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Mykytiuk is continuing with his verifications — this time, involving the New Testament).Regarding the last point, the 53 verified names from the Hebrew Bible are only of men.
He said that after his first 50 Old Testament verifications, Shanks told him, “We can finish the New Testament, too.” (Shanks declined to comment for this story.)
Mykytiuk described this as “a challenge. I’m a Hebrew Bible guy. I would go on a New Testament study. It’s a very different ballgame, with Greek and Latin inscriptions and coins that you don’t deal with in Old Testament, Hebrew Bible studies.”
His next article will include verifications of 23 New Testament political figures. He expects to publish it in the September/October issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Unlike his Old Testament verifications, the New Testament ones will include both men and women.
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A trip down a short dirt road at the southern end of Tiberias reveals an ancient Roman theater. A wooden lookout post perched above the ruins has a commanding view of the Sea of Galilee and beyond. The spot could be a tourist magnet, but the theater was never restored and isn’t open to visitors. Not to mention that the access road remains unpaved and features mainly trash containers.I hope it gets spruced up for next year.
Next year the Jewish-Roman city of Tiberias marks its 2,000th anniversary from its foundation by the Jewish royal Herod Antipas of the Herodian dynasty in about 20 C.E. He established it as a wholly new polis (city-state), not just another town, says Prof. Michael Eisenberg of Haifa University.
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What is a “ball”? Does a ball exist when there is nobody around to see it?Despite what might seem like an unpromising opening, this blog post is actually a nice report on a recent conference on Jewish ritual practices at the University of Erfurt. The work of Bruno Latour comes in too, especially in relation to that ball.
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Amy Jill Levine, a Vanderbilt New Testament scholar, is the co-author of a new children’s book that imaginatively retells three of Jesus’ parables from the perspective of a first-century Jewish audience.
Who Counts? 100 Sheep, 10 Coins, and 2 Sons (Westminster John Knox, 2017) was co-written by Levine, University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, and Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, best-selling children’s book author and Butler University faculty member.
The beautifully illustrated volume looks at three popular parables in Luke 15—the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Prodigal Son. The pictures set the three parables in modern time using multicultural, multiracial figures.
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Archaeologists think they may have found the lost Roman city of Julias, the home of three apostles of Jesus: Peter, Andrew and Philip (John 1:44; 12:21). A multi-layered site discovered on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, in the Bethsaida Valley Nature Reserve, is the spot, the team believes.Yes, quite. The situation is complicated. Read on for the details.
The key discovery is of an advanced Roman-style bathhouse. That in and of itself indicates that there had been a city there, not just a fishing village, Dr. Mordechai Aviam of Kinneret College told Haaretz.
None other than the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius – in fact the only source describing this city's existence – wrote that the Jewish monarch King Philip Herod, son of the great vassal King Herod, transformed Bethsaida, which had been a Jewish fishing village, into a real Roman polis (Ant. 18:28. Though whether it was built on Bethsaida, or by it, remains unknown.)
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In Jubilees, the law is established in creation, therefore “Obedience to the Law is the central message of Jubilees” (Wintermute, “Jubilees,” OTP 2:40). The writer desires to place as many Jewish customs and religious features as early in the history as possible. The earlier a practice can be rooted in history, the better. As Michael Segal, states, “one of the most distinctive features of Jubilees is the juxtaposition of laws generally known from the legal corpora of the Pentateuch with stories of the patriarchal period” (in Reworking the Bible: Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran, 204.For past posts in Phil's long series on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, start here and follow the links. The last couple posts have been on the Book of Jubilees.
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Although you may think reading hundred year-old mail to learn more about a failed project is bizarre, the fact is that the correspondence I’ve been sorting through is over two thousand years more recent than the Egyptian personal correspondences I typically mull through in papyri.SOME LETTERS OF H. B. SWETE – PART II
But I digress. The point is, I haven’t yet found anything more about this delicious hint of a Cambridge Lexicon of the Septuagint that never was. However, I have found some other fascinating items, which I’d like to share here in a few posts.
I’ve been giving in to the temptation somewhat recently as I’ve been reading through most of Swete’s mail and wandering off into interesting subjects not directly relevant to what I’m actually looking for. Oh well.There's more coming and I look forward to it. But I also hope William keeps focus on his doctoral dissertation!
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
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I am about to depart for the 2017 International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Berlin. Slavomír Céplö and I will be presenting at the first of four Christian Apocrypha sessions; for a full listing of the Christian Apocrypha papers at this year’s ISBL see this post. The paper, entitled “‘Arabic’ Infancy Gospel No More: The Challenges of Reconstructing the Original Gospel of the Infancy,” has two aims: to present the current status of our work on the Arabic Infancy Gospel (aka Gospel of the Infancy), and to interact with the session’s theme of “Is this a ‘text’?” (questioning practices of how we title texts and if these titles capture the dynamic, fluid natures of verbal communication). Here is the abstract for the paper: ...This text presents some methodological challenges that are not untypical for Christian Apocrypha.
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Over the centuries, the monastery of Mar Behnam amassed various Syriac and Arabic manuscripts, as well as books recording the names of royal and other historically important visitors. During the Islamic State’s more than two-year occupation of Mār-Behnam, there was great concern about the fate of these precious documents. The Islamic State is renowned for their fanatical destruction of churches, shrines, and at times even mosques, and so when the Iraqi army liberated the Plain of Nineveh, a surprise came concerning the Mār-Behnam manuscripts.I followed the story of ISIS capturing the Mar Behnam Monastery in 2014, its liberation in 2016, and the recovery of its manuscripts after the liberation. See here, here, here, here, here, and here. Cross-file under Syriac Watch.
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For the past three semesters, students in my introductory Bible course have created websites as a way of learning the basic methods of academic research, analysis, and argumentation.
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The Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles, announces a search for a tenure-track position in early Judaism at the rank of Assistant Professor to be filled effective July 1, 2018. Applications are invited from scholars with research and teaching interests in the cultures (especially 2nd Temple Judaism) and primary languages (especially Aramaic) of eastern Mediterranean world from the Achaemenid through the Sasanian periods. Candidates will teach a variety of classes including large undergraduate courses, such as an Introduction to Judaism, literature of the Second Temple period, history of ancient Judaism, history of early Christianity, and small graduate text seminars (Hebrew, Aramaic and/or Syriac). We encourage the development of new courses in a candidate’s field of expertise.The application deadline is 15 October 2017. Follow the link for further particulars and application information.
We value candidates whose experience in teaching, research, or community service has prepared them to contribute to our commitment to diversity and excellence. Women and underrepresented minorities are encouraged to apply.
Eligible applicants will have a Ph.D. or equivalent in hand by June, 2018.
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Open Call for Papers
An International Symposium: The Dead Sea Scrolls at Seventy: “Clear a Path in the Wilderness”
Date: 29 April–3 May, 2018
Conveners: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Vienna, New York University, the Israel Antiquities Authority, The Israel Museum
Venues: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and The Israel Museum
To mark seventy years since the initial discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, an international symposium will be held in Jerusalem, April 29–May 3, 2018. The overarching symposium theme will be “The Wilderness”—as a real place; as the location of biblical episodes, most notably during the formative years of Israel's wandering from Egypt to the Promised Land; as a motif; and as a concept (sometimes idealized, sometimes demonized).
The wilderness figures prominently in biblical texts and in the literature of the Second Temple, rabbinic, early Christian, and early Islamic periods. It was also a place of habitation by various groups during these periods, which have left us archaeological sites, artefacts, documents and the more than 1500 Dead Sea Scrolls. Conference papers may address any aspect of the wilderness as it relates to Qumran; other Judean Desert sites; the Dead Sea Scrolls; and the associated late antique literatures, cultures and religions—particularly, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Papers may focus on such topics as the reception of biblical figures (e.g., Moses, Aaron, Phineas, Miriam, Balaam), events (e.g., the giving of the law, the sin of the golden calf, the building of the tabernacle, covenant ceremonies), and themes (e.g., revelation, law, covenant, rebellion against God, sanctuary, water, and manna) connected with Israel’s time in the wilderness; relevant textual and philological analyses; the use of the relevant biblical passages in shaping later texts; the influence of the desert climate, flora, and fauna on the ancient texts and their state of preservation.
The conference will feature invited lectures; open sessions; and two public lectures.
Papers will be accepted for the open sessions in accordance with the relevance of the topic to the overall program. Please send a proposal of no more than 250 words to the Orion Center email address (orioncenter@mail.huji.ac.il). Deadline for receipt of proposals is September 20, 2017; responses will be mailed by October 31.
Symposium organizers:
Esther Chazon, Director, The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem;
Armin Lange, Professor of Second Temple Judaism and Director of the Institute for Jewish Studies, University of Vienna;
Lawrence H. Schiffman, Judge Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University;
Pnina Shor, Curator and Head of Dead Sea Scrolls Projects, The Israel Antiquities Authority;
Adolfo D. Roitman, Lizbeth and George Krupp Curator of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Head of The Shrine of the Book, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
We are grateful to the organizing bodies, as well as the Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration, and Foreign Affairs, for their sponsorship of symposium expenses.
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SON OF THE STAR: BAR KOKHBA AND THE JORDANIAN LEAD BOOKS OVERVIEW, ASSESSMENT, INTERPRETATIONIt is lengthy: over 1100 pages, although that includes many images. It addresses the issues that need to be addresed and does so thoughtfully and in great detail. Rather than coming to a final conclusion, Dr. Zinner explores the evidence for what he understands to be the full range of possibilities.
In this report, Samuel Zinner examines the controversial ‘Jordan codices,’ addressing the complex ethical and legal issues involved in undocumented, non-provenanced artefacts. There is much to be wary of in enthusiasts’ and naysayers’ claims, both of whom fall prey to emotionalism. Aligning his position with that of André Lemaire, Zinner cautiously leaves open the possibilities of ancient authenticity (for a core group) and an elaborate pre-modern fake, carefully weighing the evidence for each. Zinner demonstrates that at least some of the artefacts are modern copies of older exemplars.Samuel Zinner studied ancient and modern languages, literatures, and histories, and museum and archival studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he received his PhD in 2002. His coursework included intensive studies in Shem-Tob’s Hebrew Matthew gospel and in ancient Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman texts. Other areas of concentration included modern German and Russian literatures, poetics, linguistics, philology, and cryptography. His training in modern European history involved research in Holocaust and genocide studies, ethnic cleansing, and indigenous issues. He is author of several monographs and essays that have appeared in English, German, and Russian.
If ancient, the Jordanian artefacts are apotropaic grave objects designed to afford protection to the deceased and information relevant for their afterlife. Their contents would date from the immediate post-Bar Kokhba period to the time of Julia Domna and beyond (ca. 136-217 CE). Ancient or modern, the artefacts’ contents retrospectively view Jewish history from the Maccabees to Bar Kokhba principally through the prism of the latter’s revolt and its demise.
The artefacts’ main inspirations were ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman coinage, which naturally suggested to their creators the choice of a metal medium. The sheet format was dictated by apotropaic grave precedents such as Orphic tablets. With some exceptions, each Jordanian ‘book’ consists of a large image-text design that has been arbitrarily cut down to smaller-sized individual sheets subsequently bound together in order to retain the separate leaves’ association. ‘Book’/‘codex’ is not the most fitting terminology for these artefacts. The closest comparative parallels are the Martin Schøyen/Würzburg ancient Greek alphabet copper plaques, the Orphic lamellae, the Gnostic lead book in the National Museum at Rome, and the Mandaeans' lead books.
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How crazy do you have to be about gambling to have your nearest and dearest inter you at the racetrack? Archaeologists excavating the ancient Roman racing course in the North African city of Carthage have found a burial in the heart of the spectator section in the bleachers around 1,500 years ago.You can't take it with you, but you can try to stay.
Whether or not the deceased was a dice-crazed adult remains to be seen, but the choice of venue was certainly striking.
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Moving lithely in his brown Franciscan monk’s habit and sandals, Father Eugenio Alliata stoops next to a newly discovered Second Temple period flagstone to pick up a mosaic piece overlooked by the Israel Antiquities Authority crew that morning. Such finds, he confirms, are a typical byproduct of the ongoing expansion and renovation of the Terra Sancta Museum in Jerusalem’s Old City.The displays include a section of Jerusalem's bedrock. The museum's collection of artifacts from ancient Palmyra is currently on display in Italy.
Located on the second station of the Via Dolorosa — the 14-station path Jesus walked from sentencing to crucifixion — the museum is housed in the lush Flagellation Monastery compound. Archaeological finds are sprinkled among the chapels and well-kept gardens that form an oasis away from the cramped hustle and bustle of the narrow street beyond its gates.
Alliata, the 70-something scientific director of the museum and a professor at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, exhibits a curious combination of old school archaeologist — he enthusiastically points out a recently discovered Byzantine cistern and Crusader period tunnels forgotten by time — and an eagerness to adapt modern technology to enhance the museum’s vast collection’s records and display.
Implementing his vision is the museum’s reboot project director, Sara Cibin, who is on extended loan from the government in her native Italy.
[...]
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In a conversation with The Times of Israel, Eitan Klein, deputy director of the IAA’s Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Looting, said the case is significant in that it highlights the fraudulent use of Israeli law in the dealing of artifacts looted across the Middle East.Background here and follow the links.
As Israel is the only country in the region that legally allows antiquities commerce, dealers of looted antiquities and smugglers from neighboring countries make use of the Jewish state as a clearance point for resale in order to give their wares a veneer of legitimacy.
“In all other countries — Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq — it is illegal to deal antiquities. The problem is that the dealers that we gave permission to deal antiquities are using our law to deal in looted artifacts,” said Klein.
The position of the IAA is that antiquities sales should be forbidden in Israel, said Klein, and it is in exploratory talks with the Justice Ministry to investigate legal options after twice failing in the Knesset to amend the existing law.
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I thought that this week we would solicit your perspective on the best vista on your itinerary. The site can be in Israel or any other biblical land.My experience of vistas in biblical lands is less comprehensive than I wish, but I did submit a good one.
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President Reuven Rivlin called Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz Sunday to congratulate the rabbi and wish him good health on his 80th birthday.It is good to hear that Rabbi Steinsaltz is back at work. I wish him good health and a full recovery.
Rabbi Steinsaltz is considered one of the great rabbinical commentators and scholars of this generation, and has written numerous world-renowned commentaries on the Bible, the Talmud, and many other religious Jewish texts. Rabbi Steinsaltz suffered a stroke six months ago.
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In 216 B.C., during the Second Punic War, Carthaginian forces led by Hannibal defeated the Roman army in the Battle of Cannae.Past posts involving the Battle of Cannae are here and here, and links. You can find the whole story there.
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At 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, Israeli police say, authorities arrested five Palestinian antiquities dealers in Jerusalem and confiscated items dating back thousands of years from their homes and shops: papyrus fragments from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the bust of an Etruscan woman, a fresco from Pompeii depicting swimming fish. They also seized more modern objects — two black luxury Audi vehicles — and more than $200,000 in cash.The specifics are not very clear, but this seems to be what the case is about:
NPR has learned the reason for the early Sunday morning arrests: Israel's Antiquities Authority says the dealers were involved in sales of antiquities — including items that U.S. authorities determined were smuggled — to Hobby Lobby, the national U.S. arts and crafts chain.
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On Sunday, Israeli police and tax authorities issued a statement saying the dealers provided fictitious invoices for the sales and an American allegedly used the invoices to receive large-scale tax breaks — and paid dealers kickbacks in return. They declined to name the American.Watch this space.
But later in the day, in a court hearing, Israeli police said the arrested Jerusalem antiquities dealers are suspected of tax evasion for failing to report the $20 million in earnings to Israel's tax authority — and are also suspected of money laundering for an alleged scheme in which fictitious receipts and invoices were issued for antiquities sold to [Hobby Lobby president Steve] Green.
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Laura Quick has just published a useful discussion of the issues surrounding interpretation of King Og’s ערשׂ, in Deuteronomy 3.11, which she interprets as a literal sleeping bed rather than as a coffin or sarcophagus:Deane Galbraith has a detailed response to the article. He's not convinced.
“Laying Og to Rest: Deuteronomy 3 and the Making of a Myth,” Biblica 98:2 (2017): 161–172.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
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Following a protracted international joint undercover investigation, police on Sunday arrested five east Jerusalem antiquities dealers accused of a $20 million tax-fraud and artifacts scheme reaching as far as America.There is some information on the antiquities recovered:
According to police, the investigation was launched several months ago with US law-enforcement agencies, the Antiquities Authority and Israel Tax Authority after evidence surfaced that the dealers were involved in illegal transactions for seven years.
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“The antiquities that were seized included ancient parchment pieces written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin; ancient weapons; sculpture items from the Hellenistic and Roman periods; high-level murals; pottery and figurines; and many bronze, silver and gold coins,” he [police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld] said.If these artifacts are genuine (a very big if at this stage) they sound quite important.
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Nili Samet - New Light on the Administrative Term bēn bayît in Biblical and Rabbinical SourcesTarbiz Vol. 84, No. 4
Bezalel Bar-Kochva - The Religious Persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes as a Historical Reality
David Henshke - Between Blessings and Prayer: On the History of the Amidah Prayer
Mordechai Sabato - On the Inclusion of the ‘Mikan Ameru’ Homilies in the Halakhic Midrashim
Michael Rand - Surviving Fragments of the Qillirian Heritage in Provence/Catalonia and in Spain: In the Wake of New Materials from the Genizah
Jonathan Vardi - Between Shemuel Ha-Nagid and the Poets of Zaragoza
Hallel Baitner - The Unintentional Killer and the Blood-Avenger –New Perspectives in the Rabbinic Exegesis of Num 35You may find that you have to reload the web pages to get them to work. There is a link to English abstracts of the Hebrew articles on both pages.
Shulamit Elizur - The Origins of the Seliḥot Piyyutim
Shalem Yahalom - The Pilpul Method of Talmudic Study: Earliest Evidence
A. Bar-Asher - The Earliest Sefer ha-Zohar in Jerusalem: Early Manuscripts of Zoharic Texts and an Unknown Fragment from Midrash ha-Neʿlam [?]
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What follows is not a review. It is a teaser and brief orientation to one of the most comprehensive projects on the text of the Hebrew Bible. Brill’s Textual History of the Bible (THB) is a four volume work in process. ...Background on the series is here and here.
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Among the variants in Chronicles and Samuel-Kings is the inclusion of Samuel in Josiah's narrative (2 Chr 35:18) compared to “the judges who led Israel” (2 Kgs 23:22). Samuel's appearance occurs at a major transition in the Chronicler's narrative, which links Josiah to not only David, but Saul. While there is yet to be a consensus among scholars as to why a negative death scene follows Josiah's laudable Passover, the social memory associated with Samuel adds rhetorical weight to the Chronicler's narrative.
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IT’S NOT BOUNTY HUNTING, BUT it’s close: The National Museum of Chinese Writing in Anyang, Henan Province is offering a large monetary reward to anyone who can decode a 3,000-year-old script. The writing, which dates to the ancient Shang dynasty, is one of the “earliest written records of Chinese civilization,” according to the South China Morning Post.No, this has nothing to do with ancient Judaism. I mention it because its another example of a project that only became possible in the internet era, when photos of hundreds of thousands of partially deciphered inscribed objects could be made public for next to nothing.
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Published in German.
In this study, Christiane Böhm examines the interpretation of the Psalms in the trio of 11QPsa, Philo's allegorical commentary and the Pauline letters, each of which constitutes paradigmatic text corpora representing the various strands of ancient Judaism, and provides a specific understanding of the Psalms.
The interpretation of the Psalms in Qumran, Philo and Paul reflect an inner-Jewish discourse on their capacity to disclose reality and their identity-imparting function in the interpretive horizon of group-specific belief systems. The three examined text corpora reveal a different view of the Psalms. It also becomes apparent how the sense potential inherent in the psalter is fully exhausted.
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I’m very pleased to have my gift-copy of the re-publication of some key works by Alan F. Segal in one handy volume: The Other Judaisms of Late Antiquity, Second Edition, which now includes also his major essay, “Heavenly Ascent in Hellenistic Judaism, Early Christianity, and Their Environment” (which originally appeared in the series, Aufstieg und Niedergang der roemischen Welt, 1980).Follow the link for TOC etc.
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Moses tells the soldiers returning from the Midianite war that they must purify themselves from corpse impurity. Elazar then jumps in with a unique law in Moses’ name about the need to purify metal in fire. Critical and traditional scholars alike—including the scribes of the Samaritan Pentateuch—were troubled by why Elazar and not Moses teaches this law.
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[Biochemist Matthew] Collins is seeking advice on what to do with any DNA his team finds and sequences. What hypotheses should they address? "We're fishing for proteins and DNA and catching a lot of stuff," Collins says. "But we scientists come up with questions humanities scholars think are dumb," such as the cause of a death already described in mortuary records. And scientists and humanities scholars have different approaches: Given the concerns about DNA contamination, scientists prefer to touch books only with gloves. But among humanities scholars, the tradition is to use bare hands to ensure that people handle the pages gently; those wearing gloves are thought be rougher.
Some scholars at the Bodleian meeting had lofty ideas—would it be possible to get DNA of famous people such as Isaac Newton, who left behind many diaries and documents? Others were more interested in the bookworms. Hedges announced that the wormholes he measured in the Gospel of Luke were 1.3 millimeters in diameter, suggesting that they were made by Anobium punctatum, a northern European beetle. That would confirm that the book was made in the United Kingdom or northern Europe, rather than in southern Europe. The DNA of bookworms "can provide clues as to when and where objects such as books originated and were transported," Hedges says.
Some medievalists are enthused about the idea that biologists might be able to aid their studies, filling in the blanks left by written records. "I look at handwriting and dialect analysis to figure out a manuscript's age—ridiculous!" laments Stinson, given the Herculean effort required to do so. Now, he says, "I could go ask a biologist."
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— Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge —Follow the link for registration information and further particulars.
Wednesday 6th September–Friday 8th September 2017
Being Jewish, Writing Greek is a conference at the University of Cambridge which aims to explore the literary aspects of Jewish texts in Greek in the Hellenistic and Imperial period (ca. 3rd century B.C.E. to 3rd C.E.). We believe that a focus on literary form, in addition to content, has the potential to better our understanding of the negotiations of culture and identity articulated in these texts.
Supported by the Faculty of Classics, the School of Arts and Humanities, and the St. Thomas Aquinas Institute in Zagreb, the conference has developed out of a seminar series in Cambridge organised by Max Kramer and Max Leventhal for the 2016–17 academic year, also entitled: ‘Being Jewish, Writing Greek’. Motivated by the belief that the large body of Jewish texts in Greek are an under-valued literature, we felt that the topic deserved further exploration in a full-scale international conference.
If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us at the following address: organisers@beingjewish-writinggreek.co.uk.
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With this theoretical caveat, my project compares cross-cultural relations of power that cause law, or law-like practices in indigenous contexts, to surface as objects of discourse with a view to answering a fundamental question, “Why law”? I argue that this comparative grid can be applied to such disparate cultural practices as: Ilongot headhunting, court proceedings among the Talean Zapotecs in Mexico and the Dou Donggo in Indonesia, Roman legal fiction, Philo and Josephus’ descriptions of Judean laws and customs authorized by Roman legal precedent, modifications to indigenous law during the colonization of 19th century Hawaii, and Matthew and Paul’s views of Judean law. By putting all of this together, I am defamiliarizing for us as scholars Matthew and Paul on the topic of law.Another unpublished PhD thesis written under my supervision might be of interest in this context: Kathleen Burt, “Ritual in the Damascus Document and the Gospel of Matthew” (University of St. Andrews, 2014). Dr. Burt applied Catherine Bell's typology of ritual to the Damascus Document and Matthew as a way of moving beyond discussion of "Law" in relation to ancient Judaism and the New Testament.
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But when reading about the travails of Dr Blumell, I couldn’t help but reflect on what we know about the amassing of the Green Collection from a Classics point of view. I also could not help adding to that reflection that 2017 has become the year when social media really came of age, what with a President’s tweets being actually newsworthy, and the whole news cycle becoming essentially a tool of ‘fake news’ or alternatively, confirmation bias. And so, in what follows, I hope to demonstrate how several years of antiquities acquisition by Scott Carroll merge with the spectacular announcements of a new Sappho papyrus a few years ago by Dirk Obbink, and suggest that the series of events presages potentially very difficult times for plenty of people in the Classics profession, including graduate students who were given amazing research opportunities through their (or their supervisors’) ties to the Green Scholars program.Background on the Green Collection, the Museum of the Bible, and the recent Hobby Lobby settlement with the U.S. Justice Department is here and follow the many links. Past posts on the new Sappho fragments are here and here and links.
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Meanwhile, there are Classicists — undergraduates, graduates, and supervisors — dealing with these texts that clearly should have been published by now. But given the current climate created by the Hobby Lobby legal decision, it seems it is going to become even more difficult to publish anything associated with them, especially if there is no rock solid collection history for whatever is being published. And even if the collection history does appear solid (as with the Sappho papyrus … it’s about as solid as anything else coming out of Christie’s), the stories attached to the finds will inevitably be questioned (“private collector approaches noted scholar” sounds barely one step up from ‘Anonymous Swiss Collector’ no?). And how many of them might find themselves in the same position as Lincoln Blumell, being put on the defensive for being a scholar. As the meme says, “Brace Yourselves” …
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The hometown of the most popular sinner of the New Testament may also have been the seat of one of the priestly families that fled Jerusalem to the Galilee after the fall of the Second Temple at the hands of the Romans.With special attention to the excavation work by archaeologist Marcela Zapata-Meza of Universidad Anáhuac México.
A combination of recent findings at Magdala — home of Jesus disciple Mary Magdalene (who was recently celebrated by Catholics on her July 22 feast day) and the Jewish historian Joseph Flavius — point to a developed priestly culture with echoes of ancient Jerusalem at the site.
The question scholars are now exploring is just how much of the Temple practice the priests took along with them when they fled.
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Argument of the conferenceFollow the link for registration information and details on the papers and participant.
The discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the middle of the 20th century, and of the Cairo Genizah, at the end of the 19th century, have shed new light on the question of divergent textual forms, not only for the texts that constitute the Hebrew Bible, but also for cognate ancient Jewish literature. While 19th century scholars addressed the problem of divergences between textual witnesses through the concept of an alleged Urtext, this response is no longer satisfactory. New paradigms are needed to accommodate textual plurality and textual development.
While such a problem has been mainly dedicated to the study of the history of the biblical text, the present conference aims to focus on the so-called non-biblical texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls and their development in antiquity (or on texts in the margin of the biblical canon). We are perfectly conscious that the distinction between biblical and non biblical texts is artificial in the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and that the conference will focus precisely on texts on the border of what will become the biblical canon (as Jubilee, the Temple Scrolls or the Reworked Pentateuch, etc.)
The aim of this project is to rethink the textual plurality and to theorize the phenomenon and its theological, legal, political, social and cultural implications. Papers of this conference will address the following issues: (1) divergent textual witnesses from the same linguistic tradition; (2) when divergences implicate to stop considering texts as a “copy” of another text and start to be a “new” composition; (3) the phenomenon of translation and cultural transfers it entails; (4) semantic and conceptual transformation through transition from one language to another, from one socio-cultural identity to another; (5) implications of textual variants between the different witnesses, but also with comparison to rabbinical and patristic traditions; (6) in-depth study of scribal practices, at codicological level: paratextual elements, corrections, marginal notes as witnesses of a hermeneutical process through text transmission. Obviously, the transmission of the text is intertwined with its transformation, under the impact of scribes, translators, and commentators.
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2,500 years have passed since the destruction of the First Jewish Temple by the Babylonians and yet evidence from this time in history keep coming.There are some cool small finds.
On the eve of Tish'a Beav, a day of mourning marking the destruction of both, the First Temple by the Babylonians and the Second Temple by the Romans in Jerusalem, new evidence of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians were found in the City of David.
In the excavations, conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority at the Jerusalem Walls National Park , structures dating to more than 2,600 years ago have been unearthed after they have been covered over by collapsed layers of stone. Nestled within the collapse, many findings have surfaced. These findings depict the affluence and character of Jerusalem, the capital of the Judean Kingdom, and are mesmerizing proof of the city's demise at the hands of the Babylonians.
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Further, if Paul had been a Sadducee from the beginning, his subsequent laxity with respect to rules and rituals that were precious to Pharisees makes more sense. His extremism and his arrogance in presuming that he alone knew better than the ruling authorities how the new faith should proceed also make more sense coming from an elitist. And it would offer a new wrinkle to the change of heart Paul experienced on the road to Damascus. He did not lose beliefs precious to a Pharisee, for subsequent events describe no scintilla of internal struggle over his abandonment of circumcision, kashrut, Shabbat, and torah.I note that this essay does not interact with the vast recent (i.e., within the last decade or so) secondary literature on Paul. I am not an expert on Paul and I have no idea what a specialist in Pauline studies would make of it. I link, you decide.
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A few concluding words about dinosaurs, fossil remains, and Paul’s letters. Apparently my research interests have broadened from the study of Paul and circumcision to paleontology and dinosaurs. No doubt I have my five-year-old son to thank, since he has appointed me his unpaid research assistant to aid him in his own burgeoning scholarly endeavors as a paleontologist. I have labored, though, to compare Pauline studies to paleontology because I think it beautifully illustrates the real problems we face in the interpretation of Paul’s letters. We simply have very little evidence upon which to base our work. These gaping holes in the Pauline fossil record make it difficult for us to form a consensus with regard to the entire skeleton or structure of Pauline thought: we have Lutheran camps, new perspective camps, radical new perspective camps, apocalyptic camps, and other camps unnamed or uncharted. Such disagreements are long standing and often heated because for many Pauline interpreters we are excavating no mere dinosaur, but, forgive the mixing of metaphors, a sacred cow. ...Read on at the link for the Stegosaurus. The dinosaur metaphor gets a lot of use in this essay!
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During digs near the Ramat Negev Regional Council, a team of Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists discovered a large Byzantine-era structure dating to the fourth century CE, inside of which was the remains of a wine press. The archaeological dig was continued with a team of youth from a Yerucham yeshiva, in an effort to connect the young men with with the country’s physical history.
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The new tractate we began this week, Tractate Sanhedrin, focuses on the role of judges and courts in Jewish law. Fittingly, it is named after the body that held supreme judicial power in the Land of Israel during the Second Temple period and beyond. The Great Sanhedrin was a body of 71 judges sitting in Jerusalem; it appointed various Lesser Sanhedrins, made up of 23 judges, to hear cases in the towns and provinces of Judea. The Great Sanhedrin survived the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE and continued to meet in other locations until the fourth century CE.Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.
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Those papal processions were in turn modeled after the ancient Roman triumphs, such as the one memorialized in the Arch of Titus. In fact, upon the election of each new pope, the pontiff would march triumphantly through Rome, reiterating the Roman tradition of a triumphal procession that is depicted in the Arch. Homage was paid to the pope by a Jewish delegation carrying a Torah scroll. They would present the scroll to the pontiff, probably at the Arch. The new pope would ceremonially accept the Torah, but, at the same time, volubly reject the Jewish interpretation of it. He would then either throw the Torah to the ground or pass it unceremoniously to an underling.For past PaleoJudaica posts on the Vatican Menorah exhibition, start here and follow the links. For past posts on ancient menorahs and representations of menorahs, start here and follow the links.
The Arch would serve doubly to remind Roman Jews of their subservient status; first, as a people humbled by the Romans, and second, as a subordinated community under papal hegemony. When, in the 16th century, Jews were no longer required to present the new pope with the Torah, they instead had to lavishly decorate the pope’s processional route, including bedecking the Arch of Titus with tapestries and banners. Not surprisingly, these humiliations gave rise to a well-known Roman Jewish custom: Jews prohibited themselves from walking beneath the Arch of Titus.
That custom remained in place until Dec. 2, 1947, three days after the United Nations decision to partition Palestine and allow a Jewish state. On that day, Roman Jews and Jews from across Europe awaiting transport to Palestine gathered at the Arch. Led by Rome’s chief rabbi, David Prato, they again placed a banner on the Arch. But this time it was a blue-and-white Jewish banner with two dates: the date of the Roman destruction of the Second Temple and the date of the UN decision to partition Palestine. After the singing of Hatikvah, the assembled crowd deliberately broke with tradition and marched through the Arch from west to east toward Jerusalem, in the opposite direction of the Jews who had come to Rome as slaves of Titus in 70 CE.
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Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, is a fast day, commonly known as the saddest day in the Jewish calendar.A good introduction to this multifaceted fast day.
It commemorates the destruction of both the First and Second Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, the first by the Babylonians, circa 587 BCE, and the second by the Romans in 70 CE. However, the fast has also become associated with other tragedies which have taken place over the course of Jewish history.
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[Excavation director James Riley] Strange, [ associate director Mordechai] Aviam and a team of students and volunteers have worked on the site for six seasons. Their recent excavations in May and June uncovered part of the house and workshop of an oil lamp maker.There is also a little information on a coin find.
Although the house was typically simple — with packed earthen floors and, probably, mud plaster on the walls — it held a unique surprise. In an area thought to have been a courtyard, the team discovered a special kiln for firing oil lamps and other small vessels, with two complete, identical oil lamps and a small bowl still inside.
Many kilns from various periods have been discovered in Israel — all of them used to fire jugs, storage jars, cooking pots and other large vessels.
These usually measure more than 16 feet in diameter. The kiln in the Shikhin potter’s house, the first of its kind found in Israel, measures less than three feet in diameter, with a central pillar made of stone and brick that supported an upper floor.
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But the tomb was much more than a tourist destination; it was a constant, potent symbol. Overlooking the city, it reminded all Maslawis of the interconnectedness of Iraq’s diverse religious populations. It was the antithesis of sectarianism. As such, ISIS’s decision to blow it up read as an attempt to erase the shared history of the many religious populations that Mosul housed, and to erase the very notion that such populations can share anything at all. But now that Mosul has been liberated from ISIS, we—three Iraqis from different religious backgrounds—hope all our communities will have a hand in rebuilding the city and its holy sites.I noted the destruction of the (traditional) Tomb of Jonah just after it happened here. For other past posts on the Tomb of Jonah, go here and follow the links. Past posts on the (traditional) Tomb of Nahum are here and links. And for past posts on the Yazidis, start here and follow the links.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
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“Tzedakah” in the sense of communal charity, civic benefaction, and an individual form of giving came into being during the tannaitic period, with the help of the Greeks and a little-known king named Munbaz.Munbaz was a real king: Monobazus, the son of Queen Helena of Adiabene. The Kingdom of Adiabene was located at the site of Erbil in modern Iraq. Helena and her family converted to Judaism in the first century CE. The story about Munbaz in the Tosefta is presumably legendary, but it is instructive in some ways nonetheless.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
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In less than two weeks, the Mardin Governorate had stepped back from its decision to give the Christian properties over to control of the Muslim directorate. Calling together representatives of the three Syriac foundations whose properties had been confiscated, the governorate cancelled the transfer on 3 July; but that left the disputed properties back again under treasury control.The actions of the Turkish Government could be taken to look that way. Whatever the full merits of the case, and I cannot myself claim to have complete information, the world is watching. It needs to be resolved.
The Mardin Governorate's original court order transferring the Syriac deeds to the Religious Affairs Directorate was dated 12 August 2014. The Syriac church had not been informed of this judicial action taken nearly three years ago.
The 3 July cancellation order specified that a legal amendment was required "for the problem's exact solution". The Syriac community agreed, with the Syriac foundation chairmen sending a formal petition that same day, requesting Ankara to take a second step: transfer the ownership of all the church property deeds currently held by the treasury over to their respective Syriac foundations.
To date, the Syriac community has received no response to their petition from Turkey's central government.
Unless Ankara agrees to return the seized properties to official church ownership and amends the law, the Syriac community is left with only one alternative: file 100 or more separate court cases to gain back their centuries-old properties, a very expensive and lengthy option that would take years to complete.
"They can give them back to us, or not; it's up to them!" one Syriac leader who wished to withhold his name told World Watch Monitor. "It's out of our hands. We can't do anything unless they reveal the realities!"
"But always," he sighed, "they are coming to us with a club! You have taken them away from us. Now are you going to give them back? Or do you just want us to leave?"
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