The ever-present Temple

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: In the Talmud’s Timeless Laws, a Vast Temple of the Mind: Long after the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed, Talmudic rabbis kept it alive in their imaginations, and ours.

All of this is remarkable, not just for its attention to detail, but because of the way the rabbis of the Talmud think about the Temple. There is no acknowledgment, in the cases of the bandage, the wart, and the hinge, that these rules apply to a Temple that does not exist. At the time the Gemara was being composed, the Temple had been gone for three centuries; most of the sages of Babylonia had never even seen the spot where it stood. Yet they continued to legislate for the Temple, to reconcile their own rules with the Temple’s rules, as if it existed in the present tense.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Michael Baigent, R.I.P.

MICHAEL BAIGENT HAS DIED:

Writer who sued over Da Vinci Code dies
Updated: 16:06, Tuesday June 25, 2013 (SkyNews.com.au)

New Zealand writer Michael Baigent, who gained attention for launching a lawsuit contending that The Da Vinci Code stole ideas from his own book, has died of a brain hemorrhage at age 65, his literary agent says.

Baigent is best-known for writing the 1982 non-fiction book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which explores theories that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, the couple had a child and the bloodline survives.

In 2006 Baigent and co-author Richard Leigh made international headlines when they sued Dan Brown's publisher for copyright infringement, claiming that Brown 'appropriated the architecture' of their book in a high-profile London court case they eventually lost.

[...]

I followed the case back in the spring of 2006. See here, here, here, here, and here. Also note here.

Stec, The Geniza Psalms

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Genizah Psalms
A Study of MS 798 of the Antonin Collection. Cambridge Genizah Studies Series

David Stec
The Genizah Psalms (MS 798 of the Antonin Collection) is a Hebrew document of messianic character, apparently presenting itself as the work of David. It is taken by some to date to the time of the second temple, and to be approximately contemporary with some of the literature of Qumran, while others regard it as a medieval composition. From the point of view of a classical hebraist, David M. Stec explores how this text relates to classical Hebrew literature as a whole and considers how viable it is to regard it as a genuine constituent of that body of literature. He presents an edition of the Hebrew text and English translation, together with an introduction, commentary and analysis of language.

These psalms have been translated for the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project by G. W. Lorein and E. van Staalduine-Sulman with the view that they are earlier rather than later.

Oh, and have I mentioned that the first volume of MOTP texts is due out in September: Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures? We're currently working on the page proofs.

BNTC 2013 one-week countdown

REGISTRATION FOR THE 2013 MEETING OF THE BRITISH NEW TESTAMENT CONFERENCE in St. Andrews (29-31 August) is still open and you can book online here.

Early-bird registration is open only until 30 June, i.e., this Sunday. After that the price goes up substantially, so why not register now? For you, special deal!

Congratulations to Matthew Goff

A HUMBOLT RESEACH FELLOWSHIP has been granted to Matthew Goff: Self-proclaimed Bible nerd studies scrolls: FSU associate professor Germany-bound to continue research on Dead Sea Scrolls. I look forward to seeing his work on the giants and the Nephilim.

Midsummer 2013

HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE to all those celebrating. For example, here.

Gnosticism

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Are Gnostics world-haters? (With the now obligatory Matrix and Inception references.)

Well, the Pope seems to think so. Me, I suppose it depends on what you mean by the world and by Gnosticism.

Related thoughts here and links.

BNTC 2013 reminder

REGISTRATION FOR THE 2013 MEETING OF THE BRITISH NEW TESTAMENT CONFERENCE in St. Andrews (29-31 August) is still open and you can book online here.

Early-bird registration is open only until 30 June. After that the price goes up substantially, so why not register now? For you, special deal!

Magdalene opera performed

WORLD PREMIER: San Francisco's 'biblical CNN opera'. That is, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, which was performed for the first time last night in San Francisco. From the review it seems that it draws both on biblical traditions and Gnostic traditions, both heavily and anachronistically updated to be palatable to a twenty-first century audience. I love it that the composer's name is Adamo.

Background here.

UPDATE (21 June): A review in the NYT: The Woman at Jesus’ Side, and in His Bed. Mark Adamo’s Opera Makes a Wife of Mary Magdalene. Excerpt:

That this new opera is such a disappointment is unfortunate because many elements of the project are admirable. ... Mr. Adamo was immersed in the project for more than six years. His reading of varying accounts of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, especially the Gnostic Gospels, led him to envision a kind of truth-based fantasia in which Mary Magdalene is not the reformed prostitute of disputed readings, but a sensual, independent and keenly intelligent woman. This Mary helps Jesus to understand the role of Eros in a godly life, as Mr. Adamo has explained in recent interviews.

He wrote his own libretto, an 86-page text that reads at times like a theological compendium complete with about 100 footnotes. Yet despite passages of affecting dialogue and poetic quotations from Gospels and Psalms, the libretto is long and wordy and sounds even more so in Mr. Adamo’s often ponderous musical setting.

Also, this is interesting:

“The Gospel of Mary Magdalene” has the misfortune of arriving on the heels of the John Adams’s oratorio “The Gospel According to the Other Mary,” which was given its premiere last year by the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.

Another Magdalene musical composition by another Adam. Cosmic.

Hebrew class to study a DSS

COOL: OCU Hebrew students to study Dead Sea Scrolls (edmondsun.com).

OKLA. CITY — Students in a Biblical Hebrew class at Oklahoma City University will get a chance to study one of the Dead Sea Scrolls during the fall 2013 semester.

[...]

The students who will study the Dead Sea Scroll artifact previously have taken Biblical Hebrew I and II with Professor Wolfe. As a class, they will work to determine what part of the Bible is represented in a particular item and investigate what other known scrolls might be closely related to it. They will visit the scroll in person, and then later use special photographic records in class to do their work.

[...]

In praise of Carey Newman

BAYLOR: Carey Newman: How to Rescue a University Press.

When Carey Newman became director of Baylor University Press in 2003 it was teetering on the edge of extinction, as many university presses have in recent years. “I told the university it would take twenty-five years to build up the press,” says Newman. “Ten years to get one-third up the mountain and set up base camp. Ten years to get to the summit and five more to assault it.” A decade later, with net revenues “up 1,500%,” he is happy to state, “We are ahead of schedule.”

[...]

Dr. Newman was also a mover and shaker in the SBL Divine Mediator Figures in Antiquity Group in the 1990s and he and I organized and held an international conference at St. Andrews on the origins of the worship of Jesus in 1998.

Review of Ben-Yehuda, The Myth of Masada

BLAST FROM THE PAST: For some reason Bing has been reviving some old items, including one from a decade ago by Alex Joffe, a review of Nachman Ben-Yehuda, The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel: Sacrificing Truth: Archaeology and the Myth of Masada (The Middle East Quarterly). Excerpt:

If Ben-Yehuda is too severe in his standards, he does offer an important contribution to Israeli history. His detailed investigative approach, a vital contribution to developing the proper relationship between archaeology and society, should be emulated.

Somehow I missed that review at the time, but I noted others here.

Attention, volunteers from the Masada excavation!

ARCHAEOLOGIST AND PALEOJUDAICA READER DAVID STACEY E-MAILS:

Jim - With the 50th anniversary approaching, Eretz magazine - a popular though serious English Language Israeli journal dedicated to the history, archaeology and geography of Israel - is going to produce a Masada 50th special edition. I have been asked to contribute an article from the volunteers perspective - I was there for all but the first fortnight of the second season. I am having great difficulty locating surviving international volunteers particularly those who did not continue in archaeology. Should there be any ex Masada volunteers reading your blog, who would like to share their anecdotes, I would be grateful if they would contact me david.stacey63@ntlworld.com

Background here.

The ocean of Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: How the Talmud Maps Behavior by Exploring Definitions, Not Listing Rules: Daf Yomi: The rabbis examined practical dimensions of deep questions, including those raised around saliva, urine, and sex.

This week’s Daf Yomi reading was a wonderful example of the range of the Talmud’s concerns, and the twisting paths that connect them. What starts out as a discussion of the laws of tefillin becomes an examination of the biology of urination and spitting, which is really a debate on the definition of substances and objects. Finally the rabbis turn to questions of sex, marriage, and the status of women, in which the notion of original sin and its punishment is refined in very unexpected ways. Chapter 10 of Tractate Eruvin is all by itself a good argument for the idea that the Talmud is not just a book but an ocean.

UPDATE: Almost forgot, earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

SOTS Booklist 2013

IN THE MAIL:

Deborah W. Rook (ed.) with Holly Morse, Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2013 (London: Sage, 2013)

The Other Old Testament

OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH: The Other Old Testament (Philip Jenkins). Excerpt:

Although Barnabas is notionally quoting the Exodus story, his citation has precious little in common with the original. He has moreover added a whole eschatological and messianic dimension that absolutely is not in the original. Although he might be inventing these words himself, it is also likely that he is transmitting a whole tradition of Christian midrash on the original Biblical texts.

Christians also drew on the pseudepigrapha, the works attributed to great figures of the Old Testament, to Abraham, Moses or Ezra. Many such works had originated from Second Temple Judaism, but Christian editors soon revised them to their own purposes.

And they wrote a few themselves, very likely more than are immediately obvious.

Reflections on Tisha B’Av

AMBIVALENCE: Tisha B’Av in the 21st century (Binyamin Kagedan, JNS.org). Excerpt:

How could Tisha B’av, traditionally one of the most intense and salient religious experiences of the year, be wholly foreign to a large portion of American Jewry? Surely it cannot simply come down to the fact that most people are averse to fasting—if that were the case, how could we explain the ongoing popularity of Yom Kippur?

The actual answer revolves around the traditional thematic elements of the fast. The narrative of Tisha B’Av centers on the destruction of the holy temple in Jerusalem, a national calamity that marked the end of Jewish sovereignty in ancient Israel and the official onset of the long Jewish diaspora. The day’s liturgy mourns the disappearance of high priests and animal sacrifices, and woven into its eulogizing is the wish for a return to these original forms or worship.

Masada announcement anniversary

JUNE 15, 1954: Remains of King Herod’s Palace Discovered in Israel.

Psalms of Solomon Conference

OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH: The First International Meeting on the Psalms of Solomon (University of Strasbourg, 17-18 June 2013). Follow the link for the program.

Alter's Dtr

ROBERT ALTER has published the latest installment of his translation of the Bible: the Deuteronomistic History. Adam Kirsh has a review in Tablet: Robert Alter Wants Us To Think More Seriously About the Bible as Literature: The scholar, critic, and masterful translator remains dedicated to uncovering the full subtlety and intelligence of the stories in sacred texts. Excerpt:

Reading the Bible in Robert Alter’s translation helps to bring such moments of literary and human power into focus—thanks not just to his clear and elegant translation, but to the comprehensive notes that pinpoint exactly what is happening at crucial moments in the text. Ancient Israel is a perfect opportunity to return to these foundational Jewish stories and see them with fresh eyes—and what you find there may surprise you.

Posts on earlier sections of Alter's Bible translation are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here and follow the links back.

Job in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism

OPENING AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY:

Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies

Institution:
Indiana University

Posted:
June 10, 2013

Location:
Indiana

Employment Level:
Tenured, tenure track

Category:
Religion

Employment Status:
Full-time

Religious Studies: Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies- Bloomington, IN. Teach, research, and serve in Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism for the Department of Religious Studies. Req. PhD in Hebrew Bible/ Ancient Judaism. Applicants should email a letter of application and current resume to the Department Chair, Religious Studies, Indiana University, Prof. Winnifred Sullivan, . Indiana University is an equal employment opportunity/equal access/affirmative action employer and a provider of ADA services.

Follow the link to apply. HT James McGrath.

Wait, I thought they didn't know Aramaic!

ARAMAIC WATCH: An angel sings in Arabic … and Aramaic.

The young and beautiful Lebanese diva, Abeer Nehme, is blessed with the voice of an angel and a natural charm that occasionally borders on shyness. Abeer is totally endearing and she had the audience spellbound from the moment she stepped on stage. Her programme was rooted in the religious traditions of the Middle East. She sang in Arabic, Syriac and Aramaic and she explained in French how each language has its own musical notation. At times the musical tone was set by the Middle eastern kanoun – a type of zither – and at times by an electric organ that gave me a strangely displaced sensation – it sounded more like being in church than being in Fes.

She does have a lovely voice.

More on that pulled BBC documentary

POLITICS: BBC Director General faces claims that political pressure led BBC to drop film on 'Jewish exile' (Middle East Monitor).

Six leading pro-Palestinian organisations have written to the BBC's Director General asking for answers over the pulling of a documentary which claims that the mass Jewish exodus from Jerusalem in 70 AD may never have happened.

The documentary, Jerusalem: An Archaeological Mystery Story, was due to be shown on BBC Four, but disappeared from the schedule at the last minute, leaving viewers confused.

Its director, Ilan Ziv, has accused the BBC of bowing to political pressure in its decision to suddenly remove a film which it had been promoting widely.

[...]

As near as I can figure out, the issue here is that the documentary "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." (From a JTA article noted here). Presumably this notion (I am not ready to call it a "theory") coheres with the Palestinian narrative and thus the protests from Palestinian groups over the documentary not being aired. But it is still not clear to me exactly why the BBC pulled the show in the first place. Follow the last link for earlier coverage of the story and more comments from me.

Merkabah Rider

A WESTERN-HORROR NOVEL ABOUT A BADASS JEWISH MYSTIC: Merkabah Rider: Tales of a High Planes Drifter.

When is a roof a domain?

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSH IN TABLET: Why the Talmud Draws Imaginary Lines All Around Us—and Over Our Heads: Daf Yomi: Our literary critic ambles over rooftops, ruins, and ships, in search of meaning in Jewish commentary.

Earlier columns are noted here and links.

Apocryphal posts

APOCRYPHA WATCH: You’re reading the wrong Book of Esther (Joel J. Miller).

And, related, Philip Jenkins has a blog post up on how Protestants came to lose the Apocrypha.

Imagining an Aramaic "voice"

ARAMAIC WATCH: Novelist Janice Weizman is Thinking in Aramaic, Writing in English. And it isn't easy.

St. Ephrem

SYRIAC WATCH: Yesterday was the Feast Day of St. Ephrem the Syrian.

ABC Radio on Vermes

AN AUSTRALIAN RADIO PROGRAM ON THE LATE GEZA VERMES: The Dead Sea Scrolls and Jesus: the life work of Geza Vermes.

Background here and links.

Berko Park

TRAVEL PIECE: Berko Park, aka ancient Tiberias: King Herod Antipas unwittingly built Tiberias directly over a Jewish cemetery. Luckily, some 130 years later, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai decided to purify the place (Aviva and Shmuel Bar-Am, Times of Israel).

Here's an old post on the Tiberias excavation and here's another that involves that cemetery in Tiberias (see the update). And, of course, there is much more on Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and other legends about him here and links.

Manuscripts

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Where to find ancient manuscripts? (Peter Head, ETC).

The answer seems obvious, but we keep managing to be surprised by it.

West Bank archaeological politics

SEBASTIA: Stuck between Israel and PA, key archaeological site neglected: Ancient Israelite capital Sebastia, site of important Roman and Crusader ruins, lies unprotected because of security situation (AP).

Judaism in Transition: Conference in Berlin

IN HONOR OF PETER SCHÄFER: Konferenz am 2. und 3. Juli 2013: Judaism in Transition. Crossing Boundaries in Time and Space: From the Hellenistic-Roman World to Babylonia, from the Orient to Medieval Europe.

A rich man should dress the part

THE WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: The Talmud Paints a Vivid Picture of Jewish Family Life in This Week’s Daf Yomi: Daf Yomi: Our literary critic discovers more rules on male authority, Shabbat meals, and how the rabbis thought about wealth.

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

The DSS and the IRS

SOME LITTLE-KNOWN DEAD SEA SCROLLS LITIGATION: A Bit Of Ancient History Dead Sea Scrolls In Tax Court (Peter J Reilly, Forbes).

In the future, planners would use the non-recognition of sales to grantor trust to great advantage in estate planning. Here it amounted to an income tax disaster.

Latest on tomb of R. Shimon bar Yochai

CONSTRUCTION: Bar Yochai Tomb in Meron Gets New Access Road (Arutz Sheva). Background on Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his tomb is here and links.

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.