Mallephana Rabba (Cook Festscrift, Gorgias)

NEW BOOK FROM GORGIAS PRESS:

MALLEPHANA RABBA
Aramaic Studies in Honor of Edward M. Cook

Edited by Stephen M. Coleman, Andrew D. Gross & Andrew W. Litke

Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC

SKU (ISBN): 978-1-4632-4583-2

Publication Status: Forthcoming
Series: Perspectives on Linguistics and Ancient Languages 15
Publication Date: Dec 20,2023
Interior Color: Black
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Page Count: 445
Languages: Englishv ISBN: 978-1-4632-4583-2

Price: $95.00
Your price: $57.00

This volume of essays honors Edward M. Cook, Ordinary Professor of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at The Catholic University of America. Cook is a leading figure in the vibrant and far-reaching field of Aramaic studies, and the essays reflect his range of interests, with lexical, linguistic, and literary analyses of dialects from the earliest inscriptions to the modern day. The essays are organized in four categories. The first focuses on the earliest attested Aramaic dialects; the second on Biblical Aramaic and texts from the Judean desert; the third on Aramaic translations of Scripture; and the fourth on poetic and religious texts from Late Antiquity. The volume concludes with a poem composed in Neo-Aramaic.

Contributions from Andrew W. Litke, William Fullilove, Andrew D. Gross, Daniel E. Carver, Tarsee Li, Stephen M. Coleman, Martin G. Abegg, Jr., Aaron Koller, Peter Y. Lee, Michael Owen Wise, Christian M. M. Brady, Stephen A. Kaufman, Jerome A. Lund, Alexandra Lupu, Moshe J. Bernstein, Laura S. Lieber, Matthew Morgenstern, and Shawqi N. Talia.

Congratulations to Professor Cook!

The book may be "forthcoming" for a few more days, but I know from Facebook that Ed did recieve a copy at the recent SBL conference in San Antonio.

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Boys find a coin of Herod Agrippa I

NUMISMATICS: Israeli boys find 2,000-year-old coin from time of King Agrippa (huaxia, Xinhua).

It was minted in Jerusalem during the time of Herod Agrippa, who was the Roman-Jewish king of Judea between 41 and 44 AD.

On the obverse side of the coin a royal canopy appears next to the inscription "Agrippa the King" in Greek, while on the reverse side, three grain stalks appear.

This would be Herod Agrippa I, a lurid account of whose death is found in Acts 12. There was a Herod Agrippa II as well, who also appears in the Book of Acts. For many PaleoJudaica posts on both of them, start here and follow the links. Another coin of Herod Agrippa I was found in 2019.

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Review of Taxation, economy, and revolt in ancient Rome, Galilee, and Egypt

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Taxation, economy, and revolt in ancient Rome, Galilee, and Egypt.

Thomas R. Blanton IV, Agnes Choi, Jinyu Liu, Taxation, economy, and revolt in ancient Rome, Galilee, and Egypt. Routledge monographs in classical studies. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2022. Pp. xiv, 186. ISBN 9780367472207

Review by
Irene Soto Marín, Harvard University. irenesotomarin@fas.harvard.edu

... This book is clearly written for readers interested in Judaea and biblical studies and could serve as an introduction to basic economic questions framed by and for biblical scholars. I do not think, however, that it will be a book of particular significance to scholars of the Roman Empire who require a developed theoretical approach to economic analyses and detailed arguments based on the available data. ...

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The year Jesus was born (?) was quite a year

'TIS THE SEASON: The Year Jesus Was Born (Philip Jenkins, The Anxious Bench).

Looking at these events, we understand just what the Romans were so afraid of in Jesus’s lifetime, and why they were especially nervous about rogue Galileans with religious pretensions – especially any with the slightest aspirations to kingship. And moreover, why they would be so justifiably paranoid around great feasts, such as Passover.

The crisis of 4 BC offered a prequel, a draft script, of so many of the horrors of the coming century. And that was the world into which Jesus was born.

This essay is a re-posting which I noted some years ago. I had forgotten about it, which means it's a good time to link to it again.

In my earlier posting, I express some skepticism about our being able to pinpoint the year of Jesus's birth. Check out the link there for discussion.

Whether or not Jesus was born in 4 BCE, this essay gives a good sense of the social and political world into which he was born.

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Latest on raising the Mazzarón II

PHOENICIAN WATCH: Archaeologists Plan Rescue of Ancient Phoenician Shipwreck in Spain (Nisha Zahid, Greek Reporter).

A team of nine technicians from the University of Valencia dedicated 560 hours to meticulously examining the shipwreck. Equipped with scuba gear, they carried out their investigations over a period of more than two weeks in June.

Their objective was to document all the cracks and openings in the ship’s structure, which currently rests at 60 meters (equivalent to 66 yards) near Mazarron’s Playa de la Isla.

Later this year, a team of experts will provide recommendations on how to safeguard and recover the shipwreck, potentially as early as next summer.

For more on this Phoenician shipwreck from roughly the sixth century BCE, see here and links. At that time this investigation was still in progress.

There is also another Phoenicial shipwreck of comparable age (the "Mazzarón I"), which seems to be undergoing restoration in the nearby town of Cartagena. See the link above for more.

Note the variable spellings Mazarrón (Mazarron) and Mazzarón (Mazzaron).

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Sword discovery is National Geographic's best of the year

ANNUAL ARCHAEOLOGY LIST WATCH: Swords found in Judean Desert caves ranked as most exciting archaeology story of 2023. National Geographic gives top slot to discovery of 1,900-year-old, remarkably preserved Roman blades, likely cached by Bar Kochba rebels in one of 800 caves near Dead Sea (GAVRIEL FISKE, Times of Israel).

I noted this story a few months ago here. For the submerged Nabatean (Nabataean) temple near Naples, see here and here. For the Saqqara mummification workshop, see here. I have noted additional 2023 discoveries at Saqqarah here, here and here, with links.

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Jerusalem's mystery monumental moat

ANCIENT MONUMENTAL ENGINEERING: Archaeologists Bewildered by Monumental Moat That Split Biblical Jerusalem in Two. Israeli archaeologists have found a huge ditch carved into the rock that may have split ancient Jerusalem in two 3,000 years ago, with the elites on one side and the rest on the other. Why is another question (Ariel David, Haaretz).

On the eastern edge of the Givati dig, the archaeologists recently removed multiple layers of Byzantine, Roman and Hellenistic remains to reach bedrock, but they found that around nine meters lower than expected. They soon realized they were standing in a huge ditch marked by two clearly rock-cut cliffs to the north and south, report Prof. Yuval Gadot of Tel Aviv University, Dr. Yiftah Shalev of the Israel Antiquities Authority and colleagues.

The ditch, at the bottom of which the strange channel installations were found, is massive. It measures around 30 meters wide: that's more or less enough to fit a 10-storey building lying on its side.

As I've said before, the Givati excavation is the dig that keeps on giving.

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Fixed-term Rabbinics job at JTS

H-JUDAIC: FEATURED JOB: Visiting Assistant Professor, Jewish Theological Seminary.

Call for Applicants: the Golda Och Visiting Assistant Professor in the Field of Rabbinic Literatures and Cultures

The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) seeks a scholar and teacher for a one year visiting faculty appointment in the area of Rabbinic Literatures and Cultures.

[...]

Follow the link for further particulars. Application materials should be submitted by 22 January 2024.

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Theologies of Hasmonean Martyrdom

HANUKKAH RELATED: Hasmonean Martyrdom: Between Christian and Jewish Tradition (Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich, TheTorah.com).

Eastern Christianity includes prayer and a festival honoring the martyrdom of a woman and her seven sons who, in the time of Antiochus IV, refused to eat pork. The Talmud reimagines their story, depicting the woman and her sons as refusing to worship an idol in Roman times. This change reflects the rabbis’ tendency to downplay martyrdom in favor of a piety model centered on “dying” through exhaustive Torah study.

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

Waaler, The Use of the Old Testament in Matthew 1–4 (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Erik Waaler. The Use of the Old Testament in Matthew 1–4. 2023. XV, 326 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 595. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-162225-0.

Published in English.
In this book, Erik Waaler discusses how Matthew uses the Old Testament in Matthew 1–4 to describe Jesus as the Christ. He debates the intricate system of changes that occur when a text is moved from one literary context to another and criticizes the current terminology of quotation, allusion, and echo for being too simplistic. Issues like worldview, metalepsis, different sociological, historic and linguistic contexts and development all have to be taken into consideration, he argues, as do the influence of both traditional interpretations known to Matthew and his primary audience as well as the intentional and unintentional changes this interaction causes. These different methodological approaches are then applied to the study of recontextualization of the Old Testament in Matthew 1–4.

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Miroshnikov (ed.), Parabiblica Coptica (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Parabiblica Coptica. Edited by Ivan Miroshnikov. 2023. IX, 241 pages. Parabiblica 3. 119,00 €including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-162086-7.

Published in English.
The present volume focuses on the Coptic parabiblical texts – those texts that do not belong to the Bible but fall in its orbit – which include not only the Apocrypha but also the works of the Apostolic Fathers. The contributions deal with a wide range of topics and literary genres, including apocryphal acts and the so-called apostolic memoirs. The volume is divided into two sections: editiones, which contains editions of several important texts in Sahidic Coptic, and studia, which comprises five articles on Coptic parabiblical literature. The literary works discussed in the volume are contextualized in the scope of Coptic literature, regardless of whether they were originally composed in Coptic or translated into Coptic from Greek. Some of the contributions also deal with the reception of Coptic literature in Arabic and Old Nubian literary traditions.

Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch (etc.).

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Muraoka, Wisdom of Ben Sira (Peeters, open access)

NEW BOOK FROM PEETERS:

Wisdom of Ben Sira

PRICE: 135 euro
YEAR: 2023
ISBN: 9789042949140
E-ISBN: 9789042949157
PAGES: XIV-807 p.

SERIES:
Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis, 302

AUTHOR:
Muraoka T.

SUMMARY:
A philological commentary on the book of Ben Sira accompanied by a full translation of the Greek text in the Septuagint. Similar in content to the book of Proverbs, and though not canonical, but read and studied by the ancient Jewish community, as shown by a considerable quantity of fragments of its Hebrew original discovered in a storage room of a synagogue in Cairo and among the documents discovered in Qumran caves and the Judaean Desert. All these data as well as two ancient Syriac translations have been fully taken into account.

This book is published open access. It can be downloaded here.

For you, special deal!

HT the AWOL Blog.

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Übersetzung des Talmud Yerushalmi. I. Seder Zeraim. Traktat 5: Shevi'it (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Übersetzung des Talmud Yerushalmi. I. Seder Zeraim. Traktat 5: Shevi'it. Siebentjahr. Herausgegeben von Hans-Jürgen Becker, Frowald G. Hüttenmeister und Peter Schäfer. Übers. v. Andreas Lehnardt. [Translation of the Talmud Yerushalmi. I. Seder Zeraʿim. Tractate 5: Sheviʿit – Seventh Year.] 2023. LVI, 277 pages. 139,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-162611-1.

Published in German. Andreas Lehnardt presents the first German translation of the Tractate Sheviʿit (Sabbath Year) with a short commentary. Massekhet Sheviʿit is the fifth tractate of the first order, Zeraʿim (Seeds). It deals with Biblical Laws of Seventh Year according to Exodus 23:10–11, Leviticus 25:1–7 and Deuteronomy 15:1–3. The tractate provides a commentary to the Mishnah tractate of the same name.

This series of German translations of the tractates of Talmud Yerushalmi (the Jerusalem Talmud or Palestinian Talmud) has been ongoing since the 1980s. The many volumes published so far are listed here. The series has been quiet for some time, but I see another volume is scheduled for release in 2024. It is good to see the project active again.

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Michael Knibb, 1938-2023

ZWINGLIUS REDIVIVUS: Sad News: The Passing of Michael Knibb (Jim West).

Michael Knibb was a towering figure in the areas of ancient Judaism and Ethiopic biblical literature. He was also a very nice man. I am very sad to hear that he is gone.

Jim links to Professor Knibb's KCL page. His Wikipedia page is here.

Requiescat in pace.

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Adams & Domoney-Lyttle, The Philo of Alexandria Scripture Index (SBL)

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:

The Philo of Alexandria Scripture Index

Sean A. Adams, Zanne Domoney-Lyttle

ISBN 9781628374797
Volume SPhiloM 9
Status Available
Publication Date September 2023

Hardback $50.00
Paperback $30.00
eBook $30.00

The Philo of Alexandria Scripture Index identifies and lists every instance in which Philo of Alexandria cites or alludes to passages from Jewish Scripture. With 7,831 references, this book is the most comprehensive study of its kind to date. Unlike other volumes with a single index of Philo’s citations and allusions organized by biblical book, this volume includes a second index that follows Philo’s treatise order. This second format allows students and scholars easily to examine Philo’s engagement with Scripture in individual treatises and to interrogate how Philo collected and grouped intertexts. In addition to the indices, Sean A. Adams and Zanne Domoney-Lyttle provide an introduction to their methodology and their selection of texts, including Philo’s fragmentary works and those that survive only in the Armenian tradition.

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Review of Kuin, Lucian's laughing gods

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Lucian’s laughing gods: religion, philosophy, and popular culture in the Roman East.

Inger N.I. Kuin, Lucian's laughing gods: religion, philosophy, and popular culture in the Roman East. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2023. Pp. 304. ISBN 9780472220977

Review by
Anna Peterson, Pennsylvania State University. aip12@psu.edu

... In her captivating book, Inger Kuin offers an engaging analysis of Lucian’s depiction of gods that should prove indispensable for future studies on this under-discussed aspect of his corpus. In so doing, she seeks to move beyond previous attempts, which have focused primarily on discussing Lucian’s use of humor[1] or analyzing individual texts.[2] Instead, Kuin incorporates methodologies from religious studies and adopts a synoptic view of the corpus. The result is a study that scholars of both imperial Greek literature and ancient religion will find useful for understanding Lucian’s comedic depictions of the gods and religious practices. ...

I have noted other books about the second century CE satirist Lucian of Samosata here, here, and here.

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Achenbach, Tora in der Perserzeit (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Reinhard Achenbach. Tora in der Perserzeit. Gesammelte Studien zu Theologie und Rechtsgeschichte Judas. [The Torah in the Persian Period. Collected Studies on the Theology and Legal History of Judah.] 2023. X, 488 pages. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 173. 164,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-154413-2.

Published in German.
Reinhard Achenbach offers a collection of studies on the redactional composition of the Pentateuch, the history of institutions, on concepts of international law, and the rights of foreigners in the scribal tradition of Judah during the Second Temple Period in the Persian Empire (539–333 B.C.E.). He examines the changes in theological ideas, priestly institutions, sacral rules, and purity law in the tension between the pursuit for religious autonomy in the community and Jewish monotheism's claim of universal significance.

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