More on "King Solomon's Wall"

"KING SOLOMON'S WALL" is the subject of an article in National Geographic. It does interview Israel Finkelstein (who, not surprisingly, urges caution), but otherwise it is disappointing. It quotes Eilat Mazar, but it still seems to be relying on an uncritical reading of the IAA press release. Notably there's this:

Figurines typical of tenth-century B.C. Jerusalem—including four-legged animals and large-breasted women likely symbolizing fertility—were also uncovered, as were jar handles bearing impressions reading "to the king" and various Hebrew names, she said.

The "to the king" (LMLK) inscriptions are not typical of the tenth century - none have been found that are that early - and the ones in question seem to be from earlier excavations and to date to the reign of Hezekiah in the late eighth/early seventh century BCE. I'm not sure about the date of the figurines.

Background here.

More on Israel heritage sites controversy

THE ECONOMIST weighs in on the Israel Heritage sites controversy:

Israel's heritage sites
Fanning the flames
A row about holy places threatens to engulf the Holy Land in new violence

Feb 26th 2010 | From The Economist online

The leaders of Israel and Palestine, Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, are trying, separately, to contain a week-long wave of riots in West Bank cities that threatens to turn into a new Palestinian uprising. Yet the two men themselves ignited the religious passions that fuel this latest violence. And, while they now seek to control the flames, they are both still feeding them with disingenuous, incendiary statements, instead of putting them out.

[...]

UNESCO is also unhappy.

Background here.

Happy Purim!

HAPPY PURIM to all those celebrating. The festival begins tonight at sundown.

Cairo Geniza Exodus fragment going on display in Israel Museum

THE CAIRO GENIZA EXODUS FRAGMENT (which includes the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15) is going on display (the AP reports) in the Israel Museum. The article refers to two fragments that were joined in 2007, but I can't find any reference to a second fragment in the reports I noted in 2007 (see here and here).

Israel's Heritage Plan is generating some controversy

ISRAEL'S HERITAGE PLAN (background here) is generating some controversy. First, this:

Critics slam heritage plan for omitting non-Jewish sites

By Nir Hasson

The national heritage proposal that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented to the cabinet this week is attracting criticism for including only sites that are part of the Jewish and Zionist narrative.

The NIS 400 million heritage project, which is geared toward supporting the preservation of Jewish artifacts and teaching schoolchildren about Jewish and Zionist history, includes 37 archaeological sites - all of which the program ties in to Jewish tradition.

[...]

But the criticisms have become much more specific after this:

Israel adds West Bank shrines to heritage list

(BBC)

Israel's prime minister has announced a controversial plan to add two major religious sites in the West Bank to the country's national heritage list.

Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem would now be included in the $107m restoration plan.

Israeli media said the two sites had been included on the list only after pressure from nationalist ministers.

The Palestinian Authority warned the decision would "wreck" peace efforts.

[...]

Responses include a riot:

Riots over Israeli claim to West Bank heritage sites

Israeli soldiers have clashed with protesters in the West Bank town of Hebron after two disputed shrines were listed as Israeli heritage sites.

Palestinian protesters threw bottles and stones at soldiers who responded with tear gas and stun grenades.

The protesters say the move to list the shrines as heritage sites would restrict Muslims access to them, but this has been denied.

The Hebron shrine is an important site for both Jews and Muslims.

[...]

This blistering editorial in Al Ahram:

Fabricating history

Israel's attempts to establish historical grounds for its existence include stealing, destroying and substituting Islamic heritage, reports Khaled Amayreh in Hebron

Tension in the occupied Palestinian territories rose significantly this week following a decision by the rightwing Israeli government to add two ancient mosques in the West Bank to a list of alleged Jewish heritage sites.

The two mosques are the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque, which Israelis call Rachel's Tomb, near Bethlehem, and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, named after the patriarch Ibrahim (Abraham), widely considered the common forefather of both the ancient Hebrews and northern Arabs.

The Hebron mosque, site of a massacre of Arab worshipers by a Jewish terrorist in 1994, is widely considered the fourth most important Islamic shrine, coming directly after the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, the Prophet's Mosque in Medina (both in Saudi Arabia), and Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Israeli officials didn't explain the decision by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to add the two Islamic sites to a list of some 130 so-called Jewish heritage sites. Netanyahu said the sites would be renovated "in order to reconnect Israelis to their history".

[...]

And the AP is also reporting criticism from the US Government.

Geza Vermes profiled in Oxford Times

GEZA VERMES is profiled in a long article in the Oxford Times:

'The world's finest Christ scholar'

6:20am Thursday 25th February 2010

By Reg Little »

In a few weeks’ time The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ will offer Philip Pullman’s radical new account of the life of Jesus, challenging the myths and mysteries of the gospels that have shaped the course of the last 2,000 years.

But before we are presented with the retelling of the life of Jesus by the His Dark Materials author, another Oxford author will have published two new books on Jesus, 35 years after first causing a sensation with Jesus the Jew.

Pullman’s take on Jesus, which will argue that the version in the New Testament was shaped by the apostle Paul, is said to be novel, part history and part fairytale.

For all the massive publicity surrounding the publication of The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, it is unlikely to match the long-term impact of Prof Geza Vermes, who, at the age of 85, is still pursuing Jesus the man.

[...]

Phoenicia still circumnavigating South Africa

THE GOOD SHIP PHOENICIA is still circumnavigating South Africa:

Replica of ancient ship sails into PE harbour

2010/02/25 (Weekend Post)

A replica 600BC wooden expedition vessel, the Phoenicia, docked at the Port Elizabeth Harbour yesterday after visiting East London.

[...]

There's video too.

Background here.

Book review (H-JUDAIC): Rajak, Translation and Survival

BOOK REVIEW (H-JUDAIC):

Tessa Rajak. Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible and the
Ancient Jewish Diaspora. Oxford Oxford University Press, 2009. xvi
+ 380 pp. $140.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-955867-4.

Reviewed by Matthew Kraus (University of Cincinnati)
Published on H-Judaic (February, 2010)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

The Greek Bible and Jewish Life among the Greeks and Romans

Generalists and specialists alike interested in the history of Greco-Roman Judaism and Septuagintal studies will benefit immensely from Tessa Rajak's most recent contribution to these fields. Despite the technical nature of the subject, the chapters are quite readable, perhaps because the book originated as the Oxford University Grinfield Lectures on "The Septuagint as a Social and Cultural Artifact" (1995-96). As she notes in her preface, lecturing about the Greek Bible can be a daunting task. Even the great classical historian Arnaldo Momigliano pondered "in what sense a lecturer on the Septuagint might lecture without talking about it" (p. v). Rajak, however, does talk about the Greek Bible, combining recent research on the subject with the perennial quest to define "the nature and limits of Jewish Hellenism or Hellenistic Judaism" (p. v). Rajak's core contributions to this issue revolve around the claim that the Greek Bible represents a middle position between assimilation and rejection of Greek culture. The linguistic features of the Greek Bible simultaneously Hellenize Judaism and Judaize Hellenism. A book review cannot possibly do justice to the numerous insights of this detailed and richly argued work. A brief summary of selected aspects will have to suffice.

[...]

Reminder: DSS coming to St. Paul, Minnesota

REMINDER:

Dead Sea Scrolls coming to St. Paul

by Sunny Thao, Minnesota Public Radio
February 22, 2010

St. Paul, Minn. — The Science Museum of Minnesota will open a new exhibit in March featuring the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of 2,000-year-old documents that contain original texts from the Hebrew Bible.

[...]

Background here.

Unrest at the Jericho synagogue

UNREST AT THE JERICHO SYNAGOGUE:

Police release 33 activists detained for entering Jericho

By Haaretz Service
Tags: Israel news, Jericho

Two still in custody over Sunday night's attempt by rightists to pray at West Bank synagogue.


Police on Monday released 33 rightwing activists who entered Jericho on Sunday night in defiance of a military edict banning Israelis from Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank.

Two others, an adult and a minor, remained in police custody in Ma'ale Adumim after activists broke through checkpoints and marched on the area in the hope of praying at an ancient synagogue and "renewing Jewish settlement in Jericho".

[...]

Presumably this is the ancient synagogue mentioned here, here, here, and here. This is not the first time it has witnessed such conflicts.

UPDATE (11 August): No, it seems that this episode was at the Na'aran synagogue, also in Jericho, not the Shalom Al Yisrael synagogue. See here for clarification.

King Solomon's wall?

KING SOLOMON'S WALL? Well, maybe.

King Solomon's Wall Revealed in Jerusalem

by Maayana Miskin

(IsraelNN.com) Hebrew University archaeologists have revealed an ancient path in Jerusalem believed to date back to the time of King Solomon, along with structures including a gateway and the foundation of a building. Dr. Eilat Mazar, the leader of the archaeological dig, said the findings match finds from the time of the First Temple.

The latest find includes a 70-meter long and six-meter-high stone wall, a small house adjacent to a gateway leading to what was once the royal courtyard, a building that served city officials, and a tower that overlooked the Kidron river.

According to Mazar, the wall is likely to be the wall built by King Solomon. “This is the first time a building has been found that matches descriptions of the building carried out by King Solomon in Jerusalem,” she said.

[...]

It's quite a leap to get from 10th century BCE (which is what I take the quote below actually to mean), and "built by King Solomon." Let's see if the date is verified before we start speculating on builders.

It seems there is epigraphic material as well:

The remnants of a public building discovered along the wall contained shards of pottery that allowed researchers to estimate the date at which the building in use – approximately 10 B.C.E. One of the shards was engraved with Hebrew writing saying “For the chief...” Mazar believes the shard, part of a jug, belonged to the royal baker.

Other jugs bore a seal saying “For the king” in Hebrew. Dozens of seals were discovered using a water sifting technique. The building was ravaged by fire, researchers said, but the jugs that were found at the site were the largest discovered in Jerusalem to date.

A LMLK seal from the tenth century would in itself be very exciting. Indeed, any epigraphic material from that century would be. But let's wait for the inscriptions to be published before we draw conclusions. The photos in the article (which I assume are of the mentioned inscriptions) are not readable, at least by me.

Since they're coming up with written material, something actually mentioning Solomon would be welcome. Just saying.

UPDATE: Here's the full IAA press release at the IMFA website. Also, Todd Bolen has some observations. Notably, he thinks some of the artifacts mentioned are from much earlier excavations. I don't know. (Both via Joseph I. Lauer's list.)

UPDATE (23 February): G. M. Grena (of www.LMLK.com) e-mails:

Hi Jim! They're definitely readable by me, & are representative of the well-known specimens dating to Hezekiah's reign.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biblicalist/message/1907

Per the typology I've assigned to the 21 known types, these are S4L, H2D w/CC (concentric-circle incisions), & Z2U. These span the entire reign of Hezekiah, before and after Sennacherib's attack, so it would be no big surprise to learn that they were found in the same locus in Jerusalem if such is the case.

LMLK seals in the reign of Hezekiah sound a lot more plausible to me than in the reign of Solomon. If this is correct, it is not at all clear from the IAA press release that the inscriptions are much later than the 10th-century wall, which is irritating.

UPDATE: John Hobbins has a roundup of blog responses at Ancient Hebrew Poetry.

Gno to the Gnostics

GNO TO THE GNOSTICS: Third Sector columnist Rosamund McCarthy thinks the Charity Commission made a bad call when they refused charitable status to the Leeds Gnostic Centre. Excerpt:

But if religious organisations are going to be registered as charities, can the law please be consistent? The Charity Commission has recently refused to register the Gnostic Centre as a charity. Why? Although the commission accepted that gnostics believe in a supreme being, it found no evidence of an accompanying moral or ethical code.

The decision highlights the absurdity of the law. Because the courts have no means of judging the merits of different faith claims - is there one god or many? - they have concluded that a religion must promote an ethical code capable of benefiting society. A spiritually improving effect on its own is insufficient, they say.

And what about the competing truth claims of different ethical codes? On the Charity Commission register there are religions that are pro and anti-gay, for and against medical treatment, against abortion and in favour of women's right to choose, supportive of just war and pacifist. How can these conflicting moral codes all be for the public benefit and equally worthy of tax breaks?

Background here.

Child sacrifice not common in ancient Carthage after all?

PUNIC WATCH: Child sacrifice wasn't common in ancient Carthage after all? So say these researchers in this press release:

Pitt-led study debunks millennia-old claims of systematic infant sacrifice in ancient Carthage

Researchers examined 348 burial urns to learn that about a fifth of the children were prenatal at death, indicating that young Carthaginian children were cremated and interred in ceremonial urns regardless of cause of death

PITTSBURGH—A study led by University of Pittsburgh researchers could finally lay to rest the millennia-old conjecture that the ancient empire of Carthage regularly sacrificed its youngest citizens. An examination of the remains of Carthaginian children revealed that most infants perished prenatally or very shortly after birth and were unlikely to have lived long enough to be sacrificed, according to a Feb. 17 report in PLoS ONE.

The findings—based on the first published analysis of the skeletal remains found in Carthaginian burial urns—refute claims from as early as the 3rd century BCE of systematic infant sacrifice at Carthage that remain a subject of debate among biblical scholars and archaeologists, said lead researcher Jeffrey H. Schwartz, a professor of anthropology and history and philosophy of science in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences and president of the World Academy of Art and Science. Schwartz and his colleagues present the more benign interpretation that very young Punic children were cremated and interred in burial urns regardless of how they died.

"Our study emphasizes that historical scientists must consider all evidence when deciphering ancient societal behavior," Schwartz said. "The idea of regular infant sacrifice in Carthage is not based on a study of the cremated remains, but on instances of human sacrifice reported by a few ancient chroniclers, inferred from ambiguous Carthaginian inscriptions, and referenced in the Old Testament. Our results show that some children were sacrificed, but they contradict the conclusion that Carthaginians were a brutal bunch who regularly sacrificed their own children."

[...]

(Via the Agade List.) The PLoS ONE publication is here. I've never hear of PLoS ONE before, but it advertises itself as "an international, peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication" (see here). That's well and good, but I have to say that it makes me nervous that it charges all authors a hefty $1350 subvention to publish an article (although it seems that association with most major academic institutions gets you a discount). Be that as it may, the article's arguments are there to be examined by archaeologists of Carthage.

Somewhat similar claims were being advanced and debunked in 2005. (Sorry, the link there seems to be bad and I can't find the article anymore on Google, so you will have to make do with the excerpts. But see also the second link, which is still good.)

Review of Vermes on the DSS (Economist)

A NEW BOOK ON THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS by Geza Vermes is reviewed in The Economist. Excerpt:

The analysis of such ultra-sensitive material requires calm judgment—and Geza Vermes, a retired Oxford professor, is widely credited with having the coolest head among the scholars who have devoted their careers to studying the scrolls and sharing their insights. Some of his writing is controversial. He has, for example, strong personal opinions on the “historical Jesus”, and like anybody who enters that field he has attracted both admirers and detractors. But in this short personal memoir, he sticks mainly to the known facts about the scrolls, and the arguments they have caused. On this matter, he is careful and fair-minded.

It may help that his personal story stands at the tragic interface between Christianity and Judaism in the 20th century. ...

Then there's this, which I find baffling:

Although Mr Vermes does not spell this out in detail, there is also some intriguing news for Christians: certain “Old Testament” passages which they hold dear—but which are mysteriously absent in the Masoretic version—do feature in the scrolls. They don’t seem to have been late Christian inventions.

I know of no such passages and I wonder if the reviewer has misunderstood something in the book.

UPDATE (20 February): Reader Ed Gallagher e-mails:

As for the Christian passages found in the DSS but absent from the MT, I bet the reviewer has in mind Psa. 22:16 and Isa. 53:10—not “passages” at all, but variant readings that are more congenial to messianic interpretation in their form in the Scrolls than in the MT. I haven’t read Vermes’ book, but these two verses popped into my mind when reading the excerpts of the review on your site.

Maybe so. That would be the readings "pierced" in Psalm 22:16[17] and "light" in Isaiah 53:10, both of which appear in Qumran manuscripts.

Zimbabwean "Ark of the Covenant" resurfaces

TUDOR PARFITT'S SUPPOSED ARK OF THE COVENANT has been found in a storeroom and is now on display:

Zimbabwe displays 'Ark of Covenant replica'

(BBC)

A wooden object claimed to be a replica of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant has gone on display at a Zimbabwe museum.

The "ngoma lungundu" belongs to the Lemba people - black Africans who claim Jewish ancestry.

They say the vessel was built almost 700 years ago from the remains of the original Ark, which the Bible says was used to store Moses' 10 Commandments.

For decades the ancient vessel was thought to be lost, until it was found in a storeroom in Harare recently.

Tudor Parfitt, who rediscovered the artefact three years ago, told the BBC he believed it was the oldest wooden object ever found in sub-Saharan Africa.

[...]

Background here and here and follow the links.

Ancient aqueduct uncovered in Jerusalem

AN ANCIENT AQUEDUCT has been uncovered in Jerusalem in excavations. The IAA press release:

The 1,800 Year Old High-Level Aqueduct of Jerusalem was Exposed Next to Jaffa Gate in the Old City

A beautiful aqueduct, standing 1.50 meters high and built of large stones, has been situated for almost two millennia right under one of the most familiar and traveled places in Jerusalem – beneath the road that leads from Jaffa Gate toward the David Citadel Museum and the shops on David Street.

The High-Level Aqueduct of Jerusalem, which dates from the second-third century CE, was exposed in excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting, with funding provided by the Jerusalem Development Authority for the purpose of replacing the infrastructure in the region.

[...]

Abassid caliph mentioned in Jerusalem Arabic inscription

AN ARABIC INSCRIPTION that mentions an Abbasid caliph has been found in Jerusalem.

Shroud of Turin going on display

THE SHROUD OF TURIN is going on display in Turin this spring.

For recent discussion of the Shroud, go here and here and follow the links.

UPDATE: The original post had the wrong venue, due to my misreading of a line in the AP article. Sorry about that.

JNUL wants the Russian Hebrew manuscripts it paid for

THE JEWISH NATIONAL AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARY wants the Russian Hebrew manuscripts it paid for nearly a century ago:

Netanyahu personally raised [with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev] the subject of the collection , which is thought to be the world's second-largest anthology of ancient Hebrew literature, after the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Aides to the prime minister also presented the Russians with documents proving ownership of the collection, Haaretz has learned.

The Guenzbergs, a Russian-Jewish noble family, acquired their collection over three generations beginning in the 1840s.

The collection includes 14,000 books, 45 incunabula (books published in the 14th century, at the start of the printing era), more than 2,000 Hebrew manuscripts and 1,000 Arabic manuscripts.

Following the death of Baron David Guenzberg in 1910, Zionist activists, among them Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, sought to retrieve the collection and arrange for its relocation to prestate Israel. In May 1917, the Russians agreed to sell the collection to the Jewish National and University Library for a sum of half a million rubles.

The purchase was made possible by contributions from Russian Zionists.

But after the money had already been paid and the collection was packaged and ready for shipment, World War I erupted, delaying the shipment.

Then the Bolsheviks came and the shipment has yet to happen. Maybe soon.

The Chabad-Lubavitch library in New York is likewise trying to recover a library in Russia:

Written in Hebrew and English, Treasures From the Chabad Library takes a sample of the archive’s 250,000 volumes and antiquities – some dating back to the mid-15th century – to complete 154 entries spread across 564 pages. It contains some of the center’s most-prized relics, complete with descriptions, photos and historical essays.

“This book is a compilation of 35 years of work,” says Rabbi Shalom Dovber Levine, the library’s chief librarian and author of the book. “It is a collection of our rarest and most interesting pieces.”

Released by the Kehot Publication Society, the book comes amidst a public exhibition of many of the library’s artifacts.

The collection, housed alongside Lubavitch World Headquarters in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights, has its roots in the personal library of the First Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi. Its few hundred volumes passed down to the Second Rebbe, Rabbi Dovber Schneuri, who moved the collection to the town of Lubavitch, where it remained through three successive generations. At the beginning of World War II, having grown to thousands of books, manuscripts and personal letters, the bulk of the library was moved to Moscow for safekeeping by the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory.

That collection was confiscated by Soviet authorities and is currently held in the Russian State Archives, where it is the subject of American diplomatic and legal efforts to have it restored to Chabad-Lubavitch.

The library includes one of the oldest surviving printed copies of the Talmud.

New issues of Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha

THE JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE PSEUDEPIGRAPHA has a new issue out: December 2009, Volume 19, No. 2 . TOC with my parenthetical comments:

Veronika Bachmann
Rooted in Paradise? The Meaning of the ‘Tree of Life’ in 1 Enoch 24—25 Reconsidered
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 83-107.

Liudmila Navtanovich
Second Enoch and The Tale of the Blessed Zerubbabel: Two Different Examples of Old Testament Slavonic Apocrypha
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 109-126.

(This article argues on philological grounds that the short recension of 2 Enoch displays more archaic vocabulary and grammar than the long recension and that therefore the short recension is earlier. Slavists seem to agree widely on the priority of the short recension. This bears very much on the discussion of 2 Enoch in last year's Enoch Seminar in Naples.)

Janelle Peters
Hellenistic Imagery and Iconography in Daniel 12.5-13
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 127-145.

Flemming A.J. Nielsen
Moses’ Throne Vision: A Hebrew Fragment of Ezekiel the Tragedian and the Question of its Origin
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 147-158.

(Don't get too excited by the title. The conclusion is that Jellinek translated an excerpt of the original Greek into Hebrew. Oh well ...)

Requires a paid individual or institutional subscription to access the full articles.

UPDATE: Actually there's another issue I haven't noted yet: September 2009, Volume 19, No. 1. TOC:

Ivor H. Jones
The Finale of the Wisdom of Solomon: Its Context, Translation and Significance
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 3-43.

Ephraim Nissan
On Nebuchadnezzar in Pseudo-Sirach
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 45-76.

Mark E. Hanshaw
Book Review: WHEELER, BRANNON M. Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis. Routledge/ Curzon Studies in the Quran. Routledge/Curzon, 2002. 228 pp. ISBN 0-7007-1603-3
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 77-80.