UNESCO resolution fallout

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Israel suspends cooperation with U.N. cultural agency over Jerusalem resolution (Ruth Eglash, Washington Post).

JERUSALEM — Israel announced Friday that it would suspend cooperation with the top U.N. cultural agency, charging that the international body ignored Jewish ties to its holiest site.

Israeli officials had reacted angrily to a UNESCO draft resolution approved Thursday that criticizes Israel’s actions in and around Jerusalem’s holiest site and fails to explicitly refer to the Jewish connection to the place.

Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett said the UNESCO decision “denies history and encourages terror.”

[...]

As I said before, UNESCO is not doing its reputation any good with this one. And I have no praise for the Washington Post for the following (my emphasis):

While acknowledging that the “Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls” are important for “the three monotheistic religions” — Judaism, Islam and Christianity — the resolution stops short of mentioning the significance of the site, where two Jewish temples are believed to have once stood, as holy to Jews.

The phrase "are believed to have" makes the existence sound like religious belief or a matter of faith. Something more robust is called for. The writer could have said, for example, "where archaeologists agree two Jewish temples once stood." More on that here and links.

It is telling that the Director-General of UNESCO felt she had to part ways with this resolution: Head of UNESCO highly critical of Temple Mount and Western Wall resolution (Big News Network.com).

PARIS, France - UNESCO’s Director-General Irina Bokova has broken ranks with the international body she heads, criticising this week's 24-6 vote to designate the Temple Mount and its Western Wall as a purely Muslim religious site.

"As I have stated on many occasions, and most recently during the 40th session of the World Heritage Committee, Jerusalem is the sacred city of the three monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam," she said Friday. "It is in recognition of this exceptional diversity, and this cultural and religious coexistence, that it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list."

"The heritage of Jerusalem is indivisible, and each of its communities has a right to the explicit recognition of their history and relationship with the city. To deny, conceal or erase any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site, and runs counter to the reasons that justified its inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage list."

[...]

Good for her.

Background here and links.

Review of Lin, The Erotic Life of Manuscripts

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Yii-Jan Lin, The Erotic Life of Manuscripts: New Testament Textual Criticism and the Biological Sciences. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xi, 203. ISBN 9780190279806. $74.00.

Reviewed by Hugh Houghton, Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing, University of Birmingham (H.A.G.Houghton@bham.ac.uk)

Preview

Those who fail to find textual criticism a “sexy” subject may be surprised by the title of this volume and the image of a woman, naked but for a crumpled bedsheet, which graces its dustjacket. Lin’s contention is that, from the early eighteenth century onwards, editors of the New Testament have been inspired by parallel developments in the natural sciences. What is more, she suggests that their adoption of biological vocabulary to describe the classification of manuscripts into “families” and “tribes”, or to assess their “contamination”, has resulted in a pseudo-scientific approach which has in turn shaped the discipline. Such a claim is particularly significant at the present time, when large datasets of textual differences are being analysed using phylogenetic software developed for evolutionary biology and the characteristics of a text may be described as its DNA. The conceit that manuscripts have an “erotic life” is intended to prompt consideration of the implications of metaphors in text-critical terminology, including scribal attempts to “reproduce” an exemplar and the description of textual “relationships”. Insofar as this book avoids overinterpreting the evidence or advocating a specific agenda, it contributes innovative and thought-provoking reflections on the history and practice of textual scholarship.

[...]

Mo‘ed

YONA SABAR: Hebrew Word of the Week: mo‘ed “appointed time, holiday.” Again, timely, for this time of year.

Beirut Museum galleries reopen

PHOENICIAN WATCH: National Museum of Beirut opens basement for first time since civil war. Gallery of ancient funerary art restored with Italian support (Hannah McGivern, The Art Newspaper).

The National Museum of Beirut, which stood on the deadly Green Line during the Lebanese civil war, has reopened fully to the public after more than 40 years. On 7 October, the Lebanese prime minister Tammam Salam and the Italian foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni inaugurated the restored basement galleries dedicated to Lebanon’s ancient funerary art. The project was funded more than €1m by the Italian government and supported by Italian conservators.

[...]

The new underground displays range from prehistory to the Ottoman Empire and include 31 Phoenician anthropoid sarcophagi carved in marble (sixth-century BC to fourth-century BC), the world’s largest such collection, and the second-century Roman tomb of Tyre, whose frescoed surfaces were restored by Italian conservators in 2010-11. Three Medieval mummies are also on view after analysis and restoration at the Eurac research centre in Bolzano, Italy.

[...]

I hope everything continues to stay safe.

Josephus and the Hasmoneans

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

A History of the Hasmonean State: Josephus and Beyond

Josephus cautiously avoided messianism in his history of the Has- monean period. He appears to have been reluctant to document any Hasmonean history that involved the violent messianism of the type that had contributed to the outbreak of the First Jewish War. Instead, he stresses that the Hasmonean family’s rule had gone well until they had established a monarchy and allowed sectarian factions to influence politics. Josephus wrote his books partly to support the aristocracy, namely the rule of the Pharisees and their leaders. For Josephus, these groups represented caution and Roman aristocratic values. They were opposed to the religious zeal of the Zealots and related Jewish groups that had caused the rebellion against Rome. For Josephus, the priests and the aristocrats were the only legitimate Jewish leaders.

Chapter from: A History of the Hasmonean State: Josephus and Beyond (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016).


See Also: Queen Salome: Jerusalem's Forgotten Warrior Monarch

The Historical-Critical Historical/Theological Enterprise: Why Are We Asking These Questions?



By Kenneth Atkinson
Department of History
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, IA
October 2016

New UNESCO resolution passes

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: UNESCO passes resolution denying Jewish ties to Jerusalem holy sites (i24news).

Only six countries vote against contentious resolution claiming Temple Mount is sacred only to Muslims

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Thursday passed a contentious anti-Israel resolution denying Jewish connections to the Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem.

24 UNESCO member states voted in favor of the resolution, 26 abstained, and only six countries voted against.

The proposal, put forth by the Palestinians, along with Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar and Sudan, condemns Israel on several issues related to Jerusalem and its holy sites.

[...]

The article summarizes the objectionable details of language of the resolution. The media is already covering a lot of early responses, and a lot of criticism of UNESCO is coming in. I don't think they did their reputation any good with this one.

Background here.

Lazarus

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: L is for Lazarus (Philip Jenkins). Did John's Lazarus come from a parable or was he made into one by Luke?

Review of MacDonald, Hannibal

PUNIC WATCH: Hannibal's Heel. Why Carthage failed and Rome succeeded (J. E. Lendon, Weekly Standard).

It is a symptom of the deplorable state of intellectual life today that readers of this magazine can guess the lineaments of the story told in Hannibal the instant they read early in its pages that classical Carthage, the city on whose behalf the great captain of the title fought against Rome, was “diverse" and "multicultural."

To whatever degree bigoted contemporary observers regarded Carthage as brutal in its politics and religion, oppressive to its subjects, aggressive to its neighbors, and sly in its relations with foreign powers, a city boasting those two glittering qualities nearly divinized by our educators must have been, instead, kind and scrupulous in its dealings foreign and domestic, and victimized in its innocence by less politically correct nations. The countless newborn babies and small children the Carthaginians sacrificed to their gods—the remains of more than 20,000 have been found in Carthage alone— fade into no more than a single facet of the glorious cultural mosaic that was Carthage. And none of this needs to be proved, or even argued, by the author, who is also free to commit no few errors of fact: for a diverse and multicultural people are the good guys by definition, and a writer who sings their virtues is liberated from the dull grind of historical accuracy by the purity of her ideals.

[...]

Ouch. Earlier reviews of the book (Eve MacDonald, Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life) were noted here and here.

Younger, A Political History of the Arameans

ARAMAIC WATCH: New Book: A Political History of the Arameans (A. D. Riddle, The Bible Places Blog).

At the end of last week, after a lengthy delay, we were happy finally to get our grubby mitts on Lawson Younger’s newest book, A Political History of the Arameans: From Their Origins to the End of Their Polities (Atlanta: SBL, 2016).

[...]

Texan Mandean update

MANDEAN (MANDAEAN) WATCH: Mandaean Mexican Restaurant in San Antonio (James McGrath). To the attention of all Aramaists (and anyone else) attending the Society of Biblical Literature meetings next month. Sounds remote, but I may try to make it there.

Background here. Thanks, James, for the update.

The ending of Mark

ETC BLOG: Mark 16 on a Roll (Peter Gurry). It makes sense to me that the first parts of a scroll to wear out would be the beginning and the end. As the post acknowledges, it is an open question whether that tells us anything about whether the original ending of the Gospel of Mark was lost.

Another UNESCO resolution

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: UNESCO Poised to Pass Resolution Casting Doubt on Jewish Ties to Temple Mount. Israel attempts to convince as many states as possible to oppose the resolution, but only few are swayed; Foreign Ministry issues brochure proving historic affiliation between the Jews and Jerusalem (Barak Ravid, Haaretz).

The 58 members of UNESCO are expected to vote Thursday on an anti-Israeli resolution that disregards Judaism’s historic connection to the Temple Mount and casts doubt on the link between Judaism and the Western Wall. The resolution is expected to pass by a large majority.

Israel has made efforts to block the resolution or at least soften it, but succeeded only in swaying the positions of a few member states.

The resolution proposal, which condemns Israel on several issues regarding Jerusalem and its holy sites, was advanced by the Palestinians alongside Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar and Sudan. The draft resolution, a copy of which was obtained by Haaretz, asserts that Jerusalem is holy to the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity. However, it includes a special section dealing with the Temple Mount, which says the site is sacred only to Muslims and fails to mention that it is sacred to the Jews as well. In fact, it mentions neither the Hebrew term for the site – Har HaBayit – nor its English equivalent, the Temple Mount. The site is referred to only by its Muslim names – Al-Aqsa Mosque and Haram al-Sharif.

Also, the resolution calls the Western Wall plaza by the Arab-Muslim name al-Buraq plaza. Only afterward does the Hebrew-Jewish name “Hakotel Hama’aravi” appear in quotation marks.

[...]

You can read the full draft text of the resolution at the link. Much of it concerns matters on which I have limited or no information, so I will not comment on the substance. The wording does seem significantly slanted away from any recognition of a Jewish connection to the site of the Temple Mount, although this is almost entirely a matter of omission rather than assertion.

More on the previous UNESCO resolution on the subject is here and links.

Frankincense discovery

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Lifting the veil on Queen of Sheba's perfume (Popular Archaeology).

It is one of the oldest fragrances in the world. Nicolas Baldovini's team at the Institut de chimie de Nice (CNRS/UNS) has just discovered the components that give frankincense its distinctive odor: two molecules found for the first time in nature, named “olibanic acids” by the scientists. Their research results* have just been published online, on the website of the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

It is mentioned more than twenty times in the Bible, where it is one of the gifts offered by the Three Wise Men. Frankincense (also called olibanum1), one of the world's oldest fragrances, is a gum resin that exudes from the bark of Boswellia trees, which grow in countries bordering the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It has been used for more than 6,000 years by every civilization, from Mesopotamia to the present. Regularly burned during religious ceremonies, it contributes to the very particular smell of churches. Despite its long history and the large amount of research dedicated to it, the exact nature of the molecules that give frankincense its distinctive fragrance surprisingly remained unknown.

[...]

Until now. Some past posts involving frankincense are here, here, here, here, and here.

New issue of RÉJ

H-JUDAIC: TOC: Revue des études juives 175, 1-2 (janvier-juin 2015). Includes an interesting looking article on historical Jesus research.

Ancient coinage inflation

NUMISMATICS: A high-tech peek into antiquity. Advanced nano-techniques shed new light on the Roman Empire (Kurt Pfitzer, Resolve Magazine 16.2, Lehigh University).

Using the most advanced techniques for analyzing the surfaces of materials, a team of researchers has shed light on the coin-making practices of the Roman Empire and the manner in which Roman coins have corroded over the past 2,000 years.

The study by Lehigh chemical engineers and materials scientists demonstrated that low-energy ions, x-rays and laser lights can be used to analyze archaeological objects without damaging them. And it yielded clues about the environment to which the coins, and the people who handled them, were exposed.

[...]

The first part of the article has technical details, but then it goes on to discuss how the technology demonstrates the devaluation of the denarius as the Roman empire declined. Then there is this:

Several years later, Notis teamed with Aaron Shugar, a former postdoctoral researcher at Lehigh, and two other scientists in a study of 700 shekel and half-shekel coins that were minted in the ancient Roman city of Tyre (located in modern-day Lebanon) and recovered half a century ago in Israel.

The researchers used a handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) unit, irradiating the coin with an X-ray and measuring the rays reflected back to determine the coins’ overall composition. They confirmed the XRF results with electron probe bulk microanalysis.

The Tyrian shekels, Notis said, circulated during the time of Jesus, when the temple in Jerusalem was the central meeting place for Jews living in the Roman Empire. “Every year, Jews were required to pay a tax to the temple,” he said. “The temple accepted only coins minted in the town of Tyre, which was known for the purity of its silver.

“We wondered what had happened to the silver content of the coinage. Two main hoards of coins from Tyre have been found. One was near Haifa in the village of Isfiya, the other was near Qumran, adjacent to the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.” Several jars of Roman coins in mint condition, similar to the coins investigated in the Lehigh studies, were also found with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The XRF analysis, said Notis, revealed the overall silver content of each Tyrian coin in two minutes. “We analyzed 700 coins in 24 hours using a handheld XRF unit. We plotted the bulk silver content versus the year of the date of the coin on a graph.

“We found much the same results that Pense had found—coins were made of 90-plus percent bulk silver until 44 B.C.E. when the Roman civil wars began. All of a sudden, the silver content dropped dramatically until Augustus Caesar took over.”

Notis and Shugar also used XRF to examine coins minted by the Philistines between 500 and 400 B.C.E.

“We were able to spot fakes immediately,” said Notis, “because they had a silver content of only 46 percent, compared to the 95 percent silver content of the authentic coins.”

Cross-file under Technology Watch and Phoenician Watch. Note the little extra story at the end of the quote about using the technology to authenticate Philistine coins. A couple of recent PaleoJudaica posts on the denarius are here and here. Shekel and half-shekel (etc.) coins have come up as well. Some posts are here, here, here, here, here, here and links.

Ownership disputes and oaths in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: I Swear. A simple dispute over ownership leads the Talmudic sages into a debate, in this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ about the value of a spiritual oath versus secular claims of honesty.

The first three tractates of Seder Nezikin were once a single long tractate, whose title was also Nezikin, that is, “damages.” At some point, however, this was divided into three sections, each of which is referred to as a Bava, or “gate.” Last week, Daf Yomi readers finished Bava Kamma, “the first gate,” and began Bava Metzia, “the middle gate.” (Still to come is Bava Batra, “the last gate.”) The subject continues to be the laws of damages, but in this new tractate, the emphasis has shifted. Bava Kamma dealt primarily with various kinds of injuries—inflicted deliberately or accidentally, by people or animals, taking the form of bodily harm or theft.

In the first pages of Bava Metzia, by contrast, the focus is on disputes over ownership. What happens when two litigants lay claim to the same item—in the mishna’s example, a garment? “If two people come to court holding a garment, and this one says: I found it, and that one says: I found it,” how is the court to decide between their claims? Because the item was found, not purchased or loaned or given, none of the usual kinds of evidence used in property disputes is available here. It’s not possible for either party to produce a receipt or a witness proving that he is the true owner. The court has nothing to go on but the fact that both parties are physically holding on to the garment.

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Romans 4 continued

READING ACTS: Abraham’s Faith and Works in Romans 4. Phil Long interacts with a number of ancient Jewish texts here, including Ben Sira, the Mishnah, 1 Maccabees, and Philo. I have reservations about the use of the Testament of Abraham as a Jewish text. I'm not sure what it is, but reading it simply as Jewish (or Christian) leaves problems unsolved. See my book, The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha, pp. 199-206 for details.

See this post as well: By Faith not Circumcision – Romans 4:9-12, which deals with an important theme in ancient Judaism (and thereafter).

Some of Phil Long's past posts on Paul's Letter to the Romans are noted, with comments, here and links.

Columbus and 2 Esdras again

COLUMBUS DAY: Top 10 facts about Columbus. OCTOBER 12 is celebrated in some places as Columbus Day, in celebration of Christopher Columbus’s sighting land on October 12, 1492 to discover the Americas. (WILLIAM HARTSTON, The Express). I can't speak for the accuracy of all these claimed facts, but number 4 is correct:

4. ...his calculations were based on the Second Book of Esdras in the Apocrypha which suggested the Earth was six parts land to one part water.

Details here. Other past PaleoJudaica posts on Columbus are here and here and links.

More Neusner obituaries

ADD TO THE LIST OF NUESNER MEMORIALS FROM YESTERDAY:

Jacob Neusner, Benedict XVI’s ‘favourite rabbi’, dies aged 84 (Catholic Herald).

Rabbi Jacob Neusner, the Jewish scholar who influenced the writings of Pope Benedict, has died.

Neusner died at his home in Rhinebeck, New York, on Saturday, according to Bard College, where he had taught since 1994. He had suffered from Parkinson’s disease. He was 84.

Pope Benedict quotes Neusner in the first volume of his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy. On the release of Neusner’s 1993 essay A Rabbi Talks With Jesus, the then Cardinal Ratzinger called it “by far the most important book for the Jewish-Christian dialogue in the last decade.”

The two corresponded for many years, before finally meeting when Benedict came to the US in 2008. “It was a moving moment,” Neusner recalled. “The Holy Father greeted me, saying, ‘After 15 years of letters at last we meet’.” They tried speaking in English, then switched to Italian.

[...]

How a Jewish Kid from the Suburbs Transformed Jewish Studies in America (Aaron W. Hughes, History News Network). "Aaron W. Hughes holds the Philip S. Bernstein Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Rochester. He is the author of the newly published Jacob Neusner: An American Jewish Iconoclast (NYU Press, 2016)." Except from the obituary:

Neusner sought to create a systematic and non-partisan study of Judaism that took place within the context of the discipline of Religious Studies. Today we may well take this for granted. One can now go to college and take a course on Jewish texts taught by someone with a PhD in religion and with a specialization in Judaism, as opposed to being taught by the local rabbi. However, this required real intellectual battles. Neusner was the instigator of many of these conflicts, and he was in the thick of many others. In this way, he created an intellectual space for the academic study of Judaism in the secular setting of higher learning.

Neusner, Famed Scholar, Remembered at Bard For Life of Jewish Learning (Ira Stoll, New York Sun)

Jacob Neusner wrote, in his report to his Harvard classmates for his 30th college reunion, “When I came to Harvard in 1950, I was so enthralled with this new world...that I just did not want to go home. I stayed at the college the entire year and did not take any of the vacations. I had the odd fear that if I left that enchanted place, it might not be there when I got back.”

That was read Monday at the memorial service for Neusner, who died Saturday at the age of 84. The service was at Bard College, where he taught for a generation of students. It was a spectacular autumn day, with leaves in blazing color on the campus, which overlooks the Hudson River.

[...]

Yom Kippur 2016

YOM KIPPUR, the Day of Atonement, begins this evening at sundown. An easy fast to all those observing it.

Biblical etc. background on Yom Kippur is here and links. Some posts on Yom Kippur since last year's post are here, here, here, here, and here.