BOOK REVIEW in the Jerusalem Post:

More than myth
By ERIN LEIB

Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism
By Howard Schwartz
Illustrated by Caren Loebel-Fried
Oxford University Press
618pp., $50

Recounting and expounding on close to 700 myths, Howard Schwartz's Tree of Souls is not only impressive for the sheer bulk of its material, but unsettling with its revolutionary claims about just what makes a Jewish myth.

Schwartz, a prolific writer on Jewish folktales and myths, and a professor of English at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, has produced a collection that includes all the obvious canonical texts from the Bible, Talmud, Midrash, Kabbala and Hassidism. But the surprises and gems lie in the more fringe inclusions: texts from the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha, literature from non-rabbinic sects like the Samaritans, Sabbateans and Karaites, and citations from halachic texts.

Add to that selections from the myths collected by S. Ansky in Eastern Europe, and by the Israel Folktale Archive (a collection of over 20,000 myths from immigrants from Morocco, Kurdistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Romania, Iraq and India, among others), then mix in the stories of some near-contemporaries like Franz Kafka, and some contemporaries like Reb Zalmen Shachter-Shalomi of the Jewish Renewal movement, and you can begin to see just how widely Schwartz has cast his net.

[...]

Sounds like a very interesting collection. Incidentally, this article marks the first mention of the pseudepigrapha by the media in 2005.

CORRECTION: Make that the second mention. The first was in late January, noted here.

JOHN BROWN'S EFFORTS to find oil in Israel, based on idiosyncratic exegesis of certain biblical passages, are featured in Newsweek's Periscope today. As with other media treatments, it did not occur to Newsweek to ask a biblical scholar what the Hebrew words actually mean. I have discussed this already here and here.

ANOTHER TALMUD REFERENCE: Parent.com has an article on "Boy or Girl?
The lowdown on whether you can really sway the odds" in which they assert the following:

Strategies for conceiving a child of a particular sex have been around for centuries. The Talmud, a major book of Jewish law, says that if a wife's orgasm precedes her husband's, the baby will be a boy.

Typically, no reference is given. Can one of my Talmudist readers tell us if this is really in the Talmud and, if so, where?

UPDATE: Thanks to Nahum J. Stone, Carla Sulzbach, Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky, and Simon Montagu for sending the references, which are Berakhot 60a and Nida 25b 28a 31a. It's an interesting pericope, which creatively construes Leviticus 12:2 to say that if a woman "produces seed" ("ejaculates"? -- the verb translated "conceived" in the RSV is the causative verbal form of the root ZR(, "seed") she bears a male. Therefore if the female orgasm happens first, the child will be male, whereas if the male orgasm is first, the child will be female. The Berakhot passage is in a context that asks whether praying can affect the sex of a child. It concludes that because the order of male-female orgasm normally determines it, prayer only has an effect in cases of simultaneous orgasm.

THE ORIGINAL AFRICAN HERITAGE STUDY BIBLE is the subject of an article in the Los Angeles Times:

Bible Emphasizes Roles of Blacks, Africa in History

� This King James Version's depiction of Moses, Jesus and Mary as dark-skinned instills pride in an ancient heritage.

By K. Connie Kang, Times Staff Writer

When real estate developer Karen Bunkley bought a copy of the Original African Heritage Study Bible for a class at Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles two years ago, she couldn't put it down.

The text is the King James Version. But, in a marked departure from traditional Bibles, it highlights all the passages that refer to Africa or Africans and includes commentaries putting such history and culture into context. It also contains maps of Africa and illustrations of Bible characters � Moses, Jesus, Mary � all with dark skin and curly hair.

[...]

I've not seen this and can't comment on it. But here is what biblical scholar Vincent Wimbush has to say about it:

Vincent L. Wimbush, a professor of religion at Claremont Graduate University, says his view of the African heritage study Bible is "mixed."

"I see the project as a response � almost a desperate cry on the part of people away from the center of the discourse about the Bible," he said.

In trying to correct the "Europeanization" of the Bible, however, they may be making the same mistakes that Europeans made by whitening the Bible, Wimbush said.

"That just leaves us playing the same kind of the game: Mine is better than yours," he said. "I think that whole game is flawed, suspect and dangerous."

JOSEPHUS IN THE NEWS: Moneyplans.net has recycled an article on "Dead Sea Minerals and Skincare Products : Cleopatra's Beauty Secret" that extols the healing virtues of Dead Sea mud. It originally came from the Jerusalem Post, although this is not acknowledged. For commentary on the references to the Queen of Sheba, Cleopatra, and Josephus, see my earlier post here I don't know whether Josephus actually said anything like this or not.

MORE ON THE PROPOSED SILWAN HOUSE-DEMOLITIONS: This UPI article has lots of details from both sides of the controversy and is worth a read.

Palestinian neighborhood fears demolitions

[...]

The two-story house is one of 88 that Jerusalem's municipality says have been built illegally and should be removed to restore an open public area in the valley that it wants to make a national park. The archaeological and ancient remains in that area "have an international and national value and they give the city its status as one of the most valuable cities in the world," Jerusalem City Engineer Uri Shetrit said.

It is the most important archaeological site in the country, said Amihai Mazarm a professor at the Institute of Archaeology. Large areas have been excavated, King David's palace was probably there, but dense Arab and Jewish construction in recent years prevents archaeological digs, he told United Press International.

"The issue is who lives in the village (now), not where David walked 3,000 years ago. ... This cannot be a reason to take (down) houses of people who have lived here all their lives," said peace activist Meir Margalit of the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions.

Palestinians and peace activists suspect the municipality's moves in Silwan are part of Israel's efforts to surround Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods with a string of Jewish homes. That would cut East Jerusalem from its West Bank hinterland and then East Jerusalem could hardly be the Palestinian state's future capital.

[...]

SPECIAL TREASURES of the Jewish Theological Seminary Library are now available for viewing online. Among these are Cairo Geniza fragments of Talmudic and other texts and of texts by Maimonides, including one containing his signature.

(Via Hagahot.)

MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN: Philologos has a good column on this mysterious phrase.

RIOTING OVER SUPPOSED GRAVES AT HIGHWAY 6:

Haredim riot in renewed grave protest
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

Several dozen haredim pelted motorists, buses and police with stones Wednesday night at a central Jerusalem thoroughfare in renewed protest over what they believe is the desecration of ancient graves during construction of the trans-Israel highway, police said.

[...]

Once again, archaeologists say there are no ancient graves there.

ESCHATOLOGY IN THE NEWS: Arutz Sheva has a piece by one Moshe Lerman entitled In the Footsteps of the Moshiach," which gives a very (very) detailed exegesis of Daniel's seventy weeks (Daniel9:24-27) , combined with Lurianic Kabbalah, with the agenda of proving that Meir Kahane was the Messiah ben Joseph (the suffering messiah in rabbinic tradition who dies in battle -- I can't find a good link) and that the new Sanhedrin is predicted in scripture. If I am reading Lerman correctly, he reckons that Daniel's final seven weeks of years began around 1970 (20 years before Kahane's assassination). This is a wonderful modern-day example of actualization of scripture for current events in the exegete's time (one of my research interests for the second temple period). Which is by no means, of course, to endorse the writer's political views, exegesis, or forecasts.

BLOGGING -- how ... Ciceronian.

FIRE IN EIN GEDI:

Fire Destroys Part of Dead Sea Reserve


Tuesday May 31, 2005 9:31 PM

JERUSALEM (AP) - Two-thirds of Israel's Ein Gedi nature reserve was destroyed by fire Tuesday, causing considerable damage to animal and plant life in the lush oasis sandwiched between the harsh Judean Desert and the Dead Sea.

[...]

Also at risk are archaeological sites, including ruins from the Chalcolithic period about 4,000 B.C., when inhabitants first began to use copper. During the Byzantine period, the Jewish residents of the area built a synagogue there. Ein Gedi also is mentioned in the Bible.

The cause of the fire isn't known yet. It seems no one was injured, but there's nothing about whether any of the archaeological sites were damaged.

UPDATE: My doctoral student, Ian Werrett, e-mails to point to this Jerusalem Post article, which suggests that the fire was started by a cigarette. He adds:

As you know, I was on the archaeological team working at the Byzantine site in Ein Gedi in 1996/97 and, based on the description of the fire in the Jerusalem Post, I doubt that it came anywhere near the Byzantine site or the ancient tell of Ein Gedi. It sounds to me that the fire happened in Nahal David, which is half a mile or so to the west of these two sites. Having said that, the Chalcolithic site is on the cliffs above Nahal David and could have been damaged but, if memory serves, there is little to no vegetation around the Chalcolithic ruins.

GRAVE CONTROVERSY CONTINUES: The construction of Highway 6 near Kibbutz Regavim is proceeding again, despite Hareidi Orthodox protests, but the Israeli Transportation Minister has promised to stop it if any ancient graves are actually found.

THE PLAN TO DEMOLISH PALESTINIAN HOMES IN SILWAN is receiving vigorous press coverage. There are articles in the Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz, Al Jazeera, and the Scotsman. Reuters considers whether the demolition of a mosque is involved and Scoop reports that there will be a protest rally in Silwan this afternoon.

OXYRHYNCHUS PAPYRI WATCH: The New York Times has an article ("Historical Discovery? Well, Yes and No") which explicitly corrects some of the excesses of the Independent article that started the whole media discussion. Excerpt:

As is so often the case with British newspapers, the Independent article turned out to be both true and not true. It was right to say that new technology was indeed making it easier, in some cases, to read the Oxyrhynchus material, and that new discoveries were being made. But it was not right to say that the technology had just been discovered, or that it was functioning as a sort of Rosetta stone, or that so many new revelations were emerging as to herald "a second Renaissance."

"This stuff has been coming out for years now, and some of the things mentioned in the Independent story are months or years old," said Dr. James Romm, an associate professor of classics at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., and the director of its classical studies program. He called the article "very much overhyped" in a field where any public attention at all is rare.

"I'd love to know who first talked to whom in order to generate such good P.R," Dr. Romm said in an interview. "There is material coming out from those authors, but it's coming out in dribs and drabs."

(Via Rogue Classicism.)

UPDATE: Just occurred to me to ask, why the qualification "British newspapers" in the first quoted sentence? Sounds pretty typical of the press to me. The New York Times is not exempt. (See also here and here.)

ILLEGAL PALESTINIAN HOUSING in the vicinity of early Jerusalem is slated to be demolished:

Jerusalem to raze Silwan homes
By Meron Rapoport (Ha'aretz)

The Jerusalem Municipality has begun proceedings to raze 88 buildings housing some 1,000 residents in the Silwan neighborhood, to "restore the area to its landscape of yore," according to the city engineer, Uri Shetrit. The demolition, if it goes ahead, will be among the largest to take place in East Jerusalem since 1967.

The Silwan houses are within a neighborhood the Palestinians call "al-Bustan" and the municipality calls "King's Valley." It's located inside the wadi sloping down from the City of David, below the Old City, adjacent to the compound settled by Jews from the non-profit organization Elad. Wadia al-Fahari, who is coordinating residents' action, says that the neighborhood's earliest houses date from the 1940s and `50s, and most houses were built in the late 1980s and early `90s on private land belonging to Silwan villagers.

Shetrit issued a letter in November 2004 "ordering the removal of illegal construction in King's Valley." Shetrit's letter explained that the area is "the beginnings of Jerusalem" from 5,000 years ago, and that "King's Valley, along with the tel of David's City, constitutes an entire archaeological entity in which all of the sites are interconnected."

[...]

If the demolition proceeds, I imagine it will be controversial.

A DEAD SEA SCROLLS MUSEUM IN TENNESSEE? Maybe. The curator (owner?) of the Ink and Blood exhibition seems to be setting out to found one.

Biblical museum possible for 'Boro

By ERIN EDGEMON (Daily News Journal)
edgemon@dnj.com

The curator of a traveling exhibit of authentic Dead Sea Scroll fragments and rare Bibles said Murfreesboro would be his first choice for a permanent museum to display the massive collection of artifacts and manuscripts.

A 10-15 acre site near state Route 840 and Interstate 24 in Rutherford County would be the perfect location, said William Noah, a local physician and exhibit curator.

[...]

Artifacts now on exhibit range from fragments of Dead Sea Scroll fragments, the very earliest biblical fragments in existence; ancient inkwells that date from 2000 B.C. to the time of Christ; Proto Cuneiform clay tablets, pictographic writings dating from 3100 B.C.; and Roman artifacts such as coins, medical instruments and Byzantine jewelry.

A nonprofit entity � the National Museum of Biblical History � was formed this year as a fund-raising vehicle for the permanent museum of the same name. A portion of the proceeds of the Ink & Blood Dead Sea Scrolls to the English Bible Museum beginning with the Lexington, Ky. exhibit, which opens in Lexington Center June 24, will go toward funding the museum.

John Kea, chairman of the nonprofit board, said he expects it to be a number of years before the museum will become a reality.

[...]

OXYRHYNCHUS PAPYRI (ETC.) WATCH: The Washington Post has an article ("Imaging Technology Makes Ancient Text Readable") on the use of multispectral imaging on the Oxyrhynchus papyri and the Herculaneum scrolls, with special attention to work at BYU. On a quick read-through I didn't see any notable inaccuracies. A couple of excerpts:

Obbink, who holds appointments at both Oxford and the University of Michigan, is a leading authority on ancient classics and conservation. He won a 2001 MacArthur Fellowship for his work at both Oxyrhynchus and Herculaneum. In 1996, he reconstructed Philodemus's "On Piety," a treatise on the gods and religion, from seemingly disparate pieces of the Herculaneum scrolls.

At Oxyrhynchus, Obbink is trying to repeat this achievement by recovering Hesiod's "Catalogue of Women," a genealogy describing the love affairs of gods with mortals and the offspring they produced. "We have so many pieces now that the text can be said to exist," Obbink said. "There are a lot of gaps, but you can read it."

That being the case, the following is especially interesting to someone who works on the Old Testament pseudepigrapha, which often were written in or now survive translated into most of these same languages:

Obbink and his colleagues have found a variety of languages and scripts in the fragments. Besides Greek and Latin, they include Hieratic (cursive hieroglyphs), Demotic (hieroglyphic shorthand), Coptic (Egyptian with the Greek alphabet), Aramaic, Hebrew, Persian, Old Nubian, Syriac and, in the later deposits, Arabic.

Obbink is going through 725 boxes of material to pick out the promising fragments, which are assigned to students "who translate them and try to figure them out," he said. "It's part of learning Greek and Latin, and it sharpens your editing skills."

TODAY the annual Scottish Universities postgraduate day-conference is taking place here in St. Andrews, with St. Mary's College (and, more specifically, yours truly) as host. We have 20 student papers and a keynote address by Professor Philip Elser. It will be a very full day and I have commitments in the evening as well. I will try to do some blogging if I get a few minutes free here or there, but no promises.

UPDATE: The conference went very well, with 55-60 attending from St. Andrews, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Stirling. Many thanks to all who participated, attended, and helped out.

CHILD SACRIFICE IN CARTHAGE UPDATE: Philip Harland agrees with me and N. S. Gill provides some background links.

THE TALMUD ON WHEN LIFE BEGINS? The Washington Post has an article today on the theological debate over the use of stem cells, a subject that has been touched on before in PaleoJudaica. I'm not interested in getting into the debate, but this paragraph caught my eye (my emphasis):

DeLay and others who oppose stem cell research on theological grounds might be surprised to learn that it is not Abraham but Adam whose life and circumstances are interpreted by Jewish and Muslim thinkers when they assess the morality of this science. In Genesis, God breathes into a lump of clay to form the first man, Adam. Thus, life is seen as beginning when organs, particularly the lungs, develop, since it is then that the vital spirit arrives. The Talmud states that before 40 days, what is in the uterus is akin to water, not a human being. DeLay would do well to return to the Bible, because rabbis and imams who read it as their source of inspiration would not concur that Abraham's life and Muhammad's life were defined some seven to eight days after their conception, the time when researchers take stem cells from the blastocyst.

Is it true that the Talmud says this? If so, can anyone give me the reference?

UPDATE: Nachum J. Stone refers me to Bekhorot 21b and Carla Sulzbach to Yebamoth 69b.

UPDATE (1 June): For somewhat related matters, see my earlier post "Abortion and the Torah."

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: It appears that a terrorist attack has been narrowly averted.

2 armed Palestinians arrested at J'lem checkpoint
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

Two Palestinians were arrested Friday at a checkpoint outside of Jerusalem after three firebombs were found in their possession, police said.

The two 20-year-old suspects told police interrogators they had heard on the news that a group of Jewish extremists were preparing to ascend the Temple Mount, and that they were planning to use explosives against them, Jerusalem Police spokesperson Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.

Well spotted.

LAWRENCE MYKYTIUK, who has appeared before in PaleoJudaica (here, here, and here), has now published his book on Israelite epigraphy. Purdue University has a press release about it.

Researcher develops methods to test artifacts' links to the Bible

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. � A Purdue University professor has invented a system to judge whether ancient inscriptions refer to people in the Bible.

Lawrence Mykytiuk (MICK-ee-took) uses the system to test whether archaeological inscriptions refer to ancient Hebrew kings such as David, Omri, Jeroboam II, Uzziah and other Old Testament personages such as Mesha and the high priest Hilkiah. The system and results are detailed in his new book, "Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200-539 B.C.E." (Society of Biblical Literature, $42.95).

[...]

I look forward to reading it.

SPEAKING OF HISTORICAL REVISIONISM, David Bernstein over at the Volokh Conspiracy draws attention to the Egyptian State Information Service's web page on "Jerusalem in history", which has many wild, tendentious, historical errors. I doubt that I've caught all of them, but here are some.

Historical facts prove that Jerusalem has witnessed Arab urban and human stability since the year 3000 BC. In 2500 BC, Arab Jebusites, descendants of the Jebusite Ben Canaan, made the City their capital and called it Orsalem, from which the Europeans derived Jerusalem, which means the City of Light.

The "Jebusites" are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as one of the pre-Israelite peoples in the land. The word may be an Amorite name. The Amorites, for whatever it's worth, spoke Northwest Semitic dialects related to Hebrew, not Southern Semitic Arabic. The Bible associates the Jebusites with Jerusalem and give pre-Israelite names of kings of Jerusalem as Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18) and Adoni-zedek (Joshua 10:1-4), again, West Semitic names, not Arabic ones. In any case, we are deep in the realm of legend here and we cannot say with any confidence what the ethnic background of the Jebusites was. There is no positive evidence of their being Arabs and such evidence as we have indicates that they were not.

The etymology of the name "Jerusalem" is not very clear, but it doesn't mean "City of Light." It looks like a West Semitic name (again, related to Hebrew but not Arabic), perhaps meaning "foundation of (the god) Shalim" or some such.

The Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar expelled the Jews from the two kingdoms. In 580 BC, he destroyed the City, burned the Temple and expatriated the Jews to Babylon in Iraq.

Since then, namely 600 years BC, the political history of the Jews had ended in Palestine.

Actually Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Jerusalem was in 586/87 BCE, but let's not quibble. The last sentence is misleading. It is true that from this point on Judea was almost always under foreign rule, but there remained a large Jewish population in Palestine with a considerable political presence. Note that this section entirely ignores the second temple, which stood in Jerusalem between about 520 BCE and 70 CE.

In 232 BC., Alexander the Great invaded Palestine and annexed it to the Greek Empire. Afterwards, Mark Antonio reinvaded it in 189 BC. Then came the Nabataean Arabs to invade it in 90 BC as was annexed to their capital till the Roman invasion in the 1st. Century AD.

Alexander the Great's dates are 356-323 BCE. Mark Antony's are c. 83-30 BCE. The Nabatean King Obodas I defeated Alexander Jannaeus in 90 BCE and took territory from him (Moab and Gilead) but he did not annex Palestine.

Under the Roman reign, the Jews informed the Roman ruler about Jesus Christ in 27 AD and accused him of atheism. Consequently, the Roman ruler crushed them all and destroyed the City and established a new one where the Jews were inhibited to enter.

The causes of the Jewish revolt against Rome in 66-70 CE are complex, but the issues did not have to do with Jesus.

1- Excavations under the western wall (the base of the so-called Wailing Wall) proved nothing related to the Israelis. All What they found were only two sentences on some rocks about Isaiah engraved in type of writing that makes attributing them to Kings David or Solomon impossible.

This is so garbled that I'm not at all sure what it is supposed to mean. I am not aware of any inscriptions found under the Western Wall or which mention Isaiah. A Hebrew inscription from Silwan village from roughly the time of Isaiah comes from a tomb that may be mentioned in Isaiah 22:15-16. That and the Siloam tunnel inscription (cf. here) do demonstrate that the people living in Jerusalem and its vicinity c. 700 BCE spoke Hebrew and engaged in substantial public works in the city.

2- Excavations proved that the Jewish temple had been totally ruined thousands of years ago. This was clearly cited in the relevant Jewish references. Dr. Cathleen Cabinpus, Director of Excavations in the Jerusalem-based School for Monuments, affirmed that there was no trace of the Temple of Solomon.

Yes, the Jewish (second) temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, pretty close to 2000 years ago. I am not sure what that is supposed to prove. It was there for centuries. And yes, no archaeological remains of the first temple have been found, but given Herod's extensive rebuilding and expansion of the Temple Platform, the remains of the first temple may have been virtually entirely removed in his time. In any case, given the lack of access to the site by archaeologists and the deliberate destruction wreaked upon it by the Palestinian Authority, there hasn't been much opportunity to check. The recent salvage operation (follow the last link) has found material culture (including Hebrew inscriptions) from both the first and second temple periods.

4- There is no historical evidence that Al Bouraq Wall, the so-called Wailing Wall, was part of the Temple of Solomon. Besides, the real name of this wall is Al Bouraq Wall as mentioned by Prophet Mohammed, PBUH in his Hadith (speech) about his journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and his Ascension to seventh heavens.

Whatever one calls it, the "Wailing Wall" is part of the Temple Platform built by Herod the Great, not Solomon (no one claims it is Solomonic), and clearly dates to the Herodian period (around the turn of the era -- 2000 years ago). Herod's work, particularly on the temple, is mentioned frequently in contemporary literature. There was no such massive construction project on the Temple Mount in the Islamic period.

Now let us be clear: this is a website published by the Egyptian Government. It is riddled with both tendentious and simply careless errors about the history of Jerusalem. If this is what they come up with on matters about which I know something, I'm not inclined to assume that anything else they say is reliable.

UPDATE (28 May): Reader Gary Greenberg e-mails:

In your comment on the Egyptian Government's lies about Jerusalem, you might have noted in response that the Maccabees ruled an independent Jewish empire about as large as David's for about a century prior to the Roman conquest.

Yes, that's another one. You can read more about the Hasmonean dynasty (142-63 BCE) here and here. Also, an independent Jewish goverment was declared during the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135 CE), but although the revolutionaries controlled much of the countryside, they appear not to have gained control of Jerusalem, and the Romans put the revolt down after a few years.

UPDATE (2 June): An article in the Forward gives some Egyptian political context for this sort of thing: "Report Slams Egypt Over Antisemitism."

UPDATE (1 July): Greetings, History Carnival XI readers. You may also be interested in reading my recent article, "Assimilated to the Blogosphere: Blogging Ancient Judaism."

DELENDA EST CARTHAGO -- NOT? Tunisians are now claiming that the ancient Carthaginians did not engage in child sacrifice.

Carthage tries to live down image as site of infanticide

Thursday, May 26, 2005
By Andrew Higgins, The Wall Street Journal [reprinted in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

CARTHAGE, Tunisia -- Mhamed Hassine Fantar has a bone to pick with the Roman Empire, French writer Gustave Flaubert and a group of Americans who specialize in digging up old graves.

An expert on ancient Carthage -- a city obliterated by the Romans more than 2,000 years ago -- Mr. Fantar is campaigning to clear his forefathers of a nasty stigma: a reputation for infanticide.

"We didn't do it," says the 69-year-old archaeologist, rejecting accusations that the ancient citizens of this North African land sacrificed babies to appease their gods.

At a time of roiling debate across the Arab world about the future, rewriting the distant past can also be an urgent matter. Modern Carthage, dotted with ancient ruins and the luxury villas of the nation's current elite, looms large in Tunisia today. The country's president, an admirer of Mr. Fantar's work, lives here in a waterfront palace. Tunisia's national identity, forged by a secular regime fearful of political Islam, rests on the celebration of Carthage's pre-Islamic glories.

[...]

A major excavator of Carthage disagrees:

Lawrence Stager, a Harvard University archaeology professor and expert on the subject, calls the revisionism a whitewash. He's now editing a book that will include the results of long forensic analysis of charred bones he helped dig up in Carthage in the 1970s. This, says Mr. Stager, will prove beyond reasonable doubt that Mr. Fantar and his followers are wrong. Still, he isn't expecting to win them over. "No one really relishes having ancestors who committed such heinous acts," he says.

Human sacrifice was common in many ancient cultures. But Carthage was particularly notorious, branded as a serial killer of children for at least 600 years in a site now known as the Tophet, a Hebrew word meaning "roaster" or "place of burning." Most Western scholars believe the practice was organized around the worship of two deities. Mr. Stager says it may also have been a primitive mechanism of population control. Others suggest a more sporadic activity connected to spring fertility rights.

I'm pretty suspicious of this sort of revisionism that comes an obvious political agenda. But it's not my area of expertise. For the debate between Professor Stager and Mr. Fantar see here. (Full disclosure: Larry Stager is one of my teachers.)

UPDATE (29 May): More here.

AUT ISRAEL-BOYCOTT UPDATE: The boycotts have been voted down. The Guardian and the BBC have the story. I'm pleased. Too busy to comment further now, but I'll try to say more later on.

LATER: It's good that the boycott has been defeated, but this whole controversy is a symptom of a larger problem. The people who have been most active in the AUT have come disproportionately from the hard left and up to now they have been able to use the union as a mouthpiece for their own political agenda. This is no secret, and is one of the big reasons I never joined. AUT members now have a choice: they can get more involved and start making the union speak with a voice representative of the membership -- a voice that focuses on issues actually important for British academics -- or they can leave things as they have been. In the latter case, the Sue Blackwells will be back and will provide more international embarrassments and any good the union might do will be undermined before it starts. The reputation of the AUT is already in tatters from this episode, but if it turns out to be a wake-up call to the membership, it may be a mercy that it happened. Maybe then the AUT will get out of politics and concentrate on working for improvements (higher salaries, less bureaucracy, etc.) in the lot of university lecturers. If that were to happen, I might consider joining myself.

Meanwhile, I will be keeping an eye on the AUT and will let you know if I notice anything interesting.

LAG B'OMER begins this evening at sundown. And in Israel festivities are planned in Meron to commemorate the birth and death date of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the traditional (but not actual) author of the Zohar.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: The Forward has an article on the salvage operation on the Temple Mount materials that were illictly dug by the WAQF. The project is still in very urgent need of funding.

Troubles Mount for Effort To Rescue Temple Artifacts
By Eric J. Greenberg
May 27, 2005

Israeli archaeologists are threatening to pull the plug on a historic effort to rescue invaluable artifacts from Judaism's ancient First and Second Temples because the project has run out of money.

Organizers and supporters of the rescue project are blaming the Israeli government for failing to fund the initiative, which marks the first time in history that archaeologists have been able to analyze materials dug up from the only excavation of the Temple Mount � Judaism's holiest site and the third holiest site in Islam. During construction of a new mosque at the holy site six years ago, the Islamic Trust in charge of the Temple Mount dumped the artifacts � mixed in with 10,000 tons of rubble � at a Jerusalem garbage facility.

Archaeologists told the Forward that if they cannot quickly raise $60,000, the effort will be shelved � with 80% of the work still to be done � and potentially invaluable relics will be reburied ...

AUT ISRAEL-BOYCOTT UPDATE: The vote to reconsider the boycotts of Haifa and Bar Ilan Universities is today, by 4:00 pm. It seems very likely that the boycotts will be rescinded. More when the result comes in.

MARK GOODACRE IS MOVING TO DUKE UNIVERSITY! Britain's loss is America's gain. Congratulations Mark! We'll miss you, but I trust that you'll remain in the Blogosphere same as ever.

UPDATE (26 May): Congratulations also to Torrey Seland, who is making an institutional move within Norway. I hope the Philo of Alexandria blog will continue.

IRAQI JEWISH ARCHIVE UPDATE: National Public Radio has posted an audio file from All Things Considered, dated 9 May.

Funds Lacking to Restore Iraqi Jewish Archives

All Things Considered, May 9, 2005 � In 2003, U.S. forces discovered a cache of documents and sacred texts that had belonged to Iraq's once-thriving Jewish community in a flooded basement of Saddam Hussein's secret police. The records were transported to the U.S., where efforts to restore them are stalled by a shortage of funds.

I don't have time to listen to it right now, but there you have it. I may have comments later.

(Via the IraqCrisis list.)

Speaking of not having time, I'm swamped with exams and other work now and for some time to come. If you've e-mailed me recently, thanks, and I have read your message. Replying to any e-mails that aren't work related is a low priority at present, but if your message requires a reply, I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

SOME IMPORTANT TECHNICAL TERMINOLOGY, courtesy of Michael Turton. It's good to know these things.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

CNN, White House Falling for Palestinian Mythology?
15:58 May 24, '05 / 15 Iyar 5765 (Arutz Sheva)

A White House photo and a CNN article include "misleading" information about Jewish historic connections to Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount - playing into the hands of PA incitement.

It is interesting to note that the White House website has already corrected the errors in the photo caption. Would that the media would respond so quickly and responsibly with corrections.

As for CNN, I can't see that their wording is objectionable. They seemed to be trying to describe both Muslim and Jewish views of the Temple Mount with a reasonable amount of sympathy. Perhaps the objection is to their saying that the Temple Mount is "believed" to contain the ruins of the temple. True, this may be a politically correct attempt to distance themselves from the claim that a temple was there at all, but it could also refer to the fact that the actual remains of the temple architecture are still buried. I'm not inclined to make a big deal of this wording.

The Arutz Sheva article also has a good example of wild Palestinian historical revisionism.

ASSIMILATED TO THE BLOGOSPHERE: Philip Harland, assistant professor at Concordia University, has started a blog on Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean. In his first entry he writes:

This blog on the religions of the Roman empire and the social history of Christianity serves two main purposes. On the one hand, it will provide an opportunity for me to share interesting (to me and hopefully to you) things I encounter in my research (I am an assistant professor in the Religion department at Concordia University in Montreal). My own interests focus on archeological and epigraphic (inscriptions) evidence for small groups or associations in the Roman empire and on comparing groups of various kinds (Jewish, Christian, and "pagan") from a social historical perspective. More recently I have also focused attention on the intersection of travel and religion in antiquity (e.g. pilgrimage, ethnography, immigrant groups). On the other hand, this blog will offer a venue for interactions with students on topics addressed in my courses, which include courses not only on ancient religions but also on the history of Christianity generally.

Welcome Philip!

Another promising unit has been absorbed into the biblioblogosphere.

UPDATE: Yet another unit assimilated.

FINKELSTEIN ON FIRST-TEMPLE JERUSALEM: The Jerusalem Post has a column by Calev ben-David on comments by Ronny Reich and Israel Finkelstein on the archaeology of the first-temple period. Excerpt:

This week I joined a group on a tour of the site given by Ronny Reich, the archeologist who has directed its excavation for over a decade, and Israel Finkelstein, chairman of the archeology department of Tel Aviv University, recent winner of the prestigious Dan David prize.

At one point in the tour, the group came upon a contemporary illustration of Jerusalem as the artist imagined it might have appeared in the time of David and Solomon; an impressive-looking walled city on a mount, complete with grand royal palace and topped by a towering First Temple.

"Is that how Jerusalem looked at that time?" I asked Reich.

"Well," he replied with a diplomatic smile, "let's just say I wasn't consulted when they made that picture."

Finkelstein, as is his style, was more blunt. "That drawing," he said, "is a hallucination."

Behind that remark lies what is probably the biggest controversy (and certainly the most publicized) in contemporary biblical archeology, and one in which Finkelstein is the central figure.

His citation for the Dan David Prize [my link - JRD] notes his "innovative research... revealing a revolutionary interpretation of the history and archeology of Israel in the Bronze and Iron ages."

That "revolutionary interpretation" is in essence his assertion that certain impressive ancient structures (such as the "Solomonic gates") found at sites throughout the Land of Israel (Meggido, Hatzor, Gezer) which previous archeologists had dated to the time of David and Solomon � roughly the 10th century CE � were actually built a century or so later. Since those structures were used as evidence that the Bible accurately described the grandeur of the united Israelite kingdom of David and Solomon, Finkelstein asserts that his "low chronology" calls that assumption into question.

As we walk about the City of David, the archeologist points out in the ruins further indications to back up his belief that the Jerusalem of David and Solomon was more a small, hillside village of 200-300 inhabitants, rather than the magnificent capital of the great Israelite kingdom described in the Old Testament, or even the regional urban center other archeologists believe it to have been.

Interesting. I haven't read Finkelstein's book yet, although I hope to get to it this summer. I may have more to say after that.

By the way, that annoying jamster.co.uk ad continues to make the Jerusalem Post virtually unusable for my Firefox browser. Safari lets through the obnoxious music but at least doesn't crash, which makes me considerably less enthusiastic about Firefox. A browser ought to be able to deal with such things.

AUT ISRAEL-BOYCOTT UPDATE: I don't doubt that the AUT will rescind the boycotts of Israeli institutions in its meeting on Thursday. Eve Garrard on Normblog explains why that is only part of the battle.

UPDATE: I'm losing track of all the people who have condemned the boycott, but we can now add twenty-one Nobel laureates to the list, including writer and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.

Oh, and the Electronic Intifada relays an Al-Jazeera article on academic freedom in action in the Palestinian university teachers' union:

Palestinian teachers union dismiss Sari Nusseibeh
Khalid Amayreh, Al-Jazeera, 24 May 2005

A Palestinian teachers union has called for the dismissal of Al-Quds University President Sari Nusseibeh for "normalising ties with Israel" and "serving Israeli propaganda interests".

A statement by the Palestinian Union of University Teachers and Employees (PUUTE), published on the front page of the Ramallah-based daily Al-Ayyam, on Monday accused Nusseibeh of "normalising relations with the Sharon government" despite the Israeli prime minister's policy of "bullying the Palestinians and stealing their land".

"This constitutes a strong blow to the Palestinian national consensus against normalisation with Israel," said the statement.

[...]

Last week, Nusseibeh, who signed a cooperation agreement with Hebrew University, reportedly criticised the British boycott, describing it as "wrong and unjustified". He was quoted as saying that "problems should be resolved through dialogue not through sanctions".

[...]

MORE ON SAN DIEGO'S UPCOMING DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBIT: The San Diego State University website has an article on the curator, Professor Risa Levitt Kohn:

Kohn will be part of the Natural History Museum team of curators for the Dead Sea Scrolls display. As director of educational programming, she will help create a story line for the throngs that will pass through the 8,000-square-foot exhibition hall. She will also engage local biblical scholars at UC San Diego and the University of San Diego in the preparation of the narrative and supporting materials for the exhibit.

The first to earn a doctorate in ancient history and Hebrew bible from UC San Diego, Kohn has been to Israel many times, and viewed some of the scrolls at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem, part of the Israel Museum. She has been teaching at SDSU since 1997.

I've never met Professor Kohn, but I spent a few semesters at SDSU as an undergraduate in the Classics Department. I do hope I get to see the exhibition.

"ANCIENT BOOK?" Why do journalists -- even at the Jerusalem Post -- think that something from the 17th century qualifies as "ancient"?

While I'm griping, is anyone else having trouble with the new banner ads for a company named Jamster which advertises "ring tones?" These seemingly ubiquitous ads either play obnoxiously loud music or, worse and true to the name, freeze my Firefox browser entirely so that I have to force quit it. This has happened twice this morning from the article linked to above, so clicker beware. Is this just me or is it a widespread problem?

By the way, I'm glad the Roman Jewish community got their book back, even if it isn't ancient.

TECHNOLOGY-AND-ANTIQUITY WATCH: While we're on the subject of cool ancient manuscripts and creative technologies for reading them, there's this Yahoo News article about an important Archimedes manuscript:

Using state-of-the-art circular particle accelerators called synchrotrons, the scientists shone ultra-fine light beams onto three pages of the aged texts. Tuned to a specific energy, the light caused traces of iron in the ink to fluoresce, revealing for the first time the wispy outlines of Archimedes' 2,000-year-old ideas etched onto a goatskin document known as the ``Palimpsest.''

Though much of its text has been deciphered over the years by visible or ultraviolet light, about a quarter of the 174-page document remains unread, said SLAC scientist Uwe Bergmann. Efforts have been hampered by a form of medieval recycling in which parchment pages were erased and written over, allowing the rare material to be reused -- in this case replacing mathematical theorems with prayers.

Odd circumstances brought this ancient book into the realm of modern science and engineering.

While attending a 2003 conference in Germany, Bergmann came across a magazine article that mentioned the Palimpsest and other religious texts whose ink contained iron. ``I immediately thought it would be possible to use our X-rays to image the document,'' said Bergmann, whose own research uses synchrotron X-rays to detect extremely small amounts of iron within proteins.

Bit by bit, a letter at a time, whatever it takes.

(Via Cronaca [which has background links] and Archaeologica News.)

"TISCHENDORF WAS A STUD." "Sinaiticus is way old. Fourth century old." Rick Brannan notes some crucial facts for the New Testament textual critic to bear in mind. And I'm glad someone finds my SBL abstract inspiring.

OXYRHYNCHUS PAPYRI WATCH: I know that pointing out media errors regarding the Oxyrhynchus papyri story is starting to seem like shooting fish in a barrel, but I just can't let this one pass. Newsday has a piece that came from the Chicago Tribune (here's the link) and which covers the usual information, but includes this:

In the past few weeks alone, researchers have succeeded in deciphering a 70-line fragment from a lost tragedy by Sophocles and a 30-line fragment from Archilochos, a Greek soldier-poet who chronicled the Trojan Wars.

The Archilochos fragment confirms what scholars have long suspected: that the Greeks got lost on their way to invade Troy and mistakenly landed at place called Mysia. There they fought a battle, lost and had to regroup before heading off again for Troy.

The Archilochos fragment will be published later this month. The newly discovered lines from Sophocles are scheduled for publication in August.

Archilochus was a 7th century B.C.E. Greek elegiac poet. The fragment in question deals with legends about the Trojan War (which happened many centuries earlier, if the Greek legends have any historical basis), but the author of this article seems to think that Archilochus was a contemporary who left a firsthand chronicle behind which tells us about actual events leading up to the war. Sigh.

Incidentally, the Oxford project now has some pages up about the multispectral imaging techniques they've been using. Also, back in April Dirk Obbink published an e-mail message that cleared up at least some of the confusion about recent media coverage of the Oxyrhynchus material. I don't think I ever got around to linking to it, so here it is, posted on Rogue Classicism.

MORE ON THE ANCIENT JEWISH BONES FOR SALE:

Thieves caught selling ancient human bones
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

First the antiquities thieves sold stolen ancient burial boxes.

Now, they are trying to sell the human bones inside them as well.

Israel's Antiquities Authority announced Sunday that they had thwarted an attempt by two Jerusalem Arab men to sell four Second-Temple ossuaries - and the human bones inside them - to Israel's disaster victims' identification organization for reburial.

The 2,000 year old burial boxes, with Aramaic lettering on them, were dug up from an ancient Jewish cemetery located on the edge of east Jerusalem village of Issawiya, the head of the Antiquities Authority's anti-theft division Amir Ganor said.

The two Jerusalem Arab men, who are brothers, then allegedly contacted Zaka, the disaster victims' identification organization, offering to sell the ossuaries - and the bones in them - for $4000, he said.

[...]

More precious ancient artifacts ripped from their context so that much important information about them is now lost.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Laura Bush encountered protesters during her visits to the Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock. She seemed unfazed.

Protesters Heckle Laura Bush in Jerusalem


Monday May 23, 2005 7:46 AM

AP Photo ISRV104

By NEDRA PICKLER

Associated Press Writer

ABU GHOSH, Israel (AP) - Laura Bush said Monday she was not surprised to be met by protesters during her tour of Mideast holy sites and pledged the United States will do all it can to help resolve age-old conflicts.

``As we all know, this is a place of very high tensions and high emotions,'' the first lady said while standing in the garden courtyard of the Church of the Resurrection. ``And you can understand why when you see the people with a deep and sincere faith in their religion all living side by side.''

Mrs. Bush said the protesters who heckled her during Sunday's visits to the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall did not surprise her and she denied that they ovovershadoweder goodwill visit.

``I think the protests were very expected. If you didn't expect them, you didn't know what it would be like when you got here,'' she said. ``Everyone knows how the tensions are and, believe me, I was very, very welcomed by most people.''

[...]

ANCIENT JEWISH BONES FOR SALE according to Arutz Sheva:

Issawiya Residents in Custody for Selling Ancient Bones
09:43 May 22, '05 / 13 Iyar 5765

(IsraelNN.com) A special border police unit arrested two Jerusalem Arab residents from the Issawiya area, suspected of robbing ancient burial graves and attempting to sell the bones.

[...]

AUT ISRAEL-BOYCOTT UPDATE: John Lyons has alerted me to the following link, which gives the text of around 31 motions to be debated in the meeting on the 26th. Most of the motions are against the boycott.

http://www.aut.org.uk/circulars/html/la7636.htmlm

I think my favorite is #7:

Reading Whereas resolutions on boycotting specific Israeli universities were passed by council in circumstances which precluded due investigation, consideration and debate; whereas they offend against the fundamental principles of academic freedom to which the membership subscribes; and whereas their effect has been to damage AUT, bringing it into disrepute both nationally and internationally, those resolutions are now overturned by council with immediate effect.

Brief and to the point.

Then there's #18:

York Council instructs the executive committee to prepare proposals that prevent or hinder AUT from making mistakes similar to that of adopting motion 58 of council in April 2005. An appropriate change might, for example, prohibit AUT activities in a spectrum of political issues or require a very large voting majority before engaging in certain kinds of activities.

Not a bad idea.

Number 19 (Oxford) is also good.

Anyhow, the overall picture is encouraging and indicates that most of the membership understand what a miscalculation this boycott was and how badly it has damaged the reputation of the AUT.

DID THE QUEEN OF SHEBA RULE IN NIGERIA? A University of Toronto professor seems to think it's possible.

�Each year both Muslim and Christian religious pilgrims come to this site in Ike-Eri, Nigeria, to pray and honour the queen of Sheba (also known as Bilikisu Sungbo to those of the Islamic faith) even though Ethiopia maintains that she is actually buried in their country,� says professor and museologist Lynne Teather of the Museum Studies program at U of T. �Indigenous knowledge and oral traditions maintain that this is the shrine of the queen and through working with the Bilikisu Sungbo Project, we are trying to not only learn more about this fabulous queen, but to establish a feasibility study on how we can marry tourism to this heritage site.�

It would certainly be interesting to collect information about Nigerian traditions about the Queen, but the case for her actually ruling there doesn't sound very strong to me. The article, however, isn't very informative.

UCL INCANTATION BOWLS UPDATE: Al Jazeera has a piece on the investigation of the provenance of 650 Aramaic incantation bowls from the Sch�yen collection.

UK university reviews artefact loan
By Lawrence Smallman

Friday 20 May 2005, 13:06 Makka Time, 10:06 GMT

A leading international buyer of antiquities is at the heart of a British university inquiry that questions whether part of his multimillion-dollar collection was illegally exported from the Middle East.

University College London set up a committee of inquiry on Friday to question the provenance, or legal ownership, of 650 Aramaic incantation bowls dating from the 5th century CE.

Although Norwegian collector Martin Schoyen is not named in the inquiry, he is on record as having loaned the bowls to the university.

[...]

If they were taken from Iraq illegally, they should certainly be returned. But I do hope that UCL has made a careful photographic record of them. I wonder if the repatriation legislation has any provision for making sure fragile artifacts like these are photographed before moving them again. Anyone know?

ANOTHER CANDIDATE for the site where John the Baptist baptized:

Have Jordanian archaeologists found the place Jesus was baptized?
New evidence may have finally pinned down the legendary 'Bethany beyond the Jordan'

By Rami G. Khouri
[Lebanon] Daily Star staff
Friday, May 20, 2005

Have Jordanian archaeologists found the place Jesus was baptized?

AMMAN, Jordan: Substantial new evidence from archaeological excavations may have located where Jesus was baptized. Scholars long identified Jesus' baptism as taking place at the lower reaches of the Jordan River, east of Jericho - prompted by a combination of biblical references, Byzantine and other mediaeval texts, and the uninterrupted traditions of the Greek Orthodox Church, which has custody of the area.

[...]

The excavated main complex at Tell al-Kharrar comprises structures on and around the small hill adjacent the spring at the head of Wadi al-Kharrar. Artifact evidence shows that the site was inhabited from the Late Hellenistic/Herodian and Early Roman periods (2nd century BC to 2nd century AD), through the Late Byzantine and early Islamic periods (5th to 8th centuries AD), and again in late Ottoman centuries.

The strongest evidence for a Chrstian-era settlement here comes from the excavated remains of heavy stone jars, a distinctive feature of local Jewish communities. Father Michele Piccirillo of the Franciscan Archaeological Institute in Jerusalem and Mount Nebo, one of those who rediscovered the site in August 1995, identified these fragments. He believes that, along with remains of large ceramic storage jars, they are clear proof of a settled population, which he identifies as Bethany beyond the Jordan.

[...]

As usually with these things, the archaeology and the information it gives us about ancient Jewish life is more important (because it's definitely real) than any speculation about Jesus or John the Baptist being involved.

THE TEMPLE SCROLL is a show stealer at The New Hebrew exhibition in Berlin. And well it should be.

Hebrew on display in Berlin
By Dana Gilerman (Ha'arets)

The Temple Scroll from Qumran arrived at the Martin Gropius-Bau Museum in the center of Berlin on Monday morning. The scroll - one of the principal exhibits at "The New Hebrews: a Century of Art in Israel," which opens tomorrow - has come a long way, all the way from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to the history museum in Berlin.

Michal Dayagi-Mendels, chief curator of archaeology at the Israel Museum, says the scroll has been undergoing preparations for the journey for the entire past year. "Four restorers worked on it every day, for hours and hours," she says.

[...]

"One could think of [the scroll] as our Mona Lisa," says Dayagi. "It goes on tour and is accorded proper respect. There is something very unique in the fact that Hebrew, the Jewish language, is on display after 2,000 years, especially in Berlin, at an exhibition of a century of Hebrew culture. There is something very powerful in this, attesting to a continuity that no one has succeeded in breaking," she says.

[...]

There's another article about the Temple Scroll in Berlin here. And this article on the exhibition has a paragraph on the Temple Scroll which includes a link to the Qumranica blog.

A DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION is coming to my home town:

Museum announces first-ever local visit
By Sandi Dolbee
UNION-TRIBUNE RELIGION & ETHICS EDITOR

May 19, 2005

Tickets aren't on sale yet, and the event is more than two years away, but the San Diego Natural History Museum made it official Tuesday evening: Part of the Dead Sea Scrolls will go on exhibit here beginning in the summer of 2007.

[...]

UPDATE: Hmmm ... the exhibit runs from July through December of 2007 and the annual SBL meeting is in San Diego in late November of the same year. Looks like there's a good chance I'll get to see it.

AUT ISRAEL-BOYCOTT UPDATE: The Scottish AUT deserves praise for doing the right thing.

Scotland AUT motion seen as 'anti-boycott measure'
By YAAKOV LAPPIN (Jerusalem Post)

LONDON, England

The attempt to boycott Israeli universities by Britain's Association of University Teachers (AUT) has been dealt another blow, following a decision by the Scottish AUT to pass a motion calling for dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian trade unionists.

Alistair Hunt, president of Scotland AUT, told The Jerusalem Post that the motion should be seen as an anti-boycott measure, and called into question the manner in which boycotts against the University of Haifa and Bar-Ilan University were passed. "I am pleased that AUT Scotland endorsed the motion by a large majority," said Hunt. "I am personally committed to the route of dialogue and debate instead of boycotts."

Hunt said that the motion was a continuation of a spirit of dialogue, which began at a meeting hosted by Scottish trade unionists last month, during which Histadrut representatives and members of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions pledged to work together.

[...]

Alastair Hunter (n.b., not Hunt) deserves a lot of credit for his courageous handling of this affair.

By the way, I'm pretty sure that the reference to the Birmingham branch of the AUT later in the article is a mistake for the Bristol branch. I would be most surprised (albeit very pleased) if the Birmingham branch, home of the boycott's chief architects, voted to reject the boycott.

I can't find the AUT Scotland statement anywhere on the Web. If anyone has the full text, please send it to me and I'll post it.

Also, I just noticed that the original AUT web page that made the case for the boycott is now inaccessible except to AUT members. I guess that shows how confident the AUT is of the arguments it accepted to institute the boycott. I expected something like this, so I copied much of the relevant material here quite some time ago. I should have followed my instinct and copied all of it.

PROFESSOR JAMES BARR has had a serious accident. Professor Heather McKay, SOTS Membership Secretary, e-mails the following on the SOTS mailing list:

MESSAGE FROM Prof Doug Knight (Vanderbilt)

I just received a call from Jane Barr, wife of James Barr, Emeritus Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford and Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt.

James had a serious accident two weeks ago while attending the meeting of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. He fell down a steep staircase, striking his head badly. He has been in the hospital ever since, most of the time in the intensive care unit. For the last several days he has been awake and quite responsive, though unable to speak because of a breathing tube through the mouth. Today he is undergoing a tracheotomy. Jane said that the doctors are reluctant to make promises about his long-term recovery because of the brain injury he sustained from the fall, but she understands that it may take up to a year for him to regain his health and function.

Jane herself seemed quite distraught, as one might expect. Their daughter and two sons have been with them at the hospital for much of the time.

I asked how we could be of help, and she indicated she would appreciate that word be passed to others who know them.

I am very sorry to hear this and I wish Professor Barr a speedy and full recovery.

"KABBALIST BLESSES JONES: Now�s the Time to Find Holy Lost Ark." I swear I'm not making this headline up.

Vendyl Jones claims to be the inspiration for Indiana Jones, which is appropriate, because his plans for finding the Ark are about as plausible as the scenario in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

JOHN BROWN'S DIVINING FOR OIL IN ISRAEL is the subject of a USA Today article:

His mission: Seek and ye shall find oil

By Leah Krauss, Special for USA TODAY

KIBBUTZ MAANIT, Israel � John Brown believes he'll find oil in central Israel, although he has no scientific data or particular experience in the drilling business on which to base that.

The Dallas native is a relative novice in the energy industry. He says he'll find oil because his reading of the Bible tells him it's right here � under Maanit, an inland plain northeast of Tel Aviv, where he began drilling last month.

[...]

I have commented on the project here. The only thing to add is that, once again, it does not occur to a journalist to ask someone who specializes in biblical Hebrew whether the claims make any sense or not. Sigh.

THE SBL CARG SESSION on biblioblogging, coming in November, is mentioned by Mark Goodacre, who posts the abstract of Rick Brannan's paper. I gave Kirk Lowery the abstract for mine, but Mark doesn't seem to have it. Here it is:

ENTER THE BIBLIOBLOGGERS

The rise of weblogs or "blogs" (basically just web pages produced with software that facilitates frequent updates and allows links to individual posts) as a media and political force has been an important cultural milestone in the last few years. Along with political pundits, hobbyists, diarists, etc., biblical scholars and those in related academic disciplines have also been establishing a niche for themselves in the "Blogosphere." By common consent, or at least in resignation, biblical scholars who blog refer to themselves as "bibliobloggers." As of this writing in the spring of 2005, for the last two years I have operated a blog called PaleoJudaica, which focuses on news and Internet content on ancient Judaism and its historical and linguistic context. Since PaleoJudaica began, there has been a gradual but ultimately geometric increase in the number of biblioblogs. At present I am aware of more than two dozen.

Given the rate at which web-based technology and its effects on our culture are developing, it is difficult to predict more than half a year in advance what aspects of blogging will be of greatest interest at the time of this CARG session. But I plan to share with you some of my experiences with PaleoJudaica and also to describe my work on Qumranica, a blog I have set up for the spring semester of 2005 for a course I am teaching on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I will also discuss some of the uses to which I and other bibliobloggers have put our blogs, such as commenting on and supplementing media stories in our areas of expertise; noting errors (which frequently are rife) in such stories; reporting on scholarly conferences we've attended; sharing our preliminary thoughts on our research; and sometimes providing advance summaries of scholarly work we are publishing.

UPDATE: Stephen Carlson collects and comments on recent posts pertaining to blogging. Me, I find blogging fun and restorative and should I stop feeling that way at some point, I'll probably stop blogging. I can't see that it has hurt my productivity and so far it's even led to a professional presentation (above) and a publication that I wouldn't have had otherwise. I may be an addict, but I'm a well-adjusted one.

AUT ISRAEL-BOYCOTT UPDATE: John Lyons, Lecturer in New Testament at Bristol University, e-mails to let me know that the Bristol chapter of the AUT has just passed the following motion. I understand that similar statements have been passed by Oxford, Cambridge, Sussex, and Warwick Universities.

This association regrets and deplores the resolution of the AUT Council to implement an academic boycott of Haifa and Bar-Ilan Universities in Israel. The ideals of an academic community and of academic freedom are such that a boycott of this nature could only be even contemplated after the case and the evidence for it had been searchingly examined and widely debated amongst members. Yet Council passed its resolutions on the basis of a perfunctory and one-sided debate.

The politics of the region are complex and members properly take a range of different views on the conflicts there. Moreover, it is perverse and counterproductive for British academics to seek to isolate members of the Israeli academic community, many of whom have been among the most vocal members of their society in opposing their government's policies. To single out Israel in this manner, whilst continuing to maintain relations with universities in such countries as China and Russia, is a sign of an unwarranted selectivity.

We should also be mindful of the effect on our own members. There are a significant number of Jewish members of the Association, many of whom identify with Israel as the Jewish national homeland. We take no view here for or against Zionism. But we recognize that such members of theAssociation are bound to feel marginalized and excluded by this resolution. Again, only the most compelling of cases, searchingly examined and widely debated, could warrant a decision with such a side-effect. No such examination or debate took place.

Accordingly, we resolve:

(1) to reject the call to boycott Israeli universities.

(2) to call on the AUT nationally to reverse its policy, which we deplore.

(3) to call on the AUT National Executive to call an emergency or extraordinary meeting of Council to discuss this policy.

(4) To take no measures locally to implement the current national policy on this matter.

(5) to deplore the fact that AUT Council made such a decision on the basis of a perfunctory and one-sided debate.'

Well done.

As a side note, the British government has finally made a statement on the boycott:

Howells wants end to Israeli boycott dispute

Polly Curtis, [Guardian] education correspondent
Tuesday May 17, 2005

The government made its debut in the row over the academic boycott of two Israeli universities today when the middle east minister, Kim Howells, issued a plea for a "peaceful" resolution to the row.

[...]

Mr Howells, who was minister for higher education until the post-election reshuffle and at the time that the boycott was agreed, said in a carefully-worded statement today: "I welcome the fact that the Association of University Teachers is to reconsider, on 26 May, its decision to boycott Bar Ilan and Haifa universities. I hope that the AUT will ensure the issue is fully-debated and will invite the two universities to express their views.

"The British government fully supports academic freedom and appreciates the independence of the AUT. But as a friend of both Israel and the Palestinians, we believe that we can best encourage both sides to take the steps needed for progress through close engagement to achieve a peaceful resolution."

[...]

The statement is indeed carefully worded (although not so carefully that the Guardian reporter couldn't misread it -- the "peaceful resolution" refers to the Israel/Palestine conflict, not the AUT controversy.) But it does make clear that the government thinks the boycott is a bad idea, which is all to the good.

But then there's this:

ADL's boss threatens boycott of UK academe
By Yair Sheleg (Ha'aretz)

The Anti-Defamation League is considering launching a counter academic boycott against British academia if Britain's Association of Union Teachers (AUT) fails to cancel its boycott of Bar-Ilan and Haifa universities, ADL National Director Abraham Foxman told Haaretz.

Such a counter boycott would not be restricted to Jews. "We would approach all the leading universities in the United States, and say to them: `If you believe in academic freedom and freedom of expression, don't accept the British boycott,'" said Foxman.

[...]

It's not entirely clear what Foxman has in mind, but if it really involves a boycott of British universities, it's not very helpful and doesn't show a clear understanding of the situation. The AUT does not speak for British academics or British universities and it would be ridiculous to punish us all for the AUT's bad decision. Please do back up those of us who oppose the boycott, but not this way.

SHORT ANSWER: YES.

MICHAEL PAHL blogs the Calgary conference on second temple Judaism. But where are the pictures, Michael?

UPDATE (19 May): Now there's a picture. Thanks Michael.

ANTIQUTIES LOOTERS FOILED (THIS TIME):

Stolen rare artifact recovered in mail
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

A rare archaeological artifact dating back nearly two thousand years which was stolen from an archaeological site in Israel has been intercepted in the mail en route to the US, Israel's Antiquities Authority announced Tuesday.

The 5-7 cm lead weight,[mishkolet oferet] dating back to the second century Bar Kochba Revolt, was hidden inside a book sent by airmail.

The unusual package was sent by a former Israeli antiquities dealer to a prominent American antiquities dealer in New York, the head of the Antiquities Authority's anti-theft division Amir Ganor said.

[...]

This success is good news, but the overall picture continues to worsen:

About 300 archeology thefts are detected each year in Israel, with the illicit antiquities trade on the black market in the country estimated to be running in the millions of dollars a year.

Despite the overall drop in violence in Israel, the number of antiquities theft has risen more than 50 percent in the last year alone.

In 2004 there were 314 reported cases of antiquities theft, compared to less than 200 in 2003. The phenomenon of antiquities theft has taken on gold rush dimensions, with an antiquities site now plundered every day on average.

TRIAL DELAYED: The antiquities forgery trial in Israel has been delayed until September:

Antiquities fraud trial opens, then adjourns for four months
By The Associated Press

Five suspects in a forgery ring that allegedly produced a treasure trove of fake Bible-era artifacts went on trial yesterday in Jerusalem, but the judge agreed to adjourn until September.

Defense attorneys said they need more time to prepare, noting that investigators provided some of their material only in recent days. The next hearing is set for Sept. 4.

[...]

SOME BOZO? Why do e-mail messages from the Society of Biblical Literature to its membership now consistently contain the name "Some Bozo" in the sender field? I have e-mailed them about this and received no reply. I think someone needs to update a default setting.

UPDATE (18 May): The SBL technical people have been in touch. Whatever the problem is, it seems to arise in the Eudora Macintosh system I'm using and shows up only in the mailbox. One version of it is discussed here and a fix for it is given here. But this involves messages sent with no return address, which is not the case with the SBL messages I've been getting. Anyhow, thanks to Lauren Hightower and Bob Buller for their prompt replies.

THOMAS THOMPSON previews his new book on the Bible and Intepretation website:

Creating Biblical Figures

I reconsider the theme of life�s victory over death through the perspective of the related themes of �new wine� and �blood of the covenant,�... is intimately connected to the fertility myth of the dying and rising god, from Tammuz and Ba�al to Dionysus.


By Thomas L. Thompson
Professor of Old Testament,
University of Copenhagen
May 2005

Job, in his utopian, king-like role in Job 29, provides me with a useful paradigm for the biblical figure of the messiah (Th.L. Thompson and H.Tronier, Frelsens Biografisering, Museum Tusculanum: Copenhagne, 2004, 115-134) and an internal coherence to my new book, The Messiah Myth: The Near Eastern Roots of Jesus and David (Basic Books: New York, 2005), which provides the theme of a seminar this coming semester. ...

An online seminar, I hope? I've been interested in royal ideology in the Jesus traditions for a long time, so I look forward to reading this one. But if he really is arguing that Jesus never existed (as the Amazon reviews seem to indicate), he's got his work cut out for him. Note the review by biblioblogger Michael Turton in particular for a detailed commentary.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: I'm not sure what to make of this one.

Israelis Foil Plot by Jewish Extremists


Tuesday May 17, 2005 3:31 AM

AP Photo JRL152

By MARK LAVIE

Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM (AP) - Three Jewish extremists planned to fire a missile into Islam's third-holiest shrine in hopes of unleashing mayhem across the Middle East and halting Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank this summer, police said Monday.

Officials admitted that hard evidence in the case was weak, but other opponents of the pullout showed Monday that even small numbers of demonstrators can tie up police throughout Israel, blocking main highways with burning tires and their own bodies. At least 300 people were detained, police said.

[...]

The plot apparently did not progress past the stage of discussion. No missile was purchased, no concrete plans were made and authorities did not have enough evidence against the three to go beyond ordering house arrest for a short time last month before releasing them.

Israel's Justice Ministry said the suspects would not be indicted because there was no evidence they carried out any part of the plot, and they had second thoughts about it even before they were detained.

Naftali Wirtzburger, attorney for the three, said his clients never served in the army and have no idea how to fire a missile. He accused security forces of entrapment.

[...]

There just isn't enough information here to tell what was really going on, but it sounds as if it could have been serious.

UPDATE: More details here and here. The plot sounds half baked, but dangerous and not to be ignored.

CALL FOR PAPERS ON SYRIAC: George Kiraz e-mails on the Hugoye list:

Periodically, Hugoye sends a call for submissions.

Hugoye is an peer-reviewed scholarly journal dedicated to Syriac studies, and is published twice a year in electronic form and in print. Papers on all aspects of Syriac studies are welcomed. For information, please see: http://www.bethmardutho.org/hugoye

George Kiraz, General Editor

Actually, it appears that the correct address is http://bethmardutho.cua.edu/hugoye/. The one above redirects you to this one.

JEWISH MOSAICS FROM THE ROMAN PERIOD will be on display at the Brooklyn Museum in their Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire exhibition, according to ArtDaily.com.

BROOKLYN, N.Y.- Twenty-one extraordinary Roman-period mosaics from the first archaeological ruins of an ancient synagogue to be discovered in modern times will be on view September 9 through November 20, 2005, at the Brooklyn Museum. This exhibition will examine the role of these mosaics, acquired by the Museum in 1905, in the development of synagogue decoration in the late Roman Empire. Approximately thirty-eight related artifacts, such as contemporaneous textiles, marble statues, gold jewelry, and bronze ritual objects, will be included.

Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire will investigate the origins of synagogues, the development of Jewish art in the Roman period, female patronage in the ancient synagogue, the differences between early Christian and Jewish symbolism in art, and the relationship between ancient and modern synagogues.

[...]

LEVANT ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT: Calvin College News reports:

Calvin Prof Part of Norwegian Grant
May 13, 2005

Calvin College history professor Bert de Vries will be joining an international team of 16 archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers, historians and sociologists, including Bethany Walker of Grand Valley State, in a wide-ranging study of global moments in Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria - an area known as "the Levant."

The work will be funded over four years by a $2.6 million (16 million Norwegian kroner) grant from the Norwegian Research Council. The team was one of 17 successful applications out of 263 in an annual competition for 250 million Norwegian kroners of NRC funding for basic research in all fields.

[...]

THE MUSEUM OF BIBLICAL ART in Manhattan is reopening with displays on William Miller (the founder of the "Millerite" movement), evangelical art from the American South, and this:

The museum, formerly the Gallery of the American Bible Society -- the society was the main donor for the expansion -- also has a smaller exhibit showing centuries-old Bibles in Latin, Chinese, Syriac, Spanish and German, and a Torah scroll, at least 400 years old, from a synagogue in Kaifeng, China.

AUT ISRAEL-BOYCOTT UPDATE: Carla Sulzbach e-mails to point to the following response from Haifa University. Excerpt:

The University of Haifa is saddened and not a little outraged by the utterly unjust and unjustifiable decision of the AUT and by its attempt to erect barriers and obstruct the flow of ideas within the international academic community.

In lieu of evidence to support the singling out of Israeli academia, the authors of this campaign have chosen to adopt a three-year old urban legend.

We are astounded by the fact that the AUT never requested our response prior to adopting their resolution, and did not allow our position to be presented by members of the AUT who are familiar with the facts.

The case against Israeli academia, in general, and the University of Haifa in particular, is devoid of empirical evidence and violates the principle of due process. Driven by a prior and prejudicial assumption of guilt, the AUT has refused to confuse itself with facts.

[...]

Whatever the merits of the case, the conduct of the AUT before the vote was reprehensible.

A GOOD CONSPIRACY? Regular readers will recall the bemusement of bibliobloggers about the overhyped articles in the Independent about the imaging of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri and the alternate reading of Revelation's number of the beast. There is now a new Independent article on the Herculaneum papyri and Rogue Classicist David Meadows deduces a conspiracy among papyrologists to get the public behind the idea of renewed excavation in Heculaneum.

So what appears to be happening is that we've got some lover of Classics using the media to create some hype about the Villa of the Papyri! This is great because when this call to excavate first came out, it was met with a resounding round of indifference. It was brought up again in March, and again seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Now, because of that 'number of the beast' thing, there's been great attention drawn to the technology available to read this stuff and this Independent piece is clearly designed to get folks 'licking their lips in anticipation' of what might be found there. Consider how many mummies are now being CT scanned since they gave Tut the treatment (every week in Explorator there's one). Bravo! Well done! Let's see where it goes from here ....

If so, I'm not sure the conspiracy has been all that successful, since the article is quite ambivalent about the idea of further excavations any time soon. Personally, I hope that the money can be found for both conservation and excavation. Both are extremely important.

Incidentally, my usual quibble: The Independent article says of the Villa of the Papyri:

Thanks to the fluke of its preservation within the inferno of the eruption, this is by far the oldest extant library in the world.

This is not true at all. Sumerian libraries have been recovered which were older at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius than the Herculaneum library is today.

Anyhow, I hope the plot of these mild-mannered papyrologist masterminds succeeds in increasing public interesting in ancient Heculaneum and its library.

THE INK AND BLOOD EXHIBITION is going to Lexington, Kentucky, in June.