MORE ON THE 400-YEAR-OLD TORAH SCROLL recovered from the ruins of a synagogue near Mosul and shipped to the Washington D.C. area:

From battle zone to bimaArea shul embraces centuries-old Iraqi Torah
by Richard Greenberg

Associate Editor (Washington Jewish Week)

A battle-scarred slice of the Middle East has disgorged what is now one of the most coveted objects in Temple Isaiah's possession - a 400-year-old Torah scroll that endured an Indiana-Jones-like odyssey before arriving safely at the Fulton synagogue.

[...]

Here's a fuller version of the story of the recovery:

The find was made by a U.S. special-forces soldier who had relieved himself at the site moments earlier. While he was cleaning up after himself, the soldier recognized Hebrew writing underfoot and on the wall of the structure. He knew it was Hebrew because he's Jewish.

"In the middle of all the craziness that's going on in Iraq, it's God's will that someone should find his Torah; and that person is Jewish," said Youlus. "It's an incredible irony."

The Torah, which was hidden beneath the floor of the structure, was soon unearthed by the soldier, whose identity has not been released by the military precisely because he is a member of the special forces. He was redeployed to Iraq about two weeks ago.

How did Youlus get involved? "That's the difficult part," he said, explaining that the soldier told his superior officer about his discovery. The superior officer then somehow got in touch with "someone in the government who knows what I do," and that person contacted Youlus, who declined to name the government official.

[...]

Enter Panoff, who had once informed Youlus that he was on the lookout for an especially distinctive Torah. He eventually determined that an ideal Torah "would speak to the experience of Mizrachi Jews," or those of Middle Eastern descent. "This would show how diverse and varied the Jewish experience has been."

When Youlus told him about the discovery in Mosul, Panoff immediately relayed the information to the synagogue's board members who promptly contributed $20,000 of their own money to cover the entire cost of the Torah rescue project.

Some of that money was used to pay what Youlus euphemistically called "fees" for "members of the Iraqi establishment" to allow the Torah to be removed from their country. However, possible exit routes through Turkey and Syria were barred because of fighting and other insurmountable geopolitical barriers. Israel was no option, as well, because Israeli law would have permitted the government to seize the Torah on behalf of Iraqi Jewry, according to Youlus.

The only way out was through Jordan, and that prodigious trek was made by a contingent of seven designated Torah-schleppers consisting of Iraqis, Jordanians and Youlus himself. The trip took six weeks. Torah in hand, they made their way via various conveyances - "some mechanized and some that I wished were mechanized," said Youlus, whose small band traveled by truck, on foot and by mule. "Have you ever ridden a mule?" Youlus asked. "My tuches won't forget it for a long time."

[...]

I would still like to have a clearer idea of what the antiquities laws say about a situation like this.

THE THIRTEENTH APOSTLE, by April DeConick, is reviewed in BP News:

Prof: Gnostics called Judas demon, not hero

Posted on Nov 6, 2007 | by Gregory Tomlin

HOUSTON (BP)--A new book by a biblical scholar at Rice University refutes the claims of the National Geographic Society in 2006 that a third- or fourth-century fragment of the Gospel of Judas depicted "the son of perdition" as a hero.

In fact, April DeConick, a professor of biblical studies at Rice and author of "The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says," notes that the document actually calls Judas a "thirteenth demon." That translation of the ancient Coptic text conforms fairly well to what biblical scholars have said of Judas for centuries as well as ancient commentaries from the church fathers who regarded Gnosticism as heresy.

[...]

When National Geographic magazine publicized the discovery of the Gospel of Judas early in 2006, the magazine claimed that the document presented a loyal, sensitive and, perhaps, misunderstood Judas. Christ's betrayer, the magazine's experts said, actually may have been a close friend of the Messiah and a man who had been asked to "accept perpetual disgrace" in order to free Jesus' spirit from his body. Judas, too, was described in the text as a "spirit," the magazine's experts said.

But DeConick contends that translators were mistaken. The Coptic word "daimon" is not "spirit," she said.

"Plato used this word to refer to higher powers, divine powers, that controlled human fate," DeConick said. "This is the basis for the National Geographic translation 'spirit.' The problem with this interpretation is that Plato wrote almost 500 years before the Gospel of Judas and within a completely different conceptual environment. In Christian and Gnostic literature, 'daimones' are demons. They are malicious powers or angels who influence human destinies. They are associated with the stars. There are 52 instances of the use of 'daimon' in Gnostic literature, and all of them refer to demonic forces that control the cosmos and human destiny."

[...]

"All we have is the National Geographic Society's transcription of the Coptic, and its translation of that. We can't check the transcription. The situation is comparable to the deadlock that held scholarship back on the Dead Sea Scrolls 15 or 20 years ago. When manuscripts are hoarded by a few, it results in errors and monopoly interpretations. This is not the best way to do scholarship," DeConick said.

[...]

This article also sums up a number of themes that April has been pursuing for some time at her Forbidden Gospels blog.

FOR YOU, SPECIAL DEAL: Eisenbrauns has a sale on books by bibliobloggers. Three of my books are included.

UPDATE (10 November): Dead link fixed.

SMOKE ON THE WATER, FIRE IN THE SKY


This is a picture of Downtown San Diego during the recent fires, taken from Point Loma. (Click on the image for an enlargement.) Among those skyscrapers are the ones we all will be staying in during the SBL convention, which starts at the end of next week. The Governator did a fine job on the crisis (see below) and the fires are almost entirely contained or out. Still, I'm glad I didn't see this picture at the time. That fire is not nearly as close as it looks, but my mother's house is to the left of the hill and some miles back, too close for comfort. She wasn't evacuated and the fire never really got very near, but one of my friends farther north did have to be evacuated and they thought at the time they were going to lose their house. Luckily, the fire was contained in time.

The photo has been making the rounds via e-mail and it was sent to me by a relative in San Diego. Their source thought it came from the Union-Tribune, but I can't find an online source to link to.




See you soon in San Diego!

A NEW FRAGMENT OF THE ALEPPO CODEX has been recovered:

Fragment of ancient parchment from Bible given to Jerusalem scholars
By Anshel Pfeffer (Haaretz)
tags: Aleppo Codex

An eight-centimeter-square piece of the 1087-year-old Aleppo Codex will be given to a representative of the Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem on Thursday, following 18 years during which Israeli scholars tried to retrieve it from businessman Sam Sabbagh.

Sabbagh salvaged the fragment from a burning synagogue in Aleppo in 1947.

Inscribed on both sides, it is one of the lost fragments of the codex, a copy of the Bible written in 920 C.E. in Tiberias by the scribe Shlomo Ben Buya'a. The fragment Sabbagh had bears verses of Exodus chapter 8, including the words of Moses to Pharaoh: "Let my people go, that they may serve me..."
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Sabbagh believed the small piece of parchment was his good luck charm for six decades. He was convinced that thanks to the parchment, which he kept with him always in a transparent plastic container, he had been saved from riots in his hometown of Aleppo during Israel's War of Independence, and he had managed to immigrate from Syria to the United States in 1968 and start a new life in Brooklyn and make a living. The charm was with him when he underwent complicated surgery.

Just two years ago, it completed its task, when Sabbagh passed away.

[...]

In 1987 Professor Menahem Ben-Sasson, then head of the Ben Zvi Institute and now chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, went to the U.S. to obtain funding from a wealthy member of the Aleppo community, Steve Shalom, for an urgent restoration of the codex.

"While I was meeting with him, another member of the community came in and said that the codex had burned but that his brother Sam had a page. I asked for the brother's phone number and called him right away. He told me 'I won't give it to you under any circumstances. It has saved me from disaster.' I asked if at least I could photograph it, and he agreed."

Michael Glatzer, the academic secretary of the Ben Zvi Institute confirmed that the shape of the letters the vowels and the cantillation marks left no room for doubt: it was part of the codex.

Glatzer documented Sabbagh's testimony about finding the page on the day of the fire. "I saw the pages scattered on the floor and damaged by the fire. I could have taken the whole remaining part but my hands shook with fear and the horror of what I had seen. I thought they were going to butcher us all like the Turks massacred the Armenians. I only took the little piece that was separate."

It is now believed that other Jews came in and took pieces of the legendary codex and subsequently refused to part with them. Although Sabbagh agreed to bestow the fragment posthumously, Ben Zvi Institute Director Dr. Zvi Zameret says negotiations with the family took time. "In the end we paid the small sum of a few thousand shekels so they would feel good and we had a little ceremony in New York with Sabbagh's widow."

[...]

Ben-Sasson says that since he found the fragment Sabbagh had, whenever he would give a lecture to Jews of the Aleppo community, he would ask them to find the missing pieces of the codex. "They bring me all kinds of manuscripts and charms but it was never that. I've even asked the community's rabbis to place a ban on anyone holding parts of the codex, but they told me it wouldn't help. The connection between the Aleppo Jews and the codex is just too strong."

[...]

More please.

IT HAD TO HAPPEN: ARAMAIC SUDOKU.

(From Steve Caruso via the Hugoye list.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: A terrorist attack at the Mughrabi Gate may have been thwarted.

Lupolianski assassination plot foiled
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

Three Jerusalem Arabs have been charged with planning a series of terrorist attacks in the city, including the assassination of Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, a suicide bombing and a shooting attack near the Western Wall, security officials said Sunday.

The suspects, who were arrested two weeks ago, were charged Friday in a Jerusalem court with establishing contacts with a foreign agent, conspiring to assist an enemy in time of war, and aiding a terrorist group.

A gag order imposed on the case was lifted on Sunday evening.

According to the indictment, late last year Mamoun Abu Tir and Atallah Abu Tir, both 19 and from the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Umm Tuba, decided to set up a terrorist cell.

[...]

Mamoun Abu Tir allegedly discussed attacks on various individuals, including the mayor of Jerusalem, and plans for a shooting attack at the Mughrabi Gate leading to the Temple Mount.

[...]

If there was a plot, it doesn't seem likely to be a coincidence that the attack was to take place at this spot, whose excavation by Israeli archaeologists has already generated lots of controversy, including protests in the Islamic world and violent protest in Jerusalem.

A ROUNDUP of the controvery over the tenuring of Nadia Abu El-Haj appears in Inside Higher Ed:

Barnard Tenures Scholar Opposed by Massive Campaign

In one of the most publicly contested tenure cases of the year, Barnard College announced Friday that it would promote Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist whose work on archaeology in Israel led to a major campaign against her.

A statement released by the college did not directly speak to the controversy that has raged around Abu El-Haj. “Like all tenured members of the Barnard faculty, Professor Abu El-Haj has successfully passed a highly rigorous review that involves both Barnard’s own independent process and a university-wide review [at Columbia University] that reflects Barnard’s partnership with Columbia and the participation of Barnard faculty in Columbia’s graduate programs,” the statement said.

“The tenure process includes extensive, confidential peer review by leading scholars in the candidate’s field; clear documentation of teaching effectiveness; and a candidate’s record of service to the institution and her profession. Tenure, together with the norms of academic freedom that pertain to all faculty, gives scholars the liberty to advance ideas, regardless of their political impact, so that their work may be openly debated and play a critical role in shaping knowledge in the scholar’s academic field.” (A Barnard spokeswoman said that college officials would not discuss the tenure decision beyond the statement.)

[...]

Background here.

MARY MAGDALENE is the subject of a long article (dated June 2006) in Smithsonian Magazine. I confess I haven't had time to read all of it, but here it is:

Who Was Mary Magdalene?

From the writing of the New Testament to the filming of The Da Vinci Code, her image has been repeatedly conscripted, contorted and contradicted. But through it all, one question has gone largely unanswered

* By James Carroll
* Smithsonian magazine, June 2006

The whole history of western civilization is epitomized in the cult of Mary Magdalene. For many centuries the most obsessively revered of saints, this woman became the embodiment of Christian devotion, which was defined as repentance. Yet she was only elusively identified in Scripture, and has thus served as a scrim onto which a succession of fantasies has been projected. In one age after another her image was reinvented, from prostitute to sibyl to mystic to celibate nun to passive helpmeet to feminist icon to the matriarch of divinity’s secret dynasty. How the past is remembered, how sexual desire is domesticated, how men and women negotiate their separate impulses; how power inevitably seeks sanctification, how tradition becomes authoritative, how revolutions are co-opted; how fallibility is reckoned with, and how sweet devotion can be made to serve violent domination—all these cultural questions helped shape the story of the woman who befriended Jesus of Nazareth.

[...]

THE UNION OF ARAB ARCHAEOLOGISTS is meeting to discuss a number of archaeological issues, including Jerusalem:

Kuwait keen on active role with Union of Arab Archaeologists

Published Date: November 05, 2007 (Kuwait Times)
CAIRO: Kuwait is keen on playing an active role in archaeological events that bring together experts and enthusiasts in the field in the Arab region, a specialist told KUNA yesterday.

Kuwait University Professor Faysal Al-Kanderi said Kuwait is taking part in the current conference of the Union of Arab Archaeologists which discusses the remains and relics associated with a renowned Ottoman navigator and other figures deemed controversial at one time or another among Arab intelligentsia and culture enthusiasts.

Al-Kanderi said Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and attempts to juadize the holy city feature high on discussion items and the media's blind eye to escalations and violations on the part of Israel are also to be discussed.

[...]

Should be interesting.

DIGITIZING THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS:

International panel discusses digitization of Dead Sea Scrolls
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

An international committee of 10 experts is meeting in Jerusalem this week to discuss the future digitization of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Sunday.

The scrolls, which are the oldest surviving biblical texts, were discovered 60 years ago by a Beduin shepherd in what is regarded as one of the most significant archeological finds of the 20th century.

The four-day meet, which began on Sunday, will deliberate on the best methods and techniques to digitize the scrolls for publication, research and conservation purposes, said Pnina Tur of the state-run archeological body's conservation department.

[...]

Bring it on!

THE POST ON RICHARD BAUCKHAM'S RETIREMENT has been updated with additional photos and commentary.

(Bumped to the top for today.)

THE SITUATION FOR THE MANDEANS (MANDAEANS) IN IRAQ remains very grim:

Religious sect fears extinction in Iraq

By Betsy Hiel
[PITTSBURGH] TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, November 4, 2007

ERBIL, Iraq -- Humam Abdel Jabar sits on a bench in a friend's jewelry shop. Shoulders hunched, head down, he nervously plays with his fingers while recounting a tale of kidnapping and torture that is familiar to many Iraqis.

In April, "four armed men wearing face masks came at 8 o'clock at night and broke down the door of my house," the tall, dark-eyed man with a full moustache wearily recounts.

They shoved him into a car trunk and drove to a nearby house, then blindfolded and bound him.

Jabar stares at the floor. "They beat me and terrorized me. They used a water hose ... punched and pushed me."

He points to scars on his face and shoulders.

"They said, 'You are an infidel, and this is an Islamic state. Either you pay the jiziyah (a tax that Islamic governments once levied on non-Muslims) or it is hallal (religiously sanctioned) to kill you.' "

The kidnappers demanded that the goldsmith pay a $100,000 ransom.

"If you do not give us this, how would you like to be killed -- by shooting or beheading?" they asked him. "We will send your head back to your family in a bag."

Jabar, 42, belongs to the Mandaeans, a tiny religious sect that survived for 2,000 years in Iraq and Iran. Now scattered by Iraq's bloodshed, its leaders fear the sect will disappear.

Not Jews, Christians or Muslims, Mandaeans venerate John the Baptist in rituals revolving around water. Their religious leaders still speak a dialect of Aramaic that is closest to that of the Babylonian Talmud.

"They are one of a variety of groups that appeared around the same time as Christianity ... offering alternative interpretations -- in the case of the Mandaeans, one that scholars have identified as Gnostic," explains Nathaniel Deutsch, a Mandaean expert at Swarthmore College. "The Mandaeans are the one community ... that still survives from this period, and that is extraordinary."

[...]

Background here, here, here, and here.

GOSPEL OF JUDAS WATCH: Articles on two recent books on the Gospel of Judas.

New translation sparks debate

Newly translated Gospel offers twist to old story of betrayal

BY AMY FLOWERS UMBLE (Fredericksburg.com)

Date published: 11/3/2007

BY AMY FLOWERS UMBLE

Judas Iscariot is one of the most infamous traitors.

But was he?

Or was he just an early victim of bad press?

Marvin Meyer, a biblical scholar who translated the recently published Gospel of Judas, thinks it was the latter. Meyer spoke last week at the University of Mary Washington.

[...]

But is it possible Judas didn't betray Jesus but helped him? Instead of being the traitor, could he have been the only disciple to truly understand Jesus' mission?

The Gospel of Judas, a text discovered more than 30 years ago and translated in 2006, suggests that very scenario.

The new look at Judas has been so compelling that the translated Gospel became a best-seller.

Meyer's recent lecture at UMW was well-attended. He travels the world speaking about the Gospel of Judas.

"The response has been just incredible to this text," Meyer said in an interview.

The text has its supporters but some consider it heretical and others are now questioning the translation. Nevertheless, it's opening up discussions, Meyer said.

[...]

As for those questioning the translation, note, for example, this press release:

Rice University professor debunks National Geographic translation of Gospel of Judas

A new book by Rice University professor April DeConick debunks a stunning claim by National Geographic's translation of the Gospel of Judas. According to that translation, Judas was a hero, not a villain, who acted on Jesus' request to betray him. DeConick disagrees.

Before releasing her book "The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says," DeConick was intrigued by the original release of the Coptic Gospel of Judas and as a scholar wanted to read it for herself. While researching and translating it, she discovered that National Geographic's translators had made some serious errors.

"Once I started translating the Gospel of Judas and began to see the types of translation choices that the National Geographic team had made I was startled and concerned," DeConick said. "The text very clearly called Judas a 'demon.'"

[...]

For much more, see DeConick'sThe Forbidden Gospels blog.

BOOK REVIEW:

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2007.10.56
David Goodblatt, Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. 276. ISBN 978-0-521-86202-8. $75.00.

Reviewed by Carol Bakhos, University of California, Los Angeles (cbakhos@humnet.ucla.edu)
Word count: 1887 words

Table of Contents

In Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism, Goodblatt masterfully argues that nationalism can be found in the ancient world, and that the collective identity asserted by the Jews in antiquity fits contemporary definitions of nationalism. The notion that nationalism existed prior to the modern period, however, runs contrary to the widespread view that it is a phenomenon only of the past 200 years. Scholars in the field by and large maintain that it probably originated as a result of efforts made by rulers and statesmen to mobilize their subjects and utilize their loyalty, and thus to strengthen their states in order to keep pace with the exceedingly competitive European environment.

[...]

In sum, Goodblatt's monograph, formidable in its meticulous treatment of cultural artifacts and nuanced arguments, is a weighty contribution not only to the field of ancient Judaism, but also to the study of nationalism. For many who adhere to the notion that nationalism is a distinctly modern ethos, this work furnishes countervailing evidence that commands serious attention. For those of us who are first and foremost engaged in the study of ancient Jewish history, Goodblatt provides a conceptualization of that history, which will serve us well in our exploration of the Jewish past and perhaps, too, in our understanding of the present.

(Both BMCRs via the Agade list.)

BOOK REVIEW:

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2007.10.46
ALSO SEEN: Susan Ackerman, When Heroes Love. The Ambiguity of Eros in the Stories of Gilgamesh and David. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Pp. xviii, 353; ills. 58. ISBN 0-231-13260-3. $47.50.

Reviewed by Jean-Fabrice Nardelli, Université de Provence (jnardellis36@numericable.fr)

If one epithet holds true about the bonding of Gilgamesh with Enkidu in the Gilgamesh and David with Jonathan in Samuel, it is 'ambiguous'. While those students of ancient sexuality and Semitic scholars who consider that it would do violence to the texts to exclude a lustful dimension in the dealings of either couple have never proved their case convincingly enough to make it mainstream, the advocates of the conservative Christian viewpoint, on the other hand, have failed to demonstrate once and for all that these dealings are nothing more than friendly, and possibly homosocial. This is due to the fact that the textual evidence lacks clarity, and affords material for both views.

Rather than trying to elaborate an interpretation and then attempting to explain away as many of the loose ends as possible, A(ckerman) focuses on this fundamental ambiguity of the male-male affect in the primary documents. She envisions this ambiguity as the key to the meaning of the relationships of both Gilgamesh / Enkidu and David / Jonathan. Her interpretive touchstone is the rites-of-passage model, specifically the liminal version, in which crises are 'redressed' by a period of ambiguity, a limbo characterized for the main protagonists with blurred social status and a cycle of exploits and hardships functioning as the steps of an initiation, by the end of which the hero of the narrative comes back into society with a whole new status.

[...]

This is a brilliant book, learned, moderate, sensible, which could have been a tremendous one had not the adherence to liminality loomed so large and had the author contrived to look more closely at what it entailed, between 2000 and 1000 B.C in the Semitic world, for two men of the warrior class to bond. Gender studies still have much light to shed on Semitic homosexuality.

A PROPOSED TUNNEL IN JERUSALEM near the Temple Mount is, unsurprisingly, generating controversy:

New Tunnel Would Connect Old City Muslim and Jewish Quarters

by Hana Levi Julian

(IsraelNN.com) The Western Wall Heritage Foundation has proposed building a tunnel to connect the Western Wall tunnels in Old Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter with the rebuilt Ohel Yitzchak synagogue in the Muslim Quarter. The synagogue was abandoned during the Arab riots in 1936 and later was blown up by the Jordanian army during its conquest of the Jewish Quarter in the 1948 War of Independence.

A group of government agencies is considering the plan to build an underground passage, but Muslim clerics already have condemned it as a trick to enable Jews to destroy the Al Aksa mosque.

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and security services would have to approve the project, which comes less than a year after construction work near the Temple Mount was stopped by rioting Muslims around the world who accused Israel of trying to undermine to foundations of mosques.

The latest accusations by Muslim clerics neglect to mention that the proposed new tunnel would be located more than 100 yards away from the Temple Mount. In addition, construction work on the underground passageway would be minimized by using areas created by existing archaeological excavations beneath the Muslim Quarter.

[...]

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

150 Israeli Citizens File Lawsuit Against Islamic Trust Leaders over Alleged Temple Mount Destruction

samedi 3 novembre 2007

By Jeremy Reynalds (Journal Chretien)

A group of 150 Israeli citizens, which represent a cross section of the Israeli public, have filed a lawsuit against WAQF Islamic trust leaders in Jerusalem. The suit alleges that Islamic officials have engaged in the deliberate destruction of ancient Jewish relics on the Temple Mount.

According to a news release from the Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center (ILC), the indictment was filed in the Jerusalem District Court as a private lawsuit. The private indictment is the first of its kind in Israeli legal history. If convicted, ULC reported the WAQF officials could face years in prison.

[...]

NADIA ABU EL-HAJ has been granted tenure at Barnard College according to the Columbia Spectator.

Abu El-Haj Reportedly Granted Tenure
By Hayley Negrin
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 2, 2007

Controversial Barnard professor Nadia Abu El-Haj has received tenure, according to an e-mail sent by a departmental administrator to the anthropology listserv on Thursday.

“Here is the good news: Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj is now a tenured member of the Barnard and Columbia Anthropology Departments,” academic departmental administrator Xiomara Perez-Betances wrote in the e-mail. The e-mail provided no further information.

Apart from the e-mail, Spectator was unable to confirm Thursday night that tenure had been offered. Abu El-Haj and Barnard College Communications did not return several calls placed last night, and Columbia spokesman Robert Hornsby declined to comment, saying the University does not discuss individual tenure processes.

[...]

Background here. Just keep following the links back.

UPDATE (3 November): The New York Times notes the story briefly.

MORE REPRINTS FROM GORGIAS PRESS:

Book Announcement

Gorgias Press would like to announce the following book:

Web link: http://www.gorgiaspress.com/bookshop/showproduct.aspx?isbn=978-1-59333-866-4

Title: The Descent of Christ in the Odes of Solomon
Subtitle:
Author: William Romaine Newbold
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Series Volume: 51
ISBN: 978-1-59333-866-4
Price: $32
Format: Paperback, 6 x 9, 1 vol(s), iv +44 pp.
Availability: In Print

Book Description

In The Descent of Christ in the Odes of Solomon Professor Newbold explores the implications of the Descent of Christ in the twenty-third Ode in regards to astrology and Gnostic thought. Fittingly the work begins with a review of the author’s conception of Gnostic ideology. Next, Newbold offers a translation of the twenty-third Ode with textual notes and a commentary. Though reliant largely on secondary source evidence for his comparisons of the Odes with Gnostic philosophy, Newbold offers provocative arguments for a correlation between the two. Likewise, a survey of the astronomical dating systems of the age is provided to compensate for the ambiguity surrounding the timing of the astronomical events referred to in the Odes. In the end, this essay supports the thesis of the author’s earlier work, Bardaisan and the Odes of Solomon, that the Odes emerged from a Judaeo-Christian, Mesopotamian setting.

William Romaine Newbold (1865-1926) was a philosopher and an antiquarian. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he returned there as a Lecturer in Latin and was later promoted to Assistant Professor of Philosophy and eventually Dean of the Graduate School and later Adam Seybert Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy. His research included several ambitious archaeological and literary analyses including the presumed discovery of the tombs of St. Paul and St. Peter.

Book Announcement

Gorgias Press would like to announce the following book:

Web link: http://www.gorgiaspress.com/bookshop/showproduct.aspx?isbn=978-1-59333-869-5

Title: Catalogue of All Works Known to Exist in the Armenian Language
Subtitle: Up to the Seventeenth Century
Author: Harrison Gray Otis Dwight
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Series Volume: 54
ISBN: 978-1-59333-869-5
Price: $29
Format: Paperback, 6 x 9, 1 vol(s), iv+49 pp.
Availability: In Print

Book Description

Following an introduction, the Catalogue provides a description of all the works of Armenian provenance known to the author, proceeding chronologically by century. Each entry begins with a summary of the content of the work and a short biography of the author when available. Subsequent European editions or translations of each work are also noted. The work concludes with sections referencing the works of Greek Church Fathers preserved in Armenian and secular literature.

Harrison Gray Otis Dwight (1803-1862) spent thirty years in Constantinople as an American Congregational missionary to the Armenians. He was a graduate of Hamilton College and Andover Theological Seminary. He also wrote such notable works as Christianity Revived in the East, and Christianity in Turkey: A Narrative of the Protestant Reformation in the Armenian Church.

Book Announcement

Gorgias Press would like to announce the following book:

Web link: http://www.gorgiaspress.com/bookshop/showproduct.aspx?isbn=978-1-59333-867-1

Title: A Syriac Valentinian Hymn
Subtitle: An Excerpt from Epiphanius' Panarion
Author: William Romaine Newbold
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Series Volume: 52
ISBN: 978-1-59333-867-1
Price: $32
Format: Paperback, 6 x 9, 1 vol(s), 48 pp.
Availability: In Print

Book Description

Epiphanius, the great fourth century heresiographer, included in his discussion of the Valentinians an excerpt from a Valentinian manuscript, presumably in his possession. At the end of this excerpt is what Epiphanius believes to be a list of the names of Aeons. However, this list proves to be a Syriac poem concerning the works of the Celestial Light and the Celestial Firmament. Newbold provides the Greek and Syriac texts to this poem with his translation as well as textual notes and commentary. This essay provides the reader with insight to the nature of the text and its contributions to understanding Valentinianism, and also the potential causes for Epiphanius’ mistaking the poem for a list.

William Romaine Newbold (1865-1926) was a philosopher and an antiquarian. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, he returned there as a Lecturer in Latin and was later promoted to Assistant Professor of Philosophy and eventually Dean of the Graduate School and later Adam Seybert Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy. His research included several ambitious archaeological and literary analyses including the presumed discovery of the tombs of St. Paul and St. Peter.

Book Announcement

Gorgias Press would like to announce the following book:

Web link: http://www.gorgiaspress.com/bookshop/showproduct.aspx?isbn=978-1-59333-857-2

Title: The Emperor Julian and the Jews
Subtitle:
Author: Michael Adler
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Series Volume: 44
ISBN: 978-1-59333-857-2
Price: $38
Format: Paperback, 6 x 9, 1 vol(s), 67 pp.
Availability: In Print

Book Description

The Roman Emperor Julian is among the most vilified by ancient Christian writers. His interest in restoring the religion of the ancient Greeks and Romans earned him the ascription of “Apostate.” Though he was never in the league of Nero or Diocletian, he is accused of great persecutions against the Christians. However, he is also one of the few Roman emperors who had very favorable connections with the Jews. Thus, in Jewish histories he is not seen as a tyrant or a persecutor but as a benevolent and able leader. This study explores Julian's actions in regards to the Jews with special attention given to his advances toward rebuilding the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. It offers the reader an insight into another aspect of Julian’s reign.

Michael Adler(1868-1944) was an exceptional scholar of Jewish history and the Hebrew language. His publications range from works on grammar to synagogue histories. Several of his works focus on the history of Jews in England.

Book Announcement

Gorgias Press would like to announce the following book:

Web link: http://www.gorgiaspress.com/bookshop/showproduct.aspx?isbn=978-1-59333-964-7

Title: Hieronymi Quaestiones Hebraicae in Libro Geneseos
Subtitle:
Author: Paul de Lagarde
Series: Analecta Gorgiana
Series Volume: 72
ISBN: 978-1-59333-964-7
Price: $37.7
Format: Paperback, 6 x 9, 1 vol(s), viii + 72 pp.
Availability: Forthcoming

Book Description

Written in the scholarly Latin of his day, Lagarde considers in this brief study the questions Jerome raises on the Hebrew of the book of Genesis. In an abridged commentary form, Lagarde follows the questions in the order in which the book of Genesis presents the material. Beginning with the creation, Lagarde skips along to the phrases of Jerome’s text that raise questions and provides his insights about them. Presuming that the reader of the Vulgate will understand the Latin of the original, the comments on the material are likewise written in Latin. In such a brief treatment, naturally the entire book of Genesis cannot be explicated, but a sufficient amount of material is addressed to reward the effort of the exegete who works through Lagarde’s observations. As useful now as when it was initially published, Lagarde’s understanding of the Latin of Genesis is worth the exploration.

Paul Anton de Lagarde (1827-1891) was a biblical scholar and student of ancient languages. Having studied at Berlin, Halle, London, and Paris, he had a wide exposure to international thought. He eventually taught at Göttingen. Despite his participation in the anti-Semitism of his day, he was a gifted student of Semitic languages. His voluminous linguistic works are still recognized for their insights into oriental languages. He made important contributions to the study of Syriac, Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew, and Coptic, as well as Greek and Latin.

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Gorgias Press is interested to hear from scholars who are writing new monographs, text books, or reference works on the various subject areas that Gorgias Press publishes in. Gorgias Press also publishes revised doctoral dissertations in monograph form. To discuss a project proposal, write to submissions@gorgiaspress.com.

From a number of messages on the Hugoye list.

MY COLLEAGUE RICHARD J. BAUCKHAM retires today from his post as Professor of New Testament and Bishop Wardlaw Professor at the University of St. Andrews. For the last four weeks our postgraduate Biblical Studies Seminar has been going through his latest book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, with Richard there to comment and address questions. This has been an unparalleled opportunity for both our postgradates and Richard's colleagues in biblical studies. The last session on his book ended just a few minutes ago, and there is a reception in Richard's honor a few minutes from now. Then his colleagues will be taking him to dinner. I will post photos etc. in due course. Meanwhile, here is my tribute to Richard, to be presented at the reception:

Richard Bauckham received his first degree in History at Clare College, Cambridge University. His Ph.D. dissertation, also produced at Cambridge, was on a sixteenth-century theologian named William Fulke. In the 1970s Richard was a Research Fellow at St. John's College in Cambridge and a Lecturer in Theology at the University of Leeds. From 1977-1992 he was a Lecturer and then a Reader in the History of Christian Thought at Manchester University. During this period his research moved steadily into the area of New Testament studies (with related interest in early Jewish studies and non-canonical early Christian literature), although his commitment to theological studies remained strong, as it does to this day. Richard was appointed as Professor of New Testament Studies in the Divinity School of the University of St. Andrews in July of 1992 and he became Bishop Wardlaw Professor in 2000. During his time here he has also been appointed a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Richard is one of the foremost living New Testament scholars: he has published 17 sole-authored monographs and collections of essays and he has co-written or co-edited numerous other books. He has also published well over 200 articles in journals, books, and reference works. His recent monograph, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony is a groundbreaking contribution to the field. It argues that the content of all four of the canonical Gospels is close to the testimony of eyewitnesses; the Gospel of Mark is based on the testimony of Peter; and the Gospel of John was written by the "Beloved Disciple." The book issues a weighty challenge to the whole area of New Testament form criticism and is already having a major impact on the field. It has been called "a characteristic tour de force" by N. T. Wright, "a pioneering work" by Martin Hengel, and (my favorite) a "blockbuster" by Jimmy Dunn. Richard has supervised more than 20 doctoral students to completion during his time here, and has contributed to the supervision of many others. He has also been active throughout his time here in contributing to and encouraging dialogue and cooperation between biblical scholars and theologians. And, to top it off, he is the author of the children's book The MacBears of Bearloch, and I understand that there may be more to come in the series.

Richard is to move to Cambridge soon after his retirement, but he will continue his association with the School of Divinity, not least as one of the principal investigators for the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project. We hope to see him here often in the years to come.

UPDATE (1 November): Here's a report on the evening from the Greek Geek. The sliver of body to the right in the first picture is me. I'll post a report too when I get a chance.

UPDATE (4 November): Fewer of my photos came out than I'd hoped, but here are some for now. I'll try to gather up some more.


Richard's last (for now) Biblical Studies Seminar at St. Mary's College. We were discussing chapters 14-18 of his book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.


Richard and Professor Emeritus Robin Wilson at the reception for Richard after the seminar. Professor Wilson was last seen on PaleoJudaica in pictures from his 90th birthday party, in February of 2006. At Richard's reception last week, Robin told me that the day after the party he got an e-mail from a friend in New York who already knew all about the event thanks to PaleoJudaica.


Professor Wilson with Dr. Robin Salters (also retired from and currently an Honorary Reader in the School of Divinity).


Another photo of Richard with Mariam.

IN THE MAIL:

Dirk Jongkind, Scribal Habits of Codex Sinaiticus (Texts and Studies, Third Series, 5; Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2007)

My review copy for the SOTS Book List.

SOMETHING FOR HALLOWEEN:

Annual festival toasts the best of Jewish cinema

Darren Levin (Australian Jewish News)

GARY Lucas, an acclaimed New York-based guitarist who has performed with the likes of Nick Cave, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, will open the 2007 Festival of Jewish Cinema in Melbourne and Sydney next month.

Lucas, who co-wrote two tracks on Jeff Buckley’s Grace (the title track and Mojo Pin), will perform an original live score for a screening of the 1920s silent film The Golem.

A German expressionist classic, the film recounts an ancient Jewish legend about a 16th-century rabbi who made a man out of clay to save his community.

Often referred to as the precursor to Frankenstein, the film was shot by Karl Freund, who worked on Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and FW Murnau’s The Last Laugh. Lucas has performed The Golem in more than 15 countries.

[...]

For more on The Golem, including a picture, see here.

UPDATE: And then there's "Beware of White Cats!" in which Tyler Williams reflects on Mespotamian omen texts such as:

If a white cat is seen in a man’s house — (for) that land hardship will seize it.
If a black cat is seen in a man’s house — that land will experience good fortune.

My take: if any kind of cat is in your house, you'll experience good fortune.

AN IMPORTANT EGYPTOLOGY LIBRARY has been acquired by Stanford University:

Stanford acquires a ‘world-class’ Egyptology library

BY CYNTHIA HAVEN (Stanford Report)

Joe Manning, associate professor of classics, with several volumes from the Erichsen library, which documents more than 1,500 years of Egyptian history, from approximately 650 B.C. to about 1000 A.D.

Stanford has acquired the library of one of the foremost Egyptologists of the 20th century.

The collection of Wolja Erichsen (1890-1966), now at Stanford's Green Library, documents more than 1,500 years of Egyptian history, ranging from about 650 B.C. to about A.D. 1000. It includes Egypt's important transition from paganism to Christianity.

"The Erichsen library is one of the most significant and perhaps the last great Egyptology library in private hands," said Joe Manning, associate professor of classics. "It is difficult to overestimate the importance of acquiring this collection. Stanford's acquisition adds great momentum to our research and strengthens our profile as one of the very best places in the world to study ancient Mediterranean civilizations."

Manning, speaking at an Oct. 15 reception to celebrate the acquisition, emphasized that this contribution from the "heroic age" of Egyptology, which peaked between 1880 and 1920 and was centered in Berlin, is "a huge deal."

[...]

Erichsen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, was a specialist in demotic Egyptian, the script and language of Egypt from 650 B.C. to A.D. 200, and Coptic, the last stage of the ancient Egyptian language that has particular importance for the study of early Christianity, especially since Egypt was the location of the earliest organized church.

"The breadth of text editions and studies of demotic and Coptic text editions represented in this library is unmatched," Manning said. Many of the volumes are extremely rare text editions published in Germany before 1940. These editions often have large folio photographic plate volumes. "They are often better than working with digital photos, and simpler and easier to use," Manning added. "They are the next best thing to being there."

In many cases, they provide high-quality 16-by-20-inch photographs of texts that no longer exist because the original papyri were lost or destroyed during World War II.

[...]

ARAMAIC WATCH -- new at Etana Abzu, a free PDF digital facsimile of:

Aramaic Ritual Texts from Persepolis

Bowman, Raymond A.
Summary: The volume contains Raymond Bowman's edition of the Aramaic texts from Persepolis, unearthed during the expedition by the University of Chicago under Erich F. Schmidt between 1936 and 1938. Bowman has assembled important data on the chronology of Persepolis during the first half of the fifth century b.c. from the personal names and official titles listed in the Aramaic texts. He shows acumen in attacking certain textual problems, and his commentary and introduction provide the scholar with information necessary for a proper understanding of this corpus of some two hundred brief, formulaic inscriptions written on various stone implements - mortars and pestles, plates and trays - found in the treasury at Persepolis. [From an article by Baruch A. Levine in the Journal of the American Oriental Society 92 (1972) 70-79]
Publication Year: 1970
Type of Material: Book
Publisher: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
Place of Publication: Chicago
Notes: Pp. xiii + 194, 2 figures, 36 plates, 1 table
Subject: Iran
Persepolis
Aramaic
Achaemenid
Online access: http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/pubs/catalog/oip/oip91.html
ISBN: 0-226-62194-4

Chuck Jones e-mails about the collection of which this is a part:

Two additional groups of digital facsimilies of important publications in Archaeology and Assyriology have appeared in recent days and are now indexed in Abzu. The first is another batch of ETANA Core Texts made available as part of a USAID grant to assist Iraqi universities to rebuild their archaeology programs and collections. Prof. Elizabeth Stone was the Principal Investigator for this grant, administered at Stony Brook University in New York State. (See also the SBL Forum entry at: http://www.sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleId=537). They are served to the public free of charge courtesy of ETANA. The second is a set of fifteen additional titles in the Oriental Institute's Electronic Publications Initiative.

You can access all of them via the "View items recently added to ABZU" link at: http://www.etana.org/abzu/

SBL SESSION ON JAMES BARR: This just in from the SOTS list:

I have been asked to circulate the following announcement: SOTS members attending SBL in San Diego may be interested to learn of the following session in honour of James Barr, which is not in the printed programme book.


Deborah Rooke
Membership Secretary

********************************************************************
Monday, November 19, 2007, 1:00-3:30 -- Session honoring James Barr
Manchester A -- GH (GH=Grand Hyatt)

Samuel E. Balentine, Presiding

Panelists:
Douglas Knight
Archie Lee
Mervyn Richardson
Joe Blenkinsopp
William Abraham




**********************************************************************

LEE I. LEVINE is interviewed about the early history of the synagogue in Reform Judaism Magazine:

In Search of the Synagogue Part II: The Temple Destroyed; The Synagogue Takes a Turn [70c.e.–4th century]

To understand the evolution of the synagogue in Roman-occupied Palestine, we interviewed Lee I. Levine, professor of Jewish History and Archaeology at Hebrew University and author of The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years.

THE OPERA SUSANNAH is being produced by the Indiana University Opera Theatre. Here's an interview with the two student who play the title role. Except:

LIVE AT IU: Susannah is based on a story from the Book of Daniel in the Bible. Did you read the biblical version in preparation for your role? If so, please comment on how the Bible version helped shape your interpretation of Susannah for this production.

BETSY USCHKRAT: I did read Susannah's story in the Apocrypha and found the storyline to be very different from the opera's plot.

ELIZABETH ASHANTAVI: The stories have the same premise of a beautiful woman who is wrongly accused, but they end quite differently. In the Book of Daniel, Susannah pleads for God's help as she is being led to her death. God hears her cry and stirs up the holy spirit of the young Daniel, who recognizes the injustice of the situation. He proves her innocence, punishes those that have accused her, and she is restored as a member of the community.

BETSY USCHKRAT: If only the opera's Susannah had a savior like Daniel....

For recent past performances of Susannah see here, here, and here,

RON TAPPY is interviewed in the Pittsburg Post Gazette, mostly about the Tel Zayit Abecedary. Excerpt:

It seems fitting, then, that Dr. Tappy's most famous discovery as a biblical archaeologist is a 38-pound limestone rock inscribed with a 2,900-year-old alphabet.

The stone was found two years ago at Tel Zayit in Israel, a dig about 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem. Using distinctive pottery and carbon dating of the soil levels above it, the stone was firmly traced to the 10th century B.C., the time when the biblical King Solomon was supposed to have lived.

The discovery was described by some experts as the most important find in biblical archaeology in the last 10 years.

One reason for the buzz was that the stone suggests the earliest Hebrew Scriptures could have been written down in that era -- hundreds of years earlier than many scholars had believed.

For Dr. Tappy, the alphabet stone also suggests not only that King Solomon was a real historical figure, but that he did in fact have a growing kingdom at the time, because Tel Zayit sits on the border of Solomon's Judah and the kingdom of Philistia, where the Philistines lived.

In fact, Tel Zayit is quite close to Timnah, the ancient city where the biblical strongman Samson is said to have married a Philistine woman.

While some have suggested the alphabet stone might have been used to train scribes, Dr. Tappy, the G. Albert Shoemaker professor of Bible and archaeology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, favors another theory.

The stone was part of a wall when it was found, he said, and "I do know that within a reasonable period of time after this period, the ancients believed the alphabet itself had power."

Since Tel Zayit probably sat on the edge of Solomon's kingdom, Dr. Tappy said, it's possible the stone was built into the wall of the city as mystical protection against Judah's enemies.

"I think the stone bespeaks an attempt to establish a presence in that part of the region, and if already the ancients were thinking of the alphabet as having magical powers to ward off evil, that may be another good reason to have it down there on the border."

EXCAVATIONS AT HERCULAENUM may recommence as early as next year. There are high hopes for significant further epigraphic discoveries:

Greek 'treasures' expected from Herculaneum

By Malcolm Moore in Herculaneum (The Telegraph)
Last Updated: 2:37am BST 24/10/2007

At one o'clock on the morning of August 25, 79AD, a blast of burning gas and a wave of molten mud engulfed Herculaneum, preserving the only Ancient Roman library that has ever been found.

Now, archaeologists are finally hoping to excavate tens of thousands of scrolls, which may include lost works by Aristotle, Sophocles and Catullus. Excavation work has restarted on the famous Villa dei Papyri after an eight-year gap.

"It is impossible, absolutely impossible, to excavate this villa without finding fantastic things," said Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, the director of the Herculaneum Conservation Project. "We may find the lost scrolls of Aristotle, or we may find something even more exciting that we had not even thought of yet."

Of the 100 plays written by Sophocles, only seven have ever been found. Euripides also wrote 100 plays, the vast majority of which have been lost.

The enormous villa, which lies just outside Herculaneum, belonged to Lucius Calpurnius Piso, Julius Caesar's father-in-law. Around 1,800 scrolls, of middling importance, have been recovered since the villa was found 250 years ago, but archaeologists have only recently discovered two extra floors to the building.

Work on the site halted in 1999 after a previous excavation because of fears about the conservation of the site. Because the site lies four metres below the waterline, it is constantly flooded. In addition, the previous dig unearthed an unexpected complex of buildings that needed urgent restoration.

Meanwhile, the first work on the main site of Herculaneum for almost 30 years could begin as early as next year, with the aim of unearthing a collection of public records that will reveal the daily life of the city.

[...]

Perhaps the good conspiracy David Meadows thought he detected has born fruit. For additional background see here, here, here, and here. For the eruption of Vesuvius see here. And perhaps The Rule of Four deserves mention as well. You'll know why if you've read it. As usual, I will be keeping my ears open for news of Septuagint manuscripts and copies of the works of Philo of Alexandria and Greek Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. (For a wish list of lost books, many of which however were written after this time, see here, here, and here.) The site is probably too early to contain any fragments of the New Testament or other early Christian works; nascent Christianity was too disreputable in 79 CE for such works to be found in the library of a serious philosopher.

(Via Explorator 10.27.)

THE SEPTUAGINT AND THE ANCIENT LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA are mentioned in a Travel piece in the Chicago Tribune, along with the new Library and the Alexandria National Museum. And you can get a glimpse of the Library (the new one!) in the video.

The new old Alexandria
Rolling back the centuries in Egypt's second city

By Stephen Franklin | Tribune staff reporter
October 28, 2007

[...]

I am not talking about the remnants of the ancient city left behind by the Greeks and Romans, the city that young Alexander the Great had envisioned as a great port for his empire and the city of Cleopatra.

Today, much of that Alexandria sleeps on out in the bay, waiting to be rediscovered, or lies buried under the modern city's bustling streets, where 5 million wander daily.

Instead, I am drawn by the nearly 5-year-old Bibliotheca Alexandrina, which was inspired by the ancient library in Alexandria, and which feels as new as anything anywhere. It is an imaginative $200-million high-tech tribute to the library that vanished here more than 1,600 years ago.

The largest library of its time, it was where the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew to Greek, and scholars gathered to study astronomy, physics and anatomy. While its destruction is a mystery buried in time, its disappearance became a symbol of the price societies pay for the loss of their written soul and memory.

A parallel universe

The new library, designed by Norwegian architects, looks from the distance like a silvery sun rising. And because it is located on the edge of the 11-mile-long Corniche, the seaside promenade that curls along much of the waterfront in Alexandria, the visual impact is quite dramatic.

Imagine. The bottom of the building's circular face sits slightly below street level with the building tilting upward to 11 stories at the top.

Inside, you feel as if you have entered a parallel universe, especially if you have been meandering about amid the dust and decay of old Alexandria.

The library is a vast atrium with one wall looking out at the sea and sky. Standing on the street level, you look down at several levels of floors with row after row of desks and people busily glued to computers. For the moment, I am struck by the hope offered by such a building in a country where so many cannot read, and where so few who can actually read books.

More of Alexandria's past

Not far away is another innovative use of the city's past.

The Alexandria National Museum is an elaborate, gleaming white Italian-style, three-story building that was built for a wealthy businessman in the late 1920s, then became an American consulate before it was bought by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture.

Opened about four years ago, the museum sits in an older upscale neighborhood that is greener than most. Its collection runs from pre-historic and pharaonic to Greco-Roman to Coptic and Islamic, and finally to items from Egypt's last royal family.

Wandering through the tasteful and innovatively designed rooms for the first time, I decide that after dozens of trips over 40 years to Egypt as a reporter or meandering tourist, this is my second favorite museum in the country (next to the Coptic Museum in Cairo).

This year while living in Cairo and training Egyptian journalists there, I also came down with a serious case of crypt overload, the result of having visited countless ancient burial sites in Cairo and elsewhere. And so I consider this to be a life-saving antidote to crawling underground in breathlessly hot tombs with a zillion other tourists.

[...]

ARAMAIC WATCH -- A documentary on Syriac in Turkey:

Journey of a letter for tomorrow
Saturday, October 27, 2007

Syriac, one of the three oldest languages in the world, is used only by 1 percent of 15,000 Syriacs in Turkey today and faces extinction. The documentary 'A Letter for Tomorrow' is a novel effort to prevent its dissappearance

ONUR BURÇAK BELLI
ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News

A man on a seemingly impossible mission to save the script of his people from becoming extinct, Gabrial Aktaş, the last Syriac calligrapher in Turkey, is almost 70.

He is no longer capable of spending hours at his desk copying old Fankitos, the handwritten religious books of Syriacs, who are the oldest indigenous settlers of Mesopotamia in eastern Turkey. He started copying the four Fankitos in 2001. It took him 13 months to finish the first one, whereas the second one was finished in 15 months.

Aktaş talks of how he started copying them with a sparkle in his eyes. “When I finished the first Fankito, I looked at it. It was not very good,” he said. “My intention was not to become a calligrapher. I wanted to pass them to the future. But then I thought, ‘why not better my handwriting?' So people will remember there was Gabriel, from the Bakisyan village of Mardin.”

Syriac is one of the three oldest among 6,700 languages currently spoken around the world. Nearly 5,000 of them are expected to disappear by the end of this century. The threat is all too real for Syriac, which is used only by 1 percent of 15,000 Syriacs in Turkey today. However, Syriac has a special place among the thousands of languages that are faced with the threat of extinction. It is one of the few languages that has a written literature. The critical condition of the language is brought to light through a documentary titled “The Light Looks for Its Voice” (Işık Sesini Arıyor) by Hakan Aytekin, a lecturer at Maltepe University's Department of Radio, Television and Cinema.

[...]

This is very laudable, but in the meantime I hope someone is getting a photographic record of those manuscripts. Get that man a digital camera!

By the way, Syriac (or even Aramaic in general) is not one of the three oldest languages in the world. Not even close. It is, though, one of the oldest languages to still have native speakers.

The same story is treated more briefly here.

Hakan Aytekin, an academic at Maltepe University, realized the dangers Syriac has faced when a colleague found a letter in a trashcan. The letter made him realize how little he knew about the language and the culture. Isa Bakır, the owner of the letter, a Syriac, expressed a longing for the place he left years ago and requested that a song be played on the national radio channel.

Gabriel Aktaş, a Syriac clergyman and representative of the oldest Syriac tradition: calligraphy, realized the risk to his language and culture, started copying the old handwritten religious books of Syriacs to pass on to future generations.

The journey of this letter triggered another journey for Aytekin in the language of Syriac. Aytekin wrote a book and shot two documentaries about Syriacs. The last of his documentaries is entitled 'A Letter For Tomorrow.'

A CENTURIES-OLD TORAH SCROLL has been rescued from destruction in Iraq and has ended up in a Baltimore synagogue:

Synagogue unfurls piece of Jewish history
400-year-old Torah, found in Iraq and restored, finds a home in Howard County congregation

By Liz F. Kay | [Baltimore] Sun reporter
October 28, 2007

A 400-year-old Torah, saved from the sands of Iraq, has found its way to a synagogue in western Howard County.

The scroll of Hebrew scripture, containing the first five books of the Bible, was found by U.S. soldiers among the ruins of a synagogue in Mosul, Iraq.

A Jewish expert in Torahs who leads a worldwide effort to rescue scrolls like this got it out of the country and repaired it. Now, that piece of history has landed in Fulton, housed in an ark at Temple Isaiah.

The Reform congregation plans a year of educational events centered on this Torah and the Jews of Arab nations, beginning today with presentations by Rabbi Menachem Youlus, who is a sofer, someone trained in the transcription of Torahs. The year will conclude with a Torah dedication service.

[...]

One of the oldest known copies of the Torah is on exhibit at a Baghdad museum, Youlus said - and more than 360 scrolls are in its basement. Youlus, who lives in Cheswolde, said he has saved five scrolls in Iraq through his Rockville-based Save A Torah Foundation. The organization has rescued 557 Torahs and estimates more than 2,000 remain to be saved in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

The organization says it researches the history of the scrolls before it buys them and returns them to their owners, if possible. In this case, Youlus said, he consulted international lawyers and Iraqi government officials to ensure the parchment was not covered by antiquities laws. As for an item such as this one, which was found in a severely bombed building, "anybody who wants to take it, takes it," he said.

[...]

Youlus said the Torah was found by an American soldier who came under fire in Mosul and ducked down in the ruins of a building. He spotted what he believed were some Hebrew words on the floor and walls.

Later, the soldier returned with friends, who confirmed the words were Hebrew. Then two of them discovered the Torah beneath the floor, Youlus said. He believes it had been hidden there.

In June, he said, he called Panoff, who had told Youlus that he was interested in bringing a special Torah to his synagogue. Panoff met with Temple Isaiah's board members, who pledged much of the $20,000 needed for restoration right away, the rabbi said.

Youlus, who declined to elaborate on how he got the Torah out of the country, soon set to work repairing it. He said the scroll, about 180 feet long, was in good condition despite being four centuries old. During a recent visit to Temple Isaiah, Panoff pointed out several patched parts of the gazelle-hide parchment.

[...]

I'm glad the scroll was rescued, but I'm astonished to hear that a four-hundred-year-old parchment does not count as an antiquity and can be taken from the country so easily. Still, I assume the Foundation and the Synagogue have checked over the legal situation thoroughly before making this announcement. I don't know the details of international antiquities laws about such things. Does anyone out there who does want to comment? Drop me a note at my "jrd4 at st-andrews dot ac dot uk" address.

UPDATE (8 November): More here.

PROSBUL is explained in Balashon -- The Hebrew Language Detective. I believe the prosbul is also mentioned in the epigraphic texts from the Judean Desert (not the Dead Sea Scrolls).

WHAT IS IN THE OHIO FRAGMENTS?

UPDATE: More here, here, and here. I missed these first time I looked at April's RSS feed. (The word "fragments" tends to catch my eye.)

TWO JOBS IN HEBREW PHILOLOGY at the Catholic University of America:

Catholic University of America
Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures
Two Full-Time Tenure-Track Positions in Hebrew Philology

The Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures at The Catholic University of America invites applications for two full-time tenure-track positions in Hebrew philology, one senior and one junior. Candidates must be able to teach advanced graduate courses in biblical Hebrew, and have command of one or more of the following: Aramaic, Syriac, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Arabic, Northwest Semitic epigraphy, Comparative Semitics and Coptic. Expertise in linguistics is also desirable. Applicants must be able to contribute to the department’s international reputation for excellence in graduate training and research. Interest and ability in expanding undergraduate education in Near Eastern languages, history, and religion are also welcome.

A letter of application, curriculum vitae, and three letters of recommendation should be sent by November 1, 2007 to Prof. Sidney Griffith, Chair of the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures, 35 Mullen Library, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064. Applicants are invited to submit a representative sample of their scholarship (ca.25 pages) which may be a work-in-progress and/or a chapter of a larger project. Questions may be addressed to Professor Griffith via email: Griffith@cua.edu.

The Catholic University of America was founded in the name of the Catholic Church as a national university and center of research and scholarship. Regardless of their religious affiliation, all faculty are expected to respect and support the University’s mission. CUA is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer, EOE/AA/V/D/M/F.

(Via the Agade list. Note the imminent deadline!)

THE BARNARD TENURE CONTROVERSY continues to attract attention. The New York Jewish Week takes Paula Stern to task for inaccuracies in her online petition to deny tenure to Professor Nadia Abu El-Haj for her (Abu El-Haj's) book, Facts on the Ground:

Flinging Dirt In Archaeology Dispute
Some charges against Barnard professor’s tenure inaccurate; scholars divided.

by Larry Cohler-Esses
Editor-At-Large
The key organizer of a campaign to deny tenure to a Barnard College professor seen by some as virulently anti-Israel acknowledged this week that her petition against the professor may not have quoted the book accurately.

Barnard alumna Paula Stern, who now lives in an Israeli settlement community on the West Bank, acknowledged Tuesday that her petition —signed now by more than 2,500 people — incorrectly quotes from Nadia Abu El-Haj’s book in charging she is grossly ignorant of Jerusalem geography.

Stern also conceded attributing to Abu El-Haj a viewpoint that Abu El-Haj does not voice as her own in her book. The petition does so by taking a quote fragment from a section in which Abu El-Haj describes others as having the opposite viewpoint.

In addition, despite Abu El-Haj’s frequent citation of Hebrew language sources and an acknowledgment on her book’s first page thanking her Hebrew tutor, Stern’s petition asserts, “Abu El Haj does not speak or read Hebrew ... We fail to understand how a scholar can pretend to study the attitudes of a people whose language she does not know.”

The charge may stem from criticism from some scholarly quarters that Abu El-Haj’s book contains mistakes in Hebrew, indicating her skills in the language are inadequate for such complex scholarship. Other experts have defended her Hebrew skills.

“It was written very quickly,” Stern said of her petition, whose signatories include many Barnard and Columbia University alumni. “But there is a clear pattern in her book of attempting to undermine the historical connection of the Jewish people to the land.”

[...]

Stern denied she had taken out of context Abu El-Haj’s quote about political fabrication.

“She denies the ancient history of the Jewish kingdoms in many ways,” Stern said in an email about Abu El-Haj, “as when she says that Jerusalem in the times of Herod was not Jewish.”

The statement in question, in Abu El-Haj’s own voice, reads, “For most of its history, including the Herodian period, Jerusalem was not a Jewish city, but rather one integrated into larger empires and inhabited, primarily, by ‘other’ communities.”

[...]

Stern's petition also lambastes Abu El-Haj for "demonstrations of her ignorance of history and archaeology." It cites her quoting of an unnamed Israeli archaeologist criticizing a dig "in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City" as "one of the worst" in terms of method and preservation. "Somewhere in there are the complexes of the Palaces of Solomon," the archaeologist frets.

Stern notes that Solomon's palaces, if they exist, would be nowhere near the Jewish Quarter. But the archaeologist quoted was not referring to a dig there but to one on the south and southwestern slopes of the Temple Mount - near the City of David.

It is a site that, in fact, later turned up artifacts from what appear to be part of the palace grounds, said Greenberg, the Tel Aviv University archaeologist.

[...]

You can read the Stern petition here. I think it's a fair criticism that elements of it are careless. The sentence "She asserts that "the ancient Israelite kingdoms are a 'pure political fabrication'" is unfortunate. The phrase "pure political fabrication" occurs in a sentence that says that archaeologists do not regard "the modern Jewish/Israeli belief in ancient Israelite origins" to be such. That said, Abu El-Haj's syntax and argumentation are typically convoluted and roundabout in this paragraph and it takes some effort to sort out what she is trying to say. She seems to be implying that although archaeologists do not regard "the modern Jewish/Israeli belief in ancient Israelite origins" as on the same level as "Arab claims of Canaanite or other ancient tribal roots," they really ought to. This is not stated clearly (it's a good example of the argument by innuendo for which I criticized her in my review), but I don't see how else to read it in context. I have commented on the general question of Jewish vs. Palestinian cultural and genetic continuity with ancient Palestine here. Abu El-Haj's phrasing is vague enough that it's hard to be sure what she's trying to compare, but I think the most positive thing I can say is that if she means what she seems to be implying, she's wrong: they are not comparable. But I'm inclined to put the paragraph under Popper's category of being "not even wrong" -- not sufficiently clearly formulated to be evaluated critically. Still, I think Stern should have phrased her criticism more cautiously and carefully.

Blogs that comment substantively on Stern's quote, and which quote the relevant paragraph from Facts on the Ground in full, include Hit & Run (of Reason Magazine -- which is the first place I can find to raise the above criticism of Stern's petition), Greycat (in defense of Stern), and Stern's blog, Paula Says, where she responds.

I doubt that it is accurate to say that Abu El-Haj did not know Hebrew when she wrote the book. But in it she does make elementary errors that someone with a decent knowledge of the language would not have made, which raises the question whether she knew it well enough to pull off the ambitious project she undertakes in the book. Again, Stern should have put her criticism in those terms.

I don't know enough about the geography of Jerusalem (and don't have time right now to look it up) to comment on that issue.

I haven't signed either Stern's petition or the one in support of Abu El-Haj and I don't think tenure decisions should be made by petition. I wish the tenure committee the wisdom of Solomon. They're going to need it.

A BIOGRAPHY OF JEZEBEL:

"Biography" of Jezebel mixes scripture, history and a vivid imagination

"Jezebel: The Untold Story
of the Bible's Harlot Queen"

by Lesley Hazleton

Doubleday, 258 pp., $24.95

With "Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen," Seattle author Lesley Hazleton again proves herself to be a writerly risk-taker. This former journalist — whose last book was titled "Mary: A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother" (Bloomsbury, 2004) — takes on subjects so obscured by time and contradictory religious beliefs as to make traditional biography all but impossible.

Hazleton has found a similar challenge in Jezebel, whose name, she says, is unfairly synonymous with an immoral, promiscuous female. The resulting book is one full of energetic switchbacks between history, imaginings, personal recollections of the Middle East, careful biblical translation and contemporary slang. ("Jezebel was framed, that much is certain.") Enjoyment of the book will rest squarely on the reader's comfort level with such sinuousness.

[...]

A timely release.

JIM VANDERKAM is giving a lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls at California Lutheran University.

THE UCL ARAMAIC INCANTATION BOWLS are the subject of a long article in Science Magazine:

ARCHAEOLOGY:
University Suppresses Report on Provenance of Iraqi Antiquities
Michael Balter

University College London (UCL), one of Britain's premier universities, has become embroiled in a dispute over its handling of a large collection of religious artifacts that may have been part of the illicit trade in archaeological relics from Iraq in recent years. Last year, a committee of experts UCL established to investigate the matter concluded that "on the balance of probabilities," the artifacts were illegally removed from Iraq, and in the past months Iraqi officials have taken steps to recover the relics. Their actions come after UCL agreed this summer to return the collection to its owner, a wealthy retired Norwegian businessman who had sued UCL for their recovery. As part of a settlement of that suit, UCL agreed not to publish the committee's report.

"It is shameful that a university should set up an independent inquiry and then connive with the collector whose antiquities are under scrutiny to suppress the report through the vehicle of an out-of-court settlement," says Colin Renfrew, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, U.K., and a longtime critic of trade in antiquities of questionable provenance. Renfrew was one of three experts appointed by UCL in early 2005 to look into allegations about the provenance of the Aramaic incantation bowls and to propose new antiquities guidelines. Neil Brodie, an archaeologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and former research director of Cambridge's Illicit Antiquities Research Centre--created by Renfrew in 1996--calls suppression of the report "an attack on academic freedom, because the illegal trade in antiquities is a legitimate research subject."

Salah al-Shaikhly, Iraq's ambassador to the United Kingdom, told Science last week that Iraqi authorities have asked British authorities to block the export of the bowls and that the Iraqi government hopes to go to court to recover the bowls "in a matter of weeks." The removal of the artifacts, al-Shaikhly says, is "a great loss to the Iraqi national heritage."

The affair has also caused considerable discomfort within the university's Institute of Archaeology, which has played a leading role in developing strict antiquities rules. "I deeply regret the fact that the panel's report will not be published," says UCL archaeologist Kathryn Tubb, who co-wrote the institute's guidelines. "The results of the deliberations were to have informed future policy for the whole of UCL."

UCL officials have refused to comment on the matter, and Martin Schøyen, the owner of the bowls, declined to be interviewed for this story. But a series of press statements on the Schøyen Collection's Web site (www.schoyencollection.com/news.htm) explains that "any assertion that the bowls in the Schøyen Collection might be looted is incorrect." The Web site notes that the artifacts came from a Jordanian collection "built over many years."

[...]

Worth reading in full. There's also a nice photo of one of the bowls. For background to the story, see here and follow the links back.

I hope everyone involved in this dispute keeps it clear that the paramount concern is the safety and welfare of the bowls.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: The former Mufti of Jerusalem is spouting Jewish-Temple denial.

Western Wall was never part of temple'
By MIKE SEID

The former mufti of Jerusalem, Ikrema Sabri, has made the claim that there never was a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall was really part of a mosque.

"There was never a Jewish temple on Al-Aksa [the mosque compound] and there is no proof that there was ever a temple," he told The Jerusalem Post via a translator. "Because Allah is fair, he would not agree to make Al-Aksa if there were a temple there for others beforehand."

Sabri rejected Judaism's claim to the Western Wall as part of the outer wall of the Second Temple.

"The wall is not part of the Jewish temple. It is just the western wall of the mosque," he said. "There is not a single stone with any relation at all to the history of the Hebrews."

[...]

For similar thoughts from Ikrema Sabri see here and here. It seems that the recent discovery of both Iron Age IIB remains on the Temple Mount -- thanks to the irresponsible digging of the Waqf -- and the quarry where the Temple stones were excavated is bringing the Temple deniers out of the woodwork.

MARTIN GOODMAN'S BOOK, ROME AND JERUSALEM is reviewed by Adam Kirsch in the New York Sun. Excerpt:

Mr. Goodman's analysis of the causes of the Jewish War is necessarily speculative: It is impossible, at such a distance and with such meager evidence, to say exactly why Jews or Romans behaved as they did, or whether things might have turned out differently. But he usefully reminds us of the frightening power of chance in human history. If Eleazar had launched his rebellion a few years earlier or later, if Vitellius had prevailed over Vespasian, the Temple might still be standing today — and the history of the Jews, and the world, would be inconceivably different. It takes a book as magnificently learned as "Rome and Jerusalem" to make such alternative destinies come alive.