Study of the DSS in Jordan

THE JORDAN TIMES: Bringing Dead Sea Scrolls to life (Saeb Rawashdeh).

AMMAN — For those who first fell upon a number of ancient scrolls inside a West Bank cave in 1947, the magnitude of their discovery was slow to reveal itself.

Eventually catching the attention of a biblical scholar and archaeologist, the newly-unearthed documents would “later [be] described as ‘The most important discovery of the 20th century’,” Omar Ghul, an epigrapher from Yarmouk University, explained.

The article goes on to discuss the contents of the Scrolls and the history of their discovery and early study of them. The latter part could benefit from some nuancing and filling out, but the main thing of interest in the article is what it says about the study of the Scrolls currently in Jordan and the Arab world:

While the scrolls have drawn immense attention from both the scholarly world and the public, they have not received enough attention from Arab intellectuals, Ghul said.

An exception is the Jordanian Dead Sea Scrolls Project, which has established a library on the scrolls and has published six books.

The project has given more than 200 talks on the scrolls, delivered mainly at schools by graduate students from Jordanian universities, the scholar highlighted.

While the project has had successes, such as revising school curricula to cover the issue, “the main challenge” that faces Arab involvement in studying the scrolls is “the lack of qualified human resources”, according to Ghul.

In order to study the scrolls, one needs to know the languages in which they were written and the contemporary religious texts, with their cultural and historical background, alongside several other tools of textual investigation.

“Building these capacities should be the main focus of those concerned with pursuing the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jordan and Palestine,” he said.

“This task has been partly fulfilled for years now by the Department of Epigraphy at Yarmouk University, in which graduate students are provided with the basic knowledge they need to get involved in this interesting and challenging academic field.”

This sounds all to the good. I noted an Arabic translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls by the Jordanian Dead Scrolls Project and Yarmouk University back in 2009. And I noted a recent interview with Professor Ghul about Jordanian inscriptions here.

Diaspora Hellenisim

READING ACTS: Hellenization and the Jewish Diaspora.

This struggle to maintain cultural boundaries against the overwhelming force of Hellenism is the “plot” of most of the Second Temple Period.

Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

The Apocalypse of Peter

NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA WATCH: When Scripture Becomes Heretical (Eric Beck, CSCO Blog). Excerpt:

The only explicit reason given for excluding the Apocalypse of Peter from the canon is that it was not actually written by the apostle Peter. We have no record of any theological objections to the text’s inclusion in the canon in the early church. As such, it would appear the Apocalypse of Peter was considered orthodox until it was no longer canonical for the majority of Christian communities. It was thus only after the majority deemed the text non-canonical that the universalism within it was further classified as heretical.

I noted the publication of a new edition of the Apocalypse of Peter by Thomas J. Kras and Tobias Nicklas here back in 2004.

It is a little confusing that there are actually two Apocalypses of Peter. The Apocalypse of Peter that is the subject of this article is a second-century work preserved in somewhat different Greek and Ethiopic recensions. There is also a Coptic Apocalypse of Peter preserved in the Nag Hammadi Library. They are completely independent works.

Keim, Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer, at Google Books

KATHARINA KEIM'S NEW BOOK ON PIKRE DERABBI ELIEZER is now available at Google Books:

Pirqei deRabbi Eliezer: Structure, Coherence, Intertextuality

As usual, this is a preview, not the whole book. But it includes substantial excerpts.

The Talmud, Gilgamesh, Eden, and sex

LEHRHAUS: Gilgamesh and the Rabbis: Knowledge and its Price from Uruk to the Beit Midrash (Eli Putterman.

The tale of R. Yohanan and Reish Laqish related in b. Bava Metzia 84a ranks among the most shocking narratives in rabbinic literature, yet also one of the most profoundly moving. Certainly, the story has exerted an unabated fascination upon generations of scholars, who have analyzed the text using a wide variety of theoretical approaches and brought it into dialogue with intertexts within rabbinic literature and without, from Syriac Christian monastic traditions to Les Miserables.[1] In what follows, I will focus on a complex of motifs in the first episode of the story—the initial encounter between R. Yohanan and Reish Laqish in the Jordan River—and trace its multifarious appearances in a wide range of ancient cultures, beginning at the very dawn of world literature.

[...]

HT AJR.

Crowdsourcing Gilgamesh

CHILDREN'S LITERATURE: Readers get headstart on book about Gilgamesh. Jerusalem author Shirley Graetz turns to crowdsourcing to fund young reader series (Jessica Steinberg, Times of Israel).

Remember the adventures of Gilgamesh, the Akkadian demigod?

Shirley Graetz, the Jerusalem-based writer and creator of the elementary school-age hero, is back with the second book in the series, “Gilgamesh and the Underworld,” and she’s crowdsourcing some financial help, having self-published the successful chapter book the first time.

[...]

PaleoJudaica noted her first Gilgamesh book (in Hebrew) here.

ISBL 2017: history of Jewish biblical scholarship in Berlin

H-JUDAIC: CFP: JEWISH BIBLE SCHOLARSHIP IN BERLIN in the 19th and 20th centuries at ISBL, Berlin, Aug. 2017. Proposals due 22 Feb 2017.

We would like to invite submissions of proposals for a themed session devoted to Jewish biblical scholarship in Berlin in the 19th and 20th centuries, which is one of two sessions scheduled for the new unit on The History of Biblical Scholarship in the Late Modern Period, at the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature.

Follow the link for further particulars.

Rabbinics and Second Temple Judaism

READING ACTS: Using Rabbinic Literature for the Study of the Second Temple Period. The best advice is probably not to use rabbinic literature for the study of either the New Testament or the Second Temple Period unless you are a specialist in Rabbinics. But people generally are not going to take that advice.

Two comments. First do not use Strack and Billerbeck. See Phil's note in the comments for why. Second, the only way I know of to draw on the Mishnah on its own terms for information on the late Second Temple Period is to restrict the discussion to the sayings that Neusner and his students reconstructed as belonging to the earliest stratum ("before the wars"). This reconstruction is itself open to debate in various ways, but unless you want to specialize in Rabbinics and form your own opinion about the date of each saying in the Mishnah, it's the best cheat sheet we have at present. (This is outside my area of expertise, so if you know of a better one, please alert me to it.)

Relevant basic bibliography:

Neusner, Jacob. Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.

Sanders, E. P. Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah. SCM, 1990.

Yes, I know that Neusner and Sanders disagreed on a lot of things, but Sanders's overview of Neusner's earliest Mishnah stratum in the book above is helpful.

Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links. I needed to look some things up before I published this post, so I have taken the Reading Acts post out of order.

Finally, for more on teaching the Mishnah to undergraduates, see here.

UPDATE (6 February): Richard Bauckham has e-mailed to remind me of David Instone-Brewer's still-in-progress work on that first stratum of rabbinic sayings: Traditions of the Rabbis in the Era of the New Testament (T-R-E-N-T). And see also here.

Of ritual baths, stone vessels, and purity

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST TODAY (ASOR BLOG): Jewish Purity Practices in Roman Judea: The Evidence of Archaeology (Yonatan Adler).

Along with mikva’ot, the chalkstone quarries and workshops reflect the surprising extent to which the economy and landscape were dedicated to the concept of purity.

Ugaritica volumes online for free

AWOL: Open Access Monograph Series: Ugaritica. Cross-file under Northwest Semitic Epigraphy.

Postdoc in France on Ancient Judaism

UNIVERSITÉ DE LORRAINE (METZ):

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity Project PLURITEXT (ANR/DFG)

The Maison des Sciences de l’Homme at the University of Lorraine (Metz) offers 18 months Postdoctoral Fellowship (with the possibility of a six-month extension) attached to the ANR-DFG Project PLURITEXT. The position will run September 1, 2017-february 28, 2019. Applicants must have completed their doctoral dissertations by September 1, 2018 on a topic related to the literature or thought of ancient Judaism and have a good knowledge of ancient Greek and Hebrew.

The successful candidate will receive a fellowhsip of circa 2 050 Euros net per month and will spend the 2017-2019 academic years at the University of Lorraine (Metz). The Postdoc is expected to conduct independent research related to the project PLURITEXT in her/his area of expertise. She/he is also expected to take an active role in the ANR- DFG Project PLURITEXT. She/he will be especially involved in the edition of Hebrew Text of Ben Sira in collaboration with Jan Joosten, Eric Reymond and Jean-Sébastien Rey.

[...]

Follow the link for application procedures and more information on the PLURITEXT Project.

Revival of the half-shekel Temple tax

BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS: Half-Shekel Temple Tax Reinstated By Sanhedrin (Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz).

“Everyone who is numbered, from twenty years old and over, shall give the contribution to the Lord. The rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than the half shekel, when you give the contribution to the Lord to make atonement for yourselves.” Exodus 30:15 (The Israel Bible™)

After a 2,000 year moratorium, it is now possible for a Jew anywhere in the world to perform the mitzvah (commandment) of paying the half-shekel, a Biblically-mandated tax incumbent on every Jew to finance the day-to-day operations of the Temple.

There are now two ways to perform this commandment: one method for people who can hand-deliver their offering, and another for those who can’t.

While the Temple was standing, every Jewish man was required to give one half-shekel weight of silver, approximately eight grams of silver (worth about $4 today), as a mandatory tax to support the Temple. Each man was obligated to give the same amount, regardless of his economic condition. The coins, once deposited in the Temple courtyard, were hekdesh (sanctified) and not permitted to be used for any other purpose.

The nation of Israel continued to observe the commandment even after the First Temple was destroyed until the practice was outlawed by Roman Emperor Hadrian in the year 135 CE. Even Jews who lived outside of Israel continued to donate the half-shekel, despite the Roman Senate forbidding the export of gold and silver.

[...]

Read on for the specifics of the two new systems. I wonder how this one is going to play out. So far, they are reported to have collected quite a bit of money.

As I have said before: (1) No excavation or construction on the Temple Mount! Not even archaeology, until we have non-invasive and non-destructive technologies to do the work. And (2) My interest here is sociological and historical, not theological (let alone eschatological!), and my citation of this and related stories is not an endorsement of their content. The latter link also has some relevant comments on Breaking Israel News.

This particular initiative was first noted here, but there have been new developments. That post has links to previous posts on the ancient half-shekel tax and see also here.

Of Amorites, truffles, and giants

THE WORLD IS FULL OF HISTORY: Peoples of the Bible: The legend of the Amorites. And why were the biblical peoples so terrified of migrant shepherds that they described them as raw-meat eating, ancestor-abusing giants? ■ Part 1 (Philippe Bohstrom, Haaretz).

Amorites: A people descended from Emer, the fourth son of Canaan, according to the book of Genesis 10:16.

The problem with understanding the Amorites is that they have two wildly different points of reference, an earlier Mesopotamian one and a later biblical one, over a thousand years distant from one another, and which seem to have no connection whatsoever except for the name. Even defining Amorites as a single people may be inaccurate: we cannot be sure they were one, since the Amorites are from a deep, unknown past. But this is what we can say.

One more brief excerpt from a long article:

In the Marriage of Martu, a Sumerian creation legend that took place in the distant past even in biblical times, in which the blushing bride weds an Amorite ("martu" in Sumerian), the stereotype is personified:

“The Amorite he is dressed in sheep skins: he lives in tents in wind and rain; He doesn’t offer sacrifices. Armed vagabond in the steppes, he digs up truffles and is restless. He eats raw meat. Lives without a home; And when he dies, he is not buried according to proper rituals."

The Bible also describes the Amorites with dread, in this case, being of immense stature. Og of Bashan, one of their kings, is said to be the last of the giants, who had to be buried in a sarcophagus measuring four by 1.8 meters (Deuteronomy 3:11).
While that is extremely unlikely, who were these Amorites, who frightened the other peoples of the bible so badly?

It's complicated.

That was Part 1. So far, so good. Stay tuned for Part 2. And Part 1 is a premium article, so read it now before it goes behind the paywall.

Review of Becker, Porphyrios, 'Contra Christianos'

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Matthias Becker, Porphyrios, 'Contra Christianos'. Neue Sammlung der Fragmente, Testimonien und Dubia mit Einleitung, Übersetzung und Anmerkungen. Texte und Kommentare, Bd 52. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. Pp. x, 667. ISBN 9783110440058. $196.00.

Reviewed by Ariane Magny, University of Ottawa (amagny@uottawa.ca)

Preview

In this colossal and meticulous work, Matthias Becker offers a new collection of the fragments of Against the Christians by the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry of Tyre. C. Chr. has survived only fragments in the works of late antique, Christian scholars. Becker’s is the first fragment collection to be produced by a German scholar since Adolf von Harnack first published his in 1916. Recently, other collections have been produced in English, Spanish, and Italian.1 A French one is currently in progress for Les Belles Lettres (by Sébastien Morlet). This interest in C. Chr. is part of a wider, renewed interest in Porphyry’s work in general,2 and contributes to our understanding of late antique inter-religious debates, for it seeks to reconstruct an anti-Christian treatise that was destroyed on the orders of various Christian emperors.

[...]

Porphyry is important for the history of NeoPlatonism and, more indirectly, Gnosticism, but he also is of some interest for ancient Judaism. He was the first to advance arguments for the Book of Daniel being composed during the Maccabean revolt. Porphyry also commented on some Gnostic Old Testament pseudepigrapha, as noted here. And some other PaleoJudaica posts pertaining to Porphyry are here, here, here, and here.

Another review of Gardner, The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism

H-JUDAIC: Schwartz on Gardner, 'The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism'.

Author: Gregg Gardner
Reviewer: Joshua Schwartz

Gregg Gardner. The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. 251 pp. $99.99 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-107-09543-4.

Reviewed by Joshua Schwartz (Bar-Ilan University)
Published on H-Judaic (January, 2017)
Commissioned by Katja Vehlow

Charity with DignityCharity is one of the most important concepts in Judaism. The most famous definition of charity in Jewish thought is that of Maimonides, in his "Eight Levels of Giving" ("Laws about Giving to Poor People," Mishneh Torah, 10:7-14). Ironically, the highest level of charity might not even be considered as charity today. Maimonides suggests "charity" options such as giving an indigent an interest-free loan, forming a partnership with him, or finding a job for a poor person so that he or she will be able to support themselves. The lowest level of charity is giving out of pity, most likely to a beggar, a type of giving that has generated opposition in some circles today.[1] Avoiding the pitfalls and problems of giving to beggars, and finding different, viable charity solutions are core issues of Gardner's study.

Gardner enters a field that has not suffered neglect as of late.[2] Is there a need for another book on Jewish charity? The answer to this question is encapsulated in one sentence: "The study of organized charity in Judaism is inextricably intertwined with the study of material culture" (p. 63). Finally! While this truism is self-evident in the academic circles that the author of this review frequents, unfortunately the study of relevant material culture and its meaning is often ignored in the study of ancient Judaism.[3] While Gardner's study, using material culture, makes a significant contribution to the study of charity in rabbinic Judaism, it also serves as a methodological model for future research not only on this topic in particular, but also on the social history of ancient Jewish life.

[...]

Past PaleoJudaica posts on the book are collected here.

Biblical Studies Carnival 131

WESTAR INSTITUTE: Biblical Studies Carnival 131 – January 2017 (Cassandra Farrin). Hopefully this will be corrected soon, but as the post currently stands, the first reference to me should be to Jim West. All other references to "Jim" are to me.

The Judaism and Rome Project

THE EUROPEAN RESEARCH COUNCIL:

The ERC project "Judaism and Rome"

Welcome to the website for the ERC project "Re-thinking Judaism’s Encounter with the Roman Empire: Rome’s Political and Religious Challenge to Israel and its Impact on Judaism"!

On this website you will find useful resources for studying Roman imperial ideology, or Roman imperial discourses, artefacts and performances, displayed in literary records, epigraphy, numismatics, as well as through monuments, statues and other material artefacts. There is a particular focus on sources connected to the three sub-themes of the project, “Roman Power,” “Roman Law” and “Roman Citizenship”.
You will also find Jewish, Greek, Egyptian and Christian sources documenting the responses of some of the provincials of the Roman empire to the challenge of Roman domination. By "responses," however, we do not intend only the provincial sources that explicitly mention Rome and address issues such as Roman law courts or grants of Roman citizenship. We also take into account the way the Roman imperial context led provincials to formulate their own conceptions of power, law, and citizenship or membership with a given group.

The site is searchable and has many useful resources already posted.

Textual criticism summer school in Salzburg

ON BIBLICAL MANUSCRIPTS AND THEIR USE IN BIBLICAL STUDIES: Summer School in Salzburg, Austria 3-7 July 2017 The Hebrew and Greek Texts of Esther with Professor Kristin De Troyer.

Historical reliability of Luke-Acts, part 2

THE BIBLE PLACES BLOG: uke & Acts: Historical Reliability - 2 (Michael J. Caba).

The first two verses of the third chapter of the Book of Luke contain references to eight individuals in prominent positions at the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist. The text itself is shown below.

This post focuses on Pontius Pilate.

The first post in the series was noted here.

The Arshama Project

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: The Arshama project.

The Arshama Project is not new, but since it is a valuable resource for the study of Achaemenid history, we would like to introduce it briefly.

I noted the existence of the Arshama Project in passing here, but this post will take you to a link for the project itself, which involves an archive of Aramaic parchments from Elephantine.

Pasts posts on the Elephantine papyri are here and many links. Cross-file under Aramaic Watch.

The Talmud on walls and neighbors

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: What the Talmud Says About Trump’s Border Wall, Paid For by Mexico. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ when it comes to privacy, good fences may indeed make good neighbors

This week, Daf Yomi readers began a new tractate, Bava Batra, which begins by considering these same questions about walls. Who builds them, who is responsible for them, and what purpose do they serve? ...

So far, matters are entirely straightforward. The difficulty, and the source of legal interest, arises when one partner wants to build a wall and the other partner does not. Can one compel the other to build the wall, or to pay for its construction? The Gemara points out that what is at stake here is whether there is such a thing as a right to privacy. Does one neighbor have the right to be shielded from the observation of the other neighbor? If he does, then he can force the latter to build a wall, even against his will?

Timely, insofar as the subject is walls and neighbors, but not all that informative about the issue in the headline.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Interview with Burke and Landau

EERDWORD BLOG: Eerdmans Author Interviews: Tony Burke & Brent Landau.

Tony Burke and Brent Landau are co-editors of New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, a new compilation of little-known and never-before-published apocryphal Christian texts in English translation.

Learn their goals for the project, why they say studying noncanonical texts is important, and some of their favorite apocryphal literature ...

A video interviews. The More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project gets a shout out.

Background on the book is here, here, here, and links. Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch.

The return of the Diaspora in Second Temple Judaism

READING ACTS: Hope for the Future during the Exile.

The scattering of the Jewish people throughout the world is the foundation for the hope or restoration to the land in the future as the twelve tribes of Israel. The Diaspora will eventually come to an end, the land will be repopulated, Jewish cities will be rebuilt and the people will worship God in Jerusalem.

Conclusion:

But to what extent are these hopes a kind of fantasy for people living in distant lands hoping for a restoration of the “good old days”? Or, are these the hopes of Judeans now living in a barren and oppressed land, people who are looking forward to a future liberation? Is this kind of hope a form escapism? Or more troubling, have Christians transformed some of these Jewish hopes for restoration into a hope for heaven?

Also, modern Zionism arises ultimately from these hopes and it belongs in this discussion.

Past posts in Phil Long's new series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

$900K for Lithodomos

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: $900k Seed Funding For Australian Archaeological Virtual Reality Startup (Jewish Business News).

Melbourne based archaeological virtual reality startup, Lithodomos VR, has successfully closed a $900,000 seed funding round. The company creates archaeologically accurate reconstructions of the ancient world in virtual reality for use in the tourism, education and entertainment industries.

The funds will be use for expanding across Europe and will allow Lithodomos VR to further capitalize on its position in the archaeology virtual reality world.

[...]

More on the Lithodomos ancient Jerusalem VR app is here and here. Cross-file under Virtual Reality.

Review of Taylor, Interpreting Apocalyptic Literature

READING ACTS: Book Review: Richard A. Taylor, Interpreting Apocalyptic Literature.

Taylor, Richard A. Interpreting Apocalyptic Literature: An Exegetical Handbook. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Ministry, 2016. 205 pp. Pb; $21.99. Link to Kregel

This new contribution to Kregel’s Handbooks of Old Testament Exegesis has a more narrow focus since apocalyptic literature only appears in parts Daniel and a few other prophetic books. Taylor therefore expands his comments beyond the canon of the Hebrew Bible to include literature from the Second Temple Period usually classified as apocalyptic.

[...]

Update on the Brody-Collection coin auction

NUMISMATICS: World coin auctions are at center of New York International Numismatic Convention. Sales near $39 million in last year at Waldorf-Astoria (Jeff Starck, Coin World).

In its final year at the Waldorf-Astoria, the New York International Numismatic Convention in 2017 continued to serve as the center of international numismatics to kick off a new year.

The convention — held for its 45th time — served as the home to auctions garnering nearly $39 million. Leading the way was Heritage Auctions’ sale, totaling $15,658,469. Classical Numismatic Group’s auctions realized $11,292,580.

Totals for the convention’s several other auctions follow:

The New York Sale, which featured the Brody Collection of Jewish coins; ancient and world coins; Russian coins, orders and medals: realized $4,794,169, including an 18 percent buyer’s fee.

[...]

The top lot of the auctions was the prototype issue, dated Year 1 (A.D. 66 to 67), silver shekel struck during the Jewish War.

The coin is in Extremely Fine condition and toned, according to CNG. It hammered for $600,000 in the firm’s auction (the buyer’s fee ranges from 19 to 21 percent, depending on bidding and payment method).

This is one of three known examples of a prototype for the shekel of the first year of the Jewish War, beginning May 66 (or a bit later), and it is therefore the first coin type of the renowned Jewish War shekels and half shekels.

[...]

Background here. That article did not mention the quite important Year 1 silver shekel, although this earlier one alluded to it.. The sale of one of the two other surviving Year 1 silver silver shekels was noted here in 2012. And for other recently sold silver shekels from the Great Revolt, see here.

New UN chief affirms historicity of Jewish Temple, Palestinian leaders outraged

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: UN chief says Temple Mount was home to Jewish temple, Palestinians demand apology.

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Palestinian officials are demanding an apology from the new United Nations chief after he said it was “completely clear that the Temple that the Romans destroyed in Jerusalem was a Jewish temple.”

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also told Israel Radio in an interview Friday with its New York correspondent that “no one can deny the fact that Jerusalem is holy to three religions today,” including Judaism.

On Sunday, Adnan al-Husseini, the Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Affairs minister, told the Chinese news service Xinhua that Guterres “ignored UNESCO’s decision that considered the Al-Aqsa mosque of pure Islamic heritage.” He also said Guterres “violated all legal, diplomatic and humanitarian customs and overstepped his role as secretary general … and must issue an apology to the Palestinian people.”

[...]

You just can't make this stuff up. Cross-file under Jewish-Temple denial. Those recent UNESCO resolutions have been noted here, here and here and follow the links. For more on Jewish-Temple denial, start here and follow the links, or run the phrase through the PaleoJudaica search engine in the upper left corner. These two stories from the last couple of years also seem worth flagging.

CFP: Origeniana Duodecima

CONFERENCE: Origeniana Duodecima.

On behalf of the international academic committee and the Center for the Study of Christianity at the Hebrew University (CSC) we are pleased to announce that the next Origeniana will take place at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, on June 25-29, 2017.

The theme of the conference will be:
Origen's Legacy in the Holy Land–A Tale of Three Cities: Jerusalem, Caesarea and Bethlehem

Paper proposals are being accepted up to 28 February 2017. Follow the link for further particulars.

Conference: From Creation to Sinai

RESEARCH GROUP AT THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY: From Creation to Sinai: Jewish, Christian, and Qur'anic Traditions in Interaction. September 1, 2016- July 1, 2017, Organizers: Esther Eshel and Menahem Kister.

The Book of Genesis and the beginning of the Book of Exodus are of utmost importance for many fundamental issues in the study of Judaism, Christianity, and nascent Islam. The traditions related to the narrative passages of these books refer, inter alia, to the Creation of the World, Adam as bearer of God's image, angels and demons, Enoch, Divine election, the covenants with the patriarchs prior to Sinai, the establishment of monotheism, the formation of Israel as a nation, and the Exodus. These themes were highly significant in the formulation of the competing religious worldviews and self-understanding of Second Temple and rabbinic Judaism, early Christianity, Gnosticism, and eventually early Islam. It should be emphasized that the relevant material is not confined to works dedicated expressly to the exegesis of these biblical books; rather, themes of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus are part and parcel of the religious messages of Jewish, Christian and nascent Islamic thought.

Themes and traditions from Genesis and Exodus may be found in a vast array of sources in Antiquity. The Qur'an – unlike medieval Islamic traditions – is one of the latest products of Late Antiquity. While scholarship by and large has tended toward the study of the relevant biblical themes in each religion unto itself, comparative studies transcending the boundaries between the corpora of varying religious traditions are often mutually illuminating. The group’s purpose is not merely to map and compare divergent traditions, but also to elucidate the dynamics of transformation among them, considering the relationships (including polemics and influence) among the religious groups of Antiquity. The anticipated collaboration of scholars from diverse backgrounds in the proposed Research Group will be a rare opportunity for productive synergy.

The conference is on 5-8 March, 2017. Follow the link for further particulars.

Revue des études juives 175, 3-4 (2016)

H-JUDAIC: TOC: Revue des études juives 175, 3-4 (juillet-décembre 2016). A couple of the articles and notes have to do with ancient Judaism.

"18 Remarkable Facts in Jewish History"

SOME ARE FUN, MANY ARE GRIM: 18 Remarkable Facts in Jewish History (Brandon Marlon, Jerusalem Post, One of the People Blog). The first ten have to do with ancient Jewish history. There may be a few legends involved as well. I have not checked them all for accuracy.

One excerpt:

4. Chanukah's Arch-Villain Mourned Jewish Leader – Due to the corruption and hellenizing extremes of his successors Jason and Menelaus, the high priest Honya III fled for safety to a temple in Daphne, near Antioch. He was murdered at Menelaus' instigation by Andronicus, a Seleucid high official, who was soon thereafter put to death for the cold-blooded crime. Remarkably, according to 2 Maccabees (4:37), "King Antiochus was deeply grieved and was so filled with sorrow that he was moved to tears when he recalled the wisdom and self-control that Honya had shown throughout his life."

He also promptly executed Andronicus.

Tobit, part 2

READING ACTS: Tobit: Remembering the Covenant. Past posts in Phil Long's new series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links. That post is also on the Book of Tobit and it collects some past PaleoJudaica posts on Tobit as well.

Uber meets R. Shimon bar Yochai?

A ZOHARIC SAGE IN MODERN MYSTICISM: Jared Kushner and the White-Haired Mystic Whose Dad ‘Got a Ride’ From a Dead Sage (Josh Nathan-Kazis, The Forward).

Jared Kushner’s family charities have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to a mystical Moroccan rabbi who some followers claim has miraculous powers.

The rabbi, David Chananya Pinto, is little known in the United States but has a coterie of wealthy backers. Two separate Kushner family foundations on whose boards Jared Kushner serves have given over $210,000 in grants to Pinto’s New York City study center.

[...]

Stories of the miracles that his father and grandfather worked, and the belief that they can continue to influence daily events, appear to play a major role in Pinto’s religious message. In a May 2016 lecture delivered in Mexico City and available online, Pinto told a story about his father getting picked up on the side of the road in 1968 by the purported author of the Zohar, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who lived roughly 2,000 years ago.

According to Pinto, his father, Rabbi Moshe Ahron Pinto, lived 40 years in prayerful seclusion in his home in Morocco, and then, in 1968, sought the permission of the dead sage bar Yochai to move his family to Israel. Moshe Ahron Pinto traveled to Ashdod, then took a taxi to bar Yochai’s crypt in Meron. He finished praying late at night. A disciple who had accompanied him thought they would be stuck near the crypt until dawn, but as soon as they reached the road, an Israeli-made station wagon, an Autocars Sussita, appeared. The driver took them to a house in a nearby village.

“My father went out [of the car], [the disciple] closed the car, and suddenly there was no car,” Pinto said.

Pinto said his father told the disciple that the driver was bar Yochai, and that if he told anyone of the miracle he would die.

[...]

The second-century CE sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (Yohai) is the traditional writer of the Zohar, although it was actually written by Moses de León and his circle in the late thirteenth century. Celebrations occur annually at R. Shimon's tomb on Lag B’Omer. And he has sometimes come up at PaleoJudaica in various other contexts (start here and follow the links). This sort of miraculous manifestation of R. Shimon is new to me, but in rabbinic and kabbalistic tradition ancient sages (often Elijah; see, e.g., here and links and here) do show up for all sorts of purposes.

Suciu, The Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon

ALIN SUCIU: Hot off the press: The Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon. A Coptic Apostolic Memoir.

Alin Suciu, The Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon: A Coptic Apostolic Memoir (WUNT, 370; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017).

I am pleased to announce that my book on the Berlin-Strasbourg Apocryphon has just been published with Mohr Siebeck. The book is available HERE.

[...]

You may have also heard of this text as the Gospel of the Savior. It was originally published in 1999 by that title, but Dr. Suciu has argued that it is of the "pseudo-apostolic memoir" genre, rather than the gospel genre, and that it was composed not in the second century, but in the fifth century at the earliest. I have not seen Alin's book, which is a revision of his 2013 doctoral dissertation, but I have read his introduction and translation in Burke and Landau (eds.) New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume 1 (Eerdmans, 2013), on which more here, here, and links.

American Numismatic Society lecture series

NUMISMATICS: New “Money Talks” Lecture Series from American Numismatic Society (Coin Week).

The American Numismatic Society (ANS) curators and Fellows are pleased to announce a new lecture series, “Money Talks: Numismatic Conversations”, that begins in January 2017. In this monthly interactive lecture series, meant to introduce topics of general numismatic interest to members and the general public, attendees will have the opportunity to listen to ANS curators and members and learn by handling relevant objects from the collection and library of the American Numismatic Society. Light meals will be served, and Q&A sessions will follow. To ensure these events are as accessible as possible to all, most will take place on Saturdays at the ANS headquarters in New York City. On a few occasions, these “Numismatic Conversations” will take place at other venues.

Yesterday's lecture was on "Medallic Art of the Great War." Upcoming lectures in the next two months are on "The Origins of Money" and "The Beginnings of Islamic Coinage," and a future lecture on "Jewish Ancient Coinage" is promised.

Gidwitz, The Inquisitor’s Tale

CHILDREN'S NOVEL: Jewish children’s books medalists announced (Intermountain Jewish News).

Winners of the annual Sydney Taylor Book Award have been announced by the Association of Jewish Libraries. Named in memory of Sydney Taylor, author of the classic All-of-a-Kind Family series, the award recognizes books for children and teens that exemplify high literary standards while authentically portraying the Jewish experience.

Gold medalists:

This one ties into ancient Judaism:

The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz, illustrated by Hatem Aly, published by Dutton Children’s Books/Penguin Random House, won the Older Readers category. Part fantasy and part adventure, this is the tale of strangers who become friends while on a quest to save thousands of volumes of Talmud. The beautiful illuminations reflect the medieval flavor of the book.

Sounds like fun. Congratulations to all the medal winners

What is the Shema?

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN BACKGROUND: Talking to God? Dr. Ben Sommer explains the Shema and other ancient Near Eastern Texts (JOANNE PALMER, Jewish Standard/Times of Israel).

What is the Shema?

Yes, as we are told, it’s the central part of our liturgy, ancient, stirring, anchoring.

But what exactly is it? What does it mean? “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” Clarify, please.

Dr. Benjamin Sommer of Teaneck, a professor of Bible and ancient Semitic languages, will talk about that and other Jewish issues as scholar in residence at Temple Emanu-el of Closter. As always, he speaks as an academically rigorous scholar who is also an observant Conservative Jew, an active member of Congregation Beth Sholom in Teaneck.

[...]

His most recent book, “Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition,” “shows that a particularly modern way of understanding the nature of revelation and the authority of Jewish law is far deeper and has more ancient roots than people realize,” he continued. “In the book, I argue that the view of revelation associated with theologians like Abraham Joshua Heschel in fact has predecessors in the Bible itself.

[...]

I mentioned his book about a year ago, here, when it was a finalist for the Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award.

Textual criticism as persuasion

ETC BLOG: Textual Criticism as Rhetoric (Peter Gurry).

To classify textual criticism as a form of rhetoric is a way of highlighting the fact that its arguments depend on persuasion rather than demonstration. Textual critics cannot prove that their choices are correct; the most they can hope to do is lead their readers to believe that those choices are the best available ones.

Scott Adams, call your office.

On the Levitical priesthood

Dr. MARK LEUCHTER: Who were the Levites? (TheTorah.com).

The Torah describes the Levites as a landless Israelite tribe who inherited their position by responding to the call of their most illustrious member, Moses, to take vengeance against sinning Israelites, but this account masks a more complicated historical process.

I first learned the theory from my teacher Frank Moore Cross that the Israelite priesthood goes back to competing groups who traced their genealogies back, respectively, to Moses and Aaron. It is admittedly speculative, but it seems to have some explanatory value for untangling the very complicated traditions in the Hebrew Bible about the priesthood.

Tobit

READING ACTS: Tobit: A Faithful Israelite. Past posts in Phil Long's new series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

The Book of Tobit has come up at PaleoJudaica from time to time, especially in connection with the artistic and dramatic works it has inspired. A couple of past posts on the book itself are here and here.

Linguistic interference

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: Mixing and Merging Languages (Philip Jenkins).

One thing that makes me feel very much at home in Texas is the way people talk Spanish. To explain, I did not grow up in a Spanish speaking area, but the way Latino people navigate between languages reminds me so precisely of the sort-of bilingual environment in which I spent my childhood. Thinking about that world has taught me a lot about how people through history have operated in in such societies.

If I describe that Welsh context, you will see how many analogies there are with the contemporary US. I grew up in South Wales at a time when English was universally spoken, but lots of people still spoke Welsh, to some degree. I stress that qualification. Welsh is an ancient language of literature and scholarship, but few ordinary people actually spoke that cultured version. Rather, they knew a simplified vernacular that my father called Cymraeg y gegin, “kitchen Welsh.”

[...]

This doesn't initially sound like a promising topic for PaleoJudaica – not until you reach the end of the essay:

And to introduce a very large topic to which I will return in other posts, you see these processes very much at work in ancient languages and texts, including the New Testament. The Book of Revelation, above all, should be retitled the Book of Linguistic Interference.

I just speculate: if we could have heard the first generation of Christians actually speak, would they similarly have mixed and matched Greek and Aramaic, freely switching codes in informal conversation? They did in their liturgies. Or as we find in the Didache, from the early second century: “Let grace come, and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David! If any one is holy, let him come; if any one is not so, let him repent. Maranatha. Amen.”

I look forward to future posts in this series. Cross-file under Philology.

Anti-looting WhatsApp Group

THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT: New WhatsApp Group Using Alerts to Catch Antiques Robbers (JNi.Media).

The “Guards of Eternity” forum, which is engaged in fighting antique robbers who are roaming free in Judea and Samaria, this week launched a WhatsApp informer hot line group to enable hikers who spot such thievery to send an alert and get volunteers to reach the site in real-time. The group promises that “every alert will receive an immediate response.”

According to Malachi Yizre’eli, a volunteer coordinator for Guards of Eternity, the group is calling on Israelis who spot an archaeological site that had been robbed or vandalized to send a WhatsApp to 055-666-6486 and report the site’s name, its GPS coordinates or its Google pin, the caller’s name and phone number, a description of the violation and, most important: images and videos of the site and, if possible, the criminals in action.

[...]

Cross file under Looting and Technology Watch.

A capsule history of Judaism

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The History of Judaism (SESAN SAMUEL OYEDEPO, techfeatured). This essay starts with Abraham and goes up to the beginning of the twenty-first century. I can't vouch for every detail, and there's a lot of rounding off and simplification, but it looks substantially accurate.

Jodi Magness profiled

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL: Full-time archaeologist Jodi Magness digs into teaching religion at UNC (Leah Asmelash, Daily Tar Heel).

Professor Jodi Magness has been on more than 20 archaeological excavations over her career, published 10 books, won numerous awards, consulted for the National Geographic, worked alongside Morgan Freeman and is now the president of the Archaeological Institute of America — but she’s still learning.

Magness, professor in the department of religious studies and full-time archaeologist, has always loved archaeology, but she has recently discovered a fondness for religious studies.

“It is a little weird. I think I’m the only Ph.D. in classical archaeology in North America with a full-time appointment in a department of religious studies,” she said, while laughing. “That’s a little different.”

[...]

Professor Magness has come up fairly often at PaleoJudaica. Some past posts on her and her work are here, here, here, here, here, and links.

Resources for Second Temple Judaism

READING ACTS: Resources for Studying the Second Temple Period.

Christians have often called the Second Temple Period is sometimes called the “400 silent years” since there are no authoritative writers from the end of the Old Testament until Paul begins to write in the early 50s A.D. But this period is anything but silent! Jewish writers produced a considerable amount of literature during the Second Temple period, especially if we include Josephus and Philo. Aside from the New Testament, these are the main collections of texts a student needs to read in order to understand the Second Temple period

One small correction: the earliest complete text of 2 Enoch is the Church Slavonic version, but there are also fragments (discovered in 2009) of a Coptic version in a manuscript that dates from the 8th to the 10th centuries CE. Both the Slavonic and the Coptic were presumably translated from a Greek Vorlage.

I would also add the relevant ancient inscriptions in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin to the list.

Past posts in Phil Long's new series on the Second Temple Period are collected here. For Phil's earlier series on 2 Enoch, see here and follow the links. And for some past PaleoJudaica posts on 2 Enoch see here and links (cf. here and here).

Hecker on the Zohar

ZOHAR WATCH: WHY TRANSLATE THE ZOHAR? (A Q&A) (Jodie Shupac, Canadian Jewish News).

Joel Hecker is a leading scholar of Jewish mysticism and an associate professor at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Penn. Hecker is part of a team that together has spent nearly two decades working on a new English translation of the Zohar, a landmark project that produce the first unabridged translation, with commentary, of the original Aramaic text. Hecker visited Toronto last fall and spoke about Kabbalah and the Zohar at Makom: Creative Downtown Judaism. The CJN spoke with him by phone.

Excellent interview and you should read it all. Two brief excerpts, the first on the recent history and immediate prospects of the Pritzker/Matt translation:

What’s been your role in the team of translators?

The primary translator was Prof. Daniel Matt. He started work on this 18 years ago and was working on the project full-time until about seven years ago, when the project’s sponsors, Margot and Tom Pritzker of Chicago, decided they wanted it finished before 2022. They hired two of us to do the last three volumes. Danny completed translating through Volume 9, and myself and Nathan Wolski, an Australian scholar, split the last three volumes.

Is it finished?

I’m dealing with copy editing now at the end of Volume 12. So Volume 12 will be published in May. Each volume is being published individually. They started to be published in 2004 and have, on average, come out every one to two years.

And second, an answer to the question in the headline:

Why translate it into English?

Because it’s the most important text in the mystical Jewish tradition. It’s a value to spiritual seekers both Jewish and not. Until now, the Zohar has been largely restricted to academic or religious scholars. With the richness and spiritual creativity you find here, it’d be a shame to limit it to such an elite and exclusive few.

For past posts on the Zohar, Joel Hecker, and the Pritzker/Matt Zohar translation project, start here and follow the many, many links.

Iraq's Indigenous Communities

MOSUL CAMPAIGN: The Fate of Iraq's Indigenous Communities (Ramsen Shamon, Fair Observer; rprt. AINA).

Remember who the US military first aided when American warplanes joined the battle against the Islamic State (IS) in 2014? It wasn't the Iraqi government. It was a religious minority known as the Yazidis, who were stranded and surrounded by the terrorist group on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq.

Now, the fight to wrest control of Mosul from IS has the world fixated on Iraq's second largest city--and the uncertain fate of its remaining inhabitants caught in the crossfire. But the city's indigenous minorities, including Yazidis, Assyrians and a variety of other small sects who consider the area their ancestral home, have already been kicked out for not submitting to the Islamic State's radical version of Islam. And they have been largely forgotten.

Their only means of survival in the ethnic and sectarian cauldron that will likely remain for years to come may be the establishment of an autonomous region inside Nineveh Province, similar to what currently exists for the Kurds.

"Since 2003, we have been struggling because of the conflict between the big [players] in Iraq. They are fighting for our lands in Nineveh, without even counting us as the original people of this area," says Athra Kado, an Assyrian teacher and soldier with the Nineveh Plains Protection Unit, a fighting unit safeguarding local communities against Islamic militants in northern Iraq. "Our people and other minorities are asking for a province, Nineveh Plains Province, and that is the first step for having our own autonomy--to have our own economic percentage as any other province in Iraq. And to have our own forces in the area."

[...]

Cross-file under Yazidi Watch (background here and links) and Modern Aramaic Watch. Past posts on the recent and ongoing campaign to retake Mosul from Isis are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and links

Enoch Seminar Newsletter

THE ENOCH SEMINAR NOW HAS A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER: Enoch Seminar Newsletter
January 2017 Volume 1 Issue 1 (ed. Jason von Ehrenkrook). With information on upcoming Enoch Seminar events and links to the latest book reviews.

18 Must-See Sites in Israel

TRAVEL: 18 Must-See Sites in Israel (Brandon Marlon, Jerusalem Post, One of the People Blog). There are many more than eighteen such sites in Israel, but this list is a good start. Many of the sites on it are relevant for the study of ancient Judaism.

Secunda on the Babylonian Talmud as an oral library

SHAI SECUNDA: Why the Talmud is the Only Rabbinic Work from Babylonia. The Babylonian Talmud as an Oral Library for Rabbinic Collections (TheGemara.com).

Rabbinic Compilations in Late Antiquity:
Palestine vs. Babylonia

In late antiquity, rabbinic Jewry was divided into two centers: Galilee and Babylonia. It is surprising that only one rabbinic work, the Babylonian Talmud, was produced in late antique Babylonia, while numerous compilations, including the Mishnah and the Tosefta, several Midrashei Halakha as well as Midrashei Aggadah, were compiled in Roman Palestine. How might we explain this disparity?

[...]

According to Professor Secunda, the Babylonian Talmud was orally transmitted, and not written down, all the way through the Geonic period, i.e., through the tenth century C.E. I mentioned this idea awhile ago and got some skeptical e-mail about it. Professer Secunda, who is a specialist in Talmud, explains some of his reasoning in this essay.

Review of Popkin, The Architecture of the Roman Triumph

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Maggie L. Popkin, The Architecture of the Roman Triumph: Monuments, Memory, and Identity. New York; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xiv, 271; 8 p. of plates. ISBN 9781107103573. $99.99.

Reviewed by Carsten Hjort Lange, Aalborg University (lange@cgs.aau.dk)

Preview

Popkin’s new monograph on triumphal architecture along the triumphal route consists of 4 main chapters, plus an introduction, a conclusion, and an appendix (no map of the route is provided). The book is part of a recent outpouring of research on the Roman triumph, with much of this attention focusing on the rules and conventions determining the awarding of triumphs, as well as the spectacle in Rome itself. 1 The book proposes to look at three critical periods: the Punic Wars, the reign of Trajan and that of Septimius Severus.

[...]

Cross-file under Punic Watch. The Jewish Triumph procession in 71 CE after the defeat of the Great Revolt against Rome also receives some attention. You can read the account of the latter by Josephus here. That Triumph procession is memorialized on the Arch of Titus.

Review of Marchal (ed.), The People Beside Paul

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note | The People Beside Paul: The Philippian Assembly and History from Below (Jennifer Quigley).

Joseph A. Marchal, editor. The People beside Paul: The Philippian Assembly and History from Below. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015

From history and religious studies to journalism and political science, numerous fields have struggled to better understand and describe the lives of ordinary people. New Testament and Early Christian studies continue to make strides in the study of ordinary people living under Roman rule, the people who would have comprised the earliest assemblies of Christ followers. Joseph A. Marchal’s edited volume The People beside Paul: The Philippian Assembly and History from Below represents a significant addition to this trend, offering a glimpse into current scholarly conversations about the people in Philippi who corresponded with Paul. How does an orientation towards “a people’s history,” following Howard Zinn, help scholars ask new questions about the context and content of Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, a brief but important text in the Pauline corpus? Eight scholars take up this task to describe “the variety and specificity that would characterize communities composed of such people” from the “underside of the Roman imperial world” (p. 15-16). ...

Hurtado on the Feast of Paul's "Conversion"

YESTERDAY, BUT I WAS PREOCCUPIED WITH BURNS NIGHT: The “Conversion” of Paul (Larry Hurtado).

Today (25 January) in the traditional ecclesiastical calendar marks the Feast of the Conversion of Paul, who is likely the most famous “convert” in religious history. He remains a giant figure in the study of Christian origins, with scholarly books on him continuing to pour out of the presses. He is also perhaps the most controversial figure in early Christianity.

Accused by some of being the true founder of “Christianity,” and even of perverting Jesus’ teachings, accused by others of being a misogynist, in traditional Jewish thought accused of being the arch-apostate, in his own lifetime accused of teaching a libertine way of life, seen by others as a spiritual father-figure and paradigmatic teacher of Christian faith, a doughty defender of what he believed to be non-negotiable convictions, he remains fascinating as a human subject.

[...]

Two Prophetesses for Burns Night

IN HONOR OF THE SCOTTISH BARD: THE SECRET HISTORY OF WOMEN DISTILLERS (Kathleen Willcox, VINEPAIR). The article is not in honor of Rabbie Burns Night, which is tonight, but this post is. The first woman distiller listed in the article is of interest to PaleoJudaica:

FIRST LADY OF HOOCH
Mary the Jewess, a.k.a Maria the Jewess, Mary the Prophetess, or Miriam, truly is the First Lady of Hooch. Many of the details of Mary’s life have been lost to history, but thanks to the 4th century Gnostic Christian writer Zosimos of Panopolis, who wrote about Mary’s groundbreaking work in Peri kaminon kai organon (On Furnaces and Apparatuses), we can be confident that she essentially invented the still. Mary lived around 200 CE and has been credited with the invention of several chemical instruments, one of which is the tribikos (a type of alembic still). The goal of her early still was non-boozy: Mary was attempting to master the art of making gold from base metals. She is considered to be the Western world’s first true alchemist, and today, while we aren’t trying to turn lead into precious gold, her work helps us turn base materials like corn and water into… whiskey! A model of her device is still used in some parts of Europe to make brandy and whiskey. It’s used in America, too, often to make moonshine.

There's more on Mary the Jewess (Maria Hebraea) or Mary the Prophetess (Maria Prophetissa) in this rather technical Jewish Encyclopedia article by Moses Gaster or this more accessible popular essay at the History of Alchemy website. The bottom line is that she is first mentioned by the alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis around 300 CE; she may or may not have been a real person; and if she was real, we don't know when she lived except that it was before Zosimus. As the quote above indicates, she didn't distill whisky, but she did reportedly invent some of the technology that would in due course lead to whisky distilling. Here is an unattributed account of The practise of Mary the Prophetess in the Alchymicall Art at the Sacred Texts Archive.

Reading about Mary the Prophetess inevitably made me think of another prophetess associated with distilling, or at least with a place very much associated with distilling. The remote Isle of Jura on the western coast of Scotland is especially known for its whisky distillery. And this distillery produces an excellent single malt in honor of the island's prophetess. The legend of the Jura Prophetess is as follows:

"A little after 1700, the Campbells of Jura drove away an old prophetess, despite the fact that she was renowned for her wisdom. By way of revenge, she foretold that the last Campbell would leave the island destitute and blind in one eye, with his few belongings in a cart pulled by a single white horse. The prophecy came true in 1938, when Charles Campbell, having lost the sight of one eye in the First World War, fell on hard times and led his white horse down to the pier for the last time. Like Jura itself, Prophecy is a whisky impregnated with such stories: each drop recounts a different legend."

That's all I have been able to find about her, but I'm planning on visiting the Isle of Jura this summer, and I will report back on any local legends I encounter there.

Meanwhile, there you have it. Two prophetesses and a fine single malt for Burns Night. Sláinte! And remember to be nice to prophetesses.

Lehmann Memorial Master Workshop in the History of the Jewish Book

H-JUDAIC: Manfred R. Lehmann Memorial Master Workshop in the History of the Jewish Book 2017 at the University of Pennsylvania. Ancient Judaism is within the remit of the conference:

Examining the history of book collecting in Jewish society from its inception to the 20th century, the 2017 Lehmann Workshop will consider changes in ideology, policy and development, explore divergent attitudes toward the preservation of Jewish culture, and analyze text choices, policies and manners of acquisition. Topics include the preservation of works in Hebrew characters in ancient synagogues, academies and genizot; important Hebrew and Judaica collections of medieval Jewish private and semi-public libraries as well as European royal, noble, ecclesiastical, university and public libraries of the Renaissance — based mainly on the collections of Christian Hebraists and Jewish grandees or scholars — several of which became institutions of the city and the nation. The workshop’s conclusion will examine the impact on Jewish book culture and its libraries of modern developments, such as the rise of the national state, Jewish emancipation, and the growth of new Jewish centers in Eastern Europe, America and Israel.

The conference runs on 7-8 May 2017. Follow the link for further particulars. Registration must be received by 1 March 2017.

Nehemiah and Persian propaganda

THE ASOR BLOG: Good Public Relations: What Persian Propaganda Tells Us About the ‘Nehemiah Memoir’ (Lucas Schulte).

Stretching from Egypt to the Indus River, the Persian Empire was the largest empire yet seen in the ancient Near East. Typically, the Hebrew Bible depicts ancient Near Eastern empires as divine instruments of punishment. But the Persian Empire is an exception: the Persians allowed Judean exiles to return home and rebuild the Jerusalem temple, so the Hebrew Bible uniquely depicts their empire as expressing YHWH’s benevolence. These positive depictions of Persian kings provide a better understanding both of the development of the book of Nehemiah and the Persian context behind it. Everyone needs good PR, even empires.

[...]

The Talmud and Shapur I

DR. JASON MOKHTARIAN: Concluding a Tractate with King Shapur’s Praise and Practice of Rabbinic Law (TheGemara.com).

The Bavli’s editors noted the conclusion of some tractates with an edifying message. For tractates Bava Metzia and Avodah Zarah, they placed stories about Sasanian king Shapur I. In this way, they connected their rabbinic milieu to the Sasanian world in which they operated, and imagined Sasanian authority and approval of rabbinic law.

Mendelsohn, Behold the Man

NEW BOOK FROM MAGNESS PRESS (IN HEBREW):

Behold the Man
Jesus in Israeli Art

By Amitai Mendelsohn

Purchase options: Price Site price
Printed book $ 50.00 $ 45.00

Publisher: The Hebrew University Magnes Press
In collaboration with: Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Categories:
Art, Christianity, Jewish Studies
Publish date: January 2017
Language: Hebrew
Danacode: 45-481012
ISBN: 978-965-278-464-3
Cover: Hardcover
Pages: 288
Weight: 1300 gr.

Dr. Amitai Mendelsohn investigates the various appearances of the figure of Jesus in Israeli art as a significant, multifaceted and ever-present phenomenon. Through works by prominent artists from different generations, it discusses in depth the evolving attitudes of Jewish, Zionist pre-state, and Israeli art towards Jesus, from the second half of the nineteenth century until today: from artists laboring "In the shadow of the Cross" to artists who saw Jesus as a symbol of the rebirth of the Jewish people in the land of Israel, and artists whose engagement with Jesus is detached from the complex and fraught relations between Christianity and Judaism, and who see him as symbolizing the suffering artist. The book examines the different directions taken by Israeli artists in portraying the figure of Jesus, and proves the extent of this phenomena and its ever present importance.

Although, oddly, the publisher's blurb never says this, this book is clearly the catalogue for the Behold the Man exhibition currently running at the Israel Museum. Aviya Kushner reported that it is being translated into English.

The Talmud on wage payment and loan collateral

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: What the Rich Owe the Poor. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ the deep Jewish roots of income equality, and the shared dignity it brings.

As Daf Yomi readers saw this week, the idea that the power of wealth must be constrained, that the rich have duties to the poor, is deeply rooted in Judaism. In Chapter Nine of Bava Metzia, the rabbis discussed a set of biblical commandments that impose ethical obligations on people in a position of economic advantage. The first is that an employer cannot delay payment of wages to his employees; he must pay them every day if they work during the day, or every night if they work at night. “Anyone who withholds the wages of a hired laborer,” the Sages say in Bava Metzia 111a, “violates five prohibitions and one positive mitzvah.” Such a person is considered guilty of theft because he is effectively stealing from his employee as well as violating the commandment “do not oppress your neighbor.”

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Reading Acts on the Second Temple Period

READING ACTS: New Series: The Second Temple Period. The first post in a new blog series by Phil Long.

Over the next few months I will be posting on the history and literature of the Second Temple period. I had an opportunity to teach an eight-week series in my church on the “Time between the Testaments.” This began with the Persian period and ran through the Jewish War in A.D. 70, and I included on session on Herod the Great so I could show pictures of Masada and the Western Wall from a recent trip to Israel. The series was well received and I had the chance to develop the material in more detail for a semester long undergrad class.

[...]

The second post is already up: Why Study the Second Temple Period?

As chance would have it, my (sort of*) new honours module (i.e. upper division course) "Ancient Jewish Literature from 1 Enoch to the Mishnah" (DI4731) has its first meeting today. Phil taught his class in a church setting and mine is in a very different setting, but I'm sure there will be some opportunities for interaction at the blog level over the course of the semester.

*The course is expanded from a half-course (module) that I used to teach to a full-semester honours seminar.

Martín-Velasco and García Blanco (eds.), Greek Philosophy and Mystery Cults

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

María José Martín-Velasco, María José García Blanco (ed.), Greek Philosophy and Mystery Cults. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016. Pp. xii, 244. ISBN 9781443888301. £47.99.

Reviewed by Emilio Suárez de la Torre, Pompeu Fabra University (emilio.suarez@upf.edu)

[Authors and titles are shown at the end of the review.]

The nature of Greek culture makes it possible to publish a book with a title announcing what would be a contradictio in terminis when dealing with other cultures. But it is a crucial theme in the history of Greek philosophy and this is why we must celebrate the publication of a volume like this one in which some of the most relevant questions suggested by the title are dealt with, offering interesting analyses and proposals. It is a collection of the lectures presented at a meeting of the Iberian Society of Greek Philosophy held at the University of Santiago de Compostela in May 2012.

[...]

There's nothing specific on ancient Judaism, but much of the subject matter mentioned is of potential background interest.

Deutsch takes up new Baumgarten Chair at UC Santa Cruz

GOOD NEWS FOR ACADEMIC JEWISH STUDIES: UC Santa Cruz launches Murray Baumgarten Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies. Over 150 donors commit nearly $1 million to support research, teaching, and public events (Scott Rappaport, UC Santa Cruz News).

UC Santa Cruz has established an endowed chair to honor the person most responsible for the thriving Jewish Studies program that exists on the campus today.

Over 150 donors have committed a combined total of $977,130 to establish the new Murray Baumgarten Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies in the Center for Jewish Studies, located in the UC Santa Cruz Institute for Humanities Research.

The purpose of the chair is to promote research, teaching, and public outreach activities in the area of Jewish Studies.

[...]

Nathaniel Deutsch, director of the Center for Jewish Studies, was honored as the inaugural chair holder at an investiture ceremony held yesterday on campus at College Nine and Ten.

A professor of history, Deutsch is also director of the Institute for Humanities Research at UC Santa Cruz and the chair of the University of California Consortium of Humanities Centers.

[...]

Professor Deutsch has published on, inter alia, Mandaeism (Mandeism), Gnosticism, and Merkavah Mysticism. He has been mentioned by PaleoJudaica a couple of times here and here. Congratulations to him, to Professor Baumgarten, and to UC Santa Cruz.

A medieval synagogue at Huqoq?

ARCHAEOLOGY: Ruins discovered near Sea of Galilee could be rare medieval synagogue (Cheyenne Macdonald, Daily Mail).

• Building was discovered at Huqoq excavation site near Israel’s Sea of Galilee
• Placement of benches along east, north, west walls suggest it was synagogue
• But, researchers say there is little evidence of Jewish presence there at the time

Archaeologists have unearthed what could be the ancient remains of a synagogue in a village near Israel’s Sea of Galilee.

It was built during the 12th and 13th centuries, and incorporates parts of a fifth-century Roman synagogue known to contain stunning mosaics.

The placement of benches along the east, north, and west walls suggests that the ancient structure is a synagogue – but researchers say such a find is extremely rare in this setting, given the lack of a Jewish presence in the area at the time.

[...]

The Middle Ages are usually outside PaleoJudaica's realm of interest, but I note this story because the medieval ruins, whatever they are, are closely associated with the ruins of the late antique synagogue at Huqoq. For much more on the many ancient ruins etc. at Huqoq, start here and follow the links.

von Wahlde, Gnosticism, Docetism, and the Judaisms of the First Century

NEW(ISH) BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY:

Gnosticism, Docetism, and the Judaisms of the First Century
The Search for the Wider Context of the Johannine Literature and Why It Matters

By: Urban C. von Wahlde

Published: 26-02-2015
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 256
ISBN: 9780567656582
Imprint: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Series: The Library of New Testament Studies
Volume: 517
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
RRP: £85.00 Online price: £76.50 Saving: Save £8.50 (10%)

About Gnosticism, Docetism, and the Judaisms of the First Century
In this book von Wahlde provides an exploration of three distinct cultural and religious backgrounds against which scholars have frequently proposed that the Gospel and Letters of John are to be read and understood.

von Wahlde examines each of these three possibilities in turn, and shows how they may be regarded as plausible or implausible depending upon the evidence available. von Wahlde shows that there are features within the Gospel and/or Letters of John that do in fact suggest that they were influenced either by Gnosticism, Docetism or one of the variant forms of Judaism. However, in each case, while some of the evidence suggests a particular background, von Wahlde shows that it is equally evident that not all of the evidence can be seen to suggest the same background. Through an examination of the origins and purpose of the gospel, and drawing on the conclusions of his well-regarded commentary on the Johannine literature, von Wahlde presents a new way of understanding the Gospel in its wider contexts.

This was published in 2015 but it only just came to my attention.

Balaam's star again

CANDIDA MOSS: Is the New Star Really a Sign of a Messiah for Israel? Humans across the world will get to see a star born in 2022, and one rabbi says it’s a sign from the Bible of a new military leader for Israel (The Daily Beast). Excerpt:

With respect to the arrival of this new star in 2022, there is no doubt that it is a significant moment for astronomers and physicists. As far as Berger’s prediction’s go, other scholars are unconvinced. Joel Baden, a professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School, told me that this interpretation of the prophecy from Numbers is problematic because, grammatically speaking, the star doesn’t “rise”—it literally “treads,” as one would when crushing grapes. Furthermore, while Berger is in good company, it’s unclear why he thinks that the star in this verse is a literal star while the scepter is a symbol for a ruler. The two images are parallel to one another, Baden told The Daily Beast, so why not read them in the same way?

Balaam's prophecy doesn't really have any obvious connection to the forecasted 2022 event. It doesn't say "The collapsing mutual orbit of a binary star pair will cause a red nova and then the Messiah will come." I might be impressed if it did, but it doesn't. In comparison, "A star will come out of Jacob" is pretty ambiguous.

Background here.

Review of Hallam, Basics of Classical Syriac

BOOK REVIEW: Book Notice: Basics of Classical Syriac (Euangelion Blog).

Steven C. Hallam
Basics of Classical Syriac: Complete Grammar, Workbook, and Lexicon
Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016.
Available at Amazon.com

By Jill Firth

Steven C. Hallam has taught Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic and Syriac at a graduate level. He has written a clear and practical text welcoming new students into the Syriac language. Syriac is a dialect of ancient Aramaic, and is similar in basic structure to Aramaic as well as having many similarities to Hebrew. The book is written for those who have not studied Hebrew or Aramaic. Hallam encourages the reader to take Syriac on its own terms. However, students who are familiar with Hebrew or Aramaic will find the grammar easy to access.

[...]

I noted the book here when it was published last year.

Rubbish archaeology

THE TRUTH IS IN THERE: The truth is in the garbage: New research examines ancient Roman trash (Traci Watson, USA Today).

When workers began digging out the Roman cities torched by Mount Vesuvius, the exquisite wall paintings, sumptuous villas and golden jewelry they found quickly grabbed the spotlight. But archaeologists are now looking to a less glamorous feature of these cities: the garbage.

Over the last few years, a team of researchers has taken a systematic look at street trash, buckets and even storage containers from Pompeii and other ruins to understand the relationship between ordinary Romans and their stuff. The extraordinary preservation of objects by volcanic debris allows for extraordinary insights into humdrum possessions, the researchers say.

[...]

There's nothing specific about ancient Judaism in this article, but the basic principle — that ancient people's trash preserves important information for historians — is widely applicable. A couple of premier examples for our purposes are the Cairo Geniza and the Oxyrhynchus papyri (on which more here and here and many links). But there are endless more mundane examples like the Pompeii project. This analysis of day-to-day trash contributes much our knowledge of details that we would otherwise never have known.

Interview with Anneli Aejmelaeus

CSTT BLOG: REFLECTING ON A CAREER STUDYING THE SEPTUAGINT: AN INTERVIEW WITH ANNELI AEJMELAEUS (Rick Bonnie).

1. What is your research about, in general terms?
My special area of research is the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, translated by Jews during the 3rd–1st centuries BCE in Alexandria. I am preparing the first critical edition of the Septuagint text of the First Book of Samuel (= First Kingdoms) for the series of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen. ...

That sounds like an important project.

Who is carrying the Temple menorah on the Arch of Titus?

STEVEN FINE: WHO IS CARRYING THE TEMPLE MENORAH? A JEWISH COUNTER-NARRATIVE OF THE ARCH OF TITUS SPOLIA PANEL (Academia.edu).

Abstract
The Arch of Titus, constructed circa 81 CE under the emperor Domitian, commemorates the victory of the general, then emperor Titus in the Jewish War of 66–74 CE. Located on Rome’s Via Sacra, the Arch has been a “place of memory” for Romans, Christians and Jews since antiquity. This essay explores the history of a Jewish counter-memory of a bas relief within the arch that depicts the triumphal procession of the Jerusalem Temple treasures into Rome in 󰀷󰀱 CE. At least since the early modern period, Jews—as well as British Protestants—came to believe that the menorah bearers of this relief represent Jews, and not Roman triumphadors. This essay addresses the history of this widespread belief, particularly during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and continuing in contemporary Israel.

This is an offprint from a 2016 Brill publication, but I can find no further details. For past posts on Professor Fine's recent book, The Menorah see here and follow the links. They (plus here and here) also lead to many past PaleoJudaica posts on ancient menorahs in general. And the bottommost photo in this post shows the menorah panel in the Arch of Titus.

Chester Beatty Library manuscripts digitized.

AWOL: Chester Beatty Papyri at The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM).

The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) is pleased to announce that a six-person team, in a four-week expedition during July–August 2013, digitized all the Greek biblical papyri at the Chester Beatty Library. The CBL has granted permission to CSNTM to post the images.

These include Septuagint manuscripts, manuscripts of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha in Greek (1 Enoch, Jannes and Jambres), and New Testament manuscripts and lectionary fragments in Greek, Armenian, and Latin.

Past PaleoJudaica posts on the Chester Beatty Library are here and links. I am very much looking forward to seeing the Library for myself at the annual meeting of the British New Testament Conference, which takes place at St Patrick's College in Maynooth, Ireland, in September of 2017.

Cross-file under Technology Watch and Digitization.

For many other manuscript digitization projects, start here and follow the links.

‘Almah

YONA SABAR: Hebrew Word of the Week: ‘almah "young woman, maiden, marriageable girl; missy." With the obligatory foray into Isaiah 7:14.

That catches us up with relevant Hebrew Word of the Week columns for now.

Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

John Granger Cook, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 327. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015. Pp. xxiv, 522. ISBN 9783161537646. €69.00 (pb).

Reviewed by James H. Dee, Austin, TX (jhdee1243@gmail.com)

Table of Contents

[The reviewer apologizes for the lateness of this review.]

This massive study aims to fill a longstanding gap in an area where both Classics and New Testament Studies operate. Professor Cook was invited by the late Martin Hengel, author of a 1977 monograph on the subject, to revise it for him—but Cook soon concluded that he should write his own book, which far surpasses Hengel's 99-page work.

The seven-page Table of Contents gives ample evidence of the scope of the investigation: a 50-page Introduction on terminology; Chapter One has 100 pages on crucifixion in Latin texts, Chapter Two offers 50 more on the evidence for Roman practices; Chapter Three devotes another 100 pages to Greek texts; Chapter Four occupies nearly 50 on Hebrew and Aramaic texts; Chapter Five is a 40-page discussion on the legal aspect of crucifixion as punishment; finally, Chapter Six takes a mere 30 pages to deal with the most famous (and, for many, the most significant) of all crucifixions, that of Jesus of Nazareth—a brevity which seems almost anticlimactic, especially from an author whose training and career have been exclusively on the religious studies side of the field (Ph.D., Emory; faculty appointment at LaGrange University). That background might make classicists wary and raise concerns about what might be theologically-driven interpretations. If so, their concerns are unwarranted. The monograph finds its place in an esteemed New Testament Monograph Series. Acknowledgements indicate wide consultation with experts in the field, including Harvard’s Kathleen Coleman, who has herself promised a book on Roman public execution.1

[...]

The book, among other things, collects references to crucifixion in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts. Gruesome.

Tourism up at Cartagena

PUNIC WATCH: Tourist numbers at main Cartagena sites up by 16 per cent in 2016. The most popular sites were the Roman Theatre of Cartagena and the Punic Wall (Murica Today).

As the Town Hall of Cartagena strives to increase tourist activity in the city and throughout the municipality, the Puerto de Culturas consortium of tourist attractions reports that it enjoyed a successful year in 2016.

Speaking on Tuesday, Deputy Mayoress Ana Belén Castejón confirmed that during last year the various museums and other establishments belonging to Puerto de Culturas, including the Roman Theatre, welcomed a total of 431,850 visitors, an increase of 16.7% over the year before and the highest figure yet recorded.

[...]

Cartagena in Spain does a good job of maximizing the tourism potential of its ancient Punic history and archaeology.

Past posts on Cartagena, and notably on its annual Romans and Carthaginians Festival in September, are collected here.