Timbuktu manuscripts update

INFORMATION ON THE FATE OF THE TIMBUKTU MANUSCRIPTS continued to develop over the weekend, but I was knocked down by a bad head cold and wasn't following the media. Lydia Polgreen at the New York Times has the latest: As Extremists Invaded, Timbuktu Hid Artifacts of a Golden Age.

The residents of Timbuktu suffered grievously under Islamic militant rule. Almost all of life’s pleasures, even the seemingly innocent ones like listening to music and dancing, were forbidden. With the arrival of French and Malian troops here on Jan. 28, life is slowly returning to normal.

But the city’s rich historical patrimony suffered terrible losses. Timbuktu is known as the City of 333 Saints, a reference to the Sufi preachers and scholars who are venerated by Muslims here. The Islamic rebels destroyed several earthen tombs of those saints, claiming such shrines were forbidden.

During their hasty departure from the city last weekend, the fighters struck another parting blow, setting fire to dozens of ancient manuscripts at the Ahmed Baba Institute, the city’s biggest and most important library.

[...]

It turned out the worries were not unwarranted. In the chaotic final days of the Islamist occupation, all that changed. A group of militants stormed the library as they were fleeing and set fire to whatever they could find.

Fortunately, they got their hands on only a tiny portion of the library’s collection.

“They managed to find less than 5 percent,” he said. “Thank God they were not able to find anything else.”

None of the city’s libraries are in a hurry to return their collections from their hiding places, even though Timbuktu is back under government control.

[...]

Can't say I blame them. As for that less-fortunate less than 5 percent, Matt Blake and Sam Webb at the Daily Mail have some heartbreaking photos: Mali's history goes up in flames: Pictures show priceless texts torched by Islamist fighters fleeing French forces at Timbuktu.

These pictures show the scorched remains of priceless historical documents torched by Islamist fighters before they fled French troops as they closed in on Timbuktu.

The extremists set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless historic manuscripts as they fled French and Malian forces.

Without firing a shot, 1,000 French soldiers backed by 200 Malian troops descended on the ancient desert trading post, as they tried to cut off the escape of al Qaeda-linked fighters.

But before they could be rounded up, the rebels scattered into the desert, torching homes, mosques and libraries, including parts of the city's £16-million Ahmed Baba Institute, home to some 20,000 ancient documents on culture, science and geography, as they left.

[...]

Background here and links.

Animating the Talmud

THE TALMUD in cartoon format:

Animating the Talmud
Studio G-dcast videos bring together animators and storytellers to put a modern spin on ancient Jewish texts

By Samuel Thrope|January 28, 2013 7:00 AM| (Tablet)

Rabbi Eliezer, in his purple robe and flowing gray beard, curls his fists in concentration as he miraculously reverses the direction of a river’s flowing, cerulean water. A paper-cut Moses looks on in surprise as Rabbi Akiva teaches his many students, all colored in yellows and pastels. Rabban Gamliel, sporting a bow tie and monocle, shakes his jowls and wields his gavel as he publicly shames a thin and meek Rabbi Yehoshua.

The Talmud has never looked so good.

Last August, a group of young Jewish artists gathered at San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum to write, record, and animate the short films from which these scenes are taken. Over the course of one intensive week, the participating animators and storytellers, many of whom were encountering the Talmud for the first time, brought to life six of the Babylonian Talmud’s best-known tales. Organized by G-dcast, the Jewish nonprofit production company best known for its animations of the Bible, this new initiative, called Studio G-dcast, is out to change the way American Jews approach the Talmud.

[...]

Hugoye 16.1

HUGOYE: JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES has published a new issue: Volume 16.1 (Winter 2013). Follow the link for the TOC and for links to the articles, reviews, etc., all online for free.

Cyrus Cylinder coming to D.C.

THE CYRUS CYLINDER is on the road again: 2600 Years of World History in One Iconic Object: Cyrus Cylinder Makes U.S. Debut on March 9 at Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery.

Background here with many links.

More on the Golb case

THE RESULTS OF THE RAPHAEL GOLB APPEAL in the Dead Sea Scrolls identity theft case has received some media attention:

NY appeals court reaches mixed ruling in Dead Sea Scrolls harassment case of historian’s son (AP). "Mixed" as in 29 of the original 30 convictions were upheld.

Also, Hershel Shanks in Bible History Daily: Dead Sea Scrolls Scholar’s Son Off to Jail. Golb is not off to jail immediately, though, and he seems to be planning another appeal.

Background here and links.

1 Enoch—the opera

AN OPERA BASED ON THE BOOK OF 1 ENOCH is being performed in New York: Taconic Opera: World Premiere of New Oratorio - Enoch (Angela Usobiaga, RivertownsPatch).

Dan Montez’s Enoch is based on the life of the Old Testament prophet, Enoch, the father of Methuselah, who mysteriously disappeared from the Book of Genesis without explanation. Over 100 chapters of the Book of Enoch, lost for almost 2000 years, were discovered recently and translated from Hebrew, Aramaic and Ethiopian (Geez).

Sort of. Quotations of a Greek translation were known to Byzantine authors, but the complete Ethiopic text was recovered in in the West in the eighteen century. Fragments in Aramaic were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940s. No Hebrew fragments of 1 Enoch survive.

Christian and Jewish scholars were surprised to find quotes from the Book of Enoch as many as 128 times in the Old Testament, more than any other book, and consider it to be scripture.

Uh, no. Completely wrong. But there is one quotation from 1 Enoch in the New Testament in Jude 14-15. I suspect that the Parable of the Sheep and Goats in Matthew 25:31-46 also shows some familiarity with the book.

The story is the antithesis of the Sodom story inasmuch as a city becomes so righteous that is taken up into heaven.

No, no ascending cities in 1 Enoch.

Enoch is called as the first scribe of heaven and first author of scripture. With a little help from Montez, the newly-discovered Enoch will now have his very own oratorio. The work will feature the Taconic Opera chorus, professional lead singers and full orchestra. Performances will be conducted under the baton of Dan Montez himself who is delighted to debut the second of his oratorical compositions in Westchester County. Enoch will be sung in English and its musical influences include Fauré, Ravel and Poulenc. Those who come to the world premiere of the piece will have the opportunity to take part in the making of music history.

Should be interesting.

Cross-file under "Pseudepigrapha Watch."

Avdat restored

SOME GOOD NEWS ABOUT THE NABATAEAN (NABATEAN) SITE OF AVDAT:

Ancient Site Restored after Modern Vandalism
Nabatean King Obodas, revered as a deity, built the southern Negev city of Avdat 2000 years ago. Vandals tried to destroy it three years ago. Now it has been restored.

By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu (The Jewish Press)
Published: January 30th, 2013

Six different Israeli ministries invested nearly $2 million to repair damage, much of it irreversible, after unknown vandals in October 2009 assaulted the site, designated by UNESCO (United Nations Science and Culture Organization) as a world’s cultural heritage.

[...]

[District official Raviv] Shapiro is pleased that the site now has been re-opened for visitors after massive rehabilitation efforts have actually made the site “look a lot better than it was before the vandalism.”

However, the archaeological value of many fragile artifacts has been lost forever, adds Nature Authority official Orit Bortnik.

[...]

The Nabatean city of Avdat, named after King Obodas who was known in Arabic as Abdah, is located in Avdat National Park, which includes hiking trails, springs, groves and wildlife. The city is on the “Spice Route” along which merchants traveled with perfumes and spices from East Africa and Arabia.

[...]

Background on the vandalism inflicted on Avdat in 2009 is here and links.

Latest on Timbuktu Manuscripts

MOST OF THE TIMBUKTU MANUSCRIPTS that were reported burned earlier this week seem to safe after all. The news accounts remain confused and uncertain, but it seems that some 2000 manuscripts remain unaccounted for, which is not good.

Bulk of Timbuktu manuscripts safe, unharmed: experts

By Pascal Fletcher | Reuters – 20 hrs ago

DAKAR (Reuters) - The vast majority of Timbuktu's ancient manuscripts in state and private collections appear to be unharmed after the Malian Saharan city's 10-month occupation by Islamist rebel fighters, who burnt some of the scripts, experts said on Wednesday.

The news, based on information from persons directly involved with the conservation of the historic texts, came as a relief to the world's cultural community which had been dismayed by varying media reports of widespread destruction of the priceless manuscripts.

After French and Malian troops on Sunday retook Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site and ancient seat of Islamic learning, from Islamist insurgent occupiers, the city's mayor reported the fleeing rebels had set fire to a major manuscript library.

But experts said that while up to 2,000 manuscripts may have been lost at the South African-funded Ahmed Baba Institute ransacked by the rebels, the bulk of the around 300,000 texts existing in Timbuktu and its surrounding region were believed to be safe.

"I can say that the vast majority of the collections appear from our reports not to have been destroyed, damaged or harmed in any way," Cape Town University's Professor Shamil Jeppie, an expert on the Saharan city's manuscripts, told Reuters.

A Malian source also directly involved with the conservation of the Timbuktu manuscripts told Reuters 95 percent of the total documents were "safe and sound".

[...]

Additional confirmation comes from the Tombouctou Manuscript Project blog: Timbuktu Update:

Since the start of this week there are reports about the destruction of library buildings and book collections in Timbuktu. It sounds as if the written heritage of the town went up in flames. According to our information this is not the case at all. The custodians of the libraries worked quietly throughout the rebel occupation of Timbuktu to ensure the safety of their materials. A limited number of items have been damaged or stolen, the infrastructure neglected and furnishings in the Ahmad Baba Institute library looted but from all our local sources – all intimately connected with the public and private collections in the town - there was no malicious destruction of any library or collection.

[...]

I think of 2000 manuscripts as rather more than "a limited number," but for now let's take that as a sign that perhaps the situation is still better than it currently looks.

The Telegraph adds that:

UNESCO, the UN's cultural organisation, is to send a mission as soon as possible to assess the damage done to the ancient cultural sites.

Hopefully we will learn more when they report.

Background here and links.

Golb convictions upheld

RAPHAEL GOLB'S convictions in the Dead Sea Scrolls identity theft case have been almost entirely upheld on appeal. Robert Cargill has the story: NY Court of Appeals Upholds Raphael Golb’s Conviction on 29 of 30 Counts.

Background here with many links.

McGrath on Mandaean

ARAMAIC WATCH: James McGrath collects some links on Mandaean (Mandean) texts and language: The Mandaean Good Shepherd.

On being a Talmudic sage

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN by Adam Kirsch: Rabbinic Mind Games: Lionizing those who perform feats of memory and logic, who reason strictly from premise to conclusion.

Here, then, is part of what it takes to be a great Torah scholar: the ability to perform feats of memory and logic, to reason strictly from premise to conclusion. Two things strike me about this sacralization of the intellect. The first is that, for the rabbis, this kind of thinking is not just impressive; it is itself the supreme expression of piety, since Torah study is the highest Jewish obligation. We please God most not by feeling or even praying, but by thinking. The second is how very unusual this value system is, historically speaking. Working in the midst of empires—Rome and Persia—which were built on hierarchies of birth, wealth, and force, the rabbis evolved their own aristocracy of mind. Many things have changed since the Talmud was written, but I think it’s still possible to see the ethical and intellectual legacy of this value system in Jewish life today.

But intellect is only part of what is required from the Torah sage. In addition to being a great thinker, he is also the leader of his community and its public face, which means that his bearing must be dignified and impressive. ...

Kirsch's earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Timbuktu manuscripts safe?

NOTE THE IMPORTANT UPDATE to today's earlier post, One of the burned Timbuktu manuscripts was in Hebrew. There are conflicting reports that the libraries were not burned or that at least some manuscripts were saved.

UPDATE (30 January): This from Lila Azam Zanganeh, Has the Great Library of Timbuktu Been Lost?, in The New Yorker:

Jean-Michel Djian, a French writer who specializes in West African culture, and is author of a recent book, “The Manuscripts of Timbuktu,” confirmed by phone last night that parts of the various collections were safe. “The great majority of the manuscripts, about fifty thousand, are actually housed in the thirty-two family libraries of the ‘City of 333 Saints,’ ” he said. “Those are to this day protected.” Djian also revealed that Abdel Kader Haidara, the owner of his family’s “Mamma Haidara” library, had transported, two months ago, more than fifteen thousand of its manuscripts to the capital city in order to protect them. Djian said that the same was true of the several thousand manuscripts of the Kati Foundation in Timbuktu. “The rest,” he added with a crack in his voice, “is unknown.”

One of the burned Timbuktu manuscripts was in Hebrew

AS I FEARED: Ancient Timbuktu Manuscripts, 1 in Hebrew, Torched by Islamists (Arutz Sheva).

At least one of the manuscripts, buried beneath the sand or in cave for centuries in wooden trunks and boxes, was written in Hebrew. Another was written in Turkish, according to Seydo Traore, a researcher at the institute where the manuscripts were kept.

Most were written in Arabic, and some were written in African languages. They covered women’s rights, medicine, music, poetry, geography, history, religion and even astronomy, dating as far back as the year 1204. Researchers had managed to digitize only a small percentage of the manuscripts.

This is a manifold desecration and a great loss for human history.

Background here.

UPDATE: This just in. There are now conflicting reports that either the insurgents took some or most of the manuscripts with them or at least some of the manuscripts were removed for safe keeping by locals some time ago, well before any library buildings were burned, if any were. Time Magazine: Mali: Timbuktu Locals Saved Some of City’s Ancient Manuscripts from Islamists.

In interviews with TIME on Monday, preservationists said that in a large-scale rescue operation early last year, shortly before the militants seized control of Timbuktu, thousands of manuscripts were hauled out of the Ahmed Baba Institute to a safe house elsewhere. Realizing that the documents might be prime targets for pillaging or vindictive attacks from Islamic extremists, staff left behind just a small portion of them, perhaps out of haste, but also to conceal the fact that the center had been deliberately emptied. “The documents which had been there are safe, they were not burned,” said Mahmoud Zouber, Mali’s presidential aide on Islamic affairs, a title he retains despite the overthrow of the former President, his boss, in a military coup a year ago; preserving Timbuktu’s manuscripts was a key project of his office. By phone from Bamako on Monday night, Zouber told TIME, “They were put in a very safe place. I can guarantee you. The manuscripts are in total security.”

In a second interview from Bamako, a preservationist who did not want to be named confirmed that the center’s collection had been hidden out of reach from the militants. Neither of those interviewed wanted the location of the manuscripts named in print, for fear that remnants of the al-Qaeda occupiers might return to destroy them.

That was confirmed too by Shamil Jeppie, director of the Timbuktu Manuscripts Project at the University of Cape Town, who told TIME on Monday night that “there were a few items in the Ahmed Baba library, but the rest were kept away.” The center, financed by the South African government as a favored project by then President Thabo Mbeki, who championed reviving Africa’s historical culture, housed state-of-the-art equipment to preserve and photograph hundreds of thousands of pages, some of which had gold illumination, astrological charts and sophisticated mathematical formulas. Jeppie said he had been enraged by the television footage on Monday of the building trashed, and blamed in part Mali’s government, which he said had done little to ensure the center’s security. “It is really sad and disturbing,” he said.

But the mayor of Timbuktu says that not all of the manuscripts were saved.

The Globe and Mail: Priceless manuscripts missing in Timbuktu .

When hundreds of French soldiers rolled into the remote desert city in northern Mali on Monday, cheered by thousands of residents who were ecstatic that the Islamist rebels had fled, one of the biggest fears was the fate of Timbuktu’s ornately crafted manuscripts, as precious to world history as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The city’s mayor, exiled far away in Mali’s capital, alleged that the Islamist extremists had torched the manuscript libraries, burning them to the ground. This was quickly disproved by a Sky TV crew embedded with the French soldiers, who found the main library intact, alleviating the worst fears of many scholars.

Inside the library, television reports showed a few small piles of ash, along with dozens of empty boxes. Up to 10,000 manuscripts were gone. The immediate assumption was that the Islamist militia groups had stolen or destroyed them – although subsequent reports suggested that many of them had been hidden and saved.

[...]

In fact, the most alarming reports were unfounded. The main library, a new headquarters built in 2009 with South African funds, was still intact when the French arrived. Televised images showed dozens of empty cardboard boxes scattered around a courtyard. But each box holds just one manuscript, so the number of burned manuscripts may be relatively small.

The new library contained about 10,000 manuscripts last year when the rebels captured the city, Mr. Diagayete said. But the basement vaults were empty when the French troops arrived on Monday.

The fate of a second library, an older building where a further 29,000 manuscripts were held, was still unknown.

(Both stories via a Facebook friend of Brent Landau.)

It would be wonderful if the story of the burned library turned out to be a false alarm. But I remain very concerned for the manuscripts and antiquities of Timbuktu in the current atmosphere in Mali.

UPDATE (30 January): More here.

Jacobovici vs. Zias

COURT CASE: A Feud Between Biblical Archaeologists Goes to Court (Time Magazine). Simcha Jacobovici is not a "biblical archaeologist" (a phrase that implies formal specialist training), and Nina Burleigh should know better than to call him one. He is a filmmaker who is involved in archaeology and biblical studies as an amateur, and some of his ideas are pretty goofy (see, for example, here, here, here, and here). It is for the judge to rule on the court case, but the journalists should still at least exert minimal effort to get the basic facts right.

Tomb-robbing arrests

SUSPECTS IN CUSTODY:

Arabs Caught Red Handed Robbing Ancient Grave
Three suspects were caught inside 1st century cave near Kibbutz Metzer.

By Gil Ronen (Arutz Sheva)
First Publish: 1/29/2013, 10:36 AM

A protracted surveillance operation led to the capture of three suspects who were caught red handed robbing an ancient grave near Kibbutz Metzer.

Inspectors for the Unit for Prevention of Theft in the Antiquities Authority caught the suspects inside a burial cave dating from the 1st century CE.

The suspects are Arabs from the town of Baka el Gharbiya and the village of Zamer. They were in possession of numerous digging tools.

[...]

Jewish amulet exhibition

Moriah Galleries Presents Exhibit of Ancient Jewish Amulets

Thursday, 24 January 2013 06:23 By JV Staff (The Jewish Voice)

In its 54th year of specializing in the world’s finest antique Judaica, Moriah Galleries is now presenting a most exquisite exhibition of Jewish amulets that is on view through February at its Manhattan gallery, at 230 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1311.

The extensive collection that has been developed over the last 20 years is comprised of amulets made of various materials including silver, paper and parchment. The vast array of amulets were culled from the length and breadth of the Jewish world; most specifically from Syria, North Africa and Persia and include a number of rare European examples with some never before seen.

[...]

On exhibit at the Moriah gallery are some of the most important and spectacular examples of Jewish amulets and talismans comprising the ancient and old (from cca. 400 to 1900 C.E.) Many of these exude a unique charm and flavor with special meanings and “Hashivut” (importance).

[...]

More on such amulets here and on some modern jewelery inspired by such here. Another exhibition on Jewish magic was noted here.

Meanwhile, Dan Levene's 1998 BAR article on skulls inscribed with incantations gets some attention in The Examiner: Occult news: Babylonian mystery religions, the Talmud and magick skulls. More on the BAR article here and here

Manuscripts destroyed in Timbuktu

I KNEW SOMETHING LIKE THIS WAS COMING:

Mali rebels fleeing Timbuktu burn library full of ancient manuscripts
Town's mayor says Islamist insurgents torched two buildings containing priceless books as French-led troops approached

Luke Harding in Sévaré
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 January 2013 11.40 GMT
Jump to comments (91)

Islamist insurgents retreating from the ancient Saharan city of Timbuktu have set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts, some dating back to the 13th century, in what the town's mayor described as a "devastating blow" to world heritage.

Hallé Ousmani Cissé told the Guardian that al-Qaida-allied fighters on Saturday torched two buildings where the manuscripts were being kept. They also burned down the town hall and governor's office, and shot dead a man who was celebrating the arrival of the French military.

French troops and the Malian army reached the gates of Timbuktu on Saturday and secured the town's airport. But they appear to have got there too late to save the leather-bound manuscripts, which were a unique record of sub-Saharan Africa's medieval history.

[...]

Background on the Timbuktu manuscripts is here with many links. Note also the last two links here, at which I reflected on what might have been found in manuscripts such as these. Now we will never know.

UPDATE (29 January): Maybe not. See the important update to this post.

Sabar on preserving Aramaic

ARAMAIC WATCH: Ariel Sabar has an article in Smithsonian on a project to preserve nearly-extinct Neo-Aramaic dialects:

How to Save a Dying Language
Geoffrey Khan is racing to document Aramaic, the language of Jesus, before its native speakers vanish

By Ariel Sabar
Smithsonian magazine, February 2013, Subscribe

It was a sunny morning in May, and I was in a car with a linguist and a tax preparer trolling the suburbs of Chicago for native speakers of Aramaic, the 3,000-year-old language of Jesus.

The linguist, Geoffrey Khan of the University of Cambridge, was nominally in town to give a speech at Northwestern University, in Evanston. But he had another agenda: Chicago’s northern suburbs are home to tens of thousands of Assyrians, Aramaic-speaking Christians driven from their Middle Eastern homelands by persecution and war. The Windy City is a heady place for one of the world’s foremost scholars of modern Aramaic, a man bent on documenting all of its dialects before the language—once the tongue of empires—follows its last speakers to the grave.

[...]

Ariel Sabar is known for his book My Father's Paradise, about his father, the Aramaic scholar and speaker, Yona Sabar. Background here and links.

Latest on Mussolini's catacombs

MORE DELAYS in the restoration of the Jewish catacombs under Mussolini's villa. In fact, the latest coverage mentions the catacombs but then discusses only the building of the associated Holocaust Museum. I hope the catacombs are still on the agenda.

Bureaucracy stalls construction of Italy’s first Holocaust museum

By Ruth Ellen Gruber · January 22, 2013

ROME (JTA) -- If all goes according to plan, a starkly modern, $30 million Holocaust museum will soon rise on the site of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s Rome residence.

The site, also the location of ancient Jewish catacombs and now a city park, will be home to a museum first proposed in 2005 but held up repeatedly by financial and bureaucratic problems.

“I hope construction begins this summer,” Leone Paserman, the president of the Museum of the Shoah Foundation, told JTA. “Of course in Italy, it is always hard to say.”

[...]

The new museum will be built on the grounds of Villa Torlonia, an elegant 19th century mansion that Mussolini used as his residence from 1925 to 1943. Jewish catacombs dating back to ancient times were discovered by chance beneath the surface of its extensive gardens in 1919.

“It is surely one of the ironies of history that for nearly two decades Mussolini resided on top of a catacomb complex constructed by those whose descendants -- being the main victims of his racial policies -- were the ones he forcefully tried to eliminate from the very fabric of Italian society,” Leonard Rutgers, a Dutch expert on the catacombs, told JTA.

[...]

Contra this article, the project has been in the works since at least 2004. Background here and links.

DSS move to Boston

A PROMINENT DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION is coming to Boston:

Museum of Science collaborates with Brandeis on Dead Sea Scrolls

By Connor Novy (The Brandeis Hoot)
January 24, 2013
Section: Front Page, News

The Museum of Science has announced an exhibit centered around the Dead Sea Scrolls. Brandeis has been collaborating with the museum since August and will be providing opportunities for students to become involved with the exhibit once it opens.

“It’s really quite incredible that we are the one university the museum is working with for the project,” Professor Marc Brettler (NEJS), chair of the museum committee said. While the Museum of Science has relationships with many of the universities in the Boston area, Brandeis is the only school with which they are communicating on the Dead Sea Scroll exhibit. The Israeli Artifact Association, as the institution lending the scrolls, has also been in negotiations. While many of the plans are still tentative, Brandeis’ participation has already greatly influenced the exhibit. “A number of us at Brandeis have worked with the museum, advising them concerning various aspects of the exhibit,” Brettler said.

“The museum had some role in choosing which Dead Sea Scrolls would actually be available for the public to see. I and some others advised the museum concerning that,” Brettler said.

The exhibit will feature 20 scrolls and fragments of scrolls total, as well as many artifacts from ancient Israel. “One of the areas we pushed, especially since they’re a museum of science, and I know which scrolls have more scientific material in them, I pushed them in that direction, so the exhibit would fit with museum’s goal,” he said.

“There are astronomical texts, or texts that deal with astronomy among the scrolls,” one of which will be featured in the exhibit. “So that’s science in antiquity,” said Brettler. The exhibit will also highlight the science of the scrolls itself—the technology of archaeological preservation has made huge advances since the scrolls were initially discovered in 1947.

[...]

There is additional information at Brandeis Now: Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit to create opportunities: Brandeis and Museum of Science collaborating on programming. The latter reports that this is the exhibition that has already appeared at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and Discovery Times Square in New York City.

Peter conference reminder

LIKE THE TITLE SAYS: Peter Conference in Edinburgh: A Reminder (Larry Hurtado). New College Edinburgh, 4-6 July 2013.

Schiffman on Jewish genetics and history

LAWRENCE SCHIFFMAN has been blogging a series on Jewish genetics:

I. History and Genetics: Can the History of the Jews Actually be Observed in their Genomes
II. History and Genetics: Commonality of origin
III. History and Genetics: Mesopotamia to Canaan
IV. History and Genetics: Eastern Diaspora
V. History and Genetics: Western Diaspora

Review of Cohn, The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis

BOOK REVIEW by Yitz Landes at the Talmud Blog: Naftali Cohn’s “The Memory of the Temple and the Making of the Rabbis.”

Lecture on Hekhalot translation

I'M OFF TO EDINBURGH TODAY to give a lecture at a New College seminar on "Translating the Hekhalot Literature." Dr. Matthew Novenson has kindly advertised the event here. The lecture summarizes material from the introduction to my forthcoming translation and discusses some specific passages. I am not going to prepost the whole lecture, but the lecture handout is copied below:

TRANSLATING THE HEKHALOT LITERATURE

1. The Hekhalot Literature

2. The Texts

• Hekhalot Rabbati (§§81-121, 152-73, 189-277), "The Greater (Book of the Heavenly) Palaces"
• Sar Torah (§§281-306), the "Prince of Torah"
• Hekhalot Zutarti (approximately §§335-75, 407-26), "The Lesser (Book of the Heavenly) Palaces"
• Maʻaseh Merkavah (§§544-96), "The Working of the Chariot"
• Merkavah Rabba (§§655-708), "The Greater (Book of the) Chariot"
• Sefer Hekhalot (§§1-79), "The Book of the Palaces," 3 Enoch*
• Shiʻur Qomah, "The Measure of the Stature"*
• Massekhet Hekhalot, "The Treatise of the Palaces"*
• Shorter macroforms and fragments: The Chapter of R. Nehuniah ben HaQanah (§§307-14); the incantation prayers in The Great Seal-Fearsome Crown (§§318-21//§§651-54); a brief account of The Ascent of Elisha ben Avuyah (§597); Sar Panim or "The Prince of the Presence" (§§623-39), The Youth (hanaʻar)
• Geniza fragments
"The Ozhayah Fragment" (G8); "The Unicum (i.e., "unique") Fragment" (G22); The fragment of a Metatron adjuration also involving Moses (G19).
Fragments of the Hekhalot Rabbati (G1-G6), the Hekhalot Zutarti (G7, G16, G18), an otherwise unknown recension of the beginning of 3 Enoch (G12), the Sar Panim (G1), and Shiʻur Qomah traditions* (G4, G8, G9, G10, G11).
*Not included in this translation

3. Key Issues in Research on the Hekhalot Literature
• Heavenly ascents and Sar Torah adjurations
• Exegesis, experience, and praxis
• Origins of the Hekhalot traditions
• Authorship, provenance, and social context

4. This Translation
• The manuscripts

• N - MS New York, Jewish Theological Seminary 828/8128. An Ashkenanzic manuscript dating probably to the end of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century, heavily interpolated with magical, liturgical, and even apocalyptic materials.
• O - MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Michael 9 (Neugebauer 1531). An Ashkenazic manuscript dating to around 1300.
• M40 - MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. hebr. 40. An Italian manuscript written by multiple scribes. The section containing the Hekhalot texts translated here is dated to the end of the fifteenth century.
• M22 - MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. hebr. 22. This Italian manuscript was also written by multiple scribes, but the section containing the Hekhalot texts translated here is dated to the middle of the sixteenth century.
• D - MS Dropsie, Philadelphia, Dropsie University 436. A Sephardic manuscript dated to the fifteenth century.
• V - MS Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, Vaticana, Vat. ebr. 228. A Byzantine manuscript dated to the fifteenth century.
• B - MS Budapest, Rabbinic Seminary, Kaufman 238. An Italian manuscript dated to the fifteenth century.
• F - Florence Laurenziana Plut. 44/13. An Italian manuscript dating to the fourteenth century.
• L - Leiden Or. 4730, an Italian manuscript that may date to the sixteenth or seventeenth century.

• The nature of this translation

5. Some sample passages
Hekhalot Rabbati §81, §253, §233
GO56 (Oxford Heb. d. 56, fol. 125a 11-5) = Hekhalot Rabbati §§221-23 and cf. §229-30

Selected Bibliography
Davila, James R. The Hekhalot Literature in Translation: Major Texts of Merkavah Mysticism. SJJTP. Leiden: Brill, forthcoming 2013.
Davila, James R. "Prolegomena to a Critical Edition of the Hekhalot Rabbati." JJS 45 (1994): 208-26.
Schäfer, Peter, et al. Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur. TSAJ 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1981.
Schäfer, Peter. Geniza-Fragmente zur Hekhalot-Literatur. TSAJ 6. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1984.

A text-critical principle

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Agreement in error can point to common origin (Dirk Jongkind, ETC).

Patai Folklore and Ethnology Prize

COMPETITION: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: RAPHAEL PATAI PRIZE IN JEWISH FOLKLORE AND ETHNOLOGY (H-JUDAIC).

Awarded for best unpublished essay on Jewish folklore and ethnology
completed by a student between January 2012-June 2013.

The prize is offered by the Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Section of the American Folklore Society and the Committee on the Anthropology of Jews and Judaism of the American Anthropological Association. The deadline is 1 July 2013. Follow the link for details.

UPDATE: Although the H-JUDAIC post gives the deadline as 1 July, the web page of the Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Section of the American Folklore Society says 15 June.

Destructive anger on the Sabbath

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI by Adam Kirsch in Tablet: Things Broken and Repaired: In this week’s page of Talmud, the rabbis show their skill at making distinctions between obligation and acting out.

The Mishnah bans any kind of constructive or positive activity on Shabbat; but this raises a question to which the Talmud will return in the following chapter, in Shabbat 105b. What if you perform an action that involves some real expense of energy but its effect is purely destructive?

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here, here and links.

Happy 11th to the AKMA blog

HAPPY ELEVENTH BLOGIVERSARY to A.K.M. Adam's blog AKMA's Random Thoughts, which is arguably the oldest "biblioblog." (PaleoJudaica is the other contender for oldest, but neither of us is particularly invested in claiming the title.)

New books on Christian Apocrypha from Tony Burke

AT APOCRYPHICITY Tony Burke has posted some information on his brand new book and his book-in-progress: Secret Mark Symposium Papers Now Available (title: Ancient Gospel or Modern Forgery? The Secret Gospel of Mark in Debate; background here and links) and Secret Scriptures Revealed! Thoughts on Writing for Non-Specialists, part 3 (background here and link).

Review of Hillar, From Logos to Trinity

BMCR REVIEW:

Marian Hillar, From Logos to Trinity: The Evolution of Religious Beliefs from Pythagoras to Tertullian. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xi, 320. ISBN 9781107013308. £60.00.

Reviewed by Joe McCoy, The University of Nevada, Reno (joemccoy12@gmail.com)

Preview

There are three distinct levels of concern in Marian Hillar’s From Logos to Trinity: The Evolution of Religious Beliefs from Pythagoras to Tertullian. The first is that the doctrine of the Trinity—that the Divinity comprises three persons in a single nature—is a creed alien to the authentic Christianity of the Apostolic generation. Second, Hillar proposes the excision of this doctrine from Christian theology as a necessary condition for the reunification of Christianity as well as for a broader rapprochement among the great monotheistic religions. Third, Hillar presents an historical account of how the seeds of this doctrine were implanted and grew in the early Church. Hillar’s thesis is that the Jewish wisdom and Messianic traditions were misappropriated by early Christian thinkers and conflated with metaphysical notions, which were current in the early Roman Empire. The result is a basic incoherence in the heart of Christian theology that compromised its teachings over the course of the following two millennia.

[...]

The reviewer is not persuaded about the parts that involve Judaism.

Gorgias Book Grant

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN: Welcome to the Gorgias Book Grant Program.

In its efforts to promote education, Gorgias Press offers annually the Gorgias Book Grant. This program offers outstanding graduate students grants in the form of Gorgias Press publications. Grants consist of Gorgias Press books in the value of $500.00 per grant. Each year, two grants are distributed.

Details at the link. The application deadline is 29 March.

Rollston reviews CIIP 2

CHRISTOPHER ROLLSTON: Review of Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae, Volume II: Caesarea and the Middle Coast, 1121-2160.

It is a peerless addition to the resources available for the ancient epigraphic realia.

More on the volume and the series here and links.

Lesses on Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition

REBECCA LESSES has posted her 2005 SBL review of Andrei Orlov's book, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition. My review of the same book has been noted here.

Apotropaic bling

NEVER OUT OF STYLE: ALEF BET Jewelry : Protective Bling.

It’s a brand new year, and we’re all trying to be optimistic. Casting an eye over the headlines makes this a difficult process. Even the sunniest souls among us can’t help but feel that the world is, at least, occasionally, a random, scary, dangerous place.

My advice: pile on the apotropaic jewelry. My favorite source: Alef Bet jewelry (www.alefbet.com), created by a Los Angeles-based mother-daughter design team which produces deliciously wearable, modern interpretations of ancient protective amulets.

Additional posts on modern use of ancient magical traditions are here and here.

Sad News: Victor Avigdor Hurowitz

VICTOR AVIGDOR HUROWITZ (1948-2013).

From Jack Sasson at the Agade list:

Dispatches from Israel are conveying the incredibly sad news that Victor Avigdor Hurowitz died today, after a series of complications arising from struggles with a long term illness.

He was just too young and did not live to receive a Festschrift currently being prepared in his honor. His website is at http://profiler.bgu.ac.il/frontoffice/ShowUser.aspx?id=373.
As yet, I have not information about funeral arrangements.

May his memory be for a blessing.

UPDATE: Again, from Jack Sasson:

From Mayer Gruber [mayergruber99@yahoo.com]:
=======================================

Funeral services for Victor Avigdor Hurowitz will take place today at
4:00 PM at Beit Ha-'Almin He-Hadash, Be-Derech Le-Hatzerim.

Shivah will be at his home, Mish'ol Ha-'Aqrabim 33, Shechunah Heh, Beer Sheva

Ann's cellular phone number for his wife Ann is [redacted, but if you really need it, drop me a note - JRD]

May his memory be for a blessing.

UPDATE: Once more from Jack. He reports that it was to have been officially launched yesterday:

Proverbs
Mikra leyisrael - A Scientific Commentary on the Bible
Series Mikra LeIsrael - Scientific Commentary on the Bible
By Avigdor Hurvitz Edited By Shmuel Ahituv
Publisher: The Hebrew University Magnes Press Ltd.

Colloquium on The Life of Adam and Eve

OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH: International Colloquium on The Life of Adam and Eve (Apocryphicity). The colloquium is in January of 2014.

Seeing the God is coming

JARED CALLAWAY notes the forthcoming Gorgias Press book Seeing the God: Ways of Envisioning the Divine in Ancient Mediterranean Religion (ed. Jeffrey Pettis), to which he is a contributor. The publisher's description:

Seeing the God: Ways of Envisioning the Divine in Ancient Mediterranean Religion is a collection of scholarly essays exploring the concept of how the ancients “envisioned” the deities within various religious traditions, including Judaism, Gnosticism, Syriac Christianity, Byzantium, and Classical Greco-Roman religion and philosophy.

In this book, specific attention is given to phenomena such as dreams, day or night-time visions, and initiation rites perceived as mediums of divine encounter. The work derives from an idea of Robin Lane Fox, who, in his Pagans and Christians writes, “When people prayed, they expected their gods to come, from the age of Homer to the last Platonists in the fifth century A.D.”

Translation of the Coptic Apocalypse of Elijah

OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH: Guest Post: Anthony Alcock – The Apocalypse of Elijah. English translation made from the text in Georg Steindorff Die Apokalypse des Elias (1899) (Alin Suciu).

BAR on CIIP

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Early Jewish Writings Reveal History of Jerusalem: Scholars publish Theodotus inscription and hundreds of other early Jerusalem texts.

For more on the Corpus inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae, see here and links

Frevel & Nihan, Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions ...

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean World and Ancient Judaism

Edited by Christian Frevel and Christophe Nihan
Purity is a cultural construct that had a central role in the forming and the development of religious traditions in the ancient Mediterranean. This volume analyzes concepts, practices and images associated with purity in the main cultures of Antiquity, and discusses from a comparative perspective their parallel developments and transformations. The perspective adopted is both synchronic and diachronic; the comparative approach takes into account points of contact and mutual influences, but also includes major transcultural trends. A number of renowned specialists contribute a large variety of perspectives and approaches, combining archaeology, epigraphy and social history; in addition, particular attention is given to concepts of purity in ancient Israel and early Judaism as a ‘test-case’ of sorts. Through its extensive coverage, the volume contributes decisively to the present discussion about the forming of religious traditions in the ancient Mediterranean world.

Schneerson Library update

$50,000 PER DAY:

U.S. Jewish community taking Russia to court over ancient texts

Tags: Society, Opinion & Analysis, World, Schneerson collection, historic documents
Rebecca Burns

Jan 18, 2013 12:57 Moscow Time (Voice of Russia)

The Russian Foreign Ministry has angrily dismissed a decision by a Washington court to issue what's may be the biggest library fine ever. It's fifty thousand dollars for every day Russia refuses to return a set of religious texts to an orthodox Jewish community in the United States. But Russia is refusing to pay up and even America’s Department of Justice is reportedly unhappy with the ruling. Borukh Gorin, Head of PR at the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, says he understands the American Chabad-Lubavitch community’s feelings but that they don't understand the Russian perspective.

Background here and link.

Hurtado reviews

BOOK REVIEWS AND COMMENTS FROM LARRY HURTADO: “Monotheism” in/and Ancient Roman Religion: The Continuing Discussion (chiefly on Stephen Mitchell & Peter Van Neffelen [eds.] One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Period) and The “Son of God” in/and the Roman Empire: A Review Essay (on Michael Peppard, The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in its Social and Political Context).

Nabataean (Nabatean) journal

AWOL: Open Access Journal: The Bulletin of Nabataean Studies (BNS).

Observing the Scribe at Work

CONFERENCE: CONFERENCE: Observing the Scribe at Work: Knowledge Transfer and Scribal Professionalism in Pre-Typographic Societies.

Barclay, Josephus: Against Apion

NOW IN PAPERBACK FROM BRILL:

Flavius Josephus: Against Apion
Translation and Commentary

Translation and commentary by John M.G. Barclay
This volume contains a fresh English translation of Josephus’ apologetic treatise Against Apion, based on the new textual research conducted by the Münster Josephus project. It also provides the first English commentary on this treatise, with comprehensive treatment of the historical, literary, and rhetorical features of Josephus’ most engaging literary product.
Against Apion contains the most important evidence for hostility to Judeans in antiquity, as Josephus responds to both Egyptian and Hellenistic slurs on the Judean people, their origins and character. Josephus’ robust defense of his people, with his striking account of the Judean constitution (“theocracy”), also constitutes the finest example of Judean apologetics from antiquity.
The commentary will provide a richly-documented resource for the many readers of this treatise – those who study and teach early Judaism, early Christianity, and the cultural politics of antiquity. It also offers the first “postcolonial” reading of Josephus, in his attempt to present his Judean tradition under the cultural hegemony of the Greek intellectual tradition and the political power of Rome.

Still not cheap.

Via the Agade list. Hardback noted earlier here.

English theses at the Hebrew U

CONTROVERSY: Theses in English 'erosion of Hebrew': The Academy of the Hebrew Language's president admonishes Hebrew University's decision to allow doctorate theses in English, warning against 'Hebrew's erosion' (Sharar Chai, Ynetnews)

I can sympathize with the Academy's concern for keeping the Hebrew language central to Israeli academia. At the same time, the move to allow English theses will inevitably mean that these theses are more widely read than they would be if they were written in Hebrew.

Giant washbasin sighted in Jerusalem

TEMPLE INSTITUTE:Temple Laver Moved to New Home: Temple Institute moves to new headquarters, and takes giant laver with it. (Arutz Sheva).

The Temple Institute moved a giant copper laver, or wash basin, to the new home of its exhibit of Temple articles on Monday.

A statement by the Temple Institute said the basin, which is 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) tall and 2.8 meters (9.1 foot) in diameter is kosher for use in the Third Temple and can be used to purify 12 priests at once.

The statement also said the new basin has advanced systems that make it possible to overcome certain problems in Jewish law, as was done at the time of the Second Temple

[...]

The resemblance to a UFO is entirely coincidental, but to be on the safe side, let's not show the photo to Erich von Däniken.

More on the Temple Institute here.

Cross-post as tangentially relevant to Temple Mount Watch.

Sabbath, space, and time in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN by Adam Kirsch in Tablet: The Pretenders: In order to understand Sabbath rules, the rabbis show, one must imagine exactly what work the Israelites did.

The problem of simultaneity has defeated the rabbis ...

Herod exhibition

HEROD THE GREAT: Israel museum to exhibit reconstructed tomb in first major exhibition on biblical King Herod (AP). When they figure a coffin has to be yours because other people smashed it to bits, I guess that means you had an impact.

There's more on Herod here, with a link that leads back to endless earlier posts on the discovery and study of Herod's probable tomb.

Kashow, Josephus on Sacrifice and Atonement

ROBERT C. KASHOW: Josephus on Sacrifice and Atonement, with reference, that is, to the Essenes.

Reviewlet: Raphael on Josephus

MACLEANS: Review: A Jew Among Romans: The Life and Legacy of Flavius Josephus (Brian Bethune). Excerpt:

But in the multitalented and prickly [Frederic] Raphael—novelist, classicist and Oscar-winning screenwriter for Darling (1965)—the ancient survivor has found his ideal judge, a man as certain of being a Jew as he is uncertain of the meaning of that fact, much as Josephus himself was. (“There is comedy of a kind,” the 81-year-old Raphael writes, “that the only people who might now insist that I am not really a Jew—since I neither pray nor abstain from forbidden foods—are other Jews.”)

New website on esotericism in antiquity

FROM SARAH VEALE:

NSEA Announces Website for Scholars of Esotericism in Antiquity

January 15, 2013

The Network for the Study of Esotericism in Antiquity (NSEA) is happy to announce our new website, AncientEsotericism.org. With continually-updated online resources news, and conference announcements, AncientEsotericism.org is intended to be a one-stop location for scholars and students of the field.

What is esotericism in antiquity? This is a broad term that governs the use of secrecy, concealment, and revelation to talk about the really important stuff—from the true identity of the creator of the cosmos (Gnosticism) to the keys to the heavenly palaces (Hekhalot literature) to how to talk about the indescribable One (Neoplatonic mysticism), etc. So if the subject involves arcana celestial and subterrestrial, it’s ancient esotericism. Scholars in various disciplines have struggled to describe a spike in “secret revelations” in Hellenistic and Late Antique religion (Hengel) or the trend towards mythology in the “Underworld of Platonism” (Dillon)—what all this diverse material has in common is an interest in secrecy and revelation for dealing with the divine, and a common reception-history in “esotericism” in the modern era, ranging from Renaissance Platonism to the New Age.

The website is intended provide a guide to the wonderful, but dizzying, online resources available for the study of this vast and difficult body of literature. My goal (in collaboration with Sarah Veale) was to create the website I would have died to see when I was an undergraduate and just starting to get excited about this material, but totally confused about how to go about studying it, what scholarship was already out there, and, most importantly, where to find the most useful primary sources and reference materials on the web. A lot of the resources gathered here will be familiar to you—but perhaps not to your students, or colleagues in an adjoining field, or a friend. So, if someone has come your way who is starting to get into Nag Hammadi, or Iamblichus, or the apocalypses, etc. and asks you for some guidance to what’s out there, please consider making this one of the links you pass on to them. We will do our best to make it worth your while.

We encourage those interested in these fields to submit calls for papers, workshop notices, conference announcements, and other pertinent news and resources for inclusion on the website. You can submit by email or through our online submissions form. Those wishing to get involved with NSEA are invited to contact us for more information.

NSEA Website: Ancientesotericism.org

With best wishes to you and yours,
Dylan M. Burns, University of Copenhagen
Coordinator, Network for the Study of Esotericism in Antiquity
dylanburns93@yahoo.com, dmb@teol.ku.dk


###

NSEA is a thematic network of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE), the pre-eminent European academic organization for the study of Western esotericism. NSEA aims to bring together scholars who specialize in esoteric phenomena in antiquity, regardless of discipline, in an effort to create a dialogue about shared issues and research while providing the necessary resources to facilitate further study.

Contact information:
Dylan Burns, NSEA Coordinator, University of Copenhagen
dylanburns93@yahoo.com, dmb@teol.ku.dk

Sarah Veale, Website Coordinator, York University
sveale@sarahveale.com, sarahvea@yorku.ca

Update on smuggled Turkish Torah scroll

THAT TORAH SCROLL APPREHENDED IN TURKEY is back in the news:

Leather Torah captured after thrilling police operation

ISTANBUL (Hurrieyt Daily News)

Police carefully planned and carried out a special operation Dec. 25 to capture a 1,900-year-old Torah from alleged smugglers before it was sold in the Mediterranean province of Adana.

Police apprehended four people in Adana who were attempting to sell an incredibly old leather Torah. Four suspects were released by a local court pending trial and the leather Torah was sent to Ankara for analysis following the operation.

After receiving information regarding the entrance of an artifact to Adana through illegal means from Syria amid the nation’s civil war, police discovered through additional research that an attempt would be made to sell a 2-millennia-old leather Torah for $30 million.

A geography teacher, T.N., searched for a buyer for the 8.78 meter-long and 44 centimeters-wide leather Torah by describing it as the "only original text of the Torah in the world."

Props to the Turkish police for intercepting what appears to have been an antiquities smuggling operation. They certainly did not stint on the cloak and dagger aspect of the arrests:

Police infiltrated the hotel to catch the alleged smugglers in the act disguised in the uniforms of waiters and valets after learning the location of the sale.

When T.N. entered to the hotel, he was arrested by a police officer in a waiter’s uniform in silence.

Police efficiency and enthusiasm aside, the claims made about the scroll sound pretty silly. Also setting aside the bit about "only original text of the Torah in the world" as meaningless salesmanship twaddle, we are still left with the claim that the scroll is 1900 years old. No authentication has been offered, and it sounds as though this geography teacher was the scholarly source for their evaluation of the scroll, which is not good.

"We bought it from an antique store and brought it to a geography teacher to ask what was written on it," one of the suspects told police.

"One of my friends called me to meet and he asked me to analyze a leather scripture they had", T.N. has said in defense of himself.

The scroll pictured is longer and considerably taller than even the Temple Scroll. It is extremely well preserved, unbelievably so for such a supposed age, and the leather looks modern. I can't get a good enough look at the script to judge its age. The claim of great age sounds very implausible on all counts.

If it is a modern scroll, the case for the smuggling of antiquities may collapse, although there does remain the question of to whom the scroll actually belongs and how the arrested men happened to come into possession of it.

Via Dorothy Lobel King on Facebook. Background here.

UPDATE: Well, well, lots of antiquities-smuggling news from Turkey today. Two items sent to me by readerJerry Rosenberg:

Israeli millionaire to buy Torah copy in Turkey (Vestnik Kavkaza).

An anonymous israeli millionaire plans to buy a Torah manuscript found by Turkish police officers for hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of dollars.

The Torah copy is aged about 500 years. The police arrested the four people who brought the copy to an antique shop, suspecting them of theft. It is believed to be a manuscript of Jews fleeing Spain in 1490.

There's a photo as well, by implication (but not explicitly) the Torah scroll in question. The photo is not of the same scroll as the one above. It appears that this is a different confiscated Torah scroll.

1,500-year-old handwritten Bible kept in Ankara, ministry confirms

23 February 2012 / 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.

[...]

Some of the above may be true, but if so, you wouldn't know it by all the hokum in the rest of the article. It repeats that the manuscript—and even a photocopy of some of its pages—may be worth millions, then veers off into the whole long-debunked story about it being a pre-Islamic copy of the very late Gospel of Barnabas. As I summed up the situation back in March of 2012:

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.

If only the Turkish media would start reading some reputable blogs, they might learn some things.

Golb impersonation case up for appeal

THE RAPHAEL GOLB CASE is coming up on appeal before the New York Supreme Court:

Dead Sea Scrolls Go to Court
A brilliant young Harvard Ph.D. faces jail for impersonating a Bible scholar—and rival of his father

By Batya Ungar-Sargon|January 14, 2013 7:00 AM|38comments

On Tuesday, Jan. 8, the New York Supreme Court convened for a hearing in the case of the People vs. Raphael Golb. The matter? That in July of 2008, Golb, a Harvard doctorate, created an email account in the name of Lawrence Schiffman, formerly professor at New York University and now vice provost for Undergraduate Education at Yeshiva University. From larry.schiffman@gmail.com, Golb sent emails to the dean, the provost, and the faculty of the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU where Schiffman was formerly the chair.

In the emails, the fictional Schiffman admitted to having plagiarized the work of Norman Golb, professor at the University of Chicago’s prestigious Oriental Institute, Dead Sea Scrolls scholar—and also Raphael’s father. “It is true that I should have cited Dr. Golb’s articles when using his arguments,” the email reads, “and it is true that I misrepresented his ideas. But this is simply the politics of Dead Sea Scrolls studies. If I had given credit to this man I would have been banned from conferences around the world.” It was signed—by some accounts, implausibly—“Lawrence Schiffman, professor,” with a lower-case “p.”

Raphael Golb admits to having sent the email, but he maintains that it was an act of parody, rather than criminal impersonation. “I was exercising my right to expose, condemn, and ridicule the misconduct of other people,” he says. “It says more about Schiffman than it does about me, that people might have believed that an informal email from a gmail account admitting to plagiarism, signed with a lower-case ‘p’ in professor, could have come from an NYU department chair.” The defense argued that Golb was well within his First Amendment rights and that the prosecution was trying to make hurting feelings into a criminal act. But the defense argument failed. In September 2010, Golb was convicted before Judge Carol Berkman of 30 counts of identity fraud, harassment, forgery, and criminal impersonation of Lawrence Schiffman.

[...]

Background to the case is here and you can follow many, many links back from there. I have given my take on the case in the article "The Golb Affair." I have further commentary on the case, and on the harm I judge that Golb was intending to inflict on Schiffman and, in a lesser, pathetic way, on the field in general, here. I'm not a lawyer, or a judge in the case, but I can't say I find the parody defense convincing.

I have some comments on the work of the much maligned original team of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars here and here. (As I have mentioned already any number of times, Frank Moore Cross was my doctoral supervisor and I also worked closely with John Strugnell.) And I have thoughts on the theory of Norman Golb here and links.

UPDATE (16 January): Richard Bartholomew has commentary on the article: US Tablet Defends Convicted Dead Sea Scrolls Cyberbully. (Via Bob Cargill on Facebook.)

2012 biblical archaeology roundup

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Top 20 Biblical Archaeology Events and Discoveries of 2012.

How to read the Göttingen Septuagint

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to Read and Understand the Göttingen LXX.

Reviewlet of Denzey Lewis, Introduction to Gnosticism

APRIL DECONICK: Book Note: Introduction to "Gnosticism" (Denzey Lewis).

The book covers all the main issues of the Nag Hammadi literature and will be a perfect compliment to the Nag Hammadi Library if you are considering teaching a course on this literature, or if you are studying the Nag Hammadi texts independently.

The book was also noted here last Fall.

PUNIC-UK Home Page

PHOENICIAN/PUNIC WATCH: Phoenician/Punic Mailing List (AWOL).

Improving on Jesus' burial

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Did Early Christians Improve the Burial of Jesus?

This actually is quite an interesting question. James McGrath's speculations about it sound fairly plausible to me.

Harvard on Iranian Studies

RESOURCES FOR ANCIENT IRANIAN STUDIES: Iranian Studies at Harvard University. Including introductions to Avestan, Old Persian, Zoroastrianism, and Manichaeism (Manicheism).

Via Adam McCollum on Facebook.

By the way Professor Prods Oktor Skjærvø is contributing a translation of the Iranian Manichaean version of the Book of Giants to the second volume of the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project.

Collins and Harlow on Early Judaism

EERDMANS: Video Interview with John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow. This on the new book they have edited: Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview.

Tabor on ascents to heaven

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: If I Ascend to Heaven … Paul’s Journey to Paradise: James Tabor on Various Understandings of Ascension. An interesting typology of ascent, worthy of much discussion.

Review of Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs

H-JUDAIC BOOK REVIEW:

Matthew V. Novenson. Christ among the Messiahs: Christ Language in Paul and Messiah Language in Ancient Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 256 pp. $74.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-984457-9.

Reviewed by Joshua Garroway (Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles)
Published on H-Judaic (January, 2013)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Paul’s Jewish Messiah

Rarely can the thesis of a monograph be stated in a mere five words. Yet Matthew V. Novenson does not oversimplify by distilling his argument down to the bald claim that “Christos in Paul means ‘messiah’” (p. 3). This simple thesis is nevertheless bold and controversial because it challenges the commonly held view that Paul uses Christos as a (meaningless) name, not as a (meaningful) title. According to Novenson, Paul does not use Christos as a name or as a title but as a Hellenistic honorific, comparable to Augustus, Epiphanes, Soter, or Maccabee. As such, Christos means “messiah.”

[...]

Review of Shoshan, Stories of the Law

H-JUDAIC BOOK REVIEW:

Moshe Simon-Shoshan. Stories of the Law: Narrative Discourse and the Construction of Authority in the Mishnah. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. xv + 287 pp. $74.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-977373-2.

Reviewed by Jordan Rosenblum (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Published on H-Judaic (January, 2013)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Telling Tales and Making Law

In recent years, scholars have begun to question the traditional binary between halakhah and aggadah, that is, between texts that investigate legal matters (halakhah) and everything else, especially stories (aggadah). This reassessment has done more than just remove aggadah from the bookshelf, where it traditionally sat due to the relative importance of halakhah in traditional Judaism (one is reminded of the many yeshivot where rabbis would instruct their students to skip a Talmud page since it is “just” aggadah). Beyond raising the status of the academic study of aggadah, this trend has also resulted in the blurring of the lines between these categories. For example, though the famous story of the Oven of Akhnai (b. Bava Metzi‘ah 59a-b) begins with a matter of halakhah regarding the purity of an oven, it quickly transitions to a fascinating and complex story of rabbinic authority and proper decorum.

[...]

Review of Tawil, Lexical Studies

BOOK REVIEW in the Jewish Press:

By: David B. Levy
Published: January 10th, 2013

Title: Lexical Studies in the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Inscriptions: The Collected Essays of Hayim Tawil
Editors: Abraham Jacob Berkovitz, Stuart W. Halpern, and Alec Goldstein
Publisher: Ktav

This excellent, delightful and lucid collection represents some of the best in academic research. Philological, lexicographical, linguistic, epigraphical, cultural, mythological, ritualistic, and historical knowledge are informed by virtuosity in comparative ancient Semitic languages. These erudite studies by the high-powered academic scholarship of Hayim Tawil – a professor of Hebrew languages and literature at Yeshiva University – shed light on Biblical Hebrew, the whole field of Ancient Near Eastern studies, medieval exegetical traditions, and the reception history of the Biblical text from antiquity to the present day.

One rarely encounters such a great breadth, depth, multi-variegated, and diverse interdisciplinary knowledge applied to analysis of the Biblical text – especially from an Orthodox source. The collected essays exhibit precise close readings of the texts’ details, and is fully visionary to reveal the forest for the trees.

[...]

Hekhalot Literature in Translation

GOOD NEWS: I am pleased to report that my translation of an eclectic critical text of the bulk of the pre-Kabbalistic Jewish mystical literature know as the Hekhalot literature (current title: Hekhalot Literature in Translation: Major Texts of Merkavah Mysticism) has been accepted for publication by Brill. The table of contents:

1. Introduction

2. Hekhalot Rabbati: The Greater (Book of the Heavenly) Palaces

3. Sar Torah: The Prince of Torah

4. Hekhalot Zutarti: The Lesser (Book of the Heavenly) Palaces

5. Maʻaseh Merkavah: The Working of the Chariot

6. Merkavah Rabba: The Great (Book of the) Chariot

7. Some Shorter Macroforms

8. Geniza Fragments

I spent the 2011-12 academic year on research leave finishing the project (which I started in 1991!) and have mentioned it here, here, here, here, here, and here. The volume translates most of the Hekhalot texts (which are in Hebrew and Aramaic) and I have explained in the introduction why a few have been omitted. Notably, you can already find an excellent eclectic English translation of 3 Enoch by Philip Alexander in Charlesworth's Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

Look for Hekhalot Literature in Translation: Major Texts of Merkavah Mysticism later this year. I will keep you posted!

New book on tekhelet

BOOK AWARD:

Jewish Journal Book Award announced

By Jonathan Kirsch (JewishJournal.com)

The making of a memorable book requires the skills of an alchemist. Every author starts with the raw material of his or her own experience and expertise, but it can take a certain secret ingredient — passion, vision, inspiration — to transform the dross into gold. That is a fair description of what Baruch Sterman and Judy Taubes Sterman have accomplished in “The Rarest Blue: The Remarkable Story of an Ancient Color Lost to History and Rediscovered,” published last year by Lyons Press and reviewed in these pages on Dec. 21, 2012.

Because the Stermans possess precisely that alchemical genius, the Jewish Journal Book Prize for 2013 is awarded to “The Rarest Blue,” the second-annual prize given in recognition of a book of exceptional interest, achievement and significance. This award is presented each January to an author or authors for a book published during the previous calendar year, and it includes a $1,000 honorarium.

“The Rarest Blue” starts with a 2,000-year-old mystery: How did the Israelites make thread a blue color known as tekhelet that they were required by the Torah to wear on their fringed garments? The formula for making the blue dye was lost in the early centuries of the Diaspora, and generation after generation of observant Jews have been unable to comply with the biblical commandment. “And now we have only white,” the compiler of the Midrash complained in the eighth century, “for tekhelet has been hidden.” Ironically, it was only during the era of the scientific and industrial revolution that the biblical secrets began to emerge. And now the Stermans have revealed how to make what they called “the sacred, rarest blue.”

[...]

The book sounds potentially interesting, but I would like to see reviews by archaeologists and biblical scholars. For recent scholarly and nonspecialist efforts to recover tekhelet, see here and links

Celebrating Church Slavonic

FEBRUARY 14TH IS COMING — and you know what that means: Sts. Cyril and Methodius Day!

STS. CYRIL AND METHODIUS

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2013 (Catholic News Agency)

On Feb. 14, the universal Church honors two brothers, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, who are called the “Apostles of the Slavs” for their tireless work in spreading the Gospel throughout Eastern Europe in the ninth century.

Such was their influence in Church history, through their evangelization efforts, that the late Pope John Paul II named the two brothers the patron saints of Europe along with fifth century monastic leader St. Benedict.

[...]

In order to fulfill this mission, Cyril and Methodius took the step of adapting the Greek alphabet into a script for the Slavonic language. The result was the “Cyrillic” alphabet, which was first used to translate the Bible and liturgical books. It also became the primary means of written communication for large portions of the world, including modern day Russia.

[...]

Quite a few interesting Old Testament pseudepigrapha are preserved only or primarily in Church Slavonic. Some relevant posts are here, here, and here, with many links.

Sins coming in fractions

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN by Adam Kirsch in Tablet: Intention Versus Action: This week, the rabbis ask if two half-sins equal a whole one. In what part of a sin is sinfulness located?

... We are not even given the satisfaction of a resolution to Rava’s problems! This is frustrating and casts further doubt on the practical application of everything that’s gone before: If the rabbis are willing to leave these questions unanswered, they couldn’t be very relevant to actual Jewish practice.

However, the Talmud is also sending a powerful implicit message. The act of thinking about law, of reasoning out its most distant ramifications, is itself sacred and pleasurable to the rabbis, regardless of its practical application. To read the Talmud at all, I’m finding, it’s necessary to be able to share at least their pleasure, if not their sense of sanctity.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are collected here and links.

Samaritan Ukrainian brides

SAMARITAN GENETICS: 'Good Samaritans' seek Ukrainian wives: In the West Bank, the world's few remaining Samaritans are starting to marry women from outside to expand the gene pool (Jane Ferguson, Al Jazeera).

The tiny population, however, is something of a double-edged sword. While the community is naturally close-knit, the next generation runs the risk of birth defects from such a small gene pool. There is a particular shortage of women, they told Al Jazeera.

That's where Tanya comes in. The community's religious elders got together a few years ago and decided they had no choice but to let some of the men marry foreign women, provided they convert. The marriage agency Tanya was working for would help make those crucial matches.

"When they came, we would show them the pictures of the women, tell them some information about them and if they want, they could have a date," Tanya explained. Eleven Ukrainian women, including Tanya, have moved into the community in recent years.

More on Samaritan genetic issues and Ukrainian brides is here and links.

Political implications of Afghan manuscripts?

I DOUBT IT: Expert: New Ancient Hebrew Manuscripts Could Have Major Impact on Taliban (The Algemeiner).

[Journalist and author Jere] Van Dyk says that if it could ever be proven that the papers date back to before the founding of the Muslim religion, or if it became evident that there was a Jewish community there at that time, then it could change the region.

“The Taliban, who are deracinated – cut off from their culture – are deeply politicized and have been for decades by Pakistan, which has its own agenda in Afghanistan. They are deeply religious – ‘We are Muslim; We want to rid our land of the infidels; We want a pure Islamic government,’ not unlike the one Mohamed is said to have created in Medina – now if it becomes clear, if there’s an increasing amount of information, and the Taliban begin to hear that, wait a minute, ‘We are descended from those who are at war with the Arabs, and our allies here Al-Qaeda’ – then it could possibly change how they look at everything.”

I just don't see this happening; I can't see the Taliban taking that much interest in what secular historians are saying. But I'll be very happy if I'm wrong.

Background on the Afghan "geniza" is here and links.

Ben Yehuda's birthday

YESTERDAY: Israelis offer a 'Yom Huledet Sameach' to Ben Yehuda, resurrector of Hebrew language: Eliezer Ben Yehuda, who transformed Hebrew from the rusty language of ancient Israel and the Bible into the dynamic, dominant language of modern-day Israel, would be 155 years old today (CSM Global News blog).

Of course, Hebrew was the language of the Torah – the biblical books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy – as well as other religious writings. So many Jews were familiar with it. But they didn’t use it to talk about things like grocery shopping or even politics.

Not so fast. Those "other religious writings" often had a lot to say about daily life and all the little halakhic details pertaining thereto. Politics certainly featured in them sometimes and I would be very surprised if the Talmud and the Responsa literature didn't discuss grocery shopping from time to time. See also my post on Hebrew as a dead language from five years ago.

Collins, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography

NEW BOOK (Yale News):

The Dead Sea Scrolls:
 A Biography


John J. Collins, the Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation

(Princeton University Press)

The Dead Sea Scrolls — discovered in caves at Qumran in 1947 — appear to have been hidden in the Judean desert by the Essenes, a Jewish sect that existed around the time of Jesus. They continue to inspire veneration and conspiracy theories to this day. John Collins tells the story of the bitter conflicts that have swirled around the scrolls since their discovery, and sheds light on their true significance for Jewish and Christian history.

Collins recounts how a Bedouin shepherd went searching for a lost goat and found the scrolls instead. He offers insight into debates over whether the Essenes were an authentic Jewish sect and explains why such questions are critical to our understanding of ancient Judaism and to Jewish identity. Collins explores whether the scrolls were indeed the property of an isolated, quasi-monastic community living at Qumran, or whether they more broadly reflect the Judaism of their time. And he unravels the impassioned disputes surrounding the scrolls and Christianity. Do they anticipate the early church? Do they undermine the credibility of the Christian faith? Collins also looks at attempts to “reclaim” the scrolls for Judaism after the full corpus became available in the 1990s, and at how the decades-long delay in publishing the scrolls gave rise to sensational claims and conspiracy theories.

Gold coins found in Iraq

66 SASSANID-ERA COINS have been discovered in Iraq in a town called Aziziyah: Iraq unearths ancient gold coins (AFP). The same article appears here with another photo of some of the coins after they had been cleaned, giving a much better view of their iconography.

Archaeology in Gaza

THE GAZA STRIP'S ARCHAEOLOGY has fared no better in the recent conflicts than in earlier ones: Gaza's archaeological treasures at risk from war and neglect (BBC). The article notes in passing the recent discovery of a Byzantine-era church and mosaic.

Related posts here and links.

Hurtado on the Son of Man in 1 Enoch

LARRY HURTADO has two new posts up on the figure of the Son of Man in 1 Enoch: Enoch & the “Son of Man” and More on “son of man”: The Nickelsburg/VanderKam Commentary.

Earlier PaleoJudaica posts on the figure of the (one like a) Son of Man in Daniel etc. are collected here.

AWOL is four

HAPPY FOURTH BLOGIVERSARY TO AWOL - The Ancient World Online.

Talmud-page "art" in Tel Aviv

ART CONTROVERSY:

Gallery threatened over Talmud artwork

Rabbinate vows to stop exhibition of works created by French artist, using pages of ancient rabbinic writings. Display 'desecrates Holy Scriptures,' says Chief Rabbi Metzger

Kobi Nahshoni
Published: 01.03.13, 15:47 / Israel Jewish Scene (ynetnews)

Israel's Chief Rabbinate has threatened to stop an art gallery in Tel Aviv from exhibiting works using original Talmud pages "sacrilegiously."

Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger said he hoped someone would purchase the artwork for thousands of shekels – so that they would be removed from the gallery.

[...]

I think this "art" project is pretty tacky, but I don't think the artist should be prevented from doing it or persecuted. And despite the lurid headline of this article, the only specific "threat" seems to amount to hoping that someone buys the offending artwork. Oh and there were two (she counted them) protesters outside her gallery once. I bet we don't see this artist doing the same thing with pages from the Qur'an.

A novel about Aher

AS A DRIVEN LEAF: Studying a classic novel of Judaism. The novel involves the heretic Elisha Ben Avuyah and Rabbi Akiva.

Epiphany and The Revelation of the Magi

HAPPY EPIPHANY to all those celebrating. In related news, Brent Landau was recently interviewed about his work on the The Revelation of the Magi:

Background here and links.

Botta (ed.), In the Shadow of Bezalel

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

In the Shadow of Bezalel. Aramaic, Biblical, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of Bezalel Porten

Edited by Alejandro F. Botta, Boston University

Twenty nine scholars from Israel, Europe and the Americas came together to honor and celebrate Prof. Bezalel Porten's (Emeritus, Dept. of History of the Jewish People, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) academic career. Covering a wide variety of topics within Aramaic, Biblical, and ancient Near Eastern Studies, In the Shadow of Bezalel offers new insights and proposals in the areas of Aramaic language, paleography, onomastica and lexicography; ancient Near Eastern legal traditions, Hebrew Bible, and social history of the Persian period.

UPDATE: Dead link now fixed. Sorry about that.