THAT AUCTION OF JUDEAN COINS is covered in more detail by CoinNews.net: Three Ancient Judaean Coins Realize Nearly $3M at Heritage Auctions. There's a photo of the top three, an account of other coins that sold in the tens-to-hundreds of thousands of dollars range, and a notice that much of the Shoshana Collection has yet to be auctioned.
Background here and links.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Jesus Discovery/Talpiot Tombs latest
THE JESUS DISCOVERY/TALPIOT (TALPIYOT) TOMBS DISCUSSION is becoming even more interesting.
Robert Cargill: sins of commission and omission: digitally generated marginal ‘fishes’ and overlooked handles on the so-called ‘jonah ossuary’.
Recent background here, here, and here.
Robert Cargill: sins of commission and omission: digitally generated marginal ‘fishes’ and overlooked handles on the so-called ‘jonah ossuary’.
Recent background here, here, and here.
And tomorrow ...
REMINDER: Verdict finally due in trial of alleged ‘James ossuary’ forger: Oded Golan allegedly faked several of the most spectacular archaeological finds of recent decades. After over 100 hearings, the judge is set to rule Wednesday (Matti Friedman, Times of Israel).
Background here and links.
Background here and links.
In Edinburgh
I'M IN EDINBURGH a good part of today and may not get much of any chance to blog. But meanwhile here are peeks at one new and one future book for you:
Larry Hurtado: New Book on Paul’s view of Jesus as “Messiah”.
April DeConick: On my way to Groningen.
Larry Hurtado: New Book on Paul’s view of Jesus as “Messiah”.
April DeConick: On my way to Groningen.
Monday, March 12, 2012
SBL paper accepted
I'VE RECEIVED THE GOOD NEWS that my paper proposal for the 2012 Society of Biblical Literature meeting has been accepted by the Esotericism and Mysticism in Antiquity Section. Here's the abstract:
UPDATE: Incorrect dates in abstract now corrected.
The 94 Books of Ezra and the Angelic Revelations of John DeePast posts involving John Dee are here, here, and here. As you can see, that back-burner project mentioned in the third post has been moved closer to the front. A couple of earlier posts also involve the Dee-Kelley system of "Enochian" magic (here and here). This system is unrelated to the ancient apocryphal "Enochic" literature.
The legend narrated in 4 Ezra 14:19-48 reports that Ezra, at God's command, assembled five scribes and then, having imbibed a fiery spiritual drink, he dictated a series of revelations over a period of forty days. The scribes wrote in characters they themselves did not know and at the end of this period had produced ninety-four lost books. Various ancient parallels to this story have been adduced in the commentaries. In this paper I analyse a remarkable parallel from the sixteenth century in the detailed records of the angelic séances held by the English Renaissance polymath and magus John Dee. In the 1580s Dee worked with a "scryer," named Edward Kelley who purported to receive revelations from angels while gazing into a crystal. In a three-month period between April and July 1584, a complex system of ceremonial magic was revealed to Kelley in the form of a table of letters (the so-called Great Table) containing two sets of names—one of angels and one of aetheric realms—with one system superimposed on the other, and nineteen "Calls" or incantations to be used to invoke these angels. The text of the Calls was dictated by Kelley, sometimes letter-by-letter, backwards, in a language which is otherwise unknown, and written down by Dee. An otherwise unknown script was also revealed in which to write them. English translations of the Calls were provided at odd intervals, demonstrating Enochian to be a reasonably coherent language and the Calls themselves to be interesting compositions with some literary merit. Although the story in 4 Ezra is clearly legendary, central elements of it that appear highly implausible are paralleled in the well-documented reception of the Enochian Great Table and Calls by Dee and Kelley, supporting the possibility, intimated by scholars such as Michael Stone, that the Ezra narrative may be based on actual revelatory praxis in ancient Judaism.
UPDATE: Incorrect dates in abstract now corrected.
McGrath on the Talpiot Tombs
JAMES MCGRATH is still keeping track of the Jesus Discovery/Talpiot (Talpiyot) Tombs controversy: Talpiot Tombs Latest Round-Up (with fish handles).
Footnote again
STILL MORE FOOTNOTE REVIEWS:
Movie Review: Footnote (Ron Banks, The West Australian): "In the end, Footnote is a subtle rendering of the dissatisfactions of academic life and a sobering reflection that one's career may not always turn out as one would have hoped."Earlier reviews etc. here and links.
Footnote’ Review: Father & Son Battle Their Wits in Darkly Funny Oscar Nominee (Alonso Duralde, The Wrap). "One of the most interesting aspects of “Footnote” is that this material could, with just a few edits, be a serious and downbeat drama. But it’s Cedar’s knowing satire of academic politics (aided greatly by the sprightly and circus-like score by Amit Poznansky) that keeps the proceedings pungently bubbly."
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Revelations reviewed again
REVELATIONS is reviewed in Salon by Laura Miller: “Revelations”: The Bible’s scariest book. Don't worry, the title in quotation marks is Pagels's book, not John's. Excerpt:
Background here and links.
Pagels’ sympathies clearly lie with the small religious communities that had sprung up throughout the region (though particularly in Egypt) in Athanasius’ time. These are the inward-looking, simple-living mystics who incorporated into their Christian worship spiritual ideas and practices from all over the ancient world and who preserved the gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi. Some of those texts are as weird and visionary as the Book of Revelation, and some are far more beautiful, egalitarian and inspiring to many modern eyes. But they were not politically useful, and the Book of Revelation was. So it ended up in the New Testament and they did not. And there it remains, at the end of the Bible, providing fodder for bad Demi Moore movies and disastrously misconceived Mideast policies to this very day.John would have hated to be blamed for bad Demi Moore movies.
Background here and links.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
More on the CIIP
THE CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM IUDAEAE/PALESTINEAE is covered in a long article in Haaretz:
Background on the project is here and links. Background on that ongoing front-page inscription story is here and links
The writing on the wall, tablet and floorThe article is so richly detailed (a must-read-it-all) that it is hard to excerpt further. But this snippet seems timely.
An ambitious international project led by two adventurous Israeli classicists aims to analyze and catalog every ancient inscription that has been made in Israel. Their meticulous work includes crawling through caves and cellars and Indiana Jones-style adventures.
By Ofer Aderet Tags: Palestinians Palestinian Authority West Bank Gaza
Over the last few years. Hannah Cotton-Paltiel and Jonathan Price have spent much of their time far from the comfortable confines of the Ivory Tower, crawling through caves with flashlights in their hands, squeezing into crowded old basements and storage spaces, and rummaging through piles of old stones in private collections, churches and museums around the world. Cotton-Paltiel, who holds the Shalom Horowitz Chair in classics at the Hebrew University, and Price, who chairs the parallel department at Tel Aviv University, are part of the Israeli arm of a unique international project that bears the scientific title Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae.
[...]
The instincts that Price and Cotton-Paltiel have developed allow them to easily recognize and weed out attempted forgeries. For example, Cotton-Paltiel has learned from experience that "there is no such thing as a complete inscription on a stone that is broken on all sides."Again, read it all.
Other cases demand more careful scrutiny. "Occasionally you read in the paper about sensations such as inscriptions connected to the brother of Jesus, and so on," explains Cotton-Paltiel. "We will go check them out for ourselves. In many cases we found that in a place where other people found riches beyond the imagination, there were merely worthless stones."
Last week, a front-page story in this newspaper included a photograph of an inscription that was discovered recently in a cave beneath a residential building in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood. The person who made the discovery is Simcha Jacobovici, a journalist and filmmaker who deals in archaeology. The article said that he believes the discovery is earth-shattering and could potentially change everything we know about Christianity and its founder.
As in similar cases, Price is maintaining a guarded suspicion for now. "I won't believe it until I see it for myself," he says.
Background on the project is here and links. Background on that ongoing front-page inscription story is here and links
Million dollar shekel sold
THE MILLION DOLLAR SHEKEL has sold for more that 1.1 million dollars. Art Daily:
Background here and links.
Ancient Jewish coin brings record $1.1+ million at Heritage Auctions sale in New YorkThe article also has news on some of the other big-ticket items at the auction. No word if any are being donated to a museum.
NEW YORK, NY.- The first silver shekel struck in Jerusalem by Jewish forces rebelling against Roman oppression in the first century CE, one of only two specimens known, brought a world record price of $1,105,375 at Heritage Auctions on March 8 as part of the auction of The Shoshana Collection of Ancient Coins of Judea. The coin sold to an anonymous overseas collector. The collection, consisting of more than 2,200 coins in total, is expected to realize more than $10 million over multiple auctions this year, the first of which began Thursday.
[...]
Background here and links.
Friday, March 09, 2012
Philly DSS exhibit, plus replicas in Colorado
THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE has issued a press release about its upcoming Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition (which is moving from Discovery Times Square): Turbulent and Inspiring Period of History that Determined Course of Western Culture to Come to Life at The Franklin Institute: Unique and Moving Exhibition on View From May 12, 2012 to October 14, 2012 .
An earlier notice of this exhibition is here. For much more on the Discovery Times Square exhibition in New York City, see here and links.
Also, facsimiles of some of the Cave One Scrolls are to be displayed in Colorado: Display offers insight into Dead Sea Scrolls: Reproductions of manuscripts to visit Calvary Chapel Castle Rock.
An earlier notice of this exhibition is here. For much more on the Discovery Times Square exhibition in New York City, see here and links.
Also, facsimiles of some of the Cave One Scrolls are to be displayed in Colorado: Display offers insight into Dead Sea Scrolls: Reproductions of manuscripts to visit Calvary Chapel Castle Rock.
The facsimiles were reproduced from photos of the original scrolls, which deteriorated after being removed from the dry climate of the Dead Sea region. The exhibit includes facsimiles of the Great Isaiah Scroll, a Commentary on the Old Testament book of Habakkuk, the Community Rule, a code of conduct for the Essene community, and various fragment scrolls.More on the Isaiah Scroll facsimile here and links.
Hurtado on The Zealots
LARRY HURTADO has a reviewlet of the third edition of Martin Hengel's The Zealots.
Postdoc research fellowships
Six five-year postdoctoral research fellowshipsFollow the link for full details.
The European Research Council funded project
The Bible and Antiquity in Nineteenth-Century Culture
[...]
Applications are encouraged with regard to any relevant field including history, art history, classics, literary studies, Jewish studies, history of archaeology, history of education, cultural history, history of scholarship, theology, history of biblical interpretation, philosophy, history of science, Egyptology, Assyriology.
Applicants are asked to submit a proposal on any relevant aspect of the five major themes of the project: the bible in and as history; the bible in and as fiction; the bible and its institutions; the material bible; archaeology and the bible. The proposal should be no more than 1,200 words andmust indicate the work the candidate intends to complete during the fellowship and how this work is integrally related to one or more of the themes of the project. Candidates whose proposal does not do this will not be considered. Proposals may be from within any single disciplinary field or may combine fields or may be interdisciplinary, but the candidate should also indicate how such a proposal relates to the wider themes of the project.
[...]
(Via the H-Judaic list.)
Temple Studies Group meeting
FROM THE SOTS LIST:
Temple Studies Group
Sixth Annual Syposium
The Temple in the Johannine Writings
Saturday June 16th 2012.
10.00 am- 4.00 pm
Temple Church, London EC4Y 7BB
Confirmed speakers:
Prof Robert Hayward, Durham:
The Temple and the Word. Light on St John’s Gospel from the Aramaic Targumim.
Dr Dominic Rubin, Moscow,
Russian Orthodox Cosmists on the Jewish Temple, the Divine Liturgy and the Johannine Writings.
The Rev. Robin Griffith Jones, Master of the Temple.
‘“One at the head and one at the feet” (John 20.12). John’s Easter Audience attains the Edenic Holy of Holies’.
Dr Margaret Barker, Temple Studies Group.
First Temple Imagery in St John’s Gospel. Who were “the Jews?”’
Please bring a packed lunch. Coffee and juice are provided
Cost £35.00. Students with proof of status £5.00
Pay on the day, cash or cheque only. We have no means of accepting card payments.
Booking essential, to prepare handouts etc.
Book via templestudiesgroup@hotmail.co.uk
Final details of the programme will be sent to you mid-May.
Jesus Discovery/Talpiyot tombs latest
FOR YOU, SPECIAL DEAL! NEA issue (from 2006) that discusses Talpiot Tomb available for free for a limited time (ASOR Blog).
For other recent blog posts, see James McGrath's latest: Round-Up on the Talpiot Patio Tomb (to fish or not to fish – that is the question). Also, Christopher Rollston: James Tabor’s Iota: A Palaeographic Problem for his Inscriptional Reading, in response to a reading by Tabor (followed by Bauckham, although his overall interpretation is very different from Tabor's).
ASOR is pleased to announce that it has made an issue of Near Eastern Archaeology (NEA 69:3/4 [2006]) available for free on JSTOR for the next month. This issue of NEA contains articles by leading scholars that examine the hypothesis that a Talpiot Tomb belonged to Jesus’ family. The issue contains articles by Eric M. Meyers, Shimon Gibson, Sandra Scham, Christopher Rollston, and Stephen J. Pfann. The issue also contains an extensive response by James D. Tabor.Follow the link for a TOC and links.
For other recent blog posts, see James McGrath's latest: Round-Up on the Talpiot Patio Tomb (to fish or not to fish – that is the question). Also, Christopher Rollston: James Tabor’s Iota: A Palaeographic Problem for his Inscriptional Reading, in response to a reading by Tabor (followed by Bauckham, although his overall interpretation is very different from Tabor's).
Thursday, March 08, 2012
More on those early NT mss
DANIEL WALLACE is interviewed by Hugh Hewitt and reveals a little more about those early New Testament manuscripts. Excerpt:
Professor Wallace also talks a little about the six other NT manuscripts that are supposed to be dated to the second century. Four are of Pauline letters (he declines to say which), one is of the Gospel of Luke, and one is a homily on Hebrews. (This paragraph was incomplete at first and I have now corrected it.)
Read it all. Via Larry Hurtado.
Background here and links.
HH: I’ve got to tell you, Professor, you turned a lot of heads when you alluded in your recent debate with Bart Ehrman to a new manuscript, or fragment of a manuscript concerning the Gospel of Mark. I know you’ve got scholarly restrictions on what you can and cannot say, but can you tell the audience what you’re allowed to disclose about that?That "one of the world's leading paleographers" is still keeping his head behind the parapet. Again, it's very odd that a scholar would announce a conclusion like this by proxy and not want to be named as the source. I wonder what that is about.
DW: I’ll be happy to. First of all, there is a fragment of Mark, and it’s a very small fragment, not too many verses, but it’s definitely from Mark. And the most amazing thing about this is that it’s from the 1st Century. We don’t have any other New Testament manuscripts that are written within the same century that the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament were written in. This is the first. And it’s dated by one of the world’s leading paleographers, whose name I’m not allowed to reveal yet. It will be published in a book with six other manuscripts that are either probably or definitely from the 2nd Century in about a year from now. And this is very, very exciting news, frankly. To have a fragment from one of the Gospels that’s written during the lifetime of some of the eyewitnesses to the resurrection is just astounding.
HH: Now when you say verses, can you tell us how many verses are in the fragment?
DW: Well, not really. I can say we have fragments, some of our fragments are so small that it might be part of one verse. This is bigger than that. And we have some of these early papyri, this is on papyrus, that are as much as, well, P-46, which is our oldest manuscript, or was our oldest manuscript for Paul’s letters, has nine of Paul’s letters in it almost intact. That’s a pretty large papyrus. So all of our papyri are fragmentary because of the nature of the material, and because of the age of the material. There’s leaves that just got eaten away or just eroded. But this is one leaf, I should say, or part of one leaf. So it can’t be very many verses on it.
Professor Wallace also talks a little about the six other NT manuscripts that are supposed to be dated to the second century. Four are of Pauline letters (he declines to say which), one is of the Gospel of Luke, and one is a homily on Hebrews. (This paragraph was incomplete at first and I have now corrected it.)
Read it all. Via Larry Hurtado.
Background here and links.
NPR interviews Pagels
ELAINE PAGELS is interviewed by NPR about her new book:
HT reader Gerald Rosenberg.
Background here.
Book Of Revelation: 'Visions, Prophecy And Politics'Follow the link for interview highlights as well as a link to listen to the whole interview. And you can read an excerpt of the book here.
Revelations
Visions, Prophecy, And Politics In The Book Of Revelation
by Elaine H. Pagels
Hardcover, 246 pages
Nonfiction
Faith & Spirituality
March 7, 2012
The Book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament, has some of the most dramatic and frightening language in the Bible.
In her new book Revelations: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of Revelation, Princeton University religious professor Elaine Pagels places the Book of Revelation in its historical context and explores where the book's apocalyptic vision of the end of the world comes from.
"The Book of Revelation fascinates me because it's very different than anything else you find in the New Testament," Pagels tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "There's no moral sermons or ethical ideas or edifying things. It's all visions. That's why it appeals so much to artists and musicians and poets throughout the century."
[...]
HT reader Gerald Rosenberg.
Background here.
Palmyra a war zone
THE SITE OF PALMYRA in Syria is reportedly being used by the Syrian Government as a military camp and sniper nest, with any movement in the ruins bringing down gunfire: Syria's ancient desert city besieged: residents (AFP).
If the reports are true, this is barbaric.
More on Palmyra here, with lots of links.
If the reports are true, this is barbaric.
More on Palmyra here, with lots of links.
Jesus Discovery latest
ASOR BLOG: The Talpiot Tomb and the Beatles (Mark Goodacre). No, really.
There continues to be a lot of discussion in the biblioblogosphere. For a recent roundup, see James McGrath here.
UPDATE: ASOR Blog: The Four-Line Ossuary Inscription from Talpiyot Tomb B – an Interpretation (Richard Bauckham)
There continues to be a lot of discussion in the biblioblogosphere. For a recent roundup, see James McGrath here.
UPDATE: ASOR Blog: The Four-Line Ossuary Inscription from Talpiyot Tomb B – an Interpretation (Richard Bauckham)
Another Footnote review
MOVIELINE: REVIEW: Israeli Comedy-Drama Footnote Makes Talmudic Scholarship Seem Almost Dynamic.
What's this "almost?"
More reviews etc. here and links.
What's this "almost?"
More reviews etc. here and links.
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Top seven Bible verses in the Talmud
THE TALMUD BLOG reveals the top seven scriptural verses quoted in the Babylonian Talmud: The Bible in the Bavli: Some First Numbers- Guest Post by Michael Satlow. They aren't the first ones you would guess. Or at least that I would have guessed.
Background here.
Background here.
Coptic manuscripts of John
SOME ACTUAL ANCIENT GOSPEL MANUSCRIPTS IN AN ORIENTAL LANGUAGE (not like this one) are profiled at Alin Suciu's blog: Guest Post: Christian Askeland on the Coptic Versions of the Gospel of John.
The Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palestinae (CIIP)
CURIOUSLY, this article never gets around to giving the name of the project:
More on ancient graffiti in Israel, as well as this particular project here and links.
Ancient 'Graffiti' Unlock the Life of the Common Man"The tweets of antiquity." Not bad.
ScienceDaily (Mar. 6, 2012) — History is often shaped by the stories of kings and religious and military leaders, and much of what we know about the past derives from official sources like military records and governmental decrees. Now an international project is gaining invaluable insights into the history of ancient Israel through the collection and analysis of inscriptions -- pieces of common writing that include anything from a single word to a love poem, epitaph, declaration, or question about faith, and everything in between that does not appear in a book or on a coin.
Such writing on the walls -- or column, stone, tomb, floor, or mosaic -- is essential to a scholar's toolbox, explains Prof. Jonathan Price of Tel Aviv University's Department of Classics. Along with his colleague Prof. Benjamin Isaac, Prof. Hannah Cotton of Hebrew University and Prof. Werner Eck of the University of Cologne, he is a contributing editor to a series of volumes that presents the written remains of the lives of common individuals in Israel, as well as adding important information about provincial administration and religious institutions, during the period between Alexander the Great and the rise of Islam (the fourth century B.C.E. to the seventh century C.E.).
These are the tweets of antiquity.
[...]
More on ancient graffiti in Israel, as well as this particular project here and links.
More Footnote reviews etc.
THE ACADEMY AWARDS have come and gone, but the Footnote coverage continues to pile up:
Prize Fighters: Joseph Cedar’s Footnote pits a Talmudic scholar against his academic son in a tale equal parts midrash, riddle, and Israeli political tragedy (J. Hoberman, Tablet Magazine)
On The Oscars, Talmud Scholars And Risky Filmmaking: An interview with ‘Footnote’ director Joseph Cedar. (Eric Herschthal, The Jewish Week)
Movie Review: Footnote (Marshall Fine, Huffington Post)
Background here and here and links.
Prize Fighters: Joseph Cedar’s Footnote pits a Talmudic scholar against his academic son in a tale equal parts midrash, riddle, and Israeli political tragedy (J. Hoberman, Tablet Magazine)
On The Oscars, Talmud Scholars And Risky Filmmaking: An interview with ‘Footnote’ director Joseph Cedar. (Eric Herschthal, The Jewish Week)
Movie Review: Footnote (Marshall Fine, Huffington Post)
Background here and here and links.
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Green Collection (etc.) exhibition in Rome
THE GREEN COLLECTION is certainly getting around:
More on Codex Climaci Rescriptus and on the Green Collection in general here and links. More on the Jeselsohn Stone/Gabriel Revelation/Vision of Gabriel here and links.
Interfaith Bible Exhibit Opens in St. Peter's Square (136)It certainly sounds that way. I edited the Cave Four manuscripts of Genesis from the Dead Sea Scrolls (in DJD 12). I wonder if the Genesis fragments mentioned above are from those, or does the Green Collection have something new I haven't heard of?
Verbum Domini Runs Through Lent. A working Gutenberg press. Seeing early scriptural papyrus led one viewer to quip: ‘I feel like Indiana Jones.’
by TIM DRAKE 03/06/2012 (National Catholic Register)
VATICAN CITY — Visitors to Rome will have the opportunity to view a free, one-of-a-kind exhibition looking at the Bible at the Braccio di Carlo Magno Museum adjacent to St. Peter’s Basilica in St. Peter’s Square.
The exhibition, “Verbum Domini,” opened March 1 and runs through April 15, and offers a collaboration between the Vatican, the Green Collection (aka Museum of the Bible) and the American Bible Society.
It features more than 150 manuscripts and artifacts from the Catholic, Jewish, Protestant and Orthodox traditions.
The exhibit is the brainchild of business executive Steve Green, with the exhibit under the direction of Scott Carroll, both of whom were motivated by their love for the Bible.
“We wanted to make this exhibit available, on faith’s largest stage and one of the most visited religious sites in the world, to people of all faiths and no faith, to engage tourists and scholars alike,” said Green, president of the Hobby Lobby retail chain.
“Verbum Domini” features items “found nowhere else in the world,” arranged in eight galleries from different time periods, said Carroll, who chose the items for display. “They tell the story of how we got the Bible from an interfaith perspective.”
Among the items included in the exhibit are some the earliest fragments of the Book of Genesis from the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, which is one of the earliest-surviving, near-complete Bibles containing the most extensive early biblical texts in Jesus’ language of Palestinian Aramaic. It also includes previously unpublished and never-before-exhibited biblical papyri, Torah scrolls from around the world and the Jeselsohn Stone, a 3-foot-tall, 150-pound sandstone tablet discovered near the Dead Sea in Jordan. Dating from 100 B.C., the stone contains 87 lines of Hebrew text prophesying the coming of a Messiah who will suffer, die and rise again.
Visitors said that they were struck by the diversity and quality of items found in the exhibit.
[...]
More on Codex Climaci Rescriptus and on the Green Collection in general here and links. More on the Jeselsohn Stone/Gabriel Revelation/Vision of Gabriel here and links.
Jesus Discovery update
THE JESUS DISCOVERY controversy over the Talpiyot tombs continues to generate blog posts etc.:
ASOR Blog: The Talpiot Tombs and New Testament Historical Criticism (James McGrath).
NT Blog (Mark Goodacre): Was there a predisposition to find Jonah and the whale? One's own blog archive can be a treasure trove, as I know well.
Christopher Rollston: Joseph of Arimathea and Talpiyot Tomb B? An Absence of Reasonable Evidence for a Connection. Professor Rollston makes it all the way through this post without a single reference to Monty Python, which shows he is a better man than I.
Also, Peter Mucha at the Philadelphia Inquirer announces: ‘Jesus Tomb’ objects coming to Philadelphia. Oh, and the exhibition also has some Dead Sea Scrolls or something, whatever.
Sigh.
The local small press does rather better on this story: Franklin Institute to host ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ this May (Tim Ronaldson, Rittenhoused).
ASOR Blog: The Talpiot Tombs and New Testament Historical Criticism (James McGrath).
NT Blog (Mark Goodacre): Was there a predisposition to find Jonah and the whale? One's own blog archive can be a treasure trove, as I know well.
Christopher Rollston: Joseph of Arimathea and Talpiyot Tomb B? An Absence of Reasonable Evidence for a Connection. Professor Rollston makes it all the way through this post without a single reference to Monty Python, which shows he is a better man than I.
Also, Peter Mucha at the Philadelphia Inquirer announces: ‘Jesus Tomb’ objects coming to Philadelphia. Oh, and the exhibition also has some Dead Sea Scrolls or something, whatever.
Sigh.
The local small press does rather better on this story: Franklin Institute to host ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ this May (Tim Ronaldson, Rittenhoused).
Forgery Trial verdict coming soon
BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Date Set for James Ossuary Verdict. The date being March 14th. It is unfortunate that judges have had to be called in, in effect to decide whether artifacts are forgeries (or a partial forgery, nuance, nuance). Whatever happens, it is bound to have an impact on the field.
Background here and endless links.
Background here and endless links.
Monday, March 05, 2012
Jesus Discovery latest
THE JESUS DISCOVERY DISCUSSION CONTINUES, and I can't claim to be paying close attention. But here are a couple of blog posts from over the weekend.
ASOR blog: The Talpiyot Unguentarium (Joan Taylor).
Tom Verenna: Some Considerations About the Iconography on the Ossuary.
In brief, both are arguing that the supposed fish-plus-Jonah representation on Talpiyot Tomb B is actually a representation of a jar used for funerary unguent.
In his post on the ASOR blog, Robert Cargill also questions whether the photograph has been altered at some point, and Tom picks up on this. I have not followed the discussion enough to have a view on this, but you can read the various arguments and decide for yourself.
Background here and links.
UPDATE: Here's James McGrath's update for today: Talpiot Tombs Latest (Including Fish-Reorientation and Unguentaria).
ASOR blog: The Talpiyot Unguentarium (Joan Taylor).
Tom Verenna: Some Considerations About the Iconography on the Ossuary.
In brief, both are arguing that the supposed fish-plus-Jonah representation on Talpiyot Tomb B is actually a representation of a jar used for funerary unguent.
In his post on the ASOR blog, Robert Cargill also questions whether the photograph has been altered at some point, and Tom picks up on this. I have not followed the discussion enough to have a view on this, but you can read the various arguments and decide for yourself.
Background here and links.
UPDATE: Here's James McGrath's update for today: Talpiot Tombs Latest (Including Fish-Reorientation and Unguentaria).
Harold Bloom, The Flight to Lucifer
HAROLD BLOOM wrote a novel based on Gnostic theology? Who knew?
(Charlie Jane Anders, 10 Weirdest Science Fiction Novels That You’ve Never Read, io9.)
2. The Flight to Lucifer: A Gnostic Fantasy by Harold Bloom (1979)I usually know about these things.
The only novel that the famous literary critic ever wrote — and he has disowned it utterly. Don't let Harold Bloom see you reading this book! It's a quasi-sequel to the space-faring novel A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. And like Lindsay's book, this involves a flight to another world, in which Gnostic philosophy is explored — and this time, it's the planet Lucifer, where a guy named Olam guides the travelers to escape from Crystalman. As one Amazon reviewer explains:set on a distant world where time and space shift back and forth and where the conflicts of first-century religion are still being played out. Harold Bloom's story begins with an Aeon, Olam, descding to earth to bring two men, Valentinus, a reincarnation of a Gnostic prophet, and his young warrior escort Perscors, back to Lucifer on a quest to help Valentinus recover the call that motivated his previous life. For Perscors, the quest is a search for a transcendental principle, but to reach it, he has to do battle with enemies both divine and semi-divine, to finally reach his inner discovery of his own uniqueness.
(Charlie Jane Anders, 10 Weirdest Science Fiction Novels That You’ve Never Read, io9.)
Review of Pagels, Revelations
A NEW BOOK BY ELAINE PAGELS is reviewed by Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker: The Big Reveal: Why does the Bible end that way? Key excerpts:
Putting "Revelations" in the title of a book about the biblical Book of Revelation is unfortunate, or perhaps mischievous. People have enough trouble getting the title of the biblical book right without having the wrong title next to it on the same line. I see that Eric Herschthal at the New York Jewish Week has fallen into the trap: A Revelation: Elaine Pagels and the Jewish Cult Behind the Book of Revelations.
But that's a quibble. This sounds as though it is as interesting a book as we have come to expect from Elaine Pagels.
UPDATE: Liv Ingeborg Lied e-mails to point me to Current 93/Nurse with Wound, Thunder Perfect Mind.
In a new book on those end pages, “Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation” (Viking), Elaine Pagels sets out gently to bring their portents back to earth. She accepts that Revelation was probably written, toward the end of the first century C.E., by a refugee mystic named John on the little island of Patmos, just off the coast of modern Turkey. (Though this John was not, she insists, the disciple John of Zebedee, whom Jesus loved, or the author of the Gospel that bears the same name.) She neatly synopsizes the spectacular action. ...I haven't read the book and I don't know how well the review reflects what she actually says, but I think it's a mistake to regard a "hallucinatory," or at any rate visionary prophecy to be mutually exclusive with a coded allegory of contemporary (with John) events. I don't think Professor Pagels would disagree with me.
Pagels then shows that Revelation, far from being meant as a hallucinatory prophecy, is actually a coded account of events that were happening at the time John was writing. It’s essentially a political cartoon about the crisis in the Jesus movement in the late first century, with Jerusalem fallen and the Temple destroyed and the Saviour, despite his promises, still not back. All the imagery of the rapt and the raptured and the rest that the “Left Behind” books have made a staple for fundamentalist Christians represents contemporary people and events, and was well understood in those terms by the original audience. Revelation is really like one of those old-fashioned editorial drawings where Labor is a pair of overalls and a hammer, and Capital a bag of money in a tuxedo and top hat, and Economic Justice a woman in flowing robes, with a worried look. “When John says that ‘the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth,’ he revises Daniel’s vision to picture Rome as the worst empire of all,” Pagels writes. “When he says that the beast’s seven heads are ‘seven kings,’ John probably means the Roman emperors who ruled from the time of Augustus until his own time.” As for the creepy 666, the “number of the beast,” the original text adds, helpfully, “Let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person.” This almost certainly refers—by way of Gematria, the Jewish numerological system—to the contemporary Emperor Nero. Even John’s vision of a great mountain exploding is a topical reference to the recent eruption of Vesuvius, in C.E. 79. Revelation is a highly colored picture of the present, not a prophecy of the future.
After decoding Revelation for us, Pagels turns away from the canonic texts to look at the alternative, long-lost “Gnostic” texts of the period that have turned up over the past sixty years or so, most notably in the buried Coptic library of Nag Hammadi. As in her earlier books (“The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis”; “The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters”; “The Gnostic Gospels”), she shows us that revelations in the period were not limited to John’s militant, vengeful-minded one, and that mystic visions more provocative and many-sided were widespread in the early Jesus movement.More on the Thunder-Perfect-Mind Prada ad and related matters here, here, and here. The link to the YouTube video of the Prada ad has rotted, but you can find the ad here. And the video of Meredith Brooks's "Bitch" is here.
As an alternative revelation to John’s, she focusses on what must be the single most astonishing text of its time, the long feminist poem found at Nag Hammadi in 1945 and called “Thunder, Perfect Mind”—a poem so contemporary in feeling that one would swear it had been written by Ntozake Shange in a feminist collective in the nineteen-seventies, and then adapted as a Helen Reddy song. In a series of riddling antitheses, a divine feminine principle is celebrated as transcending all principles (the divine woman is both whore and sibyl) and opening the way toward a true revelation of the hidden, embracing goddess of perfect being who lies behind all things:
Putting "Revelations" in the title of a book about the biblical Book of Revelation is unfortunate, or perhaps mischievous. People have enough trouble getting the title of the biblical book right without having the wrong title next to it on the same line. I see that Eric Herschthal at the New York Jewish Week has fallen into the trap: A Revelation: Elaine Pagels and the Jewish Cult Behind the Book of Revelations.
But that's a quibble. This sounds as though it is as interesting a book as we have come to expect from Elaine Pagels.
UPDATE: Liv Ingeborg Lied e-mails to point me to Current 93/Nurse with Wound, Thunder Perfect Mind.
Sunday, March 04, 2012
Gravestones at Zoar
BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Ancient Gravestone Epitaphs Give Insight into Early Jews and Christians: Understanding Christian and Jewish tombstones from ancient Zoora.
Summarizes and links to a couple of BAR articles which are mostly behind the subscription wall.
Summarizes and links to a couple of BAR articles which are mostly behind the subscription wall.
Khirbet Midras update
MORE ON KIRBET MIDRAS, the supposed site of the tomb of a prophet Zechariah:
More on Discoveries at Horbat Midras in IsraelThe Hebrew article is here. Both articles have some very nice photos of the mosaics, some of which were valdalized last year. For background, follow that link back. It leads eventually to here, where I register some skepticism about the supposed tomb of Zechariah.
A team of archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority have published a report on results of excavation works conducted in 2010-2011 on the slopes of the Judaean hills at Horbat Midras, including a groundbreaking discovery of a Byzantine-era church.
(Sci-News.com)
About a year ago the archaeologists announced that they unearthed a church which they believe is a memorial designed to mark the tomb of the prophet Zechariah.
Now the team describes their remarkable finds in a report, published in the journal Hadashot Arkheologiyot.
[...]
Saturday, March 03, 2012
More on the Enochic giants and LOTR
REMNANT OF GIANTS: Enochic Giants vs. Dr Who vs. Lord of the Rings, in which Tyrone Slothrop builds, inter alia, on my recent post, Doctor Who, the giants, and the demons.
I didn't note it in that post, but I have a web page up with a couple of lectures on The Book of Giants. Also, the various fragments, recensions, and versions of The Book of Giants are being translated for volume two of the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project.
I didn't note it in that post, but I have a web page up with a couple of lectures on The Book of Giants. Also, the various fragments, recensions, and versions of The Book of Giants are being translated for volume two of the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project.
Friday, March 02, 2012
Second St. Andrews Graduate Conference
FOLLOWING UP last year's highly successful conference, for which a conference volume is now in the making:
More on last year's conference here.
The 2nd St Andrews Graduate Conference for Biblical and Early Christian StudiesThe program thus far:
Manuscripts and their Texts: Perspectives on Textual Criticism - 8-9 June 2012
St Mary's College, University of St Andrews
Call for Papers
With an emphasis on textual criticism, the second St Andrews Graduate Conference for Biblical and Early Christian Studies is aimed at graduate students and early career scholars. Contributors are welcomed from the following fields of research: Old Testament / Hebrew Bible, Pseudepigrapha & Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, and Early Christianity.The deadline for paper proposals is 20 March. Follow the relevant link above for more information.
We have four invited plenary speakers:
Prof. Kristin De Troyer (St Andrews)
Dr. Johannes Magliano-Tromp (Leiden)
Dr. Peter M. Head (Cambridge)
Prof. Karla Pollmann (St Andrews)
We will also have a special invited lecture from Dr. Grant Macaskill (St Andrews), on his edition of the Slavonic text of 2 Enoch.
Conference sessions will be chaired by plenary speakers followed by papers grouped by topic.
More on last year's conference here.
March Biblical Studies Carnival
THE MARCH BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL is hosted by Duane Smith at Abnormal Interests. Lots of good stuff, as usual.
A call for Hebrew and Aramaic translators
PUBLICATION OPPORTUNITY:
The heading says "an update," but this is the first I've heard of the project. It sounds exciting.
*The Hackmey Hebrew Classical Library ***From the H-Judaic list. Follow the link for a list of texts of particular interest to the project. Lots of halakhic and mystical texts are on the list.
*Call for Translators - an update*
Harvard University Press and Tel Aviv University Press is about to launch a new series of bilingual editions of classical Hebrew and Aramaic texts in facing English translation (on the model of Loeb and I Tatti). The new series, made possible by a donation of Mr. Joseph Hackmey, will be named *The Hackmey Hebrew Classical Library*. The project is under the direction of Prof. Aviad Kleinberg, director of Tel Aviv University Press.
We are currently looking for high-quality translations of Hebrew and Aramaic texts in all genres - from poetry to halachic discussions and from philosophy to chronicles -from the post-biblical period to the *haskalah*. We invite scholars working in these fields to submit proposals for English translations from Hebrew and Aramaic. The translations will be accompanied by an introduction, short explanatory notes and a bibliography.*
The heading says "an update," but this is the first I've heard of the project. It sounds exciting.
The use of the Bible in ancient Greek inscriptions
BIBLICAL EXEGESIS AND ANCIENT EPIGRAPHY—a good combination as far as I'm concerned.
Biblical Citations in Greek, Jewish, and Christian Inscriptions of the Graeco-Roman World*Excerpt:
By Ekaterini G. Tsalampouni (Bible and Interpretation)
Lecturer on the New Testament
Faculty of Theology
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GR
etsala@past.auth.gr
March 2012
Although the biblical citations in Greek, Jewish, and Christian inscriptions are a rather marginal practice within the Jewish and Christian epigraphy, they offer valuable insights into the “Sitz im Leben” of Jewish and Christian communities and their interaction in Graeco-Roman and Late Antiquity. They remain expressions of personal piety and community self-affirmation, monuments of the way ancient Jewish and Christian communities understood and adapted their scriptures in their personal and communal lives.
Ancient Greek helmet found in Haifa Bay
LOST AND FOUND, but a little late:
Found: Ancient Warrior's Helmet, Owner UnknownIt's something of a mystery how it was lost. Losing a gold earring is bad but, for a warrior, this would be worse.
Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor
Date: 28 February 2012 Time: 11:27 AM ET
A Greek bronze helmet, covered with gold leaf and decorated with snakes, lions and a peacock's tail (or palmette), has been discovered in the waters of Haifa Bay in Israel. But how this helmet ended up at the bottom of the bay is a mystery.
The helmet dates back around 2,600 years and likely belonged to a wealthy Greek mercenary who took part in a series of wars, immortalized in the Bible, which ravaged the region at that time. Archaeologists believe that he likely fought for an Egyptian pharaoh named Necho II.
[...]
Professor Tabor replies
ASOR BLOG: A Reply from Prof. Tabor—A Jonah Fish Image or a Tower Tomb Monument?
UPDATE: James McGrath: Today’s Round-Up of Talpiot Tomb Posts (for yesterday, 1 March).
UPDATE: James McGrath: Today’s Round-Up of Talpiot Tomb Posts (for yesterday, 1 March).
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Jesus Discovery latest at ASOR blog
THE ASOR BLOG: Comments from Prof. Steven Fine on the “Jesus Discovery”. In short, the Jonah "icon" is a drawing of a tomb.
Professor Fine concludes:
Background here and links.
Professor Fine concludes:
I, for one, am wearied by the almost yearly “teaching moment” presented by these types of “discoveries.” I am hopeful, however, that—this time—a forceful and quick display of unanimous dissent by the leading members of the academic community will be taken seriously by the media and the public at large.There are signs that that may happen this time.
Background here and links.
The million dollar shekel
A SLIVER SHEKEL FROM THE GREAT REVOLT OF 66 CE is profiled in a press release taken up by Art Daily, along with a nice close-up photo:
Background here and links.
UPDATE: Dead link fixed. Sorry!
Million dollar ancient silver shekel highlights world's greatest private Jewish coin collectionPhilanthropists take note! And if you know of buyers who do buy some or all of these coins and donate them to the Israel Museum, please let me know so I can praise them here, either by name or anonymously, as they wish.
NEW YORK, NY.- The first silver shekel struck in Jerusalem by Jewish forces rebelling against Roman oppression in the first century CE, one of only two specimens known, will be auctioned as part of The Shoshana Collection of Ancient Coins of Judea, March 8-9, at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion (Ukrainian Institute of America) at 2 East 79th St (at 5th Ave.). The auction begins on March 8 at 6 p.m. ET.
The Shoshana Collection, assembled over the course of four decades by an American collector of Judaean coins, is perhaps the greatest assembly of ancient coins related to the foundation of ancient Israel ever offered, with more than 700 coins spanning more than 11 centuries. Auction estimates on the coins range from $200 to $950,000.
“This Year 1 silver shekel, struck shortly after the Jewish War began in May of 66 CE, is the prototype for all subsequent shekels,” said Cris Bierrenbach, Executive Vice President of Heritage Auctions. “Only a handful of coins were struck from this first set of dies before the design was radically changed. Only two ‘prototypes’ have survived to the present day, with the only other known specimen in the Israel Museum’s collection.”
In fact, the Israel Museum has stated that it would like to acquire many of the coins from The Shoshana Collection and has a “wish list” available to potential bidders interested in purchasing coins from the auction and donating them to the museum’s collection, or in making them available on long-term loan. This can be done through the American Friends of the Israel Museum, a tax-exempt organization.
[...]
Background here and links.
UPDATE: Dead link fixed. Sorry!
More on that Turkish Aramaic "Bible"
THE STORY OF THE ANCIENT ARAMAIC APOCRYPHAL GOSPEL supposedly recovered from smugglers in Turkey is taken up and taken apart by Peter BetBasoo and Ashur Giwargis in AINA, based on their knowledge of Modern Assyrian (Syriac):
So instead of being a pre-Islamic copy of The Gospel of Barnabas with predictions of Muhammad in the mouth of Jesus, the manuscript dates itself to 1500; it appears to contain a canonical Gospel; it is suspiciously poorly copied; and paleographic concerns indicate it may be much later than even 1500.
The weird thing is that the manuscript itself does not seem to be promoting the narrative being circulated about it. If it is a forgery, it's a forgery of a 600-year-old manuscript of a canonical book, not of an an ancient copy of an apocryphal one. What is going on?
I look forward to all the updates and corrections that I'm sure the mainstream (and other) media who have been spreading this story will publish.
Background here and links.
The 1,500 Year Old 'Bible' and Muslim PropagandaSpecific follow.
Posted GMT 2-29-2012 22:56:9
(AINA) -- Much has been made of the recent discovery in Turkey of a Bible purported to be written in the Aramaic language, 1,500 years ago. The Muslim media, as well as Western media outlets, quickly pounced on this, claiming this Bible contains verses attributed to Jesus Christ, in which Christ predicts the coming of Muhammad. No media outlet has published a facsimile of these verses.
This "Bible" is written on leather in gold letters. The picture of the front cover show inscriptions in Aramaic and a picture of a cross.
For any native speaker of Modern Assyrian (also known as neo-Aramaic), and that would be your average Assyrian today, the inscription is easily read. The bottom inscription, which is the most clearly visible from the published photos, says the following:
Transliteration: b-shimmit maran paish kteewa aha ktawa al idateh d-rabbaneh d-dera illaya b-ninweh b'sheeta d-alpa w-khamshamma d-maran
Translation: In the name of our Lord, this book is written on the hands of the monks of the high monastery in Nineveh, in the 1,500th year of our Lord.
Nineveh is the ancient Assyrian capital and is located in present-day north Iraq, near Mosul.
There are spelling errors that are immediately noticeable.
Most significantly, this writing is in Modern Assyrian, which was standardized in the 1840s. The first bible in Modern Assyrian was produced in 1848. If this book were written in 1500 A.D. it should have been written in Classical Assyrian.As noted earlier, Peter Williams says the final page contains the end of the Peshitta of the Gospel of Matthew.
It is highly unlikely for monks to make such elementary mistakes. It remains to be seen whether this book is a forgery, or even what kind of book it is.
[...]
So instead of being a pre-Islamic copy of The Gospel of Barnabas with predictions of Muhammad in the mouth of Jesus, the manuscript dates itself to 1500; it appears to contain a canonical Gospel; it is suspiciously poorly copied; and paleographic concerns indicate it may be much later than even 1500.
The weird thing is that the manuscript itself does not seem to be promoting the narrative being circulated about it. If it is a forgery, it's a forgery of a 600-year-old manuscript of a canonical book, not of an an ancient copy of an apocryphal one. What is going on?
I look forward to all the updates and corrections that I'm sure the mainstream (and other) media who have been spreading this story will publish.
Background here and links.
The Afghan manuscripts again
THE AFGHAN MANUSCRIPTS are covered in an article in Tablet Magazine:
Background here and links.
War PapersThere's nothing much new about the manuscripts themselves, but the article has a lot of background on Jews in Afghanistan at the time the manuscripts were produced, as well as later.
A trove of medieval scrolls, smuggled out of Afghanistan into the hands of London art dealers, could shed new light on a once-vibrant Jewish heritage
By Jonathan Lee|February 29, 2012 7:00 AM|6comments
Afghanistan for many people is synonymous with the War on Terror, radical Islamic movements such as the Taliban and al-Qaida, and a state of almost perpetual instability. However, recent reports of the discovery of some 150 medieval Judaeo-Persian manuscripts purporting to be from Afghanistan, possibly worth several million dollars on the open market, open a window to a very different place. At the same time, they offer scholars a chance to learn more about a little-known Jewish heritage. Though they cannot compare to the thousands of works of the Cairo Geniza or the Dead Sea Scrolls, these manuscripts are the most important cache of Jewish documents ever to have been found in Afghanistan.
[...]
Background here and links.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
More on Jacobovici, Tabor, and that Talpiot tomb
THE ASOR BLOG has three new posts on Jacobovici's and Tabor's book, The New Jesus Discovery, and their theories about Talpiot Tomb B:
Reflections of an Epigrapher on Talpiyot Tombs A and B: A Detailed Response to the Claims of Professor James Tabor and Filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici (Christopher A. Rollston);
Jodi Magness responds to the “New Jesus Discovery”;
On ‘Absalom’s Tomb’ in Jerusalem and Nephesh Monument Iconography: A Response to Jacobovici and Tabor by Robert Cargill.
Bottom line: the specialists find their theories sensationalist and unpersuasive.
Happily, the mainstream media is taking some notice of the specialist response:
Alan Boyle, Cosmic Log (MSNBC): Doubts about 'the Jesus Discovery'.
Michael Gordon, Professor's discovery resurrects debate over 'Jesus tomb' (Kansas City Star/McClatchy Newspapers):
Also, Tom Verenna has a Roundup of Biblioblogger Comments on the New Jacobovici Claims as of yesterday. I'm sure there will be more coming.
Two observations. First, as the scholarly commentators have already said, the technology used to get at Tomb B is really cool and the tomb itself is not unimportant. No one has been convinced that it contains earthshattering discoveries, but there are new data that will contribute a little to our knowledge of first-century Judea and that is all to the good. There is a real story here and it's too bad that it is being overshadowed by sensationalist claims that specialists find unconvincing.
Second, for a change the scholarly response has been swift and well organized, and the media seem to be taking some notice of it. Earlier stories such as the fake metal codices seem to have helped us set up lines of communication among ourselves and with the media, and this is also all to the good. Well done!
It will be interesting to see if other major media take any notice of the ASOR blog.
UPDATE: Another post on the ASOR blog: Prof. Robin Jensen Refutes Any Claim that She Concurs with the Interpretation in “The Jesus Discovery.”
UPDATE: James McGrath: Is the New Testament Evidence Compatible with Jesus having been Buried in Talpiot?. He thinks not. The post also has a list of the latest blog posts on The Jesus Discovery-related matters.
Reflections of an Epigrapher on Talpiyot Tombs A and B: A Detailed Response to the Claims of Professor James Tabor and Filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici (Christopher A. Rollston);
Jodi Magness responds to the “New Jesus Discovery”;
On ‘Absalom’s Tomb’ in Jerusalem and Nephesh Monument Iconography: A Response to Jacobovici and Tabor by Robert Cargill.
Bottom line: the specialists find their theories sensationalist and unpersuasive.
Happily, the mainstream media is taking some notice of the specialist response:
Alan Boyle, Cosmic Log (MSNBC): Doubts about 'the Jesus Discovery'.
Michael Gordon, Professor's discovery resurrects debate over 'Jesus tomb' (Kansas City Star/McClatchy Newspapers):
Most of Tabor's peers dismissed his "Jesus Tomb" hypothesis, saying it lacked proof.Adrian Blomfield in the Telegraph also sounds a note of skepticism: Christ's disciples' remains 'discovered':
That said, John Dominic Crossan, an expert in first century Christianity and professor emeritus at DePaul University in Chicago, called Tabor's latest find "a stunning discovery," which he hopes doesn't get diminished by renewed debate over the "Jesus Tomb."
"As a scholar, I really don't want to get lost in saying, 'Oh come on, it's off the wall,'" Crossan told MSNBC. "Yeah, it's off the wall, but look at the wall!"
The research, and the stories behind it, are included in Tabor's and Jacobovici's new book, "The Jesus Discovery." A documentary will follow this spring.
Duke University archaeologist Eric Meyers lacerated Tabor's claims Tuesday on a blog for the American Schools of Oriental Research. He called Tabor's book sensationalistic, predicting it may end up "on a long list of presentations that misuse not only the Bible but also archaeology."
He even questioned Tabor's central image, the whale, saying it may instead be a nephesh, a common symbol found on first century tombs.
Tabor's response: "Ridiculous."
But the Israeli archaeologists who discovered the ossuaries dismissed Mr Jacobovic's conclusions as nonsense, saying such names were common at the time.But many other mainstream media articles just report the story without taking note of the critical evaluation by scholars.
Biblical scholars have also pointed out that, as a Galilean, Christ would not have been buried in Jerusalem, particularly not in a tomb that suggested considerable wealth given His humble origins.
Israeli archaeologists, who jokingly refer to Mr Jacobovic as "Indiana Jones", point out that he is a film maker with no academic qualifications beyond a bachelor's degree and say he has "cherry-picked" findings from experts on his team to create the flimsiest of cases.
"His Jesus theory is conjecture built upon deception built upon wilful misinterpretation in order to spin a moneymaking yarn and garner publicity," said one archaeologist who asked not to be identified in order not to link his name to the claims
Also, Tom Verenna has a Roundup of Biblioblogger Comments on the New Jacobovici Claims as of yesterday. I'm sure there will be more coming.
Two observations. First, as the scholarly commentators have already said, the technology used to get at Tomb B is really cool and the tomb itself is not unimportant. No one has been convinced that it contains earthshattering discoveries, but there are new data that will contribute a little to our knowledge of first-century Judea and that is all to the good. There is a real story here and it's too bad that it is being overshadowed by sensationalist claims that specialists find unconvincing.
Second, for a change the scholarly response has been swift and well organized, and the media seem to be taking some notice of it. Earlier stories such as the fake metal codices seem to have helped us set up lines of communication among ourselves and with the media, and this is also all to the good. Well done!
It will be interesting to see if other major media take any notice of the ASOR blog.
UPDATE: Another post on the ASOR blog: Prof. Robin Jensen Refutes Any Claim that She Concurs with the Interpretation in “The Jesus Discovery.”
UPDATE: James McGrath: Is the New Testament Evidence Compatible with Jesus having been Buried in Talpiot?. He thinks not. The post also has a list of the latest blog posts on The Jesus Discovery-related matters.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Jacobovici and Tabor and a burial cave
AND THE BURIAL CAVE had Jesus in it, of course. This sounds kind of interesting, but I don't have time to think about it right now. Mark Goodacre has a summary post on the current state of play: Jacobovici and Tabor link burial cave to Jesus' disciples. James McGrath also notes their forthcoming book and seizes the opportunity to plug his own book as well: The Jesus Discovery and The Burial of Jesus. Mark and James have put much more effort into following such things than I have, so I will just echo their very sensible wait-and-see attitude, and keep an eye on how the story develops.
UPDATE: That was quick: Eric Meyers’ review of “The New Jesus Discovery” (ASOR blog). Excerpt:
Also, James Tabor has posted a related essay at the Bible and Interpretation website: A Preliminary Report of a Robotic Camera: Exploration of a Sealed 1st Century Tomb in East Talpiot, Jerusalem.
UPDATE: Keep an eye on the ASOR blog, which seems to have become the informal central clearinghouse for scholarly responses to The New Jesus Discovery and related matters.
UPDATE: That was quick: Eric Meyers’ review of “The New Jesus Discovery” (ASOR blog). Excerpt:
The book is truly much ado about nothing and is a sensationalist presentation of data that are familiar to anyone with knowledge of first-century Jerusalem. Nothing in the book “revolutionizes our understanding of Jesus or early Christianity” as the authors and publisher claim, and we may regard this book as yet another in a long list of presentations that misuse not only the Bible but also archaeology.(HT Robert Cargill on FB.)
Also, James Tabor has posted a related essay at the Bible and Interpretation website: A Preliminary Report of a Robotic Camera: Exploration of a Sealed 1st Century Tomb in East Talpiot, Jerusalem.
It seems very likely that followers of Jesus were moved to do what other Jews eschewed—in testimony to their faith in Jesus’ resurrection. Clearly the Jonah image and the Greek inscription, in such close proximity to a tomb with names corresponding to Jesus and his family, should cause us to reexamine some of the other ossuary inscriptions that Eliezar Sukenik, Bellarmino Bagatti, and others have identified as Christian—some of which are in the close geographical proximity to the Talpiot tombs.I'm too busy to do more that sit back and watch this one.
UPDATE: Keep an eye on the ASOR blog, which seems to have become the informal central clearinghouse for scholarly responses to The New Jesus Discovery and related matters.
New Survey of ancient tabulae
A NEW ONLINE PUBLICATION noted by G.W. Schwendner at the What's New in Papyrology blog: K.A. Worp, A New Survey of Greek, Coptic, Demotic and Latin Tabulae preserved from Classical Antiquity.
The publication, which has brief descriptions of a long list of tabulae (inscribed wooden boards), is downloadable for free as a pdf file. Many of these texts include quotations from the Old Testament, New Testament, and other early Christian and Manichean (Manichaean) documents. The editor does not include Hebrew, Aramaic, or Arabic texts, but some of the Demotic ones have an Aramaic component.
The publication, which has brief descriptions of a long list of tabulae (inscribed wooden boards), is downloadable for free as a pdf file. Many of these texts include quotations from the Old Testament, New Testament, and other early Christian and Manichean (Manichaean) documents. The editor does not include Hebrew, Aramaic, or Arabic texts, but some of the Demotic ones have an Aramaic component.
Looters using the Copper Scroll?
BUSTED! Antiquities officials catch thieves in ancient cave: Five would-be tomb robbers apprehended at a 2,000-year-old site near the city of Modi’in. I'm glad they were caught, but this is disquieting:
Another dubious use of the Copper Scroll was noted here last year. And for more serious discussion of the Scroll and some related material, see here and here.
The men, West Bank Palestinians, were apprehended after a scuffle with antiquities inspectors early Saturday, according to the statement. They had been spotted scouring the site with a metal detector, and are suspected of looting other sites in the same area near the city of Modi’in.I don't know why I'm surprised that looters would try using the Copper Scroll to locate treasure, but I am. It's not going to help them any, but the problem is the damage they do to sites while trying.
Among those sites was one given a cryptic mention in the Copper Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, as a possible location for the burial of the treasures of the Jewish Temple. According to the Antiquities Authority, that mention has made the site a popular target for thieves.
Another dubious use of the Copper Scroll was noted here last year. And for more serious discussion of the Scroll and some related material, see here and here.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Galatians conference in St Andrews
AN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PAUL'S LETTER TO THE GALATIANS & CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY is being held at the University of St. Andrews on 10-13 July 2012. Follow the link for details and registration information.
Footnote lost
CLOSE, BUT NO OSCAR: Iranian film beats Israel's 'Footnote' at Academy Awards (Reuter/AP).
More on the Turkish Aramaic "Bible"
THAT ARAMAIC "BIBLE" that is causing so much fuss in Turkey is analyzed by Peter Williams at ETC: The antique Syriac Bible. Guess what? The text is of Matthew, the colophon does date it to 1500, the gold ink has been seen before in suspicious circumstances, and Peter suspects a forgery. No Gospel of Barnabas after all.
And if it's from Matthew, it doesn't even get to be an apocryphon. Oh well.
Background here and here.
And if it's from Matthew, it doesn't even get to be an apocryphon. Oh well.
Background here and here.
Display of Judean coins to be auctioned
THE ANCIENT JUDEAN COINS coming up for auction were on display in Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday: Ancient coins from 66 AD displayed in LA before auction. The article has photos of some of the more valuable ones.
The auction is in New York on 8-9 March (details here. If there are any philanthropists out there who would like to invest a few million on them to make sure they are not lost for scholarly study, now's your chance.
Background here.
The auction is in New York on 8-9 March (details here. If there are any philanthropists out there who would like to invest a few million on them to make sure they are not lost for scholarly study, now's your chance.
Background here.
More on the Temple Mount
TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Archaeology Holocaust on Temple Mount: The Unpublicized Report: Unsurprisingly, the UN has not said a thing. But why is the Israeli ombudsman's report on the Temple Mount still hidden from the public? (Guilio Meotti, Arutz Sheva).
I would save the term "holocaust" for other things (but note that the author is probably not responsible for the headline). And bad as it is, I would not say that the archaeological desecration of the Waqf on the Temple Mount is "the greatest crime of all." But it's bad enough.
Lots more on that suppressed Comptroller's report on the Temple Mount here and links.
I would save the term "holocaust" for other things (but note that the author is probably not responsible for the headline). And bad as it is, I would not say that the archaeological desecration of the Waqf on the Temple Mount is "the greatest crime of all." But it's bad enough.
Lots more on that suppressed Comptroller's report on the Temple Mount here and links.
New book: Wright, How God Became King
IN THE MAIL: Well, in my mailbox, from the author:
N. T. Wright, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels (HarperOne, 2012)
Sunday, February 26, 2012
More on Footnote
FOOTNOTE continues to get renewed attention with its Academy Award nomination.
Will Cedar’s ‘Footnote’ take home an Oscar?Interesting analysis of the film's chances. Excerpt:
By HANNAH BROWN 02/26/2012 01:06 (Jerusalem Post
It’s the tenth nomination for an Israeli film in this category, and the fourth in five years. But no Israeli film has ever won the award.
At the symposium for the directors of the movies nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in Los Angeles on Saturday morning, Cedar was asked about how he got the idea for Footnote. Reminded that he had been nominated for an Oscar before, he smiled and said, “I want to say that it originated here.”Also, Jonathan Poritsky interviews Cedar in Heeb Magazine: Filmmaker Joseph Cedar Talks Movies, Talmud and Committees. Excerpt:
But, he explained that although “it’s about recognition and awards and all the conflicting emotions that go along with needing to stand up on the podium,” the idea came to him when he was at a low point in his career. He was notified that he had won an unexpected honor, and assumed that it was intended for his father, Howard Cedar, an Israel Prize-winning scientist. As he waited to hear whether it was him or his father who was getting the honor, the idea for the film was born.
The opening of the film is very fast. A lot of quick cuts, a lot of jumping through time and a lot of neat uses of editing and graphics.Background here and links.
I wanted to feel free to tell the story in the most entertaining style. I’ve always been aggravated by the formalism of this profession that I have. In each of my previous films I would come out with a bunch of ideas that I just didn’t know how to put in that I’m sure would have helped the viewer become more involved in the story.
While I was writing this film I was looking at some Talmudic textbooks. The way these philologists write, they are extremely economic in how they phrase a sentence. You have very short sentences and then a whole page of footnotes. Because their writing is so sparse, all the things they want to put in but are afraid to put in the primary text they just throw in the footnotes. Suddenly they really go wild. They feel loose to use any style and gossip and things that aren’t necessarily true.
I like that as an idea, that a footnote is a place that can allow you to be a little less responsible and less consistent. So we’ve created footnotes in the film. Stylistic footnotes, content footnotes, informative footnotes. It was really liberating for me. Anything I wanted to say I just did as a footnote.
Is Israel losing Temple Mount war?
TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Is Israel losing Temple Mount war? Ynetnews special: Why is Israeli government covering up Muslim effort to erase any trace of Jewish history on Temple Mount? Archeology expert: Excavations barbaric, a crime (Amir Shoan).
Regular readers of PaleoJudaica will be familiar with many of the events and problems recounted in the article.
UPDATE: Related: Expert Warns of Waqf's Dangerous Plans for Temple Mount. Archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar warns: The Waqf is planning to unite all the mosques on the Temple Mount into one. (Elad Benari, Arutz Sheva)
Regular readers of PaleoJudaica will be familiar with many of the events and problems recounted in the article.
UPDATE: Related: Expert Warns of Waqf's Dangerous Plans for Temple Mount. Archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar warns: The Waqf is planning to unite all the mosques on the Temple Mount into one. (Elad Benari, Arutz Sheva)
Schiffman on Boteach, Kosher Jesus
LARRY SCHIFFMAN has a review of Shmuley Boteach, Kosher Jesus in JewishJournal.com: Is Jesus really Kosher? Excerpt:
Professor Schiffman is a Vice Provost at Yeshiva University and one of the premier authorities on Second Temple Judaism. His review deals both with the scholarly issues and the implications of Rabbi Boteach's book for Jewish-Christian dialogue. Read it all.
Another review is here.
From the beginning, Boteach wants us to see his book as totally revolutionary. Yet parts of it are, in fact, totally unoriginal, and that those parts that are most original put forward rather questionable suggestions. One of the supposedly original theses of this volume is that Jesus can only be understood by Jews and Christians if placed in the context of Second Temple Judaism. But actually, this is an axiom of all contemporary New Testament scholarship and nothing that Boteach has just discovered.One clarification:
What is unfortunate is that an entire world of scholarship on Second Temple Judaism, much of it the result of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, makes absolutely no appearance. This research has shown us the background of the apocalyptic messianism of Jesus and his disciples, and has revealed that the movement he created cannot simply be seen as a Pharisaic, proto-rabbinic movement in spite of some similarities in interpersonal ethics. The messianic teachings and numerous terms and symbols of early Christianity are derived from a world of Second Temple Judaism that included sects that followed an alternative system of Jewish law and extremely apocalyptic messianic teachings that do not accord with later rabbinic teaching.
Boteach argues that the descriptions of Jesus in the Gospels do not represent in any way an accurate picture of him. In his view Jesus was a rabbi who did not deviate from the observance of Jewish law, and was a heroic revolutionary opponent of Roman rule. This view has been suggested before, but it has failed to be accepted, precisely because there is absolutely no real evidence for it in the New Testament. Such claims represent speculation devoid of any kind of historical basis, driven by Boteach’s attempt to reconstruct history in the image of his own beliefs.
Boteach’s also asserts that Jesus did not consider himself divine. This is probably correct, specifically because the Gospel accounts do not in any way impute this point of view to him. However, shortly thereafter in the Pauline Epistles (c. 50-60 CE) and the Gospel of John (c. 90-100 CE), this identification is made explicitly.The Synoptic Gospels were written some time after Paul's death, so the letters of Paul are our earliest source for information on Jesus and what the earliest Jesus community believed about him. Whether or not Jesus considered himself "divine" is a very difficult question, as is what it meant for a human being to be "divine" in first-century Judaism. I think it is likely that Jesus thought of himself as the glorified or angelic "one like a son of man" of the book of Daniel, but many New Testament scholars would disagree with me. He may have applied the angelic theology of Melchizedek to himself as well, although this too is quite open to debate. Both possibilities are compatible with the theology of the Synoptic Gospels. Schiffman's position is one that is widely accepted, although many New Testament specialists would also disagree.
Professor Schiffman is a Vice Provost at Yeshiva University and one of the premier authorities on Second Temple Judaism. His review deals both with the scholarly issues and the implications of Rabbi Boteach's book for Jewish-Christian dialogue. Read it all.
Another review is here.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
A real ancient Aramaic Bible manuscript
TIMOTHY MICHAEL LAW has noted and posted (The Apostle Paul in Cairo!) a photo of a palimpsest manuscript from the Cairo Geniza whose upper layer is Mishnah Berakhot, but whose lower layer is, of all things, the New Testament Pastoral Epistles in Christian Palestinian Aramaic.
He put up the post several days ago and I have been meaning to get to it. But now go and have a look to clear your palate of yesterday's ridiculously over-hyped, at best early-modern, and possibly very recent Syriac manuscript supposedly containing The Gospel of Barnabas. (To be fair, as I said on Facebook, if it really is an apocryphal gospel, at least it still gets to count as an apocryphon whatever its date. That's the nice thing about apocrypha.)
If you need more, go look again at Codex Ambrosianus B.21, another genuine Aramaic Bible manuscript. It too even has some cool colored ink.
UPDATE: Okay, the Cairo Geniza manuscript is presumably medieval rather than ancient, but it contains two genuinely ancient texts and no one is trying to kid us about its date or content.
Also, if you can bear it, the Daily Mail has more—presumably priceless—photos of the Turkish manuscript, along with some new article content and even a passing note of skepticism: Secret £14million Bible in which 'Jesus predicts coming of Prophet Muhammad' unearthed in Turkey.
He put up the post several days ago and I have been meaning to get to it. But now go and have a look to clear your palate of yesterday's ridiculously over-hyped, at best early-modern, and possibly very recent Syriac manuscript supposedly containing The Gospel of Barnabas. (To be fair, as I said on Facebook, if it really is an apocryphal gospel, at least it still gets to count as an apocryphon whatever its date. That's the nice thing about apocrypha.)
If you need more, go look again at Codex Ambrosianus B.21, another genuine Aramaic Bible manuscript. It too even has some cool colored ink.
UPDATE: Okay, the Cairo Geniza manuscript is presumably medieval rather than ancient, but it contains two genuinely ancient texts and no one is trying to kid us about its date or content.
Also, if you can bear it, the Daily Mail has more—presumably priceless—photos of the Turkish manuscript, along with some new article content and even a passing note of skepticism: Secret £14million Bible in which 'Jesus predicts coming of Prophet Muhammad' unearthed in Turkey.
Friday, February 24, 2012
A Syriac apocryphal gospel manuscript in Turkey?
ARAMAIC WATCH:
It appears to be a very old (centuries? more?) Syriac manuscript. I can't say any more without taking more time to look at it than I can afford, but at least some of the page looks readable. It appears to be the final page of the manuscript and the bottom paragraph looks like a colophon. I think I can see the word "world" on the third line of the page. If any Syriacologist readers would like to have a closer look and send me what they find, that would be interesting.
Back to the article:
This article is so full of nonsense that it is difficult to get much useful out of it. In order of likelihood: The Turish Government has seized an old Syriac manuscript from some smugglers (well done!). This much seems clear. The manuscript may be of late antique date. (Syriac paleographers should be able to comment on the basis of the available photo.) It may be of an apocryphal gospel. (Possible, but no evidence has been produced.) This apocryphal gospel may have some relationship with the much later Muslim Gospel of Barnabas. (Conceivable, but pretty unlikely.) Anything beyond this consists of wild rumors that can be ignored until some verification is produced.
The discovery of an old—perhaps very old—Syriac manuscript is exciting. It's a pity that the story has to presented with such meretricious trimmings.
UPDATE: Maybe it's not even that exciting. Timothy Michael Law reads the date in the colophon as "1500 of our Lord" and suggests that it may be a modern forgery.
UPDATE (25 February): More and related here.
UPDATE (27 February: The text is from the Gospel of Matthew. Peter Williams's analysis is noted here.
1,500-year-old handwritten Bible kept in Ankara, ministry confirmsThe manuscript in the picture (click on the image to enlarge) is too small to be anything like a complete Bible, so this is misleading terminology, although the article does clarify that it seems to be a single text, perhaps an apocryphal gospel. For an actual complete Syriac Bible from about the period indicated, see here.
23 February 2012, Thursday / FATMA DİŞLİ ZIBAK, İSTANBUL (Today's Zaman)
The minister of culture and tourism on Thursday confirmed media reports suggesting that a 1,500-year-old Bible that was discovered by Turkish police during an anti-smuggling operation in 2000 is being kept in Ankara today.
According to media reports on Thursday, the Bible was seized from a gang smuggling artifacts during a police operation in southern Turkey in 2010 and reportedly preserves its originality and many traces of the period in which it originated.
The gang was reportedly convicted of smuggling various items seized during the operation, including the Bible, and all the artifacts were kept in a safe at an Ankara courthouse. The Bible, which was reportedly kept at the courthouse for years, was only recently handed over to the care of the Ankara Ethnography Museum.This contradicts the report relayed in another Today's Zaman article: 1500-year-old gospel kept in Ankara excites Vatican, report claims. The report does sound fishy. I see no reason why the Vatican should have any special interest in a particular Syriac apocryphal gospel manuscript.
Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay said on Thursday that the ministry has received a copy of Bible from the Ankara courthouse which dates back to 1,500 years ago and is thought to have been written in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. He said the Bible needs restoration and it will be opened to public display after this.
The Turkish media reports also said on Thursday that the Vatican has requested that Turkey allow it to examine the 1,500-year-old Bible; however, the Vatican Embassy in Ankara denied the reports on Thursday suggesting that the Vatican had asked Turkey to examine the copy of Bible in Ankara.
The leather-bound Bible, which is said to be worth TL 40 million, was written on leather sheets and is now under protection as it is regarded as a valuable cultural asset. Even a Xerox copy of pages from the book is reported to be worth as much as TL 3-4 million.Yeah, right. Someone is getting a little carried away. At today's exchange rate, 40 million TL is about $22.7 million dollars, which is vastly more than any 1500-year-old Syriac manuscript of an obscure apocryphal gospel is going to be worth. And $1.7 to 2.3 million for a photocopy? They print this, with no questioning or hint of irony, with an actual photograph of a page at the top? By this calculation that photo has to be worth a few tens of thousands of dollars, right? Are journalists born without any sense, or do they have to study?
It appears to be a very old (centuries? more?) Syriac manuscript. I can't say any more without taking more time to look at it than I can afford, but at least some of the page looks readable. It appears to be the final page of the manuscript and the bottom paragraph looks like a colophon. I think I can see the word "world" on the third line of the page. If any Syriacologist readers would like to have a closer look and send me what they find, that would be interesting.
Back to the article:
Some media reports also said the copy of Bible in Ankara may be a copy of the much-debated Gospel of Barnabas, which Muslims claim is an original gospel that was later suppressed; the oldest copies of this gospel date back to the 16th century and are written in Italian and Spanish. However, the Gospel of Barnabas is not included in the four gospels that currently comprise the canonical New Testament -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.The Arabic Gospel of Barnabas is an early modern apocryphal gospel (uniquely?) of Muslim origin. The Wikipedia article (insert usual Wikipedia caveats here) is here. You can read the whole thing (it's long) in translation here. I haven't read it and knew nothing much beyond the name before this report, but it sounds as though it can't be entirely excluded that it contains material from earlier apocryphal traditions, suitably worked over from a Muslim perspective.
The Gospel of Barnabas contradicts the canonical New Testament account of Jesus and his ministry but has strong parallels with the Islamic view of Jesus. Much of its content and themes parallel Islamic ideas, and it includes a prediction by Jesus of the Prophet Muhammad coming to earth.
Ömer Faruk Harman, a theology professor, said scientific examinations may reveal whether the Bible in Ankara is the Gospel of Barnabas, which he said complies with the messages in Muslim holy book of Quran and is believed by Muslims to be the most original copy of Bible.If the date of the manuscript is correct, I would say that is likely.
He said in line with Islamic belief, the Gospel of Barnabas treats Jesus as a human being and prophet not a God, rejects trinity and crucifixion of Jesus and includes a prediction about Prophet Muhammad’s coming to Earth. About the prospects of whether the Bible could be the Gospel of Barnabas, İhsan Özbek, a Protestant pastor, said this is unlikely because St. Barnabas lived in the first century and was one of the Apostles of Jesus, but the Bible in Ankara is said to be from the fifth or the sixth century.
“The copy in Ankara might have been written by one of the followers of St. Barbanas and since there is around 500 years in between St. Barnabas and the writing of the Bible copy [in Ankara], Muslims may be disappointed to see that this copy does not include things they would like to see and it might have no relation with the content of the Gospel of Barnabas,” said Özbek.
Aydoğan Vatandaş, a Today’s Zaman journalist and author who has written two books on the Gospel of Barnabas, said there is no clue that the Bible mentioned in the Turkish press dates back to 1,500 years ago, but he said it is sure that the Gospel of Barnabas had been written in the Aramaic language and Syriac alphabet.This manuscript is in Syriac at any rate. The Gospel of Baranabas was presumably composed in Arabic, although, as above, it is perhaps possible it drew on Syriac apocryphal traditions.
“There is only one Gospel that exactly matches this definition: the ‘Gospel of Barnabas’ that was found in a cave in Uludere in Hakkari [now of Şırnak] in the early 1980s by villagers, which I told the story of first as a screenplay in 2005 for a film project, then in my novel in 2007, ‘The Secret of Gospel of Barnabas’ and my investigative journalism book, ‘Apokrifal’ in 2008.”Oh goody, another manuscript found in a cave.
As a result of his research, Vatandaş said he found that this Gospel was actually preserved by the Special Armed Forces intelligence unit in the 1990s and that some parts of this Gospel were translated by an Aramaic language expert Dr. Hamza Hocagil under the control of the intelligence unit. He said Dr. Hocagil was asked to stop translating it by the Special Armed Forces when it turned out that he had shared sensitive information with journalists at the time.I am inclined to doubt that the the Turkish intelligence unit of the Special Armed Forces is taking such an interest in this other manuscript, if it exists at all.
“Since then we did not know where this Gospel was. After my book about the entire story of this Gospel and the criminal incidents surrounding it, the public’s interest and curiosity has increased and the Turkish military has been the target of several questions about the case. Therefore, I believe that the emergence of this Gospel again is very timely,” he said. Vatandaş also claimed that three other copies of this Gospel written by St. Barnabas are hidden in different locations in the region, so the Gospel in Ankara might be one of these as well.
This article is so full of nonsense that it is difficult to get much useful out of it. In order of likelihood: The Turish Government has seized an old Syriac manuscript from some smugglers (well done!). This much seems clear. The manuscript may be of late antique date. (Syriac paleographers should be able to comment on the basis of the available photo.) It may be of an apocryphal gospel. (Possible, but no evidence has been produced.) This apocryphal gospel may have some relationship with the much later Muslim Gospel of Barnabas. (Conceivable, but pretty unlikely.) Anything beyond this consists of wild rumors that can be ignored until some verification is produced.
The discovery of an old—perhaps very old—Syriac manuscript is exciting. It's a pity that the story has to presented with such meretricious trimmings.
UPDATE: Maybe it's not even that exciting. Timothy Michael Law reads the date in the colophon as "1500 of our Lord" and suggests that it may be a modern forgery.
UPDATE (25 February): More and related here.
UPDATE (27 February: The text is from the Gospel of Matthew. Peter Williams's analysis is noted here.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Tom Verenna on the photo of the Mark fragment
TOM VERENNA: More Thoughts on the Markan Manuscript Fragment. "All that said, I have to say it looks fake." I certainly haven't seen anyone rushing to declare it authentic. Tom has links to additional biblioblogger reactions.
Note, of course, that the question of whether this fragment is fake is entirely separate from the question of whether a first-century fragment of Mark has been discovered.
Background here and links.
Note, of course, that the question of whether this fragment is fake is entirely separate from the question of whether a first-century fragment of Mark has been discovered.
Background here and links.
Syriac in Turkey for International Mother Language Day
ARAMAIC WATCH: International Mother Language Day in Turkey (AINA):
Some recent posts on Syriac in Turkey are here, here, here, and here with many links.
Yuhanna Aktaş for instance recalled how he learned the Syriac alphabet unofficially and secretly at church and in a monastery. "The spoken language, I learned at home from my father. Teaching this ancient language is forbidden, hence it is at risk of disappearing completely. Saint Afrem says 'You don't know where you come from, when you don't know your mother language'. According to Afrem, language is the most important tool for the continuation of a people. Abdüldmeseli Karabaş, another Syriac writer, said 'every oppressed people trying to protect their mother language resemble a captive with the prison keys in his hand who expects to be freed any moment'.International Mother Language Day was on 21 February. I'm sorry to have missed it.
Some recent posts on Syriac in Turkey are here, here, here, and here with many links.
Jerusalem in the time of Jesus
ANOTHER PIECE ON ANCIENT JERUSALEM is posted at Crosswalk.com:
Discovering the Jerusalem From the Time of JesusAlso published in the Jerusalem Post, but the Crosswalk version has an additional photo. A nice companion to the Haaretz piece on Aelia Capitolina.
Ariel Ben Ami, Travelujah
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
What did Jerusalem look like in Jesus' days? For most of Christian history, this question remained shrouded in mystery.
When the Temple and city were destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., the ruins remained buried for nearly two millennia -- even after the Jewish people began to return to the Land of Israel at the end of the nineteenth century. During the War of Independence (1948), the Jewish Quarter of the Old City was largely destroyed by the Jordanians and it remained off limits to Jews for 19 years, until Israel retook the Old City during the Six Day War (1967).
After the Six Day War, during the renovation of the Jewish Quarter (1967-82), the ancient site was uncovered, revealing spectacular finds: a luxurious Second Temple-period residential quarter in the Upper City of Jerusalem. Because of its grandeur and opulence, it was renamed the Herodian Quarter, also known today as the Wohl Museum of Archeology.
In the days when Jesus came up to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the Jewish festivals, the wealthy aristocratic and priestly families lived in the magnificent houses of the Herodian Quarter. It is easy to see why this area, built on a hillside overlooking the nearby Temple Mount, would have been particularly attractive to priests who ministered in the Temple every day.
Today, this is the largest and most important site from Second Temple times that can still be seen in Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter. Perhaps even some of the priests and Sadducees whom the Gospels recall as disputing with Jesus, lived in these houses.
[...]
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Human sons of God in Ben Sira 16:7?
REMNANT OF GIANTS: The Earliest Non-Angelic Interpretation of Genesis 6.1-4.
Tyrone Slothrop thinks it's as early as Ben Sira. His interpretation of Sir 16:7 sounds possible, but I think one could also read the verse to say that God did not forgive the giants (who were superhuman but still mortal, and thus not inappropriate for this list) when they revolted in their might and filled the earth with wickedness before the Flood (Gen 6:11). As Tyrone observes, Ben Sira's phrase "in their might" alludes to Gen 6:4, which calls the Nephilim/giants, not the angelic Watchers, "mighty men." So I don't see anything in the verse that need be taken to say that the Watchers themselves (the sons of God) were human.
UPDATE (23 February): Have a look at Tyrone's post again. He has appended a response to my comments above.
Tyrone Slothrop thinks it's as early as Ben Sira. His interpretation of Sir 16:7 sounds possible, but I think one could also read the verse to say that God did not forgive the giants (who were superhuman but still mortal, and thus not inappropriate for this list) when they revolted in their might and filled the earth with wickedness before the Flood (Gen 6:11). As Tyrone observes, Ben Sira's phrase "in their might" alludes to Gen 6:4, which calls the Nephilim/giants, not the angelic Watchers, "mighty men." So I don't see anything in the verse that need be taken to say that the Watchers themselves (the sons of God) were human.
UPDATE (23 February): Have a look at Tyrone's post again. He has appended a response to my comments above.
Speaking of the Cairo Geniza ...
GILUY MILTA B'ALMA: A new Midrash (to Jeremiah 23-24)? It is from the Cambridge Cairo Geniza collection, possibly donated by Rabbi Solomon Aaron Wertheimer; it consists of five leaves written in an Oriental script; its beginning is lost but it relates to these chapters of Jeremiah; and it has linguistic similarities to the classical Midrashim and the Jerusalem Talmud.
Bodleian Cairo Geniza online catalogue
AWOL: Genizah: Cairo Genizah Collection of the Bodleian libraries.
The collection of Cairo Genizah fragments held at the Bodleian Libraries is one of the major collections of its kind. Acquired over the years since 1890 it consists of about 4,000 fragments. The collection, skilfully selected and featuring Bible, Early Rabbinic literature, liturgical fragments, legal documents and letters, both personal and commercial, is particularly remarkable for the size of many of the documents. The 4,000 fragments comprise about 25,000 pages, amounting to over six pages per fragment, an average unparalleled elsewhere.Much more on the Cairo Geniza here and here, and follow the endless links back.
The online catalogue is based upon the printed catalogue of the Hebrew manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (second volume) by Adolf Neubauer and Arthur Ernest Cowley (1906) [link] and the typewritten catalogue of additional Genizah fragments by Arthur Ernest Cowley (ca 1929).
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