Samaritan books at the Rylands Library

THE RYLANDS BLOG: The Samaritans and their books. The John Rylands Research Institute and Library has a large collection of Samaritan manuscripts some of which are now available online. This blog offers you a brief introduction into the little-known world of the Samaritans and the books (Zsofia Buda).

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Tony Burke's Regensburg Year: December

THE APOCRYPHICITY BLOG: My Regensburg Year Part 5: December 2024

Tony Burke is on research sabbatical for the 2024-25 academic year at the University of Regensburg in Germany.

For earlier posts in the series and more on Tony's work, see the links collected here (cf. here). And one with the full text of a paper he presented last month is noted here.

Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch.

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Albrecht & Kratz (eds.), Editing the Greek Psalter (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, open access)

THE AWOL BLOG: Editing the Greek Psalter.

Notice of a New Book: Felix Albrecht & Reinhard Gregor Kratz (eds.), Editing the Greek Psalter. eISBN 978-3-666-56094-1. ISBN 978-3-666-56094-1. pages 671. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, eLibrary. Open access.

Follow the link for links to the downloadable text.

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Late-antique monastery and inscribed mosaic excavated near Kiryat Gat

ARCHAEOLOGY: Byzantine-era monastery mosaic discovered in southern Israel. “Blessed are you when you come in and blessed are you when you go out” (Deuteronomy 28:6), is inscribed in ancient Greek on the mosaic floor (JNS).

The monastery’s colorful mosaic floor features crosses, lions, doves, an amphora (a ceramic maritime shipping jug), flowers and geometric patterns. The biblical inscription in Greek is set in its center.

The article has photos and a link to an IAA YouTube video.

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Israeli rabbi seeks assurances about Jobar Synagogue etc.

AFTER ASSAD, CONTINUED: Julani asked to protect historic Syrian synagogue in Syria by Israeli rabbi. Rabbi Binyamin Hamra, son of the late Rabbi Avraham Hamra, appealed to Julani to protect the country’s Jewish community and preserve its historic sites, including the Jobar Synagogue (Jerusalem Post).

It's worth asking. A positive reply would be welcome.

Background here and links.

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Burke on defining "Christian Apocrypha"

THE APOCRYPHICITY BLOG: (Too Far) Beyond Canon: Has the Re-defining of “Christian Apocrypha” Lost Its Way? (Tony Burke).

I’d like to focus today on the parameters of our field, on deciding what texts we study, whether we call them apocryphal, noncanonical, or parabiblical. That is an area in which I have experience, not from writing about the problem, but from having to make choices in several projects about what texts to include or not to include and provide justification for doing so. For the most part I have argued for a broad definition—the more texts the better—but have recently become concerned that this approach may be too unwieldy, that our space outside the canon has become too crowded, that perhaps we have wandered too far beyond the canon and lost our way.

The question of definition of terms has certainly come up for the Old Testament pseudepigrapha. It came up in the 2013 SBL review of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume 1, and I posted my comments on it here (scroll down to the update).

I stand by my comments there. It's good to keep in mind that words are not things. They can never perfectly represent reality. There will never be a perfect term for those amalgamations of texts that we clumsily call Old Testament pseudepigrapha or Christian apocrypha. It is more important that a definition be useful than it be precise. A vague definition can sometimes be more useful than an overly precise one.

It is interesting and informative to follow Tony wrestling with these challenges.

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Oldest known Latin text by a woman? Not exactly.

VINDOLANDA WATCH: 2,000-year-old RSVP: A birthday invitation from the Roman frontier that has the earliest known Latin written by a woman. This wafer-thin wooden tablet from a first-century Roman fort in the U.K. includes a heartfelt birthday party invitation (Kristina Killgrove, Live Science).

I have mentioned Lepidina's birthday party invitation previously. See here and links. You can find a link to the Latin text there as well. It dates to 100 CE, give or take a few years.

The invitation was excavated at Vindolanda, a Roman fort near Hadrian's wall whose excavation has produced a vast corpus of Latin documentary texts dating to the first and early second centuries CE. These are sometimes known as the Dead Sea Scrolls of Britain. I have visited Vindolanda twice and blogged about the site and its discoveries repeately. For all the posts, start here and follow the links.

Now what about the claim in the current article that "[t]his wooden tablet is the earliest known example of Latin writing by a woman." As phrased, it is arguably false. But we can rephrase it more precisely to (as far as I can ascertain) make it true: This wooden tablet is the earliest know autographic documentary text written in Latin by a woman.

In other words, this is the oldest Latin document composed by a woman (Claudia Severa) and written by her own hand.

But there are at least three texts attributed to women in the Classical Latin tradition which are older than Claudia's letter, but we have only copies of them, not the autographs (original manuscripts).

Excerpts survive of a letter reportedly written by Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, to her son Gaius c. 124 BCE. Some doubt that it is genuine. Her Wikipedia article, with translated excerpts, is here. Athina Mitropoulos also has an essay on her at the Antigone forum.

Six Latin poems are attributed to a Sulpicia, daughter of Servius, ("Sulpicia I"), who lived in the first century BCE. Again, there is some dispute about whether they are genuine. But you can read them in translation here.

The erotic satirist Sulpicia, wife of Calenus, ("the other Sulpicia"), flourished in the second half of the first century CE and was known to the Roman poet Martial. Only two lines of her poetry survive, apparently undisputedly genuine. She died by around the time Claudia sent Lepidina that party invitation.

That's all I've been able to find, and I have other things to do today. But it only took me an hour or so of online research this morning to come up with these three.

In sum, it's true that, because it's a documentary autograph, Claudia's note is the earliest undoubted Latin text written by a woman. But I think these earlier (or perhaps contemporary, in the case of Sulpicia II) works attributed to other women deserve mention too.

It's too bad that this story is circulating (the Jerusalem Post has picked it up too - HT Rogue Classicism.) without this easily found context.

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Second Temple-era mikveh excavated in Jerusalem

ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE: Experts find private mikveh from Second Temple period in Jerusalem dig. Israel Antiquities Authority archeologists say private ritual bath was a luxury few Jews could afford during the Early Roman period (Ynet News).

"The discovery of this small mikveh, seemingly for private use, provides further evidence that this area of the city housed affluent Jewish residents. A private mikveh was a luxury not everyone could afford," archaeologists Shlomo Greenberg, Riki Zlot Har-Tov and Peller Heber, who led the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in a statement on Thursday.

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Jobar Synagogue latest

AFTER ASSAD: Syria’s dwindling Jewish community can visit one of the world’s oldest synagogues again ( BASSEM MROUE, AP).

JOBAR, Syria (AP) — In this Damascus suburb, the handful of remaining Jews in Syria can again make pilgrimages to one of the world’s oldest synagogues where people from throughout the region once came to pray.

Syria’s 13-year civil war left the synagogue partially destroyed. Walls and roofs have collapsed. Some artifacts are missing. A marble sign in Arabic at the gate says it was first built 720 years before Christ.

[...]

The Jobar Synagoge was badly damaged in the civil war in 2013 and about two-thirds destroyed in 2014. But what's left of it can now be visited. For reports of missing artifacts, see here and links.

The synagogue is traditionally associated with the Prophet Elijah, but its actual founding date is unclear. The Talmud may mention a visit to it by R. Rafram bar Pappa (b. Berachot 50a), but the identification of the site mentioned is disputed. Discussion here. (Scroll down to the paragraphs on Jobar's origins.) The synagogue was certainly around in the Middle Ages.

For all the PaleoJudaica posts on the Jobar Synagogue, start here and follow the links. Let's hope it will see some better days now.

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Guide to ethnographic passages in Philo of Alexandria

ERHNIC RELATIONS AND MIGRATION IN THE ANCIENT WORLD: Guide to Philo of Alexandria.

This is a guide for reading ethnographic passages on this website from Philo of Alexandria (early first century CE): ...

The purpose of the Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World Blog, run by Philip Harland, Maia Kotrosits, and collaborators, "is to collect, organize, and make public resources for the reconstruction of ethnic relations and ethnographic culture in the ancient Mediterranean and near eastern worlds (fifth century BCE-sixth century CE)." I link to it occasionally, most recently here. I should do so more often. It's a great resource.

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Video: a basic introduction to ancient Carthage

PUNIC WATCH:

This is a pretty good basic introduction to ancient Carthage. It is the opener for a series on the Punic wars with Rome. HT Rogue Classicism.

Fun fact: Ms. Stevenson mentions that the goverment of ancient Carthage was run by officials called "suffetes." The Phoenician word suffete is cognate with the biblical Hebrew word "judges" (shofetim, שפטים). It would be a gross oversimplification to say that Carthage (and Tyre) were run by the same goverment system as Israel was in the Book of Judges, but they used the same title for their leaders.

Now and then I like to link to this post, which explains why PaleoJudaica posts so frequently on Phoenician and Punic (Carthaginian) language and society. The detail above is just one example of their intriguing linguistic and cultural cognates with ancient Israel.

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AJR's 2024 top ten

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: 2024 AJR Year in Review.

Ancient Jew Review is thankful for our community of contributors and readers invested in learning about Jews and their neighbors in the ancient world. For the year of 2024, these are our ten most-read pieces published this year: ...

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Satlow on what really happened on Hanukkah

MICHAEL L. SATLOW: What Really Happened on Hanukkah?

Some years ago I created a podcast, “From Israelite to Jew,” in which I devoted one of the episodes to a (not necessarily the only, or even best) historical reconstruction of the events leading to the Maccabean Revolt (ca. 164 BCE – 162 BCE). I am re-upping that episode here. I hope you enjoy it.

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Minimal metal pollution at the Timna mines?

ARCHAEOLOGY: Ancient copper smelting at ‘King Solomon’s mines’ was less toxic than today’s industry. Soil samples from Timna show that previous studies have exaggerated the environmental impact of the mining industry in antiquity, Tel Aviv University research team finds (Gavriel Fiske, Times of Israel).

Much like mines in the modern age, scholars have long assumed that ancient mining and metallurgy were highly toxic and dangerous, claiming the industry had a long-term, detrimental effect on the environment and nearby communities. But new research based out of what some consider King Solomon’s fabled copper mines is upending that hypothesis.

A new study of soil samples from two Timna-area mines in southern Israel, authored by Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef of Tel Aviv University and his team, has shown that metal pollution as a result of the ancient copper industry was minimal. Most of “the population in the past, and today, most probably did not suffer at all from any kind of health consequences” resulting from the mines, Ben-Yosef told The Times of Israel by phone.

[...]

For much more on the Timna Valley excavation, especially its important organic remains, start here and follow the links.

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Happy 2025

HAPPY NEW YEAR from PaleoJudaica!

Best wishes and prayers for goodness and peace this year. And do continue to make PaleoJudaica a regular part of your year.

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