ON STAGE – Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls:

Kadmos establishes bridges among cultures via theater

(Today's Zaman)

The world knows about mythological Phoenician Prince Kadmos from the ancient texts of Greek mythology in which he is sent to rescue his sister, Europa, from Zeus, who kidnapped her from the shores of Phoenicia.
Now, the spirit of Kadmos, the founder of the Greek alphabet and the ancient Greek city of Thebes, is being revived in a multinational project that brings four Mediterranean countries together around the same ambition: theater.

A pan-Mediterranean production of renowned Israeli director Amos Gitai's “The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness,” the first-ever project by the newly established international theater network Kadmos, will be staged tonight and tomorrow night at the historic Rumeli Fortress on the Bosporus coast. The play's cast brings French, Greek, Spanish, Israeli, Palestinian and Turkish theatrical actors together on the same stage and most notably features veteran French stage and screen actress Jeanne Moreau as its narrator.

Kadmos was formed by France's Avignon Festival, the Grec Festival of Barcelona, Athens' Epidaurus Festival and the İstanbul International Theater Festival with the aim of strengthening cultural ties across the Mediterranean.

[...]

Prominent Turkish stage actor Cüneyt Türel plays the Roman Emperor Titus in Amos Gitai's “The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness,” in which Jeanne Moreau plays the narrator, Josephus Flavius, and Jerome Koenig plays the role of Emperor Vespasianus.

In the play, Flavius narrates the horrors of war, which has become a destiny for all peoples in the Middle East. Besides the story of how Jerusalem was conquered by the Romans, based on accounts by Flavius in the A.D. first century and the Dead Sea scrolls, the play also features quotes from Rainer Maria Rilke and Oscar Wilde. The play recalls a multilingual oratorio as it combines a number of languages, including French, Turkish, Arabic and Hebrew.

“The play is a work of historian Josephus Flavius about the war which the Roman Empire started in order to stamp out the uprisings of the Jews,” notes Dikmen Gürün. “The play, which focuses on concepts such as a nation's homeland, war, oppression and domination, in fact stands against all wars throughout the world. While questioning the violence experienced [in the Middle East] throughout history, Amos Gitai's political stance can clearly be observed in this play.”

[...]

ARAMAIC WATCH? Arutz Sheva has an article on the new stone-jar inscription excavated on Mt. Zion and raises doubt on whether the inscription is in Aramaic or Hebrew:

Stone Vessel with 'Priestly Inscription' Uncovered In Jerusalem

by Hana Levi Julian and Gil Ronen

(IsraelNN.com) A rare 2,000-year-old ritual vessel made of limestone and inscribed with 10 lines of text has been discovered in an excavation near the Zion Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is an unprecedented find, according to Dr. Shimon Gibson, the archaeologist who heads the University of North Carolina team conducting the dig.

Inscription found on Mt. Zion. Israel news photo: UNC

"Such stone vessels were used in connection with maintaining ritual purity related to Temple worship, and they are found in abundance in areas where the priests lived," Gibson reported. "We have found a dozen or more on our site over the past three years. However, to have ten lines of text is unprecedented. One normally might find a single name inscribed, or a line or two, but this is the first text of this length ever found on such a vessel," he said.

Although the letters are clearly visible it will take some time before their meaning can be discerned due to the style of the writing. Gibson estimated in his preliminary report that it could take up to six months to translate the inscription. "It is written in a very informal cursive hand and is quite difficult to read," he explained.

Initially, Gibson thought the inscription was written solely in Aramaic. However, a group of experts consulting on the matter was not convinced; they say there is a possibility that the text contains the sacred name of G-d and is deliberately cryptic.

"Stephen Pfann, of the University of the Holy Land, is leaving open the possibility that it is Hebrew. He has also suggested that the text might have had meaning within a closed circle of priests, similar to texts at Qumran," said Dr. James D. Tabor, co-director of the dig.

[...]

If they are not yet sure what language it is in, that's a good sign that it's a difficult text and decipherment is still at an early stage.

There's also this bit of context:

Also uncovered were at least half a dozen Murex snail shells with holes drilled through them. "Prior to our excavation one or two such shells had been found in all of Jerusalem," Gibson said. "That so many would be found at our site further supports our supposition that we are in a priestly residential area."

Also, Joseph I. Lauer has noted a larger version of that photo of the two lines of the inscription, this at the Mt. Zion excavation website.

Background here.

THE NEW YORK TIMES has been dissing the Pharisees and Philologos calls them out on it in The Forward:

The New York Times: Ignorant and Antisemitic?

On Language

By Philologos
Published July 29, 2009, issue of August 07, 2009.

‘Pharisees on the Potomac” is the headline from a July 18 attack by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd on what she considers to be the moral hypocrisy — “the ancient political art of Tartuffery,” as she calls it — of Republican Party leaders on Capitol Hill.

Let’s stay away from politics. Let’s even stay away from Maureen Dowd, being it’s likely that her column’s headline was written by the editors of the Times’ op-ed page rather than by the columnist herself. Headlines of newspaper and magazine articles are generally an editorial prerogative.

Let’s stick to the word “Pharisee” in its common English sense of a hypocrite who preaches morality to others without practicing it himself. Is this a usage Jews should be up in arms about? Should we be bombarding The New York Times, and others who resort to it, with our protests?

There certainly would seem to be good reasons for doing so. After all, the Pharisees were not just another ancient sect of Jews, like the Sadducees, Essenes and Zealots, who lived toward the end of the Second Temple period; they were the founders of rabbinic tradition and the direct spiritual and intellectual ancestors of the rabbis of the Mishnah and the Talmud who came after them — that is, of normative halachic Judaism as we know it. To perpetuate the English language’s equation of them with self-righteous hypocrites is to perpetuate the belief that Judaism is a self-righteous and hypocritical religion.

Philogos concludes that such usages should be challenged and I agree. One nitpick, though:

The original source of this belief is, of course, Jesus’ remarks about the Pharisees in the New Testament — remarks that owe no small part of their venom to the fact that Jesus was a maverick Pharisee himself who shared many of the Pharisees’ assumptions and values. We rebel most strongly against our own predecessors, and when Jesus is quoted as saying things like, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of extortion and wickedness… you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God,” he is venting his anger and disappointment on those to whom he is religiously closest. A loyal Jew in his fashion, it never would have occurred to him that such statements would form the basis of rabid anti-Jewish sentiments in a new religion he had no intention of founding.

[...]

We know very little about the Pharisees: they are mentioned in the New Testament and by Josephus, both of which have their own not-entirely-reliable agendas. And we can squeeze some more information from the earliest stratum of the oral traditions of the Mishnah, but that still doesn't add up to a complete or clear picture. So it is not at all clear that Jesus was "a maverick Pharisee" or any kind of Pharisee. But the point Philologos is making is valid in a more general sense: Jesus (and also his first-generation followers who transmitted and likely augmented these sayings) was a first-century Jew who shared a great many assumptions with his opponents, who was engaged in an internal dialogue with them, and who would have been horrified at the use later made of these sayings about the Pharisees.

MORE on Martin Abegg's recent lecture at the ROM Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition:

Dead Sea Scrolls almost identical to Pentateuch, Haftorahs

Written by Rick Kardonne (Jewish Tribune)
Tuesday, 28 July 2009

TORONTO – For the most part, the Torah and Jewish prophetic portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which can be seen at the Royal Ontario Museum, are identical to the traditional Pentateuch and Haftorahs. But their authorship remains a topic of scholarly debate.
So said Dr. Martin Abegg, Ben Zion Wacholder Professor of Dead Sea Scrolls Studies at the religious studies department at Trinity Western University in Langley, BC, and co-director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute.

Professor Abegg delivered an enthusiastic speech at the Royal Ontario Museum Signy and Cleophee Eaton theatre last Thursday as part of the Anne Tannenbaum Dead Sea Scrolls lecture series, which coincides with the ROM Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit.

[...]

More background to the exhibition here.

PETRA AND THE NABATEANS are discussed in a BAR article:

Solving the Enigma of Petra and the Nabataeans

by Joey Corbett

For every tourist who visits the ancient city of Petra in modern day Jordan, there is one breathtaking moment that captures all of the grandeur and mystery of this city carved in stone. After passing the final bend of the tortuous narrow canyon that leads into the site (the Siq), one is confronted by the awe-inspiring spectacle of a towering rock-cut façade, its sun-struck sandstone gleaming through the darkness of the canyon.

[...]

It's a nice and nicely illustrated article, although I think it's a little odd that it never mentions that the language of the Nabateans (at least their official written language) was Aramaic.

TISHA B'AV (the Ninth of Av) started last night at sundown. An easy fast to all observing it.

ARAMAIC WATCH: The inscribed stone cup found recently at the Mt. Zion excavation turns out to be written in Aramaic:

J'lem: Rare 2nd Temple inscription found
By JPOST.COM STAFF

A unique ten-line Aramaic inscription on the side of a stone cup commonly used for ritual purity during Second Temple times was recently uncovered during archaeological excavations on Jerusalem's Mount Zion, it was announced Wednesday.

Inscriptions of this kind are extremely rare and only a handful have been found in scientific excavations made within the city.

[...]

The new Aramaic inscription from the first century CE is currently being deciphered by a team of epigraphic experts in an effort to determine the meaning of the text, which is clear but cryptic. The dig also produced a sequence of building remains dating back to the First and Second Temple periods through to Byzantine and Early Islamic periods.

[...]

No word yet on what the inscription says, but the article includes a photo of two lines of it, so I'm sure Aramaists, including blogging Aramaists, will be having a go at it. (I don't have time right now.)

(Via Joseph I. Lauer's list.)

Background here.

THE SHROUD OF TURIN has Aramaic and Hebrew on it?

Traces of Aramaic on Shroud of Turin

Published: July 29, 2009 (CathNews)

As Pope Benedict confirmed his intention to visit the Shroud of Turin next year, French scientist Thierry Castex has revealed that he has found traces of Aramaic on the Shroud.

Pope Benedict confirmed his intention to visit the Shroud of Turin when it goes on public display in Turin's cathedral April 10-May 23, 2010, Catholic News Service reports.

[...]

A recent study by French scientist Thierry Castex has revealed that on the shroud are traces of words in Aramaic spelled with Hebrew letters.

A Vatican researcher, Barbara Frale, told Vatican Radio on July 26 that her own studies suggest the letters on the shroud were written more than 1,800 years ago.

She said that in 1978 a Latin professor in Milan noticed Aramaic writing on the shroud and in 1989 scholars discovered Hebrew characters that probably were portions of the phrase "The king of the Jews."

Count me as interested, but very skeptical. I've not heard anything about this before and I've been following Shroud of Turin news for quite a while. I don't know Thierry Castex, what kind of "scientist" he is, or who this Latin professor in Milan is, or who the unnamed other scholars are. I don't know where this recent study has been published, if it has been. Barbara Frale is a specialist in the Templars and has just published a book on them.

Castex's recent discovery of the word "found" with another word next to it, which still has to be deciphered, "together may mean 'because found' or 'we found'," she said.

What is interesting, she said, is that it recalls a passage in the Gospel of St Luke, "We found this man misleading our people," which was what several Jewish leaders told Pontius Pilate when they asked him to condemn Jesus.

I wouldn't base too much on one word that is still of uncertain meaning.

She said it would not be unusual for something to be written on a burial cloth in order to indicate the identity of the deceased.

I don't know what the basis for this statement is. We have very few Judean burial shrouds from the first century. The only one I know of is the Jerusalem Shroud (see here and here) and it is not inscribed. There is at least one other that is several thousand years older (and of course is not inscribed either). Are there other surviving Roman-era shrouds?

As I said, I am quite skeptical of this report, but I would be happy to read the evidence (with good photographs please) in a scientific (peer-reviewed) publication.

BOOK REVIEW:

Reconstructing a fragmented past
By DAVID SCHONBERG (Jerusalem Post)

Adama Shehora (Black Earth)
By Natalie Messika
(in Hebrew)
Dofen
338 pp.,
NIS 78 (recommended price)

This gripping historical novel, set in the first century CE in Judea, Galilee, Rome and Pompeii, focuses upon two events: the siege and fall of Yodfat (67 CE) in Galilee during the Great Revolt and the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in southern Italy several years later (79 CE) that engulfed the surrounding area, unexpectedly ending in a dramatic moment the lives of many, including the inhabitants of Pompeii.

[...]

The author is an Israeli archaeologist.

JUDAS ISCARIOT in recent scholarship and popular perception (especially as fueled by the Coptic Gospel of Judas) is the subject of a long article in the New Yorker:

Betrayal
Should we hate Judas Iscariot?
by Joan Acocella August 3, 2009

[...]

For two thousand years, Judas has therefore been Christianity’s primary image of human evil. Now, however, there is an effort to rehabilitate him, the result, partly, of an archeological find. In 1978 or thereabouts, some peasants digging for treasure in a burial cave in Middle Egypt came upon an old codex—that is, not a scroll but what we would call a book, with pages—written in Coptic, the last form of ancient Egyptian. The book has been dated to the third or fourth century, but scholars believe that the four texts it contains are translations of writings, in Greek, from around the second century. When the codex was found, it was reportedly in good condition, but it then underwent a twenty-three-year journey through the notoriously venal antiquities market, where it suffered fantastic abuses, including a prolonged stay in a prospective buyer’s home freezer. (This caused the ink to run when the manuscript thawed.) The book was cracked in half, horizontally; pages were shuffled, torn out. By the time the codex reached the hands of restorers, in 2001, much of it was just a pile of crumbs. The repair job took five years, after which some of the book was still a pile of crumbs. Many passages couldn’t be read.

[...]

Acocella concludes:

All this, I believe, is a reaction to the rise of fundamentalism—the idea, Christian and otherwise, that every word of a religion’s founding document should be taken literally. This is a childish notion, and so is the belief that we can combat it by correcting our holy books. Those books, to begin with, are so old that we barely understand what their authors meant. Furthermore, because of their multiple authorship, they are always internally inconsistent. Finally, even the fundamentalists don’t really take them literally. People interpret, and cheat. The answer is not to fix the Bible but to fix ourselves.

Now there's a thought.

Some background to the Gospel of Judas is here.

WHEN CHIASMUS IS OUTLAWED, only outlaws will use chiasmus.

BOOK REVIEW IN BMCR:

Jörg Rüpke, Fasti sacerdotum: A Prosopography of Pagan, Jewish, and Christian Religious Officials in the City of Rome, 300 BC to AD 499. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pp. viii, 1107. ISBN 9780199291137. $399.00.

Reviewed by Linda Zollschan (zollschan@yahoo.com)
Word count: 2575 words

[Table of Contents below]

Scholars of ancient Rome will be delighted that Rüpke's monumental work, Fasti sacerdotum, has been translated into English and thus become accessible to a wider readership. The work of translation was done by David Richardson who has faithfully rendered the original German into English.1 For those unfamiliar with the German edition, its aim was to construct annual lists for the city of Rome of attested priests, cult officials and followers from 300 BCE to 499 CE, lists that included not just pagan priests but also the officials from Jewish and Christian groups. The work falls into two main parts: a compilation of annual lists of priests and religious functionaries and a set of alphabetically arranged individual biographies. Understandably, the whole work was 14 years in the making and required a team of assistants.

[...]

THE VISION OF GABRIEL INSCRIPTION is the subject of a popular article by John J. Collins in the Yale Forum. He thinks that, despite its lack of provenance, "for now, the text's authenticity must be given the benefit of the doubt." He also is very skeptical of Israel Knohl's theory about a reference to a dying and rising messiah in the text.

Background here and follow the many links back.

ANOTHER REVIEW of the ROM Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition, this one in Dawn.com:

Fragments of history

Maheen A. Rashdi
Sunday, 26 Jul, 2009 | 09:47 AM PST |

The Dead Sea lies between Israel and the West Bank on one side and Jordan to the east, with Jordan River as its main tributary. Known as the deepest and saltiest of lakes, at 1,385 feet below sea level, it is also said to have been the refuge of King David; the place where Herod went for health reasons and from where the chemicals to mummify the Egyptian royals were brought.

Most importantly though, it is the surrounding area of the caves at Qumran from where the most ancient archaeological objects were discovered, namely, The Dead Sea Scrolls. Qumran is a dry plateau bordering the Dead Sea in the West Bank.

[...]

The ROM exhibition is an exhilarating and awe-inspiring experience. The build up to the actual display of the Scrolls is most skillfully executed and it leaves one saturated with every piece of information on the worth, discovery, origin and geographical detail of the Scrolls’ resting area. The artefacts include numerous shards and complete pottery vessels, glass and stone vessels, coins that signified the various stages of the site, jewelry, ostraka and organic materials. Objects found were from the Iron Age and from the Second Temple period.

The first set currently on display—from June 27, 2009 until October 2009—includes biblical scrolls, non-biblical texts and Apocryphal (i.e. non-verified) Psalms. Intriguing were the fragments from the Book of War (non-biblical text, 1st century AD, Hebrew), which scholars believed contained the text of a blessing describing how God will enable the universe to produce fertility and prevent disease and destruction. It is supposedly a description of the apocalyptic war between good and evil.

The other most astounding scroll display for me was the biblical text from Genesis (150 BC to 68 AD, Hebrew). The details state that approximately 20 manuscripts of the Book of Genesis were uncovered in the caves and this scroll contains some of the oldest fragments of Genesis discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Twelve fragments had to be pieced together to reconstruct this portion of the Scroll.

The displayed fragments contain parts of the story of the death of Jacob’s wife Rachel and of Joseph’s encounter with the wife of Potiphar. To my own amazement reading the text translation in archaic English was almost identical to reading a verse (Surah 12; verse 23-25) from the Quran which narrates the same tale. That was my moment of becoming a believer in the authenticity of the scrolls.

[...]

The article is pretty accurate, although it takes the "theory" that the Dead Sea Scrolls are of Christian origin too seriously. It's also interesting that a Muslim reviewer appreciates the exhibition's efforts to tie the Scrolls to the three Abrahamic religions:

Without doubt though, there is one indelible truth that emerges from the discovery of the Scrolls: that there are more similarities in the origins of the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—than disparities

Contrast Robert Fisk's sour evaluation here.

Further background to the exhibition is here and here.

A NEW BIOGRAPHY OF FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS is reviewed in the Jerusalem Post:

Judging Josephus
By MORTON I. TEICHER

Jerusalem's Traitor
By Desmond Seward
Da Capo Press
314 pp.
$28

Among all the tragedies that stain the pages of Jewish history, the cataclysmic events of the first century are an especially dark epic. We owe much of our knowledge of what befell the Jews in this terrible time to Josephus who used his role as a participant-observer to write his book, The Jewish War. His contemporary account of what happened is biased on his identification with the Romans as is masterfully described in this gripping biography.

Scholars have debated the accuracy of Josephus's observations and the issue of whether or not he was a traitor. Desmond Seward, a Cambridge graduate, is a British historian who has written many books, including biographies of numerous historical figures. He has carefully examined the evidence and he offers this narrative for general readers as an introduction to the life and times of Josephus.

[...]

PHOENICIAN WATCH: Sex, lies, and audiotapes - and Phoenician tombs?

Berlusconi in Phoenician tomb flap

Premier asked to explain alleged finds at Sardinian villa

(ANSA) - Rome, July 24 - Premier Silvio Berlusconi must come clean about whether he is 'hiding' 30 ancient Phoenician tombs at his Sardinian villa, a former culture minister said Friday, adding to calls from archaeologists and opposition politicians. The possible existence of the tombs came to light in audio tapes published by left-leaning weekly Espresso this week alleged to be of conversations between Berlusconi and an escort girl, Patrizia D'Addario, who claims she was paid to attend parties at his home in Rome.

In one of the conversations posted Thursday, the male speaker alleged to be the premier appears to be showing D'Addario photos of his Sardinian residence, Villa Certosa, and points out where the 30 tombs, dating to 300 BC, were found.

The Italian media has reported that the Sardinian authorities are unaware of the archaeological find on the premier's private property, which by law must be reported to the authorities to inspect and decided whether to excavate.

[...]

The National Association of Archaeologists said that if the discovery was confirmed it would be ''incredibly important'' for the study of settlements on the island by the Phonecians, an ancient maritime trading people who formed a massive commercial empire throughout the Mediterranean from their bases along the coast of modern-day Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

''Experts have been debating for years about whether the ancient city of Olbia was founded by Greeks or Phoenicians,'' said association president Giuseppina Manca di Mores.

''If the discovery of new Phoenician material is confirmed, it would represent a new detail for the story of the island and would open new channels of research,'' she said.

[...]

However, according to Monsters and Critics, the Premier's lawyer denies the claims:

Berlusconi's lawyer, Niccolo Ghedini, has disputed the veracity of the series of tapes that began appearing on left-leaning magazine L'Espresso's site on Monday.

On Friday he slammed what he said were the latest 'unverified reports.'

'Berlusconi would have never spoken of the discovery of 30 Phoenician tombs in his park, because nothing of the sort exists or has been found in the area of Villa Certosa,' Ghedini was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency.

According to Ghedini, the grounds surrounding Villa Certosa - where Berlusconi often hosts foreign dignitaries - have been inspected by Italian judicial officials in the past.

'Any additional controls can be carried out at any time,' Ghedini told ANSA.

HERODIUM AND HEROD'S (POSSIBLE) TOMB are the subject of a long Smithsonian article:

Finding King Herod's Tomb
After a 35-year search, an Israeli archaeologist is certain he has solved the mystery of the biblical figure’s final resting place

* By Barbara Kreiger
* Smithsonian magazine, July 2009

Shielding my eyes from the glare of the morning sun, I look toward the horizon and the small mountain that is my destination: Herodium, site of the fortified palace of King Herod the Great. I'm about seven miles south of Jerusalem, not far from the birthplace of the biblical prophet Amos, who declared: "Let justice stream forth like water." Herod's reign over Judea from 37 to 4 B.C. is not remembered for justice but for its indiscriminate cruelty. His most notorious act was the murder of all male infants in Bethlehem to prevent the fulfillment of a prophecy heralding the birth of the Messiah. There is no record of the decree other than the Gospel of Matthew, and biblical scholars debate whether it actually took place, but the story is in keeping with a man who arranged the murders of, among others, three of his own sons and a beloved wife.

Long an object of scholarly as well as popular fascination, Herodium, also called Herodion, was first positively identified in 1838 by the American scholar Edward Robinson, who had a knack for locating biblical landmarks. After scaling the mountain and comparing his observations with those of the first century Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus, Robinson concluded that "all these particulars...leave scarcely a doubt, that this was Herodium, where the [Judean] tyrant sought his last repose." Robinson's observation was confirmed later that century by Conrad Schick, the famous German architect and archaeologist who conducted extensive surveys of Jerusalem and its nearby sites.

But where precisely was the king entombed? At the summit of Herodium? At the base? Inside the mountain itself? Josephus didn't say. By the late 1800s, Herod's tomb had become one of biblical archaeology's most sought-after prizes. And for more than a century archaeologists scoured the site. Finally, in 2007, Ehud Netzer of Hebrew University announced that after 35 years of archaeological work he had found Herod's resting place. The news made headlines worldwide—"A New Discovery May Solve the Mystery of the Bible's Bloodiest Tyrant," trumpeted the London Daily Mail.

"In terms of size, quality of decoration and prominence of its position, it's hard to reach any other conclusion," says Jodi Magness, an archaeologist in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has excavated at other sites where Herod oversaw construction projects. Ken Holum, a University of Maryland archaeologist and historian who served as a curator for the traveling Smithsonian exhibition "King Herod's Dream," cautions that "it is always wise to be less than certain when there is no identifying inscription or other explicit identification." But he says he personally believes Netzer has indeed discovered Herod's tomb.

[...]

But not everyone is convinced. Read it all.

CANADA and the Dead Sea Scrolls:

Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition gives long-awaited nod to Canada’s contribution, says scholar

(Exchange)

Hamilton - A leading scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls says the hugely popular exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum is helping to foster an appreciation of Canada’s role in the saga of one of the greatest archeological finds in modern times.

Eileen Schuller, professor of Religious Studies at McMaster University, has researched Canada’s involvement and says that from the moment the Scrolls were discovered Canadians have provided money and expertise toward the acquisition and eventual publication of the Scrolls, earning Canada an international reputation in Scrolls study.

Schuller herself has, since 1980, worked on and catalogued a series of thanksgiving prayers and psalmic texts from Cave 4 as well as published the reconstruction of the Hodayot scroll from Cave 1. An author of numerous academic papers on the Scrolls, Schuller is part of the ROM’s lecture series being held in conjunction with the exhibit. She has written extensively on women in the Scrolls and published a more popular series of lectures, The Dead Sea Scrolls: What Have We Learned (2002). Her colleague at McMaster University, Daniel Machiela is publishing a new edition of the Genesis Apocryphon this Fall. Their research has made McMaster a centre for Scrolls study.

[...]

Background here and keep following the links back.

MORE ON THE PALESTINIAN PROTESTS of the ROM Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition:

Palestinians ask Canada to seize Dead Sea Scrolls

Blake Lambert, Foreign Correspondent (The National)

* Last Updated: July 23. 2009 11:31PM UAE / July 23. 2009 7:31PM GMT

TORONTO // A new exhibit featuring the Dead Sea Scrolls at Canada’s largest museum has ignited Palestinian claims of cultural theft.

[...]

The argument is summarized as follows:

The problem for Palestinian Authority officials, who contacted ROM executives in April, is that the exhibition contains artefacts illegally acquired by Israel when it annexed East Jerusalem in the 1967 war.

The PA’s archaeological department said it was important for Canadian institutions to be responsible and act in accordance with their country’s obligations.

“I’m not saying those scrolls are not Jewish and Christian in nature,” said Issam al Ahmed, the executive director of Palestine House, an educational and cultural organisation in the Toronto area. “But they were discovered prior to the Israeli occupation and they were exhibited in the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem in Palestine.”

After the 1967 war, the Israelis moved the scrolls to the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, a Montreal-based advocacy group, argues that ROM’s partnership with the Israeli body violates Canada’s obligations under the conventions of Unesco, the UN body that helps to conserve mankind’s heritage, regarding the protection of cultural property.

According to its interpretation, Canada cannot import cultural property from an occupied territory and must, if possible, take that property into custody and return it to the competent authorities at the end of hostilities.

The ROM's response:

Notwithstanding the claims of theft, the ROM said it “remained satisfied that the exhibition is lawful”.

Background here.

A TRIBUTE TO GRAHAM STANTON has been posted by Peter Head at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog. And there's also an obituary at the Cambridge Network as well.

(Via Mark Goodacre at the NT Blog here and here.)

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY also has a Geniza Project, to which Mike Fieschko has alerted me in an e-mail. There's also a recent blog post on Princeton's IT's Academic blog, which links to a podcast of a recent lecture by Professor Mark Cohen and Ben Johnston from the Princeton Humanities Resource Center, with an accompanying pdf document. (I mentioned the project briefly in 2003, but did not give much detail.)

From the project website:

Initiated in the mid-1980s, the Computer Geniza Project of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University seeks to extend the methodologies available to Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic, and Arabic scholars working with the documents found in the Geniza chamber of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo in the late 19th century.

The project is dedicated to transcribing documents from film copies, photocopies, draft texts typed by S. D. Goitein, and printed editions to computer files, creating a full text retrieval text-base of transcribed documents, developing new tools such as dictionaries, semantic categories and morphological aids to further the study of Geniza texts.

Finally, the project is committed to disseminating its materials as widely as possible to the international community of scholars with an interest in the life of the medieval Middle East, as well as to all with an interest in Judaica. Ultimately, we hope to provide links to digitized images of manususcripts in our corpus, as libraries pursue the imaging of their collections..

It is our hope that by making materials from this very esoteric field widely available that new insights can be gained into the interaction of the peoples of the Middle East in past time. Funding has come from Princeton University and from the Friedberg Genizah Project.

AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON JUDAEA AND ROME IN COINS, 65 BCE TO 135 CE will be held in London in September. Nikos Kokkinos has posted details and registration information on the Ioudaious-L list.

THE FRIEDBERG GENIZAH PROJECT has a session devoted to it in an upcoming conference in Jerusalem. Nachum Dershowitz e-mails:

Genizah Research Enters the Computer Era

On Wednesday, August 5, 2009, 17:30 - 19:30, at the upcoming Fifteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, there will be a session devoted to "The Friedberg Genizah Project: Objectives and Accomplishments". The congress takes place at the Hebrew University, on Mt. Scopus in Jerusalem.

Director of the Friedberg Genizah Project (FGP), Menahem Ben-Sasson, Professor of History and President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, will lead off the session.

Yaacov Choueka, Chief Computerization Scientist of FGP and Professor Emeritus at Bar-Ilan University, will speak on "The Computerization of the Genizah World and its Impact on Genizah Research: A Vision and its Implementation". Several exciting developments will be described (see below).

Haggai Ben-Shammai, Professor of Arabic at Hebrew University, will speak on “Judaeo-Arabic Bible Exegesis: Preliminary Mapping”.

Discovered in 1896 in the attic of a synagogue in the old quarter of Cairo, the Genizah is a large collection of discarded codices, scrolls, and documents. These were written mainly in the 10th to 15th centuries, and mainly in Hebrew and Arabic (usually in Hebrew characters). The documents and fragments are now dispersed in over fifty libraries and collections around the world.

The philanthropically-funded Friedberg Genizah Project is in the midst of a multi-year process of digitally photographing (in full color, at 600dpi) most of the extant manuscripts. The entire collections of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, the Alliance Israelite Universelle in Paris, the recently rediscovered collection in Geneva, and many other collections from Strasbourg, Vienna, Budapest, and elsewhere have already been digitized. They comprise about 90,000 images (recto and verso of each fragment).

All the images are being made available to researchers online at www.genizah.org. That site provides a very convenient web interface, with zoomable images, bibliographic and catalogue data, transcriptions and translations, search facilities, and discussion forums.

In his talk, Choueka will announce three recent achievements of the project:

1. A few months ago, FGP signed an agreement with Cambridge University Library, for a joint three-year project, funded by FGP, during the course of which Cambridge will digitize their entire Genizah collection. This will result in some 400,000 additional images, to be delivered at the rate of 10,000 per month (starting soon), in what is probably one of the largest ever digitization efforts attempted in the world of manuscripts.

2. FGP has begun applying computerized image processing to the digital photographs. This effort -- directed by Dr. Roni Shweka and realized by Rotem Littman -- includes separating the document from its background, segmenting the image into written areas and blank space, straightening the image, and automatically inferring the dimensions of the fragment, the written area, and the individual lines.

3. Because of the unique circumstances of the Cairo Genizah, the leaves of most of the original documents were recovered unbound and are to be found today dispersed among different libraries. Over the past century, scholars have expended a great deal of time and effort on identifying such pages and rejoining them. Despite the few thousands of such joins that have been found by researchers, very much more remains to be done. In this regard, FGP has embarked on an ambitious project -- in collaboration with Professor Nachum Dershowitz and Dr. Lior Wolf of Tel Aviv University and their students -- to use modern machine-learning techniques in a bold computer-aided effort to identify new joins. A highlight of the talk will be a sampling of the hundreds of new joins discovered by the computer in this fashion, based solely on image similarity, including several joins of noteworthy interest.

Background here.

COMMUTER PHILOLOGY?

Studying Ugarit? Start commuting between schools
By Ofri Ilani (Haaretz)

Israel currently has a great many professors of law and business administration, but very few professors of Egyptology. The few students who want to learn about hieroglyphics or the history of Pharaonic Egypt are often forced to make do with the single lecturer, at most, who specializes in this field at each university.

Because of the lack of students and faculty positions, Egyptology, Assyriology, classics and African studies are on the verge of disappearing from the world of academia here.
Advertisement

This week, the nation's universities announced a new initiative aimed at enabling "unpopular" fields of study to continue to exist in an era of budget cuts: four joint programs in which students will take classes from lecturers at several different universities.

Thus an Egyptology student would spend one semester, or one day a week, at Tel Aviv university, and the next he would go to Haifa University or the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The four programs are in ancient Near East languages and culture, Africa studies, Latin in the Middle Ages, and Jewish culture in the ancient world.

[...]

This sounds like a very unwieldy program, but better than no program at all. At least there's some funding for student travel expenses.

MARTIN ABEGG has lectured at the ROM Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition:

Scrolling.
Langley Advance
Published: Tuesday, July 21, 2009

TWU Dead Sea Scrolls expert lectures at the ROM in Toronto.

Langley's own Dead Sea Scrolls expert spoke in Toronto this week, on a topic very dear to his heart. Dr. Martin Abegg, the Ben Zion Wacholder professor of Dead Sea Scroll Studies at Trinity Western University (TWU), gave a public lecture at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto Thursday.

[...]

Abegg's lecture titled, The Stories of the Toronto Dead Sea Scrolls, provided listeners a "behind the scenes glimpse at the past intrigue surrounding the scrolls and what these texts tell us about the ancients that wrote, collected, copied and studied them.

[...]

Background here.

A HEBREW ACADEMY is opening in Poland (AFP):

WARSAW — Roman Catholic Franciscan friars are to open Poland's first privately-run Hebrew academy in October with the approval of the country's chief rabbi and a Polish cardinal, its rector said Tuesday.

"We've started recruiting and there's a lot of interest. We're thinking of accepting 45 students for a start," academy rector Father Maksymin Tandek told AFP.

"During my studies in Israel, I discovered its rich and beautiful history. Jews lived in Poland for a thousand years. My dream is to preserve the wealth and beauty of their society here," he said.

The three-year-long programme at the academy located in Torun, north-east Poland, will focus on Hebrew literature, linguistics, Israeli history, Poland's Jews, and modern, rabbinical and biblical Hebrew as well as Syrian and Aramaic.

"Polish archives and libraries contain a large number of documents with an an enormous wealth of Jewish thought, but now no one is examining them. We need specialists to catalogue them and make them public," Tandek said.

[...]

This is a promising development. And I hope they find some manuscripts of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha in those archives and libraries. (I think "Syrian" above should be "Syriac.")

PAULA FREDRICKSEN is interviewed by BU Today:

In her latest book, Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism, Fredriksen returns to her first love by exploring the historical, social, and cultural developments that gave rise to Christian anti-Judaism. The surprise, she says, isn’t just that Augustine espoused the Jews’ rights to their own religion — it’s that different faiths frequently borrowed from one another throughout the early Roman Empire. “In antiquity, all monotheists are polytheists,” she says. “It’s just that they each have heaven structured a certain way.”

Fredriksen spoke with BU Today about what Augustine’s writing reveals about cultural clashes and belief systems, then and now.

MORE ON THE ROM DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION:

First, a related exhibit of specially commissioned art inspired by the Scrolls:

The Power of Words (Then and Now) at the ROM

(Naomi Carniol, Torontoist)

In the basement of the Royal Ontario Museum, the crowds marvel at the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls. They peer at the tiny Hebrew words, which form excerpts from the Bible and the Psalms. Upstairs on the museum’s third floor, an art installation explores the power of the word in a modern context.

The Koffler Gallery and the Institute for Contemporary Culture commissioned New York–based artist Joshua Neustein to create work inspired by the Dead Sea Scrolls. In response, Neustein unveiled Margins, an installation that meditates on the importance of the written word and the yet-to-be-written word.

[...]

Second, more on the Canadian Jewish response to the Palestinian protests and boycott of the DSS exhibition

Jews match boycotts with emails and spending

Sales of kosher wine and Dead Sea Scrolls tickets soar after blasting message to community
Jul 20, 2009 04:30 AM

Stuart Laidlaw
FAITH AND ETHICS REPORTER (Toronto Star)

A liquor store sells out of Israeli kosher wine. The Royal Ontario Museum sees a sudden surge in online ticket sales to its Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit.

Not the outcome one would expect from two recent boycotts meant to protest Israel's handling of the Palestine situation, but that's what happened – thanks to the power of the Internet and a change in course by the Jewish community.

Rather than react to the boycotts with counter-arguments and more rhetoric, the United Jewish Appeal and other groups such as the Jewish Defense League have begun responding to boycotts by urging supporters to buy more of whatever is being boycotted.

"The community feels really empowered by it," says Sally Szuster, a spokeswoman for the UJA Federation of Toronto.

[...]

Background here. Background on the exhibition here.

MEDIEVAL PSALTERS are on display at the Getty Museum:

Getty displays medieval manuscripts focusing on King David

The collection of medieval illuminated Psalters and religious texts, on display at the museum through Aug. 16, illustrates the Hebrew king's struggle with good and evil.

By Martha Groves (Los Angeles Times)
July 20, 2009

The story of David, the shepherd boy who slew the Philistine Goliath, became the divinely chosen king of the Israelites and seduced Bathsheba, would be compelling in any era.

But for medieval Christians, the poet, harpist and warrior assumed immense importance as an exemplar of piety and penitence, an Everyman on whom they could model their own commitment to God.

So large loomed his legend that throughout the Middle Ages David was credited with being the author of the 150 Psalms, the deeply affecting "songs of praise" initially composed in Hebrew, that were incorporated into the Hebrew Bible and later the Christian Bible.

The Psalms played a vital role in medieval devotion from about 500 to the 1500s, and David's image appears in lavishly illustrated Psalters, volumes containing the Book of Psalms, and choir books of the period. Many of these manuscripts, painted in brilliant hues and decorated with gold leaf, are on view through Aug. 16 in the Getty Museum's North Pavilion.

In an era of e-books, it is impressive to see the enduring beauty of the 21 manuscripts and leaves, or individual pages, displayed in "Temptation and Salvation: The Psalms of King David." All of the examples -- some large, some tiny -- were drawn from the Getty's own collection of the illustrated texts, inaugurated in 1983 with the purchase of 144 manuscripts owned by German chocolate magnate Peter Ludwig and his wife, Irene.

[...]

SAD NEWS: Graham Stanton has reportedly passed away. Mark Goodacre notes this at his NT Blog but has no further details. Requiescat in pace.

ANOTHER TOURIST returns some nicked antiquities:

Sorry, here's your mosaic back
By Fadi Eyadat (Haaretz)

The Israel Nature and Parks Authority recently received an unusual package in the mail from the United States - nine small bags full of white mosaic stones.

In an accompanying letter, Gail Weeks of Florida wrote that she had been touring Caesarea National Park with her husband when she picked up the mosaic tiles. Only later did they notice in their pamphlet that taking antiquities is forbidden.

Weeks also wrote that she thought there might be more stones in the sand, and asked that they tell her if anything was found.

[...]

This seems to have been a (careless) misunderstanding rather than a deliberate misappropriation.

Background here.

UPDATE (20 July): Arutz Sheva also has an article on this incident, with reference to the earlier one involving a 46 pound stone. I don't see any new information except the following:

In both cases, officials of the two agencies said, there would be no action taken against the individuals who took the items, because they were ultimately returned, and the culprits apologized.

THE CODEX SINIATICUS STORY is covered in an article in the Examiner: "Codex Sinaiticus What? Online Where?" Nothing new in it, but it's an accurate, brief, popular summary.

Background here.

HEROD'S TOMB AT HERODIUM (if that's what it is) is covered in a sort of travel article in Arutz Sheva:

Herodium: Judean Palace where Herod Lived and Died

by Shalom Pollack

(IsraelNN.com) The location of Herod’s tomb remained a mystery until an innovative archaeologist set his sites on an overlooked side of the Judean fortress palace of Herodium. After a 35 year search, Professor Ehud Netzer felt he was able to announce to the world that he finally found what he was looking for – the royal tomb of King Herod the Great (73 BCE – 4 CE). The tyrannical leader who murdered Jewish sages and even his own family members was secretly referred by them as Herod the Wicked.

[...]

These Arutz Sheva travel pieces tend to be a little careless. I don't remember all the details of this tomb story but I did spot the following. The article says:

Although he knew that he was hated for his tyranny, Herod nonetheless made his wish on his deathbed: “Gather all the rabbis to the adjacent room. Announce that when I die, the rabbis will also be killed. Thus, the day that I die will not be a happy one. In fact, all will pray for my health” This last order was not executed, but such was the man’s evil intentions to the very end.

This story is from Josephus (Antiquities 17.6.5) and it actually refers to "all the principal men of the entire Jewish nation," not the rabbis:

He commanded that all the principal men of the entire Jewish nation, wheresoever they lived, should be called to him. Accordingly, they were a great number that came, because the whole nation was called, and all men heard of this call, and death was the penalty of such as should despise the epistles that were sent to call them. And now the king was in a wild rage against them all, the innocent as well as those that had afforded ground for accusations; and when they were come, he ordered them to be all shut up in the hyppodrome, (9) and sent for his sister Salome, and her husband Alexas, and spake thus to them: "I shall die in a little time, so great are my pains; which death ought to be cheerfully borne, and to be welcomed by all men; but what principally troubles me is this, that I shall die without being lamented, and without such mourning as men usually expect at a king's death. For that he was not unacquainted with the temper of the Jews, that his death would be a thing very desirable, and exceedingly acceptable to them, because during his lifetime they were ready to revolt from him, and to abuse the donations he had dedicated to God that it therefore was their business to resolve to afford him some alleviation of his great sorrows on this occasion; for that if they do not refuse him their consent in what he desires, he shall have a great mourning at his funeral, and such as never had any king before him; for then the whole nation would mourn from their very soul, which otherwise would be done in sport and mockery only. He desired therefore, that as soon as they see he hath given up the ghost, they shall place soldiers round the hippodrome, while they do not know that he is dead; and that they shall not declare his death to the multitude till this is done, but that they shall give orders to have those that are in custody shot with their darts; and that this slaughter of them all will cause that he shall not miss to rejoice on a double account; that as he is dying, they will make him secure that his will shall be executed in what he charges them to do; and that he shall have the honor of a memorable mourning at his funeral.

Background here.

AN OBITUARY FOR MARTIN HENGEL in Christianity Today:

The Champion Who Debunked Bultmann

Martin Hengel, giant of New Testament scholarship, established the basis for historical confidence in the early Christian documents.

David Neff

Anyone who passed away between Michael Jackson’s June 25 death and his July 7 memorial service was bound to go unsung. But one scholar whose passing should have been more widely noted was Martin Hengel, who specialized in the intersections between rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. He was Emeritus Professor of New Testament and Early Judaism at the University of Tübingen. After battling cancer, he died in Tübingen, Germany, on July 2 at the age of 82.

Yesterday when I heard the news of Hengel’s passing from Whitworth College’s Jim Edwards, I e-mailed several evangelical New Testament scholars for their comments.

[...]

ANOTHER REVIEW of the ROM Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition:

Mysterious Qumran finally reveals some secrets to 21st-century voyeurs

Sacred words, never meant to be seen by outsiders, are on display now to the world

Michael Valpy

From Saturday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Friday, Jul. 17, 2009 11:58PM EDT

The crowds move slowly through the soft, muted light at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum exhibit of the Dead Sea scrolls. They are focused, mesmerized, reading every word on display. As intense, perhaps, as peeping toms.

That is Chad Stauber's thought. The 29-year-old doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto, who spends his academic life studying the scrolls and their meaning and whose recorded voice reading documents in Aramaic is part of the exhibit, said encountering the 2,000-year-old documents ignites a feeling of voyeurism.

The people who wrote the scrolls, who ritually recited them, who may have spirited them away from other libraries and from Jerusalem's great Second Temple, and who finally hid them in caves as an advancing Roman army destroyed everything in its path – the mysterious Dead Sea community of Qumran – never intended they should be seen by outsiders.

[...]

Despite the headline, this is the longest and most thoughtful review of the exhibit I've seen so far. And there's this additional information:

As awe-inspiring as the fragments of the scrolls on display are the two inscribed chunks of Jerusalem limestone from the Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

The first bears the message, in Hebrew, “to the place of trumpeting,” suggesting it marked the spot where a temple priest would have stood to blow a trumpet to indicate the beginning and end of the sabbath. The second contains part of a warning, in Greek, that non-Jews who venture into the temple's precincts can be put to death by order of the high priest.

Chad Stauber stands beside the two temple fragments and says repeatedly that he is astonished that the Israeli Antiquities Authority allowed them to come on tour with the selection of scrolls.

He said, gesturing to the “place of no trumpeting” fragment of the temple: “Jesus would have walked under that, or by that.”

Background to the exhibition is here (and keep following the links back).

Some background to the Greek Temple inscription is here.

THE LATEST ON THE PALESTINIAN PROTESTS of the ROM Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition: looks like the protest-backfire effect is in operation:

Toronto’s Jews rally around Dead Sea Scrolls

July 16, 2009

TORONTO (JTA) -- Toronto's Jews have responded with their wallets to accusations that an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls is illegal.

More than 500 tickets were sold last weekend to the exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum following an e-mail blast from UJA Federation of Greater Toronto to community members warning that pro-Palestinian groups want the exhibit closed.

[...]

Background here.

THE PALESTINIAN PROTESTS over the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum continue to get coverage.

From The Forward:

Furor Over Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibition
By Michael Kaminer
Published July 15, 2009, issue of July 24, 2009.

Toronto — Crowds at the Royal Ontario Museum’s heavily hyped Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition — Dead Sea Scrolls: Words That Changed the World, which runs until January 3, 2010 — have far exceeded the museum’s own expectations. In the show’s first nine days, more than 18,000 people flocked to the museum’s spectacular new Daniel Libeskind-designed Michael Lee-Chin Crystal pavilion — about 52% above the exhibitors’ own projections.

But hosannas for the showing, featuring four scroll fragments on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority and displayed in public for the first time, have not been universal. Last April, the Palestinian Authority appealed to Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, to cancel the show, citing international conventions that make it illegal for a government agency to take archaeological artifacts from a territory that its country occupies.

[...]

This article has some welcome detail about the specifics of the protests and the responses of the exhibition organizers.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Toronto Jews rally around museum taking flak over Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit
By LEA KAPLAN

A coalition of pro-Palestinian organizations is demanding that the Royal Ontario Museum close a Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit that opened last month, saying Israel looted the "Palestinian artifacts" during the Six Day War.

Toronto's Palestine House and the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid say the "Words that Changed the World" presentation is illegal.

When the museum refused to cancel the exhibit, which runs through January 3, the NGOs instead asked it "to release to the public and publish on its Web site the legal opinion that it obtained and on the basis of which it decided to go ahead with this exhibit," Palestine House said in a statement

The organizations are asking the museum to seek an opinion from UNESCO on the legal and ethical issues involved in the exhibit.

[...]

There was also a protest by about 30 people outside the museum.

Both articles point out that, in terms of the exhibition itself, the protests may backfire. They amount to a lot of free publicity, ticket sales have exceeded expectations, and there is a counter-movement encouraging people to buy tickets.

Background here.

PHILIP R. DAVIES is worried about biblical illiteracy and its long-term impact on biblical scholarship and on society:

... But even non-religious scholars like me were sharply conscious of the irony of our situation: without the affection and interest of religious people, we would be out of a job. More recently, Hector Avalos, the only non-religious scholar I know of that actually seems to hate the Bible, has suggested that the Bible and its academic followers should go the way of all flesh—not his phrase, nor of course mine either.

Avalos may have his way before long if the confessional/non-confessional argument persists. I think it’s time for some cooperation. As with numerous political conflicts (Northern Ireland, Palestine/Israel) the real battle is between moderate and extreme, not between those in the centre but on either side of the perceived issue. On one extreme are those who believe that the Bible is literally true, in defiance of all common sense: but scholars already spend enough of their time trying to counter this nonsense, and in any case, fundamentalists don’t care about the future of the Bible, because the future is God’s business. The real battle is with the other extreme, the biblically illiterate—whose ignorance is not even their own fault!

An interesting essay ("Whose Bible? Anyone's?") on the Bible and Interpretation website.

HUGOYE: JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES has just published Volume 12 Number 2 (Summer 2009). TOC:

Papers

The Syriac Life of John of Tella and the Frontier Politeia.
Nathanael J. Andrade, University of Michigan

Luke 17:21: "The Kingdom of God is inside you." The Ancient Syriac Versions in Support of the Correct Translation.
Ilaria Ramelli, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan

Monks, Manuscripts, and Muslims: Syriac Textual Changes in Reaction to the Rise of Islam.
Michael Philip Penn, Mount Holyoke College

Brief Article

A Bibliography of Süryânî Periodicals in Ottoman Turkish.
Benjamin Trigona-Harany

Book Review

Holger Gzella and Margaretha L. Folmer, eds., Aramaic in its Historical and Linguistic Setting.
Aaron Michael Butts, University of Chicago

Conference Reports

EACL 2009 Workshop on Computational Approaches to Semitic Languages. Athens, Greece. March 31st, 2009.
Wido van Peursen and Constantijn Sikkel, Peshitta Institute, Leiden

THE TALMUD BLOG is a new blog on the academic study of the Talmud. From the first post:

Welcome to a new home for scholars of rabbinic literature working in the monkish cramped carrels and offices of academe, and the magnificently isolating reading rooms of libraries around the world. The goal is to build a kind of command center that keeps up with new trends in the field, reviews recent research, covers conferences, meetings, and symposia, looks at nifty new tools, and occasionally, considers the broader implications of the scholarship. If we have learned that the internet is the collective brain of humankind, and that the Talmud is an epitome of rabbinic culture, then this site expresses but the will of the people! So comments are appreciated, and advice is golden. Take a look around. The sidebar is catered especially for your research needs - particularly students of the Bavli. But what's missing, and what's extraneous...

(Via Hagahot.)

AN OBITUARY FOR MARTIN HENGEL has been published in the Telegraph:

Professor Martin Hengel

Professor Martin Hengel, who died on July 2 aged 82, was professor of New Testament studies at the German university of Tübingen between 1972 and 1992, and one of the greatest biblical scholars of his time.


Published: 6:32PM BST 12 Jul 2009

Although Hengel enjoyed an international reputation, the early years of his academic career were seriously hampered by his father's insistence that he should be involved in the family textile business. He was obliged to manage a factory in Leicester for several years.

None the less he made a unique contribution to the understanding of the New Testament and Christian origins by combining his work in this field with no less expertise in the fields of Judaism and early church history. Thus his magnum opus Judaism and Hellenism (1969) broke new ground and changed the course of New Testament studies by demonstrating that the Judaism out of which Christianity evolved was one deeply influenced by Hellenism.

[...]

More here.

MORE ON PALESTINIAN PROTESTS over the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum:

First, Robert Fisk has an essay in the Independent ("You won't find any lessons in unity in the Dead Sea Scrolls"), chiefly mocking the efforts of the exhibit to emphasize religious "unity" and expressing disappointment that certain political issues, including the Palestinian protests, were not mentioned. Also the Armenian genocide of 1915:

So cautious are the dear old Canadians – who should by now have learned that concealing unhappy truths will only create fire and pain – that they do not even mention that "Kando", the first recipient of the scrolls, was Armenian. Of course not. Because then they would have to explain why an Armenian was in Jerusalem, not in western Turkey. Which would mean that they would have to mention the Armenian Holocaust of 1915 (one and a half million Armenian civilians murdered by Ottoman Turks).

Actually, the sources I can find which discuss Kando's background report that he was a member of the Syrian Orthodox Church (e.g., here, here, etc.). There seems also to have been an Armenian antiquities dealer involved in the early negotiations over the Cave One scrolls (see, e.g., here), so perhaps Fisk is conflating the two (and maybe he could have done his research more carefully). In any case, were Kando Armenian, I don't see why that would obligate the exhibition to bring up the Armenian genocide.

This would anger Canada's Turkish community, who are holocaust deniers. And in turn, it would anger the Israel Antiquities Authority, who do not acknowledge that the Armenian Holocaust ever happened, there being only one True Holocaust, which is that of the Jews of Europe.

It's not clear to me what this is about. Is he really saying that the IAA has denied the historical reality of the Armenian genocide of 1915? That seems, first, unlikely, and, second, rather beyond its remit. Or is the issue that the IAA has not used the specific language "holocaust" or "genocide?" Or that the Israeli Government doesn't and the IAA is guilty by association? The ADL got into some trouble over this issue a while ago and, more recently, so has President Obama. I'm not going to go into that debate except to say that the ROM Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition would have no reason either to get involved in it.

He summarizes the Palestinian case as follows:

... But up come the spoilsports, namely the Canadian "Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid", to suggest that the scrolls, originally in the hands of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities and the Ecole Biblique Française, were "confiscated and illegally removed by Israel" in 1967. The Royal Ontario Museum, the protesters say, is showing "looted" property which it has no right to exhibit. The Palestinian Authority itself has intervened, arguing that the museum is "displaying artefacts removed from the Palestinian territories". (Let us not, O Reader, mention the Elgin marbles, albeit that the Brits don't occupy Greece.)

Second, The Ottawa Citizen has an editorial about the Palestinian protests ("The old bait-and-switch"). Excerpt:

An odd assortment of groups are protesting the exhibit on the grounds that the scrolls are stolen artifacts and really belong to Arabs, not Jews. Yes, you read that correctly. Hebrew manuscripts of the Jewish Bible that were written centuries before Muhammad was born are, apparently, Muslim property.

It’s easy to see what’s going on here. Just as Holocaust denial circulates in some corners of the anti-Israel movement, there is a parallel effort to deny the Jewish people’s ancestral connection to the Holy Land. The idea is to delegitimize Israel by denying the indigenous rights of Jews. Some Israel-haters have even taken to arguing that Palestinian Arabs are the real descendants of “ancient Hebrews.”

Background here.

EXTRAORDINARY FINDS AT THE MT ZION EXCAVATION are reported by James Tabor. Lots of interesting new architecture and artifacts. This in particular caught my epigrapher's eye:

1. A stone vessel with an ancient inscription of ten lines written in an archaic Jewish script. Such stone vessels were used in connection with maintaining ritual purity related to Temple worship, and they are found in abundance in areas where the priests lived. We have found a dozen or more on our site over the past three years. However, to have ten lines of text is unprecedented. One normally might find a single name inscribed, or a line or two, but this is the first text of this length ever found on such a vessel. We have shared high-resolution photos with various epigraphic experts in Jerusalem who are working together to try and decipher this text. It is written in a very informal cursive hand and is quite difficult to read.

Note also that they are dependent on donations to continue the work. Details on contributing are at the end of the post.

NO SURPRISE:

ROM Scrolls attendance beyond expectations

James Bradshaw

Toronto — From Thursday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Friday, Jul. 10, 2009 02:47AM EDT

Attendance at the Royal Ontario Museum's Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World exhibition has exceeded even its organizers' most hopeful projections, attracting an average of more than 2,000 people each day since it opened.

[...]

TORY LEADER DAVID CAMERON is descended from a Jewish Renaissance Hebraist according to a University of Manchester scholar:

Illustrious Jewish roots of Tory leader revealed

10 Jul 2009
David Cameron’s Jewish history goes back hundreds – if not thousands - of years, according to a University of Manchester historian.

Dr Yaakov Wise, who specialises in Jewish history, says the Tory leader is descended from a German-born Jewish scholar whose writings furthered the study of Hebrew in European Christendom at a time of widespread hostility toward its Jews.

And according to Dr Wise, who has been using archival material to examine the Cameron family tree, the Tory leader could also be a direct descendent of the greatest ever Hebrew prophet, Moses.

Cameron is a descendent of banker Emile Levita, who came to Britain as a German immigrant in the 1850s. Emile Levita was himself a descendent of Elijah Levita, who lived from 1469-1549.

During the last years of his life Elijah Levita produced, among other works, two major books: the 1541 Translator’s Book, the first dictionary of the Targums or Aramaic commentaries on the Hebrew Bible.

His lexicon of 1542 explained much of the Mishnaic Hebrew language and was a supplement to two important earlier dictionaries.

[...]

The bit about his being descended from Moses is rather more speculative. There's a Wikipedia article (take usual caveats as read) on Elia Levita here.

QUMRAN SCHOLAR LARRY SCHIFFMAN has become an officer in an organization for inter-religious relations:

New Leaders to Represent World Jewry to Other Faiths

NEW YORK, July 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- IJCIC, (The International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation) the consortium charged with representing world Jewry in its relationships with other faiths, announced the election of new officers. IJCIC which is comprised of the three major religious streams and major secular organizations has existed for over 40 years. It is widely recognized as the spokesgroup and representative body for dealings with other world religious bodies.

Rabbi Richard Marker has been elected as Chair of IJCIC after serving for two years as vice chair. Professor Lawrence Schiffman who will assume the role of Vice Chair, and Betty Ehrenberg, who will serve as Treasurer, join him.

[...]

Schiffman, who serves as Edelman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic studies and chair of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University is an internationally known scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism. His writings have helped to redefine our understanding of the Jewish background of Christianity. In both academic and religious contexts, he has been active throughout his career in interfaith relations. He is a member of the international team that published the entire corpus of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a past president of the Association for Jewish Studies and a Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research. He has served as visiting professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. He serves IJCIC as a delegate of the Orthodox Union.

[...]

RAPHAEL GOLB has pleaded not guilty to ID theft in response to charges that he assumed the identity of Dead Sea Scrolls scholar Larry Schiffman in order to defame him.

Background here.

THE LOD MOSAIC has come to the attention of the New York Times:

Polishing a Lost Gem to Dazzle Tourists

By ISABEL KERSHNER
Published: July 8, 2009

LOD, Israel — The beauty of the exquisitely preserved ancient mosaic only seemed to underline the incongruity of its surroundings.

The late-Roman-era mosaic floor, one of the largest and finest in Israel, was unveiled by the authorities last week for just the second time since it was discovered 13 years ago in the dilapidated eastern section of this poor town near the international airport, south of Tel Aviv.

Some 1,700 years old, the magnificent tiled floor spreads over almost 2,000 square feet, shaded from the harsh summer sun by a thin awning and surrounded by a canvas fence. A panoply of colorful depictions of birds, fish, exotic animals and merchant ships, the mosaic conjures up an intriguing reminder of Lod’s more glorious past.

[...]

Background here.

BOOK REVIEW in BMCR:

Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History. Cambridge, UK/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. ix, 483. ISBN 9780521874571. $135.00.

Reviewed by David Frankfurter, University of New Hampshire (davidTf@unh.edu )
Word count: 2445 words

This learned and thoughtful book, building on the spate of publications of Jewish magical texts over the past thirty years (as well as the refinement of the study of magic in the ancient Mediterranean world), aims first of all to replace Ludwig Blau's 1914 Das Altjüdische Zauberwesen as the essential resource on ancient Jewish magic. But Bohak, who readers might know best for his superb on-line collection of University of Michigan magical texts is also a very engaging writer. In many ways, Ancient Jewish Magic reads more like an extended essay on the place of magic in developing Jewish religion than a systematic tour of sources. With amusing metaphors and asides about contemporary Israeli politics, and at the same time little jargon, the book deserves (and rewards) a leisurely read as much as reference consultation. (Indeed, the publishers seem to have opted against reference consultation. The Table of Contents is so woefully inadequate, lacking all Bohak's critical sub-sections, that the volume can be difficult to consult for particular topics).

The overall goal of the book is to describe the development of Jewish magical practices from the Second Temple through late rabbinic eras. This development reflected an increasingly confident sense of what is foreign to Judaism, the increasing hegemony of rabbinic sages, and an increasingly textual sense of magic itself. Magic, in Bohak's perspective, was neither peripheral nor entirely central to formative Judaism.

[...]

UPDATE: Dead link now fixed. Sorry!

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Another manuscript imaging and digitizing project:

High-tech imaging reveals hidden past in ancient texts
July 7th, 2009

(PhysOrg.com) -- It might simply look like a smudge, but even the slightest stain on the ancient writing surface of papyrus could obscure a revelation of a past civilization. Now, with the advent of high-tech imaging, some of those secrets could reveal fascinating insights into everyday life of early Egyptian, Greek and Roman societies.

For the last four weeks, a team of national researchers and scholars examined dozens of papyri among the thousands of papyrological pieces in the University of Michigan collection. Using multi-spectral imaging, the Ancient Textual Imaging Group—led by acclaimed papyrology expert Stephen Bay of Brigham Young University—examined ancient text written on papyrus that had become illegible because they are stained, discolored and faded. Recording through a range of filters, the technology captures high-resolution color images, making clear the layers of text hidden beneath words and letters written on levels of papyrus.

The Ancient Textual Imaging Group, based at Brigham Young, is conducting a two-year venture to record illegible papyrus documents from historically significant U.S.-based collections. The project is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

[...]

For other manuscript imaging and conservation projects see here, here, and here, following the links back as indicated.

BIBLINDEX:

The ultimate goal of this site is to permit the identification of biblical quotations in all Jewish and Christian literature of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. For the time being, it already allows simple interrogation in a corpus of about 400,000 biblical references.

(Via the Agade list.)

THE COPPER SCROLL is the subject of an essay by Robert R. Cargill at the Bible and Interpretation website: "On the Insignificance and the Abuse of the Copper Scroll." Excerpt:

Scholars aren’t quite sure what to do with the Copper Scroll. Milik concluded the Copper Scroll was placed in Cave 3 around 100 CE, after the other scrolls were abandoned in the other caves. Others like Lancaster Harding and Cross believe the Copper Scroll to be the folklore of Qumran. Still others believe it describes actual treasure belonging to the residents of Qumran. I join the scholars who conclude that the Copper Scroll describes articles from the second Jerusalem Temple (most likely legendary) supposedly hidden after its destruction in 70 CE, in keeping with later date of its composition. The Copper Scroll was most likely placed in Cave 3 long after the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls were placed in their respective caves. And while it was discovered during the excavations that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Copper Scroll should not be considered part of this collection because its author(s), script, style, language, genre, content, and medium are otherwise unattested among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Because of this irregularity, amateur treasure hunters and even some scholars regularly appeal to the Copper Scroll in a seemingly perpetual effort to promote sensational fringe theories, raise money, and bring attention to their far-fetched claims. Sensationalists prey on the ambiguous and everyone loves a treasure hunt; the Copper Scroll is both.

There follows much entertaining debunking.

I think the Copper Scroll is a genuine (i.e., not legendary) list of treasures, perhaps treasures associated with the Temple. I have more on the Copper Scroll here (follow the links back) and here.

THE LOD MOSAIC is going to New York in March to be displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art while a visitor's center is being built for it in Israel:

Ancient Mosaic to Be Displayed at Metropolitan Museum of Art
By Genevieve Long & Dalia Hartaz
Epoch Times Staff Jul 6, 2009

LOD, Israel—An archaeological treasure from Israel will make its maiden journey for display to New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in March. The Lod Mosaic, as it is dubbed, is an extraordinarily rich and detailed mosaic that was discovered 13 years ago in the city of Lod in central Israel.

It has been undergoing excavation and is now being prepared for transport to labs where it will be cleaned and restored. The work’s next stop after that will be New York City.

[...]

This was noted in earlier coverage, but this article has more details. Background here and here.

ANOTHER QUARRY:

Ancient Temple Mount quarry found in Jerusalem
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

A quarry from the late Second Temple Period that produced stone to build the Temple Mount's supporting walls has been uncovered in central Jerusalem, the Antiquities Authority said Monday.

The latest discovery brought to three the number of quarries found in the city over the past two years which archeologists believe were used in the construction of the Temple walls.

The 2,030-year-old quarry, which spans more than one dunam (0.1 hectare), was discovered during a salvage excavation on the city's Rehov Shmuel Hanevi ahead of planned construction of residential buildings at the site, the Authority said.

[...]

(Thanks to readers who brought this to my attention.) For the other two quarries in the Jerusalem area, go here and follow the links. And for another quarry found recently in the Jordan Valley, see here and here.

JASTROW'S DICTIONARY of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature is under consideration for electronic publication at Logos Bible Software and I understand some initial work on the project has already been undertaken. Kent Hendricks e-mails:

Logos Bible Software recently announced a digitization project for Marcus Jastrow’s Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. This new edition will be fully searchable, including words and phrases in any language buried deep within individual entries. It will also contain extensive linking, which readers will find especially useful when following cross-references, citations, and Hebrew Bible references. Most importantly, the electronic edition will fix some of the issues in the print versions, and use a more readable font.

The price is somewhat higher than the reprint available on Amazon, but Kent notes:

First, the recently-published print copies have been criticized for their poor quality—a difficult font for reading, blurry text, etc. Our edition will fix those issues, and add extensive linking, searching, and all of the other great features of having an electronic edition. The higher price, in our view, reflects a much higher quality book than the one currently in print.

Second, the production costs for a book of this size are very high. Other publishers have not re-typeset the original 1903 edition, which is why they can sell it for $33-$34. Since we plan on redoing the original 1903 edition from scratch (with the same content, of course), our project is significantly more expensive. Even at $49.95, we will still need a lot of orders.

So if you are interested, put in a pre-order now.

THE CODEX SINAITICUS has gone online today:

Historic Bible pages put online (BBC)

About 800 pages of the earliest surviving Christian Bible have been recovered and put on the internet.

Visitors to the website www.codexsinaiticus.org can now see images of more than half the 1,600-year-old Codex Sinaiticus manuscript.

Fragments of the 4th Century document - written in Greek on parchment leaves - have been worked on by institutions in the UK, Germany, Egypt and Russia.

Experts say it is "a window into the development of early Christianity".

[...]

The BBC piece is good but there are some more details in this Reuters article. Background here - follow the link at the bottom of the post. To celebrate the event, the British Library is holding a conference on Codex Sinaiticus today and tomorrow.

VISUALIZE THIS: Science fiction author Alastair Reynolds has a proposal for using computer technology to simulate the past:

The Tech Lab: Alastair Reynolds

(BBC)

Science fiction author Alastair Reynolds, author of Revelation Space and Century Rain, wonders if we could do a better job of looking back into history.

If there's a silver lining to the dark cloud of CGI-dominated blockbusters that seem to infest the cinema lately, it's this: the same digital technology that can make Spiderman or Hulk leap around the screen in a singularly unconvincing fashion, can also be used to create something infinitely more interesting: the past.

Imagine if you could actually walk around in a simulated version of a scene from history? Wouldn't that be worth an hour of anyone's time?

I'm not talking about the Star Trek holodeck here. I'm talking about something we could have sometime next week, if the appropriate technologies were combined.

[...]

Imagine visiting an historical site a few years down the line, something like the Roman spa in the city of Bath. Instead of being given the option to hire a handset with a pre-recorded commentary, you get given a pair of goggles, with an associated earpiece.

They're a bit scuffed from repeated use, but they've been thoroughly cleaned since the last person used them. You put them on and move into the museum proper. The goggles are preset for 45AD, but you can move the left-hand slider up and down to surf through the ages. If you wish you can even skip to post Roman times and stroll around the greening ruins.

Importantly, there's a second slider on the right side of the goggles. This one is preset to low immersion: when you first don the goggles, it displays the simulated overlay as a ghostly tracery, a bit like the vector graphics of old arcade games. You can see where walls and floors used to be, but you're still firmly anchored to the real world.

Turn the slider up a bit, though, and the overlays become progressively more solid, more photo-real.

Turn it up a bit more and the glasses begin selectively deleting what they don't want you to see - the modern walls that are in the wrong place, the modern ceiling that should show the blue sky and clouds of Roman Britain instead. What's more, the slider goes even further up the scale.

[...]

Reynolds had a brief slot on a BBC program in February discussing some of these ideas. I remember seeing it, which is odd because I didn't watch the whole program. Either I happened to switch on the television (itself unusual) at exactly the right time or, perhaps more likely, the BBC used the clip in an advert.

Alastair Reynolds is one of my favorite SF authors and I'm currently reading his The Prefect.

UPDATE: A tangetially related item here: Ancient Tourism.

PROFESSOR MARTIN HENGEL - 1926-2009. I've just learned the sad news that Martin Hengel passed away on 2 July. There's a brief Wikipedia article on him here. See also Larry Hurtado's article, "Martin Hengel's Impact on English-speaking Scholarship" in Expository Times 20.2 (2008): 70-76 (requires a paid personal or institutional subscription to download, but Michael Bird has an excerpt here). Professor Hengel's contribution to New Testament and Second Temple Judaism studies was vast. Requiescat in pace.