As Jews around the world celebrate the holiday of Hanukkah, a new massive open online course (MOOC) being offered through YU Global, Yeshiva University’s online initiative, and Coursera, an educational technology company, will provide interested members of the public with a once in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore the cultural impact of the Arch of Titus, a central artifact in both Jewish and Western history that depicts the golden menorah used in the Jerusalem Temple, among other Temple relics.Lots more on the Arch of Titus here and links.
Titled “The Arch of Titus: Rome and the Menorah,” the free online course, led by Dr. Steven Fine, the Dean Pinkhos Churgin Professor of Jewish History at YU and director of its Center for Israel Studies, combines aspects of archaeology, art history and Judaic studies.
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Tuesday, December 08, 2015
MOOC: Rome and the Menorah
TIMELY: Rome and the Menorah. New Online Course Led by Yeshiva University Faculty Brings Arch of Titus to the Global Classroom (YU News).
Robinson, The Manichaean Codices
WHAT'S NEW IN PAPYROLOGY: James Robinson, The Manichaean Codices.
The Manichaean Codices of Medinet Madi By James M. Robinson James Clarke & Co., LTD. Expertly researched and meticulously presented, this is the story of the 4th century Manichaean Codices of Medinet Madi, their discovery, acquisition and conservation.Cross-file under "New Book" and "Manichaean (Manichean) Watch." Recent books by Robinson on other manuscript caches have been noted here and here.
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Monday, December 07, 2015
More on the Acra
ARCHAEOLOGY: Overlooking the Mount. Where was the Akra, and how could it overlook the Temple Mount, which was higher than all the surrounding areas? (STEPHEN GABRIEL ROSENBERG, Jerusalem Post).
But just recently the archaeologists went deeper, and uncovered something else.So that is the archaeologists' explanation of how ruins at this elevation could overlook the Temple Mount. Again, this issue is outside my expertise and I am simply following the discussion. I have no opinion on the matter myself. Background on the excavation and its possible connection to the Acra (Akra) is here, here, and here.
They have exposed the massive foundations of a large tower, the foundations of its adjoining stone walls and the remains of a fine neighboring glacis, a sloping protective rampart that was built to ward off, avoid and discourage enemy attacks. The archaeologists claim that the tower foundations are so massive that the tower could have risen to a great height, and that it was probably built to overlook the Temple site, located to the north and not far away. The original supporting ground on the site had been built up to give even greater height to the tower, which thus made it possible for the Syrian Greeks on the tower, if it was them, to keep their rebellious Jewish subjects on the Mount under constant surveillance, and at the same time under the likely threat of retaliation.
The archaeologists claim they have found the Akra, or at least its foundations.
Elad challenged by State on City of David National Park
POLITICS: State to appeal against Elad control of Jerusalem archaeology center (DANIEL K. EISENBUD, Jerusalem Post).
The Elad Foundation, also known as the Ir David Foundation, operates the City of David National Park, which draws more than 500,000 tourists annually.It just goes on and on. Background here.
Less than two months after the Jerusalem District Court approved an agreement to transfer management of the capital’s Davidson Center Archaeological Park to the right-wing Elad Foundation, the state attorney on Thursday requested permission to appeal the decision.
Emek Shaveh, a left-wing consortium of European-funded archaeologists representing Arab residents of Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood, which has unsuccessfully attempted to block the move, praised the development as a “step in the right direction.”
“The state’s decision to appeal to the High Court is a step… to safeguard the heritage of Jerusalem, and maintain the status quo in the area around the Temple Mount/ al-Aksa compound,” said spokesman and archeologist Yonathan Mizrachi.
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Hanukkah series
VIDEO: Walk In The Footsteps of The Maccabees with Arutz Sheva. Special eight-part series with Israeli historian Dr. Hagai Ben Artzi lets you follow the Maccabees' path from revolution to independence.
Part One: Feature: The ancient synagogue where the Hanukkah story began. Part One of Arutz Sheva's special Hanukkah series - In The Footsteps of The Maccabees - takes you to Modiin, where it all started. A somewhat romanticized account of the revolt which treats the dialogue in 1 Maccabees etc. as a transcript. But a good travelogue nonetheless. Some past posts on Modi'in and the archaeology associated with it are here and here.
Part One: Feature: The ancient synagogue where the Hanukkah story began. Part One of Arutz Sheva's special Hanukkah series - In The Footsteps of The Maccabees - takes you to Modiin, where it all started. A somewhat romanticized account of the revolt which treats the dialogue in 1 Maccabees etc. as a transcript. But a good travelogue nonetheless. Some past posts on Modi'in and the archaeology associated with it are here and here.
No connection between Jerusalem and early Islam?
TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Egyptian Muslim scholar: No connection between Temple Mt., Islam. Arab world outraged at latest research of renowned scholar of Arabic and Islamic studies Youssef Ziedan.
Mr. Ziedan's novel, Azazeel has been in the news off and on for some years. See here and follow the links.
Renowned Egyptian scholar Youssef Ziedan, a specialist in Arabic and Islamic studies, has given a series of interviews to Egyptian television stations of late, the purpose of which appears to be to anger his Muslim colleagues.There has been an important connection between Jerusalem and Islam for many centuries, at least from shortly after the time of Muhammad and perhaps going back to his famous vision, Al-Miraj. It's hard to say about the vision, since the references in the Qur'an (traditionally Surah 17.1, 62 and 53.13-18) are cryptic, but the earliest interpretations unanimously place part of the vision in Jerusalem. That is, Muhammad experienced being in Jerusalem in the vision, although he did not ever travel there in non-visionary reality. There is no reason to deny that Jerusalem and the Temple Mount have been important to Islam from very early on. The problem is when some Muslims claim (e.g., here and often) that there was no ancient, pre-Islamic, Jewish connection to the city and the site. That, of course, is nonsense.
His main point has been to say that there is actually no connection between Jerusalem and ancient Islam. When Islam was founded during the 7th century, he says, Jerusalem was a holy city to the Jews, while the Mosque of Omar was not even built until 74 years after Muhammed's death. The reason it was built, Ziedan says, is because the builder wished to detract from the centrality of Mecca in Islam.
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Mr. Ziedan's novel, Azazeel has been in the news off and on for some years. See here and follow the links.
Athas on the Hezekiah Bulla
GEORGE ATHAS: A Seal of King Hezekiah.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has announced the discovery of an ancient ‘bulla’ (a clay seal with a personal stamp impressed upon on it) bearing the name of Hezekiah, King of Judah. This is not the first seal bearing Hezekiah’s name to come to light. Nonetheless, it is an exciting find, especially since it was found in situ.Background here and links.
Sunday, December 06, 2015
Hanukkah 2015
HAPPY HANUKKAH (CHANUKKAH, CHANUKAH) to all those celebrating! The eight-day festival begins tonight at sundown.
A couple of recent posts on Hanukkah are here and here. Past Hanukkha posts with additional historical background are here and links.
A couple of recent posts on Hanukkah are here and here. Past Hanukkha posts with additional historical background are here and links.
A divinized first-century healer
SARAH VEALE: ANCIENT MIRACLE WORKERS: THE EMPEROR VESPASIAN. Jesus wasn't the only one in the first century with a miraculous-healing gig.
The day the moon stood still?
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Mark W. Chavalas: Were sun and moon stopped in their tracks? (LaCrosseTribune.com).
For my part, I have no problem with the idea that ancient Israelites would seek an omen for such matters (cf., e.g., 1 Samuel 10:17-24). Be that as it may, one problem with the theory is that the rubric assigning the poetic quotation to the Book of Jashar is probably secondary. It is missing in the Septuagint. So the quotation was probably originally unattributed and a later scribe either knew or was misinformed or inferred that it came from the Book of Jashar, which is quoted elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. Still, the poetic passage does seem to be a quotation of an earlier work which was the only source the prose author had and which he understood imperfectly.
I have written about the Book of Jashar (which perhaps was originally called "The Book of the Song") in my article "Quotations from Lost Books in the Hebrew Bible" in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume 1 (ed. Bauckham, Davila, and Panayotov; Eerdmans, 2013), pp. 673-98, which you should definitely buy. A summary handout is here. Other past posts relevant to the latter article are collected here.
Past posts on the recent Blood Moon Tetrad, and some of the nonsense written about it, are here and links.
Cross-file under "Lost Books."
The sun and moon have been in the news lately. The Rev. John Hagee has claimed that recent blood moons (a popular phrase for a total lunar eclipse) have biblical significance of cataclysmic proportions concerning modern-day Israel. Notwithstanding Hagee’s so-called expertise in astronomy (and Bible, for that matter), a discussion of what the Bible actually says of the movement of heavenly bodies is in order.Dr. Chavales then summarizes the case that the passage refers not to the sun and moon miraculously standing still in the sky, but to a propitious arrangement of the sun and moon in the sky which gave an omen that the Israelites would win the battle. I haven't seen his source by one John Walton, but a similar case was also made by John S. Holladay, Jr., in his 1968 article "The Day(s) the Moon Stood Still" in the Journal of Biblical Literature 87, pp. 166-78, which underlines the point that the place of the moon is also important in the story, so it can't just be about the sun standing still. Holladay argues that Mesopotamian omen literature explains what the poem was originally about, and that the writer of the book of Joshua was quoting an already ancient poem (from the Book of Jashar) which he misunderstood in his prose account of the battle. I too find this argument basically persuasive.
According to Joshua 10, the Israelite leader, Joshua, made a “mad dash” to get to Gibeon to protect that town against a coalition of Amorite kings. Like any good military leader in antiquity, Joshua inquired of God about his chances in battle; God guaranteed victory, which was all Joshua needed know.
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For my part, I have no problem with the idea that ancient Israelites would seek an omen for such matters (cf., e.g., 1 Samuel 10:17-24). Be that as it may, one problem with the theory is that the rubric assigning the poetic quotation to the Book of Jashar is probably secondary. It is missing in the Septuagint. So the quotation was probably originally unattributed and a later scribe either knew or was misinformed or inferred that it came from the Book of Jashar, which is quoted elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. Still, the poetic passage does seem to be a quotation of an earlier work which was the only source the prose author had and which he understood imperfectly.
I have written about the Book of Jashar (which perhaps was originally called "The Book of the Song") in my article "Quotations from Lost Books in the Hebrew Bible" in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume 1 (ed. Bauckham, Davila, and Panayotov; Eerdmans, 2013), pp. 673-98, which you should definitely buy. A summary handout is here. Other past posts relevant to the latter article are collected here.
Past posts on the recent Blood Moon Tetrad, and some of the nonsense written about it, are here and links.
Cross-file under "Lost Books."
JAOS 135(3) (2015)
BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Journal of the American Oriental Society. This posts flags reviews of interest for ancient Zoroastrianism in the current issue of JAOS. These are, more or less, also of potential interest for ancient Judaism. But click through to the TOC for more material of interest for the latter.
Interview with Christine Shepardson
ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Christine Shepardson.
AJR interviews Dr. Christine Shepardson about her book Controlling Contested Places: Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy.Late-antique Judaism gets a brief mention in connection with John Chrysostom.
Saturday, December 05, 2015
More on the Hezekiah seal impression
ROBERT CARGILL HAS some questions about the recent news of the discovery of a seal bearing the name of King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. This one strikes me as particularly interesting:
Impression of biblical king's seal found in Jerusalem (BBC). A brief report that seems to capture the main points.
King Hezekiah in the Bible: Royal Seal of Hezekiah Comes to Light (Robin Ngo, Bible History Daily). Includes some useful historical background to the find.
The discovery of the bulla was noted here on Thursday.
And if that’s what this is about (the new reading of the inscription), then what do other epigraphers say about this reading? No “ben” in between Hezekiah and Ahaz? And does it really say Ahaz? Does it fit within the border of the seal?There have been many media stories about the announcement in the last day or so. Here are a couple:
Impression of biblical king's seal found in Jerusalem (BBC). A brief report that seems to capture the main points.
King Hezekiah in the Bible: Royal Seal of Hezekiah Comes to Light (Robin Ngo, Bible History Daily). Includes some useful historical background to the find.
The discovery of the bulla was noted here on Thursday.
Lod Mosaic in Venice
THIS MOSAIC GETS AROUND: Roman mosaic floor from Lod on view in Venice. An ancient Roman mosaic floor from Lod in Israel is currently exhibited in Venice by Fondazione Giorgio Cini in collaboration with the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Shelby White and Leon Levy Lod Mosaic Center (M.Apelblat, The Brussells Times).
The Lod Mosaic will be on view until 10 January 2016 at the exhibition centre on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore.Background here with many links. Another ancient mosaic has recently been discovered at Lod as well.
This is the last European stop in an international tour which included United Kingdom, France, Germany and Russia. On its return to Israel it will be exhibited in a visitor centre to be built in Lod.
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On transliterating biblical names
FROM HEBREW TO GREEK: The Lost Meanings of Biblical Names. The festival of Hanukkah, which starts this weekend, should remind us that translation can sap the ancient power of religious names (AVIYA KUSHNER, WSJ).
For centuries, the Septuagint was the dominant translation in Western culture, ultimately influencing even the King James Bible. But many Jews weren’t keen on translating their holy book: One ancient source calls for a fast on the anniversary of the Septuagint’s publication, saying that when it appeared, “darkness descended on the world for three days.”Well, yes, but that's why you have commentary. I do not regard this as a tragedy. Any reading of a text places the text in a new context and to some degree alters its meaning. I grant that the ancient Greek translations of the books of the Hebrew Bible have cases (e.g., the Book of Isaiah) which carry this tendency pretty far.
They had ample justification for worrying over distortions and omissions. Hebrew names, one of the richest parts of the Bible, were often transliterated instead of being translated into Greek. Meaning-laden names thus lost their meaning.
Barbara Thiering 1930-2015
SAD NEWS: Academic and iconoclast Barbara Thiering exemplified tumultuous 1960's ethos (Sydney Morning Herald).
BARBARA THIERING 1930–2015Her Wikipedia profile, which as of this writing has not yet been updated to note her death, is here. Inevitably she will be remembered for her controversial work on Jesus, which no one follows. But it is also worth mentioning her work on the prosody of Qumran poetry, which remains useful today.
Historian, feminist and iconoclast Barbara Thiering once observed that, for a woman of her temperament, she had been born at a fortunate time in Australia. She was too young for World War II, was a young adult in the prosperous 1950s, an intellectual during the 1960s and 1970s, when the world was ripe for such things, and a successful writer and academic in her later years.
She participated in a time of great growth and change when opportunities were opening up for women, which she applauded and encouraged. The combination of her high intelligence, strong will and independent free-thought created a path for her life, reflecting the changing position of women and the political and religious turbulence of the later 20th century.
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Barbara Thiering, "The Poetic Forms of the Hodayot," Journal of Semitic Studies 8 (1963): 189-209.Requiescat in pace.
More on the background of Hanukkah
HISTORY: What We Know About the Truth Behind the Hanukkah Story (Ashley Ross, Time Magazine).
In 175 BCE, the land of Israel was part of the Syrian-Greek Empire led by a King named Antiochus IV, also called “Epiphanes,” meaning “the gods’ beloved.” The most commonly cited source for the history of that time is the book First Maccabees, which was written in about 100 BCE, not too long after the events it describes. But [JTS Professor David] Kraemer cautions that, like all books, ancient and modern, it’s got a perspective. According to First Maccabees, religious persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes led the rebels known as Maccabees to take back their temple from the Syrian-Greek Empire. Meanwhile, another book called Second Maccabees has a very different story. According to that version, a group of Jews had been attracted by Hellenistic ways, and it was against that Hellenized leadership that the Maccabees revolted, taking back their temple. And that’s not all.Some comments. (1) "Epiphanes" means "(a god) manifest," i.e., look at me, I'm a god! The ancients thought this was as crazy as we do. (2) An account of events sixty-plus years after they happened has ample scope for distortion of historical memory. (3) In addition to the Book of Daniel, the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 83-90) was written during the Maccabean revolt. It is equally difficult to interpret. (4) I'm surprised that the article does not make clear that the story about the oil lamp that miraculously burned for eight days, which it mentions, comes in the rabbinic literature, long after the sources discussed here.
“We seem to also have eyewitness accounts of the events,” Kraemer says. “It’s a hidden account, the final prophecy of the prophet Daniel, which was written at the time of the Maccabean revolt, so you’ve got some evidence about it but it’s not a direct testimony. It’s very difficult to interpret.”
Friday, December 04, 2015
Mani was an artist
BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Mani’s pictures. New book: Gulácsi, Zsuzsanna. 2015. Mani’s pictures: The didactic images of the Manichaeans from Sasanian Mesopotamia to Uygur Central Asia and Tang-Ming China (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 90). Brill.
Mani left paintings? Who knew?
Cross-file under Manichaean (Manichean) Watch.
Mani left paintings? Who knew?
Cross-file under Manichaean (Manichean) Watch.
Greek in Hellenistic Palestine
LARRY HURTADO: Language Usage in Jewish Palestine: Epigraphic Evidence.
Walter Ameling draws upon epigraphical evidence to consider languages usage in Jewish Palestine in the Hellenistic and Roman periods in a data-rich recent essay: “Epigraphy and the Greek Language in Hellenistic Palestine,” Scripta Classica Israelica 34 (2015): 1-18. The thrust of his study is that from the Seleucid period onward Greek was widely used. As this publication won’t be readily available to some, I’ll give a few representative extracts.Past posts on the related topic of the languages Jesus spoke are here, here, here, here, here, and links
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Ancient sources for Hanukkah
A GOOD, BRIEF OVERVIEW: Chanukah: A Survey of the Ancient Sources (Mitchell First, Jewish Link).
Lim on canon
ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Understanding the Emergence of the Jewish Canon (Timothy Lim). The first instalment of the AJR Forum on the biblical Canon.
Doak on the giants
THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:
The Embarrassing and Alluring Biblical GiantThere are far too many PaleoJudaica posts on giants to give as background links. I wouldn't know where to start. But if you are curious, run "book of giants" and "og the giant" through the search engine and that will bring up lots of them. Posts, not giants.
Whatever interpretive paths we choose, the giant remains alluring, even if a bit embarrassing. After the Hebrew Bible had (mostly) been completed, giants lived on, prolifically, in the traditions of third–first century BCE Judaism, most notably in 1 Enoch and the Qumran Book of Giants. These early Jewish traditions cannot simply be attributed to an arcane exegetical fascination with the weirdness or ambiguity of the giant; rather, early interpreters saw in these figures deeply meaningful opportunities to speak of the persistence of evil and the meaning of empire.
See also: The Last of the Rephaim: Conquest and Cataclysm in the Heroic Ages of Ancient Israel (Ilex Series 7; Ilex Foundation and the Center for Hellenic Studies; via Harvard University Press, 2012); Consider Leviathan: Narratives of Nature and the Self in Job (Fortress Press, 2014)
By Brian R. Doak
Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies
Faculty Fellow, William Penn Honors Program
George Fox University
December 2015
Thursday, December 03, 2015
An inscribed bulla of King Hezekiah
THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM: Impression of King Hezekiah’s Royal Seal Discovered in Ophel Excavations South of Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
For more on the earlier Hezekiah bullae, including a damaged one published by Nahman Avigad in the 1980s without his recognizing the name on it, see this 2002 Biblical Archaeology Review article by Robert Deutsch: Lasting Impressions: New bullae reveal Egyptian-style emblems on Judah’s royal seals. (The latter was brought to my attention by Antonio Lombatti.)
UPDATE: It sounds as though the question of the bulla being "exposed in situ in a scientific archaeological excavation" may require some qualification. Candida Moss notes the following in her Daily Beast essay Archaeologist Says the Bible’s King Hezekiah Is Real:
UPDATE: Professor Cargill points me to this, which indicates that the Temple Mount Sifting Project actually found the object in 2010. It remains unclear from the current reports whether the dirt came from construction excavation or scientific, stratigraphic, archaeological excavation.
UPDATE: From the Hebrew University press release:
ANOTHER UPDATE: Yes, it was a garbage pit. What does that mean? Was it garbage from a specific period in a clear stratigraphic context? Sounds like it, in which case I would count that as excavated in a stratigraphically rigorous archaeological excavation. But I am not an archaeologist and am not going to try to comment on the fine points of stratigraphy. I assume the details will be made clear in the publications. Meanwhile, it's an interesting object whose genuineness is beyond reasonable doubt. It confirms what we already knew from the Sennacherib Prism etc., that there was a king named Hezekiah around 700 BCE. It also identifies Ahaz as his father, who is also mentioned as such in the previously published bullae. Any doubts (but I don't know of any) of the genuineness of the latter bullae seem now assuaged. Ahaz is also known in his proper time from an Assyrian inscription.
First seal impression of an Israelite or Judean king ever exposed in situ in a scientific archaeological excavationThis is an exciting discovery, chiefly because, as it says above, this is the first seal impression mentioning Hezekiah which has been uncovered in a scientific excavation. Other Hezekiah bullae (clay seal impressions) have surfaced on the antiquities market since the 1990s, but one could always doubt their authenticity. There is no doubt that this one is authentic. It is very sad that the papyrus document it once sealed has long ago disintegrated into dust.
Discovery brings to life the Biblical narratives about King Hezekiah and the activity conducted during his lifetime in Jerusalem's 1st Temple Period Royal Quarter
For more on the earlier Hezekiah bullae, including a damaged one published by Nahman Avigad in the 1980s without his recognizing the name on it, see this 2002 Biblical Archaeology Review article by Robert Deutsch: Lasting Impressions: New bullae reveal Egyptian-style emblems on Judah’s royal seals. (The latter was brought to my attention by Antonio Lombatti.)
UPDATE: It sounds as though the question of the bulla being "exposed in situ in a scientific archaeological excavation" may require some qualification. Candida Moss notes the following in her Daily Beast essay Archaeologist Says the Bible’s King Hezekiah Is Real:
But Robert Cargill, an archeologist at the University of Iowa, told me that the claims about biblical proof are overstated. “If this is a legitimate object, then it simply confirms the existence of a king named Hezekiah in Jerusalem.” That, Cargill added, is something scholars already knew from other archeological discoveries.If this is accurate, the bulla comes from the salvage archaeology of a construction site and the dirt was removed as part of the construction, rather than, apparently, by the archaeologists. As Professor Cargill says, there's no reason to think the object is forged, but this is not quite the same as it being scientifically excavated in a stratigraphically rigorous archaeological excavation.
The story has made headlines in the British tabloids, but archeologists like Cargill are more skeptical both about the evidence itself and the potential agenda of the find. The significance of the discovery hinges on the claim that it was uncovered in its original archeological context, but the area in which it was unearthed is politically contested and archeologically compromised. The material is being sifted from piles of dirt removed as part of Palestinian construction in the area. As such, Cargill said, “there’s no reason to believe that it is a forged object. The problem lies in the compromised archeological stratigraphy at the point of discovery.”
UPDATE: Professor Cargill points me to this, which indicates that the Temple Mount Sifting Project actually found the object in 2010. It remains unclear from the current reports whether the dirt came from construction excavation or scientific, stratigraphic, archaeological excavation.
UPDATE: From the Hebrew University press release:
This bulla came to light, together with many pottery sherds and other finds such as figurines and seals, in Area A of the excavations (2009 season), supervised by Hagai Cohen-Klonymus.But apparently the dirt was not sifted until 2010.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Yes, it was a garbage pit. What does that mean? Was it garbage from a specific period in a clear stratigraphic context? Sounds like it, in which case I would count that as excavated in a stratigraphically rigorous archaeological excavation. But I am not an archaeologist and am not going to try to comment on the fine points of stratigraphy. I assume the details will be made clear in the publications. Meanwhile, it's an interesting object whose genuineness is beyond reasonable doubt. It confirms what we already knew from the Sennacherib Prism etc., that there was a king named Hezekiah around 700 BCE. It also identifies Ahaz as his father, who is also mentioned as such in the previously published bullae. Any doubts (but I don't know of any) of the genuineness of the latter bullae seem now assuaged. Ahaz is also known in his proper time from an Assyrian inscription.
Review of Rudich, Religious Dissent in the Roman Empire
BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:
Vasily Rudich, Religious Dissent in the Roman Empire: Violence in Judaea at the Time of Nero. Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies. London; New York: Routledge, 2015. Pp. xxiv, 350. ISBN 9780415161060. $160.00.
Reviewed by William den Hollander, Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary (wdenhollander@crts.ca)
Preview
The monograph under review is in more than one way a bold one. While his expertise as a Roman historian certainly provided Rudich with a valuable foundation for the present study, and his earlier examinations of dissident psychology led naturally to this analysis of violent religious dissent,1 his focus on Roman Judea necessitated a brave plunge into unfamiliar territory, a virtual quagmire of scholarly literature that he admits to having underestimated initially (xi-xii). The high degree to which he immersed himself in the ancient texts and modern scholarship is, however, a credit to his industry and a direct benefit to the depth of his contributions—although it should be noted that he closed his ‘dossier’ by the end of 2011, so that the book does not necessarily reflect the latest trends in scholarship.
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Western Wall museum approved
Controversial Plan for Museum at Western Wall Gets Final Zoning Approval. Planning board rejects most objections to Western Wall Heritage Foundation building, but limits its area; opponents considering petitioning High Court (Nir Hasson, Haaretz).
UPDATE (4 December): Dead link now fixed!
An appeals subcommittee of the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee has given its final approval for a plan to construct a center called “Beit Ha-Liba” (House of Core Values) in the Western Wall Plaza in the Old City of Jerusalem. The center was conceived of and promoted by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation and the Western Wall’s rabbi, and will include offices, a museum and an educational center.Background here, from back in 2010. This story has been quiet for a while.
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UPDATE (4 December): Dead link now fixed!
Byzantine-era olive press in Shiloh
EXCAVATION: 1,300-year-old olive press uncovered at Ancient Shiloh (Efrat Forsher, Israel HaYom).
The large size of the press and its proximity to a similar one found in 2011 provide proof that aside from being the capital of Israel for 369 years and housing the Ark of the Covenant, Shiloh was also the region's main manufacturer of olive oil.I don't seem to have noted the discovery of that other olive press in 2011. Reports of the excavation of some other ancient olive presses in recent years are here, here, and here.
Iraqi Jewish archive exhibition in Florida
IRAQI JEWISH ARCHIVE WATCH: Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU presents Discovery and Recovery: Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage.
Just in time for Art Basel Miami Beach, the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU (JMOF-FIU) unveils the Discovery and Recovery: Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage exhibit on December 3, 2015. The exhibition, which runs through February 14, 2016, details the dramatic recovery of historic materials relating to the Jewish community in Iraq from a flooded basement in Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters, and the National Archives’ ongoing work in support of U.S. Government efforts to preserve these materials.With a video on the conservation efforts for the exhibition. Background on the Iraqi Jewish archive is here, with links going all the way back to the first report of the archive's discovery in 2003.
In both English and Arabic, the 2,000 square foot exhibition features 23 recovered items and a “behind the scenes” video of the fascinating yet painstaking preservation process. The entire collection includes more than 2,700 Jewish books and tens of thousands of documents in Hebrew, Arabic, Judeo-Arabic and English, dating from 1524 to the 1970s. A special website makes these historic materials freely available to all online: www.ija.archives.gov. This work was made possible through generous support from the U.S. Department of State.
The National Endowment for the Humanities in partnership with the Center for Jewish History were very helpful in providing key start-up support for the project.
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Wednesday, December 02, 2015
Giants in the Biblio-Blogosphere
THE BOOK OF GIANTS receives attention in some recent blog posts:
Philip Jenkins at The Anxious Bench:
The Book of the Giants;
Mani and the Giants.
Deane Galbraith adds some comments at Remnant of Giants:
The Book of Giants: Ancient Jewish Literary Creativity beyond the Bible.
Both refer to my online page on The Book of Giants.
Philip Jenkins at The Anxious Bench:
The Book of the Giants;
Mani and the Giants.
Deane Galbraith adds some comments at Remnant of Giants:
The Book of Giants: Ancient Jewish Literary Creativity beyond the Bible.
Both refer to my online page on The Book of Giants.
Yoram Tsafrir z'l'
SAD NEWS: Prominent Israeli Archaeologist Yoram Tsafrir Dies. In addition to his archaeological exploits, Tsafrir was noted for his strong opposition to the politicization of archaeology (Nir Hasson, Haaretz).
Prof. Yoram Tsafrir, one of the most important archaeologists in Israel, passed away Monday [23 November] in a Jerusalem hospital. For years, Tsafrir excavated the old city in Beit Shean, researched Jerusalem and the Land of Israel in the Roman and Byzantine periods and was frequently at the forefront of battles against damaging archaeological sites. Last year he was awarded the EMET prize for Art, Science and Culture.A new book co-authored by Professor Tsafrir has just come out and I noted it last weekend. Other past posts mentioning him are here, here, and links. May his memory be for a blessing.
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ZooMS peptide mass fingerprinting of parchment
TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Getting Under the Skin of Medieval Bible Mystery (University of York/Breaking Israel News).
A simple PVC eraser has helped an international team of scientists led by bioarchaeologists at the University of York to resolve the mystery surrounding the tissue-thin parchment used by medieval scribes to produce the first pocket Bibles.And yes, they were able to answer the question. Again and again, non-invasive and non-destructive technologies are the way of the future in archaeology and history. Recent more-or-less related stories are noted here, here, and here.
Thousands of the Bibles were made in the 13th century, principally in France but also in England, Italy and Spain. But the origin of the parchment — often called ‘uterine vellum’ — has been a source of longstanding controversy.
Use of the Latin term abortivum in many sources has led some scholars to suggest that the skin of fetal calves was used to produce the vellum. Others have discounted that theory, arguing that it would not have been possible to sustain livestock herds if so much vellum was produced from fetal skins. Older scholarship even argued that unexpected alternatives such as rabbit or squirrel may have been used, while some medieval sources suggest that hides must have been split by hand through use of a lost technology.
A multi-disciplinary team of researchers, led by Dr Sarah Fiddyment and Professor Matthew Collins of the BioArCh research facility in the Department of Archaeology at York, developed a simple and objective technique using standard conservation treatments to identify the animal origin of parchment.
The non-invasive method is a variant on ZooMS (ZooArchaeology by Mass Spectrometry) peptide mass fingerprinting but extracts protein from the parchment surface simply by using electrostatic charge generated by gentle rubbing of a PVC eraser on the membrane surface.
[...]
The Carmel Forest terraces
ARCHAEOLOGY BY FIRE: 2,000-year-old terraces restored 5 years after Carmel Forest fire (SHARON UDASIN , Jerusalem Post).
Uncovering the terraces has been a part of a much larger process of rehabilitating both the Carmel Forest and creating buffer zones to protect nearby communities from future fires.
Five years after the Carmel fire tragedy that killed 44 people and burned some 2,550 hectares of land, a series of 2,000-year-old terraces have been exposed and restored in the region.
While the fire proved disastrous to both the people and wildlife in the Carmel area, the burning of the thick forest revealed the ancient agricultural terraces, which were then restored by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund.
[...]
Tuesday, December 01, 2015
Review of Litwa, Iesus Deus
LARRY HURTADO: “Jewish” and “Hellenistic” in Recent Scholarship on Christian Origins.
In some recent studies of early expressions of Jesus-devotion, there are some issues that need clarification. One of these recent studies is Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God, by M. David Litwa (Fortress Press, 2014).
[...]
The Talmud and ... bestiality?
THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Does the Talmud Condone Bestiality? Literal interpretations of misogynistic and gossipy fidelity laws leads to a surprising logical conclusion. The short answer to the question is no.
Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.
Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.
Jordanian Lead Books Centre website
FAKE METAL CODICES WATCH: Last March I noted the report of the founding of a Centre for the Study of the Jordanian Lead Books, chaired by Margaret Barker. The Centre now has a website here.
As I said in March, I think it is a positive development to have a group of serious scholars evaluating the Jordan codices. I still think the objects are modern productions, but how, why, and exactly when and where they were made remain potentially interesting questions for someone (other than me) to follow up. I certainly have no objection to people studying them, if they want to. And, as I have said often already, if anyone still wants to argue that some of the codices are genuine artifacts from antiquity, the case should be made in the peer-review scholarly literature. That has not happened — I think because there is no such case to be made. But if someone wants to prove me wrong, that is the place to do it.
PaleoJudaica posts pertaining to the Jordan codices published after the announcement in March are here, here, here, and here.
As I said in March, I think it is a positive development to have a group of serious scholars evaluating the Jordan codices. I still think the objects are modern productions, but how, why, and exactly when and where they were made remain potentially interesting questions for someone (other than me) to follow up. I certainly have no objection to people studying them, if they want to. And, as I have said often already, if anyone still wants to argue that some of the codices are genuine artifacts from antiquity, the case should be made in the peer-review scholarly literature. That has not happened — I think because there is no such case to be made. But if someone wants to prove me wrong, that is the place to do it.
PaleoJudaica posts pertaining to the Jordan codices published after the announcement in March are here, here, here, and here.
P134 at SBL
SBL 2015 REPORT: New Papyrus (P134) of John: A Report from SBL (Tommy Wasserman, ETC Blog).
Background here and here.
Background here and here.
Textual criticism at the SBL
SBL 2015 REPORT: SBL 2015 - Part 1, SBL 2015 - Part 2 at OTTC: A Blog for Old Testament Textual Criticism (Drew Longacre).
Monday, November 30, 2015
The GJW is back in the news
I'M STILL SKEPTICAL: Is ‘The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ a revelation or a hoax? (Lisa Wangsness, Boston Globe). This is a good summary of the current state of the question, with a couple of pieces of new information. There are already blog posts noting the article and commenting on it:
Mark Goodacre The Gospel of Jesus' Wife Latest: Boston Globe Update;
Peter J. Gurrey: ETC Blog and GJW in the Boston Globe.
Recent PaleoJudaica posts on the GJW are here and here, and follow the links for lots more. I note one peculiarity of the new article: Mark Goodacre cites the title as "The Case of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife Still Isn't Closed" and that title remains in the URL, but the title in the article has been changed to the one given above. Either title seems to reflect the content of the article, so I'm not sure of the reason for the change.
Another current Boston Globe article also deals with the debate over the GJW: Five questions about ‘The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’. It too has an earlier title remaining in the URL: "Is the Gospel of Jesus's Wife a Fake?" Again, no explanation is given for the change in title.
Beyond that, I see no reason at present to add to the comments I've made in my recent posts linked to above. We are still waiting for the publication of some tests on the ink and I doubt that the discussion will make much progress before they are published.
Mark Goodacre The Gospel of Jesus' Wife Latest: Boston Globe Update;
Peter J. Gurrey: ETC Blog and GJW in the Boston Globe.
Recent PaleoJudaica posts on the GJW are here and here, and follow the links for lots more. I note one peculiarity of the new article: Mark Goodacre cites the title as "The Case of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife Still Isn't Closed" and that title remains in the URL, but the title in the article has been changed to the one given above. Either title seems to reflect the content of the article, so I'm not sure of the reason for the change.
Another current Boston Globe article also deals with the debate over the GJW: Five questions about ‘The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’. It too has an earlier title remaining in the URL: "Is the Gospel of Jesus's Wife a Fake?" Again, no explanation is given for the change in title.
Beyond that, I see no reason at present to add to the comments I've made in my recent posts linked to above. We are still waiting for the publication of some tests on the ink and I doubt that the discussion will make much progress before they are published.
Jenkins on the Gospel of Barnabas
PHILIP JENKINS: The “Secret” Gospels that Have Been Hiding in Plain Sight (History News Network). Did the Gospel of Barnabas know ancient Gnostic sources? Professor Jenkins seems to think so.
Some past PaleoJudaica posts on the Gospel of Barnabas are here, here, and here. More on Jenkins's recent book on the apocryphal gospels, The Many Faces of Christ, is here and here.
Some past PaleoJudaica posts on the Gospel of Barnabas are here, here, and here. More on Jenkins's recent book on the apocryphal gospels, The Many Faces of Christ, is here and here.
New oracles of Metatron
ARCHANGEL METATRON WATCH: Happy Birthday Curtis Armstrong: Best Metatron quotes from Supernatural (Mangala Dilip, International Business Times).
You have been around since scaly things crawled out of the muck, would it have killed you to read a book?Background here and links.
More vintage resurrection
WINE MAKING: Israel Aims to Recreate Wine That Jesus and King David Drank (JODI RUDOREN, NYT).
HEFER VALLEY, Israel — The new crisp, acidic and mineral white from a high-end Israeli winery was aged for eight months — or, depending on how you look at it, at least 1,800 years.As usual with anything to do with Israel and the West Bank, the politics are complicated. Potentially related stories are noted here, here, here, and links.
The wine, called marawi and released last month by Recanati Winery, is the first commercially produced by Israel’s growing modern industry from indigenous grapes. It grew out of a groundbreaking project at Ariel University in the occupied West Bank that aims to use DNA testing to identify — and recreate — ancient wines drunk by the likes of King David and Jesus Christ.
Eliyashiv Drori, the Ariel oenologist who heads the research, traces marawi (also called hamdani) and jandali grapes to A.D. 220 based on a reference in the Babylonian Talmud.
“All our scriptures are full with wine and with grapes — before the French were even thinking about making wine, we were exporting wine,” he said. “We have a very ancient identity, and for me, reconstructing this identity is very important. For me, it’s a matter of national pride.”
[...]
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Review of Spiró, Captivity
BOOK REVIEW: (Adam Kirsch, Tablet).
Captivity, the newly translated novel by the Hungarian writer György Spiró, offers a good reminder not to judge a book by its cover. When I first saw this particular cover, with its black background, stark white typography, and surreally floating sculptured bust, the imagery—combined with the book’s Central European provenance, gloomy title, and Jewish focus—made me think that this would be a brooding modernist enigma of a book, perhaps along the lines of Imre Kertész’s Holocaust fictions. In fact, Captivity turns out to be just the opposite—a sprawling (more than 800 pages), picturesque, old-fashioned historical novel about the Roman Empire, in the showy tradition of Ben Hur and I, Claudius. In fact, both Jesus and Claudius, the main characters of those books, make cameo appearances in Captivity, as do other boldface names of the 1st century CE, including Caligula, Pontius Pilate, and Philo of Alexandria. What sets Captivity apart is that it makes the rare attempt to view all these historical phenomena—from the rise of Christianity to the flamboyant vices of the emperors—through a distinctively Jewish lens.Another recent review was noted here.
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Di Segni et al., The Onomasticon of Iudaea
NEW BOOK FROM THE ISRAEL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES:
The Onomasticon of Iudaea · Palaestina and Arabia in the Greek and Latin Sources
Volume I: Introduction, Sources, Major Texts
Author/s:
Leah Di Segni
Yoram Tsafrir
Judith Green
Date of publication: 2015
Division: Humanities
Subject/s: Archaeology
Mediaeval Languages and Literatures
General Humanities
Classical Studies
Ancient Languages and Literatures
Series: Publications in the Humanities
Language: English ISBN 978-965-208-201-5
Price: NIS 240.00
The Onomasticon, a monumental endeavor begun in the 1960s by the late Prof. Michael Avi-Yonah, collates all the known Greek and Latin literary and documentary sources mentioning geographical and ethnic names attested in Iudaea, under the Hasmonaean and Herodian dynasties, and in the Roman and Byzantine provinces of Palaestina and Arabia - an area today spread over Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Sinai and southern Syria.
The source texts, dating from the fourth century BCE to the seventh century CE, are culled from over 1,300 texts by more than 750 separate authors, and from papyri, inscriptions and coins. The individual place names are arranged in alphabetical entries, each presenting a comprehensive collection of excerpts from the texts in which that place is mentioned. Where possible, the places are identified and described on the basis of up-to-date archaeological and bibliographical research.
Volume I contains an annotated bibliography of the primary source texts, a collection of major texts from which many of the sources in the alphabetical entries are excerpted, and a listing of all the place names covered in the series. Volume II, in two parts, will contain the entries for geographical names beginning with the letter A, including the massive entry for Arabia.
456 pp., two foldout maps. 18 × 27 cm. Hardback (Cloth).
Zfatman, Jewish Exorcism in Early Modern Ashkenaz
NEW BOOK FROM MAGNES PRESS:
Jewish Exorcism in Early Modern AshkenazExorcism traditions in Judaism go back to David and Saul, are well-known from the Second Temple period (mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls and by Josephus and the New Testament), come up in the rabbinic literature, and extend to modernity.
By Sara Zfatman
Printed book $ 46.00 $ 41.40
Online book & Download $ 34.50
Publisher: The Hebrew University Magnes Press
Categories:
Folklore, Yiddish, Jewish Studies
Publish date: November 2015
Language: Hebrew
Danacode: 45-341100
ISBN: 978-965-493-804-4
Cover: Hardcover
Pages: 597
Weight: 1400 gr.
An exorcism which took place in 1696 in Nikolsburg, Moravia (today Mikulov, Czech Republic) is the focus of this book. The description of this grandiose magic event reached us in two different versions: one well-known, in Hebrew became a model for this folk-genre in the 18th century; the other in Yiddish, remained unknown until now and is published here in full for the first time .The analysis includes a thorough comparison between these two competing descriptions, the identification of the participants – with special emphasis on their Sabbatean background and connections, as well as an identification of the specific ‘manual for exorcism’ used in this event (also published here in full, along other esoteric manuals of its kind).
Through a thorough examination of the paradigmatic exorcism which took place in Moravia in 1696 and of its deep influence on the exorcism tales of the following generations, this book sheds new light on the central role magic in general and exorcism in particular played in the rich and multi-faceted cultural life of Ashkenazic Jews in the early modern period.
Review of Cumont, Les mystères de Mithra
BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:
Franz Cumont, Les mystères de Mithra (volume édité par Nicole Belayche & Attilio Mastrocinque avec la collaboration de Daniela Bonanno). Bibliotheca Cumontiana. Scripta maiora, 3. Savigliano: Nino Aragno Editore, 2013. Pp. xc, 258. ISBN 9788884196101. €70.00 (pb).
Reviewed by Matthew M. McCarty, University of British Columbia (matthew.mccarty@ubc.ca)
Preview
An era when even the whisper of terms like “doctrine” or “belief” sends historians of Roman religion scurrying may seem like a strange time to re-issue Franz Cumont’s turn-of-the-twentieth-century synthesis of Mithraism. After all, it was Cumont who forged disparate textual and visual remains related to Mithras into a coherent system of ideas and spiritual content, into something that resembled a nineteenth-century, Protestant-looking “World Religion.” Yet this volume, with its rich historiographic introductory essays and inclusion of Cumont’s previously unpublished essay on the spread of Mithraism, offers much to those interested in the historiography of Classical and religious studies, as well as a chance to reflect critically on the method and practice of ancient history.
[...]
Smith's Jerusalem online
OLD BUT STILL USEFUL: George Adam Smith’s “Jerusalem” (2 Vols) online (Biblical Archaeology Blog).
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Gittin (ed.), The Ancient Pottery of Israel and Its Neighbors
NEW BOOK FROM THE ISRAEL EXPLORATION SOCIETY:
HT A.D. Riddle at the Bible and Interpretation Blog: New Reference Work for Pottery from the Holy Land.
We are very pleased to announce the publication of the first two volumes of the long-awaited ANCIENT POTTERY OF ISRAEL AND ITS NEIGHBORS FROM THE IRON AGE THROUGH THE HELLENISTIC PERIODFollow the link for a PhD file with book description and order form.
Seymour Gitin, Editor
Published by:
Israel Exploration SocietyW.F.
Albright Institute of Archaeological Research
Israel Antiquities AuthorityAmerican Schools of Oriental Research
HT A.D. Riddle at the Bible and Interpretation Blog: New Reference Work for Pottery from the Holy Land.
Fishbane, Jewish Hermeneutical Theology
NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:
Michael Fishbane: Jewish Hermeneutical TheologyThe TOC of the volume is as follows:
Edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Arizona State University and Aaron W. Hughes, University of Rochester. With an Introduction by Sam Berrin Shonkoff, University of Chicago Divinity School.
Michael Fishbane is Nathan Cummings Distinguished Service Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Trained in biblical studies and the ancient Near East at Brandeis University, he has written on rabbinic interpretation, medieval Jewish philosophy and mysticism, Hasidism, modern Jewish philosophy, and Hebrew poetry. His earlier groundbreaking historical work has provided the foundation for his more recent constructive hermeneutic theology. Among his numerous books are the award-winning Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (1985) and Kiss of God (1994), Biblical Myth and Rabbinic Mythmaking (2003), and Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology (2008). He is, in addition, an elected member of the American Academy of Jewish Research and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The Contributors
Editors' Introduction to the Series
Michael Fishbane: An Intellectual Portrait, Sam Berrin Shonkoff
Modern Jewish Theology and Traditional Hermeneutics, Michael Fishbane
Midrash and the Nature of Scripture, Michael Fishbane
Five Stages of Jewish Myth and Mythmaking, Michael Fishbane
The Bible in the Jewish Mystical Tradition, Michael Fishbane
A Jewish Hermeneutical Theology, Michael Fishbane
Biblical Hermeneutics and Philosophical Theology, Michael Fishbane
Interview with Michael Fishbane, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson
Select Bibliography
Fiensy and Strange (eds), Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods
NEW BOOK FROM FORTRESS PRESS:
Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods: Two-Volume Set
by David A. Fiensy (Author, Editor), James Riley Strange (Editor)
ISBN-13: 978-1506405124
ISBN-10: 1506405126
Paperback
$95.98
In this two-volume set, David A. Fiensy and James Riley Strange have invited an international cast of experts to provide a comprehensive analysis of past and current research on Galilee and up-to-date commentary regarding ongoing site excavations. The articles are filled with supporting photographs, maps, and diagrams to help both experts and nonexperts visualize this important period in the history of Galilee and make it come to life. Each volume contains extensive bibliographies at the end of chapters for further study and reading.
The two volumes consolidate a great deal of information that has been brought to light in various journals, field reports, and essays over the past thirty years. The editors have intentionally invited the voices of Christian and Jewish archaeologists, historians, biblical scholars, and social-science interpreters to present their varied findings and opinions. The resulting wealth of information in one single source provides rich opportunities for conversation and for further research by students and scholars of all levels.
Crawford and Wassen (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran and the Concept of a Library
NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:
The Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran and the Concept of a LibrarySome potentially related past posts on ancient libraries are here and here and links.
Edited by Sidnie White Crawford, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Cecilia Wassen, Uppsala University
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Concept of a Library presents twelve articles by renowned experts in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran studies. These articles explore from various angles the question of whether or not the collection of manuscripts found in the eleven caves in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran can be characterized as a “library,” and, if so, what the relation of that library is to the ruins of Qumran and the group of Jews that inhabited them. The essays fall into the following categories: the collection as a whole, subcollections within the overall corpus, and the implications of identifying the Qumran collection as a library.
Lieu, Neither Jew Nor Greek
NEW BOOK FROM T&T CLARK/BLOOMSBURY:: Neither Jew Nor Greek by Judith Lieu.
A ground-breaking study in the formation of early Christian identity, by one of the world's leading scholars. In Neither Jew Nor Greek, Judith Lieu explores the formation and shaping of early Christian identity within Judaism and within the wider Graeco-Roman world in the period before 200 C.E.
[...]
Friday, November 27, 2015
Antiquities dealer charged with looting thousands of coins
ARREST: Cops bust antiquities dealer with over 3,000 ancient coins. Suspect admits to illegal sale and export of artifacts he illicitly collected in fields near Beit She’an (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel).
Police and Israel Antiquities Authority agents on Tuesday arrested an art dealer from northern Israel after finding him with over 3,000 illegally obtained ancient coins — valued in the tens of thousands of dollars.
The suspect, a resident of Kibbutz Beit Hashita and a licensed antiquities dealer, was charged with attempting to sell the objects he illegally acquired to buyers abroad, and to do so without an export permit. The IAA said in a statement on Thursday that investigators found over 3,000 coins — some over 2,000 years old — and lead and ceramic objects in the man’s home.
[...]
Most of the coins in the man’s collection dated from the Byzantine period, but the trove included rarer items from the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome — the Bar Kochba Revolt of 132-135 CE — and Roman coins celebrating the crushing of the Jewish Revolt in 70 CE bearing the words “Judaea Capta” — Judea Conquered. Other coins were from the later Muslim era.
[...]
Women and Torah study in the Talmud
THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: The Talmud’s Deep Misogyny: No Women Allowed. There’s no way to sugarcoat it: Talmudic rabbis think women are dangerous sex fiends who should avoid Torah study—and as a consequence prescribe humiliating guilty-until-proven-innocent public shaming ceremonies.
Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links. The first post at this link also includes some additional information about the use of the Sota (Sotah) ritual in the post-Temple period.
Should women study Torah? Today, most Jews would answer that question with a resounding yes—and not only Reform and Conservative Jews. Even Chabad, on the evidence of its website TheJewishWoman.org, sees the rise in women’s Torah study as an unambiguously good thing, evidence of “women’s deep desire to achieve spiritual fulfillment through talmud Torah.” (The same source offers a reassurance that a woman’s desire to study Torah is not necessarily a product of “contentious motives,” such as feminism.) But ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, Jews still exclude women from Torah study, and in this week’s Daf Yomi reading, we saw that the rabbis themselves were divided on the issue. The basic rule is that the mitzvah of Torah study, like many mitzvot, is not binding on women the way it is on men; when women study Torah, they are not fulfilling a commandment but doing so voluntarily.Again and again and again: the ancients lived in a very different world from ours. One that by the standards of our time was often brutal and degrading.
[...]
Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links. The first post at this link also includes some additional information about the use of the Sota (Sotah) ritual in the post-Temple period.
Sanders, Comparing Judaism and Christianity
FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM FORTRESS PRESS:
Comparing Judaism and Christianity: Common Judaism, Paul, and the Inner and the Outer in Ancient Religion
Author: E. P. Sanders
Description
Few scholars have so shaped the contemporary debate on the relation of early Christianity to early Judaism as E. P. Sanders, and no one has produced a clearer or more distinctive vision of that relationship as it was expressed in the figures of Jesus of Nazareth and Paul the apostle.
Gathered for the first time within one cover, here Sanders presents formative essays that show the structure of his approach and the insights it produces into Paul's relationship to Judaism and the Jewish law. Sanders addresses matters of definition ("common Judaism," "covenantal nomism"), diversity (the Judaism of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Diaspora), and key exegetical and historical questions relative to Jesus, Paul, and Christian origins in relationship to early Judaism.
These essays show a leading scholar at his most erudite as he carries forward and elaborates many of the insights that have become touchstones in New Testament interpretation.
Paperback
ISBN: 9781506406077
Price: $39.00
Ebook
ISBN: 9781506406084
Release date: March 1, 2016
Pages: 526
Width: 6
Height: 9
Quotation from Isaiah found in ancient mosaic in Turkey
EXCAVATION: Mosaic with Bible inscription found in Adana (Daily Sabah).
A 120-square-meter mosaic with a quotation from the Bible in Greek has been recently found in Turkey's Adana province. It reads, ‘The wolf and the lamb will feed together, the lion will eat straw like the ox and dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on my holy mountain, says the Lord'As the article notes, the quotation is from Isaiah 65:25. There is no indication of what the building that housed the mosaic was used for or what its cultural context was.
A new mosaic inscribed with quotes from the Bible has been discovered in the southern city of Adana during excavations jointly undertaken by the Culture and Tourism Ministry's Cultural Heritage Department and the Provincial Directorate of Museums. The 120-square-meter mosaic was found on private property located in the Karlık neighborhood of Adana's Sarıçam district. According to archaeologists, the Eastern Roman-era mosaic dates back to between the fifth and sixth centuries A.D.
[...]
Brill's Handbook of Jewish Languages
NEW BOOK: Brill Publishes Handbook of Jewish Languages.
Publishing
2015, November 06
Leiden (NL) / Boston (MA) – 6 November 2015
Brill, the international scholarly publisher, has published an exciting new reference work for the study of Jewish Languages, the Handbook of Jewish Languages.
The Handbook of Jewish Languages is an introduction to the many languages used by Jews throughout history, including Yiddish, Judezmo (Ladino), and Jewish varieties of Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Berber, English, French, Georgian, Greek, Hungarian, Iranian, Italian, Latin American Spanish, Malayalam, Occitan (Provençal), Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Syriac, Turkic (Karaim and Krymchak), Turkish, and more. Chapters include historical and linguistic descriptions of each language, an overview of primary and secondary literature, and comprehensive bibliographies to aid further research. Many chapters also contain sample texts and images.
This book is an unparalleled resource for anyone interested in Jewish languages, and will also be very useful for historical linguists, dialectologists, and scholars and students of minority or endangered languages.
[...]
Thursday, November 26, 2015
What is Coptic?
BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: What Is Coptic and Who Were the Copts in Ancient Egypt? A short history of ancient Egyptian language (Megan Sauter). This essay introduces a BAR article by Leo Depuyt which is behind the subscription wall, but the essay is informative in itself.
Cross-file under "Coptic Watch" and "Asking The Important Questions."
Cross-file under "Coptic Watch" and "Asking The Important Questions."
The future of archaeology
TECHNOLOGY WATCH: The Future Of Archaeology Is Not Digging Anything Up. The 2016 TED Prize winner is reinventing how we discover—and preserve—the past (Jessica Leber, Fast Company).
More on Professor Parcak's work is here.
Most archaeologists can be happy to uncover a small handful of important ancient sites in their careers. Sarah Parcak, a young professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has already pinpointed thousands, making her among the most productive archaeologist working today.An example of practical application of the new technologies:
How is this possible? She hunts for evidence of buried civilizations from the vantage of space. Using satellite imagery, she can see traces of underground artifacts that no one on Earth could ever spot without a shovel. In Egypt alone, where there are 138 known pyramids, she’s identified 17 potential new ones, as well as 1,000 tombs and 3,100 unknown settlements. All of this won her this year’s TED Prize, a $1 million award announced last week, along with countless comparisons to Indiana Jones.
[...]
Once potential sites are identified, of course, they must be verified by humans on the ground—so most of her potential sites have yet to be explored. As a result, she collaborates with many archaeologist all over the world. She describes one recent discovery made in Tunisia: Next to a Roman-era fort from 2,000 years ago, imagery showed something unusual was nearby. Upon further investigation, they encountered dense concentrations of slag—the evidence of burning.And this prediction:
"What we found was a massive pottery production center," she says. The site was actually a settled center of trade, not just another of the typical forts that would have defended the ancient road in Roman times.
Parcak sees a trend where the digging—can expose safely buried antiquities to looting and other dangerous becomes less necessary. "Technology is improving. At what point can we zoom in from space and see a tiny pot shard from a site? I think we’ll be there in 10 years," she says.What I've been saying. Non-invasive and non-destructive technologies are the way of the future. And the future is coming soon.
In 20 or 30 years, she imagines archaeologists may stop excavating entirely and send tiny robots to explore underground—-leaving the treasures undisturbed for the benefit of future generations.
More on Professor Parcak's work is here.
On the history of parchment
(ANCIENT) TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Written on Beasts (Bruce Holsinger, NYR Daily).
Parchment, a medium that came into widespread use beginning in late antiquity, has for many centuries held a special place in the cultural imagination. “When you want to have the love of whatever woman you wish,” advises a medieval necromancer’s manual, “first you must have a totally white dove and parchment made from a female dog that is in heat.” In the Talmud parchment comes in for extended discussion, much of it devoted to the ritual treatment of animal skins. Tractate Shabbath, the Talmudic book that deals with rules for the Sabbath, contains rigorous rabbinical debates over the suitability of certain kinds of membranes for sacred use: the perforated skins of birds, the split hides of cows and sheep. “Can teffilin be written on the skin of a clean fish?” a rabbi asks at one point. No, answers another—but only because of the smell.
The ancient Jewish community at Djerba
HISTORY: Ancient Jewish community endures on Tunisian isle (Associated Press and Israel Hayom Staff).
The Jewish community on the Tunisian resort island of Djerba traces its roots back to the Babylonian exile of 586 B.C.E., and is one of the few communities of its kind to have survived the turmoil around the creation of Israel.Background here and here.
Spiró, Captivity
REVIEW OF A NEWLY TRANSLATED NOVEL: Zelig in Jerusalem. Uri dines with Pontius Pilate and is thrown into a cell with a certain Galilean rabble-rouser (WSJ).
Hungarian novelist György Spiró’s monumental “Captivity” (Restless Books, 860 pages, $29.99) begins in Rome’s Jewish enclave during the reign of Tiberius (A.D. 14-37). This oversized book has an undersized hero: Gaius “Uri” Theodorus, a moody, reedy 19-year-old dreamer. His prospects seem inauspicious at best until his father pulls some strings to have him included in a delegation bringing tithes to Jerusalem in time for the Passover celebration.
What follows is a case of mistaken identity. His fellow delegates, baffled by the presence of such an unimpressive figure, assume Uri is an agent and courier for Agrippa, the free-spending friend of Tiberius who is openly angling to be named King of Judaea. (Known to history as Herod Agrippa, he really did gain control of the kingdom in A.D. 41.) “Captivity” takes us from Rome to Jerusalem, Alexandria and back again during an especially fragile and eventful period of the Pax Romana.
[...]
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Abegg et al., The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, vol. 2
NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:
The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, Volume 3 (2 vols) TThe Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert (2009)
The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, Volume 1 (2 vols) The Non-Biblical Texts from Qumran (2003)
The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, Volume 2Although this is volume 2, volumes 1 and 3 are already long since published:
The Non-Qumran Documents and Texts
Martin G. Abegg, Jr. , James E. Bowley and Edward M. Cook in consultation with Emanuel Tov
The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, Volume 2, presents for the first time an index to the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek text of the non-biblical, non-Qumran Judaean Desert documents in one publication. The contents of this volume are defined by E. Tov’s Revised Lists (Brill, 2010). In the main the Concordance serves as an index for volumes II and III of the Judean Desert Studies (JDS), volumes II, XXVII, XXVIII, and XXXVIII of the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD), and volumes I, II, and VI of Masada: The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963-1965, Final Reports.
The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, Volume 3 (2 vols) TThe Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert (2009)
The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, Volume 1 (2 vols) The Non-Biblical Texts from Qumran (2003)
Review of Jacobson, The Lost Codex
BOOK REVIEW (NOVEL): ‘The Lost Codex’ (Elise Cooper, Military Press).
“The Lost Codex” by Alan Jacobson blends realism with a riveting story. Besides a thriller, readers will gain an understanding of the geo-political climate and the historical significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Anyone familiar with Jacobson’s characters will enjoy the return of the Operations Support Intelligence Group: FBI profiler Karen Vail, Special Forces veteran Hector DeSantos, and Aaron Uziel, the FBI Joint Terrorism Chief.That's an ambitious mission.
As with the real world, the government leaders appear weak, hesitant, and inept. Set in Washington DC, New York, Paris, England, and Israel, the Operations Support Intelligence Group must uncover and thwart an international terrorist plot. Their mission is to find the stolen Dead Sea documents and those responsible for unleashing coordinated and unprecedented attacks on US soil.
[...]
Weiss, Cutting the Shoots
NEW BOOK FROM MAGNES PRESS:
Cutting the Shoots
The Worship of the Shekhinah in the World of Early Kabbalistic Literature
By Tzahi Weiss
Publisher: The Hebrew University Magnes Press
Categories: Jewish Mysticism, Jewish History, Jewish Studies, Religions
Publish date: October 2015
Language: Hebrew
Danacode: 45-141028
ISBN: 978-965-493-838-9
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 170
Weight: 400 gr.
The feminine divine presence, the Shekhinah, has received detailed description in the Kabbalistic literature from the time of its inception at the end of the 12th century. The present book pursues the tracks of the belief in the Shekhinah and demonstrates that the main motive of the Kabbalists was not to disseminate the belief in Her but rather to restrain and to supervise this belief which had evolved outside the Kabbalists’ sphere or in its margins.
Homolka, Jesus Reclaimed
NEW BOOK FROM BERGHAN BOOKS:
JESUS RECLAIMED
Jewish Perspectives on the Nazarene
Walter Homolka
Translated by Ingrid Shafer
Foreword by Leonard Swidler
166 pages, bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-78238-579-0 $39.95/£25.00 Hb Published (January 2015)
eISBN 978-1-78238-580-6 eBook
After centuries of persecution, oppression, forced migrations, and exclusion in the name of Christ, the development of a Jewish “Quest for the Historical Jesus” might seem unexpected. This book gives an overview and analysis of the various Jewish perspectives on the Nazarene throughout the centuries, emphasizing the variety of German voices in Anglo-American contexts. It explores the reasons for a steady increase in Jewish interest in Jesus since the end of the eighteenth century, arguing that this growth had a strategic goal: the justification of Judaism as a living faith alongside Christianity.
A grammar of Aramaic in Persian
ARAMAIC WATCH: First Persian book on three ancient languages’ grammar released (Iran Book News Agency).
HT reader Gerald Rosenberg.
IBNA – The Persian book ‘Introduction to Grammar and Dictionaries of Syriac, Aramaic and Assyrian Languages’, compiled by Sa’eed Hayati was released.The interview with the author is not the most lucid I have ever seen and I wonder if it was translated, badly, from Persian. Anyway, the book seems to involve the grammar of a range of Aramaic dialects and it was published in Persian, and that sounds like a good thing.
HT reader Gerald Rosenberg.
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Open Greek and Latin Project
AWOL: Open Greek and Latin Project of the Open Philology Project.
The ultimate goal is to represent every source text produced in Classical Greek or Latin from antiquity through the present, including texts preserved in manuscript tradition as well as on inscriptions, papyri, ostraca and other written artifacts. Over the course of the next five years, we will focus upon converting as much Greek and Latin, available as scanned printed books, into an open, dynamic corpus, continuously augmented and improved by a combination of automated processes and human contributions of many kinds. The focus upon Greek and Latin reflects both the belief that we have an obligation to disseminate European cultural heritage and the observation that recent advances in OCR technology for Greek and Latin make these intertwined languages ready for large-scale work.
[...]
Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Diaspora
NOW AN E-BOOK:
Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the DiasporaInformation on the book in hard copy is here.
Author: Rachel Hachlili
Subjects: Jewish Studies
Publication Year : 1998
Book DOI: 10.1163/9789004294042
E - ISBN : 9789004294042
Collections: Handbook of Oriental Studies: Ancient Near East Online
Volume: 35
Series: Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1 The Near and Middle East
This publication provides fascinating new information about the origin, symbolism and significance of ancient Jewish synagogal and funerary art and archeology in the Diaspora, during the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods.
Johnson, Reading David and Goliath in Greek and Hebrew
NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:
Reading David and Goliath in Greek and Hebrew
A Literary Approach
[David und Goliath auf Griechisch und Hebräisch lesen. Ein literarischer Ansatz.]
2015. XIV, 270 pages.
Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 82
79,00 €
sewn paper
ISBN 978-3-16-154046-2
Published in English.
Benjamin J. M. Johnson offers a literary reading of the two variant editions of the story of David and Goliath as found in the Hebrew and Greek traditions of 1 Samuel 16–18 and explores a method for reading the Septuagint as both a translation and a text in its own right.
Tigchelaar et al., Hebrew of the Late Second Temple Period
NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:
Hebrew of the Late Second Temple Period
Proceedings of a Sixth International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira
Edited by Eibert Tigchelaar, K.U. Leuven and Pierre Van Hecke K.U. Leuven, with the assistance of Seth Bledsoe and Pieter B. Hartog
The Hebrew of the Late Second Temple Period is directly attested in the Scrolls from Qumran and other manuscripts discovered in the Judaean Desert. Indirectly, it is also found in some manuscripts copied in later times, which still preserve linguistic elements of the Hebrew from the period in which the texts were authored. Often referred to as the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls or Qumran Hebrew, and positioned chronologically between Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, its nature remains disputed. Some essays in this volume deal with linguistic and philological problems of this Late Second Temple Period Hebrew. Other papers discuss the nature and linguistic profile of the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Miller, Performances of Ancient Jewish Letters
NEW BOOK FROM VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT:
Marvin Lloyd Miller
Performances of Ancient Jewish Letters
From Elephantine to MMT
1. Edition 2015
317 pages
ISBN 978-3-525-55093-9
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Journal of Ancient Judaism. Supplements -
99,99 €
If you have placed a standing order for the series: 89,99 €
Marvin Lloyd Miller combines a wide range of approaches to cast new light on the form and function of several ancient Jewish letters in a variety of languages. He applies a new emerging field of performance theory to texts, and argues that letters and other documents were not just read in silence, as is normal today, but were “performed,” especially when they were addressed to a community. The Performance focuses closely on the ways in which the engagement of the audience during the performance of a text might be read from traces present in the text itself.
Monday, November 23, 2015
De Lange, Japheth in the Tents of Shem
FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:
NICHOLAS DE LANGE
Japheth in the Tents of Shem
Greek Bible Translations in Byzantine Judaism
[Japheth in den Zelten des Sem. Griechische Bibelübersetzungen im byzantinischen Judentum.]
2015. XVI, 221 Seiten.
Texts and Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Judaism 30
erscheint im Dezember
Veröffentlicht auf Englisch.
Zum ersten Mal wird in diesem Band die Rezeption und Überlieferung griechischer Übersetzungen der Bibel durch Juden im Mittelalter in diesem Umfang behandelt. Dies ist das Ergebnis von über 40 Jahren Forschungsarbeit Nicholas de Langes, der die meisten Belege selber zusammengestellt hat, hauptsächlich aus bisher unveröffentlichten Manuskriptquellen, wie den Kairoer Geniza Fragmenten.
Emanuel, Hidden Treasures from Europe
NEW BOOK FROM MAGNES PRESS:
Hidden Treasures from EuropeA couple of possibly related past posts are here and here.
Volume I [In Hebrew.]
By Simcha Emanuel
The discovery of the Cairo Geniza has transformed scholarly research in multiple areas of Jewish Studies and revolutionized several disciplines. It has provided the materials for thousands of studies and is by no means exhausted. Alongside the Cairo Geniza, an additional "Geniza" is slowly emerging in Europe, one that consists of many thousands of individual pages that were torn from Hebrew manuscripts hundreds of years ago and subsequently used for bookbinding and as folders for archive files. Although the first fruits of the European Geniza appeared considerably before the discovery of its Cairo counterpart, this "European Geniza" has not been at the center of scholarly interest, and relatively few scholars have made use of it. However, in recent decades thousands of new fragments have come to light, increasing the quantity previously known to us exponentially.
Hidden Treasures from Europe seeks to bring the European Geniza to the forefront of scholarly research. Chapter One is an extensive and detailed introduction to the nature of this Geniza. The heart of the book, Chapters Two through Twelve, comprises the first publication of eleven important texts found in the European Geniza that are not extant in published editions or in whole manuscripts. These were carefully chosen from among a much broader range of previously unknown texts that were preserved in the European Geniza. Half of these compositions are Bible commentaries (Section I, Chapters Two–Six), and the other half are commentaries to the Talmud (Section II, Chapters Seven–Twelve). Most were composed in France, Germany, or Italy, while the country of origin of one early work, Sefer efeî, has yet to be determined.
Feder, "Behind the Scenes of a Priestly Polemic"
NEW ARTICLE IN THE JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURES: Yitzhaq FEDER, “Behind the Scenes of a Priestly Polemic: Leviticus 14 and its Extra-Biblical Parallels.”
Abstract: This article examines the relationship between disease, pollution and sin in the Priestly writings, focusing on the rites for the purification of sara'at in Leviticus 14. In particular, it evaluates the contested question of whether this text is implicitly polemical in light of extra-biblical texts dealing with similar subject matter, especially a ritual for the treatment of skin disease from Emar. These comparisons enable a more precise characterization of the Priestly agenda reflected in Lev 14 and suggest that the traditional notion of pollution in Israel may have been deliberately reinterpreted.There are also some interesting 2015 reviews.
Debié, L'écriture de l'histoire en syriaque
NEW BOOK FROM PEETERS PUBLISHERS (SYRIAC WATCH):
L'écriture de l'histoire en syriaque
Transmissions interculturelles et constructions identitaires entre hellénisme et islam. Avec des répertoires des textes historiographiques en annexe
Series: Late Antique History and Religion, 12
Authors: Debié M.
Year: 2015
ISBN: 978-90-429-3237-1
Pages: XXXIV-724 p.
Price: 105 EURO
Summary:
Pourquoi et comment a-t-on écrit l'histoire en syriaque entre le VIe et le XIIIe siècle? C'est à cette question qu'essaie de répondre ce livre en tentant de comprendre les enjeux de l'écriture historique qui fut florissante en syriaque, l'une des grandes langues de culture du Proche et Moyen-Orient dans l'antiquité tardive et au Moyen Âge. Pourquoi les chrétiens des empires byzantin et sassanide puis musulmans ont-ils commencé à écrire l'histoire en syriaque alors qu'ils parlaient et lisaient toujours le grec et ont-ils continué alors que l'arabe était devenu leur langue vernaculaire et culturelle? Comment ont-ils compris et interprété leur passé en reprenant aux traditions grecques, judéo-chrétiennes et mésopotamiennes pour comprendre leur propre époque? En étudiant les acteurs, les lieux et les formes de l'écriture des chroniques et des histoires ecclésiastiques, c'est aussi aux enjeux identitaires que porte la construction de l'histoire que s'intéresse cet ouvrage.
De Looijer, The Qumran Paradigm
NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:
The Qumran Paradigm: Critical Evaluation of Some Foundational Hypotheses in the Construction of the Qumran Sect (Early Judaism and Its Literature) First EditionGood. This sounds like something worth doing.
by Gwynned de Looijer (Author)
A fundamentally revisionist approach that leaves behind the constructed social reality of a sectarian paradigm
Gwynned de Looijer reexamines the key hypotheses that have driven scholars understandings of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the archaeological site of Khirbet Qumran, and the textual descriptions of the Essenes. She demonstrates that foundational hypotheses regarding a sect at Qumran have heavily influenced the way the texts found in the surrounding caves are interpreted. De Looijer's approach abandons those assumptions to illustrate that the Dead Sea Scrolls reflect a wider range of backgrounds reflecting the many diverse forms of Judaism that existed in the Second Temple period.
Features:
- In depth analysis of 4QMMT
- Reevaluation of the concept of dualism as it has been applied to Qumran texts
- Charts and tables illustrate complex theories, concepts, and connections
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Centennial Yahrzeit for Schechter
SOLOMON SCHECHTER DIED ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO THIS WEEK: מאה שנים למותו של שכטר (Yakov Mayer, The Talmud Blog).
If you don't read modern Hebrew, you can get a very rough sense of the post from Google Translate here. Some past posts on Schechter and the Cairo Geniza are here, here, and here.
If you don't read modern Hebrew, you can get a very rough sense of the post from Google Translate here. Some past posts on Schechter and the Cairo Geniza are here, here, and here.
Curtis et al. (eds.), The Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires
BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: On Parthian and Sasanian Empires. Notice of a new book: Sarkhosh Curtis, Vesta, Elizabeth Pendleton, Michael Alram & Touraj Daryaee (eds.). 2016. The Parthian and early Sasanian Empires: Adaptation and expansion (The British Institute of Persian Studies Archaeological Monographs Series V). Oxbow Books: Oxford.
Muraoka, A Biblical Aramaic Reader
NEW BOOK FROM PEETERS PUBLISHERS (ARAMAIC WATCH):
A Biblical Aramaic Reader
With an Outline Grammar
Authors: Muraoka T.
Year: 2015
ISBN: 978-90-429-3276-0
Pages: X-83 p.
Price: 19 EURO
Summary:
This reader is for anyone very eager to read the story of Daniel in the lions' den and many other fascinating stories in their original language, Aramaic.
A brief outline of Biblical Aramaic grammar is followed by a verse-by-verse grammatical commentary on the Aramaic chapters in the books of Daniel and Ezra. Both the outline grammar and the grammatical commentary presuppose basic knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew. Constant references are made in the commentary to relevant sections of the outline grammar. The commentary is written in a user-friendly, not overtly technical language. Some grammatical exercises with keys and paradigms conclude the Reader. Also suitable for self-study.
More on that John papyrus on eBay
ETC: A New Papyrus of the Gospel of John (Tommy Wasserman). Photos and detailed technical information for those interested.
Background here.
Background here.
JSQ 22.4
A NEW ISSUE OF JEWISH STUDIES QUARTERLY (22.4) HAS BEEN PUBLISHED. TOC:
HT the Talmud Blog on Facebook.
The Midrash of Jesus and the Bavli's Counter-GospelRequires a personal or institutional subscription to access the articles.
pp. 303-324(22)
Author: Furstenberg, Yair
CThe Mother of the Seven Sons in Lamentations Rabbah and the Virgin Mary
pp. 325-351(27)
Author: Himmelfarb, Martha
From Census to Atonement: Parshat Shekalim in Pesikta de Rav Kahana and Pesikta Rabbati
pp. 352-376(25)
Author: Atzmon, Arnon
Literary Devices in the Psalms: The Commentary of Ibn Ezra Revisited
pp. 377-402(26)
Author: Seidler, Ayelet
HT the Talmud Blog on Facebook.
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