SBL RESOLUTION SURVEY UPDATE: I've been extremely busy lately, so I've only now gotten around to checking for the final results of the survey, which closed on 25 January. The survey site just says the following:

This survey is currently closed.

Please contact the author of this survey for further assistance.

Can anyone tell me if the results are posted somewhere? I can't find them on the SBL website, but I don't have time to search it thoroughly. I think it's odd that the survey site itself doesn't give the final results.

In any case, now that the survey is closed, I'll mention something that Wieland Willker told me shortly after it opened. There was a serious security hole on the site. You could vote multiple times as long as you deleted the cookie between votes. (I e-mailed Matthew Collins about this as soon as I found out, but I never received a reply.) For obvious reasons, I didn't want to say anything about this while the survey was still active, but it should be noted now. This, along with other security problems already noted, shows that the results cannot be trusted and should not be used to determine any action by the SBL. And, of course, I have already argued at length that the whole idea, at least as formulated and implemented in this case, was inappropriate for the SBL.

PROFESSOR DANIEL HARLOW will be lecturing on the Dead Sea Scrolls at Central Michigan University:

EXPERT TO DISCUSS DEAD SEA SCROLLS AT CMU (CMU News)
MEDIA CONTACT: Cynthia Drake, (989) 774-7333
PROGRAM CONTACT: Gregory Spinner, (989) 774-1445

Daniel Harlow, an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, will give a presentation at 8 p.m. Feb. 15 in Central Michigan University�s Park Library Auditorium.

Harlow, an associate professor of religion at Calvin College, will discuss �Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls: What the Qumran Texts Tell Us About Early Christianity.�

[...]

ORIENTAL INSTITUTE DEAD SEA SCROLL FRAGMENT UPDATE: Raymond D. Tindel, Registrar and Senior Curator, Oriental Institute Museum, writes on the ANE list that it's a fragment from "The Wiles of the Wicked Woman."

THE ST. ANDREWS DEAD SEA SCROLLS WEBSITE has been fully revised with a view toward the 2005 version of my Dead Sea Scrolls course, which begins a week from tomorrow. I've also finally made public the Qumranica blog, which will go with the course. I won't actually begin posting on the blog until next week, but if you have a look at the "About Qumranica" link on the right, under the scroll photo, you can read all about it.

If you're planning on following the course, you should go ahead and order any of the textbooks you don't have and also try to locate a copy of either The Dead Sea Scrolls Encyclopedia or the Anchor Bible Dictionary (or both) in your local library. That's a minimum list of resources you'll need to get the most out of the online component of the course.

I haven't yet finished this semester's bibliography, but I hope to have it up in a few days.

Enjoy.

UPDATE: Just to clarify, the course is available for credit only to registered St. Andrews students physically present in the classes. But anyone who wants to can follow the blog and the web pages; no need to register or sign up for anything. It's an honours-level course, which corresponds roughly to North American upper-division undergraduate courses. For more information, see the "About Qumranica" link on the Qumranica site.

RIGHT AROUND NOW, my hits counter should be registering its 100,000th visitor. With uncannily precise timing, the counter has gone dead and vanished from my Bravenet account. At first I thought it might be that Bravenet's free counters have a 100K-bug self-destruct mechanism, but it appears that I am not alone with the problem:

My counter stat in my site has changed to a picture that says, "Counter code has changed. Please update your code." But I come here to copy the code and my counter stat is MISSING!

I just checked yesterday and it was still working...

So it seems that this announcement on their support center page, posted today, is probably more relevant:

We are currently experiencing some technical difficulties which may result in your services not working. We are working to fix these issues and expect to have everything resolved shortly. Thanks for your patience and understanding with this matter.

I've registered a "service ticket" and we'll see what happens. Meanwhile, welcome to visitor #100,000, whoever you are and whenever you show up, and boo to Bravenet for their timing.

UPDATE: Well, now the counter is back, but it clearly wasn't counting hits since sometime early on Sunday. Based on past readings for Sunday and Monday, I would guess it lost about 250 hits, so it would have reached 100K later today. But whatever; the milestone should be reached in the next day or two by any reckoning. For what it's worth, PaleoJudaica took 13.5 months to get to 50K hits, but just under eight to get from there to nearly 100K. I've noticed a fairly sharp increase in hits since around the holidays. I thought at the time it was because many people had time off and were spending more of it websurfing. But the spike hasn't dropped off much, so it may be that the advent of new biblioblogs such as Ralph the Sacred River, Serving the Word, the Macintosh Biblioblog, as well as Zeth's Biblioblog aggregator, has increased our overall audience.

In any case, for whatever reasons, thanks for visiting both PaleoJudaica and Qumranica and do keep coming back to both.

THE TOMB OF GILGAMESH STORY has resurfaced and is causing a small stir in the Biblioblogosphere (see here and here and here). The same story was reported by the BBC in the spring of 2003, but then was promptly dismissed as "pure speculation" by German archaeologist Ricardo Eichmann. (Eichmann, incidentally, is also skeptical about the existence of the Queen of Sheba).

I wouldn't get too excited about this one. It looks to me as though AINA was just recycling an old story they ran across.

But, as an aside, current news in Iraq is more exciting. Congratulations to the Iraqi people on the successful carrying out yesterday of democratic elections. They have a long way to go, but this was a major step forward and, I hope, a harbinger of things to come in the Middle East.

SHALOM PAUL will lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls in Columbus, Ga., next week"

Author, scholar speaks on scrolls (Columbus Ledger-Enquirer)

From staff reports

Shalom Paul, chairman of the Bible department of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, will give a free lecture about the Dead Sea Scrolls at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 7. The lecture will be at the Continuing Education Center at Columbus State University, 4025 University Ave.

[...]

WE'RE IN EDINBURGH visiting friends, and I'm working from a very unfamiliar system, so blogging is likely to be limited. There doesn't seem to be much happening of interest anyway, although I will note that the Bible and Interpretation News site is now promising to reopen in February. Strength to their arm.

I'd better post this before I accidentally shut IE down again. I expect to be home late this afternoon and may have more to say then.

EXPATRIATE IRAQI JEWS, many of whom evidently aren't going to vote this weekend, are discussed in the Washington Jewish Week:

Having forfeited his citizenship to leave Iraq in 1951, Iraqi-born Jew Nimrod Raphaeli still can't believe the opportunity he'll have this weekend.

"I never thought a day will come when I will register to vote in Iraqi elections," the 72-year-old Falls Church resident said last week after a trip to the New Carrollton Ramada Inn and Conference Center to make himself eligible to cast a ballot in a democratic election in Iraq.

A senior analyst with the Middle East Media Research Institute, Raphaeli was not sure he would actually put that right to vote into practice -- after all, he admits he has no intention of returning to his native country.

But, he said, since "they give me the right to vote, I wanted to register."

Raphaeli, though, is in the minority of the 15,000 Iraqi Jews in the United States. With only five polling centers in the entire United States available for Iraqi immigrants -- Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago and Nashville are the others -- Raphaeli and others say most Iraqi Jews are unlikely to vote in large numbers because they have to make two trips to the election site, once last week to register and again sometime tomorrow through Sunday to vote.

In addition, some Iraqi Jews say that since they never plan to return to the country of their birth, they do not feel obligated to cast a ballot.

[...]

According to the article, the situation in Israel is even more complicated, with both registration and voting taking place only in Jordan.

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH: The Old Testament pseudepigrapha appear in the media very rarely. I only found the term mentioned once in 2004. But here's an article about an Iowa minister who is teaching a college course on them and writing a popular book on them with his wife:

Class looks at the writings of the ancient world (Quad-City Times)
By Mary Louise Speer

The Rev. Richard Sorrentino, an ordained minister and leader of New Hope in Christ Ministries, is leading a class beginning next month on the pseudepigrapha, a collection of ancient writings, during Comm-University at St. Ambrose University in February.

Sorrentino lives in Park View, Iowa, with his wife, Barbara, and the couple are working on a book about the pseudepigrapha.

[...]

The yet-to-be-published book is based on the pseudepigrapha writings highlighting ancient stories of events from the creation to the flood and other historic events.

[...]

Sorrentino and Barbara are writing a book based on the Book of Enoch and other texts. He is waiting with mixed emotions to see what kind of reception these findings trigger in readers.

[...]

It's always nice to see these texts getting some attention.

CHALDO-ASSYRIAN AND MANDEAN WATCH:

Coalition Asks Bush for Protection of ChaldoAssyrians in Iraq

---

Posted 01-28-2005 10:43:22 (GMT 1-28-2005 16:43:22)

---

(AINA) -- The Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights sent a letter to President Bush on January 25, asking for protection for ChaldoAssyrians, Mandeans, Yezidiiz and other non-Muslim minorities in Iraq. Here follows the letter.

---

Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights

President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500
25 January 2005

Mr. President:

We are writing to express our concern for the future of Christians, Mandaeans, Yazidies and other non-Muslim minorities in Iraq. There are three critical actions that you can take to help guarantee their survival.

* We would like you to instruct the United States Agency for International Development to insure that the ChaldoAssyrian community receive an equitable assignment of funds that have been committed for reconstruction;
* Urge the interim Iraqi government to implement Article 53 (d) of the Temporary Administrative Law creating an administrative district in the Ninevah Plains to serve as sanctuary and to secure the welfare of ChaldoAssyrian people; and,
* Strongly encourage the creation of alternative seats in the Iraqi Assembly constitutional drafting committee for non-Muslim minorities to enhance the inclusiveness of the constitutional process.

[...]

CHALDO-ASSYRIAN WATCH: An expatriate Assyrian Chaldean Catholic priest is interviewed in an L.A. Times article on southern Californian expatriate Iraqis who are voting in the current election. Oddly, the article seems no longer to be on the Times website, but the KTLA website still has it up. Here's the relevant passage:

Father Noel Gorgis, 38, is pastor of St. Paul Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Church in North Hollywood, an ivy-covered brick parish featuring inscriptions in Aramaic, the ancient language of Christ. A slim man with intense brown eyes, Gorgis was born in the northern Iraqi region of Zaho, the son of a farmer and brother to 10 siblings.

When Hussein began destroying neighborhoods in Zaho, the family left for another Christian village nearby. There, at age 12, Gorgis met the priest who would draw him into religious life. The next year, he began studying to be a monk.

But Gorgis was not able to practice his dream vocation. In 1987, he was drafted into the Iraqi army. As combat duty against Iran loomed, he deserted a year later and then was ordained. He was briefly jailed, rejoined the army, but deserted again for good in 1991. He fled on foot to Turkey.

In Hussein's Iraq, Gorgis said, he was unable to practice his faith, speak his language or honor his culture. The Baath Party tried to Arabize the nation, he said, a campaign that he fiercely resisted.

"You can't make me Arab. I may not have rights as a Chaldean in Iraq, but this is my identity," he said.

In December 1992, the United States admitted him as a refugee. He went to San Diego, where the Chaldean church took him under its wing. The church sent him to serve in Chicago for two years, then Arizona for seven years, and, in 2002, to Los Angeles. Today, Gorgis tends a congregation of 400 families.

He revels in the cultural diversity of Los Angeles. Thai food and sushi are among his favorite foods. Gorgis, who is a celibate monk, frets a bit that U.S. life seems to weaken family ties. But he pours out gratitude to his new country.

"To me, it was like I was a newborn," he said. "I couldn't live in my own country to be a Chaldean and speak my own language. For 20 years, I didn't find myself a free man to serve the church and the people of God. Thanks to this country, now I could see my future was more bright."

He plans to vote for the People's Unity Party because he supports one of its leaders, a Chaldean expert in international law, and the party platform calling for a secular constitution.

Asked if he supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq, he quickly corrected the questioner.

"I don't see it as an invasion; I look at it as liberation," he said.

THE REV. PROFESSOR PETER ACKROYD has died at age 87:

The Rev Professor Peter Ackroyd (the Telegraph)
(Filed: 29/01/2005)

The Reverend Professor Peter Ackroyd, who died on January 23 aged 87, was a distinguished scholar and taught at Leeds University and Cambridge before becoming the Samuel Davidson Professor of Old Testament Studies at London University, occupying the chair for more than 20 years.

He was also a visiting professor at many American universities, and his expertise in the archaeology of the Near East brought him chairmanships of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem and the Palestine Exploration fund.

[...]

Requiescat in pace.

I'VE ADDED A NUMBER OF UPDATES to some of the posts over the last three days. Have a look, if you haven't already.

FALSE PROPHECY ALERT: Seth Sanders writes:

[I]f anyone proclaims to you that you can't use Jonas Greenfield's "The Zakir Inscription and the Danklied" to help teach Pentecostals and Muslims about what Biblical and Near Eastern prophecy might have in common through a close look at the occasion, themes and poetics of prophecy in Hebrew and Aramaic, they are falsely prophesying and cannot be believed.

It's good to know these things.

Seth also gives a preview of some exciting Canaanite cuneiform inscriptions he's about to publish. (Given recent events, I trust these have a documented provenance or he would have said otherwise.)

MOBILE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXIBIT UPDATE:

Dead Sea Scrolls attract record crowds (Sun Herald)

2,000-year-old fragments capture imaginations

By KAT BERGERON

THE SUN HERALD

Fragments of 12 Dead Sea Scrolls, part of the historic cache found in 1947 by a goat herder and now on exhibit at the Gulf Coast Exploreum, have lured a record-breaking first-week crowd of 9,200 to the Mobile museum.

[...]

I can't say I'm surprised. The Scrolls always generate a great deal of public interest.

MORE ON THE NEW ORIENTAL INSTITUTE EXHIBIT:

Museum's basement reveals hidden treasures (Chicago Sun-Times)

January 28, 2005

BY DAVE NEWBART Staff Reporter

In contrast to the many exotic spots where University of Chicago researchers have uncovered archeological treasures, this one was right under their noses.

In fact, some of the items soon to be on display in a new gallery at the university's Oriental Institute were found only recently -- in the institute's basement.

[...]

The exhibit also covers the history of early Israel, focusing on the town of Megiddo, the site of numerous battles and referred to in the Bible as Armageddon. It includes a small, intricately carved ivory griffin from the 13th century B.C. that has since become the city's symbol, Emberling said.

The exhibit includes a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls, one of a few in the United States, which the institute bought in Jordan in 1956.

Which fragment is it?

UPDATE: Stephen Goranson e-mails to point me to this image of the fragment, which gives some information it. The caption says "The text on this fragment comes from a non- biblical Essene psalter, similar to the Psalms of the Bible." It doesn't give a siglum, so I can't look the fragment up, but evidently it's something from a Hodayot-like collection of nonbiblical psalms. Does anyone have any more specific information?

Incidentally, I see that there is also an inscribed ossuary in the exhibit, bearing the Hebrew epitaph "Yo-ezer, son of Yehohanan, the scribe."

And, more generally, follow this link for a page of highlights of the collection.

UPDATE: Stephen Goranson e-mails: "Thanks to Stephen A. Reed et al., The Dead Sea Scrolls Catalog: Documents, Photographs... (1994) 467 it's correctly identified as from 4Q184, DJD V, plate XXVII, frag. 2."

UPDATE: Chuck Jones e-mails a link to a better photo of the fragment.



UPDATE (31 January): More on the identification of the fragment here.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: There's another, more detailed account of the 11th "Temple Feast" in Ha'aretz. Also, the recent rabbinic ban on Jews going onto the Temple Mount is being disputed by Rabbi She'ar-Yashuv Cohen, a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council.

THE DEUTEROCANONICA/APOCRYPHA are now available in Greek online at zhubert's. Everything I mentioned earlier is included and the Psalms of Solomon are there as well. The additions to Daniel and Esther seem to be incorporated in those books. Should be a very useful resource.

REENTER THE SHROUD OF TURIN?

Turin shroud 'older than thought' (BBC)
The Shroud of Turin is much older than suggested by radiocarbon dating carried out in the 1980s, according to a new study in a peer-reviewed journal.

A research paper published in Thermochimica Acta suggests the shroud is between 1,300 and 3,000 years old.

The author dismisses 1988 carbon dating tests which concluded that the linen sheet was a medieval fake.

[...]

The author, Raymond Rogers, who has been working on the Shroud for years, claims that the 1988 tests accidentally included threads from a medieval patch used to repair it.

UPDATE (28 January): Over at Hypotyposeis, Stephen Carlson, a man of many talents, has a detailed discussion of the chemistry and methodologies behind these claims. Bottom line: he's skeptical.

UPDATE: On the ANE list, Joe Zias says that it is obvious to anyone who knows about first-century Jewish burial customs that the Shroud is a medieval relic.

JAMES CHARLESWORTH SPEAKS IN BILLINGS:

Lecturer brings biblical sect to 21st century

Associated Press

Princeton University professor James Charlesworth took an auditorium full of listeners on a rapid, sometimes dizzying trip to the world of a Jewish sect that flourished in the time of Jesus.

"I promised to be succinct and fast," he said at the conclusion of his lecture and a question-and-answer session Wednesday night. "I hope I was also clear."

He succeeded on all counts. Though his remarks were occasionally quite technical - he would lapse into Hebrew or Aramaic almost unconsciously in the course of explaining some obscure point - he delivered his main points with a thundering clarity.

Charlesworth was the third and final speaker in a three-day symposium at Rocky Mountain College that examined the "Historical Jesus in the 21st Century." Speaking to about 250 people in Rocky's Losekamp Hall, Charlesworth addressed the question of whether, and if so to what extent, Jesus was influenced by the Essenes, the sect whose teachings, beliefs and rules of living were contained in what are known as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[...]

You can also watch a video of a bit of his lecture, if you don't mind watching an ad for a Billings health club first.

CAUGHT ONE!

Man sentenced for 2nd Temple artifacts theft (Jerusalem Post)
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

The Jerusalem Magistrate's court has sentenced a Palestinian man caught stealing antiquities from a Second Temple Jewish burial cave located just outside of Jerusalem to five months in jail, Israel's Antiquities Authority said Wednesday.

[...]

But I fear he is just a drop in the bucket of antiquities looters.

JEWISH SCHOLARS IN IRAQ? Over at the Canonist, Steven I. Weiss refers to my earlier post about whether Jewish scholars were now to be allowed to enter Iraq and asks "Is there an update that I missed, or are things just as they were?" My inquiry to the IraqCrisis list was not answered and I have no solid additional information. If anyone else knows of cases where Jewish scholars have since been allowed into Iraq (or prevented from entering) or of any cases pending, please let me know.

REGARDING THE SCHOTTENSTEIN/ARTSCROLL TALMUD, Carla Sulzbach e-mails:

Here are my two cents on the Schottenstein/Artscroll phenomenon. While I do admit that it is beautifully produced and also agree with Rabbi Hauptman's assessment of it, I would like to point you to some other opinions on it as well.

BTW, the link in your earlier post of Sunday, Jan. 16 2005, which contains Rabbi Hauptman's quote:

THE SCHOTTENSTEIN ARTSCROLL TRANSLATION OF THE TALMUD is nearly complete, with the 73rd and final volume coming out next month. This JewishTimes.com article discusses it at length. Here's an evaluation of a Talmud scholar:

is no longer active (at least not when I click on it). But the article from which the quote comes can be found here:

http://www.jfri.org/content_display.html?ArticleID=142898

or here:

http://www.jewishtimes.com/scripts/edition.pl?now=5/25/1999&SubSectionID=31&ID=4452

written by Chanan Tigay

Some early (1996) insightful thoughts by Rabbi Shaye Karlinsky to the drawbacks of the Artscroll Talmud translation can be found here. It is lengthy but worthwhile plowing through (esp. towards the end).

http://www.ottmall.com/mj_ht_arch/v23/mj_v23i84.html

And for those interested, the entire set of responses is found on:

http://www.importersparadise.com/mj_ht_arch/v23/

under "Talmud translations".

I haven't had a chance to check these links out, but now you have them if you're interested.

MEL GIBSON'S THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST has not been nominated for any major Academy Awards:

Conservative filmmaker Mel Gibson, who performed a miracle by turning an Aramaic-speaking Jesus into a worldwide box office star with "The Passion of the Christ," also was shut out of the major award categories.

The Biblical saga generated zero buzz among Oscar prognosticators, and Gibson declined to campaign for the film he directed and funded with his own money after all the studios passed. It did, however, land three minor Oscar nominations for makeup, cinematography and score.

Earlier this month, "Passion" won a lowly People's Choice Award for best film drama to go with the two Oscars Gibson won in 1996 for producing and directing "Braveheart."

MORE ON THE ARTSCROLL TALMUD from Ha'aretz:

A talmudic revolution
By Avi Beker

Most of the Jews in Israel, as well as in the U.S., are probably not aware of the silent but dramatic revolution behind the somewhat laconic announcement by the Mesorah ArtScroll publishing house in Brooklyn. It stated that the 73rd and last volume of the translation of the Babylon Talmud into English, accompanied by commentaries, would be published next month.

Without exaggeration, it can be stated that the Schottenstein Edition of the Talmud (named for the main donor) has caused the most significant revolution in the bookshelves of American and Israeli Talmud scholars in the past century. It has made the Talmud available on a scale that had never been known within or outside the Jewish people. Even in the heyday of the Eastern European yeshivas, before the Holocaust, there were never so many Jews who studied, read and understood the unique language, style and logic of the "Sea of Talmud." Every one of the volumes in the ArtScroll enterprise was published with more than 60,000 copies, and they have been deposited in the libraries of the most prestigious universities in the world.

[...]

ADOLFO ROITMAN lectured in Billings, Montana, last night:

Curator focuses on temples' role in history

By SUSAN OLP
Of The [Billings] Gazette Staff

Men have always built temples, Adolfo Roitman told an auditorium full of people Tuesday night.

Roitman, curator of the museum that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls in Israel, traced the thread of temples from the time of Moses in the Old Testament to Jesus and beyond.

He was the second of three internationally known experts to speak this week at Rocky Mountain College on the "Historical Jesus in the 21st Century." He spoke to a packed house of about 250 people in Taylor Auditorium.

Roitman is curator of the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, one of the world's leading archaeological museums. A senior lecturer at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, he also lectures widely on early Jewish literature, the history and significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls and biblical interpretation.

[...]

NEWLY RECOVERED LETTERS OF PROCOPIUS OF GAZA? This is the first I've heard of it.

Researchers find rare exchange of letters from 5th century Gaza Strip
Discovery offers proof of rich intellectual society in region better known today for bloody conflict (Daily Star, Lebanon)

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

GENEVA: Swiss researchers have uncovered a rare exchange of letters written in ancient Greek during the fifth century in what is now the Gaza Strip, the University of Fribourg said on Monday.

The discovery offers proof of a rich intellectual society in a region that is better known today for a bitter and bloody standoff between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, said one of the researchers, Professor Jacques Schamp.

Located amid mounds of manuscripts stored at the Marciana National Library in Venice and the French National Library in Paris, the unpublished texts from an ancient school of philosophy in Gaza were identified after a one-year search, he told AFP.

[...]

The oldest discovery is an exchange of letters between a philosopher called Procopius of Gaza who lived around the years 465 to 529 and a young, and until now unknown, lawyer called Megethios.

[...]

The article seems awfully confident that the letters are genuine, but the composition of apocryphal letters in the name of famous people was rife in antiquity and the early Middle Ages. We should keep an open mind about this one until further information is available.

UPDATE (27 January): David Meadows comments over at Rogue Classicism and points to a French article that also has photos of what seem to be photocopies of the manuscript (see below). (I don't think it's a modern transcription; why would it be written out in a bound book and then photocopied, and why wouldn't they publish photos of the manuscript?). I'm no Greek epigrapher, but I agree that the script looks much later than the fifth century. It's written with fully accented minuscules. A fifth-century manuscript would be in unaccented majuscules (uncials). It doesn't say, that the photo is of the Procopius correspondence, but it would be odd if they released photos of something else in this article. It looks to me as though the researchers have a late copy of letters attributed to Procopius which may or may not be genuine. They have a publication forthcoming in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift this year and doubtless they will make their case for genuineness there.



UPDATE (28 January): Stephen Carlson at Hypotyposeis confirms my view of the script and has additional comments.

NEW ST. ANDREWS POSTGRADUATE SCHOLARSHIPS: Even though the Divinity School has had our first meeting to assign places in our postgraduate program for next year, some spaces are still available in Hebrew Bible and ancient Judaism. Indeed, just today a new scholarship in this area has been announced on the University website. (See also the more general advertisement in the Guardian.) The relevant part of the University announcement reads:

New PhD scholarships in Arts and Divinity

St Andrews is Scotland's First University, and the Faculty of Arts has six hundred years of tradition and scholarship to draw upon. With the development of financial support and new facilities we are strengthening our position as one of the leading Universities in which to conduct research.

The University of St Andrews is committed to expanding its research postgraduate population in the Faculties of Arts and Divinity. We wish to recruit the best scholars from all over the world to be part of our thriving research culture to work alongside the many academics of international reputation within the University.

We are offering 46 scholarships equivalent to the value of a home fee (currently �3,010) for three years across the following Schools & specialisms:

[...]

Divinity
Three scholarships from: Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies; Theology; Theology, Imagination and the Arts.

[...]

My italics. The application deadline is 30 April. "Hebrew Bible/Old Testament" is understood also to include ancient Judaism (e.g., the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc.). Application information is available at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/services/admissions/pgadmission.shtml. I am the postgraduate officer for Divinity, so please contact me if you have any questions. If you've been thinking of applying to our program, there's no time like the present.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

US politician hopes to speed building of third temple (Jerusalem Post)
By YAAKOV KATZ

Orly Benny-Davis has come a long way from her youth in Ramat Gan. Today a well-known US political activist, Benny-Davis ran for the senate last year in her home state of South Carolina. On Monday night, she was in Jerusalem to attend the 11th annual Temple Mount dinner and to help speed up the construction of the third temple.

[...]

How will the temple be rebuilt while the Muslim mosques are currently standing?

"No one knows how the temple will be built," he [Rabbi Menahem Makover] said. "But that is not the main issue. What we are here to do is to inform people of the importance of the temple and to show them it is not a theoretical idea but is real and alive."

Not everyone agrees with Makover that the way to rebuild the temple is not known.

"Maybe there will be a tsunami-like disaster similar to the one in Southeast Asia which killed hundreds of thousands of people," said Baruch Ben-Yosef, a member of the Temple Mount Faithful.

Now that is macabre. All I can say is that I hope he's not being quoted accurately.

"The mosques will be moved to Mecca where they should be, and we will climb the Mount to build an altar and conduct sacrifices."

I'm not impressed with the plan so far.

CHALDO-ASSYRIAN WATCH:

Carey: Save Iraq Assyrians from Ethnic Cleansing (the Scotsman)

By John-Paul Ford Rojas, PA

The former Archbishop of Canterbury today launched a campaign to save the ancient Assyrian people of Iraq from extinction.

Lord Carey said they were facing systematic ethnic cleansing which had worsened considerably since the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein.

The mainly Christian community has faced relentless persecution for hundreds of years from the largely Muslim population living alongside them.

[...]

There are 800,000 Assyrians in Iraq and there are thought to be around half a million living around the world. They still speak the ancient biblical language of Aramaic.

[...]

I'm glad this crisis is getting some high-profile attention.

SEAN FREYNE lectured last night in Billings, Montana, on Galilean archaeology. This piece in the Billings Gazatte summarizes his talk:

Scholar stresses Galilee archaeology.

By JIM GRANSBERY
Of The Gazette Staff

A close study of the archaeological evidence of first century Galilee provides a historical context for the movements of Jesus, says an Irish theologian.

And it is time that New Testament scholars paid closer attention to the recent archaeological discoveries that provide that historical context for the beginning of Jesus' ministry.

"It is time to bring spade and text together," said Sean Freyne, the first of three internationally recognized experts to speak this week at Rocky Mountain College on the "Historical Jesus in the 21st Century."

[...]

In the same series, Adolpho Roitman lectures tonight and James Charlesworth tomorrow night.

TODAY IS TU B'SHEVAT, the "new year for trees" (started last night at sundown). More here.

I'm extremely busy today. I'm convening this year's first meeting to rank postgraduate applications and assign places, and other things are going on too, so blogging will be a low priority. But I'll see what I can squeeze in.

APOCRYPHA 101: Over at zhubert's blog, Zack asks for some help.

Ok, so I'm working on adding the deuterocanonical works, specifically: Baruch, Tobit, Judith, Sirach, Wisdom, 1&2 Maccabees but I'm not sure what order to put them in (in relation to the canonical works). Should I put them between the OT and NT? Am I missing any? Also, I'm considering reverting the LXX back to original naming, such that Ezra/Nehemiah would be 1/2 Esdras etc. Hopefully I have my history right...1,2,3,4 Esdras is certainly one confusing mess :)

I looked through my library last night for some definitive answers on the LXX, but it just wasn't covered much in the classes I took, so I'm at a bit of a loss. A search on the internet just leads to contradictory answers. Can anyone help clarify this?

Bless you for taking this on! Here's my best shot at an explanation (from home, without access to most of my library, so subject to correction later).

The Catholic Bible mixes the Deuterocanonical books among the other OT books and also includes the additions to Esther and Daniel in the books of Esther and Daniel. The Protestant Bible, when it includes the Apocrypha at all, puts them (including the additions) in a separate section, either before or after the NT. (The Jewish Bible, of course, as well as many Protestant Bibles, leave them out entirely.) For the Catholic order, see any Catholic version, such as the Jerusalem Bible. For the order of the works as a separate section, see, for example, the RSV Study Bible or the NEB with the Apocrypha.

I believe the Greek Orthodox Bible mixes the Deuteroncanonica among the other OT books too, but it also includes 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh, and Psalm 151. 4 Maccabees isn't in any of the major canons, but I think it comes as an appendix in the Orthodox canon. I have trouble keeping straight the Orthodox canons in non-Greek languages (Syriac, Coptic, Slavonic) and I'm not going to try here.

In modern translations, when the "Apocrypha" is set apart as a separate section of its own, it seems normally to include all or most of the above. Latin 2 Esdras (incorporating 4 Ezra), of course, does not survive in Greek, apart from a few fragments, but usually a translation of it is included as well.

I think ideally you should include all of the above Greek works (i.e., everything except 2 Esdras) as a separate section and tagged so that the Greek of the Protestant canonical books can be searched either separately or else along with the Apocrypha. Those interested only in the Protestant canon can then ignore them, while those who want to can search the Apocrypha and the rest of the OT LXX together.

All this of course, is contingent on how much work you want to put into it. But since you ask, that's my answer.

FORGERY SCANDAL WATCH: Over at Ralph, Ed Cook translates the section of the indictment which deals with the Joash inscription.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

PMO to take over running Western Wall (Ha'aretz)
By Nadav Shragai

The government has decided to transfer responsibility for the Western Wall, the plaza facing it and the nearby excavations, currently handled by the tourism minister, to the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which is overseen by the prime minister.

[...]

I'm not sure what "PMO" stands for. Prime Minister's Organization? The point of the change seems to be to centralize the administration of the site under one organization.

UPDATE: Cynthia Edenburg suggests "Prime Minister's Office," which sounds right.

CULTURAL ICON WATCH: The late Johnny Carson (R.I.P.) on the place of the Tonight Show in the scheme of things:

Not that Carson was overly impressed by his legacy, mind you. "It's just a television show," he once said, "not the Dead Sea Scrolls."

MORE VISITOR RESPONSES to the Mobile Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. On Friday 1200 people paid to see it. The Mobile Register is doing quite a good job of covering it.

HERE'S A TOURIST'S GUIDE TO SEPPHORIS, home of some interesting ancient ruins, in the Jerusalem Post.

THE LIBRARY FROM HERCULANEUM is the subject of a long article in the Times today. It was buried by the Vesuvius eruption in 79 C.E., recovered in the 1700s, and only recently have many of the carbonized scrolls become readable with the help of new technologies. I don't know that the scrolls have ever been called the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Classical world, but if not, they should be. Now there is a move to reopen the excavation to try to find more texts.

Focus: The search for the lost library of Rome
Robert Harris
Even in our age of hyperbole, it would be hard to exaggerate the significance of what is at stake here: nothing less than the lost intellectual inheritance of western civilisation

[...]

Once the villa had been stripped, 200 years ago, the tunnels were sealed. But last week a group of the world�s leading classical scholars gathered in Oxford to demand that the site be reopened. They believe that there is a better-than-evens chance � �quite likely�, is how Robert Fowler, professor of Greek at Bristol University, puts it � that the villa may have possessed at least one other library still to be uncovered.

These are scholars, cautious by nature. Their optimism is therefore worth taking seriously. It follows the first detailed analysis of the 1,800 papyri, now largely unrolled and deciphered thanks to a technique known as multi-spectral imaging (MSI). What appear to the naked eye as jet-black cinders are transformed by MSI into readable text. Thirty thousand images are now legible on CD-Rom; suddenly poems and works of philosophy are speaking again, 2,000 years after they were sealed in their cedar-wood cabinets in the summer of AD79.

The author chiefly represented in the collection is Philodemus, an Epicurean philosopher of the 1st century BC who taught Virgil, the greatest Latin poet, and probably also Horace. He may indeed have given lessons to both beneath the porticoes of the Villa of the Papyri, for it is known that Philodemus was employed in the household of a powerful Roman senator, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, father-in-law of the dictator Julius Caesar. And it is now regarded as almost certain that Piso � who died more than a century before the eruption of Vesuvius � was the original owner of the Villa of the Papyri.

Apart from the texts of Philodemus, hundreds of other lost works of Greek philosophy � including half of Epicurus�s entire opus, missing for 2,300 years � have been rediscovered. Among them is a treatise by Zeno of Sidon, who Cicero saw lecture in Athens in 79BC. According to Richard Janko, professor of classics at Michigan University: �This is the first copy of Zeno�s writings to come to light; they had all been lost in later antiquity.�

[...]

... Eight of the world�s leading scholars of ancient history, including professors from Harvard, Oxford and London, wrote to The Times in the spring of 2002 demanding action: �We can expect to find good contemporary copies of known masterpieces and to recover works lost to humanity for two millennia. A treasure of greater cultural importance can scarcely be imagined.�

The signatories have now formed a pressure group, The Herculaneum Society, which convened in Oxford last weekend, and moves have begun to raise the $20m (�10.6m) or so needed to dig.

Frankly, it would be cheap at almost any price. Even in our age of hyperbole it would be hard to exaggerate the significance of what is at stake here: nothing less than the lost intellectual inheritance of western civilisation. We have, for example, a mere seven plays by Sophocles, yet we know that he wrote 120; Euripides wrote 90 plays, of which only 19 survive; Aeschylus wrote between 70 and 90, of which we have just seven.

We also know that at the time when Philodemus was teaching Virgil on the Bay of Naples, the lost dialogues of Aristotle were circulating in Rome (Cicero called them �a golden river�: the essence of ancient Greek philosophy); they, too, have vanished.

Then there are the missing Latin texts. Is it really likely that a palace on the scale of the Villa of the Papyri would not have had contemporary copies of Virgil�s Aeneid or the poems of Horace? Scholars have dreamt of making such discoveries for centuries, but until the last couple of years they were understandably dismissed as fantasies. Books in the ancient world were written on papyrus � strips of plant grown in Egypt and glued together � and papyrus simply cannot survive for 2,000 years except in freak conditions.

Conditions like being sealed in hot volcanic ash. I wonder if it's optimistic to hope that such a well-stocked library might have included the Septuagint or maybe even Greek translations of some of the Enochic books. In any case, it sounds to me like a possibility worth checking out.

The article also gives the web address of the Herculaneum Society: www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk.

WHAT STARTED AS A MILDLY STUPID JOKE has turned into an interesting discussion. Zeth has moved his "Er What" post here and replied to my update here. My posts are also often thoughts-in-progress, so I appreciate his continued reflections. One small point and one larger one in response. The small one: how do you know that Nicole and Pammy aren't donating lots of money to starving people in Africa? If I had to bet, I'd bet they're both giving more to charity of some sort than either you or I could afford. Say what you like about celebrities (and I do, don't I?), but that's something they usually get right.

The larger one: just to clarify, my stance is not one of "moral relativism" (and Zeth wasn't saying it was), but rather classical liberalism. That is, the belief that individuals have the right to do whatever they please as long as they're not directly hurting someone else by malice or culpable stupidity. I may or may not approve of what they're doing, but that's my problem, not theirs, and if I want them to change, its up to me to reason with them and up to them whether they want to listen to me. (This is neither a conservative nor a leftist position, but for some reason it often seems to make conservatives think I'm a leftist and leftists think I'm a conservative.)

I've already said what I have to say about using the Bible for moral insight in my first SBL resolution post, so I won't repeat myself here. I've commented on the Waterstone's debacle here.

I do take the point about Internet humor, and am still feeling my way through that one. But I don't have it in me to be earnest all the time. Bear with me.

THE LECTURE HALLS EXCAVATED IN ALEXANDRIA are the subject of an illuminating article ("Intellectual life in Roman Alexandria") by Jill Kamil in Al Ahram. These are late antique ruins, and thus long after the time of the Septuagint translators and Philo, but still from a place and period of great importance for intellectual history. The article has lots of interesting details. Excerpt:

More recent excavations have revealed a vast complex of well-preserved lecture halls of late Roman (fifth to seventh century) date. Some of them had been explored in the 1880s, but their total number has now grown to 13 and Majcherek says that only now has their purpose become apparent. The auditoria have similar dimensions to, and stretch along, the theatre portico, which is also the eastern colonnade of a large public square in the centre of the city. In all the rooms rows of stepped benches run along the walls in a horseshoe shape, with an elevated seat for the lecturer at the rounded end. When new rows of seats appeared in place of the lateral parodoi (passageway separating the stage from the auditorium), the classical semicircular plan of the cavea (auditorium) was changed into a horseshoe-shaped arrangement that archaeologists immediately recognised as similar to that found in the auditoria or lecture halls. The discoveries have shed new light on the function of the theatre, which was excavated back in the 1960s.

The rebuilding on antiquity appears to have been carried out to fulfil the need to adapt to a new function, which was to provide an assembly hall for meetings and lectures, seating a larger audience. Estimates of the capacity of the total number of auditoria, which are estimated to number 20 in all, run at several hundred students, which, incidentally, is the estimated capacity of the theatre structure.

This discovery has caused great excitement, since it has become clear that the Polish mission has actually put a finger on the very hub of intellectual life in late Roman Alexandria. The important issue now, according to Majcherek, is to understand what exactly this complex of auditoria represented. He claims that the entire evidence so far indicates that we are dealing with an academic institution that operated in late antique Alexandria. The central location of the complex in the ancient town, and the characteristic arrangement of particular halls, corroborates the conclusions drawn on their function.

(Via Archaeologica News.)

THE PRESIDENT'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS had quite a lot of religious language in it, as is pointed out by Deborah Caldwell in her Beliefnet article "Decoding Bush's God-Talk" (via Helenann Hartley and Michael Pahl). I think a few of her annotations deserve annotations of their own. Her comments are in square brackets, referring to the bold-font selections in the speech.

America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this Earth has rights, and dignity and matchless value because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and Earth. [Elegant phrasing that resonates with Christians, Jews and Muslims.]

It's much more specific than that. This is a clear allusion to Genesis 1:26-27, which says that God made humanity in his own image.

You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, [This is a nod to evangelicals and conservative Catholics, have been united with the president in their disdain for moral relativism.] and courage triumphs.

I think that belief in the reality of evil has a wider constituency than that.

Our nation relies on men and women who look after a neighbor [Vague reference to Jesus, who says in Matthew 22:39, "Love your neighbor as yourself."] and surround the lost with love.

This formulation of the golden rule, which indeed is also in the New Testament, actually originates in Leviticus 19:18. But I suspect a more immediate source for the President's comment is the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10:30-37. The last phrase in the sentence may also echo the parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15:3-7.

May God bless you, and may he watch over [Somewhat unexpected wording, again harkening to the "awesome God" of Calvin who is attentive to the world] the United States of America.

I don't see why this is "somewhat unexpected." It sounds like an echo of the benediction in Numbers 6:22-26 ("The Lord bless you and keep you...), important in both Judaism and Christianity (and, incidentally, the earliest-attested biblical passage).

Also, there's one possible religious allusion that Caldwell missed. It was caught by Lynn Sweet in an article on the speech in the Chicago Sun-Times:

Advancing self-government "is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time," said Bush, laying out a yardstick for which his tenure can be measured, not in four years, but over time.

"The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations," he said. "The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it."

In a speech laden with religious inferences, this line about not avoiding the work ahead seems an echo of an inspirational admonition from a Jewish text, the Pirkei Avot. Said an ancient rabbi, "It is not incumbent on you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it."

THERE'S AN OBITUARY OF ROGER MOOREY today in the Times:

Roger Moorey
Expert on the history and industries of Mesopotamia from the fourth millennium BC down to more recent biblical times

ROGER MOOREY was deeply respected throughout the global network of archaeologists working in the Near and Middle East. He was Assistant Keeper of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford for 19 years, and he wrote extensively on the excavated materials of Iran and Iraq, the Levant, Egypt and Turkey � from the fourth to the first millennia BC.

[...]

He also worked with Kathleen Kenyon on the Jerusalem excavation in the 1960s.

SOME INITIAL REACTIONS to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit in Mobile, Alabama (Mobile Register):

First visitors are awed by Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit
Friday, January 21, 2005
By ROY HOFFMAN
Staff Reporter

Quietly, almost reverently, the first visitors to the new Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit filed into the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center on Thursday, making their way to softly illuminated display cases where 2000-year-old goatskin parchments held ancient Hebrew and Aramaic texts.

The short opening day was designated for "walk-ins" who could buy same-day tickets at the counter and local clergy. The mood was a mix of intellectual curiosity and religious awe.

Lots of people of different religious backgrounds are then quoted. Here's my favorite:

On the second floor of the exhibit, Kevin Hurt, the Exploreum's theater manager was giving computer-generated virtual tours of the ancient temple in Jerusalem. Just outside the the ater was a little girl, Carly Cefalu, a 2-year-old with a red ribbon in her sandy hair, who skipped about asking, "Where's Jesus?"

Carly had come to the Exploreum with her parents, David Cefalu and Sheryl Cefalu, as they had been driving from Pensacola to New Orleans and decided to detour into downtown Mobile.

"We told her Jesus is the word," said David Cefalu, "and they found the word in the caves."

FORGERY INDICTMENT UPDATE: Ed Cook has been translating and commenting on key excerpts from the Hebrew text here and here.

THE PROMISED ONLINE SEPTUAGINT is now available at www.zhubert.com. Looks good.

AN IMPRESSIVE NEW EXHIBIT AT THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE:

Oriental Institute to feature ancient, global society in new exhibition: Empires in the Fertile Crescent
By William Harms
News Office (University of Chicago Chronicle)

Visitors will get a rare look at one of the most important geographic regions in the ancient Near East beginning Saturday, Jan. 29, with the opening of �Empires in the Fertile Crescent: Ancient Assyria, Anatolia and Israel,� the newest galleries at the University�s Oriental Institute Museum.

The galleries showcase artifacts that illustrate the power of these ancient civilizations, including sculptural representations of tributes demanded by kings of ancient Assyria, and some sources of continual fascination, such as a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls�one of the few examples in the United States.

The galleries also contain artifacts connected with the beginning of two important eras, the Bronze Age and the later Iron Age, as well as artifacts from Megiddo, a site that is figuratively connected with the end of all eras�the site referred to in the Bible as Armageddon.

[...]

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBIT in Mobile Alabama (The Dead Sea Scrolls: An Exhibit of Biblical Proportions) opened yesterday. They are expecting 160,000 visitors before it closes on 24 April. I hope they get them.

UPDATE: The exhibit also includes a guided interactive tour of a visual simulation of ancient Jerusalem:

SGI Helps Science Center Simulate Ancient Jerusalem (HPC wire)

The largest touring exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls and related artifacts ever seen in the United States arrives today at the Gulf Coast Exploreum science center in Mobile, Ala. Part of the Exploreum's Gala Opening tonight is the unveiling of the Exploreum's brand new Virtual Journeys Immersive Theater, powered by a visualization system from Silicon Graphics.

Virtual Journeys will allow visitors at this and future exhibits to experience and interact with scientific discoveries using the same SGI technology that leading researchers around the world depend on for groundbreaking innovations in all areas of science. To further enhance the public's experience of the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, the Virtual Journeys Immersive Theater features a guided interactive tour of the reconstructed Herodian Temple Mount in Jerusalem as it existed 2000 years ago. Starting tomorrow, January 21, the general public can visit the 50-seat theater, which will hold four screenings an hour and will highlight the archeology, history and religious significance of the temple.

Using the SGI Reality Center facility, an Exploreum facilitator will encourage questions and interaction from the audience. The facilitator acts as tour guide and, with just a click of the mouse in the Reality Center facility, can take the audience, based on their areas of interest, just about anywhere they may want to go within the Temple Mount real-time visual simulation model. The data set even includes differing opinions on the archaeological finds, which can be pointed out both visually and verbally during the presentation.

[...]

CELEBRITY BIBLE STUDY WATCH: First Nicole Kidman. And now Pamela Anderson informs us that she's reading both a book on the Sermon on the Mount and The One Year Bible. This from Biblioblog blogger Zeth, who claims he was Googling "Sermon on the Mount" when he found it. You believe that?

UPDATE (21 January): Zeth's evaluation of my attempt at humor: "... at least he tried."

Well, that's more credit than my sense of humor often gets and probably as much as it deserves.

But seriously, I'm kind of surprised by the rest of his reply. Is being a sex symbol in our society really comparable to being a cheating tax collector in a desperately poor, ancient society? And I think one widespread criticism of some types of American religiosity - their making sex such an important factor in their religion - is entirely fair. Yet Zeth writes:

If these people [Ms. Kidman and Ms. Anderson] can read the bible and interpret it in such away that justifies their activities or at least does not ask questions about them, then either the biblical text does not have any power itself, or serious questions need to be asked about the interpretations offered by American culture.

[...]

So Pamela Anderson is rightly or wrongly an international symbol of America. The fact now that she is now a bible reading symbol, even someone who may read biblical studies books, while to put it bluntly, making money from a modern form of prostitution.

Well, okay, but this seems to be doing just what both that SBL resolution and its election opponents were doing: assuming there is a "biblical" stance on political and cultural issues; assuming that the Bible has a unified message about "values"; and finding the writer's own values in the Bible, even for issues the actual texts show little interest in. One can play dueling verses here, as with anything else. Using the word "prostitution" above seems to me to be harsh and to be moving the definitional goalposts (and trivializing the plight of many actual prostitutes who are without alternatives), but for the sake of argument, note that Rahab the prostitute is a heroine in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The Bible recognizes and praises what it regards as her achievement, while never once making an issue of her profession. Her choosing the right side in the story seems to be what counts. And Jesus had only kind words for prostitutes who took an interest in his message.

Zeth, I really appreciate your blog, and I'm sorry my little joke seems to have offended you. But give Nicole and Pammy a break. Their studies will do them no harm and may do them some good. Who are we to judge?

UPDATE (23 January): More here.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Chief rabbis prohibit Jews from entering Temple Mount
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger, as well as 21 other leading rabbis, have issued a religious ruling forbidding Jews from entering the Temple Mount compound, Western Wall rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch said Tuesday.

[...]

MORE ON THE FORGERY SCANDAL: The Guardian has an interesting article today (via Paul James Cowie on the ANE list).

Faking it

The discovery that ancient artefacts sacred to Jewish history are forgeries has sent shockwaves through the museum world. But was the gang behind the scam only interested in cash, or did they have other motives? Rachel Shabi investigates

Thursday January 20, 2005
The Guardian

It all started with the pomegranate. On Christmas Eve, the Israel museum in West Jerusalem made an announcement about a tiny ivory pomegranate that had been on display at the museum since 1988, believed to have come from the First Temple of Israel. The pomegranate, the museum sheepishly revealed, was actually a fake. It was still a very old and beautiful carving, but the inscription denoting its First Temple origins had been forged.

Five days later, the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) declared that it had uncovered a sophisticated forgery ring, based in Israel, which had produced a stash of fake Bible-era artefacts. In addition to the pomegranate, it revealed that two other objects, both similarly revered, had also been rumbled as bogus. One was a limestone ossuary box said to have held the bones of James, the brother of Jesus, and supposedly the oldest physical link to the New Testament. The other was a stone tablet, from the ninth century BC, inscribed in ancient Hebrew with instructions by King Joash for maintaining Solomon's Temple.

This opening is misleading. It makes it sound as though there was some entirely new revelation in late December that the James ossuary and Joash inscription were forged. In fact, both have been considered forgeries as far back as 2003. There had even been speculation that the ivory pomegranate was fake since at least March of 2004.

This sentence, which comes a bit later, has problems too:

So what tipped off the investigators? "We got some information in September 2002 about a stone with an inscription about the third temple of Joash in Jerusalem," says Amir Ganor, head of investigations at the IAA.

This has to be a misquote. What temple of Joash? What third temple? Herod's temple is sometimes considered a third temple, and the inscription was supposed to have been in the time of Joash, but in Solomon's temple. This is just sloppy.

Despite this not very promising beginning, the end of the article has some interesting thoughts about how the academic world may have brought the scandal on itself.

What this episode shows is the extent to which the antiquities community has laid itself open to abuse. According to Israel Finkelstein, archaeology professor at Tel Aviv university, most biblical land has been officially and rigorously excavated and produced few relics. "Do you want me to believe that robbers are then going with a flashlight at night and managing to find 50 inscriptions? Of course I don't believe it."

That is an extremely good point. This is similar to Schiffman's point that the more exciting the artifact, the more likely it is to be forged.

Still, the sale of marketplace antiquities is booming. Aren Maeir, archaeology professor at Bar Ilan university in Ramat Gan, describes it as "an astounding market, particularly among private collectors with millions of dollars at their disposal". Objects can sell for $1m apiece, and academics say that top forgers hunt academic journals for the objects that would be considered significant if unearthed, and then sneak fake finds into the market - giving the antiquity community exactly what it wants. "There is an eagerness all over the world, in museums, to display antiquities of great value," says Finkelstein, "and there is no question that some of them were not careful enough in their [evaluation] methods. It was some sort of naivety, something about wanting to believe."

The discovery of a Temple-era pomegranate, in particular, was always going to provoke excitement. The pomegranate is a deeply resonant fruit in Judaism that, according to the Bible, was used as a decorative motif in Solomon's temple. There is a Rabbinic reference to its seeds, which in legend always number 613 - one for each of the commandments of the Bible. One Israel museum press officer explains the effect of seeing such relics: "It is very exciting, very emotional, very Jewish feelings," she says. "Any time you see something like this, it feels very special because you can see your roots."

It underlines the intense political significance that antiquities, particularly Biblical-era artefacts, attain in Israel, where discoveries of ancient sites or relics can be claimed by particular groups as proof of their historic claim to a particular piece of land. Early Zionism was enthusiastic in promoting Bible-era relics - they cemented the Jewish connection to the land, and were seen to give credence to the new state of Israel: ancient facts on the ground, if you like. It is telling, suggests Dr Shimon Gibson, archaeology professor at the Albright Institute, Jerusalem, that the Joash stone emerged at around the same time - early 2003 - that Palestinian leaders were becoming more vociferous over the "alleged" Jewish connection to the Temple Mount. The stone's inscription describes repair works to the Jewish temple at Jerusalem. "Those who forged, if that is what they did, would be trying to identify key spots of interest to Israel at that moment," he says. "One of those is, of course, the Temple Mount, because in any deal made with the Palestinians, the status of Jerusalem and who controls the holy places is one of the key things that will be on the table."

Yes, this was a remarkably well-timed coincidence. As was the appearance of the James ossuary just when James had been getting a lot of attention, as Mark Goodacre pointed out recently.

Some have argued that the only way to stop antiquity fraud is to properly ban the sale of objects with unknown provenance. Others, such as Snyder, counter that this would serve only to bury precious artefacts in the hands of private collectors, not evaluated by experts and not appreciated by the public.

That's a good point too. Even if scholars take the high road and refuse to sully themselves by studying unprovenanced artifacts, the lucrative market of antiquities collectors won't be affected. The only solution I've seen which addresses the central problems head-on is that of Joe Zias: flood the market with prime-quality, undetectable fakes so that both scholars and collectors lose the incentive to deal in unprovenanced artifacts.

REGARDING MY SBL RESOLUTION POST, Kenneth Litwak e-mails:

I find the comments about the resolution (many of which I agree with) opposing �Fundamentalist� practices while using them to be troubling. I do not style myself as a �Fundamentalist,� and in fact, don�t even know what that represents in 2005 to anyone except a catch-all term for views of the Bible that are opposed by others. I would, however, be interested in knowing what practice is in view here and why it is viewed as the primary property of �Fundamentalists,� whoever they are. Lots and lots of scholars, clergy and others use the Bible to prove their point of view. It�s unclear to me why that is particularly �Fundamentalist.�

I think I said "fundamentalist" because I read the SBL resolution to have in mind people who treat the Bible as a unity with an unambiguous central message about "values" which embodies uniquely Divine and nonnegotiable authority. I suppose one could debate whether "fundamentalist" is an adequate shorthand term for that demographic. It seems more to apply to Protestant fundamentalists and evangelicals than, say, Catholic or Jewish fundamentalists. For the last two, the Bible is less centrally urgent and going back to the "fundamentals" of the faith does not involve a principle of sola scriptura.

But if you don't think the term fundamentalist is accurate or useful, you may be right. In that case, please edit my original statement by deleting "fundamentalist" wherever it appears and replacing it, if necessary, with "opponent," adjusting the grammar as needed (e.g., "the fundamentalist view" -> "the view of the opponents," etc.). I don't need to define the opponents of the (still anonymous) authors of the resolution more specifically than they do. I am perfectly happy with that formulation and would have written it that way if I'd thought of it. But granting that change, I think my points remain.

DASTARDLY FELINE FORGERY! Ancient Egyptians Sold Fake Cats.

ED COOK has obtained a copy of the forgery indictment (the original Hebrew) and is posting information from it. He hopes to have the whole text posted on his website before long.

UPDATE: It's now available in a PDF-format link at the same posting. Also, a commenter to the post says that an English translation will be put on the IAA website soon.

A SECOND-TEMPLE-ERA WINERY AND VILLAGE have been uncovered in a salvage excavation in Israel. Excerpt from the Ha'aretz article:

Five wine presses surrounded the farmhouse, built in the third century BCE, on land between what today is Moshav Gan Sorek and the Tel Aviv-Ashdod highway.

[...]

The winery's customers also included residents of the closest settlements. One of these settlements was a large village barely half a kilometer north of the farmhouse, and was completely unknown until the salvage excavations conducted by Uzi Ed, Angelina Dagot and Kareem Sa'id of the Israel Antiquities Authority in the latter months of 2004.

The village covers more than 15 dunams (3.75 acres) and the dig uncovered what looks like its southern residential neighborhood and its industrial zone. Among the buildings and facilities found by the archaeologists were a kiln for firing pottery and a reservoir pit that apparently was part of an agricultural compound that did not survive, designed to collect the sediment waste from liquid that gathered in it - either water or grape juice. East of the village are 11 round pits believed to have been used for dumping garbage, as they contained mainly cinders and animal bones.

I CONGRATULATED HELENANN HARTLEY privately on passing her D.Phil. viva as soon as I got her e-mail yesterday. But I want to do so again publicly, now that she has mentioned it on her blog. Well done, Helenann! Another St. Andrews alum makes good.

OXYRHYNCHUS-PAPYRI-SALE UPDATE: In June of 2003, I noted the sale of 29 Oxyrhynchus papyri by Colgate Rochester Divinity School (Crozer Theological Seminary) to persons unknown. It later developed that Macquarie University in Australia bought three of them. Now a fourth, a fragment of the Gospel of John, has resurfaced on display at the Ink and Blood exhibit about to open in Knoxville, Tennessee. The following post has just gone up on the Textual Criticism list:

Forwarded from M. Robinson:

-----------------------------------------------------
As I recall, there was some concern last Spring regarding the U. of Pennsylvania's sale of p39 to an unknown party, which had people wondering whether this fragment would ever be viewable again, etc.

In case no one has found the answer, it appears here:

http://www.inkandblood.com/exhibit/exhibit_artifacts.php

Gospel of John Fragment - The Gospel of John fragment (8:14-22) from the 3rd Century is an Oxyrinchus [Sic - JRD] Papyrus known as the P39 in scholarly circles. It is one of the earliest witnesses in existence to any portion of The New Testament.

The owner corporation (who will let you look at the fragment among its traveling exhibits for US$15) is:

Ink & Blood
111 West College Street
Murfreesboro, TN 37130

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There are good online images at:
http://www.atla.com/digitalresources/searcha.asp

keyword=swasey title=john
(safe the images!)

Best wishes
Wieland [Willker, listowner]

As above, it was the Crozer Theological Seminary that sold the papyri, not the University of Pennsylvania. The Ink and Blood exhibit appears to be a breakaway from the From Dead Sea Scrolls to the Bible in America exhibition (which is still on tour), created after a falling out among the organizers.

THE SITE OF BABYLON is to remain closed until damage to it has been assessed:

Babylon to remain closed until damage known
Mon Jan 17, 2005 06:35 PM GMT

By Waleed Ibrahim

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Babylon -- home to one of the seven wonders of the world -- will remain closed until experts determine how much damage foreign forces had done to the site, Iraq's culture minister says.

A British Museum report published at the weekend said U.S. and Polish troops had damaged the ancient city, fabled home of the Hanging Gardens, by setting up a military base among the ruins in April 2003 after the invasion of Iraq.

"We want to know the full facts about Babylon's condition," Culture Minister Mofeed al-Jazaeri told a news conference on Monday.

"Babylon will stay closed until an international team is formed to determine the damage, document it and recommend what should be done to restore the city."

And the Poles have responded further to the charges:

Earlier on Monday, Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said that contrary to the British Museum report, the presence of foreign troops in Babylon had saved it.

"If it wasn't for the Americans, Babylon would have been looted like all other museums in Iraq ... and we would now be buying back Babylon artefacts on bazaars and markets," he said.

Szmajdzinski told public radio Jedynka local authorities and archaeologists were consulted over all decisions affecting ancient sites at the base.

"Surely mistakes were made at the beginning, but nobody knows what Babylon was like before the Americans took over. Since arriving, we have carried out full documentation of the site," he said.

The Polish Culture Ministry will soon issue a 500-page report on Babylon, he added.

I have not yet been able to find a U.S. response beyond what I cited in the update to yesterday's post.

ARAMAIC WATCH: Here's another sign that Aramaic too has become a cultural icon after Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. From a review in the Seattle Times of what seems to be an aptly titled novel:

"How I Became Stupid"

In this pithy, subversive debut, French novelist Martin Page taps into a feeling that afflicts many of us but that few act on � that life might be easier if we weren't so painfully aware of the world's woes or the pitifulness of our lives.

That's what young Aramaic scholar Antoine believes, and he's determined to do something about it. "Intelligence," he's convinced, "makes you unhappy, lonely and poor." It also, he finds, paralyzes you by always letting you see both sides of an issue.

After earnest attempts at alcoholism and suicide (he only gets as far as attending a pro-suicide support group), Antoine turns to his family doctor � and asks for a lobotomy.

What he gets instead is a prescription to Happyzac.

[...]

The Aramaists I've know have generally been better adjusted than that.

THE GREEK TEXT OF THE SEPTUAGINT is coming soon over at Zhubert's Blog. More details here.

A MACINTOSH BIBLIOBLOG: My prayers are answered! Welcome, Joe.

(Via Hypotyposeis.)

"IS BIBLICAL HEBREW A LANGUAGE?" Maybe not. What's the word for spoon? In a first installment, Seth Sanders reflects.

BABYLON DAMAGED BY MILITARY CAMP: If this story is accurate, it's appalling.

U.S.-led forces damaged ancient Babylon
Sat Jan 15, 2005 01:44 PM GMT

By Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces, using Iraq's ancient city of Babylon as a military base, have caused "substantial damage" to one of the world's most renowned archaeological treasures, a British Museum report says.

The report said U.S. and Polish military vehicles had crushed 2,600-year-old pavements in the city, a cradle of civilisation and home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Archaeological fragments were used to fill sand bags, it added.

[...]

However, the Polish military is denying that they damaged the site:

Polish military deny damaging Babylon
Sun Jan 16, 2005 12:53 PM GMT

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's Defence Ministry has denied charges that Polish troops in Iraq had damaged the site of ancient Babylon, one of the world's most famous archaeological treasures, while using it as a military base.

"Neither Polish troops, nor any other troops under Polish command, ever carried out any projects violating historical monuments or causing their devastation," Defence Ministry spokesman Colonel Piotr Pertek said on Sunday.

"Our soldiers never engaged in any efforts to strengthen the security of Camp Babylon without consulting Iraq's monument preservation authorities."

So far, I can't find any response from the U.S. military. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Here's a brief response, quoted in the L.A. Times (requires free registration) via Archaeological News:

Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said all engineering works were discussed with the head of the Babylon museum. "An archeologist examined every construction initiative for its impact on historical ruins," he said.

I think this needs to be addressed rather more thoroughly. Do they acknowledge that the damage happened? If so, how did it come about?

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION in Mobile Alabama is covered again in this A.P. article. It also mentions an associated lecture series.

Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit brings Bible history to Bible Belt

GARRY MITCHELL

Associated Press

MOBILE, Ala. - An exhibition of the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls opening Thursday in Mobile will include lectures from some of the world's leading religious scholars, bringing Bible history to the Bible Belt.

[...]

[Exploreum spokeswoman Shannon] Lipscomb said at least 1,000 tickets have been sold for the lecture series, which has been relocated to nearby Christ Episcopal Church because only 177 seats were available in the Exploreum's theater. Advance sales for the exhibit had reached 38,000 a week before it opened.

Hebrew University professor Emmanuel Tov, editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scroll Publication Project, leads off the lecture series on Feb. 15.

Others in the lecture series are: Notre Dame University's James VanderKam and Eugene Ulrich; Claremont School of Theology's James Sanders, the first scholar to unroll and study the Psalms scroll in the 1960s; Duke University's Eric Meyers; Bruce Zuckerman of the University of Southern California; New York University's Lawrence Schiffman; New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary's Steve Ortiz, director of the Center for Archeological Research; Trinity Western University's Peter Flint of Canada; and Millsaps College's James E. Bowley.

[...]

PAUL NIKKEL over at Deinde is blogging the British Association of Near Eastern Archaeology conference just held in Oxford. I like the dangerous liasons with hypothetical Sanballats.

SOME INTERESTING NEWS about Nicole Kidman:

KIDMAN'S SECRET STUDIES (Contactmusic.com, UK)

Actress NICOLE KIDMAN is currently studying the Old Testament in secret at California's Pepperdine University, so she can keep a teenage promise to her parents.

[...]

"At the moment I'm studying the Old Testament through a professor who teaches at Pepperdine University.

"Through that I'm able to study Israel, Palestine and the Middle East and the politics of it. I do it to relax on weekends and one night a week."

Some Old Testament professors have all the luck.

MORE ON THE "JERUSALEM SYNDROME" FILM to be shown in Dundee, Scotland, from the Scotsman.

MORE FROM BART EHRMAN on the Da Vinci Code: He's written a book refuting it, which we're told took all of two weeks to write. This Herald Sun/A.P. article also gives a clearer account of what he says about the Dead Sea Scrolls, phrased more accurately and doubtlessly closer to what he actually said.

Also not true, Ehrman says. In fact, the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient writings discovered in caves near Jerusalem in 1947, were authored by a group of single, celibate Jewish men called The Essenes.

"The idea that a Jewish man couldn't be single is ludicrous," Ehrman said. "There were, in fact, single men in the ancient time and they had world views much like Jesus."

Further, a character in "The Da Vinci Code" refers to the Dead Sea Scrolls as one of Christianity's earliest writings. That claim, too, was a head-scratcher for Ehrman, pointing out once again the ancient scrolls were written by Jews.

"There's nothing Christian about the Dead Sea Scrolls," he said.

THE SCHOTTENSTEIN ARTSCROLL TRANSLATION OF THE TALMUD is nearly complete, with the 73rd and final volume coming out next month. This JewishTimes.com article discusses it at length. Here's an evaluation of a Talmud scholar:

Rabbi Judith Hauptman, a professor of Talmud at the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, called the Artscroll translation "a marvelous teaching tool" that allows her students to come to class better prepared.

Still, Hauptman said, when she has a question about a particular talmudic word's meaning, she does not go to the Schottenstein translation for an explanation.

"It is an ideological translation," Hauptman said. "They have a certain point of view � that the Talmud is the greatest book of the Jewish people and the Talmud is always right � and they translate accordingly, which can sometimes be frustrating."

As I've said before, I am not a Talmudist. Any other specialists in the Talmud want to comment on it?

MORE ON THE SBL RESOLUTION: Maxine Grossman has taken up my challenge and has drafted another resolution with the same aims as the first. She writes:

During the United States election of 2004, an equation was made between specific political arguments and the concept of "moral values" or "biblical values." This claim confuses politics with theology and fundamentally misunderstands both the history of the Bible and its place in contemporary faith communities.

As an organization of professional Bible scholars we share the consensus that biblical texts are diverse in their origins and their theologies, and that they are always understood through the filter of present-day concerns and interpretations.

Interpretations of the Bible can vary widely, but all such interpretations are selective. A "literal" approach, itself a thoroughly modern response to critical Bible scholarship, has no greater claim to theological legitimacy than any other approach, and it is, if anything, less reflective of the history of biblical interpretation since its origins.

A serious and sincere interpreter of the Bible can find support in its texts for almost any political view on issues including abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research. To say otherwise, or to equate one's own political agenda with "biblical morality" to the exception of all others', is both a bad reading of the Bible and a marker of bad faith.

We call upon those who would base their political arguments on exclusive scriptural claims to recognize the hubris of such practices and the damage that they do to civil discourse on issues of concern to all of us.


Comments?

For the record, y'all, I want to say that I voted in favor of the SBL's statement, and I will do so again if that is the one they approve. I may not agree with all of its content, but I think the issues are too important to ignore. Why should other people's politics be a measure of my morality?

I like this a lot better than the first one. I may have more comments on it as they come to me. As for the last paragraph of her message, I think the last sentence cuts both ways, which is why I voted against the statement. What I really like about Max's statement is that it addresses the "biblical values" question from the viewpoint of a biblical scholar without advocating a specific political position. I consider that public service (i.e., contributing our expertise to the public debate) without it being political activism (which I use to mean advocating a particular political line). I still think the latter should be an individual matter. But thanks to Dr. Grossman for contributing to the debate and for helping me clarify my own thinking on it.