Talmudic "Chaucerian verve"

DAF YOMI COLUMN: This week Adam Kirsch writes on Talmudic Pride and Prejudice in The Tablet.

For me, one of the powerful lessons of reading Berachot, the tractate on prayers, has been to see just how ancient and continuous the Jewish tradition really is. The Shema, the Amidah, the Birkat—we still recite all these prayers today, in almost or exactly the same form as the Tannaim, the rabbis of the Mishna, did 2,000 years ago. What has changed, as suggested by this week’s reading—which is largely focused on the prayer after meals, the Birkat Hamazon—is our attitude toward precedence and rank.

For the rabbis of the Talmud, as for the elite of any premodern society, gradations of prestige and authority were part of the nature of things. At many moments in this week’s Daf Yomi, we see that they could be as touchy about these distinctions as any courtier at Versailles. The difference is that, in post-Temple Judaism, the lack of traditional power structures—a royal court, an army, a functioning priesthood—meant that new forms of hierarchy had to be created; and they were based, in a way that came to seem essentially Jewish, less on birth or wealth than on learning.

[...]

Includes some interesting discussion of the am haaretz—the "people of the land."

More on Thomas and GJW

MARK GOODACRE: Gospel of Jesus' Wife: the last line is also from Thomas.  Oh oh.

Background on the GJW is here and links.

The name of God in Judaism and Islam

ROBERT WRIGHT brings Arabic and Syriac philology to The Atlantic, which you don't see very often: Allah = God.

On prostitution

TALI ARTMAN-PARTOCK: Of prostitutes and prophets. A long discussion in Haaretz of prostitution as a theme in late antique Christian and Jewish literature. Excerpts:

Feminine monasticism and following in the footsteps of Jesus enabled women in Christianity to have freedoms that life in a family framework would have denied them. They became leaders, miracle workers, independent; they gained recognition as significant active subjects, and even as saints. Yet this "liberation" exacted a price: It required the woman to forfeit a family life, which also perpetuated the view that a woman is defined by her sexual function. The monastic option transforms the woman into a "non-woman," and therefore into a person capable of carrying out masculine tasks and climbing to the heights of thought and belief. The woman can become a saint only when she is essentially a man.

The moral of the story is obvious: Even a prostitute, who serves the devil, can repent, particularly in light of her special skills. The monastic lesson is, of course, that we should learn humility, and that only he who is capable of seeing beyond the flesh, like Nonnus, is a true saint.

[...]

The discussion of prostitution and monasticism, then, is not merely a debate held at the upper and lower margins of society, but one that is at its very foundations - its understanding of what closeness to God is and what femininity is.

The Christian model, which views femininity as an obstacle to holiness, since it alone is the embodiment of sexuality, converts the prostitute into a nun.

The Jewish model is different. In it, sexuality does not possess the same negative value, and the desire to sin is located in the man. The Talmudic story has no need for either a female or a male monasticism, because holiness is found everywhere, even in sex, which is embodied here in the ultimate form of the harlot. The process of consciousness, which maintains that sin - like salvation - is found deep in the soul, and is not dependent on any institution or any encounter with a saintly figure, is another conclusion to be drawn from the Talmudic story, which symbolizes the widening gap between the two religions in late antiquity.

Yom Kippur

YOM KIPPUR, the Day of Atonement, begins this evening at sundown.  An easy fast to all those observing it.

Gospel of Jesus' Wife update

JAMES MCGRATH has a roundup on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife which covers recent media and blogospheric activity, while cautioning wisely that the jury is still out regarding the fragment's authenticity: Jesus – Married too Soon?

Background here and links.

Carnivalesque 89

CARNIVALESQUE is still around—I haven't heard about it for some time—and is being hosted this time by Judith Weingarten at Zenobia: Empress of the East: The 89th Carnival of Ancient and Medieval History Blogging. PaleoJudaica appears a number of times in this issue.

Gospel of Jesus' Wife latest

MORE DEVELOPMENTS on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife: This is the weekend and I have other things to do than blog, but a few things of interest have come up.

Mark Goodacre has published two more essays by Francis Watson.

The Daily Mail has taken up Watson's rejection of the authenticity of the GJW.

Harvard Theological Review may not publish King's article after all according to the AP.

Background here and links.

UPDATE:  At Rogue Classicism, David Meadows has a thorough roundup of the story from beginning to the present. He also has some observations about the relatively neglected other side of the fragment.

CRASIS

AT GRONINGEN: C R A S I S : Culture, Religion and Society in Graeco-Roman Antiquity

CRASIS is a research institute dedicated to the study of Graeco-Roman Antiquity at the University of Groningen. It aims to advance interdisciplinary studies in the Culture, Religion and Society of the Graeco-Roman world. It focuses not only on the Greek and Latin cultures of Antiquity, but also on Ancient Judaism, Early Christianity, and other minority cultures that were part of Graeco-Roman Antiquity.

Follow the link for details, and note particularly the call for papers for the Annual Meeting in January.

Gospel of Jesus' Wife: a documentary? Noooo!

THE STORY ON THE GOSPEL OF JESUS' WIFE continues to develop rapidly.  James McGrath has another invaluable roundup of blog posts and media coverage, along with a fill-in-the-blank caption contest.  And Mark Goodacre has a good summary post on the latest developments:  The Gospel of Jesus' Wife: The Story is Moving Fast! As you can tell from my post title above, I share his disappointment that a television documentary is already in the works and evidently has been for months.  We simply do not yet know enough about the fragment to warrant that kind of television coverage.

Background here and links.

As usual, watch this space.

UPDATE:  Mark Goodacre publishes a brief but quite significant essay by Professor Francis Watson of Durham University:  The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife: How a fake Gospel-Fragment was composed, by Francis Watson. Summary:

Six of the eight incomplete lines of GJW recto are so closely related to the Coptic GTh, especially to Sayings 101 and 114, as to make dependence virtually certain. A further line is derived from Matthew; just one is left unaccounted for. The author has used a “collage” or “patchwork” compositional technique, and this level of dependence on extant pieces of Coptic text is more plausibly attributed to a modern author, with limited facility in Coptic, than to an ancient one. Indeed, the GJW fragment may be designedly incomplete, its lacunae built into it from the outset. It does not seem possible to fill these lacunae with GTh material contiguous to the fragments cited. The impression of modernity is reinforced by the case in line 1 of dependence on the line-division of the one surviving Coptic manuscript, easily accessible in modern printed editions. Unless this impression of modernity is countered by further investigations and fresh considerations, it seems unlikely that GJW will establish itself as a “genuine” product of early gospel writing.

Plus, in relation to the Secret Gospel of Mark:

The Jesus of the Secret Gospel likes to consort naked with young men at night, while seeming hostile to women. By contrast, the new gospel fragment has Jesus speak disconcertingly of “my wife”. Has this new heterosexual Jesus been created to complement [Morton] Smith’s homosexual one?

UPDATE: James McGrath is not persuaded by Watson's arguments: Is the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife a Fake?

UPDATE:  Lots of interesting comments at Mark's post above.  This one by Richard Bauckham strikes me as quite important:

It occurs to me we've missed something that Watson's argument really does demonstrate: that the text of this fragment (whether ancient or modern) was composed in Coptic, not translated from Greek. The Nag Hammadi Gospels and related texts were translated from Greek. So this is at best a late, not an early 'Gnostic" text, dependent on the Coptic version of Thomas. Not, therefore late 2nd century, as Karen King suggests.

Richard also offers some support for my Zeitgeist argument here.

Also, over at Hypotyposes Steven Carlson avers that Roger Bagnall should have a higher opinion of the ingenuity of forgers:  Brief Thoughts on the New Coptic Fragment.

Gabriel Revelation essay

ON THE GABRIEL REVELATION STONE:  Claude Cohen-Matlofsky, Hazon Gabriel: A Social Historian’s Point of View (Bible and Interpretation).

It seems that the “Hazon Gabriel” constitutes documentary evidence of the practice of teaching from a text copied on a plastered stone following a tradition found in the Old Testament.

I am surprised that the essay has no reference to the Balaam Text from Tell Deir ‘Allā.

(By the way, have I mentioned that volume one of the texts translated for the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project is in press and should be out in the next few months? This volume includes a translation of the Balaam Text by Edward Cook.)

Background on the Gabriel Revelation (Vision of Gabriel) is here and here and links.

UPDATE: Bad links now fixed. Sorry!

On the ArtScroll Talmud

BACKGROUND: Behind The Name On The Cover: Jerome Schottenstein And His Sponsorship Of The ArtScroll Talmud (The Jewish Press).

More background on the ArtScroll/Schottenstein Talmud is here and here and links.

Reviews of the Enoch Seminar

ENOCH SEMINAR NEWS:

The Enoch Seminar, an academic association of specialists in the field of Second Temple Judaism and Christian origins since 2001, has developed its website into an online Journal, Enoch Seminar Online (ESO), where subscribers have complete access to all papers presented at the meetings of the Enoch Seminar. A new open access feature has now been added, an online book review service, Reviews of the Enoch Seminar (RES). The primary aim of RES is to publish timely book reviews of current scholarship on Jews and Christians in antiquity, with a particular interest in Jewish and Christian history, literature, and culture between the Babylonian Exile and the Bar-Kokhba revolt. The advantage of our digital, online format includes the capacity to streamline reviews quickly from composition to publication, providing timely access to reviews of some of the latest, cutting-edge research in the field. The comment feature has the added potential of transforming the typically static book review into a stimulant for ongoing intellectual conversation. We warmly invite you to browse our web page at the above links, peruse the current reviews posted, and to consider contributing to this exciting new intellectual venture. You may also find the initial batch of published e-reviews at the following links:

Rebecca Denova on J. Harold Ellens, The Son of Man in the Gospel of John

Isaac Oliver on Albert I. Baumgarten (et al.), eds., Halakhah in Light of Epigraphy

Jonathan Henry on Steven Fraade, Legal Fictions: Studies in Law and Narrative in the Discursive Worlds of Ancient Jewish Sectarians and Sages

Jason von Ehrenkrook on Catherine Hezser, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine

Reviews Editor: Jason von Ehrenkrook, University of Pittsburgh
Reviews Associate Editor: Isaac W. Oliver, University of Michigan

Founding Director of Enoch Seminar Online: Gabriele Boccaccini, University of Michigan

Gospel of Jesus' Wife update

THE GOSPEL OF JESUS' WIFE is getting endless attention in the media and the blogosphere, but I don't see very much today which adds anything new.  As far as I know, no papyrologist has come out in favor of its authenticity or even pointed to another ancient papyrus fragment that shares its odd features.  So it looks to me as though we have a small fragment that really, really fortunately preserves just the words that say exactly what we really, really would like to have an ancient gospel fragment say about Jesus.  Coincidentally, the physical features of the fragment are also highly unusual or even unprecedented.  So we've won the lottery twice.  Either that or it's a fake.

James McGrath has produced an excellent roundup of media and blog coverage:  2 Jesus’ Wife.

A couple of specific new items are worth flagging.  First, as I have said, no papyrologist (with the possible exception of the two who originally studied the fragment, although they themselves have not released any statements) argues that the fragment is genuine.  And so far I have only been able to find one specialist in any related area who defends its authenticity.  At the CNN blog, Eric Marrapodi has 5 questions and answers about Jesus' 'wife', which reports the following:

Elaine Pagels, a professor from Princeton University who is an expert on gnostic writings such as this one, noted to CNN, "You can find boxes filled with Coptic fragments." But what makes this one significant is for the first time, it explicitly has Jesus referring to "my wife."

[...]

Some experts in the field, including Pagels, suggest the fragment contains too little to be faked, suggesting that a forger would have included much more in the document to try and raise the value.

I have not seen the exact wording of anything Professor Pagels may have said, so I don't know how accurately her views are being related. But the argument, whoever is making it, is very weak.  The forger, if it is forged, produced just enough to accomplish the objective (fake an ancient gospel with Mary of Magdalene as Jesus' wife and disciple).  Why include more text?  If it were accepted as genuine as it stands now, it would already be fantastically valuable in terms of the antiquities market, and each new line of forged text would make it increasingly likely that the forger would make a slip and be detected.

Second, April DeConick has a blog post is which she says that the Gospel of Philip, another fourth-century Coptic text that we already knew, also says that Mary was Jesus' wife:

But let's keep in mind that we actually already have a text that mentions Jesus' wife. It is the Gospel of Philip. We already know that there were some early Christians, in particular the Valentinian Gnostics, who taught that Mary Magdalene was Jesus' consort or wife. They wrote about it in the Gospel of Philip.

Unless the Coptic word translated as "companion" in Gospel of Philip 59.6-10 and 63.30-32 has the specific connotation of "wife" or "consort" (in which case, why is it not so translated in the Robinson, Meyers, or Layton translations?) the new fragment makes explicit what is at most implied in the Gospel of Philip. I have put this point to April in the comments, so you can see what she has to say when she answers. [Update: Link now added. Sorry about that!]

So my current judgement, which seems to be what most people are thinking, is that the Gospel of Jesus' Wife fragment is very likely a fake. If it is genuine, it tells us what one late apocryphal tradition speculated about Jesus, but nothing about the historical Jesus.

I will continue reporting as new discussion of interest comes up.

UPDATE: Tom Verenna has had some of his doubts about the physical characteristics of the fragment assuaged: Two Days Later: Another Evaluation of the ‘Jesus Wife’ Papyrus.

UPDATE: Dirk Jongkind notes that if the fragment is genuine, it appears to have been deliberately cut out of a larger context in modern times, presumably by the dealer. What, he wonders, if that was done because the larger context would have ruined the sensational effect the fragment now has? That would take a very clever (and lucky) dealer indeed, but who knows?

Qumran fellowship at Göttingen

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP IN QUMRAN STUDIES:

Centrum Orbis Orientalis et Occidentalis (CORO) Platz der Göttinger Sieben 2 Hausbriefkasten 5 37073 Göttingen Tel.: 0551-39-7146 E-Mail: coro@gwdg.de

The Faculty of Theology of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen invites applications for the position as

Research Fellow/Academic Fellow in Qumran Studies (wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin/wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter)

with 75% of the regular weekly working time (currently 29.85 hours per week) commencing January 1st, 2013. The position is limited to two years and may be extended by a third year after successful evaluation. Payment will be according to pay grade 13 TV-L.

The appointee to the position will be responsible for the acquisition of external-funding for a project chosen and administered by the successful candidate. The topic has to be Qumran studies. The fellow will further be expected to teach a 2-hour course each semester within the Faculty of Theology. The language of instruction can either be German or English.

The position is housed under the umbrella of the Centrum Orbis Orientalis et Occidentalis, a centre jointly funded by the University and the Göttingen Academy of Sciences. A close co-operation with the Department of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, with the Department for Qumran-Studies at the Faculty of Theology and the research projects of the Academy of Sciences such as the Edition of the Septuagint (Septuagintauntemehmen) and the Qumran-Lexicon is expected.

The applicant should have a completed doctorate (Dr. theol., Dr. phil, PhD) with particular focus on Qumran-Studies or ancient Judaism in one of the following subjects: Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, New Testament, Judaic or Religious Studies.

Applications of candidates from abroad are explicitly welcome.

The University of Göttingen is an equal opportunities employer and places particular emphasis on fostering career opportunities for women. Qualified women are therefore strongly encouraged to apply as they are underrepresented in this field. Persons with disabilities will be given preference when equally qualified.

Please submit your application and supporting documents including a detailed curriculum vitae covering your teaching experience, a list of publications as well as a description of previous experience in the acquisition of external funding and a project outline to

Dekanin der Theologischen Fakultat der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen Prof. Dr. C. Axt-Piscalar Platz der Göttinger Sieben 2 D-37073 Göttingen

From the Agade List and Eibert Tigchelaar.

A Coptic gospel that mentions Jesus' wife?

PROFESSOR KAREN KING of Harvard University reports that a fragment of Coptic papyrus has come into her hands which appears to be from a fourth-century manuscript of a noncanonical gospel in which Jesus uses the phrase "my wife." The Boston Globe has good coverage of the story:

Harvard professor identifies scrap of papyrus suggesting some early Christians believed Jesus was married
By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff

CAMBRIDGE -- A Harvard professor has identified what appears to be a scrap of fourth century Egyptian papyrus that contains the first known explicit reference to Jesus as married, a discovery that could fuel the millennia-old debate about priestly celibacy in the Catholic church.

The fragment, which has been preliminarily authenticated but still must undergo further testing, portrays Jesus as referring to a woman as his legitimate disciple -- most likely his wife, whom the text’s author probably believed to be Mary Magdalene.

The text is not evidence Jesus was married, said the professor, Karen L. King, a historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, who is scheduled to discuss her discovery at an international gathering of Coptic scholars in Rome on Tuesday. But she said it may cast new light on the history of early Christianity, including the formation of Christian views of celibacy and whether women were members of Jesus’s inner circle, issues still intensely relevant to the Catholic church, which allows only celibate men to be priests.

“The issue has far from gone away,” King said.

The fragment is smaller than a business card, and appears to have been torn from the middle of a page of a codex, or primitive book, written in a southern Egyptian dialect. Its owner, who declines to be identified publicly, does not know where it was found.
It contains just eight broken lines, scrawled in a crude Coptic hand.

The fourth says: “… Jesus said to them, ‘My wife….”

The next line reads: “…she will be able to be my disciple.”

The text does not prove that Jesus had a wife, King emphasized. Even if it is actually a translation of a second century Greek text, as King theorizes, it would have been composed more than a century after the death of Jesus. The earliest and most reliable information about the historical Jesus is silent on the question of his marital status, King said.

“It’s not saying we’ve got the smoking gun that Jesus is married,” she said.
[...]

Inevitably, that last point is already being missed in some press coverage (see below). On the key issue of authenticity:

In March 2012, King tucked the papyrus into her red leather bag along with her iPad and boarded a train to New York, where she and [papyrologist AnneMarie] Luijendijk, a former student of King’s, met [papyrologist Roger] Bagnall at his office. They sat for several hours around a table, looking at the fragment under magnification and different kinds of light, noticing different details and talking through possible scenarios.

The fibrous, dual-layered material was clearly papyrus, an ancient Egyptian precursor to paper made of the pith of a plant that grew along the Nile. It seemed to be ancient; the pith, which makes the smooth writing surface, had worn off, along with the ink, on one side. They could see a spot where a tiny insect appeared to have nibbled at the surface.

Ancient papyrus is available for purchase on the antiquities market, however, so King and her colleagues had to figure out whether the ink was applied in ancient times or by a modern forger.

Infinitesimal details suggested it was genuine: Tiny fibers shredding from the sides of the paper contained almost invisible traces of ink from lost letters. Damage to fibers after they had been inscribed suggested the ink had been laid on the surface long ago, not recently.

The handwriting, workmanlike and laid on with a nubby pen, seemed to date to the 4th century. Its irregular, blocky script is more common in private letters -- and quite unusual for a literary text, Bagnall said. But it is also plausible, he said, that it was the work of an unskilled scribe with a poor pen.

All in all, Bagnall said, “The preponderance of evidence is clearly in favor of authenticity, both because it is so hard to imagine who could have faked it and how, but also because there is nothing inherently suspect about it,” Bagnall said. “You’ve got the physical object, the handwriting, the language, and the content. There’s not a single one of those that seems to me suspect.”

See also the New York Times: A Faded Piece of Papyrus Refers to Jesus' Wife; Karen King's own website on the fragment, which links to a downloadable draft of her article: The Gospel of Jesus's Wife: A New Coptic Gospel Papyrus; and this brief video by Professor King about the fragment: "Jesus said to them, my wife."

My take? I am ... wait for it ... skeptical. Professor King has done everything right and she is taking a very reasonable line of optimistic skepticism, but there's one point that I've seen no one raise so far and which Professor Bagnall in particular misses in the quote above: this fragment is exactly, exactly, what the Zeitgeist of 2012 would want us to find in an ancient gospel. To my mind that weighs heavily against its authenticity. Of course I hope I'm wrong and that it is genuine, and that is certainly a possibility, but this is equivalent to winning big in the lottery and that should make us nervous. It is too perfect. As Larry Schiffman put it, "The most exciting things are the things most likely to be forged." My working hypothesis at the moment is that someone who knew what they were doing went to a lot of effort using a piece of ancient papyrus to create a remarkable forgery.

Where do we go from here? The next steps are, first, to conduct the tests on the ink: if it demonstrates it to be the same chemical composition as ancient Egyptian ink, that will strengthen the case for authenticity considerably. Second, Professor King's article needs to be published in the Harvard Theological Review and evaluated by specialists around the world. I suppose it would also be possible to carbon-date the fragment, but this would at most show the date of the papyrus, not the writing, and the fragment has been taken out of its putative original context and moved around enough that it may now be thoroughly contaminated and un-dateable by such means. But with any luck we will be able to come to a consensus view in the next few years either for authenticity or against. We may never know the answer for sure, or we may come to a consensus that is either conclusively confirmed or conclusively refuted sometime in the future when a new technology is able to test factors that could not have been foreseen in 2012.

If it is genuine, it seems to be the earliest mention (fourth century or possibly somewhat earlier) of the idea that Jesus had a wife, which is of considerable importance for early church history. But it has no bearing on the actual question of whether the historical Jesus had a wife. Some of the headlines are not clear on this point: "Was Jesus married? Papyrus may give clue" (Houston Chronicle) and "'Proof' Jesus was married found on ancient papyrus that mentions how son of God spoke of his wife and Mary Magdalene" (The Daily Mail, which at least uses scare quotes for "proof," although not actually quoting anyone) and Jesus Had a Wife, Newly Discovered Gospel Suggests (LiveScience; true but the phrasing is misleading). I have commented on the question of whether Jesus was married here.

Pretty much the entire Biblioblogosphere is abuzz with the news. I haven't tried to read all or even very many of the posts, but I note good substantive posts by Mark Goodace (The Gospel of Jesus' Wife) and Jared Calaway (New Gospel Fragment: Preliminary Notes and Hypothesis) and a roundup by James McGrath (Coptic Text Mentions Jesus’ Wife).

Also, Alin Suciu is now at The Tenth International Congress of Coptic Studies where Karen King presented her paper on the fragment yesterday. On Facebook he has promised a blog post on the authenticity issue when he returns from Rome. He thinks it's a fake.

Stay tuned ...

UPDATE: I note that Mark Goodacre does raise the Zeitgeist issue in the link above. I am not, however, persuaded by his comparison with The Gospel of Judas, which is genuine and which, granted, did fit in a general way the Zeitgeist's desire for counter-gospel traditions. But the Gospel of Jesus' Wife is a whole new level of Zeitgeist correspondence, playing into the widespread (not just Dan Brown) meme that Jesus must have married Mary Magdalene; also to the desire to find some stratum of feminist equality in the early church which can serve as authoritative precedent for equality in the modern church; and also to the desire to undermine the Catholic tradition of a celibate clergy. It is just too perfect.

Moreover, The Gospel of Judas illustrates my point in another way. When it was published, it was immediately read as presenting a sympathetic Judas who was not evil after all—a Judas congenial to our Zeitgeist. Subsequent research has called this conclusion very seriously into question on philological grounds. (Background here and links.) We must always be especially wary of both interpretations and discoveries that tell us what we want to hear.

Also, at a Nag Hammadi Facebook Group, Louis Painchaud, who is also at the Coptic Congress in Rome, has called for caution and indicated, as has Alin Suciu, that the script of the fragment doesn't look real, nor does the way it is cut. And apparently others at the Congress are questioning its authenticity. (Pointed out by Mark Goodacre.) Note that Painchaud was one of the first, if not the first, to challenge the initial interpretation of The Gospel of Judas and to find in it a good old traditional evil Judas.

There are also problems with the story of the provenance of the new fragment. Again, noted on Facebook by Mark Goodacre, who had been independently making similar points.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that Karen King forged this fragment, nor as far as I know is anyone else. I am confident that she has in all honesty and good faith brought to light a text that was given to her by someone else, and she has handled the whole situation entirely properly. But I am not alone in thinking that there is good reason to doubt that the fragment is authentic.

UPDATE: The AP registers skepticism: Harvard claim of Jesus' Wife papyrus scrutinized. Alin Suciu and other specialists are quoted.

Also, Tom Verenna sees problems with the physical characteristics of the fragment: The ‘Wife of Jesus’ Fragment a Day Later: Some Concerns About Authenticity.

UPDATE: Still more! The Tyndale House website has Simon Gathercole's analysis of the text: Gathercole on Jesus' Wife. And (HT Richard Bauckham) over at Evangelical Textual Criticism, Christian Askeland, who is also in Rome at the Coptic Colloquium, reports on reactions to King's paper:

During the course of the last several hours, I have attempted to understand the reaction of various persons within the coptological community here at the International Association of Coptic studies conference. My initial perception is that those who specialize in Nag Hammadi and early manuscripts are split with about four-fifths being extremely skeptical about the manuscript’s authenticity and one-fifth is fairly convinced that the fragment is a fake. I have not met anyone who supports its authenticity, although I do not doubt that there must be some.

He then goes on to explain in detail why he thinks the fragment is probably a forgery.

UPDATE (20 September): More here.

The simulation argument meets NASA

THE SIMULATION ARGUMENT is being defended by NASA scientist Rich Terrile, who is interviewed by Ben Makuch at Vice: Whoa, Dude, Are We Inside a Computer Right Now? This NASA Scientist Thinks We Could Be. Excerpt:

VICE: When did you first surmise that our reality could be a computer simulation?
Rich Terrile:Unless you believe there’s something magical about consciousness—and I don’t, I believe it’s the product of a very sophisticated architecture within the human brain—then you have to assume that at some point it can be simulated by a computer, or in other words, replicated. There are two ways one might accomplish an artificial human brain in the future. One of them is to reverse-engineer it, but I think it would be far easier to evolve a circuit or architecture that could become conscious. Perhaps in the next ten to 30 years we’ll be able to incorporate artificial consciousness into our machines.

These are interesting speculations, but they are just speculations. Note in particular, the first clause, "Unless you believe there’s something magical about consciousness," which is a roundabout way of saying you don't understand what consciousness is and neither do I, therefore I'm going to run with my assumptions. Fair enough, but assumptions they remain. We have no theory of consciousness that has any explanatory value or that could lead to the ability to replicate it artificially. To say that it is an emergent property of sufficiently complex computation is to commit the fallacy of obscurum per obscurius, explaining one thing we don't understand (consciousness) by something else we don't understand (emergent properties) and it simply sidesteps the real problem of why some hunks of matter (or at least the one I'm in) acquire a sense of "me-ness."

Moreover, complex computation and even mentation are not by any means necessarily connected to consciousness. Anyone who has experimented with Raja Yoga (and, really, who hasn't?) has learned that most of the thought processes running in their own mind are unconscious and are only briefly illuminated from time to time by the narrow sliver of consciousness that inhabits their mind and flits about it to use the mental processes as needed.

It may be that (1) consciousness is indeed the central processing unit of the physical brain—but we can't show yet why the CPU has its own sense of existence distinct from the mind. It may also be, as the ancient yogis thought, (2) that consciousness (which they called the purusha) is something external to the material world and cannot be explained in material terms, in which case we will not find an explanation of it. Lots of metaphysicians have problems with the idea of immaterial entities, but I'm enough of a Platonist that they don't bother me too much. It is also possible that (3) there is an explanation of consciousness in material terms, but because we process everything through our consciousness, we are in principle unable to understand the explanation any more than we can look in our ear with our eye. If 2 or 3 apply, we won't be populating any simulated worlds with conscious beings.

We not only do not understand consciousness, we also don't have any way to measure it. The Turing Test is a side issue. At best it would measure the ability to think, which is not the same as consciousness. Also, in practice, even today some chatbots can fool people into thinking they (the chatbots) are human.

So the case remains to be made that increases in computational power will eventually pass some threshold that creates conscious AI and allows us to simulate worlds with conscious creatures in them. But as, if memory serves, Nick Bostrom pointed out years ago, that doesn't preclude the simulation argument. The universe may indeed be a simulation with a limited number of player characters inhabiting it (me at least, plus you if you are reading this), but with everyone else as non-player characters who are simply realistic simulations with no internal consciousness.

I return to the simulation argument from time to time, because similar ideas are at the basis of ancient Gnosticism (the kind associated with the demiurgic myth): the universe is the flawed creation of a fallen creator and we are Pleromatic (heavenly, more or less) sparks of light that have become trapped in the material muck. The object of the game is to gain the knowledge (gnosis) that will allow us to escape from the fallen created world and return to the Pleroma.

Back to the article, for some final theological reflections from Terrile:

You seem really at peace with this concept. When I first heard about your theory I was incredibly bummed but, obviously, intrigued.
I find great inspiration in it, and I’ll tell you why: It tells me that we’re at the threshold of being able to create a universe—a simulation—and that we in turn could be living inside a simulation, which could be in turn yet another simulation. And our simulated beings could also create simulations. What I find intriguing is, if there is a creator, and there will be a creator in the future and it will be us, this also means if there’s a creator for our world, here, it’s also us. This means we are both God and servants of God, and that we made it all. What I find inspiring is that, even if we are in a simulation or many orders of magnitude down in levels of simulation, somewhere along the line something escaped the primordial ooze to become us and to result in simulations that made us. And that’s cool.

That's a much more positive take on Gnosticism, with demiurges all the way down, so to speak. Who knows, maybe the Gnostics or (and?) the simulationists are right. Call me when you have a real theory of consciousness.

Background on the simulation argument and Gnosticism is here with many links.

Jodie Magness at Biblical Studies List

JODIE MAGNESS will be visiting the Biblical Studies List to discuss her new book:

I’m happy to announce that Jodi Magness has agreed to join us on the Biblical Studies List for a colloquium (discussion) on her just published volume, The Archaeology of the Holy Land: From the Destruction of Solomon’s Temple to the Muslim Conquest. It’s available in paperback from Amazon for $28. A bargain.

Our discussion will take place November 1-10 and if you would like to take part,

- Get the book, and read it. Then, when the time comes, you’ll have the opportunity to interact with Prof. Magness and other leading scholars on the contents.

Another colloquium with Avraham Faust is scheduled for December. Follow the link for details.

New(ish) book: Robinson, The Story of the Bodmer Papyri

THIS BOOK has been out for a while, but it has just come to my attention via Adam McCollum on Facebook:

James M. Robinson, The Story of the Bodmer Papyri: From the First Monastery's Library in Upper Egypt to Geneva and Dublin (Cascade Books, 2010)

Happy New Year!

ROSH HASHANAH begins this evening at sundown. Happy New Year to all those celebrating.

New book: Berquist & Hunt (eds), Focusing Biblical Studies

NEW BOOK:

Jon L. Berquist and Alice Hunt (eds.), Focusing Biblical Studies: The Crucial Nature of the Persian and Hellenistic Periods: Essays in Honor of Douglas A. Knight (Library Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies; T&T Clark, 2012)

This volume makes a positive intervention into maximalist/minimalist debates about Israelite historiography by pointing to the events that happened during the Persian and Hellenistic periods. During this historical epoch, traditions about Israel and Judah's founding became fixed as markers of ethnic identity, and much of the canonical Hebrew Bible came into its present form. Concentrating on these events, a clearer historical picture emerges.

The entire volume is set within the context of Doug Knight's contributions, which have encouraged a rigorous social-scientific and tradition-historical approach to the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel in general. Many scholars have pursued how the social scientific method, first used to analyze early monarchic Israel, can shape the understanding of these later historical periods. Knight's methods, teachings, writings, and scholarly interventions have pointed the contributors of this volume to fresh considerations of the Persian and Hellenistic periods. The concluding essay will examine the future directions in which such sociological and historical investigation can go forward.

Via Christopher Rollston on Facebook.

New book: Schuele, An Introduction to Biblical Aramaic

ARAMAIC WATCH:

An Introduction to Biblical Aramaic
Author: Andreas Schuele
More by author(s)
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
Pages: 158
Format: 6 x 9
Publication Date: 8/23/2012
Retail Price: $30.00

***RELEASES AUGUST 2012***

The study of biblical Aramaic, an ancient Semitic language from which the Hebrew alphabet was derived, is necessary for understanding texts written during certain periods of early Jewish and Christian history and is especially important for the study of the books of Daniel and Ezra. This new textbook is a thorough guide to learning to read and translate biblical Aramaic and includes an introduction to the language, examples of texts for practice translations, and helpful comparison charts.

Via Carla Sulzbach on Facebook.

Coin auction update

THE SECOND AUCTION OF THE SHOSHANA COLLECTION of ancient Judean and related coins has been held. ArtDaily has a report:

Bookmark and Share Ancient Roman gold brings $203,150, five times estimate, to lead $1.5+ million Heritage Auctions event

BEVERLY HILLS, CA.- A magnificent gold Aureus of the Roman Emperor Macrinus, dated to 218 AD – and pedigreed to the prestigious Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection – shattered pre-auction expectations on Sept. 5 at the Long Beach Convention Center, selling for $203,150 against a $40,000 estimate as a part of Heritage’s auction of the Shoshana Collection of Judaean Coins, Part 2. The entire offering brought just more than $1.5 million and was held in conjunction with the Long Beach Coin and Collectibles Expo. All prices include a 19.5% Buyer’s Premium.

“Though not strictly speaking a Judaean-related coin, the brief reign of Macrinus took place entirely in the neighboring province of Syria,” said David Michaels, Director of Ancient Coins at Heritage Auctions. “Macrinus assumed power after arranging for the murder of the hated previous emperor, Caracalla. His reign was brief, lasting slightly more than a year before he lost the support of the military and was executed.”

Gold coins of Macrinus are exceedingly rare, and this is a magnificent example, struck in high relief from dies of fine style and fully lustrous, grading choice extremely fine.

[...]

Follow the link for details about the other coins sold.

Background here and links.

Review of Friedman, The Aleppo Codex

MATTI FRIEDMAN'S THE ALEPPO CODEX is reviewed by Alex Joffe in Jewish Ideas Daily: The Aleppo Codex and the Ownership of Tradition. Excerpt:

The Aleppo Codex is a marvelously written international thriller, but the issues it raises are profound and current. Who is the legitimate heir to the property of dispersed or extinguished Jewish communities? Israel’s assuming this role even before a community is gone was initially characterized by obsessive self-interestedness, dismissiveness towards fellow Jews, and outright theft; its treatment of Holocaust survivors and their property was not dissimilar. Can Israel, or any state, be fully trusted with cultural property?

But cultural properties cannot simply be left in place. For example, the so-called Iraqi Jewish Archive, a disparate collection of letters, books, and other documents of an extinguished Jewish community, was found in the basement of a flooded secret police building in 2003 and removed to the United States for conservation. Since then, Iraq has angrily demanded their return. Perpetrators of dispersal and death rarely have the good taste to refrain from insisting on their right to cultural properties that will enable them to boast of a “multicultural society” they themselves destroyed.

But deeming Israel the repository for all Jewish objects, knowledge, and culture has its own problem—namely, that the country has a large target painted on it. Like returning all Jews to Zion, putting all the Jewish people’s cultural eggs in one basket seems ill-advised. It was precisely the dispersal of Jewish knowledge among countless communities that preserved the whole even as individuals faltered or fell; today, the task is made easier by digital technology.

For earlier reviews etc. of The Aleppo Codex, see here and links. Background on the Iraqi Jewish Archive is here and here and links

National Library of Israel Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts Catalogue

GILUY MILTA B'ALMA: Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts Catalogue.

We are delighted to announce that the National Library of Israel's online catalogue now includes more than 4000 linked records to freely available digitized Hebrew manuscripts online (post-dating the Dead Sea Scrolls) from institutions around the world, including 1000 on the NLI website itself. These represent many more Judaica records than are currently available through either the Digital Scriptorium or the Catalogue of Digitized Medieval Manuscripts or similar digitized manuscript aggregators. As we continue to add links, we aim to serve as the global access portal for Hebrew digitized manuscripts.

For numerous other manuscript digitization projects see here and links.

Peter conference in Edinburgh

LARRY HURTADO: Edinburgh Conference on the Apostle Peter, July 2013

As Larry notes, the annual meeting of the International Society of Biblical Literature will be taking place here at the University of St. Andrews a couple of days later.

Regev on Qumran archaeology

QUMRAN AND THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS MONTH: Sectarianism and the Archaeology of Qumran (Eyal Regev, ASOR Blog).

The spatial characteristics of Kh. Qumran correspond to sectarian social organization and ideology as defined by sociologists of religion and documented in studies of different sects, and are typical of the spatial organization of several modern sects, especially the Shakers. These general characteristics are also typical of the Yahad sect of the Community Rule (1QS). They may relate to a certain social correspondence between the inhabitants of the site and the Yahad.

Background here and links.

Charlesworth on 1QHa col. 16

QUMRAN AND THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS MONTH: The Eternal Planting, the Eden of Glory (James H. Charlesworth, ASOR Blog).

A taste of his forthcoming translation of the Hodayot.

Background here.

World's biggest Talmud test

DAF YOMI LATEST: 15,000 Take Largest Talmud Test in History
Last Friday more than 15,000 Torah scholars joined together around the world for the largest Talmud test in history (Arutz Sheva).

Larry Hurtado and "binitarianism"

LARRY HURTADO, in response to a recent BNTC paper by Anthony Thistelton, has clarified his current views on divine recipients of cultic devotion vs. God-discourse in the New Testament: “Binitarian,” “Dyadic,” “Triadic”: Early Christian God-talk and Devotion.

So, those interested primarily in the beliefs and religious outlook of earliest Christianity will perhaps find useful this more recent book, God in New Testament Theology. In any case, I offer two concluding observations: (1) The NT reflects a dyadic devotional pattern, in which God and Jesus feature as the programmatic recipients of devotion, especially corporate worship-devotion; but (2) there is a clear triadic shape to the God-discourse reflected in the NT. In short, I am not an exponent of “binitarianism” (whatever that is), nor have I primarily been concerned to offer a theological evaluation of the evidence of earliest Christian belief and/or devotional practice. My aims have been primarily to analyze these matters and describe them accurately.

The Jesus Blog

ASSIMILIATED TO THE BLOGOSPHERE: Many people have been noting the new blog by Anthony Le Donne and Chris Keith: The Jesus Blog "...a weblog dedicated to historical Jesus research brought to you by a hillbilly and a treehugger."

Greek to Georgian

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Translations from Greek into Georgian (Roger Pearse).

Some bits and pieces of Old Testament pseudepigrapha survive in Georgian.

Useful Aramaic vocabulary

ARAMAIC WATCH: In case you were wondering:

The 500 Most Common Nouns in Galilean Aramaic (in progress - Aramaic blog)

A list of some ethnic stereotypes in Syriac (hmmlorientalia)

Aramaic hacking

IT'S COME TO THIS: The Mandaean Book of John – Hacked!

Ginzei-Qedem 8

H-JUDAIC: TOC: Ginzei-Qedem 8 (2012)

Ginzei Qedem is an annual publication devoted to Genizah texts and studies, in the broadest possible sense of the phrase, including the publication of fragments of literary works and documents from genizot in Cairo and elsewhere, as well as new studies based on such fragments.

Its purpose is to provide a specialized venue for the field of Genizah research, in the hope that research on and publication of Genizah texts will, in time, enrich both traditional and academic Jewish studies, as well as Islamic ones, in a variety of areas, including Biblical studies and exegesis, Talmud, halakha, theology, philosophy, liturgy, history, linguistics, science, medicine, magic, and more.

Follow the link for the TOC.

New book: Stein, Textual Mirrors

NEW BOOK:

Textual Mirrors
Reflexivity, Midrash, and the Rabbinic Self
Dina Stein

248 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth Aug 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4436-6 | $79.95s | £52.00 |

Textual Mirrors draws on literary theory, folklore studies, and semiotics to examine stories in which self-reflexivity operates particularly strongly to constitute rabbinic identity through the voices of Simon the Just and a handsome shepherd, the daughter of Asher, the Queen of Sheba, and an unnamed maidservant. In Stein's readings, these self-reflexive stories allow us to go through the looking glass: where the text comments upon itself, it both compromises the unity of its underlying principles—textual, religious, and ideological—and confirms it.

Via the Talmud Blog on Facebook.

Daf Yomi column and news

ADAM KIRSCH at Tablet Magazine: Talmudic Rebbe-llion: A coup at the rabbinic academy deposes Gamliel and unleashes a torrent of questions.

Also: Siyum HaShas inspiring newcomers to daily Talmud study (Neil Rubin, JTA).

Two of Linden's congregants also have started the Daf Yomi, and Linden has launched an invitation-only Facebook page called Unorthodox Daf Yomi that now has more than 120 members.

The members are just some of the many Jews who say they were motivated by the publicity surrounding the Aug. 1 completion of the Shas -- the 2,711 pages of the Talmud -- to make daily Talmud study a part of their lives.

H-JUDAIC book reviews

H-JUDAIC REVIEWS:

Joseph L. Angel. Otherworldly and Eschatological Priesthood in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Leiden: Brill, 2010. xiii + 380 pp. $179.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-90-04-18145-8.

Reviewed by James Bowley (Millsaps College)
Published on H-Judaic (September, 2012)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Priests in Heaven, the Eschaton, and Qumran

This study began as Joseph L. Angel’s 2008 dissertation at New York University, under the tutelage of Lawrence Schiffman. Angel takes up interesting issues of priesthood within Dead Sea Scrolls that have not received a full-scale systematic inquiry heretofore, namely, the frequently encountered images of an angelic (or “otherworldly”) priesthood and an eschatological priesthood. His turn toward these nonhistorical priestly imaginings of the ancient scroll writers is motivated not just by curiosity but also by his awareness of the thorniness of trying to derive any secure data about historical and social priestly realities of the authors’ community or communities. He writes that “the present study therefore largely abandons such historical inquiry in favor of investigation of the imagined constructs of priesthood in the Scrolls corpus” (p. 15). Acknowledgement of uncertainties is always commendable, and in chapter 1 Angel notes that the varied explanations of the religious and social origins of the authors of the scrolls have “highlighted the gaps in our knowledge regarding the variety of groups in Second Temple period Judaism” and “underscored the need to broaden our perspective regarding Qumran origins beyond the confining borders of the Essene hypothesis” (p. 8). As the book proceeds, it is clear that the study does not depend on or promote a certain viewpoint of these matters.

[...]

I have not read this book but, judging by the reviewer's summary, I would probably agree with many of its conclusions.

Ada Rapoport-Albert. Women and the Messianic Heresy of Sabbatai Zevi, 1666-1816. Translated by Deborah Greniman. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2011. xvi + 386 pp. $64.50 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-904113-84-3.

Reviewed by Michael Galas (Jagiellonian University)
Published on H-Judaic (September, 2012)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Female Messiahs in Judaism

In recent years, the study of Sabbatianism and its final phase, Frankism, has experienced a renaissance. The movement was first studied on a large scale by Gershom Scholem; currently many books and articles are being published which seek to undermine his "authority" on the subjects but these rarely offer new approaches or interpretations. Ada Rapoport-Albert's book is a breakthrough in this field, interpreting previously known sources in a way that sets up new research areas that had been overlooked or ignored.

Rapoport-Albert examines the role of women in Sabbatianism by incorporating a number of innovative studies on women in Hasidism. She begins with the theme of women in Sabbatianism by arguing that women are the factor that distinguishes this mystical-messianic movement from others: "One of Sabbatianism's most distinctive and persistent features was the high visibility of women within its ranks. They were among the movement's earliest and most ardent supporters--championing the messianic cause, proclaiming its gospel, and from time to time emerging as its chief protagonists" (pp. 11-12). She then adds that if one wants to look for the roots of "feminism" in the premodern period it can be found precisely in Sabbatianism, not Hasidism. It is this statement that she tries to prove within the pages of her book.

[...]

For lots more on Shabbetai Zvi and Sabbateanism, see here and links.

Boyarin and Schäfer on Jesus

BOOK REVIEW IN THE FORWARD:

The Gospel According to Feuding Academics
No Winner in Debate About Jewish Origins of Christianity

By Jay Michaelson
Published September 05, 2012, issue of September 07, 2012.

The Jewish Gospels
By Daniel Boyarin
The New Press, 224 pages, $21.95
The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other
By Peter Schäfer
Princeton University Press, 370 pages, $35

As someone who writes in the academic world and the worlds of journalism, activism and the popular press, I’ve been painfully aware of some differences among them. Good scholarship complicates, good activism simplifies. Good academic work is generally specific and obscure, but good popular work requires the general, the relatable.

These tensions are all at play in the recent bumper crop of books on Jesus and Judaism (this is the Forward’s fourth review of such books in this calendar year). Some have been scholarly and dense, others popular and outright ridiculous in the claims they have made.

And some, like Daniel Boyarin’s “The Jewish Gospels” and Peter Schäfer’s “The Jewish Jesus,” seem caught in between. Both books are by esteemed scholars whose work is deservedly well known, and whom I myself have studied for 20 years (Boyarin, in fact, was my master’s advisor at Hebrew University many years ago). Yet both appear to make a misguided case for a wider readership. Their provocative titles are ultimately misleading: Boyarin’s book barely touches on the Gospels, and Schäfer’s is not about Jesus. Furthermore, while their introductions purport to appeal to a large audience, the body of each book is actually standard academic fare: detailed, attentive, a bit dry and highly intellectual. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The two scholars are also locked in the kind of intellectual death match that goes on all the time in the academy but probably looks like a catfight from the outside. In a scalding takedown of Boyarin’s book in The New Republic, Schäfer wrote that “Boyarin’s book leaves the reader irritated and sad. It has very little that is new to offer — and what appears to be new is wildly speculative and highly idiosyncratic.”

[...]

But Michaelson's main complaint is that neither scholar properly popularizes the important ideas on which they agree:

Midway through “The Jewish Jesus,” Schäfer complains of a “tendency in modern scholarship to mix texts and ideas into one big meat loaf just because of some real or imaginary resemblance. After the ingredients are baked — or only half-baked — they all taste the same.” This is an apt, sharp and mildly hilarious observation, although it actually applies more to popular writing than to scholarship. And therein lies the challenge these two books fail to meet. Schäfer gets worked up about the misdating of the apocryphal book of 3 Enoch, because he is a scholar and that’s what scholars do. But out here in the nonacademic world, people like meat loaf.

You can find a link to Schäfer's review of Boyarin's book here.

Rabbinic dissertations and theses

THE TALMUD BLOG: Recent Dissertations and Theses.

Iron Age Cistern and Phoenician Psalms

I'M BACK IN ST. ANDREWS. Got in late yesterday evening. Looks like it's been a quiet few days in the media, but the following can be filed under "Temple Mount Watch":

Cistern dated to First Temple period found in Jerusalem
Discovery of large man-made reservoir next to the Temple Mount shows city did not solely rely on the Gihon Spring for its water 2,500 years ago (Matti Friedman, The Times of Israel)

Joseph Lauer notes a link to the IAA press release and a temporary link that leads to high-resolution photos.

Also, to be filed under "Phoenician Watch: Not," I first saw "Royal Psalms" in this headline: Iron Chef participant Lee Hillson goes from Royal Palms to Phoenician.

Cross-file under "Don't believe my lying eyes."

UPDATE (10 September): Joseph Lauer e-mails a permanent link to the photo files, which is here.

Elman Festschrift

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Shoshannat Yaakov
Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman

Shai Secunda, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Steven Fine, Yeshiva University

Shoshannat Yaakov honors Yaakov Elman, Professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University, and celebrates Elman’s contributions to a broad range of disciplines within Jewish and Iranian studies. The fruits of Elman’s seminal project of bringing together of scholars of Iranian studies and Talmud in ways that have transformed both disciplines, are well represented in this volume, together with scholarship that ranges from Second Temple Judaism to Late Antique Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Samaritanism and Christianity.

Review of Gautier et al. (eds.) Sources de l'histoire de Tyr

BMCR REVIEW:

Pierre-Louis Gatier, Julien Aliquot, Lévon Nordiguian (ed.), Sources de l'histoire de Tyr: textes de l'Antiquité et du Moyen Âge. Beyrouth: Presses de l'IFPO; Presses de l'Université Saint-Joseph, 2011. Pp. 303. ISBN 9782351591840. €15.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Élodie Guillon, Doctorante à l’Université de Toulouse (UTM) (eguillon31@gmail.com)

Table of Contents

Pierre-Louis Gatier, Julien Aliquot et Lévon Nordiguian nous proposent un ouvrage collectif né d'une idée originale et ambitieuse, celle de rassembler des sources extrêmement variées et dispersées sur l'histoire d'une grande cité méditerranéenne antique et médiévale, Tyr. Le projet initial, de 2006, prévoyait un colloque sur ce thème, mais les événements régionaux ont obligé les éditeurs à recourir à une autre forme de travail collectif suivant un double objectif : faire le point sur les textes antiques et médiévaux concernant l'histoire tyrienne et soutenir la recherche archéologique, récente ou en projet, in situ. Tout en souhaitant aider la recherche sur Tyr, largement lacunaire à l'heure actuelle, les auteurs espèrent également éveiller l'intérêt d'un public plus large, cultivé et curieux.

[...]

Cross-file under "Phoenician Watch."

Digital Mishnah

HAYIM LAPIN: Welcome to the Digital Mishnah.

This site accompanies and hosts the development of a born-digital critical edition of the Mishnah. When fully implemented, the project provide a dynamic edition of the Mishnah that takes advantage of its medium to provide multiple and customizable presentations of the text, as well as analytical tools that will allow the user to study variability between witnesses as well as other features.

There's a blog too.

Via the Talmud Blog on Facebook.

JSJ 43.3 (2012)

HERE'S THE LATEST ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF JUDAISM. My journal tracking has been hit and miss lately, but this looks like a good one. Articles TOC:

Josephus on Herod’s Domestic Intrigue in the Jewish War
Author: Helen K. Bond
pp. 295–314 (20)

“Graia migrabit ab urbe:” A Textual and Literary Note on Petronius’ frg. 37 Ernout
Author: Silvia Castelli
pp. 315–327 (13)

‘Their Backs toward the Temple, and Their Faces toward the East:’ The Temple and Toilet Practices in Rabbinic Palestine and Babylonia
Author: Rachel Neis
pp. 328–368 (41)

R. Yehoshua ben Levi’s Final Ascent as a Model Tikkun Hanefesh
Author: Alexander Seinfeld
pp. 369–379 (11)

Plus many interesting book reviews.

Yale postdoc

H-JUDAIC: postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University.

The Program in Judaic Studies at Yale University is offering a two-year Jacob & Hilda Blaustein postdoctoral fellowship that will begin on July 1, 2013. Candidates for the fellowship must have a Ph.D. in hand by July 1, 2013 and must have received the degree no earlier than 2010. The Program seeks a specialist in Ancient Judaism/Jewish History who will work closely with appropriate members of Yale's faculty.

The application deadline is 11 February 2013. Follow the link for more information.

H-JUDAIC book reviews

BOOK REVIEWS (the H-JUDAIC links are here and here):

Robert Eisen. The Peace and Violence of Judaism: From the Bible to Modern Zionism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. 280 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-975147-1.

Reviewed by Robert Tabak (St. Joseph’s University and Cabrini College )
Published on H-Judaic (August, 2012)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Swords and Plowshares: Confronting Peace and Violence in Judaism

Robert Eisen’s study The Peace and Violence of Judaism is a major contribution, bringing carefully selected texts and analysis to two key questions that confront scholars of Judaism as well as those seeking ethical and religious guidance today: What does Judaism say about peace and violence? And how have “Jews as a people envisioned their relationship with other peoples”? (p.11). Eisen, a professor of religion and Judaic studies at George Washington University, steps beyond his specialty as a medievalist to cover critical and controversial Jewish texts, ethical questions, and historical events from many centuries, including a wide range of recent secondary sources. This is a daring move, one which generally succeeds admirably.

[...]

Aryeh Cohen. Justice in the City: An Argument from the Sources of Rabbinic Judaism. Brighton: Academic Studies Press, 2011. 160 pp. $59.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-936235-64-3.

Reviewed by Jonathan K. Crane (Emory University)
Published on H-Judaic (August, 2012)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Humane Urbanism Rabbinically Conceived

It is always refreshing to read a book that renders the ancient Judaic textual tradition relevant to the complexities of modern living. Aryeh Cohen’s Justice in the City delves into the Babylonian Talmud and finds there ample ethical, philosophical, and legal sources that paint “a compelling picture of what a just city should be” (p. 9). A just city is not just any city in which residents go about their daily routines with mind-numbing hedonism. Rather, it is to be a “community of obligation” in which those “who are not always in view”--such as the homeless, poor, and working class--are nonetheless attended to and cared for (p. 9). Lest one worry that Cohen’s is an argument for each individual citizen to take on the burdens of caring for all the marginalized in a city and do nothing else, he stresses that it is the city’s responsibility as well to notice and attend to them. In this way a just city is precisely that: a city as a whole that is just (not just the individuals therein).

[...]

BNTC 2012

I'M OFF TO LONDON for the annual meeting of the British New Testament Society, this year at Kings College London. I am not presenting a paper this time, but Dr. Darrell Hannah and I are co-chairing the NT & Second Temple Judaism Seminar.

Over the next few days I will blog as much as time and Internet availability permit. But just in case, I have pre-posted something for each day I'm away, including later today. So do keep visiting as usual.

Crop circles

ARCHANGEL METATRON WATCH: New crop circle inspires shock and awe: Who or what is making them and why is the media ignoring this incredible phenomena?

Guess who?

More on the Metatron's cube here.

Private Eye calls out Telegraph plagiarism

MARK GOODACRE: Private Eye on the Telegraph's plagiarized obituary of Marvin Meyer.

Meanwhile, over at The Telegraph, crickets chirping.

Once again, the mainstream media shove their head into ... the sand, while their ungainly torso bleeds out from the death of a thousand cuts.

More background here.

BAS essays on women in the ancient biblical tradition

ESSAYS FROM THE BIBLICAL ARCHAELOGICAL SOCIETY:

Janet Howe Gaines, Lilith: Seductress, Heroine or Murderer? (actually published in 2009 in Biblical Archaeology Review and already noted here)

The answer to the question is "Yes."

By the way, a lot of people think the Arslan Tash plaque is a forgery. This should have been mentioned.

I have numerous previous posts on Lilith: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here (excluding those with terminal link rot).

April DeConick, Biblical Views: How the Mother God Got Spayed (the first installment of her new Biblical Archaeology Review column)

This essay deals in part with the question of the place of women in early Christianity raised in the previous post: Gnosticism in the media.

Gnosticism in the media

GNOSTICISM has been getting some attention recently in odd corners of the new media.

First, Neo-Pagan magician Aidan Kelly has a four-part (ongoing?) series of blog posts on his interactions with Gnostic literature and scholars of Gnosticism over the past four decades:

The Fascinations of Gnosticism, Part I

The Fascinations of Gnosticism, Part II

The Fascinations of Gnosticism, Part III

The Fascinations of Gnosticism, Part IV: The Gospel According to Mary

Excerpt from the last:

The traditional conservative attitude toward Mary’s prominence in these writings is to assert that these Gnostics just made that up. But why would they? Women had no religious (or any other) authority in that misogynistic civilization. Unless she had been important from the very beginning of the movement, no one would ever have later claimed any authority for her.

Obviously, the implications of all this are still being worked out. I’ll have more to say later. But remember, the history of modern religious scholarship is still the history happening right now of beating the conservatives on their heads with facts, and of their fighting back against having to retreat, step by step.

That's a bit simplistic, but whatever. Specialists agree that the Gospel of Mary consists of legends about Mary made up long after the fact. The place of women in first-century Christianity is a separate issue, on which we have relatively little evidence and about which there is much discussion. But second- to fourth-century apocryphal traditions are of very limited usefulness as sources for the first century.

I have commented some years ago on the question "Was Jesus married to Mary Magdalene?"

[UPDATE: See also the essay by April DeConick noted in the next post.]

The series is interesting for its 60s countercultural appropriation of the Gnostic texts.

Second, a very different political appropriation of Gnosticism, which at least is something different from America always being the Roman Empire:

David Solway: The Ideology of the Left: Gnostics of Our Time (PJ Media).

To conclude. The psychology of the Left, despite certain asymmetries, is intrinsically a Gnostic one. The analogy is premonitory. For just as Gnosticism proved unsustainable as a resilient and effective theology, since it could not address the needs of the human spirit bound in time to an ineluctable world, so the theory of utopian socialism that animates the orphic community, in any of its manifold incarnations, can only distort the quest for human betterment. It can only reproduce — or worsen — the original flaw it seeks to transcend.

I'm not quite as sure as Mr. Solway is that Gnosticism as a theology is out of the running (see, e.g., above), but be that as it may.

This one got some attention from the mainstream media as well: Out of Mani, One: The philosophical roots of the Obama cult (James Taranto, WSJ).

It occurs to me that it is just possible that some of my academic readers may disagree with the politics of Solway's and Taranto's essays and, moreover, that some of those who disagree may be tempted to write and tell me so. Please restrain yourselves. My interest is sociological and I already get to hear more than enough political opinions from my Facebook friends.

Search engine referrals

IT'S BEEN A COUPLE OF YEARS and my search-engine-referral collection has grown back to a respectable size, so it's time to share it again. The text in parentheses is my own editorial commentary. I have deleted a few interesting search terms in order to uphold PaleoJudaica family values, but if you buy me a beer at a conference sometime I might tell you about them. Also, the list below could give you the impression that certain subjects are treated in this blog far more frequently and in far more detail than is actually the case.

All of the following are actual search terms that led people, often unaccountably, to PaleoJudaica.

• throne of queen bilqis design specification photo
  
• Were Edomites Enochians
  
• talktalk on watchdog 01/10/2010
  
• Crucified couple Santo Tomas.
  
• angelic aramaic map pics
  
• Does God has any involement of the writtwn Qumran?
  
• Abu El-Haj theory on divination
  
• what moral values that we can get in the story of fifty missionby joseph dever
  
• slaughter of childres dura europos
  
• criticism of "people to people exchange program"
  
• how to say computer in latin
  
• prayer conference call specialists
  
• was the naga hammadi ever discovered?
  
• http://www.dongo.org/kenya-belgium/list_36_en/kenyan_road_works_and_belgian_road_works.html
  
• seventh universe of the prophet heiralias
  
• youmamajokes
  
• nils larson tattoo
  
• dueling sites
  
• Monica Belluci figure (lots of these)
  
• human attacked by lion
  
• angelina jolie breast implants (repeatedly)
  
• shorts lara croft
  
• greek amazon warriors
  
• canadian jewish artifacts
  
• papyrus tattoo
  
• "river tam" "cameron phillips" crossover fiction +discovery
  
• monica bellucci height
  
• ancientpaleohebrewwristbands
  
• bmcr insulting
  
• monica bellucci on stage (I'm detecting a trend here)
  
• round metal decorative plates for walls
  
• copyright of codex ambrosianus
  
• monica ten bears
  
• qumran loco
  
• kadisha placentia
  
• lara croft make up
  
• angelina jolie apple shape
  
• who is an actress that can speak french
  
• angelina jolie the conqueror (Hmmm ... another trend?)
  
• dead sea scrolls found in a trash heap
  
• angelina jolie art on twitter
  
• el shaddai ascension of the metatron chabad
  
• monica bellucci awards
  
• angelin jolie full length
  
• monica bellucci makeup tutorial
  
• dictionary for dovekeepers
  
• monica bellucci 20 year old
  
• monica bellucci style
  
• elijah was struck by "60 whips of fire" (No, that was Enoch)
  
• angelina jolie on the sea cartoon
  
• angelina jolie lara croft training
  
• 05/2009 04.12.2009 dated circular
  
• papyrus tattoo
  
• destroyed statue of angel
  
• jim davila snakes
  
• angelina jolie age 16
  
• signed jim davila snake (Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?)
  
• angelina jolie psychopath
  
• how to destroy bind stop a dibbuk box (It's important to know these things)

More on Byzantine-era town in Negev

MORE DETAILS about that late antique town excavated in southern Israel are give in an Haaretz article: Byzantine-era ritual baths discovered on Israel's Route 6 (Yanir Yagna).

Two mikvehs and two public structures, dating back to 6th century CE, were found in the southern segment of the road. Archaeologists believe the ruins point to the existence of an ancient Jewish town in the Negev.

“At the request of the Trans-Israel Highway, we performed digs along the southbound portion of the road,” said Nir Shimshon-Paran, head of archaeological digs at the antiquities authority.

“We carried out excavations – meant to document any relics in the area before development or road pavement work was started – and discovered two mikvehs, and two public structures, which, according to certain parameters, fit the criteria for synagogues,” said Paran.

Paran said the discoveries were undoubtedly part of a Jewish town.

“Here we see a Jewish town from a time when the Negev had a sparse Jewish population. The structures discovered were built with chiseled hewn stones, and both of them contain remains of a stage adjacent to a wall, facing Jerusalem. Their characteristics and positioning indicate that these structures served as synagogues, or houses of study. The town uncovered here is roughly eight kilometers from the synagogue that was destroyed along with Rimon during the Byzantine period,” Paran added.

Background here.

Hebrew and Syriac in Turkey

HEBREW AND SYRIAC are being offered at Mardin Artuklu University:

University to Offer Hebrew and Syriac Courses in Mardin

The Department of Living Languages in Mardin Artuklu University is set to launch two courses to teach Hebrew and Syriac. Assistant Prof. Mehmet Sait Toprak said their aim was to train researchers who could conduct scientific studies in their own languages.

Nilay VARDAR
nilay@bianet.org
Mardin - BIA News Center
31 August 2012, Friday

The Department of the Institute of Living Languages in Mardin Artuklu University is set to launch two new courses to teach Hebrew and Syriac. A Hebrew Language and Culture Department is also in the works.

The courses will last for three months, and they will be offered both on the weekends and weekdays. Aspiring students are required to apply until Sept. 7 to attend the classes, each of which has a maximum capacity of 40 pupils. The university will provide passing students with a certificate, and higher level courses will also be available on the second semester as well.

"We limited the number of applicants because we lack enough instructors. We are only three people. Our aim is first to teach both languages at the highest level and then to train researchers who could conduct scientific studies on Hebrew and Syriac languages and cultures in their own tongues," Assistant Prof. Mehmet Sait Toprak said.

"[We might] also establish Syriac and Jewish Research Centers to form more scientific institutions in the future. We are also going to appeal to the YÖK (Higher Board of Education) within a month or two to open a Hebrew Language and Culture Deparment," he added.

[...]

The Syriac course has been running for some time, but the Hebrew is new. Background here and links.

Dutch Talmud

THE TALMUD IS BEING TRANSLATED INTO DUTCH: New Dutch translation of Talmud a tribute to Friesland’s nearly vanished Jews (Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA).

Five years ago, De Leeuwe began focusing on another aspect of his roots, the Talmud, which he started to painstakingly translate into Dutch. This summer he reached the first milestone in his work, completing the translation of the first tractate, Brachot, in nine annotated volumes.

De Leeuwe says that though the Jewish population here is minuscule, Friesland is a fitting place for such work.

Writing here, he says, is a form of “tikkun," repair: He would produce the world’s first annotated Dutch translation of the Talmud in the place that the Nazis had tried to destroy his family and his people.

In the introduction to his recently completed translation, de Leeuwe mentions the “enemies” of the Jewish people but refuses to use the word Nazis. “I wasn’t going to give the Nazis the honor of being mentioned in Talmudic text,” he tells JTA.

“A thousand years from now,” he says, “this book will still say that, despite how the Germans tried to wipe out the Jewish people, we prevailed.”

The first two volumes of his translation took the most work, says De Leeuwe, a doctor and former cantor who used to teach Talmud classes while living elsewhere in the Netherlands. “I’m able to work much faster now,” he says. He hopes to finish two additional tractates by Passover.

Judaica collectors, libraries and others have bought about 300 copies of each volume, according to de Leeuwe.

Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls Month

ASOR BLOG: Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls Month.

We are pleased to announce that September will be Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls month here on the ASOR blog. Starting Tuesday, September 4th, we will be posting contributions from leading scholars on Qumran and the scrolls. Check back often to see the latest updates!

Good deal. But at PaleoJudaica every month is Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls Month!

Blogiversaries

HAPPY NINTH BLOGIVERSARY, both slightly belated, to David Meadows's Rogue Classicism and Mark Goodacre's NT Blog!

Byzantine-era town excavated in Israel

AN ISRAELI SALVAGE EXCAVATION has made an important discovery:

Archaeologists unearth ruins of 1,500-year-old Jewish town in southern Israel
Authorities will change the planned route of Highway 6 to avoid damaging newly unearthed remains

By Matti Friedman September 2, 2012, 6:09 pm 0 (Times of Israel)

Israeli archaeologists digging on the route of a planned highway have found new ruins from a 1,500-year-old Jewish town, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Sunday.

The remains of two Jewish ritual baths and two public buildings were uncovered in a salvage dig ahead of the paving of a new section of Israel’s Highway 6, a north-south toll road eventually slated to run much of the length of the country.

Both of the public buildings feature raised platforms along the walls facing Jerusalem, archaeologists say — a trademark feature of Jewish houses of prayer.

The highway will be rerouted to preserve the ruins, the IAA statement said.

[...]

The IAA press release in Hebrew is here and includes the photo in the article above and another one.

Via Joseph Lauer, who has also circulated high resolution copies of both IAA photos. These were sent by Yoli Shwartz, the IAA's Spokesperson, and I post them below. Click on the images for larger versions.

August Biblioblog Carnival

JIM WEST: It’s The August Biblioblog Carnival! The ‘Look, There’s a List of Biblioblog Twitterers’ Edition.

Just released: DeSilva, The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude

NEW BOOK: David A. DeSilva, The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (OUP).