Anxious Ezra varia

THE ANXIIOUS BENCH: FORGETTING EZRA. Philip Jenkins relates some interesting information on 2 Esdras/ 4 Ezra.

I have some old essays on the ancient Ezra literature posted at my Old Testament Pseudepigrapha website:
4 Ezra
The Apocalypse of Sedrach

The following are by Ted Bergren:
5 Ezra
5 Ezra translation
6 Ezra

Some past posts on PaleoJudaica are also relevant:

• Eagle Vision of 4 Ezra
  
• Enoch Seminar: Response to Najman
  
• Columbus, the size of the earth, and 4 Ezra
  
• Off to the Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense (with a summary of my paper "Seven Theses Concerning the Use of Scripture in 4 Ezra and The Latin Vision of Ezra")
  
• SBL 2012. Includes background material for my paper The Ninety-four Books of Ezra and the Angelic Revelations of John Dee.
  
• The legend of the ten Lost Tribes

St. Andrews symposium on ancient readers and their scriptures

CALL FOR PAPERS: The St Andrews Symposium for Biblical and Early Christian Studies. The Symposium takes place on 2-3 June 2014 and the subject is Ancient Readers & Their Scriptures: The Texts, Reading Strategies, and the Versions of the Hebrew Bible in Second Temple and Early Judaism. Follow the link for information on submitting a paper proposal (deadline 1 February 2014).

Talmudic cosmology and the scientific method

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: We No Longer Live in the World of Talmudic Rabbis. What’s a Modern Jew to Do? In the Bible, the rabbis had the most accurate possible description of the world—a flawed and limited cosmology. Excerpt:

Just about every page of Talmud I read makes clear to me that the rabbis lived in a different world than we do. But this week’s Daf Yomi reading showed that this was true in the most literal sense: The world, for the rabbis, was not our planet Earth, a small blue planet orbiting the Sun in the vastness of empty space. To them, as to all educated people of their time, the Earth was the center of the universe, surrounded by a series of concentric spheres, the outermost of which was studded with stars. “The Jewish Sages,” according to Pesachim 94b, “say the celestial sphere is stationary, and the constellations revolve in their place within the sphere.” In this they differed from the Gentile sages, who “say the entire celestial sphere revolves, and the constellations are stationary within the sphere.”

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

Embodying the ancestors

SERVING THE WORD: "I am Adapa, Sage of Eridu" How and Why did Mesopotamian Exorcists Embody their Ancestors? A forthcoming paper by Seth Sanders. As Seth observes on Facebook, there is an interesting conversation to be had about the relationship between these Mesopotamian traditions and the much later (but still ancient) Jewish pseudepigrapha attributed to Enoch and others.

UPDATE (2 October): Jared Calaway comments with reference to the Greek Magical Papyri etc.

Mor Gabriel Monastery update

PROGRESS:

Turkey: Syriacs to regain Mor Gabriel’s land in ‘democratization package’
Tuesday 1 October 2013

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

The land of the historic Mor Gabriel Monastery will be returned to the Syriac community in Turkey as part of the “democratization package” announced by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today, while the package fell short of meeting the expectations that the Halki Seminary could be reopened.

[...]

Background here and links. Cross-file under "Syriac Watch."

York Symposium

THE YORK CHRISTIAN APOCRYPHA SYMPOSIUM concluded on Saturday. The organizer, Tony Burke, promises a post mortem at his Apocryphicity blog, but meanwhile, there was lots of realtime commentary, often with photographs, at the #yorkca twitter feed.

A tale of stolen Torah scrolls

PHD DIVA: One Of Our Torahs Is Missing ... Two very old Samaritan Torah scrolls, in fact. Since 1995. Dorothy King has the story at the link.

Jesus the tweeter

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Was Jesus the first person to tweet? (Mark Goodacre).

Oldest Jewish prayer book?

PRESS RELEASE:

Green Scholars Discover World’s Oldest Jewish Prayer Book

840 C.E. Discovery from The Green Collection is Important Link between Time of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Medieval Judaism

OKLAHOMA CITY, Sept. 26, 2013—The Green Collection, one of the world’s largest collections of rare biblical texts and artifacts, announced today that it has identified what is likely the oldest Jewish prayer book ever found, dated by both scholars and Carbon-14 tests to circa 840 C.E. The artifact may well be the earliest connection today’s practicing Jews have to the roots of their modern-day rabbinic liturgy.

The complete parchment codex is in its original binding, containing Hebrew script so archaic that it incorporates Babylonian vowel pointing (akin to Old or Middle English for the English language). That vowel pointing has led researchers to place the prayer book in the times of the Geonim (Babylonian, Talmudic leaders during the Middle Ages).

“This find is historical evidence supporting the very fulcrum of Jewish religious life,” said Dr. Jerry Pattengale, executive director of the Green Scholars Initiative, the research arm of The Green Collection. “This Hebrew prayer book helps fill the gap between the Dead Sea Scrolls and other discoveries of Jewish texts from the ninth and 10th centuries.”

The announcement by The Green Collection comes just months after scholars in Italy identified the oldest-known Torah scroll from the 12th and 13th centuries; this Jewish prayer book dates some 300-400 years earlier.

Research on the prayer book—perhaps the Christian equivalent of a complete, early edition of the Book of Common Prayer—will be released in late 2014 or early 2015 by the Green Scholars Initiative in its upcoming Brill Series on Early Jewish Texts and Manuscripts edited by Pattengale and Dr. Emanuel Tov. The series will feature in-depth examination of some of the world’s oldest and most rare biblical texts, including portions from the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Ezekiel, Micah, Daniel and the Psalms.

Dr. Stephen Pfann, a senior scholar with the Green Scholars Initiative and president of The University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, along with his students participating in the research project, made the initial discovery among other items from The Green Collection.

“The public will have the opportunity to witness the prayer book, along with the findings from The Green Scholars Initiative’s initial round of research, at a new museum, expected to open in Washington in early spring 2017,” said Steve Green, president of the national arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby. Green oversees support for the collection on behalf of his family.

“The research conducted by Green scholars the world over will bring to light the contents of valuable early Jewish texts—from Dead Sea Scrolls and Cairo Genizah leaves to rare manuscripts still being identified,” said Pattengale.

About The Green Collection:

Called “a sampler of Jewish, Roman Catholic and Protestant treasures” that span from ancient times to the digital age (USA Today), The Green Collection is comprised of over 40,000 ancient texts and artifacts that have spanned the ages and together weave a story of history’s most tenacious book. Whether called ancient literature, a work of art or the living Word of God, no other book has persevered the ages, endured such turmoil, is as hated and beloved as the Bible.

One of the world’s largest private collections of biblical texts and artifacts, the collection is named after the Green family, owners of national arts-and-crafts retailer Hobby Lobby. The collection will be permanently located in a yet-to-be-named national Bible museum in Washington, D.C., that will illustrate how the Bible as we know it came to be, the impact the Scriptures have had on the world and the story told in history’s No. 1 best-seller.

This press release does not have a photo, but an article on the discovery in Christianity Today (sent to me by reader Ted Olsen, CT Managing Editor, News & Online Journalism) does.

This sounds like it could be an exciting discovery. As always, I would like to know more about the provenance of the artifact.

Much more on the Green Collection is here and follow the links. Also, for more on that oldest Torah scroll see here and links.

Abegg interview

LXXI: Interview with Martin G. Abegg on Electronic Dead Sea Scrolls

Shemeni Atzeret and Simchat Torah

HAPPY SHEMENI ATZERET AND SIMCHAT TORAH (Simhat Torah) to all those celebrating! The former began on the sunset of the 25th. In Israel, Simchat Torah was on the same day, but elsewhere it began on the evening of the 26th. More here.

A Jewish holiday for Cyrus?

COUNTERFACTUAL HISTORY: What if Cyrus had not freed the Jews? (Roger Price, Jewish Journal).

Yet if it is true that but for Cyrus there would be no Judaism and no Jews today, why is not more attention paid to him? The man was extolled in the Hebrew Bible by the well regarded prophet Deutero-Isaiah and the esteemed priest Ezra, and more recently by Israeli founder and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion on the 2500 anniversary of the Cyrus Cylinder, but Cyrus is hardly remembered, much less honored , today in the Jewish community.

Part of the answer may be that the ancient sages did not want to attribute such momentous consequences to a mere mortal, preferring to see the return from exile and the rebuilding of the Temple as evidence of God’s intervention and grace. But then, how do you justify the inclusion of the Purim story in the canon and the celebration of that holiday? Jews of all stripes seem to love the fictional story set in Shushan in modern day Iran and the holiday that celebrates it, even though God is never mentioned. And who can resist? You get to wear costumes, eat some triangular cookies, drink a lot of wine and cheer as the pretty Jewish girl and her uncle save the Jews who were threatened with extinction. But, again, why is a true story of Jewish emancipation, set in a similar geographic locale, given no recognition? Sure, Cyrus was an emperor, not a paragon of modern democratic values, but the failure to designate a time to honor Cyrus is a serious omission in the Jewish calendar.

Lots more on Cyrus the Great and the Cyrus Cylinder here and links. Also, more on counterfactual history here and links.

The Talmud on the benefits of exile

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: In the Talmud, Jews in Exile Are Considered Defenseless Before Their Enemies. Daf Yomi: The one protection God granted the Jews was to scatter them, so that no single enemy could destroy them all at once.

Then the Amoraim perform a remarkable and moving feat of interpretation. If God loves Israel, they reason, then even when he punishes Israel he must manifest that love. The Exile cannot be all bad; it must have redeeming features, which prove that God had the welfare of his people in mind, even as he condemned them to dispersion. Indeed, Rabbi Oshaya says, the dispersion itself is a blessing in disguise. By scattering the Jews around the world, God made sure that their enemies could not exterminate them at one blow. Oshaya once argued this very point with a Roman: If the Romans had not managed to annihilate the Jews after so many years, it was not because they were well-disposed to the Jews, but “because you do not know how to do it.”

Plus advice on how to deal with a glutton.

Reed address at York symposium

TOMORROW: Keynote Address for 2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium: Annette Yoshiko Reed.

Background here and links.

More Syriac Manichaeana

IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY: Some Syriac Manichean Treasures in the British Library.

HT Emmanouela Grypeou on Facebook. Recent related post here.

Anxious Enochiana

PHILIP JENKINS has been publishing many interesting posts recently over at The Anxious Bench. Here are a few about Enoch:

THE MYSTERY OF ENOCH. Excerpt:

1 Enoch in particular was enormously influential in its time. Generations of New Testament scholars have been intrigued by the book’s use of the “Son of Man” terminology, recalling Jesus’s own use of that phrase. For centuries, the book’s most intriguing section was the so-called Book of the Watchers, which described how the Sons of God descended to Earth to breed with human women, producing a range of bizarre and frightening monsters. 1 Enoch also gave scriptural foundation for the fascination with angels and archangels like Michael and Gabriel.

LOSING ENOCH. Excerpt:

Even so, and despite the condemnation of such ecclesiastical giants as Origen and Augustine, we can trace the influence of the Enochic books for centuries afterwards. That survival is a powerful commentary on the durability of texts, especially when they were read so widely across the very broad canvas of a transcontinental Christian world.

ENOCH ABIDES. Here he suggests that Grendel's name in Beowulf was inspired by the names of the watchers and giants in 1 Enoch. Maybe, but no giants are named in 1 Enoch, and they are the closest analogues with Grendel, although this may have been a fine distinction to our medieval clerical readers. Some version of the Book of Giants may also have been circulating in clerical circles (see the Book of Ogias the Giant, mentioned in the Gelasian Decree, noted here). But as far as I can recall, none of the giants named in the Book of Giants had an "-el" name.

Meyers, Rediscovering Eve

IN THE MAIL FROM OUP:

Carol Meyers, Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (2012)

This groundbreaking study looks beyond biblical texts, which have had a powerful influence over our views of women's roles and worth, in order to reconstruct the typical everyday lives of women in ancient Israel. Carol Meyers argues that biblical sources alone do not give a true picture of ancient Israelite women because urban elite males wrote the vast majority of the scriptural texts. Also, the stories of women in the Bible concern exceptional individuals rather than ordinary Israelite women. Drawing on archaeological discoveries and ethnographic information as well as biblical texts, Meyers depicts Israelite women not as submissive chattel in an oppressive patriarchy, but rather as strong and significant actors within their families and in their communities. In so doing, she challenges the very notion of patriarchy as an appropriate designation for Israelite society.

Jon Ma on Hanukkah

REVISIONIST HISTORY: Re-Examining Hanukkah: John Ma deconstructs the Maccabean History (Marginalia).

For more on the Heliodorus inscription, see here and links.

Orlov, Heavenly Priesthood in the Apocalypse of Abraham

NEW BOOK:

Andrei A. Orlov, Heavenly Priesthood in the Apocalypse of Abraham (CUP, September 2013.

The Apocalypse of Abraham is a vital source for understanding both Jewish apocalypticism and mysticism. Written anonymously soon after the destruction of the Second Jerusalem Temple, the text envisions heaven as the true place of worship and depicts Abraham as an initiate of celestial priesthood. Andrei A. Orlov focuses on the central rite of the Abraham story - the scapegoat ritual that receives a striking eschatological reinterpretation in the text. He demonstrates that the development of the sacerdotal traditions in the Apocalypse of Abraham, along with a cluster of Jewish mystical motifs, represents an important transition from Jewish apocalypticism to the symbols of early Jewish mysticism. In this way, Orlov offers unique insight into the complex world of the Jewish sacerdotal debates in the early centuries of the Common Era. The book will be of interest to scholars of early Judaism and Christianity, Old Testament studies, and Jewish mysticism and magic.

New early Manichaean fragments

SOME (SORT OF) NEW MANICHAEAN (MANICHEAN) FRAGMENTS IN SYRIAC have been recovered by Cambridge University: The Allberry fragments: Manichaean texts rediscovered.

The Allberry fragments contain portions of a Manichaean text, written in Syriac and in a form of Aramaic script often referred to as Manichaean script. Only a small number of such tiny fragments seem to be preserved worldwide. In fact Mani (c. 216-277 AD), the founder of the Manichaean world-religion, wrote his oeuvre in Syriac, but the huge Manichaean literature which in the 20th century has been found in Central Asia and Egypt, and which is of great interest for the history of religions, theology, and many philologies, is not in Syriac. Many scholarly efforts are invested in reconstructing the original Syriac terminology of Mani and the first Manichaeans.

These fragments pre-date, by a couple of centuries, the only other material written in this script, which are on incantation bowls from Mesopotamia, though there are a few other fragments of Proto-Manichaean in existence. These particular fragments appear to have come from the Manichaean communities in Egypt and represent the most western location for the spread of this Syriac font which originated in Mesopotamia.

Even though the fragments are small, this is an exciting discovery.

HT Adam McCollum on Facebook.

More on upcoming Christian Apocrypha Symposium at York University

APOCRYPHICITY: The Historical Jesus and the Christian Apocrypha Panel.

Background here and links.

Congratulations to Philip Esler

THE UNIVERSITY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE: University announces new Portland Chair in New Testament Studies.

The University of Gloucestershire has announced the appointment of the eminent theologian, author and academic, Professor Philip Esler, to one of its most distinguished posts - the Portland Chair in New Testament Studies.

Dirk Smilde Fellowship at Groningen University

CONGRATULATIONS: Prof. Steve Mason receives first Dirk Smilde Fellowship.

Prof. Dr. Mladen Popović, director of the Qumran Institute of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen, will award Prof. Dr. Steve Mason the inaugural Dirk Smilde Fellowship on 20 September 2013. The ceremony will take place in the Drents Museum in Assen, location of the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition.

Prof. Steve Mason (University of Aberdeen)is the first Dirk Smilde Fellow to start in the academic year 2013-2014. He shall stay at the Qumran Institute from January through May 2014. Prof. Mason is a leading specialist on the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, the Jewish religion of the early Roman period, and Jewish cultural interactions with Greek and Roman culture. He is editor-in-chief of the first commentary series on Josephus (published by Brill, Leiden). His research focuses on the wider cultural and historical context of the world Josephus was living in. Prof. Mason’s research is a perfect match with the research of the Qumran Institute and the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies.

More on Professor Mason here and links.

DSS lecture at Kent State

ADOLFO ROITMAN, TONIGHT: Dead Sea Scrolls curator to speak at Kent State.

"we learned in the Mishnah that a bride turns her face"

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: When the Rabbis Do Things by the Book, They Give the Talmud Its ‘Talmudic’ Qualities. In this week’s Daf Yomi, deference, privilege, and the appearance of impropriety from the rabbis of ancient Jewish society.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Sukkot

THE FESTIVAL OF SUKKOT (BOOTHS, TABERNACLES) begins this evening at sundown. Best wishes to all those observing it.

And here's something from Philologos for the season: Why Sukkot Is a Harvest Holiday, Even Though There's Little To Harvest. Holiday Is Not the Best Time to Reap Grain.

News on the title of the Gospel of Matthew

BRICE C. JONES: Simon Gathercole on the Earliest Title of Matthew's Gospel on a Papyrus "Flyleaf." Cool.

Old Church Slavonic and modern politics

SLAVONIC WATCH: A tug-of-war over the origins of the Slavonic alphabet: Press 24: Cyril and Methodius are Bulgarians; Slavonic alphabet is Bulgarian – latest anti-Macedonian scandal in Brussels.

Background here and here and links.

PhD fellowship

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OSLO: PhD Research Fellowship in Early Christian Studies.

A full-time PhD research fellowship position in Early Christian Studies is available at The Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo. The position is attached to the ERC-project NEWCONT. Tentative starting date is 1st January 2014.

Job description

NEWCONT is an ERC-funded research project that focuses on the Coptic Nag Hammadi Codices in the context of Christianity and monasticism in the fourth and fifth centuries. It is a project that seeks to increase our knowledge of early Christianity and monasticism and the historical reception of the Bible. For further information on the NEWCONT-project, see the project's webpages.

The proposed PhD-project should be relevant to the NEWCONT-project, with which the successful applicant will be in close collaboration. Proposals focusing on the history and theology of Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries are especially welcome. The working language is English, and the PhD-dissertation should be written in English.

The appointment is for a period of 4 years. 75 percent of the position is allocated to the Candidate's research training, while 25 percent is allocated to required duties. The required duties comprise teaching, research assistance, etc.

The purpose of the PhD Research Fellowship is research training leading to the successful completion of a doctoral dissertation (monograph) to be defended at a public defense for the doctoral degree. The successful candidate will be automatically accepted to the research-training program (PhD-program) at the Faculty of Theology.

Follow the link for further particulars.

HT Liv Ingeborg Lied on Facebook.

Assistant Professor of Christian Near East

JOB AT THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA: Assistant Professor of Christian Near East.

The Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures in the School of Arts & Sciences at the Catholic University of America invites applications for a tenure track position, to begin in August 2014, at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor, in early Christian Near Eastern languages, literature, and history. The successful candidate will have a thorough knowledge of Syriac grammar and literature. Knowledge of Classical Arabic and other Semitic languages, as well as other Christian Near Eastern languages, such as Coptic and Armenian, is a plus.

The successful candidate will have an earned doctorate, with an excellent record of teaching, publishing, research, and service, or the promise of these, commensurate with experience. Responsibilities will include: teaching graduate courses and seminars in Syriac language and literature, the history of the Christian Near East, and other languages within the candidates competence; advising students in the Department; participation in activities within the Department and allied programs and units within the University (including the possibility of undergraduate teaching on occasion); conducting and directing research in the languages and literatures of the Christian Near East.

The application deadline is 1 November 2013. Follow the link for further particulars.

HT James McGrath on Facebook. Cross-file under "Syriac Watch."

Iraqi Jewish archive again

SHORT ANSWER: NO. Does Iraq deserve the return of its Jewish archive? But even more to the point, it is far from clear to me that the archive will be safer or better cared for there than where it is now.

More thoughts on these issues here (especially the last paragraph and links). Additional background here with links going back a decade.

Middle East latest

MORE REPORTS OF MURDER AND DESTRUCTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST:

There are reports of the murders of at least three Christians by Islamist rebels in the Aramaic-speaking Syrian town of Maaloula (Ma'loula, Malula), although there is limited verification. What is clear, though, is that the town is caught between the Syrian Government and the rebels and things are going badly there.

Eyewitness Account of Three Syrian Christians Killed by Extremists (Joan Frawley, National Catholic Register)

Syrian Jihadist Slits Throat of Christian Man Refusing to Deny Christ, Then Taunts Fiancée, 'Jesus Didn't Come to Save Him' (Leonardo Blair, The Christian Post).

Christians fighting for survival against jihadist rebels in ancient Maaloula (Catholic Online).

Maaloula's cathedral and churches empty of Christians as Syria's latest front-line fight takes its toll. Its churches are empty, its monasteries deserted, many pitted and holed by the battles raging around them. (Bill Neely, ITV News, The Telegraph).

Syrian Militants Battle For Christian Village (Deborah Amos, NPR).

Background on Maaloula is here with many, many links.

Meanwhile in Egypt: Coptic archaeological site wrecked (Daily News Egypt).

The latest attack targeted Ansana, a historical Egyptian site believed to have been used as a Coptic monastery. Yet, information about it is scarce. “[The site] was never properly studied and published,” said archaeologist Monica Hanna. The site was bombed with dynamite. ... The whole area is full of Coptic, Syriac and Greek inscriptions that have not been completely studied and documented.

I cannot hope to keep track of all the relevant (to PaleoJudaica) atrocities happening right now in the Middle East, but these are some of them.

Review of Ehrman, Forgery and Counterforgery

BOOK REVIEW IN MARGINALIA: David Lincicum on Forgery and Counterforgery, by Bart Ehrman: Lies, Damned Lies, and Patristics. Excerpt:

Learned humanists exposed many more of these ancient frauds during the Renaissance, but the authenticity of the documents that compose the New Testament was not seriously questioned until the late eighteenth century. Since that time, there has been protracted debate about not only the presence of pseudepigrapha in the New Testament but also the possible motivations a pseudepigrapher might have had. Most critical scholars now acknowledge at least some pseudonymous texts in the New Testament, but the question of motive still rattles. Some contend that pseudonymity was practiced as an open secret, a transparent fiction, and that the audience was in on the ruse. Others claim that the students or co-workers of departed apostles wrote the letters, perhaps even with their blessing, the same way a philosopher’s student might write in their name.

There’s just one problem: this pretty much never happened in antiquity. Following a growing chorus of voices in recent years — though German Neutestamentler have been saying this a lot longer and with more consistency, significant voices have arisen in the Anglophone world as well — Ehrman rightly notes that whenever a forgery is uncovered in antiquity, it is condemned as deceptive. For too long, scholars have hidden behind the hazy notion that the idea of “intellectual property” didn’t exist in the ancient world — as though authors lived in a golden utopia of verbal communism, untroubled by the very possibility of plagiarism per definitionem, until all this came to a screeching halt in 1710 with the first copyright statute. The intention of pseudepigraphers, as Ehrman and others have demonstrated in convincing detail, is to deceive. You don’t begin a letter, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints … ,” unless you want the audience to think you’re Paul.

Alexander, Gender and Timebound Commandments in Judaism

THE TALMUD BLOG: Review of Elizabeth Shanks Alexander, ‘Gender and Timebound Commandments in Judaism’- Guest Post by Raphael Magarik.

Yet, while Alexander conceived the idea for the book, as she explains in the introduction, “in the shadow of a contemporary cultural debate,” she writes as a Talmudist. Thus, she restricts herself historically to pre-Medieval sources and methodologically to descriptive history. Further, within those frameworks, Alexander does not so much answer as destroy the original question.

Rollston on David and Northwest Semitic epigraphy

CHRISTOPHER ROLLSTON IN BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION: By God I am King: David’s Rise to the Throne in Broader Context.

The epigraphic texts from the ancient Near East, therefore, paint for us a broader picture, they reveal more of the depth of the tapestry that is the world of the ancient Near East. And the epigraphic texts remind us that ancient Israel was part of the ancient Near Eastern world.

This essay will be useful when I lecture on the United Monarchy in my first-year Intro to Hebrew Bible this semester.

Yom Kippur

YOM KIPPUR, the Day of Atonement, begins this evening at sundown. An easy fast to all those observing it.

Biblical background noted here.

The Talmud and intellectual questions

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: When Talmud Is the Focus of Jewish Observance, Theology Comes to Life. Instead of asking us to passively agree with the rabbis, oral law engages the intellect in concrete problems of logic and interpretation.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

DeConick et al., Practicing Gnosis

IN THE MAIL:

Practicing Gnosis
Ritual, Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Hammadi, Manichaean and Other Ancient Literature. Essays in Honor of Birger A. Pearson

Edited by April D. DeConick, Gregory Shaw, and John D. Turner

Ritual, magic, liturgy, and theurgy were central features of Gnosticism, and yet Gnostic practices remain understudied. This anthology is meant to fill in this gap and address more fully what the ancient Gnostics were doing. While previously we have studied the Gnostics as intellectuals in pursuit of metaphysical knowledge, the essays in this book attempt to understand the Gnostics as ecstatics striving after religious experience, as prophets seeking revelation, as mystics questing after the ultimate God, as healers attempting to care for the sick and diseased. These essays demonstrate that the Gnostics were not necessarily trendy intellectuals seeking epistomological certainities. They were after religious experiences that relied on practices. The book is organized comparatively in a history-of-religions approach with sections devoted to Initiatory, Recurrent, Therapeutic, Ecstatic, and Philosophic Practices. This book celebrates the brilliant career of Birger A. Pearson.

My article, "Ritual in the Hekhalot Literature," is included in the volume.

Middle East varia, none good

I'VE BEEN COLLECTING bad-news articles and blog posts on the Middle East for the last couple of weeks. Sadly, they all remain relevant.

War Threatens Palmyra, UNESCO Pleads for Syrian Heritage Protection (Magda Abu-Fadil, Huffington Post). Background on Palmyra and its inscriptions is here and links. More on Palmyra in this war is here and here.

Syria's Rich Archaeological Treasures Imperiled by Civil War (Tia Ghose, Live Science).

Arms for Antiquities: Syrian Artifact Smuggling Bleeds Sites Dry - including Dura Europos (Joanne Bajjaly, Al-Akhbar). Background here and links.

Ma'loula Under Attack (Steve Caruso, The Aramaic Blog). Background on Ma'loula (Maaloula, Malula) is here with many links.

Pictures: Looters Shatter Museum of Ancient Egyptian Treasures (National Geographic).

Egypt demands return of stolen artifacts from Europe and U.S. (Afrik News). For some reason someone decided that this was a good time to re-release this 2009 article.

UPDATE: Accidentally left this one out: Mount Sinai monastery latest victim of Egypt's upheavals. Closure of St Catherine's monastery due to security concerns has devastated tourist trade of nearby town named after it (Patrick Kingsley and Marwa Awad, The Guardian). St. Catherine's Monastery and its manuscripts have been mentioned often at PaleoJudaica, for example, here, here, here, here, and here.

Goodacre on Schama on Paul

DOCUMENTARY FAIL: Simon Schama's misreading of Paul (NT Blog).

To reiterate, I think this is a superb documentary and I am a big fan of Schama. But I think this section falls below his usual standards. One of the reasons that this is important is that getting the history right plays a key role in Jewish-Christian relations. Given the appalling history of Christian attitudes to Jews and Judaism documented by Schama, it is worth paying careful attention to what Jews like Paul, right at the beginning of the Jesus movement, actually said.

Background on the documentary The Story of the Jews is here and links.

Cyrus Cylinder mystery

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Who broke the Cyrus Cylinder? (A. J. Cave, Payvand News of Iran). Key excerpt:

On 28 August, 2013, Dr. Jon Taylor, Assistant Keeper of Cuneiform Collections at the British Museum gave a talk: “Hormuzd Rassam and the Discovery of the Cyrus Cylinder” to a packed audience at Cal (UC Berkeley). The talk was presented by the Assyrian Heritage Fund and co-sponsored by the Center for the Middle Eastern Studies and the Townsend Center for Humanities. Among the attendees was the elderly great, great, great grandson of one of the brothers of Rassam who had traveled just for the occasion.

To prepare for the talk, Dr. Taylor had resorted to archival research in the vast acquisition registers of the British Museum. Thumbing through old records at the museum, he found out (rather unexpectedly) that the cylinder (identified later as the “Cyrus Cylinder” by the Assyriologists the British Museum) was listed as “unbroken” in boring bureaucratic documents, leading him to speculate that the cylinder was most likely broken (perhaps intentionally) before it was shipped to London.

Why?

Intense western interest in eastern biblical lands and peoples in the 19th century did not just lead to spectacular discoveries of ancient civilizations, it sparked a lively global trade in ancient artifacts procured in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” manner. Since 1850s illicit diggings for antiquities that institutions and individuals are willing to pay good money for have progressed in the Middle East without any sign of decline. Local laborers usually got paid literally pennies for each inscribed tablet they dug up, so it was not unusual for them or actually anyone in the antiquities supply-chain to break clay tablets they found into pieces to increase their meager pay and sell the “surplus” to Baghdad dealers.

Dr. Taylor prepared a list of the usual suspects who had access and motive to break the unbroken cylinder, and like a clever crime novel detective eliminated all but two, one of them Daud (Fat) Toma, one of overseers Rassam had hired—not deemed trustworthy even by Rassam himself.

We would never know without a shadow of a doubt, but we can safely say that the real culprit was the insatiable black market for antiquities.

For much more on the Cyrus Cylinder, see here and links.

Them Bones

LIVESCIENCE: Animal sacrifice at temple powered ancient Jerusalem's economy: Animal bones found in a dump dating to the end of the second Temple period suggest that animal sacrifice powered Jerusalem's economy.

Pilgrims came from hundreds of miles away to sacrifice animals at an ancient temple in Jerusalem, new research suggests.

An analysis of bones found in an ancient dump in the city dating back 2,000 years revealed that animals sacrificed at the temple came from far and wide.

"The study shows that there is a major interprovincial market that enables the transfer of vast numbers of animals that are used for sacrifice and feasting in Jerusalem during that time period," said study co-author Gideon Hartman, a researcher at the University of Connecticut.

The finding, published in the September issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, confirms visions of the temple depicted in historical Jewish texts and suggests the economic heart of the city was its slaughtering operation.

[...]

You can find the original journal article here (#22) (noted by Joseph Lauer).

On the Temple as a "massive slaughterhouse," see also here.

Byzantine-era gold hoard excavated in Jerusalem

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Gold treasure trove unearthed at base of Temple Mount: Byzantine-era coins and unique menorah medallion found by Hebrew University archaeologists at site abutting Southern Wall (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel).

“I have never found so much gold in my life!” [Professor Eilat Mazar] said with obvious excitement at a press conference on Mount Scopus. “I was frozen. It was unexpected.”

The centerpiece, a medallion that Mazar posited may have been used as ornamentation for a Torah scroll, is emblazoned with a seven-armed candelabrum — a menorah — a Torah scroll, and a shofar, a ram’s horn.

It must be nice to find gold often enough to be able to say that. Follow the link for cool photos.

Calaway, Sabbath and Sanctuary

JARED CALAWAY'S NEW BOOK: Sabbath and Sanctuary Available!

Historic Aramaic meeting

SYRIAC WATCH: Levita Meets the Maronites (Ed Cook).

Peshitta resources

SYRIAC WATCH: Peshitta (Aramico blog).

The purpose of this page is to concentrate in one place, resources found on the internet that relate to the Aramaic Bible in his best-known version, the Peshitta. Most links are to posts on the blog, with details about the edition and links for viewing and downloading. This page will be continually updated.

García Martínez scholarship update

AND WE HAVE A WINNER: Bernice Brijan receives Florentino García Martínez Research Master Scholarship. Congratulations to Ms. Brijan.

Background here.

Jewish manuscripts etc. online

ANTIQUITOPIA: Jared Calaway has a collection of Ancient Jewish Manuscripts, Texts, and Translations.

The legend of the ten Lost Tribes

FROM 4 EZRA TO A MEDIEVAL ALEXANDER ROMANCE: Exploring the legend of the ten Lost Tribes: Throughout its long history, the myth of the 10 Lost Tribes has served as a kind of signpost, a spotlight illuminating the 'right’ path to take in response to the most complex existential questions of Jewish history. (Eli Yassif, Haaretz). Excerpt:

Defining the story of the 10 Lost Tribes as a myth is often, and misleadingly, understood as an assertion that any attempts to identify the tribes will, by definition, not succeed because the story is, after all, an imaginary rather than a factual historical or anthropological one. But that is not why this story is one of the greatest myths of Jewish culture. Rather, its significance results from the fact that it illuminates some dark corners of Jewish consciousness, creates a narrative of support and encouragement when Jewish communities in the Diaspora have faced tough situations, and unequivocally through narrative technique, expresses a profoundly important point that has accompanied Jewish history since its inception: the nature of the Diaspora and the minority Jewish community’s attempt to confront a Muslim or Christian majority.

‘Carried over the waters’

As far as we know, the oldest source that refers to the myth is the Fourth Book of Esdras from the Jewish Apocrypha, written shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, toward the end of the 1st century C.E. This tradition interprets one of the central visions described in 2 Esdras 13:40-48 ‏(King James Version‏): “Those are the ten tribes, which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea the king, whom Salmanasar the king of Assyria led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, and so came they into another land. But they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a further country, where never mankind dwelt, that they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land. And they entered into Euphrates by the narrow places of the river. For the most High then shewed signs for them, and held still the flood, till they were passed over. For through that country there was a great way to go, namely, of a year and a half; and the same region is called Arsareth ... But those that be left behind of thy people are they that are found within my borders.”

Cross-file under "Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch."

Outside the Bible

LAWRENCE SCHIFFMAN: The Significance of Outside the Bible. That is, the forthcoming book by that title (TOC and excerpt here).

While you're ordering it, don't forget to order your copy of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, which comes out at the end of this month. (No, really this time!) There is very little overlap between the two works and you really should have both.

Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations (rev.)

REVISED ONLINE EDITION: Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Philip Harland, 2013).

More on Philip Harland's work is here, here, here, here, and here.

"we have to imagine a scene of extreme carnage"

LAST WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: In the Talmud, Minds Full of Torah Instead of Bowls Full of Sacrificial Blood: Daf Yomi: Could Judaism ever go back to now-alien-seeming rituals from before the destruction of the Temple? Excerpt:

The Talmud, and rabbinic Judaism as a whole, have a deeply paradoxical relationship with the Temple. On the one hand, the Temple in Jerusalem is the only divinely authorized location for worship and sacrifice; Judaism as it is described in the Torah, especially in the books of Exodus and Leviticus, cannot be practiced without a Temple and a priesthood. That is because the heart of Israelite worship consisted of the slaughter of animals and the offering of their blood. According to Pirkei Avot, avodah, the Temple service, is one of the three pillars on which the world rests, along with Torah and deeds of kindness. Even now, Jews continue to mourn the destruction of the Temple—as we did this summer on the fast day of Tisha B’Av—and to look forward to its reconstruction.

At the same time, however, rabbinic Judaism was able to come into being only in the Temple’s absence. Everything we now think of as integral to classical Judaism—the study of texts, the synagogue, the liturgy, the Talmud itself—emerged as a response to the destruction of the Temple and the discontinuation of its sacrifices. After two thousand years, we have grown so accustomed to Judaism without a Temple that, if we think seriously about it, the prospect of rebuilding the Temple must seem deeply alien.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

BASOR editorship

JOB: Publications Committee Seeks Editor for the Bulletin of ASOR
Review of Applications to Begin September 16, 2013.

Latest Biblical Studies Carnival

AT NEAR EMMAUS: Biblical Studies Carnival: August, 2013.

The Story of the Jews

RADIO TIMES: The Story of the Jews: Series 1 - 1. In the Beginning. Follow the link for a brief review by David Butcher, a clip, and a link to the whole show, which is presented by Simon Schama.

Background here, here, and here.

Wrage

INSPIRED BY THE WAR SCROLL: Interview with Joseph Spencer, Author of ‘Wrage’ (Mayra Calvani, blogcritics).

What was your inspiration for Wrage?

When I decided to expand Grim into the Sons of Darkness series with Wrage, I wanted to incorporate themes which intrigued me from religion and history to tell epic stories. The “War Scroll” from the Dead Sea Scrolls foretells of an apocalyptic fight between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness in which Light will earn eternal peace by destroying Darkness. Each son in the Sons of Darkness series will represent a deadly sin, and each son in my future Sons of Light series will symbolize a cardinal virtue.

Search engine referrals

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN, and PaleoJudaica has lots of new search engine referrals from the last year to share. As usual, I swear that I have not made any of these up, and I have done a little censoring to preserve PaleoJudaica family values. The material in parentheses are my own commentary. This year I have grouped the searches thematically and under broad categories for easy reference.

HISTORY AND LITERATURE
• east anglian daily times beyond 2000bc
  
• the great mother
  
• klasicisms
  
• amazon-warriors.com
  
• alexander the great's mother in bed
  
• alexander the great's mom and dad
  
• alexander the great death wish
  
• alexander the great's body
  
• alexander the great dead body
  
• phoenician judaism
  
• old testament gaint og
  
• dead sea scrolls enema instructions (eew!)
  
• essenes enemas
  
• josephus giant bones on display in
  
• 2005 c-130 giant nephilim skeleton
  
• strange menorahs
  
• fishman becoming people talmud (sounds more like Lovecraft)
  
• "the talmud and other diet books"
  
• a king james version bavil
  
• rashi on 12/11/12 at 7 pm
  
• "holy prepuce" circumcision jesus christ
  
• "crucifixion postures" (used in pilates?)
  
• the latest report on the ist century mark man
  
• greek translation of revelation (translation?)
  
• news scriptdoomsday relates to the book of revelation
  
• ancient spiritual gnosis texts for beginners gnosis
  
• configurations of the fate of heaven beneath the twelve (not a video game)
  
• configuration of the fate of heaven that ...
  
• is codex sinaiticus is fake (short answer, no)
  
• 1-7-13 mystic, john dee
  
  PHILOLOGY
  
• cuneiform numbers 1-10
  
• "lifeless water" akkadian
  
• paleo hebrew name for adam
  
• paleo tetragrammaton ring
  
• book of enoch bangla translation
  
• aramaic popular in 2012
  
• syriac for thirsty
  
• chaldeans spoke quenya language
  
• she flies with her own wings in amharic (and you should see what she can do in Ge'ez!)
  
• roman numeral 08-16-2009
  
  SCHOLARSHIP
  
• british new testament conference whisky room
  
• mystical book reviews blog
  
  CELEBRITIES
  
• angelina jolie stretch marks
  
• angelina jolie без грим (means "without makeup" in Russian; appeared repeatedly)
  
• lara croft angelina jolie hot (again, repeatedly)
  
• angelina jolie breast augmentation
  
• monica bellutchi
  
• monica bellucci at 20 years old
  
• "intertextuality * life of brian" (well, why not?)
  
• singer madonna carthage must be destroyed (new hit!)
  
• jim davila wood carver (not me)
  
• jimmy davila art teacher, az (not me)
  
• never see the day with james davila (not me?)
  
• james davila blot (me?)
  
• davila paleo (not the diet)
  
• paleodudaica (Dude!)
  
• pleojudaica
  
  TATTOOS
  
• complete metatron's cube tattoos
  
• metatrons cube tattoo
  
• tatoo papyroi
  
  MISCELLANEOUS
  
• human got bitten by lion (not Daniel, presumably)
  
• man jump on lion dan into bronx zoo (probably the guy who got bitten)
  
• jesus will save you picture
  
• criteria for interpretatvie dance contest
  
• j mark iwry married to darryl
  
• "on the matter of the man with three wives"
  
• orgasm interview
  
• 10-11 age real dangle gold earrings in toronto
  
• annezimmermann fotos 2012 (makeup again!)
  
• historic importance of 11-11-11-18
  
• k.i.blue ridge cemetary hours open
  
• published: sunday, march. 22, 2009- 12:00am
  
• nuclear medicine physicians @talktalk.net
  
• professors in surgeons @talktalk.net

Rosh HaShanah

HAPPY ROSH HASHANAH (Jewish New Year) to all those celebrating! The holiday begins this evening at sundown.

Some background here.

Important blogiversaries

HAPPY TENTH BLOGIVERSARY to Mark Goodacre's NT Blog and to David Meadows's Rogue Classicism!

York Symposium update

FURTHER TO MY EARLIER POST involving the York University Symposium on the Christian Apocrypha, Sarah Veale e-mails to let me know that the Symposium has its own website: York Christian Apocrypha Symposium.

Rollston update

CHRISTOPHER ROLLSTON just keeps landing on his feet throughout all the tribulations: From Washington to Jerusalem: Personal Reflections on a Year to Remember. Congratulations, Chris, on the National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.

Background here and links.

BNTC wrap-up

THE BRITISH NEW TESTAMENT CONFERENCE finished on Saturday afternoon and I trust that by now everyone is safely home or has at least reached their next destination. Excellent papers, excellent networking, lots of good catching up with friends and colleagues, a couple of good whisky evenings, and perfect weather throughout. Special thanks to the BNTS committee, notably the Secretary, Paul Middleton, and the President, Loveday Alexander, who provided much prompt and helpful guidance and feedback for the preparations. Thanks also to last year's organiser at KCL, Davina Grojnowski, who cheerfully endured endless questions beginning "How did you ..." over the last year. Thanks to our Conferences Group and Residence Management at St. Andrews, who provided smooth sailing throughout. Also many thanks to John Dunne, my chief conference assistant, and the other postgraduate assistants: Garrick Allen, Jamie Davies, Euichang Bryan Kim, and Jesse Nickel.

I'm already very much looking forward to next year's BNTC at Manchester.

I took Sunday off (yes, even from blogging!), but am back to work today trying to catch up on everything I have left undone over the last month or two.

More McGrath on the Mandaeans

JAMES MCGRATH is an ever-flowing font of resources for Mandaean (Mandean) studies. His latest: Mandaean Resources Online.

Apocryphicity latest

TONY BURKE has some good new posts over at Apocryphicity.

First, more supplements to Secret Scriptures Revealed:

More Secret Scriptures 5: Pseudo-Memoirs of the Apostles.

More Secret Scriptures 6: The Preaching of Simon Cephas in the City of Rome.

The earlier posts in the series are noted here.

Second, Tony has been posting profiles of speakers for his upcoming conference “Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha in North American Perspectives” (September 26–28, 2013).

2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium Profiles: Brent Landau.
2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium Profiles: Lee McDonald.
2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium Profiles: Lorenzo DiTommaso.
2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium Profiles: Stephen Shoemaker.
2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium Profiles: F. Stanley Jones.

The BNTC begins

THE BRITISH NEW TESTAMENT CONFERENCE begins today in St. Andrews, with registration opening this afternoon. Welcome to the 150 delegates arriving from all over Britain, and in a few cases, farther afield!

Petra Papyri II

NEW BOOK FROM ACOR: L. Koenen, J. Kaimio, M. Kaimio, R. W. Daniel edd., Petra Papyri II (P.Petra II) (G.W. Schwendner, What's New in Papyrology). Another important documentary text from late antiquity. One more volume to go and the series will be complete.

Goff, 4QInstruction

NEW BOOK, JUST OUT FROM THE SBL:

Matthew J. Goff, 4QInstruction (22 August, 2013)

Schiffman on studying the DSS

LAWRENCE SCHIFFMAN: How to Study a Dead Sea Scrolls Text. This is an article from Bible History Daily, but it was originally a series of recent posts on his blog which I had not yet noted.

Another grant for the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE PERSEPOLIS FORTIFICATION ARCHIVE PROJECT, which has just received a $30,000 grant for its work: Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute grant to the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project.

Background on the project and the international legal controversy over the archive is here with many links.

Cross-file under "Aramaic Watch."

Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics

NOW PUBLISHED IN HARD COPY BY BRILL:

Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (4 Vols.)

General Editor: Geoffrey Khan Associate Editors: Shmuel Bolozky, Steven E. Fassberg, Gary A. Rendsburg, Aaron D. Rubin, Ora R. Schwarzwald, Tamar Zewi Advisory Board: Moshe Bar-Asher, Aharon Maman, Cynthia L. Miller-Naudé, Yael Reshef

The Hebrew language has one of the longest attested histories of any of the world’s languages, with records of its use from antiquity until modern times. Although it ceased to be a spoken language by the 2nd century C.E., Hebrew continued to be used and to develop in the form of a literary and liturgical language until its revival as a vernacular in the 20th century.
In a four volume set, complete with index, the Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics offers a systematic and comprehensive treatment of all aspects of the history and study of the Hebrew language from its earliest attested form to the present day. The encyclopedia contains overview articles that provide a readable synopsis of current knowledge of the major periods and varieties of the Hebrew language as well as thematically-organized entries which provide further information on individual topics, such as the Hebrew of various sources (texts, manuscripts, inscriptions, reading traditions), major grammatical features (phonology, morphology, and syntax), lexicon, script and paleography, theoretical linguistic approaches, and so forth. With over 950 entries and approximately 400 contributing scholars, the Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics is the authoritative reference work for students and researchers in the fields of Hebrew linguistics, general linguistics, Biblical studies, Hebrew and Jewish literature, and related fields.

There is an online version as well.

Noted as forthcoming here.

More on Shenoute

PHILIP JENKINS has two more posts on the ancient Egyptian monastic leader Shenoute: SHENOUTE’S WARS and SHENOUTE AND THE GNOSTICS. From the latter:

Shenoute wrote against both Origenists and Gnostics, and (not surprisingly, being Shenoute) he also undertook direct action. One of his campaigns, against the temple of Pneuit near Akhmim, around 412, was probably directed against still-surviving Sethian Gnostics. He particularly wanted to seize their “books full of abominations” – presumably, a collection very much like what was found at Nag Hammadi in modern times.

[...]

We can understand why Shenoute was hunting for Gnostic books. But the more interesting question might be, why were other monks likely using them? Did they still value them for their religious truth? Or were they mining them for evidence to denounce heresy? Scholars have debated this for years. Increasingly, I think these were books that monks themselves were reading for enlightenment and spiritual revelation, or at least had at some stage in their institutional development.

Background here.

Ugaritic

PHILOLOGOS in The Forward: Cracking the Ugaritic Code: Hebrew and Sister Tongue Grew From Ancient Semitic Language.

The treatment is pretty accurate, but a few comments are in order. First, it is not quite true that the Ugaritic alphabet does not indicate vowels at all. The letter Aleph comes in three forms, each of which attaches a different vowel to the consonant (a, i, or u). Second, it is not clear to me that Yamm or Sea is the same being as Lotan/Leviathan. Yamm is the god of the sea, whereas Leviathan is a sea monster. Third, it should be noted that the Ugaritic phrase quoted in the article appears in Hebrew in almost the same consonantal form in Isaiah 27:1. Finally, Ugaritic does "predate" Hebrew in the sense that it is older than the Hebrew we have in the Hebrew Bible, which (possibly with a rare earlier exception here or there) dates to the Iron Age II (c. 1000-586/7 BCE) and later. But Philologos is correct that Hebrew does not descend from Ugaritic; they are independent branches of Northwest Semitic. Still, whatever ancestor of Hebrew existed in the time of Ugaritic would be rather different from the Hebrew we know from the Bible and it would be a stretch to call it "Hebrew."

Job in Classical Judaism

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON - SEATTLE: Call for Applications: Assistant Professor in Classical Judaism.

The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professorship in classical Judaism. Possible areas of specialization include rabbinics, medieval commentarial literature, medieval philosophy, Jewish mysticism or Jewish law. The ideal candidate will study the Jewish religious and textual tradition within a broader cultural and comparative context. We expect this hire to play an integral role in the Samuel and Althea Stroum Jewish Studies Program, a nationally renowned program whose mission includes community engagement, outstanding scholarship, and exploring the integration of Jewish Studies and digital technologies. In addition, the successful candidate will be expected to contribute to the Comparative Religion program and to the interdisciplinary curriculum of the Jackson School.

Follow the link for details.

HT Carla Sulzbach on Facebook.

Review of Lapin, Rabbis as Romans

MARGINALIA: Ishay Rosen-Zvi on Rabbis as Romans, by Hayim Lapin: In what sense were the rabbis Roman?.

In 2012 I noted the book as forthcoming here.

The Israel Forgery Trial aftermath continues

THE LATEST NEWS arising from the Israel Forgery Trial has been out for a while and I'm just catching up. This Fox News article by Sasha Bogursky seems to cover the basics: Forgery of the century? Israel in decade-long war over biblical artifacts. The key point of interest is this:

The state now maintains that the inscription on the limestone box and the tablet are forged -- but the stones themselves are ancient and therefore belong to the state.

For its part, the IAA declined to comment after several days of repeated efforts by FoxNews.com.

"The IAA does not give interviews on that issue," the agency said.

I think the text of the Joash Inscription (Jehoash Inscription) is a modern fake, for reasons given quite a while ago here. I have the impression that at least most philologists agree on this. More to the point, I am still unaware of any peer-review publication that has argued for the authenticity of the Joash inscription or the full text of the James Ossuary inscription (see below), although I haven't been following the discussion closely and it's possible I have missed something. I am unqualified to have any opinion on whether the stone on which the Joash inscription is written is "ancient" (presumably meaning it is an ancient human-produced artifact, since stones by nature are pretty old). The James Ossuary itself is an ancient artifact, but there is a great deal of debate on whether all or part of the inscription is a modern (or at least later than first century) forgery.

Background on the Israel Forgery Trial is here with many, many links.

Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia?

THE ETHIOPIAN TRADITION that the Ark of the Covenant is kept in a special sanctuary in Aksum is explored by Paul Raffaele for The Smithsonian: Keepers of the Lost Ark? Christians in Ethiopia have long claimed to have the ark of the covenant. Our reporter investigated. He got to see the guardian of the Ark, but alas, not the Ark itself.

This is one of a number of less than convincing claims to account for the whereabouts (or at least fate) of the Ark of the Covenant, about which PaleoJudaica has posted many times. Start here and follow the many links back.

The DSS in the Netherlands

A DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION is being run by Kossmann.dejong in Assen, the Netherlands: Kossmann.dejong: An Exhibition Takes Visitors 2000 Years Back in Time.

HT Mladen Popovic.

BNTC update

THE BRITISH NEW TESTAMENT CONFERENCE meets here in St. Andrews starting a week from tomorrow (29-31 August). For those attending, the conference program and some travel advice have been posted on the website. Just follow the link and scroll down to "Conference Details."

Local Jewish customs, plus miracles, in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Good Jewish Fences Once Made Good Jewish Neighbors. Do They Still? One of many ancient local customs analyzed in this week’s Talmud study is the habit of separating Jews from gentiles. Excerpt:

I wonder, however, whether the rabbis were also motivated by their general tendency to discourage Jews from mingling too much with non-Jews. In Tractate Eruvin, we saw how the rabbis strongly advised a Jew not to live on his own in a non-Jewish neighborhood, lest he end up getting murdered. In an age when the non-Jew was seldom encountered except as an enemy, the rabbis may have thought it wiser for Jews not to do any business with their non-Jewish neighbors. Happily, I learned from the Schottenstein Talmud’s notes that this ban, like many Talmudic provisions, is no longer in force; so if you have an ox to sell, feel free to put it on Craigslist.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Textus archive

THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY now has a full archive online of the textual criticism journal Textus: Studies of the Hebrew University Bible Project.

Mystery word solved in the Apostrophe to Zion?

IT'S NICE when philology gets some attention from the media: Baffling Dead Sea Scrolls text gets new interpretation. A single phrase in the Psalms Scroll bewildered scholars for decades. Then two students had an epiphany. (Ran Shapira, Haaretz). Excerpt:

The verse with the word titbaech appears in a poem called (in English at least) “Apostrophe to Zion” — which appears in the so-called “Psalms Scroll”, together with other poems very much like the biblical Psalms.

Most of the Psalms Scroll had been satisfactorily deciphered and published in distinguished scientific journals. But the mystery verse with titbaech remained obscure.

There were interpretations, to be sure. They just didn’t make much sense.

And then Hanan Ariel and Alexey Yuditsky, doctoral students working on a project at the Hebrew Language Academy, had an epiphany.

[...]

Meanwhile, Ariel and Yuditsky realized - in Arabic, which is as close to Hebrew as say French is to English – the root taph-bet-ayin means “to go after,” “follow,” “overtake.”

Aha, thought the students: what if the mystery verb titbaech bore a rare meaning, not commonly known – not “seek” or “demand,” but “follow,” overtake”?

It's an interesting proposal, but I have reservations about new meanings derived primarily from Arabic cognates. When you start looking for cognates for a Hebrew word in Lane's Arabic English Lexicon, you tend to find a lot of them, and with a wide range of meanings. I wouldn't bet too heavily on any one of them unless there is substantial additional supporting evidence. Perhaps there is here, but we should wait for a full peer-review publication to evaluate the argument fully.

Meanwhile though, as I said, it's nice to find a user-friendly media discussion of a technical philological proposal.

Review of Labendz, Socratic Torah

MARGINALIA: Eva Kiesele on Socratic Torah, by Jenny Labendz: Plato, Bakhtin, and the Rabbis meet again.

Iron Age II Hebrew-inscribed bowl excavated in Jerusalem

THIS IAA PRESS RELEASE came out this weekend:

2700 Year-Old Inscription Found in Archaeological Excavations in the City of David

Archaeological excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the area of the Gihon Spring in the City of David, in the Walls around Jerusalem National Park, have unearthed a layer of rich finds including thousands of broken pottery shards, clay lamps and figurines. Most intriguing is the recent discovery of a ceramic bowl with a partially preserved inscription in ancient Hebrew. While not complete, the inscription presents us with the name of a seventh century BCE figure, which resembles other names known to us from both the Biblical and archaeological record (see examples below) and providing us with a connection to the people living in Jerusalem at the end of the First Temple period. This fascinating find will be presented at Megalim's Annual Archaeological Conference which will take place on Thursday, August 29th in the City of David.
The most similar name to our inscription is Zechariah the son of Benaiah, the father of the Prophet Jahaziel. The name Zechariah the son of Benaiah appears in 2 Chronicles 20:14 where it states that Jahaziel, son of Zechariah, son of Benaiah, a Levite of the sons of Asaph, prophesized before the Biblical King Jehoshaphat before the nation went off to war against the ancient kingdoms of Ammon and Moab.
Israel Antiquity Authority archaeologists Dr. Joe Uziel and Nahshon Zanton, who discovered the bowl while excavating remains associated with the First Temple period destruction, explained that the letters inscribed on the shard likely date to the 8-7th centuries BCE, placing the production of the bowl sometime between the reign of Hezekiah and the destruction of Jerusalem under King Zedekiah. The archaeologists also explained that the inscription was engraved on the bowl prior to firing, indicating that the inscription originally adorned the rim of the bowl in its entirety, and was not written on a shard after the vessel was broken.
While the purpose of the inscription on the bowl is unclear, archaeologists have posited that the bowl may have contained an offering, likely given by the individual whose name was inscribed on the bowl, or alternatively given to him.
Inscription Analysis
The first letter of the ceramic bowl’s partially preserved inscription in ancient Hebrew script is broken and is therefore difficult to read, but appears to be the letter ר. The next three letters יהו constitute the theophoric suffix (the component in which the name of the deity appears as part of the first name, such as Yirme-yahu and Eli-yahu, etc). These letters are followed by בנ (the son of) after which appears the patronymic name composed of the three letters בנה. According to archaeologists Uziel and Zanton, “If we consider the possibility that we are dealing with an unvowelized or ‘defective’ spelling of the name בניה (Benaiah), then what we have before us is the name "...ריהו בן בניה"

Many of the first names mentioned in the Bible contained the theophoric component יהו, as is the case of this inscription from the City of David. Besides the biblical references, other examples of this have also been found in archaeological excavations, written on a variety of objects such as seals, bullae, pottery vessels or even carved on rock. Noteworthy among the many names that end with the theophoric suffix יהו are several prominent examples that were previously discovered in City of David by Professor Yigal Shiloh, such as Gemar-yahu the son of Shaphan, Bena-yahu the son of Hoshayahu, etc. which were also found in the destruction layer and the ruins of the Babylonian conquest.

For information on the Megalim-City of David Annual Archaeological Conference please call *6033 or visit www.cityofdavid.org.il

Click here to download high resolution pictures:
1. Pottery Sherd of a Bowl from the end of the First Temple Period, bearing the inscription "ryhu bn bnh". Photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority
2. Various finds from the fill layer of the end of First Temple period: oil lamps, LMLKstamped handles and female figurines. Photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority

For more details contact Meyrav Shay, Public Information, Israel Antiquities Authority at 052-4284408, meyrav@israntique.org.il

Photo number 1 above. Click on the image for a larger view.HT Joseph I. Lauer.

Iraqi Jewish Archive update

REPORT: Iraqi Jewish Archives to be housed in the Iraqi National Library and Archives.

HT Dorothy Lobel King. Background here and many, many links.

Jewish palm reading

ERIC KWAKKEL: Medieval palm reading.

This image with Hebrew annotations is from the 13th century, but Jewish chiromancy (palm reading) is considerably older, and Jewish physiognomy (determining character by a person's physical characteristics) goes all the way back to the Qumran Library. See the Jewish Virtual Library article linked to in Kwakkel's post. I also discuss these matters in my article The Hekhalot Literature and Shamanism and at greater length in chapter 3 of my book Descenders to the Chariot: The People Behind the Hekhalot Literature.

The Zombie Bible

IT HAD TO HAPPEN: Ancient Israel’s Zombie Apocalypse (James McGrath). Cross-file under "Can't Make It Up."

Potentially relevant past posts are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Sara Japhet on Chronicles

THE OUP BLOG: An interview with Sarah Japhet.

In an interview with Professor Marc Zvi Brettler of Brandeis University, Professor Japhet explains how she became interested in the Chronicler, which she describes as “a fresh, critical spirit with the courage to look at Israelite history in a different way.” This emphasis on new and critical perspectives, she explains, helped to frame her career, and was fitting given her appointment as the first tenured woman in the Bible Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In addition, Japhet discusses how her early experiences with Chronicles informed her ongoing work on the larger issues of exegesis and historiography.

Shenoute and Nag Hammadi

PHILIP JENKINS: SHENOUTE THE GREAT. Shenoute was a critically important figure in the history of early Coptic language and literature, and he is also highly relevant for understanding the cultural background of the Nag Hammadi Library.

On a related note, Professor André Gagné has a Nag Hammadi Seminar running at Concordia University. It is by invitation only, but there is a public lecture coming up in February 2014.

Did Eusebius write the Testimonium Flavianum?

THE JESUS BLOG: The Testimonium Flavianum, Eusebius, and Consensus (Guest Post) - Olson.

In this guest post, Ken Olson offers us a brief look at his meticulous work on Josephus' reference to Jesus (famously titled the Testimonium Flavianium). We at the Jesus Blog are grateful to have him respond to the recent discussions of this passage in more popular treatments. -anthony

Earlier PaleoJudaica posts pertaining to the Testimonium Flavianum are here, here, here, here, and here. And there's a bit more on Ken Olson and his doctoral work on the Testimonium (which was done at Birmingham and Duke under Mark Goodacre) here.

American Jews and Cutheans?

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Are American Jews Creating a New Jewishness, or Just Abandoning the Real Kind? Most American Jews have effectively cast off rabbinic guidance. Would the Talmud’s rabbis have respected us for it, or disdained us? The column concludes:

All this made me wonder, as I have many times before in reading the Talmud, what the rabbis would make of the situation of American Jewry today. No one can say that America lacks rabbis to point out the correct halakhah, as the Jews of Kabul did. But the vast majority of Jews—unaffiliated, Reform, and even Conservative—have effectively cast off rabbinic guidance and have decided to invent their own Jewish customs. Some keep kosher at home but eat in non-kosher restaurants; some attend Shabbat services, but get there by driving to synagogue. The compromises of American Jewish life are legion.

Would these customs earn the rabbis’ respect, since they are the established practice of the majority? Or would we seem to them like Cutheans, who have lost the knowledge of the law and need to be treated with extra strictness? If, as I suspect, it’s the latter, perhaps we could respond, as the Cutheans would have, that our Jewishness is not a defective version of the rabbis’ but an original creation with its own integrity. But then the rabbis could point out that the Cutheans have all but disappeared, along with the Karaites and all the other Jewish schismatic sects, while rabbinic Judaism remains. It’s impossible to read the Talmud as a modern American Jew, especially a secular one like me, and not wonder whether that argument trumps all the rest.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Biblical Studies Carnival

THE JULY 2013 BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL has been published this month by Jim West.

The Qurʿan and the Syriac Bible

SYRIAC WATCH: Emran El-Badawi and Gabriel Said Reynolds have a Focus On essay on The Qurʿan and the Syriac Bible at the Oxford Islamic Studies Online website.

Cook on Aslan

ED COOK: Reza Aslan's "Zealot": Poor. That's pretty much what I'm hearing from biblical scholars.

Background here.

BNTC and blogging

THE BRITISH NEW TESTAMENT CONFERENCE is meeting in St Andrews at the end of the month, as regular readers are aware, and much of my time will be taken up by preparations for it. This means that blogging is likely to be lighter than usual for the rest of August. I will blog as much as I can, but probably not as much as I would like.

Conference on Jeremiah's Scriptures

CONFERENCE:

Jeremiah’s Scriptures: Production, Reception, Interaction, Transformation
Jer 2,1-2
International Conference June 22-26, 2014

Centro Stefano Franscini on the Monte Verità

The conference on "Jeremiah’s Scriptures: Production, Reception, Interaction, and Transformation" aspires to engage recent and current scholarship that has advanced source redaction, and literary criticism of Jeremiah and related Baruch and Jeremianic traditions in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Jewish and Christian Literature.

There are vital traditions about Jeremiah within, but also outside of the book that his name and engage in texts linked to his name. Accordingly, the conference will take into account the history of recension and the growth of tradition – biblical and para-biblical – as aspects of the expansion of the earlier sources within and beyond the book of Jeremiah. Thus, our proposed conference and volume of proceedings include a discussion of the literary growth of the book of Jeremiah, but not in a way that is limited to the study of that biblical book alone. The texts that play a role in the development of traditions connected to the figures of Jeremiah and Baruch, taken together, constitute what we call “Jeremiah’s Scriptures.”

The invited speakers include scholars of Biblical Studies, Ancient Judaism, and Dead Sea Scrolls from the U.S., Canada, Israel, Switzerland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Austria.

Location

The conference will take at the Centro Stefano Franscini on the Monte Verità (Ascona near Locarno, Switzerland).

Follow the link for registration information etc.

(HT Hindy Najman, one of the organizers.)

Byzantine-Era Samaritan site excavated

I LOVE GARBAGE PITS: Herzliya Byzantine-era find sheds light on ancient Samaritans’ lives (Sammy Hughs, Jerusalem Post). Excerpt:

The group is focusing on excavating refuse pits, essentially the town dumps used by the Samaritan community during the sixth and seventh centuries CE, Tal told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

Findings thus far in the main pit at the site include 400 Byzantine coins, 200 Samaritan lamps, an ancient ring and gold jewelry.

Tal said many of these findings could be significant because they included items that were discarded unused.

“Among these findings we have many intact oil lamps.

Some of them are even still sealed,” he said.

“This is very fascinating...

You don’t expect them to be found in dumps and refuse, because they need to be used and they need to be sold,” he said.

“Our understanding is that there is some sort of probable cultic aspect of intentionally discarding usable and intact vessels among the Samaritan community that inhabited Apollonia in the late Byzantine period.”

There are cool photos of the octagonal ring, which is inscribed with the name of God.

Also see: Byzantine Coins and Gold Found in Garbage Pit (Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery.com).

Doctoral post in Finland

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI: Job opening for a doctoral student

Job announcement for a doctoral student in the REECR project now published!

The length of the appointment is 3-4 years, beginning on 1.1.2014 at the latest. The appointed doctoral student will be situated at the Faculty of Theology, and will enter into an employment relationship with the University of Helsinki.

The dissertation project will be carried out as part of the collective research project “Ritual and the Emergence of Early Christian Religion: A Socio-Cognitive Analysis (REECR),” funded by the Academy of Finland and directed by Risto Uro. The doctoral student will be part of an interdisciplinary team, consisting of a director of research (Risto Uro), who will also serve as the doctoral student’s supervisor, and of postdoctoral researchers, along with an international group of external advisors and collaborators. The project’s working language is English. In addition to completing the dissertation work, the doctoral student will contribute to some extent to teaching and other academic activities, as determined by the Faculty.

The appointee should hold a Master’s degree in Theology, Religious Studies or a related field (or the degree will be completed by December 2013 at the latest), and should show competence in studying the New Testament and early Christian sources. The applicant should propose a dissertation project related to the theme and methodology of the REECR research project, and should be prepared to adapt it according to the aims and objectives of the REECR project and to the allocation of work in the research team. To successfully attend to the duties of the position, the appointee should have good English skills.

Follow the link for more information.