Rufina the archisynagogos

RUFINA THE ARCHISYNAGOGOS:

His/Her Story: A woman 'head of the synagogue'

By RENÉE LEVINE MELAMMED (Jerusalem Post)
06/10/2011 16:55

As it turns out, the evidence available about women in the Greco-Roman Diaspora is distinctive and, at times, quite difficult to interpret.

Jews living in the Greco-Roman Diaspora in the period known as late antiquity (second/third centuries until the fall of the Empire in the fifth century) had experiences that differed considerably from those in the Land of Israel. This held true for women as well as men. As it turns out, the evidence available about women is distinctive and, at times, quite difficult to interpret.

One Greek inscription in particular has long attracted the attention of scholars in the field. This inscription is from Smyrna (modern-day Izmir), located in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), and was commissioned in the second or third century by a woman named Rufina.

While the name Rufina is Latin, the dedicator immediately identified herself by the Greek term Ioudaia. This term is unusual in inscriptions otherwise thought to be Jewish, and suggests that it was important for Rufina. It may even suggest that she wasn’t born Jewish, but converted at some point in her life. The second detail recorded was that she was the archisynagogos, the head (or possibly the president) of the synagogue.

[...]

PA researcher: Crusader first to say "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem"

CAN'T MAKE IT UP:

PA: "If I Forget Thee, Oh Jerusalem" First Said by Crusader

by Gavriel Queenann (Arutz Sheva)

Continuing its policy of denying Jerusalem's Jewish heritage the Palestinian Authority publicized the claims of an Arab researcher that the well-known ancient Hebrew psalm, "If I forget three, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill," is not Jewish at all, the Israeli research institute Palestininian Media Watch reports.

Instead, Dr. Hayel Sanduqa insists the words were uttered by a Christian Crusader, and have only recently been "borrowed" by Jews and "falsified in the name of Zionism."

[...]

The quotation is, of course, from Psalm 137:5 and dates roughly to the time of the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BCE.

The following are the words of Palestinian researcher Dr. Hayel Sanduqa on PA TV, claiming that the Hebrew Bible's psalm was actually first said by a Crusader:

"[The Israelis] have acted to change Jerusalem's character. Even the expression (Psalm 137:5) 'If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember thee.'

"This statement, said by the Frankish [Crusader] ruler of Acre shortly before he left, was borrowed by the Zionist movement, which falsified it in the name of Zionism," Sanduqa said. [PA TV (Fatah), June 2, 2011 -Ed].

Here's the video of the phone conversation. The context of the conversation is not given, but I have a hard time imagining how any context could make the claim less ridiculous.



Apart from this story, there's not much from Google on Dr. Hayel Sanduqa, but this 2008 PNN article refers to him as "the researcher of colonial affairs in Jerusalem."

CNN on the CAD

CNN ON THE CHICAGO ASSYRIAN DICTIONARY: What a Babylonian laundry list says about you. Despite the lame title, the article is quite upbeat.

Background here and links.

Pullman, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

IN THE MAIL:

Philip Pullman, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2010)

This was sent unsolicited, but maybe I'll get around to reading it. It looks kind of interesting. Earlier coverage is here.

Jared Calaway's dissertation is online

JARED CALAWAY: My Dissertation is Online! The dissertation is "Heavenly Sabbath, Heavenly Sanctuary: The Transformation of Priestly Sacred Space and Sacred Time in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and the Epistle to the Hebrews." Follow the link for the abstract and a link to the ProQuest document.

(Via Polumeros kai Polutropos.)

Roland Boer against "Reception History"

ROLAND BOER has an essay Against “Reception History” posted at Bible and Interpretation.

He makes some fair points, but there is a straw man in his argument as well. Historical-critical exegesis is not entirely unbiased and it cannot produce "one 'right' meaning" of the text, or even one original meaning. However, it does make a serious effort to look at the text the way the original author might have intended it or the original audience might have received it, drawing on philology, archaeology, and the like. This effort provides a narrower range of meanings than is found in the full history of interpretation to the present. Whether this range of meaning is somehow more primary than other, later ones, I leave to others to argue. Roland makes an interesting case against that view. But that range is valuable in itself as, for example, a resource for historians of the biblical period. Yes, the historical-critical method has its own limitations and biases, which constantly need to be interrogated by other methods and perspectives, but how interesting is this point really? It has been made endlessly already, and it applies to those other methods just as much. The hermeneutical spiral is a process, not a conclusion, but that doesn't mean no progress is possible in it. If every method is dismissed because it has inherent limitations, we stray from an asymptotic groping toward truth to a Gödelian infinite loop of prolegomena.

UPDATE (12 June): Chris Heard comments on the essay at the Blackwell Bible Commentaries website.

KJB@400: The Jerusalem Post on the KJB

KJB@400 WATCH: The Jerusalem Post on the King James Bible:

Sacred words, well spoken!

06/09/2011 22:25 By EMANUEL MFOUKOU AND MEREDITH HOLBROOK

Marking 400 years of the King James Bible.

CAD completion again

THE COMPLETION OF THE CHICAGO ASSYRIAN DICTIONARY is celebrated in another article:

Dictionary of Akkadian Language Links Modern Civilization with Ancient Origins

Greg Flakus | Houston, Texas June 09, 2011

“Better late than never” might be the motto scholars could apply to the completion of a comprehensive dictionary of a language that has not been spoken for more than 2,000 years. It took nearly a century, but scholars at the University of Chicago say they have now completed the definitive dictionary of Akkadian, which was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia during the time when the first civilizations began to flourish there.

[...]

Background here and links.

Real Gnostics: The Bogomils

BUT HERE ARE SOME REAL GNOSTICS:

Bulgaria, Bogomils and Italy

Author: Maria Guineva
Society | June 2, 2011, Thursday (Novinite.com)

Bogomislims (Bogomilstvo), often called the Bulgarian heresy, is a social and religious teaching, which appeared in Bulgaria during the first half of the 10th century.

Contemporary historians and scientists characterize Bogomilism as a dualistic teaching and an anti-feudal, reformative movement, born in the bosom of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, quickly spreading across Bulgarian lands during the tumultuous times in the eve of the Byzantine invasion of the country. Its roots can be found in the dualistic gnostic and the mass deportations of Armenians and Syrians from Byzantine.

[...]

A long, interesting article on the Bogomils and their influence. Not mentioned is that the Bogomils seem to have been involved to some degree with the transmission of the Slavonic Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. See the comments in Grant Macaskill's online essay, The Slavonic Pseudepigrapha: An Introduction.

Additional background here and follow the links.

Anthony Weiner, Gnostic?

A NEW TAKE ON GNOSTICISM from Christianity Today:

Anthony Weiner, Gnostic

The embroiled congressman's defense that sexting is not adultery reveals a mind-body dualism long resisted by Christian tradition.

I don't know that Gnosticism applies here: Karen Swallow Prior is the one who seems to me to be taking a decidedly Platonist position - the virtual world is as real as the physical. But more to the point, as she does imply in passing, if Jesus said that just looking is adultery (Matt 5:28), it's hard to imagine him thinking that sexting isn't.

I never expected to write the word "sexting" in this blog.

Anniversary of Nero's suicide

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY: On This Day in Ancient History - Nero's Suicide. But watch out for Nero redivivus imposters.

UPDATE: No, really, watch out.

Who’s Afraid of Abishag?

LEONARD GREENSPOON: WHO'S AFRAID OF ABISHAG? I am astonished that there are so many media references to her.

Conference in honor of Daniel Sperber

A CONFERENCE IN HONOR OF DANIEL SPERBER is being held next week at Bar-Ilan University.

And he knows Aramaic too ...

AND HE KNOWS ARAMAIC TOO:

The Renaissance Man: How to Become a Scientist Over and Over Again [Video]

By Ed Yong | Jun 8, 2011 07:57 AM | 2 (Scientific American)

Erez Lieberman Aiden is a talkative, witty fellow who will bend your ear on any number of intellectual topics. Just don’t ask him what he does. "This is actually the most difficult question that I run into on a regular basis," he says. "I really don’t have anything for that."

It is easy to understand why. Aiden is a scientist, yes, but while most of his peers stay within a specific field – say, neuroscience or genetics – Aiden crosses them with almost casual abandon. His research has taken him across molecular biology, linguistics, physics, engineering and mathematics. He was the man behind last year's "culturomics" study, where he looked at the evolution of human culture through the lens of four per cent of all the books ever published. Before that, he solved the three-dimensional structure of the human genome, studied the mathematics of verbs, and invented an insole called the iShoe that can diagnose balance problems in elderly people. "I guess I just view myself as a scientist," he says.

His approach stands in stark contrast to the standard scientific career: find an area of interest and become increasingly knowledgeable about it. Instead of branching out from a central speciality, Aiden is interested in ‘interdisciplinary’ problems that cross the boundaries of different disciplines. His approach is nomadic. He moves about, searching for ideas that will pique his curiosity, extend his horizons, and hopefully make a big impact. "I don't view myself as a practitioner of a particular skill or method," he tells me. "I’m constantly looking at what’s the most interesting problem that I could possibly work on. I really try to figure out what sort of scientist I need to be in order to solve the problem I'm interested in solving."

It’s a philosophy that has paid dividends. At just 31 years of age, Aiden has a joint lab at MIT and Harvard. In 2010, he won the prestigious $30,000 MIT-Lemenson prize, awarded to people who show "exceptional innovation and a portfolio of inventiveness". He has seven publications to his name, six of which appeared the world’s top two journals - Nature and Science. His friend and colleague Jean-Baptiste Michel says, "He's truly one of a kind. I just wonder about what discipline he will get a Nobel Prize in!"

[...]

Here's the Aramaic part:

"It turns out you can’t work everything out from first principles, because it seems like a lot of things have happened and I didn’t know anything about the universe before I was born in 1980," he says dryly. "So I thought I have to go and understand that stuff." To do that, he spent a year at New York’s Yeshiva University studying for a Masters in History. He took classes going back in time from the present day, reading forward from ancient history (he can now read Aramaic), and stopping when the two streams met in the 17th century.

I think the Aramaic was key to his success.

More opera at Masada

MORE OPERA AT MASADA:

Israeli desert opera festival becomes a 'tradition'

Success of last year's Nabucco performance at Masada historical site leads organizers to hold encore performance – this year with Verdi's Aida

Background on last year's performance here.

Museum of Tolerance update

MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE UPDATE:

Jerusalem approves revised plan for contested Museum of Tolerance site

The controversial project by the Simon Wiesenthal Center is located on a medieval Muslim cemetery, which opponents say defeats the museum's goal of building tolerance.

By Nir Hasson (Haaretz)

After a two-year delay the Jerusalem municipal planning committee approved on Monday the plan to build the Museum of Tolerance in the city center.

[...]

This is about a change in the building design, not a change in the location.

Background here and here and links.

News on the Nephilim and the Rephaim

ZOMBIES TOO: The Nephilim Are Not Coming … They Are Already Here.

Good news for the Nephilim, but for the Rephaim maybe not so much: The second death of the Rephaim: Job 13.4 not really a reference to Rephaim after all.

Irish bog Psalter now on display in Dublin

THE IRISH BOG PSALTER is now on display in Dublin:

Public gets first look at ancient book of psalms

By Grainne Cunningham (Independent.ie)

Wednesday June 08 2011

AFTER hundreds of years lying in a muddy bog, one of the country's most important antiquities went on public display for the first time yesterday.

The Fadden More Psalter, a book of psalms as old as the Book of Kells, was found by turf cutters in a Tipperary bog in 2006.

Conservationists have spent the past five years painstakingly preserving the vellum pages and leather cover and the psalter, which dates from 800AD, now sits centre stage at a new exhibition in the National Museum in Dublin.

[...]

Background here and here and follow the links.

UCLA acquires Ethiopic manuscripts

ETHIOPIC MANUSCRIPT NEWS:

UCLA Library acquires Ethiopic manuscripts collection

By Dawn Setzer June 06, 2011 Category: Arts & Humanities, Campus News

The UCLA Library has acquired the largest private collection of Ethiopic manuscripts and scrolls in the U.S., given by Gerald and Barbara Weiner. Together with the library's existing collections, this gift makes the UCLA Library the leading repository for Ethiopic manuscripts in North America.

A classical Semitic language, Ethiopic is used as the liturgical language of the Christian church in Ethiopia.

Dating from the 18th to the 21st centuries, the collection of 137 bound manuscripts and 102 scrolls is particularly rich in elaborately illustrated liturgical texts. Highlights include a late 19th/early 20th-century version of the Gospels containing 78 miniatures; a 19th-century "lives of the saints" with 40 miniatures; a 20th-century compilation of a table blessing and miracles performed by Jesus with 37 miniatures; and a 20th-century collection of prayers with an image of John the Evangelist and 26 miniatures.

[...]

An important collection, although so far no word of Enochiana or other Old Testament pseudepigrapha in it.

Top five religious mysteries?

MY HEART SANK when I saw this headline:

Top five religious mysteries
As yet another theory emerges as to the origins of the Turin Shroud, here are the top five religious mysteries.

By Nick Squires, Rome (The Telegraph)

9:00PM BST 07 Jun 2011

What an odd collection, and how odd to think that a list mainly of lost, legendary, and/or fake relics somehow constitute the "top five religious mysteries." The exception to my generalization is the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are a mystery in the sense that, although most scholars accept that they come from the Essenes, there is a good deal of debate about what exactly that means.

For the Ark of the Covenant, start here and follow the links. I have posted less on the other relics, but see here for the Holy Grail; here for the True Cross and here for Simcha Jacobovici's True Cross nails; and here for another face-cloth of Christ. And this post covers a few of these relics as well.

I suppose I should just be glad that the fake metal codices didn't make the list.