This is very cool, but I totally would have chosen the Enoch fragments.

The coin was discovered in the Cave of Horror in Nahal Hever, where archaeologists recently recovered new fragments of an ancient Greek scroll of the Minor Prophets.

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Interview with Khaled al-Asaad's son

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Return to Palmyra. An interview with heroic Khaled al-Asaad's son about his father's legacy, and the importance of the ruins and museum collection at Palmyra that al-Assad died protecting.

For more on Khaled al-Asaad and his heroic, fatal resistance to ISIS, see here and links.

More on the Getty's Palmyra exhibition is here and here.

For many posts on the ancient metropolis of Palmyra, its history and archaeology, the Aramaic dialect once spoken there (Palmyrene), and the city's tragic reversals of fortune, now trending for the better, start here and follow the links. Cross-file under Palmyra Watch.

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Night-shift archaeology

NOCTURNAL EXCAVATOR: Excavations by night. Initially, archaeology was only a passion, something Navot Rom studied to fulfill his interests, but he didn’t plan it as a career (BASIA MONKA, Jerusalem Post).

“There is something magical and Gothic about it,” he says.

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Nero's wife went to heaven on a chariot?

THE ANTIGONE BLOG: TO HEAVEN ON A CHARIOT: THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF POPPAEA SABINA (Paul Schubert).

According to the Roman historian Tacitus, in AD 65 Poppaea Sabina was killed by her husband, Emperor Nero, who had lost his temper with her. She was heavily pregnant and a kick in the belly was enough to end her life. Is this true, or was Tacitus spreading evil slander about Nero? We may never know for sure, but evidence recently found on a frayed piece of papyrus indicates that there was another version of the story, where Poppaea Sabina made a loving farewell speech to Nero before darting off to heaven on a chariot driven by a goddess.

[...]

HT Rogue Classicism.

This fragmentary third-century papyrus from Oxyrhynchus may add some support for a revisionist view of Nero, which argues that the surviving records about him were written by his enemies and lack credibility. The current British Museum exhibition on Nero is sympathetic to ths view. If Paul Schubert's interpretation of the papyrus is correct (it mentions Nero by name, but not Poppaea), it gives us a glimpse outside the narrative.

This essay also deals more generally with the subject of apotheosis traditions in the Roman period. Jesus wasn't the only one to ascend to heaven and Elijah wasn't the only one to go theren in a chariot.

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Late-antique site salvaged near Tel Aviv

ARCHAEOLOGY: Building project unearths ancient history in Tel Aviv suburb. Construction of new residential neighborhood in Ramat Hasharon reveals human activity dating back 1,500 years, including a winepress and gold coin much prized by its owner (Stuart Winer, Times of Israel).

For more on Heraclius coins, see here. The IAA excavated a hoard of them in Jerusalem in 2008.

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Review of Burnett, Studying the New Testament through inscriptions

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Studying the New Testament through inscriptions: an introduction.

David Clint Burnett, Studying the New Testament through inscriptions: an introduction. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2020. Pp. 216. ISBN 9781683071372 $39.95.

Review by
W. Andrew Smith, Shepherds Theological Seminary.
w.andrew.smith@gmail.com

For more on the book and the author, see here and links.

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Arzhanov (ed.), Porphyry, ›On Principles and Matter‹ (De Gruyter)

NEW BOOK FROM DE GRUYTER:

Porphyry, ›On Principles and Matter‹
A Syriac Version of a Lost Greek Text with an English Translation, Introduction, and Glossaries

Yury Arzhanov and Porphyry
Volume 34 in the series Scientia Graeco-Arabica
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110747027

About this book

The Syriac treatise published in the present volume is in many respects a unique text. Though it has been preserved anonymously, there remains little doubt that it belongs to Porphyry of Tyre. Accordingly, it enlarges our knowledge of the views of the most famous disciple of Plotinus. The text is an important witness to Platonist discussions on First Principles and on Plato’s concept of Prime Matter in the Timaeus. It contains extensive quotations from Atticus, Severus, and Boethus. This text thus provides us with new textual witnesses to these philosophers, whose legacy remains very poorly attested and little known. Additionally, the treatise is a rare example of a Platonist work preserved in the Syriac language. The Syriac reception of Plato and Platonic teachings has left rather sparse textual traces, and the question of what precisely Syriac Christians knew about Plato and his philosophy remains a debated issue. The treatise provides evidence for the close acquaintance of Syriac scholars with Platonic cosmology and with philosophical commentaries on Plato’s Timaeus.

eBook
Published: August 2, 2021
ISBN: 9783110747027

Hardcover
Published: August 2, 2021
ISBN: 9783110745771

For more on Porphyry and why he is of interest to PaleoJudaica, see here and links, here, and here.

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How were the Psalms originally performed?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: How Were Biblical Psalms Originally Performed? Ancient music and the Biblical psalms. This essay is based on a 2018 BAR article by Thomas Staubli. The article itself is behind the subscription wall, but the essay is of some interest on its own.

For much more on Papyrus Amherst 63, start here and follow the links.

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Looted sarcophagus returned to IAA

LARGE LOOTED ARTIFACT: 'Hand over that sarcophagus, citizen!' Roman-era artifact excavated illegally at an unidentified site in Israel returned to Israel Antiquities Authority (Israel HaYom). Actually, the citizen received the object from a deceased antiquities dealer and alerted the IAA so they could come and get it. Well done.

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Stamped jars showing cultural shift in late-Iron-Age Judah?

EPIGRAPHY AND ICONOGRAPHY: Pottery shows new culture in biblical Judah after Assyrian conquest. Analyzing stamped jars, Hebrew University archaeologists raised new questions on what happened in the land of Israel after the war with King Sennacherib (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

From the 7th century, the LMLK jars were not produced any more, while by the end of the century and the beginning of the 6th century the rosetta jars appeared in Jerusalem and its surroundings and were used until the Babylonian destruction in 586 BCE.

For more on the LMLK jars, see the links collected here.

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Interview with Alison Salvesen

WILLIAM ROSS: ALISON SALVESEN & THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF THE SEPTUAGINT.

I noted the publication of the Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint (ed. Salvesen & Law) here. For notice of Dr. Ross's previous interviews with Septuagint scholars, see here and links.

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YHWH's conquering name in Deuteronomy?

PROF. SANDRA L. RICHTER: Does YHWH’s Name Dwell in the Temple? (TheTorah.com).

Deuteronomy refers to the central cult site as the place where YHWH chooses לְשַׁכֵּן שְׁמוֹ שָׁם, an unusual phrase often translated “to cause His name to dwell there,” and interpreted to mean that an abstracted aspect or hypostasis of YHWH takes up residence in the Temple. A parallel phrase found in many Akkadian inscriptions refutes this understanding, offering us a critically important correction to our reading of Deuteronomy.

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Niebuhr, Tora und Weisheit (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr. Tora und Weisheit. Studien zur frühjüdischen Literatur. [Torah and Wisdom. Studies on Early Jewish Literature.] 2021. XI, 717 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 466. 184,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-160799-8

Published in German.
This volume features essays by Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr on the Jewish Law and wisdom traditions in early Jewish literature. It is introduced by two comprehensive studies on the development and the reception of the concept of Torah in the Hebrew Bible and in early Jewish literature, including the Septuagint, and on the relationship between biblical wisdom and Greek philosophy in ancient Judaism.

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Blob of late-antique coins found on Israeli beach

NUMISMATICS: Ancient 1,700-year-old coins found on Israeli beach. Israel Antiquities Authority marine archeology department head Yaakov Sharvit noted the coins might have belonged to an ancient ship sailing the Mediterranean Sea (Jerusalem Post).

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Frey & Nägele Eds.) Der Nous bei Paulus (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Der Nous bei Paulus und in seiner Umwelt. Griechisch-römische, frühjüdische und frühchristliche Perspektiven. Herausgegeben von Jörg Frey und Manuel Nägele. [The Nous in Paul and his Environment. Greco-Roman, Early Jewish, and Early Christian Perspectives.] 2021. XII, 375 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 464. 139,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-160231-3.

Published in German.
What is it that characterizes the human being? Is it the composition of somatic and psychic parts? Is it the mutual interaction of both? Or is it the cognitive ability of humans, self-reflection and self-awareness? Are humans mainly reason-driven, or are their actions rather guided by instincts? The issue of the meaning of νοῦς (nous, gr. »mind"/"spirit«) in Antiquity and its anthropological implications leads straight to fundamental issues of contemporary anthropological discourses. In the present volume, philologists and theologians enter an interdisciplinary encounter. The central relevance of the term νοῦς, which has so far received little attention in Pauline exegesis, becomes evident in the various intellectual milieus around the New Testament.

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