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Friday, October 06, 2023

The courtesan story has jumped the shark

FUNERARY SPELUNIC ARCHAEOLOGY SENSATIONALISM: It is entertaining to watch the evolution of the headlines about the recently-discovered cave-tomb in Israel whose contents may have belonged to a hetaira courtesan. I noted the story here and here. The headline to the first story, by i24 News:

"Archeologists 'for first time' unearth tomb of Ancient Greek hetaira courtesan."

Sounds pretty confident she was a courtesan, but otherwise cautious.

The second headline, by Haaretz:

"Israeli Archaeologists May Have Found First-ever Grave of Hetaira From Time of Alexander the Great."

A little more cautious. She may be a hetaira. Also more informative, giving an approximate date connected to a well-known historical figure. (Alexander's career was in the late fourth century.) The archaeologists date the tomb to the fourth-third century BCE. But wait. Bringing in Alexander could have unintended consequences.

From a few days ago, a Live Science headline by Sascha Pare:

2,300-year-old grave in Israel contains remains of Greek courtesan who may have accompanied Alexander the Great's army.

Not only is she from the time of Alexander, she may have accompanied his army? Sure, maybe. There are various other possibilities. She may have died in the early third century, long after Alexander.

Then today, in the headline of an unattributed article in Neos Kosmos:

2,300 year old tomb found in Israel with potential link to Alexander the Great.

Note the subtle shift. Our possible courtesan may have had a link to Alexander himself, not just his army. Intriguing. How close a connection? It is true that the subheading does clarify that a connection to his army is meant. But people tend to absorb and click on headlines.

Finally, the headline of an article by Michael Havis in the Daily Mail dated yesterday goes full clickbait:

Is this Alexander the Great's escort? Tomb of a courtesan who may have seduced the Macedonian king is discovered after 2,300 years.

Our possible hetaira courtesan who may have lived in the late fourth century and may have accompanied Alexander's army now may have actually been Alexander the Great's lover!

To be clear, the content of the articles is about the same. The actual story is that archaeologists found a cave-tomb near Jerusalem dating to the late fourth/early third century BCE which contained cremated remains and a cool bronze box-mirror. Everything else is inference, speculation, and, finally, wild speculation.

The lesson: assume that media headlines sensationalize any story, sometimes beyond recognition, to get you to click on that link. Do not assume you have accurate knowledge about the story until you read it in full, carefully, and—if possible—you compare it to coverage in a couple of other articles.

You're welcome.

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Did the P.Oxy. 5575 scribe also copy (something like) the Gospel of Peter?

VARIANT READINGS: P.Oxy. 87.5575 and P.Oxy. 60.4009: The Same Copyist (Brent Nongbri).

P.Oxy. 60.4009 is described as "Gospel of Peter (?)." See, for example, Appendix 3 of this 2004 SBL paper by Bob Kraft.

For the new Jesus sayings fragment, P.Oxy. 87.5575 (a.k.a. P.Oxy. 5575). see here, here, and here.

By the way, over at the AWOL Blog, Chuck Jones has recently linked to the Oxford/EES Oxyrhynchus Papyri website. This seems like a good time to mention it.

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Thursday, October 05, 2023

News about the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project

ANNOUNCEMENT: I am very happy to inform my readers that the second volume produced by the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project has been submitted to Eerdmans Publishers.
James R. Davila and Richard Bauckham (eds.), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume 2
Some highlights of the volume include English translations of—the Coptic fragments of 2 Enoch; all surviving fragments of the Book of Giants (Aramaic, Iranian Manichean, and Old Turkic); Sefer ha-Razim ("The Book of the Mysteries"); the Prophecy of the Witch Sibyl (Sibylla Maga); the Hebrew Testament of Naphtali; all surviving fragments of the Assumption of Moses and the Testament of Moses; the Sword of Moses; Jannes and Jambres; Danielic divinatory texts; the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel; and lots more.

The volume should be available by sometime early in 2025. Watch this space.

For volume one, published in 2013, see here.

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Orlov, Supernal Serpent (OUP)

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:
Supernal Serpent

Mysteries of Leviathan in Judaism and Christianity

Andrei A. Orlov

Hardback
Published: 11 September 2023
408 Pages
235x156mm
ISBN: 9780197684146

Description

Supernal Serpent explores the development of the Leviathan tradition from its early roots in ancient West Asian and biblical accounts, up to the later rabbinic traditions. Concentrating on the theophanic features of Leviathan's appearances in Jewish biblical, pseudepigraphical, and rabbinic accounts, special attention is paid to the traditions found in the Book of Job and the Apocalypse of Abraham. Leading scholar Andrei Orlov argues that the Apocalypse of Abraham presents Leviathan in an anti-theophany, a revelation of the underworld's ruler. Orlov delves into the cultic significance of Leviathan and its roles as the sacred courtyard of the cosmological sanctuary and the Foundation Stone of the Temple of Creation.

The volume further discusses the background of Leviathan's role as the foundation of the world in ancient West Asian, biblical, rabbinic, and Muslim texts. Orlov suggests that the idea of the cosmological temple with a primordial monster as its sacred foundation provide a sacerdotal alternative that allowed Jewish apocalypticists to perpetuate their cultic vision in the absence of the earthly Temple. The study also demonstrates that, in some Jewish materials, Leviathan is envisioned as a living embodiment of the divine mysteries, which are preserved by God from the beginning of creation, but will be revealed fully in the eschaton to the elect. Ultimately, Supernal Serpent proposes that the Leviathan tradition found in the Apocalypse of Abraham plays a formative role in this conceptual move towards the reification of divine knowledge in the form of Leviathan serving as a bridge between the ancient West Asian, biblical, and pseudepigraphical testimonies concerning the primordial monster and their later rabbinic and Muslim counterparts.

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Grosser, Unparalleled Poetry (OUP)

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:
Unparalleled Poetry

A Cognitive Approach to the Free-Rhythm Verse of the Hebrew Bible

Emmylou J. Grosser

Cognition and Poetics

$110.00
Hardcover
Published: 08 August 2023
360 Pages | 3 b/w photographs; 20 line drawings
6 1/8 x 9 1/4 inches
ISBN: 9780190902360

Description

For more than 250 years, biblical Hebrew poetry scholarship has been dominated by metrical assumptions and the idea of parallelism. While a consensus is emerging that biblical poetry is not metrical, no consensus has arisen regarding what parallelism is, or what makes biblical poetry "verse" or "poetry" in the absence of meter, graphical lineation, and end-marking of lines.

Unparalleled Poetry claims that a new paradigm for biblical poetry is needed, a paradigm that is disentangled from parallelism as well as meter. Drawing from the Cognitive Poetics work of Reuven Tsur, Emmylou Grosser reorients the discussion of biblical poetic structure to how poetic structure can be heard and perceived. She argues that the line-units of biblical poetry emerge in the cognitive experience of the listener/reader and provides an account of the free-rhythm versification system of biblical poetry.

Grosser's cognitive approach to biblical poetry accounts for the wide diversity of lines and poems in the Bible and illuminates both the structures of biblical poetry and the artistry of potential effects. Unparalleled Poetry presents a rewarding new paradigm for readers of the Bible, while modeling new possibilities for the study of nonmetrical poetries and phenomena called "parallelism" throughout the world.

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Another Kraft obituary

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: Robert A. Kraft, religious studies professor emeritus at Penn, writer, editor, and translator, has died at 89. He was a self-defined “techie,” and a colleague said: “He has worked tirelessly to find new applications for computer technologies in the study of a wide range of ancient texts.” (Gary Miles).
Inspired by his religious family and driven by his own love of language and literature, Dr. Kraft served as the Berg Professor of Religious Studies at Penn from 1992 until his retirement in 2003. His research and teaching focused on the history and literature of Judaism in the Greco-Roman period from 332 BC to 395 AD, and he pioneered the computer digitization of ancient Jewish scriptures and other documents.
Background here and here.

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Wednesday, October 04, 2023

More on that newly uncovered Jerusalem aqueduct

ANCIENT INFRASTRUCTURE: Ancient aqueduct from time of Roman occupation discovered in Jerusalem. The excavation efforts also led to the discovery of a coin from 67/68 CE, during the first Jewish revolt against the Roman occupying forces (Danielle Greyman-Kennard, Jerusalem Post).
“The exposure of this section of the Upper Aqueduct and the discovery of the 25 coins may enable– possibly for the first time—an absolute dating of the different stages of the construction of Jerusalem’s water aqueducts. It may shed light on the question of who built the first aqueduct—whether it was the Hasmoneans, or King Herod,” the researchers [Dr. Ofer Sion and Ruth Cohen] say.
I noted this story here. But the current article has much more detail. Follow the latter link for more on the upper and lower Jerusalem aqueducts.

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Postdoc on text of Ben Sira, using AI

THE OTTC BLOG: Postdoc on Ben Sira and AI (Drew Longacre).

I only just saw this!

This is a two-year maximum post at the Université de Lorraine in France. Knowledge of English is required and knowledge of French is "a plus."

The application deadline is 10 October 2023, with the fellowship ideally starting on 1 November. If you are interested, get moving!

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Did Enoch think Qohelet was wicked?

DR. NILI SAMET: Is the Soul Immortal? (TheTorah.com).
Is there a difference between human and animal souls? Is there a hereafter at all, and if so, does righteousness or wickedness affect it? These questions, discussed by Greek philosophers, inspired the Judean discourse of the Hellenistic period. Ecclesiastes on one side, 1 Enoch and the Wisdom of Solomon on the other.

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Codex Sassoon is still "coming home."

WHAT, IT'S NOT THERE YET? Ancient Codex Sassoon gets send-off at Sotheby's before trip to Israel. The most complete ancient Hebrew bible, that sold at auction for $38.1 million, is coming home; 'The Jewish people returned to their homeland and now this book of truth is returning to its country' (Yehonatan Bnaya, Ynet News).
What a send-off! Just before the Codex Sassoon - the oldest complete copy of the Hebrew Bible – arrives at its permanent home in Israel, the ANU Museum of the Jewish People held a special event at Sotheby's in New York City on Tuesday night in honor of the manuscript. Along with the excited museum staff, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan and a guest from the United Arab Emirates also came to see the ancient Bible.
I thought it was already in Israel.
The complete journey of the ancient Bible from southern Syria to Israel will be published in the coming days on Ynet.
Background here and links.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Tuesday, October 03, 2023

Is the Etrog really the fruit Leviticus intended?

FOR SUKKOT: Five Alternatives to the Etrog (Dr. Rabbi David Z. Moster, TheTorah.com).
The etrog has been identified as the Torah’s פְּרִי עֵץ הָדָר, “fruit of trees of beauty” (Leviticus 23:40), since the Second Temple period. Here are five other interpretations of this verse.

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Kraft obituary

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA ALMANAC: Robert Kraft, Religious Studies.
Robert Alan Kraft, the Berg Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies in the School of Arts and Sciences, died on September 15 after a battle with cancer. He was 89.

[...]

Background here.

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Biblical Studies Carnival #210

READING ACTS: Biblical Studies Carnival #210 for September 2023 (Phil Long). With extensive coverage of blog posts etc. on P.Oxy. 5575.

Phil and Jim West are having difficulty finding anyone else to do a Biblical Studies Carnival. If you are interested, please do get in touch with Phil.

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Monday, October 02, 2023

DiTommaso & Goff (eds.), Reimagining Apocalypticism (SBL)

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:
Reimagining Apocalypticism: Apocalyptic Literature in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Writings

Lorenzo DiTommaso, Matthew Goff, editors

ISBN 9781628375343
Volume EJL 57
Status Available
Publication Date July 2023
Hardback $99.00
Paperback $79.00
eBook $79.00

The Dead Sea Scrolls have expanded the corpus of early Jewish apocalyptic literature and tested scholars’ ideas of what apocalyptic means. With all the scrolls now available for study, contributors to this volume engage those texts and many more to reexplore not only definitions of the genre but also the influence of the Dead Sea Scrolls on the study of apocalyptic literature in the Second Temple period and beyond. Part 1 focuses on debates about categories and genre. Part 2 explores ancient Jewish texts from the Second Temple period to the early rabbinic era. Part 3 brings the results of scroll research into dialogue with the New Testament and early Christian writings. Contributors include Garrick V. Allen, Giovanni B. Bazzana, Stefan Beyerle, Dylan M. Burns, John J. Collins, Devorah Dimant, Lorenzo DiTommaso, Frances Flannery, Matthew J. Goff, Angela Kim Harkins, Martha Himmelfarb, G. Anthony Keddie, Armin Lange, Harry O. Maier, Andrew B. Perrin, Christopher Rowland, Alex Samely, Jason M. Silverman, and Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg.

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Edwards, Crucified: The Christian Invention of the Jewish Executioners of Jesus

NEW BOOK FROM FORTRESS:
Crucified: The Christian Invention of the Jewish Executioners of Jesus

by J. Christopher Edwards

Publisher: Fortress Press (October 3, 2023)
Language: English
Hardcover: 237 pages
ISBN-10: 506490956
ISBN-13: 978-1506490953

Historians of early Christianity unanimously agree that Jesus was executed by Roman soldiers. This consensus extends to members of the general population who have seen a Jesus movie or an Easter play and remember Roman soldiers hammering the nails. However, for early Christians, the detail that Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers under the direction of a Roman governor threatened their desire for a stable existence in the Roman world. Beginning with the writings found in the New Testament, early Christians sought to rewrite their history and shift the blame for Jesus's crucifixion away from Pilate and his soldiers and onto Jews. During the second century, a narrative of the crucifixion with Jewish executioners predominated. During the fourth century, this narrative functioned to encourage anti-Judaism within the newly established Christian empire. Yet, in the modern world, there exists a significant degree of ignorance regarding the pervasiveness--or sometimes even the existence!--of the claim among ancient Christians that Jesus was executed by Jews. This ignorance is deeply problematic, because it leaves a gaping hole in our understanding of what for so long was the direct underpinning of Christian persecution of Jews. Moreover, it excuses from blame the venerated ancient Christian authors who constructed and perpetuated the claim that the Jews executed Jesus. And on an unconscious level, it may still influence Christians' understanding of Jews and Judaism.

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Sunday, October 01, 2023

Longenecker & Wilhite (eds.), The Cambridge History of Ancient Christianity

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: A Major New History of the Earliest Christianity (Philip Jenkins).
I want to announce and celebrate the publication of a really valuable new book, and I say from the outset that I had nothing whatever to do with writing it! My two Baylor colleagues Bruce Longenecker and David Wilhite are the editors of the newly available Cambridge History of Ancient Christianity, which is an indispensable contribution to the study of Christian life and thought in the first three centuries.

[...]

Cross-file under New Book.

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Friesen, Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, ... (Routledge)

NEW BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE:
Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, and the Interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Greek Drama in the Early Common Era

By Courtney J. P. Friesen

Copyright 2024
Hardback £130.00
eBook £35.09
ISBN 9781032491028
180 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
Published July 7, 2023 by Routledge

Description

While many ancient Jewish and Christian leaders voiced opposition to Greek and Roman theater, this volume demonstrates that by the time the public performance of classical drama ceased at the end of antiquity the ideals of Jews and Christians had already been shaped by it in profound and lasting ways.

Readers are invited to explore how gods and heroes famous from Greek drama animated the imaginations of ancient individuals and communities as they articulated and reinvented their religious visions for a new era. In this study, Friesen demonstrates that Greek theater’s influence is evident within Jewish and Christian intellectual formulations, narrative constructions, and practices of ritual and liturgy. Through a series of interrelated case studies, the book examines how particular plays, through texts and performances, scenes, images, and heroic personae, retained appeal for Jewish and Christian communities across antiquity. The volume takes an interdisciplinary approach involving classical, Jewish, and Christian studies, and brings together these separate avenues of scholarship to produce fresh insights and a reevaluation of theatrical drama in relation to ancient Judaism and Christianity.

Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, and the Interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Greek Drama in the Early Common Era allows students and scholars of the diverse and evolving religious landscapes of antiquity to gain fresh perspectives on the interplay between the gods and heroes—both human and divine—of Greeks and Romans, Jews and Christians as they were staged in drama and depicted in literature.

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