Passover 2025

HAPPY PASSOVER (PESACH) to all those celebrating! The festival begins this evening at sundown.

Last year's Passover post is here, with links. Subsequent Passover-related posts are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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

Grossberg, The Evolution of Jewish Monotheism (CUP)

NEW BOOK FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The Evolution of Jewish Monotheism
‘God is One,’ From Antiquity to Modernity

AUTHOR: David Michael Grossberg, Cornell University, New York
DATE PUBLISHED: February 2025
AVAILABILITY: Available
FORMAT: Hardback
ISBN: 9781009569194

£ 90.00
Hardback

Other available formats:
Adobe eBook Reader

Description

In this book, David Michael Grossberg offers a fresh and illuminating perspective on the three-thousand-year history of Jewish monotheism by narrating the history of 'God is one' as a religious slogan from the ancient to the modern world. Although 'God is one' has been called Judaism's primary testimony of faith, its meaning has been obscure and contentious from its earliest emergence. From the Bible's acclamatory 'the Lord is one' to Philo of Alexandria's highest Word just secondary to God; from the Talmud's rejection of 'two powers in heaven' to the philosophers' First Existent who is one beyond unity; from the Kabbalists' ten-fold Godhead to Spinoza's one substance, this innovative history demonstrates the remarkable diversity encompassed by this deceptively simple Jewish statement of faith. Grossberg demonstrates how this diversity is unified in a continuous striving for knowledge of God that has been at the heart of Judaism from its earliest beginnings.

• Presents a compelling narrative of the emergence of the expression 'God is one' in Greek in the classical and Hellenistic periods.
• Critically reexamines the scholarly controversy on “monotheism” as a pre-modern category by concentrating instead on the expression 'God is one' itself in historical usage
• Offers to scholars an innovative history of monotheism and to the non-specialist an accessible narrative of Judaism's three thousand year theological development

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Tony Burke's Regensburg Year: March

THE APOCRYPHICITY BLOG: My Regensburg Year Part 8: March 2025.

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

This post includes concerts in Munich and Glasgow, Pilate's apocryphal uneasy resting place in (according to local legend) Lucerne, and Tony's lecture at the University of Glasgow on paratextual features in the Greek manuscripts of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

For earlier posts in the series and more on Tony's work, see here and links.

Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch.

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On BAR covers

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Cover Story. How BAR covers grab readers by the eyeballs (Robert Sugar).

As BAR’s Design Director for almost its entire history, I have been involved with the design of nearly every cover of every issue of the magazine—not to mention its sister publications, Bible Review and Archaeology Odyssey. Altogether, that makes more than 500 covers!

From the beginning, we wanted to create covers that dramatically presented the amazing artistic, architectural, and cultural accomplishments of the peoples described in the Bible, with impressive images and provocative commentary. It is hard to pick favorites, but here I have selected a dozen, arranged chronologically—in my opinion the best examples of the types of covers that have made BAR so successful for so many years.

[...]

For more on Biblical Archaeology Review's fiftieth anniversary, see here.

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Guide to ethnographic passages by Flavius Josephus

ETHNIC RELATIONS AND MIGRATION IN THE ANCIENT WORLD: Guide to Josephos of Jerusalem (Philip A. Harland).

This is a guide for reading ethnographic passages in Josephos (Flavius Josephus) on this website roughly sequentially:

For more on the Ethnic Relations and Migrations blog, see here and here and links.

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

Classical vs. Late Biblical Hebrew from a statistical perspective

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS: Classical versus Late Biblical Hebrew: Two Statistical Case Studies (Dr. Moshe Rachmuth, Prof. Stephen Portnoy, Prof. Jacob L. Wright).

Is “kingdom” in Biblical Hebrew, מַמְלָכָה mamlakha or מַלְכוּת malkhut? How does the Bible express that something is prohibited? Many linguistic scholars posit that it depends on the dialect, CBH or LBH. Does statistical analysis support this conclusion?

Building on the work of scholars such as the late Avi Hurvitz.

Some PaleoJudaica posts on the vexed question of linguistic dating of biblical Hebrew are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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

Latest on on those 3rd-millennium alphabetic (?) inscriptions

UPDATE: What was the first alphabet in the world? New discoveries challenge old ideas about the earliest alphabets (Tom Metcalfe, Live Science).

With so many ancient texts around the world, you might wonder which alphabet was the first to be developed. In other words, what is the oldest confirmed alphabet in the world?

Experts told Live Science it was probably the proto-Sinaitic script, which was invented about 4,000 years ago by Canaanite workers at an Egyptian turquoise mine in the Sinai region. The proto-Sinaitic script developed into the Phoenician alphabet, which, in turn, inspired the early Hebrew, Greek and Roman alphabets.

However, a November 2024 discovery by researchers at Johns Hopkins University suggested that an alphabetic script was being used hundreds of years earlier, in what is now northern Syria. Their evidence is four clay cylinders, each about as long as a finger, from a Bronze Age tomb at Umm el-Marra, near Aleppo.

[...]

PaleoJudaica has already posted on this story here, here, and here. This article notes responses from additional specialists. The mood still seems to be cautious.

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

Gupta on the Septuagint

SUBSTACK SERIES: Studying Early Judaism: the Septuagint. A Guide to Resources for New Testament Studies (Nijay K. Gupta, Studying Early Judaism Substack).

I have noted other posts in the series here and links.

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

On the Amarna letters

THETORAH.COM has a collection of eight essays by Dr. Alice Mandell on the Amarna letters.

Part 1: Akhetaten, Egypt’s Ancient Capital: Records of Ancient Diplomacy

A cache of over 380 cuneiform tablets, written in Akkadian, the ancient international language, sheds light on the political realities of the Levant in late 14th century, more than 100 years before the appearance of Israel.

Part 2: Suppiluliuma I of Hatti: Pharaoh’s “Brother” and Rival

Located in eastern Turkey, the kingdom of the Hittites competed with Egypt for control of Amurru and Mittani in modern-day Lebanon and Syria.

Part 3: Kadashman-Enlil I of Babylon Feels Disrespected by Amunhotep III

The Kassite king of Babylonia accuses the pharaoh of insulting his sister, whom he had taken as a wife, and of sending him diluted gold.

Part 4: Pharaoh and His Vassals in Canaan

Canaanite kings, such as Abimilki of Tyre, write to Pharaoh to ask for help and complain about rivals. Notable is Aziru, king of Amurru, who abandons his loyalty to Egypt in favor of the Hittites.

Part 5: The ‘Apiru and Labʾayu Ruler of Shechem

Abdi–Ḫeba of Jerusalem, among other Canaanite rules, appeal to Pharaoh for help against the ‘Apiru, who are destroying towns. Some local rulers are even accused of being in league with the ‘Apiru, the most colorful and notorious of which was Labʾayu of Shechem.

Part 6: Scribes: The Diplomats of the Amarna-Age

The Amarna letters are presented in the voice of various kings, but they are actually literary creations crafted by professional scribes who employ wordplay, parallelism, and other rhetorical techniques to make their patrons' messages as persuasive as possible.

Part 7: The Scribal Team of Rib-Hadda of Byblos

As king of an important port city, Rib-Hadda employed at least ten scribes, who were trained in a certain rhetorical style, some of whom travelled with him north to Ṣumer and south to Beirut.

Part 8: King Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem Commissions a Syrian Scribe

In the earliest texts from Jerusalem, dating to the 14th century B.C.E., the royal scribe peppers his Akkadian letters with Canaanite forms and expressions to defend Abdi-Heba against accusations of disloyal to the pharaoh.

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

More Coptic magical papyri

THE COPTIC MAGICAL PAPYRI BLOG: Kyprianos Update (31 March 2025).

We’re pleased to announce that we have just updated the Kyprianos Database of Ancient Ritual Texts and Objects, the first of many to come in the framework of the new Coptic Magical Formularies project.

The new magical texts include Christian Apocrypha-like material on the Four Magi (yes, four), the birth of Jesus, and the Virign Mary.

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

Hebrew Bible vs. Old Testament

TERMINOLOGY: Hebrew Bible vs. Old Testament: More than an editorial choice. Whether on scrolls or in codices, these texts continue to speak across traditions, inviting readers to engage with them in all their richness (Daniel Esparza, Aleteia).

A brief overview of the different implications of the two terms.

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

The life of an (aspiring) lost-language decipherer

AMBITIOUS HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS: The lonely life of a glyph-breaker. The heroic days of deciphering hieroglyphics and cuneiform make for great stories, but will we ever see that happen again? (Francesco Perono Cacciafoco, Aeon).

Rather than trying to amass oceans of scientific papers listing self-evident results and futile findings, instead of inserting AI and unnecessary technologies into the most human of activities, like teaching, universities and research institutions should value and support their people (something that, nowadays, happens more and more rarely) and be especially inclusive of the ones among them who are able to think outside the box, to go the extra mile towards the achievement of what is believed to be unattainable or, simply, impossible – like the decipherment of undeciphered writing systems.

There’s no question that challenges remain. Linear A, the Phaistos Disc, the Indus Valley script, the Rongorongo writing system, the Singapore Stone and many other mysteries still await their codebreakers. Their decipherment seems unlikely – especially for scripts with very few surviving texts – but so too did the breakthroughs in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and Linear B.

I agree with all of the above, not least the reservations about AI matching human creativity in the foreseeable future.

This long article has a good discussion of the challenges of deciphering lost languages, a challenge that is more difficult today because most of the remaining lost-language remnants survive in such sparse samples. It also includes detailed accounts of Champollion's decipherment of Egyptian hierogyphics and Ventris's decipherment of Linear B.

The headline mentions the decipherment of cuneiform, but the article says little about it. For more, see here, here and (especially) here.

For a test-case of AI decipherment from some years ago, using Ugaritic, see here and here. For more comments on the use of AI for various aspects of ancient language decipherment and analysis, see here, here (especially), here, and here.

For the importance of the decipherment of the ancient Egyptian and cuneiform languages, see my post Why we need Akkadian (and the humanities!), again from some years ago, but still relevant. See also here.

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

Review of Regards croisés sur la pseudépigraphie dans l’Antiquité / Perspectives on pseudepigraphy in antiquity

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Regards croisés sur la pseudépigraphie dans l’Antiquité / Perspectives on pseudepigraphy in antiquity.

Anne-France Morand, Eric Crégheur, Karine Laporte, Gaëlle Rioual, Regards croisés sur la pseudépigraphie dans l’Antiquité / Perspectives on pseudepigraphy in antiquity. Judaïsme ancien et origines du christianisme, 30. Turnhout: Brepols, 2024. Pp. 304. ISBN 9782503602608.

Review by
Fabienne Jourdan, CNRS. jourdan.fabienne@cnrs.fr

... Fidèle à son objectif, l’ouvrage traite la pseudépigraphie selon ses différents aspects : littéraires, historiques, religieux et politiques; selon ses différents types de réceptions, anciens et modernes, gouvernés par différentes attentes; il redéfinit la notion selon la nature spécifique des textes qu’elle sert à qualifier. La bibliographie est très bien exploitée. Cet ouvrage constituera un maillon essentiel dans la poursuite des recherches sur le sujet.

The volume includes many articles on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

The volume and the review are in French. A Google English translation of the review is here.

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The dogs(?) that didn't snarl(?)

PASSOVER IS COMING: The dogs that didn’t bark at the Exodus. As the Israelites prepare to leave Egypt, the Torah makes a reference to dogs. But why? (Rabbi Dr Raphael Zarum, The Jewish Chronicle).

Dogs hardly appear in the Torah, but they do feature in the Pesach story. On the night set for leaving Egypt, God promised that “no dog shall snarl against the Israelites” (Exodus 11:7). It’s an odd thing to mention. Why worry about a few woofs?

An intriguing reading that involves the Egyptian god Anubis. With some midrashic support.

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The City of David, the Temple Mount, and the Givati Parking Lot

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: The Parking Lot That Determined the Future of Jerusalem’s Past. In the 1860s, a British explorer discovered the City of David. Fifteen years ago, the Palestinian Authority tried to stop those who wanted to follow in his footsteps (DORON SPIELMAN, Mosaic Magazine).

Charles Warren kindled an ongoing quest to uncover Jerusalem as it was during the times of the First and Second Temples. The patient, careful work undertaken since that time has vastly increased the scholarly understanding of the Hebrew Bible (as well as the Christian one) and of Jewish history, and still attracts some of the world’s leading archaeologist, as well as scientists who are constantly developing new methods of exploring these sites.

Of course, those who have been involved in the project that Warren began have brought with them various religious, ideological, and scholarly agendas. But a different kind of agenda has emerged over the past several decades: an attempt to stop further exploration and destroy the archaeological record, in order to throw into doubt the connection between the Jewish people and their ancestral homeland. In what follows, I will look at those who have in recent years continued what Warren began, and how their progress was almost thwarted.

Charles Warren and his shaft, Herod’s Water Channel, Hezekiah's Tunnel and its inscription, and the back story of the Givati Parking Lot excavation.

This long article is fascinating and informative. Well worth the read.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the Givati Parking Lot excavation, see here and links, plus here, here, and here.

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

Jodi Magness

PROFILE: The Archaeologist’s World: Jodi Magness and Her Ancient Discoveries (Laurie Paolicelli, The Chapel Hill Local Reporter).

It was just another day for Jodi Magness: breakfast with her husband, a walk around her Chapel Hill neighborhood, and then a call from Austria. A documentary producer wanted to meet her in Jerusalem to discuss the Shroud of Turin — a linen cloth bearing the image of a man some believe to be Jesus Christ. For the average person, this might require a quick internet search to recall what the Shroud even is. For Magness, it was simply one of many calls from experts worldwide seeking her expertise on Jesus and ancient Jerusalem.

As the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 2002, Magness has established herself as a preeminent authority on the historical landscapes of modern Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories from the time of Jesus through the tenth century.

[...]

A nice, brief biography of Professor Magness and overview of her work.

For more on her work, including the remarkable Huqoq excavation, see here and links, plus here and here.

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

Avi Hurvitz (1936-2025)

SAD NEWS FROM H-JUDAIC: Passing of Avi Hurwitz (1936-2025) (Elena Beletckaia).

H-Judaic is greatly saddened to learn of the passing of Avi Hurwitz (1936-2025), Professor Emeritus of Bible and Hebrew Language at the Hebrew University.

Born in Israel, Prof. Hurwitz specialized in the linguistic analysis of the Hebrew Bible. His effort to distinguish early and late biblical Hebrew was widely discussed.

[...]

May his memory be for a blessing.

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Masotti, But the Wise Shall Understand (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Felipe A. Masotti

But the Wise Shall Understand

Reuse of Prophecies, Chronotope, and Merging of Eschatological Horizons in Daniel 10-12

[»Aber die weise sind werden's verstehen.« Wiederverwendung von Prophezeiungen, Chronotopos und Verschmelzung von Eschatologiehorizonten in Daniel 10-12.]
2025. XXIV, 414 pages.
Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe (FAT II) 157

€109.00
including VAT

sewn paper
available
978-3-16-163402-4

Also Available As:
eBook PDF
€109.00

Summary

Felipe A. Masotti demonstrates how the closely related phenomena of literary reuse of prophecies and time-space representation are employed in Daniel 10-12 to describe the ultimate end. Adopting Bakhtin's chronotope concept, Masotti shows how prophetic texts from Numbers, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Habakkuk are strategically reused to build a narratological architecture emphasizing the eschatological expectancy of an impending divine intervention. This volume illustrates how Daniel 10-12 creates a tension between conservatism and innovation regarding older eschatological expectations. Consequently, it unveils how the chronotopical architecture of Daniel 10-12 grounds a theology of God's sovereignty over classical prophetic time, and how the merging of eschatological horizons between its apocalyptic discourse and the reused prophecies is intentionally achieved through textual saturation.

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