Review of Seow, Job 1-21

MARTI J. STEUSSY IN THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY: The many Jobs. A review of Job 1-21: Interpretation and Commentary by C. L. Seow.

Seow’s commentary will not answer all your questions about Job, but it will help you appreciate how the book’s complex poetry reinforces its insistent questions. For professional scholars, Seow provides a wonderful entry into the massive literature on Job. For pastors and lay readers, he serves up a nourishing banquet of linguistic insight, historical perspective, and thoughtful theological reflection.

Earlier review noted here.

Robert M. Grant, R.I.P.

SAD NEWS: Robert M. Grant, 1917-2014.

Professor Grant was the most prolific and influential American historian of ancient Christianity of his generation. The author of over thirty-three books and countless articles, Grant’s work was characterized by philological exactness, a deep knowledge of the ancient world, and philosophical and theological finesse, together with a tight prose style and dry wit.

Mostly I was familiar with Professor Grant's publications on the Apostolic Fathers, but his work was much more far-ranging. And I didn't know about his expertise on WWI U-Boats. Requiescat in pace.

More on that archaeology center in Jerusalem

ARCHITECTUAL RECORD: Digging for The Past and Future. A new archaeology campus designed by Moshe Safdie is under construction on a Jerusalem hillside.

In Jerusalem, the capital of a modern country enthralled by its past, a unique national archaeology campus is being built. The project—commissioned by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and officially named The Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel—combines three major components: storage of the national archaeological treasures (some two million items); restoration labs for objects made of various materials, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, mosaics, and glass, textile, and clay finds; and a national archaeology library and archive.

[...]

The guiding principle in the design of the new complex, which Safdie proposed during the competition phase, was that the project be a metaphor for an archaeological excavation. The floors will be numbered from the top down, like the numbering of strata in an excavation. And some mosaic preservation work will take place in the courtyards, which will be shaded by a canopy much like the tent-like canopies used in actual digs. The most striking design feature is this giant, square, concave canopy, held in place by cables and made of a brown, woven fiberglass-and-polymer fabric that allows 40 percent light transmission while keeping rain out. “Because of the shape, [water] drains toward the center, forming a kind of fountain into a pool,” Safdie said. The canopy also makes it possible to use clear glass in the windows around the courtyards. The perimeter walls are stone, in keeping with a municipal ordinance and also chosen because the architect believes Jerusalem buildings should be made of the local material.

[...]

This sound a little gimmicky and try-too-hard to me. And I can't say that the scale model entirely reassures me. But never mind, I hope it's a success.

Background here.

Intentionality in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Talmudic Rabbis Debate the Practice of the Law Versus the Intention Behind It. Technical discussion about the shofar leads quickly to an examination of deep spiritual questions.

One of the stimulating things about reading Daf Yomi is that you never know when a technical legal discussion will suddenly blossom into a profound examination of a spiritual question. That’s what happened this week in Chapter 3 of Tractate Rosh Hashanah, a short chapter largely devoted to the shofar that is blown on the holiday. Beginning with a discussion of what kind of animal horn can be used to make a shofar, the rabbis end up asking a question that goes to the heart of Judaism: Does God want us simply to carry out the mitzvot, or is the whole point of mitzvot that we obey them as a conscious religious act? Is it the practice of the law that counts or the intention behind it?

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Review of Griffith, The Bible in Arabic

MARGINALIA: The Arabic Bible before Islam – By Clare Wilde. Clare Wilde on Sidney H. Griffith’s The Bible in Arabic. Excerpt:

If Muhammad’s detractors are correct, in what language would such an informant (or, for that matter, any of the Qur’an’s first auditors) have known the Bible? Griffith does not dispute that Jews and Christians spoke Arabic before the emergence of Islam, nor that they may have conducted liturgies in Arabic. But he does refuse to posit a written Arabic Bible before the rise of Islam. The background of this claim is his decades-long engagement with Irfan Shahid, who argues that the Gospels and Psalms existed in Arabic before the rise of Islam. Locating extant parchments from late antiquity and the early medieval period that could constitute evidence in this debate is difficult, given the usually poor condition of any manuscript of such an early provenance. Nonetheless, Griffith demonstrates how the evidence we do have “argues against [the] probability” of a pre-Islamic Arabic translation of the Bible.

And then there's this:

Scholars interested in heterodoxy will be excited to learn of Arabic translations of apocryphal and pseudo-epigraphical texts that, previously, had been thought to exist only in Greek or Syriac fragments or in a single Syriac source (such as Sinai Arabic MS 389, which contains three Arabic translations of the Apocalypse of Baruch, the Epistle of Baruch, and 4 Ezra).

This sentence could be phrased a little more clearly, but it could be taken to refer to the recovery of new Arabic translations of biblical apocrypha and pseudepigrapha. Yes, this sounds exciting. But not so much if the reviewer just means the Sinai manuscript, which is already well known.

New Egyptology series from Brill

EXCITING: Brill Signs New Harvard Egyptological Studies Book Series.

Brill, the international scholarly publisher, has signed an agreement to publish Harvard Egyptological Studies – a new book series.

Sanders on Jesus' languages

SETH SANDERS: Why the Argument Over Jesus’ Language is More Complicated and More Interesting Than Media Experts Have Claimed (Religion Dispatches). Excerpt:

What languages did the area’s Jews think they were speaking? By the second century B.C.E. Palestinian Jews were writing major religious texts in all three languages, and translating the Hebrew scriptures into both Aramaic and Greek. Strikingly, they did not always even see Hebrew and Aramaic as two different “languages.”

That is, although they formed at least two distinct linguistic systems, they weren’t always differentiated, in theory or practice; the New Testament mentions of “Hebrew” usually refer to what we would call Aramaic, but sometimes Hebrew, and should perhaps be understood as an ethnic term. The more relevant opposition for them may have been ethnic and cultural: not Hebrew vs. Aramaic, but Jewish vs. Greek. It’s this opposition that may have determined how languages were named and categorized in the region as well. The ancient borders of languages, in other words, were themselves linguistically produced.

While this view complicates both scholarly and nationalist presuppositions, it is ultimately a product of them: for linguistic ideologies to be reconstructed, ancient metalanguage—discussions of who was speaking what—must be translated. Indeed, recent decades have seen an explosion in contemporary sources for Aramaic, which strengthens and nuances this picture.

And here is a further scholarly irony. From the purist’s point of view, the Jewish Palestinian Aramaic corpus, which is as close as we are going to come to the Aramaic of Jesus, is as odd as Mel Gibson’s film. Most of this “Aramaic” is not entirely in Aramaic. The inscriptions and Midrash offer Aramaic phrases, sentences, and extended passages—but freely mixed with, or embedded in, Hebrew.

Lots of interesting thoughts and nuances here, just as we would expect from Seth. Read it all.

Background here and links.

Temple Mount Sifting Project - still at it

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Temple Mount archaeological project yields treasure, unearths conflict. Sifting through earth removed from holy site gleans rare artifacts going back thousands of years, but Prof. Gabriel Barkay’s methods stir controversy (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel). Excerpt:

What remains is typically just pebbles, rocks and bits of modern refuse, but the dirt is also peppered with bits of antiquity. The objects are cleaned, photographed, digitized, cataloged, and sent to a Jerusalem lab where the senior staff, headed by Barkay and Professor Zachi Dvira.

Most of the tens of thousands of items found in the pans by volunteers are small — an abundance of coins, innumerable fragments of clay, figurines, brightly colored mosaic tiles and beads, arrowheads, inscribed stones and bits of bone. In explaining the trove of tiny artifacts found, Barkay made regular reference to biblical and post-biblical characters in corresponding the items to time periods: clay figurines smashed during the time of the just kings of Judah, seal impressions with the names of priests mentioned in the book of Jeremiah and coins minted during the rein of King Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who fought the Maccabees. The relics catalog the history of Jerusalem from antiquity through the modern era, he explained.

Other finds include rare coins, like a half-shekel minted in the first year of the Great Jewish Revolt against Rome in 66 CE; a seal impression left in clay, from the 6th century BCE bearing the name of a Judean official; and golden mosaic tiles from the early Islamic period which once decorated the Dome of the Rock’s exterior before it was renovated.

“Our main method of dating is via typology,” Barkay said. “We try to find parallel, similar objects found elsewhere in context” and use them to date objects found in the Temple Mount fill.

“That is one of the axiomatic assumptions of archaeology,” he explained, “that there is a fashion in human life, and objects of the same time looked similar here in the Temple Mount and elsewhere.” Unfortunately, the project presently lacks the necessary funds to perform radiocarbon dating on organic matter such as fox, cow, sheep, and pig bones to better date some of the finds.

“It is true that we are dealing with material that has no context. We do not know from what depth the material came. We do not know what was found next to what, with what structures are they associated,” Barkay said. He noted, however, that there had previously been no archaeological survey of the Temple Mount, calling it “an archaeological black hole” comprising one-sixth of the Old City.

Since King Herod built the platform surmounting the Temple Mount in the first century BCE, it has been “a closed box,” which “didn’t have large-scale earthen works carried out, so no earth was brought in and no large quantities were taken out. The soil is indigenous,” Barkay said.

This is a very thorough article, which covers the background of the project, its funding, its accomplishments, and its critics. Read it all.

HT Joseph I. Lauer. Background on the Temple Mount Sifting Project is here, with links going back to its inception. Background on Elad is here and links.

Second-Temple-era settlement in Hebron

THE JEWISH PRESS: New Discoveries in Ancient Jewish Settlement Uncovered in Hebron (Tzipi Schlissel / Tazpit News Agency). Excerpt:

An industrial area was discovered with an olive oil press, cisterns, a workshop with a furnace and ponds. From the industrial area, there is a road that leads to the city square and center of the town, but that section hasn’t been excavated yet.

In an amazing find in the agricultural areas, stone tools were found, as well as a stamp in ancient Hebrew, with the words “King of Hebron” on it.

A "King of Hebron" in the Second Temple era? Would that be an Idumean thing? Or is it an Edomite seal from an earlier period?

Jobar Synagogue update

ADAM BLITZ IN HAARETZ: Who will save the remains of Syria’s ancient synagogue? Surrounded by a propaganda war and rebel fighters, Damascus’ Jobar synagogue has now been largely destroyed, but its media fame has dangerously inflated the value of its remaining artefacts.

Unfortunately I got to this one only after it had gone behind the subscription wall. But Adam has alerted me to a post at the Scotfella blog which has a substantial excerpt: Who will save what's left of Jobar? Bottom line: the photographic evidence indicates that about two-thirds of the synagogue has indeed been destroyed.

Background here and links.

Zsengellér (ed.), Rewritten Bible after Fifty Years

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Rewritten Bible after Fifty Years: Texts, Terms, or Techniques?
A Last Dialogue with Geza Vermes

Edited by József Zsengellér, Károli Gáspár Reformed University, Budapest

Rewritten Bible After Fifty Years presents the papers of a conference on the meanings and usages of the term Rewritten Bible introduced by Geza Vermes in 1961. Leading scholars of the topic discuss their new insights and ideas comparing with Vermes' initiative, whose participation on this conference was unfortunately the last chance for a life dialogue with him on this topic.
Apart from the terminological discussions and comparisons several case studies widen the scope of the notion of Rewritten Bible/Scripture and rewriting as a genre and technique.

Vermes's last book has also recently been published and is noted here.

Gathercole, The Gospel of Thomas

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Gospel of Thomas
Introduction and Commentary

Simon Gathercole, University of Cambridge

In this new commentary on the controversial Gospel of Thomas, Simon Gathercole provides the most extensive analysis yet published of both the work as a whole and of the individual sayings contained in it. This commentary offers a fresh analysis of Thomas not from the perspective of form criticism and source criticism but seeks to elucidate the meaning of the work and its constituent elements in its second-century context. With its lucid discussion of the various controversial aspects of Thomas, and treatment of the various different scholarly views, this is a foundational work of reference for scholars not just of apocryphal Gospels, but also for New Testament scholars, Classicists and Patrologists.

SOTS Booklist 2014

IN THE MAIL:

Deborah W. Rook (ed.) with Holly Morse, Society for Old Testament Study Book List 2014 (London: Sage, 2014)

Baird on the houses of Dura Europos

ASOR BLOG: The Inner Lives of Ancient Houses: An Archaeology of Dura-Europos (J. A. Baird). Excerpts:

... My book, The Inner Lives of Ancient Houses: An Archaeology of Dura-Europos is the first to consider the houses of the site as a whole.

The Dura houses were excavated by a team from Yale in the 1920s and 1930s, and though a wealth of archaeological and textual material was recovered, most of that relating to housing was never published. Through a combination of archival information held at the Yale University Art Gallery and new fieldwork with the Mission Franco-Syrienne de Doura-Europos my book re-evaluates the houses of the site. Integrating architecture, artefacts, and textual evidence, this study examines ancient daily life and cultural interaction and includes a consideration of houses that were modified for use by the Roman military.

[...]

The houses of Dura were, in some cases, occupied over several generations, so we have not only the evidence of their final form, but also of their use and adaptation over a long period. Houses were passed down within families, divided between kin, sold, left to become ruinous, or transformed into quarters for Roman soldiers. The houses were living structures, being constantly maintained and modified, and parts of their biographies can be traced in these architectural modifications.

[...]

More from Dr. Baird on Dura Europos is here and links. And there's lots more on Dura Europos here, here, and, sadly, here and links.

Pearse on papyri and the Green Collection

ROGER PEARSE: Boxes of papyri in Berlin “unopened” since they left Egypt a century ago. Pearse is in fine curmudgeon mode on the issue of working with Christian apologists who have money to fund papyrology. Excerpt:

May I invite my readers to imagine what sort of money even a single mega-church could spend, if it was convinced that among the sands of Egypt were texts that would illuminate, or confirm, or illustrate, – whatever – the bible?

It’s easy enough to sneer at enthusiastic amateurs talking about washing papyri with palmolive. There’s been plenty of that. It’s easy to jeer at famous apologist Josh McDowell and his promotion of the work.

And yet … it’s shameful too. I welcome getting the public involved. I welcome enthusiasm, the wide diffusion of involvement, in a guided way. Archaeologists have managed this with aplomb for decades. They’ve even managed to get random metal-detectorists working with them, rather than against them. The result is that archaeology has a large constituency among the public willing to lobby for them. Times are hard, but they are well-placed.

So, are archaeologists, as a breed, simply more intelligent than papyrologists? Really? For what kind of short-sighted idiot rushes to insult, to obstruct, to sneer, at the involvement of the public?

Background here and many links

Jesus' languages yet again

THE BBC: Who, What, Why: What language would Jesus have spoken? Now Sebastian Brock has weighed in:

Both the Pope and the Israeli prime minister are right, says Dr Sebastian Brock, emeritus reader in Aramaic at Oxford University, but it was important for Netanyahu to clarify. Hebrew was the language of scholars and the scriptures. But Jesus's "everyday" spoken language would have been Aramaic. And it is Aramaic that most biblical scholars say he spoke in the Bible. This is the language that Mel Gibson used for The Passion of the Christ, although not all the words could be found from 1st Century Aramaic, and some of the script used words from later centuries

Perhaps. But if the inferences about Hebrew diglossia in the Second Temple period are correct, Hebrew was probably also a widely spoken language, not just a scholarly one. (See discussion in yesterday's post here.) The article also quotes Jonathan Katz on whether Jesus knew Latin (unlikely) or Greek (probably some).

See yesterday's post (linked to above) and links for more on this story.

I have posted endlessly on Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ and its use of Aramaic (and the other languages). Many of the relevant posts are here, here, here (Latin too), here (Latin and Greek too), here, here, here, here, here (Latin too), here, here, here (Greek), here, here (Hebrew and Greek too), and here. And my review of the movie is here.

Also, this seems relevant, sort of.

YU DSS Seminar canceled

WORD IS THAT the Yeshiva University Dead Sea Scrolls Seminar scheduled for 8 June has been canceled. Jack Sasson (Agade List) and Joseph I. Lauer have circulated the following note from Prof. Moshe J. Bernstein:

We regret to announce that the Yeshiva University Dead Sea Scrolls Seminar that had been scheduled for 1-4 PM on Sunday, June 8, 2014 at the Yeshiva University Museum @ the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan has been canceled. It will be rescheduled for a date in the Fall term 2014.

Talmud, calendar, moon (and Torah), sun

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: ‘Daf Yomi’: Talmudic Rabbinical Thought Was Part Lunatic, Part Moon Shot.Why gamblers, pigeon racers, and usurers can’t witness a Jewish new moon, and why the lunar calendar still matters.

How often does a modern city-dweller think about the moon? Could you tell, without looking it up, what phase the moon is in tonight, or where it will appear in the sky at any given hour? Probably not, and why would you—for many of us today, the moon is just a big decoration in the sky, and the destination of some old Apollo missions. For the rabbis of the Talmud, however, the moon was the key to the whole rhythm of Jewish life. Because the Jewish calendar is a lunar calendar, with the beginning of the month tied to the appearance of the waxing crescent moon, the whole rabbinic and priestly establishment was highly attuned to the moon’s phases and trajectories. This week’s Daf Yomi reading, which included the end of Chapter 1 and all of the brief Chapter 2 of Tractate Rosh Hashanah, was all about the procedures for determining exactly when the waxing crescent moon appears.

[...]

Mr. Kirsch does not mention the solar calendar, which is known from the Enochic literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls etc., and which was quite important to some Jews in the Second Temple period. Some posts relating to it are here, here, here, and here.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

While we're on the subject of the Moon: I've been looking for an excuse to mention this story, which has received a lot of coverage in the last couple of weeks: Sending a Torah to the moon. A company in Tel Aviv aims for cultural preservation by rocketing Torah scrolls to the moon for posterity (Jerusalem Post).

Tel Aviv-based company Torah on the Moon was hoping to deposit Torah scrolls on the moon as part of a cultual preservation project in case something should happen to Earth, the Washington Post reported this week.

[...]

Last week, the engineering arm of the European Space Agency confirmed that it has been commissioned to test the space-hardiness of the capsule that would contain the Torah, the Post reported.

The capsule must be designed to protect the sacred text from the moon’s harsh radiation and temperature changes for at least 10,000 years. The moon lacks an atmosphere to trap heat, and the surface temperatures can rocket to a daytime high of about 253 degrees and plunge to 279 degrees below zero at night.

There were separate plans in the works to carry Hindu scriptures called the Veda and the I Ching, an ancient Chinese philosophical work, to the moon if the Torah mission was successful. The texts would join a Bible left on the moon in 1971 by Apollo 15 commander David Scott.

Melilah: Call for papers

CALL FOR PAPERS: MELILAH: JOURNAL OF JEWISH STUDIES, 2014 VOLUME

www.melilahjournal.org

The editorial board of Melilah invites submissions for its 2014 volume, for which the theme is 'Jewish Studies and the New Testament'. Melilah is an interdisciplinary Open Access journal available in both electronic and book form concerned with Jewish law, history, literature, religion, culture and thought in the ancient, medieval and modern eras. Interested authors are encouraged to contact the editors in advance; the theme of 'Jewish Studies and the New Testament' will be defined broadly. For publication in the 2014 volume, papers should be submitted by 1 August 2014. Papers submitted after that date may be considered for publication in a future volume. All papers will be subject to peer-review before acceptance for publication. Contributor Notes can be found at: www.melilahjournal.org/p/contributor-notes.html

(Sent in by Professor Daniel R. Langton.)

More on Jesus, Aramaic, and Hebrew

RANDALL BUTH IN HAARETZ: Why Jesus really was a Hebrew speaker. Hebrew, and not only Aramaic, was a spoken language at the time of Jesus, but PM Netanyahu’s exchange with the pope wasn’t only academic: It’s a debate with a clear religious and cultural subtext. Excerpt:

A common fallacy presents Hebrew usage in first century Judea and the Galilee as a strictly sacred, literary language, comparable to Latin in Medieval Europe. The notion that both Hebrew and Latin were monolithic is erroneous. During the Second Temple period, Hebrew had developed into two social dialects. The high register was a literary dialect used for prestigious communication, known today as “Late Biblical Hebrew,” the language of books like Ezra and Nehemia and much of the Qumran writings. The low register can be seen in works like the Copper Scroll from Qumran Cave 3, and in various papyri, graffiti, and inscriptions from the Second Temple period, as well as the tannaitic and amoraic writings of rabbinic literature. Already in 1908, M.H. Segal had pointed out to the scholarly world that Mishnaic Hebrew showed the marks of the internal development of a colloquial language - it was definitely not an artificial usage by a scholarly elite.

Secondly, it is argued that first century Judean and Galilean Jews needed a translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Aramaic Targums. The argument runs that the existence of the Aramaic Targums must mean that the people did not know Hebrew. However, the Targums served an interpretive interest beyond simple translation, a commentary that elucidated and expanded the plain text. Also, although many Aramaic writings are found among the Qumran community’s scrolls, except for the foreign (imported) Job and a potential text for a pilgrimage holiday, there is no Aramaic Bible. The Targum traditions that we have stem from the 2nd and 3rd century C.E. At this point in time, a widespread, first-century Aramaic Targum practice in Israel remains speculation and the evidence available, meager though it is, actually points away from such an assumption.

Parables are the third piece of the linguistic puzzle. Certain Jewish literary genres were always in Hebrew, one of which was the rabbinic story parable. In rabbinic literature, even within Aramaic contexts, the story parable was always given in Hebrew. The potential connection with Jesus is obvious, since Jesus, too, is frequently characterized as someone who taught the populace in parables. The parable genre was used for making a point that could be readily grasped by all levels of society. They were a popular literary genre, not “highbrow” or “elitist.”

Archaeology has also been heralded as decisive evidence in the Aramaic-only Jesus. According to Gilad: “In the Galilee, where Jesus lived, Aramaic had taken over by the time Jesus was born. In the south, in Judea, archaeological evidence shows that some pockets of Hebrew still remained during the first century C.E.” This is ironic. The real problem is that we have virtually no archaeological evidence for first century Semitic (Aramaic or Hebrew) languages in the Galilee. We do have Galilean names found in the south, and they are Hebrew!

Dr. Buth is an expert Aramaist and his thoughts are always worth listening to. I think some of the arguments above are more persuasive than others. The last points out rightly that we have next to no direct information about the languages spoken in the Galilee in the first century. But this point applies to the argument about parables. The language pattern of parables in the much later rabbinic texts doesn't necessarily tell us anything about the language Jesus used to tell parables in the first century.

If the book of Job had a foreign origin, this would scarcely have been important in the first century or a reason to make a Targum of it and not other books. I suppose one could say that the Hebrew of Job is just really difficult and that could make a Targum desirable — but why an Aramaic translation rather than just a paraphrase into easier Hebrew? Also 4Q156 preserves fragments of what looks like a Targum to the book of Leviticus, although this is debated. I would say that the Targum of Job does at least hint that there were elements of the population who were more comfortable studying the Bible in Aramaic than in Hebrew.

The strongest argument is the evidence for diglossia (the presence of a high-class literary dialect and a colloquial dialect) in Hebrew going all the way back to the Hebrew Bible, and I should have taken this into account in my earlier comments. Most of the Bible is written in the literary dialect, whereas Mishnaic Hebrew is the colloquial dialect now raised to literary status. It is an inference, but a persuasive one, that Hebrew continued to be spoken in the Second Temple period and that the Mishnah adopted this spoken dialect for literary use. Who exactly continued to speak Hebrew (Judeans? Galileans? Both? At what social level?) is perhaps not entirely clear, but this does offer some good additional evidence that Jesus spoke both Aramaic and Hebrew.

For more on diglossia, see Gary A. Rendsburg, Diglossia in Ancient Hebrew (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1990).

Background here.

Biblical Studies Carnival

THE CURRENT BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL has been posted on Jeff Carter's blog. HT James McGrath, who adds some posts on Christology to the list.

Still more on that catalogue of Syriac manuscripts

LIV INGEBORG LIED: Transmission, textual units, "codex context."

This post offers some methodological and theoretical reflections on the transmission of textual units, the transformation of texts, and some interesting challenges for those of us who work on "the codex context" - inspired by Brock and van Rompay's new catalogue.
This is my final post on the catalogue of Syriac manuscripts in the Dayr al-Suryan. Promise.

[...]

We'll forgive you if you change your mind, Liv.

More from Professor Lied on that catalogue of Syriac manuscripts from the Monastery at Deir al-Surian is noted here and links. Her current post also has more on the title of Josephus' Antiquities book 6 (a.k.a. "5 Maccabees") in Codex Ambrosius B.21.

Jobar Synagogue destroyed — again?

THE DAILY BEAST REPORTS: Exclusive Photos: Syria’s Oldest Synagogue, Destroyed by Assad (Josh Rogin).

The Jobar Synagogue was one of the holiest Jewish sites in Syria and contained priceless historical artifacts. Now it’s destroyed—and the opposition says Assad is to blame.

Syrian Arab Army forces flattened the Eliyahu Hanabi Synagogue in the Jobar neighborhood of Damascus over the weekend. The attack not only wrecked a site that’s at least 400 years old. It may have destroyed thousands of irreplaceable Jewish artifacts contained inside the synagogue, according to opposition leaders and photos obtained at the site.

[...]

I've held off on this one, because in March 2013 the synagogue was reported destroyed, but it developed shortly afterwards that it had been damaged but not destroyed (see here and here). This report came out on 27 May (a week ago) and was taken up in many places in the following day, but I cannot find any news after that. The photos of the damage look pretty comprehensive and, sadly, it appears that the report of the synagogue's destruction are true this time around.

Legal Conference on Talmud and Law

IN ST. LOUIS: Legal Conference on Talmud and Law to Celebrate 20 Successful Years.

St. Louis, MO - On Thursday evening, June 12, attorneys and community members will gather at “The Jewish Law & Ethics Symposium”, a forum comparing Jewish legal and ethical principles with contemporary law and public policy, at the Sheraton Clayton Plaza Hotel.

Since 1994, St. Louis area lawyers earn continuing legal education credits (CLE’s) at the Conference on Talmud and Law presented by Chabad of Greater St. Louis. In celebration and recognition of 20 successful years, Chabad will be hosting a symposium and panel discussion featuring a Rabbi, Lawyer and Judge discussing the topic “When Law & Religion Collide.”

[...]

Shavuot

THE FESTIVAL OF SHAVUOT (Weeks, Pentecost) begins today at sundown. Best wishes to all those celebrating. Some biblical background is noted here.

St. Andrews Symposium

STARTS TODAY: The St Andrews Symposium for Biblical and Early Christian Studies.

Hefsek and the gender of God. Or not.

PHILOLOGOS: Why God Can Sometimes Sound Female. It's a Question of Grammar, Not Theology.

Irving Salzman has a question about an ancient Hebrew prayer, the answer to which involves some fine points of linguistic history that may not interest everyone. Yet since the prayer is one that all of you who are synagogue-goers know and may have wondered about, too, I’ll risk discussing it.

The prayer begins with the words modim anaḥnu lakh, “We thank You,” and is recited three times daily in the Shemoneh Esreh or “Eighteen Benedictions” in the morning, afternoon and evening services. In it, worshippers express their gratitude to God for “our lives that are in Your hands, and our souls that are at Your command, and Your miracles that are with us every day, and Your constant wonders and kindnesses, evening, morning, and noon.” But though there is nothing strange about the prayer itself, its first words may seem puzzling. This is because lakh, the second-person singular, dative case of the Hebrew pronoun “you” (the verb l’hodot, “to thank,” takes the dative) is its feminine form, the masculine form being lekha, with the stress on the second syllable. “Do you have an explanation for this?” Mr. Salzman asks. “I have never received a good answer, even from rabbis.”

Given the preoccupations of many contemporary American rabbis, I’m surprised that none has tried telling Mr. Salzman that here is proof that the God of Judaism is also female — but even our rabbis, it would seem, know better than to confuse grammar with theology. The real answer to Mr. Salzman’s question lies in a feature of biblical grammar known as hefsek or “stoppage,” which ordains that certain Hebrew words change their vowels when occurring at the end of a sentence or phrase.

[...]

This is a creative way of backing into the grammatical arcana of Hebrew pausal forms.

The Lod Mosaic comes to England

THE LOD MOSAIC goes on display at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, England, on Thursday. The Guardian has an article on it in anticipation by Christopher Lightfoot: The Lod mosaics – a carnival of animals. Much background here and links.

Temple Mount questions

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: What's going on underneath the Temple Mount? (Nadav Shragai, Israel HaYom). Dueling narratives:

Dr. Eilat Mazar, an Israeli archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is a member of the Public Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount. She said that in the large space underneath the Golden Gate there continues to be "significant, new activity that arouses great concern."

The Israel Antiquities Authority has said that there is nothing new to report. The space underneath the gate has only seen limited educational activity by Muslims, with no harm done to antiquities there.

The area in question was once used by the Islamic Movement and Sheikh Raed Salah, but it was sealed off by order of the military a decade ago. In recent years, there have been educational activities by Muslims. In recent months, however, Mazar said that "the area has been renovated, new lighting has been installed, carpets have been laid down there, and Muslim guards have prevented anyone from gaining access or coming close to the area."

"The Muslims are gradually turning the place into a mosque and are in essence monopolizing the area for Muslim use only," she said. "This is a very serious development, even if this is being done with authorization. It is even graver if it is being done without authorization."

[...]

The Antiquities Authority does not share the committee members' view. Authority officials view the situation in a different light. Dr. Yuval Baruch, the director of the Antiquities Authority's Jerusalem District, said that the area in question is being used to administer high school matriculation exams to students enrolled at schools that use the Temple Mount complex. The activities currently taking place there are permissible according to the closure edict that was issued years ago.

"We visit the area on a regular basis," he said. "There is no change. There is no construction work being done, and there is no harm being done to artifacts."

The article also mentions the 2010 State Comptroller's report on the Temple Mount, which has never been fully published, but its full text was reportedly leaked by the Jewish Voice last year.

Kosmin, The Land of the Elephant Kings

NEW BOOK FROM HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The Land of the Elephant Kings
Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire

Paul J. Kosmin

HARDCOVER
$49.95 • £36.95 • €45.00
ISBN 9780674728820
Publication: June 2014
448 pages
6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches
15 halftones, 9 maps

The Seleucid Empire (311–64 BCE) was unlike anything the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds had seen. Stretching from present-day Bulgaria to Tajikistan—the bulk of Alexander the Great’s Asian conquests—the kingdom encompassed a territory of remarkable ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity; yet it did not include Macedonia, the ancestral homeland of the dynasty. The Land of the Elephant Kings investigates how the Seleucid kings, ruling over lands to which they had no historic claim, attempted to transform this territory into a coherent and meaningful space.

Based on recent archaeological evidence and ancient primary sources, Paul J. Kosmin’s multidisciplinary approach treats the Seleucid Empire not as a mosaic of regions but as a land unified in imperial ideology and articulated by spatial practices. Kosmin uncovers how Seleucid geographers and ethnographers worked to naturalize the kingdom’s borders with India and Central Asia in ways that shaped Roman and later medieval understandings of “the East.” In the West, Seleucid rulers turned their backs on Macedonia, shifting their sense of homeland to Syria. By mapping the Seleucid kings’ travels and studying the cities they founded—an ambitious colonial policy that has influenced the Near East to this day—Kosmin shows how the empire’s territorial identity was constructed on the ground. In the empire’s final century, with enemies pressing harder and central power disintegrating, we see that the very modes by which Seleucid territory had been formed determined the way in which it fell apart.

Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Story

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Nag Hammadi Story (2 vols.)
From the Discovery to the Publication

James M. Robinson

The Nag Hammadi Record [sic] is not a history of research in the usual sense of a Forschungsbericht, which would report on the massive amount of scholarship that has been devoted to the content of the Nag Hammadi Codices for more than a half-century. Rather it is a socio-historical narration of just what went on during the thirty-two years from their discovery late in 1945, via their initial trafficking, and then the attempts to monopolize them, until finally, through the intervention of UNESCO, the whole collection of thirteen Codices was published in facsimiles and in English translation, both completed late in 1977.

Reed on the Gospel of Barnabas

ANNETTER YOSHIKO REED: "Muslim Gospel" Revealing the "Christian Truth" Excites the Da Vinci Code Set. Jesus Christ on a Cross: Not.

This is an excellent and very detailed account of the very late, apocryphal, Islam-influenced Gospel of Barnabas. New interest in this gospel was stimulated a couple of years ago with a report that an ancient Syriac copy of it had been seized from smugglers in Turkey. In reality that manuscript turned out to be an early modern copy of a Syriac version of the canonical Gospel of Matthew, and perhaps even a modern forgery of that. Nevertheless, the story continues to surface here and there. The Gospel of Barnabas also was in the news back in 2008 as a source used for an Iranian movie about Jesus.

Professor Reed's article was published in Religion Dispatches, but I'm happy to see that Salon has reprinted it. It deserves wide dissemination.

The Mesha Stele

THE BIBLE PLACES BLOG: Artifact of the Month: Mesha Stela (Moabite Stone). Looking through the PaleoJudaica archive, I am surprised that the Moabite Stone inscription hasn't been received more attention here. But a couple of posts dealing with it are here and here. And here's a Bible History Daily post from October 2013 which I seem to have missed: The Importance of Bible Artifacts Found Outside the Trench: The Moabite Stone.

Cross-file under Northwest Semitic Epigraphy.

Pearce (ed.), The Image and Its Prohibition in Jewish Antiquity

NEW BOOK FROM OXBOW PRESS:

The Image and Its Prohibition in Jewish Antiquity [Paperback]

Sarah Pearce (Editor)

£55.00

ISBN: 9780957522800 | Published by: Journal of Jewish Studies | Series: Supplement Series | Volume: 2 | Year of Publication: 2013 | Language: English 288p, 50 illustrations

Details

Against the commonly held opinion that ancient Judaism was an artless culture, this sumptuously illustrated book offers new ways of looking at art in Jewish antiquity. Leading experts, under the editorship of Sarah Pearce, skilfully explore different functions of images in relation to their prohibition by the Second of the Ten Commandments. The visual world of ancient Judaism often reflects a tense confrontation between Mediterranean, artful classical culture and the image-filled, yet law-inspired biblical literature. Readers will encounter a rich collection of objects and texts analysed in different contexts, from Solomon’s Temple to late antiquity. The imageless God of monotheistic Judaism combated the polytheistic cults of Israel’s neighbours with the use of symbols. Figurative, floral and geometrical embellishments of synagogues served as decoration and not for worship. Narrative biblical scenes in the Dura-Europos synagogue played an educational and political role in Jewish society on the outskirts of the Roman Empire. Antique Jewish art exercised a profound influence on medieval Islam and even on the modern Western visual world. This book is aimed at both the scholarly world and all readers interested in religion and art.

The was a book launch in Oxford for this book yesterday.

New SBL text resources

PETER M. HEAD: Launch of SBL Text-Critical Resources Web Page.

What language(s) did Jesus speak?

ARAMAIC WATCH: Pope, Netanyahu spar over Jesus' native language.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Pope Francis and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded words on Monday over the language spoken by Jesus two millennia ago.

"Jesus was here, in this land. He spoke Hebrew," Netanyahu told Francis, at a public meeting in Jerusalem in which the Israeli leader cited a strong connection between Judaism and Christianity.

"Aramaic," the pope interjected.

"He spoke Aramaic, but he knew Hebrew," Netanyahu shot back.

[...]

They are probably both right. Jesus is quoted speaking Aramaic in the New Testament (and possibly Hebrew too). It is clear from the epigraphic evidence that Aramaic was the normal spoken language in first-century CE Galilee and the Dead Sea Scrolls attest to a literary use of Hebrew in Palestine in the first century. Whether a Galilean tradesman like Jesus spoke Hebrew is a more difficult question. My guess is that he probably did know it well enough to read the Hebrew Scriptures, but I can't prove it. There is very little first-century epigraphic evidence for the colloquial use of Hebrew in Palestine. The Bar Kokhba texts show that Hebrew was a spoken language in the early second century, but it is unclear whether this represents a long-term ongoing tradition of speech or a revival of Hebrew during the Bar Kokhba revolt. Ghil'ad Zuckermann says that the lower classes spoke Hebrew in Jesus' time, but there isn't any compelling evidence that this is so.

A few earlier posts on the languages Jesus spoke are here, here, and here.

UPDATE: R. Stephen Notley: Your Holiness, Bibi was right – Jesus spoke Hebrew! (The Times of Israel; HT Gerald Rosenberg). This requires some unpacking.

The inscriptional and literary evidence reflects a reality not unlike what we find with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Of the 700 non-biblical texts from the Qumran library, 120 are in Aramaic and 28 in Greek, while 550 scrolls were written in Hebrew.

No, unlike the ratios within the Dead Sea Scrolls (which belonged to highly literate people), the inscriptional (epigraphic) evidence for first-century Palestine gives us quite a bit of Aramaic but scarcely any Hebrew.

Jesus lived in a trilingual land in which Hebrew and Aramaic were widely in use. A relative latecomer, Greek was introduced in the 4th century B.C.E. with the arrival of Alexander the Great and his Hellenistic successors.

By the first century C.E. Aramaic served as the lingua franca of the Near East, and there is little question that Jesus knew and spoke Aramaic. Hebrew, on the other hand, was in more limited use as the language of discourse among the Jewish people.

Correct.

The New Testament presents Jesus knowledgeable of both written and spoken Hebrew.

He is portrayed reading and teaching from the Bible, and there are clear indications in these accounts that he used the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jesus is shown to be knowledgeable about the Hebrew Bible, but it's hard to say for sure if he knew it directly or via Aramaic paraphrases. In the episode in Luke 4:16-30 he is portrayed as reading directly from a scroll of Isaiah, which would have been in Hebrew, but this story is told only by Luke and we don't know if it has anything to do with the historical Jesus. As I said, I suspect he could read the Hebrew Bible, but I can't prove it.

In this he was not alone. We have not a single example of a Jewish teacher of the first century in the land of Israel teaching from any other version of the scriptures than Hebrew.

We don't have anything remotely resembling a comprehensive knowledge of Palestinian Jewish teachers in the first century, so this doesn't prove much of anything. Both Paul and Josephus were Palestinian Jews and they knew and used the Greek Bible as a matter of course, albeit when living outside Palestine. And there is an Aramaic targum of the biblical book of Job among the Dead Sea Scrolls, so it's not hard to imagine people teaching from it.

In addition, Jesus is often described speaking in parables. These were delivered orally in popular, non-scholarly settings. They were also in Hebrew. Outside of the Gospels, story-parables of the type associated with Jesus are to be found only in rabbinic literature, and without exception they are all in Hebrew. We have not a single parable in Aramaic, so it seems that according to Jewish custom one did not tell parables in Aramaic. To suggest that Jesus told his parables in Aramaic is to ignore overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The rabbinic parables were written down in the third century CE or later and one must make a careful stratigraphic argument to locate any Tannaitic rabbinic tradition in the first century. Some of them may well go back to the first century, but again, those are hardly a comprehensive collection. Given the paucity of our evidence, these arguments from silence that such and such is not attested in first-century Palestine do not have much force.

I think Jesus probably did know Hebrew, but let's not draw more confident conclusions than our evidence warrants.

UPDATE (4 June): More here.

That catalogue of Syriac manuscripts again

LIV INGEBORG LIED: The Epistle of Baruch, Josephus' Jewish War 6, the Book of Thecla and Psalm 151: some observations on Brock/van Rompay's catalogue of Syriac manuscripts in the Dayr al-Suryan. More on this manuscript catalogue and on the Monastery at Deir al-Surian is here and links.

If memory serves, that Syriac copy of Josephus' Jewish War, book 6, in Codex Ambrosianus B.21 is rather unhelpfully titled 5 Maccabees. (My list of books of the Maccabees is now up to 8 Maccabees and counting.) And there is apparently another book of 5 Maccabees preserved in Garshuni and Arabic which has overlapping content with that 5 Maccabees as well as an unclear relationship to the medieval compendium Josippon. I don't blame that scribe of Ms. Deir al-Surian, Syr 9 for being confused about the identities of those books of the Maccabees.

The Talmud on the Days of Awe and repentance

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Can God Be Tricked Into Forgiving Unethical Behavior? Talmudic rabbis set out to debate the religious calendar, and wind up talking about religious sincerity. Excerpt:

The Gemara’s discussion of the first mishna in Tractate Rosh Hashanah extends all the way through page 15—an unusually long stretch of commentary. It is with the second mishna, on Rosh Hashanah 16a, that the rabbis turn their attention to the holiday’s spiritual significance. On Rosh Hashanha, we say every year, God inscribes us in the Book of Judgment, and on Yom Kippur he seals the judgment. During those 10 intervening days, Jews are supposed to pray urgently for God to judge them mercifully and not to write them down for a death sentence. That is why this period is known as the Days of Awe.

You don’t have to think about this system for very long, however, before some serious problems present themselves. ...

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Congratulations to John Huehnergard

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: University to bestow seven honorary degrees at 519th Convocation.

John Huehnergard, a widely admired scholar of Semitic languages and linguistics, historical linguistics, writing systems and ancient Near Eastern history, will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters.

Huehnergard is professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and professor emeritus of Semitic philology at Harvard University. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1979.

He is the author of several books and many articles on the history and grammar of the Semitic languages, his main area of research. He concentrates on ancient Semitic languages, especially Akkadian—the cuneiform language of ancient Mesopotamia—Aramaic and Hebrew. He is also interested in theoretical aspects of comparative and historical linguistics, and in the history of writing and literacy.

Among current research projects are a revision of the standard lexicon of biblical Hebrew, with his wife and colleague Jo Ann Hackett, and a book on comparative Semitic grammar.

Huehnergard teaches graduate courses on Semitic linguistics and various Semitic languages, and undergraduate courses on the world’s writing systems and on lost languages and decipherment.

His work was the topic of a 2012 Festschrift, Language and Nature, co-edited by Rebecca Hasselbach, associate professor in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Na’ama Pat-El of the University of Texas at Austin.

Huehnergard was nominated by Dennis Pardee, professor in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Christopher Woods, associate professor in the Oriental Institute and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and the College, will present Huehnergard at Convocation.

When I was a doctoral student at Harvard in the 1980s I studied Comparative Semitics and the Historical Grammar of Hebrew under Professor Huehnergard. Past posts mentioning him are here, here, here, and here.

Congratulations, John, for a very well deserved honor!

Workshop on Kingship in Ancient Iran

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS:

Kingship in Ancient Iran
A project of the Institute of Iranian Studies, School of History

Workshop

An interdisciplinary workshop
12–13 June 2014, University of St Andrews

This interdisciplinary workshop seeks to investigate and re-examine intersections between religious ideology and sovereignty in pre-Islamic Iran. Its ultimate aim will be to offer invited experts from a wide range of disciplines a venue to exchange perspectives, exploring how recent developments in Iranian Studies and neighbouring disciplines may reshape our understanding of ancient Iranian forms of sovereignty. Although the Sasanian kings’ attempts to define themselves as the heirs of the Achaemenid dynasty and the rivalries with the Roman Empire offer a rich backdrop against which the idea of kingship and religious authority can be examined, our discussions will extend beyond this era and will be organized thematically to examine the cultural memory of ancient Iranian kingship in the Islamic era; political as well as art historical perspectives; court culture; shifts of gravity between sovereignty and religious authority; the interactions of religious minority communities with the image of the Sasanian kings and finally the reflections of imperial aspirations in the Middle Persian tradition, including exegetical literature.

The keynote lecture will be delivered by Prof. Shaked.

I plan to attend this and am looking forward to meeting Shaul Shaked and Shai Secunda (the latter known to PaleoJudaica readers from the Talmud Blog) in person there.

Bardakjian and La Porta (eds.), The Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition
A Comparative Perspective

Edited by Kevork B. Bardakjian, University of Michigan and Sergio La Porta, California State University

The Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition: A Comparative Perspective comprises a collection of essays on apocalyptic literature in the Armenian tradition. This collection is unprecedented in its subject and scope and employs a comparative approach that situates the Armenian apocalyptic tradition within a broader context. The topics in this volume include the role of apocalyptic literature and apocalypticism in the conversion of the Armenians to Christianity, apocalyptic ideology and holy war, the significance of the Book of Daniel in Armenian thought, the reception of the Apocalypse of Ps.-Methodius in Armenian, the role of apocalyptic literature in political ideologies, and the expression of apocalypticism in the visual arts.

Oslo conference on ms annotations

LIV INGEBORG LIED: Bible as Notepad. Conference in Oslo. It takes place in December. I will be there and am slated to present a paper on a manuscript of the Hekhalot Rabbati. Follow the link for the conference program and registration information.

Paper on the "evil inclination"

THE TALMUD BLOG: The “Evil Inclination” in Narsi, the Bavli, and its Meaning – A Working Paper. HT Gerald Rosenberg.

Some Marginalia reviews

THREE RECENT REVIEWS FROM MARGINALIA:

Jodi Magness on Joan E. Taylor’s The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea

"In this monograph, Joan Taylor makes a strong case in support of the “Essene hypothesis,” identifying the inhabitants of Qumran as Essenes who deposited the Dead Sea Scrolls in the nearby caves. Taylor devotes the first half of the book to a close reading of ancient authors on the Essenes (not just Philo Judaeus, Flavius Josephus, and Pliny the Elder, but others such as Dio Chrysostom). In the second half of the book, she discusses Qumran and the Dead Sea region, and the Dead Sea Scrolls."

Magness is less enthusiastic about the second half of the book. Past PaleoJudaica posts on the archaeology of Qumran are collected here, and posts relating to the Qumran "community" (whatever that may mean) are collected here.

Eva Mroczek on David A. deSilva’s The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha

"The fields of Early Judaism and Christian Origins have progressed beyond arguments about the influence of Judaism upon Jesus or Christianity. The task now is more richly to describe early Judaism as a diverse world that includes Jews of many stripes, including followers of Jesus. DeSilva’s textual analyses point in this very direction. But his analytical categories and methodological starting points undermine what is no doubt a well-meaning attempt to speak to a theologically-motivated audience about something they are only now beginning to be able to hear."

Helen Bond on Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne’s Jesus Criteria and the Demise of Authenticity

"How, then, are we to go about reconstructing the historical Jesus without the traditional criteria? This will undoubtedly be the challenge for the next few decades."

More from Helen Bond on the historical Jesus here.

DSS Seminar at YU

LAWRENCE H. SCHIFFMAN: The Yeshiva University Dead Sea Scrolls Seminar June 8, 2014.

Vermes, The True Herod

THE LAST BOOK BY GEZA VERMES:

The True Herod (Bloomsbury)

About The True Herod

Who was Herod the Great? How did he come to govern one of the most politically tumultuous regions in the world? Was he the heartless baby-killer of Matthew's Gospel, or does this popular tale do Herod a great disservice?

Geza Vermes (1924-2013), whose work on the Historical Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls made him one of the most recognisable names in Biblical and Jewish studies, provides an exciting new portrait of Herod. The True Herod examines Herod's controversial legacy as a political leader, a potentate, a man of culture, and an all-round smooth operator. Vermes opens up the fascinating character of Herod, from his sizable and fragile ego to his devastation at the execution of his beloved wife, an execution that Herod ordered himself. Vermes then moves on to consider Herod's greatest legacy and testament: his extensive building works, which includes the Temple in Jerusalem. Vermes's lively prose, combined with extensive colour images, make this new picture of Herod an enticing and informative guide to one of Ancient History's most misunderstood figures.

Background on Professor Vermes is here and links.

Philologos on Genesis and the Enuma Elish

PHILOLOGOS: Legends of the Fall. Did Genesis Originate in Babylon? Genesis is such a complicated compedium of traditions that it is difficult to talk about it "originating" in any particular place. As Philologos concludes, any connection between the "abyss" (tehom) of Genesis 1 and Tiamat in the Babylonian creation story (the Enuma Elish) is pretty thin, but not entirely to be dismissed. Much more interesting is this parallel:

Consider, for example, the verse in Chapter 74 of Psalms in which the Psalmist says to God, “Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength, thou didst break the heads of the sea monsters [taninim] in the waters.” Although nowhere in the Bible is there any actual recounting of such an episode, it is clear that a tradition about God having subdued the forces of the depths at the time of Creation existed in Hebrew circles, too.

Hints of this story also appear in places like Exodus 15, Psalm 89:5-11, and Isaiah 51:9-11 and a full-length version is found in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle (where Yamm, "Sea," plays the role of Tiamat).

This is an old Philologos column, but I haven't noted it before and it gives a nice summary of the Enuma Elish.

Smith on Biblical and ANE studies in America

NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY DAY: The State of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in America (Mark S. Smith, ASOR Blog). Excerpt:

This change corresponds to a further shift in our programs, universities, and society. Within our programs, questions have been raised about how to pursue the learning needed for research. Why study a fairly obscure language such as Ugaritic when you can study wonderful areas such as anthropology or literary criticism? The underlying question is not the value of all these areas; we should all be interested in as vast a series of fields as possible. The issue becomes why one at the expense of the other and how they are valuable for what sorts of questions or problems.

In the university, the field of Bible and ANE is of little interest to other fields. Unlike many others, little in ours has attracted the interest of other academics. For various historical reasons, we generate little by way of theory for other fields, although I think that we conduct various sorts of inquiry valuable to others (for example, the analysis of textual processes for literary criticism). Bible and ANE studies have also tended to its own tasks, with little concern for relating our value to other fields. We need to do better.

Okay, the topic is broader than NWS epigraphy, but Professor Smith himself is a NWS epigrapher and, as he notes, the field is central to the topic of this important essay. The picture is not dissimilar in the U.K. There is not the same exploitative use of adjunct labor (although there are a lot of temporary full-time teaching fellows). But we have to deal with the corrosive effects of the government-implemented periodic research evaluations (currently the "Research Excellence Framework" or REF), which both drive and constrain University research in increasingly unhelpful ways.

Related posts here and here.

Golan gets Joash inscription back

NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY DAY: Jehoash Tablet Returned to Oded Golan (Todd Bolen, Bible Places Blog). More fallout from the Israel forgery trial, on which background here and oh so many links. Some background on the Jehoash (Joash) inscription, which I and many (most?) others do not regard as genuine, is here and links.

Tyson on the Ammonites

NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY DAY:

After Sodom: The Sons of Ammon in the Iron Age
(Bible and Interpretation website)

The biblical texts that mention the Ammonites were compiled or written in the seventh century or later, during periods of intense challenges to Judean sociopolitical and religious identity from imperial power. It is not surprising that the texts highlight similarities and differences between Judah and the people of the Transjordan. The similarities and differences helped to define Judean identity.

See Also: The Ammonites (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014).


By Craig W. Tyson
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
D’Youville College, Buffalo, NY
May 2014

Millard on the Jerusalem inscription

NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY DAY: Precursor to Paleo-Hebrew Script Discovered in Jerusalem. Alan Millard examines the Proto-Canaanite script of the earliest alphabetic text ever found in Jerusalem (Robin Ngo, Bible History Daily). Excerpt:

Alan Millard believes that we will likely never know with certainty what the earliest alphabetic text from Jerusalem says. What we can conclude is that the storage jar was inscribed in a place where ordinary workmen made pots, not in the lofty study of a royal scribe. Along with other early inscriptions, including the Gezer Calendar and the Qeiyafa Ostracon, Millard contends that this inscription from Jerusalem may signal widespread—if elementary—literacy during the time of David and Solomon.

Background on that 10th century BCE Hebrew(ish) Jerusalem inscription is here and links.

Postdoc on ancient Greco-Roman translation

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OSLO: Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship - Translating in Antiquity, Translating Antiquity.

Petra and archaeoastronomy

NABATAEAN NEWS: Petra, built for the sun gods? (Daisy Carrington, CNN). Excerpt:

"I don't think we really understand what significance some of these structures truly had," says Megan Perry, an associate professor at East Carolina University's department of anthropology.

Recently, a team of archaeoastronomers sought to gain some insight into the function of these ancient structures by measuring their celestial alignments. Their findings, which were published in the Nexus Network Journal, suggests that the Nabateans purposefully built Petra's most sacred structures to align or light-up during celestial phenomena, including the summer and winter solstices and the equinoxes.

[...]

Perry has spent a lot of time studying the layout of monuments in Petra for clues as to whether the city was laid out organically, or -- as Belmonte suggest -- if it was planned.

"The tombs seem to be based on natural topography. Nothing in terms of their layout suggests a tie to any kind of solar orientation. If there was one, they'd all be facing the same way, but they surround the city and face in an infinite number of directions," she notes.

[...]

It does make sense that all the effort of carving those buildings out of stone might have had a larger purpose behind it, but one can't be dogmatic when the specialists disagree. In any case, it's good to see Petra covered in something other than a travel piece.

I see I have already noted this story here, but the CNN article has some additional information. See the latter link also for past posts on Petra.

Deductive exegesis in the Talmud — plus four New Year's days

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: On the Impossibility of Over-Interpreting the Bible. Why Talmud study is not reading, in the usual sense of the word, but rather deciphering the true meaning of the text. Excerpt:

This is not reading in the usual sense of the word. Rather, it is using the Bible text almost as a kind of mnemonic, assigning a different category of promise to each phrase in the verse. One of the things I often wonder in reading the Talmud is exactly what the rabbis meant when they said that theirs is the true meaning of the text. Did they think that the references to burnt-offerings and Temple donations and charity could actually be deduced from the apparently unrelated words of the Bible? Or did they believe that God had dictated the text in such a way as to make room for all the necessary legal interpretations? Either way, it’s clear that the rabbis read the Bible not simply as a sacred history, but as a comprehensive guide to law and life. Since every word was divine, and God does nothing without a reason, it was impossible to over-interpret the Bible; everything that one found there had to have been put there.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Samoa Synagogue defaced

ARUTZ SHEVA: Swastikas, PLO Flag at Ancient Synagogue. Samoa synagogue, near Hevron, defaced by Jew-haters. Local leader expects authorities to act severely (Iddo Ben Porat).

About 200 people who visited the ancient Judean synagogue at Samoa, near Hevron, on Sunday, found spray-painted swastikas on the walls of the structure and PLO flags flying above them.

[...]

The late antique Samoa (Eshtemoa) Synagogue has also been mentioned in this post.

Lost book found: R. Elazar of Worms on Proverbs

ARUTZ SHEVA: NY Rabbi Unearths Lost Commentary of Ancient Scholar. Rabbi Allen Schwartz deciphers lost text of Rabbi Elazar of Worms' handwritten insights on Book of Proverbs from Crusader times. (Ari Yashar). R. Elazar (Eleazar/Eliezer) of Worms (c. 1176 – 1238) was a prolific writer who compiled and developed many Jewish mystical and magical traditions in his works.

The NT and Romania

JAMES MCGRATH: What Living In Romania Taught Me About The New Testament. The honor-shame value system in action. This is a revived old post on Exploring Our Matrix, but I haven't seen it before and I imagine many of my readers haven't either.

Crossley on Casey

JAMES CROSSLEY: Maurice Casey (Part 1 of 2): An Academic Life and Maurice Casey (Part 2 of 2): Influence. The most thorough and comprehensive blog obituary published thus far and will clearly hold its own or better when the official obituaries start coming out.

Background here and here.

Herodian Masada frescoes restored

HAARETZ: Frescoes from Herod’s time at Masada restored and returned to national park. Italian conservators return the artworks that were sitting in a warehouse for 20 years (Shirly Seidler).

For 20 years, the frescoes that decorated the “Commandant’s Residence” (Beit Hamefaked) on top of Masada were stored away in a warehouse at the national park. This week, after a month’s work, a team headed by Italian expert renovator Prof. Maurizio Tagliapietra of the University of Verona and including employees of the Israel Parks and Nature Authority completed the restoration of another room on the top of the historic mountain.

[...]

“The frescoes are from the period of Herod,” said Tagliapietra. They are of geometric figures, with no human beings, and show no perspective, he said. The frescoes prove the room was the living quarters of commanders who were close to Herod and responsible for his personal security, as indicated by their proximity to the Northern Palace.

[...]

Archaeology of Aelia Capitolina

HAARETZ: The construction work that triggered the Bar Kokhba Revolt.
What can coins minted by the rebels and Jerusalem’s Roman rulers tell us about the chain of events that eventually led to today’s Lag Ba’omer bonfires? (Nir Hasson). Excerpt:

During the revolt the Roman government was involved in a huge construction project in Palestine – the rebuilding of Jerusalem as a Roman city, Aelia Capitolina.

There are two basic historiographic approaches to the link between the founding of Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem and the Bar Kokhba revolt.

According to the second-century Roman historian Lucius Cassius Dio, the construction of the city, with a temple to the god Jupiter in the center, was itself the spark that ignited the rebellion: The Jewish extremists could not tolerate the fact that a pagan Roman city was being built on the ruins of Jerusalem.

But the fourth-century historian Eusebius, who served as the bishop of Caesarea before turning his hand to writing history, argued that Aelia Capitolina was a result of the revolt — part of the Roman Empire’s punishment for its outbreak — not the cause.

“There was a chicken-and-egg debate here,” says Israeli archaeologist Shlomit Wexler-Bedolah, “What came first and what led to what – the revolt to the construction of the city, or the construction of the city to the revolt.”

Since the days of Cassius Dio and Eusebius, rivers of ink have been spilled on the debate. In recent years Wexler-Bedolah and the late. Alexander Onn conducted several excavations in the area of the Western Wall. The excavations, done on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and financed by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, helped to provide a precise date for the construction of Aelia Capitolina.

Wexler-Bedolah’s conclusion is that the construction work on the new city began at least several years before the outbreak of the revolt. In other words, it is quite possible that the excuse for the rebellion was the sight of the laborers rebuilding Jerusalem as a pagan city.

Also, the building of the temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount likely contributed to the ill feelings, and it is not clear whether the new name for the city was decided on before or after the revolt.

Deadline for return of Iraqi Jewish Archive extended

PROGRESS: Schumer Announces Iraqi Jewish Archive Permitted to Stay in the US Until Permanent Location in America is Determined

Washington, DC - May 15, 2015 [Sic] - U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today announced that the State Department, along with the Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to the U.S., will extend the period in which the Iraqi Jewish Archives may remain in the United States. The United States had initially agreed to return the items in 2014.

[...]

“I applaud the decision to permit the Iraqi Jewish Archive to remain in the U.S. until a permanent location is found. However, we will not rest until the collection is made accessible to the Iraqi Jewish community indefinitely,” said Schumer. “These sacred and treasured artifacts were taken from the Iraqi Jewish community during a time of state-condoned discrimination, and this community should have access to the precious possessions they were forced to leave behind.”

"I must convey the heartfelt sentiment of WOJI - to the US and Iraqi governments for reaching an agreement under which the Iraqi Jewish Archive will remain in the United States for the foreseeable future. It is WOJI's fervent conviction that we, the Iraqi Jewish community, are the rightful heirs of the Iraqi Jewish Archive, our precious patrimony,” said Maurice Shohet, Chairman of the World Organization of Jews from Iraq (WOJI).

[...]

In December, the Iraqi delegation, in cooperation with the Iraqi Jewish community, buried 49 Torah scroll fragments, which were part of the collection. The burial under Jewish ritual custom took place at New Montefiore Cemetery.

Schumer has been advocating on behalf of the Iraqi Jewish community and has urged the State Department not to return the collection to Iraq. In February, the Senate unanimously passed a resolution, which Schumer co-sponsored, that urges the State Department to renegotiate the return of the archive.

Schumer today announced that the State Department, the Ambassador of the Republic of Iraq to the United States and the National Archives and Record Administration will extend the period in which the collection may remain in the United States.

The rest of the press release deals with background that will be familiar to regular PaleoJudaica readers. The story is also covered by The Algemeiner: Iraqi Jewish Archive’s U.S. Exhibition Extended. It appears that the extension of the deadline is indefinite; or at least neither article mentions a new deadline.

Background here and links going all the way back to the discovery of the archive in 2003.

Almond, The Devil

GIVING THE DEVIL HIS DUE:

The Devil: A New Biography
Philip C. Almond (author)

I. B. Taurus Hardback | In Stock | £20.00

It is often said that the devil has all the best tunes. He also has as many names as he has guises. Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Beelzebub (in Christian thought), Ha-Satan or the Adversary (in Jewish scripture) and Iblis or Shaitan (in Islamic tradition) has throughout the ages and across civilizations been a compelling and charismatic presence. For two thousand years the supposed reign of God has been challenged by the fiery malice of his opponent, as contending forces of good and evil have between them weighed human souls in the balance. In this rich and multi-textured biography, Philip C Almond explores the figure of the devil from the first centuries of the Christian era through the rise of classical demonology and witchcraft persecutions to the modern post-Enlightenment 'decline' of Hell. The author shows that the Prince of Darkness, in all his incarnations, remains an irresistible subject in history, religion, art, literature and culture.

Zohar Dictionary

DANIEL C. MATT: Zohar Dictionary.

Daniel Matt : This is a partial Zohar dictionary, composed over the past 17 years while working on The Zohar: Pritzker Edition. It takes a little getting used to, since it follows the order of the English alphabet, although the entries represent the transliteration of Aramaic (and Hebrew) words and roots. It will be useful for those working (and playing) with the original Aramaic text. It appears in three parts (A-N, O-S, T-Z). My reconstructed Aramaic text of the Zohar (based on numerous Zohar manuscripts) is available on the website of Stanford University Press

http://www.sup.org/zohar/?d=&f=Aramaic_Texts.htm

HT Judy Barrett. Background on Daniel Matt's groundbreaking edition and translation of the Zohar is here, with links going back a decade.

Hmmm ... perhaps I should publish my private Hebrew glossary of the Hekhalot literature someday in a similar format.

Lag B'Omer belatedly

LAG B'OMER — The Counting of the Omer — took place over the weekend (sunset to sunset, 17th-18th). Best wishes to all who observed it.

I was down with the flu for the past several days, hence the blogging silence. I'm very behind on everything, especially exam marking, but I will deal with the blogging backlog as time permits.

Research Associate in Biblical Hebrew Philology

JOB AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE: Research Associate in Biblical Hebrew Philology.

Golb and the freedom to annoy

THE NEW YORK TIMES ON THE RAPHAEL GOLB CASE: Top Court Champions Freedom to Annoy (John Leland). Excerpt:

The decision on Tuesday was mixed for Mr. Golb, a real estate lawyer who has a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard. The seven judges threw out 10 charges, leaving Mr. Golb with misdemeanor convictions on nine counts of criminal impersonation and 10 of identity theft. The case now goes back to State Supreme Court in Manhattan for resentencing. Without the felony conviction, Mr. Golb can now reapply for his law license.

In striking down the statute on aggravated harassment dealing with speech that was merely annoying or alarming, the judges unanimously ruled that the law was unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. They cited another court’s ruling that “any proscription of pure speech must be sharply limited to words which, by their utterance alone, inflict injury or tend naturally to evoke immediate violence.” Mere annoying speech, the lingua franca of many New Yorkers, was not enough.

This seems to address the concerns raised by UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh. Background on the case is at that post, here, and links.

"The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition" Project

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL: Controversy lurks as scholars suss out original Biblical text. International team tries to reverse engineer changes made to holy text over thousands of years, but may invite new problems (Anthony Weiss). Excerpt:

For the past 14 years, the team behind “The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition” has been laboring on a project to sift through the text and reverse the accumulated imperfections and changes, returning the books of the Hebrew Bible to something like their original versions. The first volume is due out later this year.

“It is a little chutzpadik,” acknowledged Ronald Hendel, HBCE’s general editor and a professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of California, Berkeley.

It’s also a messy, painstaking and controversial endeavor that has been criticized by some of the world’s leading biblical scholars. The critics argue that what Hendel and his team are attempting to do is misleading, counterproductive or flat-out impossible.

“I think it will actually end up causing more problems,” said Michael Segal, a senior lecturer in Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The difficulties in the project stem from the Bible’s long history of transmission from scribe to scribe through the centuries. HBCE is trying to reverse engineer that process, to sift through the various extant texts of the Bible and — by analyzing grammatical glitches, stylistic hitches and contradictions of the texts — establish a reading closer to if not the original, then at least the archetype on which the subsequent copies were based.

A good, thoughtful article that clearly and concisely lays out the complexities involved in the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible.

UPDATE: Bob Buller sends the link to an earlier, longer version of the article that gives more context and detail: Scholars seek Hebrew Bible’s original text — but was there one? (JTA).

Magdala in the news

THE SITE OF MAGDALA, redicovered a decade ago, is profiled by the NYT: A Resort in Galilee Rises Where Jesus May Have Taught (Isabel Kershner). Excerpts:

Soon it was clear that the site was not just near Magdala; this was Magdala. The dig went on to uncover an ancient marketplace and a separate area of rooms with adjacent water pools, presumably used for producing the salty cured fish that Magdala was famous for; a large villa or public building with mosaics, frescoes and three ritual baths; a fishermen’s neighborhood, scattered with ancient hooks and other equipment; and a section of a first-century harbor. The ancient synagogue was discovered at the precise spot where the architects had planned to erect an ecumenical chapel, to the right of the hotel entrance.

The discovery of the ruins meant that the building plans had to be changed to accommodate them, and the restaurant and hotel are still under construction. But the new spirituality center is completed, with a boat-shaped altar that blends with a view of the harbor and the Sea of Galilee. “Jesus used to preach to the crowds from Peter’s boat, so we tried to reproduce that idea here,” said Father Solana, who belongs to the Legionaries of Christ, an order founded in Mexico. “Our plans, with a higher providence, merged very, very strongly.”

The pope is not scheduled to visit Magdala during his three-day trip to the region, which will include stops in Jerusalem, Jordan and Bethlehem. Instead, the tabernacle from the boat altar will be taken to the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem to receive his blessing. Afterward, on May 28, the site will be officially inaugurated as the Magdala archaeological park, and the adjacent spirituality center will be dedicated in the presence of Israeli government representatives and the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal.

[...]

The ancient synagogue had some unusual features, including an ornately engraved stone block that archaeologists say was probably used as a table for reading the Torah. It is carved with columns and arches, a seven-branched menorah with vessels for wine and oil to each side, a 12-leaf rosette and chariots of fire. The stone appears to be a miniature of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, which was destroyed in the year 70, adorned with symbols also meant to commemorate the First Temple.

Lots more on Magadala, its menorah engraving, and its mosaics is here and links.