On divorce documents

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH (APRIL 2024): Geṭ groundwork from the Cairo Genizah: practising writing a Jewish divorce document (T-S 10J2.34) (Marc Michaels).

This Geniza text is dated to 1492, but the essay covers geṭ conventions ranging from the Bar Kokhba Revolt era to the present.

For PaleoJudaica posts on marriage and divorce law in the Talmud (noting Daf Yomi essays by Adam Kirsch), follow the links from here. For divorce among the Elephantine Judeans, see the links collected here.

For PaleoJudaica posts noting Cairo Geniza Fragments of the Month in the Cambridge University Library's Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, see the many links collected here.

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

On Coptic

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: What Is Coptic? The language of Christian Egypt (Marek Dospěl).

Another in the useful BHD introductory series on biblical and related languages. Earlier essays are collected here (biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and biblical Greek) and here (Akkadian).

For more on the Coptic Dialects, see here. For more on the Mudil Coptic Psalter ("Pillow Psalter"), see here and link. For more on Shenoute and the White Monastery, see here and links. For many posts on the Coptic Gnostic Library from Nag Hammadi, see here and links. And for a great many additional posts on the Coptic language and Coptic literature, run "Coptic Watch" through the search engine.

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Lester, Deuteronomy and the Material Transmission of Tradition (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Deuteronomy and the Material Transmission of Tradition

Series:
Vetus Testamentum, Supplements, Volume: 198

Author: Mark Lester

Deuteronomy and the inscribed texts depicted within it are often called “books.” Moreover, its treatment of writing has earned it a prominent place in historical accounts of the religion of ancient Israel and Judah. Neither Deuteronomy nor its text-artifacts, however, are books in any conventional sense of the term. This interdisciplinary study reorients the analysis of Deuteronomic textuality around the materiality, visuality, and rhetoric of ancient rather than modern media. It argues that the Deuteronomic composition adapts the media aesthetics of ancient treaty tablets and monumental inscriptions to a story that is itself transformed into an artifact of the past.

Copyright Year: 2024

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69185-8
Publication: 04 Mar 2024
EUR €116.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69180-3
Publication: 28 Feb 2024
EUR €116.00

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Litwa, Simon of Samaria and the Simonians (T&T Clark)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

Simon of Samaria and the Simonians

Contours of an Early Christian Movement

M. David Litwa (Author)

Hardback
$115.00 $103.50

Ebook (PDF)
$103.50 $82.80

Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
$103.50 $82.80

Product details

Published Apr 04 2024
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 224
ISBN 9780567712950
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

Description

Who were the Simonians? Beginning in the mid-second century CE, heresiologists depicted them as licentious followers of the first “gnostic,” a supposedly Samarian self-deifier called Simon, who was thought to practice “magic” and became known as the father of all heresies.

Litwa examines the Simonians in their own literature and in the literature used to refute and describe them. He begins with Simonian primary sources, namely The Declaration of Great Power (embedded in the anonymous Refutation of All Heresies) and The Concept of Our Great Power (Nag Hammadi codex VI,4). Litwa argues that both are early second-century products of Simonian authors writing in Alexandria or Egypt. Litwa then moves on to examine the heresiological sources related to the Simonians (Justin, the book of Acts, Irenaeus, the author of the Refutation of All Heresies, Pseudo-Tertullian, Epiphanius, and Filaster). He shows how closely connected Justin's report is to the portrait of Simon in Acts, and offers an extensive exegesis and analysis of Simonian theology and practice based on the reports of Irenaeus and the Refutator. Finally, Litwa examines Simonianism in novelistic sources, namely the Acts of Peter and the Pseudo-Clementines. By the time these sources were written, Simon had become the father of all heresies. Accordingly, virtually any heresy could be attributed to Simon. As a result-despite their alluring portraits of Simon-these sources are mostly unusable for the historical study of the Simonian Christian movement. Litwa concludes with a historical profile of the Simonian movement in the second and third centuries.

The book features appendices which contain Litwa's own translations of primary Simonian texts.

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The Exagoge of Ezekiel is playing in New York

THEATRE: Exagoge Review. The oldest Jewish play, PLUS (Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater).

“Exagoge,” inspired by the oldest known Jewish play, is a wildly ambitious, complicated but largely accessible new work of immersive theater: a play, opera, and Passover seder all in one – and all in just 100 minutes, which (if you know seders) is itself an achievement. There is much else besides its comparative brevity to recommend this latest work by the reliably erudite Edward Einhorn and his Untitled Theater Company No. 61., which began at La MaMa in the middle of Passover and is running through May 12 (two weeks past the holiday.) The play, which is thought-provoking in itself, provides a modern frame both for the opera, which has moments of exquisite singing and vivid stagecraft, and for the seder, which is more or less for real, and fun, if unorthodox (thus, for some, possibly problematic.)

A Jewish dramatist named Ezekiel the Tragedian wrote the original “Exagoge” some 2,200 years ago in Alexandria, Egypt. Although only a fragment of Ezekial’s play remains (269 lines), that’s plenty enough for scholars to know it was a drama written in Greek about the exodus of the Jews from Egyptian bondage, influenced by the tragedies written several centuries earlier by Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles. It retells the story from the Exodus book of the Bible, but incorporates non-Biblical elements, such as a phoenix that rises up at the end – which some (such as Einhorn) speculate was Ezekiel’s effort (as Einhorn puts it in a note) “to reach out to the pagan community. We know that, historically, the Jews of Alexandria were surprisingly integrated into Alexandrian society” (which at the time was what we would now call multicultural.)

[...]

Another adaptation of Ezekiel's Exagoge was performed in 2016. I noted it here and links. The outside links have rotted or were glitched, but you can now read the missing review of it by Rabbi John Rosove here.

A new Oxyrhynchus fragment of the Exagoge was also discovered in 2016, noted here and here. Presumably that was too late to be taken into account by the 2016 production. I don't know about the current one.

For more posts on the Exagoge, follow the links in the ones above. Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch.

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Gross, Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity (CUP)

NEW BOOK FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity

AUTHOR: Simcha Gross, University of Pennsylvania
DATE PUBLISHED: April 2024
AVAILABILITY: Available
FORMAT: HardbackISBN: 9781009280525

£ 100.00
Hardback

Description

From the image offered by the Babylonian Talmud, Jewish elites were deeply embedded within the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE). The Talmud is replete with stories and discussions that feature Sasanian kings, Zoroastrian magi, fire temples, imperial administrators, Sasanian laws, Persian customs, and more quotidian details of Jewish life. Yet, in the scholarly literature on the Babylonian Talmud and the Jews of Babylonia , the Sasanian Empire has served as a backdrop to a decidedly parochial Jewish story, having little if any direct impact on Babylonian Jewish life and especially the rabbis. Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity advances a radically different understanding of Babylonian Jewish history and Sasanian rule. Building upon recent scholarship, Simcha Gross portrays a more immanent model of Sasanian rule, within and against which Jews invariably positioned and defined themselves. Babylonian Jews realized their traditions, teachings, and social position within the political, social, religious, and cultural conditions generated by Sasanian rule.

• Challenges a pervasive historical paradigm in the study of ancient Jews that treats them as siloed and isolated from their surroundings
• Models how to make an often opaque and rhetorically narrow religious text – the Talmud – speak to its own larger historical context
• Explores different ways to study Jews alongside Christians and other religious communities outside the binary of contact or conflict

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On the Leviticus Holiness Code

PROF. JULIA RHYDER: Israel, Be Holy! A Command for Religious Conformity (TheTorah.com).

The sanctification of all Israel in Leviticus 17–26—expanding the obligation to be holy from the priests to a collective requirement for all Israelites—further elevates the priesthood to a hegemonic social position.

I noted the publication of the author's book on the Leviticus Holiness Code here.

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Review of Yarbro Collins, Paul Transformed

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Paul Transformed: Reception of the Person and Letters of Paul in Antiquity (D. Clint Burnett).

Adela Yarbro Collins. Paul Transformed: Reception of the Person and Letters of Paul in Antiquity. The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022.

Yarbro Collins’s goal in Paul Transformed is to capture the multiple images of Paul that early Christ-confessors created from reading the apostle’s letters. In the process, she examines five areas of Paul’s theology, which Yarbro Collins derives from his so-called undisputed letters,[1] and tracks the various interpretations of these theological tenets in Christian writings from the first to the fourth centuries CE (and sometimes beyond). ...

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Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia latest

THE AWOL BLOG: Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia Chronological List of Recent Entries (23 April 2024).

It's been a few years since I mentioned the online, open-access Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia, so this is a good excuse to do so again. It is an important ongoing work in progress.

Cross-file under Coptic Watch.

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Review of Huber & O'Day, Wisdom Commentary: Revelation

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Life Goes On? Temporality, Resistance, Excess: A response to Lynn Huber’s and Gail O’Day’s Commentary on Revelation (Jennifer Wright Knust).

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

A new Jesus horror movie?

CINEMA: Nicolas Cage Will Play The Father Of Christ In A New Horror Movie (Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm.com).

Looks like Mel Gibson has some competition. Reportedly "The Carpenter's Son" will be based on the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which certainly does have its moments of horror.

For some PaleoJudaica posts on or involving the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, see here and links, here, here, and here.

Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch.

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The Apocalypse of Peter in Context (Peeters, open access)

NEW BOOK FROM PEETERS PUBLISHER:

The Apocalypse of Peter in Context

SERIES:
Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha, 21

EDITORS:
Maier D.C., Frey J., Kraus T.J.

PRICE: 96 euro
YEAR: 2024
ISBN: 9789042952089
E-ISBN: 9789042952096
PAGES: XVI-402 p.

SUMMARY:
“The Apocalypse of Peter in Context” offers scholarly inquiries into this complex and frequently overlooked early Christian text from different angles. By extending the boundaries of traditional analyses, this collection of essays elucidates the eschatological beliefs prevalent in nascent Christian communities and the formative influences that gave rise to perceptions of heaven and hell. Through new approaches to authorship, transmission, and materiality, it explores this early apocryphal text’s complex relationship with Jewish literature of the Second Temple period and its reception in (Late) Antiquity and the Middle Ages in various branches of Christianity. It also presents the first comprehensive English translation of the entire Ethiopic transmission context and further possible Ethiopic witnesses never critically edited and translated before. The result of a multidisciplinary conference, this collection provokes new insights and stimulates further research on this captivating witness to a distinct branch of apocalyptic thought within early Christianity. This book is published open access.

Go to the Peeter page for the link. HT the AWOL Blog.

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Thambyrajah, Loanwords in Biblical Literature (T&T Clark)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

Loanwords in Biblical Literature

Rhetorical Studies in Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Exodus

Jonathan Thambyrajah (Author)

Paperback
$39.95 $35.95

Hardback
$120.00 $108.00

Ebook (PDF)
$35.95 $28.76

Product details

Published Apr 18 2024
Format Paperback
Edition 1st
Extent 320
ISBN 9780567703095
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

Description

In contrast to previous scholarship which has approached loanwords from etymological and lexicographic perspectives, Jonathan Thambyrajah considers them not only as data but as rhetorical elements of the literary texts of which they are a part. In the book, he explains why certain biblical texts strongly prefer to use loanwords whereas others have few. In order to explore this, he studies the loanwords of Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Exodus, considering their impact on audiences and readers. He also analyzes and evaluates the many proposed loan hypotheses in Biblical Hebrew and proposes further or different hypotheses.

Loanwords have the potential to carry associations with its culture of origin, and as such are ideal rhetorical tools for shaping a text's audience's view of the nations around them and their own nation. Thambyrajah also focuses on this phenomenon, looking at the court tales in Esther and Daniel, the correspondence in the Hebrew and Aramaic sections of Ezra 1–7, and the accounts of building the tabernacle in Exodus, and paying close attention to how these texts present ethnicity.

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Trotter on "Hellenistic Jews and Consolatory Rhetoric"

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Publication Preview: Hellenistic Jews and Consolatory Rhetoric (Christine R. Trotter).

Christine R. Trotter. Hellenistic Jews and Consolatory Rhetoric: 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, 1 Thessalonians, and Hebrews. WUNT 2/600. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023.

... Ultimately, I decided to narrow my focus on the use of consolatory rhetoric among Hellenistic Jews because I was frustrated by a scholarly conversation about how “Christian consolation” is both similar to and different from “Greco-Roman consolation.” The contributions of ancient Jewish consolatory rhetoric to the development of “Christian consolation” rarely appeared in this debate, even though early Christians drew on both Greco-Roman and Jewish precedents. Why was there not more discussion of how Christian authors utilized the consolatory methods of ancient Jews? ...

I noted the publication of the book here.

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International Conference on Yehezkel Kaufmann

H-JUDAIC:

EVENT: International Conference on Yehezkel Kaufmann (May 7-8) (George Y. Kohler)

Conference
Date:May 7, 2024 - May 8, 2024
Location: Israel
Subject Fields: Jewish History / Studies
International Conference: Yehezkel Kaufmann: His Life, Scholarship, and Legacy - Bar Ilan 7/8 May

The Year 2023 marked the sixtieth anniversary of the death of Yehezkel Kaufmann. His revolutionary thinking had a lasting impact on biblical studies, Jewish thought, and beyond, especially through his two influential multi-volume works. Sixty years after his death, we seek to examine critically the impact of his thought, its intellectual and biographical roots and his legacy. The lectures are in English and in Hebrew.

Follow the link for information on accessing live on Facebook and for a PDF conference program. Looks like the lectures will be in Hebrew and English

PaleoJudaica posts involving the work of Yehezkel Kaufmann are here and here. If you are not familiar with his work, you can read more about him here.

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Biblical Studies Carnival 217

THE AMATEUR EXEGETE: Biblical Studies Carnival # 217 – April 2024 (Ben).

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Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus up for auction

ALSO FOR SALE: Early Christian scripture and ancient codices draw collectors' eyes to Paris (Catherine Pepinster, Christian Century).

I have already noted that the fourth century CE Coptic Crosby-Schoyen Codex is coming up for auction in June. This article mentions it, but also notes that another important manuscript in the Schøyen Collection is to be sold in the same auction.

Another major manuscript going up for sale on June 11 is the Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus, which is in effect an ancient effort at recycling. In the 10th century, John Zosimos, a monk at a monastery near Jerusalem, acquired a document written on expensive vellum, which he packed up and took to St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai Desert to reuse for his own writing. The original writing, itself the earliest surviving piece of the Gospels to be written in Aramaic, dating from the fifth or sixth century, is still visible.

“The underlying text was not scrubbed out very well, so under fluorescent lighting you can still see it, written in the language that Jesus himself would have spoken,” said Donadoni.

The document, valued at £1.5 million, or $1.85 million, is a bargain, as the buyer gets the two texts for the price of one.

The Codex Sinaiticus Rescriptus is not to be confused with the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, another important Syriac/Aramaic biblical manuscript that was sold to the Green collection in 2009.

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Who crucified Jesus?

PROF. TAMÁS VISI: Did the Jews Crucify Jesus? (TheTorah.com).

The gospels present Pontius Pilate, the Roman procurator, condemning Jesus to death, and his soldiers crucifying Jesus at the behest of the priests and the Jewish crowd. How, then, did the claim—found even in the Talmud—that the Jews physically crucified Jesus develop?

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Plato's last night revealed in Herculaneum scroll?

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Plato’s final hours recounted in scroll found in Vesuvius ash. Newly deciphered passages outline Greek philosopher’s burial place and describe critique of slave musician (Lorenzo Tondo, The Guardian).

In a groundbreaking discovery, the ancient scroll was found to contain a previously unknown narrative detailing how the Greek philosopher spent his last evening, describing how he listened to music played on a flute by a Thracian slave girl.

Despite battling a fever and being on the brink of death, Plato – who was known as a disciple of Socrates and a mentor to Aristotle, and who died in Athens around 348BC – retained enough lucidity to critique the musician for her lack of rhythm, the account suggests.

This announcement is so remarkable that at first I thought it was a joke. But it is real. Prof Graziano Ranocchia of the University of Pisa has reported that his team has recovered material from a carbonized Herculaneum scroll which gives new information about the life and death of Plato, including an account of the last evening of his life and a more precise indication of his burial place. It also tells a story of his enslavement somewhat different from the one already known.

How much does this new scroll tell us about the actual life of Plato? Hard to say. Philodemus lived in the first century BCE, a few centuries after the death of Plato. But we don't know what contemporary sources he had that are now lost.

I would take the account of Plato's last night with a grain of salt. If no one knew what happened, someone would surely made up a story like the one Philodemus gives us. But at worst we now have an additional piece of comparatively early Plato apocrypha.

Comparatively early? For comparison, there is the Life of Plato written by Diogenes Laërtius in his Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. (The 1925 LCL translation by R. D. Hicks is reprinted at the link at the Livius site.) Diogenes lived no earlier than the first half of the third century CE, so perhaps a few centuries farther from Plato's time than Philodemus.

Diogenes says that Plato died at a wedding feast (or possibly from lice infestation!), that there are conflicting reports of the date, and that he was buried in the Academy (2-3, 40-41, 45). He gives no more information about the night of his death. He also reports that Plato was sentenced to be sold into slavery by Dionysius I of Syracuse, but an admirer ransomed him and sent him back to Athens (18-20).

One cautionary note. Let's remember that none of the new information has been published yet. I want to see what it looks like when it's published and how persuaded specialists are of the reconstruction and decipherment. But it sounds promising.

I know this story has nothing to do with ancient Judaism, but it's of interest to anyone following the decipherment of the Heculaneum scrolls, as I have been. Maybe the next big discovery will be more relevant.

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, start here and follow the links.

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Review of Hamori, God’s Monsters

RELIGION PROF: Esther Hamori, God’s Monsters. A book review by James McGrath.

I noted the publication of the book here. For more on monsters in the biblical world, see the links collected here.

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Review of Anagnostou-Laoutides & Pfeiffer (eds.), Culture and ideology under the Seleukids

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Culture and ideology under the Seleukids: unframing a dynasty.

Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, Stefan Pfeiffer, Culture and ideology under the Seleukids: unframing a dynasty. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2022. Pp. xxii, 360. ISBN 9783110755626.

Review by
Benjamin Pedersen, The Danish Institute at Athens. benjamin.pedersen@diathens.gr

The book under review aims to put forth “a multi-angled (re-)appraisal of the cultural dynamics under the Seleukid regime from its establishment to its eventual submission to the Romans” (p. 1). The overarching goal is to treat the cultural and ideological lines of development in the Seleucid empire by embracing “the plurality of ancient evidence and examining the ideologies appended to it” to unframe issues “still palpable in the scholarship and offer a platform for debating them” (preface). ...

For PaleoJudaica posts on the Seleucid dynasty and its importance for the Bible and Second Temple Judaism, start here (cf. here) and follow the links.

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C14 evidence for a larger Davidic Jerusalem?

RADIOCARBON DATING: Jerusalem in King David's Time Was Much Larger Than Previously Thought, Researchers Say. First large-scale radiocarbon study of Jerusalem casts doubt on the paradigm that David's capital was a small village. It already extended over a vast area more than 3,000 years ago (Ariel David, Haaretz).

A first-of-its-kind radiocarbon study of Jerusalem in the First Temple Period is now offering new insight into the city's history in biblical times. On one hand it brings tantalizing clues that the city was already an important urban center in David and Solomon's time and not an insignificant village, as scholars more skeptical of biblical historicity have long maintained .

On the other hand, the new radiocarbon data contradict the biblical text on who exactly built what and when in Jerusalem during the First Temple Period.

The underlying article in PNAS is online, but behind a subscription wall: Radiocarbon chronology of Iron Age Jerusalem reveals calibration offsets and architectural developments (Johanna Regev, Yuval Gadot, Joe Uziel, and Elisabetta Boaretto). You can read a Significance paragraph and the Abstract there. The Haaretz article is quite informative too.

The results sound interesting, especially regarding the dating of the city wall. Their bearing on the size of the city in David's time seems more controversial.

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Report on Durham Syriac conference

SYRIAC WATCH: Landmark Syriac Studies conference brings international research excellence to UK (Durham University).

A landmark conference about Syriac Studies brought more than 70 researchers from 20 countries to Durham last month. The event was a hub for academic collaboration and knowledge sharing. It was also a formative experience for early-career scholars. Here, the organisers reflect on the key highlights of the conference and why there has recently been a major revival of academic interest in Syriac Studies.

[...]

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Was Abimelech Pyrrhus, Jephtha's daughter Iphigenia, and Samson Heracles?

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

272 BCE – A Terminus a Quo

272 BCE is the first an until now only indisputable terminus a quo for the emergence of Old Testament literature. In 272 the Greek general Pyrrhus was killed during a street battle in the city of Argos, when a woman threw a tile from the roof of a house and hid Pyrrhus immobilizing him. Pyrrhus was eliminated by a bystander. Pyrrhus’ fate was undoubtedly the inspiration for the story in Judg 9, followed by the sacrifice of Jiphta’s daughter, so often likened to the fate of Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia, and the story of Samson, very easily identified as Heracles.

Chapter from If I Forget You, Jerusalem! Studies on the Old Testament (Equinox Publishing (May 15, 2024).

By Niels Lemche
University of Copenhagen April 2024

Nope, not buying it.

The three comparisons are very weak. They wrest stories from the Book of Judges and from widely varied places in Classical literature from their contexts, identify them on the basis of a few parallels, and claim that the argument constitutes a convincing cumulative case.

In context, the stories are very different. Abimelech is finished off with a spear by one of his own men at his own request whereas Pyrrhus is beheaded by an enemy. Prof. Lemche acknowledges the weakness of the comparison of Jephthah's daughter to Iphigenia, but still advances it as part of his argument. We can add that in the best-known version of the story, by Euripides, Iphigenia isn't even sacrificed. Unlike Samson, Heracles was deified through his own self-immolation. I could go on and on, but this illustrates my point.

Multiplying weak arguments does not add up to a cumulatively strong one.

I don't have a firm opinion about the composition date of the Book of Judges. The Hebrew looks more like epigraphic Iron Age II Hebrew than Qumran Hebrew, but it is somewhat different from both. And we don't have much in between. Judges seems to remember some old information (although cf. here), but that doesn't establish its date of composition. Neither does the argument advanced in this essay.

UPDATE (30 April): I see that Prof. Lemche has replied to this post in a comment to his essay. I have responded there.

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Upcoming Mel Gibson movies?

TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS IN THE NEWS:

‘Resurrection’ to be release in April 2025. The sequel of The Passion of the Christ will premier on Good Friday 2025. It brings back actors from the original cast, including Jim Caviezel as Jesus (Evangelical Focus).

Mel Gibson to film story of Judah Maccabee (Jewish Chronicle)

It sounds as though the Resurrection film is actually happening. Background here and links.

There has been talk for a long time about a Gibson movie on the Maccabean Revolt. This latest announcement is more talk. The script is not even written yet. The first script was rejected by Warner Bros in 2012. We'll see if anything comes of this round of talk. Background here and links.

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Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (SBL Press)

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:

Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions: Methodological Encounters and Debates

Martti Nissinen, Jutta Jokiranta, editors

ISBN 9781628375718
Volume RBS 106
Status Available
Publication Date April 2024

Paperback $93.00
eBook $93.00
Hardback $113.00

This volume presents the work of the international, interdisciplinary research project Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT), whose members focused on cultural, ideological, and material changes in the period when the sacred traditions of the Hebrew Bible were created, transmitted, and transformed. Specialists in the textual study of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, archaeology, Assyriology, and history, working across their fields of expertise, trace how changes occurred in biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts and traditions. Contributors Tero Alstola, Anneli Aejmelaeus , Rick Bonnie, Francis Borchardt, George J. Brooke, Cynthia Edenburg, Sebastian Fink, Izaak J. deHulster , Patrik Jansson, Jutta Jokiranta, Tuukka Kauhanen, Gina Konstantopoulos, Lauri Laine, Michael C. Legaspi, Christoph Levin, Ville Mäkipelto, Reinhard Müller, Martti Nissinen, Jessi Orpana, Juha Pakkala, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Christian Seppänen, Jason M. Silverman, Saana Svärd, Timo Tekoniemi, Hanna Tervanotko, Joanna Töyräänvuori, and Miika Tucker demonstrate that rigorous yet respectful debate results in a nuanced and complex understanding of how ancient texts developed.

The project ran a blog to which I linked occasionally. But it appears to have been taken down.

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Hinojosa, Serek ha-Yaḥad (1QS) in Dialogue with Mimetic Theory (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Serek ha-Yaḥad (1QS) in Dialogue with Mimetic Theory

Scapegoat Mechanisms Unveiled

Series:
Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah, Volume: 146

Author: Kamilla Skarström Hinojosa

What holds a society together, what makes it dissolve, and how is a society in crisis restored? These are the questions explored in this study, which brings the Serek ha-Yahad (IQS) into dialogue with mimetic theory. It thus aims to shed light on the forms of life and thought in the yahad, as well as on their underlying reason and purpose. From the analysis emerges an image of a community that not only has a strong awareness of the mechanisms of violence, but also of its cure. Its hierarchical organization and strict regulations are motivated by a perceived dissolution of contemporary society. By subordinating personal desire to community discipline and by establishing a system of differentiation, the yahad seeks to provide a model of how a society ought to be functioning.

Copyright Year: 2024

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-68732-5
Publication: 12 Feb 2024
EUR €124.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-68643-4
Publication: 21 Dec 2023
EUR €124.00

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Was Susya an ancient Jewish-Christian town?

ARCHAEOLOGY: Could Susya be a 1600-year-old Messianic Jewish city? Some argue it was inhabited by early Christians who maintained Jewish identity (Aaron Goel-Angot, AllIsraelNews).

I'm not sure who the "some" are who argue for this. I've not heard it before. The article doesn't cite any scholarly literature. If there is any, I would like to see it.

The YouTube tourist video is informative, if a bit cheesy, but it doesn't give references.

The format of the Yeshua inscription makes it more likely that it is a dedicatory inscription than a reference to Jesus. The terms "comforter" (1 John 2:1; cf John 14:16 by implication: "another comforter") and "witness" (Revelation 1:5) are used rarely for Jesus in the New Testament, but they are used.

I am not qualified to comment on the architectual and iconographic evidence.

In short, this is an interesting idea, but I want to see more evaluation of the evidence by specialists.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the site of Susya, see here and links and the fourth article listed here.

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Passover priestly blessing at Western Wall 2024

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH, FOR PASSOVER: Thousands of Jewish worshippers attend priestly blessing ceremony at Jerusalem’s Western Wall (CHARLIE SUMMERS, Times of Israel).

I haven't noted this event for a while, but for past posts, see here and links, plus here.

For many posts on the priestly benediction (Numbers 6:24-26), see here and links and here and links.

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Passover Plague Philology Poetry

SOME PASSOVER AMUSEMENT: The First Alphabet and the Third Plague (Gershon Hepner, Jewish Journal).

For more on that Canaanite lice comb, see here and here. Cross-file under Northwest Semitic Epigraphy

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Hezser, The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity

NEW BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE:

The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity

Edited By Catherine Hezser

Copyright 2024
Hardback £205.00
eBook £38.69
ISBN 9781138241220
568 Pages 36 B/W Illustrations
Published January 24, 2024 by Routledge

Description

This volume focuses on the major issues and debates in the study of Jews and Judaism in late antiquity (third to seventh century C.E.), providing cutting-edge surveys of the state of scholarship, main topics and research questions, methodological approaches, and avenues for future research.

Based on both Jewish and non-Jewish literary and material sources, this volume takes an interdisciplinary approach involving historians of ancient Judaism, scholars of rabbinic literature, archaeologists, epigraphers, art historians, and Byzantinists. Developments within Jewish society and culture are viewed within the respective regional, political, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts in which they took place. Special focus is given to the impact of the Christianization of the Roman Empire on Jews, from administrative, legal, social, and cultural points of view. The contributors examine how the confrontation with Christianity changed Jewish practices, perceptions, and organizational structures, such as, for example, the emergence of local Jewish communities around synagogues as central religious spaces. Special chapters are devoted to the eastern and western Jewish Diaspora in Late Antiquity, especially Sasanian Persia but also Roman Italy, Egypt, Syria and Arabia, North Africa, and Asia Minor, to provide a comprehensive assessment of the situation and life experiences of Jews and Judaism during this period.

The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity is a critical and methodologically sophisticated survey of current scholarship aimed primarily at students and scholars of Jewish Studies, Study of Religions, Patristics, Classics, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Iranology, History of Art, and Archaeology. It is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Judaism and Jewish history.

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Scales, Galilean Spaces of Identity (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Galilean Spaces of Identity

Judaism and Spatiality in Hasmonean and Herodian Galilee

Series:
Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism, Volume: 214

Author: Joseph Scales

We understand the world around us in terms of built spaces. Such spaces are shaped by human activity, and in turn, affect how people live. Through an analysis of archaeological and textual evidence from the beginnings of Hasmonean influence in Galilee, until the outbreak of the First Jewish War against Rome, this book explores how Judaism was socially expressed: bodily, communally, and regionally. Within each expression, certain aspects of Jewish identity operate, these being purity conceptions, communal gatherings, and Galilee's relationship with the Hasmoneans, Jerusalem, and the Temple in its final days.

Copyright Year: 2024

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69255-8
Publication: 12 Feb 2024
EUR €140.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69254-1
Publication: 15 Feb 2024
EUR €140.00

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Magness, Ancient Synagogues in Palestine (OUP)

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Ancient Synagogues in Palestine

A Re-evaluation Nearly a Century After Sukenik's Schweich Lectures

Jodi Magness

British Academy

Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology

£76.00
Hardback
Published: 07 March 2024
128 Pages | 25 b/w images, 1 colour image, 1 table
234x156mm
ISBN: 9780197267653

Description

Dozens of ancient synagogues have been discovered around the Mediterranean, most of which date to the fourth-sixth centuries CE and are concentrated in Palestine. In the 1930 Schweich Lectures, Eleazar Lipa Sukenik established a typology and chronology for these buildings. Ancient Synagogues in Palestine evaluates Sukenik's conclusions in light of new discoveries since his time. It opens with an overview of ancient synagogues in the region, followed by a survey of the historiography of the study of these buildings, highlighting its ideological roots in the early Zionist movement. In the final chapters, Magness examines the evidence for the dating of the synagogues at Khirbet Wadi Hamam and Capernaum, arguing that different synagogue types overlapped and were contemporary to the fourth-sixth centuries CE instead of being sequential, as Sukenik thought. This conclusion contradicts a widely accepted view that late antique Jewish communities in Palestine suffered and declined under supposedly oppressive Christian rule.

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Chaos dragon stamp seal excavated at Hazor

ICONOGRAPHY: 2,800-year-old serpent artifact is a ‘missing link’ to Hercules mythology, study says (BRENDAN RASCIUS, Miami Herald/AOL).

The object — a 2,800-year-old seal — provides a “missing link” in the evolution of a popular motif that appears in the Bible and Greek mythology, according to a study published in the journal of Near Eastern Archaeology.

The theme of the battle of a god with a seven-headed dragon appears in Mesopotamian literature, Ugaritic, the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Revelation, and (not mentioned in either article) Syriac Odes of Solomon 22.

The underlying article in Near Eastern Archaeology 87.1 (2024) is online, but behind a subscription wall.

Mastering the Seven-Headed Serpent: A Stamp Seal from Hazor Provides a Missing Link between Cuneiform and Biblical Mythology (Christoph Uehlinger, pp. 14–19)

Abstract

The Stamp Seals from the Southern Levant (SSSL) project is based on a comprehensive corpus, big data, and complex historical scenarios. Sometimes, though, an individual artifact stands out as a highlight in its own right. Such is the case with a stamp seal discovered recently at Tel Hazor. It is unusual in several respects, but mainly because of its spectacular base engraving. The main scene represents a hero fighting a coiled, seven-headed serpent; it is enhanced by a series of mixed creatures and secondary motifs. This article offers a description and analysis of the object, situating its iconography in the long history of combat myths spanning from mid-third-millennium southern Mesopotamia through second-millennium northern Syria to first-millennium Phoenicia and Israel. Most significant for a historian of Near Eastern mythology, the seal provides a visual missing link in the main motif’s literary transition from Late Bronze Age Ugarit to the Hebrew Bible.

For lots more on the archaeology of the site of Hazor in northern Israel, start here and follow the links.

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An inscription of Thekla the deaconess near Hippos Sussita

ARAMAIC WATCH: A CHRISTIAN PALESTINIAN ARAMAIC INSCRIPTION FROM THE TERRITORY OF SUSSIT A-ANTIOCHIA HIPPOS (March 2024 ARAM Periodical 34(1&2):139-152, Authors: Estee Dvorjetski, CHRISTA MULLER-KESSLER, Michael Eisenberg, Adam Pažout,Mechael Osband). The full text of this article is available for free on Research Gate.

Abstract:

Excavations were conducted in February-April and November 2019 at the site of 'Uyun Umm el-' Azam West, ea. 3.8 km south of Sussita-Antiochia Hippos, in the southern Golan Heights and overlooking the Sea of Galilee. These excavations were undertaken on behalf of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, in the context of the Hippos Regional Project, which focuses on the study of rural sites and fortifications in the territory of Antiochia Hippos from the Hellenistic through to the Byzantine period.' Several building phases in the complex were uncovered. They included a tower, inner courtyard, and a room. The mixed Early Roman material found in the foundations of the tower might suggest an earlier date for its construction, with the tower completely rebuilt in the Byzantine period. The room known as 'The Mosaic Room' was divided, probably by a partition wall, as indicated by the gap in the mosaic running across the room. A set of rooms was built on the eastern side of the inner courtyard and against the tower including a large oven.

This paper focuses on the Christian Palestinian Aramaic mosaic inscription from 'Uyun Umm el-'Azam West dedicated by a deaconess Thekla, its parallels, and its contribution to a better understanding of the ethnic and religious diversity in the Hippos territorium in the southern Levant and its environmental interactions.

The sixth/seventh century deaconess Thekla (Thecla) has the same name as the protagonist in the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the archaeological discoveries at the nearby site of Hippos-Sussita, see here and links.

Cross file under Decorative Art.

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Anqa, a twin city to Dura-Europos?

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: Archaeological gem Dura-Europos found to be mirror image of Iraq's Anqa. Strategically located Dura-Europos was a ‘forgotten city’ in Syria and neglected by archaeologists who finally identified Iraq’s Anqa as its near-mirror image (Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, Jerusalem Post).

The site sounds worthy of further exploration and scientific excavation. But that may be difficult in the current political climate.

The underlying article, by Simon James in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies 83.1 (2024), is online, but behind a subscription wall: The Ancient City of Giddan/Eddana (Anqa, Iraq), the “Forgotten Twin” of Dura-Europos.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on Dura-Europos, see here and links, here and links, plus here and here.

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Interview with Conway on The New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: AJR Conversations I The New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction (Colleen Conway and David Maldonado Rívera).

Below is an exchange between Colleen Conway and David Maldonado Rívera on Conway’s book, The New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2023).

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Passover 2024

HAPPY PASSOVER (PESACH) to all those celebrating! The festival begins this evening at sundown.

Last year's Passover post is here, with links. Subsequent Passover-related posts are here, here, here, and here.

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Wells (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Law in the Hebrew Bible

NEW BOOK FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The Cambridge Companion to Law in the Hebrew Bible

Part of Cambridge Companions to Religion

EDITOR: Bruce Wells, University of Texas, Austin

DATE PUBLISHED: April 2024
AVAILABILITY: Available
FORMAT: Hardback
ISBN: 9781108493888

£ 70.00
Hardback

Description

This Companion offers a comprehensive overview of the history, nature, and legacy of biblical law. Examining the debates that swirl around the nature of biblical law, it explores its historical context, the significance of its rules, and its influence on early Judaism and Christianity. The volume also interrogates key questions: Were the rules intended to function as ancient Israel's statutory law? Is there evidence to indicate that they served a different purpose? What is the relationship between this legal material and other parts of the Hebrew Bible? Most importantly, the book provides an in-depth look at the content of the Torah's laws, with individual essays on substantive, procedural, and ritual law. With contributions from an international team of experts, written specially for this volume, The Cambridge Companion to Law in the Hebrew Bible provides an up-to-date look at scholarship on biblical law and outlines themes and topics for future research.

• Provides up-to-date and focused explanations of current scholarship on the history, nature, and legacy of biblical law
• Provides an in-depth look at the content of the Bible's laws, with individual essays on substantive law, procedural law, and ritual law
• Contains essays by fifteen different leading scholars who represent some of the finest institutions in Europe and North America

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How reliable are oral traditions about ancient Nazareth?

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

How Much Did They Really Know? Long-Term Memory, Archaeology and The Topography Of Nazareth

Prompted by his recent book on the Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth, the author explores a historically plausible example of the long-term preservation of topographical knowledge from 19th century Nazareth, and its context in recent research on the archaeology and anthropology of memory.

See also The Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth (Oxford University Press, 2023).

By Ken Dark
Professor, Kings College London
April 2024

Sometimes centuries-old oral traditions can transmit accurate historical information. Sometimes.

For more on Professor Dark's work on the archaeology of Nazareth, see here, here, here, here, and here. Cross-file under New Book.

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Linjamaa, The Nag Hammadi Codices and their Ancient Readers (CUP)

NEW BOOK FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The Nag Hammadi Codices and their Ancient Readers Exploring Textual Materiality and Reading Practice

AUTHOR: Paul Linjamaa, Lunds Universitet, Sweden
DATE PUBLISHED: January 2024
AVAILABILITY: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
FORMAT: Adobe eBook Reader
ISBN: 9781009441445

$ 110.00 USD
Adobe eBook Reader

Description

Since their discovery in 1945, the Nag Hammadi Codices have generated questions and scholarly debate as to their date and function. Paul Linjamaa contributes to the discussion by offering insights into previously uncharted aspects pertinent to the materiality of the manuscripts. He explores the practical implementation of the texts in their ancient setting through analyses of codicological aspects, paratextual elements, and scribal features. Linjamaa's research supports the hypothesis that the Nag Hammadi texts had their origins in Pachomian monasticism. He shows how Pachomian monks used the texts for textual edification, spiritual development and pedagogical practices. He also demonstrates that the texts were used for perfecting scribal and editorial practice, and that they were used as protective artefacts containing sacred symbols in the continuous monastic warfare against evil spirits. Linjamaa's application of new material methods provides clues to the origins and use of ancient texts, and challenges preconceptions about ancient orthodoxy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

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Tov, Studies in Textual Criticism: Collected Essays, Volume V (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Studies in Textual Criticism

Collected Essays, Volume V

Series:
Vetus Testamentum, Supplements, Volume: 197

Author: Emanuel Tov

Twenty-eight rewritten and updated essays on the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, and the Dead Sea Scrolls mainly published between 2019 and 2022 are presented in the fifth volume of the author's collected essays. They are joined by an unpublished study, an unpublished "reflection" on the development of text-critical research in 1970-2020 and the author's academic memoirs. All the topics included in this volume are at the forefront of textual research.

Copyright Year: 2024

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69002-8
Publication: 06 Feb 2024
EUR €160.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-54935-7
Publication: 31 Jan 2024
EUR €160.00

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Review of Mastnjak, Before the Scrolls

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Before the Scrolls: A Material Approach to Israel’s Prophetic Library (Ethan Schwartz).

Nathan Mastnjak’s Before the Scrolls: A Material Approach to Israel’s Prophetic Library is a bold, programmatic attempt to account for how the biblical prophetic literature developed. Building on New Philology and book history, Mastnjak argues that the historical-critical study of this literature must begin with—and answer to—the material realities of textual production in ancient Israel and the Second Temple period. ...

Regarding this:

In Chapter 2 (the first main chapter following the introduction), he builds upon Menahem Haran’s influential claim that in the Persian period, Judahite scribes shifted from short papyri to long parchment scrolls. Mastnjak affirms the shift but pushes it later, to the Hellenistic period. The (modest) empirical evidence and internal hints from the Hebrew Bible itself suggest that in the Persian period, discrete papyrus sheets or short papyrus scrolls were still the Judahite scribal standard.

I wonder about this. In Egypt there were very long papyrus scrolls many centuries before the Persian Period. For example, the Book of the Dead manuscripts noted here, here, and here. In addition, Papyrus Amherst 63 (cf. here) is another substantial (12-foot-long) scroll which came from Egypt toward the end of the Persian Period. It looks as though its contents originated in Babylon and Israel.

Both the Book of the Dead and the Amherst Papyrus are anthological works. I haven't read the book, but I would be interested in what Mastnjak has to say about them and how they affect his thesis.

PaleoJudaica posts noting the publication of the book and another review of it are here and here.

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The Haggadah counters an intermediary angel at the Exodus

PASSOVER IS COMING: I (God) and Not an Angel: The Haggadah Counters Jesus and the Arma Christi. (Prof.Steven Weitzman, TheTorah.com).

The Haggadah’s insistence that God, without an intermediary, saved the Israelites from Egypt is a veiled retort to the Christian belief that God relied on Jesus as an agent of redemption. Moreover, the midrash replaces the Arma Christi tradition of recounting the weapons Jesus used to save humanity during the Crucifixion with its own distinctively Jewish arsenal of redemption: pestilence, a sword, the Shechinah, the staff, and blood.

The author argues that this Haggadah tradition could go as far back as late antiquity.

I don't doubt that the passage as we have it offers a counter to Christianity. The essay deals with many things outside my expertise, but I can add some background to it.

The basis of the idea of an angel leading the Israelites to the Promised Land is Exodus 23:20, 23, which say so in so many words. Of course, the meaning of the passage is open to various interpretations, but a literal understanding of it seems also to have been taken up in Jewish tradition.

In the Hekhalot literature, the main passage about the high-priestly angelic figure called "the Youth" (הנער) quotes Exodus 23:20 in relation to him. Apparently he is that angel. In addition, the hand of the Lord rests upon him and the Shekhinah is present before, or in the midst of, God's throne of glory. The Youth passage appears in various places in the texts.

It is even possible that the mysterious priestly figure Mechizedek, mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110, was identified with this angel in the Qumran Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. This is based on its use of the odd term קרוב, "sanctuary," which arguably is based on the phrase "my name is in the midst (קרב) of him" in Exodus 23:21.

It is therefore possible that the Haggadah is countering both Christian and Jewish interpretations of Exodus 23 which posit an intermediary figure in the Exodus from Egypt.

For a detailed discussion of the evidence concerning the Youth and Melchizedek, see:

James R. Davila, Hekhalot Literature in Translation: Major Texts of Merkavah Mysticism (SJJTP 20; Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 345-47, 366-69 (cf. 408-9) (the Youth passages)

Davila, “Melchizedek, the ‘Youth,’ and Jesus.” Pp. 248-74 (esp. p. 263) in Davila (ed.), The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity: Papers from a Conference at St. Andrews in 2001 (STDJ 46; Leiden: Brill, 2003).

Davila, Liturgical Works (Eerdmans Commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls 6; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 98, 147-49.

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The Motza mosaic replica

DECORATIVE ART: Motza mosaicists: Putting an ancient Roman mosaic floor back together. Residents of a village near Jerusalem piece together an ancient Roman floor (SARA MANOBLA, Jerusalem Post).

Friday, February 23, was a day of celebration. Our team of Motza mosaicists welcomed the villagers to the dedication ceremony. Deeply moved, [project organizer Shauli] Yossefon, assisted by his family, unveiled the mosaic, thanking the many people who had contributed to the project, supporting him in the creation of the Motza Mosaic replica. It was a moment of general rejoicing, a feeling that something important had been accomplished.

Most of the media coverage on Tel Motza (Tel Moza, Tel Moẓa, Tel Moẓah which I have seen involves Iron Age discoveres, especially the Canaanite temple. For PaleoJudaica posts on the site, start here (second article) and follow the links.

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On the clay tokens from the Temple Mount

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Temple Mount sifting: What were these ancient clay tokens used for? Jerusalem archaeologists are still trying to understand the nature of a 2,000-year-old mysterious clay token found in dirt sifted from the Temple Mount (Israel National News 7).

Two months after the discovery of the Greek token, another very similar token was found in excavations at the drainage channel under Robinson's Arch (below the southern part of the Western Wall) directed by Eli Shukrun and Prof. Ronny Reich of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

This token bore an Aramaic inscription readingדכא/ליה , initially interpreted as "pure to God" by the excavators. However, Hebrew University Talmudic scholar, Prof. Shlomo Naeh, later suggested that the token was used by pilgrims ascending to the Temple as a token to receive their offerings after payment, with the writing on the sealing intended to prevent forgeries by including the abbreviations of the sacrifice type, the day, the month, and the name of the priestly division of that week.

PaleoJudaica followed this debate in 2011 and 2012. See here, here, and here. It sounds as though the token's interpretation remains debated.

This is the first I have heard about that Greek token that bears an amphora image.

The underlying article by Dr. Yoav Farhi, mentioned in the article, has been posted on the author's Academia.edu page here.

UPDATE (19 April): the Temple Mount Sifting Project Blog now has a post on the story: A 2,000-YEAR-OLD MYSTERIOUS CLAY TOKEN (Zachi Dvira).

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... Chronicling the Legacy of Gary N. Knoppers (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: The Formation of Biblical Texts. Chronicling the Legacy of Gary N. Knoppers. Edited by Deirdre N. Fulton, Kenneth A. Ristau, Jonathan S. Greer, and Margaret E. Cohen. 2024. XI, 494 pages. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 176. 164,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-160741-7.

Published in English.
Questions concerning the composition and formation of biblical texts have dominated many of the current discussions in biblical studies, especially relating to the relationship between the Pentateuch and the (so-called) Deuteronomistic History, how these texts may have functioned as a corpus (or related corpora), and interconnections among these texts and those of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. As appreciation has grown for the potential text production in Judah and Samaria during the Persian and Hellenistic periods, the discussion has expanded to incorporate explorations of the way that textual criticism – particularly as it relates to the relationships among the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint, Qumran corpus, and the Masoretic Text – and literary criticism intersect. In this volume, leading voices come together to tackle questions about the composition and formation of the Hebrew Bible and the future directions of such studies in honor of Gary N. Knoppers.

For more on the late Professor Knoppers and his work, see here and links, notably here, plus here.

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On Biblical Hebrew

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: What Is Biblical Hebrew? Exploring the language of ancient Israel and Judah (Clinton J. Moyer).

I missed this one when it came out last December. I have already noted the corresponding BHD essays on Aramaic and biblical Greek.

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Review of Gomelauri, The Lailashi Codex

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: The Lailashi Codex: The Crown of Georgian Jewry (Golda Akhiezer).

The Lailashi Codex: The Crown of Georgian Jewry, Thea Gomelauri with a contribution by Joseph Ginsberg. Oxford, UK: Taylor Institution Library, 2023. (ISBN 9781838464158; ISBN 9781838464141), 210 pp., hb £49.99, pb £34:99.

The pioneering study of Thea Gomelauri unfolds the history of the Lailashi Codex, and presents the paleographical and codicological description of one of the most ancient Bible codices. ...

I noted the publication of the book here. For more information on the Lailashi Codex, see there.

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On the Greek language

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: What Is Biblical Greek? Exploring the language of the New Testament and classical literature (John Drummond).

Another good, brief, historical introduction to a biblical language.

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Sifting Project finds chancel screen fragment

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT BLOG: FIND AND FINDER OF THE MONTH: BRAD SCHWARTZ FROM SEATTLE FOUND A MARBLE CHANCEL SCREEN FRAGMENT (DANIEL SHANI). Probably from the Byzantine era.

For a possibly related Sifting Project find, see here.

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Using AI to reconstruct damaged Hebrew & Aramaic inscriptions?

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Beersheba researchers use AI to read illegible words in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic. This study is the first attempt to apply a masked language modeling approach to corrupted inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic languages (Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, Jerusalem Post).

Now, students in the software and information systems engineering department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beersheba have approached this challenge as an extended masked language modeling task where the damaged content can comprise single characters, character n-grams (partial words), single complete words, and multi-word n-grams.

This study is the first attempt to apply the masked language modeling approach to corrupted inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic languages, both using the Hebrew alphabet consisting mostly of consonant symbols.

Just to be clear, this project did not analyze any actual ancient inscriptions. It used passages in the Hebrew Bible, with parts randomly masked, to test in principle how well it worked in reconstructing the missing bits. It worked pretty well.

Will it work as well on damaged ancient inscriptions outside the Bible? Maybe. That would be pretty hard to test. You would need multiple copies of the same inscription with damage in different places. Possible in principle, but very rare.

What about the technology's promise in principle?

On the one hand, used judiciously, it could well serve as a useful tool for scholars working on deciphering damaged ancient inscriptions. So all respect to the researchers who developed this technology. They are doing good and constructive work.

But on the other hand, its usefulness is limited. Overuse of it could even harm the field. The so-called (and I would say, mis-named) "AI" that has come into vogue in the last few years is just glorified autocorrect. It can catalogue and compare what we already know, which can be very helpful, but it can't add anything new.

The danger with regard to ancient Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions is that the reconstructions could make them over in the image of the Bible, just because the comparison corpus is the Bible.

Human judgment and creativity are still required to make sense of any results a computer algorithm produces. And AI technology is nowhere near replicating human judgment and creativity. It if ever does, it won't be through the "AI" that we have now.

A fair counterpoint (I've run out of hands) is that human scholars, using those "time-consuming manual procedures to estimate the missing content" can also remake the inscription in the image of the Bible. I've seen it happen and I've also seen it called out when it did. (I'm going to be nice and not give examples.)

But the danger remains that results from AI will be received as somehow more infallible because they are computer generated and we tend, naively, to trust computers not to make mistakes. A final critical assessment of the results by human judgment is still essential.

The underlying article is available for free in the ACL Anthology, March 2024:

Embible: Reconstruction of Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic Texts Using Transformers
Niv Fono, Harel Moshayof, Eldar Karol, Itai Assraf, Mark Last

Abstract

Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions serve as an essential source of information on the ancient history of the Near East. Unfortunately, some parts of the inscribed texts become illegible over time. Special experts, called epigraphists, use time-consuming manual procedures to estimate the missing content. This problem can be considered an extended masked language modeling task, where the damaged content can comprise single characters, character n-grams (partial words), single complete words, and multi-word n-grams.This study is the first attempt to apply the masked language modeling approach to corrupted inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic languages, both using the Hebrew alphabet consisting mostly of consonant symbols. In our experiments, we evaluate several transformer-based models, which are fine-tuned on the Biblical texts and tested on three different percentages of randomly masked parts in the testing corpus. For any masking percentage, the highest text completion accuracy is obtained with a novel ensemble of word and character prediction models.

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On cats in ancient Judaism

PROF. JOSHUA SCHWARTZ: The Curious Case of Cats (TheTorah.com).

Cats were known and domesticated in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, but are absent from the Bible and Second Temple literature. The Persians despised cats, but the Talmud tolerates them.

Lots of interesting information here, especially about the Talmudic period.

One detail: cats do appear once in Second Temple literature. Epistle of Jeremiah 22 describes cats perching on the idols in pagan temples. These are presumably domesticated cats if they are hanging around in temples.

That shows that Second Temple Jews knew of cat domestication, but not necessarily that they kept cats themselves. (A Greek manuscript of the Epistle of Jeremiah was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls [7Q2], so its Second Temple Jewish origin is secure.)

For more on cats in antiquity and the ancient biblical world, see here and links, plus here and here.

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Gaza archaeological collection safe in Geneva

GAZA ARCHAEOLOGY: Gaza’s archaeology experts say enclave’s historic treasures saved by ‘irony of history’. When Gazan collector Jawdat Khoudary loaned his treasure trove of artifacts to museums in Europe in 2006, he never imagined they would still be stored in Switzerland (AP & TOI).

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You're gonna need a bigger Bible?

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: And The Rest Of The Bible…. Philip Jenkins laments the loss to Protestants of the "apocryphal" and "noncanonical" books in the Bibles of other traditions.

The Protestant Old Testament is the same as the Hebrew Bible. These books are not in the Hebrew Bible. That's why Protestants don't have them. But all of the books he mentions are ancient Jewish works that are of considerable interest on their own terms. Wherever you put them, they should not be forgotten.

This doesn't even touch on the question of New Testament Apocrypha, some of which remained quite influential in Christianity into the Middle Ages. Professor Jenkins has dealt with that topic in detail too. See the links collected here. Also, related post here.

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Was leprosy yellow or shiny in the Bible?

PROF. RABBI PHIL LIEBERMAN: Is Yellow a Biblical Color? (TheTorah.com).

If a man or woman suffering from tzaraʿat, a skin disease, has hair that turns tzahov, they are impure. In modern Hebrew, tzahov means yellow, but what does it mean in the Bible?

For PaleoJudaica posts on language and ancient color perception, see here and links.

For the difference between modern "leprosy" (Hansen's syndrome) and biblical "leprosy" (tzaraʿat), see here.

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

Review of Beitzel, Lexham Geographical Commentary on the Pentateuch

READING ACTS: Barry J. Beitzel, ed. Lexham Geographical Commentary on the Pentateuch (Phil Long).

Beitzel, Barry J., ed. Lexham Geographical Commentary on the Pentateuch. Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2022. xxvi+915 pp.; Hb. $49.99 Link to Lexham Press

Barry Beitzel has a well-deserved reputation in scholarship for his contributions to biblical geography. He edited The New Moody Atlas of the Bible (Moody, 2009; reviewed here). He edited the first volume of this projected six-volume series, Lexham Geographical Commentary on the Gospels (Lexham, 2017; reviewed here) and Acts and Revelation (2019; reviewed here). Like the two New Testament volumes, this new collection of essays on the geography of the Pentateuch is a joy to read and will be an excellent addition to the library of any Bible student.

[...]

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On the new noncanonical gospel fragments from Oxyrhynchus

NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA WATCH: Early Christianity, fragment by fragment. A new published volume of ancient papyri contains sayings, attributed to Jesus, that were previously unknown—including a dialogue with a disciple named Mary ( Elizabeth Schrader Polczer, The Christian Century).

Last summer brought big news for scholars of early Christianity. Three previously unknown gospel fragments were published for the first time as part of an ongoing series, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. These three Greek manuscript fragments, which scholars date between the second to the fourth centuries CE, all purport to preserve otherwise unknown sayings of Jesus.

[...]

This article gives a good introduction to the Oxyrhynchus papyri and an excellent overview of these three noncanoncial gospel texts.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the new Jesus sayings fragment P.Oxy. 87.5575 (a.k.a. P.Oxy. 5575), see the links collected here.

Cross-file under Oxyrhynchus Watch.

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Han on "Beyond the 'Cessation of Prophecy' in Late Antiquity"

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Publication Preview | Beyond the "Cessation of Prophecy" in Late Antiquity (Jae H. Han).

Jae H. Han, Prophets and Prophecy in in the Late Antique Near East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.

... At the end of the day, the book is an experiment. I wanted to see how much I can get away with. If we believe that “context matters” as a or even the basis for contemporary knowledge of the past, then we should also ask up to what point does context matter? In practice, whether we like it or not, we answer this question every time we write since there is always something more that can be brought into the discussion. ...

Everything is connected to everything else. And I really do mean everything to everything. There is always more context to explore. That's a good thing.

Cross-file under Manichean (Manichaean) Watch.

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A Database of Post-2002 Dead Sea Scroll-like Fragments

UNIVERSITY OF ADGER: A Database of Post-2002 Dead Sea Scroll-like Fragments Version 1.0. Produced by Ludvik A. Kjeldsberg; Årstein Justnes; and Hilda Deborah.

Since 2002, more than a hundred "new" Dead Sea Scroll fragments have appeared on the antiquities market. Most of these fragments are tiny and deteriorated and have later been revealed as modern forgeries. Nonetheless, they have been big business. In this database, we have catalogued all of them, providing information about their content, owners, alleged provenance, their place in the biblical corpus, size, and publication history. (2023-09-01)

HT Todd Bolen at the Bible Places Blog.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the post-2002 Dead Sea Scrolls-like fragments, see here and links, plus here and here.

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How are babies made according to the Bible?

PROF. MARIANNE GROHMANN: Biblically, How Are Babies Conceived? (TheTorah.com).

Does a woman simply receive and nourish a man’s seed? Or does she also produce her own seed to conceive a child?

With reference to evidence from many other ancient sources.

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What Is Aramaic?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: What Is Aramaic? Exploring the rich legacy of a biblical language (Clinton J. Moyer).

A nice, concise, historical survey.

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Two solar eclipses (yes, one today)

THE HOLY LAND PHOTOS' BLOG: A Solar Eclipse and Old Testament Chronology (Carl Rassmussen).

Here in the United States, there is much excitement about the total solar eclipse that will take place on April 8, 2024. But did you know that the solar eclipse of June 15, 763 B.C. holds the key to the chronology of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible)?

[...]

This is a recycled post, but today is a good day to get it out again.

As always, if you are in a position to observe today's eclipse, please stay safe!

For PaleoJudaica posts dealing with (or debunking stories about) solar and lunar eclipses, start here and here and follow the links.

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

The Academic Work of Tal Ilan

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: In Order to Arrive at Historically Correct Conclusions, One Needs Complete Databases: The Academic Work of Tal Ilan (Tal Ilan).

My work on the name-database has alerted me to the importance of corpora. I realize that most academics believe that their major contribution to world knowledge is their brilliant theses, in which they demolish the work of their predecessors and suggest new understandings of history and the sources that tell it. And indeed, theses are important and new thinking makes us think hard and keep history alive (albeit in a more “modern” or updated version). However, most theses, as brilliant as they may appear at the time they were composed, tend to have a short shelf-life. Soon new scholars, proliferating new theses, sometimes even based on new sources, will demolish our brilliant ideas. This is different with databases. They too will, eventually be replaced, but first of all not so soon, and secondly, actually when they are replaced, they still serve as the basis for the new database. The work done in creating a database is not so soon lost.

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Carvalho (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ezekiel

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The Oxford Handbook of Ezekiel

Edited by Corrine Carvalho

Oxford Handbooks

£107.50
Hardback
Published: 05 March 2024
640 Pages | 4 b/w illustrations
248x171mm
ISBN: 9780190634513

Description

The current state of scholarship on the book of Ezekiel, one of the three Major Prophets, is robust. Ezekiel, unlike most pre-exilic prophetic collections, contains overt clues that its primary circulation was as a literary text and not a collection of oral speeches. The author was highly educated, the theology of the book is "dim," and its view of humanity is overwhelmingly negative. In The Oxford Handbook of Ezekiel, editor Corrine Carvalho brings together scholars from a diverse range of interpretive perspectives to explore one of the Bible's most debated books.

Consisting of twenty-seven essays, the Handbook provides introductions to the major trends in the scholarship of Ezekiel, covering its history, current state, and emerging directions. After an introductory overview of these trends, each essay discusses an important element in the scholarly engagement with the book. Several essays discuss the history of the text (its historical context, redactional layers, text criticism, and use of other Israelite and near eastern traditions). Others focus on key themes in the book (such as temple, priesthood, law, and politics), while still others look at the book's reception history and contextual interpretations (including art, Christian use, gender approaches, postcolonial approaches, and trauma theory). Taken together, these essays demonstrate the vibrancy of Ezekiel research in the twenty-first century.

I am pleased to note that three of my University of St. Andrews colleagues are contributors.

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Isaiah and Intertextuality (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Isaiah and Intertextuality. Isaiah amid Israel's Scriptures. Edited by Wilson de Angelo Cunha and Andrew T. Abernethy. 2024. XIV, 284 pages.Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 148. 109,00 € including VAT. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-163233-4.

Published in English.
Intertextuality is a valuable interpretive tool that provides a rich understanding of Isaiah in its complex relationship with the larger witness of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. With essays by leading and upcoming scholars, this volume moves sequentially through the tri-partite Hebrew canon to showcase the interconnections between Isaiah and books within the Torah, Prophets, and Writings. It becomes evident that Isaiah is like a »prism« that refracts strands of tradition in ways that neither supersede nor exhaust the riches of the prior tradition and that are neither superseded by nor exhausted by the subsequent uses of Isaiah. The Book of Isaiah employs these traditions for its own rhetorical purposes, offering a message that is both unique in comparison with and interrelated to the wider web of biblical, textual traditions. Isaiah is to be read as a book amid Israel's Scriptures.

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