Satlow's Talmud course

TALMUD WATCH: Professor Michael L. Satlow is teaching an undergraduate, English-only course on The Talmud this autumn. Follow the link for the syllabus and a brief, introductory YouTube video. With a bonus A.I. mapping of the similarities between the two Talmuds.

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Is the Ivory Pomegranate inscription authentic?

BIBLE ARCHAEOLOGY REPORT: Weighing the Evidence: Is the Ivory Pomegranate Authentic? (Bryan Windle).

If authentic, this small artifact has big implications, possibly representing the only physical evidence of the First Temple in Jerusalem. If it is fake, it is a clever forgery that has fooled some of the world’s leading epigraphers and led to Israel Museum, Jerusalem (IMJ) being taken for over half a million dollars.

HT Todd Bolen, just back from an 9,000 mile-road trip, at the Bible Places Blog.

Background on the debate over the authenticity of the Ivory Pomegrate inscription is here and links. The current leaning seems to be in the direction of authenticity, as Bryan indicates. I have no opinion on the question myself.

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Wisdom Between East and West (open-access, Venice University Press)

THE AWOL BLOG: Wisdom Between East and West: Mesopotamia, Greece and Beyond. An open-access publication from Venice University Press, edited by Francesco Sironi and Maurizio Viano.

The volume publishes the proceeding of the workshop Wisdom Between East and West: Mesopotamia, Greece and Beyond held at the University of Turin on 26-27 October 2022. The volume collects papers from Assyriologists, Classicists and Biblical scholars around the topic of wisdom. Scholars have investigated wisdom from various angles, from speculative thought to literature, from science, to dance, to proverbs.

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Tu B'Av explainer

COMING THIS SUNDAY: Tu B'Av: Everything you need to know about the Jewish holiday of love and romance - explainer. Tu B'Av is often considered a Jewish version of Valentine's Day. But this ancient holiday has its own distinct traditions and practices, which have evolved until today. Here's what you should know (Aaron Reich, Jerusalem Post).

While not very well-known internationally, Tu B'Av is actually a very old Jewish holiday associated with love. Today, especially in Israel, it is often seen as a Jewish version or alternative to the Christian day of love, Valentine's Day.

A thorough account of an ancient festival that has taken on new life in recent years.

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ASOR webinar: Magness on "What Makes Jerusalem Special?"

ONLINE EVENT: FRIENDS OF ASOR WEBINARS: What Makes Jerusalem Special?

Friends of ASOR present the first webinar of the 2024-2025 season on September 4, 2024, at 7:00 pm EDT, presented by Prof. Jodi Magness. This webinar will be free and open to the public thanks to partial sponsorship by Oxford University Press. Registration through Zoom (with a valid email address) is required.

For details and free registration, follow the link.

For more on Professor Magness's new book, Jerusalem through the Ages, see here and links.

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Review of Magness, Jerusalem through the Ages

BOOK REVIEW: Unveiling Jerusalem: Jodi Magness’s comprehensive archaeological journey through time. 'Jerusalem through the Ages' is a wonderful survey of what became, uniquely, a holy city to three of the world’s major religions (NEVILLE TELLER, Jerusalem Post).

In the preface to her new book, Jerusalem Through the Ages, Magness asks and answers the obvious question: Why is another book on Jerusalem needed? She points out that most of the books covering the city’s pre-modern history and archaeology are either broad surveys written by non-specialists, edited volumes containing chapters by multiple specialists, or studies by individual specialists focusing on a specific time frame or topic.

I noted the publication of the book here. See also here. There are many PaleoJudaica posts on Professor Magness's work, notably, but far from exclusively, on the Huqoq excavation.

As it happens, another archaeologist, Israel Finkelstein, has also just published a book on the archaeology of Jerusalem: Jerusalem the Center of the Universe (SBL Press). It is a collection of his previous articles, so its remit is rather different from Magness's book.

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Why is the Gallus Revolt forgotten?

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: Jews And Christians In Roman Palestine (Philip Jenkins).

In other words, the Gallus Revolt of the 350s looks like a straight linear successor or rerun of those earlier and vastly more famous risings, although as I say, it is unknown to non-specialists. It makes nonsense of the idea that the Jewish population was so thoroughly and irrevocably purged after the 130s, and it must remind us of the strong Jewish community that paralleled and confronted the rising Christianity within Palestine itself, with its legendary center at Caesarea Maritima. Inevitably, our sense of actual population statistics is shaky, but there must have been thriving Jewish rural communities.

For more on the Gallus Revolt and the recent numismatic discovery underlying this essay, see here. And for a bit more on the revolt, see here.

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Diaspora Judaism and the Temple

DR. MICHAEL TUVAL: Judaism Transforms in the Diaspora During the Second Temple Period (TheTorah.com).

Even before the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., the Jews of the Greco-Roman Diaspora successfully created Judaic systems that provided them with identity, purpose, new ways of thinking, and alternative points of access to the divine, independent of the Temple rituals in far-off Jerusalem.

Cross-file under Tisha B'Av.

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Lieber, Staging the Sacred: SBL review panel, part 4

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Author's Response: An Invitation (Laura Lieber).

SBL 2023 Review Panel | Staging the Sacred: Theatricality and Performance in Late Ancient Liturgical Poetry, by Laura Lieber

... All this is to say that this book panel offered me an opportunity to reflect on the fact that the area in which I work did not exist as a field when I was coming up as a scholar: it is not Jewish Studies, or Rabbinics, or Biblical Studies. My book, Staging the Sacred, and the reviewers who so generously review it here represent at least a new corner in the field of Late Antiquity, if not a new field of study, one that is not Bible (Old Testament or New); not Liturgy or Ritual Studies but impossible without those areas; not Judaism or Christian or Islam, but perhaps all of the above; not necessarily Religious Studies but perhaps Art History and Architecture, or Classics, or Literature, or a mixture of several disciplines into one. It can feel like a very old field in its enthusiastic, omnivorous openness and very new, through its transgressive, almost aggressive desire to cross borders. ...

For the first three essays in the series and some background on the author's work, see here and links.

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The latest on Jewish-Temple denial

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: ‘A Jewish myth': In Arab world, many still refuse to accept existence of the two Temples - analysis. ‘Temple denial’ is a known practice amongst those who seek to deny any historical presence for Jews in Israel, leading to a denial of Israel’s right to exist (Ohad Merlin, Jerusalem Post).

On the backdrop of the political, religious, and diplomatic prospects, Tisha B'Av also catalyzes a well-established practice across the pro-Palestinian world, nicknamed “Temple denial.” This practice provides anti-Zionist voices with a platform to deny the indigeneity of the Jewish people to Israel, negating empirical historical facts, all in an attempt to strip Israel of its right to exist.

PaleoJudaica has been covering this problem for a long time.

I actually found this article a little encouraging. It notes some recent acknowledgement of the existence of the two Judean Temples. Perhaps all the push-back, including ours, has had some effect.

I discussed the issue in detail a few years ago here, with many links.

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Drainage channel profiles Jerusalem during Great Revolt

MATERIAL CULTURE: Detritus from ancient Jerusalem drainage channel captures moment of city’s destruction. Excavation reveals rare glass and ceramic vessels, oil lamps, tableware and food remains, offering insight into state of city in period before its sacking by Rome in 70 CE (Gavriel Fiske, Times of Israel).

This channel was usually cleaned regularly by municipal authorities, but the archaeologists found that it was half-filled with silt, indicating “a gradual neglect of city maintenance. And indeed, this very neglect and abandonment that we witness here corresponds to the story of the process of Jerusalem’s destruction,” said Dr. Ayelet Zilberstein, who directed the excavation.

I noted the discovery of the mentioned sword here.

Cross-file under Tisha B'Av.

Drainage channels in Jerusalem had preserved much information and many artifacts from the Second Temple Period and occasionally earlier. See here, here, here, here,here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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Antoninus Pius coin sifted from Temple Mount

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT BLOG: A RARE TEMPLE MOUNT COIN FEATURING THE PORTRAIT OF THE EMPEROR WHO REPEALED THE HARSH DECREES AGAINST JEWS AFTER TISHA B’AV 135 CE.

It is fitting that on the Ninth of Av, the day on which the Jewish people mourn the destruction of their Temple in Jerusalem, we present this coin, minted by Antoninus Pius. As the successor of Hadrian, the Roman emperor who completed the destruction of Jerusalem that began in 70 CE under Emperor Vespasian, paganizing the city and rededicating it as Aelia Capitolina. Antoninus Pius ended the downward spiral of destruction, restored the right of the Jews to practice their religion and rekindled the hope of the Jewish people for a better future.

Cross-file under Numismatics.

This coin is rare, as the article notes. It seems that few coins from the reign of Antoninus Pius have been found in Israel. I noted the discovery of (reportedly) the first ever back in 2010 (here and here) and two more in recent years here and here.

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Another stone just fell at the Western Wall

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: A day before Tisha B’Av, a large Jerusalem stone falls at the Western Wall. A comment on Israeli society, or an odd coincidence? (Louis Keene, The Forward).

I wouldn't call a brick-sized stone particularly "large." But I wouldn't want one to fall on my head either! Fortunately there is no report of this one causing any harm. This one fell from a Mamluk-era wall abutting the Herodian wall.

A much larger stone fell from the Western Wall some years ago, fortunately also without harming anyone. It has been in the news recently.

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Tisha B'Av explainer

BACKGROUND AND CUSTOMS: Tisha B'Av 2024: What the Jewish summer fast day is all about - explainer. On Tisha B'av, the Jewish people mourn the two destructions of the First and Second Temples of Jerusalem. Here is everything you need to know (Jerusalem Post).

This article opens with a good, brief summary of the history of Tisha B'Av. But it appears to have been republished from last year without updating the days of the week (and presumably the sunset-sunrise times). The fast day this year is on Monday-Tuesday (i.e., now).

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Tisha B'Av 2024

TISHA B'AV (THE NINTH OF AV) begins this evening at sundown. An easy fast to all those observing it.

The Ninth of Av is not specifically a biblical holy day. Rather, it commemorates a number of disasters that happened to the Jewish people, traditionally all on that same day of the year. These include the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Babylonians, the destruction of the Herodian Temple by the Romans, and the fall of Betar during the Bar Kokhba revolt.

Last year's Tisha B'Av post is here, with links.

UPDATE (15 August): Subsequent related posts are here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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Lieber, Staging the Sacred: SBL review panel, part 3

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: All the (Ancient) World’s a Stage (Erin Galgay Walsh).

SBL 2023 Review Panel | Staging the Sacred: Theatricality and Performance in Late Ancient Liturgical Poetry, by Laura Lieber

One of the most beloved images within Syriac literature is the treasury. Writers such as Ephrem (d. 373 CE) and Jacob of Serugh (ca. 451-521 CE) invoke this image to impress upon their listeners the magnitude and inexhaustibility of divine largesse.[1] I would suggest that the language of treasury fittingly describes the remarkable book that brings us together today. Staging the Sacred is a scholarly treasury, brimming with erudition and insight. ...

For parts one and two and background, follow the links.

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Review of the Irshai Festschrift

ּBRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Essays on Jews and Christians in late antiquity in honour of Oded Irshai.

Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony, Martin Goodman, Essays on Jews and Christians in late antiquity in honour of Oded Irshai. Cultural Encounters in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, 40. Turnhout: Brepols, 2023. Pp. 308. ISBN 9782503602455.

Review by
Andrew S. Jacobs, Harvard Divinity School. andrew@andrewjacobs.org

“The world of late antiquity” as a field of study since the 1970s is, perhaps, too often associated with a few specific Anglophone sites of elaboration and primarily with the intersections of early Christian studies (or, in another register, “patristics”) and post-Roman history (or, in another register, “classics”). The present volume, a Festschrift for Hebrew University professor Oded Irshai, is a salutary reminder that creative and generative thinking about late antiquity emerges from other, polyglot sites and can just as easily center Jews and Judaism alongside their Christian and “pagan” neighbors. ...

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What is Latin?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: What Is Latin? Exploring the language of Rome and beyond (Jennifer Drummond).

Another in the useful BHD introductory series on biblical and related languages. For links to previous essays (on biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, biblical Greek, Akkadian, and Coptic), see here.

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Morales (ed.), Cult and Cosmos (Peeters)

NEW BOOK FROM PEETERS:

Cult and Cosmos
Tilting toward a Temple-Centered Theology

SERIES:
Biblical Tools and Studies, 18

EDITOR:
Morales L.M.

PRICE: 78 euro
YEAR: 2024
ISBN: 9789042953475
E-ISBN: 9789042953482
PAGES: XIV-429 p.

SUMMARY:

The association between creation and temple is a key element of the cultural context of the Hebrew Bible, and foundational for understanding its cultic theology. Situated within the common cultic ideology of the ancient Near East, Israel’s temple on the mountain of God was considered the central axis and navel of creation, its architecture, furnishings, and rituals pervaded by cosmogonic symbolism. Having emerged out of the twentieth century’s predisposed disdain for priestly material, the theological prominence of the temple within the Hebrew Bible is increasingly recognized by scholars. This volume, republishing pivotal scholarship on the interface of cult and cosmos, forms a primer on this significant area of study, tracing major voices in the conversation, from archaeological and ancient Near Eastern studies to biblical studies and the theological prospect of Israel’s cultus.

Reprints important essays from the 1930s through the 1990s.

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