The Talmud and Israeli culture

THE TALMUD BLOG: “What does the Talmud Have to Offer Israeli Culture?” Yair Lipshitz and Moulie Vidas in Conversation on the Value of Talmud Study, the Beginnings of Talmudic Culture, and the Talmud’s Role in Israeli Society.

Job and his wife in Syriac

ADAM MCCOLLUM: A Syriac fragment on Job and his wife: Text and translation.

Hbd to me

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! I'm taking the day off and going to Edinburgh, but I'll leave you a couple of things before I go.

Coin find in Bethsaida

RECENTLY EXCAVATED: The ancient coin of Cleopatra: There could have been pyramids in Paris. Found in an archaeological dig in Bethsaida, this rare bronze coin tells of love, trade ties and globe-shaking jealousies. And what if Marc Antony had won the war? (Miriam Feinberg Vamosh, Haaretz). Excerpt:

A few thousand years is a mere blink of an eye when it comes to the vital ties between this land and Egypt, as attested by a rare coin carrying historical weight far greater than its 7.59 grams, which depicts the notorious lovers – and which emerged last year from the ruins of a first-century house at Tel Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee.

Tel Bethsaida rises from the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee, but the coin was minted in another city by another sea – the Mediterranean port of Akko - today better known as Acre. The coin, made of bronze, is about the size of a quarter, being 21–23 millimeters in diameter (it is not perfectly round, at least not any more). Its date shows that it was minted in the last half of the year 35 or the first half of 34 BCE.

Mark Antony, the most powerful man in the world at the time, is on one side of the coin and Cleopatra graces the other. On her side are the Greek words “of the people of Ptolemais.”

The article also indulges in a little counterfactual history:

Had Antony not lost the battle of Actium in 31 BCE, there might have been a dramatic change in the history of the Western civilization, [Prof. Rami] Arav says.

“We can only imagine what could have happened to Western civilization if the capital of the empire was not Rome, but Alexandria," Arav says. "Until Augustus turned it ‘from a mudbrick city to marble’ Rome was a very unimpressive town. It could have remained an unimportant city on an insignificant peninsula of Italy, way in the west, where according to the Greeks, demons and giants lived.”

When pressed to imagine what could indeed have happened, Arav, says: “I am not sure that we would be worshipping cats today or building pyramids, but Greek could have been much more important than it was and perhaps the rise of Europe in the 15th century would not have happened. Who knows?”

I thought the West was worshipping cats today, at least judging from the Internet. And as for pyramids in Paris, the headline writer needs to visit the Louvre, or at least rent a DVD of The Da Vinci Code.

Freyne obit

OBITUARY FOR SEAN FREYNE IN THE IRISH TIMES: Eminent theologian Seán Freyne dies.

Background here.

Talmudic philology, the Tower of London, and NT background

THIS WEEKS DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: How the Talmud Has Bridged the Gaps Between Various Jewish Cultures for Ages: By imbuing even the most mundane things—like vinegar—with importance, the rabbis find proof of sacred history. Excerpt:

There is, then, a great gulf of time and space, a historical rupture, inscribed within the Talmud itself. The Amoraim are often reduced to guesswork when they try to figure out the Mishnah’s exact meaning and, still more often, its exact authorship. They are constantly asking which Tanna held which opinion, and why, and how you can tell. Frequently, they have to deduce what a given Tanna thought by analogy: If he said X regarding one subject, he must have said Y regarding another. At least as much energy is devoted to these questions as to the substance of the laws themselves.

Sometimes, as we saw in the Daf Yomi reading this week, the loss of knowledge is still more profound, when the very meanings of words used in the Mishnah are forgotten. In Pesachim 39a, for instance, the Mishnah lists the species of vegetables that can be used to make maror, the bitter herbs eaten on Passover: chazeret, tamcha, charchavina, ulshin. But these names conveyed nothing to the Aramaic-speaking rabbis of the Gemara, who had to translate them into their own language: chasa, hindvei, tamachta.

And the chain of translation doesn’t end there. Over the next 500 years, the meaning of these plant names was lost again, and so Rashi, commenting on the Talmud in the 11th century, had to try to figure out their French equivalents: hindvei, in old French, was krespelah. And in the last thousand years, krespelah itself was forgotten, so now we English-speakers have to guess at what Rashi was talking about. According to the Schottenstein Talmud, it is probably what we call endive, or possibly escarole.

Philologists today spend their time trying to understand the meaning of ancient texts like the Talmud, the meaning of whose vocabulary and grammar has often been forgotten over the centuries.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

And on a somewhat related note: Reading the Talmud in the Tower of London (Stephen Grosby, Library of Law and Liberty; via Jacob L. Wright on Facebook).

On March 4, 1629, John Selden, the most learned man in England, was imprisoned in the Tower of London. He had been arrested on charges of conspiracy and sedition against King Charles I. The question is: what did Selden choose to read while imprisoned?

You have to read for a while to reach the answer, but it's there already in the title.

The question can no longer be put off. What did Selden study while imprisoned in the Tower of London? The answer to our question is: the Babylonian Talmud.

Now, a different question arises: Why did he do so? ...

Basically the answer is for New Testament background. Now Professor Grosby at this point gives the somewhat misleading impression that New Testament scholars still draw on the Talmud for NT background. In fact, they stay away from (or at least they should stay away from) the Gemara, which consists mostly of traditions attributed to the much later Amoraim. The Mishnah consists of traditions attributed to the Tannaim, who lived from the first to the third centuries CE. The earliest layers of this material are potentially relevant to the New Testament, but great care must be taken to establish the date of these traditions not only on the basis of attribution to the earlier rabbis (which is unreliable), but also on the basis of the stratigraphic relationship with older traditions in the Mishnah. It's complicated.

All that said, I can totally relate to Selden. I hope I never end up locked in the Tower of London, but in the unlikely event that I do, I will probably take similar reading material with me.

More on those DSS fragments for sale

STILL ON SALE: American Evangelical Collectors Buy Up Dead Sea Scroll Fragments (Daniel Estrin, PRI's The World). Excerpt:

But there’s a handful of fragments that Israel doesn’t have. The source is William Kando, whose father, Khalil, a Palestinian Christian, became the main dealer of Dead Sea Scrolls after Bedouin Arabs first found them in the late 1940s.

But he held onto one important scroll. In 1967, Israel detained William’s father, and he confessed he’d hidden it: the longest Dead Sea Scroll ever discovered.

“My father (kept) it at home, in a very good condition,” Kando said. It was stored in a shoe box under a floor tile in his bedroom.

Israel bought the scroll from him. But he had more scroll fragments hidden throughout the house. Kando says his father put them in a safe deposit box in Switzerland.

When Kando’s father died in 1993, his children inherited the collection. Very quietly, they began to sell.

Kando has kept the rest of this story quiet. He has approached manuscript dealers in the US, including Lee Biondi in California

Lots of background here. Also Loren Stuckenbruck tells me that there is an Aramaic manuscript of the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36) currently in Switzerland (I don't know if it is one of Kando's), the asking price for which is I-don't-remember-how-many-million dollars. I also don't know if the latter has any connection with the 1 Enoch manuscript mentioned in this post.

Sean Freyne R.I.P.

SAD NEWS: I hear from Benjamin Wold on Facebook that Professor Sean Freyne died yesterday. He taught at the School of Religions and Theology, University of Dublin, Trinity College, and was known particularly for his research on the ancient Galilee and on the Historical Jesus. Requiescat in pace.

UPDATE: Larry Hurtado has more here.

Secunda, The Iranian Talmud

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS:

The Iranian Talmud
Reading the Bavli in Its Sasanian Context
Shai Secunda

272 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth Nov 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4570-7 | $55.00s | £36.00 | Add to cart
Ebook Nov 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0904-4 | $55.00s | £36.00 | About | Add to cart
A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series
View table of contents and excerpt

"Shai Secunda not only persuades his readers of the need for contextual study of the Bavli but also facilitates such study by educating them about the religious and ethnic communities of the Sasanian empire, the forms of literary and nonliterary evidence available, and appropriate methodological and theoretical approaches to the comparative study of Talmudic and Middle Persian literature. The Iranian Talmud will be the first sustained attempt both to demystify the project of Irano-Talmudic research and to provide a basic orientation to it."—Christine Hayes, Yale University

Although the Babylonian Talmud, or Bavli, has been a text central and vital to the Jewish canon since the Middle Ages, the context in which it was produced has been poorly understood. Delving deep into Sasanian material culture and literary remains, Shai Secunda pieces together the dynamic world of late antique Iran, providing an unprecedented and accessible overview of the world that shaped the Bavli.

Secunda unites the fields of Talmudic scholarship with Old Iranian studies to enable a fresh look at the heterogeneous religious and ethnic communities of pre-Islamic Iran. He analyzes the intercultural dynamics between the Jews and their Persian Zoroastrian neighbors, exploring the complex processes and modes of discourse through which these groups came into contact and considering the ways in which rabbis and Zoroastrian priests perceived one another. Placing the Bavli and examples of Middle Persian literature side by side, the Zoroastrian traces in the former and the discursive and Talmudic qualities of the latter become evident. The Iranian Talmud introduces a substantial and essential shift in the field, setting the stage for further Irano-Talmudic research.

Shai Secunda is a scholar at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and coeditor of Shoshannat Yaakov: Jewish and Iranian Studies in Honor of Yaakov Elman (with Steven Fine).

The book also has a website here.

LXX varia

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Announcing the Septuagint Studies Soirée.

Also:

The triennial meeting of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament is happening right now in Munich (4-9 August). A meeting of The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies took place in Munich on 1-3 August, where the meeting of the International Organization of Targumic Studies is also about to start.

T. Michael Law is interviewed at First Things about his book When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible. (UPDATE: It seems that there is a blog tour of the book.)

Nijay Gupta: The Importance of the Septuagint (Even for Pastors…) Part 1 and The Importance of the Septuagint (The Apocrypha) Part II. Also, Deissmann’s Passion for the Septuagint!

Reza Aslan

THE NOW INFAMOUS INTERVIEW of Reza Aslan by Fox News presenter Lauren Green has had the Biblioblogosphere all abuzz for the last couple of weeks. If you haven't seen it yet, here it is:



I've been following the story, but haven't had time until now to post on it. Briefly, Professor Aslan has published a book on the Historical Jesus. Ms. Green handles the interview badly by belaboring the fact that he is a Muslim and wondering why a Muslim should have any interest in Jesus. Professor Aslan gets the better of the interview overall, but he in turn embarrassingly belabors his own credentials (if you need to mention more than once that you have a Ph.D., you've lost the frame) and makes claims about their relevance to the subject matter of the book which have not gone undisputed.

I have not read the book, but such reviews as I have seen indicate that it says nothing new or particularly interesting, covering well-traveled ground and reaching conclusions that are somewhere between debatable and outdated. To be fair, it is exceedingly difficult these days to write a book about the Historical Jesus which doesn't share these flaws. The ground is simply too well covered by experts already and our very limited sources simply cannot tell us much more about Jesus than they already have.

Here are links to reviews by novelist Naomi Alderman in The Forward: Separating Jesus the Man From the Myth and by (well-known to PaleoJudaica) literary critic Adam Kirsch: Jesus Was a Rebel and a Bandit. What Made Him Also the Christian Son of God? Aldeman's evaluation is very positive and Kirsch's positive but with qualifications. Of special interest are reviews by two biblical scholars: Greg Carey: Reza Aslan on Jesus: A Biblical Scholar Responds; and Anthony LeDonne: A Usually Happy Fellow Reviews Aslan’s Zealot – Le Donne. Both are highly critical and Le Donne's is brutal.

As for Professor Aslan's credentials as a biblical scholar, Matthew J. Franck has a detailed evaluation of his claims: Reza Aslan Misrepresents His Scholarly Credentials. In Did Reza Aslan Lie about His Credentials? - Le Donne Anthony LeDonne regards Franck's post to be "motivated by religious distrust" and indirectly rebuts part of it in the discussion that follows. In what follows he quotes some criticisms from Stephen Prothero on Facebook and a defense from the supervisor of Aslan's dissertation, Mark Juergensmeyer, and then concludes that indeed some of Aslan's claims in the interview are problematical:

What Prothero says about his expertise in NT Studies still stands. I have now read the book and I can say (without question) that Zealot is not written by an author conversant with the field of NT studies or Second Temple Judaism more generally. More on this point in the coming days.

As to the credentials issue, where Aslan might be in the biggest danger of falsehood is in his claim to be a teacher of religious studies, or that he does this "for a living". He is not a religious studies instructor in the traditional sense of that title. A colleague of his from Riverside has confirmed this for me.

No doubt, he overplayed his credentials, but there is a difference between setting the record right and tearing a colleague to shreds.

Buzzfeed also collects some of Professor Aslan's more acerbic tweets: Author Attacked By Fox News Is Actually Kind Of A Jerk On Twitter (strong language warning). I realize that the tweets are doubtless selected from a much larger output, but still. Call me old fashioned, but I think this kind of rhetoric fails to show scholarly dignity. But here's an interview with the Boston Globe in which he speaks in a more scholarly mode.

There is much more in the blogosphere about the whole episode and about Professor Aslan's book. Returning to the issue that started the whole episode, I can say with confidence that having Muslim scholars do original work in New Testament studies is something most New Testament specialists would welcome. There was a time in the early 90s when it was PC to think that only those "within the tradition" should publish scholarly work in any given area of religious studies. I thought then and still think that this idea is unhelpful and corrosive. Muslim scholars should publish on Christianity, Christian scholars on Judaism, and Jewish scholars on Islam. And fill in all the rest of the permutations. And, of course, add agnostics, atheists, etc. In the first place, we as historians and historians of religion are all following the same scholarly approach, which at least aims for objectivity in its results, so there is scope for considerable agreement. In the second place, scholars coming out of different religious traditions will start with somewhat different assumptions, interests, and focuses, and are likely to see avenues worth following up which those "within the tradition" or from other traditions might miss, even though the latter would recognize the importance of those avenues once pointed out.

If this little episode causes us to think in a constructive way about what we are doing as scholars and how each of us can contribute, some good will have come of it.

UPDATE: The story has now found its way into the New York Times: Return of the Jesus Wars (Ross Douthat).

UPDATE (6 August): The book is reviewed in the NYT by Dale B. Martin: Still a Firebrand, 2,000 Years Later: ‘Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth’. The review concludes:

By profession, Mr. Aslan is not a scholar of ancient Judaism or Christianity. He teaches creative writing. And he is a good writer. “Zealot” is not innovative or original scholarship, but it makes an entertaining read. It is also a serious presentation of one plausible portrait of the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

UPDATE: Another review, by Charlotte Allen in the L.A. Times: Reza Aslan's 'new' take on Jesus: The controversy over his book about Jesus' life misses the point.

Ancient Jewish village found in the Galilee

EXCAVATION: Samford Archaeological Dig in Israel uncovers Jewish village (Greg Garrison, Al.com).

The remains include an ancient synagogue, houses and massive evidence of pottery production in the ancient Jewish village of Shikhin, near the ancient Jewish city of Sepphoris (Zippori). The site is important because it teaches about Galilean Jewish village life and its economy at the birth of both Christianity and the Judaism of the Talmud, according to [excavator] Dr. [James Riley] Strange. The sites are about five miles northwest of Nazareth.

“The site of the discovery has been abandoned, except for agriculture, ever since the mid-fourth century A.D.,” said Strange. “The buildings came down and people used its stones in other nearby buildings, then those buildings were destroyed and the stones were re-used again.”

Mosaics at Tzippori

MORE ON MOSAICS IN ISRAEL: In bits and pieces: Mosaic splendor at Tzippori: From the Akeda to ‘Mona Lisa of the Galilee,’ the wine drinking contest of Heracles and Dionysus, and the angels telling Sarah and Abraham of their impending parenthod, Tzippori is a wealth of ancient art (Aviva and Shmuel Bar-Am, Times of Israel).

Earlier posts on Tzippori/Zippori/Sepphoris are collected here. And there's lots more on mosaics in Israel here.

Lim, The Formation of the Jewish Canon

FORTHCOMING BOOK: Timothy H. Lim, The Formation of the Jewish Canon (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library; Yale University Press, October 2013).

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls provides unprecedented insight into the nature of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament before its fixation. Timothy Lim here presents a complete account of the formation of the canon in Ancient Judaism from the emergence of the Torah in the Persian period to the final acceptance of the list of twenty-two/twenty-four books in the Rabbinic period.

Using the Hebrew Bible, the Scrolls, the Apocrypha, the Letter of Aristeas, the writings of Philo, Josephus, the New Testament, and Rabbinic literature as primary evidence he argues that throughout the post-exilic period up to around 100 CE there was not one official “canon” accepted by all Jews; rather, there existed a plurality of collections of scriptures that were authoritative for different communities. Examining the literary sources and historical circumstances that led to the emergence of authoritative scriptures in ancient Judaism, Lim proposes a theory of the majority canon that posits that the Pharisaic canon became the canon of Rabbinic Judaism in the centuries after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.

Why blog, indeed?

MARK GOODACRE has a recent series of posts on academic blogging. PaleoJudaica comes up repeatedly with much praise. Thanks Mark!

Why blog?

Academic blogging: When and Why?

Academic Blogging: What are the benefits?

Megatron, Metatron, whatever.

ARCHANGEL METATRON WATCH: Megatron & Metatron (& Supernatural & Star Wars & Voltron) (Photos) (Mariano Grinbank, The Examiner).

The information about the Enoch and Metatron mythology is pretty accurate, although Metatron appears only in 3 Enoch, not 1 Enoch or 2 Enoch.

For Metatron in Supernatural, see here.

Lucid dreaming of angels

EXPLANATION: Biblical visions of angels may have actually been lucid dreams: Fifteen patients in an experiment reported experiencing a lucid dream state and encountering angels during that time. (Live Science, via Mother Nature Network*).

Sleep researchers say they have established that many of the visions of angels and other religious encounters described in the Bible were likely "the products of spontaneous lucid dreams."

In a sleep study by the Out-Of-Body Experience Research Center in Los Angeles, 30 volunteers were instructed to perform a series of mental steps upon waking up or becoming lucid during the night that might lead them to have out-of-body experiences culminating in perceived encounters with an angel. Half of them succeeded, the researchers said.

Specifically, the volunteers were told to try to re-create the story of Elijah, a prophet who is referenced in the Talmud, the Bible and the Quran. In one of the stories in the Bible's Book of Kings, Elijah flees to the wilderness and falls asleep under a juniper tree, exhausted and prepared to die. Suddenly an angel shakes him awake and tells him to eat. He looks around and, to his surprise, sees a loaf of bread baked on some coals and a jug of water. Elijah eats the meal and goes back to sleep. Lead researcher Michael Raduga said this event was chosen from among a multitude of biblical passages involving religious visions during the night, because, "in terms of verifiable results, angels were the ideal choice, as Western culture provides a relatively well-established image for them (wings, white robes, halos, etc.)."

The research, which has not been reviewed by peers for scientific publication, does garner support from some dreams researchers who were not involved in Raduga's study. They said the findings support further inquiry into the basis of such religious visions. One dream expert, however, pointed out that many religious tales of angelic encounters occurred in daytime, which suggests they could not have been dreams.

[...]

Because evidently that expert was unfamiliar with the concept of the "afternoon nap."

Seriously, although this project—as the article forthrightly admits—was not peer reviewed and doesn't have any clear scientific validity, it does offer some anectodal support to the idea that various types of altered states of consciousness, especially when properly prepped by the active imagination, can result in visions of angels. I think it is likely that this sort of thing is behind some of the ancient biblical, apocalyptic, and mystical accounts of supernatural visions. More on that here, here, and here.

*Published originally in December of 2011. Don't know how I missed it.

Ghost of an ancient "friendship" tablet?

THIS ANCIENT BRONZE TABLET may have existed after all: Israeli Historian Proves Roman-Jewish 'Friendship' Tablet: Tablet turns the world of historical research upside down; cites ancient Jewish warrior "Judah Maccabee" (Hana Levi Julian, Arutz Sheva). Excerpt:

The article authored by Dr. Linda Zollschan, which appears in Classica Et Mediaevalia, the Danish Journal of Philology and History, Volume 63, proves a long-gone bronze tablet displaying ‘friendship’ between Rome and Israel’s Jews did indeed exist. The research has overturned previous assertions to the contrary.

Ancient writers – Josephus, Justinus and Eusebius – have all made reference to the fact that the Jews received “friendship” (a technical term for diplomatic ties, just below formal diplomatic relations) from the Romans. Memory of this event was preserved through oral and written tradition into the Middle Ages on a bronze tablet that once hung in the Church of San Basilio in Rome, says Zollschan in her article.

“The bronze tablet had been well known, for it was remembered after it had disappeared from sight and given attention in the Mirabilia, a guidebook which had wide currency and was still being reprinted and used into the sixteenth century,” Zollschan explains.

“The tablet was singled out for attention because of its mention of Judas Maccabaeus who was held in high regard in the Middle Ages. The story of the Maccabaean revolt against the Seleucid king served as an allegory of the battles of the Church against its enemies. The success of the Jews with G-d’s help was also considered an uplifting exemplar of military leadership and later (during the Crusades) as the defender of Jerusalem.”

That it was inscribed on bronze defines it as an inscription that had significance in its own right, and that it was not used as building material, as were so many stone inscriptions, she adds. Its text, which contained mention of Judas Maccabeaeus — Judah Maccabee – gave it a religious significance, reminding the viewer of Judah the warrior, aided by G-d, who succeeded against overwhelming odds in his battle against the Syrian Seleucid army.

Till now, most historians in the field have believed the tablet – which has not been seen in centuries – was only a myth confused with one inscribed in stone.

“There are several indicators to be considered that speak for the tablet’s authenticity,” Zollschan argues in her article.

The rhetoric in the Arutz Sheva article is, frankly, embarrassing. The world of historical research has not been turned upside done or even joggled. I haven't read the Danish article and I know better than to judge it on the basis of a summary in a popular article like this, but the case here certainly doesn't constitute "proof." It is a very interesting argument, though. Against it is that the artifact, if it ever existed, is now lost, and fabricated ancient relics are hardly a rarity in Rome. In its favor are some elements of the description of the artifact that could point to it having been real and genuinely ancient.

Last day to register for BNTC 2013!

REGISTRATION FOR THE 2013 MEETING OF THE BRITISH NEW TESTAMENT CONFERENCE in St. Andrews (29-31 August) at the standard rate is still open and you can book online here. Registration closes TODAY, so this is your last chance!

Job in postbiblical Judaism

JOB AT MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY: Assistant Professor of Religious Studies.

The Department of Religious Studies anticipates an August 2014 opening for an assistant professor specializing in post-biblical Judaism, tenure eligible. The department is particularly interested in scholars of rabbinic, medieval, or early modern Judaism, whose research interests engage fields such as classical texts and/or biblical commentary, gender studies, or interreligious encounter. The successful candidate will teach undergraduate and M.A. courses in Judaism and will regularly teach one of the department’s survey courses. The candidate is expected to pursue an active research agenda and provide service to the department, college, and university.

Further particulars and application information are at the link.

Via Leslie Baynes on Facebook.

Talmud stuff

SEVERAL ITEMS PERTAINING TO THE TALMUD have accrued while I was away. First, Adam Kirsch has published two new Daf Yomi columns in Tablet.

In the Shadow of the Divine, Reaping Unintended Benefits at the Edges of the Law. Daf Yomi: A closer look at the Holy of Holies provides a fascinating illustration of how the rabbis of the Talmud read the Bible.

The Mishnah says that, as long as it is permitted to eat the chametz—that is, until the sixth hour of the day before Passover—it can also be sold to a non-Jew. After that point, when eating it is prohibited, “its benefit is forbidden,” so that one cannot even “fire an oven or stove with it.” This seemingly simple rule gives rise to a very long and complicated discussion in the Gemara. Why, the rabbis ask, does the Mishnah extend the ban on chametz from eating it to all forms of benefiting from it? What is the biblical basis for this law? After all, in Exodus 13:3 God tells Moses: “Remember this day, in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place; there shall no leavened bread be eaten.” How does “eaten” get interpreted to mean “used in any way”?

The reason, we learn, comes from a general rule of biblical interpretation, attributed to Abahu: “Wherever it is stated one shall not eat, or you shall not eat, both a prohibition against eating and a prohibition against benefit are indicated, unless Scripture specifies otherwise.” For the next several pages, other Amoraim cite a number of biblical verses meant either to support or to challenge Abahu’s rule. In the process, they offer a fascinating illustration of how the rabbis of the Talmud read the Bible.

The Talmud, in Seeking To Eliminate Ambiguity, Maps the Invisible Onto the Visible. Daf Yomi: Much of the rabbinical ingenuity is devoted to figuring out how to draw clear lines in murky situations.

The Talmud’s need to fix the status of rice, to decide whether it belongs in the category of chametz or not, is one example of an impulse we saw at work several times in this week’s Daf Yomi reading: the need to eliminate ambiguities. The rabbis are deeply uneasy with what we now call “liminal states”—moments of uncertainty and transition, when it’s impossible to say exactly what something is or what category it belongs to. In our multicultural, postmodern society, liminality is usually prized: American Jews in particular glory in it, refusing to let one term of their identity constrain the other. But for the rabbis, in the words of the old song, it’s gotta be this or that: tamei or tahor, permitted or forbidden. Much of the Talmud’s ingenuity is devoted to figuring out how to draw clear lines in murky situations.

Second, Episode Two of BBC Radio 4's series The Story of the Talmud is now online.

Third, at Exploring Our Matrix, James McGrath relays some Talmudic Humor, with (of course) commentary.

BNTC registration closes tomorrow!

REGISTRATION FOR THE 2013 MEETING OF THE BRITISH NEW TESTAMENT CONFERENCE in St. Andrews (29-31 August) at the standard rate is still open and you can book online here. Registration closes tomorrow, on 31 July, so why not register now?

Law, When God Spoke Greek

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why should we care about the Septuagint? (OUP Blog). A profile of T. Michael Law's When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible. For an interview with Law, go here.

I have a huge blogging backlog, but more pressing backlogs of work have to take precedence. I will try to catch up this week.

Enoch Seminar, Camaldoli, La Verna, and Rome

THE SEVENTH ENOCH SEMINAR was very successful. The subject was the Enochic literature and the Synoptic Gospels. By the end of the conference there was a pretty broad consensus that at least some of the writers of the Synoptics knew some of the Enochic literature. I had thought so anyway before I came, and a good many other attenders had as well, but more thought so at the end than at the beginning.

Aside from that generalization, I'm not going to talk in detail about the conference. If you want to join, you can read the current drafts of the papers at the Enoch Seminar website. And note the past posts on the Second Enoch Seminar (links are dead, sorry), the Fifth Enoch Seminar (with links), and the Sixth Enoch Seminar (with links).

But I do want to share some historical varia with you from this trip. Click on the images to enlarge them.

The Enoch Seminar met in and stayed at the guest house of the Monastery of Camaldoli in the mountains of Tuscany.

This was the view from the window of my room at sunrise.

On a day trip we visited the Hermitage of Camaldoli, which in 2012 had celebrated the 1000-year anniversary of its founding. (Apparently historians say the founding was actually closer to 1025 but, hey, who's counting?) This is the church at the Hermitage.

Here's the ceiling of a side room of the church, which is decorated with the four cherubim in 1930s Art Deco style.

On the same day trip we visited the Monastery of La Verna, founded by St. Francis of Assisi. They are celebrating the 800th anniversary of its founding this year. Above is a view of the Basilica.

Here is the cloak St. Francis was wearing when he received the stigmata.

Regular readers may remember that in 2013 the University of St. Andrews is celebrating the 600th anniversary of its founding, an anniversary of which we are justly very proud. But I have to admit that visiting Camaldoli and La Verna kind of made me feel like a newb.

That takes us to Friday. Onward then to Rome. I am grateful to my friend Ally, on whom I descended at the weekend, demanding to be shown all of the antiquities in Rome in one day. We didn't quite make it to all of them, but we did all right. She trekked with me through the area all around the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, sharing her extensive local knowledge.

The Roman Forum.

The Colosseum.

The highlight of my Rome trip was a visit to the Arch of Titus.

Here's Ally standing next to the Arch.

And here's a close-up of the relief to the right of her, which shows the triumphal Roman procession carrying the spoils plundered from the Jerusalem Temple after the defeat of the Jewish Revolt in 70 CE. The golden menora is especially visible. Josephus witnessed the scene and described it in the Jewish War. Earlier PaleoJudaica posts involving the Arch of Titus are here, here, here, and here. Some posts on the looted Temple menorah and associated artifacts are here, here, here, and links.

Heading back

EXCELLENT ENOCH SEMINAR, followed by a whirlwind tour of antiquities in Rome. I'm heading to the airport now to return to Scotland. Photos and trip commentary to follow in due course.

Cats revisited

REVISITING AN IMPORTANT QUESTION: More on Semitic cats (Rebecca Lesses at Mystical Politics). John Huenhergard has an article out on Semitic words for "cat." Cool.

Background here.

The downside of the Golem legend

GOLEM WATCH: Jeremy Rosen is not amused by the Golem legend: The Golem Disease: The super hero myth is dangerous because it is an excuse for inaction and fantasy. Excerpt:

But by publicizing and even glamorizing Golems, Dybbuks, evil spirits of the night, and mad kabbalists who could curse and perform miracles, these writers were able to make the association that played into the hands of our enemies and still does to this very day. It’s like depicting American culture through the prism of an era in which Americans murdered the so-called witches of Salem. But it also serves another purpose.

We are a culture that perpetuates the myth of Superman, Batman, Ironman, Captain Marvel, and all those comic book heroes, now Hollywood blockbusters, that tell us that some extremely powerful spirit can come to our rescue and remove evil and restore order. This is every child’s dream of overcoming adults, or every adult’s dream of overcoming whatever or whoever it is that either stands in his way, threatens him, or simply lives better than he does. It is dangerous because it is an excuse for inaction and fantasy. It is a justification for refusing to come to terms with a challenge because some sort of miraculous intervention will solve all our problems. It is like expecting the Messiah to com and sort out our personal problems.

Legitimate concerns, although I'm not sure anyone takes the Golem stories that seriously.

Much more on the Golem legend here and many links.

BNTC 2013: registration closes in 5 days

REGISTRATION FOR THE 2013 MEETING OF THE BRITISH NEW TESTAMENT CONFERENCE in St. Andrews (29-31 August) at the standard rate is still open and you can book online here. Registration closes in five days, on 31 July, so why not register now?

Ancient beer and ale

I'LL DRINK TO THAT: A Toast to Our Fermented Past: Case Studies in the Experimental Archaeology of Alcoholic Beverages (ASOR Blog).

More on resurrecting ancient beer here.

Thesis on the Gospel of the Savior

ALIN SUCIU: My PhD Thesis: Apocryphon Berolinense/Argentoratense (Previously Known as the Gospel of the Savior). Successfully defended and now available online. Well done.

Levinson, A More Perfect Torah

NEW BOOK FROM EISENBRAUNS:

A More Perfect Torah
At the Intersection of Philology and Hermeneutics in Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll

by Bernard M. Levinson
Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible - CSHB 1
Create a standing order for this series

Eisenbrauns, 2013

Description

The historical-critical method that characterizes academic biblical studies too often remains separate from approaches that stress the history of interpretation, which are employed more frequently in the area of Second Temple or Dead Sea Scrolls research. Inaugurating the new Eisenbrauns series, Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible, A More Perfect Torah explores a series of test-cases in which the two methods mutually reinforce one another. The volume brings together two studies that investigate the relationship between the composition history of the biblical text and its reception history at Qumran and in rabbinic literature.

The Temple Scroll is more than the blueprint for a more perfect Temple. It also represents the attempt to create a more perfect Torah. Its techniques for doing so are the focus of part 1, entitled “Revelation Regained: The Hermeneutics of KI and 'IM in the Temple Scroll.” This study illuminates the techniques for marking conditional clauses in ancient Near Eastern literature, biblical law, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It also draws new attention to the relationship between the Temple Scroll’s use of conditionals and the manuscript’s carefully organized spacing system for marking paragraphs. Syntax serves as a technique, no less than pseudepigraphy, to advance the Temple Scroll’s claim to be a direct divine revelation.

Part 2 is entitled “Reception History as a Window into Composition History: Deuteronomy’s Law of Vows as Reflected in Qoheleth and the Temple Scroll.” The law of vows in Deut 23:22-24 is difficult in both its syntax and its legal content. The difficulty is resolved once it is recognized that the law contains an interpolation that disrupts the original coherence of the law. The reception history of the law of vows in Numbers 20, Qoh 5:4–7, 11QTemple 53:11–14, and Sipre Deuteronomy confirms the hypothesis of an interpolation. Seen in this new light, the history of interpretation offers a window into the composition history of the biblical text.

The volume shows the significance of syntax and historical linguistics for understanding how ancient scribes established claims of religious and textual authority. Appendixes on the use of conditionals in biblical law and the Dead Sea Scrolls provide resources for further research.

Detecting expertise

LARRY HURTADO: Expertise and How to Detect It. Some good advice. James McGrath has additional comments in his post on Larry Hurtado on Expertise. See also my posts on consensus.

In praise of M. R. James

PHILIP JENKINS: JAMES THE GREAT. Lots of interesting information about James's work, some of which I did not know. I have collected a number of posts on Montague Rhodes James here and links.

Secret scriptures galore!

TONY BURKE:

More Secret Scriptures: John and the Young Bishop of Ephesus

In celebration of the release of my new book, Secret Scriptures Revealed: A New Introduction to the Christian Apocrypha, I am running a series of posts on texts that could not be included in the book due to space considerations (so many texts, so little room). The first of these is a story about the apostle John transmitted by Clement of Alexandria in his Quis dives salvetur (42.1-15). ...

Tony has three more posts (at Apocryphicity) on this topic as well:

More Secret Scriptures 2: Letters from Jesus to Peter and Paul

More Secret Scriptures 3: The Apocryphal Apocalypses of John

More Secret Scriptures 4: The Martyrdom of Pilate and the Lament of the Virgin

And related: Hugoye article on Syriac Infancy Gospel of Thomas now available.

Also, congratulations to Tony on the recent publication of the above-mentioned book: Secret Scriptures Revealed: A New Introduction to the Christian Apocrypha.

Throughout history, Christians have expressed their faith through story. They created texts featuring important early Christian figures - like Jesus, Peter, Paul, Mary Magdalene, and Judas - to express their relationships to God and to the world around them. Some of these texts are found in today's New Testament, but there is a wide assortment of other texts that are not included in the Bible. This book offers readers a guide to the Christian Apocrypha, beginning with a description of scholars' efforts to recover and reconstruct the texts, followed by examinations of a number of key texts. It responds to a number of misconceptions and common questions about the Apocrypha and finishes with a discussion of the enduring value of the Christian Apocrypha.

Arrived

IN CAMALDOLI after many misadventures that at least included Italian ice cream. Blogging on my iPod Touch with a very slow connection. My seminar is first thing in the morning, so off to bed now.

BNTC 2013: registration closes in 10 days

REGISTRATION FOR THE 2013 MEETING OF THE BRITISH NEW TESTAMENT CONFERENCE in St. Andrews (29-31 August) at the standard rate is still open and you can book online here. Registration closes in ten days, on 31 July, so why not register now?

7th Enoch Seminar

I'M OFF TO ITALY to attend the Seventh Enoch Seminar in Camaldoli and then for a bit of a holiday in Rome. As usual, I have pre-posted something for each day I am away and will blog as time and internet connections permit during the trip.

I am not going to give you my entire seminar handout, which summarizes a lot of work that I may publish in due course. But here is the first part, which gives you an outline of where I wish to take the discussion.

ROLES OF ANGELS AND DEMONS IN 1 ENOCH AND THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS*
1. Texts for Discussion
We will look closely at the following texts from the Synoptic Gospels with a view toward deciding whether they have been influenced by or (regardless of direct influence) they are illuminated by the traditions in 1 Enoch. Please read them and think about them in advance of the seminar.

• The Gerasene demoniac (Gadarene demoniacs)
  Mk 5:1-20 (//Matt 8:28-34; Luke 8:26-39)
  
• Angels and marriage
  Mk 12:18-27 esp. v. 25 (//Mt 22:23-33, esp. v. 30; Luke 20:27-40, esp. vv. 34-36)
  
• The eschatological punishment of angels
  Matt 25:31-46, esp. v. 41(M) (cf. Matt 13:36-43, esp. 41-42 [M])
  
• Satan falls like lightning from heaven
  Luke 10:17-20 (L)
  
• The process of possession
  Matt 12:43-45//Luke 11:24-26 (Q)
  
• The (arch)angel Gabriel
  Luke 1:5-38

Any texts from 1 Enoch are fair game to bring into the discussion, but the following may be of particular interest.

• The fall of the watchers: BW 6:1-8:4; 15:2-7; 16:2-3; 19:1
  
• The spirits of the giants: BW 10:9-10, 15; 15:8-9, 11-12; 16:1
  
• Satan: Par 53:3; 54:6
  
• The punishment of the watchers: Par 46:1-6; 48:10; 54:3-6; 55:4; 56:1-4
  
• The (arch)angel Gabriel: BW 9:1; 10:9-10; 20:7; 32:5-6; Par 40:2, 6, 9; 54:6; 71:8-9, 13; EDV 88:1-3; 87:2-4; 90:21

*Abbreviations: BW: The Book of the Watchers, 1 Enoch 1-36; Par: The Book of Parables, 1 Enoch 37-71; BL: The Book of the Luminaries, 1 Enoch 72-82; EDV: Enoch's Dream Visions, 1 Enoch 83-90; EE: The Epistle of Enoch, 1 Enoch 92:1-5, 93:11-105:2; AW: The Apocalypse of Weeks, 1 Enoch 93:1-10, 91:11-17; BN: The Birth of Noah, 1 Enoch 106-107; FBN: A Final Book by Enoch, 1 Enoch 108. There are no references to angels or evil spirits in A Narrative Bridge, 1 Enoch 91:1-10, 18-19. M stands for special Matthew material and L for special Luke material.

More McGrath on the Mandaeans

JAMES MCGRATH has a few additional recent posts up on the Mandaeans (Mandeans):

Society for Mandaean Studies
Discovering the Mandaeans
Mandaeism in Antiquity and the Antiquity of Mandaeism

More here.

Cross-file under "Aramaic Watch."

Boustan et al., Hekhalot Literature in Context

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Hekhalot Literature in Context
Between Byzantium and Babylonia
Ed. by Ra'anan Boustan, Martha Himmelfarb and Peter Schäfer
Over the past 30 years, scholars of early Jewish mysticism have, with increasing confidence, located the initial formation of Hekhalot literature in Byzantine Palestine and Sasanian or early Islamic Babylonia (ca. 500–900 C.E.), rather than at the time of the Mishnah, Tosefta, early Midrashim, or Palestinian Talmud (ca. 100–400 C.E.). This advance has primarily been achieved through major gains in our understanding of the dynamic and highly flexible processes of composition, redaction, and transmission that produced the Hekhalot texts as we know them today. These gains have been coupled with greater appreciation of the complex relationships between Hekhalot writings and the variegated Jewish literary culture of late antiquity, both within and beyond the boundaries of the rabbinic movement. Yet important questions remain regarding the specific cultural contexts and institutional settings out of which the various strands of Hekhalot literature emerged as well as the multiple trajectories of use and appropriation they subsequently travelled. In the present volume, an international team of experts explores—from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (e.g. linguistics, ritual and gender studies, intellectual history)—the literary formation, cultural meanings, religious functions, and textual transmission of Hekhalot literature.

This looks terrific. Follow the link for ToC and order information.

Noted earlier as forthcoming here.

The Synod of Diamper

PHILIP JENKINS: DIAMPER: UPROOTING THE ANCIENT CHURCH. In Kerala in 1599: a bonfire of the vanities of Syriac Christian apocrypha worthy of Savonarola himself.

Philip also has another post on the biblical canon of these Indian Christians in 1599: CORRECTIONS AND ERRORS.

Palace of David at Khirbet Qeiyafa?

BIBLE PLACES BLOG: Claim: Palace of David Discovered in the Foothills of Judah. This story is outside my area of expertise and tangential to the interests of PaleoJudaica, so I have not commented on it so far. But Todd Bolen sums up the current state of the discussion well.

Earlier posts on the numerous stories coming from Khirbet Qeiyafa can be found here and here, with many links.

The Yavneh Yam inscription

A HEBREW OSTRACON: Ancient email: Letter on pottery fragment dates back 2,600 years: It could have been an email to the boss about an unfair manager, but this letter on a pottery fragment from Metzad Hashavyahu dates back to the time of King Josiah. (Mike Rogoff, Haaretz). Excerpt:

The voices of history are typically those of rulers, generals and court historians. The little guy is seldom heard. This ostracon, as an inscribed potsherd is called, was discovered in 1960, in the excavation of a 7th-century BCE Judean fort on the southern Mediterranean shore between Jaffa and Ashdod; and the plaint in this makeshift ceramic notepad could as well have been a desperate email.

The location seems to have been at the port town of Yavneh-Yam, during the reign of the biblical king Josiah. Scholars are divided, however, as to who controlled the garrison: the king in Jerusalem or the pharaoh reasserting Egyptian power along the coastal plain.

Actually, I think formal complaints against an employer of this type usually still come in hard copy. But be that as it may, this is a nice profile of one of the most interesting Iron Age Hebrew ostraca ever to be uncovered, one that may allude to a biblical law.

Deir al-Surian library renovated

FINALLY, SOME GOOD NEWS FROM EGYPT:

New building for ancient desert library
Coptic monastery of Deir al-Surian in Egyptian desert was established in the sixth century

By Martin Bailey. Conservation, Issue 248, July-August 2013 (The Art Newspaper)
Published online: 17 July 2013

One of the world’s earliest libraries—well over a millennium old—finally has its first dedicated building. The Coptic monastery of Deir al-Surian (the monastery of the Syrians), in the Egyptian desert, was established in the sixth century and some of its manuscripts were collected by its abbot during a trip to Baghdad in AD927.

The new building opened in May, in a two-storey structure nestling within the monastery’s tenth-century walls. It includes a reading room, a small display area, conservation facilities and a basement store, all of which are secure and maintain proper environmental conditions.

Although some of the collection was acquired by the Vatican Library in the 18th century and more went to the British Museum’s library in the 19th century, 1,000 bound manuscripts and 1,500 manuscript fragments remain at Deir al-Surian. These texts are in Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopic and Arabic. They include the earliest dated Christian literary manuscript (AD411), the earliest dated Biblical manuscript (AD459) and the earliest dated Gospel manuscript (AD510). Some of these texts were discovered in 1998 in rubble underneath a wooden floor.

[...]

Specialists are also cataloging the contents of the library.

This is very good news. I have been following the story of the Deir al-Surian monastery library since 2006, when efforts to renovate it began. Despite all the upheavals in Egypt, the new building is done and in use. Background here and follow the links back to 2006.

Boston DSS exhibit

REVIEW: Dead Sea Scrolls put in context at Boston Museum of Science exhibit (Sarah Earle, Concord Monitor).

Background here and links.

The Story of the Talmud, part 1

BBC RADIO 4: The Story of the Talmud (Episode 1 of 2).

In the first of two programmes, Rabbi Naftali Brawer delves into one of the greatest books ever written holding the key to unlocking Jewish thinking and history. Traveling to Jerusalem, he gains rare access to one of the world's leading ultra-orthodox yeshivas - the Mir. Here he finds young men who will study these ancient Hebrew and Aramaic texts, full time, for anything up to 30 or 40 years. They explain how arguing and debate are the ways to understand the ancient wisdom of the rabbis that have contributed to the Talmud though the ages and still telling you everything you need to know to be a Jew today. The Talmud is not about the arrival but the journey and it's less about about finding answers than discovering what the questions are.

Tracing the history of the Talmud, Rabbi Naftali heads to the Galilee to the archaeological site of Beit She'arim, the remains of an ancient city, where shortly after the destruction of the 2nd Temple, the first words of this book were written down. He discovers that the Talmud was an audacious project defying one of the key Jewish laws which forbade writing down the Oral Laws of Moses. Its creation was deemed necessary in order to preserve Jewish culture and practice which, at this time, was facing extinction.

Rabbi Naftali meets some of the greatest Jewish minds and scholars in the world today: Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, described by Time Magazine as a 'one in a millennium scholar', who has published his own edition of the Talmud; Gila Fine - one of the growing number of female orthodox academics working with the Talmud.

The programme ends with a moving story from leading Talmudic scholar and holocaust survivor, David Weiss Halivni, who explains how the Talmud sustained him in the concentration camps.

Temple Institute and (possible) Temple beams

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Tisha B'Av has generated a number of Jewish Temple-related items.

First, JTA has an article on the Temple Insitute: Holy work or troublemaking? Laying the groundwork for a Third Temple in Jerusalem. Excerpt:

“Our goal is to fulfill the commandment of ‘They shall make a Temple for me and I will dwell among them,’ ” [Rabbi Chaim] Richman says, quoting Exodus. “The basis of a Torah life is action.”

Following the Second Temple’s destruction in 70 C.E., most rabbis adopted the position that Jewish law prohibits reconstructing the Holy Temple prior to the age of messianic redemption, or that the law is too ambiguous and that the messiah must come first.

The Temple Institute takes a different position.

“There are no Jewish legal barriers” to rebuilding the temple, Richman says, only political ones.

The institute isn’t shy about advocating what many see as a radical goal: replacing the mosque at the Dome of the Rock with a new Jewish Holy Temple. A painting in the institute’s exhibition depicts this scenario, with the city’s light rail line taking residents to the Temple Mount. The Temple Institute is dedicated to laying the groundwork for this vision.

The organization has formulated a program for where the temple will stand and what its vessels will look like, aided by 20 men who study Temple law full-time. The products of this research — 40 ritual objects — are on display in Plexiglas cases at the institute’s headquarters in the Old City.

Related: Tisha B'Av Temple Video Gains 35,000 Views (Arutz Sheva).

My understanding is that the Temple Institute advocates the rebuilding of the Temple when the Messiah comes, which is not made clear in the JTA article. For more on the Institute and my own views regarding its goals, see here and links. Related more recent thoughts are here.

Also, at the Israel's History: A Picture a Day blog: A Tisha B'Av Special: Are These the Beams of the Temple? Is this the Gift from King Hiram of Sidon to King Solomon? New, 85-year-old photos of some of the beams from the IAA. (HT Dorothy Lobel King. Background here.)

Degrees of impurity in the Talmud's construction of reality

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Appreciating the Talmud’s Sublime Devotion to Torah for Its Own Sake: Daf Yomi: For the rabbis, trivial—even outdated or immaterial—problems can provide the best thought experiments.

The detail and precision of the arguments are even more impressive when you remember that the whole subject was doubly abstract. Not only was tumah an invisible, incorporeal status, a pure concept; it was a concept that applied only in the Temple, where it affected the status of the priests and the sacrifices. But by the time the Talmud was edited, around 500 C.E., the Temple had been gone for 400 years—as much time as separates us today from Shakespeare. For the Amoraim, there were no sacrifices to perform, and in Babylonia, where they lived, there was no requirement to tithe crops at all.

Yet the rabbis devoted as much intellectual force to getting tumah right as if it were still a matter of life and death, and they write about the sacrifices as if they might be called on to perform one tomorrow. The law, for them, existed in a virtual realm, immune from time and change. This devotion to Torah for its own sake is, for me, one of the most foreign things about the Talmud—and one of the most sublime.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Oldest lunar calendar?

THE ENOCHIANS WOULD DISAPPROVE: World’s ‘oldest lunar calendar’ discovered in Scotland.

Then again, basing anything on the sun in Scotland is an iffy proposition.

Schiffman interview

PROFESSOR LAWRENCE SCHIFFMAN is interviewed by Chabad.org:
What Are the Dead Sea Scrolls? Professor Lawrence Schiffman discusses the Qumran Scrolls.

Tisha B'Av 2013

TISHA B'AV (THE NINTH OF AV) begins this evening at sundown. An easy fast to all observing it.

Saving Neo-Aramaic

ARAMAIC WATCH: The last of the Aramaic speakers: In a race against time, a team of elite scholars work together to record the final remnants of a rich linguistic history ( Miriam Shaviv, Times of Israel). A wide-ranging article on attempts to preserve the Neo-Aramaic dialects while there are still speakers alive. Hard to excerpt (read it all) but here's a taste:

For most people, that there are any native speakers of Aramaic left at all will come as a surprise. In fact there are half-a-million, and Khan is one of a tiny band of researchers trying to document their speech. But it is a race against time. The most fluent speakers are all beyond retirement age, and the language is expected to die within a generation.

“The final voices are with us for another 10 years, but will be silent very soon,” says [Cantabrigian linguist Geoffrey] Khan.

Background here. Tangentially related post here.

Review of Collins, The Dead Sea Scrolls – A Biography

BOOK REVIEW by Rabbi John Rosove at JewishJournal.com: “The Dead Sea Scrolls – A Biography” – Book Review and Recommendation.

he author has studied the more than 900 scrolls (some of them little more than fragments) for more than three decades. He tells the fascinating story of the discovery of the scrolls in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd looking for his lost goat, reviews all the theories about the small community at Qumran near the Dead Sea whose nearby caves kept the scrolls preserved for 2000 years, and describes the bitter battles swirling among Christian and western scholars since the scrolls were first discovered.

More on Professor Collins and his new book here and links.

"Cat" and the Ur-language?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: What are the different names for "cat" in different languages? (Rebecca Lesses)

Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, and Assyrian are involved. Not to mention that putative Ur-language.

AramaicNT.org Giveaway

FOR YOU, SPECIAL DEAL: AramaicNT.org Giveaway. Steve Caruso is giving away some cool pewter ישוע pendants (if you're into that sort of thing) in exchange for your writing something witty and worthwhile about Aramaic. Follow the link for details.

ISBL aftermath

YOU'RE WELCOME. Biblical conference boosts local economy by £1.7m.

Schrodinger's hametz?

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Math Lessons and Quantum Physics in Studies of Rabbinic Stringency and Leniency: Daf Yomi: For generations, Talmudic training has meant exercising the mind in logical thinking, not just learning laws.

The comparison of the Talmud with quantum physics may sound far-fetched, but the truth is that this whole stretch of Tractate Pesachim could be put directly into a math textbook. It is a reminder that Talmudic training, for many generations of Jewish students, was a way of training the mind in logical thinking as well as learning a body of laws.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Slavonic pseudepigrapha and medieval Gnosticism?

PHILIP JENKINS: Dan Brown, Eat Your Heart Out (Real Clear Religion). It's nice to see the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha gettting some wider attention. That said, I remain to be convinced that any of the Slavonic pseudepigrapha listed in the article go back to the Second Temple period. The best case can be made for 2 Enoch (on which see here) although, as the article hints, if there is an early Jewish core, it probably has been developed subsequently in ways we don't understand well. A lot of people seem to think that the Apocalypse of Abraham is early and Jewish, and it may be, but we should be cautious about assuming that its long and convoluted transmission has delivered it to us in pristine condition. But whatever their origin, some of these texts are pretty old, and the suggestion that some of the ideas in them contributed to medieval revivals of Gnosticism is worth exploring.

Philip has more on the subject in his blog post THE SLAVONIC SCRIPTURES. I have lots of posts on Slavonic pseudepigrapha and related matters as well. Start here and work your way back.

Rollston on the new Jerusalem inscription

CHRISTOPHER ROLLSTON: The Decipherment of the New ‘Incised Jerusalem Pithos’.

He says the script is of the 11th century BCE, not the tenth (and therefore it is older than the time of David and Solomon). He also reads the letters slightly differently than in that Hebrew University press release (or the IEJ article), with the result that the inscription refers to a "pot" or a "cauldron." Well, that does make sense.

Background here.

UPDATE (12 July): James McGrath has collected blog discussions of the text at: Fragments Discovered in Israel, among them Gershon Galil's rather different reconstruction (also here). I agree with George Athas that the latter involves an unsatisfying amount of reconstruction.

In the same post, James notes the now well publicized discovery of a fragment of an Egyptian sphinx at Hazor. It is really outside the interests of PaleoJudaica, but you can read more about it there if you want to.

Conference reports

THIS SUMMER IS FULL OF CONFERENCES, not least, and most recently, the International Society of Biblical Literature meeting here in St. Andrews, which finished up as I was composing this post. As I just mentioned, it was highly successful: with 850 delegates it was large for an ISBL meeting and it was also, as far as I can ascertain, the largest conference ever held in St. Andrews. Congratulations to Professor Kristin De Troyer, who organized everything flawlessly, to Dr Beth Tracy, who with Kristin omnipresently oversaw everything, and to the many postgraduate assistants and other University staff who helped make it happen. The ISBL this year was one of the events tied to the celebrations of the six-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the University of St. Andrews. The upcoming British New Testament Conference is as well.

I haven't yet encountered any blog reports on the ISBL, but I'm sure they will be coming. Meanwhile, here are some reports on other recent conferences.

Egil Asprem has some posts on the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden: Getting ready for ESSWE4: interdisciplinary panels, international networking, magickal musick – and the transhuman apocalypse, The biggest esotericism conference yet – ESSWE4 and the schizophrenic life of academics, and ESSWE4 round-up – reviews and impressions from across the esosphere. The last post links to other blog reactions to the conference.

Larry Hurtado on the Peter Conference: Edinburgh 2013.

James McGrath on the The ARAM conference on the Mandaeans in Oxford: Conference Papers (ARAM Conference on the Mandaeans, Morning Session, 8 July 2013); A New Dictionary of Mandaic; Proceedings from Previous ARAM Conferences on the Mandaeans; Mandaean Banquet; Female Figures in Mandaean Religious Art; Comparison and Collation of Mandaean Texts; Pihta and Polemic in the Mandaean Canonical Prayerbook; and The End of the 2013 ARAM Conference on the Mandaeans.

If you have published a blog report on a conference relevant to PaleoJudaica and you would like me to consider linking to it, do drop me a note.

Pesah and weasels

LAST WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: The Talmud’s Abstractions Live in Concrete Examples About Candles and Weasels:Daf Yomi: In textual analysis, the rabbis found biblical bases for customs and rituals that lacked them.

When I lecture on the Mishnah to my students (very few of whom are Jewish) one of the key points I try to convey is that the debates in the Mishnah are among people who agreed on almost everything. The things the rabbis discuss are thus frequently not what we might have expected. The example I use is the tractate Pesahim, from the title of which we would expect a discussion of the basic rules for Passover: the date, the biblical background, the prohibition of hametz (leaven), the foods eaten and how they are prepared, etc. But the rabbis and their readers already knew and agreed on all that, so they turned to the points of detail on which they disagreed. Then I read aloud m. Pesahim 1.1-2, which opens the tractate with a discussion of how many rows of a wine vault need to be searched for hametz and whether one needs to worry about whether a weasel has dragged hametz into the house. Somehow the weasel really gets my point across.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links. I'm now catching up on blogging after a distracting, but very successful, week of ISBL. I'll get to this week's column as soon as I can.

Turfan Fragments set to music

HIEROI LOGOI: Morton Feldman’s “Turfan Fragments”.

The Turfan fragments are best known to PaleoJudaica readers as one of the sources for the Book of Giants.

Near Temple Mount: Tenth century BCE "Canaanite" (or something) inscription excavated

IAA HEBREW UNIVERSITY PRESS RELEASE (via Joseph I. Lauer):

Inscription From the Time of Kings David & Solomon
Found Near Southern Wall of Temple Mount
in Hebrew University Excavations

This jar fragment bearing an inscription in the Canaanite language was unearthed near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount by Hebrew University archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar. Dated to the tenth century BCE, it is the earliest alphabetical written text ever uncovered in the city. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Eilat Mazar; photographed by Noga Cohen-Aloro.)

Jerusalem, July 10, 2013 — Working near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar has unearthed the earliest alphabetical written text ever uncovered in the city.

The inscription is engraved on a large pithos, a neckless ceramic jar found with six others at the Ophel excavation site. According to Dr. Mazar, the inscription, in the Canaanite language, is the only one of its kind discovered in Jerusalem and an important addition to the city’s history.

Dated to the tenth century BCE, the artifact predates by two hundred and fifty years the earliest known Hebrew inscription from Jerusalem, which is from the period of King Hezekiah at the end of the eighth century BCE.

A third-generation archaeologist working at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, Dr. Mazar directs archaeological excavations on the summit of the City of David and at the southern wall of the Temple Mount.

The discovery will be announced in a paper by Dr. Mazar, Prof. Shmuel Ahituv of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and Dr. David Ben-Shlomo of the Hebrew University, following their extensive research on the artifact. Prof. Ahituv studied the inscription and Dr. Ben-Shlomo studied the composition of the ceramic materials. The paper, "An Inscribed Pithos From the Ophel," appears in the Israel Exploration Journal 63/1 (2013).

Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar displays a jar fragment unearthed near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount bearing an inscription in the Canaanite language. Dated to the tenth century BCE, it is the earliest alphabetical written text ever uncovered in the city. (Photo courtesy of Dr. Eilat Mazar; photographed by Oria Tadmor.)

The inscription was engraved near the edge of the jar before it was fired, and only a fragment of it has been found, along with fragments of six large jars of the same type. The fragments were used to stabilize the earth fill under the second floor of the building they were discovered in, which dates to the Early Iron IIA period (10th century BCE). An analysis of the jars’ clay composition indicates that they are all of a similar make, and probably originate in the central hill country near Jerusalem.

According to Prof. Ahituv, the inscription is not complete and probably wound around the jar’s shoulder, while the remaining portion is just the end of the inscription and one letter from the beginning. The inscription is engraved in a proto-Canaanite / early Canaanite script of the eleventh-to-tenth centuries BCE, which pre-dates the Israelite rule and the prevalence of Hebrew script.

Reading from left to right, the text contains a combination of letters approximately 2.5 cm tall, which translate to m, q, p, h, n, (possibly) l, and n. Since this combination of letters has no meaning in known west-Semitic languages, the inscription's meaning is unknown.

The archaeologists suspect the inscription specifies the jar’s contents or the name of its owner. Because the inscription is not in Hebrew, it is likely to have been written by one of the non-Israeli residents of Jerusalem, perhaps Jebusites, who were part of the city population in the time of Kings David and Solomon.

Excavations at the site are conducted in collaboration with the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and the East Jerusalem Development Company. The site is in the national park surrounding the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, near the southern wall of the Temple Mount compound. The Israel Antiquities Authority maintains the excavation site as a national park open to the public.

The excavations are made possible through a generous donation by Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman of New York. Participants in the dig include Israeli students and workers, along with students or alumni of Herbert W. Armstrong College sent to Jerusalem from Edmond, Oklahoma to participate in the excavation.

For more information:

Dov Smith
Hebrew University Foreign Press Liaison
02-5882844 / 054-8820860 (+ 972-54-8820860)
dovs@savion.huji.ac.il

It would have been nice if it had read lmlk šlmh, but I'll take it anyway.

Cross-file under "Temple Mount Watch."

UPDATE: George Athas has some preliminary thoughts: A New Ceramic Inscription from Jerusalem (10th century BC?)

UPDATE (12 July): More here.

Review of Isaac and Shahar (eds.), Judaea-Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity

IN THE TALMUD BLOG: Rabbinic Spiritual Capital: A Review of ‘Judaea-Palaestina, Babylon and Rome: Jews in Antiquity’.

Coptic Nicaean gnomes

ALIN SUCIU: Guest Post: Alistair C. Stewart – The “Gnomes” of the Council of Nicaea. Not to be confused with the Elves of the Council of Elrond.

(Very sorry. Just couldn't resist. Looks like an interesting text.)

Law interview

T. MICHAEL LAW is interviewed by Peter Enns about his new book When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible: Here’s Something about the Bible of the First Christians I Bet Many of You Didn’t Know (you’re welcome).

BNTC 2013 - last day of special deal!

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 closes today. After that the price goes up substantially, so why not register now? Even if you are here in St. Andrews and distracted by ISBL, don't let this opportunity slip by. For you, special deal!

Alter interview

ROBERT ALTER is interviewed in the Jewish Ledger about his translation of the Hebrew Bible: Conversation with… Dr. Robert Alter. Excerpt:

Every great work of literature – and there’s much great writing in the biblical Hebrew – has a mastery of means in its own language. It’s not only the kind of perfect word choice and subtle shifts from one level of the language to another, but also the rhythms, the lengths of words, etc. When you’re translating, you can’t possibly get all of those, while all the different features come together in perfect harmony in the original language. In most cases, you decide what’s less important and you sacrifice something: maybe you don’t focus on the order of the words in order to achieve some other effect of the original that’s important; maybe I can get the rhythm of the language but not quite the English equivalents that have the exact same resonance as the original.

Too true.

Background here with many links.

"Complete list of biblioblogs"

HERE IS A "COMPLETE LIST OF BIBLIOBLOGS" as of June 2013. Members of the top 50 and the top 20 (PaleoJudaica is in the latter) are also indicated. The total is 184, with 329 "related," for a grand total of 513.

ISBL 2013 is here.

THE 2013 INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE begins today, here at the University of St. Andrews.

Note also that the program book for the 2013 SBL meeting in Baltimore in November is now available here.

Between ISBL and the MOTP page proofs I shall be very busy in the coming week and blogging will not be a high priority. But I have pre-posted something for each of the next several days and I will add what I can as time permits, so do keep coming back as usual.