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 They are joined by an unpublished study, an unpublished "reflection" on the development of text-critical research in 1970-2020 and the author's academic memoirs.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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