A NEW BOOK ON KABBALAH by Joseph Dan is reviewed in Commentary Magazine by Benjamin Balint. Excerpt:

Amid all the trendiness, one almost hesitates to ask the essential question: what is kabbalah? Joseph Dan of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, who has reflected on the subject for some 50 years, offers a fascinating reply in his new book.

Kabbalah, which literally means “that which has been received,” refers broadly to a “hidden” doctrine that (along with the “Written” and “Oral” Torah) is said to have been given by God to Moses at Sinai and to have been privately transmitted ever since, often only in hints and allusions, from master to disciple. Throughout the medieval period and well into the early modern age, traditionalists took these teachings very seriously, although they were also regarded as an inherently dangerous subject matter that could lead all but a select few into heresy or madness. In later, post-Enlightenment times, many scholars and religious progressives came to consider these teachings a form of superstitious nonsense. Only in the last hundred years or so has kabbalah become a subject of academic study.

Dan’s book thus represents the fruit of a century’s worth of research and systematic analysis, much of it centered at the Hebrew University. Exquisitely attuned to the varied schools, streams, and shades of his subject, Dan begins on a note of caution: although the term “kabbalah” has never been so widely used as it is today, even in the past it did not have a single meaning. Having warned us that “there is no ‘kabbalah’ in the singular,” he proceeds to give us a nuanced chronological survey of kabbalah in the plural.

Read it all. Sounds like a very useful book.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Road to Temple Mount uncovered

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

The main road that ran from Jerusalem's City of David to the Temple Mount during the time of the Second Temple has been uncovered by Israeli archeologists, those involved in the dig said Thursday. The road connected the Shiloah pool in the City of David to the Temple Mount compound.

The 2,000-year-old road was discovered adjacent to the Shiloah pool during ongoing excavations at the site, said Israeli Antiquities Authority archeologist Eli Shukrun. He is directing the dig together with University of Haifa archeologist Prof. Ronny Reich.

[...]

MORE ON THE NEGEV SPICE ROUTE that is now spared from being mined:

No mine for Genesis Land

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF

In what is seen as a major victory for environmentalists, the Southern Regional Planning Council decided on March 20 to reject a proposal to mine the western Hazeva region of the Negev desert.

[...]

On July 17 last year, UNESCO board members agreed to preserve the ancient Spice Route and the adjacent area within the western Hazeva region as a World Heritage Site. At that time, a phosphate mining proposal for the same site had been tentatively approved. This region, known as Genesis Land, is part of the Spice Route and noted for its unique canyons, springs and vast untouched stretches of land.

[...]

CATS IN THE APOCRYPHA:

A tale of cats, Vestal Virgins and more cats
GREGORY ELDER (Redlands Daily Facts)

Sadly, the Bible does not have a lot of cats in it, and depending on which translation you read, perhaps none at all.

There are of course the big cats like lions, as in the lion of Judah, or the leopard, who cannot change his spots, the text tells us. But the simple housecat does not get much of a showing, although they were known to the Greeks and Romans, and the Egyptians worshipped them.

There is one exception to this odd biblical omission, which is in the Deutero-Canonical books, or the Apocrypha, which is accepted as scriptural by some churches and not by others. "Thy idols shall fall and cats shall walk upon them," the Hebrew sage declares, denouncing the pagan gods and goddesses of the ancient world.

[...]

The author doesn't bother to give the reference, but he seems to be thinking of Epistle of Jeremiah 22, which does have cats sitting on idols, although not fallen ones. Here is the verse in context:

17: For just as one's dish is useless when it is broken, so are the gods of the heathen, when they have been set up in the temples. Their eyes are full of the dust raised by the feet of those who enter.
18: And just as the gates are shut on every side upon a man who has offended a king, as though he were sentenced to death, so the priests make their temples secure with doors and locks and bars, in order that they may not be plundered by robbers.
19: They light lamps, even more than they light for themselves, though their gods can see none of them.
20: They are just like a beam of the temple, but men say their hearts have melted, when worms from the earth devour them and their robes. They do not notice
21: when their faces have been blackened by the smoke of the temple.
22: Bats, swallows, and birds light on their bodies and heads; and so do cats.
23: From this you will know that they are not gods; so do not fear them.

JUGS AND "EMERGENCY IGLOOS" FROM KFAR KANA:

Excavators at Kafr Kana find 2,000-year-old jugs linked to the Great Revolt
By Ran Shapira (Haaretz)

Eleven earthenware jugs lay patiently on their sides for close to 2,000 years, until excavators recently discovered them in a subterranean cave near Kafr Kana in the lower Galilee. This amazing find has been linked to the Great Revolt in the second half of the first century CE, and it is assumed the jugs stored food in the caves, which were used as a hideout.

The jugs were found during a salvage excavation at the Karem el-Ras antiquities site on the western outskirts of Kafr Kana, beneath a house from the Roman period (from the first century CE) with a packed earth and stone floor.
Advertisement

When the excavators, led by Yardenna Alexandre of the Israel Antiquities Authority, uncovered the floor, they noticed three unusual stones. Situated near one another, the stones were flat and circular, each about 50 centimeters in diameter. After the dirt surrounding them was removed, the excavators discovered the purpose of these stones: to cover the entrances to three subterranean chambers, built of stone and shaped like igloos.

[...]

(Via the Agade list.)

SPECIAL DEAL for postgraduates attending the Edinburgh Justin Martyr conference:

This is a special announcement and update on the International
Conference on Justin Martyr and His Worlds to be held in New College
(School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh) 20-22 July 2006. See the
conference web page for further information, registration form, and a
draft schedule of presentations:
http://www.div.ed.ac.uk/justinmartyr_conf.html

We now are pleased to announce a half-fee reduction for PhD students,
meaning a confernce registration fee of £45, for those who register by
15 April (£65 thereafter). Please pass this notice on to research
students in your department. For others, the conference fee is £90
(registration by 15 April; £110 thereafter).

L. W. Hurtado, Professor of New Testament Language, Literature & Theology
Director of Postgraduate Studies
School of Divinity, New College
University of Edinburgh
Mound Place
Edinburgh, UK. EH1 2LX
Office Phone: (0)131 650 8920. FAX: (0)131 650 7952

(From the British New Testament Society e-mail list.)

A NEW ENDOWNED CHAIR IN ARCHAEOLOGY OF ANCIENT ISRAEL AT UCSD:

Kershaw Family Endows UC San Diego's First Faculty Chair In Archaeology
Posted by: jpiercey on Thursday, March 30, 2006
Topic Education (PNN online)


Norma Kershaw, retired educator and a prominent Southern California philanthropist, lecturer and volunteer in the fields of archaeology and cultural studies, first met UC San Diego professor of Anthropology and Judaic Studies Thomas Levy, Ph.D., some 20 years ago while she was excavating at a site in Israel. Their shared interest in the history and archaeology of the Levantine region has kept the two in touch since they met.


But it still was a surprise to Levy earlier this year when Kershaw and her husband, Reuben, made a significant donation to UCSD through the Kershaw Family Trust to establish the Norma Kershaw Endowed Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands. This is the university’s first endowed faculty chair in the Department of Anthropology and the fifth endowed chair in Judaic Studies within the UCSD Division of Social Sciences. This philanthropic gift contributes to UCSD’s $1 billion fundraising initiative, The Campaign for UCSD: Imagine What’s Next.


The campus has named Levy as founding chairholder. His most recent book (with T. Higham, Oxford University) is The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating – Archaeology, Text and Science (London: Equinox). Based on his publications and fieldwork in both Israel and Jordan, Levy is recognized as one of the leading experts on the archaeology of the Middle East.

[...]

THE VIDEVAD PROJECT:

The Vīdēvdād Project is a long term project of a small Iranistic team in the section of Indoeuropean Linguistics of the Department of Classical Philology and Indoeuropean Studies at the University of Salamanca. It is supported with the financial aid of the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia and of the Junta de Castilla y León. Formerly this project has been carried out in the Institut für Iranistik of the Freie Universität Berlin with the collaboration of Maria Macuch and with funds of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

[...]

This is from the index page:

Vīdēvdād is the only complete Nask of the Sassanian Avesta, the sacred book of the Zoroastrian religion, that has been transmitted to us in its complete Sassanian version. According to the Dēnkard the books of the Avesta were divided in three categories: gathic, ritual and legal. The legal text are divided since the Avestan in the law of Zaraθuštra (dāta- zaraθuštrahe) and the law of Vīdēvdād (dāta- vīdaēuua-). The latter handled mainly on prescriptions against nasu- "corpse" and the demoness concerning witth it (druj- nasu-).

Therefore, the Nask Vīdēvdād consisted in originally only of prescriptions in order to remove impurity from the pure elements of the creation of Ahura Mazdā. However, through many centuries of transmission, another texts about different matters have been incorporated to it, such as the mythical creation of the sixteen lands and their countercreations (V 1), Yima’s mythical kingship and his protection of the whole creation (V 2), the goddess of the earth (V 3), contracts and punishment for breaking them (V 4), proper dog’s care (V 13), sin for killing an otter and its atonement (V 14) , Θrita and the origin of the medicine (V 20) and the origin of the diseases (V 22). On the other side only V 5-12, V 16-17, partly V 18-19 and V 20 deal with different themes related to impurity and its purification and the removing of the evil forces. Thus the Sassanian text of Vīdēvdād which has arrived to our time sums 22 chapters (phl. fragard), but not all of them seem to have belonged in origin to the Vīdēvdād Nask.

This is an example of a fairly common phenomenon in the study of antiquity: medieval and later manuscripts that contain medieval texts mixed with late antique and genuinely ancient material. Pseudepigrapha manuscripts often have the same sort of mix. These Iranian texts preserve material that is of considerable interest for the study of ancient Jewish apocalypses and apocalypticism

(Via the Agade list.)

THE ARTSCROLL YERUSHALMI, volume 1, is reviewed by the Jewish press. It discusses the series rather than the volume, and is quite positive. Excerpt:

While some Jewish studies educators feared the ArtScroll series would provide an easy way out for students looking to avoid the challenges represented by the Talmud, most have been convinced that the elucidation of these texts has allowed many more people to become involved with Talmud study than in generations past. To date, available in English, Hebrew and French, the impact of the ArtScroll is only beginning to be felt, and the Jerusalem Talmud will serve as an additional measure of its role.

Revolutions like these in Jewish scholarship are rare and can often only be best appreciated with considerable hindsight. Yet in the relatively short amount of time that ArtScroll Talmuds have been appearing in study halls and Jewish homes around the world, it is clear the Mesorah publishing house has offered a valuable contribution to the spread of Jewish study.

ON CRUCIFIXION POSTURES:

Image of Jesus' crucifixion may be wrong, says study

PARIS, March 30, 2006 (AFP) - The image of the crucifixion, one of the most powerful emblems of Christianity, may be quite erroneous, according to a study which says there is no evidence to prove Jesus was crucified in this manner.

Around the world, in churches, on the walls of Christian homes, on crucifixes worn as pendants, in innumerable books, paintings and movies, Jesus Christ is seen nailed to the cross by his hands and feet, with his head upwards and arms outstretched.

But a paper published by Britain's prestigious Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) says this image has never been substantiated in fact.

Christ could have been crucified in any one of many ways, all of which would have affected the causes of his death, it says.

"The evidence available demonstrates that people were crucified in different postures and affixed to crosses using a variety of means," said one of the authors, Piers Mitchell of Imperial College London.

[...]

This isn't exactly a grand revelation. It's well known in scholarly circles that we really don't know much about the postures used in ancient crucifixions, and the movie The Last Temptation of Christ uses a nontraditional but possible posture, so this ought to be well known in popular culture as well. That said, this is the first I've heard of convicts being nailed to a cross by their genitals and I wonder what evidence there actually is for that. Not that I doubt the creative imagination of the ancient Romans.

CONTROVERSY OVER THE NYU GIFT:

$200 Million Gift Triggers Backlash at NYU By Michael Balter ScienceNOW Daily News 28 March 2006 When New York University (NYU) officials announced last week the creation of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, it was widely seen as a major coup. The new Ph.D.-granting research institute, devoted to the art, archaeology, history, literature, and geography of ancient societies, was made possible by a private gift of $200 million in cash and real estate, one of the largest donations the university has ever landed. Yet some NYU faculty, along with outside archaeologists, are aghast that the school accepted the money. One leading NYU archaeologist has already resigned from the university's existing ancient studies center to protest the decision. [...]

I'm less tolerant of antiquities collecting than I used to be, and after the forgery scandal in Israel I hope Shelby White will think twice about continuing to collect. She has promised to "deal with" anything in the collection that she "should not have bought," which is good, although I'm sure that one could debate what exactly that last quoted phrase should mean. But in any case the Leon Levy Foundation has done an immense amound of good for archaeology and the study of antiquity and I think it would be counterproductive for NYU to turn down the gift. (Heads up, reader Carla Sulzbach.)

DAN BROWN AND MICHAEL BAIGENT have new books out:

'Da Vinci Code' Rival Releases New Book

By RICHARD N. OSTLING
The Associated Press
Monday, March 27, 2006; 5:19 PM

-- "The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown and his courtroom nemesis, Michael Baigent, now have a new rivalry _ on the best-seller lists.

Brown's novel goes on sale in paperback Tuesday with an advance printing of 5 million copies, the same day that HarperSanFrancisco is issuing "The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History" by Baigent, with an initial hardcover print run of a much more modest 150,000.

[...]

Sigh.

UPDATE: MSNBC has an excerpt of Baigent's book.

He turned over all those photographs without keeping copies for himself.

Right.

He neglected to get a receipt.

Right.

And he doesn't give the names of any of the British Museum "experts."

Right.

EILAT MAZAR is interviewed in Moment Magazine about the big administrative building (palace?) she's excavating in Jerusalem. Nothing new, but a good summary of the evidence, the issues, and the controversy:

Eilat Mazar: Uncovering King David's Palace

Eilat Mazar is not at her dig just south of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, where she has been exhuming the massive stone walls of what she believes to be the 10th-century remains of King David’s palace. Instead the 49-year-old widowed mother of four is at her office at the Shalem Center, a conservative social policy think tank in Jerusalem’s German Colony. Her short blonde hair bobs up and down as talks about the palace, possibly the most stunning archaeological discovery in Israel in decades. “It’s a huge structure built on the most important place that controls everything around it,” she says with excitement. “It must have been an important structure. We need to reveal more of it.”

[...]

I think we can all agree on that much.

IN THE MAIL: Here are the Amazon.com orders that were waiting for me when I arrived:

Al-Ghazali, The Niche of Lights (ed. D. Buchanan) (oddly, no longer registers on Amazon)

Al-Ghazali The Incoherence of the Philosophers (ed. M. E. Marmura)

Glenn Reynolds, An Army of Davids

Robert A. Heinlein, Red Planet

The first three are for me and the fourth is to read with my son.

I'M HERE! In San Diego, that is. More tomorrow.

BOOK REVIEW:

Ex-Christian scholar explores New Testament views of Jews

By Richard N. Ostling
The Associated Press
Posted March 24 2006

Julie Galambush brings a rare background to the often delicate topic of Jewish-Christian relations and her special interest in the first-century split between the two faiths.

She was an American Baptist Churches minister and teacher at the Lutherans' St. Olaf College in Minnesota. Now a convert to Reform Judaism who belongs to a temple in Falls Church, Va., she teaches Bible at the College of William and Mary.

Galambush, naturally, doesn't believe in Jesus' divinity. But her main emphasis is that Christians misunderstand what their scriptural writers originally meant to say about Jews.

She develops that case in The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament's Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book (HarperSanFrancisco). ...

Looks interesting.

OIL IN THEM THERE HILLS UPDATE:

Zion Oil & Gas: We may have a discovery

By LEAH KRAUSS
UPI Correspondent

BINYAMINA, Israel, March 23 (UPI) -- Zion Oil & Gas, a company on a "Biblical Treasure Hunt" for oil in Israel, may have proven wrong everyone who scoffed at the idea of black gold in the Holy Land.

"We have what appears to be a discovery of both oil and gas in a number of different zones," Zion said on its updated Web site.

There are a number of indicators that point to a discovery, Zion said. These include: "Increased penetration rates while drilling ... with natural gas shows on the gas chromatograph, which measures natural gas components; microscopic oil and gas stains on sample rock cuttings during drilling; asphaltic rock cuttings that burn when lit with a match; gas bubbles and oil stains on the mud pit while drilling; pockets of gas that ignited and flared for several minutes at different times when the well was being swabbed; and a skim of oil in sample jars taken from fluids being swabbed," according to the company Web site.

The company has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering, and its application for listing on the American Stock Exchange is being reviewed.

[...]

I have commented earlier on the project and its basis in biblical mis-exegesis here. I would be very happy if they find oil anyway, but I'll believe it when I see the gusher. Meanwhile, I'm not buying any stock in the company.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO PALEOJUDAICA! My first post was three years ago today. The first anniversary post is here and the second here. The counter reads 233,436 hits, 125,982 of them in the last year, nearly an exponential increase over the previous year. PaleoJudaica has 315 links from 115 sites (down quite a bit from last year, for reasons unclear to me, but during the summer at one point there were links from over 190 sites). I no longer try to keep count of biblioblogs, but there are more and more of them all the time.

I haven't had time to put together a detailed review of the year as in previous years. But here are some of my favorite posts from the last twelve months:

• AUT Israel Boycott
  
• Reflections on the MIT Time Traveler Convention (This post received the most hits in the last year.)
  
• The Egyptian State Information Service's Web Page on "Jerusalem in History"
  
• On Inciting Religions Hatred
  
• Wish List of Lost Books 1
• On the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project
  
• The British Open
  
• Evidence for the Second and Herodian Temples
  
• Evidence for the First ("Solomonic") Temple (Needs some revision: Herodotus is a poorer historical source than I'd indicated and the Dtr comes out better than he.)
  
• More Lost Books
  
• The Eruption of Vesuvius
  
• Egyptian Blogger Released
  
• SBL Tel Zayit (Zeitah) Inscription Report (1 of 4)
  
• SBL Blogging Session Roundup
  
• Mount Athos Cats
  
• Bleg for a Phoenician Giant
  
• On Paul Mirecki and Intelligent Design
  
• 2005 Ralphies for PaleoJudaica
  
• Celebration of Robin Wilson's 90th Birthday
  
• Da Vinci Code Review
  

I leave for a fortnight's holiday in San Diego first thing tomorrow morning. I'll try to slip in a little more blogging before then, but I'm very busy. I don't expect to post anything on Saturday, but look for me again on Sunday, blogging from sunny California. Thanks for your interest in PaleoJudaica and please keep coming by!

JESUS MOVIE FATWA?

Controversy Over Christ Movie in Egypt

By Sobhy Mujahid, IOL [Islam Online] Correspondent

CAIRO, March 22, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – An intended attempt to produce a movie on the life of Jesus Christ (peace and blessings be upon him) has stirred a hot debate between Al-Azhar scholars who vehemently oppose the depiction of any Prophet and Christian activists who considered the rejection an interference in their private affairs.

"Al-Azhar (the Cairo-based oldest seat of learning in Sunni Islam) rejects the depiction of Christ in a film because he is not only the prophet of the Christians but also Muslims believe in him and all other prophets," Abdel Mooti Bayumi, a professor in Al-Azhar University, told IOL.

Islamic Researches Academy (IRA) of Al-Azhar had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, against any "depiction of Allah's prophets" including Jesus, secretary-general of the IRA Sheikh Ibrahim Attah Al-Fayoumi told IOL Tuesday, March 21.

Other IRA members, however, seem to be denying that there has been an official response (i.e., a fatwa?):

But IRA members denied that the academy officially rejected the movie of Jesus Christ, saying that it had not been forwarded for scrutiny.

"The academy does not scrutinize any drama or literary work until asked to do so by a specific party," said Al-Fayoumi.

Al-Azhar gives recommendations for such works and not binding decrees, he said, adding that it is the justice system that makes verdicts.

"Banning drama, art or literature works is the responsibility of censorship. It is not Al-Azhar business," he said.

But the response of the scriptwriter, the producer, and unnamed "Christian activists" seems entirely sensible to me:

Christian activists, however, hit back, saying making a movie on the life of Jesus Christ is not prohibited by the Christian dogma.

"Producing a movie on the life and pains of the Christ is not the first of its kind but would be the 30th on the international level," Coptic political activist Jamal Asaad told London-based ASharq Al-Awsat daily Monday, March 20.

The move is significant since it is the first Egyptian-Arab movie on Jesus Christ, he added.

The movie scriptwriter has a similar stance.

"Christian dogma does not prohibit the depiction of Christ, so what gives Al-Azhar the right to intervene?" charged Fayez Ghali, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Some churches in Egypt stage plays and screen movies on the life of Jesus Christ, activists said.

The film's producer, Mohammed Ashub, said it was not the business of Al-Azhar, which has not issued an official protest, to interfere in the making of the movie.

"Al-Azhar does not have the right to intervene in something which concerns the Christians, otherwise it would have to tear down the icons of Christ and the Virgin Mary from churches," he told AFP.

I hope this one doesn't turn ugly, but I also hope that the makers of the film don't back down.

THE COPTIC GOSPEL OF JUDAS is to be covered in a National Geographic Channel "Global Television Event" on 9 April according to a press release. It promises that the document itself "will be first presented during a press conference at the National Geographic Society in early April."

"WHAT'S NEXT? SUMERIAN?" And why not?

MORE ON THE NEW NYU CENTER FOR ANCIENT STUDIES from the NYU Washington Square News:

NYU receives $200 mil. for new center

by Liz Skalka
News Editor

March 22, 2006
NYU has received a donation of nearly $200 million — among the largest ever given to NYU — to create an interdisciplinary center for ancient studies, NYU officials announced yesterday.

[...]

John Bernstein, the president of the Leon Levy Foundation, told WSN that the foundation is pleased to be working with the university to create a center that will approach ancient studies in a new, multidisciplinary fashion.

“We want to work with one of the great research institutes,” he said.

[...]

The new ancient studies program is geared toward crossing boundaries and is expected to bring together different departments at the university that focus on topics in ancient studies, said Mark S. Smith, the Skirball Professor of Bible and Ancient and Near Eastern Studies in the Hebrew and Judaic Studies Department.

“It has potential to create fantastic synergy between existing faculty in ancient studies and the center itself,” he said.

Smith said the gift “may be unprecedented” in the field of ancient studies.

“This is great news for New York University,” he said. “We don’t usually get gifts like this, and to get one in ancient studies is really unique.”

[...]

The article has lots of additional details.

THE CRADLE OF CHRISTIANITY EXHIBITION will be moving to Florida in December:

Biblical exhibit encore to Tut
BY ALEXANDRA ALTER
aalter@MiamiHerald.com

The Museum of Art/Fort Lauderdale, which has attracted more than 500,000 visitors to its current exhibit Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, will follow that up with a major exhibition of biblical artifacts that trace the common origins of Judaism and Christianity, museum officials announced Tuesday.

[...]

The collection of artifacts, which date from the time of Jesus to the Seventh Century, includes one of the Dead Sea Scrolls; a burial ossuary of Caiaphas the High Priest, who according to the New Testament delivered Jesus to the Romans for trial and crucifixion; and a commemorative plaque inscribed with the name Pontius Pilate.

[...]

The Temple Scroll is the Dead Sea Scroll in the exhibit.

MUSSOLINI'S VILLA is now open to the public, according to the A.P. As noted before here, there are archaeological relics associated with its underground bunkers:

The bunker was dug 23 feet deep, burying a 10-foot-thick concrete box with bare cylindrical corridors and multiple escape routes.

While restoring the chamber, archeologists discovered it was built over a second-century Christian tomb, in which they found three bodies. The area was a common burial ground in Roman times, housing mainly the sprawling underground corridors of one of six Jewish catacombs in the city.

[...]

Future plans for Villa Torlonia's grounds include opening the ancient Jewish catacombs and building a museum dedicated to Holocaust victims right across from Mussolini's residence.

This is the first I can recall hearing about a second-century Christian tomb at the site.

ANCIENT NEGEV TRADE ROUTE SAVED:

Environmentalists save ancient Perfume Route from destruction

By Zafrir Rinat, Haaretz Correspondent

Environmental groups on Monday persuaded the southern committee of planning to turn down a plan that would open a phosphate quarry in an area where the ancient Nebatean Perfume route passed through.

The committee decided against the Rotem Apart company's Sde Hetzba West plan, ruling that it was in the public's interest to favor preservation over development.

[...]

AN INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD has just been funded at New York University:

N.Y.U. and Columbia to Receive $200 Million Gifts for Research

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD and JONATHAN D. GLATER
Published: March 21, 2006 (New York Times)

New York University and Columbia have each received donations of about $200 million, among the largest to academic institutions in recent years. The gifts, from different donors, come as both universities try to compete with rivals that have far larger endowments.

The gift to N.Y.U., among the largest it has ever received, will create a multidisciplinary center for the study of the ancient world. Consisting of cash and real estate valued at up to $200 million, the gift is from the Leon Levy Foundation. Mr. Levy, who died in 2003, was a Wall Street investor and benefactor of art and archaeology. The university president, John Sexton, and the Levy foundation's trustee, Shelby White, Mr. Levy's widow, are expected to announce the gift today.

[...]

N.Y.U. officials emphasized in interviews that a goal of the new center, to be called the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, was to approach the research and teaching of antiquity on a broad geographic and thematic scale. The focus will be on cultural evolution through time and across societies and regions, incorporating the history, archaeology, literature and art of antiquity.

The areas to be studied will include not only Europe and the Mediterranean basin, but also Central and East Asia — from Gibraltar to Taiwan, as Glen W. Bowersock, a historian familiar with the plans, put it.

[...]

The institute will be in a six-story townhouse at 15 East 84th Street, which was previously owned by the Ogden Reid family and then the American Jewish Congress. The Levy Foundation bought the property two years ago and is having it renovated.

Christopher Ratté, a classical archaeologist at N.Y.U., said the institute was expected to hire five or six full-time professors, maybe an equal number of visiting fellows, and several post-doctoral researchers.

[...]

Congratulations to NYU! This is excellent news. Shelby White and the late Leon Levy have made a very valuable contribution to the study of antiquity -- notably in Larry Stager's Ashkelon dig -- for many years. Oh, and congratulations to Columbia too on their new Science Center.

AND NOW IT GOES TO THE JUDGE:

Judge Asks Sharp Questions at Close of 'Da Vinci Code' Case

By SARAH LYALL
Published: March 21, 2006 (New York Times)

LONDON, March 20 — The lawyer for the two men who say Dan Brown stole from their book for his novel "The Da Vinci Code" faced sharp and relentless questioning from the judge in the case during closing arguments in the High Court here on Monday.

The judge, Peter Jones, will not issue a decision for several weeks, and it is impossible to know how he will rule. But his tough questions appeared to reflect skepticism, even exasperation, toward some of the arguments put forward by the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, two of the three authors of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail." (The book's other author, Henry Lincoln, is not taking part in the lawsuit.) They claim that Mr. Brown lifted the central "architecture" for his megaselling "Da Vinci Code" from their nonfiction book, published in 1982.

[...]

Justice Jones seems to be showing good sense in this case and I shall be very surprised if he rules against Random House.

THE SBL PSEUDEPIGRAPHA SECTION'S PROGRAM for the November 2006 meeting in Washington D.C. has not yet been published, but Pierluigi Piovanelli has kindly sent me an abstract of the paper he will be presenting in the session on my book. Here it is:

In Praise of "The Default Position," or Reassessing the Christian Reception of the Jewish Pseudepigraphic Heritage

It is well known that many ancient Jewish Pseudepigrapha have been preserved in their integrality only through secondary versions and Christian late antique and medieval manuscript traditions. Building on such evidence, a large majority of specialists of Second Temple literature is still eager to identify newly discovered parabiblical narratives bearing no explicit Christian signatures with new Jewish Pseudepigrapha. However, during the last two decades some authoritative voices - Marinus de Jonge, Robert A. Kraft, and Enrico Norelli, to mention just few of them - have begun to argue that early Christian authors could have written at least some of those texts. In the same vein, James R. Davila's new monograph on The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha (2005) provides us with a useful survey not only of Christian "Old Testament Pseudepigrapha That Appear to Be Jewish" (Ch. 2) but also of "Pseudepigrapha of Debatable Origin" (Ch. 4) that were previously deemed to be Jewish but that probably are of Christian origins. The plausibility of such a paradigmatic shift is independently confirmed by the major changes that another great specialist of Second Temple Judaism, George W. E. Nickelsburg, has just introduced into the revised and expanded edition of his 1981 masterful introduction to Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah (2005). In this new edition, some Pseudepigrapha are now relegated into a newly created limbo of "Texts of Disputed Provenance" (Ch. 9), while others are purely and simply omitted. Following the same line of thought, I will discuss some examples of Jewish Pseudepigrapha copied and translated by Christian scribes (the so-called Coptic Jeremiah Apocryphon), Christian rewritings of Jewish Pseudepigrapha (the Paraleipomena of Jeremiah), and Christian original compositions (the Melchizedek Story). This new approach will help us to emphasize the natural continuity existing between ancient Jewish and early Christian pseudepigraphic trajectories.

Pierluigi Piovanelli
University of Ottawa

Pierluigi is translating the Coptic Jeremiah Apocryphon and the Story of Melchizedek for our More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project. The session looks promising.

HOW TO WRITE A BEST SELLER: Dan Brown has some advice. I'll have to keep it in mind for my next book.

COPTIC GOSPEL OF JUDAS WATCH: Mark Goodacre notes a radio interview on the Gospel of Judas by Aberdonian New Testament scholar Simon Gathercole. Mark writes:

Simon explained that the Gospel was written long after the living memory of the apostles, and that it featured anachronisms equivalent to our writing a document about Queen Victoria in which she comments on The Lord of the Rings and on her CD collection.

HAPPY SPRING EQUINOX and Persian New Year (Norouz).

HOLY GRAIL "CLUE"? The Times has the only follow-up I can find to last week's promised revelation about the inscription on the Shepherd's Monument:

Holy Grail 'clue' at stately home

A CODE etched on a marble monument in the grounds of a Staffordshire stately home is a secret message that the Holy Grail is buried near by, a Canadian codebreaker claimed yesterday.

One or both of the stones thought to make up the Holy Grail are “very likely” to be buried in the Shugborough estate, near Stafford, according to Louis Buff Parry.

[...]

The inscription reads "D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M." I think it looks like a password to somebody's computer account.

THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY IS CELEBRATING ITS 500TH VOLUME with a Loeb Classical Library Reader. The Times reports:

Setting out with the immodest ambition of publishing “the entire extant Greek and Latin literature from the time of Homer to the Fall of Constantinople”, the series reproduces bestsellers (Homer’s Iliad, Caesar’s The Gallic War) as well as niche works. Those with a touch of the trainspotter about them will find Frontinus’s Aqueducts of Rome, or Aelian’s On The Characteristics of Animals particularly diverting.

The library has now narrowed its horizons but still commissions new translations. With long-lost ancient works (plays of Sophocles, epic poems, Christian gospels) soon to emerge from Egyptian papyri currently under infra-red examination at Oxford University, the library can look forward to some virgin material.

That is good news for academia. James Loeb endowed a percentage of the library’s profits to the Department of Classics at Harvard and, with 499 volumes in print, it harvests more than $750,000 (£435,000) per annum. In May another moneyspinner will be added: coming in at No 500, Quintilian’s The Lesser Declamations — an experimental law game for the budding attorney of the 2nd century AD.

To celebrate this 500th edition, A Loeb Classical Library Reader has been pulled together.

The complete works of Philo and Josephus are also well-known LCL volumes. The Reader will doubtless give the whole series some welcome publicity and will serve as a useful Classics textbook.

UPDATE: The Reader gets a positive review in the Los Angeles Times.

COLD-WAR INTEL MEETS ARCHAEOLOGY:

Investigating canals across time, from space
Ur takes a step back to see ancient networks
By Alvin Powell
Harvard News Office

The view from space of an ancient canal network is recasting archaeologists' understanding of the Assyrian capital of Nineveh and of the farming economy that supported it at its height of power almost 3,000 years ago.

The work of Assistant Anthropology Professor Jason Ur, detailed in the November/December issue of the archaeology journal Iraq, is casting doubt on the long-held belief that canals that brought water from springs and rivers far to Nineveh's north were mainly constructed to support the city's elaborate gardens.

Using declassified satellite photographs taken decades ago, Ur found what he believes is evidence of branches in the canals that indicate extensive agricultural irrigation in the lands north of Nineveh that scholars had thought dependent on rainfall for their annual production.

With irrigation, those fields would have been potentially far more productive than if they had been reliant on the vagaries of natural rain. Ur said the canals indicate that the farming system underlying what was then the Middle East's dominant empire was more complex and organized than previously thought.

[...]

Cool.

(Via Archaeologica News.)

BOOK REVIEW:

The Great Transformation: The World in the Time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius and Jeremiah
by Karen Armstrong
443pp, Atlantic Books, £19.99

Diarmaid MacCulloch reviews the book for The Guardian, but he isn't buying Armstrong's thesis:

But I really don't buy the axial age. I started reading Armstrong with keen anticipation, and my scepticism grew the more I read. The Jaspers thesis is a baggy monster, which tries to bundle up all sorts of diversities over four very different civilisations, only two of which had much contact with each other during the six centuries that (after adjustments) he eventually singled out, between 800 and 200BCE - note those six centuries! ...

There is a danger in all this of creating new myths: new sacred stories pregnant with meaning, on the basis of the centuries of accumulated religious myth in sacred scriptures which are a major part of Armstrong's raw material. Myths are always created for a reason, and in Armstrong's case the reason is wholly admirable and welcome. Much modern religion is ignorantly dogmatic, especially inclined stridently to proclaim how right it is and how wrong everyone else is. We now face very serious danger from it, whether it calls itself Christianity, Islam or any other label. To stand up to it is a duty of civilisation. Armstrong has been a major voice in the effort to talk about religion in a more thoughtful and open way. But I wish that she had not relied so heavily on the Jaspers myth in this rich and deeply felt book.

DA VINCI CODE TRIAL UPDATE:

Da Vinci copy claim 'in tatters' (BBC)

A lawyer for author Dan Brown has told the High Court that claims he stole ideas for The Da Vinci Code have been left "in tatters".

John Baldwin QC, representing publisher Random House, said the evidence made it a "travesty" to say Mr Brown lifted from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

[...]

Mr Baldwin claimed the claimants' case would fail "even if Mr Brown had taken these ideas".

"The ideas are of too general a nature to be capable of copyright protection," said Mr Baldwin.

[...]

That sounds right to me.

MUMMIES YES, TOMB NO: The chamber in the Valley of the Kings seems not to be a tomb after all:

Pharaonic find was mummification room, not tomb

Mon Mar 13, 11:44 AM ET

CAIRO (Reuters) - A chamber discovered last month in the Valley of the Kings was a room used by the ancient Egyptians for mummifying pharaohs buried in the area, rather than a tomb, Egypt's top archaeologist said on Monday.

[...]

THE DISCOVERIES AT KFAR KANA, especially the Roman-era tunnels, are discussed in detail by the National Geographic Society:

Ancient Jewish Revolt
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
March 15, 2006

A series of underground chambers and tunnels recently found in Israel were likely used as refuges during the First Jewish Revolt, archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority announced.

[...]

(Via Archaeologica News.)

STILL TRYING TO CRACK THE HOLY GRAIL CODE:

Da Vinci link may soon be revealed

Mar 16 2006 (ic Birmingham.co.uk)

By Shahid Naqvi

It has been billed as one of the world's great unsolved mysteries. Ten letters on a marble tablet that, legend has it, could help reveal the location of the mythical Holy Grail.

Many have tried to crack the code which, surprisingly, is not located deep within some catacomb in Jerusalem, but a stately home a short trip up the M6 from Birmingham in Shugborough, Staffordshire.

So far none have succeeded.

However the 258-year-old mystery might be about to be solved.

Canadian codebreaker Louis Buff Parry claims to have unlocked the secret message and plans to explain his theory to the world this weekend.

[...]

And the world, no doubt, is waiting with baited breath.

The "Da Vinci link" in the headline is awfully weak. It refer not to the actual Lenardo Da Vinci, but to an indirect allusion in Dan Brown's book:

Commissioned by Thomas Anson in 1748, the 20 ft high monument depicts a group of shepherds and shepherdesses contemplating the after-life.

The reason it has been linked to the Holly Grail is because the picture is a mirror-image likeness of a painting by artist Nicholas Poussin.

Poussin was rumoured to be a Grand Master of the Knights Templar and the original painting housed in the Louvre, Paris, was linked to the Holy Grail in Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code.

Here's a PaleoJudaica post on the Shepherd's Monument from November of 2004. There's a link there to a picture of the stone. The secret message reads "D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M." This doesn't strike me as the sort of code that would be easy to decipher. It's very short and there's not much in the way of context. This is amusing, but hardly "one of the world's great unsolved mysteries," and not a very promising route for recovering the Holy Grail, for which there is no contemporary historical evidence anyway. (Yes, Jesus presumably did use a cup at the Last Supper, but there's no evidence it was kept and made an object of veneration. Grail legends first appear in the Middle Ages.)

THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE (which I still haven't gotten around to seeing) is out on DVD and is reviewed in the DVD Times.

MADONNA AT PURIM -- Here's one for the You Can't Make This Up File:

Madonna turned heads dressed as a sexy French maid at a fancy dress Kabbalah party.

SPEAKING OF PHOENICIANS, there's more from Sicily:

Phoenician city not destroyed
(ANSA) - Palermo, March 14 - An ancient Phoenician city unearthed in Sicily was inhabited after its supposed destruction, the head of an Italian dig team claims .

"Our finds, including cooking pans, Phoenecian-style vases, small altars and pieces of looms, show Motya had a thriving population long after it is commonly believed to have been destroyed by the Ancient Greeks," said Maria Pamela Toti .

[...]

Digging down into the earth there, the new objects were uncovered and found to date to periods after the city's documented destruction by the Greek tyrant Dionysius of Syracuse in 397 BC. "Now the corroborating evidence has come to light," Toti said .

[...]

The fresh finds come hard on the heels of the discovery at Motya, near Trapani, of an ancient Phoenician temple dubbed "unique" in the West .

[...]

I have more on the latter story here.

(Via Archaeologica News.)

VIN DIESEL is still planning to make a movie about Hannibal (a trilogy, in fact) with the dialogue in Punic:

Diesel dreaming of dead-language film trilogy
Plus: Amanda Bynes blasts reports of eating disorder

By Jeannette Walls
MSNBC
Updated: 2:55 a.m. ET March 16, 2006

Look out Mel Gibson. Vin Diesel is following in your footsteps.

Gibson raised eyebrows when his “The Passion of the Christ” was done entirely in the archaic language of Aramaic. Now Diesel has revealed that he wants to make a three-part swords and sandals epic based on the life of Hannibal. And he wants to do the films all in Punic, the language that was spoken by the Alps-crossing conqueror, but not by anyone for 2,000 years.

The star of “The Pacifier” tells the April issue of Details that his production company has set up offices in Spain, where the actor has spent months retracing Hannibal’s steps, hiking into the Alps, and visiting the ruins in Cartagena and Saguntum.

[...]

ANOTHER REVIEW OF THE PARIS EXHIBITION, this one by Gunilla K. Knutsson in Ranskan Uutiset.com:

"Livres de Parole. Torah, Bible, Coran"

An Intellectual, Esthetic and Emotional Experience

During these times of renewed saber-rattling in the name of God, every Christian, Jewish and Muslim extremist should be required to spend a day at the exhibition "Livres de parole. Torah, Bible et Coran", which is showing at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) in Paris until the end of April. Considering that religious fundamentalism again is playing a geopolitical role - in the West as well as in the East - the BNF curators took a brave initiative when they put together a show which traces the history of the three monotheistic religions from their common cradle in Mesopotamia (i.e. modern Iraq) to the present. They have managed to steer away from any potential invitation to polemics, however, by taking a strictly historical and bibliographic approach to the texts and objects on display.

[...]

DA VINCI CODE TRIAL UPDATE:

Da Vinci case has no hope, says publisher

By Katy Papineau and Salome Wagaine, Times Online, and PA News

The publisher of both books involved in The Da Vinci Code copyright case told the High Court today that he thought the two claimants were “in danger of making fools of themselves.”

[...]

I'd say it's quite a few years too late for them to be worrying about that.

GOSPEL OF JUDAS BOOKS: Mark Goodacre has publication information on two books that the National Geographic Society is publishing on the Coptic Gospel of Judas in April. I shall have to order them for our library.

ARAMAIC HIP-HOP:

The brains behind Modular Moods and many of the hottest parties in and around New York is DJ Handler. He collaborates with non-electronic musicians and creates textural fusions. His references include Ashkenazic cantorial music, traditional Yemenite melodies and hip-hop; he spins a mix of Baile Funk and Afro Beat blended with ’80s freestyle and hip-hop. MC Y-LOVE (born Yitz Jordan) is a black convert to the Bostener sect of Chassidus (the mystical branch of Orthodox Judaism). He creates seamless polyglot rhymes in English, Arabic, Yiddish and Hebrew. Y-Love is also reviving Aramaic, the ancient language of Jewish law.

TECHNOLOGY WATCH:

Mass spectrometer helps in tyrian purple research (Laboratory Talk)

Researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, are using a mass spectrometer from Applied Biosystems to investigate the composition of tyrian purple. This is one of the oldest and most prestigious dyes in the ancient world, and is produced exclusively by hypobranchial gland secretions from different molluscan species. Some 12,000 molluscs were needed to produce enough dye to determine 6,6'dibromoindigo as the major structure of the dye, early in the twentieth century.

[...]

DA VINCI CODE TRIAL UPDATE:

Dan Brown grilled in Da Vinci Code copyright case
Tue Mar 14, 2006 2:24 PM GMT167

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON (Reuters) - The lawyer representing two historians who accuse Dan Brown of copying their work in his best-seller "The Da Vinci Code" said on Tuesday he suspected the author had lied in his evidence.

The 41-year-old Brown, in the witness box for the second day, was forced to defend his assertion that he had not read "The Holy Blood, and the Holy Grail" when he came up with the idea for his religious thriller.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, co-authors of the 1982 Holy Blood book who are suing Brown's British publisher Random House, say he lifted their ideas wholesale.

Part of Brown's defence has been to say that he had already written the synopsis for The Da Vinci Code, one of the most successful novels ever with sales of around 40 million copies, before he became familiar with the Holy Blood book.

Actually it speaks well for Brown that he originally ignored such a piece of obvious drivel. That said, the sources he did use don't sound all that promising:

When [prosecution lawyer] Rayner James pointed out that the Holy Blood book was referred to as "essential reading" in another work Brown used for his research before writing his synopsis, he replied:

"I had everything I needed for that synopsis. I'm in a synopsis phase. I'm looking at the big picture, not the details."

And, surprisingly, orthography is playing a part in the trial:

The court heard discussions on the difference between British and U.S. punctuation and spelling, as Brown sought to prove documents attributed to his wife were not her work.

Again Blythe emerged as a key partner in Brown's phenomenal success, researching and suggesting plot ideas as he wrote.

There's more on that in this article:

'Da Vinci' documents could hold key

By César G. Soriano, USA TODAY

LONDON — Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown spent a grueling second day on the witness stand here Tuesday, defending his book against charges of copyright infringement. But the person at the heart of the case was not even in court: his wife, Blythe.

[...]

Blythe Brown "is passionate about art and secret history and was enjoying educating herself and being involved in the research," the author wrote in a 69-page witness statement.

Her research has become a primary focus in the suit brought by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, two of the three authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Their attorney, Jonathan Rayner James, grilled Brown about his wife's research methods Tuesday, charging she cobbled together unattributed material from several sources, including Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and used them to create documents that became the synopsis for The Da Vinci Code.

Brown, sounding testy, repeatedly denied that his wife created the documents, noting that one contained British spellings and punctuation.

[...]

I wonder what on earth this is all about. Did the prosecution introduce documents attributed to her that are by somebody else? Someone British? Who? The mystery deepens ...

The case continues, as they say.

MORE ON THE TEMPLE SCROLL'S IMMINENT VISIT TO CLEVELAND:

Most Important Biblical Artifacts Ever Found -- Coming from Jerusalem to the U.S. for the 1st Time (Dakota Voice)


In Exhibition on Shared Roots of Christianity and Judaism Exhibition Will Showcase Jewish and Christian Treasures from the Israel Museum; Once in a Lifetime Opportunity to See the First and Only Presentation Outside of Israel of One of the Most Important Dead Sea Scrolls—the Temple Scroll


CLEVELAND, Mar. 13 -- The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage will premiere a major exhibition on April 1, 2006 tracing the shared roots of Judaism and Christianity, bringing to the U.S. for the first time the most significant biblical artifacts ever found, including the Temple Scroll, one of the most important of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is newly restored and has never before been displayed outside of Israel. Excavated in Israel over the last century, these one- of-a-kind Christian and Jewish archeological treasures come together for the first time to reveal a story of intertwined roots and shared heritage in a world premiere exhibition, "Cradle of Christianity: Treasures from the Holy Land."

[...]

The exhibition will include lots of other cool artifacts, such as the Caiaphas ossuary and the Pontius Pilate inscription.

JUSTIN DOMBROWSKI is blogging on the Babatha papyri.

HERE'S A LONG ARTICLE ON ANNE RICE and her Jesus book in the Chicago-Sun Times:

Rice: 'The doctor told me to say my goodbyes'

March 13, 2006

BY CATHLEEN FALSANI Religion Reporter

LA JOLLA, Calif. -- Johnny Depp would make a perfect Jesus. At least that's what Anne Rice thinks. And she has given it a lot of thought. "Definitely, Johnny Depp," she says decisively, casting, in her imagination, the hypothetical leading man of the television series she hopes to develop for HBO based on her latest novel, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, which chronicles Jesus' life. "I haven't told Johnny Depp yet, but wouldn't he be perfect?"

[...]

Well, she had better hurry. I like Johnny Depp too, but he's getting a little over the hill to play Jesus.

There's lots in the article and I don't have time to comment on it. But I leave you with this excerpt:

Rice is a fan of Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ" and says claims by critics that it is the "most violent film ever made" are ridiculous.

"I couldn't believe it. I thought, 'You haven't seen "The Last of the Mohicans"? You didn't get dragged to a Freddy Krueger movie by your 11-year-old son, like I did?' I was hiding under the seats while he's sitting there eating popcorn as Freddy murders people," she says, laughing. "The most violent movie ever made? Come on. Do kids really wake up in the middle of the night screaming that they're afraid of Roman soldiers?"

I still feel queasy when I remember The Last of the Mohicans.

UPDATE (15 March): But Joe Cathey liked it.

MORE DETAILS from the Jerusalem Post on the Solomonic-era ruins found at Kfar Kana in the Galilee:

Ancient city found at 'Kana of the Galilee'
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

In a rare find, remnants of an ancient Israelite city that dates back three thousand years have been uncovered during excavations in the Israeli Arab village of Kfar Kana in the Lower Galilee, Israel's Antiquities Authority announced Monday.

The area, located north of Nazareth, is revered by Christians as the site where Jesus is said to have performed his first miracle.

The settlement being unearthed existed at the time of the United Kingdom of King Solomon and the Kingdom of Israel following the split between Israel and Judah, in the 10-9th centuries BCE.

[...]

Following the destruction the ancient Israelite city, the site was abandoned until its ruins were re-inhabited by Jewish settlers in the Early Roman period in the 1st century CE, Israel's top archaeological body said.

[...]

UPDATE: And even more details from the A.P. on the Roman-era remains:

Tunnels shed light on an ancient revolt
Archeologists in Israel say discovery dispels theory of `spontaneous' uprising against Rome

By Laura Resnick
Associated Press
Published March 14, 2006

JERUSALEM -- Underground chambers and tunnels used during a Jewish revolt against the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago have been uncovered in northern Israel, archeologists said Monday.

The Jews laid in supplies and were preparing to hide from the Romans during their revolt in 66-70, the experts said. The pits, linked by short tunnels, would have served as a concealed subterranean home.

Yardenna Alexandre of the Israel Antiquities Authority said the find shows the ancient Jews planned and prepared for the uprising, contrary to the common perception that the revolt began spontaneously.

[...]

DAN BROWN was in the witness stand yesterday in the Da Vinci Code trial. I have no great love for Brown, but I don't think the plagiarism case against him holds up. Here's a Telegraph article that covers yesterday's events:

I did not hijack book's plot, Dan Brown tells court
By Hugh Davies
(Filed: 14/03/2006)

The writer Dan Brown said he was astounded to be in court accused of stealing the ideas behind his runaway bestseller The Da Vinci Code.

Mr Brown, whose book helped him earn £45 million last year and the title of the world's highest paid author, insisted that claims that he had based The Da Vinci Code on decades of research by British-based writers were completely false.

[...]

But to defend him against the charge of copyright violation is not to defend him against the charge of cluelessness. This Times piece provides yet another example:

In an early novel a hero uses the words “without wax” as code for sincere, because “the English word evolved from the Spanish sin cera”, a term used by sculptors to describe works where they had not cheated by patching marble with wax. Sorry, Dan, “sincere” comes from the Latin sincerus, meaning “clean, pure or sound”. Next time, include the OED, in your “detailed research”.

BALASHON - HEBREW LANGUAGE DETECTIVE is a new blog on Hebrew and related languages:

An American in Israel investigates language - modern and classic Hebrew, slang, Yiddish, Aramaic, Yeshivish, and more - with an eye on etymology. I'm not a professional linguist, and will be using this blog to explore my own questions, and I welcome yours as well.

MORE ON SEIZING ANTIQUITIES from museums as compensation for terrorism:

New legal approach draws museums into fray in fight against terror
BY RON GROSSMAN
Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO - A Rhode Island lawyer has pioneered a new legal front in the war on terrorism, turning to the collections of major American museums to seek compensation for victims of Middle East suicide bombers.

Among the museums and institutions being pursued by David Strachman is the University of Chicago. He wants the university to surrender a treasure trove of ancient Persian artifacts to survivors of an attack staged by Hamas, the militant group that won the recent Palestinian elections.

The request was recently sustained by a federal magistrate in Chicago.

The reasoning was as straightforward as the implications are far-reaching: Supporters of terrorism should be punished. Hamas is partially financed by Iran. Therefore, Hamas' victims should be compensated by confiscating Iranian property, making Persian artifacts in American museums, such as University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, fair game for federal marshals and a moving truck.

[...]

Read it all. This is an extremely messy case on which I have already commented here. I have serious reservations about this approach for two reasons. First, although I'm all for holding the current Iranian regime responsible for its support of terrorism, it is not clear to me that seizing these antiquities from the University of Chicago would hurt the regime in any meaningful way. It sounds as though a lot of (all of?) the material was excavated long before the Khomeini revolution. It may belong to Iran in principle but their losing it would not have a practical financial effect on them. Second, these antiquities are not just Iran's heritage, they are the heritage of humanity's past, and they shouldn't end up as loot in private hands for any reason. They belong in a museum.

A SOLOMONIC-ERA TOWN? Arutz Sheva has a brief report to the effect that an "ancient Jewish" (i.e. Israelite) town from the time of Solomon has been located by the IAA under an Arab village in the Galilee. The same site is reported to preserve Roman-era Jewish material.

Ancient Jewish Town Discovered Under Arab Village

HAPPY PURIM (begins this evening at sundown) to my Jewish readers. The name "Purim" comes from the story of the casting of the "lot" in the book of Esther chapter 3.

GOOD COMMENTARY ON THE DA VINCI CODE TRIAL by Nick Cohen in The Observer:

Dan Brown has been called many things, but never 'my hero'. Until now

Nick Cohen
Sunday March 12, 2006
The Observer

You don't have to love the English language to disapprove of The Da Vinci Code. A passing respect for your mother tongue is enough to make you wince when Dan Brown takes a chainsaw to the old girl and slices her into clichés and easy-to-assemble sentences. Why millions of people have bought the literary equivalent of an Ikea flatpack is a riddle beyond Brown's power to solve. It is a page-turner, to be fair, with a mystery that pushes you past the arthritic dialogue of the stock characters.

[...]

True, but I think that's being a little hard on Ikea.

I agree with the following:

... David Hooper, a specialist in intellectual property, said the case was something new. The Holy Blood authors are not saying that Dan Brown had copied chunks of their work verbatim. Instead, they are suing him for taking some of their ideas, researching them, playing with them and turning them into a novel. If they win, Hooper believes a chill will go through cultural life as publishers face the next to impossible task of separating original thoughts from other people's thoughts.

Restricting free use of ideas is the spirit of the age. Firms have claimed copyright on plants and parts of the human genome because ideas are worth more than all other assets. The World Trade Organisation recognised this when it made international acceptance of intellectual property rights one of the central aims of the drive to globalisation in the Nineties.

I hate to be the one who has to say it, but Dan Brown needs to win. If he doesn't, free thought may be stifled in the name of protecting ideas.

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS LECTURE SERIES in Charlotte continues:

• "Journey Beyond Words," the weekly lecture series on the Dead Sea Scrolls, continues at 7 p.m. Tuesday when scholar Peter Flint explores "Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls" at Charlotte's First Presbyterian, 200 W. Trade St. For more on the series, tickets and the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit that continues drawing big crowds at Discovery Place in uptown Charlotte: (704) 372-6261 or www.discoverscrolls.org.

CONFERENCE REPORT from the Hellenic News of America:

AFGLC EDUCATIONAL FORUM AT USF ADDRESSES HELLENIC PAIDEIA AND CHALLENGES TO HIGHER EDUCATION

AFGLC EDUCATIONAL FORUM AT USF ADDRESSES HELLENIC PAIDEIA AND CHALLENGES TO HIGHER EDUCATION
Tampa, Florida
The Annual Educational Forum the American Foundation for Greek Language and Culture, was held on March 2-4, 2006 on the campus of the University of South Florida in Tampa. The central theme of the Forum was “Hellenic Paideia: Challenges to Higher Education.” As in 2005, the sponsors of this year Forum were George and Margo Behrakis of Boston. The Forum was free of charge and the public was invited to attend.

[...]

This paper in particular is of interest:

Dr. James F Strange is a Distinguished University Professor and Graduate Director of the Religious Studies at USF. Dr. Strange has initiated and directed major archaeological excavations, beginning in summer of 1982, at the once great city of Sepphoris, also known as Eirenopolis on its coins under Nero, which was rebuilt by the king Herod Antipas and made it his capital following the death of his father, Herod the Great, at about 4 B.C. Dr. Strange delivered on Saturday a stimulating lecture on "Hellenic Artifacts in Eirenopolis, "City of Peace", Near the Birthplace of Christ". In his talk he presented highlights of the excavations at Sepphoris, and the intriguing implications of his original observations from these excavations for New Testament Studies. The excavations at Sepphoris, revealed a vital and expanding city founded in the 2nd century BC. The city was marked by paved streets, public and private buildings, and an aqueduct the brought water three miles from ancient Abila. Sepphoris was designated the seat of the Galilean Sanhedrin the 55 BC and became the capitol city of Galilee in the same period. Herod the Great, who figures in the gospels, built a palace at Sepphoris. At the death of Herod the Great the city was destroyed and inherited by Herod Antipas, the third son of Herod the Great. Antipas built a theater in Greek style, first discovered by the University of Michigan excavations, but re-investigated by the University of South Expedition. Subsequent excavations revealed a villa in Greco-Roman style and a huge civil basilica at the intersection of the two main streets of the city. Other finds included coins, pottery sherds by the thousands, and important fragments of glass and metal. Sepphoris was a great Jewish intellectual center until Christianity became a legal religion during the fourth century CE. Pottery with Christian crosses embossed on the bases have turned up at Sepphoris, and the city gradually became important, receiving its first Christian Bishop in the fifth century AD. The Jewish presence remained strong until the seventh century AD.

THE DA VINCI CODE TRIAL continues to provide amusement:

Da Vinci Code challenger 'copies' (BBC)

A writer who accuses The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown of copying has agreed at the High Court that he himself would "hijack" other people's words.

Co-author of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, Richard Leigh, was told in court ideas in his book were copied.

[...]

I'VE UPDATED the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha website, breaking the texts down into categories, deleting one or two that turned out not to be suitable, and adding a number of new ones that have turned up in recent months. This isn't the final version. There are some complete texts I'm still withholding from the list while we think about them, and I've got a great many short quotation fragments that we're still evaluating, but the list is now better organized and more accurate.

DA VINCI CODE TRIAL UPDATE:

Blessing of Da Vinci date error

By Alan Hamilton (The Times)

Dan Brown's mistake over the Crusades could prove a weapon in his defence against plagiarism

DAN BROWN got a date wrong in The Da Vinci Code. The error may well prove to his advantage.

According to him the Priory of Sion, alleged keeper of the secret of Christ’s wife and children, was founded in Jerusalem during the Second Crusade in the reign of Baldwin II. But according to the authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, who are suing Brown for stealing their plot, the Priory was founded in 1099 during the First Crusade, and Baldwin did not ascend the throne of the ancient city until 1118.

[...]

It should be most amusing to hear Dan Brown testify next week that he alone should get credit for all the mistakes in his book.

Also, there are these interesting statistics at the end of the article:

Sales of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, first published in 1982, have increased sevenfold since the hearing began last week — 3,000 copies — and a few days ago British sales of The Da Vinci Code passed 4 million to add to worldwide sales of 40 million.

Almost makes getting sued sound okay.

On a more serious note, the Catholic Church continues to gear up for the movie release with lots of multimedia material refuting The Da Vinci Code and defending the Catholic viewpoint. Zenit has a press release.

THE ARMENIAN ALPHABET had a birthday celebration at the New Library of Alexandria. Al Ahram has the story:

By the book
Eva Dadrian found more than words at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina's exhibition marking the 1,600th anniversary of the Armenian alphabet

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Commemorating the 1,600th anniversary of the creation of the Armenian Alphabet the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, in cooperation with the Embassy of the Armenian Republic in Egypt, presented an exhibition of rare Armenian manuscripts in February. Inaugurated by Ambassador Taher Khalifa, Head of External Relations at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, and Rouben Karapetian, the Armenian Ambassador to Egypt, the exhibition was followed by a scientific conference entitled "Armenian-Egyptian Historical and Cultural Relations."

The exhibition offered a rare opportunity for visitors to see 19 Armenian manuscripts, eight originals and the rest facsimiles, from the Institute of Matenadaran, Yerevan. One of the oldest and richest libraries in the world, the Matenadaran, as the Armenian manuscript library in Yerevan, capital of Armenia, is known, is one of the world's leading repositories of ancient manuscripts. Its history dates back to the creation of the Armenian alphabet and its collection of over 18,000 manuscripts covers almost all areas of ancient and medieval Armenian culture and science, from history, geography, grammar, philosophy, law, medicine, mathematics, cosmography, alchemy-chemistry, to literature, chronology, art history, music and theatre. It houses manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, Greek, Syriac, Latin, Amharic (Ethiopian) and in some of the ancient languages of India and Japan.

[...]

Including, I dare say, many Old Testament pseudepigrapha manuscripts. Lots of pseudepigrapha were translated into Armenian.

HOT GNOSTICISM TOPICS are covered by Beliefnet:

Ask the Author: Gnosticism Hot Topics
Q&A: The Gospel of Mary, fringe sects, and grass eaters...our author replies.
By Richard L. Valantasis

Here's something I didn't know:

Which of the early Christian or Gnostic sects is the most interesting to you personally?

I am most fascinated by the Boskoi, the Grazers. They had a concrete plan to live in the Garden of Eden, and they carried it out despite all the social pressures to conform. They were radical "back to the earth" people who loved God and the world God made. We could use more of that today, given what we are doing to the physical world we live in.

THE "DEAD SEA SCROLLS OF BUDDHISM" are back in the news after having been carbon dated:

Buddhist scrolls may be missing link

March 9, 2006 - 8:29AM (Sydney Morning Herald)

Rare manuscripts dubbed the "dead sea scrolls of Buddhism" have been carbon dated to the first and fifth centuries AD by Australian scientists, and could be the missing link in Buddhist history, a local scholar says.

[...]

I know this has nothing to do with ancient Judaism, but it has "Dead Sea Scrolls" in it, so what the heck.

THE TRIAL CONTINUES:

French kings drawn into Da Vinci clash

By Alan Hamilton (The Times)

Copyright claimant wilts in the witness box as the books are subjected to a line-by-line comparison

ALTERNATELY sucking the end of his pen and toying with his luxuriant moustache, Mr Justice Peter Smith was engrossed in his paperback copy of The Da Vinci Code, thick with yellow page markers.

The judge had clearly acquainted himself thoroughly with the text of Dan Brown’s blockbusting novel during a six-day adjournment of the hearing in which the authors of a previous book are claiming infringement of copyright, alleging that Mr Brown stole much of his plot from them.

Yesterday’s proceedings in the High Court got down to line-by-line comparisons between DVC and The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, published in 1982. ...

Grant Macaskill pointed me to the best line in today's article:

The arguments moved on to car chases, of which there is at least one in DVC and none in HBHG.

COPTIC GOSPEL OF JUDAS WATCH: The Christian Science Monitor explores the ethical implications of the National Geographic Society's connection with the publishing of this (looted) manuscript:

A gospel's rocky path from Egypt's desert to print

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

When the Gospel of Judas first surfaced in Geneva in 1983, scholars wondered if the mysterious text could trigger a reappraisal of history's most infamous traitor.

They never found out, however, because they couldn't afford the $3 million price tag on this second-century gnostic tale. Instead, the fragile pages vanished into private hands and set off on a 23-year, intercontinental journey through fist-pounding negotiations and even periods, reportedly, stuffed inside a Greek beauty's purse.

Now, at long last, the world is about to see the contents. The National Geographic Society last week reported it will publish a translation this spring, when "The Da Vinci Code" film is sure to rekindle interest in gnostic artifacts.

I don't recall hearing anything about "a Greek beauty's purse" before this. But at least that's not as strange as the story about the prostitute (two prostitutes?) who showed John Strugnell a microfilm of a (Qumran?) Enochic manuscript, which microfilm she had hidden in an even more unusual place. Strugnell did verify that something like this actually happened, but he seems to be saving the details for his memoirs.

Be that as it may, the key issues in this article come out here:

National Geographic doesn't deny Dr. Robinson's allegation that the text left Egypt without that country's required authorization. Still, the organization stands by its decision.

"Everyone involved believes the materials should be given to Egypt" after scholars finish translating them, says spokeswoman Mary Jeanne Jacobsen. "National Geographic has done its due diligence, and is working with an international team of experts on this artifact to save the manuscript before it turns to dust and is lost forever."

But others worry that those who publish "hot" manuscripts create a tragic incentive. "When you publish material that's the result of recent looting ... you're adding to the value of other pieces similar to it," says Patty Gerstenblith, an expert in culture heritage law at DePaul University Law School in Chicago. That entices others to hunt for treasure, she says, with hopes that even something later branded contraband could still yield a nice windfall.

[...]

This is the problem and I don't know of a good solution.

For the episode involving the Enochic manuscript, see Biblical Archaeology Review 20.4 (July-August 1994): 46-47.

PROFESSOR RON TAPPY is speaking on the Tel Zayit inscription this evening in Cleveland.

THE LATEST on the Da Vinci Code lawsuit:

Plot thickens in Da Vinci Code case
(The Scotsman)

An author who claims his theories on Christian heresies were copied in The Da Vinci Code (DVC) came face to face with the Grand Inquisitor.

The inquisitor took the shape of John Baldwin QC, the barrister representing publisher Random House which is being sued for copyright infringement.

And Michael Baigent, co-writer of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail (HBHG), agreed in the witness box that some of the evidence in his statement to the High Court was "false".

[...]

Also, there are more details in this London Times article. Baigent's testimony was so lame it makes me wonder if he isn't deliberately throwing the case now that he's got his publicity.

THIS SOUNDS LIKE A STRANGE "DOCUMENTARY." My comments are interspersed.

It Began in Jerusalem
Tuesday, 7 March 2006, 10:44 am
Press Release: Maori TV
Tuesday March 7 2006
Publicity Release

It Began in Jerusalem

A two-part documentary series that traces the beginnings of Christianity, REVELATION, premieres on Maori Television this Sunday March 12 at 4.30 PM.

Acquired from Southern Star International for broadcast on Maori Television, the documentary series starts in the sixth century, 1000 years before the birth of Christ, when the Jews of Palestine were forced into slavery.

The sixth century (BCE, I assume) was not 1000 years before the birth of Jesus. It was the 500s. I'm not sure what the "forced into slavery" bit is about. The Babylonian exile maybe? But they were exiled, not enslaved.

From the mystery that surrounds the secretive burial and discovery in 1940 of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the formation of the Roman Empire, REVELATION examines the reign of terror that saw many Palestinian women commit suicide in mass protest.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, not 1940. I don't know what the "reign of terror" and the suicidal "Palestinian" women are about and I don't feel inclined to speculate.

The documentary attempts to prise apart the beginnings of Christianity from its Judaic past to its church of all nations present.

[...]

Here, it seems, we come to the agenda of the film. However, the beginnings of Christianity are not prisable apart from it's Judaic past, so the attempt isn't likely to get very far. If this press release reflects the quality of the production and some producer actually paid good money to make it, they were ripped off.

A NEW JESUS MOVIE by an Egyptian producer is in the works:

Egyptian producer plans first Arab film on Jesus

Mar 6, 2006, 13:34 GMT (Deutsche Presse-Agentur)

Cairo - In the wake of global controversy over publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, an Egyptian film producer has announced the first Arab-made film project detailing the life of Jesus Christ.

A central theme of the film, which is projected to cost far more than the average Egyptian production, will be the holy family's flight to Egypt, producer Mohammed Ashub told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in Cairo on Monday.

[...]

MORE ON THE WIESENTHAL CENTER/MUSLIM CEMETERY CONTROVERSY:

Wiesenthal Center May Move Muslim Graves

By SARA TOTH, Associated Press Writer

Monday, March 6, 2006

(03-06) 11:15 PST JERUSALEM, Israel (AP) --

The Simon Wiesenthal Center may relocate Muslim graves discovered on the Jerusalem site of its planned tolerance museum in hopes of soothing Muslim anger, a spokesman said Monday.

[...]

This part doesn't seem to me to add up:

Durgham Saif, a lawyer for the human rights group Karameh, which is involved in the court case, said he did not know about the plans to relocate graves but said moving them would not satisfy the group's demands.

"We have criteria that there is no way to build anything on the cemetery," Saif said. "It's a holy matter."

But according to media reports a parking lot had already been built over the proposed site of the Wiesenthal Center in the 1980s. Plus a hotel was built over another area of the cemetery in the 1920s, approved by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the time. That doesn't decide this case either way, but I don't find Durgham Saif's argument here persuasive.

MORE PYRAMIDS TOO? I've already noted the discovery of an intact tomb in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings, which it now seems contained seven coffins and which is not far from King Tut's tomb. That's impressive, but just wait. In an article in Egypt Today (via Archaeologica News), Zahi Hawass drops this teaser about another discovery:

“Some people put on perfume in the morning,” he says. “My perfume is the sand. If I don’t smell the sand every day, I will die. Egypt is still so rich. I made a discovery recently in Saqqara. I haven’t announced it yet, but it will show that you can still discover cachets and” He pauses, and it’s the long, dramatic pause for which he is famous on international television. “and even whole pyramids in Egypt.”

Stay tuned!

MY PAPER "The Hekhalot Literature and the Early Jewish Apocalypses" has been accepted by the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism Group for the Society of Biblical Literature meeting in Washington D.C. in November. Here's the abstract:

This paper explores the relationship between the Hekhalot literature -- the pre-Kabbalistic corpus of mystical texts that give instructions on how to ascend (or "descend") to God's heavenly throne-chariot and to compel the angels to grant revelations -- and the verifiably Jewish apocalypses of the early centuries C.E. and earlier. The article views the Hekhalot literature from the heuristic social-scientific model of the practitioner (the "descender to the chariot") as "shaman/healer" and examines the apocalypses to determine which elements of this model already existed in the earlier period and whether these indicate a genetic relationship between the apocalyptic visionaries and the descenders to the chariot.

The social-scientific model is the one presented in my book, Descenders to the Chariot: The People Behind the Hekhalot Literature. You can read an early version of the thesis of the book in my 1994 SBLSP article, "The Hekhalot Literature and Shamanism."

RECENT CAVE EXCAVATIONS in the Dead Sea region have uncovered some important coins from the period of the Bar Kokhba revolt. I've probably covered this before, but I can't remember (and I'm unexpectedly in Edinburgh this weekend and kind of busy). This is a Netscape News report, found via last week's Explorator.

Amazing Find Near the Dead Sea

When Israeli archaeologists began excavating caves near the Dead Sea, they found a real treasure: nine rare silver coins that are believed to date back to a failed Jewish rebellion against the Romans in the second century A.D.
[...]

UPDATE (6 March): Yep, I had posts on it here and here almost three years ago.