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Saturday, July 25, 2015

Birmingham Qur'an fragments update

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THE LATEST: Reader Gilles Firmin has e-mailed with several important links regarding the recently announced discovery of what could be very ...

Gheiby, Zarathustras Feuer

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BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: A Cultural History of Zoroastrianism . Notice of a new book: Gheiby, Bijan. 2014. Zarathustras Feuer: Eine Kulturgesc...

Was Herod's Temple "Roman?"

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TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: In Honor of Tisha B'Av: Palestinians Say Holy Temple Was Roman. PA calls on Muslims 'all over the world' to...

Temple Faithful protests

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TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Activists Call to Rebuild Third Temple on Tisha B'Av. Temple Faithful Movement plans march to demand government ...

Tisha B'Av 2015

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TISHA B'AV (THE NINTH OF AV) begins this evening at sundown. An easy fast to all those observing it.
Friday, July 24, 2015

Wright, Psalms of Solomon

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IN THE MAIL: Robert B. Wright, Psalms of Solomon: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (Jewish and Christian Texts 1; London/New York: T...

Chair in Jewish Studies at Stanford

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SEARCH FOR FULL PROFESSOR: Koshland Chair (Senior Position w/ Tenure) (jobs.ac.uk). The Department of Religious Studies at Stanford Univers...

On the origins of the Qur'an - with update on the Birmingham fragments

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BACKGROUND: The origins of the Koran: From revelation to holy book (Behnam Sadeghi, BBC). This is a good summary of both the traditional un...

DSS Lamentations scroll on display for Tisha B'Av

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Dead Sea Copy of Lamentations to Be Displayed for First Time ( Arutz Sheva ). A copy of the Book of Lamentations from the Dead Sea Scrolls ...

Review of Dorff and Zoloth (eds.), Jews and Genes

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BOOK REVIEW: Parsing the Jewish genome (Jonathan Kirsch , Jewish Journal ). Jewish law holds that Jewish identity is traced through the mat...
Thursday, July 23, 2015

Patricia Crone, 1945-2015

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REST IN PEACE: Patricia Crone, Questioning Scholar of Islamic History, Dies at 70 (Sam Roberts, NYT ). Patricia Crone, a scholar who explor...

More on that "oldest" Qur'an manuscript

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THE VERY OLD BIRMINGHAM MANUSCRIPT OF THE QUR'AN has understandably received a great deal of media attention in the last day or so, but ...

"Penis" in Hebrew

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EUPHEMISMS AND SYNONYMNS: Why Hebrew has so many words for 'penis.' Ancient scribes in biblical times squirming at saying That Word...

Targum Ruth project update

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TARGUMAN (Christian Brady) has a page up on his book project on Targum Ruth . I noted his draft translation several years ago, but the Targ...

Aramaic K-12 Academy

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MODERN ARAMAIC WATCH: New charter school dedicated to preserving culture of Iraq’s indigenous people (Natasha Dado, The Arab American News ...
Wednesday, July 22, 2015

On reading the Mishnah

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גֵּר־וְתוֹשָׁב: On reading the Mishnah (D. Miller). I have posted a few thoughts on reading the Mishnah myself here .

Oldest Qur'an fragments?

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IN THE MINGANA COLLECTION: 'Oldest' Koran fragments found in Birmingham University (Sean Coughlan, BBC). A little beyond PaleoJudai...

Magdala latest

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MORE ON MAGDALA: Magdala, the Home Town of Mary Magdalene, Is Being Resurrected. The Galilee is now an extra-special place to visit, especi...

The earliest domestication of chickens

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NEWS FROM HAIFA UNIVERSITY: Sorry colonel, Israel had real original recipe chicken. Forget Kentucky. Ancient Israeli town of Maresha was wh...

Red heifer blues

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DID THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE SPEAK TOO SOON? No holy cow: Israel trying to raise red heifer, but for meat-lovers. U.S. donors behind Negev effo...