Phoenicians in America?

PHOENICIAN WATCH: Theory: Ancient Phoenicians were the first to discover the Americas (TornosNews.gr). When I see headlines like this one, my heart sinks. I figure I'm going to have to endure some more nonsense. But in this case the headline was just clickbait and the article itself is pretty good. It sums up the claims and the evidence that has been advanced in their favor, then reports correctly that the evidence has been found wanting. It concludes:

Most of the modern-day scholars deny the idea that Phoenicians, Canaanites, or Carthaginians discovered the Americas first.

Ronald H. Fritze, an American historian, says that although it was technically possible for those people to reach the Americas, it probably never happened:

“No archaeological evidence has yet been discovered to prove the contentions of Irwin, Gordon, Bailey, Fell and others. Since even the fleeting Norse presence in Vinland left definite archaeological remains at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, it seems logical that the allegedly more extensive Phoenician and Carthaginian presence would have left similar evidence. The absence of such remains is strong circumstantial evidence that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians never reached the Americas.”

Until some concrete evidence appears, this theory will remain only a fantasy.

I would say all modern scholars reject this idea. I know of no remaining exceptions.

I have covered these issues in greater detail here and links. Cross-file under New World Forgery Watch.

Greenberg on Be'eri and the Israel Prize

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

David Be’eri’s Useful Idiots

Every archaeological discovery made in the City of David in the past twenty years can be measured in the dispossession and humiliation it has caused to the Palestinians of Silwan, in its contribution to the settlers’ aim of claiming the Temple Mount, and in its acquiescence in the contempt for scientific archaeology shown by David Be’eri and El’ad.

See Also: Jerusalem’s “What Me Worry” Archaeology

A Future for the Archaeology of Jerusalem

By Raphael Greenberg
Dept. of Archaeology and ANE
Tel Aviv University
March 2017

Background here and here. Cross-file under Politics.

The attribution in the original title to this post was incorrect. Apologies for the error.

Students excavate Second Temple site used by Bar Kokhba rebels

ARCHAEOLOGY: Students unearth a 2000-year-old Jewish settlement (Ynet News).

Boyer High School in Jerusalem will fund most of its youth delegation’s visit to Poland by working at archaeological digs. This week, the school’s students are helping unearth a site discovered in recent months: A rare and impressive array of ritual baths and underground systems used by rebels during the Bar Kokhba Revolt.

Some 240 eleventh-grade students from Jerusalem’s Boyer High School have discovered an original and rewarding way of reducing their travel costs to Poland: Working for an entire week on archeological excavations at Ramat Beit Shemesh, far from their computers and air-conditioned classrooms.

The students are involved in unearthing exciting archeological finds at the site. In recent months, the remains of a Jewish settlement dating to the Second Temple period have been found to include an extensive complex of ritual baths and underground hiding refuges.

The excavations are being carried out with funding provided by the Ministry of Construction and Housing prior to the building of a new residential neighborhood in Ramat Beit Shemesh, in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority and with the participation of pre-army course cadets.

The settlement, whose ancient name is unknown, has so far yielded eight ritual baths, cisterns, and hiding refuges, along with rock-hewn industrial installations. The houses themselves have not survived and their stones were taken to construct buildings in later periods.

[...]

Underneath the dwellings and rock-hewn installations, another surprising discovery was unearthed, dating to the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (second century CE)—a winding labyrinth of hiding refuges connected to sophisticated and elaborate complexes. In some of the underground complexes, the rebels breached a cistern to provide those in hiding with access to water. One of the caves also yielded intact ceramic jars and cooking pots that were probably used by the rebels. The finds show that the settlement continued to exist even after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

[...]

The Talmud on happiness and national mourning

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Why Jews Are Forbidden to Be Happy. Talmudic rabbis debate just how much of life should be forsaken as part of the Jewish responsibility to mourn for the past.

Should a Jew ever be completely happy? The question is likely to provoke an indignant “of course.” Why shouldn’t a Jew have as much right to happiness as anyone else? Yet the more you know about the Jewish past, the harder it is to avoid the inheritance of sorrow that is an essential part of Jewishness. We are, after all, a people whose holidays revolve around the threat of annihilation. On Purim, we read about the near genocide of the Persian Jews by Haman; on Passover, we will celebrate the Israelites’ hairsbreadth escape from the Egyptian army at the Red Sea.

And sometimes, of course, there was no escape. ...

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Was Herod great, terrible, or both?

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Herod the Great, or Herod the Terrible?

By Paul N. Anderson
George Fox University
Newberg, Oregon
March 2017

The fourth episode of CNN’s “Finding Jesus” second season focuses on King Herod, who ruled in Judea from 37-4 BC. In the Gospel of Matthew, Herod is portrayed as a ruthless, self-absorbed king, who slaughtered all the baby boys in Bethlehem—two years old and younger—because he was threatened by the quest of the Magi. If the wise men coming from the East were seeking the newborn “king of the Jews,” might this imply eventual competition for Herod’s throne? Matthew portrays the wise men being led by a dream to return without informing Herod of their findings; hence his being threatened, and thus his ruthless response.

[...]

But what would Josephus say?

So, while the Matthean presentation of Herod is that of a ruthless regent rather than a righteous royal, I’m not sure that Josephus would have disagreed. Perhaps Herod the Great and Herod the Terrible are not as disparate appellatives as one might imagine. And, on that score, Josephus and Matthew might have agreed.

That sounds about right to me. There are many past PaleoJudaica posts on Herod the Great and the excavations at Herodium. Start here (where I also comment on Matthew's account in the context of what we know about Herod from elsewhere) and follow the links.

Review of Reif and Egger-Wenzel (eds.), Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Entreaty and Emotion, Theory and Texts: Studies in Second Temple Jewish Prayers (Andrew Krause).

Stefan C. Reif and Renate Egger-Wenzel (eds.), Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions: The Emotions Associated with Jewish Prayer in and around the Second Temple Period. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Series 26. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015.

The study of emotions in literature has seen an understandable boon in recent years. Embodiment in texts stands as an important corrective to the positivistic tendency of exegetes and some historians to assume tacitly that meaning is entirely propositional, whereas the phenomenological study of emotions allows us to delve the depths of the cognitive processes behind the text in new and penetrating ways. Ancient Jewish Prayers and Emotions is the conference proceedings from the meeting of the International Society for the Study of Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature at the University of Haifa 2–5 February, 2014. As with most collections in this series, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha hold pride of place, but the Qumran Scrolls receive a considerable amount of consideration. This state of affairs can be instructive, as it places the Scrolls in conversation with other texts in some temporal and cultural proximity, even if the exact relations remain unclear.

[...]

I noted the book recently here. Earlier 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.

Neutal on ancient masculinity

CSCO BLOG: Ancient Masculinity by Dr. Karin Neutal. "In this newest video, Dr. Karin Neutal (University of Oslo) discusses ancient masculinity and circumcision."

Where are the Hazor archives?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Where Are the Royal Archives at Tel Hazor? Searching for cuneiform tablets at Tel Hazor (Marek Dospěl). Where indeed? Yigael Yadin thought he knew, and he was getting set to go find them when he died unexpectedly back in 1984. Then, excavations began again at Hazor in 1990. Amnon Ben-Tor and (the late) Sharon Zuckerman have been looking since then and have not found the archives, so the answer is not obvious. I noted that they were looking back in 2005 and (when another cuneiform tablet was found there) in 2007. I mentioned the search again in passing in 2010 and again in the same year (cf. here) when the excavation found a couple of new cuneiform fragments.

The BAR article by Shlomit Bechar is behind a subscription wall, but the BHD essay is reasonably informative. If she knows where the archives are, I wish her and the excavation team all good and speedy success in finally finding them. The recovery of the Hazor archives would revolutionize our knowledge of the land of Israel in the second millennium BCE.

Louis Feldman 1926-2017

SAD NEWS FROM H-JUDAIC: Passing of Professor Louis Feldman.

H-Judaic is deeply saddened to learn [from Dr Edward Reichman and Menachem Butler] of the passing of Professor Louis Feldman (1926-2017), the Abraham Wouk Family Professor of Classics and Literature at Yeshiva University, where Prof. Feldman taught for some 60 years. Prof. Feldman was recognized around the world as the "Dean" of Josephus scholars and contributed greatly to our understanding of Jewish life during the Hellenistic era. He published numerous books (see below) and hundreds of articles --243 are listed in RAMBI. He was a "scholar's scholar" -- a model of dedication to craft coupled with modesty and wide-ranging learning. The Encyclopedia Judaica article on Prof. Feldman reads as follows: ...

May his memory be for a blessing.

A Geniza papyrus codex containing piyyutim

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH: T-S 6H9–21, the papyrus codex rebound (Rebecca J. W. Jefferson).

In the course of research into ancient book-binding practices and their relevance to the conservation of the sewn structures preserved in the Jacques Mosseri Genizah Collection, I rediscovered some very interesting negatives in the archives of the Library’s Imaging Services Department. The negatives—long thought lost—show the Taylor-Schechter Collection’s unique papyrus codex, T-S 6H9–21, as it was when it was first discovered, and I hope that they will prove of great interest to codicologists and historians of the early medieval book.

The late Professor Ezra Fleischer identified the fragments as a collection of liturgical poems by the Palestinian payṭan, Joseph b. Nissan of Neve Qiryatayim (a contemporary of Eleazar b. Kallir c. sixth century CE). At some point during the eighth or ninth century CE, a scribe copied Nissan’s poems out on to the papyrus leaves and the leaves were bound into a codex.

[...]

This is another old post, from July 2009. The codex would have been one of the earliest texts in the Cairo Geniza and it is a copy of late-antique liturgical poems.

On composite citations in antiquity

CSCO BLOG: Composite Citations in Antiquity (Dr. Sean Adams and Dr. Seth Ehorn).

Over 20 percent of Paul’s quotations are composite. More than 17 percent of the citations in the Synoptic Gospels are composite. Despite these relatively high percentages, there has been surprisingly little research focused on composite citations in the New Testament. Until now. The fundamental premise of our two volumes, Composite Citations in Antiquity, is that the New Testament authors were embedded within their Graeco-Roman literary environment. Therefore, we set out to study examples of composite citations across a range of texts. The first volume, Graeco-Roman, Jewish, and Early Christian Uses, was released in 2016 and the second, New Testament Uses, is expected for release in early 2018 (but look for it at the 2017 SBL in Boston).

[...]

I noted the publication of volume 1 here.

PhD theses from Macquarie University

AWOL: Open Access Dissertations from Macquarie University Department of Ancient History. The topics of these recent PhD thesis are wide ranging and some of them are relevant to ancient Judaism.

Petersen and van Kooten (eds.), Religio-Philosophical Discourses in the Mediterranean World

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Religio-Philosophical Discourses in the Mediterranean World
From Plato, through Jesus, to Late Antiquity

Edited by Anders Klostergaard Petersen, Aarhus University and George van Kooten, University of Groningen
This first volume of the new Brill series “Ancient Philosophy & Religion” is a collection of articles by scholars of Classics, Ancient Philosophy, and Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. The articles are based on papers presented at two colloquia on the interface between Ancient Philosophy and Religion at the universities of Aarhus and Cambridge. They focus extensively on Platonic philosophy and piety and sketch an emerging religio-philosophical discourse in ancient Judaism (both in the Sibylline Oracles and 4 Maccabees). Furthermore, this volume studies Seneca’s religio-philosophical understanding of 'consolation', compares early depictions of Jesus with those of ancient philosophers, and, finally, reconsiders responses of pagan philosophers to Christianity from the second century to Late Antiquity.

Was the Tabernacle upholstered with beaded hides?

DR. RABBI NORMAN SOLOMON: What was the Tachash Covering the Tabernacle? Animal, Vegetable or Mineral? Assyriology and archaeology provide an answer to an ancient question (TheTorah.com). Conclusion:

Beaded hides are, from many points of view, the ideal material with which to cover a Tabernacle; they are aesthetically pleasing, fit for royalty, strong, and resist sun, rain, dust and probably arrows too.

It has taken a couple of thousand years to unravel the mystery, but the answer appears to be that no badgers, seals, dolphins or unicorns were necessary to construct the mishkan. Rather like many of the elements in mishkan account, it was a standard luxury product of the ANE.

4 Maccabees and self-control

READING ACTS: Fourth Maccabees and a Rational Faith.

The “temperate mind” restrains the impulses of the body, what Paul calls “self-control” in Galatians 5:23. That Paul and 4 Maccabees both have a high view of the Law and the virtue of self-control is not necessarily and indication Paul knew the book or vice versa. Likely as not both the author of 4 Maccabees and Paul are drawing on implications of the wisdom literature drawn through the intellectual grid of a first century worldview which includes elements of Stoicism and other Greek philosophical streams.

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

Oriental Institute Open Access Publications

AWOL: The Oriental Institute Open Access Publications. So many links!

Review of Glinert, The Story of Hebrew

BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Story of Hebrew’ is a scholarly, engaging history of the language (Jonathan Kirsch, The Jewish Journal).

One of the curiosities in “The Story of Hebrew” by Lewis Glinert (Princeton University Press) is that the author manages to write a history of the Hebrew language without using a single Hebrew letter in the text, although Hebrew appears in the illustrations, including a page from Franz Kafka’s Hebrew notebook. Indeed, Glinert announces at the outset of his richly detailed and wholly fascinating book that it is “not much a book about what Hebrew words mean as about what the Hebrew language has meant to the people who have possessed it.”

[...]

The Mikveh Trail

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: On the Mikveh Trail, follow the rugged path of Jerusalem’s ancient pilgrims. Newly opened park takes you past many of the capital’s 200 ritual baths, used by visitors in the Second Temple era (AVIVA AND SHMUEL BAR-AM, Times of Israel).

Yet the hardships of the long expedition were quickly forgotten as the pilgrims approached Jerusalem. Bursting with excitement, they knew that soon they would be part of the hustle and bustle of the Holy City and able to worship the Lord just as He had commanded.

Of course, when they finally arrived, there was no way they could ascend to the Mount covered in dust and dirt from their travels. Even after bathing in the clear waters of the Shiloah Pool at David’s City, they were not yet ready to sacrifice in the Temple: They would still have to purify their minds and souls in a ritual bath called a mikveh. And that is why, of the 700 ritual baths uncovered so far throughout Israel, 200 are found in Jerusalem and, of these, fully 50 of them are located near the Temple Mount.

Lots of photos and interesting details in this article. Related post here.

The genuineness of the Ivory Pomegranate, mentioned in this article, is debated. The object is an ancient artifact, but the inscription may be a modern addition. Background here and links.

Starr, Classifying the Aramaic Texts from Qumran

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY:

Classifying the Aramaic Texts from Qumran
A Statistical Analysis of Linguistic Features

By: John Starr

Published: 15-12-2016
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 376
ISBN: 9780567667823
Imprint: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Series: The Library of Second Temple Studies
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
RRP: £85.00
Online price: £76.50

About Classifying the Aramaic Texts from Qumran

Analysis of the scroll fragments of the Qumran Aramaic scrolls has been plentiful to date. Their shared characteristics of being written in Aramaic, the common language of the region, not focused on the Qumran Community, and dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE have enabled the creation of a shared identity, distinguishing them from other fragments found in the same place at the same time. This classification, however, could yet be too simplistic as here, for the first time, John Starr applies sophisticated statistical analyses to newly available electronic versions of these fragments. In so doing, Starr presents a potential new classification which comprises six different text types which bear distinctive textual features, and thus is able to narrow down the classification both temporally and geographically.

Starr's re-visited classification presents fresh insights into the Aramaic texts at Qumran, with important implications for our understanding of the many strands that made up Judaism in the period leading to the writing of the New Testament.

4 Maccabees and the Fourth Philosophy?

READING ACTS: Fourth Maccabees and the Fourth Philosophy.

It is possible the book of 4 Maccabees represents the “fourth philosophy” mentioned by Josephus as a subgroup of Judaism in competition with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. It has been thought that this “fourth philosophy” referred to the Zealots, but this has been challenged by Richard Horsley in his work on first century messianic movements.

[...]

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

A Geniza magical fragment

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH: ‘Destroy the life of N.N.!’: A magical recipe: T-S AS 162.51. This is an old FOTM, from September 2007. I recently went back through the list and found a number of entries that seem worth mentioning but which I have not mentioned before. I'll be posting them from time to time. This one is a fragmentary magical text in Aramaic/Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic. The Cairo Geniza contains a great many magical texts. These often incorporate traditions that go back to late antiquity, or even, occasionally, the Second Temple period. It is very difficult to be sure how old the contents of this one are, but the themes in it go back to late antiquity.

The Temple vs. the Tabernacle

PROF. NAOMI KOLTUN-FROMM: The Readers Access to the Divine: Solomon’s Temple vs. Israel’s Mishkan (TheTorah.com).

The mishkan account as a polemical response to the Temple narrative.

The Nile and the Exodus

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Dissertation Spotlight | Nathalie LaCoste.

Nathalie LaCoste, Waters of the Exodus: Jewish Experiences with Water in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt (University of Toronto, 2016).

Jewish narratives are products of their physical environments. It is not only the social, cultural, and political contexts that shape biblical narratives, but the natural world in which they inhibit. In this dissertation I explore the role that the physical land of Egypt played in the transmission of the exodus narrative under Ptolemaic and Roman rule. Focusing on the writings by Egyptian Jews—Artapanus, Ezekiel the Tragedian, Wisdom of Solomon, and Philo of Alexandria—this dissertation explores how living in the hydric environment of Egypt, specifically along the Nile river, shaped the exodus story.

[...]

Veale on ancient curses

SARAH VEALE: Ancient Curses. This is the first I have had a good look at this website, although I see that Sarah put it up back in 2014. It has interesting information about a range of curses in antiquity, including biblical curses. There's also a blog, a bibliography page and a page of useful links.

Vance et al., Biblical Aramaic: A Reader & Handbook

HENDRICKSON PUBLISHERS BLOG: A Conversation about Biblical Aramaic: A Reader & Handbook.

If you study Biblical Aramaic and haven’t yet gotten a chance to explore this new handbook, you’re in luck. We sat down with Amy Paulsen-Reed, one of the editors, so she can tell us more about the book and how it was put together.

But first, a bit about the book. Biblical Aramaic: A Reader & Handbook is designed to enable students, pastors, and scholars to read the Aramaic portions of the Bible with understanding and confidence. Created by Donald R. Vance, George Athas, Yael Avrahami, and our very own Jonathan G. Kline (who also developed the questions below), it contains the full text of the Aramaic portions of the Bible, extensive vocabulary and word lists, and an apparatus that contextually glosses and parses 94% of all vocabulary.

[...]

This sounds like a very useful resource to go with a traditional Aramaic grammar.

HT Jim West.

Pagan oracles and Christian scriptures

CSCO BLOG: Scripture and the Oracles of God (Matthew Sharp).

... The first thing to acknowledge when bringing this comparison into the ancient world is that things are not nearly so clean-cut as the comparison suggests. Greek oracles, for instance, were not purely oral phenomena, but were often written down and brought into larger collections such as the Sibylline books at Rome, and other various collections attributed to seers of the legendary past, thus giving them a textual character more akin to a Jewish or Christian Bible.[2] It is also not as if early Christians were without their own prophets who operated alongside their reading of scriptural texts.

What I want to focus on is Parke’s point about function: Is the early Christian use of scripture analogous to the way oracles were used in the wider Mediterranean world?

4 Maccabees

READING ACTS: What is Fourth Maccabees?

4 Maccabees is included in several manuscripts of the LXX, including Vaticanus but was not included in the Vulgate. The book is therefore not a part of the Apocrypha although it is often included in introductions to the Apocrypha. It is also in manuscripts which contain the works of Josephus. This led Eusebius and Jerome to suggest Josephus was the author, but this has been universally rejected by modern scholarship.

[...]

Phil Long is back from Turkey. Past posts in his series on the Second Temple Period are noted here and links.

Review of Hughes, Jacob Neusner

REVIEWS OF THE ENOCH SEMINAR:

Jacob Neusner: An American Jewish Iconoclast
Reviews of the Enoch Seminar 2017.03.04
Aaron W. Hughes, Jacob Neusner: An American Jewish Iconoclast. New York: New York University Press, 2016. ISBN: 978-1-4798-8585-5. Pp. 319. $35.00. Hardcover.

Albert I. Baumgarten
Bar Ilan University

A long, thorough review. Excerpt:

This review will focus on two aspects of Hughes’ account of Neusner’s career, contributions, and place in scholarship: 1. How did Hughes balance his high estimation and praise of Neusner’s distinctive role in American academia with a critical appreciation of the more problematic aspects of Neusner’s life and work, a balance that is crucial for a meaningful biography? How can one be both an admiring and critical biographer? 2. What can one learn from Hughes’ book about the harsh and mutually demeaning relationship between Neusner and Israeli scholars, which was the talk of the discipline on both sides of the Atlantic, and which lasted for decades?

More on Babatha

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Babatha: The Ancient Jewish Woman About Whom We Know Most

Because of this archive we can say without fear of contradiction that we know more about her than we do about any other Jewish woman in antiquity.

See Also: Babatha's Orchard: The Yadin Papyri and an Ancient Jewish Family Tale Retold (Oxford University Press, 2017).

By Philip F. Esler
Portland Chair in New Testament Studies
Director of the International Centre for Biblical Interpretation
University of Gloucestershire
March 2017

Past posts on Esler's new book are here and here.

Natural Language Processing of Rabbinic Texts

THE TALMUD BLOG: Natural Language Processing of Rabbinic Texts: Contexts, Challenges, Opportunities. The Talmud Blog is happy to continue our series on the interface of Digital Humanities and the study of Rabbinic Literature with a post by Marton Ribary of University of Manchester.

I read Michael Satlow’s enthusiastic report on the Classical Philology Goes Digital Workshop with great pleasure. I am delighted to see how the study of Rabbinic literature moves towards the use of digital tools and especially Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods. Below I shall sketch the background of NLP methods applied to Rabbinic literature and what we can learn from projects concentrating on other classical linguistic data, notably Latin. I shall briefly discuss the enormous obstacles Rabbinic literature poses even compared to Latin, which means that our expectations to achieve meaningful results in standard 3-5 year research projects should be very moderate. Nevertheless, I shall argue that we should dream big and aim for courageous projects accompanied by an outward-looking strategy in order to attract big corporate money.

[...]

President Trump invokes Cyrus the Great

THE WHITE HOUSE has published a statement wishing a happy Persian New Year (Nowruz) to those who are celebrating it: Statement by President Donald J. Trump on Nowruz. Cyrus the Great is mentioned:

Cyrus the Great, a leader of the ancient Persian Empire, famously said that “[f]reedom, dignity, and wealth together constitute the greatest happiness of humanity. If you bequeath all three to your people, their love for you will never die.”

The quotation is from p. 119 of Larry Hedrick's book, Xenophon's Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War, which appears to be a very free paraphrase of Xenophon's Cyropaedia. I have poked around a fair bit in online translations of the original work and I can find nothing like this quotation or even this episode. If you know what passage inspired Hedrick's quote (I assume there's one that did somewhere), please drop me a note and let me know.

Meanwhile, over at The Forward, Sam Kestenbaum has some ideas about what the reference to Cyrus may have meant in the context of the White House statement: Did Trump Just Compare Himself To King Cyrus?

This is far from the first time that Cyrus has been invoked in a political context. I have commented on the rather overblown picture of him as a pioneer of human rights here and links. For other past posts on Cyrus the Great, see here and many links, as well as here and here.

Studia Orientalia

AWOL: Open Access Journal: Studia Orientalia. The subject matter of this journal is wide ranging, but if you poke around a bit, you will find some material on ancient Judaism and related matters.

Restored Edicule reopening

REPAIRS COMPLETED: Jesus' tomb to be reopened in Jerusalem after multi-million dollar restoration. According to Christian belief, Jesus's body was buried at what became the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (AP).

For background on the repairs and restoration of the tomb (of Jesus?) in the Holy Sepulcher (Holy Sepulchre), start here and follow the links.

The Longest Stone in the Temple Mount

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: The Longest Stone in the Temple Mount (Todd Bolen, Bible Places Blog). A recent discovery in plain sight.

On the construction of the Tabernacle

PROF. JONATHAN BEN-DOV: משכן – Tabernacle - The Materiality of a Divine Dwelling (TheTorah.com).

What makes a material suitable for constructing a sacred space, and why, given all of the details and repetitions concerning the mishkan, are none of its manufacturing techniques narrated?

With some interesting ancient Near Eastern background.

Mordecai

YONA SABAR: Hebrew Word of the Week: Purim Edition mordechkay "Mordecai." Slightly belatedly noted here. But with the bonus word boor (scroll down).

New Additions to e-Clavis

AWOL: New Additions to e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha (March 2017). Background on the e-Clavis online bibliography is here and here. Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch.

A visual guide to incantation bowl demons

NEWS YOU CAN USE: A visual guide to the demons that spooked the Jews of Babylon. A new study depicts for the first time what Lilith, the baby­-killing seductress, looked like to those who feared her and why Satan has a tail and horns (Nir Hasson, Haaretz).

Demons are well-known figures in Jewish mysticism. In the Talmud and elsewhere there is a wealth of information about their characters, warnings against them and means to dispel them. In keeping with the Jewish injunction prohibiting the making of statues and masks there are no visual aids to indicate how the demons look. There was a period in history, however, between the rise of Christianity and the Muslim conquest of the Middle East, when Jews (mainly in Babylon) gave demons a shape.

Painstakingly, archaeologist and art historian Dr. Naama Vilozny has copied these images, analyzed their attributes and put together the first visual catalog ever of Jewish demons. Scholars believe the reason Jews in Babylon undertook to draw demons between the 5th and the 7th centuries has to do with a series of relaxations of the strictures, which rabbis gave the Jews as a way of dealing with the challenged posed by the increasing strength of Christianity. Fearing that Jews might prefer the new religion, the rabbis agreed to allow magic that included visual images. The demons Vilozny researched were drawn on “incantation bowls” – simple pottery vessels the insides of which were covered with inscriptions and drawings.

[...]

I suspect the second paragraph above credits the rabbis anachronistically with more cultural authority than they had at the time. Be that as it may, this article gives good coverage of the demonology of the Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls and it also has some excellent photos of some of the demon images they bear. Information on Dr. Vilozny's dissertation is here:

However, until Vilozny’s doctoral dissertation, no one tried to decode and study the figures that appear on the bowls. In part, this might be because at first glance the figures look like robots. Vilozny copied the demon drawings from 122 bowls and the result is an extraordinary and unique collection of demons, both male and female, that might look like naïve drawings by children but for the people of those times were very palpable creatures. Recently Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi published the study in the book “Lilith’s Hair and Ashmedai’s Horns.”

For past PaleoJudaica posts on Lilith, start here and follow the many links. A past post involving Sammael is here and one involving Ashmedai is here. The third male demon, Bagdana, is new to PaleoJudaica. Some past posts on the Aramaic incantation bowls are collected here. And for more, run "incantation bowls" through the blog search engine.

The Haaretz article is behind a subscription paywall, but you can get access to it and a limited number of articles every month with a free registration.

The Talmud, property ownership, and the law of the kingdom

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Which Rules? The Law of the Kingdom, or the Law of the Jews? In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study, the rabbis debate whether Jews owe anything to gentiles, when it comes to property rights.

In the course of this discussion, the rabbis turn to the issue of what happens when a Jew purchases property from a gentile. Such transactions must have occurred regularly in Babylonia and throughout the diaspora, but their status under Jewish law remains problematic because halakha governs only transactions where both parties are Jewish. When a gentile sells land to a Jew, therefore, there is a moment in the process when the land is technically owned by nobody. “The gentile relinquishes ownership of it from the moment when the money reaches his hand, while the Jew does not acquire it until the deed reaches his hand,” we read in Bava Batra 54b.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Reviews of books by Kaiser and Yli-Karjanmaa on Philo

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Markus Witte (ed.), Otto Kaiser, Studien zu Philo von Alexandrien. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 501. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. Pp. vi, 174. ISBN 9783110494570. €99,95.

Sami Yli-Karjanmaa (ed.), Reincarnation in Philo of Alexandria. Studia Philonica Monographs 7. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015. Pp. 316. ISBN 9780884141211. $42.95.

Reviewed by Maren R. Niehoff, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (maren.niehoff@mail.huji.ac.il)

Witte Table of Contents
Yli-Karjanmaa Preview

These two volumes on Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish philosopher and exegete active in the first century CE, are in many respects opposites of each other. Kaiser offers a collection of articles, partly republished and partly newly written, which complements his recent monograph Philo of Alexandria. Denkender Glaube – Eine Einführung (Göttingen 2015) and marks the end of an exceptionally long and productive career. Yli-Karjanmaa, by contrast, has published his doctoral thesis, which is based on his MA thesis. While Kaiser introduces the reader to Philo by discussing a broad spectrum of topics, Yli-Karjanmaa makes one consistent argument for experts, taking one passage of Philo’s work (Somn. 1.138-9) as his starting point and the hermeneutic lens through which he interprets his whole oeuvre. Moreover, Kaiser celebrates Philo as a Jewish theologian and observant Jew, who was familiar with a wide range of philosophies and texts but always defined his distinct way of addressing the God of Israel. Yli- Karjanmaa, on the other hand, focuses on one kind of philosophy and argues that Philo adopted Plato’s theory of the soul’s reincarnation, with all the implications this has in Plato’s philosophy, even though he does not make all these aspects explicit. Finally, Kaiser easily draws from his vast knowledge of numerous texts and cultures, while Yli-Karjanmaa bases himself on advanced computer searches, which provide him with parallel expressions in other texts. Both authors invite us to explore Philo further and understand his intellectual context.

[...]

Review of Jason, Repentance at Qumran

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: The Evolution and Experience of Repentance at Qumran (Carmen Palmer).

In Mark A. Jason’s revised doctoral dissertation, Repentance at Qumran: The Penitential Framework of Religious Experience in the Dead Sea Scrolls, he argues that for the Qumran community, “repentance was the very basis of the community’s existence,” and that the community exists within one overarching “penitential worldview” (249–250). Beginning with a working definition of repentance as that which entails “the radical turning away from anything which hinders one’s whole-hearted devotion to God and the corresponding turning to God in love and obedience” (as defined by Jacob Milgrom, 8), Jason gradually builds his own definition of repentance at Qumran. He does this by means of a study of various Dead Sea Scrolls, as compared to scriptural and other Second Temple literature.

[...]

Earlier 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.

Emek Shaveh's tunnel petition to be heard by High Court

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: HIGH COURT TO CONSIDER RELIGIOUS STATUS OF WESTERN WALL TUNNEL. The left-wing consortium of archeologists and activists submitted the petition to the High Court in December (Daniel K. Eisenbud, Jerusalem Post).

The High Court of Justice on Wednesday will hear NGO Emek Shaveh’s petition against the Religious Services Ministry over claims regarding the religious sanctity and ongoing excavation of the Old City’s Western Wall tunnel.

The left-wing consortium of archeologists and activists submitted the petition to the High Court in December, noting that the tunnel, which was excavated by the Israel Antiquities Authority, runs under the Old City’s Muslim Quarter.

I noted the filing of the petition here back in December. The current article answers some of the questions I posted there by clarifying the process that Emek Shaveh argues should have been followed.

The petition followed a November 6 notice by the ministry stating that the tunnel is recognized as a sacred site only by Jews, although Emek Shaveh contends that a legally mandated ministerial committee was not assembled to make the determination or approve the excavation.

According to the Antiquities Law, excavating a sacred site in the country first necessitates the assemblage of a ministerial committee for approval. The committee must include the ministers of Culture, Religious Services and Justice.

Cross-file under Archaeology and Politics. Emek Shaveh has also been in the news in another story noted here.

Another Arch of Titus

EXCAVATION: Second Monumental Arch of Titus Celebrating Victory over Jews Found in Rome. Arch unearthed at the entrance of the Circus Maximus was built by Titus' brother Domitian, boasting of how the Romans had done the undoable and 'subdued the Jews' (Ariel David, Haaretz).

It wasn’t enough for the Romans to enslave the Jews, plunder Judea, conquer Jerusalem, destroy the Temple and then erect a massive triumphal arch to commemorate those feats of war for millennia to come: They had to build a second, even larger monument to celebrate their victory.

Archaeologists in Rome have uncovered the remains of a second triumphal arch dedicated to the emperor Titus and his success in putting down the Great Revolt of the Jews in the first century C.E.

[...]

There isn't much left of it. The inscription survives only in a much later transcription:

As much is confirmed by the arch’s dedicatory inscription, which has not survived, but was transcribed into the account of an anonymous ninth-century pilgrim. The text bombastically proclaimed how Titus, “following the advice and direction of his father, subdued the Jewish people and destroyed Jerusalem, something which all other generals, kings and peoples before him had not even attempted or had failed to accomplish.”

Beyond that:

Today, only a few broken fluted columns, the plinths on which the arch stood and fragments of the decorations have been recovered amongst the ruins of the Roman bleachers and a later medieval fortification. We do not know what scenes from the Great Revolt or Titus’ triumph decorated this arch. The only figurative decoration recovered is fragments showing the legs of some combatants, and the face of a Roman soldier.

I have posted photos of the first Arch of Titus here. That one is mentioned in many PaleoJudaica posts, for example, recently, here and here and links.

Byzantine-era coin hoard found near Jerusalem

NUMISMATICS: Hoard of coins from 1,400-year-old Byzantine site tells story of Persian invasion. As Jewish and Sassanid troops marched on Jerusalem in 614 CE, Christian residents of village on main pilgrimage route hid their valuables; now, nine copper coins hidden in a niche have been recovered (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel).

As a Persian army supported by a horde of Jewish rebels marched on Jerusalem in 614 CE, Christians inhabiting a town on the main route inland to the city hid a hoard of valuables in the hope of returning in more peaceful times.

Fast-forward 1,400 years to the summer of 2016, when Israeli engineers were widening that same highway, running from the Mediterranean past Abu Ghosh west of the capital, and archaeologists were called in to excavate some Byzantine ruins. Beneath the rubble of a building they found a hoard of nine copper coins dating to around 614 CE, when a Persian empire briefly reigned in Jerusalem just before the rise of Islam.

[...]

For the gold hoard found at the base of the Temple Mount in 2013, see here and here.

Review of Stoneman, Xerxes: A Persian Life

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Richard Stoneman, Xerxes: A Persian Life. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2015. Pp. xi, 275. ISBN 9780300180077. $38.00.

Reviewed by Michael Iliakis (miliakis@gmail.com)

Preview

Xerxes I (518 – 465, r. 486 – 465 BCE) was the fourth king of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (ca. 550 – 330 BCE), grandson of its founder, Cyrus the Great (600 – 530, r. 559 – 530 BCE), and son of its most prominent ruler, Darius the Great (550 – 486, r. 522 – 486 BCE). He is best remembered by ancient and modern scholars for his failed attempt to conquer mainland Greece in 480 – 479. In the present volume Richard Stoneman has two aims: to discern the origins of this image of Xerxes and “to recreate something of what it was to be the ruler of the largest empire the world had yet seen”.

Chapter one is devoted to the turbulent events surrounding Darius’ and Xerxes’ accession to the throne and includes information about the education and the investiture of Xerxes, which is relevant for Xerxes’ successors as well.

Chapter two examines the Persian Empire’s territory, economy, cultural and political influence within its borders as well as its court and high officials (with a focus on those of non-Persian descent). This chapter also contains an informative section on Greek and Jewish authors and texts contemporary or near-contemporary to Xerxes that are or can be used as source material for his life and exploits. However, this interposing section disrupts the chapter’s cohesion somewhat and would have served the book better if it had been included in the introduction instead.

[...]

In Biblical Studies, Xerxes is best known as the King Ahasuerus of the legendary story in the Book of Esther. I noted Stoneman's book recently here.

Emek Shaveh objects to Israel Prize for Be'eri

POLITICS: LEFT-WING NGO DENOUNCES ISRAEL PRIZE LAUREATE DAVID BE’ERI (Daniel K. Eisenbud, Jerusalem Post).

Emek Shaveh, a left-wing consortium of archeologists and activists that has repeatedly condemned the “Judaization” of east Jerusalem, criticized the selection of Ir David Foundation chairman David Be’eri as one of this year’s Israel Prize winners.

[...]

I would have been shocked if they hadn't. Gabriel Barkay (Barkai) has a different view:

Not so, said celebrated archeologist Dr. Gabriel Barkay, cofounder and co-director of the Temple Mount Sifting Project, as well as a Jerusalem Prize laureate, who said Emek Shaveh is misguided in its criticism of Be’eri.

Background on this story is here. For background on Elad, follow the links there. Past posts on Emek Shaveh are collected here.

IAA has Easter show

AT BEIT SHEMESH: Finds from the time of Jesus. Israeli artifacts provide clues to Christ's life (Daniel Estrin, AP). Easter is the excuse for this IAA warehouse exhibition for journalists, but it did seem to have some interesting items on display. For the ossuary of the granddaughter of Caiaphas, see here and here. And for background on the crucified man skeleton, see here and links.

NOTE: this post has been corrected to indicate the correct relationship of Miriam to Caiaphas.

Reviewlet of Closs, The Book of Mary

APOCRYPHICITY: Book Note: The Book of Mary by Michael P. Closs (Tony Burke).

Michael P. Closs. The Book of Mary: A Commentary on the Protevangelium of James. Victoria, BC: Friesen Press, 2016.

This self-published commentary by retired University of Ottawa professor Michael Closs is a welcome tool for study of Prot. Jas., as there are few other commentaries available on the text—indeed, there are few available on any apocryphal texts! ...

Ezekiel and the red heifer purification rite

ETHAN SCHWARTZ: The Red Heifer in Synagogue: Purifying Israel from Sin (TheTorah.com).

Ezekiel 36 uses Priestly “purification” imagery similar to that of the red heifer ritual to describe God’s future reconciliation with Israel, inspiring the rabbis to choose this passage as the haftara for Parashat Parah.

I have some thoughts on Ezekiel and the Zadokite Priesthood here which are perhaps relevant.

Popović et al. (eds.), Jewish Cultural Encounters in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern World

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Jewish Cultural Encounters in the Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern World

Edited by Mladen Popović, University of Groningen, Myles Schoonover, University of Groningen, and Marijn Vandenberghe University of Gent, University of Groningen
The essays in this volume originate from the Third Qumran Institute Symposium held at the University of Groningen, December 2013. Taking the flexible concept of “cultural encounter” as a starting point, the essays in this volume bring together a panoply of approaches to the study of various cultural interactions between the people of ancient Israel, Judea, and Palestine and people from other parts of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern world.

In order to study how cultural encounters shaped historical development, literary traditions, religious practice and political systems, the contributors employ a broad spectrum of theoretical positions (e.g., hybridity, métissage, frontier studies, postcolonialism, entangled histories and multilingualism), to interpret a diverse set of literary, documentary, archaeological, epigraphic, numismatic, and iconographic sources.

I noted the symposium when it was upcoming in late 2013.

Waters, Ctesias’ Persica and its Near Eastern Context

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Ctesias’ Persica and its Near Eastern Context. Notice of a new book: Waters, Matt. 2017. Ctesias’ Persica and its Near Eastern context (Wisconsin Studies in Classics). University of Wisconsin Press. Follow the link for a description and ordering information.

Hurtado on Jesus in the Gospels

LARRY HURTADO: Jesus in the Gospels.

In the light of recent discussion about how the Gospels present Jesus, I offer some observations intended to underscore and summarize my own views, and, hopefully, to promote some clear thinking by all.[1] Readers’ alert: This will be a long posting.

[...]

This especially in relation to his recent review of A Man Attested by God, Daniel Kirk's new book on Jesus in the Synoptics.

The Good Ship Ma’agan Michael II

ANOTHER REPLICA OF AN ANCIENT SHIP: Replica of 2,500-year-old ship found off Israel christened ahead of maiden voyage. ‘Ma’agan Michael II’ gets set to sail down the coast from Haifa to Herzliya as part of project to crack mystery of ancient seafaring (Ilan Ben Zion, Times of Israel).

HAIFA — A replica of a 2,500-year-old trading ship found off the coast of Israel was christened in Haifa Friday morning, ahead of its first voyage out of the shelter of the bay later this month.

The keel of the “Ma’agan Michael II,” named after the kibbutz where its ancient forerunner was found in 1985, was laid in July 2014 as part of a joint project by the University of Haifa’s Department of Maritime Civilizations and the Israel Antiquities Authority.

On Friday morning, the university and IAA poured a libation of wine to Poseidon and cast off for a quick jaunt around the bay. Later this month, however, the ship will make its maiden voyage down the coast to Herzliya, a three-day sail.

[...]

I noted the announcement of the project back in 2015. Regular readers will be reminded of the Good Ship Phoenicia, a very successful reconstruction of an ancient Phoenician vessel. PaleoJudaica followed the progress of the voyage of the Phoenicia around Africa over a period of years. I wish the Ma’agan Michael II a similarly sucessful career.

Five museums for book lovers

BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS, AND SCROLLS: Five Best Museums For Book Lovers (Sheobi Anne Ramos, Travelers Today).

For book lovers around the globe, nothing is better than being inside a library or even just a room full of books. The scent of the pages is relaxing, and spending hours curled up with a good novel in hand is time well spent.

There are actually museums around the world dedicated to books, and if you're a bibliophile, these places might pique your interest. Pore over displays of original manuscripts and limited edition copies of books from way before, or just simply admire all these preserved pages and wonder about the stories written in them.

Fancy going in on one? Here are some of the best museums for book lovers.

I'm sure all five are excellent, but I want to flag the two with which I've had some experience.

British Library, London. The British Library is more like a museum than a library, and it's because of their free, daily exhibitions of book treasures that will make your hair stand on end. Imagine looking with your very own eyes the world's earliest printed book and the original manuscript of Beowulf-it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The British Library appears frequently in PaleoJudaica posts. Some recent examples are here, here, here, here, and here.

Shrine Of The Book, Jerusalem. This museum is probably one of the most treasured museums in the world, only because it holds the famed Dead Sea Scrolls, the foundation upon which Christianity was born. The museum itself is a marvel-it's designed like the jars where the scrolls are found in Qumran in 1947.

The Shrine of the Book is part of the Israel Museum, which contains many marvels. A few recent posts involving the Shrine of the Book are here, here, and here.

Review of Morgan, Roman Faith and Christian Faith

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note | Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches (Sarah Porter).

Teresa Morgan. Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches. Oxford University Press, 2015.

Ancient Judaism also receives attention in chapter 5, which deals with the Septuagint.

What Was the Sin of the Golden Calf?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: What Was the Sin of the Golden Calf? (Prof. Joel Baden, TheTorah.com)

Many scholars, traditional and academic, believe it was worship of another god, the first commandment in the Decalogue, but what Aaron actually claims about the calf points to a different collection of laws.

I agree that it is clear that the golden calf was a representation YHWH and has something to do with Jeroboam's cult at Bethel and Dan. But what exactly the objection was is less clear. My late teacher Frank Moore Cross thought that the issue was iconographic: YHWH was supposed to be portrayed as enthroned above two cherubim, not two bulls.

Dabir 03

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: "Issue 03 – Dabir Journal. Issue 03 of Dabir, an open access on-line journal for Iranian Studies, is out now. Dabir is published by the Jordan Center for Persian Studies."

There is nothing in this issue of direct relevance for ancient Judaism, but the article on the Iranian "Paradise" and the review of Richard Stoneman's biography of Xerxes are of background interest.

Earlier issues of Dabir have been noted here, here and here.

Palimpsests at St. Catherine's Monastery

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Ancient Parchments Reveal Old Texts Concealed by Newer Ones. In a sixth-century Egyptian monastery’s library, high-tech imaging of parchments reveals thousands of pages of hidden text. (A. R. Williams, National Geographic).

So far the imaging has revealed some 6,800 hidden pages in 74 of the monastery’s 163 recycled parchments, called palimpsests. “We have identified erased texts in 10 languages that date from the fifth to the 12th centuries,” says Michael Phelps, the director of the recovery effort. In the example above, a text in Syriac overlays a ninth-century translation of a page from a medical treatise by the ancient Greco-Roman physician known as Galen.

With dozens of palimpsests yet to be scanned, Phelps believes there are still treasures to come: “It’s not unlikely that St. Catherine’s holds many more pages of previously unidentified and unstudied texts from antiquity.”

Bit by bit, a letter at a time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.

The inception of this project in 2011 was noted here. And for posts on other palimpsests, start here and follow the links.

Access to article on the First Jewish Revolt

FREE SAMPLE: Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception Online: Jewish Revolt, First (Mladen Popović, Marijn Vandenberghe).

The Jewish Revolt against Rome (66–73/4 CE) was a major historical event, affecting Jewish and Roman history and the history of Jewish-Christian relations. The First Jewish Revolt proved disastrous for those in Judea: the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, ending the sacrificial cult; some major sites were thoroughly devastated; people were killed or enslaved. The revolt and its suppression caused a disruption in Judean society and also affected Jews outside of Judea (fiscus iudaicus). This article will address (1) the sources that are available for a history of the First Jewish Revolt; (2) scholarly explanations of what happened; and (3) the earliest reception history of the revolt.

Follow the link to read the whole article. For you, special deal!

Elad founder wins 2017 Israel Prize

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL: East Jerusalem ‘modern builder’ awarded Israel Prize.

Education Minsiter Naftali Bennett announces David Be’eri, the founder and chairman of the City of David Foundation, as one of the winners of the 2017 Israel Prize, considered the country’s highest accolade.

Also known as Elad, the City of David Foundation is an Israeli NGO that oversees the Ir David archaeological park in Silwan and is dedicated to facilitating Jewish settlement in Arab East Jerusalem. In recent years it has helped several new Jewish neighborhoods or complexes which have sprung up in heavily populated areas of East Jerusalem, often accompanied by protests or legal challenges. Ir David itself houses about 50 families in a small community.

[...]

Well, congratulations to Mr Be’eri. Elad is a controversial organization, but it has made itself a major player in Israel's archaeological scene. And the Israel Prize is a big honor.

For past PaleoJudaica posts on Elad, start here and follow the links. Information on some past recipients of the Israel Prize is collected here.

Keady, Vulnerability and Valour

NEW BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY:

Vulnerability and Valour
A Gendered Analysis of Everyday Life in the Dead Sea Scrolls Communities

By: Jessica M. Keady

Published: 23-02-2017
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 240
ISBN: 9780567672247
Imprint: Bloomsbury T&T Clark
Series: The Library of Second Temple Studies
Volume: 91
Dimensions: 234 x 156 mm
RRP: £85.00
Online price: £76.50

About Vulnerability and Valour

Jessica M. Keady uses insights from social science and gender theory to shed light on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the community at Qumran. Through her analysis Keady shows that it was not only women who could be viewed as an impure problem, but also that men shared these characteristics as well.

The first framework adopted by Keady is masculinity studies, specifically Raewyn Connell's hegemonic masculinity, which Keady applies to the Rule of the Community (in its 1QS form) and the War Scroll (in its 1QM form), to demonstrate the vulnerable and uncontrollable aspects of ordinary male impurities. Secondly, the embodied and empowered aspects of impure women are revealed through an application of embodiment theories to selected passages from 4QD (4Q266 and 4Q272) and 4QTohorot A (4Q274). Thirdly, sociological insights from Susie Scott's understanding of the everyday - through the mundane, the routine and the breaking of rules - reveal how impurity disrupts the constructions of daily life. Keady applies Scott's three conceptual features for understanding the everyday to the Temple Scroll (11QTa) and the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa) to demonstrate the changing dynamics between ordinary impure males and impure females.

Underlying each of these three points is the premise that gender and purity in the Dead Sea Scrolls communities are performative, dynamic and constantly changing.

Strootman and Versluys (eds.), Persianism in antiquity

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Persianism in Antiquity. Notice of a new book: Strootman, Rolf & Miguel John Versluys (eds.). 2017. Persianism in antiquity (Oriens et Occidens 25). Franz Steiner Verlag.

Follow the link for a description and the TOC. Ancient Judaism is represented in a couple of the essays.

Underwater looting

MARITIME ARCHAEOLOGY: Diving Robbers Are Looting Underwater Treasures, Archaeologists Wail. Robbing marine antiquities is hardly a lucrative business but fish aren't about to enforce international maritime law, leaving the authorities almost helpless to stop the thieves (Philippe Bohstrom, Haaretz).

A few years ago, the remains of a crusader-era shipwreck and a horde of gold were found underwater, in the bay of Acre, and have now been reported. If the archaeologists had tarried, they might have found little beyond ancient rotting timbers.

Diving robbers looting underwater sites are the bane of marine archaeologists. The items stolen from the sea floor, ranging from coins to amphorae to a life-sized bronze statue of Apollo to scrap metal from World War II warships, are usually sold on the black market. Worse, stopping the ravage of the ancient sites is all but impossible, the authorities admit: they can hardly post underwater guards.

The problem of maritime looting is especially acute in Israel, say experts.

[...]

Regular readers will remember the story of the Apollo of Gaza from a few years ago:

For all the digging and looting, sometimes wonderful treasures still resurface. One day in 2013, a local fisherman, Jawdat Abu Ghrab, discovered a rare bronze statue of the Greek god Apollo in the sea outside the town of Deir Al-Balah, Gaza.  
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/1.777473

The 1.7-meter-tall work weighed about 300 kilograms. With some help, Abu Ghrab extracted it from the water and put into his family's home, with the statue's male parts covered up. After some weeks, rumors of the statue spread and the Palestinian authorities confiscated it, promising to pay Abu Ghrab some fraction of the statue's value as compensation. 

The Palestinian Antiquities Authority for one says it's worth around $340 million, according to al-Jazeera, which could help explain why the fisherman reportedly hasn't received the promised compensation.
In any case, the statue mysteriously vanished from the public eye in April 2014, though it had been in the possession of the police. Possibly looting isn't confined to thieves.

It bears adding that some experts, including Jean-Baptiste Humbert, director of le Laboratoire d’Archéologie de l’École Biblique in Jerusalem, don't buy the story of the fisherman finding the statue in the sea near Egypt. The statue's color and excellent condition argue that it was discovered inland, underground, they say. Why would the fisherman lie? Possibly to avoid arguments of ownership or to avoid revealing that it was found while digging tunnels to nearby Egypt.

And it's possible that it's a fake. Past PaleoJudaica posts on the discovery of the Apollo of Gaza and on questions about its real provenance and even its authenticity are here, here, here, here, and here.

Dome of the Rock inspired by the Temple?

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: 'Dome of the Rock inspired by Jewish Temple.' Archaeological findings and historical records show Dome of Rock inspired by Jewish temple. Findings presented today in Knesset (Mordechai Sones, Arutz Sheva).

Archaeologist Asaf Avraham, former director of the Jerusalem Walls National Park of the Parks Authority, is a guest of the opening conference of the Knesset lobby to strengthen Jewish ties to the Temple Mount heritage.

At the event Avraham is expected to expose data and evidence that suggest that the Dome of the Rock was inspired by the Jewish Temple. In an interview with Arutz Sheva he encapsulates the research to be discussed in the conference:

"The lecture is a continuation of a previous lecture four months ago when I published a finding of writings from a thousand years ago, writings from the Muslim village Nuva next to Hevron, which mentions the term Sachrat Beit El Maqdis, which translates: 'Rock of the Holy Temple'.

[...]

The headline could be phrased more precisely. The claim seems to be that the builders of the Dome of the Rock were aware of traditions about the Temple and chose its location with them in mind. Read the article for details. The blueprint of the Dome itself was not based on the Temple, as might be implied by the headline.

The discovery of the Hebron inscription was noted here.

Looting arrests at Horvat Mishkena

APPREHENDED: Antiquities thieves caught red-handed. Arabs use backhoe loader in attempt to loot archaeological site (Orly Harari, Arutz Sheva).

On Tuesday afternoon an off-duty Border Police volunteer noticed a backhoe loader working on fields near the Golani Interchange.

The volunteer knew the area well, and knew the field in question was part of the Horvat Mishkena archaeological site, and had been a Jewish village during the Roman period.

He immediately called in supervisors from the Israel Antiquities Authority's Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery, as well as police and Border Police. The units arrived with the equipment necessary for the capture and arrest of the suspects.

When the preparations had been completed, the forces entered the area while recording their findings and the suspects' movements. They then arrested five suspects from the northern Arab town of Tur'an.

The suspects, three adults and two minors, were transferred to the Antiquities Authority for questioning. The backhoe loader was confiscated.

[...]

Sadly, this sort of story is all too common. And those are just the cases in which arrests are made. The full scale of the looting is presumably larger.

Of Putin, Netanyahu, and Josephus

POLITICS: During Moscow Visit, Netanyahu Receives Special Gift From Putin — a Nearly 500-Year-Old Copy of Josephus’ The Jewish War (Barney Breen-Portnoy, The Algemeiner).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a special gift from Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Moscow on Thursday — a nearly 500-year-old copy of Roman-Jewish historian Josephus’ book The Jewish War.

The copy given to Netanyahu at the Kremlin on Thursday was printed in Italy in 1526.

The Israeli prime minister said he was “moved” by Putin’s gesture.

[...]

There's video.

Background here. The earlier exchange between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Putin let to a pointed exchange of historical reflections between Mr. Netanyahu and various Iranian officials. This didn't seem of much interest and I didn't mention it. But now that Josephus is involved, some attention is merited.

The History of the Achaemenid Empire

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The 220-Year History of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber, TheTorah.com).

An overview of Persian history starting from Cyrus the Great’s conquest of Media (549 B.C.E.) until Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia (334-329 B.C.E.), including related biblical references and Jewish texts.

Belatedly for Pi Day

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Equation for the Calculation of Scroll Length (Drew Longacre, OTTC Blog).

Let's Study Greek

JAMES MCGRATH: Learning Ancient Greek as a Spoken Language.

One of the most impressive items that I saw at SBL this year, and purchased there, is their Speak Koine Greek: A Conversational Phrasebook. It is exactly what it sounds like – a phrase book for ancient Koine that resembles the format and contents that you would expect if you’ve ever used any foreign language phrasebook before in your life.

This sounds like fun. When I was in high school I taught myself Biblical Hebrew and New Testament Greek.* For Greek I used Clarence Hale's introductory grammar Lets Study Greek (and my copy had that same garish purple cover).



Its approach was not dissimilar to what James describes above. Rather than using passages from the New Testament, it gave the student progressively harder passages composed by the author in New Testament Greek. These were little stories with conversations and adventures. "Hi Peter." "Hi John." "How are you?" "I have a fever." "The merchant was a bad man." "The slave was wise and healed the little boy's fever." And so on. I can't find it right now, but I'm pretty sure I still have it around somewhere.

I don't know whether that is the best pedagogical approach for teaching an ancient language, but it worked for me in high school. By the time I finished the grammar I could read the New Testament in Greek reasonably well.

*Yes, I know. Nerd to infinity.

Metatron in Scotland

ARCHANGEL METATRON WATCH: Drake, Elvis and Ziggy amongst BIZARRE list of names given to babies born in Scotland. HARLEY-DAVIDSON, Cleopatra and Jynxx-Blu are among the most bizarre names given to babies born in Scotland over the past year, a new report has revealed (GREG CHRISTISON, The Express). Guess which other name was registered in Scotland last year? I bet you can guess.

Other unusual choices include Metatron, Ocean and Osama, while two babies were simply called A and Y, according to the National Records of Scotland.

The name Metatron only appeared once.

Review of Hasselbalch, Meaning and Context in the Thanksgiving Hymns

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Sociolinguistics and the Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns) (Michael Johnson).

Meaning and Context in the Thanksgiving Hymns is the revised version of Trine Bjørnung Hasselbalch’s 2011 doctoral dissertation, supervised by Bodil Ejrnæs, which applies elements of the sociolinguistic approach called Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to analyze the texts in the poetic collection, 1QHodayota. 1QHa is the largest extant manuscript of the “Thanksgiving Hymns” from Qumran, discovered among the Dead Sea scrolls of Cave 1 in 1947. The psalms are written from a first-person “I” perspective, and they address God by giving thanks or praising God for special knowledge, spiritual strength, and deliverance from distress. The objective of Hasselbalch’s investigation is to use SFL and CDA to recover information about the social context of 1QHa that has been encoded into the lexicon and grammar of the text and into the selection of certain psalms for this collection.

[...]

Earlier 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.

hafTarah

YONA SABAR: Hebrew Word of the Week: hafTarah - "haftarah" (ending).

17-spout "Herodian" lamp emerges in the Netherlands

BUT HOW DID IT GET THERE? Jewish artist unearths ancient ‘star-shaped lamp’ at Maastricht fair. David Breuer-Weill recalls stumbling upon an ancient Jewish candle-holder at an arts fair in the Netherlands (STEPHEN ORYSZCZUK, Jewish News).

A Jewish artist from London has recalled how he stumbled upon the significance of an ancient Jewish candle-holder being exhibited at an exclusive arts fair in Maastricht.

David Breuer-Weill came across the “visually-striking, star-shaped lamp” last week and has since learned that it is one of only three such examples to have survived from the reign of King Herod.

[...]

UPDATE (15 March): Archaeologist David Stacey e-mails the following:

Re yesterday's post.

The multi-spouted lamp found in Jericho - and, incidentally dug up by my own fair hands - was not found in Herod's Palace but in a 1st CE villa built upon its ruins. Thus it is not 'Herodian' but is dated to the 1st CE. As it was found in an archaeological context dating a similar lamp - a replica? - to the time of Herod is erroneous.

Fixed-term Biblical Hebrew Philology post at Cambridge

ACADEMIC JOB:

Research Associate
University of Cambridge - Department of Middle Eastern Studies
Location: Cambridge
Salary: £29,301 to £38,183
Hours: Full Time
Contract Type: Contract / Temporary
Placed on: 13th March 2017
Closes: 16th April 2017
Job Ref: GY11667

Fixed-term: The funds for this post are available for 3 years in the first instance.

Applications are invited for the post of Research Associate in Biblical Hebrew Philology in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, beginning 1st October 2017 for three years.

The holder of the post will work with Professor Geoffrey Khan on a reference grammar of Biblical Hebrew. Professor Khan has been commissioned by Oxford University Press to write a reference grammar that updates and expands the Hebrew Grammar of Wilhelm Gesenius. The new grammar will bring together the full range of diverse traditions of the language, both written and oral. The grammar will advance the field of Biblical Hebrew both by taking a holistic approach and also by presenting new research discoveries.

The Research Associate will be expected to divide his/her time equally between an independent research project on Biblical Hebrew philology and working directly with Professor Khan on the production of the reference grammar. The project of the Research Associate would be expected to result in a publication that would advance the field of Biblical Hebrew.

The Research Associate would be a member of the Hebrew Studies group in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies. Hebrew Studies currently includes teaching staff in the fields of Biblical, Medieval and Modern Hebrew, in addition to post-doctoral researchers, graduates and undergraduates.

[...]

Follow the link for application information etc.

The Talmud on grounds for property ownership

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Does the Talmud Legalize Squatting? In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ putting limits on property rights.

Over the last several weeks, Daf Yomi readers have explored the Talmudic laws governing the possession of real property. The rule of thumb stated in Tractate Bava Batra is that anyone who makes use of a piece of property—such as a field or a house—for three consecutive years is presumed to be its legal owner. But this formula left open a question that I have been wondering about: Does it legalize squatting? That is, does mere possession qualify as legal ownership, or does the possessor also have to give a valid explanation for how he came to own the property in the first place? If not, then anyone who was stealthy or lucky enough to usurp a neighbor’s field for three years would gain title to it, which hardly seems fair.

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

BiTTaHon

YONA SABAR: Hebrew Word of the Week: biTTaHon - "trust (in God); confidence; security." A biblical word with modern Israeli usages.

Temple Mount Heritage Fund proposed

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Regev, Elkin, to Establish Temple Mount Heritage Fund in Response to UNESCO (David Israel, The Jewish Press).

Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev and Minister for the Environment and for Jerusalem Zeev Elkin have decided to establish the Temple Mount Heritage Fund, with an annual budget of about $550,000, to promote awareness of the Jewish historic connection to the Temple Mount, Yedioth Aharonoth reported Monday.

[...]

HT reader Yoel.

New LXX PhD program at McMaster

WILLIAM A. ROSS: NEW PHD PROGRAM IN SEPTUAGINT STUDIES (MCMASTER DIVINITY COLLEGE) (Septuaginta &C. Blog). Looks good.

Pirngruber, The economy of late Achaemenid and Seleucid Babylonia

BIBLIOGRAPHI IRANICA: The Economy of Late Achaemenid and Seleucid Babylonia. Notice of a new book: Pirngruber, Reinhard. 2017. The economy of late Achaemenid and Seleucid Babylonia. Cambridge University Press. Follow the link for a description and ordering information.

Haman’s Antisemitism

ONE MORE FOR PURIM: Haman’s Antisemitism: What Did He Not Like About the Jews? (Prof. Rabbi Martin Lockshin, TheTorah.com).

The book of Esther is a study in antisemitism. It is the only biblical book that portrays antisemitism, and itself has been the subject of criticism with antisemitic overtones.

Pasul

YONA SABAR: Hebrew Word of the Week: pasul - "disqualified, unfit, useless." These columns have not been showing in Google searches, perhaps because of their new, uncopiable format. But I have dug up a few recent ones and will be sharing them in the coming days.

Reading Acts is in Turkey

READING ACTS: Reading Acts Goes to Turkey.

This week I am on a short trip in Turkey, visiting many of the typical sites you might expect in Istanbul. I am obviously looking forward to Ephesus, but our short tour is packed. Usually these kind of tours overplay the “seven cities of Revelation” angle, but the group seems more interested in the Pauline studies aspect of these sites. Our guide Mark Wilson has an excellent article in the most recent Tyndel Bulletin on Paul’s second missionary journey, so I am expecting great things over the next few days.

And Phil Long has one Turkey post up already: Touring Istanbul in the Rain. It includes a nice photo of the Gezer Calendar.

Writer-identification in the DSS

SOME PRELIMINARY RESULTS:

A Digital Palaeographic Approach towards Writer Identification in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Topics: Feature Selection and Extraction; Image Understanding

In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Pattern Recognition Applications and Methods - Volume 1: ICPRAM, 693-702, 2017, Porto, Portugal

Authors: Maruf A. Dhali 1 ; Sheng He 1 ; Mladen Popović 1 ; Eibert Tigchelaar 2 and Lambert Schomaker 1

Affiliations: 1 University of Groningen, Netherlands ; 2 KU Leuven, Belgium

ISBN: 978-989-758-222-6

Keyword(s): Dead Sea Scrolls, Handwritten Document Analysis, Digital Palaeography, Writer Identification, Handwriting Recognition, Pattern Recognition, Feature Representation, Machine Learning.

Related Ontology Subjects/Areas/Topics: Applications ; Computer Vision, Visualization and Computer Graphics ; Feature Selection and Extraction ; Image Understanding ; Pattern Recognition ; Theory and Methods

Abstract: To understand the historical context of an ancient manuscript, scholars rely on the prior knowledge of writer and date of that document. In this paper, we study the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of ancient manuscripts with immense historical, religious, and linguistic significance, which was discovered in the mid-20th century near the Dead Sea. Most of the manuscripts of this collection have become digitally available only recently and techniques from the pattern recognition field can be applied to revise existing hypotheses on the writers and dates of these scrolls. This paper presents our ongoing work which aims to introduce digital palaeography to the field and generate fresh empirical data by means of pattern recognition and artificial intelligence. Challenges in analyzing the Dead Sea Scrolls are highlighted by a pilot experiment identifying the writers using several dedicated features. Finally, we discuss whether to use specifically-designed shape features for writer identification or to use the Deep Learning methods on a relatively limited ancient manuscript collection which is degraded over the course of time and is not labeled, as in the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The project was noted last year here.

Allen, The Book of Revelation and Early Jewish Textual Culture

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM CUP:

The Book of Revelation and Early Jewish Textual Culture

Part of Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series

AUTHOR: Garrick V. Allen, Dublin City University
PUBLICATION PLANNED FOR: June 2017
AVAILABILITY: Not yet published - available from June 2017
FORMAT: Hardback
ISBN: 9781107198128

The Book of Revelation and Early Jewish Textual Culture explores the relationship between the writing of Revelation and its early audience, especially its interaction with Jewish Scripture. It touches on several areas of scholarly inquiry in biblical studies, including modes of literary production, the use of allusions, practices of exegesis, and early engagements with the Book of Revelation. Garrick Allen brings the Book of Revelation into the broader context of early Jewish literature, including the Dead Sea Scrolls and other important works. Arguing that the author of the New Testament Apocalypse was a 'scribal expert, someone who was well-versed in the content of Jewish Scripture and its interpretation', he demonstrates that John was not only a seer and prophet, but also an erudite reader of scripture.

• Examines the Book of Revelation through the lens of Jewish textual culture
• Explores the method and shape of allusions in Revelation
• Argues that the author of the Book of Revelation was an erudite literary expert

There is more on Dr. Allen (a St. Andrews PhD) and his work here and links.

Holtz, Rabbi Akiva

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Rabbi Akiva: Sage of the Talmud (Jewish Lives) Hardcover – March 14, 2017 by Barry W. Holtz

A compelling and lucid account of the life and teachings of a founder of rabbinic Judaism and one of the most beloved heroes of Jewish history

Born in the Land of Israel around the year 50 C.E., Rabbi Akiva was the greatest rabbi of his time and one of the most important influences on Judaism as we know it today. Traditional sources tell how he was raised in poverty and unschooled in religious tradition but began to learn the Torah as an adult. In the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E., he helped shape a new direction for Judaism through his brilliance and his character. Mystic, legalist, theologian, and interpreter, he disputed with his colleagues in dramatic fashion yet was admired and beloved by his peers. Executed by Roman authorities for his insistence on teaching Torah in public, he became the exemplar of Jewish martyrdom.

Drawing on the latest historical and literary scholarship, this book goes beyond older biographies, untangling a complex assortment of ancient sources to present a clear and nuanced portrait of Talmudic hero Rabbi Akiva.

The Metatron has spread his wings

ARCHANGEL METATRON WATCH: Metatron now has his own gaming channel on You Tube.

The Metatron has spread his wings

HT reader Robert Schwartz.

Temple and Paradise

LEEN RITMEYER: The Genesis Sanctuary. As Dr. Ritmeyer observes, the idea that the primordial paradise was also a temple is old, going back at least to the Book of Jubilees. It could be added that the iconography of the Jerusalem Temple, with its cherubim, palm trees, and animals, also arguably presents the Temple as a primordial paradise.