THE JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE PSEUDEPIGRAPHA has a new issue (May 2007) out. Table of contents and abstracts:

Vered Hillel
Naphtali, a Proto-Joseph in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2007 16: 171-201.

The Greek Testament of Naphtali (TNaph) 1.7, 8 states that Joseph, as a result of Rachel's prayer for a son like Naphtali from her own womb, was like (µ{iota}{varsigma}) Naphtali in all things. Naphtali's association with Joseph, as well as developed Naphtali traditions stemming from the period of the Second Temple and reworked and remodeled in the Middle Ages, is well known from non-biblical traditions. Naphtali traditions are preserved in four different works 4QTestament of Naphtali (4QTNaph), the Greek Testament of Naphtali (TNaph), the Medieval Hebrew Testament of Naphtali (Heb. Naph.) and Midrash bereshit rabbati (BR). However, the writer of TNaph develops the comparison between Naphtali and Joseph beyond any known biblical or non-biblical tradition. For example, by equating Naphtali with Joseph, TNaph enhances the prestige of the 'Naphtali traditions'. As a result, the figure of Naphtali emerges as a type of Joseph, or, as a so-called proto-Joseph. This article seeks to demonstrate that such an understanding of Naphtali is borne out by an examination of the character of Naphtali as portrayed in TNaph and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (TPatr) as a whole and by the manner in which the author adopted and adapted traditional material.

Sarah L. Schwarz
Reconsidering the Testament of Solomon
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2007 16: 203-237.

The Testament of Solomon (TSol) as translated in modern editions comes from a body of Greek sources which integrate the tale of Solomon's construction of the Jerusalem Temple aided by demons with an encyclopedic collection of recipes for use in dealing with the demons in question. While the title suggests a relatively fixed text, the situation is in fact far more complex. This study argues that the text (or texts) in fullest form, as represented in late medieval manuscripts, is actually quite a late development in this tradition's history, and that most of the elements which eventually come together under the title TSol (and the like) circulated independently during the late antique period.

Lorenzo DiTommaso
Book Review: CHAZON, ESTHER G., DAVID SATRAN, and Ruth A. CLEMENTS (eds.). Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature in Honor of Michael E. Stone. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 89. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004. Cloth, xxvi + 405 pp. 144.00 Euros, 194.00 USD. ISBN 9004138854
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2007 16: 239-240.

Erratum
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2007 16: 240.

Requires a paid personal or institutional subscription to access the full articles.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH - The Jerusalem Post has an editorial on the High Court petition to halt the Waqf excavations:

Safeguard the Temple Mount

On Sunday, the Committee to Prevent the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities (CPDTMA) petitioned the High Court of Justice to stop the Wakf, the Muslim religious trust to which Israel has delegated substantial control over the Temple Mount, from using tractors to dig a deep, half-kilometer long trench into the most sensitive archeological, religious and historical site in Israel. Today, we hope the court will issue an immediate injunction to stop this travesty.

[...]

As a newspaper, The Jerusalem Post has signed on to the CPDTMA's court petition to remove the current draconian restrictions on press coverage of the Temple Mount. Among those recently denied access were CNN, Channel 1 and Israel Radio.

The police cannot point to any legal basis for these press restrictions, and we suspect that the High Court, if it considers the matter as it should, will find none. If some legal fig leaf is presented, the court should overturn it as an egregious violation of freedom of the press.

That Muslim authorities have been given a great degree of authority over the Temple Mount is an important manifestation of our national commitment to freedom of religion. Such freedom, however, must not include the right to trample other principles, such as the illegality of violence, the need to preserve an archeological heritage of great significance to Judaism, Islam and Christianity and to multiple scientific disciplines, and the imperative to safeguard freedom of the press.

[...]

Read it all.

UPDATE (13 September): More here.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Infolive.tv has video of "A Rare Glimpse Inside the Dom[e] of the Rock."

IN THE MAIL - a review copy of:

Rachel Elior, Jewish Mysticism: The Infinite Expression of Freedom (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2007)

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

High Court asked to halt Muslim dig on Temple Mount
By Nadav Shragai (Haaretz)

Members of the Committee to Prevent the Destruction of Temple Mount Antiquities petitioned the High Court of Justice yesterday to stop an excavation by the Waqf, or Muslim religious trust, on the Temple Mount.

Waqf officials say the digging of the trench, 500 meters long and 1.5 meters deep, is necessary to replace 40-year-old electric cables. But the petitioners say the work "is causing irreversible damage to antiquities and archaeological artifacts of the greatest importance, and is being carried out illegally, without the requisite authorizations."
Advertisement

The petition, against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, other cabinet ministers and the Israel Antiquities Authority, maintains that Temple courtyards were located where the dig is taking place, and that some 400 tons of dirt removed in the process contain priceless archaeological artifacts from various periods.

[...]

The petition was signed by author A. B. Yehoshua; former Tel Aviv mayor Shlomo Lahat; Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; prominent archaeologists Ephraim Stern, Amihay Mazar, Ehud Netzer, Israel Finkelstein, Moshe Kochavi, Gabriel Barkai and Eilat Mazar; retired Israel Defense Forces generals Zvi Zamir, Yitzhak Hofi and Giora Eiland; attorney Shmuel Berkovitz; and The Jerusalem Post, which also claimed that the Mount is closed to media coverage.

[...]

UPDATE (11 September): More here.

THE BARNARD TENURE CONTROVERSY over the work of Nadia Abu El-Haj has been taken up by the New York Times:

Fracas Erupts Over Book on Mideast by a Barnard Professor Seeking Tenure

By KAREN W. ARENSON
Published: September 10, 2007

A tenure bid by an assistant professor of anthropology at Barnard College who has critically examined the use of archaeology in Israel has put Columbia University once again at the center of a struggle over scholarship on the Middle East.

The professor, Nadia Abu El-Haj, who is of Palestinian descent, has been at Barnard since 2002 and has won many awards and grants, including a Fulbright scholarship and fellowships at Harvard and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. Barnard has already approved her for tenure, officials said, and forwarded its recommendation to Columbia University, its affiliate, which has the final say.

It is Dr. Abu El-Haj’s book, “Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society,” that has made her a lightning rod, setting off warring petitions opposing and supporting her candidacy, and producing charges of shoddy scholarship and countercharges of an ideological witch hunt.

[...]

Born in the United States in 1962, Dr. Abu El-Haj studied at Bryn Mawr College and earned a Ph.D. at Duke. In her book, which grew out of her doctoral research and was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2001, Dr. Abu El-Haj says Israeli archaeologists searched for an ancient Jewish presence to help build the case for a Jewish state. In their quest, she writes, they sometimes used bulldozers, destroying remains of other cultures, including those of Arabs.

She concludes her book by saying the ransacking by thousands of Palestinians in 2000 of Joseph’s tomb, a Jewish holy site in the West Bank, “needs to be understood in relation to a colonial-national history” of Israel and the symbolic resonance of artifacts.

[...]

Many people are quoted on the book, pro and con. One of them is Alan Segal:

Dr. Abu El-Haj has some opponents at her own college. “There is every reason in the world to want her to have tenure, and only one reason against it — her work,” said Alan F. Segal, a professor of religion and Jewish studies at Barnard. “I believe it is not good enough.”

He said he was particularly troubled by her suggestion that ancient Israelites had not inhabited the land where Israel now stands, and he said that she had either misunderstood or ignored evidence to the contrary. “She completely misunderstands what the biblical tradition is saying,” he added. “She is not even close. She is so bizarrely off.”

He also said that a Barnard official, whom he declined to name, had asked him to suggest people who were not Jewish to comment on Dr. Abu El-Haj’s work for the tenure review, and that he had refused.

Elizabeth Gildersleeve, a Barnard spokeswoman, said that a high official of the college had met with Professor Segal on the tenure case and asked him to submit names for letters of reference. But Ms. Gildersleeve said that “the charge that restrictions were put on that request is absolutely untrue.”

[...]

I'm about half-way through the book right now.

UPDATE (12 September): More here.

A DRAINAGE CHANNEL IN JERUSALEM has been discovered which is also thought to have been used as an escape route during the siege of Jerusalem in the Great Revolt:

Ancient Escape Hatch Found in Israel

By AMY TEIBEL – 25 minutes ago

JERUSALEM (AP) — Under threat from Romans ransacking Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, many of the city's Jewish residents crowded into an underground drainage channel to hide and later flee the chaos through Jerusalem's southern end.

The ancient tunnel was recently discovered buried beneath rubble, a monument to one of the great dramatic scenes of the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 A.D.

The channel was dug beneath what would become the main road of Jerusalem, the archaeology dig's directors, Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said Sunday. Shukron said excavators looking for the road happened upon a small drainage channel that led them to the discovery of the massive tunnel two weeks ago.

[...]

CONFERENCE REPORT (British New Testament Conference 2007):

Here are a few notes and thoughts gathered from this year's BNTC. I should emphasize that these are just my random thoughts about things that happened to make an impression on me, and there's no claim that they are complete, representative, or balanced.

The most interesting thing I learned was in the Social World of the NT Seminar in a session on magic. In the discussion of a stimulating paper by Helen Ingram, it was noted that in the story of the raising of Lazarus in John 11, Jesus is said, oddly, twice (vv. 33, 38) to have "sighed deeply" before bringing Lazarus back to life. It seems that the actual meaning of this Greek word is "to snort like a horse," which rather changes one's mental image of the episode and raises the possibility that Jesus was engaging in a ritual performance of the sort known from ancient magical texts (and cf. Mark 7:31-37, esp. v. 34).

Later, in the NT & Second Temple Judaism Seminar we had a good discussion of the Testament of Abraham, on which I have also written in my book. I have grave reservations about the Testament of Abraham's use as "New Testament background," to which use it is still put today. My concerns have to do with doubts about its provenance: in the book I outline three possible origins, as a Jewish composition, a Christian composition, and a composition by a God-Fearer. The problem is that none of the scenarios provides a background in which the text makes complete sense. This may be in part because it has been transmitted rather freely, with a long recension, a short recension, and some variants of the latter surviving, none of which represents the original. But the incoherence of the document may lie even deeper, and we discussed the implications of recent suggestions that it contains a significant element of comedy (see the book by Jared Ludlow). I'm wondering now if trying to distil a coherent and systematic eschatology or theology of repentance from the Testament of Abraham is a little like trying to do the same for movies like Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey or Dogma (also here). That would explain a lot.

I mentioned Larry Hurtado's plenary address in the preceding post. Rather than try to summarize the lecture from my notes, I'll just quote the publisher's blurb on his book from Amazon:

Much attention has been paid to the words of the earliest Christian texts, yet Larry Hurtado argues that an even more telling story is being overlooked — that of the physical texts themselves. Well known for his nimble scholarship, Hurtado combines his comprehensive knowledge of Christian origins with an archivist’s eye to make sense of these earliest objects of the faith.

Hurtado introduces readers to the staurogram, possibly the first representation of the cross, the nomina sacra, a textual abbreviation system, and the puzzling early Christian preference for book-like texts over scrolls. Intended for intellectually engaged readers as well as New Testament scholars and students, The Earliest Christian Artifacts introduces the distinctive features of early Christian manuscripts, illustrating their relevance for wider inquiry into the ancient history of Christianity.

The manuscript-as-artifact is an area that is finally getting the attention it deserves, and I look forward to reading Larry's book.

Larry Hurtado lectures. Helen Bond is in the chair.

One other note on his lecture: at one point he commented in passing that 99% of the Oxyrhynchus papyri remain unpublished and are mostly still just sitting in boxes, unscrutinized. I believe he also said that about 5000 fragments have been published, which would leave, what, half a million to go? My Pseudepigrapha radar always lights up when I hear things like this. There are a few Old Testament Pseudepigrapha fragments among the published Oxyrhynchus texts. (off the top of my head I can think of a manuscript of 2 Baruch, a manuscript of 1 Enoch, and a reference to the Book of Jubilees ["Little Genesis") in a letter.) That implies that another hundred or more fragments and references remain to be identified in the unpublished materials. I guess those will have await the attention of some future "More More Testament Pseudepigrapha Project."

Finally, a message to Mark Goodacre: Cat Smith and Helen Ingram send their love.

If you'd been here, Mark, this could have been you.

Many thanks to Cherryl Hunt, Louise Lawrence, David Horrell, and their postgraduate assistants Dom, John, and Frances for all their hard work to give us a very successful conference.

UPDATE: Mark responds. (And happy belated blogiversary to his New Testament Gateway blog and also to David Meadows's Rogue Classicism.)

UPDATE: Reviews of Hurtado's book are noted here.

UPDATE (13 September): More reports on this year's BNTC are noted here.

FROM THE BOOK DISPLAY - I picked up two more items yesterday:

Birger A. Pearson, Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions And Literature (Fortress, 2007)

Larry W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Eerdmans, 2006)

Larry's lecture last night was so good that I couldn't resist buying his book. More on that later.

I'M BACK IN ST. ANDREWS. I didn't have any time to blog in Exeter before I left. Good conference, more on it later.

THE CONFERENCE is going well and I'm making notes for my report to you later. I'm a little tired from last night, which, as tends to happen at the BNTC, culminated in Lloyd Pietersen's room with the usual suspects and some bottles of whisky. We have free time this afternoon and, with blogging now caught up, I feel a nap coming on.

JEWISH MYSTICAL BOOKS are on display in Russia:

Rare Judaica at Russian State Library

Published: 09/06/2007 (JTA)

Rare vintage books from the Russian State Library’s massive Judaica collection went on display for the first time.

The exhibition, “Jewish Mysticism and Hassidism,” began Thursday and includes selections from the library’s holdings of more than 80,000 Jewish books and manuscripts. Sponsored by the Russian Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, it is the first such exhibit ever mounted in the country’s largest library.

[...]

THE ARAMAIC-SPEAKING VILLAGE OF MALULA (MA'ALOULA, MAALOULA) is back in the news:

Preserving The Language Of Jesus
A Tiny Syrian Village Is Working To Keep Aramaic Alive

MALULA, Syria, Sept. 6, 2007

(CBS) For thousands of years, a tiny Syrian village has kept a well-guarded treasure: the language of Jesus. Tucked away in the Qalamoun Mountains, just north of Damascus, Syria, is Malula - one of the last places on earth where Aramaic is still spoken.

Aramaic was a thriving language during the time of Jesus and his disciples. Many of the gospels were written in the Semitic language, along with sections of the Talmud and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

People who come to Malula take in a piece of history and hear in its purest tones the 3,000-year-old language closely related to Hebrew. For the religious here, keeping Aramaic alive is nothing less than a calling.

"Of course we are interested to maintain this language, because at the end, this is the language of Jesus Christ," says Father Toufic Eid of St. Sergius Church.

The locals and the Syrian government are taking conservation of this national treasure very seriously. They have opened a special school where students from 5 to 50 brush up on their Aramaic, and, for the first time in their history, learn to write this traditionally oral language.

[...]

Past coverage is here, here, here, and here.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH - The Waqf is still digging that trench:

Silence in the Face of Continued Temple Mount Destruction

by Hillel Fendel

(IsraelNN.com) As an Arab bulldozer continues to dig away at the current Temple Mount floor, evidence is mounting that actual walls from the Second Temple are being destroyed. The world is silent, while Prime Minister Olmert continues talks with the Palestinian Authority regarding future sovereignty over the holy area.

The actual digging, under the auspices of the Moslem Waqf [religious trust to which Israel has assigned responsibility for the Temple Mount - ed.], has been ongoing for several weeks. Only over the past 8-10 days, however, has attention been paid to the dangers of the barely supervised works. The Waqf claims that the purpose of the 400-meter-long, 1.5-meter deep trench is to replace electric cables in the area.

Discarding a Temple Wall, Piece by Piece
For the Jews, however, the trench represents more than just better lighting. Under the current floor of the Temple Mount compound lie the remains of the Second Holy Temple, largely untouched since it was destroyed by the Romans nearly 1,950 years ago. For pieces of one of the Temple courtyard office walls to be unceremoniously bulldozed up and discarded - as archaeologists such as Drs. Eilat Mazar and Gavriel Barkai believe has happened - is all but traumatic for Jews who have been praying for centuries to see the Temple rebuilt.

A week ago, Temple expert Dr. Gavriel Barkai told Arutz-7 that according to his, and others', calculations, the route of the trench passes precisely through the spot where one or more of the office walls stood the day of the Roman destruction.

"Some man-worked stones have been found in the trench," Barkai said at a press conference last week, "as well as remnants of a wall that, according to all our estimations, are from a structure in one of the outer courtyards in the Holy Temple."

Shortly afterwards, Dr. Mazar examined a photo of the trench, clearly showing a chopped-up carved stone. Mazar said the damaged stone displays elements of the Second Temple era, and might well be part of the Jewish Temple. She says she needs to view it up close; but the Waqf does not allow her to do so.

Waqf Stops TV Crew
In fact, the Waqf is so protective of the dig and its finds that it has tried to stop all photographing of the area. Rabbi Chaim Richman of the Temple Institute reported that his camera was confiscated before he was allowed to visit the site this week, and WND's Aaron Klein and an InfoLive.TV camera crew were prevented from taking pictures of the dig on Thursday.

[...]

The article in which WorldNetDaily reports that their representative was barred from photographic the site is here.

REFLECTIONS ON GNOSTICISM from someone named Douglas Todd in the Vancouver Sun:

A new force in popular culture
Movies are fuelling a renewed fascination with Gnosticism today, but does it really offer satisfying answers?

[Skipping over the discussion of Dan Brown and Elaine Pagels, which you can read by following the link.

Still, despite the renewed fascination with Gnosticism today, does it really offer satisfying answers?

Although it appeals to many, Gnosticism has a harsh and depressing side.

In addition to politics, there may have also been strong metaphysical reasons for the early church rejecting it. Gnosticism teaches that the earthly realm is a meaningless illusion, a place full of suffering and pain. Developed in response to the cruel reign of the Roman Empire, Gnostics believed the world was a dismal place and the body was evil.

This bitter world, they thought, was like a bad dream, ruled by second-rate deities known as demiurges. Only the distant true God, existing in a completely different dimension, was good.

In many ways, this is the theme of The Matrix series, which paints our "normal" world as governed by malevolent forces. In The Matrix, the hero, Neo, is "saved" only after he "frees his mind" and obtains esoteric knowledge.

Despite the appeal of the Matrix movies, Gnostic theology's dualistic view of a bad world, good God, doesn't fit with western culture's current emphasis on spirituality as a way to integrate health, wholeness and gratitude for all that is.

It also contradicts mainstream Christianity's emphasis on Creation being good, an incarnation of God. Perhaps it is no surprise the only followers of Gnosticism today are about 20,000 so-called "Marsh Arabs" in Iran and southern Iraq (who were persecuted by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.)

But it's not necessary to entirely throw out Gnosticism. As Richard Smoley concludes in the new book, Forbidden Faith: The Secret History of Gnosticism, it's ultimately best to de-emphasize the ancient sect and focus more on the process of gnosis itself, on inner spiritual knowledge.

Authentic understanding, Smoley suggests, can be obtained by liberating oneself from false beliefs. Gnosis, Smoley astutely suggests, is as important as faith and reason as a way to comprehend the sacred.

Without some direct, intuitive experience of the sacred, spirituality always runs the danger of feeling second-hand.

For more on the Matrix angle on Gnosticism, see here.

On that note I'm going to go enjoy the material world at the drinks reception, which starts in a few minutes.

NEWS ON AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL PHOTO AND VIDEO BANK:

Archaeology Takes to the Skies as SitesandPhotos.com teams up with Albatross Aerial Photography
September 06, 2007 Publishing News

(PRLEAP.COM) Tel Aviv (September, 2007) � SitesandPhotos.com, the world�s only photo and video bank devoted entirely to archaeology has teamed up with Albatross Aerial Photography to add aerial photos and video to their already comprehensive library.

[...]

The site is here. It includes photos of archaeological sites in Israel.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Jews beg Christians to help save the Temple
(Israel Today)

The Temple Institute in Jerusalem has issued a statement strongly urging Bible-believing Christians to petition their governments and the government of Israel to put an end to Muslim destruction of important Jewish artifacts atop the Temple Mount.

[...]

Background here.

FROM THE BOOK DISPLAY:

John M. G. Barclay, Flavius Josephus: Against Apion (Brill, 2006)

My review copy for the JSNT Booklist.

I'M AT EXETER UNIVERSITY. Got here this morning. The business about our dorm rooms having dial-up Internet access sounded to good to be true, and it was, but the conference organizers have kindly logged me onto a machine in one of the local computer clusters while they try to sort out something more long term.

I'M OFF TO EXETER first thing tomorrow morning for the annual British New Testament Conference, where I co-chair the NT & Second Temple Judaism Seminar with Darrell Hannah. I'm responding to a paper this year, but not presenting one myself. I'm told that dial-up e-mail will be available in our rooms, so I hope blogging will continue more or less as usual.

THE STANDARD EDITION OF [see update] THE TESTAMENT OF SOLOMON is being reprinted by Gorgias Press. It's very dated, but still the best available.

Conybeare, F. C.. The Testament of Solomon

E-mail this product to a friend

Author: F. C. Conybeare
Title: The Testament of Solomon
Subtitle:
Series: Analecta Gorgiana 56
Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC
Publication Date: 8/7/2007 12:44:29 PM 1898
Availability: Forthcoming
ISBN: 978-1-59333-871-8
Language: English
Format: Paperback 6 x 9, 1 volume(s), iv+46 pages, illustrations

The Testament of Solomon is the tale of King Solomon’s encounter with and subjugation of demons whom he subsequently engages in the construction of his temple. While beseeching the Lord Sabbaoth concerning his servant who has been attacked by the demon Ornias, Solomon is given a ring that endows its possessor with authority over the demons. It is through the power of this ring that Solomon comes to the aid of his servant and is able to command the demons to assist in the completion of the temple. Solomon’s dialogue with these demons reveals much concerning the demonology of Testament’s author and redactors. Herein a translation of the text is introduced with a critical essay concerning the religious provenance of the text. Through a careful analysis of possible Christian passages in the Testament Professor Conybeare argues that the Christian elements do not point to a Christian author. Instead, with comparison to the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, he suggests that both are Christian recensions of Graeco-Jewish originals.

Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare (1856-1924) was a British orientalist who wrote extensively on religious themes from biblical and Christian literature, especially matters related to Armenian Christian literature. He taught at Oxford University and authored such notable books as Myth, Magic, and Morals, History of New Testament Criticism, and The Life of Apollonius of Tyana.

UPDATE (9 September): Sorry, I misread the advert. This is an old translation, not the standard edition, which was by C. C. McCown. My mistake; comes of wishful thinking I guess.

NOAH'S ARK RECALLED:

Thousands of wooden toy Noah’s Arks made in China are being recalled across Britain after excessive lead was found in paint.

[...]

PROFESSOR ELLIOT WOLFSON, renowned specialist in Jewish mysticism, is visiting Rice University for a semester, where a conference is to be held in his honor. April DeConick has information at the Forbidden Gospels blog.

THE SILOAM TUNNEL INSCRIPTION is returning to Israel on loan from Turkey - perhaps to stay:

Hezekiah Inscription to return to Israel

By Jay Bushinsky (Washington Times)
September 5, 2007


JERUSALEM

An ancient inscription memorializing Jerusalem's salvation from Assyrian invaders 2,700 years ago is to be returned to the Holy Land from Turkey for study and public display.

Israel has been trying for about 20 years to recover the artifact, which marks one of the most important turning points in Hebrew history.

[...]

Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek made the first attempt to retrieve the inscription for contemporary Israel two decades ago. Last month, Mayor Uri Lupolianski asked for it again at a meeting with Turkish Ambassador Namik Tan. The ambassador said it would be returned in accordance with international law as a loan rather than a restitution.

A member of the Turkish Embassy's staff in Tel Aviv said the inscription could be deposited in Jerusalem "on a long-term basis" if some kind of reciprocity was made. Otherwise, it may stay at the Israel Museum for as little as three months.

Mr. Barkay suggested that the diplomat was hoping for a loan of items dating from the Ottoman Empire's 400-year-long rule over Palestine. Most of this material is stored in Israel's state archive, he said.

[...]

Sounds like a fair trade to me.

Background to this story is here (and follow the links from there). Also, I have discussed Sennacherib's invasion of Judah here.

MESSAGES TO THE DEMIURGE: We have a winner! Two, in fact, and eleven runners up. John Tierney reports at the TierneyLab blog. But does that second winning post mean that the theological conundrum is solved?

BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL XXII has been published by Duane Smith at Abnormal Interests.

AN ANCIENT BEEHIVE:

'Land of Milk and Honey' it is
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

Now it's official. The Land of Milk and Honey has lived up to its name.

A Hebrew University archeologist has uncovered the oldest known apiary, or beehive colony, in the Middle East. Prof. Amihai Mazar found the beehive colony, dating to the 10th to early 9th centuries BCE, in an archeological excavation this summer in the Beit She'an Valley.

The biblical-period beehive colony was discovered in Tel Rehov, which is believed to have been one of the Israelite kingdom's most important cities.

Three rows of beehives were found in the apiary, containing more than 30 hives, although the archeologists estimated that the total area may have contained some 100 beehives.

Beekeepers and scholars estimated that as much as half a ton of honey could be culled from these hives every year, the university said Monday.

[...]

Beats dog stew in my book.

Plus, there are inscriptions:

During the dig, archeologists also uncovered three ceramic storage jars found near the beehives with the inscription "To nmsh." "Nimshi" is known in the Bible as the name of the father and in several verses the grandfather of Israelite King Jehu, the founder of the dynasty that usurped power from the House of Omri (II Kings: 9-12).

The archeologists involved in the dig believe that it is possible that the discovery of three inscriptions bearing this name in the same region and dating to the same period indicates that Jehu's family originated from the Beit She'an Valley and possibly even from the large city located at Tel Rehov.

The large apiary discovered at the site might have belonged to this illustrious local clan.

PHILISTINE CUISINE has been illuminated by recent excavations:

Crock-pot cookery

Unlike most of the peoples living in the region in the biblical era, the Philistines were not Semites, but rather one of the Sea Peoples who immigrated from the Aegean Sea region of today's Greece and western Turkey. They brought with them technologies new to the area, including a wide range of pottery vessels and a sophisticated political organization.

They prepared meals in a characteristic sealed pottery vessel suited to long cooking times at low heat, while most inhabitants of Canaan at the time used open pots and faster cooking methods. The bones found at the Philistine cities showed that their diet was also different from those of their neighbors. While the Canaanites and Israelites ate mainly beef and lamb, the Philistines ate mainly pork, with an occasional meal of dog meat. The Philistines' wine culture was also very well-developed.

Dog stew, eh? My cat would approve.

ELAINE PAGELS is lecturing on the Gospel of Judas at Emory University. She still seems to be taking the line that Judas was a good guy in this Gospel.

THE NEW BISHOP OF CYPRUS AND THE GULF has a degree in Oriental Studies and seems to have focused on Northwest Semitic languages. This according to the Cyprus Mail:

New Bishop brings hope to Middle East posting

THE NEW Bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf, Rt Revd Michael Lewis, aims to play a part in encouraging Greek and Turkish Cypriots to resolve their differences when he takes up his post in November.

Bishop Lewis, of Middleton in the diocese of Manchester, replaces the Most Revd Clive Handford, who was also presiding bishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. He retired in April this year.

The new Bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf, in an interview with the Church Times to be published later this week, said he did not pretend to be an expert on the politics of the divided island where he will be based. But he would “relish living in it and learning from it”, and developing a relationship with the Greek Orthodox Church.

[...]

Bishop Lewis’ interest in the Middle East dates back to his time at Oxford University where his degree in oriental studies involved learning Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac. More recently he has led numerous pilgrimages and study tours to Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel and Turkey.

[...]

I don't know if the language training will help in his new post, but it's kind of cool.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Remnants of the Second Temple Being Destroyed by Islamic Wakf

by Hana Levi Julian and Alex Traiman

(IsraelNN.com) A large trench being dug on the Temple Mount is destroying a never before uncovered section of the outer wall of the Second Temple. The construction is being supervised by the Wakf—the Muslim Authority acting as custodians to the Temple Mount.

Archeologists have been calling for construction to halt on the trench, which is approximately 1,300 feet long and five feet deep. The Wakf claims the trench is being dug to replace 40-year-old electrical cables for nearby mosques.
Muslims dig a trench across the temple mount destroying ancient artifacts
Photo: The Temple Movement

New photos of construction debris from the Temple Mount show carved stones casually dumped in a pile that appear to be a section of the outer wall of the Second Temple, according to archaeologist Eilat Mazar.

[...]

UPDATE: forgot to note that background is here.

UPDATE (6 September): More here.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Where do all the prayer notes go?

Ari Rabinovitch, Reuters
Published: Sunday, September 02, 2007

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - People from around the world place their prayers in Jerusalem's Western Wall or mail them to "God, Jerusalem." It's Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz who clears them up.

Millions of people a year visit the Western Wall -- one of Judaism's holiest sites -- and leave a written prayer on pieces of paper wedged into the cracks of the ancient stones.

The tradition has been adopted by members of many faiths around the world. It is very common for Christian pilgrims traveling through the Old City of Jerusalem to stop by the Western Wall and leave a note, the rabbi says.

As Rabbi of the Western Wall, it is up to Rabinowitz to make sure there's room for future paper wishes. Twice a year his team collects hundreds of thousands of notes and buries them on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives.

[...]

Now you know.

A COPTIC BOOK WORKSHOP is being held in Portland, Maine:

Bonnie Bishop will guide participants through the making of a Coptic book, in which the spine and binding threads are exposed. These essential aspects of this ancient book form present in African, Roman, and early Christian cultures from 4th century AD. Bonnie invites workshop participants to explore various methods of journaling as a way to engage in and further self-discovery and inquiry, using the Coptic book as a place to record dreams, events, drawings, and poetry, or personal writings.

Materials
The instructor will provide all paper, thread, needles, awls and bone folders. However, participants should bring their own scissors and can bring any of the above tools if they have them and prefer using their own. They should also bring favorite drawing supplies, paper and pictures for collage, glue sticks, stamps, inks, etc., and any other materials desired to embellish the covers or work the interior pages.

I suppose the journaling won't be in Coptic, more's the pity. Still, sounds like fun.

ROBERT ALTER is intereviewed by the Boston Globe about his translation work on the Hebrew Bible:

Q&A with Robert Alter

By Harvey Blume | September 2, 2007

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF the Hebrew Bible - most notably the King James version - have been key not only for the believers who look to them for instruction and inspiration, but to the evolving literary and cultural sensibility of the West. It's no wonder, then, that the radical approach to translating biblical texts that Robert Alter has taken - first in ``The Five Books of Moses" (2004) and now in ``The Book of Psalms" - has been greeted with responses ranging from delight to irritation.

Alter aims to reproduce the rhythmic energy of the Hebrew texts in an English that adheres as closely as possible to the meaning and style of the original. Alter's Genesis, for example, begins: ``When God began to create . . ." The word ``began" is key: Creation, for God, is a work in progress. It's a powerful reading that can easily jolt someone wedded to older versions.

As Alter explained when I called him in Berkeley, where he has taught literature since 1967, he was drawn to biblical translation almost despite himself, propelled by a sense that recent translations were badly flawed. Often, translations lacked sensitivity to English literary values, modeling themselves on the lingo of ``high-school textbooks, bureaucratic directives, and ordinary conversation." And almost always, according to Alter, translators simply failed to recognize that the Hebrew Bible, whatever its religious content, was a collection of masterpieces composed by authors who took ``writerly pleasure" in their work.

[...]

THE HAZOR ARCHIVE STILL HASN'T BEEN FOUND, despite excavation of the site since 1990.

A city of stature in days of old
By Ran Shapira (Haaretz)

About two weeks before the end of the last excavation season at Tel Hatzor, in July, a clay tablet with hieroglyphic was found. The tablet teaches how to forecast the future with an animal liver, a practice common in the ancient East.

The priests would examine the liver of an animal that had been sacrificed to the gods and use it to predict the future. The tablet found at Hatzor has not yet been deciphered, but its hieroglyphics are reminiscent of the style of early documents from the ancient kingdom of Mari on the Euphrates, in what is today Syria. Mari was an important political center during the Middle Bronze Age, in the years 2000-1500 B.C.E., and Hatzor was the only city in the Land of Israel that had connections with it at that time.

[...]

Clearly the writer means "cuneiform" not "hieroglyphic(s)."

In the coming seasons, Ben-Tur and Zuckerman are planning to dig under the houses close to the northern slope of the tel, in search of concrete evidence to prove the assumptions about the earlier layers from the Iron Age and the Bronze Age. They are hoping to find the Canaanite administrative palace and the archive of Hatzor, both of which the archaeologists have been seeking since they returned to the site.

[...]

We've been waiting a long time for that archive. Bring it on!

UPDATE (4 September): Duane Smith comments at Abnormal Interests.

IN THE MAIL:

Nadia Abu El-Haj, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (University of Chicago Press, 2001)

I finally decided that I need to have an informed opinion about this book, so I ordered a used copy from Amazon. I'll post a review when I get a chance.

AN ONLINE TRANSLATOR FOR AKKADIAN AND SUMERIAN CUNEIFORM AND EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS:

UAT Instructor Creates Cuneiform and Hieroglyphic Translator

TEMPE, AZ--(Marketwire - August 23, 2007) - University of Advancing Technology (UAT) instructor and senior web developer Joe McCormack has completed work on a web-based application that translates English words into cuneiform script from the Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian and the hieroglyphic script of Egyptian. The tool may be seen at his website, virtualsecrets.com.

The translator works by converting cuneiform and hieroglyphs, both used in the earliest forms of writing, into English words. For example, typing "I am a father" into the Ancient Egyptian translator yields hieroglyphs that roughly translate to "I am" and "father." The translator has been featured on several museum websites around the world and websites specializing in resources for the ancient world.

[...]

Great! Now all we need is the time machine.

(Via Explorator 10.19.)

KAREN TINTORI, one of the authors of The Book of Names, is interviewed in January Magazine. She and co-author Jill Gregory are working on another "hidden history thriller."

THE GOLEM is the subject of two recent books:

The Sorcerer's Apprentice?
Another look at the mythic servant who repeatedly saved the Jewish people
August 30, 2007 - Robert Leiter, Literary Editor [Jewish Exponent]

The golem -- the massive, hulking servant figure who manages to repeatedly save the Jewish people from doom and destruction in any number of tales written in the 19th and early-20th centuries -- has popped up in book form once again in The Golem and the Wondrous Deeds of the Maharal of Prague, the work of Yudl Rosenberg as edited and translated by the distinguished novelist Curt Leviant. Just about a year ago, W.W. Norton publishers released a compilation of golem tales, titled simply The Golem, that brought together various works in several genres, written by a quartet of writers, Rosenberg among them, all translated by Joachim Neugroschel. The other authors represented were S. Bastomski, Dovid Frishman and H. Leivick, who penned the classic play about the massive creature fashioned from a piece of clay by a wonder-working rabbi.

There is a great deal of overlap between these recent books. Both translators fill in the history behind the term "golem" and identify the nature of the character that bears the name, and the general outline is similar. They part ways, however, in their assessments of Rosenberg.

[...]

Earlier posts on the Golem are here and here.

UNION STATION, despite its wildly successful Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition, has lost its accreditation due to financial problems:

Union Station loses professional accreditation because of financial instability
By MATT CAMPBELL
The Kansas City Star

Union Station this week lost its professional accreditation because of financial instability.

Officials said the loss, while disappointing, would not affect daily operations, although it could have an impact on future projects.

In a letter dated Thursday, the American Association of Museums praised the station for its progress in many areas but noted that it had eaten up most of its endowment over the last six years and failed to establish a solid foundation for the future.

“There is no track record of financial stability,” the association said.

The accreditation lapse comes as Union Station is poised to end the year in the black for the first time since it was restored in 1999.

“We hoped that by showing them (the accreditation commission ) that we had cut our budget down and turned the corner with this year’s projected profit that that would have been enough,” Union Station Chief Executive Officer Andi Udris said Friday. “They are smart enough to recognize that the only reason we turned the corner was that we had the Dead Sea Scrolls. They said you cannot expect to survive on these blockbusters.”

Udris said ongoing financial stability would require a combination of public and private support.

[...]

MULTI-SPECTRAL IMAGINING, THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS, AND THE ARCHIMEDES PALIMPSEST: the Rochester Institute of Technology has a brag sheet on their scientitsts' accomplishments, and good for them.

New life for Dead Sea Scrolls, Archimedes

RIT’s reputation for using modern imaging technologies to illuminate historical documents began with the late Robert Johnston, former dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts and, later, a visiting scholar in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science. His use of imaging to recover information from artifacts led to RIT’s involvement in the 1990s with the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish texts that hold clues to the early development of Christianity. Johnston became involved in the project after traveling to Israel and was among the first to suggest the use of digital imaging technology in deciphering the scrolls.

In 1996, Johnston, Roger L. Easton Jr., professor of imaging science at RIT, and Keith Knox, currently an imaging senior scientist and Boeing Technical Fellow at Boeing LTS, digitally recovered several characters from the Temple Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The RIT team originally used digital images created from color transparencies of the Temple Scroll and, later, at Princeton Theological Seminary, imaged actual fragments of other scrolls borrowed from the Syrian Orthodox Cathedral in Teaneck, N.J. The scientists used Johnston’s first-generation Kodak DCS-100 digital camera with filters over the lens to capture multispectral data – information visible on different wavelengths – that they processed using digital imaging software. Their efforts successfully enhanced the contrast between text and parchment for scholarly study.

[...]

UPDATE: Hindu philosophical writings in Sanskrit too.

VOLDEMORT AT QUMRAN? Maybe not.

UPDATE: Then there's Harry Potter and the menstruating woman with the basilisk's gaze.

Related post here. And don't miss Harry Potter and the biblical canons (S17-25).

I AM VERY HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE that Dr. Kelly Iverson has joined the staff of the Divinity School of the University of St. Andrews as a Lecturer in New Testament (post advertised here). Welcome Kelly!

OPPONENTS OF TENURE FOR NADIA ABU EL-HAJ at Barnard now have a website. (Via the JTA.)

Background here.

UPDATE (10 September): More here and here.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH - Forbes has more info on the damage caused by the latest Waqf excavation:

On Thursday, Israeli archaeologist Zachi Zweig said a tractor used to dig the trench damaged the foundation of a 7-yard-wide wall "that might have been a remnant of the Second Temple."

Zweig said his group, the Public Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, drew that conclusion because of the location of the damaged foundation.

"We saw the damage for ourselves and documented it," he said.

The Second Temple was built by Cyrus the Great of Persia in 515 B.C. and destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.

The tractor dug a trench that was 4 feet deep, Zweig said.

"The bedrock at this location is very shallow, so there is a high probability that ancient remnants were damaged," he added.

The top Muslim cleric in Jerusalem, Mufti Mohammed Hussein, rejected the Israeli group's charges.

"We don't harm the antiquities, we are the ones who are taking care of the antiquities, unlike others who destroy them," the mufti said.

Zweig said the Israel Antiquities Authority supervisor who was assigned to oversee the cable replacement was a novice archaeologist. "The oversight was a joke," he said.

The authority had no comment.

Earlier coverage here.

UPDATE: Additional coverage in the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz. The latter also has new info on the sifting project on the Waqf's earlier illicit excavations:

In a related development yesterday, new artifacts discovered in sifting through earth removed from the Temple Mount were presented at the eighth annual City of David archaeological conference.

The project, now in its third year, entails scrutinizing truckloads of earth removed by the Waqf in 1999.

Among the ancient finds were numerous stone tiles intended for flooring, some of which have been identified as designed for use in the Roman-era mosaic work known as opus sectile, in which colorful tiles were cut into shapes and fitted into geometric patterns.

"The discovery of stone tiles used in opus sectile flooring in [earth from] the Temple Mount is one of the most important discoveries of the dirt-sifting work," Barkai said, "and it might aid in reconstructing the appearance and character of the Temple's outer courtyard."

Also, denials from "Israeli officials" according to the APF:

Doubts over 'second temple remains' in Jerusalem

Israeli officials cast doubt Friday over claims that remains of the second Jewish temple might have been found during work to lay pipes at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.

"If that was the case, the antiquities authority, which has an observer on site, as well as police, also monitoring the work, would have stepped in," said archaeologist Dan Bahat, a former excavations official in Jerusalem.

And the Al Aqsa Foundation (not sure what that is) responds:

A statement issued by the institution read that the Israeli parties have dubbed the maintenance works as barbarian, confirming that any construction works inside the Islamic shrine are the responsibility of the Waqf committee.

The Al-Aqsa foundation rejected the Israeli incitement against the Islamic Waqf ‘endowment’ committee, declaring willingness to defy all Israeli interventions in the mosque’s affairs.

UPDATE: Predictably, it seems that this episode is generating more Jewish-Temple denial and other way-out claims from the usual suspects:

Israel is conspiring to encroach on the Temple Mount to build a Jewish temple near the Al-Aqsa mosque, Sheikh Raed Salah, the head of the Islamic Movement northern branch, said Thursday.

Salah called on Arab and Muslim nations to "prevent the division of the Al-Aqsa by Israel."

In a letter to Arab kings and leaders of Muslim countries, Salah urged all Muslims to torpedo "Israel's plan that aims at dividing the Al-Aqsa Mosque between Muslims and Jews whereas in the Jewish part it plans to build its imaginary temple."

UPDATE (4 September): More here.

ANCIEN JUDAISM JOB AT DUKE (from the Agade list):

Via Nancy Hurtgen nhurtgen@duke.edu:
=====================================

Duke University's Department of Religion in Trinity College of Arts and Sciences invites applications and nominations for a tenure-track assistant professor position in late ancient Judaism to begin August 2008.

Candidates should have expertise in classical Jewish literature and an interest in Jewish interactions with late-ancient Christianity and/or early Islam. Additional areas of interest may include art, archaeology, gender studies or any discipline related to the cognate fields of Classical Studies, History, or Islamic Studies. The appointment includes graduate and undergraduate instruction. The appointee will participate in Duke's Graduate Program in Religion and Judaic Studies Program. They also will collaborate with faculty members in the Department of Religious Studies at the nearby University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Candidates are asked to send a letter of application, a curriculum vitae, and three letters of reference to: Chair of the Late-Ancient Judaism Search Committee, Department of Religion, Box 90964, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0964. Applications received by October 15, 2007 will be guaranteed full consideration but the search will continue until the position is filled. Duke University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. Women and minorities strongly are encouraged to apply.

TWO CONFERENCES AT KCL (from the Agade list):

From Diana Lipton diana.lipton@kcl.ac.uk:
================================================


TWO BIBLICAL STUDIES CONFERENCES AT KING'S COLLEGE LONDON

(1) GRADUATE STUDENT DAY CONFERENCE ON HEBREW BIBLE AND POST-BIBLICAL TEXTS

Thursday 15th May 2008, 11am-5.30pm, Council Room, Strand Campus

PhD students at any stage of their research and MA students thinking of continuing are invited to attend a one conference on the Hebrew Bible and early post and para-biblical texts (Dead Sea Scrolls, pseudepigrapha, targum, midrash) specifically for Graduate Students. This is a wonderful opportunity to meet your peers, acquire experience giving papers, get feedback on your research, and spend a day at King's College in the heart of London. We welcome proposals for papers on any aspect of your work. Papers will be 20 minutes long, followed by 10 minutes of audience questions and constructive feedback from a small panel of highly supportive professionals - Drs Lutz Doering (KCL), Charlotte Hempel (Birmingham), Diana Lipton (KCL) and Deborah Rooke (KCL), and Prof. Hugh Williamson (Oxford).

For more information, to register, and to propose a paper:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/trs/news/

(2) A QUESTION OF SEX: EMBROIDERED GARMENTS

Monday August 4th to Wednesday August 6th 2008, Council Room, Strand Campus

Keynote Speakers: Prof. Athalya Brenner (University of Amsterdam and Tel Aviv University), Dr. Tarja Philip (Hebrew University), and Dr. Deborah Rooke (King's College London).

Proposals are warmly invited for short papers (30 minutes plus 15) and designated Graduate Student papers (20 minutes plus 10) on sex and gender in biblical and post-biblical texts (Dead Sea Scrolls, pseudepigrapha, midrash) with a priestly worldview or concerns. Among biblical texts we include Leviticus, Numbers, Ezekiel, and Ezra, along with parts of Genesis, Exodus, Joshua and Chronicles, and are open to other suggestions. Programmed events include 'Group Texts', a creative Hebrew reading session, and 'Comparing Notes: Ancient Sex and Gender in the British Museum', a tailor-made tour of the collections, followed by a guided discussion. 'Embroidered Garments' follows a successful 2006 conference on gender and difference in biblical studies, papers from which are forthcoming with Sheffield Phoenix Press.

For more information, to register, and to propose a paper:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/trs/news/

Diana Lipton
Lecturer in Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies
King's College London
diana.lipton@kcl.ac.uk

A CONFERENCE IN HONOR OF JOHN J. COLLINS is to be held in April of 2008 at Amherst College: The Other in Second Temple Judaism: A Conference in Honor of John J. Collins. (Via the H-Judaic List.)

IT'S TRUE THAT I CAN DO 60 PUSH-UPS, but I am not this James Davila.

BLOGGERS PRESENTING at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the AAR/SBL: John F. Hobbins has compiled a list at the Ancient Hebrew Poetry blog.

UPDATE: By "bloggers" he seems to mean people who have some kind of online presence. Some of them don't actually have blogs - or at least he doesn't link to a blog for them and I don't know of one either.

CAN'T MAKE IT UP:

Jesus' conviction 'null, void'
29/08/2007 14:33 - (SA)

Nairobi - A case on behalf of Jesus Christ has come knocking on Kenya's High Court door, lodged by a fervent Christian group who wants his conviction declared "null and void" and his Crucifixion "illegal."

Though cases to right historical wrongs were far from unusual around the world, Kenya's Friends of Jesus (FOJ) had reached back two millennia in what might redefine the quest for closure.

The petition was filed on Monday with the court registrar, raising a novel set of jurisprudence quandaries - not the least of which involved the statute of limitations and whether the high court had jurisdiction over the "Son of God".

It was not certain when a ruling would be handed down.

High court spokesperson Dola Indindis said but, FOJ actually "might have a right in court because the issues raised touch on human rights and the high court has unlimited powers on that line".

[...]

Nairobi constitutional lawyer Albert Kuloba, for one, said the "FOJ should have filed it in the International Criminal Court (in The Hague) which has the mandate to hear that case."

[...]

It looks as though judicial activism might be a problem in the Kenyan court system.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH - The A.P. has a piece on the Waqf's latest excavation:

Dig at Jerusalem Site Brings Ire

Wednesday August 29, 2007 8:46 PM

By SARAH EL DEEB

Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli archaeologists on Wednesday criticized the extension of an underground cable at Jerusalem's holiest site for Muslims and Jews, saying that digging the trench defies professional standards for such a sensitive historic site and could damage Bible-era relics.

Islamic authorities responsible for the Al Aqsa Mosque complex, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, said the digging is necessary infrastructure work at the site to replace 40-year-old electrical cables ahead of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The site is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is home to Al Aqsa Mosque and the gold-capped Dome of the Rock, Islam's third-holiest shrine. It is also the holiest site in Judaism: Archaeological finds show that the remains of the temples are beneath the mosque compound, although Muslim clerics dispute that.

[...]

On the last point, see here and here.

Story background here.

UPDATE: Here's an interesting tidbit from a Reuters article carried on Ynetnews:

[Archaeologist Gabriel] Barkay said earth from the trench contained pottery shards dating to the Byzantine period. He cautioned that more relics still underground could be harmed.

This is the first claim I've seen about specific artifacts being uncovered in the excavation.

UPDATE: Reportedly, they're still at it:

Muslims Continue Temple Mount Dig without Proper Archeological Survey

By Amihai Zippor (Israel Hasbara Committee)

(IHC News, 29 August 2007) The Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount resumed condemnations of the State-run Israel Antiquities Authority on Tuesday, 28 August 2007, after Muslims continued digging on the Temple Mount in order to modernize infrastructure.

The Waqf, the Muslim religious caretakers of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, began new non-supervised digging there to prepare a section for infrastructure work on Wednesday, 11 July 2007 and used heavy equipment, destroying sensitive ground on one of the world’s most important archeological sites.

[...]

UPDATE: More photos and video here. (Via the BAS Newsletter.)

IN THE MAIL:

Risa Levitt Kohn, Dead Sea Scrolls (San Diego Natural History Museum, 2007)

The catalogue for the San Diego Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition, kindly sent to me by Professor Kohn, the curator. Lots of cool photos.

BPR3 - Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting.

Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting strives to identify serious academic blog posts about peer-reviewed research by developing an icon and an aggregation site where others can look to find the best academic blogging on the Net.

There's a contest for the icon.

(Via Chuck Jones on Facebook.)

A GUIDE TO JUDEO-ARABIC SCRIPT appears at the Omniglot site. (Via On the Main Line.)

THE SILVER COIN HOARDS FROM QUMRAN HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED, and Kenneth Lonnqvist e-mails the following information. For you, special deal.

Title: The Report of the Amman Lots of the Qumran Silver Coin Hoards. New Chronological Aspects of the Silver Coin Hoard Evidence from Khirbet Qumran at the Dead Sea. Amman 2007.

Author: Kenneth Lönnqvist

Book: A4-sized book, paperback. 72 pages with complete coin catalogue and photographs of each coin, including archaeological, historical and numismatic commentary.

ISBN: 978-952-92-2281-0

Printer: Printed by The National Press, Amman, Jordan

SPECIAL OFFER FOR A LIMITED PERIOD, UNTIL END OF SEPTEMBER 2007:
A limited number of the new numismatic publication on the Amman silver coin hoards (The Report of the Amman Lots of the Qumran Silver Coin Hoards. New Chronological Aspects of the Silver Coin Hoard Evidence from Khirbet Qumran at the Dead Sea. Amman 2007) will be distributed free of charge upon purchase of the book Archaeology of the Hidden Qumran The New Paradigm. Minna Lönnqvist and Kenneth Lönnqvist (Helsinki University Press. Helsinki 2002). 377 pages, indices, glossary, 83 photographs (including 30 colour photographs) and 62 drawings. ISBN 952-91-4958-1. Written statements of the book can be provided in PDF-form with e-mail, upon request.

Price: Bundle price or total price of the two books is 20 $ or 15 € (currency exchange rate of 24.8.2007, which may vary), excluding shipping and packing costs.

Add shipping and packing costs as follows:

1st Class (Air Mail): USA: 25 $ (dollar)
2nd Class (Economy, surface mail) USA: 12.5 $ (dollar)

1st Class (Air Mail): EU-countries: 9.5 € (euro)
2nd Class (Economy, surface mail) EU-countries: 9.5 € (euro)

Offer expires 30.9. 2007. E-mail order address: kenneth.lonnqvist@helsinki.fi
Shipping will be made when the order with address information and the payment have been received. Shipping will be processed in the order they have been received.

MOSES HAS BEEN AN AMERICAN ICON since the nineteenth century according to the New Republic:

For those of us whose vision of Moses begins and ends at the movies, or more to the point, perhaps, with Charlton Heston, it may come as a great surprise to learn that Moses was just about everywhere in mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century America. You might even say he gave Jesus a run for his money. True, Cecil B. DeMille, who hired the then young and relatively unknown Heston because of his alleged resemblance to Michelangelo's fabled sculpture, had a great deal to do with firmly affixing Moses and his Ten Commandments to the modern imagination. After all, "Mr. Movies," as he was widely known, made not just one but two wildly popular motion pictures about the Decalogue: the first, a silent film in 1923; the other, the 1956 cinematic extravaganza that we now screen every year on television come Easter and Passover. But even granting DeMille his considerable due, the historical record makes clear that the latter-day film was but the latest in a long series of encounters with the biblical figure which punctuated American history from the mid-nineteenth century on. The apotheosis of all things Mosaic, DeMille's postwar epic actually owed its success in large measure to the way it drew on the nation's longstanding preoccupation with the scriptural character, a preoccupation that was every bit as quotidian as it was holy.

These days, Moses continues to cast a long shadow over the body politic, especially when it comes to the placement of the Ten Commandments in the public square. Angry words about the appropriate role religion ought to play in twenty-first century America fill the air as proponents and opponents square off, each side laying claim to Moses' mantle. But earlier generations saw things differently, more consensually: Everyone--Jews, Protestants, and Catholics, artists and politicians - sought him out. ...

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: More on the latest Waqf excavations from the BBC.

Israeli anger over holy site work
By Martin Asser
BBC News, Jerusalem

A group of Israeli archaeologists is protesting about fresh excavations at Jerusalem's holiest religious shrine, saying it threatens priceless relics.

Muslim authorities at al-Aqsa mosque, also venerated by Jews as the Temple Mount, are digging a 150-metre trench for water pipes and electricity cables.

Israeli critics say the work is causing irreparable damage, indiscriminately piling up earth and carved stones.

Mosque officials insist it is urgent infrastructure work doing no damage.

[...]

Dr [Gabriel] Barkai identifies the area currently under excavation as the outer courts of the Second Temple, built by Herod the Great in the First Century BC.

He maintains it is where the best preservation of antiquities was anticipated, since other parts of the compound are built on exposed bedrock.

He accuses the Islamic authorities of wanting to "show who is the boss" by destroying Jewish remains in al-Aqsa mosque.

He also lambastes the Israeli Antiquities Authority, meant to supervise any work at archaeological sites, for apparently giving the work legitimacy.

Yusuf Natsheh of the Islamic Waqf dismisses such claims, saying the area has been dug many times and arguing that remains unearthed would be from the 16th or 17th century Ottoman period.

He says the work is urgently needed to maintain the al-Aqsa compound as an important religious institution.


[...]

Whatever the date of the remains, they should be excavated scientifically by specialists who know what they're doing.

Earlier coverage here, here, here, and here.

LATINO-PUNIC is the subject of recent posts on Bulbolovo (scroll down past the section on Sabean inscriptions) and Jabal Al-Lughat. Thought for the day: If ancient North African Christians were native speakers of Punic, but wrote in Latin, what if one of them wrote an Old Testament pseudepigraphon? Would the Punic influence make it look to us as though it had been translated from Hebrew and therefore must be a Jewish composition? I worry about things like this.

THE SEGEV FOREST in the Western Galilee has some interesting archaeological excavations. Haaretz reports:

"The excavations Dr. Zvi Gal carried out at the beginning of the 1990s solved a very complex puzzle about King Solomon and Hiram, king of Phoenicia," says Mordechai Aviam, director of the Galilee Archaeological Institute.

"A site of a Phoenician nature was built here, a kind of administrative and military center constructed on top of private dwellings from the 11th century. The Phoenician nature of the site bears out the story of King Solomon giving King Hiram portions of the country in exchange for the cedars of Lebanon, with which he built the Temple," Aviam says, smiling in consideration of the implications the story has for the present-day debate over dividing the land.

Not far from here, on the slope of the hill, Aviam has worked with archaeology students at a site known as the Beza Ruin. Remains were found here of an olive oil press and a private home from Second Temple times and the period of the Mishnah, the first and second centuries CE. "The place is beautifully preserved, and we know there are many archaeological finds underground," Aviam says. Gidi Aharoni, head of the Teradyon Industrial Zone (named after a martyr in the rebellion against Rome, a name to be changed to the Misgav Industrial Zone) is listening in. Aharoni is also director general of the Misgav economic corporation, and by his own admission is a lover of archaeology and the environment. For Aharoni, the two sites, beyond their historical importance, can leverage tourism in the region. ...

A WOODEN BOAT discovered in the Sea of Galilee in 1986:

The Jesus Boat
Ancient Galilee boat believed to be 2,000 years old

by Lamar Keener (Christian Examiner)

TIBERIAS, Israel — As the birthplace of civilization, archaeologists have spent years in Israel uncovering stone and earthen remnants of biblically significant treasures.

Sometimes, the finds come from the most unlikely sources.

Considered one of the most remarkable archeological finds in the world, an ancient wooden boat was discovered in 1986 that has been dated back to the first century.

During a severe drought that had lowered the Sea of Galilee to record levels, two brothers, exploring its muddy shoreline for ancient artifacts, found a piece of wood jutting out of the now-exposed seabed. The vessel had been buried in, and protected by, the seabed’s sediments.

Assisted by experts from around the world, the Israel Antiquities Authority rescued the boat during an 11-day-and-night excavation. The weak and waterlogged hull required tedious care, as it was subject to crumbling after being exposed to light and air. Although the wood looked strong, it was soft and shattered upon touch.

I don't think I've ever heard of this find before. There's a photo of the boat at the Sea of Galilee page at BiblePlaces.com.

UPDATE: Oops, that's not the boat, it's a reconstruction. My mistake. But there is a photo of the actual boat at Jeremy O'Clair's Ancient Study blog.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH - More fallout from the latest construction excavation on the Temple Mount:

Archeologists slam authorities over Muslim dig
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

A group of Israeli archeologists on Monday renewed their blistering condemnation of the Antiquities Authority for authorizing Muslim officials to carry out a dig on Jerusalem's Temple Mount with tractors and other heavy equipment as part of infrastructure work to repair faulty electrical lines on the ancient compound.

The work started last month on the northern section of the Temple Mount in the area of the outer courts of the ancient Jewish Temples with the approval of the Israel Police and the state-run Antiquities Authority, Israeli and Islamic officials said. Independent Israeli archeologists said that the work left a 100-meter-long and roughly 1-1.5 meter deep trench, and has damaged the site.

[...]

A REVIEW OF GOODMAN, ROME AND JERUSALEM, in the Church Times is noted by Mark Goodacre.

DIRK JONGKIND'S BOOK, Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus, has been published by Gorgias Press.

Author: Dirk Jongkind
Title: Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus
Subtitle:
Series: Texts and Studies Third Series 5
Publisher: Gorgias Press LLC
Publication Date: 5/2/2007 10:18:11 AM
Availability: In Print
ISBN: 978-1-59333-422-2
Language: English
Format: Hardback 6 x 9, 1 volume(s), xvii i+ 323 pages, illustrations

Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest manuscript containing the complete text of the New Testament. Besides the New Testament, this codex from the fourth century also contains large parts of the Greek Old Testament, though quite a large part of this section did not survive. Codex Sinaiticus is much more than simply a particular instance of the Greek text of the Bible. At least three different scribes copied the text out by hand, and these scribes were faced with many decisions in the process of writing: How many letters do I put on this line? Will I contract this word as a nomen sacrum or will I spell it out in full? What do I do when I spot an error in the text I have just copied? What is the right spelling of this word? Is it time for a new paragraph? How do I fit the text I have copied to that of my colleague?

This book studies a wide variety of textual and non-textual phenomena of Codex Sinaiticus. Thus we not only learn more about this important biblical manuscript, but are also able to discern much about the individual scribes. The Codex Sinaiticus is not a homogenous book, but the product of individuals with their own habits and different qualities. This study shows that it is possible to rate the scribes of the New Testament according to their individual copying ability.

Dirk Jongkind finished his doctoral work at Cambridge University in 2005. Before taking up a research fellowship at Tyndale House, Cambridge, he was employed by the British Library in London to work on the curatorial preparation of the Codex Sinaiticus Digitisation Project. He is a fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge.

Tyndale House held a book launch last week. I commented on Dirk's work several years ago when he was still a doctoral student. The scribal character, layout, and physical characteristics of ancient manuscripts are important sources of historical information that have been neglected until fairly recently. This book is a welcome contribution to this area.

A NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA COURSE SYLLABUS.

THE ONLINE SBL PROGRAM BOOK (3): Hellenistic Judaism.

S18-18
Hellenistic Judaism. Earlier posts here and here.
11/18/2007
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Edward D - GH

Theme: Philosophy and Wisdom in Hellenistic Judaism

Allen Kerkeslager, Saint Joseph's University, Presiding
George H. van Kooten, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Man as the Image of God in Hellenistic Judaism (20 min)
Matthew E. Gordley, Regent University
Didactic Hymnody and the Wisdom of Solomon (20 min)
Discussion (15 min)
Break (10 min)
Steve Young, McHenry County College
Marketing Martyrdom: De/Colonizing Philosophy as Faith in 4th Maccabees (20 min)
Erin Roberts, Brown University
Philo, Wealth, and Stoic Ethics (20 min)
Philippa Townsend, Princeton University
Being Jewish Under Rome: Philo on Greeks and Egyptians (20 min)
Discussion (25 min)

S18-66
Hellenistic Judaism
Joint Session With: Josephus, Hellenistic Judaism
11/18/2007
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Point Loma - MM

Theme: Josephus

Tessa Rajak, University of Reading, Presiding
Fabian Eugene Udoh, University of Notre Dame
Joseph as a Prototype of the Enslaved: Philo (De Iosepho) and Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 2.39-90) (20 min)
Jason von Ehrenkrook, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Statues, Space, and the Poetics of Idolatry in Josephus' "Jewish War" (20 min)
Discussion (20 min)
Break (10 min)
Kenneth R. Atkinson, University of Northern Iowa
Queen Salome Alexandra’s Neglected Contributions to Hellenistic Judaism (20 min)
Jan W. van Henten, University of Amsterdam
Herod as Tyrant: Assessing Josephus’ Parallel Passages (20 min)
Discussion (20 min)
Business Meeting (20 min)

Everyone is invited to the business meeting at the end of the session to discuss future directions for the Hellenistic Judaism Section.

S20-8
Hellenistic Judaism
Joint Session With: Hellenistic Judaism, Pseudepigrapha
11/20/2007
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Edward D - GH

Theme: Exemplarity and Perfection in Hellenistic Judaism

Erich Gruen, University of California-Berkeley, Presiding
Annette Yoshiko Reed, McMaster University
The Construction and Subversion of Patriarchal Perfection (20 min)
Andrei Orlov, Marquette University
Enoch and the Anthropos: Restoration of the Glory of Adam in 2 (Slavonic) Enoch (20 min)
William Adler, North Carolina State University
Exemplary figures in the "Palaea Historica" (20 min)
Discussion (25 min)
Break (5 min)
Hindy Najman, University of Toronto
Education and Transformation in 4 Ezra (20 min)
Benjamin G. Wright III, Lehigh University
Ben Sira on the Sage as Exemplar (20 min)
Discussion (20 min)

A DEATH METAL BAND NAMED BEHEMOTH. Their frontman calls himself Nergal. You gotta love that.

MORE FROM THE ONLINE SBL PROGRAM BOOK: Sessions on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. (An earlier post on the Program Book is here.)

First, from the Pseudepigrapha Group:

S19-30
Pseudepigrapha
11/19/2007
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Gregory B - GH

John C. Reeves, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Presiding
Peter T. Lanfer, University of California-Los Angeles
Paradise in the Pseudepigrapha (25 min)
The Parascriptural Dimensions of Biblical Women
Vered Hillel, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Women’s Genealogies in Hellenistic Literature: The Descent of Bilhah (25 min)
Mary Bader, College of Wooster
Dinah in the Pseudepigrapha (25 min)
Rivka Nir, Open University of Israel
Aseneth as the “Prototype of the Church of the Gentiles” (25 min)
Troy A. Miller, Crichton College
Surrogate, Slave, and Deviant?: “Hagar” in Jewish Interpretive Traditions and Paul’s Use of the Figure in Galatians 4:21-31 (25 min)

S19-78
Pseudepigrapha
11/19/2007
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: 30 D - CC

Theme: Addressing the Challenges of the *Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature Series* (Walter de Gruyter)

John Levison, Seattle Pacific University, Presiding
Dale Allison, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Panelist (15 min)
David E. Aune, University of Notre Dame, Panelist (10 min)
Randall Chesnutt, Pepperdine University, Panelist (10 min)
John Endres, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, Panelist (10 min)
Judith H. Newman, University of Toronto, Panelist (15 min)
Pieter van der Horst, University of Utrecht, Panelist
Loren T. Stuckenbruck, University of Durham, Panelist (15 min)
Break (10 min)
Panelist responses
Discussion (30 min)
Audience responses
Discussion (35 min)

And two additional highly relevant sessions:

S17-25
Rethinking the Concept and Categories of 'Bible' in Antiquity
11/17/2007
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Salon 5 - MM

James E. Bowley, Millsaps College, Presiding
K. L. Noll, Brandon University
Rethinking Literary Function in the Emerging Hebrew Canon (25 min)
Francis Borchardt, University of Helsinki
Concepts of Scripture in 1 Maccabees (25 min)
Ian W. Scott, Tyndale Seminary
Is the Bible always Scripture?: The "Low" View of the Pentateuch in the Letter of Aristeas (25 min)
Sara Parks, McGill University and Aaron Ricker, McGill University
Harry Potter Canon Discourse and the Biblical Canons (25 min)
Robert A. Kraft, University of Pennsylvania
Finding Adequate Terminology for "Pre-canonical" Literatures (25 min)
James E. Bowley, Millsaps College
Terminating Terminology (25 min)

S19-16
Function of Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Writings in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (through 3rd to 4th centuries CE)
11/19/2007
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Manchester H - GH

Theme: Theoretical Issues

Lee Martin McDonald, Acadia Divinity College, Presiding
James A. Sanders, Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center
Non-Masoretic Literature in Early Judaism and its Function in the New Testament (20 min)
Craig Evans, Acadia Divinity College, Respondent (5 min)
Discussion (5 min)
James H. Charlesworth, Princeton Theological Seminary
The Book of the People from the People of the Book (20 min)
Discussion (5 min)
Lee Martin McDonald, Acadia Divinity College
What Do We Mean by "Canon"?: A Look at Some Ancient and Modern Questions (20 min)
Loren Johns, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Respondent (5 min)
Discussion (5 min)
Ken M. Penner, Acadia Divinity College
Citation Formulae as Indices to Canonicity in Early Jewish and Early Christian Literature (20 min)
Jonathan Soyars, Princeton Theological Seminary, Respondent (5 min)
Discussion (5 min)
Sarah L. Schwarz, Haverford College
Pseudepigrapha Among the Pagans?: Exploring the Boundaries of Audience (20 min)
Discussion (5 min)

THE 1981 MASADA MINISERIS is about to becme available on DVD:

•“Masada: The Complete Epic Miniseries” (Sept. 11). From the heyday of the network minis, this $25 million spectacular about a doomed rebellion against ancient Rome by Jewish zealots aired over four nights on ABC in 1981. It marked the American TV acting debut of Peter O’Toole as the lead Roman and miniseries megastar Peter Strauss as the lead zealot. This isn’t the edited-down version that was released on bulky videotape a few years ago but the whole eight-hour enchilada.