Good conference

GOOD SESSIONS, GOOD PAPERS, GOOD NETWORKING, GOOD CONFERENCE. And this is the first time I've arrived at a session as a presenter and asked the chair and the other presenters if I could go last so I could write my paper. But that seemed to work out okay. As least I had fun.

Next stop, San Diego. My flight leaves this afternoon.

Ancient textiles from Qumran

OH GOOD: MYSTERY OF DEAD SEA SCROLLS AUTHORS POSSIBLY SOLVED (LiveScience).

Despite the inflated headline, for which the author, Owen Jarus, should not be held responsible, this seems to be a good article. It is accurate in the parts that discuss things I know about and it summarizes some recent research that does indeed potentially bear on the vexed question of the authorship of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Dead Sea Scrolls may have been written, at least in part, by a sectarian group called the Essenes, according to nearly 200 textiles discovered in caves at Qumran, in the West Bank, where the religious texts had been stored.

Scholars are divided about who authored the Dead Sea Scrolls and how the texts got to Qumran, and so the new finding could help clear up this long-standing mystery.

The research reveals that all the textiles were made of linen, rather than wool, which was the preferred textile used in ancient Israel. Also they lack decoration, some actually being bleached white, even though fabrics from the period often have vivid colours. Altogether, researchers say these finds suggest that the Essenes, an ancient Jewish sect, "penned" some of the scrolls.

Not everyone agrees with this interpretation. An archaeologist who has excavated at Qumran told LiveScience that the linen could have come from people fleeing the Roman army after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and that they are in fact responsible for putting the scrolls into caves.

[...]

Robert Cargill is interviewed in the piece as well.

I am not an archaeologist or other specialist in ancient material culture and I don't have a strong opinion on whether the Qumran sectarians lived at the site, although I certainly would not rule it out. But where other specialists disagree among themselves, there is no point in being dogmatic. A connection between the Qumran sectarians and the Essenes is plausible, although I resist reading the Classical accounts of the Essenes alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls in a harmonistic way. I do think it likely that, whoever lived at the site at the time of the Great Revolt against Rome in 68 CE, many of the scrolls were brought to the site from outside, presumably from other communities of like-minded sectarians in Judea. See also earlier posts here and here.

It would be nice if this new research did shed some light on the problem of who lived at the site of Qumran in the late Second Temple period, but only time and the process of discussion in the peer-reviewed scholarly literature will tell.

UPDATE: The Daily Mail also covers the story and, for once, has the more temperate headline: Dead Sea Scrolls may have been written by mysterious sect. There are some nice photos of the site and the scrolls in this article. (Bad link now fixed. Sorry about that.)

More on Google Digitization Project from NYT

THE GOOGLE DIGITIZATION PROJECT is profiled in the NYT Technology column:

Quietly, Google Puts History Online

By ERIC PFANNER
Published: November 20, 2011

PARIS — When the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, home to the Dead Sea Scrolls, reopened last year after an extensive renovation, it attracted a million visitors in the first 12 months. When the museum opened an enhanced Web site with newly digitized versions of the scrolls in September, it drew a million virtual visitors in three and a half days.

The scrolls, scanned with ultrahigh-resolution imaging technology, have been viewed on the Web from 210 countries — including some, like Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Syria, that provide few real-world visitors to the Israel Museum.

“This is taking the material to an amazing range of audiences,” said James S. Snyder, the museum’s director. “There’s no way we would have had the technical capability to do this on our own.”

The digitization of the scrolls was done by Google under a new initiative aimed at demonstrating that the Internet giant’s understanding of culture extends beyond the corporate kind. The Google Cultural Institute plans to make artifacts like the scrolls — from museums, archives, universities and other collections around the world — accessible to any Internet user.

[...]

Background here and links.

New Book: Henze, "The Gabriel Revelation"

IN THE MAIL:

Matthias Henze (ed.), Hazon Gabriel: New Readings of the Gabriel Revelation (Early Judaism and Its Literature) (Atlanta: SBL, 2011)

My review copy for the SOTS Booklist. It arrived a few days ago when I was still in St. Andrews, but this is the first chance I've had to note it. Professor Henze is also translating the Gabriel Revelation for volume 2 of the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project.

Goodacre on "Engaging the 'Wired-In Generation'"

MARK GOODACRE has posted his presentation made yesterday in the "Engaging the 'Wired-In Generation': Knowledge and Learning in the Digital Age" session (noted here). (Via James McGrath, whom I also ran into yesterday.)

More on the "Judaization" of Jerusalem

MORE ON THE "JUDAIZATION" OF JERUSALEM:

David M. Weinberg writes in the Jerusalem Post: Who’s destroying antiquities in Jerusalem? Hint: It isn't the Israelis.

There is little doubt that Palestinian authorities are conducting this assault on the Temple Mount so as to erase any vestige of archeological evidence for Jewish (and Christian) history.

Cross-file under "Temple Mount Watch," but the article deals with much more than the Temple Mount.

Meanwhile, the new Egyptian Government continues to cover itself in glory:

Million Men to March in Cairo Against “Judaization” of Jerusalem

Hamas announced Thursday that the new rulers of Egypt have given their blessing to a “million man march" against “Judaization” of Jerusalem.

By David Lev (Arutz Sheva)
First Publish: 11/17/2011, 3:20 PM

Hamas announced Thursday that the new rulers of Egypt – swept into power as a result of the “Arab Spring” rebellion – have given their blessing to a major demonstration to take place in Cairo next week. The “million man march” to be sponsored by Islamist groups a week from Friday will protest against the “Judaization” of Jerusalem.

[...]

The march will be led by no less than Ahmed a-Taib, Egypt's highest-ranking Islamic cleric and perhaps the most important in the entire Sunni Arab world. A-Taib, head of the Al-Azhar mosque, called the march “very important,” and worthy of the time of every Muslim who valued his religion. In recent weeks, a-Taib set up a special committee to prevent the progress of the “Zionist plan to Judaize Jerusalem.” The committee is expected to develop a platform that it will ask all individuals planning to run in Egypt's upcoming elections to support, committing them to using whatever resources are at their disposal to “defend the Al-Aqsa mosque” on the Temple Mount. A-Taib expects all politicians in Egypt – including Coptic Christians – to endorse the platform.

[...]

I don't begrudge the right of Hamas to organize peaceable demonstrations in Egypt, no matter how ridiculous the cause, but I do get the sense that the Egyptian Government is picking and choosing what it supports. And I'll take the "million" part with a grain of salt. Recent tangentially related posts are here and here.

This relatively new line of protesting the "Judaization of Jerusalem," apparently inspired by the recent UNESCO recognition of Palestine, is a combination of Palestinian projection of their own attempts to de-Judaize the city with the principle of the Big Lie.

Background, comments, and more documentation are here.

Hanan Eshel and Jewish burials in Israel

THE LATE HANAN ESHEL is featured in a Jerusalem Post article on recent trends in Jewish burials in Israel:

Without the rabbinate, I'll have a Jewish burial

Hundreds of Jews are buried in civil cemeteries every year in Israel, out of choice, and in nearly all cases, without relinquishing of the ceremony's religious elements.

By Yair Ettinger Tags: Jewish World Bar Ilan Orthodox Jew Jerusalem

The cancer he fought over a long period left Prof. Hanan Eshel time to plan his farewell to this world. Eshel, a Bar-Ilan University archaeologist who was a world-renowned expert on the Second Temple period and the Dead Sea Scrolls, was a religiously observant Jew. Before his death, last year, at the age of 51, he asked his family to bury him at the secular Kibbutz Ma'aleh Hahamisha, near Jerusalem. Though the cemetery is non-religious and private, the preparation for burial and the funeral itself all followed traditional rabbinical law: The body underwent ritual purification and was wrapped in a shroud, the mourners tore their garments, and the Kaddish and El Malei Rachamim prayers were said.

Hanan Eshel lived as a Jew and died as a Jew, and was buried in his own way at a quiet and verdant cemetery, with the help of an Orthodox rabbi he had known during his lifetime and who is not connected to a burial society - instead of at the cold and harsh stone "factory" of Har Hamenuhot, Jerusalem's principal Jewish cemetery, in Givat Shaul.

Rabbi Benjamin Lau, rabbi of the Ramban Congregation in Jerusalem, recalls the ceremony he conducted for Hanan Eshel mainly as a "completely ordinary funeral." Though there were vocal and instrumental musical passages, against which there is no prohibition in rabbinical law, not a single religious element was absent from it.

As a religiously observant individual, Eshel's choice of burial in a civil cemetery was unusual. However, hundreds of Jews are buried in civil cemeteries every year in Israel, out of choice, and in nearly all cases, without relinquishing of the ceremony's religious elements. There are cases in which the religious ceremony is completely standard, but the family prefers to invite a rabbi or cantor privately, from one religious stream or another, rather than putting the rites in the hands of people from a hevra kadisha, an establishment burial society.

This is another step in the privatization of religious life in Israel: As in private Orthodox wedding ceremonies and private conversions, here too there is a group that is in effect distinguishing between religion and the religious establishment - in this case the hevra kadisha. Here too Jews are preferring to act in the civil-secular realm, while strictly adhering to tradition and rabbinical law in all their details. The main point for them is that they have a choice as to how to do this.

[...]

NPR: Dead Sea Scrolls On Display In Times Square

NPR: Dead Sea Scrolls On Display In Times Square.

Many more reviews of the exhibition here and links.

Egyptian bloggers update

EGYPTIAN BLOGGERS UPDATE:

Prominent Blogger's Detention Extended [Press Release]

(I can't get this one to cut and paste, but it reports that Amnesty International is now protesting Alaa's detention.)

EU parliament urges release of Egyptian blogger, end of military trials for civilians

Friday, 18 November 2011

By Al Arabiya and Agencies

The European Parliament urged the Egyptian government on Thursday to release prominent blogger activist Alaa Abdel Fatah and suspend trials of civilians in military courts.

[...]

Father of arrested activist lashes out at ruling military council

Farouk el-Gamal (almasryalyoum.com)
Thu, 17/11/2011 - 20:43

The father of a recently arrested activist called for his immediate release, saying the charges leveled at his son are fabricated. The son was arrested against the backdrop of last month's clashes between mostly-Coptic protesters and the army at Maspero. The father's name is Ahmed Seif al-Islam, and his son is Alaa.

“The military council is brutal and must be brought to trial,” said Islam, who directs the Hisham Mubarak Center for Human Rights. “They are a bunch of executioners.”

[...]

Canada calls for Egypt blogger Maikel Nabil to be released,

Desmond Shephard | 18 November 2011 |(bikyamasr.com)

CAIRO: Canada’s liberal justice critic Irwin Cotler and a number of other MPs in the country have called for the Egyptian ruling military to free jailed blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad.

[...]

Did I mention that the world is watching?

Background here.

In San Francisco and on a new session

IN SAN FRANCISCO. More tomorrow.

UPDATE: Okay, one more thing before I turn in. At the last minute I've been co-opted into this session for tomorrow because of a cancellation. Note that the time has changed from 4:00-5:30 to 1:00-2:30. I don't have a paper topic, so presumably I'll be dispensing my wisdom extemporaneously.

S19-212b
Engaging the "Wired-In Generation": Knowledge and Learning in the Digital Age
11/19/2011
1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
Room: 3002 - Convention Center

Theme: Hosted by the Student Advisory Board

Teresa Calpino, Loyola University of Chicago, Presiding

Mark Goodacre, Duke University
Pods, Blogs, and other Time-wasters: Do Electronic Media Detract from Proper Scholarship? (15 min)

Christian Brady, Pennsylvania State University
On the Internet No One Knows You're a Grad Student, Or How Social Media Can Help You, Build You Up, and Tear You Down (15 min)

Kelley Coblentz Bautch, St. Edward's University
Videoconferencing in the Classroom: Broadening the Horizons of Students through Interactive Scholarly Exchange (15 min)

Discussion (30 min)

Note also that the SBL ap still displays the incorrect time.

UPDATE (20 November): More on the session here.

Off to California

I'M OFF TO CALIFORNIA, first for the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Francisco, then to San Diego for the Thanksgiving holidays. I will blog as often as I can during the trip.

As usual, I am pre-posting my SBL paper, which is to be presented on Sunday. You can download it as a pdf file by clicking on the link: Ritual Praxis in Ancient Jewish and Christian Mysticism.

I expect to be in San Fancisco this evening and I'm looking forward to seeing many readers in person there.

UPDATE (27 November): William Hamblin has posted some thoughts on my paper, noted here.

UPDATE (2 December): Rebecca Lesses has posted her response to the three papers in the session here.

Job in ANE History and Aramaic at Chicago University

JOB IN ANE HISTORY AND ARAMAIC at the University of Chicago:

Posting Number:
01078

Position Title:

Assistant Professor in Ancient Near Eastern History and Aramaic Studies

Position Type:
Faculty

Division/School:
ORIENTAL INSTITUTE

Hiring Unit:
ORIENTAL INSTITUTE

Position Description:
The Oriental Institute and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of the University of Chicago invite applications for a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in Ancient Near Eastern History and Aramaic Studies with a starting date in Fall 2012.

Applicants must have the Ph.D. in hand before the appointment begins. The candidate should be a scholar of the first-millennium BC Near East who has synthetic research interests that address problems in ancient history and who has demonstrated expertise in Aramaic language and texts. Applicants must upload a CV, a cover letter, and three (3) letters of reference.

Review of applications will begin after December 31, 2011.
Inquiries can be directed to oi-administration@uchicago.edu with the subject heading "Ancient History/Aramaic Search".

The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity Employer

Additional Information or Requirements:
Statement:
The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity Employer.

Required Applicant Documents:
Cover Letter
Curriculum Vitae
Reference Contact Info
Other Document

Via the Agade list.

KJB@400 Watch: The KJB and England

KJB@400 WATCH:

The Holy Land of England

By Liam Hoare (Jewish Ideas Daily)

The King James Bible, along with the Book of Common Prayer, Shakespeare, and Milton, transformed the English language, introducing a vibrant lexicon that is used to this day. It also fused biblical mythology with concepts of English national identity—becoming, as Simon Sebag Montefiore argues, the "national epic of Britain" and placing "the Jews and Jerusalem at the very heart of British life." The King James translation was part of the Reformation's attempt to break the Catholic monopoly on European Christian worship. It was equally an attempt at nation-building. It sought to elevate England's Church, its monarchy, and the nation to pre-eminence by linking the histories of the English and Jewish peoples and tying the city of Jerusalem to a nation emerging as not only a European but a global superpower.

[...]

Also: Queen marks anniversary of King James Bible (AP)

The economy and antiquities

THE ECONOMY is also bad news for antiquities:

Recent articles in popular news magazines (Time, Forbes) and newspapers (Wall Street Journal and the New York Times) extol the virtues of investing in the past. Buying antiquities has become a safe(r) investment than the stock market. Recent sales of Dead Sea Scroll fragments by a family who had “owned” them for decades were compared to a 401(K) program that kicks in as family members need the money. Record breaking purchases of the Guennol Lioness (US $57.2 million) and an Imperial Chinese vase from a Swiss collection (US $22 million) attest to the lure of the ancient not only as mementoes of past trips, past lives and the ancient past, but of potential future profits and retirement “nest eggs”

(Morag M. Kersel. The Lure of Ancient Artifacts, at Bible and Interpretation)

Brandeis cuts Hebrew major

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE: Brandeis cuts costs by cutting Hebrew major as students scratch heads (newvoices.org).

The cutting of any academic staff position or any academic major at a university should be preceded by the cutting of at least three administrative positions.

Review of NYC DSS exhibit in CSM

REVIEW OF THE NYC DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION by Gregory M. Lamb in the Christian Science Monitor: Dead sea scrolls come alive: Ancient Dead Sea Scrolls find new accessibility in New York's bustling Times Square. Excerpt:

While opening up study of the scrolls to an online audience is welcomed by scholars, they don't dismiss what's to be gained by seeing them in person. "I think many [people] are just amazed and fascinated to look at a piece of writing that's 2,000 years old, that may be from a text that they're familiar with," Dr. Kohn says. "Some of the scrolls are amazingly clear and in really good condition."

Just as with ancient art and architecture, seeing the scrolls in person is an encounter with "the ancients themselves," says William Yarchin, a scrolls aficionado and professor of biblical studies at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, Calif. "You are in the presence of the ancient...." It may sound hokey, he says, but "there is some sort of communion or contact ... that cannot be duplicated" by viewing a photograph or online image.

Indeed.

More reviews etc. here and links.

Lecture on apocalypticism in Austin

LECTURE ON APOCALYPTICISM IN AUSTIN, TEXAS:

Professor gives talk on apocalypticism

By Sara Sanchez

Published: Monday, November 14, 2011 (Hilltop View)

Updated: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 17:11

If you've ever wanted to see what activities your professors do on campus besides teaching, the Faculty Talks on Scholarly, Creative and Professional Work are an opportunity to learn.

On Nov. 10, Kelley Coblentz-Bautch, a religious studies professor at St. Edward's University, gave a talk entitled "From Classroom to Conference and Back Again: Studies in Ancient Apocalypticism."

Coblentz-Bautch talked about a number of issues related to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the activity of apocalypticism in the last 70 years. Coblentz-Bauch defined apocalypticism as the movement or perspective associated with the end of the world as we know it.

[...]

Professor Coblentz-Bautsch is a member of the Enoch Seminar and the SBL Esotericism and Mysticism in Antiquity Section. She and I will be meeting in San Francisco at SBL to start planning the Pseudepigrapha session for the 2013 meeting of the International SBL at St. Andrews.

On the 11-11-11 closing of the Great Pyramid

I'VE BEEN MEANING TO COMMENT on that story about the Egyptian Government closing the Great Pyramid last Friday to protect it from the 11-11-11 depredations of a horde of "Jewish Masons." I can understand the Government's desire to maintain order at the site, but it doesn't sound as though there was much basis for concern apart from "unconfirmed rumours in the local press" about a plot to put a Star of David on top of the Pyramid. In any case, it was handled in a typically ham-fisted way that invites ridicule, but at least no one got hurt this time. The Guardian has a pretty detailed account, from which the quote above comes.

My interest is more in the background of the event (or, as it turns out, the non-event). Israel Today Magazine has the relevant details:

Claiming that the world will soon come under assault by external powers, the group obtained permission from Egyptian authorities to hold a ceremony at the Great Pyramid and place a protective crystal inside.

But there was an uproar in Egypt following claims that among the New Age group would be 1,200 "Jewish Masons" who intended to cap the Great Pyramid with a Star of David.

Egyptian antiquities officials said that Jewish Masons have been trying to cap the Great Pyramid for nearly a century in order to highlight the claim that the ancient structure was built by Jewish slaves prior to the biblical Exodus.

As I have noted before, I can't find any Jews who make the claim today that the Israelites built the Pyramids, although Egyptians keep bringing it up. Scotland gets blamed too, but the earliest surviving reference to this daft notion comes from Josephus.

Cross-file under "Junk History."

Stiles on first-century boat from Sea of Galilee

THAT FIRST-CENTURY BOAT from the Sea of Galilee is profiled by Wayne Stiles in his Jerusalem Post column: Sights and Insights: Not just any old shipwreck.

Background here.

Human Rights Watch: Free Alaa

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: Egypt: Free Blogger Held in Maspero Case.

No Transparency in Military Investigation of Killing of Copts
November 15, 2011

(New York) – Egypt’s military prosecutor should immediately release an award-winning blogger charged in connection with the demonstration by Christian Copts on October 9, 2011, which turned deadly, Human Rights Watch said today. Alaa Abdel Fattah was detained and later charged with incitement and theft of a military weapon, even though the prosecutor had presented no evidence to support the charges. His detention came as military prosecutors started questioning activists and priests about their alleged involvement in publicly encouraging Copts to demonstrate on that day.

[...]

Background here.

Bloomberg discovers the Cairo Geniza

BLOOMBERG has discovered the Cairo Geniza:

Israel Computer Solves Ancient Jigsaw of Prayers, Wedding Vows

November 15, 2011, 3:12 AM EST

By Gwen Ackerman

Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Thousands of fragments of centuries- old Jewish texts, from shopping lists to historical documents, are being joined together using new software.

The scraps of the Cairo Genizah being cataloged include a letter from a wife complaining about her husband and a rabbinical judge’s authorization of the kosher status of cheese sold by a Jerusalem grocer.

The software, developed by Tel Aviv University professors Lior Wolf and Nachum Dershowitz, is analyzing texts that span about 1,000 years of Middle East history. The algorithm program adapts facial recognition technology to identify similar handwriting on documents which are then sorted into digital loose-leaf binders.

“The computer found thousands of items running for a week,” Dershowitz said in a telephone interview. “Then it took months for the scholars to look at it and decide if the computer was correct.”

[...]

Background to the project is here and links.

Arabic Crusader Inscription

ARABIC CRUSADER INSCRIPTION: The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs posts the IAA press release:

Unique archaeological discovery - Crusader inscription in Arabic

14 Nov 2011
Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: "This is the only Crusader inscription in the Arabic language ever found in the Middle East."


Photo courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority

(Communicated by the Israel Antiquities Authority)

An Arabic inscription that bears the name of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, and the date "1229 of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus the Messiah", was recently deciphered by Professor Moshe Sharon and Ami Shrager of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During the deciphering it became evident that this is a rare archaeological find - the only one of its kind.

The 800-years-old inscription was fixed years ago in the wall of a building in Tel Aviv. The original location of the gray marble slab, on which the inscription is engraved, was probably in Jaffa's city wall.

As Professor Sharon relates, "Frederick II led the Sixth Crusade of 1228-1229 and succeeded, without resorting to arms, in achieving major territorial gains for the Crusader Kingdom. His most important feat was the handing over of Jerusalem to the Crusaders by the Egyptian sultan al-Malik al-Kamil as a result of an armistice agreement the two rulers signed in 1229. Prior to achieving thisagreement, the emperor fortified the castle of Jaffa and left in its walls, as it now appears, two inscriptions, one in Latin and the other in Arabic. The Arabic inscription was drafted by Frederick's officials, or possibly even the emperor himself, and it is the one which has been now deciphered".

Although just a small part of the Latin inscription was preserved, it was enough to ascribe it, already at the end of the 19th century, to Frederick II. Today, with the aid of the Arabic inscription, it is possible to virtually complete the text of that fragment.

The unique Arabic inscription is almost completely intact. It lists all of the titles of Frederick II, and as already stated, has no counterpart elsewhere. In Sicily, where Frederick's main royal palace was located, no Arabic inscription of his has been found to date. Furthermore, until now this is the only Crusader inscription in the Arabic language ever found in the Middle East.

Frederick II, despite having been excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX, crowned himself king of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and mentioned his being the 'King of Jerusalem' in this inscription. He knew Arabic and maintained a close relationship with the Egyptian royal family.

A scientific publication of the inscription is currently being prepared by Professor Sharon and Ami Shrager.

Outside PaleoJudaica's usual purview, but file under Too Cool Not To Mention.

LiveScience also has an interview with Professor Sharon (or perhaps a longer version of the press release) which has additional information.

Solomon the pygmy?

SOLOMON THE PYGMY? Dorothy Lobel King is skeptical of the claim in BAR in 2008 that Solomon, Socrates, and Aristotle are pictured in a Pompeii fresco.

Did I mention that his Aristotle, Socrates and Solomon are all pygmies? It’s mean to be a humorous scene on a podium decorated with fresco scenes of pygmies. In another panel they battle crocodiles and hippopotami, whilst in a third they process along the banks of a river (images here).

More on the Cairo Geniza & TAU

THE CAIRO GENIZA DIGITIZATION PROJECT at Tel Aviv University is covered briefly in Haaretz:

High-tech science pieces together ancient scraps of Jewish Life

Computer scientists at Tel Aviv University use artificial intelligence to gather fragments of the legendary Cairo Genizah to tell the story of 1,000 years of Jewish history and culture.

By Joel N. Shurkin Tags: Jewish World

Computer scientists at Tel Aviv University are using artificial intelligence to gather the fragments of the world’s largest collection of medieval documents, the legendary Cairo Genizah, to tell the story of 1,000 years of Jewish history and culture. They have reconstructed more than 1,000 documents from 350,000 individual items found in the Cairo storage room: more in a few months than in 110 years of conventional scholarship.

In some ways, the contents of the Cairo Genizah are more important than the Dead Sea Scrolls, several scholars believe. While the Dead Sea scrolls were the religious literature of a small sect that lived in the desert for a few years, the Cairo Genizah told the story of the day-to-day details of a millennium of Jewish life, from the mundane to the magnificent.

[...]

Wait a minute. The Dead Sea Scrolls are more important than this paragraph implies. The "small sect" may have been pretty extensive; whether or not the sect actually lived at Qumran, the library itself may have been gathered from all over Judea in advance of the war with the Romans; the scrolls were written over a period of a few centuries, not a few years; and they are a thousand years and more older than anything in the Cairo Geniza and include some of our earliest fragments of the Hebrew Bible.

In the scheme of things, inevitably the antiquity, romance, and biblical connections of the Dead Sea Scrolls bring them more attention from both scholars and the public. Objectively, it's hard to say whether they or the Cairo Geniza finds are more important. It depends on what you want to know. I'm glad we have both.

Background to this project is here and links.

Work resumes on Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance

LATEST ON THE JERUSALEM MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE:

Archaeologists resume work at contentious worksite of Jerusalem museum

No one involved in the digs would comment on any archaeological findings since the resumption of the excavations, which are taking place in the capital's Mamilla neighborhood.

By Nir Hasson (Haaretz) Tags: Jerusalem Jews and Arabs Israel archeology

Archaeologists have resumed excavating the Jerusalem site where the Museum of Tolerance is to go up, amid controversy surrounding the exhumation of skeletons in what had been a Muslim cemetery for nearly 1,000 years.

In addition to fielding objections to the museum site, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is sponsoring and financing the project, also has to contend with the recent resignation of the two architects who planned the museum. But for all the troubles, construction of the museum is scheduled to begin in the next few weeks.

[...]

Background here and links.

Christianity Today on Eilat Mazar

EILAT MAZAR: Archaeology's Rebel: Bible in One Hand, Spade in the Other (Christianity Today).

Most recently seen here at PaleoJudaica.

Egptian bloggers update

EGYPTIAN BLOGGERS UPDATE:

Egypt keeps two bloggers in jail
Published: Nov. 13, 2011 at 3:08 PM

CAIRO, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Egyptian officials Sunday ordered two more weeks of detention for a controversial blogger who refused to cooperate in a military investigation.

Alaa Abdel Fattah is accused of inciting violence in a bloody clash between troops and Coptic Christians last month and was locked up for 15 days pending further investigation.

[...]

The Web site said another jailed blogger, Maikel Nabil Sanad, had his trial postponed again until Nov. 27. Nabil has been on a hunger strike since August. He was sentenced to three years in prison over a March blog post that criticized the Egyptian military.

[...]

The world is watching.

Background here and links.

New book: Leuchter & Hutton, "Levites and Priests in History and Tradition"

NEW BOOK from the SBL:

Levites and Priests in History and Tradition
Mark Leuchter, Jeremy M. Hutton

ISBN 1589836065
Status Available
Price: $31.95
Binding Paperback
Publication Date November, 2011

Priestly functionaries occupy a paramount position in the study of the Hebrew Bible. Despite more than a century of critical research, questions still abound regarding social location and definitions of the various priestly groups, the depictions of their origins, their ritual functions, the role of the laity and family religion, the relationship between prophecy and the priesthood, and the dating of texts. Making use of cross-disciplinary approaches, this volume provides a representative look at the state of current research into various aspects of priesthood in ancient Israel.

Mark Leuchter is Director of Jewish Studies, Department of Religion, at Temple University. He is the co-editor of Soundings in Kings: Perspectives and Methods in Contemporary Scholarship (Fortress). Jeremy M. Hutton is Assistant Professor of Classical Hebrew Language and Biblical Literature at University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of The Transjordanian Palimpsest: The Overwritten Texts of Personal Exile and Transformation in the Deuteronomistic History (de Gruyter).

More NYC DSS exhibit reviews

MORE REVIEWS OF THE NYC DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION:

From Lauren Green at Fox News, with video: Dead Sea Scrolls in a Command Performance on Broadway. Larry Schiffman is interviewed:

Lawrence Schiffman, curator and Dead Sea Scroll scholar, says, "The way a person should relate to this and, in fact, I think this is true whether they are a religious believer or not, is that what we see here is the background of the whole religious system that underlies Western civilization."

Schiffman explains that the exhibit shows the real live relationship of Christianity and Judaism, how they developed.

Included in the exhibit are some 700, centuries-old artifacts, giving viewers a look inside the ancient biblical world of faith.

Schiffman says, "we've got here a house that you can look into and get a sense of what was there.

How people live. How people bathed. How they cooked. We've got some weapons. We've got all kinds of things from that real life that you read about, especially in the books like Samuel and Kings."

And a dismissive one from The Forward:

Dead Sea Scrolls Come to Times Square
Massive Discovery Show Aims to Put Artifacts in Context

By Michael Kaminer
Published November 11, 2011, issue of November 18, 2011.

“Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times,” which opened on October 30 at the cavernous Discovery Times Square exhibit space in New York, touts itself as showcasing “the largest and most comprehensive collection of Holy Land artifacts ever organized.” Indeed, a more accurate title for this Bible-themed behemoth of a show, produced in partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority, might be “Dead Sea Scrolls: The Collected Works.”

While the exhibit’s ambition — to contextualize the creation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and to frame their effects on religion, borders and history — is spectacular, the sheer volume of notable relics ends up diminishing the show’s impact. Among the more than 500 objects, many on display for the first time, are pottery, coins, seals, jewelry, carvings, textiles and 2,000-year-old olive pits dug up in the deserts surrounding Qumran, where the scrolls were first discovered.

[...]

More reviews noted here and here.

Archaic Aramaic Bible?

ODDITY: Archaic Aramaic Bible.

More on the Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Project

THE DIGITAL DEAD SEA SCROLLS PROJECT is covered by AlMasry AlYoum: Dead Sea Scrolls, free at last. Excerpt:

Youssef Zeidan, director of the Manuscript Center and Museum at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, feels that the digital facsimiles, despite claims of excellent clarity and magnification capabilities, are not tools for scholarly research.

“I cannot say something serious or real about these pictures. They are just pictures,” says Zeidan.

Zeidan lamented the fragmented nature of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection, parts of which are spread out in museums across the world.

“When the scrolls were first discovered, Israeli institutions took some of them, some went to Europe and other places, and now we just have some copies,” he explains. “We cannot study these scrolls in the correct way because they are not complete.”

Mohamed Hawary, Professor of Jewish Religious Thought and Comparative Religions at Ain Shams University echoed Zeidan’s sentiments, saying “I advise scholars, if they want to study manuscripts to examine the original.”

Nonetheless, Hawary suggests that the digitization of the scrolls may encourage scholarship in general, and particularly among Arab scholars, for whom it is difficult to travel to Israel, or even to Europe or the United States.

“The fact that they are available will be helpful for scholars because now if I want to start to study documents from the Dead Sea Scrolls I can study them online, instead of living in Israel or going to Israel.”

Still, according to both Zeidan and Hawary, no scholar can publish anything that will be taken seriously without examining the actual documents.

“I could study the documents online, but before I finish or publish anything I would go for two nights to see the original,” notes Hawary.

And the fact remains that the community of scholars with the knowledge necessary to interpret the scrolls is very small. Michael Reimer, professor of History at the American University in Cairo, suggested the importance of the digitization of the scrolls has been overblown for precisely this reason.

“I do not think the fact that they are now available online makes very much difference because you have to have very specialized knowledge to read these things,” says Reimer.

It may be characteristic of scholars who deal so exclusively in the disintegrating fragments of ancient times to be dismissive of advances in technology. But the general accessibility of the scrolls may have consequences no one can foresee.

“Maybe a new generation of scholars will come around and look at this with a methodology that we do not even have now,” says Reimer.

Some valid points here, but I would nuance them a little. The scrolls on display so far are very well preserved, have been studied extensively, and are all available in good editions. The photographs published by this project are useful up to a point for things like palaeography, but I would be surprised if they helped anyone establish new readings in damaged passages. For that it is correct, with one important caveat below, to say that you need to look at the original. But in most cases these well-preserved scrolls have been so closely studied that most, although perhaps not quite all, likely readings have already been established. But for less-studied, more damaged scrolls, direct examination of the original is more important.

I remember once when I was working on the Cave Four Genesis and Exodus manuscripts in Jerusalem, Émile Puech and I had to look at one spot in a Genesis fragment through a powerful magnifying glass to establish that a place on the leather was not damaged, but represented a space between two damaged letters. This limited the options for possible readings and established that there was a large haplography in the line (that is, a good part of a verse had accidentally not been copied). I had examined the originals when writing my dissertation, but I hadn't examined this spot closely enough, so the re-examination with Émile allowed me to correct the reading in the final publication. If you want to look at the passage, it is Genesis 42:15 in 4QGen^j frag. 5, which you can find in DJD 12, pp. 69-70 and plate 9. I have noted a similar, if less dramatic, story here.

The caveat: for the many manuscripts that have become discolored by age a regular photograph is not much use, because the scroll leather tends to darken to about the same color as the carbon ink, so many scrolls are unreadable both from visible-light photographs and even from the original. In such cases, infrared photographs bring the ink out so it is visible again. The contrast can be dramatic. I have noted an example (which I also edited) here. I see from a past post that the infrared photos taken in the 1950s are slated to go online as well, and in some cases these could be more useful than consulting the originals. More on infrared photography and the Dead Sea Scrolls here.

Background to the Google/Israel Museum Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Project here and links.

Audio on ASOR and Shiloh

ARUTZ SHEVA: Audio: ASOR from the Inside; In the Light of Shilo.

Talmud and liberal arts education

POLITICS DAY! In this case the politics of the higher education bubble in Israel and the relevance of Talmud studies to the discussion.

Think Again: Talmud Study and the Liberal Arts

11/09/2011 21:27 By JONATHAN ROSENBLUM (Jerusalem Post)

Put in terms of a choice between a no-nonsense course of study and what – the study of nonsense? – perhaps we should rejoice in the declining number of humanities students.

The Jerusalem Post’s November 1 editorial “In praise of liberal arts” lamented the everdwindling percentage of Israeli students opting for bachelor’s degrees in the humanities.

[...]

IF ONE key test of a liberal education is the ability to learn new skills, then talmudic learning could be an important component. True, talmudic learning will not teach one math, unless one studies the rabbis’ complex calculations of the lunar cycle; nor will it provide grounding in a specific science. But it is not irrelevant to any of these pursuits. And the combination of intellectual rigor, discipline and concentration required is unsurpassed.

The great Harvard medievalist Harry Austryn Wolfson described talmudic study as “the application of the scientific method to the study of texts.” Hypotheses are continually being formulated and either successfully defended or rejected. The Talmud says that one who studies alone grows stupid, and the battles between study partners are nothing less than the “wars of Torah.” Even when one studies alone, he must act as his own study partner, constantly asking: Does my theory fit all the facts? Is there another way to explain all the relevant data? Students must learn to follow complex arguments that proceed over pages of text, and to hold firm at each step as to whether the argument is being advanced or questioned. Ten-year-olds learn to apply, without being aware of it, the tables taught in mathematical logic to actual cases.

At every level, the student is exposed to conflict and competing views. The Tannaim of the Talmud argue with one another; the Amoraim argue with one another and over the proper understanding of the Tannaim. The Rishonim (early commentators on the Talmud) differ from one another over the principles that emerge from the debates of the Talmud, and sometimes over the text itself. Each Rishon must be understood on his own terms, and in terms of why he argues with another Rishon.

But while a single right answer can never be given in talmudic debate, it is often possible to demonstrate that a particular solution is wrong. Thus Talmud study is the antithesis of much of contemporary academia, which, in Mead’s words, “encourages mushy thinking about mushy disciplines.” One cannot just offer opinions; one must argue propositions. That itself is a healthy antidote for the young for whom the height of wisdom is: Everything, including morality, is a matter of opinion, and all opinions are equally valid – a view, incidentally, held by no great thinker of the past, no matter how greatly they differed with one another.

Though the study will not teach elegant prose style, it demands clarity of expression and the ability to structure a logical argument. Rabbi Chaim Soloveitchik, the great 19th- and early 20th-century talmudic genius, whose style of analysis dominates much of contemporary talmudic study, emphasized that there is no such thing as a concept that cannot be expressed.

Finally, the study of Talmud places one in a dialogue with many of the greatest minds in Jewish history, and grounds a Jewish student in his own culture – one in which the legal and moral realms are seamlessly intertwined.

A traditional liberal arts education (as opposed to, say, deconstruction-of-the-Justin-Bieber-canon studies) introduces students to the best thoughts and literature that humanity has produced. It also teaches them to think critically about those thoughts and writings and to write well-thought-out, well-organized, grammatical prose containing their own critical thoughts. These are skills that employers are desperate to find. Liberal arts degrees, properly done, (and including Talmudic studies as a liberal arts discipline) accomplish all of this as long as the students have the ability to master the material in the first place. (And if they don't, they don't belong at university.) As for the STEM subjects, those studying them still need a good selection of individual liberal arts courses to refine their writing and reading skills and develop their broader critical-thinking skills.

Another recent post on education and Talmudic studies is here. And note also my post from last year on Why we need Akkadian (and the humanities).

UNESCO-Palestine politics and France

POLITICS DAY! The UNESCO decision about Palestine comes up in this press release: World Jewish Congress Leaders Held Talks With French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The relevant passage:

WJC Secretary-General Dan Diker raised the issue of Palestinian unilateralism at the United Nations with the French president. He warned of the dangers which the Palestinians' strategy posed, as witnessed by their acceptance as a new member of UNESCO, and said the PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas in his recent UN speech had even denied that Israel is the ancient homeland of the Jewish people. "UNESCO could become a platform to uproot the 3,000-year-old Jewish connection to Israel with a new, fabricated Palestinian narrative," Diker warned.

Sarkozy explained that the French vote in favor of Palestinian UNESCO membership had been the lesser of two evils but he reiterated did not mean that his government would support such a move a the UN Security Council.

Background here and links.

Emek Shaven on the Mamilla Cemetery

DID I MENTION POLITICS? David Stacey has sent this link to an Emek Shaveh web page on the Mamilla Cemetery/Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance: The Mamilla Cemetery in West Jerusalem: A Heritage Site at the Crossroads of Politics and Real Estate.

Background here with endless links.

Debate over archaeology amendment in Israel

ARCHAEOLOGY POLITICS IN ISRAEL AGAIN:

Archaeologists criticize new bill for 'politicizing' Israel Antiquities Authority
Sole vote against bill comes from MK Dov Khenin (Hadash), who charged that the bill's 'true purpose' was to make it easier to add a political appointee to the post..

By Nir Hasson and Jonathan Lis Tags: Israel archeology Knesset

The Knesset passed a bill in first reading on wednesday that would abolish a rule requiring the chairman of the Israel Antiquities Authority to be a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

The bill, which will now go to committee for further discussion, passed by a vote of 30-1. The sole vote against the bill came from MK Dov Khenin (Hadash ), who charged that the bill's "true purpose" was to make it easier to add a political appointee to the post.

[...]

This debate has been going on since July. Background here and links.

Egyptian blogger in LA Times again

THE EGYPTIAN BLOGGER'S PLIGHT continues to be covered by the LA Times:

Egyptian mother on hunger strike to free blogger son from prison

November 9, 2011 | 7:35 am

REPORTING FROM CAIRO -- The mother of a prominent Egyptian blogger has gone on a hunger strike until her son is released from jail after his arrest on what human rights groups call trumped-up charges to silence critics of the nation’s ruling military council.

Laila Soueif, an activist and mathematics professor at Cairo University, told the media she will not eat until her son, Alaa Abdel Fattah, is freed from military custody. The case has put further pressure on the generals who have run Egypt since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in February.

Abdel Fattah was detained on accusations he incited sectarian violence last month during a protest by Coptic Christians. Armed thugs and military police attacked the demonstrators, killing 24 Christians amid growing religious tensions. Abdel Fattah refused to be questioned by military prosecutors, saying the army, not him, was responsible for the deaths.

[...]

Good for the Times. Now what about the rest of the mainstream media?

Background here.

UPDATE (11 November): The story has been reprinted in the San Francisco Chronicle.

2013 Conference on Mandaeism in Stockholm

JAMES MCGRATH notes a 2013 Conference on Mandaeism at the University of Stockholm.

A modern reissue of a Sibylline Oracle

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH (sort of): At Facebook, Vincente Dobroruka notes this modern reissue of an ancient Sibylline Oracle:

El Cant de la Sibil-la

The Song of the Sibyl (El Cant de la Sibil la in Catalan) is a traditional liturgical drama that used to be performed on Christmas Eve, the lyrics of which describe a prophecy of the Apocalypse. The work was named one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. With this recording, Montserrat Figueras established her reputation of the unsurpassed priestess of the repertoire. This reissue is a must-have for any lover of ancient music.

More on the piece here. More on the Sibylline Oracles here and links.

Another obituary for Ben Zion Wacholder

ANOTHER OBITUARY FOR BEN ZION WACHOLDER, this one by Michael A. Meyer, has been published at the SBL website. Click here to download it as a pdf file.

UPDATE: Bad link now fixed!

VIdeo: In Search of Herod's Tomb

JERUSALEM POST VIDEO: In search of Herod's tomb.

More on Herod's tomb (and whether that's what it is) here and links.

The chief excavator, Ehud Netzer, died about a year ago as a result of an accident at the site. For many obituaries and further discussion of the tomb, see here and follow the links.

New book: Kinght & Levine, "The Meaning of the Bible"

NEW BOOK:

Leading Scholars Douglas A. Knight and Amy-Jill Levin Explore the Historical and Literary Forces in the Bible in Their New Book, 'The Meaning of the Bible'

In THE MEANING OF THE BIBLE, Preeminent biblical scholars Douglas A. Knight and Amy-Jill Levine deliver the fullest introduction to the Old Testament—also known as the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible—ever, offering a wealth of highly readable historical background and social context, plus an examination of the meaning and aesthetic value of the sacred literature at the heart of Judaism and Christianity.

Follow the link for the whole press release.

Detained Egyptian blogger update

DETAINED EGYPTIAN BLOGGER UPDATE:

March to support detained activist; mother on hunger strike

By Mai Shams El-Din /Daily News Egypt November 8, 2011, 4:39 pm

CAIRO: Hundreds marched Monday from downtown Cairo to support activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, detained for 15 days pending investigation by the military prosecution.

His supporters plan another solidarity March Wednesday that will end in front of Tora prison, where he is currently detained.

Abdel Fattah faces charges of inciting violence during the Maspero clashes between army forces and Coptic protesters.

On Oct. 30 he refused to be interrogated by the military prosecution because he is a civilian and since he believes that the military establishment is party to the crime
they’re probing and hence should not be investigating the Maspero incidents in the first place.

Abdel Fattah's mother, university professor Laila Soueif, also a prominent activist and member of March 9 Movement for Universities' Independence, has started an open-ended hunger strike until her son is released to draw attention to her his case and that of 12,000 civilians who have been tried in military courts since a popular revolt toppled the Mubarak regime in February.

[...]

It is a shame to see the new Egyptian Government squandering its own moral credibility like this.

Background here and links.

Report on Alan Crown conference

A BRIEF REPORT ON THE CONFERENCE IN HONOR OF ALAN CROWN at Sydney University has been posted by Simon Holloway at Davar Akher.

Background here.

James McGrath on "Jesus mythicism"

JAMES MCGRATH has an essay in The Christian Century taking on "Jesus Mythicism." James puts a lot of effort in his blog on refuting this particular brand of nonsense and the article summarizes some of the main points against it.

Fringe view
The world of Jesus mythicism
Nov 07, 2011 by James F. McGrath

Scholars disagree about how Jesus understood his life and his mission. Countless labels have been applied to him: cynic sage, apocalyptic prophet, rabbi, exorcist, Messiah. But everyone agrees that he existed, right?

Historians and religion scholars do. But a surprising number of people hold the view that the existence of Jesus is a myth: he is not just a heavily mythologized historical figure, but pure or nearly pure fabrication from start to finish. Jesus mythicists have a substantial web presence, and their views have been promoted in films such as Religulous and Zeitgeist.

It might seem best to ignore such fringe claims. But as we know from debates over evolution and other subjects, views that no expert finds persuasive can still have an impact on public discourse, education and much else.

[...]

Interview with "The Dovekeepers" author

ALICE HOFFMAN, author of The Dovekeepers, is interviewed in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Author interview: Alice Hoffman

By John Wilkens, Reporter - People

Sunday, November 6, 2011 at 6 a.m.

Alice Hoffman has been writing novels of magic realism for more than 30 years. Her latest, “The Dovekeepers,” is set in ancient Israel at the siege of Masada.

A resident of the Boston area, she will be at the 17th annual San Diego Jewish Book Fair on Thursday for a noon talk. She answered questions recently by email.

[...]

For reviews, etc., of The Dovekeepers, see here and links.

Modern Hebrew Lectureship at Wellesley

A MODERN HEBREW LECTURESHIP at Wellesley College:

Wellesley College seeks applications for a non-tenure track appointment in Modern Hebrew language instruction, for up to two years with the possibility of renewal, beginning in Fall 2012. Responsibilities of the position include teaching two courses in Elementary and two courses in Intermediate Hebrew and a commitment to the development of a thriving Hebrew language program as part of an interdisciplinary program in Jewish Studies. Salary is competitive and commensurate with credentials; the successful application will be a benefits eligible member of the Wellesley College faculty with access to a conference travel budget and competitive faculty awards to support research.

Please send by November 15, 2011 a letter of application, c.v., graduate transcripts, three letters of recommendation, and a teaching portfolio through our online application system at: https://career.wellesley.edu. (The online application will request names/email addresses so that recommenders or dossier services may submit the letters directly.). If circumstances make it impossible to submit any materials through our application site, please email us atworking@wellesley.edu.

BAR profiiles Zuckerman's epigraphic photography

BRUCE ZUCKERMAN'S EPIGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHY is profiled by Biblical Archaeology Review in their Bible History Daily series: New Eyeballs on Ancient Texts. And be sure to click through (or here) for Professor Zuckerman's essay of the same title in the current issue of BAR.

More on his work here with many links.

Trendy Tetragrammaton

THE TETRAGRAMMATON is trendy these days, according to Philologos in The Forward: How Yahweh Got Its Verbal Vibe Back: Ancient Hypothetical Word for God Gains New Popularity.

Excerpt:

Indeed, part of what has happened is American Christian philo-Semitism itself. Never before in history have so many Christians had such a positive attitude toward Judaism, and this also means a positive attitude toward the God of Judaism. Never mind that, for Jews, “Yahweh” strikes no chord of recognition. For some Christians — Wehner apparently being one — its adoption represents a rapprochement with Judaism and recognition that the Christian and the Jewish God are the same.

Paradoxically, however, another part of what has happened is Christianity’s perceived liberation, as it were, from one of Judaism’s last fetters. Already with the publication of the American Standard Version of the Bible in 1885, in which, for the first time in the history of Bible translation, “Jehovah” was used regularly for yud-heh-vav-heh, the translators’ introduction stated that “a Jewish superstition, which regarded the Divine Name as too sacred to be uttered, ought no longer to dominate in the English or any other version of the Old Testament.” In 1995, taking this one step further, a revised ASV, now called the World English Bible, began to appear with — once again, a historical first — “Yahweh” in place of “Jehovah.” In this case, the trend of returning to the “authentic” God of the Bible means returning to a God who is pre-Jewish.

The photo of Bono belting out The Name is priceless.

Reviews of NYC DSS exhibit

THE NYC DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION is reviewed by Alex Joffe in Jewish Ideas Daily: The Dead Sea Scrolls, Alive in Times Square.

Excerpt:

Discovery Times Square might seem like an unlikely place for this exhibit; indeed, putting ancient Jewish sectarian religious documents in such a venue, rather than a staid setting like the Metropolitan Museum uptown, may even seem gauche. But in fact, nothing could be more logical than finding the biblical past at the crossroads of America's family-friendly tourism and entertainment center. The biblical world and the Dead Sea Scrolls have escaped the prison of high culture and now appear alongside an exhibit on the forensic sciences and the popular television show CSI.

UPDATE: Another review, this one in the Washington Times: Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient Israel artifacts debut in NYC.

UPDATE: Joseph Lauer alerts me to two more reviews of the exhibit:

Dead Sea Scrolls on display in Times Square, by Sergey Kadinsky in the Jewish Star

Review of Discovery Time Square’s Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit, by Jeffrey García at the Helek Tov blog.

More on the Erasure History Conference

MORE ON THE ERASURE HISTORY CONFERENCE at the NT Blog. It's good to see counterfactual history catching on.

Noted earlier here.

The Talmud Blog now has a Book Club

THE TALMUD BLOG now has a Book Club.

KJB@400 WATCH: Robert Alter's 'Pen of Iron' -- A Review

KJB@400 WATCH: Robert Alter's 'Pen of Iron' -- A Review (Peggy Burc at The Shelf Life). Excerpt:

"Pen of Iron" explains the unique relationship that Americans have with the ancient Israelites by way of the King James Bible, a relationship that has revealed itself in both the style and the language of many great works of modern fiction. As Alter demonstrates, the ancient languages of biblical thinkers have seeped into the imaginations of American authors in ways both deliberate and subconscious, subtle and pronounced, so that writers have hardly been able to escape the tradition which they once loathed or loved or regarded as irrelevant. In short, they have revived precisely that text which many of them disclaimed as passé.

Latest on UNESCO and Palestine

LATEST ON UNESCO AND PALESTINE:

The Toronto Star has an analysis of recent developments with attention to archaeology:

UNESCO membership deepens Mideast cultural war fought with picks and shovels

Published On Sat Nov 05 2011

By Olivia Ward Foreign Affairs Reporter

The Palestinians’ struggle for United Nations membership seems set to go nowhere, as the UN Security Council prepares to table a report Tuesday that is expected to show little more than confusion on the members’ stance.

But their pre-emptive strike — a successful bid to join the UN’s educational, scientific and cultural organization — has touched off an explosion of political reaction across the world.

Viewed as a bold leap toward statehood by some — and a covert tiptoe to recognition by others — it sparked instant de-funding of UNESCO by the United States Congress and Israel, an Israeli freeze on $100 million in transfer payments to the Palestinians and a threat, later reversed, to pull Canada’s $10 million annual contribution from the Paris-based UN body.

But the UNESCO membership also bares the heart of Israelis’ and Palestinians’ existential hopes and fears, and deepens the cultural war that surrounds their heritage in the small territory they have shared for millennia. It’s a war that is being fought not just with words, but with picks and shovels in the hundreds of historical sites across the region.

[...]

The Jerusalem Post reports a new development:

PA to sue Israel for ‘destroying’ Arab, Muslim antiquities

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
11/05/2011 17:50

As member of int'l organization, PA will take Israel to court for changing the Arab and Islamic character of holy sites in J'lem.

Following its admission to UNESCO, the Palestinian Authority is planning to pursue Israel legally in international forums for allegedly stealing Palestinian antiquities and changing the Arab and Islamic character of holy sites in Jerusalem, Palestinian officials said over the weekend.

“Now that we have joined UNESCO, we will take Israel to court for systematically destroying and forging Arab and Islamic culture in Jerusalem,” said Hatem Abdel Qader, former PA minister for Jerusalem affairs. “We are also seeking to file lawsuits against Israel in international courts and bodies for stealing Arab and Islamic antiquities and assaulting Islamic and Christian holy sites.”

[...]

And the Egyptian Gazette has an opinion piece by Idris Tawfiq:

Opinion: Preserving Palestine’s heritage

By Idris Tawfiq - The Egyptian Gazette
Saturday, November 5, 2011 01:42:39 PM

It was only to be expected that the state of Israel would try to ruin any attempt to celebrate Jerusalem as Capital of Arab Culture back in 2009. How could it be otherwise, with the Zionists telling the world that Jerusalem has been their capital for the last three thousand years and that it will be the eternal capital of Israel?

If the existing Judaisation of Jerusalem carries on at its present rate there will be little left of Jerusalem as a capital of Arab culture for anyone to celebrate. Systematically, the Arab nature of the city is being uprooted and destroyed, whether it be monuments going back to the Middle Ages and before, or to modern dwellings where the Arab citizens of Jerusalem live.

All of it is happening before the eyes of the world, but very little is being done to stop it. Although the very streets themselves shout that this is an Arab city so much of Jerusalem’s Arab past is being demolished or disguised. To get rid of it all, however, the Zionists would have to destroy the city itself!

At long last, though, something happened this last week that is of immense significance in the long process towards restoring peace and justice in Palestine. UNESCO has admitted Palestine as a full member. The significance of this action cannot be underestimated. Its importance, though, has nothing whatsoever to do with the bid for Palestinian statehood at the UN.

[...]

There is considerable projection in the first two paragraphs, in that much Palestinian propaganda in recent years has been devoted to attempting to de-Judaize Jerusalem, especially the Temple Mount. And I have to say that I have never encountered anyone who argued that Jerusalem did not have a considerable Arab past.

Speaking of the Temple Mount, this is the first of two pasages in the article that require additional comment:

For too long, those who have re-written history and airbrushed the Arab heritage of Palestine from its pages have managed to focus the eyes of the world away from the truth, fooling them into believing a version of history that is not true. In digging under the foundations of Al-Aqsa Mosque for the last forty years to find their lost Temple, the Israeli archaeologists have not managed to find even a cup or a saucer to prove their claim!

This is obviously nonsense and Dr. Tawfiq, who is a former Catholic priest with a degree in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome, should know enough about the history and archaeology of Jerusalem to know better. The Western Wall is part of the Herodian Temple Platform on which the Herodian Temple stood. And back in the nineteenth century two copies of a Greek inscription were excavated which warned gentiles to stay out of the Temple compound. I have collected other archaeological and literary evidence for the Jewish and Judean temples on the Temple Mount (as well as evidence for a Judean presence in Jerusalem in the Iron Age II) here and here. Regular readers will be aware of how much I harp on these themes, but I do so wearily, only in response to the continued stream of bogus propaganda about them.

On attempts by the Waqf to de-Judaize the Temple Mount through illicit excavations, and on the Temple Mount Sifting Project, which has tried to undo a little of the damage, see the links in the second half of this post.

The second passage:

The tunnels being built under Al-Aqsa, to weaken its foundations and bring about its collapse, are presented to tourists as archeological excavations which they are invited to walk along and see.

This unsupported claim keeps being repeated too. I have addressed it here and here (and links at the end of the latter post). Foreign reporters have had ample opportunity to explore such tunnels as there are, and none go under the Al-Aqsa Mosque. (This is not to say that every tunnel being dug in the vicinity of the Temple Mount is necessarily a good idea.)

Some past posts on tunnels and caves in Jerusalem are here, here, here, and here, with many links. I have been following these stories for years.

Background to the UNESCO story is here with links. Cross-file under "Temple Mount Watch" and "Jewish-Temple denial."

Witherington completes series on ancient literacy

BEN WITHERINGTON has completed his blog series on literacy in the time of Jesus: Was Jesus Illiterate? Part Three; Books and Scrolls in the World of Jesus.

Earlier posts noted here and here.

Ben Witherington: "Reading and Writing in Jesus' World" (2)

BEN WITHERINGTON continues his series at The Bible and Culture blog: Reading and Writing in Jesus’ World— Was he an Illiterate Peasant? Part Two.

Channeling Metatron for 11-11-11

ARCHANGEL METATRON WATCH: Some New Age channeling of Metatron in honor of a special date this month: 11-11-11 Energy Wave by Archangel Metatron.

I wonder what he'll have to say for 12-21-12.

Teaching kids to hate Talmud?

MICHAEL FREUND: Is the religious education system in Israel Teaching kids to hate Talmud?

Excerpt:

Simple changes, such as taking a topical approach rather than plowing straight through the text, could go far in making Talmud study more appealing to such youth.

For example, instead of opening up the seventh chapter of tractate Baba Kamma to teach students about various laws relating to theft, they could instead learn how the Talmud might view the purchase of pirated DVDs or the download of music from the internet.

By making the text more relevant to their everyday lives, teens are far less likely to be turned off to its study.

Instructing youths in some of the basics of Aramaic might also make the Talmud more accessible and less intimidating.

But it may just also be time to consider some more radical alternatives as well.

Two months ago, Rabbi Yosef Avraham Heller, a prominent Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi who is a member of the Crown Heights Rabbinical Court, did just that, causing a stir when he suggested that perhaps not everyone needs to study Talmud intensively.

“Before the War, it was unheard of that every child learned in yeshiva the entire day; it was only a selection of students,” Rabbi Heller said, adding that, “Today, however, there is a new ideal that has no source in Torah: everyone has to learn Gemara, and someone who learns Mishna is considered a ‘loser.’” “Never in history,” he noted, “was there such a phenomenon.

Throughout the generations, each person learned according to his level.”

From the Biblioblogosphere

FROM THE BIBLIOBLOGOSPHERE:

The Bible and Culture: Latinisms, Western Diction, and the Provenance of Mark’s Gospel. As regular readers know, I have some reservations about Casey's work on the Aramaic background of the Gospels, but I accept that there is some level of Semitic interference in the Greek of Mark.

The Bible and Culture: Reading and Writing in Herodian Israel– Was Jesus an Illiterate Peasant? Part One.

Exploring Our Matrix: It’s Finally Here: The AAR/SBL App for iPhone/iPad! I've downloaded it onto my iPod Touch. It looks very useful.

Exploring Our Matrix: Biblioblog Top 50 for October 2011.

Alin Suciu continues to uncover Coptic fragments of New Testament Apocrypha: Two Other Scraps from a Parchment Leaf Containing the Apocryphal Acts of John in Coptic; Lost and Found: Two Fragments of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in Coptic.

UNESCO politics: the turf war begins

UNESCO POLITICS—THE TURF WAR BEGINS: PA Tells UNESCO Dead Sea an Arab ’Heritage Site’

Background here and here.

N. T. Wright's Inagural Lecture at St. Andrews

PROFESSOR N. T. WRIGHT gave his Inaugural Lecture at the University of St. Andrews last week. (For those not familiar with the British system, after someone has been appointed as a full professor, he or she will at some point give a public lecture on some aspect of his or her research to mark the appointment.)

My doctoral student, David Larsen, has published his notes on Professor Wright's lecture at his blog, Heavenly Ascents: Insights from N.T. Wright’s Inaugural Lecture: Imagining the Kingdom of God.

Four new books from the SBL

FOUR NEW BOOKS from the Society of Biblical Literature:

The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change, Second Revised Edition
Bezalel Porten

This important volume contains 175 documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Syene (Aswan), which yielded hundreds of papyri in hieratic, Demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Coptic, spanning a period of 3000 years. The documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives, and are thus an invaluable source of knowledge for scholars of varied disciplines, such as epistolography, law, society, religion, language, and onomastics. The volume includes seven sections, each containing carefully translated and extensively annotated documents of one language group. Excellent cross-referencing allows the user to trace forerunners and successors. Each section is preceded by an introduction; the Aramaic, Demotic, and Greek sections are concluded with a prosopography. The book closes with a select topical index.

Paper $79.95 • 656 pages • ISBN 9781589836280 • Hardback edition

Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts
Brad E. Kelle, Frank Ritchel Ames, Jacob L. Wright, editors

Interpreting Exile considers forced displacement and deportation in ancient Israel and comparable modern contexts in order to offer insight into the realities of war and exile in ancient Israel and their representations in the Hebrew Bible. Introductory essays describe the interdisciplinary and comparative approach and explain how it overcomes methodological dead ends and advances the study of war in ancient and modern contexts. Following essays, written by scholars from various disciplines, explore specific cases drawn from a wide variety of ancient and modern settings and consider archaeological, anthropological, physical, and psychological realities, as well as biblical, literary, artistic, and iconographic representations of displacement and exile. The volume as a whole places Israel’s experiences and expressions of forced displacement into the broader context of similar war-related phenomena from multiple contexts.

Paper $57.95 • 480 pages • ISBN 9781589836044 • Ancient Israel and Its Literature 10

Pentateuch, Hexateuch, or Enneateuch? Identifying Literary Works in Genesis through Kings
Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, Thomas Römer, editors

The identification of literary works in the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets is a hallmark of the modern historical-critical interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. The theories of a Tetrateuch, a Hexateuch, or a Deuteronomistic History have played a central role in recovering the literary history of the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets. The breakdown of these methodologies in recent research has forced scholars to reevaluate the criteria for identifying literary works in the formation of the Hebrew Bible. The present volume explores anew, without presupposition or exclusion, the criteria by which interpreters identify literary works in these books as a resource for recovering the composition history of the literature. It also brings North American and European approaches to the topic into a common discussion.

Paper $39.95 • 324 pages • ISBN 9781589835429 • Ancient Israel and Its Literature 8

Rome and Religion: A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue on the Imperial Cult
Jeffrey Brodd and Jonathan L. Reed, editors

This book presents an up-to-date discussion of the Roman imperial cult (the divinization of the emperor) and its general importance in early Christianity and ancient Mediterranean religions. It features opening and closing essays by Karl Galinsky, a foremost authority on Roman history and culture. Thirteen other essays explore related aspects and draw on a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives, including theory, method, archaeology, epigraphy, and art. The authors are classicists, biblical and religious scholars, historians, and archaeologists, with expertise in various cultural milieus. Reflecting this spectrum of backgrounds and interests, the book addresses issues and phenomena covering a broad expanse of subjects, locations, and methodological concerns.

Paper $37.95 • 276 pages • ISBN 9781589836129 • Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplements 5

Obituary for Ben Zion Wacholder

AN OBITUARY FOR BEN ZION WACHOLDER, which I only came across recently on the Agade list:

Ben Zion Wacholder, 1924-2011 (AAJR)

A long-time Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Ben Zion Wacholder passed away in Roslyn Heights, New York, on March 29, 2011, at the age of 86. He had been the Solomon B. Freehof Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) in Cincinnati and a major figure in the study of ancient Jewish history, especially of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[...]

More here.

2012 Enoch Graduate Seminar

2012 ENOCH GRADUATE SEMINAR: This just in from Gabriele Boccaccini.

The fourth meeting of the Enoch Graduate Seminar will be held June 18-20, 2012 on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, chaired by Prof. James C. VanderKam. The sessions will begin at noon on Monday, June 18 and will conclude at noon on Wednesday, June 20. Graduate or Post-Doc students working in the general area of Second Temple Judaism and Christian Origins who wish to present a paper at the seminar should submit an abstract (no more than one page) clearly stating the shape of the argument and the conclusion. The abstract should be sent to the secretary of the Conference, Isaac Oliver , no later than December 15, 2011.

Around 15 papers will be selected and presented at the Seminar. Papers in their final form must be completed by May 15, 2012. They will circulate in advance among the participants and will be only briefly introduced (5 minutes) by the author at the conference, where one hour will be devoted to the discussion of each paper, with all participants acting as respondents. The best papers will be selected for publication in the journal Henoch.

Previous meetings of the Enoch Graduate Seminar were held at the University of Michigan (2006), Princeton Theological Seminary / Princeton University (2008), and the Catholic University of Budapest (2010).

The Enoch Seminar website is here.

Iranian influence on Judaism

BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION ESSAY:

Iranian influence on Judaism

The question of Iranian influence is of some importance for understanding the development of the Hebrew Bible, the history of Second Temple Judaism, and the emergence of the genre known today as the apocalypse. Understanding the origins of ideas is of interest on its own; however, the ability to pinpoint influence more specifically offers evidence for dating changes in religious thought, as well as enabling a better understanding of the ways imported ideas were adapted by Judaism. Thus, understanding how ideas parallel other systems, were borrowed from them, and adapted for a new religion improves the contextual understanding of a religion and its texts, in our case Second Temple Judaism, the Hebrew Bible, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.


See Also: Persepolis and Jerusalem (T&T Clark Int’l, 2012)


By Jason M Silverman
Trinity College Dublin
October 2011

This essay lays out a sophisticated and promising new approach to the problem.

(Via Robert Cargill at XKV8R.)

Canada 'reconsidering' UNESCO funding after Palestine's admission

UNESCO POLITICS: Canada 'reconsidering' UNESCO funding after Palestine's admission.

Egyptian blogger's plight taken up by LA Times

EGYPTIAN BLOGGER'S PLIGHT taken up by the Los Angeles Times:

Egyptians protest blogger's detention, call for end to military trials

November 1, 2011 | 12:08 pm

REPORTING FROM CAIRO -- Egyptian activists are demanding the release of Alaa Abdel Fattah, a popular blogger who criticized the army for the death of protesters during a recent demonstration.

[...]

Background here.

Knesset declines to declassify Temple-Mount Comptroller's report

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Knesset Refuses to Declassify Temple Mount Report
The Knesset has refused to declassify a State Comptroller report slamming officials for pervasive failures at the Temple Mount

By Gavriel Queenann (Arutz Sheva)
First Publish: 11/1/2011, 4:58 PM

A joint session of Knesset sub-committees discussed on Tuesday a confidential report from the State Comptroller citing serious failures by authorities to safeguard and maintain the Temple Mount.

During the meeting MK Uri Ariel (National Union) again requested the report be released for public consumption on the grounds that the public had a right to appreciate the seriousness of authorities' failure to maintain law and order on the Temple Mount.

[...]

Ariel's request was rejected by the committee.

[...]

Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

Background here and links.

From the Paleoblogosphere

FROM THE PALEOBLOGOSPHERE:

Evangelical Textual Criticism: New Second Century Text of John? Not. See the comment by Wieland Willker.

Larry Hurtado's Blog: Another New Book on Jesus and the Early Church. Lots on ancient Judaism too.

NT Blog: The Matthew Effect. Sounds like the title of a Robert Ludlum novel.

Antiquitopia: Ancient Zombies. Seasonal.

The Talmud Blog: In a Name: Some Late Night Ruminations on T. Ilan’s Lexicon of Jewish Names 4. The Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls figure prominently in the discussion.

Remnant of Giants: “Close Friend” of Kim Kardashian Reveals Reason for Divorce from Kris Humphries after only 72 days. “It was the Goliath thing.”

UPDATE: This just in from the Agade list.
Ancient Hebrew Grammar: Pedagogy and the Lesser-Taught (Ancient) Northwest Semitic Languages. The results of a survey, which unfortunately I seem to have missed.