De Vos, The Pseudo-Clementine Tradition (CUP)

NEW BOOK FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The Pseudo-Clementine Tradition

The Hermeneutics of Late-Ancient Sophistic Christianity

Series: Elements in Early Christian Literature
Author: Benjamin M. J. De Vos, Ghent University
Published: October 2025
Availability: Available
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9781009506700

£55.00 GBP
Hardback

£18.00 GBP
Paperback

$23.00 USD
eBook

Description

This Element, through detailed example, scrutinizes the exact nature of Christian storytelling in the case of the Greek Pseudo-Clementines, or Klementia, and examines what exactly is involved in the correct interpretation of this Christian prose fiction as a redefined pepaideumenos. In the act of such reconsideration of paideia, Greek cultural capital, and the accompanying reflections on prose literature and fiction, it becomes clear that the Klementinist exploits certain cases of intertextual and meta-literary reflections on the Greek novelistic fiction, such as Chariton's Chaereas and Callirhoe and Achilles Tatius' Leucippe and Cleitophon, in order to evoke these reconsiderations of storytelling, interpretive hermeneutics, and one's role as a culturally Greek reader pepaideumenos. This Element argues that the Klementia bears witness to a rich, dynamic, and Sophistic context in which reflections on paideia, dynamics regarding Greek identity, and literary production were neatly intertwined with reflections on reading and interpreting truth and fiction.

Product details

Published: October 2025
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9781009506700
Length: 102 pages
Dimensions: 229 × 152 × 8 mm
Weight: 0.287kg
Availability: Available

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On Aramaic in 2025

ARAMAIC WATCH: Aramaic – A Living Semitic Memory (Alexander A. Winogradsky Frenkel, Times of Israel Blogs). Also published in AINA.

At the heart of this patrimony lies Aramaic, the language of the Targum, the Talmud, and of Jesus. Aramaic is not an exotic relic. It is heard in the Kaddish in every Jewish community worldwide; it shapes Passover hymns, the Zohar, and the daily liturgy of Jews from Iraq and Syria. In Israel today, Aramaic is not perceived as foreign but as a part of Hebrew’s own breathing space. This proximity has encouraged a quiet but significant revival of interest: Bar-Ilan University, Hebrew University, Haifa, and Ben-Gurion University now study Jewish and Christian Neo-Aramaic dialects together. Researchers map the speech patterns of former communities from the Hakkari mountains, the Nineveh plain, and northern Iran, rediscovering a shared Semitic past in which Jewish and Syriac Christian bilingualism was common and natural.

A wide-ranging essay on the status of living Aramaic in Christian and Jewish communities worldwide on the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. Well worth a read.

Likewise, the Syriac Press has a long article on the current efforts of the Syriac Church (Catholic and Orthodox) to preserve and digitize Syriac manuscripts, including mention of the Department of Syriac Studies based in the Syriac Orthodox St. Aphrem Clerical School, currently in Damascus:

Syriac Manuscripts: Delving into a Rich Human Legacy.

In preserving, photographing, and digitizing these manuscripts, the Syriac Church is safeguarding its religious and spiritual legacy alongside a vast cultural, linguistic, and scientific heritage. Each manuscript offers a window into the intellectual life of past centuries, reflecting the dedication of scribes, scholars, and Church leaders who meticulously recorded knowledge for future generations. Through modern technology, these treasures are no longer confined to the walls of monasteries or patriarchal libraries — they can now be accessed, studied, and appreciated worldwide, ensuring that the wisdom, artistry, and history they contain continue to inspire and inform. In this way, the Church’s commitment to its manuscripts bridges the past and the present, transforming fragile pages into enduring sources of learning and cultural memory for generations to come.

Again, informative and well worth a read.

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More excavations in the Kingdom of Ugarit

ARCHAEOLOGY AND, HOPEFULLY, NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY: Unearthing the Birthplace of the Alphabet: Archaeologists Return After 14 Years of Silence (oguz kayra, Archeonews). HT the Bible Places Blog.

After more than a decade of silence, the ancient civilization of Ugarit, once one of the most influential trade hubs of the Late Bronze Age, is coming back into focus. Archaeologists have resumed excavations near Latakia, northwestern Syria, revealing long-buried layers of a city that shaped the cultural and linguistic history of the ancient world.

[...]

Good, find more texts!

Ugarit is, of course, not the birthplace of the alphabet. Current evidence puts that in the Sinai some centuries earlier than the Ugaritic Kingdom, although a case is currently being argued for alphabetic inscriptions in northern Syria in the mid-third millennium BCE.

A few PaleoJudaica posts on Ugarit and the Ugaritic language are here, here, and here. But it comes up often.

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

Missing-women mysteries in NT manuscripts?

TEXTUAL CRITICISM: Two news items have just come up about textual variants in New Testament manuscripts that may remove one woman from a story and give us the lost name of another woman.

Manuscript Mystery. Mary, Martha, and Mary Magdalene in the Gospel of John (Bible History Daily)

In her article entitled “The Mystery of Mary and Martha” in the Winter 2024 issue of BAR, Elizabeth Schrader Polczer points out that some early copies of John’s Gospel exhibit unusual treatments of the sisters of Lazarus, which together suggest that an early version circulated in which there was only one sister, Mary—sometimes thought to be Mary Magdalene—while Martha was added later.

The BAR article is behind the subscription wall, but this BHD essay has a good summary of it.

Researchers Restore Long-Lost Greek Woman to the Bible After 2,000 Years (Nisha Zahid, Greek Reporter). HT Rogue Classicism.

A Brigham Young University researcher says he has recovered the name of a woman whose identity vanished from the Bible for nearly two millennia. According to new findings, the woman addressed in 2 John, New Testament , was not an unnamed “elect lady,” as scholars long believed, but a Greek woman named Eclecte.

[...]

The book is Lincoln H. Blumell, Lady Eclecte: The Lost Woman of the New Testament (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2025). You can read a review of it here.

The Greek Reporter article is unclear about this, but the proposed reading of the name does appear in some NT manuscripts, so it is not just an emendation.

I would not bet the farm on either of these textual reconstructions, but they are worth noting.

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Thanksgiving and the Sifting Project

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT BLOG: THANKSGIVING — THEN AND NOW.

As Thanksgiving approaches, we’re reminded that the idea of giving personal thanks to God for the blessings, bounty, and miracles in our lives is deeply rooted in the biblical tradition. Leviticus 7:11–15 introduces the concept of the Korban Todah, the Thanksgiving Offering. This passage gives the basic framework: it is a type of peace offering accompanied by loaves of bread that must be eaten within a limited time.

The Sifting Project has to work pretty hard to find a connection between its discoveries and today's holiday, but the effort is appreciated. Read the post for details.

And happy American Thanksgiving to all those celebrating!

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A first-century Latin sortilege inscription from Cartagena

ROMAN-ERA LATIN EPIGRAPHY: A Roman Urn Found in Cartagena Reveals a Forgotten Governor and Rare Lot-Casting Rituals (Leman Altuntaş, Arkeonews). HT Archaeologica News, 24 November.

The recent discovery of a Roman inscription in Cartagena has illuminated an obscured chapter of Hispania Citerior’s history, revealing the name of an unknown Roman governor and offering rare, tangible evidence of lot-casting rituals in the late Republic.

[...]

While we're on the topic of Cartagena (see immediately preceding post), I may as well note this recent discovery there.

I have posted a couple of photos of the Roman Forum atrium area and lots of context here. And I see from my photo archive that the inscribed vessel was on display in the Museum when I was in Cartagena in late September. Here are photos of it and its description plaque.

For more on (somewhat later) ancient sortilege, see the posts collected here.

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Phoenician shipwreck exhibition in Cartagena

PHOENICIAN WATCH: Until May 24 San Javier Phoenician shipwreck exhibition at the ARQVA museum in Cartagena. Fenicios, Mercaderes del Mar show some of the items found on board the Bajo de la Campana wreck which was found off the coast of La Manga (Murcia Today).

I'm sad to have just missed this exhibition at the National Museum of Subaquatic Archaeology in Cartagena, Spain.

On my recent trip to Cartagena, I did visit the museum. A few of the artifacts recovered from the seventh century BCE San Javier Bajo de la Campana shipwreck were on display. I commented on some of them here. But there are many more in this new exhibition.

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

Review of new Levantine and Attic curse tablet editions

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Magica Levantina and Defixiones Atticae.

Robert W. Daniel, Alexander Hollmann, Magica Levantina (Mag. Lev.). Sonderreihe der Abhandlungen Papyrologica Coloniensia, 52. Leiden: Brill, 2025. Pp. xxvi, 372. ISBN 9783506797773.

Jaime Curbera, Inscriptiones Graecae II/III: Inscriptiones Atticae Euclidis anno posteriores. Part 8: Miscellanea. Fascicule 1: defixiones Atticae. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024. Pp. xiv, 462. ISBN 9783111335780.

Review by
Christopher Faraone, University of Chicago. cf12@uchicago.edu

Both volumes look like important contributions, but the first is of particular interest to PaleoJudaica:

The curses collected in Magica Levantina were also found primarily in wells, but date to somewhat later periods, when chariot racing became a cultural craze throughout the Empire and created a special and presumably lucrative focus on magical rituals designed to affect the outcome of races. As one would expect given their Levantine provenience, they often reflect the power of the Jewish god and his angels, refer to stories from the Hebrew Bible and a single example was even inscribed in Aramaic. Here we often get a close look at how the originally Greek practice of inscribing lead tablets with curses was adapted to local ideas and beliefs.

I noted the Project Magica Levantina several years ago.

I also noted the publication of that Aramaic racing curse amulet here. As that post notes, the late-antique magical tractate Sefer HaRazim includes what amounts to a magical blessing on a race horse. I discuss that passage a bit more here.

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A Luvian-Phoenician bilingual inscription

PHOENICIAN WATCH: 2,700-Year-Old Luwian Stele Reveals Ancient Name of İvriz Spring and New Details on King Warpalawa ( Leman Altuntaş, Arkeonews).

A newly published study has brought surprising clarity to one of Anatolia’s most iconic sacred landscapes. An untranslated Late Iron Age inscription discovered nearly four decades ago near the famous İvriz rock relief has finally been deciphered—revealing not only the ancient name of the İvriz spring but also unexpected details about the 8th-century BCE ruler who commissioned it: Warpalawa, King of Tuwana.

[...]

Progress in the decipherment of Luvian is exciting. But it is not particularly relevant to biblical studies. This Luvian lapidary inscription does have lots of new information, but what caught my eye is that it is bilingual. There's a Phoenician summary of the Luvian text.

Another remarkable detail: İVRİZ 2 carries two inscriptions. The Luwian hieroglyphs occupy the front, back, and right side, while a much-damaged Phoenician text appears on the left and lower sections. This bilingualism highlights İvriz as a cultural crossroads where Luwian, Aramaic-Phoenician, and Assyrian spheres intermingled.

The Phoenician sections appear to mirror or summarize the Luwian text—possibly for a linguistically diverse audience of merchants, travelers, or regional elites.

I was hoping that the damaged Phoenician text, which has already been deciphered and published, contributed to the decipherment of the Luvian inscription. But the underlying article here doesn't show much interest in it. Nevertheless, every scrap of ancient epigraphic Norwest Semitic is good to have.

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

Concerns about the Babylonian version of the Behistun inscription

BIBLIGRAPHIA IRANICA: The Unfinished Story of the Babylonian Version of the Bīsotūn (Behistun) Inscription (DB Bab.). Notice of a new peer-review journal article:

Hackl, Johannes. 2025. The Unfinished Story of the Babylonian Version of the Bīsotūn (Behistun) Inscription (DB Bab.). Iraq. Published online 2025:1-20. doi:10.1017/irq.2025.10033

The article is open-access. It is highly technical, but if you are familiar with the Behistun inscription (which was the Rosetta Stone for deciphering Akkadian cuneiform) you can pick up the introductory and summary sections and the conclusion and get the gist.

For background on the Behistun (Bistun, Bīsotūn) inscription, see here. For more posts follow the links. As you can see, the Aramaic version has some relevance for the study of ancient Judaism.

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

Sarah and the Aqedah in the monotheistic traditions

PROF JASON KALMAN: Sarah’s Response to the Binding of Isaac in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (TheTorah.com).

Sarah is absent from the biblical account of Isaac’s binding, and there’s no indication that Abraham even discussed God’s command with her. Would she have been an active participant, a faithful supporter, or a grief-stricken mother? Later interpreters filled in her role according to their religious and cultural contexts.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the Aqedah (the binding of Isaac, Genesis 22), see here and links.

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

BAR, Winter 2025

LATEST ISSUE: Biblical Archaeology Review, Winter 2025.

Looks like everything in this issue is behind the subscription wall. But hopefully Bible History Daily will produces summaries of some of the articles.

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

A Catholic review of The Carpenter's Son

CINEMA MEETS NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA WATCH: ‘The Carpenter’s Son’ Reimagines the Boyhood of Christ — Badly. COMMENTARY: Marketed as a ‘horror movie,’ the film leans on fringe apocryphal tales but ends up revealing more about modern storytelling than ancient faith (Deacon Thomas L. McDonald, National Catholic Register).

Naturally, the faithful will wonder if a self-described “Jesus horror movie” — a movie in which a moping, teenaged Jesus fights a nonbinary Satan (pronouns: they/legion) while Cage’s Joseph struggles with his faith and pop star FKA Twigs pouts vapidly as the Blessed Mother — is heretical, blasphemous or any number of other appalling things, but it’s simply too mindless and incoherent to be genuinely offensive.

It’s a grimy, meandering and pointless exercise that can’t quite decide if it wants to be a genuine exploration of faith or an exploitative thriller, and thus winds up being nothing at all.

That's harsh, but not untypical of the reactions to the film.

This review gives a good overview of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and its limited influence on the movie. It's refreshing to find a reviewer who made the effort to read and read up on the book.

I was looking forward to a cinematic version of the Infancy Gospel, which, as the review observes, has no shortage of horror material. I'm disappointed to hear how thin the apocryphal veneer actually is.

Background here and links.

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AI is transcribing the whole Cairo Geniza

ALGORITHM WATCH: National Library initiative aims to make all Cairo Genizah texts searchable worldwide. A new initiative using the National Library of Israel’s digital Hebrew manuscript database will enable automatic transcription of the entire Cairo Genizah, making the world’s largest trove of medieval Jewish texts searchable and accessible worldwide (Yogev Israeli, Ynet News).

Dr. Tzafra Siew, the National Library’s project manager for digital humanities, said MiDRASH is transforming the study of medieval manuscripts. By combining machine learning with the library’s digitized collections, she said, tasks that once required years of painstaking work can be done quickly and at scale. Researchers will be able to identify individual scribes, track how texts traveled between regions and ask new kinds of questions about the past. In practical terms, she said, hidden links between documents will come to light and many manuscripts that have never been deciphered will gain new meaning.

I have posted on the Friedberg Genizah Project, which has been around for some time, here and links, here, here, and here. As you can see, it has associations with Princeton and Tel Aviv Universities.

There is also a crowdsourcing Cairo Geniza digitization project that is associated with the Princeton project and with with the University of Pennsylvania.

For background on the Cairo Geniza and more PaleoJudaica posts see here and links. And for many PaleoJudaica posts noting Cairo Geniza Fragments of the Month in the Cambridge University Library's Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, start here and follow the links.

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

Ancient quarry sites in Jerusalem

ARCHAEOLOGY: Map reveals dozens of ancient quarries hidden beneath modern Jerusalem. Researchers chart 39 quarry sites from 117 excavations, shedding light on how “Jerusalem stone” built the city (Jerusalem Post Staff).

Dating is often difficult, but about 80% of the reports offered at least approximate periods, indicating quarrying from Iron Age II through the Second Temple, Roman, and Byzantine eras into the Early Islamic period, with evidence for reuse and multi-period activity at some sites.

As the JP article notes, the underlying article is open access in the current issue of the peer-review journal Heritage.

The Lithic Journey of Jerusalem Stone: New Evidence of Ancient Quarries

by Adi Sela Wiener 1,2, Laura Medeghini and Gabriele Favero

1 Master’s Program in Urban Design, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, 1 Zmora Street, Jerusalem 9515701, Israel
2 Department of Earth Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale A. Moro, 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
3 Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, Piazzale A. Moro, 5, 00185 Rome, Italy
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Heritage 2025, 8(11), 490; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage8110490

Submission received: 4 September 2025 / Revised: 31 October 2025 / Accepted: 10 November 2025 / Published: 19 November 2025

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Preservation of Cultural Heritage: The Nexus of Diagnosis-Prevention-Sustainability)

Abstract

Jerusalem’s prominent building material of limestone and dolostone, which is commonly known as “Jerusalem stone”, characterizes the city’s architecture and built environment. The distinctive stone was quarried from the Jerusalem landscape, prepared as building stone, and transported to building sites, a process referred to in this paper as the “lithic journey”. While these ancient quarries have been identified in previous studies, new evidence identifies the characteristics and the spatial distribution of these quarries and the connections between them. This study examined over one hundred archeological reports resulting from mainly salvage excavations conducted in the last decade (2012–2024), which has enabled the creation of updated mapping. Data collected from the Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel (HA-ESI), are included in a database that classifies quarry types, building material provenance, and specific characteristics of the ancient quarries that supplied Jerusalem’s building stones. The resulting expanded dataset of this open-access, online resource broadens our understanding of the quarry landscape and the continuous use of stone in the city’s building culture, while also offering an understanding of Jerusalem’s urban development and the design of Jerusalem’s cityscape from antiquity to the present day, as well as contribute to the city’s heritage management.

I have noted reports on ancient quarries in the vicinity of Jerusalem here and many links, here, here and links, and here.

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

The prutah and the penny

NUMISMATICS: From Prutah to Penny: The Enduring Story of Copper’s Smallest Coins (Aaron Oppenheim and Yosef Baker, The Jewish Press).

Across more than two millennia, separated by oceans and empires, two small copper coins have told a remarkably similar story about money, value, and what society chooses to preserve even when economics says otherwise. The ancient Jewish prutah of Hasmonean Judaea and the modern American penny share far more than their diminutive size and copper heritage; they reflect timeless tensions between intrinsic value, symbolic meaning, and practical utility.

[...]

For more on the prutah and the half-prutah (the lepton or "widow's mite"), see here and links.

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Festscrift for SEERI (Gorgias)

NEW BOOK FROM GORGIAS PRESS:

Syriac, Coconut Trees and Elephants
A Festschrift to SEERI on its 40th Anniversary

Edited by Daniel L. McConaughy & Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet

Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC
Availability: In stock
SKU (ISBN): 978-1-4632-4977-9

Formats *
Hardback (In Print) ISBN 978-1-4632-4977-9
eBook PDF (In Print) ISBN 978-1-4632-4978-6 on Gorgias Mobile App (Glassboxx)

Publication Status: In Print
Series: Gorgias Eastern Christian Studies 73
Publication Date: Oct 8,2025
Interior Color: Black with Color Inserts
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Page Count: 252
Languages: English
ISBN: 978-1-4632-4977-9
Price: $114.95 (USD)
Your price: $91.96 (USD)

The Saint Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute (SEERI) was founded in 1985 as the fruit of the efforts of Rev. Dr. Jacob Thekeparampil. Since then, it became a major centre for teaching Syriac and conducting research on this topic, not only in India but in the whole world. Though founded in 1985, SEERI’s roots are deep within the soil of the ancient Syriac churches that trace their origins to St. Thomas. Among some of its more notable contributions, SEERI has organized and hosted ten World Syriac Conferences. The Harp, the periodical published by SEERI, has already forty volumes. SEERI also has published the monograph series, Moran Etho and Awṣār Ṣlawōto. SEERI is a recognized Research Centre associated with Mahatma Gandhi University and conducts MA and PhD programs. SEERI is the face of the ancient Syriac heritage of South India not only in India but the world. This volume is intended as a modest tribute to this extraordinary enterprise.

Congratulations to the Saint Ephrem Ecumenical Research Institute.

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