Hey, another geniza!

Antique Lands: The Dome of the Treasury and Genizah of the Umayyad Mosque, Damascus (Adam Blitz, Times of Israel Blog). Excerpts:

Paradoxically it was the lure of Christianity’s sacred writings, which were exempt from the scribal conventions mentioned above, that first drew attention to the Qubbat al Khansa’s genizah. Damascus tradition had long asserted that the structure held guard of the Christian past and that the building was never to be opened except by order of the Sultan. In 1898 by appeal to latter, and in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm the Second and the New Testament scholar Freiherr (Baron) Hermann von Soden [1852-1914], tradition was defied.

[...]

Von Soden dreamt of another ancient book that could rival Codex Sinaiticus, both in its antiquity and completeness. Back in Germany he secured funding from a Fraulein E. Koenigs to review the Damascus documents with which he had only the most fleeting of acquaintance. On behalf of von Soden Dr. Bruno Violet was sent to Damascus in 1901. He was enlisted to enter the Qubbat al Khanza where he would explore its contents.

[...]

By all accounts Violet’s initial survey was a disappointment. In excess of 150 sacs were retrieved from the building. None of the works von Soden had hoped to locate was forthcoming. The texts, we are told, were in a “fragmentary condition: some were eaten by mice, others were perforated by bookworms, and all were torn or mutilated.” Most of the documents were of the Qur’an or vestiges of Arabic and Turkish literature. After a wearisome nine months Violet reported that he had not found any material of significance. Yet, once the items were brought to Germany and deposited in the Staatsbibliothek (State Library) of Berlin, Violet had cause to revise his opinion. The richness of the genizah now became apparent.

Under its leaden dome the Qubbat al Khansa had stored a world of literature. The body of languages included Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Coptic, Georgian, Armenian and Old French. The earliest texts were in Greek and were written between the 4th and 10th Century. Thereafter Arabic became the language of choice for local Christians as Violet’s analysis of Psalm 78, the bi-lingual Greek and Graeco-Arabic (Arabic in Greek script), was to show.

Of the early manuscripts the Qubbat al Khansa could boast: three sheets from a 4th Century version of the Song of Songs, a 4th-5th Century fragment of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, remnants of a 5th Century Book of Proverbs, a 5th Century scrap of Judith as well as a 6th Century portion of The Book of Esther. And if von Soden’s much sought-after codex did not materialise, the genizah did yield several leaves of a 7th and 8th Century parchment of the Gospel of Mark and Gospel of John.

[...]

At the very least the genizah of Qubbat al Khansa can claim a rightful place within the field of Genizah Studies and should merit a reassessment (however difficult). The existing research is far-flung and disparate. With the exception of recent Italian scholarship, little attempt has been made to consolidate the breadth of the scholarly (secondary) literature. There is also the question of the manuscripts themselves: the status of the corpus is unknown. The National Museum of Damascus does retain several of the Islamic texts. But of the myriad of documents returned to Syria from Berlin in 1909, proof still awaits.

Repartriation of antiquities can be a difficult judgment call, but in this case getting these manuscripts out of the Berlin Staatsbibliothek may have saved them from destruction during World War II. Or not. Who knows? In any case, with the current conflict in Syria one can only hope that they are still okay, that they won't be damaged or destroyed during the war, and that they can be recovered and studied someday.

I'm not sure why "lower criticism" is taken to task in this article. Textual study and philology are what drives interest in such matters, and attention to "broader interests" tends to come only after the philologists have done the exacting work of reconstructing and deciphering the texts. If this geniza has been neglected, it may just be because there haven't been enough philologists to go around.

But in any case, this new attention to the genizah of the Qubbat al Khansa is very welcome indeed and I hope it helps to generate interest in working what we still have of the collection and to tracking down the rest in due course.

World's-oldest-Torah-scroll latest

Hebrew profs weigh in on important 12th century find: The oldest complete Torah scroll is discovered in an Italian university library after being mistakenly catalogued in 1889 (By Nicole Winfield, Times of Israel). Excerpt:

Outside experts said the finding was important, even though older Hebrew bibles do exist.

“It is fairly big news,” said James Aiken, a lecturer in Hebrew and Old Testament studies at Cambridge University. “Hebrew scholars get excited by very small things, but it certainly is important and clearly looks like a very beautiful scroll.”

‘Hebrew scholars get excited by very small things, but it certainly is important and clearly looks like a very beautiful scroll’

However, Giovanni Garbini, a leading expert on ancient Semitic languages and retired professor at Rome’s La Sapienza university, said the discovery doesn’t change much about what the world knows about Hebrew manuscripts.

“It’s an example of an ancient scroll, but from the point of view of knowledge, it doesn’t change anything,” he said in a telephone interview.

But Stephen Phann, acting president of the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem and an expert in ancient Jewish manuscripts, said if accurately dated, the scroll is a rare and important find. “We don’t have anything much from that period,” Phann said.

There are far older scraps of Torah scrolls that can be dated back to the 8th century, but Phann said it was rare to find a complete manuscript.

The find was also emotionally important, he said because the scroll, as opposed to a bound book, is used for reading Torah portions throughout the year in synagogue.

“It’s almost a friendship — that they have come to know the Torah scroll in their midst, and they draw their knowledge and focus on worship on how they live their daily life,” Phann said.

Perani said it remains a mystery how the scroll came to be part of the Bologna university library but that he anticipated further study would now begin.

Bring it on!

Background here.

Nephilim

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How do the Nephilim fit our theology today?

"Living Nephilim-free - that's our challenge today."

Amen.

More on Slavonic Alphabet Day

JUST GO WILD: Celebrating Slavic alphabet and culture. The ‘Slavic Bazaar’ festival to mark the day of Slavic writing and culture was held at the Russian Centre of Science and Culture (RCSC) on May 24. Organised jointly by the Institute of Russian Language and the Centre of Russian Language Teachers Training, the event was aimed at commemorating the 1150th anniversary of the Slavic alphabet.

Background here and links.

World's oldest Torah Scroll?

THE BBC:

World's oldest Torah' scroll found at Italy university
Torah scroll found in University of Bologna library This Torah scroll may be more than 850 years old

The University of Bologna in Italy has found what it says may be the oldest complete scroll of Judaism's most important text, the Torah.

The scroll was in the university library but had been mislabelled, a professor at the university says.

It was previously thought the scroll was no more that a few hundred years old.

However, after carbon dating tests, the university has said the text may have been written more than 850 years ago.

[...]

This is a very interesting story, but at the same time I am skeptical. Normally manuscripts of this age are dated by paleography (the shapes of the letters) and other factors such as orthography (spelling) and the physical layout of the manuscript. The article does not indicate what the range of possible dates are for the carbon dating: 850 years would at best be only an average figure. Moreover, an object such as a complete manuscript has often been moved around a lot and could have had ample opportunity to become contaminated. The script and physical features are mentioned, but they are the key factors and I want to know more about them.

Nevertheless, unlike the story about this supposedly oldest copy of the Pentateuch, this one seems to have some merit. At minimum, it sounds as though a rather old complete Torah scroll has been newly identified, and this is a very good thing, whether or not it turns out to be the oldest one extant. And, of course, the issue is that it is a complete copy. Fragments of the Pentateuch from the Cairo Geniza (see, e.g., here) are centuries older than this, and fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls (see, e.g., here) are well over a millennium older.

UPDATE: I should have also explicitly noted (as reader Robert Labanti emailed with the following two links to remind me) that this is a Torah scroll and that there are older codices (i.e., in bound book format) of the Torah, such as the famed Aleppo Codex (incomplete) and the Leningrad Codex (complete). Cf. Jared Calaway: Really Old Torah Scroll at University of Bologna. Also, Bart Ehrman quotes a press release that addresses some of my concerns: Exciting Discovery of a Hebrew Bible Scroll. It sounds as though the carbon dating was ancillary to the paleographic etc. analysis, which is as it should be.

Talmud study in D.C.

TUESDAY NIGHT IS TALMUD NIGHT IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

More Temple Mount construction woes

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH:

Western Wall project threatens history, archaeologists warn
Antiquities authority counters: Construction is done according to protocol and with proper preservation work

By Aaron Kalman May 28, 2013, 4:40 pm 1 (Times of Israel)

Archaeologists expressed deep concern over construction and renovation works at the Western Wall enclosure in Jerusalem’s Old City, Maariv reported Tuesday. The work, they said, would greatly damage artifacts under the plaza floor, which would be lost forever.

The Israel Antiquities Authority said in response that extensive preservation work was being conducted at the site.

The ongoing project, which was given the green light in 2009, looks to build a new visitors’ center, expand the public restrooms and add an additional floor to the existing plaza.

[...]

Recent tangentially-related post here.

YU DSS Seminar

YESHIVA UNIVERSITY: Top Scholars Present their Work at YU’s Dead Sea Scrolls Conference.

Background here.

DSS workshop in Groningen

QUMRAN INSTITUTE:

June 18th 2013: "Caves and Collections"

2nd Groningen - Leuven encounter on the Dead Sea Scrolls

After our successful pioneering meeting last year, we are now pleased to invite you to join the second meeting of the Groningen – Leuven network of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This will take place on June 18th in Groningen, the Netherlands. These meetings are intended in the first place as informal gatherings. Our main aim is to foster scholarly collaboration, and to discuss recent developments in the field. The meetings are intended for both experienced and beginning scholars, but we also welcome graduate students working on the Scrolls or related literature.

The theme of our next meeting is “caves and collections” by which we aim at deepening our understanding of the classification addressed in our meeting last 2012. ...

Follow the link for details.

Sorting the Cairo Geniza

TECHNOLOGY WATCH:

Computer Network Piecing Together a Jigsaw of Jewish Lore

By JODI RUDOREN (NYT)
Published: May 26, 2013

TEL AVIV — One scholar likened it to finding the orphaned socks for generations of a family. Another compared it to law-enforcement’s use of DNA databases and face-recognition software.

The idea is to harness technology to help reassemble more than 100,000 document fragments collected across 1,000 years that reveal details of Jewish life along the Mediterranean, including marriage, medicine and mysticism. For decades, scholars relied mainly on memory to match up pieces of the Cairo genizah, a treasure trove of papers that include works by the rabbinical scholar Maimonides, parts of Torah scrolls and prayer books, reams of poetry and personal letters, contracts, and court documents, even recipes (there is a particularly vile one for honey-wine).

Now, for the first time, a sophisticated artificial intelligence program running on a powerful computer network is conducting 4.5 trillion calculations per second to vastly narrow down the possibilities.

[...]

Not so long ago 4-terabyte-per-second computing speeds were science fiction.

This project is extraordinarily important and (as the first video linked below notes) could advance the field of Cairo Geniza studies by a generation in a matter of weeks. Fragments from collections all over the world can be compared (mainly by handwriting and fragment shape) and sorted preliminarily into individual manuscripts.

Two other articles have brief videos about the project: Arutz Sheva: High-Tech Solution to Judaism's 'Mystery of the Century'; Your Jewish News: Computer system to reconstruct 100,000 ancient Jewish documents found in Egypt.

Bit by bit, a letter at a time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.

Much more on the Cario Geniza here, here, here, here and links. More on this particular digitization project is here and links. And for other manuscript digitization projects, go here and follow the many links.

Reviewlet of Bloom, The Roman-Judaeo War of 66-74 A.D.

THE STRATEGY PAGE has a brief review by A. A. Nofi of The Roman-Judaeo War of 66-74 A.D.: A Military Analysis, by James Bloom.

WaPo correction

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Kudos to the Washington Post for correcting two errors in an article that involved the ancient Jewish Temples. Naturally, I want to nuance what they say even further, but they're doing pretty well here. I pick on the media a lot when they get it wrong, so it's only fair to note instances in which they are trying hard to get it right.

Day of Slavonic Alphabet

HAPPY (BELATED) DAY OF SLAVONIC ALPHABET (24 May). This is a special anniversary, the 1150th, which merits this commemorative postage stamp.

If you missed the festivities, you can celebrate again on 5 July with the Roman Catholic tradition.

Background here and links.

Kando still has DSS for sale

KANDO the younger, that is, son of the original Kando. Daniel Estrin has published the following AP article: Dead Sea Scroll fragments to hit the auction block: Palestinian family that sold scholars the biblical finds now marketing leftover fragments that were kept in a vault.

Some background links: on the Kandos and their family business: here and here; on the Schøyen collection: here and here and links; on on the Scroll fragments acquired by Azusa Pacific University here and links; on the Scroll fragments acquired by the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary: here and links; on the Green Collection here and links; and on Hanan Eshel and that Leviticus scroll fragment here and links.

UPDATE: Related, includes a useful list of collections of Dead Sea Scrolls: The Dead Sea Scrolls at a glance (AP).

Lod Mosaic latest

THE LOD MOASIC IS NOW ON DISPLAY IN PARIS: From a Lod garbage dump to the Louvre: Spectacular 1,700-year-old mosaic floor is first Israeli item loaned to the French museum (Aaron Kalman, Times of Israel).

Background here and links.

Vermes funeral

PROFESSOR JOAN TAYLOR posted the following report yesterday on Facebook (now slightly updated) regarding the funeral of Geza Vermes. I reproduce it here with her kind permission.

On Thursday, 23 May Geza Vermes was buried in the cemetery of St. Leonard’s church in Sunningwell, close to his home in Oxfordshire, on a fresh spring day. An exceptionally lovely service combined Jewish and Christian traditions, and was led by Rector Revd Pam McKellan, with a homily from Father Nicholas King SJ and with Nicholas de Lange's beautiful reading of Psalm 23 in Hebrew and the Mourner’s Kaddish in Aramaic. This rich blending created a truly appropriate farewell to Geza and his special vision. I hope it lives on.

Background here and links.

Cedar beams from the Temple?

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Herod’s Temple Mount Revealed in Al-Aqsa Mosque Restoration: Wooden beams from the time of Herod’s Temple Mount in secondary use in the Al-Aqsa Mosque. I remember seeing this story a while ago, but I don't think I ended up posting it. The actual BAR article is behind a subscription wall, but the BHD introduction summarizes it. Excerpt:

Recent carbon-14 tests on the beams confirm their antiquity. Some predate Herod’s Temple Mount: One beam dates to the ninth century B.C.E.—the First Temple period! The exact history of the beams is hard to pin down. They were likely used in two or more different constructions, and poor storage has led to the ever-quickening degradation of the beams.

And just as I was finishing this post I found this Times of Israel article by Matti Friedman, which has much more information: Did ancient beams discarded in Old City come from first and second temples? A collection of neglected wooden beams from the Al-Aqsa mosque offer a glimpse at ancient Jerusalem — and possibly at the biblical temples themselves. Excerpt:

In 1984, a scholar from Tel Aviv University, Nili Liphschitz, published a brief scientific paper looking at 140 of the beams in a Hebrew journal, Eretz Yisrael, along with two other scholars.

Liphschitz, a dendochronologist — a specialist in determining the age of trees — found that most of the beams she examined were of Turkish oak, with a smaller number of Lebanese cedars. There were also beams of cypress and several other types of wood.

By analyzing the tree rings and using carbon-14 dating, she found, unsurprisingly, that some of the wood was from the early Muslim period. One of the cedars, for example, was about 1,340 years old, or roughly the same age as Al-Aqsa. (The margin of error for the rather inexact dating process was 250 years.)

But others were older, dating to Byzantine times, and still others dated to Roman times, around the era of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

Even more striking were her findings regarding one of the cypress beams. The age of the beam “was found to be 2,600 years,” she wrote, with a margin of error of 180 years. That placed it near 630 B.C.E. — around 50 years before the destruction of the First Temple.

And one of the oak beams was even older: 2,860 years. That meant the tree had been cut down around 880 B.C.E, early in the First Temple period.

Some of the beams are also inscribed in Greek or Arabic.

"An idolator of reason"

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Who Can Follow These Rules? This week’s Talmud reading prompts strikingly contemporary questions about observance and belief.

In reading the Talmud, I have been especially interested in the glimpses it offers of how its complex rules were, or were not, actually observed in real life. It’s hard to imagine the average Jew in fifth-century-C.E. Babylonia—a farmer, soldier, or merchant—mastering the knowledge required to make judgments on every aspect of Jewish law. The question then becomes, did the majority of Jews consult experts frequently, or did they proceed by custom and rule of thumb, or did they simply ignore the law altogether? Was strict observance the exception, as it is among American Jews today, or the rule?

Cairo Geniza radio series

BBC RADIO 3 is running a series on the Cairo Geniza next week: Life in Fragments: Stories from the Cairo Genizah. More details here at the H-JUDAIC list.

Lag B'Omer, Bar Kokhba, and ... Gondor?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: The (Biblical) Beacons of Gondor … Did Tolkien Know?

Mor Gabriel Monastery latest

(MODERN) SYRIAC WATCH: Funds allocated for new road to Mor Gabriel Monastery (Today's Zaman).

“As the local governor [of the Midyat district of Mardin], I pursue a policy of affirmative action towards Aramean [Syriac] citizens so that they do not feel alienated,” said [Oğuzhan] Bingöl, who added that Mor Gabriel Monastery is one of the most important treasures of the region. “I was ashamed of the conditions of the road to the monastery,” the local governor added, as he mentioned the demands of the Aramean community for the construction of a proper road.

Well good.

Much background on the Mor Gabriel Monastery in Turkey and the political tempest surrounding it is here with many links.

Vermes obit in Times Higher

ANOTHER OBITUARY FOR GEZA VERMES, this one by Matthew Reisz in Times Higher Education: Geza Vermes, 1924-2013.

Background here and here and links.

Corrections

TWO CORRECTIONS to recent posts:

First, Stephen Goranson has posted a correction to N. Y. Times obit for Geza Vermes at the biblicalist.

Background here.

Second, you may have noticed that a post from a few days ago about an article on Petra has been taken down. The author of the original article, Dr. Lucy Wadeson of Oxford University, has kindly sent me a link to a pdf file of her article: Petra: Behind the monumental facades. Current World Archaeology 57.1: 18–24 (2013).

Busy

BUSY WITH END-OF-TERM MARKING. I hope to be back tomorrow.

Jewish sites in Egypt

THE ART NEWSPAPER: Fight to preserve Egypt’s ancient Jewish sites:
New leader wants the government to recognise that “Jewish temples are like the pyramids and the Sphinx”— an important part of the country’s history (Lauren Gelfond Feldinger).

The new elected head of Cairo’s declining Jewish community, Magda Haroun, said she will campaign to save Egypt’s Jewish synagogues and other historic sites—but according to reports, she will reject offers of help from Israel, because she wants the Egyptian government to recognise that the sites are an important part of their history. “Jewish temples are like the pyramids and the Sphinx,” she told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram. “They are part of Egypt’s history that cannot be ignored.”

Haroun’s election, following the death last month of 84-year-old Carmen Weinstein, is a good sign for Egyptian heritage, an Egyptian filmmaker told The Art Newspaper. Amir Ramses, whose documentary “Jews of Egypt” was released on 27 March, spent four years researching the country’s Jewish communities and heritage sites. Haroun, a 60-year-old-lawyer, “gets what she wants”, Ramses said. “She is very keen to protect Jewish heritage and keep it a part of Egyptian culture and history, just as [with] any other religious historical heritage.”

Officials have alienated Egyptians from the Jewish part of their historical legacy over the years because of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the secular Christian filmmaker said. Haroun will fight to make the Jewish heritage sites more accessible to the Egyptian public “for the first time…in years”, Ramses said, adding that only the Ben Ezra synagogue in a tourist district is accessible. “It is the Egyptian government’s duty to handle the Jewish history in equality to Muslim and Christian,” he said.

[...]

Jewish archaeological discoveries

NBC NEWS: 8 Jewish archaeological discoveries: From Dead Sea Scroll fragments to a ‘miracle pool’. Fine, but two are missing. The six that are there will be familiar to regular readers of PaleoJudaica.

Review of Weeks, Ecclesiastes and Skepticisim

BOOK REVIEW: Stuart Weeks, Ecclesiastes and Scepticism, by Larisa Levicheva in Reviews of Biblical and Early Christian Studies. Excerpt:

This book consists of five chapters with an introduction, a chapter with concluding remarks and an appendix which presents an in-depth study of the name “Qoheleth.” The Introduction outlines the following chapters and lays down the assumptions which guide Weeks’ study. Weeks offers a different reading of the book of Ecclesiastes which presents Qoheleth’s thoughts as personal grievance over the impotence of intellectual accomplishments and over the complete lack of control of one’s material gain. While such representation of human life may be accepted with strong criticism, the readers find themselves sympathetic to Qoheleth’s conclusion (1).

Olson, A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch
"All Nations Shall be Blessed" / With a New Translation and Commentary

By Daniel C. Olson, St. Mary’s College, Moraga (CA)

A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch is the most comprehensive theological commentary on this important second-century BCE Jewish apocalypse to date, laying out the purpose and methodology of this Enochic allegory and using this as the basis for a new commentary on the whole text, presented here in a fresh translation. Against other interpretations that focus on Israel and its institutions, Daniel Olson argues that the promise of universal blessing in the Abrahamic covenant is presented in the Animal Apocalypse as the governing dynamic in a sacred history that begins and ends with humanity in general. The authentic Jacob/Israel will appear in the end times and be the catalyst of universal salvation.

DSS Symposium at Brandeis

UPCOMING: Dead Sea Scrolls: Life in Ancient Times: Graduate Symposium. Brandeis University, October 6, 2013.

Join us for an interdisciplinary symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, ancient Israel, and politics of their use presented by graduate students from throughout the Northeast. Explore topics such as history, science, archaeology, and ancient life. View an exhibit from Brandeis University’s collection of first century artifacts.

This symposium coincides with the Dead Sea Scrolls: Life in Ancient Times exhibition hosted by the Museum of Science, with Brandeis University as its educational partner.

Follow the link for more information. More on the Brandeis exhibition here and links.

Vermes in The Economist

AN OBITUARY FOR GEZA VERMES IN THE ECONOMIST: Geza Vermes. A bit snooty, tries too hard to sound hip, and anonymous. Somewhat disappointing for The Economist, but not unprecedented.

This one was already note by (of course) Mark Goodacre. I don't entirely agree with Mark that it is "superbly written."

X-ray microtomography and scrolls

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Reading the unreadable: Pioneering X-ray technology is making it possible to read fragile rolled-up historical documents for the first time in centuries.

In a completely innovative approach to the problem, the technique works by scanning parchment with X-rays in order to detect the presence of iron contained in 'iron gall ink' – the most commonly used ink in Europe between the 12th and 19th centuries.

Using a method called microtomography, a 3-dimensional 'map' showing the ink's exact location is built up by creating images made from a series of X-ray 'slices' taken through the parchment.

Advanced software specially developed by the Cardiff project team combines the data obtained with information about the way the parchment is rolled or folded up and calculates exactly where the ink sits on the parchment. An image of the document as it would appear unrolled or unfolded can then be produced.

The key difference between the new method and other techniques previously developed to read un-openable historical documents is the unprecedentedly high contrast resolution it provides to distinguish between ink and parchment. This means the ink shows up very well against the parchment and is genuinely readable.

There's a video too. This technique may, for example, give us better access to some Old Testament pseudepigrapha, many of which survive only in medieval manuscripts. Some technological projects with similar goals are noted here, here, here, and links.

Bit by bit, a letter at a time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.

DSS seminar at Yeshiva U

LAWRENCE SCHIFFMAN: Yeshiva University Dead Sea Scrolls Seminar. Taking place this Sunday, May 19, 2013 – 1:30-4:30 PM. Follow the link for details. (HT Joseph I. Lauer.)

Hugoye Preview Drafts

HUGOYE: JOURNAL OF SYRIAC STUDIES is now pre-publishing drafts of the articles that will appear in its bi-annual volumes: Hugoye Preview Drafts. One article has already been posted.

Goodacre on Nag Hammadi

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: "How reliable is the Story of the Nag Hammadi Discovery?" New article in JSNT (Mark Goodacre). Well the canonical story does seem a bit romantic.

More Vermes obits

MARK GOODACRE notes two more obituaries for Geza Vermes: Geza Vermes -- LA Times and Forward.

Background here and links.

UPDATE: Mark has another one: Geza Vermes - New York Times Obituary

Mary Magdalene: The Opera

THE GOSPEL OF MARY MAGDALENE is a new opera soon to be performed in San Francisco:

Sue Gilmore: Mary Magdalene is the subject of San Francisco Opera's latest commission; let the talking points take off

By Sue Gilmore

Contra Costa Times
Posted: 05/15/2013 12:00:00 PM PDT

San Francisco Opera is getting ready to start the conversation about what could prove to be its most controversial offering in years -- perhaps decades. On Sunday night in the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco's Kanbar Hall, the two principals and the composer/librettist of a brand-new opera that will roll out at War Memorial Opera House on June 19 will be on a panel to discuss its origins and perform some musical excerpts. The composer is New York's Mark Adamo, the performers are American baritone Nathan Gunn and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke, and the subject at hand is one of the New Testament's most substantial female figures.

"The Gospel of Mary Magdalene," the third work S.F. Opera general director David Gockley has commissioned from Adamo, has been five years in the making and culls its content not just from the Bible, but also from the ancient Gnostic texts unearthed in Egypt in the mid-20th century. It's safe to say that the woman who has been misinterpreted, misidentified and mired in ill repute down through the ages is likely to emerge in a whole new light under Adamo's reimagining of her.

[...]

Vermes tributes galore

MARGINALIA has invited many of Geza Vermes's colleagues to publish brief tributes to him at a dedicated web page on their site. A number of them are already up, mine included: Tributes to Geza Vermes, June 22, 1924-May 8, 2013. Many thanks to T. Michael Law for organizing this.

By the way, I count about 60 references to Professor Vermes in a decade's worth of PaleoJudaica archives. Many are in passing and of little interest, but some of the substantive ones are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Background here and links.

Carpe diem Talmudic style

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: The Irrelevance of Pleasure: As the rabbis remind us again this week, the law is the law—whether it pleases you or not. Excerpt:

Last week, I discussed the Talmud’s declaration that “the world is a wedding,” a brief celebration that should be enjoyed to the full while it lasts. But what kind of enjoyment are the rabbis talking about? The passage in question mentions food and drink; but as we learned in this week’s Daf Yomi reading, the supreme earthly pleasure for the rabbis is always Torah study. This becomes clear in Eruvin 65a, when we hear about the study habits of Rav Chisda, whose daughter once asked him: “Does the master not need to doze a little?” Chisda replied with the Talmudic equivalent of “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”: “Soon [that is, in the grave], there will come days that are long [for the purpose of sleeping] and short [for the purpose of Torah study], and we will sleep very much.”

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Dan Brown

QUITE RIGHT: Don’t make fun of renowned Dan Brown. Who could disagree with respected journalist Michael Deacon in this Telegraph newspaper article about renowned author Dan Brown?

Past posts on renowned author Dan Brown's controversial but bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code and his also controversial but hit movie based on the bestselling novel are here and here.

Women at the Wall

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: I haven't been covering the movement to allow women to pray at the Western Wall and the attending controversy, since I didn't see a direct archaeological angle. But now Nir Hasson explores this aspect in Haaretz.

Sharansky's solution for the Wall will ruin the country's archaeological treasure, Israeli scholars fear
The 'Sharansky plan’ for a new worship space, near Robinson’s Arch, has raised the ire of local archaeologists and blurred the definition of 'sacred.’

By Nir Hasson | May.14, 2013 | 1:02 PM

The Jerusalem Archaeological Park and Davidson Center, located south of the Western Wall, is widely considered the most important archaeological site in the country − the site which perhaps best embodies the destruction of the Temple. Enormous stones that formed the upper tiers of this wall prior to the destruction lie on top of each other in a tall heap. Above them are remnants of Robinson’s Arch, the largest stone overpass in the ancient world, which led to the Temple Mount. Not far from there are the remnants of the Umayyad palaces, immense structures built by the rulers of that dynasty in the early Muslim period, some 1,300 years ago.

This park area has now come under threat due to Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky’s plan to create an additional prayer area there for the Western Wall. According to details that Haaretz has obtained, the plan calls for the erection of an enormous wooden deck that would cover 500 square meters and be suspended seven to eight meters off the ground by steel beams to create an additional space for worship.

[...]

A long article discussing many aspects of a complicated issue. I'm sure this will not be the last word on it.

More Vermes obits

MORE OBITUARIES FOR GEZA VERMES have appeared:

By Professor Emeritus Philip Alexander (Manchester) in the Guardian. Excerpt:

Geza Vermes, who has died aged 88, was one of the world's leading authorities on the origins of Christianity. In the early 1950s he completed the first-ever doctorate on the Dead Sea Scrolls – a risky topic to choose. In 1947, an Arab shepherd had chanced upon the first scrolls – texts written in ancient Hebrew and its sister language Aramaic – in a cave in the cliffs along the north-west shore of the Dead Sea. These were published rapidly, but reports kept circulating that more caves containing more manuscripts were being found. No scholarly consensus had yet emerged as to when the scrolls were written, or by whom. Wildly fluctuating dates were assigned to them, some even claiming that they had been copied in the middle ages.

From careful analysis of the published material, Vermes argued that the Jewish sect behind the scrolls originated at the time of the Maccabean crisis in the middle of the second century BCE. It was a brilliant hypothesis which gained many adherents and became academic orthodoxy. Vermes himself never saw grounds for modifying it throughout his career.

And another, brief one in the Washington Post: Geza Vermes, religious scholar. More like "scholar of religion," but maybe the difference is too subtle for the media.

Background here and links.

Shavuot

HAPPY SHAVUOT (Festival of Weeks) to all those celebrating! The festival began last night at sundown.

More Vermes links

MARK GOODACRE: Geza Vermes: Obituaries, tributes and more.

Background here and links.

Aramaic and angels

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Do the Angels Pray in Aramaic?

As the letter notes, the Talmud (b. Sotah 33a and b. Shabbat 12b [not 12a]) claims that the attending angels do not know Aramaic. In the Hekhalot Zutarti (§§346, 348) there is a passage in which R. Akiva ascends to heaven and is confronted by angels of violence, but these are told to stand down by God. Then a bat qol (heavenly voice) reveals some now unclear information about a vestibule in the firmament. The voice speaks in Aramaic, perhaps to keep the angels from learning the secret.

You can read the whole thing when my translation of the Hekhalot literature comes out this summer.

Cross-file under "Aramaic Watch."

Manuscript archiving in Germany

THIS IMPORTANT PROJECT involves "archiving" in the sense of cataloging. So far it is a print publication, not available digitally. The bold emphasis below is mine.

Mammoth project to archive manuscripts

May 14 2013 at 09:19am
By ANDREAS HUMMEL (iol scitech)

Jena, Germany - After more than 50 years of meticulous work, German specialists say the end is in sight for efforts to make previously unregistered manuscripts in scripts and languages of Asia, the Middle East and Africa accessible through printed catalogues.

If all goes well and continued financing can be secured, the mammoth project may be completed in 2022.

Extensive collections of what are termed “oriental” manuscripts can be found in German libraries. Many books in the Arab world were laboriously copied by hand until the 20th century, when printing had long been established elsewhere.

The Berlin State Library owns the largest collection of oriental manuscripts and blockprints in Germany: about 42 000 items in all.

Proposed by German orientalists in 1957, the Union Catalogue of Oriental Manuscripts in German Collections (known by its German abbreviation, KOHD) has been a research project of the Goettingen Academy of Sciences since 1990.

KOHD has so far published more than 140 volumes of catalogues as well as studies dealing with specific manuscripts.

Researchers at the University of Jena in eastern Germany specialise in Arabic manuscripts.

At other German universities, Old Turkic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Egyptian, Sanskrit, Sinhalese, Persian, Uigur, Indian, Hebrew, Chinese, Tibetan and Burmese manuscripts and the like are being studied.

[...]

Due to copyright restrictions, digitising the catalogues originally published in book form has not yet been possible, which “hinders their availability via the Internet,” she said.

So as to catalogue all of the multitudinous manuscripts, only key information is briefly noted for about 90 per cent of them.

“People who want to know more have to go to the respective library or order digital images,” Seidensticker said. “Texts that especially stand out are described in more detail.”

[...]

More Vermes tributes

OBITUARIES FOR GEZA VERMES:

Geza Vermes, renowned Jesus scholar, dies at 88 (Robert Barr, AP)

Professor Geza Vermes (The Telegraph)

Obituary: ‘Top Jesus scholar’ has died at 88 (The Oxford Mail)

Background here and links.

Dura Europos synagogue at risk

ADAM BLITZ: Jealous Gods: the Fate of the Dura Europos Synagogue Frescoes (The Times of Israel).

"If the frescoes can survive mortar fire, which must be far more developed than in previous wars, there still remains another risk which lurks around the corner. Should the regime fall, as seems quite probable, the fate of the frescoes might very well lie in the hands of the Salafists."

Which means something like this could happen. Related story and commentary here.

Background on Dura Europos and its synagogue frescoes is here with many links.

Mosaic at Kibbutz Bet Qama

IAA PRESS RELEASE:

A Spectacular 1,500 Year Old Mosiac was Exposed in the Fields of Kibbutz Bet Qama in the South of the Country (May 2013)

A spectacular colorful mosaic dating to the Byzantine period (4th–6th centuries CE) was exposed in recent weeks in the fields of Kibbutz Bet Qama, in the B’nei Shimon regional council

A spectacular colorful mosaic dating to the Byzantine period (4th–6th centuries CE) was exposed in recent weeks in the fields of Kibbutz Bet Qama, in the B’nei Shimon regional council. The mosaic was discovered within the framework of an archaeological excavation the Israel Antiquities Authority is carrying out prior to the construction of an interchange between Ma’ahaz and Devira Junction, undertaken and funded by the Cross-Israel Highway Company.

Remains of a settlement that extends across more than six dunams were uncovered in the excavation being conducted on the kibbutz’s farmland and directed by Dr. Rina Avner of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The main building at the site was a large hall 12 meters long by 8.5 meters wide and its ceiling was apparently covered with roof tiles. The hall’s impressive opening and the breathtaking mosaic that adorns its floor suggest that the structure was a public building.
The well-preserved mosaic is decorated with geometric patterns and its corners are enhanced with amphorae (jars used to transport wine), a pair of peacocks, and a pair of doves pecking at grapes on a tendril. These are common designs that are known from this period; however, what makes this mosaic unique is the large number of motifs that were incorporated in one carpet.

Pools and a system of channels and pipes between them used to convey water were discovered in front of the building. Steps were exposed in one of the pools and its walls were treated with colored plaster (fresco).

Archaeologists in the Antiquities Authority are still trying to determine the purpose of the impressive public building and the pools whose construction required considerable economic resources.

The site, which was located along an ancient road that ran north from Be’er Sheva, seems to have consisted of a large estate that included a church, residential buildings and storerooms, a large cistern, a public building and pools surrounded by farmland. Presumably one of the structures served as an inn for travelers who visited the place.

During the Byzantine period Jewish and Christian settlements in the region were located next to each other. Two of the nearby Jewish settlements are Horbat Rimon, where a synagogue and ritual bath (miqwe) were exposed, and the Nahal Shoval antiquities site, recently excavated prior to the construction of the Cross-Israel Highway, where ritual baths were uncovered. Noteworthy among the Christian settlements are the churches at Abu Hof in Lahav Forest and the monastery at Givot Bar.

The Israel Antiquities Authority and the Cross-Israel Highway Company will open the excavation to the visiting public, free of charge, Thursday May 16 (the day after Shavuot) between the hours 9:00–12:00. Tours will be conducted every hour on the hour. The last tour will depart at 12:00.

Visitors arriving for the tour must register in advance by email: meyrav@israntique.org.il
For inquiries kindly contact Orit: 052-4284406 or Meyrav 052-4284408


Photo Credits: Yael Yolovitch

(HT Joseph I. Lauer. Also covered in many media articles based on this press release.)

More on the New NT

NANCY FUCHS KREIMER: A Rabbi's Perspective on 'A New New Testament'. A rabbi who was a member of the council of scholars who chose the texts.

Background here.

Gabriel Revelation e-book

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: A free e-book on the Gabriel Revelation inscription.

Background here with many links. Cross-file under Vision of Gabriel.

More on Geza Vermes

JAMES MCGRATH: Geza Vermes 1924-2013. With video and blog links.

Background here and links.

The Antioch Bible

FOR YOU, SPECIAL DEAL: The Antioch Bible Set: A fresh new idiomatic English translation based on the Aramaic text of the Syriac Peshitta in ca. 30 volumes. The first 100 individual subscribers get a 50% price reduction on their subscription.

Earlier announcement noted here.

Geza Vermes's legacy

MARK GOODACRE: Geza Vermes's legacy. Some links and thoughtful commentary.

Background here.

Doctor Jew?

SPECULATION: Doctor Who? Doctor Jew: The iconic sci-fi hero is the greatest Jewish character in the history of television (Liel Leibovitz, Tablet). I think this is a stretch, but read it and see what you think. As for this business about the upcoming revelation of the Doctor's ineffable name, which I confess I have not been following, James McGrath has a suggestion here. I like that possibility better than this one.

Phoenicia fundraising

REMINDER: Phoenicia seeks sponsorship to sail the Atlantic.

The reconstructed sailing ship Phoenicia and her skipper the indomitable Captain Philip Beale, who proved that the historical tale of the circumnavigation of Africa by a Phoenician sailing boat in 600 BC was possible - by doing it, are now out to rain on Columbus's Parade by crossing the Atlantic in the same sailing ship, and are seeking sponsorship/gifts, donations.

The Phoenicia team are planning the next expedition on the basis that the Phoenicians (as the greatest ancient seafarers) had capabilities and skills to cross the Atlantic two thousand years before Christopher Columbus.

I doubt very much that the Phoenicians ever made it to America. Certainly no convincing evidence of this has been advanced so far. But the project is still kind of cool.

Background here with many links. Cross file under "the Good Ship Phoenicia."

Gnosticism on the radio

RADIO 4: Gnosticism

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Gnosticism, a sect associated with early Christianity. The Gnostics divided the universe into two domains: the visible world and the spiritual one. They believed that a special sort of knowledge, or gnosis, would enable them to escape the evils of the physical world and allow them access to the higher spiritual realm. The Gnostics were regarded as heretics by many of the Church Fathers, but their influence was important in defining the course of early Christianity. A major archaeological discovery in Egypt in the 1940s, when a large cache of Gnostic texts were found buried in an earthenware jar, enabled scholars to learn considerably more about their beliefs.

Second-Temple-era quarry

IAA PRESS RELEASE:

An Enormous Quarry Dating to the Second Temple Period was Exposed in the Ramat Shlomo Quarter of Jerusalem (May 2013)

Within the framework of an excavation project the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting An Enormous Quarry Dating to the Second Templ Period was Exposed


Within the framework of an excavation project the Israel Antiquities Authority is conducting prior to the construction of Highway 21 by the Moriah Company:

An Enormous Quarry Dating to the Second Temple Period was Exposed in the Ramat Shlomo Quarter of Jerusalem

Tools used by the quarrymen and a 2,000 year old key were also uncovered at the site. The huge stones that were quarried there were presumably used in the construction of the city’s magnificent public buildings

An enormous quarry from the time of the Second Temple (first century CE) was exposed in recent weeks in excavations the Israel Antiquities Authority is carrying out prior to the paving of Highway 21 by the Moriah Company. A 2,000 year old key, pick axes, severance wedges etc are also among the artifacts uncovered during the course of the excavation.

According to Irina Zilberbod, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “The quarrying phenomenon created a spectacular sight of bedrock columns and steps and craters of sorts that were the result of the rock-cuttings. What remained are rock masses in various stages of quarrying, and there were those that were found in a preliminary stage of rock-cutting prior to detachment. Some of the stones that were quarried are more than 2 meters long. The giant stones were probably hewn for the sake of the construction of the city’s magnificent public buildings”.

Zilberbod explains, “The pick axes were used to cut the severance channels around the stone block in the bedrock surface and the arrowhead-shaped detachment wedge, which is solid iron, was designed to detach the base of the stone from the bedrock by means of striking it with a hammer. The key that was found, and which was probably used to open a door some 2,000 years ago, is curved and has teeth. What was it doing there? We can only surmise that it might have fallen from the pocket of one of the quarrymen”.

The enormous quarries that were exposed – totaling a 1,000 square meters in area – join other quarries that were previously documented and studied by the Israel Antiquities Authority. Research has shown that the northern neighborhoods of modern Jerusalem are situated on Jerusalem’s “city of quarries” from the Second Temple period.

The question arises: why did the quarrymen select this specific region. Researchers speculate that the answer to this lies in the Meleke rock formation found there, which is a type of rock that is easily quarried and hardens immediately after it is hewn.
In addition to this, since the northern area is topographically higher than the city of Jerusalem in the Second Temple period, it was presumably easy to transport the huge stones, some which weighed tens if not hundreds of tons, down hill along the slope to the construction sites. An ancient road dating to the Second Temple period was exposed next to the quarry and it was probably used to move the large stones.
Another puzzle regarding the transportation of such large stones is how were they actually moved? Presumably this was accomplished by means of oxen and wooden rollers, but the contemporary historical sources also mention giant wooden lifting devices.

Photographs:


Photo credits:
1. A picture of the quarries. Photographic credit: Skyview Company, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority
2 + 3. Pictures of the artifacts (a general photograph and a picture of the key). Photographic credit: Clara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

(HT Joseph I. Lauer.)

The Golem and the Jinni

A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN? ‘The Golem and the Jinni’ by Helene Wecker, reviewed by Jane Ciabattari in the Boston Globe. Excerpt:

Two supernatural beings — a Golem, a woman of clay, conjured up by a disgraced rabbi who engages in dangerous Kabbalistic arts, and a Jinni, a shape-shifting fire creature born in the Syrian desert in the seventh century, are drawn together on the streets of New York in 1899. It sounds far-fetched. But in her first novel, “The Golem and the Jinni,” a blend of historic fiction and fantasy with a dash of sci-fi and a sprinkling of philosophical discourse about faith and free will, Helene Wecker makes it work.

Lots more on golems here and links.

Geza Vermes, 1924-2013

SAD NEWS: I have just received word from Oxford that Professor Emeritus Geza Vermes died this morning after the recurrence of an illness. I had been corresponding with him recently and knew that he was unwell because he had to miss my lecture last week in Oxford, but I was hoping for good news rather than this.

Geza Vermes was a tremendously influential figure in the the field of ancient Judaism, especially, but by no means exclusively, the Dead Sea Scrolls. He also wrote a great deal about Christian origins and the historical Jesus. In addition to being a scholar he was a true gentleman. I will miss him a great deal. May his memory be for a blessing.

Here is the bereavement notice from David Ariel, which was fowarded by Alison Salvesen:

Dear Colleague

I am deeply saddened to inform you that our dear friend, Professor Geza Vermes, passed away this morning after a recent recurrence of cancer. Margaret, Geza's wife, just called with the sad news and asked that I let you know.

Geza was Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at Oxford, a Governor and strong advocate of the Centre, and was recently appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Centre. His scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewishness of Jesus was truly pioneering and transformative. Geza was also a lovely human being and a friend and mentor to many of us. He will be deeply missed.

There are no funeral plans as yet but we will notify you if and when it is appropriate.

May Margaret be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem and may Geza's memory be for a blessing.

David
_____________
David Ariel, PhD
President
Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies
Yarnton Manor
Yarnton, Oxford
OX5 1PY
United Kingdom

UPDATE (9 May): Mark Goodacre has a long post on Professor Vermes at the NT Blog.

Review of Herod exhibition

MENACHEM KAISER has a long, detailed, and well-informed review in Tablet Magazine of the Israel Museum's Herod the Great exhibition: Herod’s Edifice Complex: The great Judean builder and his outsized ego are the subject of a monumental Israel Museum exhibit. (Sorry about the lame pun in the title.) Excerpt:

What’s so interesting and admirable about this exhibit is that it isn’t content to catalog and applaud Herod’s construction projects, it also attempts to convey the man (and the ego) behind them. We can admire all that he built and accomplished, but what do we really think about the guy? Herod the man was morally atrocious, but as a politician, he was something of a phenom. He switched loyalties with astonishing finesse, aligning first with Mark Antony and then with Mark Antony’s usurper, Augustus. He ruled effectively, if forcefully, and oversaw peace and relative prosperity (if at the expense of the occasional violent suppression). The Hasmoneans—whom Herod displaced and is in political competition with—were strife-ridden. But the Hasmonean dynasty has been, rightly or wrongly, appointed as the Zionist predecessors, and Herod the Roman King has often been cast as the anti-Zionist (though in a particularly non-modern sense). The exhibit, in subtle and interesting ways, seeks to challenge this reputation. His political acumen is celebrated; his cruelty isn’t glossed over; and his architectural legacies are laid out like trophies.

More on the exhibition here and links.

Abracadabra!

HAARETZ: Word of the Day / Abracadabra: It may be technically Aramaic, but this magical word is easily intelligible to Hebrew speakers, as well as being a favorite of followers of the occult.

From Harry Potter to Aleister Crowley to Aramaic. Some variant of the Aramaic etymology is the most plausible explanation of the three. Background here and links.

Cross-file under "Aramaic Watch."

This world as a wedding and Talmudic varia

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: You Only Live Once:The Talmudic rabbis saw the world as a wedding—a place of charity and pleasures to be enjoyed while it lasts. And this week's Talmud passage covers a lot more than this. For example:

This passage says something important about the way the Talmud regards the transmission of knowledge. One of the key assumptions of modernity is that we are constantly progressing in our knowledge. Every generation knows more about how the world works than the one before, so that a high-school student today knows more about physics than Isaac Newton did in his time. The Talmudists have exactly the opposite view. The time of full knowledge is in the distant past, when great scholars like the Tannaim were alive. The task of the present is to try to preserve what we can of that heritage, even though we will inevitably let most of it slip through our fingers. This way of looking at time helps to explain why Judaism became, to such a large extent, a religion based on commentary. All new thoughts and discoveries had to be presented as retrieving the original meaning of canonical texts.

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

Ancient tourist souvenirs

THE FORWARD: Ancient Tchotchkes Deepen Our Understanding of Jewish Pilgrims: Holy Land Artisans Did a Brisk Business in Pilgrimage Jars (Menachem Wecker).

One such keepsake, an ochre-colored, glass “Pilgrimage Jar With Jewish Symbols” dated 578–636 Jerusalem, is on view through August 25 at the Art Institute of Chicago in the exhibit “Late Roman and Early Byzantine Treasures From the British Museum.”

“They were more or less mass produced, although it’s a bit of an anachronistic term,” said Christina Nielsen, the Art Institute’s assistant curator for late antique, early Christian and Byzantine art, of vessels like the Institute’s jar, which has menorahs depicted on two of its sides.

The jars, which are about three inches tall, can be traced to a “very savvy” workshop just outside Jerusalem that made souvenirs for both Jewish and Christian patrons, as well as jugs with nonaffiliated decorations. “They just decided, well we’ve got this thing that everybody wants, and if we tweak the imagery to different groups, we will have more customers,”

And there are more in other museums. Read on.

"Rav Hisda's Daughter again

A LONG INTERVIEW WITH MAGGIE ANTON:

Jewish novelist writes about real magic and sorcerers of ancient Babylon

Greg Garrison | ggarrison@al.com By Greg Garrison | ggarrison@al.com
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on May 06, 2013 at 2:32 PM, updated May 06, 2013 at 3:23 PM

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Jewish novelist Maggie Anton has found herself dealing with some of the same subject matter as fellow female novelist J.K. Rowling of "Harry Potter" fame, but Anton's magic stories are based on real history.

Anton, author of the novel "Rav Hisda's Daughter," (Plume, 452 pp., $16) will speak Tuesday at noon at Temple Beth-El's Sisterhood luncheon.

[...]

The ancient Aramaic Jewish incantation bowls come up in the discussion. I only wish that the new bowls flooding the market had been excavated by archaeologists as she says. Most of them are unprovenanced and therefore of debatable authenticity.

Background on Anton's work is here and links.

Undergraduates and ancient Judaism

IN THE NEWS:

OCU Hebrew students to study Dead Sea Scrolls (AP). Background here.

IU Bloomington junior David Bloom receives 2013 Palmer-Brandon Prize in the Humanities (Indiana University press release).

Majoring in French, Jewish studies and religious studies with a minor in Hebrew, [IU junior David] Bloom's research areas include the conception of self in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocrypha, pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls. A native of Louisville, Ky., he intends to become a rabbi.

BBC pulls documentary for taking ancient Jewish history too seriously or not seriously enough.

BBC pulls documentary claiming story of Jewish exodus from Jerusalem is a 'myth’
Israeli-born filmmaker accuses BBC of bowing to 'political naivete’ and 'subconscious political pressure’.
By JTA | May.02, 2013 | 2:01 PM | 58

An Israeli-born filmmaker is slamming the British Broadcasting Corp. for pulling his documentary on the Jewish exodus from Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

Ilan Ziv said in a blog post on April 27 that the BBC exhibited "a mixture of incompetence, political naivete, conscious or subconscious political pressure and ultimately, I believe, a lack of courage of broadcasters when they are faced with the complexity of the Middle East issue and the intense emotions, fears and aggression it generates."

At issue is the documentary “Exile: A Myth Unearthed,” which theorizes that many Jews did not leave Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple, and that many modern-day Palestinians may be in part descended from those Jews. The BBC had been scheduled to show the documentary, cut and renamed "Jerusalem: an Archaeological Mystery Story," late last week before it was taken off the schedule at the last minute.

[...]

The blog post by Mr. Ziv is here.

As usual with these things, it is hard to know exactly what is going on from the sketchy media reports. If JTA is representing the content of the film accurately, it sounds pretty wacky. Ziv himself says the following in his blog post:

An “unnamed” BBC insider who I was told “liked the film,” claimed that the film props up the myth of Exile “ which we all know did not happen, in order to support his political analysis”. I learned that the cut I was given was now irrelevant, since some internal review deemed one scène with the Palestinians to be “too emotive” and they were asked to cut it down. Realizing that a mini political storm was brewing around the film and attacks lodged against its integrity, I asked and was promised that I would be given at least a summary of the essential charges so I could answer them in length. I am obviously very familiar with some of them and could easily and in detail refute them. I told the programming executive that my reply would help them to defend the film in the Channel. After all, they professed to love the film and seemed genuinely interested to show it. I told them it was very easy for me to prepare a detailed rebuttal with citation of sources for every word of the narration, the overall analysis and for every scene. I told them that some of the academic participants in the program who saw the cut and are reputable scholars in their field did not find any factual errors or misrepresentations of facts or of the historical narrative. In other words, I argued that such a detailed and substantial defense would convince any objective reader and observer of the editorial integrity of the film. I repeated the request several times yet I never got a reply. Instead, I received an email telling me that they decided to pull it out of the schedule, citing the “ short timetable and my work load “( !) A few days later I saw the “official” version that went to the public:

This makes it sound as though the problem was Palestinian objections to the film taking "the myth of Exile" too seriously as history, but the JTA article says the following:

According to the watchdog group HonestReporting, critics of the decision to drop the film have accused the BBC of succumbing to “unnamed pressure groups,” which HonestReporting says is a reference to “Jews” or “Zionists.”

Simon Plosker of HonestReporting wrote in his blog on the group's website that the BBC may have been "more concerned at upsetting anti-Israel elements by showing a film with such a heavy concentration on Jewish history in the Land of Israel."

At this point all I can say is that I would like to know what the film actually claims. If it is what JTA says, then I would like to see the case argued in peer-review publications before anyone airs a documentary about it. Television documentaries are not serious enough venues to make any kind of scholarly case about historical matters.

UPDATE: Dorothy Lobel King e-mails that the documentary can be rented here (UK) or here (Canada). Enjoy.

Lost Hanging Gardens found?

I BLAME GOOGLE MAPS: Stephanie Dalley: The Hanging Gardens of "Babylon" were actually in Nineveh.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are documented by ancient Greek and Roman writers, including Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, and Quintus Curtius Rufus.

And none of them stopped at a gas station for directions.

Jewish-Christian Gospels

PHILIP JENKINS continues his series on biblical apocrypha and pseudepigrapha: JEWISH-CHRISTIAN GOSPELS. Excerpt:

Just what these “Jewish-Christian” readings were raises serious questions about the transmission of the gospel text. Orthodox church scholars cite them as the products of a heretical school of belief, labeled by a sectarian name like “Ebionites.” But looking at the readings in detail, it is an open question whether a sect added these words themselves for their own purposes. Or, more intriguing, were they preserving the oldest textual reading, which later dropped out of the canonical gospels?

Repeatedly, we find that readings commonly dismissed as belonging to that marginal Jewish-Christian school reflect the gospel text as it would have been known to such venerated Fathers as Ignatius (c.110), Justin Martyr (c.160) or Tertullian (c.200). Often, scholars assume that the writers in question were confused in their memory of the exact wording of the text, but some readings occur so frequently that they seem to have been standard at this very early time. Besides the Jewish-Christian texts, some also appear in such early gospels as Peter and Thomas.

Earlier posts in the series are noted here and links.

Jewish Centurions

TURNABOUT IS FAIR PLAY: Jewish Centurions Take on Rome: Street performers who pose for tourist photos by the Colosseum battle city authorities (Lauren Davidson and Marie Telling, Tablet).

More on that "priceless" Turkish manuscript

THE SYRIAC MANUSCRIPT recently seized by an anti-smuggling police unit in Turkey has received some attention on the Hugoye list. George Kiraz posted the original article, then Hidemi Takahashi posted links to better photos. With a good look at some of the text now available, Steven Ring has posted a provisional identification: "It looks like an East Syrian liturgical Ms. Perhaps liturgical prayers extracted from the East Syrian Shhima for the period between the Nativity and the Epiphany (December - January)." Such things are always interesting, of course, but the Turkish authorities are getting a little carried away to call it priceless.

Maybe next time they should ask some specialists (there are plenty at the Hugoye list) for an evaluation before they make the announcement. I know, I know, that's crazy talk.

Moss blog

ASSIMILATED TO THE BLOGOSPHERE: Candida Moss.

Interesting Q&A format.

More on Professor Moss here and links.

A second Gabriel stone?

THAT SCHOLAR BEING ISRAEL KNOHL: Second 'Gabriel Stone' may exist, says scholar: A second Gabriel Stone, the controversial tablet discovered 13 years ago which raises the prospect of a messiah-like figure that predated Jesus, may exist, according to a world-renowned Israeli scholar (Daniel Easterman, THe Telegraph).

"It is very much possible that the text was written on two stones, especially since the language includes references to a New Testament or Covenant", said Prof Knohl. "It could be that it was made in tablet form to imitate the idea of the two tablets of the Ten Commandments given to Moses at Mount Sinai."

According to Prof Knohl, the telltale sign of an additional piece lies in the fact that there is a clear break in the upper-right corner of the stone.

"We simply don't know if the text on the Gabriel stone we have now is the full composition", he said.

Prof Knohl said he was so certain of his theory that he led an extended archaeological trip himself to Jordan to try to find the second piece, but ultimately was unsuccessful.

In the first place, this is pretty wild speculation. The analogy with the two tablets of the Ten Commandments is possible, but not compelling, and the break only means that we don't know if the text began at the top of the surviving stone or not. It is not evidence that the text did begin on an earlier stone. In the second place, even if there was a second inscribed stone, it may well have been destroyed in the last two thousand years. Most such things were.

I hope he's right and that there is another stone and we find it, but I am not optimistic.

I wholeheartedly agree with this:

He says he remains hopeful that in the future archaeologists or technology experts in the field of high-definition photography will be able to make additional breakthroughs.

"If anyone can think of a new technology or an idea to improve our readings please come and tell us", he said. "This would be a great contribution to the study of both Judaism and Christianity."

I don't doubt that such technology will be developed in due course and that it will be possible to use it on the stone as long as the stone has been carefully preserved in its current condition. This, of course, assuming the inscription is not a forgery. The stone is, after all, an unprovenanced artifact. So far all indications are that it is genuine, but it is not impossible that future technologies will give us a surprise about that as well.

It is also worth repeating that Professor Knohl's reading of the text which finds a dying and rising messiah in it has not been found widely convincing.

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

More on Irish NT apocrypha

PHILIP JENKINS: IRELAND’S LOST GOSPELS.

But it is in the realm of gospels that Ireland produces the most surprising findings. Throughout the Middle Ages, scholars across Western Europe make startling references to gospels otherwise thought lost, often presented under the guise of a Jewish-Christian gospel. We can debate at length what exactly they might have been referring to, but often, we can track their citations back either to the influence of Ireland, or to Irish monasteries founded in Western Europe. Irish clergy used some very strange texts, and even treated them as canonical.

Earlier posts in this series are noted here and here and links

TMIM

BUT OF COURSE: Dos Equis' "Most Interesting Man in the World" speaks no less than seven languages including a few that are not spoken today such as Latin and Aramaic.

Catchword tag and turbulent waters in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN by Adam Kirsch in Tablet

The Talmud’s Absolute Value
Through reasoning, the rabbis brought all of natural creation under the rule of law
By Adam Kirsch|April 30, 2013 12:00 AM|

One of the recurring patterns I have noticed in my reading of the Talmud is the way the text puts off explaining its key terms. From the beginning of Tractate Eruvin, for instance, it has been axiomatic that on Shabbat it is permitted to move only within a 2,000-amot techum or boundary. But why is the boundary 2,000 amot in the first place? If the Talmud were a textbook, this would be explained on the first page. But the compilers of the Talmud clearly did not envision it being read the way I, and many others doing Daf Yomi, read it—that is, in isolation.

Rather, the Talmud is a product of and commentary on a living tradition, whose principles have been passed on from generation to generation, in word and action. Presumably, in the fifth century CE, every Jewish child would have known about the 2,000-amot boundary from the time he or she began to walk. It was a rule handed down for centuries—ostensibly, since Moses received the Oral Law on Sinai—and it didn’t need to be explained or justified.

In this week’s reading, however, the rabbis finally did explain where the 2,000-amot figure comes from—and the explanation raises as many questions as it answers. ...

Biblical Studies Carnival

THE APRIL 2013 BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL has been published at the ἐνθύμησις blog.

Gabriel Revelation inscription in Israel

THE GABRIEL REVELATION STONE is now on display at the Israel Museum: Conversations with Gabriel (Jerusalem Post). It is part of an exhibition on the archangel Gabriel:

These writings trace the development of the figure of the Angel Gabriel in early rabbinic Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The works include the “War Scroll” – a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumran in 1947, the Book of Daniel from the 13th-century Damascus Codex of the Hebrew Bible, the Gospel of Luke from a rare 10th-century Latin manuscript of the Four Gospels from France and a Koran from Iran from either the 15th or the 16thcentury.

Also on display are prayer books from the three monotheistic religions that contain illustrations of the Angel Gabriel.

Also, despite the lurid headline, this Daily Mail article is pretty good: Does this mysterious Hebrew stone reveal a messiah BEFORE Jesus? Controversial 'Gabriel stone' tablet goes on show in Jerusalem. The answer to the headline question is probably not.

Background on the Gabriel Revelation/Vision of Gabriel inscription is here and just keep following those links back.

As for me, I am back in St. Andrews. I got home yesterday evening and am back in the office this morning.

Ancient demonization of paganism

ASOR BLOG: Ecclesia Diaboli: The Demonization of the Gentile Religion in Jewish and Christian Thought (Aleksander Michalak, Independent Researcher, Poland, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow).

Schiffman on Philo and Josephus

LAWRENCE SCHIFFMAN: Second Temple Period Rationales for the Torah: Philo; Second Temple Period Rationales for the Torah’s Commandments: Josephus.

Related post noted here.

Another Syriac manuscript in Turkey

HERE WE GO AGAIN: Priceless 300-year-old religious manuscript in Syriac discovered in eastern province (Hurriyet Daily News).

What is it with Turkey and "priceless" smuggled manuscripts? There is a photo of this one, but the resolution is too poor to make out the contents. It is a codex written in red and black ink, with a lot of deterioration around the edges and what looks like considerable water damage. I don't know how the estimate of the date was arrived at or how accurate it is, but 300-year-old Syriac manuscripts are not particularly hard to come by and I doubt that one would be "priceless" unless its contents were very unusual.

Again, it's good to see that the Turkish authorities are being vigilant about manuscript smuggling, but I suspect that nothing much will come of the extraordinary claims about this one, any more that the claims about an ancient Gospel of Barnabas manuscript that turned out to be an early modern copy of the Gospel of Matthew or that supposed nineteen-hundred-year-old Torah manuscript.

UPDATE (5 May): More here.

Manichaean texts from Turfan

AT HIEROI LOGOI: Manichaean Texts at the Digitales Turfan-Archiv and TITUS. These Manichaean (Manichean) manuscripts from Turfan include important fragments of a Turkic translation of the Book of Giants which are being translated by Peter Zieme (along with fragments in Aramaic and Manichaean Iranian being translated by others) for volume 2 of the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project.

Arrived

NOW IN OXFORD and enjoying the hospitality of Wolfson College. Aside from my missing my first train by five seconds, the trip was uneventful, and I spent most of it reading page proofs.

Lag B'Omer update

R. SHIMON BAR YOCHAI: Tsunami of prayers at Rashbi’s tomb: Hundreds of thousands of people gather in northern town of Meron to celebrate mystic Jewish holiday.

Background here and links.

Cairo Geniza presentation

THIS HANDOUT summarizes a presentation recently made by two St. Andrews biblical-studies doctoral students in one of our postgraduate seminars: Cairo Geniza Presentation Interactive Handout by Garrick Allen and Adam Harger.

Incidentally, Garrick produced the indices for my translation of the Hekhalot literature mentioned in the previous post.

Hekhalot literature lecture at Oxford University

I'M OFF TO OXFORD to give a presentation at their Qumran Forum postgraduate seminar. The subject matter of the seminar is wider than the title implies, and I will be speaking on "Translating the Hekhalot Literature." This is a slightly revised and updated version of the paper I gave in Edinburgh in January, the handout for which is posted at the link. The handout for the one I am giving tomorrow in Oxford is pretty much the same.

As for the translation itself, I am currently going through the second and final page proofs for the volume and it should be out this summer.

I shall be very busy in the next few days, but I will blog as much as time and internet access permit. In any case, I have pre-posted something for each day, so do keep coming back as usual. I expect to be home on Wednesday evening.

On Jesus the exorcist

AT BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Spirit Possession, Exorcism and the Historical Jesus

Thus, Jesus’ experience as portrayed in Mark closely resembles those of healers across cultures, whose careers often begin with a period of illness or spirit possession, followed by a period of trials or testing, during which the healers learn to control their spirits. Once this has been achieved, they are able to control the spirits of others. In other words, they become healers and exorcists themselves.

See Also: Jesus, the Galilean Exorcist. (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2012)

By Amanda Witmer
Department of Religious Studies
Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo
Waterloo, ON Canada
March 2013