Cuneiform law-code fragment found at Hazor

CUNEIFORM DAY! Jack Sasson passes on a message from the excavators of Hazor:

From Amnon Ben-Tor Amnon , Sharon Zuckerman
and Wayne Horowitz
:
=======================================

Hazor Law Code Fragments

The Selz Foundation Hazor Excavations in Memory of Yigael Yadin have recovered two fragments of a cuneiform tablet preserving portions of a law code at Hazor.

The text parallels portions of the famous Law Code of Hammurabi, and, to a certain extent even the Biblical “tooth for a tooth”. The team is presently working its way down towards a monumental structure dating to the Bronze Age, where more tablets are expected to be found.

The tablet is currently being studied at the Hebrew University. More details to follow as soon as possible.

The excavations are sponsored by the Hebrew university and the Israel Exploration Society, and take place in the Hazor National Park.

This is excellent news. Ideally, it may indicate they are closing in on that elusive Late Bronze Age cuneiform archive for which they have been searching many years, and on which I was wistfully speculating last week. But we shouldn't get too excited yet about that possibility, since several other cuneiform tablets have been excavated at Hazor in past years, but neither that archive nor a possible second Middle Bronze Age one have been forthcoming. Still, we live in hope.

Nevertheless, the discovery of fragments of an LBA law-code from ancient Canaan is in itself important. I look forward to more details as they are released.

Christopher Rollston has some law-code bibliography here.

UPDATE: Seth Sanders has thoughts on this discovery too.

UPDATE: Jack Sasson e-mails to inform me that the Hazor fragments are Old Babylonian. So they bring further hope of recovering the MBA archive, not the LBA one.

Seth Sanders on the Jerusalem cuneiform fragment etc.

CUNEIFORM DAY! At his blog, Serving the Word, Seth Sanders has a discussion of the Amarna letters from Jerusalem (Consider Jerusalem! The Political Status of Jerusalem in the 14th Century B.C.E.); raises an important linguistic point regarding the new cuneiform fragment from Jerusalem ((Relatively) Clear New Linguistic Light on the Jerusalem Fragment); and has a post on the current discussion of the Canaanite-language influence on some of the Amarna letters (Hebrew's Early Ancestors and the Beginnings of International Relations: A Context for the Jerusalem Fragment).

More on the Esarhaddon treaty tablet

CUNEIFORM DAY! A report (with tablet photo) on a public lecture on the recently discovered Esarhaddon vassal treaty tablet by the site's excavator:

Canadian archeologists discover Old Testament-era tablet

By Jennifer Green , The Ottawa Citizen April 8, 2010

Canadian archeologists in Turkey have unearthed an ancient treaty written in cuneiform that could have served as a model for the biblical description of God’s covenant with the Israelites.

The tablet, dating from about 670 BC, is a treaty between the powerful Assyrian king and his weaker vassal states, written in a highly formulaic language very similar in form and style to the story of Abraham’s covenant with God in the Hebrew Bible, says University of Toronto archeologist Timothy Harrison.

Although biblical scholarship differs, it is widely accepted that the Hebrew Bible was being assembled around the same time as this treaty, the seventh century BC.

“Those documents … seem to reflect very closely the formulaic structure of these treaty documents,” he told about 50 guests at the residence of the Turkish ambassador Rafet Akgunay.

[...]

Via Joseph Lauer.

Background and links here and here.

Teaching fellowship in NT at St. Andrews

TEACHING FELLOWSHIP IN NEW TESTAMENT: I just realized that I forgot to note this temporary position at the University of St. Andrews. Today is the deadline, but you still have until 5:00 pm local time to get it in.

Title Teaching Fellow in New Testament - SK7134
Vacancy Description School of Divinity £29,853 - £35,646 per annum pro rata Start: mid Sept 2010 Fixed term until 30 June 2011

Job Description Appointment will be from mid-September 2010 to 30 June 2011. You must have appropriate tertiary qualifications in the area of Biblical Studies, with a completed PhD in New Testament Studies. The primary responsibilities of the post are the delivery of two undergraduate modules over the course of the academic year: an introductory class on ‘Jesus and the Gospels’, and an honours module on an agreed topic. You will undertake the regular administrative and examining duties associated with this teaching, and will also supervise a number of honours dissertations, which may range in scope from across the field of New Testament Studies.

Follow this link for contact information and further particulars. DO NOT send any applications to me.

Phoenician and Punic news

THE GOOD SHIP PHOENICIA has reached the Azores:

82 days at sea, and Phoenicia reaches the Azores

(dp-news-Sail-world-Arward)

It has been the longest and most challenging leg of their journey, but the Phoenicia, the replica of a 600BC Phoenician vessel which it is believed circumnavigated Africa, has reached the Azores.

The journey covered over 3500miles, with eight crew members, and proved that the sturdy vessel, faithfully recreated according to the mode of its era, could withstand the challenging conditions of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Phoenicia arrived in Flores, the most westerly island in the Azores this week, and is now anchored there.

[...]

Gibraltar is next. The ship has been sailing for nearly two years.

Further background here and follow the many links back.

More Phoenician/Punic news: a review of a book on Hannibal's tactics at the battle of Cannae during the Second Punic War:

The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal defeats mighty Rome

The legendary Hannibal won famously at Cannae with tactics still being discussed today — but in the end, he lost the war

Published On Sat Jul 17 2010 (Toronto Star)

On a sweltering August 2, 216 B.C., Hannibal was facing a Roman army on a plain near the Italian river Po. With the sun behind him, the legendary Carthaginian commander was in a good position. But he also had a plan.

Knowing the Romans always went for the centre, he set his troops up in a backwards C formation. When the Romans took the bait, they failed to notice that the Carthaginian centre was slowly drawing back into a proper C. The jaws of the trap closed when Hannibal’s Libyan troops swooped in on the unprotected Roman flanks.

Meanwhile, Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal, leading the Carthaginian cavalry, took care of the inferior Roman cavalry, first on one flank, then the other. Instead of pursuing, Hasdrubal doubled back behind the Roman troops, cutting off any avenue of retreat.

The Romans lost more men on that single day, 48,000, than the U. S. did during the entire course of the Viet Nam War. Or, as Robert L. O’Connell puts it in The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic, about 6 million pounds of human meat was left to rot in the hot August sun.

This was the famous Battle of Cannae. In O’Connell’s estimation, Cannae remains a lure for the militarily ambitious as long as men dream of killing other groups of men in very large numbers.

[...]

And still more: A new computer game based on the Second Punic War:

Matrix Games Is Ready to Unleash Hannibal

Turn based strategy offering

By Andrei Dumitrescu, Games Editor (Softpedia)

Matrix Games, as the publisher, and Forced March Games, as the developer, have announced that they are collaborating on a new turn based strategy title called Hannibal: Rome and Carthage in the Second Punic War. The game is coming to the PC and does not yet have a clear launch date.

Hannibal: Rome and Carthage in the Second Punic War will allow the player to take control of the entire Carthaginian nation as they try to outfight and outsmart the Romans in a conflict which will define the way the Mediterranean basin develops over the following centuries. The sea, Spain, the North of Africa and Italy are all battlegrounds as the gamers uses their strategic and tactical skills in order to defeat the opposing forces of the Roman Republic.

[...]

Tisha B'Av and rebuilding the Temple

TISHA B'AV (the Ninth of Av) begins tonight at sundown. An easy fast to all those observing it.

This poll was clearly timed with this holiday in mind:

Half the Public Wants to See Holy Temple Rebuilt

by Hillel Fendel (Arutz Sheva)

Half the Israeli public wants the Holy Temple (Beit HaMikdash) to be rebuilt. This is the main finding of a poll commissioned by the Knesset Television Channel and carried out by the Panels Institute.

The poll was taken in advance of this Tuesday’s national day of mourning, known as Tisha B’Av, on which the two Holy Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed, 2,000 and 2,500 years ago, respectively.

Forty nine percent said they want the rebuilding of the Holy Temple, while 23% said they do not. The remainder said they were unsure.

The public is about evenly split on whether they believe it will happen, with a slight edge – 42% to 39% – to those who believe the Third Holy Temple will be rebuilt.

Should the State of Israel take active steps towards the reconstruction? Forty-eight percent said no, while 27% said yes.

[...]

I'll say it again: NO EXCAVATION on the Temple Mount unless it is scientifically controlled archaeological excavation, and even then I think we should wait for the non-intrusive and non-destructive techniques that technology should be sending our way in due course.

I'll leave it to someone else to discuss the politics that would go with any attempt in the foreseeable future to rebuild the Temple.

(Cross-file under "Temple Mount Watch.")

More on gold coin found at Bethsaida

THAT GOLD COIN recently excavated at Bethsaida gets a close look by Arutz Sheva:

2,000-Year-Old Gold Coin a Testament to Galilee Ancient History

by Hana Levi Julian

A 2,000-year-old gold coin discovered by a West Virginia University student at an archaeological site in the upper Galilee has proven to be the find of the season.

It is the first Antonius Pius coin ever found in Israel and was discovered by Alexis Whitley and her friend, on one of the hottest days of the summer. The two were clearing away dirt and rocks at the Bethsaida site when suddenly, Alex spotted the sparkle of a coin as it slipped down.

Unaware of its significance, it took a while for Whitley to understand why excavation director Dr. Rami Arav immediately had her pose with the coin as photographers raced to the site.

The coin, which Arav described as a discovery of Biblical dimensions, weights 7 grams of 24-karat gold – 97.6 percent gold, to be exact. It depicts the portrait of Antonius Pius, a Roman emperor who rules from 138-161 CE.

[...]

The article includes images of the coin with its finder; a nice one of the coin itself; and photos of a gold earring, a tetradrachm coin, and a cooking pot found at the same site.

Background here.

Jewish catacombs under Mussolini's villa

THE JEWISH CATACOMBS beneath Mussolini's villa are profiled in a Jerusalem Post Travel piece:

Jewish catacombs at Rome’s Villa Torlonia
By IRVING SPITZ
07/18/2010 03:41

A fascinating burial site may soon be opened to the general public.

ROME – Cremation represented one of the usual burial practices for pagan Romans. With the emergence of Christianity, burials began to take place in catacombs. This word is derived from the Greek meaning “within the quarries.” Catacombs are underground cemeteries consisting of intricate labyrinths or tunnels with recesses for burial chambers.

There are more than 60 sites of catacombs in Rome which date from the end of the second to the early fifth century CE.

The vast majority of catacombs represent the final resting places of Christians, but there are also several of Jewish origin. One of these is situated in the gardens of the Villa Torlonia in the northeast of Rome. This villa was built in the first half of the 19th century for the wealthy banking Torlonia family. In 1929 it was taken over by the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. After his death in 1945, the villa and the gardens remained unused for many years, but have now been restored and are open to the public.

[...]

THE MAIN interest in these catacombs is the plethora of beautiful colored frescos on the walls and part of the vaulted ceilings. These represent characteristic iconographic Jewish symbols and many are in an excellent state of preservation. These include the seven-branched menora, shofar, ark with the law tablets, etrog, lulav, circumcision knife, cruse of oil and matzot. There are also depictions which may possibly represent the façade of the Temple destroyed in 70 CE by Titus.

Additional frescoes include geometric patterns, grapevines, birds, plants and fish. These are not specific to Jewish catacombs and are also seen in those of Christian origin. Not unexpectedly, there are no depictions of humans consistent with the Ten Commandments which prohibited displays of graven images. There are also stamped tiles with the name of the ancient Roman workshop.

Interestingly enough, the inscriptions found in these and other Jewish catacombs are in Greek and not Hebrew.

Radiocarbon testing using organic material incorporated during the construction of the catacombs was conducted by Prof. Leonard V. Rutgers. This revealed that these catacombs date from about 100 BCE (Rutgers et al., Nature, 2005). According to Rutgers, these specific catacombs came into general use in the first century and predate Christian catacombs by at least 100 years. This implies that burial of the dead in catacombs may have begun as a Jewish custom and that it was subsequently adopted by the Christians.

On the other hand, it should be noted that other archeological findings such as oil lamps found in the catacombs of Villa Torlonia date from the end of the second to the early fifth century CE. Thus the question of the precise dating of these catacombs is not definitely resolved. ...

The authorities seem to be aiming to begin the restoration of the catacombs in the coming year, with the aim of opening them to the public in due course.

Background here and follow the links.

Jerusalem Akkadian fragment update

JERUSALEM AKKADIAN FRAGMENT UPDATE: Christopher Rollston has posted philological updates by John Huehnergard and Wilfred Van Soldt on his website post Reflections on the Fragmentary Cuneiform Tablet from the Ophel.

Background here.

Hurtado assimilated to the blogosphere

ASSIMILATED TO THE BLOGOSPHERE: Larry Hurtado, Professor of New Testament at the University of Edinburgh, has a new blog. And there's also one for his Centre for the Study of Christian Origins.

(Via James McGrath.)

Francesca Stavrakopoulou on the BBC

BBC AUTUMN/WINTER PREVIEW:

In The Bible's Buried Secrets, Hebrew scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou looks at what recent archaeological discoveries mean for the Bible and how they are forcing a re-assessment of the understanding of the legacy of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Dr. Stavrakopoulou is a Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Bible at Exeter University.

Ninth of Av thoughts on ancient conversion

MORE NINTH OF AV THOUGHTS:

How disaster made conversion harder

There is a link between Tishah b’Av — which begins on Monday night — and attitudes towards converts, writes David Aberbach

July 15, 2010 (Jewish Chronicle)

The unprecedented growth of Islam in the West, despite prejudice and hatred, contrasts with the demographic stagnation of the Jewish people - several million fewer now than in 1939. Conversion to practically every other religion remains considerably easier than conversion to Judaism. Why is traditional conversion to Judaism so hard?

There is a close link between Tishah b'Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, and rabbinic discouragement of gentiles from conversion after the Roman-Jewish wars (66-70, 115-17, 132-35 CE). Roman concern with Jewish conversion began prior to the destruction of the Temple. Though not a missionary religion (early Christians such as Paul, Barnabas and Peter are the only first-century Jewish missionaries known by name), pre-70 Judaism was highly varied and expanding in the Roman empire. It attracted sympathisers and adherents among the underprivileged, powerless, persecuted classes of the empire, especially slaves and women.

[...]

What do angels look like?

WHAT DO ANGELS LOOK LIKE? - A capsule history at the OUP blog. Some unusual artistic representations are noted here, here, and here.

Biblical languages minor at ENMU

A BIBLICAL LANGUAGES MINOR has been added to the offerings of Eastern New Mexico University's Religion Department:

Students of Hebrew and Greek have a chance to enhance their college degrees as well as their minds with the institution of new minors at Eastern New Mexico University this coming fall.

In addition to the existing minor in Greek, students can now minor in Hebrew or combine the two languages for a Biblical Languages minor, all through the Department of Religion.

[...]

Mandaean Gnostic texts online

MANDAEAN GNOSTIC TEXTS ONLINE.

Rollston on the new Jerusalem cuneiform fragment

CHRISTOPHER ROLLSTON has just posted Reflections on the Fragmentary Cuneiform Tablet from the Ophel on his website. His conclusion:

I contend that (1) it could be some sort of administrative text (2nd person forms are used in memoranda sometimes, as Jack Sasson has noted); (2) it could be a legal text, as the 2nd person does occur in legal texts; (3) it could be an international letter, of course…but it might be a letter from one official in Jerusalem to another official in Jerusalem, or a letter to a neighboring “city” (e.g., Hazor) or “country” (i.e., Egypt is not the sole country to which a letter might be written); (4) it is conceivable that it is a literary text of some sort (as the 2nd person can occur in such texts). Therefore, there are a number of possible options for this tablet. And, thus, because there is such a dearth of actual preserved text on this tablet, I contend that it is best not to attempt to posit as probable this or that historical context, Sitz im Leben, or genre. Ultimately, the fact of the matter is that it could be one of various things…e.g., an epistolary text, a legal text, an administrative text, a literary text.

Read it all.

Background here.

UPDATE: Check that post again.

Grossman (ed.), Rediscovering the DSS

IN THE MAIL:

Maxine L. Grossman (ed.), Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Assessment of Old and New Approaches and Methods (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010)

Already noted here. This is the first time I've looked at the other essays in the volume but, having done so, I'm sorely tempted to drop the class preparation I should be doing and just read this book.

The Amazon.com link is here, but it uses an earlier draft title (but displays the correct title on the cover image).

APU extends DSS exhibit

AZUSA PACIFIC UNIVERSITY has extended its Dead Sea Scroll exhibit through 29 August.

Background here.

The Art Newspaper on the Garima Gospels

THE ART NEWSPAPER on the Garima Gospels:

Discovery of earliest illuminated manuscript

Revised dating places Garima Gospels before 650—none from Ethiopia previously dated before 12th century By Martin Bailey

By Martin Bailey | From issue 214, June 2010
Published online 14 Jul 10 (Features)

What could be the world’s earliest illustrated Christian manuscript has been found in a remote Ethiopian monastery. The Garima Gospels were previously assumed to date from about 1100AD, but radiocarbon dating conducted in Oxford suggests they were made between 330 and 650AD.

This discovery looks set to transform our knowledge about the development of illuminated manuscripts. It also throws new light on the spread of Christianity into sub-Saharan Africa.

The Garima Gospels are preserved in an isolated monastery in the Tigray region, set among mountains at 7,000 feet. No other Ethiopian manuscripts can be dated from before the 12th century. So the Garima Gospels represent a unique survival of an early Christian text in sub-Saharan Africa—pre-dating all others by more than 500 years.

[...]

More please.

DId Jesus speak Hebrew (only) and Greek?

MORE FROM MARK D. ROBERTS on the languages Jesus may have spoken:

Examining "the Biblical Truth" That Jesus Spoke Hebrew Part I and Part II

Bottom line: sometimes in the New Testament Hebraidi [Greek word now the correct form] clearly means "in Aramaic." Usage trumps etymology.

Did Jesus Speak Greek?

The circumstantial case is good:

Though the New Testament Gospels do not tell us whether Jesus spoke Greek or not, they do describe situations in which it's likely that Greek was used. In Matthew 8:5-13, for example, Jesus entered into dialogue with a Roman centurion. The centurion almost certainly spoke in Greek. And, as Matthew tells the story, he and Jesus spoke directly, without a translator. Of course it's always possible that a translator was used and simply not mentioned by Matthew. Still, the sense of the story suggests more immediate communication, which would have been in Greek.

The same could be said about Jesus' conversation with Pontius Pilate prior to his crucifixion (Matthew 27:11-14; John 18:33-38). Once again, there is the possibility of an unmentioned translator. But the telling of the story points to a Greek-speaking Jesus. (Pilate would have used Greek, not Latin, as imagined by Mel Gibson in The Passion of the Christ. And it's unlikely that he would have known or used Aramaic. Pilate was not the sort of man who would stoop to use the language of common Jews.)

If Jesus knew enough Greek to converse with a Roman centurion and a Roman governor, where did he learn it? Some have suggested that he might have learned it during his early years in Egypt. A more likely explanation points to his location in Galilee. Though Aramaic was the first language of Nazareth, Jesus' hometown was a short walk from Sepphoris, which was a major city and one in which Greek was spoken. Jesus quite probably had clients in Sepphoris who utilized his carpentry services, and he would have spoken with them in Greek.

But given the multi-lingual context in which Jesus lived, it's not surprising that he would have been reasonably fluent in Greek and Hebrew, in addition to Aramaic. People in the United States often have a hard time understanding this. But if you've known people who have grown up in Europe, for example, they often can get by in several languages, including English, German, Spanish, and French, even if their first language is Italian.

Earlier installments here.

A scientific diagram of the ancient Hebrew cosmos

A SCIENTIFIC DIAGRAM of the ancient Hebrew cosmos.

Ninth of Av thoughts on Milgrom and Greenberg

NINTH OF AV THOUGHTS:

Remembering the Temple, Its Destruction and Its Scholars

By Jonah Lowenfeld (Jewish Journal)

This week, when Jews around the world mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples, some may also think back on two rabbi-scholars who died this spring, both known for helping us understand the ritual practices of the First Temple, as well as Ezekiel’s prophecies about its destruction.

Rabbi Jacob Milgrom devoted the bulk of his career to studying the sections of the Torah that describe ancient Israelite practices during the First Temple period; he died in Jerusalem in early June. Rabbi Moshe Greenberg’s work on the book of Ezekiel helped contextualize the prophet’s words in the history of the ancient Near East and explain their meaning using the lens of modern biblical scholarship. He died in late May, also in Jerusalem.

[...]

Zoroaster in the Guardian

ZOROASTER, the ancient Iranian prophet, gets some press in the Guardian:

Zoroaster – forgotten prophet of the one God

The Abrahamic religions were preceded, and decisively influenced by, followers of an earlier prophet

o John Palmer
o guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 July 2010 15.29 BST
o Article history

The tiny world wide communities of Zoroastrians are no doubt pleased to get any mention in Cif belief – even if it is only to provide alphabetical balance to a list starting with the Bahá'ís. Even those who take a close interest in the more exotic or esoteric of religions tend to have a vague grasp on what the followers of the ancient Persian (or maybe Bactrian) prophet, Zarathustra (Zoroaster in Greek) – born around 800 BC – actually believed. This is a great pity since even a non-believer must be impressed with the evidence of how the religious ideas first expressed by Zoroaster were fundamental in shaping what emerged as Judaism after the 5th century BC and thus deeply influenced the other Abrahamic religions – Christianity and Islam.

[...]

The exact date of Zoroaster is debated by specialists, as is the degree of influence of Zoroastrianism on ancient Judaism. At the same time, it is undeniable that there was some influence. For example the word "Paradise" (originally meaning "walled garden) is a Persian word, as are a number of other words used in late texts in the Hebrew Bible (such as Daniel) and in the Dead Sea Scrolls. To what degree Zoroastrian eschatology influenced Jewish apocalyptic eschatology is a more difficult question.

It's good to see these issues being discussed in the press. (Cif belief, by the way, is the Guardian blog in which this essay appears.)

HB/Jewish Studies job at Chester University

JOB at the University of Chester:

Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies

Job details

Applications are invited for the post of Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies. We intend to appoint for commencement not later than 1 January 2011.

You will have a PhD in biblical studies, and experience in teaching, supervision, module development and programme leadership in higher education. You will be able to contribute academic leadership in biblical studies, and will be an active researcher with strong research-based publications. We hope you will also be able to contribute to undergraduate teaching in Jewish Studies, and will have additional expertise in a field such as: Bible and Film, Bible and Art, Bible and Culture, Bible and Popular Culture, Bible and Critical Theory.

Our Department of Theology and Religious Studies enjoys growing renown for excellence in research and teaching, with particular, but not exclusive, reference to religions in the contemporary world. Our ethos is collegiate and ambitious.

The closing date is 22 July, so don't dawdle. Follow the link to download more information.

(Via Viv Rowett on the SOTS list.)

14th c. BCE cuneiform fragment found in Jerusalem

A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY BCE CUNEIFORM FRAGMENT has been excavated in Jerusalem:

Oldest written document ever found

By BEN HARTMAN (Jerusalem Post)
07/12/2010 01:56

Archeologists unearth 14th century BCE fragment.

Hebrew University excavations recently unearthed a clay fragment dating back to the 14th century BCE, said to be the oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem.

The tiny fragment is only 2 cm. by 2.8 cm. in surface area and 1 cm. thick and appears to have once been part of a larger tablet. Researchers say the ancient fragment testifies to Jerusalem’s importance as a major city late in the Bronze Age, long before it was conquered by King David.

The minuscule fragment contains Akkadian words written in ancient cuneiform symbols. Researchers say that while the symbols appear to be insignificant, containing simply the words “you,” “you were,” “them,” “to do,” and “later,” the high quality of the writing indicates that it was written by a highly skilled scribe. Such a revelation would mean that the piece was likely written for tablets that were part of a royal household.

The find was uncovered in a fill taken from the Ophel area, which lies between the Old City’s southern wall and the City of David. The Ophel digs are being carried out by Dr. Eilat Mazar of the Hebrew University Institute of Archeology, through funding from US donors Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman of New York.

According to Mazar, the fragment was discovered over a month and a half ago during wet sifting of the Ophel excavations, but was only released to the press this week because researchers wanted to wait until analysis of the piece was complete so as to be absolutely certain of the details of the find.

The most ancient piece of writing found in Jerusalem before the Ophel fragment was a tablet unearthed in the Shiloah water in the City of David, dating back to the eighth century BCE – nearly 600 years “younger” than the Ophel find.

First of all, boo to the Jerusalem Post for the sensationalist headline. The oldest written document found in Jerusalem is not the oldest document found anywhere by a long shot. Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphic texts go back something like fifteen hundred years earlier.

Second, although this fragment is the oldest text discovered in Jerusalem, we have other texts of the same age from Jerusalem which were found in Egypt among the Amarna letters. The six Akkadian letters from Abdi-Heba, the king(let) of Jerusalem, to the Pharaoh of Egypt also date to the fourteenth century BCE. So this find doesn't tell us much that we didn't already know, although it is exciting actually to find a cuneiform table in Jerusalem, even if it is only a small piece whose text doesn't give any connected sense.

(I no longer try to keep up with Akkadian studies, so the links above are for general information only. I make no claims about their detailed accuracy or the accuracy of the translation of the letter.)

Hebrew University Prof. Wayne Horowitz, a scholar of Assyriology, deciphered the script with the assistance of his former graduate student Dr.

Takayoshi Oshima. Horowitz said that while the script was too broken to get context out of it, the quality of the writing gave some indication of the creator’s pedigree.

“What we can see is that the piece was written in very good script and the tablet was constructed very well. This indicates that the person responsible for creating the tablet was a first-class scribe.

In those days, you would expect to find a first-class scribe only in a large, important place,” he said.

According to Horowitz, the high quality of the tablet piece indicates that it was most likely part of a message sent from a then-king of Jerusalem to the pharaoh in Egypt.

Horowitz said that the fragment, which is made of Jerusalem clay, indicated that Jerusalem was one of the central cities of the area at the time.

“This shows Jerusalem was not a provincial backwater, [but] one of the main cities of the area,” he said.

I'm not sure whether the quality of the script and tablets from the Amarna correspondence already told us this information or whether it is new to this find. I would like to see the claims about the centrality of Jerusalem put into the context of what we know already about fourteenth-century Jerusalem from the Amarna correspondence.

It's interesting that a letter apparently from Jerusalem ("made of Jerusalem clay") and presumably sent elsewhere was found in Jerusalem. An archive copy?

Mazar called the fragment “one of the most important finds we’ve ever had” and said she hoped it would lead to further big discoveries.

“A piece this small wouldn’t have been sitting there all by itself; there have to be more pieces like it,” she said.

[...]

One would hope so. There must be cuneiform archives from this period somewhere in Israel and sooner or later one will be found. Yadin thought he knew where the Late Bronze Age archive was at Hazor and he was about to look for it when he died. So far, a quarter of a century later and after more excavations at Hazor, the archive hasn't been found.

Note also that Duane Smith has a recent blog post that ties this new fragment to his earlier extensive discussions of the relevant Amarna letters and other contemporary cuneiform evidence from Palestine.

UPDATE (15 July): More here

New JSIJ article

JEWISH STUDIES, AN INTERNET JOURNAL has posted a new article:

Gilad Sasson, "The Story of David’s Captivity in the Hands of Yishbi Be-Nov in Tractate Sanhedrin of the Babylonian Talmud – Sources, Editing, Structure and Plot in the Service of an Ideological Message" (in Hebrew)

Abstract

In the expansion of the Biblical story of David’s captivity in the hands of Yishbi Be-Nov, which appears in Tractate Sanhedrin of the Babylonian Talmud, God offers David two options: captivity or the destruction of his descendants. David chooses the first option and is captured and led to Yishbi. At the same time, God takes measures, through Avishai, to thwart the execution of His own edict by causing David to change his decision. The plot describes David’s transition from passive to active after he changes his mind.

This story has attracted the attention of scholars of folklore, who have found parallel versions in extra-rabbinic sources. This article wishes to add two new directions to that of existing research: (a) clarification of the formation of the story in light of parallel versions in rabbinic literature; (b) literary analysis of the story. Integration of these three research approaches exposes the creative method of the narrator, who combines motifs from the literature of the Sages and from other sources and adapts them, using literary devices. He thus develops the plot towards a surprising message: God’s love for David overrides the strict letter of the law.

The full article is downloadable as a pdf or Word file here.

Dura Europos synagogue ceiling

MORE ON DURA EUROPOS: Further to this post, Joseph Lauer e-mails to note that the current issue of the American Journal of Archaeology has an article on the tiles from the synagogue ceiling. Abstract:

Mapping Devotion in Roman Dura Europos: A Reconsideration of the Synagogue Ceiling

Author(s): Karen B. Stern

American Journal of Archaeology

Print ISSN: 0002-9114
Volume: 114 | Issue: 3
Cover date: April 2010
Page(s): 473-504

Abstract

Archaeological remains of Dura Europos continue to inspire countless studies, partly because of the exemplary preservation of this city at the crossroads of the Hellenistic, Persian, and Roman worlds. The well-preserved synagogue from Dura similarly offers a unique example of a building whose form might have had parallels in Syria and other regions of the ancient Mediterranean. Yet in the decades since its discovery, scholars have emphasized the interior murals with biblical motifs as its most distinctive feature. The 234 decorated and inscribed tiles recovered from the synagogue ceiling, by contrast, have attracted little interest; painted surfaces of ceiling bricks were historically classified as incidental decorations more suitable for summary than analysis. This article gives renewed attention to the neglected ceiling of the Dura Europos synagogue. While consideration of the decorated surface remains important for its own sake, an evaluation of its context inspires novel hypotheses about space and use. Although the ceiling remains one of the most overlooked features of the Dura synagogue, a substantive reexamination shifts analyses of the synagogue building, broader considerations of art and culture in Roman Dura Europos, and discussions of Jewish localisms in the Graeco-Roman world.
Author(s): Karen B. Stern 1

Author(s) affiliations

Department of History, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, 2900 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11012.

Follow this link for a link to the pdf file of the complete article. You can also enlarge the image of the synagogue ceiling by clicking on it.

DSS discovered in ... New Jersey?

DEAD SEA SCROLLS discovered in ... New Jersey? Bruce Zuckerman to the rescue!

Let There Be Light

Using Bruce Zuckerman's technology and software, a click of the mouse on a Dead Sea Scrolls image acts like a flashlight, revealing the tiniest of details — even a fleck of ink scraped off the top of a character.
By Pamela J. Johnson (USC news)
June 24, 2010

categories: research, faculty research
tags: artifact, bruce zuckerman, history, humanities, linguistics, manuscript, religion, west semitic research project

We all know what New Jersey is famous for. The birthplace of Ol' Blue Eyes? Where Thomas Edison invented the light bulb? Heaven help us, Jersey Shore?

Fuggedaboutit!

The Garden State is home to one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of modern times. In 1949 — two years after their discovery in a Judaean desert cave — fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls found their way to New Jersey and eventually to an unassuming, red brick with white trim church in Teaneck.

For six decades, the fragments had been locked inside the church’s vault. St. Mark’s Syrian Orthodox Cathedral and Dead Sea Scrolls officials knew it was time to call in the heavy hitters to document the 2,000-year-old manuscript.

About 2,450 miles west, USC College’s Bruce Zuckerman got the call. A leading Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, Zuckerman was the first to record the New Jersey fragments dating around 100 B.C. using high-end digital technology. In August 2009, he and other West Semitic Research Project (WSRP) members brought their advanced imaging methods to the church and photographed the scrolls. Steven Fine of Yeshiva University in New York collaborated with WSRP, part of an ongoing partnership between USC and Yeshiva.

[...]

More on Professor Zuckerman and his team here and, sadly, here.

Via Joseph Lauer and the Agade List.

UPDATE: Dead link fixed. Sorry.

Did Jesus speak Hebrew?

THE LANGUAGE(S) JESUS SPOKE continue to be explored by Mark D. Roberts. This installment is Did Jesus Speak Hebrew? His conclusion:

Given Jesus' roots in Nazareth, and given his early ministry among common folk in Galilee, it seems most likely that he usually employed Aramaic in his teaching, and this is confirmed by the data of the Gospels. But, given the likelihood that Jesus knew Hebrew as a second language, and given his frequent debates with Jewish religious teachers, and given the movement of his ministry to Judea, where Hebrew was more common, I am convinced that Jesus did teach in Hebrew at times.

This sounds about right to me.

Earlier installments noted here.

John M. Melzian, R. I. P.

SAD NEWS from the Agade list: John M. Melzian, an associate of Bruce Zuckerman's West Semitic Research Project and husband of project associate Marilyn Lundberg Melzian, has passed away. His bio from the Inscriptifact website:

John MelzianJohn Melzian is an Industrial Designer with thirty years of experience in utilizing new technologies in the development and introduction of cost-effective products. He received his Master of Arts in Industrial Design from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has worked for Mattell Toys, and Applause Inc., and ran is own design office, Design Base International, for ten years. In his work with the West Semitic Research Project he has designed and built a number of specialized photographic devices and participated in numerous imaging projects.

Requiescat in pace.

Mark Goodacre's trip to Israel

MARK GOODACRE is back from his first trip to Israel and is sharing his experiences in an ongoing series of blog posts: A Biblical Scholar's First Impressions of Israel I: Tel Aviv; II: Jaffa; III: Bethlehem; IV: Jerusalem; V: The Dead Sea.

Dramatized Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha

DRAMATIZED APOCRYPHA AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHA:

Mac Wellman's MFA Playwrights Present the Weasel Festival 7/28-30

Wednesday, July 7, 2010; Posted: 02:07 PM - by BWW News Desk

The fifth-annual Bring a Weasel and a Pint of Your Own Blood Festival is excited to present three original plays and a short film at the East 13th Street Theater from July 28th to July 30th. Solely produced and written by playwrights from Mac Wellman's groundbreaking Brooklyn College MFA program, this year's Weasel festival features talented alumni Corina Copp, Benjamin Gassman, Kobun Kaluza and Amber Reed. Each playwright will riff off the stories of The Apocrypha - the infamous religious texts that didn't make the Bible's cut. Not decreed to be divinely inspired, the Apocrypha books are ancient Greek texts that were ripped and pasted back into the Bible throughout history. Filled with luminous stories of prophets, angels, intrigue and heresy, the off-the-record Apocrypha is the perfect inspiration for a festival of peculiar plays by playwrights working outside the canon.

The Apocrypha actually did "make the Bible's cut" in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, which include those books in their canons. But the Apocrypha are not part of the Jewish and Protestant canons. But in any case, one of the texts being dramatized is technically part of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha rather than the Apocrypha (even though it is usually included in modern Bibles that contain the Apocrypha). This is 2 Esdras, which is not in anybody's canon and is actually a small library of apocalypses now known as 4 Ezra (chaps. 3-14), 5 Ezra (chaps. 1-2), and 6 Ezra (chaps. 15-16).

Also, the book of Esther is in all biblical canons, although a number of Apocryphal additions (chaps. 10.4-16:24) are interspersed through the book. The description below implies that the adaptation is of the whole book, but this isn't entirely clear.

Here is the full program for the Weasel Festival:

Each night features three short plays and one short film:
WALTZ: an adaptation of The Story of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and The Song of Three Children. By Corina Copp; Directed by Meghan Finn
A woman is falsely accused, so an angel stands ready to cut judges in two: so goes divine justice.

Purimacolo: an adaptation of The Story of Esther.
By Benjamin Gassman; Directed by Julia Jarcho
Mussolini's mistress is crashing the Purim play.

Red Ass: The College Years, Sophomore Year: an adaptation of
The Second Book of Esdrus. By Kobun Kaluza; Directed by Judith Smith
On a sandy cove in the Pacific Northwest, Red Ass the turtle seeks prophetic wisdom and sophomore advice from his fellow animals.

A stop animation film adaptation of The Book of Tobit, by Amber Reed

On the synagogue art of Dura Europos

ON THE SYNAGOGUE ART OF DURA EUROPOS:

Considering Dura: Part II

Richard McBee
Posted Jul 07 2010 (Jewish Press)

Dura Europos looms large in the history of Jewish Art not only because of its place as the earliest example of Jewish Art but also because its achievements are seemingly at odds with the conceptual and halachic problems it presents. The complexity and variety of Torah subjects depicted are more ambitious and extensive than any Jewish Art until the advent of the illuminated Haggadahs in Spain one thousand years later. The notion of a synagogue interior fully decorated with images does not reappear until the famous painted shuls of Poland, Lithuania and Russia in the 17th century. All that said the images we see are, at times, problematic.

Aside from the fact that the extensive figuration, especially on the Western wall toward which congregants would pray, flies in the face of the injunction against graven images in the context of worship, other issues arise upon closer inspection. Many of the Torah figures - Abraham, Moses, Samuel and Elijah - are depicted in Roman costume as contemporary statesmen-heroes, blurring the distinction between Jew and Gentile. There are troubling factual inconsistencies: the last two sections of the Exodus panel are out of narrative sequence; the consecration of the "Temple of Aaron" seems to show a bull about to be killed with an ax - contrary to normative Jewish slaughter - and the panel frequently labeled as "Solomon's Temple" shows the Temple doors decorated with recognizable pagan figures. Finally the panel "Rescuing Moses" from the Nile depicts Pharaoh's daughter as unclothed. Nonetheless, these contradictions to our notions of appropriate synagogue decoration must not distract us from attempting to understand the earliest example of Jewish narrative art.

[...]

Part I does not appear to be online.

UPDATE: Joseph Lauer directs me to Part I here. Excerpt:

"Aladen's Lamp had been rubbed and suddenly from the dry, brown, bare desert had appeared paintings, not just one nor a panel nor a wall but a whole building of scene after scene, all drawn from the Old Testament in ways never dreamed of before" exclaimed Clark Hopkins, one of the first archeologists to see the newly discovered frescoes from the synagogue at Dura Europos in 1932.

In that one exciting location there are no less than 14 major narratives depicted on the walls of the synagogue. They are not symbolic ciphers; rather they are fleshed out scenes that evoke in a complex and often midrashic style well-known Torah narratives. They had been painted for this synagogue sometime around 245 CE in the frontier Roman town of Dura. The town was overrun and destroyed by the Persians in 256 CE and forgotten until the British accidentally uncovered it in 1920.

This part has a detailed overview of the site and its layout.

UPDATE (10 July): More on the Dura Europos synagogue here.

Vesuvius punishment from God?

WAS THE VESUVIUS ERUPTION PUNISHMENT FROM GOD for the destruction of Jerusalem according to ancient Jews? Hershel Shanks, writing in BAR, thinks so, on the basis of a passage in Sibylline Oracles 4 and a graffito from Pompeii:

The Destruction of Pompeii—God’s Revenge?

By Hershel Shanks

Nine years, almost to the day, after Roman legionaries destroyed God’s house in Jerusalem, God destroyed the luxurious watering holes of the Roman elite.

Was this God’s revenge?

That’s not exactly the question I want to raise, however. Rather, did anyone at the time see it that way? Did anyone connect the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 C.E. with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70?

[...]

I have a post on the eruption of Vesuvius here and one on Pompeii here that also involves the Sibylline Oracles, sort of. And here's a recent article on the pyroclastic surge that incinerated the inhabitants.

Jesus and Aramaic in the Gospels

ARAMAIC WATCH: Mark D. Roberts posts another installment of his series on the language(s) Jesus spoke: Jesus and Aramaic in the Gospels. (Earlier installment noted here.)

This one simplifies a little but is substantially accurate, although surprisingly he fails to mention the word ephphatha in Mark 7:34, which seems to be a dialectal variant of the Aramaic word "Be opened!"

A while ago I published an article on the problem of retroverting Hebrew or Aramaic from a Greek translation: "(How) Can We Tell if a Greek Apocryphon or Pseudepigraphon has been Translated from Hebrew or Aramaic?" Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 15 (2005): 3-61. Despite the focus of the title, it also deals quite a lot with the New Testament material. Abstract:

This article explores a wide range of problems that arise when we try to retrovert a Hebrew or Aramaic original from a Greek text, or even establish that Semitic interference in the text proves it to have been translated from a Semitic original. These problems include the inadequacy of a bipolar scale of ‘literal’ vs. ‘free’ translation technique; the difficulty of distinguishing Semitic grammar from Greek grammar; the possibility of interference from the language of the LXX (including rare grammatical features made popular in liturgy and testimonia) or bilingual interference; and the need to determine, when possible, the language (Hebrew or Aramaic), dialect, and period of the Vorlage. Claims to have retroverted the original texts of lost Semitic documents from Greek texts are found unconvincing, but this article advances a methodology for establishing Semitic interference due to translation from a Semitic Vorlage.

That article requires a paid personal or institutional subscription to access, but you can read an earlier draft presented at a conference here. (Sorry for all the formatting glitches. They were introduced in our latest site "upgrade.")

Alexander's footsteps

COULD BE INTERESTING:

Alexander's Footsteps: A Lost City in Lebanon
By IT Blog [Intelligent Traveler blog, National Geographic]
on July 6, 2010 10:30 AM | Comments (2)

After working as a reporter in Cairo, Theodore May wanted to know more about the history, culture, and people of the Middle East. So he decided to explore it, and use one of history's conquerors as his guide. For the next eight months he'll be following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, tracing the 2,000-mile path Alexander forged through the modern Middle East. Theo will be writing about his experiences for The Global Post, and you can be follow him on Twitter at @Theodore_May. He'll be contributing glimpses from his journeys here at Intelligent Travel.

The Romans left a powerful archaeological footprint on the region--as sites like Baalbek and Palmyra attest--but evidence of a Greek legacy is more uncommon.

It is appropriate, then, that ancient Umm el-Amed should be found deep in a field of overgrown thorn bushes, only several miles from the tense Lebanon-Israel border.

A few weeks ago, I stopped by Dr. Paul Newson's office at the American University of Beirut to get some historical perspective on Alexander the Great's conquest through Lebanon. Newson, who has done extensive fieldwork throughout the Middle East, currently serves as a professor of archaeology at AUB.

Not long into our conversation, Newson suggested we visit the Umm el-Amed site, a place neither of us had been.

[...]

Umm el-Amed is a Hellenistic-era Phoenician site which has produced some notable discoveries, such as the Baalshamar funerary stele (scroll down). Here's a JSTOR review of the site report in the 1960s from the Journal of Biblical Literature which gives an overview of the site. (Cross-file under Phoenician Watch.)

Mr. May's expedition should lead to some significant sites and I will try to keep an eye on it.

Ashkelon fallout, continued

FALLOUT from the removal of the Ashkelon graves may be spreading to the United States:

Satmar (Williamsburg) To Protest Outside White House Tuesday

(Tuesday, July 6th, 2010) (Asra Kaddisha press release at Yeshiva World)

Thousands of Orthodox Jews are targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Washington, DC, demanding Netanyahu to stop Archaeological excavations and construction in the Holy Land that is desecrating ancient Jewish cemeteries in gross violation of Jewish law. The leaders also denounced the Israeli police’s beatings of peaceful demonstrators protesting the clearing of five ancient cemeteries and continued action to empty a cemetery in Jaffa in order to construct a hotel.

Rabbi Lazar Stern, a spokesman for Asra Kadisha, a worldwide group dedicated to protecting the integrity of Jewish cemeteries, said the leaders plan to protest outside the White House, and to deliver petitions to the Israeli embassy, during Netanyahu’s July 6th visit

The Central Rabbinical Congress, which represents Orthodox Jewry, helped organize the day of protest in Washington in support of Asra Kadisha.

“We believe that the desecration of the dead could bring grave danger to the living,” said Rabbi Stern.

Asra Kadisha has brought international pressure to bear in their efforts to stop the desecration of cemeteries throughout Europe – most recently in Spain, the Czech Republic and the Ukraine – and finds it unbearable painful that similar desecration’s are taking place in the Holy Land.

Dr. Bernard Fryshman, of the Conference of Academicians for the Protection of Jewish Cemeteries, reported that suitable engineering alternative had been provided to all of the burial sites recently excavated in Ashkalon, Nazareth and now in Jaffo.

[...]

Background on the removal of the graves, which do not seem to have been Jewish, is here (and follow the links).

Late-antique Gospels in Ge'ez

LATE-ANTIQUE GOSPELS IN GE'EZ: Okay, this one isn't about Aramaic, although I do manage to bring it into the discussion.

Unearthed, the ancient texts that tell story of Christianity

A British bookbinder has restored ancient copies of the gospels dating back to the fourth century, writes Jerome Taylor

Tuesday, 6 July 2010 (The Independent)

for the handful of hardy travellers who make it to the Abuna Garima monastery in Ethiopia's Tigrai Highlands, there is a book that local monks believe holds magic properties.

Kept under lock and key in a bright-blue circular hut at the centre of the isolated monastery, the Garima Gospels are one of the Christian world's oldest and most exquisite treasures. Until recently, scholars had always assumed that the two 10-inch-thick volumes, which are written on goat skin and brightly illustrated, dated back to the early 11th century. But recent carbon-testing has proved what the monks believed all along: the books are among the oldest gospels in existence.

New dating techniques have put the creation of the two books to somewhere between 330 and 650, making them a close contender to being the most ancient complete Christian texts. The only major collection of scripture that is known to be older is the Codex Sinaiticus, a copy of the Bible hand-written in Greek which dates back to the third century. Unlike the Garima Gospels, the Codex includes large chunks of the Old Testament, but the entire work is divided between museums and monasteries in Egypt, Britain, Russia and the USA.

The Garima Gospels, meanwhile, have been in one piece in the same place for the best part of 1,600 years, guarded by generations of monks from Muslim invaders, colonial conquerors and a fire in the 1930s which destroyed their church.

The monks have their own legend about how the gospels came into their possession. They believe they were written by Abba Garima, a Byzantine royal who arrived in what was then the kingdom of Axum in 494 and went on to found the monastery. According to the monks, Abba Garima finished his exquisite work in a single day because God stopped the sun from setting while he worked.

The Ethiopian Heritage Fund, a British charity which specialises in preserving the myriad of stunning artefacts that fill Ethiopia's monasteries, has recently finished restoring the two books to bring them back to their former glory.

[...]

The books themselves are written in Ge'ez, an ancient Ethiopian Semitic language and consist of three manuscripts in two volumes. Both contain the four gospels and one of the volumes has added pages from a 15th century manuscript.

[...]

This is being reported as possibly the earliest surviving illustrated Christian text. But it must also be one of the earliest surviving manuscripts of a Ge'ez text. Some important Old Testament pseudepigrapha survive only in Ge'ez, alas only in medieval and early modern manuscripts. These include 1 Enoch (parts also survive in Greek and Qumran fragments of the original Aramaic) and Jubilees (quotes in Greek survive, as well as Qumran fragments of the original Hebrew). This is a very important discovery for Ethiopic studies and it makes me wonder if there might be comparably early pseudepigrapha manuscripts in Ge'ez lying unnoticed somewhere. I hope so.

UPDATE: Title reworded for accuracy (the possible date range seems to be the fourth to seventh centuries).

What languag(es) did Jesus speak?

ARAMAIC DAY: Mark D. Roberts is posting a new series on What Languag(es) Did Jesus Speak? at Beliefnet. Hint: the title of this post is relevant.

Art inspired by the Jewish Aramaic incantation bowls

ARAMAIC DAY: Art inspired by the Jewish Aramaic incantation bowls:

Sex, Magic, And Secrets In A Bowl

Tuesday, July 6, 2010 0:15 GMT
SAN FRANCISCO (Wireless Flash - FlashNews) – All the sex, magic, and secret desires a woman has hidden inside her can now be found in a big, giant bowl.

The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco is bringing insight into the deep, dark secrets of femininity with their upcoming exhibit, The Bowls Project: Secrets of the Apocalyptic Intimate, which opens today (Jul. 6) and runs until August 22.

Artist Jewlia Eisenberg and her ensemble, known as “Charming Hostess,” have created an interactive sound sculpture and performance installation at Yerba Buena.

Visitors can enter a dome-like room which Eisenberg describes as a “private place to share secrets and a public forum” for intimate live music and ancient rituals, sounds, and projected video images.

She explains that the project is inspired by Babylonian Jewish women’s amulets known as “demon bowls,” and is meant to help people connect with their bodies, souls, and minds.

© Copyright 2010 Wireless Flash News Inc

Only in California. For the Aramaic incantation bowls, go here (sorry for all the link rot) and here. For more Aramaic in current popular culture, see the immediately preceding post here.

Cross-file under "Can't make it up."

Jewish mysticism and magic in Harry Potter trailer

ARAMAIC DAY: Nina Amir finds Jewish mystical (and magical) themes in the new Harry Potter trailer:

While some religions, Christianity included, don’t approve of magic, and some parents won’t let their children read the Harry Potter books or see the movies, Judaism has a long history of magic. Although Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah, was not (and is not) only used for magic, stories of the golem and such do come from this magical Kabbalistic tradition. We are told that the magical Kabbalistic tradition actually must be used only by those most knowledgeable and only on rare and special occasions. The other types of Kabbalah, theoretical and practical, can be used by anyone and are extremely useful. You will find Kabbalah in many aspects of Judaism, such as in the daily prayer services.

Words like “abracadabra,” which have been used by magicians for years, have their origins in Judaism. This Aramaic word literally means “He has created as he has spoken”—or manifestation according to the power of words. This word comes from the verb “daber,” which refers to organizing “speech.” Thus, when the magician says something—casts the spell or incantation—things are created by making order out of chaos. No wonder so many magicians have chosen this word as their incantation when creating something from nothing. Aramaic preceded Hebrew and was spoken by many during the Biblical period.

For the etymology of Abracadabra, see here and follow the links.

Happy St. Cyril and Methodius Day - again

HAPPY ST. CYRIL AND METHODIUS DAY – AGAIN.

From Wikipedia, Saints Cyril and Methodius:

"Saints Cyril and Methodius Day" is a holiday, usually celebrated on 11 May (24 May) in countries which observe Eastern Orthodox tradition, and on 5 July in countries that observe Roman Catholic tradition. It commemorates the creation of the Slavic Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets by the brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius. There is evidence that the Cyrillic alphabet was not created by Cyril and Methodius but by their pupil, Clement of Ohrid, but the alphabet bears Cyril's name nonetheless, and the evidence is still not enough to disprove that.) The celebration also commemorates the introduction of literacy and the preaching of the gospels in the Slavonic language by the brothers.

A note of the earlier celebration, with links to background on Slavonic pseudepigrapha etc., is here.

Ben Witherington on the DSS

BEN WITHERINGTON, "that dude in the Dead Sea with the T-shirt," discusses the Dead Sea Scrolls.

New Book: Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls

NEW BOOK:

Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Assessment of Old and New Approaches and Methods
Maxine L. Grossman (editor)

332 pages; dimensions (in inches): 6 x 9; 2010

ISBN: 978-0-8028-4009-7

Description

Both within and outside the field of Qumran scholarship, the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls is sometimes treated as a rather specialized closed shop. By encouraging interdisciplinary and self-consciously methodological discussions, this volume intends to open that shop and invite new conversations across lines of interest, discipline, and scholarly subfield.

Fifteen respected DSS scholars representing diverse perspectives offer here a window into the scholarly study of these ancient texts. Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls introduces readers to a wide range of established and experimental treatments of the Scrolls, including paleography, archaeology, manuscript analysis, and a variety of literary, historical, and social scientific approaches. The authors provide not only an introduction to a given approach but also a more self-reflective assessment of the limits of their approaches and the potential pitfalls associated with them.

In place of a single authoritative strategy, here are a variety of strategies — some overlapping and others standing alone — all the products of a process that is unusually collaborative. Taken as a whole, they provide a vibrant intersectional picture of DSS studies on the cusp of its seventh decade.

CONTRIBUTORS:

1. Martin G. Abegg Jr.
2. James R. Davila
3. Steve Delamarter
4. Maxine L. Grossman
5. Charlotte Hempel
6. Jutta Jokiranta
7. Jonathan Klawans
8. Robert Kugler
9. Hayim Lapin
10. Jodi Magness
11. Sarianna Metso
12. Carol A. Newsom
13. Eibert Tigchelaar
14. Eugene Ulrich
15. Bruce Zuckerman

I have contributed an essay on counterfactual history and the Dead Sea Scrolls, which, if nothing else, will confirm my reputation for thinking outside the box. You can read an early draft of that essay here.

Congratulations to Professor Maxine Grossman, who put a huge effort into the organizing and editing of this book, as well as to the other authors.

Happy Independence Day

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY to my American readers.

Gold coin excavated at Bethsaida

AN ANCIENT GOLD COIN has been excavated at Bethsaida:

Rare coin bears good tidings for UNO's Israeli excavations

By John Keenan
[OMAHA] WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Dr. Rami Arav didn't get into archaeology for the money.

He was very excited, however, when his team of researchers uncovered a rare gold coin during excavation work in the ancient city of Bethsaida, near the Sea of Galilee in Israel.

Arav is director of excavation and research at the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Bethsaida Excavations Project, a 24-year effort to uncover the archaeological mysteries of the biblical-era city.

The coin, which weighs 7 grams, is 97.6 percent gold, Arav said.
Advertising

The find was unexpected because Bethsaida primarily was home to humble fishermen, he said. Arav said somebody must have been doing good business a little more than 100 years after the birth of Christ.

The gold coin, about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, carries the image of Antoninus Pius, the 15th Roman emperor, who reigned between A.D. 138 and 161.

[...]

More on recent finds (including other gold objects) at Bethsaida here.

Proton beams for DSS analysis

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Proton beams used to analyze the Temple Scroll:

The analyses, which were conducted by INFN physicists in collaboration with researchers from IBAM-CNR, have revealed that one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in particular, the Temple Scroll (which is not part of the biblical narration and instead describes the construction and life of a temple and dictates how laws are to be communicated to the people), may have been made near the Dead Sea, in the area of Qumran, where the scrolls were found. In other words, the scrolls may have been created locally.

Much depends on what "may" adds up to here. This is potentially a very exciting development: if it can be established on the basis of the physical composition of the Dead Sea Scrolls that they (or even some of them) were produced in the vicinity of Qumran, this would have important implications for theories about the origins of the Qumran library. But the very cautious phrasing of the claim makes it fairly uninteresting. We already knew that the Temple Scroll may have been produced locally.

Be that as it may, here are more details about the analysis:

The analyses were conducted on seven small samples of the scrolls (average size of one square centimetre), following a request made by Dr. Ira Rabin of BAM (Bundesanstalt fur Materialforschung) in Berlin. The scrolls belong to the Shrine of the Book of the Israel Museum and the Ronald Reed Collection of the John Rylands University Library.

At the LANDIS laboratory (one of the INFN laboratories in Catania), non-destructive analyses were performed to obtain results on the origin of the scrolls. To produce a scroll, which was the writing material used at the time, a great quantity of water is needed. By analysing water samples taken in the area where the scrolls were found, the presence of certain chemical elements was established, and the ratio of their concentrations was determined. The ratio of chlorine to bromine in the fragments of the Temple Scroll was then analysed using proton beams of 1.3 MeV, produced by the Tandem particle accelerator at the INFN National Laboratories of the South. According to this analysis, the ratio of chlorine to bromine in the scroll is consistent with the ratio in local water sources. In other words, this finding supports the hypothesis that the scroll was created in the area in which it was found. The next step in the research will be to analyse the ink used to write the scrolls.

I keep harping on non-destructive and non-invasive analysis being the future of archaeology and this story offers some support for that point. But again, the wording is exceedingly cautious. What does "is consistent with" mean? Is the ratio inconsistent, say, with the ratio of water samples taken from Jerusalem? It may "support the hypothesis that the scroll was created in the area in which it was found," but does it refute the hypothesis that it was produced in Jerusalem or elsewhere in Judea?

I'm not getting too excited about this one until I see some more robust conclusions.

UPDATE (23 July): Robert Cargill has a useful discussion here.

"Mystery" in the DSS and its Perso-Babylonian background

"MYSTERY" (RAZ) in the Dead Sea Scrolls and its Perso-Babylonian background:

Mystery, Secrecy and Esotericism in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Rigorous philology is still the best place to begin a study of ancient texts, and it can be well complemented by a clear interpretive/theoretical framework that seeks to bring focus to a particular angle of vision. But we should always be clear about the limits of our imaginative effort. Extracting history from ancient texts is difficult enough; trying to apprehend what ancient writers thought is an even dicier business.

The following essay is adapted from The “Mysteries” of Qumran: Mystery, Secrecy, and Esotericism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (SBLEJL 26; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009)

By Sam Thomas (Bible and Interpretation)
California Lutheran University
June 2010

Excerpt:

If raz was such an important word in Qumran texts and if its various associations played such a central conceptual role in the self-communication (or what Carol Newsom has called the “group self-fashioning”) of the Yahad and related groups, how can we explain this in a way that takes seriously the linguistic and social (and political) contexts in which these texts were produced? Moving backward rather than forward in time, it becomes clear that there is at least an indirect—if not direct—connection between the social and discursive worlds of the Yahad and earlier Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian (and perhaps Persian) priestly-scribal groups. A comparative study of these contexts throws new light on the uses of “mystery” language in the Dead Sea Scrolls, especially when buoyed by a more robust heuristic framework of secrecy and esotericism.

Samaritan Temple excavation not open to tourism

THE SAMARITAN TEMPLE EXCAVATION at Mount Gerizim languishes, its tourism potential untapped:

Ancient site near Nablus 'too problematic' to open
Mount Gerizim is sacred to the Samaritans who regard it, rather than Jerusalem's Temple Mount, as the location chosen by God for a holy temple..

By Chaim Levinson Tags: Israel news (Haaretz)

Behind the rusty iron fence surrounding the archaeological work on Mount Gerizim lies one of Israel's most impressive antiquities sites. But the Civil Administration is keeping the compound closed despite its huge tourism potential. It says planning at the site near Nablus in the West Bank is "too problematic."

Over more than two decades, Yitzhak Magen, the administration's chief archaeology officer, dug up a 2,000-year-old city, once home to 10,000 people.
Samaritan community during a pilgrimage on Mount Gerizim near Nablus

It was preserved in its entirety. The site consists of streets lined with houses, a marketplace and town center. Thousands of bones of sacrificial animals and tens of thousands of coins tell its story.

[...]

"They discovered that the destroyed temple began in the Hasmonean era and ended in the Byzantine era. The Byzantines built on its ruins an octagonal church, which has been dug up. The compound wall has remained almost entirely intact, as have parts of the central Samaritan city. The findings show a high living standard, with bathtubs, ceramics, a heating system and mosaics. You can see it was the capital of a kingdom."

[...]

The Samaritan community wants it opened up to tourists.

Ugaritic as a test case for computer language-decipherment

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Progress in computer decipherment of ancient languages, with Ugaritic as a test case.

Computer program deciphers a dead language that mystified linguists

(io9)

The lost language of Ugaritic was last spoken 3,500 years ago. It survives on just a few tablets, and linguists could only translate it with years of hard work and plenty of luck. A computer deciphered it in hours.

[...]

That last sentence, of course, is irresponsible hogwash. What the program did manage to do was (1) to identify almost perfectly (29 of 30) the letter correspondences between Ugaritic and Hebrew and (2) identify about 60% of the Hebrew words cognate to Ugaritic words. This is a remarkable and important achievement and it's a pity that the media coverage it has received so far is so sensationalist.

The limits of the system are (1) it needs to have identified a cognate language (Hebrew in this case) and (2) both languages need to be in an alphbetic script.

Anyone who has worked with Ugaritic will know how far this is from a decipherment. Decipherment of Ugaritic is still at a fairly primitive level and is likely to remain that way unless we recover a lot more texts. (Rumor was in my postgraduate days that a famous Semitist who shall remain nameless liked to say that he thought we were reading the tablets upside-down!) We understand Ugaritic as well as we do primarily because of all the cognates it shares with Hebrew, but a cognate word or root does no more than narrow the range of guesswork for understanding that word or root. Usage and context are also extremely important, and neither are addressed by this computer program. Indeed, the program doesn't do any translating at all. What it does do, remarkably efficiently, is to lay the groundwork for a human being to decipher an ancient language, potentially making the task much easier.

You can download a pdf file of the paper "A Statistical Model for Lost Language Decipherment," by Benjamin Snyder, Regina Barzilay, and Kevin Knight, by clicking on the link. This is the abstract:

In this paper we propose a method for the automatic decipherment of lost languages. Given a non-parallel corpus in a known re-lated language, our model produces both alphabetic mappings and translations of words into their corresponding cognates. We employ a non-parametric Bayesian framework to simultaneously capture both low-level character mappings and high- level morphemic correspondences. This formulation enables us to encode some of the linguistic intuitions that have guided human decipherers. When applied to the ancient Semitic language Ugaritic, the model correctly maps 29 of 30 letters to their Hebrew counterparts, and deduces the correct Hebrew cognate for 60% of the Ugaritic words which have cognates in Hebrew.

JSIJ vol. 8

JUDAIC STUDIES, AN INTERNET JOURNAL has published a new volume:

Dear JSIJ Subscribers,

We are pleased to announce the official publication of vol. 8 of JSIJ (Jewish Studies - an Internet Journal), which includes the following articles (abstracts of these articles appear at the end of this email):

Michael Avioz, On the Origins of the Term Nevi'im Rishonim (Heb.)

Itzhak Hamitovsky. Rabbi Meir and the Samaritans: The Differences Between the Accounts in the Yerushalmi and the Bavli (Heb.)

Menachem Katz, Collections of Halakha or Analytic Clarifications in the Babylonian Talmud? (Heb.)

Moshe Lavee, Welfare and Education vs. Leadership and Redemption: The Stories about Rabbi and Rabbi Hiyya as an Example of the Image of the Tannaitic Past in the Babylonian Talmud (Heb.)

Itzhak Hershkowitz, The Altar as God's House: A Study in Maimonides' Temple Perspectives (Heb.)

Yossi Erel, Ramban’s Approach Toward the Plain Meaning of the Biblical Text vs. his Commitment to Halakha (Heb.)

Chanan Gafni, Hyperbolic Language in the Mishnah (Heb.)

Aron Pinker, On the Meaning of šgl

Ephraim Stulberg, The Last Oral Torah? The Division of the Torah into ‘Aliyot

You can download (view, print, etc.) the articles by going to the
following website and clicking the appropriate links (Word or PDF):

http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/JSIJ/ca.htm.

Best,

Leib Moscovitz
Managing Editor
JSIJ

Abstracts

1.On the Origins of the Term Nevi'im Rishonim
Michael Avioz

The biblical books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings are collectively known in Hebrew as Nevi'im Rishonim (Former Prophets). A review of the evidence from earliest times through the Middle Ages leads to the conclusion that the designation was coined by the Soncino family, who printed those books with Rabbi David Kimchi’s commentary in 1488.

2. Rabbi Meir and the Samaritans: The Differences Between the Accounts in the Yerushalmi and the Bavli
Itzhak Hamitovsky

This article seeks to show how the Babylonian sources placed much greater emphasis than their Palestinian parallels on the role Rabbi Meir played in connection with the changing Halakhic status of the Samaritan community. This conclusion is based on an analysis of the tannaitic sources dealing with Rabbi Meir’s relation to the Samaritans and a comparison between the Babylonian sugyot in BK 38b and Hullin 5b-6a and their Palestinian counterparts. It is suggested that according to both the tannaitic sources and the Palestinian Amoraic sources, Rabbi Meir did not make any significant contribution to the halakhic campaign against the Samaritans. Rather, it appears from these sources that Rabbi Shimon b. Eleazar, Rabbi Meir’s student, played a significant role in this campaign, during the late second century CE. The redactors of the Babylonian sources, following literary patterns attested elsewhere in the Babylonian Talmud, attributed Rabbi Shimon b. Eleazar's position to his teacher, Rabbi Meir. If my analysis is correct, the attribution of this position to Rabbi Meir constitutes yet another example of the transformation of Palestinian stories by Babylonian sources in light of the concerns of the Babylonian redactors.

3. Collections of Halakhah or Analytic Clarifications in the Babylonian Talmud?
Menahem Katz

Most of the Babylonian Talmud consists of sugyot, analytical discourses which form complete and closed structures. Another type of structure found in the gemara is the collection of sayings of a particular amora or of the stam. Rashi called sugyot of this type piskei shemu‘ot or piskei halakhot (Sukkah 3b, Pesahim 9b), terms which reflect the nature of these passages – apparently random collections of rulings, edited (according to Rashi) by the school of Rav Ashi.

This article discusses two such collections – Sukkah 3b-4b and Bava Kamma 26a-27a. It argues that these sugyot reflect a remarkable combination of analytical reasoning and complex literary design. In these collections of sayings, the sages of the Talmud discuss real, concrete cases, through which they explore basic concepts of Jewish law. We cannot treat these sugyot as simple collections of shemu‘ot. Rather, we must observe how they analyze in great detail the exact nature of the halakhic concepts they address.

4. Welfare and Education vs. Leadership and Redemption: The Stories about Rabbi and Rabbi Hiyya as an Example of the Image of the Tannaitic Past in the Babylonian Talmud
Moshe Lavee

This article proposes a reconstruction of the Babylonian perspective on the relations of R. Hiyya and Rabbi. We argues that shared motifs, structures and expressions justify reading a group of scattered traditions and stories as if they belong to a single cluster, which may be read coherently. A comparison to parallel traditions in rabbinic compilations from the land of Israel shows the Babylonian character of this reconstructed story. Thus, this story should not be read as reflecting the actual history of the Tannaim, but rather as expressing contrasting values and impressions that were later associated with the figures of Rabbi and Rabbi Hiyya. Rabbi represents tough political leadership, which is expressed, among other things, by restricting the spread of Torah study and by Messianic aspirations. Rabbi Hiyya symbolizes opposition to Rabbi, emphasizing Torah education for the masses, social concern, and investment in the immediate future – the next generation. The reading strategy suggested in this paper seeks to integrate two different approaches to the study of rabbinic literature: the literary approach to reading rabbinic stories, and the study of the contribution of late redactors, transmitters and editors to the formation of the Babylonian Talmud.

5. The Altar as God's House: A Study in Maimonides' Temple Perspectives
Itzhak Hershkowitz

The altar has a unique and complex status in the Bible, since two incompatible characteristics are attributed to it: it is depicted both as a portable sanctified object and as a stationary building. These opposing characteristics are evident in Maimonides' laws of the Temple (Hilkhot Beit Ha-Behirah). However, when Maimonides molds these rulings into a coherent codex of decrees, he prefers the building aspect of the altar, although he bases several rulings about the Temple, especially those concerning building materials and methods, on the conception of the portable altar.

Thus, Maimonides asserts that the altar is the fundamental essence of the Temple. Therefore, even if the Temple is not fully constructed, the presence of the altar alone is sufficient to provide a functional House of God. This view differs from that of the talmudic Sages, who regarded the altar solely as a temporary alternative to the Temple.

These conclusions derive from a textual, contextual, and linguistic study of Maimonides' writings concerning the relationship between the altar, the Temple's outer shell, and the other vessels that were utilized in the divine service.

6. Ramban’s Approach Toward the Plain Meaning of the Biblical Text vs. his Commitment to Halakha
Yossi Erel

In his commentary on the Torah, Ramban displays a deep commitment to the Halakha as it was determined by the Sages in the Talmud and in post-Talmudic traditions. Ramban often demurs when Rashi presents a Rabbinic interpretation that is not in accordance with the Halakha. However, the Ramban’s commitment to Halakha sometimes clashes with his parallel commitment to the plain meaning of the text (peshat), and in these instances the effort to be faithful to both approaches and to reconcile them creates a hermeneutic challenge.

The first two sections of this article present two hermeneutic techniques that help Ramban meet this challenge. The first technique, frequently found in his commentary on the Torah, is the principle of deriving two Halakhot from one verse: the Halakha according to the peshat, and the Halakha according to the Sages. This technique was not accepted by the Ba‘alei Tosafot in France, whose interpretation according to the peshat ignores the Halakha.

The second technique, Ramban’s main approach in analyzing Halakhic passages in the Torah, is one of synthesis between the two contradictory principles.

The third section of this article focuses on excerpts from Ramban’s works on the Talmud, in which he tries to find the source of the Halakha in the plain meaning of Biblical verses even when the Talmud does not cite a Biblical verse.

The fourth section returns to Ramban’s commentary on the Torah. Here Ramban looks for the Biblical verses which were the source of the Halakha even when the Sages cited midrashic sources. Indeed, Ramban constructs an innovative Halakhic framework with regard to the Sabbath and a number of other subjects on the basis of Biblical verses.

The fifth and final section of this article analyzes Ramban’s synthetic approach within the framework of his historical and cultural background and milieu, comparing it to that of the Ba‘alei Tosafot in France on the one hand, and to the Sephardic halakhic tradition in Spain and North Africa on the other. We also point out the directions of the developments that might have been influenced by Ramban’s dispute with the Christians, which may have influenced his attempt to combine two parallel approaches in his commentary on the Torah.

7. Hyperbolic Language in the Mishnah
Chanan Gafni

One of the heated debates in nineteenth-century Jewish scholarship concerned the Talmud’s interpretation of the Mishnah, which to many seemed to deviate from the plain, original sense of the Mishnaic text. In this context, a fascinating discussion was devoted to a number of Mishnayot that, according to the Talmud, employed hyperbolic language (leshon guzma). All of these Mishnayot involved various aspects of Second Temple ritual and, according to the Amoraim, all used the number 300 in a rather arbitrary way. In the nineteenth-century debate surrounding these mishnayot, some interpreted them literally, without ascribing a tendency to hyperbole to the Tannaim. Others, determined to defend the traditional interpretation of the Mishnah at any cost, rejected these attempts. As in many other cases, nineteenth-century scholarship involved not only critical concerns, but ideological considerations as well.

8. On the Meaning of šgl
Aron Pinker

The etymology of šgl is obscure. Šgl is a verb and noun that occurs a number of times in the Hebrew Bible and has diametrically opposing meanings. A strong late tradition exists for understanding the verb šgl as an obscene term for copulation. Our analysis of biblical and Talmudic sources suggests that the obscenity of šgl (verb and noun) stems from its relation to the anus. Specifically, the verb šgl is “to sodomize a woman” and the noun šgl is “a woman that copulates anally, as a bitch.” In some cases in the Hebrew Bible that deal with foreign royalty, a borrowed Akkadian term šgl is used in the sense of “queen, lady.” The Hebrew šgl and the Akkadian term appear to be unrelated.

9. The Last Oral Torah? The Division of the Torah into 'Aliyot
Ephraim Stulberg

The origins of the present-day system by which the weekly Torah reading is divided into seven rigorously delineated aliyot are shrouded in mystery. While recent scholarship has emphasized that standardization of this practice is a relatively recent development, rabbinic literature contains no programmatic statements describing the principles upon which the modern division was founded. This article attempts to define a set of fundamental principles that appear to have guided the formulation of the aliyah divisions currently employed in synagogues throughout the world. It argues that aliyah breaks in both narrative and legal sections were determined to a surprisingly large extent by midrashic considerations, conjoining seemingly unrelated texts in order to convey connections between them that would otherwise go unnoticed. More significantly, perhaps, the aliyah divisions were also manipulated so as to heighten audience interest in the reading, either by creating an atmosphere of suspense or by consistently selecting expressions of blessing with which to conclude aliyot. This final point raises important implications for a reappraisal of audience response to the Torah reading and its importance in the lives of its listeners.

Update on proposed Western Wall museum

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: The proposed Western Wall Museum is being considered by Jerusalem's district planning council.

Western Wall museum plans threaten Roman relics, archaeologists warn
Jerusalem planning council to rule on controversial project that opponents claim would destroy valuable ancient structures beneath the Old City.

By Nir Hasson (Haaretz)

Jerusalem's district planning council was on Sunday set to rule on a controversial museum project that archaeologists claim would destroy valuable ancient structures beneath the Old City.

But a group of archaeologists who have petitioned the council says the new building, designed by architect Ada Karmi, would damage an ancient Roman road, flanked by rare and elaborate columns, that runs beneath the planned construction.

They say that if Jewish relics were under threat, the project would never have been allowed.

[...]

As of last October, the IAA was defending the project.