Himmelfarb, Jewish Messiahs in a Christian Empire

NEW BOOK FROM HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Jewish Messiahs in a Christian Empire
A History of the Book of Zerubbabel

Martha Himmelfarb

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$39.95 • £31.95 • €36.00
ISBN 9780674057623
Publication: February 2017
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232 pages
6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches
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About This Book

The seventh-century CE Hebrew work Sefer Zerubbabel (Book of Zerubbabel), composed during the period of conflict between Persia and the Byzantine Empire for control over Palestine, is the first full-fledged messianic narrative in Jewish literature. Martha Himmelfarb offers a comprehensive analysis of this rich but understudied text, illuminating its distinctive literary features and the complex milieu from which it arose.

Sefer Zerubbabel presents itself as an angelic revelation of the end of times to Zerubbabel, a biblical leader of the sixth century BCE, and relates a tale of two messiahs who, as Himmelfarb shows, play a major role in later Jewish narratives. The first messiah, a descendant of Joseph, dies in battle at the hands of Armilos, the son of Satan who embodies the Byzantine Empire. He is followed by a messiah descended from David modeled on the suffering servant of Isaiah, who brings him back to life and triumphs over Armilos. The mother of the Davidic messiah also figures in the work as a warrior.

Himmelfarb places Sefer Zerubbabel in the dual context of earlier Jewish eschatology and Byzantine Christianity. The role of the messiah’s mother, for example, reflects the Byzantine notion of the Virgin Mary as the protector of Constantinople. On the other hand, Sefer Zerubbabel shares traditions about the messiahs with rabbinic literature. But while the rabbis are ambivalent about these traditions, Sefer Zerubbabel embraces them with enthusiasm.

Sefer Zerubbabel was translated into English by John C. Reeves in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume 1 (ed. Bauckham, Davila, and Panayotov; Eerdmans, 2013), pp. 448-466.

van Bekkum et al., Playing with Leviathan

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Playing with Leviathan: Interpretation and Reception of Monsters from the Biblical World

Edited by Koert van Bekkum, Kampen Theological University, Jaap Dekker, Apeldoorn Theological University, Henk van de Kamp, minister of Apeldoorn Reformed Church (liberated), Eric Peels, Apeldoorn Theological University.

Since ancient times Leviathan and other monsters from the biblical world symbolize the life-threatening powers in nature and history. They represent the dark aspects of human nature and political entities and reveal the supernatural dimensions of evil. Ancient texts and pictures regarding these monsters reflect an environment of polytheism and religious pluralism. Remarkably, however, the biblical writings and post-biblical traditions use these venerated symbols in portraying God as being sovereign over the entire universe, a theme that is also prominent in the reception of these texts in subsequent contexts.
This volume explores this tension and elucidates the theological and cultural meaning of ‘Leviathan’ by studying its ancient Near Eastern background and its attestation in biblical texts, early and rabbinic Judaism, Christian theology, Early Modern art, and film.

Goring bull or goring ox?

DR. ELAINE GOODFRIEND: The Law of the Goring Ox:
Is It Neutered?(TheTorah.com).

The word שור in Hebrew can refer to an ox or a bull, but which animal is the protagonist of the celebrated law of שור נגח, “the goring bovine”?

The word itself is ambiguous. So is the context.

Coin smuggling arrest

APPREHENDED: Border officials thwart attempt to smuggle dozens of ancient coins into Israel. Coins span period of 1,400 years from the first century B.C. to the Mamluk period in the 13th century A.D. (i24 News).

Israeli customs officials announced on Sunday that they had foiled an attempt smuggle dozens of ancient coins into Israel through the Allenby border crossing on the Jordan-West Bank border.

[...]

Deputy Head Archaeological Officer Benny Har-Even said that the discovery prevented the "theft of history."

"During the discovery we seized 53 ancient coins representing a cross section of 1,400 years of regional history, from the Early Roman period from the first century B.C. to the Mamluk period in the 13th century A.D.," Har-Even said.

[...]

Aries 17.1 (2017)

HETERODOXOLOGY BLOG: Esotericism and Cognitive Science: Aries special issue published (vol. 17:1) (Egil Asprem). Notable in this issue is the article by April DeConick:

Soul Flights Cognitive Ratcheting and the Problem of Comparison

Abstract
Narratives of soul flights are common in ancient Mediterranean literature, sharing many similarities such as the movement of the soul along a vertical path that is associated with life and death. But they also display significant differences such as peculiar accounts of cosmic realms, idiosyncratic reasons for soul flights, and wild diversity of associated rituals. Historical critical studies of soul flights have been unable to address successfully this problem of comparison, which remains unable to explain structures that are engineered consistently in cultural productions. Cognitive explanations are more helpful in this regard. Yet current cognitive explanations struggle to account for the differences. How can both the similarities and the differences be accounted for within the same parameters of the operations of human cognition? This paper presents a model called cognitive ratcheting to address this problem. It is a theoretical formulation of the natural mental process through which concepts take shape and are innovated when they are mentally mapped onto spatial orientations, then ratcheted up with intuitive cognition, and finally elaborated into many cultural variations by reflective thought. This process acknowledges that, at the same time a concept is diversified through reflective elaboration and ratcheted up within different cultural contexts, it retains deep structures, especially with regard to spatial orientations, intuitive processes, and reflective recursion.

Furstenberg, The Languages of Talmudic Discourse

NEW BOOK IN HEBREW FROM MAGNES PRESS:

The Languages of Talmudic Discourse

A Philosophical Study of the Evolution of Amoraic Halakha

By Ariel Furstenberg

Purchase options: Price Site price
Printed book $ 22.00 $ 19.80
Online book & Download $ 16.50

Publisher: The Hebrew University Magnes Press
In collaboration with: The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute Publications
Categories: Jewish Studies, Philosophy, Talmud
Publish date: January 2017
Language: Hebrew
Danacode: 45-171057
ISBN: 978-965-7755-34-1
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 272
Weight: 500 gr.

A groundbreaking work, this book brings together philosophy of science and language, conceptual dynamics and the Babylonian Talmud. The work asks: what philosophy of natural language lies at the basis of the Halakhic dynamic in the Amoraic discourse of the Talmud? Calling upon two post-Wittgenstein philosophies, the book undertakes a search for a philosophical account of the discursive culture that appears in the Talmud. It unearths the normative infrastructure that lies at its core. Thus, this study articulates what can be termed the Talmudic philosophy of language. On the other hand, it reveals the limits and weaknesses of central philosophical frameworks in coping with a profound traditional discourse like the Talmud, in which the past has a deep and integral role in the present, while at the same time, the present has its own natural and creative dynamic.

Schiffman on the the new Qumran cave

PROF. LAWRENCE H. SCHIFFMAN: EXCITEMENT AS ADDITIONAL QUMRAN CAVE IS DISCOVERED. THE FASCINATING SAGA OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS CONTINUES. A reprint of his article in Ami Magazine.

Background on "Qumran Cave 12" is here. It is possible that the cave once contained Dead Sea Scrolls, but some skepticism seems to be warranted.

The Psalms of Solomon

READING ACTS: Psalms of Solomon and the Hasmoneans.

The writers of the Psalms of Solomon do not see the descendants of the Hasmoneans as the fulfillment of the prophetic hope for a good, righteous shepherd king in the tradition of David. Their protest is against the current regime (whatever the date) is in the tradition of prophetic condemnations of Manasseh in the Hebrew Bible.

A couple of books on the Psalms of Solomon have been noted here and here

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

Falk lecturing on DSS at Baylor

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY: Penn State Professor To Present “The Myth of the Dead Sea Scrolls” Lecture (Kelsey Dehnel).

WACO, Texas (Feb. 17, 2017) – Daniel Falk, Ph.D., professor of classics and ancient Mediterranean studies and the Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish Studies at Penn State University, will lecture on Tuesday, Feb. 21 at Baylor University.

The lecture, hosted by the Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR), entitled “The Myth of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” will start with reviewing popular conceptions of the Dead Sea Scrolls and move to consider what was important to the communities who wrote and cherished these scrolls.

[...]

If you're in the area, don't miss it.

Ancient Nubia

THE WORLD IS FULL OF HISTORY: Ancient Nubia: A Brief History (Owen Jarus, Live Science). Ancient Nubia's history has a famous overlap with Second Temple Jewish history (or legend) in the Book of Acts in the story of the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch to a Jesus follower. (More on that here.) This is not mentioned in the current article, but note this:

In ancient times, some of their rulers were woman (sic: read "women") who were sometimes referred to in ancient texts as "Candaces" or "Kandakes." Archaeologists have found carved images of them revealing that they sometimes liked to be depicted overweight.

The story in Acts (8:26) tells us that the eunuch was "a minister of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians." This refers to the Nubian kingdom of Kush, and "Candace" seems to have been the title of their queens rather than a personal name.

Of Canaanites, coins, and palm trees

NUMISMATICS: PALM READING (Oliver Hoover, Pocket Change Blog).

No, not that kind of palm reading. This Pocket Change post is on how the Canaanites came to be known as "Phoenicians" and where the term "Punic" comes from, illustrated with coins from Tyre, Sidon, etc.

The palm motif also appears on ancient Jewish coins and other iconography. Some examples of the latter are here, here, and here.

Cross file under Phoenician Watch and Punic Watch.

Black metal watchers

MUSIC: Saille Posts New Song "Benei ha'Elohim" (xFiruath, MetalUnderground.com).

Belgian Black metal band Saille just released the lyric video for new track "Benei ha'Elohim." The song is taken from forthcoming album "Gnosis," which will be released on March 17th via Code666. ...

The lyrics are well informed about the watchers myth. And the music goes well with the story.

As I've noted before, death and black metal bands often take a well-informed interest in ancient historical and esoteric traditions. For relevant past posts, see here and here and links.

Spolsky, The Languages of Diaspora and Return

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL

The Languages of Diaspora and Return

by Bernard Spolsky (Bar-Ilan University).

Until quite recently, the term Diaspora (usually with the capital) meant the dispersion of the Jews in many parts of the world. Now, it is recognized that many other groups have built communities distant from their homeland, such as Overseas Chinese, South Asians, Romani, Armenians, Syrian and Palestinian Arabs. To explore the effect of exile of language repertoires, the article traces the sociolinguistic development of the many Jewish Diasporas, starting with the community exiled to Babylon, and following through exiles in Muslim and Christian countries in the Middle Ages and later. It presents the changes that occurred linguistically after Jews were granted full citizenship. It then goes into details about the phenomenon and problem of the Jewish return to the homeland, the revitalization and revernacularization of the Hebrew that had been a sacred and literary language, and the rediasporization that accounts for the cases of maintenance of Diaspora varieties.

Henkelman and Redard (eds.), Persian Religion in the Achaemenid Period

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Persian Religion in the Achaemenid Period. Notice of a new book: Henkelman, Wouter & Céline Redard (eds.). 2017. Persian religion in the Achaemenid period (Classica et Orientalia 16). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

More on the Sefaria online Talmud

TALMUD WATCH: Talmud & Commentaries (Louis Finkelman, Detroit Jewish News).

Sefaria, a website founded in 2013 that aims to put the seemingly infinite Jewish canon online for free, has published an acclaimed translation of the Talmud in English. The translation, which includes explanatory notes in relatively plain language, was started by scholar Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz in 1965 and is considered by many to be the best in its class.

The Steinsaltz edition of the Talmud has been in print for decades in modern Hebrew, with an English translation coming out more recently, and parts of it already exist on the internet. But this is the first time it is being put online in its entirety for free.

“Ninety percent of the world’s Jews speak Hebrew and English,” said Daniel Septimus, Sefaria’s executive director. “The Talmud is in Aramaic. It will now be online in Hebrew and English. From an accessibility point of view, it’s a game changer.”

Sefaria rolled out 22 tractates of the Steinsaltz English edition last week and will be publishing the entire Hebrew translation over the course of 2017. The rest of the English edition, which is not yet finished, will be published online as it is completed. The translation’s publication was made possible by a multimillion-dollar deal with the Steinsaltz edition’s publishers, Milta and Koren Publishers Jerusalem, and financed by the William Davidson Foundation, a family charity based in Metro Detroit.

The edition will be known as the William Davidson Talmud.

Besides its edition being free, Sefaria’s founders say its version of the Steinsaltz Talmud is better than competitors’ because it is untethered to the Talmud’s classic printed form. Since the mid-15th century, the Talmud has been published with unpunctuated text in a column in the middle of the page, its commentaries wrapping around it.

A long, informative article. Background here.

The Karaite community in California

KARAITE WATCH: A Karaite prayer: Little-known Jewish community builds center to tell its story (David A.M. Wilensky, J.).

B’nai Israel is the only Karaite synagogue in North America, serving the diaspora’s largest Karaite community — about 800 members live within driving distance of the synagogue.

Karaite Jews differ from Rabbanite Jews (as Karaites call the majority of Jews who follow rabbinic tradition) in that they reject oral law — the Talmud and rabbinic authority — relying instead on the literal text of the Bible. The two communities coexisted until the 10th century, when foundational Jewish (Rabbanite) leader and thinker Saadia Gaon denounced Karaites as apostates and sought to exclude them from the Jewish community. Relationships between these two Jewish communities have varied across time and place, but that initial antagonism has long colored the relationship.

In the Bay Area, where few Rabbanite Jews are aware of Karaite Judaism, that relationship is cordial, though not always close on an institutional level. But on a personal level, many Karaite Jews are involved with the wider Bay Area Jewish community. Many have had bar and bat mitzvahs in Rabbanite synagogues

The article has lots of information on Karaites, their modern history, and their current institutions and practices. And one excerpt on the new cultural center:

To ensure that future, the congregation has embarked on a relatively small construction project that will have a large and visible impact on their community: They are renovating their existing 3,500-square-foot prefab building and creating a 1,000-square-foot Karaite Jewish Cultural Center, attached to the synagogue, which will serve as a combination education program, museum and social center.

There is a Karaite Heritage Center in Israel, but this will be the only similar institution in the diaspora.

For a community this small, a lot is riding on the project. “If this current generation of Karaite Jews in the United States fails, it’ll be very difficult to kick-start the movement in any organized fashion,” said Shawn Lichaa, a pillar of the local Karaite community.

Worth reading if full if you have any interest in the Karaites.

Past PaleoJudaica posts on the Karaites are here (with more on the Karaite community in Daly City) and links (cf. here).

McDonald, The Formation of the Biblical Canon: 2 Volumes

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY:

The Formation of the Biblical Canon: 2 Volumes
By: Lee Martin McDonald

Published: 26-01-2017
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
ISBN: 9780567669339
Imprint: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
RRP: £250.00
Online price: £225.00
Save £25.00 (10%)


About The Formation of the Biblical Canon: 2 Volumes

Lee Martin McDonald provides a magisterial overview of the development of the biblical canon -- the emergence of the list of individual texts that constitutes the Christian bible. In these two volumes -- in sum more than double the length of his previous works on this subject -- McDonald presents his most in-depth overview to date. McDonald shows students and researchers how the list of texts that constitute 'the bible' was once far more fluid than it is today and guides readers through the minefield of different texts, different versions, and the different lists of texts considered 'canonical' that abounded in antiquity. Questions of the origin and transmission of texts are introduced as well as consideration of innovations in the presentation of texts, collections of documents, archaeological finds and Church councils.

In the first volume McDonald reexamines issues of canon formation once considered settled, and sets the range of texts that make up the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) in their broader context. Each individual text is discussed, as are the cultural, political and historical situations surrounding them. The second volume considers the New Testament, and the range of so-called 'apocryphal' gospels that were written in early centuries, and used by many Christian groups before the canon was closed. Comprehensive appendices showing various canon lists for both Old and New Testaments and for the bible as as a whole are also included.

Follow the link for the TOC and ordering information.

Report on Bethsaida, 2016 season

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

The Consortium for the Bethsaida Excavation Project:
Report on the 2016 Excavation Season

By Rami Arav, Carl Savage, Kate Raphael, Nicolae Roddy, Vanessa Workman, Kenneth M. Bensimon
University of Nebraska, Omaha
Bethsaida Excavation
February 2017

More on 1 Maccabees and the Hasmoneans

READING ACTS: First Maccabees as Pro-Hasmonean Propaganda. On this subject, see also this post.

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

Roman-era gate at Beit She’arim

WHAT'S IN A NAME? Archaeologists shocked to find ancient gateway at ‘House of Gates.’ Excavation at Beit She’arim in northern Israel unearths fortifications of Roman-era Jewish town where the Mishna was written (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel).

With a name like Beit She’arim, Hebrew for “House of Gates,” it seems obvious that the UNESCO world heritage site would have ancient portals. Still, archaeologists from the University of Haifa were surprised to stumble across a massive gateway during recent excavations at the site in northern Israel.

Half of an impressive northeast-facing gate built of limestone blocks, with postholes for doors and locks, abutting a circular tower, along a road leading into the ancient town, turned up during a dig in the fall of 2016, the school announced Wednesday.

[...]

The gate turned up in the even tinier town of Beit Zaid, a moshav founded by Jewish pioneer Alexander Zaid, who discovered Beit She’arim right next door. Tali Zaid, his granddaughter and one of the 74 people who live in the community, happened upon some ancient-looking stones in her yard a few years ago during renovations on her home.


[Archaeologist Adi] Erlich got approval from the Israel Antiquities Authority to dig up the yard this past fall, and uncovered the gate during excavations from September to November.

Though the gate hasn’t yet been dated, the University of Haifa team was certain it was associated with the Roman period.

Erlich was astonished by the discovery.

“Most of the settlements in the Roman period aren’t fortified, and certainly not a relatively small Jewish town that wasn’t even considered an official Roman town. There were isolated fortified Jewish towns in the north, like Yodfat, but even those towns that were large and central didn’t include a large and impressive gate like this,” she said.

[...]

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

The Talmud on public schools

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Talmud to Betsy DeVos: Yes, We Need Public Schools. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ rabbinical thinking on the relationship of public goods and private obligations explains the advantages of universal education accessible to all.

Maybe it’s because I have politics on the brain—and who doesn’t, these days?—but this week’s Daf Yomi reading seemed almost designed to address the big political and social questions that Americans have been debating lately. The fight over the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as education secretary, for instance, raised the issue of public schools: Are they a crucial democratic institution or, as DeVos and her allies believe, a bureaucratic monopoly that should be undermined by privatization and vouchers?

For a Jewish answer, you could turn to Bava Batra 21a, where the Talmud praises the memory of a man called Yehoshua ben Gamla, one of the last High Priests before the destruction of the Temple. He is “remembered for the good,” Rav says, because he created a system of public schools in the Land of Israel. In this way, he preserved the existence of Judaism itself: “If not for him the Torah would have been forgotten from the Jewish people.” Before Yehoshua ben Gamla’s time, the Gemara explains, Torah was taught at home, father to son, in accordance with Deuteronomy 11:19: “And you shall teach them to your sons.”

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

The Maccabean Revolt (2)

READING ACTS: Factors Leading to the Maccabean Revolt (Part 2). "For the writer of 1 Maccabees, violence was indeed the answer." Yep.

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

Ge'ez class takes off at University of Toronto

ETHIOPIC WATCH: U of T students flock to ancient language Ge'ez course, funded in part by The Weeknd. Deciphering ancient languages can help us learn about a country's ancient past – even if you don't know how to pronounce the words (David Silverberg, Now Toronto).

How does someone teach a language when we have no idea what it might actually sound like?

That's one of the questions for U of T's Robert Holmsted, who's teaching the university's course on the liturgical Ethiopian language Ge'ez.

In its first semester at U of T, his class has five undergraduates and five graduate students enrolled, and several more students auditing the class. They all realize that deciphering ancient languages can help us learn about a country's ancient past.

[...]

Ge'ez has a liturgical tradition, so it's an overstatement to say that we have no idea what it sounded like. But, yes, we have no direct evidence for its exact pronunciation in antiquity and we have to resort to reconstruction. The same is true for Hebrew and Aramaic.

Ten students in an introductory class on an obscure ancient language is quite a good number. Congratulations to Professor Holsted and best wishes to the new UT Ethiopic program for more successes.

Background here and links.

Restoration of ancient mikvaot at Temple Mount

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH, VIDEO EDITION: Watch: Second Temple mikvehs restored near Temple Mount. Kevin Bermeister joined the Jerusalem 5800 project to restore the mikvehs south of the Temple Mount. Watch a virtual tour of the site (Eliran Baruch, Arutz Sheva).

Bermeister has now partnered with the Jerusalem 5800 project to restore the numerous mikvehs (ritual baths) situated south of the Temple Mount in area known as the Ofel since biblical times and located between the City of David and the Mount.

The project revealed new archaeological layers just tens of meters from Temple Mount.

Murex shells from the Temple Mount

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: The Temple Mount Sifting Project has found a murex trunculus: a rock snail shell.

What makes the murex trunculus so special is that they are connected with the ancient process of making tehelet, the blue dye we know from the Bible that was used in priestly garments and the Israelites’ tzit tzit (fringes). This snail family was also used to make the purple dye known in the Bible as argaman.

[...]

So what was this murex shell doing on the Temple Mount? Any time we find a shell, we know that it was used by humans because Jerusalem is too far from the sea for sea creatures (and their shells) to dwell there. This means that shells were brought to Jerusalem for a purpose. We have discovered over 20 of these murex trunculus shells in the sifting, and it leads us to wonder why. Is it possible that there was a workshop for dye production on the Temple Mount? Perhaps these shells were used to create the dye for fabrics used in the Temple. Maybe it was produced on site for purity reasons.

Unfortunately, we can’t date these shells until we have evidence that would link them to another, datable, artifact such as something else used in cloth or dye production. With more funding, we might be able to carbon date them, but each test costs about $400 and in order to reach statistical significance, we would need to test samples from 20 shells. Regardless, there is a lot of research yet to be completed on this, but these shells certainly raise a lot of really interesting questions.

For much more on the tekhelet dye, made from the murex shells and used for bluish purple coloring, start here and follow the links. The dye was used in ancient Israel on priestly vestments and on fringes on regular people's clothing. More on the Temple Mount Sifting Project is here and many links.

Diodorus Siculus and ANE history

THE ASOR BLOG: Diodorus of Sicily’s Library and the Ancient Near East (Jan P. Stronk).

Diodorus of Sicily, a Greek, was born as a member of an obviously well-to-do family in Agyrium on Sicily c. 90 BCE. He spent some years in Egypt (from about 60 BCE) and then travelled to Rome, where he more or less settled and started to write his Bibliotheca Historica (Historical Library), a work in forty books (= chapters), which took him some thirty years. Regrettably, part of this work was lost: only books one to five and eleven to twenty survive (nearly) completely, the rest does so in a fragmentary state. The last complete copy of the work is said to have been destroyed in 1453 CE, when the Ottoman army took Constantinople, but before that time, parts of Diodorus’ work already had found their way into many other ancient and Byzantine sources.

So much for the backgrounds of the work. But what makes this work so valuable, not merely for me but for many ancient historians? The answer is hidden in the work’s title: in the end, it effectively is a library. To compose his work, Diodorus based himself upon the work of previous writers, some mentioned by name, more by indication (altogether at least some 144 authors can be traced). Following this method, Diodorus preserved fragments of many works now partially or even completely lost while he described the history of the East, of Greece, Sicily, Carthage, Rome, the vicissitudes of Alexander the Great and the Diadochs’ Empires. Equally important is that Diodorus’ work is our sole written witness for certain periods and/or occurrences, a reason why we should not underestimate the meaning of the Bibliotheca.

I fully agree with this assessment and am delighted to hear of Dr. Stronk's work on Diodorus's Bibliotheca. Some recent PaleoJudaica posts on Diodorus and the importance of his work for the history of Second Temple Judaism are here, here, and here.

The Maccabean Revolt (1)

READING ACTS: Factors Leading to the Maccabean Revolt (Part 1). A recent PaleoJudaica post involving the same events is here.

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

Longacre on the DSS and the textual development of the Pentateuch

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Reflections on the Textual Development of the Pentateuch in Light of Documented Evidence (Drew Longacre).

Many have discussed the significant editorial differences evident in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the pluriformity of the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures in the Second Temple period is now common knowledge. The differentiated state of the tradition already in the third century BCE (compare, for example, the “pre-Samaritan” 4QExodus-Leviticus and the Septuagint) suggests that many of the major differences between pentateuchal witnesses were created already in the fourth century or even earlier. Yet, these documented editorial changes still reflect typologically late developments on a much more restricted scale than those typically suggested by source and redaction critics. These latter stages of the development of the text of the Pentateuch are—and will probably always remain—undocumented hypotheses. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Dead Sea Scrolls provide a limited window into the patterns of text production that can be expected in the Persian period, and literary critics cannot afford to ignore these lessons.

The first essay in AJR's current series on the Dead Sea Scrolls (in honor of the 70th anniversary of their discovery) was noted here.

More ISIS damage to Palmyra

PALMYRA WATCH: Russian video shows fresh IS damage in Palmyra (AP). The drone footage shows additional damage to the ancient architecture of the site, possibly with more to come.

Background here and links.

VanderKam on Qumran "Cave 12"

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME: New Dead Sea Scroll cave reports may be ‘premature,’ scholar says. Professor Emeritus James VanderKam issues some salutary cautions concerning the recent reports of a 12th Qumran scrolls cave (which contained no actual scrolls):

“In 1952, after the earliest scrolls finds, archaeologists made a survey of hundreds of caves and openings in the general vicinity of Khirbet Qumran,” VanderKam says. “Some 230 of them contained nothing of interest, but 26 housed pottery like that found in the first scrolls cave. The most recent find appears to be another one like those explored in 1952, although it does seem to have more direct evidence that scrolls were at one time lodged in the cave.”

VanderKam notes that the discovery is intriguing, but says more needs to be determined from the archaeologists’ findings.

“As with any archaeological discovery, it is great to have the new information. It is also of considerable interest that the cave is in the Qumran area,” he says. “However, given the fact that other caves in the district, besides the 11 that held the Dead Sea Scrolls, contained pottery of the same sort as Qumran Cave 1, it seems a bit premature to call it Qumran Cave 12. The people of the scrolls apparently used a fairly extensive area around Khirbet Qumran, so it is not surprising if there would be evidence of their presence in additional nearby caves.”

“I look forward to learning more details about the finds in the cave, such as the dates of the various items discovered. And, if scrolls were once stored in the jars and have been removed, I really hope they can be located and made available for study.”

Yes, to all of this.

That last point merits some unpacking. The largest hoard of Dead Sea Scrolls were found in Cave 4. They were just heaped in the cave, not kept in jars, so they were very poorly preserved. If there were scrolls in jars in this new cave ("Cave 12") and looters found them, where are they now? And what condition were the jars in? Were they intact? That could imply the survival of well-preserved scrolls, comparable to the scrolls of Cave 1. Some of the Cave 1 scrolls survived almost complete inside intact jars.

Then again, Professor VanderKam is right to retain some skepticism that any scrolls were ever in "Cave 12."

Watch this space. Background here and here.

Targum Neofiti Manuscript Online

AWOL: Targum Neofiti Manuscript Online. This was first posted at AWOL in 2014, but I seem to have missed it then. I'm keeping better track these days.

1 Maccabees and messianism

READING ACTS: Is There a Messiah in 1 Maccabees?

If the writer of 1 Maccabees positioned Judas as David-revisited, it would be unlikely that he would look forward to a future messiah. The book represents a staus quo sort of Judaism, and is “opposed to the Pharisees, the apocalypticists, and the many sectarians in Judea itself” (Fischer, “Maccabees,” 4:442). There is no “return of Judas” theme in 1 Maccabees. His successor Jonathan is enthroned as a king in purple and gold (10:59-66) and as high priest (10:18-21). The writer makes it quite clear that the “yoke of the gentiles was removed” under the leadership of Jonathan (13:41). 1 Maccabees might be described as having a completely realized eschatology because hope for an eschatological age are entirely fulfilled in the Hasmoneans.

[...]

That sounds pretty plausible to me. We tend to think of Second Temple Jewish eschatology as involving apocalyptic cataclysms and final judgments, and often it did. But the idea of an earthly paradise in an independent Jewish state goes back to the biblical prophets and remained a possible scenario.

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

Lied and Lundhaug (eds.), Snapshots of Evolving Traditions

IN THE MAIL:

Liv Ingeborg Lied and Hugo Lundhaug (Eds.), Snapshots of Evolving Traditions: Jewish and Christian Manuscript Culture, Textual Fluidity, and New Philology (De Gruyter, 2017)

My article, "Translating the Hekhalot Literature: Insights from New Philology," is on pp. 333-346.

The book was noted as forthcoming here, here, and here.

CFP: Traditions of Eastern Late Antiquity #AARSBL17

JAMES MCGRATH: Traditions of Eastern Late Antiquity #AARSBL17 Call for Papers. One or more of the sessions will be co-sponsored with the SBL Digital Humanities and Pseudepigrapha program units.

The Leipzig Open Fragmentary Texts Series

AWOL: The Leipzig Open Fragmentary Texts Series (LOFTS).

The Leipzig Open Fragmentary Texts Series is a new effort to establish open editions of ancient works that survive only through quotations and text re-uses in later texts (i.e., those pieces of information that humanists call “fragments”). In the field of textual evidence, fragments are not portions of an original larger whole, but the result of a work of interpretation conducted by scholars who extract and collect information pertaining to lost works embedded in other surviving texts. These fragments include a great variety of formats that range from verbatim quotations to vague allusions and translations, which are only a more or less shadowy image of the original according to their closer or further distance from a literal citation.

AWOL first noted this important project back in 2013, but I seem to have missed it then.

I have two old essays online on the subject of quotation fragments:

A Worst-Case Scenario (Eldad and Modad)

Quotation Fragments (Pseudo-Hecataeus)

The subject matter is more wide-ranging than the titles imply.

UPDATE: See also Richard Bauckham's recent chapter "Eldad and Modad" in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume 1 (ed. Bauckham, Davila, and Panayotov; Eerdmans, 2013), pp. 244-256, and my article "Quotations from Lost Books in the Hebrew Bible: A New Translation and Introduction" in the same volume, pp. 673-698. And for many past PaleoJudaica posts on lost books (known only by title or quotation fragment(s) or manuscript fragment(s)), start here and follow the links.

The date of the Song of Deborah (Judges 5)

DR. SERGE FROLOV: Dating Deborah (TheTorah.com).

The Song of Deborah (Judges 5) is often seen as an ancient text, perhaps one of the oldest in the Tanach, but analysis of its language and contents suggests that it is a later Deuteronomistic composition.

This essay is based on the author's critical commentary on the Book of Judges and his peer-review article on this specific subject.

Antiochus IV Epiphanes

READING ACTS: Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Beginning of the Rebellion.

Antiochus is often described as a “Hellenistic zealot” who sought to impose Hellenism on the “faithful” Jewish people. That is the impression one gets from reading 1 Maccabees, but the book is not necessarily “objective history.” There is really no evidence that indicates Antiochus was any more Hellenistic that any other Greek ruler, nor was his method of suppressing the Jewish nationalistic feelings particularly extreme by the standards of the day.

Oops, I got this post out of order. See Saturday's post in the link below for more on Antiochus and the Maccabean Revolt.

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

Cueva and Martínez (eds.), Splendide Mendax

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Edmund P. Cueva, Javier Martínez (ed.), Splendide Mendax: Rethinking Fakes and Forgeries in Classical, Late Antique, and Early Christian Literature. Groningen: Barkhuis, 2016. Pp. ix, 369. ISBN 9789491431982. €95.00.

Reviewed by Colin Whiting, American School of Classical Studies at Athens (cwhiting@ascsa.org)

Publisher's Preview
[Authors and titles are listed below.]

Splendide Mendax: Rethinking Fakes and Forgeries in Classical, Late Antique, and Early Christian Literature is an edited volume containing 19 chapters about, very broadly, ancient fakes, forgeries, lying, deception, and so on. As such, it functions as a sort of companion volume to Fakes and Forgers of Classical Literature/Falsificaciones y falsarios de la Literatura Clásica, a 2010 volume edited by one of the present volume’s editors, Javier Martínez, and reviewed in BMCR 2012.07.20 by the other, Edmund P. Cueva. Martínez, with Isabel Velásquez, also edited a 2012 volume entitled Realidad, ficción y autenticidad en el mundo antiguo: La investigación ante documentos sospechosos (full bibliographic information available here).

[...]

The book includes coverage of The Gospel of Jesus' Wife and other New Testament Apocrypha, along with biblical and ancient Near Eastern vaticinia ex eventu (prophecies after the fact).

King Tut and the Chambers of Secrets?

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Does King Tutankhamun's tomb hold Queen Nefertiti's remains? New scans could reveal secret burial chambers hidden for 3,300 years (Ellie Zolfagharifard, Daily Mail).

• Some believe there are two ghost chambers and one may hold Nefertiti
• Previously scans led experts to say they were '90% sure' this was the case
• Second set of scans was recently done by National Geographic Society
• No announcement made, but sources say it did not find hidden rooms
• Polytechnic University Turin, Italy, plans to resume the search later this month

For background on this story, see here and follow the links. The news now is that (1) the National Geographic Society did some scans on the tomb and they have not announced that they found evidence of any secret chambers, but (2) the Polytechnic University Turin is going to do yet more scans. Maybe someday someone will find something. Not holding my breath.

Review of MacRae, Legible Religion

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Duncan MacRae, Legible Religion. Books, Gods, and Rituals in Roman Culture. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. 259. ISBN 9780674088719. $49.95.

Reviewed by Lindsay G. Driediger-Murphy, University of Calgary (ldriedig@ucalgary.ca)

Preview

This is an excellent and important book. Duncan MacRae’s aim is to illuminate the centrality of Late Republican writings about religion (especially those lost and fragmentary texts usually described as ‘antiquarian’ or ‘technical’) to both Roman and modern understandings of what constituted ‘Roman religion’. This work encourages a re-evaluation of the place and significance of texts in Roman religion, and is sure to generate further progress in this field.

[...]

Ancient Judaism figures in the discussion:

Part 2, ‘Comparison’, comprises one of the most innovative chapters of the book, a comparison between the Roman civil theological writings and the Mishnah. Whilst acknowledging the significant differences between Roman and Jewish religious priorities and theologies, MacRae argues convincingly that we see in both Late Republican Rome and the writings of the rabbis the desire to textualize religion, and to present this textual instantiation as the definitive or normative version of each religion.

Steinfeld, Tractate Horayot

NEW BOOK FROM BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY PRESS (IN HEBREW):

Tractate Horayot
Studies in the Mishna and Talmud
By Zvi Arie Steinfeld

Title Details
Danacode: 110-20236
ISBN: 978-965-226-382-7
Categories: Talmud and Rabbinic Literature
Published: December 2016
Edition: First
Language: Hebrew
Hardcover
17x24 cm
1200 gr
572 pages

In Stock
Price: $55.00 Internet Price: $47.00

Description
The book is a compilation of studies of the Mishnah in Horayot and its counterparts in the Tosefta and midrashic texts, and on its issues, especially in the Bavli, but also in the Yerushalmi. Underlying the study is the goal to discover the original intentions of the Tannaim and the Amoraim, to understand the differences between them and the factors that led to these differences. Each of the book's chapters deals with one source from the tractate. The chapters have been published over the years in various places, but are now presented together.

RAMBI reminder

AWOL: Open Access Journal: RAMBI- The Index of Articles on Jewish Studies - רשימת מאמרים במדעי היהדות - רמב"י. I have noted RAMBI a few times already (see here, here, and here), but it is an extraordinarily useful bibliographical resource and it is worth mentioning again with AWOL.

RAMBI – The Index of Articles on Jewish Studies – was founded by Dr. Issachar Joel in 1966. It is a selective bibliography of academic articles covering all of the fields of Jewish studies as well as the study of Eretz Israel and the State of Israel.
RAMBI is based largely on the collections of the National Library. The articles listed in RAMBI are collected from thousands of journals, in print or electronic, from collections of articles and from offprints sent by researchers.
RAMBI refers to articles in Hebrew, Latin or Cyrillic letters. The database is updated on a daily basis. By the end of 2013 RAMBI included about 350,000 records, from about 21,000 different sources.

The English version of RAMBI is here.

Hurtado on Bockmuehl, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels

LARRY HURTADO: Apocryphal Gospels: New Book.

Markus Bockmuehl’s new book, Ancient Apocryphal Gospels (Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), is a very good introduction to the subject. The publisher’s online catalogue entry is here.

[...]

I noted the book back in January here.

What language(s) did the Philistines speak?

THE ASOR BLOG: What language(s) did the Philistines speak? (Dr. Brent Eric Davis). Spoiler: we just don't know, at least what their original language was.

Cross-file under Philology.

More on the new, blank DSS

QUMRAN CAVE 12: New Dead Sea Scroll Find May Help Detect Forgeries. Looters plundered the cave decades ago. But archaeologists are thrilled by what they left behind. Here’s why. (Michelle Z. Donahue, National Geographic).

The discovery of a twelfth cave associated with the famous Dead Sea Scrolls may arm scholars with new clues to deter looters and detect modern forgeries of the ancient documents.

Earlier this week archaeologists announced the discovery of the cave—the first scroll site found since 1956—and revealed the results of recent excavations. The Israeli team found numerous storage jars that had been hidden in niches cut into the cave walls, but all were broken and their contents removed.

Some items were left behind, however, including leather scroll ties, textiles for wrapping scrolls, and a pair of rusty pickaxes from the 1950s—telltale signs that the cave had once harbored a collection of scrolls stored in clay jars, but looters had made off with the documents decades ago.

“The findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen,” said Hebrew University archaeologist and excavation director Oren Gutfeld.

That's the back story. The key point for this article is this:

The team also found pieces of parchment with no writing on it. Such material has become a hot commodity, with scraps of ancient parchment commanding high prices, according to Randall Price, an archaeologist at Liberty University who collaborated on the project. Much of the material is supplied by looters, who in recent years have been aggressively targeting the Dead Sea caves.

[...]

The blank parchment that archaeologists recently found may shed light on how high quality forgeries could be making their way to the market. And because it was recovered by scientifically rigorous methods, the parchment will help experts assess fragments that show up for sale.

That hadn't occurred to me, but, yes, it makes sense. Blank parchments like this scientifically excavated one may already have been looted. They may have been used to give us some of the recent, apparent Dead Sea Scrolls forgeries.

One correction to my first post on this discovery. There I took the Hebrew University press release to be saying that the blank parchment was being tested for faded writing. I think I misread it. What it actually was saying was that the blank fragment itself was (in antiquity) "being processed" to be written on. The English statement isn't very clear. Perhaps the Hebrew press release, which I have not seen, was clearer.

1 Maccabees and Hasmonean ideology

READING ACTS: 1 Maccabees and the Legitimacy of the Hasmoneans.

The book of 1 Maccabees clearly favors the revolution against the Seleucid and the Hasmonean dynasty. In fact, it is “a thoroughgoing pro-Hasmonean . . . perhaps even Sadducean, tendency interpenetrates the entire work” (Fischer, 4:441) and the “author of 1 Maccabees identifies unreservedly with the rebels and their leaders.” (Efron, 47; Sievers, 2).

[...]

Yes, both 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees are ideologically pro-Hasmonean. (Not sure about "Sadducean," though.) They are our main historical sources for the Maccabean revolt. This makes an objective evaluation of what happened challenging. A recent PaleoJudaica post on a revisionist view of the revolt is here.

It is not well known, but there are other, briefer, ancient accounts of the Maccabean revolt which give somewhat different perspectives on what happened. The two I know of offhand are Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, 34-35.1.1 and John Malalas, Chronographia, 206-207. On the latter see also here and here.

It happens that next week I am lecturing on the Old Testament Apocrypha in my Second Temple Jewish Literature class, so I have been thinking about such things.

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

The Septuagint Song

FURTHER TO INTERNATIONAL SEPTUAGINT DAY: The Septuagint Song (Tommy Wasserman, ETC Blog). I give them points for effort.

Background here.

Taylor, Gospels

NEW NOVEL: Nottingham novelist crafts 19th century bible hunting tale that is 'Indiana Jones meets Jules Verne.' Bible-hunting, rogues and Egypt combine to create Nottingham writer Stephen Taylor's fascinating novel, Gospels. Amy Wilcockson spoke to him to find out more (Nottingham Post).

Can you tell us a little bit about your novel?
It's a novel about change and redemption, using the genre of the American road movie, but placed into 1830's Egypt. The rogue John Campbell-John had fled England because his debts caught up with him. In Venice, he meets a man on an honourable quest who wants to travel in Egypt to find the earliest copies of the Bible. So the two travel together down the Nile. Egypt was a predominantly Christian country from the fourth to seventh century, which is something I didn't know until I researched. The monastic movement started in Egypt, and some monasteries actually still exist in the Egyptian deserts. Their libraries contain manuscripts dating as far back as the first century, and it is these my characters want to discover.

[...]

Good concept. Could be entertaining. It caught my eye mainly because it is inspired to some degree by the real nineteenth-century explorer Robert Curzon, on whom more here and here and links.

What sort of research did you have to do?
I have to say, as a historical novelist I don't do the primary research. I'm not a history professor so I piggyback on the academics, and use contemporary accounts. One of the early Bible hunters was a guy called Robert Curzon, later 14th Baron Zouche, and he travelled extensively in Egypt looking for the gospels. He wrote a book called Visits to Monasteries in the Levant (Levant being the English word for the Middle East). Not only did this book tell me what he did, what he found and where he travelled, but it also contains a description of the people he met in Egypt at that time. It gives me a snapshot into his world, and it heavily influenced my work. That was my Bible!

"Levant" is a term for the Eastern Mediterranean region, especially Syria-Palestine, and so it only partially overlaps with the Middle East.

Follow the main link above for a description of the novel. The reference to the King James Bible is not promising.

Resources for Zoharic Aramaic

ZOHAR WATCH: Judy Barrett's Academia.edu page has a number of resources for the study of Zoharic Aramaic. See especially Twelve Lessons in Grammatical and Syntactic Analysis of the Zohar and (Toward) A Thesaurus of the Zohar: English-Aramaic/Hebrew Synonyms. And there's more.

I have already mentioned The Aramaic Language of the Zohar website and the Zohar Dictionary. And I believe the discussion on the Facebook Zohar Daf Yomi page is still active.

Cross-file under Aramaic watch.For the many other past PaleoJudaica posts on the Zohar, start here (cf. here) and follow the links.

Tu B'Shevat 2017

TU B'SHEVAT, the New Year for Trees, begins tonight at sundown. Some past posts of interest are collected here and see also here.

Cottrell, The Writings Of Silvanus

NEW NOVEL: Author Dana George Cottrell’s Newly Released “The Writings Of Silvanus” is a Journey into Ancient Phoenicia and Greece.

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Dana George Cottrell’s new book is a journey into history that tells the story of a wealthy and powerful woman named Rachael.

Nineteen sealed urns are discovered in a small cave located in southern Lebanon. Within the urns, papyrus scrolls written in ancient Greek tell the story of a Jewish family that moved from Judea and settled in Beth-Gebar. Silvanus, the author of the scrolls, wrote about his family’s history while living in Beth-Gebar during the First Century.

Sounds potentially interesting, or at least entertaining. However, the prospects of the book being based on rigorous historical research don't seem good. Note that the fearless, pirate-fighting heroine spells her name with a spelling that first appeared in the 19th century and only became popular in the 1980s.

Human trees in the Bible?

DR. SHAI SECUNDA: “Are Trees of the Field Human?” (TheTorah.com).

Deuteronomy 20:19 forbids the chopping down of fruit trees during war-time, and offers the cryptic explanation כי האדם עץ השדה (ki ha-adam etz hasadeh), but what does this mean?

I was waiting for Ents to come up, but they didn't. Nevertheless, a timely essay.

Coins and the Bible conference

NUMISMATICS: Coins and the Bible: Understanding Ancient Coinage April 29 @ 10:30 am — 6:00 pm - a day conference at New College at the University of Edinburgh.

Some of the most famous stories in the Bible revolve around coins. From the four-drachma coin pulled from the fish’s mouth to Judas’s thirty pieces of silver, ancient writers have used the terminology of coinage to make their narratives more palatable for their audiences. Coinage communicates the language of empire to its subjects, rich and poor alike, through image and inscription, and helps provide the material background for better understanding the cultural milieu of the Bible. This day conference, “Coins and the Bible,” is primarily aimed at students and scholars of Christian origins and Classics who seek to develop a more comprehensive understanding of numismatics in the ancient world. Renowned scholars from the University of Edinburgh and the British Museum will offer lectures in Hellenistic, Roman, and Jewish coinage ranging from the Second Temple period to late antiquity. The conference will be free for both students and the public, though we suggest considering a £10 donation from public guests. Registration is required and space is limited, so we encourage you to sign up quickly.

Follow the link for the schedule and registration information.

Jubilees and the Land

READING ACTS: Jubilees and Sacred Geography.

The emphasis on God’s gift of land to the descendants of Israel is important because many Jewish readers of this book were living outside of Judea. Perhaps the author of Jubilees places the promise of land to the time of Noah in order to assure readers of God’s promise restore the people of Israel to the land in the future, or even to encourage a return to the land at the present time.

The whole issue of the Land, of course, remains a major concern for modern Judaism.

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

Qumran Cave 12

HEBREW UNIVERSITY PRESS RELEASE: Hebrew University Archaeologists Find 12th Dead Sea Scrolls Cave.

Hebrew University archaeologist Dr. Oren Gutfeld: "This is one of the most exciting archaeological discoveries, and the most important in the last 60 years, in the caves of Qumran."

Excavations in a cave on the cliffs west of Qumran, near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, prove that Dead Sea scrolls from the Second Temple period were hidden in the cave, and were looted by Bedouins in the middle of the last century. With the discovery of this cave, scholars now suggest that it should be numbered as Cave 12. [Photo links below]

The surprising discovery, representing a milestone in Dead Sea Scroll research, was made by Dr. Oren Gutfeld and Ahiad Ovadia from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology, with the collaboration of Dr. Randall Price and students from Liberty University in Virginia, USA.

The excavators are the first in over 60 years to discover a new scroll cave and to properly excavate it.

The excavation was supported by the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria, by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), and is a part of the new “Operation Scroll” launched at the IAA by its Director-General, Mr. Israel Hasson, to undertake systematic surveys and to excavate the caves in the Judean Desert.

Only you have to keep reading to learn that they pretty much didn't find any actual scrolls there:

Excavation of the cave revealed that at one time it contained Dead Sea scrolls. Numerous storage jars and lids from the Second Temple period were found hidden in niches along the walls of the cave and deep inside a long tunnel at its rear. The jars were all broken and their contents removed, and the discovery towards the end of the excavation of a pair of iron pickaxe heads from the 1950s (stored within the tunnel for later use) proves the cave was looted.

Until now, it was believed that only 11 caves had contained scrolls. With the discovery of this cave, scholars have now suggested that it would be numbered as Cave 12. Like Cave 8, in which scroll jars but no scrolls were found, this cave will receive the designation Q12 (the Q=Qumran standing in front of the number to indicate no scrolls were found).

I say "pretty much" because of this:

Dr. Gutfeld added: “Although at the end of the day no scroll was found, and instead we ‘only’ found a piece of parchment rolled up in a jug that was being processed for writing, the findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen. The findings include the jars in which the scrolls and their covering were hidden, a leather strap for binding the scroll, a cloth that wrapped the scrolls, tendons and pieces of skin connecting fragments, and more."

This isn't phrased terribly clearly, but it seems to be saying that the piece of parchment has no obvious writing on it, but it is being analyzed to find any faded writing that is not obvious.

Despite the lack of scrolls, the discovery of this cave is very important for many reasons explained in the press release.

At present, Operation Scroll has produced inscribed but (so far) unreadable scroll fragments from the Cave of Skulls and now a new scrolls cave at Qumran with what (so far) seems to be just one uninscribed parchment fragment. In one sense, that's a disappointing haul. But in another it is encouraging. It does demonstrate that there are still scroll fragments in those caves. Let's hope a big discovery still awaits the investigators.

There is also the possibility that more scrolls will be found during the new excavations currently underway at Masada. And there's even an outside chance of very old scroll fragments turning up at the ongoing excavations at Timna.

New excavation coming at Kiryat Ye’arim

CUE INDIANA JONES MUSIC: Archaeologists to break ground at biblical site where Ark of the Covenant stood. Israeli and French researchers to excavate ancient site of Kiryat Ye’arim, outside Jerusalem, one of the few unstudied biblical tels (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel).

One of the few remaining unstudied major biblical sites, where according to the Bible the Ark of the Covenant was kept for two decades, will be excavated by archaeologists this summer for the first time.

Organizers hope the anticipated study of Kiryat Ye’arim (also transliterated as Kiriath Jearim) will shed light on the site’s significance during the Iron Age, the period associated with the biblical account of King David.

Kiryat Ye’arim is mentioned over a dozen times in the Bible as a Judahite town situated near Jerusalem during the period of the judges and King David — the Iron Age, in archaeological terms.

The biblical town is associated with the hill where the Deir El-Azar monastery is situated, next to modern Arab town of Abu Ghosh, 12 kilometers (7 miles) west of Jerusalem’s Old City. A modern Jewish town founded nearby is named after the ancient site.

[...]

Spoiler: the Ark of the Covenant is no longer there.

Nevertheless, as the article explains, this will be quite an important excavation.

Tu B'Shevat

COMING TOMORROW: What is Tu Bishvat? Tu Bishvat, sometimes transliterated as Tu B'Shevat, traditionally marks the date on which farmers began calculating the tithing of their fruit crop for the coming year (Simon Rocker. The Jewish Chronicle).

Origins

Tu Bishvat, the New Year for Trees, is a minor festival and one of four new years – the others being Rosh Hashanah on Tishri 1, the start of the calendar year on Nisan 1 and the least known, Ellul 1, the new year for tithing cattle in classical days (akin to the start of the tax year).

Unlike the other new years, Tu Bishvat occurs mid-month rather than at the beginning; its name simply refers to the date on which it falls, the 15th day of the eleventh month, Shevat. Although not mentioned in the Bible, it is referred to as Rosh Hashanah L’Ilanot, New Year for Trees, in the Talmud and marked the date on which farmers began calculating the tithing of their fruit crop for the coming year.

[...]

It is mentioned in the Bible, sort of, but not specifically as a festival. More on that in a link tomorrow.

UPDATE: Yes, I did mean tomorrow, which is when the festival starts. The post appeared prematurely today, but that was due to a pre-posting that went awry. Apologies for the error.

Jubilees and the Law

READING ACTS: The Law in Jubilees.

What motivated the writer of Jubliees to ground distinctive Jewish practices in the earliest stories in Genesis? Is his motivation to prove to the Gentile world that the Judaism of the Second Temple period is ancient and worthy of respect? Or is he “preaching to the choir,” trying to encourage Second Temple Jews to continue in their practice of Sabbath and festivals?

Good questions. The two options are not necessarily entirely mutually exclusive.

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

International Septuagint Day 2017

IT'S FEBRUARY 8TH AGAIN: INTERNATIONAL LXX DAY: AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. NATALIO FERNÁNDEZ-MARCOS (William Ross, Septuaginta & C. blog).

That widely celebrated occasion is upon us again: Happy 11th International Septuagint Day! As I have in the past, I encourage you to take up your well-worn edition of the Greek Old Testament and read a bit today in recognition of this joyful day.

Some past interviews of LXX scholars by William Ross are noted here and links.

And there's also this:

How the Vatican Library celebrates LXX Day (Marieke Dhont, Logos Academic Blog).

In honour of Septuagint Day, I am eager to discuss ancient manuscripts of the LXX, in particular those manuscripts that have recently been made accessible to the public by the Vatican Library Digitization Project. This project greatly improves our access to ancient treasures that further our understanding of the Bible and its history.

With fine photos and commentary. The Vatican knows how to celebrate.

Past PaleoJudaica posts on International Septuagint Day are here, here (it seems I forgot about the post from the previous year), here, here, here, and here.

Open-access Steinsaltz Talmud

TALMUD WATCH: The Babylonian Talmud Is Now Available Free Online in English and Hebrew. The non-profit Sefaria has fulfilled a dream that dates back to Albert Einstein (Yair Rosenberg, Tablet Magazine).

One of the most accessible Hebrew and English translations of the Babylonian Talmud is going open source. Today, Sefaria, an online nonprofit bringing traditional Jewish texts to the internet, announced that it will be posting the entire compendium with the crisp bilingual translation of Jerusalem polymath Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz Even-Yisrael.

[...]

For the many PaleoJudaica posts on the Hebrew and English Steinsaltz translation of the Talmud, start here and follow the links. (I have not been able to find any more recent updates on Rabbi Steinsaltz's recovery, but I wish him well.)

The Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18)

RABBI DR. DANIEL M. ZUCKER: Enthroning God in the Temple with the Song of the Sea (TheTorah.com).

The Song of the Sea begins with defeat of the Egyptians and ends with YHWH’s enthronement in His temple. Comparison with the Epic of Baal and Enuma Elish clarify the genre and purpose of such hymns, and a striking parallel with Solomon’s prayer in 1Kings 8 offers a clue to the original context of this ancient song.

Rabbi Zucker thinks that the Song of the Sea was composed for the dedication of the First Temple at its founding, which is possible. But the song itself, while alluding to a Temple of YHWH, does not mention Jerusalem specifically. (The reference in v. 17 to "the mountain of Your possession" is a mythological term referring to the cosmic mountain and may, but does not necessarily imply Mount Zion.) My teacher, Frank Moore Cross, who is cited in the essay, thought the reference was to the early sanctuary in Gilgal and that the Song of the Sea could have been composed within living memory of whatever event it described. That's possible too, as are a good many other reconstructions. We just don't know.

Frank Moore Cross. "The Song of the Sea and Canaanite Myth" . Pages 112-144 in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Harvard University Press, 1973). See note 12 of Rabbi Zucker's essay for a response.

Jubilees

READING ACTS: Jubilees and the Eternal Covenant.

Unlike Sirach, Jubilees envisions a complete separation from the Hellenistic world. The author of Jubilees does not encourage readers to adopt or adapt Hellenistic practices or thinking along Jewish lines. Unlike Sirach or the canonical Proverbs, wisdom is not rooted in creation, but rather the Law of God as it appears in the Mosaic Law. While Sirach said wisdom was to keep the Law of God, he was never very clear on what that Law might be. The author of Jubilees is quite clear as he re-writes the stories of the Hebrew Bible to establish the antiquity of the boundary markers of the Jewish people.

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

Crowe on Adamic Christology

THE CSCO BLOG: The Last Adam: The Adamic Christology of Early Christianity (Brandon D. Crowe).

Put simply, today little attention is typically given to the possibility that Jesus is presented a new Adam figure in the Gospels. However, this recent dearth of attention is exceptional when we consider the broad scope of interpretive history—quite often in the history of interpretation the Gospels have been read as having a strong Adamic Christology.

[...]
In my recent book, The Last Adam: A Theology of the Obedient Life of Jesus in the Gospels, my goal is to consider anew the question of Adam Christology in the Gospels. Taking a cue from the emphasis on Christ as new Adam in the history of interpretation, I look at the Gospels asking where we may find Adam Christology, and what implications this may have for the work of Christ in the Gospels.

Cross-file under New Book from Baker.

Judith Romney Wegner z'l'

SAD NEWS FROM H-JUDAIC: Obituary: Dr. Judith Romney Wegner.

H-Judaic is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. Judith Romney Wegner (1933-2017), one of the pioneers of feminist studies of Rabbinic literature. ...

May her memory be for a blessing.

The Talmud on posthumous biblical authorship

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Who Wrote the Torah? This week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study dives into a foundational puzzle of the religion.

After discussing how to copy a Torah scroll, the Gemara moves on to the more interesting question of who wrote the Torah in the first place. The traditional Jewish answer, of course, is that Moses wrote it at the dictation of God. That is what the Talmud says in Bava Batra 15a: “The Holy One, Blessed be He, dictated and Moses repeated after him and wrote.” But the text of the Torah itself raises a problem for this idea, which is that after Moses’ death, the book of Deuteronomy continues for another eight verses. How could Moses have written a description of his own death? “Is it possible that after Moses died, he wrote ‘And Moses died there’?” asks the Gemara.

To avoid this absurdity, Rabbi Yehuda explains that the last eight verses of Deuteronomy were actually written by Joshua, Moses’ successor. This explains why, when the Torah is read aloud, those eight verses are always assigned to a single reader, not divided up. They form a natural unit because they came from Joshua’s hand. But Rabbi Shimon disagrees, suggesting instead that “the Holy One, blessed be He, dictated and Moses wrote with tears.” It is a beautiful, poetic image—Moses outlining the letters in his own tears, mourning his death in advance.

Actually, the Gemara goes on to point out, the problem of posthumousness is found in several books of the Bible. ...

The passage is more about how property is to be divided, but this is one of the Talmud's many interesting digressions.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Conference on “How the Bible Came into Being"

ETC BLOG: 2017 HBU Theology Conference (Peter Gurry).

This year’s Houston Baptist University Theology Conference is March 2–4 on the topic “How the Bible Came into Being.”

Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphic works receive their due.

Review of Rutherford (ed.), Greco-Egyptian Interactions

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Ian Rutherford (ed.), Greco-Egyptian Interactions: Literature, Translation, and Culture 500 BCE-300 CE. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xiii, 393. ISBN 9780199656127. $135.00.

Reviewed by Felipe Rojas, Brown University (felipe_rojas@brown.edu)

Publisher’s Preview

The study of cultural interaction as documented in the textual output of Egypt, Greece, and Rome is in flux. Egyptologists, who traditionally had paid less attention to texts written under Ptolemaic and especially Roman rule than to earlier material, have been devoting more of their energies to the arduous duty of editing Demotic papyri. Many such documents provide evidence of Greek-Egyptian cross-pollination, even if the exact nature of that exchange is hard to puzzle out.1 As the editor of one of those texts acknowledges here without despair: “Any conclusion may be overturned tomorrow” (p. 347). Classicists, on their part, have been producing less Hellenocentric readings of textual documents written in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, and also increasingly sophisticated literary and historical analyses that are informed by theoretical trends outside of classics.2 Many of the contributors to this volume are directly responsible for rocking the Greco-Egyptian textual boat. In fact, beginning nearly two decades ago, the editor himself has been offering challenging studies of Greco-Egyptian literary and cultural interaction.3 This book is of immediate and obvious importance to those working on Greek and Roman Egypt. As I explain below, however, it may also be of interest to those studying cross-cultural contact in the ancient world more generally.

[...]

Indeed. Jews in the Second Temple period and late antiquity were also interacting with Egyptians, Greeks, and Greek-speaking Egyptians. A number of articles in this volume (e.g., on the Greek Magical Papyri and on the Oracle of the Potter) look likely to have some background relevance to Judaism in those periods.

Ben Sira and Hellenism

READING ACTS: Sirach and the Greeks. Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

Ten Questions with Jacob L. Wright

THETORAH.COM: Ten Questions with a Torah / Bible Scholar: Prof. Jacob L. Wright.

Widely respected for his skills in biblical interpretation, Jacob Wright is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology and the Director of Graduate Studies in Emory’s Tam Institute of Jewish Studies. His first book, Rebuilding Identity: The Nehemiah Memoir and Its Earliest Readers, was awarded a Templeton prize for the best first books in religion and theology. Wright has edited several volumes and published many articles and essays on a wide range of topics, bringing interdisciplinary perspectives to bear on often neglected aspects of the history of ancient Israel and the formation of the Tanach.

Kratz on the DSS and the Bible

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Insights into the Growth of Biblical Literature from the Dead Sea Scrolls (Reinhard Kratz).

The Dead Sea Scrolls invite us to review our hypotheses concerning form, tradition, religious, theological, and historical criticism. Above all, they allow us to study the means, techniques and trends involved in ancient interpretations of biblical writings, which are documented in various forms. Ultimately, the manuscripts represent a welcome opportunity of control for the methods of compositional criticism. The new evidence not only raises the question of what biblical scholarship and criticism can learn from the Dead Sea Scrolls, but also the reverse.

Indeed.

New "Mikve Path" in Jerusalem park

OPENING THURSDAY: NEW ‘MIKVE PATH’ AT 2000-YEAR-OLD SITE TO BE UNVEILED IN JERUSALEM NATIONAL PARK. "The Ophel constituted an area of transition between the secular and the sacred, and the sacred and the secular." (DANIEL K. EISENBUD, Jerusalem Post).

A pathway between two 2,000-yearold ritual baths (mikvaot) once used by pilgrims to purify themselves before ascending the Temple Mount will be inaugurated at the historic Ophel site in the Davidson Center Archeological Park on Thursday.

Located by the walls of Jerusalem National Park, the Antiquities Authority said on Sunday the “mikve path,” which it described as “experimental, circular and modular,” was constructed and conserved with the help of donations from Australian entrepreneur Kevin Bermeister.

“The path has been highlighted and, in that way, it can be better understood within the historical and archeological complexity of the Ophel site, which was continuously inhabited from the Iron Age to the Crusader period,” the authority said in a statement.

[...]

Benefiel and Keegan (eds.), Inscriptions in the Private Sphere in the Greco-Roman World

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Rebecca Benefiel, Peter Keegan (ed.), Inscriptions in the Private Sphere in the Greco-Roman World. Brill studies in Greek and Roman epigraphy, 7. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2016. Pp. xviii, 284. ISBN 9789004307117. $135.00.

Reviewed by Claire Holleran, The University of Exeter (c.holleran@exeter.ac.uk)

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

This exciting new volume has its origins in a panel held at the 2012 Epigraphic Congress in Berlin and contains twelve wide- ranging papers closely focused on the central theme of epigraphy in the private sphere. Such inscriptions are often relegated to the sidelines of scholarship in favour of publicly-inscribed monuments and funerary markers, yet as this volume clearly demonstrates, writing was also very much a part of the private realm in the Greco-Roman world. This writing encompassed a variety of media, some of which tend to be fragile and prone to destruction, such as inscribed graffiti and charcoal writing on walls, while others, including stone inscriptions on statue bases and bronze plaques recording official honours and decrees, are more robust. The volume approaches such writing as a cross-cultural phenomenon and the different media are discussed in a series of chapters which range from Classical Attica to the Late Antique Levant, although a number of papers understandably focus on the Vesuvian sites. The admirably broad chronological and geographical coverage of the papers is reflected in the authors themselves, who are based in Europe, the US, and Australia, and are at a variety of career stages. Given the constraints of space, this review will not provide a detailed description of each chapter (a full list of authors and titles can be found at the end), but will focus instead on two key themes of the volume: definitions of public and private space, and the nature of ancient graffiti.

[...]

The volume includes discussions of inscriptions from Dura Europos (on which more here and many links) and Pompeii (on which more here [cf. here and here] and many links)

Nonsense on the Copper Scroll from the AP?

ANOTHER ARK OF THE COVENANT STORY: Lawton resident continues search for Copper Scroll (KALEY PATTERSON , AP). I am very surprised, and indeed have difficulty believing, that the Associated Press would publish this article.

The first paragraphs have a great many errors: the Copper Scroll dates to the first or second century CE, not the sixth century BCE; it's not clear that it is about the Temple treasures, but if it is, they are the treasures of Herod's Temple, not Solomon's; there are 64 locations mentioned in the Copper Scroll, not 57; no authors are mentioned in the Copper Scroll, certainly not Haggai or Jeremiah; there is no mention of the specified Temple/Tabernacle treasures in the last location of the Copper Scroll; any connection with the story in 2 Maccabees is wildly speculative; and, to be specific, there is no mention of the breastplate of the high priest, the altar, or the Ark of the Covenant in the Copper Scroll.

It rather sounds as though someone has been reading the legends in The Treatise of the Vessels and has confused some of its contents with the Copper Scroll.

The article also reports many claims about prominent named Israeli individuals. Notice, however, that it makes no claim that those individuals have verified the stories. At least one of them, Yuval Peleg, is no longer living. It gives us no reason to think that the author of the article has interviewed any of the living people to confirm the claims.

The story of Mr. Barfield's supposed discoveries sounds wildly fanciful to me. The author of the article has not interviewed any specialists in ancient Judaism or the archaeology of ancient Israel for evaluations of the claims. As usual with these things, I will believe exactly as much of it as is verified by Mr Barfield producing some actual ancient artifacts, such as vessels of silver and gold; gems; and, ideally, the high priest's ephod and breastplate, and, of course, the Ark of the Covenant. And once the produced objects are authenticated by real archaeologists and other specialists, preferably in peer-review publications.

This article is published in the Washington Times, apparently on the basis of another article published in The Lawton Constitution in Southwest Oklahoma. The latter article, if it is still there, is behind a subscription wall. I would have ignored the Washington Times article if it were not given an AP byline. Someone please tell me that the article is not really connected with the AP. If the attribution is correct, I shall have to rethink my assumption that AP articles can at least be relied on to do basic fact checking.

As I was finishing this blog post, I checked my own archive and was reminded of Robert Cargill's refutation of Mr. Barfield's claims back in 2009. You can read the details there.

The real story this time around is that the AP has endorsed the current very problematical article published in the Washington Times — if that is in fact what has happened.

For past PaleoJudaica posts on the Copper Scroll, start here (cf. here) and follow the many links.

Ben Sira

READING ACTS: The Failure of Sirach. I thinks one could debate the extent to which Sirach's efforts were a failure. And do 4 Maccabees and the Zealots really belong together in a class of movements? But you can read the post and make up your own minds.

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

A new dig at Masada

EXCAVATION: Archaeologists get set to dig at Masada, after 11-year hiatus. Tel Aviv University Team will excavate rebel dwellings, Herod’s gardens in month-long expedition at UNESCO heritage site (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel).

For the first time in over a decade, archaeologists are commencing new excavations atop Masada, studying previously untouched areas of the legendary desert mountain fortress, including the residences of Jewish rebels who met their doom in 74 CE.

A Tel Aviv University team, headed by Roman-period archaeologist Guy Stiebel, will conduct a month-long excavation at the UNESCO World Heritage Site starting on February 5. It will be the university’s first expedition at the site, and the first expedition overall there since 2006.

[...]

They start digging today. I hope they find lots of nice things, including more scrolls.

I noted the plan to return to Masada back in November. There are a great many past PaleoJudaica posts on Masada, its archaeology, the story of its fall to the Romans, and the various artistic and other endeavors it has inspired. Check the blog search engine for a full listing, but you can find a number of posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and links

Oqimta 3 (2015)

H-JUDAIC: TOC Oqimta 3 - A Journal for Rabbinic Studies. The articles in this volume are in Hebrew with English abstracts and are available online for free.

Earlier volumes have been noted here and here.