Judean coins in Wacks collection going on auction

NUMISMATICS: Wacks Collection Includes Rare Roman Related Judaean Coins (Goldberg Auctioneers, CoinWeek). The auction takes place in New York on 14-16 January 2020. As always, I hope that the collectors who buy them will make them available to scholars for study. Meanwhile, this article has some photos and descriptions of the coins, which are of interest for the study of ancient Judaism.

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Burke's SBL diary

OVER AT THE APOCRYPHYCITY BLOG, Tony Burke has published his annual SBL diary in three parts:

2019 SBL Diary: Day One. In all three posts, Tony mostly reports on the Christian Apocrypha sessions. But he also has a paragraph in this post on the Postmortem on the So-called First-Century Mark Fragment session. More on that here.

2019 SBL Diary: Day Two. For more on M. R. James and his ghost stories and his apocrypha, start here (cf. here) and follow the many links.

2019 SBL Diary: Day 3. In which Tony consumes "edibles," because California.

Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch and #AARSBL19.

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Review of Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note | Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (Jennifer Quigley).

Paula Fredriksen. Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017

I noted an earlier review of the book here.

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Fourth-century church excavated in Aksum

ARCHAEOLOGY: Buried Christian (and Pagan) Basilica Discovered in Ethiopia's 'Lost Kingdom' of Aksum (Tom Metcalfe, Live Science).

"The basilica that we have found is quite important," Harrower said. "There have been other fourth-century basilicas that are known, but most of them were discovered a long time ago and some of them just without a lot of artifacts or information to be had."

In contrast, the early church at Beta Samati holds a trove of ancient artifacts, including early Christian religious artifacts, bronze coins, clay figurines and large pottery amphoras that were used to store either imported wine or olive oil.

"This is telling you that whoever is using this basilica has access to imported luxury trade goods and is quite interconnected into the ancient world and the trade networks," he said.

Some of the ancient bronze coins from the basilica confirmed its age: A coin from the early reign of Aksum's fourth-century King Ezana is decorated with a crescent moon symbolic of the southern Arabian god Almaqah, Harrower said.

Aksum (Axum) has a number of legendary and historical connections with ancient Judaism and early Christianity. I have summarized them here with links. More recent posts on Aksum are here and links.

The following detail in this article caught my eye:

One of the most striking finds is a black stone pendant, decorated with a Christian cross and the motto "venerable" in Ethiopia's ancient Ge'ez script. "This is about the size that you could hang around your neck," he said, "so maybe a priest would have worn this."

The ancient Jewish books of 1 Enoch and Jubilees survive complete only in translations in the ancient Ethiopic language Ge'ez. I do not know Ge'ez, so I can't comment authoritatively. But I do know that a fourth-century inscription in Ge'ez is quite early. The earliest manuscripts in Ge'ez, the Garima Gospels, date from the fourth to seventh centuries. All other manuscripts in Ge'ez come from many centuries later.

This pendant only has one word on it, but it sounds like an exciting discovery.

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Report on the SBL "First Century Mark" Session

VARIANT READINGS: Recap of the SBL “First Century Mark” Session (Brent Nongbri). For background on this rather complicated story and its ramifications, see here and many links. I have not been directly involved with it and I take no position on the various claims and accusations. I keep up with the story for your information. You decide what to make of it.

I am still looking for reports on #AARSBL19 sessions relevant to the interests of PaleoJudaica. If you have written one or found one, please drop me a note.

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Masada essays in the JP

MASADA WATCH: In anticipation of Hanukkah, the Jerusalem Post has published four essays on Masada:

The symbol of Masada. The adoption of Masada as a modern symbol for the State of Israel, however, is controversial because of what Josephus wrote took place there. (Steve Linde). Introductory to the other three.

Masada and Jewish heroism: A new perspective. The most important question is why the Jews at Masada stopped fighting (Moshe Dann). Most of this essay is behind the subscription wall.

The fall of Masada. Two thousand years ago, 967 Jewish men, women and children reportedly chose to take their own lives rather than suffer enslavement or death at the hands of the Roman army (Jodi Magness). For more on Professor Magness's recent book, Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth (Princeton University Press, 2019), see here and here. And for many other posts on the history and archaeology of, and revisionist views on, Masada, follow the links at the latter post.

Masada and its scrolls. Masada was first built as a fortress by a Hasmonean priest Jonathan, either the brother of Judah the Maccabee (152–143 BCE) or Alexander Janneus (103–76 BCE) (Lawrence H. Schiffman). Professor Schiffman is a prominent specialist on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I link to his his blog from time to time.

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Nazoreans (and Nazareth) and Enochic Judaism?

THE RELIGION PROF BLOG: Nazoreans and Enochic Judaism at #AARSBL19. There are many interesting blog posts on the goings on at the AAR/SBL meeting in San Diego last month. This one by James McGrath caught my eye. If I get around to it, maybe I will link to some others.

Cross-file under Mandean (Mandaean) Watch.

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Sabar, Veritas

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM DOUBLEDAY:

Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife Hardcover – August 11, 2020
by Ariel Sabar (Author)

Kindle
$15.50

Hardcover
$29.95

From National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Ariel Sabar, the gripping true story of a sensational religious forgery and the scandal that engulfed Harvard.

In 2012, Dr. Karen King, a star professor at Harvard Divinity School, announced a blockbuster discovery at a scholarly conference just steps from the Vatican: She had found an ancient fragment of papyrus in which Jesus calls Mary Magdalene "my wife." The tattered manuscript made international headlines. If early Christians believed Jesus was married, it would upend the 2,000-year history of the world's predominant faith, threatening not just the celibate, all-male priesthood but sacred teachings on marriage, sex and women's leadership. Biblical scholars were in an uproar, but King had impeccable credentials as a world-renowned authority on female figures in the lost Christian texts from Egypt known as the Gnostic gospels. "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife"--as she provocatively titled her discovery--was both a crowning career achievement and powerful proof for her arguments that Christianity from its start embraced alternative, and far more inclusive, voices.

As debates over the manuscript's authenticity raged, award-winning journalist Ariel Sabar set out to investigate a baffling mystery: where did this tiny scrap of papyrus come from? His search for answers is an international detective story--leading from the factory districts of Berlin to the former headquarters of the East German Stasi before winding up in rural Florida, where he discovered an internet pornographer with a prophetess wife, a fascination with the Pharaohs and a tortured relationship with the Catholic Church.

VERITAS is a tale of fierce intellectual rivalries at the highest levels of academia, a piercing psychological portrait of a disillusioned college dropout whose life had reached a breaking point, and a tragedy about a brilliant scholar handed an ancient papyrus that appealed to her greatest hopes for Christianity--but forced a reckoning with fundamental questions about the nature of truth and the line between faith and reason.

Available for pre-order.

I noted Mr. Sabar's important 2016 article in the Atlantic on the Gospel of Jesus' Wife here. And for some follow-up, see here. This book on the same story is coming out in August of next year.

For many, many other posts on the GJW, see here and links. My first post on the subject, back in 2012, is here. And for more on Ariel Sabar's other work, see here and links.

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Review of Aufrecht, A Corpus of Ammonite Inscriptions (2nd ed.)

THE BIBLICAL REVIEW BLOG: Review: “A Corpus of Ammonite Inscriptions, Second Edition” by Walter E. Aufrecht (William Brown). Cross-file under Northwest Semitic Epigraphy.

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Scroll residue in a Dead Sea jar lid?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Decayed Papyrus Hints that More Dead Sea Scrolls Remain. Analysis of a jar lid from the region suggests it once held one or more scrolls (Jonathan Laden).

A few thoughts.

Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written on parchment (animal skin), not papyrus (crushed reed). A jar containing papyrus documents would be unusual, but entirely possible. A reed mat was also found in Cave 10. Just to be difficult, I wonder if we can rule out the possibility that the jar held another reed mat.

The jar lid is unprovenanced. John Allegro bought it. He concluded that it was from a Qumran cave, but not from one of the eleven that we already knew held scrolls. Could be. But I would keep an open mind about its provenance.

As Professor Taylor says in a comment to the DQCAAS article, this find doesn't necessarily imply that more scrolls remain. Just that some once did, but they are now decayed and gone.

For hope of finding more scrolls (possibly very early ones) see here and links. It seems unlikely. But I am an optimist.

Cross-file under Ancient Material Culture and Techology Watch.

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Babylon now

TWO NEW PHOTO ESSAYS cover current conditions in the ancient city of Babylon:

Inside the Abandoned Babylon That Saddam Hussein Built. “If I could, I would go without shoes here, because it’s a holy place,” says a guide to the ancient site (Pesha Magid, Atlas Obscura)

FIT FOR A TYRANT. Inside abandoned Babylon built by Saddam Hussein who thought he was reincarnation of ancient king Nebuchadnezzar (Nicola Stow, The Sun)

The first story has better text and the second better photos. The second seems to be inspired by the first.

One of the first PaleoJudaica posts, way back in 2003, dealt with some related themes: SADDAM AND NEBUCHADNEZZAR. Unfortunately, none of the links remain active. So much the durability of the Internet. Clay tablets had their virtues. The posts here and here are also relevant.

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Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day 2019

IT'S THAT DAY AGAIN: Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day. Have fun, but be good.

One of the original announcements, with some instructions, is here. The Twitter hashtag is #PretendToBeATimeTravelerDay.

Past posts on the day and related are here (first post) and here and links.

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Bonesho on foreign holidays in rabbinic literature

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Foreign Holidays and Festivals as Representative of Identity in Rabbinic Literature: a Dissertation Spotlight (Catherine Bonesho).

Catherine Bonesho, “Foreign Holidays and Festivals as Representative of Identity in Rabbinic Literature” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 2018).

Excerpt:

... I argue that rabbinic discussions of foreign holidays show three primary interests. First, interactions with non-Jews on foreign holidays were prohibited because of the prohibition against idolatry. Second, the rabbis allowed for some interactions with non-Jews in order to benefit from involvement in the imperial economy. Thirdly, and most prominently, through tales about the various origins of Roman holidays, the rabbis used holidays to simultaneously index the identities of Self and Other.

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Ancient Jordanian rock art

NABATEAN (NABATAEAN) WATCH: In Jordan’s desert, ancient rock art finds modern defenders (Taylor Luck, Christian Science Monitor).

The carvings of Wadi Rum are as diverse as the history of these rugged sandy crossroads between Arabia, the Mediterranean, and North Africa.

Much of the art and inscriptions are in Thamudic, or Safaitic; the script, of Bedouin tribes who lived in northern Arabia over 3,000 years ago, a presumed precursor to Arabic and Aramaic.

Then came the Nabataeans, who built an empire from their third-century B.C. capital of Petra, and carved pictures and script in their own language that derived from Thamudic.

Cliff walls here also include messages and Koranic verses in Kufic – an early Arabic script. Then there are the primitive petroglyphs, stick men, women, animals and undecipherable symbols that predate all those civilizations by thousands of years.

For more on the ancient North Arabian dialects as well as on the Nabatean language, see here (cf. here) and follow the links.

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Lars Hartman (1930-2019)

SAD NEWS FROM THE ETC BLOG: RIP Lars Hartman (1930-2019) (Tommy Wasserman). Professor Emeritus Hartman was a Swedish New Testament scholar, but he also wrote a notable book on 1 Enoch: Asking for a Meaning: A Study of 1 Enoch 1-5. CONBNT 12. Lund: Gleer- up, 1979.

Requiescat in pace. Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch.

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Biblical Studies Carnival 166

BELATEDLY NOTED: Biblical Studies Carnival #166: November 2019 (Theology Pathfider Blog, Derek Demars). Derek invites you to "Take a walk on the weirder side of cultural background studies" with PaleoJudaica. Thanks?

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The Talmud on miscarriages

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Birth Control. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ Talmudic rabbis debate if a miscarriage causes religious impurity and discuss what to do when a woman discharges a fetus that resembles a fish.

When is a fetus not a fetus? That is the question the rabbis pursue, in graphic detail, in Chapter 3 of Tractate Nidda. As we have seen, a woman who has “an issue of her flesh in blood”—that is, a menstrual period—becomes ritually impure for seven days, during which time she can’t have sex with her husband. A woman also becomes ritually impure when she gives birth, for seven days if the child is a boy and 14 days if it’s a girl.

[...]

For more on the tumtum, the person with ambiguous physical gender characteristics, see here and here. Transgender issues are not just a modern concern.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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More Hurtado memorials

MEMORIALS FOR THE LATE LARRY HURTADO continue to come in. I don't have time right now to post all I have found, but here are two important ones from his Doktorvater Professor Emeritus Eldon Jay Epp and his colleague at the the School of Divinity at University of Edinburgh, Professor Helen Bond.

Larry W. Hurtado (29 Dec. 1943–25 Nov. 2019): A Guest Post by Eldon Jay Epp (The ETC Blog)

Professor Larry Hurtado (1943-2019). Founder of the Centre for the Study of Christian Origins (Helen Bond)

Background here and here. My original post on his passing is now the second most consulted post on PaleoJudaica since it began keeping records in 2010.

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Ancient Aramaic in Bahrain?

ARAMAIC WATCH? Experts find first archaeological evidence of Christianity in Bahrain. Experts have found the first archaeological evidence showing Christianity was practised in Bahrain, a discovery which sheds light on a missing part of the country’s history (University of Exeter).

The archaeological remains were found late last month in the village of Samahij, on the northern coast of Muharraq island. Samahij was probably the location of the episcopal seat of Meshmahig mentioned variously in historical sources between 410 and 647, and one of the centres of the country’s pearl trade.

Also found at the site were the remains of wine jars, glass goblets and pottery, which dates from the 7th century. One of the wine jars is inscribed in what is thought to be an Aramaic language called Psalter Pahlavi.

The work was led by Professor Insoll and Dr Rachel MacLean of the University of Exeter and Dr Salman Almahari of the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities, with additional input from Professor Robert Carter who studied the ceramics found.

The substantial building, measuring 17m x 10m, was probably part of a monastery or large house. The building was likely occupied in the 7th century just before the people converted to Islam. The building has several rooms and was decorated with carved plaster. A cross has been found carved onto a piece of stone and another cross was found painted on a pot sherd.

It is likely that the Christians who used the building were part of the Nestorian Church which flourished in the Gulf between the 4th/5th and 7th centuries.

My emphasis. I am confused by this report. Pahlavi is Middle Persian (an Indo-European language), not Aramaic (a Semitic language). Psalter Pahlavi is a Pahlavi script named after the script in the Pahlavi Psalter. It is connected with the Nestorians, but it is not itself Aramaic or Syriac. If anyone knows more about this jar inscription from Samahij, please drop me a note.

For more on ancient Aramaic inscriptions found in the pre-Islamic Arabic-speaking world, start here and follow the links. This is the first I've heard of an Aramaic inscription — if that's what it is — being discovered in Bahrain. But there were Nestorians there, so I would not be surprised to see evidence for the use of Syriac.

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Buyoung Son, The Subversive Chronicler

NEW BOOK FROM SHEFFIELD PHOENIX PRESS:

The Subversive Chronicler
Narrative Film Theory and Canon Criticism Refocus his Intention
Buyoung Son

In 1 and 2 Chronicles, commentators have long noted a pattern of retributive justice whereby kings who comply with Yahweh’s will are rewarded with long life and honourable burial, whereas those who do not are disgraced. However, another pattern significantly emerges from a group of kings whose careers display an unexpected reversal. No convincing consensus has yet emerged to explain this reversal pattern.

By exploring and adopting the insights of narrative film theory, particularly of cognitive film semiotics, into the effects of macro-repetition, Son uncovers the implications of these unexpected reversals. As the reversal pattern is interwoven with the retributive pattern, the narrative emerges as a falsifying narration, provoking a deep scepticism about the conventional view of retribution theology.

Deleuzian film theory offers a crucial insight into how this falsifying narration works. The reversal pattern has a destabilizing effect, which suggests that the Chronicler’s theological outlook is more nuanced than that of Samuel–Kings, or perhaps even frankly subversive of it. From a canonical perspective, furthermore, the presence of the Chronicler’s work in the Ketuvim points to its potential function as a subtle theological readjustment in the postexilic Jewish community.

The Subversive Chronicler is then a challenge to the Chronicler’s theology as it is commonly understood and also as a refocusing of its difference from the historiography of Samuel–Kings.

Buyoung Son is Senior Pastor at Chowol Sungshin Church and Instructor of Bible News Institute, South Korea.

Series: Hebrew Bible Monographs, 83
978-1-910928-59-2 hardback
Publication November 2019

viii + 248 pp.

£27.50 / $37.50 / €32.50
Scholar's Price

£55 / $75 / €65
List Price
Hardback

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Ancient synagogue mosaics found in the Golan

DECORATIVE ART: Rare 3rd century Golan synagogue mosaics show shift in Jewish life post-Temple. Colorful decorations in Roman-era synagogue record transition from study hall to public ‘mini-Temple’ prayer hall (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

Colorful remains of mosaics from a 3rd century synagogue in the ancient town of Majdulia are the earliest evidence of synagogue decoration in the Golan, according to a University of Haifa press release on Monday.

[...]

The mosaics are very fragmentary, but important.

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Nebuchadnezzar explained

THE WORLD IS FULL OF HISTORY: Nebuchadnezzar explained: warrior king, rebuilder of cities, and musical muse (Louise Pryke, The Conversation). King Nebuchadnezzar is most famous not for any of these things, but because the Bible tells of his destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and his exiling of the Judeans to Babylon. And, as this essay notes, he is in the news now because of Kanye West's new opera about him. The essay is a good, brief overview of what we know about him.

Many past PaleoJudaica posts involve Nebuchadnezzar. Some of them are here, here, here, here, and links.

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Why did no one come back for those books?

AN ANCIENT MYSTERY: Scrolls, Lost Gospels, And Why Nobody Came Back To Get Them (Philip Jenkins, The Anxious Bench). I agree with Professor Jenkins. If we find ancient hidden treasure, something bad happened to the original owners.

A thought: Josephus comments that the Romans could not break the Essenes with torture (J.W. 8.152-53). He says they inflicted it to make them curse their lawgiver or eat forbidden food. But the Romans were practical people. I wonder if those interrogations also involved more practical matters.

Cross file under the Copper Scroll?

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Review of Barton, Ethics in Ancient Israel

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note | Ethics in Ancient Israel (James Nati).

John Barton, Ethics in Ancient Israel. New York: Oxford, 2014. pp. xii + 317. ISBN 978-0-19-878517-0.

Excerpt:

Barton’s work is thus meant not at offering clarity for believers as they try to live more “biblically,” but rather to argue that ancient Israelite thinkers deserve a seat at the table among other ethical thinkers throughout history.

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The Gospel of Thomas

NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA WATCH: What is Gospel of Thomas - missing Bible chapter changes EVERYTHING known about Jesus (Tom Fish, The Express). This article being in The Express did not fill me with high expectations. And the headline did nothing to raise them. But when I read the article itself, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was well researched and well presented for the target audience.

I have called out The Express for poor coverage in the past, so I want to give them credit this time for doing a creditable job. But next time I hope they exercise more restraint with the headline.

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Zedekiah's Cave meets Aladdin's

CULINARY SPELUNCULAR LEGEND MASHUP: Open Sesame: Jerusalem cave hosts Aladdin-themed feast. Open Restaurants festival welcomes renowned Turkish chef as Jerusalem looks to food for tourism boost (MAYA MARGIT/THE MEDIA LINE, Jerusalem Post).

On a cold November night, dozens of visitors slowly file into an opening in the ancient stone walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Walking down candlelit steps with wine glasses in their hands, they make their way through a large cavern as performance artists dance nearby and light projections illuminate the walls. Yet there are no magic lamps or genies inside this legendary space known as Zedekiah’s Cave; rather, the treasure these visitors seek is of the gastronomic variety.

[...]

Sounds like a fun party. For past posts on Zedekiah's Cave and the cycle of legends around it, see here and links.

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Mani exhibition at the Chester Beatty Library

THE NSEA BLOG: THE MYSTERY OF MANI. The Symposium on Manichaeism in Egypt is now past, but the Mani exhibition is still on into January 2020. And if you can't make it to Dublin, there is a full 3-d version only.

Cross-file unde Manichean (Manichaean) Watch. Some past posts on the Chester Beatty Library are here and here and links.

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Chalmers on The Samaritan Other

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: The Samaritan Other: Representation, History, and Lost Late Ancient Difference (Matthew Chalmers).

Matthew Chalmers, Representations of Samaritans in Late Antique Jewish and Christian Texts (University of Pennsylvania PhD Dissertation, 2019)

... My dissertation asked how representation of Samaritans in late antique Jewish and Christian texts can restructure the ways we approach religious identity and difference. ...

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Hurtado memorials

MEMORIALS FOR THE LATE LARRY HURTADO are coming in. These are the ones I have seen which are linkable to. There are many more on Facebook.

THE ETC BLOG: RIP Larry W. Hurtado (1943–2019) (Tommy Wasserman).

CHRISTIANITY TODAY: Remembering Larry Hurtado, Leading Researcher of Early Christian Worship. The Edinburgh New Testament professor modeled faithful scholarship with his work on historic devotion to Jesus (HOLLY J. CAREY).

THE BIBLE AND CULTURE BLOG: Old Friends Here…. and Hereafter (BEN WITHERINGTON).

Background here.

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Review of Warren, Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature

REVIEWS OF THE ENOCH SEMINAR:

R. Rodríguez Reviews Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature (M. Warren)

Reviews of the Enoch Seminar 2019.11.10

Meredith J. C. Warren, Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature. Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplement Series 14. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2019. ISBN: 9781628372380. Pp. xv + 189. $29.95. Paperback.

Rafael Rodríguez
Johnson University

Excerpt:

Warren’s discussion of the half-dozen examples of hierophagy (as well as references to additional potential instances or relevant comparanda) is fascinating, well-written, and engaging. She intentionally brings together literary phenomena that transcend ideological/religious boundaries (Jew, Christian, Graeco-Roman) in order to situate her proposal within a broader ancient Mediterranean worldview. With references to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the Wachowski Brothers’s The Matrix, among others, she also proposes hierophagy as a significant research agenda across time as well as space. In every instance, her analyses are stimulating and suggestive for other narrative and textual moments.

But the reviewer is skeptical that she has demonstrated the existence of an ancient genre of hierophagy.

For more on the book, see here.

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On Porat, Justice for the Poor

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Justice for The Poor (Benjamin Porat).

Justice for the Poor: The Principles of Welfare Regulations from Biblical Law to Rabbinic Literature
צדק דלים: עקרונות דיני הרווחה מן התורה לספרות חז״ל
Nevo Publishing; Sacher Institute; Israeli Democracy Institute, 2019. [hebrew]

Excerpt:

This book is devoted to an examination of the theoretical conceptions that emerge from the welfare laws in the Bible and from the laws of charity that developed later in the rabbinic literature, i.e., by the mishnaic and talmudic Sages. The book reveals the underlying theoretical currents giving rise to these conceptions and those that arose in their wake.

Cross-file under New Book.

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Rickett, Separating Abram and Lot

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Separating Abram and Lot

The Narrative Role and Early Reception of Genesis 13

Series: Themes in Biblical Narrative, Volume: 26

€149.00/
$179.00

Author: Dan Rickett

In Separating Abram and Lot: The Narrative Role and Early Reception of Genesis 13, Dan Rickett presents a fresh analysis of two of Genesis’ most important characters. Many have understood Lot as Abram’s potential heir and as an ethical contrast to him. Here, Rickett explores whether these readings best reflect the focus of the story. In particular, he considers the origin of these readings and how a study of the early Jewish and Christian reception of Genesis 13 might help identify that origin. In turn, due attention is given to the overall purpose of Genesis 13, as well as how Lot and his function in the text should be understood.

E-Book
Status: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-41388-7
Publication Date: 01 Oct 2019
Hardback
Status: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-39989-1
Publication Date: 10 Oct 2019

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Thanksgiving 2019

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to my American readers and to anyone else who is celebrating!

This is a working day in the U.K., so I am in my office as usual. But thankful nonetheless. Have a great day!

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Yahalom, Sources of the Sacred Song

NEW BOOK FROM MAGNES PRESS (IN HEBREW):

Sources of the Sacred Song
Crossroads in Jewish Liturgical Poetry

By: Joseph Yahalom

Publisher: Magnes Press
Year: 2019
Catalog number: 45-541011
ISBN: 978-965-7008-41-6
Pages: 300
Language: Hebrew
Weight: 600 gr.
Cover: Paperback

Print $30
eBook for Magnes App $21

Synopsis

The book is concerned with the main trends in Jewish Liturgy during Late Antiquity and its connections and inter relations with Aramaic Targum, Midrash, mysticism, popular beliefs, structure and rhyme patterns as performed amid Late Antique Synagogues in Palestine, as well as the later spread of these fertile products to Southern Italy and then to the rest of Europe. The book discusses the different layers of poets and performers as presented in ancient manuscripts which were preserved in the Cairo Geniza collections and later in European Mahzorim, and the fascinating struggle of survival of the different liturgical cycles.

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Larry Hurtado - 1943-2019

SAD NEWS: Social media is alight with notices of the death of Professor Larry Hurtado yesterday. Larry was Professor of New Testament Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh. He was a major figure in New Testament studies and is especially known for his work on the earliest Christology. Regular readers of PaleoJudaica will be familiar with his blog, which I have cited often. He continued to update it through his final illness. The last post was on 17 November. His Wikipedia entry is here.

I first met Larry in 1991 at the founding of the Divine Mediator Figures Group in the Society of Biblical Literature. We both continued to be active in the Group throughout its existence. He was a founding member of the Early High Christology Club (on which more here, here, and here - I still have the mug!). He moved to Scotland in 1996, the year after I came to St. Andrews. He was a keynote speaker at the International Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus, which was held at the Divinity School of the University of St. Andrews in 1998. He retired from the University of Edinburgh in 2011, but remained active in the field throughout his life.

Larry's contribution was vast. We are all very sad to have to say goodbye to him. Requiescat in pace.

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Review of Ben-Eliyahu, Identity and Territory

H-JUDAIC REVIEW:

Ames on Ben-Eliyahu, 'Identity and Territory: Jewish Perceptions of Space in Antiquity'

Author: Eyal Ben-Eliyahu
Reviewer: Tracy Ames

Eyal Ben-Eliyahu. Identity and Territory: Jewish Perceptions of Space in Antiquity. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019. 216 pp. $95.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-520-29360-1.

This volume examines changing ideas related to perceived territorial boundaries and ethno-national identity as reflected in Jewish literature from the Second Temple period to the Roman Byzantine period. Through close readings of biblical, Second Temple, and rabbinic literature, the book focuses on the reciprocal relationship between fluctuating notions of geographic borders and differing views of identity in postbiblical Jewish society. Eyal Ben-Eliyahu presents a pioneering approach to the literary sources he investigates with the application of the spatial theory of history, widely employed in the humanities and social sciences. The central arguments of the book are that identity influences territorial perceptions and that territory, itself, is one of the factors involved in shaping identity. In addition, the treatment of ancient sources related to deliberations about perceptions of status, scope, and the nature of territory among different groups demonstrates that these issues continue to be part of internal and external dialogue about the status of the territory of Israel.

[...]

The review mentions that this book includes material from an earlier book by Ben-Eliyahu: Between Borders: The Boundaries of the Land of Israel in the Consciousness of the People of the Second Temple and the Roman-Byzantine Periods. For a review of it, see here.

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Review of Noam, Shifting Images of the Hasmoneans

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note | Shifting Images of the Hasmoneans (Daniel Picus).

Vered Noam, Shifting Images of the Hasmoneans: Second Temple Legends and Their Reception in Josephus and Rabbinic Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Parallels between rabbinic literature and the writings of Josephus are a problem: how would the rabbis have known Josephus? On the one hand, we can assume that the rabbis knew Josephus in some form. Either they knew Greek and/or there was an Aramaic Josephus (a claim Josephus himself makes in Jewish War I, 3). Our other possibility is that the shared traditions come from a common storehouse, or “repository” of stories, traditions, and narratives: in its suggestion of an unknown source, this option bears a close resemblance to the famous “Q” document of New Testament criticism.[1] Where it differs is in the lack of an actual reconstruction of this putative text.

[...]

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Awabdy, Leviticus

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Leviticus

A Commentary on Leueitikon in Codex Vaticanus

Series: Septuagint Commentary Series

€154.00/
$185.00

Author: Mark Awabdy

In Leviticus Awabdy offers the first commentary on the Greek version of Leviticus according to Codex Vaticanus (4th century CE), which binds the Old and New Testaments into a single volume as Christian scripture. Distinct from other LXX Leviticus commentaries that employ a critical edition and focus on translation technique, Greco-Roman context and reception, this study interprets a single Greek manuscript on its own terms in solidarity with its early Byzantine users unversed in Hebrew. With a formal-equivalence English translation of a new, uncorrected edition, Awabdy illuminates Leueitikon in B as an aesthetic composition that not only exhibits inherited Hebraic syntax and Koine lexical forms, but its own structure and theology, paragraph (outdented) divisions, syntax and pragmatics, intertextuality, solecisms and textual variants.

E-Book
Status: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-40983-5
Publication Date: 01 Oct 2019
Hardback
Status: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-40552-3
Publication Date: 10 Oct 2019

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My review of Stone, Secret Groups in Ancient Judaism

TODAY AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE IN SAN DIEGO, CA.:

Mysticism, Esotericism, and Gnosticism in Antiquity
11/25/2019
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
Room: Sapphire 400B (Fourth Level) - Hilton Bayfront
Theme: Esoteric Religious Groups in Antiquity
Joint session with the AAR Traditions of Eastern Late Antiquity.

April DeConick, Rice University, Presiding

Book Review: Michael Stone, Secret Groups in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)
Kelley Coblentz Bautch, St. Edward's University, Panelist (10 min)

James Davila, University of St. Andrews, Panelist (10 min)

Written Reflections from Michael Stone
Discussion (15 min)

In the event, neither Professor Stone nor I are able to make it to San Diego this year. Our contributions have been read in absentia. The session has just ended. As promised, I am now happy to share my review with you, my readers. Past PaleoJudaica posts on the book are here and links.

Michael Stone’s book, Secret Groups in Ancient Judaism (OUP, 2018), takes the study of religious groups in Judaism of the Second Temple era in a new and fruitful direction. Based on the anthropological study of secret societies, the book develops the insight that the foundational concept in such groups is that there is knowledge that must be kept hidden. This leads them to create organizations with a pyramidal hierarchy, each level of which controls a larger group of followers. With this understanding in mind, Stone finds that secret groups leave a social-structural “footprint” that points to their existence. This book sets out to follow the trail left by secret societies in the ancient Jewish world. Time constraints preclude a full survey of the book’s arguments and conclusions. I will limit myself to noting some points of special interest and some directions for further research.

The showpiece for an ancient Jewish secret society is the Qumran covenanters, who Stone, following the scholarly consensus, identifies more or less with the Essenes. The Therapeutae are another likely example. These are the two decisively identified such societies, but there are many other possible cases. Notably, there are hints at secret knowledge and the existence of secret organizations in the ancient Jewish apocalypses, which Stone regards as themselves probably exoteric literature.

Stone notes that the theological terminology found in the Qumran sectarian texts does not appear in antiquity or later (with the possible exception of Karaite literature) in other Jewish texts. The implication is that the Qumran covenanters were a secret group. They kept their secrets and we only have them now due to an extraordinary chance discovery. The use of cryptic scripts in some Qumran sectarian texts likewise implies that the sectarians reserved some knowledge to be revealed in graded stages. One of these texts is an address by the Maskil, the “Sage” — the apparent leader of the group, to some of his followers.

Stone tentatively reconstructs at least three or four graded ranks in the hierarchy of the Qumran community. The fundamental division was between the community and the rest of Israel. Within that community were gradations, notably between those who had full access to the pure food of the group and those who were transitioning toward such access. Above such gradations there may have been a leadership group, the council of the community, which consisted of three priests and twelve laymen. And over them all was the Maskil.

Alas, no ancient literature of the Therapeutae has come down to us! We have only the brief account of them by Philo of Alexandria. They are similar in many ways to the Essenes, but they included women in the group. They had secret books that used allegorical exegesis. They had dream revelations. And the group had a hierarchy that ranked a member according to his or her admission seniority to the group. In Stone’s judgment, both the Qumran covenanters/Essenes and the Therapeutae were secret societies.

The ancient Jewish apocalypses may also provide us with information about ancient Jewish secret societies. But Stone takes the evidence in them to be of an indirect nature. The apocalypses do claim to reveal esoteric knowledge. It is possibly that the original authors intended them as esoteric works, but they seem to have circulated fairly widely. Stone argues that they are "pseudo-esoteric" literature and that their explicit teachings were never intended to be secret.

Nevertheless, some of the revelations mentioned in the apocalypses are not part of their content. These may well be references to actual secret teachings that were found in esoteric documents (or perhaps oral traditions) which no longer survive. A prominent example is the lists of revealed things in the apocalypses, which notably refer to cosmological and cosmic secrets that contained temporal and eschatological elements. It is unclear whether or not some of these were also of a salvific nature. Another intriguing example is the reference in 4 Ezra 14 to the seventy esoteric books to which only the wise should have access. And then the story of the watchers involves angels instructing humans and their own giant offspring in culture-hero teachings and unspecified divinatory and magical techniques.

There is evidence in the apocalypses for groups with the tripartite social structure that is typical of secret societies. At the top is a single seer (Ezra in 4 Ezra, Baruch in 2 Baruch, Isaiah in the Ascension of Isaiah). Below the seer is an inner circle: the wise who receive the esoteric books from Ezra; Baruch’s core group of five followers whom he teaches in private; and Isaiah’s inner circle who witness his visionary trance. Below the inner circle are the people, followers who do not have access to the secret teachings. They receive only the exoteric books from Ezra; Baruch addresses them only in public; and they are sent away from Isaiah’s visionary séance. This hierarchical structure is also reminiscent of the structure of the Qumran community.

Stone argues that these apocalypses also function as “authentication machinery.” They give us indirect evidence of actual practices and such in Jewish secret societies. Notable is the reference in the Testament of Moses to the hiding of the teachings of Moses in a scroll jar, an obvious parallel to the scroll jars found at Qumran. And the Similitudes of Enoch, the Book of the Luminaries, and the Book of Daniel present their pseudo-esoteric teachings as sealed away and only to be unsealed to future generations.

I have learned a lot from this book. It has helped me to look at the ancient evidence in new ways. The analysis of the texts in terms of the structure and worldview of secret societies provides a valuable new filter for understanding aspects of ancient Judaism.

The book is also agenda setting. In addition to the points of special interest that I have noted above, Stone has assembled a great many leads in the ancient texts that may produce additional information on secret societies in ancient Judaism and later. He has also flagged a vast amount of both primary and secondary literature that may be relevant to the subject. His primary sources range from Mesopotamian cuneiform literature, to literary and archaeological sources for the Mystery Religions, to rabbinic and extra-rabbinic traditions.

I close by pointing to some of the leads noted in the book that may produce fruitful future research on secret groups in ancient and later Judaism.

• Magicians and exorcists have left behind written spells and practical manuals for their crafts. To what degree did their transmission of their trade secrets amount to membership in secret societies?
  
• Were the teachings of the watchers alluded to in the Enochic literature entirely imaginary, or does their mention testify to an underground magical and divinatory tradition with ancient real practitioners?
  
• We might infer from first principles that the priesthood of the Jerusalem Temple had its own body of secret teachings relating to service in the Temple. Have any of these survived? The rabbinic sources claim to transmit some of this material. Likewise, Aramaic Levi claims to give regulations for sacrificial rites undertaken by its Levitical priesthood. Is it possible to reconstruct some of the teachings and social structures of the ancient Jewish priesthood?
  
• I have already mentioned that some of the sectarian terminology and ideas found in the Qumran scrolls also appear in the medieval Karaite literature. Are these similarities due to chance finds of scrolls in the Qumran caves, whose ideas were adopted by the Karaites? This seems plausible. But is it also possible that some sectarian ideas survived in post-destruction secret societies and only resurfaced in our Karaite sources?
  
• Considerable Hebrew and Aramaic literature survives from the rabbinic period outside the rabbinic canon. These include astrological, magical, medical, and liturgical materials. In many cases, elements of these may point in the direction of their being secret knowledge. These await clarification.

In sum, Michael Stone’s book, Secret Groups in Ancient Judaism, is an important contribution to our understanding of groups in antiquity who valued, hoarded, and transmitted esoteric knowledge.

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

Images of the goddess at Elephantine?

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST TODAY: Judeans and Goddesses at Elephantine (Collin Cornell).

What scholarly investigations of the goddess have not examined are non-textual data from Elephantine. The same excavations that found Aramaic papyri also uncovered a number of figurines. Some of them, hewn rather roughly from wood, picture a grotesque dwarf-god. Others made by placing clay into a mold feature a naked woman lying on a bed. One of these clay objects, a plaque, shows a naked woman standing between two pillars, with a smaller child by her side.

Cross-file under Aramaic Watch and Decorative Art.

For many past PaleoJudaica posts on Elephantine Island in Egypt and on the Elephantine Aramaic papyri, start here (cf. here and here) and follow the links.

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

Symposium on the Deir el-Surian Monastery's manuscripts

COPTIC WATCH: Levantine Foundation to hold a symposium in Cairo on Deir al-Serian's manuscripts (Ahram Online).

The symposium is to highlight the successful fieldwork to date and to conserve ancient manuscripts up to 1500 years old with the support of the British council's cultural protection fund

The symposium is on 3 December this year.

For past posts on the important manuscript collection of the Deir el-Surian Monastery, see here and links. And more on the monastery and other Coptic monasteries in the Wadi El-Natroun area, see here and links. Cross file under Syriac Watch and Ethiopic Watch.

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The Talmud on male sexual emissions

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Emission Standards. This week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study explores the origins of sexual puritanism in the faith: why Jewish men can’t touch themselves even while urinating, how erections lead to idol worship, and how masturbation delays the arrival of the Messiah.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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Update on the Inscriptions in Israel/Palestine Project

MICHAEL SATLOW: Inscriptions and FAIR Archiving. Professor Satlow tells us the latest about the Inscriptions in Israel/Palestine Project and its digital archiving.

I mentioned the project a decade ago here. Incidentally, it is not to be confused with the Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palestine (CIIP). That is a different project. More on it here and here and links.

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Allison, 4 Baruch

NEW BOOK FROM DE GRUYTER:

Allison, Jr., Dale C.

4 Baruch
Paraleipomena Jeremiou

Series: Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature

89,95 € / $103.99 / £82.00*

Hardcover
Publication Date: October 2019
ISBN 978-3-11-026973-4

Aims and Scope
This is the first full-scale, verse-by-verse commentary on 4 Baruch. The pseudepigraphon, written in the second century, is in large measure an attempt to address the situation following the destruction of the temple in 70 CE by recounting legends about the first destruction of the temple, the Babylonian captivity, and the return from exile. 4 Bruch is notable for its tale about Jeremiah's companion, Abimelech, who sleeps through the entire exilic period. This tale lies behind the famous Christian legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and is part of the genealogy of Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle." Allison's commentary draws upon an exceptionally broad range of ancient sources in an attempt to clarify 4 Baruch's original setting, compositional history, and meaning.

Cross-file under Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Watch.

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Orlov, The Glory of the Invisible God

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM BLOOMSBURY/T&T CLARK:

The Glory of the Invisible God
Two Powers in Heaven Traditions and Early Christology

By: Andrei Orlov

Published: 12-26-2019
Format: Hardback
Edition: 1st
Extent: 240
ISBN: 9780567692238
Imprint: T&T Clark
Series: Jewish and Christian Texts
Volume: 31
Dimensions: 6 1/8" x 9 1/4"
List price: $120.00
Online price: $108.00

About The Glory of the Invisible God
Andrei Orlov examines early Christological developments in the light of rabbinic references to the “two powers” in heaven, tracing the impact of this concept through both canonical and non-canonical material.

Orlov begins by looking at imagery of the “two powers” in early Jewish literature, in particular the book of Daniel, and in pseudepigraphical writings. He then traces the concept through rabbinic literature and applies this directly to understanding of Christological debates. Orlov finally carries out a close examination of the “two powers” traditions in Christian literature, in particular accounts of the Transfiguration and the Baptism of Jesus. Including a comprehensive bibliography listing texts and translations, and secondary literature, this volume is a key resource in researching the development of Christology.

The advert lists it as forthcoming in December. But the author tells me that it will be on sale at the Bloomsbury booth at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, which begins this weekend. Go and check it out for yourselves.

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

A statue of Moloch at the Colosseum?

PUNIC WATCH? Statue of ancient god of child sacrifice put on display in Rome (LifeSiteNews).

The presence of the idol raised particular concern among Catholics, as it was erected nine days before the Amazon Synod and the subsequent scandal over the veneration of the Pachamama idol at the Vatican.

The statue of Moloch, worshipped by both the Canaanites and the Phoenicians, is part of an exhibit dedicated to Ancient Rome’s once-great rival, the city of Carthage. The large-scale exhibition, titled Carthago: The immortal myth, runs until March 29, 2020.

I noted the exhibition here. I leave the debate about the statue to others. But I'll mention a few points of historical interest.

First, it is not clear that there was a Canaanite deity named "Moloch" ("Molech") to whom children were sacrificed. A contrary interpretation of the biblical references and the cognate Punic epigraphic evidence takes the word to be the name of a kind of sacrifice. The Canaanite root MLK has to do with royalty, so perhaps a "royal" sacrifice? But some scholars think there was such a god. John Day argued that case in a book, reviewed here.

Second, unfortunately, even if there wasn't a god named Molech, it sure looks as though the ancient Carthaginians sacrificed children. And the Bible says pretty clearly that some Israelites did too. But there is some debate about the Carthaginian evidence. For past posts on the subject of ancient child sacrifice, see here and here and links.

Third, remember, we don't even know if there really was a god named Molech. So it's not surprising that the controversial statue isn't even a real ancient idol. It's a reconstruction of a prop from a 1914 movie.

"A reconstruction of the terrible deity Moloch, linked to Phoenician and Carthaginian religions and featured in the 1914 film Cabiria (directed by Giovanni Pastore and written by Gabriele D’Annunzio) will be stationed at the entrance to the Colosseum to welcome visitors to the exhibition," stated a press release about the exhibit.

It doesn't look ancient to me. It looks like something from a Lovecraft story.

The article includes a clip from the movie which depicts child sacrifices. The setting isn't very authentic, but it certainly captures the horror of the rite.

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120 Oxyrhynchus papyri missing from the Egypt Exploration Society

VARIANT READINGS: News: Egypt Exploration Society Missing At Least 120 Papyri (Brent Nongbri). The police are now involved. The news regarding the EES papyri just gets stranger and stranger.

Background on the earlier story about papyri from the EES allegedly being stolen and sold is here, here, here, and links.

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Rhyder, Centralizing the Cult

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Julia Rhyder. Centralizing the Cult. The Holiness Legislation in Leviticus 17–26 [Die Zentralisation des Kults. Das Heiligkeitsgesetz in Levitikus 17–26.] 2019. XXI, 484 pages. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 134. 134,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-157685-0.

Published in English.
In this work, Julia Rhyder provides new insights into the relationship between the Holiness legislation in Leviticus 17–26 and processes of cultic centralization in the Persian period. The author departs from the classical theory that Leviticus 17–26 merely presume, with minor modifications, a concept of centralization articulated in Deuteronomy. She shows how Leviticus 17–26 use ritual legislation to make a new, and distinctive case as to why the Israelites must defer to a central sanctuary, standardized ritual processes, and a hegemonic priesthood. This discourse of centralization reflects the historical challenges that faced priests in Jerusalem during the Persian era: in particular, the need to compensate for the loss of a royal sponsor, to pool communal resources in order to meet socio-economic pressures, and to find new means of negotiating with the sanctuary at Mount Gerizim and with a growing diaspora.

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Silverman on local elites and the Persian empire

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Judaean Elite Encounters with the Fledgling Persian Empire: The Evidence of Second Isaiah and First Zechariah

Local elites had the option to choose how to respond to changing social and political circumstances. Such choices can include resistance, but they are not limited to it. Various forms of cooperation and negotiation are also on the table. Moreover, I think that it is unhelpful to think of “resistance” as a heroic category unto itself; people resist something in particular. It is much more likely for ancient elites to resist a particular claimant for the throne than it is for them to resist kingship or empire per se—and I find it helpful to keep these types of constructs separate. Therefore, in an attempt to explore how some Judaeans reacted to the early Persian Empire, I wish to consider how the elite could have pursued cultural production in a way that was acceptable to both parties—the local traditions and the new imperial system.

See Also: Persian Royal—Judaean Elite Engagements in the Early Teispid and Achaemenid Empire: The King’s Acolytes (LHBOTS 690: London: T&T Clark, 2019).

By Jason M. Silverman
Docent in Old Testament Studies
University of Helsinki
October 2019

Cross-file under New Book.

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Shectman on Feminist Biblical Interpretation

DR. SARAH SHECTMAN: Feminist Biblical Interpretation: History and Goals (TheTorah.com).

Feminist biblical interpretation is more than simply paying attention to texts about women. It is also a means of achieving a more accurate understanding of life in ancient Israel and of the composition of the Bible.

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

Parry, Exploring the Isaiah Scrolls and Their Textual Variants

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Exploring the Isaiah Scrolls and Their Textual Variants

Series:
Supplements to the Textual History of the Bible, Volume: 3

Prices from (excl. VAT):

€160.00
$192.00

Author: Donald W. Parry
In Exploring the Isaiah Scrolls and Their Textual Variants, Donald W. Parry systematically presents, on a verse-by-verse basis, the variants of the Hebrew witnesses of Isaiah (the Masoretic Text and the twenty-one Isaiah Dead Sea Scrolls) and briefly discusses why each variant exists. The Isaiah scrolls have greatly impacted our understanding of the textual history of the Bible, and in recent decades, Bible translation committees have incorporated a number of the variants into their translations; as such, the Isaiah scrolls are important for both academic and popular audiences. Variant characterizations include four categories: (a) accidental errors, e.g., dittography, haplography, metathesis, graphic similarity; (b) intentional changes by scribes and copyists; (c) synonymous readings; (d) scribes’ stylistic approaches and conventions.

E-Book
Status: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-41203-3
Publication Date: 07 Oct 2019

Hardback
Status: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-41059-6
Publication Date: 10 Oct 2019

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Review of Smith, Jewish Glass and Christian Stone

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Eric C. Smith, Jewish Glass and Christian Stone: A Materialist Mapping of the “Parting of the Ways.” Routledge studies in the early Christian world. New York: Routledge, 2017. Pp. 168. ISBN 9781138202122. $116.00. Reviewed by Michail Kitsos, University of Michigan (mkitsos@umich.edu).

By examining a diverse range of artifacts made of glass, stone, clay, papyrus, paint, ink, and vellum, Smith narrates the history of people who lived in the space between Judaism and Christianity to question the clear-cut boundaries between “religions” established by modern scholarly perceptions. Smith explains convincingly that texts written by elites constructed the binary between Judaism and Christianity but these boundaries in texts did not necessarily reflect reality. He shows that people who lived in the space between Judaism and Christianity either did not conform to boundaries or these boundaries were unimportant to them.

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

Review of Goodman, Josephus's The Jewish War: A Biography

THE NEW CRITERION: Written by the victors? On Josephus’s The Jewish War: A Biography by Martin Goodman. (David Polansky).

Josephus thus comes to us as both oath-breaker and turncoat, mistrusted by his erstwhile Jewish and his Roman compatriots (as well as subsequent readers). At the same time, he is himself the source of our knowledge of his perfidy, as well as a crucial source concerning both the events of the war and its backdrop. As with the man from Crete who claims that all Cretans are liars, trusting Josephus and his work is no simple matter.

Cross-file under New Book. The full reference is Martin Goodman, Josephus's The Jewish War: A Biography (Lives of Great Religious Books 45 Princeton University Press, 2019).

Some recent posts on the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus are here and links, here, and here. And there are many more in the archives.

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

On Creation, primordial matter, and time

THETORAH.COM has two essays on the creation story in Genesis 1:1-2:4, with special attention to the question of primordial matter in the account.

Creation from Primordial Matter: Did Rashi Read Plato’s Timaeus? (Prof.Warren Zev Harvey)

Rashi interprets the opening verses of the creation story as describing God’s use of primordial substances to form the world. This idea appears in various forms in rabbinic literature but some of Rashi’s particular notions are only found in Plato’s Timaeus. Could this be one of Rashi’s sources?

The Genesis of Time (Professor Jack M. Sasson)

The simple meaning of Genesis 1–2:4 is that God created the world out of primordial elements. And yet, one important new initiative was the construction of time, embracing the day, the month, the year, and the week. The week, however, does not depend on a cosmic phenomenon but served to introduce the concept of a people holy to a creator God.

For some past PaleoJudaica posts on Genesis 1:1, see here and links.

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

Interview with James Diggle

WILLIAM ROSS: THE CAMBRIDGE GREEK LEXICON: AN INTERVIEW WITH PROF. JAMES DIGGLE.

For Dr. Ross's many previous interviews with Septuagint scholars, see here and links. Professor Diggle is not a Septuagint scholar, he is a Classicist. But the Cambridge Greek Lexicon includes some biblical material (the Gospels) and will certainly be of interest to Septuagint scholars.

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

AJR reviews Hicks-Keeton, Arguing with Aseneth

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Book Note | Arguing with Aseneth: Gentile Access to Israel’s Living God in Jewish Antiquity (Gillian Glass).

Jill Hicks-Keeton. Arguing with Aseneth: Gentile Access to Israel’s Living God in Jewish Antiquity. Oxford University Press, 2018.

Jill Hicks-Keeton’s book considers the creation, maintenance, and permeability of the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in ancient Judaism as evidenced in Greco-Jewish literature from the Hellenistic and early Imperial periods.

[...]

For past PaleoJudaica posts on the book, see here and links.

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

Penwell on the Samaritans

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Josephus on Samaritan Origins

According to Joachim Jeremias, the Samaritans in Josephus are viewed as a “mixed Judeo-Gentile race,” a position held in some circles even today. Jeremias, however, is wrong. This essay focuses on Josephus’ origin stories for the Samaritans and draws attention to the names he uses for the Samaritans. As we will see, these names have less to do with the Samaritans’ actual origins, but instead, the names Josephus applies to the Samaritans have a social-rhetorical function of categorizing these people as not us, that is, not Jews/Judeans.

See Also: Jesus the Samaritan: Ethnic Labeling in the Gospel of John (Brill 2019).

By Stewart Penwell
Corydon, IN
October 2019

Cross-file under New Book.

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Ruth Calderon has been teaching Talmud in America

TALMUD WATCH: Scholar-activist to speak in Teaneck. Dr. Ruth Calderon to teach Talmud, discuss Jewish literacy (LOIS GOLDRICH, The Jewish Standard).

Dr. Ruth Calderon is spending this year as a professor of talmudic civil law at Harvard Law School, so she could be introduced as an academic.

She was a member of the Knesset from 2013 to 2015, so she might be presented as a politician.

[...]

Remarkably, all these titles would fit, and all the knowledge and skills Dr. Calderon has gained from these pursuits will be in evidence next weekend when she takes up her new — albeit temporary — role of Barry Shaeffer Memorial Scholar-in-Residence at Teaneck’s Congregation Beth Sholom.

She will be teaching in Teaneck, New Jersey, on 15-16 November.

Past posts on Dr. Calderon and her book A Bride for One Night: Talmud Tales are here and links. And, as I've noted before (e.g. here, here, here, and links), Teaneck is a scholarly place.

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The Talmud on detecting menstruation

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Menstrual Camps. In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study, ancient rabbis take sides on how to deal with uncertainty when it comes to ritual impurity in women.

This week, Daf Yomi readers entered the home stretch of our 7 1/2-year journey through the Talmud, as we began the last tractate in the cycle—Tractate Nidda, which is devoted to the laws governing menstruation. ...

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

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More on the Phoenicia's new voyage

PHOENICIAN WATCH: The Phoenicia: A Voyage to Rewrite History. Is it just a myth, or “one of the greatest voyages in maritime history”? (Madeleine Handaji, Morocco World News).

This is a good background article on the earlier and current voyages of the Good Ship Phoenicia. But it has some lapses in logic. On the first voyage:

According to London’s “The Phoenicians: The Greatest Sailors Exhibition,” as early as “600 BC a fleet of Phoenician ships was said to have embarked on an epic journey to circumnavigate Africa.” In 2008, the crew of the newly-built Phoenicia set out to prove that the myth was, in fact, history.

After a two year voyage in a copy of a 3,000-year-old ship, the Phoenicia dodged Somalian pirates and extreme weather, sailing into the history books—the epic tale of the Phoenician explorers was no myth. However, not satisfied with one groundbreaking voyage, the crew of the Phoenicia is now on a mission to prove that the Phoenicians sailed to America over 2,000 years before Columbus.

The 2008-2010 voyage of the Phoenicia did not prove that the ancient Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa. It did prove that they could have with the ship technology that they had.

Likewise, with reference to the first paragraph, if the Phoenicia does reach the Americas — and I hope it does! — that would not prove that the Phoenicians actually got there. It would just show that they could have. Later in the article the situation is presented more accurately.

To prove that the Phoenicians reached the Americas, we need positive evidence, such as demonstrably ancient Phoenician inscriptions. Such evidence as has been presented thus far is not credible. Maybe someday that will change.

Background here and links and here.

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Kalmin on the Late Antique Babylonian Rabbis

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: The History and Literature of Late Antique Babylonian Rabbis (Richard Kalmin).

Too often the issue of the historicity of ancient rabbinic stories is assumed to be “yes or no”: either they are historically accurate or they are not. For me, however, the issue is never all or nothing, but rather of differing degrees of probability. When are these sources more likely to yield usable historical information and when are they less likely? And since it is extremely unlikely that we can accept any Talmudic narrative’s recounting of events as wholly accurate, are we permitted to translate the narrative’s distortions into reliable history, and if so, how?

[...]

For more on the creepy story about Herod and his Hasmonean wife, see here.

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More on the Machaerus ostraca

NORTHWEST SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY: GWU Professor Translates Ancient Inscriptions Discovered at the Site of Machaerus. Nice video. The George Washington University professor is, of course, Christopher Rollston.

Cross-file under Aramaic Watch and Technology Watch. Background here.

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Biblical Studies Carnival 165

BELATEDLY NOTED: Biblical Studies Carnival # 165. October 2019 (Gary Greenberg, Bible, Myth, and History Blog).

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

Dead Sea Scroll Detectives

ON NOVA (PBS) TONIGHT: Dead Sea Scroll Detectives Preview. Preview: Season 46 Episode 20 | 28s.

Since the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, these fragile parchment relics have intrigued scholars, religious leaders, and profiteers alike. The 2,000-year-old scrolls include the oldest-known versions of the Hebrew Bible and hold vital clues about the birth of Christianity. While certain scrolls have survived intact, others have been ravaged by time—burnt, decayed, or torn to pieces.

And keep watching. A three-minute excerpt of the episode follows the preview.

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Philanthropic Pontius Pilate?

CANDIDA MOSS: New Archaeological Evidence Shows Pontius Pilate Not as Bad as We Thought. Long known as an ineffective leader whose actions contributed to political unrest in the region, recent discoveries may be complicating that picture (The Daily Beast).

The discovery that Pilate was responsible for building the street from the pool of Siloam to the Temple Mount suggests that there was another side to the intemperate governor. One in which Pilate funded public works for the benefit of both the local people and their religion. ...

Background on this story is here, with past links on Pontius Pilate more generally.

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Tim Bulkeley, R.I.P.

SAD NEWS: I learn from Jim West that Old Testament scholar Dr. Tim Bulkeley has passed away. I have no further information at the moment.

Tim was based in New Zealand. I can't recall ever meeting him in person, but I got to know him a bit in the early years of blogging. His Sansblogue was one of the earliest "biblioblogs," one of the seven that were founded within a year of PaleoJudaica. (For more on the early history of biblioblogging, see my 2010 SBL paper, What Just Happened.) The opening post of Sansblogue was on 31 January 2004 and the most recent one on 17 August of this year. That makes it one of the longest continuously running biblioblogs.

I am sorry to hear that Tim is gone. All sympathy to his family and friends. Requiescat in pace.

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Nissinen, Essays in Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy

NEW BOOK FROM DE GRUYTER:

Nissinen, Martti

Prophetic Divination
Essays in Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy

Series: Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 494

139,95 € / $160.99 / £127.00*
Hardcover
Publication Date: October 2019
ISBN 978-3-11-046654-6

Aims and Scope
Prophecy was a wide-spread phenomenon in the ancient world - not only in ancient Israel but in the whole Eastern Mediterranean cultural sphere. This is demonstrated by documents from the ancient Near East, that have been the object of Martti Nissinen’s research for more than twenty years. Nissinen's studies have had a formative influence on the study of the prophetic phenomenon. The present volume presents a selection of thirty-one essays, bringing together essential aspects of prophetic divination in the ancient Near East.

The first section of the volume discusses prophecy from theoretical perspectives. The second sections contains studies on prophecy in texts from Mari and Assyria and other cuneiform sources. The third section discusses biblical prophecy in its ancient Near Eastern context, while the fourth section focuses on prophets and prophecy in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Even prophecy in the Dead Sea Scrolls is discussed in the fifth section.

The articles are essential reading for anyone studying ancient prophetic phenomenon.

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On the discovery of the DSS

THE ETC BLOG: 5 Surprising Details about the Initial Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Anthony Ferguson). The details are from Weston W. Fields's book, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Full History (Brill, 2009).

Past PaleoJudaica posts on the book are here, here, and here.

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Illegal construction halted at West Bank Hasmonean site

APPREHENDED: OFFICIALS STOP ILLEGAL BUILDING BY PALACES OF SECOND TEMPLE 'HANUKKAH HERO,' Catching the vehicles before construction started likely prevented damage from being done to the current and future archaeological findings (Jerusalem Post).

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The Vocabulary of the Septuagint and its Hellenistic Background (ed. Bons, Pouchelle, Scialabba)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: The Vocabulary of the Septuagint and its Hellenistic Background. Ed. by Eberhard Bons, Patrick Pouchelle, and Daniela Scialabba. [Das Vokabular der Septuaginta und ihre hellenistische Grundlage.] 2019. XII, 157 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 496. 69,00 € including VAT. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-153020-3.

Published in English.
This volume precedes the projected Historical and Theological Dictionary of the Septuagint which is to offer historical studies of Septuagint words, retracing their usage from early authors, over koine Greek and the translation itself, into Jewish-Hellenistic and early Christian literature. The earliest of these phases were the object of a several workshops held between 2013 and 2017, the proceedings of which now appear in this book. The papers focus on the following key questions: what can we say about the meaning, the usage and the semantic development of Greek words attested in the Septuagint; where and how does the Septuagint use these words, and to what extent do they correspond to their Hebrew and Aramaic equivalents? Furthermore, to what extent can papyri contribute to a better understanding of typical Septuagint words? The papers combine the analysis of selected words and word groups with considerations of method.

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Late-antique iron hammer and nails found at Usha

ARTIFACT: Nailed it: Rare 1,400-year-old iron hammer found by family at Sanhedrin site. Volunteers at excavations at Western Galilee’s Usha uncover previously unknown blacksmith industry, an addition to impressive glassworks found there (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

A family volunteering at excavations at Usha, the first location of the Sanhedrin following the Bar Kochba revolt, discovered a previously unknown iron industry at the site and a rare 1,400-year-old iron hammer, according to an Israel Antiquities Authority press release on Wednesday.

[...]

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Was the "glorious martyr" Thecla?

GRAMMAR MATTERS: Tales from a crypt: Shedding light on a mysterious – female? – ‘glorious martyr.’ A 1,500-year-old Christian site in the heart of ultra-Orthodox Ramat Beit Shemesh takes The Times of Israel down a rabbit hole to meet St. Thecla, a feisty 2nd-century preacher (Amanda Borschel-Dan, Times of Israel).

The article reports that the grammatical gender of the martyr in the Greek inscription is unspecified. Speculation on who the martyr may have been is, well, speculative. But fun.

Background here.

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