JEWISH-TEMPLE DENIAL WATCH:

Palestinians Move To Preserve Identity

RAFAH, June 4 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) � Seeking to reserve the Palestinian identity in the face of Israeli attempts, the Parliament of the southern Gaza town of Rafah called upon the media not to use the " Philadelphi Route " term adopted by the Israeli occupation troops for Saladin Route , a borderline between Palestinian and Egyptian territories.

In a statement released by the London-based Middle East newspaper Thursday June3 , the Parliament said that the Israeli occupation still targets the history and culture of Palestine and works to obliterate the name of the southern entrance into Palestine , through changing the Saladin Route into Philadelphi Route .

I don't know the history of these names, so I won't comment on this issue. If anyone can enlighten me, please do. But it was the following that caught my eye:

Imposing Media Language

Israel seeks to impose its own terms on the mass media, as it has repeatedly sought to change the name of Al-Aqsa Mosque into "Temple Mount" and the Boraq Wall into the "Waling Wall".

This is shameless historical revisionism. They're called the "Temple Mount" and "Wailing Wall" (or "Western Wall") because the Jewish Temple was there centuries before Muhammad had his vision of Jerusalem or a mosque was built on the spot. The story of Muhammad's ride on the creature called "Al-Boraq" (various spellings) goes back to the earlier extra-Qur'anic traditions about his life, but I never heard the term "Al-Boraq Wall" until the last year or two. You'll notice that when it's used, it generally has to be explained, which makes me wonder if it isn't a recent coinage. The Western Wall was, of course, there at the time of Muhammad (I would guess it was underground at that point - the Romans leveled what was above ground) and for centuries before, but it was the remnant of the retaining wall of Herod's Temple platform, not part of a mosque.

Of course, what follows in the article is even more Orwellian:

As for the term "terrorist", used by Israeli newspapers and a large number of western papers to describe Palestinians who carry out resistance attacks against Israel , several mass media have previously called for not using it and using "patriot" and "martyr" terms instead.

UPDATE 9 June): Menachem Brody e-mails:

As a result of much too many dusty hours I have spent riding up and down the "Philadelphia Route", let me assure you that not only are both the names absolute fabrications, but even the road itself was created from nothing, in our generation, [and hopefully will return to nothing as soon as possible...]

This runs down an artificial straight-line boundary drawn on a map between the British interests in the South [Egypt] and the Turkish in the North [Palestine] in 1906.

Lord Cromer, Britain's agent in Egypt, wanted to change the border between the Ottoman Empire, which was under strong German influence, and Egypt, in order to push the Ottomans further away from the Suez Canal. In 1892, the Turks agreed to allow Egyptian guard stations near the Gulf of Eilat; in 1905, Lord Cromer tried to move the border. In April 1906, the Turks were given an ultimatum - to set the border between Aqaba and Rafah. They proposed a compromise (El Arish - Ras Muhamed) but finally gave in to British pressure. The firm stand of the commander of the Turkish police station at Um Rashrash (today, Eilat) changed the starting point of the border from Aqaba to Taba, which became the international border between Israel and Egypt.
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/1906map.html

There was never a road down the border line [there was nothing to connect or drive to in the vicinity, and the terrain is very challenging] , and the border itself was obliterated by the 1967 6-day war which joined the Sinai to Israel. Only after the Begin-Sadat peace agreement of 1979 was the border re-established, and marked by a 3 strand barbed wire fence [which wasn't enough to keep tourists from wandering over the line by mistake]. New border markers were then placed along the line by helicopters, and we [Israeli reservists] began the incredibly tedious [and dusty] work of guarding the border.

On Israeli code maps, the jeep trail along the border received the computer assigned code name of "Philadelphia".

During the first Intifada, smuggling of arms and attacks on Israeli patrols led to strengthening the fence, widening and paving the road, etc.

Saladin must have arrived there quite recently, since up to my last reserve tour there [some 8 years ago] I never heard it mentioned by the locals.

THE MESSIANIC SECRET REVISITED: Here's the rubric for Quodlibet: Online Journal of Christian Theology and Philosophy (via Davide's Notes):

And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?" They replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed." And Jesus replied, "What?"

THE SBL FORUM has published its crop of articles for June and, as always, they look very interesting. I haven't had the chance to look at everything yet, but for now let me just highlight David H. Aaron's article "Pre-Modern Biblical Interpretation and the Challenge of New Historicism" as a must-read. Excerpt:

Determinations as to what constitutes "significant" or "less worthy" documents are more complicated than at first apparent. It is not simply a matter of recognizing truth in the old adage that the winners of history have been those most able to dominate the writing of history. Especially when it comes to pre-printing press eras, it is also a matter of recognizing that the winners of history had extraordinary power over which documents would be preserved and which would perish (a trend that continues into our own day, albeit, with somewhat different economic causes). My concern here is quite specifically the portrayal of the history of biblical interpretation as it pertains to critical questions of composition and authenticity. To write this history based on the highly selective exegetical canon of a given era is essentially to privilege the partisan perspective of those who influenced the selection process. Can we not do better?

Even where opportunities to bring about "social rebellion on the study" of Bible interpretation avail themselves, scholars have been reticent to explore the possibilities (albeit, with some noteworthy exceptions). Despite some remarkable "new" old texts, the dominant portrait of biblical hermeneutics has remained rather static for some time. A barometer of this stasis emerges when we contrast the enthusiasm with which the Dead Sea Scrolls literature has been (legitimately) championed by biblical scholars in contrast to the relative (illegitimate) apathy toward Cairo Geniza manuscripts.

He goes on to discuss two little-know works from the Cairo Geniza (I'd never heard of them) which raise historical-critical questions about the Bible many centuries before the Enlightenment.

The problem Aaron discusses is very real. Once � in a job interview, no less � a prominent Patristics scholar who shall remain nameless suggested to me that we shouldn't be working on noncanonical and heterodox ancient literature when there were so many canonical and orthodox texts that still needed basic study. I ventured to disagree. I also didn't get the job.

Still, the situation is improving steadily. Cairo Geniza texts are being edited, translated, and studied, as are Jewish incantation bowls, Merkavah mystical texts and Kabbalah, and ancient Jewish and Christian pseudepigrapha. Our understanding of ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and the history of Western religion in general is all the richer for our better knowledge of the writings and beliefs of those whose ideas didn't win � or at least didn't become mainstream.

THE ANCIENT CITY OF PETRA IS ERODING:

�Petra is all about water, both its productivity when harnessed and its power of devastation when left uncontrolled,� says Glenn Markoe, curator at the Cincinnati Art Museum. The city, which went by different names over the centuries, had �a really elaborate water management scheme that people are just understanding now,� Markoe says. However, the flash floods that created the site�s canyons millions of years ago are now threatening to destroy it, aggravated by the increasing number of humans who flock to see what remains of the ancient site.

NEW BOOK REVIEWS FROM THE REVIEW OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE � lots and lots of them:

Blenkinsopp, Joseph
Isaiah 56-66
Reviewed by Brooks Schramm

Carroll R., M. Daniel
Amos--The Prophet and His Oracles: Research on the Book of Amos
Reviewed by Mark McEntire

Gertoux, G�rard
The Name of God Y.EH.OW.AH Which is Pronounced as It is Written I_EH_OU_AH
Reviewed by John Gee

Halpern, Baruch
David's Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King
Reviewed by Michael Carasik

Lipschits, Oded and Joseph Blenkinsopp, eds.
Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period
Reviewed by Bob Becking

Nelson, Richard D.
Deuteronomy
Reviewed by Jean-Daniel Macchi

Pirson, Ron
The Lord of the Dreams: A Semantic and Literary Analysis of Genesis 37-50
Reviewed by Walter Brown

Pleins, J. David
When the Great Abyss Opened: Classic and Contemporary Readings of Noah's
Flood
Reviewed by Thomas Hieke

Dunn, James D. G.
Christianity in the Making: Volume 1: Jesus Remembered
Reviewed by Robert McIver

Murphy, Catharine M.
John the Baptist: Prophet of Purity for a New Age
Reviewed by James Metzger

Park, Eung Chun
Either Jew or Gentile: Paul's Unfolding Theology of Inclusivity
Reviewed by Bruce E. Shields

Abegg, Martin, Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich
The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the
First Time into English
Reviewed by Robert A. Kugler

Gruen, Erich S.
Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans
Reviewed by Andrew S. Jacobs

Nir, Rivka
The Destruction of Jerusalem and the Idea of Redemption in the Syriac
Apocalypse of Baruch
Reviewed by Matthias Henze

Whealey, Alice
Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late
Antiquity to Modern Times
Reviewed by Pablo Torijano Morales

Wright, J. Edward
Baruch ben Neriah: From Biblical Scribe to Apocalytic Seer
Reviewed by John Hill

PROFESSOR ZAINAB BAHRANI of Columbia University has been appointed as Deputy Senior Advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Culture, evidently replacing John Russell. This was noted a couple of weeks ago on the IraqCrisis list and I've been meaning to flag it even since. Belated best wishes to Professor Bahrani in her new and doubtless tremendously challenging job.

THE "BIBLICAL ANTIQUITIES OF PHILO" (more accurately know as Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum or Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities) has been added to the Internet Sacred Texts Archive in the old but serviceable translation of M. R. James (via this week's edition of Explorator).

THERE'S A DEBATE on Greg Doudna's paper over on the g-Megillot list. Start at the link and then just keep moving forward through the Follow Ups at the bottom of the page.

Meanwhile, Greg has e-mailed regarding the provenance of this latest paper:

. . . that was not my Brown University paper in the fall of 2002. It was
a paper delivered a month ago to ASOR at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. (at the annual regional meeting of SBL/AAR/ASOR) on May 8, 2004. (See www.pnw-aarsbl.org/program.htm )

Although the paper is similar to my Brown University presentation, it is not the same, and has a number of updates with rewriting, etc.

The correct attribution was in the submitted paper but was inadvertently removed during editing.

Also, while we're on the subject of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Hershel Shanks has recently given a lecture on them in Virginia at a fundraising event by the Congregation Beth Israel for the Charlottesville Community Jewish Day School. The Charlottesville Daily Progress has a summary.

IN HONOR OF D-DAY, we just watched Casablanca with our neighbors across the street. It's a movie I never get tired of and one I find something new in every time I see it.

LINKS UPDATE: I have finally given in and adjusted the links to the new, unasked for URL that my provider, Flyservers.registerfly.com has foisted on me. All the links in the bar to the right should now work. If you have linked to either the "About PaleoJudaica.com" page or any of the links in the links bar (both to the right, below the Archive link), your link needs to be updated with the following directory:

http://www.flyservers.com/members5/paleojudaica.com/

Formerly it was "members4," so all you need to do is change the "4" in the old address to "5."

I am quite annoyed that Flyservers has not bothered to reply to any of my messages and that they have done this to me before: the address used to be "members3." Now I know it's true that the web page they provide me with is free, but I do give them business by keeping my domain names registered through their parent company, Registerfly.com. Unless I get a satisfactory reply from their support department, I'll be taking my business elsewhere when I need to renew again. And at present I can't recommend them: their prices are good, but I recommend you pay more somewhere else for better support. If that changes, I'll let you know.

A NEW DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION is coming to Mobile, Alabama next year:

Gulf Coast Exploreum in Mobile plans Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit (Baton Rouge Advocate)
By Cynthia V. Campbell
ccampbell@theadvocate.com
Travel editor

Mobile is definitely on the move. Carnival Cruise Lines begins its first year-round cruise program from the Alabama city in October, and in January the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center will host the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition.

Exclusive to the Southeast, the exhibit will take place Jan. 20-April 24, 2005

[...]

Mobile's set of 12 scrolls are special in several ways.

Seven are biblical from the Hebrew Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament, and the texts will be familiar to many visitors. Only two biblical scrolls are included in the Grand Rapids and Houston version of the exhibit.

This is the largest number of biblical scrolls ever to be shown in the United States in one exhibit. Among these is a Deuteronomy fragment, including text of the Ten Commandments.

Five of the scrolls have never before been shown outside of Israel.

[...]

GREG DOUDNA has another essay on the Bible and Interpretation website, which I gather he presented at the Brown University conference:

Redating the Dead Sea Scroll Deposits at Qumran: the Legacy of an error in Archaeological Interpretation

Abstract: There was no actual basis for de Vaux�s confidence in 1952 (when he announced the first excavation findings from Qumran) that the scrolls of Cave 1 had been deposited as late as the first century CE, since the dating of a "scroll jar" found in locus 2 was uncertain. A distinct, earlier first-century BCE occupation at Qumran was discovered by de Vaux in the second excavation season in 1953. Yet the perception of certainty surrounding the First Revolt deposit date for the scroll deposits have remained to the present day. In fact it has never been soundly established that texts found in the Qumran caves were composed, copied, or deposited in the caves later than the time of Qumran�s Period Ib in the first century BCE. The dating of the Qumran text deposits is a classic example of an unfounded scholarly paradigm filtering subsequent perception of data (archaeological, palaeographic, and radiocarbon), creating illusions of independent corroboration.

In it, he cites my last comment here on his theory and says I missed the article "The Stabilization of the Biblical Text in the Light of Qumran and Masada: A Challenge for Conventional Qumran Chronology?" by Ian Young in Dead Sea Discoveries 9 (2002): 364-90 (the online version requires a personal or institutional paid subscription to access). As soon as I get time, which probably won't be as soon as I would like, I'll have a look at it.

UPDATE (7 June): More here.

THE DIRECTOR OF THE NEW LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA, Ismail Serageldin, gives his side of last December's story about the display of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Library:

Egyptian librarian pushes for 'tolerance, openness'
'The exercise of freedom among young people is the best investment against extremism'

By Ursula Lindsey
Special to The [Lebanon] Daily Star
Saturday, June 05, 2004

[...]

In the past year the library has also already weathered its first major controversy, one Serageldin sees as having ended in affirmation. In the winter of 2003, the library came under international criticism for displaying an ancient copy of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in its rare books showcase.

A local newspaper reported incorrectly that the book was headlining an exhibit and that it was displayed next to the Torah. After the ensuing uproar, the book (which had been selected for exhibition by the director of the rare books museum) was removed and Serageldin issued an explanatory statement.

"It was a very innocent thing," he says. "It was the first edition of the fist Arabic translation of the protocols. It was kind of a curiosity."

Once the book was removed, elements of the Egyptian press accused Serageldin of bowing to foreign pressure and betraying the principle of freedom of expression.

Eventually a declaration was circulated, Serageldin recounts, that said, "enough of this. Attacking the library as anti-Semitic is nonsense and attacking it as ... knuckling down to pressure is equal nonsense."

Almost 600 signatures have been added to this statement by now, including everyone, Serageldin says, "from famous intellectuals to assistant professors of engineering in Assiut."

"It was beautiful to see hundreds of people rallying to the library," says Serageldin. "The library has become a rallying point for progressive opinion in Egypt."

I would feel happier with this explanation Dr. Serageldin had replied to the questions in my e-mail (see first link above).

SOMEBODY HAS TO DO IT, PART TWO:

Scribes restore sacred scrolls
Temple Beth-El will honor completion of yearlong Torah work

BY ALBERTA LINDSEY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Jun 5, 2004

More than 5 million Hebrew letters in Temple Beth-El's 17 Torah scrolls are in perfect condition.

Rabbis Gedaliah and Moshe Druin know because they checked out the 304,805 letters in each of the congregation's 248-page Torah scrolls, the most sacred texts in Judaism.

The father and son team from South Florida are soferim, specially trained scribes who travel the world evaluating and repairing Torah scrolls.

[...]

Torah scrolls should be evaluated from time to time for proper care, said Rabbi Gary S. Creditor of Temple Beth-El.

"Over time the letters on the parchment deteriorate and need to be inspected and repaired," he said. No one can remember the last time the scrolls were inspected. They will be checked again in about seven years.

[...]

"The person doing the work has to be a real artist on parchment. The scrolls are handwritten by scribes, so the writing looks different from scroll to scroll. When a scribe comes to repair a Torah, he has to make his handwriting match the previous work," Creditor said.

Because the handwriting has to match, repairing a Torah scroll is harder than copying an entire scroll, he said. In addition, the scribe must be an observant and pious Jew, he added.

[...]

ARAMAIC IN KERALA, INDIA:

Gibson�s film inspires passionate interest in Aramaic (AsiaNews.it)

Kochi (AsiaNews) - Mel Gibson�s blockbuster film �The Passion of The Christ� released across India May 7th, has sparked new interest in Aramaic - the language that Jesus Christ spoke. Kerala, a state on the West Coast of India, is perhaps one of the few places in the world where the study of the Syriac dialect has been kept alive, along with Sanskrit and Arabic, over the centuries.

[...]

Mar Aprem, Metropolitan of the Chaldean Syrian Church of the East, heads one of the smallest but most ancient Christian Communities in India. He is the author of the book, �Teach Yourself Aramaic�, and believes that the release of the film, �The Passion of the Christ� could be a reason for the increased demand for learning the language. Mar Aprem�s doctoral thesis, the �History of the Assyrian Church�, said there was a jump in the sale of his book after the release of the film.

[...]

Dr (Fr) Augustine Kanjamala, a native of Kerala and the Director of the Institute of Indian Culture in Mumbai, stated that according to tradition, St. Thomas the Apostle arrived in Kerala is 52 AD. Pro- Thomasin�s believe that St. Thomas initially came to evangelize the migrant Jewish population settled in Cochin, (a prosperous city even those days). Like any other migrant group, these Jewish settlers would have spoken Aramaic among themselves. Aramaic and its deriving dialects have been transmitted down the centuries through their descendants. Hence the Aramaic language in varied dialect still exists among the local Malayalam population today. Another tradition holds that the use of Aramaic-Syriac dialect could be the result of the migration of Christians from the Middle East to Kerala during the Roman persecution in 3rd to 4th centuries. Dr. Augustine said in his student days pre-1960�s mass in Kerala was in Syrian, which is the more developed form of Aramaic.

[...]

THIS IS WORRYING:

NEWS
From the Director of the IJS [Institute of Jewish Studies, University College, London]:

Spies, Thieves and Cultural Heritage

Mark Geller

Last summer, I was surprised to receive a telephone call from a senior journalist from The Guardian newspaper, asking me if I knew that my name was mentioned in official correspondence in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. I was sent a copy of the letter in Arabic, and there was my name, written in Latin characters, together with the name of Professor Shaul Shaked from the Hebrew University. The letter was written by Donny George, Director of Research at the Iraq Museum, and he accused Mark Geller, 'the Jew', of intending to come to Baghdad with the American army in order to steal antiquities, and Shaul Shaked 'the Jew' was accused of planning to come to the Museum to spy out their collections for objects that particularly interested him. . . .

I cannot explain why this letter was written or the background to the accusations, but the anti-Semitic character of this letter points to a darker side of the current debate about cultural heritage and the handling of stolen antiquities. The issue of stolen antiquities has recently come to a head after the recent debacle in Iraq when some 12,000 objects (mostly small cylinder seals) were pilfered from the Iraq Museum, during the confusion of the early days of the war. . . . the international outrage was understandable and the reaction of law-makers to the events has been swift. Antiquities which were recently exported from their country of origin, such as Iraq, cannot be bought, sold, handled, or studied.

[...]

. . . But there is another side to this story.

Had the Unesco agreement been enacted and scrupulously enforced in 1948, the Dead Sea Scrolls would not have been available as they are today and a valuable part of our cultural heritage might easily have been lost. . . .

The particular situation in Iraq, however, merits special attention. Many of the sites in Iraq have Jewish Aramaic incantation bowls as surface finds, and these magic bowls date from the period of the Babylonian Talmud, c. 400-700 CE. These bowls reveal a great deal of useful social history about the Jewish community of Babylonia in late antiquity. . . .

Within the past decade, hundreds of Aramaic incantation bowls have appeared on the antiquities market, collected from archaeological sites; there is no evidence that these objects have been stolen from a museum. As such, there is no identifiable owner. The Iraq Museum in Baghdad also houses a large collection of some 400 Aramaic incantation bowls, at last count, but few of these have ever been published. No Iraqi scholar has worked on them, nor has any Jewish or Israeli scholar been allowed to publish them. . . .

He notes that countries have the right to say who can study their antiquities. For example, only Turkish nationals are permitted to work on unpublished antiquities in the Istanbul museum.

Nevertheless, the situation in Iraq is not quite comparable. Any scholar of any nationality was permitted to work in the Iraqi museums, provided that he could show a baptismal certificate. Only Jews were prohibited from working there, and in effect were denied access to their own cultural heritage.

During this past summer, Dr. Donny George of the Iraq Museum appeared in London at an international conference, and one of my colleagues from the USA went up to him and asked him directly when Jews will be able to work in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. He simply shrugged his shoulders and replied, 'it's not my decision'.

Via Arthur Houghton on the IraqCrisis list, who asks, "Would anyone be able to comment on the accuracy of the allegations that underlie this article, in particular a) whether the letter cited exists in fact and b) that Jewish scholars may not be permitted to work in Iraq?"

Do read the whole article.

My take: first, I'm not up enough on the UNESCO agreement or the new antiquities laws in various countries to comment on them intelligently. I will say that undesirable knock-on effects of legislation, especially legislation enacted in a hurry in response to a disaster, are always something to keep an eye on. I don't know what the exact fate of ancient incantation bowls now on the antiquities market is likely to be in, say, America, Britain, or Europe, but I would be interested in hearing an informed opinion.

Second, this business about the letter the Guardian recovered and the old anti-Semitic policy of scholarly access to antiquities housed in Iraq is a matter for considerable concern. I'm sure that the Iraqi scholars and authorities realize that the old policy is no longer acceptable and continuation of it would alienate the whole scholarly community, which has been very supportive up to now, and would also turn away Western funders. But now that the issue has been raised, some reassurance would be, well, reassuring. Naturally the Iraqis will want to work out their own criteria for access by outsiders, but it would be helpful if someone would make it clear now that not being a Jew will not be one of them.

ANNE CATHERINE EMMERICH, whose visions were a source for Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, is being beatified. (Via Bible and Interpretation News.)

Two thoughts. First, the timing is unfortunate. Although this seems to have been in the works for more than thirty years, by announcing it now the Catholic Church gives the impression that the decision to beatify her was influenced by the media attention to the movie and her influence on it. I don't think this is actually the case, but it would have looked better to put off the announcement a few years. Traditionally, the Church takes its time about such matters anyhow.

Second, however virtuous her life might have been, I have reservations about rewarding Emmerich in this way when her writings are so obviously anti-Semitic. Now there's ample precedent: John Chrysostom's sermons against the Jews (or, if you insist, "against the Judaizers," although "Jews" is accurate as well) are virulently anti-Semitic, but he's still a saint. Nevertheless, I think the Church should be more concerned about such issues, especially given the media spotlight that's been on the Emmerich visions recently.

THERE'S A BRIEF REPORT on the 2003 Bethsaida excavation on the Bible and Intepretation website.

I HAVEN'T BEEN FOLLOWING the recent discussion of open source scholarship on the biblical blogs, but I probably should be. Mark Goodacre has a roundup with comments.

THE LATE DR. SAMUEL IWRY is remembered by Ben Greenberg.

UNLESS I'M MISTAKEN, Rebecca Lesses's blog began one year ago today. Happy birthday to Mystical Politics.

SORRY ABOUT THE DEAD LINKS-PAGE. I've sent three messages so far to the provider, none of which have received a reply. Grrr. I don't have time to do anything more about it now, but follow the link above for a link to the new, unasked-for and unwanted, URL.

MARK GOODACRE has more on good things about the new Blogger.

THERE'S A REVIEW by Richard S. Hess of Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament over at the Denver Journal. Mark Goodacre also has noted some new NT items and has more also on citing electronic resources.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Waqf expanding cemetery outside Temple Mount walls (Ha'aretz)
By Nadav Shragai and Arnon Regular

The Islamic Trust has been expanding the Muslim cemetery at the foot of the eastern wall of the Temple Mount south of Mercy Gate, and in recent months has stepped up the pace of preparing burial sites in the cemetery, including working at night.

The land is owned by the Waqf, but the area has been zoned as "green" not to be developed. Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski recently signed an administrative demolition order against the section of cemetery that has been expanded, but sources at City Hall said "the police refused to implement the order and prevented its execution."

Observers on the scene say the activities continue day and night, and that burials are taking place in the expanded cemetery area.

[...]

Doesn't sound like a good sign to me.

NEW BOOK ON QOHELET:

The Bible's most improbable book, Ecclesiastes, gets a new Jewish analysis

By: RICHARD OSTLING - Associated Press

What is the Book of Ecclesiastes doing in the Bible? This astonishing little masterwork from ancient Israel struggles with concepts found elsewhere in the Scriptures.

Ecclesiastes is greatly perplexed that evil people often prosper while good ones suffer, and says that life sometimes seems to lack meaning or makes no sense. It asks, how do things fit together?

The issues are sifted, if not exactly answered, in "Ecclesiastes," the latest of the Jewish Publication Society's commentaries on biblical books. The series is excellent in quality, but pricey (this 87-page book costs $34.95).

"Ecclesiastes" provides the Hebrew text, the JPS English translation, and an introduction and verse-by-verse comments from Michael V. Fox, professor of Hebrew at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison.

[...]

As in Fox's "A Time To Tear Down and a Time To Build Up" (Eerdmans, 1999), this commentary disputes scholars from the past century who've seen Koheleth as a modern-style skeptic, pessimist or fatalist who embraces pleasure and scorns the rest of Scripture.

By that theory, the traditional beliefs in Ecclesiastes were tacked on by later rabbis to offset the bleak original, for example the book's summation: "Revere God and observe his commandments! For this applies to all mankind."

But in Fox's view, Koheleth is no nihilist. The speaker says that many things are worthwhile in life: moderate work and pleasure, love and friendship, gaining and using our limited human wisdom, seeking to be righteous, and "fearing God and hoping for divine justice."

This complex biblical book says that such things are often fleeting, limited and uncertain, but they "are enough to make life worth living," Fox says.

[...]

THE PATRIARCH OF THE SYRIAC ORTHODOX CHURCH is interviewed in this article:

Keeper of The Word shares a few
Pope Zakka speaks on preserving the ancient language of Aramaic in a new, modern world

This is the fourth in a series of interviews with spritual leaders in the Middle East by cultural historian Yvonne Seng.
By Yvonne Seng
Special to The [Lebanon] Daily Star
Wednesday, June 02, 2004

CULTURAL HISTORY

DAMASCUS: With the recent release of the film, "The Passion of The Christ," Aramaic has likely been heard by more people in the past months than in it's entire history. Once the vernacular, it is now reduced to subtitles, spoken daily by a few. The man in front of me has a less brutal way of keeping the language alive.

Patriarch Zakka sits in a gold encrusted chair in a fading cathedral in the Old Quarter of Damascus, but the power of this holy man is not contained in a chair. Or in his extensive title: His Holiness Moran Mor Ignatius Zakka I Iwas. The power of Pope Zakka rests in words.

Pope Zakka is the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East and the Supreme Head of the Universal Syriac Orthodox Church, the planet's second oldest church, founded by the Apostles.

As intriguing as the longevity of the institution, is its charge to keep alive Aramaic, the language in which Christ spoke. That is, the words in which The Word spoke.

Words have consequence, but few take words as seriously as Pope Zakka.

We all know one phrase in Aramaic: Abracadabra. Childish magical gibberish to the rest of us, loosely translated from Aramaic it has a vastly more serious meaning: "Create what I speak, or, May my words be brought to life." These are not men who dangle their participles.

[...]

I've never heard this about "Abracadabra" and I doubt that it's correct. According to the American Heritage Dictionary it's a "cabalistic" word that probably goes back through late Latin and late Greek to the "Gnostic" magical name "Abrasax." The latter is not only Gnostic, but was found all over the place in ancient magic. Here's another attempt at an explanation.

Whether the Syriac Church was founded by the apostles depends on what to make of much later church traditions. We just don't know very much about what the apostles were up to in the first century, although certainly founding churches was high on their agenda.

More:

"The most important thing is that Aramaic was spoken by Our Lord Jesus Christ," the Patriarch says. "That's why we love it. It has been the liturgical language of our church from the beginning of Christianity and, of course, it was the ancient language of Syria before Islam. That's also why we love it. And we feel it is our duty and responsibility to keep it alive because we can't imagine that, one day, the language spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ will be forgotten. It's something we can't imagine."

Monks and holy scholars have kept the flame alive for almost 2,000 years, but can they survive the tornado of Western culture?

[...]

The internet, with its disrespect for man-made borders, is his ally.

"Technology has always been with the human being," he states. " Those who believe the world was created by God, they will always be loving God through Our Lord Jesus Christ."

With the help of technology - and the savvy leadership of the Patriarch - Aramaic is undergoing revival among members of the Syriac Orthodox Church connected across the globe and scholars attracted to its cerebral mission.

"We have many scholars here and there," the Patriarch says with enthusiasm. "And they learn the language and they teach it and, of course, we are proud of those people, too. And grateful, too. Yes."

Although he admits he doesn't fully understand the new technology, Pope Zakka visited Los Angeles to bless it.

The Syriac-Orthodox Church of Antioch, formed in the time of the Apostles, has its own website, with libraries, chatrooms, youth groups and CDs of liturgical music for sale through Amazon.com.

Pope Zakka has his own page where you can access copies of his encyclicals and writings. The Syriac-Aramaic language project has a worldwide center that the peripatetic Apostle Peter, first Bishop of the church, would definitely approve of.

For the Patriarch also, globalization and technology are positive developments.

[...]

UPDATE (25 August 2007): In retrospect I think my skepticism about the proposed etymology of Abracadabra was misplaced. The translation is a little loose, but the general idea is plausible. More here.

THE "ST. JOHN'S BIBLE" carries on the medieval tradition of handwritten, illuminated biblical manuscripts:

Handwritten St. John's Bible uses both old techniques, modern images

By JEFF BAENEN Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press - Monday, May 31, 2004
COLLEGEVILLE, Minn.

As Donald Jackson and his scribes worked on a handwritten and "illuminated" Bible, they used an image unavailable to the monks of the Middle Ages: a view of Earth taken from outer space.

It's one of the many modern touches in The St. John's Bible, from using computers to lay out pages to using "virtual voice prints" of chanting monks, Buddhists and American Indians in several artworks.

[...]

Jackson and his team of artists in Monmouth, Wales, use quills cut from goose or swan feathers. Ancient inks are prepared using the yolks of eggs from free-range chickens near Jackson's scriptorium as a binder. The words are written on large sheets of prepared vellum, or calfskin, which are then illuminated or brought to light with gold, silver or platinum to form dazzling artwork.

"People just open a page and tears come into their eyes," Jackson says.

The eight-year, $4 million project funded by private donations has reached the halfway point. Jackson and his artists have completed three volumes and have four to go. About 70 percent of the text has been written, and 40 percent to 45 percent of the illustrations are done.

When the Bible is finished, expected in 2007, the massive work will total about 1,150 pages. When open, the facing pages measure about 3 feet wide by 2 feet tall. Each volume will be bound separately and have a cover of white oak from Wales.

[...]

St. John's Abbey, one of the largest Benedictine monasteries in the world with about 200 monks, and St. John's University, founded by the abbey in 1857, commissioned Jackson in 1998 to create The St. John's Bible to celebrate the new millennium and the 150th anniversary of the monks' arrival, Ternes says.



[...]

The seven volumes are being done out of order, but eventually will be arranged in the order of a Roman Catholic Bible. The finished version will include the Apocrypha, the books that Protestants don't view as divinely inspired Scripture.



[...]

The text of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, a modern English translation, is the version being used. . . .

If this site won't let you in, try this one.

Note also the St. John's Bible web page and other links at the bottom of the article in the first link above.

NEW-BLOGGER GRUMBLES: There's nothing more annoying than "upgrades" that are less flexible and useful than the previous version. These seem to be increasingly common � MacIntosh is certainly egregiously guilty of them. I'm sorry to say that Google/Blogger is now guilty as well. Consider the following disimprovements (if that isn't a word, it should be) in the new Blogger:

1. In an in-progress message you can no longer check your links under the "preview" option. Moving away to another link without saving the draft erases your message.

2. Saved drafts no longer reset their date and time when you change them and save them again. If you publish the draft, it is posted with the date and time you created it, even if that was many days ago.

3. Previews of messages now do not register paragraph divisions. All the paragraphs appear together in an undifferentiated lump.

In addition, the new Blogger forced me to upgrade both my browsers for no good reason, marking it as part of the Evil Upgrade Conspiracy that foists ever more unnecessary software and machine upgrades on users.

I don't see any marked improvements over the quality of the old Blogger which would outweigh these glitches (although, to be fair, I haven't wasted spent a lot of time looking through every feature of the new Blogger, so readers may want to point out any glorious improvements I've missed). The new layout is reasonably esthetically pleasing, but the old one was fine. There's no good reason for these glitches, which make the day-to-day use of Blogger less easy. Google can do better than this.

UPDATE: Rub�n G�mez e-mails:

I agree with you. However, notice that under point 1, you CAN check your
links if you press the Shift key while clicking. As for point 3, I do see
paragraphs (if I hit Return twice) when I use the preview option.

BTW, You may be interested in reading my last blog entry, where I elaborate
a little bit more on some of your concerns about "useless upgrades".

Thanks Rub�n. It appears that I was wrong about #1: if you move away from the post, the changes are not erased. But the the warning message to the effect that "you have unsaved changes" is misleading.

Regarding #3, I can't get the paragraphs to appear at all on my Mac IE 5.2.3, which the highest upgrade they make for the Mac. Hitting return doesn't help. However, I see that my Netscape 7.1 does show the paragraphs. But that's not good enough: I have my own reasons for preferring to blog with IE, and it did leave up the paragraphs under the old Blogger. Rub�n tells me that he is using different browsers from either of these, so that must be the difference.

Do have a look at his post on upgrades. The world would indeed be a better place if the Fuller Brush were the model for computing software.

UPDATE: Mark Goodacre comments:

On one of Jim's points, the date and time one, you can make an adjustment manually by clicking "More Post Options . . ." at the bottom of any given entry and then adjusting the time. I find this useful because I often write half a post, get disturbed and can't get back to it for some time, sometimes after I've published others in the mean time (e.g. now I have one pending on the Open Scholarship issue). In fact I tend to think of there being broadly two types of blog entry, the one notebook style entry which goes up quickly in five minutes or so and the other the mini-essay post, which takes a little longer and has more of one's own prose in it.

Yes, I know you can adjust the date and time manually. My point was that with the old Blogger you didn't have to do that: when you reopened the post and started making changes, the time would reset itself to the beginning of the new session. The current system is a disimprovement.

A couple of things I like about the new blogger: the archiving is greatly improved by separating off posts into single pages with single URLs, which means that when one searches for a given post you can go straight to it rather than getting to the page on which it appears.

I'm confused by this: for me the individual posts always came with their own URLs in the old Blogger. I had to configure the Atomz search engine to reflect this, but that only involved an extra line or two of code.

I've also noticed that other users of Blogger are now using its Comments function. I still have comments from Haloscan which date back to the time before Blogger provided their Comments system. Ideally I'd like to move to that too, but it will mean losing all the Haloscan comments.

That's a fair point. If people like to have a comments facility, it's more convenient to have it as part of the Blogger package. Me, I don't want to have to bother with policing them. Back when I ran e-mail lists for online courses, I had the problems with both overenthusiastic amateurs and people with agendas dominating the list discussion, and these became sufficiently trying that I gave up on running e-mail lists. Although I welcome comments on my blogging (e-mailed to me at the above address), and often I post them, especially if someone has a substantive disagreement with me, I want to maintain control of what goes up here.

For that reason, and this is as good a time as any to mention this, when I next do a course with an online component � to wit, in spring semester 2005, when I teach my honours course on the Dead Sea Scrolls again � I'm planning on opening up a new Dead Sea Scrolls blog, for the duration of the course only. More on this in due time. You can access my previous Dead Sea Scrolls course by following the link, and there are similar course materials on Divine Mediator Figures in the Biblical World and the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

MO'ED � ANNUAL FOR JEWISH STUDIES, Volume 14 (2004), has just been published by the Center for Jewish Culture at Beit Berl College.

Mo'ed is a refereed annual devoted to all branches and periods of Jewish Studies, and welcomes original contributions in these fields in both Hebrew and English. Mo'ed publishes English abstracts of all the Hebrew articles, including review essays, and vice versa. Guidelines for Contributors appear at the beginning of each volume of Mo'ed. Referees are chosen from among scholars, both Israeli and foreign, specializing in the fields to which the articles pertain.

More information, including a table of contents, can be found in this H-Judaic list message.

THE CONNECTION TO MY LINKS PAGE IS DOWN, because Flyservers has once again changed the URL without telling anyone. I'll try to sort out why this keeps happening. Meanwhile, you can, for now, follow these links to find the Links Page and the About PaleoJudaica.com Page.

TORREY SELAND is baffled by the "University of Alexandria" too.

ANOTHER PETRA TRAVELOGUE, this one in the Montreal Gazette. Excerpt:

Jordan's most impressive offering, however, is the ancient city of Petra, an archaeological marvel on par with the seven wonders of the world. A lost city for almost 700 years, Petra was rediscovered by a Swiss explorer in 1812, but it was not officially excavated by archeologists until 1924. Known as the "red rose city," this secret and sacred place was hewn out of pinkish-red mountains more than 2,000 years ago.

Just as a sculptor creates art from a slab of stone, the ancient Nabatean people moulded huge architecture out of colossal mountains. From sheer stone, they carved temples, tombs, stadiums, monasteries, homes, irrigation systems, cliff staircases and roads. Construction took three centuries and borrowed designs from Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman styles.

An eternal tribute to a lost civilization, Petra is the legacy of the industrious and ingenious Nabatean people. At the height of its power, the city housed 30,000 citizens and controlled most of the ancient Arabian trade routes. Eventually, Petra's increasing influence and prosperity began to concern the Roman Empire.

In 106 AD, the Romans overtook the city, shifted the trade routes and brought about Petra's economic downfall. In the centuries that followed, two major earthquakes wiped out the Nabataen culture and further diminished Petra's worth until it became a ghost town, concealed from the rest of the world.

In modern times, this ancient attraction has been made internationally famous as the exotic setting of the Hollywood blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Indeed, exploring Petra goes a long way to fulfilling my childhood fantasies of being Indiana Jones and experiencing his adventures.

MASADA SYNAGOGUE UPDATE: Reader Todd Bolen in Israel points me to the following photograph of the synagogue, which shows how the interior looked a little over a week ago when he was last there (click on the image for the source).



This is how it looked when I was there, about twenty years ago. The Australian article referred to the synagogue as "partially renovated," which it is, but it also quoted Zaka as saying that "an active synagogue on the site was needed," which led me to think that the ruin was being rebuilt into a complete building for modern use. I would have serious reservations about that being done. But if people are just using the ruin for worship (restored, naturally, to the best condition possible considering what's left of it), that's different. I have no objection to that, as long as it's not used so intensively as to wear out what remains. Again, I'd like to know exactly what is going on.

IMAGES GALORE! In his latest TyndaleTech Email, David Instone-Brewer provides many links from all over the Web to Images for Powerpoint Lectures and Sermons on biblical and related subjects. I don't do Powerpoint or sermons myself, but I suspect I'll find other uses for some of these images.

KABBALAH "EXPERT" INTERVIEW: Rabbi Yehuda Berg, associate director for communications of The Kabbalah Centres, interacts with readers of USA Today. A few thoughts on this.

1. Rabbi Berg's ideas are pretty much unobjectionable in themselves � they mostly consist of moral platitudes that most people would agree with � and I imagine following his principles does some people a lot of good. Still, his New Age Kabbalah has almost nothing to do with traditional Kabbalah.

2. This doesn't bother me quite as much as you might expect. Massive revision of an ancient tradition is nothing new. Moses de Leon radically reinterpreted rabbinic Judaism when he wrote the Zohar � although he did keep it Jewish and halakhic � and he came up with something of lasting interest and value. The Apostle Paul may be a better historical analogy: he went further and dispensed with both Jewish ethnic identity and halakhah in his � soon very successful � new religion. I rather doubt that New Age Kabbalah will have the staying power of either Paul or Moses de Leon, but we'll see. Rabbi Berg is also clearly trying to make money from his Kabbalah, but, then, so was Moses de Leon.

3. Rabbi Berg makes some preposterous historical claims: Kabbalah was written by Abraham 4000 years ago; Plato, Jesus, and Muhammad were Kabbalists. Again, one can point out that Moses de Leon did the same: he had Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai and other Tannaitic rabbis teaching Medieval Platonistic ideas in Medieval Aramaic. But the world has moved on since then and I would like to think that we expect religious teachers these days to be responsible in the history they teach. Maybe that's being naive. But for me, if someone gets it wrong in areas I know about, I'm not going to trust them to tell me about things I don't know about, let alone about cosmic truth.

4. The thing that really does bother me about the new Kabbalah � something that is a major departure from the tradition � is its superficiality. Moses de Leon was tremendously learned and he produced a mystical canon that has exercised some of the most brilliant Jewish (and other) minds for many centuries. The superficial New Age platitudes of the new Kabbalah, harmless and perhaps even helpful in themselves, stand in tremendous contrast to the learned complexity of traditional Kabbalah. Although the idea of Kabbalah for the masses is appealing in principle, it really should have something to do with the teachings you actually find in traditional Kabbalah.

5. I think it is very misleading for USA Today to present this piece as an interview with a "Kabbalah expert." Rabbi Berg is doing his own thing, which is fine, but people who don't know better, and most people don't, are going to take his comments to be representing traditional Kabbalah, and they most certainly do not. Why couldn't USA Today have gotten, say, Daniel Matt, who is a high-profile scholar who really is an expert on Kabbalah? Sigh.

If you want to learn about traditional Kabbalah, here are some bibliographical resources:

Joseph Dan, Ronald C. Kiener, Moshe Idel, The Early Kabbalah (New York: Paulist, 1986). Excerpts from pre-Zoharic Kabbalistic texts, along with a useful, user-friendly introduction.

Daniel Chanan Matt, Zohar: The Book of Enlightenment (Ramsey, N.J.: Paulist, 1983). Excerpts and introduction, both by Matt himself.

Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (3rd ed.; New York: Schocken, 1954). Now out of date, but still very useful and reasonably user-friendly.

There are also, of course, the first two volumes of Matt's Zohar translation and commentary, but these are more oriented toward specialists.

For pre-Kabbalistic Jewish mysticism (Merkavah Mysticism or Hekhalot Literature) see:

Peter Sch�fer, The Hidden and Manifest God: Some Major Themes in Jewish Mysticism (Albany, N. Y.: SUNY, 1992). Excellent introduction, accessible to nonspecialists, but not available on Amazon, so I take it to be out of print.

Also (shameless self-promotion alert):

James R. Davila, Descenders to the Chariot: The People Behind the Hekhalot Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2001). A scholarly monograph presenting a particular interpretation of the Hekhalot literature, but should also be helpful as an introduction and overview for serious nonspecialists. Very expensive (sorry).

MASADA, THE MUSICAL, has delayed its run in Chicago (and thence to Broadway) until 2005:

Masada Delays Chicago Tryout; Aims for Spring 2005 Broadway Bow (Playbill News)

By Andrew Gans
26 May 2004

Masada, the musical based on the legend of Masada, has delayed its out-of-town tryout at Chicago's Ford Center for the Performing Arts.

A spokesperson for the musical confirmed to Playbill On-Line that the new musical, originally scheduled to begin performances at the Chicago theatre Sept. 19, will now play a limited engagement there Feb. 20-March 27, 2005. A casting notice had indicated that the musical would arrive on The Great White Way in December 2004; Masada is now aiming for a spring 2005 Broadway bow.

[...]

MORE ON THE JEWISH MANUSCRIPTS FROM IRAQ, now frozen and awaiting restoration:

Jewish Artifacts Remain in Limbo in Iraq (Yahoo! News via Archaeology Magazine News)

Thu May 27, 1:55 PM ET

By CARL HARTMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - A damaged Torah, a centuries-old Bible and other rare documents important to Iraq (news - web sites)'s few remaining Jews were rescued from a flooded cellar in Baghdad, only to remain in limbo here.

[...]

The materials are in moderate to poor condition � they remained wet for several weeks after being salvaged, which allowed mold to grow, and some records became detached from their bindings and were lost, according to the Iraqi Jewish Archive Preservation Report. The study was prepared for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which is overseeing Iraq until a June 30 transfer of some sovereignty to the Iraqis.

[...]

When it was found over a year ago, the collection first had to be taken from three feet of mucky water � a U.S. bomb had wrecked the plumbing of the police building.

A salvage crew heaped the documents in piles, loaded them into sacks and took them to a nearby courtyard, where they were partly dried. Later they were packed into 27 metal trunks and stored in a refrigerated truck to halt the mold.

They were then shipped to Texas, where they were freeze-dried to stop the remaining moisture from causing further damage. They are now at a National Archives laboratory.

Among the items are a Bible printed in Venice in 1568, rare books on Jewish law, pamphlets and parchment scrolls, including sections of a damaged Torah.

Doris Hamburg, in charge of conservation at the National Archives, said a 1,400-year-old Talmud, thought to have been in police hands, is still missing.

[...]

I'm skeptical about this seventh century Talmud, which would come from very close to the time of its final editing, and thus would be extremely important. It would also be hard to miss: the Babylonian Talmud consists of many large volumes; it's not something you could carry around in your backpack. I hope this early copy really is out there somewhere, but I'll believe it when I see it.

UPDATE: I should have linked to this earlier post too, which links to the detailed "Iraqi Jewish Archive Preservation Report."

MORE ON THE PITTSBURG EXHIBITION of the Dead Sea Scrolls etc.:

Fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls on view at ExpoMart

By Mary Frances Stotler
[PITTSBURG] TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, May 28, 2004

Documents written 5,000 years ago sit a mere arms-length away. Peruse a copy of temple-era biblical scrolls or skim through a page of the Guttenburg Bible.

"The Dead Sea Scrolls to the Bible in America," opening today and running through June 20 at the Pittsburgh ExpoMart, provides Pittsburgh residents the opportunity to experience rare Bibles and other religious documents in an intimate way.

"The Dead Sea Scroll portion is just one chapter in a very long history," says Lee Biondi, a dealer in rare books and manuscripts, and co-curator of the exhibit.

Pittsburgh marks the fifth stop on the Dead Sea Scrolls nationwide tour, with Cornerstone Television sponsoring the Pittsburgh visit. Indianapolis is the next major city on the circuit, but the length and schedule of the entire tour is yet to be determined. All of the traveling artifacts are from private collectors -- the majority are from the personal collection of co-curator Dr. Craig Lampe, Ph.D.

Also, here's something interesting I hadn't noticed before:

Another rare fragment showcased at the exhibit is a letter from Paul to the Colossians. This third-century document is the earliest surviving account of Paul's writing -- his work from the first century has since been destroyed. The Coptic tongue this version of Colossians is written in makes it unique. Coptic, the Egyptian language his book was penned in, indicates the vast expansion of the early Christian Church.

ANDERS BELL is dissing the Harvard doctoral gown at the instigation of Ryan's Lair and Brad DeLong. But commenter Bill Poser is spot-on: the problem is not the color per se, it's the material. Besides being uncomfortable, the polyester doesn't dye well and I suspect that's why the noble Harvard crimson comes out icky pink. The older, actually crimson, gowns are cool. When I graduated, I couldn't bring myself to buy a pink polyester one for I-forget-how-many hundreds of dollars. The only academic gown I own is a black one, which we found here in a local charity shop.

Note to Harvard: I love you, but please get rid of the polyester. Even if a gown made of good-quality material costs more, more of us would buy one.

UPDATE (28 May): Anders writes:

NOTE: Jim over at Paleojudaica has accused me of "dissing" the Harvard gown - I prefer to think that I was merely drawing attention to it.

Well, drawing attention to something under the rubric "blatant absurdity" isn't all that neutral. But don't worry, I wasn't offended: I don't like it either.

See the same link ("scholarly threads continued" - good one!) for more on academic regalia.

THE PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA BLOG has had a spiffy makeover. Go and have a look.

A NEW CHALDEAN COMMUNITY CENTER IN MICHIGAN:

Chaldean center boasts of rich culture and history

$23 million site opens in Dec. in West Bloomfield

By Jennifer Chambers / The Detroit News

WEST BLOOMFIELD � Adhid Yousif Miri studies the entrance of the new Chaldean Community Cultural Center and sees his ancient homeland of Iraq.

[...]

The focus of the community center will be its art gallery, museum and cultural center and a banquet hall that seats 750.

Association officials are collecting pieces of Chaldean art by working with scholars and historians from around the world and members of the Chaldean community who may have pieces packed away in their homes. Part of the center�s mission is to acquire, exhibit and serve as a permanent home for the artwork.

Museum organizers hope to reproduce part of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and craft a time line of the entire 5,000-year history of the Chaldean people.

Rosemary Antone, chairwoman of the center, is actively negotiating with the Berlin Museum, the Louvre in Paris, the Detroit Institute of Arts and Cranbrook to acquire artifacts or copies of artifacts for the center.

[...]

The lower level of the building will contain a gymnasium, where youngsters and adults can play basketball or soccer and swim in an outdoor pool, and classrooms where people can learn to read, write and speak Aramaic, the oldest continuously spoken language in the world.

�With what�s going on in Iraq, it is a language that may become extinct,� Manna said. �We are trying to do everything to preserve it. We have a lot of people who are here now who still speak it.�

[...]

ANCIENT GADARA TODAY:

Taking a stroll through history at Jordan's Umm Qays ruins
Ancient site was one of the 10 cities of the Roman 'Decapolis'

By Peter Speetjens
Special to The Daily Star [Lebanon]
Thursday, May 27, 2004

UMM QAYS, Jordan: "For passers by I say, as you are now, I was, and as I am now you will be. Life is mortal, so enjoy it."

Thus reads a text carved in a black block of basalt on display in the museum of Umm Qays. The text is attributed to Herod the Great, history's notorious killer of firstborns and an indulgent lover of parties and banquets, who is generally known for his cruelty rather than words of wisdom.

Located in Jordan's mountainous northwest, Umm Qays is the modern day name of ancient Gadara, one of the 10 cities of the Roman "Decapolis" situated on the Hauran Plateau between Syria and Jordan. Only a day-trip away from Amman, Gadara boasts a rich Roman and Christian history, as well as a profound natural beauty, including a spectacular view of the Golan Heights and Sea of Galilee.

[...]

But, as old Gods are replaced by new ones, in the 3rd century AD Gadara became a major Christian pilgrim destination, as according to Matthew and the New Testament, it was where Jesus had cast out the devil of two madmen into a herd of pigs. The two men were saved. The animals however, did not have a clue what got into them and plunged into the river.

As in nearby Bethany, Jordan, where Jesus is said to have been baptized by John, and in Mount Nebo, where Moses was buried, a complex of three churches and a number of religious buildings was erected in Gadara to deal with the streams of Christians who wanted to follow in Jesus' footsteps and be purified.

[...]

THE TETRADRACHM OF AETNA � on display in the Israel Museum:

One-of-a-kind coin makes its debut in Jerusalem (Ha'aretz)
By Amiram Barkat
Valued at $3 million, the Tetradrachm of Aetna makes first public appearance at the Israel Museum

It goes by the name of the Tetradrachm of Aetna; numismatists consider it to be the most valuable ancient coin in the world; and from today, it is on display to the general public for the first time in its history - at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. For the purpose of the exhibition, an insurance company has placed a value of $3 million on the coin.

[...]

The principal reason for the Tetradrachm's value is its rarity; it is the only one of a series to be found till now. In addition, the coin is very well preserved, and the quality of its minting and the level of the artwork it depicts is most impressive. A layman can easily identify the smallest details, including the folds of Zeus' robe or the panther skin that covers his throne.

[...]

The Tetradrachm of Aetna, however, is not for sale, and the reason for this lies in the coin's Jewish chapter from the past. In the 19th century, the coin found its way into the hands of one of Catania's wealthiest residents, who then sold it to the Castellani brothers, prominent antique dealers from Rome. In 1882, the Castellani brothers sold the coin to a Jewish antique collector, Lucian de Hirsch, for a record sum of 8,000 Belgian francs - some $50,000 in today's terms.

[...]

Lucian de Hirsch died of pneumonia at the age of 30, shortly after purchasing the Tetradrachm of Aetna; and his mother decided to bequeath his coin collection to the state, in return for the naming of a collection room at the Royal Library of Belgium after her son.

Since then, the Tetradrachm of Aetna has been featured in various catalogs and research papers, but has never before gone on public display.

[...]

AFRICA AND THE BIBLE is a new book by Edwin Yamauchi. Christianity Today interviews him in a somewhat inaccurately titled article: "Sudan's Biblical History". Excerpt:

What was the relationship between King Solomon and Africa?

The contacts with Solomon and Africa as far as the biblical texts are concerned are somewhat tenuous. The only possible site in Africa that Solomon may have traded with is Ophir. But the location of Ophir, which is a definite source of gold, can be placed either in East Africa or Western Arabia. Most of the connections with Solomon were made in the post-biblical period, particularly with the legendary development of the Queen of Sheba story and with the idea of Solomon's mines in Zimbabwe.

The legend of the Queen of Sheba goes far beyond the biblical visit to Solomon, and it even extends to Rastafarianism.

Sheba is the same as Saba, which is the area in southwestern Arabia, Yemen today. That's the source of myrrh and frankincense, and the queen brought the incense on camels on a perilous journey north.

The later tradition developed with the country of Ethiopia. Originally the name Ethiopia in Greek meant "sunburned face," that is anyone who is dark-skinned, particularly those south of Egypt but also even in India. The name of the modern country did not acquire the name Ethiopia until the 20th century. It had been called Abyssinia. But this misleads people, including the Ethiopians themselves to connect references to Ethiopia in the Septuagint and in the New Testament to their country.

In the middle ages, to support a particular dynasty that seemed to have decended from Solomon, the Kebra Negast, the national epic, was created. Ostensibly, it's the first to be a translation into Ge'ez the ancient Ethiopic language.

David Hubbard, the late president of Fuller Seminary, who did a wonderful dissertation on this, which was never published, does not think that the story is correct. But that story said the Queen of Sheba came from Ethiopia, modern Ethiopia, and she then had a son Menelik. Menelik then stole the Ark of the Covenant, which the Ethiopian Christians claim is still in their cathedral in the Church of Mary Zion in Aksum.

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR JEWISH STUDIES is having its annual conference this year in Oxford on 12-14 July. The subject is Midrash. Wish I could go.

HAPPY SHAVUOT (Festival of Weeks, Pentecost), which begins at sundown today. The biblical rules for Shavuot are given in Exodus 23:14, 16; Leviticus 23:15-21; and Deuteronomy 16:9-12. In the New Testament it figures in the "tongues of fire" giving-of-the-Holy-Spirit episode in Acts 2:1-41 and is also mentioned in passing in Acts 20:16 and 1 Corinthians 16:8. It is mentioned in the Apocrypha in Tobit 2:1 and 2 Maccabees 12:31-32.

UPDATE (26 May): Arne Halbakken e-mails:

In your weblog for Shavuot, you mention "... 'tongues of fire'...." in Acts 2:3.

You might want to note the word hWSEI is used here.

BDAG calls this a "...marker denoting comparison, as, like (something) like, lit. 'as if'...."

"Tongues of fire" is not a good translation. RSV is better, "tongues as of fire".

Yes, I know. I was just in a rush and feeling lazy. They aren't presented as actual tongues of fire but something that, evidently, looked like tongues of fire. Of course, given the context, that would be pretty clear anyhow.

MORE ON THE MASADA SYNAGOGUE: According to the Australian, the ancient synagogue on Masada is being renovated.

The foreign-donated [Torah] scroll was placed in a room of the partially renovated synagogue on the edge of the site which the Romans attacked from a sloping ramp in 73 AD

The Romans captured the fortress only after its 900 defenders committed mass suicide and Masada is now a major site of pilgrimage for Jews around the world.

The religious emergency volunteer organisation Zaka, which organised the event, explained an active synagogue on the site was needed for the thousands of Jewish visitors who until now needed to bring a scroll to pray.

This article makes it sound as though the ruin of the synagogue is being rebuilt for modern use, but it doesn't say by whom or how. This worries me: the ruin is itself an archaeological and historical treasure. Any new buildings on the site should not interfere with the architechture already there. I'd like to know more about this.

UPDATE (30 May): More here.

NEW BOOK REVIEWS FROM THE REVIEW OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE:

Dahm, Ulrike
Opferkult und Priestertum in Alt-Israel: Ein kultur- und
religionswissenschaftlicher Beitrag
Reviewed by Christophe Nihan

Das, A. Andrew and Frank J. Matera, eds.
The Forgotten God: Perspectives in Biblical Theology: Essays in Honor of
Paul J. Achtemeier on the Occasion of His Seventy-Fifth Birthday
Reviewed by Sean P. Kealy

Fabry, Heinz-Josef, G. Johannes Botterweck, and Helmer Ringgren, eds.
Translated by Douglas W. Stott
Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament: Volume 12: pasah-qum
Reviewed by Marvin A. Sweeney

Greenspahn, Frederick E.
An Introduction to Aramaic: Second Edition
Reviewed by Max Rogland

Gunn, David M. and Paula M. McNutt, eds.
Imagining Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical
Constructs in Honor of James W. Flanagan
Reviewed by Tom Craig

Kim, Hyun Chul Paul
Ambiguity, Tension, and Multiplicity in Deutero-Isaiah
Reviewed by Mitchel Modine

Lipschits, Oded and Joseph Blenkinsopp, eds.
Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period
Reviewed by John Kessler

Newsom, Carol A.
The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations
Reviewed by Michael S. Moore

Whealey, Alice
Josephus on Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Controversy from Late
Antiquity to Modern Times
Reviewed by Dennis C. Stoutenburg

Guggenheimer, Heinrich W.,ed.
The Jerusalem Talmud: First Order: Zeraim. Tractates Terumot and Ma'serot
Reviewed by David Instone-Brewer

King, Karen L.
What is Gnosticism?
Reviewed by Marvin Meyer

WHEW! I've just spent the last week reading about 700 lines of late-antique biblical epic poetry in Latin. Most of the 4th-6th-century Latin epic poetry on Old Testament subjects has never been translated into English and I have found some wonderful things for The Book, which I will make public in my paper "Did Christians Write Old Testament Pseudepigrapha that Appear to be Jewish?", scheduled to be presented in at the International SBL meeting in Groningen in July. As usual, I intend to post the oral version of the paper on PaleoJudaica before I leave for the conference.

I've also just finished Neal Stephenson's new novel, The Confusion, which I heartily recommend. It's the second volume of his Baroque Cycle trilogy, set during the lifetime of Isaac Newton and dealing with Newton, his real and imagined friends, enemies, and other contemporaries, along with pretty much everything else imaginable during the time-frame and on this particular planet.

No, it doesn't have very much to do with ancient Judaism, although alchemy and cabalism do play a fairly prominent part in The Confusion (and Newton really was interested in both). Plus, I'm pretty such one of the characters (and if you read either volume, especially if you've already read Stephenson's book Cryptonomicon, it will become obvious whom I mean) is either the patriarch Enoch returned from heaven on a long-term mission, or else the Wandering Jew.

UPDATE (25 May): Not surprisingly, I am not the first one to make the Enoch connection. Warning: this link contains spoilers and speculation. Lots of both. But if you've read the books, the site (Quicksilver Metaweb) is extremely interesting.

A TORAH SCROLL ON MASADA:

Torah Donated to Synagogue on Top of Masada (Arutz Sheva)
11:30 May 24, '04 / 4 Sivan 5764

(IsraelNN.com) At the crack of dawn yesterday, a new Torah scroll was brought to the ancient synagogue located at the top of Masada, the mountain-top fortress used by Jewish freedom fighters and their families fleeing the besieging Roman armies.

[...]

I'm confused here: when I visited Masada in the mid-80s, the ancient synagogue was just a ruin. Has it been rebuilt?

By the way, can anyone tell me why Arutz Sheva consistently gives my Internet Explorer 5.2 a screen freeze?

LOS ANGELES TIMES HEADLINE:

They're Called to Smote Typos From the Good Book

The word they're looking for is "smite." "Smote" is the past tense form. Samson sought to smite the Philistines. Samson smote the Philistines.

Perhaps the L .A. Times should hire some of the Peachtree proofreaders.

RABBINICS CONFERENCE IN JERUSALEM:

Call for Papers:
Dispute in Rabbinic Literature: Its Limits, Logic, and Hermeneutic Status

The Institute for the Study of Rabbinic Thought at Robert M. Beren College, Beit Morasha of Jerusalem, invites scholars to submit proposals for papers for the Institute's Seventh Annual Conference, to take place during Hannukah, 5765 (2004), in Jerusalem.

This conference follows last year's conference discussion on the topic of "Religious Polemics as a Shaping Factor in Rabbinic Thought," which examined the importance of polemics in the perception of rabbinic thought in research, and the hermeneutic function of polemics in the academic construction of rabbinic thought. One of the issues raised in discussions was the relationship between internal and external polemics. This touches on the question of the boundaries between polemic and controversy (machloket), between legitimate disagreement and illegitimate religious differences. We wish to pursue various aspects of this issue, not handled in last year's conference, in the forthcoming conference, by focusing on the phenomenon of dispute in rabbinic literature. Controversy is phenomenologically close to polemics, but is an internal phenomenon of tradition. Controversy is a hallmark of rabbinic literature, and understanding the logic of this literature entails constant involvement with machloket. We therefore wish to raise a wide range of questions regarding the phenomenon of dispute, and dedicate the coming conference to them.

One aspect we wish to specially emphasize is the attempt to understand rabbinic logic through analyzing machlokot. The works of Marmorstein and Heschel make significant use of controversy as an interpretive tool for the understanding of rabbinic thought. We suggest the following foci for discussion:

* Definition of controversy, including its social, public, institutional and
intellectual (study) dimensions
* Evaluating controversy and dispute as intellectual and social phenomena
* Definition of the limits of dispute and distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate disagreement
* Justification of controversy as a phenomenon in the development of Oral Torah
* Using controversy as a tool for understanding rabbinic thought
* Literary and rhetorical representations of dispute
* Controversy in Halakha and Aggada
* The relationship between rabbinic dispute and related phenomena in adjunct literatures

Please send an abstract of up to two pages to Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein, at hazal@bmj.org.il, by June 30, 2004. Only proposals approaching the study of the thought of the sages of the Mishna, Talmud and Midrash in a systematic manner will be considered. The study of extra-talmudic literature will be considered only inasmuch as it sheds light on issues pertaining to the thought patterns of the rabbinic authors.

Emailed by Opher Kutner.

MORE GOODIES IN PITTSBURG:

Local museum boasts rare finds

Sunday, May 23, 2004
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Buried in the basement of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Highland Park is a small archaeological treasure: The James L. Kelso Bible Lands Museum.

It is more staid than the upcoming touring exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls, but appeals to the same interests with rare finds of its own. In addition to pottery, jewelry and other items unearthed in the Holy Land, it features newly digitized films of early 20th-century digs. And it's free.

"This institution has not only taught archaeology, but it has been doing archaeology since the 1920s," said Ronald Tappy, professor of Bible and archaeology and director of the museum. Pittsburgh Theological Seminary stands alongside Harvard and the University of Chicago as schools that changed archaeology from the hobby of treasure seekers to a meticulous science.

[...]

Some delicate pieces have survived, including a wooden comb from Qumran, the site in Israel near the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947. There's an exhibit on the excavations, including a large model of the complex where most scholars believe the scrolls were created.

Although alternate theories have been proposed, the consensus is that Qumran was home to a religious community that copied the scrolls and hid them in anticipation of a Roman attack, Tappy said.

"This was a monastic desert community of Essenes who broke with mainstream Judaism," he said. "There is a scriptorium there where they have even found inkwells that were used."

If I may nitpick a little, whether it was a monastic community or a sectarian retreat center or something else is still debated. I'm a little uncomfortable with the term "monastic" here, since it brings to mind much later Christian communities and can color our reading of what was at Qumran in ways that might lead to confusion. And it's been argued by archaeologists in recent years that the room in question could not have been a scriptorium.

The museum also has lots of important data for the history of archaeology:

One of the museum's rarest finds came from its own storeroom. Many years ago the widow of James Kelso, the staff archaeologist for whom the museum is named, brought a collection of 16mm movies to the seminary. A former curator determined that the films were too fragile to project, so they were put into storage.

Then Bowden was reading Kelso's diary from 1930, and he mentioned that he must stop writing to take "moving pictures." Bowden immediately remembered the films and vowed to find out what was on them. Pittsburgh Filmmakers made a digital master at no charge.

Now visitors can watch Kelso and early archaeological luminaries on digs going back to the 1920s. Kelso was fascinated with the life of local Arabs and filmed workers drawing water from wells and farmers loading huge stacks of wheat onto a camel.

The earliest films are from Tell Beit Mirsim in the hill country southwest of Jerusalem, where seminary archaeologist M.G. Kyle was the chief administrator of an excavation conducted by the legendary William F. Albright. Still photos of that dig, begun in 1926, are displayed among those of other representative sites that seminary archaeologists have worked.

Photos from the 1950s show New Testament Jericho, which is not the Jericho where the Bible describes the walls falling. It was the home of Herodian kings, and Kelso directed the excavation of the Roman-style palace of Herod the Great.

In the 1960s, work began at Bab edh-Dhra', a town and cemetery near the Dead Sea in Jordan, last occupied in 2300 B.C. Kyle first surveyed it in 1924 as the possible site of Sodom.

And Professor Tappy (who, incidentally, was a graduate student at Harvard in the '80s at the same time I was studying there) has his own excavation in Israel:

Tappy, who joined the faculty in 1997, has been excavating at Zeitah, a mound of ruins in a valley between the biblical sites of Lachish and Gath. He maintains a Web site on the dig at www.zeitah.net.

He chose Zeitah because he wanted to explore a tiny village from antiquity. But in the sort of surprise that characterizes archaeology, Tappy found that it had been a large town that was occupied from at least 2000 B.C. until the Israeli war of independence in 1948.

He thinks it might be the biblical city of Libnah, mentioned in the Book of Joshua, or Ziklag, where David governed before he was king. Tappy's was one of the last excavations to remain in Israel as political tensions heightened in 2001. A few days after he returned home, the terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001. But he is optimistic about the future. He will return to Zeitah June 5 with a team of 20 professionals and 35 volunteers.

It's good that the Scrolls exhibition is generating some well-deserved publicity for the museum.

THE FROM THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS TO THE BIBLE IN AMERICA EXHIBITION is now in Pittsburg:

Dead Sea Scrolls 'fragments' on exhibit

Don't ask me why "fragments" is in scare quotes.

Tour includes other ancient biblical texts drawn from private collections

Sunday, May 23, 2004
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


A remarkable array of ancient and antique biblical texts, including four fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, will be on exhibit at the Monroeville ExpoMart from Friday through June 20.

[...]

And it's generating more controversy:

Ronald Tappy, professor of Bible and archaeology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, was disturbed that a Web site belonging to one of the show's chief sponsors sells panels cut from 400-year-old Torah scrolls.

Joel Lampe, the co-curator who operates the rare Bible dealership at www.greatsite.com, said the scrolls were badly damaged in a fire more than a century ago and are beyond restoration.

"We are the largest restorers of biblical materials in the world," he said of his family's business at the The Bible Museum in Goodyear, Ariz. They create whole Bibles from damaged rare texts and sell only pages and panels left over from the restoration process, he said.

Tappy, who has a similar Torah scroll at his Bible Lands Museum, compared it to smashing an ancient jug missing its handles and selling the shards. "There is something unseemly about selling it, even if it is just a fragment," he said.

But those academic debates will probably mean little to most people who tour the exhibit. The highlight will be what Biondi says are the only four biblical fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls in the United States.

The scrolls, which most scholars believe were copied by a Jewish sect between about 100 B.C. and 68 A.D., were discovered in caves by Bedouin shepherds in 1947. There are scholarly debates about why they were stored in the cave and about the beliefs of those who stored them. But to the show's curators they are primarily a testimony to reliability of the Hebrew text as it was transmitted over the ages.
[...]

There's an update on the lawsuit in Akron, Ohio, too:

The show has had a somewhat troubled history of its own.

It toured several southern and midwestern cities as "From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Forbidden Book." Then a collector who was a partner in the exhibit, William Noah, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., sued two other collector-partners, Biondi and Bruce Ferrini, of Bath, Ohio, over financing. The suit forced the exhibit into involuntary bankruptcy, and a trustee was appointed to sort through the competing claims.

Biondi said he was no longer involved in the suit and that Noah and Ferrini were not involved in the reconstituted exhibit. The trustee, lawyer Kathryn Belfance, of Akron, Ohio, was unaware of the Monroeville exhibit until a reporter called. She said she could not be sure whether it violated any court injunction.

"I don't know what assets they are using," she said. Unpaid bills remain from a March exhibit in Akron, which drew 2,000 visitors daily and had a gift shop that made "tons of money," she said.

[...]

There are also photos of a scroll fragment under regular light, when the writing is unreadable, and under infrared light, which makes the letters clearly visible.