THE HADRIAN EXHIBITION at the British Museum is reviewed in a long article in the Independent:

Hadrian: The man behind the wall

His conquests were spectacular, his genius for PR unrivalled. But his contradictions were legion. Who was the real Hadrian? As the British Museum prepares for a major exhibition on the life of the Roman leader, Boyd Tonkin looks for answers in the ruins of his imperial retreat

Thursday, 10 July 2008

Aprudent but brooding second-in-command, he had to endure a long, anxious wait before he finally took charge. He began his reign, AD 117, with a controversial withdrawal from Iraq: too soft, said the imperial hardliners. A bloody insurgency, and the persistent threat of a rival power with deep roots in the Middle East, prompted him to cut Roman losses and redeploy the occupying legions. Peace with the Parthians still left him in charge of a 60-million-strong swathe of Europe, western Asia and north Africa.

His writ ran (to use their modern names) from Newcastle to Cairo; from Lisbon to Jerusalem; from Algiers to Brussels. From the border security system in remote Britannia that he supervised in 122, and which makes his name at least familiar to all, to the forests of Turkey and the waters of the Nile, this soldier- son of a Spanish-Roman clan spent half his time in office visiting the distant outposts of the empire. For 15 years, his slick PR machine celebrated peace and order across these realms in stone, coin and scroll. Then he unleashed a punitive campaign of massacre and expulsion against his Jewish subjects after a revolt in 132. Pretty often, he made it across to Greece: his cultural inspiration, his spiritual home, and the source of his trademark intellectual's beard.

[...]

At the other boundary of his power, Hadrian the tolerant multiculturalist provoked the Jews by building a pagan shrine above the ruins of the Temple of Jerusalem – destroyed after the earlier revolt, AD 70. In the 130s, his merciless suppression of the popular rebellion led by the messianic guerrilla chief Simon bar Kochba – "son of the star" – left more than half a million dead. In the aftermath, he wiped the name of Judaea off the map, Ahmadinejad-style. Henceforth, the land would be "Syria Palestina".

Does the modern notion of racial "anti-Semitism" have any relevance here? It's "certainly not correct", says Opper: the salient point is that "the Jews, like the Christians, could not accommodate the cult of the emperor". So the usual Roman tolerance of local deities abruptly ceased. For Anthony Everitt, "there was little in imperial Rome analogous to contemporary racism". Hadrian's near-extermination of Judaea "was the fate Rome invariably meted out to those who refused to march under its yoke". The refusal of Jewish monotheism to compromise with pagan norms, Speller underlines, meant that Roman "carrot and stick" business as usual would not work. Whatever the motives, the Jewish people had no deadlier enemy until the Third Reich. Still, almost 1,900 years later, the words of the Talmud curse Hadrian.

[...]

I'm not sure why monotheism is brought up as an issue here. The Romans actually had a policy of tolerance toward Jewish monotheism (although not toward the Christian Jesus cult). The issue in the Bar Kokhba revolt was political independence, not monotheism.

Background on the exhibition here.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF: KABBALAH from Time Magazine. Very brief: about three sentences cover the period before Madonnna.

VISION OF GABRIEL WATCH: Time Magazine has a profile of the collector who obtained the Vision of Gabriel inscription. It has a little new information.

The Man Who Bought a Resurrection
Tuesday, Jul. 08, 2008 By TIM MCGIRK / JERUSALEM AND DAVID VAN BIEMA / NEW YORK

David Jeselsohn has been an avid collector of Mediterranean antiquities all his life. But 10 years ago, his curiosity was aroused by a mysterious stone tablet with ancient Hebrew writing that appeared in London, offered by a reputable Jordanian dealer. Jeselson bought it and then, distracted by more collecting, forgot it. Today, however, some scholars say that the fractured, three-foot-long sandstone tablet challenges the uniqueness of the idea of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[...]

After the purchase, Jeselsohn stashed the tablet in his Zurich home and moved on to other collectibles. Then, three years ago, he invited an Israeli scholar, Ada Yardeni, to Zurich to examine writings on ancient pottery shells. The expert's eye, however, was drawn instead to the tablet with its 87 lines of Hebrew script. "She was fascinated" says Jeselsohn. "Yardeni said the writing was just like on the Dead Sea Scrolls."

The original dealer was vague about the tablet's origin. But Jeselsohn, who is also an expert on East Mediterranean antiquities, says that the ink writing could only have survived for 2,000 years if it were kept in an extremely dry climate, possibly along the Jordanian shore of the Dead Sea. Most likely, says Jeselsohn, the tablet was considered sacred and displayed upright in a public area such as a synagogue.

[...]

Interesting. Another illustration of how the historical value of unprovenanced antiquities is tragically reduced because of the loss of their physical context. It isn't obvious why someone would go to the trouble of putting a literary text like this on a stone surface. If the Vision of Gabriel is genuine and if we had the context it was found in, we might be able to say a lot more about its purpose, use, and background.

UPDATE: More here.

ONLINE EXHIBITION:

Jewish & Other Imperial Cultures in Late
Antiquity
An Online Exhibition from the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies 2007-2008 Fellows at the University of Pennsylvania.

Introduction
This year has been the Center's first sustained focus on Judaism in Antiquity, and we aimed to study in a decidedly interdisciplinary mode. Instead of a year on the rabbis and their world, we have focused instead on the imperial context of which Judaism was but one small piece. How does this perspective change the sort of evidence and questions we bring to this era of seminal transformation in Jewish culture, law, society, art, and practice? The idea has been to foster vibrant reciprocity. Scholars of early Judaism need to be regularly challenged by the data and complexity of Roman history, even, and especially, as Rome became a Christian empire. The group has also pushed Roman history to better take the measure of the vast, but often inaccessible, evidence of one of its own (uniquely vocal) provincial populations - the Jews. The conversation has been extraordinary, and is reechoed in the diversity and range of the fellows convened, several of whom are represented in this exhibit. I hope you enjoy it, and get at least some taste of what has been an extraordinary year. I want to extend my sincere thanks to David Ruderman and the Center for supporting the year, to Arthur Kiron for curating this exhibit, to Greg Bear for the title graphic, to Leslie Vallhonrat for designing the on-line version of the exhibit, and especially to Ra'anan Boustan, Oded Irshai, and Seth Schwartz. These remarkable and generous scholars, through many hours of conversation, came up with the call for this year and were essential in fulfilling its mission.

Natalie Dohrmann

(Heads up, Annette Reed.)

CONGRATULATIONS to Philip A. Harland, who just got tenure at York University.

VISION OF GABRIEL WATCH: Yesterday at the Jerusalem DSS conference Israel Knohl presented a paper on the Vision/Revelation of Gabriel, which generated lots more media attention:

A long and pretty good piece from Reuters: "Ancient text sheds light on Jewish-Christian links"

From the BBC: "Tablet stirs resurrection debate"

Some sensible commentary from the New York Sun: "Blurry 'Vision of Gabriel'"

The London Times gets the award for inflated headline of the week: "Dead Sea tablet 'casts doubt on death and resurrection of Jesus'" (Death too?)

A Catholic perspective from the CNA: "Scholars divided on interpretation of ‘Gabriel’s Revelation’ tablet"

A Southern Baptist perspective from the BP: "Archaeology & the Bible"

The About.com Catholicism blog questions Knohl's agenda: "Shaking the Foundations of Christianity" (This would be a contender for inflated headline of the week if it weren't sarcasm.)

I think it's a pity that this story is overshadowing the Jerusalem conference. It would be nice to see some media attention to the papers that actually dealt with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Background here.

UPDATE (10 July): More here.

THE VISION OF GABRIEL (or Revelation of Gabriel) continues to get lots of media attention, much of it for all the wrong reasons. Three of the better articles:

Time Magazine: "Was Jesus' Resurrection a Sequel?"

A good overview of the issues, focusing inevitably on potential (and I suspect far-fetched - see below) comparisons with Jesus.

The MSNBC Cosmic Log blog: "MESSIANIC MESSAGE STIRS DEBATE"

Lots of good links in this one.

The Telegraph: "Stone tablet 'redefines links between Judaism and Christianity'"

This one is interesting because it includes a note of skepticism about the inscription's authenticity:

An Israeli archeologist who asked not to be named doubted the authenticity.

"It's very strange that such a text was written in ink on a tablet and was preserved until now. To determine whether it is authentic one would have to know in which condition and exactly where the tablet was discovered, which we do not," she said.

But Yuval Goren, director of the archeology department at Tel Aviv university and a specialist in identifying forgeries, said he could not detect any sign of forgery in the text on the tablet.

For other reasons to be cautious, see here. I take no position on its authenticity at present, except to note that the majority view of people who have a right to an opinion is in favor of it.

Of greater interest than the media treatments, Ed Cook has a post at Ralph on the supposed reference to a resurrection after three days. He is skeptical. Recent media attention to this inscription reminds me of the hoo-haw in the early 90s over the so-called "pierced Messiah" text among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Upon a little reflection on the grammar and context, it became clear that it was the Messiah who was doing the piercing.

The Vision of Gabriel, assuming it is genuine, is important because it is a newly discovered apocalypse from the first century which is bound to tell us lots of interesting things about ancient Jewish theology, eschatology, angelology, and first-century Hebrew. The probability that it would also have a direct connection, let alone some sort of direct challenge, to the central Christian theme of Jesus' resurrection is low. The fact that this connection has been suggested for an ambiguious, damaged, and hard to read place in the inscription (as opposed to well preserved lines whose meaning is unambiguous) should make us very cautious.

UPDATE: Professor Stephen A. Kaufman of Hebrew Union College e-mails:

Appreciate your continuing thoughts on the Gabriel stone. I would add a few comments:
a) in this day and age of computer graphics for everyone, producing a totally convincing and consistent ink text is not difficult. An inscribed one (i.e. Joash) is easily discovered to be bogus by those who know how to see. Until we see a complete scientific analysis, extreme skepticism over a totally new typology of document is warranted.
b) the argument about Gesenius grammar NOT being violated has to be ascribed to content as well. In other words, the fact that the text is overloaded with reference to "three days" SCREAMS forgery. An innocuous text would not.

UPDATE (9 July): More here.

IN DEFENSE OF JEZEBEL.

REBECCA LESSES is in Jerusalem for the Qumran conference and she reports on a session on Women and Qumran.

BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL XXXI has been published by James R. Getz Jr. at the Ketuvim blog. It comes just after No. XXX, which was delayed. (N. T. Wrong has a theory why.)

(Via the NT Gateway blog.)

THE VISION OF GABRIEL INSCRIPTION has made a splash in the news (e.g., here, here, here, and here).

Meanwhile, the fourteenth anniversary of the death of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneersohn, has been commemorated recently. Shmuley Boteach reflects on another stone inscription about a risen Messiah.

Background here, here, here, and here.

UPDATE (8 July): The last link was wrong; now fixed.

DISNEY WORLD WATCH OUT! Phoenician theme parks seem to be all the rage:

Tunisia.. an exotic blend for all tastes
Philippa Clarke finds the magic of Africa - without the long haul flight
5/07/2008 (The Mirror)

The fine white sandy beaches of the North African coast are interrupted only by lemon trees and olive groves.

The clear water of calm, summer seas lap the shores, and there's a smell of jasmine on the warm breeze.

Visitors to Tunisia could be forgiven for thinking they had died and gone to heaven when they arrive here.

[...]

Hammamet has developed over the last 40 years from a tiny fishing village to a thriving holiday destination.

Known as the garden resort, it's surrounded by olive, orange and lemon groves and lines of cypress trees. The theme park Carthage Land, and Blue Ice, the only ice rink in the country, are a major attraction for families. From Hammamet south to Monastir there's a wealth of resorts, from quiet to lively, and modest to luxury with casinos, theme parks, golf and water sports.

[...]

My emphasis. More here. Cross file under "can't make it up."

A MOVIE ON THE APOSTLE THOMAS is in the works in India:

Now, an Indian film on Apostle Thomas
July 6th, 2008 - 12:45 pm ICT by IANS Thaindian News)

By Papri Sri Raman
Chennai, July 6 (IANS) Who was the man who inspired the English term “doubting Thomas”? Was he a contemporary of Jesus, or a faithful disciple or a fourth century Christian merchant? Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi inaugurated an Indian project to film the life and times of Apostle Thomas, known popularly as St. Thomas, who straddles legend and history in Judea, Syria, Persia and several south Indian settlements in the early Christian era.

A self-acclaimed atheist, Karunanidhi said on the occasion: “Whether I am accepted by god is more important than whether I accept god.”

Paulraj Lourdusamy is chief researcher for the film to be produced by Santhome church. He has also written the script.

The Rs.500-million ($12 million) project is being supported by the St. Thomas Apostle of India Trust, set up by the Catholic Archdiocese of Mylapore.

[...]

The article claims that Jim Caviezel is considering reprising his role as Jesus for the film.

OLD NEWS FOR NEW. The New Zealand Herald has an article announcing the discovery of some new scroll fragments in the Judean Desert, but it appears to be misplaced news from a 2005 AP article. For earlier coverage see here and here.

AN EXHIBITION ON THE EMPEROR HADRIAN opens at the British Museum later this month. The Museum's director has an article profiling Hadrian and the exhibition in the London Times:

There’s more to Hadrian than wall-building
A military mastermind who retreated from Iraq, a politician motivated by peace, and a lover of Greek culture and Greek men - there’s more to Hadrian than wall-building, reveals the director of the British Museum

Neil MacGregor

We think we know the Romans. Countless books, films, plays and pieces of music have been inspired by an empire that, at its height, in AD117, stretched from the site of modern Glasgow in the north to the Sahara desert in the south, and from the Atlantic to Basra. Hollywood sword-and-sandal epics from Quo Vadis to Gladiator, as well as the BBC’s Rome, give us the impression of an empire at once brutal and noble, heroic and corrupt, bloody and decadent - an empire of slavery but also of many freedoms, of multiple identities, all drawn together in the service of Rome and its emperors. But how much do we know? It can be hard to glimpse the real empire through the histories that have survived the centuries, histories that are invariably biased depending on who wrote them, when and, above all, for whom.

Sometimes one has a chance to glimpse the real emotions of ordinary Romans, living their lives under this extraordinary empire. The Vindolanda tablets, housed in the British Museum, slightly predate the emperor Hadrian and his instruction to build his eponymous wall separating England from Scotland (Caledonia) in AD122. Vindolanda fort already existed, first constructed in the late first century. Soldiers from all over the empire were billeted there, of Celtic, Germanic, North African or Syrian origins: a multi-national force guarding the extremes of the realm. Excavations at the fort in 1973 revealed an extraordinary cache of wooden writing tablets, official military documents and personal letters concerning the day-to-day issues of life in the army. They reveal complaints about the cold, illnesses, receipt of care parcels providing socks and underpants, invitations to birthday parties and so on. These truly are the humble building blocks of history and are surely similar to the e-mails and text messages soldiers send home from Iraq today. At their most basic, they show how little has changed in nearly 2,000 years. There is another connection between these two regions: for the north of England and Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) were once the northern and eastern borders of the Roman empire, under the enigmatic emperor Hadrian.

In many ways, Hadrian seems familiar to us. There is a perception of him - given to us via the Victorians and then Marguerite Yourcenar’s ever-popular fictional autobiography of the emperor (1951) - that he was somehow different, a maverick, a Greek-loving peacenik more interested in architecture and boys than in securing the legacy of mighty Rome. But how true is this portrait, and what of Hadrian’s legacy? Why is he still important now? These are the questions an exhibition at the British Museum is seeking to address. A huge number of archeological finds connected to Hadrian and excavated over the past 30 or so years have inspired a new scholarship and allowed a reassessment of his character.

[...]

A truer glimpse of Hadrian’s character can be seen in the material borrowed from Israel for the exhibition. These loans include a magnificent bronze head and torso of Hadrian in military uniform; though his pose seems casual, he is every inch the tough military leader, a trait he exhibited to shocking effect during the second Jewish revolt (AD1325). Hadrian’s apparent banning of circumcision and his probable encroachments in Jerusalem unleashed a storm, led by Simeon Bar Kokhba, that cost Rome up to three legions. Hadrian decided to remind Judea that Rome was an imperial power that could brook no dissent: the proud rebels were mercilessly crushed, costing the lives of almost 600,000 Jews. It is no wonder that in the Talmud, Hadrian’s name was followed by the simple injunction “May his bones rot”.

[...]

Read it all. The exhibition was announced back in January. For more on the Vindolanda finds (and a little more on Bar Kokhba), see here. And for more still on Bar Kokhba, see here.

UPDATE: Bad link now fixed. Sorry about that.

UPDATE (11 July): More here.

THE VISION OF GABRIEL has made it into the New York Times:

Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

By ETHAN BRONNER
Published: July 6, 2008

JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase

[...].

(Heads up, Eibert Tigchelaar.)

Background here and keep following the links back.

ARCHAEOLOGY FOR KIDS: I noted this last fall, but now that it's the summer holidays, readers in New York who have kids might appreciate another mention:

‘ARCHAEOLOGY ZONE: DISCOVERING TREASURES FROM PLAYGROUNDS TO PALACES’ (Sunday through Thursday) Children will step into the shoes of an explorer like Indiana Jones in this exhibition at the Jewish Museum, but the adventures will be purely scholarly. Still, there is plenty of excitement in analyzing artifacts like a jar handle, a clay jug and a bangle and figuring out the purpose behind ancient pieces like a Greek helmet and a bull-shaped vessel. This interactive show also includes a recreated room from the Ottoman period (about 1900), where young archaeologists can dress in costume. (Through June 15, 2009.) Sunday through Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 5:45 p.m., and Thursday to 8 p.m., 1109 Fifth Avenue, at 92nd Street, (212) 423-3200, thejewishmuseum.org. Free with admission: $12; $10 for 65+; $7.50 for students; free for under 12 and members.

PICTURES OF THE JEWISH GOLD-GLASS MEDALLIONS recovered from Nazi loot have been posted by Dorothy King on her PhDiva blog.

Background here.

IRAQI JEWISH ARCHIVE (?) UPDATE:

Iraq creates task force to probe stolen antiquities

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraq said on Thursday it has created a special task force to investigate the theft of valuable ancient Judaic manuscripts that later turned up in Israel.

The rare books, confiscated during the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, were rescued from US bombing at the start of the 2003 war and then sent to the United States for restoration but later wound up in Israel instead.

[...]

Background here.

A SYRIAC TOOLS AND RESOURCES WEBSITE has been placed online by MGVHoffman.

THE SAN DIEGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM is pleased with its haul from last year's Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition:

The San Diego Natural History Museum reported that it has broken all attendance records with its past two blockbuster exhibits, "Dead Sea Scrolls" and "A Day in Pompeii."

During the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2007, the museum recorded 726,000 visitors, more than double the 134-year-old museum's usual attendance. The "Dead Sea Scrolls" exhibit drew 393,975 visitors and "Pompeii" drew 131,199. By comparison, the next most-popular exhibit in the museum's history was the "Chocolate" exhibit in 2005, which drew 70,290 visitors.

The museum's next major exhibition is "Water H2O=Life," opening July 19.

On a related note, the Isaiah Scroll exhibition in the Israel Museum continues to get attention.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY to my American readers.



(Wikimedia Commons image)

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Dorothy King points to a good mystic's-eye view of the place.

PALEOJUDAICA has been listed as one of The Top 100 Liberal Arts Professor Blogs as compiled by Online University Reviews. Scroll down to the last section, Theology. AKMA is there too, and Cronaca appears in the Art section. Welcome to any readers referred from the list. You can find out more about this blog at the ABOUT PALEOJUDAICA.COM link in the sidebar to the right. Note also the MEMORABLE PALEOJUDAICA POSTS link immediately below it and a fifth-anniversay recap here.

BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL XXX has been published by Tyler Williams at the Codex blog.

THOMAS JEFFERSON'S LANGUAGE SKILLS are underlined in a new biography, The Road to Monticello, by Kevin Hayes. Adam Kirsh reviews it in the New York Sun:

And this doesn't even scratch the surface: Jefferson read constantly, copiously, in many languages. (He even designed a rotating bookstand that allowed him to consult five books at a time.) Naturally, as an Enlightenment philosophe in good standing, he knew French long before he was posted to France as America's ambassador. He also read Italian and Spanish, which he taught his daughters using "Don Quixote" as a textbook.

Like most Virginia planters, Jefferson studied Latin and Greek as a boy; unlike most, he actually learned them, and used them for the rest of his life. Studying the marginalia in Jefferson's law books, Mr. Hayes discovered apposite quotations from Herodotus and Euripides, in the original. Much more unusually, however, Jefferson was also a student of Anglo-Saxon. At a time when the language of "Beowulf" had not yet entered the college curriculum, Mr. Hayes writes, Jefferson's "sizable collection of Anglo-Saxon books included nearly all of the important studies of the language." He studied the Bible in polyglot editions that included Hebrew and Aramaic; he read the first translations of Indian and Persian literature, just then appearing in English. To amuse himself in retirement, Jefferson even bought Robert Morison's "Dialogues and Detached Sentences in the Chinese Language, With a Free and Verbal Translation in English."

All these languages gave Jefferson a wide field for reading, and, what he loved almost as much, for collecting. One of the chief pleasures of "The Road to Monticello" is Mr. Hayes's evocation of a world, almost unimaginable in the age of Amazon, when buying good books was an art in itself. ...

PRIESTLY VESTMENTS are being reconstructed (as far as that is possible, given our limited knowledge) by the Temple Institute:

Third Temple preparations begin with priestly garb
By DANIELLE KUBES

Wearing a turban and a light blue tunic threaded with silver, a man stands in a workshop in Jerusalem's Old City beside spools of white thread affixed to sewing machines. A painting of high priests performing an animal sacrifice beside the First Temple illustrates the function of the room.

On Monday, the Temple Institute started preparing to build a Third Temple on Jerusalem's Mount Moriah, the site of the Dome of the Rock and the Aksa mosque, by inaugurating a workshop that manufactures priestly garments.

[...]

No digging, please, on the Temple Mount, apart from controlled, scientific archaeological excavations. And the time is not yet right even for those.

UPDATE (12 July): More here.

SYRIAC TEXTS GALORE! On the Hugoye list Kristian Heal e-mails the following:

We have added a number of additional Syriac titles to the resources section of our website (http://cpart.byu.edu/?page=99&sidebar). These titles were digitized at BYU as an extension to the BYU-CUA Syriac Reference Library project (http://www.lib.byu.edu/dlib/cua/). We will be adding more titles soon.

Some titles may already be available elsewhere (Google Books, Internet Archive etc). It would be nice for someone to take on the task of producing a master list of Syriac titles available on-line in the various collections.

The Mingana and Wright catalogues look especially useful.

Then Steven Ring replies:

Thank you very much for this invaluable Syriac resource!

Although it now needs updating a little and not only to add your titles,
last year I began to compile a master list of Syriac books and
manuscripts available on-line .
The prototype list can be accessed at:
http://www.ashu39.dsl.pipex.com/ChristianMysteries/Online_Library.html

Over the next month, I will endeavour to update this list and mend some
links which have since broken....
Of course, the list is invited to send me any new links and corrections.

This looks exceedingly useful. Many thanks to Kristian and Steven.

NEWSWEEK has a number of Bible-related articles in its current online issue, some of which are of interest. First:

Raiders of the Lost Tomb
A book and movie allege the final resting place of Mary, Joseph and the King of Kings has been found. Controversy to follow.
By Lisa Miller and Joanna Chen | Newsweek Web Exclusive

In Jerusalem, that ancient and holy city, people's houses are built on bones. For thousands of years, hundreds of generations of Jews, Muslims and Christians have been laid to rest in its rocky soil. Tova Bracha has always known that the tiny, rose-bordered concrete plot next to her apartment building covers an ancient Jewish burial tomb, but she never thought much about it. "It just didn't seem important when there are so many tombs anyway that have been found around Jerusalem," she says. Rushing home for the Sabbath, her arms full of groceries, Bracha laughs at the suggestion that the tomb might be of considerable religious interest. Maybe she can make a fortune selling trinkets to tourists, she jokes. Maybe the value of her home will soar.

This week the Discovery Channel, together with HarperSanFrancisco, announces the release of "The Jesus Family Tomb," a television documentary and a book that aim to show that the tomb next door to Tova Bracha's apartment, located in a nondescript suburb called East Talpiot, is, well, the family plot of Jesus Christ. Spearheaded by a well-known TV director named Simcha Jacobovici, and produced by "Titanic" director James Cameron, "The Jesus Family Tomb" is—both in book and movie form—a slick and suspenseful narrative about the 1980 discovery of a first-century Jewish burial cave and the 10 bone boxes, or ossuaries, found therein.

[...]

Most specialists are skeptical. Background here and follow the many links back.

Second this:

But Did It Happen?
Like Any Good Mythic Narrative, Genesis Gets The Customs And Culture Of Its Setting Right
By Sharon Begley | NEWSWEEK
Oct 21, 1996 Issue

Tower of Babel

But starting with chapter 12, which introduces Abraham, Genesis starts reading like good historical fiction, reflecting the places, culture and customs of the second millennium B.C., says archeologist Amihai Mazar of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. (Genesis was compiled much later, however--between the 10th and fifth centuries B.C.) In chapter 13, for instance, when Lot, son of Abraham's dead brother, parts company with his uncle and strikes out for ""the whole plain of the Jordan,'' he saw ""that all of it was well-watered.'' Archeologists, notes Robert Alter in his new translation of and commentary on Genesis,* ""have in fact discovered traces of an ancient irrigation system in the plain of the Jordan.'' When Lot sits ""in the gate of Sodom'' in chapter 19, the reference is to a large chamber in the gateway of Canaanite cities, where residents would gossip, transact business and settle legal matters. And Egyptian records show that peasants paid a 20 percent tax on crops; Joseph, in chapter 47, orders that ""when the harvests come, you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh.''

Something seems to be missing at the beginning of the article. This piece is disappointing. It relies to a large degree on old scholarship. It quotes authors in a way that gives the impression they were being interviewed, although this is unlikely in at least one case, given that Nahum Sarna died in 2005. I haven't followed this area for some time, but even back in the 1980s this position was being challenged by people like Thomas Thompson and John Van Seters, neither of whom are mentioned. The bottom line is that a lot of the supposed parallels between Genesis and Middle Bronze Age culture are poorly formulated and are not comparing like with like (I call this the fallacy of the middle term). And other more defensible parallels have equally good parallels later in the first millennium BCE.

Third, a piece on the Sacred exhibition:

The Sacred History
An exhibit of religious manuscripts serves as a timely reminder of the teachings the three major faiths share.
By Carla Power | Newsweek Web Exclusive

September 11 made Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis a fashionable map for the 21st century. Right-wing pundits and religious zealots alike used it to argue that Islamic and Western societies have always been incompatible. Now "Sacred," on view at London's British Library (through Sept. 23), provides an elegant riposte to clash-mongers. The collection of manuscripts from Christianity, Islam and Judaism underscores that the traditions of the three religions bear striking similarities. Their emphasis on scriptural truth is the same, their cultures are intertwined and their followers lived—usually peacefully—in multicultural societies for centuries.

[...]

Background here.

UPDATE: Reader Adam Peiper e-mails:

The article "But Did It Happen" was written in 1996 so it obviously couldn't quote any scholarship from after 1996. The date "October 21, 1996 issue" is written below the author's name Sharon Begley.

I was snookered too when I was searching the Google News search and I noticed other old articles from Newsweek that appeared; some from 2006. I suspect that Newsweek recently placed many of their old articles recently on-line and the "Google News" feature returns them as "new articles" even though they may have been published over a decade ago and only now appear online.

My bad for not noticing the date, and Professor Sarna was alive at the time after all. Still, Newsweek isn't entirely off the hook, since they were ignoring even 1980s scholarship.

NAZIS. I HATE THESE GUYS.

Nazi looted relics returned to former owner's heirs

Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:01pm EDT

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON, July 1 (Reuters) - Three ancient medallions looted by the Nazis in World War Two and missing for more than 60 years are being returned to the heirs of the former owner, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe said on Tuesday.

The three gold-glass relics from the 4th century AD are decorated with some of the earliest known depictions of Jewish symbols from the Second Temple period.

Found in the Rome catacombs in the 17th century, they were part of the collection in Poland of Countess Isabella Dzialynska.

Hidden for safekeeping at the outbreak of war, they were found and taken by the Nazis in 1941 and sent to Austria on the orders of Adolf Hitler where they were once again looted by locals at the end of the war.

The three medallions were acquired in the 1960s by the Israel Museum Jerusalem which, under the deal with Dzialynska's heirs, is keeping two of them bearing the ancient Jewish symbols.

[...]

UPDATE (2 July): The ArtDaily has more information:

Israel Museum Restitutes Three Ancient Roman Gold-Glass Medallions

[Restitutes?]

JERUSALEM.- The Israel Museum announced today the restitution of three gold-glass medallions dating from the fourth century CE, two from the catacombs in Rome and one discovered in Cologne, to the heirs of the Dzialynska Collection at Goluchow Castle in Poland. Of the three medallions, two are decorated with Jewish motifs, representing some of the earliest known depictions of Jewish symbols from the Second Temple to appear outside of the Land of Israel. Given the historical importance of the medallions to the Museum’s collections and to the patrimonial heritage of the State of Israel, the Israel Museum and the heirs have worked together to enable the Museum to repurchase one of the medallions with Jewish iconography for its permanent collection. The second medallion bearing Jewish symbols has been purchased by a donor and friend of the Israel Museum, for long-term loan to the Museum.

Distinguished by iconic imagery of the Holy Ark, the Lions of Judah, and the Temple Menorah, these two medallions were identified in Vienna by the well-known Judaica dealer Joseph Steiglitz and were purchased for the Israel Museum in 1965 by founder Teddy Kollek through the generosity of Museum donor Jakob Michael, New York, in memory of his wife, Erna Sondheimer-Michael. The third was acquired by Teddy Kollek in Vienna at the same time and donated by Teddy and Tamar Kollek to the Israel Museum in 1970. Given their rarity and their archaeological significance, the two medallions with Jewish motifs have been featured on permanent display in the Israel Museum’s archaeology galleries and in several special exhibitions and publications, with Goluchow Castle identified as part of their history of ownership beginning with the 1986 publication, “Treasures of the Holy Land: Ancient Art from the Israel Museum.”

[...]

Read it all.

UPDATE (4 July): For photos, see here.

MOSUL TORAH SCROLL UPDATE: The story of the 400-year-old Torah scroll that was recovered from a ruined synagogue near Mosul and sold to a synagogue in Baltimore was noted in PaleoJudaica last October-November (here and here). At the time I expressed concern about whether the relevant antiquities laws had been followed, but no one responded to my query and I heard no more about it. But now this story has come to the attention of the Iraq Crisis list and is generating some discussion. And Paul Barford has a long post that raises pertinent questions at the SAFECorner blog. It sounds as though my concerns were not misplaced.

Stay tuned ...

UPDATE: Note that Dorothy King has contacted the U.S. Army to try to establish what happened.

THE MICHELANGELO CODE? Somehow I've neglected to post on this one, although it's been in the news for a while:

Michelangelo 'hid secret code in Sistine Chapel'

By Malcolm Moore in Rome (The Telegraph)
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 18/06/2008

Michelangelo hid a secret code in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel made up of mystical Jewish symbols and insults aimed at the pope, according to a new book.

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which the renaissance artist worked on for four years in the early 16th century, is actually a "bridge" between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish faith, according to The Sistine Secrets: Unlocking the Codes in Michelangelo's Defiant Masterpiece.

The book, which is already on the New York Times bestseller list, is the work of Rabbi Benjamin Blech, an associate professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University in New York, and Roy Doliner, a tour guide at the Vatican.

Scanning through the arrangement of figures on the vast 14,000 square foot ceiling, the authors have found shapes that correspond to Hebrew letters.

For example, the book states, the figures of David and Goliath form the shape of the letter gimel, which symbolises g'vurah, or strength, in the mystical Kabbalah tradition.

[...]

The book adds that the tree of life in the fresco is not, as usually thought, an apple tree, but instead a fig tree according to ancient Jewish tradition.

The authors believe the entire Sistine Chapel, which they say is built to the same proportions as the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, is a "lost mystical message of universal love" which was intended to be decoded.

The authors believe Michelangelo picked up his knowledge of Judaism while at the court of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence.

[...]

It sounds interesting, but specialists don't seem to be impressed (read on in the article). For Michelangelo and Moses' horns, go here and keep following the links back.

A MUSEUM OF LANGUAGES has opened in College Park, Maryland:

Museum benefits from university partnership
Diana Elbasha (The Diamondback)
Issue date: 6/26/08 Section: News

Carrie Clarady, a senior research assistant for the university's Center for the Advanced Study of Language, kicked off the National Museum of Language's current lecture series Sunday standing beside a projected image of "The Cherokee Syllabary," an alphabet-like array of the language's native phonetics.

The museum, which opened in College Park in May, will host presentations explaining the complexities of the Cherokee language, "one of the 300 languages native to North America," Clarady said.

"The university already has a strong linguistic program," she added. "I hope to see it one day become a language research center." In its first month of existence, and in the months of preparations preceding its grand opening, students have already been put to work, researching and drafting lectures for various lecturers.

Clarady spoke to a crowd of about 25 in a room wallpapered with displays of the "founding languages" - Sumerian, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Hebrew and Arabic. Each language's display contained the alphabets of their influential writing systems, as well as various photos and artifacts.

The museum also hosts an interactive exhibit called "The Name Game." Going well beyond its icebreaker namesake, the activity allows users to type their names into a computer and within seconds have a printed sheet with such written in four foreign languages: Arabic, Assyrian, Hebrew and Punjabi.

"A large chunk of today's world is about language," said Amelia Murdoch, a former employee of the National Security Agency. She said the NSA often did not understand how language and culture were intertwined or language nuances such as different dialects. This ignorance inspired her to found the National Museum of Language, she said.

[...]

Well done.

MERCURY IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS?

Poisonous ink killed Monks?

(ZeeNews.com)

Washington, June 28: Monks who wrote Biblical texts and other religious materials might have died out of exposure to toxic mercury, with which the red colour ink they used for scripting was made, according to a study.

Kaare Lund Rasmussen, a University of Southern Denmark scientist at the Institute of Physics and Chemistry, believes that the ink might have been the culprit.

He came to this conclusion after studying medieval bones from six different Danish cemeteries.

The researcher says that his study also describes a previously undocumented disease called FOS, which was like leprosy and caused skull lesions.

[...]

Lund Rasmussen says that mercury "was used (in the ink) in the first place because cinnabar (a type of mercury) has this bright red, beautiful colour."

A separate study by Israeli scientists recently found cinnabar on four fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which include passages from the Hebrew Bible.

"(Even today) one should really not touch, or much less rub, the parchment pages of an incunabulum," Discovery News quoted Lund Rasmussen as warning.

[...]

The study will be published in the August issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Ugh. I myself have not worked with any of the Scrolls that use red ink. But, as far as I know, no Qumranologists have developed skull lesions or leprosy symptoms.

PAUL FLESHER has a column in the University of Wyoming News on reading in antiquity and its various pitfalls that we don't think of today. Excerpt:

As late as the fifth century, for example, Greek was written in a continuous form with no breaks between the words. Nor did it yet indicate accents and breathing marks. Different accents and breathings changed the sound and meaning of the words being read. A reader had to know by memory the possible spoken words represented by the incomplete written code. The task of a Greek reader was to decipher the written text and render it into speech so it could be understood.

As Semitic languages, Hebrew and Aramaic had developed the practice of word separation many centuries before the Greeks. The problem facing these languages was that writing represented the consonants, but not the vowels. Readers had to know every possible oral combination of vowels that could be placed with a particular set of consonants to make valid, spoken words.

Readers had to choose the right vowels to give the right meaning. For instance, take the two consonants "R" and "N." One could supply vowels to make the present-tense "run" or the past-tense "ran." The letters could also stand for the boys name "Ron" or the girls name "Erin."

There's a classic illustration of both problems, which I sometimes use in my undergraduate classes. I write GDSNWHR on the board and ask the students what it says. The answer, of course, is supposed to be that it can say either "God is now here" or "God is nowhere," and without a context you can't tell which. But once one of them looked at it and said "Good snow here." (This was in Iowa.) Exegesis is always full of surprises.

ARAMAIC WATCH: Aramaic (Syriac) made a good showing at the recent Fez World Musical Festival in Morocco. From the BBC:

A performance by Lebanese singer Ghada Shubeir, was one to remember.

Accompanied by the Qanoon, an Arabic string instrument, she chanted Christian hymns in Syriac (a liturgical language used in some Middle Eastern churches which is related to Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus Christ).

The performance was incredibly crisp, and its spiritual roots stretched back hundreds of years.

Ms Shubeir said after the concert it was the first time she had been invited to perform in a Muslim country.

And from the Guardian:

These [cross-cultural] connections were even more movingly expressed by Ghada Shbeir, a Maronite from Beirut who gave a recital of ancient Christian songs, accompanied by qanun under the giant oak. Her voice at first sounded Arabic, with inflections typical of the region, but it was possible to detect the signature intervals of early European music. Many songs were in Aramaic, the pre-Hebrew language of Palestine spoken by Jesus.

Nitpicks: Syriac is not "related to" Aramaic; it is an Aramaic dialect. And Aramaic is not pre-Hebrew; it developed more or less contemporaneously with Hebrew. But the point is that the music was good.

IRAQI JEWISH ARCHIVE UPDATE?

Rare Iraqi Jewish books 'surface in Israel'

Fri Jun 27, 9:29 AM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Some 300 rare and valuable books confiscated from Iraq's Jewish community by Saddam Hussein's regime have been secretly spirited into Israel, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.

The books include a 1487 commentary on the biblical Book of Job and another volume of biblical prophets printed in Venice in 1617, the Haaretz daily said.

[...]

"We bought them from thieves," Mordechai Ben-Porat, an Iraqi-born Jew and the founder of Jerusalem's Babylonian Jewry Heritage centre told the newspaper, adding that the foundation paid some 25,000 dollars (16,000 euros).

In the beginning, Ben-Porat sent an emissary to Baghdad who shipped the books directly to Israel, but once the Americans caught wind of his activities they forbade further shipments, forcing him to smuggle the rest, he said.

[...]

The article says that these items are part of the Iraqi Jewish archive, the rest of which is now awaiting restoration at the Library of Congress (background here). Jeff Spurr has some useful comments on the Iraq Crisis list. He is skeptical of the claimed provenance for this new find.

UPDATE (4 July): More here.

THE SCROLLS THAT GOT AWAY:

Exhibit tells story of scrolls Duke let go

Yonat Shimron, Staff Writer (News and Observer)

In 1950, Duke University was offered a chance to buy a portion of what is now considered the most important archaeological discovery of the 20th century. The university turned it down.

Now, the Dead Sea Scrolls are in the possession of the Israel Antiquities Authority and routinely travel to museums worldwide, drawing thousands of visitors who pay upward of $20 to view them.

An exhibit of the scrolls opens today at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, showcasing the historic artifacts Duke once passed up.

[...]

LECTIO DIFFICILIOR, the European Electronic Journal for Feminist Exegesis, has published a first issue with some interesting looking articles in English and German.

(Via the Agade list.)

RUMORS of the demise of ancient Greek are exaggerated. And Latin borders on becoming a status symbol.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ED COOK, who is taking up an an academic post in Semitics at the Catholic University of America. And congratulations to the Catholic University as well; they've made a great appointment. I hope this means that we will be hearing more rather than less from Ed at Ralph the Sacred River.

SOME DEAD SEA SCROLLS are coming to the Museum of Natural Science in Raleigh, North Carolina:

"Many of these pieces have never been on public display before, and a lot of the artifacts have not left Israel before," said Dr. Risa Levitt Kohn, associate professor of Hebrew Bible and Judaism at San Diego State University's religious studies department, director of the Jewish Studies Program and a consultant to the science museum.

The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, which opens Saturday and runs until Dec. 28, features 12 scrolls – four of which have never been publicly displayed – and more than 100 artifacts from the Qumran ruins, everyday items from pottery to leather to sandals to basketry.

The exhibit, on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority, was created specifically for the museum and will never be recreated elsewhere.

"The general public can actually come and see authentic pieces that are 2,000 years old and recognize the biblical books from which they came and be able to experience this firsthand," Kohn said. "I think, for people living in North Carolina, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Six of the scroll fragments — among them are the Ten Commandments, the books of Genesis and Isaiah, and a Jewish book called Jubilees — will be on display three months and then switched out with six others.

There's video too. The museum's website for the exhibition is here. A list of the texts to be displayed is here (sidebar on the right). I published the first Genesis fragment (1:18-27; 4QGen^d) in DJD 12.

IBIZA, the international party hotspot, was founded by the Phoenicians:

I would highly recommend everyone to make the obligatory island tour the first entry in your itinerary before doing what you really came here for -- party! Because for the rest of your trip, your body clock will function on the opposite, your day will become night and night will be your day. Sleep in totally unheard of in this part of the planet.

So, I did see the fortress and the oldest part of the city. Dalt Vila, which literally means "the Upper town" rests atop of the hill by the sea. Founded not too long ago, about 654 BC to be exact, by the Phoenicians, this area was a thriving commercial center during the Punic era. D'Alt Vila is unquestionably the most iconic part of the city and was declared a world heritage site by Unesco.

More here.

CANT MAKE IT UP: A Phoencian theme park in Lebanon:

Beating the heat is easier than you might think
Beirut offers slew of venues to keep kids happy
By Esther Krenz Muller
Special to The Daily Star
Thursday, June 19, 2008

BEIRUT: Children across Lebanon are wrapping up their school year and anxious to get away from their desks for a dose of summer. However, having youngsters sit around indoors at home is hardly an ideal way for them to spend their free time, and the country - the Beirut area in particular - has far more options than was previously the case.

Theme parks, especially those involving swimming pools and water slides, are a favorite for children of all ages - and more than a few parents. Such aqua-boasting enterprises have long been a favorite method for beating the summer heat. With numerous, state-of-the-art water and other amusement parks, the capital region has become an ideal vacation destination for many young families.

[...]

The Phoenician Theme Park Habtoorland in Jamhour (05-768888) has over 30 rides and attractions that bear the markings of the ancient Phoenicians. The motifs of the park set the stage for timeless stories, with the organizers' creation of an archetypical Disney-style experience. The park has a number of attractions which drive home the theme-driven approach: a cruise down the Nile on the back of a crocodile, a mission in your own battleship, or a ride on the "Colossus" roller-coaster. The locale rounds out its offerings with special events such as plays, ballroom dancing and karaoke competitions.

[...]

UPDATE (6 July): Carthage Land too!

IN THE MAIL:

John Day (ed.), Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2008 (London: Sage, 2008)

Full of goodies, as usual.

YONA SABAR'S SON is publishing a book:

My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq Ariel Sabar. Algonquin, $25.95 (352p) ISBN 978-1-56512-490-5

For his first 31 years Sabar considered his father, Yona, an embarrassing anachronism. “Ours was a clash of civilizations, writ small. He was ancient Kurdistan. I was 1980s L.A.” Yona was a UCLA professor whose passion was his native language, Aramaic. Ariel was an aspiring rock-and-roll drummer. The birth of Sabar’s own son in 2002 was a turning point, prompting Sabar to try to understand his father on his own terms. Readers can only be grateful to him for unearthing the history of a family, a people and a very different image of Iraq. Sabar vividly depicts daily life in the remote village of Zahko, where Muslims, Jews and Christians banded together to ensure prosperity and survival, and in Israel (after the Jews’ 1951 expulsion from Iraq), where Kurdish Jews were stereotyped as backward and simple. Sabar’s career as an investigative reporter at the Baltimore Sun and elsewhere serves him well, particularly in his attempt to track down his father’s oldest sister, who was kidnapped as an infant. Sabar offers something rare and precious—a tale of hope and continuity that can be passed on for generations. Photos. (Sept. 16)

(Review from Publisher's Weekly.)

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH: A new edition of Sibylline Oracles books 1-2.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2008.06.21
J.L. Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles: With Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on the First and Second Books. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xxiii, 613. ISBN 978-0-19-921546-1. $220.00.

Reviewed by Aaron Kachuck, University of Cambridge (ak555@cam.ac.uk)
Word count: 2383 words

It is hard to do justice in the course of a review to any of Jane Lightfoot's monumental contributions to classical scholarship, but this is particularly the case with her new text, commentary, and discussion of the first two books of the Sibylline Oracles, Judaeo-Christian texts that adopt the narrator, form, and language of Greek hexameter poetry and oracles. In the essay portion of this book, L. has built on the work of scholars such as R. Buitenwerf, J.J. Collins and H.W. Parke to produce new and incisive formulations of the problemata confronted by the scholar of Sibylline Oracles Books I-III, and answers to those questions that she believes can be reasonably deduced from the evidence. Lightfoot does not shy away from withholding a definitive conclusion when none seems to suggest itself from the extant material, leading her to sensibly conclude many of her deeply researched questions not with artificially confident answers, but with the questions to which her and others' research has not been, and may never be, able to respond (see, for example, p. 219). L. exercises a healthy skepticism towards overly creative, and not sufficiently evidence-based, answers to textual problems. And problems in the Sibylline Oracles are inevitably textual problems because of the extreme scarcity (sometimes total dearth) of external evidence relevant to the discussion, and it is because of the textual nature of these questions that L.'s utilization of methods derived from classical philology yields such solid results. L.'s work represents the first comprehensive commentary in English on the first two books, such that all future study of the text will benefit from L.'s editing of the text and apparatus criticus for the first two books.

[...]

Sounds excellent.

(Via the Agade list.)

FRANKINCENSE AS AN ANTIDEPRESSANT:

Incense on the brain
By Ran Shapira

For thousands of years frankincense was one of the main ingredients of the incense burned in the Temples in Jerusalem and at other rituals, of other religions and peoples, from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, extending as far as Greece. Buddhism and Christianity refer to frankincense as a substance that can affect a person's mood. In the Bible it is mentioned in the list of ingredients used to make the incense that burned when the priests entered the Tabernacle and, later, the Temple.

In an attempt to explain why it was necessary to use incense, Maimonides wrote that the Temple was in effect a giant slaughterhouse. According to him, the incense was needed to cover up the strong odor emanating from the blood of the sacrifices, the seared meat and other odors that wafted through the Sanctuary.

But frankincense resin was not just used for the incense, says Dr. Avraham Shemesh, of the Ariel University Center of Samaria. In rabbinic literature, it is mentioned among the minahot, the afternoon offerings made at the Temple. Such offerings, brought on behalf of a sotah (a woman suspected of infidelity), for example, contained frankincense. Apparently, this ingredient was meant to have a psychological affect.

Shemesh, who specializes in the history of medical science, also notes that according to rabbinic literature, someone sentenced to death is given wine laced with a bit of frankincense before the execution, "so he would become confused." Maimonides claimed that the wine was given to the convict in order to get him drunk, and Rashi (a medieval biblical and Talmudic commentator) explains that the frankincense was given to convicts so they would not worry. In other words, he emphasizes frankincense's calming effect.

Giving mice a high

It was precisely this calming effect, already known in ancient times, that led groups of researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Ariel University Center and partners in the United States to try to develop a drug to treat depression and anxiety out of the active ingredient in frankincense resin. In biblical times, frankincense plants grew near the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea basin. Today, hardly any frankincense trees remain in Israel. The largest concentrations can be found in eastern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and India.

[...]

Frankincense was also often used in magic rites, for whatever that's worth.

A DEAD SEA SCROLLS CONFERENCE is being held in Jerusalem in July:

Sunday, July 6

IN CELEBRATION of 60 years since the remarkable discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in honor of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, the Israel Museum will hold a landmark three-day conference, with Israeli and overseas experts representing a variety of disciplines. The marathon of sessions over the course of the the conference will focus on Scroll-related themes including life in Qumran, biblical interpretation, scientific and cultural approaches to the Scrolls, language and Qumran literature, and the Scrolls as an educational tool. Noted scholars who will make presentations at the conference include Prof. George Brooke of the University of Manchester, Prof. James Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary, Prof. John Collins of Yale University, Prof. Devorah Dimant of Haifa University, Prof. Lawrence Schiffman of New York University, Prof. Emanuel Tov of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Prof. James VanderKam of University of Notre Dame.

[...]

A TOURING STUDENT from Dubuque's Emmaus Bible College found a LMLK seal among the discarded potsherds at Ramat Rahel:

The group toured the entire country. At Ramat Rachel, south of Jerusalem, they examined an excavation of the important 8th century BC site. Discarded pottery fragments littered the ground, and the students picked through them. [Sarah] Lepisto spied a jar handle, picked it up and saw it bore an inscription. She didn't think much of her find at first.

"The chances were pretty slim that I had found anything significant on a site that had already been excavated and now was open to the public," Lepisto said.

But her find was important. [Faculty member Steve] Sanchez and the tour guide recognized the inscription as coming from the time of Israel's kings. It was one of thousands of LMLK seals, which were stamped on the handles of large storage jars around Jerusalem during the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah.

Well spotted!

CHRISTIAN MANUSCRIPTS get a brief treatment in the London Times by the Right Rev Dr Geoffrey Rowell, Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe. The book of (Ethiopic) 1 Enoch, the Septuagint, the Apocrypha, and the Letter of Barnabas all get a mention.

HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE to all those celebrating. It's a bright, cloudless, starless, temperate evening here -- still bright enough to read by if you angle your chair by the window just so. But I'm cheating and have the light on. It's been a very cold June, but at least it's been sunny a good bit. Enjoy your solstice.

JOHN T. QUINN, Professor of Classical Languages and Coptologist at Hope College, requiescat in pace. He was only 45.

HENRY CHADWICK - 1920-2008. Requiescat in pace.

FALLEN ANGELS, Harold Bloom's new book, is reviewed in the Jewish Exponent. Excerpt:

This is the way the book proceeds, with this kind of expansive scholarship delivered in the clearest, least cumbersome manner, whether Bloom is talking about Elijah, Lilith, the fall from grace or the angel of death. It may be that Bloom, in the hunger of his critical appetites and the awesome range of his learning, has created a new genre completely, instead of cornering one -- the gift book for the intellectual crowd.

RECENT WORKS ON THE KABBALAH are surveyed by Jay Michaelson in The Forward:

Kabbalah is so… last decade. I still remember the flush of excitement, confusion, appreciation and concern that I felt in 1998 when I first read that Madonna was going to The Kabbalah Centre, and that her new tour design featured kabbalistic imagery. Then came Demi and Ashton and Britney and Roseanne, and a whole decade of references on celebrity Web sites and articles in reputable mainstream magazines. By now, Kabbalah seems like old news.

Still, it hasn’t gone away — both the genuine article, which has been around for 800 years, and the popularized version — and so maybe it’s time to start taking pop Kabbalah seriously, at least as a cultural phenomenon. In fact, in at least three areas — introductions to Jewish mysticism, serious Kabbalah scholarship and new academics just coming of age — the past couple of years have been the most fertile for the production of Jewish mysticism in two centuries.

[...]

There follows a long listing of recent books on the subject. I'll just excerpt one paragraph:

Rachel Elior, chair of the Department of Jewish Thought at Hebrew University (where I am completing my own dissertation) has also produced a recent trilogy of career-culminating work: “The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism” (Littman, 2004), “The Mystical Origins of Hasidism” (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006) and, finally, “Jewish Mysticism: The Infinite Expression of Freedom” (Littman, 2007). The first two books are rewritings of some of Jewish mysticism’s most familiar origin-stories, those of the ancient Hechalot and Merkavah schools of visionary mysticism, and of the 18th-century revival movement of Hasidism. But it is “Infinite Expression of Freedom” that most grandly summarizes Elior’s overall theory of Kabbalah: that it creates a cosmic zone of freedom and power for an oppressed and marginalized people. The kabbalists were, as Elior points out, a subjugated group, victims of antisemitism, expulsion and often extreme poverty. And yet they constructed a world in which their actions maintained the universe itself.

I would add Daniel Matt's ongoing translation of the Zohar to the list.

On a related note, in case you're interested, I am currently working on an English translation of the pre-Kabbalistic Jewish mystical texts -- the Hekhalot literature. The project is well underway and I hope to get a lot of it done in my remaining couple of months of research leave. After that, research time will be scarce, but with luck I may have it out in the next couple of years.

UPDATE: Iyov comments.

PARADISE (pardes, פרדס), a subject near to my heart, is covered in this week's Philologos column in The Forward. It's a nice introduction to the complexities of the Hebrew word and its use in the famous story of the Four Who Entered Paradise in the Hekhalot literature.

Writing from San Francisco on June 9, The New York Times’s Edward Rothstein reviewed that city’s new Contemporary Jewish Museum, which has recently opened its doors to the public. “The jagged lights on [its] sloping lobby wall,” he wrote, “form four Hebrew letters that spell ‘pardes.’ That word has the same Persian root as the English word paradise. It alludes to a park, a garden, an orchard, and thus invokes the pastoral promise of Eden as well. This is the kind of esoteric symbol much beloved by the museum’s architect, Daniel Libeskind.”

It is indeed sufficiently esoteric for much of its significance to have eluded both Mr. Rothstein and whoever guided him through the museum. ...

Indeed. Read on for why.

I didn't know about the lights in the Contemporary Jewish Museum. If you go there, stay away from any water fountains.

DAVID IN SHADOW AND LIGHT had to close a week early due to poor ticket sales. Seems it was just too much for the reviewers. The Theatre J Blog has a long post on the early closing. Excerpt:

The closing notice is a public admission that the show absorbed a bruising body blow. And that potential ticket buyers stayed away because of a round of reviews. I don’t feel like mincing those words. An incredibly strong presentation of a “wildly audacious, genre-defying show” is felled by a first wave of notices that puts its ticket sales in a deep freeze. A second wave of good notices comes late, a full ten days to two weeks later, but ticket buyers don’t seem to respond. So rather than noticeably limp home to one finish line, we consolidate our performances and go out singing strong. That’s the logic and the reality of what’s happening.

We didn’t expect this show to be such risky material. One person’s classical narrative is another person’s uneasy bible story “best left to Sunday School.” As I’ve written before, we pressed an Ambivalence Button here. We know that some of our critics had rejected postmodern, biblical narrative-driven theater pieces before and still we went forward convinced that the stature and seriousness of our endeavor–the sheer quality of what we were amassing–would win out. There were many partial victories throughout. Mastering the music. Fielding a top flight band to play it out. Integrating dance. Pulling it off. We hit a home run with some, and struck out with others. “Head held high, sir” Uriah tells the young shepherd boy after David kills the giant in one of the funnier comic moments in our show. We strike the pose, like Young David. And parade our show proudly. Still haunted by what’s just transpired–an act of violence that we were a part of–as we soldier on with many new battles still in store. And all those new wives… Hmm… David’s drama will live on and on. But we close in two Sundays.

“The King is dead/LONG LIVE THE KING.”

Background here. Some photos of the production here.

(Heads up, Carla Sulzbach.)

IS JUDAISM UNIQUE?

Study finds Israel's religious foundation not so unique
By HAVIV RETTIG (Jerusalem Post)

"The Jewish-Israeli case is often said to be unique," begins an article by Dr. Alexander Yakobson, a senior lecturer in Roman history at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, in the summer 2008 edition of Israel Studies, an academic journal on Israeli society.

The country's strangeness comes from the "'extra-territorial' character of the Jewish people, Israel's ties with the Jewish Diaspora and the strong connection between the Jewish religion and the prevalent notion of Jewish peoplehood," explains the author. Some celebrate this, "pointing to the uniqueness of Jewish history and culture," and some are critical of it as "inconsistent with modern civic democracy," but rarely is the "underlining premise of uniqueness" questioned, Yakobson believes.

But he's out to change that, with an argument that examines the constitutions of other democracies to show that Israel is neither officially nor in practice alone in this, well, uniqueness.

"There are numerous other cases where national identity and religion are officially connected in some way, and where there are official bonds between a nation-state and an ethnocultural Diaspora," he writes.

The Greek constitution, for example, makes some surprising provisions. ...

Yakobson's article, titled "Jewish Peoplehood and the Jewish State, How Unique? - A Comparative Survey," summarizes more extensive findings of a book he co-authored with Israeli constitutional thinker Amnon Rubinstein titled Israel Among the Family of Nations. The idea presented in the book, and the newly-published article, is an important contribution to the international discussion surrounding the Jewish state. It isn't merely that an Israeli scholar has located another freakish case - Greece - among contemporary democracies, but that religion-based ethnocultural identity is the social glue of a broad swath of the free West.

[...]

He relates the story of a visiting foreign professor who was asked, "Do you think that the Jewish people are unique?"

"Of course you are unique," he replied, "but you are not unique in being unique

[...]

Indeed. To say that something is "unique" is almost useless to the historian. As I like to say, everything is unique or it would be the same as something else. The interesting question is how each particular thing is unique.

A DEAD SEA SCROLLS FORUM at St. Martin's University:

Forum explores connection between ancient scrolls, Bible

By Diane Huber | The Olympian • Published June 19, 2008

About 2,000 years ago, an ancient Jewish sect wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest-known manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible. Some of the texts closely match canonized scripture, but others were left out.

The puzzle of the Dead Sea Scrolls and their connection to the Bible will be the topic of a free presentation Friday night at Saint Martin's University.

The panel-style lecture, titled "The Authority of Scripture: The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls," culminates the 26th annual Spiritual Life Institute, a weeklong spiritual program each summer hosted by the university.

[...]

If you go

•What: Free presentation of "The Authority of Scripture: The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls"

•When: 7:30 to 9 p.m. Friday

•Where: Worthington Center at Saint Martin's University, 5300 Pacific Ave. S.E., Lacey

•Speakers: Robert Kugler, Cecilia Wassen, Hanne von Weissenberg, Daniel Falk and Ian Werrett

JERUSALEM ARCHAEOLOGY IN COURT. Again.

Court to hear petition on Silwan digs
By DAN IZENBERG (Jerusalem Post)

The High Court of Justice is due to hand down its decision in the next few days on a request to lift the interim injunction preventing the Antiquities Authority from resuming its excavation of a Herodian water channel in Silwan, outside Jerusalem's Old City.

In March, the court issued the injunction at the request of six Palestinian families, who charged that the authority was excavating underneath their homes.

The excavation is not a new archeological discovery. The site is a tunnel or channel located about six meters below the surface, and archeologists believe it was built by King Herod. ...

The case is quite a knot of claims and counter-claims.

THE BITS OF ARCHAEOLOGY in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are reviewed by Mark Rose in Archaeology Magazine. While you're there, take the poll on which of the Indy movies is your favorite. I'm with the 40.9% who voted for Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Plus, Archaeology has an interview with, Rob Cohen, the director of the August-release The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, who has an anthropology degree from Harvard. Not that the movie is exactly obsessed with getting the history right:

We took the facts and we let our imaginations play with them. So any archaeologists looking for absolute re-creation will say, "These people didn't do their research." But I'm making a fantasy, which frees me to some degree from verisimilitude and historical accuracy. Ninety percent of it is historically accurate to my knowledge, but the 10 percent is where you play fast and loose. It's a movie. You've got to make it entertaining.

I can go with that. I'm looking forward to the movie.

WHAT MEAN THESE STONES?

What are the mysterious stones emerging from Kinneret waters?
By Eli Ashkenazi
Tags: Lake Kinneret, Israel

A marine scientist has discovered a series of mysterious stone patterns on the lake bed of drought-stricken Lake Kinneret.

The man-made piles of stone, which are now above water, jut out from the freshwater lake, and sit 30 meters from each other along a 3.5-kilometer stretch of the eastern shore, from the Kinneret College campus to Haon resort.

Gal Itzhaki of Kibbutz Afikim first noticed the stones while strolling along the lake's receded shoreline. He says the patterns are a "fascinating phenomenon" and are part of an "impressive building enterprise."

Though they have not yet been scientifically examined, there are several hypotheses as to what functions they fulfilled. One theory postulates that they were part of a boundary between the ancient lakeside towns of Hippos, also known as Sussita, and Gadara. ...

THE MUSICAL DAVID IN SHADOW AND LIGHT is reviewed in the Jewish Press. The review includes discussion of the background of the story in rabbinic legend. Excerpt:

The frames come from a projector upon which Archangel Metatron (Donna Migliaccio) shows the 930-year-old, wheelchair-ridden and dejected Adam (Norman Aronovic) how the future will unfold. Metatron shows Noah, Sarah, Ishmael, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Miriam, Samson, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Einstein, Martin Luther King, and Kennedy. But as she tries to fast forward past the young David, who is only destined to live a matter of hours, Adam insists that Metatron stop the reel:

“I wanna see the baby. The one with the red cheeks,” he demands. “Ah … ah … look at him … see how he shines so bright. His heart is fire - holy light.” Though she has been sent to cheer Adam up, Metatron agrees to euthanize him and helps him transfer his final 70 years to King David.

In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus is accompanied throughout his series of journeys by his guardian angel: the “gray-eyed goddess” of wisdom, Athena. In “David in Shadow and Light,” King David (Matt Pearson) has the benefit of two protectors in Adam and Metatron, who try to defend him, even as he sins and fights with King Saul (Bobby Smith) and Michal (Carolyn Agan). Still, viewers know that David will ultimately have too much blood on his hands to build the Temple, and he will die unhappy for his inability to achieve this dream, just as Moses did when he only managed to see Israel from the distant peak of Mount Nebo.

Where most plays that address biblical topics deal in clichés and very loose allegiance to the text, “David in Shadow and Light” must be commended for its careful study of Jewish scripture and commentaries. Hyman does invoke poetic license at various points in the narrative, but he proves himself to be such a diligent student of scripture that these departures appear to be conscious decisions rather than ones bred from ignorance.

The basic storyline is based on tradition. According to the Zohar (Part 1, page 91b), God showed Adam how history would unfold, so Adam, who was supposed to live until 1,000, donated his final 70 years to David. The Zohar does not mention any angel, but the Yalkut Shimoni (Bereishit 41) does include Metatron in the story. In the Yalkut, Adam asks God for permission to give David the 70 years, and God agrees. Adam then writes up a contract (which perhaps inspires the contract Faust proposes to Mephistopheles in Goethe’s “Faust”), which he, God, and Metatron sign. Metatron is viewed as a protector of the Jews, and the name (which is not feminine in scripture) might mean “messenger.”

The play casts Goliath (Russell Sunday) as a punk rocker, with a Mohawk, a lot of spikes, and tight leather pants. This, of course, does not appear in the Bible, but a punk rocker with a serious attitude problem makes sense, in light of the biblical tale of Goliath trash-talking the Jewish soldiers in Samuel 1:17, “Why have you come out to battle? Am I not the Philistine and you the servants of Saul? Choose for yourselves a man, and let him come down to me.” He later curses David’s God and tells him, “Come to me, and I will give your body to birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.”

Even if the giant’s attire is more contemporary than biblical, the play does follow the Babylonian Talmud in its decision to have Goliath haunt David after he is beheaded and insist he is David’s relative. Tractate Sotah (page 42b), which responds to the moment in the Book of Ruth where Orpah kisses Naomi goodbye while Ruth, clinging to her, states, “Let the descendents of the one who kissed (‘neshukah/’) fall in battle to the sons of the one who remained (‘devukah’).” The Talmud is of course referring to David and Goliath.

The reference to Samuel should read 1 Samuel 17:8 and the later reference to Samuel, not quoted here, should be 1 Samuel 16. I don't have time to check the other references.

Background here. In response to my earlier post, Carla Sulzbach sent some relevant links that I didn't have time to post at the time. The story is told in Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews IV, p. 87:

In a measure David was indebted for his life to Adam. At first only three hours of existence had been allotted to him. When God caused all future generations to pass in review before Adam, he besought God to give David seventy of the thousand years destined for him. A deed of gift, signed by God and the angel Metatron, was drawn up. Seventy years were legally conveyed from Adam to David, and in accordance with Adam's wishes, beauty, dominion, and poetical gift (12) went with them.

And the story from the Yalkut is given here. Carla also noted the parallel to Joseph's and Clarence's viewing of George Bailey's life in It's a Wonderful Life, which had occurred to me too.

EPHREM THE SYRIAN was saint of the day on 9 June and got a blurb from the Catholic News Agency. He wrote a great deal of important Syriac literature in the fourth century, a good bit of which still survives. For more, see here.

HAARETZ EDITORIALIZES AGAINST the proposed Israeli-Palestianian archaeological agreement. Excerpt from this piece by Meron Benvenisti:

Indeed, the agreement has sections that deal with the return of archaeological artifacts that were removed from the occupied territories since 1967, preservation of archaeological sites, cooperation on excavations, as well as special arrangements for Jerusalem. But the interest raised by the draft is connected less to its details than to its fundamental approach, which regards Israel's archaeological activities in the West Bank as a theft of cultural objects rightfully belonging to the Palestinians, as if Israelis were colonialist grave robbers a la 19th century, who stripped the precious historical legacy of the Ancient Near East and transferred them to museums in Europe. Now, goes the logic, as the land Israel is divided into two states and the era of colonialism is brought to an end, what was stolen will be restored to its rightful owners.

This approach transforms national cultural heritage into a matter of collections, which exist to be exhibited in museums before tourists, or to be part of the antiquities trade. Even though the Cultural Heritage Agreement declares that "Israel and Palestine constitute one archaeological domain that is divided by political borders," the concept that drawing geopolitical borders can determine the ownership of an ancient artifact - or an archaeological site - by one nation or another, is not only simplistic and legalistic, but should be unacceptable to anyone for whom national or cultural heritage is not dictated by "peace makers" specializing in conflict resolution and creators of a virtual world.

It is true that chauvinists and settlers have corrupted this heritage and turned it into a rite of blood and earth, but it must also be recognized that an approach that is willing to view the Qumran site, for example, as Palestinian, is an unfortunate approach that stems from revulsion at the aggressive effort to transform the Palestinians into aliens in their homeland.

Background here.

UPDATE (17 June): Todd Bolen has much more from Joseph Lauer here.

JAMES KUGEL is interviewed about his book How to Read the Bible by CBCRadio.

A NEW BOOK ON THE PSALMS:

"This is very bellicose literature," [Amy] Cottrill [assistant professor of religion at Birmingham-Southern College, Alabama] said. "It's very violent. They are asking God to go kill their enemy."

Though they may be largely ignored, the psalms are considered along with the rest of the Bible to be divinely inspired and the word of God to most evangelical Christians, Cottrill said. "The Bible has a tremendous amount of authority," she said.

The ancient texts, held sacred for millennia, are deserving of scrutiny and study, she said. "There is a trend toward reading less scripture," she said.

Cottrill, 37, has a doctorate in Hebrew Bible from Emory University in Atlanta and a master of divinity degree from Methodist Theological Seminary in Delaware, Ohio.

She grew up in Parkersburg, W.Va., the daughter of a United Methodist minister, but she is a teacher, not an ordained minister or preacher.

"I knew pretty early on I wanted to teach," she said.

Cottrill arrived on the faculty at Birmingham-Southern a year ago and teaches classes on world religions, Old Testament, New Testament, gender in the Hebrew Bible, and Bible in contemporary culture.

Her book, "Language, Power and Identity in the Lament Psalms of the Individual," offers literary analysis of the writing style of the psalmists.

She finds them to be starkly different in worldview from the modern religious sensibilities of Jews and Christians.

"Most mainstream religious people do not think of God as a religious warrior," she said. "The psalmists did. To them, God is all-powerful, but God is also very personal, very close. They definitely feel they have access. Sometimes they barter with God, saying, `If I die as a result of this suffering, who is going to praise you?' That's a pretty bold view."