ST. ANDREWS DIVINTY NEWS: I've been meaning to post on these for awhile. First, I've mentioned Dr. Nathan MacDonald's prestigious award, but now there's a press release on it:

Prestigious German Research Prize for St Andrews' Academic

Thursday 11 December 2008

A St Andrews' academic has been awarded a prestigious research prize by the German Federal Minister of Education and Research.

Dr Nathan MacDonald, a lecturer in Old Testament at the School of Divinity at the University of St Andrews, is the only recipient of the award from the United Kingdom.

The Sofja-Kovalevskaja prize is worth £1.3 million over five years and will fund a small research team led by Dr MacDonald based at the University of Göttingen.

He is one of eight scholars from around the world to win the Sofja-Kovalevskaja Award and the only non-scientist from among the eight awardees.

Dr MacDonald and his research team will examine the different forms that monotheism (belief in a single God) took within early Judaism during the period 586-333 BC.

He explained, "Previous scholarship has primarily been interested in the development of monotheism within ancient Israel up to 586 BC and has not examined the mature expressions of monotheistic belief and practice.

"I hope this research will show what unified these religious expressions, whilst also examining the extent of their diversity."

The author of three books, Dr Macdonald's academic work has already been recognized in the award of an Alexander von Humboldt research fellowship and the John Templeton Award for Theological Promise.

The award ceremony took place in the Deutsche Parlamentarische Gesellschaft in Berlin.

Should you wish to interview Dr. MacDonald, there's more information at the link.

Second, let me congratulate Dr. Bruce Longenecker on his appointment to the W. W. Melton Chair in the Department of Religion at Baylor University as of the Fall of 2009. Mark Goodacre has a long post here on Bruce and the appointment.

Although we are very sorry to see Nathan and Bruce leave (Nathan temporarily), we are happy that these opportunities have come to them and we wish them all the best.

STUDENTS at Liberty University in Virginia are volunteering at the Qumran excavation:

Archaeology course takes students to Dead Sea site

posted on Friday, December 12, 2008 | in General News

Four Liberty University students started working as “archaeologists in training” in Israel on Dec. 5 under the supervision of Dr. Randall Price, Director of Excavations and Executive Director of LU’s new Center for Judaic Studies.

Students Nathan LeMaster, David Sherret, Katelyn Thurston and Emilee Price traveled with Price and his wife, Beverlee, to learn about and perform land excavations at the 2,000-year-old remains of the historic Qumran Plateau, a site situated beside the Dead Sea, as part of an LU Field Archaeology course that continues through Dec. 23.

Liberty’s group is part of a larger team that is now in its sixth season (2002-08) uncovering the ruins of the Qumran Community, believed to have once been inhabited by a Jewish sect that held a strict interpretation of the Scriptures and looked for the coming of the Messiah and the end of the age.

[...]

PHOENICIAN HISTORY is the subject of a new play currently running in Lebanon:

A lesson for Lebanon from its ancient Phoenician past
'The Return of the Phoenix' is as much about today's search for a suitable modus vivendi as it is about Yesterday's
By Adam Jewell
Daily Star staff
Friday, December 12, 2008

MAAMELTEIN: "If you don't go back to the past, you can't live now," says Oussama Rahbani, the musical talent behind "The Return of the Phoenix," a play steeped in the history of Lebanon that is making an encore run through December 21 at the Casino du Liban after debuting at the Byblos International Festival this past summer.

The play, written by Mansour Rahbani and directed by Marwan Rahbani, follows last year's historical production by the Rahbani brothers, "Zenobia," an epic centered around the ancient queen of Palmyra. However, while the past often serves as inspiration for the renowned Lebanese dramatists, "The Return of the Phoenix" is the first time that their own country's history formed the basis for a production.

"Like any civilization, the Phoenicians had good points and bad points," Oussama Rahbani told The Daily Star in an interview. "They were dealing in commerce, in trading, they were traveling a lot. However, they didn't build a united culture, they were more individualistic."

"The Phoenicians focused on the city-state. But doing in this, you are alone. Saida alone, Beirut alone, Tripoli alone. Then when Alexander the Great invaded, it was one-on-one," Rahbani noted.

"The Return of the Phoenix" ponders the shortcomings of Lebanon's past inhabitants in order to prod the country's current residents into improving their collective lot. While it takes place in the northern coastal city of Jbeil, or Byblos, some 3,000 years ago, the political dynamics are instantly recognizable to those familiar with today's Lebanon.

[...]

CONFERENCE AT ST. ANDREWS:

Genesis and Christian Theology
14-18 July 2009
The University of St Andrews is pleased to announce its third conference on Scripture and Christian Theology. Since the first conference on the Gospel of John in 2003, the St Andrews conferences have been recognized as one of the most important occasions when biblical scholars and systematic theologians are brought together in conversation about a biblical text. The conferences aim to cut through the megaphone diplomacy or the sheer incomprehension that so often marks attempts to communicate across our disciplines. We invite you then to join us and some of the best theological and biblical minds in careful and often lively interaction about one of the most theologically generative of biblical books: the book of Genesis.

We are now calling for papers that integrate close readings of Genesis with Christian theology. While we are particularly interested in explorations of the dynamic relationship between Genesis and Christian doctrine, we also welcome proposals that combine careful reading of the text of Genesis with theological attention to art, creativity, ecology, ethics, the history of interpretation, or Jewish and Christian dialogue.

The call for paper proposals closes on 15 March 2009. Please visit our website for further details or to submit a proposal: www.st-andrews.ac.uk/divinity/rt/conf/genesis09/.

AN ANCIENT PERFUME BOTTLE FROM MAGDALA:

Perfume vials from Christ's era unearthed in Israel
Wed Dec 10, 2008 7:57pm GMT

ROME (Reuters) - A team of Franciscan archaeologists digging in the biblical town of Magdala in what is now Israel say they have unearthed vials of perfume similar to those that may have been used by the woman said to have washed Jesus' feet.

The perfumed ointments were found intact at the bottom of a mud-filled swimming pool, alongside hair and make-up objects, the director of the dig conducted by the group Studium Biblicum Franciscanum told the Terrasanta.net religious website.

"If chemical analyses confirm it, these could be perfumes and creams similar to those that Mary Magdalene or the sinner cited in the Gospel used to anoint Christ's feet," Father Stefano de Luca, the lead archaeologist, told the website.

Mary Magdalene is cited in the New Testament as a steadfast disciple of Christ from whom seven demons were cast out. She is often considered the sinner who anointed Jesus' feet.

[...]

Why, oh why, did it have to be found in Magdala? The Mary Magdalene connection probably would have been dragged in anyhow, but this makes it irresistable. In fact, there is nothing in the Gospels that connects Mary Magdalene to the penitent sinful woman of Luke 7:36-50. The connection comes much later, I would imagine at the time when Mary began to be regarded as a reformed prostitute. (More on Mary Magdalene here.) What looks like a variant version of the same tradition appears in the other three canonical Gospels (Mark 14:3-9; Matthew 26:6-13, and John 11:2; 12:1-3). In that version there is nothing about the woman being sinful, and John identifies her as Mary the sister of Lazarus.

The find is interesting and important, but it doesn't have even a tenuous historical connection with Mary Magdalene. Perhaps it does with the perfume-on-the-feet episode(s) in the Gospels, but it's very hard to say.

UPDATE (14 December): Useful comments from Todd Bolen here and Mark Goodacre here.

AN UPDATE ON THE JESUS PROJECT:

Quest for the Historical Jesus Begins Anew

Amherst, New York (December 08, 2008)--Scholars gathered this past weekend, December 5-7, in Amherst, New York, for the inaugural meeting of The Jesus Project in a renewed quest for the historical Jesus. The project, sponsored by the secular think tank Center for Inquiry and its Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER), is an effort by historians, biblical scholars, and theologians to determine what can be reliably recovered about the historical figure of Jesus, his life, his teachings, and his activities, utilizing the highest standards of scientific and scholarly objectivity.

[...]

The project has drawn together a diverse and rich group of scholars, including, among others Gerd Lüdemann, Paul Kurtz, Robert Price, James Tabor, Robert Eisenman, David Trobisch, Bruce Chilton, Dennis MacDonald, and R. Joseph Hoffmann.

At the session this past weekend, participants agreed that a rigorous scientific inquiry was needed, and that the Project would be committed to a position of neutrality towards the sources used as "evidence" for the Jesus tradition. Participants represent a wide variety of perspectives, ranging from Tabor's argument that there is substantial evidence that the tomb of the family of Jesus has been located, to the view that the evidence for the existence of Jesus as an historical figure is not persuasive. "Jesus remains after 2,000 years the most fascinating figure of Western civilization," said James Tabor, author of The Jesus Dynasty: A New Historical Investigation of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity. "Scholars now at the beginning of the twenty-first century are able to take advantage of a plethora of new texts, sources, and methods, including the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, various lost Gospels that are not in our New Testament, and a rich archeological record." Tabor says that scholars today find themselves uniquely positioned to examine the issue of who Jesus was in new and challenging ways. During the closing conference round-table, Tabor was quick to emphasize that "the Jesus Project repudiates any theological agendas, special pleading, or dogmatic presuppositions." All members of the project share a common commitment to the importance of applying scientific methodologies to the sources used to construct the Jesus tradition.

The Project has outlined a set of priorities for its next meetings, including a "consistent" translation of the Gospels, an inquiry into the causes of the canonization of the existing New Testament documents, parallels between Islam and early Christianity in delineating its sacred books, and the need to carve a middle path between what Hoffmann describes as "Da Vinci Code sensationalism and the truly fascinating story that underlies the history of Christianity."

[...]

Sounds ambitious. Kol HaKavod.

Background here.

AN OBITUARY FOR JOSEPH BAUMGARTEN has been published by Larry Schiffman at the SBL Forum website. Excerpt:

When I began studying the halakhah of the Dead Sea Scrolls, he was the only person in the field. I knew his name but had not yet met him. Very early in my career, it must have been in the mid-70s, I attended a meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature to present what was then my first paper. As I was talking, I noticed a fellow standing near the door who had entered just before I began. He was holding his proverbial tan lined raincoat and the hound’s-tooth checked hat that he usually wore. I do not even remember what the subject of my presentation was, but I do remember meeting him. Right after the session ended he came up to me. He introduced himself as "Joe" Baumgarten, welcomed me into the small circle of students of Qumran halakhah, and immediately dispelled any fear I might have that he would see me as an unwelcome competitor. Within fifteen minutes I was meeting his beloved wife Naomi who somehow or other was waiting for him in the hall. This was the beginning of years of friendship and collegiality. It was not long before my wife, Marlene, met the Baumgartens and, as our children grew older, she started to join me at various meetings and spent a considerable amount of time with Naomi while Joe and I were busy with our sessions.

Academically, Baumgarten set the example for those of us who apply Talmudic material and methodology to the scrolls, a method and a skill that had virtually gone into disuse in the earlier years of scrolls research. His work exemplified the judiciousness and the depths of Talmudic learning that were necessary for such research to be of true value. His work on the Damascus Document not only brought its manuscripts to publication but provided the basis for understanding it within the framework of the history of Judaism. He lived to participate in conferences in which days of papers were given following the methods he had espoused, and it is to a great extent due to the example of his scholarship that this field has developed as well as it has.

THE TOMB OF ESTHER AND MORDECHAI (traditional) in Iran is in the news:

Jewish shrine in Iran registered as national work

Hamedan, Dec 8, IRNA - Head of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Office in Hamedan province said the old and valuable place of Esther and Mordecai tomb has been registered in country's national works list.

[...]

There are some pictures of the tomb, inside and outside, here. They start midway through the fourth column of photos. Note the Hebrew inscriptions. Some critical evaluation of the tradition is here.

UPDATE (14 December): Jan Pieter van de Giessen has posted more photos of the tomb, including close-ups of the Hebrew inscriptions, at his Aantekeningen bij de Bijbel blog.

AND HE THOUGHT their doctrine of Divine grace needed work:

St. Paul lands a look at Dead Sea Scrolls

Their messianism was out of date too.

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

A HIGH-TECH ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT run by Brown University in Israel is being funded generously by the National Science Foundation:

Archeology Reborn with Grant for New Systems
Computer-based archiving, imaging and interactive education to aid research

By Dan Talpalariu, Science Editor [Softpedia]

8th of December 2008, 14:20 GMT

The scientific field of archeology will undergo severe make-up sessions and will be fully revitalized through the means of a new grant offered to a team of experts. The new funding received by a group of archaeologists form Brown University and engineers from the National Science Foundation is aimed to change the way archeology is performed and perceived, as well as how its results are accessed and used.

The $2.6 million grant will allow the team of specialists to implement techniques like computer vision and pattern recognition in processes such as conducting archaeological excavation, reconstructing sites and monuments, as well as interpreting results over the next four years. The site that will serve as a testing ground is going to be Apollonia-Arsuf, on Israel's Mediterranean coast, one of the world's 100 most endangered monuments, according to the World Monuments Fund.

The project is set to develop a visual archaeological database (VAD) with the goal of exchanging tediousness for fast access and interactivity. The archaeological site will be surrounded by video cameras and digital scanning stations, ensuring a constant visual track of the excavation. The discovered items can be processed and archived instantly, by providing the VAD with the proper text, video, still images, dense-data 3-D laser scans, and spatial coordinates associated to the finding.

[...]

HERSHEL SHANKS takes on Nina Burleigh:

Ganging up on biblical archaeology
A[n LA] Times Op-Ed writer stubbornly dismissed evidence that shows an important artifact from the Holy Land may not be a hoax.
By Hershel Shanks
December 9, 2008
Nina Burleigh ("Hoaxes from the Holy Land” Op-Ed article, Nov. 29) is unwilling to consider the possibility that the now-famous bone box inscribed "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" is authentic. This is despite the fact that the Jerusalem judge in the case, after listening to the state's witnesses for more than three years, is of the view that the government has failed to prove the inscription is a forgery and should consider dropping the case. Burleigh's view after the judge's pronouncement remains the same as in her book, "Unholy Business." Burleigh has only vitriol and nasty innuendo for anyone, including myself, who defends the authenticity of the inscription.

I start from the assumption that it is just as bad to claim an authentic inscription is a forgery as to claim a forgery is authentic. If this inscription is authentic, I want to know about it -- and so does the public.

[...]

Background here.

RABBI SHIMON BAR YOHAI'S GRAVE is in need of attention:

State comptroller finds chaos, danger at Bar-Yohai grave
By DAN IZENBERG (Jerusalem Post)

One-and-a-half million people visit the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yohai on Mount Meron, near Safed, each year, but the holy site is improperly administered and in disrepair, the state comptroller reported on Sunday.

The state comptroller also found that the celebrations on Lag Ba'Omer draw 250,000 to 400,00 people each year but are illegal because the Merom Hagalil Regional Council does not issue a permit.

They are also dangerous, because there is no supervision of the accommodations and the activities.

[...]

More people visit Bar-Yohai's grave than any other holy site in Israel other than the Western Wall. Nevertheless, there is no effective management of the site. Four religious trusts claim rights over the grave and each acts as it sees fit. The regional council has not tried to assert its own authority over the site.

As a result of the administrative chaos, there has been a great deal of illegal construction at or near the grave. For example, "In 1980, an awning was added to the visitors' center supported by iron beams connected to the northern wall of the original building, which conceal part of the upper windows and ruin the unique and ancient look of the northern façade."

All the additional construction was executed without building permits.

The grave itself was built in the 18th century. The Antiquities Authority Law states that any structure built by man from the 18th century that has historical value may be declared an antiquity.

[...]

Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai lived in the second century CE. The Zohar is pseudepigraphically attributed to him.

A BYZANTINE-ERA BATHHOUSE has been uncovered at Zikhron Ya‘aqov. (IAA press release, noted via Joseph I. Lauer.)

TODAY is Pretend To Be A Time Traveler Day.

Don't worry, I'll behave myself. But it is sooooo tempting.

PAULA FREDRIKSEN is defending St. Augustine's view of Jews in her new book, Augustine and the Jews. Time Magazine has an interview with Professor Fredriksen. Excerpt:

What caused you to question the received wisdom?
Back in 1993 I was reading a work of Augustine's attacking a Christian heretic. Usually when ancient orthodox Christians said terrible things about heretics, they found even worse things to say about Jews. Until 395, Augustine had not been much different, but here he was, writing about one of the flashiest heresies of his time, and marshaling as arguments unbelievably positive things about Jews. As I read further, my scalp tingled. I had been working on Augustine for 20 years and I'd never seen anything like this before. Not only could I establish that he had changed his position, but I could locate this shift in his thinking very precisely, to the four-year period when he also wrote his monumental Confessions.

Interesting. Read it all.

PROFESSOR JOSEPH M. BAUMGARTEN has passed away. Just got the sad news from Professor Lawrence Schiffman, who e-mails:

Dear friends,

I regret to have to inform you of the passing on Thursday of our colleague and friend Prof. Joseph Baumgarten. He was memorialized in Baltimore on Friday and he will be buried in Israel on Sunday.

May his righteous memory be for a blessing!

Amen.

Professor Moshe Bernstein also e-mails with information on the funeral arrangements. The message has personal family information, so I won't post it here. But if you'll be in Jerusalem this evening and wish to attend, drop me a note and I'll forward it.

Here's the notice of (Rabbi Dr.) Professor Baumgarten's passing in the Baltimore Sun. I can't find an online biography or vita, but here's a list of some of his major publications. He did a great deal of important work on the legal traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

SORRY for the blogging silence. I had an Internet outage this morning and have been busy ever since until a little while ago. But I've now had a chance to poke around in the news and things seem pretty quiet. I have been meaning to note the upcoming conference on the Codex Sinaiticus, pointed out by Mark Goodacre.

A JERUSALEM CAVE provides new data on ancient climate change:

Cave's climate clues show ancient empires declined during dry spell

by Jill Sakai, Space & Earth science / Earth Sciences

(PhysOrg.com) -- The decline of the Roman and Byzantine empires in the Eastern Mediterranean more than 1,400 years ago may have been driven by unfavorable climate changes.

Based on chemical signatures in a piece of calcite from a cave near Jerusalem, a team of American and Israeli geologists pieced together a detailed record of the area's climate from roughly 200 B.C. to 1100 A.D. Their analysis, to be reported in an upcoming issue of the journal Quaternary Research, reveals increasingly dry weather from 100 A.D. to 700 A.D. that coincided with the fall of both Roman and Byzantine rule in the region.

The researchers, led by University of Wisconsin-Madison geology graduate student Ian Orland and professor John Valley, reconstructed the high-resolution climate record based on geochemical analysis of a stalagmite from Soreq Cave, located in the Stalactite Cave Nature Reserve near Jerusalem.

[...]

BRUCE ZUCKERMAN has some new equipment for photographing ancient texts:

Closer Look at Ancient Documents

Written by Lauren Walser - USC (Imperial Valley News)
Wednesday, 03 December 2008
Los Angeles, California - It feels impolite to call them “small dinky things” or “smashed mushrooms.” But researchers in the USC archaeology labs said as much. And pressed onto a piece of glass while undergoing intense photography, those descriptions do not seem far off.

Technically, they’re called Dead Sea Scrolls. And for a single day in November, researchers in the USC Archaeological Research Center had five “dinky” fragments of the scrolls in their hands. But the researchers saw this day as more than just a chance to unlock new clues to these ancient texts. It was an opportunity to test out some of the most high-tech equipment in the field using techniques only available in their labs at USC.

The Dead Sea Scrolls have long been artifacts of intense scholarly and public interest – as well as heated debate. In 1947, young Bedouin shepherds stumbled upon a cave full of jars containing ancient scrolls. This discovery led to an ongoing search that has produced thousands of tiny fragments of biblical and early Jewish documents, dated from the third century BCE (before the common era) to the second century C.E. – including documents nearly a thousand years older than any other surviving manuscript of the Hebrew Scriptures.

It’s a rare opportunity for scholars to have these documents available to them, but the researchers in the Archaeological Center have been working with these scrolls for more than 20 years – longer than any other group of scholars.

“If someone wants the best images of the Dead Sea Scrolls, they know to come to us,” said Bruce Zuckerman, USC College professor of religion and director of the USC West Semitic Research Project and the Archaeological Research Center.

And this time around, new photographic equipment made their acquisition of Dead Sea Scroll fragments all the more exciting.

“What we especially wanted to do this time was see if this equipment would work the way we expected it to,” Zuckerman said. “It wasn’t certain that this would be the case. No one had ever tried these techniques before.”

But their results were astounding. “The images we captured are far better than anything we’ve ever seen before,” Zuckerman said. “We were able to pick up details we didn’t expect to see.”

[...]

Technical details of the work follow. Bruce's team does not seem to have identified new fragments of specific, known texts yet, but the work is still at an early stage.

UPDATE: More on Professor Zuckerman here.

PETER BROWN has won a major award:

Historian Peter Brown selected to share $1 million Kluge Prize
Posted December 3, 2008; 11:33 a.m.

by Ruth Stevens

Peter Brown, Princeton's Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History, has been named a co-winner of the 2008 Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Study of Humanity.

He and Romila Thapar, a professor emeritus in history at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, will receive the award in a ceremony Wednesday, Dec. 10, at the Library of Congress. They are the sixth and seventh recipients since the prize's 2003 inception, and each will receive half of the $1 million award.

[...]

As both scholar and teacher, Peter Brown has worked at the highest level of intensity and creativity for more than 40 years. His books have captivated thousands of readers, and his celebrated lectures and seminars have inspired students and younger scholars around the world.

Brown is the author of a number of important works, including the St. Augustine biography, "Augustine of Hippo" (1967); "The World of Late Antiquity" (1971), in which he wrote about 200 to 1000 C.E. as a whole new period that had not previously been seen as such and set the agenda for a new field of study; and "The Rise of Western Christendom" (1996), in which he showed the rise of Christianity as the emergence of a new social and intellectual world long before the Renaissance.

He currently is on sabbatical writing a book examining attitudes toward wealth and poverty in the later Roman Empire. In addition to the major European languages, Brown has developed a capacity in Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Persian, Syriac and Turkish.

[...]

Congratulations to Professor Brown.

STILL MORE on Khirbet Qeiyafa and its inscription from Bloomberg.com:

Unearthed City Near Jerusalem Revives Debate on Biblical David

By Gwen Ackerman

Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The remains of a walled city over a plain where the Bible claims David killed Goliath; a pottery shard bearing script that experts claim is the oldest Hebrew text ever found; an ancient water tunnel.

Do these support Scripture’s story of King David and his empire? It depends on who you ask. Recent archeological finds have reopened the debate on David and Solomon, whose reigns almost 3,000 years ago as chronicled in the Bible left so little physical proof that scholars like Neil Asher Silberman, a University of Massachusetts historian, question biblical accuracy.

Hebrew University professor Yosef Garfinkel, in an interview, said his findings amid the ruins of a fortified city in Khirbet Qeiyafa, a five-acre site 20 miles west of Jerusalem, support the biblical portrayal of David as a ruler of a kingdom strong enough to field an army. The findings, the most important of which were a second city gate and the shard, dispute claims by some scholars that David was a chieftain of a largely illiterate tribe.

[...]

More along this lines, with nothing much new, then this contrary view:

Hani Nur el-Din, a professor of archaeology at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, said further digging might uncover more gates and dispel biblical links to the site.

“The Israeli archaeologists are always trying to link what they found to the Bible and not to other contemporary historical texts,” said el-Din.

And this on the inscription:

Then there’s the other important finding: a piece of broken pottery inscribed with 50 characters and considered the oldest known example of Hebrew writing. It contains one critical pair of words, “al-ta’as,” or “don’t do,” used exclusively by the Judean tribes, Garfinkel said.

If that phrase is a correct transcription, it, along with the word "land" reported earlier, weaken the possibility that the inscription is a list of names or at least that it is only a list of names. That said, if the words given above are just a bit misreported, perhaps they could be the name ʿAsaʾel, which means "God has done."

One really can't draw conclusions without a full transcription and a good photograph. I hope both are forthcoming soon.

Background here.

THE KHIRBET QEIYAFA INSCRIPTION has been subjected to high-tech photography:

A closer look at the ancient fine print

Megavision, a small firm near Santa Barbara, has a growing reputation for the kind of specialized digital imaging sought by museums, archives, research institutes and elite collectors.

By Catherine Saillant (LA Times)
December 2, 2008

Researchers gathered recently in a small darkened lab near Santa Barbara, nervously pacing as a digital camera snapped hundreds of images of a shard of pottery resting a few feet below the lens.

There was good reason for their anxiety. The terra-cotta fragment is about 3,000 years old and was inscribed with five lines of text that could alter knowledge about the existence of an ancient Judean kingdom.

"To find any text is really off the charts," said David Willner, an expert in Jewish antiquities who accompanied the shard from its excavation site in Israel to California. "And to have five lines of text is extraordinary."

That this world treasure ended up at Megavision -- a small, employee-owned company tucked away in a nondescript industrial park -- speaks volumes about the firm's growing reputation for the kind of specialized digital imaging sought by museums, archives, research institutes and elite collectors.

[...]

The result is hundreds of high-resolution images shot with different light filters. Using a process called spectral imaging, Boydston and Bill Christens-Barry, another imaging expert, aimed to maximize the contrast of the ink, made of charcoal and animal fat, against the terra-cotta piece.

Although they didn't find any hidden text, the images will be sent back to Israel. Other high-tech images were produced -- using slightly different imaging techniques -- at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and two other technical shops on the East Cost.

Once the shard's message is fully scrutinized and decoded, findings will be published in scholarly journals by Yosef Garfinkel of Hebrew University, who led the dig. A few words already deciphered -- "slave," "king," "land" and "judge" -- indicate that it may be a legal text, lending weight to some scholars' belief that King David wielded considerable power over the Israelites.

[...]

I also heard speculation at SBL that it may be a list of names. Many of these words do appear regularly as elements in ancient Israelite names. Abimelech, Ebed-Melech, Jehoshaphat, etc., etc. We'll see.

Background here and here and follow the links back.

UPDATE (3 December): I have a few more ruminations on the inscription here.

"OH, I AM so blogging this."

THE GRIM FATE of Victorian Church libraries is lamented by Christopher Howse in the Telegraph:

The sale of a 63-volume Bible for £55,000 in December 2006 was a thumping great clue in a detective trail to a scandal over which church people are still fuming.

The Bible in question was hardly even a book, for it had been "Grangerised" in the 19th century - hundreds of old drawings and prints had been added as illustrations, bulking it out to 20ft of shelf space.
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Shockingly, to some, the man who bought it removed 300 of the illustrations, leaving the carcase on the auctioneer's floor (from which it was sold on to a rich collector).

That Bible came from the same source as other old books sold by Sotheby's in June last year, which fetched £400,000. One was the great Complutensian Polyglot, printed for Cardinal Ximenes in 1520.

That is a proper Bible to be sure, with parallel texts in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Syriac. Cranmer bought a copy. But this one, which fetched £69,000, bore the stamp of the Bishop Phillpotts Library in Truro.

It turned out that hundreds of old books from the library had been sold, for £36,000. What annoyed churchy people was that the dealer who bought them sold them on for more than half a million.

... In the Eighties, the building was sold and the books housed in diocesan offices. A committee entrusted with their care discussed selling them two decades later, but failed to notice valuable volumes in the decaying mass of books. Many that I saw later on sale were in very poor condition.

No one much, it is true, wanted to read the books. Few students, in Cornwall or elsewhere, can read even Latin. Only a specialist would use the Complutensian Polyglot.

A similar case was that of Dr Williams's Library in London, a Nonconformist collection that owned a Shakespeare first folio. What good was it to them? It was sold in 2006 for £2.8 million.

The Bishop Phillpotts Library was not so lucky. The dispersal of its books parallels that of libraries of many religious communities that are shrinking and closing. Mr Thornton also sold hundreds of books from the Cowley Fathers' library and that of the Church Union.

Ours times are like those of John Aubrey's grandfather, after the dissolution of the monasteries, when "manuscripts flew about like butterflies", only to be used to wrap gloves and line pies.

[...]

LIVE MUSIC to accompany 'Golem'

Sunday, November 30, 2008 3:52 AM
By Gary Budzak
The Columbus Dispatch

The Carpe Diem String Quartet, which will play a score for the silent German film
The golem is the original Frankenstein -- a plodding, powerful creature created by man, yet lacking in humanity.

The Golem, a 1920 German silent movie, will be shown Saturday night at the Wexner Center for the Arts. The influential horror film was shown with a pre-recorded soundtrack at the Wexner in 2003, but Saturday's screening will be accompanied by live music.

"Seeing a silent film in your living room with canned music is really not the proper way to see this work," said Chris Stults, assistant film and video curator at the Wexner Center. "Seeing it in a cinema with live music, . . . becomes as much a performance as it does a screening."

An original suite for the film was written in 1997 by Israeli composer Betty Olivero.

[...]

For more golem posts, see here.

"BENTZION was slumped over a Talmud."

May his memory be for a blessing.

And so for all the victims. And may the planners and perpetrators be swiftly caught and punished.

THE ISRAEL FORGERY TRIAL is the subject of an LA Times opinion piece by Nina Burleigh:

Hoaxes from the Holy Land
The faltering prosecution of an antiquities dealer in the James ossuary case underscores problems in authenticating biblical artifacts.

By Nina Burleigh
November 29, 2008

Israeli authorities called it "the fraud of the century": fakes passed off as archaeological finds with biblical ties. The most notorious object was the James ossuary, a limestone box inscribed in Aramaic with the words "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." Five men were charged, and the trial has been dragging on for three years.

But it may all be crashing to a halt. A few weeks ago, the judge -- who is hearing the case without a jury -- told the government lawyers he's not convinced the objects are forgeries and suggested they consider dropping the matter. If the authorities can't make their case, experts warn that the antiquities market -- and a proof-hungry religious public -- inevitably will be fed groundbreaking biblical "discoveries" as far-fetched as Solomon's crown and Abraham's sandals.

Let's hope not.

She summarizes the story behind the trial and concludes:

The trial will resume in six months, so prosecutors have a chance to pull together better evidence. But the potential collapse of the James ossuary case confirms two things. First, the underfunded and understaffed Israeli Antiquities Authority -- charged with policing the antiquities trade and protecting dig sites -- is not up to the task of rooting out and exposing world-famous fakes. Second, the Israeli legal system can't be the last word on the authenticity of objects that have the potential to excite millions of faithful.

So while policing the private trade in objects is a matter for the Israeli authorities, sober and serious biblical scholars need to take steps to shield the public from their more ruthless colleagues. All future finds with remarkable biblical connections emerging from the private market ought to be inspected by a team of disinterested experts from around the world before anyone calls a news conference.

The only trouble is, in this field, disinterested individuals are the rarest finds of all.

This is a field in which it is hard to establish complete "disinterest." For example, anyone's religious commitment or lack thereof can be used to argue that they are biased in some way. And many, perhaps most scholars who work in these areas just want to get on with their research and don't want to get caught up in these controversies.

More on Nina Burleigh here.

TWICE USED SONGS by Terry Giles and William J. Doan is profiled by Dana Massing GoErie.com:

Authors explore use of songs in Hebrew Bible

BY DANA MASSING
dana.massing@timesnews.com [more details]

Published: November 29. 2008 12:01AM

Why do we sing the national anthem before a baseball game?

For the same reason writers worked songs into the prose of the Hebrew Bible, says one of the authors of a new book.

"To create community solidarity," Terry Giles said.

Giles, a Gannon University professor, and William J. Doan, a former Gannon professor now at Pennsylvania State University, have written "Twice Used Songs: Performance Criticism of the Songs of Ancient Israel."

In it, the authors use performance criticism to understand why biblical writers put songs in their stories.

The songs that Doan and Giles write about are considered "twice-used" because their first appearance wasn't in the Scriptures known to Christians as the Old Testament.

[...]

AN EXHIBITION in Texas on ancient Judaism:

Dec. 12, ‘The Birth of Christianity: A Jewish Story’ to open at HMNS

(Jewish Herald-Voice)

Through the display of ancient scrolls, objects and artifacts, the story of two of the world’s most influential religions unfolds in “The Birth of Christianity: A Jewish Story,” a new special exhibition opening Dec. 12 at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The exhibition will continue through April 12, 2009.

“In 2005, The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition evoked a remarkable response from tens of thousands of museum visitors,” said Joel A. Bartsch, president of the HMNS. “ ‘The Birth of Christianity: A Jewish Story’ continues the journey begun in The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition and broadens the dialogue – beyond the fascinating Qumran community that created the Scroll – and into the dawn of the Christian era,” said Bartsch. “One particularly moving part of the exhibition includes the oldest known copy of the messianic prophecies from the Book of Isaiah – one of the original Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumran – displayed alongside the oldest known copy of the New Testament Book of Luke, including the earliest known version of the story of Christ’s nativity.”

[...]

There's also a video interview with Prof. Matthias Henze of Rice University.

DEAD SEA SCROLLS are coming to Rome:

Dead Sea Scrolls to be displayed in Rome
11/27/2008 | 10:34 PM (GMANews.TV)

JERUSALEM – Italian president Giorgio Napolitano says he will open an exhibition of the famed Dead Sea Scrolls in Rome next year.

Israel's Antiquities Authority announced Thursday that parts of the scrolls will be shown in Rome early next year. Segments of the scrolls are lent out regularly to museums around the world but haven't been shown in Italy yet.

[...]

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION at the New York Jewish Museum is reviewed by Jerome A. Chanes in The Forward. Excerpt:

The Jewish Museum’s exhibition is different from other displays of the scrolls; it does not plant the flag in the soil of any one theory of the scrolls’ provenance, but concentrates on their messages. In this tiny and exquisitely curated exhibition, fragments of but six scrolls — out of the 900 found, and tens of thousands of other fragments — were chosen, each one very different from another. There is a fragment from the book of Jeremiah, one of the earliest copies of the Hebrew Bible in existence; there is an early example of Hebrew prayer, from Words of the Luminaries; there is a fragment from the Apocryphal Book of Tobit, a text not included in Hebrew Scripture but accepted into some versions of the Christian Bible; there is a text from the Aramaic Apocryphon of Daniel, and there are fragments from two books of regulations: the Community Rule, on the ordering of the affairs of the community, and the War Rule, on how a great war at the end of days should be conducted.

[...]

And this is the ultimate goal — and the nuanced message — of The Dead Sea Scrolls: Mysteries of an Ancient World. In curating the exhibition to focus on the texture of the scrolls’ language rather than on the controversies surrounding the scrolls themselves, The Jewish Museum is not just avoiding conflict. It is showing that it has a keen understanding of the difference between taste and politics when it comes to the fields of archeology, art and literature. In freeing the art from the politics, this exhibition sensitively bridges the gaps between art and politics, between questions of artistic taste and those of religious sensitivities. In the dim light of the scrolls gallery, the viewer is able, after two millennia, to converse with Jeremiah, Tobit and Daniel.

And Huliq News has a review as well. Excerpt:

The Dead Sea Scrolls: Mysteries of the Ancient World is on view at The Jewish Museum through January 4, 2009. This new exhibition features fragments of six scrolls, which have never been seen in New York City before. Three of the scrolls are being exhibited for the first time anywhere. Revered and revelatory, the Dead Sea Scrolls on display, together with over 30 artifacts discovered near the caves where the documents were found, provide new insights into the varied beliefs of ancient peoples and religious diversity today. A seven-minute film further enriches the visitor experience.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to my American readers!

Busy day today and I'm pre-posting this. It will probably be late in the day, if at all, before I get to blogging.

I'M HOME. Got in a few hours ago and have been occupied with family things. No blogging right now. Time to try to sleep off some of this cold.

PARDEE'S PRESENTATION on the new Zincirli inscription (now the Kuttamuwa Stele) is summarized by Douglas Mangum at the Biblia Hebraica blog. And follow the link there for a rendering of Pardee's transcription by Jim Getz.

Via Yitzhaq Sapir at the Aramaic list.

Background here and here.

GOOD CONFERENCE. Hightlights included both of the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism Group meetings, the memorial session for John Strugnell, and the Pseudepigrapha Group session on Problematizing "Pseudepigrapha." I've made some notes on the last, which amount almost to a paper proposal for next year. I may get around to posting some thoughts, but not right now.

UPDATE (1:14 pm and bits thereafter): No, not yet. I've got a cold starting up and am not feeling too energetic.

My paper presentation went well. People seemed to find it informative, they laughed in (mostly) the right places, and I even managed to slip in a Terminator joke. (It's not in the written version, but if you know the mythos you can probably guess where.)

My flight leaves this evening and I'm in the hotel lobby at the moment. I may or may not be able to blog (or feel like blogging) later at the airport. If not, look for me (briefly) Wednesday evening in St. Andrews. On Thanksgiving I will be involved in our fall graduation ceremonies, receptions, etc. from the morning until late in the evening, so you may not hear much from me.

Safe trip home to all SBL travelers.

SHARE A TAXI? If anyone at the SBL conference would like to share a taxi with me to Logan Airport around 12:00 noon today, please e-mail me asap.

UPDATE: Got someone now. Thanks!

THE MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE in Jerusalem is defended by Rabbi Marvin Hier at the Simon Wiesenthal Center website:

Letter to the Editor / Museum of Tolerance is a beacon of light, not a wall

Regarding Bradley Burston's article "Dividing Jerusalem, one wall at a time"

Bradley Burston criticizes the Museum of Tolerance project in Jerusalem claiming it would be "dividing Jerusalem one wall at a time" because it is being built atop an ancient Muslim cemetery.

What he deliberately hides from his readers is that the land was given to the Simon Wiesenthal Center by the government of Israel and the City of Jerusalem, who presented petitions to the Supreme Court in support of the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem.

He also obscures the fact that the Simon Wiesenthal Center is not building on the nearby Mamilla cemetery, but on the adjacent site which, for nearly a half-century, served as Jerusalem's municipal car park where every day hundreds of Jews, Christians and Muslims parked their cars. Electric cable and sewer lines were laid below the ground.

During all this time, not a single Muslim group or individual, including today's most vociferous critics said a word in protest although as they argued before the Court they knew all along it was a cemetery, yet kept silent for a half-century.

[...]

It is important to note that the Sheikh initiated the proceedings before the High Court because he saw this as a land grab in the center of Jerusalem. The Court immediately ordered mediation between the parties to be conducted by former court president Meir Shamgar. Our Center was very sensitive to the issue and offered numerous compromises, but they were all rejected out-of-hand by Sheikh Salah, who refused to even meet to discuss them. He insisted that the Court rule on the matter.

Now, after over two years in the Courts, the Supreme Court has handed down a 119-page unanimous verdict in favor of the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem. Sheikh Salah and his defenders, who eagerly sought the Court's relief, are now agitating against its decision because they lost.

It is not those who lie beneath the ground who threaten the stability of the Middle East. It is the intolerance of extremists above the ground and those with an agenda who impede any prospects for civility and respect.

[...]

Via Brad A. Greenberg at the Jewish Journal's God Blog.

Background here.

THE VIEW FROM MY WINDOW:



That's the Hilton on the left and the domed building is the Christian Science Center.

THE LEUVEN DATABASE OF ANCIENT BOOKS came up today in the discussion after Craig Evans's paper "A Preliminary Survey of Christian Literature Found in Oxyrhynchus." Here the About entry for the site:

The present database attempts to collect the basic information on all ancient literary texts, as opposed to documents. At present, it includes 12669 items, dating from the fourth century B.C. to A.D. 800 and incorporating authors from Homer (8th cent. B.C.) to Romanus Melodus and Gregorius the Great (6th cent. A.D.), including 3671 texts of which the author can no longer be identified (to find an empty field, type "=" (without the quotes) in the field authorname).

Text editions by classical philologists and patristic scholars are usually based upon medieval manuscripts, dating many centuries after the work in question was first written down and transmitted by copies from copies from copies. Here the user will find the oldest preserved copies of each text. At the same time he will get a view of the reception of ancient literature throughout the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine period: which author was read when, where and by whom throughout Antiquity.

The term "books" is used in the same wide sense as in the catalogues of Mertens-Pack and Van Haelst, for "texts that were intended to reach the eyes of a reading public or at least possessed a more than ephemeral interest or usefulness". Therefore we have excluded documents quoting some line of Homer (e.g. Pack2 399, 471, Van Haelst 1191), but also oracle questions (e.g. Pack2 2492-2493, Van Haelst 954, 958) and horoscopes, which we consider documentary texts. As we are interested in books, we do not include references to inscriptions (e.g. Pack 2960, 2490; Van Haelst 53, 111, 792-818). Magical texts on gold, lead, bronze etc. (e.g. Van Haelst 184-191) are not incorporated, because their aim is purely practical. But magical texts based on handbooks will be found, even though the dividing line is often subjective.

Our interest being in books, not in the study of literature, we have grouped multiple texts on a single roll if they were intended as parts of one book . This is especially the case for anthologies, which are split up in Pack among the different authors (e.g. Pack2 0031 + 0401 + 1319 + 1320 are grouped as LDAB 1048). We keep two entries, however, when a literary papyrus is reused for another literary text, and also in the case of composite codices, when the different works were originally written on individual quires (LDAB 107760, 17904, 107905).

Looks very useful.

THE BABYLON EXHIBITION at the British Museum is reviewed by Boyd Tonkin in the Independent. Excerpt:

Thanks to a soundtrack, sometimes the tablets speak to us of kings, dreams and battles. This mid-sized exhibition never claims blockbuster status. So the great intellectual adventures that led to our detailed knowledge of life in Babylon – the excavations by Robert Koldewey in the 1900s, or the decipherment of cuneiform by Henry Rawlinson – get slightly short shrift in these displays. Frustrated visitors might want to invest in the superb book, edited by Irving Finkel and Michael Seymour. It fills in the gaps.

Sin and doom hogs the limelight. Whether this works depends on the standard of "legacy" material. We get drippy Victorian paintings of the Jewish exile, while Rembrandt's Belshazzar's Feast has not made it up the road from the National Gallery. A collection of music inspired by Babylon, from Verdi's Nabucco through the inevitable Bob Marley and down to Boney M, looks like the fruit of a Google trawl. Modern art prompted by images of the Tower of Babel – especially by Pieter Bruegel's crumbling helter-skelter – shines brighter, in the eerie digital city of Julee Holcombe's Babel Revisited or MC Escher's never-to-be-finished skyscraper.

Again, I wanted a show that invites analogies between ancient and modern to go the whole Babylonian hog. Burning and collapsing towers, a panic-stricken city, rumours of a vile oriental despot: this show's processional way leads the mind inexorably back to Saddam and Bush.

Background here.

RESURRECTING HEBREW (Nextbook. 219 pp. $21) by Ilan Stavans is reviewed in the Washington Post by Yehudah Mirsky. The review opens with a nice example:

In the Bible, the Book of Ezekiel begins with the heavens opening to reveal a stunning vision of God. Above the angels, astride a throne, like a fire encased in a frame, the prophet sees a kind of "hashmal."

This word is unique to Ezekiel's vision; in the entire Hebrew scriptures, it appears only there. Its exact meaning is uncertain, but the Talmud -- the vast compilation of Jewish law, lore and interpretation from the first centuries of the Common Era -- offers a powerful etymology: It comes from the phrase "Creatures of fire . . . keep their silence [Hebrew: HASHot] and murmur [u-meMALelot]." Thus, tradition holds that the mysterious hashmal is the aura surrounding the heavenly throne, woven from the breaths of angels, so sacred as scarcely to be audible, even to God.
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Yet on the streets of Israel today, hashmal is everywhere. As any child can tell you, it means "electricity."

More on the Hashmal here.

THE FIRE GOSPEL by Michel Faber is reviewed by Ed Lake in the Independent. Excerpt:

You'll have guessed by now that this is satire of the broadest sort. Faber's signature preoccupation with extreme grottiness, established in The Crimson Petal and the White (think Jane Eyre rewritten by William Vollmann) remains intact: The Fire Gospel's brief duration is fit to burst with seedy dwellings, open wounds and post-coital slumps. But alas, The Crimson Petal's imaginative suppleness and care haven't fared nearly so well.

Indeed, the present novel feels like hack work, dashed off. Its title notwithstanding, a parade of religious weirdos and some rote digs at the publishing industry do not an inspired text make. Nothing – except perhaps the Amazon pastiche, cheap shot though it is – feels closely observed or passionately invested. And, as it happens, the piece was commissioned as part of Canongate's otherwise surprisingly decent Myths series, so perhaps Faber didn't feel he had quite the free hand he would have liked.

Background here.

FROM THE BOOK DISPLAY:

Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright, A New English Translation of the Septuagint (OUP, 2008)

I picked up a copy of this yesterday. This new publication makes the Septuagint available in an accurate, readable translation to a wide audience. Those who have no Greek can now find out what it says, and even those who know Greek well will find it helpful to be able to read long stretches of the text in English to get a ready feel for a book or an extended passage. Thanks to this translation it's now much easier to treat the Septuagint not just as a translation of the Hebrew Bible, but also as a collection of literary works from Second Temple times. Well done!

Background here.

THE NEW ZINCIRLI INSCRIPTION is covered by Archaeology Magazine, with nice photos and lots of new background on the excavation and the discovery:

Insight into the Soul

November 19, 2008
by Eti Bonn-Muller

An inscribed stele from Zincirli, Turkey, illuminates Iron Age beliefs about the afterlife

An eighth-century B.C. funerary stele unearthed this summer at the site of Zincirli in southeastern Turkey, known in ancient times as Sam'al, is providing rare insight into Iron Age concepts of the soul. Archaeologists from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute recently announced a translation of the monument's 13-line inscription, which is emblazoned beside a depiction of the deceased, a high official named Kuttamuwa.

[...]

When graduate students from the University of Chicago, led by Virginia Rimmer, the excavation area supervisor, first uncovered the monument's rounded top, they noticed vertical lines incised across it. "They wondered if that was writing so they started looking at these scratches, trying to figure them out," Schloen says. The lines, it turns out, were from modern plows. The stele lay fewer than eight inches below the surface of a wheat field that had been farmed for generations.

A workman carefully exposed the object further and next saw its rounded back, which the archaeologists thought might be a grindstone. But when the workman saw the top line of clear writing, he called Rimmer over right away. Working in the area were two graduate students specializing in Northwest Semitic philology, Samuel Boyd and Benjamin Thomas, who had just taken a course in exactly the kind of inscription and dialect on the stele. "None of the rest of us were experts on this particular script," says Schloen. "They translated it on the spot!"

[...]

Those were some lucky graduate students!

By the way, kudos to the excavator and epigrapher for making the stele, including good photographs, available so quickly and in advance of the official publication.

(Heads up, reader Chip Hardy.)

MORE ON KHIRBET QEIFAYA and its proposed identification with the biblical Sha'arayim:

Biblical City Where David Battled Goliath Found?
Mati Milstein in Tel Aviv
for National Geographic News
November 21, 2008

The remains of an ancient gate has pinpointed the location of the biblical city Sha'arayim, say archaeologists working in Israel.

In the Bible, young King David is described as battling Goliath in the city, before eventually killing him in the Elah Valley.

The fortified gate at the Elah Fortress—the second to be found at the site—proves the existence of Sha'arayim, which means "two gates" in Hebrew, said Hebrew University archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel.

"All the sites from this period uncovered so far had only one gate. We have two gates and this is very unusual," Garfinkel said.

The gate, constructed of stones weighing up to ten tons, is located on the site's eastern side, facing Jerusalem.

[...]

Evidence of King David

The discovery is the second recent find to be made at the Elah Fortress—known as Khirbet Qeiyafa in Arabic—which is located near the present-day Israeli city of Bet Shemesh.

In October, Garfinkel revealed a 3,000-year-old pottery shard with text believed to be Hebrew—then hailed as the most important archaeological discovery in Israel since the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Initial carbon-14 dating of olive pits found at the site, as well as analysis of pottery remains, placed the text to between 1000 and 975 B.C.—the time King David would have lived.

[...]

The article concludes:

Garfinkel said he will continue to explore the Elah site in search of further evidence.

"Maybe we'll find an inscription on the gate indicating who built the city: 'I David, son of Yishai, built this city,'" he said with a laugh.

Or something. Wouldn't that just be nice?

Background here.

ARAMAIC WATCH: It doesn't give the last words of Joseph of Arimathea, but there's a British ancient Aramaic inscription from Hadrian's Wall. Robin Yassin-Kassab has the story in "On the Empire's Edge" at the UAE National:

Walking out along the wall stirred the imagination: I was walking in the steps of ancient Syrians. A tombstone found at Housesteads depicts an archer armed with an oriental-style recurved bow. Texts found elsewhere show that a cohort of 500 bowmen from the Syrian city of Hama served in Britain, and spent some of their time on the wall, perhaps shooting game for the garrison to eat.

To me, this was of more than academic interest. We moved only recently to this area from Oman, and we still lack a sense of belonging. Castle Douglas, our damp little town, seems very monocultural, and my family, being multicultural – my wife is Syrian, from Damascus and perhaps originally Palmyra, and I am an Anglo-Syrian mix – seem correspondingly out of place. Yet all those centuries ago there had been Syrians here, and north Africans, and Europeans of all descriptions. I wanted to learn more, so after crisps and coffee at the cafe we drove on to visit the Roman ruins at Corbridge, where Barathes died.

Before my grandfather died he told me that a Syrian soldier was buried on the wall. Clutching at straws in my Scottish isolation, I trawled the internet for information on this lost countryman. I didn’t find a soldier but Barathes, an itinerant Syrian merchant, entombed just south of the wall in Corbridge. My wife was particularly pleased with my discovery, for Barathes was, like her, originally from Palmyra. The presence of a Palmyran at this northern fort means the Syrian archers were not alone; there were Syrian businessmen and even Syrian religious officials in Roman Britain. An altar dedicated to Syrian goddesses has been excavated at Catterick in Yorkshire, bearing the inscription: “For the Goddesses of the city of Hama, Sabinus has made this.” And in some strange way in cold Castle Douglas, Barathes’s proximity made us feel that we too were not alone.

It took half an hour to get from Housesteads to Corbridge. The old Stanegate road used to end here, at the fort built in AD79 when Emperor Agricola was campaigning into Scotland. But Corbridge was more town than fort; there were temples, markets and an aqueduct as well as a barracks.

And Barathes the Palmyran would have been here for trade, even if his white hair (he was 68 when he died – a venerable age in Roman times) qualified him for a restful retirement. He was a trader of ensigns, a flag salesman, and apparently a wealthy man. A fragment of his gravestone, enough to tell his name, age, origin and occupation, was found recycled as building material in the wall of a nearby house. Today it’s on show in Corbridge’s museum.

I pitied this lonely Arab who had so narrowly escaped historical oblivion. What must it have been like for Levantine men to work at what was then the remotest edge of the earth? Although Phoenicians from Carthage (in modern Tunisia) had come to buy British tin in the fourth century BC, until the Roman invasion many in the ancient world refused to believe that the misty isles of the far north-west even existed. I remembered standing on the wall beyond Housesteads, looking into the raw, dark moorscape of crag and rock and black water, and feeling to my bones how the British frontier was a bad luck posting. The kind of fabled land a Syrian would have used to scare his children into obedience. Finish your soup or we’ll send you to northern Britain!

After exploring the ruins we sat in a cafe in modern Corbridge and looked through the window onto the elegant village houses, wondering how many chunks of Roman masonry had gone into their construction. As I drank my soup (tomato, and tasty) I read the Corbridge guidebook, and learnt there had been more to Barathes’s old age than icy winds. He had commissioned the tombstone of a British woman called Regina, who was buried at Arbeia, the easternmost fort on the wall. This was too good to be true: I had to visit Arbeia.

[...]

And here, overlooking the mouth of the Tyne, stood Arbeia. The low, bare ruins of the fort are bordered by redbrick terraced houses and a school. There is an impressively reconstructed Roman gateway, and down the road a little is a view of the sea. The name Arbeia means ‘place of the Arabs’. In the site museum I was surprised to discover that these Arabs weren’t Syrian but Iraqi – “boatmen of the Tigris” to be precise. In a strange historical reversal, Iraqis serving a global empire once helped to police North Sea shipping, as the British Navy patrols the Shatt al-Arab today. The Iraqis were in charge of sea supplies for the garrisons stationed on Hadrian’s Wall. The Semitic goddess Astarte (or Ishtar) was worshipped here, beside the gods of Spanish soldiers. There was even a maghrebi presence: the museum contains the tomb of 20-year-old Victor, a freed slave “of the Moorish nation.”

But it was Regina’s story that crowned the visit. At a very young age Regina became a slave, and at some point she was purchased by Barathes. Later he declared her a freedwoman, and then married her. Regina died at the age of 30, and her grieving Palmyran husband spared no expense on her tombstone. She is sculpted holding her spinning and a jewellery box, and wearing a Romano-British dress. As well as the Latin, there is an inscription in Aramaic, the language of Barathes which is still spoken in a few Syrian villages today. It reads, simply and poignantly: “Regina, the freedwoman of Barathes, alas.” The tombstone is in fine condition except for Regina’s head, which has fallen away; she has a name and a sketchy biography, but no face.

[...]

My emphasis. I knew of Barathes and Regina from the Minimus books, but I didn't know about the Aramaic inscription. Cool.

The Arbeia website is here. It reports that the Aramaic (Palmyrene) inscription reads RGYN BT HRY T HBL.

More on Hadrian's Wall here.

GOOD ADVICE from Mark Goodacre on Enjoying SBL, even though I shall doubtless once again ignore the part about burning the candle at both ends. But maybe I'll redeem myself with an afternoon nap from time to time.

Perhaps this is also a good time to mention my advice on How to Read a Scholarly Paper from several years ago.

I've been awake since 3:00 am, but had a good night's sleep after a couple of very long days. I'm planning to spend today shopping and sightseeing and to attend the PSCO session tonight.

Meanwhile, the gym opens at 6:00.

HEROD'S TOMB (if that's what it is) has been getting a lot of attention again in the last couple of days. This National Geographic piece covers the essentials and has a nice photo and a video:

New Finds at King Herod's Tomb: 2,000-Year-Old Frescoes
Mati Milstein in Herodium, West Bank
for National Geographic News
November 19, 2008

ON TV Herod's Lost Tomb airs Sunday, November 23, at 9 p.m. ET on the National Geographic Channel. Details >>

Archaeologists exploring King Herod's tomb complex near Jerusalem have uncovered rare Roman paintings as well as two sarcophagi, or stone coffins, that could have contained the remains of Herod's sons.

[...]

New Findings

Netzer revealed new discoveries at a Wednesday press conference in Jerusalem.

Recent excavations uncovered an elaborate theater dating slightly earlier than Herod's burial complex that had been demolished to enable construction of the artificial mountain that served as his tomb.

The walls of the theater's loggia—a balcony that served as a VIP room and viewing box—are decorated with well-preserved Roman paintings of windows and outdoor scenes.

[...]

Note also this LA Times photo of the sarcophagus.

Background here, here, and here.

THE MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE CONTROVERSY has been getting a lot of press. Much of it has been negative and I have not found a single article that actively defends the Museum's position. Here's one piece from The Forward:

An Intolerable Spot for a Museum
Opinion
By Buzzy Gordon
Thu. Nov 20, 2008

In the Jewish community, the name Simon Wiesenthal is sacrosanct — which is why Rabbi Marvin Hier chose to establish his West Coast empire on the bedrock of the Nazi hunter’s reputation when Hier entered the institutional Judaism vacuum of Los Angeles 30 years ago. Over the course of the past three decades, the Simon Wiesenthal Center brand has been enhanced by its Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, but recent developments in Israel have begun to tarnish the institution’s reputation.

[...]

Jerusalem is too fragile a place for a flamboyant building, however well-intentioned, that creates ill will among a significant sector of the population that shows no signs of accepting it. As one call to action put it: “The legal battle has been lost… we must move on to the political battle.” Is a so-called Museum of Tolerance worth turning the Holy City into a battleground once again, in the 21st century?

Instead of such a grandiose scheme, let the center invite Arab architects to collaborate in designing a tasteful Garden of Tolerance on the disputed site, as an extension of the existing belt of green that is Independence Park.

At the same time, let the ambitious Gehry museum be built in an area where the most benefit can be derived, such as near the Jerusalem Forest’s Kennedy Memorial, or where Jews and Arabs can welcome it equally, such as on the road to Bethlehem or in the Galilee.

If the media coverage is any indication, the Museum may have won the legal battle, but it has already lost the political one.

Background here.

I'M IN BOSTON, writing from my hotel room. More tomorrow.

I'M OFF TO BOSTON for the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. I expect blogging to continue through it more or less as normally. As usual, I will be presenting a paper and, as usual, I am posting it here in advance for those who can't make it to the conference or the session.

The Book of Revelation and the Hekhalot Literature (PDF file)
SBL23-65, Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism
11/23/2008, 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM, Room: Beacon H - SH

A handout containing passages from my (hopefully soon to be published) translation of the Hekhalot literature is here (PDF file).

Also, Douglas Mangum has posted a list of Bibliobloggers Presenting at SBL at the Biblia Hebraica blog.

I'm preposting this note on Wednesday. I'll be traveling all day Thursday and expect to arrive on Thursday evening. Look for me again by Friday.

THE JESUS PROJECT - a new Jesus Seminar, sort of:

Scholars will investigate the Sources of the Gospel

Amherst, New York (November 17, 2008)--Following in the footsteps of the famed Jesus Seminar, scholars representing the cream of the crop in the field of Biblical studies are set to gather December 5-7 at the Center for Inquiry campus in Amherst, New York for a conference devoted to exploring the historical Jesus. The sessions will mark the inaugural meeting of the new "Jesus Project," first announced to the world at the University of California at Davis in January of 2007. "The Jesus Project" is an initiative of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER), housed at Center for Inquiry/Transnational, a secularist think tank.

"The conference in Amherst will answer the challenge laid down by CSER Fellow and Jesus Seminar cofounder John Dominic Crossan, namely, how one goes about deciding what counts for evidence of the Jesus tradition," said R. Joseph Hoffmann, chair of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion. "I suspect we will witness a lively discussion on the question of sources and methods. How can we know what constituted the earliest phase of the Jesus-tradition? Is it possible to reconstruct the earliest form of the gospel, using the advanced techniques of biblical and historical criticism?"

"The Jesus Project" is devoted to examining the case for the historical existence of Jesus based on a rigorous application of historical critical methods to the gospels and related literature. Unlike the "Jesus Seminar," founded in 1985 by the late Professor Robert Funk of the University of Montana, the new Seminar regards the claim that Jesus of Nazareth was an historical figure as a "testable hypothesis." Hoffmann said that the project has been called for by a number of scholars who felt that the first Jesus Seminar may have been--for political reasons--too reluctant to follow where the evidence led.

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THE BIBLE'S BURIED SECRETS from PBS is reviewed by Alan Boyle on the Cosmic Log.

"The Bible's Buried Secrets," premiering tonight on PBS, presents archaeological findings that will annoy believers as well as skeptics - which suggests the TV documentary just might be on the right track.

BOOK REVIEW (one of Reform Judaism's great gifts for Chanukah):

Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism by Howard Schwartz, illustratedby Caren Loebel-Fried
(Oxford University Press, 618 pp., paperback $29.95)

Is there a Jewish mythology? If myth refers to “a people’s sacred stories about origins, deities, ancestors, and heroes,” the answer is yes—and now we have access to it, thanks to Judaism’s own answer to Joseph Campbell. With this unique anthology, Howard Schwartz, the preeminent reteller of Jewish stories, has created a genre.

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WEST BANK LOOTING continues relentlessly:

Since the start of the second intifada, looters have overrun not just Khirbet Tawas but countless other archaeological sites that crowd the West Bank (map, opposite). Few jobs, inadequate law enforcement by both Palestinian and Israeli authorities, and demand for artifacts just across the border in Israel have created the perfect setting for looting, says Morag Kersel, an expert at the University of Toronto on the illegal antiquities trade.

This from National Geographic. I have noted the problem before, for example, here and here,

MORE ON THE NEW ZINCIRLI INSCRIPTION - a press release from EukeraAlert:

Funerary monument reveals Iron Age belief that the soul lived in the stone
Discovery in Turkey comes from major Iron Age site

Archaeologists in southeastern Turkey have discovered an Iron Age chiseled stone slab that provides the first written evidence in the region that people believed the soul was separate from the body.

University of Chicago researchers will describe the discovery, a testimony created by an Iron Age official that includes an incised image of the man, on Nov. 22-23 at conferences of biblical and Middle Eastern archaeological scholars in Boston.

The Neubauer Expedition of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago found the 800-pound basalt stele, 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide, at Zincirli (pronounced "Zin-jeer-lee"), the site of the ancient city of Sam'al. Once the capital of a prosperous kingdom, it is now one of the most important Iron Age sites under excavation.

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"The stele is in almost pristine condition. It is unique in its combination of pictorial and textual features and thus provides an important addition to our knowledge of ancient language and culture," said David Schloen, Associate Professor at the Oriental Institute and Director of the University's Neubauer Expedition to Zincirli.

Schloen will present the Kuttamuwa stele to a scholarly audience at the meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research on Nov. 22 in Boston, the major annual conference for Middle Eastern archaeology. Dennis Pardee, Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Chicago, will present his translation of the stele's 13-line inscription the following day at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, also in Boston, in a session on "Paleographical Studies in the Near East."

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German archaeologists first excavated the 100-acre site in the 1890s and unearthed massive city walls, gates and palaces. A number of royal inscriptions and other finds are now on display in museums in Istanbul and Berlin. Schloen and his team from the University of Chicago have excavated Zincirli for two months annually since 2006.

"Zincirli is a remarkable site," said Gil Stein, Director of the Oriental Institute. "Because no other cities were built on top of it, we have excellent Iron Age materials right under the surface. It is rare also in having written evidence together with artistic and archaeological evidence from the Iron Age. Having all of that information helps an archaeologist study the ethnicity of the inhabitants, trade and migration, as well as the relationships of the groups who lived there."

The stele was discovered last summer in a small room that had been converted into a mortuary shrine for the royal official Kuttamuwa, self-described in the inscription as a "servant" of King Panamuwa of the eighth century B.C. It was found in the outer part of the walled city in a domestic area—most likely the house of Kuttamuwa himself—far from the royal palaces, where inscriptions had previously been found.

The inscription reads in part: "I, Kuttamuwa, servant of Panamuwa, am the one who oversaw the production of this stele for myself while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber(?) and established a feast at this chamber(?): a bull for [the storm-god] Hadad, ... a ram for [the sun-god] Shamash, ... and a ram for my soul that is in this stele. …" It was written in a script derived from the Phoenician alphabet and in a local West Semitic dialect similar to Aramaic and Hebrew. It is of keen interest to linguists as well as biblical scholars and religious historians because it comes from a kingdom contemporary with ancient Israel that shared a similar language and cultural features.

The finding sheds a striking new light on Iron Age beliefs about the afterlife. In this case, it was the belief that the enduring identity or "soul" of the deceased inhabited the monument on which his image was carved and on which his final words were recorded.

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Background here. This sounds like a remarkable discovery. 2008 has certainly been a good year for Northwest Semitic Epigraphy.

The paper by Professors Schloen and Pardee is a late addition and is not in the paper program, but here's the information on it from the SBL website:

SBL23-84Paleographical Studies in the Ancient Near East
11/23/2008
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Meeting Room 304 - CC

Christopher Rollston, Emmanuel School of Religion, Presiding (10 min)
Jason Bembry, Emmanuel School of Religion
Multiple Vocalizations in the Cairo Genizah Fragment TS A 39.3 (20 min)
Kent Clarke, Trinity Western University
The Trinity Western University-Wikene Papyri “Rediscovery” (20 min)
Joe Zias, Science and Archaeology-Jerusalem
Ancient Graffiti within the Alleged Judean (Tzuba) Cave of John the Baptist: John, or Lazarus, the Crusader Patron Saint of Leprosy? (20 min)
Christopher A. Rollston, Emmanuel School of Religion
Horvat Uza Epigraphs: New Collations of the Entire Corpus (20 min)
Philip C. Schmitz, Eastern Michigan University
Interpreting the “Separate Inscriptions” from Karatepe-Aslantas (20 min)
Robert Deutsch, Tel Aviv University
The Hebrew Fiscal Bullae from the Time of Hezekiah King of Judah (20 min)
Dennis Pardee, University of Chicago and David Schloen, University of Chicago
A New Alphabetic Inscription from Zincirli (20 min)

Unfortunately my paper is at about the same time, so I won't be able to make it to Pardee's and Schloen's. But I trust that there will be some bibliobloggers there to give us all a full report.

UPDATE: I see that the NYT also has a long article that I initially missed. It has quite a bit to say about the term "soul" in the text, which is used in a way not found for the cognate word nefesh in the Hebrew Bible:

The discovery and its implications were described last week in interviews with archaeologists and a linguist at the University of Chicago, who excavated and translated the inscription.

“Normally, in the Semitic cultures, the soul of a person, their vital essence, adheres to the bones of the deceased,” said David Schloen, an archaeologist at the university’s Oriental Institute and director of the excavations. “But here we have a culture that believed the soul is not in the corpse but has been transferred to the mortuary stone.”

A translation of the inscription by Dennis Pardee, a professor of Near Eastern languages and civilization at Chicago, reads in part: “I, Kuttamuwa, servant of [the king] Panamuwa, am the one who oversaw the production of this stele for myself while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber [?] and established a feast at this chamber: a bull for [the god] Hadad, a ram for [the god] Shamash and a ram for my soul that is in this stele.”

Dr. Pardee said the word used for soul, nabsh, was Aramaic, a language spoken throughout northern Syria and parts of Mesopotamia in the eighth century. But the inscription seemed to be a previously unrecognized dialect. In Hebrew, a related language, the word for soul is nefesh.

In addition to the writing, a pictorial scene chiseled into the well-preserved stele depicts the culture’s view of the afterlife. A bearded man wearing a tasseled cap, presumably Kuttamuwa, raises a cup of wine and sits before a table laden with food, bread and roast duck in a stone bowl.

In other societies of the region, scholars say, this was an invitation to bring customary offerings of food and drink to the tomb of the deceased. Here family and descendants supposedly feasted before a stone slab in a kind of chapel. Archaeologists have found no traces there of a tomb or bodily remains.

Joseph Wegner, an Egyptologist at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the research, said cult offerings to the dead were common in the Middle East, but not the idea of a soul separate from the body — except in Egypt.

In ancient Egypt, Dr. Wegner noted, the human entity has separate components. The body is important, and the elite went to great expense to mummify and entomb it for eternity. In death, though, a life force or spirit known as ka was immortal, and a soul known as ba, which was linked to personal attributes, fled the body after death.

Dr. Wegner said the concept of a soul held by the people at Sam’al “sounds vaguely Egyptian in its nature.” But there was nothing in history or archaeology, he added, to suggest that the Egyptian civilization had a direct influence on this border kingdom.

UPDATE: Chuck Jones has posted a high-resolution photograph of the inscription here at The Oriental Institute: Fragments for a History of an Institution blog.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH, sort of: There's a new SBL group being formed which focuses on the study of the Jerusalem Temple. From William J. Hamblin (via David Seeley via the Agade list):

A few years ago we noted that there was no SBL group dedicated to the study of the temple in biblical and related traditions. So we plunged in where angels fear to tread and have set about trying to organize a new consultation we are calling, prosaically enough, "Temple Studies."

We've initiated the authorization process, but have not yet been given final approval to form an official consultation. The SBL organizers want us to have an initial "business" meeting to gauge interest and get feedback before we receive final approval for the consultation.

A Temple Studies "new program unit formation meeting" has therefore been scheduled on Monday afternoon from 1:00-3:30 pm in the Jefferson Room in the Sheraton Hotel (we anticipate that the meeting will last roughly an hour). In this meeting we will discuss the details of how to go about organizing our consultation, form a steering committee, and discuss what we hope to accomplish with our group. Our plan is to get final SBL approval in the next few months, and have a formal Temple Studies sponsored session at SBL in 2009. We invite all who are interested in seeing a Temple Studies consultation established at SBL to attend.

We've also created a Google Group for SBL Temple Studies:
http://groups.google.com/group/sbl-temple-studies

We can have a "list-serv" style email exchanges on this group, and use it as a place to archive bibliographies, reviews, images, papers, etc.

If you'd like to join this email group, go to the above link, then click on "join this group" on the right side of the page. If you have trouble joining, send an email to hamblinwj@me.com, and I'll try to add you.

If you are interested in participating, but are unable to attend this meeting, please join the "SBL Temple Studies" Google group, where we will be posting the minutes of our business meeting, regular announcements, etc.

Please forward this message to any colleagues you know who might be interested in attending. We look forward to seeing you next Monday.

I've joined the Google group. It's high time for such an SBL group to be formed.

MORE ON KHIRBET QEIYAFA:

New evidence surfaces of David's kingdom

Matthew Kalman, [San Francisco] Chronicle Foreign Service

(11-17) 04:00 PST Khirbet Qeiyafa, Israel -- For 3,000 years, the 12-foot high walls of an ancient city have been clearly visible on a hill towering above the Valley of Elah where the Bible says David slew Goliath.

But no one has ever linked the ruins to the city mentioned in the First Book of Samuel's famous account of the legendary duel and the victory of the Israelites - until now. On Tuesday, Hebrew University archaeology Professor Yosef Garfinkel will present compelling evidence to scholars at Harvard University that he has found the 10th century biblical city of Sha'arayim, Hebrew for "Two Gates." Garfinkel, who made his startling discovery at the beginning of this month, will also discuss his findings at the American Schools of Oriental Research conference hosted by Boston University on Thursday.

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The revelation comes only weeks after Garfinkel's team discovered the oldest Hebrew inscription ever found at the same five-acre site - a 3,000-year-old pottery fragment bearing five lines of text in proto-Canaanite script, a precursor of Hebrew. It was found in a house next to a massive gate on the western side of Khirbet Qeiyafa hill, which Garfinkel believed was the city's only entrance - until finding a second gate last week.

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Garfinkel, who has excavated numerous sites in Israel, says he discovered the second gate after noticing an apparent break in the massive stone wall as he walked along the 2,100-foot long structure that faced the road to Jerusalem. After two days of digging, his hunch paid off. A second entrance constructed from massive stones lay just a few feet beneath the topsoil.

"This is the only city from the Iron Age in this region ever found with two gates," said Garfinkel as he clambered over the huge structure. "It was probably a mistake. It made the city more vulnerable. It might explain why it appears to have been settled only twice, for very short periods."

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It has also recently been argued by Nadav Na'aman that Kirbet Qeiyafa was the biblical city of Gob.