Altmann & Angelini, To Eat or Not to Eat (Mohr Siebeck, open access)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Peter Altmann, Anna Angelini. To Eat or Not to Eat. Studies on the Biblical Dietary Prohibitions. 2024. X, 295 pages. Archaeology and Bible (ArchB) 9. €94.00 including VAT. sewn paper available 978-3-16-163657-8. Also Available As: eBook PDF. The PDF version is open access.

Anna Angelini and Peter Altmann address pivotal issues on the biblical dietary prohibitions and their significance as practices and texts through philological, zooarchaeological, iconographic, and comparative ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman lenses. They explore theoretical frameworks adopted in modern interpretation, possible origins in relation to ancient Israelite religion and society, and location in relation to Priestly terminology and Deuteronomic tradition. The authors expand the arc of investigation to the Second Temple reception of the prohibitions in both the Dead Sea Scrolls and Greco-Roman discourses from the first centuries CE. With their foundational studies, they provide an approach to the dietary prohibitions, opening the way for reconstructing their path of development into their present-day contexts.

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The Holy Grail has not been found at Petra. Nope. But read on ...

PETRA WATCH: St Andrews researchers discover hidden tomb at Petra, Jordan (University of St Andrews).

A ground-breaking discovery of a secret tomb at one of the new seven wonders of the world has been made by a team of researchers, including academics from the University of St Andrews.

Professor Richard Bates, from the St Andrews School of Earth and Environmental Science, was part of a collaboration carrying out research at Al-Khazneh, the Treasury Building, at the World Heritage Site of Petra, Jordan.

The team found a long-buried tomb with the remains of 12 ancient skeletons beneath the iconic building where more than a million visitors a year come to visit and the unexpected discovery now features in a new Discovery Channel documentary. ...

Apparently originating with this press release, the follow has unsurprisingly caught the attention of the media:

One skeleton in the chamber was found clutching a ceramic vessel.

Adventurer and presenter Josh Gates said: “When we spotted what looked like a chalice, all of us just froze. It looked nearly identical to the Holy Grail featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, set in the ancient building directly above the tomb. It was the ultimate moment of life imitating art.”

Detailed examination of the vessel reveals it to be the top part of a broken jug, likely dating to the first century BC.

Not the Holy Grail then. Keep looking.

Seriously, congratuations to my University of St Andrews colleagues and their collaborators on this important discovery in a place one would have thought to have been comprehensively explored already.

Also seriously, keep an eye out for some scrolls in one of those caves.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the ancient Nabatean capital city of Petra in Jordan, see here and links, plus here, here, and here.

Cross-file under Nabatean (Nabataean) Watch.

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Sukkot in Second Temple-era Jerusalem

FOR SUKKOT: Jerusalem in its glory: Reconstructing the Sukkot pilgrimage to the Second Temple. What was the pilgrims’ visit to Jerusalem on Sukkot during the Second Temple like? (Alan Rosenbaum, Jerusalem Post).

While the model of the Temple at the Israel Museum and the 3D Virtual Tour of the Temple offered at the Western Wall provide us with an idea of what Jerusalem looked like 2,000 years ago, let’s try to abandon the hi-tech look and use our powers of imagination to understand what the process of aliyah la’regel – the ascent to Jerusalem for the holiday – might have been like.

A long, informative article. For more on the Theodotus inscription, see here and here.

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Apples or citrons?

FOR SUKKOT: Etrog, a Royal Assyrian Aromatic Purifier (Dr. Norma Franklin. TheTorah.com).

When ambassadors from Judah went to the Assyrian capital to present their yearly tribute, they encountered large stone reliefs of winged genii holding citrons, a fruit long treasured for its fragrance and medicinal properties.

For lots more on the Citron and what it may or may not have been (including additional "apple" connections), see here and links.

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Jews in Pre-Islamic Arabia

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Jews in Pre-Islamic Arabia. Tracing the Jewish diaspora in ancient North Arabia (Marek Dospěl).

In the first two centuries CE, Jews led two major revolts against the Romans—first, the Great Revolt (66–74), then the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (132–135). In their tragic aftermath, when the Temple lay in ruins and Jews were forbidden to live in or near Jerusalem, many decided to seek new homes abroad. Some from this early Jewish diaspora turned south and ended up in North Arabia, where only inscriptions survive to bear witness to individuals who clearly belonged to the scattered Jewish communities of pre-Islamic Arabia.

[...]

This essay summarizes an article by Gary A. Rendsburg in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. The full article is behind the subscription wall.

For more on the site of Hegra (the "Petra of Saudi Arabia" and an important Nabatean/Nabataean site) see here and links. For more on Aramaic and Jews at the site of Tayma, see here, here, here, here, and here.

As some of those posts indicate, Tayma is also known as the site of the Babylonian King Nabonidus's self-exile, a legendary version of which appears in the Aramaic Prayer of Nabonidus from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Something like this legend looks to be the source of the legend of Nebuchadnezzar's madness and exile in Daniel chapter 4. Follow the links for more information.

There was also a Jewish Kingdom of Himyar in late-antique Arabia.

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Virtual Persepolis

PERSEPOLIS WATCH:

HT the Bible Places Blog.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on Persepolis, the ancient Achaemenid ceremonial capital city, see here and links.

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More on that Jewish (?) gladiator in Pompeii

MORE ON MARTIAL MATERIAL CULTURE: A Jewish gladiator in Roman Pompeii? A helmet found in the ruins of the famous Roman city wiped out by a volcano eruption a few years after the destruction of Jerusalem depicts a palm tree, a symbol of Judea (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

I've already noted a more detailed article on this story here, but this one notes an additional underlying technical study. And in-between there has also been another study on the question of Jewish gladitors in the ancient Roman world.

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Sukkot 2024

THE SEVEN-DAY FESTIVAL OF SUKKOT (BOOTHS, TABERNACLES) begins tonight at sundown. Best wishes to all those observing it.

Last year's Sukkot post is here. Another relevant post is here.

For the biblical background to Sukkot, see here and here.

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Aramaic at the UAE's Shamash temple

ARAMAIC WATCH: UAE rebuilding region's sun temple, brick by brick. (Sajila Saseendran, Khaleej Yimes).

Umm Al Quwain - The Aramaic inscription found at the temple mentioned the name of the sun deity Shamash, throwing light on the fact that the deity was worshipped in the region some 2000 years ago.

[...]

This restoration project has been going on for some time. For more on this temple and Aramaic inscription, and on Aramaic at the site of ed-Dur, see here and follow the links.

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Persica Antiqua

THE AWOL BLOG: Open Access Journal: Persica Antiqua: The International Journal of Ancient Iranian Studies.

I noted an article in this journal a while ago, but I understood (apparently misunderstood) it to be behind a subscription wall. As the headline above says, the journal is open access.

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The Bible's big bad Babylonians

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Who Were the Babylonians? A brief look at one of the Bible’s biggest baddies (Nathan Steinmeyer).

The Babylonians are certainly one of the Bible’s biggest baddies, but they were also one of history’s greatest empires. So, who were the Babylonians? ...

A good brief overview of the Old Babylonian and Neo-Babylonian Empires.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on ancient Babylon, start with the links collected here, plus here, here, here, and here, and just keep going.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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