Computer dating of Old Irish texts

A HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENT IN DUBLIN has produced a computer program for dating Old Irish documents:

Letter use analysed to date ancient Irish texts

DICK AHLSTROM, Science Editor, at the RDS (Irish Times)

A DUBLIN-BASED student has taken the Irish language, mashed it through a wringer and in the process has come up with a powerful tool for analysing ancient Irish texts. In particular it looks promising for dating texts of unknown but ancient origin.

Aoife Gregg (16) is presenting her findings at the BT Young Scientists and Technology Exhibition under way at the RDS. Although the exhibition is open tomorrow, it reaches its climax this evening when the young scientist for 2012 is announced.

The transition-year student from Loreto College, St Stephen’s Green, carried out a letter frequency analysis of the Irish language, using a computer to determine which letters occurred most frequently. The top four in order were A, I, H and N, but then she got the idea to measure letter frequencies in older documents to see how the Irish language changed.

She studied 17 documents dating as far back as AD 600 and immediately found changes in the letter frequencies. The letter A is much more frequent today, she said yesterday and also the letter H. This may seem a bit academic but in fact she used these methods to date old Irish texts. She correctly determined the ages of eight out of 10 old texts, she said. “It provides an alternative way of dating Irish documents.”

[...]

(Via Explorator.)

As it stands, this sounds like a blunt instrument, but the concept is worth further development. Perhaps it will be useful someday for dating Irish Old Testament pseudepigrapha, of which there are a surprising number. Some of them are being translated for the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project. My colleague, Grant Macaskill, posted an essay on the subject several years ago for a class we taught together: The Pseudepigrapha in the Irish Church.

Looting in the Judean Desert

MORE LOOTING REPORTED, including of coins from the Bar Kokhba era: Antiquities Theft in Judean Desert Next to Tekoa.

New book: Otero & Torijano Morales, "Textual Criticism and Dead Sea Scrolls Studies in Honour of Julio Trebolle Barrera"

NEW BOOK:

Textual Criticism and Dead Sea Scrolls Studies in Honour of Julio Trebolle Barrera

Florilegium Complutense

Edited by Andrés Piquer Otero, Universidad Complutense de Madrid & Pablo A. Torijano Morales, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

This volume includes papers on different topics of textual criticism of the Bible, history of the Hebrew text and the Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls studies, contributed by friends and colleagues of Julio Trebolle Barrera to honour him on the occasion of his 65th birthday. The book presents a good selection of current research in the history and composition of the Bible, the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls, all with the aim of honouring a scholar who has excelled in those areas throughout his career.

(Via Christopher Rollston on FB.)

Obituary for Wilfred Lambert

AN OBITUARY FOR WILFRED LAMBERT in the Telegraph:

Professor Wilfred Lambert

Professor Wilfred Lambert, the Assyriologist who has died aged 85, was a scholar of ancient Mesopotamia and the world’s leading expert on cuneiform, an ancient form of writing which began as a system of pictographs and, over three millennia, developed into a more simplified and abstract script.

It would be hard to single out "the world’s leading expert on cuneiform," but Lambert would certainly have been in the running.

Via the Agade list. Background here.

More on the Afghanistan Jewish manuscript cache

MORE ON THE AFGHANISTAN CACHE OF JEWISH MANUSCRIPTS, which it turns out may not be a geniza. The Toronto Star has an article that contains new details:

Medieval Jewish manuscripts discovered in Afghanistan include an unknown work by Saadia Gaon

Published On Fri Jan 13 2012

Leslie Scrivener Feature Writer

This much is known: rare, medieval Jewish manuscripts have been discovered along the fabled Silk Road in Afghanistan and are for sale.

Are they authentic? Scholars who have examined them say they are.

The rest — who found them, where they came from, whether there are more to unearth — remains a mystery.

But the discovery of the 200 or more documents, some in good condition and others crumpled or in fragments, has excited academic interest around the world.

[...]

Earlier reports said there were 150. I'm not sure whether this new reckoning of 200+ manuscripts indicates that more have surfaced; the article says the number is still uncertain due to the unfortunate wide dispersion of the fragments. I don't seen anything new in the list of contents later in the article, although it does add the new information (or impression) that "[m]any of the pages are torn from books," perhaps indirectly confirming my earlier comment that the manuscripts would likely have been codices rather than scrolls. Also, there is a new version of the story of the discovery:

Ben-Shammai notes that tales of how such caches are found are often colourful and difficult to verify.

“There is a story, whether it is true or not I am not able to judge,” he says. In this case, the saga goes like this, “A bunch of foxes were living in a cave and attracted the attention of some villagers . . . ”

An earlier account involved a shepherd searching a wolves' den for lost sheep, and there were apparently other accounts, all involving shepherds searching for sheep.

Shaul Shaked says that the fragments did not come from a Geniza:

Shaked said the site is not a geniza, a repository of Hebrew texts that cannot be ordinarily disposed of because they contain God’s name. These storerooms are usually located in or near synagogues or cemeteries. This discovery is much smaller than the great Cairo Geniza, in the Ben Ezra Synagogue, which holds more than 200,000 fragmentary remains.

“We don’t have any indication that the place where this was found was a synagogue,” says Shaked. “This was likely a cave in which people in distress placed documents they cherished and had to flee because of some danger.”

He seems to be speculating here, since he doesn't specify any particular danger mentioned in the texts.

Also, any connection with the lost ten tribes, floated earlier by Robert Eisenman, is (soundly) dismissed by Ben Shammai:

Some reports have speculated about a link to the 10 lost tribes of Israel, a suggestion Ben-Shammai dismisses. “I’m sorry to sound so skeptical, but I don’t believe a word of the story of the lost tribes. I know it is a very popular notion, but there is no reason to believe they were lost. They assimilated with local populations or other Jewish populations.”

HT Tony Burke. Background here and here.

$1 million for SBTS DSS exhibit

A MILLION DOLLARS for the upcoming Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at Southwestern Bapitist Theological Seminary:

Couple's donation aids Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Posted Friday, Jan. 13, 2012 0 Comments Print Reprints

Topics: Bibles

Tags: Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, donations

By Jessamy Brown

jessamybrown@star-telegram.com

FORT WORTH -- A $1 million donation from a Houston couple will help fund an exhibit of fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls slated to open in July at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Gary Loveless, founder and chief executive of Houston-based Square Mile Energy, and his wife, Stephanie, made the donation, officials announced in a news release Friday.

[...]

Good for Southwestern, although I think its a pity that the donors tie the money to an affirmation of biblical inerrancy. But it's their money and they can do what they like with it.

Background on the Scroll fragments at SBTS and the exhibition is here and links.

Annual Seminar for Study of OT in New

SEMINAR:

The Annual Seminar for the Study of the Old Testament in the New will take place from 29-31st March, 2012 at St Deiniol's Library, Hawarden, N.Wales. The inclusive cost will be approximately £150. Enquiries and Booking forms are available from Steve Moyise (s.moyise@chi.ac.uk) and there are still a couple of slots left for papers. If you would like to offer a paper, please send a title and short abstract (100 words) to Steve.

From the BNTS list.

The Talpiot tomb again

MARK GOODACRE: Returning to the Talpiot Tomb.

I haven't paid much attention to the Talpiot-Tomb discussion lately, but this is the first I remember hearing that some people think Jesus had a son named Judas. I fully agree with Mark and his commenter that this is not likely, for obvious reasons.

I have collected links to many of my past posts on the Talpiot Tomb here. And note my comment about peer-review publications.

UPDATE: James McGrath has links to additional recent discussion: Further Interaction About the Talpiot Tomb.

Biblioblogospheric book notes

BIBLIOBLOGOSPHERIC BOOK NOTES:

Apri De Conick (Forbidden Gospels): Book Note: Dark Mirrors by Andrei A. Orlov.

Noted earlier here.

Mark Goodacre (NT Blog): Jesus, Criteria and the Demise of Authenticity

I can't say I'm sorry to see the demise of the authenticity criteria for Jesus logia, if that is really what's happening. Those criteria, at least as applied in recent decades, have seemed to me to be weighted toward "recovering" a historical Jesus who turns out to be a 1980s American humanities professor. Related thoughts here and here.

Duane Smith on rabbinic omen-diviners

DUANE SMITH has a note on rabbinic omen-diviners over at Abnormal Interests: The Rabbis On מנחש.

Related, sort of: “Snakes, Why Did It Have To Be Snakes.”

New book: Dušek, "Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim and Samaria between Antiochus III and Antiochus IV Epiphanes"

NEW BOOK: Jan Dušek, Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim and Samaria between Antiochus III and Antiochus IV Epiphanes (Brill):

The theme of the book stands on the intersection of epigraphy and historical research: the Aramaic and Hebrew inscriptions discovered in the vicinity of the Yahwistic sanctuary on Mt. Gerizim and their historical background. The study addresses the evidence from three perspectives: the paleography and dating of the inscriptions; the identity of the community who carved them and its institutions; and, finally, the larger historical and political context in which the inscriptions were produced. This book is particularly useful for historians of Palestine in the Second Temple period, for biblical scholars, and for those dealing with Aramaic and Hebrew paleography and epigraphy.

Via the Agade list. An earlier book by Jan Dušek on the Samaria Papyri is noted here.

Another representation of the Temple Mount without the Islamic shrines

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH (again, sort of): Haaretz has dug up another representation by the Israeli Government of the Temple Mount without the the Islamic shrines on it.

Prime minister's gift omits Muslim holy sites, inflaming passions

This week in Haaretz, 1997.
Tags: Haifa Benjamin Netanyahu Jerusalem Yasser Arafat

As the new year of 1997 dawned, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Haifa to visit the head of the Greek Catholic Church in Israel, Archbishop Maximos Salloum. Netanyahu gave the archbishop a silver engraving of the Old City of Jerusalem and wished him a happy new year.

Soon, a rumor spread that the gift lacked several key elements. Haaretz reporter Joseph Algazi called the archbishop, who acknowledged that the Muslim holy places, the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, did not appear on the engraving. Instead there was "an approximation of the Second Temple," a Jewish holy site.

"What could I have done, returned the present to the prime minister? I respect all people and all religions. The question of why the prime minister decided to give me such a gift should be asked of him, not me," the archbishop told Haaretz.

The office of the prime minister's media adviser also confirmed the report and said that the prime minister's bureau had acquired several copies of the same engraving.

"We didn't notice that the Al Aqsa mosque was missing," somebody from the office said. "Of course there was no intent on our part to insult any part of the population, and this was the result of carelessness. It was a mistake. If anyone's feelings were hurt, we apologize."

But the Arab public, still smarting from the opening of the Western Wall tunnels months earlier, were not mollified. The spokesman of the Islamic Movement in Israel, the vice mayor of Umm al-Fahm, Sheikh Hashem Abed al Rahman, told Algazi that "the gift Netanyahu offered was a serious provocation of the feelings of all Muslims around the world. It was like a declaration of war on the entire Muslim world."

[...]

Having had some success in stirring things up by making an issue of the photoshopped picture of the Temple Mount without the Dome of the Rock, which was recently distributed (possibly mistakenly) by the IDF rabbinate, Haaretz has gone through its archives and revived a story from 1997 to try to stir things up some more.

But this case looks rather different to me. The Prime Minister's office gave the Archbishop an engraving of "the Old City of Jerusalem" that had the Second Temple, rather than the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, on the Temple Mount. Was this a statement that the Israeli Government wanted to tear down the latter shrines and rebuild the Temple on the site? Isn't it rather more likely that the engraving was intended to represent Jerusalem in the Second Temple period, in which case it would have been an anachronism to put the Islamic shrines there? The panicked reaction of the PM's office doesn't really answer the question, nor does the response of certain Muslim spokesmen, nor, strangely does the article itself (which does not bother to include a picture of the actual engraving).

Does anyone have a photo of the engraving which they can share with us? Unless it can be shown that the engraving was incitement to rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount, which I rather doubt, this is much ado about nothing from long ago.

At an Islamic conference held in Pakistan in 1997, Palestinian Authority head Yasser Arafat displayed a picture of the Temple Mount area which showed the Temple in place of the mosques.

Reporter Uzi Benziman wrote in Haaretz that the prevailing wisdom was that the picture was a version of the engraving given to the archbishop by Netanyahu. "Despite the apology, the picture of the empty Temple Mount landscape found its way to Arafat, and he knew how to make use of it at the conference," Benziman wrote.

Arafat claimed that Israel was the source of the picture and that it "expressed the malicious intentions of the Netanyahu government to uproot the Muslim presence in the holy city and Judaize the Haram al-Sharif completely."

The article also fails to note that not long after this, at the 2000 Camp David Summit, Arafat denied that there was ever a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount, which rather erodes his moral authority to be outraged here.

Temple Institute in Jerusalem

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH, sort of:

CITYsights: Jewish temple brought to Life

By ITRAVELJERUSALEM.COM TEAM
01/10/2012 15:45

How a visit to the Institute's museum can bring the reality of the Jewish temple to life.

Founded in 1987, the Temple Institute in the Old City of Jerusalem is dedicated to the building of the Third Temple in Jerusalem. The Institute focuses a lot of energy on practically preparing the fine details for the Third Temple as well as lighting the flame of the temple in Jewish hearts through seminars, publications, conferences, and the production of educational materials.

The Institute has created replicas of many of the ritual objects used in the Temple, including the Temple vessels, trumpets, and priestly vestments, all constructed according to Biblical specifications and ready to be put into service should the need arise. After many years of effort, the Institute has completed the three most significant and central vessels of the Divine service: the seven-branched Menorah made of pure gold; the golden Incense Altar, and the golden Table of the Showbread.

[...]

Thoughts:

1. There's a nice 60-second video of some of the replicas, which look cool.

2. The article might have indicated what the Institute plans to do about the Islamic shrines that are already there on the Temple Mount. This is not a trivial issue.

3. Again (and again and again), no digging on the Temple Mount Platform apart from scientific archaeological excavations. Preferably not even those. Let's wait a couple of decades until we can use non-destructive scanning and molecular technologies to uncover what's there.

Treasure-hunting idiots damage archaeological site

TREASURE-HUNTING IDIOTS have damaged an archaeological site near Beit Shemesh: Gold diggers ravage archeological site: Two Bedouins from Dimona destroy 2,000-year-old well in search for tall tale buried treasure (Omri Efraim, YnetNews).

"Baseless fairytales about buried treasures make people crazy," said Amir Ganor, who heads the Antiquities Authority's theft prevention unit.

Indeed.

(Via Joseph I. Lauer and the Agade List.)

Job in ANE and Classics at CT State

JOB: Assistant professor at Connecticut State to teach Ancient Near East and Greco-Roman Classics.

WSJ on Aramaic in Iraq

ARAMAIC WATCH: Ancient Language Gets Extended Life In Iraq (Brooke Anderson, WSJ Europe). This is a very good article on the current state of Aramaic in Kurdish Iraq, one of the few places where a relatively stable political environment is encouraging the language to prosper. Excerpt:

"We're very proud of our language," says Sister Jermine Daoud, a nun originally from Baghdad who grew up speaking the language and who now lives in Shaqlawa, in northern Iraq, one of the few places in the world where Aramaic is still spoken on the street. "After the war so many [Aramaic speakers] left. But I'm not worried about the language disappearing."

For years, extinction looked like a real possibility for Aramaic, especially after the Anfal campaign that lasted from 1986 to 1989, in which Saddam Hussein's government is believed to have destroyed more than 4,000 Kurdish, Christian and other minority villages in Northern Iraq, where Aramaic was widely spoken, in an attempt to "Arabize" the country's minorities.

This push was halted with the imposition of the no-fly zone in Iraq in 1991, and the subsequent establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government in 1992, as Aramaic was increasingly taught in Christian churches. Then, in 2003, following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Syriac—the classical written version of Neo Aramaic—along with Kurdish, Arabic and English classes became part of the curriculum of many schools.

Today, with the increased stability in the country's Kurdish region, and the subsequent move north by Christians fleeing inter-communal violence elsewhere in the country, the ancient language is making a comeback in the area. Of the estimated 30,000 people world-wide who speak a dialect of Neo-Aramaic, most live in Iraqi Kurdistan.

While the classical language is being taught in classrooms in Iraqi Kurdistan, the modern language is being broadcast from satellite stations. Two of the most popular stations that feature Aramaic are Ishtar, a privately funded station based in Ankawa, and Ashur, funded by the Assyrian Democratic Movement party.

Read it all.

Anne Rice's "Christ the Lord" to become a movie

ANNE RICE'S NOVEL CHRIST THE LORD is set to become a movie: BH Interview: Director Cyrus Nowrasteh, Anne Rice Join Forces to Bring ‘Christ the Lord’ to the Big Screen (Christian Toto, Big Hollywood). Excerpt:

Tensions can often flare between authors and filmmakers, but Nowrasteh reports a fluid give-and-take between his creative team, which includes his co-screenwriter and wife Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh. and Rice.

“Once we had a draft that everyone was excited about, we kicked it back to her. We wanted her detailed input and participation,” he says. “We felt a responsibility to her. We didn’t want to go out with the script until she put her stamp on it.”

It certainly helped that Rice is no stranger to films inspired by her texts.

“Anne understands the challenges inherent to adapting a novel to the screen,” he says, referring to Rice-inspired productions like “Interview with a Vampire” and “Queen of the Damned.”

“Christ the Lord,” is currently in pre-production, is what Nowrasteh calls a “work of informed fiction.”

“There’s a great chapter at the end of the book where she talks about her sources, what she worked from,” he says, including the New Testamanet, the Apocrypha and early legends pertaining to the life of Christ. “It’s not as if she sat down and made a story. She really did her research.”

For lots more on the novel, go here and follow the links. There was a report some years ago of a movie version in production in Israel, but I don't know what became of that project. It doesn't seem to be the same as this one.

More on the photoshopped Temple Mount photo

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Jihad Sites Pounce on Temple Photoshop Photos (Arutz Sheva). This with reference to the story last week of the publication by the IDF rabbinate of a photo of the Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock photoshopped away. This article provides some back story:

The Elder of Zion blog reported that "the original photographer/artist is Mikhail Levit," and noted that the photo has been on websites as far back as 2008: "So obviously the IDF rabbinate did not edit the photo. It was a nice picture; the people behind the pamphlet found it somewhere online, and put it on the pamphlet."

A reserves officer who brought the photo to Haaretz's attention warned that “A world war could break out if someone tried to do something about that place," and opined that the Rabbinate "should be more cautious when approaching the subject.”

However, it was precisely the publication in Haaretz that drew jihadi and international attention to the story.

The link in the article to the Elder of Zion blog post doesn't work, but you can read it here.

It seems then that the publication of the photo in the pamphlet may have been a careless mistake. Someone thought it was a nice photo and somehow didn't notice the Dome of the Rock was missing. Such things happen happen from time to time and are embarrassing, but are not that big a deal.

But if this is the explanation, the IDF handled the situation poorly by claiming the photo was meant to show the Temple Mount in the time of the Second Temple instead of just 'fessing up to the mistake. The explanation is ridiculous and implies a complicity that is unhelpful.

Whether or not Haaretz should have published the article once the story came to their attention is another question. The writer of the blog post is sharply critical. I'm inclined to cut them a little slack, since Haaretz does make some effort (not without errors) to be evenhanded on the subject of the Temple Mount, covering issues like the Waqf's illicit excavations there and the work of the Temple Mount Sifting Project (see, e.g., here and links). It's the job of the media to keep governments on their toes, and that means publicizing their silly mistakes. I don't think the reaction or over-reaction of jihadi websites is of that much interest either way.

Ancient menorah stamp found in Akko

ANCIENT MENORAH STAMP FOUND IN AKKO (IAA press release):

A Stamp with the Temple Menorah was Uncovered in Excavations near Akko

The tiny stamp was used to identify baked products and it probably belonged to a bakery that supplied kosher bread to the Jews of Akko in the Byzantine period
A 1,500 year old seal bearing an image of the seven-branched Temple Menorah was discovered near the city of Akko.
A ceramic stamp from the Byzantine period (6th century CE) was discovered in excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is currently conducting at Horbat Uza east of Akko, prior to the construction of the Akko-Karmiel railroad track by the Israel National Roads Company. This find belongs to a group of stamps referred to as “bread stamps” because they were usually used to stamp baked goods.

According to Gilad Jaffe and Dr. Danny Syon, the directors of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “A number of stamps bearing an image of a menorah are known from different collections. The Temple Menorah, being a Jewish symbol par excellence, indicates the stamps belonged to Jews, unlike Christian bread stamps with the cross pattern which were much more common in the Byzantine period”. According to Syon, “This is the first time such a stamp is discovered in a controlled archaeological excavation, thus making it possible to determine its provenance and date of manufacture. The stamp is important because it proves that a Jewish community existed in the settlement of Uza in the Christian-Byzantine period. The presence of a Jewish settlement so close to Akko – a region that was definitely Christian at this time – constitutes an innovation in archaeological research”. The excavators add, “Due to the geographical proximity of Horbat Uza to Akko, we can speculate that the settlement supplied kosher baked goods to the Jews of Akko in the Byzantine period”.

The stamp is engraved with a seven-branched menorah atop a narrow base, and the top of the branches forms a horizontal line. A number of Greek letters are engraved around a circle and dot on the end of the handle. Dr. Leah Di Segni, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem suggested this is probably the name Launtius. This name was common among Jews of the period and also appears on another Jewish bread stamp of unknown provenance. According to Dr. Syon and Gilad Jaffe, “This is probably the name of the baker from Horbat Uza.”
Horbat Uza is a small rural settlement where clues were previously found that allude to it being a Jewish settlement: a clay coffin, a Shabbat lamp and jars with menorah patterns painted on them were discovered there.

Dr. David Amit of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who has made a study of bread stamps, adds, “A potter engraved the menorah image in the surface of the stamp prior to firing it in a kiln, whereas the owner’s name was engraved in the stamp’s handle after firing. Hence we can assume that a series of stamps bearing the menorah symbol were produced for Jewish bakers, and each of these bakers carved his name on the handle, which also served as a stamp. In this way the dough could be stamped twice before baking: once with the menorah – the general symbol of the Jewish identity of Jewish bakeries, and the private name of the baker in each of these bakeries, which also guaranteed the bakery’s kashrut.

Click here to download high resolution photographs:

1. General view of the excavation. Photograph credit: Sky View Company, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

2, 3. Dr. Danny Syon, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

For further information, kindly contact: Dr. Danny Syon from the Israel Antiquities Authority, 052-5991712 / dovrut@israntique.org.il

Here are the three photographs:







Media coverage so far in Arutz Sheva (with a predictable spin): Temple Menorah Stamp Affirms Jewish Claim to Land.

Although the interpretation proposed in the press release is plausible enough, it should be noted that it isn't quite certain. Menorahs were a common Jewish symbol in antiquity, but there is some evidence that Christians used them too, possibly even on a bread stamp. See Ross S. Kraemer, "Jewish Tuna and Christian Fish: Identifying Religious Affiliation in Epigraphic Sources," HTR 84 (1991), 141-62, esp. p. 151. (The article is twenty years old, but I am unaware of a follow-up that re-evaluates the evidence she collects. If there is such, please drop me a note with the bibliographic information.)

More on ancient menorahs here and links.

(IAA press release via Joseph I. Lauer.)

Microarchaeology at Ashkelon

TECHNOLOGY WATCH:

Using Modern Tools to Reconstruct Ancient Life

By SAM ROBERTS
Published: January 9, 2012 (NYT)

ASHKELON, Israel — To the naked eye, the white, powdery substance appeared to be plaster. That’s what the professional and volunteer archaeologists at a dig in Israel concluded.

To be certain, though, they subjected the chalky dust to spectroscopy and a petrographic microscope, only to discover that it was not a manufactured substance, but decayed plant life and fecal matter.

What that meant to the archaeologists from the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon — a former seaport south of Tel Aviv that was home to successive civilizations over thousands of years — was that structures thought to have been inhabited by people were more likely occupied by animals. That revelation upended their view of what they were excavating.

“For archaeologists,” said the expedition’s co-director, Daniel M. Master, a professor at Wheaton College in Illinois, “it was the difference between a palace and a stable.”

This marriage of social and natural sciences is an emerging discipline that has been called microarchaeology by Steve Weiner, director of the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science in the Weizmann Institute in Israel, which is collaborating with the expedition.

[...]

Not surprisingly, the Ashkelon expedition remains at the cutting edge of archaeological method.

Are you a descendant of the House of David?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Are you a descendant of the House of David?

Assuming David actually existed, and I think he probably did, this still strikes me as a case of over-interpreting the evidence.

Orthodox Christmas in Syriac and Church Slavonic

ORTHODOX CHRISTMAS in Syriac (for Russians in India!): Kerala church celebrates Russian Christmas. And in Church Slavonic: Orthodox Christians in Slovakia celebrate Christmas. I hope everyone celebrating has had a Merry Christmas in whatever language you were celebrating it in.

Conference: Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the Scriptures

CALL FOR SHORT PAPERS: Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the Scriptures, a conference at the Catholic University in Leuven in July. I will be there leading a seminar on "The Use of Scripture in Ezra Pseudepigrapha."

Beginner's Aramaic Zohar update

BEGINNER'S ARAMAIC ZOHAR UPDATE: Justin Jaron Lewis e-mails:

Following up on your "Aramaic Watch" posting of Sept. 15 2011, I wanted to let you know that the first semester of the pilot course on the Aramaic of the Zohar concluded well. Six students who began the semester without any knowledge of Semitic languages successfully learned to sound out vocalized Aramaic (we are using modern Hebrew pronunciation for convenience), got a basic sense of how roots work, learned a few hundred words of vocabulary, and, from mid-semester or earlier, have been reading and translating brief selections from the Zohar. The course continues this semester with a focus on verbs; I'm hoping also to arrive at a comfort level with unpointed texts. A draft textbook is in progress. Thank you for your interest!

Well done! Thanks for the update.

Another review of Hoffman, "The Dovekeepers"

ANOTHER REVIEW OF HOFFMAN, THE DOVEKEEPERS:

A doomed mountaintop paradise

By Debby Waldman, edmontonjournal.com January 7, 2012

The Dovekeepers

Alice Hoffman

Simon & Schuster

504 pp; $29.99

Review by Debby Waldman

Excerpt:

Over 20-some novels, including The Red Garden and The Story Sisters, Hoffman has won well-deserved accolades for crafting intelligent page-turners about women imbued with magic. Shed’s outdone herself on that count here. Inspired by a visit to Masada, she has brought the community to life through the eyes of four unforgettable female characters.

Links to earlier reviews etc are here.

End of year roundup posts at Bible Places blog

THE BIBLE PLACES BLOG has a couple of end-of-2011 roundup posts: Top Stories of 2011 and More Top Stories of 2011.

Tom Verenna reviews DSS exhibit in NYC

TOM VERENNA: Review of the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit at the Discovery Center.

UPDATE: Background here and links.

Coptic Christmas

COPTIC CHRISTMAS: Egypt’s Christians celebrate Christmas amid fears (AP).

Rivka Ulmer, "Psalm 22 in Pesiqta Rabbati"

ESSAY AT THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION WEBSITE:

Psalm 22 in Pesiqta Rabbati: The Suffering of the Jewish Messiah and Jesus

Chapter from The Jewish Jesus Revelation, Reflection, Reclamation (Purdue University Press: 2011)

By Rivka Ulmer
Department of Religion
Bucknell University
November 2011

The essay covers a wider range of texts than indicated in the title, including a surprising Qumran variant in Psalm 22. Follow the link for a link to the essay as a pdf file.

This is a description of the book in which it appears:

There is a general understanding within religious and academic circles that the incarnate Christ of Christian belief lived and died a faithful Jew. This volume addresses Jesus in the context of Judaism. By emphasizing his Jewishness, the authors challenge today’s Jews to reclaim the Nazarene as a proto-rebel rabbi and invite Christians to discover or rediscover the Church’s Jewish heritage. The essays in this volume cover historical, literary, liturgical, philosophical, religious, theological, and contemporary issues related to the Jewish Jesus. Several of them were originally presented at a three-day symposium on “Jesus in the Context of Judaism and the Challenge to the Church,” hosted by the Samuel Rosenthal Center for Judaic Studies at Case Western Reserve University in 2009.

In the context of pluralism, in the temper of growing interreligious dialogue, and in the spirit of reconciliation, encountering Jesus as living history for Christians and Jews is both necessary and proper. This book will be of particular interest to scholars of the New Testament and Early Church who are seeking new ways of understanding Jesus in his religious and cultural milieu, as well Jewish and Christian theologians and thinkers who are concerned with contemporary Jewish and Christian relationships.

Review of "The Dovekeepers"

REVIEW OF ALICE HOFFMAN, THE DOVEKEEPERS:

‘Dovekeepers’ a tale of Masada as grim death approaches

by Hilary Daninhirsch
[Jewish] Chronicle Correspondent

One hallmark of a good writer is finding a new way to tell an old story. Fans of Alice Hoffman will be surprised, and yet pleased, to discover “The Dovekeepers,” a fresh version of the story of Masada in the year 70 C.E., just after the Temple is destroyed. Historical fiction is a total departure for Hoffman’s adult novels, although she does weave familiar themes of magic and mysticism into the story.

[...]

Links to earlier reviews etc. here.

Best footnote ever

BEST FOOTNOTE EVER. By Michael V. Fox.

Yohanan Ben Zakkai and some Sephardic synagogues

RABBI YOHANAN BEN ZAKKAI serves as the launching point for a Jerusalem Post Travel piece on Sephardic synagogues in Jerusalem.

Off the Beaten Track: Yochanan Ben Zakkai

By JOE YUDIN
01/05/2012 14:58

Travel expert Joe Yudin discusses link between famous Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai and Four Sephardic Synagogues of J'lem.

Here's the supposed connection:

... in 1877, Bernhard Neumann wrote:

"The Sephardi synagogues are wrapped in an aura of antiquity and all who enter their underground rooms feel a sense of mystery and holiness. The present synagogue, Kahal Zion, was founded by the Sephardim in what was believed to have been the study hall of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, before the destruction of the Temple…Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt allowed them to renovate the building; this work was completed in 1845. It was then that an inscribed stone was discovered that proved the building to be 460 years old…"

Be that as it may, the article also retells one of the best-known and most entertaining stories about R. Yohanan:

Perhaps Yohannan ben Zakkai's greatest contribution to the Jewish people lies in the Talmudic story of the destruction of the Temple. The Jewish War was raging in the year 69 C.E. and the Jewish rebels had holed themselves up on the Temple Mount. The Romans were ravaging their way through the Land of Israel and Jerusalem was all but lost. Vespasian and his Tenth Legion would surely breakthrough to the Temple courts at any day. Yohanan ben Zakkai did what no other rabbi dared to do. In defiance of the rebels orders he knew that he must get off the Temple Mount with his disciples in order to continue the study of Torah. He played dead and his students wrapped him in a burial shroud and smuggled him out of the Temple complex, through a cemetery and straight to the camp of the Roman general Vespasian. Ben Zakkai was known to Vespasian as a man of great influence who had tried to discourage the war to no avail. He addressed Vespasian as "king" twice. As Nero was king, Vespasian believed the rabbi was just trying to butter him up, and he had Ben Zakkai locked up in the darkest of solitary confinement awaiting a death sentence. Three days later the news arrived that Nero was dead and Vespasian had indeed become king. Vespasian as a reward for his prophecy would grant the rabbi any wish. His wish was to allow the other great rabbis on the Temple Mount to join him and his disciples in Yavne, and to set up a yeshiva to keep the flame of Torah study alive, and with that he changed Judaism forever.

It's a good story, but perhaps one to be taken with a grain of salt, especially given that the contemporary Jewish historian Flavius Josephus claims to have made exactly the same prophecy to Vespasian when Josephus was a prisoner of the Romans, with a not disssimilar result:

When Josephus heard him give those orders, he said that he had somewhat in his mind that he would willingly say to himself alone. When therefore they were all ordered to withdraw, excepting Titus and two of their friends, he said, "Thou, O Vespasian, thinkest no more than that thou hast taken Josephus himself captive; but I come to thee as a messenger of greater tidings; for had not I been sent by God to thee, I knew what was the law of the Jews in this case? (5) and how it becomes generals to die. Dost thou send me to Nero? For why? Are Nero's successors till they come to thee still alive? Thou, O Vespasian, art Caesar and emperor, thou, and this thy son. Bind me now still faster, and keep me for thyself, for thou, O Caesar, are not only lord over me, but over the land and the sea, and all mankind; and certainly I deserve to be kept in closer custody than I now am in, in order to be punished, if I rashly affirm any thing of God." When he had said this, Vespasian at present did not believe him, but supposed that Josephus said this as a cunning trick, in order to his own preservation; but in a little time he was convinced, and believed what he said to be true, God himself erecting his expectations, so as to think of obtaining the empire, and by other signs fore-showing his advancement. He also found Josephus to have spoken truth on other occasions; for one of those friends that were present at that secret conference said to Josephus, "I cannot but wonder how thou couldst not foretell to the people of Jotapata that they should be taken, nor couldst foretell this captivity which hath happened to thyself, unless what thou now sayest be a vain thing, in order to avoid the rage that is risen against thyself." To which Josephus replied, "I did foretell to the people of Jotapata that they would be taken on the forty-seventh day, and that I should be caught alive by the Romans." Now when Vespasian had inquired of the captives privately about these predictions, he found them to be true, and then he began to believe those that concerned himself. Yet did he not set Josephus at liberty from his hands, but bestowed on him suits of clothes, and other precious gifts; he treated him also in a very obliging manner, and continued so to do, Titus still joining his interest ill the honors that were done him. (Jewish War iii.8.9/iii.399-405, Whiston translation)

The Roman historian Suetonius also refers briefly to the same story with Josephus as the protagonist:

When he [Vespasian] consulted the oracle of the god of Carmel in Judaea, the lots were highly encouraging, promising that whatever he planned or wished, however great it might be, would come to pass; and one of his highborn prisoners, Josephus by name, as he was being put in chains, declared most confidently that he would soon be released by the same man, who would then, however, be emperor. (Vespasian 5)

IDF rabbinate photoshops away Dome of the Rock

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

IDF rabbinate edits out Dome of the Rock from picture of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount

Photo appears in army packet on Hanukkah describing the Jewish revolt against Hellenistic rule; IDF spokesman: Image meant to illustrate a period in which holy Muslim site did not exist.

By Gili Cohen (Haaretz)

What were they thinking? Did they really think the media would not get hold of this?

You can get a better view of the photo at this Gawker post, where John Cook points out, somewhat less tactfully than I, that a reconstruction of the site in antiquity might better have included the Temple itself in the picture, or at least might have photoshopped out the people in modern dress and the electric lights.

For comparison, here's a reconstruction of how Herod's Temple might have looked. And here's another with a viewpoint closer to that of the IDF photo and with properly attired people. It would not have been at all difficult to find and use something similar, which would have avoided this negative publicity.

900 ancient Judean coins to be auctioned in NYC

900 ANCIENT JUDEAN COINS are going up for auction in New York in March, including a couple of rare ones from the first revolt against Rome. If a private collector buys them, I strongly encourage the new owner to continue to make them available for scholars to study.

More on the inscribed object from Jerusalem

MORE ON THE INSCRIBED OBJECT FROM JERUSALEM: Joseph I. Lauer has sent out a Hebrew University press release that explains the theory of Professor Naeh more clearly and with greater detail.

News Release

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem האוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים

Controversy in archaeology: Hebrew University professor disputes claims about purpose of newly-discovered Temple artifact

Challenges interpretation of Israel Antiquities Authority; says ancient seal was used by Temple administration to track purchases, not to indicate purity

Jerusalem, Jan. 4, 2012 — A Talmudic scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is challenging the conventional wisdom about the purpose of an ancient artifact recently discovered in archaeological excavations in the Temple Mount area of Jerusalem.

On December 25, newspapers around the world reported the discovery of a tiny object of fired clay, about the size of a button, stamped with an inscription consisting of the Hebrew letters דכא ליה (“DKA LYH” or "Deka Leyah"). The object was discovered in excavations organized by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) about 15 meters north of the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount, beneath Robinson’s Arch in the Archaeological Garden in Jerusalem.

According to the archaeologists in charge of the excavation, the letters are an Aramaic inscription meaning "pure for God," and the object was used to mark things brought to the Temple as ritually pure.

But Prof. Shlomo Naeh, a professor in the Hebrew University's Talmud Department and the head of Hebrew University's Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies, points out several problems with this explanation. According to Naeh, "Labeling an object as 'pure' is not reasonable because according to ritual law, an object can easily lose its purity at any time, even if merely touched by an unclean person. Moreover, symbols of purity must be attached in a way that prevents their removal or transfer to another object, but this artifact was not found to contain spurs or holes for string that would have enabled it to be firmly attached. And it would not have been used as a stamp, because the writing on it is from right to left, and not in the mirror-image writing typically used on stamps. Preserving the purity of an object must be done in a more secure manner, for example by inscribing and sealing vessels in such a way that it’s impossible to open them without it being noticeable."

Naeh offers an entirely different explanation: the object is a kind of voucher or token, referred to in the Mishnah as a "חותם" (seal), which enabled the Temple administrator to keep track of commerce related to sacrificial offerings. (The Mishnah is a compilation of Jewish oral tradition redacted by Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi around 200 CE; it comprises the first section of the Talmud.)

In Temple times, every animal sacrifice was accompanied by additional offerings consisting of flour, wine and oil, in varying proportions depending on the type of sacrifice. These offerings had to be purchased in the Temple to ensure they were kosher and pure.

According to the Mishnah, the sale of these additional offerings was managed in a centralized manner: the person bringing the sacrifice would pay for them at the Temple "office” and receive a seal-like object with Aramaic writing listing the type of sacrifice. The person would then bring the seal to the seller of additional offerings and receive the specified allotment.

According to Professor Naeh, the newly-discovered artifact was used to track these transactions. In an abbreviated code necessitated by the object's small size, the inscription indicates the type of additional offering the buyer was entitled to and the date on which he was entitled to it. In this instance, the letters are an abbreviation of three words: “Dakhar Aleph Le-Yehoyariv,” meaning the buyer was entitled to the additional offerings for a ram, on the first day of the work shift of the Yehoyariv family of priests.

“Dakhar” in Aramaic means “male” (signifying a ram), as described in the Mishnah: “There were four seals in the Sanctuary, inscribed with the words Egel (calf), Zakhar (ram), Gdi (kid), and Khote (sinner); Ben Azai says, the inscriptions were in Aramaic: Egel, Dakhar, Gdi, and Khote” (Shekalim, 5D).

“Aleph” indicates the first day of the week, meaning the sacrifice was brought on a Sunday.

"Yehoyariv" indicates the family that had the first of the twenty-four weekly shifts according to the division of labor among priestly families working in the Temple.

Prof. Naeh explains: "To prevent deception or fraud, they limited the validity of the seal so that it could not be used on any other day. According to the tradition recorded in the Mishnah and the Jerusalem Talmud, they marked it with the day of the week and the name of the priestly shift that was working that week in the Temple." Priestly families were divided into twenty-four shifts and alternated the watches (shifts) so that each family worked approximately once in each six month cycle.

"This archaeological discovery is living proof that the Temple was administered as described in the Mishnah,” adds Prof. Naeh. "This interpretation also explains why this object is such a rare find, because the seals mentioned in the Mishnah were used only in the Temple area as an internal means of exchange, and it can be assumed that only a few items found their way out of the Temple."

Prof. Naeh added that in recent years, researchers of Jewish antiquity have raised doubts about the credibility of early rabbinical descriptions of Temple activity. However in this instance the Mishnah was shown to contain accurate and precise information about the workings of the Temple, and this should caution us against making sweeping generalizations that deny the historical credibility of early rabbinical sources.

For more information, contact:
-Dov Smith, Hebrew University Media Relations, 02-5881641 (international: 972-2-5881641) / dovs@savion.huji.ac.il
-Orit Sulitzeanu, Hebrew University Spokesperson, 02-5882910, mobile: 054-882-0016 / orits@savion.huji.ac.il
Online: http://www.huji.ac.il

Dov Smith
Foreign Media Liaison
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Website Twitter Facebook YouTube
dovs@savion.huji.ac.il
972-2-5881641

Okay, I see now that Professor Naeh was not proposing to find a resh on the seal, as I misunderstood yesterday (see link above). Good, because it doesn't seem to be there. Rather, he is proposing that the dalet is an abbreviation of dakar, "ram," and the aleph an abbreviation for "one," or "first," that is the the first day of the week in which the relevant priestly family was on duty. The Mishnaic references are also given.

This is an interesting idea, but if it is correct we are dealing with three abbreviations in a row, which would not make a text easy to decipher! As I said yesterday, I would like to see some analogies in contemporary texts. Preferably in a peer-review journal article.

I suppose I should also follow Joe Lauer in noting the developing controversy over whether Robert Deutsch proposed this interpretation first and to what degree he should have been cited in the above press release. Deutsch's comment is passed on here by Jim West, which refers to an ANE-2-list posting by Deutsch on 26 December, later reposted on his Academia.edu blog on 31 December, as well as elsewhere. This was followed up with an explanatory post on the ANE-2 list dated 4 January.

Joe Lauer comments:

The following Hebrew University release has: "According to Naeh, **** Moreover, symbols of purity must be attached in a way that prevents their removal or transfer to another object, but this artifact was not found to contain spurs or holes for string that would have enabled it to be firmly attached." [Starred matter omitted.]
The sentences in the Ha'aretz article and the following release seem to mention items or details not mentioned in Mr. Deutsch's postings.
However, if someone has more information, especially of something that I missed (which is entirely possible), please forward it to me.

Another interpretation of inscribed object from Jerusalem

ANOTHER INTERPRETATION of that inscribed clay object recently discovered in Jerusalem:

Scholars offer new explanation for rare Temple artifact in Jerusalem

Object, at the northwestern corner of the Temple Mount, was initially thought to read 'Daka LeYa,' which means 'pure to God' in Aramaic.

By Nir Hasson

Although it is true that scholars are suggesting new interpretations of this object (see here), this article, contra the headline, is about a new explanation advanced by one scholar.

But Prof. Shlomo Naeh of the Hebrew University's Talmud department believes the inscription could be read differently. "I was sitting with my son and looking at the photograph, and in a moment of intuition, I realized what it could be," he told Haaretz Tuesday.

Naeh also believes the object is related to Temple worship and purity, but reads the inscription differently, as "Dakar a Leyehoyariv." Dakar in Aramaic means ram and a stands for aleph, the first day of the week, when the priestly order of Yehoyariv was on duty in the Temple.

Thus, the object was used in Temple worship, but not how Reich and Shukron believe it was, says Naeh. To ensure the purity of animal sacrifices offered in the Temple - and to maintain an economic monoply, Naeh believes - pilgrims had to buy their offerings in the Temple courts. They gave money to a treasurer who would exchange it for a token inscribed with the type of sacrifice they had purchased and the date.

Like Reich and Shukron, Naeh supports his theory with a mishnaic verse citing the existence of such tokens. With regard to Reich and Shukron's interpretation, he said: "Purity was very fluid; the touch of an impure person was enough to make the object impure, so it is unlikely such a seal existed."

I take it that Professor Naeh reads the first word as DKRʼ "the ram," rather than DKʼ, "pure," and he accepts the proposed reading of the second word as LYH, but interprets it as the abbreviation of the name of a priestly order rather than a divine name.

The kaph in the first word does have an odd mark above the tick at the top which could perhaps be interpreted as a damaged resh (inserted there for lack of space?), but it looks odd and I would want to see parallels for the placement in other seals of the period. Also, there seems to be a similar smaller mark above the similar tick on the first letter (dalet), which makes me disinclined to read the mark over the kaph as a separate letter. You need to look closely at all of the published photographs to see all this. So my provisional, off-the-cuff reading is DKʼ rather than DKRʼ.

As for Professor Naeh's interpretation of the second word, well, could be. Abbreviations are a bane to the epigrapher. Again, I would like to see some contemporary parallels.

It's nice that this object is getting so much responsible attention from the media and it's fun to propose and discuss interpretations of it informally, but as usual, serious evaluation of its meaning will have to take place in technical peer-review publications.

Also, a small note to Nir Hasson, who does a good job overall of covering these stories. When your article has someone citing a mishnaic verse, it's good form to give the reference.

UPDATE (5 January): I misunderstood part of Professor Naeh's argument: he does not propose to find a resh in the inscription. Much more on his proposal here (next post).

Schiffman on the DSS at Chabad.org

CHABAD.ORG: What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls? Professor Lawrence Schiffman discusses the Qumran Scrolls.

Jazz Talmud

JAZZ TALMUD: Poem as a Noisy Mediterranean Duplex (Jake Marmer, The Forward).

said Rabbi Zusha: “my mother named me Sasha but I fell into a seraphic orchestra pit, and things have not been the same” his students asked him: “what did you see in the pit?” he answered: “behold, four seraphs held a cello, like a naked, newly-formed body, and eight pushed the bow” whose cello? Adam’s whose bow? Mordechai’s, the refused bow that makes cellos of heaven sing the soul-spilling human heaviness ...

Zenobia turns four

HAPPY FOURTH BLOGIVERSARY TO ZENOBIA: EMPRESS OF THE EAST.

Talmud Blog Book Club on Rosen-Zvi, "Demonic Desires"

THE TALMUD BLOG BOOK CLUB has posted its first book discussion: The Book Club: Ishay Rosen-Zvi’s Demonic Desires. The first of many, I hope.

Philip Esler, "Reading Biblical Narrative with Its Ancient Audience"

PHILIP ESLER has an essay posted at the Bible and Interpretation website:

Reading Biblical Narrative with Its Ancient Audience

Cultures similar to, but certainly not the same as, those of ancient Israel and sharing all of these features have existed around the Mediterranean until very recent times and have been studied closely by anthropologists,... By applying this material to biblical narratives we can wash away our modern, Northern Atlantic understandings of what they meant and find something very different and very exciting underneath.


For further details of this research and for references to the secondary authors referred to, please see Philip F. Esler, Sex, Wives, and Warriors: Reading Biblical Narrative With Its Ancient Audience (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2011).

Hebrew papers on recent Temple Mount excavations

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Those Hebrew conference papers on the new scientific excavations at the eastern slopes of the Temple Mount are now available online at the Temple Mount Sifting Project blog.

Background here.

(HT Joseph I. Lauer.)

Hugoye call for papers

A CALL FOR PAPERS at the Hygoye list:

The editors of Hugoye would like to issue a general call for papers for future volumes of Hugoye. Volume 15 (2012) is set, but there is still time to submit papers to be considered for publication as early as Volume 16 (2013). We know that there are plenty of journals available for scholars to consider, but because Hugoye is one of the few journals dedicated exclusively to the Syriac tradition, we hope that you will submit your papers dealing with Syriac topics to us so that we can ensure that Hugoye remains on the cutting edge of Syriac scholarship.

All the best for the new year,

Hugoye editorial staff

The electronic (and free!) journal Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies is here. It publishes lots of good stuff.

More on the Afghan geniza report

MORE ON THE AFGHAN GENIZA REPORT:

Scrolls raise questions as to Afghan Jewish history
By GIL SHEFLER (Jerusalem Post)
01/02/2012 21:49

Scholar hopes findings might shed light on medieval merchants.

An Afghan shepherd enters a wolves den perched high in the mountains of Samangan province looking for a sheep that went astray.

Inside, he doesn’t find what he is looking for, but just as he is about to leave he notices something strange: Pieces of old parchment lie strewn on the dirt floor.

What is it with shepherds and caves and scrolls?

So goes one of the stories behind the recent discovery of about 150 manuscripts and artifacts in a remote cave that belonged to a medieval Jewish community.

“But there are several and they are always the same about shepherds looking for sheep,” admitted Prof. Haggai Ben-Shammai of the Hebrew University on Sunday.

“Who knows how they were really found?” Scholars are currently in the early stages of poring over the texts dating from the 11th century and written in Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Persian.

Commendable skepticism. I hope that at some point this cave can be located and excavated, as the Qumran caves eventually were.

“They have dates so we can date them precisely,” said Prof. Shaul Shaked of the Hebrew University.

“There’s no doubt that they are authentic. They correspond with similar findings from the past.”

The expert in ancient Persian languages said the scrolls included an ancient copy of the book of Jeremiah; hitherto unknown scholarly works by the medieval sage Rabbi Sa’adia Gaon; personal poems of loss and mourning and even bookkeeping records that could teach us about everyday life in the community.

“The person who wrote it, a Jewish merchant, keeps track of who owed him how much,” said Shaked.

He added that the texts show the community may have been Karaite, a sect of Judaism which strictly adheres to the bible rather than the Talmud and other later Jewish texts, and name several early Karaite leaders.

[...]

If Shaul Shaked thinks the fragments are genuine, then that's the way to bet.

The headline and the article refer to "scrolls," but in this period I would expect codices (i.e., something more like a bound book as we know it). But the "bookkeeping records" might well be on individual sheets of parchment.

The 150 "manuscripts and artifacts" (the former reportedly poorly preserved, as one might expect) seem to be the entire lot from this cave. But Professor Shaked seems optimistic that there will be "many more" such "findings in that part of the world." I hope he's right.

(Via Joseph I. Lauer.)

Background here.

Biblioblogging Carnival

THE BIBLIOBLOGGING CARNIVAL for January 2012 (or is it December 2011?) has been posted at Dr. Jim's Thinking Shop. There's a Pratchett theme and, remarkably, there are no pictures of cats and only one cat cartoon.

Modi'in, past and present

HANUKKAH AND HISTORY: Urban Planning, Hasmonean-Style (Elli Fischer, Jewish Ideas Daily).

In the early 1990s, construction began on Modi'in, Israel's new "City of the Future." Designed by renowned architect Moshe Safdie and located mid-way between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Modi'in is in many ways typical of modern planned communities.

But Modi'in is not simply Israel's version of Columbia, Maryland. What sets it apart lies not within the city but around and under it: extensive ruins from every historical era of the past 2,200 years, including sites that form the heartland of the Hanukkah story.

More posts on Hanukkah and history collected here.

UPDATE: Also of relevance to Hanukkah: Hanukkah and Piyyut (Part 3) (Ophir Münz-Manor, The Talmud blog).

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Have a great 2012 and keep reading PaleoJudaica.

A new geniza on the Silk Road?

A NEW GENIZA on the Silk Road?

Scholarly world abuzz over Jewish scrolls find
By GIL SHEFLER
12/31/2011 17:24

Ch. 2: If authenticated, historical find in Afghanistan may be on par with Cairo’s Geniza

The Jewish scholarly world is abuzz over the discovery of ancient Jewish scrolls in a cave in Afghanistan’s Samangan province, Channel 2 reported on Friday.

According to Arab Affairs correspondent Ehud Yeari, if validated the scrolls may be the most significant historical finding in the Jewish world since that of the Cairo Geniza in the 19th century.

“We know today about a couple of findings,” Haggai Ben-Shammai, Professor Emeritus of Arabic Language and Literature at Hebrew University was quoted as saying. “In all, in my opinion, there are about 150 fragments. It may be the tip of the iceberg.”

The scrolls, which were part of a geniza, a burial site for sacred Jewish texts, date from around 1,000 years ago and are in Arabic, Judeo-Arabic and ancient Persian.

[...]

So far they have identified a dirge and "an unknown history of the ancient kingdom of Judea, passages from the book of Isaiah and some of the works of Rabbi Saadia Gaon, a medieval sage." Also rings inscribed with names in Hebrew.

It would be nice to find some Judeo-Arabic fragments of Jewish pseudepigrapha or Hekhalot literature. We'll see. But let's get past the "if authenticated" part before we get too excited. It sounds as though we may be dealing so far with fragments on the antiquities market rather than anything excavated in situ.

(HT Christopher Rollston on FB.)

Exciting news from the Temple Mount Sifiting Project

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Exciting news from the Temple Mount Sifting Project. Yesterday Dr. Gabriel Barkay presented a paper on a new discovery at a conference at Bar-Ilan University. The information comes from some recent excavations that are to be discussed in two journal articles by Barkay and some of the other project members. These articles are summarized in a post at the project's blog: Finds from the First and Second Temple Period city dumps at the Eastern slopes of the Temple Mount.

Briefly, a salvage operation at the area indicated uncovered important ancient garbage dumps and the material was turned over to the Temple Mount Sifting Project for analysis. They have processed many important artifacts from the dumps. These include a very early assemblage of pottery (10th-9th centuries BCE), which certainly seems to indicate that someone was doing something in this area of Jerusalem in the late Iron Age IIA, and an inscribed "lmlk" "fiscal bulla" from the the 8th/7th century BCE.

(Via Joseph I. Lauer.)

More on the Temple Mount Sifting Project here and many links. It is worth emphasizing that these latest artifacts come from a scientific excavation, not from the informal ravages of the Waqf on the Temple Mount.

News on the tomb of R. Shimon bar Yochai

THE TOMB OF RABBI SHIMON BAR YOCHAI is back in the news:

A bridge too far? 'Priests-only' bridge at Mount Meron to be demolished after just seven months

300-meter long bridge to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai's tomb replaces the traditional Cohanim route after a Hassidic sect claimed it passed by ancient burial caves.

By Eli Ashkenazi

The "purity trail," the bridge built only seven months ago at the Tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai at Mount Meron in the Galilee, will soon be demolished. The bridge, designed for use by Cohanim, or descendents of the ancient Jewish priesthood who are not allowed to come into contact with the impurity of a grave, was constructed without the necessary permits - even though the state encouraged its construction and even committed to paying half the NIS 500,000 cost.

[...]

Oops.

Some background on the site and the rabbi is here and links.

The Jerusalem clay seal as a currency exchange token

GEORGE ATHAS has a new interpretation of the inscribed clay object recently discovered in Jerusalem: A Currency Exchange Token? A New Take on the Recently Discovered Ancient Seal from Jerusalem.

The "Deutsch" referred to is Robert Deutsch. He outlines his theory and gives references on his Facebook Wall here.

(Via the Agade list. Background here.)

Politics, archaeology, and Jerusalem

POLITICS, ARCHAEOLOGY, AND JERUSALEM: Two editorials and an article today.

Bulldozing Jewish history: Op-ed: World should not allow Arab effort to deny Jewish connection to Jerusalem (Giulio Meotti, ynetnews.co). Excerpt:

Threatened by Arab countries, Israeli authorities just closed the Mughabri Bridge, preventing Jews and Christians from entering Temple Mount. Historically it should be noted that only under Israeli rule was the site open for everyone, Muslims, Christians and Jews. The Waqf is now attempting to deliberately destroy all archaeological evidence of Jewish claims to this site, while using terror and intimidation to impose its exclusive claim to Temple Mount.

The Waqf has removed every sign of ancient Jewish presence at the site. At the entrance, a Waqf sign says “The Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard and everything in it is Islamic property.” Today Jews are barred from praying on the Mount and are not even allowed to carry any holy articles with them. With Muslim observers supervising visits, Israeli police have frequently arrested Jews for various violations, such as singing or reciting a prayer even in a whisper.

Repeated lies
This week, a Jewish woman was arrested following claims by police and Waqf officials that they noticed she was praying on Temple Mount. Why is it a crime for a Jew to mention God’s name on Temple Mount? And why is the State of Israel complicit in enforcing this anti-Semitic rule?

European autocrats and the global media are also trying to downplay the Jewish connection to the site. Jewish archeologist Gabi Barkai stated that “it’s a lie more terrible than the denial of the Holocaust, yet connected to it.” UN and EU funded textbooks in the Palestinian areas all repeat the canard denying any Jewish legitimacy in the “Noble Sanctuary.”

More on the Waqf's illicit excavations on the Temple Mount here and links.

Hamas Leader’s Tour Theme: Fight “Judaization” of Jerusalem Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary Magazine). Excerpt:

The point here is not just that Hamas seeks to destroy the State of Israel but that it is also trying to eradicate Jewish history. Many conquerors in the past have attempted to strip Jerusalem of its Jewish identity, but the ancient capital of the Jewish state and Jewish life cannot be “Judaized.” Haniyeh claims he is trying to build support for embattled Muslims in the city but his listeners must know that the last 41 years of Israeli sovereignty over the city is the only time in its history when there has been full religious freedom there. His goal is to end that era and replace it with an Islamist reign of terror. To the extent that any shift in tactics on Hamas’ part causes the West to drop its designation of the organization as a terror group, they will be aiding his campaign against the peace of Jerusalem.

More on Hamas and the "Judaization" of Jerusalem here, here, and links. For the recently discovered clay seal mentioned in the article, see here.

Silwan residents blame right-wing group for collapse of tunnel near mosque (Nir Hassan, Haaretz). Excerpt:

A channel dug for archaeological excavations in Silwan partially collapsed on Monday near the village's mosque. Residents of the East Jerusalem neighborhood place the responsibility for the collapse on the Elad nonprofit organization and accuse Elad of endangering the mosque and nearby homes.

Elad manages the City of David National Park, which is in Silwan, and funds many of the archaeological excavations carried out in the area by the Israel Antiquities Authority.

There have been a number of collapses in the past in the neighborhood, and residents claim the reason is digs that are conducted carelessly. They also point out cracks in their homes they claim are a result of the excavations. "How is it that in the houses above the tunnels there are cracks?" asked Jawad Siam, the head of the information center in Silwan.

Elad says infrastructure problems and illegal construction are the cause of the cracks and some of the collapses.

More on Elad and its archaeological ventures here (immediately preceding post) and links . (Wrong link fixed now. Sorry about that.)

Elad plans tourist center at City of David excavation

ELAD WATCH: Tourist centre planned at sensitive Jerusalem site (AP). The site, of course, is the City of David excavation. The story is also covered by Arutz Sheva: Planned Old City Tourist Center Likely to Anger West and PA.

Background on Elad is here and links.

Alaa speaks

EGYPTIAN BLOGGER UPDATE: Freed @Alaa talks prison, parliament & Egypt's future (Al-Ahram).

Related: Egypt Charges Three Soldiers With 'Manslaughter' in the Maspero Massacre (AINA; warning: includes graphic photo of killed protester); Military prosecution charges 3 soldiers over Maspero deaths (Al-Masry Al-Youm).

An index for the Talmud

A NEW TOOL FOR TALMUD STUDY:

After 1,500 Years, an Index for the Talmud

By JOSEPH BERGER (NYT)
Published: December 27, 2011

The Talmud is a considerable body of work: 63 volumes of rabbinical discourse and disputation that form Judaism’s central scripture after the Torah. It has been around for 1,500 years and is studied every day by tens of thousands of Jews. But trying to navigate through its coiling labyrinth can be enormously difficult because the one thing this monumental work lacks is a widely accepted and accessible index.

But now that breach has been filled, or so claims the publisher of HaMafteach, or the Key, a guide to the Talmud, available in English and Hebrew. It was compiled not by a white-bearded sage, but by a courtly, clean-shaven, tennis-playing immigration lawyer from the Bronx.

[...]

As the article notes, the Talmud has not gone entirely un-indexed in the twentieth century, but this new index sounds useful and the price is certainly right. I suppose the market for this sort of thing is relatively recent, since traditional Talmud scholars would have had at least much of the corpus memorized anyway.

Hanukkah and Piyyut (Part II)

THE TALMUD BLOG: Hanukkah and Piyyut (Part II) (Ophir Münz-Manor).

Part one is noted here.

Alaa released

EGYPTIAN BLOGGER WATCH:

Egyptian Blogger Released From Jail

By ROBERT MACKEY (NYT)

Updated | 6:28 p.m. A prominent Egyptian activist and blogger, Alaa Abd El Fattah, was released from detention in Cairo on Sunday and went directly to Tahrir Square to join a protest against the country’s military rulers.

[...]

This is likely a tactical retreat by the Egyptian authorities, who have not dropped any more charges and would presumably be happy to re-arrest Alaa when attention dies down. But the world will continue to be watching.

Background here and here.

Temple-related epigraphic find

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: The IAA has just announced an important scientifically-excavated epigraphic find that likely pertains directly to the ritual life of the Herodian Temple. The fact that it happens to be announced on both Hanukkah and Christmas is, I'm sure, entirely coincidental. Here's the press release (via Joseph Lauer) at a temporary IAA URL:

Exposed- A Find Indicative of the Activity in the Temple

A first of its kind find, indicative of activity in the Temple, was recently discovered:
a tiny item that was probably used as a “voucher” certifying the ritual purity of an object or food in the Temple Mount compound and in the Second Temple

The discovery was presented at a press conference at which the Minister of Culture Limor Livnat and Minister of Education Gideon Sa'ar participated


Layers of soil covering the foundations of the Western Wall, c. 15 meters north of the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount, were excavated beneath Robinson’s Arch in archaeological excavations of the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Jerusalem Archaeological Garden. On top of these layers, dating to the first century CE (the late Second Temple period), was paved the Herodian street which was the main road of Jerusalem at that time. From the very start of the excavations in this area the archaeologists decided that all of the soil removed from there would be meticulously sifted (including wet-sifting and thorough sorting of the material remnants left in the sieve). This scientific measure is being done in cooperation with thousands of pupils in the Tzurim Valley National Park, and is underwritten by the Ir David Association. It was during the sieving process that a tiny object of fired clay, the size of a button (c. 2 centimeter in diameter) was discovered. The item is stamped with an Aramaic inscription consisting of two lines – in the upper line "דכא" and below it "ליה". "דכא" or "דכי" in Aramaic means pure. Following the preposition "ל" in the word "ליה" is the shortened form (two of the four letters) for the name of the G-d of Israel.

According to the excavation directors on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, archaeologists Eli Shukron of the IAA and Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa, “The meaning of the inscription is “Pure for G-d”. It seems that the inscribed object was used to mark products or objects that were brought to the Temple, and it was imperative they be ritually pure. This stamped impression is probably the kind referred to in the Mishnah (Tractate Shekalim 5: 1-5) as a "חותם" (seal). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that such an object or anything similar to it was discovered in an archaeological excavation and it constitutes direct archaeological evidence of the activity on the Temple Mount and the workings of the Temple during the Second Temple period”.

Tractate Shekalim tells of the administration procedures on the Temple Mount in which our object was used, “Whoever required libations would go to Yohanan who was in charge of the stamps give him [the appropriate amount of] money and would receive a stamp from him in return. He would then go to Ahiyah who was in charge over the libations, give him the stamp and receive the libations from him”. There can be no doubt that this is a very exciting find.

The Mishnah also mentions in Tractate Shekalim, “There were four tokens in the Temple and on them were inscribed; calf, ram, kid and sinner [which were issued as a receipt to those who deposited the appropriate funds]. Ben Azzai says: There were five; and they were inscribed in Aramaic.” Our object does not belong to this group. It shows that not all of the details concerning the administration procedures of the Temple Mount have come to us by way of the rabbinic literature. Here an artifact from an archaeological excavation supplements our knowledge with a previously unknown detail.

It is in this context and the spirit of Hanukkah that the Jerusalem District Archaeologist, Dr. Yuval Baruch, mentioned, “It is written in the Gemara (Talmud Bavli, Tractate Shabbat Chapter 2: Page 21) that the only cruse of oil that was discovered in the Temple after the victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks, “lay with the seal of the High Priest” – that is: the seal indicated that the oil is pure and can be used in the Temple. Remember, this cruse of oil was the basis for the miracle of Hanukkah that managed to keep the menorah lit for eight days”.

In addition to this item, other artifacts dating to the Second Temple period were discovered. Some are even earlier and date to the time of the Hasmoneans, such as oil lamps, ceramic cooking pots and a fusiform juglet that may have contained oils and perfume, as well as coins of the Hasmonean kings, such as Alexander Jannaeus and John Hyrcanus.


Click on the link to download high resolution photographs:
Photographic credit - Vladimir Naykhin

Media coverage so far includes:

Haaretz: Israeli archaeologists uncover first artifact confirming written record of Temple worship

Jerusalem Post: Archaeologists discover Second Temple era seal

Arutz Sheva: Second Temple Era Seal Unveiled

Associated Press: Ancient seal found in Jerusalem linked to ritual

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all those celebrating!

Posts of Christmas past are collected here.

Some recent Christmas posts and links:

Alin Suciu is Putting Together the Puzzle of a Christmas Story: A Coptic Document in Princeton and Its Related Fragments.

Likewise, I have noted recent coverage of the Syriac Revelation of the Magi here and here.

Over at the Bible Places blog, Todd Bolin collects Christmas-Related Posts.

The notion that the Christians pilfered the date of the pagan celebration of the birth of the Sun and assigned it to Jesus has been challenged in a recent dissertation by Steven Hijmans at the University of Groningen. Judith Weingarten summarizes the discussion at the Zenobia blog: Whose Christmas Is It Anyway? (Updated). And Dr. Hijmans summarizes his own case in an Academic.edu reprint of a 2003 article: "Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice, and the Origins of Christmas", Mouseion, Number 47/3 (2003), 277-298 (via Rogue Classicism).

Finally, a little light relief for fans of Christmas and of Queen:



Via James McGrath and Mark Goodacre.

Oh, and also, this year's Hanukkah post collects a lot of historical links.

UPDATE: And here's a Christmas/Hanukkah present from the Israel Antiquities Authority: Temple-related epigraphic find (next post).

More blither from the Jordan Lead Codices FB page

FAKE METAL CODICES WATCH: It's been quiet on this front for some time, but now Daniel McClellan has a post responding to some of the latest blither from the Jordan Lead Codices Facebook page: In Response to David Elkington. And note also his earlier post, David Elkington Again on the Jordan Codices, based on a radio encounter with Elkington on Coast to Coast. I admire Daniel's patience.

Background, with endless links, here.

New novel: "The Temple Mount Code"

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH/NEW NOVEL:

"THE TEMPLE MOUNT CODE," by Charles Brokaw (f): Linguistics expert Thomas Lourds heads to Jerusalem to decode an ancient manuscript that his friend is murdered over, and political leaders want to wage a global war.

I hate it when that happens.