MORE ON THE TIMBUKTU ARCHIVES, this time from the NYT:

Timbuktu Hopes Ancient Texts Spark a Revival

By LYDIA POLGREEN
Published: August 7, 2007

TIMBUKTU, Mali — Ismaël Diadié Haïdara held a treasure in his slender fingers that has somehow endured through 11 generations — a square of battered leather enclosing a history of the two branches of his family, one side reaching back to the Visigoths in Spain and the other to the ancient origins of the Songhai emperors who ruled this city at its zenith.

“This is our family’s story,” he said, carefully leafing through the unbound pages. “It was written in 1519.”

The musty collection of fragile, crumbling pages, written in the florid Arabic script of the sixteenth century, is also this once forgotten outpost’s future.

A surge of interest in ancient books, hidden for centuries in houses along Timbuktu’s dusty streets and in leather trunks in nomad camps, is raising hopes that Timbuktu — a city whose name has become a staccato synonym for nowhere — may once again claim a place at the intellectual heart of Africa.

“I am a historian,” Mr. Haïdara said. “I know from my research that great cities seldom get a second chance. Yet here we have a second chance because we held on to our past.”

[...]

The South African government is building a new library for the institute, a state-of-the-art facility that will house, catalog and digitize tens of thousands of books and make their contents available, many for the first time, to researchers. Charities and governments from Europe, the United States and the Middle East have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the city’s musty family libraries, which are being expanded and transformed into research institutions, drawing scholars from around the world eager to translate and interpret the long forgotten manuscripts.

The Libyan government is planning to transform a dingy 40-room hotel into a luxurious 100-room resort, complete with Timbuktu’s only swimming pool and space to hold academic and religious conferences. Libya is also digging a new canal that will bring the Niger River to the edge of Timbuktu.

[...]

Libya is really getting into the presevation of history business lately.

Traders brought books and manuscripts from across the Mediterranean and Middle East, and books were bought and sold in Timbuktu — in Arabic and local languages like Songhai and Tamashek, the language of the Tuareg people.

[...]

Hebrew and Greek too. In the past (see link below) I've speculated that there could be copies of biblical pseudepigrapha somewhere in these archives, but there's no word of anything like this yet.

Yet the city has been making a slow comeback for years. Its manuscripts, long hidden, began to emerge in the mid-20th century, as Mali won its independence from France and the city was declared a Unesco world heritage site.

The government created an institute named after Ahmed Baba, Timbuktu’s greatest scholar, to collect, preserve and interpret the manuscripts. Abdel Kader Haïdara, no relation of Ismaël Diadié Haïdara, an Islamic scholar whose family owned an extensive collection of manuscripts, started an organization called Savama-DCI dedicated to preserving the manuscripts. After a visit from Mr. Gates [Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor of African studies] in 1997, he was able to get help from American charities to support private family libraries. With the support of the Ford and Mellon foundations, families began to catalog and preserve their collections.

[...]

Abdel Kader Haïdara, who in many ways started the renaissance by wandering the desert in search of manuscripts, persuading families to allow their treasures to see the light of day, said Timbuktu’s best days lie ahead of it.

“Timbuktu is coming back,” he said. “It will rise again.”

I hope he's right.

The article also has a few nice photos. For past PaleoJudaica coverage of the Timbuktu archives, go here and follow the links in the update at the bottom of the post.

(Via the Agade list.)

CAN'T MAKE IT UP - THE BIBLE IN LIMERICKS:

Bible gets dash of poetic licence

A POETIC priest will undertake a marathon reading of his Bible-based limericks as part of this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Christopher Goodwins, 71, expects it will take him three hours to read the whole of his book, The Bible in Limerick Verse.

Mr Goodwins, who lives in The Causeway, Isleham, has condensed the Bible into 1,001 limericks, but has never given a public reading of the whole book.

[...]

He even includes the Apocrypha. If I make it to the Fringe this year I'll have to keep an eye out for him. Click on the link for info on ordering his CD.

A BYZANTINE-ERA CHURCH has been discovered in Tiberias:

Impressive Byzantine church discovered in excavations in Tiberias
7 Aug 2007
Israel Antiquities Authority excavations in Tiberias exposed a Byzantine church paved with mosaics and dedicatory inscriptions, one of which reads: "Our Lord (Jesus), protect the soul of your servant…"
The discovery, in the heart of the ancient Jewish city, refutes the theory that the Jews of Tiberias prevented the Christians from establishing a church in the middle of their neighborhood.

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs press release also mentions Jewish, Islamic, and Early Bronze age remains recovered in the same excavation.

IN THE MAIL:

Charlotte E. Fonrobert and Martin S. Jaffee (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature (CUP, 2007).

TIME TRAVEL - ISRAELIS ARE WORKING ON IT TOO:

Time machine theory: a step forward in travelling backwards?

from Research Watch (52 articles) (Gizmag)

August 7, 2007 From H.G Wells' classic novel to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the popular imagination has long been enthralled by the prospect of time travel. Now researchers at the Israel Institute of Technology, Techion, have released a paper outlining theoretical advances that could one day assist in liberating the notion of a time-machine from the realms of pure science fiction. The research by Prof. Amos Ori of the Technion’s Faculty of Physics centers around a new model of space-time that overcomes some (but not all) of the theoretical stumbling blocks that would prevent the required curvature of space-time needed to facilitate time travel.

The paper entitled “A Class of Time-Machine Solutions with a Compact Vacuum Core” was published recently in the scientific journal Physical Review and in it Prof. Ori posits theoretical model for space-time that could develop into a time machine.

“In order to travel back in time, the spacetime structure must be engineered appropriately,” explains Prof. Ori. “This is what Einstein’s theory of general relativity deals with. It says that spacetime can be flat. That is – it has a trivial, simple structure. But it can also be curved with various configurations. According to the theory of relativity, the essence of gravitational fields is in the curving of spacetime. The theory of relativity also defines how space is curved and how this curvature develops over time.”

[...]

Alas, this time machine, if it is ever built, can't take us back to times paleo-Judaic either:

“The machine is spacetime itself,” he explains. “Today, if we were to create a time machine – an area with a warp like this in space that would enable time lines to close on themselves – it might enable future generations to return to visit our time. We, apparently, cannot return to previous ages because our predecessors did not create this infrastructure for us.”

This final point means that – unless some ancient civilization built a time machine or such a phenomena somehow exists in nature – there is no way to go back in time beyond the point at which the time machine was constructed, even in theory.

For much more on time travel, especially the work of Ronald Mallett of the University of Connecticut, see here and follow the links.

KARAITES IN AMERICA:

Playing the Part of ‘Rav’ for San Francisco’s Karaite Community
Q&A
Daniel Treiman | Mon. Aug 06, 2007 (The Forward)

By day, Joe Pessah is a marketing applications manager for a tech company in California’s Silicon Valley. In his spare time, however, the 62-year-old Mountain View resident pursues a much more unusual vocation.

Pessah is the “acting rav” for America’s Karaite community, a now-tiny Jewish sect that broke more than a millennium ago with rabbinic Judaism. While adhering to the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh, Karaites rejected the divine origin of the Mishnah, or Oral Law, and the authority of the Talmud.

Karaites maintain many practices that set them apart from mainstream contemporary Jews (known to Karaites as “Rabbanites”). Hewing closely to what they see as the Tanakh’s plain meaning, Karaites do not extend the biblical prohibition against cooking a calf in its mother’s milk into a sweeping ban on mixing meat and dairy. (They’ll eat chicken and dairy together, and some will eat beef with dairy so long as they’re not from the same source.) On some matters though, the Karaites are more stringent than other Jews. For instance, they believe that the prohibition on kindling fires on the Sabbath bans cooking and electricity use. (That means hot plates and light timers are out.)

At one time, Karaites posed a vigorous challenge to rabbinic authority. Today, however, their global population is estimated at only about 30,000, most living in Israel, where they have a number of synagogues.

The Karaites’ only North American synagogue, Congregation B’nai Israel in the San Francisco suburb of Daly City, serves a population of immigrants from Egypt. ...

THE GREENFIELD PRIZE FOR YOUNGER SEMITISTS is being offered again this year:

American Oriental Society

Jonas C. Greenfield Prize
For Younger Semitists

The American Oriental Society is pleased to announce a call for submissions for a prize to honor eminent Semitist and AOS member, Jonas C. Greenfield (10/30/26—3/13/95). The Greenfield Prize now carries a cash award of $3000, and is granted every three years to a younger scholar for the best published article in any area of Semitic studies that has been published during the most recent two-year period.

The next Greenfield Prize competition period is from June 2007 through May 2008. According to the stipulations of the donor, candidates for the current competition must be forty years old or younger by June 1, 2008. Deadline for submission of application letter and materials is December 15, 2008.

The selection of the award-winning article will be made by the AOS Greenfield Prize Committee. The results of the competition will be announced in February 2009. Presentation of the award will take place at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Oriental Society in Albuquerque, NM.

Applicants must submit by December 15, 2008:
three (3) copies of the published article and
three (3) copies of their C.V.s (including date of birth) to:

Greenfield Prize Committee
American Oriental Society
Hatcher Graduate Library
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1205

Follow the link for more information.

(Via Jack Sasson's Agade list.)

JEWISH STUDIES, AN INTERNET JOURNAL has published two new articles that can be downloaded as PDF files:

Yitzhak Brand, “Just Weights” – Heavenly and Earthly Justice: A Study of the Laws of Weights and Measures in Rabbinic Literature (Heb.)

Abstract
The laws of weights and measures in rabbinic literature are characterized by rigorous – sometimes perfectionist – standards. The extraordinary nature of these standards becomes conspicuous in a comparison between these laws and, for example, the laws of ona’ah. The punctiliousness here is partly explained by the resemblance between the conduct of a merchant – measuring and weighing – and of a judge: the merchant, measuring out quantities and amounts, is obligated to avoid committing any injustice. His weights must be just, his measurements exact. Further study reveals that the image of the judge is, in fact, the earthly reflection of the image of Divine justice. At the center of this image are the tools of Divine judgment: just weights and measures. A person who weighs and measures is required to bear Divine justice in mind at all times, as he employs the tools of earthly justice. Now any distortion of measurement – beyond representing deceit and injustice – becomes a rebellion against God. One who measures falsely may be compared, as it were, to an idolater.

Arnon Atzmon, Mordechai’s Dream: From Addition to Derashah (Heb.)

Abstract
Examining the history of the story of Mordechai’s dream (MD) and its journey from one literary context to another over the ages may help illustrate the different approaches used by authors in different eras to adapt the text to their own particular literary frameworks.

In the Greek additions to the Esther scroll, MD serves as a kind of introduction. The dream, together with its interpretation, frames the plot, providing it with a new context. This would mean that the Second Temple-period scribes tampered with the biblical text, altering the very nature of its story.

The Hebrew reworking of MD recorded in Josippon is apparently based upon the Vulgate, where MD, located with other additions at the end of the scroll, lost its original context. Josippon’s composer reworked MD and inserted it into the plot sequence as a crucial link. Here the biblical text is illuminated via a medieval extra-biblical composition, in the form of rewritten Bible.

Midrash Esther Rabbah draws upon the MD version found in Josippon, and uses MD to gloss the verses illuminating their exegetical-midrashic aspects.

Alternatively, see the website to download them as Word files.

CAN'T MAKE IT UP: FAITH-BASED TOYS.

I especially liked the 10-meter-high inflatable Noah's Ark.

IT'S THE TIME OF THE YEAR FOR VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL, and this sounds like a good one:

Vacation Bible School takes children back to ancient biblical times
By CAROLYN CLICK - cclick@thestate.com

This week, wide-eyed children walked into the parish hall of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church and back in time to the year 10 A.D. in the old city of Nazareth.

The elaborate Jewish village that greeted the 50 children — including a temple, a carpenter’s shop, a sheep crossing and a typical home — had a lot of “wow” factor for those participating in Vacation Bible School.

“It’s like going into a big time machine,” Marshall Drake, 10, said.

And it was all hands-on, meant to evoke the feel of ancient Jewish life and help children understand how Christianity is rooted in Judaism, said Judy Carter, who guided the Vacation Bible School to fruition.

[...]

MORE ON THE ANCIENT JEWISH VILLAGE AT SHUAFAT - This is in the Detroit News, but it seems to be a reprint of a NYT article that I missed:

Jerusalem's past, future meet

Archaeological find at site of planned rail line shows conflict in ancient city from different eras.

Isabel Kershner / New York Times

JERUSALEM -- Dig nearly anywhere in this city and you hit the remains of an earlier civilization. One of the latest such finds is a narrow strip of antiquity that runs down the middle of a main road through what is now Shuafat, a Palestinian neighborhood in north Jerusalem.

Soon it will be covered by tracks for a light railway, part of a new mass transit system for the city. Both the history being unearthed and the planning under way are filled with the kind of controversy that seems to be a Jerusalem specialty.

The urban community being uncovered existed for about 60 years, from A.D. 70 to A.D. 130, the period between two anti-Roman Jewish revolts, coins found at the site reveal.

"It's an archaeological feast," said Rachel Bar-Nathan, the Israel Antiquities Authority director of the dig.

One surprise is that the nameless community appears to have housed a mixed population of Romans and Jews. Several of the excavated private dwellings contained a mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath.

[...]

The article also discusses the politics of the area.

For past coverage of the excavation see here, here, and here.

FATAL REVENANT, the second volume of the last series of the Thomas Covenant novels, is scheduled to be released on October 9th. You can download chapter one and the first half of chapter two from the Stephen R. Donaldson website. The second half of chapter two will be posted on August 9th.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL XX is out on Dr. Claude Mariottini's blog. Also, this month's blogger of the month is April DeConick.

A BOOK REVIEW ON MAGIC IN LATE ANTIQUE SYRIA-PALESTINE has just come out in Bryn Mawr Classical Review:

Silke Trzcionka, Magic and the Supernatural in Fourth-Century Syria. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. 227. ISBN 0-415-39242-X. £17.99.

Reviewed by Thomas J. Kraus, Hilpoltstein (t.j.kraus@web.de)
Word count: 1895 words

This volume is a revised version of the Ph.D. thesis Silke Trzcionka (hereafter T.), an Australian Research Council Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Early Christian Studies at Australian Catholic University, prepared under the auspices of Wendy Mayer and Paul Tuffin and submitted to the University of Adelaide in 2004. According to the title T. primarily focuses on late antique Syria and the practices and beliefs present there to summon supernatural powers for help in specific situations of life. In addition, the back cover unveils that T. will specify on Palestine, too, and, together with the first page of the book, it promises that she is going to deal with "a myriad of magical activities" (for instance, curses, spells, and amulets; accusations; methods of healing, protecting, and exorcism). With a strict geographical, chronological, and thematic framing and by applying methodological theses from sociology and anthropology, T. engages in painting a realistic picture of region, time, and people. By doing so a "belief system emerges that intricately intertwines the supernatural and tangible worlds, and in which magic pervades and defines social reality." The book is aimed at "students and specialists of late antiquity, ancient magic, ancient religion and early Christianity" (see the summary on the back cover).

[...]

(Via Jack Sasson's Agade list.)

AN EXHIBITION ON PHILADELPHIA'S HEBRAICA:

'A Holy King'
August 02, 2007 - Robert Leiter, Literary Editor (Jewish Exponent)

If we Jews are truly the People of the Book, then there is no more exact and resonant exhibit now on display than Chosen: Philadelphia's Great Hebraica, which runs through the end of the month at the Rosenbach Museum and Library off Rittenhouse Square. The telling nature of the show is made even more concrete by a close perusal of the catalogue, which has just been released by the museum; the book allows you not only to dwell over the artifacts on display -- albeit via fine, clear reproductions of them -- but you can take all the time necessary to absorb their effect and the corresponding information that's been compiled about them.

[...]

The catalogue, like the show, follows the history of the Jewish book, from its inception in scrolls in ancient Israel to handwritten manuscripts in the Middle Ages, then to printed works once Johannes Gutenberg devised his revolutionary press -- and on to the flourishing of Hebrew book-making in the early modern period. Both catalogue and exhibit conclude with a section on the somewhat specialized endeavor -- the creation of Megillot.

The latter, along with the numerous examples of illuminated manuscripts, do capture the eye immediately with their deeply faceted hues, despite the fact that many pieces bear significant evidence of age. But the truly captivating items are the miniatures, like the Torah with a dress and crown, dating from 18th-century Europe; and the Torahs housed in special decorated containers, like the one enclosed in a tik, which looks old but is listed as a 20th-century product of Iraq.

[...]

THE TALMUD ACCORDING TO BART SIMPSON.

I said it was a slow news day.

THE NAHAL MISHMAR HOARD OF COPPER OBJECTS is the subject of an article in the New Jersey Jewish Standard, inspired by the writer's visit to the Metropolitan Museum, where three of the objects are on display. This is outside PaleoJudaica's usual time frame, but what the heck, it's a slow news day.

The story of the treasure from the cave in Nahal Mishmar starts in the early ’60s. Israel’s Departments of Antiquities decided to implement a thorough survey of all the caves in every deep valley and ravine in the Judean desert. The survey’s purpose was to reveal and save any scrolls or parchments in this area. The Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered a few years earlier, encouraged the local Bedouins to search and dig in every cave for more of these precious and priceless scrolls.

The survey was divided into four major ravines and the top Israeli archaeologists were each appointed to one of the ravines. Archeologist Pesach Bar-Adon was to screen and explore every cave in Nahal Mishmar that is located half way between Ein Gedi and Masada.

In one of the caves, above a sheer drop of 600 feet, accessible only by ropes and ladders, Bar-Adon’s team revealed what is now known as "The treasure of Nahal Mishmar."

Hidden in a natural crevice, covered by a large rock, and wrapped in a straw mat was an extraordinary and unique collection of 442 copper, stone, and ivory artifacts.

The craftsmanship was perfect, the shapes vivid, and the metal pure and clean. The surprise was even bigger when the find was dated as being from 3500 BCE, of the Chalcolithic era. This wonder has been hidden for 5,500 years, waiting for an Israeli team to discover it.

But the mystery had only begun. The artifacts were not working tools and they did not resemble any type of weapon. They were apparently ritual artifacts used for some ancient method of worship. One of the common themes was the antlered head of the local mountain goat, the ibex — still to be seen until this day roaming this part of the desert.

The scholars were bewildered and had many, many questions: Who created these artifacts? Where did they come from? Who hid them in this remote cave and why? And what happened to these people who never made it back to reclaim their precious treasure?

Predictably, since no one know what they are, they are taken to be religious paraphernalia for a temple cult. I kind of like the theory, mentioned in passing in an archaeology class by one of my professors (I won't say who) many years ago, that the objects were used to smoke dope. But I don't think he was serious.

JOSEPHUS IN 17TH-CENTURY DUTCH:

Jewish history returns to tiny historical village

By Rachel Levy Aug 2, 2007, 10:06 GMT (Monsters and Critics)

Amsterdam - The foundation that runs the tiny historical Dutch village of Bourtange announced it received an extraordinary 17th-century Dutch translation of Antiquities of the Jews by 1st century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37-100 AD).

The work, which like the Bible begins with God's creation of the world, covers Jewish history up to the time the Romans conquered ancient Judea and expelled the inhabitants from their homeland, marking the beginning of the Jewish diaspora.

'We think there are only two other copies of this Dutch translation,' explains Margriet van Klinken of the Bourtange Foundation.

'The book is dated 1636 and written in old, pre-modern Dutch. We do not know yet who translated the text from the Greek original.'

'It is a beautiful book,' Van Klinken continues, 'it has a beautiful yellow leather cover. The pages are made of very thick, white paper and the text is written in Gothic print, with black ink.'

Interestingly, the book not only contains text but many engravings.

'Black-and-white pictures of various scenes described in the text surrounding the engravings. Some are quite big, comprising more than half the page,' Van Klinken says enthusiastically.

How the item came to Bourtange was just as interesting.

[...]

IN THE MAIL - This came in at the beginning of the week:

J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Despite this, it's not a Zionist plot.

But this Jewish connection has been suggested:

Harry Potter's Fabulous Jewish Monsters

By: Rabbi Natan Slifkin (Jewish Press NY)
Wednesday, August 1, 2007

The fabulous world of Harry Potter, so prominent in the news right now, may seem very far removed from Judaism. After all, magic, the central feature of the series, is prohibited by the Torah. But some of the most striking inhabitants of Harry’s world are very much part of Torah. Many of the strange beasts that Harry encounters, including mermaids, giants, centaurs and dragons, were described in the Talmud and Midrash long before J.K. Rowling ever took up her pen.

Harry’s headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, owns a magical phoenix, an immortal bird that is continually reborn in fire. The phoenix is also described in several instances in the Talmud and Midrash, having received its gift of immortality as a result of not eating from the Etz Ha-Da’at (Tree of Knowledge) in the Garden of Eden. Hogwarts, the school where Harry is a pupil, houses a lake inhabited by mermen and mermaids. Mermaids are also mentioned in the Midrash, and Rashi likewise discusses people who are half man, half fish.

The Hogwarts grounds are home to a forest inhabited by centaurs, men with the legs of horses. According to the Midrash, the descendants of Enosh turned into centaurs.

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry’s teacher Hagrid makes a bonfire in his "Care of Magical Creatures" class. Out of the bonfire emerge salamanders, which continue to survive in the fire and whose blood has extraordinary powers. The Gemara likewise attests that salamanders are generated from fire, and Rabbi Akiva expresses amazement at their ability to survive only in that environment. Hagrid himself is a half-giant, standing ten feet in height, while the giant Grawp measures twenty. The Gemara puts Moshe Rabbeinu and the Levites in between, at ten cubits (fifteen feet) in height, and describes Og of Bashan as being many hundreds of feet tall.

[...]

The writer has a book on the subject of monsters in the rabbinic literature, but it sounds heavily apologetic.

For more on Og the giant, see here, here, and here.

On another note, my son and I saw the Harry Potter 5 movie over the weekend. It was okay, but my chief feeling as we left the cinema was relief that now I don't have to read the book.

UPDATE (25 August): More here.

UPDATE (31 August): More here.

THE WAYS THAT NEVER PARTED is now available in paperback:

For Immediate Release Contact: Bob Todd toddb@augsburgfortress.org (612) 330-3234 Rethinking the “Parting of the Ways” Between Judaism and Christianity MINNEAPOLIS (July 31, 2007)—For the last two decades historians have sought the decisive point in Roman antiquity at which the “parting of the ways” between early Judaism and Christianity was complete. The essays gathered in the newly released The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages challenge the assumption that any “parting” took place, arguing for ongoing relationships between Jews and Christians, in different and complex ways, for the first few centuries of the common era. “A major paradigm shift in our understanding of the complex interactions between Jewish and Christian tradition. This outstanding collection, with its lucid and incisive introduction, offers students and scholars an exciting range of new approaches to the history of western culture.” —Elaine Pagels, Harrington Professor of Religion, Princeton University “The dramatic purge of the landscape of ancient religion that left Judaism and Christianity as lone survivors standing in the west did not come naturally, or easily, or quickly. The Ways That Never Parted opens important new lines of sight into a noisy, prolonged, and surprising history.” —James J. O’Donnell, Professor of Classics, Georgetown University Contributors include Adam H. Becker, Ra’anan S. Boustan (Abusch) Daniel Boyarin, Averil Cameron, David Frankfurter, Paula Fredriksen, John G. Gager, E. Leigh Gibson, Martin Goodman, Andrew S. Jacobs, Naomi Koltun-Fromm, Robert A. Kraft, Simon R.F. Price, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Alison Salveson [Salvesen], Peter Schäfer, Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, and Amram Tropp. Adam H. Becker is Assistant Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at New York University and the author of The Fear of God and the Beginning of Wisdom: The School of Nisibis and the Development of Scholastic Culture in Late Antique Mesopotamia (2006). Annette Yoshiko Reed is Assistant Professor in Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature (forthcoming), and coeditor of Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (2004). The Ways That Never Parted Edited by Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed Foreword by Martin Goodman, Simon Price, and Peter Schäfer Format: 6” x 6”, Paperback, 424 pages ISBN-13: 978-0-8006-6209-7 Price: $29.00/ CAN $35.00 Publisher: Fortress Press Rights: Canada and USA To order The Ways That Never Parted please call Fortress Press at 1-800-328-4648 or visit the Web site at www.augsburgfortress.org. To request review copies (for media) please call 1-800-426-0115 ext. 234 or e-mail toddb@augsburgfortress.org. To request exam copies for classroom use (professors) go to www.fortresspress.com/examcopy

IN THE MAIL:

John Day (ed.), Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2007 (London: Sage, 2007)

Lots of goodies inside.

THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES at the Tower Babel may not have been a punishment after all:

Is the Tower of Babel wobbling?

by John Dart (Christian Century)

The unfinished Tower of Babel has stood for centuries in art, literature and biblical commentaries as an outrageous, heaven-reaching challenge to the God of Genesis, who responded by scrambling the common language of the citizens and dispersing them around the world. The brief account has nearly always been lumped together with the punishment stories involving Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and the great flood—stories about how Yahweh deals with arrogant, sinful humanity.

[...]

But a recently published study aims to tear down this view of Babel. It contends that the Genesis story was told merely to account for the origin of different languages from a city in old Mesopotamia, which was, from the biblical perspective, the patriarchal cradle of the civilized world.

Upon analysis, "there is no support in the story for viewing God's actions as punishment, judgment or curse upon the human race, nor as a catastrophe which doomed humanity to confusion and chaos," writes Old Testament professor Theodore Hiebert of McCormick Theological Seminary in the spring issue of the Journal of Biblical Literature. "The world's cultural diversity is represented as God's design for the world, not the result of [God's] punishment of it."

[...]

THE DEAD SEA IS SHRINKING:

The problem is that the Jordan River, the Dead Sea's principal tributary, is a trickle once it reaches the sea because Israel, Jordan and Syria siphon off 95 percent of the water for drinking and for irrigation. Over the past century, the water's surface has dropped 80 feet; in the last two decades, the sea has shrunk by a third.

Sinkholes have caved into the former seabed, and its water has become saltier, strangling even the unique one-celled microbes that long ago adapted to this poisonous environment.

I've noted this problem before here.

THE HERODIAN QUARTER in Jerusalem gets a touristy review in Ynetnews:

Jerusalem: 2000 year-old ashes

We take you on a tour through the Herodian Quarter, a lavish archeological complex in the Jewish Quarter where the rich Jews resided during the Second Temple period

Ron Peled
Published: 07.30.07, 16:23 / Israel Travel

The renovation of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem that started in 1967 lasted over 15 years. During the construction of the Kotel Yeshiva over the Western Wall's plaza, an impressive building complex was discovered including the homes of affluent Jews, and ashes from the city's destruction in 70 AD.

The complex, better known as the Herodian Quarter – the Wohl Archaeology Museum, is the largest roofed archeological site in Israel (about 2,700 square meters). Actually it is a Jewish neighborhood overlooking the Temple from the final days of the Second Temple period. A bridge connected the Mount with the neighborhood in which the Temple's priests resided.

Findings reveal the lavish lifestyle of the neighborhood's residents including dozens of ritual baths, art works such as mosaics, frescos and stuccos.

[...]

THE NEPHILIM figure in a soon to be released computer game:

In Adam Syndrome, Professor Adam Reed has just lost his wife after a mysterious set of circumstances. In his quest to find the answers to her death, Reed finds himself following the trail of John Dee, a 16th century occultist and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. This trail will take him all over the world, visiting "ancient lost cities, futuristic laboratories, underwater complexes, gloomy cemeteries", among the fifteen distinct locations. Throughout the game, Reed will learn of his role in a conspiracy dating back to the time of the Great Flood and biblical giants known as the Nephilim, and he will encounter members of an elusive society who want to unveil a secret buried thousands of years ago.

CALL FOR PAPERS ON ECONOMIC FEATURES OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY - This got buried in my inbox during my holiday, but here it is:

The Biblical Studies Seminar of the School of Divinity at the University of St Andrews invites paper proposals on economic features of early Christianity, as reflected in extant data from the first three centuries ce. Of particular interest are proposals with a theological component that consider the topic in relation to:

a) New Testament texts; or

b) the use of the New Testament or the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible in Christian writings of the first three centuries ce.

The accepted papers are expected to be included in the Biblical Studies Seminar programme from February through May 2008. The Seminar will incur the presenters’ costs for B&B and for travel within Britain. Some of the papers may be published in a volume of collected essays.

Please send proposals of 500 words, by 15 September, to Dr Bruce Longenecker (BWL2@st-andrews.ac.uk), indicating full contact details and availability between February and May 2008. Proposals are invited from scholars at PhD level through to senior professors. Proposals from PhD students need to be accompanied by a letter of approval and recommendation from their PhD supervisor.

ISRAEL BOYCOTT UPDATE: The SPME petition against the boycott has passed its goal of 10,000 academic signatures.

OVER 10,000 SCHOLARS FROM ACROSS POLITICAL SPECTRUM FROM AROUND THE WORLD ADD NAMES TO STATEMENT EXPRESSING OUTRAGE AT BRITISH UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE VOTE TO PROMOTE ACADEMIC BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL
By • Edward S. Beck, President, SPME Dan Tarman
Published in: Exclusive to Scholars for Peace in the Middle East Faculty Forum July 30, 2007

PRESS RELEASEFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CAVES IN THE GALILEE were used in antiquity by Jewish rebels:

Discovering ancient Galilee's hidden shelters
By Eli Ashkenazi (Haaretz)

A pleasant coolness greeted Yinon Shivtiel when he crawled into the cave at Mt. Berenice, as did a poisonous snake. Shivtiel, a doctoral candidate in Land of Israel Studies at Bar-Ilan University, who teaches at Safed College, is used to being surprised on his crawling expeditions into caves in the Galilee. He took the snake's presence in stride, preferring to save his excitement for the man-made "loft" dug out of the cave.

For several years now Shivtiel has been researching the "cliff dwellings and refuge caves throughout the Galilee," which, unlike the caves in the Judean foothills that are associated with the Bar-Kochba Revolt, have not been studied in depth. Shivtiel is attempting to understand the circumstances of their excavation and to date them, collecting what he calls the slips of the pen of the Jewish historian and leader Yosef Ben-Mattitiyahu (Josephus). "For example, in referring to Akbara [in the Safed region - E.A.] he writes,'rock-dwellers.' There is no such thing, unless you go to the hanging caves on the cliffs... When I read his theories I believe one must see as the model the Galilee caves, which were 'invented' not by the Bar-Kochba rebels, but before them."

According to Shivtiel, there were 11 Jewish communities in the Galilee during the Roman era (from 37 B.C.E. to 324 A.D.) that used the nearby high cliffs as hiding places. "What they had in common were caves on the tops of high cliffs. They used ropes to descend into the natural caves in the cliffs, which they enlarged and made fit for habitation in time of need, in contrast to the underground caves used as hiding places inside Jewish communities located in the Galilee," Shivtiel said.

[...]

He is also studying caves at Mt. Bernice on the border of Tiberias.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH - Two excavations at the Western Wall Plaza are surveyed in the Jerusalem Post:

Revealing Jerusalem
By LEAH ABRAMOWITZ

There is a huge hole at each end of the Western Wall Plaza, one of which is expanding by the day. Both are significant archeological excavations now in progress under the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority, but they differ in their scope and implications for the area.

The Mughrabi Gate excavation site and that where the police station once stood are both considered "rescue digs" - that is, important construction was about to take place in the area, but first the government wanted to check what was "going on underneath." As is typical in the Old City, excavators were not disappointed with what they found.

At the western end of the plaza where the now-gutted police station once occupied an old Turkish building, Shlomit Wexler and Alexander On are the archeologists in charge of the excavation. On the day I visit, the site is a beehive of activity.

[...]

THE CONTROVERSY continues to rage over the work of Nadia Abu El-Haj and her possible tenure at Barnard College (now apparently approved by Barnard and passed to Columbia University for approval). Barnard alumna Paula R. Stern has a protest piece in the Israel Insider:

Barnard's Shame, Columbia's Dirty Deal
By Paula R. Stern July 27, 2007

When a college of international renown hires a professor of questionable ethics and scholarly practice, it is to be hoped that the college will realize its error before reaching the stage where it would offer that professor tenure. This was the case many Barnard graduates hoped to find themselves in a few months ago when protests were made over the offer to grant Nadia Abu El Haj tenure.

[...]

I've been following this story for a while and even ended up being selectively quoted on it. See here and follow the many links back.

UPDATE (30 September): I have reviewed the book here.

RONALD MALLETT, the Professor of Physics at the University of Connecticut who is working on time travel, is publishing a popular book that is reviewed in the Daily Mail:

The real life Doctor Who who believes he can build a time machine
by MICHAEL HANLON

Suppose it were possible to go back in time and meet the dead. To say all the things you never got a chance to tell a loved one who died before there was a chance to make your peace.

Just think if you could go back and warn someone that their lifestyle, their smoking or heavy drinking was driving them into an early grave.

You would not only be able to meet the dead - but to save them as well.

A new book tells the story of an extraordinary man whose life work is inspired by a longing to do just that.

It was the devastating sudden death of Ronald Mallett's beloved father which sparked his obsession with time-travel.

In pursuit of his seemingly impossible goal, he has overcome poverty and prejudice to become one of only a handful of top-flight black physicists in the United States.

He has enjoyed a glittering career as a professor at one of the country's leading universities - an achievement in itself.

But there has been only one motivation: to build a time machine. And, after years of painstaking research, Mallett is sure he's cracked it.

[...]

Mallett's solution is much simpler. He thinks he can reverse time by using just a circulating beam of light. Light is energy, and energy can cause spacetime to warp and bend, just like gigantic spinning cylinders, he explains.

In 2000, he published a paper showing how a circulating beam of laser light could create a vortex in spacetime. It was, he says, his eureka moment.

The details are complex, to say the least. But, in essence, Mallett believes it is possible to use a series of four circulating laser light beams swirling spacetime around like "a spoon stirring milk into coffee".

If you were to walk into this 'timetunnel' - which would resemble a large vortex of light a few feet across - you could emerge at some point in the past. He thinks he can build a prototype machine in the lab, using today's technology, with funds of just $250,000 (£120,000).

However, Prof Mallett is fussy about who gives him the money. "We want non-military sources. I don't want to get to a certain point and get 'top secret' slapped over the project and have it taken away from us."

There are several important things to realise about Mallett's time machine. For a start, it would only be possible to travel back in time to a point after the machine was first switched on.

If you turned on the machine, on January 1 say, and left it running for three months, you could enter the machine in March and only travel back as far as January 1.

So no trips back to the Middle Ages or to Ancient Rome.

[...]

Oh well. I still hope his time machine will work.

For past PaleoJudaica coverage of Professor Mallett's reserch and of time travel in general, see here, here, and here.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Jerusalem panel approves alternate plan for Mughrabi Bridge
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz Correspondent

Jerusalem's Planning and Construction Committee approved Thursday an alternative plan to the controversial Mughrabi Bridge project.

[...]

Background here.

The Jerusalem Post has coverage as well. And, not surprisingly, not everyone is enthusiastic about the new plan.

"ONE LETTER AT A TIME" - The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary is nearing completion:

As the final volume of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary goes to press, Martha Roth, its editor for the past 11 years, heads to the Humanities dean’s office.

The room looks foreign now to Martha Roth. Empty, orderly. A week ago the sprawling, odd-angled space on the Oriental Institute’s third floor was still home to the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary project. Piles of papers smothered desks, and windowsills acquiesced to coffee mugs, Post-it notes, jumbled stacks of books. But with the effort to document every word of ancient Akkadian nearing completion after 86 years, Roth, the dictionary’s current editor-in-charge, is consolidating. She’s culled countless duplicate index cards and consigned dozens of filing cabinets and yellowing binders to a janitor’s closet across the hall.

[...]

Cool.

(Via Jack Sasson's Agade list.)

IN THE MAIL:

Lynn R. LiDonnici and Andrea Lieber, Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism (JSJSup 119; Leiden: Brill, 2007)

This is the Festschrift for Betsy Halpern-Amaru. I have a piece in it called "Is the Prayer of Manasseh a Jewish Work?"

I'M HOME! We got into St. Andrews around noon and I've been getting groceries, having a nap, picking up the cat from the cattery, making dinner, etc., and have only just made it to my office to have a quick look at what's been going on.

SAFE (Saving Antiquities for Everyone) has a website and a new Facebook group.

PUNIC ARCHAEOLOGY may benefit from the release of the six foreign medics from Libya:

Libya Frees Foreign Medical Workers

By John Bohannon
ScienceNOW Daily News
24 July 2007

Five foreign medical workers boarded a French government jet last night in Tripoli, Libya, and landed in Sofia, Bulgaria, early this morning, greeted by a cheering crowd of thousands. Their arrival is a surprise happy ending to an 8-year political saga that has involved allegations of bioterrorism, torture, millions of dollars in ransom money, and an international coalition of scientists working tirelessly to find the real reason behind the infection with HIV of more than 400 Libyan children.

[...]

The medics' release is the outcome of furious last-minute dealing between Libyan and European politicians, although the precise terms of the deal remain unclear. Libyan officials said today that their demands were met. Principal among them were payments of $1 million in "blood money" to each of the families of the infected children. European officials have denied that they paid any money to the families. According to Seif al Islam, a son of the country's longtime dictator, Libya paid the families after European countries had agreed to forgive Libya's debts to them.

Bulgarian media reported that other Libyan demands included full reinstatement of diplomatic and economic ties with Europe, lifelong treatment for the infected children, the renovation of the children's hospital in Benghazi where the outbreak occurred, aid to upgrade Libya's railway and highway infrastructure, and expert help restoring Libya's many crumbling archaeological sites. No European official could be reached to confirm whether these demands were part of the deal.

[...]

My emphasis. I can't find any more details at present.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

New plan for Temple Mount bridge aims to silence critics
By Jonathan Lis (Haaretz)

Jerusalem's Planning and Construction Committee will begin discussing an alternative to the controversial Mughrabi Bridge project tomorrow.

The original plan for the bridge, which leads from the Old City's Dung Gate and the Western Wall to the Temple Mount's Mughrabi Gate, raised hackles in the Arab world when it was presented in February, due to allegations that it would damage the Temple Mount. Some archaeologists and architects also expressed concern that the bridge would damage antiquities or block the view of the Temple Mount.
Advertisement

The bridge will consist of a wooden walkway bordered by metal, with two-meter-high iron railings, as required by the police. The number of pylons supporting it will be reduced from seven to four. The height of the pylons will not exceed half a meter, and they will be placed on platforms in spaces excavated by the Israel Antiquities Authority during its salvage dig, allowing the antiquities to be restored and protected. The planners mapped the archaeological finds along the bridge's path and found spaces in which the pylons could be placed without damaging the antiquities.

[...]

UPDATE (27 July): More here.

HOLIDAY'S END (my holiday, that is). I don't think I mentioned it, but we've been back in Evansville since a week ago Sunday. But the holiday is almost over. We leave this evening for a hotel at the Madison Airport and we have an horrendously early flight tomorrow morning. We're stuck for a long time in Atlanta tomorrow before we leave for Edinburgh, so I may be able to fit in some blogging if I can find a wireless connection. Otherwise, look for me again in St. Andrews on Thursday the 26th.

Click on the images for a larger version.


Fawn Lake, near Hayward. This was taken from the porch of our cabin.


On Lake Runamuck, near Bowler


Miniature golf in Madison

THE SAN DIEGO DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBIT is the subject of yet another article. I have commented on the nature of the biblical text as found at Qumran here.

Could it be that some people are getting just a little too excited about this exhibit?

JEWISH (AND OTHER) BOOKS ARE GETTING HARDER TO BURN.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH - The latest on the Mughrabi Gate excavation:

Minister Majadele cedes role in Mughrabi Gate project to cabinet
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent

The cabinet Sunday set up a ministerial committee to oversee the Temple Mount's Mughrabi Gate project, thereby effectively depriving Culture Minister Ghaleb Majadele, who previously had ministerial responsibility for the work, of this job.

The decision follows Majadele's tour of the area a few days ago during which he reportedly ordered archaeological excavations at the site to stop.

However, both Majadele and the Israel Antiquities Authority, which is carrying out the dig, deny that he gave such an order. The authority said that the work, which is a necessary step to replacing a collapsed ramp leading to the Mughrabi Gate from the Western Wall plaza, was halted due to planning problems and not the minister's orders.

[...]

ISRAEL BOYCOTT UPDATE: The British Medical Journal has put up an online poll regarding the again recently proposed academic boycott of Israel. The Jerusalem Post has an article on the poll which summarizes the two positions. At present the results are running 78.8% against a boycott.

THE NINTH OF AV (Tisha B'Av) began yesterday evening at sundown. An easy fast to all those observing it.

In connection with this holiday, the Jerusalem Post has an article on Julian the Apostate's abortive effort to build the third Temple:

Tisha Be'Av: The Third Temple that wasn't
By ALEXANDER ZVIELLI

On this day, as we mourn the destruction of both the First and Second Temples, it seems fitting to recall a little-known story of how a Roman emperor stood ready to rebuild the third temple. He acted not out of love for the Jewish people, but because he was a pagan who - despite its ascendency - despised Christianity.

[...]

APOCRYPHA: First the restaurant, and now the band, which is playing at this year's Occultfest in Holland. They should do a gig with Metatron.

PRACTICING MAGIC appears to be against the law in Israel:

Israel prosecutes that old black magic

By Dion Nissenbaum

McClatchy Newspapers

JAFFA, Israel — For nearly a quarter-century, Sana Kuma has been staring into the bottoms of coffee cups to divine the future for top Israeli models, actresses and businessmen.

It is in the chocolate swirls of coffee grounds that the fortuneteller says she can see what lies ahead.

Her fawning customers consider her a soothsayer.

To the Israeli government, Kuma is a witch and a fraud.

This year, Kuma became one of the few people ever to be charged in Israel with practicing magic, a crime punishable by up to five years in jail.

Kuma was the target of a modern-day witch hunt.

"Life is enemies and friends," Kuma said recently after a coffee-ground reading for a former Miss Israel. "I have to accept the good and the bad."

Kuma's transgression is something known to its practitioners as tasseography. Put more simply, it is the ancient art of overturning a coffee cup and looking for answers in the patterns left behind by the grounds.

And that, under Israeli law, can be grounds to charge someone with illegally practicing magic.

[...]

I think the headline is inaccurate. Tasseography (what a great word!) is divination, but it doesn't sound like black magic, which would have some malevolent element or intent.

In any case, it seems that Ms. Kuma was doing fine and had lots of happy customers, including a former Miss Israel, until one client decided he wasn't getting his money's worth.

In 2004, the Israeli police officer [Avraham Beihou] was looking for help on the eve of his marriage.

According to the government charges, Kuma looked into the coffee grounds and saw a cursed bride.

To remove the curse, Beihou agreed to pay Kuma about $1,000 for the help of a special "Jordanian sheik" brought in to deal with the problem.

When that was done, Beihou turned to Kuma for advice about his ailing father. Kuma told the police officer and his sister that their father was likely to die in two months if they didn't act quickly.

So Beihou paid another $2,200 for a series of amulets.

But Beihou's father didn't get better. So, earlier this year, he turned to the government, which filed fraud and magic charges against Kuma.

[...]

I'm curious about how the bride turned out.

In any case, the story continues:

In the end, the Israeli government decided that proving that Kuma was faking it was too difficult. Almog cut a deal. The state agreed to drop the charges, and Kuma agreed to give Beihou a full refund.

That might have been the end of it. But Beihou said that he's not satisfied.

"I mean to sue her in civil court," he said. "She's cheated a lot of people."

Stay tuned.

THE PRIESTLY ANOINTING OIL reportedly has anti-viral properties:

Biblical recipe produces virus-fighting oil

(Israel Today)

A professor from Tel Aviv University has used a passage of the Bible to produce a modern version of an ancient priestly oil that is capable of protecting against a wide range of viruses.

Professor Michael Ovadia of the university's Department of Zoology told Israel21c that concoction is based on a recipe from a passage of the Bible describing the preparation of a special oil Israel's temple priests were to anoint themselves with prior to conducting animal sacrifices.

“I had a hunch that this oil, which was prepared with cinnamon and other spices, played a role in preventing the spread of infectious agents to people,” said Ovadia.

He prepared the oil according to the biblical recipe, and sure enough, found that it was extremely effective in preventing the transfer of viruses such as the Avian flu, herpes and even HIV.

Last week, Ovadia sold his discovery to Frutarom, a multinational nutraceutical company that plans to use the oil in a variety of applications, including preventing the spread of infections in airports and hospitals.

This sounds too good to be true - indeed, it sounds like tabloid fare - but it appears to be real. Professor Ovadia's website is here. And here's a press release announcing the deal with Frutarom:

Tel Aviv University licenses cinnamon extract as HIV, flu cure
News release from Frutarom

Frutarom Industries Ltd. and Ramot at Tel Aviv University Ltd. signed an exclusive agreement to commercialize unique knowhow (patent pending) developed by Professor Michael Ovadia of Tel Aviv University, to produce an innovative extract from cinnamon with anti viral properties.

The comprehensive research performed in Professor Ovadia’s laboratory demonstrated the extract’s ability to rapidly neutralize a broad range of viruses that cause infectious diseases in both humans and animal, such as human and avian influenza, herpes (HSV-1) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1). Another unique activity of this innovative extract is its ability to boost the immune system against viruses, demonstrated by the ability to serve as a vaccination agent in chicken embryos infected with Newcastle disease virus (NDV). Trials performed together with a veterinary company showed that chicken embryos can be vaccinated against the NDV virus while they are still in the egg and in so doing, significantly improve the efficiency of the vaccine’s administration, increase success rates and reduce mortality.

[...]

No reference, however, is made to the biblical oil of anointing. The recipe for this oil can be found in Exodus 30:23-33. But beware of verse 33!

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES has forced the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia to take down its site containing the Revised Standard version of the Bible. Now isn't that an excellent strategey for disseminating knowledge of the Bible?

Sorry, but this means that every link I've given on PaleoJudaica to a biblical passage is now dead.

I can't imagine what the NCC thought they were accomplishing, but I don't think this decision sends a very good message.

WHICH ANCIENT LANGUAGE ARE YOU?

Strangely, I came out as Older Futhark.

Your Score: Older Futhark

You scored

Language of the Norse, Older Futhark! Thirty symbols, all told. And no hardier, more warrior-like tongue has ever graced the longships of the Viki or left the Celts and Saxons in such quivering fear. There's only one drawback, that being you died 800 years ago.

Well, I'm used to that sort of thing. As dead languages go, 800 years isn't so long ago.

(Via Awilum.com.)

THE WORLD IS NOW SAFE FOR THE LATIN MASS:

Jewish relief over Latin Mass

Leaders say Catholic prayer for conversion must go

(ANSA) - Rome, July 19 - Italian Jewish leaders voiced satisfaction on Thursday after the Vatican Secretary of State said that a Catholic prayer for the conversion of Jews could be eliminated from the recently re-introduced Latin Mass.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, second only to the pope in the Vatican hierarchy, referred to recent polemics over the prayer on Wednesday, saying it could be removed and that this would "solve all the problems".

[...]

This seems like a sensible solution. I hope it works.

(Via Explorator 10.13.)

MORE ON THE NEBO-SARSEKIM INSCRIPTION - Time Magazine has an article that ties it to the minimalist-maximalist debate:

A Boost for the Book of Jeremiah
Saturday, Jul. 21, 2007 By DAVID VAN BIEMA

By confirming the historical accuracy of a tiny detail, a two-inch clay tablet long in the possession of the British Museum has given ammunition to those who believe that the Bible — specifically, in this case, the book of the prophet Jeremiah — is history. That, at least, is what the believers are claiming.

[...]

This isolated instance of verification of a detail in the book of Jeremiah is very interesting, but we should be careful not to start drawing too grand of conclusions from it.

The article also has a nice enlargeable photo of the cuneiform tablet.

NEBO-SARSEKIM (Jer.39:9) is discussed by Ed Cook at Ralph the Sacred River.

Background here.

MORE ON THEODORE THE MOUSE.

Background here.

AS IF LOOTERS WEREN'T ENOUGH TROUBLE:

ATV drivers 'conquer,' destroy archaeological mounds
By Yoav Kaveh (Haaretz)

Archaeological mounds attract all-terrain vehicle (ATV) drivers. Not because of the antiquities or the view from the top. These people - and let it be clear at the outset, it is a small, noisy and damage-doing minority - want to conquer the mound, snap a picture for a souvenir and drive away for the next off-road challenge. Their tires leave ugly ruts in the ground into which surface runoff is channeled, detouring the natural course and disturbing the ecological balance.

The ATV drivers' two favorite archaeological mounds are in central Israel not far from Beit Shemesh: Tel Azeka and Tel Foded. These mounds were settled from the time of the Judean monarchy to the Byzantine period and contain water systems, hideout caves and other antiquities. They are located within the confines of the Jewish National Fund's British Park.

[...]

FACEBOOK now has an Ancient World Bloggers Group, founded by Chuck Jones. If you have a blog related to ancient history and you are registered with Facebook, consider yourself invited to join.

Here are a couple of other Facebook groups of interest:

The Only Good Language Is A Dead Language...
All the Cool Kids Know Dead Languages

THE (TRADITIONAL) TOMB OF NAHUM in Iraq has it's own website. There are lots of photos, including some of inscriptions in Hebrew script inside the synagogue. (Via WorldNetDaily.)

Background here.

VATICAN LIBRARY CLOSURE - This has been causing a stir lately:

Vatican Library closure irks scholars

By David Willey
BBC News, Rome

One of the world's oldest public libraries, the Vatican Library, has closed for rebuilding.

It is not expected to reopen before September 2010.

The reading rooms were unusually full last week.

Bespectacled university professors, graduate students from famous universities around the world, monks wearing brown and black habits, and Biblical researchers from more than 50 countries were sitting elbow-to-elbow at desks piled with documents and crowded with laptops and ancient manuscripts.

They were working desperately against time to complete their work before the closing down for the next three years of this powerhouse of academic research.

[...]

Bummer.

UPDATE: But here's a backup resource:

Vatican Library in Rome Closes: Saint Louis University Becomes Hub for World's Leading Scholars

ST. LOUIS -- On Saturday, July 14, the Vatican Library in Rome is closing for a three-year renovation. The closure will make Saint Louis University's renowned Vatican Film Library even more important for the world's leading scholars and researchers.

The Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library, located in the University's Pius XII Memorial Library, holds microfilm copies of approximately 37,000 of the Vatican Library's 70,000 manuscript codices. Because of this extensive collection, officials from Rome are encouraging scholars to come to St. Louis during the renovation period.

Holding major portions of the Vatican's Greek, Latin and Western European vernacular collections as well as materials in Arabic, Ethiopic and Hebrew, the Vatican Film Library at Saint Louis University is one of the largest and most comprehensive libraries in the world for medieval and Renaissance manuscript studies. The Vatican Film Library also has microfilm of some of history's most important treasures, including early complete texts of the Bible and early works of Virgil.

[...]

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Joseph I. Lauer writes:

Arutz Sheva has an eight-minute English audio interview with Dr. Eilat Mazar concerning the Temple Mount. It was apparently conducted yesterday (7/16).
Arutz Sheva's home page's URL is http://www.israelnationalnews.com/
Those interested in hearing the interview should go to the site, scroll down to the section entitled "Radio Highlights" and click on Dr. Eilat Mazar: Fighting for the Temple Mount
For an alternative that may also work, paste the following onto the address line of your Web searcher (such as Internet Explorer): mms://msmedia.a7.org/arutz7/shows//English-show/highlights/EilatMazar.mp3

Also, Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review and Bible Review, has an editorial in the Wall Street Journal (unfortunately the full text is available only to paid subscribers):

Biblical Destruction
By HERSHEL SHANKS
July 18, 2007; Page A14
Within the last few days, a trench two-feet deep -- starting from the northern end of the platform where Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock sits -- has begun working its way toward the southern end of the Temple Mount. The work is being done without any regard for the archaeological information or treasures that may lie below. Destruction is particularly great in places where bedrock is no deeper than the trench. Some of the digging is being done with mechanical equipment, instead of by hand as a professional archaeological excavation would be conducted.

I don't know who are worse: the Muslim religious authorities digging up Jerusalem's Temple Mount, or the Israeli authorities who are allowing it to happen.

[...]

The Israel Antiquities Authority and the Israeli Government are coming in for a lot of criticism on this one - rightly, as far as I can tell.

UPDATE: The full text is available in Google News (use search term "shanks temple mount") but otherwise the URL leads to the subscribers-only page.

A NEW GENESIS FRAGMENT FROM THE JUDEAN DESERT: James Charlesworth has presented on it at the IOSOT meeting in Slovenia and Chris Brady has notes at Targuman.

THE BBC MEETS TALMUD LIBEL:

BBC won't remove anti-Semitic posting
By JONNY PAUL (Jerusalem Post)

The BBC is refusing to remove a provocative and anti-Semitic message posted on one of its message boards despite a barrage of complaints.

The message was posted on the BBC Radio Web site message board following a discussion about a television program on anti-Semitism that screened on the UK's Channel Four network last week.

The offensive message, left by someone using the alias "Iron Naz," reads: "Zionism is a racist ideology where jews [sic] are given supremacy over all other races and faiths. This is found in the Talmud. There is a law called Baba Mezia which allows jews to lie as long as its to non-jews. Many pro jewish supporters will cringe at this being exposed because they know it exists, yet they keep quiet about it, hey frip, jla and co [the aliases of other people taking part in the discussion]. The Law of Baba Mezia!! Tsk tsk tsk! It's in the Talmud."

[...]

For more on Talmud libel and its unfortunate history, see here. For a refutation of the particular item in this message (which doesn't even refer to the right Talmudic tractate being misconstrued), see "Claim (27)" here.

I can't imagine that a similar posting about women, people of color, or gays would be left on the BBC website.

UPDATE (19 August): More here.

BACK TO ARAMAIC? Just in case Latin isn't enough for you.

STILL MORE ON THE SILOAM TUNNEL INSCRIPTION - This is the press release from the Office of the Mayor of Jerusalem:

16 יולי 2007

סימוכין: 2007-0225-1662


Turkish officials to Mayor Lupolianski: "The tablet with Siloam Inscription will be returned to Jerusalem"

Following a meeting between mayor Lupolianski and Turkish ambassador to Israel, Mr. Namik Tan, it was agreed to look into the option of lending the tablet with Siloam inscription to the city of Jerusalem.

The 2,700-year-old tablet, which is now presented in the Archeology Museum in Istanbul, holds a great historical and cultural significance to the Jewish people. It contains testimonies from the days of the first temple and describes the construction of the tunnel by king Hezekiah. The tunnel was dug in order to maintain water supply to besieged Jerusalem. The tablet was discovered in 1880 by the British and taken by the Ottoman rulers when they left the region in 1917, after world War 1.

These days there have been indications that Turkey sees Lupolianski's request in a positive light. Therefore, the tablet might be returned to Jerusalem as a gesture of goodwill and as a sign of friendship between the 2 peoples.

The municipality sees it as a great archeological and cultural achievement.

Throughout the years, attempts have been made in order to bring the tablet back to its natural environment -Jerusalem .However, back then these attempts did not succeed.

The mayor, on his part has, agreed to promote a plan to build a monument to commemorate the Turkish soldiers who died on Israeli land/here during World War one.

For more information please contact Meital Jaslovitz, Foreign Media Assistant 02-6297744

Gidi Schmerling,

Municipality's spokesman

A reader who does not wish to be named notes the following:

Note: the story gets one thing wrong. The tunnel and inscription were discovered by Edward Robinson, of Robinson's arch, a Connecticut born, Hamilton College grad and professor at Union theological Seminary in New York, in 1838 (not 1880)

The same reader notes that the discussion seems to be about a loan of the inscription rather than its return.

CORRECTION (18 July): The same reader writers to say she got the date wrong: "Robinson discovered/explored the tunnel in 1838. the inscription was only found about 1880. sorry." I should have double checked that. Here's a good website on the inscription.

MORE ON THE FATE OF THE SILOAM TUNNEL INSCRIPTION:

Turkey may return Hezekiah tablet found in Jerusalem
(Israel Today)

A visiting Turkish delegation told Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski on Sunday that their government is seriously considering returning an ancient tablet from the time of King Hezekiah that was found in the Israeli capital prior to Britains defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.

[...]

Background here.

THE SYNAGOGUE HOLDING THE TRADITIONAL TOMB OF THE PROPHET NAHUM in northern Iraq is slated for renovation:

Antiquities Department to renovate synagogue holding Nahum’s tomb

By Ammar Imad

Azzaman, July 15, 2007

The Antiquities Department has included an ancient synagogue where Biblical prophet Nahum is purportedly buried in its 2008 renovation plans.

“The Antiquities Department has added the tomb of Prophet Nahum, peace be on him, to its 2008 preservation plan,” said department’s chief, Abbas al-Hussaini.

The synagogue and the tomb are situated in the northern Christian Iraqi town of al-Qoush, 40 kilometers north of Mosul.

Al-Qoush, a major Christian center in northern Iraq, had a large Jewish community before the Jewish exodus to Palestine in 1948.

The renovation of the synagogue and the tomb, archaeologists say, is an urgent matter. Some scientists say the synagogue might be irreparably damaged.

The department has put off the renovation of the tomb mainly because it lacked the right expertise and resources to have it refurbished and reconstructed.

[...]

UPDATE (19 July): More here, including photos.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH - the Jerusalem Post editorializes:

Temple Mount travesty

A bulldozer was seen last week ripping up earth on the Temple Mount, at the Dome of the Rock platform. It slashed a long gash, purportedly to lay new electric cables. With crude, damaging handling, it exposed a largely gray deposit, which according to archeologists is a sure-fire indication of "archeologically significant" matter.

Incomprehensibly, despite TV air-time and print space, these revelations by the Archeologists Committee for the Prevention of the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount (CPDATM) failed to cause much stir. The public has perhaps grown numb due to official abdication of control on the Mount. But the expedient turning of official blind eyes amounts to abetting the Wakf's ongoing construction at Judaism's most sacred site.

[...]

Read it all. Background here.

UPDATE: Also in the Jerusalem Post:

Archeologists slam Temple Mount dig
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

A group of Israeli archeologists has condemned the Antiquities Authority for authorizing Islamic trust officials to carry out a dig on Jerusalem's Temple Mount as part of work to repair electrical lines.

[...]

The Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, which is composed of archeologists and intellectuals from across the political spectrum, has lambasted Israel's chief archeological body for permitting the work.

"The Antiquities Authority would never have allowed such damage to antiquities at any other archeological site in Israel," said group spokeswoman Dr. Eilat Mazar, a leading Temple Mount expert.

"The Antiquities Authority has the ability and full backing of the police to enforce real archeological supervision, but does not do so," she said, adding that the dig was being carried out "without real, professional and careful archeological supervision involving meticulous documentation."

[...]

GOLB VS. THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBIT:

CONTROVERSY ALIVE AND WELL: A Chicago professor is at the center of a dispute about who really wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls
By Pauline Dubkin Yearwood (07/13/2007) (Chicago Jewish News)

When Professor Norman Golb leads a weekend trip to an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the San Diego Natural History Museum this fall, it won't be the ordinary excursion in which visitors admire the exhibit and learn some extra tidbits about its content from the visiting scholar.

Instead Golb, the Ludwig Rosenberger Professor of Jewish History and Civilization at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, will try to convince travelers that much of the information in the exhibit is wrong.

Golb, who describes himself broadly as a scholar of the Jewish people, has been a controversial figure in the world of Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship since 1995, when his book, "Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? -- The Search for the Secret of Qumran" (Scribner) was published.

In it, he goes against a scholarly consensus that has been at the forefront of scroll scholarship since the awe-inspiring documents' accidental discovery in 1947. That conventional wisdom holds that the scrolls were written by the Essenes, an ancient Jewish communal society of ascetic pacifists.

Golb contends instead that the scrolls were the work of individuals from many segments of the ancient Jewish world and that they were hidden near the Dead Sea, among other locations, by Jews fleeing the Roman army around 70 C.E.

[...]

For more on Golb see here. It seems that his idea that Qumran was a fortress could be catching on.

THE SILOAM TUNNEL INSCRIPTION has been requested back from Turkey by the Mayor of Jerusalem:

Jerusalem Seeks Return of Ancient Tablet
By MATTI FRIEDMAN
The Associated Press
Friday, July 13, 2007; 7:54 AM

JERUSALEM -- Jerusalem's mayor has asked the Turkish government to return a 2,700-year-old tablet uncovered in an ancient subterranean passage in the city, sugggesting that it could be a "gesture of goodwill" between allies.

Known as the Siloam inscription, the tablet was found in a tunnel hewed to channel water from a spring outside Jerusalem's walls into the city around 700 B.C. _ a project mentioned in the Old Testament's Book of Chronicles. It was discovered in 1880 and taken by the Holy Land's Ottoman rulers to Istanbul, where it is now in the collection of the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

[...]

There's more on the Siloam Tunnel Inscription here [bad link now fixed]. The project is mentioned in 2 Kings as well.

UPDATE (16 July): More here.

UPDATE (17 July): More here.

THE SAN DIEGO DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION WEBSITE IS HERE. I don't think I've ever linked to it.

I'M IN BOWLER NOW and back online. More presently.

THE MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE has reportedly received support from the IAA to be built on the site of that Muslim cemetery:

IAA set to okay museum on site of Muslim cemetery
By Meron Rapoport

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) told the High Court of Justice that it was prepared to allow construction of the Museum of Tolerance on the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem's Mamila area, although an enormous archaeologist had determined that the excavation was far from complete.

In the opinion, to be submitted to the court today, Dr. Raphael Greenberg of Tel Aviv University states that the IAA archaeologist excavating the area wrote in his concluding report that there were at least 800 graves still left in the area and that he unequivocably recommended prohibiting construction there.

[...]

Presumably "enormous" is a mistranslation of "prominent" or some such in the original Hebrew. For more, see here and follow the links back. See also here.

I'm back in the public library, but we're headed off now to go hiking.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Yet another Waqf excavation project has started:

Photos: Unsupervised Islamic Digging on Temple Mount

by Ezra HaLevi

(IsraelNN.com) The Islamic Wakf is digging large ditches on the Temple Mount without archaeological supervision to protect antiquities at Judaism’s holiest site.

Photos of the construction were publicized earlier this week. Investigation revealed that the dig had been approved by the police, though not coordinated with any archeological authorities. The ditch is being dug in the direction of the Dome of the Rock, the site of the Holy Temple, according to most opinions.

[...]

The article includes lots of photos. The story is also covered in Haaretz here

PHILOLOGOS ON BEING "IN SEVENTH HEAVEN":

This concept we find only in rabbinic literature [i.e., not in the Bible], where it plays an important role, especially in the early form of Jewish mystical thought known as “Hechalot” or “Palace” mysticism. In the Hechalot tradition, it is the task of the mystical initiate to ascend by meditative techniques through the seven heavens one after another, overcoming angelic challenges in each, and then to pass safely through the seven “palaces” of the seventh heaven in order to reach the base of God’s throne. Similar beliefs, each with a complex angelology, existed among various Gnostic sects in the Roman Empire and had some currency in early Christianity, too, at least to judge by Paul’s remark in Corinthians II that “I knew a man in Christ… [who was] caught up to the third heaven.” From Judaism and/or Christianity the idea also spread to Islam, so that we read in Sura 71 of the Quran, “See you not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another, and made the moon a light in their midst and made the sun a lamp?”

To be in “seventh heaven” is thus to reach the pinnacle of bliss. The expression has been around in English for a long time, although whether it got there from indigenous Christian sources, Jewish ones or Muslim ones, I don’t know. It almost certainly doesn’t come from in zibnten himl, since it’s older than the late 19th-century Yiddish-speaking immigration to the United States. Yet neither does in zibnten himl, which derives from internal Jewish traditions, come from it. Both go back to ancient beliefs that are thousands of years old.

A BABYLONIAN OFFICIAL hitherto known only from a mention in the book of Jeremiah, has turned up in a cuneiform tablet from the time of Nebuchadnezzar:

Museum’s tablet lends new weight to Biblical truth
Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent

The British Museum yesterday hailed a discovery within a modest clay tablet in its collection as a breakthrough for biblical archaeology – dramatic proof of the accuracy of the Old Testament.

The cuneiform inscription in a tablet dating from 595BC has been deciphered for the first time – revealing a reference to an official at the court of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, that proves the historical existence of a figure mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah.

This is rare evidence in a nonbiblical source of a real person, other than kings, featured in the Bible.

The tablet names a Babylonian officer called Nebo-Sarsekim, who according to Jeremiah xxxix was present in 587BC when Nebuchadnezzar “marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it”.

[...]

UPDATE (20 July): More here.

UPDATE (21 July): More here, with photo.

THE SAN DIEGO DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBIT is covered yet again in the Union-Tribune:

Exhibit illuminates Dead Sea Scrolls

By Robert L. Pincus
UNION-TRIBUNE ART CRITIC

July 8, 2007

It's dumbfounding to think, standing in front of this or that example of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that these humble pieces of ancient paper, so small in size and covered with diminutive lines of text, were the archaeological find of the 20th century.

And it's startling to realize that without their initial discovery by Bedouin shepherd Muhammed edh-Dhib, they might still be lingering in their long-standing home, in caves near the site of the ancient settlement of Qumran.

[...]

MORE ON THE MASADA MUSEUM:

A new museum confronts an old mystery at Masada

By Danny Rubinstein (Haaretz)

The exhibit at the end of the tour of the new museum at Masada consists of 11 tiny sherds bearing intriguing names.

Hundreds of inscriptions on sherds were found at Masada, including some on earthenware jugs. Some are only a single letters, others contain names and numbers from the days of the rebellion and the Roman siege. The archaeologists, in particular Yigael Yadin, were reasonably good at decipher the inscriptions on the various sherds, but the inscription on these 11 sherds was unusual.

They were all found in the same place, next to the network of internal gates that controlled the passage to the foodstores, and were not scattered over a wide area like the other sherds. They were all written in the same handwriting, and each sherd contained only one name.

Most important, the names were not regular names but rather nicknames, such as Ben Hanahatam (or Ben Hanahtum), Tzayda (or Hatzayad, "the hunter"), Ha'amaki (someone from a village in the Acre area). Among them was one well-known name - Ben-Yair, the name of the leader of the Masada rebellion, Elazar Ben-Yair.

[...]

I'M IN HAYWARD, WISCONSIN, blogging from the public library. Their wireless connection is down, so I'm on a cluncky desktop machine with a time-limited access. Blogging will be brief. I hope to have regular Internet access again by Saturday. Meanwhile, I'll have to continue to make do with fishing, rowboating, walking, swimming, etc. Not to mention DVDs and, of course, eating. Hope you're having a nice week too.