HEBREW AND HISTORY JOB:

Subject: JOB: Visiting Assistant Professor, Biblical Hebrew and World History, Grand Valley State University

Grand Valley State University
World History/Ancient Hebrew

The Department of History at Grand Valley State University invites applications for a full-time Visiting (non-tenure-track) appointment for the 2008-09 academic year, with possibility for renewal, at the rank of Visiting Assistant Professor (or at the rank of Visiting Instructor if ABD). The teaching load is four courses per semester, including one course in beginning Biblical Hebrew and three sections of a world civilization survey course. Grand Valley State University is an affirmative action and equal opportunity institution. The Department is especially interested in qualified candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community.

Interested candidates are asked to submit a letter of application and curriculum vitae as soon as possible, followed by letters of reference and transcript, to Professor Gretchen Galbraith, Chair, Department of History, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan 49401-9403. Applications will be reviewed until the position is filled. For further information: 616-331-3627 or galbraig@gvsu.edu.

Contact Info:
Professor Gretchen Galbraith, Chair
Department of History
Grand Valley State University
1060A MAK
Allendale, MI 49401

From the H-Judaic list.

THE BIOGRAPHY OF KATHLEEN KENYON by Miriam Davis was mentioned in the article on Davis's recent lecture, about which I posted on Thursday. The publisher has just written me with a link for the book: Dame Kathleen Kenyon: Digging Up the Holy Land.

WORLD LANGUAGE DAY at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is coming on 22 April and it includes a session on the Hebrew of the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls:

World Languages Day to draw 700-plus students from across Wisconsin

April 7, 2008

by Gwen Evans [University of Wisconsin-Madison News]

It's a rite of passage each spring for thousands of state high school students — heading to Madison for basketball, hockey and wrestling tournaments and a taste of the city, the university and a day or two out of school.

But the siren call is not just for sports enthusiasts. The campus beckons each spring to those interested in exploring world languages and cultures at World Languages Day, an annual event sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Language Institute that attracts some 700 students from 25 Wisconsin high schools. This year's event, the 7th World Languages Day, will take place on April 22 in the Memorial Union and the Pyle Center.

Through more than 50 class sessions on language learning, storytelling, skits, cinema, dance and music, students are exposed to many diverse world languages and cultures. Over 30 languages are represented in these sessions, from Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Norwegian and Spanish to Yoruba.

Students may select among sessions with topics such as Finnish youth culture in the 21st century; the language, music and folkloric dance of Jordan; Latin dance; Hebrew in the Bible and the Dead Sea scrolls; using French in the professional world; Chinese fashion; and Hmong language and culture. Many of the sessions are participatory and include performances and foods from the target culture.

[...]

ANOTHER ANCIENT SYRIAC MONASTERY IN TURKEY:

Mor Jacob Monastery: a Syriac oasis in Nusaybin
(Today's Zaman)
Mardin's Tur Abdin region is home to the Mor Jacob Monastery, with an early history that is the stuff of legend: The building serves the oldest Syriac Christian community in Turkey.


The southeastern village of Barıştepe, formerly known as Salah or Saleh, is a little Syriac village in the Tur Abdin region in Nusaybin, a district of the southeastern province of Mardin. Tur Abdin is Syriac for "the mountain of the servants of God" and refers to the numerous ascetics based in the region after the advent of Christianity there.

This plateau, which is on the border with Iraq, is home to the oldest surviving Syriac Orthodox Christian community in Turkey and also to the Monastery of Mor Jacop the Recluse, known as Mor Yakub Manastırı in Turkish and Dayro d'Mor Ya'qub Hbsihiyo in Syriac. Mor is a Syriac word that means "saint" and is also used as an honorary title for living bishops.

Once you enter the village the monastery is visible from the road. There are always children playing around the building, which acts as both a school and playground. The monastery's school teaches classes in the Syriac language and religion, which the children attend after their classes at regular school are finished.

Little is known about the history of the monastery, and its origins remain shrouded in mystery, although it is thought to be named after to its founder Mor Jacob and to have been built in A.D. 419.

[...]

Related post here.

PLANS TO "RESURRECT" ROMAN TIBERIAS:

The Mayor of Tiberias and the Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority Today Revealed for the First Time Plans for the Archaeological Park that Will “Resurrect” the Roman City of 2,000 Years Ago (1/4/08)

In a festive press conference today the mayor of Tiberias and the director-general of the Israel Antiquities Authority announced the beginning of work on the national project for the construction of an archaeological park in Tiberias that will bring the Roman city “back to life”. Berko Park is slated to be magnet that will attract tourism from Israel and abroad to Tiberias and will expose the public at large to Tiberias’ glorious past, through all of its history which has its beginnings in the Early Roman period 2,000 years ago.

[...]

(Via Explorator.)

The project has not been without controversy. The Tiberias excavation has been in the news a lot in the last few years. Run "Tiberias" through the search engine above for more. And note this too.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Jewish group to slaughter lamb in Passover sacrifice rehearsal

(Israel Today)

A Bible-adherent Jewish group on Sunday ritually slaughtered a young lamb in what is called a "rehearsal" for the renewal of the Passover sacrifice once the Jerusalem temple is rebuilt.

[...]

The sacrifice and accompanying religious ceremonies were performed at a prominent yeshiva overlooking Jerusalem's Temple Mount, which is still occupied by several Muslim shrines.

More here.

AN ASSYRIAN ORTHODOX PRIEST has been murdered in Baghdad:

Christian priest gunned down in Baghdad

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Gunmen shot dead an Assyrian Orthodox priest near his house in the centre of the Iraqi capital on Saturday, in an attack condemned by Pope Benedict XVI who expressed his "profound sorrow".

Iraqi security officials said Youssef Adel, a priest with Saint Peter's Church, was gunned down by gunmen travelling in a car around noon (0900 GMT) as he left home.

[...]

The Assyrian church has maintained its independence since the 5th century when it broke away from the rest of the Christian communion. Some of its followers still speak a modern version of Aramaic, the language of Christ.

[...]

Barbaric.

CHARLTON HESTON, 1924-2008

Film Legend Charlton Heston Dead at 84

By BOB THOMAS

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Charlton Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing "Ben-Hur" and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other heroic figures in movie epics of the '50s and '60s, has died. He was 84.

[...]

Requiescat in pace.

UPDATE: Here's a statement from his family.

THE TORAH: A WOMEN'S COMMENTARY is featured in the London Times:

Spare-rib scholars unearth scripture bias
Sheera Frenkel in Jerusalem

In the days when Moses dictated the law of the land, the five daughters of Zelophephad took issue with the rules of inheritance. The Book of Numbers xxvii recounts how the sisters sought counsel with Moses in front of the congregation of travelling Israelites to demand that the laws be altered to accommodate female succession.

This bit of biblical history is often brushed over, as are other feminist aspects of the Old Testament, because for thousands of years men alone have interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures, according to a feminist revision of the text.

The Torah: A Women's Commentary re-evaluates the Torah's feminine side and offers the first comprehensive analysis of text from a female point of view. “With this commentary we will continue as sisters to empower the women - and men - who come after us for generations to come,” said its chief editor, Tamara Eskenazi, a professor of Bible studies at Hebrew Union College.

The Torah - also known as the Pentateuch or five books of Moses - is the foundational text of Judaism. While scholars have begun to examine women's role in the biblical period, A Women's Commentary is being hailed as a seminal text in religious studies owing to the depth of its analysis and wide spectrum of its contributors - which include several hundred women from the four main branches of Jewish movements - Orthodox, Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist. Those women re-evaluated the text from page one - taking the story of Creation to task for its rendering of Eve as a secondary creation to God's original Adam.

[...]

BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL XXVIII has been posted by Chris Weimer at Thoughts on Antiquity.

MARTIN GOODMAN will be giving a lecture at Binghamton University:

Annual Romano Lecture to focus on Rome, Jerusalem

Martin Goodman, professor of Jewish studies at Oxford University, will deliver the annual Mario and Antoinette Romano Lecture at noon Friday, April 11, in the Anderson Center Reception Room.

Goodman has divided his intellectual life between the Roman and Jewish worlds. He has edited both the Journal of Roman Studies and the Journal of Jewish Studies. His most recent book, Rome and Jerusalem: the Clash of Ancient Civilizations, was published in 2007.

In 70 CE, after a war that had flared sporadically for four years, three Roman legions surrounded, laid siege to and eventually devastated the city of Jerusalem, destroying the Temple that had been rebuilt by Herod less than a century before.

Goodman’s lecture, titled “Rome and Jerusalem,” will investigate what brought about this conflict and why, contrary to normal practice and against the reasonable expectations of the Jews, the Roman state would not allow the Jerusalem Temple to be rebuilt, with momentous consequences for the future of the Jews and Judaism.

A reception will follow the lecture, which is sponsored by the Mario and Antoinette Romano Endowment and the Harpur College Dean’s Office. For reservations, call Diane Horvath at 777-4278 or e-mail her at
dmhorv@binghamton.edu.

ARAMAIC WATCH: Aramaic used in an exorcism scam?

Priest allegedly staged fake exorcisms

Published: April 3, 2008 at 4:37 PM

FLORENCE, Italy, April 3 (UPI) -- Prosecutors in Florence, Italy, accuse a Roman Catholic priest in the city of committing fraud by collecting $6 million through staging phony exorcisms.

[...]

Prosecutors said associates of Bazzoffi would "pretend to be possessed by demons" and the priest would use ancient and obscure rites to perform fake exorcisms on them. The events regularly drew crowds in excess of 400 people.

"During mass, the priest spoke in Aramaic, and strange things happened," a witness told police. "I do not know if it was group hysteria or our suggestibility but I remember one old woman screaming in a man's voice while five big guys held her down."


[...]

THE SHRINE OF THE BOOK has an exhibition on the Qumran Isaiah Scroll (IQIsa^a) starting next month (scroll down):

Swords into Plowshares
The Isaiah Scroll and Its Message of Peace

May 13 – August 15, 2008
The Shrine of the Book

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, the Israel Museum presents the longest, best preserved, and most complete Dead Sea Scroll document ever found, in a special installation in the Shrine of the Book. Never before shown in an extended public display, this 2.60 meter-long section of the Isaiah Scroll comprises the first twenty-eight chapters of the Book of Isaiah, including Isaiah’s celebrated message of peace: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares…" (Is. 2:4). In order to illustrate this important message, iron tools from the days of the prophet Isaiah (8th century BCE) will be displayed alongside the Scroll. A Hellenistic seal depicting a dove carrying an olive branch, newly excavated and never before displayed, will also be on view. The exhibition is curated by Adolfo Roitman, Head of the Shrine of the Book and Curator of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Michal Dayagi-Mendels, Chief Curator of Archaeology. An international conference on Dead Sea Scrolls research will be held July 6-8, 2008, and is scheduled to coincide with the exhibition.

FINDADIG 2008 is now online at the BAS website.

IL FANTASTICO. A very appropriate nickname.

AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT, Happy 325th birthday to Brill publishers!

(Via the Agade list.)

HAPPY TENTH BIRTHDAY to the Hugoye list and to Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies!

A CAPSULE BIOGRAPHY of Dame Kathleen Kenyon was presented in a lecture by Dr. Miriam Davis at Baylor University. Excerpt:

"Why was Kathleen Kenyon worth a biography?" Davis said, to open her speech on Kenyon. "She became an archeologist quite by accident."

Kenyon was the daughter of Sir Frederic Kenyon, the director of the British Museum.

Many people thought that her upbringing made her predisposed to become an archeologist.

Kenyon graduated with a third-class degree from Oxford, which is low. Davis said Kenyon spent more time playing lacrosse and tennis than she did studying.

After graduating, Kenyon joined her first expedition to Great Zimbabwe, an ancient stone ruin in present-day Zimbabwe, with Gertrude Caton-Thompson, another important female archeologist.

It was there that Kenyon "fell in love with field archeology and became interested in methodology," Davis said.

On her second excavation, she worked with Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who developed a new method of digging that emphasized precision in order to gather more data about the artifacts that were discovered.

Kenyon followed his method that she later developed into her own method at her digs in Jerusalem.

She excavated in Jericho for seven field seasons.

"The discoveries she made were breath-taking," Davis said.

Indeed.

UPDATE (8 April): More on the biography (the book) here.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Archaeologist Yuval Baruch tells the inside story about how those Iron Age II artifacts were recovered last October from the Waqf's excavation.

Archeologist finds artifacts from time of Solomon’s Temple
By RHONDA SPIVAK, Special to The CJN [Canadian Jewish News]
Thursday, 03 April 2008
WINNIPEG — Yuval Baruch, left, made archeological history in October 2007 when he uncovered pottery artifacts on the site of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. They are considered to be the first physical evidence of human activity during the time of King Solomon’s Temple (the First Jewish Temple).

Baruch, who is Jerusalem’s district archeologist at the Israel Antiquities Authority, speaking at the Berney Theatre here, outlined his world-famous discovery as part of a lecture series put on by the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University.

[...]

“The Muslim Waqf [the Muslim religious authority that controls the internal administration of the Temple Mount] does not allow Israeli archeologists to conduct any excavations on the site. But I got access to a small tunnel where electrical cables run under the site when there was an electrical shortage and the Waqf had to get the electricity fixed…

“I was not supposed to be left there alone, as the Waqf always has someone present when Israeli archeologists are on the site. It was in the evening after 8 p.m., and by chance the Arab electrical workers left me and a member of my staff for about 15 minutes while they went to pray. When I was alone in that brief time, I found the pottery shards among dust near the bedrock level,” he says.

The tunnel to which Baruch got access, was a sealed archeological level – “about 400 metres long,” he says – that was exposed during the inspection in the area close to the southeastern corner of the raised platform surrounding the Dome of the Rock.

Baruch’s findings include animal bones; ceramic bowl rims, bases and body shards; the base of a juglet used to pour oil; the handle of a small juglet; and the rim of a storage jar. In addition, a piece of a whitewashed, handmade object was found. It may have been used to decorate a larger object or may have been the leg of an animal figurine. The finds are dated from eight-to six-century BCE.

[...]

Background here and here.

BRUCE CHILTON reassesses The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels, for the New York Sun and he isn't happy with what he finds. Excerpt:

Dealing with each topic in her book, Ms. Pagels does not mention crucial evidence concerning Gnostics and Catholics, and distorts what she does mention. She falsely maintains that Catholics insisted upon a physical view of resurrection (as compared to the Gnostics), when a spiritual view is clearly represented from Paul in the first century until Origen in the third century. She asserts that Gnostics did not concern themselves with authority, when in fact they often branded those who disagreed with them as corrupt materialists who were constitutionally incapable of understanding the world of spirit. Attempting to say that the Gnostics were feminists, she ignores texts from Nag Hammadi, as well as Gnostic sources that had been known for centuries before the library's discovery, that portray "Wisdom" (Sophia), the feminine counterpart of the true, masculine God, as literally hysterical — jealous of divine power, but unable to create life on her own, and therefore vindictive. Martyrdom was a common threat to Gnostics and Catholics, and not at all a fate that the Fathers of the Church wanted Christians generally to seek; Gnostics could be as ferocious as Catholics in claiming unique insight, and the knowledge that transcends this world was every bit as much a Catholic as a Gnostic quest.

Appearing in a book as well written as Ms. Pagels's, her anachronisms have undermined public understanding of early Christianity. Gnosticism proved to be the most powerful philosophical and religious movement of its time because it insisted without compromise that the only truth that matterstranscendsthiscorruptworld. Gnostics often denigrated women as creatures of corruption, condemned any disagreement with their teaching as materialist fantasy, and denied that sexuality had any place in the realm of spirit. Trying to turn this orientation into existentialism, or feminism, or an embrace of the world's physicality, will only work with an extremely selective handling of the evidence, and deploys a laundered view of its subject.

Ms. Pagels is too wise to pretend that the Gnosticism of the historical sources supports the Neo-Gnostic fashions of our time that have thrived in New Age circles. Yet in "The Gnostic Gospels," she does compare the texts to what existentialists, feminists, and environmentalists have to say. Her habit might be seen as part of the historian's function, to use today's language to help explain yesterday's events and movements. But by impact if not by intent, her book has promoted the view that Gnosticism is a liberal version of Christianity, when in fact liberalism and Gnosticism are radically different phenomena.

By softening the hard edges of the texts she herself had a hand in translating, Ms. Pagels has robbed many of her readers of an appreciation of the real force of the Gnostic Gospels. The fact is that Gnosticism, even after Constantine, was not successfully repressed. Many of its books were indeed destroyed or hidden away; it seems plausible that the Nag Hammadi library was sealed in a jar and buried to protect the writings from overzealous orthodox monks during the fourth century. But even as the books went underground, the power of gnosis remained.

THE GRONINGEN QUMRAN INSTITUTE has a new website. And note that it has more on the April Symposium in honor of Florentino García Martínez.

A CONFERENCE AT YESHIVA UNIVERSITY is coming on 11-12 May:

The Temple of Jerusalem: From Moses to the Messiah

(Via the Agade list.)

DEAD SEA DISCOVERIES has a new issue (15.1) online. Table of contents:

A Tribute to James C. VanderKam
pp. 1-4(4)
Author: Ulrich, Eugene

Whose Scripture? Whose Community? Reflections on the Dead Sea Scrolls Then and Now, By Way of Aramaic Levi
pp. 5-23(19)
Author: Kugler, Robert A.

What Has Happened to the Laws? The Treatment of Legal Material in 4QReworked Pentateuch
pp. 24-49(26)
Author: Bernstein, Moshe J.

Geography as an Evaluative Tool in the Genesis Apocryphon
pp. 50-66(17)
Author: Machiela, Daniel A.

The Unfinished Scroll: A Reconsideration of the End of the Temple Scroll
pp. 67-78(12)
Author: Schiffman, Lawrence H.

Decoration, Destruction and Debauchery: Reflections on 1 Enoch 8 in Light of 4QEnb
pp. 79-95(17)
Author: Coblentz Bautch, Kelley

Rereading S: A New Model of Textual Development in Light of the Cave 4 Serekh Copies
pp. 96-120(25)
Author: Schofield, Alison

The Community Hymns Classification: A Proposal for Further Differentiation
pp. 121-154(34)
Author: Kim Harkins, Angela

'Riddled' with Guilt: The Mysteries of Transgression, the Sealed Vision, and the Art of Interpretation in 4Q300 and Related Texts
pp. 155-171(17)
Author: Thomas, Samuel I.

Qumran Self-Identity: "Israel" or "Judah"?
pp. 172-189(18)
Author: Bergsma, John S.

Requires a paid personal or institutional subscription to access.

(Heads up, Stephen Goranson.)

THE ARK OF THE COVENANT -- THE LEGEND LIVES ON:

The World's Greatest Treasure Hunt
Chris Mitchell
CBN News Mideast Bureau Chief
April 1, 2008

CBNNews.com - In 1981, Indiana Jones made his big-screen debut re-igniting world-wide interest in history's most hunted relic: the Ark of the Covenant.

That same year, two real-life raiders went on their own search for the Ark. There were no Nazis and no snake pits - like the movie.

Just two renegade Rabbis on a mission. Their search came to an end in Jerusalem.

"God signed, like with a pen, the location where the Ark of the Covenant was located. You can see it today even, on the rock," said Gershon Salomon, Founder of Temple Mount Faithful.

[...]

Except, you see, they didn't actually find the Ark.

Archaeologists exposed parts of the wall that had been buried for 2000 years. Not all of the digging was done legally. In 1981, two of Israel's highest-ranking Rabbis, Shlomo Goren and Yehuda Getz picked up their pick-axes and started chiseling their way under the Temple Mount.

"And he knew that at the end of the gate he will come to the secret room where the ark of covenant is located," said Salomon, who was also one of the paratroopers who liberated the Western Wall in 1967.

Salomon was there 14 years later the night Rabbi Getz opened a secret passage in the Wall and remembers their conversation.

"It was after midnight. And he called me and said to me, Gershon, come immediately, don't wait, your dream is going to be fulfilled. 'What happened?,' I told him. 'The Messiah came?' And he told me, 'He is coming almost.'"

What came next was a subterranean slugftest according to Salomon.

"Arab demonstrations, you know? The Israelis are coming to build their temple underneath the dome of the rock."

At the end of the day, the passage to the Temple Mount was permanently sealed by Israeli Police.

"No doubt, I tell you. No doubt, we needed just two days more to come to the place where the ark of the covenant is located," Salomon explained.

"The work was done without archaeological supervision and when I was the official archaeologist of Jerusalem, I decided to stop the work," said Archaeologist Dan Bahat, who directed the excavation of the Western Wall tunnels.

According to him, the search for the Ark stops with Jeremiah 3:16.

"Prophet Jeremiah says, there will come a day when the ark of the covenant will not be seen, nor will it be visited which means that somehow, he sees the days when it will not be there. In other words, this was a hint from God. Don't look for the Ark of the Covenant!"

[...]

Jeremiah 3:16 reads:

And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says the LORD, they shall no more say, "The ark of the covenant of the LORD." It shall not come to mind, or be remembered, or missed; it shall not be made again. (RSV)

I agree with Gabriel Barkay; it was probably melted down for its gold by the Babylonians. Jeremiah says that it won't be remembered and it won't be made again, which implies that it no longer existed when this oracle was written.

A BURIAL CEREMONY for worn-out sacred texts:

At synagogue, old texts are laid to rest
Forks congregation gives worn-out prayer books a proper burial.

By Marion Callahan | Of The Morning Call
March 31, 2008

Sheila Goldberg carefully maneuvered around the mounds of dirt at the rear corner of Bnai Abraham Synagogue's cemetery, approaching an open grave cradling a prayer book she treasured for nearly 70 years.

Using a traditional Jewish prayer shawl, she wrapped the book, its pages yellowed and its edges frayed, and asked: ''Do I just drop it in?'' A man beside her smiled and nodded.

And she let it go.

In a ceremony that dates back thousands of years, members of Bnai Abraham Synagogue in Wilson gathered Sunday at the Forks Township cemetery, to bury worn-out sacred texts, an ancient tradition that Rabbi Mark Shrager said ''bestows respect on the words that spread God's message.''

[...]

Related post here.

ARAMAIC WATCH: Enema instructions in ancient Aramaic?

Historical Use of Enemas

The use of therapeutic coffee enemas began during WWI; however, water enemas have been used for detoxification throughout the ages. In fact, the Vatican holds a third-century Aramaic manuscript in which enema directions are graphically transcribed. In the book The Gerson Therapy by Charlotte Gerson, daughter of famed cancer specialist Max Gerson M.D., and Morton Walker, D.P.M., these ancient instructions for detoxification are recorded:

I tell you truly, the angel of water shall cast out of your body all uncleanness which defiled it without and within. And all unclean and evil-smelling things shall flow out of you... I tell you truly, holy is the angel of water who cleanses all that is unclean and makes all evil-smelling things of a sweet odor...

Think not that it is sufficient that the angel of water embrace you outwards only. I tell you truly, the uncleanness within is greater by much than the uncleanness without. And he who cleanses himself without, but within remains unclean, is like to tombs that outwards are painted fair, but are within full of all manner of horrible uncleanness and abominations...

Seek, therefore, a large trailing gourd, having a stalk the length of a man; take out its inwards and fill it with water from the river which the sun has warmed. Hang it upon the branch of a tree, and kneel upon the ground before the angel of water, and suffer the end of the stalk of the trailing gourd to enter your hinder parts, that the water may flow through all your bowels. Afterwards rest kneeling on the ground...and pray to the angel of water that he will free your body from every uncleanness and disease. Then let the water run out from your body, that it may carry away from within it all the unclean and evil-smelling things... And you shall see with your eyes and smell with your nose all the abominations and uncleanness which defiled the temple of your body... tormenting you with all manner of pains. I tell you truly, baptism with water frees you from all of these. Renew your baptizing with water on every day of your fast, till the day when you see that the water which flows out of you is as pure as the river’s foam... (1)

1. Gerson, C. and Walker, M.: The Gerson Therapy. NY, NY: Kensington Publishing Corp., pp. 156 - 172, 2001

I don't think this is real The second sentence of the middle paragraph looks like it's based on Matthew 23:27, only reapplied to colonic irrigation. And "the temple of your body" has a New Testament ring as well (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:19). And overall it just doesn't sound right. Does anyone know what the source is?

UPDATE: Stephen Goranson e-mails:

This text appears to be based on Edmond Bordeaux Szekely's "Essene Gospel of Peace," which he claimed was a translation from ancient Aramaic, Hebrew, and Old Slavonic texts, but which is instead a twentieth-century fabrication. Another book with a similar text, The Holy Movement, Matters of the Colon by Debora Lee Meehan (2000, according to Google Books, which sometimes gets the dates wrong), oddly attributes (p. 50) the translation to "Edmund Waldo Schecklee" and introduces it with "Following is s condensed citation of the Essene gospel of peace." Perhaps in modified (condensed here should read paraphrased or altered) form to avoid copyright disputes? Even though the Szekely text is fiction. I am reminded that Morton Smith in 1958 claimed copyright on "Manuscript Material from the Monastery of Mar Saba, Discovered, Transcribed and Translated by Morton Smith."

Szekely's Essene Gospel of Peace is online here. The passage quoted above is in Book 1.

INDIANA JONES'S TAILOR.

SUMERIAN BLING. And some in Rashi script too. There's video!

DANIEL J. HARRINGTON reviews some scholarly books for America: The National Catholic Weekly. Included are James L. Kugel's How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now and Birger Pearson's Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions and Literature.

IN THE MAIL, late last week:



My new MacBook: 2.4 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2 gigabytes of RAM, 160 gigabyte hard drive, with a larger screen and keyboard than my old iBook G4, but weighing less. Beautiful.

ARAMAIC WATCH: From F. Briquel-Chatonnet on the Hugoye list:

Just released, a book about Aramaic inscriptions of Hatra

Roberto Bertolino, Manuel d'épigraphie hatréenne, Paris, Geuthner, 2008, 24 euros.

Orders to
Librairie orientaliste Paul Geuthner
16 rue de la Grande Chaumière
75006 Paris
geuthner@geuthner.com.

I have more on Hatra here.

SPEAKING OF ANCIENT HEBREW POETRY, the Los Angeles Times has discovered the Psalms. Good for them.

THE PIYUT MEETS ROCK MUSIC. I love it.

THE MYSTERY OF THE COPPER SCROLL is covered in an article by the Christian Broadcasting Network. They interview Stephen Pfann about it. The article is pretty good, but the range of possible origins for the treasures is wider than it indicates. And the suggestion attributed to author Joel Rosenberg that the Copper Scroll treasures could lead to the Ark of the Covenant is, alas, nonsense.

He believes the second scroll is still out there and it could be the key to the greatest archaeological prize in history.

"What if finding the treasures of the Copper Scroll did in fact lead to the Ark of the Covenant being found?" he asked.

Rosenberg may be on to something.

Ancient Jewish writings say the ark and other first temple treasures were hidden by priests before the invasion of the Babylonians.

Their locations were inscribed on a tablet of copper.

Rosenberg said, "The Key Scroll has never been found, nobody has any idea where it is."

Interestingly (at least for me), the source for this idea seems to be the Treatise of the Vessels. It is correct that the second scroll mentioned at the end of the Copper Scroll has never been found, but it is not to be confused with the entirely legendary bronze tablet supposedly hidden at the time of the Babylonian Exile according to the Treatise of the Vessels.

UPDATE: I see that I have already criticized Rosenberg on this issue here. But his book does sound like fun.

Also, I have more on the Copper Scroll here.

REFLECTIONS ON TEACHING GNOSTICISM V: Blade Runner -- by Tony Chartrand-Burke at Apocryphicity.

METATRON WATCH: Metatron on stage:

Theater J presents the world premiere of David in Shadow and Light, by Yehuda Hyman and Daniel Hoffman. Directed by Nick Olcott, this production will be presented in the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater at the Washington DC JCC, May 6-June 22.

David in Shadow and Light is a modern musical retelling of the biblical tale of King David, who rose from boy shepherd to superstar ruler to aging king. This re-envisioning is framed by two characters, the Archangel Metatron and Adam, who according to ancient midrashic legend, find infant David and are compelled to watch his life.

[...]

FAREWELL to Torrey Seland's Philo of Alexandria blog, which has run since the beginning of 2004. Torry has kept us abreast of all the latest on Philo and we are sorry to see him go.

MORE ON THOSE JERUSALEM TUNNELS FROM THE APF:

The Silwan project has aroused similar suspicions, in part because people are not allowed to see the tunnel, but primarily because the work is being funded by the Ir David Foundation, an Israeli settler group.

The site, on a narrow, traffic-choked street running down the steep southern slope outside the Old City's walls is surrounded by a high metal fence, with a large Israeli flag fluttering over a padlocked gate.

The Israeli Antiquities Authority says it has found an ancient tunnel that once carried rainwater from the heart of the Old City to a ritual bathhouse several hundred metres away.

"It was a brand new tunnel from 2,000 years ago," says IAA head Shuka Dorfman. "The condition of the tunnel was unbelievable."

Starting in 2004 archaeologists excavated most of the tunnel between the dig site and the bathhouse.

But last month they started working north in the direction of Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif.

Based on a late 19th century British excavation of large sections of the tunnel, archaeologists believe the tunnel leads to the Old City, veering close to the mosque complex but not passing beneath it.

Yet because the project is being carried out in secret and funded by a settler organisation, many residents think it is part of a plan to take over -- or destroy -- Haram al-Sharif.

"If it is an archaeological site and not a settlement, if it is a tourist site, then why can't we go and see it? Why can't anyone see it?" Ahmed Qarain, 37, a local resident asks.

The IAA has refused to allow anyone from the neighbourhood or the media to see the northern section of the tunnel, and declined several requests from AFP to comment on how much of it has been excavated.

Officials there gave no reason for the ban, other than to say the work was in progress. However, they promised that the media would be invited once the project is completed.

Background here.

VINDICATING THE PHOENICIANS:

Sailor to recreate Phoenicians' epic African voyage

By Emily Dugan
Saturday, 22 March 2008 [The Independent]

On the ancient Syrian island of Arwad, which was settled by the Phoenicians in about 2000BC, men are hard at work hammering wooden pegs into the hull of a ship.

But this vessel will not be taking fishermen on their daily trip up and down the coast. It is destined for a greater adventure – one that could solve a mystery which has baffled archaeologists for centuries.

The adventure begins not in Arwad but in Dorset, where an Englishman has taken it upon himself to try to prove that the Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa thousands of years before any Europeans did.

Philip Beale, 47, has commissioned the building of a replica Phoenician ship that he plans to sail around the continent with a crew of 20. Their 10-month expedition sets off in August and will follow the route that seafaring Phoenician merchants are said to have taken more than 2,500 years ago.

[...]

Good luck to him. It will be interesting to see how the journey goes.

BENNY SHANNON wants to correct the record:

I never said Moses was stoned when he saw God

Words such as 'trip' and 'high' misrepresent my work on psychoactive plants, says Benny Shanon

* Benny Shanon
* The Guardian,
* Wednesday March 26 2008
* Article history

The Guardian ran two articles on my work concerning the putative use of psychoactive plants in ancient Israel (Moses saw God 'because he was stoned - again', March 6; Face to Faith, March 8). Your news report conveys a picture very different from the one I present in the scientific journal Time and Mind, which is devoted to the history of culture and consciousness. Your report contains words and sentences I have neither written nor uttered, some introduced in quotation marks as if coming from me. Terms such as "drug", "trip", "high" and "stoned" are ones I have nothing to do with and which I do not condone.

Moreover, your first report suffers from some basic misunderstandings of my crucial arguments. ...

Background here and here.

JEWISH STUDIES, AN INTERNET JOURNAL has a new article out:

Responsive Blessings and the Development of the Tannaitic Liturgical System [Heb.]
Ishay Rosen-Zvi

The paper deals with the liturgical system in Mishna Berakhot and the place that benedictions on external events or phenomena occupy in it. Contrary to the common view which interprets the Mishna as discussing three discrete liturgical practices, Shema (chapters 1-3), daily prayer (4-5) and meal benedictions (6-8), this paper claims that the Mishna presents a unified liturgical system, which shares a common basic feature: all its constituent parts are constructed as a series of benedictions. This is a unique phenomenon in ancient Jewish liturgy, unknown in other, related liturgical systems, such as that used in Qumran.

The second part of this paper examines the special place of the last chapter of Mishna Berakhot in this liturgical system. This chapter deals with a distinctive type of benediction, which does not have a fixed time or context, but is recited in response to external events or phenomena (formulated in the Mishna as “one who sees X says Y”). Although blessings of this sort are already well-documented in the Bible (e.g. Gen 14:17; Num 18:10), they do not receive fixed formulations and are not mandated in any pre-rabbinic or adjacent culture. The paper discusses this phenomenon from religious and phenomenological perspectives, analyzing the complex status of these benedictions in rabbinic liturgy and the logic of their inclusion in Mishna Berakhot.

EDWARD WILLIAM LANE'S LIFE STORY is the subject of a long article by Jason Thompson in Aramco World. Lane is especially known for his massive and magisterial Arabic lexicon and his translation of the Thousand and One Nights. But it seems that this mild mannered philologist had an Indiana Jones side to him as well.

Late one September afternoon in 1825, an apprehensive 24-year-old Englishman arrived in the Eastern Harbor of Alexandria, Egypt. “As I approached the shore,” he wrote, “I felt like an Eastern bridegroom, about to lift up the veil of his bride, and to see, for the first time, the features which were to charm, or disappoint, or disgust him.” He continued:

I was not visiting Egypt merely as a traveller, to examine its pyramids and temples and grottoes, and, after satisfying my curiosity, to quit it for other scenes and other pleasures: I was about to throw myself entirely among strangers; to adopt their language, their customs and their dress; and, in associating almost exclusively with the natives, to prosecute the study of their literature. My feelings therefore, on that occasion, partook too much of anxiety to be very pleasing.

Edward William Lane need not have worried. He would become, one day, Britain’s most renowned scholar of the Middle East. He would write a fascinating study of Egyptian society, a book so definitive and widely read that it would never go out of print; his great Arabic–English dictionary would become a basic, irreplaceable reference work; and his translation of The Arabian Nights would delight and instruct generations of readers. Lane’s name would come to be known throughout the field of Middle Eastern studies, admired by western and Arab scholars alike.

And there's this on his lexicon:

Lane sailed on his third trip to Egypt in July 1842, accompanied by [his wife] Nefeeseh and by his sister, Sophia Poole, and her two sons, Stanley and Stuart. The Lanes were always a close family, and Sophia had been deserted by her husband, so Lane was glad to have her with him. He and Nefeeseh never had children, so he had come to think of Stanley and Stuart as his own. ... This third and longest trip was far different from the preceding ones. Before, Lane had been much in society and traveled extensively through the country. This time he remained at home, sometimes not going out of doors for months on end, working steadily at his overwhelming task, assisted only by Sheikh Ibrahim al-Dasuqi, his Arabic language assistant. Al-Dasuqi helped Lane with copying and could discuss fine points of Arabic grammar and spelling. Every once in a while, for a change of pace, they played Arabic word games together, but Lane’s focus never strayed far from his dictionary.

[...]

The Lanes and Pooles returned to England in 1849 and settled in Worthing, a quiet town on the southern coast. Lane left it just once, and then only to travel to nearby Brighton to visit a dying friend. At Worthing, he maintained the tightly focused lifestyle he had developed in Egypt, beginning each working day early by saying the bismillah, the opening lines of the Qur’an—“In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful”—and working until 10 at night, stopping only for meals and an afternoon walk in the nearby countryside when the weather was fine. Every Friday he put his lexicographical work aside to spend time with his family and perhaps receive a few close friends, but most other callers, no matter how distinguished, were politely but firmly refused by his wife and sister, who closely guarded his precious time. Every Sunday was reserved for studying the Bible, which he read in Hebrew.

The first of the eight volumes of Lane’s Arabic–English Lexicon were published in 1863 and the work’s importance was immediately recognized. Even the London Times took notice: “Of the manner in which Mr. Lane has performed his work it is difficult to speak in terms of too high praise. It displays all the photographic accuracy for which he is so well known, combined with scholarship of a kind—acquired as it was in the East—which is hard to attain. His familiarity with Eastern minds and habits of thought, and with all the objects of Eastern life, give him an uncommon insight into the meaning and intention of an Arab writer…. It is not too much to say that the work, when completed, will do more to advance the study of Arabic than any other which has appeared during this century.”

Working with his incredible industry and persistence, Lane published the succeeding volumes of the Arabic–English Lexicon at roughly two-year intervals, but it was all too apparent that he was racing against time and death.

He finished writing the fourth volume, covering the letters , , and , in 1870, but on the very day it was printed, all but one copy was destroyed by fire. Two years were lost. Lane was 68 years old and in frail health. His response was to increase his efforts, focusing even more tightly than ever on the Lexicon. But composition, printing and proofing could only go so fast. Lane was working on the article for volume six on August 5, 1876 when he was taken ill; he died five days later. The Lexicon’s final three volumes were published under the supervision of his great-nephew, Stanley Lane-Poole, who later made a name for himself in Arab numismatics, among other areas.

Edward William Lane’s Arabic–English Lexicon is still an indispensable reference tool for the classical Arabic language. Of the many scholarly accolades it has received over the decades, the one by the great Cambridge orientalist A. J. Arberry in 1960 is representative: “Every Arabist since Lane has had good cause to bless him for his superhuman labours, and to regret that he had not begun his project earlier in life, so that there might have been a greater chance of its completion. It is certainly true to say, that every work produced in this century relating in any way to Arabic studies has drawn heavily upon the Lexicon. It is a sufficient tribute to its unique greatness, that to this day it remains supreme in the field of Arabic lexicography: no scholar or group of scholars has produced anything to supplant it.”

That evaluation holds true in the 21st century. Professor Manfred Woidich of the University of Amsterdam describes Lane’s Lexicon as “a fine combination of eastern and western scholarship. For the scholar busy with classical Arabic, it is an indispensable working tool which will not be replaced in years to come.”

It's a good article. Read it all.

(Via the Agade list.)

AN ANCIENT SYRIAC MONASTERY IN TURKEY:

The pearl of Mardin: Deyrulzafaran Monastery
Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The Syriacs are the heirs of ancient Mesopotamian communities dating back 5,000 years. After converting to Christianity, they maintained their lives in a slightly introverted way in different parts of the world, protecting their own religious and cultural values. The most important sanctuary representing the Syriacs in Mardin is 'Deyrulzafaran Monastery' (Saffron Monastery)

GÖKSEL BOZKURT
MARDİN-Turkish Daily News

A Syriac poem by Bar Hebraeus is quoted in the article.

UPDATE (28 May): More here.

THE TREE OF PARADISE exhibition of ancient Jewish mosaics is on display in Boston:

Jewish mosaics, ancient insights
By Cate McQuaid
[Boston] Globe Correspondent / March 25, 2008

In 1883, a French army captain stationed in Tunisia, Ernest de Prudhomme, went outside to dig in his garden and happened upon a trove of mosaics. It was quite a find: The mosaics dated to the sixth century, the period known as Late Antiquity. They included images of two menorahs, and a Latin inscription between them read "Your servant, the girl Juliana, paved the holy synagogue of Naro for her own salvation out of her own resources."

They came from the floor of an ancient temple.

Rome ruled North Africa in the sixth century, and Roman law forbade Jews from building synagogues or repairing them. But scholars say the law was not strictly enforced; indeed, many synagogues thrived.

Twenty-one of Prudhomme's mosaics from the ancient city of Naro (now Hammam Lif, Tunisia) lie at the heart of "Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics From the Roman Empire," an intriguing exhibit at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College. The show was organized by the Brooklyn Museum, which acquired many of the mosaics in 1905.

[...]

Background here and here.

HAPPY FIFTH BLOGIVERSARY TO PALEOJUDAICA! My first post on this blog was published five years ago today. Here are my favorite posts from the last year, in chronological order:

A defense of the original Dead Sea Scrolls publication team

The Gnostic implications of the Simulation Argument

British New Testament Conference 2007 report

My review of Facts on the Ground by Nadia Abu El-Haj

A report on Richard Bauckham's retirement events

The Tomb of Ezekiel

Photos from the San Diego Society of Biblical Literature conference

A report on the San Diego Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition

On John Strugnell

A meditation on lost archives

The 2007 PaleoJudaica Ralphies

How dead a language was Hebrew?

My review of The Thirteenth Apostle, by April DeConick

This is posting number 5055 for PaleoJudaica. The counter stands at 475891 total individual hits (and 662041 total page views) and PaleoJudaica is currently ranked at number 65568 (out of 112.8 million blogs) by Technorati.

As always, please keep sending me items of interest and please do keep reading PaleoJudaica.

A. A. GILL reviews The Passion for the London Times. The review itself is pretty funny, but even better is this anecdote about Oscar Wilde:

The Passion and The Curse of Steptoe

At Oxford, Oscar Wilde had a gay old time aphorising into the early hours. He failed to do any Greek, and his professor, the Reverend Spooner, begetter of the Spooner-ism “Christianity is a completely different lay of wife” called him in for a test in front of a board of classics tutors so that they could expel him.

Wilde had to translate the selling of Jesus by Judas in Matthew’s Gospel. Wilde began to read the Easter story perfectly. After a few minutes, the thwarted Spooner said that that would be all. Wilde continued. “That will be all, Mr Wilde,” Spooner repeated. Still, Wilde went on. “Will you stop now?” shouted the furious Spooner. Wilde looked up as if hearing him for the first time: “Sorry, do you mind if I carry on? I want to see how it ends up for the poor chap.”

[...]

I have more on A. A. Gill here.

HOWLER OF THE WEEK, and it's only Monday:

It's Easter, time to rev up the revisionism

New scholarship suggests Jesus might never have intended to found a new religion
Mar 22, 2008 04:30 AM
Stuart Laidlaw
faith and ethics reporter [Toronto Star]

Jesus needs saving, once again, from his followers. This time, however, it is not from those he preached to or from one of his most loyal supporters who, the Bible says, betrayed him.

It's the Christians who came later.

That's the shared thesis of at least two recently released books about the man crucified almost 2,000 years ago. How Jesus Became Christian by Barrie Wilson and The Jesus Sayings by Rex Weyler both try to take the reader back to Biblical times to uncover Jesus's lost message.

"It seems like Jesus was rejecting power and handing it over to the people," Vancouver-based Weyler says in a telephone interview. "But that didn't sit well with authorities – religious or secular."

Easter always brings a fresh wave of books and TV shows about Jesus as publishers and broadcasters capitalize on the heightened awareness of the man from Nazareth at this time of year, says University of Toronto Christianity professor Mark McGowan.

"For a Jesus book, August wouldn't be that great," he adds.

Easter remains a much more theologically based holiday than Christmas, McGowan says, and savvy publishers know they can release more thoughtful books than they would during the hurly-burly of the Yule season. The Weyler and Wilson books certainly fit that description.

Wilson, a religious studies professor at York University, says the discovery last century of lost gospels such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, which scholars are only now beginning to understand, have led to a flourish of books on the origins of Christianity.

[...]

My emphasis. I'm sure that Barrie Wilson did not say this. He probably said something about the Nag Hammadi Gnostic gospels and what he said was garbled in the article. Anyone who has a clue about such things (evidently not including faith and ethics reporters at the Star) knows that the Dead Sea Scrolls were Jewish documents that did not include any lost gospels. The Dead Sea Scrolls are of interest for the study of Christian origins because they contain lots of new information on first-century Judaism which can serve as useful background to the early Jesus movement.

As for the theory, it's hardly new, and the basic idea has lots of supporters among historical Jesus scholars.

UPDATE: Barrie Wilson e-mails to confirm my theory of how the error in the article arose. He adds:

There's more to the book, I think, than the either the write-up in the Toronto Star or the last line of your blog reveals.

Fair enough.

Also, Lorenzo DiTommaso has a review of both books in the Calgary Herald. Excerpt:

The quest to recover the Jesus of history involves deciding which parts, among all these ancient sources, preserve genuine recollections of his life and sayings, and which parts were later added to the tradition. Given that many people have strong preconceived notions about Jesus or what he represents, such decisions are rarely objective. Jesus is the ultimate Rorschach Test.

"THE RABBIS RECONSIDERED" AT UPENN:

There will be a roundtable discussion -- "The Rabbis Reconsidered" -- on Wednesday afternoon, April 2, on the Penn Campus as noted below. Three current Fellows at Penn's Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (CAJS) will discuss the ways in which recent scholarship has altered and is altering interpretations of the rabbis and rabbinic literature. This is an open session; no registration is required.

*The Rabbis Reconsidered: A Roundtable Discussion*

Professor Beth Berkowitz, Jewish Theological Seminary
Professor Yaakov Elman, Yeshiva University
Professor Seth Schwartz, Jewish Theological Seminary
Moderator: Professor Natalie Dohrmann, University of Pennsylvania

Wednesday, April 2, 4:45 PM, Arch Crest, 3601 Locust Walk on the Penn Campus [former Christian Association building]

The strong traditional story of Jewish recovery from the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 CE has been radically altered by a recent generation of scholars. The old narrative tells us that the rabbis stepped up to lead and inspire a devastated Jewish population. They built a Torah-based Judaism to fill the void left by the loss of the Temple and priesthood. They created and ran new institutions that patrolled and defined the contours of a rabbinically-inflected Jewish identity.

New evidence of the relationship of rabbis with non-rabbinic Jews, and with imperial governments and cultures in both Babylonia and Palestine, coupled with the revelations gleaned from material remains tell us a different story. Rabbinic Judaism was at best a marginal voice in the Roman world; and most Jews likely paid them little or no mind. To the east of the Roman empire, rabbis living and working under the Sasanian empire reveal themselves to be profoundly influenced by the legal, religious, institutional, and cultural traditions of the Zorastrians among whom they lived.

This newer scholarship has prompted a reconsideration of the role of the rabbis in the ancient world:

* Who in fact were the rabbis and where did they come from?
* If the rabbis were not at the center of post 70 CE Jewish life, who or what was?
* When and how did the rabbis ultimately move from the periphery to the center of Jewish life?
* What should a historian do with the vast corpus of rabbinic literature?
* How do new historical narratives change how we read these canonical texts?

Sponsored by the Jewish Studies Kutchin Faculty Seminar Series, and co-sponsored by the Center for Ancient Studies and the Religious Studies Dept.

From Bob Kraft on the PSCO list.

HAPPY EASTER to all those celebrating.

THE TALPIOT TOMB documentary and Princeton seminar and their aftermath are treated by Thomas F. Madden in The National Review. Not surprisingly, the coverage by the mainstream media does not come out looking well, although to be fair it's not entirely true that not "much of anyone" argues for a connection between the tomb and Jesus. Biblical scholar James Tabor has gone on record as thinking it "possible to likely" that it is the Jesus family tomb. But it's clear that the vast majority of the attenders and, apparently, all who presented papers, were quite skeptical about any connection.

Background on the conference is here, here, here, here, here, and here.

THE RESURRECTION, by Geza Vermes, is reviewed by Ziauddin Sardar in the London Times:

TWO DAYS AFTER THE Crucifixion of Jesus, on April 9, AD30, a perplexing event occurred. According to one story the dead Christ was reborn. The Resurrection was a physical event, a reality that occurred in a given place at a specific time. What evidence is there for this phenomenon, the cardinal belief of Christianity? Are there other possibilities? Did something entirely different happen?

These are the questions that Geza Vermes sets out to explore in this deceptively slender volume. His main concern is to establish facts, a feat he accomplishes through concise textual analysis and precise arguments. Vermes, an authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and a renowned scholar of the Bible, dissects what the Old and New Testaments say about resurrection, and how Saint Paul propagated the idea, with an acute eye for detail. The forensic historian takes us step by step through crucial episodes from the Crucifixion to the treatment of the body, from the accounts of the witnesses to the visions of the Disciples. The end product is as compelling as it is revealing.

[...]

TWO CONFERENCES:

CAJS-Penn annual Colloquium, April 29-May 1.
This year the subject is Jewish and Other Imperial Cultures in Late Antiquity. You can download the PDF flier here.

The 26th Annual Spiritual Life Institute at St. Martin's University, June 16-20
The Dead Sea Scrolls at Sixty:
Past, Present, and Future Prospects
(Note the box on the upper left of the page, which has links to more information.)

ANOTHER COSMIC SYNCHRONICITY:

Queen Esther meets Estée Lauder
By OZZIE NOGG 20.MAR.08 [Jewish Herald Voice)
A Purim spoof

Researchers at the Jewish Oddities Studies Headquarters have determined that Queen Esther and cosmetics queen, Estée Lauder, are related. According to Professor Gonapull Yerleg, “The staff at JOSH now can say, definitively, that these two Jewish women both of whom saved our skin share the same spiritual, philosophical gene pool. Skeptics may pooh-pooh the discovery, but personally, this finding, revealed so close to Purim, gives me gooseflesh.”

Similarities between the two women are irrefutable, Yerleg explained. “Queen Esther, née Hadassah, was mentored by her uncle, Mordechai, who wound up on a horse from the royal stable. Estée Lauder, née Josephine Esther Mentzer, was mentored by her uncle, John Schotz, who mixed up face creams in a horse stable behind the family house. Amazing, no? And get this: Estée’s family house was in the New York borough of Queens. Queens! That fact alone should satisfy any doubting Thomas.”

[...]

And while Esther is getting all this attention, let's not forget her predecessor:

Queen Vashti - from disobedient wife to religious feminist role model
By Tamar Rotem, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Vashti, Feminist, Esther

Queen Esther is the religious girl's superhero. There is no prettier Purim costume than a pale blue dress tinged with gold. But it isn't just because of Esther's glamorous dress that she outnumbers Vashti at the Purim parade. Esther is the undisputed heroine of Jewish mythology. She represents the ultimate observant woman; her beauty and righteousness is hailed in Jewish literature.

In contrast, Vashti, who did not obey her husband King Ahasuerus, was excluded from the scroll and from Jewish history. However, despite the ridicule heaped on her, for the past several years the religious feminist movement has adopted the intriguing figure as a role model for women.

[...]

"This is an ancient patriarchal society," says Dr. Yaakov Maoz of the Israel Association of Community Centers' Jewish Studies Department. "The advisers warn the king against a trend of contempt for husbands in the kingdom, nipping the Vashti feminist revolution in the bud."

In a modern, feminist reading of the scroll, the heroines Vashti and Esther are diametric opposites. Vashti is strong, does not agree to showcase her beauty, does not agree to be a sex object; while Esther uses her beauty and her sexuality.

According to Hanna Kahat, founder of religious feminist forum Kolech, the selection of Vashti as the new female model by religious women in the U.S. in the 1980s, followed by religious women in Israel, is an expression of rebellion against the religious establishment. As such, it suited early Orthodox feminists to adopt Vashti, as women sought models of women leaders with whom to identify. In this way, they began to revive and redeem marginal characters who had been excluded from mainstream interpretations because they threatened the male establishment.

"This is also what happened to Lilith," Kahat explains. "She became more popular than Eve." According to talmudic literature, Lilith was Adam's first wife and his equal. The feminists love the egalitarian aspect.

[...]

Sounds like a first wives club in the making.

TODAY IS GOOD FRIDAY. And note that the cosmic synchronicities continue to pile up this year. Today is also Purim (started yesterday evening) and yesterday (and so overlapping with Purim) was the vernal equinox, or first day of spring, and also the Persian New Year. Best wishes to all readers observing any of the above.

THE ANCIENT RABBIS AND ROMAN STATUES:

Scholar explores ancient Jewish reactions to ancient pagan statues
By Naomi Pfefferman, Arts & Entertainment Editor [Jewish Journal, Los Angeles]

Imagine a rabbi encountering a statue of Zeus in Roman Palestine, circa 70 to 300 C.E. -- a monotheist's nightmare.

"The myth is that he would have uttered something like the Yiddish 'gevalt,'" said professor Yaron Z. Eliav of the University of Michigan, who recently spoke about Jews and statues at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades. "We imagine he would have put his hand over his face, the way an ultra-Orthodox Jew might shield his eyes from a poster of a woman in a bikini."

But the sages who wrote classical texts, such as the Talmud, could not afford to ignore such statues, which were like the mass media of the ancient world.

Images of gods, mythological monsters, sports heroes and emperors were everywhere: atop pedestals and in niches, adorning public buildings, temples, fountains and tetrapyla, the colonnaded structures marking street intersections. They were intended to be lifelike and often heavily painted, as revealed in the Getty's new exhibition, "The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture From Antiquity to the Present."

"One could not have strolled heavily Jewish cities such as Tiberias or Caesarea without encountering Roman sculpture every step of the way," said Eliav, as he strolled amid ancient statues at the museum. "While the assumption has been that the sages opposed everything Graeco-Roman, they were in fact far more sophisticated and varied in their response."

Eliav co-directs the multidisciplinary Statuary Project at the University of Michigan, which, among other endeavors, peruses classical Jewish texts for references to statues (there are at least 6,000 of them -- many appreciative of the figures' beauty and tolerant of female nudes).

The texts reveal that the rabbis were fluent in Greek and in the customs of the ancient world. "Not only did [they] repeatedly mention statues by name, such as Aphrodite, Mercury ... emperors, or even the 'faces which spout out water in the towns' (t. Avod. Zar. 6:6), they were also conscious of the social and political dynamics associated with the positioning of statues," Eliav wrote in an essay.

Thus they were able to work out pragmatic rulings on how Jews should interact with the ubiquitous sculpture. In a Mishnah debate on idolatry, just one scholar, Rabbi Meir, insisted that "all statues are forbidden"; most of the others argued that only statues meant to be worshipped were off limits. A passage in the Yerushalmi, the Palestinian Talmud, suggests that informal rituals conducted in front of public sculptures did not necessarily turn them into idols -- a practical viewpoint in a society where the informal veneration of statues, including processions and the sprinkling of libations, were common.

[...]

AN EXHIBITION ON MUSIC IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WORLD:

Blasts from the Past (Extract)
By GAVRIEL FISKE

Extract of article in Issue 24, March 18, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Report click here.

The Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem sounds off on ancient musical practices

King David playing his harp - a common translation of the Hebrew word kinor - is one of the iconic images of the Bible. In modern Hebrew the kinor is a violin, but in antiquity a kinor was a lyre, a triangular or trapezoidal stringed instrument sometimes played with a pick. It's possible that David's instrument was constructed out of sheep gut and ram's horn, a far cry from our image of a Western harp.

This is just one of the many intriguing facts that emerge from "Sounds of Ancient Music." The recently opened exhibit at the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, scheduled to run through 2008, is an in-depth examination of the role of music in the ancient Near Eastern world. Based on a study of ancient visual and written sources, replicas of instruments and instruments that survived, the exhibit attempts to shed scholarly light on something seemingly lost in the mists of time - the musical culture of the peoples depicted in the Bible.

[...]

(Heads up, reader Yoel Heltai.)

THE FESTIVAL OF PURIM begins tonight at sundown. Arrangements are complicated this year, due to its proximity to the sabbath:

Fast of Esther Preceeds Three-Day Purim in Jerusalem

by Ezra HaLevi

(IsraelNN.com) The Fast of Esther (Ta'anit Esther) begins Thursday morning and ends after the reading of the Scroll of Esther towards the end of evening prayers Thursday night - when the Festival of Purim begins.

The joyous month of Adar takes a "day off" to commemorate the fasting and prayers led by Queen Esther against the genocidal decree of the evil Haman. Jews around the world fast in remembrance of the prayers, fasting and repentance that preceded the Jewish People's miraculous deliverance from Haman's plan to annihilate them some 2,500 years ago.

A number of rallies and vigils this year will parallel the dangers that loomed in the time of Queen Esther to those facing the Jewish people today.

Three-Day Purim
Purim falls on Friday this year, except in Jerusalem, where the holiday will coincide with the Sabbath. However, because of the Sabbath, the mitzvot of giving gifts to the poor and sending food to at least two people cannot be carried out, and the residents of the capital will do so on Sunday, making it a three-day holiday. The Book of Esther is also not read aloud on the Sabbath, and Jerusalem will join the rest of the country in hearing it on Thursday night and Friday morning. In Yaffo (Jaffa), Acco, Tzfat, Hevron and elsewhere, both Shushan and regular Purim are celebrated due to uncertainty about their walled status during the relevant period.

[...]

The business about "walled status" is explained in the first link above (Judaism 101):

Purim is celebrated on the 14th day of Adar, which is usually in March. The 13th of Adar is the day that Haman chose for the extermination of the Jews, and the day that the Jews battled their enemies for their lives. On the day afterwards, the 14th, they celebrated their survival. In cities that were walled in the time of Joshua, Purim is celebrated on the 15th of the month, because the book of Esther says that in Shushan (a walled city), deliverance from the massacre was not complete until the next day. The 15th is referred to as Shushan Purim.

Best wishes to all those celebrating.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

McCain Mobbed by Crowds at Western Wall

By Michael D. Shear (Washington Post)
JERUSALEM -- What was supposed to be a somber visit by Sen. John McCain to the Western Wall this morning was marred by an unruly mob of Israeli photographers, police and tourists who threw punches at each other as they engulfed the Republican presidential candidate.

McCain was not hurt, but appeared rattled by the spasm of violence as he began a second day of meetings with high-level Israeli officials as part of a congressional trip to the Middle East and Europe.

The crush of people surrounded McCain (Ariz.) after he and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) briefly touched the towering wall at the base of the Temple Mount, where the Second Temple stood until its destruction nearly two thousand years ago. The senators placed notes in the cracks between the ancient stones, a common tradition. McCain declined through a spokesman to reveal what his note said.

[...]

ARTHUR C. CLARK died a couple of days ago and I've been looking for an excuse to mention him here. This will do:

Many writers remember the first Clarke book they read, and the profound effects his work had on them.

"My friends and I read Clarke and talked about his fiction with the awe of rabbinical students falling in love with Torah and Talmud," said Orson Scott Card, author of many science fiction novels, including "Ender's Game." "Inarticulate with youth, we would say things like, 'Wasn't it cool when ...' But we were responding to the experience of religious awe, which Arthur C. Clarke's fiction inspired in us."

Although Clarke is no longer with us, his work will live on, Card said.

Indeed. Also, SF writer Charles Stross said:

"All of us come to an end eventually, and at 90 years of age Sir Arthur had decent innings," he said. "But I'm still saddened: Along with Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, he pretty much defined science fiction for those of us of a certain age, and news of his death signals the end of an era, far more than the end of one man."

The last of the giants is gone. Requiescat in pace and ad astra per aspera.

VERMES'S THE RESURRECTION is reviewed by Daniel J. Harrington in the America: the National Catholic Weekly. He likes N. T. Wright's treatment of the subject better.

(Heads up, Joseph I. Lauer.)

AN ANCIENT HALF-SHEKEL COIN has been discovered in Jerusalem - an interesting cosmic synchronicity with this year's Purim festival:

Second Temple Half-Shekel Found in Jerusalem Dig

by Ezra HaLevi

(IsraelNN.com) A half-shekel coin from the Second Temple was found in excavations in the City of David, just below and east of Jerusalem’s Old City. The upcoming Purim festival features the half-shekel prominently in its observance.

The ancient silver coin was discovered in an archaeological excavation that is being conducted in the main Second Temple-era drainage channel of Jerusalem. The foreign coin is of the denomination used during the turbulent Second Temple period to pay the Biblical half-shekel head-tax.

This coming Thursday night (Saturday night for Jerusalemites), before reading the Megillah (Scroll) of Esther, Jews worldwide will contribute a sum of money to charity in remembrance of that half-shekel command.

“Just like today when coins sometimes fall from our pockets and roll into drainage openings at the side of the street, that’s how it was some two thousand years ago – a man was on his way to the Temple and the shekel which he intended to use for paying the half shekel head-tax found its way into the drainage channel,” theorized archaeologist Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

[...]

UPDATE AND CORRECTION: It appears that it is a full shekel coin, not a half. Joseph I. Lauer e-mails on his list:

Although the article refers to the coin found in the excavations in the City of David as a half-shekel, the previously circulated IAA report on the discovery stated, "This coin is a shekel denomination that was customarily used to pay a half shekel head-tax in the Second Temple period."

In addition, Jack Kilmon wrote on the biblical-studies list that "The Tyrian tetradrachm was close, monetarily, to the shekel .... When this tetradrachm/shekel was given to the money changer it was equivalent to TWO tax offerings so had to be presented with 2 kalbonot (equiv. 2 denarii) as a fee in order to get back 1/2 shekel in change or pay for two. 2 kalbonot was the equivalent of 11 prutot." See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biblical-studies/message/16779

The IAA report is here.

BIBLE PARK USA has set up an advisory board of prominent biblical scholars:

Bible Park names scholarly advisor council

A national Advisory Council (AAC) of academic theologians with specialties in history and archaeology has been established to provide a key oversight role for the Bible Park USA.

Ten individuals---all Ph.D.s with broad expertise and specialized knowledge---with varying backgrounds, education and experience will provide “dynamic, broad leadership, guidance and direction as well-loved and well-known Biblical tenets are brought to life in a new way for the education and enjoyment of our Park visitors,” said Armon Bar-Tur, Managing Director of SafeHarbor Holding, Inc., and developer of the Bible Park USA.

Bar-Tur said the Council was formed after consulting with local, regional and national experts in the theological field, including World Outreach Church Senior Pastor Allen Jackson, First United Methodist Church Pastor Michael O’Bannon and North Boulevard Church of Christ Preaching Minister John Risse. The AAC has been working with Park designers and held a two-day meeting this fall in Nashville to review preliminary plans for the Park and provide input and counsel.

[...]

It's quite a high-powered list.

GEZA VERMES is interviewed in the Guardian about his new book, The Resurrection:

Geza Vermes: Questions arising

John Crace meets the professor of Jewish studies whom many dub the greatest Jesus scholar of his generation

Tuesday March 18, 2008
The Guardian

For Geza Vermes, retirement seems to have concentrated the mind. Since giving up the day job as professor of Jewish studies at Oxford University in 1991, he has been writing books at a faster rate than he ever did when he was meant to be working. And now, aged 83, he shows no sign of letting up. For the past eight weeks he has been taking seminars for a former Oxford colleague on study leave and in May he's off to Switzerland to speak at a rather grand interdisciplinary conference on The Truth. In between, his most recent book, The Resurrection, is published this week.

The Resurrection is the final instalment of Vermes's Jesus trilogy, which began with The Passion and The Nativity. Vermes again adopts his trademark forensic textual analysis to separate fact from myth: "I wanted to explain exactly what the New Testament does tell us about the resurrection. People usually rely on others to interpret the gospels for them and St Paul's assertion of the physical resurrection has become a cornerstone of Christianity for many people. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then faith is rubbish.

"Yet if you look at what Jesus actually said, then you get a different picture. If he did talk about the resurrection, he forgot to write it down; so it's more likely he didn't. And if he did, then why did his resurrection come as such a surprise to the apostles? No one said, 'Of course, Jesus said it would be like this' when his tomb was found to be empty; even Mary Magdalene assumed that someone must have moved the body. Nobody's reactions correspond to the expectation of a resurrection."

Vermes goes on to argue that subsequent sightings of Jesus are best understood as visions in which the apostles felt his charisma working as it had done when he was alive. "Jesus had promised to be with them and he was," he argues. "It's a resurrection of the spirit in the hearts of believers. The idea of an afterlife predates the Christian era and the preaching of eternal life is well attested; a physical resurrection is not essential to a belief in spiritual survival."

[...]

The piece goes on to summarize Professor Vermes's life story. The University of St. Andrews gets a brief, but key, mention.

Also, A. N. Wilson has a very negative review of The Resurrection in the Telegraph which contains this remarkable observation:

At least 100 years ago, the quest for the historical Jesus was shown to be a wild goose chase. Vermes's beguiling attempt to revive it has not yielded one jot of new information.

I don't think even Bultmann would have said that it had been shown to be a wild goose chase by 1908. As for, say, Käsemann, Taylor, Dodd, Brown, Meier, Crossan, Kloppenborg, Dunn, Bauckham, and, of course, Vermes (an incomplete list off the top of my head), I guess they all have just been wasting their time. Now we know.

Seriously, I haven't read the book and can't comment on it, and Wilson is right to say that Paul is central to any accounting for the idea of the resurrection of Jesus. But that said, Wilson is too confident that he knows the answers to difficult and debated areas such as the quest for the historical Jesus or the question of the historicity of Acts.

The Resurrection has also been reviewed by Frank Kermode in the London Review of Books, but the review hasn't shown up yet online.

UPDATE: Chris Brady comments on the Guardian article over at Targuman and James Crossley comments on the Wilson review at the Earliest Christian History blog.

A NEWS IN BRIEF ITEM FROM HAARETZ regarding Jerusalem archaeology:

The High Court of Justice issued a temporary restraining order against the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), ordering a halt to an archaeological dig in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem, after local Arab residents complained that the excavations were being carried out underneath their homes and without their approval. They claimed that according to the law, the IAA is required to notify property owners if they want to dig under their property. After the suit was filed, the police arrested three of the seven plaintiffs. (Meron Rapoport)

LAST NIGHT I caught most of the first episode of the BBC's The Passion. I don't have time to comment at length, but I thought it was very well done.

NOT EVEN THE JERUSALEM POST bothered to look up the source of Madonna's supposed quote from the Talmud.

Sigh.

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I've heard someone call an Arabic incantation and a medieval Persian poem in Aramaic "lowbrow."

Karl Jenkins: Triumph of banal manipulation

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 17/03/2008 [The Telegraph]

David Fanning reviews Karl Jenkins at Liverpool Cathedral

With their third world premiere as part of Liverpool's Capital of Culture programme, the RLPO and its Chorus have placed a large tick in the "mass appeal" box, as a near-unanimous standing ovation for Karl Jenkins's Stabat Mater in a sold-out Anglican Cathedral confirmed.

Responsible for the chart-topping Adiemus and Requiem, Jenkins has hit on a recipe for success. It consists of elementary chord progressions, four-bar phrases, primary-colour scoring with splashes of exotica, and vocal lines that lie well for children and amateurs.

Inclusiveness is evidently one of his aims; at least inclusiveness from the lowbrow down. So this Stabat Mater - in 12 movements, lasting 65 minutes - intersperses the Roman Catholic sequence with six other texts, including an Arabic Incantation, a Lament (of stupefying banality) by the composer's wife, and a 13th-century Persian poem sung in English and Aramaic.

[...]

I suppose this means Mr. Fanning didn't like the music, but the texts still sound cool.

THE AUSTRIAN SHEMA AMULET is covered in Haaretz, and the article contains some new details:

The scroll's inscription was incomprehensible at first, according to Prof. Nives Doneus, who discovered it. She says it might have been purchased for the boy by his parents as protection against evil spirits.

"The pendant was unearthed as early as 2000," Doneus told Haaretz last week in telephone conversation, "but because of the backlog we have, it wasn't examined before 2006. I found a hollow silver ornament. I extracted the golden scroll from inside the ornament, but I didn't notice the lettering the first time I examined it."

Only after reexamining the object was Doneus able to observe the Greek lettering. She then gave it to a linguist, who established that the text on the tiny scroll - which can be transliterated as "suma Istrahl adwne elwh adawt n a" - was Jewish in origin. Doneus then passed it on to Prof. Dr. Armin Lange, who heads the university's department of Jewish studies.

The bizarre-looking transcription of the sentence, which appears in Deuteronomy 6:4 ("Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one") owes, according to Lange, to the writer's decision to substitute the word "one" with the first letter of the Greek alphabet, alpha. Lange postulates this was done because of space considerations.

Other mis-transliterations are due to the difference between Hebrew and Greek, which lacks Hebrew's guttural ain and shin, says Lange, who is "completely certain" that the wording on the scroll is the "Shema."

"There are a number of things which set this pendant aside from others like it, which are dated from later periods," he explains. "Usually we see a longer prayer, and it's almost never engraved on a golden scroll."

This scroll, Lange adds, was written by a Jew for a Jew. "If the pendant was meant to protect [a person] from evil spirits, then only someone who knows the prayer and believes in the verse would be content to have such a short version of it," he says.

I think a Christian or a well-informed pagan magician might well have been content with it for the same purpose. I have further comments here.

A COPTIC CONFERENCE IN EGYPT took place recently:

The spirit of monasticism in Upper Egypt (Al-Ahram)
The recent Coptic convention at Naqada drew scholars from all over the world. The symposium, organised by the Saint Mark Foundation for Coptic Studies, took place in the church of the Archangel Michael from 6 to 11 February. Its aim was to draw attention to the rich heritage of one of the lesser-known monastic sites in Upper Egypt; to present an overview of the current state of research, conservation and restoration in the Naqada and Qus (Coptos) region; to increase general knowledge of the area; and to activate concern for conserving and preserving its Christian heritage. Bishop Beiman gave the opening address in the grand new hall of the monastery. Attending were Magdi Ayoub, the governor of Qena, who said a word about the specialised gathering being a part of a wider culture and identity which spanned the ages, along with VIPs, participants, guests, the press, and a large number of residents of Naqada and Qena anxious to witness such an important event taking place at a site which is not on the regular tourist map and, until relatively recently, not easily accessible by road. Jill Kamil was there

Nag Hammadi, the site of the discovery of the well known Coptic Gnostic library, was the subject of a paper.

It would be nice to go to this sort of thing once in a while, but given the attitude of the Egyptian Government toward bloggers, I don't plan to. I would not feel safe.