More on the Abba tomb skeleton (crucifixion)

OSTEOLOGIST JOE ZIAS e-mails the following:

Professor Pat Smith is correct, along with others, that there is no evidence for crucifixion in the Abba tomb, moreover we asked experts totally unaware of the controversy as to the sex of the skeleton with signs of trauma, all concurred that we are talking about an elderly female.

Following Dr. Haas tragic accident, the material in question was transferred to my lab in the Israel Antiquities Authority and I can state with a high level of confidence that no evidence whatsoever for crucifixion was present.

This in reference to my recent post on the new (apparently) crucified skeleton from Rome. I mentioned the Abba tomb skeleton as another one, possibly of Mattathiah son of Judah, which had been argued to have been crucified. I discussed that in more detail here. But from what Dr. Zias says above, the expert consensus is otherwise.

That leaves us with Yohanan's certainly crucified skeleton and the new one from Rome, which may also have been crucified.

I am grateful to Joe Lauer for putting out a call for clarification and to Joe Zias for contacting us with the updated information.

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On the Mishnah

MY JEWISH LEARNING: Why The Mishnah Is the Best Jewish Book You’ve Never Read. This almost 2,000-year-old text flies under the radar -- but it's immensely important to Jewish life (LEX ROFES AND MJL ADMIN). This is a good introduction to the Mishnah, aimed at the complete novice. It also has some links at the end for further study.

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Hydrogel

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Tape Is Ruining Priceless Art. This New Gel Can Fix It. The common trick to fix a tear has plagued art conservators, but chemists are developing newer and safer methods to restore old art (Sarah Gibbens, National Geographic).

Unwitting conservators of the past used standard sticky tape to try and hold together famous but fragile treasures, such as the Dead Sea scrolls and drawings by filmmaker Federico Fellini. The trouble is that, in addition to ruining the aesthetic integrity of a piece of art, the adhesive on tape can cause discoloration over time. Certain types of tape can even bleed past where they were placed and alter the visual appearance of the work.

Modern art restorers have traditionally used solvents and intense humidity to loosen tape, methods that can damage the piece or present a toxic hazard for restorers. Now, a team of chemists from the University of Florence has developed a new treatment for the sticky affliction that's safe for humans and doesn't damage the art.

The method starts with hydrogel, a type of gel with high water content used in a variety of common objects, from plastics to pills. The hydrogel used by the Italian researchers was between 95 and 98 percent water. The other five to two percent is made of intersperced nano-sized droplets of organic solvents.

Good. In past posts I have flagged the longstanding problem of the use of scotch tape in the early, primitive efforts to conserve the Dead Sea Scrolls. See here, here, and here. I hope this new technology helps to solve the problem.

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Machiela on charity in the Aramaic DSS

VIDEO LECTURE: Charity as a Theme in the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls, Dr. Daniel Machiela. I don't have time to watch this through right now, but the author and title are very promising, and AJR says it's "terrific." Enjoy!

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A Judeo-Arabic translation of the Mishnah

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH (MAY 2018): Mishnah with Judeo-Arabic Translation: T-S E1.124 (David J. Wasserstein).

These are not the only fragments of Judeo-Arabic versions of Mishnaic tractates, but they all come from a single manuscript and for that reason may have much more to tell us than we might learn from isolated fragments of other manuscripts. On the basis of the pages we have, we can do much to re-construct the shape and appearance of the original manuscript. We can also compute that the entire Mishnah, with its translation, in this single manuscript must have filled nearly 6,000 pages, making for an enormous and, in view of the thickness of the paper, unwieldy, multi-volume copy of the text.

Past PaleoJudaica posts on Judeo-Arabic are here and links. Past posts noting Cairo Geniza Fragments of the Month in the Cambridge University Library's Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit are there and here links.

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The serpent and the Goddess?

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Eden, the Tree of Life and the Wisdom of the Serpent

The essential plot can be understood, not as a struggle between God and the Devil, but as a conflict involving the dynamic, royal, masculine God of the heavens and the primordial Mother Goddess who for millennia had been worshipped as the Mistress of the earth. To be sure, the story is told from the point of view of the former. The serpent is reduced to being the subtlest of the creatures that the Lord God had made. The Goddess is not even mentioned by name, though she is there, as the tree of life, for that is how she was so often depicted among the ancient Canaanites. Indeed, because she was represented in tree form, it is not surprising that Yahweh declared that the tree and its fruit were taboo.

By Jay Williams
Professor Emeritus
Hamilton College
May 2018

Well, maybe. As I read this essay I was thinking about the author's comment early on:

The problem, however, is that the story has too many loose ends, too many confusing subtleties to be so easily unraveled and explained. If it is to be understood as an account of why humans are all sinful, why does the word “sin” never appear in the story?

I think the same objection applies to the author's thesis. If the Goddess is so important in this story, why is she never mentioned directly?

Be that as it may, it's an interesting reading. Toward the end, the essay seems to turn into a manifesto for the revival of Goddess worship. Perhaps that could work for some circles in the twenty-first century.

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On Petra and the Nabataeans

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Solving the Enigma of Petra and the Nabataeans. Who were the Nabataeans? (Glenn J. Corbett). This essay is a very good, brief but detailed, introduction to the subject. As usual, it includes links to relevant Biblical Archaeology Review articles that are behind the subscription wall.

Cross file under Nabatean Watch (Nabataean Watch).

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Another crucified skeleton?

OSTEOLOGY: How Jesus died: Extremely rare evidence of Roman crucifixion uncovered in Italy. Although attested to in scores of historical writings, this skeleton is only the second example providing tangible archaeological proof of the cruel method of capital punishment (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

A lesion on the foot of a 2,000-year-old skeleton discovered in a Roman burial site in northern Italy appears to constitute rare tangible evidence of execution by crucifixion, according to an interdisciplinary team of Italian researchers.

Although broadly attested to in historical writings — including the New Testament — it is only the second known archaeological proof of the particularly cruel form of capital punishment practiced by the Romans against criminals, as well as revolutionaries such as Jesus.

[...]

The skeleton shows signs of violence that are consistent with crucifixion, but the evidence is apparently not conclusive. The other, certain, crucified skeleton mentioned in the headline above, is that of one Yehohanan ben Hagkol, on which more here and links.

Also, not mentioned in the article, it has been argued that another skeleton, apparently of one Mattathiah son of Judah, was also crucified. I noted that story several years ago here. I have heard nothing more about it since.

Other past posts on this horrific ancient method of execution are here and links and here.

Also worth mentioning is the recent discussion of the crucifixion gem, which gives one of the earliest artistic depictions of the crucifixion of Jesus.

UPDATE (2 June): It seems that third skeleton mentioned above was not crucified and is not of a man. Details here.

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Iran lists Sabean Mandaic script as a cultural heritage

MANDEAN (MANDAEAN) WATCH: Sabian Mandean Script Listed as Cultural Heritage (Iran Financial Tribune). I don't often have praise for the Iranian Government, but in this they have done a good thing. I commend them.

For review: the Mandeans (Mandaeans) are a Middle Eastern Gnostic religious group coming from an Aramaic-speaking background and with an Aramaic liturgy. They believe that John the Baptist was their founder. Their movement can be traced back to late antiquity and perhaps even to the early centuries CE. The term Sabian (Sabean, Sabaean) is often applied to them, but I am not sure of its exact import.

For past PaleoJudaica posts on the Sabean Mandeans start here and links (also here) and follow the links. And there are many other posts on the Mandeans in general. You can find those in the archives. Oh, and James McGrath, call your office.

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Review of Niehoff, Philo of Alexandria

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Maren R. Niehoff, Philo of Alexandria: An Intellectual Biography. New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2018. Pp. xi, 323. ISBN 9780300175233. $38.00. Reviewed by Gretchen Reydams-Schils, University of Notre Dame (reydams-schils.1@nd.edu).

Only every once in a while (and not that often in one scholarly generation) a book comes along that not only changes fundamentally the perspective on its chosen topic, but, through its novel methodology, will have major repercussions for other fields of scholarship as well. Maren Niehoff’s intellectual biography of Philo of Alexandria is such a work.

[...]

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On 3 Maccabees

READING ACTS: What is Third Maccabees? Another installment in Phil Long's current summer series on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Past posts in the series have been noted here and links.

Phil published a series of posts on 3 Maccabees back in 2017. It appears that he is reprinting them now (or at least this one). There may be revisions as well, but I don't have access to the full text of the earlier posts. He has taken them down.

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The menorah in the Bible

ICONOGRAPHY AND EXEGESIS: Why the Menorah Is the Most Enduring of All Jewish Symbols. Unlike the case with nearly every other Tabernacle fixture, the function of the menorah does not cease when the Jewish people no longer possess a Temple (Sarah Rindner, Mosaic Magazine).

At the beginning of this week’s Torah reading of B’ha’alotkha (Numbers 8-12), the Bible gives instructions for the daily kindling of the menorah.

The menorah has long occupied a prominent place in the Jewish imagination. From the time of its placement in the inner courtyard of the Tabernacle in the desert and later of the Temple in Jerusalem, to its rekindling after the Maccabees’ defeat of the Seleucids, to its central position on the Arch of Titus in Rome, to its modern repurposing as the emblem of Jewish revival by the state of Israel, few Jewish symbols have been as familiar or as evocative.

And yet the Bible leaves unstated the significance of the menorah and its seven branches, its importance to the Temple, or its meaning and purpose with respect to the relationship between God and His chosen nation and perhaps beyond. On these matters, an examination of five key scriptural passages can shed light.

[...]

For many past PaleoJudaica posts on ancient menorahs and representations of menorahs, see here and links and here.

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More on the Oxyrhynchus Mark fragment

VARIANT READINGS: Some Observations on the “Provisional Dating” of P.Oxy. 83.5345. Brent Nongbri discusses the initial cataloguing of the Mark fragment (incorrectly) as dating to the first century and the confusing results in recent years. Dr. Nongbri is doing an excellent job of pulling back the curtain to show the inner workings of the discovery, cataloguing, and publication of the Oxyrhynchus papyri over the last century.

Background on that Mark fragment is here and links.

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Elisheva's Diary

NEW NOVEL: Elisheva's Diary. The ancient city of Dan in the northern Galilee has generations of stories to tell. In this fast-moving novel, they are brought to life in a story of family love, intrigue and loyalty, then and now (Rochel Sylvetsky, Arutz Sheva).

The ancient city of Dan is located in a beautiful and lush valley in Israel's northern Galilee region. Visiting the area today especially in early spring, is to stop to gaze in wonder at nature's paintbrush splashing light and color with gorgeous abandon.

Dr. Richard D. Small has brought that once vibrant city and its still verdant environs to life, writing a compelling book published by Touchpoint Press and available at Google Books, that juxtaposes life in Israel during the first century B.C.E. with the Israel of today. He does it by means of a fast moving plot in which a young Arab, Musa, digging at the archaeological excavations of ancient Dan discovers an urn containing the diary of Elisheva, who lived in Dan during the Second Temple period reign of Hasmonean Queen Shlomzion.

[...]

If only. Maybe someday.

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On the Words of Ahiqar

READING ACTS: The Words of Ahiqar. Another installment in Phil Long's current summer series on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Past posts in the series have been noted here and links.

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The Melammu Newsletter

THE AWOL BLOG: Open Access Journal: Melammu Newsletter.

The main purpose of the Melammu Project is to investigate the continuity, transformation, and diffusion of Mesopotamian and Ancient Near Eastern culture from the third millennium BCE through the ancient world until Islamic times and after."

The work of the project is often of direct or indirect relevance to ancient Judaism. Its newsletter has recently gone online. The main link given in the AWOL post is dead at the moment. But this one works.

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Exhibition on the ancient priestly vestment dye

MATERIAL CULTURE: Linking ancient snails to an Israeli flag in space, a common thread. The elusive dye used to create the biblical blue, 'techelet,' in the Ancient Near East is spotlighted in a new Bible Lands Museum exhibit, 'Out of the Blue' (Marissa Newman, Times of Israel).

It was the color of the sea, the sky, the divine sapphire-hewn Throne of Glory, according to the Tannaite sage Rabbi Meir. It was a color used in the Jewish temples, the hue of its high priests’ robes, and the shade of the blue tassel that the Bible commands be affixed to one’s garments.

But starting in the seventh century CE, the source of the natural dye to produce the biblical tekhelet [blue] — as well as its royal purple counterpart, argaman — faded from history for hundreds of years.

Long sought by Jews to revive the ancient practice of wearing a fringe of techelet, the revered colors were also the subject of other Ancient Near East cultures’ fascination and ritual worship and the source of a hugely prosperous ancient dyeing industry, according to a new exhibit at Jerusalem’s Bible Lands Museum, “Out of the Blue,” which is set to open on June 1.

[...]

Past posts on the tekhelet dye, its ancient uses, and modern efforts to recreate it, are here and follow the links.

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The Beit She'arim Necropolis

ATLAS OBSCURA: Beit She'arim Necropolis. A sprawling ancient Jewish cemetery with over 30 rock-hewn burial caves.

The Roman destruction of Jerusalem’s Second Temple in 70 CE scattered the Jewish people out into the empire, from the Greek islands to as far as modern-day Spain and Portugal. Following this cataclysmic event, Jerusalem’s great assembly of the Sanhedrin, a sort of Supreme Court of the Jewish nation, migrated north to the Galilean city of Bet She’arim.

A nice photo essay, as we have come to expect from Atlas Obscura.

For past PaleoJudaica posts on Beit She'arim (Beith Shearim) see here and links.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

More looting arrests in West Bank

APPREHENDED: LOOTERS ARRESTED FOR ILLEGAL DIGGING AT WEST BANK ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE. Authorities stopped the criminals at an archaeological site south of the Peduel settlement in the West Bank (Jerusalem Post).

During a joint patrol with the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria’s archeology unit, authorities stopped the criminals at an archaeological site south of the Peduel settlement in the West Bank. The criminals were found on site with digging equipment and taken in for questioning by security authorities. Previous excavations at the site uncovered a large monastery and a church with ornate mosaics, among other finds, the unit said.

Sadly, many such stories continue to come up. See here and links, as well as here, here, here, and here.

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Pnina Shor to speak at Denver DSS exhibition

PUBLIC LECTURE: Dead Sea Scrolls Leader to Speak in Denver. Dead Sea Scrolls 70 Years Later with Pnina Shor, Israel Antiquities Authority (Boulder Jewish News).

Monday, June 4, 7:00 pm
BMH-BJ Congregation, Fisher Hall
560 S Monaco Pkwy, Denver, CO
Free Admission

The speaker:

Since its inception in 2010, Pnina Shor has been the head of the Dead Sea Scrolls unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). In this role, she oversees the curatorship, conservation and preservation, exhibition and digitization of the IAA’s more than 20,000 scrolls. ...

Background on the Denver Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition is here and follow the links.

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The Denver DSS exhibition

EXHIBITION REVIEW: Dead Sea Scrolls: From the lowest place on Earth to 'the mile high city' (Jessi Satin, i24 News).

Fast forward 72 years. Twenty of these scrolls, and more than 600 artifacts have traveled almost 7,000 miles to Denver, Colorado for a special six-month long exhibition at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

The exhibition, which holds the largest collection of artifacts from the Holy Land to arrive in the United States, aims to tell the story of the ancient Israelites who wrote the scrolls, as well as the larger story of the development of the Middle East, and of the religious traditions that shaped western civilization.

The headline alone makes this article worth a link. But it's also a nice and detailed review of the whole exhibition, which includes more than just Dead Sea Scrolls.

Background here and links

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Mor Gabriel title deeds returned to Syriac Christian community

MODERN SYRIAC WATCH: Syriac Christians hail return of churches and monasteries (Daily Sabah).

Spreading title deeds on a coffee table, leaders of the Syriac Christian community in southeastern Turkey enthusiastically spoke about how they settled a controversial issue regarding the return of their properties. In 2014, ownership of churches, monasteries and cemeteries belonging to the ancient community were transferred to the state after Mardin, the southeastern city where they are located, was designated as the "greater city municipality." The community fought for their return but faced bureaucratic red-tape and a lengthy legal process. Finally, they were formally handed title deeds yesterday, crediting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for helping them to settle the issue.

Properties were returned to the Foundation of Mor Gabriel Monastery that represents the small community concentrated mainly in Mardin. ....

I have been following the fortunes of the ancient and historic Mor Gabriel Monastery for some time, with emphasis in the last several years on disputed land seizures by the Turkish Government. I am not sure whether all the problems are resolved yet, but this latest report seems to count as good news.

Background here and links.

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On Eldad and Modad

READING ACTS: Eldad and Modad. Another installment in Phil Long's current summer series on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Past posts in the series have been noted here and links.

As for the lost book of Eldad and Modad, it gets even more interesting. There is a good case that this work is quoted (as scripture!) in the New Testament in the Epistle of James 4:5. Richard Bauckham makes the case in MOPT1. I'm away from my desk at the moment, but I will post the full reference when I have the volume in hand.

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Digital Syriac Corpus

THE AWOL BLOG: Digital Syriac Corpus. This project has been in progress for a long time, but it has only recently started publishing its work online. It looks very promising. Cross-file under Syriac Watch.

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Some "Oxyrhynchus papyri" are not from Oxyrhynchus

VARIANT READINGS: The Oxyrhynchus Papyri of Dubious Provenance and Editorial Choice (Brent Nongbri). Excerpt:

But, to bring it back to my original point: If there are such unpublished pieces, the majority of which probably have certain Oxyrhynchite provenance, why are editors choosing to publish pieces of dubious provenance in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri series? I’m genuinely curious.

It's a good question. The questions about the no-longer-first-century Mark fragment just published in the series are helping to draw attention to it.

Dr. Nongbri has been posting a lot lately on the Oxyrhynchus papyri, so go have a look at his blog.

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Moss and Baden on the no-longer-first-century Mark fragment

CANDIDA MOSS AND JOEL BADEN: Was One of World’s Oldest Bible Passages Found in a Garbage Dump? On Thursday, the Oxford-based Oxyrhynchus Society announced the discovery of a second-century piece of the Gospel of Mark from a dig in an Egyptian garbage dump (The Daily Beast).

Yesterday, the Egyptian Exploration Society, the nonprofit organization that acts as curators of the Oxford-based Oxyrhynchus Society, announced a new discovery: a late second- or early third-century CE fragment of the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark, just published in The Oxyrhynchus Papryi Volume 83 (2018), edited by distinguished Oxford academics Daniela Colomo and Dirk Obbink. In what must be the archetypical example of the expression “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” this pile of ancient refuse has produced one of the oldest fragments of the oldest Gospel story (Mark is believed by scholars to be the earliest Gospel.) This makes it a substantial and significant discovery for those interested in the history of Christianity, the evidence of the dating of the books of the Bible, and the history of book-making. But it also comes with a substantial mystery surrounding its origins, its dating, and its potential connection to the ubiquitous Green family, the owners of Hobby Lobby and the founders of the Museum of the Bible.

This story is labyrinthine but worth trying to follow. As usual, Professors Moss and Baden lay out the evidence as clearly as possible.

Background on this early (but not first-century) Mark fragment is here and links.

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On Queen Helena of Adiabene

DR. MALKA SIMKOVICH: Queen Helena of Adiabene and Her Sons in Midrash and History (TheTorah.com).

Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, tells the story of Queen Helena of Adiabene and her sons Kings Izates II and Monobazus II, and how they converted to Judaism in the mid-first century C.E. Rabbinic literature preserves several anecdotes about this family. However, the rabbis knew little about them, and grappled with their insider/outsider status.

Regular PaleoJudaica readers are well acquainted with the intriguing figure of Queen Helena of Adiabene. This essay collects and evaluates the accounts and legends about her.

For past posts on Queen Helena and Adiabene, start here and follow the links.

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On the History of the Rechabites

READING ACTS: History of the Rechabites. Another installment in Phil Long's current summer series on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Past posts in the series were noted here and links.

I have argued for a long time that the History of the Rechabites (which is embedded in the Story of Zosimus) is a Christian composition. For specific, see my 2003 conference papers: "Is the Story of Zosimus Really a Jewish Composition?" and "The Rechabites in Patristic and Parabiblical Literature." Phil mentions Chris Knights, who also wrote on this work. He and I corresponded on the subject here and here, also in 2003. Several years ago Dr. Knights published an article revising his position in agreement with mine.

Another project on this text was noted here.

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"First-Century Mark" is not first century

THAT FRAGMENT OF THE GOSPEL OF MARK that was rumored to date to the first century has now been published in a volume of Oxyrhynchus papyri. The editors date it to the late second or early third century. That's still pretty early for a New Testament manuscript, but first century it is not. The story of the fragment is complicated. For details see the two recent posts at the Evangelical Textual Criticism Blog:

“First-Century Mark,” Published at Last? [Updated] (Elijah Hixson)

Dan Wallace responds on (formerly) ‘First-century Mark’ (Peter Gurry)

I noted the announcement of the existence of this Mark manuscript here. I was skeptical of the first-century date then and I remained skeptical all along. (See here and follow the links back.) Looks like I was right. Again.

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Esler on taking 1 Enoch seriously

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Taking 1 Enoch Seriously

In the light of these conclusions, the Enochic scribes emerge not as temple scribes (indeed, there are clear signs of tension and conflict in the text between them and the temple establishment), but as scribes who played their part in the wider social and political ambit of Judea. We can imagine them as active across the whole range of commercial and legal work that Judean scribes undertook for private clients, as well as perhaps drafting documents for the Seleucid and then Hasmonean and even Roman administrations of Judea.

See Also: God's Court and Courtiers in the Book of the Watchers: Re-Interpreting Heaven in 1 Enoch 1–36 (Cascade Books, 2017).

By Philip F. Esler
The University of Gloucestershire
Cheltenham, UK
(pesler@glos.ac.uk)
Cheltenham, UK
May 2018

I noted the publication of Professor Esler's new book here. On the subject of the term "Jew" vs. Ioudaios, on which we disagree, see here and here.

This essay gives some rich cultural background to the Ethiopic version of the book of 1 Enoch (the only complete surviving version). It is well worth a read.

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On Jannes and Jambres

READING ACTS: Jannes and Jambres. Another installment in Phil Long's current summer series on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Past posts in the series were noted here and links.

There are new fragments of Jannes and Jambres in an Ethiopic translation and also in Greek. And there is a new manuscript in Coptic with material related to the story of Jannes and Jambres. We hope to have translations of all these in volume 2 of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures (MOTP2).

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A recycled Phoenician ship

PHOENICIAN WATCH: 'Phoenician Ship' made of plastic bottles sails from Byblos to Beirut Port (Lebanese National News Agency).

In his word marking the event, [Mayor of Jbeil Wissam] Zaarour described the initiative as "an environmental symbol because the boat is made of 50,000 plastic bottles aimed at raising awareness about the dangers of this type of waste, in addition to its cultural symbolism by embodying the Phoenician vessels that were used for trade and export of Lebanese Cedar wood through the Jbeil coast."

Regular readers will be reminded of two other reconstructed Phoenician ships, the Good Ship Phoenicia and the Good Ship Ma’agan Michael II. And there was brief mention of a third one here. But this one has its own special charm.

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Stern on ancient Jewish graffiti

ATLAS OBSCURA: The Wit and Wisdom of Ancient Jewish Graffiti. Researchers in the field have uncovered related messages ranging from “Lasius is a pervert” to “Good luck in your resurrection” (Eve Kahn).

Carving the letters and images “required time, diligence, steadfastness, and a degree of pain tolerance,” Karen B. Stern, an assistant professor at Brooklyn College, observes in her new book, Writing on the Wall: Graffiti and the Forgotten Jews of Antiquity. As the graffiti artists hammered away at doorways, pillars or cliffs, she writes, “powders and fragments would cover one’s face and fill one’s lungs with dust; hardened dirt, rock, and plaster could push back and split fingernails; and carving implements, including metal nails, blades, and stones, surely drew blood when the lighting faded or surfaces grew unwieldy.”

A brief review of Dr. Stern's new book.

PaleoJudaica has been following Dr. Stern's work for some time. For past posts, see here and links. This is the first I've heard of her new book. The full reference is Karen B. Stern, Writing on the Wall. Graffiti and the Forgotten Jews of Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2018). The publisher's description:

Few direct clues exist to the everyday lives and beliefs of ordinary Jews in antiquity. Prevailing perspectives on ancient Jewish life have been shaped largely by the voices of intellectual and social elites, preserved in the writings of Philo and Josephus and the rabbinic texts of the Mishnah and Talmud. Commissioned art, architecture, and formal inscriptions displayed on tombs and synagogues equally reflect the sensibilities of their influential patrons. The perspectives and sentiments of nonelite Jews, by contrast, have mostly disappeared from the historical record. Focusing on these forgotten Jews of antiquity, Writing on the Wall takes an unprecedented look at the vernacular inscriptions and drawings they left behind and sheds new light on the richness of their quotidian lives.

Just like their neighbors throughout the eastern and southern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Egypt, ancient Jews scribbled and drew graffiti everyplace--in and around markets, hippodromes, theaters, pagan temples, open cliffs, sanctuaries, and even inside burial caves and synagogues. Karen Stern reveals what these markings tell us about the men and women who made them, people whose lives, beliefs, and behaviors eluded commemoration in grand literary and architectural works. Making compelling analogies with modern graffiti practices, she documents the overlooked connections between Jews and their neighbors, showing how popular Jewish practices of prayer, mortuary commemoration, commerce, and civic engagement regularly crossed ethnic and religious boundaries.

Illustrated throughout with examples of ancient graffiti, Writing on the Wall provides a tantalizingly intimate glimpse into the cultural worlds of forgotten populations living at the crossroads of Judaism, Christianity, paganism, and earliest Islam.

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The two rabbis and the disrespectful donkey

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: The Uppity Donkey and the Distraught Rabbi: Critical Animal Studies and the Talmud (Beth Berkowitz).

This story about two rabbis and their donkeys opens a number of lines of inquiry for late antiquity. What were the everyday interactions of human beings with animals and how did those interactions shape both human and animal lives? What mediating roles did animals play in human politics? What were the mechanisms by which people tried to control animals and how did they justify those mechanisms? Finally, and in my view most intriguingly, how were late ancients onto themselves when it came to animals? In other words, what insights did late ancient people have into the problems and paradoxes of their relationship to other species?

This is the latest essay in the AJR Animal Forum.

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Habakkuk 3 and ANE myth

FOR SHAVUOT: Habakkuk’s Mythological Depiction of YHWH (Prof. Marvin A. Sweeney, TheTorah.com).

Habakkuk 3 is framed as a lament, in which the psalmist asks God to save him and his people from danger. The core of the psalm is a divine theophany, in which YHWH is described as coming from afar to battle his enemies in classic ANE mythological fashion.

When I was a doctoral student, a few of us read early biblical Hebrew poetry with Frank Moore Cross for a semester, including Habakkuk 3. On the basis of the grammar and content, Cross regarded it to be an early poem reused in the book of Habakkuk. That seemed convincing to me at the time.

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On The Ladder of Jacob

READING ACTS: The Ladder of Jacob. Another installment in Phil Long's current summer series on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Past posts in the series were noted here and here and links.

The Ladder of Jacob survives complete only in Old Church Slavonic. But the prayer of Jacob from The Ladder of Jacob also survives in Hebrew from the Cairo Geniza. The Hebrew may be the original or it may be translated from a Greek original

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New DSS coming to the Denver exhibition

ROTATION: 10 MORE DEAD SEA SCROLLS ARE COMING TO DENVER (Cara Chancellor, 303 Magazine).

In March, The Dead Sea Scrolls came to The Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Named one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century, these manuscripts were written between 150 B.C. and 70 A.D., making parts of the collection more than 2,000 years old. They are some of the oldest remaining documents of written human history and now 10 more are coming to Denver. The 10 new scrolls will be here in early June to replace those currently on display and like the first round, the second will feature one scroll never before seen by the public.

[...]

Follow the link for the full list of new scrolls. They arrive on 11 June.

Background on the Denver Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition is here and links.

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How many kinds of giants?

REMNANT OF GIANTS: Matthew Goff on the Three Successive Generations of Giants (Deane Galbraith).

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Moses and the Torah in Nehemiah 9

FOR SHAVUOT: Nehemiah 9: The First Historical Survey in the Bible to Mention Sinai and Torah (Professor Hava Shalom-Guy, TheTorah.com).

The revelation at Sinai emerged as central to Israel’s story in the Persian period. No biblical text outside the Torah mentions it until its unique inclusion in the historical prologue of the Levites’ prayer in Nehemiah 9:13-14. A later scribe redacted the Sinai verses to further include a reference to the Torah of Moses.

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Cyril and Methodius Day 2018 (again!)

SLAVONIC PHILOLOGY: Day of Slavic Writing and Culture (Ukrinform).

Every year on May 24, all Slavic countries commemorate Saints Cyril and Methodius, as well as the Day of Slavic Writing and Culture. In Ukraine, the holiday was established in accordance with a presidential decree of September 17, 2004, on the day of commemoration of Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius – representatives of the Enlightenment, who played a prominent role in the development and formation of Slavic writing and culture, patrons of Europe.

[...]

The work of Saints Cyril and Methodius is actually celebrated on three different days in different Slavic countries: 14 February, 24 May (today), and 5 July. More on that here. That post also has links with more information on Cyril and Methodius, their alphabet, and Slavonic Old Testament pseudepigrapha (i.e., why PaleoJudaica is interested). Also, in that post I neglected to include the Ukraine among today's celebrants. I have corrected that omission with the first link above.

Happy celebration to all those celebrating.

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Left-handers in the Bible

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Left-Handed People in the Bible. Is there a genetic link to Benjamite lefties?

The Hebrew Bible mentions left-handed people on three occasions: the story of Ehud’s assassination of the Moabite king (Judges 3:12–30), the 700 Benjamites who could use the sling with deadly accuracy (Judges 20:16) and the two-dozen ambidextrous warriors who came to support David in Hebron (1 Chronicles 12:2). All of these stories of left-handed people in the Bible appear in military contexts, and, curiously, all involve members of the tribe of Benjamin.

[...]

As usual, this essay is an (interesting) summary of a BAR article that is behind the subscription wall: Boyd Seevers and Joanna Klein, Biblical Views: “Left-Handed Sons of Right-Handers,” from 2013.

In Ferniehirst Castle in Scotland there is a left-handed (i.e., upwards counter-clockwise) spiral staircase. The story is that in the early 1500s Sir Andrew Kerr had it built because he himself was left-handed and he trained his follows to swordfight left-handed. The layout of the staircase made it easier for them to defend the castle entrance from above. I have found mixed views on whether it would have made an attack from below harder or easier for right-handers.

There is also mixed evidence on whether left-handedness ran in the Kerr Clan. It doesn't seem to today.

I have seen the staircase myself, but I don't know how much else of the story is true. For some commentary and links, see here.

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Ghosts of Roman coin minting

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Greenland ice cores track Roman lead pollution in year-by-year detail. Studying the ice cores may help reconstruct fluctuations in the ancient economy (Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica).

Lead pollution could provide a proxy for the general state of the Roman economy, but historians would need a detailed record of changes in pollution levels from year to year. That was found 2,500 miles away in the ice sheets of Northern Greenland. Paleoclimatologist Joe McConnell of the Desert Research Institute and his colleagues turned to a 423-meter-long ice core taken by the Northern Greenland Ice Core Project.

The core records nearly 2,000 years of annual ice buildup, from 1100 BCE to 800 CE. Each layer records slightly less than a year’s worth of accumulated ice, which traps other material, like lead from mines and foundries in Europe. McConnell and his colleagues say they’ve dated the layers with an uncertainty of just one or two years, making it easy to compare lead pollution with historical events.

The Punic Wars provide one example of this correlation:

McConnell and his colleagues saw a characteristic pattern around wars throughout Roman history. When conflict came to a mining region, as it did during the three Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage, it disrupted life and work in the region. That shows up as a year or two of slightly cleaner ice in Greenland, since Europe was producing less lead pollution.

At the outbreak of the first Punic War in 264 BCE, for instance, the amount of lead in the Greenland ice layers dropped abruptly. But production ramped up again closer to the final years of the war, as Carthage minted more silver coins to pay its mercenary forces.

Cross-file under Punic Watch and Numismatics (Sort Of).

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Talmud manuscripts

TALMUD WATCH: Surviving Manuscripts of the Talmud: An Overview (Dr. Menachem Katz, TheGemara.com).

What we know about the surviving manuscripts, and how they contribute to Talmud study

HT AJR. For more on the long oral transmission of the Babylonian Talmud, see here. For more on the Hachi Garsinan Talmud project, see here and here.

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The Kingdom of Aksum

HISTORY: The Kingdom of Aksum – Africa’s lost Empire. The Aksumite Empire was an ancient kingdom that existed in Ethiopia from 100 CE to 940 CE. Centred on the city of Axum in Ethiopia, the nation grew from the proto-Aksumite Iron Age period around 400 BCE to its height around the 1st century CE (Heritage Daily).

This is a nice capsule history of the Ethiopian Kingdom of Aksum (Axum). For past PaleoJudaica posts involving Aksum, start here and follow the links. In particular, this post and this one give background on why Aksum is of interest for ancient Judaism.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Ammon, Moab and Edom

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Who Were the Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites in the Bible? Ancient Israel’s neighbors east of the Jordan (Megan Sauter).

The kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom fought with the Israelites and the Judahites over territory. The Bible presents things from the Israelites’ and Judahites’ point of view, and archaeological discoveries help show us the other side. By looking at what these ancient peoples wrote and left behind, we are able to better understand their perspective. We now have a fuller picture of their kings, gods and daily life.

This essay is a taster for a 2016 BAR article by Joel S. Burnett: “Ammon, Moab and Edom: Gods and Kingdoms East of the Jordan.” You need a paid subscription to read the full article, but the BHD essay gives a nice brief overview of the topic.

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On the Lives of the Prophets

READING ACTS: The Lives of the Prophets. Another installment in Phil Long's current summer series on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

I don't doubt that the Lives of the Prophets contains some Jewish traditions. But there's a good case that the best context for it is the world of late-antique Byzantine Christianity. See David Satran, Biblical Prophets in Byzantine Palestine. Reassessing the Lives of the Prophets (SVTP 11; Brill, 1994).

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Moses and Zoroaster as authors

DR. YISHAI KEIL: How the Concept of Mosaic Authorship Developed (TheTorah.com).

In the Persian period, the Torah, which is made up of various law collections, was ascribed to Moses as revealed by YHWH. A parallel development was taking place in Achaemenid Persia that sheds light on this process: The sacred texts called the Avesta, that contain the law​​ (dāta) and tradition (daēnā) of Zoroastrianism​, were being collectively ascribed to Zarathustra (Zoroaster) as revealed by Ahuramazdā.

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Satlow on the field of Judaism in late antiquity

MICHAEL SATLOW: Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity: Taking Stock. Professor Satlow has been a major figure in the field for a long time and he is well placed to give us an overview of its development over the last generation.

HT AJR.

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Very busy

I AM GOING TO BE VERY BUSY FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS. Nevertheless, I expect to blog daily, at pretty much the usual volume. Sometimes it may be later in the day.

Do keep visiting as usual. There is plenty of good blogginess coming!

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

The Sifting Project has found some cool coins

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: 5 rare Jewish coins discovered by Temple Mount project. Coins, minted by autonomous Jewish province of the First Persian Empire in late 4th century BC, attested to existence of commercial, administrative life in and around Second Temple and Temple Mount; 'These were the first coins ever minted by Jews,' says project's co-director, adding pilgrims would convert their tithes into these coins. (Itzchak Tessler, Ynet News).

The "Project" is, of course, the Temple Mount Sifting Project, on which more here and oh so many links.

This article has lots of background on the YHD coins, including that they apparently have been used as partial inspiration for the design of the new Israeli shekel. Cross-file under Numismatics.

The Temple Mount Sifting Project is still looking for funding!

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Was the Priestly writer anti-Temple?

DR HACHAM ISAAC S. D. SASSOON:The Tabernacle: A Post-Exilic Polemic Against Rebuilding the Temple (TheTorah.com).

The Priestly Torah discusses the Tabernacle at extraordinary length, emphasizing its portability. Nothing in P ever says this structure was meant to be temporary. P’s Tabernacle was not foreshadowing the Temple, but was a polemic against Haggai and Zechariah’s agitation to build the Second Temple.

Surprisingly, P never tells the Israelites to build a Temple when they reach the Promised Land.

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4 Baruch

READING ACTS: What is Fourth Baruch? Another in Phil Long's current summer series of blog posts on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

For past posts in this series over the last couple of years, see here and links.

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The royal wedding had a Coptic connection

COPTIC WATCH: Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London gives prayer at UK's royal wedding. Anba Angaelos is the first Coptic Orthodox Archbishop of London, having served as General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom since 1999 (Ahram Online). Sadly, the prayer was not in Coptic.

But never mind. Congratulations and all best wishes to the newlywed royal couple.

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The vision of Ezekiel

EZEKIEL CHAPTER ONE, the Merkavah vision of Ezekiel, is the haftarah (reading from the prophets) for the first day of Shavuot (which started yesterday at sundown). This chapter is the foundation for both Jewish and Christian mysticism and its traditions have also been influential on Islamic mysticism. For some comment on the influence of the passage on Jewish tradition, see Why Read Ezekiel on Shavuot? Tradition connects the prophet's vision to the revelation at Sinai by Michael Fishbane at My Jewish Learning.

In Christian mysticism, Ezekiel's vision was to a large degree mediated through the work of Pseudo-Dionysius the Aeropagite, a late-antique Neoplatonist philosopher and mystic. For more on those traditions, see the Wikipedia article on Christian angelology.

And for more on Ezekiel's Merkavah vision, see here and here and links.

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Judges in Pseudo-Philo

READING ACTS: The Book of Judges in Pseudo-Philo (LAB) (Phil Long). Phil's opening post on this book was noted here. His series on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha continues.

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Why does the Torah come in five books?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Why Is the Torah Divided into Five Books? (Dr. Elaine Goodfriend, TheTorah.com).

The division of the Torah into five books is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible, yet this division may be ancient and inherent. Already in Second Temple times, Philo speaks of it, and by the early first millenium C.E., the Torah became known by the Greek name, Pentateuch, literally, “five scrolls.” Is this division due to practical, thematic, or symbolic considerations?

Fun fact: the first recorded person to use the term "Pentateuch" for the Torah of Moses was a Gnostic Christian. He said that Moses only wrote part of it.

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Archaeology and Virtual Reality

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Virtual Reality in Archaeology. Visualizing antiquity through modern lenses (Abby VanderHart). Past posts on Lithodomos and similar technologies are here and links. And here's an older post on the prospect of such technologies — a prospect that today is partially realized.

Cross-file under Technology Watch.

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Shavuot 2018

THE FESTIVAL OF SHAVUOT (Weeks, Pentecost) begins tonight at sundown. (For real this time!) Best wishes to all those celebrating. Last year's post gave links with biblical background.

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Mobile sifting update

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Archaeologist for a day: Find Temple Mount treasures — at a school near you. The Temple Mount Sifting Project takes its show on the road with a pilot program in which it uses dirt to connect students to the past and future of the Jerusalem holy site (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

Petah Tivka high school pupils got their hands dirty on Wednesday and Thursday this week when the Temple Mount Sifting Project’s new mobile unit paid a visit.

The Yeshurun High School’s hands-on experience was the second of the pilot project’s pit stops in an effort to “bring the mountain to Muhammad.” Previously, elementary school pupils in Tekoa also had the opportunity to sift for treasure during a special session with the Temple Mount Sifting Project’s staff using wet-sifting apparatus.

Students are given a presentation by an archaeologist on the history of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in particular, and are then trained on how to search to artifacts among the dirt. Using water, they “wet-sift” batches of dirt, and sort out the various rocks, pottery and other debris.

So far the pupils in Petah Tikva have found huge amounts of pottery, mosaic tiles, glass and metal. Luckier students have discovered a Crusader coin, a 1st century CE coin, a partial 3rd century CE oil lamp, an iron hook, a leg of an unidentified, potentially First Temple period cultic clay object, all of which will be cleaned and analyzed at the Sifting Project’s Jerusalem lab.

[...]

I noted the new mobile sifting project here. This article gives details about how it's going.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Philo at Oxyrhynchus

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Oxyrhynchus Codex of Philo of Alexandria (Brent Nongbri, Variant Readings). And don't forget to read his follow-up post on the archaeology of the Philo codex: Excavating the Oxyrhynchus Philo Codex.

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Krul, The Revival of the Anu Cult ...

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Revival of the Anu Cult and the Nocturnal Fire Ceremony at Late Babylonian Uruk

Series:
Culture and History of the Ancient Near East, Volume: 95

Author: Julia Krul

In The Revival of the Anu Cult and the Nocturnal Fire Ceremony at Late Babylonian Uruk, Julia Krul offers a comprehensive study of the rise of the sky god Anu as patron deity of Uruk in the Late Babylonian period (ca. 480-100 B.C.). She reconstructs the historical development of the Anu cult, its underlying theology, and its daily rites of worship, with a particular focus on the yearly nocturnal fire ceremony at the Anu temple, the Bīt Rēš.

Providing the first in-depth analysis of the ceremony, Julia Krul convincingly identifies it as a seasonal renewal festival with an important exorcistic component, but also as a reinforcement of local hierarchical relationships and the elite status of the Anu priesthood.

Publication Date: 26 April 2018
ISBN: 978-90-04-36493-6

As I've said before, I like to keep track of developments in the study of late ancient Babylonia, because of its background interest for Judaism of the Second Temple Period.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

Archaeology, Jerusalem, and the Jewish people

DISCOVERIES: ARCHEOLOGY IS CHANGING THE (SUR)FACE OF JERUSALEM. Archaeology provides the most powerful proof of the authenticity of Jewish history and the connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel, and particularly, Jerusalem (Moshe Dann, Jerusalem Post). This article has a clearly-stated agenda, and the interpretation of some of the discoveries is controversial. But it gives a nice summary of some important recent and longstanding archaeological findings associated with Jerusalem.

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Hygoye 21.1 (2018)

A NEW ISSUE: Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 21.1 (2018). It's always good to see another issue of this excellent open-access journal. It is associated with the Beth Mardutho Syriac Institute and the Hugoye e-mail list. For more on both of those, see here. Cross-file under Syriac Watch.

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The Canaanite alphabet in Egyptian?

THE HISTORY OF THE ALPHABET? Earliest Version of Our Alphabet Possibly Discovered (Owen Jarus, Live Science).

The earliest example of our alphabet — a possible mnemonic phrase that helped someone remember "ABCD" — has been discovered on a 3,400-year-old inscribed piece of limestone from ancient Egypt, a scholar believes.

Three of the words start with the ancient equivalent of B, C and D, creating what may be a mnemonic phrase.

Thomas Schneider, a professor of Egyptology and Near Eastern Studies at the University of British Columbia, reported the discovery in a paper published recently in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. This discovery "would be the first historical attestation of 'our' alphabet sequence," he told Live Science in an email.

[...]

This is a different — and more credible — story than the one a couple of years ago about an Egyptian inscription containing Semitic words. Thomas Schneider also figured in that one, but as a skeptic.

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Mobile sifting

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT BLOG: Restarting the Sifting!!

Hello everyone, we have some HUGE news to share with you. The Temple Mount Sifting Project is renewing its activity outside the lab! For the first time in the history of archaeological research in Israel –the site will be coming to you. We will be bringing the antiquities-rich soil that was illegally removed from the Temple Mount in the late 90s to various communities and institutions throughout Israel. Students and volunteers will be able to sift through this material and take part in the important work of recovering the ancient artifacts within. A sifting activity was undertaken yesterday in the Yeshurun School in Petach Tikva – but this is just the beginning! We’ve already started taking requests from other communities throughout Israel.

Follow the link for details. The post also has a bonus section with discoveries in honor of Jerusalem Day.

For many, many past posts on the Temple Mount Sifting Project, start here and follow the links. They are still looking for funding!

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Geniza Fragments 75

GENIZA FRAGMENTS, the Newsletter of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library has published its April 2018 Issue. Some topics are a new novel about the Cairo Geniza, the Bible scribe Samuel ben Jacob, and a Festschrift for Geoffrey Khan (congratulations!).

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Correction! Shavuot starts on Saturday evening.

SORRY ABOUT THAT. Please ignore the deleted post. It was meant for Saturday. I pushed the wrong button somewhere.

Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.

A horse-racing curse in an Aramaic amulet

ARAMAIC WATCH: Ancient Jewish gambler’s chariot race curse found in decoded 5th Century scroll. A nailed-shut amulet uncovered in Turkey in the 1930s, written in Jewish Aramaic and newly translated, pleads for help from Balaam's ass at the track (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

When a typical nailed-shut 5th century curse scroll was uncovered by the University of Princeton in a 1930s excavation under the hippodrome in the city of Antioch (now in Turkey), the team of archaeologists didn’t realize what a unique find they had in hand.

It would take almost another 90 years to discover that the amulet, made of thin lead, is the only known example of a curse written by Jews against a chariot horse racing competitor.

In the curse, written in a Jewish dialect of Aramaic in Hebrew lettering, the gambler beseeches God and his panoply of angels to thwart the competing horse and cause him to “drown in the mud,” said Tel Aviv University doctoral student Rivka Elitzur-Leiman, who recently deciphered the miniature 8.8 x 2.1 cm lead tablet.

[...]

I am currently working on a new English translation of the late-antique Hebrew magical tractate Sefer HaRazim ("The Book of the Mysteries"). It includes a magical rite for making race horses swift. But I agree that (as far as I know) this new Aramaic amulet is the only surviving ancient Jewish cursing rite that involves horse racing.

This discovery is also covered in an article in Haaretz by Ruth Schuster: Ancient Scroll Shows Jews Tried to Hex Chariot Races in Turkey 1,500 Years Ago. Ancient Greeks and Romans were notorious for their elaborate curses but a metal tablet with a hex in Aramaic is the first evidence that the Jews indulged too, Israeli researchers say.

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Pseudo-Philo's LAB

READING ACTS: Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (LAB) (Phil Long). A good quick overview of this book.

This is the first text covered in Phil's new OT Pseudepigrapha series for summer, 2018.

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Festscrift for Leonard Greenspoon

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM PURDUE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Found in Translation: Essays on Jewish Biblical Translation in Honor of Leonard J. Greenspoon (Hardback)

James W. Barker (Editor) Anthony LeDonne Editor) Joel N. Lohr Editor)
format: Hardback
publisher: Purdue University Press
pub. date: 07/15/2018
page count: 317pp
subject(s): Language Arts & Disciplines, Jewish Studies, Global Languages and Literatures
language: English
dimensions: 6.00" x 9.00"
ISBN 10: 155753781X
ISBN 13: 9781557537812
status: Awaiting Publication

Book Description
Found in Translation is at once a themed volume on the translation of ancient Jewish texts and a Festschrift for Leonard J. Greenspoon, the Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Professor in Jewish Civilization and professor of classical and near Eastern studies and of theology at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Greenspoon has made significant contributions to the study of Jewish biblical translations, particularly the ancient translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, known as the Septuagint. This volume comprises an internationally renowned group of scholars presenting a wide range of original essays on Bible translation, the influence of culture on biblical translation, Bible translations’ reciprocal influence on culture, and the translation of various Jewish texts and collections, especially the Septuagint. Volume editors have painstakingly planned Found in Translation to have the broadest scope of any current work on Jewish biblical translation to reflect Greenspoon’s broad impact on the field throughout an august career.

Congratulations to Professor Greenspoon!

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Back to the OT Pseudepigrapha

READING ACTS: Summer Series: (Even More) Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Regular readers will be familiar with Phil Long's series on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, which he ran in the summers of 2016 and 2017. He's back to it now for the coming summer.

He promises to continue with the Charlesworth edition, covering biblical expansions and sapiential and poetic texts. He hopes to move on to Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures vol. 1 (ed. Bauckham, Davila, and Panayotov; Eerdmans, 2013) (a.k.a. MOTP1).

Phil's opening post above includes a very useful index of his past pseudepigrapha posts.

I look forward to this new installment of the series.

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On the Sogdian language and its decipherment

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: The discovery and decipherment of Sogdian. Sogdian is a Middle Iranian language. It has come up on PaleoJudaica occasionally because it sometimes preserves translations of material important for ancient Jewish studies, notably fragments of The Book of Giants. Sogdian was first identified and translated from manuscripts excavated in Turfan in (modern day) China. Other past posts involving the Sogdian language and the discoveries at Turfan are here and links, and here and here, and here and links.

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The Pool of Siloam

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY has a couple of recent essays on the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, famous as the site of one of Jesus' healing miracles according to the Gospel of John. It is also associated with Hezekiah's Tunnel, the original location of the important Siloam Inscription from the reign of Hezekiah.

The Siloam Pool: Where Jesus Healed the Blind Man. A sacred Christian site identified by archaeologists.

Where Is the Original Siloam Pool from the Bible? Hunting for the Biblical Pool of Siloam from Hezekiah’s time.

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AJS Review 42.1 (2018)

A NEW ISSUE OF AJS REVIEW IS OUT (Volume 42 - Issue 1 - April 2018). It has, intera alia, some articles and lots of book reviews of interest for ancient Judaism. It's a paid subscription site, but even if you're not a subscriber you can read the TOC and the abstracts at the link.

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The Talmud on invalidated sacrifices

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Blood of the Soul. This week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study continues to explore the real—and hypothetical—practicalities of ritual animal sacrifice.

This week’s Daf Yomi reading introduced us to a crucial concept in the law of sacrifice: piggul, which literally means “a vile thing” or “an abhorrent thing.” According to Leviticus 7, the meat of a sacrificed animal is strictly required to be eaten either on the day of the sacrifice or the following day. If it is eaten on the third day, “it shall be piggul and the soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity.” The rabbis explain that eating piggul carries the harshest punishment in Jewish law: karet, the divinely inflicted “separation” of the soul from God after death.

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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Where did John get "Armageddon?"

ETYMOLOGY: Armageddon 101: The True History of the End of the World. Revelations associates Megiddo in northern Israel with the end of days, but as the struggle over Jerusalem threatens to bring the apocalypse closer, we may want to revisit that assumption (Elon Gilad, Haaretz).

Revelations consists of a prophetic description of how the world will end. Its writer identifies himself as John, but other than his name, nothing is known of him, and the traditional identification of him with John the Apostle is likely not true.

Yet whoever this John was, he played a decisive role in molding the Christian conception of the eschatological end of days. John, who wrote Revelations in Greek, also bestowed upon the English language two words for the end of the worlds: apocalypse and Armageddon. The origin of the first is clear, but the latter is puzzling.

Revelation, dang it! It's the Book of Revelation, singular.

Elon, I expect better from you. But otherwise, nice article on a challenging topic.

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Review of Hezser, Rabbinic Body Language

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note | Rabbinic Body Language: Non-Verbal Communication in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity (Erez DeGolan).

Catherine Hezser. Rabbinic Body Language: Non-Verbal Communication in Palestinian Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2017.

Excerpt:

There is something counterintuitive in a study of body language and non-verbal communication in Palestinian rabbinic literature. For one thing, non-verbal communication is instinctively associated with living, visible, bodies. Such a study, therefore, may appear relevant to ethnographers who immerse themselves in fieldwork but not to scholars whose primary sources are silent and unmoving texts. Moreover, assuming an inquiry of literary portrayals of non-verbal communication is possible, rabbinic discourse may be problematic due to the fact that the voices of the rabbinic documents are generally perceived as coming out of, literally, talking heads. At first glance, then, the data seems resistant to a meaningful analysis of rabbinic body language.

But ...

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No Chamber of Secrets in Tut's tomb

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Third Scan Searches for Queen Nefertiti’s Tomb. The verdict is in for what’s behind King Tutankhamun’s burial chamber (Robin Ngo). Oh well, it wasn't looking very promising. But as I have said before, the exciting thing about this story is that our technology is now advanced enough that we can have this conversation at all.

Background here and links.

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More on the big house at Tel ‘Eton

ARCHAEOLOGY: Proof of King David? Not yet. But riveting site shores up roots of Israelite era. Based on controversial carbon dating, Prof. Avraham Faust's Tel 'Eton excavation offers up startling look at a settlement formed at the foundation of the United Monarchy (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

Standing next to his Tel ‘Eton excavation on a straw-covered hill in the southeastern part of Israel’s Judean Shephalah (lowlands), a little over 20 miles southeast of Ashkelon, Bar-Ilan University Prof. Avraham Faust describes with disbelief the media storm of misquotes and half-understood facts surrounding him for the past two weeks. “It’s been a real learning moment,” said archaeologist Faust.

The eye of the tornado? The publication of results garnered from carbon-dating a few olive pits and charcoal uncovered in the foundations of a rare complete massive Israelite building that once towered over the hilltop.

Even today, under a deceptively hazy sky where a welcome breeze blows occasionally during our three hours at the hill’s lookout, the outline of the 225 meter squared structure is readily impressive, with its 750 kilo sophisticated chiseled “ashlar” cornerstones, to its skeletal, multi-room divisions that illustrate the practical uses of its stone-walled spaces.

Background here. Regular PaleoJudaica readers are familiar with the story, but this article has more details. An earlier story on Tel ‘Eton (Tel Eton) was noted here. And past posts on Khirbet Qeiyafa are collected here.

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Review of Milstein, Tracking the Master Scribe

MARGINALIA REVIEW OF BOOKS: Authorship and Ownership: Whose Bible Is It Anyway? Michael Hundley Reviews Sara Milstein’s Tracking the Master Scribe (OUP, 2016). Excerpt:

Milstein’s Mesopotamian analysis is immensely helpful for both Assyriology and Biblical Studies. Since Assyriology generally eschews diachronic analysis, her study helps us to better understand textual (re)production in ancient Mesopotamia as well as gives the reader a fresh reading of the different versions of the stories. It also offers important comparative data from the world in which the Hebrew Bible was written. Her work is especially helpful in demonstrating that the Bible is not unique in its inclusion of inconsistencies (an assumption that many have come to largely because of a general lack of diachronic studies of other ancient Near Eastern texts). Rather, inconsistencies are part and parcel of the production of texts in the ancient Near East, including in Mesopotamia and the Hebrew Bible. Studying the introduction and conclusion as loci of editorial activity likewise indicates that the tendency to preserve tensions may go well beyond the desire to preserve different voices. One could even argue that, at least in some cases, the different voices are not meant to be highlighted; rather, they are allowed to remain because they have been suitably reframed by a new narrative framework. Leaving behind portions of the old also allows the master scribe to borrow the authority of the original while reframing or even subverting its message.

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Report on the Temple Mount Sifting Project

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: What We Learned from Sifting the Earth of the Temple Mount (Dr. Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Dvira (Zweig), TheTorah.com).

The founders and directors of the Temple Mount sifting project explain the origin of the project, its goals, and highlight some of its important finds.

PaleoJudaica has been follow the progress of the Temple Mount Sifting Project since its inception. They are about 70% done and are currently on hiatus until they can raise more funding. Wealthy philanthropical PaleoJudaica readers take note!

For many, many past posts on the Project, start here and follow the links. And also have a look at their blog, listed in the Blogroll to the right––>.

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Talmud and the working Mom

FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S TALMUD DAY: How Daf Yomi Became Part Of This Working Mom’s Routine (CAROLINE MUSIN BERKOWITZ, JOFA Blog).

Background here. And there's more on Ilana Kurshan's book, If All the Seas Were Ink, here and links.

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Today is International Women's Talmud Day

TALMUD WATCH: Women encouraged to study Talmud with launch of international day of learning. International Women’s Talmud Day will take place on Sunday, May 13 (Simon Rocker, The Jewish Chronicle).

Running in Australia, France, Israel and the United States and backed by the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance and its British branch as well as the New York women’s seminary Yeshivat Maharat, the event is designed to encourage woman to study a text which is still regarded as for men only among the most conservative religious circles.

Related: Why I Started International Women’s Talmud Day (Shayna Abramson, JOFA Blog/The New York Jewish Week).

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Quinn on the Phoenicians and British nationalism

PHOENICIAN WATCH: Phantasmic Phoenicia. The British, Irish and Lebanese have all claimed descent from the ancient Phoenicians. But ancient Phoenicia never existed (Josephine Quinn, Aeon).

Take the ancient Phoenicians, enlisted in support of the nationalist histories of Lebanon, Britain and Ireland, and in some cases seriously distorted by them. Despite claims by various partisans of Lebanese, British and Irish nationalism to enlist the Phoenicians as their ancient progenitor, the Phoenicians never existed as a self-conscious community, let alone a nascent nation.

A full account of the little-remembered contribution of pseudo-scholarship on the Phoenicians to early British and Irish nationalisms. Along the way, Professor Quinn argues, the concept of nationalism was applied retroactively to the Phoenicians.

Professor Quinn is the author of the recent book In Search of the Phoenicians. There's more on it here and links.

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Coins of the Second Punic War

NUMISMATICS: NGC Ancient Coins: The Second Punic War (CoinWeek).

One of the most interesting and most challenging themes in the world of ancient coins is the Second Punic War, a monumental conflict in which Romans and Carthaginians battled each other for nearly two decades. At stake was supremacy over the Western Mediterranean. After its hard-won victory over Carthage in 201 BCE, Rome had established its regional authority beyond question.

[...]

Quite a nice collection. Cross-file under Punic Watch.

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Deane has found some giant Cainites

REMNANT OF GIANTS BLOG: Al-Kisāʾī on the Giant Cainites (Deane Galbraith). Discovered in the new volume edited by John Reeves and Annette Yoshiko Reed, Enoch from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, on which more here.

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