RICHARD ELLIOTT FRIEDMAN will be giving a lecture at UNC Greensboro about what life was like in the prelapsarian Garden of Eden:

‘Life Before the Fall’ Focus of Levinson Lecture April 13

By Michelle Hines, University Relations

Contact: (336) 334-5371

Posted 3-10-08

GREENSBORO, NC – Ever wonder about life before Eve gave in to her craving for forbidden fruit?

Biblical scholar Dr. Richard Friedman will discuss “Before the Apple: What Was Life Like Before the Events in Eden?” Sunday, April 13, at UNCG.

Friedman, who is professor emeritus of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California at San Diego, will speak at 7:30 p.m. in the Elliott University Center Auditorium. His presentation will mark the 8th in UNCG’s annual Henry Samuel Levinson Lecture Series.

[...]

I wish I could attend.

THE MOSES-ON-DRUGS THEORY of Professor Benny Shannon gets coverage in the Jerusalem Post:

HU research: Revelation at Sinai was 'mind-blowing'
By DAVID BRINN

"What a long, strange trip it's been" may be known as a catchphrase conjured up by The Grateful Dead to describe their mind-expanding experience with psychedelic drugs in the 1960s. But a Hebrew University professor of psychology claims that it may also be an appropriate title for the journey experienced by Moses and the Israelites when they wandered in the desert for 40 years.
[After such a long dispersion...]

After such a long dispersion around the world, why are the Jews so radically divided? Kevin Galder, Jacksonvilled, Florida.

Writing in the British scholarly journal Time and Mind, Prof. Benny Shanon claims that Moses and the children of Israel were likely under the influence of natural psychedelics found in the Sinai Desert when cataclysmic events like the receiving of the Ten Commandments took place.

He writes that two naturally existing plants in Sinai have the same psychoactive components as one of the most powerful psychedelic substances in existence, the Amazonian brew Ayahuasca.

[...]

I've already commented here. And Deane at the Merkavah Vision blog has an extended critique.

UPDATE: Thaddeus Nelson has a review and critique at the Archeoporn blog. (Via Alun at the Archaeoastronomy blog.)

MARK GOODACRE is interviewed in Inspire Magazine about his work on the BBC'S The Passion. Excerpt:

Mark was asked by producer Nigel Stafford-Clark to draw up a historical background on the story in advance of the production. As Frank Deasy's script took shape and filming began he remained on hand to deliver expert advice when needed.

Mark argues that the drama couldn't be taken literally from the Gospels.

"If you try to stick too strictly to the Gospels you sacrifice drama. So I tried not to be a scholarly nerd. Otherwise you end up with a wooden, literalistic interpretation, not drama," he says.

Instead he directed the production to a wide range of sources, including Josephus, the Jewish historian who lived in the first century AD.

The aspects that Mark was most keen to see presented in a new light were the portrayals of Pilate, Mary Magdalene and, in particular, the High Priest Caiaphas.

REFLECTIONS ON TEACHING GNOSTICISM IV: The Gospel of Thomas has been posted on Apocryphicity by Tony Chartrand-Burke.

SO FAR SO GOOD. The new Indiana Jones trailer is a hit, in no small part thanks to the Intenet:

Trailer for upcoming 'Indiana Jones' film a smash hit with audiences in theaters and online

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Times sure have changed in the 19 years since Harrison Ford last donned the signature fedora of thrill-seeking archaeologist Indiana Jones. The viral spread of the trailer for "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is proof of that.

The trailer for the May 22 release has drawn highly enthusiastic responses in theaters. But it may have had its biggest impact online, on a younger audience that may not think of Ford, 65, as equal to today's spry action heroes.

After premiering Feb. 14 on "Good Morning America," Lucasfilm and Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures sent the trailer to the Web, plus movie theaters and TV stations around the world. Paramount estimates the trailer was seen more than 200 million times worldwide in the first week alone.

Harry Knowles, who runs the movie fan site AintItCool.com (his official title is Head Geek), says he first saw a bootleg version of the trailer online, then the official version online, and then saw it twice in theaters.

There were cheers in the theater when the familiar theme song kicked in, Knowles said, and comments on his Web site have been positive. "People generally really, really loved the trailer," he said.

I've linked to the trailer here.

NUBIAN ANTIQUITIES are at risk in the Sudan, as are modern Nubians:

Nubia at Risk as the Next Sudanese Tragedy

Contact: Loralei Coyle, 202-682-4131, 202-905-6852 cell, lcoyle@TheIRD.org; Radio Interviews: Jeff Walton, jwalton@TheIRD.org; both with The Institute on Religion and Democracy

WASHINGTON, March 6 /Christian Newswire/ -- An ancient civilization that has survived the tumult of history could fall prey to rising floodwaters if the National Islamic Front regime if the Sudan has its way. Construction has been completed on the Chinese-built Merowe dam, scheduled to begin submersion of the region later this year. The newly dammed river will displace hundreds of thousands of Nubians and drown ancient sites, home to unexcavated historical treasures and monuments from the time of the Pharaohs and the ancient Christian and Jewish communities of Kush.

The Nubians have long been oppressed by the Khartoum government, which has banned them from teaching their children in their native language as part of an aggressive Arabization project and now seeks to use the dam as a tool to disperse the ancient community.

[...]

MORE ON TUDOR PARFITT'S ARK OF THE COVENANT, including a picture:

The man who says he has the lost Ark
07/03/2008 (Jewish Chronicle)
By Simon Rocker
In the Bible, it could be seen only by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies. Anyone who lay an unauthorised finger upon it would instantly drop dead. It was the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, where it vapourised its Nazi captors.

Now a British academic believes he has unravelled the mystery behind one of antiquity’s most sought-after objects — the lost Ark of King Solomon’s Temple.

Tudor Parfitt, professor of Hebrew at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, has located an object he believes could be the successor to the original Ark.

[...]

And so on. (Background here.) But I haven't seen this before:

But Professor Parfitt believes that the biblical Ark was not quite what it appears. It was a drum-like object which doubled as a primitive cannon, releasing a kind of early, perhaps saltpetre-based explosive. “The Ark did blast things,” he said. “It was a kind of weapon, it is obvious from the text.”

There is no basis for this in the biblical texts about the Ark. I remain unconvinced.

ANNE RICE has published a new Jesus book. Chapter one is available online.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Settlers dig tunnels around Jerusalem

James Hider in Jerusalem (London Times)

Jewish settler groups are digging an extensive tunnel network under Muslim areas of Jerusalem's Old City while building a ring of settlements around it to bolster their claim to the disputed city in any future peace deal, anti-settlement campaigners have told The Times.

One group, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, said that settler tunnels could one day extend under the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third-holiest site, and claimed that extremists could use the access route to attack the structure in an attempt to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Settler groups flatly deny such allegations.

[...]

Arutz Sheva has more:

New Tunnel Expands Jewish Quarter of Old City

by Ezra HaLevi

(IsraelNN.com) Israel is opening a 25-meter long tunnel that will connect the Western Wall Tunnels with an ancient restored synagogue in the so-called Muslim Quarter, uniting the Old City.

Channel 2 television was brought on an exclusive tour of the new network of tunnels, which was broadcast during Wednesday’s 8 o’clock news. (click here to view the report - in Hebrew)

The tunnel will lead from the Western Wall plaza to the Ohel Yitzchak synagogue, which is being reconstructed and rehabilitated by the Moskowitz Foundation, headed by Land of Israel philanthropist Irving Moskowitz.

[...]

Also, I'm not sure if the following is related to yesterday's story:

Police detain three Arabs over illicit work on Temple Mount
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

Jerusalem police on Wednesday detained two Arab Israeli members of the Islamic Movement for carrying out unauthorized construction work on the Temple Mount, police said.

The two men were taken in for questioning after trying to carry out "surfacing work" in an unauthorized area of the holy site for the second straight day, Jerusalem Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.

A third Arab Israeli suspect was detained for trying to create a disturbance at the site.

[...]

HIGH ON MOUNT SINAI?

Researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai
By Ofri Ilani (Haaretz)

"And all the people perceived the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the voice of the horn, and the mountain smoking." Thus the book of Exodus describes the impressive moment of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.

The "perceiving of the voices" has been interpreted endlessly since these words were first written. When Professor Benny Shanon, professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, reads the verse, he recalls a powerful hallucinatory experience he had when he visited the Amazon and drank a potion made from a plant called ayahuasca.

"One of the things that happens when you drink the potion is a visual experience created via sounds," he says.

Shanon presents a provocative theory in an article published this week in the philosophy journal Time and Mind. The religious ceremonies of the Israelites included the use of psychotropic materials that can found in the Negev and Sinai, he says. "I have no direct proof of this interpretation," and such proof cannot be expected, he says. However, "it seems logical that something was altered in people's consciousness. There are other stories in the Bible that mention the use of plants: for example, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden."

[...]

I have argued elsewhere (see here, here, and here) that Jewish intermediaries in the second temple and rabbinic periods generated visions and spirit encounters for themselves using shamanistic ritual techniques. It's not unlikely that they were doing this at at earlier time as well. That said, I have never found any evidence that they used psychotropic drugs and it is pure speculation to say that they did.

UPDATE (6 March): This from an Israeli chatroom, via the Guardian:

One poster writes: "Maybe it is true - then religion really is the opiate of the people."

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Police stop Islamic work on Temple Mt.
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

Police on Tuesday stopped Wakf Muslim trust officials from performing unauthorized construction work on the Temple Mount.

Officers blocked workers from continuing unauthorized "surfacing word," said Jerusalem police chief Cmdr. Aharon Franco. "It is our duty to ensure that the status quo is maintained on the Temple Mount."

He said Wakf officials had planned to carry out the work as a result of the tensions in east Jerusalem over the recent violence in the Gaza Strip and that the unusual police intervention sparked opposition on the holy site.

[...]

BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL XXVII has been published by Kevin A. Wilson at Blue Cord.

EVA ETZIONI-HALEVY is interviewed in the Albany Herald about her novels on biblical women:

Reviving biblical heroines
Israeli author brings biblical women to the forefront with her fictional novels.
ASHLEY HINDSMAN ashley.hindsman@.at.albanyherald.com

TEL AVIV, Israel — When mystery, romance and suspense book lovers are looking for a page-turner, they usually look for the names they know.

James Patterson. Terry McMillan. Nora Roberts.

But for three-time author Eva Etzioni-Halevy, all of the elements that make for a good read are in the best-selling book of all time — the Bible.

“I was searching for my roots in the Bible and when I read the Bible I found it very fascinating,” Etzioni-Halevy said in a phone interview from her Israel home.

Etzioni-Halevy, a Jewish retired professor emeritus of political sociology at Var-Ilan University in Israel and child Holocaust survivor, said when she decided to trace her heritage in the Bible, she didn’t expect to it to be as entertaining as it was enlightening.

“The people described in the Bible are so similar to us,” she said. “They lived thousands of years ago, yet they’re so similar to us in their desires and hopes. They are not described as angels. They all had strengths and weaknesses, many of which stem from their personality.

“The Bible is a divine book and also a very human book,” she said. “If everyone in the Bible were described as innocent, I would have put it down.”

She said she was especially intrigued by the women of the Bible for their various acts of bravery and leadership, though they are not as spotlighted in the Bible as their male counterparts.

With this in mind, Etzioni-Halevy said she took her rekindled religion and decided to give the heroines of the Bible her own version of the spotlight that she felt they deserved.

“Five years ago I decided to switch over to writing biblical novels,” she said. “This is a completely new chapter of my life which I never dreamed of doing before.”

Her first novel, “The Song of Hannah,” was released in 2005. Then came “The Garden of Ruth” in 2006 and her latest installment, “The Triumph of Deborah,” released late last month.

[...]

IN THE MAIL, from the author:

Ian C. Werrett, Ritual Purity and the Dead Sea Scrolls (STDJ 72; Leiden: Brill, 2007)

This is a revised version of the doctoral thesis Ian wrote under my supervision.

NEWS IS SCARCE about developments around the kidnapping of the Chaldean archbishop in Iraq, but here's what I can come up with.

From an APF article on Saturday:

The Syriac Christian archbishop of Mosul, Baptiste Georges Casmoussa, himself a kidnap victim two years ago, said he had begun negotiating with the kidnappers for his Chaldean counterpart's release.

"We received a telephone call from the kidnappers and have begun negotiations for the release of Monsignor Farraj Rahhu," the Rome-based missionary news agency MISNA reported Casmoussa as saying.

Casmoussa was himself kidnapped in January 2005 and held for a day before being released.

And from an AP article on the recent demise of an al-Qaeda-Iraq leader:

It remains unclear if al-Qaida was responsible for Friday's kidnapping of Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho and the killing of three people who were with him.

[U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory] Smith said that Iraqi and U.S. forces were searching for those who abducted the cleric as he left Mass in the northern city of Mosul. The European Union also appealed for his release and condemned the kidnapping in an announcement.

Background here.

STOLPER'S LAW - important philological principles for the decipherment of Akkadian:

Professor Stolper also has a healthy mythology surrounding him at the Oriental Institute. He is widely credited with the invention of "Stolper's Law," which stipulates that, when translating Akkadian, an unknown adjective is likely to mean "pure," and an unknown verb probably means "destroy."

(From the Matthew Stolper Wikipedia entry, via the Agade list.)

CHALDO-ASSYRIAN WATCH: Bad news from Iraq.

Iraqi Chaldean archbishop seized (BBC)

Gunmen have kidnapped the archbishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and killed three of his aides, his church says.

Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was seized as he left a church in the eastern al-Nour district, it added.

Pope Benedict XVI deplored the kidnapping as a "despicable" crime.

Most of Iraq's estimated 700,000 Christians are Chaldeans - Catholics who are autonomous from Rome but recognise the Pope's authority.

[...

Originally made up of members of the Nestorian Church, the traditional liturgical language of the Chaldean church is Syriac - a descendent of Aramaic, which is thought to have been spoken by Jesus and his disciples.

[...]

Barbaric. We pray for his safe return.

The BBC has more on the Chaldeans in Who are the Chaldean Christians?

A DEAD SEA SCROLLS SYMPOSIUM in Palmyra, NY:

Dead Sea Scrolls myths unfurled
scrolls

GateHouse News Service (Wellsville Daily Reporter)
Fri Feb 29, 2008, 12:50 PM EST

Dead Sea Scrolls scholars, wanting to separate Hollywood movie fiction from fact, are holding a symposium at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Palmyra Stake Center.

“One of the things that most Dead Sea scholars realize is that we have an obligation to get out what the Dead Sea Scrolls really are,” said Dr. Lawrence Schiffman, chairman of New York University’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. “There is so much misinformation out there. When there is an opportunity to educate a lot of people, you have to do that.”

[...]

The original documents are housed in the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. Facsimiles of the scrolls, painstakingly reproduced to look like genuine leather, are currently on display at the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center at 603 Route 21 in Manchester until the end of March.

Joining Schiffman is his long-time friend and colleague Dr. Donald Parry, professor of Hebrew Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls at Brigham Young University. Parry is also a member of the International Team of Translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Both men have spent more than 20 years dedicated to the preservation, translation and research of the scrolls.

The two will be conducting tours of a traveling exhibit of scroll facsimiles at the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center, as well as giving evening lectures on various aspects of the scrolls in the evenings at the Palmyra Stake Center at 2801 Temple Road.

[...]

LUKE THE EVANGELIST'S BODY?

MARK GOODACRE is mixed up with the BBC Jesus movie. Good for him (and them!) and why am I not surprised? He's been blogging on it. for some time and went to the premiere yesterday.

CIVILIZED, OR WHAT? Here I am at a School retreat in a Georgian mansion in the woods in Edzell -- and it has Wifi! We live in an age of wonders.

I'M AWAY THIS WEEKEND and am not likely to have Internet access on Saturday. Look for me again late on Sunday.

THE STORY OF THE LATEST INSCRIBED SEAL FROM JERUSALEM is taken up by the Jerusalem Post and Arutz Sheva.

THE LOST ARK OF THE COVENANT, by Tudor Parfitt, is excerpted by MSNBC. Here's an excerpt of the excerpt:

This was the gist of the document he held in his hand: Muhammad swears in the letter that it was the Jews of Medina and the other oasis towns of Arabia who had always come to his aid in his many battles against the heathen tribes of the desert. The Jews were even ready to desecrate their holy Sabbath to help him. They never left his side. They never betrayed him. During a single bloody campaign, the Jews killed over 20,000 heathen enemies of the Prophet: 7,000 knights, 7,000 regular horsemen, and 7,000 foot soldiers.

“This is what the Prophet actually promised the Jews,” declared Reuven reverently, raising one finger for emphasis. “Not centuries of contempt and persecution!” “Just listen.” He put on a pair of reading glasses, scrutinized the document, and read aloud. “‘O men of the Children of the lost ark of the covenant Israel, by Allah I shall reward you for this … I shall grant you my protection, my covenant, my oath and my witness for as long as I live and as long as my community shall live after me, until they see my face upon the Day of Resurrection.’ “Did you hear that?” he asked, his voice suddenly shrill, thrusting the document in my face and revealing an immaculately laundered cuff. “If the Muslim world knew about this, they would change their attitude to Israel overnight! There’d be no more Arab–Israel wars! No more terrorist attacks!”

Unfortunately, there was more to the letter than met the eye. It was probably quite old, I could see that.

The body of the text was in Arabic and there was a short introduction in Hebrew.

I knew something about Hebrew palaeography—the study of the form of ancient writing—and I could see this was a medieval Hebrew Yemenite script.

This much was genuine. Then I recalled that once in the Yemen I had seen an almost identical document in the home of an antiquarian in Sana’a, the capital of the Yemen. It was called Dhimmat al-Nabi (The Protection of the Prophet) and was an ancient Jewish fabrication, an old forgery, which the Yemenite Jews had created to counter the animosity of their Muslim neighbors. There was no Jewish community in the Muslim world quite as wretched and persecuted as the Jews of the Yemen. They needed all the help they could get. However, this document would not persuade many Muslim scholars to turn their received opinions upside down. It would not change the world. “It’s a shame,” I said, “but it is a forgery. A very old forgery.” A yellow hamseen wind was blowing in from the desert. It was stiflingly hot. Reuven’s face fell when I gave him my assessment of his document, and he grew silent. He just sat there grimacing, rubbing the side of his head where he had been grazed by an Egyptian bullet in the last of his wars.

Background here.

NEW BOOK:

Paul Magdalino, Maria Mavroudi, The Occult Sciences in Byzantium (la pomme d'or, 2008)

This volume represents the first attempt to examine occult sciences as a distinct category of Byzantine intellectual culture. It is concerned with both the reality and the image of the occult sciences in Byzantium, and seeks, above all, to represent them in their social and cultural context as a historical phenomenon.
The eleven essays demonstrate that Byzantium was not marginal to the scientific culture of the Middle Ages, and that the occult sciences were not marginal to the learned culture of the medieval Byzantine world.

Contents:

Paul Magdalino, Maria Mavroudi, Introduction.

Maria Mavroudi, Occult Sciences and Society in Byzantium: Considerations for Future Research.

Katerina Ierodiakonou, The Byzantine Concept of Sympatheia and its Appropriation in Michael Psellos.

Paul Magdalino, Occult Sciences and Imperial Power in Byzantine History and Historiography.

Maria Papathanassiou, Stephanos of Alexandria: a Famous Byzantine Scolar, Alchemist and Astrologer.

Michèle Mertens, Graeco-Egyptian Alchemy in Byzantium.

David Pingree, The Byzantine Translations of Masha’alla’s Works in Interrogational Astrology.

William Adler, Did the Biblical Patriarch Practice Astrology? Michael Glykas and Manuel Komnenos I on Seth and Abraham.

Anne Tihon, Astrological Promenade in Byzantium in the Early Palaiologan Period;

Joshua Holo, Hebrew Astrology in Byzantine Southern Italy.

Charles Burnett, Late Antique and Medieval Latin Translations of Greek Texts on Astrology and Magic.

George Saliba, Revisiting the Astronomical Contacts between the World of Islam and Renaissance Europe: the Byzantine Connection.

A LECTURE ON WOMEN IN THE SYRIAC LITURGY:

Women’s Choirs in Late Antiquity Offered More Than Just Hymns, Scholar Says

Contact: Gina Vergel
(212) 636-7175
gvergel@fordham.edu

Though the voices of biblical women were rarely heard, they were prominent and significant, and used as a vehicle of teaching by the Church in late antique Syriac homilies and hymns, according to a scholar at the Orthodoxy in America lecture at Fordham University on Feb. 26.

"The hymns assigned to the women’s choirs in the middle of the fourth century were explicitly liturgical," Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Ph.D., a professor of religious studies at Brown University. "The church spoke through these women’s choirs."

In a lecture titled, "Women’s Voices Bearing Witness: Biblical Memories in Ancient Orthodox Liturgy," Ashbrook Harvey said Syriac writers, such as Ephrem Syrus, gave women, such as the Virgin Mary and Sarah, a rhetorical voice in the lyrics of Madrashes, stanzaic poems of different meters that dealt with doctrinal matters.

"These voices were often lacking in biblical narratives," Ashbrook Harvey said. "Ephrem’s Mary embraces her social sufferings as a form of power. She was a figure who embodied challenge … and whose voice is a teaching voice."

[...]

ANOTHER INSCRIBED SEAL from the City of David excavation:

Seals dating to the 8th Century BCE found at City of David excavations
27 Feb 2008 (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Finds recovered from the excavations in the City of David reveal an interesting development in the ancient world: whereas during the 9th century BCE letters and goods were dispatched on behalf of their senders without names, by the 8th century BCE the clerks and merchants had already begun to add their names to the seals.

In an excavation the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority and the Elad Association in the City of David, in the National Park around the Old City Walls of Jerusalem, artifacts were found that include, among other things, a complete seal that bears the Hebrew name “Rephaihu (ben) Shalem” and fragments of bullae. The excavation directors are Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

[...]

A CONFERENCE in honor of John Collins is to be held at Amherst College in April:

The Other in Second Temple Judaism: A Conference in Honor of John J. Collins, hosted by Amherst College on April 4th and 5th, 2008. Longtime colleagues and students of Professor Collins will explore a topic that embraces many of the issues and areas within biblical and hellenistic Jewish writings that Professor Collins has illuminated during his long and distinguished career.

(Via the Agade List.)

BRUCE CHILTON'S LATEST BOOK is reviewed in the Los Angeles Times:

'Abraham's Curse' by Bruce Chilton

Violence, a familiar strain in Judaism, Christianity and Islam
By Michael Harris, Special to The Times
February 26, 2008
Is there something uniquely bloodthirsty in the teachings of the Koran that has inspired a generational wave of Muslim suicide bombers and their supporters? These days a lot of people would like to know. Or is a justification for violent martyrdom to be found in any religion that relies on faith rather than reason -- and has claims to be the only true faith? A spate of atheist writers have recently made that argument. Or does the flaw lie not in our creeds but in our genes? Are human beings simply a violent species, compelled to slaughter our children over and over again?

Bruce Chilton, professor of religion at Bard College and rector of an Episcopal church in Barrytown, N.Y., describes in "Abraham's Curse" how the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the murder of a young woman near his church by a deranged disciple of the Afro-Caribbean god Ogun made him ponder these questions with new urgency.

[...]

He focuses on the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac, a key episode for Jews, Christians and Muslims. Abraham obeys God's command to sacrifice his son on Mount Moriah, but at the last moment an angel stops him, saying Abraham has proved his faith and pointing out a more suitable sacrifice: a ram caught in a thicket. The true and original meaning of the story, Chilton insists, is that human sacrifice is not God's wish, but he shows how all three religions, in times of persecution, have twisted this meaning 180 degrees to glorify martyrdom.

[...]

THE BBC is trying its hand at a Jesus movie.

BOOK REVIEW:

April D. DeConick, The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says (New York: Continuum, 2007). pp. xxi + 202. ISBN-10 HB: 0-8264-9964-3; ISBN-13: HB: 978-0-8264-9964-6. $19.95.

In the spring of 2006 there was a great deal of media attention devoted to the publication by a team of specialists assembled by the National Geographic Society of a transcription and translation of the Coptic Gospel of Judas, a second-century apocryphal Gospel known to Irenaeus but lost until the present. More exciting still, the translation indicated that the Judas of the Gospel of Judas was not only good rather than evil, he was in fact the only disciple who understood the message of Jesus and it was at the behest of Jesus that Judas betrayed him in order to defeat the powers of darkness.

PaleoJudaica noted the existence of the Gospel of Judas and its impending publication in Jully of 2004, long before it came to the attention of the mainstream media. Then in early October of 2006, PaleoJudaica again broke the story that there was specialist doubt that the Gospel of Judas actually presented a good Judas rather than an evil one. So I am glad to have this opportunity to review one of the recent books on this controversy and I am grateful to Continuum for providing a copy for review on PaleoJudaica.

The Preface to the book under review explains how DeConick began to doubt the interpretation of the Gospel of Judas published by the National Geographic team and how, as it became clear to her that other specialists in Gnosticism and Coptic shared her doubts, she reluctantly found herself led to write this book.

Part One: An Unfamiliar Story
Chapter one, "The Silenced Voice," begins by laying out a few of DeConick's doubts about the National Geographic interpretation of the Gospel of Judas. Then it presents brief, user-friendly summaries of most of the various movements in the early church through the second century, including the Apostolic Church (the "proto-orthodox" movement ancestral, but not yet identical to what would later become "mainstream" Christianity); the Marcionite Church (which rejected the Old Testament and elements of the New as spurious); the Ebionite Church (a Jewish-Christian movement); the Church of New Prophecy (the Montanist movement, a charismatic reform movement that predicted that the second coming of Christ would happen the year 172 CE); and the Gnostics (the Valentinian, Basilidean, and Sethian movements that disagreed much among themselves but agreed that salvation came through esoteric "gnosis" or knowledge).

Chapter two, "A Gnostic Catechism," gives a user-friendly summary of the oldest Gnostic movement, the Sethians: their Platonic cosmology; the transformation of the biblical Angel of YHWH into the Platonic Demiurge or secondary creator god Yaldabaoth; the myth of the creation of this creator god by Sophia (the personified Wisdom of the True God) and the creator god's fall and creation of the material universe; and the theology of the redemption of the human divine spark through the defeat of Yaldabaoth by means of the death of Jesus, which released his divine and redemptive spirit and opened a route for the souls of the Gnostics to ascend out of the material realm.

Part Two: Translation Matters
Chapter three, "A Mistaken Gospel," presents a compendium of what DeConick regards as incorrect translations in the National Geographic translation of the Gospel of Judas, this embedded in a highly autobiographical account of her reactions as she discovered them.

Chapter four discusses the discovery of the manuscript (the tomb where the manuscript was found, the other contents of the Tchacos Codex, and the three other books found with the Tchacos Codex in a limestone box) and then presents a complete English translation of what remains of the 58 pages of the Coptic Gospel of Judas.

Part Three: Good Old Judas?
Chapter five, "Judas the Confessor," argues that the Gospel of Judas plays upon a reasonable, literal reading of the canonical Gospel of Mark, which reading presents the disciples of Jesus as faithless, hard-hearted, and repeatedly unable to get the point, and holds that it is the demons who understand the truth about Jesus. (In DeConick's view, Mark presents a polemic by the Jesus movement associated with the Apostle Paul against the Jesus movement associated with Jerusalem.) So Judas is a demon, not a Gnostic.

Chapter six, "Judas the Demon" presents DeConick's understanding of Judas in the Gospel of Judas. In order to grieve him, Jesus reveals to Judas that it is his destiny to rule over the thirteenth aeon (realm of the demonic ruler-angels or Archons), replacing or merging with Yaldabaoth; and over the twelve apostles, who double as the twelve aeons; and over the apostolic church. Nevertheless, all of these shall curse Judas. Since Gnostic baptism can save a person from that person's fate or destiny, it appears that Judas is understood never to have undergone Gnostic baptism.

Chapter seven, "Judas the Sacrificer," continues the exposition of the theology of the Gospel of Judas. In the Sethian drama and in the Gospel of Judas, Judas is a demonic figure who sacrifices Jesus, but thereby accidentally releases his spirit, which then defeats the Archons. This story is a critique of the weak point in the canonical Passion narratives, that the sacrifice of Jesus came about through Judas, who was explicitly demon possessed. The conclusion drawn by the Sethians is that Judas sacrificed Jesus to Yaldabaoth, which could hardly support the doctrine that the death of Jesus atoned for the sins of humanity. This new spin was of concern to proto-orthodox Christians and led the Church Father Origen to conclude that it was God who used Satan to possess Judas and bring about Jesus' death, but that Satan was outwitted by his resurrection, a position that preserved the theological viability of Jesus' atoning death. Despite their great theological differences, Origen and the Sethians would have agreed that the death of Jesus brought about victory over the dark powers.

Chapter eight, "An Ancient Gnostic Parody," briefly summarizes the narrative of the Gospel of Judas and then argues that this Gospel had a surprisingly modern message about questioning authority and thinking for oneself. It is profound that Origen and the Sethians both concluded that Jesus' spirit overcame death and by that victory defeated the Devil.

The Epilogue traces the evolution of Judas in Jesus movies and shows how from the 1960s to the 1980s the formerly evil figure of Judas became much more sympathetic. DeConick suggested that a similar impulse may have influenced the National Geographic team while they deciphered the Gospel of Judas. But ultimately the Judas of the Gospel of Judas is much more like the Judas of Dante than the Judas of The Last Temptation of Christ or the Judas of the National Geographic translation.

The book concludes with Appendices on: Further Reading; A Synopsis of Sethian Gnostic Literature; Testimony from the Church Fathers on the Gospel of Judas; and a Q&A with April DeConick on her interpretation of the Gospel of Judas.

This is a very useful introductory work on the Coptic Gospel of Judas. It vigorously advances the author's own views, but always puts them in the context of the scholarly debate so that the views of her opponents are clear as well. Some may find the highly autobiographical style a little irritating, but it must be kept in mind that this is a popular book, not a specialist monograph. The book offers clear explanations of the reasons for rejecting the view that the Gospel of Judas presented a Judas who was good, including detailed and commendably jargon-free discussions of the problematical passages and the philological issues, and these discussions require no knowledge of Coptic.

The debate about the meaning of the Gospel of Judas has naturally continued after the book was published (see the response of Marvin Meyer, member the National Geographic editorial team, here and DeConick's replies, beginning with this post, followed directly by seven more). Sethian Gnosticism and Coptic philology are not my areas of specialty, so I must decline to pronounce in favor of either DeConick or her opponents. But I can say that this book is an excellent entry into the Gospel of Judas for the nonspecialist, be it a scholar in a cognate discipline or an interested layperson.

MORE REFLECTIONS ON TEACHING GNOSTICISM from Tony Chartrand-Burke:

Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism II: The Gospel of Judas

Reflections on Gnosticism III: Valentinianism

Background here.

SYRIAC WATCH: A Symposium on Jacob of Sarug and His Times: Studies in Sixth Century Syriac Christianity is to be held at St. Mark's Cathedral in Teaneck, NJ on October 24-26, 2008. Follow the link for details and registration information.

THE ZIMBABWE "ARK OF THE COVENANT" gets coverage in the Daily Mail in an article that really plays up the Raiders of the Lost Ark angle:

The real Indiana Jones: Intrepid British don Tudor Parfitt's mission to find the Lord Ark
By ZOE BRENNAN - More by this author » Last updated at 19:14pm on 22nd February 2008

As he entered the sacred cave, a deafening roar filled the air. It was the dead of night in deepest Zimbabwe. The lone explorer reached for his gun, the beam of his torch wavering as he battled his nerves.

This was Dumghe mountain, the spiritual home of the mighty Lemba people. In this cave lay the secrets of their ancestors. A real-life Indiana Jones was determined to reach into its closely-guarded depths.

The renowned Welsh academic Tudor Parfitt had been told of a previous hapless researcher who had wandered too far down forbidden paths leading to this den of treasures. He had been brutally circumcised by the tribe. Village elders spoke of two-headed snakes which resided in the cave.

Tonight was Parfitt's opportunity to put ancient questions to rest once and for all.

He had left the Lemba drinking chibuku - home-brewed maize beer the consistency of porridge - at their chief's hut, their naked women ululating and dancing to encourage the gods to bring rain.

Later, they would collapse into an alcohol-induced slumber, leaving the cave momentarily unguarded. The treasures they hid were reputedly no ordinary tribal spoils of gold and riches. Legend had it that deep within the mountain lay the Ark of the Lost Covenant - the subject of the Steven Spielberg film Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

While conducting his research, Parfitt had found that the Lemba's stories told of a 'ngoma' - a wooden drum used to store sacred objects, which they claimed to have carried on poles from their homeland in Israel, where it had resided in "the great temple in Jerusalem". It had guided them on their long trek from Israel to Africa and was too sacred to be touched by their bare hands.

[...]

Background and comments here.

THE ENOCH SEMINAR has a new website. Cool.

EGYPTIAN BLOGGER Abdolkarim Nabil Seliman (Karim Amer) is (surprise, surprise) not being treated well in that Egyptian prison:

One year in prison for Egyptian blogger

2008-02-22 13:21:34

Amnesty International Press release
22 February 2008

One year ago, Egyptian blogger Karim Amer was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for the "crime" of publishing on the internet material critical of Islam and President Mubarak.

The then 23-year-old former al-Azhar University student was sentenced on 22 February 2007 and the Court of Appeal confirmed the sentence on 12 March of the same year. Amnesty International described the sentence as yet another slap in the face of freedom of expression in Egypt.

Amnesty International considers Karim Amer to be a prisoner of conscience, imprisoned on account of the peaceful expression of his views. The organisation condemned the four-year sentence he received and calls for his immediate and unconditional release.

Karim Amer, who is serving his prison sentence in Borg Al-Arab Prison, Alexandria, wrote in his letters to one of his legal counsels that he was beaten on 24 October 2007.

Karim Amer said he was punched and kicked by a prisoner and a prison guard under the supervision of a prison investigations officer. One of his teeth was broken and he was badly bruised. He was then taken to a disciplinary cell, hand-cuffed and his legs tied up and beaten again by the same two individuals on the orders of the prison investigations officer.

Karim Amer wrote that he was examined by the prison’s doctor, but there was no mention of his broken tooth in the medical report. He also said that he was not allowed to file a complaint about what happened.

After he was beaten, he was put in solitary confinement in a disciplinary cell until 2 November 2007. During this period, he was given only one meal and one bottle of water a day and not allowed to send letters. He was finally moved back to the prison section where he was initially detained on 7 November 2007 and held in an individual cell.

Amnesty International has also called for an investigation of Karim Amer’s ill-treatment in prison and for appropriate measures to be taken to ensure his safety and security.

Amnesty International has urged the Egyptian authorities to review or abolish all legislation that, in violation of international standards, stipulates prison sentences for the mere exercise of the rights of freedom of expression, thought, conscience and religion.

Karim Amer was first detained by the Egyptian authorities for twelve days in October 2005 because of his writings on his blog (karam903.blogspot.com) about Islam and the sectarian riots that took place in the same month in Alexandria's Moharram Bek district. These riots followed reports that the video of a play believed to be anti-Islamic was being screened in a Coptic church in the district.

In March 2006, disciplinary measures were taken against him by al-Azhar University and he was dismissed. The university's disciplinary board found him guilty of blaspheming Islam.

He was rearrested in Alexandria on 7 November 2006 following a complaint made against him by al-Azhar University. He remained in detention since then until his sentencing, following a series of extensions.

I'll say it again: barbaric.

BIBLICAL ULPAN:

The language of Moses
By DAVID SMITH [Jerusalem Post]

At first glance the ulpan at Kibbutz Tzova, about 20 minutes west of Jerusalem, may seem no different than any other. But within a couple of minutes of listening to the exchange between students and teachers, it becomes clear that there is something fishy about the Hebrew spoken here.

Welcome to the Biblical Ulpan, a framework that allows students to study biblical Hebrew in its original context. In place of the conventional grammar-driven approach to Hebrew study that often includes memorizing elusive rules and arcane verb charts, biblical Hebrew is the medium through which the language is taught here to Christian and Jewish students.

"Studying a text needs the 'code' [the language] and the culture, history and geography in order to be most fully understood," explains Randall Buth, who founded the ulpan 10 years ago.

[...]

Buth says some of the students try to speak biblical Hebrew in the street or in restaurants, evoking a smile or puzzled look from Israelis, though they are usually understood.

This would be something like coming up to someone in New York or London and speaking to them in Shakespearean English.

Often, he reports, Israelis affirm the effort. "At archeological sites it frequently happens that Israelis will walk by, hearing us read a biblical passage, explaining the passage and the geography in simple biblical Hebrew. Sometimes they are curious enough to stop and ask the teacher what they have just heard. They have never heard anything like it and are impressed to see foreigners take the time and discipline to delve into the ancient texts like this."

[...]

This is the first time I've heard of this program, but it sounds like a good concept. One quibble about the headline (for which, obviously, Randy is not responsible): the language being taught is hardly that of Moses, which would be more like Ugaritic. Biblical Hebrew is the upper-class Jerusalem dialect of the Hebrew of the late First-Temple and early postexilic periods, but overlaid with an early medieval pronuciation in the vowel-pointing of the Masoretes.

THE GOLEM TO BE SHOWN AT BROOKLYN COLLEGE:

Brooklyn College To Feature Classic Silent Film ‘Golem’
by Brooklyn Eagle (edit@brooklyneagle.net), published online 02-22-2008


BROOKLYN COLLEGE — Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College concludes its 2007-08 Arts in the Afternoon series with a screening of “The Golem” on Sunday, March 9 at 2 p.m. The film will be accompanied by a world premiere score, commissioned by Brooklyn Center as part of its newly launched New Work/New York initiative, which supports multidisciplinary artists in the creation of works that receive their New York and/or world premiere at Brooklyn Center.

Recognized by many as the source of the Frankenstein story, Paul Wegener’s 1920 landmark silent film “The Golem” draws from ancient Hebrew legend to tell the story of Jewish inhabitants in an Eastern European ghetto. Faced with persecution, the community’s rabbi forms a giant golem out of clay to serve as protectorate. Tom Nazziola’s original score for the film breathes new life into this classic piece of German cinematic expressionism. The afternoon will also feature a post-performance discussion with Nazziola.

[...]

For more on the film, see here.

UPDATE (24 February): Iyov notes another upcoming showing of the film, and also notes that it can be bought on Amazon.

THE ARK OF THE COVENANT (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) in Zimbabwe?

A Lead on the Ark of the Covenant
Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008 By DAVID VAN BIEMA [Time Magazine]

When last we saw the lost Ark of the Covenant in action, it had been dug up by Indiana Jones in Egypt and ark-napped by Nazis, whom the Ark proceeded to incinerate amidst a tempest of terrifying apparitions. But according to Tudor Parfitt, a real life scholar-adventurer, Raiders of the Lost Ark had it wrong, and the Ark is actually nowhere near Egypt. In fact, Parfitt claims he has traced it (or a replacement container for the original Ark), to a dusty bottom shelf in a museum in Harare, Zimbabwe.

[...]

Parfitt, 63, is a professor at the University of London's prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies. His new book, The Lost Ark of the Covenant: Solving the 2,500 Year Mystery of the Fabled Biblical Ark (HarperOne) along with a History Channel special scheduled for March 2 would appear to risk a fine academic reputation on what might be called a shaggy Ark story. But the professor has been right before, and his Ark fixation stems from his greatest coup. In the 1980s Parfitt lived with a Southern African clan called the Lemba, who claimed to be a lost tribe of Israel. Colleagues laughed at him for backing the claim; in 1999, a genetic marker specific to descendents of Judaism's Temple priests (cohens) was found to appear as frequently among the Lemba's priestly cast as in Jews named Cohen. The Lemba — and Parfitt — made global news.

Parfitt started wondering about another aspect of the Lemba's now-credible oral history: a drumlike object called the ngoma lungundu. The ngoma, according to the Lemba, was near-divine, used to store ritual objects, and borne on poles inserted into rings. It was too holy to touch the ground or to be touched by non-priests, and it emitted a "Fire of God" that killed enemies and, occasionally, Lemba. A Lemba elder told Parfitt, "[It] came from the temple in Jerusalem. We carried it down here through Africa."

[...]

Parfitt's final hunt for the ngoma, which dropped from sight in the 1940s, landed him in sometimes-hostile territory ("Bullets shattered the rear screen," of his car, he writes). Ark leads had guided him to Egypt, Ethiopia and even New Guinea, until one day last fall his clues led him to a storeroom of the Harare Museum of Human Science in Zimbabwe. There, amidst nesting mice, was an old drum with an uncharacteristic burnt-black bottom hole ("As if it had been used like a cannon," Parfitt notes), the remains of carrying rings on its corners; and a raised relief of crossed reeds that Parfitt thinks reflects an Old Testament detail. "I felt a shiver go down my spine," he writes.

Parfitt thinks that whatever the supernatural character of Ark, it was, like the ngoma, a combination of reliquary, drum and primitive weapon, fueled with a somewhat unpredictable proto-gunpowder. That would explain the unintentional conflagrations. The drum element is the biggest stretch, since scripture never straightforwardly describes the Ark that way. He bases his supposition on the Ark's frequent association with trumpets, and on aspects of a Bible passage where King David dances in its presence. Parfitt admits that such a multipurpose object would be "very bizarre" in either culture, but insists, "that's an argument for a connection between them."

[...]

I think the only connection that is at all likely is that this drum (carbon dated to 1350 CE) was made in the Middle Ages as an object of ritual power vaguely inspired by traditions (the Bible? oral traditions based on the Bible?) about the Ark of the Covenant. There is no evidence at all that the Ark of the Covenant was a drum and its description in the Bible would not allow for it being one.

Still, I suppose I should read his book, since the lost Temple treasures figure a good bit in my research right now. And I may have more news for you on that soon.

UPDATE: I noted the original story about the Lemba and their Cohen DNA here back in September of 2003.

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW has put the full text of it's current issue (March/April 2008) online. TOC:

Fit for a Queen: Jezebel's Royal Seal
Does the seal belong to the notorious wicked Phoenician queen Jezebel?
By Marjo C.A. Korpel

Emmaus: Where Christ Appeared
Excavators at Emmaus-Nicopolis believe they’ve got the right one
By Hershel Shanks

First Publication: A Newly Discovered House Shrine
A Temple Built for Two
Intriguing evidence suggests Yahweh shared a throne with Asherah
By William G. Dever

Dissecting the Qumran-Essene Hypothesis
Magnifying glass on the Scroll scholars
By Edna Ullmann-Margalit

Departments
First Person
In Defense of Eilat Mazar

Queries & Comments
It Ain’t Easy
Trip of a Lifetime
Schoolyard Bully

Biblical Views
Should Palm Sunday Be Celebrated in the Fall?
By Bruce Chilton

Archaeological Views
Save Endangered Landscapes
By Shimon Gibson

Another View
Why Isn’t King Solomon Just a “Dirty Old Man”?
By James Kugel

Another View
Don’t Be So Quick to be Disappointed, David Ussishkin
By Norma Franklin

Past Perfect
An English Newsgirl in Palestine

ReViews
Neolithic by Susan Foster McCarter
The Neolithic Revolution in the Near East by Alan H. Simmons
Mary Magdalene Understood by Jane Schaberg with Melanie Johnson-Debaufre

WorldWide
Turkey

Strata
Scroll Editor Strugnell Dies
Troubled former editor-in-chief dies at 77

$57 Million for BAR WorldWide

The Bible in the News
Apocrypha Now

By Leonard J. Greenspoon

Exclusive New Photos of Ancient Jerusalem’s Eastern Gate

Call for ASOR Papers
$10,000 prizes offered

Scholars Face Off Over Antiquities
Are unprovenanced artifacts worth studying?

In Their Own Words
Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek
By Mendel Kaplan

What Is It?

Milestones
Dick Steffy (1924–2007)
Larry Toombs (1919–2007)

How Many?

In History

Special Collections
Picturing Jerusalem; Medieval and Renaissance Treasures; and Excavating Egypt

Cartoon Caption Contest

CAN'T MAKE IT UP:

What Bible calls 'Holy ground' can be yours
The ultimate gift! Temple Mount soil beautifully encased
Posted: February 20, 2008
5:06 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee." – Psalms 122:6

JERUSALEM – Have you ever wanted to own a piece of the Holy Land?

Is someone close to you in love with Jerusalem?

Do you enjoy giving unique gifts to those you love?

At the very moment the Israeli government is reportedly considering giving up holy sites and sections of Jerusalem to create a Palestinian state, now you have a chance to hold on to your own piece of the Temple Mount.

For a limited time, genuine Temple Mount soil is being made available exclusively to WND readers as part of a campaign of solidarity with the Mount, which is under threat by Islamists and by Israeli government laws banning Christians and Jews from worshiping at the site or visiting during most hours of the day.

This past summer WND was able to salvage a very small amount of soil from the Temple Mount slated to be disposed by the Waqf, the holy site's Islamic custodians. The soil, which originates near what many consider the holiest place of the Mount itself, was searched for ancient relics since the Waqf numerous times has attempted to dispose of Temple artifacts.

[...]

I'm sure there must be an interesting story behind this "salvage" project.

THE WOMEN'S TORAH COMMENTARY is covered in the Jerusalem Post:

Why a women's Torah commentary?
By ANDREA L. WEISS

The recent debut of The Torah: A Women's Commentary, brings together the scholarship and insights of women from all segments of the Jewish community and from around the world.

For the past two years, in advance of the commentary's publication, I have previewed drafts in congregations across the country. Inevitably, when I conclude my teaching, a male member of the audience raises his hand and asks one of the following questions: "Why should men be interested in a women's Torah commentary?" "Why would you create a commentary that only speaks to half of the community?" "In this day and age, shouldn't we create a work that brings together women and men instead of segregating them?"

[...]

Recently, the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion featured a panel of scholars gathered to celebrate the publication of the women's commentary and to reflect on its significance. One of the panelists was the renowned Jewish feminist theologian Judith Plaskow, the author of the influential 1990 book Standing Again at Sinai, a contributor to the commentary and a member of its editorial board.

Plaskow characterized the publication of the commentary as a "watershed event," perhaps as important as the ordination of the first woman rabbi. When she used the word "watershed," she referred to the figurative meaning of the word: an event or period marking a turning point in a course of actions or state of affairs.

How is the publication of this commentary a turning point? One answer to that question became clear when the panel ended and I spoke to one of our authors, a Bible professor who wrote one of the Central Commentaries in Leviticus.

The professor said she did not fully appreciate the significance of this project until she taught the commentary she wrote to the sisterhood group at her local synagogue. She explained that for the first time, many of the women saw themselves as part of the implicit audience of the Torah. They were no longer bystanders listening in on a conversation aimed at someone else. Instead, they sensed that the Torah was speaking to and about them. They were able to see how the text was relevant to them as contemporary women and how their lives as women were relevant to the interpretation of the biblical text.

On a literal level, a watershed is an area of land that channels all the streams and rainfall to a common outlet. This is, in fact, an ideal metaphor for A Women's Commentary. This volume gathers five forms of exegesis into a single location. It collects the wisdom of several hundred Jewish women - scholars, clergy, poets and other writers - into one place. It assembles the writings of Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Orthodox and secular Jews into a common source.

[...]

A DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION IN SAN FRANCISCO:

Dead Sea Scrolls on display at S.F. museum
Contra Costa Times
Article Launched: 02/19/2008 03:22:06 PM PST

A precisely legible, 42-inch-wide Dead Sea Scroll in Hebrew from the Book of Psalms should be enough to dominate a modest-size gallery at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. But add 6,000-year-old burial containers, ritual objects from the Iron Age, a Byzantine mosaic and Islamic gold jewelry and you truly have a museum exhibit that can be called "5,000 years of treasures."

This collection is merely the first in a series produced in conjunction with the Israel Antiquities Authority, which was involved . The big draw, of course, is the brown parchment fragment of Psalm 119, one of the longest and best preserved of the biblical scrolls discovered in the last half-century in caves along the western side of the Dead Sea. It is from the most famous site, Qumran. Whatever a museum visitor's religious beliefs, it is hypnotic to inspect the precise handwriting that dates from the first century A.D., accompanied by an English translation mounted above.

As curator Renee Dreyfus points out, the lines from Psalm 119 are not in the same order that has become standard in versions of the Old Testament. Another distinction: "The name of God, because it was so sacred, is written in Paleo-Hebrew, an older form of the writing."

The Psalm scroll is carefully displayed under a thick transparent panel, lighted intermittently to protect it from fading. Even so, it will be replaced in May by other scrolls, one from the Book of Genesis and another from the apocryphal Book of Enoch, "which was not included in the Bible, for whatever reason," Dreyfus says.

[...]

THE TYNDALE TECH BLOG has a good post on online resources for Qur'an, Arabic and Islamic theology.

SOME NEW BOOKS FROM PHOENIX PRESS:

Joseph H. Hellerman
JESUS AND THE PEOPLE OF GOD
Reconfiguring Ethnic Identity
Drawing upon his background as a social historian, Hellerman proposes that a clue to the success of the Christian movement lay in Jesus' own conception of the people of God, and in how he reconfigured its identity from that of ethnos to that of family, functioning as a kind of ethnic entrepreneur, breaking down the boundaries of ethnic Judaism. xii + 381 pp. Published October 2007/
Individual Discount Price £27.50 / ¤41.25 / $50.00
List Price £55.00 / ¤82.50 / $110.00
ISBN 978-1-906055-21-9 (hardback)

J. Harold Ellens (ed.)
TEXT AND COMMUNITY
Essays in Memory of Bruce M. Metzger (2 volumes)
These wide-ranging and often innovative volumes honour the multifaceted work of this doyen of New Testament textual critics, formerly Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Princeton Theological Seminary. Volume 1 is Interpretation of the Text for the Community (The Nature of the Bible, and Understanding the Bible: Hermeneutics). Volume 2 is Implementation of the Text in the Community (The Church and the Bible: Pulpit and Parish, and The Academy, Science, Culture, Society, and the Bible. 348 + 244 pp. Published October 2007.
£25.00 / ¤37.50 / $47.50 each
List Price £50.00 / ¤75.00 / $95.00 each
ISBN 978-1-906055-15-8, 978-1-906055-18-9 (hardback)

Calvin J. Roetzel and Robert L. Foster (eds.)
THE IMPARTIAL GOD
Essays in Biblical Studies in Honor of Jouette M. Bassler
Jouette M. Bassler, Professor of New Testament at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, is honoured by the 19 contributions to this Festschrift. Authors are Cousar, Fee, Fiore, Foster, Frolov, Furnish, Heller, Jewett, Elizabeth Johnson, Ila Bovee Kraft, Kraftchick, Mitchell, Nelson, Neyrey, Rensberger, Roetzel, E.P. Sanders, Tyson, Yarbrough. 288 pp. Published November 2007.
Individual Discount Price £27.50 / ¤41.25 / $55.00
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ISBN 978-1-906055-22-6 (hardback)

Anselm C. Hagedorn, Zeba A. Crook and Eric Stewart (eds.)
IN OTHER WORDS
Essays on Social Science Methods and the New Testament in Honor of Jerome H. Neyrey
Jerome H. Neyrey, Professor of New Testament at Notre Dame since 1992, is widely recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to social-scientific criticism of the Gospels and the Epistles. In this Festschrift the contributors (including David Aune, John H. Elliott, Philip Esler, Bruce Malina and John Pilch, Halvor Moxnes, Carolyn Osiek, Gerd Theissen) notably advance the same cause. xii + 263 pp. Published August 2007.
Individual Discount Price £25.00 / ¤37.50 / $47.50
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ISBN 978-1-905048-39-7 (hardback)

Zeba A. Crook and Philip A. Harland (eds.)
IDENTITY AND INTERACTION IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN
Jews, Christians and Others. Essays in Honour of Stephen G. Wilson
The sixteen contributors to this Festschrift include Kim Stratton on curse rhetoric, Adele Reinhartz on Caiaphas, Willi Braun on meals and social formation, Philip Harland on meals and social labelling, Richard Ascough on missionizing associations, John Barclay on Judaean identity in Josephus, John Kloppenborg on the recipients of the Letter of James, Laurence Broadhurst on ancient music, Larry Hurtado on manuscripts and identity, Edith Humphey on naming in the Apocalypse, Michele Murray on the Apostolic Constitutions, Roger Beck on the Late Antique 'Horoscope of Islam', Graydon Snyder on the Ethiopian Jews, Alan Segal on Daniel Boyarin, Robert Morgan on theology vs religious studies, and William Arnal on scholarly identities in the study of Christian Origins. xvi + 292 pp. Published November 2007.
Individual Discount Price £25.00 / ¤37.50 / $50.00
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ISBN 978-1-906055-17-2 (hardback)

Barry D. Smith
WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?
Paul Parts Company with his Jewish Heritage
How can one escape God's wrath and gain eternal life? On this crucial theological question, Paul differs from other members of the Second Temple Jewish community. Contrary to the current consensus, Smith argues that while their soteriology is synergistic, the divine and the human co-operating, Paul knows only of a salvation independent of all human effort. xiv + 285 pp. Published May 2007.
Individual Discount Price £25.00 / ¤37.50 / $45.00
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ISBN 978-1-905048-82-3 (hardback)

Jacqueline C.R. de Roo
WORKS OF THE LAW AT QUMRAN AND IN PAUL
At Qumran, the 'works of the law' are deeds of obedience to God's law, and are ultimately inspired by God. For Paul, on the other hand, they are quintessentially the works of Abraham, the good deeds of a sinful man, and so incapable of making atonement. This closely reasoned study proposes an alternative both to traditional interpretation of Paul and to the 'New Perspective on Paul'. xiv + 280 pp. Published March 2007.
Individual Discount Price £30.00 / ¤45.00 / $47.50
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ISBN 978-1-905048-30-4 (hardback)

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND ... DATA STORAGE? A prolonged and convoluted analogy.

Mad Dog 21/21: Recovering Lost Prophets

Published: February 18, 2008

by Hesh Wiener (IT Jungle)

If you ask computer professionals who they thought were the leaders in data storage, chances are you'll hear names like IBM, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, Network Appliances, and Hitachi. If you asked these storage companies, you might get a different list that included some outfits that were largely unknown in the end user world. But end users probably don't have to worry that they will miss out on some important new vendors. The Storage Establishment is buying up many of the emerging suppliers. This high-profile interest in the new crop of vendors makes all the contenders a lot more visible.

Still, the computer business is huge. It's possible that some of the storage system developers with the very best ideas will still for the most part be overlooked for a considerable time, like the caves of Qumran. Data recorded on parchment and other media sat in these caves for a couple thousand years until 1947, when a shepherd stumbled on some of the documents, beginning a process of archeological discovery that lasted about nine years and yielded several hundred items.

[...]

However the market unfolds, it seems likely that old and new vendors will be pushing larger and less costly arrays to satisfy what for now seems to be an unquenchable appetite for storage capacity across every industry sector and in every geographic region.

It points to what will be a necessary future development, perhaps the next big opportunity for storage system vendors: creating archival technology that can keep pace with services using gobs of online and nearline storage. It would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of tomorrow's storage systems and the information they will house. Somewhere in Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, or another social networking site there might or might not be some Web pages belonging to prophets, but it's a safe bet that those sites and their huge file libraries of will generate plenty of profits. And that says nothing about a related business that is expected to become pretty big, pretty fast, storage as a service delivered via the Internet, a business in which the storage device makers might also be the vendors. What is less certain than the prospects for the storage business is whether the information stored on these sites will be around in 2,000 years, and whether it might be a good thing if it's not.

ED COOK is dream-blogging Lost like a good apocalyptic prophet.

Years ago I had a dream (under the influence of a bad case of flu and rather a lot of Nyquil) in which I became omniscient for a few minutes and started a list of The Twenty Most True Things. Alas, I couldn't remember any of them when I woke up.

THE LOST SYRIAC PAGE recovered in the Deir al-Surian Monastery library is covered much more thoroughly by the Art Newspaper:

Fragments of world’s oldest Christian manuscript found in Egyptian monastery

Written in 411 AD, the text was hidden for over 1,000 years in a vault used to store olive oil

Martin Bailey | 18.2.08 | Issue 188

Fragments of the earliest dated Christian literary manuscript have been found at Deir al-Surian, an ancient monastery in the Egyptian desert. Dating from 411 AD, these were discovered under a collapsed floor of a ninth-century tower. The fragments are from the final page of a codex written in Syriac (an Eastern Aramaic language) which was acquired by the British Museum library in the 19th century.

[...]

The story of the discovery of the manuscript is told in detail. Excerpt:

Lord Curzon’s acquisitions whetted the appetite of the British Museum, and two years later it sent scholar Dr Henry Tattam to Deir al-Surian. Among the several hundred manuscripts he purchased was the one that Lord Curzon had been forced to leave behind. Back in London, the note made by the monk in 1086 was spotted.

The note on folio 239 read: “Behold my brethren, if it should happen that the end of this ancient book should be torn off and lost...it was written at the end of it thus.” The monk had then copied out the colophon, which stated that the manuscript had been written at Orrhoa (Edessa, now Sanliurfa), by Jacob, in the year 723 (in the Greek calendar, or 411 AD).

Ditto for the recent discovery of the last page:

There the matter rested for a century and a half. In 1998, the ninth-century tower of Deir al-Surian was renovated, and several hundred fragments of ancient manuscripts were discovered by the monastery’s librarian Father Bigoul under a wooden floor which had probably collapsed as long ago as the 14th century.

It is unfortunate that such drastic restoration of an ancient building was done so casually (surprisingly, it was authorised by Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities). No trained archaeologists sifted through the rubble, although Father Bigoul did his best to save what he could. Modern building materials were used in the reconstruction.

Nevertheless, the work did result in the discovery of the manuscript fragments. Analysing the find has taken time, but in 2005 two Syriac scholars, Sebastian Brock (Oxford University) and Lucas van Rompay (Duke University, North Carolina), recognised four small fragments which appeared to be in the same neat handwriting as the 411 manuscript.

In London they consulted the codex, and found that the four fragments were indeed from the final page. These wrinkled pieces have now been conserved at the monastery by London paper specialist Elizabeth Sobczynski.

[...]

And there's information of the contents of the library and the ongoing conservation efforts:

For most of the 20th century, Deir al-Surian’s manuscripts were hidden away—and relatively neglected. The monks were understandably reluctant to show them to outsiders, since their collection had been denuded in the 18th and 19th centuries by European bibliophiles.

But despite these losses, Deir al-Surian still retains 1,000 manuscripts, of which 49 are in Syriac. It also has 150 ancient Coptic manuscripts and 15 Ethiopic texts. Recent cataloguing has uncovered the world’s oldest dated Biblical manuscript in any language, a Syriac version of Isaiah, from 459 AD.

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Read it all.

The Art Newspaper also has an article on the monastery itself:

Noah’s Ark in the desert

18.2.08 | Issue 188

The ancient Egyptian monastery of Deir al-Surian is traditionally said to have been modelled on Noah’s Ark, since the outline of its walled buildings looks like a ship.

But Deir al-Surian resembles the Ark in another sense, as it has preserved unique examples of very early Christian art, dating back 1,600 years. Its isolation, together with its 12-metre-high walls, has helped protect this little oasis and its precious contents.

[...]

Background here and keep following the links back.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Earthquake damages Temple Mount. Waqf says Israel is to blame.

Israel Earthquake Damages Only Temple Mount and Shechem

by Ezra HaLevi

(IsraelNN.com) An earthquake shook Israel at 12:37 PM Friday. The only damage reported in Israel was on the Temple Mount and near Shechem (Nablus).

The earthquake measured 5.3 on the Richter scale; its epicenter was located in northeastern Lebanon. Earlier last week a quake measuring 4.1 was felt in northern Israel, also originating from Lebanon, near its northern city of Tyre.

A large hole opened up on the Temple Mount during the quake, which was soon covered by officials from the Wakf Islamic Authority that administers the mosques built atop Judaism’s holiest site.

[...]

Wakf Officials Blame Israel
Wakf officials tried to blame Israel for the 6-foot by 5-foot hole, which is about three feet deep, claiming it was caused by Israel, which it accuses of tunneling beneath the Temple Mount. They demanded an end to all Israeli excavations in the area.

Though several excavation projects are taking place around the Western Wall Plaza, none of them entail tunneling past the wall itself and beneath the mount. ...

THE GOSPEL OF BARNABAS is a major source for an Iranian Jesus-movie. Rick Brannan is on the case.

SYRIAC IS GROOVY. And gutteral. But not grunt-work. Good luck to Kelli in her studies.

CRIME DOESN'T PAY when you neglect the cuneiform:

ARTFUL CODGERS

How a high-school dropout and his elderly parents fooled the world

Robert Fulford, National Post
Published: Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The fake Amarna Princess sculpture made by Shaun Greenhalgh that was bought by the Bolton Council for £439,767.ReutersThe fake Amarna Princess sculpture made by Shaun Greenhalgh that was bought by the Bolton Council for £439,767.

Shaun Greenhalgh, an Englishman whose furtive career has been unfolding in courtrooms, newspapers and museums for the last three months, may well be the most versatile art forger in history. He can do a convincing Gauguin, an 18th-century bronze portrait, a Barbara Hepworth sculpture or a broken chunk of Assyrian wall art. He finds it just as easy to do ancient Egyptian.

A high-school dropout at 16, Shaun taught himself painting, drawing, stone carving and several other techniques. Then, with the enthusiastic support of his family, he became an art criminal.

His story has been mostly ignored in North America because journalists here fail to see it as a saga of British craftsmanship and enterprise performing in a world where these qualities are insufficiently appreciated. In their lower-middle-class home at The Crescent, Bromley Cross, Bolton, Greater Manchester, Shaun's family has for many years operated a traditional cottage industry.

Alan Bennett should write the movie that must be made about them. Shaun, 46 years old, sounds like a failure-to-launch boy, living with his parents, from the stories Bennett has written for BBC radio. Shaun's Mom, Olive, 83, and Dad, George, 84, are both collaborators -- the Artful Codgers, one London newspaper calls them. Testifying in court, Mom claimed her work was purely routine, like making calls for Shaun because he's too shy to talk on the telephone.

[...]

After many successful years, and scores of sales, the Greenhalghs were caught out by that old devil hubris. Shaun, deeply impressed by his own talent, forgot that serious chicanery requires careful attention to detail. He sent the British Museum what was apparently an ancient Assyrian stone relief showing a soldier and horses with cuneiform writing. It looked great until someone noticed a minor spelling mistake in the writing and someone else said that the harness on the horses was from the wrong period.

The British Museum called Scotland Yard. ...

(Via Explorator 10.43.)

ARAMAIC WATCH: A lost page from a Syriac book has been rediscovered in the floor of the Deir al-Surian Monastery Library in Egypt:

Found at last: the world's oldest missing page

Fifth-century Christian text turns up under floor in Egypt, bringing early church martyrs to light

By Andrew Johnson
Sunday, 17 February 2008 (The Independent)

A year after the Romans packed up their shields in AD410 and left Britain to the mercy of the Anglo-Saxons, a scribe in Edessa, in what is modern day Turkey, was preparing a list of martyrs who had perished in defence of the relatively new Christian faith in Persia.

In a margin he dated the list November 411. Unfortunately for the martyrs, history forgot them. At some point, this page became detached from the book it belonged to. Since 1840, the volume has been one of the treasures of the British Library. It is known only by its catalogue code: ADD 12-150

The missing page has always been a fascinating mystery for scholars and historians. Now, after an extraordinary piece of detective work, that page has been rediscovered among ancient fragments in the Deir al-Surian monastery in Egypt. It is, according to Oxford University's Dr Sebastian Brock, the leading Syriac scholar who identified the fragments, the oldest dated Christian text in existence.

The page is important in itself:

"It is a list of martyrs and it must have been added to the main book at the last minute," he said. "There were three fragments from the last page. It was a distinctive handwriting, and it was very exciting to identify it. It is very important to complete the book. Many of the names on this list we have not come across before. So it gives us a lot of clues about that half of that century. Rome at the time was officially Christian, so the rival Persians would have persecuted Christians."

The fragments were among hundreds discovered beneath a floor in the Deir al-Surian, which is itself a treasure trove of ancient books.

For more on the Deir al-Surian Monastery and its library, go here. I'm really curious about how these pages ended up in the floor, though. In any case, this is all very good news:

Dr Brock and his colleague, Dr Lucas Van Rompay of Duke University in North Carolina, are now working on the first catalogue of the many manuscripts that are more than 1,000 years old.

Elizabeth Sobczynski, founder of the Levantine Foundation, which supports the conservation of the mon-astery's manuscripts, is raising money to build a state-of-the-art library to preserve the remaining ancient books. "I found four fragments, and joined three of them together," she said. "These fragments survived for so many centuries, which is amazing .... They could so easily have been swept away."

Bit by bit, a letter at a time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.

APOCRYPHA WATCH: Tobias and the Angel is previewed in the Baltimore Sun in an interview with the general director of Baltimore's chamber opera company.

Taking on 'Tobias and the Angel'

By Tim Smith | sun Music Critic
February 17, 2008

British composer Jonathan Dove's best known opera is Flight, a kind of comic-opera Airport movie, but with much more sophisticated plot lines. That colorful work, written in 1998, was followed a year later by Tobias and the Angel, a "church opera" based on the Book of Tobit, a text considered apocryphal in Hebrew and Protestant canon.

While Flight quickly crossed the Atlantic and has been successfully staged in a couple of U.S. cities, Tobias and the Angel is only now being readied for its North American premiere by Opera Vivente, Baltimore's chamber opera company. Heading the cast as the Angel is David Walker, a countertenor and Dove fan more frequently heard at major opera houses. Company general director John Bowen discussed the process of choosing, understanding and staging this unusual work in the darkly beautiful 1895 nave of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Mount Vernon.

[...]

Background here.

REFLECTIONS ON TEACHING GNOSTICISM I: THE SYLLABUS have been posted by Tony Chartrand-Burke. It's good to see courses on these specialized but fascinating topics being taught to undergraduates. Back in 1991 I taught a course on Apocalyptic and Gnostic Literature at Tulane University and it was very well received, but I haven't had the opportunity to teach it again. I look forward to future posts from Tony on his course.

UPDATE (25 February): More here.

HOLY BABA BATRA! Neusner's translation of the Babylonian Talmud comes under scrutiny at Biblicalia and Neusner himself responds.

TALMUD SCHOLAR WINS PRIZE:

‘Unconventional scholar’ receives Israel Prize
By Abigail Klein Leichman [New Jersey Jewish Standard]

[...]

[Rabbi David Weiss] Halivni, a Holocaust survivor in his late 70s, is to receive the Israel Prize for his landmark research on the Talmud. The prize, conferred on Israel Independence Day, which falls this year on May 8, has been presented since 1953 to individuals or groups judged to have demonstrated excellence or broken new ground in certain fields. It carries with it an award of 50,000 shekalim (about $14,285).

A prodigy from Ukraine who received ordination at 15, Halivni has been turning out a multi-volume commentary on the Talmud, "Mekorot u’Mesorot: Sources and Traditions," since the 1970s. His non-traditional approach to analyzing the voluminous exposition of the Oral Law is based on deconstructing its divergent parts and surmising where errors may have crept into the text over many centuries.

"I work under the concept that Torah is not only Torah chaim [Torah of life] but Torat emet [Torah of truth]. If you say ‘The Rambam said …,’ you have to be sure that’s what he said. You have to be exact in understanding history."

While "Sources and Traditions" initially caused shock waves in some sectors, its author says it is "almost universally accepted in academic circles today." It is used nowhere as prominently as at the Union for Traditional Judaism, the Teaneck-based institution he founded after leaving JTS when it began ordaining women

[...]

There's also a good story about his teacher, Saul Lieberman.

A TRAILER for Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull is out. It has lots of explosions.

May 22nd. Be there.

THE BOOK OF 1 ENOCH MEETS JEFFERSONVILLE KENTUCKY:

Rare 'Book of Enoch' arrives in Jeffersonville

By Peter Smith
psmith@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

RELATED VIDEO: Rare book features fallen angels and more

[...]

Now one of the world’s oldest manuscripts of Enoch has found at least a temporary a home in Jeffersonville.

The Remnant Trust — a private collection of rare books and documents with the aim of spurring public interest in culture-shaping works — unveiled the manuscript this week at its East Court Avenue building.

The wood-bound manuscript, written in red and black ink on animal-skin pages, is believed to date from the 15th or 16th centuries.

Two private collectors recently acquired it and loaned it to the trust for at least two years and will consider making it a permanent gift to the trust, said Kris Bex, president of the Remnant Trust. He did not disclose the price but said it was “expensive.”

“It’s one of a kind,” Bex said. “It’s the only Book of Enoch that’s ever been likely to have been sold or put on the market.”

Enoch was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic by ancient Jews, and some ancient fragments of it have been found near the Dead Sea.

But the oldest complete versions are in the ancient Ethiopian language of Ge’ez because Ethiopian Christians are the only enduring church group that revered the book as Scripture.

James C. VanderKam, a professor of Hebrew Scriptures at Notre Dame University and a leading expert on the Book of Enoch, has inspected the book and estimates it’s probably one of the five or so oldest manuscripts of the work.

“We don’t have very many that go back that far,” said VanderKam, who co-authored an English translation of Enoch and is now working on a commentary.

VanderKam estimated the text was about 500 years old because it has similar script and contents to another edition of Enoch in the British Museum, although he said specialists in Ethiopian script could make a more decisive determination.

The manuscript came on the market in the last couple of years from an American owner, and the trust has been able to establish a chain of ownership dating back only to 1924. But VanderKam said it appears authentic.

[...]

Cool. Good article, plus the video has nice images of the manuscript.

THE TOMB OF THE PROPHET DANIEL in Iran is in the news:

Iran Jews celebrate Persian roots, seek to maintain shrinking community
By The Associated Press
Tags: Susa, Prophet Daniel

Members of Iran's tiny Jewish minority gathered at the holy shrine of the Prophet Daniel in the southwest of the country Thursday to celebrate their Persian roots and keep alive a dwindling community.

More than 200 Iranian Jews embarked on the long journey to Susa from cities across Iran to celebrate their Jewishness in an event organized by a local Jewish youth group to support the community.

[...]

"Prophet Daniel is the symbol of our proud Persian roots. The gathering in Susa is to highlight our presence in Iran since ancient times," said Farhad Aframian, the editor of the monthly Jewish magazine, who described the gathering as an opportunity for Jews from all over the country to socialize and keep in touch.

[...]

In addition to the tomb of the Prophet Daniel, Iran is also home to another of Judaism's important sites, the shrine of Mordechai an Esther, who became a Persian queen and persuaded King Xerxes not to slaughter the Jews in an event subsequently celebrated by the festival of Purim

As usual with this sort of thing, any direct connection between these monuments and the figures they honor is to be taken with a grain of salt.

THE WINNERS of the Eisenbrauns Valentine's Day Contest have now been announced: four honorable mentions and third, second, and first place. Awesome! Heaven forfend that any of them ever turn to forgery.

UPDATE: Plus April DeConick gives us a Valentine's Day quote for Valentinians.

Hallmark take note. Lots of material here.