Jacob Neusner interviewed in the Jerusalem Post

JACOB NEUSNER is interviewed in the Jerusalem Post:

'A utopian document, a utopian law'

04/03/2010 15:49

Jacob Neusner talks of his five-decade love affair with the ancient rabbis, on the future of Jewish life.

In the world of Jewish studies, Prof. Jacob Neusner needs no introduction. The 75-year-old scholar of Talmud and rabbinic literature has written, edited or translated more than 900 books (though he doesn't want you to read them all), making him among the most active and prolific authors alive. "But I have a limited repertoire," he says with a smile, an expertise which extends across a millennium and through dozens of difficult, tightly-written works that are the record of the rabbinic love affair with the Torah. For Neusner, the study of rabbinic literature has been a kind of love affair in itself, and as with all true loves, he remembers clearly when it began. ...

New Penn librarian is a Semitist

A NEW PENN LIBRARIAN is a Semitist:

The Penn Libraries announced the appointment of Waleed el-Shobaki to the position of Middle East Studies Librarian. Mr. el-Shobaki comes to Penn from The John Rylands University Library of the University of Manchester (UK) where he had been employed since May 2004 as the academic liaison librarian for Middle Eastern Studies.

Mr. el-Shobaki holds a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies from the University of Manchester and another in library & information management from the Manchester Metropolitan University. He also holds a BA in Oriental languages from the University of Cairo with specialization in Semitic languages and cultures, primarily Hebrew and Judaism.

Since the early 1990s, Mr. el-Shobaki has supplemented his formal degrees with professional training in online cataloging and post-graduate coursework in politics and economics, Spanish language and culture, Islamic Studies, and religious education. He is a native speaker of Arabic, has near-native command of Hebrew, and has working proficiency in Spanish, Persian, French, German, and Turkish. His range of expertise in languages and cultures of the Near East extends from Syriac and the history of the Eastern Church to Persian and the history of Iran.

For more information about Mr. el-Shobaki and other subject specialists at the Penn Libraries, see http://gethelp.library.upenn.edu/contact/subjspec/.

Congratulations to Penn and to Mr. el-Shobaki.

More on the "Song of the Sea" Cairo Geniza fragments

MORE ON THE "SONG OF THE SEA" CAIRO GENIZA FRAGMENTS - The exhibition notice from the Israel Museum website:

Piecing Together the Past: - Ancient Fragments of the Song of the Sea

From February 26

The Bible, the cornerstone of the People of the Book, was copied by scribes, interpreted by sages, and studied by generations of Jews from all walks of life. The nation’s respect for the Book of Books was also demonstrated by its desire to keep the manuscripts physically intact. This was not always possible, however,due to the hardships they experienced. Very few Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible have come down to us from the "Silent Period" – between the 2nd century, when the last of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written, and the 10th century, when the Aleppo Codex was produced. The discovery of a biblical manuscript, particularly one that served in synagogue services during the "Silent Period," is therefore a rare occasion. Two such fragments of the book of Exodus, originating in the same Torah scroll written during the 7th or 8th century – the Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript and the London Manuscript – found their way, many years later, into different collections. Here they are displayed together for the first time, alongside a fragment of the book of Exodus from the late 1st century BCE, discovered in Qumran, and another fragment of Exodus dating to the 10th or 11th century CE. Featuring excerpts of Exodus 15:1–19, these scrolls are among the earliest testimony to the Song of the Sea. The London Manuscript and the medieval fragment are on loan from Stephan Loewentheil, New York; the Ashkar-Gilson Manuscript is on permanent loan from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.

There's a photo as well, but it seems to be of the later manuscript in the exhibition.

Background here.

CSM: Will Israel heritage sites spark next Palestinian intifada?

HOPE NOT:

Will Israel heritage sites spark next Palestinian intifada?

The declaration of two biblical tombs in the West Bank as Israel heritage sites last week sparked clashes. Though Monday was quiet, some fear a new Palestinian intifada in response.

By Josh Mitnick Correspondent / March 1, 2010 (CSM)
Tel Aviv

Amid spreading Palestinian protests against Israel's decision to declare shrines in two West Bank cities as Israel heritage sites, the Palestinian cabinet held a solidarity meeting Monday in the city of Hebron near one of the sites while some here worried about a new Palestinian intifada.

Clashes on the Temple Mount plaza in Jerusalem's Old City Sunday capped a week of violence since the declaration of Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem as official Israel heritage locations.

[...]

Background here.

A new inscribed Palmyrene altar

ARAMAIC WATCH: Judith Weingarten discusses a new inscribed Palmyrene altar dedicated to an anonymous god.

Jodi Magness lectures on Qumran archaeology

JODI MAGNESS has been lecturing on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the archaeology of Qumran:

Archaeologist disproves widespread beliefs about the Dead Sea Scrolls

Wyatt Kanyer
Issue date: 2/26/10 Section: News (DailySkiff.com)

Jesus Christ did not live with the ancient people from the settlement near caves in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, even though some scholars have argued the contrary, an archaeologist said Thursday in a presentation sponsored by the Brite Divinity School.

Jodi Magness, an endowed archaeology professor from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, focused on the Essenes, an apocalyptic group that lived in Qumran, near the 11 caves in which more than 900 scrolls were discovered. She said that one-fourth of the scrolls represent all but one of the books of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, all of which have at least one copy.

The rest of the scrolls are the Greek Septuagint, the Aramaic Targums, the Pesharim and the Apocrypha, which are found in early versions of the Catholic Bibles.

[...]

The list of texts is sort of correct, although there were relatively few fragments of the Septuagint, not all of the Apocrypha was found there, and the Aramaic Targums are not the ones known from elsewhere. But quite a lot more was found: sectarian constitutions (the Community Rule and Damascus Document), rewritten scripture and prophecies, already-known pseudepigrapha (e.g., 1 Enoch, Jubilees), poetic and liturgical texts, calendrical texts, etc. Perhaps the reporter wasn't able to take notes fast enough to get all this down.

Otherwise the article looks like a pretty accurate account of what I would have expected Professor Magness to say. She represents the traditional interpretation of the site as an Essene installation, although there are other interpretations as well. For past PaleoJudaica coverage of the archaeology of Qumran, start with this link and keep following the links back.

Phoenicia to tackle Cape of Good Hope

THE GOOD SHIP PHOENICIA is gearing up to round the Cape of Good Hope:

Phoenicia braves the Cape of Good Hope

(Sailworld.com)

A primitive sailing vessel, based on designs of Phoenician cargo ships from circa 600 BC, will soon face its biggest challenge yet as the international crew members onboard attempt to navigate a stretch of the worlds most dangerous coast line; Cape Agulhas on the southern tip of Africa, and its more famous brother, the Cape of Good Hope.

Phoenicia, the Phoenician Ship Expedition, is a project conceived by local expeditioner and entrepreneur Philip Beale from his base near Lulworth Cove in Dorset. Beale is Expedition Leader onboard Phoenicia bringing together sailors and adventurers from across the globe as part of his crew.

Phoenicia (www.phoenicia.org.uk) is attempting to illustrate that 2000 years before the European, Bartholomew Dias, rounded the Cape of Good Hope the Phoenicians had already achieved a circumnavigation of Africa. As such the expedition is attempting to put African history in its true context.

[...]

This a key goal for the expedition and achieving it will be a major milestone. Good luck to them!

Background here and keep following the links back.

In honor of Purim: Masks, Rattles and Purim Customs (IAA)

IN HONOR OF PURIM: Masks, Rattles and Purim Customs (IAA online exhibition by Alegre Savariego).

More on "King Solomon's Wall"

"KING SOLOMON'S WALL" is the subject of an article in National Geographic. It does interview Israel Finkelstein (who, not surprisingly, urges caution), but otherwise it is disappointing. It quotes Eilat Mazar, but it still seems to be relying on an uncritical reading of the IAA press release. Notably there's this:

Figurines typical of tenth-century B.C. Jerusalem—including four-legged animals and large-breasted women likely symbolizing fertility—were also uncovered, as were jar handles bearing impressions reading "to the king" and various Hebrew names, she said.

The "to the king" (LMLK) inscriptions are not typical of the tenth century - none have been found that are that early - and the ones in question seem to be from earlier excavations and to date to the reign of Hezekiah in the late eighth/early seventh century BCE. I'm not sure about the date of the figurines.

Background here.

More on Israel heritage sites controversy

THE ECONOMIST weighs in on the Israel Heritage sites controversy:

Israel's heritage sites
Fanning the flames
A row about holy places threatens to engulf the Holy Land in new violence

Feb 26th 2010 | From The Economist online

The leaders of Israel and Palestine, Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, are trying, separately, to contain a week-long wave of riots in West Bank cities that threatens to turn into a new Palestinian uprising. Yet the two men themselves ignited the religious passions that fuel this latest violence. And, while they now seek to control the flames, they are both still feeding them with disingenuous, incendiary statements, instead of putting them out.

[...]

UNESCO is also unhappy.

Background here.

Happy Purim!

HAPPY PURIM to all those celebrating. The festival begins tonight at sundown.

Cairo Geniza Exodus fragment going on display in Israel Museum

THE CAIRO GENIZA EXODUS FRAGMENT (which includes the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15) is going on display (the AP reports) in the Israel Museum. The article refers to two fragments that were joined in 2007, but I can't find any reference to a second fragment in the reports I noted in 2007 (see here and here).

Israel's Heritage Plan is generating some controversy

ISRAEL'S HERITAGE PLAN (background here) is generating some controversy. First, this:

Critics slam heritage plan for omitting non-Jewish sites

By Nir Hasson

The national heritage proposal that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented to the cabinet this week is attracting criticism for including only sites that are part of the Jewish and Zionist narrative.

The NIS 400 million heritage project, which is geared toward supporting the preservation of Jewish artifacts and teaching schoolchildren about Jewish and Zionist history, includes 37 archaeological sites - all of which the program ties in to Jewish tradition.

[...]

But the criticisms have become much more specific after this:

Israel adds West Bank shrines to heritage list

(BBC)

Israel's prime minister has announced a controversial plan to add two major religious sites in the West Bank to the country's national heritage list.

Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem would now be included in the $107m restoration plan.

Israeli media said the two sites had been included on the list only after pressure from nationalist ministers.

The Palestinian Authority warned the decision would "wreck" peace efforts.

[...]

Responses include a riot:

Riots over Israeli claim to West Bank heritage sites

Israeli soldiers have clashed with protesters in the West Bank town of Hebron after two disputed shrines were listed as Israeli heritage sites.

Palestinian protesters threw bottles and stones at soldiers who responded with tear gas and stun grenades.

The protesters say the move to list the shrines as heritage sites would restrict Muslims access to them, but this has been denied.

The Hebron shrine is an important site for both Jews and Muslims.

[...]

This blistering editorial in Al Ahram:

Fabricating history

Israel's attempts to establish historical grounds for its existence include stealing, destroying and substituting Islamic heritage, reports Khaled Amayreh in Hebron

Tension in the occupied Palestinian territories rose significantly this week following a decision by the rightwing Israeli government to add two ancient mosques in the West Bank to a list of alleged Jewish heritage sites.

The two mosques are the Bilal Ibn Rabah Mosque, which Israelis call Rachel's Tomb, near Bethlehem, and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, named after the patriarch Ibrahim (Abraham), widely considered the common forefather of both the ancient Hebrews and northern Arabs.

The Hebron mosque, site of a massacre of Arab worshipers by a Jewish terrorist in 1994, is widely considered the fourth most important Islamic shrine, coming directly after the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, the Prophet's Mosque in Medina (both in Saudi Arabia), and Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Israeli officials didn't explain the decision by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to add the two Islamic sites to a list of some 130 so-called Jewish heritage sites. Netanyahu said the sites would be renovated "in order to reconnect Israelis to their history".

[...]

And the AP is also reporting criticism from the US Government.

Geza Vermes profiled in Oxford Times

GEZA VERMES is profiled in a long article in the Oxford Times:

'The world's finest Christ scholar'

6:20am Thursday 25th February 2010

By Reg Little »

In a few weeks’ time The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ will offer Philip Pullman’s radical new account of the life of Jesus, challenging the myths and mysteries of the gospels that have shaped the course of the last 2,000 years.

But before we are presented with the retelling of the life of Jesus by the His Dark Materials author, another Oxford author will have published two new books on Jesus, 35 years after first causing a sensation with Jesus the Jew.

Pullman’s take on Jesus, which will argue that the version in the New Testament was shaped by the apostle Paul, is said to be novel, part history and part fairytale.

For all the massive publicity surrounding the publication of The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, it is unlikely to match the long-term impact of Prof Geza Vermes, who, at the age of 85, is still pursuing Jesus the man.

[...]

Phoenicia still circumnavigating South Africa

THE GOOD SHIP PHOENICIA is still circumnavigating South Africa:

Replica of ancient ship sails into PE harbour

2010/02/25 (Weekend Post)

A replica 600BC wooden expedition vessel, the Phoenicia, docked at the Port Elizabeth Harbour yesterday after visiting East London.

[...]

There's video too.

Background here.

Book review (H-JUDAIC): Rajak, Translation and Survival

BOOK REVIEW (H-JUDAIC):

Tessa Rajak. Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible and the
Ancient Jewish Diaspora. Oxford Oxford University Press, 2009. xvi
+ 380 pp. $140.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-955867-4.

Reviewed by Matthew Kraus (University of Cincinnati)
Published on H-Judaic (February, 2010)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

The Greek Bible and Jewish Life among the Greeks and Romans

Generalists and specialists alike interested in the history of Greco-Roman Judaism and Septuagintal studies will benefit immensely from Tessa Rajak's most recent contribution to these fields. Despite the technical nature of the subject, the chapters are quite readable, perhaps because the book originated as the Oxford University Grinfield Lectures on "The Septuagint as a Social and Cultural Artifact" (1995-96). As she notes in her preface, lecturing about the Greek Bible can be a daunting task. Even the great classical historian Arnaldo Momigliano pondered "in what sense a lecturer on the Septuagint might lecture without talking about it" (p. v). Rajak, however, does talk about the Greek Bible, combining recent research on the subject with the perennial quest to define "the nature and limits of Jewish Hellenism or Hellenistic Judaism" (p. v). Rajak's core contributions to this issue revolve around the claim that the Greek Bible represents a middle position between assimilation and rejection of Greek culture. The linguistic features of the Greek Bible simultaneously Hellenize Judaism and Judaize Hellenism. A book review cannot possibly do justice to the numerous insights of this detailed and richly argued work. A brief summary of selected aspects will have to suffice.

[...]

Reminder: DSS coming to St. Paul, Minnesota

REMINDER:

Dead Sea Scrolls coming to St. Paul

by Sunny Thao, Minnesota Public Radio
February 22, 2010

St. Paul, Minn. — The Science Museum of Minnesota will open a new exhibit in March featuring the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of 2,000-year-old documents that contain original texts from the Hebrew Bible.

[...]

Background here.

Unrest at the Jericho synagogue

UNREST AT THE JERICHO SYNAGOGUE:

Police release 33 activists detained for entering Jericho

By Haaretz Service
Tags: Israel news, Jericho

Two still in custody over Sunday night's attempt by rightists to pray at West Bank synagogue.


Police on Monday released 33 rightwing activists who entered Jericho on Sunday night in defiance of a military edict banning Israelis from Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank.

Two others, an adult and a minor, remained in police custody in Ma'ale Adumim after activists broke through checkpoints and marched on the area in the hope of praying at an ancient synagogue and "renewing Jewish settlement in Jericho".

[...]

Presumably this is the ancient synagogue mentioned here, here, here, and here. This is not the first time it has witnessed such conflicts.

UPDATE (11 August): No, it seems that this episode was at the Na'aran synagogue, also in Jericho, not the Shalom Al Yisrael synagogue. See here for clarification.

King Solomon's wall?

KING SOLOMON'S WALL? Well, maybe.

King Solomon's Wall Revealed in Jerusalem

by Maayana Miskin

(IsraelNN.com) Hebrew University archaeologists have revealed an ancient path in Jerusalem believed to date back to the time of King Solomon, along with structures including a gateway and the foundation of a building. Dr. Eilat Mazar, the leader of the archaeological dig, said the findings match finds from the time of the First Temple.

The latest find includes a 70-meter long and six-meter-high stone wall, a small house adjacent to a gateway leading to what was once the royal courtyard, a building that served city officials, and a tower that overlooked the Kidron river.

According to Mazar, the wall is likely to be the wall built by King Solomon. “This is the first time a building has been found that matches descriptions of the building carried out by King Solomon in Jerusalem,” she said.

[...]

It's quite a leap to get from 10th century BCE (which is what I take the quote below actually to mean), and "built by King Solomon." Let's see if the date is verified before we start speculating on builders.

It seems there is epigraphic material as well:

The remnants of a public building discovered along the wall contained shards of pottery that allowed researchers to estimate the date at which the building in use – approximately 10 B.C.E. One of the shards was engraved with Hebrew writing saying “For the chief...” Mazar believes the shard, part of a jug, belonged to the royal baker.

Other jugs bore a seal saying “For the king” in Hebrew. Dozens of seals were discovered using a water sifting technique. The building was ravaged by fire, researchers said, but the jugs that were found at the site were the largest discovered in Jerusalem to date.

A LMLK seal from the tenth century would in itself be very exciting. Indeed, any epigraphic material from that century would be. But let's wait for the inscriptions to be published before we draw conclusions. The photos in the article (which I assume are of the mentioned inscriptions) are not readable, at least by me.

Since they're coming up with written material, something actually mentioning Solomon would be welcome. Just saying.

UPDATE: Here's the full IAA press release at the IMFA website. Also, Todd Bolen has some observations. Notably, he thinks some of the artifacts mentioned are from much earlier excavations. I don't know. (Both via Joseph I. Lauer's list.)

UPDATE (23 February): G. M. Grena (of www.LMLK.com) e-mails:

Hi Jim! They're definitely readable by me, & are representative of the well-known specimens dating to Hezekiah's reign.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biblicalist/message/1907

Per the typology I've assigned to the 21 known types, these are S4L, H2D w/CC (concentric-circle incisions), & Z2U. These span the entire reign of Hezekiah, before and after Sennacherib's attack, so it would be no big surprise to learn that they were found in the same locus in Jerusalem if such is the case.

LMLK seals in the reign of Hezekiah sound a lot more plausible to me than in the reign of Solomon. If this is correct, it is not at all clear from the IAA press release that the inscriptions are much later than the 10th-century wall, which is irritating.

UPDATE: John Hobbins has a roundup of blog responses at Ancient Hebrew Poetry.

Gno to the Gnostics

GNO TO THE GNOSTICS: Third Sector columnist Rosamund McCarthy thinks the Charity Commission made a bad call when they refused charitable status to the Leeds Gnostic Centre. Excerpt:

But if religious organisations are going to be registered as charities, can the law please be consistent? The Charity Commission has recently refused to register the Gnostic Centre as a charity. Why? Although the commission accepted that gnostics believe in a supreme being, it found no evidence of an accompanying moral or ethical code.

The decision highlights the absurdity of the law. Because the courts have no means of judging the merits of different faith claims - is there one god or many? - they have concluded that a religion must promote an ethical code capable of benefiting society. A spiritually improving effect on its own is insufficient, they say.

And what about the competing truth claims of different ethical codes? On the Charity Commission register there are religions that are pro and anti-gay, for and against medical treatment, against abortion and in favour of women's right to choose, supportive of just war and pacifist. How can these conflicting moral codes all be for the public benefit and equally worthy of tax breaks?

Background here.

Child sacrifice not common in ancient Carthage after all?

PUNIC WATCH: Child sacrifice wasn't common in ancient Carthage after all? So say these researchers in this press release:

Pitt-led study debunks millennia-old claims of systematic infant sacrifice in ancient Carthage

Researchers examined 348 burial urns to learn that about a fifth of the children were prenatal at death, indicating that young Carthaginian children were cremated and interred in ceremonial urns regardless of cause of death

PITTSBURGH—A study led by University of Pittsburgh researchers could finally lay to rest the millennia-old conjecture that the ancient empire of Carthage regularly sacrificed its youngest citizens. An examination of the remains of Carthaginian children revealed that most infants perished prenatally or very shortly after birth and were unlikely to have lived long enough to be sacrificed, according to a Feb. 17 report in PLoS ONE.

The findings—based on the first published analysis of the skeletal remains found in Carthaginian burial urns—refute claims from as early as the 3rd century BCE of systematic infant sacrifice at Carthage that remain a subject of debate among biblical scholars and archaeologists, said lead researcher Jeffrey H. Schwartz, a professor of anthropology and history and philosophy of science in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences and president of the World Academy of Art and Science. Schwartz and his colleagues present the more benign interpretation that very young Punic children were cremated and interred in burial urns regardless of how they died.

"Our study emphasizes that historical scientists must consider all evidence when deciphering ancient societal behavior," Schwartz said. "The idea of regular infant sacrifice in Carthage is not based on a study of the cremated remains, but on instances of human sacrifice reported by a few ancient chroniclers, inferred from ambiguous Carthaginian inscriptions, and referenced in the Old Testament. Our results show that some children were sacrificed, but they contradict the conclusion that Carthaginians were a brutal bunch who regularly sacrificed their own children."

[...]

(Via the Agade List.) The PLoS ONE publication is here. I've never hear of PLoS ONE before, but it advertises itself as "an international, peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication" (see here). That's well and good, but I have to say that it makes me nervous that it charges all authors a hefty $1350 subvention to publish an article (although it seems that association with most major academic institutions gets you a discount). Be that as it may, the article's arguments are there to be examined by archaeologists of Carthage.

Somewhat similar claims were being advanced and debunked in 2005. (Sorry, the link there seems to be bad and I can't find the article anymore on Google, so you will have to make do with the excerpts. But see also the second link, which is still good.)

Review of Vermes on the DSS (Economist)

A NEW BOOK ON THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS by Geza Vermes is reviewed in The Economist. Excerpt:

The analysis of such ultra-sensitive material requires calm judgment—and Geza Vermes, a retired Oxford professor, is widely credited with having the coolest head among the scholars who have devoted their careers to studying the scrolls and sharing their insights. Some of his writing is controversial. He has, for example, strong personal opinions on the “historical Jesus”, and like anybody who enters that field he has attracted both admirers and detractors. But in this short personal memoir, he sticks mainly to the known facts about the scrolls, and the arguments they have caused. On this matter, he is careful and fair-minded.

It may help that his personal story stands at the tragic interface between Christianity and Judaism in the 20th century. ...

Then there's this, which I find baffling:

Although Mr Vermes does not spell this out in detail, there is also some intriguing news for Christians: certain “Old Testament” passages which they hold dear—but which are mysteriously absent in the Masoretic version—do feature in the scrolls. They don’t seem to have been late Christian inventions.

I know of no such passages and I wonder if the reviewer has misunderstood something in the book.

UPDATE (20 February): Reader Ed Gallagher e-mails:

As for the Christian passages found in the DSS but absent from the MT, I bet the reviewer has in mind Psa. 22:16 and Isa. 53:10—not “passages” at all, but variant readings that are more congenial to messianic interpretation in their form in the Scrolls than in the MT. I haven’t read Vermes’ book, but these two verses popped into my mind when reading the excerpts of the review on your site.

Maybe so. That would be the readings "pierced" in Psalm 22:16[17] and "light" in Isaiah 53:10, both of which appear in Qumran manuscripts.

Zimbabwean "Ark of the Covenant" resurfaces

TUDOR PARFITT'S SUPPOSED ARK OF THE COVENANT has been found in a storeroom and is now on display:

Zimbabwe displays 'Ark of Covenant replica'

(BBC)

A wooden object claimed to be a replica of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant has gone on display at a Zimbabwe museum.

The "ngoma lungundu" belongs to the Lemba people - black Africans who claim Jewish ancestry.

They say the vessel was built almost 700 years ago from the remains of the original Ark, which the Bible says was used to store Moses' 10 Commandments.

For decades the ancient vessel was thought to be lost, until it was found in a storeroom in Harare recently.

Tudor Parfitt, who rediscovered the artefact three years ago, told the BBC he believed it was the oldest wooden object ever found in sub-Saharan Africa.

[...]

Background here and here and follow the links.

Ancient aqueduct uncovered in Jerusalem

AN ANCIENT AQUEDUCT has been uncovered in Jerusalem in excavations. The IAA press release:

The 1,800 Year Old High-Level Aqueduct of Jerusalem was Exposed Next to Jaffa Gate in the Old City

A beautiful aqueduct, standing 1.50 meters high and built of large stones, has been situated for almost two millennia right under one of the most familiar and traveled places in Jerusalem – beneath the road that leads from Jaffa Gate toward the David Citadel Museum and the shops on David Street.

The High-Level Aqueduct of Jerusalem, which dates from the second-third century CE, was exposed in excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting, with funding provided by the Jerusalem Development Authority for the purpose of replacing the infrastructure in the region.

[...]

Abassid caliph mentioned in Jerusalem Arabic inscription

AN ARABIC INSCRIPTION that mentions an Abbasid caliph has been found in Jerusalem.

Shroud of Turin going on display

THE SHROUD OF TURIN is going on display in Turin this spring.

For recent discussion of the Shroud, go here and here and follow the links.

UPDATE: The original post had the wrong venue, due to my misreading of a line in the AP article. Sorry about that.

JNUL wants the Russian Hebrew manuscripts it paid for

THE JEWISH NATIONAL AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARY wants the Russian Hebrew manuscripts it paid for nearly a century ago:

Netanyahu personally raised [with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev] the subject of the collection , which is thought to be the world's second-largest anthology of ancient Hebrew literature, after the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Aides to the prime minister also presented the Russians with documents proving ownership of the collection, Haaretz has learned.

The Guenzbergs, a Russian-Jewish noble family, acquired their collection over three generations beginning in the 1840s.

The collection includes 14,000 books, 45 incunabula (books published in the 14th century, at the start of the printing era), more than 2,000 Hebrew manuscripts and 1,000 Arabic manuscripts.

Following the death of Baron David Guenzberg in 1910, Zionist activists, among them Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, sought to retrieve the collection and arrange for its relocation to prestate Israel. In May 1917, the Russians agreed to sell the collection to the Jewish National and University Library for a sum of half a million rubles.

The purchase was made possible by contributions from Russian Zionists.

But after the money had already been paid and the collection was packaged and ready for shipment, World War I erupted, delaying the shipment.

Then the Bolsheviks came and the shipment has yet to happen. Maybe soon.

The Chabad-Lubavitch library in New York is likewise trying to recover a library in Russia:

Written in Hebrew and English, Treasures From the Chabad Library takes a sample of the archive’s 250,000 volumes and antiquities – some dating back to the mid-15th century – to complete 154 entries spread across 564 pages. It contains some of the center’s most-prized relics, complete with descriptions, photos and historical essays.

“This book is a compilation of 35 years of work,” says Rabbi Shalom Dovber Levine, the library’s chief librarian and author of the book. “It is a collection of our rarest and most interesting pieces.”

Released by the Kehot Publication Society, the book comes amidst a public exhibition of many of the library’s artifacts.

The collection, housed alongside Lubavitch World Headquarters in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights, has its roots in the personal library of the First Chabad Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi. Its few hundred volumes passed down to the Second Rebbe, Rabbi Dovber Schneuri, who moved the collection to the town of Lubavitch, where it remained through three successive generations. At the beginning of World War II, having grown to thousands of books, manuscripts and personal letters, the bulk of the library was moved to Moscow for safekeeping by the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory.

That collection was confiscated by Soviet authorities and is currently held in the Russian State Archives, where it is the subject of American diplomatic and legal efforts to have it restored to Chabad-Lubavitch.

The library includes one of the oldest surviving printed copies of the Talmud.

New issues of Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha

THE JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE PSEUDEPIGRAPHA has a new issue out: December 2009, Volume 19, No. 2 . TOC with my parenthetical comments:

Veronika Bachmann
Rooted in Paradise? The Meaning of the ‘Tree of Life’ in 1 Enoch 24—25 Reconsidered
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 83-107.

Liudmila Navtanovich
Second Enoch and The Tale of the Blessed Zerubbabel: Two Different Examples of Old Testament Slavonic Apocrypha
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 109-126.

(This article argues on philological grounds that the short recension of 2 Enoch displays more archaic vocabulary and grammar than the long recension and that therefore the short recension is earlier. Slavists seem to agree widely on the priority of the short recension. This bears very much on the discussion of 2 Enoch in last year's Enoch Seminar in Naples.)

Janelle Peters
Hellenistic Imagery and Iconography in Daniel 12.5-13
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 127-145.

Flemming A.J. Nielsen
Moses’ Throne Vision: A Hebrew Fragment of Ezekiel the Tragedian and the Question of its Origin
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 147-158.

(Don't get too excited by the title. The conclusion is that Jellinek translated an excerpt of the original Greek into Hebrew. Oh well ...)

Requires a paid individual or institutional subscription to access the full articles.

UPDATE: Actually there's another issue I haven't noted yet: September 2009, Volume 19, No. 1. TOC:

Ivor H. Jones
The Finale of the Wisdom of Solomon: Its Context, Translation and Significance
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 3-43.

Ephraim Nissan
On Nebuchadnezzar in Pseudo-Sirach
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 45-76.

Mark E. Hanshaw
Book Review: WHEELER, BRANNON M. Moses in the Quran and Islamic Exegesis. Routledge/ Curzon Studies in the Quran. Routledge/Curzon, 2002. 228 pp. ISBN 0-7007-1603-3
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 19: 77-80.

A historical trail in Israel

A HISTORICAL TRAIL in Israel:

Israel forges a new trail through history

By Noah Kosharek (Haaretz)

The government is planning on spending NIS 500 million over five years to restore and preserve heritage sites across the country.

They are hoping the investment will work to strengthen the Israeli and Jewish connection to the historic and Zionist heritage of Israel.
Advertisement

The existence of the plan, whose steering group is headed by Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser, was reported in Haaretz about a month ago.

[...]

The really old

Thirty-seven archaeological sites will be upgraded in the framework of the program.

These include some sites that are already considered well kept, like Caesarea National Park or Masada, where relatively little work, such as the introduction of new sound and light equipment, will be needed.

Other important archaeological sites, like Tel Lachish or the synagogue at Hurvat Amudim near the Golani Junction, will require extensive restoration and preservation work.

At Tel Lachish, which Netanyahu referred to in his speech, the plan is to restore the gate into the city and the city walls, to prepare trails, to build an entrance hall and to add signposts, among other things.

Other sites marked for restoration are Neot Kedumim, Susya, Qumran, Jason's Tomb in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin Garden, the Eshkolot Cave, Umm al-Amad, the Beit Shean antiquities, Tel Megiddo, Tiberias, Tel Arad, Tel Dan, Hurvat Madras, the park around the Old City of Jerusalem and the City of David.

[...]

There are many "less old" sites etc. up for restoration as well.

Apocrypha in Swedish art

APOCRYPHA in Swedish art:

In the Scandinavian nation, a large influence of the old writings can be found in Dalecarlia paintings. These are part of a style that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. It was a form of painting that was practiced solely by self-taught peasant farmers for about 100 years, starting from 1770, in the region of Dalarna. “One of my most interesting findings is that about 75 Dalecarlia paintings are based on apocryphal texts. The motifs are beautiful with nice colors, and often illustrate how the archangel Raphael was appointed guardian. Many paintings also bear the inscription 'God be with you on your journey' in Swedish,” University of Gothenburg expert Elizabeth Philpot, who has spent a lot of time studying the influence of the Apocrypha on Swedish Art, says.

A naked Susanna in a hot tub was reportedly also a favorite theme. Understandably: "'It was a good excuse to paint a naked woman in a biblical context,' Philpot says."

Helen Bond and Gerry Adams in the London Times

HELEN BOND'S CONVERSATION WITH GERRY ADAMS is covered in the London Times. It is not without controversy.

I know why Judas betrayed Jesus, says Gerry Adams in Channel 4 documentary

Ever since Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus with a kiss 2,000 years ago theologians have argued about his motives. But one British academic has now given credit to Gerry Adams, the Sinn Féin leader, for a new insight into one of the most controversial passages of the Bible.

The man who spent a lot of his youth “on the run” from the Army in Belfast yet still swears that he has never been a member of the Provisional IRA, believes that Judas was turned informer by the Roman security services of the time in Palestine, just as many of his former comrades in the Republican movement were induced to spy.

Mr Adams’s views will be shown in a Channel 4 documentary The Bible: A History on Sunday. But even before it has aired it is creating a storm of controversy among many victims of IRA violence.

[...]

Background here.

UPDATE: Mark Goodacre takes this article apart as lazy journalism. I didn't think I'd heard of Helen having a blog.

UPDATE: Here's the website for Channel 4's The Bible: A History.

Ink and Blood exhibit in Nashville

THE INK AND BLOOD EXHIBIT is coming to a high school in Nashville. Background here and here. I wouldn't get too excited about the "Dead Sea Scrolls" in it (see first background link).

Byzantine-Era wine press found in Israel

A BYZANTINE-ERA WINE PRESS has been excavated in Israel:

1,400 year-old Byzantine wine press uncovered

15 Feb 2010

The press, unearthed during an excavation by the Israel Antiquities Authority, is one of the largest ever discovered in Israel.

(Communicated by the Israel Antiquities Authority Spokesperson)

One of the largest wine presses ever revealed in an archaeological excavation in the country, which was used to produce wine in the Late Byzantine period (sixth-seventh centuries CE), was recently exposed in excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority. The excavation was carried out in a region that will be the farmland of Ganei Tal, a new community slated to be built for the evacuees from Gush Katif.

The impressive wine press is 1,400 years old and measures 6.5 x 16.5 meters. It was discovered southwest of Kibbutz Hafetz-Haim and was partly damaged during the installation of the infrastructure there.

[...]

Book review: Bagnall, Early Christian Books in Egypt

BOOK REVIEW (SCHOLIA):

Roger S. Bagnall, Early Christian Books in Egypt. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009. Pp. xvi + 110, incl. 16 halftones and 10 tables. ISBN 978-0-691- 14026-1. US$29.95/UK£20.95. Further Details.

Jonathan More
University of Stellenbosch / George Whitefield College, South Africa

Christian manuscripts discovered in the Egyptian desert have supplied students of early Christianity with previously unknown texts. They have also attracted the attention of those concerned with establishing the original text of the canonical New Testament as accurately as possible. But these manuscripts have increasingly been recognised as artefacts in their own right and scholars have turned to them to understand more about the social and economic life of the communities for which they were produced. It is to this field that Roger Bagnall, doyen of things papyrological and Egyptian (and, since 2007, Director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, where he is also Professor of Ancient History), has contributed a series of four provocative studies addressing some disputed issues surrounding early Christian manuscripts. The four chapters of the book are based on lectures delivered by Bagnall at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in May 2006.

[...]

For another recent review of this book, see here.

BMCR review of book on Joseph and Aseneth

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH/BOOK REVIEW (BMCR): a collection of essays on Joseph and Asenenth.

Eckart Reinmuth (ed.), Joseph und Aseneth. Scripta Antiquitatis Posterioris ad Ethicam Religionemque pertinentia 15. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Pp. xi, 280. ISBN 9783161501616. €29.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Martina Hirschberger, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf (martina.hirschberger@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de)

Es handelt sich bei dem Buch um eine zweisprachige Ausgabe der unter dem Titel Joseph und Aseneth bekannten jüdisch-hellenistischen Schrift, die erzählt, wie die in der Bibel nur dreimal (Gen. 41, 45; 50. 46, 20) kurz erwähnte ägyptische Priestertochter Aseneth zur Gattin Josephs werden konnte. Wie bei den Bänden der Reihe SAPERE üblich, gehen dem Text selbst zwei einführende Essays voran; sieben weitere zu für Verständnis und Interpretation des Textes relevanten Themen folgen. Ziel dieser Reihe ist es, Texte der späteren Antike -- worunter die Herausgeber das 2.-4. Jhdt. n. Chr. verstehen -- einem weiteren Publikum zugänglich zu machen. Obgleich eine Entstehung von Joseph und Aseneth in hellenistischer Zeit -- und damit strenggenommen ausserhalb des zeitlichen Rahmens von SAPERE -- sehr erwägenswert ist, ist es dennoch erfreulich, dass dieser Text nun in dieser Form vorliegt.

[...]

Leeds Gnostic Centre will not appeal

THE LEEDS GNOSTIC CENTRE will not appeal, but it will put in a complaint:

Gnostics rule out appeal but will complain to Charity Commission

By Paul Jump, Third Sector, 9 February 2010

Organisation says it has been "messed around" over its refused application for charitable status

The Gnostic Centre will submit a formal complaint to the Charity Commission over the way its failed application for charitable status was handled, but has ruled out making an appeal to the charity tribunal.

An internal decision review by the regulator in December upheld its decision to reject the Gnostic Centre's application because the Leeds-based organisation had not provided evidence that it promoted a "positive, beneficial, moral or ethical framework" as required by charity law.

Celia Ennis, a member of the organisation, said it had been "messed around" by the commission and would submit a formal complaint listing a number of grievances.

[...]

Background here.

Carol Newsom lectures on Genesis and 1 Enoch

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH:

Candler School of Theology's Carol Newsom to deliver Horton Lecture at Furman on Feb. 16

Submitted by Vince Moore • February 11, 2010 (GreenvilleOnline.com)

GREENVILLE, S.C.-Candler School of Theology professor Carol Newsom will be at Furman University on Tuesday, Feb. 16 to lecture on "Wings of Desire: Two Myths of Origins and Their Ethical Implications."

The lecture, at 4 p.m. in McEachern Lecture Room (Room 214 in Furman Hall), will focus on passages from the Book of Genesis (chapters 2-3) and the non-canonical Book of Enoch (also known as 1 Enoch). Newsom will show how to identify patterns of ethical thinking in different narratives of the origin of evil.

[...]

Goulder obituary in London Times

AN OBITUARY FOR MICHAEL GOULDER in the London Times:

Professor Michael Goulder: biblical scholar

Michael Goulder was Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Birmingham, well known for his creative approach to the Gospels and the Psalms and for resigning his orders as an Anglican priest not long after contributing to The Myth of God Incarnate, a celebrated collection of essays that questioned the traditional Christian doctrine of the Incarnation.

Via Mark Goodacre.

Background here.

More Museum of Tolerance coverage

MORE COVERAGE of the Museum of Tolerance debate:

A Museum of Tolerance we don't need

The Simon Wiesenthal Center should abandon its plan to build a facility on the site of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem.

By Saree Makdisi (LA Times)

February 12, 2010

The Simon Wiesenthal Center's plan to construct an outpost of Los Angeles' Museum of Tolerance atop the most important Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem is temporarily in disarray. This presents an opportunity to call on the center to abandon this outrageous project once and for all.

The site in question is Ma'man Allah, or the Mamilla Cemetery, which had been in continuous use for centuries until 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or driven into flight and their private property, including Ma'man Allah, was handed over to Jewish users.

Like Muslim and Christian sites throughout Israel -- which, as a 2009 State Department report pointed out, implements protections only for Jewish holy sites -- the cemetery has long been threatened. Parts of it have been used as a roadway, parking lots, building sites and Israel's Independence Park. Among the trees in the park, Palestinian tombstones can still be seen, eerily and all too appropriately.

[...]

A proper site for a Museum of Tolerance

The Wiesenthal Center's project has been approved by the government and the courts, and will be built on property that is not a cemetery but a parking lot.

By Marvin Hier (LA Times)

February 12, 2010

Listening to the few vocal opponents of our Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem project -- among them the notorious Sheik Raed Salah, leader of the extremist Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel -- you would never know that the Israeli Supreme Court deliberated for almost three years before unanimously rejecting all their claims and authorizing the Wiesenthal Center to begin construction. Just six weeks ago, Chief Justice Dorit Beinish also rebuked those who re-petitioned the Supreme Court for an "abuse of court proceedings," ordering them to pay professional costs.

Still, our opponents would have you believe that in the name of tolerance, our bulldozers actually have invaded the adjacent Mamilla Cemetery, desecrating ancient Muslim tombstones and historic markers.

They don't want you to know the real facts. The museum is not being built on what can rightfully be called the Mamilla Cemetery, but on a three-acre site in the heart of West Jerusalem that, for more than half a century, served as the city's municipal car park. Each day, hundreds of people of all faiths parked in the three-level underground structure without any protest from Muslim religious or academic leaders or interest groups. Additionally, telephone and electrical cables and sewer lines were laid deep below ground in the early 1960s, again without any protest.

[...]

Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha now in paperback!

THE OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA, edited by James Charlesworth, is now, at last, available in paperback (from Hendricksen). Woo hoo!

Via Mike Potemra at The Corner at National Review, who writes, You Don't Have to Wait for the Apocalypse. It almost seemed like it, though.

Update on Gaza silver coin hoard

MORE ON THE SILVER COIN HOARD recently found in Gaza. This article has new information embedded in some political editorializing.

Silver clue to Gaza’s rich history

Omar Karmi, Foreign Correspondent (The National)

* Last Updated: February 10. 2010 10:57PM UAE / February 10. 2010 6:57PM GMT

GAZA CITY // It was perhaps fitting that when workmen came across a haul of 1,400 ancient Greek silver coins, some 2,500 years old, they should do so in Rafah, Gaza’s southern border town.

[...]

The 1,400 coins discovered here last month were sealed in a pottery container that was shattered upon discovery by the workmen. The site at Tel al Zuroub where they were discovered has been closed to construction and taken over by Gaza’s ministry of antiquities for further excavation.

“The site was discovered by workers by coincidence, so we came and put our grip on it because it’s considered an ancient ruins site,” said Assad Ashour, a ministry official, at the time, adding that, “it still requires a lot of hard work and exploration”.

Mr Ashour said the site contained a “narrow passage located underground, which is built in a sort of descending stairs” and included discoveries of black basalt rock, pottery shards, as well as rock inscriptions. The site is closed to the public for the time being.

[...]

Archaeologist Father Jean-Baptiste Humbert is also quoted.

Background here.

Dead Sea Scrolls grand prize awarded

A DEAD SEA SCROLLS CONTEST?

Dead Sea Scrolls contest grand prize awarded
Written by -- [Sic]
Wednesday, 10 February 2010 (Jewish Tribune)

Toronto – The Israel Government Tourist Office-Canada (IGTO) in partnership with Tour East Holidays, EL AL Israel Airlines and Royal Ontario Museum Membership Department recently awarded Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) member Mr. John Pavey of Toronto the grand prize trip for two to Israel for the recently concluded Dead Sea Scrolls contest.

The contest was run as a value-added benefit exclusive to Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) members and donors. The contest concluded in conjunction with the closing of Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World exhibit at the ROM. ...

First I can remember hearing of it. Congratulations to Mr. Pavey.

Background to the ROM exhibition is here.

Museum of Tolerance protest petition

THE MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE PROJECT in Jerusalem is suddenly getting a lot of press again. Here's a sampling.

Row over plan to build Jewish museum of tolerance on site of Muslim cemetery

• Islamic groups say site contains thousands of graves
• Petition challenges court's decision to back project

* Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 February 2010 17.21 GMT

A group of Palestinians descended from 15 of Jerusalem's oldest Arab families lodged a protest with the UN today in a fresh effort to prevent the construction of a "Museum of Tolerance" on the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery.

[...]

Some 60 Palestinians have signed a petition which was lodged today in Geneva with several UN bodies, including the high commissioner for human rights, the special rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief and Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. "This construction project has resulted in the undignified disinterment and disposal of several hundred graves and human remains, the exact amount and whereabouts of which are currently unknown and threatens to erect a monument to 'Human Dignity' and 'Tolerance' atop thousands more graves," the petition says.

[...]

Museum Creates New Jerusalem Divide

By ISABEL KERSHNER (NYT)
Published: February 10, 2010

JERUSALEM — In a dispute that reflects the religious and political divides in this contested city, representatives of long-established Palestinian families petitioned the United Nations on Wednesday for help in trying to stop Israel and the Simon Wiesenthal Center from constructing a museum on part of a centuries-old Muslim cemetery.

[...]

Responding to the latest protests, Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement: “The Museum of Tolerance project is not being built on the Mamilla Cemetery. It is being built on Jerusalem’s former municipal car park, where every day for nearly half a century, thousands of Muslims, Christians and Jews parked their cars without any protest whatsoever from the Muslim community.”

Rabbi Hier added that Israel’s Antiquities Authority had determined that there were no longer any bones or remains on the site, where infrastructure work was under way. The remains found there have been interred in a nearby Muslim cemetery, he said.

In 2008, after three years of deliberations and noting that no objections had been filed when the parking lot was originally built, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the museum project could go ahead. The case against it was brought by a Muslim group backed by Sheik Raed Salah, the leader of the fiery northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel.

[...]

Background to the controversy is here.

Main road of Byzantine-era Jerusalem being excavated

THE MAIN ROAD of Byzantine-Era Jerusalem is being uncovered due to necessary road works:

Main road of Jerusalem from the Byzantine era exposed
10 Feb 2010

Archaeological excavation in the heart of the Old City confirms the description on the Madaba Map and reveals Jerusalem's main road from the Byzantine period for the first time.

(Communicated by the IAA Spokesperson)

The Madaba Map – an ancient mosaic map in a church in Jordan from the sixth-seventh century CE, which depicted the Land of Israel in the Byzantine period, explicitly showed: the entrance to Jerusalem from the west was via a very large gate that led to a single, central thoroughfare on that side of the city.

Various evidence of the important buildings in Jerusalem that appear on the map has been uncovered over the years or has survived to this day – for example the Church of the Holy Sepulcher – but the large bustling street from the period when Jerusalem became a Christian city has not been discovered until now. The reason for this is that no archaeological excavations took place in the region due to the inconvenience it would cause in stopping traffic in such a busy central location.

Now, because of the need for a thorough treatment of the infrastructure in the region, the Jerusalem Development Authority has initiated rehabilitation work and is renewing the infrastructure in this area in general, and next to the entrance to David Street (known to tourists as the stepped-street with the shops) in particular. Thus it is possible for both archaeologists and the public to catch a rare glimpse of what is going on beneath the flagstone pavement that is so familiar to us all.

[...]

(Brought to my attention by reader Carla Sulzbach.)

A NEW LIST: TOP 50 BIBLICAL HISTORY BLOGS. The list is organized by category rather than ranking. PaleoJudaica is one of them.

Paleography chair being axed at KCL

THE LAST PALAEOGRAPHY (PALEOGRAPHY) CHAIR IN THE UK is being eliminated by Kings College London, and all hell is starting to break loose. As it should.

Writing off the UK's last palaeographer

o John Crace
o The Guardian, Tuesday 9 February 2010

The decision by a London university to axe the UK's only chair in palaeography has been met by outrage from the world's most eminent classicists. John Crace on why the study of ancient writings matters – and why history will be lost without it

Dry, dusty and shortly to be dead. Palaeographers are used to making sense of fragments of ancient manuscripts, but King's College London couldn't have been plainer when it announced recently that it was to close the UK's only chair of palaeography. From ­September, the current holder of the chair, Professor David Ganz, will be out of a job, and the subject will no longer exist as a separate academic discipline in British universities. Its survival will now depend entirely on the whim of classicists and medievalists studying in other fields.

The decision took everyone by ­surprise. "It was only recently that Rick Trainor [the principal of King's] was calling the humanities department [to which palaeography is attached] the jewel in the university's crown," says Dr Mary Beard, professor of ­classics at Cambridge University. "There had been a complete overhaul of ­minority disciplines in the mid-1990s, so there was consensus that everything had been pared down to the bare minimum."

How things change. With Lord Mandelson – in his incarnation as secretary of state for business, industry and skills – now imposing a minimum 10% cut in spending throughout higher education, universities are looking to slash and burn departments. And esoteric subjects such as palaeography are easy targets; they attract comparatively few students and, most importantly, comparatively little in the way of research grants – the only way the past few governments have measured a subject's worth.

But if Trainor was hoping palaeography would do the decent thing, he badly misjudged the situation. Professor Ganz – the fourth person to have held the chair since it was endowed in 1949 – didn't roll over and die quietly. "On the assumption that this means the end of the chair of palaeography, I am having to fight for my subject," he says, "and I have been deeply moved by the level of support from friends, many of whom I have never met."

That's pretty much all Ganz is saying for now – but, having initially raised a very restrained, academic form of hell, others are now doing the talking for him. A Facebook page to save the chair has more than 4,000 members, and many of the world's most distinguished classicists have petitioned King's to ­reconsider its position. Even his ­students are stepping in to defend him. "Without a palaeography professor such as David Ganz, not only will King's be sorely deprived of a basis on which to teach almost every other university discipline," says Alexandra Maccarini, "but the study of humanities everywhere will suffer from the absence of a devoted specialist in the subject."

[...]

If you are on Facebook, please go and join the Facebook page, which is here. I have. And whether you are on Facebook or not, you can sign the petition (currently has almost 5500 signatures, including mine) here.

The article is quite sympathetic and offers a robust defense of palaeography. A couple of excerpts:

Either way, the point is much the same. It's not just that we wouldn't have a clue what the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Cyrus Cylinder (over which the British Museum and the Iranian government are currently locking horns) actually mean without palaeography; we wouldn't know how to evaluate their historical importance. Multiply this by every fragment and every hand-written folio, and the history of the world begins to be up for grabs.
[...]

Giving up on palaeography is like giving up on art, history and culture. It's like deciding we know all we want to know about the past, so we're not going to bother to find out any more: "It's not as if we can come back to it in 15 years' time if we then decide there's enough money," says Beard. "Palaeography can't be taught in an online tutorial; it's a skill handed down from one academic to another. If King's does go through with its decision, it's the end of the subject in this country."

One criticism of the piece though; it shouldn't assume that subjects like paleography can't bring in research grant money. The research councils and other funding sources recognize the value of such things and are quite willing to fund projects on them if they are well thought out. My own (comparably arcane) research on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha depends heavily on palaeographic work (my own and that of many others) and I have raised more than £100,000 in research grants for it in the last five years.

I hope the Principal of KCL reconsiders this action and does the right thing.

Ph.D. scholarship on Second Temple Judaism at Groningen

NOTE THE PH.D. SCHOLARSHIP on Second Temple Judaism at the University of Groningen, on which I posted this weekend.

Row over Cyrus Cylinder takes a new twist

THE ROW OVER THE CYRUS CYLINDER has taken a new twist:

Iran cuts cultural links with British Museum over Cyrus Cylinder

Lucy Bannerman (London Times)

Iran has severed all cultural ties with the British Museum over the institution’s failure to hand over an ancient Persian treasure.

At the centre of the diplomatic row is a 2,500-year-old cuneiform tablet, known as the Cyrus Cylinder, which most historians regard as the world’s first declaration of human rights.

Curators had been due to lend the artefact to Tehran last month, but announced that the handover would be delayed after the discovery of new tablets that they believe could help its research. The delay has provoked the anger of Iranian officials, who announced an end to dialogue yesterday in protest at a decision that they believe is politically motivated.

[...]

Given the shaky prospects of the current Iranian regime, it may be just as well if the artifacts don't go there anytime soon. Background and related thoughts are here.

50th anniversary

50TH ANNIVERSARY:

February 8, 1960: Tel Aviv, Israel — Archaeologists hoped today they may have uncovered another cache of 'Dead Sea Scrolls' in an obscure cave once used as a hideout by rebels against the Romans. They reported finding fragments of parchment scrolls, believed to have been written about the same time as the Dead Sea scrolls. The new scrolls are the first found on the Israel side of the Dead Sea.

This must be referring to Yigael Yadin's excavations of the Bar Kokhba caves, which did produce some impressive epigraphic discoveries in 1960, including battle communiques dictated by Bar Kokhba himself.

Temple Mount Watch: Mughrabi Gate bridge

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Jordan is still resisting renovations to the Mughrabi (Mugrabi) Gate bridge:

BJordanian Pressure Preventing Western Wall Walkway Construction

by Gil Ronen

(IsraelNN.com) Jordanian pressure is preventing the completion of a walkway to the Temple Mount next to the Western Wall (Kotel), according to Nadav Shragai, senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

[...]

The plan for renovating the walkway to the Rambam Gate has been approved, Shragai said, but the government is delaying its implementation. “At first they wanted the bridge to be suspended from support columns,” the veteran former journalist explained, “but environmental groups objected. In the end it was decided that the bridge would be placed on what remains of the [dirt] ramp, in order to avoid damage to houses in the Mughrabim neighborhood. This plan currently has the necessary approvals and all that is needed is a construction permit from the Kotel Heritage Fund which answers to the Prime Minister's Office. For some reason, because of pressure from the Jordanian government, the government is not granting this permit.”

[...]

Background here.

James Tabor lecture: What kind of Jew was Jesus?

JAMES TABOR is lecturing on "What Kind of Jew was Jesus?"

How would Jesus worship? Scholar to address Jewishness of Jesus at UNCA

By Arnold Wengrow • February 7, 2010 (Citizen-Times)

ASHEVILLE — Should Jews who are committed to their faith be interested in Jesus? Would Christians who believe in the divinity of Christ want to know about Jesus the Jew?

James Tabor, a scholar of early Christianity, says he will pose these “deliberately provocative” questions in his talk “What Kind of Jew Was Jesus?” at 7 p.m. Thursday at UNC Asheville's Reuter Center.

“Next to Moses, Jesus was the most famous Jew on the planet,” Tabor said in a telephone interview from his office at UNC Charlotte, where he chairs the religious studies department. “If he was a faithful Jew in his own world,” he said, “there's a sense, as (Jewish philosopher) Martin Buber said, that Jews can reclaim him. Not as what the church made him, but as he was.”

Christians should be interested in the Jewishness of Jesus, Tabor said, because “whatever their theology might be, history must be brought in. Even the Catholic Church is interested.”

Tabor, the author of “The Jesus Dynasty,” a book about the historical Jesus and his family, noted that the current pope, Benedict XVI, is writing a two-volume book that discusses both the history and the theology of Jesus' life.

[...]

For the "Jesus Family Tomb" or Talpiot Tomb, see here and follow the links.

Essay on names in Genesis 1-11

AN ESSAY ON NAMES IN GENESIS 1-11 has been published at Bible and Interpretation:

Names in Genesis 1-11

The names are often overlooked by modern readers, but not by the ancient Israelites, who understood Hebrew.

See Richard S. Hess, Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1-11 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009)

By Richard S. Hess
Earl S. Kalland Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages
Denver Seminary
February 2010

One of his conclusions is that some of these names are very old indeed.

By the way, the name Japheth is surely related to the name of the Greek Titan Iapetus.

Essay on the Archangel Gabriel

THE ARCHANGEL GABRIEL is the subject of an essay at Bible and Interpretation:

Gabriel Blow Your Horn! - A Short History of Gabriel within Jewish Literature

From the ancient to the modern world, angels have been the subject of fascination and wonder. Perhaps only second to Michael in fame, the angel Gabriel has enjoyed a long and celebrated history among Jews and Christians alike.

By David L. Everson
Classics Department
Xavier University (Cincinnati, OH)
December 2009

An interesting discussion of early references to Gabriel. I'm not clear why the book of Daniel is segregated from "Second Temple Literature," especially inasmuch as most scholars think the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36) is earlier than Daniel. Gabriel is also mentioned in the Qumran War Scroll and also, of course, in the recently published Vision of Gabriel inscription (see here and here and follow the links). The latter really ought to have been noted.

Book Review (BMCR): Bagnall, Early Christian Books in Egypt

BOOK REVIEW (BMCR):

Roger S. Bagnall, Early Christian Books in Egypt. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009. Pp. xv, 100. ISBN 9780691140261. $29.95.

Reviewed by Benjamin Garstad, Grant MacEwan University (garstadb@macewan.ca)

Roger Bagnall is one of the foremost authorities on the written remains of Roman Egypt and the evidence they offer us for a lost world, but in this slender volume he wears his formidable learning lightly. The four essays that make up the book are adapted from lectures he gave at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris in 2006. They offer engaging and approachable insights into a field of research in which even professional classicists are compelled to defer to the training and experience of experts, but which remains of interest to many. With a sweeping breadth that sacrifices remarkably little in the way of convincing depth, Bagnall makes an up-to-date survey of the topic of early Christian books in Egypt, indicates where (and why) research may have gone astray in the past, and points the way forward for future work.

[...]

This part in particular is of interest:

Bagnall follows his argument for the paucity of Christian literary remains we should expect before the turn of the second century with a pair of case studies. The first concerns Carsten Peter Thiede's attempt to date the Magdalen papyrus fragment of the Gospel of Matthew to the first century and support his overall contention that the Gospel was composed before the fall of Jerusalem in 71. I can only imagine that it was the notoriety of this case which suggested it as an example of a private or partisan agenda skewing the scholarship of early Christian papyri toward an early date. It certainly required no subtlety for Bagnall to demolish Thiede's claims for the benefit of the reader. Indeed, it might be considered a mean-spirited exaggeration to describe an affair which might have been dismissed with a shrug as "gruesome" and "horrifying" and to characterize Thiede's ZPE article as a parody of academic form with none of its substance, particularly in light of his recent death. De mortuis nihil nisi bonum, after all. Without lash in hand Bagnall seems, by contrast, inconclusive in his treatment of Antonio Carlini's suggestion that a fragment of the Shepherd of Hermas might belong to the first half of the second century. Carlini himself concedes that the palaeographic evidence is at odds with the testimony of the Muratorian Canon (dated to near the end of the second century) that the Shepherd was written during the episcopate of Pius in Rome (142-55). Bagnall offers a generous hearing to Carlini's resolution of the problem with reference to the composite nature of the Shepherd and the possibility that we might find remains of its independently circulating parts. The Hermas fragments highlight the complications of serious and disinterested scholarship. The contrasting examples of early dating might have played well to the audience of a lecture, but are perhaps not so instructive in the less ephemeral format of a written essay.

The late Prof. Thiede's attempts to find fragments of the Greek New Testament among the Dead Sea Scrolls have also not been found persuasive. Also, the Muratorian Canon has been redated to the fourth century by some scholars.

An early codex of the book of Isaiah also figures in the book.

St. Anthony's monastery restored

ST. ANTHONY'S MONASTERY in Egypt has undergone restoration:

World's oldest monastery restored

(BBC)

Egypt has completed the restoration of reputedly the world's oldest Christian monastery, called Saint Anthony's.

The monastery is believed to be 1,600 years old. The government-sponsored restoration project cost over $14m (£8.9m) and took more than eight years.

The monastery is a popular site for Coptic Christian pilgrims.

The restoration comes soon after Egypt's worst incident of sectarian violence in a decade, when six Copts were shot dead on Christmas Eve.

[...]

Of tangential interest to PaleoJudaica, but noted because of the connection the Egyptian authorities (including Zahi Hawass) have been making with the Nag Hammadi murders, already covered here. And the restoration is a good demonstration that the Egyptian Government is taking care of non-Muslim antiquities. This should go without saying, of course, but under current circumstances I can see why they would want to emphasize it.

Second Temple Judaism Ph.D. position at Groningen

A PH.D. POSITION dealing with Second Temple Judaism is being advertised at the University of Groningen. Mladen Popovic e-mails:

PhD position The Jewish Revolt against Rome (0,9 fte) (210026) at the Qumran Institute of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands

The Graduate School of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Groningen is looking for a PhD candidate (0,9 fte) for the project 'The Jewish Revolt against Rome: Religious Groups and the Shaping of Identities in First-Century Judaea'.

This PhD position is financed by a grant of the SNS/Reaal Fund. It will run parallel to the interdisciplinary NWO VENI project The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish War against Rome (66-70), which investigates the impact of Rome on the self-understanding of a Jewish group at Qumran prior to the revolt. PhD candidates are expected to carry out research within the historical and a f first-century Judaea in relation to the impact of the Roman Empire on the region and the conflict of 66-70/73. Projects may investigate e.g. Flavius Josephus' position, specific Jewish groups, Roman reactions, specific sites, regions or interregional connections from different perspectives and on the basis of different sources (literary, archaeological and/or numismatic). The final form of the PhD project will be determined in consultation with the PhD candidate.

We are looking for enthusiastic candidates with a Master's degree or equivalent, in a (sub)discipline in which the doctoral study will take place. Candidates with a degree in Hebrew Bible, J! ewish Stu assics, or Archaeology are especially encouraged to apply.

The degree must have been obtained within a reasonable period of time and with results that justify the expectation that the student will be able to successfully complete the programme in four years.

This PhD position is available as of September 1st, 2010.

Signed applications should be received by the Graduate School Office by March 1.

For additional information see:

http://www.rug.nl/ggw/vacatures/10PhDJRR

BBC: Archaeology and the struggle for Jerusalem

THE POLITICS OF JERUSALEM ARCHAEOLOGY is addressed by the BBC in Archaeology and the struggle for Jerusalem. Like the essay I commented on a couple of days ago, this article raises a number of valid concerns, but it too ignores entirely the part played by Islamist denial of basic historical facts such as the existence of Jewish Temples on the Temple Mount in antiquity. It's curious that this myopia is so common among Westerners who comment on the situation.

The Samaritan High Priest has passed away

THE SAMARITAN HIGH PRIEST has passed away.

Samaritans mourn their high priest
BY BEN HARTMAN
05/02/2010 05:00 (Jerusalem Post)

Elazar ben Tsedaka, 83, ‘wise’ and ‘selfless,’ traced his office back to Aaron.

Snow flurries drifted to the ground on Mount Gerizim overlooking Nablus on Thursday, as mourners gathered to bury the spiritual leader of the Samaritans, who passed away the previous day.

High Priest Elazar ben Tsedaka ben Yitzhaq was born during a snowstorm 83 years ago, one mourner said. On Thursday, as he was being laid to rest at the holiest site in the Samaritan religion, the snow began to fall again.

According to Samaritan tradition he was the 131st holder of the post since Aaron. This is not be accepted by all historians, but the office may well go back to the Hellenistic period, which would still make it the oldest office in the world. One account in Josephus suggest that it is an offshoot of the Zadokite high priests in Jerusalem from around the time of Alexander the Great.

Mourners took shelter from the storm inside the community center in the hilltop neighborhood of Kiryat Luza, where much of the ethnoreligious group of 730 lives. Nearly all the rest live in Holon’s Neveh Pinchas neighborhood.

Inside, well over 100 men gathered in a somber, eerily quiet ceremony around the casket holding Elazar, who will be replaced as head priest by his cousin Aharon Ben-Av Hisda Cohen.

[...]

Photos of the funeral are here. I don't know what Samaritans say for this, but I hope that may his memory be for a blessing will serve.

(Heads up, Carla Sulzbach.)

Rashi's Daughters trilogy completed

THE RASHI'S DAUGHTERS TRILOGY by Maggie Anton is now complete.

Background here.

On the congeniality of an apocalyptic Jesus

HELEN BOND finds an apocalyptic Jesus all too congenial to today's world and therefore no safeguard against distortion when we try to reconstruct the historical Jesus (Bible and Interpretation again). In the 1980s the Jesus Seminar found a Jesus that always looked to me suspiciously like a contemporary American humanities professor, so the problem is not new. The best rule of thumb is to try to follow the evidence on a detailed level where it leads, without assuming that any reconstruction is likely to be more objective in principle than any other. And it's also important to face the fact that our historical evidence for Jesus was not written with our interests in mind and may well not suffice for the type of historical reconstruction of his ministry and his teaching which we want.

Biblical Scholarship and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

JULIA M. O'BRIEN has recently visited Israel and the West Bank and has reflections on Biblical Scholarship and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict at Bible and Interpretation. She is quite right that solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian issues must be political ones and that uncritical use of the Bible and ideological use of the archaeology of the area are entirely unhelpful. That said, I was disappointed that she completely ignored the Islamist ideologies that are very much in play and which try to deny any historical connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel/Palestine, often resorting to Orwellian dismissal of the historical evidence (as with the persistent denial that there was a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount). Scholars need to combat both trends so that the politicians can proceed without distraction by historically worthless ideologies. PaleoJudaica spends a good deal of time on this problem.

UPDATE (5 February): Related thoughts here.

The Holiness Code cramps today's Jerusalem lifestyle

ABIGAIL PICKUS is finding that those laws in the Holiness Code of Leviticus are cramping her social life in Jerusalem. Note especially Leviticus 20:13 and 21:14.

Biblical Studies Carnival 50 (?)

BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL 50 (or something) has been posted by Duane Smith at Abnormal Interests.

Clergy on the Milwaukee DSS exhibition

CLERGY WEIGH IN on the Milwaukee Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition:

Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit creating local excitement

MICHAEL BURKE mburke@journaltimes.com | Posted: Monday, February 1, 2010 7:00 am |

The Milwaukee appearance of the Dead Sea Scrolls has enlivened interest in the ancient documents among Christians and Jews alike, say area clergy.

[...]

A rabbi and two ministers comment.

Background here.

Lunar Calendar Conference in Jerusalem

A CONFERENCE ON THE LUNAR CALENDAR has just been held at the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem:

Conference Shed Moonlight on Lunar Calendar

by Yoni Kempinski

(IsraelNN.com)

The Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem hosted an international conference January 30 through February 1, called: Living the Lunar Calendar: Time, Text and Tradition. Leading international scholars presented three days of lectures, sessions and events, including a fully-guided tour to Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were hidden for centuries.

A partial list of speakers included: Prof. Lawrence H. Schiffman, New York University; Prof. Sacha Stern, University College London; Prof. Wayne Horowitz, Hebrew University Jerusalem; Prof. John Steel, Brown University USA; Prof. Stanislaw Iwaniszewski, National Institute of Anthropology and History, Mexico; Dr. Jonathan Ben-Dov, University of Haifa.

[...]

There's also a video interview with Larry Schiffman and Sacha Stern. And the cuneiform calendrical tablet in the Bible Lands Museum is also mentioned. For more on it, see here.

Companion presentation to Milwaukee DSS exhibition

THE MILWAUKEE DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION is connected to a companion show at a local planetarium:

Stars align for Dead Sea Scrolls

Posted: Jan. 31, 2010 (Journal-Sentinel)

The Milwaukee Public Museum's new exhibit, "Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible," reveals many secrets of the famous scrolls. Find out the answer to more of their mysteries at the Daniel M. Soref Planetarium's companion presentation, "Secrets of the Dead Sea."

[...]

Background here.

Update on the Raphael Golb case

THE RAPHAEL GOLB online-impersonation case has taken a new twist according to Inside Higher Ed:

But new court documents point to evidence suggesting that Norman Golb, his wife, Ruth, and their other son, Joel, were aware of the alias-based campaign and may have assisted in carrying it out. Raphael Golb stands accused of harassing various scholars who do not believe that the Dead Sea Scrolls originated in Jerusalem — a theory Norman Golb advocated in a 1995 book. The new documents, released last month, purport to show transcripts of e-mails exchanges among members of the Golb family indicating coordinated efforts to advance Norman Golb’s theories though Web aliases. They also include sharp criticisms of Schiffman, which the prosecution is trying to use as evidence of motive and intent for the identity theft — the only felony charge against Raphael Golb. The evidence was released to the court after the defense moved to suppress it. Norman Golb could not be reached for comment.

See the article itself for a link to the relevant "new court documents." An e-mail from Norman Golb to Inside Higher Ed is quoted later in the article, but it seems not to be addressing this latest accusation.

Background here.

Phoenicia reaches South Africa

THE GOOD SHIP PHOENICIA has reached South Africa:

Phoenicia - they've reached South Africa

(Sail-World)
.
Leg by leg, they're getting there.

Recreating the first circumnavigation of Africa in a 600BCE replica boat was never going to be easy.

But this week Phoenicia was greeted with a very warm welcome at Richards Bay in South Africa, a little north of Durban.

A convoy of 21 yachts came out to meet Phoenicia and back at the Zululand Yacht Club a party of journalists, television cameras, port officials and local supporters were ready to welcome the Phoenician Ship Expedition team to South Africa.

[...]

Background here.

Gnosticism: here come the laywers

GNOSTICISM: HERE COME THE LAWYERS.

Lawyers criticise Charity Commission's decision on gnostics

By Paul Jump, Third Sector, 26 January 2010

Regulator 'obliged to draw on absurd case law'

The Charity Commission's rejection of the Gnostic Centre's application for charitable registration is "begging" to be appealed to the charity tribunal, according to charity lawyer Rosamund McCarthy.

An internal commission review decided that gnosticism did not meet the legal definition of a religion because it did not promote "a positive, beneficial, moral or ethical framework" .

But McCarthy, a partner at Bates Wells & Braithwaite, said the case law the commission was obliged to draw on was "absurd" and needed to be tested legally. She said it was also possible that the commission had breached the Human Rights Act, which requires religions and other moral belief systems to be treated equally.

[...]

Can't say I'm surprised. Background here.

Latest on Milwaukee DSS exhibition

THE LATEST on the Milwaukee Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibition:

Dead Sea Scrolls stir pride in Jewish community

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Jan. 29, 2010

When organizers started planning Sunday's Jewish community event around the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Milwaukee Public Museum, they were hoping for 100, maybe 150, takers.

No one expected the overwhelming response that is propelling Jewish Night at the Museum into one of the largest events in the local Jewish community in years.

As of Friday, more than 500 people had registered.

They are drawn not only by the scrolls - these 2,000-year-old remnants of Jewish texts excavated from caves in the Judean desert - but also, according to organizers, a sense of pride and community.

[...]

Events involving the Dead Sea Scrolls always seem to draw more interest than the organizers expect.

Background here.