WHO WROTE THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS? asks a nice article by Andrew Lawler in the Smithsonian. The piece covers pretty much all the responsible theories about the Scrolls and the site of Qumran and is worth reading in full. Excerpt:

Tour guides shepherding the tourists through the modest desert ruins speak of the scrolls’ origin, a narrative that has been repeated almost since they were discovered more than 60 years ago. Qumran, the guides say, was home to a community of Jewish ascetics called the Essenes, who devoted their lives to writing and preserving sacred texts. They were hard at work by the time Jesus began preaching; ultimately they stored the scrolls in 11 caves before Romans destroyed their settlement in A.D. 68.

But hearing the dramatic recitation, Peleg, 40, rolls his eyes. “There is no connection to the Essenes at this site,” he tells me as a hawk circles above in the warming air. He says the scrolls had nothing to do with the settlement. Evidence for a religious community here, he says, is unconvincing. He believes, rather, that Jews fleeing the Roman rampage hurriedly stuffed the documents into the Qumran caves for safekeeping. After digging at the site for ten years, he also believes that Qumran was originally a fort designed to protect a growing Jewish population from threats to the east. Later, it was converted into a pottery factory to serve nearby towns like Jericho, he says.

Other scholars describe Qumran variously as a manor house, a perfume manufacturing center and even a tannery. Despite decades of excavations and careful analysis, there is no consensus about who lived there—and, consequently, no consensus about who actually wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“It’s an enigmatic and confusing site,” acknowledges Risa Levitt Kohn, who in 2007 curated an exhibit about the Dead Sea Scrolls in San Diego. She says the sheer breadth and age of the writings—during a period that intersects with the life of Jesus and the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem—make Qumran “a powder keg” among normally placid scholars. Qumran has prompted bitter feuds and even a recent criminal investigation.

Nobody doubts the scrolls’ authenticity, but the question of authorship has implications for understanding the history of both Judaism and Christianity. In 164 B.C., a group of Jewish dissidents, the Maccabees, overthrew the Seleucid Empire that then ruled Judea. The Maccabees established an independent kingdom and, in so doing, tossed out the priestly class that had controlled the temple in Jerusalem since the time of King Solomon. The turmoil led to the emergence of several rival sects, each one vying for dominance. If the Qumran texts were written by one such sect, the scrolls “help us to understand the forces that operated after the Maccabean Revolt and how various Jewish groups reacted to those forces,” says New York University professor of Jewish and Hebraic studies Lawrence Schiffman in his book Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls. “While some sects were accommodating themselves to the new order in various ways, the Dead Sea group decided it had to leave Jerusalem altogether in order to continue its unique way of life.”

For more on the work of Peleg, Golb, and Stacey, see here and here and follow the links. For the Raphael Golb case, go here and follow the links.

A LATE-ANTIQUE SYNAGOGUE in an Arab village southwest of Hebron has been defaced with swastikas.

Swastikas on Walls of Ancient Synagogue in PA City near Hevron

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

(IsraelNN.com) A group of Jews, in a rare visit to the ruins of an ancient synagogue in an Arab village southwest of Hevron, was shocked to discover swastikas scrawled on the walls by Arabs. Israel National News learned that the discovery was made last Friday morning, the same day that Muslims in Samaria accused Jews of setting fire to the second floor of a mosque in a village in Samaria.

[...]

Whoever did it (and I assume no one actually saw it being done), this is very disturbing. For another recent case of vandalism of an antiquities site, see here.

LECTIO DIFFICILIOR, Electronic Journal for Feminist Studies in Europe, has posted a new issue (2/2009). TOC:

• Sophie Kauz
Frauenräume im Alten Testament am Beispiel der Siedlung

• Reuven Kiperwasser
“Three Partners in a Person”
The Genesis and Development of Embryological Theory in Biblical and Rabbinic Judaism

• Ernst Axel Knauf
Salome Alexandra and the Final Redaction of Psalms

• Nancy C. Lee
Prophetic ‘Bat-‘Ammî’ Answers God and Jeremiah

• Pamela J. Milne
Son of a Prostitute and Daughter of a Warrior:
What Do You Think the Story in Judges 11 Means?

• Jane Tolmie
Eve in the Looking-Glass:
Interpretive labour in the Anglo-Norman Jeu d’Adam

(Via the Agade List.)

THE TESTIMONIUM FLAVIANUM - the discussion of Jesus that survives in the work of Josephus - is considered by Geza Vermes is a good article in Standpoint:

Jesus in the Eyes of Josephus
GEZA VERMES
January/February 2010

Joseph son of Matthias, better known as Flavius Josephus — surnamed after his patron, the Roman Emperor Titus Flavius — was the greatest Jewish historian of antiquity. Without his work, much of the contemporaneous history of Israel would be floating in a vacuum. Josephus's vignettes concerning Jesus, John the Baptist and Jesus's brother, James, are the only pieces of outside evidence relating to first-century New Testament figures. The issue of their authenticity is, therefore, of major importance. However, before tackling it, let me say a few words about the author and his reliability as an historian.

[...]

Vermes concludes:

In conclusion, what seems to be Josephus's authentic portrait of Jesus depicts him as a wise teacher and miracle worker, with an enthusiastic following of Jewish disciples who, despite the crucifixion of their master by order of Pontius Pilate in collusion with the Jerusalem high priests, remained faithful to him up to Josephus's days.

Let me offer therefore the text that I believe Josephus wrote. The Christian additions, identified in the paragraph that follows the earlier reproduction of the English translation of Antiquities 18: 63-64, are excised and the deletions are indicated by [......]. The dubious authenticity of the phrase "[and many Greeks?]" (see the same paragraph above) is signalled by the question mark. Finally, the word [called] is inserted into the sentence "He was [called] the Christ" on the basis of Josephus's description of James as "the brother of Jesus called the Christ".

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man...For he was one who performed paradoxical deeds and was the teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews [and many Greeks?]. He was [called] the Christ. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him...And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.

I agree with his general position (i.e., #3) and with most of his reconstruction.

A brief summary of a 2003 lecture by Steve Mason on Josephus is here. And my discussion of Josephus on the Essenes is here.

CONGRATULATIONS to the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at Saint John's University, which has just received a major grant:

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awards $343,000 grant to HMML

12/16/2009

The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) at Saint John's University has been awarded a $343,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the cataloging of more than 15,000 Eastern Christian manuscripts digitized in the Middle East and Ethiopia.

This project builds on a Mellon-supported HMML project that began in the 1990s that developed standards for electronic cataloging of manuscripts. A 2008-09 Mellon grant laid the groundwork for this most recent award by refining those cataloging standards for use with non-western manuscripts and devising a model for distributed cataloging of these collections by scholars located in the Middle East, Europe, and North America.

HMML is the only institution in the world exclusively dedicated to the photographic preservation of manuscripts, with a particular emphasis on manuscripts located in places where war, social unrest or economic conditions pose a threat to collections or to the communities holding them.

[...]

The HMML has been mentioned in earlier posts here, here, and here.

AN EARLY MODERN EXORCISM from the Cairo Geniza:

A Ghostly Trace of the Jewish Occult
By Nathaniel Popper (The Forward)
Published December 16, 2009, issue of December 25, 2009.

A newly discovered piece of stained, wrinkled paper conjures up the details of a Jewish exorcism that appears to have been performed sometime in the 18th or 19th century.

The ghostly document details the prayers that were performed on Qamar bat Rahmah to try to rid her of the spirit of her dead husband, Nissim ben Bonia. According to the handwritten but well-preserved Hebrew text, the rabbis asked the ghost to “leave this woman, Qamar bat Rahmah, [and forgo] all authority and control that it has over her; and Nissim ben Bonia shall have no more authority and control whatsoever over Qamar bat Rahmah in any form or manner at all.”

The 150-word text provides a haunting insight into the often forgotten world of the Jewish occult. While exorcisms are frequently described in Jewish texts from the Middle Ages on, this appears to be the first text that provides the prayer used in a specific exorcism.

[...]

Some of the geniza’s collection made its way to the University of Manchester, in England, where the exorcism text was found while Renate Smithuis, a researcher, was cataloguing the 11,000 items there. When she shared the text with an Israeli colleague, Gideon Bohak, who is an expert in Jewish dybbuks, or spirits, she realized the significance of her discovery.

[...]

The prayer makes a number of things clear. At the time of the exorcism, Qamar bat Rahmah is married to Joseph Moses ben Sarah and is bothered by the spirit of her late former husband, Nissim ben Bonia, and the “control that it has over her.” The prayer is respectful to ben Bonia’s spirit and asks that when it leaves his widow’s body, it “shall go and reunite with his [vital] soul, his spirit and his [rational] soul in the place which is appropriate for them.”

[...]

Exoricisms are known from as far back as pre-Christian polytheism and they survive in Judaism, Christianity, and other traditions today. Earlier posts on a modern cinematic exorcism and an alleged modern exorcism scam are (respectively) here and here. Gideon Bohak, who is mentioned in this article, is translating a number of ancient exorcistic hymns attributed (fictionally) to King David for the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project. Some of the many past posts on the Cairo Geniza are here, here, here, here, and here.

UPDATE: And here's a translation of a late antique exorcism text on an Aramaic incantation bowl.

A "BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY" LECTURE SERIES sponsored by the British Academy:

The 2010 Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology, given by Professor Fergus Millar FBA

Religion and Community in the Roman Near East – Constantine to Mahomet

27 January, 3 & 10 February 2010
5.30pm - 6.30pm, followed by a drinks reception
The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH

Free Admittance

Wednesday 27 January 2010
I. The Legacy of Alexander and the Bible. A Greek Christian World?

When the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, acquired control of the Eastern provinces of the Empire and called the Council of Nicaea in 325, it was over six and a half centuries since Alexander had conquered the Near East. When the forces of Islam invaded in the 630s, Greek had been the primary public language there, from the Mediterranean to the Tigris and from the Taurus Mountains to the Red Sea, for almost a millennium.

But how deeply had Greek culture penetrated, and was the Christian Church in the Near East wholly Greek-speaking? What 'resistance' was offered by either an Aramaic or Syriac-speaking population, or by paganism. Where do the Jewish and Samaritan inhabitants of Palestine fit in? This long apparently ‘Greek’ phase in the Near East demands attention.

Wednesday 3 February 2010
II. Jews and Samaritans in a Greek Christian World

In the first few centuries CE, a network of Greek cities came to cover almost all of Palestine, and by the sixth century more than fifty of these places had bishops, who preached and wrote in Greek. In this context, what forms of religious, social or cultural self-expression were open to Jews or Samaritans?

In the fourth–sixth centuries churches were built almost everywhere – but so also were Jewish and Samaritan synagogues – and it was these, not the churches, which produced elaborate representational art on their mosaic floors. Jews also produced the vast corpus of rabbinic literature in Hebrew or Aramaic. But how separate was Jewish life in reality from its gentile environment? Should we think of separation into distinct geographical zones, of peaceful co-existence, or of communal conflict?

Wednesday 10 February 2010
III. Syrians and Saracens: Alternative Christianities?

Aramaic, in various dialects, persisted as a spoken language all through the centuries of Graeco-Roman rule. But, while Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic were long-established languages of culture in which religious texts were composed, at the moment of Constantine's conversion there was not a single community anywhere in the Roman Near East where Greek was not the dominant public language.

Christian literary composition in Syriac, which in origin was the Aramaic dialect and script used at Edessa, had however already begun before Constantine. The subsequent emergence of Syriac as a major language of Christian literary culture, and as expressed in the many beautiful contemporary manuscripts which survive, is of huge significance. But what was the role of Syriac-speaking Christianity in relation to Greek, and to the profound theological divisions of the time? Was it in Greek or in Syriac that the Bible and monotheism were transmitted to the Arabs of the desert?

About the Speaker
Fergus Millar was Camden Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford from 1984 to 2002. He is the author of The Roman Near East, 37 BC-AD 337 (1993) and A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II, 408-450 (2006). He was awarded the Kenyon Medal for Classical Studies in 2005. Currently Senior Associate of the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Oxford, he is writing on the linguistic, cultural and religious history of the Roman Near East in the fourth to sixth centuries.

Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology
The Leopold Schweich Trust Fund, set up in 1907, was a gift from Miss Constance Schweich in memory of her father. It provided for three public lectures to be delivered annually (now triennially) on subjects related to 'the archaeology, art, history, languages and literature of Ancient Civilization with reference to Biblical Study'.

A poster for your notice board can be downloaded here:

Please visit our website for full details of our forthcoming events.
Telephone enquiries: 020 7969 5246 / Email: lectures@britac.ac.uk

Please note our ticketing and seating policy:
British Academy Lectures are freely open to the general public and everyone is welcome; there is no charge for admission, no tickets will be issued, and seats cannot be reserved. The Lecture Room is opened at 5.00pm, and the first 80 audience members arriving at the Academy will be offered a seat in the Lecture Room; the next 60 people to arrive will be offered a seat in the Overflow Room, which has a video and audio link to the Lecture Room. Lectures are followed by a reception at 6.30pm, to which members of the audience are invited.

THE JERUSALEM SHROUD STORY continues to be recycled in the news. Here's one article of many:

DNA of Jesus-Era Shrouded Man in Jerusalem Reveals Earliest Case of Leprosy

ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2009) — The DNA of a first-century shrouded man found in a tomb on the edge of the Old City of Jerusalem has revealed the earliest proven case of leprosy.

The burial cave, which is known as the Tomb of the Shroud, is located in the lower Hinnom Valley and is part of a 1st century C.E. cemetery known as Akeldama or 'Field of Blood' (Matthew 27:3-8; Acts 1:19) -- next to the area where Judas is said to have committed suicide. The tomb of the shrouded man is located next to the tomb of Annas, the high priest (6-15 C.E.), who was the father in law of Caiaphas, the high priest who was said to have betrayed Jesus to the Romans. It is thus thought that this shrouded man was either a priest or a member of the aristocracy. According to Prof. Gibson, the view from the tomb would have looked directly toward the Jewish Temple.

Details of the research will be published December 16 in the journal PLoS ONE.

The molecular investigation was undertaken by Prof. Mark Spigelman and Prof. Charles Greenblatt and of the Sanford F. Kuvin Center for the Study of Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Prof. Carney Matheson and Ms. Kim Vernon of Lakehead University, Canada, Prof. Azriel Gorski of New Haven University and Dr. Helen Donoghue of University College London. The archaeological excavation was led by Prof. Shimon Gibson, Dr. Boaz Zissu and Prof. James Tabor on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

[...]

The renewed attention to the shroud seems to have been generated by the (welcome) publication of this journal article on the DNA evidence, which is available online here (as noted by Joe Lauer on his list). This is the abstract:

Molecular Exploration of the First-Century Tomb of the Shroud in Akeldama, Jerusalem

Carney D. Matheson1,2,3*, Kim K. Vernon3,4, Arlene Lahti1,5, Renee Fratpietro1, Mark Spigelman3,6, Shimon Gibson7, Charles L. Greenblatt3, Helen D. Donoghue6

1 Paleo-DNA Laboratory, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Canada, 2 Department of Anthropology, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Canada, 3 Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, The Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel, 4 Department of Anthropology, Department of Zoology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Australia, 5 Department of Biology, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Canada, 6 Department of Infection, University College London, London, United Kingdom, 7 University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina, United States of America
Abstract Top

The Tomb of the Shroud is a first-century C.E. tomb discovered in Akeldama, Jerusalem, Israel that had been illegally entered and looted. The investigation of this tomb by an interdisciplinary team of researchers began in 2000. More than twenty stone ossuaries for collecting human bones were found, along with textiles from a burial shroud, hair and skeletal remains. The research presented here focuses on genetic analysis of the bioarchaeological remains from the tomb using mitochondrial DNA to examine familial relationships of the individuals within the tomb and molecular screening for the presence of disease. There are three mitochondrial haplotypes shared between a number of the remains analyzed suggesting a possible family tomb. There were two pathogens genetically detected within the collection of osteological samples, these were Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium leprae. The Tomb of the Shroud is one of very few examples of a preserved shrouded human burial and the only example of a plaster sealed loculus with remains genetically confirmed to have belonged to a shrouded male individual that suffered from tuberculosis and leprosy dating to the first-century C.E. This is the earliest case of leprosy with a confirmed date in which M. leprae DNA was detected.

Background on the (non-)relationship to the Shroud of Turin is here. Background on the leprosy connection (from 2003) is here.

Also, Todd Bolen has a post at the Bible Places blog which summarizes current coverage. He is skeptical of the debunking of the Shroud of Turin based on the Jerusalem Shroud:

Here’s an important statement in the JPost article:

Based on the assumption that this is representative of a typical burial shroud widely used at the time of Jesus, the researchers conclude that the Turin Shroud did not originate from Jesus-era Jerusalem.

That gives you the basis for the researchers’ conclusion that the Turin Shroud is fake. As long as there was only one shroud maker in town in the first century, we can be absolutely sure that the Turin crowd [read "shroud?" JRD] is from the medieval period. (I have no interest in or knowledge about the Shroud, but I do care about assumptions necessary for conclusions. The conclusions are in the headlines; the assumptions are always buried if not omitted.)

That's not quite what it says in the Daily Mail article quoted in my post yesterday. The claim there is that "[i]t was made with a simple two-way weave - not the twill weave used on the Turin Shroud, which textile experts say was introduced more than 1,000 years after Christ lived." That is a more general claim that ought to be verifiable or falsifiable based on the reasonably ample surviving textile evidence from antiquity. If it is true that this type of weave is only attested much later, that would severely weaken any case for the genuineness of the Shroud of Turin. Are there specialists in first-century textiles out there who would like to speak up?

UPDATE (24 December): Reader Evy Nelson points me to a textile expert who headed up a 2002 restoration of the Shroud and who was featured in a PBS segment of Secrets of the Dead:

And yet, when [Mechthild]Flury-Lemberg finally did agree to head the restoration and conservation of the linen in the summer of 2002, the Shroud had a far different story to tell her. She first noticed that the entire cloth was crafted with a weave known as a three-to-one herringbone pattern. "This kind of weave was special in antiquity because it denoted an extraordinary quality," she says. (Less fine linens of the first century would have had a one-to-one herringbone pattern). That same pattern is present on a 12th century illustration that depicts Christ's funeral cloth, which, she says, is "extremely significant, because it shows that the painter was familiar with Christ's Shroud and that he recognized the indubitably exceptional nature of the weave of the cloth." Flury-Lemberg also discovered a peculiar stitching pattern in the seam of one long side of the Shroud, where a three-inch wide strip of the same original fabric was sewn onto a larger segment. The stitching pattern, which she says was the work of a professional, is surprisingly similar to the hem of a cloth found in the tombs of the Jewish fortress of Masada. The Masada cloth dates to between 40 B.C. and 73 A.D. The evidence, says Flury-Lemberg, is clear: "The linen cloth of the Shroud of Turin does not display any weaving or sewing techniques which would speak against its origin as a high quality product of the textile workers of the first century."

(Cf. here for a still stronger statement.)

But Evy also notes that Joe Zias did not think highly of this PBS show. According to USA Today:

Joe Zias of Hebrew University of Jerusalem calls the shroud indisputably a fake. "Not only is it a forgery, but it's a bad forgery."

Zias says the shroud depicts a man whose front measures 2 inches taller than his back and whose elongated hands and arms would indicate he was afflicted with gigantism if it were real.

So that leaves us about where we started, with conflicting confident evaluations attributed to specialists and with none of those evaluations put in a peer-review publication. If any other ancient-textile experts want to weigh in, drop me a note.

THE SHROUD OF TURIN'S GENUNINENESS is being called into question on the basis of the certainly genuine first-century Jerusalem Shroud. The Daily Mail interviews archaeologist Shimon Gibson, who excavated the latter shroud.

Burial cloth found in Jerusalem cave casts doubt on authenticity of Turin Shroud

By Matthew Kalman
Last updated at 1:08 AM on 16th December 2009

Archaeologists have discovered the first known burial shroud in Jerusalem from the time of Christ's crucifixion - and say it casts serious doubt on the claimed authenticity of the Turin Shroud.

Ancient shrouds from the period have been found before in the Holy Land, but never in Jerusalem.

Researchers say the weave and design of the shroud discovered in a burial cave near Jerusalem's Old City are completely different to the Turin Shroud.

Radiocarbon tests and artefacts found in the cave prove almost beyond doubt that it was from the same time of Christ's death.

It was made with a simple two-way weave - not the twill weave used on the Turin Shroud, which textile experts say was introduced more than 1,000 years after Christ lived.

And instead of being a single sheet like the famous item in Turin, the Jerusalem shroud is made up of several sections, with a separate piece for the head.

Professor Shimon Gibson, the archaeologist who discovered the tomb, said ancient writings and contemporary shrouds from other areas had suggested this design, and the Jerusalem shroud finally provided the physical evidence.

The debate over the Turin Shroud will not go away. Last month a Vatican researcher said she had found the words 'Jesus Nazarene' on the shroud, proving it was the linen cloth which was wrapped around Christ's body.

[...]

Gibson's work makes me even more skeptical of these claims about writing on the Shroud of Turin, on which I have commented here (with links to earlier posts on the Jerusalem Shroud) and here. But as I've been saying, I will be happy to look at the evidence when it is published with good photographs. Or, better yet, let the West Semitic Research Project team loose on it. They'll sort it in no time.

ROBERT CARGILL has an essay "On False Accusations of Anti-Semitism within the Academy" at the Bible and Interpretation website in which he defends himself against accusations of anti-Semitism by Raphael Golb (this in the context of the Dead Sea Scrolls sock-puppetry identity-theft case now under litigation in New York).

Background to the case is here and keep following the links back.

SETH SANDERS has just published a book: The Invention of Hebrew (University of Illinios Press).

The Invention of Hebrew is the first book to approach the Bible in light of recent epigraphic discoveries on the extreme antiquity of the alphabet and its use as a deliberate and meaningful choice. Hebrew was more than just a way of transmitting information; it was a vehicle of political symbolism and self-representation.

Note that Seth also blogs at Serving the Word.

THE SALAMANDER IN THE TALMUD: Eli Dahan has the story at the Learning Biblical Hebrew blog.

JIM WEST has an essay on Blogging the Bible at the Bible and Interpretation website. Excerpt:

Blogging the Bible is the best way for scholars to get scholarship to the mass of consumers. Scholars can and should write journal articles in peer reviewed journals. They should publish excruciatingly detailed tomes that only a few other experts in the same field will ever read. They should meet at conferences and hear papers and interact and learn and grow professionally and intellectually. Likewise, they should write “popularizing” books targeted for the wider public. And finally they should, and I would suggest must, also attend to their duties as the disseminators of publicly consumable biblical scholarship for people who will not, or cannot, read extensive treatments. This is not to suggest that they dumb down their ideas, scholars should clarify, not reduce. But, scholars should also understand that anything that can't be explained in some clear fashion, so that the majority of people can understand it, may become an exercise in self-importance, not true scholarship.

Scholarship, it seems to me, must always be aware of its audience. And communication of said scholarship means dissemination. Scholars have a tendency--when they gather--to bemoan their students’ ignorance in the most basic matters. And yet within their hands, at their very fingertips, is a formidable, under-used tool for the correction of that state of affairs: Blogging the Bible.

Fair points, all. It's good that there is now an SBL unit on this subject.

JOB ADVERT at Portland State University: Schusterman Teaching Fellow and Assistant Professor of Classical Judaism.

THE HANUKKAH NARRATIVE, and its use in various subsequent historical contexts, comes under further scrutiny:

Heroes or rabble-rousers? The real story of the Maccabees

By Gil Shefler · December 10, 2009

NEW YORK (JTA) -- In 165 BCE, a group of warriors led by Judah Maccabee and his band of brothers ushered in a new era in Jewish history when they routed the soldiers of the Greek-Syrian empire and rededicated the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

That victory, and the miracle of the menorah that followed, is celebrated every year by Jews around the world at Chanukah.

But if the same thing had happened today, would contemporary Jews hail the Maccabees as heroes?

The place in Jewish history of the Maccabees -- a nickname for the first members of the Hasmonean dynasty that ruled an autonomous Jewish kingdom -- is much more complex than their popular image might suggest.

[...]

"My guess is that most liberal Jews today wouldn't necessarily get along with the Maccabees if they showed up again," said Rabbi Jill Jacob, the rabbi in residence at Jewish Funds for Justice.

“Even those of us who are regularly active in Jewish life may find it hard to identify with Matityahu, the leader of the Jewish revolt, whom the first Book of Maccabees depicts as killing a Jew who sacrifices to a pagan god," she wrote in an essay about the meaning of Chanukah.

Jacobs argues that Jews should be aware of the complicated history, though they do not have to be bound by it.

"In redefining Chanukah, each generation considers anew the questions of assimilation and ethnic identity, the tension between Judaism as a religion and the Jewish people as a nation," she wrote.

Many Jews in ancient times also had their reservations regarding the exploits of Judah Maccabee and his brothers.

[...]

In general I would say that it is perilous to hold up any event, text, or narrative from antiquity as an unambiguous moral example for today. The ancients often took moral standards for granted which we find very troubling. But that should not stop us from learning from what they said and did, appreciating the courageous stands they often took under horrendous conditions it is hard for us even to imagine, and (one would hope) improving on their example.

THE HELIODORUS INSCRIPTION - now confirmed as genuine by the excavated fragments published this year - leads Senior Albright Fellow Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg to take the narrative of 2 Maccabees more seriously:

Hanukka, another version

By STEPHEN GABRIEL ROSENBERG

Last year we knew that the story of Heliodorus in the Second Book of Maccabees was built around a kernel of truth. The story goes that the Emperor Seleucus IV (187-175 BCE) sends his chief minister to the Temple in Jerusalem to rob its treasury. To the consternation of the priests and the people, Heliodorus marches into the Temple, but there he is confronted by a golden rider on a warlike horse and beaten to the ground by two golden boys (3:25). He is dragged out empty-handed and hardly conscious.

It's a good story and has been illustrated by such great artists as Raphael in the 16th century and Gustav Doré in the 19th, but was it true? That sounds most unlikely, but the Heliodorus stele (inscribed tablet) that was lent to the Israel Museum by the Steinhardt family and exhibited there last year tells a related story. It is written in pure Greek bureaucrat-speak and tells howthe Emperor Seleucus instructs Heliodorus in 178 BCE to check the temples of the empire to see that they are suited to the needs of the population and their gods, and in particular to inspect the temples of Coele-Syria, the land later to be called Palestine and Israel.

Heliodorus sends the letter on to "his brother" Dorymenes, and he in turn writes to one Diophanes telling him, "You will do well to take care that everything is carried out according to the instructions." In other words,the emperor 's orders are passed down the line, and probably it was Diophanes who tried to check the Temple and was prevented from raiding it, but the author ofSecond Maccabees just remembered the most important name, that of Heliodorus.

[...]

THE STELE and its fragments now give us the confidence to follow the Hanukka story in the Second Book of Maccabees, which is rather different from the one in the First.

[...]

Antiochus has no idea how to handle Jews; he has to consult his expert, the High Priest Menelaus. First of all, he is led into the Temple by Menelaus to demonstrate to the Jews that he is the overall master of their fate, and Menelaus allows him to rob the Temple further to pay his tribute to the Romans (5:21). Then Menelaus advises him to abrogate the ancestral laws of the Jews, like circumcision and keeping the Sabbath, to build an idol in the Temple and force the Jews to sacrifice to it and eat the entrails. All these indignities would keep them down.

For some Jews this was too much. The Maccabees fled into the countryside where Judah started their counterrebellion. After three years they managed to regain the Temple and cleanse it of pagan worship. They celebrated the festival of Hanukka for eight days, to make it like the Succot they had not been able to celebrate two months earlier, when they were "living like wild animals in the mountains and caves" (10:6).

They lit the menora for eight days like on Succot, not because they had found a small jar of pure oil with the seal of the high priest that lasted for eight days by miracle. If they had found such a jar, and it had on it the seal of the last High Priest Menelaus, would they have used it? This high priest who had usurped the position, who had robbed the Temple to pay his bribes, who had arranged the murder of the old priest Onias, who had led the emperor into the Temple, helped him to rob it and advised him how to forbid the Jewish laws and customs and to replace them with pagan ritual, would they have accepted the kashrut of such a man? Would you have bought a jar of oil from such a priest?

Incidentally, as I noted a few years ago (bottom of post), the sixth-century chronographer Malalas has a passage on the Maccabean revolt that appears to come from Seleucid sources and which gives yet another perspective on events. We hope to include this as "8 Maccabees" in the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project.

THE KEEPER OF THE ARK at Axum is glimpsed by Mark Sissons (SF Chronicle):

At this point, I hoped - no, needed - to catch a rare glimpse of the Keeper of the Ark, the only mortal allowed to lay eyes upon it (not even the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is granted that privilege). Keepers are virgin monks chosen to protect this holiest of Christian relics for their entire lives. They remain confined to the sanctuary (some say with a chain), never setting foot outside the chapel grounds until they die.

As the afternoon light began to fade and the Keeper had not yet made an appearance, I reluctantly prepared to leave the compound. What naive presumption drove me to think that the one man on Earth entrusted with protecting the word of God would condescend to make an appearance just for me?

Just then, a bearded, almost spectral figure swathed in black glanced furtively from behind a chapel doorway protected from intruders by a spiked fence. It was the Keeper. We locked eyes - the virgin monk and the spiritual voyeur. I wondered if I should pursue him, risking life, limb (and perhaps even eternal damnation) to discover what lies behind that door? There must be something inside important enough for the Keeper and countless Keepers before him to sacrifice their freedom, and even their lives.

Before I could act, the Keeper retreated behind the chapel's heavy wooden door, closing it - as well as my fleeting opportunity to solve 3,000-year-old mysteries - behind him.

For more on Ark of the Covenant traditions (and goofy notions), including Ethiopian Ark traditions, see here and follow the links.

NEW ORLEANS SBL: David Larsen summarizes April DeConick's paper, "Star Gates: What Were the Gnostics Doing?" on his Heavenly Ascents blog.

FORENSIC RECONSTRUCTION of the face of St. Nicholas? "Well, we did add the beard."

No, I made that quote up, but Kate Nicholas (no relation, as far as I know) does suggest that "[a] possible source for the broken nose may have been the altercation between him and Arius at the First Council of Nicaea, over what later was deemed the heresy of Arianism."

(Cross-file under Technology Watch and Can't Make It Up.)

PRESIDENT OBAMA has published a Hanukkah message on the White House website:

Statement by the President on Hanukkah
Michelle and I send our warmest wishes to all who are celebrating Hanukkah around the world. The Hanukkah story of the Maccabees and the miracles they witnessed reminds us that faith and perseverance are powerful forces that can sustain us in difficult times and help us overcome even the greatest odds.

Hanukkah is not only a time to celebrate the faith and customs of the Jewish people, but for people of all faiths to celebrate the common aspirations we share. As families, friends and neighbors gather together to kindle the lights, may Hanukkah's lessons inspire us all to give thanks for the blessings we enjoy, to find light in times of darkness, and to work together for a brighter, more hopeful tomorrow.

Hebrew translation available here at whitehouse.gov.

MARY MAGDALENE meets belly dancing:

Moon Belly Dance studio to present '100,000 Feet Deep'

The studio's latest show uses different traditions about Mary Magdalene.

By Jessica Schuster (MOVE Magazine)

Published Dec. 11, 2009

As it has been used for centuries, dancing can convey messages words cannot. It can interpret the unknown and surface hidden emotions all through movements. The Moon Belly Dance studio brings together women to tell their different stories through dance.

Moon Belly Dance studio owner Kandice Grossman coordinates opportunities for women to express their passion for performance. Dec. 12 at The Blue Note, performers will be showcasing an intricate look at the elusive Mary Magdalene through their production, "100,000 Feet Deep: Mary Magdalene."

Grossman, who serves as the artistic director of 100,000 Feet Deep, has pulled from many aspects of her life to create the vision for this production. Grossman is a women's studies professor at Columbia College and has been studying Mary Magdalene for about 15 years.

"There are so many myths and traditions about her ranging from Gnostic, Christian and Beguine," Grossman said. "She was really an elusive character and that has caused us to have little snippets of her life."

[...]

THE MILWAUKEE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION is coming on 22 January and preparations are well underway:

Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit coming alive

By Jackie Loohauis-Bennett of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Dec. 12, 2009

If you let loose your imagination, you might hear a desert wind blowing across Milwaukee and smell the scent of ancient parchments - and maybe just a whiff of old camel.

That's because curators and artists are re-creating part of the Middle East in the halls of the Milwaukee Public Museum for the "Dead Sea Scrolls and The Bible," the largest temporary exhibit ever produced by the museum staff.

Opening Jan. 22, the exhibit will evoke a faraway time and place using everything from eerie wind sound effects to a 50-foot-wide re-creation of Jerusalem's Temple Mount.

The "Dead Sea Scrolls" spotlights more than 200 artifacts dating from 300 B.C. to A.D. 70, including the oldest known texts of the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament) and the oldest existing version of the Hebrew Masoretic Text.

[...]

Then there's this:

But perhaps no job on this construction site has been more delicate than the one Wendy Christensen-Senk has tackled for three months. She's rebuilding a camel. A camel with dry rot.

In life, the camel with no name trod the sands of the Middle East. In the 1970s, his skin was mounted at the museum, and he has held court in the North Africa Exhibit since then.

When "Dead Sea Scrolls" planners decided to use him to portray the lifestyle of the Bedouin people who found the scrolls, Christensen-Senk took a close look to see how the camel had fared over the decades.

The diagnosis: A severe case of camel rot.

"The acids from the tanning process had eaten up the skin, and he had dry rot," she said. "Pieces of him were flaking off."

Christensen-Senk had to use a hypodermic needle to put the skin back using new types of glue that flex with the temperature. She added parts of the skin that had gone missing over the years.

These days, Camel stands proud again: hump up, lips saucy. Christensen-Senk said: "No straw could break this camel's back. He's back in his glory."

A camel through the eye of a needle?

I've noted this exhibition earlier here.

YESTERDAY'S Samaritan genetics post has been updated.

SUNRISE IN ST. ANDREWS (which happens close to 9:00 am this time of year):


The Botanic Gardens



Entrance to Cockshaugh Park
Click on the pictures for a larger image.

THE HELIODORUS INSCRIPTION is back in the news for Hanukkah. New fragments of it were published earlier this year. JTA has a recap:

Maccabees still making news

By Gil Shefler · December 10, 2009

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Some 2,200 years after the Maccabees' revolt, historians and archaeologists are uncovering new information about their era.

This year's biggest discovery is a correspondence between Seleukes IV, whose brother and heir was Antiochus IV Epiphanes of the Chanukah story, and one of Seleukes' chiefs in Judea found on parts of an ancient stele.

Professor Dov Gera of Ben-Gurion University, who studied the stone's inscription, said it confirms the account by the Jewish historian Josephus regarding the tightening grip of the Greek-Syrian empire over its subjects' religious practices.

[...]

NEWS ON THE HASMONEAN KINGDOM, just in time for Hanukkah. This IAA press release is posted in full on the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs site:

Archeological analysis proves Hasmonean rule extended to Negev highlands
10 Dec 2009

Dr. Tali Erickson-Gini of the Israel Antiquities Authority: “The Hasmonean king Alexander Jannaeus conquered Gaza and the Negev and for decades prevented the Nabataeans from using the Incense Road.”

Via Joseph I. Lauer and others.

HAPPY HANUKKAH to all those celebrating. It begins this evening at sundown.

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF HELL is covered in the latest Philologos column in The Forward. Excerpt:

In ancient rabbinic Judaism, which could cite in its support the biblical phrase ha-shamayim u/shmey ha-shamayim, “the heaven and the heavens of the heaven,” these layers were thought to be seven — a number whose sacred status goes back to the Bible, too. (Think of the seven days of creation, the seventh or Sabbath day, the seven branches of the menorah, etc.) Most likely, this sacredness was linked from the outset to the concept of a sevenfold heaven, which in turn derived from the seven brightest and most independent heavenly bodies: the sun, moon and five visible planets — Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Each of the heavens associated with one of these bodies had its own name in rabbinic literature, as did each of the seven hells. The latter were, using synonyms for the underworld taken from the Bible: She’ol, Avadon, Gehinom, Duma, Tsalmavet, Eretz-Taḥtit and Eretz-Neshi’h.

There is Jewish literature from the Middle Ages that enumerates the inhabitants and punishments of every one of these “houses” of hell, as they are called there, each of which has its own tribunal of judges and is so large that it would take 300 years to walk to one end of it from the other. (Assuming that a man can walk 30 miles a day, this would come to roughly 23 million miles for the entirety of hell.) All seven, according to rabbinic tradition, were glimpsed in a vision by the prophet Isaiah. Thus, we are told, “When Isaiah entered the first house, he saw two men carrying jars of water on their shoulders and emptying them again and again into a pit that never filled. ‘Tell me their secret,’ he said to God. ‘These,’ the Holy Spirit answered him, ‘are the men who coveted what belonged to others and are now paying the price for it.’” The second “house” of hell is for the gossips and slanderers, who are hung from their tongues. In the third are the adulterers, who are suspended from their sexual organs, and so on and so forth.

The seven levels of hell (and the corresponding seven levels of heaven) are dealt with in detail in some of the Hebrew and Aramaic texts being translated for the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project.

CONGRATULATIONS to Syriacologist Professor Susan Ashbrook Harvey at Brown University, who has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bern.

(Via George Kiraz on the Hugoye list.)

PROFESSOR YOCHANAN MUFFS of JTS NY has passed away:

Yochanan Muffs, Scholar of Bible, Law and Languages, Is Dead
Appreciation
By Ed Greenstein (The Forward)
Published December 09, 2009, issue of December 18, 2009.


Yochanan Muffs, a scholar of Bible, law and Semitic languages whose books illuminated the legal and social meaning of emotions such as love and joy in the lives of Jews in antiquity, succumbed to Parkinson’s disease on December 6.

Muffs, professor emeritus of Bible and Jewish thought at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, had been coping heroically with Parkinson’s for 40 years, with the help of his extraordinary wife, Yocheved. Yet for about half a century, despite the slow, steady progress of the disease, Muffs inspired generations of students and colleagues through his brilliant scholarship and exciting teaching. Indeed, such overused descriptions hardly do justice to the creative intellectual magic he brought to the classroom and the page.

[...]

Muffs saw himself as an anthropologist of his ancient forebears and a psychologist of the Divine. Several items of his published research became academic landmarks, beginning with his very first book, “Studies in the Aramaic Legal Papyri From Elephantine.” In this 1969 watershed work, Muffs analyzed all manner of legal documents from a colony of Jewish families literally holding the fort for the Persian governor of Egypt in the fifth century BCE. Gleaning comparative evidence from Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Jewish and other legal sources, Muffs was able to extract insights on innumerable aspects of these documents and, through them, the everyday life and thought of the people for whom they provided some order. A rich vein of information and commentary emerged, extending well beyond the documents themsleves. The book remains in print, an invaluable resource.

[...]

May his memory be for a blessing.

SAMARITAN WATCH: At BoingBoing, Maggie Koerth-Baker discusses recent genetic studies of the Samaritans and the implications of those studies. Excerpt:

As the 21st century dawned, the few Samaritans left (712 in 2007, up from a low of 146 in 1917) still claimed to be descended from the ancient Hebrew tribes. Jewish religious authorities still disagreed. And strong evidence either way was still lacking. Until 2004.

See, that tiny population (which wasn't real big on converts) led to a decent amount of inbreeding. In fact, according to research done in the late 1990s, 84% of Samaritan marriages are between cousins--making them the most highly inbred population on the planet. Unfortunately, that title comes with a propensity for genetic abnormalities, concern about which eventually led several Samaritans to turn their DNA samples over to a team of genetics researchers.

The results turned up some surprising confirmation of the Samaritans' personal origin stories. The study compared Samaritan Y-chromosome DNA (genetic information passed mostly intact from father to son) and mtDNA (ditto, but from mother to daughter) with that of several different Jewish populations from across the Middle East and Africa, as well as with a couple of non-Jewish groups from the same areas. Not only do the Samaritan Y-chromosomes seem to be closely related to Jewish Y-chromosomes, but most of the Samaritans actually carry a distinctive set of Y-chromosome mutations known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype--which is connected with men descended from the ancient Jewish priestly class.

On the other hand, Samaritan mtDNA doesn't match up to its Jewish counterparts at all, said Marcus Feldman, Ph.D.,professor of biological sciences at Stanford University and part of the research team that studied the Samaritans in 2004.

To Feldman and his colleagues, the genetic evidence suggests that modern Samaritans are descended from Hebrew men, left behind after the Assyrians conquered ancient Israel, who went on to marry non-Hebrew women. It's probably not just coincidence that Samaritan ethnicity (at least, the official social recognition of that ethnicity) is traditionally passed to a child through its father--exactly opposite from the way Jewish ethnicity has been traditionally passed down.

In that way, the evidence suggests that both the Jews and the Samaritans are right, sort of. If you believe ethnicity is something passed down from the mother, then the Samaritans probably aren't Children of Israel. But if you think ethnicity comes from the father's side (or, you know, from both parents) then the Samaritans have a good case. It's all about how you use culture to interpret the science.

I confess I don't understand how her narrative explains the evidence. The Assyrian exile would not have left behind more men than women. On the contrary, I would expect that the depredations of the war would have killed off more men. There would have been plenty of un-exiled "Hebrew" (i.e., Israelite) women to go around, so why would the remaining men have favored non-Israelite women?

The lack of Samaritan women today, however, is a serious problem for the community. Background here and follow the links back.

(Cross-file under Technology Watch.)

UPDATE (11 December): Richard Bauckham e-mails:

Is this evidence not strongly reminiscent of Ezra 9-10 and Neh 13:23-27? Judean men were marrying non-Israelite women. Presumably Judean women also married non-Israelite men, but they left the Jewish community to join that of their husbands. So, if these Judean men had not divorced their foreign wives and sent their children by them away with them, they would have had descendants who were Jewish in the male line but non-Jewish in the female. There did not have to be a shortage of Israelite women for this to happen. We simply need to suppose that there was reciprocal inter-marrying between Jewish and non-Jewish communities.

So the Samaritans would be descended from Israelites whose inter-ethnic marriages were not severed by reforms like those of Ezra and Nehemiah. This needn't have anything to do with the Assyrian exile.

One might even speculate that they descended from Jewish priests from Jerusalem who resisted the reforms and left for Samaria taking their non-Jewish wives with them. Neh 13:28 gives an example of such.

I know there has been recent discussion of Samaritan origins that I have not kept up with. Those who have may be be able to relate these ideas to the current discussion.

PH.D. SCHOLARSHIPS at the Divinity School of the University of St. Andrews!

St Mary's College, The School of Divinity
Six New Scholarships to Celebrate 600 Years of Divinity in St Andrews

The School of Divinity at St Mary's College, St Andrews, Scotland is offering six PhD scholarships to be taken up in the Autumn of 2010, or as soon as possible thereafter to work in the following fields:

1. The Matthew Black Scholarship: for a student interested in Old Testament / Hebrew Bible
2. The Donald M. Baillie Scholarship: for a student interested in Theology;
3. The Richard Bauckham Scholarship: for a student interested in New Testament;
4. The Emanuel Tov Scholarship: for a student interested in Old Testament / Hebrew Bible Textual Criticism;
5. The Queen Margaret of Scotland Scholarship: for a student interested in any field of Divinity;
6. The Lady Kenmure Scholarship: for a student interested in any field of Divinity.

The scholarships cover home fees for a UK or EU student, or a contribution of around £3500 per annum towards overseas fees. An additional stipend of £3000 (or £1000 for the fourth scholarship) is offered to the recipients. Recipients of the scholarships (1-4) will be asked to teach one language class in their second and third year of residency or do equivalent work.

The successful candidates will join a rapidly expanding School of Divinity postgraduate program.

Candidates for these scholarships are required to fill out the normal postgraduate application forms. Special attention will be given to the PhD proposal.

Further details can be obtained from: Ms Margot Clement, Postgraduate Secretary, School of Divinity, St Mary's College, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9JU, Scotland, Email: mc41@st-andrews.ac.uk

The closing date for applications is January 15, 2010.

THIS IS GENERATING SOME DISCUSSION:

Protests after Israeli minister signals shift toward theocracy

Published Date: 09 December 2009
By Ben Lynfield in Jerusalem (The Scotsman)

ISRAEL'S justice minister has touched off a storm of controversy by suggesting that he would like to see the country evolve into a theocracy based on Jewish religious law.

Minister Ya'acov Neeman, an observant Jew, told a conference of rabbis and religious court judges late on Monday that holy texts contain "a complete solution to all the things we are dealing with".

He said that the past standing of Jewish religious law "needs to be restored so that the law of the Torah will become the binding law of the land". The Torah can mean parts of the Old Testament but it also sometimes includes the Talmud, a delineation of Jewish laws dating to the second and third centuries and subsequent rabbinic opinions.

Mr Neeman praised the work of rabbinical courts that gain jurisdiction by mutual consent in solving financial disputes. He said they are "a worthy way of inculcating the Torah's laws step by step".

[...]

If the quotes are accurate and in context, they are bound to offend a large part of the Israeli population. Minister Neeman and others are already back-pedaling away from the "theocracy" characterization, but the damage seems to be done. Calls for his resignation are noted in the Jerusalem Post. The same publication suggests mildly that "[i]f our justice minister wants to think out loud, he should do so in the privacy of his own home." Yossi Sand in Haaretz takes a rather firmer line: "And if such shameful words uttered by the justice minister do not cause him to resign and to sit at home, or at a private law firm, then some evil is bound to befall us; for we have become like Iran of the ayatollahs, like Afghanistan of the Taliban, and Sodom is no longer so bad." The Taliban are being invoked by others as well - see first Jerusalem Post link above.

By the way, regarding the Scotsman article, although both Talmuds may contain Tannaitic (i.e., second and third-century) material in their Gemaras, their more-or-less final editing came well after this, the Yerushalmi in the early fifth century and the Bavli in the sixth century or later.

CONGRATULATIONS TO PROFESSOR MAJELLA FRANZMAN, well-known specialist in Gnosticism at Otago University in New Zealand, who has accepted a high-level administrative post at the Curtain University of Technology in Australia:

Franzmann named Humanities Pro VC at Curtin

* From: The Australian
* December 09, 2009 5:09PM

HIGH-powered academic Professor Majella Franzmann has been appointed Curtin University of Technology's new Pro Vice-Chancellor of Humanities.

In a move signalling an upgraded focus on humanities research, Professor Franzmann said she was looking forward to helping boost the faculty's national and international profile.

[...]

Professor Franzmann was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2001, and awarded an Australian Centenary Medal in 2003. She served on the Council of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2007.

She is widely published and has research interests in gnosticism, feminist biblical interpretation and Manichaean and Nestorian remains in China.

Professor Franzmann gained her PhD at the University of Queensland in 1990 with a thesis on the Syriac, Coptic and Greek texts of the Odes of Solomon.

She was the recipient of the prestigious Humbolt Fellowship at the University of Tubingen, Germany, in 1992-1993. She also held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University from 1986-1987 with her research focusing on the figure of Jesus in the Nag Hammadi writings.

[...]

I hope she will still have time to continue her research!

LOOKS LIKE I'm up a tree. Time traveling from 1973?

THE CAPTAIN OF THE GOOD SHIP PHOENICIA has written (scroll down) to the Telegraph to call for action against Somalian pirates. I'm pleased that the Phoenicia has been able to avoid pirates on its journeys. Captain Beale doesn't say whether they had to use their anti-pirate sonic ray gun though.

More background here.

PRETEND TO BE A TIME TRAVELER DAY is today.

UPDATE: Do bogus prophecies count? If so, the Weekly World News is in. (Cross file under Dead Sea Scrolls, popular culture watch.)

THE NEXT BEST THING TO BEING THERE: Ancient city of Pompeii added to Google Street View.

I've posted a few photos from my visit to Pompeii last June here.

CARL JUNG'S THE RED BOOK includes themes from Jewish and Christian myth and esotericism. The new facsimile edition is reviewed in the New York Times:

The Symbologist

By KATHRYN HARRISON
Published: December 3, 2009

From 1914 until 1930, C. G. Jung recorded, revised, rewrote, recopied and painstakingly illustrated what he considered “the numinous beginning” from which all the rest of his work derived. “The Red Book,” or as Jung called it, “Liber Novus,” consisted of some 200 parchment pages of meticulous calligraphy and visionary paintings collected into a huge folio bound in red leather. While its content, either whole or in part, was made available to a handful of colleagues and patients, its publication was postponed until now, nearly 50 years after his death, because Jung feared the book’s potential impact on his reputation. After all, anyone who read it might conclude what Jung himself first suspected: that the great doctor had lost his mind.

[...]

Practicing “active imagination,” Jung conjured characters with whom he interacted and conversed. Dreams, he felt, were “inferior expressions of unconscious content” because there was less tension in sleep. “The Red Book” “faithfully transcribed” visions Jung recorded privately in his “Black Books,” adding commentary and painting what he had seen in his waking dreams to encourage readers to “understand the psychological nature of symbolism” and challenge them “to a new way of looking at their souls.” The whole is structured after Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” a work of great influence on Jung. But while Nietzsche had announced the death of God, “The Red Book” described “the rebirth of God in the soul,” drawing from many and varied sources, including the Bible, the Apocrypha, Gnostic texts, Greek myths, the Upanishads, the ancient Egyptian “Am-Tuat,” Wagner’s “Ring,” Goethe’s “Faust” and Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” And, as Shamdasani points out, although the writers on whom Jung drew “could utilize an established cosmology, ‘Liber Novus’ is an attempt to shape an individual cosmology.” Jung continued to practice while working on “The Red Book” and encouraged his analysands to summon and record their own visions, as he had done. The book a patient created would be, he said, “your church — your cathedral — the silent places of your spirit where you will find renewal.”

In fact, reading “The Red Book” is like visiting a foreign place of worship. To understand Jung’s text — to meet and listen to the creatures of his unconscious — requires solitude, silence, concentrated effort. At the beginning of the book (which is divided into “Liber Primus,” “Liber Secundus” and “Scrutinies”), Jung rediscovers his soul, alienated while he “had served the spirit of the time.” With it, he embarks on a series of adventures and meets, among others, Elijah, Salome, a serpent and the Devil. The narrative proceeds like a blend of biblical prophecy and dialectic ...

The article includes a nice image of the open volume. I wonder if I can finagle a review copy.

MEGIDDO CHURCH UPDATE:

Discovery of world's oldest church may turn prison into tourist site
By Eli Ashkenazi
Tags: Israel archaeology

Megiddo prison, surrounded by prison guards on horseback supplemented by guard dogs, is not a place that many people would care to approach. But if a plan now in the final stages comes to fruition, it could become a tourist attraction drawing Israelis and tourists from around the world.

Behind the prison walls, the remains of the oldest Christian house of worship ever discovered were unearthed four years ago in the course of prison renovations. The plans that are coming together call for the relocation of the prison to a site a short distance away so that the archaeological site can be opened to the public.

Some prisoners, including both common criminals and security prisoners, were allowed to dig below the prison - jailbreak style - as part of the archaeological research. The ancient finds on the site have led to an agreement in principle involving the prison service, the Megiddo Regional Council and the Antiquities Authority for the relocation of the detention facility.

[...]

Background here and follow the links back.

SHLOMO SAND'S THE INVENTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE is listed as one of the best history books of 2009 in the Independent and gets a positive brief review from Lisa Hilton:

There's nothing retiring about Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People (Verso, £18.99). The outrage surrounding Sand's book in Israel has positioned him as an enemy within, an arch-revisionist working out of the university of Tel Aviv. Sand's contentions – that much Zionist history derives from deeply unreliable sources and that Jewish identity is essentially defined by religion rather than race or nationalism – are thorough and reasonable, but this has not prevented his attackers from claiming he wants to write Israel out of history. Sand's arguments are considerably more subtle; he does not question the right of Israel to exist; rather, he calls for a more rigorous examination of the premises on which that existence is based and suggests that they require redefinition. Sand takes on a formidable tradition in claiming that moral validity in the Middle East needs good history, and no discussion of the region any longer seems complete without acknowledgement of his book.

For more reviews go here and follow the links back.

JOHN BROWN AND ZION OIL are still drilling for oil in Israel and still haven't found it. I've noted the story before here (where I discuss his misunderstanding of a biblical text that refers to olive oil, not petroleum), here, here, and here.

ALEXANDER THE ITSY BITSY AGAIN? Søren Holst e-mails:

Tangential to Biblical Studies proper, but still:

Danish archaologist Jeppe Boel Jepsen claims to be able to see that "a tiny image of a mysterious horned figure" found on a recently recovered ivory copy of a Danish golden horn usually dated to about 5t century CE, "now turns out to resemble pictures of Aleander the Great".

Boel Jepsen suggests that on the basis of this, the horns must be dated a couple of centuries older than assumed until now.

Report in Danish here:
http://www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/artikel/348478

Horns here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horns_of_Gallehus

The original horns were stolen and melted down in 1802 and it is uncertain how accurate existing copies, made from drawings, are. The ivory copy recently recovered in Russia was made directly from the original (although, here too, doubts about the accuracy remain) and given to zar Peter the Great in 1716.

You can read a Google translation of the Danish article here. For the recently discovered Alexander gemstone, see here and follow the links back.

BOOK REVIEW/TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Another review of Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem's Sacred Esplanade, this one in the Scotsman.

Book aims to end clash over Temple Mount

Published Date: 05 December 2009
By Ben Lynfield in Jerusalem

TRANSCENDING the bitterness of the confrontation between their nations and faiths, Israeli and Palestinian scholars have come together for an unprecedented joint history of the most contested religious site on earth.

A new book, Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem's Sacred Esplanade is an antidote to extremism about the holy city's Temple Mount, revered by Jews as site of the biblical temples and sacred to Muslims as the site of the al-Aksa mosque.

[...]

Here's an interesting bit:

During peace negotiations with Israel in 2000, Yasser Arafat reportedly questioned whether two Jewish temples existed on the site, stressing there is no archeological evidence for that. Mr Nusseibeh [Palestinian philosopher Sari Nusseibeh, president of al-Quds University], while not affirming the existence of the temples, wrote that it was a site revered by Jews even before what Muslims believe was a journey from al-Aksa to heaven by Mohammed in the seventh century. According to Muslim tradition, the journey started from the rock later covered by the golden dome that has become Jerusalem's foremost symbol.

Amnon Cohen, emeritus professor at the Hebrew University, who contributed a chapter on Turkish rule of the Temple Mount, believes the joint endeavour has political significance. The Palestinian participation, he says, "means they don't disagree with the basic hypothesis that the first and second temples were on the Temple Mount".

But Mustafa Abu Sway, of the Islamic Research Centre at al-Quds and contributor of a chapter, responded: "I have written an Islamic narrative and people can read into it what they want. Ultimately it's a mosque and has been for 1,400 years. When the Muslims arrived the area of the mosque was barren and it has been a mosque through and through."

I've not read the book yet (and won't have time to for some time to come) but if this report is accurate it sounds like equivocation that is being spun differently by each side. I would be more impressed to hear that the Palestinian authors had come straight out and said that there were Jewish temple on the site in antiquity.

Background here.

MORE ON JACOB NEUSNER'S HONORARY DOCTORATE at HUC-JIR: Notice of the honor is now on the HUC-JIR News and Publications website:

Dr. Jacob Neusner Awarded Honorary Doctorate
by HUC-JIR

Dr. Jacob Neusner, the renowned historian and theologian, was awarded the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, by Rabbi David Ellenson, President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), in a ceremony at HUC-JIR’s New York campus on December 1, 2009.

[...]

The site has also posted the text of the lecture that Professor Neusner gave on the occasion: "Reform Judaism For Our Day: Why It Is Necessary."

REPAIRS ON THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE are again generating controversy. This time they are being done by the IAA and protested by the Jordanian Goverment and the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land according to the AFP.

Another repairs controversy is noted here.

THE PERSEPOLIS CUNEIFORM ARCHIVE and the political controversy surrounding it (i.e., whether Iranian artifacts in American museums should be seized and sold off to pay a terrorism-compensation judgment) is discussed by Touraj Daryaee at the Huffington Post. Excerpt:

This issue has very important implications for the United States. First of all, one can imagine how much dislike, distrust, and suspicion would be incurred by a Western power dragging another culture's ancient heritage to the auction block. America's museums are national institutions that are often trusted to hold and display the cultural materials of other societies around the world. They are not bank accounts or slush funds to be raided whenever money is needed.
Secondly, and more importantly, if Iranian artifacts are successfully seized, it will set a precedent that will open a floodgate of claims to other cultural treasures in the US. American museums hold thousands of objects from countries in the Middle East and other troubled spots in the world. Many of these are on loan from their home countries, brought here for a time so that they may educate and inform American citizens. If it is established that such artifacts can be taken and sold, what country would risk lending its invaluable antiquities to any U.S. museum? None. The hesitation of every foreign country and museum around the world to lend art and artifacts to U.S. museums will cripple exhibits in the United States and contribute to the decline in the cultural awareness of Americans and our understanding of the meaning of cultural diversity.

On the Persepolis archive specifically:

These tablets only make sense if they are studied as a group and not dispersed throughout the world in the hand of dealers and private collectors. It is a rare archive from antiquity, and so it should remain as such to be studied and understood. It would be a shame to have had in the twenty-first century a unique source for understanding the ancient Persians that got arbitrarily partitioned and dispersed, forcing us to remain in the dark for another 2,500 years about the social and cultural history of these people and the region.

I agree. Read it all. For background go here and follow the links back.

THE WIND BENEATH MY WINGS: Language mega-dork Jessica Apple posts some tidbits of medical history.

THE BIBLIOBLOG TOP FIFTY has posted its semi-annual edition for 2009.

A FIXED-TERM OLD TESTAMENT POST (2 years) is being advertised at Glasgow University. Go here and enter the job reference code 00094-2 for details. Applications are due by 18 December!

(Via the SOTS list.)

EHUD BEN-ZVI e-mails the following:

Dear all,

I am glad to announce the publication of the following article in the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (http://www.jhsonline.org)

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures - Volume 9: Article 23 (2009)

Israel Finkelstein, "Persian Period Jerusalem and Yehud: A Rejoinder."

Abstract

This is a rejoinder to several recently published articles which take issue with my views on Persian period Jerusalem and Yehud. The article deals with methodological issues such as inconsistencies between archaeology and text and the meaning of negative evidence in archaeology. On the factual level, with the available data at hand, I see no reason to change my views: Persian period Jerusalem covered ca. 2-2.5 hectares, and both the description of the construction of the city-wall in Nehemiah 3 and the List of Returnees in Ezra and Nehemiah probably reflect late Hellenistic (Hasmonean) period realities.

Those who wish to access this article directly may go to http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/JHS/Articles/article_126.pdf

In other news, a slightly revamped interface for JHS will be ready soon. My thanks to Melanie Marvin who is working on this project.
----

The printed version of volume 8 (2008) has been released by Gorgias Press. For information please go to http://www.gorgiaspress.com/BOOKSHOP/pc-56678-10-ben-zvi-ehud-perspectives-on-hebrew-scriptures-v.aspx

For information about the other volumes, please go to
http://www.gorgiaspress.com/BOOKSHOP/pc-56678-10-ben-zvi-ehud-perspectives-on-hebrew-scriptures-v.aspx

For information about the Logos version of the Journal (vols. 1-7), please go to http://www.logos.com/products/details/4336

The Logos version of volume 8 of the journal is being prepared.

Regards,

Ehud


Ehud Ben Zvi
History and Classics
University of Alberta
2-28 HM Tory Building
Edmonton AB Canada T6G 2H4

CONGRATULATIONS TO JACOB NEUSNER, who (I have just learned) received an honorary doctorate on 1 December from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in New York.

UPDATE (4 December): More here.

ARAMAIC WATCH: A Living Languages Institute at Mardin Artuklu University in Turkey includes Aramaic language teaching. The Institute seems to be an attempt at a compromise with those who wanted a Kurdish language and literature (only) department.

A JOB ADVERT from the Agade list:

From Erica Laclair erica.laclair@gmail.com & Joel Gereboff
Joel.Gereboff@asu.edu:
=================================================================

Assistant or Associate Professor of Hebrew and Near Eastern Cultures

The School of International Letters & Cultures (SILC) at Arizona State University seeks to appoint an experienced assistant professor or a tenured associate professor of Hebrew Studies and Near Eastern Cultures beginning in the fall of 2010. Applications will be accepted from candidates whose scholarship focuses on the Late Bronze Age to Late Antiquity, including the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple, and/or Early Judaism. The individual hired will teach undergraduate and graduate students in the trans-disciplinary environment of the School. Teaching load is two courses per semester.

Applicants must have a Ph.D. in an area of Near Eastern studies or related discipline; demonstrably successful teaching experience; proven excellence in research and publication; and knowledge of one or more classical languages. Ability and desire to teach biblical Hebrew required. Desired qualifications include demonstrated research interest in Hellenistic Jewish literature and ability to read modern academic Hebrew.

Send letter of application, complete CV, three letters of recommendation, sample syllabi and a scholarly writing sample to: Hebrew and Near Eastern Cultures Search Committee, c/o Robert Joe Cutter, Director, School of International Letters & Cultures, PO Box 870202, ASU, Tempe, AZ 85287-0202. All materials except for letters of recommendation must be sent also electronically to: SILC-Hebrew@asu.edu.

Application deadline is December 31, 2009 and every week thereafter until position is filled. Review of complete applications will begin immediately and continue until search is closed.

A background check is required for employment. Arizona State University is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer committed to excellence through diversity. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply.

A LARGE GRANT for Jewish Studies has been turned down by New York University. Larry Schiffman defends the decision.

NYU rejects $50K education grant

by Ashley Mason (nyunews.com)
Published December 2, 2009

NYU's Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies recently declined a potential $50,000 grant from the Posen Foundation, an international organization that provides schools with grants to teach courses about Jewish culture through an exclusively secular point of view.

Other schools, including Harvard University, Brown University, Brandeis University and the New School, have accepted the grant.

Under the grant, the university would be required to incorporate courses in Jewish thought and history and other related topics into the Judaic studies curriculum. Myrna Baron, the executive director of the Center for Cultural Judaism, which administers Posen Foundation projects and grants in North America, said some professors think ancient Jewish texts have been emphasized too heavily and that the past 300 years of secular Jewish culture were not being studied at all.

Baron said the grant was not intended to shift the focus of Jewish studies but instead to enable universities to include Jewish contributions from the ancient period up to today.

But according to Lawrence Schiffman, the chair of the department of Hebrew and Judaic studies, the department "doesn't accept the notion that you can categorize Judaism."

Schiffman thinks an exclusively secular curriculum would represent only a single part of Judaism. He said his department allows professors to teach the way they prefer to teach and that separating the religious and the secular would be an interference.

"They were offering a small amount of money for us to teach the way they want," Schiffman said. "We don't want outsiders being a part of that process."

[...]

The decision is not entirely without controversy at NYU.

LAWRENCE SCHIFFMAN is giving the Rabbi Dr. Joseph Baumgarten Memorial Lecture in Baltimore on Sunday.

SPECIAL EVENT
The Dead Sea Scrolls – Decoding Early Judaism: Reflections on the Contributions of Dr. Joseph Baumgarten

Speaker: Dr. Lawrence H. SchiffmanSunday, December 6th, 4:00 p.m., LA 4110

Lawrence H. Schiffman is Chair of New York University’s Skirball
Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and serves as the Ethel and Irvin A. Edelman Professor in Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University (NYU). He is a specialist in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Judaism in Late Antiquity, the history of Jewish law, and Talmudic literature.

(Via Joseph I. Lauer's list.)

NEW ORLEANS SBL: Mark Goodacre has some highlights. He too notes the problem of proliferation of sessions and corresponding tiny attendance at individual sessions.

BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL XLVIII has been posted by Doug Chaplin at Clayboy.

THE TALMUD: A SELECTION by by Norman Solomon (ed.) (Penguin Classics) is reviewed by Lawrence Grossman in The Forward. Excerpt:

The publication of “The Talmud: A Selection” suggests that we have entered a new era in which the Talmud can be discussed objectively, without Jewish defensiveness or fear of antisemitism. By presenting meaty selections from every one of the 63 Talmudic tractates in English translation, the book conveys something of the real feel of the Talmud as a whole, interspersing complex legal discussions with stories, practical rulings and wide-ranging biblical commentary. Solomon’s introduction, which covers the history and literary character of the Talmud, and his erudite footnotes to the selections themselves, admirably convey the insights of both traditional and modern authorities, ranging from the classic Medieval commentary of Rashi to 20th-century figures like Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and philosopher Emmanuel Levinas.

“The Talmud: A Selection” is so instructive and well crafted — as well as accessible to the educated reader who has never before studied Talmud — that it seems ungrateful to ask for more. But in truth, it could have used a short epilogue that would step back from the texts and examine the Talmud’s formative role in shaping the Jewish people, a long-range influence that takes the work out of the category of ancient literary curiosity and renders it a true “classic.”

First I've heard of it, but it sounds important.

NEW ORLEANS SBL: April DeConick raises some concerns about the Society of Biblical Literature meetings, most of which I experienced as well this time around. I hope things improve next year with the return of the American Academy of Religion meetings at the same time as SBL. (The lead-up to the debacle of the spilt in 2004 is noted here.)

NEW ORLEANS SBL: Rebecca Lesses summarizes a Mysticism session that I had to miss.

NEW ORLEANS SBL: David Larsen, my doctoral student, summarizes an important paper by Frances Flannery at the SBL meetings earlier this month.

JORDAN-VALLEY QUARRY UPDATE: Brian Blondy gives "Impressions from a 1st-century underground quarry" in the Jerusalem Post. Excerpt:

Within the raw, unpolished one acre quarry, were various etched markings on the walls and on some of the 22 brute pillars. Among the markings were crosses that were carved into the stone, whichProf. Zertal explained were an indication of the site's possible former function.

According to his assessment, the site had once served as a monastery or place of refuge between the years 1 - 600 CE. Thereafter, 31 other engravings testified to the presence of those who dwelled in the space following its Christian usage. Some of the symbols,Prof. Zertal explained, were possibly reflective of the Zodiac, while others were likely Roman letters.

Walking among the ancient writing, I was reminded of graffiti which I've seen sprayed on structures in cities throughout the modern world. Had the former inhabitants of thiscave also intended to leave a reminder of their presence for the generations to follow?

Throughout the tour of the cave, I had to navigate my steps around the bones and partial jaws of what I presume were ancient jackals or dogs that also once used thecave as a place of refuge. Prof. Zertal explained that when he originally began working on the cave, several Beduin approached his team and warned that there were evil spirits within.

This is the quarry that is near Jericho. Background here and here. More on recently discovered quarries here.

"ASTROLOGY AND JUDAISM IN LATE ANTIQUITY" is a doctoral dissertation by Lester Ness, who writes "I believe it was the first dissertation online." I'm surprised I haven't noted it before this, but here it is. Note also his "Research Sources For Astrology."

(Via the Agade list.)