Eshel and Levine (eds.), “See, I will bring a scroll recounting what befell me” (Ps 40:8)

NEW BOOK FROM VANDENHOECK AN RUPRECHT IN MEMORY OF HANAN ESHEL:

Esther Eshel, Yigal Levin (Ed.)
“See, I will bring a scroll recounting what befell me” (Ps 40:8)
Epigraphy and Daily Life from the Bible to the Talmud

Dedicated to the Memory of Professor Hanan Eshel

1. Edition 2014
245 pages
ISBN 978-3-525-55062-5
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Journal of Ancient Judaism. Supplements -
99,99 €
incl. VAT
plus S&H
If you have placed a standing order for the series: 89,99 €
PDF eBook 79,99 €

In January 2011, the David and Jemima Jeselsohn Epigraphic Center for Jewish History held its second international conference at Bar-Ilan University, dedicated to the memory of Professor Hanan Eshel, the founding academic director of the center who passed away on April 8th, 2010. This collection of articles, traces, when taken together, daily lifein the land of Israel from the First Temple Period through the time of the Talmud, as seen in the various types of inscriptions from those periods that have been discovered and published. Schiffman’s summary of Hanan’s work serves as an introduction to the book. Ahituv discusses the language and religious outlook of the Kuntilet ‘Ajrud inscriptions. Mazar and Ahituv survey the quite large corpus of short inscriptions found in Mazar’s excavation of Tel Re?ov, south of Beth-Shean. Maeir and Eshel deal with four very short more-or-less contemporary inscriptions found at Tell es-Safi, identified as the major Philistine city of Gath. Demsky deals with the theoretical aspects of literacy in ancient Israel. Grabbe discusses the functions of the scribe during the Second Temple Period. Zissu, Langford, Ecker and Eshel report on both an Aramaic-language graffito and a Latin one, inscribed on the wall of a first and 2nd century CE oil press from of Khirbet ‘Arâk Hâla in the Judean Shephelah. Rappaport’s survey of Jewish coins from the Persian Period through the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, focusing on the Hasmonean coins. Amit describes a group of bread stamps and oil seals, in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin, found in different parts of the country. Klein and Mamalya describe two Byzantine Period Nabatean Christian burial sites and their epitaphs.

More on Hanan Eshel here, here, here, here, and links.

The Talmud on Hebrew

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: American Jews Speak English, but Our Sacred Texts Are in Hebrew. What happens when the most authoritative guardians of the tradition are sometimes baffled by the tradition themselves?

You don’t have to spend much time in a Reform or Conservative synagogue to realize that American Judaism has a language problem, one that’s simple to describe but hard to solve. American Jews speak English, but our sacred texts—the Torah readings, the prayers—are in Hebrew. As a result, most of us don’t know what we’re hearing, or even what we’re saying, during a prayer service. Yet if you try to reduce the amount of Hebrew in the service, by saying prayers in English, you lose the sense of connection with ancient tradition that is such a large part of Jewish spirituality. The only real solution to this dilemma would be for every Jew to become fluent in Hebrew, but we will be waiting a long time before that day comes.

It was consoling to read Daf Yomi this week, then, and realize that this is not just an American problem; it’s been with Judaism since the Babylonian exile. The language of the Tanakh is Hebrew, but by the time the Talmud was compiled, the Jewish people even in the Holy Land no longer spoke Hebrew as a native language; instead, they spoke the closely related Aramaic. And Jews in other parts of the classical world didn’t even know Aramaic, conducting their lives instead in Greek. Indeed, Philo of Alexandria, the biblical commentator who lived in the 1st century C.E., based his detailed explication of the Torah on the Greek translation known as the Septuagint; it’s not certain that he even knew Hebrew at all. Judaism has been a religion of and in translation almost since the beginning.

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Books on John Dee

IN THE MAIL:

Christopher Whitby, John Dee's Actions with Spirits (Volumes 1 and 2): 22 December 1581 to 23 May 1583: 1-2 (Routledge, 1988 pbk. rpt. 2013)

Nicholas H. Clulee , John Dee's Natural Philosophy: Between Science and Religion (Routledge, 1988 pbk. rpt. 2014)

Background here and links.

Research Assistant: Hebrew and Aramaic Qumran-Dictionary, Göttingen

JOB:

Research Assistantship, Hebrew and Aramaic Qumran-Dictionary, Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Germany

The Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities invites applications for a Research Assistantship associated with the Hebrew and Aramaic Qumran-Dictionary. Applicants, who must also be fluent in German, are expected to have excellent Hebrew Language skills. Some interest and experience in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew Bible would be an advantage. Information can be found on the website of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities: http://adw-goe.de/en/about-us/job-offers/. Applications will be reviewed beginning Monday, September 15, 2014, and it is recommended that the usual application materials be submitted before that date.

I have posted the English version of the advert (provided by Annette Steudel as circulated on the Agade list and by Eibert Tigchelaar on the Facebook IOQS page), but note that the job requires fluency in German.

Seth Sanders strives for preeminence

COULD BE ... Could This Be the Most Pretentious Semitic Philology Footnote of the 21st Century? But the 21st century is still young.

Related post here.

McGrath on Notsrim in the Talmud

JAMES MCGRATH: Notsrim in the Talmud: Mandaeans, Christians, or Both? This in response to a recent Daf Yomi column by Adam Kirsh in Tablet. Lots more on the Mandaeans (Mandeans) here and links.

More persecution of the Yazidis reported

ACCORDING TO AN IRAQI MP: Who Cares About an Impending Genocide in Iraq? Amid deafening international silence, tens of thousands of Yazidis are dying at the hands of the 'Islamic State'. (Ari Soffer, Arutz Sheva). More on the Yazidis (whose religion seems to have connections with Gnosticism) and the persecution that has been inflicted on them in recent years is noted here and here and links.

Selwood on the two Jewish revolts against Rome

DOMINIC SELWOOD: Two millennia after the sack of Jerusalem, what does history tell us about violence in the Middle East? (The Telegraph). This longish article, published on Tisha B'Av in the context of the current Israel-Gaza conflict, covers the history of the Great Revolt against Rome in 66-74 CE, as presented by the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, and also covers the Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132-135 CE and its background. It is a thorough summary and is pretty accurate, although it does not distinguish between Zealots and Sicarii, which Josephus treats (in a not particularly clear way) as two different movements. It is the Sicarii who held out until the end at Masada. As for the question in the headline, Selwood concludes:

The eastern Mediterranean seaboard is — and has always been — a troubled region that has seen too much blood spilled for one reason or another, all of which seemed important at the time. As Churchill noted, so bluntly but accurately, the first casualty of war is truth. And the truth of the land is that the various competing webs and roots of nationhood, identity, and memory that have flourished for millennia are thick and run deep into its dust and soil.

As Josephus observed, “as for war, if it be once begun, it is not easily laid down again.” History may not repeat itself exactly, but it does teach us lessons. One thing is certain: in 1,000 years’ time, the Near East will look different. And perhaps the lesson for the troubled land is that throughout history extreme military force has been used there time and time again — but, in over five millennia, it has never yet brought lasting peace for anyone.

More from Mr. Selwood on the Knights Templar is noted here.

Coins from the Great Revolt

TWO RECENT DISCOVERIES: Trove of Jewish Revolt coins discovered near Jerusalem Bronze bits minted months before destruction of temple on Tisha B’Av; ‘Judea Capta’ coin found in north in summer excavations (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel).

A hoard of coins from the fourth year of the Jewish Revolt against Rome — minted months before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE — was found outside the capital and announced by the Israel Antiquities Authority on Tuesday to coincide with the Ninth of Av, the date commemorating the destruction of the Second Temple.

The trove, which consists of 114 bronze coins, was unearthed during the expansion of Route 1, the major highway connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, in February. In the past several months, the IAA team led by Judea District chief archaeologist Pablo Betzer has excavated the remains of a small Roman-era Jewish village near the modern town of Abu Ghosh. Amid the ruins was a broken juglet containing the verdigris-coated coins.

[...]

The announcement came shortly after the discovery of another ancient coin in the far northern site of Bethsaida, to the north of the Sea of Galilee. A team led by Professor Rami Arav of the University of Nebraska, Omaha, found a Roman coin this summer from the years immediately after the revolt bearing the phrase “Judea Capta,” commemorating the victory over the Jewish rebels and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

[...]

Other notable coin finds at Bethsaida in recent years are noted here and here and links.

Music inspired by Hannibal

PUNIC WATCH:

Esperti Project
Le Voyage d'Hannibal
Eclectic Art Records (www.espertiproject.com)

"I will either find a way, or make one." These famous words are attributed to Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca and Carthaginian commander of the First Punic War (264-241 BC). The proverb also applies to the sonic paths taken by Andrea Esperti, whose eponymous trio project sonically re-imagines the legendary military leader's travels.

Andrea Esperti "When I was young I studied the history of Hannibal and Rome," recalls the Italian trombonist and composer in our email interview, "and I immediately appreciated the courage, strength, and will of this man. No one would have thought he could win against the strongest empire in the world. His accomplishment therefore goes beyond historical fact. It's an encouragement to realize our dreams and overcome obstacles."

Joining Andrea for this journey is his brother Antonio Esperti, a formally trained musician versed in the traditional music of Italy. He plays duduk, clarinets, and recites original poetry inspired by Hannibal's cartographic sweep.

With them is Luca Fusconi, a veteran circuit-bender who holds the narrative together with his spacious electronics.

[...]

Follow the links to listen to some of the music.

Diesel still keen on Punic films

VIN DIESEL, interviewed about the challenges of his latest acting role playing a tree, mentions in passing that he still very much hopes to complete his long-awaited movie (trilogy) on Hannibal (and the Punic Wars):

In stark contrast to the part-animated comic book blockbuster, the 'Fast and the Furious' star is hoping to complete a historical film trilogy, based on the three Punic wars - fought between Rome and Carthage from 264 BC to 146 BC - which he has had in the pipeline for a decade.

He explained: 'As so many people know, I want to do this his historical piece. And I want to do the trilogy about the Punic wars it's still something that I have been working on the 10 years and it's something that has to be realised.'

Background going back to 2005 is here and links. Cross-file under "Punic Watch."

Joosten becomes Regius Professor of Hebrew

CONGRATULATIONS TO JAN JOOSTEN:

Press release
Regius Professor of Hebrew, Oxford University: Jan Joosten

From: Prime Minister's Office, 10 Downing Street
History: Published 24 July 2014
Part of: Higher education

The Queen has approved that Professor Jan Joosten be appointed Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Oxford.

The Queen has approved that Professor Jan Joosten ThM, PhD, Professor of Old Testament Exegesis at the University of Strasbourg, be appointed Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Oxford in succession to Professor Hugh Williamson, MA PhD DD Camb DD Oxf FBA, who retires on 30 September.

Professor Jan Joosten

Professor Joosten (55) has been Professor of Old Testament Exegesis at the University of Strasbourg since 2004, before which he was Professor of Biblical Philology (1994-2004). Prior to this he was Lecturer in Biblical Hebrew at the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Brussels (1991-94), Pastor of the United Protestant Church in Belgium (1988-94) and Lecturer of Old Testament at the École de Théologie in Butare, Rwanda (1985-87).

Professor Joosten was born in Belgium and holds degrees in Theology from the Faculty of Protestant Theology in Brussels (1981) and from Princeton (1982), and doctorates from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1989) and Brussels (1994). He has a considerable international reputation in the field of Old Testament / Hebrew Bible engaging particularly with Biblical Hebrew Syntax, the Septuagint, and Old Testament exegetical questions.

Streaker ring?

ARTIFACT: 'Naked runner' sheds light on a little-known art of ancient Rome. The carved jasper stone, found in Israel, was apparently commissioned by a wealthy man and passed down for generations ( Ran Shapira, Haaretz).

A unique gemstone found in Israel that may have adorned a ring has shed light on a little known art in ancient Rome: fine carving.

On the floor of a room dating to the early Byzantium period, around 4th century CE, archaeologists spotted a red gemstone beautifully engraved with the figure of a naked running man holding a laurel wreath in one hand.

Or maybe he's holding a wreath of olive branches. It's hard to tell. In any case, in the other hand the bare gentleman holds what is clearly a date palm branch.

Based on his research, the engraving on the stone is unique in the annals of Israeli excavation, says Dr. Michael Eisenberg of Haifa University's Zinman Institute of Archaeology, director of the Shikmona Excavation Project.

Modern forensics in search of answers

Human remains at Tel Shikmona and the nearby town date from the Late Bronze to the Late Byzantine period, but the gemstone appears to date from the Roman era, indicating that it may have been handed down over generations.

[...]

The Zohar

ZOHAR WATCH: Print puts the Zohar in reach of the masses. Controversy still surrounds the foundation text of Jewish mysticism, which was first printed in 1558 and written nearly 300 — or 1,400 — years earlier (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz). A nice little summary of the history and reception of the Zohar. Excerpt:

Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Jews during the period of the Second Temple (leading to endless arguments over which language Jesus actually spoke), and the language in the Zohar has been described as an “exalted” form of the language. But based on the form of the Aramaic used, latter-day academics believe de Leon wrote the books himself, which to some detracts from their sacredness and authority.

That hasn’t touched its standing among today’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, which takes its writings with deadly seriousness. It is sometimes quoted in daily life, for instance when raising money for charity. The Zohar has also been used as a source for hexes, and is often wrongly associated with being the source of the infamous “pulsa denura” (“whip of fire”) curse of death. The Zohar mentions the curse, but no more.

Zohar specialists seem to think it's more complicated than Moses de León writing the Zohar all by himself, but they agree that it was produced in his time and he was involved in a central way. For much more on the Zohar, especially Daniel Matt's new edition and English translation of it, see here and links. Also, there's lots more on the pulsa de-nura curse rite here and links, and on the golem tradition (mentioned later in the article) here and links.

Hamas in Hebrew

FOLK ETYMOLOGIZING: Word of the Day / Hamas: The terror movement that didn't do its Hebrew homework. It's quite the coincidence and 'Hamas' terror is spelled differently from 'hamas' the nasty act, but both originate from the Aramaic for 'hard' (Shoshana Kordova, Haaretz). The headline just about sums up the article.

Tisha B'Av

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

More from Schiffman on schisms

LAWRENCE SCHIFFMAN has put up two more blog posts on Schisms in Jewish history: Sectarianism in the Second Temple Period and The Jewish-Christian Schism. Earlier posts in the series are noted here.

More Brill books

NEW BOOKS FROM BRILL:

Violence in Ancient Christianity
Victims and Perpetrators

Edited by Albert C. Geljon and Riemer Roukema

Ancient Christianity had an ambivalent stance toward violence. Jesus had instructed his disciples to love their enemies, and in the first centuries Christians were proud of this lofty teaching and tried to apply it to their persecutors and to competing religious groups. Yet at the same time they testify to their virulent verbal criticism of Jews, heretics and pagans, who could not accept the Christian exclusiveness. After emperor Constantine had turned to Christianity, Christians acquired the opportunity to use violence toward competing groups and pagans, even though they were instructed to love them personally and Jewish-Christian relationships flourished at grass root level. General analyses and case studies demonstrate that the fashionable distinction between intolerant monotheism and tolerant polytheism must be qualified.


A Universal Art. Hebrew Grammar across Disciplines and Faiths

Edited by Nadia Vidro, University of Cambridge, Irene E. Zwiep, University of Amsterdam, and Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, EPHE/IRHT-CNRS, Paris

A Universal Art. Hebrew Grammar Across Disciplines and Faiths reflects on medieval and early modern Hebrew linguistics as a discipline that crossed geographic and religious borders and linked up with a plethora of scholarly activities, from Judaeo-Arabic Bible translations to the Renaissance search for the holiest alphabet. This collection of articles presents a cross-section of new research avenues on Hebraism, Karaite, Rabbanite and Christian, with an emphasis on the transmission of linguistic ideas through time and space among different communities, cultures and religious currents. The resulting picture is one of intrinsic variation and dynamic growth as opposed to the linear paradigm of development, culmination and stagnation current in the historiography of Hebrew linguistics.


The Comfort of Kin
Samaritan Community, Kinship, and Marriage

Monika Schreiber, University of Vienna

In The Comfort of Kin Monika Schreiber presents a study of the social and religious life of the Samaritans, a minority in modern Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Utilizing approaches ranging from anthropological theory and method to comparative history and religion, she approaches this community from diverse empirical and epistemic angles. Her account of the Samaritans, usually studied for their Bible and their role in ancient history, is enriched by a thorough treatment of the Samaritan family, a powerful institution rooted in notions of patrilineal descent and perpetuated in part by consanguineous marriage (which differs from incest in degree rather than in kind). Schreiber also discusses how the tiny community is affected by its demographic predicament, intermarriage, and identity issues.

Brazilan Temple completed

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH (REPLICA EDITION): It's Solomon's Temple, complete with helipad (Isabel De Bertodano, The Jewish Chronicle).

A vast replica of Solomon's Temple opened this week in Sao Paulo, with the capacity to seat 10,000 followers of the evangelical Universal Church of the Kingdom of God.

The temple, which engulfs an entire city block and cost about £176 million to build, has polarised opinion, particularly among the Jewish community from which it borrows much of its most eye-catching symbolism.

The temple was built using stone from Israel and contains a number of conspicuous menorahs and an altar imitating the Ark of the Covenant.

[...]

This project was noted earlier here. Other, less ambitious, replicas of the Temple are noted here and here and links. And a couple of related posts are here and here. Cross-file under "Cant Make It Up."

Jack Sasson honored

CONGRATULATIONS TO JACK SASSON: Jack Sasson’s scholarly efforts in Assyriology honored (Ann Marie Deer Owens, researchnews@vanderbilt).

Jack M. Sasson, the Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt, has been inducted into the International Association for Assyriology’s Honorary Council. Sasson, who is also a professor of classics, is one of a dozen scholars to receive this prestigious honor in recent years. The announcement was made July 24 in Warsaw at the group’s annual meeting and during the 60th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, a yearly five-day conference that is open to all those who are interested in Assyriology and Near Eastern archaeology.

[...]

Besides his important scholarly work on the Mari Letters, etc., Jack keeps our inboxes full to bursting with his Agade List.

HT Joseph Lauer, whose e-mail message also points to relevant links here, here, here, and here.

Shuka Dorfman, 1950-2014

SAD NEWS: Israel Antiquities Authority Director, Shuka Dorfman, 64, z’l (The Jewish Press).

The man who has led the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) into the future of hi-tech since November 2000, Shuka Dorfman, passed away today (Thursday) at 64 after a serious illness.

He will be laid to rest Friday at 2 pm in Gedera.

[...]

The Hebrew press release by the IAA is here. May his memory be for a blessing.

Hurtado on blogging and scholarship

LARRY HURTADO: Scholarly Work and the “Blogosphere.” Excerpt:

Scholarly work intended to have an impact on the field isn’t done in blogging. The amount of data, its complexity, the analysis and argumentation involved, and the engagement with the work of other scholars that forms an essential feature of scholarly work all require more space than a few hundred words of a blog-posting, or a few paragraphs of blog-comment. So, it’s rather unrealistic (not to say bizarre) for some commenters to assume otherwise.

Via James McGrath, who has comments on Larry's post here and who is pretty much in agreement. I agree too. The blog is not a natural format for producing original scholarly work, although sometimes it can be used that way (as noted, for example, here). And this discussion indirectly supports my decision not to allow comments on my blog (although Larry and James, bless them, do allow them).

Talmudic exegesis of Esther

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: When the Talmud Offers Close Readings of Sacred Fictions. Antic embellishments, like Esther being good in bed, help Talmudic rabbis to more fully explicate the text’s divine meaning. Excerpt:

But the rabbis, it turns out, had a different and much greater kind of freedom. To them, every letter and word of the Bible was put there by God, which meant that every letter and word had a meaning. If the same word appeared in a verse in Exodus and again in a verse in Chronicles, then there must be some essential relationship between the two verses that the reader was meant to discover. And the rabbinic reader of the Bible was not even bound by the plain sense of the words: He was free to invent episodes, multiply motives, and add characters, if the result seemed to him a fuller explication of the text’s divine meaning.

This week’s Daf Yomi reading, which brought us to the end of Chapter 1 of Tractate Megilla, offered a master class in this kind of midrashic reading. Over seven pages of Gemara, the rabbis engaged in a chapter-by-chapter, sometimes line-by-line analysis of the Book of Esther, after which the tractate is named. The result is practically a rewriting of the Esther story, full of new details that seem to spring from nowhere but the minds of the rabbis themselves yet are treated as deep truths that the text must have contained from the beginning. At times euphemistic and puritanical, at times surprisingly frank, the rabbis show how they take the ambiguous story of Esther and assimilate it to their own worldview.

The catchword principle is one of the keys to understanding both rabbinic and Second Temple Jewish exegesis of scripture.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links. More posts having to do with exegesis of the Book of Esther up to the present (including Haman as barber) are here and here and links.

Translation of the Suda completed

AN ARMY OF TRANSLATORS: Suda On Line: Byzantine Lexicography. From the Overview page:

Certain fundamental sources for the study of the ancient world are currently accessible only to a few specially trained researchers because they have never been provided with a sufficiently convenient interpretive apparatus or, in some cases, even translated into modern languages. The Suda On Line project attacks that inaccessibility by engaging the efforts of scholars world-wide in the translation and annotation of a substantial text that is being made available exclusively through the internet. We have chosen to begin with the Byzantine encyclopedia known as the Suda, a 10th century CE compilation of material on ancient literature, history, and biography. A massive work of about 30,000 entries, and written in sometimes dense Byzantine Greek prose, the Suda is an invaluable source for many details that would otherwise be unknown to us about Greek and Roman antiquity, as well as an important text for the study of Byzantine intellectual history.

The project has recently been completed, in the sense that all the entries have been translated, but the work will continue to be revised and developed. From the The History of the Suda On Line page:

At present (July 2014), the family of active and emerita/us SOL contributors comprises over 200 individuals from five continents and more than 20 countries, but geography is not the only aspect that makes this group diverse and eclectic. In addition to research-active university faculty, our roster has included retired professors, scholars in countries where the internet provides an invaluable supplement to meager local resources, and talented classicists who for one reason or another have ended up in careers other than higher education. One of the great benefits of SOL is the opportunity the project gives to such scholars to make a valuable contribution to the field. SOL has also been used to good effect in the classroom. Instructors at several colleges and universities have assigned entries to graduate and advanced undergraduate students for supervised translating and annotating, and hundreds of their contributions are now a permanent part of the database and can be listed as published scholarly works on the students’ CV's. One of our most prolific contributors, Jennifer Benedict (over 4500 translations), did most of her work on the SOL as an undergraduate at William & Mary. Several scholars, including Peter Green, Malcolm Heath and John Melville-Jones, donated translations of entries that they had done previously for other purposes.

A translation of the last of the Suda’s 31000+ entries was submitted to the database on July 21, 2014 and vetted the next day. This milestone is very gratifying, but the work of the project is far from over. As mentioned above, one of the founding principles of the project is that the process of improving and annotating our translations will go on indefinitely. Much important work remains to be done. We are also constantly thinking of ways to improve SOL's infrastructure and to add new tools and features. If you are interested in helping us with the continuing betterment of SOL, please read about how you can register as an editor and/or contact the managing editors.

This is a Byzantine-era work, but many of the entries are potentially of interest to ancient Judaism and its reception. For example, see the many results when you run the search term "Hebrew" through the translation search engine.

(Via AWOL.)

(Modern) Phoenician metal sculpture

PHOENICIAN WATCH: In ancient Byblos, metal sculptures add a modern touch (Nohad Topalian, Al-Shorfa.com).

Lebanese artist Sami Khoury is lighting up the ancient walls of UNESCO's International Centre for Human Sciences in Byblos with 34 plaques sculpted out of aged metal which portray three-dimensional Phoenician figures.

The exhibition, titled "Ahiram: Metal and Light" after the Phoenician king of Byblos, will remain on display through August 20th.

Khoury, a well-known choreographer who is trying his hand at sculpture for the first time, spoke with Al-Shorfa about his new project.

[...]

Ahiram, King of Byblos c. 1000 BCE, and his inscribed sarcophagus are well known, at least to Northwest Semitic epigraphers.

Snowpiercer

GNOSTICISM WATCH: How an Obscure 2nd Century Christian Heresy Influenced Snowpiercer (Michael M. Hughes, io9).

Wilford, the creator of the eponymous Snowpiercer in Bong Joon-ho's visionary science fiction epic, has fabricated our world in microcosm. It's an enormous, interconnected ecosystem that — because of its function as an ark for the all that remains of humanity —truly is their only world (young Timmy calls it "the whole wide train"). Snowpiercer flips the Gnostic model of the cosmos sideways, however, and instead of moving vertically from the lower material world to the higher, more exalted spiritual realm, the tail-enders' quest takes them horizontally from the Dickensian hell of the caboose to the rarified heaven of the eternal engine.

Sounds like an interesting movie.

More on Gnosticism's influence on films and in other modern contexts here, here, and here, and links

Crowdfunding campaign for Third Temple

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Online Campaign Aims to Build Third Temple. The Temple Institute launches an indiegogo campaign to build the Third Temple, under the title: 'Don't make history, make the future' (Arutz Sheva). I say it again: no building or excavation on the Temple Mount unless and until it can be done using non-invasive and non-destructive scanning technologies.

More on the Temple Institute is here and links.

Destruction in Mosul

MODERN ARAMAIC WATCH: Does Jonah's tomb signal the death of Christianity in Iraq? (Joel S. Baden and Candida Moss, CNN). (The (traditional) Tomb of Jonah in Mosul was reportedly destroyed by ISIS last week. I have refrained from commenting until now to see if the story held up, but current indications are that it is true.) Excerpt:

Last week, ISIS reportedly issued an ultimatum to Christians that they must convert to Islam, flee or face the sword. Earlier this month ISIS had allowed Christians to pay a non-Muslim tax known as jizya. On July 17, Christians were notified that jizya was no longer an option. They must now convert, flee or die.

Among the last Christians to leave the city were monks – residents of the ancient Mar Behnam Monastery – who left behind them 1,400 years of rich Christian tradition, as ISIS refused to let the monks take any of their precious relics with them.

Despite its antiquity and rich tradition, Christianity in Iraq is on the brink of eradication.

The heirs to those who first discovered the tomb of Jonah, and those who helped to keep Greek philosophy alive in the medieval period, are being ejected from their homes and from a land they have held sacred for centuries. This is the face and reality of Christian persecution.

Jonah was one of the earliest symbols of the resurrection for Christians. Will Christianity ever rise again in Iraq?

Related: Trampled in Abraham’s dust: The destruction of Near Eastern Christianity (Franck Salameh, Jerusalem Post).

Background here and links.

Review of Marks, First Came Marriage

H-JUDAIC REVIEW:

Susan Marks. First Came Marriage: The Rabbinic Appropriation of Early Jewish Wedding Ritual. Judaism in Context Series. Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2013. ix + 261 pp. $183.04 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-59333-585-4.

Reviewed by Jane Kanarek (Hebrew College)
Published on H-Judaic (July, 2014)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Ancient Jewish Weddings between Ritual and History

With the goal of uncovering practices that have heretofore been unnoticed in ancient Jewish weddings, Susan Marks sets her methodological task as negotiating between the poles of ritual and history. She contends that approaching the study of Jewish weddings from the perspective of ritual theory alone misleads, but so too does the sole perspective of history. ...

Review of Outside the Bible

THE SEFORIM BLOG: Review of Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture by Shaye J.D. Cohen. Excerpt:

The canonization of the Hebrew Bible was an enormous goad to Jewish creativity. Across genres, styles, and languages, the Jews of the second temple period reacted to, interacted with, interpreted and re-interpreted, the words of the Bible, especially the Torah, in an extraordinary variety of ways with an extraordinary variety of results. The words of the Bible, especially the Torah, seem to have consumed the Jews to such an extent that they produced little literature that did not somehow engage the Bible and its concerns. Outside the Bible is a good entry point for the study not just of ancient Bible interpretation but also of ancient Judaism as a whole.

There is also a favorable mention of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, vol. 1.

For more on Outside the Bible see here and links.

Review of Swartz, The Ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhammad

KRISTA DALTON: Who Exactly Were The Ancient Jews? At least according to Seth Schwartz. Excerpt:

In a more condensed and perhaps more self-reflective form of his earlier chronology in Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE, Schwartz produces a succinct minimalist historical narrative, heavily nuanced by archeological evidence and Neusnarian skepticism.

Via Antquitopia. The Ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhammad was noted last month as forthcoming here. It's now out and already reviewed. Things move fast in the Blogosphere!

Bloomsbury books

THREE NEW BOOKS FROM BLOOMSBURY:

'I Lifted My Eyes and Saw'
Reading Dream and Vision Reports in the Hebrew Bible

Editor(s): Elizabeth R. Hayes, Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer

Published: 31-07-2014
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 272
ISBN: 9780567605665
Imprint: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Series: The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
RRP: £70.00
Online price: £63.00
Save £7.00 (10%)

About 'I Lifted My Eyes and Saw'

This volume addresses the rhetorical function and impact of vision and dream accounts in the Hebrew Bible. The contributors explore the exegetical, rhetorical, and structural aspects of the vision and dream accounts in the Hebrew Bible, focusing on prophetic vision reports. Several contributors employ a diachronic approach as they explore the textual relationship between the vision reports and the oracular material. Others focus on the rhetorical aspects of the vision reports in their final form and discuss why vision reporting may be used to convey a message. Another approach employed looks at reception history and investigates how this type of text has been understood by past exegetes. A few chapters consider the inter-textual relationship of the various vision reports in the Hebrew Bible, focusing on shared themes and motifs. There are also papers that deal with the ways in which select texts in the Hebrew Bible portray dream/vision interpreters andtheir activities.


Imagining the Other and Constructing Israelite Identity in the Early Second Temple Period

Editor(s): Ehud Ben Zvi, Diana Vikander Edelman

Published: 25-09-2014
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 400
ISBN: 9780567248725
Imprint: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Series: The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
RRP: £70.00
Online price: £63.00
Save £7.00 (10%)

About Imagining the Other and Constructing Israelite Identity in the Early Second Temple Period

This volume sheds light on how particular constructions of the 'Other'contributed to an ongoing process of defining what 'Israel' or an 'Israelite'was or was supposed to be in literature taken to be authoritative in the latePersian and Early Hellenistic periods. It asks, who is an insider and who anoutsider? Are boundaries permeable? Are there different ideas expressed withinindividual books? What about constructions of the (partial) 'Other' frominside, e.g., women, people whose body did not fit social constructions ofnormalness? It includes chapters dealing with theoretical issues and casestudies, and addresses similar issues from the perspective of groups in thelate Second Temple period so as to shed light on processes of continuity anddiscontinuity on these matters. Preliminary forms of five of the contributions werepresented in Thessaloniki in 2011 in the research programme, 'Production andReception of Authoritative Books in the Persian and Hellenistic Period,' at theAnnual Meeting of European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS).


Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually

Editor(s): Katharine Dell, Will Kynes

Published: 25-09-2014
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 344
ISBN: 9780567331250
Imprint: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Series: The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
RRP: £70.00
Online price: £63.00
Save £7.00 (10%)

About Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually

This volume continues the study of intertextuality in the ‘Wisdom Literature’ initiated in Reading Job Intertextually (Dell and Kynes, T&T Clark, 2012). Like that book, Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually provides the first comprehensive treatment of intertextuality in this wisdom text. Articles address intertextual resonances between Ecclesiastes and texts across the Hebrew canon, along with texts throughout history, from Greek classical literature to the New Testament, Jewish and Christian interpretation, and existential and Modern philosophy.

As a multi-authored volume that gathers together scholars with expertise on this diverse array of texts, this collection provides exegetical insight that exceeds any similar attempt by a single author. The contributors have been encouraged to pursue the intertextual approach that best suits their topic, thereby offering readers a valuable collection of intertextual case studies addressing a single text.

Follow the links for TOCs and ordering information.

The ANE and psychotropic drugs

ASOR BLOG: Psychedelics and the Ancient Near East (Diana L. Stein).

As courts today debate whether to legalize or regulate the use of drugs like cannabis, it is interesting to look at the history of man’s relationship with mind-altering substances.Several books, exhibits and catalogues have recently explored the topic. Yet, despite the consensus that “every society on earth is a high society,” the Ancient Near East is omitted from these surveys. Is it too remote? Do we know so little? Was it unique? The evidence suggests otherwise.

[...]

The Coinage of Carthage

PUNIC WATCH: The Coinage of Carthage (Mike Markowitz, CoinWeek).

Most of what we know about Carthaginians was written by their enemies–first the Greeks, then the Romans. They are described as greedy, treacherous and brutal. Yet even Cicero, a Roman politician born 40 years after Carthage was wiped out, grudgingly admitted that “Carthage would never have held an empire for six hundred years had it not been governed with wisdom and statesmanship.”

None of its literature, and very little of its art, architecture or material culture survives.

But we have the coins.

[...]

The article puts the coinage into a nice capsule history of Carthage.

Hurtado on Wright on Paul

LARRY HURTADO: Review of Wright Published. An early review of my St Andrews colleague N. T. Wright's magnum opus, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (SPCK, 2013).

Brill books

NEW BOOKS FROM BRILL:

Women in the Bible, Qumran and Early Rabbinic Literature
Their Status and Roles

Paul Heger

Women in the Bible, Qumran and Early Rabbinic Literature: Their Status and Roles portrays the tension between the unity of husband and wife and their different legal and social status from a wide range of perspectives, as deduced from the texts of the three corpora. The volume discusses the related topics of divorce, polygamy, woman’s obligations to fulfill precepts, membership in the community, genealogy and attitudes toward sex, such as rejection of asceticism. Women in the Bible, Qumran and Early Rabbinic Literature begins with an objective interpretation of the biblical narratives of the Creation and the Fall, the intellectual basis of Jewish attitudes toward women, and then analyzes the divergent interpretations of Qumran and the Rabbis, the grounds of their distinct doctrines and halakhot.


The Cave 4 Apocryphon of Jeremiah and the Qumran Jeremianic Traditions
Prophetic Persona and the Construction of Community Identity

Kipp Davis

The Cave 4 Apocryphon of Jeremiah C from Qumran survives in several copies, and presents significant links between the prophet Jeremiah, the scriptural book of Jeremiah, and the collectors of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Because the prophet is only occasionally named in the Scrolls, and there are only a few clear instances where the book is cited, Jeremiah appears to have had a limited impact on the imagination of the Qumranites. However, through a careful appraisal of the Apocryphon manuscripts, and a reconsideration of Jeremiah's influence in the Dead Sea Scrolls via his reputational authority, this study shows that clusters of traditions were tied to Jeremiah’s prophetic and priestly distinction, with an emphasis on matters of leadership and empire.


Psalmen oder Psalter?
Materielle Rekonstruktion und inhaltliche Untersuchung der Psalmenhandschriften aus der Wüste Juda

Eva Jain

Psalms or Psalter? This study creates a new, solid foundation for discussions on the psalm manuscripts found in the Judean Desert. A variety of explanatory models, statistics and synthetic hypotheses have already been produced in the course of numerous analyses and interpretations. However, the disparate and fragmentary character of the manuscripts has barely received any attention since the main focus has mostly been on discussions of the content. For the first time, the entire preserved fragment material of the psalm manuscripts from the Judean Desert is here being presented and edited as a whole. In this way, it can be defined and analyzed in future studies.
New ways of exploring the contents will particularly result with regard to the best preserved psalm roll, 11QPs a.

Psalmen oder Psalter? Die vorliegende Studie schafft eine neue, tragfähigere Basis für die Auseinandersetzung um die Psalmenhandschriften aus der Wüste Juda. Im Rahmen zahlreicher Analysen und Interpretationen wurden schon vielfältige Erklärungsmodelle, Statistiken und Gesamthypothesen zu den Psalmenhandschriften geliefert. Da das Hauptaugenmerk der meisten Untersuchungen bislang auf der inhaltlichen Auseinandersetzung lag, wurde der disparate und fragmentarische Charakter der Manuskripte kaum berücksichtigt.
Erstmals wird nun das gesamte erhaltene Fragmentenmaterial der Psalmenhandschriften aus der Wüste Juda umfassend dargestellt und aufbereitet. Auf diese Weise lässt es sich definieren und für weitere Untersuchungen auswerten.
Gerade in Hinsicht auf die besterhaltene Psalmenrolle 11QPs a ergeben sich so ganz neue Wege zur Erschließung der Handschrift.

And a couple other of tangential interest to ancient Judaism but which I find interesting for one reason or another:

Codex Schøyen 2650: A Middle Egyptian Coptic Witness to the Early Greek Text of Matthew's Gospel
A Study in Translation Theory, Indigenous Coptic, and New Testament Textual Criticism

James M. Leonard, Louisiana State University and Loyola University New Orleans

In 2001, the exciting but enigmatic 4th century Coptic Matthew text, Codex Schøyen, was introduced as an alternative, non-canonical Matthew. In this book, James M. Leonard refutes these sensational claims through fresh methodological approaches and easily accessible analysis. Leonard reveals that the underlying Greek text is one of great quality, and that Codex Schøyen can contribute to the identification of the earliest attainable text—but only with due concern for translational interference. Leonard shows how Codex Schøyen’s close alliance with Codices Vaticanus and Sinaiticus allows triangulation of the three to help identify an earlier text form which they mutually reflect, and how this impacts a dozen variant passages in Matthew.


Dark Enlightenment
The Historical, Sociological, and Discursive Contexts of Contemporary Esoteric Magic

By Kennet Granholm (Stockholm University, Sweden)

In Dark Enlightenment Kennet Granholm explores the historical, sociological, and discursive contexts of contemporary esoteric magic. The book is focused on the Sweden-originated Left-Hand Path magic order Dragon Rouge in particular, but through a detailed contextualizing examination of this case study it offers a broader visage of contemporary esotericism in general. The author takes cue from both the historiography of Western esotericism and the sociological study of new religions and religious change, aiming to provide a transdisciplinary framework for a comprehensive study of esotericism in late modernity.

Review of Jones, Between Pagan and Christian

BOOK REVIEW: Between Pagan and Christian, by Christopher P. Jones, by Candida Moss in the Times Higher. Excerpt:

This is important subject matter and a worthwhile read, and Jones is peerless in his discussions of the 4th century and beyond. For those interested in details as well as broad strokes, he is just the man to show us exactly how fuzzy the notion of paganism was in the ancient world. Engaging anecdotes - for instance about the conversion of various ancient figures - punctuate a book replete with linguistic definitions.

But when he refers to the world before Constantine, Jones’ erudition and constructivist interests seem to slip. Not only are the facts of the 1st century idealistically borrowed from traditional ecclesial histories and the Acts of the Apostles, his interests in historical constructivism evaporate. ...

Iraqi Christians expelled from Mosul

ARAMAIC WATCH: Purged by ISIS, Iraq's Christians appeal to world for help (Fox).

Iraqi Christians are begging for help from the civilized world after Mosul, the northern city where they have lived and worshiped for 2,000 years, was purged of non-Muslims by ISIS, the jihadist terror group that claims to have established its own nation in the region.

Assyrian Christians, including Chaldean and Syriac Catholics, Syriac Orthodox and followers of the Assyrian Church of the East have roots in present day Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran that stretch back to the time of Jesus Christ. While they have long been a minority and have faced persecution in the past, they had never been driven completely from their homes as has happened in Mosul under ISIS. When the terror group ordered all to convert to Islam, pay a religious tax or face execution, many chose another option: flight.

[...]

Mosul is home to some of the most ancient Christian communities, but the number of Christians has dwindled since 2003. On Sunday, militants seized the 1,800-year old Mar Behnam Monastery, about 15 miles south of Mosul. The resident clergymen left to the nearby city of Qaraqoush, according to local residents.

[...]

The BBC has a story about the monastery: Isis militants 'seize Iraq monastery and expel monks'.

Background on Mosul and on related issues in the Middle East is here and links.

The Talmud on the Book of Esther

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Is the Book of Esther—a Story Told In Human Terms, Not Miracles—a Holy Book? Talmudic rabbis, like us, can only study the course of history for the elusive signs of God’s intentions.

This week, Daf Yomi readers began a new tractate, Megilla, which deals with the holiday of Purim—the day on which we read the Megilla or Scroll of Esther. And in Megillat 7a, we learned a surprising fact about that scroll: “Rav Yehuda said that Shmuel said: The book of Esther does not render the hands ritually impure.” All the other books of the Bible transmit tumah, ritual impurity, to those who touch them: As the Koren Talmud explains, the sages instituted this rule in order to discourage people from handling the biblical books too casually. Why doesn’t the Book of Esther follow this pattern? “Is this to say,” the Gemara asks, “that Shmuel maintains that the book of Esther was not stated with the inspiration of the Divine Spirit?”

[...]

The rabbis went to quite a lot of effort to find God in the various lucky breaks in the book. The Book of Esther continues to get attention today, especially in international political contexts. See here and links. And yes, that link happens to be the post immediately after the one linked to in the post I just put up, and that's how I noticed it. Coincidence? Do you really think so?

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Canine Aramaic?

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Talking to a dog in Aramaic (Adam McCollum).

As good as pirate Aramaic.

SBL program book

THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE has posted a searchable Preliminary Program Book for its upcoming annual meeting in San Diego on 22-25 November. I'm in the following session:

Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
11/25/2014
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: 500 (Level 5 (Cobalt)) - Hilton Bayfront (HB)

Theme: Early Judaism
Featuring reviews of James Davila, Hekhalot Literature in Translation: Major Texts of Merkavah Mysticism (Brill, 2013)

M. David Litwa, University of Virginia, Presiding
Ra'anan Boustan, University of California-Los Angeles
Review of James Davila, Hekhalot Literature in Translation (20 min)
Rebecca Lesses, Ithaca College
Review of James Davila, Hekhalot Literature in Translation (20 min)
James Davila, University of St. Andrews, Respondent (25 min)
Discussion (10 min)
Ryan E. Stokes, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Reconsidering the Assumption of Moses (25 min)
Tom Hull, Monash University-Victoria Australia
Honest to God: Truth, theodicy and the heavenly law court in 3 Enoch (25 min)
INCHOL YANG, Claremont Lincoln University
The Influence of Ezek. 40-48 on 1Enoch 14:8-25 (25 min)

More on the third Huqoq mosaic

ELEPHANTS: Mystery Mosaic Discovered in Ancient Galilee Synagogue (Menachem Wecker, The Forward). Excerpt:

Although Zodiac signs are portrayed at the 6th-century Beit Alpha synagogue (Israel), [excavator Jodi] Magness stresses that the third Huqoq mosaic is the first non-biblical narrative in a synagogue, even though non-biblical imagery exists. “Helios and the zodiac cycle is not a story or narrative,” she says. “The other stories depicted in ancient synagogues (including at Dura Europos) are all taken from the Hebrew Bible.”

Given the dearth of elephants in the Hebrew bible, identifying the figures in the mosaic is difficult. Magness is quoted in the UNC release saying that battle elephants are associated with Alexander the Great and subsequent Greek armies. The depiction, she writes, could refer to the legend that Alexander met the Jewish high priest. Asked if the elephants (and lit oil lamps in the second register) could suggest the Hanukkah story and the Maccabean revolt, Magness said she and her colleagues had speculated about a Maccabean interpretation last year, but the newly uncovered mosaics defy that identification.

Background here and links.

No jail yet for Golb

RAPHAEL GOLB: Appeal of Conviction Delays Jail in Internet Forgery Case (AP).

Background on the Golb Dead-Sea-Scrolls internet-impersonation case is here and links.

Hobby Lobby museum

TO HOUSE THE GREEN COLLECTION: Bible museum planned for US capital (AFP).

Zoharic Aramaic website

The Aramaic Language of the Zohar: Resources for studying Kabbalah in the original language.

This site will provide resources for people interested in reading the Zohar, the text at the heart of the Jewish mystical tradition, in its original language, or who are interested in the Aramaic language more generally. It is part of a larger project by Judy Barrett and Justin Jaron Lewis, who are working on a beginner’s textbook and a practical dictionary of the Aramaic of the Zohar.

A few years ago I noted a course on Zoharic Aramaic, taught by Justin Jaron Lewis at the University of Manitoba. And recently Judy Barrett alerted us to Daniel Matt's online Zohar Dictionary. Background on Matt's Aramaic edition and English translation of the Zohar is also at that link.

Ronald Youngblood, 1931-2014

SAD NEWS: RONALD YOUNGBLOOD, WORKED ON TRANSLATION OF BIBLE (Christine Huard, San Diego U-T). Professor Ronald Youngblood died earlier this month at the age of 82 in San Diego, my home town. He is best known for his work on the New International Version of the Bible. I first met Ron in 1982, shortly after he had moved to Bethel Seminary West. I was a Master's student at UCLA looking to an academic career in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies and he graciously met with me a number of times to offer advice. He was a good guy. Requiescat in pace.

(Via the Agade List.)

Panel on Jewish and Talmudic medicine

H-JUDAIC: „Jewish Medicine“: One-day panel at Xth EAJS-Congress, Paris, 24.7.2014.

Evil lectures

BIBLICAL STUDIES ONLINE: Evil in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity.

Videos are available of some of the speakers at the Evil in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity conference, St Mary’s College, Twickenham, May 23-24, 2014.

Background here.

For what it's worth, let me encourage anyone who posts a lecture or podcast online to also post a transcript. Perhaps I'm a dinosaur, but I rarely sit through lengthy video or audio presentations. I haven't the time and I don't see the point of listening to something that I could read much more quickly, and I doubt that I'm alone in feeling this way. But I do read online papers and transcribed podcasts. So if you are presenting from a written text, posting the written form as well could enlarge your audience.

The Septuagint Sessions

REMINDER: Timothy Michael is doing a series of podcasts on the Septuagint. He is currently up to number eight. The RSS feed is here.

Noted earlier here.

The Studia Philonica Annual

WEBSITE: Philo of Alexandria - Studia Philonica Annual. It's been many years since I linked to the website of this important journal, so here it is again.

Brill Jewish Studies catalogue

RECENTLY RELEASED BY BRILL: Jewish Studies Catalog 2014.

Shanks on the GJW and the Jehoash inscription

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: First Person: Gold from the Temple? Hershel Shanks’s First Person in the July/August 2014 issue of BAR. Mr. Shanks notes Leo Depuydt's response to the Gospel of Jesus' Wife and then he (Shanks) comments on the authenticity of the Jehoash (Joash) Inscription, adding some additional information about the gold globules on it.

I have commented unfavorably on some of Depuydt's statements, but I'm not sure what the point was of quoting him in this essay. All he seems to be saying is that the papyrological evidence alone suffices to show that the text is a modern fake (albeit, using ancient materials). Given the recent advances in the discussion by Christian Askeland and Stephen Emmel,* that sounds about right to me. Although if Hershel is implying that the material tests ought to be applied nevertheless, I agree with him.

*I just discovered that my post of 23 June (linking to Alin Suciu's blog post about Stephen Emmel's new observations) apparently did not publish correctly. But it's there now, so go have a look at it. And further background on the GJW is here and links.

More on the new Huqoq mosaics

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: New Huqoq Mosaics. Huqoq synagogue in Israel reveals additional depictions of Samson in the Bible

New mosaics from the fifth-century C.E. Huqoq synagogue in Israel were found during the 2013 excavation season. Directed by Professor Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Shua Kisilevitz of the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Huqoq Excavation Project uncovered another mosaic depicting a scene of Samson in the Bible, as well as a mosaic that might depict a scene from the Apocrypha. ...

Background here and links.

Tenure at YU

CONGRATULATIONS TO RICHARD HIDARY (and his seven colleagues), who just received tenure at Yeshiva University: YU Grants Tenure to Eight Faculty Members Yeshiva University grants tenure to eight faculty members in fields ranging from art history to mathematics and Judaic studies (Arutz Sheva).

Hidary received his PhD from New York University, where his studies culminated in a book titled Dispute for the Sake of Heaven: Legal Pluralism in the Talmud (Brown Judaic Studies, 2010). At Stern, he teaches courses in Bible, Second Temple Jewish history and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Talmud and Midrash, and Jewish ethics.

He is currently working on his second book, which will explore the Greco-Roman context of the Talmud and Midrash, with particular focus on the relationship between the art of persuasive speaking that dominated the educational system of the Roman empire and the rabbis’ roles as preachers and teachers.

Restoration of Deir Al-Surian painting

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Which Macarius? A painting of Saint Macarius has been uncovered at the Deir Al-Surian Monastery in Wadi Al-Natroun, reports Sherif Sonbol (Al-Ahram).

The Deir Al-Surian Monastery in Wadi Al-Natroun boasts some gems of holy architecture and design, with the Church of the Holy Virgin, the Gate of Prophecies and the uniquely detailed gypsum altar. It also contains the relics of Mary Magdalen, and the famous Monk in a White Robe. Yet the newly discovered painting of “Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in heaven with the souls of the blessed on their bosoms” — in its simple, comics-like style — is arguably the most striking object.

It was uncovered in 2000, and even then it could be seen that the art continued to the left, together with Syriac inscriptions. Last month restorers were finally completing work on removing the 18th-century plaster concealing The Three Fathers under the management of the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo Professor Karel Innemée.

[...]

A representation of Saint Macarius, as Innemée explained, the new painting was found in nearly perfect condition by a conservation mission led by the Polish archeologist Cristobal Calaforra. To its right there is a small figure of a monk standing on a grapevine, with the contour of a head suggesting a second monk behind him, possibly a reference to Saint Macarius of Alexandria, who is cited in Volume XXIX of the Historia Monachorum: he is said to have refused the gift of a bunch of grapes on falling ill out of humility.

The painting to the left, however, suggests it might be a representation of Macarius the Great. It is a large cherubim with a human face and three other heads around his own: of a lion, a bird and a bull, a reference to the vision of Ezekiel. The cherubim has six green eye-covered wings, two of which cover his body: a possible reference to the Apocalypse of Sain John. With one hand he holds the arm of Macarius, perhaps guiding him to a new place to live in the Desert of Sketis.

Left of the painting there are inscriptions in Syriac and Coptic. The Syriac text is well preserved and speaks of the death of Mar Maqari of Takri, Abbot of the monastery, in AD 888. It wishes that he will join Saint Macarius in heaven and rest in the lap of Abraham (a clear indication that the text is in reference to the painting to its right).

[...]

Noted not only because of the cool cherub (not "cherubim," which is plural) and the Syriac and Coptic inscriptions, but also because the Deir Al-Surian Monastery is well known (at least to PaleoJudaica readers) for its remarkable collection of manuscripts in many languages, a catalogue of which has recently been published. Background on the manuscripts, catalogue, and Monastery is here and links.

Dovekeepers miniseries

THE DOVEKEEPERS, Alice Hoffman's novel about the fall of Masada, is being made into a 4-hour miniseries by CBS. The media are all over this one, now that they've heard that the cast includes a hot witch: Casting announcement: Cote De Pablo to star in THE DOVEKEEPERS (wusa9.com).

LOS ANGELES – Cote de Pablo will star in THE DOVEKEEPERS, a four-hour CBS miniseries event from executive producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, which will be broadcast in 2015. The project is based on Alice Hoffman's acclaimed historical novel about four extraordinary women whose lives intersect in a fight for survival at the siege of Masada.

De Pablo will play Shirah, one of the four women, who is a sensual, mysterious and fiercely independent single mother with uncanny insights and a quiet and mysterious power. She is derided by many as the 'Witch of Moab,' as she covertly practices forbidden ancient rites of magic and is keenly knowledgeable about herbal remedies. However, those in need don't hesitate to approach her for her help and generosity of spirit.

[...]

Elbadawi on the Qur'an and Aramaic

SYRIAC WATCH:

The Impact of Aramaic (especially Syriac) on the Qur'ān

Emran Elbadawi
Article first published online: 2 JUL 2014
DOI: 10.1111/rec3.12109
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Religion Compass
Volume 8, Issue 7, pages 220–228, July 2014

Abstract

The impact of Aramaic (especially Syriac) on the Qur'ān has long been a matter of debate among scholars, especially among those of the western academe but also within circles of traditional Muslim scholarship. Central to this discussion is the language and audience of the Qur'ān. Studies on the Qur'ān's foreign vocabulary gradually gave way to more in depth analyses on the text's relationship to Syriac Christian literature as well as debates surrounding the Jewish-Christian dimensions, the text's audience. The textual theories employed in studying the Qur'ān's relationship to the Syriac language and Biblical canon contain the strongest debate concerning the impact of Aramaic (especially Syriac) on the Qur'ān. These textual theories have been given consideration in recent scholarship, which reads the Qur'ān in light of the Aramaic translations of the Gospels, as well as the Syriac translation of the Didascalia Apostolorum.

Requires a paid personal or institutional subscription for full access.

Prof. Elbadawi's book is noted here. For "Christoph Luxenberg," see here and here and links. And other relevant recent books are noted here and here.

Mazuz, Jews of Medina

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Religious and Spiritual Life of the Jews of Medina

Haggai Mazuz, Bar-Ilan University

In The Religious and Spiritual Life of the Jews of Medina Haggai Mazuz offers an account of the halakhic character of the Jewish community of Medina in the seventh century CE. Making use of a unique methodology of comparison between Islamic and Jewish sources, Mazuz convincingly argues that the Jews of Medina were Talmudic-Rabbinic Jews in almost every respect. Their sages believed in using homiletic interpretation of the Scriptures, as did the sages of the Talmud. On many halakhic issues, their observations were identical to those of the Talmudic sages. In addition, they held Rabbinic beliefs, sayings and motifs derived from the Midrashic literature.

More on Golb ruling

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Son of Dead Sea Scrolls Scholar Is Sentenced to Two Months in Jail (James C. McKinley Jr.). Excerpt:

The sentencing of Raphael Golb, the son of a prominent Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, came two months after the Court of Appeals struck down the state’s aggravated harassment law under which he had been charged, ruling that it was unconstitutionally vague and broad. The law made it illegal to communicate with someone “in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm.”

But State Supreme Court in Manhattan upheld Mr. Golb’s convictions on criminal impersonation and forgery counts, for which he received the sentence of two months in jail and three years’ probation.

Justice Laura A. Ward ordered Mr. Golb to surrender on July 22.

Mr. Golb’s lawyer, Ron Kuby, said he had filed a new appeal of the jury’s verdict in light of the Court of Appeals decision, and said, in hindsight, that the original trial judge had made critical mistakes in instructing the jury.

Outside court, Mr. Golb said he had been sentenced to jail for what he considered at the time to be satire. He called the trial unfair. “It’s dangerous,” he said. “It could happen to anyone.”

Background here and links.

Exodus movie

HERE COMES ANOTHER BIBLICAL EPIC: First Look at Ridley Scott’s ‘Exodus’ (Anthony Weiss, The Forward). You can watch the trailer there. It would be cool if the angel of death looked like the Alien.

Perhaps another mention of Scott's Prada ad narrating the Gnostic text Thunder, Perfect Mind is called for (commentary here and links).

Brock interview

MARGINALIA: Coffee Table Talk with Sebastian Brock. Sebastian Brock on his life and work and the field of Syriac Studies. Timothy Michael Law interviews Dr. Brock in a podcast.

Christians and fasts in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Why Early Jews Didn’t Care at All About Christians. In a struggle against the idea of history, Jewish life strives to change as little as possible, even when new religions take over. Excerpt:

In Western culture, we tend to see Christian history as absolute history, and we learn about Jewish history largely in terms of its interactions with Christianity—whether that means persecution in the Crusades, or emancipation at the time of the French Revolution, or the failure of European assimilation in the 20th century. One reason I find it so illuminating to read the Talmud is that it presents an autonomously Jewish understanding of the world, in which Jews act rather than react. Indeed, the Talmud might even be said to struggle against the whole idea of history. Seder Mo’ed seems to inhabit a timeless time of ritual repetition, during which Jewish life strives to change as little as possible, keeping itself ready for the arrival of redemption.

The reference to Christianity in Ta’anit 27b comes during a discussion of fasting, which is this tractate’s main subject. In earlier chapters, we have heard about the procedures for fasting in response to drought and other calamities. Yet there are also certain fast days that are fixtures on the Jewish calendar, and the last chapter of Ta’anit explains their rationale. Some of these fasts remain central to Jewish practice—the 9th of Av, and to a lesser extent the 17th of Tammuz, which falls today, in a rare coincidence of the Daf Yomi calendar with the Jewish calendar. But the Talmud begins by talking about a whole category of fasts that disappeared from post-Temple Judaism: the fast of the “non-priestly watches.”

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Sanders on Balaam

SETH SANDERS: A Pagan “Prophet Like Moses”: Balaam and the Problem of Other People’s Revelation (TheTorah.com). Conclusion:

A careful look at the biblical account of Balaam shows that the same is true of this material: it too has a past of its own that we may begin to recover with the help of source criticism, a careful look at diverse rabbinic tradition, and the Deir Alla inscription. More specifically, the Balaam’s legend points to the diversity, and thus the threat, of prophetic and divine sources of knowledge. Parashat Balak presents him as such a powerful source of external authority because he is not one of us, capable of giving us truths from outside. Other parts of the Tanach present him as a seducer and an object of hate, perhaps for the very same reason. He is a symbol of the Torah’s disturbing but purposefully multiple sources, which Sifrei and Gittin so memorably pull apart but which are woven together in the Torah itself. As someone else’s revealer enshrined in our own scripture, he helps reveal the Old Testament of the Old Testament.

Also, I like this evaluation of the Deir Alla text:

It is not that the text is Aramaic, Canaanite, or some mishmash of the two, but that it represents an older stream of language from which the two had not yet diverged. From the viewpoint of Northwest Semitic dialects, Balaam in fact does speak from a long time ago and a galaxy far, far away. What connects these disparate linguistic observations is the words’ otherworldliness: Balaam’s language is just strange enough to evoke another space and time while being basically comprehensible.

Review of Satlow, How the Bible Became Holy

MARGINALIA: Timothy Michael Law on How the Bible Became Holy. The Timely History of a Timeless Story. The review concludes:

Satlow’s reconstruction often outruns the evidence and gives in to the temptation to narrate ancient religious history through the lens of political conflicts among the elites. How the Bible Became Holy is nonetheless a book that raises vital questions about one of the most important books in history. Satlow covers a span of history from the ancient Near East to Late Antiquity, and even though the Bible is his central concern, his command of the broad outline of ancient history in this region impresses. He successfully forces us to think about how authority developed and was not intrinsic to the writings that now make up the Bible. To articulate the intricacies of the Bible’s history would overwhelm most historians. It is a complex story, but one that Satlow narrates with bold ingenuity and conviction.

Earlier reviews etc. are noted here and links.

Robo-scribe

AUTOMATION: 'Robot sofer' writes down Torah (Press Association).

"Rock-Giants in Noah"

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Rock Giants in Noah: Can the Book of Enoch shed light on Noah the movie? The short answer, as regular PaleoJudaica readers already know well, is yes. The full BAR article by Ronald S. Hendel (summarized here) is available only to paid subscribers, but you can read about the relationship between Noah and 1 Enoch (etc.) here and links.

Reduced jail-time for Golb

THE RAPHAEL GOLB IDENTITY-THEFT CASE: After Appeal, Jail in NYC Dead Sea Scrolls Case (Jennifer Peltz, AP). He has been re-sentenced to a lesser jail term of two months (originally six months), although he can still appeal even this.

Background here and many links.

UPDATE: Lawrence Schiffman comments here.

Eighth Enoch Seminar

H-JUDAIC: CFP: Eighth Enoch Seminar: Apocalypticism and Mysticism (Milan, 21-26 June 2015). I will be there, giving a main paper.

Rosenfeld on the Israel Forgery Trial

AMNON ROSENFELD: The Antiquities Game - Behind the Trial of the Century (Bible and Interpretation)

The IAA rejected our conclusions out of hand and scolded the GSI for even allowing tests on unprovenanced antiquities. The major criticism was not against the scientific validity of our research, but that the very testing of unprovenanced items would encourage looting at many of Israel’s archaeological sites. We were accused of sensationalism, naivety, and branded as intruders into the domain of biblical scholars and archaeologists.

(As reported over the weekend by Jack Sasson and Joseph Lauer and noted at the link, tragically, Dr. Rosenfeld died in a car accident on the 10th of July. May his memory be for a blessing.)

This is a long article and I won't try to excerpt it. For my part, I remain unconvinced on philological grounds that the Jehoash (Joash) Inscription is genuine and I find persuasive the argument that the plentitude of unprovenanced biblical-era Hebrew inscriptions vs. the few in Aramaic, Ammonite, Moabite, etc., as well as in contrast to the paucity of inscriptions found in controlled excavations, is suspicious and points in the direction of a lot of those Hebrew inscriptions being forgeries.

More on the Jehoash Inscription and the Israel Forgery Trial here and links. Some years ago I linked to a summary article of the case made by Dr. Rosenfeld and his colleagues for the authenticity of the Jehoash Inscription, also at Bible and Interpretation. My thoughts on how to deal with unprovenanced inscriptions are collected here and here and links.

Also, I have said earlier that I have not yet encountered a peer-review publication defending the authenticity of the Jehoash inscription on philological grounds. That still stands, but I should flag the following article mentioned in Dr Rosenfeld's piece (and noted earlier here):

Cohen, C. ( 2007). “Biblical Hebrew Philology in the light of research on the new Yeho’ash Royal Building Inscription’ in: New Seals and Inscriptions: Hebrew, Idumean, and Cuneiform, Ed. by Meir Lubetski (Hebrew Bible Monographs, 8), Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, pp. 222-284 [I have corrected the page numbering, which is cited incorrectly in the article - JRD]

Cohen is agnostic about the authenticity of the inscription, but he does not think it can be demonstrated philologically to be a modern forgery.

Reviews of Satlow, How the Bible Became Holy

MICHAEL SATLOW'S HOW THE BIBLE BECAME HOLY (Yale University Press) has been reviewed twice recently.

By Sarah Ruden in the Wall Street Journal: Book Review: 'How the Bible Became Holy' by Michael L. Satlow. Jews cherished scripture as one of the few things that allowed them to endure and transcend alien hegemony. Excerpt:

The operative paradox that Mr. Satlow misses is that of popularity and adaptability. No words were more self-consciously and thunderously "holy" than the curses inscribed on pharaohs' tombs as warnings, but these must merely have entertained the robbers who sacked every funerary hoard they could find. What's at issue isn't a writer's intention that a text be holy, or any authority's treatment of it as holy, but the broad assent that the text can win for its holiness.

By Rathe Miller in Philly.com: Picking and choosing among sacred texts to make the Bible. Excerpt:

I would wager that the book's title is more a marketing ploy by Yale University Press than the author's choice - it is a misnomer. More accurate would be: How the Texts That Became the Bible Slowly Acquired Authority. Or perhaps: Canonicity Happens.

Earlier reviews etc. noted here, here, and here.

Miracle-working sages in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Why Even the Greatest Rabbis Can’t Be Trusted. Talmudic thinkers debate the ethics of winning God’s favor, and when a holy person can be too righteous.

In this week’s Daf Yomi reading, Chapter 3 of Tractate Ta’anit, the Talmud turned from the laws of fasting to give us a feast of aggadah. This chapter, I learned from the Koren Talmud, is known in early commentaries as the “Chapter of the Pious,” because it mostly consists of legends about the great sages and their ability to work miracles with God’s help. In telling these stories, however, the Talmud is also pursuing a serious ethical investigation: The rabbis are trying to determine exactly what qualities enable men to win God’s favor. Just as important, the Talmud insists that even the power of the pious is capable of being abused. The ability to coerce God can lead to hubris and vanity—the vices that lie in wait for people proud of their own sanctity.

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Review of Ehrlich, et. al. Purity, Holiness, and Identity in Judaism and Christianity

H-JUDAIC BOOK REVIEW: Klawans on Ehrlich, et. al. Purity, Holiness, and Identity in Judaism and Christianity: Essays in Memory of Susan Haber.

Crouch, The Making of Israel

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Making of Israel
Cultural Diversity in the Southern Levant and the Formation of Ethnic Identity in Deuteronomy

C.L. Crouch, University of Nottingham

In The Making of Israel C.L. Crouch presents the southern Levant during the seventh century BCE as a major period for the formation of Israelite ethnic identity, challenging scholarship which dates biblical texts with identity concerns to the exilic and post-exilic periods as well as scholarship which limits pre-exilic identity concerns to Josianic nationalism. The argument analyses the archaeological material from the southern Levant during Iron Age II, then draws on anthropological research to argue for an ethnic response to the economic, political and cultural change of this period. The volume concludes with an investigation into identity issues in Deuteronomy, highlighting centralisation and exclusive Yahwism as part of the deuteronomic formulation of Israelite ethnic identity.

Albertz and Wöhrle (eds.), Between Cooperation and Hostility

NEW(ISH) BOOK FROM VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT:

Between Cooperation and Hostility
Multiple Identities in Ancient Judaism and the Interaction with Foreign Powers

Ed. Rainer Albertz and Jakob Wöhrle.

1. Auflage 2013
280 Seiten mit 16 Abb. gebunden
ISBN 978-3-525-55051-9
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Journal of Ancient Judaism. Supplements - Band 011
89,99 €

The question of why the cooperation of Jews with the Persian and Ptolemaic empires achieved some success and why it failed with regard to the Seleucids and the Romans, even turning into military hostility against them, has not been sufficiently answered. The present volume intends to show, from the perspectives of Hebrew Bible, Judaic, and Ancient History Studies, that the contrasting Jewish attitudes towards foreign powers were not only dependent on specific political circumstances. They were also interrelated with the emergence of multiple early Jewish identities, which all found a basis in the Torah, the prophets, or the psalms.

Wolter et al., The Quest for the Real Jesus

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Quest for the Real Jesus
Radboud Prestige Lectures by Prof. Dr. Michael Wolter

Edited by Jan van der Watt, Radboud University Nijmegen

The Radboud Prestige Lectures in New Testament 2010 were presented by Prof. Michael Wolter (University of Bonn). His prestige lecture was entitled: ‘Which is the real Jesus?’. In this lecture he challenged many of the current views within the historical Jesus research by critically evaluating the approaches in various categories. Afterwards this lecture was presented to a variety of scholars from different disciplines who approach the problem from their particular perspectives, thus bringing a rich texture of insights, apart from engaging critically with Wolter’s views. Thus one can appreciate the role the quest for the historical Jesus plays within a wider framework. This resulted in interesting articles that not only deal with historical, but also with philosophical and hermeneutical issues.

Fort William

I'M OFF TO THE HIGHLANDS to spend a few days in Fort William and its environs. I don't plan to do much blogging, but I have pre-posted things for the days that I am away, so do keep coming back as usual. Have a good week!

Bons et al. (eds.), The Reception of Septuagint Words in Jewish-Hellenistic and Christian Literature

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

The Reception of Septuagint Words in Jewish-Hellenistic and Christian Literature

Ed. by Eberhard Bons, Ralph Brucker and Jan Joosten

The projected Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint will offer historical studies of Septuagint words, retracing their usage from early Greek authors, over koine Greek and the Septuagint translation itself, into Jewish-Hellenistic and early Christian literature. The latter two of these phases were the object of a workshop held in Bühl (Germany) on January 21 and 22, 2011. The reception of the Septuagint in Greek-speaking Judaism and Christianity raises many questions touching the lexicon, such as: How do Jewish or Christian authors writing in Greek handle the difference existing for some words between the "biblical" usage created in the Septuagint and the usual meaning in Greek? To what extent is it possible to affirm that New Testament authors borrowed their religious terminology from the Septuagint? Which words of the Septuagint continue in later writings with their specific meaning, and which ones go out of use? Is it possible to observe further semantic developments in the use of "biblical" words by Jewish or Christian authors writing in Greek?
These and similar questions are of concern not only to the narrow fields of lexical semantics and philology. More often than not, they have important historical and theological implications. With help from some of the best specialists of Jewish-Hellenistic and early Christian texts, an effort will be made in this book to develop an adequate approach to the problems outlined. Papers will combine the analysis of selected words and word groups with considerations of method.

Follow the link for TOC and ordering information.

ISBL 2014

THIS YEAR'S INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE MEETING began yesterday in Vienna. I have other plans this week, but best wishes to all those attending. If Facebook is any indication, they are having a good time.