NEW TECHNOLOGY WATCH: "Muons May Unlock Secrets of Teotihuacan" (Physics Today, via Archaeology Magazine News). This isn't about ancient Judaism, but the technology, detecting surplus muons to find otherwise undetectable open spaces in large structures, could have archaeological applications anywhere. Excerpts:

Does the Pyramid of the Sun harbor any tombs? What might such tombs reveal about the society that two millennia ago built one of Mesoamerica's largest pyramids? In an experiment � la Luis Alvarez, who in the late 1960s concluded that there are no tombs in Egypt's Chephren pyramid, a collaboration of physicists and archaeologists hopes to glean answers to these questions by monitoring the passage of muons through the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, 50 kilometers northeast of Mexico City.

[...]

This spring, a detector in the tunnel will begin a year of muon counting. Created when cosmic protons hit the atmosphere, muons rain down uniformly and are absorbed when they interact with matter. In hunting for a tomb, the researchers are looking for a surplus of the charged particles. "If you find more muons than you expect, the difference is an indication that in that particular direction you have less matter," says Menchaca. "That is the secret of the technique." (See Physics Today, May 2003, page 19.) [The link requires a subscription to access.]

[...]

But teasing answers out of the data may be tricky. "What you can tell is where there is less density than you expect," says Menchaca. Such a spot might indeed be a tomb or other empty chamber. But it could be that the soil in the pyramid has settled over time to create caves. Or stone walls might surround a cave, canceling out any muon effect. Or a tomb's contents may have been stolen. "Another possibility," Menchaca says, "is a stone-filled tomb, which seems likely based on the recent findings in the Pyramid of the Moon. That would show up as a region with fewer muons than expected, rather than more. If we do find a compact localized region with more--or less--muons, we will perceive it as the end of work for my group. Once we understand the topology, we will pass things on to the archaeologists."

"If the Pyramid of the Sun has a void, a chamber, we will detect it with the muon experiment," says Manzanilla. "Then we will excavate."

I hope they find something.

"IN THE BEGINNING": In the Forward, Biblical historian Baruch Halperin reviews an archeologist's attempt to find the origins of ancient Israel:

Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?
By William G. Dever
Eerdmans, 280 pages, $25.

Excerpts:

All of this has since changed, and there is now an eagerness in some scholarly circles to be liberated from dependence on the Hebrew Bible, to assign primacy to the archeological record and other sorts of external evidence. Such approaches are not entirely new, but they have come to the fore during the last several decades, as open rebellion has broken out against the "biblio-centric" mentality that had long prevailed. There is, however, a major problem in attempting to use archeological evidence alone to reconstruct Israelite history, and it is the paucity of inscriptional material uncovered through archeological activity in biblical lands. Only written remains would allow us to identify with certainty the ethno-cultural identity of the builders, owners and manufacturers of the many artifacts and edifices that have been uncovered in various regions of the Holy Land, and such sources unfortunately are scarce. Even if we assume that changes in architectural and artistic style point to the introduction of a new population in Canaan, we cannot identify precisely that new population as Israelite. Furthermore, archaeologists are no longer sure that there was major population change in Canaan at the time the Israelites were supposed to have arrived there.

[...]

In the present study, Dever, who has excavated at numerous major biblical sites, attempts to come to terms with this recent upsurge of interest in Israelite origins and identity, seeking middle ground in the process. He begins with a chapter titled "The Crisis in Understanding the Origins of Early Israel," and proceeds to take up pivotal issues in the reconstruction of early Israelite history. These include the historicity of the exodus and conquest narratives, covering both Transjordan and Canaan west of the Jordan. He analyzes the very limited epigraphy unearthed in archeological excavations, and summarizes the evidence provided by surveys and excavations, including assemblages of pottery. All the while, Dever provides reliable information on the various social models and research methods being used at the present time, and offers a reasoned critique of them. His style is perhaps too colloquial at times, and he pays a disproportionate amount of attention to theories that even he regards as highly unlikely, diverting attention from his own methodology and argumentation. He partially makes up for this in an appended section entitled "Some Basic Sources," where he provides what amounts to a classified bibliography of recent works that is extremely helpful in directing the reader to the relevant literature.

It is not until chapters 11 and 12 that Dever begins to clearly formulate his own conclusions. He is fairly confident in identifying at least one large group of inhabitants of Canaan during the early Iron Age (circa 1200-1000 BCE) as "proto-Israelites," the direct antecedents of the Israelites of the Hebrew Bible. He bases his findings on what he calls "convergences" between text and artifact ? namely, areas in which the biblical and archaeological evidence point in the same direction and seem to corroborate one another. In this spirit, his concluding chapter is titled "Salvaging the Biblical Tradition," and indeed, he successfully "salvages" a good deal of it. In essence, Dever accepts the historicity of the ancient Israelites as a people, and the reality of their religious, social and political experience in Canaan. His discussion of the House of Joseph traditions is particularly enlightening for tracing the emergence of the early Israelites, as is his treatment of the victory stele of Pharaoh Merneptah, a remarkable text from the late 13th century BCE attesting to the early presence of a group called "Israel" in central Canaan.

On the other hand, Dever finds no evidence on the ground (or beneath it) to indicate that the Israelites arrived from elsewhere to invade Canaan, or that they migrated to the land. Hence, he considers the exodus saga to be more mythic than real, a metaphor of liberation.

Halperin also raises the theory that "The Israelites may have been one of those groups who migrated southward from Syria following the fall of the Neo-Hittite Empire and the kingdom of Amurru, much like the contemporaneous Amorites of whom the Bible speaks." This is one I haven't heard before, although I haven't made much effort to keep up with such things for some years.

UPDATE: Then there's Kenneth Kitchen, who makes Dever look like a minimalist.

ALEXANDER PANAYOTOV, my doctoral student, is publishing a volume that collects the ancient Jewish inscriptions from the Balkans (his dissertation) in a new series with Mohr-Siebeck. Here is information on the series and his volume:

David Noy /Alexander Panayotov /Hanswulf Bloedhorn
Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis
Volume I: Eastern Europe

2004. Ca. 400 Seiten (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism).
ISBN 3-16-148189-5
Leinen ca. 90 Euro; erscheint im M�rz

The Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis collect all known Jewish inscriptions from the Graeco-Roman period (up to c. 700 CE), in all languages (Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, Palmyrene, Middle Persian, Parthian) in Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, Syria, and Cyprus. It provides the texts of the inscriptions with English translations together with full bibliographies, discussions and indexes. The previous collection, Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum, published 1936�50, has been superseded by the discovery of more inscriptions, and over half the inscriptions included in this new collection were not in CIJ. They include epitaphs, inscriptions from synagogues, records of the manumission of slaves, amulets and graffiti. Inscriptions mentioning Samaritans are also included. Volume I covers the regions Pannonia, Dalmatia, Moesia, Thrace, Macedonia, Achaea (Thessaly, Attica, Mainland Greece, and Aegean Islands), Crete, and the North Coast of the Black Sea. It includes appendices on inscriptions considered medieval and inscriptions not considered Jewish as well as a bibliography, a concordance with CIJ,
indexes and maps.

Additional volumes include:

Walter Ameling
Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis
Volume II: Asia Minor

2004. XVIII, 650 Seiten (Texts and
Studies in Ancient Judaism 99).
ISBN 3-16-148196-8
Leinen 119 Euro; erscheint im Februar

Walter Ameling collects all known Jewish inscriptions from the Graeco-Roman period (up to c. 700 CE) in Asia Minor. The book provides the mainly Greek texts of the inscriptions with German translations together with full bibliographies, discussions
and indexes.

David Noy / Hanswulf Bloedhorn
Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis
Volume III: Syria and Cyprus

2004. Ca. 300 Seiten (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism).
ISBN 3-16-148188-7
Leinen ca. 80 Euro; erscheint im M�rz

Volume III of the Inscriptiones collects all known Jewish inscriptions from the Graeco-Roman period (up to c. 700 CE), in all languages (Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, Palmyrene, Middle Persian, Parthian) in Syria and Cyprus. It provides the texts of the inscriptions with English translations together with full bibliographies, discussions and indexes. It covers the regions Phoenicia, Southern Syria, Northern Syria and Osrhoene, Dura-Europos, and Cyprus. It includes appendices on Jewish inscriptions in Palmyrene, Jewish inscriptions not related to Syria and inscriptions not considered Jewish, as well as a bibliography, a concordance with CIJ and Roth-Gerson (2001), indexes and a map.

Ordering information can be found at the Mohr-Siebeck website.

MORE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT: This AP article from Newsday.com (via Archaeologica News) has some additional details, notably a denial from the WAQF:

The charges were denied Tuesday by the Islamic Trust, or Waqf, which administers the holy site. "This is about politics and nothing else because of the sensitivity of Jerusalem," said Waqf director Adnan Al-Husseini.

Israel's Antiquities Authority declined comment on the archaeologist's claims.

[...]

The Islamic Trust director denied the contention. "(Our) work was simply to consolidate the prayer area, to strengthen it," said Husseini. "There are no stones there from the Temple Mount."

A spokeswoman for the official Israel Antiquities Authority declined comment until she viewed the pictures.

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF ANCIENT MOAB is featured in "Bright past for ancient Moab, brighter future for Jordan" in the Daily Star Lebanon. It discusses the history of Moab and the history of its modern study. Excerpt:

Scholars want to clarify issues like the nature of Moab's social structure, economy, and religious practices. Understanding these will help answer a larger question: Should we characterize Moab as a "state," akin to what is found in Mesopotamia and elsewhere? Some scholars have hesitated to apply this label, arguing that Moab remained a "tribal kingdom" consisting of groups who, other than cooperating to defend their territory, did not organize themselves into a unified political group. Counter to this argument are scholars who insist King Mesha was a driving force in establishing a politically and economically organized "state" that persisted for several centuries. They cite the large cities and the specialized economy that are often hallmarks of increasing political and social complexity. This discussion is one of many that Bruce Routledge of the University of Liverpool reviews in his upcoming book, Making Moab in the Iron Age, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Discussions like these suggest a bright future for Moabite studies. Currently, the Jordanian government and scholars are working together to develop Moab's archaeological resources for domestic and foreign tourism and education. One such project is currently under way at ancient Lehun, directed by Professor Denyse Homes-Fredericq, a site spanning the Early Bronze Age (around 3000 BC) to the recent Ottoman Period. The project has been a cooperative effort between the Jordanian Department of Antiquities and the Belgium Committee of Excavations in Jordan with the sponsorship of the EU. Undertaking projects such as these, it is hoped, will invigorate the local economy, as the development of archaeological resources elsewhere in Jordan already has proven successful. Working closely with the Jordanian government as well as local communities, scholars are hoping they can help make Jordan's future as bright as the light they are shedding on Moab's past.

If you want to read the Mesha stele, there's an old English translation of it here.

I MENTIONED THE NEH SUMMER SEMINAR ON ARAMAIC last October. Here is an NEH web page with additional information about the Summer Seminars (via the Jewish Studies Newsletter).

TEMPLE MOUNT NEWS: Archaeologist Eilat Mazar is claiming that the WAQF is carrying out illicit excavations on the Temple Mount which are damaging precious remains of the second temple period. Her evidence is a video and some photographs taken by an Israeli journalist which show engraved stones from this period. This from Ha'aretz:

Archeologist charges waqf endangering Temple remains

By The Associated Press and Haaretz Service

An Israeli archaeologist has charged that Muslim authorities are excavating a hotly disputed holy site in Jerusalem in a way that endangers the remains of the biblical Jewish Temples.

An Israeli photographer took the photos, released on Tuesday, showing stone blocks with a unique design linked to the Second Temple, destroyed in A.D. 70. Hebrew University archaeologist Eilat Mazar charged that their presence in the middle of a Muslim construction project shows that the Wakf, or Islamic Trust, is ignoring the Jewish history of the site.

[...]

In recent years Muslim clerics and Palestinian leaders have rejected the Jewish belief - backed by archaeological findings - that the ancient Jewish Temples stood on the same spot.

[...]

The pictures were taken two weeks ago by Yossi Milshtin, an Israeli journalist who sneaked into the site, masquerading as a Palestinian. Jews are banned from visiting the Muslim shrines.

Milshtin said he had been alerted by Mazar about the presence of the stone blocks and took a camera and video recorder with him to record their images.

Mazar said the images showed large stones endowed with architectural elements unique to the Second Temple period. "(They show) beautiful grape vines," she said. "There is no doubt that these are motifs from the Second Temple period. It is the different elements of the decoration that show this, combined with the style of the artistic work.

[...]

The story is also covered by the Jerusalem Post. According to that article, the Israel Antiquities Authority says it knows nothing of any work going on at the Temple Mount, but archeological inspectors have not been there for three years.

ARCHAEOLOGIST DAN BAHAT and others have presented a series of seminars in New Mexico on the archaeology of Israel.

Over 200 Converge on Albuquerque and Santa Fe for Seminar Focused on New Archaeological Findings in Israel (Yahoo News press release)
Friday January 30, 9:01 pm ET
Israel Finds Warm Reception at New Mexico Seminar: Mayor of Santa Fe Declares January 30, 2004 New Mexico-Israel Friendship Day

ALBUQUERQUE and SANTA FE, N.M., Jan. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- A series of seminars, sponsored by the Israel Government Tourist Office (IGTO), designed to shed light on new findings and archeological discoveries, were presented to clergy members, the New Mexico Legislature, four Santa Fe City Council representatives and County Manager Gerald Gonzales, today. Citing the historical importance of the State of Israel to the roots of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, Mayor Delgado went on to proclaim January 30, 2004 Santa Fe, New Mexico-Israel Friendship Day.

The aim of the seminars was to awaken interest among Americans, to show their solidarity with the State of Israel by traveling to the country. Attendees were encouraged to share their experience with their congregation as a show of their support to the only democratic state in the Middle East.

A key presenter of the series on Israel and the lead archeologist on many significant "digs," Dr. Dan Bahat, emphasized the excitement of recent archeological finds and their implications to religious believers. Bahat offered the more than 200 participants a multimedia presentation on findings unearthed in Jerusalem's Western Wall Tunnel of the Temple Mount, specifically, the wealth of artifacts and information directly tied to writings in the Bible. The series is the first time the famed archaeologist has presented this information in North America.

[...]

NEW BOOK REVIEWS FROM THE REVIEW OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE:

deClaisse-Walford, Nancy L.
Biblical Hebrew: An Introductory Textbook
Reviewed by David Jackson

Dotan, Aron ed.
Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia: Prepared according to the Vocalization, Accents, and Masora of Aaron ben Moses ben Asher in the Leningrad Codex
Reviewed by Marjo Korpel

Seow, C. L.
Daniel
Reviewed by Stephen L. Cook

THE POWER OF DEAD SEA MUD: Loolwa Khazzoom reports in the Jerusalem Post on how treatment with Dead Sea mud helped her bad back ("Cleopatra's beauty secret"). She includes a brief historical survey toward the end:

Thousands of years before modern science proved the beneficial aspects of the Dead Sea waters, the city of Jericho was established nearby, and numerous inhabitants made their living from producing and selling Dead Sea products - including highly sought-after perfumes and beauty treatments. King David as well as King Solomon built bathing palaces on the shores of the Dead Sea, and when the Queen of Sheba visited the area sometime around 1000 BCE, King Solomon presented her with a coveted gift of Dead Sea salts.

Dead Sea products were deemed so valuable that numerous wars were fought for possession of the region. Queen Cleopatra, reputedly the most beautiful woman in the world in her day, was an ardent user of Dead Sea beauty formulations. Upon her request, Mark Antony conquered the entire area surrounding the Dead Sea for her. The last battle between the Romans and the people of Israel took place just off the western side of the Dead Sea, on Masada. Following the Roman conquest, historian Josephus Flavius noted that Roman travelers took back home as much Dead Sea salts as they could.

The Dead Sea health and cosmetics industry went into decline shortly after Roman rule, and did not make a comeback until the 20th century. In 1959, dermatologists from Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital set up a pilot project to test the effects of Dead Sea water on patients suffering form arthritis and psoriasis, with great success. Within decades, hotels, resorts, and spas began sprouting up throughout the area; many still stand today, along with new additions. The area also has numerous dermatology clinics, including the International Psoriasis Treatment Center.

At the turn of the century, prior to modern interest in the Dead Sea, my grandfather made several pilgrimages from Baghdad to Jerusalem. Whenever he returned home, he brought back bottles of Dead Sea water. When I go to the Dead Sea to help my ailing back, I continue a long tradition.

It would have been helpful to have a few references here. I don't recall the biblical accounts of David and Solomon saying that they built bathing palaces on the shore of the Dead Sea. And the Bible definitely doesn't say that Solomon gave the Queen of Sheba any Dead Sea salts. (See 1 Kings 10 and 2 Chronicles 9, both of which just say that he gave her whatever she asked.) Maybe this is part of the cycle of legends about the queen, but that's not quite the same thing. The Josephus reference would be nice to have too. I would like to know where she got her information. Is that so much to ask for in a newspaper article?

UPDATE (2 February): David Meadows discusses Cleopatra's beauty secrets and tells us he finds it possible to imagine her in a milk bath. Well, works for me.

While I'm on such matters, let me return to the Queen of Sheba. The Alphabet of Ben Sira (discussed recently by Rebecca Lesses and Josh Yuter) 21b = Yassif A/B 217-18 describes a depilatory Solomon made, for the Queen's legendary hairy legs, out of ground lime and arsenic. I swear I'm not making up that it was called "'miracle-with-lime' hair-remover" (NS BSYD TGLXT). (This is from Christopher Morray-Jones, A Transparent Illusion [Brill, 2002], which has an appendix on the Queen of Sheba legend.) The scary thing is that it appears to have been a real recipe.

MORE ON THE ALLEGED TAMPERING WITH THE "JAMES OSSUARY" INSCRIPTION: Paul Flesher tells the Casper Star Tribune ("Scholar calls Jesus box a fake") about the still-anonymous Israeli archaeologist who says he saw the ossuary in the 1990s, when it was in the hands of an antiquities dealer, and it lacked the last part of the inscription, "brother of Jesus." The conclusion: the end of the inscription is fake. (Note to Paul: does that mean the first part of the inscription is genuine? Isn't the modern patina on the whole inscription?)

This is a very interesting account, which a number of people have heard from the archaeologist in question, and they vouch for his reliability. My understanding is that in due course his testimony will come out in court and it will be at that point that we all can put it into full context and decide exactly what to make of it. Watch this space.

ADOLFO ROITMAN'S LECTURE in Billings, Montana, (mentioned earlier here) is summarized in "Dead Sea scrolls curator draws crowd at RMC" (Billings Gazette).

ON LINK EXCHANGES: Recently a few people have e-mailed to ask me to "exchange links" with them, i.e., put a link to their blog in my links section in exchange for their putting one to mine in their links section. Sorry, and I do appreciate the interest, but I don't do that. If you find PaleoJudaica worth reading and it would be appropriate for your blog roll, by all means please add it. I do keep track, via Technorati, of who is linking to me and I'm glad to have every link. And if you have a site or a blog that you think might interest me, again, please let me know about it and I may add it to my blog roll. For me to do this, the blog or site would have to have something to do with ancient Judaism or at least ancient history in general. But I prefer to add links on the basis of relevance rather than in exchange for getting a link somewhere else.

Also, a suggestion: if you want to get people to notice your blog and to come back, include something more than your name or a cryptic title as introduction. It's very helpful to have a paragraph or a page somewhere easy to find telling readers three things: who you are, what the blog is about, and why you are the right person to be blogging on that subject. "John Smith's Blog," with no explanation, and apparently on whatever John Smith happens to be thinking about, is not likely to be interesting to anyone but John Smith and perhaps his family and friends. And even if the blog has a specific topic, your readers are likely to ask who you are and why they should be reading you on the subject when there's so much competition out there.

DAVID FOX SANDMEL, Rabbi and Professor, has seen the latest draft of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and reports to the Ioudaios-L discussion list. Excerpt:

From my perspective (note the disclaimers above), the movie is much less concerned with historical or scriptural accuracy than it is with portraying the passion in as painful, brutal, and emotionally affecting way possible. This is Gibsons' stated goal. All other considerations (historical accuracy, scriptural faithfulness, potential anti-Judaism, criticism of Vatican II, etc. etc.), take second place.

"TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE." Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University surveys some recent dubious and forged antiquities in "The Jerusalem Syndrome in Archaeology: Jehoash to James" (Bible and Interpretation website) and he suggests that biblical archaeologists and epigraphers have been suffering from a mild form of "Jerusalem Syndrome": "a temporary state of sudden and intense religious delusions brought on while visiting or living in Jerusalem." Excerpt:

�� It is only due to the limits of space that I do not go on and on with similar narratives. A hundred and thirty years after the exposure of the na�ve and crude biblical forgeries of Moses Wilhelm Shapira, it seems that biblical archaeology did not learn the lesson and has completely forgotten its implications. Recently, I had the dubious pleasure of examining a seemingly endless line of fake biblical texts of various kinds. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of such forgeries referring especially to the time of the First Temple. It will not be an exaggeration to say that the disciplines of biblical history and archaeology have been contaminated to such an extent that no unprovenanced written source seems to be reliable anymore. To put it even more bluntly, the sciences of Hebrew epigraphy and philology are nothing but a fool�s paradise. The question arises: are we playing here with science or with science fiction? Is it possible that, as in the popular movie �The Matrix,� we all live in a virtual world that was programmed for us by aliens and operated by a well-organized system of na�ve scientists, media tycoons, and other messengers, who manipulate us so we can live calmly in the virtual reality that they created for us?

��� Is it possible that over a century after Sir William Mathew Flinders-Petrie established the scientific methodology of biblical archaeology, the discipline is still controlled by dilatants and charlatans? As we all still hope that most of the scientists involved in this saga were motivated only by true scientific purposes, we must ask how could some of them be so na�ve, ignore any sense of objectivity and be trapped in the crude pitfalls set by the forgers? Considering the nature of the fakes in question, the answer to this question may lie in the domain of psychology. The forgeries discussed here are not merely fakes of ancient artifacts. They are relics, intended to manipulate the emotions of scientists and the public alike by using the attribution to biblical events.[35] These forgeries were intended to infect collectors, museums, scientists, and scholars with the Jerusalem Syndrome in order to boost their market price and attract public attention.

��� We biblical archaeologists must now decide whether we are ready to remain in a fool�s paradise or fight back in order to bring back science into our discipline. For my grandfather, who was a very orthodox Jew, the question whether there was a temple in Jerusalem or not was completely irrelevant to the depth and sincerity of his faith. He never needed a dubious ostracon, written in dodgy biblical Hebrew and coated by a layer of modern lime and wax, to make his belief stronger. I am confident that the discovery of the James Ossuary has not served to bring more people into the belief in the historicity of the Gospels. Perhaps the opposite is true. But for those of us who care about the future and integrity of biblical archaeology and history, the Jerusalem Syndrome in archaeology is a question of life and death -- either we fight against it, or we lose any trace of scientific dignity.

He also responds to the criticisms by James A. Harrell of the IAA report on the "James Ossuary" and "Jehoash Inscription."

HERE'S MORE FROM DAVID KLINGHOFFER on Daniel Matt's Zohar and on the Kabbalah Centre. Klinghoffer thinks, or at least hopes, that the first may provide something of an antidote in popular culture to the second. He is quite critical of the Kabbalah Centre but he also makes an effort to put it in a fair historical context. The article, "Into the Mystic," (Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles) is worth a read and it's difficult to excerpt. Here's just one passage:

Matt also has mixed feelings about the Kabbalah Centre. While deploring accounts of people being fleeced, urged to buy $415 Zohar sets in order to ward off dangers, he puts the center in the historical context of Jewish mysticism.

"You have to admit that there are phenomena like this in earlier stages. It's not unheard of."

He points out the long-established popularity of amulets, said to give the same protections that the Kabbalah Centre claims for its strings and Zohars.

It?s not the price of the Zohar set that's troubling. A standard Aramaic/Hebrew edition costs around $345. Matt?s Zohar, when its projected 12 volumes are completed, will run about $540. Rather, what rankles is that most of the people buying it from the Kabbalah Centre can't make head or tails of it, or put it to any real use at all.

Professor Pinchas Giller at the University of Judaism serves on Matt's academic advisory committee. He too puts the Kabbalah Centre in context, pointing out that it's not as if the enterprise was invented by Berg out of thin air.

"It began about 70 years ago in Jerusalem. Their 'mission to the gentiles' goes back as early as the writings of the founder, Yehudah Ashlag. So they have a long history and have generally been true to themselves." Berg claims he received his mission in 1969 from Rabbi Yehuda Brandwein, Ashlag's successor as head of the original Kabbalah Learning Centre in Israel � a claim Brandwein's family denies.

"Unfortunately," Giller allows, "their present business model has been adapted from Scientology," which is also known for its hard sell.

TECHNORATI had been so far behind lately as to be effectively defunct: last I had checked it was running twelve and thirteen days behind. But now there's a new beta version up and it seems to be updating in realtime. (For those of you unfamiliar with it, Technorati is a site that allows you to enter a URL and see which blogs have linked to it and when. Bloggers use it a lot to keep track of who is linking to and dialoguing with them.)

ROGUE CLASSICIST DAVID MEADOWS comments on the megasites discussion. I like his idea of a group conference blog. Any volunteers for, say, the SBL meetings or the British New Testament Conference?

He has other good ideas and some useful history concerning the now defunct Argos search engine.

MORE NATIVE SPEAKERS OF ARAMAIC, this time in Cyprus:

Aramaic, language of Jesus, lives on in Cyprus

A Maronite village, isolated by the island's division, struggles to carry on the tongue.
By Michael Theodoulou | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

KORMAKITI, CYPRUS � If the people of this remote village were to travel back to Jesus' time and hear him preach, they wouldn't need an interpreter to understand the Sermon on the Mount or the parable of the prodigal son.

That's because they speak the same language as the Son of God. Literally.

Spoken in the Middle East during Jesus' time, Aramaic is still used in everyday life by most of the 130 elderly Maronite Catholics in Kormakiti, which overlooks the Mediterranean Sea.

This could be good news for Mel Gibson. If the megastar has trouble finding an audience for "Passion," his upcoming movie about the final hours of Jesus' life on Earth with dialogue mostly in Aramaic, due to be released next month, the folks here should have no trouble with the original biblical tongue.

Still, Kormakiti's unique diluted version of Aramaic, called Cypriot Maronite Arabic, is in danger of extinction. Once the thriving center of the island's Maronite community, Kormakiti now has the eerie atmosphere of a ghost town.

[...]

Actually, I doubt that the modern brand of Aramaic they speak would be mutually comprehensible with the first-century Galilean dialect.

"HOW KABBALAH IS LIKE BRAIN SURGERY." David Klinghoffer reviews Daniel C. Matt's new translation of the Zohar for Beliefnet. (For another review, go here.) Excerpt:

Reading along, you get the strong impression that either this stuff is meaningless rubbish, or it was not meant for popular consumption but rather conveys ideas too profound to be understood by amateurs, in language that is appropriately obscure given the unfathomable depth of the subject matter. The latter is the view that Jews who know something about Judaism have historically taken.

It's like brain surgery. Someone who tells you he wants to start cracking open skulls to fix the brains inside but who hasn't yet cracked open a book of anatomy is, obviously, either a lunatic or a fool. So when these obscure secrets are seemingly readily available to all who are willing to shell out the 26 bucks for a red string without investing themselves in the basics of Judaism, namely learning and practicing Torah and its commandments, it's obvious this version of Kabbalah lacks authenticity.

To be sure, there are those in the academic world who would dismiss the Zohar itself as a hoax. It purports to be a record of the conversations of Rabbi Shimon and his disciples, yet the book "emerged mysteriously" (in Daniel Matt's diplomatic phrase) more than a thousand years after they lived, in Spain at the close of the 13th century. The venerated 20th�century scholar Gershom Scholem ruled that the work was entirely the product of the imagination and the pen of Rabbi Moses de Leon, who composed it sometime in the decade of the 1280s.

In his fascinating, lucid introduction to the Matt translation, Professor Arthur Green writes that just because the Zohar is "a work of sacred fantasy," that's no reason "to impugn the truth of its insights or the religious profundity of its teachings." But if the Zohar is a hoax, common sense would suggest that that is a very good reason to impugn its truth and profundity. If Shimon ben Yohai did not conceive these teachings on the basis of earlier traditions, if they were just made up by a guy with a lot of imagination, then they are mere opinions, without any special authority.

What seems undeniable is that the Zohar is a mystery. The rest of Moses de Leon's writings are pale, dry, lifeless, where the Zohar is as brilliantly colorful as it is impenetrably obscure. Some later kabbalists offered the view that de Leon was a reincarnation of Shimon ben Yohai. That would explain why, when the spirit of the ancient sage moved him, he could write in Shimon's name without it being a "fantasy" at all.

It is certainly true that kabbalah is a rigorous, demanding discipline that offers its joys only upon the expenditure of significant effort.

THE KABBALAH CENTRE is taken to task by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in "Keeping Kabbalah Jewish" (Beliefnet) for promoting "superstition as religion" and for presenting a Kabbalah that is not really Jewish. He makes some good points, although I think comparing Madonna to a Mafia boss is intemperate and, frankly, cruel. Excerpt:

The test of Jewish authenticity is a lifelong commitment to tikkun olam, fixing our communities, healing the sick, and offering hope to the dispirited.

But the Kabbalah Centre seems to have placed itself squarely in line with the new-age fad of personal growth and spiritual fulfillment, placing terminology like 'cosmic energy' and 'celestial transcendence' over communal commitment and social service. The Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a branch of Hasidism, is also a mystical movement. But it has built soup kitchens and orphanages, trade schools, and elementary schools, all over the world. Christian missionaries have built hospitals and hospices in the most remote corners of the earth. The New Age movement has had much success in heightening the spiritual awareness of its adherents, but it does not contribute as much to the communal good.

I have some thoughts on the historical claims on the Kabbalah Centre's website, which I will try to pull together and post one of these days.

"BORROW" OR "ASK OF"? Leonard Greenspoon, in "The Politics of Biblical Translation" (the Forward) meditates on the political effects of an old mistranslation in this week's Torah portion. (The Hebrew verb in question is sha'al, which means to ask or request.) Excerpts:

As the Israelites prepared to leave Egypt, the Hebrew text of Exodus 3:22 records one of the divine commands in words that the King James Version understood in this way: "But every woman shall borrow of her neighbor... jewels of silver, and jewels of gold." Through their actions, the Israelites "spoil" the Egyptians. The same or similar wording occurs twice in this week's Portion, at Exodus 11:2 and 12:35-6. Almost all English translations of the mid- and late 20th century have changed the wording in these passages, from "borrow" to "ask of" (or something similar). Among newer Jewish versions, in which "borrow" is sometimes retained, the alternate rendering is occasionally noted, but not discussed.

How different it was for earlier Jewish translators, especially those in England! The traditional King James rendering was perceived not only as erroneous, but as pernicious, dangerous, anti-Jewish.

[...]

What was at stake, in the view of these translators, was the sanctity of the text and the safety, perhaps even the survival, of their fellow Jews in a society where they still labored under many social and legal impediments. In the hands of their enemies, a shifty Jacob of the Bible could easily foreshadow a shiftless Jacob from London's East End, and Israelites who pretended to borrow from the Egyptians with no intention of repaying could become blood-sucking moneylenders.

We therefore may conclude that a fairly obscure biblical reference loomed larger than we might have expected for British Jews a hundred or more years ago. Beyond its value as a historical and cultural footnote, is this truly relevant to us today? Alas, it is. As reported by the media worldwide in 2003 � see the December 2003 edition of Bible Review, for example � an Egyptian jurist, relying on just these passages, was preparing a lawsuit against "all the Jews of the world," who, in his opinion, were responsible for absconding with the equivalent of more than 1,000 trillion tons of gold during the Exodus. This jurist apparently is willing to amortize this debt over a millennium, so long as cumulative interest is calculated and paid.

For those seeking to discredit the Book, or the People of the Book, there is no concept of a statute of limitations. Mistranslations continue to haunt us.

THE QUEEN OF SHEBA AS TOURIST ATTRACTION:

FEATURE-Yemen hopes Queen of Sheba legend will boost tourism

By Miral Fahmy

MARIB, Yemen, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Whether she was an ancient matriarch renowned for her wisdom or one of the world's most enduring myths, the Queen of Sheba lives on in her reputed homeland Yemen.

The woman who supposedly inspired the admiration and lust of King Solomon remains one of the most important characters in Yemeni history despite the lack of proof that she even existed.

Now Yemen wants to use the legend of Bilqis, as the Queen of Sheba is known here, to draw tourists to the ruins of the Sabean kingdom that once ruled supreme over the Arabian Peninsula and parts of Africa as far back as 6,000 years ago.

"There can be no tourism without antiquities so we're preparing the sites and we hope that within a year or two, we can welcome visitors," said Sadeq Othman, head of the antiquities department in eastern Marib province.

"We believe that the Queen of Sheba ruled from here and we want the whole world to come and see it."

The Queen of Sheba is mentioned in the Muslim, Christian and Jewish holy books as the woman who stood up to Solomon but who renounced paganism after meeting him.

[...]

Keep reading, there's more. And I've blogged some additional information about the Queen of Sheba here.

STEPHEN CARLSON enters the megasite discussion.

NEW BOOK REVIEWS FROM THE REVIEW OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE:

Sch�ssler, Karlheinz, ed.
Das sahidische Alte und Neue Testament: Vollst�ndiges Verzeichnis mit Standorten, 3/1: sa 500-520

Reviewed by Elizabeth Penland

Sharpe, John, and Kimberly Van Kampen, eds.
The Bible as Book: The Manuscript Tradition
Reviewed by Ignacio Carbajosa

Haynes, Stephen R.
Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery
Reviewed by Dexter E. Callender

Reiterer, Friedrich V.
Z�hlsynopse zum Buch Ben Sira
Reviewed by Eric Noffke

Reiner, Andy M.
Miracle and Magic: A Study in the Acts of the Apostles and the Life of Apollonius of Tyana
Reviewed by Kimberley Stratton

(There's a typo in this entry: the author's name is Reimer.)

Noegel, Scott B. and Brannon Wheeler
Historical Dictionary of Prophets in Islam and Judaism
Reviewed by Aaron Hughes

SOME DEAD SEA SCROLLS are coming to Houston, Texas, and Mobile, Alabama in 2004-05:

Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit coming (Mobile Register)

01/25/04
By THOMAS B. HARRISON and KRISTEN CAMPBELL
Staff Reporters

In a city where the past and present share living quarters, history will become a religious experience in 2005.
From Our Advertiser


Visitors to the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center in Mobile will have an opportunity to examine their Judeo-Christian heritage when an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls opens Jan. 20, 2005.

The exhibit will remain on view through April 24 and is expected to eclipse attendance for the museum, according to executive director W. Michael Sullivan.

It will be the most ambitious project that the Exploreum has undertaken since the museum reopened in its $21 million building in 1998.

"Once we heard it was available, how could we not have gone after it?" Sullivan said.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, written more than 2,000 years ago, include some of the oldest surviving texts of the books of the Hebrew Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament, and of Hebrew community laws.

The rare manuscripts, penned by unknown scribes working in the religious community of Qumran in the Judean desert, were discovered in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd who found them stored in jars in a cave near Bethlehem. Thousands of scroll fragments, representing every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther, were transcribed onto scrolls of parchment and papyrus. Their discovery is considered one of the greatest archeological finds of the 20th century.

The Exploreum will feature fragments of 12 scrolls, including pieces from the books of Genesis-Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Others relate to sectarian documents such as community laws reflecting the lives and convictions of the Hebrew sect believed to have written the manuscripts.

Visitors also will see jars, coins, clothing and other artifacts that tell the story of the people who lived near the caves. A final section of the exhibit explains the efforts of international scholars to conserve and translate the scrolls.

[...]

Before it travels to Mobile, the exhibit will show at the Houston Museum of Natural History from October 2004 until Jan. 2, 2005.

The Houston and Mobile exhibits will be identical except for the specific fragments on view, Sullivan said. Because of the fragility of the pieces, the IAA limits the display of each fragment to three months in any 12-month period.

[...]

PAUL FLESHER ON THE "JAMES OSSUARY":

THE STORY THUS FAR... (Bible and Interpretation website)

A Review Essay of The Brother of Jesus: The Dramatic Story & Meaning of the First Archaeological Link to Jesus and His Family, Hershel Shanks & Ben Witherington III, HarperSanFrancisco, New York, 2003

This is a long, thorough, and careful discussion of the current state of the question and you should read it all. Excerpts:

On Shank's section on the "James Ossuary":

Did the ossuary once contain the remains of James the brother of Jesus Christ? It seems not. The first three necessary points that needed to be demonstrated in order for the ossuary to be that of James the brother of Jesus failed to provide any solid support. The fourth point, that of the antiquity of the ossuary?s inscription, demonstrates conclusively that the inscription constitutes a modern forgery. If Shanks, Lemaire and others still wish to demonstrate their claim, these are serious obstacles to overcome.

On Witherington's section on James the brother of Jesus:

Witherington is clearly an excellent writer. He adheres consistently to the level of discussion he has decided upon. He writes interestingly and confidently, bringing his audience along through enticing prose and engaging rhetoric. His discussion by and large sticks to the scholarly mainstream. He is familiar with the scholarly work on James and readily acknowledges his dependence on it through footnotes and appreciations.

One must be careful to realize, however, that Witherington speaks with more certitude than other scholars. As part of the way he addresses his audience, Witherington often leaves out scholarly debates about various points and just states a position. This is most evident in dating. Witherington, for instance, assigns the Letter of James to the year 52 CE, without any discussion of why that date and not some other.

Witherington's main innovation is to incorporate the ossuary as evidence into the analysis of James' life. Taking as a given that the ossuary contained the remains of James the brother of Jesus--without even an argument for that assumption--Witherington brings it into the discussion of several issues, including burial practices, James' relationship to his family vs. the Christian movement, and so on. Unfortunately, given the inability of the ossuary to bear the weight of the claims placed upon it shown above, this one contribution has been rendered essentially worthless.

Flesher's conclusion:

In the end, this experience reminds one of the Cold-Fusion debacle of 1989, when two researchers, Professors S. Pons and M. Fleischmann, claimed that they had been able to produce nuclear fusion in a test-tube. Their announcement was greeted with great fanfare, and the international press spread the story across their front pages. But when other scientists tried to duplicate the experiment, they could not. The scientific requirement that experiments be reproducible failed. This gave the press another field day, during which they trumpeted that Cold Fusion was a lie.

The first part of the Cold Fusion story parallels that of the ossuary, but the second part does not. Apart from studies of the patina, the ossuary is not subject to the test of reproducible results. Paleography, linguistics, and even the statistics cannot be verified in the way that scientific tests can be. Instead those of us in these fields must hold ourselves to an even higher standard. We must do our work right the first time, and not rush to publication without due consideration.

Why? Because something like the James ossuary matters to people in a way that Cold Fusion cannot. The claim about the ossuary touches on people's faith, it can change their beliefs, it is evidence that demands a verdict from the Christian church. The sensationalism surrounding the James ossuary may have served its promoters well, but it has done a disservice to the believing community. The fanfare that greeted its announcement has not been repeated for the events that seem to have discredited the find, namely, the IAA report and Golan's arrest. As Bruce Chilton observes in the Fall 2003 issue of the newsletter of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College, "The arrest of the owner was reported at the time by the Associated Press, but the popular media in this country � the same media that beat the drum for the authenticity of the piece � mostly let the story pass. . . . In this, journalists understand neither religion nor their own function. A story that is not followed up is just gossip, not news, and unsubstantiated rumor is the stuff of superstition, not faith." The ossuary?s announcement was news because it impacted the faith of members of the world's largest religion, Christianity. The media's failure to continue its coverage will impact it none the less. Scholars will be answering for the false leads of the "James" ossuary for generations to come, since because of scholarly incaution it will probably become part of the discourse for sincere but ill-informed believers.

Perhaps, finally, the question of the authenticity of the ossuary and its inscription will be addressed by the forum to which it should have come first, that of scholarly knowledge and analysis. Only there can the competing judgments of the ossuary?s proponents and its critiques receive a proper evaluation. And that, finally, seems likely.

Let's hope so.

The analogy with Cold Fusion is a good one, especially for illustrating how the press jumps on flashy stories it doesn't really understand and makes much of them and how the real process of evaluating scientific and historical claims is a slow and not very glamorous one. To be fair, my impression is that the press has made an effort to keep up with the story and has reported the major developments fairly widely. Of course my perspective may be skewed because I make a point of digging such things up, often from places outside the mainstream media. If you're curious, try searching the PaleoJudaica archive for "James Ossuary" and see what you think.

Incidentally, had Cold Fusion been real, I suspect it would have mattered to people a good deal more than the inscription on the "James Ossuary." By now we might all be riding around in Doc Brown's flying cars, powered by Mr. Fusion. If only it had been so!

HERE'S A DIRECTORY of doctoral dissertations in progress in the U.K. and Ireland having to do with "Classics and related subjects." Some of them pertain to ancient Judaism. The site is hosted by the Classics Department of the University of Reading and came to my attention by way of Hypotyposeis. If are working on a dissertation in this area in the U.K., use the form to add your topic to the list.

HERE'S A NICE LIST of some of the bogosities in The Da Vinci Code, complied in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

"8 surprising fictions in the Da Vinci Code"

DR. JAMES A HARRELL, the Professor of Geology at the University of Toledo who has criticized the IAA report on the "James Ossuary," is interviewed in the Toledo Blade. Excerpts:

Dr. Harrell, in an interview this week, said that after examining the available scientific data, he is certain that the IAA's evaluation was flawed.

"Basically what I'm saying is that the scientific evidence is inconclusive. But that is substantial because the IAA, in their report, claim the inscription is a forgery - no ifs, ands, or buts about it."

Dr. Harrell, who has taught at UT for 25 years, said none of the data used in the IAA's report can justify the agency's outright rejection of the box's authenticity.

"It may be that they're ultimately right in their conclusion, but if so it would be for the wrong reasons," Dr. Harrell said. "I haven't made my mind up yet as to whether I think it's authentic or not, but the balance is in favor of authenticity."

[...]

He said it is obvious that somebody cleaned the ossuary, possibly with a metallic pad, since it was purchased more than 30 years ago by its current owner, Ogded Golan, an Israeli antiquities dealer who reportedly tried to sell the ossuary for $2 million.

"Whenever inscribed objects are found, perhaps in illicit excavations, they're cleaned up and made presentable," Dr. Harrell said. "An archaeologist would never do that, but an antiquities dealer would."

[...]

On scientific standards alone, the IAA report was amateurish, Dr. Harrell said.

"It was a rush job, it was not well written, there were no reasons given for conclusions, no mention of dissenting views," he said. "It was just badly done."

Perhaps, he said, the Israeli government was trying to make an example of Mr. Golan to discourage people from selling archaeological treasures - even though Mr. Golan's purchase was legal at the time.

Dr. Harrell said he thinks Israeli authorities were unprepared for a serious scientific study of the ossuary.

"What I think happened is that they threw this committee together very quickly. It's like a road accident: The first people on the scene are not always the best to help. That's exactly what happened. I think there will be another, better-qualified committee to study it and issue a new report."

As for his argument about the cleaning of the inscription, I think it has been adequately answered by Stephen Carlson: "what reasonable collector permits his mother to ruin his collection?"

The article also has a nice close-up of the name "James" ("Jacob") in the inscription.

I THINK MARK GOODACRE is spot-on in everything he says here about the megasites concept.

UPDATE (25 January): Torrey Seland comments. He's right that setting up the software shouldn't be difficult, but I'm less confident about the following than he is: "But I am not as afraid as he is of the possible patchiness of a megasite. If it was run by a general editor, having strict guidelines on how to edit and post on the site, this could be handled." Given the success rate of general editors at, for example, getting commentary series completed on time, I don't see that having a general editor over a megasite would keep it from getting patchy. Ultimately, general editors has very little power. All they can do, really, is to take away an assignment from a dilatory contributor, and this is a very tough step that could generate bad feelings and few want to take it. And if they do, they still have the problem of finding a new contributor.

But that's just my view: if Torrey feels differently and wants to do the organizational work, he should ignore my skepticism and go ahead. There's plenty of room for experimenting in cyberspace.

NEW SITE FEED: For those of you interested in such things, Blogger now has an RSS Feed facility and I have activated it for this blog. To access it, click on the "Site Feed" link to the right near the bottom of the sidebar stuff. If you don't know what an RSS Feed is and you're curious, read this.

Warning! The new Site Feed link makes my Internet Explorer 5.2 crash, although my Netscape 7.02 doesn't have a problem with it. Clicker beware.

EMPIRES OF THE PLAIN: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon, by Lesley Adkins, is reviewed by Oxford Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley in the Financial Times. (You may not be able to access the review outside the U.K. without a subscription.) She says that Rawlinson cultivated a scholarly reputation greater than he deserved and that Adkins accepted his claims uncritically. Excerpt:

Lesley Adkins constructs Rawlinson's life by inter-weaving his successes in the East India Company with his scholarly pursuits. She seems uncritical of her subject's own version of events, however. While including much evidence refuting his claims as a decipherer, she leaves the reader with the impression that Rawlinson's scholarly rivals were jealous and mean-spirited, and that he deserves the reputation he cultivated.

In fact, Rawlinson shame-lessly failed to acknowledge that George Grotefend and other scholars had deciphered the Old Persian language and its script (essentially simple and alphabetic) to a rudimentary stage. This basic breakthrough was made years before the Bisitun text became available. On two occasions Rawlinson delayed sending work to be printed until he received the work of others, which he was glad to find coincided with his own after a few modifications. His contributions, though undoubted, were of secondary importance.

Perhaps only a cuneiformist is able to assess where credit should lie as far as the Babylonian script and language are concerned, for Adkins has listed the relevant refutations in her bibliography without making good use of them. They come from the recent work of three separate scholars, all of whom know how Babylonian cuneiform works. It is an extremely complex system, much more so than Egyptian hieroglyphs or Old Persian cuneiform.

The man whose scholarship is now generally recognised as formative was Edward Hincks, a poor clergyman from Ireland.

His brilliance in discovering that Babylonian signs could have more than one syllabic value or could stand for a whole word, and who worked out many problems of grammar and lexicography, left Rawlinson struggling to find small details to criticise and correct.

I've blogged on Rawlinson and this book a few times before. Run "Rawlinson" through the search engine to find the references.

CHAPTER TWO IS FINISHED! Written, proofread, and all its references compiled in the bibliography. No doubt I'll be fiddling with the notes for months, and it will need at least one more proofreading after it lies fallow for a while. But the real work is done. Now to return to another one of those chapters-in-progress.

Onward!

THE CAROB TREE IN JEWISH FOLKLORE: The Jerusalem Post has the story.

Not quite chocolate
By YEHOSHUA SISKIN


In the folklore and imagination of the Jewish people, a special fondness is reserved for the carob tree, which is viewed as a symbol for the sustaining qualities of the Land of Israel.

In the Talmud, for example, we learn that the saintly Hanina Ben Dosa subsisted on a diet of nothing but carobs between one Sabbath and the next.

[...]

No discussion of carob would be complete without the much-loved story of Honi Hame'agel. Honi is bothered by the passage from Psalms that refers to the Babylonian exile, which lasted for 70 years, and seems like a dream. He wonders how anyone could dream for 70 years. Honi then encounters a man planting a carob tree and asks how long it will take the tree to bear fruit. When he hears it will take 70 years, Honi questions the profitability of such a venture and falls asleep... for 70 years.

Because Honi focused only on the immediate material benefits of planting carobs, he lost 70 years of his life; in the same way, the nation's focus on materialism and idol worship in the closing years of the First Temple led to exile and the loss of 70 years of life in the Land of Israel.

[...]

PEGGY NOONAN, Opinion Journal columnist, has a strange tale of possibly faked Vatican e-mails concerning the Pope's (now denied) "It is as it was" quotation. See her column "'Passion' and Intrigue: The story of the Vatican and Mel Gibson's film gets curiouser" (heads up, Christian Brady).

THERE'S A REVIEW of The Gnostic Bible, edited by Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer, in Salon. It's blocked off if you're not a paid subscriber, but you can get a day pass by reading a brief, interactive, commercial. I looked at the book at the SBL conference last November and it's a good collection. But the reviewer, Donna Minkowitz, thinks that Barnstone and Meyer don't talk enough about sex.

THE JEWISH MUSEUM IN NEW YORK has just turned 100. I noted its website back in August.

WAS "THE BROTHER OF JESUS" added to the "James Ossuary" in the 1990s? Eric Meyers reports in "Well-known Israeli Archeologist Casts More Doubt on Authenticity of James Ossuary" (at the Bible and Interpretation website) that a "prominent Israeli archaeologist" who wishes to remain anonymous saw the ossuary in an antiquities shop in Jerusalem in the mid-1990s and that last bit of the inscription wasn't there yet. Someone reported this at the Sunday morning SBL session I blogged on in November, but I didn't mention it because I didn't want to pass on a rumor from an unverified source. It's interesting, and I believe Meyers is reporting what he heard from his source, but I'm not going to put much stock in it until the anonymous archaeologist goes public and gives us a firsthand account I can evaluate for myself.

UPDATE (22 January): Stephen C. Carlson comments on the article.

MESSIAH OF INCEST? Did Shabbetai Zvi decide he was the Messiah in reaction to sexual abuse he experienced as a small boy? So argues Eli Shai in Mashiakh Shel Gilui Arayot: Historia Hadasha Uvilti Metzunzeret Shel Hayesod Hamini Bamistika Hameshikhit Hayehudit (Messiah of Incest: New and Uncensored History of the Sexual Element in Jewish Mystical Messianism). Roni Weinstein reviews the book (which I have not read) in the Ha'aretz article "He was the great pretender" (via Bible and Interpretation News), and gives what looks to me to be a sensible analysis:

Shai believes that he has uncovered the secret behind Sabbatai Sevi's deviant behavior. The secret, claims Shai, is a truly traumatic incident that occurred when Sabbatai Sevi was 6 years old, which caused him to deviate from a normal way of life and turned him, for the rest of his life, into a radical, marginal figure. As a child, he underwent an entire series of acts of sexual abuse, apparently committed by Muslim youths in his neighborhood, who not only raped him, forcing him to engage in homosexual relations, but also inflicted burns on his penis. Shai bases this claim on a single piece of evidence - testimony presented by Nathan of Gaza in an essay, "Mareh Avraham": "From the age of 5 or 6 he submitted his body ... He saw a dream in which he is 6 years old and is caught in a giant flame. He suffers burns to his skin in his private parts and dreams throw him into utter confusion ... He told no one about this incident and promiscuous youth pretended to be his friends simply in order to lead him astray and to beat him ... They, the children of Na'ama, perverted human beings, consistently persecuted him in order to mislead him."

Reliance on this testimony - which neither Scholem nor any other scholar has interpreted literally - is problematic because all of the biographical depictions of Sabbatai Sevi have been enveloped in mythical mantles and have attempted to present him as "larger than life" - in the same style used in hagiographic literature to depict the saints of the Roman Catholic Church. Every event, even bathing in the sea and the theft of the messiah's clothes, is described against the background of the struggle with the demonic world. Thus, even the term "promiscuous youth" should not be interpreted, in the absence of other pieces of corroborating evidence, simply as flesh-and-blood, evil-minded neighbors. The term "in his private parts" sounds like a de facto attempt to explain, on the one hand, the messiah's refusal to have sex with his first two wives and, on the other, his problematic sex life later on.

Shai accepts the bulk of Scholem's claim that the messiah was a manic depressive and he tries to add to that claim a psychosexual element. The term sounds familiar. Here again is the example of an attempt to psychoanalyze historical figures, based on the assumption that the patterns of human response to crisis situations, to socialization, to personal problems, etc., have remained constant over the centuries and that it is therefore possible to explain and interpret, with the use of psychoanalytical tools, the behavior of key figures in history (after all, Freud tried to psychoanalyze Moses, in addition to Michelangelo). However, as in psychoanalysis, the interpreter here always finds just what he is looking for: sex, sex and more sex.

Read the whole review. For my part, I am very wary of Freudian analyses of this sort: they tend to be infinitely adaptable to whatever circumstances (or texts) to which they're applied, and it's generally difficult to show how, even in principle, they could be demonstrated to be wrong. If a theory is unfalsifiable, it isn't well constructed.

Certainly in the case above the proof-text looks to be open to a wide range of interpretations.

Incidentally, another book with a similar theme is David Halperin's Seeking Ezekiel: Text and Psychology, which purports to show that the weird prophethood of Ezekiel was generated by sexual abuse by his mother's partner when Ezekiel was a child.

I have provided some links on Shabbetai Zvi and related matters here.

PETRA NOW HAS ITS OWN WEBSITE: The Petra Region Authority has a Petra website up at www.petra-pra.com.jo. (It has a long and rather tedious media intro, which you can skip.) The site mostly pertains to modern matters such as the building of bus stations and restaurant information for tourists, but there is some information on the archaeology of the region. The magazine, available in PDF format, is in Arabic. The Jordan Times has an article on the new website: "Petra Region Authority launches interactive website" (via Archaeologica News).

UPDATE ON THE MIT ARAMAIC (?) PUZZLE. My correspondent e-mails:

Thanks for your help with the Mystery Hunt this weekend. Here's how it turned out that the Aramaic/Hebrew puzzle worked: each line of Aramaic letters, transliterated into the Hebrew alphabet, gave a snippet from the first line of a psalm. Well, not quite: a snippet from a psalm, with a single mistake introduced. Take the letters that were supposed to be in place of the mistakes, and transliterate into the English alphabet, to get ntrlnngs. So the answer to the puzzle was the only English word consistint of those consonants: interlinings. (The answer to each Mystery Hunt puzzle is usually a word or phrase.)

I'm still not sure what "Aramaic letters, transliterated into the Hebrew alphabet" means. Aramaic and Hebrew are written in the same alphabet. I think the inventor may have meant paleo-Hebrew letters rather than Aramaic letters.

Anyhow, what an admirably diabolical puzzle!

UPDATE (22 January): By the way, my correspondent's team won, with five minutes to spare.

BULGE IN WALL OF TEMPLE MOUNT FIXED:

Jordanian experts have completed a year-long renovation project on the southern wall of the Temple Mount compound to fix a bulge caused by centuries of erosion, Jordanian Minister of Religious Affairs Ahmad Helayel said Monday.

MAYBE IT'S JUST ME, but I am surprised that John R. Franke sets out to assess the legacy of Origen in his Christianity Today (Christian History) article "Origen: Friend or Foe?" without a single reference to the Hebrew language, the Septuagint, or the Hexapla. This article ignores Origen's fascination with and massive contribution to the study of the "bare letter of the text" of the Old Testament in Hebrew and Greek, and it seems to me that this gives an imbalanced picture of him. Much of Origen's fame as a biblical scholar came not just from his allegorical commentaries but from his text-critical work on the Bible. The Hexapla was consulted in Caesarea for centuries by important scholars in the Church, including Pamphylius, Eusebius, and Jerome, and parts of it were copied (often, granted, in a way that just caused textual confusion). The Septuagint column was translated into Syriac by Paul of Tella in the seventh century. I would think that all this counts for something in assessing Origen's contribution to theology.

"IT IS AS IT WAS" � NOT! The Vatican is now saying that the Pope didn't say this after all. Mark Goodacre has the goods.

UPDATE ON CLAIRE SMITH'S STATEMENT on behalf of the World Archaeological Congress (which you can find at greater length here): Dr. Uzi Dahari, Deputy Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, has replied on the ANE list (heads-up, Carla Sulzbach). The RTF format garbled the reply in the list's archive, but with his kind permission I reproduce it here ungarbled.

January 13, 2004

Dr. Clair Smith
President, World Archaeological Congress
Department of Archaeology
Flinders University
Adelaide, South Australia

Dear Dr. Smith,

Subject: The WAC Accusation of Israeli Destruction of
Archaeological Sites

I have read your e-mail media release dated 7 January 2004 addressed to the world archaeological community at the conclusion of the Fifth Archaeological Conference held in June, 2003, at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., in which Israel stands accused of destroying archaeological sites. I refer, as well; to the accusations at the Congress by Dr. Najat el-Hafi that appear to have influenced the Congress� decision concerning Israel�s �destruction� of Palestinian antiquities, an unacceptable one-sided judgment not worthy of the WAC.

As to the matter itself: The concept of separate Israeli (Jewish) and Palestinian (Muslim) archaeological cultural heritage is an unknown concept to me as an Israeli archaeologist. The cultural heritage of the Land of the Bible is common to all past and present groups, religions, nations, and tribes in the area, or to those that look upon this land as being holy to three monotheistic religions. From the aspect of cultural heritage, Tel Shechem (Nablus) and Tel el-Jib (both within Palestinian Authority), and Tel Megiddo or Tel Beersheba (both within the bounds of the State of Israel) are of equal importance to me as an Israeli, and I believe to Dr. Najat as well. By the same token, the Ottoman palace of Mohammed Bek Abdul-Hadi in Nablus is as important a cultural heritage site to both Israelis and Palestinians. Cultural heritage should not be confused with territorial conflicts.

Concerning Israeli observance of the 1954 Hague Convention, I would like to remind you and the entire archaeological community, that the only country in the world which returned antiquities to a neighboring country, as required by the Convention, is Israel. In 1994 Israel returned to Egypt all of the antiquities from Israeli salvage excavations in the Sinai Peninsula, up to the last pottery shard! It was my honor to head that project. The antiquities were returned in excellent condition and meticulous order accompanied by scientific reports and the required drawings. This was not only because we are signatories to the Hague convention, but also due to the fact that we respect the cultural heritage of the Sinai and recognize that the proper place for those antiquities is in Sinai.

In your media release you claimed that, between the years 1967 to 1973, the Israel Antiquities Authority excavated in Nablus and other West Bank sites. This is patently untrue! The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) is charged with the enforcement of the Israeli Law of Antiquities, which is applicable in only areas where Israeli law is in force. The IAA only determines archaeological policy, and issues excavation licenses within the borders of Israel. Israel has not applied its own laws to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The existing laws in those areas are the Jordanian law (in the West Bank) and the Egyptian law (in the Gaza Strip). Therefore, until the transfer of responsibility in Nablus to the Palestinian Authority, the person responsible for enforcing Jordanian law was the Archaeological Staff Officer appointed by the Civil Administration. That body�an arm of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)�is legally responsible for the civilian matters in those territories. The Archaeological Staff Officer is not subordinate to nor a part of the IAA. Over the years, the Archaeological Staff Office did indeed conduct many salvage excavations in Nablus and its surroundings due to its flourishing growth. These excavations are of significant scientific value, having uncovered, inter alia, the Hellenistic city on Mount Gerizim (overlooking Nablus on the south), and the rich heritage of Nablus of the Roman period (Neapolis), as well as the Byzantine and early Islamic periods. The full scientific publication (now in preparation) of these excavations will shed new light on the cultural heritage of Nablus�for Israelis and Palestinians alike and for all those in the world who value science.

On some Arguments Raised in Najat�s Lecture:

Israeli archaeology is not conducted on behalf of any ideology, nor does it explicitly serve the heritage of the Jewish people on its land. It is pure science for the purpose of studying the past through its archaeological finds. No one can claim that prehistoric excavations by Israelis are meant to serve the Jewish heritage. No one can claim that the Staff Archaeological Officer excavations in Nablus that uncovered the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic city aimed to search for Jewish roots in that city. No Israeli scholar that studied the Samaritan burials and synagogues in the Nablus area claims that these belong to the Jewish nation and religion. It is patently clear to us that these are Samaritan items. No one can claim that the hundreds of Byzantine churches and monasteries uncovered in Israel and in the PA areas in the past fifty years serve the claims of the Jewish people to the land. Science is science is science, and heritage is heritage is heritage; they belong to all.

Israeli archaeology is not a means to �underline Jewish historical continuity� in Israel, as Dr. Najat contended. I would be surprised to see one scientific paper published by an Israeli with such a claim. I will be happy to refer Dr. Najat to the latest publications by Professor Israel Finkelstein, a respected archaeologist of the Biblical period in Israel, who advocates a significant reduction of the size of the Judean Kingdom. At the same time, I will be happy to refer him to the major archaeological project directed by the late Professor Benjamin Mazar south of the Haram el-Sherif in Jerusalem, where grand palaces built by Umayyad (Muslim) rulers were uncovered. There is no indication of these palaces before their excavation. They did not appear in any written historical source, until the Israeli excavations discovered them.

I will be happy to refer Dr. Najat to the accepted archaeological terminology in Israel when it was decided to label the periods Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid periods with the term �Early Islamic Period� and not with the term used in the rest of the world, �Early Arab Period�, because Israeli scholars are well aware that an Arab element existed in the Levant, west of the Jordan since Hellenistic times.

If Dr. Najat had read recent publications by Israeli archaeologists (published also in English) instead of reciting groundless slogans, he would find hundreds of published excavations with strata from Islamic periods, with excavations proving that the pinnacle of church and monastery construction in Israel took place during the Umayyad period under Islamic rule. The IAA is working to change the Law of Antiquities so that the legal definition of �antiquities� will include objects and sites dating from earlier than 1840, and not as in the law today (in effect since the British Mandate), which fixes the date at 1700. The change in this law will give us better tools for preserving sites and finds from the Ottoman period, in which it is universally accepted that the majority of the populations were Palestinians.

Is this what Dr. Najat refers to as archaeology serving Israel�s ideology?

The purpose of archaeology is to uncover history. Differing interpretation of archaeological sites should not be based upon the researcher�s origins, whether they are Israeli, Palestinian, Australian or others. It may be that the nascent Palestinian archaeology is still somewhat na�ve (and this is natural). Israeli archaeology is more mature.

I agree fully with every word in the concluding paragraph of Dr. Najat�s abstract, with the addition of the underlined words: �The violent events of the last two years in the Palestinian Territories and in the State of Israel, have not only caused irreversible damages to many archaeological and historical sites of intrinsic value, but also shattered hopes for a better definition of the present and the future of the cultural heritage of the Holy Land.�

In Summary:

The World Archaeological Congress will do well to concentrate on archaeology as a science, and on preserving archaeological and cultural heritage sites. It will also be appreciated were the WAC to sound the alarm for endangered archaeological sites due to armed conflict. But, taking a political position, or providing a stage for only one political position in a conflict, thereby transforming the science of archaeology into a platform for political polemics, is unacceptable. It is clear to every sensible person that �truth� is subjective�each side has its own version. A common cultural heritage of the sons of Abraham�Jews and Arabs�each with divided opinions on the fate of this country, can serve as a lever for fostering peace. A condition for this is that neither side �take possession� of archaeology for its own objectives.

Sincerely,
Dr. Uzi Dahari

Deputy Director
Israel Antiquities Authority

"WAREHOUSING" ISRAEL'S ANTIQUITIES:

Israel Warehouse Holds Mankind's History (The Guardian)

Monday January 19, 2004 10:46 AM

By STEVE WEIZMAN

Associated Press Writer

[...]

The warehouse is the new home of Israel's National Antiquities Collections, housing close to 1 million artifacts unearthed in excavations in Israel since its founding in 1948.

The Beit Shemesh warehouse was unveiled Sunday. Previously, excavated items were stored in a cramped old building in Jerusalem, said a curator, Galit Litani.

[...]

The Beit Shemesh facility only holds artifacts excavated since 1948. Items dug up under pre-state British or Ottoman rule or in the West Bank or Gaza Strip before Israel captured those territories from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 Mideast War are kept in various museums and international archaeological institutes in Jerusalem and abroad.

The building is an archive, not a museum, and the boxes of history lining the aisles will not be on view to the general public, Litani said, but scholars and museum staff will be able to borrow items for research or display.

In addition to the nearly 1 million objects held at Beit Shemesh, a similar number are currently out on loan. Litani said the goal was to have as much of the collection as possible on public display.

[...]

DEAD SEA DISCOVERIES has a new issue (10.3) online. The table of contents:

The Date of the Psalms Scroll from the Cave of Letters (5/6HEVPS) Reconsidered
319
Walter C. Bouzard Jr

4Q Pesher Hoseab: Reconstruction of Fragments 4, 5, 18, and 24
338
Gregory L. Doudna

Mastema's Attempt on Moses' Life in the "Pseudo-Jubilees" Text from Masada
359
Esther Eshel

A Qumranic Parallel to 1Thess 4:4? Reading and Interpretation of 4Q416 2 II 21
365
Menahem Kister

The Book of Jubilees and its Calendar - A Reexamination
371
Liora Ravid

The Punishment of the Wicked Priest and the Death of Judas
395
Rick Van De Water

Book Reviews
420

Requires paid personal or institutional subscription to access.

ROCHELLE ALTMAN, co-coordinator of the Ioudaios-L discussion list, argues that artifacts found near Newark, Ohio, in 1860 are neither proof of Israelites in Pre-Columbian America or modern forgeries: they're medieval relics from Europe, stolen from a murdered European settler in America. Most of the essay deals with paleographic matters I'm not an expert on, and I've only read it over once pretty quickly. I will say that I'm very skeptical about the the Tetrateuch being transcribed as early as the 10th century B.C.E. and about the efforts to use these relics to illuminate the biblical period. But you can read the piece on the Bible and Interpretation News website and decide for yourself:

�First, �recognize that it's a penny�: Report on the "Newark" Ritual Artifacts

She sums up her arguments here:

�� The Newark Ritual artifacts date to the Late Medieval period, as is made clear from stylistic features on the bas-relief sculpture on one of the artifacts and the Late Medieval Hebrew base-script used for the consolidated grid font that appears in the inscriptions on two of the artifacts. The artifacts are authentic, if not what they were thought to be in the 19th century, and, unfortunately, even today.60

��� Claims of modern forgery based on the "peculiar" script, or "spelling" errors (of which there is precisely one after 1500 years or more of copying the text),61 or the pose of the figure on the bas-relief are equally erroneous and have no basis in actuality. The fact that black limestone with crinoid stems can be found in Ohio also has been claimed as evidence that the artifacts are forgeries. Black limestone containing crinoid stems, however, is available throughout the world. The material may be found, for example, in Belgium, England, France, Hungary and Spain. It may also be found in Idaho and the Dakotas as well as in Mercer and Muskingum Counties Ohio.62 The artifacts pass all visual forensic analysis tests. They also pass the materials examination as far as the availability of the material at the probable site(s) of manufacture. That black limestone can also be found in Ohio is irrelevant.

��� Archaeology as a soundly based field only came into being in the 1880's. That in the 1860's claims that the artifacts were forgeries, although the evidence at the site and expert opinion was against this, can be excused. Claims today that these artifacts are forgeries and not "old" enough for where they were found are unacceptable; such claims ignore both basic archaeological standards and the evidence. We can never know whether the artifacts were deposited during the "pirate treasure hunt" phase or sometime shortly after 1832 when the workmen removed 144,000 cartloads of stones from all the stacks at the site. There is, though, little doubt: this set of ritual artifacts was deposited at the two sites during the early part of the nineteenth century. As Dr. Fischel pointed out in 1861, these artifacts are medieval and European and had been stolen from a European settler.

��� The "Newark" Ritual artifacts are neither forgeries nor relics of �Ancient America.� They are, however, very important concrete evidence of Ancient and Medieval Israelite practices. The ancient graphs included in the consolidated script on these phylacteries are also our first small pieces of concrete evidence that a factual basis underlies Exodus 32:15. The shape of the tablet held by Moses as well as the condensed "decalogue" inscribed on the hand phylactery is concrete evidence of the types of authoritative and theological disputes that divided the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. In addition, these artifacts also give us some hints as to the continuation of Jewish traditions among the peoples displaced after the Northern Kingdom was destroyed. This particular penny is far too important to leave in the obscurity of a wrangle between two extremist sides, both of whom ignore the evidence.

��� If an American penny finds its way onto the Acropolis in Athens or the Colosseum in Rome, we dismiss the question of how it got there as too obvious to be worth asking. This set of late-medieval ritual artifacts found their way to these sites in the United States because they were brought there, as so many family heirlooms were, by a settler from Europe searching for a new home in the new world.

UPDATE (23 January): I have reposted the quotation, since it has been re-edited.

AN EARTHQUAKE in the Old City of Jerusalem could be devastating.

The Bible tells of earthquakes splitting open the hills of this holy city with apocalyptic fury, adding to the mayhem of battles and punctuating Jesus' crucifixion.

Now, a geological survey says the heart of biblical narrative - Jerusalem's walled Old City - would be among the worst hit parts of the city in the event of another earthquake because it rests on layers of debris, not solid rock.

A natural disaster in the Old City could also bring devastating political aftershocks because it is the fiery heart of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

The three-year study, conducted by the Geological Survey of Israel and released this week, found that the Old City is more at risk than modern neighborhoods because of its ancient construction and the underground layers of shifting debris left behind by ransacking armies, said Amos Bein, the center's director.

"The layer below is not made of solid rock, but rather a kind of rubble," Bein said. Those weak foundations could magnify an earthquake's seismic wave, he said.

[...]

Most at risk, the report says, is the Old City and the 11-acre (4.4-hectare) elevated plaza housing two major mosques, including the gold-capped Dome of the Rock.

[...]

"IT IS AS IT WAS." That's the quote from the Pope on Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and it appears he really said it. He also said it was incredibile. Frank Rich has tracked down the source. Not that he approves.

That a movie star would fan these culture wars for dollars is perhaps no surprise, but it demeans the pope to be drafted into that scheme. It also seems preposterous � so much so that I wondered whether the reports of the gravely ill John Paul's thumbs up for "The Passion" were true. A week after the stories first appeared, the highly respected Catholic News Service also raised that question, quoting "a senior Vatican official close to the pope" as saying that after seeing the movie, the pope "made no comment. The Holy Father does not comment, does not give judgments on art."

I sought clarification from the Vatican spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls. His secretary, Rosangela Mancusi, responded by e-mail that "this office does not usually comment on the private activities of the Holy Father" and would neither confirm nor deny the pope's feelings about "The Passion." But she suggested that I contact "the two persons who brought the film to the Holy Father and gathered his comments" � Steve McEveety, Mr. Gibson's producer, and Jan Michelini, the movie's assistant director.

Mr. McEveety declined to speak with me from Hollywood, but last week I tracked down Mr. Michelini, an Italian who lives in Rome, by phone in Bombay, where he is working on another film. As he tells it, Mr. McEveety visited Rome in early December, eager "to show the movie to the pope." Mr. Michelini, it turned out, had an in with the Vatican. "Everyone thinks it's a complex story, the pope, the Vatican and all," Mr. Michelini says. "It's a very easy story. I called the pope's secretary. He said he had read about the movie, read about the controversy. He said, `I'm curious, and I'm sure the pope is curious too.' "

A video of "The Passion" was handed over to that secretary � Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, whom Vatican watchers now describe as second in power only to the pope � on Friday, Dec. 5. "McEveety calls me like crazy, 20 times that weekend, saying, `I want to know what the pope thinks,' " Mr. Michelini continues. On Monday, the archbishop convened a meeting with Mr. McEveety and Mr. Michelini in the pope's apartment. There, Mr. Michelini says, the archbishop quoted the pope not only as saying "it is as it was" but also as calling the movie "incredibile." Mr. Michelini was repeating the archbishop's Italian and said that "incredibile" translates as "amazing," though Cassell's dictionary defines the word as "incredible, inconceivable, unbelievable." But why quarrel over semantics? Followed by an exclamation point, it will look fabulous in an ad, perhaps next to a quote from Michael Medved, the conservative pundit and film critic who has been vying with Ms. Noonan to be the movie's No. 1 publicist.