Yom Kippur 2026

YOM KIPPUR, the Day of Atonement, began last night at sundown. An easy and healthy fast to all those observing it.

Last year's post on Yom Kippur is here, with links (plus here). Biblical etc. background is here and links.

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

Excavations at Leontopolis

EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY: Rare ancient tombs uncovered at Egypt’s ‘Mound of the Jews.’ Archaeologists uncover rock-cut tombs and Roman military remains at Tell el-Yahudiya, an ancient Egyptian site with a remarkable connection to Jewish history (Israel National News).

The newly uncovered tombs themselves have not been identified as Jewish and date from centuries before the well-documented Jewish presence associated with the area.

The location of the discovery, however, gives it particular significance for Jewish history. Tell el-Yahudiya literally means "Mound of the Jews," and archaeological research has documented a substantial Jewish community in the area during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

Historian Dorothy Thompson, writing in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, noted that the cemeteries at Tell el-Yahudiya produced a large collection of Greek epitaphs, more than half of which contain names regarded by scholars as distinctly Jewish.

The site has also long been associated with the "Land of Onias" and the Jewish Temple of Onias in Egypt.

The site is perhaps better known as Leontopolis. For more on it and its connection to the Jewish temple of Onias, see here and links.

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

Complaints about West Bank police action

ALLEGATIONS: Police Officer Tied to Illegal West Bank Antiquities Thefts Also Visited Area B Cave. Meir Rotter, head of the police's ultra-Orthodox unit, entered a cave in a Palestinian Authority-administered area with soldiers, lacking authorization, months after he was accused of unlawfully seizing an ancient artifact elsewhere in the West Bank (Nir Hasson, Haaretz).

Duly noted. There's a lot going on in this story and I don't pretend to understand it all. Some background is here.

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

Venturini, A Syriac Patristic Florilegium against Julian of Halicarnassus (Brill, open access)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

A Syriac Patristic Florilegium against Julian of Halicarnassus

Critical Edition, Translation, and Study

Series:
Eastern Christian Texts, Volume: 3

Author: Guido Venturini

How is a florilegium constructed, and why does this peculiar type of literary work deserve to be studied? The huge anti-Julianist florilegium preserved in the Catenae Patrum of the British Library represents an exceptional repository of patristic testimonies transmitted in Syriac, some of which are lost in the Greek original and remained unpublished until now. After a methodological introduction, the volume presents the critical edition, English translation, and comment of an intriguing dogmatic florilegium, conceived by an enigmatic intellectual active at the end of the sixth century to refute Julian of Halicarnassus’ doctrine on the incorruptibility of Christ’s body before the resurrection. The critical edition aims to open new methodological horizons in the field of Syriac philology, as it integrates the stemmatic method with the historical study of the textual tradition, according to Giorgio Pasquali’s fundamental teaching. For the first time, the most important piece of the anti-Julianist literature after the death of Severus of Antioch this work is translated into a modern language, giving new insights into the theological controversies that took place within the Miaphysite Church during the Byzantine period.

Copyright Year: 2026

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-76173-5
Publication: 29 Jul 2026
Open Access

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-76172-8
Publication: 27 Aug 2026
EUR €180.00

Cross-file under Syriac Watch.

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Eisenberg, CLASSIC MIDRASH (Urim)

NEW BOOK FROM URIM PUBICATIONS (KTAV):

CLASSIC MIDRASH: An Anthology of Talmudic Insights into the Bible

Price: $39.95 $36.00

by Ronald L. Eisenberg
Hardcover, 558 Pages
KTAV Publishing, 2024
ISBN: 978-1-60280-504-0

As an ancient document, the Bible reflects its time of origin and the early history of Israel. However, the social and political situation had dramatically changed by the time of the Rabbis in the first centuries. Midrash afforded an opportunity for the Rabbis to reread the biblical text, rendering it meaningful to their contemporaries.

A vast genre of rabbinic literature, Midrash fills in the gaps of the terse biblical narrative by providing the thoughts and feelings of the characters and the motivations behind their actions. Classic Midrash is a distillation of this extensive collection of works into an accessible, single-volume narrative with numerous citations offering the interested reader the opportunity to delve into specific stories in more detail.

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Grape-stomping archaeology

VINTAGE RESURRECTION: How did ancient Israelites make wine? Scientists are stomping grapes to find out. Researchers use reconstructed Hasmonean winepress, four tons of Merlot and modern sensors in attempt to recreate how residents of Holy Land prepared their libations (Zev Stub, Times of Israel).

Standing at an ancient wine press on a West Bank hilltop last week, a team of researchers and volunteers removed their shoes in the name of science. Then they washed their feet and began stomping on several tons of red grapes on the reconstructed treading floor.

The goal: to uncover the ancient process of winemaking in the land of Israel.

“This is a once‑in‑2,200‑years event,” scientist and winemaker Shivi Drori told The Times of Israel in a phone call after the initial wine pressing. “We are recreating the ancient wine industry of Israel.”

[...]

In the name of science!

Professor Drori's project has been around for a while. I noted it more than a decade ago here and here. For additional efforts at vintage resurrection, see here and links.

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

Massive mikveh moved intact from Kiryat Gat

ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE RELOCATED: Discovery of Mikveh Reveals Unknown Ancient Jewish Settlement in Southern Israel (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

There you are, all set to build a new neighborhood in southern Israel, but a 2,000-year-old ritual bath gets in the way. You don't want to damage a precious artifact, but you do want to expand the gritty city of Kiryat Gat. What to do?

Dig the mivkeh up and move it intact was the solution at the Israel Antiquities Authority, not because mikvehs from the Second Temple period are rare. But this one and other sundry finds are the first indication that there was once a Jewish settlement in what is now Kiryat Gat's Carmei Gat neighborhood, the antiquities authority said Thursday.

[...]

To make the story even better, they're putting it back once the new neighborhood is built.

For the ancient mikveh likewise relocated from Kibbutz Hanaton (Hannaton) in 2020, see here and links.

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Did the Phoenicians teach the Spaniards to drink wine?

PHOENICIAN WATCH: PHOENICIANS BROUGHT FIRST CULTIVATED GRAPEVINES TO IBERIA (Archaeology Magazine News).

For more on Phoenician archaeology in Iberia, see here.

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Voo, ... Composite Allusions in the Gospel of John and Other Jewish Literature (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Samuel L. Voo

Themes, Lexemes, and »Mnemes«

Composite Allusions in the Gospel of John and Other Jewish Literature

2026. 336 pages.
Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe (WUNT II) 643

€99.00
including VAT

sewn paper
available
978-3-16-163517-5

Also Available As:
eBook PDF

Summary

Samuel L. Voo examines composite allusions to the Jewish scriptures in the Gospel of John and compares these to similar phenomena in late Second Temple Jewish literature. Composite allusions are defined in this study as allusions clustered together in a single literary unit that are best interpreted together. To analyze such allusions, the author develops a three-fold method integrating literary analysis, Jewish catchword exegesis, and insights from studies in ancient media culture. He examines six passages from Jewish literature (from the Hodayot, the Damascus Document, and the LXX), and four passages in the Fourth Gospel (12:37¬-40; 1:29; 7:37-39; 15:1-11). The author argues that the composite features across all of these passages function on the basis of common lexemes, common themes, and orally-derived metonymy.

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Fragments of lost late-antique Roman law code found in Penn Museum

MUSEUM EXCAVATION: 1,600-Year-Old Scraps Turn Out to Be a Lost Roman Law Book. Learn how seven pieces of 1,600-year-old parchment revealed what may be a Roman pocket law book about taxes, roads, grain, and public buildings (Anastasia Scott, Discover Magazine).

Matthijs Wibier’s love of Latin first drew him to Classics. Years later, that fascination brought him to 50 tattered scraps of animal skin at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, where faded Latin sentences stopped at torn edges.

[...]

Substantial fragments of a lost late-antique Latin law code languished in the Penn Museum for over a century until Prof. Wibier noticed them. Just a reminder of how many ancient texts still lie buried, not just in the field, but also in museum collections.

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

Is Moses' name really Egyptian?

PROF. THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Moses’ Name Is Semitic, Not Egyptian (TheTorah.com).

Pharaoh’s daughter names the baby מֹשֶׁה, “for I drew him out of the water”—a Hebrew wordplay from an Egyptian princess?! Since the 19th century Egyptologist, Karl Lepsius, scholars have dismissed this biblical explanation as folk etymology, and instead posited that the name derives from Egyptian mśy, “to give birth,” as in Ramesses or Ahmose. But neither the consonants nor the vowels line up, and no ancient author ever made the connection. Rather, Moses’ name derives from the Semitic מ.שׁ.י, “to draw or glean.”

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

Did Herodotus think that Linear B was Phoenician?

PHOENICIAN WATCH: Greek Alphabet’s Phoenician Origins Questioned After 2,500 Years (Dimitrios Aristopoulos, Greek Reporter).

The Phoenician alphabet myth has long dominated discussions of Greek writing. Herodotus’ prestige and clarity made his account persuasive, but evidence from other traditions, linguistic analysis, and modern archaeology challenges his claim. The phrase “phoinikeia grammata” did not originally mean “Phoenician letters” after all; it referred instead to an older practice—Linear B writing on palm leaves.

Herodotus reinterpreted the phrase and linked it to the Phoenicians. His version prevailed, transforming Cadmus into a foreign bringer of letters. Yet the deeper truth is more complex: the Greeks had their own pre-alphabetic writing, and they preserved faint memories of it in myths, scholia, and surviving phrases.

This headline sounds completely daft. The article doesn't help much. You have to look at the underlying technical article to see what is actually being argued.

There are two separate issues. First, the origin of the Greek alphabet. It was developed from the Phoenician alphabet—the Northwest Semitic alphabet used by naval traders from Lebanon, whatever you call it and them. This is obvious. No one disputes it. The Greek Reporter article doesn't quite come out and deny this, but it doesn't ever say it clearly either.

Second, Herodotus, in his account of the Cadmus myth, say that in pre-Trojan War times the "Phoenicians" brought a writing system in "Phoenician letters" which the Greeks used. The article argues that this is a reference to the syllabic (not alphabetic) Linear B script, which was indeed used early on to write Greek. Arguably, Linear B was written mostly on palm leaves, which is one meaning of this Greek word phoinix. Herodotus misunderstood earlier references to Linear B as phoinikeia grammata, "palm-leaf letters," to mean the Northwest Semitic alphabet from which the Greek alphabet derives. Thanks to him that alphabet was erroneously called "Phoenician."

I don't know if this argument is correct, but it looks credible. There's nothing daft about it.

The full article in The Journal of Hellenic Studies (2022), 142, 219–254 (doi:10.1017/S0075426922000131) is available online.

Deconstructing the Phoenician myth:‘Cadmus and the palm-leaf tablets’ revisited

Willemijn Waal

Leiden University, The Netherlands Institute for the Near East
E-mail: w.waal@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Abstract

According to Herodotus, the expression phoinikeia grammata means ‘Phoenician letters’ and refers to the Phoenician origins of the Greek alphabet. This account has found general acceptance, but it is not the only interpretation possible and other theories circulated in antiquity. The adjective φοῖνιξdoes not only mean‘Phoenician’; it can also refer to a palm tree or the colour red. This article argues that the expression phoinikeia grammata did not originally refer to the alphabet, but to Linear B writing on palm leaves, as already suggested by Frederick Ahl. It is shown that the account of Herodotus is the result of a‘learned reinterpretation’, triggered by the ambiguity of the word φοῖνιξ. The new under- standing of phoinikeia grammata proposeds here has some important consequences: it implies that Linear B, as has long been suspected, was primarily written on palm leaves (hence‘palm-leaf writ- ing’) and that in classical antiquity there was at least a limited historical awareness of the existence of pre-alphabetic writing systems in the Aegean. This paper adduces additional evidence to substan- tiate these claims. Lastly, a case will be made that Herodotus’ incorrect reinterpretation has led to the‘Phoenicianization’ of Cadmus, who was originally a Greek hero.

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Sheridan, Sogdian Christians (Brepols)

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Sogdian Christians.

Notice of a New Book: Sheridan, Daniel . 2026. Sogdian Christians. Networks, Books, Homilies, and Medicine. Turnhout: Brepols.

PaleoJudaica has considerable interest in the Sogdian Manicheans, who preserved much of our surviving material from and on the Book of Giants. More on them, it, and the ancient Sogdian language is here and links. The promised volume, MOTP2, came out not long after that post.

This book on Sogdian Christians looks like a valuable contribution to the field of Sogdian studies.

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

How did Prof. Christopher A. Rollston change his mind?

SYMPOSIUM: I CHANGED MY MIND: Farm Boy to Biblical Scholar (Prof. Christopher A. Rollston, TheTorah.com).

This pilgrimage of mine is certainly not unique to me. But it does reveal something about the way in which the texts of the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament themselves, knowledge about their transmission through the centuries (i.e., the copying), and knowledge about the world from which these texts hailed, have all combined to refine and nuance my understanding of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. The pilgrimage continues, and I am grateful for that.

For more on the series, see here. A recent topically related post is here.

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

Scripta Classica Israelica again

THE AWOL BLOG: Open Access Journal: Scripta Classica Israelica.

It's been a while since I noted this journal, so this is a good chance to mention it again.

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

At the National Library of Israel

LIBRARY TOUR: What Can Texts Do? A Morning at the National Library of Israel (Keira Kahn, Yeshiva University Commentator).

The oldest items in the collection are in the first display case. They are clay incantation bowls made by the Jews of Babylonia between roughly the fifth and eighth centuries, and they look like ordinary cereal bowls, except that the inside of each one is covered in Aramaic script that spirals from the center outward. They are amulets. People commissioned them by name, had them inscribed with blessings and incantations, and then buried them upside down beneath the threshold of the house so that demons could not get in. Nobody was ever supposed to read them; we only have them because they were buried intentionally and then unearthed. The plaque above the case ends by asking the question the entire exhibit is built around: what can texts actually do?

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

How did ancient Israelites actually live?

DOMESTIC ARCHAEOLOGY: How People Actually Lived in Ancient Israel According to Archaeology. Excavated four-room houses, ancient grains, and domestic tools reveal the daily struggles, diets, and routines of everyday life in ancient Israel (Eljoh Hartzer, The Collector).

While paging through the Bible, one can find it hard to truly see the daily life of ancient Israelites. What did they eat? Where did they live? What kind of clothes did they wear? In recent years, however, Levantine domestic archaeology has given us a few rare glimpses into what that life was like, with magnificent findings like the famous four-room houses, Judean pillar figurines, and even insights into the probable diet that sustained the people who lived in that reality.

This article does give a realistic view of the lives of people in antiquity, including the endemic parasite infestations. On that, related posts here and here and links. Life in antiquity was not very pleasant, even for the elites, let alone for regular people.

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

"Cursed! The Power of Magic in the Ancient World" coming to ISAW (NYU)

EXHIBITION: ISAW presents: Cursed! The Power of Magic in the Ancient World. Exhibition explores the central role of magic in ancient societies; opens September 17 (NYU News).

The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University presents Cursed! The Power of Magic in the Ancient World (September 17 to December 13, 2026), an exhibition that examines the central role of magic in ancient societies. From its integration into religious traditions in Mesopotamia and Egypt, to its marginal, often illicit status in Greece and Rome, Cursed! explores the visualization and practice of magic in these communities between the years 2000 BCE and 300 CE.

[...]

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

Longacre's Psalms book is forthcoming

THE OTTC BLOG: Psalms Monograph Submitted (Drew Longacre).

That's good news!

For more on Dr. Longacre's work on the text of the Hebrew Psalter, see here and links. And for updates on the related lawsuit, see the Critical Edition of the Hebrew Psalter Blog here.

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

Gadot, A Historical Archaeology of Jerusalem: Bronze and Iron Ages (SBL)

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:

A Historical Archaeology of Jerusalem: Bronze and Iron Ages

Yuval Gadot

ISBN 9781628377910
Volume ABS 35
Status Available
Price $62.00
Publication Date March 2026

Paperback $62.00
Hardback $82.00
eBook $62.00

In the first book to examine Jerusalem’s archaeological remains in detail since Kathleen M. Kenyon’s Digging Up Jerusalem (1974), Yuval Gadot reexamines the results of more than one hundred years of excavations and incorporates findings from recent research based on the most up-to-date scientific methods. The book covers six pivotal periods of Jerusalem’s development and correlates those with historical texts, including those from the Hebrew Bible, for the purpose of portraying a nuanced and detailed reconstruction of Jerusalem during the Bronze and Iron Ages. More than one hundred color illustrations and maps supplement Gadot’s analysis of the archaeological data and reconstruction of Jerusalem’s history. This volume presents the most complete picture of Jerusalem’s history for scholars and students interested in the city’s role as a royal seat and a religious center.

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

Congress Volume Zurich 2022 (Brill)

NEW(ISH) BOOK FROM BRILL:

Congress Volume Zurich 2022

Proceedings of the 24th Congress of the IOSOT

Series:
Vetus Testamentum, Supplements, Volume: 201

Volume Editors: Samuel Arnet, Konrad Schmid, and Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer

This volume presents the main lectures of the 24th Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT) held in Zurich, Switzerland, in August 2022. It is written by nineteen established international scholars, whose combined research reflects the broad spectrum of contemporary biblical scholarship. The volume includes articles ranging from the study of the ancient Near East, the archaeology of ancient Israel and Judah, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, via thematic investigations and ideological readings of key texts, to studies exploring the formation, ideology, and reception of biblical books.

Copyright Year: 2025

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-74047-1
Publication: 20 Oct 2025
EUR €159.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-74046-4
Publication: 06 Nov 2025
EUR €159.00

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Rosh HaShanah 2026

HAPPY NEW YEAR (ROSH HASHANAH - Jewish New Year 5787) to all those celebrating. The New Year begins tonight at sundown.

Last year's Rosh HaShanah post is here. For biblical background, see here.

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

Rosh HaShanah and the Akedah

FOR ROSH HASHANAH: The Ram Caught in the Thicket by Its Horns—Rosh Hashanah’s Shofar (Prof.Rivka Ulmer, The Torah.com).

At the climax of the binding of Isaac, Abraham sees אַיִל אַחַר “a ram behind” (MT)... or does he see אַיִל אֶחָד “one ram” (SP, LXX, etc.)? Both readings are developed in midrash: aḥar into Israel’s future redemption through the shofar, eḥad into the primordial ram created for the Akedah—two paths that converge in the shofar of Rosh Hashanah.

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How did Prof. Rabbi Phil Lieberman change his mind?

SYMPOSIUM: I CHANGED MY MIND: De-anthropomorphizing God: Did It Really Begin with Onkelos? (Prof. Rabbi Phil Lieberman, TheTorah.com).

Onkelos’ choice, then, to dissolve the metaphor “fat of the land” in favor of “goodness of the land,” then, may be evidence of a broader, deliberate program eschewing metaphor more generally. That might imply that when Targum Onkelos dissolves metaphors, even about God, it has something more than deanthropomorphizing in its program: the translator appears to prefer semantic clarity to figurative language. In other words, this is part of a literary project rather than a theological one.

For more on this series, see here.

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

Interview with Schmidt on, Josephus and Jesus

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Josephus and Jesus. Evaluating the earliest non-Christian source about Jesus.

In this interview, BAR Editor-in-Chief Glenn Corbett speaks with Schmidt about his new book Josephus & Jesus: New Evidence for the One Called Christ. After examining how ancient translators rendered Josephus’s words, how early Christian writers understood them, and who may have supplied Josephus with information about Jesus—including people present at Jesus’s trial—Schmidt offers a fresh perspective on what the earliest non-Christian historian knew about Jesus.

PaleoJudaica posts on Schmidt's book are here (with my own assessment of the Josephus and Jesus problem), here, and here.

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

On the Herculaneum scrolls

HERCULANEUM WATCH: Eighteenth-century scholars destroyed hundreds of Herculaneum scrolls trying to prise them open, because the eruption that buried the library had carbonised the papyrus shut — and in June a crowdsourced team that started as amateur contestants read an entire one, still rolled, without touching the inside. A machine-learning competition finally cracked a puzzle that had stumped scholars for 250 years: how to read ancient scrolls without destroying them (By Lab Report · Edited by Nato Lagidze, Science Blog).

This long blog post gives an overview of the history of efforts to read the Herculaeum scrolls and the current state of the question.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE and its destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and on the efforts to reconstruct and decipher the carbonized library at Herculaneum, start here and follow the links. For speculation on what else we may find in the library, see here. Cross-file under Technology Watch.

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

How did Prof. Peter Enns change his mind?

SYMPOSIUM: HOW I CHANGED MY MIND: Christianity’s Origins: They Are Jewish! (Prof. Peter Enns, TheTorah.com).

To realize that Paul was actually Jewish now seems too obvious to mention, but at the time it changed everything. I walked out of class stunned with the realization that I didn’t really get Paul at all—not because I hadn’t tried, but because I hadn’t known his world.

I began asking different questions. Rather than, “How does Paul get this from the Old Testament?” I asked, “What kind of interpretive world made Paul’s reading possible?” I stopped assuming I understood what Paul and the other New Testament writers were about and started asking how and why they actually read Scripture the way they did.

For more on the series, see here.

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

Did the conqueror worm consume the Library of Alexandria?

LOST LIBRARY: What Really Destroyed the Library of Alexandria? History loves a villain, but the culprit was likely something much more mundane (Candida Moss, National Geographic).

We can’t excavate the Library of Alexandria; If it is not under water, then the other place on the peninsula where it was said to be located is currently occupied by the Egyptian military. But we do know that insects, mice, and mold were major issues for Egyptian book collectors that could only be counteracted by recopying texts. And we also know that the third century C.E. was a period of military crisis and financial upheaval that disrupted funding streams in the Roman Empire. Given the instability and currency devaluation of this period, [papyrologist Roger] Bagnall said, along with the rapid turnover of Roman prefects, budget cuts, staff losses, and ample opportunities for theft, “it’s not difficult to imagine the whole enterprise just falling apart.”

This article reviews other explanations for the loss of the Library of Alexandria and then proposes a very plausible one I have not heard before. Before the printing press, every piece of literature was within, at most, a few generations of oblivion, if no one found it interesting enough to copy.

PaleoJudaica posts on the Library of Alexandria and what may have happened to it are collected here (cf. here).

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

Matheny on ḥesed in the Hebrew Bible.

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Ḥesed in the Hebrew Bible

Ḥesed is a central theological term in the Hebrew Bible that is fundamentally relational, resistant to reduction to a single-word equivalent, and semantically multivalent. While earlier scholarship often treated this ambiguity as a lexical problem, recent studies have increasingly recognized it as a source of interpretive and theological richness. By examining its use across a variety of contexts, from covenant relationships to descriptions of God’s character and name, the semantic breadth of ḥesed contributes to its enduring theological significance throughout the Hebrew Bible.

See also Ḥesed, the Seed of the Biblical Story: New Life for Old Testament Theology (Baker Academic, 2026).

By Jennifer M. Matheny
Associate Professor of Christian Scriptures (Old Testament)
George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University
August 2026

I guess I come from the era when translating the word as "covenant loyalty" seemed to work most of the time. But this essay nuances the meaning of the term well beyond that.

That said, I think a discussion of the meaning of ḥesed (hesed) should come to terms directly with some of the more awkward verses in Psalm 137 (English versions). "Lovingkindness" or "steadfast love," which sound like someone being nice, doesn't work very well there. "Covenant loyalty," where niceness is optional, does.

Cross-file under New Book.

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Ziemba& Poulsen (eds.), Judeans in the Land of the Nile (Zaphon)

NEW BOOK FROM ZAPHON PRESS:

Judeans in the Land of the Nile.
Papers on Achaemenid Egypt, Elephantine, and the Hebrew Bible
Presented in Copenhagen, August 19–20, 2024
Edited by Kacper Ziemba and Frederik Poulsen
Ägypten und Altes Testament 136

75.00 €

2026
VI + 181 pp.
DIN A-4 / hardcover, thread stitching
ISBN 978-3-96327-350-6 (book)
ISBN 978-3-96327-351-3 (e-book, via ProQuest, Ebsco, ISD)

HT Todd Bolen at the Bible Places Blog.

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Extracanonical Traditions and the Holy Land (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Extracanonical Traditions and the Holy Land

Texts, Rituals, and Material Culture in Late Antique Palestine

Edited by Harald Buchinger, Laura S. Lieber, Andreas Merkt, and Tobias Nicklas, in collaboration with Andrea Ackermann and Charlotte von Schelling

2026. 331 pages.
Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum / Studies and Texts in Antiquity and Christianity (STAC) 145
DOI 10.1628/978-3-16-163557-1

€109.00
including VAT

sewn paper
available
978-3-16-163556-4

Also Available As:
eBook PDF

Summary

The Holy Land is more than a sanctified geographical space that roughly corresponds to the Roman province that has been known as Palaestina since the end of the Bar Kochba War. Instead, it is primarily an idea and imaginative space created by a complex interaction of texts, rituals, and material culture. The authors of this volume's contributions highlight the major role that extracanonical traditions - often misleadingly called apocryphal - which were written and read, celebrated and performed, and embodied in places, buildings, and material culture, have played in the construction of the Holy Land.

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Did scribes correct the biblical text?

DR. JUHA PAKKALA: Scribes Edited the Bible to Omit Problematic Texts (TheTorah.com).

Did Hannah stand before YHWH in the Temple? Were Israelite males to see YHWH’s face three times a year? Did Moses and the elders see God on Mount Sinai? Were there temples to YHWH at Hebron and Samaria? The evidence shows that ancient scribes edited biblical texts to omit what they viewed as theological errors.

I have noted other examples of this sort of editing by scribes (and translators) here, here, here and links, and here and links.

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

Jonah - the inner-biblical anti-prophet?

PROF. JONATHAN RABINOWITZ: Jonah the Anti-Prophet (TheTorah.com).

The book of Jonah is infused with allusions to earlier biblical characters: its prophet flees like Cain, wills the city overturned–unlike Abraham, collapses like Elijah, passes through a Noah-like storm, and quotes Moses’ words of compassion as a complaint. Taken together, the book invites readers to measure Jonah against Israel’s remembered heroes of intercession, judgment, and repentance.

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

How did Prof. David M. Carr change his mind?

SYMPOSIUM: I CHANGED MY MIND: The Limits of Memory and Scrolls: How the Torah Was Composed (Prof. David M. Carr, TheTorah.com).

I have changed my mind so often over the last decades, on so many topics, but if pressed to focus on just one instance, I would emphasize how I have come to see the formation of the Bible as part of a more complex process. ...

Instead, I began to believe that a significant amount of the oldest transmission of literary texts actually happened not by visual or aural copying—the usual focus of text-criticism—but through scribes accessing older texts through their memory of those texts. These scribes were trained by using written texts in the past or perhaps periodically, but not actively as the basis for composition. This meant that some of the indicators upon which I and others depended for source-criticism were not as reliable as we had thought.

That's a thought-provoking idea.

For more on the series, see here.

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Tenney, Administrative Reality and Scribal Apparatus in the Middle Babylonian Period ... (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Administrative Reality and Scribal Apparatus in the Middle Babylonian Period, with Accompanying Texts

Series:
Harvard Semitic Monographs, Volume: 67

Author: Jonathan S. Tenney

This book provides editions of 325 Akkadian texts, reconstructs aspects of the political recording process, and presents evidence of legal, epistolary, and administrative intertextuality at Kassite Nippur. Combining ideas from scholars in Assyriology and Political Science, it states that scribes working for political and institutional entities in Mesopotamia used abstractions of society, geography, processes, and even time, to establish bureaucratic order over a chaotic world. If such abstractions were employed in a bureaucratic environment that practiced post factum documentation, then administrative writing presents a reductionist "administrative reality" that affects the epistemological underpinnings of Assyriological investigations into Mesopotamian history and society.

Copyright Year: 2026

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-46911-2
Publication: 29 Jul 2026
EUR €325.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-46910-5
Publication: 27 Aug 2026
EUR €325.00

HT Drew Longacre at the OTTC Blog. He suggests that the book "might be of interest for early Israelite/Judahite scribalism." I hope he will say more about this.

For PaleoJudaica posts on (later) Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid scribes and scribal culture, see here, here, here, and here,

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Raithel, "Auge um Auge…" ("An Eye for an Eye..." (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

»Auge um Auge…«

Eine Rezeptionsgeschichte der biblischen Talionsformel im Antiken Judentum

Series:
Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, Volume: 124

Author: Jan Raithel

Kaum ein biblisches Zitat ist so bekannt – und zugleich so missverstanden – wie »Auge um Auge, Zahn um Zahn…«. Vor allem aufgrund der Auslegungsgeschichte ihrer Rezeption im Matthäusevangelium wurde die Talionsformel zur Chiffre für Vergeltung. Diese Studie zeigt jedoch, dass die Formel weder in der Hebräischen Bibel noch im antik-jüdischen Diskurs auf diese Weise eingesetzt wurde. In den Schriften vom Toten Meer, bei Philo von Alexandrien, Flavius Josephus und in tannaitischer Literatur erscheint sie vielmehr in rechtlichen Debatten über angemessene Sanktionen und Verfahrensnormen. Das matthäische Zitat fällt allein durch die sonst nicht belegte paränetische Auslegung der talio aus dem Rahmen.

Few biblical quotations are as familiar – and as misunderstood – as “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…”. Owing largely to the history of interpretation of its reception in the Gospel of Matthew, the talionic formula became a shorthand for retribution. This study demonstrates, however, that neither the Hebrew Bible nor Ancient Jewish discourse employed the formula as a code for retribution. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo of Alexandria, Flavius Josephus, and Tannaitic literature, it functions within legal debates on appropriate sanctions and procedural norms. Matthew’s use is distinctive only in genre, offering a parenetic interpretation of the talio.

Copyright Year: 2026

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-74763-0
Publication: 23 Jun 2026
EUR €159.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-74761-6
Publication: 16 Jul 2026
EUR €159.00

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Stefanut, The Therapeutae as the Best Paradigm for the Contemplative Life (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Romulus D. Stefanut

The Therapeutae as the Best Paradigm for the Contemplative Life

A Contextual Reading of Philo of Alexandria's De Vita Contemplativa

2026. 235 pages.
Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe (WUNT II) 659

€79.00
including VAT

sewn paper
available
978-3-16-157048-3

Also Available As: eBook PDF

Summary

In this study, Romulus D. Stefanut offers a contextual reading of Philo's De vita contemplativa, exploring its background, genre, composition, and function beyond the so-called »apologetic and historical works« of Philo. Often, scholars have lost the hermeneutical focus of the treatise itself and have concentrated their attention solely on the historical existence of the Mareotic community described in the treatise, advancing arguments related to its historicity or lack thereof. The author therefore suggests that the purpose of De vita contemplativa is meant to offer the best Jewish Alexandrine expression of a way of life, well-known from ancient Greek philosophy as the theoretical or contemplative life. It is composed in relation rather than opposition to the lost first half of the treatise, dedicated to the practical life of the Essenes. Simultaneously, there might be a friendly polemic between Philo's description of the Therapeutae versus the Essenes.

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Does the "Pilate" ring mention Pilate after all?

PESKY PONTIUS PILATE RING PHILOLOGY: What’s in an ‘O’? New UCLA research may unlock mystery of ring tied to Pontius Pilate. Drawing clues from the ring’s inscription, UCLA professor Catherine Bonesho rebuts previous scholarship about the 2,000-year-old relic (Sean Brenner, UCLA Newsroom).

Key takeaways

• One letter changes the story. UCLA professor Catherine Bonesho, in studying an ancient ring thought to be tied to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who figures prominently in the story of Jesus, has proposed a new theory about the ring’s inscription.
• Who was the owner? Bonesho’s research suggests the ring was likely worn by a lower-status Judean worker carrying out administrative business connected to Pilate.
• A window into ancient Judea. The findings offers new clues about who actually performed the everyday work of Roman rule in Judea.

I don't know if she's right, but her interpretation is plausible.

The underlying technical PEQ article is open access. But the press release also covers her argument in informative detail.

The Pilate Ring: A Reconsideration

Catherine E. Bonesho
Published online: 30 Jul 2026
Cite this article https://doi.org/10.1080/00310328.2026.2695544

ABSTRACT

A copper alloy ring from Herodium was published by Amorai-Stark et al. (Citation2018), who read the ring’s inscription of ‘ΠΙΛΑΤΟ’ as a possible reference to Pontius Pilate. The ring’s low quality, imagery and the spelling of the inscription have raised many questions: does ‘ΠΙΛΑΤΟ’ actually refer to Pilate himself (Eck and Ecker Citation2023), who wore the ring (Graves Citation2019) and where was it made. Building on evidence of language learning in the Roman provinces, I argue that ‘ΠΙΛΑΤΟ’ with its omicron spelling is best understood as the Latin dative form ‘PILATO’ transliterated into Greek, meaning ‘for / belonging to Pilate’. Informed by the roles of local elites and enslaved workers in Roman Judea, this study posits that local elite(s) commissioned the ring for an enslaved worker to use at Herodium for various tasks related to Pilate’s administration. This reconstruction plausibly accounts for the ring’s features and has the potential to illuminate the quotidian administration of Roman Judea.

PaleoJudica posts on the "Pilate" Ring are here, here, here, and here. We last saw it argued in 2023 that its inscription should be read as bearing two names, not one, but without any confidence about which two names.

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Hopkins &. Fassberg (eds.), A Handbook of Neo-Aramaic (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

A Handbook of Neo-Aramaic

Series: Brill's Handbooks in Linguistics, Volume: 6

Editors: Simon Hopkins and Steven E. Fassberg

The Handbook of Neo-Aramaic aims to provide an introduction to, and details of the complex world of Neo-Aramaic. This large family of endangered Neo-Semitic languages is (or until recently was spoken by Jewish, Christian and Mandaean minorities in parts of the Middle East. Most members of these communities now live in various diasporas.
Following a series of general chapters dealing with historical background, classification, salient linguistic features, Neo-Semitic context, contact languages (Kurdish, etc.), manuscripts and printed texts, Neo-Aramaic in the media etc., the book presents grammatical sketches of 15 different Neo-Aramaic dialects (some never described before), followed by a series of maps, illustrations, and a bibliography.
The book hopes to provide material of interest both to the beginner and the more advanced specialist.

Contributors are: Werner Arnold, Roberta Borghero, Michael L. Chyet, Eleanor Coghill, Alinda Damsma, Steven E. Fassberg, Samuel Ethan Fox, Charles G. Häberl, Simon Hopkins, Otto Jastrow, Olga Kapeliuk, Geoffrey Khan, Nineb Lamassu, Alexey Lyavdansky, Alessandro Mengozzi, Matthew Morgenstern, Hezy Mutzafi, Yona Sabar, Shabo Talay, Aziz Tezel, and Michael Waltisberg.

Copyright Year: 2026

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-72512-6
Publication: 20 Jul 2026
EUR €269.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-72511-9
Publication: 06 Aug 2026
EUR €269.00

HT Drew Longacre at the OTTC Blog.

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Review of Redfield, Plato's Seventh Letter

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Plato’s Seventh Letter.

James M. Redfield, Plato's Seventh Letter. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2026. Pp. 128. ISBN 9781647922566.

Review by
Colin C. Smith, Creighton University. colinsmith2@creighton.edu

... The Seventh Letter is the longest and most significant of the 13 letters attributed to Plato in Thrasyllus’ canon. In it, an author writing in Plato’s voice tells the tale of his (?) ill-fated trips to Syracuse in Sicily during the rulerships of Dionysius the Elder and Younger in cooperation with the politician Dion, indirectly leading to Dion’s execution. Spanning just under 30 Stephanus pages, the dense narrative touches on key themes like Plato’s biography, connections between philosophy and political rule, the problem of faction, some complexities of moral psychology, the nature of the virtuous life, and technical ways in which a philosophical education grants non-propositional insight into truth that seem crucial for understanding the esoteric aspects of Platonic philosophy. ...

Not PaleoJudaica's usual fare, but of background interest for the recently recovered biography of Plato at Herculaneum, which I noted here (cf. here, here, and here).

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How did Prof. Emanuel Tov change his mind?

SYMPOSIUM: I CHANGED MY MIND: Revised Editions: What Right Do I Have to Try and Convince You Again? (Prof. Emanuel Tov, TheTorah.com).

On a more emotional level, I was also apprehensive about having misled a generation of readers with views that I expressed authoritatively but no longer subscribe to. With every publication of a revised edition of my work, I sensed a feeling of satisfaction. But this was mixed with some feelings of guilt that I had provided readers of previous editions with incorrect or incomplete data, or tried to convince them of perspectives that I had now abandoned.

For more on the series, see here.

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Journal of Greco-Roman Judaism and Christianity (JGRChJ).

THE AWOL BLOG: Open Access Journal: Journal of Greco-Roman Judaism and Christianity (JGRChJ).

I'm glad to see that JGRChJ is still active. Mentioned previously here and here.

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

Kanarek on Beyond Brutality

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Reclaiming Female Presence in Bavli Sotah (Jane Kanarek).

It may seem paradoxical to talk about noticing female presence in a tractate titled after a category of woman: the sotah, a woman accused of having sex with a man other than her husband. Yet this theoretical assumption of women's presence, combined with my decision to study the entire tractate rather than only the sections concerning the sotah ritual, proved surprisingly productive. It enabled me to notice and theorize female presence and absence; to see how the sotah and the sotah ritual help conceptualize Bavli Sotah as a literary whole; and to acknowledge the brutality and care that pervade the tractate.

I noted the publication of Beyond Brutality here.

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The Yeshua Scroll in the Green Jar??

MODERN CHRISTIAN APOCRYPHA WATCH: A new modern apocryphon – Scott Wolter and the “Yeshua Scroll in the Green Jar” (Roger Pearse).

Sounds fake to me. People never get tired of finding new biblical apocrypha. Of course Roger and I can be corrected any time if an actual ancient Yeshua Scroll in the Green Jar is produced and authenticated by specialist experts in the ancient languages etc.

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

How did Prof. Tammi J. Schneider change her mind?

SYMPOSIUM: I CHANGED MY MIND: Does the Bible Have Meaning Out of Context? (Prof. Tammi J. Schneider, TheTorah.com).

A colleague of mine, a scholar of English literature who excavated with me for a decade, started applying the phrase “an object out of context has no meaning” to words, texts, and historical moments. For a long time I agreed, but in recent years I have changed my mind, and now prefer a modified form of the dictum: “an object out of context has a different meaning.” This modification may be subtle, but it is actually quite substantial.

For more on the series, see here.

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Using Viscous Remnant Magnetization to detect forged ceramics

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Earth's Magnetic Field Can Help Archaeologists Sniff Out Forged Antiquities (Ariel David, Haaretz).

This Viscous Remnant Magnetization, or VRM, is a bit of a nuisance in most paleomagnetic experiments. Researchers treat it as noise and remove it by heating their sample in order to focus on the main magnetic signature, such as the TRM, Vaknin says. The VRM has been known since the late 19th century and researchers have already tried over the last decades to use it to date geological events, but because the signal is so weak the results are not particularly precise. Still, it is enough to help determine if an artifact is authentic.

"The resolution we require is not very high; we just want to know if an object is ancient or modern," Vaknin says.

So the technology is a blunt instrument. But sometimes you need a hammer, not tweezers.

The UC San Diego press release: Researchers develop method to tell authentic artifacts from fakes. Magnetic method reveals distinct time stamp of clay baking process.

Oddly, the DOI of the underlying article, given in both the press release and the Haaretz article, leads to a dead end. And I can find no sign of the article on the PNAS website. I hope it turns up again.

Meanwhile, this seems like a good time to link to this old post again.

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How did Dr. Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson change his mind?

SYMPOSIUM: I CHANGED MY MIND: When I Stopped Seeing the Bible Only as Good, It Got Better (Dr. Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, TheTorah.com).

At around the middle of rabbinical school, as I dove deeper into Tanakh and rabbinic law, and I had access both to modern academia and to traditional parshanut, I kept finding passages impossible to domesticate. At this point, my original strategy started to fail me and I could no longer ignore those passages, as their flaws and their human cost across the ages became clear to me.

For more on this series, see here.

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Virtus et Humanitas (Waxmann)

THE AWOL BLOG: Virtus et Humanitas: Bridging Virtues and Values of Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian Paideia.

Notice of a New Book published by Waxman Publishers:

Gabriella Gelardini, Kåre S. Fuglseth, Per Jarle Bekken (Hrsg.)

Virtus et Humanitas: Bridging Virtues and Values of Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian Paideia

2026, Religious Diversity and Education in Europe, Band 48, 958 Seiten, broschiert, 99,00 €, ISBN 978-3-8188-0089-5

.doi: https://doi.org/10.31244/9783818850890

Some of the chapters are open access.

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A.-J. Levine elected president of the Catholic Biblical Association

APPOINTMENT: Jewish woman elected president of Catholic Biblical Association of America - interview. She is also the first Jewish scholar to teach the New Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in 2019 (Mathilda Heller, Jerusalem Post).

Prof. Amy-Jill Levine, who was elected at the 88th annual meeting and will serve as CBA president for the 2026-2027 year, told The Jerusalem Post that she is “honored by the election, gratified that the work that [she has done for the association has been recognized, and grateful to the members of the association for their welcome and their trust.”

Congratulations to Professor Levine and to the CBA.

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Hendel on cultural memory

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

On Cultural Memory

Cultural memory offers an approach to the Hebrew Bible that examines how representations of the past are shaped, transmitted, and transformed in relation to the communities that remember them. Important antecedents in the work of Wellhausen, Halbwachs, Alt, von Rad, and Childs illustrate how cultural memory can connect literary, historical, socio-political, and religious dimensions of biblical interpretation.

See also Cultural Memory in the Hebrew Bible: Genesis to Kings (Cambridge, 2026).

By Ronald Hendel University of California, Berkeley August 2026

Cross-file under New Book. I'm usually more on top of new books, but the CUP website has been dodgy for a while.

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How did Prof. Sidnie White Crawford change her mind?

SYMPOSIUM: I CHANGED MY MIND: There Were Three Torah Texts—Until We Found the Dead Sea Scrolls (Prof. Sidnie White Crawford, TheTorah.com).

What I found when I looked at the manuscripts from this new perspective was a complex web of relationships, with many streams of textual tradition. Jewish scribes in the Greco-Roman period were not mere copyists, but textual scholars, with the responsibility of passing down the cultural and religious inheritance of ancient Israel as a living tradition, relevant to their contemporary audience.

For more on the series, see here.

Sidnie and I were in the same doctoral program, both working with Frank Moore Cross. We started working on the biblical Scrolls (she, Deuteronomy; I, Genesis and Exodus) at the same time. I had a similar epiphany due to my research.

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Launderville, Ezekiel 1–24 (SBL)

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:

Ezekiel 1–24: Introduction and Commentary

Dale F. Launderville

ISBN 9781628378672
Status Available
Publication Date July 2026

Hardback $100.00
Paperback $80.00
eBook $80.00

In volume 1 of his cutting-edge two-volume commentary, Dale F. Launderville relies on the Hebrew, Old Greek, Aramaic, Syriac, and Latin texts of Ezekiel to produce a fresh translation of the first twenty-four chapters. Each passage is followed by interpretive sections that emphasize the history of reception, explaining how the text of Ezekiel has sparked the imagination of subsequent thinkers, writers, and artists. Each chapter concludes with a section of commentary dedicated to a historical-critical examination of the canonical text. Readers will become more equipped to interpret Ezekiel and more confident in their understanding of Old Testament prophecy and its relevance to contemporary issues in church and society. This is an essential resource for ministers, seminary students, and teachers of biblical studies courses.

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Kanarek, ... Reclaiming Female Presence in Bavli Sotah

RECENT BOOK FROM BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Beyond Brutality

Reclaiming Female Presence in Bavli Sotah

Jane Kanarek

Beyond Brutality draws on feminist analysis and gender studies to examine tractate Sotah of the Babylonian Talmud as a literary unit. By interrogating how, why, and where women are invisible within Bavli Sotah, Jane Kanarek brings to light a ubiquitous female presence throughout the text. Despite the brutality of the sotah ritual—in which the woman accused of adultery is put through a divine ordeal intended to reveal her innocence or her guilt—this book demonstrates that Bavli Sotah is not primarily concerned with describing the sotah ritual or establishing male control over women. Instead, Bavli Sotah becomes a pedagogical text in which the sotah is secondary to moral and sinning men. As the sotah herself fades into the background, the sotah ritual nevertheless overflows its boundaries and weaves its way through a range of other topics within the tractate. In the process, Bavli Sotah teaches its audience who transmits and how one transmits rabbinic culture.

Series: HBI Series on Jewish Women
Paper: $45 | Cloth: $130 | E-book: $44.95
ISBN-13: 9781684582990
Pages: 300 | Size: 6 in. x 9 in.
Date Published: December 22, 2025
Imprint: Brandeis University Press
Jewish Studies | Literature | Religion | Women's Studies

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The evidence for the Diaspora Revolt of 115-117 CE

THE WORLD IS FULL OF HISTORY: The Forgotten Jewish Revolt That Erased a Civilization. Between the First and Second known revolts against Rome was another, by Jews outside Israel. Few sources survive but those that do describe the horror, on the Roman side (Elon Gilad, Haaretz).

Two Jewish revolts against Rome have a firm place in Jewish memory. The first is the Great Revolt of 66 C.E., which ended with the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and was written up, at great length and not always modestly, by the Jewish-cum-Roman historian Josephus. The second is the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132 C.E., which left behind caves full of letters as well as coins minted by the Jewish leaders, Roman siege works, and rabbinic memories.

But between them was another revolt. It was large, bloody and disastrous, but few have heard of it, mostly because almost no one wrote down what happened.

[...]

PaleoJudaica's regular readers are, of course, among those who have heard of this revolt, which is also known as the Kitos War. I have posted on it a number times. See here and links. This Haaretz article gives the most detailed short-form account of the evidence for the revolt that I have yet encountered. Mr. Gilad is drawing on a 2005 book by Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, on which more below. William Horbury also published a book in 2014 with CUP on this revolt and the Bar Kokhba revolt. Details and a review noted here.

The 2005 book is: Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, Diaspora Judaism in Turmoil, 116/117 CE: Ancient Sources and Modern Insights (Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Culture and Religion; Peeters, 2005).

Between the two wars fought in Judaea against the Roman government - the 'Great War' and that of Bar Kochba - the uprisings of Diaspora Jews toward the end of Trajan's reign constitute a unique event in the history of the Second Jewish Commonwealth. It marks the first and only episode of Jewish violence on a grand scale to take place outside Judaea, and at the same time the only instance of simultaneous outbursts in different geographical places - Libya, Egypt, Cyprus and Mesopotamia, and apparently Judaea as well. What happened exactly? Where did the Jews get their arms from and for how long did they succeed in resisting the impact of the Roman legions? Generations of scholars accepted the statement of Eusebius that the uprisings started in 115 CE, but the possibility has been recently put forward that the revolt broke out, instead, only in 116. Moreover, what was the order in which the upheavals took place: the traditional one - Libya, Egypt, Cyprus and Mesopotamia - as most scholars believe following the testimony of Eusebius, or, rather, is the correct order the opposite? If, in fact, the Jews of Mesopotamia were the first to take up arms, the events that took place in the East would have been determinant in fomenting the uprisings in the western Mediterranean region. An assessment of the new theories is a must and involves a reconsideration both of the literary accounts and their own sources and of other kinds of information available, including the ostraca found in Egypt and a number of papyri either recently discovered or only now ascribed to the events of these upheavals. The first part of this work presents here, for the first time, a full collection of the epigraphical, papyrological, and historical sources of pagan, Christian and Jewish origin dealing with these events, in their original language and in English translation. In the second part, a fresh reading, both of the sources and of scholarly views, leads Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev to new interpretations of events in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Judaea and to a new chronology, which enables her to reach surprising conclusions concerning a possible interrelationship between the upheavals in the different countries.

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Review of MacDonald, Carthage: A New History

PUNIC WATCH: Book Review: Carthage, A New History (Mike Markowitz, Strategy Page).

by Eve MacDonald

New York: W. W. Norton, 2025. Pp. vi, 363+. Illus, maps, diagr., notes, biblio., index. $39.99. ISBN: 1324123273

... Carthage: A New History will be read with enjoyment by students of ancient history. Although this is not a specifically military history, it firmly grounds the many wars and battles it covers in their varied geographic, social, economic and cultural context.

I noted another review of the book here.

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How did Prof. Marc Zvi Brettler change his mind?

SYMPOSIUM: I CHANGED MY MIND: How to Read “The” Bible? (Prof. Marc Zvi Brettler, TheTorah.com).

In 2005, I published How to Read the Bible, where I made the sustained argument for the historical-critical method is the way to understand the Hebrew Bible. Soon after it came out, an acquaintance of mine said to me: “I enjoyed your book, but its title shows real chutzpah, even arrogance. It is claiming that your way, following a specific set of academic ‘rules,’ is the way, the only way to read the Bible.”

I still think about this comment from twenty years ago. And in these two intervening decades I have changed my mind, even on the level of title.

[...]

For more on the series, see here.

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The Chymical Wedding as a metafictional apocryphon

THE ANXIOUX BENCH: Forging The Chymical Wedding (Philip Jenkins).

I have been posting about the mind-stretching Renaissance works in which enterprising scholars discovered, created, or forged scriptures to justify their religious and spiritual agendas: the Gospel of Barnabas is one prime example, the Rosicrucian Manifestos are another. One amazing feature of such products is just how very modern, and indeed post-modern, such writings are, in their willingness to break the fourth wall, to implicate the reader in the process of discovery and deceit – to write what we now call metafictional works. To that extent, the avant garde literary scene around 1610 looks an awful lot like that of 2010, or 2026.

[...]

Crowley's edition of The Chemical Wedding is new to me (and I love that the editor's name is Crowley). I will have to have a look.

If you are interesting in reading all three foundational Rosicrucian manifestos, there is a good recent English translation by Joscelyn Godwin et al.: Rosicrucian Trilogy: Modern Translations of the Three Founding Documents: Fama Fraternitatis, 1644; Confessio Fraternitatis, 1615; The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, 1616 (Weiser Books, 2016).

This Anxious Bench post is a continuation of Professor Jenkins's Lost and Found Scriptures series. For earlier posts, see here and links.

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Violence and a newly discovered burial cave in East Jerusalem

DISCOVERY: Border Police discover Second Temple-period burial cave during operations in eastern Jerusalem. The discovery came as part of police’s ongoing investigations into the violent clash between two feuding families in Silwan that occurred over the weekend and led to the deaths of three people (Miriam Sela-Eitam, Jerusalem Post).

THe discovery sounds important, but the context is tragic.

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Simeon the Stylite's pillar has been returned?

ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE: St. Simeon the Stylite’s pillar returned to historic monastery in Holeb (Aleppo) (Syriac Press).

HOLEB, Syria — The pillar of St. Simeon the Stylite was returned to its original location at the Monastery of St. Simeon on Mount Simeon, northwest of Holeb (Aleppo), Syria, on Tuesday, 16 centuries after it was erected. The restoration followed acts of vandalism at the site, as well as damage caused by the earthquake.

[...]

I had no idea Simeon's pillar (or at least its base) was still around. It's been through a lot: tourists chipping off souviners, that earthquake, and even some bombing. But it's still there and now refurbished at its original site.

Cross-file under Syriac Watch (my excuse for posting on it, plus it's cool), because the longest biography of Simeon within living memory of him was written in Syriac. That said, Christian mystical stylite saints who talked to angels have come up before at PaleoJudaica.

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Dusek, Old Aramaic Inscriptions and their Contexts (Peeters)

NEW BOOK FROM PEETERS PUBLISHERS:

Old Aramaic Inscriptions and their Contexts
An Epigraphic, Archaeological, and Historical Synthesis

Series:
Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement Series, 63

Author:
Dusek J.

Price: 390 euro
Year: 2026
ISBN: 9789042949027
Pages: XXXII-738 p. (2 vol.)

Summary:

The work presents a new and comprehensive edition of the core of the Old Aramaic textual corpus, dated from the ninth to the early seventh century BCE. The edition of the inscriptions, based on the collation of the epigraphic material, contains philological and literary analyses, as well as analyses of the archaeological and historical contexts, accompanied by numerous photographs and illustrations. The work consists of two volumes. The first volume presents most of the Old Aramaic inscriptions in an approximate chronological order (Tell Fekheriye; the small inscriptions of Haza’el; Tel Dan; the stela of Zakkur; Tell Afis; the inscription of Bar-Hadad for Melqart; the inscriptions of Bar-Rakib from Zincirli; Qalaichi [Bukan]; Nerab; Nimrud). The second volume contains a new edition of the Aramaic inscriptions from Sefire along with the presentation of their probable archaeological context, and it also includes the analytical tools used for the inscriptions edited in both volumes (palaeography, glossary, indices).

Cross-file under Aramaic Watch and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy.

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What were Luke's sources for his account of Paul?

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Luke Used Sources for His Story of Paul, but Not the Ones You Think

Luke’s account of Paul in Acts is best understood as drawing on multiple eyewitness sources within the Pauline circle rather than on Paul’s letters or Luke’s constant companionship with Paul. Barnabas, Silas, and possibly Timothy supplied information about different stages of Paul’s ministry, while Luke himself became an eyewitness only during Paul’s later years.

See also The Puzzle of Paul in Acts: A Historical and Linguistic Interpretation (Routledge, 2026).

By Nathan Nadeau
Toronto Baptist Seminary
Professor of Hellenistic Greek and New Testament
McMaster Divinity College
Research Fellow
August 2026

I'm going with "too many 'may haves,'" as the author puts it. But I agree that the other solutions are not short of them. I don't think we have enough information to solve the question of Luke's sources, let alone the relationship of Luke's Paul to an historical Paul.

Cross-file under New Book.

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Gold rings for young girls?

ANCIENT RITUAL BLING? Hellenistic Gold Rings Found in Jerusalem Point to Ancient Greek ‘Coming-of-Age’ Ritual (Abdul Moeed, Greek Reporter).

Archaeologists digging beneath a Jerusalem courtyard have uncovered a set of tiny Hellenistic gold rings that date back more than 2,000 years. Researchers believe the rings were deliberately buried beneath the floors of an ancient building as part of a ‘coming-of-age’ ritual performed by young girls.

The rings were found with two other gold ornaments and three bronze earrings at the Givʽati Parking Lot excavation site in Jerusalem’s City of David. The pieces were buried beneath the floors of a large structure called Building 110, which dates to the late third and early second centuries BC.

[...]

The underlying article in ‘Atiqot is open access:

‘Atiqot 121 (2026), pp. 1–22
Submitted: Dec 2, 2025 | Revised: Jan 25, 2026
Accepted: Mar 29, 2026 | Published: Aug 5, 2026
© 2026, the author(s) and the Israel Antiquities Authority
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license

Gold Rings for Young Girls: Ritual Deposition of Children’s Jewelry in a Domestic Context in Hellenistic-Period Jerusalem

Marion Sindel, Efrat Bocher, Rikki Zalut Har-Tuv, Yuval Gadot and Yiftah Shalev

This article examines four gold ornaments and three bronze earrings dated to the late third–early second centuries BCE, retrieved from Building 110 in the Givʽati Parking Lot (GPL) excavations in Jerusalem. Based on their intact state, intrinsic value and similar contexts, we propose that the artifacts were intentionally deposited in or below the building’s floors on different occasions. Technological and stylistic analyses connect the jewelry to broader Hellenistic polychrome traditions, and the exceptionally small rings suggest that they belonged to young children, most likely girls. Based on Greek epigraphic and literary evidence for female rites of passage, specifically premarital dedication of childhood objects, we propose that the jewelry deposits reflect a local domestic adaptation of Hellenistic coming-of-age rituals. This study demonstrates how careful reading of small finds in specific household contexts can shed light on elusive ritual behavior and on cultural interaction in Hellenistic Judea.

I noted the discovery of the first ring in 2024 here.

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On the Gezer Calendar

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: The Gezer Calendar. An Israelite almanac or a writing exercise? (Marek Dospěl).

The so-called Gezer Calendar is a small limestone slab inscribed with a list of agricultural activities covering one full year. Thought to date from the tenth century BCE, it is one of the earliest known Canaanite inscriptions from Judah. Some would claim it is the earliest known inscription in Old Hebrew. ...

An excellent introduction to this fascinating little text, covering its discovery and the debates about its interpretation.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the Gezer Calendar, start here and follow the links. Cross-file under Northwest Semitic Epigraphy.

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

Review of Lorber, Coins of the Ptolemaic empire, part 2

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Coins of the Ptolemaic empire, part 2: Ptolemy V through Cleopatra VII

Catharine C. Lorber, Coins of the Ptolemaic empire, part 2: Ptolemy V through Cleopatra VII. Numismatic studies, 46. New York: American Numismatic Society, 2025. 3 vols. Pp. 946. ISBN 9780897224024.

Review by
Robyn L. Le Blanc, UNC Greensboro. rlleblan@uncg.edu ... In summary, Catharine Lorber’s completion of the Coins of the Ptolemaic Empire series is essential reading for any scholar interested in numismatics, the Hellenistic economy, and the Ptolemies in general. One hopes that, in addition, the production, clarity, and robustness of the material included in the analysis and syntheses of these coins, including explicit discussion of hoards, provenanced examples, and workshop processes, will be a model for future publications of this kind.

I noted the imminent publication of this volume, with links, here, and the publication of the Part 1 volume here. Cross-file under Numismatics.

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More on Huqoq at the Yigal Allon Center Museum

EXHIBITION: A 1,600-year-old Village, a Dazzling Mosaic and a New Story of Ancient Judaism. An exhibition near the Sea of Galilee offers a glimpse of Huqoq, the ancient village uncovered in 2011 that has archaeology enthusiasts enthralled. What does its spectacular mosaic reveal about Galilean Judaism – and when will the public finally get to see it? (Moshe Gilad, Haaretz).

An overview of the exhibit, good background on the excavation, and a substantial interview with the chief excavator, Jody Magness. Very informative.

Background on the exhibtion and on the remarkable discoveries at the site of Huqoq here and links.

By the way, don't worry about me, I'm fine. I just got distracted with other things for a few days.

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

Review of Collins, Apocalypticism as a Worldview in Ancient Judaism

WORD&WAY: Review: Apocalypticism as a Worldview in Ancient Judaism (Robert D. Cornwall).

Because people, religious and nonreligious, use apocalyptic imagery and language to describe contemporary realities, it is helpful to understand the origins of this language and the ideas associated with it. While the focus is on ancient Judaism, understanding this material can help us better understand the ministry and message of Jesus and other early Christians, including Paul. By studying apocalyptic ideas, we gain more insight into the traditions that developed after apocalyptic ideas began to permeate religious society. In his book, Apocalypticism as a Worldview in Ancient Judaism, Collins does an excellent job of helping us understand the apocalyptic worldview, including its secular forms.

I noted the publication of the book here.

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

The MOTB DSS exhibit - final rotation

EXHIBITION UPDATE: The Oldest Biblical Fragments On Earth Leave Washington In Two Weeks — Then Return To The Dark. In a closing exhibition, the oldest surviving copies of Scripture offer a rare window into Second Temple Judaism and the roots of two faiths (Leona Salinas, Daily Wire).

The oldest surviving copies of biblical texts are on view for a final few weeks at the Museum of the Bible in Washington. Dead Sea Scrolls: The Exhibition, now in its last rotation on the museum’s fifth floor, closes September 7. The fragments recovered from the caves near Qumran remain among the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century, offering a direct window into the Hebrew Scriptures and the Jewish world of the Second Temple period.

[...]

I think I would nuance the comments about the enthusiam of the Qumran community for the Messiah. The concept does appear, sometime doubled, but it's not all that prominent.

Anyway, it's good to see that the IAA is taking steps to preserve the Dead Sea Scrolls for another 2,000 years.

Previous posts on the exhibition are here and links.

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

Sader, Ancient Tyre between Myth and History (SBL)

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:

Ancient Tyre between Myth and History

Hélène Sader

ISBN 9781628378290
Volume ABS 36
Status Available
Publication Date August 2026

Hardback $70.00
Paperback $50.00
eBook $50.00

Hélène Sader gathers and synthesizes the archaeological and textual evidence from excavations conducted during the past fifty years at Tyre and its far-flung settlements. By incorporating the results obtained from western Tyrian sites rich in metals, Sader confirms that Tyre and its colonies, which stretched to the Atlantic coast of Spain, held incredible wealth. In addition to her analysis of the material remains, soundings, and surveys, Sader includes a thorough discussion of the main Tyrian gods and the practice of cremation introduced at the beginning of the Iron Age. More than seventy-five images and maps illuminate the development of Tyre and its cultural heritage. The result is a more complex picture of the history of Tyre than that known from its description in the Hebrew Bible, ancient Near Eastern sources, and classical histories. Tyre emerges from the shadows of myth as the main protagonist of the Phoenician maritime expansion.

Cross-file under Phoenician Watch. And for more on Tyre, see here and links.

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

Deuteronomy and secular slaughter as an innovation

PROF. BERNARD M. LEVINSON: It’s Tradition! How Deuteronomy’s Reform Permits Non-Sacrificial Slaughter (TheTorah.com).

To consume meat, Exodus (20:24) requires that the animal be sacrificed at a local altar, i.e., in any place where YHWH proclaims His name. When Deuteronomy centralized the cult to “the place,” it had to permit secular slaughter for those who lived far away, and it did so by presenting this innovation as an interpretation of the older law.

The Priestly writer dispensed with this innovation.

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Eisenstock, TALMUD CHRONICLES (Urim)

NEW BOOK FROM URIM PUBLICATIONS:

TALMUD CHRONICLES: Bringing Talmudic Events to Life

by Zalman Eisenstock

Price: $34.95 $31.00

Hardcover, 112 pages, includes b/w images and illustrations throughout
Urim Publications, 2026
ISBN: 978-965-524-389-5

From Rabban Gamliel’s fight with Rabbi Yehoshua in 100 CE through significant events over the next century, experience the story of the Talmud set against the background of the ancient world, and uniquely retold in the form of a modern daily newspaper. The engaging format of News from the Past brings this transformative period to life and makes it accessible to readers of all ages. Experience the resilience of the Jewish people as they faced two major revolts — the Parthian Revolt (115–117 C.E.) and the tragic Bar Kochba rebellion (132–135 C.E.). Despite these challenges, visionary leaders emerged to reinforce the Torah, culminating in the creation of the Mishnah — the foundational compilation of the Oral Law.

Well that's different. Cross-file under Talmud Watch.

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

Intertextuality as Reinterpreting Texts (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Intertextuality as Reinterpreting Texts

Papers Read at the 19th Joint Meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study and the Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap in Nederland en België, ’s-Hertogenbosch, 2024

Series:
Oudtestamentische Studiën, Old Testament Studies, Volume: 86

Volume Editors: Archibald L.H.M. van Wieringen, Katharine J. Dell, and Arie Versluis

Intertextuality is a multifaceted and complex phenomenon, that can be studied form various perspectives, both diachronically and synchronically. An intertextual relationship is essentially about reinterpreting texts for creating new texts. This volume aims to highlight various approaches by exploring both the methodological dimensions of intertextual research and the ways in which such research may be concretized with regard to specific Old Testament texts.

Copyright Year: 2026

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-76621-1
Publication: 29 Jul 2026
EUR €128.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-76618-1
Publication: 27 Aug 2026
EUR €128.00

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

The Michigan papyrus collection

WORKSHOP REPORT: Unveiling history: University of Michigan home to America’s largest collection of ancient papyrus (Matt Jaworowski, WoodTV.com).

Earlier this month, researchers from across the world made the trek to Ann Arbor to check out the collection and to learn more about proper preservation techniques. Some of the highlights include a 2,200-year-old portion of “The Iliad,” some of the “lost works” of Greek philosopher Epicurus and a portion of the oldest-known copy of the Epistles of St. Paul.

The collection, the largest in North America, holds more than 7,000 ancient manuscripts and approximately 17,000 individual fragments from between 1,000 B.C. and 1,000 A.D.

It also includes ancient magical papyri and Coptic texts. Some PaleoJudaica posts on it are here, here, and here. For more information on the workshop, and on the collection generally, make sure to follow the links in the article.

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