More on the Iranian Kingship Workshop

PHOTOS FROM LAST WEEK'S ANCIENT IRANIAN KINGSHIP WORKSHOP:


This was another St. Andrews event. The seminars took place in the Senate Room, just around the corner from St. Mary's College. In the photo I'm the one in the rust-colored jacket. Dr. Shai Secunda is on the far right. Photo courtesy of Arash Zeini.


Professor Shaul Shaked giving the opening keynote address. Workshop organizer Dr. Arash Zeini is on the left. Professor Ali Ansari, workshop organizer and Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies in the School of History, is on the right. My photo.


The delegates in front of St. Mary's College. Photo courtesy of Arash Zeini.

Click on any image for a larger view.

Much of the workshop was outside my areas of expertise, but I learned a lot from it and made some important contacts. A very good experience

Origen Symposium

AT ST. MARY'S COLLEGE (the one in St. Andrews): Origen Symposium. This one took place on Wednesday. Alas, I was unable to attend — there are just too many interesting events around here.

Evil Conference reports

TWO BLOG REPORTS on last month's conference on Evil in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity: Cultural, Historical, and Textual Approaches:

Tommy Wasserman: An Evil Conference at St Mary's in Twickenham

Chris Keith: 2014 Evil Conference Wrap-up

Noted earlier here.

From Egypt to Manchester (update) - updated again 23 June

CONFERENCE REMINDER: From Egypt to Manchester: Unravelling the John Rylands Papyrus Collection (via ETC). As noted back in January, this one is at the same time and in the same city as the British New Testament Conference. I'm pretty sure I've heard that there is a joint session on the Friday afternoon, but I don't see that announced yet at either site. If an organizer can clarify, please drop me a note.

UPDATE (23 June): Probably everyone who needs to see this has seen it, but Paul Middleton, Secretary to the British New Testament Society, sent out the following information on the Society's list on Friday:

A further reminder that the early bird registration rate ends on the 30th June, so if you plan to take advantage of the cheaper rate, please book now.

Those attending the conference may be interested to learn that a conference on the John Rylands Papyrus Collection will also take place in Manchester. BNTC conference delegates are invited to attend this conference on the free afternoon (Friday 5th, 2-4pm), and the organisers have kindly scheduled sessions that may be of particular interest to us. The full programme is here:

http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/jrri/conferences/header-max-160-chars-308128-en.htm#5septpm

Attendance at the session is free, but the organisers have asked, but because of space restrictions, booking through the link on the webpage is essential.

In honor of the World Cup

SEEN ON FACEBOOK: How Football Sounds To People That Don't Care. This Guy Nails It.

Even when it isn't archaeology season, the media follow noted archaeologists. They drive fast cars, date beautiful women, advertise fragrances, and sometimes they go to nightclubs and act in the worst possible way. Scandals erupt as the tabloids follow these new celebrities when they're not searching the past for answers. It is entirely possible you can recite the names of certain researchers, even if you don't pay attention to archaeology. You don't know what transfer season is, but you know that someone was transferred to a dig in Peru for a sum of money that could fund the London Underground for two whole days.

Yeah, I feel sorry for people who aren't into archaeology.

Review of Pompeii, the movie

Pat’s Picks: ‘Pompeii’ truly a man-made disaster (Great Falls Tribune).

The story of Pompeii and Herculaneum is one of the most infamous and tragic in human history. The people of those communities didn’t have a chance as nearby Mount Vesuvius came alive and buried the two villages and everyone unlucky enough to have been there at the time.

Unfortunately for anyone hoping to get a real glimpse of that story in the recently released “Pompeii,” you’ll be sadly disappointed and maybe a little angry. The actual disaster is such a sidebar that more than an hour through the 1 hour, 45 minute crapfest, the volcano hasn’t even been properly introduced.

[...]

If you’re looking for an accurate story of the demise of Pompeii and Herculaneum, there’s absolutely no reason to watch even five minutes of the movie meant to tell that tale.

It’s simply an epic catastrophe in storytelling.

Too bad, although I can't say I was expecting anything much different. It gets a 5.7 at IMDB and even lower ratings at Rotten Tomatoes.

Some past posts on the eruption of Vesuvius and on Pompeii are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, and links. And there's lots more on Herculaneum here and follow the links.

Looted coins

SITE RAIDERS: ‘Smoking Gun’ Ancient Coins Are Being Looted from Excavations — and Too Few Coin Scholars Are Firing Back, Baylor Expert Says.

Newswise — Millions of ancient looted coins from archaeological excavations enter the black market yearly, and a Baylor University researcher who has seen plundered sites likens the thefts to stealing “smoking guns” from crime scenes. But those who collect and study coins have been far too reluctant to condemn the unregulated trade, he says.

“Archaeologists are detectives. When something has been taken away from a historical site, the object is divorced from its relationship with other objects, and its utility for the writing of history — much like solving a criminal case — is diminished,” said Nathan Elkins, Ph.D., assistant art professor in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences.

Elkins is the staff numismatist at the excavations of an ancient synagogue from the Roman/Byzantine period in Huqoq, Israel. He has written an article, “Investigating the Crime Scene: Looting and Ancient Coins,” that appears in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

[...]

Possibly related: New Evidence Ties Illegal Antiquities Trade to Terrorism, Violent Crime. In Cambodia and beyond, archaeologists and criminologists are fighting the underground trade in cultural treasures (Heather Pringle, National Geographic). The "and beyond" includes Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but the proposed connections with terrorism in the latter two sound speculative to me, although not implausible.

More on the current issue of BAR here, final paragraph.

On the Virgin Mary

HAARETZ: Was the Virgin Mary a virgin? This ancient question boils down to the origin of the word 'virgin' in biblical texts, and the evolution of belief. Elon Gilad wrote this one as well, and researched it rather more carefully than his survey of Hebrew literature. Aside from the odd little glitch, such as the annoying use of "prophesy" as a noun, it looks accurate. Excerpt:

It bears noting that the gospel of Matthew was actually penned many decades after the death of Matthew the Apostle by an unknown writer, who wrote in Greek. He evidently never read the original Hebrew text of Isaiah, but settled for reading the Greek translation, the Septuagint.

So, the author of Matthew may have wanted to show that Jesus’ birth also fulfilled another Old Testament prophecy. He quotes from the Book of Isaiah: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (Matthew 2:23).

The Isaiahic text is apparently not discussing any prophesy of a future Messiah: he seems to be talking of an actual child born at the time. But that is beside the point. More important is the fact that the original Hebrew text does not actually say "virgin."

The word in Isaiah (7:14) translated as "virgin" is alma, which just means young woman, irrespective of her sexual history. The Hebrew word for virgin is betula.

What misled the anonymous Greek-speaking writer of Matthew is that the Septuagint rendered alma into the word parthenos, which could be used to mean young woman but more usually meant virgin.

Nothing new here to anyone familiar with basic New Testament scholarship, but it might be interesting information to the article's target audience.

A short history of Hebrew literature

VERY SHORT: A short history of Hebrew literature, from Genesis to Etgar Keret. It's Hebrew Book Week, and the perfect time to glance back at Hebrew writing from biblical times to the post-modernist escapists (Elon Gilad, Haaretz). And not without omission or error. Excerpt:

Apocalypse soon

The Book of Daniel is an early version of the apocalyptic literature that became popular in the last two centuries of the first millennium B.C.E. and the first C.E. This end-of-days theme generally has God destroying the planet, eliminating the wicked and elevating the righteous. The fate of animals in this scenario is generally neglected.

After the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the defeat of the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Romans in 135 C.E., fond expectations of imminent messianic salvation were tempered by serial false messiahs. Apocalyptic literature gave way to legal writing, codified in the Mishnah by Judah HaNasi in about 220 C.E., and its accompanying Tosafot (addendums). This literature concerns how a Jewish life is to be lived in the here and now: it is practical, not poetic, philosophical or literary.

In addition to these legal halakhic texts, the late classical-early medieval period saw the birth of Midrash, a fanciful interpretation of the Bible, supposedly revealing the texts true hidden meanings. Another form of Hebrew writing to flower in this period is piyut, religious poetry, written in incredibly obscure Hebrew.

With these exceptions, other Jewish writings of this period were written nearly exclusively in Aramaic, which gradually pushed out Hebrew as the language of the Jews. The commentary in the Mishnah, the Talmud and Gemara is almost entirely in Aramaic, not Hebrew.

The Mishnah is mostly in Hebrew, not Aramaic. The addenda to the Mishnah are called the Tosefta, not the Tosafot. The latter are medieval commentaries on the Talmud. Apocalyptic literature continued to be produced and copied by Jews in Hebrew into the Islamic period: for example, the Apocalypse of Zerubbabel, the Apocalypse of Elijah, and the Apocalypse of David. See also on Sefer HaRazim below.

Mystical and magical literature are almost completely ignored in this survey. One would expect more coverage in the section on philosophy:

Philosophy books also began appearing in Hebrew, many in response Maimonides’s "Guide for the Perplexed," which was translated by Samuel ibn Tibbon. The greatest number of Hebrew philosophy books at this time was in the field of ethics, featuring ethical wills written by fathers to sons, explaining how one should live his life. An early example of these is one written by Eliezer of Worms in the 11th century.

This period also gave rise to a great deal of mystical literature, including the famous Zohar, the foundational work of kabbalah, written by Leon of Modena in the 17th century.

The Hebrew magical tractate Sefer HaRazim (the Book of the Mysteries) goes back to the Talmudic period and there are many Hebrew incantation texts recovered from the Cairo Geniza (although many are also in Aramaic or Judeo-Arabic). The pre-Kabbalistic mystical, mostly Hebrew, Hekhalot literature is not mentioned at all. Eliezer of Worms is also well known for his transmission and development of Hebrew (and Aramaic) mystical and magical traditions. And the last paragraph quoted above is quite a howler. The Zohar was published in the thirteenth century by Moses de León in Spain and it is in Aramaic. Leon of Modena debunked the Zohar in the 17th century.

Legends about Yohanan ben Zakkai

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: When the Talmud Replaced the Temple as the Structure at the Heart of Jewish Life Judaism became a religion of laws, haunted and bound by the absence of a home for Jewish sovereignty.

The destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. might easily have meant the death of Judaism. As we have seen again and again in the Talmud, the Temple was the center of Jewish belief and practice in a way that we can hardly imagine today. It was the only place where Jews could sacrifice to God, the only place where God’s spirit dwelled on Earth—not to mention a powerful symbol of Jewish sovereignty. The fact that Judaism managed to survive after the Temple was burned to the ground is the most remarkable of the many acts of renewal and transformation that have preserved Jewish life over thousands of years.

The legend of Yochanan ben Zakkai is a vivid parable of how Judaism managed to endure that trauma. ...

Incidentally, Josephus has a somewhat similar account of his own prophecy that Vespasian would become emperor, an account also told by the Roman historian Suetonius. Also, the departure of the Shekhinah from the Temple described in the final paragraph is modeled after the departure of the divine glory in Ezekiel 10.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Masada opera etc.

FIFTH ANNUAL ISRAELI OPERA FESTIVAL AT MASASA: Fighting wind with grit, opera group makes Masada into backdrop. Bringing a production of La Traviata to the desert fortress is a massive undertaking, but well worth it, organizers say (Jessica Steinberg, Times of Israel). Excerpt:

The production team began working in early spring, taking two full months to clear a 50,000-square-meter (538,195 square feet) stretch of desert, then building stairs, hauling machinery, creating safety supports, and setting up tents, lighting and toilets.

Once the stage was ready, they trucked in the set designed in Tel Aviv, which this year includes a massive video-screen backdrop and partial reproductions of the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, as well as LED-lit chandelier skirts and 12 red couches that flip over and double as planters. After all, this is La Traviata, Giuseppe Verdi’s hugely popular opera about a French courtesan and her lover, and the complications and misunderstandings in their relationship.

“We don’t have animals this year, but we have acrobats,” said Uri Hartman, the opera’s production manager, referring to the horses and camels in 2010′s production of Nabucco. “There’s 700 people on stage when you add up the chorus, the dancers and the orchestra.”

There’s also the entrance to the opera, which mimics a wide, grand Parisian boulevard, complete with stands selling French snacks, leading up to the 7,852 seats set in front of the stage, the backdrop of Masada in the near distance. Beyond the entrance, attendees arrive in shuttles from the nearby parking lot at the local airstrip, as private cars are not allowed at the site.

Past posts on the Masada Opera Festival are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. I seemed to have missed 2013. I was pretty busy last June.

Also related, Bible History Daily: The Masada Siege. The Roman assault on Herod’s desert fortress (Robin Ngo). This summarizes an article in the current issue of BAR by Gwyn Davies, which article is unfortunately behind the paywall. The full contents of the current issue is summarized in this press release.

Blitz again on Jobar Synagogue

ADAM BLITZ: Jobar synagogue (Jerusalem Post). Excerpt:

For well over a year I had worked to save Jobar, if not from artillery fire but from the stories which had ensued. It had recently survived mortar fire to its façade. It stood firm despite aerial bombardment. It had steered a course through tales of destruction and resurrection and lived long enough to denounce those journalists who were determined to inter it. But last month was very different.

Over two-thirds of the synagogue has been destroyed. Based on the four photographs provided by the Daily Beast, and a floor plan reminiscent of basilica, both the synagogue’s left wing and central aisle (or nave) are consigned to rubble. The bimah, the raised platform where the Torah was once read, and the Ark which housed the sacred scrolls, are no longer. All that exists is part of a wing to the right of center and the antechamber to the Cave of Elijah, ostensibly an Early Christian catacomb in form, way below.

Many sites in the town of the Jobar have been directly affected. The synagogue has not suffered alone. The Great Mosque, 250 meters west of the synagogue, has also come under regime fire. What is different is the news-worthiness and the mechanism by which the Daily Beast’s photographs reached their intended audience. The photographs were provided to the Daily Beast by the US-based Coalition for a Democratic Syria, a conduit. It was this organization that, with its network of rebel activists, declared a eulogy for the synagogue at Jobar.

Background here and links.

Ellen Aitken, R.I.P.

SAD NEWS: Ellen Aitken loses battle with cancer (Doug Sweet, McGill Reporter).

Ellen Aitken, McGill’s Dean of the Faculty of Religious Studies, died early Saturday morning following a short battle with what turned out to be a very aggressive form of cancer.

[...]

Prof. Aitken had been a member of the Faculty since 2004, teaching Early Christian History and Literature. Before coming to McGill, she was at Harvard University, where she served on the faculty of the Divinity School and won an award for teaching. She held degrees from Harvard and the University of the South.

She spoke Ancient Greek and was proficient in Latin, Hebrew, Coptic and German. She also had a reading knowledge of French, Spanish and Italian.

[...]

Requiescat in pace.

UNESCO exhibition

BUT THE EXHIBIT IS NOW HAPPENING: UNESCO deletes ‘Israel’ from title of its exhibit on Jewish ties to Israel. Arab pressure nixed original show, which traced history of Jewish connection to ‘Land of Israel’. Revived version, which opened Wednesday, refers only to the ‘Holy Land’ (Raphael Ahren, Times of Israel).

Six months ago, when UNESCO canceled an exhibition about the Jewish people’s connection to the Land of Israel just before its scheduled opening, Professor Robert Wistrich, its author, was livid. The cancellation, which followed Arab pressure, was disgraceful, he fumed, an appalling “betrayal” that proved that the organization is “subjected, entirely, to political considerations,” because “there’s one standard for Jews, and there’s another standard for non-Jews, especially if they’re Arabs.”

The situation has much improved since then, Wistrich and others involved in the project assert, as the exhibition opened on Wednesday afternoon at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. And yet changes have been made to the exhibition since it was nixed in January.

Most strikingly, the word “Israel” has been deleted from the exhibition’s title and replaced by “Holy Land.” An exhibit that was initially called “The 3,500 year relationship of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel” is now entitled “The 3,500 year relationship of the Jewish People with the Holy Land.”

[...]

Somehow I seem to have missed this story in January. At least I can't find anything about it in the archive.

Schwartz, The Ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhammad

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM CUP:

The Ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhammad

Part of Key Themes in Ancient History

Author: Seth Schwartz

Publication planned for: July 2014
availability: Not yet published - available from July 2014
format: Hardback
isbn: 9781107041271

$75.00 (C)
Hardback

This is an accessible and up-to-date account of the Jews during the millennium following Alexander the Great's conquest of the East. Unusually, it acknowledges the problems involved in constructing a narrative from fragmentary yet complex evidence and is, implicitly, an exploration of how this might be accomplished. Moreover, unlike most other introductions to the subject, it concentrates primarily on the people rather than issues of theology and adopts a resolutely unsentimental approach to the subject. Professor Schwartz particularly demonstrates the importance of studying Jewish history, texts and artefacts to the broader community of ancient historians because of what they can contribute to wider themes such as Roman imperialism. The book serves as an excellent introduction for students and scholars of Jewish history and of ancient history.

Latin Enigma Machine

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Enigma: Unpuzzling difficult Latin readings in medieval manuscripts (AWOL).

The "Coptic Limbo" at the Rylands Library

ROBERTA MAZZA: Book binding cartonnage: a Rylands intermezzo (Faces and Voices).

Papyrology stuff

WHAT'S NEW IN PAPYROLOGY: Article and Reviews available on JSTOR, 2012-2013 sv papyri (G.W. Schwendner). A number of items deal with ancient Judaism and related subjects.

The Temple Mount Sifting Project responds

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Response to Article in Times of Israel. The Temple Mount Sifting Project replies on their blog to that recent Times of Israel article. Also, Todd Bolen has a response to the same article at the BiblePlaces Blog and further comments here.

HT Joseph Lauer. Background, with many links, here.

The "philologist's creed"

ADAM MCCOLLUM: From Peter Boodberg’s “Philologist’s Creed” hmmlorientalia). "Brooding humanism" indeed. Bordering on the Lovecraftian.

Iranian Kingship Workshop

STARTS TODAY: Kingship in Ancient Iran: An interdisciplinary workshop A project of the Institute of Iranian Studies, School of History, 12–13 June 2014, University of St Andrews.

Noted earlier here.

More on the destroyed Jobar Synagogue

ADAM BLITZ: Damascus Days: Jobar’s beleaguered synagogue (Times of Israel). Lots of background information. Excerpt:

For now, questions remain as to the synagogue’s last days and whether the artefacts will endure or whether they will reach the illegal antiquities market. Equally for the more religiously inclined, there is the question of commemoration. Elijah is revered in all three Abrahamic faiths. The Catholic Church (the Carmelite order) celebrates a feast day in July after the prophet. How, now, should we respond to the desecration of a site associated with Elijah and the destruction of a synagogue where memory and catastrophe are woven together? Be it with fast, Damascene piyyutim (liturgical poetry) or scientific endeavours, Jobar must not be forgotten.

It seems there is no further information on the current state of the synagogue beyond the already-published photographs of its ruins.

Background here and links.

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.