Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: Mapping the Second Century

Series:
Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, Volume: 18

Volume Editors: Matthijs Dulk, den, Joshua Schwartz, Peter J. Tomson, and Joseph Verheyden

The second century is a crucial period for the formation of both Judaism and Christianity, but remains in important ways terra incognita. This volume brings together specialists in Jewish studies and Christian studies, two closely related disciplines that nonetheless continue to operate in relative isolation. Taking into consideration the full panoply of Jewish and Christian identities, the volume proposes fresh ways to map the interrelated histories of Jews and Christians. Contributions by leading scholars offer new insights into this period informed by a rich variety of perspectives, including theoretical, literary, thematic and material approaches.

Copyright Year: 2025

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-70440-4
Publication: 16 Sep 2024
EUR €199.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-70439-8
Publication: 12 Sep 2024
EUR €199.00

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Review of Manekin-Bamberger, Seder Mazikin

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Seder Mazikin: Law and Magic in Late Antique Jewish Society (Sarit Kattan Gribetz).

Avigail Manekin-Bamberger, Seder Mazikin: Law and Magic in Late Antique Jewish Society (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben Zvi, 2024). [Hebrew]

... Seder Mazikin is meticulously researched and generously written, such that both experts in the field and those who are just getting started will learn a tremendous amount about the [Babylonian Aramaic incantation] bowls, their legal dimensions, and their relationship to rabbinic sources. The book takes seriously the technical aspects of the bowls while drawing far-ranging conclusions about the social, intellectual, and material world in which they were produced....

Unmentioned in the review is that the more recently published incantation bowls (after Montgomery's publication) are mostly (entirely?) unprovenanced. Is it possible to forge one convincingly? It would be very difficult, but it would become easier as more of them are published. I discuss the issue further here.

I haven't read the book, but based on this review, I think I would agree with its conclusions. I wrote about the incantation bowls in my book Descenders to the Chariot (Brill 2001) and discussed the social background of their composers as non-rabbinic scribes on pp. 245-50. And I propose a specific connection with the Sar Torah hekhalot practitioners on pp. 276-77.

There are many PaleoJudaica posts on the Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls. Start here and keep following the links, and see also here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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BHD on the raising of the Mazzarón II

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Phoenician Ship Raised from the Seafloor. Archaeologists lift nearly complete vessel from Spanish waters (Nathan Steinmeyer).

A team of specialists from the University of Valencia is hard at work lifting a nearly complete Phoenician shipwreck from the seafloor off the Spanish coast of Murcia. While the ship, dubbed Mazarrón 2, has been protected by sand for more than two millennia, recent changes in coastal currents have torn away much of that protective blanket, posing an existential threat to this incredible archaeological wonder.

[...]

For some years I have been following the planning for and current ongoing raising of the Mazarrón II shipwreck in Murcia, Spain. It's good to see the project receiving some wider attention from the Biblical Archaeological Society.

Background here and links. Note the variable spellings Mazarrón (Mazarron) and Mazzarón (Mazzaron).

Cross-file under Phoenician Watch.

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Professor Ben Outhwaite

THE GENIZA FRAGMENTS BLOG: New Professor of Genizah Studies (Melonie Schmierer-Lee).

We are delighted to announce that Ben Outhwaite, Head of the Genizah Research Unit since 2006, has today [1 October 2024] become Professor Outhwaite – Professor of Genizah Studies. ...

Congratulations to Professor Outhwaite!

The website of the Cambridge University Library Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit is here.

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dy Carlos Araújo, Peacemaking through Blood in Colossians (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Diego dy Carlos Araújo. Peacemaking through Blood in Colossians. An Analysis of the Imagery in Its Graeco-Roman and Jewish Context. 2024. XIV, 216 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe (WUNT II) 615. €84.00 including VAT. sewn paper available 978-3-16-161873-4. Also Available As: eBook PDF €84.00.

The imagery of »peacemaking through Christ's blood« in Colossians 1.20b evokes conceptual frames from both the Graeco-Roman and Jewish thought worlds. To grasp the full significance of the imagery, it is necessary to explore which frames could have been activated by the writer's metaphors. In this work, Diego dy Carlos Araújo applies insights from frame semantics and conceptual metaphor to investigate the multiple frames possibly evoked in the minds of the implied readers by the metaphorical expressions εἰρηνοποιήσας διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ σταυροῦ αὐτοῦ in this passage. Colossians' own version of the message challenges the cultural and theological expectations of the audience concerning peacemaking through blood. The impact of its Christological configuration lies precisely in the incongruity between its message and the frames with which the hearers were familiar.

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Albright shrugged?

INSTITUTE OF HISTORY, ARCHAEOLOGY, AND EDUCATION BLOG: Albright Shrugged: The Haupt/Albright Relationship (Peter Feinman).

All things considered, therefore, Johns Hopkins under German-born and -educated Paul Haupt, expert in the Gilgamesh epic, was the best place at this particular point in time for student Albright to arm himself with some of the tools of the trade and weapons of war he needed to achieve his goal of illuminating religion through science. On that subject, “[founding JHU President] Gilman believed that research in Semitic languages would significantly aid in the reconciliation of science and religion by clarifying sacred texts.” He was an orientalist who served for many years as the President of the American Oriental Society. Both this organization and “reconciliation” of science and religion would prove to be important in the scholarship of Albright.

I noted the first three posts in this series on Willam Foxwell Albright (the twentieth century's "dean of biblical archaeologists"), with background, here and links.

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Nabatean coinage went its own way

NABATEAN NUMISMATICS: Nabataean kings’ coins defy Roman influence, show 'unique' independence (Saeb Rawashdeh, Jordan Times).

AMMAN – The Roman style was popular among the ruling elites in the client states of the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. However, on their coinage, the Nabataean rulers did not broadcast the Roman imperial imagery, unlike the Herods where the Roman elements are obvious.

[...]

The article also includes information on some of the Nabatean kings.

For more on Nabatean coinage, see here. For some more articles on the Nabateans by Saeb Rawashdeh, see here and links.

Cross-file under Nabatean (Nabataean) Watch.

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New discoveries near Babylon

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Trove of Artifacts Discovered Near Babylon. Tablets, seals, and more (Nathan Steinmeyer). "The team uncovered two houses filled with nearly 500 artifacts dating to the Old Babylonian period (c. 1894–1595 BCE)." With "numerous cuneiform tablets." Sounds exciting.

For much more on the archaeology, history, and legends of ancient Babylon, see the links collected here.

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Review of Boter, Critical notes on Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: .

Gerard Boter, Critical notes on Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Sammlung wissenschaftlicher Commentare. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2023. Pp. viii, 317. ISBN 9783111243658.

Review by
N. G. Wilson, University of Oxford. nigel.wilson@lincoln.ox.ac.uk

The review is technical, but if you are into the Greek text of the Life of Apollonius, you will want to read it.

For more (and more accessible) PaleoJudaica posts on the first-century itinerant sage Apollonius of Tyana, especially in relation to Jesus, see here and links.

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Excavation report: Petra’s Temple of the Winged Lions

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Site-Seeing: Petra’s Temple of the Winged Lions. From the May/June 2017 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (Glenn J. Corbett). The full text of the article.

ACOR’s Experience Petra program takes place at the site of the Temple of the Winged Lions, an opulent colonnaded temple built to honor al-Uzza, the supreme goddess of the Nabateans. Built on a promontory overlooking the city center, the temple was a majestic sacred complex that featured a massive ascending staircase, a monumental entrance flanked by gigantic columns and an inner cultic chamber with a raised podium set amid a forest of columns. While most of the columns had beautiful Corinthian-style capitals, the dozen columns surrounding the main podium were adorned with the unique “winged lion” capitals that give the monument its name.

It's nice to see something at Petra other than the Al Khazneh Treasury getting some attention. Unfortunately, the photos don't give a good view of any of the winged lion capitals. There are a couple of photos at the Facebook link. If you're not on Facebook, the Universes in Universe site has a photo tour of the temple with a good image of one of the capitals.

Anyway, this is also a good opportunity to note (HT the Bible Places Blog) that the two-volume excavation report on the temple has just been released by ACOR Publications.

Petra’s Temple of the Winged Lions Volume 1: The Site, Project History, and Architecture

Petra’s Temple of the Winged Lions Volume 2: The Finds and Community Engagement

Both edited by Pearce Paul Creasman, Noreen Doyle, and China Shelton, with many contributors. Both are also available for free as downloadable open-access PDF files.

Cross-file under Nabatean (Nabataean) Watch.

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Christian Apocrypha at SBL 2024

THE APOCRYPHICITY BLOG: Christian Apocrypha at SBL 2024 (Tony Burke).

The 2024 Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature runs from November 23 to 26 in San Diego, California. I won’t be attending this year, but I can still post my usual roundup of sessions and individual presentations that focus on Christian Apocrypha. Take note of how many presenters this year are fellows of the Beyond Canon project at Universität Regensburg. Looks like I’ll be the only one left in the office!

[...]

It's an impressive list! The focus of the papers is Christian apocrypha, but that includes the reception of Judith, the mother of the Maccabean martyrs, and the the women in the Ezra apocrypha.

For lots more on Tony's work and on Christian Apocrypha, see here and links.

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Bockmuehl & Eubank (eds.), The Creed and the Scriptures (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: The Creed and the Scriptures. Edited by Markus Bockmuehl and Nathan Eubank. 2024. VII, 350 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (WUNT I) 519. €149.00 including VAT. cloth available 978-3-16-161598-6. Also Available As: eBook PDF €149.00.

Were ancient Christian creeds designed as summaries of Scripture, or, conversely, was the formation of Scripture itself subject to creedal as well as canonical considerations? To what extent were there non-Christian antecedents and analogies to the church's habit of making creeds? The contributors to this volume investigate the relationship between Scripture and ancient Christian creeds. The essays in this volume are divided into four sections devoted to related lines of inquiry. The first asks whether the Christian creeds are sui generis as sometimes claimed, or whether there are close analogies in Jewish and Graeco-Roman antiquity. The second section investigates key critical issues in scholarly study of the creeds. The third turns to case studies illustrating how early Christian writers deploy the creeds in their engagement with scriptural topics. The fourth section turns to thematic studies in the creed.

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Oldest "world" map has the Babylonian Ark's location

ANCIENT CARTOGRAPHY: Mystery of the World’s Oldest Map on a Nearly 3,000-year-old Babylonian Tablet Finally Solved ( Leman Altuntaş, Arkeonews).

A recent British Museum video reveals that the “oldest map of the world in the world” on a clay tablet from Babylon was deciphered to reveal a surprisingly familiar story.

The oldest globe ever found is the Imago Mundi, a Babylonian map of the world. This map is a Babylonian clay tablet with a schematic world map and two inscriptions written in the Akkadian language. The probably seventh century BC is when this map was created. It shows a small part of the world as the ancient Babylonians knew it, and it was found in the southern Iraqi city of Abu Habba (Sippar).

[...]

One point of interest is that the map claims to tell the location of the Flood Ark.

Aside from mapping out what they thought existed outside of their world, the Babylonian scribe also included references to a well-known story (basically the Babylonian version of the biblical story of Noah’s Ark) and mythical animals and lands.

The ancient Babylonians thought that the remains of the enormous ark that their version of Noah, named Utnapishtim, had constructed in 1800 BC at God’s command were located on the backside of a mountain, the same mountain that the Bible says Noah’s Ark crashed on, beyond the bitter river.

The article links to a Youtube video on the map, narrated by Irving Finkel, who, as usual, is in top form.

The story of the finding of the crucial missing piece of the map is not quite as good as the one about George Adam Smith going back to Iraq and finding a tablet (actually of the Atrahasis Epic) which filled in the missing part of his Gilgamesh Flood story fragment. But it's impressive anyway.

For the Babylonian Ark tablet, to which Dr, Finkel refers in the video and which he also published, see here and links.

Please do not try to use this map to find the Ark. It does not give precise coordinates!

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Review of Lukas, Josephus Latinus, Antiquitates Judaicae Buch 6 und 7

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Josephus Latinus, Antiquitates Judaicae Buch 6 und 7: Einleitung, Edition und Kommentar zur Übersetzungstechnik.

Randolf Lukas, Josephus Latinus, Antiquitates Judaicae Buch 6 und 7: Einleitung, Edition und Kommentar zur Übersetzungstechnik. Bochumer altertumswissenschaftliches Colloquium, 112. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2022. Pp. 296. ISBN 9783868219692.

Review by
Scott G. Bruce, Fordham University. sbruce3@fordham.edu

... This edition of Books 6 and 7 of the Latin Antiquities is nothing short of revelatory. Lukas’s enduring contribution to the field is twofold. First, after decades of inertia following the harsh criticism of Blatt’s edition, he has rejuvenated the study of the Latin Antiquities by establishing the Latin texts for two more books of Josephus’s history. Second and more importantly, in his systematic reevaluation of the entire manuscript tradition of the Latin Antiquities, Lukas has single-handedly provided a new foundation for the study of the Latin legacy of Josephus’s Antiquities in the western Middle Ages. ...

For more on the Latin translations of the works of Josephus, see here and links, plus here and here.

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Burke on Christian Apocrypha

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Christian Apocrypha: The “Lost Gospels”? Apocryphal texts and early Christianity (Ellen White).

This essay summarizes the article “‘Lost Gospels’—Lost No More” by Tony Burke in the September/October 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. And there is a link to the full article itself.

For more on the "lost gospels" and how lost they really were(n't), see the links collected here and here.

For lots more on Tony Burke's work on the Christian Apocrypha see his blog Apocryphicity and the PaleoJudaica posts here, here, and here, with many links.

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Lindenlaub, The Beloved Disciple as Interpreter and Author of Scripture in the Gospel of John (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Julia D. Lindenlaub. The Beloved Disciple as Interpreter and Author of Scripture in the Gospel of John. 2024. XV, 224 pages.Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe (WUNT II) 611. €79.00 including VAT. sewn paper available 978-3-16-162689-0. Also Available As: eBook PDF €79.00.

Summary

Julia D. Lindenlaub presents the Gospel of John's deliberate emphasis on its status as a written literary composition as modelled on antecedent esteem for authoritative written texts in ancient Judaism. The gospel's creative representation of its authorship reveals a correspondence between scripture and gospel and therein an overlooked motivation for its preoccupation with the written medium. The Gospel of John attributes its authorship to the work of a »beloved« disciple, whose role in the story presents him as both writer of the gospel and competent reader of texts from the Jewish scriptures. The author evaluates this figure's interpretation of these writings alongside his claim to compose a text in the same tradition. The argument presented reveals how the gospel's concern for referring to its written medium distinguishes it as »scriptural« in the sense of its Jewish predecessors.

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Please excuse the weekend blogging hiatus.

Everything is fine. I was just unusually busy.

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

On literacy in Iron Age II Judah

NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY: Was literacy important in the biblical Kingdom of Judah? Expert offers answers. Questions related to literacy in ancient times are not an exclusive prerogative of academic studies on the Israelites (Rossella Tercatin, Jerusalem Post).

Jews are known as the "people of the book," but was literacy important in biblical times? As explained by Matthieu Richelle, a Professor of Old Testament at the Université Catholique de Louvain in a recent paper published in the latest volume of the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology, "the subject of literacy in ancient Israel and Judah remains hotly debated among scholars, and the case of the Kingdom of Judah proves especially controversial."

[...]

It's nice to see some new articles from Rossella Tercatin recently. This article is a good summary of a technical article published in the current volume (7, 2024) of the open-access Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology. I noted this volume, and its focus on Iron-Age II Hebrew epigraphy, here. The article and its abstract:

Literacy in the Kingdom of Judah: A Typology of Approaches and a Criticism of Quantitative Perspectives

Matthieu Richelle
Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, matthieu.richelle@uclouvain.be

Abstract

The subject of literacy in ancient Israel and Judah remains hotly debated among scholars, and the case of the Kingdom of Judah proves especially controversial. To disentangle a complicated issue, this article first draws up a typology of approaches used by scholars to tackle questions such as the population’s rate of literacy, the Judeans’ ability to write down literary texts, and the development of literacy throughout the centuries. Then, it critically examines two quantitative approaches, which have been highly influential and currently promote the thesis that the levels of literacy were minimal in the early monarchic period in Judah (in contrast to the situation in Israel) and considerably increased at the end of this period.

Professor Richelle's observations and conclusions seem sensible to me. Given that most of the evidence, presumably written on fragile papyrus and vellum, is long gone, any conclusions should be provisional.

For reasons to hope for the discovery of surviving scrolls from this era, start here (toward the end) and follow the links.

For lots more on the question of literacy in First-Temple-era Judah, see the thread of posts that starts here and concludes here.

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Shaked memorial volume (De Gruyter, open access)

THE AWOL BLOG: Yahwism under the Achaemenid Empire: Professor Shaul Shaked in Memoriam. Edited by: Gad Barnea and Reinhard G. Kratz and published by De Gruyter in 2024.

About this book

Open Access

The Achaemenid period (550–330 BCE) is rightly seen as one of the most formative periods in Judaism. It is the period in which large portions of the Bible were edited and redacted and others were authored—yet no dedicated interdisciplinary study has been undertaken to present a consistent picture of this decisive time period.
This book is dedicated to the study of the touchpoints between Yahwistic communities throughout the Achaemenid empire and the Iranian attributes of the empire that ruled over them for about two centuries. Its approach is fundamentally interdisciplinary. It brings together scholars of Achaemenid history, literature and religion, Iranian linguistics, historians of the Ancient Near East, archeologists, biblical scholars and Semiticists. The goal is to better understand the interchange of ideas, expressions and concepts as well as the experience of historical events between Yahwists and the empire that ruled over them for over two centuries. The book will open up a holisitic perspective on this important era to scholars of a wide variety of fields in the study of Judaism in the Ancient Near East.

Also noted by the Bibliographia Iranica Blog.

I am very pleased to see the late Professor Shaul Shaked honored with this volume. A couple of years ago I noted the (at the time upcoming) symposium that was the basis for the volume. The topic covers a major focus of his career, although his chronological range was much wider.

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McKenzie & Richelle, The Oxford Handbook of the Books of Kings

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The Oxford Handbook of the Books of Kings

Edited by Steven L. McKenzie and Matthieu Richelle

Oxford Handbooks

£115.00

Hardback
Published: 26 September 2024
624 Pages
248x171mm
ISBN: 9780197610374

Also Available As:
Ebook

Also Available In:
Oxford Handbooks Online

Description

The Books of Kings have long been at the center of scholarly discussions on the Hebrew Bible because they constitute important sources for the history of ancient Israel and Judah, and because they are key components of the Deuteronomistic History. The Oxford Handbook of the Books of Kings provide a clear and useful introduction to the main aspects and issues pertaining to the scholarly study of Kings. These include textual history (including the linguistic profile), compositional history, literary approaches, key characters, history, important recurring themes, reception history and some contemporary readings. As a one-volume introduction embracing all the aspects of the study of Kings, written by an international and diverse team of scholars, this handbook is the ideal point of entry into the study of Kings for generations of students and scholars.

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More on the Petra chalice

NABATEAN (NABATAEAN) WATCH: What 12 ancient skeletons discovered in a mysterious tomb in Petra could tell us about the ancient city (Claire Isabella Gilmour, The Conversation).

This essay gives a very preliminary assessment of the new discoveries in that tomb under Al Khazneh in Petra, as well as some background on the Nabateans and on Petra. It caught my eye because it addresses an obvious question: why is the chalice excavated in the grave so similar to the Holy Grain in Indiana Jones 3?

One of the most headline-grabbing discoveries has been dubbed a “holy grail” in many reports, suggesting that the vessel is similar to the fictional cup from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, also discovered at the Khazneh. In fact, it’s a humble jug, not a cup offering the drinker eternal life.

The similarities between the vessels aren’t a case of art imitating life, but the result of painstaking research into Nabataean pottery carried out by Deborah Fine, who was the director of archives at Lucasfilm Ltd.

She chose wisely.

PaleoJudaica posts on the new discoveries at Petra are here and here.

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Berlejung & Bohak (eds.), Amulets of Protection and Texts for Fears in Antiquity (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Amulets of Protection and Texts for Fears in Antiquity. Edited by Angelika Berlejung and Gideon Bohak. 2024. XII, 311 pages. Orientalische Religionen in der Antike (ORA) 57. €139.00 including VAT. cloth available 978-3-16-163549-6. Also Available As: eBook PDF €139.00.

Amulets are devices for fear management and communication with supernatural forces. Textual amulets - that is, amulets which contain mostly texts - attest explicitly to human fears, or threats which were supposed to be repelled by the amulets. They are valuable sources which can be analyzed for the study of the history of religion, historical anthropology, and interreligious research. The contributions in this current volume are based on the research project »Between Materiality and Scribal Magic: West-Semitic Textual Amulets from the First Millennium BCE to the Rise of Islam«. Within this project, teams from Leipzig University and Tel Aviv University studied textual amulets from the Levant in the 1st mill. BCE and CE that were written in the West-Semitic languages. Several scholars were invited to discuss and share their expertise within the scope of this research project. The present volume is the result of this interdisciplinary and international cooperation.

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On Samaritan coinage and a name

SAMARITAN NUMUSMATICS AND ONOMASTICS: A Son of Mazday on Samarian Coins: Reattribution From Bdyḥbl to Brochubelus (David Hendin, CoinWeek).

Early Samarian coins often feature legends with names that may be linked to local minting authorities. Some of these names are documented in historical and archaeological sources, such as the Wadi ed-Daliyeh papyri, while others remain speculative.

One of those speculative names is BDYḤBL. Meshorer and Qedar acknowledged in MQ that they were “unable to find an identical name,” though they interpreted BDYḤBL as a personal name. However, no historical records confirm the existence of a figure by this name. This interpretation has persisted in various publications and auction catalogs.

But it seems it needs to be revised. Read on. Bold-font emphasis in the above quote is in the original.

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