Beit Guvrin-Maresha

SPELUNCER'S PARADISE REVISITED:The land of a thousand caves. The 480 caves of Beit Guvrin-Maresha, Israel’s newest UNESCO World Heritage Site, are very cool – in more ways than one. (Abigail Klein Leichman, Israel21c). Excerpts:

Tsvika Tsuk, chief archeologist of the Israel National Parks Authority, took ISRAEL21c through Beit Guvrin’s well-known Bell Cave complex — 70 connected bell-shaped quarry caves — on a hot summer day. The spectacular complex is as cool to see as to feel; the temperature goes down dramatically as you descend inside.

Tsuk confides that the Bell Cave is responsible for his choice of profession. In 1972, while hiking here with army buddies, he came across the remains of an ancient ossuary (human bone box). He eventually turned his find over to the Antiquities Authority, where it’s kept in storage with others like it.

The experience led Tsuk to Prof. Amos Kloner of Bar-Ilan University, who helped excavate Beit Guvrin-Maresha in the 1980s and 1990s and still is producing reports on the 480 caves. And it also inspired Tsuk to pursue a doctorate in archeology.

[...]

The national park is replete with 85 columbarium caves, once used for raising doves and still inhabited by many pigeons. We visited the main Columbarium, the most impressive of the Tel Maresha caves, dug in the third century BCE. Some 2,000 nesting niches are carved into the Columbarium, reflecting the ancient premium put on their meat, eggs, dung and value as sacrificial offerings.

Also of note are the Sidonian burial caves from the Hellenistic period (third to second centuries BCE); the Maze Cave consisting of about 30 interconnected caves; the Bathtub Cave that served as an ancient bidet; the reconstructed agricultural site with olive and grape presses and a wheat-threshing floor; a partially reconstructed Hellenist villa; a Crusader fortress; a Roman amphitheater for gladiator fights; and the Polish Cave, a small cistern and dovecote where visiting Polish soldiers carved an inscription in 1943.

Background here and links.

More on the Yazidis

YAZIDI WATCH: For Yazidis, Exile From Spiritual Homeland in Iraq Dilutes Ancient Culture. Some are contemplating migration, severing ties to their holy land. Others want to stay and protect their shrines. (Rania Abouzeid, National Geographic).

Lalish, in Iraq's northern Kurdish mountains, is to the Yazidis what Mecca is to Muslims, or what Jerusalem is to followers of the three great monotheistic faiths: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.

It is the holiest site of an ancient Kurdish minority faith whose members have been in flight since early August, scattered by the tempestuous advance of Islamic State (IS) insurgents into Sinjar, a majority Yazidi town in northwestern Iraq, and its surroundings.

The Yazidis were propelled into the international spotlight last month, when tens of thousands fled on foot, climbing into the imposing but largely barren Sinjar Mountain range to escape IS militants besieging them at its base.

Most of them seem to be relatively safe now, but the situation remains volatile.

Background here and links.

JSP 23.3-4

THE JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE PSEUDEPIGRAPHA has published a couple issues in 2014. The TOC of 23.3 is as follows:

Ralph Lee
The Ethiopic ‘Andəmta’ Commentary on Ethiopic Enoch 2 (1 Enoch 6–9)
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha March 2014 23: 179-200, doi:10.1177/0951820714528628

Ariel Feldman
Moses’ Farewell Address according to 1QWords of Moses (1Q22)
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha March 2014 23: 201-214, doi:10.1177/0951820714528629

Arye Edrei and
Doron Mendels
Preliminary Thoughts on Structures of ‘Sovereignty’ and the Deepening Gap between Judaism and Christianity in the First Centuries CE
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha March 2014 23: 215-238, doi:10.1177/0951820714528630

Shifra Sznol
Traces of the Targum Sources in Greek Bible Translations in the Hebrew Alphabet
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha March 2014 23: 239-256, doi:10.1177/0951820714528632

The TOC of 23.4 is as follows:

Ilaria L.E. Ramelli
A Pseudepigraphon Inside a Pseudepigraphon? The Seneca–Paul Correspondence and the Letters Added Afterwards
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha June 2014 23: 259-289, doi:10.1177/0951820714536495

Christfried Böttrich
Apocalyptic Tradition and Mystical Prayer in the Ladder of Jacob
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha June 2014 23: 290-306, doi:10.1177/0951820714536497

Chris H. Knights
The Rechabites Revisited: The History of the Rechabites Twenty-Five Years On
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha June 2014 23: 307-320, doi:10.1177/0951820714536499

The abstract for the last, by Knights, reads:

In this article the author revisits the ‘History of the Rechabites’, chs. 8–10 of the Story of Zosimus, a text he first studied in the 1980s, in the light of the work done on the text more recently by Nikolsky and Davila. He looks more closely at the reasons why the text may or may not be Jewish and concludes that, despite his earlier published views, it is more likely to be a Christian composition than a Jewish one.

Dr Knights kindly sent me an offprint of this one. My work on the Story of Zosimus from 2003 is online here and here.

Carlisle Floyd on Susannah

APOCRYPHA WATCH: Carlisle Floyd discusses the narrative dimension of opera
(Stephen Smoliar, The Examiner).

Yesterday evening San Francisco Opera (SFO) presented the first Insight Panel of the its 2014–15 season. The Panel was hosted by Jon Finck, Director of Communications and Public Affairs; and the topic was the company premiere of Carlisle Floyd’s 1955 opera Susannah. What made this a particularly special occasion was that Floyd himself, who turned 88 last June, was on hand to participate, along with SFO General Director David Gockley, soprano Patricia Racette (who will be singing the title role), stage director Michael Cavanagh, and conductor Karen Kamensek.
[...]

As I have previously observed, Floyd wrote his own libretto for Susannah and did the same for all of his later operas. While the story is loosely based on an episode in the Biblical apocrypha originally associated with the Book of Daniel, Floyd was actually inspired by a Renaissance painting of that portion of the story in which the elders are spying on Susannah while she was bathing. Floyd’s libretto “Americanized” the tale, setting it in the mountain town of New Hope Valley, Tennessee.

[...]

Susannah will be playing in San Francisco starting Saturday. Past performances are noted here and links.

Biblical Studies Carnival

THE BIBLICAL STUDIES CARNIVAL FOR AUGUST 2014 has been posted at the Biblical Studies Blog.

Saving Syriac inscriptions

SYRIAC WATCH: While ISIS destroys, Hamilton man battles to preserve historic texts. Team conserving photos of ancient inscriptions, buildings that now no longer exist (Kelly Bennett, CBC News).

A group of librarians led by a Hamilton man is racing against time to preserve inscriptions of centuries-old artifacts and documents currently threatened by ISIS’s destruction across much of Iraq and Syria.

[...]

Some of the photographs and rubbings in the collections the centre is processing could be the last remaining evidence of some of the inscriptions and, in some cases, the buildings that housed them. Some of the inscriptions date back to the 7th century.

[Colin] Clarke, [founder and director of the Canadian Centre for Epigraphic Documents at the University of Toronto,] works with a team of library scientists, language experts and academics, all of who volunteer for the centre's work. The centre started four years ago to catalogue and conserve the largest collection of Ancient Greek inscriptions in Canada.

Last year, the centre began working on a collection of Syriac documents. Syriac is an international language that was once used throughout much of the eastern world, being transported along the Silk Road. The dialect is related to Aramaic, the language Jesus reportedly spoke.

Many inscriptions convey Christian thoughts and poems. One key collection of Syriac documents comes from a University of Toronto professor and Mosul native Amir Harrak, an expert in Iraqi Syriac inscriptions.

[...]

Background on the situation in Iraq is here and links. By the way, Syriac is not "related to" Aramaic, it is a dialect of Aramaic.

R. Hillel meets the t-shirt

"IF NOT NOW, WHEN?" H&M sells popular t-shirt with Hillel quote (European Jewish Press).

More from Diesel on Hannibal

PUNIC WATCH: Vin Diesel Shows Off Hannibal Title Treatment During Crazy Helicopter Video. Diesel is reportedly "haunted" by the fact that he has not yet completed the Hannibal movies. As well he should be.

Background here and links.

Lost Armenian monastery

EVERY PHILOLOGIST DREAMS OF THIS HAPPENING: Ani ruins reveal hidden secrets from below. New underground structures have come to light in Ani, one of Turkey’s most breathtaking ancient sites. History researcher Sezai Yazıcı says the ancient city’s structures should be promoted (Hurriyet Daily News).

“In 2011 while working on a United Nations project in order to promote Kars and to reveal its historical and cultural heritage, I came across some pretty interesting information. One of the most important names of the first half of the 20th century, George Ivanovic Gurdjieff, who spent most of his childhood and youth in Kars, had chosen [to stay in] an isolated place in Ani along with his friend Pogosyan where they worked for some time together in the 1880s. One day, while digging at one of the underground tunnels in Ani, Gurdjieff and his friend saw that the soil became different. They continued digging and discovered a narrow tunnel. But the end of the tunnel was closed off with stones. They cleaned the stones and found a room. They saw decayed furniture, broken pots and pans in the room. They also found a scrap of parchment in a niche. Although Gurdjieff spoke Armenian very well, he failed to read Armenian writing in the parchment. Apparently, it was very old Armenian. After a while, they learned that the parchments were letters written by a monk to another monk,” Yazıcı said, speaking about how he became interested in the underground structures.

“Finally, [Gurdjieff and his friend] succeeded in understanding the letters. Gurdjieff discovered that there was a famous Mesopotamian esoteric school in the place where they found the letters. The famous school was active between the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. and there was a monastery there,” he added.

HT Cornelia Horn on Facebook.

Some past posts on ancient Armenian are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. And this story deserves a nod to The Rule of Four.

Acikyildiz, The Yezidis

A TIMELY PUBLICATION FROM I. B. TAURIS:

The Yezidis: The History of a Community, Culture and Religion
Birgul Acikyildiz (author)

Paperback | In Stock | £14.99

Description

The minority communities of northern Iraq are under increasingly severe threat from Islamic State jihadists. Among these minorities, the Yezidis have one of the most remarkable legacies of any tradition in the Middle East. Yet not just their religious and material culture but now their entire existence is in peril as entire populations seek refuge from their violent oppressors.

But who are the Yezidis (or ‘Yazidis’ as in much of the Western media)? The community has been misunderstood and oppressed for centuries. Predominantly ethnic Kurds, and the target of persecution over many centuries, until now they have succeeded in keeping their ancient religion alive despite the claim that they are ‘devil worshippers.’

This is the essential guide to a threatened tradition. It reveals an intricate system of belief influenced by Zoroastrianism and Sufism and regional paganism like Mithraism. It explores the origins of the Yezidis, their art and architecture and the often misunderstood (and now progressively life-threatening) connections between Yezidism and the Satan/Sheitan of Christian and Muslim tradition. Extensively illustrated, with maps, photographs and illustrations, this pioneering book is a testimonial to one of the region’s most extraordinary and ancient peoples.

Background here and links.

Arash Zeini's blog

ARASH ZEINI has a predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies. Some of his posts also pertain to ancient Judaism. Two of the latter (for now) are: Zoroastrian exegetical parables and To convert a Persian.

Review of As Above, So Below

ARAMAIC WATCH: ‘As Above, So Below’ Review: Deserves a Swift Burial (Dan Callahan, The Wrap). Excerpt:

Director John Erick Dowdle and cinematographer Léo Hinstin keep their handheld camera style shaky, rattling and rolling throughout, even though most of the movie is supposed to be footage shot by hapless documentary filmmaker Benji (Edwin Hodge), who is following dishy Scarlett (Perdita Weeks) around as she goes on a dizzy quest to find the mythical philosopher's stone, an alchemical substance that turns metal into gold and also gives its owner immortality.

“I am fluent in four spoken languages and two dead ones,” chirps the enthusiastic Scarlett, who speaks in plummy British tones that mask her heartbreak over her alchemist father's suicide. She doesn't speak Aramaic, however, though she assures Benji that she “knows a guy who does”: George, played by Ben Feldman, just as neurotic here as he is playing paranoid copy writer Ginsberg on “Mad Men.”

Though Scarlett once got them both stuck in a Turkish prison for a week, George is quietly smitten with her, so much so that he thinks nothing of breaking into a museum for her so that she can take down an ancient tablet, rub the back with ammonia cleanser, and light it on fire to see if it might reveal where the stone might be hidden. The tablet back tells her that the stone could be down somewhere in the Paris catacombs, a tunnel network underneath the city that houses the bones of six million bodies.

She just wants him for his Aramaic.

52nd PSCO (2014-15)

FROM ANNETTE REED ON THE PSCO LIST:

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am delighted to announce that our 52nd PSCO — co-chaired by me, Matthew Chalmers, and Natalie Dohrmann — will explore "Formative Figures and Paths Not Taken: The Study of Ancient Judaism and Christianity between History and Historiography." In concert with the 2014-2015 Katz Center theme-year on "New Perspectives on the Origins, Context, and Diffusion of the Academic Study of Judaism," we will focus on key figures in the study of ancient Judaism and Christianity in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, situating them both in terms of their own modern contexts and in terms of their contribution to scholarship on antiquity. We are hoping to revisit formative contributions to scholarship but also to recover forgotten insights and interesting paths not taken — especially in relation to the interactions of Jewish studies and Jewish scholars with the dominantly Christian contexts of early research. In the process, we hope to bring historians of antiquity into conversation with historians of modernity so as to help situate our own scholarly endeavors as part of ongoing contextualized reflections and continually remade memories of ancient Jewish and Christian pasts.

Our opening session will be on Thursday October 2 (7pm-9pm) and will feature John G. Gager of Princeton University speaking on Jacob Taubes, Michael Wyschogrod, and radical Jewish approaches to Paul and “early Christianity." More details, suggested readings, etc., will be sent out closer to the date. We’re still working on pinning down the schedule for the rest of the year. Confirmed sessions to mark in your calendar = David Ruderman will speak on William Wotton (1666–1727) and the Christian recovery of the Mishnah in early modern Europe on Thursday December 11, and Bernard Levinson will speak on Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) on Thursday March 19th. Unless otherwise noted, all sessions will be held in the Second Floor Lounge of Cohen Hall at the University of Pennsylvania and will run from 7:00pm-9:00pm, preceded by an informal dinner. More details soon!

Many of the talks at the Katz Center this year may also be of interest; for the fall schedule, please see http://katz.sas.upenn.edu/fellowship-program/meltzer-seminar

All the best, Annette

In case you didn't know, PSCO stands for "Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins. Their website is here and their Facebook page is here.

Star of Bethlehem colloquium

CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY: Colloquium: The Star of Bethlehem, Groningen. The Star of Bethlehem: Historical and Astronomical Perspectives – A Multi-Disciplinary Colloquium, University of Groningen, October 23rd-24th, 2014. Follow the link for details.

Canaanite wine cellar excavated

IN BRONZE-AGE ISRAEL: World's Oldest Wine Cellar Fueled Palatial Parties (Megan Gannon, LiveScience). "Wild nights in Tel Kabri."

I don't usually cover Bronze-Age archaeology, but this seemed important.

More Dovekeepers casting

TVLINE: Finding Carter's Kathryn Prescott Takes Aim at CBS' Dovekeepers Miniseries (Andy Swift).

The star of MTV’s Finding Carter has joined CBS’ upcoming miniseries The Dovekeepers, TVLine has learned, playing a teenaged tomboy named Aziza. Blessed with expert archery skills, Aziza disguises herself in her brother’s armor to join the male warriors of Masada — even managing to fool her lover Amram (played by 90210‘s Diego Boneta).

[...]

Obviously a rigorously accurate historical treatment of the story. Background on both the miniseries (due out in 2015) and the novel is here and links.

Phoenician shipwreck

PHOENICIAN WATCH: Phoenician shipwreck found off the coast of Malta could be the Mediterranean's oldest. But the exact location of the 2,700-year-old underwater ruin is being kept secret until research is finished.

By Emily Sharpe. Web only [The Art Newspaper]
Published online: 27 August 2014

Cargo from what may be the oldest shipwreck in the Mediterranean has been discovered off the coast the Maltese island of Gozo, reports the Times of Malta. Around 20 lava grinding stones and 50 amphorae of various types and sizes from the 50ft-long Phoenician wreck were found by a team of researchers from Malta, France and the US. Experts date the artefacts to around 700BC, when Malta was among several areas in the Mediterranean colonised by the Phoenicians.

[...]

Jew and Judean Forum

MARGINALIA: Jew and Judean: A Forum on Politics and Historiography in the Translation of Ancient Texts. Have scholars erased the Jews from Antiquity? As promised.

This is an important discussion. I don't have time to read all the entries right now, but I may have comments once I do.

"Catharsis-vendors," cosmetics, and festivals in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: In the Days Between the Major Holidays, Little Clues to Jewish Ritual and Life. Talmudic rabbis debate professional eulogizers, trying to strike a balance between the holy and the mundane.

Tractate Moed Katan, which Daf Yomi readers continued to explore this week, is not one of the more glamorous parts of the Talmud. Where other tractates we have read in Seder Moed dealt with major holidays like Yom Kippur or Pesach, Moed Katan focuses on the middle days of the festivals, which are inherently less dramatic and important than the first and last days. The result, however, is that this tractate offers an unusually close look at the day-to-day life and work of Talmudic-era Jewish society. As the rabbis examine different occupations and activities, to decide whether or not they can be pursued on the intermediate days, they indirectly offer a kind of sociological overview, covering everything from burial rites to bed-making to beautification.

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

More on Bar-Asher Siegel, Introduction to the Grammar of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic

SETH SANDERS: Is There a Text in the Class? The Babylonian Talmud’s Intertwined Textual and Linguistic Histories. With reference to the review by Aaron Koller at the Talmud Blog, noted here.

More Christian Apocrypha updates

AT APOCRYPHYCITY Tony Burke has been posting some summaries of texts translated in his and Brent Landau's forthcoming volume of More Christian Apocrypha. There are five entries so far:

More Christian Apocrypha Updates 5: On the Priesthood of Jesus
More Christian Apocrypha Updates 4: The Infancy Gospel of Thomas (Syriac)
More Christian Apocrypha Updates 3: The Hospitality of Dysmas
More Christian Apocrypha Updates 2: Revelation of the Magi
More Christian Apocrypha Updates 1: Legend of Aphroditianus

Go and have a look.

Beelzeboul

PHILOLOGOS: The Details Are in the Devil European Writer Defends Jews By Attacking Them. Excerpt:

Beelzebub comes, via the Latin Bible, from Hebrew ba’al z’vuv, literally “Lord [or Ba’al] of the Fly.” (Most people know this phrase better as “Lord of the Flies” from the title of William Golding’s best-selling 1954 novel, but in the Bible, z’vuv, “fly,” is in the singular.) Ba’al was the ancient Canaanite sky god and the senior figure in the Canaanite pantheon, and Ba’al Z’vuv is mentioned in the first chapter of Kings II as the name of a Philistine deity who was worshipped by some Israelites, too. Kings disapprovingly narrates (in the King James translation) what happened when the Israelite king Ahaziah fell ill: “He sent messengers and said unto them, ‘Go, inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of [the Philistine city of] Ekron, whether I shall recover of this disease.”

Although some scholars have argued that flies were indeed associated with this god, the name ba’al z’vuv is far more likely to be a jeering pun on the Canaanite ba’al z’vul, “Lord of the Heavens.” This seems clear from the Greek New Testament, where the name occurs several times as Beelzeboul. (This is also an interesting indication of the lateness of the final editing of some parts of the Hebrew Bible, since ba’al z’vul rather than ba’al z’vuv was obviously still common usage in late Second Temple times.) As a chief rival of the God of the Israelites, Ba’al is the object of similar thrusts elsewhere in the Bible as well. Whereas, for example, Saul’s son Jonathan, so we read in the book of Chronicles, named his own son Meriv-Ba’al, “Warrior of Ba’al,” the book of Samuel refers to him as Mephiboshet, probably from pid, “misfortune,” plus boshet, “shame.”

The phrase zbl bʻl seems to mean "Prince Baal" in Ugaritic. Outside of the Synoptic Gospels there is no other surviving ancient Jewish use of the term Beelzeboul as the name of a demon, but the Symmachus Greek translation of the passage in 2 Kings 1 does preserve the more ancient form of the name, ba’al z’vul, so it was still known as the name of a Canaanite god in the time of Jesus. The jump from that to the name of a chief demon would not have been great in the worldview of Second Temple era Jews.

The essay also mentions the use of Beelzeboul as a demonic name in the Testament of Solomon, but this is clearly dependent on the Synoptic Gospels.

A sofer

SCRIBE WATCH: We've recently had female scribes and even a robo-scribe, but it's been quite a while since we've had a specific profile of any male scribes, so for the sake of gender and bioorganism parity here's one now: The methods used to maintain Judaism's most sacred texts trace back to the time of Moses (Kevin Hardy, Times Free Press).

Yochanan Salazar is constantly afraid.

Salazar is a sofer, a Jewish scribe fluent in the faith's most important text, the Torah. He's trained both in writing new Torah scrolls and repairing ancient Hebrew texts.

This week, he started repair work on Torah scrolls at B'nai Zion Congregation, a Jewish synagogue on McBrien Road. Over the next two years, he'll repair several of the congregation's scrolls, some of which were penned more than a century ago.

The work is meticulous. But it's also humbling, he says, as he carefully crouches over the text, his nose just inches away from the very word of God. He dusts each page with tissues, wipes a cleaner over them and uses a quill to fill in faded letters.

"The truth is it's scary," Salazar said. "It constantly creates a sense of awe. It's an amazing feeling every time I do it."

[...]

New: JSTOR Hebrew Journals

AWOL: A New Collection at JSTOR: JSTOR Hebrew Journals. Lots of them!

BMCR reviews

BRYN MAWR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Johannes de Vries, Martin Karrer (ed.), Textual History and the Reception of Scripture in Early Christianity / Textgeschichte und Schriftrezeption im frühen Christentum. Society of Biblical Literature. Septuagint and cognate studies, 60​. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013. Pp. xi, 434. ISBN 9781589839045. €54.95 (pb).

Reviewed by Geert Lernout, University of Antwerp (geert.lernout@uantwerpen.be)

Preview

This book represents the preliminary findings of an ambitious research project on the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Jewish Tanakh. As Johannes de Vries and Martin Karrer explain in their introduction, the Wuppertal Research Project (in cooperation with the universities of Koblenz and Saarbücken) began as the translation and annotation of the Septuagint, but soon textual, theological and historical issues came into focus as well. In the stage of the project which this book reports on, scholars look closely at the 449 relatively certain quotations of 357 different verses from the Septuagint (or LXX) in 389 verses of the New Testament.

Although the international project only began operation at the end of the previous century, 2006 it started to publish reports in the form of conference proceedings: the present bi-lingual volume is the fourth in that series. On the basis of the detailed study of the quotations from the Septuagint in early Christianity (New Testament writers and a selection of Christian authors from the second century), important conclusions emerge that will be of interest to everybody concerned with the textual history of a book that, in the case of the New Testament, has survived in almost ten times more manuscripts than any other classical text.

On the basis of the detailed work of the members of this research group, the editors are now able to claim (fully aware of the pitfalls), that “the New Testament turns out to be the best source for analyzing the text of Israel’s scriptures.” ...

That's quite a big claim.

Jason König, Katerina Oikonomopoulou, Greg Woolf (ed.), Ancient Libraries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xx, 479. ISBN 9781107012561. $120.00.

Reviewed by David J. Wasserstein, Vanderbilt University (david.wasserstein@vanderbilt.edu)

Preview

It is easy to forget that the Library of Alexandria was not the only library in the ancient world. Its reputation, carefully cultivated by the ancients and burnished through generations of scholarship, has obscured the existence of other collections, some larger and more or less official, like that of Alexandria itself, some smaller and more personal, like that in the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. It is therefore good to have this new collection, the product of a conference held as long ago as 2008. Its 22 contributions cover a huge range. Although Rome with her empire takes the lion’s share of the attention, ancient Assyria and Egypt (and Alexandria), Athens and Pergamum and Herculaneum, are all represented too.

What were the role and function of libraries in the ancient world, both the classical world and its neighbors? How did they operate, arrange their holdings and know and make known to others what they held? Who enjoyed access to them, and for what purposes? Who funded them and why?

[...]

Nothing on the Dead Sea Scrolls? More on the Library of Alexandria is here and links. More on the Library of Herculaneum is here and links. Random other ancient libraries are mentioned here, here, here, here, here, and links. The conference that produced this book was held here at the University of St Andrews in 2008.

Upson-Saia et al. (eds.), Dressing Judeans and Christians in Antiquity

NEW BOOK FROM ASHGATE:

Dressing Judeans and Christians in Antiquity

Edited by Kristi Upson-Saia, Occidental College, USA, Carly Daniel-Hughes, Concordia University, Canada and Alicia J. Batten, Conrad Grebel University College, Canada

The past two decades have witnessed a proliferation of scholarship on dress in the ancient world. These recent studies have established the extent to which Greece and Rome were vestimentary cultures, and they have demonstrated the critical role dress played in communicating individuals’ identities, status, and authority. Despite this emerging interest in ancient dress, little work has been done to understand religious aspects and uses of dress. This volume aims to fill this gap by examining a diverse range of religious sources, including literature, art, performance, coinage, economic markets, and memories. Employing theoretical frames from a range of disciplines, contributors to the volume demonstrate how dress developed as a topos within Judean and Christian rhetoric, symbolism, and performance from the first century BCE to the fifth century CE. Specifically, they demonstrate how religious meanings were entangled with other social logics, revealing the many layers of meaning attached to ancient dress, as well as the extent to which dress was implicated in numerous domains of ancient religious life.

Stratton and Kalleres (eds.), Daughters of Hecate

FORTHCOMING BOOK: Kimberly B. Stratton and Dayna S. Kalleres (eds.), Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in the Ancient World (OUP, November 2014).

Daughters of Hecate unites for the first time research on the problem of gender and magic in three ancient Mediterranean societies: early Judaism, Christianity, and Graeco-Roman culture. The book illuminates the gendering of ancient magic by approaching the topic from three distinct disciplinary perspectives: literary stereotyping, the social application of magic discourse, and material culture.

The authors probe the foundations of, processes, and motivations behind gendered stereotypes, beginning with Western culture's earliest associations of women and magic in the Bible and Homer's Odyssey. Daughters of Hecate provides a nuanced exploration of the topic while avoiding reductive approaches. In fact, the essays in this volume uncover complexities and counter-discourses that challenge, rather than reaffirm, many gendered stereotypes taken for granted and reified by most modern scholarship.

By combining critical theoretical methods with research into literary and material evidence, Daughters of Hecate interrogates a false association that has persisted from antiquity, to early modern witch hunts, to the present day.

Farming and grave marking in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Are Jews Meant To Be Farmers, Workers, or Thinkers? So much of the Talmud is about working the land, and the rules that govern labor, profit, and loss. Excerpt:

One of the things Jews were doing instead of cultivating the land was studying the Talmud. Famously, in Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Yaakov says: “One who walks along a road and studies and interrupts his studying to say, ‘How beautiful is this tree!’ ‘How beautiful is this ploughed field!’—the Torah considers it as if he had forfeited his life.” The pious Jew should be thinking about the Law, not the earth; about holiness, not nature. Yet the irony is that so much of the Talmud is about nothing but the land and working the land. The rules about planting and harvesting in the land of Israel are laid out in great detail. What effect did it have on generations of Jews, I often wonder, to read about the farming practices of the rabbis, many of whom were landowners themselves? Did a Jew studying in a yeshiva in Golden Age Spain, or in 19th-century Vilna, find his imagination excited by these details, dreaming of a life on the land that would be possible once the Messiah came? Or did it all seem abstract and a little tedious, like reading about the tax laws of a country you’d never inhabit?

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Review of Bar-Asher Siegal, Introduction to the Grammar of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic

THE TALMUD BLOG: ‘Introduction to the Grammar of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic’- A Review

Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal, Introduction to the Grammar of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2013) – Reviewed by Aaron Koller.

Excerpt:

Bar-Asher Siegal’s book relies on original research in the manuscripts of the Bavli and original grammatical analysis by a scholar who moves effortlessly between Semitic philology and linguistics. This is as good as an “introduction to Jewish Babylonian Aramaic” can be, and it is difficult to imagine anyone producing a better grammar of this type until there are qualitative advances in the field of JBA.

By which he means an eclectic critical edition of the Bavli. Hasten the day!

Brill books

NEW BOOKS FROM BRILL:

The Targums in the Light of Traditions of the Second Temple Period

Edited by Thierry Legrand and Jan Joosten both of University of Strasbourg

Although the Jewish Targums were written down only from the second century CE onward, and need to be studied against their Late Antique background, the issue of their connection to earlier sources and traditions is an important one. Do the existing Targums link up with an oral translation of Scripture and, if so, how far does it go back? Do the Targums transmit traditional exegetical material in a distinct form? What is the relation between the Targums and "parabiblical" literature of the Second Temple period (including the New Testament)?

In the present volume, these and other questions are studied and debated by an international group of scholars including some of the best specialists of Targumic literature in all its diversity, as well as specialists of various Second Temple writings.


A Vocabulary of Desire
The Song of Songs in the Early Synagogue

Laura S. Lieber, Duke University

In A Vocabulary of Desire, Laura Lieber offers a nuanced, multifaceted and highly original study of how the Song of Songs was understood and deployed by Jewish liturgical poets in Late Antiquity (ca. 4th-7th centuries CE). Through her examination of poems which embellish and even rewrite the Song of Songs, Lieber brings the creative spirit-liturgical, intellectual, and exegetical-of these poems vividly to the fore. All who are interested in the early interpretation of the Song of Songs, the ancient synagogue, early Jewish and Christian hymnography, and Judaism in Late Antiquity will find this volume both enriching and accessible.

The volume consists of two interrelated halves. In the first section, four introductory essays establish the broad cultural context in which these poems emerged; in the second, each chapter consists of an analytical essay structured around a single, complete poetic cycle, presented in new Hebrew editions with annotated original English translations.

More on Jan Joosten is here. Another book by Laura S. Lieber is noted here.

Review of Stein, Textual Mirrors

MARGINALIA: “Beneficent Incision”: Midrash and the Contemporary Critical Moment – By Adam Zachary Newton. Adam Zachary Newton on Dina Stein’s Textual Mirrors: Reflexivity, Midrash, and the Rabbinic Self. I hope the book is not as jargon laden as the review. Excerpt:

And what of an analysis that seeks dialogical partners drawn from a wholly different language game than the one practiced by the exegetes and compositors of the midrashic canon? Such partners would be not only rhetorically Other but also — and this is essential — institutionally so. Either the interpretive hazard increases or its practitioners become the agents, and we the beneficiaries, of a beneficent incision that may result in a text refreshed and rejuvenated. One of the great pleasures, then, of Dina Stein’s Textual Mirrors: Reflexivity, Midrash, and the Rabbinic Self is the imaginative and refracted light it casts upon the waking alertness, power, and fecundity of the midrashic enterprise tout court.

The book was noted earlier here.

Neo-Aramaicists speak out

(MODERN) ARAMAIC WATCH: Letter by Neo-Aramaicists regarding Iraq situation (George Kiraz, the Hugoye list).

Background here and links.

More on the Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition

RONALD HENDEL: A New Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible (Bible and Interpretation). Excerpt:

The HBCE ["The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition”] text will not reproduce a single manuscript (as is the case with the other critical editions, BHQ and HUBP), but will approximate the manuscript that was the latest common ancestor of all the extant manuscripts. This “earliest inferable text” is called the archetype. This is not identical to the original text (however one defines this elusive term), but is the earliest recoverable text of a particular book. To be more precise, the HBCE critical text will approximate the corrected archetype, since the archetype will have some scribal errors that can be remedied.

Background here.

Another soferet

TORAH DOCTOR: Maintaining an ancient tradition, female scribe repairs Jewish academy Torah (Jeff Kunerth, Orlando Sentinel).

The Torah used at the Jewish Academy of Orlando is marked with water spots, smudges, discolorations and rips.

"It's not just a book. It's a sacred text," said Alan Rusonik, head of the academy in Maitland. "To have a Torah in disrepair just doesn't seem right."

That's why Rusonik summoned Rachel Salston, a 24-year-old rabbinical student from Los Angeles.

Salston is one of an estimated 50 female Jewish scribes in the world. Her teacher, Jen Taylor Friedman, was the first woman to write a complete Torah scroll in 2007.

Females scribes, or soferets, are a rare breed because they must be conservative Jews who follow the strict laws of Judaism but also belong to an egalitarian congregation that believes in the equality of women and men. And they must have the interest, patience and talent for painstaking, meticulous work.

[...]

There's video too. For much more on female scribes from antiquity to the present, see here and links. Jen Taylor Friedman has also been mentioned here. Unfortunately, the main link has rotted, but there is still some information there about her, including a photo of her creation, Tefillin Barbie.

Call for Papers: 2015 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium

APOCRYPHICITY:

Call for Papers: 2015 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS

York University Christian Apocrypha Symposium Series 2015

“Fakes, Forgeries, and Fictions” Writing Ancient and Modern Christian Apocrypha

September 24-26, 2015

Follow the link for details.

Marginalia forum on Jew vs. Judean

MARGINALIA TWEETS: Jew and Judean: Have scholars erased the Jews from antiquity? A Forum coming to MRB August 26. Looking forward to it.

Background here.

The Temple menorah in the news

ROGUE CLASSICISM: Stephen Fine and YU Students Tracking the Temple Menorah.

Background on the story is here. More on the Arch of Titus is here and links. And more on the Vatican not having any of the Temple treasures is here and links.

More on that Greek tomb

DOROTHY LOBEL KING: Hold Your [& Alexander's] Horses .... Apparently this late fourth century BCE tomb at Amphipolis is call the Lion's Tomb, for reasons made obvious at the post. And no, she doesn't know yet who was buried there.

Background here.

Eerdword Blog Post again

EERDWORD BLOG POST COUNTDOWN: EerdWord Greatest Hits 2014: James R. Davila on Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

It’s summer vacation time for your friendly neighborhood blog editor — so to mark the occasion, we’re spending this week counting down the most popular posts published here on EerdWord over the last twelve months.

Today we reveal our #3 post of the year (as determined by unique pageviews), which was penned by James R. Davila last October.

Noted originally here. I'm glad to see it getting some more attention. Their number 1 post of the year is revealed here.

Review of Stacey and Doudna, Qumran Revisited

BRYN MAWR CLASSICAL REVIEW: David Stacey, Gregory Doudna, Qumran Revisited: A Reassessment of the Archaeology of the Site and its Texts. BAR international series, 2520. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013. Pp. 150. ISBN 9781407311388. £29.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Hagith Sivan (dinah01@ku.edu).

The review concludes:

Stacey’s, Doudna’s and Avni’s analyses constitute a salubrious reminder that looking at Qumran in isolation, in terms of either the settlement or the texts, can lead to conclusions laced with imaginative reconstruction. Addressing important questions about the connection between the excavated settlement, its extensive cemetery and the cave archives, these contributions demonstrate that texts, even a large number of them, do not necessarily speak for themselves, especially when found in caves. Nor do they invariably shed light on a settlement in the vicinity, in spite of the alleged existence of a scriptorium in it. Cemeteries, although large and carefully aligned, likewise do not necessarily seal a single interpretation of stones and scripts. I suspect, however, that no reassessment is likely to usher in scholarly consensus nor to put an end to scholarly output that is well matched with the industry invested in the scrolls themselves.

Background on the work of Doudna and Stacey on Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls is collected here and links.

Drones

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: New to the Archaeologist’s Tool Kit: The Drone ( William Neuman and Ralph Blumenthal, NYT).

Archaeologists around the world, who have long relied on the classic tools of their profession, like the trowel and the plumb bob, are now turning to the modern technology of drones to defend and explore endangered sites. And perhaps nowhere is the shift happening as swiftly as in Peru, where Dr. [Luis Jaime] Castillo [Butters, Peru’s vice minister of cultural heritage] has created a drone air force to map, monitor and safeguard his country’s ancient treasures.

The article is mostly about Peru, but the following also comes up in passing:

In the Middle East, researchers have employed them to guard against looting.

“Aerial survey at the site is allowing for the identification of new looting pits and determinations of whether any of the looters’ holes had been revisited,” said Morag Kersel, an archaeologist from DePaul University in Chicago who is part of a team using drones in Jordan and Israel.

Moazami, Wrestling with the Demons of the Pahlavi Widēwdād

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Wrestling with the Demons of the Pahlavi Widēwdād
Transcription, Translation, and Commentary

Mahnaz Moazami, Columbia University

The Pahlavi Widēwdād (Vidēvdād), The Law (Serving to Keep) Demons Away, a fifth-century Middle Persian commentary on the Avestan Vidēvdād, describes rules and regulations that serve to prevent pollution caused by dead matter, menstrual discharges, and other agents. It recognizes the perpetual presence of the demons, the forces of the Evil Spirit –forces that should be fought through law-abiding conduct. In spite of its formidable textual problems, the commentary provides an invaluable quarry for the rules of the Zoroastrian community through its citation of regulations for the conduct of its members. Many topics are covered, from jurisprudence to penalties, procedures for dealing with pollution, purification, and arrangements for funerals. Viewed together, they provide the reader with an exquisite interlace of a community’s concerns.

Looks like something of interest for comparison with demonology and impurity in late antique Judaism, and perhaps even (with all the necessary caveats about using the late Pahlavi material) with such traditions in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity.

Collins, Jesus, the Sabbath and the Jewish Debate

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY:

Jesus, the Sabbath and the Jewish Debate
Healing on the Sabbath in the 1st and 2nd Centuries CE

By: Nina L. Collins

Media of Jesus, the Sabbath and the Jewish Debate
See larger image
Published: 25-09-2014
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 504
ISBN: 9780567385871
Imprint: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Series: The Library of New Testament Studies
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
RRP: £80.00
Online price: £72.00
Save £8.00 (10%)

About Jesus, the Sabbath and the Jewish Debate

The claim that Jesus was criticised by the Pharisees for performing cures on the Sabbath has been repeated emphatically for almost 2,000 years. But a careful, unprejudiced evaluation of the gospels - the only source of this accusation - shows that the historical Jesus was never criticised by historical Pharisees for performing Sabbath cures. In fact, Jesus and the Pharisees were in complete agreement that cures on the Sabbath should always be performed. It is moreover evident that the Sabbath healing events in the gospels have preserved a significant part of the history of the Jewish debate. This debate sought to resolve the apparent conflict between the demands of Jewish law, and the performance of deeds of healing and/or saving life. This contention, from its Maccabean origins through to the end of the second century CE, is the subject of this book. It is a story that has escaped the attention of historians partly because it relies on the evidence of both the early post-biblical Jewish texts and the Christian gospel texts.

Review of Law, When God Spoke Greek

BRYN MAWR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Timothy Michael Law, When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. ix, 216. ISBN 9780199781720. $24.95 (pb).

Reviewed by Christian Schäfer​, Septuaginta-Unternehmen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen​ (Christian.Schaefer@mail.uni-goettingen.de)

[...]

Durch konsequenteres Einhalten des eigenen (die Innovation dieses Buches ausmachenden) Anspruchs, Fachsprache zu vermeiden und Fachinhalte in ihrer Komplexität und ihrem Umfang auf ein zielgruppenorientiertes Maß zu begrenzen, hätte „When God Spoke Greek“ – ebenso wie durch Vermeidung inhaltlicher Wiederholungen13 – sicherlich noch einmal deutlich an Stringenz und Lesefreundlichkeit gewonnen. Trotzdem ist Law dafür zu danken, dass er sich hier der nicht zu unterschätzenden Aufgabe der didaktischen Reduktion einer derart hochkomplexen Materie auf ein allgemeinverständliches Niveau erstmalig angenommen hat, um so auf populäre Weise die historische Relevanz eines der – an seiner Wirkungsgeschichte gemessen – bedeutendsten Werke der Antike14 evident zu machen.

More on the book here, here, and here.

Brody, Mishna and Tosefta Studies

NEW BOOK FROM MAGNES PRESS:

Mishna and Tosefta Studies

By Robert Brody

Publisher: The Hebrew University Magnes Press
Categories:
Talmud, Jewish Studies
Publish date: August 2014
Language: English

Danacode: 45-132011
ISBN: 9789654937672
Cover: paperback
Pages: 190
Weight: 400 gr.

This book breaks new ground in several areas of Talmudic philology, especially with regard to the central work of classical rabbinic literature, the Mishnah, and its companion volume the Tosefta. The first section, devoted to the textual criticism of the Mishnah, exposes a number of widespread fallacies with regard to the so-called "Palestinian" and "Babylonian" manuscripts of this work. The second section, the largest and most innovative of the book, seeks to place the textual criticism of the Tosefta on a firm foundation on the basis of a detailed analysis which upends the scholarly consensus in this area. The third section contributes to the ongoing debate concerning the relationship between Mishnah and Tosefta, emphasizing the multifaceted nature of this relationship which varies substantially from one passage to another. Finally, the afterword makes an impassioned plea for editors of classical rabbinic texts to abandon the antiquated notions of legitimate editorial practice which still prevail in the field in favor of approaches which have long been accepted in other disciplines.

Replacing the Head of the IAA

DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY: Appointment of Israel's new antiquities chief embroiled in politics. Archeologists decry culture minister's handling of replacement of chief who recently died. (Nir Hasson, Haaretz). Excerpt:

The short list of candidates reportedly includes MK Yisrael Hasson (Kadima), former minister Effie Eitam, head of the National Heritage Program in the Prime Minister’s Office Reuven Pinsky, Deputy IAA director general Dr. Uzi Dahari and Jerusalem District Archaeologist Dr. Yuval Baruch.

Eitam, who heads an oil company set to drill in the Golan, denied his candidacy. Hasson said he was asked to contend and did not object.

After [Shuka] Dorfman’s death it transpired there was no legal procedure for appointing a successor. Culture Minister Limor Livnat, whose ministry is in charge of the authority, last week issued new regulations stipulating she is the one to decide on the new antiquities director-general.

The Israel Antiquities council, however, wants to have more influence in the process and is demanding that the committee appointed to select the new director-general consist of at least one archaeologist and three council members. The council also insists that the new director has an advanced academic degree, preferably in archaeology or Land of Israel studies.

So politics are involved. Imagine that. But how is it that there is no legal procedure for finding the replacement? This isn't the first time it's happened.

Background here.

Late fourth-century BCE tomb in Greece

THE BBC: Greek tomb at Amphipolis is 'important discovery'.

Archaeologists unearthing a burial site at Amphipolis in northern Greece have made an "extremely important find", says Greek PM Antonis Samaras.

Experts believe the tomb belonged to an important figure dating back to the last quarter of the Fourth Century BC.

A large mound complex has been unearthed at the Kasta hill site in the past two years.

Lead archaeologist Katerina Peristeri said it certainly dated from after the death of Alexander the Great.

[...]

This story has been around for a while, but seems to have a new lease on life due to the recent attention from the Greek Prime Minister. This article seems to hint that the tomb might be that of one of Alexander's generals, the Diadochoi or of his wife, Roxana or his son Alexander IV (who was born after his father's death). But Dorothy Lobel King is not ready to exclude it being the (never used) tomb of Alexander himself. David Meadows also has comments.

Middle East: Aramaic speakers and Yazidis

PERSECUTION OF RELIGIOUS MINORITIES: Is the Islamic State Exterminating the Language of Jesus? We may be watching the deliberate destruction of Aramaic, unfolding in real time. (Ross Perlin, Foreign Policy).

Beyond the urgent humanitarian crisis lies a cultural and linguistic emergency of historic proportions. The extinction of a language in its homeland is rarely a natural process, but almost always reflects the pressures, persecutions, and discriminations endured by its speakers. Linguist Ken Hale famously compared the destruction of a language to "dropping a bomb on the Louvre" -- whole patterns of thought, ways of being, and entire systems of knowledge are among what is lost. If the last Aramaic speaker finally passes away two generations from now, the language will not have died of natural causes.

Background on the situation in Iraq is here and here and links. Background on Maaloula (Ma'aloula, Malula) is here and links. Background on Ariel Sabar's My Father's Paradise is here and links. And more on Geoffrey Khan's Aramaic database is here. Cross-file under "Aramaic Watch."

Then there are the Yazidis. They are not Aramaic speakers, but their religion has interesting and yet-to-be-clarified parallels with ancient Gnosticism. From the Times of Israel: Eight Questions About the Yazidis. Members of the Kurdish religious sect are under siege in Iraq. Who are they? What do they believe? And what is to be done? (Liel Leibovitz). Background here and links.

Conference on yētser hara within Judaism

ANOTHER EVIL CONFERENCE:

UPCOMING CONFERENCE:

The Origins of the Origins of Evil: Contesting Interpretations of the ‘Evil Inclination’ (yētser hara) within Judaism and its Impact on Early Christian Thought
2-4 September 2014
Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge
Organisers - Dr James Aitken (Cambridge), Dr Hector M. Patmore (Cardiff), and Dr Ishay Rosen-Zvi (Tel Aviv)
All welcome.
Student bursaries still available to cover accommodation and food.
More details at: http://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/research/conferences/origins or contact James Aitken, jka12@cam.ac.uk

Sent in by Dr Patmore. Evil is clearly a growth area in the field these days. See here and links, as well as here and here.

Coptic Bibliographies

AWOL: Coptic Bibliographies (from Macquarie University).

Oxford Palaeography Summer School

WORKSHOP REPORT: Greek Palaeography in Oxford (Peter Gurry, ETC Blog).

Last week was the fifth Summer School of Greek Palaeography hosted by Lincoln College in Oxford. This year’s program was run by Georgi Parpulov and a small cadre of other instructors.
The program ran for five days and concluded with a review exam on Saturday morning. The students were organized into groups of nine with each group led by a seasoned palaeographer. The majority of time was devoted to deciphering various Greek hands starting with Codex Bezae and quickly jumping to manuscripts from the 8th–15th century (so almost all minuscules). My own group spent time with about 30 manuscripts and I assume most of the other groups were the same. The focus was decidedly on matters of palaeography and codicology, so there was very little translation.

[...]

JLA Conference 2014

CONFERENCE REPORT: A Positively Diverse JLA Conference (Sara Ronis, The Talmud Blog).

Three weeks ago, I set out for Antwerp, Belgium for the Jewish Law Association international conference. The Jewish Law Association brings together academics, lawyers, dayyanim and ethicists from Israel, Europe and North and South America to have conversations about Jewish law in a variety of historical time periods, locations, and contexts.

The theme for this year’s four-day conference was Judaism, Law and Literature, and consciously drew from a wide range of sources and approaches. ...

Tigchelaar (ed.), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the Scriptures

IN THE MAIL:

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the Scriptures

Series:
Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 270 [Peeters]

Editors: Tigchelaar E.

Year: 2014
ISBN: 978-90-429-3128-2
Pages: XXVI-526 p.
Price: 95 EURO

Summary:
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the Scriptures contains the papers of the Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense 2012, which focused on a series of contemporary questions in Pseudepigrapha research. The papers discuss the relationship of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha to scriptures, both in a technical sense (how did authors rewrite or interpret Scripture) and in a literary sense (how and why did authors expand or extend earlier scriptures). Many papers cover the phenomenon of pseudepigraphy, giving explanations ranging from pious forgery through various kinds of literary devices to authorial self-effacement. Some contributions discuss the historically fluid boundaries between canonical and pseudepigraphic texts, and the production and use of Old Testament pseudepigrapha in early Christianity.

The volume contains papers on texts like Jubilees, the Genesis Apocryphon, other Dead Sea Scrolls texts, the Sibylline Oracles, Baruch, the Testament of Abraham, 4 Ezra, Jannes and Jambres, the Latin Vision of Ezra, the Life of Adam and Eve, the Story of Melchizedek, and the Story of Zosimus, as well as detailed studies on aspects of other texts like, e.g., 2 Baruch and the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum.

I attended the 2012 Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense and posted on it here. My paper, "Seven Theses Concerning the Use of Scripture in 4 Ezra and The Latin Vision of Ezra," is published in this volume.

Cross-file under "New Book."

Sanctity and sacred trash in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: How Can We Respect Both the Sanctity of Jewish Things and the Practical Needs of the Jews? In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ Talmudic rabbis debate the value of recycling, upselling, renovation, and sacred trash.

Very early in the Daf Yomi cycle, way back in Tractate Berakhot, I remember reading about the principle that in sacred things, we elevate and do not lower. In a debate over the right way to light candles on Hanukkah, Beit Shammai argued that we should start with eight candles on the first night and then reduce the number each night; Beit Hillel, by contrast, said that we should start with one candle and build up to eight. As usual, Hillel’s interpretation prevailed, because of the principle that we should always try to increase our sanctity, rather than lessen it.

[...]

As Kirsch notes, this principle led in a roundabout way to the preservation of the Cairo Geniza. The writer of the sub-heading makes a quiet nod in this direction with the phrase "sacred trash."

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Delēta est Carthago

PUNIC WATCH: In Carthage (Josephine Quinn, London Review of Books Blog).

Earlier this month a double celebration took place at Carthage, once the greatest city in the Mediterranean, destroyed by the Romans at the end of the Punic Wars and now a seaside suburb of Tunis. The anniversary of Hannibal’s defeat of the Roman army at Cannae in southern Italy on 2 August 216 BCE could be commemorated on the same day (2/8) as the beginning of the 2828th year since the foundation of the city by the Tyrian princess Dido in 814 BCE. Scholarly talks on Carthage and its heroes were followed by a carnival, including a parade from the acropolis to the amphitheatre with Carthaginian and Roman soldiers.

The Tunisian embrace of Dido, Hannibal and their city might seem surprising. ...

[...]

I'm sorry to have missed that party.

Adiabene meets Stalingrad?

A QUESTIONABLE ANALOGY: Once the capital of a proud Jewish queen, Erbil could emerge as Obama’s Stalingrad With guns blazing, more Americans could resort to the binary ‘with us or against us’ test by which Israel is surely with the U.S. and Hamas is definitely with its enemies. (Chemi Shalev, Haaretz)

Bar-hoppers on Monobaz Street and Israel Radio workers in the adjacent Heleni Hamalka Road near the Russian Compound in central Jerusalem might be surprised to learn that they are indirectly linked to the new American military campaign in Iraq. Heleni the Queen, as she is known in Hebrew, along with her husband Monobaz I and two sons, Izates and Monobaz II, ruled the ancient kingdom of Adiabene in Assyria and converted to Judaism in 30 AD: They financed parts of the Second Temple, built palaces in the City of David, helped fend off Roman onslaughts on Judea and are buried in the Kings Tombs near today’s American Colony Hotel.

And their center of government was in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, the city that is now under threat by Islamic State forces, which could emerge – in a wild exaggeration of course – as Barack Obama’s Stalingrad.

This was the upshot, at least, of the U.S. president’s Saturday morning address on the White House lawn, moments before he took off for his peculiarly-timed summer vacation. On Sinjar Mountain, Obama made clear that he is now committed to the much more complicated task of extricating them to safety as well. And only 24 hours after U.S. Navy F-18A Hornets dropped their first laser guided bombs on ISIS positions near Erbil “to protect Americans,” as the Pentagon said, Obama promised not to withdraw the American consulate from the city. By inference, and to all intents and purposes, Obama is pledging that Erbil, taken from Jewish Adiabene by the Roman Emperor Caracalla in 196 AD when its name was Arbella, won’t fall again.

[...]

Without in any way discounting the difficulties of the current situation, I just don't get the analogy with Stalingrad. Erbil is in Kurdish territory and is defended by the Kurds, apparently now with the help of the Americans (and indirectly, the British), against an attack by ISIS. Stalingrad was on Soviet territory and was successfully defended by the Soviets, again (considerably more indirectly) with the help of the Americans and the British, against an attack by the Nazis. It was a major turning point in the failure of Hitler's Operation Barbarossa. I certainly hope Erbil does not deteriorate into a Stalingrad scenario, but it is ISIS, not America, who is playing the role of the Nazis in the analogy, and that isn't a particularly good omen for ISIS.

Be all that as it may (and I wish Erbil well whatever happens), the central interest for PaleoJudaica is in ancient Erbil (Adiabene). I have posted on Adiabene before, but only in association with Queen Helene of Adiabene and only with reference to architecture connected with her in Jerusalem. See here, here, here, here, here, and here. Note especially the last and most recent link, which discusses the somewhat complicated problem of her tomb in Jerusalem.

Was Herod ripped off?

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Is Jerusalem’s Western Wall falling down? Some of the holy site’s stones are rapidly eroding, putting the wall at risk, Israeli researchers say (Andrew Tobin, Times of Israel)

Parts of the Western Wall are eroding 100 times faster than others, potentially undermining the stability of the ancient Jewish holy site, according to a new study, indicating it might be in danger of collapse hundreds of years in the future.

[...]

It seems that some of the stones in the Western Wall are sub-standard.

The stones that are eroding more quickly are made of fine-grained limestone that crumbles more readily after exposure to water, the study finds.

“Rainwater gets into the stones and causes dissolution. It’s similar to what happens to a sugar cube when it’s dunked in coffee,” said Dr. Simon Emmanuel, an earth scientist specializing in the interaction of water and rock, who conducted the study along with earth sciences doctoral student Yael Levenson at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “The stones that are made of finer crystals fall apart much more easily.”

[...]

The researchers say the average erosion rates they calculated would not endanger the wall for at least several hundred years, although it is possible that catastrophic erosion could happen at any time.

“It looks like Herod might have been the victim of shoddy contractors,” joked Emmanuel. “He was an ambitious builder, and there was intense demand for limestone at the time. Some corners may have been cut.”

[...]

The lowest bid isn't always the best one.

Tu B'av

MAKING A COMEBACK? Tu B'av: The Jewish Valentine's Day that came from prehistory. Dying for the Golden Calf? Celebrating tribal intermarriage? Or, simply, marking the summer equinox? Whatever its origin, latter-day Zionists liked this holiday. (Elon Gilad, Haaretz).

On the 15th of the summer month of Av, under a full moon, young Jewish men and women dressed in white would go out and dance in the vineyards of ancient Judea.

That is practically all we know about this most ancient of holidays.

We know it because of a single passage in the Mishnah, quoting Simeon ben Gamliel: “No days were as good for Israel as the 15th of Av and the Day of Atonement, on which the sons of Jerusalem would go out in borrowed white clothes...and the girls of Jerusalem would go out and dance in the vineyards” (Ta’anit 10).

The question is why. There are a few clues.

There's something about marriage

What was this dancing about? The sages of the Talmud were evidently somewhat puzzled by this, since the Talmud gives us six different answers.

[...]

Most of the explanations don't sound very romantic.

The Jerusalem Post has coverage as well: Tu Be’av: Boy meets girl... in ancient Israel (Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg)

Review of Geiger, Hellenism in the East

BRYN MAWR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Joseph Geiger, Hellenism in the East: Studies on Greek Intellectuals in Palestine. Historia Einzelschriften 229. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2014. Pp. 177. ISBN 9783515106177. €49.00.

Reviewed by Bruno Rochette, Université de Liège (bruno.rochette@ulg.ac.be)

Depuis l’époque hellénistique jusqu’à la période byzantine, la Palestine fut une terre fertile en intellectuels grecs, poètes, prosateurs et philosophes – depuis le philosophe cynique Ménippe, le poète Méléagre et le penseur épicurien Philodème, tous les trois de Gadara, jusqu’à Marinos de Naplouse, le dernier scholarque de l’école néoplatonicienne d’Athènes, et Procope de Césarée, l’historien du temps de Justinien. Il faut reconnaître que ces auteurs n’ont pas reçu l’attention qu’ils méritaient. Le même constat vaut pour les intellectuels issus d’Ascalon, à l’exception du philosophe Antiochos, qui fut le maître de Varron et de Cicéron, et du mathématicien Eutocios, auteur de commentaires sur certains écrits d’Archimède et sur les Sections coniques d’Apollonios de Pergé. Si l’on met à part l’École de Gaza aux Ve et VIe s.,1 personne n’a jamais tenté de replacer ces intellectuels grecs de Palestine dans leur environnement, ni d’analyser leur contribution à la vie culturelle grecque des habitants de cette région. De surcroît, si le milieu intellectuel de certains grands centres, comme Antioche, Alexandrie ou Athènes à l’époque romaine, a fait l’objet d’une grande attention, il en va tout autrement pour des villes secondaires. Or, une telle approche pourrait éclairer sous un autre angle notre image de l’hellénisme, que nous percevons principalement à travers la situation dans les grands centres. Une question découle de ce constat : la civilisation dans une région bien définie avec certaines caractéristiques propres avait-elle un caractère distinctif ou bien cette section du monde grec était-elle une partie de ce dernier sans aucun signe particulier qui puisse la distinguer de l’ensemble ?

L’ouvrage tente d’apporter des éléments de réponse à cette problématique. Il est divisé en trois parties, dont certaines comportent des recherches déjà publiées.2 La première est une prosopographie des intellectuels grecs en Palestine. La deuxième est consacrée aux intellectuels grecs originaires d’Ascalon. La troisième étudie la diffusion de la littérature latine en Palestine.

[...]

John Allegro website

John Marco Allegro is a website about and in defense of Mr. Allegro and his controversial work on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

HT Eibert Tigchelaar at the Facebook IOQS page. More on Allegro is noted here and here. The link to the Bible and Interpretation essay by his daughter, Judith Anne Brown, has rotted, but you can read it at the new link here. And her book on her father is available here.

Tarbiz 82.2

THE HEBREW JOURNAL TARBIZ has a new issue out (82.2). TOC in English translation:

The articles in this volume:

Alexander Rofé - Redressing the Calamity in the Transmission of the Bible

Yonatan Feintuch - The Textual Development of the Aggadah of Rav Ada b. Abba (b BB 22a) in Light of the Evidence of an Early Genizah Fragment

Avi Shmidman - Quina Poems for the 10th of Tevet and the 17th of Tamuz

Avraham Fraenkel - Kingdoms and their Harsh Decrees in Medieval Italian Jewish Poetry

Tzahi Weiss - ‘Most of the Errant Err in Malkhut’: The Worship of the Shekhinah in Early Kabbalah

Tsippi Kauffman - Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Przysucha

English and Hebrew Abstracts

Nebuchadnezzar Cylinder sold

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Nebuchadnezzar Cylinder Goes for $605,000! (Megan Sauter).

While the Cyrus Cylinder has been making its rounds on an international exhibition circuit,a another cylinder of a famous Mesopotamian emperor has recently been brought to the public eye. One of Nebuchadnezzar’s cuneiform cylinders was auctioned off on April 9, 2014, by Doyle New York, Auctioneers and Appraisers for $605,000. The purchaser of the cylinder has requested to remain anonymous. Unfortunately, his anonymity may make it difficult for further scholarly study of the text.

[...]

The Neo-Babylonian kings were very interested in ancient (already to them) Babylonian history and put a lot of effort into restoring old temples. They even engaged in very primitive archaeological efforts to find inscriptions by their predecessors — for example, in cornerstones like the one mentioned in this article. The sixth-century BCE King of Babylon Nabonidus was a keen amateur archaeologist and philologist, which contributed to later generations looking down on him as something between a nerdy poser and a madman. See the related story here about his daughter, Ennigaldi-Nanna, who seems to have taken after her father. Likewise, the Neo-Assyrian King Ashurbanipal (7th century) is mostly know for his cruel conquests in the Middle East, but he too had a great interest in ancient Babylonian history and he amassed a substantial library of Babylonian texts in Nineveh. For more on Nabonidus and Ashurbanipal as ancient historians, see:

Eckart Frahm, "Keeping Company with Men of Learning: The King as Scholar," in The Oxford Handbook of Cuneiform Culture (ed. Karen Radner and Sleanor Robson; OUP, 2011), pp. 508-532.

Much more on the Cyrus Cylinder is here and links.

I very much hope that the new owner of the Nebuchadnezzar Cylinder will make the artifact available for scholars to study, even while remaining anonymous. This will only increase its value, so everybody wins.

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.