Tolan et al., Jews in Early Christian Law

NEW BOOK FROM BREPOLS:

Jews in Early Christian Law
Byzantium and the Latin West, 6th-11th centuries

J. V. Tolan, N. de Lange, L. Foschia, C. Nemo-Pekelman (eds.)

379 p., 156 x 234 mm, 2014
ISBN: 978-2-503-55052-7
Languages: English, French
Paperback
The publication is available.
Retail price: EUR 70,00 excl. tax
How to order?
Web: http://brepols.metapress.com/content/g7v658/

The sixth to eleventh centuries are a crucial formative period for Jewish communities in Byzantium and Latin Europe: this is also a period for which sources are scarce and about which historians have often had to speculate on the basis of scant evidence. The legal sources studied in this volume provide a relative wealth of textual material concerning Jews, and for certain areas and periods are the principal sources. While this makes them particularly valuable, it also makes their interpretation difficult, given the lack of corroborative sources.
The scholars whose work has been brought together in this volume shed light on this key period of the history of Jews and of Jewish-Christian relations, focusing on key sources of the period: Byzantine imperial law, the canons of church councils, papal bulls, royal legislation from the Visigoths or Carolingians, inscriptions, and narrative sources in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. The picture that emerges from these studies is variegated. Some scholars, following Bernhard Blumenkranz, have depicted this period as one of relative tolerance towards Jews and Judaism; others have stressed the intolerance shown at key intervals by ecclesiastical authors, church councils and monarchs.
Yet perhaps more than revealing general tendencies towards "tolerance" or "intolerance", these studies bring to light the ways in which law in medieval societies serves a variety of purposes: from providing a theologically-based rationale for social tolerance, to attempting to regulate and restrict inter-religious contact, to using anti-Jewish rhetoric to assert the authority or legitimacy of one party of the Christian elite over and against another. This volume makes an important contribution not only to the history of medieval Jewish-Christian relations, but also to research on the uses and functions of law in medieval societies.

The interests of this book actually extend back to the fourth century.

Bloomsbury books

NEW BOOKS FROM BLOOMSBURY:

Constantine Tischendorf
The Life and Work of a 19th Century Bible Hunter

By: Stanley E. Porter

Published: 18-12-2014
Format: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 200
ISBN: 9780567658029
Imprint: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Dimensions: 216 x 138 mm
RRP: £16.99
Online price: £11.89
Save £5.10 (30%)

About Constantine Tischendorf

Constantin von Tischendorf was a pioneer. He existed in an age when biblical studies as we know it was being formed, when the quest for forgotten manuscripts and lost treasures was being undertaken with no less zeal and intrigue than it is today. It was Tischendorf who found, and preserved, the oldest extant version of the complete bible that we know of, the so-called Codex Sinaiticus, which he discovered in poor condition at St Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai, in 1846.

With the discovery of the Codex Tischendorf, and others, was to take the study of biblical texts further than ever before, through linguistic methods, and attention to the most ancient sources available. In many ways Tischendorf was a father figure of the modern Historical Critical Method.

In this short biography, Stanley E. Porter, himself one of the most respected scholars of the New Testament and Koine Greek currently writing, gives a portrait of Tischendorf's life and work, together with an annotated republication of Tischendorf's influential work on the Gospels.

Published to celebrate Tischendorf's bicentenary, in 2015, this volume will be a must for those seeking to understand how the study of biblical manuscripts began, and to understand the man who discovered the oldest version of the bible as we know it.


The Body in Biblical, Christian and Jewish Texts

Editor(s): Joan E. Taylor

Published: 19-06-2014
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 296
ISBN: 9780567254269
Imprint: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Series: The Library of Second Temple Studies
Illustrations: 10 illus
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
RRP: £60.00
Online price: £42.00
Save £18.00 (30%)

About The Body in Biblical, Christian and Jewish Texts

The body is an entity on which religious ideology is printed. Thus it is frequently a subject of interest, anxiety, prescription and regulation in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, as well as in early Christian and Jewish writings. Issues such as the body's age, purity, sickness, ability, gender, sexual actions, marking, clothing, modesty or placement can revolve around what the body is and is not supposed to be or do.

The Body in Biblical, Christian and Jewish Texts comprises a range of inter-disciplinary and creative explorations of the body as it is described and defined in religious literature, with chapters largely written by new scholars with fresh perspectives. This is a subject with wide and important repercussions in diverse cultural contexts today.


The Temple in Text and Tradition
A Festschrift in Honour of Robert Hayward

Editor(s): R. Timothy McLay

Published: 18-12-2014
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 344
ISBN: 9780567062697
Imprint: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Series: The Library of Second Temple Studies
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
RRP: £75.00
Online price: £52.50
Save £22.50 (30%)

About The Temple in Text and Tradition

The Second Temple period is an era that marked a virtual explosion in the world of literature, with the creation, redaction, interpretation, and transmission of Jewish texts that represented diverse languages and ideologies. The creation of many of these writings coincided with the growth of the Jewish community beyond the borders of Israel; therefore, among those for whom the Temple played a diminishing role. The transition period from Temple to texts was accompanied by conflicting interpretations about the role of the Temple as well as diverse theological understandings about God and the Jewish people.

Drawing on the expertise of leading specialists in Second Temple Judaism, Temple, Texts, and Traditions explores the rich traditions of the Jewish people as they were expressed and interpreted in their writings in that period, which included writings that later became recognized as Scriptures.

Follow the links for TOCs and ordering information.

Dimant, Collected Studies

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Devorah Dimant
History, Ideology and Bible Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Collected Studies

In this volume Devorah Dimant assembles twenty-seven thoroughly updated and partly rewritten articles discussing various aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls that she published over the past three decades. An introductory essay written especially for this volume surveys the present state of research on the Scrolls. Dealing with major themes developed in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the author reflects the rapid expansion and change of perspective that has taken place in research on the collection in recent years following its full publication. Among the topics treated are the nature and contents of the Scrolls collection as a whole, the specific literature of the community that owned this collection, the Aramaic texts and the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic works found therein. Each of these chapters contains an inventory list of the texts under discussion. In the article on the entire Scrolls collection she provides an updated inventory and analysis of all the Dead Sea Scrolls. Besides these general surveys, the volume includes discussions of particular themes such as the history of the community related to the Scrolls, its self-image and particular interpretation of biblical prophecies, and its notion of time. In addition, various previously unknown apocryphal works found among the Scrolls are analyzed, such as Pseudo-Ezekiel (4Q385-4Q386,4Q388), Apocryphon of Jeremiah C (4Q385a-4Q390), Apocryphon of Joshua (4Q522), Pesher on the Periods (4Q180, with a fresh edition), and a new edition and interpretation of the Words of Benjamin (4Q548).

Odeberg the Nazi sympathizer

REBECCA LESSES: Hugo Odeberg and Nazi Germany.

Hugo Odeberg, professor of theology at the University of Lund in Sweden from 1933-1964, is of interest to those who study early Jewish mysticism because in 1928 he published the first edition and translation into English of a Hekhalot text. This is a text known in several of the manuscripts as Sefer Hekhalot, but which he called 3 Enoch, as if it proceeded in a linear fashion from 1 Enoch and 2 Enoch. His publication of Sefer Hekhalot brought the knowledge of this work into the scholarly world, and it continues to be influential up until today in the study of the Hekhalot literature. (Philip Alexander published another English translation of the work in James Charlesworth's Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, volume 1, published in 1983. He used Odeberg's critical edition as the basis for his translation).

Notwithstanding Odeberg's importance for the history of modern scholarship of the Hekhalot literature, I think we need to take another aspect of his career into consideration when we continue to use his work.

In the 1930s Odeberg became a sympathizer with the Nazis, and he worked together with antisemitic German theologians in the later 1930s and 1940s. This aspect of his career is finally being revealed by current research on the involvement of Swedish scholars and theologians in the Nazi movement. Should this influence our use of Odeberg's work in contemporary research on the Hekhalot literature? I think that at the very least it should be mentioned when we cite his research. Odeberg also wrote on the Gospel of John, and his scholarship is still used also by some researchers.

[...]

Disturbing. Read it all.

The DSS and Syriac Christianity

PHILIP JENKINS: Christians in Babylon (The Anxious Bench). Excerpt:

Recently, scholar Joseph Amar examined this Jewish context in an important article published in the Times Literary Supplement (October 3, 2014) under the title “A Shared Voice: When Jews and Christians Drank from the Same Wells.” Because it is paywall-protected, I will summarize its conclusions here.

Amar noted how closely Mesopotamian Christians resembled not just sectarian Judaism in general, but specifically the world of the Essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls. “Like the Qumran sectarians, they used the word ‘holiness,’ – qadishutha in Aramaic – as the technical term for their practice of celibacy. And like the ‘Men of Holiness’ at Qumran, they took vows that spoke of an impending battle between good and evil. ” A direct link between the community that produced the scrolls and the Christians of Mesopotamia seemed to be the only way to account for such explicit parallels.”

I explore some of these parallels in an exercise in counterfactual history presented at a conference some years ago: "The Odes of Isaiah: A Newly Discovered Syriac Pseudepigraphon - A Thought Experiment." The paper was later published as "Counterfactual History and the Dead Sea Scrolls," (see here for full citation).

Talmud-related dissertations 2014

THE TALMUD BLOG: Dissertations and Thesis, 2014.

Yardeni, Understanding The Alphabet of the Dead Sea Scrolls

A BOOK FROM CARTA JERUSALEM:

Understanding The Alphabet of the Dead Sea Scrolls
By: Ada Yardeni

The most important discovery of documents written in the “Jewish” script is the discovery of the documents from the Judean desert, known as “the Dead Sea Scrolls”.

From the Foreword by Weston W. Fields*

“Dr. Ada Yardeni stands at the head of her field, and this book is the best ever produced on the topic… The book excels in so many ways… all of which will appeal to professional and lay
readers alike.

“…the book masterfully describes the information it is possible to glean from a careful, even minute, examination of the letters and words of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic documents. …all the knowledge that must be assimilated by anyone who aspires to begin the long journey toward at least a partial expertise in the analysis of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions and texts.

“…she has provided a glimpse of the very inner workings of her mind; indeed, that she has divulged to the reader her ‘trade secrets.’

“This book sets a new standard in the field of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic paleography.”

* Weston W. Fields, Ph.D., is Executive Director of The Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation

The web page isn't very clear, but it looks as though this book has a 2012 publication date. I just found out about it, thanks to a mention by Eibert Tigchelaar on Facebook.

Bible as Notepad Conference

I'M OFF TO OSLO, for the Bible as Notepad Conference, noted earlier here. As you can see from the program, I am presenting a paper on “Notes in the Text? The Unique Secondary Readings in MS Leiden Or. 4730’s Text of the Hekhalot Rabbati." The abstract is as follows:

MS Leiden Or. 4730 is a late (16th or 17th century) Italian manuscript that includes the complete text of the Hekhalot Rabbati (Synopse §§81-277), the longest text in the corpus of the Hekhalot literature. It seems to come from a good Vorlage with a high density of original readings, but at some point this text has been extensively altered by a scribe. The manuscript contains hundreds of unique secondary variants, including omissions, replacement of words with synonyms, or other changes in wording. In effect, rather than being annotated with notes in the margins, the text was overwritten with notes in the text itself. These alterations can be detected only through traditional textual criticism, which reveals a pattern of unique secondary readings. From a traditional text-critical perspective they are "clutter" to be dismissed as useless for reconstructing a (more) original text. But from the perspective of New Philology they evidence a peculiar pattern of deliberate scribal alterations, one that has the potential to tell us more about this creative scribe and the scribe's agenda. This paper will catalogue and categorize the unique secondary readings in this manuscript in order to make some sense of what the scribe was doing and why.

As usual, I have preposted some things for while I am away and I will blog as time and internet connections permit, so please keep coming back as normally.

Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day 2014

IT'S THAT DAY AGAIN: Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day.

The Facebook page is here. Past posts on the day with related links are collected here.

Dead Sea cave robbers reported caught

IAA PRESS RELEASE: In a Dramatic Operation on the Cliffs of the Judean Desert: Antiquities Robbers Caught Red-Handed Trying to Plunder (December 2014). Today (Sunday) an indictment was submitted against the robbers who were apprehended by Israel Antiquities Authority inspectors.

Today (Sunday) an indictment was submitted against the robbers who were apprehended by Israel Antiquities Authority inspectors, with the assistance of the Arad police

This is the first time in 30 years that antiquities robbers have been caught on the desert cliffs

Today (Sunday) an indictment was handed up against antiquities robbers who tried to loot Dead Sea scrolls from the Judean Desert. This comes in the wake of a dramatic capture carried out last weekend by inspectors of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery of the Israel Antiquities Authority, with the assistance of the Arad Rescue Unit. The apprehension of the robbers was part of a complex operation to locate the Dead Sea scroll robbers, which lasted more than a year.

Early in the morning hours members of the Arad Rescue Unit, which were undergoing routine training at the time, identified suspicious movement in a cave in the northern cliff of Nahal Ze’elim, in the region of the Leopard’s Ascent.

Inspectors of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery of the Israel Antiquities Authority were called to the scene and they placed the cave under surveillance utilizing observation and photographic equipment. The suspects were observed in the cave carrying out an illicit excavation while using a metal detector and a large amount of excavating equipment.

The suspects dug in an ancient cave which is known in archaeological circles as “The Cave of the Skulls”. They caused tremendous damage in the cave by digging through layers of earth while destroying archaeological strata and historical evidence from the Roman period c. 2,000 years ago and the Chalcolithic period c. 5,000 years ago.

The cave is located in the side of the cliff, 150 meters above the bottom of Nahal Ze’elim and some 70 meters below the top of the cliff. It can only be reached on foot via a narrow goat’s path on top of rock fall, that passes upright bedrock walls and is extremely dangerous.

The suspects – all young men from the village of Seir in the vicinity of Hebron – demonstrated considerable expertise in reaching the cave by climbing and rappelling from the cliff while using special equipment they possessed.

After observing and documenting the suspects in action, the suspects began climbing to the top of the cliff during the evening while carrying on their back ancient finds (such as a 2,000 year old lice comb from the Roman period) and all of the digging equipment that included excavation tools, break-in equipment, two sophisticated metal detectors, lighting equipment and ropes, as well as large amounts of food and water, which indicate their intention to remain in the cave for many days. Inspectors of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery awaited the suspects at the top of the cliff. Upon arrival the suspects were immediately caught by the Israel Antiquities Authority personnel. They were detained and taken for questioning to the Arad police station where, with the assistance of the Arad police and investigators, they were interrogated for many hours and gave their version of events.

The suspects were arrested and brought for arraignment before a judge in the Be’er Sheva‘ Magistrates Court. Their detention was extended twice and an indictment was handed up today by the Southern District Attorney's Office.

According to Amir Ganor, director of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery in the Israel Antiquities Authority, "For many years now gangs of antiquities robbers have been operating along the Judean Desert cliffs. The robbers attempt to locate and find Dead Sea scrolls, pieces of ancient texts and unique artifacts that were left in the caves, particularly during the Great Revolt against the Romans in 66–70 CE and the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 132–135 CE, when Jewish fighters fearing the Roman army sought refuge in the desert. These finds are sold for large sums of money in the antiquities markets in Israel and around the world. What makes the Judean Desert so unique is its dry climate that enable the preservation of rare leather, bone, and wooden objects, including the Judean Desert scrolls, pieces of parchment and papyrus, on which various texts were written, among them the Holy Scriptures, books of the Bible, legal contracts and historical stories. Over the years many of the plundered finds reached the antiquities markets in Israel and abroad, but it has been decades since perpetrators were caught red-handed. This is mainly due to the difficultly in detecting and catching them on the wild desert cliffs”.

Following the recovery of some unique artifacts that had been plundered by antiquities robbers in this region, the then director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, the late Shuka Dorfman, decided the Judean Desert would receive special treatment, enforcement would be increased and an attempt would be made to identify the caves in which the rare finds were being looted. The task was assigned to the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery which began operating in the Judean Desert both openly and covertly.

One of the main groups of robbers that operated in the Judean Desert in recent years has now been apprehended. The group was found in possession of unique archaeological relics that had been plundered from the cave. The Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery reported that in the coming weeks additional suspects will be investigated who are connected to the theft and destruction of the antiquities sites in the region.

The Israel Antiquities Authority invests a vast amount of resources and effort in order to safeguard and protect the heritage values of the State

HT Joseph Lauer, also lots of coverage by the media. Follow the link for photos of the cave and the comb.

Report on that UNESCO conference

ARUTZ SHEVA: UN Attempt to Save Jewish Sites from ISIS - Too Little Too Late? Urgent conference held to preserve ancient sites in Iraq and Syria - but how serious is UNESCO about protecting Jewish heritage sites? Lyn Julius saw little to be optimistic about. Excerpt:

In one important respect the conference might achieve results: museum chiefs declared they would treat with suspicion any artifacts offered to them from the Middle East, and would conduct "due diligence" checks as far as possible. But private collectors were less likely to be circumspect about the provenance of items. The international art market was a vessel too leaky to render watertight.

It is tempting to conclude that organisations like UNESCO, which were founded on the pillars of intergovernmental law, seem well past their sell-by date in a world where non-state actors ride roughshod over "kaffir" international treaties and conventions. Even before the era of Islamic state, neither Syria nor Iraq were signatories to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the event of armed conflict.

The great and the good gathered on that foggy day in Paris were right: education was the answer. But it would take many generations to instil respect for the Other. Too late for the Jews of Iraq and Syria, at any rate.

Background here.

UPDATE: In an e-mail message Joseph Lauer notes the following:

The Comments section following the article contains the following exchange.

Richard McBee, who has written on Art for The Jewish Press, noted and asked, “The Dura Europos synagogue murals (235 CE), the earliest and most important example of Jewish narrative art, were proudly displayed at the National Museum of Damascus in the heart of Damascus, Syria, currently in the midst of a prolonged civil war. Does anyone know what is being done to safeguard this invaluable Jewish heritage or even if they are still extant?”

Lyn Julius, who wrote the Arutz Sheva article, responded, “I think the murals are safe. Dr Abdulkarim, the General director of Antiquities in Syria, who addressed the conference, said everything under his control was safe.”

We can only hope that is correct and that the murals will always be safe.

Let's hope so. Background on the situation at Dura Europos is here and links.

Bauckham on The Lost Gospel

MARK GOODACRE: Richard Bauckham, Assessing the Lost Gospel: All Seven Parts (The NT Blog). Background here and links.

UPDATE: Philip Jenkins reports his own, perhaps not entirely unrelated discovery over at The Anxious Bench: The Jesus Identity!

Manichaean hymns

NEW BOOK FROM BREPOLS:

Berliner Turfantexte (BTT 31)
Miscellaneous Hymns
Middle Persian and Parthian Hymns in the Turfan Collection

D. Durkin-Meisterernst (ed.)
464 p., 12 b/w ill., 210 x 297 mm, 2014
ISBN: 978-2-503-54628-5
Languages: English
Paperback
The publication is available.
Retail price: EUR 80,00 excl. tax

This edition presents a large collection of (unpublished) fragments of Middle Persian and Parthian Manichaean hymns, both in the original language and translated into English.
This is an edition of a large number of fragments of Middle Persian and Parthian Manichaean hymns in the Berlin Turfan Collection. M. Boyce in the register of her 1960 Catalogue of the Iranian Manuscripts in Manichaean script in the German Turfan Collection identified fragments of hymns 'to the Third Messenger' (group 44); 'Parthian hymns written in couplets, unclassified' (group 58) and 'Hymns, unclassified, including poems' (group 81). Though some of these fragments have been published in the meantime and others are very small, this yields more than 250 previously unpublished fragments, many of considerable size. The fragments are presented in diplomatic edition together with a transcription and translation into English. Since most of the hymns are abecedarian they are presented as far as possible in strophic form. An extensive introduction, notes, a complete glossary and facsimiles of joined fragments accompany the edition.
Will interest: Students of Manichaeism; of Central Asian history and cultures; of comparative religion; of Iranian languages and literatures.

Not of direct interest to ancient Judaism, but of tangential interest because Turfan is also the source of important fragments of the Book of Giants. See here and here and links.

A Mass in Old Church Slavonic

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How Often Do You Hear a Mass in Old Church Slavonic? (Susan Lewis, WRTI). Now's your chance.

For much more on Old Church Slavonic and its importance for Old Testament pseudepigrapha and ancient Judaism, see here and many links.

Retro-Talmudic burial?

A PROPOSAL TO REVIVE A VERY OLD CUSTOM: Rabbi Seeks to Bring Back Cave Burial. Head of Etzion Bloc Religious Council seeks to bring back Talmudic era custom of exhumation and use of ossuaries.

Israel is dealing with a shortage of cemetery space, and a new initiative in the Etzion Bloc suggests an original solution – exhuming the dead person's remains one year after his funeral and reburial inside an ossuary that is placed inside a burial cave.

This was the customary way for Jews in the Land of Israel to bury their dead during Talmudic times, some 1,500 years ago.

The idea is being floated by Rabbi Rafael Ostroff, Chairman of the Etzion Bloc Religious Council.

[...]

The custom actually goes back at least to the Second Temple period.

Bohak, A Fifteenth-Century Manuscript of Jewish Magic

NEW BOOK FROM CHERUB PRESS:

A Fifteenth-Century Manuscript of Jewish Magic: MS New York Public Library, Heb. 190 (Formerly Sassoon 56), Introduction, Annotated Edition and Facsimile, by Gideon Bohak. (Sources and Studies in the Literature of Jewish Mysticism 44), in HEBREW: Volume 1 328 pages, Study and Edition, Black and White Printing; Volume 2, 272 pages. ISBN 1-933379-49-9. SOLD AS A TWO VOLUME SET. The Jewish magical tradition was transmitted from generation to generation both orally and via manuscripts, which are well attested at least from the tenth to the twentieth centuries. Many hundreds, and perhaps even thousands, of manuscripts of Jewish magic have survived, and are available in public and private collections all over the world. And yet, no attempt has ever been made to penetrate this world in a systematic manner, or to edit any single manuscript of Jewish magic in its entirety. Hence the importance of the present edition, of a fifteenth-century manuscript, copied somewhere in the Arabic-speaking world by a Jewish scribe, Moses son of Jacob and Marhaba, and containing both Kabbalistic texts and an endless stream of magical recipes for every imaginable purpose. The edition of the manuscript is annotated with copious footnotes, is preceded by a detailed introduction and followed by detailed indices, and is accompanied by a color facsimile of the entire manuscript.

DSS in EABS

NEW RESEARCH GROUP: The Dead Sea Scrolls (European Association of Biblical Studies). The group also has a call for papers for the EABS meeting in Cordoba, Spain, in July of 2015. Jeremy Penner, one of the organizers, has e-mailed to note that the application deadline is February, 2015, and that the meeting will be part of the city’s celebrations of the 700th anniversary of the synagogue.

Ancient Jew Review

NEW WEBSITE: ANCIENT JEW REVIEW.

The Ancient Jew Review is the one stop for all your Ancient Jewish needs. The site regularly produces original content pieces, reviews books, interviews scholars of note on past and future projects, discusses contemporary issues, and creates a community of engaged readers with digital and in person discussion and book groups. The site also curates news and social media discussions relevant to Ancient Judaism. Finally, we provide a space to collaborate and create resources for students and scholars of Ancient Judaism.

Looks like an interesting and very ambitious site and I wish them the best, although the "one stop for all your Ancient Jewish needs" is a bit cheeky. I trust you will still want to keep visiting PaleoJudaica.

The Red Tent

TELEVISION: Best-selling ‘Red Tent’ to be star-studded miniseries (Phyllis Braun Arizona Jewish Post).

Anita Diamant’s beloved international best-seller, “The Red Tent,” is coming to the screen as a Lifetime miniseries, premiering Dec. 7 and 8.

“The Red Tent” is the tale of Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, whose story was almost a footnote in the Bible — a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the book of Genesis.

Told in Dinah’s voice, “The Red Tent” brings to life the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood. It begins with the story of Dinah’s mothers — Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah — the four wives of Jacob.

[...]

Spring 2015 broadcast of The Dovekeepers

TELEVISION: CBS Miniseries 'The Dovekeepers' to be Broadcast Tuesday March 31 and Wednesday April 1, 2015.

CBS today announced THE DOVEKEEPERS, a four-hour limited event series from executive producers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, will be broadcast Tuesday, March 31 and Wednesday, April 1, 2015 (9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT).

The project stars Cote de Pablo, Rachel Brosnahan and Kathryn Prescott in the title dovekeeper roles, Sam Neill as first-century Jewish scholar and historian Josephus, and Diego Boneta as a star warrior of the Jewish army at Masada. The series is based on Alice Hoffman’s bestselling, critically acclaimed historical novel about a group of extraordinary women whose lives intersect in a fight for survival at the siege of Masada.

[...]

Background here and links.

Enoch as the Son of Man

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Which "Son of Man": Christ, Enoch, or Other? A great deal of academic ink has been shed over a simple academic error (aleteia.org). Philip Jenkins calls out R. H. Charles for the latter's mistranslation (i.e., speculative and unhelpful emendation) of a key verse (1 Enoch 71:14) in the Similitudes of Enoch.

Crimea as Temple Mount?

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Putin Says Crimea Is Russia’s “Temple Mount.” That will generate some commentary.

Cyrus the tolerant?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: What would Cyrus do? Tolerant governments produce societal harmony by winning people’s hearts and minds. Cyrus recognized this 25 centuries ago. (Katrina Lantos Swett, Jerusalem Post). Excerpt:

In later centuries, some Greeks preferred the vision of a coercive monoculture to Cyrus’ vision of toleration. When the villain of Hanukka, Antiochus of Syria, tried to impose this on the Jews, the Maccabees defeated him. But the quest for a monoculture did not end. It continued in Europe and remains even in modern times through radical strains of secularism. It continues in the Middle East with violent religious extremists like IS.

Today, researchers are confirming the obvious: Tolerant governments produce societal harmony by winning people’s hearts and minds. Cyrus recognized this 25 centuries ago. The result was security and peace. IS and other brutal tyrants do not acknowledge this, and the result is insecurity and strife. Cyrus and his vision will endure. IS will not. It’s destined for the ash heap, the final home for tyranny of every kind.

As often when Cyrus comes up, there is some idealization and projection of modern values onto him in this piece. It is true that Cyrus adopted the policy of tolerance of the cultures of the peoples he subjugated - as long as they surrendered promptly and thereafter kept order and paid the exactions charged by the Persian overlords. But if they didn't, he would kill them. His colonialism had effective propaganda and seems to have been administered competently, and it certainly was an improvement on the policies of his Assyrian predecessors and indeed of ISIS today. But ultimately this is damning with faint praise. It was still colonialism and imperialism and its exemplary value in the present is very limited.

I have earlier similar comments here and links. And for much, much more on Cyrus the Great and the Cyrus Cylinder, see here and follow the many links.

"Maccabee on the Mantel"

HANUKKAH TOY: Maccabee on the Mantel, For Jewish Tyke Who Has Everything (Ed Rampell, The Forward).

Move over “Elf on the Shelf” — the “Maccabee on the Mantel” may be just the ticket for the Jewish child aged three to eight who has everything.

The 10-inch plush depicting a smiling, bearded, robe-, sandal- and helmet-clad ancient Maccabean warrior bearing a Star of David-emblazoned shield comes with an illustrated storybook that briefly explains Hanukkah’s origins and significance.

[...]

“I was shown another calculation.”

SETH SANDERS: Apocalyptic Science.

Strangely, the earliest known Jewish apocalypse is also the earliest known Jewish scientific work. The Aramaic fragments of the Astronomical Book of Enoch, composed in the 3rd century BCE or earlier and found at Qumran, represent the first appearance of astronomy and mathematics in Jewish literature. But this science comes in a vision. The angel Uriel takes the patriarch Enoch on a heavenly journey where he sees the clockwork of the universe: the gates through which the sun, winds and heavenly bodies regularly move.

[...]

The editors of this earliest collection of Enochic works drew on the image, and grammar, of Moses’ passively gained vision–with the passive of the causative of the standard Biblical Hebrew verb of seeing–to frame Enoch’s own passively gained visions with the passive of the causative of the standard Aramaic verb of seeing. If the language of knowledge in Aramaic Enoch is both a reference to the Priestly Tabernacle vision and a distinctive editorial device shared between the Astronomical Book and the Book of the Watchers, then the Aramaic evidence bears on an old question about the creation of early Enochic literature. It means that the creators of this early literature drew more subtly and deeply on the language and imagery of the Pentateuch than has previously been acknowledged.

[...]

I would not in the first instance assume that the phrasing in Aramaic 1 Enoch was based on the description of the revelation of the Priestly Tabernacle to Moses in the Pentateuch. Rather, I would guess that both arise from the tradition of ancient Near Eastern revelatory visions such as the Sumerian account of the dream revelation of the temple of Ningursu to King Gudea of Lagash. But I haven't seen Seth's full argument and he may well have good grounds for finding a specific connection with the Pentateuch.

The Talmud and sexual coercion

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Can a Woman Rape a Man, as Shia LaBoeuf Claimed? The Rabbis Have a Say. This week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study is NSFW.

Often in the Talmud, however, the intention behind an action matters as much as the action itself. We saw a good example of this in Tractate Rosh Hashanah, where we learned that a Jew does not fulfill his obligation to hear the shofar blown on Rosh Hashanah if he simply happens to be walking past a synagogue and unconsciously takes in the sound. To be effective, the listening must be a conscious effort to fulfill the commandment. Does the same hold true for levirate marriage? Is the sex act alone enough to validate the marriage, or does that act have to be undertaken willingly and deliberately by both partners?

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Some Hekhalot Rabbati set to music

MUSIC: Jewish Devotional Songs for the 21st Century (Aromero, World Music Central.org)

Pharaoh’s Daughter

Dumiyah (Magenta, 2014)

Pharaoh’s Daughter album Dumiyah presents a series of devotional Jewish songs with a mix of traditional music and cutting edge electronica. The band is led by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Basya Schechter, who sings in Hebrew and has a sweet folk-pop style.

Dumiyah features ancient and modern liturgical poetry and prayers with new arrangements that blend trip hop, world music and new age. ...

Tzu Vemen (To whom can we attribute?), a mystical text from Hekhalot Rabbati, origins in the days of the Talmudic Sages, angels expressing in aleph bet order the attributes of God (sung on Shabbat).

There's lots more on the Hekhalot literature, including the Hekhalot Rabbati, here and here and links.

Syriac manuscripts in Chinese caves

SYRIAC WATCH: Dunhuang exhibition reveals China's multicultural past. Religious and cultural relics from Dunhuang's ancient grottoes are on show at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum (Enid Tsui , Life).

They may not have achieved the global renown of the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors, but it could be argued that Dunhuang's ancient grottoes are China's most important cultural relics.

These caves, hewn by hand out of cliffs that descend into the great Gobi Desert, chart the development of Chinese art for a thousand, uninterrupted years. They are also depositaries of a multicultural past that adds fluidity and colour to China's national identity.

Fourth-century devotees started carving meditation cells in the cliffs above the Dachuan River after a Buddhist monk named Le Zun had a vision at nearby San Weishan. Dunhuang's reputation as a sacred site grew and master craftsmen, both Chinese and from Central Asia, venerated the caves and added frescoes and statues until the Yuan dynasty. Silk Road travellers left Persian coins and Bibles written in the Syriac script, a close cousin of the Aramaic tongue of Jesus. Monks, Buddhist and Taoist were living in this remote spot until the 1930s.

[...]

Time and visitor number will continue to take their toll - which is why the Dunhuang Academy and its international partners have been pouring their efforts into digitisation projects and travelling exhibitions such as the one that opened at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum on Friday.

It will feature more than 200 genuine artifacts that have been discovered in the caves, including the Book of Psalms in Syriac and the only surviving copy of Essential Mantras in the Tanguy script.

[...]

More on Syriac in China here (also on the Dunhuang Library), here, here, here, and here.

Biblio

ARAMAIC WATCH: Shine Tom morphs from crook to prof in another fantasy (Radhika C Pillai, The Times of India).

It seems fantasy bug has bitten actor Shine Tom Chacko. After delivering a stellar performance in the fantasy movie Ithihasa, the actor is all set to take the audience for a fantasy ride again with his upcoming movie Bibilio. And this time he will don the garb of a physics professor who makes in-depth studies about death and its different realms.

[...]

The language he speaks in the movie is mostly English. "Gabriel and Lucifer, the Biblical characters, have importance in the movie. And Lucifer will speak Aramaic," he says. Actor ARK and Mohan Padre play the two angels Lucifer and Gabriel, respectively. The filmmaker has also roped in many foreign actors to play keys role in the movie.

[...]

Traditionally angels don't know Aramaic, but apparently this movie considers Lucifer to be an exception.

Illegitimacy and conversion in the Talmud

LAST WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Talmudic Rabbis Ponder Sexual Relations That Are Prohibited by Jewish Law. Plus legitimate and bastard offspring, slaves, and distinctions between Jews, non-Jews, and half-Jews.

The names of the Talmud’s tractates are not always a sure guide to their contents. Tractate Yevamot is primarily devoted to the laws of levirate marriage—the obligation of a man to marry his deceased brother’s widow. But chapter 4, which Daf Yomi readers finished this week, also spent a good deal of time on the laws of illegitimacy and conversion. These may seem like totally unrelated topics, but in fact they emerge fairly naturally out of the main Talmudic discussion. In Yevamot 44a, for instance, the mishna states the law that a man who divorces a woman may not remarry her if she has been married to another husband in the interim. This rule comes directly out of the Torah, in Deuteronomy 24, where such a remarriage is described as an “abomination.”

[...]

The Talmud always has a lot going on.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Ancient military installation at Netiv Haasarah

Second Temple Era Military Outpost Discovered, Possibly Destroyed by Alexander the Great (The Algemeiner)

Archaeological excavations in Israel’s Netiv Haasarah have uncovered a Persian era military installation.

Netiv Haasarah is a town in the “Gaza envelope” with a population of about 700. The dig, headed by Dr. Yael Abadi Rice, found a fortified town and a military tower from approximately 2,100 years ago. This time period was when the Second Temple was standing in Jerusalem.

[...]

Something is garbled here. If the town was destroyed by Alexander the Great, the ruins would be a little over 2,300 years old, not 2,100.

IAA app

THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT: New App Puts Dead Scrolls on iPhone and iPad. A new App lets children and adults become virtual archaeologists (Jewish Press).

The Dead Sea Scrolls are now available on iPhone and iPad, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Thursday with the launch of its first App featuring archaeology games and puzzles for kids.

Genesis 1:1 (the account of creation), the Ten Commandments, Psalms, and 11 other 2,000 year old manuscripts are featured in the ”Dig Quest” App that introduces kids ages 7-11 to archaeology with a suite of unique games, featuring beautiful artifacts from the National Treasures of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The App transforms a kid’s iPhone or iPad into an archaeological tool and lets them play games to hone their skills, discover secret meanings, solve puzzles, and piece the past together like true archaeologists. Along the way, they unlock ancient artifacts and create their own personal collection.

[...]

ISIS: UNESCO takes notice

ARUTZ SHEVA: UNESCO Debates ISIS Erasing of Jewish History. Special Paris session featuring Israeli expert to discuss ways of saving ancient Jewish sites that have come under ISIS's cruel grasp (Shimon Cohen, Ari Yashar).

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is to hold a special session on preserving Jewish historical sites that have fallen under the iron grip of the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization, which has been looting and wrecking ancient non-Muslim relics.

Prof. Shmuel Moreh, a Middle Eastern Studies expert of Hebrew University who was born in Baghdad and serves as Chairman of the Association of Jewish Academics from Iraq, is invited to the special conference to be held in Paris, reports Israel Hayom.

[...]

I hope it does some good. More on the (traditional) Tomb of Ezekiel and Tomb of Jonah and related matters is here and links.

Back home

I'M BACK IN ST ANDREWS. Got in last night, after an excellent SBL conference and a nice Thanksgiving holiday. Now back to work.

Dicken, Herod as a Composite Character in Luke-Acts

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Frank Dicken
Herod as a Composite Character in Luke-Acts

Frank Dicken offers a new perspective on the three rulers who appear in Luke-Acts with the name “Herod,” contending that in light of their similar narrative depictions they may be construed as a composite character, i.e., a single character in the narrative. Viewing the Lukan Herods alongside other composite characters in Jewish and early Christian literature, the author then compares and contrasts the portrayal of the Herods in Luke-Acts with what is known about the Herods historically. Thereby he highlights two unique features – the title “King of Judaea” at Luke 1:5 and the name “Herod” for Agrippa I in Acts 12 – that result in construing the Herods as a composite. A reading of Luke-Acts focusing on each passage in which composite “Herod” appears demonstrates that understanding “Herod” as a single character is possible. Finally, Frank Dicken examines the characterization of composite “Herod” as an antagonist who embodies satanic opposition toward the spread of the gospel in the Lukan narrative.

Brettler on misconceptions about the HB

MARK ZVI BRETTLER: Seven common misconceptions about the Hebrew Bible (OUP Blog).

Background here.

Bibliographies of biblical law and Ugaritic grammar

TWO FROM AWOL:

John W. Welch: Biblical Law Cumulative Bibliography

Mark S. Smith: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF UGARITIC GRAMMAR AND BIBLICAL HEBREW GRAMMAR IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Thanksgiving

HAPPY AMERICAN THANKSGIVING to all those celebrating!

Hollander on Josephus

WILLIAM DEN HOLLANDER: Josephus Reconsidered (The ASOR Blog). There's been a lot of useful reconsidering of Josephus in recent years. This post summarizes the argument in Dr. Hollander's book, Josephus, the Emperors, and the City of Rome (Brill, 2014), noted earlier here and (review) here.

Collins, Scriptures and Sectarianism

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

John J. Collins
Scriptures and Sectarianism
Essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls include many texts that were produced by a sectarian movement (and also many that were not). The movement had its origin in disputes about the interpretation of the Scriptures, especially the Torah, not in disputes about the priesthood as had earlier been assumed. The definitive break with the rest of Judean society should be dated to the first century BCE rather than to the second. While the Scrolls include few texts that are explicitly historical, they remain a valuable resource for historical reconstruction. John J. Collins illustrates how the worldview of the sect involved a heightened sense of involvement in the heavenly, angelic world, and the hope for an afterlife in communion with the angels. While the ideology of the sect known from the Scrolls is very different from that of early Christianity, the two movements drew on common traditions, especially those found in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Follow the link for TOC and ordering information.

Brill books on ancient Judaism

NEW BOOKS FROM BRILL:

Creation, Covenant, and the Beginnings of Judaism
Reconceiving Historical Time in the Second Temple Period

Ari Mermelstein, Yeshiva University

This study examines the relationship between time and history in Second Temple literature. Numerous sources from that period express a belief that Jewish history began with an act of covenant formation and proceeded in linear fashion until the exile, an unprecedented event which severed the present from the past. The authors of Ben Sira, Jubilees, the Animal Apocalypse, and 4 Ezra responded to this theological challenge by claiming instead that Jewish history began at creation. Between creation and redemption, history unfolds as a series of static, repeating patterns that simultaneously account for the disappointments of the Second Temple period and confirm the eternal nature of the covenant. As iterations of timeless, cyclical patterns, the difficult post-exilic present and the glorious redemption of the future emerge as familiar, unremarkable, and inevitable historical developments.


Zodiac Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Reception
Ancient Astronomy and Astrology in Early Judaism

Helen R. Jacobus, University College London

The ancient mathematical basis of the Aramaic calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls is analysed in this investigation. Helen R. Jacobus re-examines an Aramaic zodiac calendar with a thunder divination text (4Q318) and the calendar from the Aramaic Astronomical Book (4Q208 - 4Q209), all from Qumran. Jacobus demonstrates that 4Q318 is an ancestor of the Jewish calendar today and that it helps us to understand 4Q208 - 4Q209. She argues that these calendars were taught in antiquity as angelic knowledge described in 1 Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. The study also encompasses Babylonian, Hellenistic, Byzantine astronomy and astrology, and classical and Jewish writings. Finally, a medieval Hebrew zodiac calendar related to 4Q318 with an astrological text is published here for the first time.

Review of Relics

AMUSING: 'Relics' sees the present as the past, set in the future (Graydon Royce, Star Tribune).

It is the year 2314 and we are ushered through exhibits that purport to show what life was like back in 2014. Something called “The Great Wipe” had destroyed all life on Earth and these future historians are proving to this audience that there was once an advanced culture.

So, a skeleton fossil reveals the ear buds still hooked up to an ancient device we know as the iPod. A hooded sweatshirt, it was assumed, was worn with the hood in front, a “trough top” that can be filled with popcorn (now, that’s actually not a bad idea).

Dumpsters in the 21st century are interpreted as personal cisterns as three actors do a riff reminiscent of Beckett’s “Endgame.” And the car brush/scraper so essential this time of year was understood by these researchers as a scrubbing utensil for humans. An actor demonstrates how “ancient peoples” used what we know as cake frosting as hand and body cream.

If “Relics” has any lasting impact, it will be to provoke a smile next time you walk through an exhibit like “The Dead Sea Scrolls” or “Tutankhamun.” Just how do we really know that the ancient Egyptians used cosmetics made of clay?

It's good for ancient historians and archaeologists to be reminded of this sort of thing from time to time.

Burt, The Courtier and the Governor

NEW BOOK FROM VANDENHOECK AND RUPRECHT:

Sean Burt
The Courtier and the Governor
Transformations of Genre in the Nehemiah Memoir

1. Edition 2014
230 pages
ISBN 978-3-525-55076-2
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

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The Nehemiah Memoir, the narrative of the royal cupbearer sent to rebuild Jerusalem, is central to Ezra-Nehemiah’s account of Persian Judah. Yet its emphasis on one individual’s efforts makes it a text that ill-fits the book’s story of a communal restoration. Sean Burt analyzes the nature of this curious text through the lens of genre criticism and identifies the impact of its use of genres on its early reception in Ezra-Nehemiah. Drawing upon contemporary theorists of literary genre, within the field of biblical studies and beyond, he builds an understanding of genre capable of addressing both its flexibility and its necessarily historical horizon. Burt argues that the Nehemiah Memoir makes use of two ancient genres: the novelistic court tale (e.g. Esther, Ahiqar, and others) and the “official memorial,” or “biographical” genre used across the ancient Near East by kings and other governmental officials for individual commemoration. This study contends that the narrative subtly shifts genres as it unfolds, from court tale to memorial. Nehemiah the courtier becomes Nehemiah the governor. While these genres reveal an affinity to one another, they also highlight a central contradiction in the narrative’s portrait of Nehemiah. Nehemiah is, like the people of Jerusalem, beholden to the whims of a foreign ruler, but he also simultaneously represents Persia’s power over Jerusalem. Burt concludes that the Nehemiah Memoir’s combination of these two ultimately incommensurate genres can account for how the writers of Ezra-Nehemiah modified and corrected Nehemiah’s problematic story to integrate it into Ezra-Nehemiah’s vision of a holistic restoration enacted by a unified people.

Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals (AWOL).

Hurvits et al., A Concise Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

A Concise Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew
Linguistic Innovations in the Writings of the Second Temple Period

Avi Hurvitz in collaboration with Leeor Gottlieb, Aaron Hornkohl, and Emmanuel Mastéy

The Hebrew language may be divided into the Biblical, Mishnaic, Medieval, and Modern ‎periods. Biblical Hebrew has its own distinct linguistic profile, exhibiting a diversity of styles ‎and linguistic traditions extending over some one thousand years as well as tangible diachronic ‎developments that may serve as chronological milestones in tracing the linguistic history of ‎Biblical Hebrew. Unlike standard dictionaries, whose scope and extent are dictated by the contents of the ‎Biblical concordance, this lexicon includes only 80 lexical entries, chosen specifically for a ‎diachronic investigation of Late Biblical Hebrew. Selected primarily to illustrate the fifth-century ‘watershed’ separating Classical from ‎post-Classical Biblical Hebrew, emphasis is placed on ‘linguistic contrasts’ illuminated by a rich collection ‎of examples contrasting Classical Biblical Hebrew with Late Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew with Rabbinic Hebrew, and Hebrew with Aramaic.‎

Review of Vidas, Tradition and the Formation of The Talmud

THE TALMUD BLOG: Itay Marienberg-Milikowsky reviews M. Vidas, 'Tradition and the Formation of The Talmud.' In Hebrew!

This book was also noted earlier here.

Newsom, Daniel

NEW BOOK FROM WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX:

Daniel (Book)
A Commentary

by Carol A. Newsom

ISBN: 9780664220808
Trim Size: 5.875 x 8.75
Page Count: 472
Weight: 0.00

Format: Book
Product Number: 0664220800
Publication Date: 11/14/2014

Description

The book of Daniel is a literary rich and complex story known for its apocalyptic style. Written in both Hebrew and Aramaic, the book begins with stories of Daniel and three Jewish young men Hananiah (Shadrach), Mishael (Meshach), and Azariah (Abednego) who are exiles among the remnant from Judea in Babylon in sixth century b.c.e. It ends with Daniel's visions and dreams about the Jewish community that offer comfort and encouragement as they endure persecution and hope for deliverance into God's kingdom.

Newsom's commentary offers a fresh study of Daniel in its historical context. Newsom further analyzes Daniel from literary and theological perspectives. With her expert commentary, Newsom's study will be the definitive commentary on Daniel for many years to come.

The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing. The editorial board consists of William P. Brown, Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia; Carol A. Newsom, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Old Testament, Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia; and Brent A. Strawn, Professor of Old Testament, Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

Follow the link for reviews and ordering information.

Slavonic digitization project.

SLAVONIC WATCH: Ancient manuscripts get a new lease of life (Georgy Manaev, Russia Beyond the Headlines)

A project is underway to digitize the most valuable books from Russian library collections. RBTH visited the scanning department of the Russian State Library to see how ancient manuscripts are being brought into the digital age.

In the mid-2000s, the Russian State Library (RSL) launched the National Electronic Library project with the aim of digitizing books published before 1831.

Many important texts have already been scanned; from the hand-written Archangel Gospel of 1092 – the fourth oldest known East Slavonic manuscript – to the Octoechos, a book of Orthodox Church psalms printed in 1491 in Krakow. It is one of the first books to use Cyrillic script and is worth several million dollars – although, of course, it belongs to the state and will not be sold. “These books only used to be released by special permission – and only then to prominent scholars,” explains Tatyana Garkushova from the library’s scanning department as she flicks between priceless ancient manuscripts on her computer screen. Now they are available to everyone at the RSL Digital Library page.

[...]

For more on Old Church Slavonic and why it is important to PaleoJudaica, see here and links. For many more manuscript digitization projects, see here and links.

The monasteries of Wadi Natrun

ANSAMED: Egypt: Wadi Natrun, the desert of ascetics. Excerpt:

'An oasis of peace, where protection can be sought in these terrible times experienced by the country'', continued the monk who tells the ancient story of these monasteries. They are completely self-sufficient, hosting true farms exceeding 4,000 hectares, as Anba Bishoy, where 220 monks live, including a 'qsar', a small fortification which thanks to a drawbridge enabled monks to seek refuge from invasions and devastation that until the 7th century affected the region.

Choosing to visit Wadi Natrun, as Father Bejimi recalls, means seeking to draw closer to this world made of simplicity and spirituality. There are no mosaics or breath-taking frescoes among these walls. The art made by Coptic monks, often living in extreme poverty, however includes small masterpieces such as bas-reliefs, paintings, manuscripts, codes, icons, wood caskets, painted fabrics.

Some of the frescoes and icons date back to the 7th century, decorating the main church dedicated to the Virgin close to the monastery of Syrians, the smallest of the four. As well as preserving the most important work of Coptic art after the year 1,000, Deir El Soriany is famous for its vast library (in the 19th century, 1,000 books were moved to the British Museum).

Much more on the Deir al-Surian Monastery and its manuscripts is here and links.

Anxious conference papers

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: Why a Conference Paper is Usually Just a Conference Paper. Some timely advice from Dr. Beth Allison Barr. While we're on the subject, there are a couple of old PaleoJudaica posts on presenting conference papers here and here.

SBL 2014

I'M OFF TO SAN DIEGO for the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature.

This year I am responding to two reviews of my 2013 book Hekhalot Literature in Translation: Major Texts of Merkavah Mysticism (Brill), on which much background here and links. Here is the information on the part of the session which deals with my book:

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)

I am staying in San Diego for Thanksgiving with friends after the conference. I will be very busy in the next ten days or so, but I will blog as much as I can, and I have also preposted lots of things. So do keep coming back as usual.

Saving Iraqi manuscripts

RESCUE OPERATION: Unique Christian Manuscripts Safeguarded in Kurdistan (Sharmila Devi, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, reposted by AINA).

Arbel, Iraq -- Thousands of ancient Christian manuscripts are being kept safe at an undisclosed location in Kurdistan after being spirited out of Qaraqosh in the Nineveh plain in August, just hours before the town was seized by Islamic State fighters.

Father Nageeb Michaeel, a Dominican priest who master-minded the operation to salvage the unique collection, did not want to say where the collection was being held for fear of attack by ISIS sympathisers. But he allowed Rudaw to see it.

The collection is being kept in an air-conditioned room and it includes manuscripts and documents dating from the 13th century. They represent a sizeable part of Iraq's cultural heritage, he said.

[...]

The article does not specify the language(s) of the manuscripts, but my guess is that they are in Syriac and Arabic. Who knows what treasures are hidden in them?

Recent related posts, mostly with less in the way of good news, are (especially) here, and also here, here, and here, with many links.

Levirate marriage - it's even more complicated

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Brother’s Wife. Unless He Dies. Then—Well, Here’s the Thing… In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ questions of obligation in matters of levirate marriage, and how values change with time.

In my last column, I discussed the rabbis’ edict that converting to Judaism in order to marry a Jew is forbidden. The principle behind the rabbis’ thinking was that, if you are going to take up the considerable responsibility of following Jewish law and sharing the Jewish fate, you must do so only out of a desire to serve God and not to obtain any personal benefit—even one as altruistic as marrying someone you love. In this week’s Daf Yomi reading, this same principle was invoked in a different context, when the rabbis considered the possible motives that might lead a man to contract a levirate marriage with his yevama, his deceased brother’s wife.

[...]

More on levirate marriage here. Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

More on the Shmita

ART: Israel’s Shmitta Year: From The Perspective of Artists (Eva L. Weiss, The Jewish Week).

The works are meant to evoke artists’ conceptions of what is fallow and the freedom implicit in letting go, according to curator Dr. Anat Chen, director of Emunah College’s art program. This Hebrew year, 5775, marks the observance of the ancient agricultural sabbatical in the Land of Israel. The College chose an artistic take on the cyclical event, in contrast to the more commonly heard debates on the loopholes of Jewish law or calls for environmentalism and social justice.

Background on the Shmita (sabbatical year in Israel) is here.

The story of the GJW

JOEL BADEN AND CANDIDA MOSS: The Curious Case of Jesus’s Wife. Lab tests have suggested that a papyrus scrap mentioning Jesus's wife is authentic. Why do most scholars believe it's fake? (The Atlantic). An excellent, thoughtful account of the whole affair from its beginning to the present. Yours truly is quoted, along with many other bibliobloggers who contributed to the debate. The article concludes:

Indeed, in the scholarly world of ancient history and ancient texts, little is truly unimaginable—because so little, in the end, is truly known. Despite the piles of evidence suggesting that the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife is a forgery, there remains the possibility, however slim, that it is authentic. So the question becomes this: How much historical reconstruction are scholars willing to stake on such narrow grounds? Or, alternatively: Even if the fragment were proved beyond a doubt to be authentic, could one small piece of papyrus really be so important as to fundamentally change our understanding of the past? The problem with reconstructing the distant past is that with so little evidence available, the discovery of even the tiniest pieces can lead to outsize ramifications. It’s a situation ripe for abuse. The more sensationally these sorts of discoveries are reported, the more such abuse we can expect.

Incidentally, quite a few specialists now think that the Secret Gospel of Mark may be an authentic ancient text (see, e.g., here, here, and links), even though not so many years ago the case for it being a forgery seemed just about closed. So you never know.

Background on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife is here, with links going back to the announcement of its discovery.

Burke on translating Syriac Joseph and Aseneth

TONY BURKE: Translating Joseph and Aseneth: My Role in Jacobovici and Wilson’s “Lost Gospel.”

Background here.

Bible as Notepad Conference

IN DECEMBER IN OSLO: Bible as Notepad: Bible as Notepad is a conference that gathers an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars to study notes, comments, and scribbling, in biblical and related manuscripts.

Whereas the Bible is among the world’s most studied books, most scholars are primarily occupied with its textual contents, and most editors of biblical texts concentrate on the text found within manuscripts’ columns. However, annotations are found in manuscripts cross-culturally and the notes may sometimes shed new light on the development of text traditions and historical engagement with biblical manuscripts. These other categories of writing on manuscript folios and the cultural practices that produced them have not received the attention they deserve. Hence, the Bible as Notepad conference will address annotations in different manuscript and language traditions, the various relationships between text in the column and notes in the margins, and the roles and functions of annotated manuscripts as cultural artifacts, exploring – empirically and theoretically - the various practices that produced them.

As you will see from the conference program at the link, I will be there and will be presenting a paper on an unusual manuscript of the Hekhalot Rabbati.

The Shmita

THIS IS THE SABBATICAL YEAR IN ISRAEL: Israeli farmers observe biblical sabbatical - with a wink and a nudge (Daniel Estrin, AP). Briefly, in order to keep farming so the country can eat, most of the farmers have sold their farms (short term) to a guy named George. Really. Alternatively, hydroponics can be involved.

The relevant biblical precept for the sabbatical year is found in Leviticus 25:1-7.

Golem terrorizes Portland

GOLEM WATCH: 'Grimm" Season 4 Episode 4 Spoilers: Jewish Golem Made of Clay Terrorizes Portland [WATCH] (Selena Hill, Latin Post).

In the upcoming episode of "Grimm," which is entitled "Dyin' on a Prayer," an ancient evil monster made up of clay will terrorize Portland. In addition, there will be hope for Adalind to escape her present situation if she can learn to her trust strangers, reports Carter Matt.

In a preview clip, Nick and Hank take a trip to a Jewish temple where a young Rabbi tells them about the Jewish folklore of a 16th century golem made from clay. Although its remains were supposed to be stored away in the attic of synagogue, they were reported missing in 1984 by a documentary film crew. As a result, the Rabbi shows the detectives an empty jar that was supposed to store the remains.

In the photo I see rather too much influence from The Walking Dead, especially in the golem on the right.

For many more golem posts, see here and links.

Review of Johnson, Religion and Identity in Porphyry of Tyre

MARGINALIA: The Problem with Identity in Late Antiquity – By Todd Berzon. Todd Berzon on Aaron P. Johnson’s Religion and Identity in Porphyry of Tyre: The Limits of Hellenism in Late Antiquity.

More on Porphyry here.

Anxious revolutionary years

PHILIP JENKINS has two posts up at the Anxious Bench on the second and third centuries BCE as revolutionary years for ancient Judaism:

Revolutionary Years 1

In the third and second centuries BC, the Jewish world changed very rapidly, and we see the development of many themes and debates that would shape both Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism – the Last Judgment and eschatology, angels and demons, afterlife and apocalypse. In that process, one very short period of thirty or so years demands our attention, as the centerpiece of a wide-ranging spiritual revolution.

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Revolutionary Years 2

In a very short period in the second century BC – mainly between 170 and 140 – Jewish thought and religion changed swiftly and fundamentally, creating a world that is familiar to later historians from Early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. I have already described some of the scriptures that emerge from this world, but let me here explore some of the religious themes that now rose to central significance.

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Multilingualism Conference

JUDAIC STUDIES AT YALE UNIVERSITY: Multilingualism Conference.

Over the past 20 years there has been a great deal of new work done on multi-lingualism, on material findings, and on the interaction between text and image in antiquity. These findings have had significant implications for the way we think about dynamic interactions between and within cultures in antiquity. The planned conference will explore new research on the transfer of culture in antiquity with respect to language, image, daily practice, religious ritual, and material culture.

Follow the link for the schedule (7-9 December).

Sanders on the aporia of the Torah

SETH SANDERS: The Early History of Scriptural Unreason.

Here is where we can grasp Hebrew literature’s original aporia, in the gap between the Torah and its readers that made it sometimes seem so problematic and irrational. How did the Torah first become a puzzle to its early tradents, a problem to be solved?

Asking the important questions.

On Berlin and Brettler, The Jewish Study Bible, 2nd edition

INTERVIEW: Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler on the Hebrew Bible (OUP Blog).

Winner of the 2004 National Jewish Book Award for Scholarship, The Jewish Study Bible is a landmark, one-volume resource tailored especially for the needs of students of the Hebrew Bible. We sat down with co-editors Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler to talk about the revisions in the Second Edition of The Jewish Study Bible, and the Biblical Studies field as a whole.

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IOSOT Congress volume and Neusner Festschrift

NEW BOOKS FROM BRILL:

Congress Volume Munich 2013

Christl M. Maier, University of Marburg

This volume presents the main lectures of the 21st Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament (IOSOT) held in Munich, Germany, in August 2013. Seventeen internationally distinguished scholars present their current research on the Hebrew Bible, including the literary history of the Hebrew text, its Greek translation and history of interpretation. Some focus on archeological sources and the reconstruction of ancient Israelite religion while others discuss the formation of the biblical text and its impact for cultural memory. The volume gives readers a representative view of the most recent developments in the study of the Old Testament.

Contributors are: Olivier Artus, Ehud Ben Zvi, Beate Ego, Irmtraud Fischer, Christian Frevel, Shimon Gesundheit, Timothy P. Harrison, Louis C. Jonker, James L. Kugel, Christoph Levin, Amihai Mazar, Steven L. McKenzie, Konrad Schmid, Yvonne Sherwood, Zipora Talshir, Akio Tsukimoto, and Jacques Vermeylen.


A Legacy of Learning
Essays in Honor of Jacob Neusner

Edited by Alan J. Avery Peck, College of the Holy Cross, Bruce Chilton, Bard College, William Scott Green, University of Miami, and Gary G. Porton, University of Illinois, Urbana.

In a career spanning over fifty years, the questions Jacob Neusner has asked and the critical methodologies he has developed have shaped the way scholars have come to approach the rabbinic literature as well as the diverse manifestations of Judaism from rabbinic times until the present. The essays collected here honor that legacy, illustrating an influence that is so pervasive that scholars today who engage in the critical study of Judaism and the history of religions more generally work in a laboratory that Professor Neusner created. Addressing topics in ancient and Rabbinic Judaism, the Judaic context of early Christianity, American Judaism, World Religions, and the academic study of the humanities, these essays demarcate the current state of Judaic and religious studies in the academy today.

Sahidic Old Testament Project

GOOD NEWS: Sahidic OT Project at Göttingen!!! (ETC).

A new Syriac Gospel in which Jesus married Mary Magdalene? I don't think so.

SHORT ANSWER, NO: Is this proof Jesus married and had two sons? Ancient manuscript said to be 'lost gospel' with a sensational twist (Harry Mount, The Daily Mail).

Barrie Wilson and Simcha Jacobovici have published a book about the well-known Syriac version of the Old Testament pseudepigraphon Joseph and Aseneth, in which they claim that the story is really a secretly-coded one about Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene. That's right: Jesus and Mary are not mentioned at all in this "Gospel," it is a story about two Old Testament characters and one has to impose an allegory of Jesus and Mary onto it, based on an imagined marriage.

The Syriac version of Joseph and Aseneth happens to be our earliest copy of the text, but we know (from the comments in the larger work in which it now imbedded) that the Syriac is a translation of a Greek text. We have many copies of this Greek text in more than one version. The origin of the Greek work is debated by scholars. Some think it is a Second-Temple-era Jewish text and others that it is a late-antique Christian one. The translator of the Syriac and the person who commissioned the translation seem to think that the book is an allegory. An allegory of what is not entirely clear, due to an unfortunate manuscript break, but something to do with "our Lord the Word." Presumably Joseph represents Jesus. I would guess that Aseneth correspondingly represents the gentile Church.

So, if Joseph and Aseneth is a Christian work (and I am not yet persuaded otherwise) and if the Syriac writers are correct in reading it as an allegory involving Jesus (and it's possible that they are), it still does not follow that the allegorical marriage of Joseph and Aseneth has anything at all to do with a literal marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. The allegorical marriage of Jesus and the Church goes back to the New Testament (e.g., Ephesians 5:21-33 and Revelation 19:6-8; 21:2). The idea of a marriage of Jesus to Mary Magdalene is not explicitly attested in antiquity (the almost certainly forged Gospel of Jesus' Wife notwithstanding). It would take a lot of evidence to persuade me that Joseph and Aseneth is about Jesus and Mary.

Even if it were demonstrable that Joseph and Aseneth was about a marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, this would merely be evidence for a creative apocryphal notion thought up sometime in late antiquity (and there were many, many such notions). It would remain to prove that this text told us anything about the historical Jesus and Mary and that would be very difficult indeed to establish.

Although I always like to see the Old Testament pseudepigrapha getting some media attention, it is too bad that the fascinating and entertaining text Joseph and Aseneth is being tied in the public mind to this ingenious but highly implausible connection with a literal marriage of Jesus.

It's always possible that there is some stunning argumentation in the book that will make me change my mind, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm not going to get around to reading the book anytime soon, or more likely ever. But I will keep an eye on reviews and other scholarly commentary to see if anything interesting does arise from it.

Did Jesus actually marry Mary Magdalene? I have commented here. I put up a post on the Wilson-Jacobovici notion about Joseph and Aseneth back when it was first hinted at about a year ago, linking to very helpful comments by Mark Goodacre and Richard Bauckham.

Some responses from New Testament specialists in various media:

ABC News: Alleged 'Lost Gospel' Claims Jesus Had Wife, 2 Children: Authors of a new book say they have evidence to back up claims the savior was married to Mary Magdalene. Mark Goodacre is interviewed briefly. [Bad link now corrected.]

James McGrath: Married with Children? Recent Headlines About Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

Greg Carey: Another Jesus and Mary Magdalene Hoax.

Robert Cargill (who has already read the book): Review of “The Lost Gospel” by Jacobovici and Wilson. Key excerpt:

By that same allegorical logic, you could swap out the names of Samson and Delilah and claim that Mary Magdalene cut Jesus’ hair. Or swap out Adam and Eve and conclude that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were the primordial couple. Or read David and Bathsheba allegorically and end up with Jesus having a son named Solomon, who is guarded by the Priory of Sion, and…well, you get the picture.

UPDATE: Also Simcha Jacobovici has some pre-publication comments about the book in The Times of Israel, noting that the Syriac text was translated by Professor Tony Burke (of York University and the blog Apocryphicity): It begins!

And so it does.

Sight-reading a Maimonides autograph in the British Library

SAUL J. SINGER: Confessions Of A Judaica Document Collector (The Jewish Press).

I am walking through the British Library in London, which serves as the state repository for, among other things, treasured original documents. Outstanding works in the collection include a unique Aristotle papyrus, four original Magna Cartas, the 4th-century Greek Codex Sinaiticus Bible, a Gutenberg Bible, and Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks.

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Mr. Singer's collection is mostly of modern Judaica and, although it is of great interest on its own terms, it is not very relevant to PaleoJudaica. But this cool little vignette caught my eye:

And then I turn around – and there it is, unbelievably right before my eyes: A handwritten responsa by Moshe ben Maimon, otherwise known as the Rambam or Maimonides. It is protected behind glass, but I can come within only a few inches of it and almost – almost – touch it.

As I begin to decipher the letter, trembling with excitement, a museum docent arrives with his group of some fifteen followers and offers a comprehensive and detailed discourse on Maimonides: renowned physician and Jewish philosopher, author of seminal texts on Jewish law, etc.

A member of the group asks: “But what does it say?” The docent bursts into a broad smile. “You know,” he says, grinning ear to ear “I have been conducting this tour for over 15 years, and no one has ever asked me that question. I don’t know the answer, but I will find out.”

I slowly raise my hand, which he acknowledges with a nod. “Although the Hebrew is old-style and I cannot read all of it,” I tell them, “this is a response to a question of Jewish law posed to Maimonides in which he essentially writes that the doctrine of caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”) has no place in Jewish law. That is, the seller has an absolute duty to disclose to the buyer all the material faults of the item known to him, and his failure to do so not only constitutes grounds for a ruling in the buyer’s favor, but also establishes a religious violation.”

With thick British eyebrows raised high, the docent asks, “Are you a Jewish scholar, then, sir?” I respond, much amused, “No, and I leave behind a long trail of rabbis and teachers who would happily disabuse you of that notion. Actually, I’m an average Orthodox Jew whose parents gave him the gift of a yeshiva education.”

I proceed to describe and contrast the yeshiva day school system in the United States and Britain, explaining that what is common to both is that every elementary school child is able to read the Bible in the original Hebrew, as well as centuries-old Hebrew and Aramaic texts. They are all awestruck.

Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Loren T. Stuckenbruck
The Myth of Rebellious Angels
Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts

The mythical story of fallen angels preserved in 1 Enoch and related literature was influential during the Second Temple period. This myth, initially attested in the Enochic Book of Watchers and picked up in further parts of 1 Enoch , was received in writings composed in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, and had a profound impact on streams of religious thought in the western and oriental world, as well as in Africa. This volume collects studies by Loren T. Stuckenbruck that explore aspects of this influence in some of the literature and demonstrate how it was reused and adapted to address new cultural and religious contexts ( Book of Giants , Book of Jubilees , Dead Sea Scrolls, Book of Tobit, Book of Daniel, Genesis Apocryphon , Philo). In addition, apart from whether influence of the fallen angels’ tradition can be established, Stuckenbruck analyses the degree to which it offers a theological framework through which to reconsider theological approaches to several New Testament texts (Synoptic Gospels, Gospel of John, Acts, Pauline texts, and the Book of Revelation). Themes covered in the essays include demonology, prominent evil figures, giants, exorcism, petitionary prayer, the birth and activity of Jesus, the holy Spirit, conversion of Gentiles, "apocalyptic" and the understanding of time, and theological anthropology.

Follow the link for the TOC and ordering information.

Anxious angels

PHILIP JENKINS has been publishing a series of posts on angels in ancient Judaism and early Christianity over at the Anxious Bench. Here they are, with a brief excerpt from each:

Naming Angels

Angels certainly feature in the Old Testament, as divine envoys and as mighty figures in the divine court – see for instance the overwhelming Cherubim in Ezekiel 1. But they are nothing like as central as they would become in what we sometimes call the inter-testamental period, and in the subsequent history of Judaism and Christianity. Nor are these older figures given anything like an individual identity.

Enoch’s Angels

At some point in Jewish history, texts began referring to angels with specific names like Gabriel or Michael, and that trend reflects a basic shift in concepts of the supernatural hierarchy. That shift is significant itself in terms of the history of Western religion, but it particularly matters for anyone interested in early (or medieval) Christianity.

Angels at the Dead Sea

My recent posts concerned angels, and specifically when and why they acquired names and individual identities. Angels are fully developed characters in 1 Enoch, probably from the third century BC, and that text was well known in the community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. That group had a special interest in angels and their doings, and their role in cosmic warfare.

Angels from the East?

But the story is neither simple nor straightforward. One basic problem is that we really don’t know as much as we should about the Persian system and the great prophet Zoroaster (Zarathustra). Based on analogies with Western religions, we tend to assume that Zarathustra had some great insight, founded a religion, which eventually became the official creed of the mighty Persian Empire. Well, yes and no.

Thrones and Dominions

Cautiously, then, let me suggest this. Whatever the holes in our knowledge, we can safely say that the Persian world view during the occupation of Judea was Dualistic and did involve a large number of spiritual beings, good and evil, some of whom were major figures at the heavenly court. If we had more surviving writings from that Persian faith, we would perhaps see more of a resemblance to the angels and cosmic warfare that we know from 1 Enoch. So yes, with all due skepticism, I believe that the practice of naming and individualizing angels is indeed a Persian borrowing,