Steve Mason, A History of the Jewish War, A.D. 66-74. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xii, 689. ISBN 9780521853293. $150.00.
Reviewed by Matthew V. Novenson, University of Edinburgh (matthew.novenson@ed.ac.uk)
Preview
When I discovered the package containing Steve Mason’s A History of the Jewish War, A.D. 66-74 in my office mailbox, my first response was excitement, since I, like many scholars of Judaism in antiquity, had known about and been anticipating Mason’s summa on the war for some years now. My second response, upon opening the package, was surprise at the book’s title, since one of Mason’s professional calling cards is his insistence upon using “Judaean” rather than “Jew” or “Jewish” for Greek Ἰουδαῖος and Latin Iudaeus. (I can only guess that the title represents a compromise between author and publisher, since in the pages of the book Mason uses his customary “Judaean” throughout.) My third and lasting response, upon reading the book, was deep appreciation for Mason’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the contexts of the war and his nimble handling of numerous historiographical problems. Mason’s Jewish War was originally commissioned for Cambridge University Press’s Key Conflicts of Classical Antiquity series, a match made in publishing heaven. But whereas the previous entries in that series—Michael Kulikowski’s Rome’s Gothic Wars and Waldemar Heckel’s Conquests of Alexander the Great—weigh in at about 240 pages, Mason’s Jewish War runs to nearly 700. While a series-appropriate 240-page “foundation for undergraduates with no background in ancient history” (as per the series description in the CUP catalogue) on the Jewish War from Mason would be very welcome, the book that he has in fact produced is a far more interesting one.
[...]
Monday, February 27, 2017
Review of Mason, A History of the Jewish War, A.D. 66-74
BYRN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:
YU Professor Joseph Angel
INTERVIEW: Featured Faculty: Professor Joseph L. Angel (Arthur Schoen, YU Commentator).
Professor Joseph L. Angel is an Associate Professor of Jewish History at YU, where he teaches Bible and Jewish History courses in YC, IBC, and Revel. A recent tenure recipient, Professor Angel has been teaching at YU since 2008, the same year he received his PhD from NYU.Professor Angel is a specialist in the Dead Sea Scrolls. A couple of past PaleoJudaica posts on him and his work are here and here.
New e-Clavis entires
AWOL: New Additions to e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha (February 2017). There are new entries in the e-Clavis bibliography (on which more here) on the following texts:
Apocalypse of Peter (Greek/Ethiopic) by Cambry PardeeCross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch.
Dialogue of the Savior by Anna Cwikla
Gospel of Philip by Emily Laflèche
Gospel of Jesus’ Wife by Ian Brown
History of the Virgin (East Syriac) by Tony Burke
Pseudo-Clementines by F. Stanley Jones
1 Enoch 83-84
READING ACTS: A Righteous Remnant in 1 Enoch 83-84.
It is very difficult to date with certainty any section of 1 Enoch, but if these two chapters were originally an introduction to the Animal Apocalypse (which follows in 1 Enoch 85-90), then the historical context of the righteous remnant in the present generation the Maccabean revolt and the righteous ones who remained faithful to the Law when tested by Hellenists.Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.
But is this prophetic speech created to support the Hasmoneans (as the righteous ones struggling against the Greeks), or the Hasadim as they struggled against the later Hasmonean kings? Defining the “righteous remnant” seems to be a regular feature of apocalyptic literature (in the ancient world or today).
Studies in Late Antiquity 1.1. (2017)
NEW JOURNAL: Studies in Late Antiquity Launches First Issue. Follow the link for subscription information and the TOC for the first issue. You can access all the content for free online. For you, special deal!
Past posts noting that the journal was forthcoming are here and here.
Past posts noting that the journal was forthcoming are here and here.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Textus 26 (2016) now in print
NEW JOURNAL VOLUME FROM MAGNES PRESS:
TextusVolume 26 is now complete and available in print form, but the articles are also available with open access online. I noted the online version last year here.
Studies of the Hebrew University Bible Project
Edited by: Dr Michael Segal
Publisher: The Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies
Series:
Textus - STUDIES OF THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY BIBLE PROJECT
Categories:
Jewish Studies, Bible Studies
Publish date: February 2017
Language: English
Volume: XXVI
Danacode: 45-632026
ISSN: 0082-3767
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 282
Format: 24x17 cm
Weight: 600 gr.
Articles in this volume:
Emanuel Tov - The Development of the Text of the Torah in Two Major Text Blocks
Michael Segal, Emanuel Tov, William Brentת Seales, Clifford Seth Parker, Pnina Shor, Yosef Porath, with an Appendix by Ada Yardeni - An Early Leviticus Scroll from En-Gedi: Preliminary Publication
Kristin De Troyer - Reconstructing the Older Hebrew Text of the Book of Joshua: An Analysis of Joshua 10
Armin Lange - 4QXIIg (4Q82) as an Editorial Text
Gary A. Rendsburg - How Could a Torah Scroll Have Included the Word זעטוטי?
Nancy Benovitz - Psalm 91:1 and the Rabbinic Shemaʿ in Greek on a Byzantine Amuletic Armband
Yosef Ofer - A Fragment of the Aleppo Codex (Exodus 8) that Reached Israel
Rachel Hitin-Mashiah - Main Division in the Verse in the 21 Prose Books: Syntactic Study
Jordan S. Penkower - An Esther Scroll from the 15th Century: Determining its Type among Five Traditions (Oriental, Sefardi, Ashkenazi, Italian, Yemenite)
Lieu et al. (eds.), Manichaeism East and West
BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Manichaeism East and West. Notice of a new book: Lieu, Samuel, Nils Arne Pedersen, Enrico Morano & Erica Hunter (eds.). 2017. Manichaeism East and West (Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum – Analecta Manichaica 1). Brepols Publishers.
Deutsch, The Illustrated Pirkei Avot
FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM PRINT-O-CRAFT:
The Illustrated Pirkei Avot: A Graphic Novel of Jewish EthicsCross-file under Mishnah Watch.
Ships on or before April 20, 2017.
Composed almost 2,000 years ago, Pirkei Avot is Judaism’s oldest and most important book of wisdom and ethics.
The book was designed to be memorable. Its ideas sticks in your head and grow as you do. There is no other book quite like it.
In this volume, Jessica Tamar Deutsch has fully and finally opened up Pirkei Avot for easy public consumption. The Illustrated Pirkei Avot pairs a complete English translation of the work with more than 120 richly illustrated drawings. (The complete Hebrew text is included as an appendix.)
Deutsch’s book is perfect for both children and adults; for personal use, classroom use, or for reading to children. It is a pleasure to hold and a pleasure to read.
Embryology in Jewish and Ancient Middle Eastern Sources
DR. LEAH MAZOR: Embryology in Jewish and Ancient Middle Eastern Sources: Korot vol.23 2015-2016.
HT reader Yoel.
Samuel S. Kottek (ed.), Embryology in Jewish and Ancient Middle Eastern Sources: Korot vol.23 (2015-2016). The Magnes PressFollow the link for details. The first section includes articles on the Septuagint and Philo of Alexandria
EDITORIAL
The present volume 23 of Korot has as main topics, first, embryology in Jewish and ancient Middle Eastern sources, and second, medicine in the Holocaust
HT reader Yoel.
Destro and Pesce, From Jesus to his First Followers
NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:
From Jesus to his First Followers: Continuity and Discontinuity
Anthropological and Historical Perspectives
Adriana Destro and Mauro Pesce, University of Bologna
From Jesus to His First Followers examines to what extent early Christian groups were in continuity or discontinuity with respect to Jesus. Adriana Destro and Mauro Pesce concentrate on the transformation of religious practices. Their anthropological-historical analysis focuses on the relations between discipleship and households, on the models of contact with the supernatural world, and on cohabitation among distinct religious groups. The book highlights how Matthew uses non-Jewish instruments of legitimation, John reformulates religious experiences through symbolized domestic slavery, Paul adopts a religious practice diffused in Roman-Hellenistic environments. The book reconstructs the map of early Christian groups in the Land of Israel and explains their divergences on the basis of an original theory of the local origin of Gospels’ information.
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Father Columba Stewart
DIGITIZATION: The Monk Who Saves Manuscripts From ISIS. Why a Christian wants to rescue Islamic artifacts (Matteo Fagotto, The Atlantic).
For many other manuscript digitization projects, start here and follow the links. Cf. also here.
Rescuing the world’s most precious antiquities from destruction is a painstaking project—and a Benedictine monk may seem like an unlikely person to lead the charge. But Father Columba Stewart is determined. Soft-spoken, dressed in flowing black robes, this 59-year-old American has spent the past 13 years roaming from the Balkans to the Middle East in an effort to save Christian and Islamic manuscripts threatened by wars, theft, weather—and, lately, the Islamic State.His work also involves Christian Syriac manuscripts:
“Given what’s happened in the last years since the rise of ISIS, it’s very clear that things are really endangered,” Stewart said. “It’s imperative to make sure that these manuscripts are safe, because we don’t know what will happen to them.”
As ISIS militants have destroyed countless artifacts, Stewart has attempted to counter them by working with Christian and Muslim communities in hotspots such as Iraq and Syria. He has trained local teams to photograph centuries-old books with the help of the non-profit organization he directs, the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML). Based out of Saint John’s Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota, HMML is dedicated to preserving endangered manuscripts on microfilm and in digital format. So far, it has managed to photograph more than 140,000 complete manuscripts, for a total of more than 50,000,000 handwritten pages, according to the organization’s website.
[...]
... I followed him through the narrow alleys of the souq. Stopping in front of an iron door surmounted by a stone arch, he entered the gate of St. Mark’s Syrian Orthodox Monastery [in Jerusalem]. A group of monks sitting around a white plastic table greeted him warmly. After some small talk and a few sips of cardamom coffee, a frail, bearded man led him upstairs into a dusty room. Waiting in wooden cabinets were rows of priceless manuscripts dating back to the sixth century.Some past PaleoJudaica posts on the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) are collected here (cf. here). Father Stewart's work is noted there and has come up on PaleoJudaica previously here, here, here, and here.
Stewart carefully opened one manuscript, lingering over the elegant calligraphy of its yellowed pages. It was written in Syriac, an ancient Middle Eastern language. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he said.
For many other manuscript digitization projects, start here and follow the links. Cf. also here.
Hugoye 20.1 (2017)
A NEW ISSUE Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 20.1 (2017). I'm always happy to see more from this excellent, open access journal. Follow the link for the TOC. I note that in the current issue there is an article on The Cave of Treasures.
Cross-file under Syriac Watch and Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch.
Cross-file under Syriac Watch and Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch.
Review of Steiner and Killebrew (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant c. 8000-332 BCE
BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:
Margreet L. Steiner, Ann E. Killebrew (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant c. 8000-332 BCE. Oxford handbooks in archaeology. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xxi, 885. ISBN 9780199212972. $175.00.Excerpt:
Reviewed by Thomas Kiely, British Museum (TKiely@britishmuseum.org
So, cui bono? It is unfortunate to conclude that this is not really a handbook in any meaningful sense, that the uneven and at times neglectful treatment of material culture in some sections is disappointing, and that the volume is more of a vast and at times somewhat unprincipled compendium (though of often very good scholarship). This is regrettable because, apart from the qualities of the individual contributions in the diachronic or thematic sections, such as Gzella on peoples and languages (chapter 2) and Sharon on the complexities of chronology (chapter 4), some of the period clusters fit at least together quite nicely, even if the authors do not explicitly cross-reference their neighbours. Likewise, the commentators on the individual sections generally do an excellent job in making overall sense of the theme. Perhaps had the publishers invested more in the basic presentation of the book and given the authors—and perhaps editors—far more scope for better visualizing the masses of data cited, they would have provided a better investment for the punter.
CFP: “Being Jewish, Writing Greek”
FACULTY OF CLASSICS, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE:
— Call For Papers: “Being Jewish, Writing Greek” —The conference takes place on 6-8 September 2017. Follow the link for further particulars and information on submitting a paper proposal.
Deadline: Friday 30th April
Greek texts written by Jews in the Hellenistic and Imperial period (ca. 3rd century B.C.E. to 3rd C.E.) occupy numerous positions within two traditions; Jewish liturgical, religious and legal texts combine with historians, poets, novelists and tragedians. Some are translations, others new compositions. Some are written for a Jewish, others for a non-Jewish audience. Much has been said about the historical as well as theological contexts and content of these works. However, relatively few studies have considered these Jewish writings in Greek as literary works.
In this conference, then, we want to bring together scholars from the fields of Classics, Biblical Studies, Jewish Studies and beyond to explore the literary aspects of these Jewish texts in Greek. The interdisciplinary nature of the conference is vital, as we seek to consider these texts as the product of two interacting cultural identities. We believe that a focus on form, in addition to content, has the potential to better our understanding of the negotiations of culture and identity which come with being Jewish, and writing Greek.
[...]
Dragon-slaying in the HB and ANE
THE MITZPEH: Meyerhoff Center hosts lecture on dragon slaying in Ancient Hebrew texts (Nicole Reisinger).
Dragons, storm gods, and the sea were the focal points of Robert Miller’s lecture Wednesday when he addressed a group of about 30 students and faculty.Sounds like it was a good lecture.
The lecture, “Dragonslaying in the Ancient Near East, Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Texts,” was the first of four spring semester talks organized by the Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies [at the University of Maryland].
Junior linguistics and Jewish studies major Rebecca Magazine said she had never attended one of these lectures before.
“I enjoy learning about things that I wouldn’t get [the chance] to otherwise,” said Magazine. “It’s an interesting topic that I don’t know anything about.”
Miller, a Ph.D. in Ancient Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan, is an associate professor of Old Testament at the Catholic University of America. He’s also an affiliate of the Meyerhoff Center, spoke on the complex origins of the dragon slaying mytheme.
[....]
Friday, February 24, 2017
Jerusalem Conference in honor of Prof. Shamma Friedman
H-JUDAIC: CONF: A conference in honor of Prof. Shamma Friedman On the occasion of his 80th birthday, Wednesday, 15 March, 2017. It takes place at the Schechter Institute for Jewish Studies, 4 Avraham Granot St., Jerusalem. There are many interesting-looking papers on Talmudic Judaism and related matters.
CFP: Qumran Aramaic texts (Copenhagen)
CALL FOR PAPERS:
Vision, Narrative, and Wisdom in the Aramaic Texts from Qumran
International Symposium on Aramaic Texts from Qumran, Copenhagen, 14.-15. August, 2017
The Copenhagen Qumran Initiative and the Theological Faculty of the University of Copenhagen are organizing an international symposium focusing on the Aramaic texts from the Qumran Caves.
The texts from the Qumran Caves written in Aramaic make up a variegated corpus with several literary genres represented. These texts are interesting not only because of their literary contents and their historical significance, but also because they throw new light on the history of the Aramaic language, and the linguistic situation in Palestine in the late Second Temple period. Some of the texts are related to biblical literature in Hebrew in ways that are not always easily grasped. Arguably, some of the Aramaic texts may represent earlier versions of the cognate Hebrew compositions. While focusing attention on vision texts and the “testament” genre, the symposium will attempt to cover a wide range of topics related to this fascinating material.
We welcome papers on topics related to Aramaic Qumran texts. If you are interested in participating, and in presenting a paper, please contact Kasper Siegismund, ksi@teol.ku.dk.
Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels (paperback)
THE EERDWORD BLOG: The Nephilim and the Fallen Angels, by Loren Stuckenbruck.
The book was published by Mohr Siebeck in 2014. The paperback version has now been published by Eerdmans in 2017.
The mythical story of fallen angels preserved in 1 Enoch and related literature was profoundly influential during the Second Temple period. In The Myth of Rebellious Angels renowned scholar Loren Stuckenbruck explores aspects of that influence and demonstrates how the myth was reused and adapted to address new religious and cultural contexts.Good stuff, although somehow Eerdword has managed to reverse all the Hebrew script in the excerpt, which is distracting. They apologize at the bottom of the post and attribute it to "coding constraints." That's not good enough. Get better codes and fix it!
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 1, “Origins of Evil in Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition.”
The book was published by Mohr Siebeck in 2014. The paperback version has now been published by Eerdmans in 2017.
God as the Judge in Apocalyptic Literature
READING ACTS: God as the Judge in Apocalyptic Literature.
I would nuance this point a little though. Both 4 Ezra (an "apocalypse") and the Qumran sectarians (with an "apocalyptic" worldview) narrowed the true, faithful, Israel to a limited group within historical Israel. Daniel, the Similitudes, and, e.g., 2 Baruch seem to take a broader view.
A feature of apocalyptic which is drawn from the Hebrew Bible is the belief God will intervene in history to destroy the evil attacking the faithful. The nation of Israel always understood God as their defender. There is a great deal of “warrior language” in the Old Testament, it is God that fights on behalf of the nation. In addition to this, Israel always understood God to be their king.True both for Jewish apocalypses and for the Jewish apocalytic worldview according to Collins (see here). (And follow the latter link for previous posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period.)
[...]
I would nuance this point a little though. Both 4 Ezra (an "apocalypse") and the Qumran sectarians (with an "apocalyptic" worldview) narrowed the true, faithful, Israel to a limited group within historical Israel. Daniel, the Similitudes, and, e.g., 2 Baruch seem to take a broader view.
CFP: Forgeries SBL 2017
MARKERS OF AUTHENTICITY BLOG: CfP: Panel on Forgeries at SBL Annual Meeting (Malcolm Choat). "The call for papers closes on 8th March 2017." Sounds like a promising topic.
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Are two elephants a fair trade for the Siloam Inscription?
EPIGRAPHY DEAL? Minister offers Turkish mayor elephants for ancient Hebrew inscription. 2,700-year-old Siloam inscription, taken by the Ottomans and still held in Istanbul, marks direct evidence of Bible’s account of King Hezekiah’s tunnel-building in Jerusalem (Ilan Ben Zion et al., Times of Israel).
For background on the Siloam inscription and the negotiations for its return to Israel, start here and follow the links.
Culture Minister Miri Regev used an impromptu trip to southern Turkey for a basketball game to offer a different kind of trade: Two elephants for an ancient inscription from Jerusalem currently housed in a Jewish museum, considered one of the most important ancient Hebrew inscriptions in existence.I guess it was worth a try.
Regev was heard making the offer in a video posted online of an informal chat with Gaziantep mayor Fatma Sahin Wednesday. Regev was in Turkey to accompany the Ironi Nahariya basketball team for a Europe Cup game, after Turkish authorities insisted that a minister be present in order for the team to bring their own armed guards.
In the video, Sahin, a politician from the ruling AKP party, speaks of her zoo’s elephant problem: it has just one, and it wants more.
“We’re willing to work for it,” the mayor quips.
Regev is heard telling her aides and translators, “We’ll make a deal. We’ll give them the elephants, and they’ll give us the inscription of Hezekiah.”
[...]
For background on the Siloam inscription and the negotiations for its return to Israel, start here and follow the links.
Harari, Jewish Magic before the Rise of Kabbalah
NEW BOOK FROM WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS:
Jewish Magic before the Rise of KabbalahFor the TOC and introduction, see here. For more on Dr. Harari's work, including a forthcoming contribution to the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project, see here.
Yuval Harari
Subjects: Jewish Studies, Jewish Life and Tradition
Series: Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology
HARDBACK
Published: February 2017
ISBN: 9780814336304
Pages: 604 Size: 6x9
Illustrations: 17 color photographs; 3 black-and-white photographs
$64.99
"Magic culture is certainly fascinating. But what is it? What, in fact, are magic writings, magic artifacts?" Originally published in Hebrew in 2010, Jewish Magic Before the Rise of Kabbalah is a comprehensive study of early Jewish magic focusing on three major topics: Jewish magic inventiveness, the conflict with the culture it reflects, and the scientific study of both.
The first part of the book analyzes the essence of magic in general and Jewish magic in particular. The book begins with theories addressing the relationship of magic and religion in fields like comparative study of religion, sociology of religion, history, and cultural anthropology, and considers the implications of the paradigm shift in the interdisciplinary understanding of magic for the study of Jewish magic. The second part of the book focuses on Jewish magic culture in late antiquity and in the early Islamic period. This section highlights the artifacts left behind by the magic practitioners—amulets, bowls, precious stones, and human skulls—as well as manuals that include hundreds of recipes. Jewish Magic before the Rise of Kabbalah also reports on the culture that is reflected in the magic evidence from the perspective of external non-magic contemporary Jewish sources.
Issues of magic and religion, magical mysticism, and magic and social power are dealt with in length in this thorough investigation. Scholars interested in early Jewish history and comparative religions will find great value in this text.
More on the "Money Talks" lecture series
NUMISMATICS: A NEW LECTURE SERIES: “MONEY TALKS: NUMISMATIC CONVERSATIONS” (Andrew Reinhard, Pocket Change Blog). I already noted this current lecture series in New York here. But this Pocket Change post has some additional information, notably on this upcoming lecture:
David Hendin, “Ancient Jewish Coinage.”
Mr. Hendin will discuss the origins and production of ancient Jewish Coinage from the Persian era until the time of the revolts against Rome.
Date: TBA. Venue: American Numismatic Society.
"Apocalypses" and "apocalyptic"
READING ACTS: Defining Apocalyptic Literature. This could be expressed a little more clearly.
John Collins has done important work on defining the literary genre "apocalypse," as summarized in the blog post. There is no "apocalyptic" genre. There have been various attempts to define "apocalyptic" as a worldview, but these definitions do not find the same general acceptance that the genre "apocalyse" does. After all, there are plenty of examples of apocalypses. Demonstrating the existence of a worldview is more difficult.
Collins defines the apocalyptic worldview as a belief in the active influence of supernatural entities (i.e., angels and demons) on human affairs, along with a belief in eschatological salvation involving the judgment of human beings after death.
Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.
John Collins has done important work on defining the literary genre "apocalypse," as summarized in the blog post. There is no "apocalyptic" genre. There have been various attempts to define "apocalyptic" as a worldview, but these definitions do not find the same general acceptance that the genre "apocalyse" does. After all, there are plenty of examples of apocalypses. Demonstrating the existence of a worldview is more difficult.
Collins defines the apocalyptic worldview as a belief in the active influence of supernatural entities (i.e., angels and demons) on human affairs, along with a belief in eschatological salvation involving the judgment of human beings after death.
Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.
A template for the First Temple?
BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Searching for the Temple of King Solomon How the ’Ain Dara temple in Syria sheds light on King Solomon in the Bible and his famous temple. No they aren't going to find the First ("Solomon's") actual Temple. That is long gone. But arguably they have found a contemporary temple designed on the same template:
This BDH post was published in 2013, but I missed it then.
The similarities between the ’Ain Dara temple [in northern Syria] and the temple described in the Bible are indeed striking. Both buildings were erected on huge artificial platforms built on the highest point in their respective cities. The buildings likewise have similar tripartite plans: an entry porch supported by two columns, a main sanctuary hall (the hall of the ’Ain Dara temple is divided between an antechamber and a main chamber) and then, behind a partition, an elevated shrine, or Holy of Holies. They were also both flanked on three of their sides by a series of multistoried rooms and chambers that served various functions.Alas, they don't seem to have found an Ark of the Covenant there either. But, seriously, the parallels sound impressive.
Even the decorative schemes of ’Ain Dara temple and the temple described in the Bible are similar: Nearly every surface, both interior and exterior, of the ’Ain Dara temple was carved with lions, mythical animals (cherubim and sphinxes), and floral and geometric patterns, the same imagery that, according to 1 Kings 6:29, adorned the Temple of King Solomon in the Bible.
This BDH post was published in 2013, but I missed it then.
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Ancient Hebrew inscriptions on limestone capital in the Galilee
EPIGRAPHY: Hebrew carvings on column lend weight to Galilee village’s Jewish past. IAA says discovery of 1,800-year-old limestone capital bearing inscriptions reinforces association of Druze village of Peki’in with Roman-era center of Jewish scholarship (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel).
pair of 1,800-year-old Hebrew inscriptions carved into a capital found last week in the Druze village of Pekiin may lend support to a tradition linking the Galilean village to an ancient center of Jewish scholarship.
The inscriptions, etched into a limestone block buried beneath a courtyard of a building adjacent to the village’s 19th-century synagogue, were found during restoration work, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Tuesday.
The antiquities authority was tight-lipped about the find and refused to disclose the text of the inscriptions, saying they were still being studied and wouldn’t be published until they appear in a scholarly journal.
The IAA also wouldn’t say how archaeologists who inspected the inscriptions determined they were 1,800 years old. The IAA did disclose that the inscriptions appeared to be dedications by donors to the synagogue, lending support to the tradition of a Jewish presence during the Roman period.
[...]
Cargill on Qumran "Cave 12"
BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Did Archaeologists Really Discover a New Dead Sea Scroll Cave? Dead Sea Scroll cave under the microscope. Excerpt:
Background here and links,
I must, in all fairness, concede that Gutfeld’s speculation is entirely plausible. However, we must also acknowledge that it is still speculation—even if well-informed speculation on the part of Prof. Gutfeld—because no Dead Sea Scrolls were actually discovered in the cave! We could similarly speculate that scrolls were once present in several other caves excavated in the past, but that does not make them scroll caves. If there are no Dead Sea Scrolls in the cave, then it is not a scroll cave, even if we think there might have been in the past.But that does not mean the discoveries in the cave are not important. Read it all.
Background here and links,
JSJ 47 (2016)+
THE JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF JUDAISM VOLUME 47 (2016, issues 1-5) is now complete and available online. There are lots of articles and reviews on Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman periods. You can read the TOC and abstracts for free, but access to the articles requires a paid personal or institutional subscription.
They have also advance-posted a number of articles that are coming out in 2017.
Some earlier articles/issues from vol. 47 has already been noted here, here and here.
They have also advance-posted a number of articles that are coming out in 2017.
Some earlier articles/issues from vol. 47 has already been noted here, here and here.
Yazidi refugees to go to Canada
YAZIDI WATCH: Canada to welcome 1,200 Yazidi refugees from Iraq. Vulnerable religious minority targeted by Islamic State as heretics, being taken in by Ottawa at ‘controlled pace’ (AFP/Times of Israel).
Past PaleoJudaica posts on the Yazidis, their Gnosticism-themed religion, and their tragic fate in the hands of ISIS, are here and here with many links.
Past PaleoJudaica posts on the Yazidis, their Gnosticism-themed religion, and their tragic fate in the hands of ISIS, are here and here with many links.
Five great books on apocrypha and pseudepigrapha
THE EERDWORD BLOG: Five Great Books on Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.
It's a good list. I am pleased to see Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume 1 (ed. Bauckham, Davila, and Panayotov) among them.
Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch and New Testament Apocrypha Watch.
It's a good list. I am pleased to see Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume 1 (ed. Bauckham, Davila, and Panayotov) among them.
Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch and New Testament Apocrypha Watch.
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Saint Jerome, India, and unicorns
TRANSLATION FAIL? How a translation mistake ended up making India a part of the Bible. Whether medieval Christians saw India as a symbol of evil or as the home of saints, the Subcontinent remained a source of fascination (Scroll.in).
Also, while we're on the subject of unicorns, this came up in my searches today: In pictures: Where to find unicorns in Scotland (Linda Howard, Glasgow Evening Times).
Past PaleoJudaica posts on Saint Jerome and his Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible are here and here and links.
Another error in translation brought India into Jerome’s Latin Bible, where it remained at the heart of Catholic belief for over 1,500 years. Jerome, who lived in 347-420 CE, was a monk from modern Croatia who undertook a pioneering translation of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament into Latin, the language of the Roman empire. But Jerome also found time to indulge other interests, including a fascination for India. He seems to have read nearly everything about the Subcontinent that would have been available in Greek and Latin. His letters to friends, colleagues and potential converts are full of references to features of South Asian life in that period – the caste system, Buddhism, and sati. They also mention magical gems and fabulous creatures, like the unicorn, that people in the Mediterranean region believed could be found in India.Yes, Jerome translated "Ophir" as "India" in Job 28:16. But since we don't know where Ophir was, it's not clear that this was a mistake. In his Anchor Bible commentary on Job, Marvin Pope lists "India, South Arabia, and East and South Africa" as possible locations. (See his comments on 22:24 on p. 168).
With India on his mind, Jerome made a mistake in translating the Hebrew Bible that would influence Christianity for many centuries. In a passage of the Book of Job (chapter 28, verse 16), Jerome translated a Hebrew expression meaning “the gold of Ophir” (a region in East Africa) as “the dyed colours of India”, referring to the brightly-coloured cotton cloth that India was already exporting throughout the world. Indian textiles were a highly valuable commodity in the ancient Mediterranean. Greek and Roman traders travelled to Indian ports like Arikamedu, near present-day Puducherry, to buy cloth, spices and other luxuries, in exchange for gold. It was only natural, therefore, that Roman subjects like Jerome associated India with rich colours and valuable dyestuffs.
Also, while we're on the subject of unicorns, this came up in my searches today: In pictures: Where to find unicorns in Scotland (Linda Howard, Glasgow Evening Times).
You may already be aware of the fact that the unicorn is our national animal, but did you know this mythical creature was believed to be the natural enemy of the lion - a symbol of English royalty?Jerome followed the precedent set in Greek by the Septuagint and he too sometimes translated the Hebrew word for "wild ox" as "unicorn" (e.g., Psalm 21:22 = 22:21 English), but also often as "rhinoceros." The biblical translation as "unicorn" was also picked up in the King James Bible (e.g., again, Psalm 22:21). This ancient mistranslation set off an iconographic tradition that has lasted to the present (hence, Scotland) and a wild goose chase that lasted a long time.
Unicorns were written about by the ancient Persians, Romans, Greeks and ancient Jewish scholars. They all described a horse-like creature whose single horn had magical properties.
Past PaleoJudaica posts on Saint Jerome and his Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible are here and here and links.
Orlov, The Greatest Mirror
FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM SUNY PRESS:
The Greatest MirrorAnd there's a description at Professor Orlov's Academia.edu page:
Heavenly Counterparts in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha
Andrei A. Orlov - Author
Price: $95.00
Hardcover - 300 pages
Release Date: November 2017
ISBN10: N/A
ISBN13: 978-1-4384-6691-0
Abstract:I've noted a recent book on the same topic, but dealing with a different ancient literary corpus, here and here.
This book is a wide-ranging exploration of the heavenly double traditions in early Jewish pseudepigraphical accounts. The study treats the application of the heavenly twin imagery to human and otherworldly figures in its full historical and interpretive complexity through a broad variety of Jewish sources, from the patriarchical narratives of the Hebrew Bible to later Jewish mystical testimonies. This work argues for the Jewish origins of the heavenly counterpart motif by demonstrating its close connection with theophanic imagery manifested in the biblical accounts. The book demonstrates that the memories of almost all major biblical theophanies became crucial conceptual nexuses for unfolding the heavenly counterpart speculations in the Jewish pseudepigrapha. This study thus affirms a hypothesis that the complex symbolism of the heavenly double, found in early Jewish materials, takes its inspiration not from the Greco-Roman or the “Iranian” mythologies, as previously suggested by some scholars, but instead represents an authentic Jewish phenomenon deeply rooted in the theophanic traditions of the Hebrew Bible. This work also represents the first complete effort to show how some Jewish pseudepigraphical works, like 2 Enoch and the Ladder of Jacob, preserved solely in the Slavonic language, develop several unique traditions regarding heavenly counterparts.
Kister on textual fluidity in the DSS
ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: The Multiple Faces and Phases of Texts at Qumran: Growth, Expansion, and Rewriting in Community Documents (Menahem Kister).
THE SHAPING AND SHAPES OF ANCIENT TEXTS AT QUMRANEarlier essays in AJR's current series on the Dead Sea Scrolls (in honor of the 70th anniversary of their discovery) are noted here and links.
What is an ancient text? How should similar but different texts be treated? When should a text be considered a “recension,” and when is it an independent text? How do such closely-related texts clarify each other? These general questions concerning the transmission of texts and traditions are relevant, sometimes crucial, for the study of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and rabbinic literature. The answers are complex and elusive. The growth of texts is one of the most important phenomena for understanding the form in which they reached us. The texts found at Qumran help clarify various aspects of the growth of many ancient religious writings, because they represent a variety of texts from a period (ca. second century BCE–first century CE) from which previously no texts written in Hebrew had been preserved (with the exception of Ben Sira and the Damascus Document, see below).
[...]
Ancient house with frescoes and phallic amulets
ARCHAEOLOGY: Ancient Roman House and Phallic Amulets Discovered in Israel (Owen Jarus, Live Science).
A house dating back around 1,900 years, which is decorated with frescoes showing scenes of nature, has been discovered at the archaeological site of Omrit in northern Israel. Phallic amulets were also found at the site.Well, that's different. I've heard of phallic statues before, but not phallic amulets. I suppose someone had to think of them.
The house was constructed during the late first or early second century A.D., and was likely two stories tall, said Daniel Schowalter, a professor at Carthage College in Wisconsin.
"The floor [of the house] was plastered and its walls were covered in frescoes," Schowalter told an audience in Toronto at the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and the Society for Classical Studies in January.
[...]
Vatican menorah exhibition
COMING IN MAY 2017: Vatican and Rome Jewish community host menorah exhibition (Reuters, rpt. YNetNews).
For the lost Temple menorah, which is pictured on the Arch of Titus, start here and follow the links. And also follow the relevant links in the same post for many other PaleoJudaica posts on ancient menorahs and depictions of them. Past posts on why the Temple menorah is not in the Vatican are collected here.
The exhibition will be held in St. Peter's Square and the Rome synagogue complex and will include about 130 menorahs or depictions of them in paintings, ancient gravestones and sculptures, as well as medieval and Renaissance illustrations and manuscripts.Spoiler: the Vatican does not have the golden menorah that Titus plundered from the Temple, so it won't be on display. But there will be many other ancient etc. menorahs and depictions of menorahs, including the Magdala Stone.
For the lost Temple menorah, which is pictured on the Arch of Titus, start here and follow the links. And also follow the relevant links in the same post for many other PaleoJudaica posts on ancient menorahs and depictions of them. Past posts on why the Temple menorah is not in the Vatican are collected here.
Monday, February 20, 2017
Elyonim veTachtonim
DATABASE: Elyonim veTachtonim. Electronic inventory of angels, demons and ghosts in the early rabbinic literature. The current version covers the Babylonian Talmud.
"Elyonim veTachtonim" means "the most high ones and the lower ones," with implied reference to the denizens of the heavenly realm and the realm of the underworld.
"Elyonim veTachtonim" means "the most high ones and the lower ones," with implied reference to the denizens of the heavenly realm and the realm of the underworld.
Himmelfarb, Jewish Messiahs in a Christian Empire
NEW BOOK FROM HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS:
Jewish Messiahs in a Christian EmpireSefer 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.
A History of the Book of Zerubbabel
Martha Himmelfarb
Product Details
HARDCOVER
$39.95 • £31.95 • €36.00
ISBN 9780674057623
Publication: February 2017
x Text
232 pages
6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches
World
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.
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).
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.
[...]
Sunday, February 19, 2017
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.
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.
Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.
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.If you're in the area, don't miss it.
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.
[...]
Saturday, February 18, 2017
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.
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).
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.
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.
Friday, February 17, 2017
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.A long, informative article. Background here.
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.
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.).
Past PaleoJudaica posts on the Karaites are here (with more on the Karaite community in Daly City) and links (cf. here).
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.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:
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
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.Worth reading if full if you have any interest in the Karaites.
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.
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 VolumesFollow the link for the TOC and ordering information.
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.
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.
Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.
Thursday, February 16, 2017
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.Some past posts on Beit She'arim (Beit Shearim) are here and links (cf. here and here).
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.
[...]
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?Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.
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.”
[...]
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.
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).
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.
How does someone teach a language when we have no idea what it might actually sound like?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.
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.
[...]
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.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
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.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.
[...]
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.
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.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.
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.
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.
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.
Background here and links.
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
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):
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.
“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.”Yes, to all of this.
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.”
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?
Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.
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:
The book was noted as forthcoming here, here, and here.
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.
Monday, February 13, 2017
The Leipzig Open Fragmentary Texts Series
AWOL: The Leipzig Open Fragmentary Texts Series (LOFTS).
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 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.
Past posts in Phil Long's series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.
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.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).
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).
[...]
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 NefertitiFor 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.
• 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
Sunday, February 12, 2017
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.Ancient Judaism figures in the discussion:
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.
[...]
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.The English version of RAMBI is here.
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.
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.
Cross-file under Philology.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)