Israel Oriental Studies Annual 25 (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The IOS Annual Volume 25: "Memories Near and Far"

Series:
The IOS Annual, Volume: 25

Volume Editors: Yoram Cohen, Amir Gilan, Nathan Wasserman, Letizia Cerqueglini, Beata Sheyhatovitch, and Michal Marmorstein

Volume 25 of the Israel Oriental Studies Annual includes nine articles. The Ancient Near Eastern section consists of three articles. The first article is a study of the way that scholarly knowledge was memorized and internalized by the professional classes of First Millennium Mesopotamia (Gabbay). The second article discusses rhotacism in Luwian (Simon). The third article is an edition of an inscribed metal-bowl of King Iddin-Sin of Simurrum, followed by a commentary (Wasserman). The Semitic section includes six articles that touch upon languages attested, although not solely, in Africa. The issues discussed are shared etymologies between ancient Egyptian and Arabic (Borg and Sheyhatovitch), a new Digital Humanities project of Phoenician and Punic insciptions (Cerqueglini, Silber-Varod and Klein), the syntax of Hebrew spoken by the Algerian Jewish community of Wad-Souf (Gębski), the nomina agentis in Tigrinya (Gutgarts), the oral and written Beta Israel tradition (Rom-Shiloni).

Copyright Year: 2025

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-73178-3
Publication: 13 Jun 2025
EUR €117.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-73177-6
Publication: 19 Jun 2025
EUR €117.00

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Hidde & Ilan, Massekhet Shevuʿot (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Tanja Hidde, Tal Ilan

Massekhet Shevuʿot

Volume IV/6. Text, Translation, and Commentary

[Massekhet Shevu' ot . Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar.]
2025. XI, 306 pages.
DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-164525-9

€129.00
including VAT

eBook PDF
available
978-3-16-164525-9

Also Available As:
cloth €129.00

Summary

Tanja Hidde and Tal Ilan offer a feminist commentary on the Massekhet Shevuʿot of the Mishnah and the Babylonian Talmud by focusing on women and gender in the texts. The tractate deals with oaths, mostly in a legal, court context. In presenting and interpreting the texts in Mishnah Shevuʿot , Tanja Hidde is concerned first and foremost with the discussion of women's participation in court cases that require oath-swearing, as well as women's exclusion from serving as witnesses.
Focusing on the Babylonian Talmud, Tal Ilan shows that, in their commentary on Mishnah Shevuʿot , the Babylonian rabbis continually use chapter 5 of the Book of Numbers, because it includes a wife suspected of adultery, who swears an oath. Tal Ilan illustrates that the Babylonian rabbis use the wife's oath-swearing as a basis for commenting on other actions of both men and women.

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Kim, Redescribing Moral Agency in Sirach, 4QInstruction, and the Hodayot (T&T Clark)

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

Redescribing Moral Agency in Sirach, 4QInstruction, and the Hodayot

A Triadic Comparison

World Kim (Author)

Hardback
$120.00 $108.00

Ebook (PDF)
$108.00 $86.40

Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
$108.00 $86.40

Product details

Published May 15 2025
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 192
ISBN 9780567719591
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series The Library of Second Temple Studies
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

Description

This book presents the first comprehensive comparison of how moral agency is constructed in Sirach, 4QInstruction, and the Hodayot. World Kim argues that recent scholastic studies have overemphasized differences amongst various Second Temple texts and neglected the similarities between them. By employing four stages of comparison-description, juxtaposition, re-description, and rectification- Kim re-describes moral agency in Sirach, 4QInstruction, and the Hodayot, and aims to rectify the relationship between these texts.

Kim demonstrates that moral agency cannot be described by categories such as affirmation or denial, and argues that such agency should instead be described in terms of degrees and shaped by various factors such as knowledge and desire, that will either decrease or increase moral agency. Through an extensive comparison of these texts, Kim concludes that the degree to which one internalizes and actualizes the teachings of their religious text increases one's capacity for moral agency, and that this agency must be conceived as dynamic rather than static.

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Sofer, Solomonic Magic (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Solomonic Magic

Methodology, Texts, and Histories

Series:
Magical and Religious Literature of Late Antiquity, Volume: 11

Author: Gal Sofer

Solomonic magic has captivated imaginations for centuries, yet its definition remains elusive. Is it a specialized branch linked to King Solomon, or a broader classification of practices attributed to him? This book explores the mysterious world of demon subjugation, examining previously unknown texts in multiple languages (Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and more) to reveal the historical evolution of this magical tradition. Divided into three parts, the book presents analyses of key manuscripts and examines the historical influence of Hebrew texts on later traditions. Featuring many unpublished manuscripts, this book challenges previous scholarly assumptions and offers a new perspective on the textual network that shaped medieval and early modern magical works.

Copyright Year: 2025

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-73078-6
Publication: 19 May 2025
EUR €126.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-54677-6
Publication: 12 Jun 2025
EUR €126.00

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Tenured post in ancient Jewish Studies at Harvard NELC

H-JUDAIC: FEATURED JOB: Tenured Professor in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University.

Position Description: The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University seeks to appoint a tenured professor in Jewish Studies, with a specialization in Jewish history, religion, and culture in antiquity and/or late antiquity. The successful candidate must have demonstrated expertise in Rabbinic and other Jewish literatures of the ancient world; facility with the relevant languages; deep knowledge of the surrounding civilization(s) in which Jews were embedded, i.e., some combination of Hellenistic, Roman, Eastern or Western Christian, and/or Zoroastrian; command of relevant disciplines in the Humanities including historical method. The appointment is expected to begin on July 1, 2027. The professor will teach and advise at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

[...]

Follow the link for further particulars and application instructions. The closing date is 1 September 2025.

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Is Israel's wilderness camp based on mobile Persian camps?

DR. JAEYOUNG JEON: Israel’s Wilderness Camp Modeled on the Persian Military Formation (TheTorah.com).

The Israelite camp’s layout provides a double layer of protection for the Tabernacle and ensures an orderly march through the wilderness. But where does this organizational model come from? New evidence points not to Egypt—but to Persia.

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Prof. Neil Danzig (1950-2025)

SAD NEWS FROM H-JUDAIC: Passing of Prof. Neil Danzig (1950-2025).

H-Judaic is greatly saddened to learn of the untimely passing of Prof. Neil Danzig (1950-2025), emeritus professor of Rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary and a leading scholar of Geniza literature.

[...]

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A Mishnah/Sifra palimpsest from the Cairo Geniza

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH (APRIL 2025): A Hidden Layer of Sifra beneath the Mishnah: A Hebrew Palimpsest in the Cairo Genizah, T-S E2.51 (Elyashiv Cherlow).

Cambridge University Library T-S E2.51 preserves an early Eastern version of the Mishnah, Tractate Pesaḥim. The upper part of the same parchment leaf, housed at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, Heb. C. 27/27, contains the conclusion of Tractate ʿEruvin. Both pieces have been catalogued and occasionally cited for textual variants.1 Yet one striking feature has gone unnoticed: this leaf is a Hebrew palimpsest.

On the verso of the Cambridge fragment, the Mishnah was copied over an erased text. Beneath it – still partially visible – is a passage from the tannaitic midrash Sifra. Hebrew palimpsests are rare to begin with, and even rarer when both upper and lower texts are rabbinic compositions.2

[...]

For many PaleoJudaica posts noting Cairo Geniza Fragments of the Month in the Cambridge University Library's Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, start here (plus here and here) and follow the links.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on palimpsests (manuscripts with erased, overwritten text), see here and links.

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

Review of Litwa, Early Christianity in Alexandria

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Early Christianity in Alexandria: from its beginnings to the late second century.

M. David Litwa, Early Christianity in Alexandria: from its beginnings to the late second century. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Pp. 350. ISBN 9781009449557.

Review by
Joseph Verheyden, University of Leuven. jos.verheyden@kuleuven.be

... In his most recent book, Litwa takes the reader on an exploratory journey to early Christian Alexandria on the perhaps a bit too optimistic hypothesis that more can be said about the origins and earliest history of Alexandrian Christianity than has often been thought. ...

The book seems also to deal quite a bit with Alexandrian Judaism.

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Stone, Armenian Apocrypha: The Short Questionnaire from Adam to Moses (SBL)

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:

Armenian Apocrypha: The Short Questionnaire from Adam to Moses

Michael E. Stone

ISBN 9781628376173
Volume EJL 58
Status Available
Publication Date May 2025

Paperback $60.00
Hardback $80.00
eBook $60.00

Short Questionnaire, an Armenian question-and-answer text that survives in a seventeenth-century manuscript, draws on Armenian parabiblical traditions to systematically explore biblical events from creation to the exodus. The volume includes Michael E. Stone’s translation, extensive commentary, and twenty-seven essays that trace the history of parabiblical concepts and events from the Second Temple and early Christian periods down to the second millennium. Including stories of Satan’s fall from the garden, the raven’s role in Abel’s murder, the burial places of Adam and Eve, and Noah’s fourth son, the book forms a dictionary of Armenian parabiblical traditions for scholars and students interested in reception history in early Judaism and Christianity.

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