Fried, Ruth: A Commentary (Sheffield Phoenix)

NEW BOOK FROM SHEFFIELD PHOENIX PRESS:

Ruth: A Commentary
By Lisbeth S. Fried
£58.00 £25.00

After the significant and ground-breaking commentaries on Ezra and Nehemiah by Lisbeth Fried, she now turns her attention to a different genre of biblical literature and to the book of Ruth. Fried approaches Ruth as folktale, specifically, a fairy tale. This new reading of Ruth allows the book to be experienced in a new way, a way infrequently recognized, that provides novel but compelling insights into the author’s intentions and goals.

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The Power of Parables (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Power of Parables

Essays on the Comparative Study of Jewish and Christian Parables

Series: Jewish and Christian Perspectives Series, Volume: 39

Volume Editors: Eric Ottenheijm , Marcel Poorthuis , and Annette Merz

The Power of Parables documents the surprising ways in which Jewish and Christian parables bridge religion with daily life. This 2019 conference volume rediscovers the original power of parables to shock and affect their audience, which has since been reduced by centuries of preaching and repetition. Not only do parables enhance the perspective on Scripture or the kingdom of heaven, they also change the sensory regime of the audience in perceiving the outer world. The theological differences in their applications appear secondary in view of their powerful rhetoric and suggest a shared genre.

Prices from (excl. shipping): €149.00 Hardback

Copyright Year: 2024

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-68004-3
Publication: 07 Nov 2023

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-68002-9
Publication: 08 Nov 2023
EUR €149.00

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Feldman & Sandoval (eds.), Torah in Early Jewish Imaginations (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Torah in Early Jewish Imaginations. Edited by Ariel Feldman and Timothy J. Sandoval. 2023. XI, 231 pages. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 171. 124,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-162664-7.

Published in English.
Torah is a topic of keen interest among scholars of the Bible and Second Temple Judaism. The Hellenistic age especially witnessed an undeniable textual pluriformity of not only the Pentateuch (Torah), but of a host of other works concerned with traditions of authoritative »teaching« or »instruction« (torah) that was related in complex ways to books that would become part of the Hebrew Bible. In the Second Temple period, the term torah was thus a robustly multivalent term, deployed in discourses emerging from different contexts, and toward a range of rhetorical ends. The essays in this volume employ a plethora of methodologies to offer innovative studies of a range of early Jewish literature – including texts from the Hebrew Bible, the so-called Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Septuagint – that is concerned in different ways with Torah / torah.

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Cook, Men, Masculinities and Intermarriage in Ezra 9-10 (Routledge)

NEW BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE:

Men, Masculinities and Intermarriage in Ezra 9-10

By Elisabeth M. Cook
Copyright 2024
Hardback £130.00
eBook £35.09
ISBN 9781032342177
154 Pages
Published October 9, 2023 by Routledge

Description

Offering a reading of the intermarriage debate and expulsion of the foreign women in Ezra 9-10, this book engages with the production and performance of masculinities in this biblical text, shifting the focus away from the 'foreign women' to the men who are the primary actors in this work.

This approach addresses the diversity of masculinities and the ways in which they are implicated in the production of power relations in the text. It explores the ‘feminized’ masculinity of the peoples-of-the-lands, the unstable masculinity of the golah, Ezra’s performance of penitential masculinity, and the rehabilitation of divine masculinity. The rejection of the marriages and the call for the expulsion of the women and children are addressed as sites on which masculinities and power relations are configured. In doing so, this book sheds light on how women and the traits and performances culturally ascribed to women, femininity and inferior masculinities, are appropriated to produce masculinities and negotiate power relations between men. It posits that the debate in Ezra 9-10 is not, ultimately, about the women themselves, but about bringing the masculinities, bodies and practices of dissenting men under the ‘management’ of those who wield the Torah in the narrative world of the text.

Men, Masculinities and Intermarriage in Ezra-9-10 is of interest for scholars and students working on the Book of Ezra specifically, as well as the Hebrew Bible and its world more broadly. It is also a valuable study for those working on masculinities and gender in the biblical world and ancient Near East.

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Like Nails Firmly Fixed (Qoh 12:11) (Gentry Festschrift; Peeters)

NEW BOOK FROM PEETERS PUBLISHERS;

Like Nails Firmly Fixed (Qoh 12:11)
Essays on the Text and Language of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures Presented to Peter J. Gentry on the Occasion of His Retirement

SERIES: Contributions to Biblical Exegesis & Theology, 115
EDITORS: Marshall P.S., Meade J.D., Kiel J. M.

PRICE: 125 euro
YEAR: 2023
ISBN: 9789042949461
E-ISBN: 9789042949478
PAGES: XIV-461 p.

SUMMARY:

This Festschrift honors the life and work of Peter J. Gentry on the occasion of his retirement (2021) from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary after 22 years of faithful service. The volume includes two personal reflections by family members and a close friend, followed by nineteen essays written by an international assemblage of scholars, all of whom admire the work of Gentry, and some of whom were his own doctoral students. These essays cover several of the academic fields with which Peter Gentry’s own research and writing intersect: biblical languages and linguistics, and the translation, transmission, and reception of the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity.

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Oh, and ...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to my American readers and anyone else celebrating!

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Nodet, The Samaritans (T&T Clark)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

The Samaritans

Etienne Nodet (Author)

Hardback
$115.00 $103.50

Ebook (PDF)
$103.50 $82.80

Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
$103.50 $82.80

Product details

Published Sep 07 2023
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 174
ISBN 9780567709660
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series Jewish and Christian Texts
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

Description

Etienne Nodet examines the Samaritans and their religion, using Jewish and Christian sources, including rabbinic literature and the latest archaeology. Nodet tells the story of the Samaritans and their religion, showing how they were faithful to a classical form of monotheism.

Nodet traces the Samaritan story from more recent to more ancient times. He begins by looking at the importance of the Samaritans in the time of Josephus and the New Testament, taking in the area formed by Galilee, Samaria, and Judea and recognizing how this corresponds approximately to Canaan at the time of Joshua, between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. He then examines the account of 2 Kings 17, which shows the Samaritans as descendants of the settlers sent by the Assyrians, who were initiated to a certain Yahwism after the fall of the kingdom of Israel (North) in 721 BC. Next Nodet looks at the time of the Maccabean crisis, when the Samaritans separated from the Jews, showing how before then there was a peaceful coexistence.

Finally, Nodet turns to the Persian period, showing how after the return from exile there was a restoration of the Babylonian-derived form of religion, which the local Israelites (including the Samaritans) opposed. Nodet contends that, as such, the Samaritan religion, with its succession of high priests up to the present day, and is of 'immemorial permanence', linking to the earliest worship of YHWH in Israel.

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What did "inspiration" mean?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Inspiration in Biblical Times (Rodney Caruthers II).

The concept of biblical inspiration is classically captured in 2 Timothy 3:16: “All scripture is inspired by God (theopneustos) and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” Yet this verse also raises some questions. What does “inspired by God” mean, and what did it entail? How did ancient writers and readers understand it?

There follows a survey of the biblical and Classical evidence, which has a surprising amount of conceptual overlap.

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Greenspahn, Judaism and Its Bible (JPS)

NEW BOOK FROM THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY:

Judaism and Its Bible
A People and Their Book

Frederick E. Greenspahn

294 pages
Index

Paperback
August 2023
978-0-8276-1510-6
$29.95

eBook (EPUB)
August 2023
978-0-8276-1904-3
$29.95

eBook (PDF)
August 2023
978-0-8276-1905-0
$29.95

About the Book

Judaism and Its Bible explores the profoundly deep and complex relationship between Jews, Judaism, and the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible has been ubiquitous in Jewish life and thought: Jews read it, interpret it, and debate it. They translate the Bible even as they deem those translations inadequate, and they cite the Bible as the basis for observances that are not even mentioned in it. Jews quote the Bible as authority for their tradition’s preservation and innovation, as both the word of God and the language of humans, and as justification for both pro- and anti-rabbinic movements. Fascinating and comprehensive, Judaism and Its Bible describes the extraordinary two-and-a-half-millennia journey of a people and its book that has changed the world.

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News about the Coptic Magical Papyri Project

THE COPTIC MAGICAL PAPYRI BLOG: 2023 Review: The End of the Coptic Magical Papyri Project and the Beginning of the Papyri Copticae Magicae.

It’s hard to believe that a little over five years have now passed since the three original members of the Coptic Magical Papyri project sat in the Egyptology department in Würzburg and began to plan how we could contribute to the study of Coptic magical texts. In August of this year our project ended, and so in this blog post we will discuss what we achieved in the last five years, beginning with our exciting news, the publication of the first in a new series of Coptic magical texts, Papyri Copticae Magicae.

[...]

Congratulations to the Project on its many achievements. They include a New Book, which initiates a new series.

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Tesei, The Syriac Legend of Alexander’s Gate (OUP)

BIBLIGRAPHIA IRANICA: The Syriac Legend of Alexander’s Gate.

Notice of a New Book: Tesei, Tommaso. 2023. The Syriac Legend of Alexander’s Gate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Follow the link for description and link to the publisher's site. Cross-file under Syriac Watch.

UPDATE: More Alexander the Great! Just noticed. See previous post.

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Alexander the God?

SACRED ARCHITECTURE: Ancient Temple Discovered in Iraq Dedicated to Alexander the Great (Tasos Kokkinidis, Greek Reporter).

Archaeologists uncovered signs that Alexander the Great was worshipped as a divine figure in an ancient temple in Iraq.

Scientists had been puzzled by the discovery of more recent Greek inscriptions at the ancient Sumerian temple of Girsu, in the modern-day town of Tello.

Now, British Museum archaeologists believe a Greek temple to Alexander the Great was founded on the site, possibly by Alexander himself.

[...]

Not directly relevant to ancient Judaism, but Alexander is an important figure in Jewish tradition and I like to keep track of what's going on with him.

The argument that Alexander was worshipped jointly with Zeus and (as his brother) Heracles/Ningursu, is plausible, but involves a good bit of inference. It does cohere with Egyptian traditions that deify him.

For many posts on Alexander the Great and his connection with ancient Jewish traditions, notably in the Alexander Romance, see here and links, plus (more or less) here and (sort of) here.

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Yale postdoc in ancient Judaism

H-JUDAIC: Yale University, Jewish Studies Program: Post Doctoral Associate in Ancient Judaism/History.

The Program in Jewish Studies at Yale University is offering a two-year Postdoctoral fellowship that will begin on July 1, 2024. Candidates for the fellowship must have a Ph.D. in hand by July 1, 2024 and must have received the degree no earlier than 2021. The Program seeks a specialist in Ancient Judaism who will work closely with appropriate members of Yale’s faculty.

[...]

Follow the link for further particulars. "The deadline for receipt of application materials is January 15, 2024."

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AABNER issue on Material and Scribal Scrolls Approches to the HB

ADVANCES IN ANCIENT BIBLICAL AND NEAR EASTERN RESEARCH: Vol 3 No 2 (2023): Material and Scribal Scrolls Approches to the Hebrew Bible. Follow the link for ToC and full text of all the articles.

HT the AWOL Blog.

AABNER, as noted here, is a recently launched open-access, peer-review journal.

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Nodet, ... Essenes, Qumran: Origins and Heirs (T&T Clark)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

A Gate to Heaven

Essenes, Qumran: Origins and Heirs

Etienne Nodet (Author)

Hardback
$115.00 $103.50

Ebook (PDF)
$103.50 $82.80

Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
$103.50 $82.80

Product details

Published Jun 01 2023
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 252
ISBN 9780567709714
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series Jewish and Christian Textsv Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

Description

Etienne Nodet proposes that Qumran functioned as a pilgrimage site for the Essenes from the 1st century BC onwards. Nodet suggests that the Essenes were scattered everywhere within Palestine in rural communities and that they used to commemorate a renewal of the early Israelites' entrance into the Promised Land, after crossing the Jordan river and celebrating Passover at Gilgal with Joshua, Moses' heir. The Essene dead were moved to be buried at Qumran in a well-organized graveyard, as the place was deemed to be a kind of gate to heaven.

Nodet shows how the Jewish movement of the Essenes did not did not disappear after the war in 70 CE, rather its customs had a strong influence upon early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. The chapters of this book examine the Essenes in the period after the war in Jerusalem, showing how this community developed and its longer term significance. This is linked to the texts of the New Testament, to the writings of Josephus and to the Qumran community's own documents, the Dead Sea Scrolls.

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Profile of the Vesuvius Challenge prizewinner

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Husker is first to decode word on ancient scroll. FARRITOR’S EFFORTS MAY HELP DOUBLE AMOUNT OF READABLE TEXT FROM GRECO-ROMAN ERA (Scott Schrage, University of Nebraska–Lincoln).

Greek letters are not difficult to find at a place like Nebraska U, where sigmas, thetas, deltas, kappas and epsilons grace plenty of signs and even more sweatshirts. But Farritor is busy training his eyes, and his model, on digitized scraps of an ancient document that lends fresh meaning to invisible ink and purple prose. That document — a rolled-up papyrus scroll charred into a lump of carbon by Italy’s Mount Vesuvius, which famously smothered Pompeii and, less famously, nearby Herculaneum in A.D. 79 — had gone unread for nearly two millennia.

Most feared it always would. If Vesuvius has seared that fateful day into history textbooks, it also burned away many of the era’s own texts, leaving the remnants under 60-plus feet of volcanic mud. And it left scant hope that the scroll, or hundreds of others excavated from a Herculaneum library — the last of its kind — would ever yield its words.

Until, in October, [UN-L Senior Luke] Farritor joined Brent Seales and researchers at the University of Kentucky for a news conference that would jar the world, igniting the hope of doubling the readable text from Greco-Roman antiquity.

“If we can do this, and I’m very confident we can,” Farritor said, “this will probably be the largest revelation of text from the ancient world since the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

That sounds about right.

Background here. For many PaleoJudaica posts on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE and its destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and on the efforts to reconstruct and decipher the carbonized library at Herculaneum, follow the links from there.

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TC 28 (2023)

THE ETC BLOG: New Volume of TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism is Out (Tommy Wasserman).

The new volume 28 (2023) of TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism has just been published here, and it is packed with twelve articles and some reviews. I have pasted contents and links below.

[...]

Most of the volume is devoted to New Testament related matters. But the following article is of more direct interest to PaleoJudaica:

Juha Pakkala, The Rebuilding and Settlement of Jerusalem in Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras (pp. 1–18)

Abstract: This paper reviews Dieter Böhler’s theory about the conception of Jerusalem in MT Ezra Nehemiah and 1 Esdras. According to Böhler, 1 Esdras preserves earlier versions in variants dealing with the rebuilding and settlement of Jerusalem, while the MT was revised to accommodate Ezra (and Neh 8) to the Nehemiah story. This paper argues that Böhler’s theory is highly unlikely. It is based on things lacking in the MT, while there is little positive evidence for the theory in the MT variants. The theory also neglects many passages that contradict the conception of an unsettled and unbuilt Jerusalem before Nehemiah. Textual variants used in favor of the theory are often controversial, heavily edited, and/or the result of textual corruption. In none of the cases does 1 Esdras unambiguously preserve the original reading. A conceptional connection between the MT variants remains unclear or is based on the variants in 1 Esdras. The 1 Esdras variants are connected by Jerusalem, its physical spaces, and temple gates. This may be an attempt to highlight the accomplishments of the Davidic Zerubbabel, which fits well with the anti-Hasmonean stand of 1 Esdras. Nehemiah and his accomplishments (such as references to the wall) were omitted because he was a non-Davidic leader whose memory 1 Esdras sought to eradicate.

For more on the debate about the relationship of Masoretic Ezra-Nehemiah to Septuagintal 1 Esdras, see the book edited by Lisbeth S. Fried noted here.

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Berlin, The JPS Bible Commentary: Psalms 120–150

NEW BOOK FROM THE JEWISH PUBLICATIONS SOCIETY:

The JPS Bible Commentary: Psalms 120–150

The Traditional Hebrew Text with the JPS Translation
Commentary by Adele Berlin
Sidebars on Ritual and Liturgical Uses of Psalms 120–150 by Avigdor Shinan and Benjamin D. Sommer

JPS Bible Commentary Series

248 pages
3 tables

Hardcover
August 2023
978-0-8276-0940-2
$40.00

eBook (PDF)
August 2023
978-0-8276-1891-6
$40.0

About the Book

The Jewish Publication Society’s highly acclaimed Bible Commentary series provides the Hebrew text of the Bible, the JPS English translation, and a line-by-line commentary. This volume presents commentary on Psalms 120–150, based on the most recent research on the language of the Bible, its literary forms, and the historical context that may have given rise to the psalms. The commentary pays special attention to the message of each psalm and to how the poetry shapes the message. At the same time, it draws on traditional Jewish interpretations of the meaning of the psalms.

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Review of Bernstein, Silius Italicus: Punica, book 9

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Silius Italicus: Punica, book 9.

Neil W. Bernstein, Silius Italicus: Punica, book 9. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. 272. ISBN 9780198838166

Review by
Clayton A. Schroer, Agnes Scott College. cschroer@agnesscott.edu

... These quibbles aside, Bernstein has offered us a commentary that is tremendously useful, erudite, and accessible—not to mention timely. It will find a spot on the shelf of every scholar of Silius’ Punica and post-Vergilian Latin epic. The book is handsomely produced, and I noticed virtually no typographical errors. Bernstein has long had a place as one of the patres of the renaissance of critical appreciation for the Punica, and we should thank him for this most recent contribution. More commentaries on the poem will surely follow. Book 5, anyone?

Cross-file under Punic Watch.

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Jesus Sirach, Jüdisches Gesetz und kosmische Weisheit (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK; Jesus Sirach, Jüdisches Gesetz und kosmische Weisheit. Herausgegeben von Markus Witte. Eingeleitet, übersetzt und mit interpretierenden Essays versehen von Markus Asper, Christine Ganslmayer, Gerhard Karner, Marko Marttila, Werner Urbanz, Oda Wischmeyer, Markus Witte und Burkard Zapff. [Jesus Sirach, Jewish Law and Cosmic Wisdom.] 2023. XX, 518 pages. Scripta Antiquitatis Posterioris ad Ethicam REligionemque pertinentia XLIV. 124,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-158251-6.

Published in German.
This volume offers a bilingual edition of all Hebrew fragments of the early Jewish book of Ben Sira and selected texts of the ancient Greek version of this work. Accompanying essays introduce the reader to the literary and cultural contexts of the book and interpret its ethical and religious topics.

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