Another review of Mazza, Stolen Fragments

VARIANT READINGS: Roberta Mazza’s Stolen Fragments. (Brent Nongbri).

There is a palpable urgency in Mazza’s writing, and for good reason. Mazza documents the ongoing problem of looting in Egypt, and her narrative highlights the connections between looting, the trade in unprovenanced artifacts, and academics who work on unprovenanced pieces. Stolen Fragments will become a a key reference point in these discussions.

I noted another review of the book here with some background links

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

The Tel Dan Stele's next move

THE JEWISH MUSEUM, NEW YORK: 5 DECEMBER 2024–5 JANUARY 2025. Tel Dan Stele.

The Tel Dan Stele is presented within Engaging with History: Works from the Collection, a selection of rarely exhibited objects from the Museum's holdings of over 30,000 works including new acquisitions from Carrie Mae Weens, William Kentridge, and others on view for the first time in dialogue with Museum treasures reflecting millenia of global Jewish culture.

The Tel Dan Stele is currently on display at Armstrong College in Oklahoma until 25 November. It then moves to the Jewish Museum in New York.

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

Was Jesus short?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Jesus the Short King. Measuring up Jesus and Zacchaeus in Luke 19 (Nathan Steinmeyer).

Translating a text can be a difficult task under any circumstance. But it is all the harder when the meaning of the original text is ambiguous. Such is the case with Luke 19:3. Although most readers assume the text states that Zacchaeus was too short to see Jesus, the original Greek is less clear. Publishing in the Journal of Biblical Literature, Isaac Soon, Assistant Professor of Early Christianity at the University of British Columbia, points out that the original text makes no distinction between which of the characters is “short in stature,” and that it is instead the reader’s preconceived notions of what Jesus “should” look like that leads most to read the text as being about Zacchaeus.

[...]

The JBL article is behind a subscription wall, but you can read the abstract for free.

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

Orlov, Abraham Among Golems (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Andrei A. Orlov. Abraham Among Golems. The Imago Dei Traditions in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha. 2024. XVIII, 296 pages. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism (TSAJ) 189. €149.00 including VAT. cloth available 978-3-16-164009-4. Also Available As: eBook PDF €149.00..

In this insightful book, Andrei A. Orlov examines the symbolism of the »image of God« found in early Jewish pseudepigraphical accounts, paying special attention to the cultic traditions in the Apocalypse of Abraham. The study demonstrates that the Jewish pseudepigrapha transform various biblical characters — including Enoch, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and Aseneth — into eschatological embodiments of the imago Dei. The book argues that these cultic metamorphoses preserve memories of ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian rituals involving the vivification of cultic statues. The Apocalypse of Abraham and other early Jewish pseudepigraphical accounts attempt to polemically refashion the concept of cultic statues by envisioning their protagonists as divine representations in the form of the eschatological image of God.

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

Hybrid Princeton workshop on Maagarim (Historical Dictionary of Hebrew database)

H-JUDAIC: Ma'agarim Workshop at Princeton.

On Thurs, Nov 7, the Program in Judaic Studies will host an afternoon workshop on using Maagarim. This Digital Rabbinics Workshop is convened by our own Amit Gvaryahu, JDS’s associate research scholar and a cultural historian of ancient Judaism. It is open to everyone – undergraduates, grad students, faculty, and in fact anyone else. Feel free to share this invite within your circles.

Maagarim – the database for the Historical Dictionary of Hebrew, maintained by the Academy for the Hebrew Language – is an invaluable tool for the study of rabbinic and other ancient Jewish literature. It is however underutilized and not well known in the U.S. In this workshop we will learn how to use Maagarim, its advantages and limitations, practice complex searches, compare it with its manuscript sources, and use it to answer questions about our own texts.

Participants may attend in person or online. ...

For registration information etc., follow the link.

I have a post on the Maagarim database here.

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

Review of Iovine, Latin military papyri of Dura-Europos (P.Dura 55-145)

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Latin military papyri of Dura-Europos (P.Dura 55-145): a new edition of the texts, with introduction and notes.

Giulio Iovine, Latin military papyri of Dura-Europos (P.Dura 55-145): a new edition of the texts, with introduction and notes. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Pp. 450. ISBN 9781009183130.

Review by
Rudolf Haensch, Kommission für Alte Geschichte und Epigraphik des Deutschen Archäologischen Institut. Rudolf.Haensch@dainst.de

The documents of the cohors XX Palmyrenorum found in Dura-Europos are, alongside the wooden tablets from Vindolanda and the ostraca from the Roman guard posts in the eastern Egyptian desert (Hélène Cuvigny, Rome in Egypt’s Eastern Desert, 2 vols., New York 2021 etc.), among the most important groups of written records of the Roman army. ...

With regard to the edition of the texts, the use of new technology by Iovine has largely served to confirm the reliability of the texts of the earlier editors. He has improved them in detail, but was unable to present major new readings—this is a compliment to the earlier editors and not a criticism of him, except that the work should not be announced as grandiloquently as it was. Similarly, the commentary rarely adds much to the older ones. Unfortunately, the commentaries and the introductory sections contain a number of minor errors.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on Dura-Europos, start with the links collecte here and just keep going.

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

Nodet Festschrift (Peeters)

NEW BOOK FROM PEETERS PUBLISHERS:

L'univers de Flavius Josèphe
Judaïsmes et christianismes au début de l'Empire romain. Mélanges offerts à Étienne Nodet, O.P.

SERIES:
Cahiers de la Revue Biblique, 96

EDITOR:
Leroy M.

PRICE: 85 euro
YEAR: 2024
ISBN: 9789042951952
PAGES: XXXIV-275 p.

SUMMARY:

Le frère Étienne Nodet, o.p., est décédé le 4 février 2024 à Jérusalem. Ancien élève de l’École Polytechnique, dominicain, professeur à l’École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem pendant plusieurs années, son enseignement et ses publications ont marqué plusieurs générations de chercheurs et d’étudiants. Son projet principal fut sa traduction commentée des Antiquités juives de Flavius Josèphe. Mais il aborda également des sujets aussi divers que la crise maccabéenne, les Samaritains, les origines du judaïsme et du christianisme, le Jésus historique ou les Actes des Apôtres. Ses amis et collègues ont voulu regrouper en un recueil intitulé L’univers de Flavius Josèphe. Judaïsmes et christianismes au début de l’Empire romain treize contributions ainsi qu’une biographie intellectuelle écrite par Justin Taylor, s.m. Ce volume d’hommages, qui paraît après son décès, voudrait être un témoignage de gratitude envers le frère Étienne Nodet, o.p., pour sa vie, son enseignement et sa recherche.

The articles are in French and English.

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