CONSPIRACY THEORIES are the subject of an article in this weeks Sunday Times (of London). It touches on both The Da Vinci Code and The Bible Code:

Focus: The conspiracy code
A secret cabal has taken control of publishers and is making a fortune from our gullibility. Roland White delves into a plot where nothing is quite what it seems

Ever wondered why Mona Lisa has been looking so damned enigmatic for the past 500 years? Well, keep it to yourself but she�s concealing a dark and sinister secret.

This unassuming young woman is actually part of a massive conspiracy that involves a secret society, the Knights Templar, a monk assassin and serial murder, plus coded messages that cast doubt on the marital status of Christ. Seriously, this could blow the lid off the entire establishment of the Catholic church.

Don�t believe it? Well, it might be bunkum, but millions are already convinced. They have been studying details of the conspiracy in this summer�s hottest beach novel, The Da Vinci Code.

[...]

When the hardback edition first appeared, one reviewer condemned the book as �utterly ridiculous�. It�s not elegantly written and was ignored by most critics. So what accounts for its astonishing popularity? The answer is that in a largely secular age, conspiracy theories are the new religion. After all, they are the perfect replacement: they absolve the believer from blame for the ills of the world while it�s hard to prove them, one way or the other, beyond doubt.

This state of affairs was predicted about 100 years ago by the writer GK Chesterton, a devout Catholic. �When people stop believing in God they don�t believe in nothing,� he said. �They�ll believe in anything.�

[...]

It does not seem to matter that the conspiracy theorists are just as unreliable as politicians who make wayward claims about, say, weapons of mass destruction. In 1997, for example, Michael Drosnin, a Wall Street Journal reporter, published a book, The Bible Code. It claimed that the scriptures contain a hidden code predicting future events. It was an instant bestseller.

EXPERTS soon showed that the �code� was no more than the sort of patterns that could be found in any large volume of words. But that code still has its adherents and it is one of a number of phenomena to be studied in a four-part series, Conspiracies, starting next month on Sky One. It will also cast an eye over the Illuminati, a secret sect founded in the 18th century that some people claim is now running the world. That theory is clearly nonsense, of course; everybody knows that the world is run by the lizard Queen, funded by a drug-running operation controlled by MI6.

If you are looking to make your own fortune from a conspiracy theory, it�s essential to have two key ingredients: a historic event or character, plus an outlandish but faintly believable alternative to the accepted wisdom.

It also touches on conspiracy theories about Princess Diana and the "Solar Temple," September 11th, the fate of Osama Bin Laden (curiously failing to mention the - to my mind plausible - theory that he died at Tora Bora), and the sinking of the Titanic.

Requires registration, and there's a charge for it outside the U.K.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! The weekend weather in St. Andrews has been about like in that photograph below, but, happily, a drive down the coast yesterday uncovered some sunshine. Even an hour or two of good beach weather at Elie. I did most of my celebrating yesterday, but the birthday itself was nice too - especially the nap. And being beaten at chess by my son.

There's nothing interesting in the news at the moment and, although I have one or two things I've been meaning to post, I don't feel like bothering right now. Look for me tomorrow.

THE CURRENT EXCAVATION AT MEGIDDO is the subject of a long article in the Washington Post:

Exploring Mysteries Of Ancient History
GWU Students Take Part in Dig at Megiddo, Where King Solomon Might Have Lived

By Bill Broadway
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 7, 2004; Page B07

Five local students and their archaeology professor went to Armageddon this summer, not to search for clues to a cosmic battle yet to come between Good and Evil, but to seek understanding of civilizations past.

One of the most important issues they addressed was whether a palace attributed to King Solomon in what is now northern Israel was in fact built by Solomon, the son of King David renowned for his wise leadership and for his illicit relationship with the queen of Sheba.

It's no small question, and it has great significance for Jews and Christians alike, said Eric Cline, associate professor of ancient history and anthropology at George Washington University, who co-directed a dig on a hill about 15 miles southeast of Haifa, Israel, known as Megiddo. (Armageddon is a Greek corruption of the Hebrew word har, meaning mount, and Megiddo.)

Little evidence has been uncovered to prove Solomon's ties to a particular building -- or to prove that he existed at all. Some European scholars who call themselves "biblical minimalists" maintain that Solomon is a mythological figure, a kind of Jewish King Arthur.

"These guys are nuts," Cline said in a terse assessment of their thinking.

Cline and other archaeologists believe that the so-called Solomon's Palace at Megiddo, which some consider a cornerstone in understanding Solomon's life and times, was constructed in the 9th century B.C., a century after Solomon's reign. This conclusion is based on recent excavations at the site, which is one of the world's richest archaeological fields and has yielded the layered remains of two dozen cities over a 6,000-year period.

[...]

It's an interesting article, with interviews with a number of the student volunteers. But there is this odd paragraph:

Cline said many professional and student archaeologists are drawn to Megiddo by the Armageddon connection. Many biblical scholars believe that the Jezreel Valley will be the site of the penultimate battle between the forces of God and Satan, with the final conflict and return of the Messiah taking place in Jerusalem.

My emphasis. Rather than "many biblical scholars," it would be clearer to say "Christian dispensationalists." It's not an issue that biblical scholarship (i.e., historical-critical study, archaeology, etc.) has any bearing on.

I should warn you that for some reason, I have no idea why, this article made my Netscape 7.02 browser crash three times.

UPDATE ON JEWS IN IRAQ: Or not, as the case may be. The DARPA TIDES Iraq Reconstruction Report No. 277, 5 August 2004 reports the following:

Iraqi Official Denies Granting Passports to Iraqi Jews

Qatar: Al-Jazirah Satellite Channel Television in Arabic 1513 GMT 04 Aug 04 [Announcer-read report over video]

Pascal Ishu Warda, Iraqi minister of immigration and expatriates, has denied reports that the interim Iraqi Government has granted some Iraqi Jews Iraqi passports to facilitate their return to Iraq.

[Begin Wardah recording] I have described this issue as a sensitive file because it has not been decided yet. It is a sensitive file. Therefore, I strongly and plainly deny this report, which went as far as alleging that I have given passports to Jews. If we the Iraqis inside Iraq still have no documents, so is it reasonable for us to start giving documents to people outside Iraq? [End recording]

That excuse may do for a while, but I expect to hear some progress soon. And I would feel better if this official had made it clearer that getting passports to expatriated Iraqi Jews was on his agenda and would be dealt with as soon as possible. The phrase "a sensitive file because it has not been decided yet" is not encouraging, although the full context isn't clear.

(Thanks to Chuck Jones for the heads-up.)

ARABIC, SYRIAC, VIRGINS, AND GRAPES: I've been following this story for some time but haven't yet commented on it in PaleoJudaica. The gist is that someone, allegedly a German scholar, who writes under the pseudonymn " Christoph Luxenberg" ("for security reasons") has published a book saying that the Arabic of the Qu'ran is really a sort of mixture of Syriac and Arabic and that the meanings of some passages are changed as a result. The International Herald Tribune had an article on it a couple of days ago:

Nicholas Kristof Virgins or grapes? The Koran revisited
.
'The virgins are calling you," Mohamed Atta wrote reassuringly to his fellow hijackers just before Sept. 11, 2001.
.
It has long been a staple of Islam that Muslim martyrs will go to paradise and marry 72 black-eyed virgins. But a growing body of rigorous scholarship of the Koran points to a less sensual paradise - and, more important, may offer a step away from fundamentalism and toward a reawakening of the Islamic world.

[...]

But now the same tools that historians, linguists and archaeologists have applied to the Bible for about 150 years are beginning to be applied to the Koran. The results are explosive.

The Koran is beautifully written, but often obscure. One reason is that Arabic was born as a written language with the Koran, and there's growing evidence that many of the words were Syriac or Aramaic.

For example, the Koran says martyrs going to heaven will get "hur," and the word was taken by early commentators to mean "virgins," hence those 72 consorts. But in Aramaic, hur meant "white" and was commonly used to mean "white grapes."

Some martyrs arriving in paradise may regard a bunch of grapes as a letdown. But the scholar who pioneered this pathbreaking research, using the pseudonym Christoph Luxenberg for security reasons, noted in an e-mail interview that grapes made more sense in context because the Koran compares them to crystal and pearls, and because contemporary accounts have paradise abounding with fruit, especially white grapes.

Luxenberg's analysis, which has drawn raves from many scholars, also transforms the meaning of the verse that is sometimes cited to require women to wear veils. Instead of instructing pious women "to draw their veils over their bosoms," he says, it advises them to "buckle their belts around their hips."

[...]
.
But Muslim fundamentalists regard the Koran - every word of it - as God's own language, and they have violently attacked freethinking scholars as heretics. So Muslim intellectuals have been intimidated, and Islam has often been transmitted by narrow-minded extremists.
.
Still, there are encouraging signs. Islamic feminists are arguing for religious interpretations leading to greater gender equality. An Iranian theologian has called for more study of the Koran's Syriac roots. Tunisian and German scholars are collaborating on a new edition of the Koran based on the earliest manuscripts. And just last week, Iran freed Hashem Aghajari, who had been sentenced to death for questioning harsh interpretations of Islam.

[...]

I haven't read the book myself yet and don't expect to have time to in the near future, so I can't make any very useful comments. It was reviewed very positively by Robert R. Phenix Jr. and Cornelia B. Horn in Hugoye last year, but quite negatively by Fran�ois de Blois in the Journal of Quranic Studies . If anyone who specializes in both Syriac and Arabic has read it and has a view on it, please drop me a note.

AN AUGUST MORNING IN ST. ANDREWS: At least I'm not tempted to ditch work and go to the beach.



I took the photo this morning. The gray building on the right side of the street with the red car in front of it is St. Mary's College.

UPDATE (6 August): In case the photo isn't clear (or in case you can't believe your eyes), that really is thick fog and those cars really do have their lights on. But there's much less fog today and it's considerably warmer, so maybe, just maybe, there's some hope for the weekend.

THE JOURNAL BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION has a new issue out (12.3, 2004) and it appears I missed the previous issue as well (12.2, 2004). So here are the tables of contents for both. (They require a paid personal or institutional subscription to access them.)

ISSUE 12.2, 2004:

Articles
Matters of Life and Death: The Story of Elijah and the Widow's Son in Comparative Perspective 117
Stuart Lasine

What was the Victim Wearing? Literary, Economic, and Social Contexts for the Parable of the Good Samaritan 145
Michael P. Knowles

In Memory of Jesus: Grief Work in the Gospels 175
Kari Syreeni

Book Reviews 198

List of Books Received 228

Erratum
Errata, BibInt 11, 3/4 (2003) 231

ISSUE 12.3, 2004:

Articles
Job's Fifth Friend: An Ethical Critique of the Book of Job 233
David J.A. Clines

Early Encounters with the Bible Among The Batlhaping: Historical And Hermeneutical Signs 251
Gerald O. West

Don't Touch This Book!: Revelation 22:18-19 And the Rhetoric of Reading (in) The Apocalypse of John 282
Robert M. Royalty

Book Reviews 300

List of Books Received 348

NEW BOOK REVIEWS FROM THE REVIEW OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE:

I'm behind on these, so here are the last two weeks' worth in a mass. As usual, I include those on the Hebrew Bible and Judaism, as well as such on the New Testament and early Christianity which spark my interest.


Blenkinsopp, Joseph
Isaiah 40-55: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
Reviewed by Francis Landy

Borgman, Paul
Genesis: The Story We Haven't Heard
Reviewed by Jan Lion-Cachet

Kaltner, John
Inquiring of Joseph: Getting to Know a Biblical Character through the Qur'an
Reviewed by Rudolph De Wet Oosthuizen

Pleins, J. David
The Social Visions of the Hebrew Bible: A Theological Introduction
Reviewed by Mark Boda

Sharp, Carolyn J.
Prophecy and Ideology in Jeremiah: Struggles for Authority in the
Deutero-Jeremianic Prose
Reviewed by Kathleen Mary O'Connor

Ehrman, Bart D.
Lost Scriptures: BooksThat Did Not Make It into the New Testament
Reviewed by Michael Kaler

McLay, R. Timothy
The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research
Reviewed by Robert Hiebert

McLay, R. Timothy
The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research
Reviewed by Tobias Nicklas

Goodman, Martin, Jeremy Cohen, and David Sorkin, eds.
The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies
Reviewed by Hanna Liss

Ben Zvi, Ehud
The Signs of Jonah: Reading and Rereading in Ancient Yehud
Reviewed by Aaron Schart

Ben Zvi, Ehud
The Signs of Jonah: Reading and Rereading in Ancient Yehud
Reviewed by Kenneth Craig

Cross, Frank Moore
Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook: Collected Papers in Hebrew and West Semitic Palaeography and Epigraphy
Reviewed by Joseph R Cathey

Peri, Chiara
Il regno del nemico
Reviewed by Michael Duggan

Shachter, Jay F., translator
The Commentary of Abraham Ibn Ezra on the Pentateuch: Volume 5: Deuteronomy
Reviewed by Mayer Gruber

Gillman, Florence Morgan
Herodias: At Home in That Fox's Den
Reviewed by Donna Wallace

Hurtado, Larry W.
Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity
Reviewed by Moschos Goutzioudis

Hurtado, Larry W.
Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity
Reviewed by Tobias Nicklas

Lieu, Judith
Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century
Reviewed by Russell Arnold

Neusner, Jacob, ed.
Dictionary of Ancient Rabbis: Selections from The Jewish Encyclopedia
Reviewed by Joshua L. Moss

KEN RISTAU gives a candid, student's-eye-view, account of the International SBL/IOQS conference (via New Testament Gateway). Note the immediately preceding post in his Anduril blog as well.

THE SHRINE OF THE BOOK HAS REOPENED:

Shrine of the Book reopens after redesign (Jerusalem Post)
By CALEV BEN-DAVID AND MEIR RONNEN

The Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, which holds the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest surviving biblical texts, was officially reopened to the public in a ceremony Tuesday night after undergoing three years of restoration and redesign.

[...]

Actually, I thought this happened a couple of months ago.

The Forward also has an article on the reopening:

Iconic Monument of Jerusalem Skyline Shines a Bit Brighter
By EetTa Prince-GIBSON
July 30, 2004

In 1965, the Israel Museum's Shrine of the Book, with its signature white-tiled dome, first graced Jerusalem's skyline. The center was built to hold the Dead Sea Scrolls, the world's earliest evidence of biblical texts and sectarian and apocryphal manuscripts. The scrolls were found in 11 caves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, only 40 kilometers due east from Jerusalem, between 1947 and 1956, and the Shrine was designed to evoke the discovery. Its dome was meant to look like the lid of the jars in which the Scrolls were first discovered; the contrast with the free-standing black basalt wall was intended to recall "The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness," a central theme in the narrative; and visitors passed through a series of openings reminiscent of the deep caves in which the Scrolls were found. Almost immediately, the complex became an iconic monument.

This summer, the shrine reopened after more than a year of extensive refurbishment and renovations. In addition to the physical restoration, which included replacement of the dome's tiles, repaving the entrance plaza and resurfacing the black granite wall, the showcases have been redesigned and rebuilt by a firm in Milan, Italy, utilizing the latest techniques in preservation and climate control.

Museum officials also decided to rotate the scrolls on display � three months on, six months off. In the main center hall, under the dome, a scroll is displayed prominently, wound around a large central column, like a Torah scroll. Visitors can encircle the column to read it. Fragments of other scrolls are displayed along the circular walls. Most of the scrolls were written on parchment, with a few rare examples of papyrus.

[...]

The Aleppo Codex (see also here) is on display there too.

"THE CLAY MAN COMETH": Philologos takes on the golem in the Forward. Excerpt (but worth reading in full):

It is only in early rabbinic times that one meaning of golem takes on a legendary cast, although this is still not the legend of the golem as we know it; rather, it occurs in a fable of Adam's first 12 hours on earth, in the second of which, so we are told by the Talmud, in tractate Sanhedrin, before God formed Adam's limbs and breathed life into him, "he was made a golem." And at the same time, golem in early rabbinic Hebrew simply can mean a thoughtless person or an idiot. Thus, we read in the Mishnaic tractate Pirkei Avot or "The Ethics of the Fathers" that "Seven traits characterize the golem and seven the wise man."

Yet the concept of a man-made humanoid, although the name golem was not given to it, can be found in the Talmud, too. Again in Sanhedrin, for example, we read about how the talmudic sage Rava created a man out of clay and sent him to his friend Rabbi Zeira, who ordered him to return to dust. Such legends grew more widespread among Jews in medieval Europe � and it was then that the word golem was first attached to them. The earliest known use of the word in this sense occurs in a commentary by the Rhineland rabbi, Eliezer of Worms (1176-1238), on the proto-kabbalistic Sefer ha-Yetsirah or "Book of Creation."

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Well, sort of.

Famed Second Temple model moving to Israel Museum
By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent

A famous model of Jerusalem and the Second Temple which stood at the Holyland Hotel in the capital for close to 40 years is slated to be moved to the grounds of the Israel Museum within a year.

[...]

The model, built on a scale of 50:1, shows the topography of the area as seen in that period, which was much more imposing than today. The Temple Mount was built according to exact Biblical references, and the surrounding buildings according to the understanding of its planner, archaeology professor Michael Avi-Yonah. The model was adjusted only once, following a dig in the 1970s by Prof. Binyamin Mazar which revealed that Robinson's Arch and the southern approaches to the mount looked different than the model.

SYRIAC IN TURKEY AND IRAQ figures in this Guardian article:

In the language of Jesus

Turkey's Christian revival has a message for Iraq's own communities

Martin Wainwright
Wednesday August 4, 2004
The Guardian

This week's attacks on churches in Iraq are a reminder of a small community that has lived for years with the term "beleaguered", but has the potential to re-establish a more tolerant way of life in the Middle East.

It might easily be assumed that Iraqi Christians are a colonial implant that any self-respecting nationalist would view with suspicion.

But in fact they are among the oldest religious communities in the world.

Protected for most of their long history by Islam's tradition of tolerance, they are honoured for their own great gift to mutual understanding:

Syriac, a version of Jesus's native language, Aramaic. This was the vital bridge in the transmission of Greek, Roman and Jewish thought into Arabic, from which Aristotle, Plato and company eventually returned in the Renaissance to Europe.

Its greatest stronghold is just outside Iraq, in Turkey's Tur Abdin, the "Mountains of the Servants of God", where an intriguing shift is taking place.

Pilgrims, students, and tourists of all faiths and none, are returning to nearby monasteries, which were 700 years old when the first stones were laid at Fountains or Rievaulx. Four-and-a-half centuries after the English abbeys were dissolved by Henry VIII, the cloisters still ring with Syriac chants.

Yet it is only 20 years since the pocket-sized congregations lived in terror, with bombs going off outside their walls. Almost everyone with the money to do so had fled to the west.

[...]

There's too much in it to excerpt properly and the whole thing is worth a read.

Also, British readers should note the following, which I'm going to try to listen to later this morning:

� Martin Wainwright is the Guardian's Northern editor; he presents The Tongue That Wouldn't Die, a study of Syriac, at 11am today on Radio 4

UPDATE: It was an excellent program that ranged from ancient Edessa to a modern child coining new Syriac terms for her toys and involved actual trips to modern Edessa (Sanli Urfa) and other nearby areas important for Syriac. It was the first of a three-part series, called Voices from the Dark, to be aired over three weeks. You can hear the first program by downloading this file (you have to have RealAudio installed in your system to play it).

UPDATE: Reader Harold Clumeck e-mails:

Re: your reference to Martin Wainwright's article in The Guardian. Wainwright states: "It might easily be assumed that Iraqi Christians are a colonial implant that any self-respecting nationalist might view with suspicion."

I just want to comment that this is an odd assertion indeed. Assumed by whom? Someone ignorant of the history of religion in the Middle East? Wainwright seems to presuppose here that Islam would naturally be thought of as "THE" indigenous religion, and that all others have gotten there at some later date, and by a "colonial" means. It seems a variant of the "Zionist as colonialist" prejudice. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this. But I still think it's an odd statement and consistent with Guardian bias. It reminds me of a comment made by a Western journalist about the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt. He said something to the effect: "Why would Christians choose to live in a Muslim country?"

In addition, the reference to "self-respecting nationalist" contradicts the later reference to "traditional Islamic tolerance" mentioned in the very next paragraph

I thought the comment was strange too. Perhaps it's just a lame attempt at a "hook" to catch the reader's attention, but it doesn't make a lot of sense, and I would like to think better of those "nationalists" in Iraq, who would be well aware of the ancient history of Iraqi Christianity. But regarding the last point, I wouldn't identify Arab nationalism with Islam: there is some overlap, of course, but there need not be any connection. Baathism, for example, is an entirely secular extremist Arab nationalism. And Islam is a world religion that transcends national boundaries.

IF YOU WERE DISAPPOINTED to miss hearing about the imaginary Syriac Odes of Isaiah in my IOQS paper last week, do not despair! I have just agreed to give another paper from the same chapter of my book in the British New Testament Conference in Edinburgh at the beginning of September. I will have more time to present this one (45 minutes as opposed to 25 minutes in the IOQS meeting), so I will revert to the original planned paper and talk about the Odes of Isaiah. As usual, I intend to post the oral version of the paper here just before leaving for the conference. Meanwhile, here is the abstract:

The Odes of Isaiah: A Newly Discovered Syriac Pseudepigraphon - A Thought Experiment

Sorry, there isn't really a new pseudepigraphon called the Odes of Isaiah. Rather, this paper is a thought experiment to explore in a new way the problem of the transmission of Jewish Old Testament pseudepigrapha in Christian hands and how or to what degree we can hope to know whether such works actually originated in Jewish rather than Christian circles.

The approach is to treat demonstrably (mostly by external criteria) ancient Jewish works as if they had been transmitted as pseudepigrapha in Christian manuscripts, and to explore the implications of the "alternate histories" of these works as analogies for works whose transmission histories cannot now be reconstructed by conventional means. The method is informed by poststructuralist and reader-response concerns; the philosophy of counterfactuals and possible worlds; the exploration of counterfactual histories by science fiction writers and by historians; and some conceptual insights and categories formulated by the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics.

This paper postulates an "alternate history" for the Qumran Hodayot (as found in the manuscript 1QHa) in which, rather than being abandoned at Qumran, this work was transmitted outside sectarian circles, translated first into Greek and then, into Syriac, thence surviving only in a late antique or early medieval Syriac copy attributed to the prophet Isaiah. (One can point to the transmission of the Psalms of Solomon as a partial analogy.) To what degree could we show that this text was originally Jewish, and even sectarian Jewish? What literary-critical, prosodic, and linguistic criteria, if any, would be likely to be helpful in tracing its history of transmission and ultimate origin?

The abstract is slightly out of date (e.g., I'll be working with both a Greek extract and a Syriac manuscript) but it gives you the general idea.

Watch this space.

BUDGET CUTS threaten the study of ancient history in Israel:

The shaky future of higher education (Ha'aretz)
By Dvorit Peles
The threat of closure hovers over various university departments - especially the humanities.

This year the Hebrew University of Jerusalem will not be offering courses for a B.A. in Italian, Yiddish and demography. At this point it is still possible to begin a course in Ancient Near Eastern Studies - Egyptology and Assyrian Studies - but those departments are also threatened with closure, though to a slightly lesser degree than the departments of African Studies, French, German and Russian.

The threatened closure of these departments is not unique to Hebrew University, and is actually affecting all the universities in recent years, some more and some less, due to the shifting demands for courses of study, and especially because of Finance Ministry cuts in the budgets of institutions of higher education over the last four years.

[...]

The dean of the faculty of humanities at Hebrew University, Prof. Gabriel Motzkin, says that crisis periods are often actually periods of innovation, because of the need to cut back and select.

"The danger of certain areas of knowledge disappearing does exist, but sometimes instead of the disciplines that have disappeared, new disciplines emerge," he says. "It's impossible to preserve everything, even if they give me another $20 million."

Motzkin is referring to the threatened future of every discipline that has less than four positions for lecturers.

"All of the European language departments, for example, are at risk because they are small," he says. In this context, the threat to the Egyptology and Assyrian Studies departments, which each have two teaching positions and between five and 10 students each year, is the same as that facing the French department, where there are 60-80 students annually, but which also has only two teaching positions.

Another problem exists when it comes to advanced degrees. For example, in the Ancient History Department, where according to Motzkin there is an excellent teaching staff, there are no doctoral students, a fact that may place in question the continuation of the program to teach ancient Greek and Roman history.

[...]

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Hanegbi: Police need money to protect Temple Mount
By JPOST.COM STAFF

Minister of Internal Security Tzahi Hanegbi said that the police force is in need of tens of millions of Shekels in order to provide optimal security on the Temple Mount, noting that - most importantly - the police are lacking in technological equipment, reported Israel Radio.

[...]

IN THE WAKE OF THE DESPICABLE ATTACKS on Christian churches in Iraq yesterday, the BBC has a survey article on "Iraqi Christians' long history." Most Iraqi Christians have Aramaic or Syriac as their liturgical language, although one of the attacks was also on an Armenian church. Terrorism against local Christians has been an increasing concern in Iraq and these latest attacks show once again the utter barbarism of the insurgents.

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION WEBSITE has closed down indefinitely:

Due to funding problems, Bible and Interpretation is unable to continue publishing. We hope to return in the near future.

We hope they do too!

Thanks to Chuck Jones for alerting me to this.

ARAMAIC WATCH: FemaleFirst.co.uk has a series of articles on Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, including one on "The Passion Of The Christ - Aramaic an ancient language comes alive." Looks pretty historically accurate, although Hebrew is the basis of the Talmud, not Aramaic. It also tells the story of William Fulco's involvement in providing the ancient Aramaic for the script and it gives some interesting information on the experience the cast had with Aramaic:

Ultimately, the entire international cast of The Passion of The Christ had to learn portions of Aramaic � most doing so phonetically � becoming perhaps one of the largest groups of artists ever to take on an ancient tongue en masse.

For Gibson, the film�s �foreign language� had another benefit: learning Aramaic became a uniting factor among a cast made up of many languages, cultures and backgrounds. �To bring a cast from all over the world to one place and have them all learn this one language gave them a sense of common ground, of what they share and of connections that transcend language�, he says.

It also compelled the cast to look more deeply into their physical and emotional resources above and beyond the use of words.

�Speaking in Aramaic required something different from the actors�, observes Gibson, �because they had to compensate for the usual clarity of their own native language. It brought out a different level of performance. In a sense, it became good old-fashioned filmmaking because we were so committed to telling the story with pure imagery and expressiveness as much as anything else�.

I suspect that learning it "phonetically" means not just that they didn't learn the Aramaic alphabet, but also that they mouthed the lines without any great knowledge of the grammar or vocabulary, which is not exactly "learning" a language in my book. Still, I'm sure even that was a lot of work.

MORE ON THE COMING DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION in Mobile Alabama:

Dead Sea Scrolls link up with NOBTS archaeological center (BPNews)
Jul 29, 2004
By Gary D. Myers

NEW ORLEANS (BP)--The Dead Sea Scrolls are coming to the Southeast.

The Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center in Mobile, Ala., has been selected by the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) to host the traveling Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit Jan. 20 to April 24, 2005. With assistance from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, the Exploreum will display 12 authentic Dead Sea scrolls on loan from the IAA.

[...]

The exhibit includes seven 2,000-year-old biblical scrolls with the oldest surviving text of Genesis, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah and Jeremiah. The remaining fragments are from sectarian documents found at the Qumran site in Israel. One of 29 Deuteronomy fragments found at Qumran, the one that will be displayed in Mobile, is the only one to include all Ten Commandments.

[...]

While the exhibit made stops in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 2003 and will visit Houston in October 2004, the Mobile stop will be the largest display of biblical scrolls ever shown in the United States. The IAA only allows scrolls to be displayed for three to four months at a time. The scrolls must then return to Israel for 15 months of "rest" designed to preserve the fragile documents.

[...]

MORE LIBRARY LOOTING � IN FRANCE:

Biblioteque Hebrew archivist held for mass theft
By Haaretz Staff

The head of the French National Library's Hebrew-language archives has been arrested on suspicion of destroying or stealing irreplaceable books and documents he was responsible for, the French newspaper Liberation reported yesterday.

According to a prosecution source, "many dozens, perhaps hundreds, of documents were either mutilated or disappeared completely" from the shelves of the famous Biblioteque nationale de France.

[...]

The documents date back as far as the 14th century when king Charles V gave the order to begin collecting them. It is considered one of the richest Judaica collections and contains works from Yemen, Byzantium, North Africa, central Europe, France, Germany and England.

The works deal with all aspects of the Jewish religion, Hebrew language and literature, medicine as well as other philosophical and secular subjects; the collection also includes a Torah fragment from Constantinople written in 1505.

[...]

THE MOSES OF HISTORY AND MYTH is the subject of an essay by Professor Brian Britt on the Bible and Interpretation website:

The Moses Myth, Beyond Biblical History

�Research on the myth of Moses may not resolve anxieties about whether Moses existed, but it does suggest that across centuries and continents, Moses has retained strong links to written tradition and polemics about group identity.

The piece is effectively a long blurb for his forthcoming book, Rewriting Moses: The Narrative Eclipse of the Text (Continuum/ T &T Clark International), which sounds quite interesting. Excerpts from the essay:

But while the divide between minimalists and maximalists threatens gridlock, an entirely different approach to Moses has begun to flourish. The subject of these studies is the myth of Moses: legends, retellings, and elaborations of the biblical figure. In hagiography, midrash, sermons, popular novels and films, the mythic Moses neither accepts nor rejects the historicity of the biblical text. Instead, the strands of this myth have proliferated by adapting the biblical Moses to many purposes, from Jewish, Hellenistic, and Muslim identity to liberation from slavery and oppression.

[...]

Debates on the historical Moses will continue, but in the absence of startling new interpretations of the evidence, this work will likely reach a standstill. Research on the myth of Moses may not resolve anxieties about whether Moses existed, but it does suggest that across centuries and continents, Moses has retained strong links to written tradition and polemics about group identity. Sorting this evidence in light of biblical scholarship promises to yield insights into complexities of myth, memory, and biblical tradition.

Reception history is where it's at.

CONFERENCE REPORT: I am very grateful to Jacques van Ruiten and his lovely family for inviting me and my family to stay at their home in Haren during the International SBL/IOQS conferences. (We all met last year at the Venice Enoch Seminar and our sons became good friends.) Jacques also very kindly gave me access to the Groningen libraries so that I could photocopy about 300 pages of articles I needed.



I saw and heard much too much to comment on here. What follows are a few brief observations on whatever happened to stick in my mind. Apologies to all the presentations to which I wasn't able to go or which I can't find the energy to describe.


Florentino Garc�a Mart�nez gave an excellent opening IOQS lecture on "The Study of the Texts from Qumran: A Groningen Perspective." His University of Groningen colleague Ed Noort introduced him, noting that that he had planned to say something about Florentino's publications, but when he got the 25-page list, he decided not to go into detail. He also pointed to Florentino's impressive Google profile.

A good bit of my time went into attending the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha sessions, which Pierluigi Piovanelli now adminsters and which he expanded into four sessions this year. I presented a paper in one session and chaired another and heard at least some of the papers in all four.


Pierluigi Piovanelli, University of Ottawa
"Why Peter? The Authoritative Role of Peter in the Monophysite Collections of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles"

I went to many papers in various different sessions and I don't have the time or energy to comment on them all. But I will note the following specific papers which had to do with newly discovered texts or new editions and information about texts we already had.

Dan Levene, University of Southampton
"'Just as the fire did not touch them so too may the demons not afflict ...'" This was a paper in one of the Magic sections which presented a new Aramaic incantation bowl that dealt with the story of Daniel's three friends in the fiery furnace.

Gideon Bohak, Tel-Aviv University
"Cracking the Code in Genizah Magical Texts." This paper, from the same Magic section, presented an unpublished text written in Hebrew in a substitution cipher. In it a woman invoked the angels to reveal to her (presumably in a dream) where a stash of gold coins were buried in her house.


Tobias Nicklas, University of Regensburg
"The Death of Peter." Tobias has just published a new edition of the Apocalypse of Peter. (Unfortunately, I can't remember the publisher, but if someone can send me the publication information, I'll post it. [Now see update below.]) His paper in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha section drew on this and other legendary material about the death of Peter and Tobias reported that the edition has new photographs of the Greek Akhmim papyrus (which also contains fragments of the Gospel of Peter and 1 Enoch) but that the manuscript itself was lost when being transferred to the new Alexandria Library.

Note to the Egyptian authorities: This manuscript is tremendously important and you should be very embarrassed to have misplaced it. FIND IT!

St. Andrews was well represented. Five of our doctoral students presented papers. [Sorry, I had missed one originally and said four.] I was only able to be at two of them, so my photographic record is not complete. Given my skill as a photographer, that may not be a great loss. The presentations were:

Daniel M. Gurtner
"Functionality, Identity, and Interpretation: The Tearing of the Temple Curtain (Matt 27:51 par) in Light of Pentateuchal Tabernacle Texts" (Synoptic Gospels section)

Edward ("Mickey") Klink
"'What concern is that to you and to me?' The OT as a Tutor for Reading John 2" (Johannine Literature section)

Darian Lockett
"The Eschatological Wisdom of the Epistle of James and 4QInstruction: An Initial Investigation" (Pastoral and Catholic Epistles)


Grant Macaskill, "Creation and Eschatology in 4QInstruction." ( IOQS )


Ian Werrett, "Ritual Purity in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Severity or Particularity?" (IOQS)


I was very happy, delighted even, with the reception of both of my papers. If anyone thought I'd taken leave of my senses with either (and I admit I had some apprehensions along those lines), they were kind enough not to tell me. And lots of people had very positive responses.

Finally, I understand that Francis Schmidt of the EPHE submitted a statement during the IOQS business meeting on Wednesday afternoon which protested the reported cutting of funding to REJ and RevQ. I had to miss the meeting, but I did sign the statement and I assume it was approved by the membership. If anyone who was at the meeting can report on what happened, I would be grateful to hear. I would also like to post the statement here if someone can send it to me.

UPDATE: Bev Diaz points me to the Apocalypse of Peter edition mentioned above, which is published by de Gruyter:

Das Petrusevangelium und die Petrusapokalypse

Die griechischen Fragmente mit deutscher und englischer �bersetzung. Neutestamentliche Apokryphen I

Hrsg. v. Kraus, Thomas J. / Nicklas, Tobias

2004. 24 x 17 cm. X, 153 Seiten. 27 Faksimiles. Leinen. Euro [D] 49.95 / sFr 80.00 / approx. US$ 60.00. *
ISBN 3-11-017635-1

THE $2.5 MILLION GIFT to Harvard University from Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates, is being returned to him.

Arab's Gift to Be Returned by Harvard (New York Times via Mystical Politics)
By STEPHANIE STROM

Published: July 28, 2004

Harvard University is returning a controversial $2.5 million gift to its donor, the president of the United Arab Emirates.

Harvard said in a statement Monday that the president, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, recently asked to withdraw the gift, which was to endow a chair in Islamic religious studies, before it was subjected to a formal deliberation this summer by the university.
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Abdulla Alsaboosi, a spokesman at the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Washington, said negotiations between the university and Sheik Zayed's representatives had been going on for several months. "The negotiations were conducted in an atmosphere of cordiality and mutual respect," Mr. Alsaboosi said, "but in the end, since no decision was taken by the university, we felt regretfully that we had no option but to retract the gift."

Students and Jewish organizations had criticized the Harvard Divinity School for accepting the donation, which was made in 2000, because they objected to the sheik's support for a policy research organization, the Zayed International Center for Coordination and Follow-Up in Abu Dhabi, one of the seven states in the United Arab Emirates.

[...]

I suspect (and hope) that the decision to withdraw the gift was made because the writing was on the wall that Harvard wasn't going to keep it. In any case, I'm pleased with the outcome.

For more on the Zayed Centre controversy, have a look at these entries.

TERRORISM ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT BY JEWISH RADICALS has been a major fear during Tisha B'Av this year. Meron Benvenisti has some comments in "The looming Temple Mount catastrophe" in Ha'aretz. Excerpts:

Among the hundreds, indeed perhaps the thousands, who participate in the symposia and conferences that deal with the practical preparations for the establishment of a Third Temple, there are those who make no attempt to hide their plans to "remove the abomination." Ministers and senior officials - known to dine on non-kosher shellfish - demonstratively demand the right of every Jew to pray on the Mount and condemn the weak hand of their government, "which allows the PLO to rule the Temple Mount."

Those very same people are the ones who are warning against the actions of those who take their own incitement seriously. The chorus of inciters "against the Waqf" is joined by archaeologists, who loudly protest the activities of the Muslims, "meant to erase any evidence of the existence of the sanctuary," and thus encourage, without meaning to, of course, those who plot to erase any Muslim connection to the place.

It seems the only obstacle to catastrophe is the sweeping ban by the rabbinical establishment over praying on the Mount, a prohibition that is being undermined; and the day is not far off when it will collapse, "at least regarding that part of the Mount that was outside the Temple."

[...]

The UN Security Council has intervened in less dangerous situations, and sent in international forces to prevent far lesser catastrophes than the destruction of the mosques. Internationalizing the security on the Temple Mount and the presence of international forces skilled in counter-terrorism and resistant to nationalist and religious incitement are preferable to a police force which experience shows won't always know how to respond correctly and efficiently. Maybe internationalization of the Mount is really in Israel's interest; if a disaster happens, the blame won't be on us.

THE CURRENT EXCAVATORS OF QUMRAN are challenging some of the establishment views about the site and its relation to the Dead Sea Scrolls:

Archeologists claim Essenes never wrote Dead Sea Scrolls
By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent

Located on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, Qumran is famous throughout the world as the place where the Essenes, who have been widely described in studies, conferences and exhibitions as a type of Jewish "monk," are said to have lived and written the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, based on findings soon to be published, Israeli archaeologists now argue that Qumran "lacks any uniqueness."

The latest research joins a growing school of thought attempting to explode the "Qumran myth" by stating that not only did the residents of Qumran live lives of comfort, they did not write the scrolls at all.

Two Israeli archaeologists, Yuval Peleg and Itzhak Magen, have recently completed 10 seasons of excavations at Qumran, sponsored by the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria. These are the most extensive digs since those conducted by Roland de Vaux half a century earlier. Among the finds were numerous pieces of jewelry, imported glass and expensive stone cosmetics containers.

"It's impossible to say that the people who lived at Qumran were poor," said Peleg. "It is also impossible that de Vaux did not see the finds we saw. He simply ignored what didn't suit him."

[...]

Obviously the views of the excavators will have to be judged on the basis of which they publish, which one certainly hopes will be far more extensive than De Vaux's publications on Qumran. But here are a few preliminary thoughts on what is said in this article (with no particular presumption that it reflects completely or accurately what Peleg and Magen said). I too a skeptical of the idea that there was a sectarian Jewish monastery at Qumran which kept the Dead Sea Scrolls in its library. Various problems: the anachronism of the term "monastery"; the striking lack of references to celibacy in the sectarian scrolls; the variant versions of allegedly key sectarian works like the Community Rule, which makes me wonder if a good bit of the sectarian consciousness wasn't based on utopian speculations rather than the practices of an actual community.

That said, I'm not sure what it means to say that the site lacks "uniqueness": everything is "unique" in some way or else it would be something else. I don't find the term "unique" to be very useful in an absolute sense. The question is how is the site unique and how is it the same as other sites and what does that tell us? (Okay, I guess that's three questions.) Also, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that high value items were found at the site of a monastery. Monastic orders can be poor on the individual level but rich on the collective level. But the jewelry and cosmetics containers do imply a significant presence of women, which, if it hold up, could cause further difficulties for the idea that the site was a celibate monastery.

As for whether the inhabitants wrote the scrolls, I'll just have to see what the evidence is that makes the excavators doubt this. My own working hypothesis, to which I hold pretty lightly, is that at least a good many of the scrolls were brought in for hiding by Essenes/sectarians living in Jerusalem and Judea when the war with the Romans was underway.

UPDATE: Stephen Goranson e-mails:

You wrote of "the" current excavators. Actually, there are several excavators, including Hanan Eshel, Magen Broshi, recently Randall Price, and others.

The second volume in the NTOA series (ed. J.-B. Humbert and J. Gunneweg) increases the links between the Essenes the Khirbeh and the Scrolls and caves. It even reports an yet another Qumran inkwell in a locus with a long inscription. Humbert, who knows all de Vaux's results, affirms Essene presence, as does S. Pfann, de Vaux's new editor.

For Qumran we needn't use the term "monastery," but, for the record, "monasterion" first appears in Greek in Philo, De Vita Contemplativa 25 & 30.

Some of the "luxury" items evidently are from Period III, that is, after 68 CE, after Essene habitation, as Joan E. Taylor writes in PEQ (2004) 81-87.

Hirschfeld's quotation--that finds "contradict everything we know about every aspect of the Essenes"--may I suggest, is over the top in perfect tendentiousness.

I have more on recent Qumran excavations here. As you can see, this is an area on which people tend to have strong views.

LOOTING OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES isn't just a problem in Iraq:

In the company of grave robbers (Jerusalem Post)
By LAUREN GELFOND FELDINGER

Ransacked West Bank antiquities turn into black-market gold

[...]

Ron Kehati, the commerce inspector for the Israel Antiquities Authority, whose staff hunts antiquities thieves, estimates that illegal digging in the Palestinian areas is up more than 50 percent.

"Since the Palestinian Authority is over there, many people trade in illegal antiquities. After the PA or Palestinian police or whoever finds it, it all gets sold - it never gets to a Palestinian museum," he says. "Palestinians have histories as we do; [so] if they keep the land, they should also preserve the history of the land."

While the IAA worries about antiquities disappearing, archeologists cringe as amateurs ignore the rules of digging, recording and preserving historical sites.

"In the next generation we won't be able to see and enjoy what's there. It is an archeologically magnificent site that has a lot to offer tourists and archeologists," says archeologist and tour guide Ronen Bitan. "Who rules the land doesn't matter, as long as it is being preserved. It's a shame as an archeologist, regardless of political opinion, when my legacy is being ruined: that's a real tragedy."

The PA did set up an Antiquities Authority after Oslo, but Israeli officials say it disintegrated in recent years. The PAA head, Dr. Hamdan Taha, was in Morocco at press time and could not be reached for comment.

Palestinian archaeologists have protested that the closures preventing Palestinians from working in Israel has led the unemployed to take-up illegal digging. Bir Zeit University's Institute of Archaeology head, Hamed Salem, who was also abroad at press time, presented a paper recently to the World Archeological Congress saying that "Palestinian heritage work faces internal and external difficulties due to shortage of well-trained staff, limited funding and lack of authority to implement a comprehensive archaeology program under occupation and thus protect archaeological sites from plundering and destruction."

"Jewish antiquities will be lost," charges [Israeli buyer of antiquities] Tal, who likes to believe that he - with the help of his Palestinian accomplices - is redeeming Jewish history by carting it piece-by-piece back across the Green Line, where it will be preserved.

[...]

Then there's this:

The legacy of Tal's family - a long line of regional traders with a relationship to antiquities and to the earth - has left him obsessed with discovering the ancient Jewish history still buried. After recent purchases from Ahmed, and a description of where they were found, Tal has become convinced that the grave-digger has stumbled onto a mass grave of Jewish priests massacred in the First Temple period.

He knows that if he reports his suspicion to the IAA, the digger, the dealer, and he may be arrested, and their wares confiscated. And so he has come out on his own to investigate, venturing beyond the safety of Ahmed's home.

Read it all and weep.

AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS have been returning in larger numbers to Israeli archaeological digs this year:

Israeli archeological excavation sites help educate American students (Israel21C)
By Mark Schulman July 25, 2004

Indiana Jones would have never let travel bans and terror threats stand in the way of a good archeological dig. Especially if the field work was among some 35,000 known archaeological sites in Israel, ranging from small areas containing only loose pottery shards to large, fortified, walled cities like Masada and the City of David in Jerusalem.

That was the conclusion drawn by dozens of American volunteers, students and amateur archeology buffs who joined their Israeli counterparts and additional volunteers from Europe at eleven major excavations being conducted in Israel this summer.

By and large, security concerns and dwindling funding for large-scale digs have kept many American institutions and universities away, including hundreds of students and volunteers who are an essential part of any archeological project. A four-year old U.S. State Department travel advisory warning Americans against visiting Israel and the region has certainly not helped, resulting in some excavations being suspended in 2002 and 2003, amid the post-September 11 security concerns.

But this year, the wannabe discoverers are back with a vengeance - scattered throughout the country with trowel and pickaxe in hand in an attempt to make sense of the country's rich layers of history hidden beneath the ground.

"After 9/11 it became almost impossible to come, people were hesitant because of the security situation and insurance companies weren't willing to cover us," said Dr. Ron Tappy, professor of bible and archaeology at the Pittsburgh Theological and director of excavations at Tell Zeitah (Tel Zayit in Hebrew), an ancient village believed to be biblical Libnah in ancient Judah (Joshua 10; 2 Kings 19:8).

"It's good to be back again in the field," Tappy said. "We had about 45 professional staff and volunteers this summer, but I could have used twice as many people. Hopefully we'll see more come out and dig with us next year."

[...]

THE TEN LOST TRIBES IN . . . IRELAND?

Did you know that the Irish are the descendants of the Tribe of Dan? That many Irish names have a Hebrew root and that Irish landmarks like Mount Kappure and Mount Tara are really Hibernia's commemoration of Yom Kippur and the Torah? Even the word Hibernia, the Roman name for Ireland, could have its root in the word "Hebrew."

Yeah, yeah, everybody and his grandfather around the world believes that they are one of the lost tribes. No matter where you go, you're bound to find some legend or bizarre, unexplained custom that the locals say is proof that they are the descendants of the ancient Israelites.

Take Mt. Tara for example. This is the place where in the days of lore the high kings of Ireland would gather to make the laws of the land. Legend has it that the Ark of the Covenant can be found there too. Did Tara come from the word "Torah"?

Then there is the strangely named Mount Kappure in County Wicklow. Legend holds that one of King Hezekiah's daughters fleeing the Assyrians washed up on Ireland. The princess married an Irish king. Once a year she would disappear to the mountain to pray and fast, just like on Yom Kippur.

Need more proof? Take the churches in west Galway. Unlike the other churches in Ireland, men and woman sit separately. Why? Well that's just the way it's been for hundreds of years. The Irish of the west coast are generally darker with black curly hair, further "proof" they descended from wandering Dan tribesman.

The more likely explanation is that they may have a touch of Mediterranean blood from the sailors of the Spanish Armada who swam to its shores after their fleet was sunk 400 years ago. History tells us that many Marranos had joined the Spanish fleet. This may explain the plethora of Cohan's and Levi's in Ireland. That's obvious. But what about Murphy, the most common family name in Ireland? The story goes that many of the Armada's ship surgeons were Jews and likely went by the name Mar'peh (Hebrew for "healers") and that became Murphy.

If you think that's a stretch, how about McCabe? Was it once Maccabi? Was Brennan originally Ben-Nun? I started thinking maybe I should change my name back to its original: O'Solomon.

All this is told to me by Raphael Siev, the director of the Jewish Museum in Dublin.

Just to be clear, this is not meant seriously. But it is amusing.

I'M BACK. Five days with no blogging and even no e-mail was very refreshing. I'll try to report on the conferences in the next couple of days. It's late here and I'm tired, but here are a couple of interesting items noted briefly by Chuck Jones on the IraqCrisis list (in a message that does not seem to have been archived in its original form), both from Monday's Iraqi Press Monitor:

Rights of Jews 'under study'
(Al-Mutamar) - Minister of Migrants and Displacement Bascal Ishu Werde said Iraq was to study the possibility of granting passports to Jews of Iraqi origin and to compensate those who lost their properties. She said they would grant passports to those residing inside Iraq first. Israeli sources said the passport issue was of "great importance" because it would enable Jews to travel freely within the Arab States and would allow them to participate in the Iraqi elections.
(Al-Mutamar is issued daily by the Iraqi National Congress.)

Authorities end restriction on travel to Israel
(Asharq Al-Awsat) - The Manager of Passports Sabbar al-Atiya said the authorities have cancelled the prohibition to travel to Israel. He said new Iraqi passports would be issued without the famous note of "Bearer is allowed to travel to the entire world except Israel". He added that they started issuing the new passports, which would be valid for one year, on July 15 to replace the travel documents, which were no more valid, issued by the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority.
(London-based Asharq al-Awsat, a Saudi independent paper, is issued daily.)

I hope this means that the question of whether Jewish scholars will now be allowed into Iraq to do reseach is on the agenda and will be clarified soon.

Blogger seems to be feeling fussy and I'm in no mood to deal with it, so I think I'll call it a night.

UPDATE: Conference report here.

I'M OFF TO GRONINGEN for the joint annual International Society of Biblical Literature meeting and annual meeting of the International Organization of Qumran Studies. I'm presenting a paper in each conference. I've already posted the IOQS paper (see here). The SBL paper is "Did Christians Write Old Testament Pseudepigrapha That Appear to Be Jewish?" the oral version of which you can read by following the link. As noted previously, it is a summary of chapter four of the book I'm writing.

We leave first thing tomorrow (Sunday) morning and should be back on the evening of the 29th. Blogging, if any, will depend on easy access to a computer or a Internet cafe, spare time, and my whim. Meanwhile, have a good week, and check out some of the ancient and biblical history blogs and news sites in the links bar to the right. If you are observing Tisha B'Av on the 26th-27th, I wish you an easy fast.

THE ANCIENT TEMPLE MOUNT (ET AL.) IN VIRTUAL REALITY:

The time machine drops you onto the dusty streets of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. The year is 1211.

A few hundred yards ahead is a Romanesque cathedral, nearly complete after 100 years of construction. It seems to soar toward the heavens. The cathedral's grandeur befits one of Christianity's holiest sites, reportedly containing the remains of the apostle James the Great.

[...]

Goosebumps rise on your arm � and you haven't even left Los Angeles.

Which is the idea behind UCLA's Visualization Portal, a virtual reality theater that re-creates ancient worlds, natural phenomena such as tornados, and the inner workings of the human body � showing, for instance, a fibrillating heart and how experimental drugs might return its beat to normal.

The 3D re-creations are used for research, teaching, attracting grants and outreach to the public. Professors � with disciplines including architecture, chemistry, literature, atmospheric sciences, performing arts and astronomy � and technology experts have worked together to create various virtual realties.

More than 40 architectural computer models have been developed, many of them depicting ancient buildings and towns that allow viewers to virtually stroll down the streets, step inside a home or even fly over the walled cities.

Seated in a comfortable theater that holds about 40 people, you can peek into the 26 buildings and monuments of the Roman Forum in AD 400; study frescoes painted on a bedroom wall in a Pompeii villa in AD 79; and enter the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in AD 70, just before its destruction by Roman troops.

[...]

(L.A. Times: requires free registration)

EUGENE ULRICH will be speaking on the Dead Sea Scrolls at Newman University in Wichita, KS:

Professor to speak on Dead Sea Scrolls

A University of Notre Dame professor will speak on the impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls on the Bible at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 11 at Jabara Theater at Newman University.

Eugene Ulrich, professor of Hebrew Scripture and theology, will also give a slide presentation during his lecture.

The event, which is free, includes a reception afterward.

THE JOURNAL BIBLICA has a new issue out (85.3, 2004). The articles are available in HTML and PDF formats. Here is the table of contents with abstracts:

Commentationes

U. BERGES, �Der Zorn Gottes in der Prophetie und Poesie Israels auf dem Hintergrund altorientalischer Vorstellungen� , Vol. 85(2004) 305-330.
������� The theme of divine anger is not peripheral to Yhwh�s revelation of himself but central to it (cf. inter alia Exod 34,6-7). When the instances of Yhwh�s anger in the OT, particularly in the writing prophets and the Psalms are compared with instances of the anger of the gods in the ancient Near East, four categories can be distinguished: a) the anger that seeks to destroy mankind; b) the anger that intervenes in the destiny of peoples; c) the anger that destroys temple cities with their sanctuaries; d) the anger that plunges the individual into danger of death. The OT speaks of Yhwh�s anger on many different levels, which demands a portrayal that is much more nuanced than has been the case up to now and represents a continuing challenge, not least for the reflection of biblical theology.

Bernard P. ROBINSON, �The Story of Jephthah and his Daughter: Then and Now� , Vol. 85(2004) 331-348.
������� In Judges 11 Jephthah is an anti-hero, his rash vow and its implementation being for the Book of Judges symptoms of the defects of pre-monarchical Israel. The daughter is probably sacrificed; the alternative view, that she is consigned to perpetual virginity, has insufficient support in the text. The story speaks still to present-day readers, challenging them not to make ill-considered judgments that may have disastrous consequences; inviting them too to detect a divine purpose working through human beings in their failings as well as their strengths.

Thomas HIEKE, �Das Alte Testament und die Todesstrafe� , Vol. 85(2004) 349-374.
������� Rather than understanding the Old Testament sanction MWT YWMT ("he shall surely be put to death") as a death penalty edict, one should see it as a parenetic warning. Comparing the verses which contain mot yumat with the few references to death sentences and executions, it is to be doubted whether this condemnation was indeed applicable. The �death edicts� are therefore not �law,� but divine dicta functioning as deterrents. They formulate things that should not happen under any circumstances. Hence, they underscore the most important ethical and cultic maxims.

Gonzalo ROJAS-FLORES, �The Book of Revelation and the First Years of Nero�s Reign� , Vol. 85(2004) 375-392.
������� In this article I try to demonstrate that the Book of Revelation was written in the first years of Nero�s reign, because (a) there is an important patristic tradition in favor of Nero and (b) the internal evidence shows that the text was redacted after Nero�s ascension to the throne in 54 and before the earthquake of Laodicea in 60.

Animadversiones

Jan LAMBRECHT, �The Line of Thought in Romans 7,15-20� , Vol. 85(2004) 393-398.
������� The parallelism between Romans 7,14-17 and 18-20 as it has recently been put forward by O. Hofius is critically examined. It would seem that within this text Paul�s reasoning progresses from vv. 14b-16 to 17-20. The thesis of v. 14b ("I am fleshly, sold into the slavery under sin") gives way to the more sophisticated pronouncement of v. 17 ("as a matter of fact it is not I that do the evil, but the indwelling sin"). Each time motivations follow, vv. 15 and 18-19; finally a conclusion is drawn, vv. 16 and 20.

Peter M. HEAD, �The Habits of New Testament Copyists. Singular Readings in the Early Fragmentary Papyri of John� , Vol. 85(2004) 399-408.
������� After an introduction that discusses the role that singular readings have played in the analysis of scribal habits, including an earlier study of synoptic gospel manuscripts by the same author, this study examines singular readings in the early fragmentary papyri of John�s Gospel. The study confirms earlier research showing that the most common singular readings concern spelling and that word order variations, word substitutions and harmonisations to context are also not uncommon. Omission of words is more common than addition.

Urban C. von WAHLDE, �He Has Given to the Son To Have Life in Himself (John 5,26)� , Vol. 85(2004) 409-412.
������� John 5,26 explains that Jesus is able to give life because the Father has given him "to have life in himself". While previously one could surmise the meaning of this special mode of possessing life, Wis 15,16-17 provides positive proof of the verse�s meaning in its comparison of the ways God and humans possess life.

Gershon GALIL, �The Chronological Framework of the Deuteronomistic History� , Vol. 85(2004) 413-421.
������� This article points out that the series of the minor judges were not included in the deuteronomistic edition of the Book of Judges, and therefore did not form part of the Dtr�s chronology. In the author�s opinion the Dtr constructs a chronological framework spanning 480 years from the Exodus to the establishment ofthe Temple (1Kgs 6,1) and correlates it with the chronological data in Deuteronomy�Samuel.

JOURNAL CRISIS CORRECTION: Oh dear. It seems that the e-mail address that I gave on Tuesday for Jean-Marie Hombert, the director of the "Sciences humaines" department at the CNRS, was incorrect. I did not get an error message, but a few others did, prompting me to double check with Christophe Batsche. He writes:

Concerning the adress of Pr Hombert, I apologize for my mistake. The right one is:
Jean-Marie.Hombert@cnrs-dir.fr
(i.e. with a DOT between dir and fr)
An alternative, lessd personal is :
secr-shs@cnrs-dir.fr
which leads to his assistant secretary.

I am afraid that if you wrote to Professor Hombert to protest the proposed cuts to funding of Revue de Qumran and Revue des �tudes Juives, your message did not get throught (which no doubt explains why he has not replied). Please resend. I am doing so now.

Apologies for the error.

THE FIRST-CENTURY SYNAGOGUE is the subject of an essay on the Bible and Interpretation website:

The Nature and Origins of the 1st-Century Synagogue

�
It is very likely that the institutions referred to as proseuchai in inscriptions dating from 3rd and 2nd century bce Egypt were, in fact, Jewish temples, and not synagogues as is commonly assumed.
�

By Anders Runesson
McMaster University, Canada
July 2004

Excerpt:

We are wise to begin out search with the period when our sources first mention synagogue terms. This happens to be the 1st century bce and ce. Second, analyzing the literary, inscriptional, and archaeological material, we must determine what type(s) of institution is referred to by these terms in the sources and what activities were associated with these institutions. Each type of institution should be investigated separately.

Third, since many of the activities connected with the 1st-century synagogue were common to similar non-Jewish institutions, the search for the origins of the unique Jewish institution as we find it in the 1st-century need to focus on the most characteristic feature of the synagogue: the feature that made it stand out among other institutions.

Fourth, the origins of the synagogue are exposed when this characteristic feature is traced to its beginnings in a setting in which we also find the other activities associated with the later, 1st synagogue. Fifth and finally, an attempt must be made to explain why, where, and how this all came to be at the specific point in time when we found the beginnings of the distinctive feature of the 1st-century synagogue.

IOQS PAPER: Next Tuesday at the International Organization of Qumran Studies conference, I'm scheduled to present a paper entitled "The Odes of Isaiah: A Newly Discovered Syriac Pseudepigraphon � A Thought Experiment." In the interval since the paper was accepted, it has taken a somewhat different turn and it now has a slightly different title and uses a different "newly discovered" document to make the points I want to make. I have now put it online, so, as a special perk only for PaleoJudaica readers (i.e., anyone who reads PaleoJudaica), you can read the oral-presentation version now. Look for my other paper, the one for the International SBL meeting, sometime on Saturday. (I leave for Groningen early Sunday morning.) Here is the slightly revised abstract of the IOQS piece, with a link to the paper itself:

The Apocalypse of Daniel: A Newly Discovered Syriac Pseudepigraphon - A Thought Experiment

Sorry, there isn't really a new pseudepigraphon called the Apocalypse of Daniel. Nor is this paper about the work with the same name published recently by Matthias Henze. Rather, this is a thought experiment to explore in a new way the problem of the transmission of Jewish Old Testament pseudepigrapha in Christian hands and how or to what degree we can hope to know whether such works actually originated in Jewish rather than Christian circles.

The approach is to treat demonstrably (mostly by external criteria) ancient Jewish works as if they had been transmitted as pseudepigrapha in Christian manuscripts, and to explore the implications of the "alternate histories" of these works as analogies for works whose transmission histories cannot now be reconstructed by conventional means. The method is informed by poststructuralist and reader-response concerns; the philosophy of counterfactuals and possible worlds; the exploration of counterfactual histories by science fiction writers and by historians; and some conceptual insights and categories formulated by the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics.

This paper postulates an "alternate history" for the Qumran War Scroll (as found in the manuscript 1QM) in which, rather than being abandoned at Qumran, this work was transmitted outside sectarian circles, translated first into Greek and then, into Syriac, thence surviving only in a late antique or early medieval Syriac copy attributed to the prophet Daniel. (One can point to the transmission of the Psalms of Solomon as a partial analogy.) To what degree could we show that this text was originally Jewish, and even sectarian Jewish? What literary-critical, prosodic, and linguistic criteria, if any, would be likely to be helpful in tracing its history of transmission and ultimate origin?

It opens:

This paper is a painfully brief summary of part of the third chapter of a monograph I am currently writing on the problem of Christian transmission of Jewish apocrypha and pseudepigrapha. You see from the handout that I have taken the liberty of changing the title, for reasons I will explain presently. If you were especially hoping to hear about a new Syriac Odes of Isaiah, I apologize for disappointing you. However, assuming you read my abstract or the online version of this paper before coming here, you will already know that there isn't really an Odes of Isaiah and I hope that you will be content instead with an equally imaginary Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel. I assure you that the overall arguments and their connections with the Dead Sea Scrolls remain essentially the same.

As always, feedback or comments are welcome. Do keep in mind that this is a 25 minute summary of a 161 MS-page chapter.

I have published summaries of other parts of the same book-in-progress online as I have presented them at various conferences. There are oral presentations of chapter one, chapter two, and a bit from chapter six. The International SBL paper will summarize chapter four. Please read them as very preliminary and provisional drafts. For more of my conference papers and online book reviews, see the relevant section of the links bar to the right.

UPDATE (24 July): More, including link to promised SBL paper, here.

JOURNAL CRISIS! Christophe Batsche, at the �cole Pratique des Hautes �tudes in Paris, e-mails:

The french CNRS (centralized administration for intellectual researches in France) is thinking to cut all financial credits to two major publications (at least, I hope, from our point of view) : the Revue de Qumran and the Revue des Etudes Juives. Since that suppression (which would probably mean the death of these two publications) is argumented by a biased system of reviewing quotations in international publications, perhaps could you ring the bell and ask our colleagues to send a few words to the director of the "Sciences humaines" department at the CNRS ?

email : Jean-Marie.Hombert@cnrs-dir-fr [see update below]

He adds:

There is currently a process of evaluation of human sciences reviews financially helped by the CNRS. Not a bad idea per se. You'll find all explanation (perhaps in english also, but I'm not sure) on the CNRS site :

http://www.cnrs.fr/SHS/actions/lettre.php.

The idea is to class all the reviews into three categories : 1. help maintained ; 2. help limited to electronic publication ; 3. help suppressed. The REJ falls in category 2 ; the RQu in category 3.

The evaluation is based on a system of quotations calculations in a number of international "references" reviews, which seems pretty objective and scientific. The problem is :

1) you can't avoid bias in the choice of the "reference" reviews. You dont get the same result whether you privilege history or linguistics. And, obviously, as French we certainly don't privilege religious studies area.

2) a review like RQu can have a real international diffusion and importance, but very few quotations, given the rather specialized field of knowledge it deals with.

I have sent the following e-mail to Professor Hombert:

Dear Professor Hombert,

I have just learned that the CNRS is considering cutting financial support to two critically important journals in Jewish studies: the Revue de Qumran and the Revue des �tudes Juives. These journals are mainstays of the field and it would be a great tragedy were they to be discontinued due to lack of funding. Revue des �tudes Juives is a venerable journal more than a century old which covers the whole range of the history, religion, literature, society, bibliography, and methodology of the study of Judaism. It has an international readership and range of contributors and its loss would leave a major gap in the academic study of Judaism and indeed in the field of Western history in general. Revue de Qumran is another international journal, which focuses on the Dead Sea Scrolls and is one of the major disseminators of scholarly information on the subject. Given the critical importance of the Scrolls for our understanding of the ancient history of Judaism, Christianity, the Bible, and religion in late antiquity, and also the widespread public interest in the Qumran discoveries, the cutting of this journal's funding would not only do great harm to all these academic fields, it would also send a very negative message to the public about the commitment of the CNRS to funding important work in the humanities.

All this being the case, I encourage you very strongly to resist any movement in the direction of cutting the funding of these journals.

I am posting this message on my weblog, Paleojudaica (address below in my signature), and also copying it to other specialists. If you have no objection, I would like to post your reply on the weblog as well.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

I will report back when I hear from him. In the meantime, if you are a specialist in ancient Judaism or biblical studies, you will already know how important these journals are. I encourage you to e-mail Professor Hombert to encourage the CNRS to continue funding. It is worthwhile to emphasize the international importance of these journals; their significance for the fields of history and linguistic study in general, not just religious history; and the public interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the negative publicity that would result from the loss of RevQ.

If you are a nonspecialist, but are interested enough in the field to be reading PaleoJudaica, I would be very grateful if you too would send Professor Hombert a note expressing concern over this news. You might describe your own interest in these fields and let him know that it would dismay you to see that the CNRS is considering cutting funding for these important resources that help scholars advance our knowledge in these areas.

Anyone is welcome to use my message or any part of it as a template if that would help. I trust it goes without saying that all messages should be polite, respectful, and to the point.

Thanks!

UPDATE: (22 July): The e-mail address given above for Professor Hombert is incorrect. For the correct one go here.

FRANK MOORE CROSS AND ELIE WIESEL are interviewed together and give their views on the Bible in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. The piece is not available online, but you can read a summary of it in this A.P. article:

Cultural titans share thoughts on Bible

Publication links Hebrew professor, Holocaust victim

ASSOCIATED PRESS

They are titans in their respective fields who have taught within miles of each other. But they never met until a journalist brought them together to talk about the Bible.

The talkers were Frank Moore Cross, 82, the distinguished professor of Hebrew literature at Harvard University since 1957 (now emeritus); and Boston University's Elie Wiesel, 75, Holocaust survivor, author and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. Their chat was arranged by Hershel Shanks for the magazine he edits, Biblical Archaeology Review.

What attracts Wiesel to the Bible?

"I see history in it. I see revealed truth in it. I see in it human holiness as much as divine inspiration. Whenever you open it, any page, you know you are in the presence of something that exists nowhere else."

And Cross?

He said in the classroom and writings he takes a strictly "scientific" approach. "I attempt to deal with the Bible as I would with any work of literature," and to treat the history of Israel the same as that of England or China.

But along with that there's a private aspect Cross doesn't teach or write about publicly. "The Bible is a book that has shaped my life, my beliefs, my ethics, my moral concerns, my religious outlook."

[...]

As I think I've mentioned before, Frank Cross supervised my doctoral work.

UPDATE: Stephen Goranson has pointed me to the location of the BAR article online.

CALENDAR ALGORITHMS GALORE:

Israeli algorithms help you get your dates straight (Israel21c)
By Rava Eleasari July 19, 2004

The e-mail came from a Swede requesting that Tel Aviv University Professor Nachum Dershowitz look into the rules of the Samaritan calendar "since he was already there in Israel."

Thus began the latest odyssey of Dershowitz, a member of the School of Computer Science, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, in systemizing yet another of the world's dating systems - this time of a secretive, traditionalist religious sect of only 1,000 people that live in a radius of about 65 mile radius from the TAU campus.

To date, Dershowitz and his colleague Prof. Edward M. Reingold of the Illinois Institute of Technology, USA, have mathematically analyzed 25 of the world's calendars in the first and only project of its kind. They have provided equations and algorithms for quick and accurate calculation of dates within each system, as well as for conversion of dates between calendars.

The second edition of their book, Calendrical Calculations, encodes the rules for two dozen calendars in mathematical form, and describes how they relate to one another. Among the systems described are the Gregorian (in near universal use today), Islamic, Persian, Coptic, Baha'i, Hebrew, Mayan, Chinese, and modern Hindu. (www.calendarists.com

[...]

NEW BOOK REVIEWS FROM THE REVIEW OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE:

Clifford, Richard J.
Psalms 73-150
Reviewed by Beth La Neel Tanner

Clifford, Richard J.
Psalms 73-150
Reviewed by John Vassar

Creach, Jerome F. D.
Joshua
Reviewed by Ed Noort

Fritz, Volkmar
Translated by Anselm Hagedorn
1 & 2 Kings
Reviewed by A. Graeme Auld

Loretz, Oswald
Psalmstudien: Kolometrie, Strophik und Theologie ausgew�hlter Psalmen
Reviewed by Manfred Oeming

Nam, Duck-Woo
Talking about God: Job 42:7-9 and the Nature of God in the Book of Job
Reviewed by Edward L. Greenstein

Potts, Timothy, Michael Roaf, and Diana Stein, eds.
Culture through Objects: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of P. R. S. Moorey
Reviewed by Beth Alpert Nakhai

Sweeney, Marvin A.
Zephaniah
Reviewed by Mark Wade Hamilton

Carter, Warren
Pontius Pilate: Portraits of a Roman Governor
Reviewed by Richard Bautch

Mayer-Haas, Andrea J.
Geschenk aus Gottes Schatzkammer (bSchab 10b): Jesus und der Sabbat im Spiegel der neutestamentlichen Schriften
Reviewed by Russell Morton

NEW BOOK REVIEWS FROM BRYN MAWR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

2004.07.36: �Warren C. Trenchard, A Concise Dictionary of New Testament Greek. Cambridge: 2003. Pp. xvii, 177. $15.00 (pb). ISBN 0-521-52111-4.
Reviewed by Rolando Ferri.

2004.06.42: �Tessa Rajak, The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome. Studies in Cultural and Social Interaction. Leiden: 2002. Pp. 578. $53.00 (pb). ISBN 0-391-04133-9.
Reviewed by Chris Seeman.

Somehow I missed the second one, but Mark Goodacre caught it.

CRONACA has vanished too. When will this madness stop?

UPDATE (19 July): Cronaca is back. Still no sign of Phluzein.

SLOW NEWS DAY. But here's a column in the Florida Sun Sentinel about the biblical canon, by people who call themselves the "God Squad": "Torah is first five books of Bible". It's accurate as far as it goes, but if they're going to explain the arrangement of the biblical books in different canons, they really should also mention the Old Testament Apocrypha or deuterocanonical books, which are part of the Catholic canon. (But note that 2 Esdras and 3-4 Maccabees are not part of this canon even though 2 Edsdras always and the others often are listed in the Apocrypha.) The Orthodox canon is roughly the same as the Catholic canon, but at least sometimes it includes 3 Maccabees. And it gets still more complicated: for example the OT canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church includes 1 Enoch and Jubilees.