Review of Parks, Gender in the Rhetoric of Jesus

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note I Gender in the Rhetoric of Jesus: Women in Q (Hilary Floyd).

Sara Parks, Gender in the Rhetoric of Jesus: Women in Q (Lanham: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019)

Opening:

In this compelling monograph, Sara Parks combines two scholarly interests that have not been brought together before: studies of Q, a hypothetical source that explains the material shared by the Gospel of Matthew and Luke, and studies of the historical Jesus’ relationship to women. Parks argues that Q uses a unique literary device, which she terms “parallel gender pairs” (e.g., the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin; she also refers to them as “gendered pairs”), to treat male and female listeners with a certain kind of equality. Although this literary device does not appear in any extant Hellenistic or early Jewish literature, Parks finds echoes of it in some of the texts that follow Q. ...

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Sefaria releases a new-old German translation of the Talmud

TALMUD WATCH: A pioneering German translation of the Talmud, finished in 1935, is now accessible online (Philissa Cramer and Joe Baur, JTA).

Joshua Foer, an author and cofounder of Sefaria, said in a statement that the translation’s online release represents the triumph of Jewish tradition over the forces of hate that lapped against Goldschmidt as he worked.

“Goldschmidt released the translation at a time of rising antisemitism to dispel dangerous myths and make the text accessible to all German speakers around the world,” Foer said. He added, “That this translation is being made more accessible today with the help of German and Austrian rabbinic students and scholars representing the future of German Judaism is a fitting celebration of Goldschmidt’s legacy.”

For more on the Sefaria website and its Talmud-related publication see here and links.

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Evidence for Jewish priestesses in antiquity

EPIGRAPHY: Stone epitaphs of Jewish women in ancient Rome. Gaudentia, Eulogia, Besula (Wall Street International, Brenda Lee Bohen).

These inscriptions from Italy point to the existence of ancient Jewish priestesses, elders, and synagogue leaders. The 3rd/4th century CE catacomb inscription in Rome is another early reference to a Jewish priestess. The earliest such reference I have encountered is to a priestess in the Jewish temple at Leontopolis (Egypt) dated to 28 BCE.

The role of Jewish priestess is not found at all in the Bible, but it has been revived in recent years. I discuss the matter here with links. That discussion is now out of date, thanks to the evidence mentioned above.

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Gods, Angels, and Demons in Deuteronomy?

SPOILER: YES. Are There Gods, Angels, and Demons in Deuteronomy? (Prof. Jonathan Ben-Dov, TheTorah.com).

Several poetic verses in Deuteronomy were used in Second Temple times to support the belief in multiple characters in the divine realm. Thus, the scribes of the early Masoretic text, who opposed this belief, sometimes went so far as to revise or excise these references.

I have commented on Deuteronomy 32:8 here and here.

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Ritual purity in the time of Jesus

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Clean or Unclean? Ritual Purity and Jewish Identity (John Drummond).

Regardless of religious party, however, a vision of a people set apart by God and fit to dwell in the midst of his holiness was central to the piety of Second Temple Judaism.

To learn more about ritual purity and its role in Jesus’ ministry, read “Jesus and Ritual Impurity” by Matthew Thiessen, published in the Fall 2021 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

The latter article is behind the subscription wall.

Some PaleoJudaica posts on ritual purity in ancient Judaism are collected here (cf. here) and here (cf. here).

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Tenure-track Bible job at JTS

H-JUDAIC: FEATURED JOB: Assistant Professor of Bible, Jewish Theological Seminary. Details at the link. "Applications received by November 1 will be given full consideration."

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Did Nehemiah build a wall?

THE BIBLE AND INTEPRETATION:

The Walls that Nehemiah Built: The Town of Jerusalem in the Persian Period

The biblical books Nehemiah 2 and 3 relay the story of Nehemiah’s trip around the destroyed town of Jerusalem and of the rebuilding of its fortifications. Despite the detailed description of walls and gates, scholars debate the actual size of the settlement in Persian times and even question whether the walls were really reconstructed. This paper investigates the facts `on the ground’. Was any town wall of the Persian period ever excavated? How large was Nehemiah’s Jerusalem and how did it function within the Persian empire? Was it a walled town with a central temple, the seat of the governor, a centre of administration, religion and economy? Or was it a small undefended settlement in which only the local temple had any significance? Spoiler alert: there are as many opinions as there are scholars, and the archaeological evidence is meagre.

By Margreet L. Steiner
Independent Archaeologist
October 2021

For more on the question of Nehemiah's wall, see the links collected here.

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The Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages

From Judeo-Greek to Karaim, Oxford courses on 12 rare Jewish languages aim to keep heritages alive (Michelle Krasovitski, JTA).

The Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages in the UK has launched its inaugural semester of courses in 12 Jewish languages, belonging to the Aramaic, Arabic and Turkic language families. They range in number of speakers, from millions to none.

The courses, which began this week, run for an hour a week online and are free for all students.

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Was Eve Adam's helpmate?

PROF. GARY RENDSBURG: Woman: Helpmate No Longer (TheTorah.com).

Eve was created as Adam’s עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדֹּו ʿezer ke-negdo (Genesis 2:18). What is the meaning of this enigmatic phrase?

The suggestion in this essay is possible, of course, but I am not convinced. The Hebrew meaning "helper" makes sense in the context. The word is not attested elsewherein Hebrew with the meaning "woman." Anytime you have to move to an Arabic cognate to explain a Hebrew word, you are conjecturing. And I don't see the gain in doing so here.

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Vast Byzantine-era winepress complex excavated at Yavneh

VINTAGE ARCHAEOLOGY: Archaeological Sensation in Yavne: Ancient World’s Largest Complex of Winepresses Uncovered (The Jewish Press).

It appears that the town of Yavne, home to the Sanhedrin in exile after the destruction of the Second Temple, became a worldwide powerhouse of wine production some 1,500 years ago. A vast, well-designed industrial estate from the Byzantine period with an impressive wine production complex—the largest of its kind in the world in that period—has been excavated in the city of Yavne over the past two years.

[...]

PaleoJudaica posts on ancient winepresses, mostly in Israel, are collected here, plus here and here.

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Roman-era temple excavated in Tyre

PHOENICIAN WATCH: New Roman Temple Discovered in Ancient Phoenician City of Tyre. The temple's location "in the most elevated area of the ancient island highlights this building's particular status." (Jesse Holth, ARTNEWS). So far the excavators don't know which god was worshipped in the temple.

Some of PaleoJudaica's posts on the ancient city of Tyre are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. And Tyre is, of course, mentioned from time to time in the Bible.

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Without form and void?

PROF. JAMES A. DIAMOND: Creating Order from Tohu and Bohu. (TheTorah.com).

God encounters the primordial תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (tohu and bohu), dividing it into its constituent parts and reshaping it into a wiser, more orderly world, a task entrusted to humans thereafter.

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Neumann & Thomason (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East

BIBILOGRAPHIA IRANICA: The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East. Notice of a New Book: Neumann, Kiersten & Allison Thomason (eds.). 2021. The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East. London: Routledge. Follow the link for details.

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