... Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit

Cambridge Genizah Studies Series, Volume 16

Series: Cambridge Genizah Studies, Volume: 99/16
Études sur le judaïsme médiéval, Volume: 99/16

Volume Editors: Nick Posegay, Magdalen M. Connolly, and Ben Outhwaite

This collection of essays celebrates 50 years since the founding of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University Library. Three generations of scholars contributed their research and memories from their time at the GRU, stretching back to 1974. Their work comprises 18 articles on medieval Jewish History, Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts, archival history, and the story of the Cairo Genizah collections at the University of Cambridge. Together, they demonstrate the achievements of GRU alumni in advancing the field of Genizah Studies for more than five decades.

Copyright Year: 2025

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-71233-1
Publication: 14 Oct 2024

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-71232-4
Publication: 17 Oct 2024
EUR €120.00

For another Cambridge Geniza Unit anniversary volume, see here.

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Fifth-century Solomon amulet excavated at Hadrianopolis

APOTROPAIC ICONOGRAPHY: 1500-year-old Stunning Pendant Amulet Depicting the Prophet Solomon Spearing the Devil on Horseback Found in Türkiye (Leman Altuntaş, Arkeonews). HT Archeologica.

Çelikbaş noted that the inscription on the pendant reads “Our Lord has overcome evil” and said: “Why was this pendant, this amulet, found here? In fact, it has to do with the military character of Hadrianopolis. We have previously identified evidence of a cavalry unit here through archaeological finds. Solomon is also known as the commander of armies. We understand that he was also considered as a protective figure for the Roman and Byzantine cavalry at Hadrianopolis.”

Çelikbaş said: “The front depicts the Prophet Solomon and mentions God’s triumph over evil, while the back bears the names of our four holy angels: Azrael, Gabriel, Michael, and Israfil. This is also very significant. No similar artifact has been found in Anatolian archaeology to date. Only one comparable example in terms of depiction has been found in Jerusalem. The appearance of two similar artifacts over such great distances indicates that this area was an important religious center in antiquity. Based on the fonts of the inscriptions and stratigraphic data from our studies, we date the artifact to the fifth century A.D.”

The photos (see also the video) are not great, but it looks to me as though the translation of the front inscription is very free.

The inscription is in Greek. Starting after the hole on the left side, I see ΘΕΟΣΟΝΙΚΟΝΤΔ. There may also be a couple of letters before the hole, but I would need a better photo to be sure. I see two words with an article between, θεοϛ o νικον and then two letters (ΤΔ) that don't make sense as a word. Perhaps an abbreviation? Given the image on the front and the attempted translation in the article, I'm going to speculate that they stand for τον διαβολον. If we allow for some flexible spelling, the whole inscription would thus say "(?) God is the one conquering t(he) d(evil)." That's the best I can do with the information at hand.

Unfortunately, there is no photo of the back of the object, which bears the angel names.

The article doesn't address the question of its social provenance. Knowing nothing about fifth century Hadrianopolis, I would not rule out either a Jewish or a Christian origin. The wording sounds more Christian to me.

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Two-year Rabbinics job at HUC-JIR

H-JUDAIC: FEATURED JOB: Two-Year Visiting Assistant Professor in Jewish Textual Tradition, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles.

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles Campus, invites applications for a two-year non-tenure track position in Jewish Textual Traditions, to begin on July 1, 2025.

QUALIFICATIONS:

We seek candidates with a PhD in Rabbinics or a related field who can teach students how to read and explicate classical Jewish texts in their original language. The successful candidate will be able to teach courses in Talmud and medieval codes and will participate in creating and teaching a new course in Jewish Textual Interpretation. Broad knowledge of the Jewish tradition and its texts, as well as proficiency in Hebrew and rabbinic Aramaic, is essential.

We are seeking candidates who are interested in joining a diverse faculty and who possess a commitment to high-quality teaching and a drive to contribute to their academic field, HUC-JIR, and the broader Jewish world through scholarship, teaching, and service.

Follow the link for further particulars and application instructions. The application deadline is 2 January 2025.

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Book launch for The Illustrated Cairo Genizah

THE GENIZA FRAGMENTS BLOG: Launching 'The Illustrated Cairo Genizah' in Cambridge (Melonie Schmierer-Lee).

Yesterday evening, Nick Posegay and I stood in Heffers Bookshop before a supportive crowd of family, friends, and Genizah enthusiasts to speak about and officially launch 'The Illustrated Cairo Genizah'. The book marks the Genizah Research Unit's 50th anniversary, and celebrates the increasing public interest in the Genizah collection. ...

I noted the book as forthcoming here. It's good to see that it's now out.

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

AJR is 10!

CONGRATULATIONS TO AJR: Ancient Jew Review: The First Ten Years (Andrew Jacobs).

As I look back over ten years of AJR, I marvel at the lightning that Krista, Simcha, and Nathan captured in a bottle. They succeeded in creating an intellectual commons that remains thoughtful and accessible, reliable yet innovative. That the editors have succeeded in the precarious climate of higher education in the U.S. is even more remarkable, but we should not lose sight of that precarity. Two of the founding editors are full-time faculty (Krista has recently been tenured); the third, however, has left the academy. The website continues to run on the donated labor of its editors and writers, a volunteer community of the mind.

Wow, has it really been ten years?

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

Review of Arzt-Grabner, Letters and letter writing

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Letters and letter writing.

Peter Arzt-Grabner, Letters and letter writing. Papyri and the New Testament, 2. Leiden: Brill, 2023. Pp. xxx, 455. ISBN 9783506790484.

Review by
Ezra la Roi, Ghent University. ezra.laroi@ugent.be

One of the key insights obtained by Adolf Deissmann around the turn of the twentieth century was that the papyri from Egypt show significant similarities with the New Testament, for example in representing what is usually referred to as “common Greek”[1]. In this book, Peter Arzt-Grabner shows us not only how far the similarities go between letters on Egyptian papyri and the epistles in the New Testament, but also where they differ.

[...]

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Connected cosmologies?

DR. ANNA ANGELINI: Celestial Ties: Are Biblical, Greek, and Mesopotamian Cosmologies Connected? (TheTorah.com).

Is there a common conception behind the lights of the Priestly redactors, the flaming wheels of the Ionian philosophers, and the lamps of the Mesopotamian commentators?

Maybe. But maybe not. The Mesopotamian, Israelite, and Greek sages were very smart people. Each group may have come up with a lot of their own cosmology just by looking up at the sky and drawing inferences. Not everything is influence.

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Open-access Festschriften etc. from ISAC

THE AWOL BLOG: Festschriften and Gedenkschriften published by the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures. Lots of important open-access volumes, honoring Biggs, Esse, Golb, Gragg, Güterbock, Huehnergard, Jacobsen, Oppenheim, Pardee, and many others, published from the 1960s to the present.

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

Ancient Samaritan Decalogue for sale

WHAT, AGAIN? The Oldest Stone Tablet Carved With the Ten Commandments Is Up for Sale. The single-lot sale is estimated to fetch at least $1 million (Adam Schrader, Artnet News).

The oldest stone tablet depicting the Ten Commandments of Jewish and Christian faiths will be auctioned, more than a hundred years after it was first discovered.

The marble tablet, which weighs 115 pounds and measures about two feet in height, will go on display at Sotheby’s New York beginning December 5. It will then hit the block in a single-lot sale on December 18, with an estimate of $1–2 million.

[...]

As the article notes, this same artifact was sold in 2016 for $850,000. This article says that the buyer is unknown, but this Daily Mail article (which also has more photos) names a buyer.

As always, I very much encourage the new buyer to donate it to a museum.

Background on the tablet, its discovery, and its previous sales is here (cf. here) and links. Cross-file under Samaritan Watch and Hebrew Epigraphy.

UPDATE (20 November): I have deleted the quote from the Daily Mail. Click through to their article if you want to know what they say. As far as I can tell (see here), the current owner remains anonymous.

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Trees in the Hebrew Bible

DR. ADRIANE LEVEEN: And They Spoke of Trees (TheTorah.com).

The cedar and cypress, among other trees, occupy a prominent place in the Bible—representing life, sustenance, and wisdom. The prophets draw on their deep knowledge of trees to convey messages of hope and destruction.

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Review of Coşkun & Wenghofer (eds.), Seleukid ideology: creation, reception and response

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Seleukid ideology: creation, reception and response.

Altay Coşkun, Richard Wenghofer, Seleukid ideology: creation, reception and response. Seleukid perspectives, 1. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2023. Pp. 390. ISBN 9783515134781.

Review by
Marco Ferrario, University of Trento / Universität Augsburg. marco.ferrarrio@unitn.it / marco.ferrario@uni-a.de

Seleukid Ideology heralds a new series devoted to studying several aspects of the Empire’s history. It grew from a monthly Seleukid Lecture Series, an informal network of established scholars and upcoming researchers, and it represents another welcome outcome of the Seleukid Study Days, several proceedings of which have already been published in the last few years.

[...]

Lots of interesting-looking articles in this volume, notably:

12. Benjamin E. Scolnic, Śar Wars—How a Judaean Author in the 160’s BCE Transformed a Ptolemaic View of Hellenistic History into a Theology for His Time
13. Eran Almagor, “To All Parts of the Kingdom”: The Book of Esther as a Seleukid Text.
15. Altay Coşkun, The Efficacy of Ideological Discourse: Loyalty to the Seleukid Dynasty in Babylonia, Judaea, and Asia Minor

For additional PaleoJudaica posts on the Seleukid (Seleucid) dynasty and its importance for the Bible and Second Temple Judaism, start here and follow the links.

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

Review of Schniedewind, Who Really Wrote the Bible

BOOK REVIEW: ‘Who Really Wrote the Bible’ by William M. Schniedewind review. Who Really Wrote the Bible: The Story of the Scribes by William M. Schniedewind asks what authorship meant to the hidden hands behind the Old Testament (Alec Ryrie, History Today 74, vol. 11).

His scope is exclusively the Hebrew Bible, the ‘Old Testament’. There are also questions about the authorship of the New Testament, but that was written in Greek and Schniedewind sees ‘authorship’, in the modern sense, as a Greek idea that was a latecomer to Jewish culture. Almost none of the books of the Hebrew Bible claim to have an author, simply because that’s not how books were written in ancient Hebrew. They were the product of scribal communities, not individuals.

Cross-file under New Book (Princeton University Press, 2024).

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The Mazzarón II has been raised

PHOENICIAN WATCH: The Mazzaron Phoenician Boat is successfully raised from seabed. The keel of the shipwreck is the last of the 22 sections to be recovered after two months of painstaking work (Murcia Today).

For some years I have been following the planning for and raising of the Mazarrón II shipwreck in Murcia, Spain. The excavation work is finally done.

The ship is now to be reassembled and restored at nearby Cartagena. It remains to be decided whether it will go on permanent public display there or at Mazzarón.

Background here and links. Note the variable spellings Mazzarón (Mazzaron) and Mazarrón (Mazarron).

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Sifting Project presents analysis of its First Temple-era pottery

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT BLOG: MILESTONE ACHIEVEMENT IN OUR RESEARCH: QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF FIRST TEMPLE PERIOD POTTERY.

Last Thursday, we reached a significant milestone in our research and publication process. At the annual New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and its Region conference, organized by the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Hebrew University, and Tel Aviv University, we presented key findings from the quantitative analysis of pottery from the mid-late First Temple Period (Iron Age IIB-C). Our study focuses on comparing these artifacts with finds from other Jerusalem sites, particularly the Ophel area.

[...]

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

Labahn, Lamentations: A Commentary Based on the Text in Codex Vaticanus (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Lamentations

A Commentary Based on the Text in Codex Vaticanus

Series: Septuagint Commentary Series

Author: Antje Labahn

This commentary on Greek Lamentations is based on the Codex Vaticanus, and includes an introduction, Greek text and English translation. LamLXX presents a new interpretation of the past, creating its own conceptual idea about loss and destruction, grief and suffering. In varied vivid images, metaphors and pictures, LamLXX retells past experiences as present life, invoking conditions reminiscent of Exodus. Hope is reduced to a limited amount, suffering seems endless. Only through prophet Jeremiah’s mediation, a new perspective for future life appears at the horizon. Contemporary readers, or readers of any period, may find therein representations of their own experiences in life.

Copyright Year: 2024

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-70168-7
Publication: 02 Oct 2024
EUR €110.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69958-8
Publication: 04 Oct 2024
EUR €110.00

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Luther, Hiob in Qumran (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Hiob in Qumran

Der Beitrag der Hiobhandschriften aus Qumran zur Text- und Literargeschichte des Hiobbuchs

Series:
Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah, Volume: 148

Author: Rebekka Luther

The six manuscripts from Ḥirbet Qumran (2Q15, 4Q99, 4Q100, 4Q101, 4Q157, 11Q10) are the oldest textual witnesses of the Hebrew Book of Job, which received its final redaction during the 3rd century BCE. But their different characteristics and fragmentary condition make it hard to draw a picture on what these textual witnesses actually testify to. This study combines Text- and Literarkritik while considering their individual features. The results unveil a history of reception of the image of Job, which goes hand in hand with an ongoing production and reworking of the text.

In dieser Studie werden die sechs fragmentarischen Hiobmanuskripte aus Ḥirbet Qumran in text- und literarkritischen Einzelanalysen untersucht. Die Ergebnisse geben Einblick in die früheste Rezeptionsgeschichte und zeigen, welche Themen nach dem Abschluss der Großkomposition im 3. Jh. v. Chr. die weisheitliche Debatte um das Schicksal Hiobs prägten.

Copyright Year: 2025

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-70886-0
Publication: 02 Oct 2024
EUR €125.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-70881-5
Publication: 10 Oct 2024
EUR €125.00

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Glinter, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Yale)

NEW BOOK FROM YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Menachem Mendel Schneerson

Becoming the Messiah

by Ezra Glinter

Series: Jewish Lives

320 Pages, 5.75 x 8.25 in, 13 b-w illus.

Hardcover
9780300222623
Published: Tuesday, 29 Oct 2024
$28.00

eBook
9780300280371
Published: Tuesday, 29 Oct 2024
$28.00

Description

The life and thought of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, one of the most influential—and controversial—rabbis in modern Judaism

“Accessible, informed, and balanced. . . . The author manages to tread on fragile ground with aplomb. . . . An exceptional tool for understanding.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The Chabad-Lubavitch movement, one of the world’s best-known Hasidic groups, is driven by the belief that we are on the verge of the messianic age. The man most recognized for the movement’s success is the seventh and last Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), believed by many of his followers to be the Messiah.

While hope of redemption has sustained the Jewish people through exile and persecution, it has also upended Jewish society with its apocalyptic and anarchic tendencies. So it is not surprising that Schneerson’s messianic fervor made him one of the most controversial rabbinic leaders of the twentieth century. How did he go from being an ordinary rabbi’s son in the Russian Empire to achieving status as a mystical sage? How did he revitalize a centuries-old Hasidic movement, construct an outreach empire of unprecedented scope, and earn the admiration and condemnation of political, communal, and religious leaders in America and abroad?

Ezra Glinter’s deeply researched account is the first biography of Schneerson to combine a nonpartisan view of his life, work, and impact with an insider’s understanding of the ideology that drove him and that continues to inspire the Chabad-Lubavitch movement today.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and the messianic tradition around him, start here and follow the links.

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

Bronze bulls and other goodies excavated at MBA Tel Shimron

BOVINE ICONOGRAPHY: Giant Trove of Canaanite Cultic Artifacts Found in Northern Israel. Atop Tel Shimron, archaeologists reveal enigmatic monumental 'white' structure from Canaanite era and its storage for used religious artifacts, and animal bones (Ariel David, Haaretz).

Archaeologists digging at Tel Shimron in northern Israel are revealing a monumental structure from which they have recovered a vast cache of rare cultic objects used some 3,800 years ago by the ancient Canaanites.

Burnt animal bones, precious imported ceramics and two bull statuettes representing Canaanite deities are just the most spectacular finds that emerged from a huge dump of religious artifacts located at the top of the recently-discovered monument.

[...]

On those bull statuettes, found in what the archaeologists think is a "favissa," a room for storing retired religious ritual objects:

At this point one could be reminded of the old joke about archaeologists interpreting everything they can't explain as signs of cultic activity. But there are good reasons to believe the ancient trove found at Shimron is not just a random dump of Middle Bronze domestic garbage.

The types of pottery vessels are typical of what is found in temples, rather than in domestic contexts, Master says. Initial analysis of the animal bones also shows that many burned at very high temperatures that would have destroyed any meat on them, suggesting they were not for domestic consumption, he adds.

And then of course there is the matter of the two bronze bull figurines that emerged from the favissa.

These are generally interpreted as cultic representations of El – the head of the Canaanite pantheon – or of the storm god Baal.

There are photos in the article.

Metal bulls naturally make one think of the "golden calf" found in the Exodus tradition (Exodus 32) and the two such objects reportedly used in Jeroboam I's cultic apparatus (1 Kings 13).

These two new metal bulls join the slightly later silver filigreed bronze bull excavated at Ashkelon (link to photo here) and the 2,500-year-old bronze bull excavated in Greece a few years ago. Those links also discuss the golden calf supposedly found in Gozo, Malta, in the eighteenth century. There was also the golden calf seized by Turkish authories in 2017, which I suspect is of pretty recent origin.

Follow the links above for discussion of how these excavated metal bulls could relate to the biblical golden calf traditions. And keep following the links from there for more on the biblical traditions.

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

Review of Fontanille, The Yehud coinage

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: The Yehud coinage: a study and die classification of the provincial silver coinage of Judah.

Haim Gitler, Catharine Lorber, Jean-Philippe Fontanille, The Yehud coinage: a study and die classification of the provincial silver coinage of Judah. Numismatic studies and researches, 12. Jerusalem: The Israel Numismatic Society, 2023. Pp. xii, 532. ISBN 9789655982299.

Review by
David Hendin, American Numismatic Society. dhendin@numismatics.org

This comprehensive 532-page volume, weighing over 3 kilograms, is dedicated to the smallest coins ever minted in the Southern Levant—the Yehud coins, most of which weigh less than half a gram. The book explores the historical, numismatic, and archaeological contexts of these minuscule coins in meticulous detail. The small silver Yehud coins were the first coins struck in the ancient land of Judah by local officials.

[...]

Cross-file under Numismatics.

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More on some contested Canaanite/Hebrew inscription claims

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Too Good to Be True? Not Necessarily So! Rollston ignores context of “sensational” inscriptions (Pieter Gert van der Veen).

In his recent Biblical Archaeology Review article, “Too Good to Be True? Reckoning with Sensational Inscriptions,” epigrapher Christopher Rollston takes to task several recent studies of apparent paleo-Hebrew and proto-Canaanite inscriptions and criticizes some of his fellow epigraphers (myself included) for reading too much into these badly damaged and/or questionable texts. Although I agree with some of his points, with others I clearly cannot. Below I consider two of the texts discussed by Rollston in his article.

[...]

The main substantive points involve the fishing weight intepretation.

I don't think anyone was ignoring the archaeological context of the lapidary inscription fragment, which was in a fill containing eighth century potsherds, but not a solid stratum. The reason for caution is that there is so little of the fragment.

The lapidary inscription fragments (see links below for specifics) which have undoubted letters on them are probably the remains of official (royal?) inscriptions from around Hezekiah's era. I wouldn't be more specific than that.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the Mount Ebal curse tablet/fishing weight, including my own preliminary assessment, see here and links. For posts on the supposed Hezekiah inscription fragments, as well as some others that Prof. Galil believes he has deciphered, see here, here, and here and links.

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