The 3rd Year of the Coptic Magical Papyri Project

THE COPTIC MAGICAL PAPYRI BLOG: 2021 Review: The Third Year of the Coptic Magical Papyri Project.

It’s hard to believe that three years of the project have already passed! As it has been for many others all across the world, 2021 has been a year in which the COVID-19 Pandemic has still had a major effect on our work, but we’re lucky that – while we weren’t able to attend many in-person conferences or visit many papyrus collections – we still managed to have a year of very productive teamwork.

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Cross-file under Coptic Watch.

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Nisula et al. (eds.), Religious Polemics and Encounters in Late Antiquity (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Religious Polemics and Encounters in Late Antiquity

Boundaries, Conversions, and Persuasion

Series: Studies on the Children of Abraham, Volume: 8

Volume Editors: Timo Nisula, Anni Maria Laato, and Pablo Irizar

Religious Polemics and Encounters in Late Antiquity: Boundaries, Conversions, and Persuasion explores the intricate identity formation and negotiations of early encounters of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). It explores the ever-pressing challenges arising from polemical inter-religious encounters by analyzing the dynamics of apologetic debate, the negotiation and formation of boundaries of belonging, and the argumentative thrust for persuasion and conversion, as well as the outcomes of these various encounters, including the articulation of novel ideas. The Late Antique authors studied in the present volume represent a variety of voices from North Africa, passing through Rome, to Palestine. Together, these voices of the past offer invaluable insight to shape the present times, in hope for a better future.

Copyright Year: 2021

Prices from (excl. VAT): €149.00 / $179.00

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-46684-5
Publication Date: 18 Oct 2021

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-46683-8
Publication Date: 21 Oct 2021

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On the fall of Lachish to Sennacherib

ARCHAEOLOGY: Biblical warfare: How did the Assyrians conquer Judean Lachish? Archaeologists uncovered how King Sennacherib’s army built the massive siege ramp that allowed them to defeat the city some 2,700 years ago (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

The conquest Lachish seems to have been Sennacherib's larger strategic objective. That may explain at least in part why he didn't get around to conquering Jerusalem. For more on Sennacherib's campaign and the siege of Jerusalem, see here and links (cf. here).

For more on the archaeology of Lachish, see here and here and links.

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Antiquities arrest in Ashkelon

APPREHENDED: Thousands of ancient coins recovered in raid on Ashkelon jewelry store Inspectors from Antiquities Authority's Robbery Prevention Unit used digital media to track down the man, whom they also suspect was carrying out illicit digs at archaeological sites (Israel HaYom). Cross-file under Numismatics.

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Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume 4 (T&T Clark)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume 4

The Jews under the Roman Shadow (4 BCE–150 CE)

Lester L. Grabbe (Author)

Hardback
$200.00 $180.00

Ebook (PDF)
$180.00 $144.00

Product details

Published Aug 26 2021
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 664v ISBN 9780567700704
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series The Library of Second Temple Studies
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

Description

This is the fourth and final volume of Lester L. Grabbe's four-volume history of the Second Temple period, collecting all that is known about the Jews during the period in which they were ruled by the Roman Empire. Based directly on primary sources such as archaeology, inscriptions, Jewish literary sources and Greek, Roman and Christian sources, this study includes analysis of the Jewish diaspora, mystical and Gnosticism trends, and the developments in the Temple, the law, and contemporary attitudes towards Judaism. Spanning from the reign of Herod Archelaus to the war with Rome and Roman control up to 150 CE, this volume concludes with Grabbe's holistic perspective on the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period.

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Dochhorn, Der Adammythos bei Paulus und im hellenistischen Judentum Jerusalems (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Jan Dochhorn. Der Adammythos bei Paulus und im hellenistischen Judentum Jerusalems. Eine theologische und religionsgeschichtliche Studie zu Römer 7,7–25. [The Myth of Adam in Paul and in the Hellenistic Judaism of Jerusalem. A Theological and Religious-Historical Study of Rom 7:7–25.] 2021. XVI, 722 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 469. 184,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-160096-8.

Published in German.
Adam, sin, death and the law are the core elements of Paul's view of the pre-Christian history of humankind. Paul developed this view using the Apocalypse of Moses, with which he had become familiar in Jerusalem before he became a Christian, as his background. In this study, Jan Dochhorn reveals how the myth of Adam emerged among the Greek-speaking Jews in Jerusalem and identifies several parabiblical texts as products of this milieu, which probably had a greater impact on Pauline theology and early Christianity than other strands of ancient Judaism.

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Isaiah's super-power sighting of incognito, shape-shifting Jesus

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: What Does the Ascension of Isaiah Do? (Meghan Henning).

The audience then is not meant to identify with the angelic beings, or the righteous saints, but with Isaiah who while on earth received a special vision that enabled him to ascend.

This is the second essay in the BRANE forum on the Ascension of Isaiah.

I noted the introductory essay, with links, here.

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More gold-print, "1,000-year-old" Hebrew books from Turkey

HERE WE GO AGAIN: 1,000-year-old gold-embossed Jewish books seized in Turkey. Four books and a scroll written in Hebrew and embossed with gold leaf were seized by Turkish authorities from a smuggler (Tzvi Joffre, Jerusalem Post).

On the basis of the video these do not look like thousand-year-old Hebrew books. They give every appearance of being crude, modern, boiler-plate forgeries or tourist trinkets. Many such have turned up in Turkey in recent years.

The story links to a Reuters/Jerusalem Post article from March of this year which reports on a manifestly bogus "2,500-year-old golden Torah" siezed from someone's car. The object is a codex (i.e., a book with pages and a cover, a format that didn't exist 2,500 years ago) and the Hebrew has Masoretic vowel points (which were invented in the early Middle Ages). What I can make out of the Hebrew is gibberish.

The actual discovery of a complete 2,500-year-old Torah would be a massive international story, bigger than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I have said I was going to ignore the continued slew of Turkish fake Hebrew and Syriac manuscripts unless there was a good reason to mention them. But since the Jerusalem Post has fallen for these, I decided to comment on them.

The Jerusalem Post keeps embarrassing itself with these stories. They really should hand them over to someone like Rossella Tercatin, who knows what she is doing.

If there are reports of ancient Hebrew or Syriac books with gold fonts discovered in Turkey, they are probably modern fakes. You can safely bet they are not a thousand or thousands of years old and they are not worth millions. If (highly unlikely) there is an exception, you can be sure it will rapidly become an international story involving credible experts. If that were to happen, no one would be happier than I.

I have been collecting reports of such manuscripts for many years. The follow-ups I've seen generally conclude they are fakes. I have not seen a single case where one was verified to be a genuine ancient, or even 1,000-year-old, manuscript. See here, here, here, here and links, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. And this post is also relevant to the topic of modern fake "historical" manuscripts.

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Review of Hay & Taylor, Philo of Alexandria “On the contemplative life”

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Philo of Alexandria “On the contemplative life”: introduction, translation, and commentary.

Joan Taylor, David M. Hay, Philo of Alexandria "On the contemplative life": introduction, translation, and commentary. Philo of Alexandria commentary series, volume 7. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2020. Pp. xxviii, 427. ISBN 9789004438149 €155,00.

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How do you say "thank you" in ancient Babylonian?

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN: Trinity academic provides Babylonian translations for Marvel Studios’ ‘Eternals’.

Marvel Studios’ Eternals, released last Friday, is the first major film to feature some characters speaking in Babylonian, a language of ancient Iraq that died out over two thousand years ago. Translations into the long-dead language were provided by Assyriologist Dr Martin Worthington, from Trinity College Dublin, and author of the book ‘Teach Yourself Complete Babylonian’.

[...]

One of the most challenging aspects of Dr Worthington’s work on the film was coming up with translations for everyday phrases such as ‘let me help you’ or ‘wait a moment’. Because our understanding of Babylonian comes from written, and often quite formal, documents, mostly clay tablets, much is still unknown about ‘chatty’ uses of the language, he explains.

Generally, the more colloquial the English phrase, the harder it was to translate, according to Dr Worthington. A really tough nut was the expression ‘thank you’. “It is ubiquitous today, but as far as we know it was not used in Ancient Mesopotamia, so I had to find workarounds – expressions such as ‘May the gods bless you’ (il? likrub?ki to a woman, il? likrub?ka to a man).”

Cross-file under Cinema and Philology.

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Forum on the Ascension of Isaiah

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: An Introduction to the Ascension of Isaiah (Jeremiah Coogan).This essay appears to be the introduction to a forum on the Ascension of Isaiah, with four more essays to come.

PaleoJudaic posts on the Ascension of Isaiah are here and here.

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Barbiero et al. (eds.), The Formation of the Hebrew Psalter (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: The Formation of the Hebrew Psalter. The Book of Psalms Between Ancient Versions, Material Transmission and Canonical Exegesis. Edited by Gianni Barbiero, Marco Pavan, and Johannes Schnocks. 2021. IX, 454 pages. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 151.154,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-160847-6.

Published in English.
This volume, which is based on the papers given at a panel at the 2019 SBL International Meeting in Rome, represents current discourses in Psalms research. The past decades have been marked by the paradigm shift from form criticism to different exegetical approaches which consider the Book of Psalms as the literary context of the individual Psalms. More recently, it has been pointed out that the complex evidence given by the manuscripts from antiquity to the Middle Ages does not support the notion of a fixed canonical text as presupposed by some approaches. The present volume combines contributions about such basic considerations with studies of individual groups of Psalms. With different methodological and hermeneutical approaches, they open up perspectives on the interrelation between the origin, composition and reception of the Psalms.

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Review of Estes, The Tree of Life

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Review: The Tree of Life: A Powerful Symbol (Ralph K. Hawkins).

The Tree of Life
Edited by Douglas Estes
(Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020), xxii + 469 pp., 44 illustrations, $298 (hardcover and eBook)
Reviewed by Ralph K. Hawkins

For more on the book, see here and here.

UPDATE (8 November): For reasons unknown to me, the BHD essay is no longer posted.

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Pilgrim's Road reopened in Jerusalem

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Now Open: Ancient Road up to the Temple Mount (Todd Bolen, Bible Places Blog).

One of our teammates who lives in Jerusalem, Christian Locatell, went for a walk with his kids through Hezekiah’s Tunnel, and on the way back he discovered that much of the “Pilgrim’s Road” between the Pool of Siloam and the Temple Mount is now open to the public. He sent a few photos. This walk on this 1st-century street is worth adding to your next itinerary.

For more on the Pligrim's Road to the Temple Mount, see here, here, here, and links.

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