One God, One Lord, 3rd edition

LARRY HURTADO: One God, One Lord”: Third Edition Forthcoming. I read the first edition back around 1991 or 1992, when the SBL Divine Mediator Figures Group was starting up, and it has influenced my thinking a great deal.

Swenne, Démons iraniens

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: . A notice of a new book: Swennen, Philippe (ed.). 2015. Démons iraniens: actes du colloque international organisé à la Université de Liège les 5 et 6 février 2009 à l’occasion des 65 ans de Jean Kellens. Liège: Presses Universitaires de Liège.

The Story of Melchizedek

THE STORY OF MELCHIZEDEK, translated recently in Bauckham, Davila, Panayotov (eds.), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures vol. 1 (Eerdmans, 2013), is profiled by Tomas Garcia-Huidobro in his Spanish-language blog, Experiencias Religiosas y Escrituras: La Historia de Melquizedek (apócrifo cristiano).

I usually just link to English-language blogs, but I do follow this one and it is worth a look. The masthead gives its subject matter as "temprano misticismo judío, cristiano, y gnóstico como medios para iluminar los orígenes del cristianismo."

Penn, Envisioning Islam

NEW BOOK FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS:

Envisioning Islam
Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World
Michael Philip Penn

320 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth Jun 2015 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4722-0 | $59.95s | £39.00
Ebook Jun 2015 | ISBN 978-0-8122-9144-5 | $59.95s | £39.00
A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series

"A sophisticated and well-conceived study of the evolving depictions of Muslims in Syriac texts that will shed new light on the socially complicated history of early Islam."—Sydney H. Griffith, the Catholic University of America

The first Christians to encounter Islam were not Latin-speakers from the western Mediterranean or Greek-speakers from Constantinople but Mesopotamian Christians who spoke the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. Under Muslim rule from the seventh century onward, Syriac Christians wrote the most extensive descriptions extant of early Islam. Seldom translated and often omitted from modern historical reconstructions, this vast body of texts reveals a complicated and evolving range of religious and cultural exchanges that took place from the seventh to the ninth century.

The first book-length analysis of these earliest encounters, Envisioning Islam highlights the ways these neglected texts challenge the modern scholarly narrative of early Muslim conquests, rulers, and religious practice. Examining Syriac sources including letters, theological tracts, scientific treatises, and histories, Michael Philip Penn reveals a culture of substantial interreligious interaction in which the categorical boundaries between Christianity and Islam were more ambiguous than distinct. The diversity of ancient Syriac images of Islam, he demonstrates, revolutionizes our understanding of the early Islamic world and challenges widespread cultural assumptions about the history of exclusively hostile Christian-Muslim relations.

Cross-file under Syriac Watch.

Gardner, The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism

NEW BOOK FROM CUP:

The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism

AUTHOR: Gregg E. Gardner
DATE PUBLISHED: June 2015
AVAILABILITY: In stock
FORMAT: Hardback
ISBN: 9781107095434

£64.99

Description

This book examines the origins of communal and institutional almsgiving in rabbinic Judaism. It undertakes a close reading of foundational rabbinic texts (Mishnah, Tosefta, Tannaitic Midrashim) and places their discourses on organized giving in their second to third century CE contexts. Gregg E. Gardner finds that Tannaim promoted giving through the soup kitchen (tamhui) and charity fund (quppa), which enabled anonymous and collective support for the poor. This protected the dignity of the poor and provided an alternative to begging, which benefited the community as a whole - poor and non-poor alike. By contrast, later Jewish and Christian writings (from the fourth to fifth centuries) would see organized charity as a means to promote their own religious authority. This book contributes to the study of Jews and Judaism, history of religions, biblical studies, and ethics.

Non-Muslim contributions to Islamic civilisation series

JAMES MCGRATH: Mandaean Contributions to Islamic Civilization. James says:

I received word about the new book series below, and wanted to share it here, since it explicitly mentions the Mandaeans!

And so it does, but also many other traditions. The series is "Non-Muslim contributions to Islamic civilisation" from Edinburgh University Press and the background traditions it proposes to explore include the following:

The series examines the contributions of Jews, Christians (including Armenians, Copts, Ethiopians, Georgians, Mozarabs and Syriacs) Samaritans, Mandeans, Hermetics, Harranians, Zoroastrians and peripheral cultures such as the Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, “Shamanist” and African traditions to the intellectual, ideological, legal, economic and technological development of Islamic civilisation.

I look forward to hearing more.

Lamp workshop at Shikhin

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: An Ancient Jewish Lamp Workshop in the Galilee.

GSI Greek Psalter Project

TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY: TWU scholar to lead significant Septuagint project.

TWU professor and Septuagint scholar Rob Hiebert, Ph. D., has been invited to serve as a supervisor for the Green Scholars Initiative’s (GSI) Greek Psalter Project. Hiebert, who has served as a Professor of Old Testament studies since 1998, is the Director of the University’s John William Wevers Institute for Septuagint Studies.

The GSI Greek Psalter Project is a collaborative undertaking focused on an important, well-preserved papyrus containing the text of Septuagint Psalms. Papyrus Bodmer XXIV, dating to the third or fourth century, contains Psalms 17-118 (according to Septuagint numbering) in a text form that is proving to be immensely valuable for reconstructing the original text of the Greek translator. A key aspect of this GSI project will be to prepare and publish a new edition of the papyrus text, one that both corrects the errors that appeared in the first edition in 1967, and that includes new material that did not make its way into that first edition.

[...]

Although the project is sponsored by the Green Scholars Initiative, the subject of study, Papyrus Bodmer XXIV, is not part of the Green Collection. Background on the Green Collection is here and here and many links.

CORRECTION (18 July): Michael Holmes has written to tell me that Papyrus Bodmer XXIV is in fact in the Green Collection. Apologies for the error.

Gignoux, Mazdéens et chrétiens en terre d’Iran à l’époque sassanide

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Zoroastrians and Christians in Sasanian Iran. Notice of a new book: Gignoux, Philippe. 2014. Mazdéens et chrétiens en terre d’Iran à l’époque sassanide. (Ed.) Matteo De Chiara & Enrico G. Raffaelli. (Serie orientale Roma 3). Roma: Scienze e Lettere.

Judean Desert flyover video

JAMES MCGRATH: Dead Sea Drone. Amir Aloni presents us with another of his excellent, unnarrated flyover videos, this one including the Dead Sea region and Masada. More here and links.

Ellis, The Hermeneutics of Divine Testing

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

The Hermeneutics of Divine Testing
Cosmic Trials and Biblical Interpretation in the Epistle of James and Other Jewish Literature

Nicholas Ellis examines the interplay present in early Jewish literature between authors' theological assumptions on divine agency in evil and their readings of biblical testing narratives. Ellis takes as a starting point the Epistle of James , and compares this early Christian work against other examples of ancient Jewish interpretation. Ellis shows how varying perspectives on the divine, satanic, and human roles of testing exercised a direct influence on the interpretation of popular biblical testing narratives such as Abraham and Isaac, Job, and the Trials in the Wilderness. Read in light of the broader Jewish literature, Ellis argues that the theology and hermeneutic found in the Epistle of James as such relate to divine testing are closely paralleled by the so-called 'Rewritten Bible' tradition. Within James' cosmic drama, God stands as righteous judge, with the satanic prosecutor indicting both divine integrity and human religious loyalty.

R.J. Zwi Werblowsky 1924-2015

SAD NEWS FROM H-JUDAIC: Obituary: Prof. R.J. Zwi Werblowsky.

H-Judaic is greatly saddened to learn of the passing of Prof. R.J.Zwi Werblowsky (1924-2015), a towering figure in the field of Comparative Religion, and a senior scholar and Dean for many years at the Hebrew University. Werblowsky burst upon the academic scene with his brilliant doctoral dissertation, published under the title LUCIFER AND PROMETHEUS: A STUDY OF MILTON'S SATAN (1952), with an introduction by C.G.Jung, but is best known to scholars of Judaica for his important biography of JOSEPH KARO: LAWYER AND MYSTIC and for his magnificent translation of Gershom Scholem's SABBATAI ZEVI: THE MYSTICAL MESSIAH. He also coedited the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JEWISH RELIGION. ...

Parchments from Oxyrhynchus

BRICE C. JONES: Parchment Manuscripts Discovered at Oxyrhynchus. Most of the Oxyrhynchus texts are papyri (i.e., paper made from reeds), but there are a few parchments (made from animal leather. Brice Jones lists them here. There are a couple of New Testament manuscripts, one may be an otherwise unknown NT apocryphon, one is an amulet that quotes the NT, and another is a copy of LXX Genesis.

Much more on the Oxyrhynchus papyri can be found here and links.

The Temple Institute and the red heifer

CROWDSOURCING THE RED HEIFER: Raise a Red Heifer in Israel. The Temple Institute has set up an Indiegogo project for producing a herd of red heifers in preparation for the rebuilding of the Temple. Their goal is $125,000 and they have already raised nearly $10,500.

HT reader Yehoshua Rabinowitz.

We last saw the red heifer in a post on the television series Dig. We last saw the Temple Institute in a post about their gold-prospecting on Mount Eilat, and then before that in a post also about Dig. Follow the links there for more on them.

Regarding this project to rebuild the Temple, I seem to need to repeat myself endlessly: no excavation or building on the Temple Mount! Let's wait to study its contents until we have non-invasive and non-destructive technologies that allow us to study its contents without damaging the site or the buildings that are already there.

Isbell, "Emic or Etic?"

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Emic or Etic?
Interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures

A tangential issue that must be addressed is the idea that the negative language the gospels direct against Jews represents nothing more than a family squabble, or conflicts between different groups of first century Jews, and does not reflect Gentile Christians speaking ill of Jews. The evidence offered below indicates that the etic readings of Judaism by the writers of the Synoptic gospels were not part of either mainstream Judaism or any identifiable Jewish sub-group of the era. The ideology presented in these gospels is clearly Christo-centric, and the points being made far too often fit a Roman or Hellenistic context to sustain the idea that we are reading nothing more than the saga of some Jews involved in a petty dispute. In addition, the church fathers, who were certainly not Jewish, had no difficulty in using the NT to denigrate Judaism in a most derogatory fashion. This they could do without the necessity of rephrasing as Gentiles what they read in a Jewish New Testament. All they needed to do was to take seriously the NT on its own terms as they read and understood it. As it stood, it fit well with the decidedly non-Jewish world views and cultures of the church fathers.

See Also: How Jews and Christians Interpret Their Sacred Texts (Resource Publications, 2014).

By Charles David Isbell
Director of Jewish Studies
Louisiana State University
July 2015

Interesting perspective, but I would like to see some interaction with the Second Temple Jewish literature, notably the Qumran sectarian texts and the Enochic literature.

Holiday

I'M TAKING THE REST OF THE WEEK OFF to get out of St. Andrews, both to escape the British Open and to get some rest. I don't intend to keep up with news blogging while I'm away, unless someone finds the Ark of the Covenant or something. But I will try to post now and then, and I have already pre-posted lots of things, so do keep coming back as usual. Have a good week.

Good and bad vow-work-arounds in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: What’s Mine Is Mine and What’s Yours Is Mine, Too. Giving, taking, owning, donating, and other elements of property law, in this week’s ‘Daf Yomi.’

Reading Tractate Nedarim over the last several weeks, it has become clear that the rabbis of the Talmud walk a fine line when it comes to vows. On the one hand, they disapprove of the institution of vowing and offer many opportunities for a Jew to annul his or her vows. We saw, for instance, that a vow made in exaggerated terms, or one made in the heat of a business negotiation, can be canceled by the court. On the other hand, the rabbis do not want people to use deliberately dishonest means to get out of their own vows—for instance, by claiming that they didn’t use the words they seemed to use, but meaningless homonyms. After all, if people could get out of their vows so easily, it might have the perverse effect of making vowing more common—not to mention encouraging contempt for the law. Threading this needle—making it easy to get out of your vows, but not too easy—is an ongoing challenge for the rabbis.

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

More on Aksum

TRAVEL: AKSUM, HOME OF STUNNING ANCIENT CRAFTS (Mamo Gebrehiwot, Ethiosports). "Crafts" is a modest term for the massive stone monuments on the site. Aksum (Axum), in Ethiopia, has been getting quite a bit of media attention lately.

Background, including why PaleoJudaica is interested in the site, is here and links.

More mosaics at Huqoq

ANOTHER SITE THAT KEEPS ON GIVING: Unique Images Uncovered in Fifth-Century Synagogue (Archaeology Magazine).

This summer’s excavations have revealed images surrounding a dedicatory inscription that include animals, male figures supporting a garland, a rooster, and male and female faces in a wreath. There are also winged putti, or cupids, holding roundels with theater masks. The team also uncovered columns inside the synagogue that had been covered in plaster and painted ivy leaf designs.

The following article by Daryl Worthington at New Historian gives another detail or two (the dedicatory inscription mentioned above is in Hebrew) and some more background on other mosaic finds at Huqoq: Unique Mosaics Found in Synagogue in Galilee.

Background on Huqoq and its mosaics is here and many links.

Why the GJW is a fake

WORTH REPEATING: 5 Reasons Why the Gospel of Jesus' Wife Is a Fake (Simon J. Gathercole, Christianity Today). Regular readers of PaleoJudaica will be well familiar with all of these points, but Dr. Gathercole has done a service by gathering them all in one brief article.

Background here with oh so many links.

The Messiah and the Nephilim?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: No Fairy Tale: Will Giants Return to Usher in the Messianic Era? ( Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, Breaking Israel News). Without endorsing this or any other eschatological scenario, I thought the mix of traditional sources cited in this essay was worth noting.

Lots more on the Zohar is here and links. The Zohar is written in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Shimon ben Yohai), but was composed long after his time. An excellent collection of midrashic material by Jack Collins, relating to the Flood, the watchers, and the giants, is noted here. The Midrash of Shemihazai is to be translated in the second volume of the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project, along with the rest of the Book of Giants material. More on Og the giant is here and links. The Nephilim have appeared frequently in PaleoJudaica and you can find the many posts through the search engine.

I have never before seen b. Sanhedrin 97a brought into the discussion of the Nephilim and I am skeptical that "Bar Nafli" has anything to do with them. It looks to me to be a messianic title based on the phrase "the fallen booth of David" in Amos 9:11. But I am willing to hear the case made if someone wants to make it.

Report on damage to Palmyra

PALMYRA WATCH: Palmyra: Heritage Adrift. A Special Report from the Association for the Protection of Syrian Archaeology (APSA) (Cheikhmous Ali, June 29, 2015). A report on damage to the site from February 2012 to June 2015. From the ASOR Syrian Heritage Initiative and the Association for the Protection of Syrian Archaeology. A downloadable pdf file.

Background on Palmyra is here and links.

"Please, do not steal antiquities!"

SOUNDS LIKE THEY WERE BAD LUCK: Ancient Roman Sling Stones Returned by Repentant Robber. 20 years after stealing 2,000-year-old sling stones, thief turns them in with note: 'they brought me nothing but trouble. Don't steal!' (Ari Yashar, Arutz Sheva).

In a surprising turn of events, an antiquities robber last week handed in two 2,000-year-old Roman sling stones that he had stolen 20 years ago, leaving them in the courtyard of the Museum of Islamic and Near Eastern Cultures in Be'er Sheva.

Amos Cohen, an employee of the museum, made the surprising discovery of the stones together with a typed note left by an anonymous individual in a bag in the courtyard.

"These are two Roman ballista balls from Gamla, from a residential quarter at the foot of the summit. I stole them in July 1995 and since then they have brought me nothing but trouble. Please, do not steal antiquities!," read the note from the repentant robber.

[...]

Well, the thief did the right thing and I hope his or her luck improves now.

Arrests in the Church of Loaves and Fishes arson case

PROGRESS: Police Arrest Suspects in Church of Bread and Fish Arson (JNi.Media).

The arrests followed an intense, undercover investigation conducted by Internal Security (Shin Bet) and the special Nationalistic Crime unit of the Judea and Samaria police. The suspects were interrogated by the Shin Bet, and will be arraigned Sunday in Nazareth Magistrate Court. The police will request the suspects’ remand. A gag order has been imposed on the investigation and the identities of the suspects.

The Shin Bet and the police issued an edict preventing the suspects from meeting with a lawyer for five days. Attorneys Aaron Rosa and Adi Keidar from the Honenu legal aid organization have filed urgent appeals in both Magistrates and District courts in Jerusalem against the order.

I am glad that there is progress on the case, but if the article is accurate and the arrested suspects are being denied legal counsel, I find that disquieting and heavy handed. The vile nature of the crime should not have a deleterious effect on the civil rights of the accused, who, after all, should be assumed to be innocent until proven guilty in court.

Background here and here.

Name that Phoenician city

PHOENICIAN WATCH: The rise and fall of a forgotten Phoenician city (and its connection to the Israelites) (Ayelet Gilboa, Jerusalem Post). Looks like it started out as an Phoenician city until the Israelites took it over. By the way, as I think I've mentioned before, I was a lowly assistant square supervisor at Tel Dor during the 1987-88 seasons.

The site of Jesus' baptism? Maybe.

NOT SETTLED: UNESCO backs Jordan as Jesus’ baptism site as debate goes on (KARIN LAUB AND SAM MCNEIL, AP). UNESCO is being called out by archaeologists for taking a position on this archaeological debate. Readers of PaleoJudaica were already aware of the issue.

Aramaic death metal

ARAMAIC WATCH: KATAKLYSM: New Song 'Soul Destroyer' Available For Streaming (Blabbermouth.net).

Montreal-based death metallers KATAKLYSM will release new album, "Of Ghosts And Gods", on July 31 via Nuclear Blast. The cover artwork for the follow-up to "Waiting For The End To Come" was created by up-and-coming dark and macabre artist Art By Surtsey and can be seen below.

[...]

According to KATAKYSM [sic], the "cover art echoes a sinister artwork depicting the reality of humanity's beautifully disturbing existence and its impending death through the mortal and the everlasting. The background shows an ancient Incantation written in Aramaic."

[...]

I've been aware of this forthcoming album cover for some time, but until now none of the photos have been large enough for the incantation to be very visible. The photo in this article (follow the link above, bottom photo) is somewhat better, although I still cannot make out any connected sense. The upper image on the right shows a circular, spiralling text with a drawing in the middle, partially obscured by the bird's head, and another drawing at the top. The script looks like Syriac and the layout makes me think it is based on a Babylonian incantation bowl. (For comparison, see the image of a Syriac incantation bowl in the article linked to in the post immediately preceding this one.) Below this image is another inscription written in the square Hebrew script with a normal page layout. What little text I can make out does look like Aramaic. On the left is another spiral inscription with an image in the center, again probably based on an incantation bowl. The inscription is too blurred to read, but it is written in the square Hebrew script.

So I see three Aramaic inscriptions here rather than just one.

The streamed songs from the album are ... vigorous.

Death and black metal bands often draw on interesting ancient traditions. Relevant past posts are here, here (near the end), here, and here. And for lots more on Aramaic incantation bowls, see here and here and links.

Syriac Symposium at the Catholic University

SYRIAC WATCH: Catholic University exhibit highlights Syriac Christian traditions (ABBEY JAROMA, Catholic News Service).

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Sitting in the May Gallery in the John K. Mullen of Denver Memorial Library at The Catholic University of America in Washington, one can feel immersed in 19th-century Syriac Christian life.

Held every four years since 1991, the North American Syriac Symposium brings together university professors, graduate students and scholars from around the country and abroad to discuss topics related to the language, literature and cultural history of Syriac Christianity. Catholic University is the only university to host the symposium twice.

Aaron Butts, an assistant professor in the Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures, told Catholic News Service the university “has a huge collection” of artifacts from Msgr. Henri Hyvernat that makes it “a great place to have the conference. You have all these original artifacts that just add an element that if you had the conference at another university, you wouldn’t have.”

Those artifacts include manuscripts, photographs and an incantation bowl.

[...]

Sounds like a good symposium.

One item is an incantation bowl, which 19th-century Syriac Christians would use by writing a magic spell on the inside and then placing it in their doorway, believing that it would keep the evil spirits out. Such bowls were used in the same way in the Jewish tradition during the same time period.

I think there is an error here. Incantation bowls were produced and used in Babylonia in the fifth to seventh centuries CE. Although in recent years there has been some retro production of such bowls, I've never heard of one from the nineteenth century. Also, James A. Montgomery published an 11-line Syriac incantation bowl in 1918 which belonged to Hyvernat, and this appears to be it. Perhaps the mixup occurred because Hyvernat also has nineteenth-century Syriac manuscripts in his possession and all these artifacts are now in the Catholic University's collection. In any case, you can see a photo of the bowl at the first link above.

CORRECTION: There was a typo in the date given for Montgomery's publication. It is now corrected.

Reception of Zenobia in Islam

PALMYRA WATCH: Homage to Zenobia (Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker).

She was probably in her twenties when she took the throne, upon the death of her husband, King Odenathus, in 267 or 268. Acting as regent for her young son, she then led the army in a revolt against the Romans, conquering Egypt and parts of Asia Minor. By 271, she had gained control of a third of the Roman Empire. Gibbon sometimes portrays the warrior queen as a kind of well-schooled Roman society matron. “She was not ignorant of the Latin tongue,” he writes, “but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages.” Palmyra’s abundant wall inscriptions are in Latin, Greek, and an Aramaic dialect, not Arabic. But to Arab historians, such as the ninth-century al-Tabari, Zenobia was a tribal queen of Arab, rather than Greek, descent, whose original name was Zaynab, or al-Zabba. Among Muslims, she is seen as a herald of the Islamic conquests that came four centuries later.

This view, popular within the current Syrian regime, which boasts Zenobia on its currency, also resonates within radical Islamic circles. Glen Bowersock, a professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, says, “I suspect ISIS believes Palmyra to be somehow a distinctively Arab place, where Zenobia stood up to the Roman emperor.” Indeed, ISIS fighters, after seizing Palmyra, released a video showing the temples and colonnades at the ruins, a UNESCO World Heritage site, intact. “Concerning the historical city, we will preserve it,” an ISIS commander, Abu Laith al-Saudi, told a Syrian radio station. “What we will do is pulverize the statues the miscreants used to pray to.” Fighters then set about sledgehammering statues and shrines.

Perhaps this is why ISIS has not (yet) destroyed the ruins of the ancient city.

Background on the history of Palmyra and its current situation is here and links. Past posts on Zenobia are here and links (although I've heard some skepticism on whether the destroyed statue was really of Zenobia).

Timuş, Cosmogonie et eschatologie

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Zoroastrian Cosmogony and Eschatology. New book: Timuş, Mihaela. 2015. Cosmogonie et eschatologie: articulations conceptuelles du système religieux zoroastrien. (Cahiers de Studia Iranica 54). Paris: Peeters Press. Follow the link for a description and ordering information.

Nabataean script

AHRAM ONLINE: Calligraphy tales at Art Corner in Zamalek. New exhibition featuring 14 artists brings a modern twist to the traditional art form of Arabic calligraphy (Hala Safwat).

During the last days of Ramadan, Zamalek's Art Corner Gallery is hosting a new exhibition that celebrates the rich history of Arabic calligraphy – with a modern twist.

'The Story of Arabic Calligraphy' features the work of fourteen artists who have been inspired by the Islamic and Arab heritage of calligraphic art. Their works draw on the elegant curves of the Arabic text in order to create new artistic pieces with a modern flavour.

[...]

This is a fascinating exhibition, but it is really outside the scope of PaleoJudaica. I mention it because the following in it caught my eye and may be of interest to readers:

A history of Arabic calligraphy

Arabic text developed from Nabataean script – a form of writing used by the Nabataeans, who lived in territory located in modern-day Jordan, north-western Saudi Arabia and the Sinai Peninsula, and centred on Petra.

Historians have demonstrated the connection between Nabataean script and Arabic, using archaeological evidence such as the Namara inscription from Syria in 328AD, which uses Nabataean script to write Arabic, and the Zabad inscription from Syria in 512AD which is in three languages, Greek, Syriac, and Arabic. In this inscription, the Arabic text is recognisable but shows Nabataean influence.

"Researchers have argued that Arabic text originated between the era of the Namara inscription and and Zabad inscription, and the Harran inscription (of 568 AD) is considered the era of Nabataean transition to the Arabic script," calligrapher Mounir El-Shaarani told Ahram Online.

If you are interested in the further history of Arabic calligraphy, keep reading. But Nabataean (Nabatean) epigraphy and Arabic calligraphy are not my areas, so I can't vouch for the specifics.

A couple of related recent posts are here and here. Cross-file under Aramaic Watch.

Samiei, Ancient Persia in Western History

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Hellenism and the Achaemenid Empire. On a new book from I. B. Tauris.

Boyarin, A Traveling Homeland

NEW BOOK FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS:

A Traveling Homeland
The Babylonian Talmud as Diaspora
Daniel Boyarin

192 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth Jun 2015 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4724-4 | $24.95s | £16.50
Ebook Jun 2015 | ISBN 978-0-8122-9139-1 | $24.95s | £16.50
A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series
View table of contents and excerpt

"After two decades of exciting debate, the theory of diaspora studies is now in gridlock and in need of new interventions. This is such an intervention—a strong and exhilarating book."—Khachig Tölölyan, Wesleyan University

"Daniel Boyarin demolishes the long-standing notion that diaspora was born out of despair and sorrow. A Traveling Homeland is a highly erudite, suggestive, and provocative study on the concept of diaspora, and the Jewish diaspora in particular."—Oded Irshai, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

A word conventionally imbued with melancholy meanings, "diaspora" has been used variously to describe the cataclysmic historical event of displacement, the subsequent geographical scattering of peoples, or the conditions of alienation abroad and yearning for an ancestral home. But as Daniel Boyarin writes, diaspora may be more constructively construed as a form of cultural hybridity or a mode of analysis. In A Traveling Homeland, he makes the case that a shared homeland or past and traumatic dissociation are not necessary conditions for diaspora and that Jews carry their homeland with them in diaspora, in the form of textual, interpretive communities built around talmudic study.

For Boyarin, the Babylonian Talmud is a diasporist manifesto, a text that produces and defines the practices that constitute Jewish diasporic identity. Boyarin examines the ways the Babylonian Talmud imagines its own community and sense of homeland, and he shows how talmudic commentaries from the medieval and early modern periods also produce a doubled cultural identity. He links the ongoing productivity of this bifocal cultural vision to the nature of the book: as the physical text moved between different times and places, the methods of its study developed through contact with surrounding cultures. Ultimately, A Traveling Homeland envisions talmudic study as the center of a shared Jewish identity and a distinctive feature of the Jewish diaspora that defines it as a thing apart from other cultural migrations.

Jewish Palermo

A CAPSULE HISTORY: Rediscovering Jewish Palermo (by Irene Shaland and Bianca Del Bello, Special to The [Jewish] Chronicle).

Contrary to popular opinion, Sicily’s Jewish culture was not imported from Spain but came from Judea in antiquity as part of the Diaspora. Some sources date the arrival of the first Jewish settlers in Sicily to the destruction of Jerusalem’s Second Temple in 70 A.D. when Titus brought over 30,000 Jewish slaves to Rome, some of whom were later sent to the island of Sicily. Academics generally agree though that the Jewish presence in Italy began long before that. A sizable Jewish community was likely established in the southeastern part of Sicily in Siracusa during the Hellenistic Greek period. Encyclopedia Judaica quotes the record of the first known European Jewish poet Caecilius of Calacte moving to Rome from Sicily in 50 A.D., 20 years prior to Titus’ slaves. These records prove that the Sicilian Jewish community is the oldest in Europe.

The Phoenicians, a Semitic people, were the first to colonize Sicily in 800 B.C. They established a city-port they called Zis, now known as Palermo. They spoke a language similar to Hebrew and developed the first alphabet that was written like Hebrew. The Greeks came 100 years later, and 500 years later, the Romans. The Vandals came 500 years after the Romans, then the Arabs, the Normans, the Schwabians, the French and the Spanish. The last wave of invaders came after the unification of Italy in 1861. These were the “northern Italians,” as the locals call them.

I don't know anything about the history of Judaism in Sicily, so I'm just passing the article on to you. If a reader has any comments about its accuracy, just drop me a note. Cross-file under Phoenician Watch.

Lectures in Jerusalem

ABR LECTURE SERIES: Lee University Professors Present At Lecture Series In Israel (, The Chattanoogan).

Lee University’s Dr. Brian Peterson and Dr. William Simmons presented at the annual Associates for Biblical Research (ABR) lecture series in Jerusalem, Israel. This lecture series, focused on biblical archaeology, is associated with ABR’s ongoing work at Khirbet el-Maqatir, an archaeological dig where both Dr. Peterson and Simmons have worked.

Dr. Peterson presented a paper discussing first-century home construction techniques. The paper is due to be published this year in ABR’s quarterly journal, Bible and Spade.

“This presentation was rooted in my excavations at Khirbet el-Maqatir, which have given me insight into how houses in the central highlands of Israel were constructed during the time of Jesus,” said Dr. Peterson. “This work in turn may help us understand Jesus’ role as a ‘carpenter’ (Mark 6:3) living in the hills of the Galilee. Jesus may not have been a “woodworker” per se but rather a stone mason/craftsman.”

He also delivered a second paper on the ritual desecration of figurines at Hazor and Maqatir.

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Dr. Simmons presented a paper titled “Jewish Conflict and the Roman Conquest of Israel” that examined the detrimental effects of internal Jewish factions on Israel’s security compared to the external threat of the Romans.

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More on Susa

ANCIENT ORIGINS: The ancient city of Susa in Iran is a worldwide treasure (ROBIN WHITLOCK). This article, inspired by the recent naming of Susa as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is not a bad overview of the history of the city. But it could nuance its discussion to clarify the legendary nature of the book of Daniel and of the tomb attributed to him in Susa.

More on that (traditional) Tomb of Daniel is here and here. And more on Susa (in relation to the book of Esther) is here.

Tefillin

YONA SABAR: Hebrew word of the week: Tefillin (Jewish Journal).

Eastman, The Ancient Martyrdom Accounts of Peter and Paul

NEW BOOK FROM THE SBL PRESS: Ohio Wesleyan professor’s book explores deaths of apostles Peter, Paul.

In a new book, an Ohio Wesleyan University professor, David L. Eastman, explores accounts of the deaths of the apostles Peter and Paul, including tales of attack dogs, a severed head lost and a showdown with a sorcerer.

The Ancient Martyrdom Accounts of Peter and Paul (Writings from the Greco-Roman World) has been published by Atlanta-based SBL Press.

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British archaeologists to the rescue

THAT'S THE SPIRIT: Indiana Jones-style defenders to protect antiquities from ISIS (Eli Leon and News Agencies, Israel HaYom).

Footage of Islamic State group destroying ancient statues at the ruins of Palmyra sets the cultural preservation community into motion to protect historic sites throughout Syria and Iraq • Britain funds mission of archeologists to the region.

More details in the cited Daily Beast article by Nico Hines: Real-Life Indiana Jones Vs. ISIS.

More on ISIS's assault on the past is here and links.

Palmyra on the verge of being retaken?

PALMYRA WATCH: Syrian Regime Poised to Retake Ancient Palmyra. Syrian soldiers wage pitched battle against ISIS just kilometers from ancient city that was seized in May, can enter city 'at any moment.' (Arutz Sheva). We'll see. If this does happen, I hope it does not result in the ruins being blown to smithereens. And it sounds as though whatever happens, it isn't going to be easy for civilians in the city.

Background here and links.

More on that Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities report

POLITICS: National Academy of Sciences criticizes politicization of Israeli archaeology. State’s links with right-wing Elad NGO come under fire in report; Elad: Report is biased against us (Nir Hasson, Haaretz).

In a comprehensive report on Israeli archaeology, the National Academy of Sciences criticizes the political use of archeology, the far-reaching cooperation between the right-wing Elad association and the Nature and Parks Authority, the prohibition on researching skeletons and the transformation of Israel into a center for illegal trade in antiquities.

The report, published last week and written by a committee headed by eminent archaeologist Prof. Yoram Tsafrir, is based on meetings with many office-holders who work in aspects of the field, including the curriculum in archeology departments, the state of research, Antiquities Authority digs, site preservation, looting, trade in antiquities and more. The reported lauded the high quality of Israeli archeological research and of teaching at the universities.

The only individual who refused to appear before the committee was the head of the right-wing Elad association, David Be’eri. Elad is involved in Jewish settlement in the Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem and operates the City of David National Park there, under an agreement it has with the Nature and Parks Authority. Under that agreement, for several years now a number of the most important and extensive archeological digs in the country have been carried out. The organization is also funding most of the excavations in the area of the park.

According to Elad offcials, Prof. Tsafrir – a Hebrew University professor emeritus who in the past petitioned the court against Elad because of its intention to build a residential neighborhood on top of the antiquities, is tainted with politicization. In light of Be’eri’s refusal to appear before the committee, representatives from organizations on the left that are attacking Elad and its connections with the state were not invited to appear before the committee either.

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This story was mentioned in a post on another topic yesterday, but this article has much more information. Background on Elad is there and links. Professor Tsafrir has been mentioned before in PaleoJudaica posts here and here.

Israel and West-Bank archaeology

POLITCS AND LAW: Israel cites boycotts, foreign relations in refusal to divulge West Bank archaeology info. Publishing archaeologists' names could endanger their professional future, says state to justify ignoring Freedom of Information Law. (Nir Hasson, Haaretz).

The State of Israel has argued in court in cannot comply with the Freedom of Information Law regarding the identities of archaeologists who excavate in the West Bank because doing so could endanger their professional future.

It also refused to give any information about what has become of artifacts excavated in the territories, for fear of “undermining the state’s foreign relations,” according to a brief filed with the Jerusalem District Court earlier this year.

The case began two years ago, when two left-wing organizations, Yesh Din and Emek Shaveh, filed a freedom of information request seeking data about digs in the West Bank.

For digs in Israel, the information they sought would be readily available through the Israel Antiquities Authority. But digs in the West Bank are under the authority of the Civil Administration, which refused to divulge most of the requested information. The organizations consequently petitioned the court against this refusal a year ago.

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Meanwhile, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities on Tuesday released a report on the state of Israeli archaeology that criticized the political use made of archeology, the close cooperation between the right-wing organization Elad and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and the ban on excavating human remains, imposed at the demand of the ultra-Orthodox. It also charged that Israel has become a center for illegal trade in antiquities.

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More on Elad and Emek Shaveh here and here and links.

UPDATE (10 July): More on the abovementioned Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities report here.

Digging at Huqoq

INTERVIEW: Archaeology student digs deeper (Melonie McLaurin, Your Daily Journal). With Austin Glock Andrews, a UNC Chapel Hill student-volunteer at the site.

Background on Huqoq, best known for its remarkably ancient mosaics, is here and links.

Pe-‛Ayin or ’Ayin-Pe? Details matter!

THE HEBREW ALPHABET: The Unusual Pe Preceding Ayin Order in the Acrostics of the Book of Eikhah (Mitchell First, Jewish Link of New Jersey). An interesting application of evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient Hebrew/Canaanite inscriptions to an old crux interpretum in one of the Psalms.

There is more on the Tel Zayit abecedary inscription and related finds here and links.

Who reads the Bible in Israel?

BUT THAT MEANS 70% HAVE: Poll: 30% of Secular Israelis Have Never Read Tanach (Eliyahu Berkowitz, JPUpdates). I bet the percentage who have for religiously non-observant Britons and North Americans is lower.

The article has many additional interesting statistics about biblical literacy in Israel.

Demons, treasure, and tomb violaters in Jerusalem

FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF CREATIVE EXCUSES: Man Caught in Attempted Tomb Robbing: ‘I Wanted to Banish the Demon that Guards the Cave’ (Tazpit News Agency/The Jewish Press)

According to IAA spokesperson, during his preliminary investigation the family’s patriarch told investigators at the scene that he was in fact an exorcist by profession and a remover of curses. He explained that his sons alerted him to a presence of a demon guarding the cave.

“The man, claiming to be an exorcist admitted to his investigators that his purpose was to rob the burial cave of its potential treasure.” Rotstein told Tazpit. “However, he stated that he was so convinced that there would be a great treasure in the cave because a demon was guarding it and he came to banish the demon from the cave.”

The unit chief explained that it is a well-known phenomenon in the Arab population, even when discovering natural caves, to send in a “specialist” to clear it from evil spirits and demons.

He fought the book burners and won

JOHANNES REUCHLIN: The Renaissance Scholar Who Rescued The Talmud, Zohar and Other Books of Jewish Learning (Howard Zik, The Jewish Press).

It may, therefore, be said that in addition to saving the sacred books for Jews for future generations, Reuchlin opened the door to a revolution in the world of science by establishing a vital connection with productive ideas in Kabbalistic thought.

More on Isaac Newton's writings in relation to Judaism is here and links. Sadly, as we saw very recently, there are still people who want to burn the Talmud.

LXX prize

IOSCS: 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.

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For (academically) younger scholars only. The deadline for submission is 15 August. Follow the link for further particulars.

UNESCO vs. Israel

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: UNESCO set to condemn Israel for ‘endangering’ Jerusalem’s Old City. Foreign Ministry slams Arab-led resolution as ‘completely one-sided,’ says it ‘deliberately ignores’ Jewish and Christian ties to city (Times of Israel/AP).

The CNN piece mentioned in this article was noted here and here.

Roman camp discovered near Megiddo

EXCAVATION: In first, imperial Roman legionary camp uncovered near Megiddo. Archaeologists unearth remains of 2,000-year-old Galilee garrison of Sixth Legion Ferrata, where 5,000 men kept order at time of Bar Kochba Revolt — the only permanent Roman military camp ever discovered in region (ILAN BEN ZION, Times of Israel).

The number of Roman military camps of this type found in the eastern half of the Roman Empire “is zero,” said Matthew J. Adams, head of the Albright Institute and co-director of the dig: “Our entire understanding about Roman military architecture, and especially Roman legionary bases for this particular period… comes from the western empire — Germany, Britain and Gaul.”

St Mary's Church in Mosul reportedly destroyed

Mosul: Isis Blows Up Another Ancient Church in Iraq, 4 Children Killed Accidentally (Johnlee Varghese, International Business Times).

The Islamic State (Isis) militants accidentally killed four children while blowing up an ancient church in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

The historical St Mary's church was destroyed by the Isis on Monday, Kurdish news source - Rudaw reported.

The four Iraqi children were near the church and were killed in the explosion, Saeed Mamuzini, media officer of the Mosul branch of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK), told Rudaw.

Mamuzin added that the church located in central Mosul was "thousands of years" old.

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I cannot find any information on how old the Chaldean Catholic Church of the Virgin Mary in Mosul is (was?), but this article seems to indicate that there is a tradition that it is ancient.

More on ISIS's assault on the past is here and here and many links.

Jewish studies teaching fellowship at KCL

JOB: Teaching Fellow in Jewish Studies.

King’s College London is seeking an outstanding Teaching Fellow in Jewish Studies (0.4 FTE). This is a permanent post with a start date of 1st September 2015. The successful candidate will teach in the field of Jewish Studies with a particular focus on rabbinic literature. S/he will have a track record or potential as a researcher in the area of specialisation. Expertise in related areas, such as Jewish history and culture in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Jewish-Christian or Jewish-Muslim relations, and Jewish Thought, will be welcome.

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The search closes on 30 July. Follow the link for further particulars

Aramaic Studies on the Babylonian incantation bowls

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Studies on Aramaic Magic Bowls and Related Subjects. A special issue of the Journal Aramaic Studies.

Vows and teaching fees in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Is It Fair To Charge Fees for Religious Education? This week’s Talmudic debate is centered on the perceived and real benefits of study, teaching, and sacrifice.

As summer rolls on, Jewish parents everywhere are getting ready for the annual tradition of writing tuition checks for Hebrew school or Jewish day school and the accompanying tradition of complaining about the high cost of Jewish education. But is it, in fact, permitted under Jewish law to charge for the teaching of Torah? This week’s Daf Yomi reading raised that interesting question, in connection with the core subject of Tractate Nedarim, the taking of vows. The most common form of vow-taking, the Talmud has shown over the last few weeks, is vowing to forbid a certain individual from “deriving benefit” from oneself—or vice versa, to refuse to derive benefit from a given person. This kind of one-on-one excommunication is frowned upon by the rabbis, since it involves God in what is usually just a personal dispute. But once such a vow is taken, the Talmud asks, what is its scope? What sorts of actions are defined as “benefits” in a legal sense?

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Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Jacobus on 4Q208-4Q209

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Reconstructing 4Q208–4Q209 as an Astronomical Artefact

It is probable that 4QZodiac Calendar may be a Jewish-Aramaic descendant of similar late Babylonian zodiacal calendar texts with which it bears close structural similarities.

See Also: Zodiac Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Reception (Brill Academic Pub, 2014).

By Helen R. Jacobus
Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies
University College London
July 2015

Her book was noted earlier here. Related posts are here and here.

Eilat Mazar

PROFILE: Dr. Eilat Mazar: Biblical Archaeologist (Prof. Livia Bitton-Jackson, The Jewish Press).

Past posts on Dr. Mazar are here and here. She has been mentioned often at PaleoJudaica.

CNN and the Temple Mount

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: CNN is coming under severe criticism for including the Old City of Jerusalem (with mention of the Dome of the Rock) at the top of its list of endangered historical sites, while leaving out another obvious one. It does seem like an odd list.

Dome of Rock tops CNN list of sites on ‘verge of extinction'; no place for Palmyra. Jerusalem holy place at No. 1 on ‘Last chance to see’ list. Syrian city, whose iconic 2,000-year-old lion was smashed last week, misses out (Times of Israel/JTA).

CNN Claims Jerusalem’s Old City Endangered But Has No Room for Palmyra (Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary Magazine).

Cross-file under Palmyra Watch. Background on the CNN story is here. Background on Palmyra is here and links.

Kurdistan's Jewish heritage

EDITORIAL: Kurdistan needs help to preserve its Jewish heritage. In present-day Kurdistan, the Jewish heritage and its stories are almost forgotten (JUDIT NEURINK, Jerusalem Post).

A main feature of the synagogue is the tomb of the biblical prophet Nahum, who correctly predicted the end of the Assyrian Empire – although his bones have for safety reasons been moved to a nearby church. Until the Fifties, Jews from all over the country would come here on a yearly pilgrimage during Shavuot. “He who has not made the pilgrimage to Nahum’s tomb has not yet known real pleasure,” the common saying was then.

Al Qosh now is a Christian town. Once it was a mixed town, where Christians and Jews lived in harmony, like in so many other places in Iraq. The key to the synagogue’s gate is now guarded by the son of an old Christian friend of the last rabbi, who was one of the last to leave in the early ‘50s, when after the creation of the State of Israel Jews were made to feel they were no longer welcome.

Yet Jews in Iraqi Kurdistan – where Al Qosh is situated from a geographic point of view, although politically it is part of the Iraqi government of Baghdad – were very much part of the fabric of the society. They were mainly farmers and craftsmen, living side by side with the Kurds, and in the process taking over many of their habits. Although intermarriage was not common, friendships were.

Background on the (traditional) Tomb of Nahum in Al Qosh is here and links. And more on Aramaic-speaking Jews in Kurdistan is here and links.

New World Heritage Sites

UNESCO has released a list of newly declared World Heritage Sites, some of which are of PaleoJudaic interest:

Ancient Jewish necropolis named World Heritage Site. UNESCO adds Beit She’arim’s Roman-era catacombs, where author of Mishnah is buried, to list of protected locales (Stuart Winer, Times of Israel).

The World Heritage List enshrined Beit She’arim because its catacombs contain a “treasury of artworks and inscriptions in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew” and bear “a unique testimony to ancient Judaism under the leadership of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, who is credited with Jewish renewal after 135 CE.”

Some past posts on Beit She'arim (Beit Shearim) are here, here, here, here, here, and links.

Susa, of Purim story fame, becomes World Heritage Site. Ancient city known in the Bible as Shushan is said to be where dramatic events in Scroll of Esther played out (Times of Israel/AFP).

A couple of past posts pertaining to Susa are here and here.

Jesus baptism site and France champagne hillsides get Unesco heritage tag (Jayalakshmi K, International Business Times)

The Jordanian site where Jesus was baptised is among many new places added to Unesco's heritage list.

"Bethany Beyond the Jordan" (Al-Maghtas), situated on the eastern bank of the River Jordan and 9kms north of the Dead Sea, encompasses Elijah's Hill and the area that houses remains of churches of Saint John who baptised Jesus of Nazareth.

The site features Roman and Byzantine remains including churches and chapels, a monastery, caves that have been used by hermits and pools in which baptisms were celebrated.

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This is a possible site of the baptism of Jesus, but not the only possible one. Background here and links.

ISIS execution video in Palmyra

PALMYRA WATCH: IS video shows mass execution in Syria’s ancient Palmyra. Jihadist group releases footage of teenagers shooting government soldiers at the city’s Roman amphitheater (AFP). The story of the amphitheatre executions was first reported at the end of May.

A reminder that the barbarities of ISIS go far beyond the destruction of antiquities.

More background on Palmyra is here and links.

No reports of Talmud burning

NAZIS. I HATE THESE GUYS. London 'anti-Jewification' demo dwarfed by anti-fascist counter-protest. Lines of police keep two groups apart as neo-Nazis stage demonstration against Jewish neighbourhood watch group (Damien Gayle, The Guardian).

This story has taken various twists and turns, but I don't like to give these people any more media oxygen than absolutely necessary, so I haven't posted on them. You can read the article above, if you are curious. The only point of interest for PaleoJudaica is that there is no indication so far that the planned private Talmud burning ever took place. I hope the threat of it was just a ploy for attention.

Meanwhile, this revolting story reminded me of a post from some years ago which remains timely: The futility of book-burning.

CNN's 25 structures to see before they are destroyed

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: CNN lists Dome of the Rock among 'magnificent structures on the verge of extinction.' The Temple Mount structure makes the number one spot on the list of places to see before they are destroyed. (RO YEGER, Jerusalem Post). To be a bit more precise, the list begins with the Old City of Jerusalem and mentions the Dome of the Rock and has a photo of it. Petra and Pompeii are also on the list.

Dissertation on Rabbinic agricultural spaces by John Mandsager

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Dissertation Spotlight: John Mandsager.

Mandsager, John. To Stake a Claim: The Making of Rabbinic Agricultural Spaces in the Roman Countryside. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 2014.

This dissertation spotlight column in AJR is a great idea. I hope we'll see more of them.

Review of Seland (ed.), Reading Philo

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Torrey Seland (ed.), Reading Philo: A Handbook to Philo of Alexandria. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014. Pp. xvi, 345. ISBN 9780802870698. $45.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Sami Yli-Karjanmaa, University of Helsinki (sami.yli-karjanmaa@helsinki.fi)

Preview

“I’m afraid of him.” This comment about Philo by an established biblical scholar which I once heard in an international gathering is, I think, reflective of the reasons why Philo is still used so little in both biblical and classical studies. The “fear of getting him wrong,” so the scholar specified, is understandable given the large size of his corpus, the complexity of his allegories and the (largely unfounded) reputation of inconsistency. Given this state of affairs, every opportunity should be seized to make the Alexandrian exegete more accessible. My perception of this need informs this review: seasoned scholars who have yet to embark on the study of Philo differ little in this respect from the M.A. and Ph.D. students at whom Reading Philo is aimed. There are not too many handbooks on Philo, and additions are warmly welcome. They should have clarity, consistency and comprehensiveness as their aims.

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There's more on the book here and here.

Axum

TRAVEL: Axum: Chronicles of Ethiopia’s long history (Adie Vanessa Offiong, Daily Trust). A nice, brief overview of the history of Axum (Aksum), which came up most recently in the story of the Ethiopian Sleeping Beauty, but has also featured in PaleoJudaica posts dealing with the Queen of Sheba, legends about the Ark of the Covenant, and other stories. Follow the latter link for specifics.

Review of Müller, Pakkala, and Romeny, Evidence of Editing and Pakkala, God’s Word Omitted

MARGINALIA REVIEW OF BOOKS: Signs of a New Age in the Study of the Formation of Biblical and Other Ancient Texts – By David M. Carr. David M. Carr on Reinhard Müller, Juha Pakkala, and Bas ter Haar Romeny’s Evidence of Editing and Juha Pakkala’s God’s Word Omitted.

Study of actual evidence of editing, then, may contribute to convergence between the different cultures of biblical scholarship in Europe and North America. Though Pakkala and (in Evidence of Editing) Müller and Romeny inveigh against North American colleagues for their skepticism about exact reconstruction of editorial layers, Pakkala himself uses documented examples of editing to argue for more such skepticism in God’s Word Omitted. Pakkala and colleagues remain more confident about literary reconstruction than most North American colleagues, including myself. Moreover, their assumptions about Israelite history remain quite different from scholars like myself, whose conclusions (my own characterized in some American discussions as “European”) Pakkala deems “rather conservative.” Nevertheless, a review of these two works shows both the importance of scholarly audience in framing an academic message, and the possibility that a body of data — in this case documented cases of literary growth — might undermine divides between scholarly cultures on what is methodologically possible and necessary.

Ahmadi, The Daēva cult in the Gāthās

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Ideological archaeology of Zoroastrianism. A note on a new book: Ahmadi, Amir. 2015. The Daēva cult in the Gāthās: An ideological archaeology of Zoroastrianism (Iranian Studies 24). New York, NY: Routledge. It addresses the origins of Zoroastrianism.

Review of Zellentin, The Qur’an’s Legal Culture

MARGINALIA REVIEW OF BOOKS: The Ancient Origins of Qur’anic Laws – By Emran El-Badawi.

Are the origins of the Qur’an’s laws and rituals traceable to a single ancient community of Jewish-Christians? Although long debated, this controversial yet hugely important question receives the expert analysis of Holger Zellentin, The Qur’an’s Legal Culture: The Didascalia Apostolorum as a Point of Departure.

The review concludes:

The Qur’an’s Legal Culture is an elegant and exciting read on an otherwise dense and highly complex subject. Zellentin ties in qur’anic laws with Jewish customs and Christian texts. In doing so, he allows the reader to understand the Qur’an in textual rather than political terms, and to locate the text at the very center rather than the periphery of western civilization.

Have the Essenes been marginalized?

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

On Jesus, the Essenes, and the Anxiety of Influence

By Simon J. Joseph
California Lutheran University
www.simonjjoseph.com
June 2015

A brief and evidently programmatic essay. Regarding this:

Although the work of The Enoch Seminar challenges and expands the definition of the “Essenic/Enochic” movement, it seems that today, with few notable exceptions, the “Essenes” continue to be marginalized in biblical scholarship – often demoted from being a powerful socio-political force within first-century Judaism to being the isolated, misanthropic, and ultra-legalistic recluses of “the Qumran community” or the literary-ideological fantasies of Josephus, Philo, and Pliny.

I am always pleased to see the Enoch Seminar getting good press, but I would like to see Professor Joseph's characterization of current Qumran scholarship, as well as his arguments for the positive case he assumes about the Essenes, argued in greater detail. It would have been helpful also if he had named some names and specific works. But presumably he does this in some of his own published work, which he highlights in the first paragraph of the essay.

Nordic PhD trip to Rome

LIV INGEBORG LIED: NNJCI excursion to Rome. A travel seminar on "Judaism and Christianity in Rome in the first millennium" for PhD students, organized by the Nordic PhD network NNJCI in October. Looks like fun.

Review of McKenzie et al., The Nabataean Temple at Khirbet et-Tannur, Jordan, vol. 1

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Judith S. McKenzie et al. , The Nabataean Temple at Khirbet et-Tannur, Jordan. Volume 1: Architecture and Religion. Volume 2: Cultic Offerings, Vessels, and Other Specialist Reports. Final Report on Nelson Glueck's 1937 Excavation. Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 67-68. Boston: American Schools of Oriental Research, in collaboration with Manar al-Athar, University of Oxford, 2013. Pp. xxvii, 340; xx, 329 . ISBN 9780897570350; 9780897570367. $89.95; $89.95.

Reviewed by Laïla Nehmé, CNRS–UMR8167, Paris (laila.nehme@cnrs.fr)

These two volumes form the long-awaited publication of the excavations undertaken at Khirbet et-Tannur, in southern Jordan, in 1937 by Nelson Glueck, then the director of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, supported by a team of archaeologists, architects, draftsmen and photographers. These excavations were never fully published because of the delay imposed by World War II and due to Glueck’s busy career, particularly, from 1947 onwards, as president of the Cincinnati Hebrew Union College.

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Cross-file under Nabatean (Nabataean) Watch.

July 4th, 2015

HAPPY AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DAY to all those celebrating!

Tangentially related: Hebrew word of the week: Artsot ha-brit (The United States) (Yona Sabar).

More destruction of Palmyra's antiquities? Plus Hatra news.

PALMYRA WATCH: Disturbing stories about a "smuggler" who was caught trying to make off with some Palmyrene statues. He was sentenced to whipping and the statues were destroyed. It is unclear whether they were ancient artifacts or replicas.

Islamic State militants hammer Roman-era statues to pieces. Images show militants publicly destroying ancient effigies in Syrian city of Palmyra as punishment for attempted smuggling (AFP).

A specific case: Effigy of Zenobia, ancient queen, among statues destroyed by IS (Times of Israel). More on Queen Zenobia here and links.

Also, Maamoun Abdelkarim, the Syrian antiquities director, appears to have confirmed a story I noted at the end of May: IS destroys iconic lion statue at Syria’s Palmyra museum. Irreplaceable Lion of al-Lat was 2,000 years old; brutal terror group also smashes other artifacts from Palmyra (AFP).

Related: UNESCO Head Warns Against 'Culture Cleansing' of Jihadists. UNESCO chief Irina Bokova calls for a campaign against ISIS "culture cleansing" (Arutz Sheva).

"I think the growing awareness that hard power will not be enough to defeat violent extremism is gaining ground. We need also soft power," Bokova said on Wednesday.

"Culture should be part of our response to violent extremism," she added.

I don't know what that means, but I hope it does some good. In any case, kudos to her for speaking out. And some related good news on Hatra: The Iraqi site of Hatra added to the List of World Heritage in Danger (UNESCO World Heritage Centre).

Background on Palmyra and ISIS's takeover of it, as well as their sustained assault on the past in the Middle East, is here and links. See also here and links. And more on Hatra is here and links.

ANE languages quiz

ASOR BLOG: Can you identify these Near Eastern languages? I got a perfect score, including the bonus question. But any other result would have been embarrassing.

More on Sacred Imaginations

ARAMAIC AND SYRIAC WATCH: Reimagining sacred music (Alison Hird, RFI).

As Christians come under attack in some parts of the Arab world, British musicians Sam Mills and Susheela Raman have pulled off an ambitious and important musical project Sacred Imaginations: new and ancient music from the near east. The performance is a reminder of how much religion owes to music and sends out a strong message of artistic unity beyond religious dogma.

This article has some new details about the program, plus this good news:

After three concerts in London, Paris and Berlin, [guitarist Sam] Mills says some of the music that's been created will now be recorded. “It's too strong for us to let go of it now."

Background here.

Tunisia's tourism under threat

PUNIC WATCH: Tunisia's growing tourist trade could suffer with terror attacks (Bart Jansen, USA Today). Most recently, the ghastly attack on tourists on a Tunisian beach. This is a good time to be reminded of the ancient treasures in Tunisia:

It is home to Carthage, a military and trade rival to ancient Rome, which ultimately salted its fields in punishment. Amid the series of Punic wars, Hannibal's army memorably rode elephants across the Alps to challenge Rome with battles up and down the

A statue underground, outside the Saint Louis Cathedral. (Photo: Sarah Lynch)
Roman ruins at Carthage include an amphitheater, remains of houses, columns and the Antonine Baths, a World Heritage Site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Another Punic remnant is the city of Kerkouane, once a thriving metropolis known for its dyes and figurines, according to the country's tourism office. Artifacts at this other World Heritage Site include flasks, bones, jewelry and the sarcophagus of a female identified as the goddess Asarte.

Background on the situation in Tunisia is here and links.

Conference on the Psalms of Solomon

AN E-MAIL REGARDING AN UPCOMING CONFERENCE IN PARIS:

I am pleased to announced the second international meeting on the Psalms of Salomon.

the meeting will be held at the Centre Sevres, Paris, from 7th to 9th of July, 2015.

organizer: Patrick Pouchelle (patrick.pouchelle@gmail.com)

The program will be as follows:

Tuesday, July 7 3 pm to 5.30 pm

Mikael Winninge – (Umeå universitet, Sweden) “Critical Issues when Commenting on the Psalms of Solomon: Diachronic and Synchronic Reflections”

Rodney Werline – (Barton College, USA) “Applying Social Memory Theory to the Psalms of Solomon”

Angela Kim Harkins – (Marie Curie International Incoming Fellow, European Commission, University of Birmingham, UK) “The Instrumental Role of Emotion in the Reading and the Affective Reenactment of PsSol 8”

Wednesday, July 8, 10 am to noon

Eberhard Bons – (Université de Strasbourg, France) “PsSol 16:10 and its biblical and Hellenistic backgrounds”

Jan Joosten – (Oxford University, UK) “The textual basis of scriptural references in the Psalms of Solomon”

4 pm to 6 pm

Shani Tzoref – (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany, Israel Antiquities Authority, Israel), “The use of Scripture in the Psalms of Solomon”

Johanna Erzberger – (Institut catholique de Paris, France) “Changing contexts: PsSal 11 in the PsSal and its parallel in Bar 4:5-5:9”

Thursday, July 9, 10am to 12.15 am

G. Anthony Keddie – (The University of Texas at Austin, USA) “Poverty and Exploitation in the Psalms of Solomon and the Literature of Their Time”

Patrick Pouchelle – (Centre Sèvres, France) “The Psalms of Solomon and the Testament of Moses: may the latter shed light on the context of the former?”

Kenneth Atkinson – (University of Northern Iowa, USA) “Understanding the History, Theology, and Community of the Psalms of Solomon in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls”

2 pm to 3 pm

Roundtable

With all best wishes

Patrick Pouchelle

Centre Sevres

The Book of Tobit

OLD TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA WATCH: VALERIE SCHULTZ: Lesser-known Book of Tobit still delivers a powerful message. A Catholic Bakersfield columnist notices the Book of Tobit.

The book of Tobit is worth reading for the adventure, as well as for the incarnational foreshadowing of God moving among us and guiding us in our lives. It can also make a claim to fame in popular culture in that the book of Tobit contains the only scriptural reference to the angel Raphael by name. Raphael is now considered a patron of travelers and healers because of his holy intercession in Tobit’s saga.

Review of Schniedewind, A Social History of Hebrew

MARGINALIA REVIEW OF BOOKS: Present and Future of the Hebrew Past – By Aaron Koller.

In some cases, the search for relevance produces work that is overwrought and unfounded, but in others, new life is breathed into old texts through the application of novel methodologies and approaches. William Schniedewind’s A Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins through the Rabbinic Period is an excellent example of the latter. Drawing on sociolinguistics, in addition to historical linguistics and other tools of “old-fashioned philology,” Schniedewind sets out to write a social history of a dead language. He does not aim to describe the grammar of the language in full or to trace features of the morphology or syntax through the centuries. Instead, he wants to use language as a key to unlocking an ancient society.

I once heard Frank Moore Cross tell the apocryphal anecdote at the beginning of this review. Many years ago I presented an SBL paper that dealt with some of these questions: DIALECTOLOGY IN BIBLICAL HEBREW: A NORTH ISRAELITE DIALECT? SYNCHRONIC AND DIACHRONIC CONSIDERATIONS.

Dicken on Herod

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Composite “Herod” in Luke-Acts

The name “Herod” appears for three different Herodian rulers in Luke-Acts. The essay explores unique features of the Lukan depiction of two of these Herodian rulers at Luke 1:5 and Acts 12:1-23 in relation to the description of the rulers found in other ancient sources. Drawing upon these unique features and applying a text-oriented, narrative-critical interpretive strategy to Luke-Acts, this essay will explain the recurrence of this name in Luke-Acts as the amalgamation of three historical individuals into a composite character.

See also: Herod as a Composite Character in Luke-Acts. WUNT II. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014.

By Frank Dicken
Assistant Professor of New Testament
Lincoln Christian University
June 2015

I noted the book here when it came out.

On the Oxyrhynchus papyri

POPULAR ARCHAEOLOGY: From the Sands of Egypt. A longish survey article by Michael Gordon. It was published in 2011, but Popular Archaeology has just released it from its subscription-only archive. For many past posts on the Oxyrhynchus papyri, see here and links, and also perhaps here.

An ancient mikveh under the floor

THE PERILS OF DIY: Ancient Ritual Bath Found Under Unsuspecting Family's Floorboards (Elizabeth Goldbaum, LiveScience).

A family recently discovered a large 2,000-year-old ritual bath underneath the floorboards of their Jerusalem home during a routine living room renovation, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced today (July 1).

[...]

Two other articles about the discovery, both with lots of photos, are at the Daily Mail and Ynet News.

The Star of Bethlehem?

I RATHER DOUBT IT: ‘Star of Bethlehem’ shines again? (Stuart Winer, Times of Israel). The sub-heading says what we do know: "Jupiter and Venus line up for celestial conjunction in eye-catching heavenly display."

In Jerusalem, the two planets could clearly been seen hanging in the western sky and appeared as a double star although in reality the plants are hundreds of millions of kilometers apart.

According to Christian tradition, a bright star appeared in the sky signaling the birth of Jesus to the Three Wise Men and then leading them to his location in Bethlehem.

While there are several theories as to what might have inspired the legend, astronomers noted that in 3-2 BCE there was a similar conjunction of Jupiter and Venus to the one that shone down this week.

The current conjunction has been lining up for some time and I noted it last week, with a photo at sunset (fourth one down) as seen from northern Italy. Back in St. Andrews, I also went out late on the evening of the 30th, when the conjunction was at its closest. Luckily, the sky was clear, and I could see Venus with Jupiter just above it. It seems that at no point were the two planets overlapping such that they could be confused with a single, extraordinarily bright star.

That is not to say that it could not have happened 2000 years ago and led the Magi west. That remains a possibility, one of the several that I review in this post, where I also give my own view of the matter. Other past posts on the Star of Bethlehem are linked to there, and two more recent ones are here and here.

Van der Horst on the Greek Synagogal Prayers

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION: The Bible and Ancient Philosophy in Greek Synagogal Prayers

The most fascinating aspect of these prayers, however, is that they testify to the existence of a vibrant Graeco-Jewish culture in the centuries after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Although we cannot strictly prove that the philosophical elements were already present in the Jewish original (and were not from the hand of the Christian compiler), it is highly probable that these elements belonged to the Jewish Grundschrift. In that case we witness here a form of Jewish Hellenism, a culture that combines intense Jewish piety with openness towards Greek culture, especially its philosophical aspects.

See Also: Studies in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Brill Academic Publishers; Lam edition, 2014).

By Pieter W. van der Horst
Professor emeritus
Utrecht University, The Netherlands
www.pietervanderhorst.com
June 2015

Ancient Near Eastern music live

ARAMAIC WATCH: Sacred Imaginations: New and Ancient Music from the Near East has just been performed in London and Paris, and is on tonight in Berlin. Peter Culshaw has a review of the London performance at The Arts Desk: Sacred Imaginations, Kings Place. Ambitious reimagining of early Christian music is a triumph. Excerpts:

The two singing revelations of the first half were the Russian five piece choir the Doros Male Vocal Ensemble, whose voices were moving in their rich spiritual power and the astonishing Abeer Nehme, who I had caught at the Fes Festival and raved about then. She also does do more popular material in her native Lebanon, but the beautiful Christian songs, sung in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, had the impression of plugging us into raw, intense early centuries of Christianity.

[...]

Susheela Raman’s singing also featured in the second half – her presence added some yang to the purity of Abeer Nehme’s yin – some dirt and a suggestion of more pagan, shamanistic elements that were incorporated into the early religion. Mary was no longer virginal. The highlights of this section were a Syriac hymn and a Gnostic text “Thunder Perfect Mind” and “Leatos”, a last rites song with the Greek singers and Raman with additional text by theosophist G R S Meade which had a filmic, end-of-days atmosphere and could and no doubt will be revved up to be even more apocalyptical in subsequent shows. Another spirited and moving number was “Sogandinium” an Aramaic hymn of the crucifixion where Raman was backed the Russian Doros singers to breathtaking effect.

More on Abeer Nehme is here, although unfortunately the link to the video has rotted. For more on Thunder, Perfect Mind, go here and follow the links. The latter has received much attention in recent years, most notably the Prada advert that used it. And a while ago I met someone who had lines of its Coptic text tattooed on his arm.

The Talmud as "Fossil"

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: The Talmud as Fossil Record of Ancient, Everday Jewish Life and Idioms. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ study, why vows are hardly sacred, and why circumcision is the most glorious of rituals.

This week, the rabbis’ discussion of vowing revolved around a number of idioms that were apparently commonplace in vows. Like a fossil leaf in a stone, these pieces of everyday language are preserved in the Mishna, showing how our ancestors talked when they got mad 2,000 years ago. Today, people tend to use expressions like “I swear” or “I’ll be damned” thoughtlessly, not intending them to be actual vows or promises to God; and reading the Talmud, one gets the impression that Talmudic-era Jews were often no more serious in their vows. Why else would they resort to expressions of such obvious hyperbole? Under what circumstances, for instance, would it make sense for someone to vow “that he will not derive benefit from people who live on dry land”? As the rabbis point out, this category includes more or less everyone in the world.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

GJW meets NTS

AWOL: New Testament Studies, Volume 61 - Issue 03 - July 2015: Assessing the “Jesus' Wife” Papyrus. The new issue is also noted by Christian Askeland and Mark Goodacre. If you don't have a subscription to NTS, the shorter version is that the Gospel of Jesus' Wife is still a forgery. But it's good to have a detailed evaluation of the issues in a peer-review journal.

Background on the GJW is here and oh so many links.