More on the new, blank DSS

QUMRAN CAVE 12: New Dead Sea Scroll Find May Help Detect Forgeries. Looters plundered the cave decades ago. But archaeologists are thrilled by what they left behind. Here’s why. (Michelle Z. Donahue, National Geographic).

The discovery of a twelfth cave associated with the famous Dead Sea Scrolls may arm scholars with new clues to deter looters and detect modern forgeries of the ancient documents.

Earlier this week archaeologists announced the discovery of the cave—the first scroll site found since 1956—and revealed the results of recent excavations. The Israeli team found numerous storage jars that had been hidden in niches cut into the cave walls, but all were broken and their contents removed.

Some items were left behind, however, including leather scroll ties, textiles for wrapping scrolls, and a pair of rusty pickaxes from the 1950s—telltale signs that the cave had once harbored a collection of scrolls stored in clay jars, but looters had made off with the documents decades ago.

“The findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen,” said Hebrew University archaeologist and excavation director Oren Gutfeld.

That's the back story. The key point for this article is this:

The team also found pieces of parchment with no writing on it. Such material has become a hot commodity, with scraps of ancient parchment commanding high prices, according to Randall Price, an archaeologist at Liberty University who collaborated on the project. Much of the material is supplied by looters, who in recent years have been aggressively targeting the Dead Sea caves.

[...]

The blank parchment that archaeologists recently found may shed light on how high quality forgeries could be making their way to the market. And because it was recovered by scientifically rigorous methods, the parchment will help experts assess fragments that show up for sale.

That hadn't occurred to me, but, yes, it makes sense. Blank parchments like this scientifically excavated one may already have been looted. They may have been used to give us some of the recent, apparent Dead Sea Scrolls forgeries.

One correction to my first post on this discovery. There I took the Hebrew University press release to be saying that the blank parchment was being tested for faded writing. I think I misread it. What it actually was saying was that the blank fragment itself was (in antiquity) "being processed" to be written on. The English statement isn't very clear. Perhaps the Hebrew press release, which I have not seen, was clearer.

1 Maccabees and Hasmonean ideology

READING ACTS: 1 Maccabees and the Legitimacy of the Hasmoneans.

The book of 1 Maccabees clearly favors the revolution against the Seleucid and the Hasmonean dynasty. In fact, it is “a thoroughgoing pro-Hasmonean . . . perhaps even Sadducean, tendency interpenetrates the entire work” (Fischer, 4:441) and the “author of 1 Maccabees identifies unreservedly with the rebels and their leaders.” (Efron, 47; Sievers, 2).

[...]

Yes, both 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees are ideologically pro-Hasmonean. (Not sure about "Sadducean," though.) They are our main historical sources for the Maccabean revolt. This makes an objective evaluation of what happened challenging. A recent PaleoJudaica post on a revisionist view of the revolt is here.

It is not well known, but there are other, briefer, ancient accounts of the Maccabean revolt which give somewhat different perspectives on what happened. The two I know of offhand are Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, 34-35.1.1 and John Malalas, Chronographia, 206-207. On the latter see also here and here.

It happens that next week I am lecturing on the Old Testament Apocrypha in my Second Temple Jewish Literature class, so I have been thinking about such things.

Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

The Septuagint Song

FURTHER TO INTERNATIONAL SEPTUAGINT DAY: The Septuagint Song (Tommy Wasserman, ETC Blog). I give them points for effort.

Background here.

Taylor, Gospels

NEW NOVEL: Nottingham novelist crafts 19th century bible hunting tale that is 'Indiana Jones meets Jules Verne.' Bible-hunting, rogues and Egypt combine to create Nottingham writer Stephen Taylor's fascinating novel, Gospels. Amy Wilcockson spoke to him to find out more (Nottingham Post).

Can you tell us a little bit about your novel?
It's a novel about change and redemption, using the genre of the American road movie, but placed into 1830's Egypt. The rogue John Campbell-John had fled England because his debts caught up with him. In Venice, he meets a man on an honourable quest who wants to travel in Egypt to find the earliest copies of the Bible. So the two travel together down the Nile. Egypt was a predominantly Christian country from the fourth to seventh century, which is something I didn't know until I researched. The monastic movement started in Egypt, and some monasteries actually still exist in the Egyptian deserts. Their libraries contain manuscripts dating as far back as the first century, and it is these my characters want to discover.

[...]

Good concept. Could be entertaining. It caught my eye mainly because it is inspired to some degree by the real nineteenth-century explorer Robert Curzon, on whom more here and here and links.

What sort of research did you have to do?
I have to say, as a historical novelist I don't do the primary research. I'm not a history professor so I piggyback on the academics, and use contemporary accounts. One of the early Bible hunters was a guy called Robert Curzon, later 14th Baron Zouche, and he travelled extensively in Egypt looking for the gospels. He wrote a book called Visits to Monasteries in the Levant (Levant being the English word for the Middle East). Not only did this book tell me what he did, what he found and where he travelled, but it also contains a description of the people he met in Egypt at that time. It gives me a snapshot into his world, and it heavily influenced my work. That was my Bible!

"Levant" is a term for the Eastern Mediterranean region, especially Syria-Palestine, and so it only partially overlaps with the Middle East.

Follow the main link above for a description of the novel. The reference to the King James Bible is not promising.

Resources for Zoharic Aramaic

ZOHAR WATCH: Judy Barrett's Academia.edu page has a number of resources for the study of Zoharic Aramaic. See especially Twelve Lessons in Grammatical and Syntactic Analysis of the Zohar and (Toward) A Thesaurus of the Zohar: English-Aramaic/Hebrew Synonyms. And there's more.

I have already mentioned The Aramaic Language of the Zohar website and the Zohar Dictionary. And I believe the discussion on the Facebook Zohar Daf Yomi page is still active.

Cross-file under Aramaic watch.For the many other past PaleoJudaica posts on the Zohar, start here (cf. here) and follow the links.

Tu B'Shevat 2017

TU B'SHEVAT, the New Year for Trees, begins tonight at sundown. Some past posts of interest are collected here and see also here.

Cottrell, The Writings Of Silvanus

NEW NOVEL: Author Dana George Cottrell’s Newly Released “The Writings Of Silvanus” is a Journey into Ancient Phoenicia and Greece.

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Dana George Cottrell’s new book is a journey into history that tells the story of a wealthy and powerful woman named Rachael.

Nineteen sealed urns are discovered in a small cave located in southern Lebanon. Within the urns, papyrus scrolls written in ancient Greek tell the story of a Jewish family that moved from Judea and settled in Beth-Gebar. Silvanus, the author of the scrolls, wrote about his family’s history while living in Beth-Gebar during the First Century.

Sounds potentially interesting, or at least entertaining. However, the prospects of the book being based on rigorous historical research don't seem good. Note that the fearless, pirate-fighting heroine spells her name with a spelling that first appeared in the 19th century and only became popular in the 1980s.

Human trees in the Bible?

DR. SHAI SECUNDA: “Are Trees of the Field Human?” (TheTorah.com).

Deuteronomy 20:19 forbids the chopping down of fruit trees during war-time, and offers the cryptic explanation כי האדם עץ השדה (ki ha-adam etz hasadeh), but what does this mean?

I was waiting for Ents to come up, but they didn't. Nevertheless, a timely essay.

Coins and the Bible conference

NUMISMATICS: Coins and the Bible: Understanding Ancient Coinage April 29 @ 10:30 am — 6:00 pm - a day conference at New College at the University of Edinburgh.

Some of the most famous stories in the Bible revolve around coins. From the four-drachma coin pulled from the fish’s mouth to Judas’s thirty pieces of silver, ancient writers have used the terminology of coinage to make their narratives more palatable for their audiences. Coinage communicates the language of empire to its subjects, rich and poor alike, through image and inscription, and helps provide the material background for better understanding the cultural milieu of the Bible. This day conference, “Coins and the Bible,” is primarily aimed at students and scholars of Christian origins and Classics who seek to develop a more comprehensive understanding of numismatics in the ancient world. Renowned scholars from the University of Edinburgh and the British Museum will offer lectures in Hellenistic, Roman, and Jewish coinage ranging from the Second Temple period to late antiquity. The conference will be free for both students and the public, though we suggest considering a £10 donation from public guests. Registration is required and space is limited, so we encourage you to sign up quickly.

Follow the link for the schedule and registration information.

Jubilees and the Land

READING ACTS: Jubilees and Sacred Geography.

The emphasis on God’s gift of land to the descendants of Israel is important because many Jewish readers of this book were living outside of Judea. Perhaps the author of Jubilees places the promise of land to the time of Noah in order to assure readers of God’s promise restore the people of Israel to the land in the future, or even to encourage a return to the land at the present time.

The whole issue of the Land, of course, remains a major concern for modern Judaism.

Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

Qumran Cave 12

HEBREW UNIVERSITY PRESS RELEASE: Hebrew University Archaeologists Find 12th Dead Sea Scrolls Cave.

Hebrew University archaeologist Dr. Oren Gutfeld: "This is one of the most exciting archaeological discoveries, and the most important in the last 60 years, in the caves of Qumran."

Excavations in a cave on the cliffs west of Qumran, near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, prove that Dead Sea scrolls from the Second Temple period were hidden in the cave, and were looted by Bedouins in the middle of the last century. With the discovery of this cave, scholars now suggest that it should be numbered as Cave 12. [Photo links below]

The surprising discovery, representing a milestone in Dead Sea Scroll research, was made by Dr. Oren Gutfeld and Ahiad Ovadia from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology, with the collaboration of Dr. Randall Price and students from Liberty University in Virginia, USA.

The excavators are the first in over 60 years to discover a new scroll cave and to properly excavate it.

The excavation was supported by the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria, by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), and is a part of the new “Operation Scroll” launched at the IAA by its Director-General, Mr. Israel Hasson, to undertake systematic surveys and to excavate the caves in the Judean Desert.

Only you have to keep reading to learn that they pretty much didn't find any actual scrolls there:

Excavation of the cave revealed that at one time it contained Dead Sea scrolls. Numerous storage jars and lids from the Second Temple period were found hidden in niches along the walls of the cave and deep inside a long tunnel at its rear. The jars were all broken and their contents removed, and the discovery towards the end of the excavation of a pair of iron pickaxe heads from the 1950s (stored within the tunnel for later use) proves the cave was looted.

Until now, it was believed that only 11 caves had contained scrolls. With the discovery of this cave, scholars have now suggested that it would be numbered as Cave 12. Like Cave 8, in which scroll jars but no scrolls were found, this cave will receive the designation Q12 (the Q=Qumran standing in front of the number to indicate no scrolls were found).

I say "pretty much" because of this:

Dr. Gutfeld added: “Although at the end of the day no scroll was found, and instead we ‘only’ found a piece of parchment rolled up in a jug that was being processed for writing, the findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen. The findings include the jars in which the scrolls and their covering were hidden, a leather strap for binding the scroll, a cloth that wrapped the scrolls, tendons and pieces of skin connecting fragments, and more."

This isn't phrased terribly clearly, but it seems to be saying that the piece of parchment has no obvious writing on it, but it is being analyzed to find any faded writing that is not obvious.

Despite the lack of scrolls, the discovery of this cave is very important for many reasons explained in the press release.

At present, Operation Scroll has produced inscribed but (so far) unreadable scroll fragments from the Cave of Skulls and now a new scrolls cave at Qumran with what (so far) seems to be just one uninscribed parchment fragment. In one sense, that's a disappointing haul. But in another it is encouraging. It does demonstrate that there are still scroll fragments in those caves. Let's hope a big discovery still awaits the investigators.

There is also the possibility that more scrolls will be found during the new excavations currently underway at Masada. And there's even an outside chance of very old scroll fragments turning up at the ongoing excavations at Timna.

New excavation coming at Kiryat Ye’arim

CUE INDIANA JONES MUSIC: Archaeologists to break ground at biblical site where Ark of the Covenant stood. Israeli and French researchers to excavate ancient site of Kiryat Ye’arim, outside Jerusalem, one of the few unstudied biblical tels (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel).

One of the few remaining unstudied major biblical sites, where according to the Bible the Ark of the Covenant was kept for two decades, will be excavated by archaeologists this summer for the first time.

Organizers hope the anticipated study of Kiryat Ye’arim (also transliterated as Kiriath Jearim) will shed light on the site’s significance during the Iron Age, the period associated with the biblical account of King David.

Kiryat Ye’arim is mentioned over a dozen times in the Bible as a Judahite town situated near Jerusalem during the period of the judges and King David — the Iron Age, in archaeological terms.

The biblical town is associated with the hill where the Deir El-Azar monastery is situated, next to modern Arab town of Abu Ghosh, 12 kilometers (7 miles) west of Jerusalem’s Old City. A modern Jewish town founded nearby is named after the ancient site.

[...]

Spoiler: the Ark of the Covenant is no longer there.

Nevertheless, as the article explains, this will be quite an important excavation.

Tu B'Shevat

COMING TOMORROW: What is Tu Bishvat? Tu Bishvat, sometimes transliterated as Tu B'Shevat, traditionally marks the date on which farmers began calculating the tithing of their fruit crop for the coming year (Simon Rocker. The Jewish Chronicle).

Origins

Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees, is a minor festival and one of four new years – the others being Rosh Hashanah on Tishri 1, the start of the calendar year on Nisan 1 and the least known, Ellul 1, the new year for tithing cattle in classical days (akin to the start of the tax year).

Unlike the other new years, Tu Bishvat occurs mid-month rather than at the beginning; its name simply refers to the date on which it falls, the 15th day of the eleventh month, Shevat. Although not mentioned in the Bible, it is referred to as Rosh Hashanah L’Ilanot, New Year for Trees, in the Talmud and marked the date on which farmers began calculating the tithing of their fruit crop for the coming year.

[...]

It is mentioned in the Bible, sort of, but not specifically as a festival. More on that in a link tomorrow.

UPDATE: Yes, I did mean tomorrow, which is when the festival starts. The post appeared prematurely today, but that was due to a pre-posting that went awry. Apologies for the error.

Jubilees and the Law

READING ACTS: The Law in Jubilees.

What motivated the writer of Jubliees to ground distinctive Jewish practices in the earliest stories in Genesis? Is his motivation to prove to the Gentile world that the Judaism of the Second Temple period is ancient and worthy of respect? Or is he “preaching to the choir,” trying to encourage Second Temple Jews to continue in their practice of Sabbath and festivals?

Good questions. The two options are not necessarily entirely mutually exclusive.

Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

International Septuagint Day 2017

IT'S FEBRUARY 8TH AGAIN: INTERNATIONAL LXX DAY: AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. NATALIO FERNÁNDEZ-MARCOS (William Ross, Septuaginta & C. blog).

That widely celebrated occasion is upon us again: Happy 11th International Septuagint Day! As I have in the past, I encourage you to take up your well-worn edition of the Greek Old Testament and read a bit today in recognition of this joyful day.

Some past interviews of LXX scholars by William Ross are noted here and links.

And there's also this:

How the Vatican Library celebrates LXX Day (Marieke Dhont, Logos Academic Blog).

In honour of Septuagint Day, I am eager to discuss ancient manuscripts of the LXX, in particular those manuscripts that have recently been made accessible to the public by the Vatican Library Digitization Project. This project greatly improves our access to ancient treasures that further our understanding of the Bible and its history.

With fine photos and commentary. The Vatican knows how to celebrate.

Past PaleoJudaica posts on International Septuagint Day are here, here (it seems I forgot about the post from the previous year), here, here, here, and here.

Open-access Steinsaltz Talmud

TALMUD WATCH: The Babylonian Talmud Is Now Available Free Online in English and Hebrew. The non-profit Sefaria has fulfilled a dream that dates back to Albert Einstein (Yair Rosenberg, Tablet Magazine).

One of the most accessible Hebrew and English translations of the Babylonian Talmud is going open source. Today, Sefaria, an online nonprofit bringing traditional Jewish texts to the internet, announced that it will be posting the entire compendium with the crisp bilingual translation of Jerusalem polymath Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz Even-Yisrael.

[...]

For the many PaleoJudaica posts on the Hebrew and English Steinsaltz translation of the Talmud, start here and follow the links. (I have not been able to find any more recent updates on Rabbi Steinsaltz's recovery, but I wish him well.)

The Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18)

RABBI DR. DANIEL M. ZUCKER: Enthroning God in the Temple with the Song of the Sea (TheTorah.com).

The Song of the Sea begins with defeat of the Egyptians and ends with YHWH’s enthronement in His temple. Comparison with the Epic of Baal and Enuma Elish clarify the genre and purpose of such hymns, and a striking parallel with Solomon’s prayer in 1Kings 8 offers a clue to the original context of this ancient song.

Rabbi Zucker thinks that the Song of the Sea was composed for the dedication of the First Temple at its founding, which is possible. But the song itself, while alluding to a Temple of YHWH, does not mention Jerusalem specifically. (The reference in v. 17 to "the mountain of Your possession" is a mythological term referring to the cosmic mountain and may, but does not necessarily imply Mount Zion.) My teacher, Frank Moore Cross, who is cited in the essay, thought the reference was to the early sanctuary in Gilgal and that the Song of the Sea could have been composed within living memory of whatever event it described. That's possible too, as are a good many other reconstructions. We just don't know.

Frank Moore Cross. "The Song of the Sea and Canaanite Myth" . Pages 112-144 in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Harvard University Press, 1973). See note 12 of Rabbi Zucker's essay for a response.

Jubilees

READING ACTS: Jubilees and the Eternal Covenant.

Unlike Sirach, Jubilees envisions a complete separation from the Hellenistic world. The author of Jubilees does not encourage readers to adopt or adapt Hellenistic practices or thinking along Jewish lines. Unlike Sirach or the canonical Proverbs, wisdom is not rooted in creation, but rather the Law of God as it appears in the Mosaic Law. While Sirach said wisdom was to keep the Law of God, he was never very clear on what that Law might be. The author of Jubilees is quite clear as he re-writes the stories of the Hebrew Bible to establish the antiquity of the boundary markers of the Jewish people.

Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

Crowe on Adamic Christology

THE CSCO BLOG: The Last Adam: The Adamic Christology of Early Christianity (Brandon D. Crowe).

Put simply, today little attention is typically given to the possibility that Jesus is presented a new Adam figure in the Gospels. However, this recent dearth of attention is exceptional when we consider the broad scope of interpretive history—quite often in the history of interpretation the Gospels have been read as having a strong Adamic Christology.

[...]
In my recent book, The Last Adam: A Theology of the Obedient Life of Jesus in the Gospels, my goal is to consider anew the question of Adam Christology in the Gospels. Taking a cue from the emphasis on Christ as new Adam in the history of interpretation, I look at the Gospels asking where we may find Adam Christology, and what implications this may have for the work of Christ in the Gospels.

Cross-file under New Book from Baker.

Judith Romney Wegner z'l'

SAD NEWS FROM H-JUDAIC: Obituary: Dr. Judith Romney Wegner.

H-Judaic is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. Judith Romney Wegner (1933-2017), one of the pioneers of feminist studies of Rabbinic literature. ...

May her memory be for a blessing.