Annie Sartre, Maurice Sartre, Palmyre. Vérités et légendes. Paris: Perrin, 2016. Pp. 259. ISBN 9782262066154. €14.00 (pb).Background on Palmyra is here (immediately preceding post) and links. Cross-file under Palmyra Watch.
Reviewed by Rubina Raja, Aarhus University (Rubina.Raja@cas.au.dk)
Preview
Palmyra has become a renewed focus of research in recent years due to interest in subjects outside the core regions of Rome and the Roman Empire; the massive destruction of Syria’s rich cultural heritage has also spurred a renewed interest in the site. Palmyra has also been in the spotlight due to the use of the site in Syrian state propaganda, and because it was a stronghold of the rebels and ISIS from May 2015 until spring 2016, when the city was recaptured by the Syrian state forces. The public beheading of the Director of Antiquities in Palmyra, Khaled al-As’ad, shook the world and the colleagues, who had known and worked with him for several decades. In the wake of this event several conferences and publications were dedicated to his memory and the book by Annie and Maurice Sartre is also to be seen as a product of the growing public and political attention given to the site. Much attention has been given to discussions about the potential reconstruction of the damaged and looted monuments. Since Palmyra is a World Heritage site, UNESCO has taken a particular interest in developing plans for the restoration of the unique oasis city, and scholars have begun to discuss the future of the site should the situation in Syria at some point allow for further work at the site.
Annie and Maurice Sartre's Palmyre is one of these studies, which on the one hand aims at giving the general public an insight and understanding of this unique site and on the other hand presents the potential pitfalls of massive reconstruction without detailed planning and involvement of the scholarly community. ...
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Sartre and Sartre, Palmyre
BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:
Paris exhibition "Eternal Sites" (including Palmyra)
PALMYRA WATCH: As Palmyra falls, Paris heritage show looks to the future. Inaugurating an exhibit on endangered Middle Eastern heritage sites Tuesday, French President François Hollande called the show “a militant act”. But the curators are looking ahead to peace and reconstruction. (Leela JACINTO, France24).
Background on Palmyra, its history, the ancient Aramaic dialect spoken there (Palmyrene), and the city's tragic recent fate in the hands of ISIS is here with many, many links.
These days, the city is being seized, liberated and seized again at such a dizzying pace, it’s hard to know what’s going on in the eastern Syrian desert city.Meanwhile, I can find no certain news on the current situation in Palmyra, although there is a report that a counter-offensive by the Syrian Army is planned. And here's a statement from the Russian Government: Moscow: Fall of Palmyra is “Blow to the Entire Civilised Humankind” (Taha Abed alWahed, ASHARQ AL-AWSAT).
But now, in a museum thousands of miles away from the Syrian desert and a world apart from the ravages of war, the stones of this ancient city are telling a different story.
It’s a story that tends to get lost in the speed of modern life, with news cycles spinning out jihadist propaganda and politicians vowing to annihilate terrorists from the face of the earth.
A new show, "Eternal Sites: From Bamiyan to Palmyra," at the Grand Palais in Paris aims to highlight the indestructible legacy of endangered heritage sites. Inaugurated by Hollande and the UNESCO chief, Irina Bokova, on Tuesday, the free exhibition runs from December 14 to January 9.
Opening the show before a select audience Tuesday night, Hollande said the exhibit was dedicated to protecting world heritage. "This exhibition is a militant act for visitors who will come not because it’s free, but because they want to be actors, not just spectators, in protecting heritage," Hollande said.
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Images of giant, sun-washed stone walls and crumbling mud bricks greet visitors as they enter three cavernous rooms at the Grand Palais. "Eternal Sites" offers viewers an immersive exploration of four inaccessible sites: Palmyra, the Crac de Chevaliers crusader castle, the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, and Khorsabad, the ancient city in northern Iraq that was the capital of Assyrian King Sargon II, who ruled from 722 to 705 BC.
Background on Palmyra, its history, the ancient Aramaic dialect spoken there (Palmyrene), and the city's tragic recent fate in the hands of ISIS is here with many, many links.
SBL Pseudepigrapha Section 2017
LIV INGEBORG LIED: SBL Annual Meeting 2017 Pseudepigrapha CfP. The official call for papers opens on 19 December 2016. See the SBL website for more information. Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch.
Whose holy sites are the Western Wall tunnels?
TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Court Petition: Western Wall Tunnels a Holy Site for Christians, Muslims Too. Group of Israeli archaeologists say the tunnels run through, under, over and alongside religious sites holy to Judaism, Islam and Christianity (Nir Hasson, Haaretz).
Past posts on Emeq Shaveh's activities and its political perspective (which is not as objective as implied above) are here, here, here, here, and links. Some past PaleoJudaica posts on the tunnel excavations in Jerusalem are collected here.
Cross-file under Politics.
The High Court of Justice has agreed to hear a petition asking why the Western Wall Tunnels have been declared a holy site for Jews and not for Muslims and Christians as well.The point that the area has elements holy to Christianity and Islam is certainly correct, but it isn't clear to me what the practical issue is. Is there a process through the Religious Services Ministry that can declare sites holy to Christianity and Islam and was this neglected? What are the practical implications of the current declaration and what does Emek Shaveh want done about them? The answers to these questions may be obvious to those more familiar with these political structures in Israel, but they aren't obvious to me, and I wish the article had spelled them out more clearly.
The petition was filed by Emek Shaveh, a group of archaeologists seeking to prevent the politicization of archaeology. It came after the Religious Services Ministry’s legal adviser, Hagay Avrahami, said in a letter the tunnels were governed by the regulations preserving Jewish holy sites because the entrance to them leads from the Western Wall Plaza.
This means that all the rules governing the Western Wall apply in the tunnels, as well as in the large spaces that have been discovered in recent years under homes in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. The decision was made after a consultation with Israel’s chief rabbis, Avrahami said.
The petition states that these underground spaces, which have been excavated continuously since the early 1980s, also include structures holy to Christianity and Islam.
[...]
Past posts on Emeq Shaveh's activities and its political perspective (which is not as objective as implied above) are here, here, here, here, and links. Some past PaleoJudaica posts on the tunnel excavations in Jerusalem are collected here.
Cross-file under Politics.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
The Talmud on charging interest
THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Why the Talmud Allows Jews to Profit Off Gentiles. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study, focusing on religious duty over secular egalitarianism.
Tractate Bava Metzia centers on the concept of ownership: What does it mean, under Jewish law, to own a piece of property? And what happens when there is a dispute over ownership, or when one person takes possession of property that belongs to another? This kind of abuse can take several forms, ranging from straightforward theft to what the Talmud calls “exploitation”—a transaction in which one party takes illegal advantage of the other. But over the last two weeks, in Chapter Six of Bava Metzia, Daf Yomi readers have explored a different kind of crime against property—one that in our capitalist economy is not a crime at all. If it were, anyone who takes out a mortgage or a car loan, or who uses a credit card, would be guilty of it. This is the crime of lending or borrowing at interest, which is forbidden to Jews in Leviticus 25: “Do not take from him interest or increase, but fear your God, in order that your brother may live with you. You shall not give him money with interest, nor give him your food for increase.”Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.
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The first pictures of the ruins of Palmyra
PALMYRA WATCH: THE MYSTERY OF THE FIRST DRAWINGS OF PALMYRA: Part I: Who drew the first pictures of the ruins of Palmyra? AND Who drew this 'Curious Prospect' of Palmyra? (Zenobia Empress of the East Blog).
The current state of the site of Palmyra does not seem to be good. It appears that it has been fully recaptured by ISIS jihadists (see here for the story and follow the many links for background). There are many rumors about what is happening and what is to happen next, but I have not yet found solid information to which I think it is worth linking. Watch this space.
Meanwhile, Judith Weingarten takes us back to better times at Palmyra to solve a mystery from the early modern period.
The current state of the site of Palmyra does not seem to be good. It appears that it has been fully recaptured by ISIS jihadists (see here for the story and follow the many links for background). There are many rumors about what is happening and what is to happen next, but I have not yet found solid information to which I think it is worth linking. Watch this space.
Meanwhile, Judith Weingarten takes us back to better times at Palmyra to solve a mystery from the early modern period.
Still another review of Fine, The Menorah
BOOK REVIEW: Scholar explores significance of menorah to Jews, Christians, Muslims (Eugene J. Fisher, Catholic News Service).
“The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Times”Earlier reviews of the book are here and here.
by Steven Fine.
Harvard University Press (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2016).
273 pp., $29.95.
Steven Fine, a professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva University in New York City, explores biblical, cultural and religious history through the lens of what he rightly calls in his conclusion “the oldest religious symbol in all of Western culture.”
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Is El-Araj Bethsaida?
BIBLE PLACES BLOG: New Excavations at el-Araj, Possible Bethsaida (Todd Bolen). Todd thinks the identification would be premature.
War crimes prosecutions for captured jihadists?
ISIS WATCH: ISIS May Face War-Crime Charges for Destruction of Historic Sites (Owen Jarus, Live Science). This with reference to some suspected ISIS fighters who have surrendered during the Mosul campaign:
Because international law forbids the destruction of heritage sites, those who surrendered could face charges for war crimes, experts say. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) lists areas as World Heritage Sites for having special cultural or physical significance.That would be all to the good, but it would not surprise me if there were worse war crimes that captured jihadists could be prosecuted for.
"These destructions may amount to a war crime, and UNESCO will do everything in its power to document the damage so that these attacks do not go unpunished," said Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO, said in a statement released on Nov 25, after Nimrud was recaptured.
Monday, December 12, 2016
Coin of the second year of the Great Revolt
NUMISMATICS: Minister Regev Presents 67 CE ‘Great Rebellion’ Coin at Cabinet Meeting (JNi.Media).
This article is a little vague about the origin of the coin, but the Jerusalem Post has clearer coverage on that issue: ‘Free Zion’ coin minted 1,967 years ago unveiled (Herb Keinon).
Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev on Sunday presented at the start of the cabinet meeting a coin discovered by a team of her office about a month ago, as part of the preparation for the public revelation of the Pilgrims’ Road which was recently unearthed at the City of David. The presentation and the planned public event mark the coming jubilee of the liberation and unification of Jerusalem.Not quite. The coin reads "second year of" (שנת שתים) on one side and "the freedom of Zion" (חרת ציון) on the other. The word order seems a little odd, but I think that the two sides are intended to be read consecutively as a single phrase: "The second year of the freedom of Zion." It was indeed the second year of the so-called Great Rebellion or Great Revolt against Rome, but the coin itself does not use this term. (Follow the link above for a photo.)
The coin bears on one side a vine leaf and the statement “Freedom of Zion.” On the opposite side it bears a standing cup and the statement “Second year of the great rebellion” – the year 67 CE.
[...]
This article is a little vague about the origin of the coin, but the Jerusalem Post has clearer coverage on that issue: ‘Free Zion’ coin minted 1,967 years ago unveiled (Herb Keinon).
The coin was uncovered during an excavation about a month ago of a recently uncovered road in Jerusalem. The excavation site will be opened to the public during Hanukka.The recent UNESCO resolutions that play down the ancient Jewish connection with Jerusalem come in for some not-undeserved ridicule on the basis of this coin. As with the use of the Arch of Titus, at least this time the ancient origin of the artifact is not in question, unlike the case of the Jerusalem Papyrus. Cross-file under Politics.
Modern Ethiopic and Second Temple Judaism
PARALLELS: Ethiopian Judaism nearly identical to that practiced during Second Temple Period. Researcher Dr. Yossi Ziv has researched Ethiopian Judaism and found an amazing discovery: Ethiopian Jews' customs and traditions extremely similar to those described in Dead Sea Scrolls, Second Temple Era texts (Yael Freidson, Ynet News).
Second, this research is being filtered through the media, which almost inevitably involves an added layer of distortion and misunderstanding which makes the claims even harder to evaluate. Note the last sentence quoted above. I don't doubt that it reflects a reporter's misunderstanding of something a researcher said, but as it stands, it's nonsense. No complete Hebrew Bible was found at Qumran, and the Qumran manuscripts include the oldest fragments of many books of the Hebrew Bible. Perhaps the researcher said the three oldest fragmentary manuscripts of books of the Hebrew Bible were found at Qumran? That would be about right. So who knows what else in the article is garbled?
As always, the sort of claims being advanced in this story should be published in a peer-review venue if scholars are to take it seriously.
Dr. Yossi Ziv has been researching the religious rituals of the Ethiopian Jewish population still in Ethiopia and discovered that they maintained the same customs and traditions as the Jews of the Second Temple period for the past two thousand years.Interesting, but two notes of caution are in order. The first is that comparisons like this one involve a lot of interpretive latitude. It is often far from clear how a Qumran text on halakhic matters should be interpreted and to what degree it demonstrates a particular practice in Second Temple Judaism. So any parallels with a later Jewish community have to be sifted exceedingly carefully and the implications of such parallels should be advanced with great caution.
"It’s knowledge which hasn't been written anywhere, and has been preserved in their traditions," the researcher said.
"They have been curating ancient customs that have disappeared from the world. They provide examples of how the leaders of the nation of Israel would have behaved during the time of the Second Temple."
Israeli-Ethiopian elders performing the Sigid ritual in Jerusalem (Photo: Reuters)
The professor released his findings at a seminar which was held at the Kfar Etzion Field School right before the Jewish-Ethiopian holiday of Sigid.
Ziv said that many Jewish-Ethiopian customs go against modern Jewish practice, but perfectly align with customs and rituals described on scrolls found in the Qumran caves and in books dating back to the Second Temple Period. The Qumran Caves are where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, which include the third oldest Hebrew Bible ever found.
[...]
Second, this research is being filtered through the media, which almost inevitably involves an added layer of distortion and misunderstanding which makes the claims even harder to evaluate. Note the last sentence quoted above. I don't doubt that it reflects a reporter's misunderstanding of something a researcher said, but as it stands, it's nonsense. No complete Hebrew Bible was found at Qumran, and the Qumran manuscripts include the oldest fragments of many books of the Hebrew Bible. Perhaps the researcher said the three oldest fragmentary manuscripts of books of the Hebrew Bible were found at Qumran? That would be about right. So who knows what else in the article is garbled?
As always, the sort of claims being advanced in this story should be published in a peer-review venue if scholars are to take it seriously.
Mandaean Book of John TOC
JAMES MCGRATH: The Mandaean Book of John: Table of Contents.
Past posts on the Mandaean Book of John Project are here, here, here, and here. Cross-file under Mandean Watch (Mandaean Watch).
The entire draft of the English translation of the Mandaean Book of John is still not available online. But I thought I would nevertheless provide a table of contents linking to the chapters that are there, for those who may be interested in perusing them.This sounds like it will be an important publication.
Past posts on the Mandaean Book of John Project are here, here, here, and here. Cross-file under Mandean Watch (Mandaean Watch).
Again, Canaanite, not Hebrew
CHRISTOPHER ROLLSTON: The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions 2.0: Canaanite Language and Canaanite Script, Not Hebrew. Excerpt:
Background here and here.
I’m sure that Grimme and van den Branden were well intentioned, and I believe that Petrovich is as well. But the evidence is weighty, and the evidence demonstrates the following: the inscriptions from Serabit el-Khadem and Wadi el-Hol (and various other second millennium sites, etc.) are written in a Northwest Semitic dialect of the early Second Millennium BCE. In terms of the name for this language, the most apt term is “Canaanite.” After all, there is nothing distinctively Phoenician, or Hebrew, or Aramaic, or Moabite, or Ammonite, or Edomite about the words in these inscriptions that would reasonably allow someone to call the language of these inscriptions by one of those terms. Indeed, the words in the inscriptions from Serabit el-Khadem and Wadi el-Hol are found in lots of Semitic languages, not just one. Thus, the best term of the language of these inscriptions is “Canaanite.”This post responds to Petrovich's reply to Rollston's first post.
And as for the script of these inscriptions from Serabit el-Khadem and Wadi el-Hol, the best terms are “Early Alphabetic,” or “Canaanite.” Some prefer the term “Proto-Sinaitic Script.” Any of these terms is acceptable. But it is absolutely and empirically wrong to suggest that the script of the inscriptions from Serabit el-Khadem and Wadi el-Hol is the Hebrew script, or the Phoenician script, or the Aramaic script, or the Moabite script, or the Ammonite script, or the Edomite script. ...
Background here and here.
ISIS retakes Palmyra?
PALMYRA WATCH: ISIS recaptures Palmyra. The Islamic State recaptures the Syrian ancient city of Palmyra, hours after being pushed out by Russian forces (Arutz Sheva).
Background on Palmyra, its history, the ancient Aramaic dialect spoken there (Palmyrene), and the city's tragic recent fate in the hands of ISIS is here with many, many links.
The Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group on Sunday recaptured the Syrian ancient city of Palmyra, after Syrian armed forces pulled out of the desert city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, according to AFP.There were back-and-forth reports over the weekend, but as near as I can tell, this is where matters stand at the moment. If so, I will be surprised if they stay that way for long. The recapture of Palmyra by ISIS is a significant blow to Russian prestige and I don't expect the Russians to let it go unanswered. Of course, that is presumably the purpose of ISIS retargeting Palmyra. They want to distract the Russians and the Syrian army and ease the pressure on Aleppo. Watch this space.
"Despite the ongoing air raids, ISIS retook all of Palmyra after the Syrian army withdrew south of the city," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
The jihadists made a lightning-fast advance across the city after overrunning a northern neighborhood and capturing the famed citadel to Palmyra's west.
The ISIS-linked Amaq news agency also reported that the jihadist group regained "full control" of the city on Sunday after taking the citadel, which overlooks Palmyra from a strategic hilltop.
[...]
Background on Palmyra, its history, the ancient Aramaic dialect spoken there (Palmyrene), and the city's tragic recent fate in the hands of ISIS is here with many, many links.
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Geniza Fragments 72
GENIZA FRAGMENTS 72. The October 2016 issue of the Newsletter of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library is just out. It includes notice of an upcoming conference on the Cairo Geniza at Cambridge University in April of 2017, a report on a conference on the Hebrew text of Ben Sira, and a brief article on an alchemical fragment.
Review of Jerome, Commentaries on the Twelve Prophets, Vol. 1
READING ACTS: Book Review: Jerome, Commentaries on the Twelve Prophets, Volume 1.
Scheck, Thomas, ed. Commentaries on the Twelve Prophets: Volume 1, Ancient Christian Texts by Jerome. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2016. Link to IVPAnd unlike pretty much all ancient Christian commentators except his nemesis Origen, Jerome studied the Hebrew Bible with a good knowledge of Hebrew.
This new contribution to the Ancient Christian Texts series is the first of three volumes collecting Jerome’s commentaries on the twelve Minor Prophets. Jerome (c. 347-419/20) is primarily known for his Latin translation of the Bible (The Vulgate), but he was also a prolific commentator on biblical books. He was thoroughly familiar with Jewish traditions and brought them to bear on his understanding of the Old Testament. Beginning in 379, Jerome used his considerable linguistic skills to translate Origen’s commentaries and, eventually, to translate and comment on Scripture himself.
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Lundhaug on Shenoute and Nag Hammadi Codex II
HUGO LUNDHAUG: Shenoute of Atripe and Nag Hammadi Codex II (Academia.edu). An offprint from Zugänge zur Gnosis. Akten zur Tagung der Patristischen Arbeitsgemeinschaft vom 02.-05.01.2011in Berlin-Spandau, herausgegeben von Christoph Markschies und Johannes van Oort, Peeters, 2013.
Shenoute and his White Monastery were of crucial importance for the transmission of ancient manuscripts in Egypt. Some past posts on Shenoute are here, here, here, here, here, and here. And some additional posts on the manuscripts of the White Monastery are collected here.
Seen on Facebook.
Shenoute and his White Monastery were of crucial importance for the transmission of ancient manuscripts in Egypt. Some past posts on Shenoute are here, here, here, here, here, and here. And some additional posts on the manuscripts of the White Monastery are collected here.
Seen on Facebook.
Operation Mummy's Curse
WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Stolen Mummy Hand Makes Its Way Home (Meg Gannon, Live Science/Yahoo).
The blackened, cloth-wrapped hand arrived in a parcel at Los Angeles International Airport in January 2013. It was listed as a sci-fi movie prop, valued at $66. But as officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection learned, the hand was from a real Egyptian mummy, nearly 3,000 years old.This is a perfect setup for a horror movie, so I imagine the people of Los Angeles will be happy for it to be sent home so that Egypt can keep an eye on it.
The hand was apparently voluntarily forfeited by the importer, and this week, U.S. authorities repatriated it and four other illegally smuggled artifacts to Egypt as part of an ongoing investigation known as "Operation Mummy's Curse."
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Review of Brotzman and Tully, Old Testament Textual Criticism
ETC BLOG: Review of Brotzman and Tully’s Old Testament Textual Criticism (Meade) (Peter Gurry). The review is by John Meade at Books at a Glance and the page includes a response by Tully.
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Enochic palimpsest
TECHNOLOGY WATCH: New Biblical Text Discovered. Thanks to a grant from the German Research Council (DFG - STU 469/1-1), multi-spectral imaging has revealed never-before-seen Ethiopic text in a palimpsest at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich).
Bit by bit, a letter at at time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.
Past posts on palimpsest manuscripts (manuscripts whose original text has been over-written with a new text) are collected here, plus here and here.
Among the manuscripts catalogued by August Dillmann in his 1878 Verzeichnis der abessinischen Handschriften in the Royal (now State) Library of Berlin is one of the few known Ethiopic palimpsests, Petermann II Nachtrag 24, the upper writing of which, datable to the 17th century, includes a commentary on the Book of Revelation. Via funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (project no. STU 469/1-1, Textkritische Ausgabe und Übersetzung des 1 Henoch) and with the gracious support of the Orientabteilung of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Curator, Christoph Rauch), it was possible to conduct multi-spectral imaging of the manuscript from 24. October to 4. November 2016.My bold-font emphasis.
This work has enabled significant sections of the undertexts to be read, revealing fragments from at least nine earlier codices, the majority of which date to the 14th century and before; several texts contain archaic linguistic features attested in only the earliest stratums of Ge'ez material evidence. Manuscripts represented include Enoch, Acts, an Old Testament lectionary, a homiliary, and multiple hagiographic codices.
[...]
Bit by bit, a letter at at time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.
Past posts on palimpsest manuscripts (manuscripts whose original text has been over-written with a new text) are collected here, plus here and here.
Crucifixion gem
ETC BLOG: Depiction of Crucifixion (SBL Report) (Peter M. Head). The gem is of interest for its early (c. 200 CE) iconography of crucifixion and of the appearance of Jesus. That said, I would like more clarification about its provenance (it seems to have been "acquired" rather than excavated archaeologically) and how certain specialists are (and on what grounds) that it is genuine.
Review of Litwa, Refutation of All Heresies
BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:
M. David Litwa, Refutation of All Heresies. Translated with an Introduction and Notes. Writings from the Greco-Roman world, 40. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015. Pp. lix, 824. ISBN 9780884140856. $99.95 (pb).Excerpt:
Reviewed by Pieter W. van der Horst, Utrecht University (pwvdh@xs4all.nl)
The new edition by David Litwa offers, after an introduction, a new Greek text, a fresh English translation on facing pages, explanatory notes, a bibliography, and indices locorum et rerum. Litwa understandably is critical of Marcovich’s cavalier treatment of the manuscript tradition and opts for a more conservative approach, although he does adopt quite a few readings proposed by Marcovich. The problem is that Litwa does not present us with a critical apparatus. Occasionally he offers some text-critical comments in his explanatory notes, but if the user wants to be informed about what is in the mss he/she still has to turn to Marcovich’s apparatus criticus. So although this edition should have replaced Marcovich’s idiosyncratic one, it does so only partly. That is not to say that Litwa’s text is not better than Marcovich’s. A random check of several dozen of places convinced me that it is. Yet another reason why we cannot discard Marcovich’s edition altogether is that it contains a very valuable index verborum (at pp. 436-541).Whoever wrote it (and van der Horst is confident that it wasn't Hippolytus), the Refutatio omnium haeresium is an important source for lost ancient literature, particularly that of the Pre-Socratic philosophers and of the Gnostics.
McGrath on Häberl on Mandean texts
JAMES MCGRATH: A Paulish Mistake in the Mandaean Book of John?
Charles Häberl has started blogging again recently, about the Mandaean Book of John and related texts, in a series of truly fascinating blog posts. I’d like to highlight a few of them here.Cross-file under Mandean Watch (Mandaean Watch).
More on Nimrud
FURTHER TO THE POST MOSUL CAMPAIGN UPDATE from Friday, Owen Jarus has more information, with photos, on the surviving inscriptions from Nimrud:
Inscription About Ancient 'Monkey Colony' Survives ISIL Attacks.
Inscription About Ancient 'Monkey Colony' Survives ISIL Attacks.
A number of artifacts with inscriptions survived in the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, after the terrorist group ISIL (also known as ISIS or Daesh) destroyed the site.Photos: Ancient Inscriptions Tell of Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II
The group targeted Nimrud, along with many other historical sitesin Iraq and Syria, in an attempt to eradicate the history of the Assyrians, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and other peoples who live in Iraq and Syria. Countries and groups around the world have condemned this destruction of cultural heritage as a war crime.
Live Science showed photographs of some of the surviving inscriptions to scholars who translated or deciphered their meanings. The inscriptions tell a number of stories about the AssyrianKing Ashurnasirpal II (reign 883–859 B.C.), including the lands he conquered, the treasures he took, the palace he constructed and the ancestors he had.
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Friday, December 09, 2016
Rabbinics job at Cambridge
THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE: University Lecturer.
University Lecturer in Classical Rabbinic Literature, Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge The Faculty of Divinity, West Road, Cambridge, invites applications for a University Lectureship in Classical Rabbinic Literature (Grade 9, £39,324 to £49,772). Candidates, whose research specialism may be in any field of Classical Rabbinic Literature, with a research specialism in the texts, thought, and history of classical rabbinic Judaism, encompassing the basic timespan from the redaction of the Mishnah to the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud, should have a doctorate in the field. The person appointed will be expected to undertake high quality research in Rabbinics, to teach for the Tripos, Diploma and the MPhil, to supervise doctoral students, and to undertake some administration. The postholder will be based in the Faculty of Divinity, West Road, Cambridge. Candidates should be able to take up the post on 1 September 2017. The appointment will be subject to five years' probation.Follow the link for further particulars and application instructions.
SBL Report: Christian Apocrypha
AT APOCRYPHYCITY, TONY BURKE reports on the 2016 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Antonio, Texas:
2016 SBL DIARY: DAYS ONE AND TWO
2016 SBL DIARY: DAYS THREE AND FOUR
2016 SBL DIARY: DAYS ONE AND TWO
2016 SBL DIARY: DAYS THREE AND FOUR
SBL Report: Dating Early Christian Papyri
FACES AND VOICES BLOG: Overdue: Dating Early Christian Papyri at the SBL Annual Meeting. A Report (Roberta Mazza).
And what is it with the date-testing of the ink of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife fragment? Why do I keep hearing different and apparently inconsistent versions of the results? First that the ink was just "consistent with an ancient origin"; then that it was dated to 200 CE (much earlier than the papyrus it is written on); and now that its pigment "presented some similarities to those of the second century CE," but its "morphology" (whatever that means) "was different from those of securely dated papyrus samples" and therefore it was concluded that it was a forgery. This sort of apparent discrepancy underlines the point that I have been making recently: we should be skeptical of any reports about materials testing of allegedly ancient artifacts unless the full lab reports have been released and the details examined and verified by outside experts.
You know academics are always late, right? So I am super-late in reporting a much fun session I organised and chaired on November 21 in San Antonio (Texas), at the last Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, a monster of a conference gathering together thousands of people interested in the history of the Bible from the most amazing perspectives.More on Brent Nongbri's work is here and here. More on the dating of papyri with Raman spectography is here and here.
As a member of the Archaeology of Roman Religion Group (obviously the coolest group of all), I planned a session on “Dating Early Christian Papyri: Old and New Methods”. The reasons behind the panel were basically three. ...
And what is it with the date-testing of the ink of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife fragment? Why do I keep hearing different and apparently inconsistent versions of the results? First that the ink was just "consistent with an ancient origin"; then that it was dated to 200 CE (much earlier than the papyrus it is written on); and now that its pigment "presented some similarities to those of the second century CE," but its "morphology" (whatever that means) "was different from those of securely dated papyrus samples" and therefore it was concluded that it was a forgery. This sort of apparent discrepancy underlines the point that I have been making recently: we should be skeptical of any reports about materials testing of allegedly ancient artifacts unless the full lab reports have been released and the details examined and verified by outside experts.
Honi the Circle-Drawer and ... cryonics?
TALMUD WATCH: Torah For Today: Cryonics. Rabbi Ariel Abel offers the Torah’s take on the latest scientific frontier (Jewish News).
Cryonics opens a new frontier in science. The preservation of materials at a very low temperature will one day lead to bodies being preserved for revival at a later date. What does the Torah have to say about this?Not untypically, the article does not give the Talmud reference, but it is b. Taanit 23a. You can read it here.
Essentially, there is nothing wrong with waking up at a later time than one’s designated life.
However, such revival can lead to disappointment. The Talmud cites the example of a sage who woke up 70 years after he had first fallen into a slumber equivalent to death.
Unfortunately, he only wished to die again, and this time permanently, as he found that noone recognised him.
The sage was Honi the Circle-Drawer, who famously prayed for rain and in his merit drought was averted.
[...]
Mosul campaign update
THIS IS WAR: Historic Iraq Sites Reclaimed in Mosul Offensive (Owen Jarus, Live Science).
UPDATE (10 December): More on Nimrud and its inscriptions is here.
A military offensive to take back the city of Mosul, Iraq, from the terrorist group ISIL (also called ISIS) has also resulted in the retaking of several historic sites that ISIL destroyed and looted.The article describes the current state of Khorsabad (background here), Mar Behnam (background here and links), and Nimrud. It's not good.
The offensive is being carried out by the Iraq military and the Peshmerga, which is a Kurdish force supported by Iraqi Kurdistan (an autonomous region of the country). Air strikes by a coalition of countries are supporting these ground troops. U.S. Special Forces are also on the ground and assisting in the fighting. The forces have retaken outlying areas of Mosul, and ground troops are making their way toward the center of the city. [Photos: Restoring Life to Iraq's Ruined Artifacts]
As troops advance, they have retaken a number of historic sites, and reports are coming in about the sites' condition ...
UPDATE (10 December): More on Nimrud and its inscriptions is here.
Thursday, December 08, 2016
Review of Hayes, What’s Divine About Divine Law?
ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Divine Law in the Container Store (Beth Berkowitz).
“In 2016, the History of Rabbinic Literature SBL section hosted a review panel of Dr. Christine Hayes’ book, What’s Divine About Divine Law? Dr. Beth Berkowitz begins the forum in its new home at AJR. ”Past PaleoJudaica posts on the book are here, here, here, and here.
One of my favorite stores is the Container Store. The Container Store offers a vision of order. Even your socks and bras and underwear have special containers designed to keep them from disarray. Reading Chris Hayes’s book is the intellectual equivalent of walking through the Container Store. She takes a hugely messy literary heritage from antiquity and, with seemingly magical powers of containment, brings conceptual order to them. Hayes shows that these texts are caught up in common questions, and are simply answering them in different ways for different reasons. Hayes doesn’t hide the mess; she’s not throwing all the dirty clothes and papers into the closet. On the contrary, Hayes is very taken with the textual subtleties, and the multiplicity of discourses. The achievement of Hayes’s book is that its conceptual refinement never entails reduction. Hayes organizes without simplifying.
[...]
Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day 2016
IT'S THAT DAY AGAIN: Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day.
One of the original announcements, with some instructions, is here. The Facebook page is here. And this year the Hallmark company even takes notice of the day. Follow this link for past posts on the day and related links.
Have fun and stay out of trouble.
One of the original announcements, with some instructions, is here. The Facebook page is here. And this year the Hallmark company even takes notice of the day. Follow this link for past posts on the day and related links.
Have fun and stay out of trouble.
Another review of Fine, The Menorah
BOOK REVIEW: Author sheds light on the menorah (Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal).
A Star of David may appear on the flag of Israel, but a much older symbol of Judaism and the Jewish people is the menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum that can be seen among the looted treasures of the Jerusalem Temple as depicted in the marble bas-relief on the Arch of Titus in Rome. The moment when cultural historian and Talmudist Steven Fine came face to face with this ancient artifact — he was in Italy studying the arch in 2012 — is described in Fine’s magisterial book from Harvard University Press, “The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel.”And how could I not quote this paragraph?
[...]
Fine, a professor of history at Yeshiva University, has spent “considerable time with images that today are called ‘symbols,’ ” and the whole point of his book is to excavate and explain the meanings that are evoked by the menorah over its long history. Indeed, he acknowledges that The New York Times once referred to him as “the Jewish Robert Langdon,” a reference to the “symbolist” who is the fictional hero of “The Da Vinci Code,” but he insists that his own work is based on “the close study of texts and artifacts in a real attempt to let these disparate forms ‘speak’ to each other.”This review is aimed at a popular audience, but it is considerably more sympathetic and more substantial than the earlier review in the New York Times.
The sisters and the cisterns
RECYCLING: New water: Benedictine Sisters in East Jerusalem revive ancient cisterns (Melanie Lidman, Global Sisters Report).
The olive trees on the Mount of Olives next to Jerusalem's Garden of Gethsemane stand gnarled and silent, their knobby trunks reaching out of the rocky hills, a testament to thousands of years of careful cultivation in one of the holiest spots on Earth.Not sure what to make of that last sentence. But Hebrew University archaeologist Joseph Patrich has this to say:
This four-acre olive grove belonging to Benedictine sisters looks out on the golden rotunda of the Dome of the Rock, glinting in the sunlight, and the walls of ancient Jerusalem following the contours of the hills and wadis. From the grove, their trees stand witness to the path Jesus took to the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his betrayal.
But the Benedictine Sisters of Our Lady of Calvary, who have inhabited this old stone convent for the last 120 years, also see another side of the historic olive grove: the Jerusalem municipality water bill.
A few hundred meters away, on the other side of the hill from the Benedictines' monastery, Jerusalem descends sharply into the desert, sparse vegetation giving way to barren rocks until you reach the Dead Sea, Earth's lowest spot on land. This proximity to the desert also means that the olive trees need buckets and buckets of water — about $2,500 of water per month and sometimes even more in the brutal summer heat.
Cisterns are an ancient method of collecting rainwater in underground stone caverns for household use and irrigation. The Benedictine compound has more than 20 cisterns, though they had fallen into disuse and no longer functioned. By renovating them and reverting to the traditional method of capturing rainwater, the sisters will cut down dramatically on their use of municipal water.
[...]
"We believe the cisterns are from the sixth century, and that maybe there was a Byzantine monastery here," said Penka. "One of our cisterns is more rectangular. Usually cisterns are like a round bottle. This one and another one are rectangular. We think maybe it was a burial place."
[...]
"Without archaeological excavations, it's hard to know exactly what was in this spot," Patrich said of the Benedictine convent. "The cisterns could be from the Byzantine period, from as early as the fourth century."
Patrich said it is likely that the Benedictine convent was built on top of previous religious buildings. "There were a lot of important convents and monasteries in this area," he said.
Was the oldest Hebrew preserved in Egypt?
PHILOLOGY: Hebrew may be world's oldest alphabet (Walt Bonner, Fox News).
The oldest recorded alphabet may be Hebrew. According to a controversial new study by archaeologist and ancient inscription specialist Douglas Petrovich, Israelites in Egypt took 22 ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and turned them into the Hebrew alphabet over 3,800 years ago.Yes, that pretty much sums it up. In an earlier post I linked to some skeptical evaluation by Northwest Semitic epigrapher Christopher Rollston and Egyptologist Thomas Schneider. But Professor Petrovich has a new book coming out with Carta Books in which he will make his case more fully. That would be more interesting if he were publishing in a peer-review venue, but let's see what kind of case he makes, nevertheless.
The discovery of this early Hebrew alphabet has proved controversial to scholars who dispute the dates Petrovich has for the Israelites’ stay in Egypt – 430 years to the very day, as recorded in Exodus 12:40-41, equaling 1876-1446 BC – arguing that Biblical dates are unreliable. Skeptics have also disputed the Hebrew identification, arguing the early alphabet could be any number of Semitic languages.
[...]
Wednesday, December 07, 2016
Zinner on the Jordanian lead codices
SAMUEL ZINNER: The Jordanian Lead Books, David Elkington's Sensationalism and Plagiarism: A Statement (Academia.edu). This is a statement from one of the scholars on the evaluation panel of the Centre for the Study of the Jordanian Lead Books. I have referred cautiously positively to his draft work on the codices here and here. This statement appears to clarify much, including the mixture of apparent nonsense and apparently serious content which has appeared in recent media treatments, as well as the current state of play concerning the codices themselves. Obviously, I can neither confirm nor dismiss any accusations made in it about any specific person. I link and quote for information and you can make up your own minds.
One brief excerpt:
For my part, I remain unconvinced that any of the metal codices are ancient artifacts and I remain to be persuaded that any are not modern forgeries. There are many indications in what I have seen that they are not ancient productions and I have not found the arguments advanced for their antiquity, even on the Lead Books Centre website, to be at all convincing. But it is true that I have not seen everything. If there is compelling evidence that some of them are ancient artifacts, I look forward to seeing it in a peer-review publication. The materials tests may or may not be conclusive or important. As I have been saying, if they are relevant to the issue, the lab reports should be made public.
Meanwhile, I commend Dr. Zinner for giving us his insider's perspective on the current situation and the current state of the question. If you are interested in following the story, it would be wise not to take anything published by the media too seriously and to look to the Jordanian Lead Books Centre website and its members for information on what is going on. And I, of course, will do my best to keep you up to date at PaleoJudaica.
HT Basil Lourié on Facebook. Background here and many, many links. Cross-file under Fake Metal Codices Watch. I acknowledge that various elements of the current discussion may point to some of the codices being something other than fake, but I remain to be convinced. And in any case, I continue to include this cross-file rubric so that all my posts on the subject can be accessed together.
One brief excerpt:
The scholarly assessment of the artefacts contents should be left to trained experts, whose private, tentative findings should not be quoted in public without permission or be taken out of their original contexts. However, the scholarly investigation of the artefacts is hampered by the fact that Elkington denies access to his full set of photographs to any scholar critical of him and his sensationalistic views. As I remarked above, if the only images I had seen of the lead books were the ones circulating on the internet, I'd ignore the story. If Elkington wants more experts to be interested in the artefacts, then he should release all of the images in his possession and see what happens.Anyone interested in the story of the metal codices should sit down and read the whole essay.
For my part, I remain unconvinced that any of the metal codices are ancient artifacts and I remain to be persuaded that any are not modern forgeries. There are many indications in what I have seen that they are not ancient productions and I have not found the arguments advanced for their antiquity, even on the Lead Books Centre website, to be at all convincing. But it is true that I have not seen everything. If there is compelling evidence that some of them are ancient artifacts, I look forward to seeing it in a peer-review publication. The materials tests may or may not be conclusive or important. As I have been saying, if they are relevant to the issue, the lab reports should be made public.
Meanwhile, I commend Dr. Zinner for giving us his insider's perspective on the current situation and the current state of the question. If you are interested in following the story, it would be wise not to take anything published by the media too seriously and to look to the Jordanian Lead Books Centre website and its members for information on what is going on. And I, of course, will do my best to keep you up to date at PaleoJudaica.
HT Basil Lourié on Facebook. Background here and many, many links. Cross-file under Fake Metal Codices Watch. I acknowledge that various elements of the current discussion may point to some of the codices being something other than fake, but I remain to be convinced. And in any case, I continue to include this cross-file rubric so that all my posts on the subject can be accessed together.
Conference on 70th anniversary of the discovery of the DSS
CALL FOR PAPERS: The Dead Sea Scrolls Seventy Years Later. Manuscripts, Traditions, Interpretations, and Their Biblical Context. John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, October 25, 2017 – October 26, 2017. Follow the link for details. Abstracts of proposed papers must be submitted by 15 July 2017.
Seen on Facebook.
Seen on Facebook.
The Societas Magica Newsletter
AWOL: Open Access Journal: The Societas Magica Newsletter. First posted at AWOL and noted by PaleoJudaica five years ago. But many more articles have come out since then and it is worth noting again.
Romans 14
READING ACTS: Who are the Weak and Strong in Romans 14? Were the "weak" gentiles or Jews, or was Paul being intentionally ambiguous?
Some past posts in Phil Long's series on Paul's letter to the Romans are noted here and links.
Some past posts in Phil Long's series on Paul's letter to the Romans are noted here and links.
The "real" Saint Nicholas?
'TIS THE SEASON: The REAL Saint Nicholas! December 6 (HolyLandPhotos' Blog). "Real" is perhaps a stretch. He still sounds pretty legendary, although he did live at the time indicated. Apparently, we even still have his body. Background here and here.
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
Review of Boehm and Holcomb (eds.), Jerusalem 1000-1400
BOOK REVIEW: 400 Years of Jerusalem Culture (RUBY NAMDAR, New York Times).
JERUSALEM: 1000-1400The book under review deals with a era later than PaleoJudaica's normal period of interest, but the interest of that later era in earlier Jewish history is interesting in itself.
Every People Under Heaven
Edited by Barbara Drake Boehm and Melanie Holcomb
Illustrated. 352 pp. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. $75.
The Metropolitan Museum’s much discussed new exhibition, “Jerusalem, 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven,” as well as a beautiful catalog now offered to the public, does not necessarily emphasize the above-mentioned conflict. But it does celebrate the aesthetic richness that ensued from it by presenting the viewer with some of the most magnificent and meaningful artifacts. It is the city’s story told through its material culture. Years of intensive curatorial efforts have yielded a large number of rare objects, some of which have never before been allowed to be taken out of their showcases, much less be shipped overseas and displayed abroad. Among the most exciting are a rare collection of gold coins dated back to the 11th century; the marvelously intricate gold filigree jewelry, made in the Islamic tradition; large jewel-encrusted crosses and relic-boxes, made in the European tradition; and European-Jewish jewelry depicting the long lost temple destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. Of special interest are the rare manuscripts that seem to receive special attention in the exhibition and the catalog: Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, Latin and Persian texts, often lavishly ornamented, gilded and painted with vivid colorful images of the holy city. These books were the prized possession of aristocratic Jewish, Muslim and Christian families who used them as a way to show off their wealth and power at the same time as their piety and devotion.
Original destination of Paul's first journey
BIBLE PLACES BLOG: Was Paul Heading for Alexandria? (Todd Bolen).
At last month’s meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, Mark Wilson suggested in a lunch gathering sponsored by Tuktu Tours that Paul’s original destination on his first journey was not Galatia but Alexandria. This talk was based on an article that he co-authored with Thomas W. Davis that is available at the website of Pharos Journal of Theology. I thought that a brief sketch of their argument might be of interest to readers here.
[...]
CSART inauguration
ARAMAIC WATCH: Monk Brings Ancient Religious Texts To Abilene (TREVOR WYATT, Abeline Public Radio).
Abilene Christian University celebrated the inauguration of the Center for the Study of Ancient Religions Texts, or CSART on Thursday. The center strives to inspire students and help them conduct research alongside established scholars. On Thursday, manuscripts that were written as long as 1700 years ago were featured.More on the Center for the Study of Ancient Religious Texts is here. For more on (correct spelling) Codex Climaci Rescriptus, see here, here and links. And more on St. Catherine's Monastery and its recent difficulties is here, here, and here and links.
[...]
Father Justin, a Librarian in the Monastery of St. Catharine at Mount Sinai, Egypt, was the guest speaker at the inauguration.
“There are three objects from the Museum of the Bible, in Oklahoma,” Father Justin said. “There’s a very, very beautiful, illuminated Byzantine Psalter.” “There’s a leaf written on papyrus of the Psalms, and then there is a bifolio from a manuscript that’s called Codex Climaci Rescritpus [Sic]. This was the bible written in Christian Palestinian Aramaic that was later erased and the same leaves were used for the Syrian translation of St. John’s ladder of divine descent.”
[...]
Yazidis awarded Sakharov Prize
YAZIDI WATCH: Yazidi Freedom of Thought Honored (Rene Wadlow, Media for Freedom).
Background on the Yazidis, their Gnosticism-themed religion, and their tragic fate in the hands of ISIS, is here with many links. And an earlier post involving Nadia Mourad Bassi Taka is here.
The Yearly Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought awarded by the European Parliament has been given on 27 October 2016 to Nadia Mourad Bassi Taka and to Lamiya Aji Bachar both Iraqi Yazidi. Both had been taken captive by the Islamic State (ISIS) forces in August 2014 and then sold into sexual slavery and forced marriage. Both were recently able to escape from bondage and went to Germany as refugees. Both have become spokespersons for the Yazidi, especially those Yazidi women who are still being held in sexual slavery. The United Nations has appointed Nadia Taka as Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. ...Good.
Background on the Yazidis, their Gnosticism-themed religion, and their tragic fate in the hands of ISIS, is here with many links. And an earlier post involving Nadia Mourad Bassi Taka is here.
The "Zoo Rabbi"
ZOOLOGY: The 'Zoo Rabbi' makes a good impression (Shayndel Plotkin, Sun Sentinel).
Leviathan soup anyone? Well, not quite, but exotic cuisines including quail, dovetail soup and chocolate-covered locusts were just a few items on the menu this past month at the Biblical Zoo in Israel.Another article on the Biblical Museum of Natural History was noted earlier this year here. And for more on Dr. Slifkin, follow the links there.
As far as Rabbi Natan Slifkin a.k.a. the "Zoo Rabbi" can attest, it was delicious! Serving exotic Kosher animals is only part of the experience you will have with Rabbi Slifkin and the staff at the Biblical Museum of Natural History, located in Beit Shemesh, Israel. You also will learn about the many uncommon or more obscure aspects to The Bible and its personalities. As Slifkin spoke of his one- million-year-old fossil or the Talmud's theory of a "mud mouse," it felt as if I was reading a "Ripley's Believe it or Not" or Harry Potter novel. He imparted his enthusiasm for the off-the-beaten-track types of excursions and explorations written about in his research-based books and lectures.
[...]
Monday, December 05, 2016
Pirqé Rabbi Eliezer Electronic Text Editing Project
H-JUDAIC: Internet Resource: New Link for the PIRQÉ RABBI ELIEZER ELECTRONIC TEXT EDITING PROJECT. PaleoJudaica noted the project at its old address many years ago.
DSS conference in Paris
MICHAEL LANGLOIS: The Dead Sea Scrolls’ Revelations on the Origins of Christianity, December 7, 2016 in Paris. That's the day after tomorrow.
Vetus Latina Workshop in Wuppertal, Germany
ETC BLOG: Vetus Latina Workshop, 15-16 December, Wuppertal (Peter Williams).
Jewish-Christian Studies Position
GREENVILLE COLLEGE: Assistant/Associate Professor of Theology in Jewish-Christian Studies. The job seeks someone with a "Ph.D. in Theology or Biblical Studies with an emphasis in Early Judaism or Jewish Studies," but also a specific faith commitment in the Wesleyan tradition.
Palmyra loot seized in Geneva
PALMYRA WATCH: Swiss seize artifacts looted from Syria’s Palmyra. Items, also from Yemen and Libya, arrive via Qatar; they’ll be displayed in Geneva until they can be returned (AFP).
Many more posts on Palmyra, its history, the ancient Aramaic dialect spoken there (Palmyrene), and the city's tragic recent fate in the hands of ISIS are here, here, and here (cf. here) and follow the links.
Many more posts on Palmyra, its history, the ancient Aramaic dialect spoken there (Palmyrene), and the city's tragic recent fate in the hands of ISIS are here, here, and here (cf. here) and follow the links.
Sunday, December 04, 2016
R. Akiva's pesher call-to-arms against Rome?
DR. MEIR BEN-SHAHAR: Rabbi Akiva’s Laugh: The Hidden Call for the Bar Kokhba Revolt. A New Reading of the Midrash of R. Akiva and the Fox on the Temple Mount (TheGemara.com).
Abstract: In recent years, a growing consensus has emerged that the Bar Kokhba revolt should be connected to Rome’s establishment of the city of Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem. A new interpretation of Rabbi Akiva’s famous consolation upon seeing a fox emerge from the Holy of Holies (Sifre Deuteronomy 43) suggests that this homily can actually be read as a call to arms against Rome.
Punic pomegranates?
PUNIC WATCH: In season: Pomegranates, the fruit of myths (Jeff Cox, The Press Democrat). This article deals in part with the historical use of the pomegranate and it mentions some interesting details. No ancient references are given and I have not verified the details, but I quote a paragraph here for whatever it is worth.
The Phoenicians established colonies around the Mediterranean, including at Carthage in North Africa. The Romans called Carthage Punis — a word derived from Phoenicia — hence “the Punic Wars.” They called the pomegranate mala punica, or “Carthaginian apple.” And punica became the name of the genus to which the pomegranate belongs. The gem we call garnet comes from “granate” in the word pomegranate, and is the color of the juicy seed sacs.Another recent post on the ancient background of the pomegranate is here.
Education in ancient Galilee
THE CRITICAL REALISM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT BLOG: Educated Galileans? (Jonathan Bernier).
I've decided to pause my blog through Robinson's Redating the New Testament, in large part because I left my copy at my on-campus office yesterday and do not feel like going in the first snow of the season to retrieve it. Instead, I'm going to comment upon something I've been thinking about as of late, namely the scholarly supposition that persons such as Peter and James could not have been formally educated persons because they hailed from the Galilee. This has real consequences for thinking about such things as the authorship, and thus derivatively the date, of the works attributed to them. There is a significant difficulty with this argument, which rests almost entirely upon a fundamentalist interpretation of NT passages which state that there was a bias against their intellectual capacities because they came from the Galilee. That difficulty is that we have evidence, albeit largely indirect, that there was access to education, and moreover to Greek-style education, in the Galilee.HT James McGrath on Facebook. Also, I have not been following Jonathan Bernier's series on Robinson's book, but you may want to have a look at it as well.
[...]
Spanish coin replicas
NUMISMATICS: Spain: Popular “Numismatic Treasures” Coin Series Launches Seventh Set (Michael Alexander, Coin Update). For only one hundred Euros you can own a gold reproduction of a Carthaginian Hemidracma from Ebusus. Or, if your means are more modest, ten Euros will buy you a silver reproduction of a Phoenician Drachma from Gadir.
Cross-file under Punic Watch, Phoenician Watch, and For You, Special Deal!
Cross-file under Punic Watch, Phoenician Watch, and For You, Special Deal!
What watered the ground in Genesis 2:6?
RELIGION AND LITERATURE OF ANCIENT PALESTINE BLOG: Chaoskampf, the Garden of Eden, and the Mountains of Lebanon (Ryan Stephen Thomas).
I have a new paper up on the Garden of Eden that explores its mythological background in Canaanite-Israelite mythological tradition. Among other things, I argue that the mysterious ʾēd that comes up to water the ground in Gen 2:6 is correctly translated “flood” and that the motif hearkens back to an ancient Canaanite myth in which El created the world through defeating the primordial Sea monster. This discovery then leads me to reconstruct how the biblical Garden of Eden story has evolved over time, with particular emphasis on the identity of YHWH-Elohim and the original mountain location of Eden in Canaan. I show how at an earlier stage in the narrative the divine protagonist was likely El rather than YHWH-Elohim and that the site of Eden has been adapted from Mount Lebanon to a non-defined place somewhere on the eastern horizon.A long technical essay that will mostly be of interest to specialists.
Saturday, December 03, 2016
Review of Chapman and Rodgers (eds.), A Companion to Josephus
BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:
Honora Howell Chapman, Zuleika Rodgers (ed.), A Companion to Josephus. Blackwell companions to the ancient world. Malden, MA; Oxford; Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2016. Pp. xvi, 466. ISBN 9781444335330. $195.00.
Reviewed by Matthew Kraus, University of Cincinnati (matthew.kraus@uc.edu)
Preview
The publication of this “first introductory companion, or scholarly guide” (p.1) to Josephus marks the seismic change in Josephan scholarship over recent decades. In addition to the Brill Josephus Project, whose translations and detailed commentaries on the Josephan corpus are already replacing the Loeb editions for serious scholars, innovative approaches to traditional topics and new areas of research now permeate the Josephan landscape.1 No longer reduced to being the cherry-picked companion to the Jewish and Christian experience of the Greek and Roman worlds, he properly merits his own handbook considering him an author in his own right. The volume, ably edited by Honora Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers, draws on an international team of Josephan experts, including several contributors to the Brill translation and commentary. It updates the current status of research and provides a foundation for future advancements.
[...]
Jewish Social Studies 22.1
H-JUDAIC: TOC: Jewish Social Studies 22.1. One of the articles deals with Talmudic material.
DSS forgeries in Accordance?
ETC BLOG: Dead Sea Scroll Forgeries in Your Favorite Bible Software? (Peter Gurry). It seems the answer is yes, although they are very few and it is not clear exactly how many. Also, note the importance of peer-review publication for the discussion.
Review of "Golem" in Berlin
EXHIBITION: (R)EVOLUTION IN BERLIN: GOLEM Ushers in the Shadow Dialectic (Lisa Paul Streitfeld, Huffington Post Blog).
GOLEM opened on 23 September 2016 at the Jewish Museum Berlin. Curated by the German American female duo, Martina Lüdicke (German) and Emily D. Bilski (American), the breakthrough exhibition ushers in an essential new dialectic of the Shadow simultaneously into academia and the international art world in 2016.Dr. Streitfeld sums up:
The golem can look back on a long career, in Judiasm and far beyond. Its story begins in the Hebrew Bible and continues, in constantly new transformations, into the present day. The ancient human dream of creating artificial beings connects with today’s world: genetic technology and artificial intelligence, computers and robots. All these endeavours to create a kind of golem.
—Peter Schäfer, Director of the Jewish Museum Berlin
GOLEM is the authentic irony of our current epoch: the Monster that breaks down the wall between ego and the uncertain realm of dark energy has the sheer force to explode boundaries between the art world and the academy while pointing towards the human transcendence that comes with surrender into the 96 percent unseen universe.Background on the exhibition is here. Follow the link at that post for earlier PaleoJudaica posts on past and present manifestations of the Golem legend.
Vandalism in Sebastia
THIS IS SAD. AND OUTRAGEOUS. Biblical Jewish fortress vandalized once again. Fortress built in 800 BCE vandalized in Sebastia National Park, a Jewish and Christian heritage site; culprits smashed a 2,000-year-old marble pillar buttressing the palace in the ancient capital of Israel (Assaf Kamar, Ynet News).
A marble pillar belonging to the 2,000-years-old Herodium palace was smashed in the Sebastia National Park in the capital of ancient Samaria.I think I remember hearing something about the earlier vandalism incident, but I don't seem to have blogged about it. A couple of past posts on Sebastia are here and here.
The incident is the second time vandalism has occurred within three months at the archeological site against antiquities directly connected with Israeli heritage.
[...]
Friday, December 02, 2016
Hendel on the rainbow
RON HENDEL: The Rainbow in Ancient Context. What does it mean for the rainbow to be a sign of God’s covenant with life on earth, and how does this compare with other concepts of the rainbow in the ancient world? (TheTorah.com). Excerpt:
The rainbow is a sign of many things. It is a visual sign of the covenant between God and all living creatures, a glittering and mysterious bridge between sky and earth. It is a sign of peace, reconciliation, and the eternity of moral law. We remember these things – even if not altogether consciously – when the rain lets up and the sun shines through the clouds, creating the momentary wonder of the rainbow. Although we know that the rainbow is a natural effect of light after the rain, it is also a sign of biblical memory in our lives and perceptions.A good discussion of the ancient context of the rainbow in the biblical Flood story, but I was hoping that Ezekiel 1:28 would be brought in as well.
More on the Jordan lead codices
MORE TESTS: Is this the first written mention of Jesus? 2,000-year-old lead tablets found in a remote cave ARE genuine, claim researchers (Libby Plummer, Daily Mail).
That said, one passage in the article does merit some comment:
To place the claims about the tests in context, I note that the web page of the Centre for the Study of the Jordanian Lead Books has some new posts at its About page that give some further information about the codices and about the tests that have been undertaken on them. Most of the information on the tests is in 2. What are the Jordan lead Books?, although some is in 6. Epigraphy of the Jordan lead Books.
In summary, these indicate that most of the tests on the codices are "consistent with" the lead being ancient (i.e., in the vicinity of 2000 years old). One test gave "inconclusive" results, whatever that means. And one dated the lead to "the earlier part of the High Medieval Period" (apparently the 1100s-1200s CE) and another did find polonium in a codex, suggesting a "nuclear-age dating" of it. This, however, we are told, may apply only to the patina rather than the lead core and is regarded by the testers as inconclusive.
In other words, the situation is rather more complicated than as presented in the Mail article. The tests have produced a range of inconsistent results, although reportedly trending toward the lead being ancient — which we already knew — and perhaps indicating that the manufactured objects are old. Exactly how old is unclear. The inconsistent results so far show well enough that materials testing doesn't necessarily give us conclusive results. The details matter and the full details of all the materials tests on the codices need to be released so that we can see what exactly they show, with what level of confidence they show it, and what range of possible interpretations arises from the evidence they provide.
As I have pointed out before, we have already been here with materials testing of a supposedly ancient artifact (the Gospel of Jesus' Wife), which turned out to be a now-uncontested forgery. At the moment we have a media report and some summaries on a website. The people who have commissioned the tests need to release complete, unedited scans of all the lab test reports. (There seem to be quite a few tests.) The results need to be evaluated by outside experts and digested for their implications in peer-review publications.
Long-term PaleoJudaica readers may recall that when this story broke in March of 2011, the Israel Antiquities Authority had already examined some of the codices and concluded that they were unremarkable forgeries. And the IAA was not impressed by the Oxford tests that indicated that some of the lead was ancient. Ancient lead is easy to obtain. I would be very interested in hearing what the IAA had to say about the lab reports for the new tests. Release them and let's find out.
Cross-file under Fake Metal Codices Watch. I acknowledge that it is possible that some of the current test results may point to some of them being something other than fake, but I remain to be convinced. And in any case, I continue to include this cross-file rubric so that all my posts on the subject can be accessed together.
Background here and many links.
At the Religion Prof Blog, James McGrath has also commented on the story: The Fake Jordan Lead Codices.
• The lead pages, bound like a ring binder, were first discovered in 2008This article presents some extravagant claims about the contents of the lead codices and their importance for Christianity, Judaism, and even Islam. We've heard some of this before and some of it is new. Much of it sounds fanciful. This is a good time to remind ourselves that in the five and a half years since their existence was first announced, not a single peer-review publication on them has been published. Any scholarly discussion of them has yet to begin. Now if someone wishes to defend some of the claims in this article by publishing the evidence in a peer-review publication, I and others will be happy to have a look and evaluate the evidence presented and the arguments for the claims. Unless that actually happens some day, I have no interest in re-engaging with the revival of those claims in the media.
• The tablets suggest that Christ was not starting his own religion, but restoring a thousand-year-old tradition from the time of King David
• They also suggest the God he worshipped was both male and female
• New testing said to confirm their age, say authors who have been campaigning since 2009 for the tablets to be recognised and protected
That said, one passage in the article does merit some comment:
Now tests conducted by Professor Roger Webb and Professor Chris Jeynes at the University of Surrey's Nodus Laboratory at the Ion Beam Centre, confirm that the tablet is compatible with a comparative sample of ancient Roman lead unearthed from an excavation site in Dorset.As presented here, this information does sound interesting. The researchers say that the the lead of the codex they studied had to have been smelted over one hundred years ago and that the internal corrosion indicates that the object is more than several centuries old, perhaps considerably more. It is also claimed in the article (not in a quotation from the researchers) that "crystallization analysis" shows it to be "likely" that the codex is between 1800-2000 years old.
The experts said that the codex they tested 'does not show the radioactivity arising from polonium that is typically seen in modern lead samples, indicating that the lead of the codex was smelted over one hundred years ago'.
They went onto explain how the testing suggests that the artefacts are indeed 2,000 years old.
'While there may be variations in decay and corrosion that depend upon the environmental conditions in which the objects were stored or hidden, there is a strong underlying theme of decay from within the metal,' said the researchers in a press statement.
'It is oxidising and breaking down at atomic level to revert to its natural state.
'This is not witnessed in lead objects that are several centuries old and is not possible to produce by artificial acceleration (e.g. through heating).
'This provides very strong evidence that the objects are of great age, consistent with the studies of the text and designs that suggest an age of around 2000 years'.
The codex was leant to the Elkingtons by the Department of Antiquities in Amman for testing.
Further crystallisation analysis indicates that the codex is likely to be between 1800-2000 years old.
To place the claims about the tests in context, I note that the web page of the Centre for the Study of the Jordanian Lead Books has some new posts at its About page that give some further information about the codices and about the tests that have been undertaken on them. Most of the information on the tests is in 2. What are the Jordan lead Books?, although some is in 6. Epigraphy of the Jordan lead Books.
In summary, these indicate that most of the tests on the codices are "consistent with" the lead being ancient (i.e., in the vicinity of 2000 years old). One test gave "inconclusive" results, whatever that means. And one dated the lead to "the earlier part of the High Medieval Period" (apparently the 1100s-1200s CE) and another did find polonium in a codex, suggesting a "nuclear-age dating" of it. This, however, we are told, may apply only to the patina rather than the lead core and is regarded by the testers as inconclusive.
In other words, the situation is rather more complicated than as presented in the Mail article. The tests have produced a range of inconsistent results, although reportedly trending toward the lead being ancient — which we already knew — and perhaps indicating that the manufactured objects are old. Exactly how old is unclear. The inconsistent results so far show well enough that materials testing doesn't necessarily give us conclusive results. The details matter and the full details of all the materials tests on the codices need to be released so that we can see what exactly they show, with what level of confidence they show it, and what range of possible interpretations arises from the evidence they provide.
As I have pointed out before, we have already been here with materials testing of a supposedly ancient artifact (the Gospel of Jesus' Wife), which turned out to be a now-uncontested forgery. At the moment we have a media report and some summaries on a website. The people who have commissioned the tests need to release complete, unedited scans of all the lab test reports. (There seem to be quite a few tests.) The results need to be evaluated by outside experts and digested for their implications in peer-review publications.
Long-term PaleoJudaica readers may recall that when this story broke in March of 2011, the Israel Antiquities Authority had already examined some of the codices and concluded that they were unremarkable forgeries. And the IAA was not impressed by the Oxford tests that indicated that some of the lead was ancient. Ancient lead is easy to obtain. I would be very interested in hearing what the IAA had to say about the lab reports for the new tests. Release them and let's find out.
Cross-file under Fake Metal Codices Watch. I acknowledge that it is possible that some of the current test results may point to some of them being something other than fake, but I remain to be convinced. And in any case, I continue to include this cross-file rubric so that all my posts on the subject can be accessed together.
Background here and many links.
At the Religion Prof Blog, James McGrath has also commented on the story: The Fake Jordan Lead Codices.
Zoroastrian and Jewish apocalyptic literature
BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Iranian and Jewish Apocalyptics. Notice of a new article by Domenico Agostini in JAOS, now available at Academia.edu.
Review of Fine, The Menorah
BOOK REVIEW A History of the Menorah (MARJORIE INGALL, New York Times).
THE MENORAHThe review tries irritatingly to sound hip, but the book sounds very good.
From the Bible to Modern Israel
By Steven Fine
Illustrated. 279 pp. Harvard University Press. $29.95.
This richly illustrated academic study begins with an image straight out of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” ...
Review of Lavan and Mulryan (eds.), Field Methods and Post-Excavation Techniques in Late Antique Archaeology
BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:
Luke Lavan, Michael Mulryan (ed.), Field Methods and Post-Excavation Techniques in Late Antique Archaeology. Late antique archaeology, 9. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2015. Pp. xiv, 687. ISBN 9789004277021. €75.00.Of chief interest to PaleoJudaica:
Reviewed by Louise Blanke, Wolfson College, Oxford (anne-louise.blanke@wolfson.ox.ac.uk)
[The Table of Contents is listed below.]
The study of late antiquity has been transformed by new insights gained from field projects. To evaluate the historical significance of this new material, we need to discuss the methodologies that resulted in its procurement. This is a common topic in other archaeological disciplines, but one that has largely been omitted from the late antique debate – this volume sets out to redress this issue. The volume was inspired by two conferences held at King’s College London in 2008 and 2009. It contains eighteen contributions that are organised according to seven themes.
[...]
II: ‘The regional development of field methods’. The book’s second theme aims to critically evaluate the long-term development of country-specific archaeological strategies. Magyar (123-156) provides an overview of late antique archaeology in Hungary, while Taxel (157-188) discusses the development of field techniques in Israel from the British Mandate to the present. Both papers provide important insights into the interplay between politics and archaeology. After WWII, Hungary’s inclusion in the Soviet Union resulted in the centralised regulation of archaeology. A countrywide standardisation of field methods was introduced and innovative techniques were encouraged, but limited access to Western scholarship combined with Soviet political control meant that social theoretical models were not applied. Magyar voices a strong critique relevant not only to present-day Hungary: the study of late antiquity is compartmentalised between different branches of university studies, and excavations are managed by local museums, working according to their own methodologies and recording systems, allowing only few opportunities for comparison. Taxel summarises methodological trends in Israel, focussing on technological advances as well as problems in past approaches at specific sites such as Oboda and Sobata, which were overly restored for tourism in the 1950s and 60s and almost ruined for further archaeological interpretation. Taxel only briefly mentions the focus on the biblical past, which has characterised much archaeology in Israel. It would have been within the scope of this book to include a critical evaluation of the consequences of this particular research aim on the treatment of post-biblical material.
Thursday, December 01, 2016
Ehrhardt Lecture
I'M AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER TODAY, giving a lecture in the Ehrhardt Seminar at the Centre for Biblical Studies. The title is "Roles of Angels in 1 Enoch and the Hekhalot Literature." It is a somewhat revised and adapted version of a paper that I presented at the 2015 Enoch Seminar in Gazzada, Italy. You can read an excerpt from the Enoch Seminar version here.
Sheffield workshop on religious experience
JAMES MCGRATH: Call for applications: Workshop on “Religious Experience at the Intersection of Body and Cognition” (University of Sheffield, April 28-29, 2017). This workshop is associated with the Embodied Religion research theme at Sheffield, on which more here.
List of archaeological discoveries in Israel since 2004
THE JEWISH VIRTUAL LIBRARY: Archaeology in Israel: List of Discoveries (2004 - Present). Soon we will be seeing lists of archaeological discoveries for 2016. The JVL gets us started early this year with a list starting with 2016 and going back to 2004. Of course, 2016 is not over yet, so let's hope more exciting items will be added in the next month.
Hoarding Ma’aser Sheni?
AMIT GVARYAHU: Hoarding Consecrated “Second Tithe” Coins (TheGemara.com).
Evidence suggests that hoarding second tithe money held special, religious significance among late antique Jews. How did this curious religious observance develop? What might it have meant to the Jews who practiced it?An interesting case of the possible convergence of ancient textual and archaeological evidence.
Grypeou on ancient accounts of necromancy
EMMANOUELA GRYPEOU: Necromancy in Jewish and Christian Accounts from Mesopotamia and beyond. Paper presented at the Conference: The Talmud and Christianity: Rabbinic Judaism after Constantine 27-28 June, Cambridge, UK (Academia.edu). A draft paper that has lots of interesting information about rabbinic and early Christian (especially Syriac Christian) references to the subject.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Ancient Greek inscription recovered from underwater at Dor
MARINE ARCHAEOLOGY: Israelis recover 1,900-year-old 'Judea' inscription hidden underwater. The Roman-era inscription may confirm the name of the local Roman governor in the period (i24news).
Cross-file under Epigraphy.
UPDATE: Haaretz now has an article on the inscription: Divers find unexpected Roman inscription from the eve of Bar-Kochba Revolt. A statue base from 1,900 years ago found at Dor survived shellfish and seawater, and to the archaeologists' shock, revealed a previously unknown governor of Judea (Philippe Bohstrom). It gives the name of the Roman prefect in question:
UPDATE (2 December): The bad link to the Haaretz article is now fixed. Sorry about that; as you know, I have been away and busy. Meanwhile, that article has cleaned up some misunderstandings in the original, so I have replaced it with the corrected version in the quotation above.
Israeli researchers from Haifa University have uncovered a 1,900-year-old inscription bearing the name of the Roman-era province of Judea after an underwater excavation at Dor Beach, in the Zikhron Yaakov area.The name of the prefect is not given in the article.
The inscription in Ancient Greek also bears the name of the Roman prefect who ruled the province in the second century CE.
[...]
Cross-file under Epigraphy.
UPDATE: Haaretz now has an article on the inscription: Divers find unexpected Roman inscription from the eve of Bar-Kochba Revolt. A statue base from 1,900 years ago found at Dor survived shellfish and seawater, and to the archaeologists' shock, revealed a previously unknown governor of Judea (Philippe Bohstrom). It gives the name of the Roman prefect in question:
Gargilius Antiquus: A name set in stone, twiceFor more on him, read the whole Haaretz article.
The statue base found on the seabed at Dor is only the second known mention of the province of Judea in Roman inscription. The other is the "Pontius Pilate stone" dating to around 100 years earlier. Discovered by archaeologists in 1961 at the ancient theater in Caesarea, it is a rare piece of solid evidence mentioning Pilate, prefect of Judea, by name.
The newly found inscription, carved on the stone in Greek, is missing a part, but is thought to have originally read: “The City of Dor honors Marcus Paccius, son of Publius, Silvanus Quintus Coredius Gallus Gargilius Antiquus, governor of the province of Judea, as well as […] of the province of Syria, and patron of the city of Dor.”
The name Gargilius Antiquus had been known from another inscription previously found in Dor – as the governor of a province whose name was missing from that inscription. So far, reconstructions have suggested either Syria or Syria-Palaestina as the province he was governing. Dr. Gil Gambash, head of the Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, and Yasur-Landau were excited to read on the new inscription that Gargilius Antiquus was in fact the governor of Judea, shortly before the Bar Kochba Revolt.
UPDATE (2 December): The bad link to the Haaretz article is now fixed. Sorry about that; as you know, I have been away and busy. Meanwhile, that article has cleaned up some misunderstandings in the original, so I have replaced it with the corrected version in the quotation above.
Labeled model of Second Temple Jerusalem
TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH (SORT OF): Model of Second Temple Jerusalem (HolyLandPhotos' Blog). With major architectural features helpfully labeled.
Seen on Facebook. Past posts on the model are here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Seen on Facebook. Past posts on the model are here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Four Decades of Emory Jewish Studies
CONGRATULATIONS TO EMORY UNIVERSITY: Event Marks 4 Decades of Emory Jewish Studies (Atlanta Jewish Times).
The Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University is celebrating 40 years of Jewish studies at the university with a Community of Scholars Showcase on Sunday, Dec. 4, during which some of Emory’s leading professors will share insights from their teaching, writing and research.
[...]
Since its inception, the chair has been occupied by David Blumenthal, a specialist in Jewish thought and theology who was hired from Brown University.
Early on, the Jewish studies program was augmented by the arrival of Kenneth Stein, an expert on the history of Israel and the Middle East, and Oded Borowski, a biblical archaeologist who helped lay the basis for Emory’s Hebrew language program.
[...]
The Tam Institute is a leading center for research and teaching in Jewish studies. Its 19 core faculty members, working in Emory College, the Candler School of Theology and the Emory Law School, specialize in such fields as biblical studies and archaeology, Jewish law and ethics, contemporary Jewish theology, European and American Jewish history, the Holocaust, Jews in Islamic lands, modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature and culture, and the history and politics of modern Israel.
[...]
ASOR Annual Meeting tweets
THE ASOR BLOG: Twitter Recap: 2016 ASOR Annual Meeting.
A big thanks to everyone who attended and helped make the 2016 ASOR Annual Meeting an amazing event. We couldn't have done it without you! Also, to everyone who live tweeted the event, thanks. We enjoyed hearing reading and retweeting your thoughts. Here are some of the tweets from #ASOR16!The ASOR Annual Meeting took place at the place as and a little before the AAR/SBL Annual Meetings earlier this month.
[...]
Elephantine excavation reports online
AWOL: Elephantine Reports Online. Originally posted on AWOL in 2012, but I missed it then. Annual reports on the recent excavations at Elephantine Island, the site of the fifth-century BCE Judean community that left us many Aramaic papyri. For much more on the community and the papyri see here with many links.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
The rabbis triumph over God in the Talmud
THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Not in Heaven. Man’s authority to interpret the Torah in a ‘postmagical age’ is the subject of this week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ rabbinical debate.
Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.
Before I began reading Daf Yomi, I was familiar with only a few Talmudic episodes—the famous ones that are regularly cited as examples of the Talmud’s wisdom or sensibility. Whenever I come across one of these passages in the course of my reading, there is a thrill of recognition, as though a piece of a puzzle had been slotted into place. That happened this week with one of the best known and most provocative incidents in the whole Talmud, the one known as “the oven of achnai.” This passage, in Bava Metzia 59b, raises profound questions about the nature of Talmudic decision-making and the relationship of the rabbis’ authority to the authority of God.It's a good story that makes striking claims about the basis of halakhic authority. But first this week's passage deals with the law of supply and demand and the issue of verbal abuse.
[...]
Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.
Hurtado on "Paul the Jew"
LARRY HURTADO: “Paul the Jew”: New Book.
I’m pleased to have my contributor’s copy of Paul the Jew: Rereading the Apostle as a Figure of Second Temple Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini & Carlos A. Segovia (Fortress Press, 2016). This volume presents edited versions of twelve papers given in an invitational conference held in Rome in 2014. My paper included in the volume: “Paul’s Messianic Christology,” which I summarized in a previous posting after that conference here.I noted the publication of the book in the spring of this year here.
[...]
Report on the 2016 ETS Septuagint Studies Consultation
WILLIAM A. ROSS: The 2016 ETS Septuagint Studies Consultation in Review (Septuaginta & C. Blog).
HT Jim West.
HT Jim West.
Oz, Judas
LITERATURE: In the novel ‘Judas,’ Amos Oz wrestles with Jewish attitudes toward Jesus (Ron Charles, Washington Post).
“Judas,” a new novel by Amos Oz, is a paradox of stillness and provocation. The Israeli author, a long-rumored contender for the Nobel Prize, has reduced the physical action of this story to a tableau of domestic grief. But beneath a scene of fermented woe, he incites a storm of theological and political arguments about the founding of Israel and the origins of Christianity.It sounds like a very strange novel, but Judas is involved, albeit indirectly.
[...]
Sofer, A Love and Beyond
LITERATURE: A LOVE & BEYOND Wins 2016 Best Book Award (Broadway World Books).
Author Dan Sofer's debut novel, "A Love and Beyond," (http://hyperurl.co/alab) has won the 2016 Best Book Award (for the category of Religious Fiction).You can decide how much of a recommendation that is for yourself. I have enjoyed the Dan Brown novels and movies, but I don't recommend them as reliable sources for history. From the description I see that Sofer's book involves the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Copper Scroll, the Talmud, the Jerusalem dating scene, and "a ruthless secret society eager to trigger the End of Days." What could go wrong?
ESRA Magazine has compared the novel favorably with Dan Brown's bestselling "Da Vinci Code." Sofer's novel adds a unique Jewish twist to the conspiracy theory and thriller genres.
[...]
Monday, November 28, 2016
Melchizedek’s priesthood
DR. RABBI JOSHUA GARROWAY: Who Assumed Melchizedek’s Priesthood? How such a minor biblical character became so significant in Jewish and Christian interpretation (TheTorah.com). Excerpt:
No reader of the Torah would come away thinking that King Melchizedek of Salem is a significant character. He could easily be forgotten alongside other obscure kings mentioned in Genesis 14, like Chedorlaomer of Elam, Amraphel of Shinar, or Birsha of Gomorrah. Yet, what precious little the Torah does say about Melchizedek made it impossible for many readers in antiquity to overlook him. A priest from Jerusalem to whom Abraham paid a tithe presented a boon for early Christians, a threat to the rabbis, (possibly) an antecedent for the Maccabees and, for reasons that remain uncertain, a heroic savior for the residents of Qumran.Some past posts on some old traditions and possible traditions about Melchizedek are here, here, here, and here.
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