BASOR on Caesarea Maritima

ASOR BLOG: BASOR Article Preview: Excavations at Caesarea Maritima and the Vardaman Papers (Olin Storvick and Marylinda Govaars). There is a charge to read the whole article.

BHD on the GJW

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Is the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife a Fake? Coptic papyrus mentioning Jesus’ wife is a forgery, according to Coptic manuscripts experts (Ellen White).

Yep. Background here and follow the many, many links.

Marriage inequality and the Angel of Death in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Jewish Bride Has a Mole? Grounds for Divorce. Husband Smells Bad? Live With It. Inequality under the wedding canopy, in this week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study. Plus: a story about cheating the Angel of Death. On the latter the essay concludes:

The discussion of ra’atan culminates, at the end of the chapter, in a beautiful story about Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, one of the greatest Talmudic sages. Most rabbis, the Gemara says, would flee anyone afflicted with the disease, even avoiding the alleys where they lived. But Yehoshua ben Levi would seek out lepers and study Torah with them, confident that Torah itself would protect him from getting sick. This extraordinary selflessness earned its reward at the end of his life, when the dying Yehoshua managed to play a trick on the Angel of Death.

When the Angel approached him, Yehoshua asked to be shown his place in paradise before he died. Once the Angel took him there, the rabbi “jumped and fell into that side,” slipping into paradise while still alive. Such was his virtue that he was allowed to stay, and “Elijah the Prophet announced before him: Make way for the son of Levi, make way for the son of Levi.” Still, there was a limit to what even Yehoshua ben Levi could achieve. On the way to paradise he seized the Angel of Death’s knife and refused to give it back, hoping in this way to abolish death forever; but “a Divine Voice emerged and said to him: ‘Give it to him, as it is necessary to kill the created beings.’ ” However inscrutable it may remain to us, the rabbis are sure that death is part of God’s plan for the universe.

You can read a couple of versions of this story in Helen Spurling's excellent translation of "Hebrew Visions of Hell and Paradise" in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures volume 1.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links. Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch.

Koren on Tyrian Purple Pigments and Dyes

ASOR BLOG: Setting the Archaeo-Chemical Record Straight Regarding Tyrian Purple Pigments and Dyes. Professor Zvi C. Koren presents his 2014 ASOR paper for ASORtv. I haven't yet watched the presentation, but the abstract says tantalizingly:

A critical reanalysis of Pliny’s and the Talmud’s writings, combined with the archaeological record and with modern laboratory experiments on all-natural dyeings that I have performed, have provided new insights into this craft.

My findings show that there have been significant misinterpretations of the biotechnological process associated with the molluskan purple pigment and of its uses in textile dyeing and stone painting.

It will be interesting to see what impact his research has on recent efforts to resurrect the biblical tekhelet dye.

Honorary doctorate for Collins at Zurich University

CONGRATULATIONS TO JOHN J. COLLINS: Ehrenpromotion 2015 der Theologischen Fakultät: Prof. Dr. John Collins.

Die Theologische Fakultät der Universität Zürich verleiht die Würde eines Doktors ehrenhalber an Herrn Prof. Dr. John Collins für seine wegweisenden Forschungen zur jüdischen Apokalyptik und die sein Lebenswerk prägende Bemühung, die Einsichten aus den Schriftfunden vom Toten Meer für die gesamte Bibelwissenschaft fruchtbar zu machen. Sie würdigt ihn nicht zuletzt für seinen unermüdlichen Einsatz um die internationale Vernetzung der Bibelwissenschaft und seine selbstlose und stets interessierte Förderung der kommenden Generation von Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern.

A well-deserved honor.

Mt. Zion excavation and cup

JERUSALEM EXCAVATION: Archaeologists Return to Dig Key Area Near Temple Mount (Popular Archaeology). The excavation of the Mt. Zion site, just outside the Temple Mount, are described in the free article, Digging into First Century Jerusalem's Rich and Famous. Notable in the article is a section on the Mt. Zion cup, an inscribed stone cup excavated there:

"Among the special finds from the 2009 season of excavations was a soft white limestone cup dating from the first century C.E. bearing an incised inscription, with ten or perhaps eleven lines of script on its sides," wrote Gibson.**

The cup (pictured left) was found in four pieces within a fill layer containing 1st century pottery fragments above a barrel-vaulted ceiling of a mikveh. It represented a well-known type of 1st century cup found in excavations throughout Jerusalem and beyond. The inscription on the cup has not yet been completely and definitively translated, but study of the cup and the historical context of its finding suggests that it might have been a ritual cleansing cup, used for the washing of hands before engaging in liturgical functions. Suggests Gibson, "the discovery of the cup in the area of the Upper City of Jerusalem, in which priestly families are known to have resided (including the Qatros family), may hint at the original priestly function that this specific vessel had some two thousand years ago."**

Most of the inscription remains undeciphered. There is more on it in the article and there is further background here and here and links

The Babylonian-Judean cuneiform tablets again

THE LACROSSE TRIBUNE: Mark Chavalas: New evidence for Jewish exiles found in clay tablets. Excerpt:

One of the towns inhabited by these exiled Jewish businessmen was call Al-Yahudu, “Judah-town,” the city where many of the tablets originated. Though the location of this town is uncertain, it was probably within proximity to Babylon, the focal center of the kingdom. The name of the town indicates the primary ethnic makeup of the inhabitants, although they interacted with the Babylonian natives in many of their ventures.

The texts were written by professional Babylonian scribes on behalf of their Jewish lower middle-class clients, who engaged in the cultivation of grains and date palms, bought and sold cattle, rented houses, loaned silver, sold slaves, and engaged in marriage alliances. Though some even prospered economically, most were settled in state-owned land in return for military service for Babylon, By a cursory study of the personal names in the tablets, it appears that at least three generations of Jews lived in Al-Yahudu and surrounding towns.

Though the tablets tell us virtually nothing about the religious nature of the exiles, it is interesting to note that none of the dated texts were issued during Jewish sacred days.

A few examples from these texts will perhaps help in our understanding. ...

The discovery is well known to PaleoJudaica readers, but Dr. Chavales proceeds to relate some interesting details about some of the Jewish clients in the tablets.

Background here and links.

Hannibal meets "extreme glacial theatre"

PUNIC WATCH: Extreme glacial theatre show portrays Hannibal crossing the Alps. The fabled story of Hannibal leading his Carthaginian army across the Alps to face the Roman Republic was given a modern re-imagining on Friday (April 17) on the Rettenbach glacier in Austria. (NTD.tv). So bad it's hypnotic.

Cross-file under Can't Make It Up.

Stausberg and Vevaina (eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism

ARASH ZEINI: The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism. New book edited by M. Stausberg and Y. Vevaina.

Dirty medieval books

GRODY: Dirty manuscripts (Peter M. Head, ETC). Includes the one with the famous cat footprints.

Ships on ancient coins

COIN WEEK: Ships on Ancient Coins (Mike Markowitz). Including Noah's Ark on a late-Roman-era Jewish coin from Phrygia. Also, Phoenician and Punic coins.

Asherah treeworks

JAMES MCGRATH: Mrs. Asherah Yahweh Tree Service. Cross-file under Can't Make It Up.

Burke's course on Gnosticism

APOCRYPHICITY: Tony Burke has concluded the teaching of his semester-course on Gnosticism at York University, for which he has been posting weekly reflections (noted at the inception of the series here). For convenience, here are all the posts in order:

Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism Week 1: Who Will Take the Red Pill?
Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism Week 2: Rethinking Nag Hammadi
Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism Week 3: Heresy Hunting
Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism Week 4: Religious Landscapes
Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism Week 5: Valentinianism
Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism Week 6: Thomas
Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism Week 7: Sethianism
Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism Week 8: Rituals and the Divine Feminine
Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism Week 9: Apocalypses
Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism Week 10: Eastern Gnosis
Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism Week Eleven: Judas and Mary
Reflections on Teaching Gnosticism Week 12: Modern Gnosticism

Counterfeit operation

FORGERY — ITS NOT ONLY FOR ANTIQUITIES: Police bust massive coin forgery operation. Forgers allegedly planned to flood Israeli market with half a million NIS 10 coins a day (Stuart Winer, The Times of Israel).

Just saying.

DABIR

ARASH ZEINI: A preview of the first issue of DABIR. A new open-access peer-reviewed journal of brief notes and reviews pertaining to pre-modern Iran.

Wright on evil spirits

BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

The Origin of Evil Spirits in Early Jewish Literature

The pseudepigraphal book of 1 Enoch, in particular the Book of Watchers, chapters 1–36, played a key role in the developing demonology in Early Judaism and eventually the NT. 1 Enoch is described as a Midrash of Genesis 6.1-4 in which the Sons of God have sexual relations with the daughters of humanity and giant offspring are born to them. As a result of the union, the author of 1 Enoch presents an origin of evil spirits which will be taken up with the ensuing literature of the 2TP[Second Temple period] and result in a full-blown demonology by the 1st c. C.E.

See Also: The Origin of Evil Spirits (Fortress Press; Revised edition, 2015).

By Archie T. Wright
Regent University
April, 2015

Dig episode 8

KIMBERLY WINSTON: Sifting through religious debris in ‘Dig,’ what’s fact and what’s fiction? The site of Qumran made an appearance in this episode. But if there were ever Essenes living there, I don't think there are any now - gun-toting or otherwise.

Background here and links.

UPDATE (29 April): A more detailed summary of episode 8 is here.

Conference on Digital Approaches to Hebrew Manuscripts

H-JUDAIC: Conf: On the Same Page: Digital Approaches to Hebrew Manuscripts.

We are delighted to announce the programme for On the Same Page: Digital Approaches to Hebrew Manuscripts at King's College London. This two-day conference will explore the potential for the computer-assisted study of Hebrew manuscripts; discuss the intersection of Jewish Studies and Digital Humanities; and share methodologies. Amongst the topics covered will be Hebrew palaeography and codicology, the encoding and transcription of Hebrew texts, the practical and theoretical consequences of the use of digital surrogates and the visualisation of manuscript evidence and data. For the full programme and our Call for Posters, please see below.

It begins on 18 May and is free, so register before they run out of spaces. They are also still accepting proposals for posters until 30 April.

Hebrew

ELI KAVON: Lost in translation: Why Hebrew matters (Jerusalem Post Blog). The writer starts with Philo, the Septuagint, and the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria, then explains why he thinks things have changed and translations no longer suffice.

Rollston on the James Ossuary

CHRISTOPHER ROLLSTON: THE JAMES OSSUARY (YA‘AKOV OSSUARY): BULLET POINT SYNOPSIS ABOUT A PROBABLE MODERN FORGERY. Timely in light of this recent story regarding the James Ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb.

Samaritans in the news

SIDE BY SIDE: Samaritans Play it Cool with their Jewish Neighbors. The Samaritan enclave of Kiryat Luza stands as one of the last outposts to the ancient Jewish offshoot, just meters away from Har Bracha (Gedalyah Reback, Arutz Sheva)

Har Bracha is nestled on the southern end of Mt. Gerizim in Samaria, which is more of a mountain range than it is a single peak. The town takes its name from the mount of Biblical fame, where six tribes stood to recite blessings into the ampitheatrical valley between Gerizim and Mt. Ebal, which look down on the ancient city of Shechem.

The town is looking to build its next neighborhood facing Kiryat Luza to the north, including the subtle but scenic Samaritan temple on the mountain's northeastern tip.

The town is also interesting for the fact it is the voting headquarters of that Samaritan community, a sect which broke off from mainstream Judaism as it were in ancient times.

[...]

To be clear — and the opening of the article isn't very — Har Bracha is an Israeli settlement and Kiryat Luza is a Samaritan village.

Grounds for divorce in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage, They Go Together Like … If the point of marriage is not happiness but religion, what constitutes grounds for divorce? Plus: tips for grooming pubic hair.

In America today, we are used to the concept of “no-fault divorce,” whereby either spouse can end a marriage for any reason or none. But this practice only makes sense in a society that regards marriage as a voluntary union of equals for the purpose of companionship. If the purpose of marriage is happiness, then by definition a marriage that makes people unhappy should end. As we have seen over the last several months of Daf Yomi reading, however, the Talmud—like almost all legal systems in the world until very recently, and many still today—has a different idea of what marriage means. If a marriage is not a voluntary union but part financial transaction, part family alliance, and part sacred ritual, then what circumstances justify ending it?

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

St. George's Day 2015

TODAY: Saint George’s Day: England’s patron saint celebrated across the country. David Cameron says St George’s day has been overlooked ‘for too long’ and the country should celebrate what it is to be English (Hayley Dixon, The Telegraph). Be that as it may, St. George lived in late-antique Palestine and (according to legend) slew a dragon, so we give him a mention every year at PaleoJudaica.

Background here and links.

Dig episode 7

KIMBERLY WINSTON: Secret orders and supposed traitors — TV’s ‘Dig’ and religious history.

(RNS) The pieces of the religious puzzle that make up the USA Network’s biblical conspiracy action series “Dig” are beginning to fall into place, and the picture they are revealing is one of history — highlighted by a colorful streak of fiction.

Here be spoilers! Read on only if you are up-to-date with the 10-part series, or want to ruin it for yourself and others.

[...]

She has some information on the Crusades and the Knights Templar, then moves on to Josephus:

Enter “Dig,” whose evil archaeologist, Ian Margove (Richard E. Grant), is after the “treasure” the Order of Moriah is supposed to have buried somewhere in Jerusalem.

Flavius Josephus

Archaeologist Margrove says that “according to Flavius Josephus,” the breastplate will pinpoint the location of the treasure.

[...]

Whatever the truth, the characters of “Dig” are right to turn to Josephus for information about early Jewish rituals and practices. His book “Antiquities of the Jews” describes first-century Jewish religious garments and ritual items, including a priest’s breastplate that is critical to the “Dig” plotline.

But using such a breastplate as a treasure map is fictional — not historical — at all.

Josephus certainly had a flexible system of ethics, but he did manage to survive and leave us accounts of the history of Second Temple Judaism which are unique and irreplaceable, if often mendacious and self-serving. His "luck" in surviving the mass suicide of his friends to escape Roman capture has been analyzed mathematically as The Josephus Problem. If you find the maths confusing, the point is that if you know where to place yourself at the beginning of the count, you can survive to the end. Also, Josephus had a tradition that the twelve stones of the High Priest's breastplace (breastpiece) and the two sardonyx stones that held it together gave light sometimes as oracular revelations (Ant. 3.214-18). There is perhaps some relation to the tradition of the twelve shining stones in The Treatise of the Vessels XII, which figure in the storyline of Dig.

Additional background on the series is here and links. A more detailed summary of episode 7 is here.

New technology for reading old ostraca

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: A high-tech quest to unlock the secrets of ancient Israelite letters. How upstart mathematicians and archaeologists are revealing the secrets of letters penned more than 2,500 years ago – and finding clues about when the Bible was written. (Ariel David, Haaretz).

What do 2,600-year-old administrative documents written on potsherds have to do with computer algorithms? And what can routine supply requisitions and urgent requests for reinforcements from a long-gone army tell us about the origins of the Bible?

A maverick team of mathematicians, physicists and archaeologists at Tel Aviv University is on a high-tech quest to answer those questions by unlocking the secrets of the few written documents from the First Temple period that have survived to this day.

The new techniques the researchers developed may not only revolutionize the way scholars study ancient inscriptions, but also paint a better picture of the level of sophistication and literacy in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Ultimately, their work could help shed light on the tantalizing question of when biblical texts were first put in writing.

[...]

The texts under analysis are the Iron Age II ostraca from Samaria, Lachish, and Arad. It mentions a fourth group of Judahite texts, but I'm not sure what is in mind, unless it be the single, but very important, ostracon from Yavneh Yam (Mesad Hashavyahu). And there are other individual ostraca. One of the most exciting things noted in the article is that the new technology has accidentally detected and recovered several new lines of text (still being deciphered) on the back of one of these well-known ostraca.

Joseph Lauer has noted an article that may be related: abstract here; pdf file of the whole article here.

Bit by bit, a letter at a time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.

No, Muslim authorities have not just carpeted over the Lost Ark

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Have Muslim authorities just carpeted over the Lost Ark? Israeli scholars furious after new flooring is fitted 'behind their backs' at the Dome of the Rock where ancient artefact is rumoured to be buried

• Row erupted after mysterious geometric designs discovered under carpet
  
• Some hope they may lead to chamber where Ark of the Covenant is hidden
  
• But new flooring laid before Israeli scholars were able to document pattern
  
• But Waqf, the authority in charge of Dome of the Rock, reject accusations

(An AP article, but the summary points are from the Daily Mail.)

There are two issues here. First, the Waqf authorities have covered over some floor designs in the Dome of the Rock with carpeting before all of them were properly documented. Apparently these floor designs are old, although nothing is said about how old. The Waqf should not have done that, and there is some concern that the carpeting will damage the floor. The IAA, however, is phlegmatic about the situation, reasoning that the stone floor is likely to last longer than the carpeting and that other opportunities to document it are likely to arise.

The second issue is whether the floor designs contain clues that will lead to the lost Ark of the Covenant. They are described as "cryptic geometric patterns" and the article says that unnamed "researchers" have the notion that the designs have something to do with the Ark. That is not impossible; legends about the Ark of the Covenent have been around since the Second Temple period and my own fifteen minutes of fame in 2014 came about from my translating one of these legendary texts into English. But that doesn't mean anything the floor designs say about the Ark have anything really to do with where the Ark now is. Probably, if the Ark existed in the form described in the Bible, it was melted down for the gold by the Babylonians. Quite a few people think they know where the Ark is. All of them seemed to want to tell me about it in 2014, including one who revealed to me where in St. Andrews it is buried. And, no, I'm not going to tell you that location.

So let's keep things in perspective. The Waqf is handling ancient architecture carelessly, which is nothing new, and they should be held to account for it. But this flooring is not the gateway to the Ark. At best it may allude in some way to Ark legends, which are always entertaining, but I doubt even that.

More on the Temple Mount Sifting Project (mentioned in the article) is here with many links. More on the Ark of the Covenant here with many links.

The Shmita and Palestinian produce

THE SABBATICAL YEAR: How a Biblical Edict Became a Boon for Palestinian Farmers (Naomi Zeveloff, The Forward).

The reason for this transaction, which continues throughout the Jewish calendar year, is the religious mandate known as shmita. As dictated in Exodus 23:10-11, among other places, Jews who farm within the biblical borders of the Land of Israel must let their fields lie fallow every seventh year. Right now in Israel, it’s 5775 on the Jewish religious calendar, a shmita year.

Most other Jews in Israel accept a workaround devised by Zionist rabbis in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that allows them to eat food grown on Jewish-owned farms. But to comply with Jewish law as they see it, ultra-Orthodox Jews, who make up about 10% of the country’s population, are forgoing produce from Jewish farms in Israel and the occupied territories this year. Instead, they look to their Palestinian neighbors — as well as to Turks, Jordanians and Israeli-Arabs — to fill their salad bowls.

To Palestinians, therefore, shmita is boom time. Shmita is the “year of the Palestinian farmers,” said Nasri Haj Mohammad, a partner in one of Froush Beit Dajan’s largest farms. On a short break in the workday, he sat next to a fishpond surrounded by citrus groves and greenhouses. A white crane alighted on the water. What is shmita? he contemplated. “The simple answer is, it’s a good season to sell the products at a premium price.”

But the process is not uncontroversial or without its complexities. More on this year's Shmita in Israel (and the abovementioned workaround, a.k.a. "George") is here and here.

Jewish burial through the ages

HAARETZ: The history of Jewish burial rites. Jews have been dying ever since there were Jews, but how they are buried has vastly changed through the millennia. (Elon Gilad). Excerpt:

Ancient burial caves

From the archaeological record, we know that the burial practices of the earliest Jews, the Israelites and the Judahites (who would unite into the people called yehudim, or the Jews), usually interred their dead in "family caves" located outside the settlement.

These "family caves" were usually created by expanding naturally-occurring tunnels in the chalky foothills of the region.

The burial rite consisted of two parts. First the body would be brought into an outer room and laid on the floor, or in special slots in the wall. Then later, perhaps a year later, the family would return to the burial cave, collect the bare bones and add them to a pile of bones left by previous generations in an inner sanctum.

This ancient custom continued even after the invasion of their kingdoms in the eighth and sixth centuries BCE, persisted during and after the exile, throughout during the Second Temple period – lasting, in fact, until the Middle Ages. During those millennia, though, some innovations did develop.

Israel

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why is Israel called Israel? A brief history of the tribe and of the word 'Israel,' and how the modern state almost came to be called something completely different. Hint: Who is Isaac Pernhoff? (Elon Gilad, Haaretz).

This week the State of Israel celebrates its 67th Independence Day, which is an apposite time to ask: How did Israel get its name?

This is actually three separate questions. What did the name Israel originally mean? How did the ancient Jewish people and their homeland come to be known as "Israel"? And how and why was this particular name chosen for the modern state?

The Israel Stele

“Israel” has been the name of an ethnic group in the Levant going back at least 3200 years, based on the first known mention of the name in the written record, which was in ancient Egypt.

That is a hieroglyphic inscription on the Merneptah Stele (also known as the "Israel Stele"). Dating from the late 13th century BCE, the inscription says that "Israel is laid waste, its seed is no more".

In any case, for all Pharaoh Merneptah's claim to have crushed the people called Israel, they did survive the Egyptian incursion into Canaan in the late 13th century BCE and would evolve into a consolidated Kingdom of Israel centered around the capital city, Samaria, during the first centuries of the first millennium BCE. But evidently the name Israel goes back more than 3200 years: how did this tribe get that name?

[...]

Interesting article. It might have benefitted from also mentioning the ninth-century B.C.E. Mesha Stele, in which the King of Moab made a similar and similarly erroneous claim to have annihilated Israel. The Meneptah Stele and the Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone) contain the two earliest surviving dateable mentions of Israel.

The Cairo Geniza and JTS library renovations

STORAGE: Say Goodbye to This Treasure Trove of Rare Texts — Until 2018 (Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward).

The greatest collection of rare Jewish historical documents in the United States will be boxed up later this year and put into storage until at least 2018, the Forward has learned.

The library at Manhattan’s Jewish Theological Seminary — Conservative Judaism’s largest rabbinic seminary — holds the most impressive compilation of Jewish historical materials outside of Jerusalem: hundreds of ancient Jewish marriage contracts, thousands of unique manuscripts, and tens of thousands of fragments recovered in Egypt from the famed Cairo Genizah.

Now, the future of this collection is a matter of heated debate in Jewish scholarly circles as JTS sells off real estate assets to help ease a years-long financial crunch. Over the next few years, JTS plans to sell two buildings now serving as residence halls to developers, along with air rights to its main campus. The school will also replace its current library building with a new library and conference center.

In addition to the temporary closing of the rare books collection, other, longer-term changes are coming, too. The library’s circulating collection and its archives will largely be stored off-site once the new library is constructed. Meanwhile, the school’s beit midrash, or religious study hall, will be built into the new library.

[...]

This is not an uncommon situation, perhaps because the corpus of scholarly books has reached a critical mass and libraries are finding it impossible to continue to display it all in the traditional open stacks. The Library of the University of St. Andrews recently made similar changes, sending the bulk of the collection to outside storage and setting up a dedicated reading room (the building of a former local church) to consult the (extensive and important) special collections. If you need a book in storage, it will be brought in, usually within a day. So far the system seems to be working well enough.

More on the Cairo Geniza collection at JTS is here and here.

To buy or not to buy

DILEMMA: History dies in ISIL’s hands, but curators worry buying artifacts would fund terrorism (Joseph Brean, The National Post).

As ISIL terrorists use power drills, bulldozers and explosives to destroy the cultural and architectural heritage of ancient Mesopotamia — Christian, Muslim and pre-Abrahamic from the ancient Assyrian capital Nimrud to the tomb of the Biblical Jonah in Mosul — western curators hoping to preserve what is left are caught in a dilemma.

Some want to buy artifacts to protect and preserve them, such as James Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world’s wealthiest art institution, who has described the vandalism as “an argument for why portable works of art should be distributed throughout the world and not concentrated in one place.”

But others are loudly calling for an effective ban on trade in Assyrian antiquities and other relics from the war zone. They say the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is not simply eradicating the idolatry it denounces as heretical, but in fact is hypocritically selling what it can on a black market, and destroying everything else. In this view, buying artifacts to preserve them in Western galleries is tantamount to funding terrorism.

[...]

This is a very difficult, no-win situation and I do not have a solution.

Background on ISIS's assault on the past is here with many links.

From Mao to Gnosticism

Q. and A.: Willis Barnstone on Translating Mao and Touring Beijing With Allen Ginsberg (Ian Johnson, NYT Blog).

Willis Barnstone is a polymath author of more than 70 books — a poet, translator and scholar of Gnosticism and the New Testament. But the 87-year-old also has had a long and colorful relationship with China, translating Mao Zedong’s poetry and befriending numerous Chinese artists and political leaders in the 1980s.

Recently he was in Beijing to speak at the Bookworm Literary Festival. In an interview, he discussed his love of classical Chinese poetry, a telegram he sent to Zhou Enlai and taking Allen Ginsberg to a Taoist temple.

[...]

Most of the article is about Barnstone's experiences with China and translating the poetry of Mao. That happens to be interesting to me because I am just now finishing the biography of Mao by Pantsov and Levine, Mao: The Real Story. That would be neither here nor there but for the fact that Barnstone has also come up in PaleoJudaica as a translator (with Marvin Meyer) of Gnostic texts and (on his own) of his idiosyncratic canon called The Restored New Testament. This recent interview nicely rounds out the picture of his work.

More on Sanders's Guggenheim

Guggenheim Fellowship Awarded to Trinity College's Seth Sanders (The Hartford Courant). Excerpt:

"Religious people have struggled with the Bible's contradictions since they first read it, and scholars have used them as a window into how it was created. What my project can explain is why those contradictions were put in the text in the first place," Sanders said.

"As a collection of incompatible versions of similar stories, the Torah is unlike any other major work of ancient literature," Sanders said. "Biblical scholarship still cannot agree on how this new paradigm arose. My project draws on ancient Near Eastern evidence to explain what is new about it by placing the Torah in literary history."

Background here and here, and PaleoJudaica has referred often to his work as well.

You can read a lot more about Prof. Sanders's research at his current blog, sethlsanders and his earlier blog Serving the Word.

Ben Hur and the Pope

CINEMATIC NEWS:

Pope Francis blesses Ben-Hur's new Jesus at the Vatican (Ben Child, The Guardian)

Brazil’s Rodrigo Santoro, who is playing Christ in a new Ben-Hur movie, was filming in Rome when he met the pope.

The Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro, who is cast as Jesus Christ in the forthcoming biblical epic Ben-Hur, has been blessed by Pope Francis at the Vatican.

[...]

Santoro and fellow cast member Nazanin Boniadi attended a weekly papal audience event during a break from production, where they met Pope Francis. The pair also took a picture in front of the Vatican.

[...]

Background on the new film version of Ben Hur is here and links.

Herodium walkway

EXCAVATION:

Herodium walkway reveals more of Jewish king's grand designs (Reuters/Israel HaYom).

Archaeologists unearth grand arched walkway in one of King Herod's major buildings • They believe he intended it to be used for his burial procession, but changed his mind and covered it over • The discovery is to open to the public in about a year.

Lots more on Herod the Great and Herodium here with many links.

Menahem Haran (1924-2015)

SAD NEWS FROM H-JUDAIC: Obituary: Prof. Menahem Haran.

H-Judaic is deeply saddened to learn of the passing, at age 91, of Professor Menahem Haran (1924-2015), Yehezkel Kaufmann Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies at the Hebrew University and one of the towering figures of Jewish biblical scholarship. ...

May his memory be for a blessing.

Review of Fine and Koller (eds.), Talmuda de-Eretz Israel

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Steven Fine, Aaron Koller (ed.), Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine. Studia Judaica, Bd 73. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2014. Pp. xiii, 352. ISBN 9781614514855. €119.95.

Reviewed by Joseph Geiger, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (msgeiger@mail.huji.ac.il)

Excerpt:

The present volume is a welcome collection of papers by a variety of scholars each dealing with a specific problem. None of the contributions, however, faces the crucial larger issue: do the texts indeed reflect the material realities? No well known holders of a negative view on this question contributed to the volume. The general approach is summed up in two contributions included as “Afterwords,” one by an eminent archaeologist, Eric Meyers, the other by an eminent rabbinic scholar, Daniel Sperber. Meyers remains committed to the idea that, in order to understand the world of the rabbis better, “it is imperative to be immersed in the textual material including the visual and epigraphical sources that are chronologically relevant” (305). He goes on to demonstrate this with respect to burial customs, remains of foodstuffs, stone vessels, ritual baths, synagogues and issues of gender – most of which are discussed at length by contributions in the volume. Sperber's article insists on the need for philological examination prior to the evaluation of the material finds. The piece is a bibliographic treasure-trove – though unfortunately needs editing.

McKendrick et al. (eds.), Codex Sinaiticus

ETC: New Book on Codex Sinaiticus (Peter M. Head). The 2009 conference that produced the papers was noted here.

Review of Hadavas, Lucian, On the Death of Peregrinus

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

C. T. Hadavas, Lucian, On the Death of Peregrinus: An Intermediate Ancient Greek Reader. [Beloit, WI]: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014. Pp. xxviii, 154. ISBN 9781500303099. $12.95 (pb).

Reviewed by Serena Pirrotta, Berlin (serena.pirrotta@web.de)

She concludes:

The compact presentation of all necessary information about Lucian and the Peregrinus in the introductory chapters, the exhaustive footnotes with suggestions for translation, and the reader-friendly layout make Havadas’ book a useful learning tool for students near the beginning of their classics curriculum.

What an interesting text to use for a student reader.

Don't let this happen to you

STEVE CARUSO: How to Know When You Shouldn’t Publish Your Own “Translation.” Also a cautionary tale about Google Image searches. Cross-file under Aramaic Watch (sort of).

Jones on the ancient papyrus market

ASOR BLOG: Ancient Papyri Online and for Sale (Brice C. Jones).

Over the last decade, we have witnessed a growing fascination with ancient papyri from Egypt. By now, most people have heard of the Gospel of Judas, published in 2006, the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife, which made headlines in 2014, or, most recently, the controversial fragment of the Gospel of Mark that is reputed to have been extracted from Egyptian mummy cartonnage. What all of these manuscripts have in common is the material upon which their texts were inscribed: papyrus. What is this material? And where are all these manuscripts coming from?

[...]

More on and from Dr. Brice C. Jones is here and links. More on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife is also there and links. Ditto for the Gospel of Judas (also here and links) and the supposedly first-century manuscript of the Gospel of Mark (also here and links).

The oldest Hebrew Cairo Geniza fragment in Cambridge?

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH (NOVEMBER 2010): The oldest Hebrew fragment in the Collection? T-S NS 3.21.

... The scroll, of which two parts have been found in the T-S Collection, T-S NS 3.21 and a small piece T-S NS 4.3, contains only the book of Genesis, so it may have been a Genesis scroll rather than the whole Torah. Colette Sirat estimated that if it had contained the whole Torah, then it would have measured 40m long. The script is highly distinctive, when compared with that of most Bible fragments in the Collection, with an acutely-angled serif and what Ada Yardeni believes are some of the earliest regular examples of tagin, the ornamental 'crowns' that appear only in Torah scrolls (with a few exceptions). The hand is similar to that of the (very few) Hebrew and Aramaic papyri of the Byzantine period (300–700 CE).

Sirat also detects differences from the Masoretic Text (MT) in the division of paragraphs (paraša petuḥa and paraša setuma), though these are minor, and one consonantal difference from the MT at Genesis 17:1, where the scroll has שנה for the MT's plural שנים.
Genesis 17:1, showing the singular where MT has the plural

According to Sirat, the scroll is early, pre-Islamic, and dates from the fifth or sixth century. Although this is centuries earlier than the great majority of Genizah fragments, it would make it contemporaneous with some of the underscripts of the palimpsests in the Collection and its survival in the Genizah is therefore not at all impossible. Nothing is straightforward in dealing with undated manuscripts, however, and Ada Yardeni prefers to date it later, to the eighth or ninth century, still early, but not as spectacularly so. There appear to be sufficient grounds, however, to believe that an earlier dating is more likely, given the clear differences in hand, in particular, from most other Bible manuscripts found in the Genizah, and it is thrilling to think that this scroll may have been in use in synagogue services hundreds of years before being consigned to the Ben Ezra Genizah.

Tennesse and the pseudepigrapha

THE RECENT BILL BY THE TENNESEE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES which would make "the Holy Bible" the state book has been getting flack from a lot of people. Joel Hoffman has a HuffPo piece asking What Has Tennessee Done and What Holy Bible Have They Chosen? in which he invokes various deutero- and non-canoncial books related to the Old and New Testaments:

The mysterious Book of Enoch --- and its claim that God's world has gone awry -- is part of the Ethiopian Bible, but everyone else puts it in the category of books that fell to the Old Testament's cutting room floor in antiquity. Technically called the "pseudepigrapha," these books number in the hundreds, and include the second half of the Adam and Eve story, Abraham's early life, and much more.

Then there are the runners up to the New Testament, such as the Gnostic Gospels. Like most of the pseudepigrapha, these aren't in anyone's Bible.

All of this raises the question: What has Tennessee made into its state book? The Jewish Bible? The Catholic one? Greek Orthodox? Protestant? Ethiopian?

Even when we include all the fragments and titles of lost pseudepigrapha, I don't think we are quite up to "hundreds" of them, but I hope future discoveries change that. Beyond that, I'm not getting involved in this discussion, except to say that I'm always pleased to see the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic books get some media attention. As they say, all publicity is good publicity.

Cross-file under Old Testament Apocrypha Watch, New Testament Apocrypha Watch, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch, and Politics.

Barkay to lecture in Kentucky

GABRIEL BARKAY: Biblical archaeologist to speak about Temple Mount Excavation.

Dr. Gabriel Barkay is one of the world’s most famous and leading archaeologists and is credited with the discovery of what are now called the silver scrolls. The silver scrolls are the oldest still-surviving text from the Old Testament dating to approximately 600 B.C. Today, Dr. Barkay is the archaeologist in charge of the Temple Mount Sifting Project where volunteers sift through earth excavated from Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

The lecture will be on 30 April at the University of Pikeville in Kentucky. More on the Ketef Hinnom silver amulets is here and more on the Temple Mount Sifting Project is here, both with many links

Labour on Hebrew

BRITISH POLITICS: Labour pledge to safeguard Hebrew qualifications (Jewish News).

Hebrew would remain a part of the GCSE and A-Level curriculum under a Labour government, the party’s education spokesman Tristram Hunt has said.

The pledge comes amid uncertainty over the future of qualifications in modern and ancient Hebrew, which, along with several other languages including Polish, Bengali, Portugese and Turkish, are set to be axed by exam boards in 2017.

AQA will no longer offer Modern Hebrew at A-Level, and OCR is to discontinue its A-Level in Biblical Hebrew.

[...]

Good for Labour. I hope the idea catches on. And I'm pleased to see that Tristram Hunt and I do agree on something.

Septuagint studies prize

COMPETITION: The John William Wevers Prize in Septuagint Studies.

The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) offers an annual prize of $350 to be awarded to an outstanding paper in the field of Septuagint studies. The prize has been named in memory of John William Wevers to honor his many contributions to Septuagint studies.

The field of Septuagint studies is construed broadly, and a paper may focus on any aspect of the study of the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures. The IOSCS wants to encourage the study of these translations by younger scholars, and eligibility is thus limited to advanced graduate students or recent Ph.D. recipients (4 years or less after receiving the degree).

Follow the link for further particulars. The deadline for submission this year is 15 August.

HT Jim West.

Mathematical angels in the DSS

ASOR BLOG: Zodiac Calendars and Angelic Teaching in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Helen R. Jacobus).

Nothing in these manuscripts indicates they are part of mythological books. When reconstructed it can be seen that they contain real astronomical calendars, and actual mathematical material. But angels are at the forefront.

Vermes lecture on the DSS

JAMES MCGRATH: Geza Vermes Lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls. During his visit to Louisiana in 2009.

Schiffman on Pesah and the Second Temple

LAWRENCE H. SCHIFFMAN: Pesach and the Second Temple. With a link to his popular article in Ami Magazine.

Religion in the Roman Empire (RRE)

NEW JOURNAL FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Religion in the Roman Empire (RRE)

Managing Editor: Jörg Rüpke (Erfurt)

Editors: Reinhard Feldmeier (Göttingen), Karen L. King (Harvard, MA), Rubina Raja (Aarhus), Annette Yoshiko Reed (Philadelphia, PA), Christoph Riedweg (Zürich), Jörg Rüpke (Erfurt), Seth Schwartz (New York, NY), Christopher Smith (Rome), Markus Vinzent (London)

Associate Editors: Nicole Belayche (Paris), Kimberly Bowes (Rome), Richard Gordon (Erfurt), Gesine Manuwald (London), Volker Menze (Budapest), Maren Niehoff (Jerusalem), George H. van Kooten (Groningen), Moulie Vidas (Princeton, NJ), Greg Woolf (St Andrews)

Religion in the Roman Empire (RRE) is bold in the sense that it intends to further and document new and integrative perspectives on religion in the Ancient World combining multidisciplinary methodologies. Starting from the notion of "lived religion" it will offer a space to take up recent, but still incipient, research to modify and cross the disciplinary boundaries of History of Religion, Archaeology, Anthropology, Classics, Ancient History, Jewish History, Rabbinics, New Testament, Early Christianity, Patristics, Coptic Studies, Gnostic and Manichean Studies, Late Antiquity and Oriental Languages. We hope to stimulate the development of new approaches that can encompass the local and global trajectories of the multidimensional pluralistic religions of antiquity.

Each volume will consist of three issues a year, each of approximately 130 pages in length. It will include an editorial, five to seven main articles, and book reviews. All articles and contributions that exceed 8 pages in length will be double-blind peer-reviewed. All articles and contributions will be in English.

The first issues will deal with "Lived Religion: Appropriations of Religion and Meanings in Situations," "Understanding Objects in Religious Contexts" and with "Practices and Groups," bringing together studies on textual and archaeological material from all areas of the Mediterranean.

The first issue is available at the link for free. For you, special deal!

Samaritan Pentateuch in Arabic

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH (NOVEMBER 2007): An Arabic Translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch (T-S Ar.1a.136).

Among the 192,844 folios of the Taylor-Schechter Collection, only three Samaritan texts written in Samaritan or Arabic script have been discovered so far. This is not surprising since the Genizah was part of the Ben-Ezra synagogue which belonged to the rabbanite Jewish community. Since both communities had their own synagogues and lived their lives separately from each other, Samaritan documents in the Genizah are somewhat an exotic discovery.

The fragment T-S Ar.1a.136 comprises the Arabic translation of Genesis 4:4–15. The text is carefully written in a beautiful Arabic script with sporadic vocalisation. The text of Genesis 4:9a (line 9 recto) is written in Samaritan square script.

[...]

Looking at the "Fragment of the Month" column of the Cambridge University Library's Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, I realized that there are a few interesting ones from past years which I have never highlighted on PaleoJudaica. I will post these as I get around to it.

The manuscripts of the Mar Behnam Monastery

ADAM MCCOLLUM: Notes on some manuscripts of the Mar Behnam Monastery. Regular readers will recall the very bad news of the recently reported destruction of the Mar Behnam Monastery in Iraq. At the time of the report I wrote, "Does that mean that the manuscripts themselves are now lost? I hope not." At the hmmlorientalia blog, Adam McCollum reports the good news that the 500+ manuscripts were digitized by the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library and the CNMO (Centre numérique des manuscrits orientaux). There is no word on what happened to the manuscripts themselves, and we should probably fear the worst, but at least we do have a photographic record of them.

And on another note, I sometimes wonder aloud whether such ancient monastic libraries include manuscripts of Old Testament pseudepigrapha in their collections. Sometimes I find out that they do. And so it is in this case. Adam has highlighted some manuscripts in this collection and among them I see two of Zosimus and the Story of the Rechabites in Garshuni. And there are also some New Testament Apocrypha and a manuscript of Susanna.

DSS lecture at Penn State

LECTURE TOMORROW: April 16 Research Unplugged to focus on Dead Sea Scrolls.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Daniel Falk, professor of classics and ancient Mediterranean studies and Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish studies, will present "Excavating the Bible: What the Dead Sea Scrolls Reveal About Biblical Stories" at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, April 16, at Schlow Centre Region Library as part of the Research Unplugged lecture series.

[...]

Persecution of Aramaic-speaking Christians in the Middle East

MODERN ARAMAIC WATCH: Christians who speak the language of Jesus being uprooted by Islamic State (Hugh Naylor, Washington Post). Excerpt:

Over the last decade, Assyrians have joined waves of Christians who have fled Syria and Iraq because of war and persecution by extremist Muslims. But the latest attacks have added to concerns that this unique Mesopotamian people are in danger of disappearing from the region.

Assyrians in Iraq and Syria belong to the last communities of significant size to speak the language of Jesus — Aramaic. Many of them are being forced to move outside the Middle East, where it becomes less likely the tongue will be maintained, said Eden Naby, a Middle East historian and expert on Assyrian culture.

Aramaic is the oldest continuously written and spoken language in the Middle East, she said. It was once also used by some other religious communities, including Jews. Now, “Assyrians remain the last Aramaic-speaking of people of the world. So the disappearance and displacement of these people pretty much spells the closing chapter of Aramaic use in the world,” Naby said.

Assyrians, also referred to as Chaldeans or Syriacs, consider themselves ethnically distinct from Arabs and Kurds, tracing back their roots in the region 6,500 years. They speak a modern dialect of what was the lingua franca of the Assyrian Empire.

Persian Empire, not Assyrian. But that aside, the danger is real and is part of ISIS's sustained and systematic assault on the past. In the words of "Habib Afram, head of the Syriac League in Lebanon, which represents regional Assyrian issues":

They don't want to just take your land or kick you out of your villages — they want to erase your past, your heritage,” he said.

Background on ISIS is here and many links. More on the persecution of Aramaic-speaking Christians in the Middle East is here, here, here, here, and many links.

Minister protests Waqf's new Temple Mount excavation

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Construction minister: Stop unauthorized Temple Mount excavations (Yori Yalon, Israel HaYom).

Minister Uri Ariel warns that ongoing renovations at the Dome of the Rock, atop the ruins of the Second Temple, may inflict irreparable harm to Judaism's holiest site • Ariel says crews flouting the prohibition on operating heavy machinery in the area.

HT Joseph Lauer. Background here.

Emek Shaveh vs. Elad again

POLITICS: Biblical Jewish Ties to Jerusalem Under Attack by European-Backed NGO (Ahuva Balofsky, Breaking Israel News). The article — which is about Emek Shaveh's legal petition to have the management of the Western Wall Tunnel taken from Elad and taken over by the State — is not as hostile as the headline, although neither is particularly sympathetic to Emek Shaveh.

Background here.

The British Library's Greek manuscripts online

ETC: British Library: More manuscripts online (Peter M. Head).

The British Library Medieval Manuscripts blog reports that seventy-five more manuscripts are on-line. These seem to be the last group in the current project (hopefully they will get more funding to keep up the good progress). In this batch are a mountain of patristic and ecclesiastical manuscripts including homilies and such, and the following biblical ones. ...

Septuagint, New Testament, and related manuscripts.

Also, over at hmmlorientalia, Adam McCollum collects the British Library's Medieval Manuscripts Blog's posts on their online Greek manuscripts: Posts on the digitized BL Greek manuscripts.

A couple of related PaleoJudaica posts are here and here.

Journals, blogs, and YouTube comments

JAMES MCGRATH: Don’t Diss the Blog! Well no.

More Waqf excavation at Temple Mount?

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Once Again: Waqf Illegally Digging Up Temple Mount. Jordanian Waqf digs up stone floor under mosque built on top of the sacred areas of the Holy Temples, says it's 'replacing carpets' (Hillel Fendel, Arutz Sheva).

Don't do that.

Marriage and sex in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: How Often Should Married Jewish Couples Have Sex? And other matters of conjugal bliss in this week’s Talmud study, including a woman’s right to sexual fulfillment.

How should a good Jew treat a waiter? At what age does an infant recognize its mother? How often should a married couple have sex? These are just a few of the practical and ethical questions that the rabbis addressed in chapter 5 of Tractate Ketubot, which Daf Yomi readers finished over the last two weeks. The subject of Ketubot is literally the marriage contract, and the first chapters were dedicated to various issues that arise when that contract is voided or dissolved—whether that means infidelity prior to marriage, or rape, or incest, or a financial dispute between bride and groom. But once the rabbis leave the obstacles to marriage behind and begin talking about marriage itself—what the parties owe each other, not just in terms of money but in affection and respect—the picture becomes a much happier one. In particular, the rabbis show that women do not only have obligations in marriage; they have rights as well.

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Passover reading from AJR

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Passover Reading.

“We didn’t want to let this holiday season “passover” without providing a list of some important works on Passover, Easter, and the comparison and connections between the two. Happy holidays and happy reading!”

— AJR Editors

Posted at the end of Passover last week, but I've only gotten around to linking to it now. But you can get started early on your Passover reading for next year.

The Jubilees Palimpsest Project

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Technology casts new light on old manuscripts (Todd R. Hanneken, San Antonio Express-News). The name sounds like a Robert Ludlum novel, but it's actually an exciting NEH-funded humanities project. Excerpt:

Today’s imaging technology exponentially improves the color range and resolution of the eye. Advanced processing of spectral signatures allows us to distinguish visually similar but different materials, such as brownish traces of ink on brownish discolored parchment. We can also capture high-resolution texture that allows us to see the corrosion of parchment where mildly acidic ink had once been.

Now scholars can read whole books from antiquity, whereas before one could barely tell there was erased text behind the visible writing.

What will we learn when this technology makes ancient writings freely available to scholars and enthusiasts around the world? As with past discoveries, it might teach us oddities of Jewish and Christian history and about the development of ideas that we now take for granted.

The St. Mary’s team is working on an erased manuscript, or palimpsest, of the book of Jubilees, originally written in Hebrew in the 150s BCE. It was eventually rejected by Judaism and most of Christianity, perhaps because of its fervent strictness.

The same erased manuscript also contains the only copy of what is likely the Testament of Moses, a Jewish text written around the time of Jesus describing some mysterious other Messianic figure. A third hidden text contains part of a commentary on the Gospel of Luke written by Christians who were eradicated as heretics because they believed that God the Son was younger than God the Father.

The project's website is here, where more details are available, such as:

The 144-page manuscript is often referred to as the “Jubilees” palimpsest in reference to its oldest text, eighty pages of a Latin translation of a Hebrew composition from the 150s BCE, fragments of which were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. The codex also includes sixteen pages of a first-century CE Jewish work called the Assumption or Testament of Moses, and forty-eight pages of a fourth-century CE Arian commentary on the Gospel of Luke. All reflect major developments in Judaism and Christianity, and all were eventually suppressed. Jubilees was treated as scripture among those responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, and “Arians” represented a major form of Christianity in the fourth century. Scholars of Judaism and Christianity will be most interested in evaluating the images to determine the oldest form of the ancient texts, which are known best or only from this manuscript. The manuscript itself tells the story of the “erasure” of alternative views of the Law and Christ, and replacement with a view that retained dominance, namely an anthology of Augustine's writings.

This manuscript, now at the Ambrosiana Library (Biblioteca) in Milan, has not been thoroughly edited since 1828 (Commentary on Luke) and 1861 (Jubilees and the Assumption or Testament of Moses). ...

Bit by bit, a letter at a time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.

Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch.

UPDATE: Dead link now fixed. Sorry!

Omer offering reenactment

ANOTHER TEMPLE INSTITUTE REENACTMENT: WATCH: Historic Omer Barley Offering Brought Up in Jerusalem (Lea Speyer, Breaking Israel News). More on the offering of the Omer on the second day of Passover here. This was just a dress rehearsal, because there is no Temple in which actually to offer the Omer. Another recent Temple Institute re-creation was noted here and links with some commentary of my own. This event was jointly sponsored by another group that's called the Women on Behalf of the Holy Temple.

Emek Shaveh vs. Elad

POLITICS: Elad management of City of David tunnel challenged in court. European-funded group calls involvement of Ir David Foundation a "dangerous political act." (Jerusalem Post).

Emek Shaveh, an organization of archeologists and activists dedicated to the role of archeology in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, petitioned the High Court of Justice on Sunday for the state to take over management of a tunnel that connects Silwan and the Western Wall from a right-wing NGO.

The tunnel, which leads to the archeological site known as the Davidson Center and reaches the foundations of the Temple Mount, is managed by The Ir David Foundation (Elad), founded in the 1980s to acquire the former homes of Jewish families who fled Silwan after the 1936 riots.

[...]

More on Elad here and links. An earlier run in between Elad and the left-wing NGO Emek Shaveh was noted here. And more on Emek Shaveh with a link to their website is here.

Magness and Huqoq

ARCHAEOLOGIST: UNC professor finds treasures buried in Israel (Justin Quesinberry, WNCN News).

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -

Half a world away, and centuries deep in history, Jodi Magness spends every summer digging into Israel's past.

"I always say an archeological dig is like summer camp for adults," Magness said.

The professor at the University of North Carolina has packed her bags, along with dozens of students and staff, and headed to Galilea each summer since 2011.

That's when they began excavating a Jewish village called “Huqoqa,” which dates back to the time of Jesus. Most recently it was abandoned since the 1940s.

[...]

PaleoJudaica has been following the discoveries of ancient mosaics at Huqoq for some time: background here and here and keep following the links back. In this article Prof. Magness also briefly discusses the social background of the ancient Huqoq being excavated:

The impact of religion is central to the questions Magness is asking.

She said the synagogue dates back to around the time Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

So she wonders, what was the fate of Jewish villages like Huqoq under Christian rule?

“Because the historical view backwards is usually: well, the Jews must have been oppressed, right, by Christian rule, Christian rule was not friendly to the Jews, they must have suffered. And, what we're finding at Huqoq is just the opposite. Here, we have a village that clearly prospered,” she said.

Paul and “Judaizing”

FIRST THINGS: Paul and “Judaizing” (Peter J. Leithart). The ancient history of a Greek verb.

Two new SBL books

NEW BOOKS FROM THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE:

Meaning and Context in the Thanksgiving Hymns: Linguistic and Rhetorical Perspectives on a Collection of Prayers from Qumran

Trine Bjornung Hasselbalch

A new reading strategy for the Thanksgiving Hymns

Hasselbalch asserts that current theories about the social background of the Thanksgiving Hymns are unable to explain its heterogeneous character. Instead the author suggests a reading strategy that leaves presumptions about the underlying social contexts aside to instead consider the collection’s hybridity as a clue to understanding the collection as a whole.


Proverbs: An Eclectic Edition with Introduction and Textual Commentary

Michael V. Fox (Translator)

A new critical text for Proverbs drawing from many manuscripts

This first volume of The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition series features a critical text of Proverbs with extensive text-critical introductions and commentaries. This and future HBCE volumes bring together a scholar’s critical decisions into an eclectic text, drawing from many manuscripts or placing entirely variant texts side by side. A common approach for critical editions of other ancient books, including the New Testament, the eclectic approach and scope used in the HBCE is a first of its kind for the Hebrew Bible.

Follow the links for more details and ordering information.

Reviewlet of Smith, Into the World of the New Testament

EUANGELION: Book Notice: Into the World of the New Testament.

Daniel Lynwood Smith
Into the World of the New Testament: Greco-Roman and Jewish Texts and Contexts
London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
Available at Amazon.com

By Ben Sutton, Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia.

Dan Smith has provided a companion to reading the New Testament. As such he has intentionally diverged from traditional textbooks that provide extensive discussions of authorship, date, genre, and literary conventions. Instead, his aim is to provide examples of Ancient texts that parallel the books of the New Testament. In this way the student will learn by comparison instead of by synthesizing scholarly discussions. Smith is quick to point out that this volume does not replace the more extensive discussions of authorship, etc. Rather, as an introductory level book it invites the student into the world in which the New Testament was written, not contemporary discussions.

[...]

Bne-Horin

YONA SABAR: Hebrew word of the week: Bne-Horin.

Frey et al. (eds.), Jesus, Paulus und die Texte von Qumran

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Jesus, Paulus und die Texte von Qumran
Hrsg. v. Jörg Frey u. Enno Edzard Popkes unter Mitarb. v. Sophie Tätweiler
[Jesus, Paul, and the Qumran Texts.]

Published in German.

In this volume the relevance of the Qumran discoveries for the interpretation of Jesus and the Jesus tradition and of the Pauline epistles is discussed in detailed studies and thematic overviews. The focus is on Jesus' position toward the Sabbath and his eschatology, Paul's use of the scriptures and his method of interpretation and the relevance of the Hodayot and of 4QInstruction for the interpretation of New Testament texts. An extensive study utilizes the Qumran insights on the Aramaic language in the late Second Temple period for a new Aramaic reconstruction of the Lord's Prayer.

More on the James Ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb

JOEL BADEN AND CANDIDA MOSS: Jesus’ tomb story: Does the evidence add up? (CNN Wire). Once again, Baden and Moss have an excellent summary of the current state of play of a story that has made it big in the media, along with a thorough and sensible analysis of its claims. For them this is the bottom line:

It is a compelling story. But it is also a fragile one. This small group of scholars, scientists and filmmakers has presented us with a intricate puzzle, in which all the pieces have been perfectly aligned. But pick up any single piece to examine it more carefully, and it crumbles to dust.

Read it all. Background here and links.

Congrats to Seth Sanders

CONGRATULATIONS TO SETH SANDERS who is a 2015 recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship.

Mr. Seth L. Sanders, Associate Professor and Director of the Poetry Center, Trinity College: Why We Can’t Read the Torah: The Form of the Pentateuch and the History of Ancient Hebrew Literature.

HT Jack Sasson's Agade list.

CFP: British Association of Jewish Studies Annual Meeting

CALL FOR PAPERS BAJS Conference 2015 Atheism, Scepticism, and Challenges to Monotheism, 5-7 July 2015, The University of Manchester.

We welcome contributions from all periods and regions, whether narrowly focused or broadly contextual, synthetic or analytical. The intention of this interdisciplinary conference is to encourage contributions on any issues relating to the engagement of Jews with atheistic and sceptical worldviews for the purpose of understanding Jewish culture and history. The conference will provide a forum for the exploration of these questions both from within Jewish Studies but also from contributors who have not previously been involved in BAJS. The expectation is that the conference will result in an edited collection of essays on this theme.

Follow the link for further particulars.

Dig week 6

KIMBERLY WINSTON: Digging under Mount Moriah with TV’s ‘Dig’ (RNS).

“It’s all about the End of Days, the Second Coming, Armageddon, the Rapture,” Debbie (Lauren Ambrose) says in what is the clearest explanation by any character of what is going on in “Dig” to date. “In order to bring about the Second Coming, the Temple in Jerusalem needs to be rebuilt.”

No excavation or building on the Temple Mount, please. Fortunately, this is the agenda of "the apparent bad guys" in the series, so they probably won't succeed.

Background here and links.

Review of Los Angeles DSS exhibition

THE DAILY TROJAN: Science Center celebrates history of Dead Sea Scrolls (Sara Gryzwacz).

Students who have tired eyes from reading countless textbooks and e-textbooks this semester can take a break at the California Science Center to visit “Dead Sea Scrolls: The Exhibition.” It is an exciting and interactive presentation of artifacts that includes what many believe to be the most important discovery of ancient manuscripts.

[...]

A thorough review, with advice on how best to navigate the exhibition.

Background on the exhibition is here and here and links.

Monster lecture

QUAD-CITY TIMES: St. Ambrose presents lecture on monsters. St. Ambrose University, that is.

The lecture, “T-Rex vs. Leviathan: Biology and Theology of Monsters,” will feature Assistant Professor of Biology Neil Aschliman and Associate Professor of Theology Micah Kiel.

[...]

Kiel’s book, “The ‘Whole Truth’: Rethinking Retribution in the Book of Tobit” explores Tobit through the lens of ancient Jewish creation theology, the earliest forms of which depict God’s destruction of a primordial sea monster.

If you are in the vincity of Davenport, Iowa, next Thursday, this sounds worth attending.

Mark Goodacre on the James Ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb

REGARDING THE RECENT STORY ON THE JAMES OSSUARY AND THE TALPIOT TOMB, Professor Mark Goodacre of Duke University is quoted in an Aleteia article (New York Times Runs Easter Story Suggesting Resurrection Didn't Happen) with some notable observations:

"It's interesting how this story keeps coming back, especially at Easter time," said Mark Goodacre, professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Duke University, in an email to Aleteia. "I don't think there is any merit in the identification of the Talpiot Tomb with Jesus and his family. All along, Jacobovici has not taken seriously contradictory evidence, like the presence of 'Judah son of Jesus' in the tomb."

Contradictory, he said, because there is no ancient evidence of Jesus having a son, let alone a son called Judah.

"He has also overplayed the idea that Mary Magdalene is found in the tomb, and that she was married to Jesus," Goodacre added.

In addition, he pointed out, Oded Golan, at his forgery trial (he was first convicted by ["but"? - JRD] later cleared), produced a photograph from 1976 which showed the James ossuary in his parents' apartment. "That means that it could not have come out of the Talpiot tomb, which was excavated in 1980," Goodacre said.

Other specialists etc. are quoted as well. None of them find the proposed connection convincing.

Background here.

Palmyrene Aramaic

AWOL: The Wisconsin Palmyrene Aramaic Inscription Project (WPAIP). Cross-file under Aramaic Watch.

PaleoJudaica has been following the study of ancient Palmyra and Palmyrene Aramaic for many years. For posts on Palmyra (whose fate is currently precarious), see here and follow the links back. Some past posts dealing with Palmyrene Aramaic are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

AJS CFPs

H-JUDAIC has calls for papers for a couple of interesting sessions at the Annual Association for Jewish Studies Conference in Boston in December:

CFP: AJS Panel: Commemorating the 100th Yahrzeit of Solomon Schechter

CFP: AJS Panel, roundtable on Mishnah Bikkurim

Review of Houston, Inside Roman Libraries

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Houston, Inside Roman Libraries (Brian Leport in Book Notes).

George W. Houston, Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014). (Amazon.com)

Excerpt:

The value of this book for the study of Judaism and Early Christianity is that it provides a socio-cultural context with which to compare the book culture of the Jews and Christians to that of the broader Mediterranean. Certain elements, such as the lifespan of a papyrus roll, are directly relevant. ...

As the review observes, this book raises many questions that are relevant to the study of Second Temple Jewish literature.

A gap of tradition between the Talmud and the Geonim?

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH: Did the Jewish academies of Sura and Pumbedita hold original commentaries to the Talmud? T-S F9.41 (Zvi Stampfer, Cambridge Library Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit).

From this we can conclude that there were significant cases in which the central Jewish Academies of the Geonic period had received no authoritative tradition from the Talmudic period on the passages in the Talmud. This suggests that there was a disconnection and interruption between the time of the Talmud’s editing and the Geonic academies. This interruption probably occurred during the 6th century as Rav Sherira (Rabbi Hayya’s father) informs us in his epistle:

And there were years of persecution and troubles at the end of the Persian (i.e. Sasanian) monarchy and they were unable to establish public lectures and convene the academy… until a number of years had elapsed (Brody 1998: 8)

Via the Talmud Blog on Facebook.

Avioz, Josephus' Interpretation of the Books of Samuel

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY:

Josephus' Interpretation of the Books of Samuel
By: Michael Avioz

Published: 12-03-2015
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 272
ISBN: 9780567608802
Imprint: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Series: The Library of Second Temple Studies
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
RRP: £70.00
Online price: £63.00
Save £7.00 (10%)

About Josephus' Interpretation of the Books of Samuel

Since the seventies, no study has examined the methodologies of Josephus' rewriting of an entire biblical book as part of his Judean Antiquities. This book attempts to fill this vacuum by exploring Josephus' adaptation of the books of Samuel, penetrating the exegetical strategies he employs to modify the biblical stories for his intended audience. Through meticulous comparison of the biblical narrative and Josephus' Antiquities, broader issues – such as Josephus' attitude towards monarchy and women – gradually come to light, challenging long-held assumptions. This definitive exploration of Josephus' rewriting of Samuel illuminates the encounter between the ancient texts and its relevance to scholarly discourse today.

Follow the link for TOC and ordering information.

Qumran messianism

PHILIP JENKINS AT THE ANXIOUS BENCH: Messiahs at Qumran.

Possible messianic elements in the Scrolls abound, and are extensively discussed in the large literature on these texts. Those elements are also very diverse, with no obvious single vision, and debate continues about the exact interpretation of key passages. Even so, messiahs and messiah-related language feature frequently. Also, these are supported by many Biblical texts that would become very familiar to later generations of Jews and Christians, including the standard passages from Isaiah and Daniel.

A good summary of the state of the question. Earlier posts in Jenkins's messiah series are noted here.

The James Ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb?

THE INDEPENDENT: The lost tomb of Jesus? Scientist claims he has 'virtually unequivocal evidence' that could help explain the whereabouts of Christ's remains (Adam Withnall).

A geologist in Jerusalem claims to have found “virtually unequivocal evidence” that could reopen the controversy over the final resting place of Jesus Christ.

Dr Aryeh Shimron says he has carried out new tests that suggest it is more likely the Talpiot Tomb, a burial site found in East Jerusalem in 1980, was a family grave for Jesus of Nazareth, his wife Mary Magdalene and his son Judah.

[...]

The geochemical tests, carried out under Dr Shimron’s supervision largely by the Israel Antiquities Authority, worked on the basis that the ossuaries in the Talpiot Tomb were all once covered by the same clay with a very distinctive mineral make-up.

[...]

That is all very interesting, but the final sentence of the article grasps the main issue:

While the results are likely to rekindle the debate surrounding the possible remains of Jesus, they are still far from accepted in scientific circles. The collector who owns the James ossuary told the Times Dr Shimron’s work determines nothing “conclusively”, while other Jerusalem archaeologists say they await its publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Scholarship is advanced by peer-review publications, not excited announcements in the media or even in blog posts.

The main issue regarding the James Ossuary is whether the inscription (or the full inscription) is ancient and, if so, as ancient as the first century. Scholars remain divided on that question. Background here and here and many, many links. I have not been paying much attention to the Talpiot Tomb discussion lately, but you can find considerable background on it here, here, and here, again with many, many links.

Archaeologists defy ISIS

THAT'S THE SPIRIT! Archaeologists defy Isis militants by finding new antiquities in Iraq (Kath Paddison, Phys.org).

The team [excavating Tell Khaiber], directed by Professor Stuart Campbell, Dr Jane Moon and Dr Robert Killick from Manchester, described their Iraqi colleagues as resourceful, innovative and resilient, even when times were bad.

"Everyone is quite rightly expressing outrage at the destruction in and around Mosul. The sad fact is, there is very little one can do to prevent deliberate vandalism by well-armed fanatics.

"But if the militants think they can 'erase history' we are helping to make sure that can't happen: it is the information that is important and not the objects. Our project is actually doing something positive for the Iraqis, and that is appreciated," Dr Moon said.

More power to them.

Background on ISIS's assault on the past is here, here, here, here and links

Magnes Press sale

FOR YOU, SPECIAL DEAL: Magnes Press: Passover book sale!