ARAMAIC WATCH: A University of Queensland museum has just acquired a Palmyrene stele bearing an as-yet undeciphered Aramaic inscription:

Artefact a prized addition to UQ antiquities museum
Published: 13 May 2009

The R.D. Milns Antiquities Museum at UQ has just welcomed an ancient carved funerary column or 'stele' to their collection, which originally stood at Palmyra in present-day Syria.

Museum Director Dr Sonia Puttock said the museum's $18,000 big purchase for the year was "very significant".

[...]

The museum previously purchased a fragment of a similar stele around 20 years ago, but the latest purchase is of a whole male bust that is from the late second to third century AD.

[...]

"The stele is of a man wearing a toga, but it is very much in the local style, so it is likely a native man aspiring to a Roman lifestyle. He has also got a funerary garland in his hand, similar to Egyptian mummy paintings."

The limestone stele, which is associated with a male funeral, also contains an Aramaic inscription that hasn't yet been translated, however Dr Puttock says that will happen soon.

"One of our previous trainee workers, a woman from Northern Italy who received a scholarship from her university, Udine, to come and work at the museum for nine months, will be translating it. She is also doing some research on it for us," Dr Puttock said.

The stele, originally from what is now central Syria, was purchased from well-known London dealer Charles Ede.

[...]

Do antiquities laws really allow the sale and transport of inscribed stelae from Syria (to London?) to Australia? I'm surprised. Although if it's on the antiquites market, I would rather it end up in a museum than in private hands.

BORIS JOHNSON, the Mayor of London, approves of the upcoming Aramaic and Latin production of Ben Hur:

Boris Johnson, a long-time supporter of the continuation of Latin studies, gave his approval to the show.

"Ave! This is a fantastic idea. Cives londinii spectabunt et mirabuntur," (The citizens of London will look on in wonder) he said.

"We have much to learn from the Romans, not least since the horse is the ultimate low-carbon vehicle," he added.

Background here.

THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS and its School of Divinity both have come in at third place - just after Oxbridge - in the new Guardian league tables. Details:

University League Table 2010

University Guide 2010: Religious Studies and Theology

Just thought you'd like to know, especially if you are a current or prospective St. Andrews student.

Mark Goodacre has further commentary here.

ARAMAIC WATCH: More on the Ben Hur production coming live to London. The Independent sounds a bit skeptical:

Ben Hur: The blockbuster no one will understand

Stage show of Ben-Hur to use ancient languages of Latin and Aramaic

By Arifa Akbar, Arts Correspondent

Tuesday, 12 May 2009

On-stage chariot races, herds of horses, camels, vultures, eagles, 400 performers and a supporting cast which includes Jesus Christ, Tiberius Julius Caesar and Pontius Pilate ... What else to do but set Ben-Hur the stage show in Latin and Aramaic? The £5m production will show at the 20,000-seat O2 arena in London from 15-19 September.

Only one song in the score – written by Stewart Copeland, formerly a rock drummer for the Police – will be composed in English.

Actors will learn their lines in the ancient language of the Romans and the Jews. A narrator will explain the action in the native language of whichever of the seven countries the play is touring, among them France and Germany, as well as England.

[...]

As with The Passion of the Christ, there really should be Greek in there as well.

MORE ON THE SYRIAC MOR GABRIEL MONASTERY and the land dispute associated with it:

Arameans want prime minister to mediate over Mor Gabriel
Arameans have appealed to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a letter seeking his mediation in a land dispute between the Mor Gabriel Monastery and the surrounding villages that has already been heard in court.

[...]

The Syriac Universal Alliance (SUA), a worldwide umbrella organization of national federations of Aramean people, in their letter to Erdoğan, indicated that they wanted him to mediate in the conflict. The SUA also asked the prime minister to “ensure that the decisions of the relevant Turkish authorities are reversed and relevant cases are resolved to the benefit of the Aramean people in order for the current public condemnation of Turkey to end.”

[...]

12 May 2009, Tuesday (Today's Zaman)
AYŞE KARABAT ANKARA

Related article here. And AINA has a long article by Nuri Kino (translated from Swedish) on the whole controvery and court case.

Background here.

POPE BENEDICT XVI is currently on a visit to the Holy Land. I've been following the story but so far haven't seen much of interest for PaleoJudaica. But here is some AFP coverage.

LAG B'OMER began last night at sundown.

THE BIBLIOBLOG TOP 50 – APRIL 2009 has been out for awhile and I've been meaning to note it.

A CONFERENCE ON CODEX SINAITICUS is taking place at the British Library in July:

Codex Sinaiticus Conference
British Library Conference Centre, 6-7 July 2009

Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's outstanding manuscripts. Together with Codex Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest extant Bibles, containing the oldest complete New Testament. This treasured codex is indispensable for understanding the earliest text of the Greek Bible, the transmission of its text, the establishment of the Christian canon, and the history of the book. Over 400 leaves survive and are held across four institutions: the British Library, Leipzig University Library, St Catherine's Monastery and the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg.

To celebrate the virtual re-unification of all extant leaves of Codex Sinaiticus, on 6-7 July 2009, the British Library is hosting an academic conference on topics relating to Codex Sinaiticus. A number of leading experts have been approached to give presentations on the history, text, conservation, paleography and codicology, among other topics, of Codex Sinaiticus. Selected conference papers will be edited and published as a collection of articles.

For background on Codex Sinaiticus, go here and keep following the links back.

I'LL BE BACK:

Hard Times Give New Life to Prague’s Golem

By DAN BILEFSKY (NYT)
Published: May 10, 2009

PRAGUE — They say the Golem, a Jewish giant with glowing eyes and supernatural powers, is lurking once again in the attic of the Old-New Synagogue here.

The Golem, according to Czech legend, was fashioned from clay and brought to life by a rabbi to protect Prague’s 16th-century ghetto from persecution, and is said to be called forth in times of crisis. True to form, he is once again experiencing a revival and, in this commercial age, has spawned a one-monster industry.

There are Golem hotels; Golem door-making companies; Golem clay figurines (made in China); a recent musical starring a dancing Golem; and a Czech strongman called the Golem who bends iron bars with his teeth. The Golem has also infiltrated Czech cuisine: the menu at the non-kosher restaurant called the Golem features a “rabbi’s pocket of beef tenderloin” and a $7 “crisis special” of roast pork and potatoes that would surely have rattled the venerable Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the Golem’s supposed maker.

[...]

The surge in popularity of the Golem also anticipates the 400th anniversary in September of Rabbi Loew’s death in 1609, at nearly 100. A Jewish mystic and philosopher who a leading scholar of the Talmud and kabbalah and wrote at least 22 books, he was known widely as the Maharal, a great sage.

Few here dispute that the Golem, who is often depicted as either a menacing brown blob or an artificial humanoid, has become a lucrative global brand. But it is also a profound irritation to Prague’s Jewish leaders that Rabbi Loew’s legacy has been hijacked by a powerful dunce whom the Talmud characterizes as a “fool.”

“I am frustrated by the legend of the Golem in the same way I am frustrated that people buy Kafka souvenirs on every street in Prague but don’t bother to read his books,” Rabbi Karel Sidon, the chief rabbi of the Czech Republic, lamented. Alluding to the recent rise of neo-Nazis in the Czech Republic and elsewhere, however, he hastened to add, “We like the Golem because he protected the Jews.”

Rabbi Barash emphasized that in the Talmud, the Golem was considered a dumb klutz because he was literal-minded, could not speak and had no “sechel,” or intellect. “If in school,” he said, “you didn’t use your brains, the teacher would say, ‘Stop behaving like a golem.’ ”

[...]

Background here and here.

ARAMAIC WATCH: The APF reports on more efforts in Israel to preserve Aramaic as a spoken language, combined with yet another land dispute. Excerpt:

"Shlomo malfonito" -- "Hello teacher" -- intone some 20 pupils in the Arab-Israeli village of Jish, where half the population is Maronite, a people who for centuries have lived in the mountains of Lebanon and nearby.

The children get free lessons in Aramaic, an ancient tongue spoken during the time of Jesus Christ and kept alive down the centuries by fellow Maronites.

Shadi Khalul, 33, organised the lessons and teaches the language of his ancestors along with his brother, sister-in-law and three others so the young people in the northern village remember their roots in Biram some four kilometres (2.5 miles) away.

That village was razed by Israel in 1953, nearly five years after the authorities of the then six-month-old Jewish state evacuated its 1,050 residents in November 1948. They said it would be a temporary measure.

SCROLL-BUST UPDATE: Joseph I. Lauer notes that the IAA press release is now at a permanent URL here. Here's the opening again:

A Rare 2,000 Year Old Hebrew Document Written on Papyrus was seized in an Operation (5/5/09)

A document thought to be an ancient text written on papyrus was seized yesterday (Tuesday) in an operation led by the Intelligence Office of the Zion Region and the Undercover Unit of the Border Police in Jerusalem, in cooperation with the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery and the Archaeological Staff Officer in the Civil Administration.
The document is written in ancient Hebrew script, which is characteristic of the Second Temple period and the first and second centuries CE. This style of the writing is primarily known from the Dead Sea scrolls and various inscriptions that occur on ossuaries and coffins. The document itself is written on papyrus. The papyrus is incomplete and was in all likelihood rolled up. It is apparent that pieces of it crumbled mainly along its bottom part. The holes along the left part of the document probably attest to the damage that was caused to it over time. The document measures 15 x 15 centimeters.

[...]

Also, the Art Daily has an article based on the press release with the full-sized photograph included. It's nice that a good photo has been published so quickly. And hats off to the Israeli police for catching this one.

Background here.

ANOTHER PHOENICIAN-SHIP REPLICA sets sail:

Phoenician replica readies for Mediterranean crossing

(Hurriyet)

FOCA, Turkey - A team of 20 rowers will next week aim to cross the Mediterranean Sea in a replica Phoenician-style "bireme" ship from Turkey to France.

The Kybele boat -- named after an Anatolian goddess -- will leave the Turkish village of Foca near Izmir and travel 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) to the ancient port of Marseille in southern France.

[...]

Related story here.

HARRISON FORD Accepts AIA's Bandelier Award:



(Via Chuck Jones on Facebook.)

RACHEL ELIOR'S NEW BOOK is summarised in a long article in the Jerusalem Post. Excerpts:

In her recently published (Hebrew) book, Memory and Oblivion - The Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, she offers a bold and coherent narrative to explain events about which scholars have long held contrary views.

The short reason for the canon/Apocrypha divide, she suggests, was a dispute over the calendar. The more profound explanation involves a power struggle between the old priestly order that believed its rulings to be divinely inspired and an emerging class of rabbis espousing a different narrative, one which gave human reason and laws a role in shaping the religion. Elior demonstrates how mystic notions like cosmic calendars and heavenly chariots were part of a power struggle whose outcome would affect how Judaism is practiced to the present day.

For centuries the Israelites had marked time according to a solar calendar drawn up by the priestly caste but regarded as divinely inspired. The calendar emulated the pattern set by God when He created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. The number seven would become a mystic measure of Jewish time. The Israelites adopted a seven-day week, apparently the first people in the world to do so, and they too rested on the seventh day.

[...]

In a game-changing move, the rabbis declared that the age of prophecy had long since ended and that the priesthood had been severed from ongoing access to higher authority. According to one rabbinic tradition, prophecy had ended with the destruction of the First Temple in the sixth century BCE. According to another, it ended when Alexander the Great and the Hellenizers arrived two centuries later. The priests vigorously rejected this downsizing.

The rabbis favored a lunar calendar, says Elior, because they saw it symbolically freeing the nation from dependence on a closed priestly caste locked into the solar calendar and claiming divine authority. They wanted to symbolize instead man's share in the determination of time and of his own fate. "They declared that human understanding of sacred writings was a legitimate source of authority." The month would now not commence according to a solar calendar precalculated for eternity but by mortals scanning the sky for the new moon, perhaps disagreeing about the sighting among themselves, perhaps even erring.

Read it all.

Background here.

UPDATE (11 May): Bad link now corrected. Sorry.

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: The Wall Street Journal has a good survey article of recent developments in the digitization of ancient and medieval manuscripts. It's difficult to excerpt, but well worth reading in full:

The Next Age of Discovery

By ALEXANDRA ALTER

In a 21st-century version of the age of discovery, teams of computer scientists, conservationists and scholars are fanning out across the globe in a race to digitize crumbling literary treasures.

In the process, they're uncovering unexpected troves of new finds, including never-before-seen versions of the Christian Gospels, fragments of Greek poetry and commentaries on Aristotle. Improved technology is allowing researchers to scan ancient texts that were once unreadable -- blackened in fires or by chemical erosion, painted over or simply too fragile to unroll. Now, scholars are studying these works with X-ray fluorescence, multispectral imaging used by NASA to photograph Mars and CAT scans used by medical technicians.

A Benedictine monk from Minnesota is scouring libraries in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Georgia for rare, ancient Christian manuscripts that are threatened by wars and black-market looters; so far, more than 16,500 of his finds have been digitized. This summer, a professor of computer science at the University of Kentucky plans to test 3-D X-ray scanning on two papyrus scrolls from Pompeii that were charred by volcanic ash in 79 A.D. Scholars have never before been able to read or even open the scrolls, which now sit in the French National Institute in Paris.

By taking high-resolution digital images in 14 different light wavelengths, ranging from infrared to ultraviolet, Oxford scholars are reading bits of papyrus that were discovered in 1898 in an ancient garbage dump in central Egypt. So far, researchers have digitized about 80% of the collection of 500,000 fragments, dating from the 2nd century B.C. to the 8th century A.D. The texts include fragments of unknown works by famous authors of antiquity, lost gospels and early Islamic manuscripts.

[...]

For the work of Father Columba Stewart (the Benedictine monk), see here. For the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (the garbage dump) see here and here. For the Timbuktu archives, see here. For projects to digitize the manuscripts of the St. Catherine's Monastery, see here and here. For the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, see here. For the Archimedes palimpsest see here, here, and here.

The article also has a nice slide show. The article concludes:

"It's being called a second Renaissance," says Todd Hickey, a curator of papyri at the University of California, Berkeley, which has some 26,000 pieces of papyrus, many still unread. "It's revealing things that we didn't have a hope of reading in the past."

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

UPDATE (24 May): For more on the University of Kentucky project (which involves carbonized scrolls from Herculaneum, not Pompeii) go here.

THAT WOULD BE NICE: Will The Coptic Language Rise Again?

Background here.

Although there is great interest in preserving the Coptic literary heritage, I sense no political will in Egypt to preserve it as a living language, unlike the Syrian initiatives and more informal efforts in Israel to preserve spoken Aramaic.

BUSTED - BIGTIME!

From the IAA website:

A Rare 2,000 Year Old Hebrew Document Written on Papyrus was
Seized in an OperationThe director of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery in the Israel Antiquities Authority: “It seems we are dealing with rare historic evidence regarding the Jewish people in their country from more than 2,000 years ago”.

A document thought to be an ancient text written on papyrus was seized yesterday (Tuesday) in an operation led by the Intelligence Office of the Zion Region and the Undercover Unit of the Border Police in Jerusalem, in cooperation with the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery and the Archaeological Staff Officer in the Civil Administration.

The document is written in ancient Hebrew script, which is characteristic of the Second Temple period and the first and second centuries CE. This style of the writing is primarily known from the Dead Sea scrolls and various inscriptions that occur on ossuaries and coffins. The document itself is written on papyrus. The papyrus is incomplete and was in all likelihood rolled up. It is apparent that pieces of it crumbled mainly along its bottom part. The holes along the left part of the document probably attest to the damage that was caused to it over time. The document measures 15 x 15 centimeters.
Fifteen lines of Hebrew text, written from right to left and one below the other, can be discerned in the document. In the upper line of the text one can clearly read the sentence “Year 4 to the destruction of Israel”. This is likely to be the year 74 CE – in the event the author of the document is referring to the year when the Second Temple was destroyed during the Great Revolt. Another possibility is the year 139 CE – in the event the author is referring to the time when the rural settlement in Judah was devastated at the end of the Bar Kokhba Revolt.
The name of a woman, “Miriam Barat Ya‘aqov”, is also legible in the document followed by a name that is likely to be that of the settlement where she resided: Misalev. This is probably the settlement Salabim. The name Miriam Bat Ya‘aqov is a common name in the Second Temple period. Also mentioned in the document are the names of other people and families, the names of a number of ancient settlements from the Second Temple period and legal wording which deals with the property of a widow and her relinquishment of it.

According to Amir Ganor, director of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery in the Israel Antiquities Authority, “Theoretically, based on the epigraphic style, the material the document is written on, the state of preservation and the text, which includes a historic date that can be deciphered, we are dealing with a document that appears to be ancient as defined by the Antiquities Law. Since this object was not discovered in a proper archaeological excavation, it still must undergo laboratory analyses in order to negate the possibility it is a modern forgery”. Ganor adds, “The document is very important from the standpoint of historical and national research. Until now almost no historic scrolls or documents from this period have been discovered in proper archaeological excavations. A historic document that can be definitely dated based on a reference to a historical event such as the ‘destruction of Israel’ has never been discovered. Much can be learned from this document about the names of people, their surnames names and the locations of settlements in Israel during this period. From an initial reading it seems that this document deals with the property of Miriam Bat Ya‘aqov, who was apparently a widow. The deciphering of the entire document by expert epigraphers and historians may shed light on how the people of the period managed their affairs and supplement our knowledge about their way of life. What we have here is rare historic evidence about the Jewish people in their country from more than 2,000 years ago, during the days following the destruction which sent the people of Israel into exile for a very long time – until the creation of the State of Israel”.

For downloading a hight resolution image - click here

Photograph: The Scroll Conservation Laboratory, Israel Antiquities Authority.

For further details, kindly contact: Yoli Shwartz, Israel Antiquities Authority spokesperson, 052-5991888,dovrut@israntique.org.il

From Joseph I. Lauer's list. Note that the URL for this press release is temporary. This AP article may be more durable.

Assuming the text is genuine, this is a very important find, effectively the discovery of a new Dead Sea Scroll. (Okay, if you want to be technical, a Judean Desert Scroll. Same difference.)

For the Bar Kokhba revolt and related scrolls see here (and follow the links back), here, and here.

UPDATE (7 May): Related item? Israeli police bust Palestinians with ancient joke book. I knew those jokes were old, but I didn't know they were that old.

BIBLICAL SCHOLAR JACOB MILGROM'S WIFE, JO, is a midrashic assemblage artist:

Your Trash, Her Treasure
An Octogenarian Artist Finds Biblical Meaning in Discarded Objects
By Daniel Estrin (The Forward)
Published May 05, 2009.

On a recent afternoon, Jacob Milgrom pored over the Book of Ezekiel in his Jerusalem study. The 86-year-old, one of the foremost biblical scholars alive today, took slow breaths and carefully marked the Hebrew text in pencil.

On the opposite side of the house was his 80-year-old wife, Jo Milgrom. She, too, was pondering biblical meaning. In her hands, though, were long, punched strips of old printer paper. “It’s like paper lace,” Milgrom said. “I saw this at the printer’s and said, ‘Don’t throw it out, it’s beautiful.’” Milgrom wanted to set up a fan so that the paper strips would float in the air — a depiction of God’s hovering spirit from the Genesis story of creation.

This is not arts and crafts hobbyism: Milgrom is an assemblage artist. She calls her work “visual midrash,” referencing the Jewish literary tradition of supplementing the biblical narrative with commentary, often in the form of colorful homilies. Traditional midrash was written from the third to the 12th centuries, but Milgrom believes there’s just as much of a place for creative midrash today as there is for the kind of scholarly interpretations her husband writes. She’ll promote artistic approaches to the Bible on May 15 at Temple Israel Center in White Plains, N.Y., when she gives an interactive lesson titled “Through the Looking Glass at Mount Sinai.” And next month, the TALI Education Fund in Israel will launch an online image database of more than 2,000 biblical- and Judaic-themed artworks, collected by Milgrom over several decades.

“Jo’s work is indispensable,” said Jacob, whose Ezekiel commentary is forthcoming in the Anchor Bible series. “He’s the left brain, and I’m the right brain,” Milgrom added. She went on to quote Elie Wiesel: “Midrash is to Bible as imagination is to knowledge.”

[...]

ANNETTE YOSHIKO REED has published an important article in The Journal of Theological Studies:

The Modern Invention of ‘Old Testament Pseudepigrapha’

Abstract

This article explores the pre-history of our present notion of ‘the Old Testament pseudepigrapha’ through a focus on Johann Albert Fabricius’s Codex pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti (1713). It considers Fabricius’s work from four perspectives: as a compendium of knowledge recovered during and after the Renaissance, as a reflection of debates about Scripture in the wake of the Reformation, as a literary artefact of anxieties about authorship in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and as the foundation for nineteenth- and twentiety-century research on the materials collected therein. By revisiting the origins of the concept and category of ‘pseudepigrapha’, the article attempts to bring a broader historical perspective to bear on current debates about the heurism of the label.

(Requires a paid personal or institutional subscription to access.) I heard it presented as a paper at last year's SBL meeting in Boston and I'm very glad to have the final version now. For more on Fabricius, see here and here.

VICTOR SASSON has a new Hebrew and Aramaic Epigraphy Blog. But be forewarned that, judging by the initial posts, this is not a general blog on the topic, but one that focuses on the Israel forgery trial and advances a very particular view about it and about various people associated with it in some way.

(Via Jack Sasson's Agade List.)

A LECTURE ON THE OXYRHYNCHUS PAPYRI at the British Academy in London:

New Greek Texts From Oxyrhynchus

7pm to 8.30pm, Wednesday 24 June 2009
British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1

Convenors:Professor Eric Handley, CBE, FBA, University of Cambridge
and Dr Dirk Obbink , University of Oxford

Speakers: Dr Dirk Obbink, Professor Peter Parsons, FBA, University of Oxford and Dr Dorothy Thompson, FBA, University of Cambridge

Just over a hundred years ago, on a site some 100 miles south of Cairo, two Oxford scholars, on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Society, excavated some 50,000 pieces of ancient books and documents that had been discarded in the city dump, and had survived the centuries in the dry climate.

The excavators were Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt. They devoted successive seasons to their task between 1897 and 1907, and gave more years still to publishing some of their significant discoveries. The site, by its Greek name, is Oxyrhynchus—'The City of the Sharp-nosed Fish', as Peter Parsons calls it in the title of a much-admired book that appeared in 2007. More than seventy volumes of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri have so far been published. They continue to reveal texts of Greek literature otherwise lost to the modern world, together with fragments of Christian gospels, technical treatises, tax returns, petitions to the authorities, private letters, wills and a host of other documents that give a unique insight into the life of the city and the Greco-Roman civilization of which it was part.

The presentation evening offers an opportunity to preview some of the exciting new texts to come from Oxyrhynchus and to consider such questions as did Euripides write two versions of his play Medea? How do modern methods of image-making work to recover an unknown classical text? How much can a personal letter reveal of the world about the writer? There will also be an opportunity to hear something of the present state and future prospects of the Oxyrhynchus project as a whole. A compact display of papyri, photographs, and other relevant material will also be on view.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please note our registration and seating policy:
This event is free of charge. There is no advance registration for this event and no tickets will be issued.
The rooms for this event will be open from 6.30pm onwards - please do not arrive at the Academy before this time.
The first 100 audience members arriving at the Academy will be offered a seat in our Lecture Room where this event will take place. The next 50 people to arrive will be offered a seat in our Overflow Room which has a video and audio link to the Lecture Room.



The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH Tel: 020 7969 5200, Fax: 020 7969 5300, Web: www.britac.ac.uk

ARIEL SABAR has won a literary award for his book, My Father's Paradise. Dave Rosenthal reports on the Baltimore Sun's Read Street Blog:

Ariel Sabar among NBCC award winners

Ariel SabarCongratulations to Ariel Sabar, a former Baltimore Sun reporter who has won the 2008 autobiography prize from the National Book Critics Circle for My Father's Paradise. Sabar wrote about his relationship with his father, who grew up in a mud hut in Kurdish Iraq, emigrated to Israel with thousands of other Jews and wound up as a professor of Aramaic at UCLA. ...

Background here and here.

GEZA VERMES responds to Rachel Elior's response to his article:

In connection with Rachel Elior’s rejoinder to my essay, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, may I contradict her claim that the classical sources of the Essenes ignore “the priestly context” of the sect. In fact, Josephus, although he wrote for a largely non-Jewish readership unfamiliar with Jewish customs, felt it necessary to allude to the importance of the priests in Essene life. He reported that the Essene food was prepared by priests and that their leaders were priests who presided over the common table and recited the prayer before and after each meal. This is echoed in the Qumran Community Rule where even the smallest congregation of ten men was to be headed by a priest who was “the first to stretch out his hand to bless the firstfruit of the bread...” More indirectly the white garment which, according to Josephus, constituted the Essene uniform was called by him a “sacred robe”. This corresponds to the ceremonial “linen” vestment or “fine white linen”, prescribed for the priests by the Bible as well as by the Qumran War Scroll.

REGARDING EZEKIEL'S TOMB, Tamar Sternthal at CAMERA is suspicious. In response to the APF article quoted yesterday (see first link above), she writes:

The text is maddingly ambiguous; will the Kifl tomb and other historically Jewish sites be renovated to restore and maintain their original Jewish character, or will it be renovated in accord with the Muslim shrines they apparently have become? After all, given the history of Islam, this point requires careful clarification. As noted by scholar Raymond Ibrahim, Muslim conquerers have had a tendency to convert Jewish and Christian holy sites into Muslim shrines. Thus, when the Turks conquered Constantinople in the fifteenth century, the famed Hagia Sophia church, along with 500 other Christian places of worship, were converted to Muslim shrines. The Al Aqsa Mosque is deliberately built atop the ruins of the first and second Jewish temples in Jerusalem. And in more recent days, when the bloodied Israeli army withdrew from Joseph's Tomb in 2000, it was quickly turned into a mosque.

Perhaps Krauss has given away the answer, referring at one point to the revered site in Kifl as a mosque. Yet, the matter is confused when Iraqi spokesman Abdelzahra al-Talaqani is quoted: "The ministry is concerned with all Iraqi heritage, whether it is Christian or Jewish or from any other religion." Does that "concern" translate to the mission of converting abandoned non-Islamic religious sites into mosques, as is apparently the case with Ezekiel's tomb? Krauss does not spell out the answer either way and the discerning reader is left to wonder.

She has other problems with the article's portrayal of events in the twentieth century, but those need not detain us here.

For what it's worth, Arutz Sheva, which is usually quite sensitive to such issues, seems to see nothing sinister in the article. Hillel Fendel writes:

(IsraelNN.com) The American-backed Iraqi government has announced plans to restore the tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel, in a small town south of Baghdad.

It is currently an Islamic shrine, but the government announcement implied that its Jewish nature would be emphasized. The interior is shaped like a synagogue, with a Turkish-style dome ceiling, old wooden cabinets that used to hold Torah scrolls, and the remains of a separation between men and women. Large Hebrew letters praising the Prophet and medieval Islamic floral designs adorn the old stone walls.

[...]

From what I've seen so far, the Jewish nature of the shrine is being respected and preserved. For my part, I am willing to give the Iraqi authorities the benefit of the doubt until and unless they give me grounds to think otherwise.

STEPHEN GORANSON responds to Rachel Elior regarding the existence of the Essenes:

If I may reply to Prof. Elior: How many Second Temple Period Hebrew manuscripts include Perushim and Zaddukim? Fewer than include the self-designation 'Osei-haTorah? Prof. Elior asserts "the absence of the Essenes from the Hebrew language" and asserts that that self-designation is "too general and not specific enough to denote a particular group"--and yet, there it is! Defying Prof. Elior's declaration that it does not exist. They knew not her rules. No Hebrew speakers used it? The Qumranites did. Dozens of later scholars did (E.g., Isaak Jost writing in Israelitische Annalen didn't know Hebrew?). That 'osey hatorah and ma'ase hatorah are unique to Qumran in extant ancient Hebrew mss makes these all the more characteristic in self-designating Essenes. Similarly, Essenes existed, though Prof. Elior has established that she would prefer that it were not so. Wanting them to go away may not help historians explain the evidence. Common words have been used for many religious designations; e.g., Amoraim, Tannaim, Haredim, Karaites, Gnostics, Society of Friends, Taoists, Gnostics, Kabbalists, Muslims, Methodists, Cathari... The Essene Teacher was a priest; not all priests were Sadducees; no either/or. Elior first calls Josephus unreliable, then uses absences in Josephus as if proof, as if his Greek readers wanted complicated calendar discussion. Those early scholars got the Essene identity right--of some of the scrolls; they didn't claim Essenes composed all of them. But the Essene "Wicked Priest" was Alexander Jannaeus, rather than the earlier Jonathan that Prof. Vermes proposed. The Essene Teacher was a priest; not all priests were Sadducees. For evidence of that see http://www.duke.edu/~goranson/jannaeus.pdf.

BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL 41 has been published by James McGrath at Exploring Our Matrix.

UPDATE (4 May): James has a supplemental post here.

THE COPTIC MUSEUM ARCHIVES in Cario are undergoing a much needed renovation:

Working on Coptic archives

(Al-Ashram)

Nevine El-Aref reports on the completion of the first inventory to assess the current condition of manuscripts stored for almost a century in the Coptic Museum archives

The Coptic Museum archives, considered to be the world's most important Coptic library and containing more than 5,000 manuscripts and books, are being given a facelift.

Serenity, peace and complete quiet are the overwhelming sensations in the museum library, despite the presence of two dozen experts and restorers who have spread themselves to each corner of the reading room. Since January, the library has been converted into a scientific laboratory so that a comprehensive survey to assess the current conditions of its treasured manuscripts and books can be carried out. Armed with white gowns, masks, small brushes, glass plaques, small pieces of cottonwool and special liquids, junior and professional restorers sit in front of their improvised desks examining the piece of manuscript win their hands. They are looking for parts of each manuscript that show signs of being infected, and then they will identify its causes, take notes and rescue the pieces that are in need of attention.

I wish the article had said more about the contents of the library, but in any case this is a very exciting project. For my part, I hope their new cataloguing project comes up with some new manuscripts of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. There are many Coptic fragments of major Pseudepigrapha, usually from Greek translation and often early copies. These include (off the top of my head) fragments of The Life of Adam and Eve, The Testament of Job, The Testament of Abraham, some Enochic apocrypha, and, of course, most recently discovered, 2 Enoch.

THE BEN HUR CHARIOT RACE for the O2 production coming in September is being choreographed in Germany. Ben Hoyle has the story in the London Times:

As my chariot skidded to a halt in front of them I stood beaming in its prow, the proud race victor accepting the adulation of an imaginary Circus Maximus. Maier looked at me with pity. Lorries rumbled along behind him as he took another puff on his cigarette and wondered what to say. “You were very good,” he lied. “I was convinced that this must be the real Ben-Hur.”

Actually Ben-Hur was hiding behind me. Nicki Pfeiffer has forearms as thick as lampposts and had just piloted my chariot blind from an unconventional crouched position close to my flapping tunic hem. No wonder he is playing the hero in the climactic sequence of Ben Hur Live.

The show has a sea battle, an orgy and music by Stewart Copeland, the drummer from the Police, but everyone involved knows that success hinges on one scene: what the posters call “The Legendary Chariot Race”.

Franz Abraham, the producer of Ben Hur Live, had dreamt of adapting Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ, for 15 years but realised that it was feasible only when he came to this sleepy corner of the former East Germany and met Pfeiffer.

“I needed someone who could deliver a chariot race that even the Romans would have loved,” Abraham said. “So Nicki was the decision-maker for Ben-Hur. He told me that my vision of an intimate, high-pressure chariot race in a 70-metre by 35-metre arena was not a pure dream. This was the jump of quantum for this project. All other horse people and marketing people and promoters had told me all the time that it was impossible.”

Ben-Hur is the story of a Jewish prince who becomes a galley slave and then a champion charioteer in the early 1st century AD. It was a hit play 100 years ago — the chariot race was depicted with live horses running on a treadmill device — and then an acclaimed silent film. For most people, however, it is indelibly associated with Charlton Heston in the 3½-hour epic released in 1959.

The nine-minute chariot race in William Wyler’s film is a Hollywood landmark and casts a giant shadow over any attempt to remake Ben-Hur. Other live chariot races have been staged over the years but none has evoked the same sense of danger and excitement.

One can't help wondering if the same degree of effort is going into the orgy scene.

Background here.

THE TOMB OF EZEKIEL (traditional) in Kifl, Iraq, is undergoing renovation according to the APF, which is good news:

In the little town of Kifl, south of Baghdad, the shrine of Ezekiel -- the prophet who followed the Jews into Babylonian exile in the 6th century BC -- has long been a part of Iraq's millennia-old religious mosaic.

A 14th-century brick minaret tilts outside the entrance to the shrine, but inside the mosque is shaped like a synagogue, with old wooden cabinets that used to hold Torah scrolls and balustrades that once separated men and women.

Inside the shrine, block-like Hebrew script runs along the old stone walls beneath a Turkish-style dome with medieval Islamic floral designs.

The government has launched a project to renovate the interior of the shrine, and the state ministry for tourism and antiquities says it hopes to eventually repair and renovate other Jewish sites across the country.

"The ministry is concerned with all Iraqi heritage, whether it is Christian or Jewish or from any other religion," ministry spokesman Abdelzahra al-Talaqani told AFP.

"The present plans do not include the synagogues in Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Fallujah and other places because of lack of funding, but I think they will be included in future plans."

Falah Abdelhadi, who is overseeing the renovation of the shrine of Ezekiel, hopes it will once again attract visitors of all faiths from around the world.

[...]

Muslims revere nearly all the central religious figures from Judaism and Christianity, including Ezekiel. He is referred to as Dhu al-Kifl in two Koranic verses and is said to have raised the dead.

[...]

The traditional tomb of Ezra in Al-Azair (Al ʿUzair) and the traditional tomb of Daniel in Kirkuk also get a mention.

For more on the Tomb of Ezekiel (pictures, an inscription, legends, and a Lara Croft game), go here and follow the links. For more on the tomb of Ezra and related traditions, see here. For the traditional tomb of Daniel in Susa, Iran, see here.

UPDATE (4 May): More here.

RACHEL ELIOR responds to the criticisms of her theory about the Dead Sea Scrolls recently published by Geza Vermes. This note was first circulated by Joseph I. Lauer and and I am happy to reproduce it here at Professor Elior's request.

I read with interest Dr. Geza Vermes's Standpoint magazine article "The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls" in which he discusses the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and his recollections about the work he and others have done with regard to them.
Dr. Vermes also devoted a few sentences to some of the arguments I have made challenging "the Essene origin of the sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls" as described in an Haaretz newspaper article of March 13, 2009. He sums up my arguments as claiming "that the scrolls were written by Jerusalem Sadducee priests and not by Essenes; and that the Essenes never existed, but were invented by Flavius Josephus."
(If I may correct Dr. Vermes's summary, I argue that the content of the scrolls attests to profound priestly interest and distinct priestly language while the sources about the Essenes do not refer to priestly identity or priestly context. I think that Philo invented the Essenes as an ideal society and Josephus was much influenced by him, and the fact that no Jewish source written in Hebrew or Aramaic before or after the Common Era knows anything about a group called Essenes or mentions any group known as celibates denouncing private property and family life raises severe questions about their historical existence in the Land of Israel.)
Dr. Vermes's comments are based on the now-familiar recitation of the fact that Philo of Alexandria, Pliny the Elder, and Josephus refer to the Essenes and describe practices ascribed to them, and Pliny the Elder's assertion "that the Essenes lived on the western shore of the Dead Sea somewhere between Jericho in the north and Ein Gedi and Masada in the south (corresponding to the area where Qumran lies)." Dr. Vermes concludes that "The two unique characteristics (common ownership and male celibacy) and the geographical location remain the solid grounds on which the theory of the Essene identity of the Dead Sea sect continues to stand."
Since the appearance of the Haaretz article, numerous articles have appeared about my arguments in newspapers, magazines, and on the Internet, including responses that I have made to comments and criticisms, including to those now raised by Dr. Vermes. As part of these responses I ask if it is reasonable to believe that the sages, who addressed all aspects of Jewish life, would not have mentioned in any way thousands of people who lived under common ownership and male celibacy.
Dr. Vermes correctly notes that "a proper assessment of Professor Elior's ideas will have to wait until she backs them with scholarly argument in a forthcoming book".
However, as my Hebrew language book on the subject, "Zikaron uneshia : sodan shel megilot midbar yehudah (Memory and Oblivion: The Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls), has been published in March 2009, I hope that comments and criticisms will be based on an examination of its detailed arguments, and I would also refer interested persons to my previous remarks.
For the moment, though, I would just ask a few questions.
In how many of the 900-1000 scrolls are the Essenes mentioned?
The answer is in no scroll, none whatsoever.
Even with respect to Dr. Stephen Goranson's suggestion that "Osei-haTorah" refers to the Essenes, we may ask how many times is "Osei-haTorah" mentioned in the Scrolls? (This is in addition to noting that the suggestion is one that no Hebrew speaker will accept because a word like Osei [=doers] is too general and not specific enough to denote a particular group, and the Torah is never introduced in biblical Hebrew with the idiom "osei" (doers) but with verbs concerned with its observance or study or following or with nouns concerning its divine origin, as any Biblical Hebrew concordance will demonstrate.)
As against the absence of the Essenes from the Hebrew language and from the Dead Sea Scrolls we may ask in how many of the Scrolls are the kohanim bnei Zadok or kohanim bnei Aharon or the Levitical priestly tribe mentioned?
The answer is in quite a few!
In the "Concordance of Proper Nouns in the Non-Biblical Texts from Qumran" in DJD 39 (M.G. Abegg, Jr.; 2002), Aaron and Aaron's sons (bnei Aharon haKohanim=the priests the sons of Aaron) are mentioned more than 100 times; Levi and the Levite are mentioned about 90 times; Zadok and bnei Zadok haKohanim are mentioned 22 times. Among the texts that discuss directly the Zadokite priests, the sons of Aaron, their Levitical origin and their priestly service are The Rule of the Community, The Rule of the Congregation, the Damascus Document, and the Florilegium. The 24 priestly courses are mentioned in the Scroll of Priestly Courses; priestly blessings are mentioned in number of scrolls, among them the Scroll of Blessings and the War Scroll. Levitical priestly heritage is mentioned in Jubilees and in the Testaments of the Twelve Tribes. The priestly solar calendar associated with Temple sacrifices is mentioned in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and in MMT and in column 27 of the Psalm Scroll from Qumran and in 4Q252, the story of the flood and in a number of other places.
So where exactly is the testimony about the Essenes? In what way is the rich biblical context attested to in the scrolls connected to the Essenes?
And what is the significance of the vast testimony on priestly issues that people overlook?
Finally, where exactly in the well-known descriptions of the Essenes do we find the priestly calendar, priestly courses, priestly blessings and liturgy or temple issues -- all of which are amply found in the Scrolls and none is found in the descriptions of the Essenes.
Rachel Elior

UPDATE (3 May): Stephen Goranson responds here.

UPDATE (4 May): Geza Vermes responds here.

UPDATE: John Hobbins comments.

A MIDRASH on Canaanites and same-sex marriage? So says David Klinghoffer at Beliefnet:

Canaanites for Same-Sex Marriage
Thursday April 30, 2009
Categories: Culture War
An ancient Biblical tradition, a midrash, relates that the Canaanites wrote marriage contracts between man and man and woman and woman, and that this was one reason the land "vomited" them up in favor of the Israelites who took their place. The historicity of this isn't the point. It's the moral that matters, having to do with the social impact of being libertarian about marriage combinations

[...]

I have no wish to get into the modern controversy here, but I am interested in the midrash. As usual with such pieces, no reference is given. Is there such a midrashic text and does someone have the reference?

UPDATE: A number of replies. From Dorothy King:

I'm guessing the Midrash linked to Leviticus ... and think this is the one they mean: Sifra Acharei Mot, parashah 9:8

From Jeff Wasserstein:

I'm aware of the midrash about writing ketubot for men, and googling it (since it's been years since I saw it inside) suggest it comes from here: Hullin 92b; Yalkut Shimoni, Zekhariah, no. 578;

Vayikra Rabbah 18:13. Article from which I drew these sources is: http://www.bethelsudbury.org/uploads/9407Homosexuality.pdf

From Simon Montagu:

The reference is to the Sifra 8:8, on Leviticus 18:2

ומה היו עושים? האיש נושא לאיש והאשה לאשה, האיש נושא אשה ובתה, והאשה ניסת לשנים. לכך אמר ובחוקותיהם לא תלכו

The Hebrew can be translated as, "And what did they used to do? A man married a man and a woman a woman, a man married a woman and her daughter, and a woman married two men. Therefore it says, By their rules you shall not walk."

From Michael Pitkowsky:

This midrash is found in a number of places: Sifra, Aharei Mot, 9:6-8 (speaks of marriage but no ketubbah); Genesis Rabbah 26:5; Hullin 92a-b. None of them mention the Canaanites by name. You may find the attached article interesting, especially pages 129 ff.

The article is BETH A. BERKOWITZ, "The Limits of ‘‘Their Laws’’: Ancient Rabbinic Controversies about Jewishness (and Non-Jewishness)," Jewish Quarterly Review 99 (2009): 121-57.

Many thanks to those who replied.

UPDATE (4 May): Dorothy King has reflections here.

THE PERSEPOLIS CUNEIFORM ARCHIVE is being digitized. Here's the press release:

Iran's Ancient Story Preserved Digitally

Newswise — The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago is using modern technology to digitally record thousands of tablets that, as they are being pieced together, tell an unusually detailed story of the Persian Empire.

These ancient tablets from the palaces of Persepolis include pieces of language and art from the center of the Persian Empire, all made when it extended from India and Central Asia to Egypt and the Mediterranean. Most have texts in impressed cuneiform characters, many them have inked texts in Aramaic writing and almost all of the tablets have seal impressions.

They are now being recorded and distributed with digital processes that will allow scholars and viewers across the world to examine them as if they had picked them up and rotated under a light.

With a substantial grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a team of researchers began work in 2007. Now, with a second Mellon grant, the team will continue this work through 2010. By that time researchers hope to have about 10,000 tablets and fragments recorded.

[...]

Background on the compensation-for-terrorism controversy is here. Background on the Aramaic material is here.

ARAMAIC WATCH: An Aramaic music video - with penguins.



Rudi Stettner (or Magdeburgerjoe.com? - not clear) comments:

One factor working in favour of Aramaic survival is a body of popular music in that language, including singer Evin Aghassi. I saw a video once when he went on tour in Syria where the crowds went wild as Aghassi inched through the streets of Damascus. As a show of their love and admiration for the famous singer, they picked up his Mercedes with him in it and walked through the streets. It was a unique and priceless display of the fan’s devotion.

The second video that I am including in this posting is a song by Evin Aghassi in Assyrian. It is set to a video from the movie Happy Feet. I show it to friends and tell them that it is a video from my son’s wedding. What is interesting about the video is its fusion of American influences with local culture. It drives home the point that a culture is in a process of evolution. Saving a language does not mean putting it in a sealed container. It means a certain measure of adaptation to new conditions.

GEZA VERMES discusses "The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls" in Standpoint. One of the few living people who has been involved with the Scrolls pretty much since they were discovered, he surveys their discovery, their history of publication, and where the field stands now.

UPDATE: Rachel Elior replies here.

THE HEKHALOT RABBATI, the longest Merkavah mystical text, is now available online here in the hitherto unpublished translation by Morton Smith, revised by Gershom Scholem. I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing yet, but the bits I've seen in the past paraphrased pretty freely. Rebecca Lesses alerted me to the site some months ago, but I was very busy at the time and never got around to looking at it. Michael Miller of Ayin's Razor reminded me of it today.

I'm working on a translation of the Hekhalot/Merkavah corpus myself and I've posted part of my own translation of the Hekhalot Rabbati in the handout that goes with my November 2008 SBL paper here.

THE PRIME MINISTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY is intervening in the land dispute around the Syriac Mor Gabriel Monastery:

Erdogan steps into monastery dispute

(Hurriyet.com)

ANKARA - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has intervened in a land dispute over an ancient Syriac monastery in the southeastern city of Mardin, instructing his ministers to resolve the problem through a peaceful settlement.

"Our prime minister is closely following the matter," Justice and Development Party, or AKP, Mardin deputy Cüneyt Yüksel told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. "We do not want the problem to cause an international crisis." ... The next trial in the case will be held May 6. "The government and the state are not taking sides in the case," Yüksel said, adding that the matter would be settled in a peaceful way.

"Our work to solve the problem continues. We are trying to persuade the villagers to withdraw their complaint," he said.

"The monastery has a history of 1,600 years," he said. "We will settle the conflict and resolve our Syriac citizens’ problem." The Finance Ministry, Forestry Ministry and the Mardin Governorship have already taken action to try and settle the dispute.

[...]

Background here.

THREE DAY-CONFERENCES:

The first, on Temple Music: Meaning and Influence, organized by Margaret Barker, to be held on Saturday 30 May 2009 at the Temple Church in London.

THe second, on the Septuagint at Heythrop College:

LOST IN TRANSLATION: STUDIES OF THE SEPTUAGINT AND BEYOND IN HONOUR OF JENNY DINES

A One Day Conference
Heythrop College, University of London

All papers will take place in the Walker, 2nd Floor, Main Building

Wednesday 24th of June 2009

9:30-10:10: Registration and Tea/Coffee (Walker Room)

The morning papers will be chaired by Dr Ann Jeffers, Heythrop College.

10:10: Introduction

10:10-10:50: Sarah Pearce, University of Southampton.
"Philo's 'Family Values'".

10:50-11:30: Charlotte Hempel, University of Birmingham. The Qumran Yahad in Recent Scholarship.

11:30-12:20: Tessa Rajak, University of Reading.
'Ancestral Laws: What Josephus Made of the Greek
Bible.'

12:20-1:00: Deborah Rooke, King’s College, London
‘Susanna in Handel's Oratorio’.

Lunch – provided (Walker Room)

The afternoon papers will be chaired by Dr Bridget Gilfillan Upton

1:50-2:30: Jim Aitken, CJCR, Cambridge
'The Septuagint and "Alexandrian" scholarship'.

2:30-3:10: Gillian Greenberg, University College London
'Literary Initiative in the Peshitta'.

3:10-3:50: Sean Ryan, Heythrop College.
‘Dislocated Locusts: Re-visions of Joel & Amos in
Revelation 9’

3:50-4:30: Jonathan Norton, Heythrop College. ‘Psuche, Pneuma, and Paul's Rhetorical Surprise’.

4:30 Tea and departure

I can't reproduce the registration form here, but the contact info is:

Ms Mariann Jakab
Heythrop College
University of London
Kensington Square
London W8 5HQ

m.jakab@heythrop.ac.uk
020 7795 4201

Third, a reminder of the Dead Sea Scrolls Conference at Kings College London, for which the registration deadline is 1 May.

All three via Deborah Rooke on the SOTS list.

VERY BUSY writing our School Strategic Plan. Blogging may be light for the next few days.

THE HEBREW INSCRIPTION FRAGMENT recently discovered in the vicinity of Jerusalem is covered by Science Daily:

Fragment Of Hebrew Inscription From Period Of Kings Of Judah Found

ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2009) — A fragment of a limestone plaque bearing several letters of ancient Hebrew script was discovered while sifting soil that was excavated in the vicinity of the Gihon Spring, within the precincts of the “Walls around Jerusalem National Park”.

[...]

One of the fragmentary words could be a "-kiah" name, e.g., Hezekiah. This could be a piece of a long-sought ancient Judean royal lapidary inscription. This article doesn't have anything new in it, but it does include a photo, to which I have not yet linked.

Background here.

RESEARCH ON SYRIAC IN KERALA is profiled in a PBS video, with emphasis on a project associated with St. John's Abbey (home of the St. John's Bible [Saint John's Bible]), of which I had been unaware.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: In southern India, in Kerala, there are millions of people known as St. Thomas Christians. Their ancestors, many believe, were converted by the Apostle Thomas in the first century. Portuguese missionaries later destroyed most of the ancient church writings, replacing them with their own. But now Benedictine monks at St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota are rediscovering the surviving texts. Fred de Sam Lazaro has a close-up view of all this. He is both our correspondent and journalist-in-residence at St. John’s University.

Background here.

JOHN MARKS, Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Emeritus, at Princeton University, has passed away:

John Marks, 39-year member of the faculty, dies at 85
Posted April 23, 2009; 05:30 p.m.

by Staff

John Marks, professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at the University, died at his home in Princeton on Wednesday, April 15, at age 85. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

A specialist in Near Eastern cultural and political history, Marks was a member of the faculty from 1954 until his retirement in 1993.

[...]

Professor Marks summarized his interests on his own Princeton web page:

Near Eastern Studies at Princeton focuses on the Islamic Near East, and pre-Islamic studies are ancillary to the Department's primary intent. My teaching includes introductory surveys of pre-Islamic Near Eastern history, from the stone age to Alexander, and from Alexander to Muhammad, in addition to a basic Syriac language course and selected readings in Syriac literature. I am interested in the Christian doctrinal controversies of the fifth century as they reflect conflicting, traditional Near Eastern and Roman-Byzantine perceptions of human nature and destiny in the world. Syriac writings reveal both western and Near Eastern approaches to the problem. The popular conclusion that "East is East and West is West" seems to me already evident in those vigorous, destructive fifth century debates. Much of my work is with Seminary students and graduate students in religion from Princeton and elsewhere. My most recent Ph.D. supervision involved the translation of the Mystic Treatises of Isaac of Nineveh (7th century) by a graduate student from Temple University.

Requiescat in pace.

IN HONOR OF ST. GEORGE:

St George's Day is commemorated on 23 April. St George is the patron saint of England and identified with the ideals of honour, bravery and gallantry. This renowned martyr was born in Cappadocia, Turkey, the son of God-fearing parents. His father suffered for Christ, after which his mother moved to Palestine. When George grew up, he went into the army, in which he rose, by the age of twenty, to the rank of tribune, and as such was in service under the Emperor Diocletian. The Emperor Diocletian (AD 245-313) began a campaign against Christians at the very beginning of the fourth century. In AD 303 George is said to have objected to this persecution and resigned his military post in protest. George tore up the Emperor's order against Christians. This infuriated Diocletian, and George was imprisoned and tortured - but he refused to deny his faith. George was told his life would be spared if he would offer sacrifice to the Roman gods. The people assembled to see him do so, but instead George prayed only to the Christian God. Immediately, fire came down from heaven, an earthquake shook the ground, and idols and the temple buildings were destroyed. Eventually he was dragged through the streets of Diospolis (now Lydda) in Palestine and beheaded. It's said that Diocletian's wife was so impressed by George's resilience that she became a Christian and that she too was executed for her faith.

I know it's a stretch for PaleoJudaica, but the story is that he was martyred in Palestine in the fourth century, so close enough. Plus we like dragons. More on St. George's day and Lod here.

I've been at a Heads of School Away Day all day, so this is my first chance to blog. Tomorrow is likely to be very busy too.

A CONFERENCE AT DUKE:

Duke Conference April 23-24 to Examine Archaeology, Politics and the Media in the Middle East

Relations between scholars, archaeologists and the media are the focus of Duke conference

Monday, April 20, 2009

DURHAM, N.C. -- What happens when a discovery relating to the life of Jesus becomes the subject of a movie before it is properly assessed by historical scholars? The implications of this scenario and the complex relations between scholars, archaeologists and the media are the subject of an April 23-24 conference at Duke University.

The event is free and open to the public.

Speakers at the conference, “Archaeology, Politics and the Media: Re-visioning the Middle East,” will address such topics as cultural property and the role of antiquities dealers; the implications of media coverage of archaeological finds before scholarly vetting and peer review; and issues related to subsidizing archaeological enterprises. Conference participants also will seek to better understand the way archaeology and reporting affect the daily lives of lay communities in the United States and, specifically, Israel and Palestine.

[...]

ROBERT ALTER is receiving an award for his biblical literary criticism and translations:

Poetic Master of Biblical Translation Receives Award

(JewishJournal.com)

Robert Alter is the 2009 recipient of the Robert Kirsch Award, a lifetime achievement award named after my late father and given each year by the Los Angeles Times. It will be my honor to hand the award to Alter, a role I have been asked to perform on a few memorable occasions over the years. But never before have I discharged my duties with a greater sense of pleasure, admiration and enthusiasm. Alter is, as I once wrote in a review of his work in the L.A. Times, “one of the living masters of biblical criticism and translation.”

[...]

Alter's translations of the Torah/Pentateuch and Psalms have been mentioned frequently in PaleoJudaica.

I'M BACK IN ST. ANDREWS. I'll try to do some blogging in the next day or two, but unpacking and catching up at work will take precedence.

HEADING BACK TO ST. ANDREWS TODAY. I've been blogging from the airport as we wait for our commuter flight to Los Angeles. Look for me again sometime on Monday afternoon or evening, Scotland time. Sorry for the lulls in blogging in the last fortnight, but I needed the break.

PALEOJUDIACA just got its 600,000th individual visitor. The counter stands now at 600030. Welcome, whoever you were.

LOST BOOKS WATCH: In honor of World Book Day (23 April), Stephen Marche reflects in the Wall Street Journal on lost books. Two paragraphs merit excerpting. This one is spot on:

Classical literature, like classical architecture, is a collection of delicious ruins. The destruction of the library at Alexandria was probably a larger disaster than we realize, simply because we don't know all that it held. It must have contained records of all the Greek works we're missing, and the complete versions of the classical texts that survive today only in fragments. What about the literature of pre-Roman Egypt? What about the literature of the Phoenicians? These are maybe the saddest missing books, the ones that we don't even know have existed. If we could have even one, even at random, what a light it would shed on our intellectual prehistory.

But this one is a bit boorish:

Maybe the most disappointing literary rediscovery, although no one will admit it, has been the Dead Sea Scrolls. As archaeology, they are the most incredible find, genuine early texts found in caves on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea buried for two millennia. Ever try reading them? They're like the boring bits from "Moby-Dick," only somehow more boring.

For my own wish list of lost books, see here, here, and here.

PRESIDENT OBAMA has gotten involved in the land dispute over the Syriac Mor Gabriel Monastery in Turkey:

Dispute over Syriac monastery turns into international row

(Today's Zaman)

A long-standing land dispute between the Syriacs of Midyat, a district in the southeastern province of Mardin, and the local village heads has finally turned into a legal battle attracting international attention.

The disagreement has been closely monitored by the European Union for some time, and US President Barack Obama also got involved in the dispute after he received a letter from the German Syriac diaspora on the matter and assigned one of his aides to follow the developments, effectively making the small district's land dispute a matter of international concern.

[...]

The [Turkish] government also has plans to send a representative to the region at the ministerial level and issue title to the Syriacs for the Treasury land, as historically, they have not held title to it. This move aims to send out the message to foreign observers that the Turkish state has nothing against the Syriacs.

Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputy from Mardin Cüneyt Yüksel says this will be the first time in history that title to property will be issued to a Syriac community. “This has now become a judicial issue. The judiciary in Turkey is independent. The court ruling will now decide who the 285 hectares of land belongs to. Each side will present the information and documents they have. The existence of the 1,600-year-old monastery is extremely important for Turkey. Our only aim is to make sure that this conflict is resolved peacefully. The ceremony at which we’ll turn over title to the land will be an opportunity for us to mediate between the two sides. We are not taking sides, but we will do whatever we can for the villagers and the Mor Gabriel Foundation to reconcile this issue.”

[...]

The article has lots of background and there's more background here.

ARAMAIC WATCH - A rare American tourist encounters Nabatean (Nabataean) tombs in Saudi Arabia:

A highlight was a visit to Madain Saleh, a group of 131 monumental tombs carved into rock cliffs from the first century B.C. to the first century A.D. by the Nabateans, the same people who carved Petra in Jordan. They had two capitals, Petra in the north and Madain Saleh in the south. These tombs are remarkably well-preserved and include inscriptions in Aramaic.

BETTY ANNE CROSS, the wife of retired Harvard biblical scholar Frank Moore Cross, passed away yesterday. Jack Sasson has posted this note from Jo Ann Hackett on his Agade list.

I am writing with the sad news that Betty Anne Cross, Frank Cross's wife, died yesterday, apparently of a massive stroke. She died peacefully, with family at her bedside. Frank and Betty Anne would have celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary this June.

Besides Frank, she leaves three daughters—Susan, Ellen, and Rachel—and six grandchildren. If you would like to write to Frank, his address is:
The Highlands at Pittsford, 300 Hahnemann Trail, Apt. 25,
Pittsford, NY 14534.

The final arrangements have not yet been made, but there will be a
memorial service for Betty Anne in Cambridge, MA, in the near future.

Our hearts go out to Frank and the family. Betty Anne, requiescat in pace.

SUN IN HEBREW: Philologos has the story in Hot, Rare and Missed. Excerpt:

Mr. Goldman’s query, however, has nothing to do with the calendar. What bothers him, rather, is, “Admittedly, it is more than a half century since I attended Hebrew school, but the Hebrew word for sun that I remember quite distinctly is shemesḥ” He wants to know why, when we bless the sun, we don’t say a birkat ha-shemesh rather than a birkat ha-ḥamah?

The answer to this is that shemesh and ḥamah are synonyms for “sun” in Hebrew. Both go back to biblical times, with one or the other preferred in different stages of Hebrew’s history. Shemesh, the Hebrew cognate of an ancient Semitic word (in Arabic, it is shams), was the everyday word in the period of the Bible, in which it occurs more than 120 times.

Ḥamah, on the other hand, can be found only five times in the Bible. Formed from ḥam, “hot,” so that its literal meaning is “the hot one,” ḥamah was a relatively rare epithet for the sun that was reserved for literary or oratorical occasions. ...

For the calendrical issue in question, see here.

ARAMAIC WATCH: A long Haaretz article on the survival (so far) of Iranian Aramaic in Israel:

Guarding their language
By Aviad Segal
Tags: Hebrew, Aramaic, Israel News

"If Jesus returned to the Holy Land," wrote journalist Julian Borger in The Guardian in 1998, "probably one of the few places he would be understood in his mother tongue would be a basement beside the central bus station in Tel Aviv."

That basement houses the recording studio of music arranger A.B. Kazes, and often hosts successful musicians and singers. It was here that the Nash Didan band was born. "It all began thanks to my mother," says Arik Mordechai, 57, a soloist and the founder of the band, which has produced eight albums, all of them sung entirely in Aramaic.

"She came to me and asked why I didn't do something for 'our people' [nash didan in Aramaic]." A few weeks later the band recorded its first song, "Nash Didan Idaylu" (Our People Have Arrived). A first album, bearing the same name, was released shortly thereafter, and Mordechai claims that it sold 50,000 copies.

"Audiences attended our performances out of curiosity and were surprised to discover something different, something new," Mordechai continues. "Very soon we started getting phone calls from all over the world, from people who were surprised to find Israelis speaking the language. One day a fax arrived from Syria, informing us of the existence of communities there that spoke Aramaic. Another day a journalist working for a Mormon paper in Utah visited. What we did with Aramaic was like taking an archaeological finding, wrapping it in cotton wool and presenting it to the public."

Nash Didan is also the name by which the community of some 5,000 Aramaic-speaking Jews from Urmia, a city in Persian Azerbaijan (contemporary Iran), refer to themselves. Like the band, which rarely meets these days , the Aramaic spoken by Urmia's Jews has become almost extinct. Community members believe that very soon the general public will only revive the language of the Talmud, the language of Abraham and Jesus, on Passover eve, with the reading of the Haggadah, when Jews recall "ha lahma anya" the "bread of affliction" eaten in Egypt and sing Had Gadya. Aramaic references will also remain in idioms that have become rooted in Hebrew, such as treisar (dozen) and bar mazal (lucky person).

[...]

[Ora[ Jacobi continued researching the language and the community from her home in Ramat Gan. "I started writing down anecdotes from my mother-in-law's life, as a hobby. I never imagined they would grow into a book, but that is exactly what happened, based on her stories and things I learned about the Nash Didan from other people."

"Almos," the novel Jacobi published, follows the lives of two women, one Jewish and the other Assyrian, through the events in Urmia between 1914 and 1950. Musician Arik Mordechai's mother is among the book's other characters. "The things we have done - the band and Ora's book," he says, "made people stand up and feel pride in our Nash Didan identity."

There is no better way to explain the flood of calls Jacobi received after the publication of "Almos," which to date has not appeared in English translation. The positive feedback encouraged her to team up with Avraham Hachami, head of the association of Urmians in Israel, to write "Nash Didan," a historical book.

"People suddenly started coming out of the woodwork, wanting to help," recalls Jacobi, who has been working with the community and its language for a decade. "There was a sense of urgency, that if we didn't do this now, the opportunity would be lost. After all, in addition to this being an interesting community, my children also happen to belong to it."

[...]

There's lots more. Worth reading in full.

UPDATE: Plus, there's another article on Maaloula (Ma'aloula, Malula) and its new Aramaic Institute. Apparently it was first published in the Guardian (I must have missed it) but here it's at UTV News.

Endangered Aramaic language makes a comeback in Syria

Syrian President Assad has set up an institute to revive interest in the language of Christ
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
Tags:

* International News

Ilyana Barqil wears skinny jeans, boots and a fur-lined jacket, handy for keeping out the cold in the Qalamoun mountains north of Damascus. She likes TV quiz shows and American films and enjoys swimming. But this thoroughly modern Syrian teenager is also learning Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus.

Ilyana, 15, is part of an extraordinary effort to preserve and revive the world's oldest living tongue, still close to what it probably sounded like in Galilee, now in Israel, on the brink of the Christian era.

"In Nazareth when Jesus was born they spoke more or less the same language as we do in Maaloula today," said teacher Imad Reihan, one of the pillars of this picturesque village's Aramaic Language Academy, where Barqil is studying.

"Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani" ("My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me") – Christ's lament on the cross – was famously uttered in Aramaic.

Recognised by Unesco as a "definitely endangered" language, Aramaic is spoken by 7,000 people in Maaloula, dominated by Greek Catholics (Melikites) whose churches and rites long pre-date the arrival of Islam and Arabic. Western Neo-Aramaic, to use its proper linguistic title, is spoken by about 8,000 others in two nearby villages, one now wholly Muslim.

[...]

Background here.

HARRISON FORD is to be honored at an AIA event:

Archaeological Institute To Honor Harrison Ford

April 13, 2009 (Look to the Stars)

The Archaeological Institute of America will celebrate its 130th anniversary by holding a gala on April 28 to honor Harrison Ford and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

The theme and décor of the AIA Gala will offer guests a unforgettable experience, providing a glimpse into ancient cultures and civilizations. In organizing the evening’s program, the AIA is pleased to partner with the Consulates, Trade Offices, and Tourism Boards of the following countries: Chile, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Guatemala, India, Israel, Italy, Mexico, and Peru. As a result, the auction, which includes archaeologically themed items, will feature exclusive tours to destinations across the globe, all of which are rich in art, culture, and archaeological sites. Also featured in the auction is a prize-winning piece of Guatemalan jade sculpture courtesy of the Guatemala Tourism Commission and the Guatemala Trade Commission.

[...]

THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS by Elaine Pagels gets a thirty-year retrospective by Michael Kaler in the Globe and Mail:

Hip gnostics

MICHAEL KALER

Globe and Mail Update

April 10, 2009 at 5:41 PM EDT

If there ever was one unified Christian movement, it probably died with Jesus at the first Easter. Ever since, Christianity has been a collection of any number of diverse groups.

Some – such as the Roman and Egyptian churches – have survived for millennia; others have vanished. Over a period of several centuries, the men we now call church fathers (the leaders of several of the factions of early Christians) fought opposing factions in the battle to define and control this new religion. Polemics were waged, books were destroyed, history was rewritten, all in the hope of eliminating “heresies” such as gnosticism.

It didn't work. Gnosticism is everywhere these days, in the movies, in the headlines and on bestseller lists. And this year marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of Elaine Pagels's The Gnostic Gospels, the book that more than any other brought knowledge of gnosticism back into the mainstream.

[...]

The article also surveys some key scholarship about Gnosticism during this period.

ARAMAIC INCANTATION SKULLS get some attention in Haaretz:

'Ancient Jews used skulls in ceremonies despite ban'
By Ofri Ilani, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: israel news, skull

Newly published archaeological evidence attests to the fact that ancient Jews used human skulls in ceremonies, despite a strict Halakhic prohibition on touching human remains.

British researcher Dan Levene from the University of Southampton published findings in Biblical Archaeological Review about the human skulls, known as incantation bowls, some of which bear inscriptions in Aramaic.

[...]

The skulls are comparable in many ways to incantation bowls, but are not themselves bowls.

I have already noted the BAR article here.

BOOK REVIEWS:

This article in the Boston Globe has several:

Words made fresh
A look at the real Jesus, Judas, and how religion has shaped history

By Rich Barlow

THE FINAL DAYS OF JESUS: The Archaeological Evidence By Shimon Gibson

HarperOne, 272 pp., illustrated, $27.99

JUDAS: A Biography By Susan Gubar

Norton, 453 pp., illustrated, $27.95

GOOD BOOK: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible By David Plotz

Harper, 336 pp., $26.99

THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN EUROPE By G.R. Evans

Lion, 224 pp., $34.95.

Perhaps you're celebrating the Resurrection in church this morning. Or you may be catching "Meet the Press" and scoffing at those sitting in their pews. Either way, it's clear that the trial and crucifixion of the historical Jesus mark one of the pivotal moments in humanity's stay on the planet. Scholars - atheists and believers alike - doggedly hunt for what really happened during that last week in Jerusalem.

[...]

More of Gibson's book here. I have noted David Plotz's Bible project here, here, here, and here.

Also in the Boston Globe, yet another review of Michel Faber's The Fire Gospel, the novel about newly recovered Aramaic scrolls about the life of Jesus:

In Faber's satire, ancient scrolls reveal another Gospel
Michel Faber has constructed a collection of beads hastily strung together, some paste and some precious.
By Richard Eder
April 12, 2009

THE FIRE GOSPEL
By Michel Faber
Canongate, 213 pp., $20

Michel Faber has devised some lovely notions for "The Fire Gospel," a kind of myth or allegory that starts with the discovery of nine biblical scrolls and goes on to satirize all manner of American ways. He has devised a fair amount of clunk, as well, in much of the satire and in a story that flies for a while and crash-lands. It is a collection of beads hastily strung together, some paste and some precious.

[...]

Background here.

In Haaretz, a review of a historical novel in Hebrew:

Historical Fiction
Archaeologist of the soul
By Doron Bar-Adon
Tags: Haaretz book supplement
Natalie Mesika turns the remnants and fragments of the Roman era into a richer, more complete world that brings together Pompeii and the Galilee town of Yodfat

Adama Shehora (Black Earth)

by Natalie Mesika Dofen Publishers (Hebrew), 338 pages, NIS 78

Between 66 and 70 C.E., Romans and Jews fought each other throughout the Land of Israel, most significantly in Jerusalem. The Lower Galilee town of Yodfat was captured by Vespasian in 67. And Yosef Ben-Matityahu, the leader of the Jewish revolt, surrendered and moved over to the Roman side, becoming the historian known as Josephus Flavius. Twelve years later, Mount Vesuvius erupted, and the volcano destroyed the southern Italian city of Pompeii.

Fast forward to contemporary times, to Israeli archaeologist Natalie Mesika, who has excavated at both the Yodfat site and Pompeii. While excavating Yodfat, she tells us in the foreword to this historical novel, she met a Bedouin girl who had discovered ancient coins in a pile of soil that had already been meticulously sifted and checked by professionals. That woman, the author says, made Mesika realize she could follow her intuition - the wisdom of the heart that gives added strength to feelings, emotions and primarily, the imagination.

"Black Earth," Mesika's first book, retells the well-known stories of Yodfat and Pompeii, in a way that inevitably links their shared fates. The novel flits back and forth between the Land of Israel and Roman Italy, and the descriptions of each complement the other. It has three narrators, who switch off in the telling, but their connections and the full picture of the narrative become clear only at the end of the book, which not only tells a story, but also addresses questions of fate, the logic of war, the existential state, the psychology of nationalism, contemporary politics and the human experience of the individual.

[...]

The aged Josephus is one of the characters.

HAPPY EASTER to all those celebrating.