This essay is a summary introduction to an article by Dimitrios Papanikolaou in the current issue of BAR. The full article is behind the subscription wall.
Cross-file under Septuagint, LXX, and Greek Epigraphy.
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Editorial Techniques in the Hebrew Bible: Toward a Refined Literary Criticism
Reinhard Müller, Juha PakkalaISBN 9781628374032
Volume RBS 97
Status Available
Price $87.00
Publication Date May 2022Paperback $87.00
Hardback $107.00
eBook $87.00Editorial Techniques in the Hebrew Bible: Toward a Refined Literary Criticism presents and applies a model for understanding and reconstructing the diachronic development of the Hebrew Bible through historical criticism (or the historical-critical method). Reinhard Müller and Juha Pakkala refine the methodologies of literary and redaction criticism through a systematic investigation of the evidence of additions, omissions, replacements, and transpositions that are documented by divergent ancient textual traditions. At stake is not only historical criticism but also the Hebrew Bible as a historical source, for historical criticism has been and continues to be the only method to unwind those scribal changes that left no traces in textual variants.
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Here is everything you need to know about the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.I am not an expert on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (Holy Sepulchre), but this article looks to me to be a good summary of its history, its possible historical significance, its organization, and recent developments around it.
Amusingly, someone (I assume not the author) has introduced a subheader that says "Is Jesus actually buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?" That rather misses the point.
For many PaleoJudaica posts on the Church, start here and follow the links.
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The study of Karaism has progressed greatly in the past few decades. Although the discoveries of the Cairo Geniza in 1897 and the Dead Sea Scrolls (which may or may not be related to Karaism) in 1947 stimulated research of this form of Judaism, it is the opening up of the libraries of the Former Soviet Union which has been a major spur for Karaite studies. ...
The author has a recent book on Karaism with OUP: Karaism. An Introduction to the Oldest Surviving Alternative Judaism.
For many PaleoJudaica posts on the Karaites, see here and links and here.
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Congress Volume Aberdeen 2019Series: Vetus Testamentum, Supplements, Volume: 192
Volume Editors: Grant Macaskill, Christl M. Maier, and Joachim Schaper
This volume presents the main lectures of the 23rd Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT) held in Aberdeen, United Kingdom, in August 2019. Twenty internationally distinguished scholars present their current research on the Hebrew Bible, including the literary history of the Hebrew text, its Greek translation, and the history of interpretation. Some focus on the semantic and syntactic features of the biblical text and its impact on cultural memory while others deal with textual witnesses in the Dead Sea scrolls, Ethiopic sources, and Arabic translations. The volume gives readers a representative view of recent research on the Hebrew Bible.
Copyright Year: 2022
Prices from (excl. VAT): €145.00 / $175.00
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-51510-9
Publication date: 08 Jun 2022Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-51540-6
Publication date: 22 Aug 2022
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Note in particular George Kiraz, Silver Jubilee Letter from the General Editor, which gives a retrospective of Hugoye's founding and development and passes the journal on to a new editorial team.
Hugoye is a high-quality, peer-review, open-access journal. I noted Issue 24.1 (2021) here. And for more, follow the links from there. Cross-file under Syriac Watch.
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Voices from the Ruins: Theodicy and the Fall of Jerusalem in the Hebrew BibleI noted the publication of the book here.
By Dalit Rom-Shiloni
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2021), xviii + 562 pp., graphs, $70 (hardcover)
Reviewed by Stephen L. Cook... Professor Dalit Rom-Shiloni’s magisterial work of descriptive theology, Voices from the Ruins, transports us back to the sixth century to hear the voices sounding amid the Bible’s most extreme calamity. ...
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The meeting takes place just before the 2022 AAR/SBL Annual Meeting in Denver. Follow the link for CFP and details.
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The floor mosaics in the largest synagogue of the ancient era, one of the most important world cultural heritage sites located in the ancient city of Sardis in the Salihli district of the western province of Manisa, have begun to be restored, The damaged parts of the 1,700-year-old mosaics, most of which are preserved, began to reshape with the fine workmanship of the women in the village.HT Todd Bolen at the Bible Places Blog. For more on the Sardis synagogue, see here and here.[...]
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Summary and Review: Under Jerusalem, The Buried History of the World's Most Contested City by Andrew Lawler. Lawler's book shows how archaeology has affected the landscape of a contested city. The detailed narrative is a fun and engaging read but assumes the framing it claims to critique (Chandler Collins, Approaching Jerusalem.Substack)
Going Underground. Yet another book on Jerusalem's archaeology unhealthily focuses on its past at the expense of its present (Michael Press, The Tel Aviv Review of Books)
For more on the book and its author, see here and links.
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Cross-file under Algorithm Watch.
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The answer to the question is, pretty much, but it depends.
That is about where Dr Gainsford ends up in this post, especially after the qualifying addendum.
He flags one issue that is especially relevant for the Hebrew Bible:
Now, having said that, there are situations — or rather, literary genres — where we do expect much more discrepancies. Some ancient texts weren’t copied as such, but instead went through recensions and reworkings.Many, perhaps most, of the books of the Hebrew Bible went through a long process of editing. The Masoretic Text is a medieval tradition that very faithfully copies its (first century CE?) exemplar. But the exemplar was one – generally good – exemplar selected from others. The textual uniformity of the MT emerges from an earlier textual variety. We have some sense of that variety from the ancient Greek translation (the Septuagint or LXX), the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.
For example, the MT, the LXX, and some Qumran fragments show that there were longer and shorter versions of the Book of Jeremiah in circulation in antiquity.
Literary criticism points to a comparable early recensional variety for the the Pentateuch, which is an edited collection of earlier documents. The MT selects a particular exemplar - my sense is that it is quite an old one - from that long process of editing. But it is difficult to speak of an original text for a text that has clearly undergone a lot of recension and reworking. In at least some circles in the Second Temple period it was still okay to revise and develop the text of the Pentateuch.
It happens that TheTorah.com has just published a highly relevant essay by Prof. Carol A. Newsom: There Was Never One Version of the Bible.
During the Second Temple Period, scribes improved and embellished the texts they copied. As a result, divergent copies of biblical books existed side by side.See there for detailed coverage of these questions.
For more on Pentateuchal source criticism, see here and also here and follow the many links.
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Background here.
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Writing and Rewriting History in Ancient Israel and Near Eastern Cultureseditor(s): Kalimi, Isaac
pages/dimensions: XVI, 250 pages, 11 ill., 7 tables
language: English
binding: Book (Hardback)
dimensions: 17.00 × 24.00 cm
weight: 626g
publishing date: 05.02.2020
prices: 54,00 Eur[D] / 55,60 Eur[A]
ISBN: 978-3-447-11363-2978-3-447-11363-2 Printed Version 54,00 Eur
978-3-447-19958-2 E-Book (pdf) 54,00 Eur
Most of the papers collected in this volume were delivered at the conference held in June 2018, Mainz. They discuss recent developments in the analysis of history and historiography in ancient Israel and its surrounding cultures. The scholars compare the compositional and editorial approaches evident in biblical and post-biblical writings with those shown in other ancient literature, while concentrating on a specific theme.
Professor Dr. Isaac Kalimi is a worldwide leading biblical scholar, historian and Judaist. He has published numerous books and articles in English, German, Hebrew and Polish.
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I noted this story last week here. This article covers it in greater detail and raises a potential problem with the proposed chronology:
But this is the thing. Said snails are seasonal. They are only active during the rainy season, which in Israel is in winter. However, in the Jordan Valley the last rains may continue until April, Tal says; maybe snails were captured – not the most onerous of physical endeavors – and maybe they were consumed a bit later, say in May, he suggests.Maybe.
Note: Tell Iẓṭabba is an area within Nysa-Scythopolis/Beit Shean. This article by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich in the Jerusalem Post has a map that clarifies its location: Israeli, German archeologists reconstruct Hasmonean destruction of Greek city. The year and exact season of the destruction of the Greek town Tel Iẓṭabba occurred has been determined by Israeli/German researchers.
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Bible Translations – Linguistic and Cultural Issues
Proceedings of the Erlangen Workshop on October 5 and 6, 2018editor(s): Edzard, Lutz
series: Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes
volume: 122
pages/dimensions: 198 pages, 1 Abb., 5 Tabellen
language: English
binding: Book (Paperback)
dimensions: 14.50 × 22.00 cm
weight: 301g
publishing date: 23.06.2021
prices: 48,00 Eur[D] / 49,40 Eur[A]
ISBN: 978-3-447-11655-8978-3-447-11655-8 Printed Version 48,00 Eur
978-3-447-39153-5 E-Book (pdf) 48,00 Eur
This volume is based on the proceedings of the workshop “Bibelübersetzung(en)” held at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg on October 5 and 6, 2018. The content encompasses contributions on specific linguistic and cultural features in Syriac Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, Amharic, Greek, Gothic, West-Slavic and Baltic, English, and Italian translations of (parts of) the Hebrew Bible. Contributors include Burkard M. Zapff (Eichstätt), Arik Sadan (Jerusalem), Matthias Emmert (Erlangen), Kjell Magne Yri (Oslo), Lutz Edzard (Erlangen), Stefan Schaffner (Erlangen), Helmut Glück (Bamberg), Cosima Clara Gillhammer (Oxford), and Massimo Zaggia (Bergamo). Important issues are the value of translations for textual reconstruction as well as specific grammatical and lexical developments in the mentioned language versions.
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They include artifacts from various eras, including that of the Ottoman Empire. Among the finds is a chiseled stone that belonged to the nearby Cave of the Patriarchs but was disposed of for some reason, as well as various stones that served as part of a foundation of a building from the Second Temple Period and vestiges of a fort built by the Crusaders.But the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria, which runs the place on behalf of the Ministry of Defense, has decided to seal the excavations with soil in order to make way for a path for disabled visitors. ...
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La "sacerdotalisation" dans les premiers écrits mystiques juifs et chrétiensThe essays are in French and English.
Actes du colloque international tenu à l’Université de Lausanne du 26 au 28 octobre 2015David Hamidovic, Simon Claude Mimouni, Louis Painchaud (eds)
Pages: 280 p.
Size:156 x 234 mm
Illustrations:1 b/w, 3 tables b/w.
Language(s):French, English, Hebrew
Publication Year:2021Buy print version
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ISBN: 978-2-503-59299-2
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ISBN: 978-2-503-59300-5
E-book
AvailableLe processus de sacerdotalisation dans les premiers écrits mystiques juifs dits Hekhalot et d’autres écrits comparables
Summary
Les prêtres et les lévites restent influents plusieurs siècles après la chute du Temple de Jérusalem en 70 de l’ère chrétienne. Ils tentent même une ou plusieurs reconfigurations de leurs fonctions dans la société. En même temps, les Sages ou rabbins essaient de capter leurs prérogatives ancestrales. Un double mouvement de sacerdotalisation et de rabbinisation est alors perceptible dans les textes rabbiniques. Qu’en est-il des premiers textes mystiques juifs dits Hekhalot ? Une telle dialectique de rejet et d’intégration est-elle perceptible ? Par comparaison, d’autres mouvements appelés plus tard chrétiens, dont certains gnostiques et d’autres groupes dans le monde perse, ont eu la même tendance.
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The Small Stuff of the PalmyrenesCross-file under Palmyra Watch. 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.
Coins and Tesserae from PalmyraRubina Raja (ed)
Pages: 193 p.
Size: 216 x 280 mm
Illustrations: 1204 b/w, 2 col., 7 tables b/w., 2 maps b/w
Language(s): English
Publication Year: 2022€ 130,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
ISBN: 978-2-503-59760-7
Paperback
Available
This edited volume presents new research on the coinage and so-called banqueting tesserae from Palmyra in the Syrian Desert.
SUMMARY
The ancient city of Palmyra is, rightly, famous for its major monumental architecture and its vast corpus of funerary portraiture, most of which dates from the first three centuries AD. This material has long been central to art-historical, archaeological, and epigraphical studies of the region. However, up to now, relatively little attention has been paid to the ‘small stuff’ from Palmyra — seemingly minor items such as the enigmatic local coinage and the richly iconographic banqueting tesserae found scattered across the city’s sanctuaries — which has never been comprehensively studied, but may have had huge importance for the people who lived in Roman Palmyra.
This volume, which arises from the research project Circular Economy and Urban Sustainability in Antiquity headed by Prof. Rubina Raja, aims to redress the balance by giving new focus to these small finds with a view to studying them and better understanding their significance in Palmyrene social and religious life. Drawing together experts on Palmyra’s archaeology, history, and language, the volume offers insights and reflections into various aspects of the city’s coins and tesserae in both their local setting and their wider regional context. In doing so, the contributions gathered here open up new lines of enquiry, and at the same time underline how much we still have to learn from studying even the smallest items.
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