THE MANDAEANS ARE GETTING SOME PRESS TOO, which is also a good thing.

Iraq's Baptist Mandaeans are survivors, but ranks are thinning (Kansas City Star)

BY TOD ROBBERSON

The Dallas Morning News

BAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT) - They call themselves the original Baptists, but any similarities to Americans of that description pretty much end with the waterborne ritual they share.

Iraq's Baptists, known as the Sabaean Mandaeans, don't gather in suburban megachurches equipped with TV screens and state-of-the-art sound systems. Their Baghdad headquarters is a tiny temple whose cash-strapped congregation doesn't own so much as a bullhorn.

Preaching the Gospel and winning converts are not among their strong suits. For one thing, while some Mandaeans have studied the Bible, they don't regard it as their holy book. For another, these Baptists don't consider themselves Christians. Their faith, with influences from Judaism, Gnosticism, pre-Christian religions, Christianity and Islam, predates Christianity, possibly by centuries, if not millennia.

[...]

The word Sabaean comes from the Aramaic-Mandic word saba, or "immersed in water," according to the group's Web site, www.mandaeans.org. Mandaean comes from the word menda, or "knowledge."

"We are one of the oldest monotheistic religions in the world. Some say we are the oldest," Sheikh Jabbar Helu, the most senior Mandaean cleric, who wears a long gray beard, flowing robes and is a fluent speaker of Aramaic, the language of Jesus and John the Baptist. "Our religious texts date to Seth, son of the prophet Adam. Our last prophet was John the Baptist."

[...]

Unlike Christians, for whom baptism is typically a once-in-a-lifetime event, Mandaeans may be baptized thousands of times as a purifying rite, Sheikh Jabbar said.

Couples, for example, will be baptized once after their engagement, again before the wedding ceremony and yet again after the marriage is consummated.

Pallbearers must be baptized before and after carrying a coffin. Anyone who comes into contact with a "sinner," or nonbeliever, must be baptized. And every Sunday, all Mandaeans are encouraged to undergo baptism.

[...]

The business about Madaeans being mentioned in the Bible is dodgy:

They are mentioned four times in the Old Testament, not always in the most glowing terms. In the Book of Job, Mandaeans are described as violent raiders who seized livestock and killed servants "at the edge of a sword." But the Book of Isaiah describes them as "men of stature."

Job 1:15 mentions Sabeans, but they are North Arabian tribes, not Mandaeans. The Sabeans in Isa 45:14 seem to be an African people, perhaps in Nubia. There's another reference to Sabeans in Joel 3:8, which may refer to the people of Sheba in South Arabia. (See the article "Sabeans" in the Anchor Bible Dictionary. I'm not sure what the fourth reference would be. We have no evidence that the Mandaeans existed this early (it seems most unlikely: from the little I've read about them they seem to fit the profile of a baptizing sect in the early centuries C.E.), our sources for them are very late, and it looks to me as though their title Sabaeans is a later Aramaic term, coincidentally similar to the Arabic (?) word Sabeans in the Bible. Any specialists in the Mandaeans out there who want to comment?

The website cited in the article is dead and I can't find a replacement.

HISTORICAL ERRORS in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ: Here's a roundup. There are lots of 'em, including Jesus' traditional long hair. We're told that ancient Jewish men had short hair. One excerpt, involving more serious issues:

Jesus Scholars Find Fault in Gibson's 'Passion' (Reuters)

[...]

For some scholars the errors go beyond language or hairstyles.

They say the heart of the problem is the film's script which interweaves the literal interpretation of four sometimes contradictory gospel accounts of Jesus' last 12 hours with the visions of a controversial 19th century nun.

"This is my version of what happened, according to the gospels and what I wanted to show," Gibson told the U.S. television network ABC this month.

But Crossan complained that the lack of historical context was the movie's "basic flaw."

The film begins not when Jesus enters Jerusalem to the exuberant welcome of thousands of Jews but rather at night in a garden on the eve of the crucifixion when he is arrested by the Romans after being betrayed by Judas.

"Why did they need a traitor? Why did they need the night? Why didn't they grab him in the daytime?" Crossan asked.

"Because they did not want a riot," he said, explaining that Jesus was immensely popular among his fellow Jews, which is why the high priests and Romans felt threatened by him.

Those details, Crossan said, were absent in the film.

"The lack of context is the most devastating thing for anyone who says it (the film) is faithful to the gospels because the gospels have the context," he told Reuters.

[...]

ARAMAIC IS IN THE NEWS AGAIN, thanks to Mel Gibson. Latin too, even though using it in The Passion of the Christ is an error.

Watch Your Languages. They're Ancient. (New York Times)
By CLYDE HABERMAN

Published: February 24, 2004

TOMORROW is the big day for Mel Gibson, the actor-director who apparently considers himself in some respects to be more Catholic than the pope. His much-debated film, "The Passion of the Christ," will open in theaters.

George A. Kiraz can hardly wait.

His interest, though, is not in the theological and social disputes the movie has generated. He is curious about the dialogue, which Mr. Gibson chose to render entirely in Aramaic and Latin, not exactly the hottest languages on the planet.
Advertisement

"I want mainly to see if I understand any of the Aramaic, and what form of Aramaic it is," said Dr. Kiraz, director of the Syriac Institute in Piscataway, N.J. His organization promotes the study of Syriac, an Aramaic dialect that is the liturgical language of the Syrian Orthodox Church and some other churches with Middle Eastern roots.

"I call it BBC Aramaic - the standard form that continues to be used today," said Dr. Kiraz, 39. He began speaking it as a boy in Bethlehem (as in Little Town of Bethlehem, not the place in Pennsylvania). He uses it today with his daughter, Tabetha.

[...]

THESE days, Latin is enjoying a resurgence. "The nadir came in 1970, right after the Roman Catholic Church gave up Latin," said Thomas J. Sienkewicz, vice chairman of the National Committee for Latin and Greek, a group that promotes studies in those classical languages.

But all indicators point to a turnaround in the last two decades, said Professor Sienkewicz, who teaches classics at Monmouth College in Illinois. Indeed, one problem now is a looming shortage of qualified teachers for the growing numbers of students. A nationwide campaign to recruit instructors is planned for the first week of March.

Some young people like studying Latin for its own sake, Professor Sienkewicz said. Others are persuaded by evidence that high school students who take Latin do far better than average on the verbal SAT.

There is, too, the "Gladiator" factor, said Nancy McKee, chairwoman of the Latin and Greek group and a former Latin teacher in Lawrenceville, N.J. The Russell Crowe movie "prompted an interest in the Roman culture," she said.

[...]

MOSES' HORNS � Gerald A. Honigman replies to Larry Swain:

In response to Larry Swain's comments about my problem with Michelangelo's horned Moses ("Michey"... to try to lighten up a topic which has brought immense suffering to Jews), let me state/restate the following...

While scholars, artists and others may interpret this sculpture as they will and assume Michelangelo's understanding of the fine details of the differing translations and attempts to portray a variety of ideas via his Moses, my main point stays the same. For those wanting to see another interpretation, see Guy Shaked's at The rays of Michelangelo's Moses as the sign of the betrayed...deals with another interesting take on this.

I hope your viewers read the article at Arutz Sheva that you mentioned which prompted this discussion. For the demonization of the Jew from the getgo in Christian teaching created a climate where--whatever Michey did or didn't mean regarding those extra-cranial growths--the overwhelming majority of those who would see them would know how they would interpret them. They had been taught of the Jew as the Devil's offspring for 1500 years...and with deadly consequences.

How many average people today are aware of the consequences of this demonization by Christendom of the Jews? While those who post on this site may or may not be aware of this, does the average Christian understand...or really care? "May His blood be upon us and our children" still provides the answer for Jewish suffering in many a Christian mind regarding all of this. Regardlesss of the necessity of Jesus to die in Christian theology, Jews are still too often seen by many-- if not most-- as G_D killing sons of the Devil in many places. Well-documented studies by non-Jewsish scholars have pointed to the theological roots of anti-Semitism...which is once again on the rise in Christian Europe and elswhere...despite decades of education about the Holocaust. And on that very topic, unfortunately, still too many would like to pretend that it was caused by Martians rather than deal with the fact that two millennia of this demonization, dehumanization, and other such "religious" enlightenment carefully paved the road to Auschwitz.

While there are Christians who have been trying to come to grips with how such teaching in the name of the Christian "Prince of Peace" could have caused such pain and suffering, there are still many who comment that they don't understand why the Jews are still so upset about all of this "past history." An important book several decades back by Charles Glock, I believe, a Protestant scholar, Christian Beliefs and Anti-Semitism is an eye-opener. There are other good sources as well by both Christians and Jews on this topic.

I will yield on one point. I too am puzzled by why Michey just chose Moses to place horns on. His David doesn't have them...though some may have wished that he did to distract from other protrusions Michey did include.

So, that has me wondering a bit more about this too. But don't miss the forest of Mel, Meet Irineos for the one iffy tree.

As for the tree, I agree with Larry Swain that the lack of horns on other figures tends to indicate that M. was thinking in terms of biblical exegesis before any demonizing of Moses, although, as I said before, that may have been a subtext. I also agree with Jerry Honigman that M. could hardly have been ignorant of the understanding some viewers would have of it � alway assuming that horns meant demonic in this period, which I suspect it did, but I don't know. Comments from specialists on Michelangelo and Renaissance art would be very welcome on this one.

As for the forest, I think there's an awfully big jump from Mel Gibson's unreleased movie to Irineos's comment, Arafat, and Auschwitz, and I worry that the rush to make that jump carries the danger of granting too much importance to the first (even in a worst-case scenario) and trivializing the others. But obviously some disagree with me. I blog, you decide.

WHATEVER ELSE Mel Gibson has done, good or bad, by making The Passion of the Christ, he has accomplished one good thing: it is now cool to know Aramaic.

Aramaic boosters hope for lift from Gibson's 'Passion' (Ha'aretz)
By Associated Press

At a small Jerusalem church, Aramaic, the ancient language that Jesus spoke, is little more than an echo these days.
An elder from the Syrian Orthodox congregation laments that he's got few people to speak to in Aramaic besides the monks. Parts of the liturgy have to be done in Arabic. And a nun who sings the Lord's Prayer says the words are just about the only ones she's able to recite in Aramaic.

Some say spoken Aramaic may vanish in just a few decades.

Linguists hope for a boost from Mel Gibson's new film "The Passion of the Christ," performed entirely in Aramaic and Latin.

[...]

Sami Barsoum, 69, a leader of the Syrian Orthodox community in Jerusalem, is one of the few who still speaks Aramaic fluently here. The community offers Aramaic in summer school, but there's little interest and fewer than half the 600 members speak the language. "Maybe the new generation will wake up and continue," he said.

MORE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT EMBANKMENT COLLAPSE:

The rampart fell but the Temple Mount is safe (Ha'aretz)
By Danny Rubinstein

Any news about the Al-Aqsa Mosque is immediately highlighted in the Palestinian press. That's what happened last week with the collapse of part of the northern wall of the rampart that leads from the southern entrance of the Western Wall up to the Mograbi Gate.

The collapse took place a week ago, some time after midnight between Saturday and Sunday. Al Quds, the most widely circulated Palestinian newspaper, wrote in its main headline on Monday that "the collapse of part of the path in the Al Bureq area is a renewed warning of the danger of collapse to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Al Bureq was the Prophet Mohammed's magical horse, which Muslim tradition says Mohammed tied to the Western Wall. When the Muslims speak of Al-Aqsa Mosque they are actually referring to all the Temple Mount area. However, in this context it must be said that there was nothing about the rock slide on the rampart to the Mograbi Gate that had anything to do with the safety and security of the walls of the mount plaza and the stability of the buildings on the mount.

The rampart is narrow path built between the prayer plaza of the Western Wall and the archaeological digs that have been underway for many years by archaeologists Benjamin Mazar and Meir Ben David. The rampart was made after the Six-Day War in the wake of the demolition of the Mograbi (Moroccan) quarter, to make room for the plaza. Most of the Mograbi quarter belonged to the Waqf of Abu Medein, and a special gate led from the quarter into the Temple Mount above. In Arabic, there are two gates that carry the name Mograbi Gate. The first is the gate in the Turkish wall around the city, known as Dung Gate, through which one now reaches the Western Wall and the other is the gate in the wall of the mount itself, at the top of the rampart that fell.

[...]

I would have found this article more helpful if it had included a diagram or two of the area.

MOSES' HORNS YET AGAIN. Reader Larry Swain e-mails:

In regard to today's posts on "Michey", your correspondant is making leaps in logic. The issue is easily resolved.

1) In the Vulgate, as you know, Jerome uses the word "cornu"
2) we can point to commentaries which so describe Moses
3) in addition to the commentaries one can point to manuscript art, sculpture, church art etc that depict Moses with horns of light coming out of his forehead, almost always 2, just 2 horns
4) while it is true that Jews were demonized in the period, that art frequently depicts them as wearing horns in the late medieval and early renaissance period, that the Council of Venice for example required them to wear hats with horns etc, there is little direct connection to M's Moses' sculpture (see below)
5) While the Jews are vilified in the period, the heroes of faith in the Christian Old Testement, though recognized as Jews, are held up as forerunners, types, and "pre-Christian" Christians. Moses and Jeremiah and David are the good guys.
6) Finally, the capper. In Michelangelo's works are many Jews...Jeremiah, Moses, David, Abraham to name a few. Of these, ONLY MOSES POPS UP WITH HORNS!

If one wishes to explain the presence of horns on M's Moses as part of a villification of Jews and Judaism one must on the one explain away the tradition of Moses depicted with horns and the commentary tradition which accompanies it as of no or little importance to Michelangelo as well as why none of his other Jewish figures do not bear similar horns. On the other hand, one must be able to make a direct connection between such vilification and demonization of Jews and Judaism and Michelangelo's Moses such as a vilification of Moses himself in Christian thought or rejection of Moses as a type of Christ as well as explain the lack of such horns on other Jewish figures such as David and Jeremiah. It seems to me more likely that Michelangelo is simply making use of a typical, frequent, well-known, well-attested tradition of depicting Moses.

MORE TREASURES FROM THE DEAD SEA CAVES:

2500 yr-old necklace found in cave (News.com.au via Archaeologica News)
From correspondents in Jerusalem
February 20, 2004

ISRAELI archaeologists excavating caves near the Dead Sea have discovered a rare find � a woman's 2500-year-old fashion accessories.

The hoard of jewellery, a makeup kit and a small mirror apparently belonged to Jews who had returned from exile in Babylon in the 6th century BC, said Tsvika Tsuk, chief archaeologist for the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

"This find is very rare. Both for the richness of the find and for that period, it is almost unheard of," Tsuk said today.

[...]

Cool!

MOSES' HORNS AGAIN. Gerald A Honigman replies:

In response to Jim Davila's post disputing Gerald A.�Honigman's association of Michelangelo's horns on Moses with the Devil, please consider�that the idea�and image of the Devil Jew had been well ingrained into the average Christian's mind since John's Gospel and was quite common for over a millennium prior to Michelangelo's era.��It's no stretch to suggest that�the sculptor�was aware of this as well. Being the great artist that he was, he certainly also knew that those extra-cranial growths would not be seen as rays of light but as horns.
�
Now, how were the vast majority of people--already familiar with the Jew as Satan's offspring (earliest picture of a Jew in England entitled, "Aaron--Son Of The Devil")--going to interpret a horny Moses...you'll forgive the expression?
�
Despite all of the scholarly hot air --which I've been aware of for decades--debating whether these were rays of light mistranslated into horns instead, the likely explanation...that I've pondered for decades of my own�studies...is that Michey saw Moses, the great Lawgiver, still as a Jew...and Jews were commonly associated with the Devil by Christians, Church Fathers, and Christian writings from the getgo. I find it a bit na�ve that people would ignore this and insist, instead, that it was the sculptor's pondering translations of words that led him to place horns--that he knew would be interpreted by the masses as they always had vis-�-vis Jews--on Moses' head.
�
Let's just say that we don't know why Michey chose to do that...but odds go with about 1,500 years of Christian stereotyping the Jew as the Devil's child. Unless we have an explanation given by he himself that contradicts this, I've seen nothing which leads me to believe the wishful thinking of some scholars. As Theodore Herzl found out while covering the Dreyfus Trial in France, even the "enlightened" could be anti-Semitic and/or at least harbor the same old negative stereotypes and ingrained teaching. That led him to write Der Judenstat in response...and the rest is history as they say. Modern political Zionism was born...and Israel reborn...within a half century.

He then includes links and quotes from numerous sources to show that there's a history of demonizing of Jews in Christianity (which I accept) and a couple of quotes on interpreting Michelangelo's horns on Moses: see www.uqtr.ca/AE/vol_2/lorand.html (section 5.2) and www.math.umass.edu/~rsellis/images-vs-words-long.html (sections V and VI).

What I was arguing in my nuancing of his comment ("Hundreds of years later, Michelangelo placed Devil's horns on his famous sculpture of Moses") was that the horns on Michelangelo's Moses were not a good example of Christian demonization of Jews, because the horns come from a (possibly viable) interpretation of a biblical passage about Moses which was actually accepted in at least some Jewish circles, as attested by Aquila's translation and a midrash, and that M. himself would have known it from the Latin Vulgate. Mr. Honigman replies that M. certainly would also have known the demonic Jew meme and he should have known what would be the interpretation of the Christian masses and the effect on them.

These are good points. The origins of the Moses-with-horns motif do not involce demonizing him, but how the motif was transmitted by Christians in this period is a different issue. I suspect M. wouldn't have thought or cared much about what the masses thought, but he certainly would have been concerned for the interpretation of his patrons. He and they would have known their Latin Bible but they also would have known the tradition of Jews as diabolical, so this may well have been at least a subtext of the portrayal of Moses. I'm no specialist in the Renaissance, and if any readers know of anything M. himself said or any comments by contemporaries which would illuminate what he or they took to be the meaning of the horns, I would be obliged if you would pass them on to me. Also � a not insignificant question � can anyone tell me when the devil started to be portrayed with a pair of horns? I assume it was well before this but I don't know.

As for the larger question of what to make of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ if it turns out to be as bad as some people fear, I refer you to the comments of Jack Miles which I cited yesterday and which I think are very sane.

I am grateful to Jerry Honigman for taking the time to comment on my post.

NEW BOOK REVIEWS FROM THE REVIEW OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE:

Bergant, Dianne
The Song of Songs
Reviewed by Richard G. Smith

Evans, Craig A. and Paul Copan
Who Was Jesus?: A Jewish-Christian Dialogue
Reviewed by Andrew Lloyd

Charlesworth, James H.
The Pesharim and Qumran History: Chaos or Consensus?
Reviewed by Gregory L. Doudna

Cohn-Sherbok, Dan
Holocaust Theology: A Reader
Reviewed by Frederick E. Greenspahn

Hasan-Rokem Galit
Tales of the Neighborhood: Jewish Narrative Dialogues in Late Antiquity
Reviewed by Adele Reinhartz

Lim, Timothy H.
Pesharim
Reviewed by Bilhah Nitzan

"A CRIB-SHEET FOR THE POST-MORTEM." Biblical scholar Jack Miles offers a summary of "What Jews Need to Know About Jesus" (in light of Mel Gibson's upcoming The Passion of the Christ) in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. He surveys the basics about the New Testament, why most Jews rejected Jesus, the historical Jesus, and Christian anti-Semitism arising from Matthew 27:24-25. The essay is accessible, sympathetic to its subject without pulling punches, and entertaining. I'll just excerpt the last part on the Matthew passage:

Most scholars recognize in the Gospel of Matthew the most Jewish of the four canonical Gospels. It was almost certainly written by a Christian Jew for other Jews like himself and against their Jewish opponents. Imagine, if you will, the anger of secular Israelis about the ultra-Orthodox Israelis who called for the execution of Yitzhak Rabin and who applauded Yigal Amir when he did the deed. Intense as it was, that anger was not an anti-Semitic anger, for all parties to the transaction were equally Jewish. So it may have been here as well � originally.

Alas, when a Gospel containing such anger migrates out of its initial all-Jewish context into other contexts where Jews are a minority, the notorious line takes on a fearsome new anti-Semitic potential. In my judgment, it retains that potential down to our own day. Theologically, the death of Jesus is not a wrong that could be set right if his murderers could somehow be brought to justice. Theologically, Jesus� passage from death to life in his resurrection is a new Exodus, bringing the human race as a whole to the new promised land of immortality. Theologically, those who killed Jesus, even if they sinned, were tools in God�s hands; and God�s enemy was not his people Israel but Satan. Theologically, it was Satan and Satan alone who was defeated when Jesus rose from the dead: Paradise lost, paradise regained. But when have anti-Semites ever cared, really, about theology?

I hope that "The Passion" does not live up to the worst of its advance notices; but if it does, the result will be more a pity than a peril. Anti-Semitism is not best confronted by bowdlerizing "The Merchant of Venice," censoring Bach�s "St. Matthew Passion," expurgating the Gospel according to Matthew or editing the latest Jesus movie to come down the pike. To think this way is to treat anti-Semitism as something like the genitals of human thought and of ourselves as a frail Victorian damsel who might faint dead away if her innocent gaze ever fell on the dread organs. We are stronger than that, I dare to think � strong enough, if you will, to stare the obscenity down. The anti-Semites among us only rejoice when we act otherwise.

This seems about right to me.

SHABBAT SHEKALIM, the sabbath that commemorates the ancient half-shekel tax for the upkeep of the Temple, begins this evening. The Jerusalem Post has an article on it and its rabbinic intepretation: "The holy shekel." And there's more information here.

MORE ON MOSES' HORNS:

Seth Sanders e-mails:

I published something on this, "Old Light on Moses' Shining Face" in Vetus Testamentum 52:400-406 last year [actually, it was 2002 - JRD] which applies some new data to the question, from both Mesopotamian and Jewish sources, and may clarify things. I argue thus:

The crux of Moses' shining face in Ex. xxxiv is explained by first-millennium Mesopotamian astronomical and lexical sources which attest an ancient understanding of light as material. Moses' face could, quite literally, radiate horns of light, and the need to translate the term as either divine radiance or physical protuberance is a side-effect of modern conceptual categories, irrelevant to ancient Israelite ideas. Furthermore, the well known ancient Jewish tradition of Moses' coronation, and his divine physical transformation attested in newly published Midrashic sources suggests an authentic ancient reading of the text that resolves the contradiction between Ex. xxxiii and xxxiv. While no human could see God and live, in Ex. xxxiv, the Israelites recoil from a transformed Moses who is no longer precisely human.

Follow the link above to read the article, which is very interesting. Requires paid personal or institutional subscription to access.

Reader Danny Kerman e-mails:

Ironically, I've had a few conversations recently (as well as this evening before reading this blog) about remnants of the horn myth. I�assume it stems from the statue of Moses, but I've never investigated the issue.
As you wrote -

Bottom line: the portrayal of Moses with horns came about through a particular, not entirely impossible, reading of the biblical text, not as an attempt to demonize him.

Whatever Michaelangelo's intention with his statue, at some point people began to�believe that all Jews had horns - a belief�still active in some areas today.

This evening an Israeli was telling me an account of an outing he had with a few fellow�Israelis in Texas (somewhere outside Waco), where a waitress, upon being informed that the language being spoken at the table was Hebrew, asked for permission to feel one of their heads. They allowed her to do so, but as she ran her hands all over one of their heads they�didn't understand what was going on, until she explained that she was looking for horns.��After hearing this�I related�a story my mother told me - upon bringing me home from the hospital after�I was born, a neighbor from down the street came to pay my mother a visit. When she saw that�I didn't have any horns, she accused my mother of having had them cut off before she left the hospital. Another friend of mine told me about his stay in South America (I don't remember where) - he lived in the home of a local family while studying in an intensive Spanish program. One Sunday after church, the entire village lined up in this family's yard to see the Jew, and to check if he had horns.

I've heard of this idea and that there are people around who still believe it, but I've never met any of them.

TACKY, TACKY (and no pun intended):

'JESUS' NAIL SALE (New York Post)

By WILLIAM NEUMAN

February 19, 2004 -- Replicas of the nails used to hang Jesus on the cross have become the red-hot official merchandise linked to Mel Gibson's controversial new movie, "The Passion of the Christ."

Pendants made from the pewter, 2 1/2-inch nails - selling for $16.99 - all but flew out of the Christian Publications Bookstore on West 43rd Street as soon as they were put on display.

Hundreds of stores across the country will be selling licensed items tied to the movie, a graphically violent depiction of the last 12 hours of Christ's life, which opens next week on Ash Wednesday.

The souvenirs include a book, pins, key chains, coffee mugs and T-shirts.

But the most unusual collectibles are the nails, each of which hangs on a leather cord.

Its side bears the inscription "Isaiah 53:5," referring to a Bible verse that begins, "He was pierced for our transgressions . . ."

[...]

AN ISRAELI TELEVISION DOCUMENTARY has accused Oded Golan of being part of a forgery ring:

Fake ossuary leads Israel to look into sellers of antiquities

By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
An Israeli documentary Wednesday claimed the James ossuary, the ancient burial box bearing a discredited inscription mentioning Jesus, is just the tip of a long-running forgery ring that has duped antiquities collectors worldwide for the last 15 years.

First reports of the ossuary in a 2002 Biblical Archaeology Review created a frenzy over the relic that bears the Aramaic inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." Throngs visited the Royal Ontario Museum to see the empty stone box. Scientists all agree the ossuary is a genuine artifact from the era of the New Testament, but many scholars believe the inscription was added recently.

Produced with the help of Israeli Antiquity Authority (IAA) officials, the Israeli investigative news show Ouvda ("fact" in Hebrew), says ossuary owner Oded Golan participated in dozens of forgery sales.

Golan denied the charges on the show, calling them "unbelievable."

The forgery ring accusation has been around for a while. I noted it here back in August.

The real surprise in the USA Today article comes in the last paragraph:

BAR editor Hershel Shanks has defended the ossuary in his magazine, saying the evidence remains inconclusive, and calling for a new study of the inscription. In the journal's upcoming issue, biblical scholar David Noel Freedman suggests linguistic errors in another suspect artifact, the so-called "Jehoash" tablet, may actually be valid Hebrew. Widely regarded as a fake, the tablet describes the collection of money for the repair of the First Temple in Jerusalem.

My emphasis. This I will have to read.

There's another brief article on the forgery ring accusation in Ha'aretz. Both articles were drawn to my attention by Stephen Goranson.

YET MORE MEL: Aruzt Sheva has an Opinion piece by Gerald A. Honigman on Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (heads up, David Meadows), which aims to explain why many Jews are opposed to the movie. Lately I've been trying to cover other things and leave the Gibson movie to Mark Goodacre, who has been covering it very well. But I do have a few comments on Honigman's piece. I agree with much of his analysis of awful passages in the Gospels and the horrible effect they had on Jews later. These include John 8:44 (which Honigman misquotes, but the correct version, "You are of your father the devil" is bad enough) and, of course, Matt 27:25. But there are some places in the essay that need correction and nuancing:

Regardless of how you spin the Gospel of John's words, the masses knew what he meant. One of the first pictures of a Jew in Europe was entitled, "Aaron, Son of the Devil."

Hundreds of years later, Michelangelo placed Devil's horns on his famous sculpture of Moses. It is estimated that such "religious" teaching led to the death of millions of Jews prior to the Holocaust.

Those horns on Moses' head come from a literal translation of Exod 34:30, 35, which describes the skin of Moses' face being changed somehow as a result of seeing God on Sinai, using a verbal form (qaran)of the Hebrew root for "horn" (qeren). One intepretation, going back to the Jewish Greek translation of Aquila, is that Moses grew horns. Jerome's Vulgate also takes it this way. It originated as an artistic motif in 11th century Britain. Some critical scholars today still think this is the correct interpretation (perhaps going back to a ritual mask with horns or the like). Others go with another ancient interpretation that goes back to Pseudo-Philo and Paul (cf. 2 Cor 3:7-18), that "rays" of splendor shown from Moses' face. This is based on a rather unlikely reading of a difficult passage in Habbakuk 3:4. And back in the 1980s, Professor William H. Propp of UCSD argued that Moses' skin was "made horny" or scorched by the divine radiance. For more on this whole subject, see his fascinating article: "The Skin of Moses' Face � Transfigured or Disfigured?" Catholic Biblical Quarterly 49 (1987): 375-86. Bottom line: the portrayal of Moses with horns came about through a particular, not entirely impossible, reading of the biblical text, not as an attempt to demonize him.

Not only do the Gospels differ among themselves about some very important details, but all Christian doctrines were subjected to the approval of Rome � the very executioners of Jesus, as well as thousands of other Jews whom they perceived as "trouble makers" � after the emperor Constantine converted and the Council of Nicaea was convened in 325 C.E.

I think it's a bit facile historically to equate the Rome of the pagan emperors (who also persecuted the followers of Jesus) with the empire of Constantine or the authority of the Council of Nicea. Each had their own agendas but the agendas were very different.

Versions of Jesus' life � and interpretations of what that life meant � that differed from that approved by Rome were banned and destroyed.

Again, a bit facile. The development of the New Testament canon was a very complex process that happened at different rates in different places. But there was widespread agreement on the four gospels early on, although many other gospels also were popular in various places. These were gradually supressed, for different reasons and at different times in different places. For good or ill, the canonizing of the four gospels was a done deal by the time of the Council of Nicaea, although other gospels continued to be copied and read for many centuries. The NT bloggers may have more to say about this.

I'm not very comfortable with some of Mr. Honigman's rhetoric, which I think is at times over the top, no matter how legitimate his concerns may be. But I think I'll stop with the factual observations above.

I repeat, I have serious reservations about the movie from what I've heard so far, but I'm not going to judge it until I see it. But let's keep the discussion accurate in the meantime.

As an aside, you may find the recent comments of Andrew Sullivan (a gay, Catholic, conservative/libertarian blogger) interesting.

UPDATE (20 February): More here on Moses' horns.

Stephen C. Carlson comments on the four-Gospel canon.

UPDATE (21 February): Gerald A. Honigman replies.

UPDATE (22 February): More here.

UPDATE (25 February): There are still more posts on the subject above, but I'm tired of adding links. Just do a search (search engine is to the right) for "Moses' Horns" to find later posts.

THREE ANTIQUITIES LOOTERS have been caught in Israel. Apparently these people are well organized enough to operate in "cells."

ANCIENT TIBERIAS currently consists of an old quarry, garbage heaps, a sewage treatment plant, and ancient ruins. But it's slated to be rebuilt as a new city and the ancient site is about to be excavated. Excerpt from the Ha'aretz article:

Meanwhile, the vision remains somewhat distant. Ancient Tiberias, some 250 dunams close to the Kinneret beach south of the city, is home to a sewage treatment plant, with mounds of garbage scattered among the ancient remains. Some of the finds have already been reburied due to neglect.

But this doesn't bother Professor Yizhar Hirschfeld of Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology, director of the excavation due to start in two weeks. No significant damage has been caused, Hirschfeld said. The scrap metal and garbage may have even protected the antiquities, he added.

"This is one of the most beautiful sites in the world, of the greatest significance for Jewish history," Hirschfeld told participants at a conference yesterday on saving the cultural and material heritage of Tiberias. "Few other sites in the Roman Empire were more important," he added.

Hirschfeld spoke of the markets and the bathhouse, which figured prominently in the sayings of the ancient Jewish sages, where "wise men would sit and spin tales." He showed the location of the basilica in which the Sanhedrin had its headquarters; the city's walls and its theater; the study house and the beautiful mosaics of the synagogues.

MORE ON THE LOS ANGELES DEAD SEA SCROLL EXHIBIT. Reader Evy Nelson e-mails:

I saw this exhibit yesterday. At best, I'd like to say that I recommend it only for those who know little about the DDS to begin with (history, process, content, etc). However, the unrelenting effort on the part of LDS to link archaelogical findings w/Mormon belief and scriptures could confuse a novice.

The exhibit is small. The 3 scroll facsimiles (Great Isaiah, Habakkuk Commentary, Rule of the Congregation) consist of mediocre photo imaging on what appears to be naugahyde. Viewing these did not compare w/my experience in seeing a couple of actual Dead Sea scrolls that were exhibited at the Fowler Museum (Santa Ana) two years ago. There are some framed actual fragments at the LDS exhibit, but these are displayed at a viewing distance of several feet.

There is a model of the Qumran community which for me was a highlight, but then, only because I had never seen one.

I will not be telling my friends about the exhibit.

HERE'S MORE ON THE OTTAWA DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION. My student, Ian Werrett, points me to this article in the Presbyterian Record by Michael Munnik (who is, incidentally, the spouse of a former St. Andrews Divinity student):

Scrolls come to Canada
Canadian Museum of Civilization exhibits Dead Sea treasures
by Michael Munnik

Peter Flint's passion for ancient Jewish texts is infectious. He doesn't fit the stereotype of a research scholar -- aloof, awkward or boring. In fact, his enthusiasm is almost comical.

"I have held the oldest copy of Psalms in the world in my hands," Dr. Flint says. "It's like holding Wayne Gretzky's very first hockey stick."

That's a lofty comparison indeed. But Flint, a professor at Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C., is something of a Gretzky himself in scrolls research. He is one of only three professors from Canadian universities working with an international group of scholars, editing the scrolls and bringing their secrets to the world. The others are Dr. Martin Abegg, also from Trinity Western, and Dr. Eileen Schuller from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont.

Flint says Canada scored a hat trick with an exhibit currently showing at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Que., across the river from Ottawa. Three of the Dead Sea scrolls are on display until April 12 alongside artifacts dating as far back as 1200 BC. Two of the scrolls -- the War Scroll and Isaiah B (a copy of the Book of Isaiah) -- have never before left Israel. And the Community Rule scroll has remained in Israel for almost 50 years since its purchase from an American collection.

It was a coup for the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History, which arranged with the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to bring these pieces to Canada. They first showed in Montreal and will return to Israel when the Ottawa exhibit is finished. "We're really very lucky," says Flint. "This exhibit will put Canada on the map."

[...]

MORE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT RAMP COLLAPSE:

Ramp Collapse Foreshadows Greater Temple Mount Disaster (Cybercast News Service)

[...]

During the last few years, the WAKF Islamic Religious Authorities on the Temple Mount have carried out major renovations on an underground mosque there, which some say is the now the largest mosque in the Middle East.

By law, the Antiquities Authority must be consulted before any construction is undertaken in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Although the Islamic authorities had permission to enlarge an underground exit from the mosque, they reportedly carried out a massive enlargement project of an underground mosque. The Antiquities Authority reportedly was not allowed into the site.

According to [archaeologist Eilat] Mazar, some 20,000 tons of archeological materials and fill were removed from compound. In addition to the lost archeological treasures ("for eternity to weep over," she said), engineering-wise, it is a "disaster."

A direct outcome of the renovations and construction, Mazar said, is a bulge in southern wall of the Temple Mount, which forms one of the outside walls of the Old City.

[...]

Israeli analysts also warned that Israel could be in trouble either way. If the wall collapsed, Israel would be blamed; and if Israel tried to fix the wall, it would be accused of tampering with an Islamic religious site. Both scenarios could bring the wrath of the Islamic world down on Israel, analysts said.

[...]

[Osnat] Goaz [spokeswoman for the Israel Antiquities Authority] said that the Antiquities Authority knows what is going on in the area of the Temple Mount as it does at all antiquities sites around the country and is in touch with all the relevant authorities that deal with the place.

However, she would not say if the Islamic religious authorities were among those with whom the Antiquities Authority deals, nor would she say if the authority has freedom to deal with problems on the Temple Mount.

The Temple Mount is the only antiquity in Israel about which the Antiquities Authority is so guarded in its responses.

[...]

Meanwhile the "rabbi of the Western Wall" (I didn't know there was one) disagrees with Mazar, according to Ha'aretz:

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz criticized Mazar and said her statement was "groundless" and "irresponsible," and could give the impression that the Western Wall plaza was a dangerous place.

"This is groundless. After the quake, they inspected the Temple Mount area and walls with a laser, except for the Mugrabi embankment, which really collapsed," the rabbi said.

"Only yesterday, I received a report stating that the earthquake had had no effect on the wall's stability. We check the stones' stability every three months. There is a safety committee," he added.

And, according to the BBC, Hamas is foaming at the mouth:

Israeli engineers have suggested heavy snowfall and a small earthquake last week might have destabilised the embankment, causing the wall to collapse.

Hamas said the wall fell down because Israel had tried to undermine the foundations of the al-Aqsa mosque, which is situated in the compound.

"We warn the leadership of the enemy that the reaction of Palestinian resistance to the continued plans to destroy al-Aqsa mosque will be beyond their imagination and will topple the situation on their heads," Hamas said in a statement.

Israel has been carrying out archaeological excavations in an area outside the compound, inviting the charge that they are trying to destabilise the mosque, Islam's third holiest site. Israel has strongly denied the allegation.

Israeli officials have said the Palestinians' Waqf authority - which looks after the compound - might have weakened the area by carrying out unauthorised underground work in the compound.

FROM THE "YOU COULDN'T MAKE THIS UP" FILE:

From Persia to Wall Street, Queen Esther�s star shines (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
By E.B. Solomont

NEW YORK, Feb. 16 (JTA) � From Persia to Wall Street, there�s a lot to be learned from Queen Esther, the heroine of the Purim story.

Call it the Esther effect or call it good business � it�s the practical businesswoman�s guide to success, starring Queen Esther.

In a book by two female authors � Barbara Smalley, a writer, and Connie Glaser, a businesswoman � Queen Esther of Persia deftly imparts timeless lessons on �palace politics� to modern readers.

[...]

In their pithy, pocket-sized book, Glaser and Smalley focus on the story of a Jewish girl who becomes the queen of Persia and goes on to save her people from the wicked Haman, as well as the principles gleaned from Esther�s tale, and the authors� modern-day Esthers.

�The book weaves together ancient wisdom and modern insights,� Glaser says. �There is a truth here as valid today as it was 2,400 years ago.�

That truth is neatly packaged into chapter-sized lessons for Glaser and Smalley�s readers: Dress to take over the throne. Carry yourself like a queen. Establish a royal presence. Deal effectively with life�s Hamans.

[...]

When she addresses her husband, King Ahasuerus, Esther dresses royally � modern readers, think power suit. In preparation for asking the king to save the Jews, she invites him to her quarters � �Negotiators today know you have more clout and control on your own turf,� Glaser says.

Esther learns that the king is indecisive � �Study palace politics or corporate culture.� Esther befriends the castle eunuchs who advise the king � �Don�t make the mistake that the receptionist, the janitor and administrative assistant aren�t important!�

[...]

�What Queen Esther Knew: Business Strategies From a Biblical Sage� is published by Rodale (www.rodalestore.com).

The book appears in Amazon (I've added the link to the title above), so I guess it is real.

MORE VERMES ON CAIAPHAS: Geza Vermes e-mails the following:

I have read the comments made by Mark Goodacre and Helen Bond on my sketch of Caiaphas. I dare say I prefer hers. There is only one point I need to clarify. I have never intended to imply that the high priest was Jesus' friend. I accept no responsibility for the headline of the article, "Never mind what Mel Gibson says, Caiaphas was innocent". To make myself clear, I have rewritten the relevant paragraph for future use. It now runs:

"From all this we can draw an important conclusion: the decision of Caiaphas to hand Jesus' case over to Pontius Pilate did not reflect his legal incapacity to execute him, but his unwillingness to do so. He was passing the buck. He was responsible however for delivering Jesus to the Roman governor. This responsibility is already stated by the first century historian Josephus. It is obvious, nevertheless, that the decision to crucify Jesus was Pilate's and Pilate's alone."

GEZA VERMES ON CAIAPHAS: Vermes had an article on Caiaphas in the Telegraph this weekend:

"Never mind what Mel Gibson says, Caiaphas was innocent"

Mark Goodacre has already commented. I don't know a great deal about the current state of the question on Caiaphas, so I decided to ask someone who does. You may recall that Dr. Helen Bond, of the University of Edinburgh, has recently finished a book about him. So I e-mailed her to ask what she thought of the article. She replies:

I agree with the general thrust
of Vermes' arguments, ie the difficulty of keeping law and order in
Judaea, particularly at the passover; that it would be ridiculous to
suggest that Caiaphas was in a position to 'bulldoze' Pilate (who,
after all, was the man who kept him in office); and that the Jewish
authorities would have regarded Jesus as a dubious charismatic
prophet with a potentially dangerous band of followers. Vermes is
also right to stress the apologetic nature of the gospel accounts
(though he could have stressed contemporary Christian-synagogue
controversies much more, as these are really the reason why the
gospels are so harsh towards their Jewish neighbours), but to
conclude that Caiaphas was 'unwilling' to hand Jesus over to Rome
is much too strong.

All four gospels (and Josephus in one of the more reliable sections
of the Testimonium Flavianum) suggest that leading Jews handed
Jesus over to Rome. In the crowded city at Passover it makes
perfect sense that Caiaphas and other chief priests would have
wanted to silence a charismatic prophet with a following,
particularly if he had been demonstrating in the Temple. A charge
of leading people astray (Dt 13), or being a false-prophet (Dt 18)
would have been enough - both were punishable by death. There is
no need to assign cynical motives to Caiaphas (as many
Christians tend to do) - he had seen with his own eyes what Rome
could do when provoked to enter the Temple in 4BC, and his whole
Sadducean upbringing would have convinced him that the Temple
had to be protected at all costs - even if it meant the life of a
peasant.

Vermes is right to question the gospel presentation of the Jewish
'trial' (particularly in the synoptic gospels) and the charge of
blasphemy (which in all probability reflects later Christian-
synagogue controversy), but he goes too far in assuming that,
once we have removed the apologetic of the evangelists, Caiaphas
emerges as a friend of Jesus. Not only did he have his reasons for
wanting Jesus silenced, but he may also have had good reasons
for not wanting to do it himself (even if, as Vermes argues, Jews
did have some limited right to execute in religious cases). The
High Priest - and all other priests for that matter - played an
important role in the passover ritual; it was imperative that
everything was carried out in precisely that way that it was laid out
in the Torah; any slight infringement might incur the wrath of
Yahweh and invalidate the entire festival. It would hardly be
surprising, then, if Caiaphas handed Jesus over to Pilate. The
priest could not have forced Pilate to act, but he would not have
needed to - both men essentially wanted the same thing - to
maintain law and order during the passover - and anyone who
worried Caiaphas would have worried Pilate. (Vermes is right to
note that Jewish accounts of Pilate paint him in negative hues, but
fails to note that these accounts - Josephus and Philo - are just as
apologetic and biased in their own ways as the gospel writers. The
truth regarding Pilate's character was probably somewhere in
between the weak Christian portrayal and the harsh Jewish one).

The most balanced judgement, it seems to me, is that Jesus was
put to death by the combined actions of both Caiaphas and Pilate.
Both men (for slightly different reasons) saw him as a danger, and
both men (once Jesus was dead and buried) would have
considered it a job well done.

Thanks Helen.

THE PASSION OF SOCRATES? David Meadows notes that there is a new stage play entitled "The Death of Socrates" (which, unfortunately, seems to be in English, not Greek with operatic subtitles). He observes:

Of course, the big news is that we'll now be treated to countless editorials and complaints from those of Greek descent about how the play portrays the Greeks as being responsible for Socrates' death ...

ONLY JOURNALISTS would report on this:

Ethiopia asks Queen to give back treasure (Sunday Times - requires subscription outside U.K)
Peter Conradi and Justin Sparks

THE QUEEN is being asked to hand over manuscripts that have been kept at Windsor Castle since they were looted from Ethiopia by the British Army more than 130 years ago. The campaign for the return of the documents is being led by Professor Richard Pankhurst, whose grandmother Emmeline was the suffragette leader.

Pankhurst, who teaches at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, has written to the Queen pointing out that his home country is now capable of looking after its own treasures. He says the documents � dating from the 16th and 17th centuries and all richly illustrated � are �six of the finest Ethiopian religious manuscripts in existence�.

They are part of a treasure trove of documents and artefacts seized after the battle of Magdala in 1868.

[...]

without ever saying what texts are in the manuscripts! I wonder if they even asked.

According to this allAfrica.com article, there are some 350 Ethiopic manuscripts in Britain which were taken after the battle of Maqdala. The contents of only one is described:

But by far the most valuable item is one of two copies of the Kebra Negast, or Glory of Kings, a 1,000-year-old history of the origins of Ethiopia's Solomonic line of kings, which is currently in possession of the British Library.

A number of very important ancient texts survive in full only in Ethiopic (e.g., 1 Enoch, Jubilees). Does anyone know if any biblical manuscripts or apocrypha or pseudepigrapha are among the Maqdala texts?

PART OF A TEMPLE MOUNT EMBANKMENT HAS COLLAPSED. Fortunately, no injuries:

Archaeologist: Inspection needed of Temple Mount stability
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent

A comprehensive inspection of the stability of the Temple Mount compound and the surrounding walls is urgently required, archaeologist Eilat Mazar said Sunday after visiting the site where an embankment near the Western Wall collapsed Saturday night.

"A major collapse at the site, which would cause a major disaster, is only a matter of time," she warned.


[...]

On Saturday night, during a heavy snowfall, a 10-meter-wide section of the embankment's supporting wall collapsed. The embankment, which leads to the Mughrabim Gate - one of the main entrances to the Temple Mount - runs between the prayer area in front of the Western Wall and the archaeological excavations at the foot of the wall, to the south of the prayer area. Pieces of the collapsed embankment slid into the women's section of the prayer area, but nobody was hurt as they were all on the far side of the area, near the demarcation with the men's section. Until the embankment is repaired, the men's section will be divided in two and part of it turned over to the women.

[...]

On Sunday, the waqf charged that the archaeological excavations Israel is conducting at the foot of the Western Wall caused the collapse of the embankment Saturday night. But the Antiquities Authority said the most likely explanation is that the collapse was brought on by a combination of last Wednesday's earthquake and Saturday's heavy snowfall. Mazar also thinks the earthquake was the main cause of the collapse.

The story is also covered in the Jerusalem Post.

JIM CAVIEZEL ON ARAMAIC:

Jim Caviezel jokes that Hollywood might learn a language lesson from The Passion of the Christ, largely shot in Aramaic and Latin.

Caviezel, who plays Jesus in Mel Gibson's bloody recreation of Christ's final hours, whimsically suggested that other filmmakers might want to follow Gibson's lead.

"It could be a trendsetter in Hollywood," Caviezel, 35, told The Associated Press. "Next year, you may see comedies, thrillers, even musicals in Aramaic."

Hear! Hear!

I'VE UPDATED THE MORE ON THE MAGI POST of Thursday to take into account reactions from other bloggers.

RICHARD ELLIOTT FRIEDMAN, Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at UCSD, is interviewed in Beliefnet about the Documentary Hypothesis (the theory of sources behind the Pentateuch):

"The Editorial Team Behind the Bible"

Friedman has recently published The Bible with Sources Revealed. Here's a blurb on it from Frontlist Books:

For centuries, biblical scholars have worked on discovering how the Bible came to be. The consensus that emerged from experts of various traditions was the Documentary Hypothesis: the idea that ancient writers produced documents of poetry, prose, and law over many hundreds of years, which editors then used as sources to fashion the books of the Bible that people have read for the last two thousand years.

In The Bible with Sources Revealed, Richard Elliott Friedman offers a new visual presentation of the Five Books of Moses, unlocking their complex tapestry of sources. Different colors and type styles allow readers to easily identify each of the distinct sources, showcasing Friedman's highly acclaimed and dynamic translation.

I haven't read this one but Friedman's earlier book, Who Wrote the Bible?, laid out clearly the compelling case for the Documentary Hypothesis. I think he tends to overinterpret the evidence in terms of how well we can reconstruct the ancient sources of the Pentateuch and their social context. But anyone doing serious work in the field agrees that there are sources behind the Pentateuch and that they date long after the time of Moses, and Friedman's work is a good introduction to the basic problems, whether or not one agrees with him on the specifics.

ANOTHER MYSTERY TORAH SCROLL IN IRAQ:

From the Iraqi Press Monitor (via the IraqCrisis list):

Saddam officials stole ancient artefacts
(Al-Nahdhah) � In an interview, Minister of Culture Mufeed al-Jazairi said officials of the former regime supervised digs at archaeological sites in order to steal statues, tablets, and many other relics and smuggle them abroad. A senior official in the department of heritage and relics said that Ali Hasan Majeed, nicknamed 'Chemical Ali', built a huge palace at the archaeological site of Al-Warid Hill, while Arshad Yaseen, Saddam's former bodyguard, smuggled a very precious handwritten copy of the Torah for a huge sum of money.
(Al-Nahdhah is issued thrice weekly by the Independent Democrats Movement.)

(My emphasis.) Smuggled it from where to where? Has it been recovered? More please!

A VOLUME OF ESSAYS from the Anthropology and Biblical Studies Conference, which was held here at St. Mary's College last July, is scheduled for release in the spring. The complete version of my paper "Ritual in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha" is included. (Thanks to Louise Lawrence for the heads up.)

Anthropology and Biblical Studies

Edited by: M Aguilar, L Lawrence

Presents the findings of an international research symposium, held at St Andrews University, Scotland, in July 2003. Contributors include both biblical scholars and anthropologists. The essays presented variously explore and review interdisciplinary links, innovations and developments between anthropology and biblical studies in reference to interpretation of both the OT and NT and pseudepigraphal works. Explored are methodological issues, the use of anthropological concepts in biblical studies (identity; purity boundaries; virtuoso religion; spiritual experience; sacred space) and more 'field orientated' work of bible translators in different cultures.

"DIVERSITY AND UNITY IN JUDAISM BEFORE JESUS" is a new essay, by Anthony J. Tomasino, on the Bible and Interpretation website. This is a very good introduction to the subject based on the literary evidence. Let me just add that, when you factor in ancient Jewish inscriptions (which I've been working on lately), the diversity becomes even more obvious and more wide ranging than suggested by the literary evidence alone. One important principle to keep in mind when studying ancient Judaism is that it was likely as varied then as it is today. There were fanatical Jews, devout Jews, reasonably religious Jews, nominally religious Jews, syncretistic Jews, Jews for Jesus, non-religious Jews, and former Jews back then as now. There were also gentiles (pagan and Christian) who had an interest in Judaism ranging from citing Jewish works in their histories to using Jewish ideas in their magic spells to visiting the synagogue regularly to converting and (for men) submitting to circumcision.

There! You just got a free summary of the section of Chapter One on which I'm currently working.

THERE IS A DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBIT at the Visitors Center of the Mormon Church in Westwood, Los Angeles. There are some coins and lamps from Qumran; the rest of the artifacts and the scrolls on display are facsimiles.

THERE IS A REVIEW by Matthew Kraus of Pieter W. van der Horst, Japheth in the Tents of Shem: Studies on Jewish Hellenism in Antiquity (Leuven: �Peeters, 2002. �Pp. 272. �ISBN 90-429-1137-9. �EUR 35.00) in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review.

MORE ON THE MAGI: A letter to the London Times corrects the error I noted a couple of days ago:

From the Reverend Anthony J. Carr

Sir, Theologians have to be careful when translating words in isolation. There is no evidence that there were three wise men or Magi. Matthew just says: �Behold, wise men from the East� (Matthew ii, 1). An assumption is made regarding three persons because there were three gifts given to Jesus of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

The scholars interpret Magi in this text, yet they leave exactly the same word in Acts xiii, 6 and 8, interpreted as sorcerer. This word can mean wise men, teachers, priests, astrologers, seers, interpreter of dreams � the list is endless.

Perhaps by using the word Magi we are left to work out for ourselves the true meaning.

However, is it not the theologian�s job to interpret the text for the lay person?

Actually, I don't think the theologians are to blame for the number three. From what I could find, the Synod didn't say anything about "three" magi. I think it was the journalists (not just in the Times) who were careless and got that wrong. But the point about the usage in Acts is well taken. The word has a very wide range of meaning in Hellenistic Greek and has to be interpreted in context.

Also, I have to say that lay people usually do a pretty good job of interpreting the text for themselves. Common sense goes a long way in these matters.

Note also the following letter:

From Mrs Valery Rees
Sir, At the time of Mantegna�s painting, if not throughout church history, the Magi (report and picture, February 10) were understood to have been not only rulers but priests too, of the Chaldaean religion. They were noted for their wisdom and understanding, especially regarding the stars.

Whether the Chaldaeans had astronomer priestesses too is nowhere recorded, but it was held to be their wisdom, rather than their power, that drew the Magi to the scene of the Adoration.

The magi were Median and Persian priests, not Chaldeans. The Chaldeans were a people in Babylonia who had a dynasty in the Neo-Babylonian period and who later gained a reputation for great wisdom in the Hellenistic period. They appear as a kind of royal sage or counselor in the Book of Daniel.

Also, Stephen Goranson e-mails the following:

On the Magi in the Gospel of Matthew. Martin McNamara in "Were the Magi Essenes?" Irish Ecclesiastical Record 110 (1968) 305-328 suggested these Magi were Essenes. That these groups were at least compared in antiquity may be worth considering, for a few reasons, in addition to some he offerd. For one thing, Qumran apparently was destroyed circa the end of the reign of Herod the Great, then reinhabited soon after; one possibility: Herod the Great caused the destruction in his last years.

When Philo introduced Essenes in Every Good Man is Free 75, he set that up (74) by comparing them (in the F.H. Colson Loeb observation praised by A.D. Nock) as a group "in which deeds are held in higher esteem than words," like the Indian Gymnosophists and the Persian Magi. (In Hypothetica 8.11.1 Philo wrote "Myriads of his disciples has the lawgiver trained for the life of fellowship. These people are called Essenes....")

Also, Strabo (who I think was a source on Essenes for Josephus), in Geography 16.2.36ff mentioned Indian Gymnosophists and Persian Magi and others and said "Moses was such a person as these" but his people were later misled by the "superstitious" and "tyrannical," namely including the priest Alexander Jannaeus--sounds like the Qumran-view wicked priest.

Well, I haven't read the article, but I'm skeptical. I suspect that Matthew thought of the magi as mysterious wise men (maybe women too) from the East, and that's all that magi means in Matthew 2.

UPDATE (14 February): David Nishimura comments on the story over at Cronaca and Anders Bell comments at Phluzein.

Mark Goodacre comments at NT Gateway. I'm afraid I'm pretty close to being one of "the Lord of the Rings nerds who disapprove of every place where Peter Jackson departs from Tolkien." Not because I object to artistic interpretation in principle, but because most of the changes in the movies tend toward the cheesy and the melodramatic. But I do like the magi mythology.

I suspect that the change in the prayerbook comes not so much from residual fundamentalism as from a combination of P.C. concerns with a residue of the traditional Protestant sola scriptura approach to the Bible. Both (not to speak of the combination) have the potential to be irritating, but in this case I can't say I mind. "Magi" has a perfectly good liturgical ring to it, it represents the Greek accurately, and it doesn't try to interpret a word whose meaning isn't very clear. Does that mean girls will get to play magi too in children's nativity plays? Why not?

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS TO THE FORBIDDEN BOOK EXHIBITION will be in Akron, Ohio, in March and April.

NEW BOOK REVIEWS FROM THE REVIEW OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE:

Heard, R. Christopher
Dynamics of Diselection: Ambiguity in Genesis 12-36 and Ethnic Boundaries in Post-Exilic Judah
Reviewed by Phillip Michael Sherman

Seow, C. L.
Daniel
Reviewed by Carla Sulzbach

Das, A. Andrew
Paul, the Law, and the Covenant
Reviewed by James P. Sweeney

Cutter, William and David Jacobson, eds.
History and Literature: New Readings of Jewish Texts in Honor of Arnold J. Band
Reviewed by Zev Garber

MORE ON DELITZSCH: Reader Steven Avery reminds me that in 2002 the Journal of Biblical Literature published:

A CENTENNIAL REVIEW OF FRIEDRICH DELITZSCH'S "BABEL UND BIBEL" LECTURES
Bill T. Arnold
David B. Weisberg
pp. 441-67

Unfortunately, the whole issue has to be downloaded as a PDF file. But at least it's free.

THE JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES has a new issue out (63:1, January 2004). One article of interest:

MARJORIE O'ROURKE BOYLE. "In the Heart of the Sea": Fathoming the Exodus (PDF file)

Book reviews of interest (the reviews section must be downloaded as a single PDF file) include:

Oscar White Muscarella, The Lie Became Great: The Forgery of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures���(P. R. S. Moorey) ���55
� �
Samuel R. Wolff, Studies in the Archaeology of Israel and Neighboring Lands in Memory of Douglas L. Esse���(P. R. S. Moorey) ���56

Lawrence E. Stager, Joseph A. Greene, and Michael D. Coogan, The Archaeology of Jordan and Beyond: Essays in Honor of James A. Sauer���(Ron E. Tappy) ���57
� �
Frederick E. Greenspahn, An Introduction to Aramaic���(Joseph L. Malone) ���64

Michael W. Duggan, The Covenant Renewal in Ezra-Nehemiah (Neh 7:72b10:40): An Exegetical, Literary, and Theological Study���(Blane W. Conklin) ���65

Gershon Galil and Moshe Weinfeld, Studies in Historical Geography and Biblical Historiography Presented to Zecharia Kallai���(Alexander H. Joffe) ���68

There also some reviews on earlier Hebrew Bible and Northwest Semitic matters.

Requires a paid personal or institutional subscription to access.

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF QUMRAN AND THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS, by Jodi Magness, is Reviewed by Sidnie White Crawford in The American Journal of Archaeology 108.1 (January 2004). It's free, but you have to download the whole issue as a PDF file. The review is on pp. 118-19.

MAGI, WISE MEN, WISE WOMEN?

Three Wise Men might have been women, church rules (The Independent)
By Andrew Clennell

10 February 2004

The three Wise Men might not have been men at all and there might not have been three of them, the Church of England has ruled.

In a new short prayer book, the Church of England has decided to refer to them as "magi", because it says the Bible is "silent" on whether they were men or women.

Last night a spokesman for the Church confirmed the decision of the General Synod in preparing the prayer book, Common Worship. He said the Synod knew there were the three gifts for Jesus of gold, frankincense and myrrh but original scripture did not say whether these were from three or fewer visitors, or from men or women.

[...]

This basically makes sense. The relevant passage is Matthew 2:1-16:

1: Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying,
2: "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him."
3: When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;
4: and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
5: They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet:
6: `And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel.'"
7: Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared;
8: and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him."
9: When they had heard the king they went their way; and lo, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came to rest over the place where the child was.
10: When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy;
11: and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.
12: And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.
13: Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him."
14: And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt,
15: and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt have I called my son."
16: Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was in a furious rage, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the wise men. (RSV)

In Greek the word translated "wise men" is magoi, a transliterated Persian word with a masculine plural Greek ending, which ending is used either to refer to a group that is entirely male or that has at least one member who is male. The pronouns referring to them are also in the masculine plural. The verbs are in the plural, but they don't have special markers for gender.

In other words, Matthew thought that at least one of the magi was a man, but there's no reason why he couldn't have thought that some of them were women. (I make no assumption that the story is historical, but we can still ask what Matthew might have had in mind.) The reports about what the Synod said seem to miss this point: at least one must have been a man according to the Greek grammar of the passage.

My understanding is that the magi were a Median tribe that became a priestly class for both the Medes and the Persians and that Hellenistic authors like Matthew generally had a vague sense that they were the Persian priests (even though, evidently, there were other kinds of Persian priests as well). So two relevant questions would be, could women be magian priests and would Matthew have thought that women could be magian priests? Are there any Iranologists out there who can enlighten us?

Incidentally, this morning the London Times cluelessly blares on its front page: "There were three, but were they wise � or even men?" As the Independent article above notes, Matthew doesn't say how many magi there were; he just says there were three gifts, and tradition has inferred three magi. Helpful hint to journalists: if you want to write about a biblical passage, it is often useful to find a Bible and read the passage.

UPDATE (12 February): More here.

HOWLER ALERT: This Knight Ridder article on biblical and Nag Hammadi scholar Elaine Pagels contains the following paragraph:

Pagels was a graduate student in the classics and Greek language, history and literature at Stanford in the mid-1960s and early '70s. Now 59, she looks back at being in the right place and time to be afforded a rare opportunity: To study the newly available Nag Hammadi texts. Along with the Dead Sea Scrolls, they are the only existing writings about Jesus's life other than those in the New Testament.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are from around the time of Jesus but they are not "writings about Jesus's life" and they do not mention him. The article should also say that Pagels did her doctoral work on the Nag Hammadi texts at Harvard.

THE HIGH PRIEST OF THE SAMARITANS has passed away. My condolences to the Samaritan community.

STEPHEN C. CARLSON comments on Hershel Shanks's reply to Eric Meyers. He says, inter alia:

Given the huge differences between what Meyer related and what Shanks presented, it is not entirely clear to me that Meyer and Shanks are talking about the same incident. Although both agreed on the details of the International Christian Embassy and possibly the $2M price tag, the year is different and the visitor is different. Meyer did not identify the person who was contacted, so it may not even be the case that Meyer's source was describing a meeting with Hedding at all, which means that Shanks's source, Hedding, may not have been in a position to verify or refute the claim.

I think this is pretty unlikely. For it to be true we would have to assume that either Hedding or an employee forgot and kept no record of the meeting with a Golan representative about which Meyers's source knew, but Hedding remembered and did keep a record of a different but very similar meeting about which Meyers's source didn't know. Got all that? Anything is possible, but this reconstruction is too complicated to be a good working hypothesis.

But we agree that we need more information � as in, all of it � to evaluate what happened. I've commented further here.

UPDATE (10 February): Stephen Carlson replies.

NEW BIBLICAL BLOG ALERT: Mark Goodacre notes Rub�n G�mez's Bible Software Review weblog and also his Bible Software Review website. Looks very useful.

HERE'S A JEWSWEEK PROFILE OF DR. DANIEL MATT, who is currently translating the Zohar into English. Excerpt:

A native of upstate Troy who grew up in Metuchen, N.J., he was first drawn to Judaism's "mystical dimension" by his late father, Hershel, a Conservative rabbi. Matt studied Jewish mysticism at Brandies University, and later, privately with a Kabbalist in Jerusalem. He also was a teaching assistant to Gershom Scholem, the 20th century's most prominent academic expert on Kabbalah.

Pritzker's 1995 offer to underwrite a translation of the Zohar seemed daunting. "The project could take 12 to 15 years," he told her when they met in Chicago. "To which she responded, 'You're not scaring me.'"

To prepare for his next few decades' work, he went to Spain to look at original Zohar manuscripts, and to Safed to walk in the Kabbalists' footsteps.

Now he lives in the Zohar seven-plus hours a day. "It's a constant challenge," he says in a telephone interview. "The Zohar is intentionally cryptic. The Zohar created its own language. There is no Zohar dictionary."

So it's slow, line-by-line work. "I've probably done a month or two of Vayishlach," the Torah portion where Jacob and the angel appear.

A BIT MORE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT: The Jerusalem Post has a brief article recapping the latest on what appears to be unauthorized construction work and improper care for ancient architecture on the Temple Mount:

Mounting garbage
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

Ancient boulders strewn among heaps of garbage on the Temple Mount along with two tractors and piles of new slabs of stone are seen in a video taken secretly at the Jerusalem holy site.

The video, which was obtained on Monday by The Jerusalem Post, was filmed in parts of the Temple Mount which remain off-limits to Jewish and Christian visitors.


[...]

So how about putting the video online? Or at least some stills from it!

PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGIST JOE ZIAS, who has been mentioned here frequently, has published a piece on the Bible and Interpretation website which very strongly criticizes two articles in a recent issue of Dead Sea Discoveries:

"Qumran Archaeology: More Grave Errors"

He takes up the archaeology of the cemetery, the analysis of the excavated skeletons and the mysterious zinc coffin (he takes it to be modern), and various reports in the press, and he's not happy with what he finds. Excerpt from his conclusion:

The excavators have presented here a deliberately biased and distorted picture, raising questions about funding, institutional support, media, and the scientific value of the whole excavating process. Perhaps the time has come for those in the profession to show their peers C-14 dates, scientific data, pottery analysis, and other relevant scientific data in order to remove any suspicion of manipulating the data for personal gain. By doing so, there would be less misconduct and those unwilling to produce such data would in and of themselves cause suspicion.

John the Baptist complete with a skull, James the Brother of Jesus, The Teacher of Righteousness, Bedouin women, Bedouin men -- all of which was bandied about and appeared in the media depending on which co-director was addressing the press begs the question: is this archaeology? Entertaining, headline-grabbing, perhaps so, but scientifically questionable, deliberately misleading, irresponsible, and lacking any creditability.[29] Reading the report and the numerous articles in the media raises serious questions of scientific impropriety and misconduct by many, though not all, of those involved in funding and the excavation process itself.

Those Essenes who lived, struggled, and died in Qumran some 2,000 years earlier as well as the world of Qumran studies certainly deserve something better than what has been presented in their excavation report.

THE DSD articles are from issue 9.2 (2002) and are available online but require a personal or institutional paid subscription. (I'm at home and my access authorization is tied to my office computer, so I can't see them myself at the moment.) Here are the links:

"NEW DATA ON THE CEMETERY EAST OF KHIRBET QUMRAN"
Hanan Eshel; Magen Broshi; Richard Freund; Brian Schultz

"SCHOLARS, SOLDIERS, CRAFTSMEN, ELITES?: ANALYSIS OF FRENCH COLLECTION OF HUMAN REMAINS FROM QUMRAN"
Susan Guise Sheridan

Well, no one can accuse the Bible and Interpretation website of avoiding controversy! Needless to say, these charges are very serious, and the whole thing makes me rather sad, because I know most of the people on both sides and consider them my friends. I'm not an archaeologist and I am not qualified to take sides on this one. But I'm sure Mark Elliott and his fellow editors will give the DSD article authors space to respond and that we have not heard the last of this.

PAUL FLESHER e-mails regarding my latest post on the "James Ossuary":

I was pleased to see that you saw Hershel Shanks' editorial item about the Christian Embassy. Unfortunately, while you saw the speck, you missed the log. Yes there is a difference with regard to the date (as well as the name of an individual). However, apart from those two details, Shanks corroborates the entire story!

Meyers simply put the story forward as a comment about an attempted sale of the ossuary. It was Shanks, not Meyers, who made the observation that if it was 2001 rather than 2002, then Golan's claim about not knowing the significance of the inscription would be false. (Of course, if the ossuary was sold in the 1990s, this is irrelevant.) Meyers and Shanks may differ on the details, but not on the SUBSTANCE of the story.

So Shanks' details, if true, disprove the question he himself raises, but they have no impact on the point Meyers makes.

Thanks, Paul, for your comments. Some thoughts in response:

1. I take the point that part of the anonymous archaeologist's account, specifically, Meyers's "postscript" about the ossuary being offered for sale to the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, has been verified. I probably should have underlined this in my posting.

2. However, it appears that the account has also been shown to have a couple of errors: the date was wrong and the intermediary was not Golan's lawyers. The first error is significant for the question of Golan's veracity, although this issue wasn't raised by Meyers and does not seem to have occurred to him.

3. The substance of the postscript has been corroborated. But we have no new information either way, that I can see, about the main account, about the end of the inscription being missing in the mid-1990s.

4. I've mentioned before that there's a question that still bothers me: how does this testimony that the inscription was carved in two stages, at least one in the 1990s, cohere with the geologists' conclusions that the entire inscription was coated with the so-called "James Bond," a modern patina made of water and chalk and evidently daubed onto the whole inscription? I quote from the Archaeology Magazine article, "Gold Dust and James Bond":

The geologists Goren and Ayalon, in fact, identified three distinct coatings on the surface of the ossuary:

* A thin brown veneer of clay and other minerals cemented to the rock surface, presumably rock varnish created by living bacteria or alga over prolonged periods of time.

* A crusty natural coating of patina (this was the "cauliflower") that formed over the rock surface due to the absorption or loss of various elements and minerals.

* The "James Bond": a unique composite material that received this nickname from Goren since it was bonded onto the incised letters of the James Ossuary inscription, but wasn't found at any other place on the ossuary surface--or on any of the authentic ossuaries that the commission members had used as comparative examples.

�� The varnish covered large areas of the ossuary surface and the patina had burst through the varnish in many places. Both varnish and patina coated a rosette inscribed on the other side of the ossuary. But Goren and Ayalon's meticulous microscopic analysis showed that the letters of the entire Aramaic inscription "James, Son of Joseph, Brother of Jesus" were cut through the varnish, indicating that they were carved long--perhaps centuries after--the varnish-covered rosette.

�� Strangest of all was the "James Bond," the chalky material that coated the letters. It contained numerous microfossils called coccoliths, naturally occurring as foreign particles in chalk, but not dissolved by water. Hence it was clear that this was not a true patina formed by the surface crystallization of calcite, but rather powdered chalk--microfossils and all--that was dissolved in water and daubed over the entire inscription. Thus, the forger's technique was apparent: the James Ossuary was an authentic artifact on which a decorative rosette originally marked the "front" side. At some time long after the natural processes of varnish and patination in a damp cave environment had been completed, someone carved a series of letters through the natural varnish on the ossuary's "back" side. Then he or she covered the freshly cut letters with an imitation "patina" made from water and ground chalk.

Are we supposed now to conclude that the inscription was forged in two stages? Is that plausible? Or is the cutting through the original varnish and the application of the James Bond the result of modern cleaning of both the original, genuine, and later, faked, sections of the inscription? In that case, wouldn't the conclusion be that Golan is right and that the James Bond was accidentally put on when his mother cleaned the inscription? Am I missing something? Someone help me out here.

4. Back to the story of the altered inscription. Another important point: the errors in the postscript inevitably raise the question of how many errors there might be in the account about the ossuary and its inscription in the 1990s. Maybe none, maybe trivial ones, maybe significant ones. We have no way of knowing at present.

5. And that returns me to the same point I've been making: until the entire story is made public, in detail, with all names and places included, we can't evaluate it. Let me emphasize that I believe the parties involved in this debate are speaking in good faith and telling us what they know as best they know it, to the degree that circumstances permit them at present to tell it. But in some ways this is still a game of "telephone" and we've already seen (again, if Shanks's understanding checks out) that errors have entered the transmission in one way or another. This reinforces my contention that the account needs to be fully aired in public so that lots of people can check it out from different angles. Testimony in court would be an excellent venue, and that seems to be in the works. The story is important and it deserves that kind of open presentation and attention. Until we have it, I'm just going to watch with interest and keep an open mind.

"Trust, but verify."