NPR interviews Talmud indexer

DANIEL RETTER is interviewed by NPR about his new index of the Babylonian Talmud: A Lawyer, Not A Sage, Creates Talmud Index. Excerpt from the transcript:

RETTER: Well, it was a seven-year labor of love. The methodology involved was the idea of being able to find entries or topics. And once we had the entries or the topics, we would build on them and have subentries and subtopics. And once we had all of those, then we would develop the sources or find the sources. So about seven - almost seven years ago, I decided that this was what was needed.

And my wife, Margie - who's a lawyer in her own right - said to me, Danny, one minute. You know, we're very traditional. The Talmud study's very traditional. The rabbis are very traditional. And I'm not so sure that you want to do something as revolutionary as this without getting the haskamah, or the approbations or the endorsements of the various rabbis throughout Israel, throughout America, throughout the world. And if you work for - on this for many, many years and you finish it and then it's not accepted for whatever reason, then you've really worked for nothing.

So taking her good advice, I worked for about two years, and we developed a template where we covered all of the various track dates, the 63 track dates. And then I basically went around the world, went to Israel, rather than went to America. And unlike the normal author who writes a book and then seeks endorsements, here was a situation where I just sketched out the basic idea, the basic plan with many, many examples, and then I went to the various rabbis, both rabbis - the Sephardic rabbis, the Ashkenazic rabbis, the Chassidish Rebbes, the Lithuanian scholars. And they not only were very much encouraging, but they said, Mr. Retter, or Daniel, do it quickly, because this is needed.

"Track dates" is, of course, an amusing error for "tractates."

Background on the Talmud index is here.

Ancient Wine

ANOTHER CRUCIAL CONTRIBUTION of ancient Israel to modern civilization: Ancient Wine.

Fun fact (unverified): "The Talmud describes 60 types of wines."

"Footnote" nominated for an Oscar

FOOTNOTE has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Background on the film is here and links.

More murder at Nag Hammadi

NAG HAMMADI is back in the news; not, alas, for any new discoveries of Gnostic manuscripts: Two Copts Killed in Egypt For Refusing to Pay Extortion Money (AINA).

It seems that this is getting to be a dangerous place.

Background here.

New issue of Hugoye

HUGOYE: JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES has just published a new issue (15.1). TOC:

Volume 15 (Winter 2012)

Introduction
George A. Kiraz

Papers

Ktabe Mpassqe, Dismembered and Reconstituted Syriac and Christian Palestinian Aramaic Manuscripts: Some Examples, Ancient and Modern
Sebastian P. Brock, University of Oxford

A Tentative Checklist of Dated Syriac Manuscripts up to 1300
Sebastian P. Brock, University of Oxford

Syriac in Library Catalogues
J.F. Coakley, University of Cambridge

Corpora, eLibraries, and Databases: Locating Syriac Studies in the 21st Century
Kristian Heal, Brigham Young University

A Guide to Manuscripts of the Peshitta New Testament
Andreas Juckel, University of Münster

Bibliograpy

Recent Books on Syriac Topics
Sebastian P. Brock, University of Oxford

Book Reviews

Martin Heimgartner, Timotheos I, Ostsyrischer Patriarch: Disputation mit dem Kalifen al-Mahdi
Vittorio Berti, Theologisches Seminar, Universität Zürich

Patrik Hagman, The Asceticim of Isaac of Ninevah
Robert A. Kitchen, Knox-Metropolitan United Church

Françoise Petit, Lucas Van Rompay, Jos J.S. Weitenberg, eds., Eusèbe d'Émèse, Commentaire de la Genèse. Texte arménien de l'édition de Veise (1980), Fragments grecs et syriaques, avec traductions
Edward G. Mathews, Jr., Independent Scholar

Bernhard Maier, Semitic Studies in Victorian Britain. A Portrait of William Wright and his World through his Letters
Adam C. McCollum, Hill Museum and Manuscript Library

Barsawm, Ignatius Afrem I, Omid & Mardin Manuscripts
Andrew Palmer, University of Münster

Reports

Beth Mardutho Summer 2011 Internship Report

Manuscripts from Eastern Christian Traditions at SBL (2011)

International Syriac Language Project (2011)

16th International Conference on Patristic Studies

Sixth North American Syriac Symposium

And don't forget that this journal has a call for papers out, noted here.

Virtual Bible museum

THE BIBLE AND ARCHAEOLOGY - ONLINE MUSEUM is noted by Todd Bolen at the Bible Places blog. Lots of nice photos, and the captions seem pretty reasonable.

Afghan manuscripts update

THE AFGHAN JEWISH MANUSCRIPTS are treated in a JTA article by Ben Harris: Mystery swirls around Judaic manuscripts discovered in Afghanistan. It has some new information, or at least new rumors:

But that doesn't mean there aren't lots of colorful stories floating around. One story, which several of those involved had heard, involves a Russian-Jewish billionaire who supposedly had expressed interest in purchasing the manuscripts but had pulled out after his attorneys advised that he may run into legal difficulties. No one would divulge his name.

It “adds an element of mystique,” [antiquities dealer Lenny] Wolfe said. “I personally never spoke to any Russian oligarch. What I’ve heard is hearsay. I don’t trust hearsay.”

Menashe Goldelman, a London-based expert in Middle Eastern antiquities who has authored a 23-page report on the documents, told JTA that they emerged on the London market several months ago. Goldelman said he had been enlisted by a dealer to sell the documents on his behalf. At present, Goldelman said he was trying to broker an agreement with the various dealers to bring the collection together. Goldelman estimates their total value at about $5 million.

“They are not things that are stolen from an institution or found in a legal excavation,” Goldelman said. “At some point, everything that comes from the ground goes to the black market. The black market, this is the institution that helps to save this material. If something has, let’s say, commercial value, it gets saved. If you don’t have a commercial value for the manuscript, they go and put it in the fireplace.”

Goldelman's involvement may not reassure skittish buyers about their provenance. In 2010, two professors reportedly accused him of trafficking in stolen antiquities and protested his scheduled appearance at a conference in Israel. Goldelman's lawyer denied the accusations and threatened to sue for libel.

None of the experts who have spoken publicly on the matter of the Afghan documents appeared to be too troubled by unanswered questions about their origins, seeming to accept such things as the cost of doing business in ancient artifacts.

“What is important for us is that these fragments and documents don’t get buried again in some safe of a collector,” said Haggai Ben-Shammai, a professor of Arabic at Hebrew University and the academic director of Israel's National Library. Ben-Shammai said the library was searching for a donor who would acquire the manuscripts on its behalf.

“We don’t have the means to acquire them on our own,” Ben-Shammai said. “We need some assistance in this.”

I note that the number of texts is back down to 150. The number "200 or more" was suggested at one point. The current article raises the possibility of a Karaite connection for the manuscripts. And this is the first I've heard that "a few are probably older" than a thousand years. I wonder what that means.

This case illustrates the difficult choices scholars have to make in dealing with unprovenanced antiquities. On the one hand, we don't want to encourage looting. But on the other, it would be culpable negligence to ignore discoveries like this because they were not excavated in situ. I don't have a good solution.

Meanwhile, if you know of any philanthropists with a few million to spare, you might want to show them this article.

Background here and links.

New book: Hovhanessian (ed.), "The Canon of the Bible and the Apocrypha in the Churches of the East"

NEW BOOK on the Christian Orthodox biblical tradition from Peter Lang:

Hovhanessian, Vahan S. (ed.)

The Canon of the Bible and the Apocrypha in the Churches of the East

Series: Bible in the Christian Orthodox Tradition - Volume 2

Year of Publication: 2012

New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien, 2012. VIII, 113 pp.
ISBN 978-1-4331-1035-1 hb.

Book synopsis

The Canon of the Bible and the Apocrypha in the Churches of the East features essays reflecting the latest scholarly research in the field of the canon of the Bible and related apocryphal books, with special attention given to the early Christian literature of Eastern churches. These essays study and examine issues and concepts related to the biblical canon as well as non-canonical books that circulated in the early centuries of Christianity among Christian and non-Christian communities, claiming to be authored by biblical characters, such as the prophets and kings of the Old Testament and the apostles of the New Testament.

Contents

Contents: Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou: The Canon of Scripture in the Orthodox Church - Daniel Alberto Ayuch: The Prayer of Manasses: Orthodox Tradition and Modern Studies in Dialogue - Slavomír Céplö (bulbul): Testament of Solomon and Other Pseudepigraphical Material in Ahkam Sulayman (Judgment of Solomon) - Anushavan Tanielian: The Book of Wisdom of Solomon in the Armenian Church Literature and Liturgy - Nicolae Roddy: Visul Maicii Domnului («The Dream of the Mother of the Lord»): New Testament Romanian Amulet Text - Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou: Banned from the Lectionary: Excluding the Apocalypse of John from the Orthodox New Testament Canon - Vahan S. Hovhanessian: New Testament Apocrypha and the Armenian Version of the Bible.

Noted by Vahan S. Hovhanessian at the Hugoye List.

Incidentally, Dr. Hovhanessian is a contributor to volume one of the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project, now in press.

Some Coptic biblical fragments in Dublin

ALIN SUCIU: A Preliminary Report Concerning the Coptic Biblical Fragments in the Possession of the Trinity College in Dublin.

Errata list for Sokoloff's "A Syriac Lexicon"

THE NEW EDITION OF BROCKELMAN'S LEXICON SYRIACUM, edited by Michael Sokoloff and published by Gorgias press, has now produced a pdf document with corrections to first printing and orthographic variants. I noted the first printing of the Sokoloff edition in 2009 here. The current advert for the book is here.

This is an excellent way of circulating errata lists for complex works such as lexicons.

(HT Abu 'l-Rayhan Al-Biruni on FB.)

More on the Afghan manuscripts

THE JEWISH MANUSCRIPTS FROM AFGHANISTAN are covered in a Reuters article that has some new details: Scholars intrigued by Afghan scrolls. Excerpt:

The cache is being kept by private antique dealers in London, who have been producing a trickle of new documents over the past two years, which is when Shaked believes they were found and pirated out of Afghanistan.

It is likely they belonged to Jewish merchants on the Silk Road running across Central Asia, said T. Michael Law, a British Academy postdoctoral fellow at Oxford University's Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.

Cultural authorities in Kabul had mixed reactions to the find, which scholars say is without a doubt from Afghanistan, arguing that the Judeo-Persian language used on the scrolls is similar to other Afghan Jewish manuscripts.

National Archives director Sakhi Muneer denied the find was Afghan, arguing that he would have seen it, while an adviser in the Culture Ministry said it "cannot be confirmed but it is entirely possible."

"A lot of old documents and sculptures are not brought to us but are sold elsewhere for 10 times the price" the ministry pays, said adviser Jalal Norani, explaining that excavators and ordinary people who stumble across finds sell them to middlemen who then auction them off in Iran, Pakistan and Europe.

As Mr. Norani notes, the looting is unfortunate. We can only hope that the site of origin can be located and excavated properly some day. But even if we are that lucky, much important context for the manuscripts will have been lost.

Still, and especially given the volatile politics of the region, we are lucky to have them at all.

HT Sue Homer on FB. Background here.

Hekhal

HEKHAL: The Irish Society for the Study of the Ancient Near East

HEKHAL was created by a group of four(*) Trinity College Dublin graduates who wish to promote research in the fields of ancient near eastern history and historiography, biblical studies, and archaeology with the long-term aim of increasing both academic and public understanding of the biblical and ancient near eastern world and its texts.

HEKHAL will strive to meet these aims through the organisation of events including conferences, seminars, lectures, workshops, web resources and the publication of annual conference proceedings. Although we are “The Irish Society for the Study of the Ancient Near East”, we are by no means restricting our membership or participation in the society to those residing in Ireland. If you’re out there and interested, you’re more than welcome to join us and participate in all events.

All upcoming events shall be announced on this website. The first thing we will be doing is hosting a series of afternoon seminars and lectures. If you are interested in attending or participating in any of these, please see the “Events” page of this website and know that we will be delighted to do all that we can to facilitate your participation.

(*Hekhal has acquired a fifth founder since parthenogenesis.)

Click through to the website for more.

New book: Townsend & Vidas, "Revelation, Literature, and Community in Late Antiquity"

NEW BOOK from Mohr Siebeck:

Revelation, Literature, and Community in Late Antiquity

Ed. by Philippa Townsend and Moulie Vidas

This volume stems from a conference held at Princeton University, which brought together leading scholars in the study of ancient religions. Claims to divine revelation are not simply a common trope in ancient religious texts: they often determine the structure of these texts and of the communities that produce them. The authors of the studies collected here examine the literary and social functions of revelation in late antiquity from early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism to early Islam, contributing both to our understanding of the phenomenon of revelation as well as to the study of the great transformations, interactions, and tensions typical of this important period. With contributions by: Pavlos Avlamis, Patricia Crone, Martha Himmelfarb, Eduard Iricinschi, Michael Pregill, Annette Reed, Daniel Schwartz, Gregory Shaw, Philippa Townsend, Christine Trevett, John Turner, Azzan Yadin, Yuhan Vevaina, Moulie Vidas

(Via Abu 'l-Rayhan Al-Biruni on FB.)

Latest on Talmud Blog Book Club

THE TALMUD BLOG BOOK CLUB has finished its discussion of its first book and has posted a response by the author. See the post Clearing out the Living Room. Next it will be discussing an article: Zvi Septimus’ “Trigger Words and Simultexts: The Experience of Reading the Bavli," now available as a pdf file in the post Updates Regarding the TBBC. The next book on their agenda is Talya Fishman, Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures, noted on PaleoJudaica recently here.

Wayne Stiles visits the Western Wall Tunnel

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Wayne Stiles reports on the Western Wall Tunnel:

Sights and Insights: Jerusalem down under

By WAYNE STILES
01/23/2012 11:09 (Jerusalem Post)

The Western Wall Tunnel allows visitors to explore the full length of the Kotel, seeing first-century Jerusalem.


Wayne Stiles is an author who has never recovered from his travels in Israel and loves to write about them from his desk in Texas.

Question: What major site in Jerusalem can a visitor see without wasting daylight but that still requires men to wear a hat? (Okay, so you could wear a yarmulke instead of a hat. And really, most men remove the hat after ten minutes anyway.)

Answer: The Western Wall tunnel.

When you say the words “Kotel” or “Western Wall,” most folks think of the Western Wall plaza, the place where bar- and bat-mitzvahs regularly occur and where soldiers are inducted. It’s the spot where Jews come to pray—as well as many tourists—and the place of national prayer gatherings.

But like the tip of an iceberg, the Western Wall plaza represents only a small part of the whole picture. Most of the Kotel lies buried beneath the rubble of time and hasn’t seen the light of day for centuries. Because the site represents part of the Western Wall, the tour requires all men to cover their heads respectfully.


[...]

I have collected some earlier posts on Jerusalem tunnels and caves at the end of this post.

UPDATE (24 January): Todd Bolen comments and shares some of his own photos.

Egyptian blogger update

EGYPTIAN BLOGGER Maikel Nabil Sanad has been "pardoned":

Egypt pardons jailed blogger as generals brace for anniversary protests

Maikel Nabil Sanad among almost 2,000 prisoners convicted by military tribunals over the past year who are set to be released

Jack Shenker in Cairo
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 January 2012 11.57 GMT

An Egyptian blogger jailed by the military junta for insulting the army has been officially pardoned, as the country's ruling generals attempt to bolster public support before protests planned for the Wednesday's anniversary of the uprising.

Maikel Nabil Sanad, a 26-year-old Coptic Christian who became a cause celebre for activists opposed to the post-Mubarak military government, was among almost 2,000 prisoners convicted by military tribunals over the past year who are set to be released after an announcement by Egypt's de facto leader, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.

Sanad was imprisoned in March over a blogpost titled "The army and the people were never one hand", inverting a popular Egyptian chant in support of the military.

He refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the army court that convicted him and staged a high-profile hunger strike behind bars that saw him come close to death several times. He resisted efforts by the authorities to certify him insane and have him transferred to a secure psychiatric unit, and was designated a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

[...]

High time. He should not have been arrested in the first place. But maybe the new Egyptian Government is finally catching on that the world is watching.

Background here.

Dragons in the news

HERE BE DRAGONS is an entertaining survey of dragon mythology by Rouwen Lin in the Malaysia Star. Excerpts of interest:

The Sumerian and Babylonian dragon myths, symbolising the creation of order out of chaos, were the earliest to surface, with written records going back several thousand years BC.

“Their myth was of a dragon – symbolising chaos – being defeated by a god, who thereafter proceeded to create the world, largely out of parts of the dismembered dragon. The dragon in question was vast, ferocious, had a scaly body, horns and claws. These are also generally the features of later dragons,” says tropical marine biologist Peter Hogarth, who is retired, but was until recently a senior lecturer in Biology at the University of York, Britain.

[...]

In Beowulf, the earliest Germanic epic, and The Saga Of The Volsungs, a later Norse prose mythical saga based on early materials, the dragons show influence from the classical Roman and Greek dragon myths (which were in turn influenced by ancient Semitic, near-eastern and biblical dragon concepts). Also, the dragon-like creatures of Egyptian myths and in the most ancient sources in the Western European tradition do not have wings – “so one can say that Western dragons acquired their wings from the Asian myths,” he adds.

[Robert] Miller [II, S.F.O., associate professor of Old Testament at The Catholic University of America] points out that the biblical dragons are clearly derived from the ancient Near Eastern dragon myths of ancient Israel’s neighbours.

“There are many, many connections in the words used and images involved that show Israel knew the dragon myths of ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq) and the Canaanites (their neighbours in the Levant). Israel used these myths in different ways in the Bible; they either co-opted the dragon slaying myth of some other god or they demoted the dragon to an ordinary (if rather large) animal.”

[...]

“The Old Testament doesn’t have a devil with a pitchfork to symbolise evil; it has a dragon. The Bible says God ‘slew the dragon’ to articulate God’s total power over evil personified,” says Miller.

Evan adds: “The saint doing combat with the dragon symbolises the cosmic or spiritual battle of the divine forces of God against the demonic, diabolical, or satanic forces of evil. In the end, the biblical tradition says, the dragon Satan will be destroyed and all evil will be destroyed with it.”

Dragons figure prominently in some earlier PaleoJudaica posts here, here (the link to the Times article has rotted, sorry), here, here, here, and here.

Back story to "Rashi's Daughters"

THIS ARTICLE on Maggie Anton has some interesting background on the author and the genesis of the books:

Author of 'Rashi's Daughters' to speak, sign books in Savannah on Jan. 23

Posted: January 22, 2012 - 12:03am

By Linda Sickler (Savannah Morning Herald)

Author Maggie Anton’s gift is taking little-known women from history and fleshing them out into strong, vibrant characters.

The author of the “Rashi’s Daughters” trilogy will be in Savannah on Monday.

“I lecture about the research and history behind my novels and sign books and sell them, too,” Anton says.

Though geared toward Jewish women, her novels — “Joheved,” “Miriam” and “Rachel” — are growing in popularity among men and readers of all faiths.

[...]

Here's part of the story, but there's more:

“The teacher [of her Talmud class] pointed out that Rashi had no sons, only daughters, who were reputedly learned,” Anton said. “I became intrigued and decided to do research for the fun of it.”

She found the names of Rashi’s daughters and evidence they were highly educated. “I discovered that France and northern Europe were part of the 12th century renaissance and that it was an incredibly enlightened time throughout Europe and the Arab world. Women had much higher status and a higher place in society and were more active than I ever expected.”

The research intensified, and “it was as if something possessed me,” Anton said. “I don’t even remember deciding I was going to write about these three women.”

Starting in 1997, she finished her first draft in 2000. “My goal was to write a book I wanted to read.”

“By that point, people knew I was doing this, and quite a few wanted to read it,” Anton said.

But by 2004, her agent still hadn’t sold the first novel, so Anton and her husband decided to start a small press and publish it themselves.

Background here and links. And I have more posts on Rashi here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Not counting incidental mentions.

Controversy over Jerusalem national parks

POLITICS:

In Jerusalem, national parks seen by Palestinians as a land grab

Seven existing and planned parks in sensitive East Jerusalem, chosen in part for their archaeological significance, would expand areas of Jewish control where Palestinians envision a future capital.

By Ben Lynfield, Correspondent / January 20, 2012 (CSM)

Jerusalem

An Israeli government plan to create a greenbelt around Jerusalem, preserving the ancient city's natural beauty and archaeological wealth, is fueling opposition among Palestinians and their supporters as the project moves into a critical stage.
Related stories

Israel says the parks plan is necessary for the public's benefit. It also fits into Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat's vision for bolstering tourism in Jerusalem, which, despite its storied history, gets only a fraction of the visitors of Paris or New York.

But critics say the parks amount to a land grab that consolidates Israel's grip on disputed East Jerusalem. The territory was annexed by Israel after the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 and declared part of its "eternal, undivided capital." But it is envisioned by Palestinians as the capital of their future state.

[...]

Bridge demolition update

NO, not the Mughrabi Gate Bridge, the other one:

Bridge at Rabbi Bar Yochai’s grave demolished without protests by ultra-Orthodox Jews

Some 100 policemen guard operation, fearing violent ultra-Orthodox protests; bridge was built illegally.

By Eli Ashkenazi Tags: Jewish World Orthodox Jews

A bridge built illegally at the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was demolished without incident on Thursday.

Some 100 policemen came to guard the operation, fearing violent ultra-Orthodox protests, but no demonstrators showed up and the demolition was completed in an hour.

[...]

That wasn't so bad. Background here.

Earliest fragment of Paul's Letter to the Romans?

A NEW FRAGMENT OF ROMANS has reportedly been discovered in recent days and provisionally dated to the mid-second century. If the report turns out to be correct, this would be one of the earliest surviving fragments of the New Testament. At the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog, Peter Williams links to the CNN video and he himself promises to tell us more soon.

Dictionary of Classical Hebrew completed

CONGRATULATIONS to David Clines and his University of Sheffield team:

Sheffield's dictionary triumph

By Simon Rocker, January 19, 2012 (Jewish Chronicle)

What has been billed as the first Dictionary of Classical Hebrew has been completed by a team of scholars based at Sheffield University.

"The only dictionaries there have been are of biblical Hebrew," explained the editor of the eight-volume set, David Clines, emeritus professor of biblical studies at Sheffield. "They didn't include the Dead Sea Scrolls or other Hebrew inscriptions that we have now."

The new publication contains 12,628 words, by Professor Clines's calculation, over 4,200 more than previous biblical dictionaries.

Its distinctive feature is that it cites every instance of a word - with the exception of a few common words - used in more than half a million biblical and other texts, explaining the different usages.

[...]

If only there actually were half a million texts in Classical Hebrew. I'm guessing the original press release or whatever said that the total corpus of Classical Hebrew consists of about half a million words, which sounds about right.

Scipio Tombs reopen in Rome

PUNIC WATCH:

Long-Awaited Scipio Tombs Reopen in Rome

By AMANDA RUGGERI (In Transit blog, NYT)

The founder of one of ancient Rome’s most illustrious clans, consul Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbato, began building monumental tombs for his relatives in the third century B.C., and the family continued to use the site as a place of rest until the first century A.D. The site was forgotten, then made into a public park in 1929 and shuttered for restorations in 1992. This week, for the first time in two decades, the tomb of the Scipios has been reopened to the public (Via di Porta Sebastiano 9, www.060608.it).

[...]

The actual sarcophagi have been moved to the Vatican, but there are replicas at the site, and the site itself sounds worth visiting.

Reformatted Soncino Babylonian Talmud English translation

FROM TZVEE ZAHAVI:

The Reformatted Soncino Babylonian Talmud English translation is online.

Download this newly reformatted edition of the Talmud in English free at http://www.halakhah.com/indexrst.html

This new edition was reformatted by Reuven Brauner of Raanana Israel in 5771. It is in PDF file format in two-column pages.

The standard description of the publication is: TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH WITH NOTES, GLOSSARY AND INDICES UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF RABBI DR. I. EPSTEIN B.A., Ph.D., D. Lit. FOREWORD BY THE VERY REV. THE LATE CHIEF RABBI DR. J. H. HERTZ. INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR. THE SONCINO PRESS, LONDON.

This edition Contains the Sedarim (orders, or major divisions) and tractates (books) of the Babylonian Talmud, as translated and organized for publication by the Soncino Press in 1935 - 1948.

The site has the entire Soncino Talmud edition in the newly reformatted easy to read PDF format.

The earlier edition in one-column format in PDF and HTML is also available on the site.

Article from Alin Suciu

ALIN SUCIU has released a pdf offprint of his article, co-authored with Einar Thomassen, "An Unknown “Apocryphal” Text from the White Monastery," published in the Festschrift for Tito Orlandi.

(Originally attributed the article to the wrong Festschrift. Error now corrected. Sorry!)

Comprehensive Bibliography on Syriac Christianity

SYRIAC WATCH:

Comprehensive Bibliography on Syriac Christianity

It was during the sixteenth century in Renaissance Europe that, as a result of the efforts of the Catholic and Protestant scholars of the New Testament, Syriac studies became a part of European intellectual life. [1] Since then, the number of scholarly publications on various matters related to the historfy, culture and religious life of Syriac-speaking Christians has only increased. As these publications are in a variety of languages, and many of them scattered through journals and periodicals belonging to various academic fields, it is often difficult to obtain precise information on what has already been published on one or another aspect of Syriac Christianity. Our project aims to fill the evident gap in the bibliographical resources and provide a convenient and easily accessible tool for the worldwide scholarly community. The ultimate goal of this project is to create and launch an on-line database on Syriac Christianity that will be updated on a regular basis and available free of charge to the international scholarly community.

(Via lagus1974 on the Hugoye list.)

PaleoJudaica is back!

PALEOJUDAICA IS BACK! And with a new template.

Sorry for the outage. Don't worry, I wasn't hacked. There was a major glitch with the template code (my fault) and it took some time to sort. ( But you can think of it as a SOPA/PIPA protest if you want.) I still need to do some customizing in order to restore the links bar, etc., but meanwhile we're up and running again.

New book: Kraemer, "Unreliable Witnesses"

NEW BOOK from OUP:

Unreliable Witnesses
Religion, Gender, and History in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean
Ross Shepard Kraemer

ISBN13: 9780199743186
ISBN10: 0199743185
Hardback, 344 pages
Nov 2010, In Stock
Price: $74.00 (06)
Shipping Details

AAR Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Textual Studies category
Description

In her latest book, Ross Shepard Kraemer shows how her mind has changed or remained the same since the publication of her ground-breaking study, Her Share of the Blessings: Women's Religions Among Pagans, Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World (OUP 1992). Unreliable Witnesses scrutinizes more closely how ancient constructions of gender undergird accounts of women's religious practices in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean.

Kraemer analyzes how gender provides the historically obfuscating substructure of diverse texts: Livy's account of the origins of the Roman Bacchanalia; Philo of Alexandria's envisioning of idealized, masculinized women philosophers; rabbinic debates about women studying Torah; Justin Martyr's depiction of an elite Roman matron who adopts chaste Christian philosophical discipline; the similar representation of Paul's fictive disciple, Thecla, in the anonymous Acts of (Paul and) Thecla; Severus of Minorca's depiction of Jewish women as the last hold-outs against Christian pressures to convert, and others.

While attentive to arguments that women are largely fictive proxies in elite male contestations over masculinity, authority, and power, Kraemer retains her focus on redescribing and explaining women's religious practices. She argues that - gender-specific or not - religious practices in the ancient Mediterranean routinely encoded and affirmed ideas about gender. As in many cultures, women's devotion to the divine was both acceptable and encouraged, only so long as it conformed to pervasive constructions of femininity as passive, embodied, emotive, insufficiently controlled and subordinated to masculinity.

Extending her findings beyond the ancient Mediterranean, Kraemer proposes that more generally, religion is among the many human social practices that are both gendered and gendering, constructing and inscribing gender on human beings and on human actions and ideas. Her study thus poses significant questions about the relationships between religions and gender in the modern world.

Follow the link for more information and to order.

(Via Christopher Rollston on FB.)

Review of Berman, "Created Equal"

JOSHUA BERMAN, CREATED EQUAL: HOW THE BIBLE BROKE WITH ANCIENT POLITICAL THOUGHT is reviewed by Diana Muir Appelbaum in Jewish Ideas Daily: America the Biblical. Excerpt:

What is interesting about these laws is that they carefully describe a social and economic system calculated to produce a broad middle class, which is, as it happens, the only type of system in which it is plausible to claim that all men are created equal. Neither the ancient nor the medieval world paid much attention to these biblical ideas—that all members of a nation should be treated as equals before the law and that society should be organized so as to prevent the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the few. Louis XVI had no more use for such an idea than Joseph Stalin or the Han Emperor. Certainly neither Bashir Assad nor Kim Jong-un has the least use for it today.

In contrast, the men and women who founded the American colonies and the American republic were profoundly affected by notions of human equality that are essentially biblical in origin.

"Carmen" at Masada in 2012

OPERA AT MASADA, 2012:

Israeli Opera hopes Wild West will take 'Carmen' to Masada heights

Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili will reprise title role, which she has also sung at La Scala in Milan, under the direction of Daniel Barenboim, and at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

By Haggai Hitron Tags: Israel culture (Haaretz

The Israeli Opera, under the baton of Daniel Oren, will perform "Carmen" at the foot of Masada in June, the opera house announced Monday.

The Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili will reprise the title role, which she has also sung at La Scala in Milan, under the direction of Daniel Barenboim, and at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

[...]

For previous opera events at Masada, go here and follow the links.

The Hebrew Bible translated into ... Hebrew

PHILOLOGOS: From Hebrew to... Hebrew. The Bible, that is.

For a while now I’ve been hearing about a new translation of the Hebrew Bible, called Tanach Ram. (Tanakh, of course, is Hebrew for “Bible,” an acronym composed of Torah, the Five Books of Moses; Nevi’im, the Prophets, and K’tuvim, the other biblical writings, while Ram is the name of an Israeli publishing house.) What makes the Ram edition unusual is that it’s a translation, by Israeli educator Avraham Ahuvia, of the Hebrew Bible into — of all languages — Hebrew.

That is, it’s a translation into contemporary Israeli Hebrew. ...

My instinct is that speakers of Modern Hebrew should be able to read the Hebrew Bible comfortably with a reasonable sprinkling of annotations for archaic vocabulary, grammar, and usages, much like modern editions of Shakespeare for speakers of English. But, that said, if this project gets more Israelis to read the Hebrew Bible, it's okay with me. Philologos takes pretty much the same line:

There’s no doubt that the Bible is a more stirring and evocative book in ancient Hebrew than in this kind of modern rendition. But this doesn’t mean that modern Hebrew can’t be used as a bridge to biblical Hebrew, over which contemporary students can cross to one from the other. What matters is getting to the other side, not the vehicle by which one gets there.

Talya Fishman wins National Jewish Book Award

CONGRATULATIONS TO TALYA FISHMAN:

Religious studies professor wins national book award

Talya Fishman was awarded the 2011 National Jewish Book Award for her book on medieval Jewish cultures.

By Ella Duangkaew · January 16, 2012, 7:31 pm (thedp.com)

A Religious Studies professor has been recognized by the Jewish Book Council for her work this past year.

Last Monday, Talya Fishman was awarded a 2011 National Jewish Book Award for her book “Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures.”

“I feel numbed with honor,” Fishman said when she found out about the award. “I am enormously gratified and mostly feel very lucky.”

For her work, Fishman received the Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award, which is part of the annual award program’s scholarship category. This award had special significance for Fishman, who knew Sarna personally.

“Nahum Sarna was a really fine Bible scholar known for the breadth and accuracy of his scholarship,” Fishman said. “It is a high bar to be a scholar of his caliber and that makes this award especially meaningful.”

[...]

I noted a review of the book last year here and also, back in 2004, noted when Dr. Fishman received a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work.

Baking cuneiform tablets at the HSM

BAKING CUNEIFORM TABLETS at the Harvard Semitic Museum:

Baking in the details: Semitic Museum project conserves thousands of ancient clay tablets

January 6, 2012 By Alvin Powell (physorg.com)

In the basement of Harvard’s Semitic Museum, Alex Douglas looked at the pieces of baked clay in front of him, teasing out how they fit together into a small tablet, thousands of years old and marked with ancient cuneiform writing.

Finding a void in the reassembled tablet without a piece to fit into it, Douglas referred to a computer screen, where a photograph of the intact tablet was displayed.

“I want to make sure that wasn’t me getting the mend wrong,” Douglas said. “When I first took it out, there were a lot of pieces. I wasn’t sure where they all went.”

Douglas, a graduate student in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, is part of a long-running project at the Semitic Museum to conserve its unusual collection of thousands of clay tablet.

The project seems humble enough. A furnace on a table behind Douglas bakes a handful of the small tablets, just inches on a side. That is followed by two baths in de-ionized water, drying, and, for tablets whose internal moisture causes them to break in the process, reassembly.

“They’re our responsibility, essentially forever,” said Adam Aja, the assistant curator at the museum and overseer of the project. “This is the best treatment you can do. They’ll be as stable as any ceramic pot and can be handled.”

Preparing tablets that are already thousands of years old to survive “forever” may warrant such a long-running project. The Semitic Museum has been baking tablets for 10 years and has another five or so to go, Aja said. The tablets themselves are part of an enormous collection of 5,000 clay tablets, some of them purchased, but most excavated in the 1920s and 1930s by a Harvard-led dig in the ancient city of Nuzi, near Kirkuk in present-day Iraq.

[...]

The tablets represent a unique record of the area 3,500 years ago, according to Anne Lohnert, a postdoctoral fellow in the Mahindra Humanities Center who works two days a week translating tablets. Rather than a grand telling of history, most of the tablets are records of everyday life, sales receipts, real estate transactions, and adoption records.

[...]

(Again, via Explorator.)

The Nuzi tablet are best known for their over-use in the mid-twentieth century for exciting-sounding parallels to the biblical patriarchal narratives, which parallels consistently evaporated when examined critically. But now that is out of the way and the truly exciting task remains of studying them to learn about the culture and life of people, especially regular people, in this ancient Hurrian city.

When I was a doctoral student in the Harvard NELC program in the 1980s, some of us tried to persuade William Moran to work with us on some of the unpublished Nuzi tablets. But the timing wasn't right and the proper technology was not yet in place. I'm glad to hear that the tablets are now getting the attention they deserve.

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.