Girls studying Talmud

EDUCATION IN ISRAEL: Talmud studies to be offered to girls too: Education minister instructs state-religious schools in which half of parents wants daughters to study ancient rabbinic writings – to allow them to do so (Telem Yahav, Ynetnews.com).

Update on Davila's forthcoming books

GOOD NEWS about both of my imminently forthcoming books.

First, the final editing process for my translation of the Hekhalot literature is completed and the book has gone to the printer. It should be out, published by Brill, early next month.

Hekhalot Literature in Translation
Major Texts of Merkavah Mysticism

James Davila
The Hekhalot literature is a motley collection of textually fluid and often textually corrupt documents in Hebrew and Aramaic which deal with mystical themes pertaining especially to God's throne-chariot (the Merkavah). They were composed between late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, with roots in earlier traditions and a long and complex subsequent history of transmission.

This volume presents English translations of eclectic critical texts, with a full apparatus of variants, of most of the major Hekhalot documents: Hekhalot Rabbati; Sar Torah; Hekhalot Zutarti; Ma'aseh Merkavah; Merkavah Rabba; briefer macroforms: The Chapter of R. Nehuniah ben HaQanah, The Great Seal-Fearsome Crown, Sar Panim, The Ascent of Elijah ben Avuyah, and The Youth; and the Hekhalot fragments from the Cairo Geniza.

Second, I have just received the page proofs for Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, Volume 1, the firstfruits of The More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project. (If you are a contributor, the proofs for your contribution should be arriving soon.) The book should be out, published by Eerdmans, by the end of September at the latest.

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
More Noncanonical Scriptures, Volume 1

Richard Bauckham
James R. Davila
Alexander Panayotov

HARDCOVER; Coming Soon: 9/30/2013
ISBN: 978-0-8028-2739-5
Available for Backorder
Price: $ 90.00

DESCRIPTION
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (OTP) (Volume 1) stands among the most important publications in biblical studies over the past twenty-five years.

Intended to complement James Charlesworth's Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, this new two-volume collection adds a great many previously unpublished or newly translated texts. Providing the reader with virtually all known surviving pseudepigrapha written before the rise of Islam, OTP presents the sacred legends and spiritual reflections of numerous works that were lost, neglected, or suppressed for many centuries, with authoritative yet accessible introductions to each text.

You can preorder the latter with Amazon at a substantial discount. For you, special deal!

New book: Shaked et al., Aramaic Bowl Spells

FORTHCOMING FROM BRILL:

Aramaic Bowl Spells
Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Bowls Volume One

Shaul Shaked, J.N. Ford, and Siam Bhayro with contributions from Matthew Morgenstern and Naama Vilozny
The corpus of Aramaic incantation bowls from Sasanian Mesopotamia is perhaps the most important source we have for studying the everyday beliefs and practices of the Jewish, Christian, Mandaean, Manichaean, Zoroastrian and Pagan communities on the eve of the Islamic conquests. The bowls are from the Schøyen Collection, which has some 650 texts in different varieties of Aramaic: Jewish Aramaic, Mandaic and Syriac, and forms the largest collection of its kind anywhere in the world. This volume presents editions of sixty-four Jewish Aramaic incantation bowls, with accompanying introductions, translations, philological notes, photographs and indices. The themes covered include the magical divorce and the accounts of the wonder-working sages Ḥanina ben Dosa and Joshua bar Peraḥia. It is the first of a multi-volume project that aims to publish the entire Schøyen Collection of Aramaic incantation bowls.

More on that First-Temple-era column near Jerusalem

MATTI FREIDMAN: Despite secrecy, interest builds around mysterious First Temple find outside Bethlehem: A 2,800-year-old pillar discovered by a tour guide under a Palestinian orchard points to major construction dating from Biblical times. So why isn’t it being excavated? (The Times of Israel). Excerpt:

Early this month, several prominent Israeli archaeologists were brought to inspect the site. Among them was Yosef Garfinkel, an archaeology professor from Hebrew University.

There is no doubt the remains are those of monumental construction from the time of the First Temple, Garfinkel said.

The top of the pillar, known as a capital, is of a type known as proto-aeolic, he said. That style dates to around 2,800 years ago.
Another view of the recently discovered pillar (Courtesy of Binyamin Tropper/Kfar Etzion Field School)

Another view of the recently discovered pillar (Courtesy of Binyamin Tropper/Kfar Etzion Field School)

The pillar marks the entrance to a carved water tunnel reaching 250 yards underground, he said, complex construction that would almost certainly have been carried out by a central government. At the time, the area was ruled by Judean kings in nearby Jerusalem.

In its scale and workmanship, Garfinkel said, the tunnel evokes another grand water project of First Temple times — the Siloam Tunnel in Jerusalem, now underneath the modern-day Arab neighborhood of Silwan. That project is believed to have been undertaken by the biblical king Hezekiah to channel water into the city ahead of an Assyrian siege in the 8th century BCE, according to an account in the biblical Book of Kings.

The existence of a large water tunnel at the new site suggests the presence nearby of a large farm or palace, Garfinkel said.

“The construction is first-rate,” he said. “There is definitely something important there from biblical times, the 9th or 8th centuries BCE.”

So according to Professor Garfinkel the architecture dates to the late Iron Age II but, contrary to the earlier reports, not to the Davidic or Solomonic eras. And it has parallels to the Siloam Tunnel. Wouldn't it be nice if it also had a dedication inscription in Hebrew, like the Siloam Tunnel?

(HT Dorothy Lobel King.)

Mapping the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Empire

PROJECT WEBSITE: Mapping the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Empire (Cambridge University). About:

The aim of the project is to map the Jewish presence in the Byzantine empire using GIS (Geographical Information Systems).

All information (published and unpublished) about the Jewish communities will be gathered and collated.

The data will be incorporated in a GIS which will be made freely available to the general public on the world-wide-web. [Now linked above - JRD.]

Researchers and members of the public will be able to create maps according to their own specifications.

Chronologically, the project will begin in 650. This is soon after the Arab conquest of Egypt, Palestine and Syria when these regions, with their substantial Jewish populations, were permanently separated from the Byzantine empire. The end-date is fixed by the arrival in the region of large numbers of Jewish immigrants from Spain in 1492.

Geographically, the core areas of Asia Minor, the southern Balkans and the adjacent islands including Crete and Cyprus will be included for the entirety of the period, Byzantine Italy however, will only be covered down to the Norman conquest. Some smaller territories that were only briefly under Byzantine rule may be excluded.

(HT Alexander Panayotov, one of the project's researchers.)

Kahle conference

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT, sent in by Corrado Martone:

Archives of the Orient: International conference on Paul Ernst Kahle
April 10-11, 2014
TurinOn the occasion of the completion of the KADMOS project (Kahle Documents Management, Organization and Study) and the 50th anniversary of Paul Ernst Kahle’s death, the University of Turin, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, is pleased to announce the conference “Archives of the Orient: International conference on Paul Ernst Kahle” that is scheduled for April 10th and 11th 2014 in Turin.

The KADMOS project (2010-2013), realized with the contribution of Regione Piemonte, has allowed a series of activities on the archive, that is part of the Paul Kahle Fonds, aiming at making it available for research to the international scientific community.

The conference will present the project and the goals achieved so far and intends to deepen the knowledge of the research fields addressed and investigated by Paul Ernst Kahle. Aim of the conference is to bring together academicians and scholars from various academic fields related to Oriental studies, in a cross-disciplinary panorama which mirrors Kahle’s manifold research interests, as well as archivists, curators and other professionals who work on research archives.

Papers are invited on subjects relating to the figure, researches and archive of Paul Ernst Kahle in the widest sense; topics include, but are not confined to the following:

- Intellectual milieu and historical context in which the activity of Paul Kahle took place, in Germany, England, and Egypt
- Colleagues or scholars who worked or corresponded with Paul Ernst Kahle
- History and fortune of Paul Kahle’s publications and scientific work
- Islamic studies, Arabic dialectology
- Bible, Jewish studies, Hebrew and Aramaic
- Archival aspects: experiences from archives that can be related to or compared with the Paul Kahle Fonds.

Proposals must always highlight the connection of the proposed subject with Paul Ernst Kahle or the relevance for the management and enhancement of the Paul Kahle Fonds.

Papers should be 20-25 minutes in length with 5-10 minutes for questions and discussion. The language of the conference is English.

The proposal must include:

- Paper title
- Author/s name/s and institutional affiliations
- Abstract (between 350 and 500 words) - Author/s short biography

Proposal must be submitted on the following website:

www.congressiefiere.com, (link on the page “congressi e corsi”)

The deadline for submission of proposal is November 30, 2013; papers acceptance will be notified to authors by the end of January 2014.

Conference proceedings will be published: authors will be asked to provide the full text of their paper before the conference.

For further questions about submissions or to be kept updated on latest news please feel free to contact the organizing secretariat – Centro Congressi Internazionale
info@congressiefiere.com ph.
+39 011 2446911
telefax +39 011 2446950

For more informations about the project and the Paul Kahle Fonds visit our website:
www.paulkahle.unito.it

4Q180-4Q181 it is.

ALEXEY YUDITSKY, one of the researchers involved, has emailed me the following:

The article in Haaretz indeed talks about 4Q180-4Q181. The research was presented in the Orion Center of Hebrew University, see orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/orion/activities/picture/seminar_18-4-13.doc
The improved photo may be found here
http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/image/B-295795

The English notice of the lecture is here [bad link now fixed!].

Background here (immediately preceding post).

A new reading in the DSS

Scholars owe new Dead Sea Scrolls reading to Google:Why was Canaan really exiled? A website featuring ultra-high resolution photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls brings hidden letters to light for the first time (Nir Hasson, Haaretz). Excerpt:

Prof. Elisha Qimron had been working on the final stages of the second volume of the new edition of the Hebrew writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls when a particular fragment of a Dead Sea Scroll had been posted on the joint website of Google and the Israel Antiquities Authority − the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library website.

The website features very high resolution photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls using a special camera, which not only records the condition of the actual scrolls to help preserve them, but also brings to light for the first time faded and hidden letters.

[...]

The word “El” appears close to the phrase “tent of Shem,” and might indicate that the intent was to “Hashem” as a synonym for God. By comparing this text with another of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the scholars have come up with another interpretation. The scholars believe that the word “tent” can be interpreted as “land,” and that the text may mean that Hashem ‏(God‏) lives in the “land of Shem.” Thus, Canaan invaded a land that was not his, and that was the reason his descendants were exiled, not because of his father’s sin.

This interpretation is also known from the Apocryphal Book of Jubilees, which survived in the Ethiopian sacred language of Gez and in Greek. There, it also states that Canaan’s sin was in taking the land in a manner different than the way Noah had intended to divide it, ignoring his brothers’ warning not to do so. “Whoever wrote this text knew this interpretation from the Book of Jubilees,” Ariel said. The conclusion is that this alternative tradition to the biblical version was common in the Judean Desert in Second Temple times and later disappeared.

[...]

Disappointingly, the article does not say which Qumran fragment this is. I have seen some speculation on Facebook, but nothing I find persuasive yet.

For more on the Google/Israel Museum Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Project and its efforts to recover lost text on the Scrolls, see here and links.

Bit by bit, a letter at at time, whatever it takes. Until we're done. I've been saying that a lot lately, which I take to be a good sign.

UPDATE: A number of people are suggesting that the text is 4Q180. I don't have time to verify for myself.

UPDATE (4 June): Confirmed: it is 4Q180-4Q181.

Book reviews

BOOK REVIEWS ARE NOW AVAILABLE AT: THE ENOCH SEMINAR ONLINE.

Coptic spelling and pronunciation

COPTIC WATCH: James McGrath flags David Mihalyfy's new article "Re-Examining Spelling and Pronunciation in Coptic."

Justin Martyr

TODAY IS THE FEAST DAY OF ST. JUSTIN MARTYR, a second-century Christian apologist. His Dialogue with Trypho (a probably-fictional Jewish character) gives us what seems to be, in a roundabout way, some interesting information on Jews and Judaism just after the Bar Kokhba Revolt.

Mosaics top 10

HAARETZ: Top 10 Israeli ancient mosaic discoveries: A fantastic ancient floor found in the Negev is just the latest in a series of discoveries throughout the country.

PaleoJudaica has posted much coverage of ancient mosaics in Israel over the years. I have listed below all mosaic posts I could find in a reasonable amount of time, and I don't think I missed many. If there are links, follow them, often for much more information.

• the Lod Mosaic
  
• the mosaic at Kibbutz Bet Qama
  
• the Samson mosaic at the Huqoq synagogue
  
• Zodiac mosaics in ancient synagogues
  
• the Khirbet Midras church mosaics
  
• the synagogue mosaic at Hamat Tiberias National Park
  
• the Madaba Map mosaic
  
• a mosaic in Caesarea
  
• the mosaic from Ma'on-Nirim
  
• the Khirbet Wadi Hamam synagogue mosaic
  
• a mosaic in Gaza
  
• the birds mosaic in Caesarea
  
• mosaics at Tel Shikmona
  
• a mosaic in Jerusalem
  
• mosaics in a Christian villa in Netanyahu
  
• mosaics at Magdala

Finally, outside of Israel, but still Jewish:

• the (Tunisian) Naro synagogue mosaics

Melkite Syriac script

JUST SO YOU KNOW: Adam McCollum has some examples of Melkite Syriac script.

Cross-file under "Aramaic Watch."

Review of Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni

GOLEM WATCH: Strong fiction debut pairs immigrant Golem, Jinni (Joel Boyce, Winnipeg Free Press).

New YORK, 1899. Another boatload of those teeming masses is about to arrive at Ellis Island, among them a solemn, statuesque woman from Danzig.

Caught without a ticket, she leaps off the ship and sinks like a stone, only to walk out onto the banks of the Lower East Side, hours later and miles away. Golem, of course, cannot swim.

Meanwhile, in Little Syria, a tinsmith is labouring over a dented antique oil lamp. Erasing a portion of the ancient script, he is nearly knocked out by the explosive release of an imprisoned desert spirit.

Trapped in human form, the fiery being, whose true name can only be spoken by the wind, is equally surprised by where he's ended up.

These are the opening chapters of American Helene Wecker's literary debut, and they're doozies. Perhaps the most famous beast of Jewish folklore is paired with a creature right out of The Arabian Nights. And they're re-imagined as developed, human-like characters.

[...]

An earlier review and more golem links are here.

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.