GOOD TIMING: A review of Mary Beard's new book on Pompeii:

Pompeii the way it used to be: wild, chaotic and full of life

No book or website can really deliver the full picture of Pompeii

Michael Posner

Pompeii — From Saturday's Globe and Mail, Friday, Jun. 19, 2009 05:42PM EDT

Forget most of what you think you know about Pompeii. The conventional view, the starting point for dozens of books and local tour guides, is that close to 30,000 people died in the great Vesuvian eruption, engulfed by pyroclastic flows and lava surges.

But a new book breathes life into the dead stones as a chaotic living city. Those who were killed by the volcano, argues classics scholar Mary Beard, were slaves with no means of escape. Or others who, as during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, chose to defy the volcano's rumbling omens and stay put. Or perhaps looters, who snuck back in and were trapped by collapsing walls or tunnels.

Unruly, sometimes unlawful and throbbing with humanity - it's a place much like modern Naples nearby. Today, you can easily spend the better part of a day wandering the streets of this eerily well-preserved city, less than an hour south of Naples. On occasion, I wondered whether a particular building or fresco hadn't been rather too well restored and improved upon. But that's a quibble. No book or website can really deliver the full picture of Pompeii, with its cult of the phallus, its storefront eateries and its majestic forum and amphitheatre, a building that accommodated 30,000 people (but had not a single lavatory).

[...]

Herculaneum is mentioned too:

Another fascinating site, even closer to Naples, is Herculaneum. It, too, was destroyed by lava flows from Vesuvius, and lay buried under mud and ash for almost 1,600 years.

Wealthier than Pompeii, the seaside town boasted a number of impressive villas, including one owned by Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, Julius Caesar's father-in-law - the so-called Villa of the Papyri. Piso's library of Greek and Roman texts was said to be among the largest in the world at that time.

Amazingly, hundreds of scrolls, though carbonized, can still be painstakingly read using computer-enhanced multi-spectral imaging, affording the prospect that books long since thought lost to us might still be recoverable.

And here's an ancient Jewish angle:

In addition to Piso's scrolls, the National Archeological Museum (near the top of the Via Toledo, a 15-minute walk from anywhere in the city centre) includes the not-to-be-missed Secret Room, an exhibit featuring eye-popping, phallus-heavy frescoes, objets d'art and sculptures, representative of the rich and varied sex lives that Pompeiians are said to have enjoyed.

Some Jewish slaves, coerced into prostitution, may have formed their own judgments of these revels; on one wall in Hebrew are the words Sodom and Gomorrah.

More on Vesuvius here. More on the Herculaneum scrolls here and here. Relevant posts on Pompeii are here and here. According to the latter post, the Sodom and Gomorrah inscription seems to have been in Latin letters, not Hebrew. Latin seems much more likely. Last week I posted a few photos of Pompeii here. I have more pictures of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Vesuvius and will try to get around to posting some of them soon, but I'm going to be very busy until the end of the month. Bear with me.

PHOENICIAN WATCH:

Expedition ship Phoenicia sails into the pirate zone

(Sail World)

The Phoenicia Expedition, Captained by Philip Beale, an English ex-Navy sailor, is attempting to recreate the first circumnavigation of Africa, accomplished by Phoenician mariners in 600BC, in a replica Phoenician/Mediterranean vessel, called, appropriately enough, Phoenicia. They have just completed a four day sail from Hodeidah on the Red Sea coast of Yemen to Aden on the southern coast.

The passage of 270 nautical miles ended with the ship anchored securely at the inner harbour, Aden, and has has brought Phoenicia to the start point for launching Phase 2 of the expedition to circumnavigate Africa with prevailing winds and currents at the end of August 2009.

[...]

Here are some exerpts from Philip Beale's account of their journey:

[...]

Apart from the usual sailing routines of watch keeping (lookouts, pumping bilges, helming,adjusting the sails and meal preparations ) quite a bit of time has been spent on anti-piracy measures.

So we have wrapped the ship’s rails with barbed wire, razor blades, fire hoses and have molotov cocktails at the ready to throw at the pirates. Well okay, we haven’t actually done that and we have resisted offers of AK47’s (on sale foe $10 each in Hodiedah) to protect us, believing that if the pirates really want to come on board there is not much we can do to stop them- such is the low free-board of the ship and our relatively slow speed.

Our basic plan is to stay close to the Yemeni shore, darken ship at night and keep a low profile, i.e. no radar and VHF. We have a sonic device on board which may help to delay any attack while we would then alert the authorities to the situation be satellite phone.

We are in frequent contact with the local coalition forces out here as well as our security advisers at Drum Cussac, in Poole, England. We expect to pass the through Bab el Mandeb, the approach to the Gulf of Aden, tonight which is probably better from an anti-piracy point of view.

We expect it to be a bit tense as we pass through the strait as there are numerous fishing boats in the area as well as reports of vessels involved in smuggling people from Eritrea into Yemen. We are looking forward to being in Aden for the weekend-pirates permitting.

[...]

Safe travels!

More on their sonic ray-gun defense shield and additional background are here.

2 ENOCH: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US*

The fifth Enoch Seminar** in Naples last week was a great success; not because we now understand the book of 2 Enoch -- we don't, but because we understand much better why we don't understand it and what sorts of questions we need to ask to make any progress. I have many pages of minute notes from the numerous sessions, but rather than taking days or weeks to try to digest and summarize them, I will, without further delay, boil down what seem to me to be some of the main points that have come out of this Seminar. The attributions of positions to specific people are my effort to give credit where credit is due. If I have misunderstood anything anyone has said, apologies in advance and I will be happy to make corrections.

I should begin by noting two important presentations on the first evening of the conference. Esther Eshel reported on two new Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch. These are attributed to Qumran (i.e., are taken to be Dead Sea Scrolls), although they were recovered on the antiquities market and are thus unprovenanced. One is a papyrus fragment containing 1 Enoch 106:19-107:1 (from the story of the birth of Noah). The other is a parchment fragment containing 1 Enoch 7:1-5. Eshel thinks it is part of 4QEnoch^c ar/4Q204.

The second presentation was by Joost Hagen on the new Coptic fragments of 2 Enoch. A summary of his work on the fragments is here. I won't repeat any more of it except to say that my favorite part of the story was how he identified the work as 2 Enoch. When he deciphered the phrase "and the appearance of the angel was like snow" on one of the Coptic fragments, he entered it into Google. A translation of 2 Enoch in Google Books then told him that the phrase came from 37:1.

The study of 2 Enoch suffers severely from the problem of the lack of a complete edition of all the Slavonic evidence. Grant Macaskill set out to produce a critical edition with an eclectic reconstructed critical text, but has decided this is impossible. He is now finishing a diplomatic edition that will at least collect all the evidence of all the Slavonic manuscripts.

Even so, very few scholars know Slavonic. Of the sixty delegates of this year's Enoch Seminar, only eight were specialists in this language. It is very important that specialists in other pseudepigrapha, Second Temple Judaism, early Christianity, Byzantine studies, etc., open a dialogue with them and keep it open. One of the most important accomplishments of the Naples Enoch Seminar was to have fully opened this dialogue.

At the beginning of the final plenary session Hanan Eshel commented that 2 Enoch is like Melchizedek in the New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews. As he is without mother or father and with no genealogy, so 2 Enoch is without a date, a text, or an origin.

The problem of the short and long recensions of 2 Enoch may not be as simple as it initially looks. We must resist the temptation to place them in binary opposition as though one is "original" and the other "secondary." The truth may be far more complicated. To take just one scenario as an illustration (many more are possible) they could share a common original archetype that each has distorted in its own way. The short recension may have cut parts of the original but preserved the rest of it relatively well. The long recension may have added considerably to the archetype without any (or with much less) cutting. The result would be that the short recension is missing original material while the long recension includes both secondary and original material not in the short recension. And still more complicated scenarios are possible. (The basic point is Michael Stone's, although I have filled out the example.) We urgently need our Slavonic philologists to interrogate the text with the sorts of questions that will help us to start narrowing down the possibilities.

In addition to the problem of text and language, the content itself of 2 Enoch defies all our expectations. It is not obviously Christian: it lacks reference to Jesus and other obvious elements of early Christianity and the exalted picture of Enoch would not sit well with Christian theology. It is not obviously Jewish: it deals with biblical commandments but includes no halakhic development of them (i.e., it makes no attempt to think them through in the context of how they might actually be practiced). And it is not obviously Jewish-Christian, a widely-recognized third way that involves acceptance of Jesus as Messiah (and/or as divine0 along with acceptance of halakhic praxis. 2 Enoch is a new category that fails to fit into any of the boxes we have prepared for it and must be taken entirely on its own terms. (These points are Larry Schiffman's.)

From the various discussions during the conference, it seems to me that if there is a Second Temple-era base to 2 Enoch, the evidence is likely to come from the calendrical material in it, some of which may reflect a Jewish sectarian 364-day calendar. But at present all we can say with confidence is that there was a Greek version (behind the surviving fragments in Slavonic and Coptic) which had its origin sometime between the Second Temple period and the Byzantine period.

Andrei Orlov summed up correctly that even if we had the original manuscript of 2 Enoch in our hands, we still would not be able to understand it at present.


*A very free (perhaps excessively so) paraphrase of a comment by Enoch Seminar organizer Professor Gabriele Boccaccini in his closing address. But accurately expressing the sentiment.

**For full information on the 2009 Enoch Seminar in Naples, go to the Enoch Seminar website, click on the "Enoch Seminars" drop down menu, then click on "Naples 2009." Some of the information on the menus of the Naples 2009 page is password protected, but much is available to everyone. There's also more on Slavonic pseudepigrapha here. Many thanks to Gabriele Boccaccini and Andrei Orlov for organizing this event.

UPDATE (23 August): More here. It seems that the text of 2 Enoch is not in as much doubt as indicated above.

UPDATE (16 February 2010): More here on the priority of the short recension.

ABOUT THE PERSIAN LANGUAGE is an introductory essay by WIds at the Daily Kos. It discusses the full history of the language. It's not my area, but the part on ancient and Sassanian Persian looks accurate to me. If Iranologists have corrections, drop me a note.

I'M BACK IN ST ANDREWS. Very tired. More tomorrow.

LEAVING FOR HOME in a few minutes. Should be back late this evening.

EIGHT SPECIALISTS IN SLAVONIC PSEUDEPIGRAPHA in the same room at the Enoch Seminar in Naples:

L-R: Alexander Kulik, Andrei Orlov, Liudmila Navtanovich, Florentina Badalanova Geller, Grant Macaskill, Christfried Böttrich, Basil Lourié, Annisava Miltenova
I've been assured that this is not the first time in history that this has happened, but perhaps it's the first time in the West.

AN ANCIENT MOSAIC IN LOD is being uncovered and conserved:

One of the Most Impressive and Largest Mosaics in Israel will be Re-exposed

(Art Daily)

JERUSALEM.- Thirteen years after one of the most beautiful mosaics ever to be seen in the country was covered over, the Israel Antiquities Authority, in cooperation with the municipality of Lod and its residents, is beginning an archaeological excavation that will re-expose the mosaic, once and for all. Some 30,000 people from all over the country visited the site during one weekend when the mosaic was on display to the public.

The 1,700 year old mosaic floor, which is one of the most magnificent and largest mosaics ever revealed in Israel, was first uncovered in the city of Lod in 1996. The mosaic is a real archaeological gem and extraordinarily well-preserved. It covers an area of approximately 180 square meters and is composed of colored carpets that depict in detail mammals, birds, fish, a variety of flora and the sailing and merchant ships that were used at the time. The purpose of the building in which the mosaic floor was placed is not known.

[...]

THE VIEW FROM MY WINDOW:



Naples, with Mount Vesuvius in the background, this morning.

SLOW NEWS DAY, but here I am ditching a seminar to blog. So, thanks for checking and, for your trouble, I refer you to Manuscript Boy's post on Talmudic Archaeology over at Hagahot.

The conference is going very well and I have pages of notes, but it will be awhile before I can digest them and post some thoughts.

Our excursion to Herculaneum and Vesuvius is this afternoon. I'll post photos when I get a chance.

THE TORONTO DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION at the ROM is, not exactly reviewed, but rather is used as the launching point for a homily by Rabbi Dow Marmur in the Toronto Star. Background here.

MORE ON THE NEW KURDISH AND SYRIAC FACULTIES being developed at Artuklu University in Turkey:

The campus will contain a mosque, a Syriac chapel and a small Yezidi temple."Historically, Mardin has been the primary university center of upper Mesopotamia, a city that was home to 13 centers of learning in the 19th century. This tradition of science will live again on our campus," Omay said, adding that the university is a 30-year-old dream come true for Mardin residents.

The rector said they have determined the vision and horizon of Artuklu University as a social-sciences university and are hoping it will grow into an international educational institution, offering courses in languages used in the Middle East. The science and literature faculty will feature Kurdish, Arabic, Persian and Syriac departments.

Omay said they will first emphasize Kurdish and Syriac, languages to which not enough attention has been paid. "Syriac is a language spoken in our region. At the forefront, work is in progress for founding the Kurdish language and literature faculty," he said. "We have completed the preliminary preparations and will apply to the Supreme Board of Education for approval."

The rector added that they will establish the faculty this year after final approval is obtained and that they plan to accept 20 students in 2010. Artuklu University has signed agreements with Dohuk and Kerkük Universities in northern Iraq for Kurdish-language education and with Damascus University in Syria for education in Arabic. In exchange, Artuklu will collaborate with those universities to establish their Turkish language and literature faculties.

Background here. More on the Yazidis here and here.

DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME, but wanted to update you briefly. Instead of reading papers, I went on a whim with some other attenders to Pompeii and spent a few hours there. The conference started in the evening. Highlights were presentations by Esti Eshel about two new Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch (found on the antiquities market but attributed to Qumran) and by Joost Hagen on the new Coptic fragments of 2 Enoch.

Pompeii photos:

The Forum

Fresco Mosaic in the "House of the Fawn"
Mount Vesuvius as seen from Pompeii
We'll be going to Herculaneum and Vesuvius on Tuesday.

Times up for now!

I'M IN NAPLES at the Centro di Spiritualita. Just checked in. E-mail access will be sporadic but I'll do the best I can.

I'M OFF TO NAPLES for the Enoch Seminar. I'm not presenting a paper, but I'm responding to one. I'm told that there is Internet access, but I don't know the details yet. I've preposted this message, am in transit, and expect to arrive in Naples this evening. Blogging will continue in the coming week as time and convenience permit.

RAPHAEL GOLB has been indicted in a Manhattan court (AP):

He is the son of Dr. Norman Golb of the University of Chicago. Prosecutors say the defendant used Internet aliases to falsely accuse Dr. Lawrence Schiffman of New York University of plagiarizing his father's work.

Background here.

THE TALMUD is available as an iPhone app.

ODED GOLAN is interviewed by The Media Line about the Israel Forgery Trial. Excerpt:

In an exclusive interview with The Media Line at his Tel Aviv home, Golan said he was confident that new scientific research undertaken by defense experts would finally exonerate him. Prosecution scientists had accused Golan of faking patina – a thin layer of biological material covering ancient items – in order to make the inscriptions on the artifacts seem old.

“No, I never faked any antiquity,” Golan told The Media Line. “During the last several years there were several tests and examinations of those items by prominent experts from different countries in different laboratories and I think we succeeded to prove that these inscriptions could not have been inscribed in the last century. There is a thin layer of patina – it’s a thin layer of crust made actually by a micro-organism that was developed inside the grooves of the inscription and this product made by the micro-organism could not have been developed in less than a hundred years.”

Background here and follow the links.

JAMES MCGRATH of Exploring Our Matrix has published a new book:

The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context (University of Illinois Press)

ARAMAIC WATCH: The new Kurdish language department at Artuklu University in Turkey is also planning on opening a Syriac language program:

First Kurdish language department to accept students in 2010

(Today's Zaman)

Artuklu University in the southeastern province of Mardin plans to start accepting students to Turkey's first Kurdish language and literature department in 2010 after all the preparations are completed, the rector of the university has said.

Speaking to the Anatolia news agency, the rector of Artuklu University, Serdar Bedii Omay, said preliminary preparations for the department have been completed and that they plan to start their education program with 20 students in 2010.

... Omay explained that they have also started preparations to create a Syriac language department and have received great support both from within Turkey and the world at large. Syriac people populate the Middle East and have lived side-by-side with Muslims in peace and prosperity in Mardin for centuries.

[...]

UPDATE: More Aramaic news: The Chaldean American Festival in Southfield Michigan.

PETRA is the subject of yet another travel piece, this one in Ynet News:

A visit to marvelous Petra

People travel from near and far to see one of the seven wonders of the world. 'You need days to completely walk through Petra and see all of the monuments and even then there are still many caves which have yet to be excavated,' local tour guide explains

Stacey Maltin
Published: 06.09.09, 13:28 / Israel Travel

It is hard to believe that it was only two years ago that Petra in Jordan was officially named one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. Constructed around 100 years B.C., and not discovered by the Western world until the 1800s, the ruins of the city that was carved out of rocks has remained largely intact, withstanding thousands of years of wind erosion.

[...]

The piece has some interesting details about tourism from Israel to Petra.

THE ESSENES AND CHRISTIAN ORIGINS are the subject of a new essay posted on the Bible and Interpretation website:

The First One Hundred Years of Christianity in Jerusalem

One does not have to look far to see that many of these practices [Essene] were adopted by the early Christian community. They returned to that upper room after the death of Jesus. They were altogether there at Pentecost. They celebrated this according to the Essene calendar. (“Devout men “were present in Jerusalem.) They choose Matthias by lot (there is a house of Matthias mentioned in the copper scroll). Pentecost became the main feast for the early church. Baptism became the initiation rite of the new community; The Holy Spirit (not mentioned anywhere in the O.T.) is prominent in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the literature of the early Jewish community. They celebrated a sacred meal. They practiced communal living. Both sects observed a community rule (Didache for Christians). There was a hierarchy of twelve for both. Times of prayer were the same. Healing was done by both groups. Could it all just be coincidence? We are told early on that a group of priests converted. They couldn’t have been Sadducees, who are shown as opposed to the Christian sect in the Acts. So who else? The only alternative was the Essenes.

Essay based on Jesus and the First Century of Christianity in Jerusalem (NJ: Paulist Press, 2008).


By Elizabeth McNamer
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Department of Philosophy and Religion
Rocky Mountain College
Billings, Montana, USA
June 2009

I haven't read the book, so my comments are based entirely on this essay and are correspondingly provisional. The core of the argument is in the excerpt above. There may indeed be some influence from the Qumran community/Essenes on the early Jesus movement, but I don't find these particular arguments compelling. There is a pattern of parallels, which is promising, but many of the parallels themselves are very general or debatable. Casting lots and healing are hardly distinctive. The name Matthias was common and appears in quite different contexts here. The immersion rites of the Qumran sect are quite different from Christian baptism, as are the two so-called community rules. The hierarchy of twelve comes from the twelve tribes of Israel. Pentacost was a Jewish festival tied to the covenant with God and it's not surprising that both sects took an interest in it. The Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Psalm 51:11; Isaiah 63:10-11) - not often, but in books both sects especially liked. Times of prayer and calendar are complicated issues and I'm not prepared to generalize as freely as above. The communal living aspect is interesting, but the Jewish Therapeutae did this in Egypt as well (and I am not prepared to identify them with the Essenes), so we don't really know how widespread it was.

As for the Sadducees, converts come from the most unexpected places and it proves nothing that the Sadducean group as a whole was hostile to the early Jesus movement. It would not surprise me to find that both Sadducees (i.e., priests who served in the Jerusalem Temple) and Qumran sectarians/Essenes (who evidently did not) were among the converts to that movement. It is entirely possible that there was some influence from both priestly groups, but a lot of this could, indeed, just be coincidence.

ARCHANGEL METATRON WATCH: First, Metatron has started a new Internet business:

Metatron Inc. Commences Trading

By: Marketwire .
Jun. 8, 2009 04:01 PM


REDONDO BEACH, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 06/08/09 -- Metatron Inc. (PINKSHEETS: MRNJ), a diversified internet holding company focusing on Web 2.0 properties, is pleased to announce that the Company's common shares recently commenced trading on the Over-The-Counter Pink Sheet exchange.

Metatron Inc. operates diversified internet and related businesses, services and properties through partnership relationships. Its mission is to harness the power of today's online and wireless consumer interactivity to make daily life easier, more productive and more entertaining for people all over the world.

[...]

Second, here's a letter from the good Archangel which appears to include every New Age trope that's ever been thought of. The Archangels Michael and Melchizedek appear as well.

THE CHICAGO MAROON has an interview with Norman Golb:

Dead Sea Scrolls Scandal
An academic scandal erupted in early March, and professor Norman Golb found himself at its center. As newspapers rapidly seized on the tale, a narrative emerged about Golb’s son Raphael, 49, who allegedly used false e-mail accounts to impersonate and undermine his father’s scholarly critics. Arrested in New York City, Raphael, with his family’s support, denies the charges. But the scandal overlays an already contentious debate about the Dead Sea Scrolls, adding another argument where many say the evidence disfavors Norman Golb.

By Sara Jerome
Published: June 1st, 2009

There's not much new in the article, but it does summarize the current state of the question regarding his work. Excerpt:

Though dispassionately argued, Golb’s claims of academic bias have gained as little traction as his Scrolls theory. As Gregory Sterling, dean of Notre Dame’s Graduate School and a professor who has written on the Scrolls, put it, “I’ve had proposals turned down and I’ve had proposals accepted—it’s part of the world of scholarship. My own view is that personal bias doesn’t play much of a role in this. Most people make the effort to be fair. They do make mistakes.”

He adds with a laugh,“The people who’ve turned me down made a mistake. We all feel that way.”

Sterling interprets Golb’s arguments about academic bias as potentially indicative of desperation, an attempt to shift the argument because he is unable to advance his claims about the Scrolls themselves. Notre Dame professor and Scrolls editorial committee member James VanderKam echoes this notion: “I doni’t think his viewpoint has been unfairly excluded. I think people have been unconvinced working with the evidence.”

But despite academic disagreements, and perhaps as a testament to Golb’s scholarly decorum, peers in Golb’s field still greatly respect the man himself, along with much of his work. His arguments outside the Scrolls debate have gained much greater support, and have often been ground-breaking. Sterling called him a “gentleman” and Ulrich noted he is a “great scholar,” who does not take to theories that are “sensational.”

The piece also confirms that both Golb and his son Raphael deny the widely reported criminal charges of impersonating another scholar online which Raphael is facing.

Background here.

BIBLICAL "LEPROSY" is discussed briefly in the Jerusalem Post:

Over the many decades since 1887, [the Hansen Government Hospital in Jerusalem] has housed and treated many thousands of victims of Hansen's disease, named for Norwegian researcher Dr. Gerhard Henrik Armeur Hansen after he discovered in 1883 that leprosy is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium leprae. This pathogen is closely related to the rod-shaped bacillus that causes tuberculosis but is much less infectious. In fact, Hansen attempted to infect himself with it but failed.

[...]

THE LEPROSY (tzara'at in Hebrew) mentioned 55 times in the Bible that has terrified humanity since ancient times gave Hansen's disease a bad rap. Dermatologists say the condition that struck Miriam for speaking against her brother Moses (for marrying a Cushite woman), Naaman (in Kings II) and King Uziah (in Chronicles II) was a disease that turned their skin (and even hair) white; this symptom is connected to vitiligo - an autoimmune condition in which skin pigments are destroyed. In the Bible, this illness was regarded as divine punishment for "evil talk" and other sins. It is also described as afflicting the walls of buildings, leather garments and other clothing.

But the great Jewish sage and physician Maimonides presciently wrote during the Middle Ages that there was no connection between the biblical disease and what later became known as Hansen's. The word "leper" is a metaphor, a symbol of stigma. For many centuries, "leprosy" was considered a curse of God, often associated with sin. It did not kill, but neither did it seem to end. Instead, it lingered for years, causing the tissues to degenerate and deforming the body. Most people don't believe it still exists. Leprosy is unfortunately the name still used in the US, Brazil and India for the bacterial disease, and the disease is still a major health problem in many parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

But Hansen's does not turn the skin white. To blame for the confusion - which condemned endless victims of Hansen's to abandonment by their families and confinement in institutions so as not to "spread" it, was the Third Century BCE Greek Septuagint mistranslation of the Hebrew text. For the word tzara'at, the translators erroneously used the word leprosum, the adjectival form of the Greek word lepra, according to Ruth Wexler, a religious nurse who has been working with Hansen's patients at the Rehov Marcus hospital since 1988.

A little more background is here.

SAMARITAN NEWS, CONTINUED: Tom Heneghan has another article on the Samaritans, this one in the Independent. Seems to cover pretty much the same material as in the Reuters piece.

The Good (but endangered) Samaritans

Famous for helping others, the Israelite sect has so few members that they are embracing internet dating and marrying out to survive

By Tom Heneghan

Sunday, 7 June 2009

Whatever happened to the original Samaritans? At the time of the late Roman Empire, there were more than a million of them, but, by the last century, they were down to just 146 members. And so now, these guardians of an ancient faith with a famous cameo role in the Bible are using surprisingly modern methods to keep their tiny community alive.

[...]

Background here.

PHOENICIAN WATCH: Live dangerously and die with a smile on your face - whether you want to or not.

Ancient Death-Smile Potion Decoded?
James Owen
for National Geographic News
June 2, 2009

Thousands of years before the Joker gassed comic book victims into a grinning death, Phoenician colonists on the island of Sardinia (map) were forcing smiles on the faces of the dead.

Now scientists say they know just how the ancient seafaring traders created the gruesome smiles some 2,800 years ago—not with a toxic gas like Batman's nemesis but with a plant-based potion.

And someday that plant might be used to Botox-like effect, perhaps reducing rather than adding smile lines, the researchers speculate.

[...]

The thought of lots of Hollywood celebrities going around with scary, hemlock water-dropwort induced smiles is, well, scary.

Slow news day.

PRESIDENT OBAMA quoted the Talmud in his Cairo speech:

The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."

The reference is b. Gittin 59b.

AN UPDATE in the Toronto Star on the coming Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition in the Royal Ontario Museum:

A look at life in the Holy Land in days of Jesus

Jun 04, 2009 04:30 AM
Stuart Laidlaw
Faith and ethics reporter

The Royal Ontario Museum has months of programming ready with speakers from around the world coming to Toronto to talk about the Dead Sea Scrolls, which go on display later this month.

"They are some of the most noted Dead Sea scholars of our time," says Julian Siggers, vice-president of programs and content communication. "But they will be presenting in a very populist format."

The Anne Tanenbaum Lecture Series begins June 23, four days before the historic exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls opens on the 27th.

This is in addition to the Director's Signature Series of lectures already underway featuring political commentator Christopher Hitchens last week, author A.J. Jacobs next Tuesday, and social critic Camille Paglia on June 16.

The aim will be to help ordinary people understand the importance of the scrolls and become engaged in the exhibit, he said.

Weekend programming for families has been planned for the summer and fall to help visitors understand the food and the culture of 2,000 years ago, when the scrolls were written.

The scrolls, discovered a little more than 60 years ago just as the modern Jewish state of Israel was coming into being, date from the time of Jesus, and are considered one of the most important archeological discoveries of the 20th century.

The first lecture, by University of Notre Dame professor Eugene Ulrich, will look at the impact of the scrolls on our understanding of Old and New Testaments.

[...]

Hindy Najman of the University of Toronto is also quoted and is on the lineup of speakers. The full list of speakers can be found here.

MORE SAMARITAN NEWS: Tom Heneghan, writer of the Reuters article noted yesterday, has a post on the Reuters Faith World Blog, Visiting the Samaritans on their holy West Bank mountain, which contains background information. (Be sure also to check out the update to yesterday's post, with a letter from Sharon Sullivan Dufour.)

Also relevant, on the IDF website note this Invitation to the Grand Opening of the Good Samaritan Mosaic Museum. Excerpt:

The site, identified with the biblical city of Ma'ale Adumin, is now home to the first museum of its kind in Israel and one of the largest in the world, which will display mosaics and other archeological findings discovered in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip. Additional exhibits include mosaics and artifacts from Jewish and Samaritan synagogues, as well as various objects found in Christian churches.

(Via Joseph I. Lauer.)

AN UPDATE ON THE SAMARITANS appears in a Reuters article:

Samaritans use modern means to keep ancient faith
Tue Jun 2, 2009 9:58pm EDT

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

KIRYAT LUZA, West Bank (Reuters) - Guardians of an ancient faith with a cameo role in the Bible, the 750 surviving followers of the Samaritan religion are using surprisingly modern methods to keep their tiny community alive.

Internet acquaintances, mail-order brides and pre-nuptial genetic tests have all become familiar to Samaritans trying to plan future generations despite a shortage of young women within their own tight-knit community.

Such openness to the outside world seems baffling in a group that considers itself the original Israelites and upholds rigid traditions about diet, sex and the Sabbath

[...]

For an earlier article about Shura, see here.

UPDATE (4 June): In response to this article, Sharon Sullivan Dufour, North American Representative of the A.B. Institute of Samaritan Studies, e-mails:

Dear Jim:

I am writing from Holon, Israel, near the end of a three week visit in which I spent the past 7 days upon the summit of Mount Gerizim, living in the Kiryat Luza neighborhood among the Israelite Samaritans. I was so pleased, as I always am, to see PaleoJudaica cover articles on the Israelite Samaritans. As the North American Representative of the A.B. Institute of Samaritan Studies I would like to make a few comments on the article by Tom Heneghan.

It is unfortunate that the Israelite Samaritans are to this day judged by standards of later Jewish traditions, and not to the written Torah (Pentateuch) itself which the Samaritans hold to fervently in determining all matters of their religious tradition. It should not be considered baffling at all that in 1924 one of the prominent priests, Abraham b. Phinhas on behalf of the High Priest Yitzhaq b. Amram [1855-1932] lifted a long-held ban against marriages with the Jewish community, and allowed a few men to marry women from the Jewish community because the Samaritans have kept the law found in Deuteronomy17:8-9 that allocates authority to the High Priest in matters of practices that are not clearly stated in Torah, and because the Israelite Samaritans consider the Jews as part of the ancient people of Israel. Therefore, in 1924 the priests had very little difficulty in making the decision in favor of marriage for four male individuals who otherwise would not have had wives, nor procreated to carry on their family line. Recently it was decided by the High Priest Shalom b. Amram [1922-2004] that marriages were acceptable with non-Israelite girls from other religions due to the lack of girls among the Israelite Samaritans. For the Torah itself is not according to the later Jewish practice of tracing matrilineal descent, but traces it through the males of whom several married non-Israelite wives: such as the wife of Moses. The Israelite Samaritans translate the word in Numbers 12:1 "Kaashet" as "Beautiful" relating to Zipporah, with no meaning of ethnicity. Onkelos, the famous Jewish convert of the first century CE and nephew of the Roman Emperor Titus, suggested that the true meaning was not one of nationality, “Cushite” but had a true meaning of “beautiful.” In addition several of the Patriarchs took wives from outside the Israelite faith, such as the wife of Joseph, and the wife of Judah, and the Canaanite wife of Simeon.

Secondly, the current practice of Samaritan men who marry outside of the Samaritan community is no longer a matter of necessity due to genetic defects, nor to a lack of women. The current practice is based upon the change in religious tradition that was decided in 1924 by the High Priest Yitzhaq b. Amram and currently a matter of choice among some Samaritan males. Many Samaritan men don’t like the idea of making a match within the community to a woman they have known all their lives, but prefer it be based on love and followed by the condition that she joins the community, and practices all of the commandments of the Torah according to the Israelite Samaritan Tradition. It should be noted that there is no ritual conversion process for these women.

Lastly, I am in Israel working with Israelite Samaritan Benyamim Tsedaka, and here as an advisory member in a recently awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Grant with this goal: to bring together religious studies scholars and members of the Israelite Samaritan community – two groups that have a significant stake in the cultural and scholarly value of the (Michigan State) university’s Samaritan archive – through an online environment in which they can view and interpret the Samaritan texts, interact with members of their own communities, and interact with one another. See full article here: http://www.cal.msu.edu/Samaritan.php

You may notice in the article that the Samaritan manuscript collection was a donation on behalf of the family of E.K. Warren, a humanitarian in the early 1900s who played a major role in reversing the population decline (at that time only 146 individuals) among the Samaritans who nearly were an extinct people. On May 25, 2009 Warren’s great grandson, Charles “Gus” Whalen accepted the posthumous Samaritan Medal of Peace on behalf of his great grandfather by the High Priest of the Israelite Samaritans, Elazar b. Tsedaka, the High Priest since February 2004. See article here: http://blmc.enr-corp.com/UploadDir/oneKIT/MC80404/1005688/index.html Benyamim Tsedaka and I are sole partners in an historical project of the first English translation of the Israelite Samaritan version of the Pentateuch (SP), parallel to the English translation of the Jewish Text (MT), to be published this year.

There's more on Sharon and this Samaritan Pentateuch translation here.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: The BBC is taking Jewish-Temple denial in Palestinian circles rather more seriously than it deserves.

Disputed facts under ground in Jerusalem

By Tim Franks
BBC News, Jerusalem

CRUCIBLE OF A CRUCIBLE OF A CRUCIBLE

Broadcast journalism does not just depend on accuracy and impartiality. Unfortunately, it also demands concision.

And, so pity the reporter who has to deal with a story about that - albeit important - bit of Jerusalem "known to Jews as the Temple Mount, and to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary". That's five seconds of what may be your 40-second news piece for radio.

The reason for this circumlocution is what we politely call "competing narratives".

[...]

Here are the narratives:

The Western Wall was built by King Herod, 2,000 years ago. Jewish tradition - and western scholarly consensus - holds that it was one of four walls which supported the huge plaza on which the Second Temple was rebuilt.

[...]

Not everyone agrees that the wall is the only remaining part of the Temple complex, destroyed by the Romans in AD70.

Al-Quds University states, on its website, that "the Al-Aqsa compound (ie the Haram al-Sharif - site of al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest site in Islam) cannot possibly be in the same place as the first or second temple".

[...]

There is muddle here, and Mr. Franks misquotes the Al-Quds University website. The relevant passage (my bold font) in context is this:

The "temple" issue dominates the politics about Jerusalem today. An assumption is made that the present Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa compound is the same location of the "Temple Mount" or "Mount Moriah." But as Ernest L. Martin has demonstrated (working strictly within biblical scholarship), the Al-Aqsa compound cannot possibly be in the same place as the first or second temple. Further, what is called the "first temple," associated with the legendary Solomon, was in fact a pre-monotheistic place where many gods were worshipped. As scholars like Herbert Niehr document, the "first temple" was dominated by Syro-Phoenician traits and appealed to pagan worshippers living in the area. Various "pagan" sites existed until after Constantine converted to Christianity in the early 4th century. At that time, Constantine's mother Helena determined many biblical sites, most coinciding with pagan temple locations.

The passage actually says, correctly, that the Al-Aqsa compound is not the site of one of the Temples. But this specific part of the platform (which is a Seleucid southern extension of the original platform) is the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, not the Dome of the Rock. The latter (the site of the Dome of the Rock) may be the site of the Temple(s) - most reconstructions put the Temple there and all of them close by on the platform. The exact location of the First and Second Temples in the area of the Herodian Temple platform is debated, but not that they stood somewhere within what is now that platform.

That said, Mr. Franks's misquote does seem to reflect more or less correctly the claim of the Al-Quds website, which continues:

The Wailing or "Western" Wall is a focus of Jewish veneration. It is a site associated with a past memory, as Moshe Dayan once noted. The Wailing Wall is assumed to be what remains of Herod's Temple. But that Herod was a Jew is debated by some and rejected by others (he came from tribes east of the Jordan and had a Hellenistic cultural background). Judaism was different from how some see it today; like Christianity and Islam, it should not be confused with "ethnicity."

Further, the Wailing or "Western" Wall is a most likely candidate for being the wall of a fortress built for Roman legions (as Ernest Martin reports, citing other scholarship). Even if we assume that Herod built a "second temple," the building was reportedly destroyed in the 1st century AD. The Romans, then the Byzantine Christians, had prevented people of the Jewish faith from living in the city for hundreds of years. At other times, the two then-contending religious groups had exchanged expulsions and massacres, particularly before and during the Persian invasion of 614 AD. The hundreds of skulls at the Monastery of Mar Saba are said to be evidence of those massacres. One wonders then, under such circumstances, how the traces of any temple in Jerusalem could possibly have been preserved.

Herod's genetic background is irrelevant here (see here for discussion). The point is that he extensively refurbished (to the point essentially of tearing down and rebuilding) the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount. There is no debate in the specialist literature about the Western Wall and the platform of which it is a part being Herod's Temple platform. The business about it being a Roman fortress is simply nonsense. I have collected evidence for the existence of the Iron-Age II Judean ("Solomonic") Temple here and for the Second and Herodian Temples here. There is no surviving material evidence for the pre-Herodian Temples, but the inferential (literary) case for them is overwhelming and universally accepted by specialists.

There are "competing narratives" here only in the sense that there are "competing narratives" betweeen evolutionary theory and creationism. One is serious scholarship and the other is religious and political propaganda. I have some sympathy for reporters who have to try to sort through all the archaeological complexities of the Temple Mount. (I had help this morning from my colleague, Kristin De Troyer, who just taught a course on the Jerusalem Temple this semester. Any errors in this post are my mistakes, not hers.) But minimally reporters need to get it straight that there is no debate among specialists in specialist literature about the existence of the Iron Age II Judean Temple and the Second and Herodian Temples in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount platform. Again, narratives to the contrary are propaganda, not scholarship.

The fact that Jews and Muslims use different terms for the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary is a separate issue: all it means is that the site means something different (and not mutually exclusive) to Jews (site of the Temples) and Muslims (a stop on the Night Journey or Miraj, Muhammud's visionary ascent to heaven).

The remainder of the article covers the fact that there are differences in the narratives of Jewish and Muslim tour guides in Jerusalem, a point also covered pretty thoroughly by Nadia Abu el-Haj in Facts on the Ground, which I have reviewed here and to which the title of the this article obviously alludes.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: A stone lifted from a Temple Mount excavation twelve years ago has reportedly been returned by the conscience-stricken tourist who nicked it.

Twelve Years after a Stone Disappeared from an Israel Antiquities Authority Excavation South of the Temple Mount, a Tourist from New York Confessed:"I Took It. My Conscience Bothers Me and I Am Asking for Forgiveness"

The stone, which weighs twenty one kilograms, was returned to Jerusalem this week

In 1997, a twenty one kilogram fragment of a marble column disappeared from one of the excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority was conducting south of the Temple Mount.

Several weeks ago, the IAA received an unexpected e-mail from a priest in the state of New York: "I am requesting forgiveness for a member of my congregation", he writes. "The fellow confessed to me that twelve years ago he took a stone from Jerusalem and his conscience has bothered him ever since. I wish to return the stone to Israel and hope that you will forgive the man for his transgression".

A letter from the fellow was attached to the heavy stone fragment, which arrived in Jerusalem in a wooden crate that was specially constructed for the flight back to Israel. ...

This from the Independent Media Review Analysis website. There are links to photos on the IAA website, but I can't find an IAA press release about it. The Jerusalem Diaries blog links to what seems to have been the relevant press release, but that link is no longer working.

The best part of the story is that the stone weighed 21 kilograms. How did he get it out of the country in the first place?

No charges are being pressed.

UPDATE: The IAA press release (temporary URL) is here. (Via Joseph I. Lauer, of course.)

AN ESSAY ON QUMRAN by Robert R. Cargill has been posted at the Bible and Interpretation website:

The Fortress at Qumran: A History of Interpretation

It is possible that Qumran was established as a fort during the Hasmonean period, was abandoned, and was later reoccupied and expanded by Jewish sectarians.

By Robert R. Cargill
Center for the Digital Humanities,
Qumran Visualization Project

UCLA

May 2009

ABSTRACT

Recent research into the archaeology of Khirbet Qumran, the site associated with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, has generated new debate about the origin of the settlement. Many scholars now question the conclusions of the site’s excavator, Roland de Vaux, who argued that the settlement was initially established as a sectarian settlement. Renewed examination of Qumran points to the origin of the settlement as a fortress dating to the Hasmonean period. This article examines the history of the interpretation of Qumran as a fortress, the sudden rejection of this interpretation with the discovery of the scrolls, and the slow and contentious return to this original interpretation. The article demonstrates that it is not necessary to reject the idea that the settlement at Qumran was a fortress in order to argue that later sectarians present at the site were responsible

BOOK REVIEW at BMCR:

Maria-Zoe Petropolou, Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Greek Religion, Judaism, and Christianity, 100 BC to AD 200. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pp. xii, 336. ISBN 978-0-19-921854-7. $120.00.

Reviewed by Paul Dilley, Kansas State University (pdilley@ksu.edu)
Word count: 1337 words

This important book is a survey and analysis of animal sacrifice in Greek polytheism, Judaism, and Christianity, from 100 BC to AD 200, in the eastern Mediterranean. It is part of a recent resurgence of studies on sacrifice in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and its relationship to Judaism and Christianity.1 The author is motivated by "the fact that Christianity is known as a religion with no altars for slaughter, in combination with the historical fact that early Christians came from religious environments where animal sacrifice was practiced" (p. v). Despite this ultimate goal of understanding Christian sacrifice, the work is most useful as a series of individual studies. Petropoulou bases her research almost entirely upon textual sources, both literary and epigraphic; given the geographical area of study, most of these are in Greek, although she also considers the Mishnah in English translation. Rather than assuming a decline in Greek animal sacrifice in the Roman period, a frequent assertion made popular especially by the influential scholar M.P. Nilsson, Petropolou demonstrates its continued significance during the first two centuries of the development of Christianity. In this context, she then explores Hellenistic Jewish, early Rabbinic, and early Christian attitudes to animal sacrifice.

[...]

HANNIBAL as a role model for business investors:

Leaders & Success
Hannibal Overcame Mountains To Reach Victory

By SEAN HIGGINS, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 05/27/2009 05:19 PM ET

The name of the game was strategy, and Hannibal played it well.

"Of all that befell both the Romans and the Carthaginians, the cause was one man and one mind: Hannibal's," wrote the ancient Roman historian Polybius in his account of the Second Punic War.

Hannibal (247-183 B.C.) was the greatest military genius of antiquity, a master of battlefield tactics and long-term strategy. For 16 years he fought the mighty Roman legions, chalking up victory after victory. Only the failures of other Carthaginian leaders let Rome survive at all.

[...]

LARRY SCHIFFMAN lectured recently in Manchester on the Dead Sea Scrolls:

English Community Prepares for Holiday With Dead Sea Scrolls Lecture

By Chana Kroll (Chabad.org)
May 27, 2009 3:30 PM

Few if any archaeological finds in the past century have elicited the interest or controversy that has surrounded the Dead Sea Scrolls. With that in mind, Jewish residents of Manchester, England, sat down to learn more about the scrolls, and what they can and cannot tell researchers, from one of the world’s leading scholars on the topic, New York University professor Lawrence H. Schiffman.

Schiffman, who serves as chair of NYU’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and is a member of the university’s Centers for Ancient and Near Eastern Studies, began his pre-Shavuot address at the Beis Menachem Community Centre – a Chabad-Lubavitch educational institution in Manchester – by referring to what he called the “mystique” of the scrolls.

[...]

ALL THINGS ARE BETTER IN KOINE:



I love it.

(Via Helen Ingram on Facebook.)

GEZA VERMES gave a lecture recently on Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls which is summarized in the Bournemouth Daily Echo:

Professor’s quest for the ‘real’ Jesus

7:00pm Wednesday 27th May 2009

By Fiona Pendlebury »

JESUS was a charismatic Jewish teacher rather than the divine figure of Christianity.

That is one of the claims of Professor Geza Vermes, an expert on the historical Jesus, and one of the first people to examine the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Prof Vermes, who is Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at Oxford University, gave a talk to a packed audience at the Orthodox Synagogue in Bournemouth on the historical Jesus. He has penned several books on the subject.

[...]

KILROY HIC ERAT. Ben Witherington discusses ancient graffiti for Biblical Archaeology Review in "Biblical Views: The Writing on the Wall."

HAPPY SHAVUOT (Festival of Weeks) to all those celebrating. It begins this evening at sundown. More here.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Haaretz reports on some recent developments. Yesterday:

PA minister: Hand Temple Mount over to global Islamic group
By Avi Issacharoff, Aluf Benn, Barak Ravid and Jack Khoury, Haaretz Correspondents
Tags: peace process

The newly appointed minister for Jerusalem affairs in the Palestinian Authority cabinet, Hatem Abdel Khader, has released a statement Monday noting that he favors transferring control of the Temple Mount to the 57-member Islamic Conference Organization in the framework of an Israel-PA peace agreement.

Haaretz reported last week on the P.A.'s willingness to transfer control of the Temple Mount to the organization. "The most important thing is to end the Israeli occupation," Abdel Khader also said.

PA president Mahmoud Abbas is to meet Thursday in Washington with President Barack Obama, in their first meeting since Obama took office.

[...]

Today:

Mounting opposition
By Zvi Bar'el
Tags: East Jerusalem, Palestinians

The announcement by Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), to the effect that the PA is willing to transfer the holy places in Jerusalem to Islamic sovereignty in exchange for genuine Israeli compromises, was ostensibly supposed to constitute a breakthrough.

But that same Islamic sovereignty does not particularly thrill the foreign ministers of the 57 countries that met at the end of the week in Damascus for the Islamic Conference Organization. The proposal did not even come up for discussion. Instead, the participants mainly discussed the wording of the decisions condemning the construction and excavation activities being conducted by Israel in the Temple Mount area, whose purpose is the "Judaization of Jerusalem."

Not only can the proposal to transfer the Temple Mount to Islamic sovereignty not be defined legally - since what legal significance is there to the term "religious sovereignty" - it also angers some Fatah members, who say that "if the proposal really is valid, it overturns the vision of Yasser Arafat, who always adhered to the viewpoint that a Palestinian state without Jerusalem as its capital and the Palestinian flag on Haram al Sharif [the Temple Mount], is not a state."

Although Arafat had a relatively flexible viewpoint when it came to the religious status of Jerusalem, and always made a point of mentioning that it is holy to Christians and Muslims, in order to check any attempt to internationalize the city, when it came to control and sovereignty he was sharp as a razor.

[...]

And then it starts to get complicated ...

EPHRAIM ISAAC has become an editorial adviser for a new online encylopedia about Ethiopia, called Ethiopedia.com.

More on Professor Isaac here and here. And he has a Facebook page here.

THE BOOK OF ESTHER'S ORIGIN is explained by Oxford Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley in a new book reviewed in BMCR:

Stephanie Dalley, Esther's Revenge at Susa. From Sennacherib to Ahasuerus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xvi, 262; maps 4, figs. 53. ISBN 978-0-19-921663-5. $99.00.

Reviewed by Gary Beckman, University of Michigan (sidd@umich.edu)
Word count: 936 words

The Book of Esther is perhaps the oddest work included within the canon of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The story is set in Iranian Susa--far away from ancient Israel and Judah, and the biblical God is not mentioned even once in the text. Rather, we encounter a folkloristic narrative in which a murderous plot against the Jews of the Persian Empire is thwarted and turned back upon its originator without the aid of divine intervention, solely through the efforts of a virtuous, beautiful, and courageous woman. While there is still much debate among practitioners of biblical studies as to the historical veracity of many of the tales contained in the Books of the Pentateuch, Samuel, and Kings, few outside of fundamentalist circles seriously maintain that the widespread massacre of anti-Semites described at the conclusion of the Book of Esther--and mentioned in no independent ancient source--actually took place. And it was already recognized more than a century ago that the names of the protagonists of the work, Esther and her uncle Mordecai, are not ordinary Hebrew personal designations, but rather mutations of the names of the Mesopotamian divinities Ishtar (goddess of love and war) and Marduk (patron deity of the city of Babylon).

In this ambitious book, Stephanie Dalley, a cuneiform scholar from Oxford, sets herself the task of explaining just how this work came into being and why it entered the sacred literature of the Jews. She is well prepared to tackle this problem, having over the past decade devoted particular attention in her research to the precipitation of Assyrian and Babylonian traditions in both Classical Greek and biblical sources, discussing, for example, the "Hanging Gardens of Babylon," Semiramis, and the wives of Sargon II of Assyria (see bibliography, pp. 230-31).

[...]

The theory in brief:

... In a nutshell, she speculates that in Assyrian religion, significant historical incidents could be translated to the divine plane, incorporated into mythology, and reenacted in turn by humans in ritual, as documented in the obscure Akkadian-language liturgical scripts known to scholars as "Cultic Commentaries" (113-20). In particular, Dalley further postulates that the wars of Assurbanipal against the Elamites, whose capital was at Susa, were reflected in a festival of Ishtar of Nineveh (156). Consequently, the cultic calendar pertaining to this avatar of the goddess and various elements of her worship were passed on in oral and written tradition after the fall of Assyria, to reappear in altered form in the story of Esther. The resultant narrative entered the lore of the Jews as an aetiology for the festival of purim "lots," the etymology of whose designation unquestionably points to an Assyrian origin (167).

It will be interesting to see how convincing other Assyriologists find the reconstruction of this cultic calendar. The reviewer registers a very Scottish verdict of "not proven."

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: A new effort to unroll those carbonized scrolls from Herculaneum.

Computer scientist to 'unroll' papyrus scrolls buried by Vesuvius [BC-SCI-VESUVIUS-SCROLLS:LX]

(Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) LEXINGTON, Ky. _ On Aug. 24, 79 A.D., Italy's Mount Vesuvius exploded, burying the Roman towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii under tons of super-heated ash, rock and debris in one of the most famous volcanic eruptions in history.

Thousands died. But somehow, hundreds of papyrus scrolls survived _ sort of _ in a villa at Herculaneum thought to have been owned at one time by Julius Caesar's father-in-law.

The scrolls contained ancient philosophical and learned writings. But they were so badly damaged _ literally turned to carbon by the volcanic heat _ that they crumbled when scholars first tried to open them centuries later.

The remaining scrolls, stored away in Italy and France, haven't been read _ or even unrolled _ since 79 AD.

Now, a computer scientist from the University of Kentucky hopes that modern digital technology will allow him to peer inside two of the fragile scrolls _ without physically opening them _ and unlock secrets they have held for almost 2,000 years.

Brent Seales, the Gill professor of engineering in UK's computer science department, will use an X-Ray CT scanning system to collect interior images of the scrolls' rolled-up pages. Then, he and his colleagues hope to digitally "unroll" the scrolls on a computer screen so scholars can read them.

"It will be a challenge because today these things look more like charcoal briquets than scrolls," Seales said. "But we're using a non-invasive scanning system, based on medical technology, that lets you slice through an object and develop a three-dimensional data set without having to open it, just as you would do a CT scan on a human body." The two scrolls that Seales and his team will work on are stored at the French National Academy in Paris. The UK group will spend July working there.

[...]

Seales sees other potential applications for the system, including deciphering otherwise unreadable written materials for homeland security purposes. But, he also admits that there are other ancient tests he'd like to examine.

"There are pieces of the Dead Sea scrolls that still haven't been opened yet," he said. "I've talked with some members of teams that work with those materials, and I'd love to see what more we could wring out of them.

"I guess I just like solving mysteries."

Indeed. Non-invasive scanning techniques are the way of the future. For a similar project in the United Kingdom, see here. For more on technological efforts to recover the text of ancient manuscripts, see here. (The University of Kentucky project is also mentioned briefly.)

A NEW COMMENTARY ON 2 MACCABEES is reviewed in BMCR:

Daniel R. Schwartz, 2 Maccabees. Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008. Pp. x, 617. ISBN 9783110191189. $158.00.

Reviewed by Frank Shaw, Cincinnati, Ohio (feshaw72@email.com)
Word count: 3053 words

The publication of a full-length commentary in English on 2 Maccabees is a rare occurrence (the only other one was a quarter century ago), so the appearance of Schwartz's tome is both needed and welcome. His mentor Menahem Stern had just begun work on a 2 Macc. commentary when he was murdered during the first intifada in 1989, and the task of continuing the project fell to Schwartz. Originally published in Hebrew in 2004, the book has undergone significant changes in the English version. General comments between his translation and the verse-by-verse commentary have been added; the bibliography has been improved and updated; statements only related to modern Hebrew have been dropped; various revisions and corrections have been made, some stemming from reviewers of the Hebrew edition. Important too is Schwartz's claim of an "English translation [that] is not only new but also qualitatively different from the Hebrew one." Here he means it is "freer and, consequently, more idiomatically English" (vii). Naturally the English version will be far more widely read than the Hebrew one.

[...]

Via the Agade list.

THE SYRIAC MOR GABRIEL MONASTERY in Turkey has won the first of four land dispute cases currently under litigation:

Christian monastery in Turkey wins back land
Fri May 22, 2009 11:28pm IST

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - One of the world's oldest functioning Christian monasteries has won a legal battle to have land it had owned for centuries restored to it, after a Turkish court ruled on Friday it could not be claimed by the state.

The dispute over the boundaries of Mor Gabriel, a fifth-century Syriac Orthodox monastery in eastern Turkey, had raised concerns over freedom of religion and human rights for non-Muslim minorities in Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country and European Union aspirant.

In a statement, the Syriac Universal Alliance (SUA), a leading Syriac group based in Sweden, said a Turkish court in Midyat had reversed an initial decision by the land registry court to grant villages some 110 hectares (272 acres) of monastery land.

[...]

ARAMAIC WATCH: Turnabout is fair play?

Arameans call for reversal of place names

(Today's Zaman)

The Syriac Universal Alliance (SUA), an umbrella organization for Aramean federations, appealed to Minister of Interior Beşir Atalay on Monday for the “reversal of the Turkification of ancient Aramaic place names” and for Arameans to be given the right to replace their Turkish surnames with their original Aramaic family names.

[...]

IMPRESSIVE:

College degree awarded to high school student

By Judy Harrison
BDN Staff

HAMPDEN, Maine — Amaris Temoso Buchanan was awarded a college degree before earning her high school diploma.

The 17-year-old senior at Bangor Christian Schools on Sunday received an Associate of Arts degree in biblical languages from Grace Evangelical College and Seminary in Bangor. She won’t be handed her high school diploma until June 5.

“Learning languages always intimidated me,” she said at Grace’s intimate graduation ceremony at Community Church of the Open Door on Main Road North, “but once I began studying, I just fell in love with it.”

The languages the Southwest Harbor student learned have not been spoken regularly for centuries. She studied ancient Greek, Hebrew and Syriac — the languages in which the books of the Torah and the Bible were written.

[...]

The reporter is a little confused: Syriac is the post-biblical Aramaic dialect of Edessa, but parts of the Bible are written in Aramaic. In any case, very well done, Amaris!

THE USE OF UNPROVENANCED ARTIFACTS is defended by Dorothy D. Resig in Biblical Archaeology Review:

The Valuable Contributions of “Worthless” Artifacts

by Dorothy D. Resig

A trend has developed recently in the archaeological establishment: Ignore all unprovenanced artifacts. This approach is especially popular among field archaeologists, who believe that objects without a stratified context are worthless. The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) have even banned the publication of articles and the presentation of papers about unprovenanced objects from their journals and conferences.

Other scholars reject this view, however. As Swiss Biblical scholar and religious historian Othmar Keel said in an interview with BAR, “I don’t think we can write a history of the ancient Near East without relying on unprovenanced material.”* That prompted us to take a look at several unprovenanced artifacts—all published in BAR—that have contributed significantly to our understanding of the Biblical world.

[...]

Some thoughts.

1. There are two problems with unprovenanced artifacts. First, their authenticity is not obvious, as in the case of an excavated artifact, and so they must be authenticated by other means and this may not always be possible. Second, important information has been lost when the archaeological context of the artifact is severed from it and discarded. The first is a reason not to use unprovenanced artifacts, or at least to use them with considerable caution. The second is regrettable, but is not a reason not to use them.

2. I don't think the Amarna tablets or the Dead Sea Scrolls are good examples to use here, because subsequent excavations at the relevant sites demonstrated their provenance and confirmed their authenticity. Thus the second problem above still applies, but much less the first.

3. The bullae and, to a lesser degree the incantation bowls, are quite problematical because they are comparatively easy to forge (unlike, say, the Moabite Stone).

4. We've been warned that a Monster Forgery Machine has been polluting Hebrew and Aramaic epigraphy for decades, making the market in unprovenanced inscriptions highly unreliable, although so far the Israel forgery trial has not produced compelling evidence that this is so. Still, starting just from first principles, there is reason to worry about this possibility. But meanwhile, as a rule of thumb, I suggest that the cooler and more exciting the unprovenanced artifact, especially if it relates closely to already known and treasured texts such as the Bible, the more we should suspect it is a forgery and demand convincing authentication.

TWO NEW INSCRIPTIONS from the pre-Exilic period have been found in Jerusalem. This Arutz Sheva article summarizes and has photos:

Ancient First Temple Artifacts Uncovered in Jerusalem

by Hana Levi Julian

(IsraelNN.com) Archaeologists from Israel’s Antiquities Authority (IAA) have revealed two important artifacts recently discovered in Jerusalem, both dating from the First Temple Period (8-7 BCE).

The first, a bone seal engraved with the name “Shaul” was found in an excavation being conducted under the auspices of the IAA, in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority in the Walls Around Jerusalem National Park, located in the City of David.

The dig, which is underwritten by the “Ir David Foundation” (City of David) is being carried out under the direction of Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the IAA.

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The second artifact, an ancient jar handle bearing the Hebrew name “Menachem” was uncovered in the neighborhood of Ras el ‘Amud during an excavation prior to construction of a girls’ school by the Jerusalem municipality.

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There's a more detailed treatment of the Shaul seal on the IAA website (temporary URL), with a downloadable photo here. (Via Lauer and Sasson.)

I'm doing better, but am going back to my nap now.

SORRY - Have a cold and am too muzzy to blog today.

PROFESSOR MOSHE WEINFELD passed away recently, and there is now an obituary by Nili Wazana posted at the SBL site. It opens:

Moshe Weinfeld, 1925–2009

But Where Can Wisdom Be Found?
Prof. Moshe Weinfeld passed away on April 29, 2009, on Israel’s 61st Independence Day. Weinfeld’s wisdom was biblical in its breadth and depth, both “a plastered cistern, which loseth not a drop,” and a “welling spring.” Like the biblical hakham, his knowledge was all-encompassing, encyclopedic, “from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall.” True to his name, “Moshe was a very humble man,” and his modesty accompanied his approach to every person, both in his personal and in his academic dealings. In his scholarship, he “sought to discover useful … truthful sayings,” yet he did not present them as the only, final, and definitive word, always leaving room for further discussion. ...

May his memory be for a blessing.

(Via the Agade list.)

JACOB NEUSNER AND THE POPE DEBATE JESUS:

CAN THE TORAH BE AMENDED?
Pope & Rabbi Square Off Over the Teachings of Jesus

May 2009By Hurd Baruch (New Oxford Review)

Hurd Baruch, a retired attorney living in Tucson, Arizona, is the author of Light on Light: Illuminations of the Gospel of Jesus Christ from the Mystical Visions of the Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich (MaxKol Communications, 2004).

Lives there a man who actually deplores Jesus' Sermon on the Mount? Yes, there does. His name is Jacob Neusner, and he is a highly esteemed and scholarly orthodox rabbi and professor, with more than 900 books to his credit, including several that take Jesus to task for His teachings. Rabbi Neusner views the teachings of Jesus as contrary to the Torah, which he regards as the ultimate and final expression of God's will and commandments. (The Torah is God's revelation to Moses at Mt. Sinai as set forth in the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch.) Neusner considers that measuring stick fair and appropriate, given Jesus' statement that He came not to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them (Mt. 5:17-20).

The culmination of Neusner's negative analyses, A Rabbi Talks With Jesus, drew the comment from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger that it was "by far the most important book for the Jewish-Christian dialogue to have been published in the last decade." That was in 1993 -- so why bring it up now? Because Cardinal Ratzinger is now our Holy Father, and he has written his own book, Jesus of Nazareth, in which he frames his sixty-page analysis of the Sermon on the Mount ("the new Torah brought by Jesus") partially as a rebuttal to the imagined dialogues Neusner would like to have had with Jesus and His disciples, had he been alive in their time. Referring to Neusner's dialogues from A Rabbi Talks With Jesus, Pope Benedict writes, "More than other interpretations known to me, this respectful and frank dispute between a believing Jew and Jesus, the son of Abraham, has opened my eyes to the greatness of Jesus' words and to the choice that the Gospel places before us."

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UPDATE (18 May): One correction to the above: Rabbi Professor Neusner was ordained a rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the seminary of Conservative Judaism, in 1960 and therefore is not an Orthodox rabbi. Also, there's another review of the two books here. (Heads up, Joseph I. Lauer.)

PROFESSOR EMANUEL TOV has won the Israel Prize! Here's the Hebrew University press release:

Hebrew University Prof. Emmanuel Tov Wins Israel Prize for Research in Bible

February 26, 2009 - Hebrew University Prof. Emmanual Tov will be awarded the Israel Prize 2009 for his research in the Bible, the Education Minister Prof Yuli Tamir announced.

In explaining their decision, the awarding panel stated that, Prof. Emmanuel Tov of the Hebrew University's Department of Bible Studies and the Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies is ''a leading researcher of international renown in the research of early versions of the Bible and its formation in ancient times. He made the most important contributions to research of the Septuagint and research of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Prof. Tov wrote the fundamental books on using the Septuagint in Bible research and on textual critique of the Bible. He has published most of the complex material of the Dead Sea Scrolls and created databases for the research of Greek translations of the Scrolls.''

Prof. Emmanuel Tov was born in Amsterdam in 1941. When the Germans occupied Holland, his parents sent him, at just one year old, to be cared for by a Christian family. At the end of the war, in which his parents perished, Emmanuel moved to his uncle's house in Amsterdam where he studied at the Classical Gymnasium and at Talmud Torah. From the age of 14, he became active in the youth movement 'Ichud HaBonim' in Holland and then went to Israel for a year where he coordinated the movement's activities, programs and training.

In 1961 he immigrated to Israel, settled in Jerusalem and studied Bible and Classics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He completed his master's degree at the department of Bible Studies and traveled to the United States to attend a program at the department of Near Eastern Studies at Harvard University. While he was in the United States, he worked as a teaching assistant and began writing his doctoral thesis. On his return to Israel, he began working as an assistant at the University Institute in Haifa and at the Department of Bible Studies at the Hebrew University. He became a professor at the Hebrew University in 1986 and has taught there until today. In 1990, he was appointed the J. L. Magnes Professor of Bible, and since 1991 he has served as head editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project, preparing all the fragments from the Judean Desert for publication in a forty-volume series.

Prof. Tov is married to Lika. They have three children - Ophira, Ariel and Amitai - and four grandchildren.

Sorry to be so late on this one, but it got less press than it deserved and I was way too busy this semester. Belated congratulations to Professor Tov! A well-deserved honor.

Congratulations also to Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar, who was also a winner of the Israel Prize this year.

ROBERT DEUTSCH has published an article on an epigraphic mystery in Biblical Archaeology Review:

Tracking Down Shebnayahu, Servant of the King
How an antiquities market find solved a 42-year-old excavation puzzle

You can read the article yourself, but it concludes:

Thus, the Shebnayahu seal impression found at Lachish can now be positively identified as belonging to the “servant of the king,” who is very probably the same person against whom Isaiah prophesied and whose tomb still overlooks the Kidron Valley in Jerusalem. He probably sent a letter from King Hezekiah’s court written on papyrus to an official at Lachish. After wrapping the papyrus letter in string, he placed a blob of clay on the string and stamped it with his seal. What the letter said, we will never know.

A few observations:

1. The bulla inscription that provided the solution comes from the antiquities market. A smart forger would produce just this sort of fake, which seemed to solve a longstanding problem. That said, presumably it would be quite difficult to forge a second seal impression when a genuine impression was already available, and this may rule out forgery. But I would like to know more about the authentication of this bulla and I wish Deutsch had addressed the issue.

2. This story well illustrates the antics of Carol Newsom's angel Lacunael, whose divine vocation is to go around smiting ancient inscriptions at just the spots that will leave maddening ambiguities for epigraphers.

3. Robert Deutsch himself is a somewhat controversial subject at present, since he is one of the accused in the (seemingly endlessly) ongoing Israel forgery trial. A BAR promotional e-mail says:

In the current issue of BAR, editor Hershel Shanks explains why we published "Tracking Down Shebnayahu, Servant of the King" by Robert Deutsch, a scholar and antiquities dealer in Israel who has been indicted for forgery. Shanks explains that not only is Deutsch eminently qualified as a scholar but that the Israeli prosecution has failed to produce any evidence of his guilt at the trial that is now entering its fourth year. "Now it is time to apply the rule that a man is considered innocent until proven guilty," says Shanks--and certainly we all benefit from Deutsch's scholarship.

Shanks's editorial in defense of publishing Mr. Deutsch is here. Some background to the forgery trial is here.

MORE ON THE SCROLL BUST: Joseph I. Lauer notes that most of an article in Hamodia ("published in Brooklyn and dated 19 Iyar 5769 - May 13, 2009") has been posted online and it contains new information about scholarly discussion of the document of Miriam Barat Ya‘aqov:

It was written by Miriam bas Yaakov, probably a widow, declaring to her brother-in-law, a brother of her former husband Shaul, that she received all the money promised in her kesubah.

Dr. Chagai Misgav, of Hebrew University, told Hamodia that details in the document reveal much about the way Jews wrote documents in those times. It is dated for Kislev, arba lechurban Yisrael, year four to the destruction of Israel, which Misgav says means the churban of the second Beis Hamikdash.

"This is interesting, since in all other documents written at that time, the year is dated to the rule of the Roman Caesar at the time," says Misgav. "However, since this is not a regular document but a receipt, they didn't write it according to the regular customs but instead wrote the date according to the churban Beis Hamikdash."

Indeed, the Rambam in hilchos Gerushin writes that in those days they would usually write the date on a get according to the years of the king, although there were some who had the custom to refer to the number of years since the churban Beis Hamikdash.

Amir Ganor, director of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Theft in the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), believes that four years after churban Yisrael alludes to the fall of Bar Kochba.

"Since we don't have any other evidence of the Jews dating after the churban Beis Hamikdash yet we have found coins and other evidence of them counting to the years of the Bar Kochba rebellion, this document may be dated to four years after the fall of Bar Kochba," Ganor told Hamodia.

The document is still in the process of being authenticated. The end of the article (Joe says it's five more paragraphs) is only available in the print edition.

Background here.