New Trends in the Research on the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas (Peeters)

NEW OPEN-ACCESS BOOK FROM PEETERS PRESS:

New Trends in the Research on the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas

SERIES:
Studies on Early Christian Apocrypha, 20

EDITORS:
Muñoz Gallarte I., Roig Lanzillotta L.

PRICE: 87 euro
YEAR: 2024
ISBN: 9789042951815
E-ISBN: 9789042951822
PAGES: XVIII-210 p.

SUMMARY: Much has been written on the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas since the work of Lipisus, Wright, and Bonnet. However, many of the crucial questions concerning the text remain still today open: When was the text composed? In which language was it written, Greek or Syriac? And most importantly, where in the ancient world did the text see the light? Also the nature and structure of the text remain in doubt: What is the nature of the text we have at our disposal? And how was it transmitted throughout the Middle Ages? The present volume intends to provide answers at least to some of these questions. Its title, New Trends in the Research on the Apocryphal Acts of Thomas, however, shows that it at the same time intends to break new ground in the analysis of the text, revising some old, vexed problems.

Follow the link for the open-access link to the book.

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What Matters Now to archaeologist Jodi Magness

PODCAST: What Matters Now to archaeologist Jodi Magness: Ever-changing, eternal Jerusalem. To mark Jerusalem Day, we speak with the ‘Jerusalem Through the Ages’ author and learn about the archaeological record of the peoples who have resided in the Holy City (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

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Meyer, Naming God in Early Judaism (Brill)

RECENT BOOK FROM BRILL:

Naming God in Early Judaism

Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek

Series:
Studies in Cultural Contexts of the Bible, Volume: 2

Author: Anthony Meyer

During the Second Temple period (516 BCE–70 CE), Jews became reticent to speak and write the divine name, YHWH, also known by its four letters in Greek as the tetragrammaton. Priestly, pious, and scribal circles limitted the use of God’s name, and then it disappeared. The variables are poorly understood and the evidence is scattered. This study brings together all ancient Jewish literary and epigraphic evidence in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek to describe how, when, and in what sources Jews either used or avoided the divine name. Instead of a diachronic contrast from use to avoidance, as is often the scholarly assumption, the evidence suggests diverse and overlapping naming practices that draw specific meaning from linguistic, geographic, and social contexts.

Copyright Year: 2022

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-3-657-70350-0
Publication: 10 Oct 2022
EUR €92.52

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-3-506-70350-7
Publication: 11 Nov 2022
EUR €92.52

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Review of Balch, Jesus, Paul, Luke-Acts, and 1 Clement

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Jesus, Paul, Luke-Acts, and 1 Clement: studies in class, ethnicity, gender, and orientation.

David L. Balch, Jesus, Paul, Luke-Acts, and 1 Clement: studies in class, ethnicity, gender, and orientation. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2023. Pp. 382. ISBN 9781532659577.

Review by
Harry O. Maier, Vancouver School of Theology. hmaier@vst.edu

This volume is a collection of eleven essays, most of which were published in edited volumes or journals between 2016 and 2023. David Balch, 80 at the time of publication and a prolific contributor to New Testament studies, calls this his “final collection of essays” (xi). The book’s extensive title encapsulates the volume’s broad range. The theme that unites them is a focus on a political and social reading of biblical and early Christian texts. ...

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McDonald, Before There Was a Bible (T&T Clark)

RECENT BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

Before There Was a Bible

Authorities in Early Christianity

Lee Martin McDonald (Author)

Paperback
$39.95 $35.95

Hardback
$120.00 $108.00

Ebook (PDF)
$35.95 $28.76

Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
$35.95 $28.76

Product details

Published Feb 23 2023
Format Paperback
Edition 1st
Extent 264
ISBN 9780567705785
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 10 x 7 inches
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

Description

How did authority function before the bible as we know it emerged? Lee Martin McDonald examines the authorities that existed from the Church's beginning: the appeal to the texts containing the words of Jesus, and that would become the New Testament, the not yet finalized Hebrew Scriptures (referred to mostly in Greek) and the apostolic leadership of the churches.

McDonald traces several sacred core traditions that broadly identified the essence of Christianity before there was a bible summarized in early creeds, hymns and spiritual songs, baptismal and Eucharistic affirmations, and in lectionaries and catalogues from the fourth century and following. McDonald shows how those traditions were included in the early Christian writings later recognized as the New Testament. He also shows how Christians were never fully agreed on the scope of their Old Testament canon (Hebrew scriptures) and that it took centuries before there was universal acceptance of all of the books now included in the Christian bible. Further, McDonald shows that whilst writings such as the canonical gospels were read as authoritative texts likely from their beginning, they were not yet called or cited as scripture. What was cited in an authoritative manner were the words of Jesus in those texts, alongside the multiple affirmations and creeds that were circulated in the early Church and formed its key authorities and core sacred traditions.

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Halberstam, Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity (OUP)

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity

Counternarratives of Justice

Chaya T. Halberstam

The Bible and the Humanities

• Identifies a trial-scene motif that appears in many different contexts and genres of ancient Jewish literature
• Places a variety of Jewish trial narratives over time in conversation with each other as a counter-discourse to mainstream ancient legal thought
• Offers close readings of familiar texts through the lens of legal thought about judgment and justice

£76.00

Hardback
Published: 21 May 2024
272 Pages
234x156mm
ISBN: 9780198865148
Also Available As: Ebook

Description

What can early Jewish courtroom narratives tell us about the capacity and limits of human justice? By exploring how judges and the act of judging are depicted in these narratives, Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity: Counternarratives of Justice challenges the prevailing notion, both then and now, of the ideal impartial judge. As a work of intellectual history, the book also contributes to contemporary debates about the role of legal decision-making in shaping a just society. Chaya T. Halberstam shows that instead of modelling a system in which lofty, inaccessible judges follow objective and rational rules, ancient Jewish trial narratives depict a legal practice dependent upon the individual judge's personal relationships, reactive emotions, and impulse to care.

Drawing from affect theory and feminist legal thought, Halberstam offers original readings of some of the most famous trials in ancient Jewish writings alongside minor case stories in Josephus and rabbinic literature. She shows both the consistency of a counter-tradition that sees legal practice as contingent upon relationship and emotion, and the specific ways in which that perspective was manifest in changing times and contexts.

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Cohen, The Jewish Family in Antiquity (Brown Judaic Studies)

RECENT BOOK, OPEN-ACCESSS VIA PROJECT MUSE:

The Jewish Family in Antiquity
Book
Shaye J.D. Cohen
2020
Published by: Brown Judaic Studies

SUMMARY

This volume serves as a contribution to the study of diasporas in antiquity and a stimulus to further investigations of other ancient diasporas and their effect. It is a culmination of discussions that took place during the conference, Diasporas in Antiquity, held on the 30th of April, 1992.

HT the AWOL Blog.

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Hjelm, Samaritans and Jews in History and Tradition (Routledge)

NEW BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE:

Samaritans and Jews in History and Tradition
Changing Perspectives 10

By Ingrid Hjelm
Copyright 2024

Hardback £130.00
eBook £35.09
ISBN 9781032702858
316 Pages
Published May 7, 2024 by Routledge

Description

This volume presents an anthology of 19 seminal studies, some for the first time in English, that explore the history and tradition of the ancient relationship between Samaritans and Jews.

The book is arranged into three parts: Methods, Traditions, and History; Samaritan and Jewish Pentateuchs; and Studies in Bible and Tradition, each of which is chronologically ordered. It represents a collection of the author’s previous publications on the relationship between Samaritans and Jews, expanding and supplementing the conclusions of her published books. Recent archaeological developments on Mount Gerizim have demonstrated that our paradigms for writing the ancient histories of the kingdoms and provinces of Samaria and Judah in the Iron II, Persian, and Hellenistic periods must change. These developments also affect how we evaluate and read ancient literary traditions, and several chapters offer challenging new perspectives on well-known themes, narratives, and compositions in this subject area.

Samaritans and Jews in History and Tradition: Changing Perspectives 10 will be of interest to students and scholars of biblical studies, theology, comparative religion, the ancient Near East, and in particular, Samaritan and Jewish studies.

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BAS’s 2024 Dig Scholarship Winners

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: 2024 Dig Scholarship Winners. Congratulating BAS’s 2024 Scholarship Winners.

Yes, congratulations to all the winners. I am pleased to see that one of them is a University of St. Andrews graduate.

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The rest was commentary in Akkadian too

DR. URI GABBAY: Commentaries Were Written as Soon as Ancient Texts Were Composed. (TheTorah.com).

The creative exegetical methods of reading texts both literally and non-literally are not limited to the interpretation of the Bible. Commentaries on ancient cuneiform literature from Mesopotamia have been found dating all the way back to the end of the 8th century B.C.E.

The abstract doesn't specify this, but the essay has many comparisons of the Akkadian commentaries to Rabbinic exegesis of the Bible.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on Akkadian and why it is important, see the links collected here.

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

Mobile Megiddo mosaic moving to Museum of the Bible (on loan)

DECORATIVE ART EXHIBITION: Israel Lending 'Jesus Mosaic' From Armageddon to Controversial Bible Museum. Mosaic found in extremely early Christian prayer hall removed from prison home, to be displayed at the evangelical-backed Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. (Ariel David and Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

Last week, expert conservators working at an archaeological site in a northern Israeli prison quietly completed the job of packing up and loading onto trucks one of the most important discoveries made in Israel this century.

The Megiddo Mosaic, which decorated one of oldest Christian prayer halls ever found, will soon fly overseas for a 9-months loan to the Museum of the Bible, Haaretz has learned.

[...]

I noted last year that the loan was being raised as a possibility. For background on the Megiddo "Jesus" mosaic and on the Museum of the Bible, see the links there. For more on the loan and on the evidently separate decision to move the mosaic from its context, see here and here.

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Biblical Studies Carnival 218

THE DUST BLOG: Biblical Studies Carnival 218 (Bob MacDonald).

My experience with current AI is similar to Bob's. It would rather give a wrong answer than say it doesn't know. In that it is all too human.

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Machines agree that those special Talmud tractates are special

ALGORITHM WATCH: Rashi was right: Machine learning confirms unique status of some Talmudic tracts. New study shows that the ‘special tractates’ of the Babylonian Talmud have distinct linguistic features, as commented on by medieval sages (Gavriel Fiske, Times of Israel.)

Rabbinical commentators on the Talmud noted in the medieval era that a handful of sections of the great corpus stood out linguistically from the rest. Over generations of scholars, the existence of these so-called “special tractates” was considered to be a clue that could further elucidate how the Talmud was compiled and edited.

Now via modern data analysis, a team of contemporary researchers has shown that these “special tractates” do indeed display a distinct use of language. After feeding nearly the entire Talmudic corpus into machine learning algorithms to parse the Aramaic, they confirmed the theories of Rashi and other medieval scholars.

[...]

It is worth underlining that these insights came originally from human intuition, which is the normal source of major advances in human knowledge. AI can test and confirm the ideas, but it isn't capable of original intuitions itself. We don't even know where they come from.

In this case it is telling that the machine learning can recognize what the human scholars saw, but it brings us no closer to understanding what the idiosyncratic language in these tractates and passages means. We need human insight to make progress on that.

It is of course possible that some future AI will be able to replicate human intuition, but nothing that currently passes for Artificial Intelligence is going to do so. AI as we have it can only rearrange what we already know.

I commend the researchers for recognizing and acknowledging all this. They are doing good work and are aware of its limitations.

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The history of Rafah

IN GAZA: A historical Jewish rediscovery in Rafah amid modern conflict. Prime Minister Netanyahu's incursion into Rafah displaced over a million Palestinians, highlighting the area's complex history, including significant Jewish presence since the Hasmonean era (Jerusalem Post).

Last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defied international calls by sending Israeli troops into Rafah, a key Hamas stronghold, leading to the displacement of over a million Palestinians. The current conflict is a stark reminder of the longstanding and complex history that has shaped this area over millennia.

[...]

The article mentions the Jewish Virtual Library article on Rafah, which contains more information on Rafah in antiquity.

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

Review of Fine, The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic

BOOK REVIEW: The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic: the Talmud and feminine dichotomy. 'The Madwoman in the Rabbi’s Attic' discusses the six women in the Talmud who are cited by name, and matches them with six paradigms of the female (ELLIOTT MALAMET, Jerusalem Post).

But [author Gila] Fine refuses to succumb to a surface impression, and her book’s extended argument is that although one can find ample evidence for these stereotypical depictions of women in Talmudic literature, a more careful analysis can reveal subtle reversals of these clichés and, at times, a subversive defense of female agency and ability.

Cross-file under Talmud Watch.

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de Bruin, Fan Fiction and Early Christian Writings (T&T Clark)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

Fan Fiction and Early Christian Writings

Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and Canon

Tom de Bruin (Author)

Hardback
£85.00 £76.50

Ebook (PDF)
£76.50 £61.20

Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
£76.50 £61.20

Product details

Published 13 Jun 2024
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 216
ISBN 9780567706638
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 234 x 156 mm
Series Scriptural Traces
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

Description

What can contemporary media fandoms, like Anne Rice, Star Wars, Batman, or Sherlock Holmes, tell us about ancient Christianity?

Tom de Bruin demonstrates how fandom and fan fiction are both analogous and incongruous with Christian derivative works. The often-disparaging terms applied to Christian apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, such as fakes, forgeries or corruptions, are not sufficient to capture the production, consumption, and value of these writings. De Bruin reimagines a range of early Christian works as fan practices. Exploring these ancient texts in new ways, he takes the reader on a journey from the 'fix-it fic' endings of the Gospel of Mark to the subversive fan fictions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and from the densely populated storyworld of early Christian art to the gatekeeping of Christian orthodoxy.

Using theory developed in fan studies, De Bruin revisits fundamental questions about ancient derivative texts: Why where they written? How do they interact with more established texts? In what ways does the consumption of derivative works influence the reception of existing traditions? And how does the community react to these works? This book sheds exciting and new light on ancient Christian literary production, consumption and transmission.

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