Saturday, August 12, 2023

Ritual baths in the Land of Israel

PURIFICATION ARCHITECTURE: Immerse yourself in the Holy Land’s history by visiting these ancient ritual baths. Essential to Jewish religious life, mikvehs can be found throughout Israel — and some tell captivating tales of life millennia ago (AVIVA AND SHMUEL BAR-AM, Times of Israel).
Mikvehs have been discovered in the desert, in the Galilee, under new houses in Jerusalem, at construction sites, and in partially restored ancient towns. The vast majority date back to the Second Temple period, with at least 50 ritual baths found adjacent to the Temple Mount.
A Travel survey of many of the Second Temple-era mikvehs uncovered in Israel.

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Friday, August 11, 2023

Perseus publishes Philo

PERSEUS DIGITAL LIBRARY UPDATES: Philo of Alexandria, Translations, and Perseus the Next Thirty Years (Gregory Crane). HT Rogue Classicism.

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Thursday, August 10, 2023

Essays on the Psalms of Solomon (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Essays on the Psalms of Solomon Its Cultural Background, Significance, and Interpretation. Edited by Kenneth Atkinson, Patrick Pouchelle, and Felix Albrecht. 2023. VII, 195 pages. Parabiblica 2. 119,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-162448-3.
Published in English.
The Psalms of Solomon, a collection of 18 Jewish psalms from the Second Temple period, have long been a fascinating topic for scholarship. In this volume, leading scholars from a range of disciplines offer new insights into the cultural background, literary form, theological themes, and reception history of the Psalms of Solomon. The essays address a range of topics, including the origin of the text in Palestinian Judaism, the temple in the Psalms of Solomon, and the question of its canonical status.

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Wednesday, August 09, 2023

Rogan, Purity in the Gospel of John (T&T Clark)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:
Purity in the Gospel of John

Early Jewish Tradition, Christology, and Ethics

Wil Rogan (Author)
Hardback
$115.00 $103.50

Ebook (PDF)
$103.50 $82.80

Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
$103.50 $82.80

Product details

Published Jul 13 2023
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 224
ISBN 9780567708663
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series The Library of New Testament Studies
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

Description

Wil Rogan argues that, contrary to twentieth-century interpretation, the Fourth Gospel did not replace purity with faith in Jesus. Instead, as with other early Jewish writings, its discourse about purity functions as a way to make sense of life before God in the world. He suggests that John's Gospel employs biblical and early Jewish traditions of purity associated with divine revelation and Israel's restoration to narrate how God's people are prepared for the coming of Jesus and enabled by him to have life with God characterized by love.

After evaluating different theories of purity for the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, Rogan explores John the Baptist as an agent of ritual purification, Jesus as the agent of moral purification, and the disciples of Jesus as ones who are (or are not) made morally pure by Jesus. While purity is not one of the Fourth Gospel's primary focuses, Rogan stresses that the concept figures into some of its most significant claims about Christology, the doctrine of salvation, and ethics. Through purity, the Fourth Gospel guards continuity with the past while placing surprising conditions on participation in Israel's future.

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Tuesday, August 08, 2023

Henze & Lincicum (eds.), Israel's Scriptures in Early Christian Writings (Eerdmans)

NEW BOOK FROM EERDMANS:
Israel's Scriptures in Early Christian Writings
The Use of the Old Testament in the New

Matthias Henze and David Lincicum, eds.

HARDCOVER; Published: 7/20/2023
ISBN: 978-0-8028-7444-3
Price: $ 79.99
1166 Pages
Trim Size, in inches: 6.125 x 9.25

DESCRIPTION

How did New Testament authors use Israel’s Scriptures?

Use, misuse, appropriation, citation, allusion, inspiration—how do we characterize the manifold images, paraphrases, and quotations of the Jewish Scriptures that pervade the New Testament? Over the past few decades, scholars have tackled the question with a variety of methodologies. New Testament authors were part of a broader landscape of Jewish readers interpreting Scripture. Recent studies have sought to understand the various compositional techniques of the early Christians who composed the New Testament in this context and on the authors’ own terms.

In this landmark collection of essays, Matthias Henze and David Lincicum marshal an international group of renowned scholars to analyze the New Testament, text-by-text, aiming to better understand what roles Israel’s Scriptures play therein. In addition to explicating each book, the essayists also cut across texts to chart the most important central concepts, such as the messiah, covenants, and the end times. Carefully constructed reception history of both testaments rounds out the volume.

Comprehensive and foundational, Israel’s Scriptures in Early Christian Writings will serve as an essential resource for biblical scholars for years to come.

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Monday, August 07, 2023

Ship-protection talisman found near Israeli beach

ANOTHER APOTROPAIC ARTIFACT: A rare 2,500-year-old marble disc, designed to protect ancient ships and ward off the evil eye discovered near Palmachim Beach ( Leman Altuntaş, Arkeonews).
The Israel Antiquities Authority announced from social media on July 18 that the object the lifeguard turned over was a 2,500-year-old, eye-shaped marble disc that was attached to ships to ward off the evil eye.

Experts say the relic, found during a dive by lifeguard David Shalom at the Yavne-Yam archaeological site near Palmachim Beach, dates back to the 5th to 4th centuries BC.

The Facebook announcement is here.

The object was found underwater. So much for ship protection.

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Sunday, August 06, 2023

Rhetorical poetics of the Aramaic incantation bowls

THE AWOL BLOG: 'I Descended to the Depths of the Earth': A Rhetorical Poetics of the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Incantation Bowls. A PhD dissertation by Daniel Waller at Gronigen University. Follow the link for details, description, and a link to the full text of the dissertation

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