PAGAN MONOTHEISM CONFERENCE: I've already noted the Pagan Monotheism Conference at the University of Exeter, but here's the full program:

University of Exeter, Department of Classics and Ancient History

International conference: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire,
Exeter, 17-20 July 2006

Keynote Speakers include M. Frede, G. Fowden, J. North, A. Chaniotis, C. Markschies, L. Rutgers, and S. Mitchell.

Please find below the provisional programme.

Further details and a registration form can be found on the website http://www.huss.ex.ac.uk/classics/conferences/index.htm

Please contact P.E.R.van-Nuffelen@ex.ac.uk with any questions.

Provisional programme

17 July 2006

5-6: Plenary: S. Mitchell - P. Van Nuffelen (Exeter): Definition and Methodology

18 July 2006

9.30-10.30: Plenary: M. Frede (Oxford), tba (philosophy and pagan monotheism)

Subsidiary A:
11-11.30: R. Seaford (Exeter), The early history of Greek monotheism
11.30-12: Y. Ustinova (Beer Sheva), Monotheism as a Cognitive State: The Case of Parmenides
12-12.30: G. Van Riel (Leuven), Monotheistic tendencies in Plato

Subsidiary B:
11-11.30: Y. Lehmann (Strasburg): L' avènement du monothéisme philosophique à Rome (de Varron à Sénèque)
11.30-12: G. Winkle (Calvin College): Coram Deo Platonic Deity and Theurgic Ascent in Apuleius' Metamorphoses
12-12.30: Y. Maes (Ghent): The savior of (Ro)Man? Cato Uticensis in Lucan.

Noon

2.30-3.30: Plenary: G. Fowden (Athens): Plotinus A pagan, Christian and Muslim monotheist

Subsidiary C:
4-4.30: P. Scade (Exeter): The early history of the Timaeus
4.30-5: A. Magny (Bristol): The "Blasphemous" Philosopher: Porphyry and the Remains of Against the Christians in the Christian Literature
5-5.30: S. Klitenic Wear (Creighton): The Pseudo-Dionysian Trinity and the Porphyrian One

Subsidiary D:
4-4.30: P.R. Bosman (South Africa): The imperial Cynic and the one god
4.30-5: J.P. Kenney (Saint Michael's College): Plotinus and the Foundations of Pagan Monotheism
5-5.30: D. Caluori (Oxford): Plotinus on god and gods

19 July 2006

9.30-10.30: Plenary: C. Markschies (Berlin): Some new insights into the "Heis-Theos-Formula"

Subsidiary A:
11-11.30: N. Belayche (Paris): Les acclamations " Heis theos " : pratiques eulogiques et représentation du panthéon
11.30-12: B. Selter (Ghent): Eadem spectamus astra. Monotheistic tendencies in the Carmina latina epigraphica.

Subsidiary B:
11-11.30: A. Tugendhaft (Chicago): The aniconic idols of the ancient Nabateans.
11.30-12: G. van Kooten (Groningen): The Aniconic, Monotheistic Beginnings of Rome's Pagan Cult, According to Varro, Plutarch, and St Paul: Romans 1.19-25 in a Roman Context

12-1: Plenary: A. Chaniotis (Heidelberg): Megatheism The search of the almighty God and the competition of cults

Noon

2.30-3.30: Plenary: J. North (London): Ritual and religiosity

Subsidiary C:
4-4.30: A. Busine (Brussels): Apollo's oracles between polytheism and monotheism
4.30-5: C. Addey (Bristol): Monotheism, Henotheism and Polytheism in Porphyry's Philosophy from Oracles
5-5.30: V. Hirschmann (Heidelberg): tba (Phrygians)

Subsidiary D:
4-4.30: I. Sandwell (Bristol): Monotheism, Polytheism and the Basis of Religious Toleration in the Fourth century AD
4.30-5: M. Kahlos (Helsinki): Refuting and reclaiming monotheism. Monotheism in the debate between 'pagans' and Christians in 380-430
5-5.30: G. Sfameni Gasparro (Messina): One God and divine Unity. Late Antique theologies between exclusivism and inclusiveness

20 July

9.30-10.30: Plenary: L. Rutgers (Utrecht): Judaism in a Greco-Roman World: Problems and Perspectives

Subsidiary A:
11-11.30: F. Stavrakopoulou (Exeter): Minimalising Monotheism: Perspectives on the biblical and scholarly re-imaging of ancient Israelite Yahweh-worship.
11.30-12: L. Capponi (San Marino): The temple of Leontopolis and the conversion of Egypt from "pagan monotheism" to Judaism.
12-12.30: C. Hywel (Ripon College): Pagan Monotheism in Philo Judaeus

Subsidiary B:
11-11.30: A. Fürst (Münster): Images of God and Concepts of Social and Political Order. The Controversy between Celsus and Origen about Pagan and Christian Monotheism
11.30-12: M. Amerise (Perugia): One God, One Emperor. Monotheism and political theology in Eusebios of Caesarea.
12-12.30: O. Nicholson (Minnesota): Licinius, 'pagan monotheism' and Lactantius On the Anger of God
12.30-1: J. Schott (Charlotte, North Carolina): The Conversion and Apostasy of Pagan Monotheists: Representation and Reality



-------------------
Dr Peter Van Nuffelen
P.E.R.Van-Nuffelen@exeter.ac.uk

-------------------

(Via the British New Testament Society annoucements list.)

AN OBITUARY FOR J. T. MILIK, by Émile Puech, has appeared in the French newspaper Le Monde:

Joseph Milik, déchiffreur des manuscrits de la mer Morte

(Via Anders Aschim at Qumran.no.)

ASSIMILATED TO THE BLOGOSPHERE: Targumist and New Orleans hurricane survivor Christian Brady has a blog, the superhero-name-evoking Targuman. Introduction here. Welcome Chris!

THE CHALDEAN LITURGY (in Aramaic) underwent a reform last year and Zenit has an article on it.

Praying in Jesus' Own Language

Interview With Professor of Chaldean Liturgy

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 22, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The Chaldean Church, whose patriarch resides in Baghdad, Iraq, takes pride in its ancient liturgy which uses the same language Jesus used.

In November, the Chaldean liturgy underwent a reform following a special synod in Rome.

To assess the extent of the reform, ZENIT interviewed Monsignor Petrus Yousif, professor of Syro-Chaldean patrology and Chaldean liturgy at the Pontifical Oriental Institute and the Catholic Institute of Paris. He is also the parish priest of France's Chaldean community.

In this interview, Monsignor Yousif, consultor of the Special Liturgy Commission for the Oriental Churches, shares his insight into the Chaldean rite, which uses Aramaic.

[...]

I have to say that I doubt that the Aramaic of the liturgy is really "pronounced as Jesus pronounced it," i.e., in first-century Galilean Aramaic. But it's true that it's a dialect of the same language.

THE REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA is renovating its Manuscript Institute, which has a very important collection:

"We can surprise the whole world!": Saakashvili calls for construction of new manuscript museum
By Eka Basilaia (in The Messenger)

A modern and beautiful museum built according to European standards will be set up in the centre of Tbilisi soon, according to a decree signed by President Saakashvili at the Korneli Kekelidze State Institute of Manuscripts on Friday.

Saakashvili visited the manuscript institute and publicly called for an improvement of the institute's facilities and resources. To this end, the President has proposed building a new branch of the institute in the city centre.

[...]

The construction of the museum building will start in a year's time and it will be equipped with all the technology and apparatuses needed for keeping and displaying manuscripts and carrying out scientific research.

The collection contains approximately 10,000 Georgian manuscripts, 60,000 Georgian historical documents, 4,000 manuscripts in Greek, Hebrew, Syrian, Armenian, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Slavic languages, while 5,000 historical documents in these languages are preserved. 20,000 documents in different languages from the personal archives of distinguished Caucasian writers and scientists of the 19th and 20th centuries are also held in the museum.

[...]

Sounds like a good place to look for more Old Testament pseudepigrapha.

THE BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL has been revived by Tyler F. Williams, and he will be hosting it in February at his Codex Blogspot. He's put up a Biblical Studies Carnival Homepage and aims to have a new carnival out monthly, hosted by different bibliobloggers. Well done!

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: That model of Jerusalem and the Second Temple is finally being moved from the Holyland Hotel to the Israel Museum:

The Temple Mount will be towed away at the end of January
By Amiram Barkat (Haaretz)

At the end of January, the Temple Mount will be sawed into pieces and carted away. Not the real Temple Mount, of course, but its miniature model on the hillside next to the Holyland Hotel in southeast Jerusalem. The mountain and the temple compound built by King Herod are part of a model of Jerusalem in 66 C.E., on the eve of the revolt against the Romans that ended in the destruction of the city.

For almost 40 years, the miniature city sat proudly in the garden surrounding it, but the desire of the site's owners to build a residential tower led them to seek and finance the model's transfer to an alternative location. The institution chosen to host the model is the Israel Museum, which has prepared a terraced field beside the Shrine of the Book to accommodate the model.

[...]

(Via this week's Explorator.)

THE VILLA OF THE PAPYRI AT HERCULANEUM is the subject of a 2005 monograph by David Sider which is reviewed by Jan P. Stronk in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review.

David Sider, The Library of the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005. Pp. 128. ISBN 0-89236-799-7. $40.00.

(Via Jack Sasson's Agade e-mail list, for which I have been unable to find an online archive.)

GNOSTIC REVIVAL? Traditions about the sacred feminine in the Nag Hammadi Library have considerable appeal to some women in mainstream Christian denominations. Here's some evidence in the Dallas Morning News:

Lectures to offer scholarly look at feminine imagery of God

12:00 AM CST on Saturday, January 21, 2006

By MARY A. JACOBS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

CONNECTIONSMost scholars call Christianity a patriarchal religion: Jesus was a man, and God is typically called "he." But others argue that, after a careful reading of Christian history, that's only half the picture.

An upcoming lecture series will give participants a closer look at this other side of Christian spirituality. "The Feminine Face of God in Christianity" begins Sunday at Highland Park United Methodist Church.

"Because of the ways in which our Christian tradition developed, one stream was emphasized, and of course it's all masculine imagery," said Rosalind de Rolon, a member of the church who organized the series. Organizers say the five-week program integrates "fine art, music, distinguished theological scholarship and participants' own epiphanies."

Ms. de Rolon will deliver the opening lecture with a look at "the ancient wisdom tradition's concept of feminine and masculine, the organizing principles of the universe." She draws from scholars such as Huston Smith and Marcus Borg as well as the Old and New Testaments and the Gnostic gospels.

[...]

One lecture will present an "inclusive liturgy honoring Christ-Sophia." Another will look at Mary Magdalene in the light of "Gnostic texts and Carl Jung's Collected Works."

MORE ON THE LOOTING of the Hebrew archives in the French National Library: This case has been quiet for a while, but it figures in this Observer (i.e., Sunday Guardian) piece on the larger problem of looted antiquities in the hands of collectors and museums.

Europe bids to halt tide of art smuggled to America

Court cases aim to break the billion-pound global trade in stolen antiquities that end up with wealthy US collectors and museums

Felix Lowe, Jason Burke in Paris and Barbara McMahon in Rome
Sunday January 22, 2006
The Observer

A series of legal actions has been launched by European governments to regain priceless works of art which they claim have been illegally smuggled to America to be sold off to wealthy collectors and museums.

One of the highest profile cases is in France, where what has been dubbed 'The Affair of the Hebrew Manuscripts' is reaching its climax. The case centres on Michel Garel, a specialist in ancient documents at the National Library in Paris, who is alleged to have systematically pillaged medieval religious texts to satisfy a demand from America. One manuscript, a 600-year-old French Hebrew version of the biblical books of the Pentateuch, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and the Lessons of the Prophets, has been traced to a New York collector who bought it for £200,000 at Christie's. Garel, who maintains his innocence, is to appear before a French court on theft charges.

Agnes Saal, the library's director, said: 'The National Library is motivated by a strong desire to recover this manuscript so that it can once more take its place as part of the national heritage.'

[...]

ARAMAIC AND HEBREW RESOURCES ONLINE: Over at Deinde, Danny Zacharias has posts here and here drawing attention to some good Hebrew and Aramaic resources online. These include the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, which I've mentioned here before; the 1910 edition of Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (downloadable in small PDF-file chunks); Jastrow's postbiblical Hebrew and Aramaic dictionary (Volume 1 here and Volume 2 here, downloadable in seven large PDF files); some Hebrew and Aramaic resources from Ken Penner, also in PDF format; and Peter Williams's Outline of Aramaic Grammar. The last is in a Word file with unnamed fonts. These don't work for me; maybe they are Unicode, which, alas are incompatible with Mac Word.

I'm teaching biblical Aramaic next semester and some of these resources will be helpful. If I get my act together, maybe I'll put some of my course materials online too.

UPDATE: Regarding that font, reader Tommy Wasserman e-mails to tell me that it's SPTiberian, which is indeed Mac compatible. My mistake; I forgot that I hadn't installed that font on my home machine. Sorry about that.

UPDATE (22 January): Christian Brady informs me that the 2004 version of Word for the Mac does handle Unicode. I've been neglecting the upgrade because I mean to invest in some new hardware soon, but this is good news.

INK AND BLOOD: Reader Ferrell Jenkins has visited this exhibition in St. Petersburg, Florida, and has posted a detailed account of it on his website.

UPDATE: Joe Weaks comments at the Macintosh Biblioblog. He saw the exhibition when it was in Dallas.

BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA: Phil Harland continues his series on the historical background of the Satan myth with posts on ancient Near Eastern background (including the sea dragon); material from the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel; and the fallen angels in 1 Enoch.

THE JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE PSEUDEPIGRAPHA has a new issue out (vol. 15.1, January 2006). Here's the table of contents:

William K. Gilders
Blood and Covenant: Interpretive Elaboration on Genesis 9.4-6 in the Book of Jubilees
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2006 15: 83-118.

Lorenzo DiTommaso
Pseudepigrapha Notes I: 1. Lunationes Danielis; 2. Biblical Figures outside the Bible
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2006 15: 119-144.

Matthias Henze
Book Review: The Destruction of Jerusalem and the Idea of Redemption in the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2006 15: 145-148.

Dale C. Allison, Jr
Book Review: Abraham Meets Death: Narrative Honor in the Testament of Abraham
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2006 15: 148-150.

Lorenzo DiTommaso
Book Review: A Scripture Index to Charlesworth's: The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, With a Contribution by James H. Charlesworth
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2006 15: 150.

Angela Standhartinger
Book Review: Joseph und Aseneth
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2006 15: 151-155.

Eileen Schuller
Book Review: Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2006 15: 155-157.

You can access abstracts of the articles for free, but the full texts of articles and reviews are available only with a paid personal or institutional subscription.

YALE UNIVERSITY has a number of visiting professors and lecturers in Jewish studies this year. The Jewish Ledger profiles them (Moshe Bar-Asher, Elitzur Bar-Asher, Renée Levine Melammed, and Uri Melammed) and their work and classes. Hebrew, Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, etc. are well represented. I'm especially impressed with Elitzur Bar-Asher's Aramaic course:

I’m teaching a class at Yale entitled Aramaic Survey. In the course, we are covering 3000 years of Aramaic. We begin with the royal inscriptions, and then text from the Achaeamenid period (including Biblical Aramaic). We study Nabataean and Palmyrene Aramaic in the first semester, and in the second semester we will read texts from Qumaran, Syriac, Babylonian Aramaic (the language of the Babylonaian Talmud), Palestinian Aramaic (the language of the Palestinian Talmud) n and we’ll end with dialects of Aramaic which are still spoken. Covering 3000 years of a language give the opportunity to deal with many questions of Historical linguistics and to trace the development of some interesting linguistic features.

Good stuff.

NO REHABILITATION OF JUDAS AFTER ALL: The Zenit News Agency denies the claims made in the Times of London:

On Jan. 12 an article in the Times newspaper of London claimed that Monsignor Brandmüller is leading a campaign from the Vatican to convince believers of Judas' goodness.

The Times also stated that some biblical scholars believe that the negative view of Judas has been influenced by anti-Semitic texts.

But in statements to ZENIT, Monsignor Brandmüller clarified that "this news has no foundation."

"Reading the Times I discovered that a campaign exists to rehabilitate Judas and that I am the leader," the Vatican official said. "I have not talked with the Times. I can't imagine where this idea came from.

"In regard to the manuscript, it must be emphasized that the apocryphal gospels belong in the main to a special literary genre, a sort of religious novel that cannot be considered as a documentary source for the historical figure of Judas."

Monsignor Brandmüller continued: "We await the critical edition, which will certainly be interesting from the point of view of the history of ancient literature, but it is impossible to express judgments in advance."

LIFE JUST GOT MORE DIFFICULT for online plagiarists. Horace Jeffery Hodges has the info over at Gypsy Scholar.

Note also the updates to my earlier post that linked to Jeffery's "42" post.

THE INK AND BLOOD EXHIBIT at the Florida International Museum is profiled in some detail in the St. Petersburg Times:

A war of words

Centuries of struggle to control the Bible's content are beautifully detailed in an exhibit at the Florida International Museum.

By LENNIE BENNETT, Times art critic

ST. PETERSBURG - In the beginning was the Word.

And nothing was ever simple again.

That's the message of "Ink and Blood," an engrossing exhibition at the Florida International Museum tracing the evolution of the modern Bible, a document stained with martyrs' blood and scholars' pens through centuries of strife and struggle to control its content.

Almost 100 religious manuscripts and objects dating from the seventh century B.C. to the 18th century are on display, none a facsimile. Doubters and believers alike will find the beauty of the rare books and individual pages, or leaves, and the fragility of the ancient scroll fragments powerful transmitters of human aspiration. And the polyglot of languages, we learn, indicates fierce territorial motivations rather than appeals for multiculturalism.

[...]

Regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls it says:

The discovery of a cache of religious writings in caves in Qumran, on the northeast shore of the Dead Sea, between 1947 and 1956 turned biblical scholarship on its head. The papers, mostly tiny fragments, became known as the Dead Sea Scrolls and were the oldest known examples of what today is called the Written Torah by Jews and the Old Testament by Christians. Before they were found, the oldest known Scriptures were ninth-century A.D. translations. Tiny pieces of the scrolls are under glass here, scraps of paper printed with indecipherable lettering. They look like nothing, yet reaching out across 3,000 years is the hand that wrote: "From the ends of the earth have we heard songs, (even) glory to the righteous" from Isaiah, translated for us on a label.

In other words, these particular fragments look like burnt cornflakes. If you want to see Dead Sea Scrolls, you may as well skip this exhibit. But some of the other manuscripts in it do sound worth a look.

BRUCE CHILTON'S Mary Magdalene: A Biography is reviewed in the Christian Science Monitor. Excerpt:

In short, if, as Chilton believes, "Jesus' true genius lay in the transparency of his visionary experience," then Mary Magdalene is indeed "one of the prime catalysts and shaping forces of Christianity." For Mary represented the vision unrent by political correctness - Roman family values - or gnostic aversion to the flesh.

(ANCIENT) TECHNOLOGY WATCH:

A fresh glimpse at ancient ‘technology’
New Science Central exhibit explores what life was like 3,000 years ago
By Nicole Lee nlee@news-sentinel.com (Fort Wayne News Sentinel, IN)

Learning about a world that existed 3,000 years ago can be child’s play, say organizers at Science Central, who recently unveiled a new interactive exhibit that uses science and history to discuss technology used in ancient Israel.

“Bible Times Tech,” a 2,500-square-foot traveling exhibit, pairs items found in most homes today with early technology. For example, information on the composition of dyes used as eye shadow by men and women in ancient times sits next to perfume and makeup that can be purchased today at local retail stores.

Astarte, a small figurine believed by the ancient Semites to aid in fertility, is paired with a Clearblue Easy pregnancy test. The board game Tjau is called the precursor to today’s backgammon and Parcheesi.

[...]

The article also has a brief interview with Jim VanderKam about the Bible.

WHAT DO ELISHA and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy have in common? See Chris Weimer's comment to this Gypsy Scholar post to find out.

Cross file under "Cosmic Synchronicities."

UPDATE (19 January): Chris e-mails:

I saw you had mentioned my note on the number 42 and Elisha. There's more - Judges reports 42000 "sibboleth" sayers slain, 42 of Ahab's descendents slain, and 42 plays a role in the Apocalypse of John. I wish I could find the article I was looking for. If I do, I'll let you know. All I remember is that the article had an allusion to "Hitchhiker's" in the title, something along the lines of "Life, the Universe"... Have you heard of the article?

No, I haven't, but perhaps one of PaleoJudaica's resourceful readers has.
UPDATE: This isn't it, but reader Colin Toffelmire notes a related article:

Laura Joffe “The Answer to the Meaning of Life, the Universe and the Elohistic Psalter” JSOT 27 (2002): 223-235.

UPDATE: Chris e-mails to thank Colin and writes:

Ah, yes, that was the article that I had in mind. If I may quote the relevant portions to you.

"It is therefore my suggestion that the Elohistic editing was motivated by the desire to link the names of God with the number 42—to alter them according to the number 42, possibly by reducing the instances of the divine name Yahweh in these Psalms to 42.4 The motivation for the redaction would have been magical or theurgic."

"In the Hebrew Bible, 42 is a number of disaster and ill-omen. 42,000 Ephraimites are slain for not being able to say 'shibboleth' in Judg. 12.6. In 2 Kgs 10.14, the 42 relatives of Ahaziah are killed by Jehu. The Chronicles parallel of this incident is instructive. While the Chronicler does not specify how many relatives were killed (2 Chron. 22.8), he does alter the age at which Ahaziah came to the throne from 22 years (2 Kgs 8.26) to 42 (2 Chron. 22.2)."

"Particularly relevant to my case is 2 Kgs 2.24. Here Elisha curses in the name of Yahweh the children who had been taunting him (ויקללם בשם יהוה). Two bears then come out of the wood and kill 42 of them. Note the artificial (providential?) nature of the number in this incident—rather than having 42 children taunt Elisha, 42 of a larger group are slain by bears who, presumably, can count. This instance incorporates the three elements which are central to my case: cursing, the name of Yahweh, and the number 42."

"Turning to the New Testament, Rev. 11.2 gives the period of rampage to be 42 months (or put differently, 1260 days in Rev. 11.3; 12.6). In Revelation 13, a beast with blasphemous names on its head (v. 1) spends a period of 42 months (v. 5) blaspheming against God and his name (v. 6). Thus while 42 clearly has a larger, diabolical tradition, we have in Rev. 13.1-5 a restatement of the triad: blaspheming, the name of God, and the number 42.

The number 42 resurfaces in Jewish tradition in the form of a 42-lettered name of God, which is well-attested from the Talmud to the present day."

Hmmm ... I'm still not sure what the ultimate question is.

IN THE MAIL:

Colette Sirat, Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages

David Noy (ed.), Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe Volume 1, Italy (excluding the City of Rome), Spain and Gaul

David Noy (ed.), Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe: Volume 2, The City of Rome

Keith Sidwell, Reading Medieval Latin

Kenneth Seeskin (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides

Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Study offers solutions for J'lem holy sites
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

Israel and the Palestinians should allow the international community to supervise Jerusalem's Temple Mount and the city's other holy sites, a study carried out by a liberal Jerusalem think tank and released Tuesday said.

"The strong connection of members of all monotheistic religions to the city on the one hand, and the lack of trust between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the other justifies some international intervention in overseeing the area, especially from the security
standpoint and with regard to preserving the holy sites," the study by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies states.

[...]

However, some of the response has not been enthusiastic:

The study, which was widely criticized by Israeli politicians on both the right and left, notes that both sides may in fact perceive international sovereignty on the Temple Mount as a desecration and try to fight such a plan.

Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski called the proposal an "irresponsible political and populist plan" which has been rehashed during an election campaign.

He said that it was simply unacceptable that the most holy site in Judaism would fall under international control.

Ynet News has more on the proposal here and more on the negative reaction within Israel here.

A DOZEN DANGEROUS IDEAS IN BIBLICAL STUDIES: Loren Rosson lists them and comments on each over at The Busybody.

THERE'S AN M. R. JAMES ONLINE NEWS PAGE that amounts to a blog on James. And there's also a twice-yearly The Ghosts & Scholars M.R. James Newsletter posted on the same page. I found the site through a referral back to this blog.

MORE ON JUDAS: It appears that the move to rehabilitate Judas goes back at least a decade. Reader Maurice A. O'Sullivan alerts me to this review and collection of review-excerpts of William Klassen, Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus?

PRAVDA MEANS "TRUTH":

"Ariel Sharon's disease caused with ancient Kaballistic curse"

With "Kabbalah" misspelled. Sigh.

The article isn't very good but, to be fair, it's not as bad as the headline implies.

LOST BOOKS WATCH: Chris Weimer has revived this theme and given us his top 10 list of lost works he'd like to see recovered. For my rather longer list (and links to many other lists) see here and here. And could Chris's "lost Jewish book of healings" be this one?

DR. ALEXANDER PANAYOTOV has just arrived in St. Andrews to take up his post as Leverhulme Research Fellow for the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project. Welcome, Alex, and thanks once again to the Leverhulme Trust for their support! Project contributors should be hearing more from us soon.

EZEKIEL CONFERENCE:

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva
Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Is pleased to invite you to a one day conference on
THE WORD of the LORD to EZEKIEL THE PRIEST
Marking the appearance of
The Book of Ezekiel in the Miqra Le-Yisrael Commentary Series
By Professor Rimon Kasher
Which will take place on Tuesday, 2 Shevat, 5766 (31 January, 2006)
In Conference Hall A, Hayim Kreitman Building, Marcus Family Campus

Program

9:30-10:00 Reception
10:00-12:30 Morning Session Prof. Victor Hurowitz, Chairman

Greetings Professor Avishai Henik, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Awarding of Takeji Otsuki Fund scholarship to outstanding student

10:15-10:45 Mr. Shawn Selig Aster, Ben-Gurion University
The Glory of the Lord (Kevod YHWH) in the Book of Ezekiel and its Mesopotamian Background

10:45-11:15 Dr. Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Hebrew University and Hebrew Union
College
Shall you inherit the Land? Ezekiel as the Shaper of Exclusivist Ideology in the Early 6th Century BCE

11:15-11:30 Intermission

11:30-12:00 Dr. Baruch Schwartz, Hebrew University
Ezekiel and the Priestly Source Further Connections

12:00-12:30 Mr. Nebo Shimeon Vankin
The Book of Ezekiel and its Relationship to the Deuteronomic Legislation

12:30-14:00 Lunch Break

14:00-16:15 Afternoon Session, Dr. David Glatt-Gilead, Chairman

14:00-14:30 Prof. Mayer Gruber, Ben-Gurion University
The Language of the Book of Ezekiel in Light of Akkadian

14:30-15:00 Prof. (emeritus) Jacob Milgrom, University of California,
Berkley
The Unique Features of Ezekiels Temple From whence?

15:00-15:15 Intermission

15:15-15:45 Prof. Rimon Kasher, Bar-Ilan University
Ezekiel and Apocalypticism in Current Research

15:45-16:18 Prof. (Emeritus) Menahem Haran, Hebrew University
The Last Word

(From Victor Avigdor Hurowitz on the ANE List.)

HERE'S A REPORT on November's SBL conference in Philadelphia, published (apparently accidentally in two versions with editor's comments in between) in the local newspaper of Aberdeen South Dakota. The Old Testament pseudepigrapha and other early Jewish writings get good coverage:

One major approach is to study the biblical writings within the larger context of ancient Jewish and Christian literature. Many ancient Jewish and Christian writings were not accepted into the Bible, but still shed light on the beliefs and practices of various ancient communities, and on the biblical writings themselves.

Several groups study the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish writings like 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, the Psalms of Solomon, or the Ascension of Isaiah. Early Christian writings studied include the Acts of Peter, the Gospel of Mary, and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Several papers were devoted to the writings of two figures roughly contemporary with Jesus: the Jewish historian Josephus and the Jewish philosopher and biblical commentator Philo.

Many groups are focused on the relationship between Judaism and Christianity during the first few centuries of Christianity. I presented a paper on a fourth-century document that records a debate between Jews and Christians on whether certain Old Testament scriptures are prophecies of Jesus or refer to other historical events.

The author is Martin Albl, who teaches religious studies at Presentation College.

PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A JOKE:

Welcome to Florida's biblical theme park

Neva Chonin (San Francisco Chronicle)

Sunday, January 15, 2006
01/15/2006

Karl Marx once famously stated that religion was the opiate of the masses. Karl never saw a theme park. And Karl probably never, in his wildest lumpen dreams, imagined a religious theme park.

Let us trace the genesis of Karl's worst nightmare. In the beginning, there was Disney World. Disney World begat Universal Studios. Christians looked upon these theme parks and saw that they were good. And so it was, in the year of our Lord 2001, that Universal Studios begat the Holy Land Experience, a Christian theme park built in the middle of an Orlando, Fla., wasteland described by park founder Marvin Rosenthal as being "full of snakes."

Maybe the reptiles were just lining up to audition for the Eden Serpent Chorale. Four years in the making, the Holy Land Experience is an exercise in simulacrum run wild. The 15-acre, $16 million park, which opened Monday, re- creates Palestine during the biblical era: Visitors pay their $17 admission fee, obtain Holy Land passports and pass through a life-size Jerusalem Gate. They are welcomed by caftan-wearing actors bleating on rams' horns. Moving along, they encounter Roman soldiers guarding the entrance to Herod's Temple, where they listen to songs about Rome's persecution of Christians.

[...]

I hope the Program Committee doesn't decide to hold the 2011 Society of Biblical Literature meeting there.

THEY'RE BAAACK! The Bible and Interpretation news website has gone live again with the following essay:

The Reaction to the Bible in Paganism

Although pagan authors were aware of the LXX before the advent of Christianity, apparently the Christian apologists’ use of LXX texts to buttress their faith made the pagans look deeply into the LXX. They attacked LXX texts as part of their larger project of undermining Christianity. The pagans faded away, but some of their criticisms experienced a resurgence in modern biblical scholarship. Some of the questions they raised (e.g., monotheism and Christology) continue to play a role in Christianity’s dialogue with other world religions.

By John Granger Cook
LaGrange College, LaGrange, Georgia

It's good to see the site active again.

EDINBURGH SBL PAPER: I just got the good news that my paper proposal has been accepted by the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Section of the upcoming International Society of Biblical Literature meeting in Edinburgh in July. Here's the abstract:

MORE JEWISH PSEUDEPIGRAPHA
James R. Davila, University of St. Andrews, U.K.

The More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha project at the University of St. Andrews (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/academic/divinity/MOTP/index-motp.html) has assembled an international team of scholars to translate a new collection of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. The corpus of texts, which generally can be dated to c. 600 C.E. or earlier, includes more than sixty complete or nearly complete works and numerous fragments. These documents are not covered in the Charlesworth volumes, apart from a few for which we have important new manuscript evidence. The corpus includes pagan works, Jewish pseudepigrapha transmitted by Jews, Jewish pseudepigrapha transmitted by Christians, and pseudepigrapha composed by Christians.

This paper surveys and comments on the twenty or so texts that can be assigned to Jewish authorship with virtual certainty. Most of them survive in Hebrew or Aramaic and were transmitted in Jewish circles, but a collection of sermons is preserved only in Armenian. They include apocalyses of Elijah and Zerubbabel; a visionary text ascribed to Ezekiel; a prophecy attributed to Gad the Seer; magical treatises; a sapiential work; ancient Jewish sermons on biblical figures; a Hebrew prayer paralleled in the Slavonic Ladder of Jacob; a poetic text about David and Goliath; narratives about the giants, Noah, the patriarchs, the Maccabean revolt, and related midrashic material; and a text that claims to tell how and where the treasures of Solomon's Temple were hidden at the time of its destruction. Specialists will be familiar with some of these texts, but few will have studied all of them. By collecting translations of these documents with introductions, we aim to raise their profile among both scholars and nonspecialists.

TECHNOLOGY WATCH - News from the DNA front:

3.5 million Ashkenazi Jews 'traced to four female ancestors'
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem (The Independent
Published: 14 January 2006

A total of 3.5 million Ashkenazi Jews are descended from just four "founding mothers" who lived in Europe at least 1,000 years ago, according to a study by Israeli geneticists.

The four women were part of a small group which founded the Ashkenazi community, established in Europe after migration from the Middle East, and was ultimately descended from Jews who migrated to Italy in the first and second centuries AD.

The discovery that the women are the ancestors of some 40 per cent of all eight million Ashkenazi, or European Jews, has been made possible by analysing the michrondrial DNA [mtDNA] component of the human genome. MtDNA is only transmitted through the female line.

[...]

MORE ON THE POST-REVOLT, POSSIBLY-JEWISH VILLAGE NEAR JERUSALEM:

Train to antiquity
By REUVEN ROSENFELDER (Jerusalem Post

An archaeological dig, about five kilometers north of the Old City, has uncovered a complete community that existed during the two generations between the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the Bar-Kochba Rebellion in 132 CE.

The dig is proceeding along a 360-meter stretch smack in the center island of Shu'afat Road, the main traffic artery from Jerusalem to Ramallah and farther north to Nablus (Schechem). Perhaps more importantly, and certainly more controversially, the artery is also the route of the future line No.1 of the Jerusalem Light Rail system.

This may cause some complications in the construction:

Caught between the significance of the find and the necessity of the Light Rail, the Israel Antiquities Authority will hold internal discussions to determine its stand regarding the findings, [Jon] Seligman[, archaeologist in charge of the Authority's Jerusalem Region,] said.

Spokespersons for the Light Rail enterprise do not seem concerned that the headline-generating archaeological find will affect their plans. Itsho Gur, speaking for both Moriah and CityPass, the concessionaire who won the government contract to operate the Light Rail, does not expect a delay in development works.

Here's some more information on what was found:

The abundance of lathe-turned stone vessels, which according to Halacha (Jewish religious law) do not take on impurity, is a sure sign of Jewish settlement and was often found in Jerusalem of the Second Temple era, she added.

Here, however, there is more, according to Sklar-Parnes, because this is a post-Destruction site. Eighteen ancient coins were found and sent for scientific examination. Almost all were from the period 70 to 132 CE. A few were from a slightly earlier period; none are later. A test of other objects pointed to similar dating, and ceramic finds showed stylistic features as yet unseen.

Senior archaeologist Avni backs Sklar-Parnes' position. "We know about the War of Destruction and the exile of Jews from inside the city, but what about neighboring areas? So far, there have been no finds. Now we have a defined period and specific Jewish elements."

It is not easy to determine the nature of this settlement, said Avni. Two Roman bathhouses were found during the dig, possibly serving soldiers of the Tenth Legion stationed not far away - so perhaps, for example, the settlement had a working relationship with the Romans.

No ritual baths, though.

And this is especially interesting:

Five ink-wells were found at the site, more than unearthed in Qumran, which is believed to have been home of the Dead Sea Sect, scribes of the famous scrolls.

THE COPTIC GOSPEL OF JUDAS is the subject of a somewhat muddled article in the Telegraph. The headline does not inspire confidence:

Forbidden gospel 'will show Judas was acting for God'

"Forbidden?" Well, maybe it was at some point. Certainly there would have been people in antiquity who wanted it to be. Indeed it was lost for a long time, presumably because its content doesn't square well with mainstream Christianity, but "forbidden" is a little melodramatic. But of greater concern, the rest of the headline in quotes implies misleadingly that the Gospel of Judas tells us something about the historical Judas and that theologians are taking it as an authority. To be fair, this is not just a sensational headline: the author, "Hilary Clarke, in Rome," actually does seem to think that this new gospel is being understood in this way:

Although the full details have not yet been made public, snippets discussed in academic circles say it will prove Judas was acting at the behest of God when he sold Jesus to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver.

No one in academic circles says any such thing. At most, that may be what the Gospel of Judas says, which tells us something interesting about nontraditional Christianity in the second to fourth centuries, but nothing about the historical Judas. And I've certainly not heard anyone who worries about such things suggest that the Gospel of Judas should be added to the New Testament canon or should have theological authority.

Its publication will raise fears among traditionalists that efforts may be made to rehabilitate a man whose name is synonymous with betrayal.

Sympathisers with Judas contend that had Jesus not been crucified, he would not have been subsequently resurrected to save humanity.

The first sentence seems to allude to recent efforts within the Catholic Church to rehabilitate Judas. I doubt very much that the Gospel of Judas will have much importance in this discussion (see below). Of course, it doesn't help when articles like this leave nonspecialists with the impression that scholars think that the Gospel of Judas is an eyewitness account by Judas:

Controversy also surrounds the origins of the text, which dates from the fourth century, with some scholars arguing that it was not written by Judas, but by a group of his supporters.

Again, no scholars are arguing that it was written by Judas. Some think that it may have been composed in Greek as early as the second century. I have my doubts even about that.

This sort of thing is irritating and one wonders how it happens. No one is actually quoted and the article speaks in generalities about "academics," "traditionalists," "sympathizers," and "scholars." Did the writer talk to anyone involved with the project or any expert on the apocryphal gospels? It doesn't sound like it. Is the piece based on a badly misread press release? I don't know.

But it is disappointing.

Another story about Judas is making the rounds and it seems to have influenced the Telegraph article. Here is the coverage in the Times of London:

Judas the Misunderstood

From Richard Owen, in Rome

Vatican moves to clear reviled disciple’s name

JUDAS ISCARIOT, the disciple who betrayed Jesus with a kiss, is to be given a makeover by Vatican scholars.

[...]

Now, a campaign led by Monsignor Walter Brandmuller, head of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Science, is aimed at persuading believers to look kindly at a man reviled for 2,000 years.

Mgr Brandmuller told fellow scholars it was time for a “re-reading” of the Judas story. He is supported by Vittorio Messori, a prominent Catholic writer close to both Pope Benedict XVI and the late John Paul II.

[...]

Some Bible experts say Judas was “a victim of a theological libel which helped to create anti Semitism” by forming an image of him as a “sinister villain” prepared to betray for money.

[...]

This move is based on historical, theological, and political considerations that have nothing to do with the Gospel of Judas and only weak potential links with it.

The move to clear Judas’s name coincides with plans to publish the alleged Gospel of Judas for the first time in English, German and French. Though not written by Judas, it is said to reflect the belief among early Christians — now gaining ground in the Vatican — that in betraying Christ Judas was fulfilling a divine mission, which led to the arrest and Crucifixion of Jesus and hence to man’s salvation.

Mgr Brandmuller said that he expected “no new historical evidence” from the supposed gospel, which had been excluded from the canon of accepted Scripture.

But it could “serve to reconstruct the events and context of Christ’s teachings as they were seen by the early Christians”. This included that Jesus had always preached “forgiveness for one’s enemies”.

On the one hand, the Gospel of Judas can be used to show that there is some ancient precedent for rehabilitating Judas. But on the other hand, invoking it could backfire:

Some Vatican scholars have expressed concern over the reconsideration of Judas. Monsignor Giovanni D’Ercole, a Vatican theologian, said it was “dangerous to re-evaulate Judas and muddy the Gospel accounts by reference to apocryphal writings. This can only create confusion in believers.”

I'm happy to sit this one out and watch. Should be an interesting discussion.

UPDATE: Times columnist Ben Macintyre argues the case for rehabilitating Judas. One small substantive point. Macintyre writes:

The chronological progression of the allegations is crucial. St Paul, the earliest Christian writer, never mentions Judas.

True, but incomplete and a little misleading. Here's what Paul says about the Last Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (RSV):

23: For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed (παρεδίδετο) took bread,
24: and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
25: In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
26: For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Now Macintyre is quite right that the word translated "betrayed" in v. 23 can also just mean to be "handed over" (although his suggestion that Judas "may simply have been acting as a go-between" is not well founded and indeed flies in the face of everything in the tradition). But here we have to ask "handed over" to whom -- presumably the authorities who condemned him -- and, more critically, by whom? The implication of Paul's statement is that someone did the handing over. In other words, it not unreasonable to read Paul to be alluding to the tradition about Judas, although it's impossible to be sure.

UPDATE (20 January): The Vatican has denied the claims in the Times article.

PHILOLOGOS ON GEMATRIA:

Numerology is the belief in the significance of numbers in non-mathematical contexts. (If I say two times 12 adds up to 24, that's arithmetic; but if I say that the 12 tribes and the 12 signs of the Zodiac add up to the cosmic mission of Israel, that's numerology.) The Hebrew word for numerology is gematria, an ancient rabbinic term that comes from Greek geometria (the measuring of the earth), from which also derives our English "geometry." Although it may seem odd to think of geometry as having to do with numbers, since it is the one part of most people's mathematical education that has nothing to do with them, this was not true of the ancient Greeks; having no knowledge of algebra, they used geometry to solve algebraic problems, thus introducing numbers into it.

The column gives lots of interesting examples.

THE PROPOSED HOLY LAND THEME PARK in Israel may be canceled due to Pat Robertson's comments about Ariel Sharon's stroke:

Israel May Scuttle Evangelical Complex
By ANTHONY WEISS (The Forward
January 13, 2006

The Israeli Tourism Ministry is threatening to block the Rev. Pat Robertson's plan for an evangelical center alongside the Sea of Galilee, after the televangelist suggested last week that Prime Minister Sharon's stroke was a punishment from God.

"We cannot do business with him after these words," ministry spokesman Ido Hartuv told the Forward. "We have to rethink the agreement with him."

The Tourism Ministry reportedly has been working with a group of investors, led by Robertson, who want to open a center on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, in the vicinity of a number of Christian holy sites. According to Hartuv, the Israeli government was prepared to offer the land for the center free of charge — until Robertson spoke out last week on his television program, "The 700 Club."

[...]

Can't say I blame them.

UPDATE (13 January): Robertson has apologized, but that's not getting him his place back on the theme park project. (Via Tzvee.blog.)

MORE ON THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBIT coming to the Pacific Science Center in Washington.

Pacific Science Center to exhibit Dead Sea Scrolls
By Cathy Herholdt (Lynnwood Journal Newspapers, WA)
01/10/2006

Pacific Science Center representatives in December announced to an anticipative audience of media representatives, students and community leaders that it will host the West Coast premiere of Discovering the Dead Sea Scrolls, a new exhibition that will open on Sept. 23, 2006. The exhibit will feature four scrolls never before seen by the public and another making its first appearance outside Israel.

[...]

Transcripts of Genesis, Exodus, Ezekiel, and the War Rule, all found in Qumran Cave 4 off the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea between Jerusalem and Jericho in the 1950's, will make their public debut in the exhibition. Pacific Science Center is sponsoring the conservation of these manuscripts for their world premiere public viewing.

The exhibit will cost $1.8 million before the doors even open.

Preservation of the four scrolls by archivists from Jerusalem involves placing the documents between two layers of nearly invisible archival mesh, then inside glass cases that will never tip. The glass is then placed in padded cases for transportation. Humidity and temperature are controlled, and the scrolls must be kept out of the light for a certain number of hours each day. Visitors will enter darkened rooms to view the scrolls.

[...]

I'm not sure what "transcripts" means here. Evidently part of the exhibit consists of facsimiles of scrolls, but I'm pretty sure these four are the originals. Maybe the author of the article just meant to say "displays."

MY DANGEROUS IDEA: Inspired by a cool beginning-of-the-year collection of essays in The Edge, Loren Rosson has called for bibliobloggers to post "their one 'dangerous idea' for biblical studies." If you know me or read this blog frequently, mine won't be a great surprise. But here it is:

Many of the ancient texts used by New Testament scholars as sources for first-century Judaism as background material for the New Testament are actually either Christian compositions or were written long after the first century, or both, and insofar as reconstructions of early Judaism are based on them, those reconstructions are of dubious value.

In my new book The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha: Jewish, Christian, or Other?, and elsewhere, I have argued that this should be our understanding of many Old Testament pseudepigrapha and perhaps even one or two Old Testament Apocrypha. I do not believe that a convincing case has been made for any book of Sibylline Oracles as Jewish, although there probably is Jewish material somewhere in them. Nor has a Jewish origin or early date been persuasively argued for the Testament of Job, Joseph and Aseneth, the Lives of the Prophets, the Testament of Abraham, the Story of Zosimus, Pseudo-Phocylides, the Life of Adam and Eve, or the Prayer of Manasseh. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs draws on Jewish sources but is itself a Christian composition from well after the New Testament period. There are even some reasons to think that the Wisdom of Solomon in the Apocrypha could be a Christian composition.

As for rabbinic sources, even the earliest rabbinic collection, the Mishnah, was based on oral traditions and was only written down after 200 CE. The attribution of sayings to named (and therefore datable) sages is not reliable and cannot be used on its own to date a given saying. It is possible to show that some sayings are probably earlier than others on stratigraphic grounds and this in tandem with name attributions can allow us to isolate some early material. (In other words, if a group of sayings attributed to specific first-century sages can consistently be shown to be the basis of discussion for a group of sayings attributed to second century sages and not the other way around, there is a case for dating the first set of sayings in the first century.) In other cases, Mishnaic and Tannaitic ideas can be shown to be early because there are early parallels to them (but then the parallel already shows that the idea is early). But all this involves a lot of difficult spadework that isn't necessarily always done by people looking for New Testament background.

Related reflections here.

AN "ANTIQUITY IN ANTIQUITY" COLLOQUIUM at Princeton:

ANTIQUITY IN ANTIQUITY
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN PASTS IN THE
GRECO-ROMAN WORLD
Workshop: October-December, 2005
• Colloquium: January 22-24, 2006
Princeton University

Introduction
For the fourth time in six years, the Department of Religion of Princeton University will host a workshop and colloquium on a special topic concerning religions and societies of late antiquity. This year’s project, entitled Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World, will explore the themes of tradition construction and collective memory from the third century BCE to the seventh century CE. The workshop, which will be held during the second half of the fall 2005-6 semester, will feature presentations by doctoral students before a joint faculty-graduate student forum. The colloquium (January 22-24, 2006, at Princeton University) will feature papers by top faculty from both Princeton and other leading universities, representing the fields of religion, classics, history and archaeology. A small number of graduate students selected from our workshop will also be invited to present their papers at the colloquium.

Wish I could go.

(Via Gregg Gardner on Ioudaios-L.)

EDINBURGH SBL & FEMINIST CRITICISM: Professor Heather McKay, Membership Secretary of the Society for Old Testament Study, has sent out this message to SOTS members, which I reproduce here with her permission:

Session on Feminist Criticism's input to Biblical Studies at Edinburgh SBL

Dear colleague

I wonder if you can think of anyone (or yourself) to whom the following Call for Papers for the Edinburgh SBL would be interesting, and if you then would forward it to them urgently. I have just realised (with alarm!) that the deadline for proposals is this Saturday (14/1/06)! The conference dates are Sun 2/7 - Thu 6/7/06; I am the Program Unit Chair and would welcome some strong proposals and some publicity for the session as well.

Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession
Call For Papers: (Sur)Passing Biblical Scholars, Building on Feminist Criticism: Feminist biblical criticism has produced several waves of challenging criticism of biblical texts, with each producing its own eddies and ripples where it combines and recombines with other forms of critical activity. Papers that identify feminist sources and/or the enriching use of feminist approaches to create powerful new readings of biblical texts will be welcomed. This call is open to both male and female scholars alike.

Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession

IN THE MAIL: My review copy of Ra'anan S. Boustan, From Martyr to Mystic: Rabbinic Martyrology and the Making of Merkavah Mysticism (TSAJ 112; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005).

ARIEL SHARON'S CURRENT COMA may highlight debates on how to reconcile ancient Jewish halakhah with modern medical technology. This A.P. article has some reflections:

In Israel, physicians typically defer to families or patients about whether the treatment should follow secular or religious codes.

Many rabbis follow a 1986 decision by Israel's chief rabbinate - the government's highest religious authority - that defines death as irreversible inactivity of major parts of the brain stem, which controls breathing, swallowing and other basic bodily functions.

The opinion is based on various Jewish texts including the Mishnah, an early source of rabbinical tradition, which establishes decapitation as an irrefutable sign of death. In the modern sense, the rabbis interpret a nonfunctioning brain stem as the same thing.

But others see the core of life in the heartbeat, which can occur even with a severely damaged brain stem and can continue with artificial respiration. Some rabbis cite ancient texts that say death occurs only when there is both no respiration and no "movement" in the body. They consider a heartbeat a life-signifying movement even if maintained through life-support and may counsel followers not to remove life support.

[...]

The issues are so delicate that it took six years for Israel's top rabbinical scholars, physicians and other experts to hammer out legislation to allow the terminally ill to refuse life support. It passed last month with one unique provision: the equipment could only be turned off by an automatic timer to avoid having a health care worker do it.

J. T. MILIK, 1922-2006. I regret to inform you that J. T. Milik, one of the original members of the Dead Sea Scrolls editorial team, passed away in Paris yesterday. Eileen Schuller and Eibert Tigchelaar have e-mailed with the information and to say that the funeral is on Wednesday.

Milik published a great deal, including some of the Bar Kokhba era material in DJD 2, the Copper Scroll in DJD 3, and the Qumran fragments of 1 Enoch and some of the Book of the Giants material in The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4.

Another giant in the field has passed on. Requiescat in pace.

MORE ON THE PARIS EXHIBITION: Reader Tommy Wasserman points me to the website for the Books of Words: Torah, Bible, Koran (Torah, Bible, Coran: Livres de parole) exhibition at http://expositions.bnf.fr/parole/index.htm. There's lots of interesting stuff. The only Dead Sea Scroll I can find is a fragment of Leviticus written in the paleo-Hebrew script. There is mention of a Samuel manuscript as well, but it doesn't seem to be pictured. Here is a polyglot Bible. Here are images of a couple of Jewish amulets. Here is an illustration of a Josephus manuscript depicting the construction of the Jerusalem Temple. Here are pages from a Coptic Gospel of John. Here are images of New Testament manuscripts in Syriac and Ethiopic. And here is a very early (7th century) manuscript of the Qur'an. (Click on the smaller photos to enlarge them and get more explanatory text.) And there's much more. If all this is in the exhibit, it's quite an impressive one.

UPDATE (9 January): There are several Qumran fragments here. Three of them look like they belong to the Leviticus scroll, but the one on the upper left is in the square script and must be from a different manuscript.

UPDATE: Speaking of Quranic manuscripts, here's a BBC article on what it says is the oldest surviving copy of the Qur'an, dating to 651 CE, only 19 years after the death of Muhammad. It is housed in a library in Uzbekistan.

(Via Archaeologica News.)

UPDATE (11 January): David Nishimura has more on that early Qur'an and related matters over at Cronaca.

THE COPTIC GOSPEL OF JUDAS is getting some more attention, thanks to John Dart's recent article. In yesterday's Time Herald, Jim Ketchum comments in an article entitled "New text may deepen Judas debate." He concludes:

Apparently, National Geographic plans to take the wraps off all this by Easter. Hopefully they have done enough homework to authenticate what they have.

If not, this could turn into another case similar to the purported Hitler diaries, the contents of which were judged to be bogus only after a German publication had invested great amounts of time, money and prestige into publishing them.

If this second-century text in fact is real, it will provide grist for theologians to debate for decades to come.

For the rest of us, this new 2,000-year-old story will be an interesting footnote that probably won't do much to change basic Christian beliefs.

Or do much to make over Judas' reputation.

It's always worthwhile to be skeptical of unprovenanced manuscripts, but a fake of this length and complexity would be awfully hard to pull off. But I am skeptical about the second century date. I'm not a Coptologist, but I'm suspicious about the way that texts in fourth and fifth-century Coptic manuscripts are often assumed to be translations of second-century Greek originals. We know that's the case with the Gospel of Thomas, because we have second-century Greek fragments of it. But we also know that Coptic borrowed a lot of Greek words as a matter of course. And I think a lot more homework needs to be done before we can be very confident of distinguishing Greek-translation Coptic from Coptic composed in a biblical style. Anyhow, we'll see.

I doubt that theologians will be very interested. The real importance of the Coptic Gospel of Judas is for the understanding of Jesus and his disciples in Coptic-speaking (and perhaps Greek-speaking) Christianity of roughly the second through fourth centuries CE. For specialists in Christianity of late antiquity, it is of great interest indeed. Plus, a popular audience will think it's cool because it's so countercultural.

UPDATE (17 January): More

A NUMEROLOGICAL NITPICK: This otherwise good Wichita Eagle article by Tom Schaefer on creation, evolution, and the Bible opens:

Raising cautions about science vs. religion

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Ten English words. Six in Hebrew. The basics of creation.

No, it's seven words in Hebrew:

בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ׃

Like God would neglect to put seven words in the first verse of the Bible!

MORE RESEARCH ON PHOENICIAN HARBORS: A few months ago I noted this story on core samples taken at the harbor of Tyre. Now there's more:

Geoscience rediscovers Phoenicia's buried harbors
Space and Earth science : January 05, 2006 (Physorg.com)

The exact locations of Tyre and Sidon's ancient harbors, Phoenicia's two most important city-states, have attracted scholarly interest and debate for many centuries. New research reveals that the ancient basins lie buried beneath the medieval and modern city centers.

A network of sediment cores have been sunk into the cities' coastal deposits and studied using high-resolution geoscience techniques to elucidate how, where, and when Tyre and Sidon's harbors evolved since their Bronze Age foundations. In effect, ancient port basins are rich geological archives replete with information on human impacts, occupation histories, Holocene coastal evolution, and natural catastrophes.

[...]

(Via Archaeologica News.)

UPDATE: There's an article in Nature as well. (Via Rogue Classicism and the revived Mirabilis blog -- welcome back Christine!)

A SCRIPTURE EXHIBITION IN PARIS:

Exploring the holy scriptures
By Rebecca Assoun in Paris Updated: 06/Jan/2006 14:55
(European Jewish Press)

An exhibition in Paris explores 3,000 years of history through the scriptures of the three monotheistic religions. “Books of words: Torah, Koran, Bible” shows how despite their common base, Judaism, Christianity and Islam developed original and different relationships to the texts.

[...]

The exhibition aims to explain the relationship that Judaism, Christianity and Islam have to the Bible.

“We have gathered fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Hebrew manuscripts celebrating the exit from Egypt, illustrated Bibles from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, works by Gutenberg and Korans written in golden ink,” she added.

[...]

Around 100 documents reveal the story of these books that have been passed on through generations, from owner to owner and across continents. Visitors can also listen to the various accounts of creation.

[...]

I would like to hear more about those Dead Sea Scroll fragments.

UPDATE (8 January): Much more here.

I KNEW THIS WAS COMING:

Extremists boast they cursed Sharon
By YAAKOV KATZ (Jerusalem Post)

Far-right activists took credit Thursday for the severe deterioration in Ariel Sharon's health, claiming that a pulsa denura - Aramaic for "lashes of fire" - death curse they instigated against the prime minister in July was the real catalyst behind his current state of health.

"I take full responsibility for what happened," far-right activist Baruch Ben-Yosef, one of the participants at the July pulsa denura, told The Jerusalem Post. "Our pulsa denura kicked in. Nothing could kill Sharon and he said his ancestors lived until they over 100 years old but we got him with the pulsa denura."

[...]

You may recall that the pulsa-denura is a curse ceremony created about a century ago. There's more on its historical background here and here. See also here and here on recent events having to do with the cursing of Sharon.

It really isn't a great surprise that a 77-year-old man who was very overweight and who had one of the most stressful jobs on the planet had a stroke, and no death curses are required to explain it. Sigh.

VOTING WITH COLORED BEADS didn't seem to me to be the best way to proceed, but it's a lot more constructive than this:

Did Jesus exist? Court to decide (CNN)

Wednesday, January 4, 2006; Posted: 1:35 p.m. EST (18:35 GMT)

ROME, Italy (Reuters) -- Forget the U.S. debate over intelligent design versus evolution.

An Italian court is tackling Jesus -- and whether the Roman Catholic Church may be breaking the law by teaching that he existed 2,000 years ago.

The case pits against each other two men in their 70s, who are from the same central Italian town and even went to the same seminary school in their teenage years.

The defendant, Enrico Righi, went on to become a priest writing for the parish newspaper. The plaintiff, Luigi Cascioli, became a vocal atheist who, after years of legal wrangling, is set to get his day in court later this month.

"I started this lawsuit because I wanted to deal the final blow against the Church, the bearer of obscurantism and regression," Cascioli told Reuters.

Cascioli says Righi, and by extension the whole Church, broke two Italian laws. The first is "Abuso di Credulita Popolare" (Abuse of Popular Belief) meant to protect people against being swindled or conned. The second crime, he says, is "Sostituzione di Persona," or impersonation.

[...]

I'm more skeptical about the Jesus traditions than a lot of people, but this is just silly -- so much so that I wonder if it's a hoax. But if it is, it sure has fooled a lot of news carriers.

Two comments. First, the case that Jesus existed and that we can know at least some things about him is quite strong and is not at issue among historical-Jesus specialists. Second, the whole discussion has no place in a court of law and -- assuming the case is real -- if the judge is responsible, he'll throw the case out as frivolous immediately. Otherwise the Italian court system is going to look pretty silly.

Cross file under "You Can't Make This Up."

A DOCUMENTARY on Aramaic-speaking Christians in the Middle East:

Film Review: The Last Assyrians (Les Derniers Assyriens)

By Sonia Nettnin (Scoop.co.nz)


"The Last Assyrians" (Les Derniers Assyriens) is an amazing documentary about the history of the Aramaic-speaking Christians from ancient Mesopotamia until their present-day existence in the Middle East.

For six years Director Robert Alaux researched and wrote this historic documentary. It is the first film that tells the complete history of the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac people. History overlooks how they suffered from massacres, hunger and starvation during the1915 genocide; and the international community has not protected these people in their homeland after decades of mass exodus. Despite their pain and suffering this indigenous Christian community, including the Diaspora seek justice, peace, prosperity, security, and solidarity in the Middle East.

[...]

LIMBO IN THE KABBALAH? Limbo is in limbo right now for the Catholic Church, but Philologos tells us that it had a place in Jewish mystical literature too:

In later kabbalistic literature, however, as well as in the Hasidic circles that were heavily influenced by it, "the world of tohu," conceived as an intermediate stage between the ultimate good of pure spirit and the ultimate evil of pure matter, became a term for a nebulous domain — not unlike the Christian Limbo, in which souls admitted to neither heaven nor hell wandered. The reason for having to lead such an existence had nothing to do with the absence of a rite of initiation like baptism. Rather, the problem was an even balance between the dead man's sins and merits, which left his soul in a no-man's land.

A FESTSCHRIFT FOR JAMES CHARLESWORTH is in the works:

Scholar of Dead Sea Scrolls to be honored by his students
By: David Campbell, Staff Writer 01/03/2006 (Princeton Packet)

Book to be published as tribute to Professor James H. Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary

[...]

Professor James H. Charlesworth, the George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary, is a leading expert on the scrolls.
The author and editor of many books, his other areas of research include the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, the Gospel of John, and the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old and New Testaments.
As seminary teacher and founder and longtime director of the Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project, Professor Charlesworth has mentored generations of students who themselves have gone on to academic positions nationwide and around the world.
Now, 11 of his former students, all of whom worked with him on the Scrolls Project, have written essays for a forthcoming new book dedicated in his honor, "Qumran Studies: New Approaches, New Questions," to be published by William B. Eerdmans in the spring.

[...]

Congratulations to Professor Charlesworth!

(As an aside, note that this is the second Google News mention of the pseudepigrapha in the first week of this year. A trend? I hope so.)

MORE ON THE POST-REVOLT ANCIENT JEWISH (?) VILLAGE:

Ancient village discovery raises questions
SARA TOTH
Associated Press

JERUSALEM - Discovery of an ancient village just outside Jerusalem has brought into question one of the strongest images of biblical times - the wholesale flight of Jews running for their lives after the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

Just beneath the main road leading north from Jerusalem, archaeologists have found the walls of houses in a well-planned community that existed after the temple's destruction. It might lead to rewriting the history books if it was really Jewish. But at least one expert isn't sure it was.

The discovery of stone vessels indicate Jews in the village continued to live by religious purity laws after 70 A.D., said Debbie Sklar-Parnes, of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who is overseeing the dig.

[...]

But Hebrew University historian Lee Levine questioned whether the village was actually Jewish.

"The evidence is a little mixed," Levine said. The presence of wine amphorae from Italy and the absence of ritual baths cast some doubt on the Jewishness of the village, he said.

[...]

The village ceased to be occupied around 132, when the Bar Kokhba revolt began, which is another argument in favor of its Jewishness. But it could take years more excavation to determine decisively whether it was a Jewish village or not.

UPDATE: By the way, this excavation was in the news a couple of years ago. See here and here. The latter link has a letter to PaleoJudaica from the excavator with some additional details about the site.

THE LIFE OF BRIAN has been voted the best comedy film ever in a poll by the British television Channel 4. I don't know if I would rate it the best, but it's awfully funny, reasonably in the top five anyway. I really think that one or two of the Pink Panther movies should have made it into the top ten.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement of Israeli Arabs are claiming that Israel is digging under the Al-Aqsa Mosque and undermining it. Here's the Jerusalem Post article:

Israel denies Temple Mount excavation
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

Israel dismissed as "blatant lies" and "preposterous and unfounded allegations" claims voiced by the top Muslim religious authority in Jerusalem and the firebrand leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel Tuesday that Israel built a synagogue and was trying to destroy a mosque on the Temple Mount by its recently-completed construction of a visitor's center near the Western Wall.

[...]

This UPI article has the clearest account of what is actually going on:

'Israel digging under Al-Aksa,' or not

By JOSHUA BRILLIANT

JERUSALEM, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Muslim leaders Tuesday accused Israel of digging underneath Al Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem. The site, one of Islam's holiest, is in danger, they said.

Israeli officials categorically denied the claims and this reporter who visited the alleged underground site saw no evidence of a dig towards the mosque.

[...]

At a press conference in Jerusalem, Tuesday, the Al Aksa Foundation presented a file and discs containing pictures and a film of "Excavation being done underneath the Aksa Mosque."

Sheikh Mohammad Hussein, the Mosque's director, told the conference that the Israeli government has endorsed the excavation and that Israel is planning to destroy Al Aksa Mosque and replace it with the third Jewish temple. Ekrima Sa'eed Sabri, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, declared the works violate Al Aksa's sanctity that stretches from the bottom of the land to the sky above it.

Here is the UPI reporter's account of the actual situation:

This reporter joined a small group of soldiers guided through part of the tunnels. The mockup described at the press conference as a model of the third temple was actually an artist's reconstruction of the Second Temple King Herod had built in 516 BC and the Romans destroyed in 70 CE. That is 568 years before the Muslims arrived. It was part of a talk on what happened on that mount.

The alleged tunnel was actually a glass-topped shaft showing how deep the wall goes.

After the tour this reporter went, unaccompanied, up to the northern edge of the tunnel. He saw a small dark dig behind a black-padlocked iron gate door but the works there seemed to support the overhead construction and lead north, along the ancient wall, not east towards the Temple Mount/al Aksa area.

The path skirted what emerged as cave. A climb to the entrance showed two ladders and an empty water bottle but no works leading across the wall. At another spot this reporter climbed over a barrier to a plank leading to a lower level but there, too, there was no signs of penetration eastwards.

An employee accompanied this reporter to a southern, closed section, where workers were replacing the floor tiles. Usually worshippers prayed there, facing the Western Wall. Through a hole in a door he saw part of the tunnel he had visited moments earlier and was convinced he had covered the entire length of the wall.

There's also a brief and not very informative AP article. And for more on the visitor's center and the tunnel excavation, see here and here. Also, this claim about tunnels undermining the Al-Aqsa Mosque have been around for a while.

UPDATE: This article from the Muslim News, UK, which gives a fair summary of the situation, has just popped up on Google. It is related to (a toned-down version of?) this piece on EgyptElection.com, which is attributed to Al-Jazeera. And the Journal of Turkish Weekly presents the Palestinian propaganda undiluted.

QUMRAN.NO seems to be a new Norwegian blog on Qumran by Anders Aschim, who already runs the Blix Blog. Welcome!

TWO JEWISH STUDIES POSTDOCS, each lasting three years, are being advertised by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The deadline is 26 January. Details here.

(Via Daniel Stoekl Ben Ezra on the g-Megillot list.)

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH: The first Google News reference in 2006 to the Old Testament pseudepigrapha comes from the InfoWorld blog. But ignore the "ongoing debate" link at the end of the paragraph. If you want know more about the pseudepigrapha, a better place to start is here. Incidentally, the process of determining biblical canons (there were more than one), was much more like the "open access" approach than the author seems to realize. There is much nonsense circulating about this issue. Here's a nice chart of Church Old Testament canons from Kevin Edgecomb. And this site looks like it has a lot of sensible material.

JEWS IN JERUSALEM after the Great Revolt?

Dig reveals first sign of Jewish life after Second Temple
By Amiram Barkat (Haaretz)

Recent archaeological excavations near the Shuafat refugee camp in northern Jerusalem indicate the existence of a Jewish community in Jerusalem after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E.

The findings - said to be the first indication of an active Jewish settlement in the area of Jerusalem after the city fell in 70 C.E. - contradict the common wisdom that no Jewish settlement survived the Roman destruction of the city. However, some Israeli archaeologists have argued that Jewish settlement revived and continued to exist even after the destruction.

[...]

By the way, I'm back in St. Andrews. I drove back via the rim road around the city and avoided the central part. Much easier.

THE TEMPLE MOUNT ANTIQUITIES OPERATION (i.e., the salvage operation by Gabriel Barkay on the material excavated by the Waqf)is the subject of an article in the Washington Times. Good general coverage of the story, but nothing new.

EVER WONDER where the term "Blogosphere" comes from? Now you know.

(Via Instapundit.)

GIVE THE DEVIL HIS DUE: Phil Harland is teaching an undergraduate course on "The History of Satan" and he promises some blogging on the subject. One more thing to look forward to in 2006.

MORE DETAILS on the Ink and Blood Exhibition's move to Florida:

Museum exhibit traces Bible history

By MITCH STACY
Associated Press Writer

Written, assembled and translated over many centuries, the Holy Bible is the most printed and most read book in human history, influencing everything from art and music to politics and pop culture.

Regardless of whether its first scribes were touched by a divine hand as Christians believe, the Bible's evolution from ancient Hebrew text to the English language is a rich lesson in the history of civilizations, origins of the written word and the revolution of printing.

The tale is recounted in an exhibition opening at the Florida International Museum on Jan. 13 that boasts artifacts as rare and priceless as they come, among them bits of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a fragment of the Gospel of John dating to about 250 A.D., a 1455 Gutenberg Bible and a first edition of the King James version from 1611.

[...]

Apparently the "bits of the Dead Sea Scrolls" mentioned in the article are not much to look at. See the first link above.

ANCIENT VILLAGE near Jerusalem uncovered:

Remains of Second Temple era Jewish village discovered

By Itim (Haaretz)

Archaeologists have recently uncovered what they believe to be a large Jewish settlement dating back from the time of the Second Temple near the Shweifat Refugee Camp north of Jerusalem.

[...]

NEXT TIME I decide to drive into Edinburgh on New Year's Eve day, someone please remind me that Princes Street will be closed because about a million people are going to be partying on it in a few hours, so it's best to plot a route that doesn't involve crossing it. But we did manage to circumvent it and we got here eventually. Again, best wishes for 2006.