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Please reserve your BAF / BASONOVA Zoom Lecture spotFollow the link for details. Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch.
Wednesday, October 7, 2020 at 7:30 pm EST via Zoom
”Lost Gospels” and Other Christian Apocrypha: New Discoveries and New Perspectives
Tony Burke, York University
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Isaiah and the Twelve / Jesaja und die Zwölf
Parallels, Similarities and Differences
Series: Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 527
Edited by: Richard J. Bautch, Joachim Eck, and Burkard M. Zapff
De Gruyter | 2020
From £79.00
DETAILS
Language: English, German
Format: 23.0 x 15.5 cm
Pages Roman: VI
Pages Arabic: 281
Tables BW: 12
Publisher: De Gruyter
Year: 2020
Keywords: History of redaction; Motives in the Old Testament; Isaiah; Book of Twelve
Audience: Alttestamentler/-innen, Theolog/-innen, Wissenschaflter/-innen, die zum Jesaja- und Zwölfprophetenbuch arbeiten
FORMATS
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-3-11-070573-7
Published: 21 Sep 2020
ISBN: 978-3-11-070579-9
Published: 21 Sep 2020
EPUB
ISBN: 978-3-11-070588-1
Published: 21 Sep 2020
OVERVIEW
Die Frage der Beziehung zwischen dem Jesajabuch und dem Buch der Zwölf Propheten ist angesichts vielfältiger Berührungen sprachlicher und motivischer Art zentral, jedoch hinsichtlich der damit verbundenen möglichen Implikationen bislang nur ungenügend bearbeitet.
Im Rahmen eines internationalen Kongresses, der vom 31.Mai bis 3.Juni 2018 an der Katholischen Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt stattfand, suchten Fachleute des Zwölfprophetenbuches bzw. des Jesajabuches mit unterschiedlichen methodischen Ansätzen ein umfassenderes Bild der verschiedenen Arten von Beziehungen oder thematischen Berührungen zu erarbeiten, die entweder für die beiden Corpora als ganze oder für spezifische Teile beider charakteristisch sind, um daraus entsprechende Schlussfolgerungen zu ziehen. Das Ergebnis ist ein Überblick zur Vielfalt der semantischen, intertextuellen, literarischen, redaktionellen, historischen und theologischen Aspekte der Beziehungen zwischen dem Jesajabuch und dem Zwölfprophetenbuch, die einlinigen Lösungsvorschlägen zur Erklärung des Zustandekommens dieser Bezüge widerstreiten.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Published in English.
The text Miqṣat Ma῾aśe Ha-Torah, Some of the Works of the Torah (4QMMT), is one of the most interesting texts among the famous Dead Sea Scrolls discovered near the settlement of Khirbet Qumran and its vicinity in the middle of the twentieth century and by now published in full. It is a writing in the form of a letter by an unknown author to an equally unknown addressee, written in second person singular and plural. This document is the earliest evidence of a proper interpretation of the Jewish Torah, the so-called Halakhah, from pre-Christian, Hellenistic times as it later became customary and widely attested in rabbinical Judaism. This volume – after a short introduction on the findings at the Dead Sea in general and the text Miqṣat Ma῾aśe Ha-Torah in particular – provides a new edition and translation as well as several contributions from renowned scholars on the manuscripts, the language and content plus literary and historical contexts of this writing.
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Coping With the GodsI didn't note this book when it was first published in 2011, so now is a good time.
Wayward Readings in Greek Theology
Series: Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, Volume: 173
Author: Henk Versnel
Inspired by a critical reconsideration of current monolithic approaches to the study of Greek religion, this book argues that ancient Greeks displayed a disquieting capacity to validate two (or more) dissonant, if not contradictory, representations of the divine world in a complementary rather than mutually exclusive manner. From this perspective the six chapters explore problems inherent in: order vs. variety/chaos in polytheism, arbitrariness vs. justice in theodicy, the peaceful co-existence of mono- and polytheistic theologies, human traits in divine imagery, divine omnipotence vs. limitation of power, and ruler cult. Based on an intimate knowledge of ancient realia and literary testimonia the book stands out for its extensive application of relevant perceptions drawn from cultural anthropology, theology, cognitive science, psychology, and linguistics.
Prices from (excl. VAT): €52.00
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-21090-5
Publication Date: 10 May 2011
Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-20490-4
Publication Date: 10 May 2011
Paperback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-43648-0
Publication Date: 27 Aug 2020
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
I took notes in the Traditions of Eastern Late Antiquity session focused on the Silk Road. I apologize for not sharing them sooner, but once again hope they may come at a time when other academics are dismayed at so many conferences being cancelled or shifted to online, that you may take some small comfort from being afforded a glimpse of a session you perhaps missed in San Diego.Cross-file under Manichean Watch (Manichaean Watch).
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Philodemus, On AngerThe work of Philodemus is not of direct interest to PaleoJudaica. But I note it because it was recovered from the carbonized Herculaneum library, which was incinerated during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. The text was recovered with the help of multispectral-imaging.
David Armstrong, Michael Mcosker
ISBN 9781628372694
Status Available
Price: $44.00
Binding Paperback
Publication Date September 2020
Pages 320
The first English translation of On Anger
This latest volume in the Writings from the Greco-Roman World series provides a translation of a newly edited Greek text of Philodemus’s On Anger, now supplemented with the help of multispectral imaging. As our sole evidence for the Epicurean view of what constitutes natural and praiseworthy anger as distinguished from unnatural pleasure in vengeance and cruelty for their own sake, this text is crucial to the study of ancient thought about the emotions. Its critique of contemporary Stoic and Peripatetic theories of anger offers crucial new information for the history of philosophy in the last two centuries BCE. The introduction and commentary also make use of newly revised texts and readings from several other ancient treatises on anger.
Features
- An apparatus representing work on the text since the papyrus was opened in 1805
- A full explication of the Epicurean theory of natural anger as an emotion without pleasure
- One of the Herculaneum papyri that survived the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE
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Jean-Luc Fournet, The rise of Coptic: Egyptian versus Greek in late antiquity. The Rostovtzeff lectures. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020. 224 p. ISBN9780691198347 $45.00.For another review, see here. Cross-file under Coptic Watch.
Review by
Matthew Westermayer, Cornell University. mrw288@cornell.edu
... This study is sorely needed for Coptic studies, which many have bemoaned as lacking even the most rudimentary achievements of contemporary Greek, Latin, and Syriac papyrology and linguistics. ...
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Hilla Alouf-Aboody
Through the Prism of Wisdom
Elijah the Prophet as a Bearer of Wisdom in Rabbinic Literature
Series: Judaism in Context, 23
Gorgias Press | 2020
£147.00 PDF
Language: English
Pages Arabic: 572
Publisher: Gorgias Press
Year: 2020
Audience: College/higher education;
FORMATS
ISBN: 978-1-4632-4131-5
Published: 07 Sep 2020
OVERVIEW
Elijah the prophet’s role in rabbinic literature is a variegated one that encompasses both his role in the messianic era as well as his non-messianic appearances in rabbinic legends. In this work these different roles are explored through the prism of the wisdom tradition. The three stands of wisdom—the Torah-Centered wisdom tradition, the Apocalyptic-Centered wisdom tradition, and the Spirit-Centered wisdom tradition, as enumerated by Cornelis Bennema—serve as a guide in understanding the complex nature of wisdom and its influence on the Elijah legends. The kaleidoscopic and often disparate Elijah traditions can be viewed as a result of complex developments in the study of wisdom and its evolution in Second Temple literature. The nexus of ideas which include the evolution of Torah as wisdom, the merging of wisdom and apocalyptic, and the role of ‘divine spirit’ in attaining wisdom, link Elijah’s messianic role with his depiction in different rabbinic legends. This study demonstrates that the role of Elijah in the messianic era as a teacher of wisdom is a direct result of the messianic expectations of the Second Temple era in which wisdom elements informed the eschatological expectations of a messianic teacher in the End of Days. Furthermore, Elijah’s messianic role as teacher impacted the development of Elijah in rabbinic legends as a bearer of wisdom, as well as a mediator of divine wisdom in an era grappling with the loss of Temple and prophecy. One of the mediums through which these ideas were carried into the rabbinic period was the pietists, ḥasidim, who resembled the holy men of Late Antiquity. These pietists were connected with the Spirit-Centered wisdom tradition in Second Temple texts as well as rabbinic literature. It will be demonstrated that their role was integral to the development of the Elijah traditions and the dissemination of wisdom and pietistic ideas in rabbinic literature. This work will illustrate that the Elijah traditions in rabbinic literature were an outgrowth of the numerous evolutions in wisdom and apocalyptic thought during the Second Temple era. These developments can explain the variegated nature of the Elijah traditions which reflect his role as a teacher of the Law, a mediator of divine secrets, and a conduit for divine inspiration.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Although the tree of life concept comfortably inhabits the world around us—from movies to coffee shops, scientific paradigms to tarot cards—the impact exceeds its scarce mention in the earliest ancient Near Eastern, Hebrew, and Christian texts.I noted Professor Estes's new book with the same title here.
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Ecclesiastes is a cynical reflection on life’s futility. The constant sonorous repetition, visualizations, and references to breath serve as a sustained meditation to help free the reader’s soul from the agonizing struggle of life.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Ancient Roman emperors' faces have been brought to life in digital reconstructions; the unnervingly realistic image project includes the Emperors Caligula, Nero and Hadrian, among others.The only images I looked at closely on Mr. Voshart's website were those of the Principate Emperors. I have to say they each look uncannily like what I would have expected.
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Mark’s Gospel as the First Biography of Jesus – and 10 reasons why it mattersCross-file under New Book.
Although our author may have drawn on a variety of sources of varying historical accuracy, he would doubtless have been selective in what he included and would not have been slow to embellish an augment or an anecdote in the interests of his broader narrative and theological interests. The so-called “nature miracles” in particular – walking on water, stilling the storm, and feeding the multitudes – may well have been embellished and enhanced, not in the interests of historical reporting, but to say something profoundly “true” about Jesus’ identity as Son of God.
See Also: The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in Mark's Gospel (Eerdmans, 2020).
By Helen K Bond
Professor of Christian Origins
Head of the School of Divinity
University of Edinburgh
September 2020
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A Star from Jacob, a Sceptre from Israel
Balaam's Oracle as Rewritten Scripture in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Libor Marek
xii + 290 pp.
£35 / $48.75 / €40
Scholar's Price
£70 / $97.50 / €80
List Price
Hardback
The fourth Balaam oracle (Numbers 24.17-19) appears in four separate Dead Sea Scrolls. But how it is used and understood remains puzzling and challenging.
All four scrolls agree that the biblical text is a living artifact and endorse its authority. But they disagree on what it may mean to the audience of their own day. They adjust, rephrase and rework the biblical text according to their own needs and for the benefit of their audience.
Following the twists and turns in this process of interpretation and rewriting has two benefits: first, we become more sensitized to the complexity of the processes by which the scriptural text came into being and to the fact that this process did not have a clear-cut end in mind. Rather, it is thanks to a constant reworking of the scriptural text that it remains alive for its readers.
Second, in following closely the process of reinterpretation of this particular text we gain a better understanding of the world of Qumran, of the communication strategy of the Scrolls, and of some of their key theological concepts. In particular, Qumran beliefs about a messiah become more vividly tangible.
Series: Hebrew Bible Monographs, 88
978-1-910928-74-5 hardback
Publication September 2020
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According to the two Israeli Arab scientists [Abd Elghani Ibrahim and Dr. Walid Atrash], “the discovery of the mikvah in the farmstead changes what we knew about the lifestyle of the Jews in the Second Temple period. Until now, we hadn’t discovered Jewish farms in the Galilee. It was considered that the Jews in the Roman period didn’t live in farms outside the villages or towns. The discovery of the farmstead at some distance from the village of the Shikhin and the large Jewish town of Sepphoris (Zippori), shows that Jews also settled in farmsteads that perhaps functioned as the rural hinterland of Sepphoris.”With video. It is good news that the IAA and Kibbutz Hannaton were able to raise the funding for the transport. Background here and here.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
In response, we have inaugurated a special “Adopt a Coin” campaign on our website. The donor can choose to adopt either one or more coins, and will cover the cost of the cleaning, the restoration and the analysis of the coin/s by a specialist in numismatics (the study of ancient coins). The donor will be recognized as the sponsor of the coin/s and receive ongoing updates regarding the status of his coin/s cleaning, restoration and research.Sounds like a good cause.
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Coptic
A Grammar of Its Six Major Dialects
James P. Allen
Was: $59.95 Now: $35.97 | Hardcover Edition
ISBN: 978-1-64602-064-5
144 pages
7" × 10"
1 map
2020
Description
Coptic is the final stage of the ancient Egyptian language, written in an alphabet derived primarily from Greek instead of hieroglyphs. It borrows some vocabulary from ancient Greek, and it was used primarily for writing Christian scriptures and treatises. There is no uniform Coptic language, but rather six major dialects.
Unlike previous grammars that focus on just two of the Coptic dialects, this volume, written by senior Egyptologist James P. Allen, describes the grammar of the language in each of the six major dialects. It also includes exercises with an answer key, a chrestomathy, and an accompanying dictionary, making it suitable for teaching or self-guided learning as well as general reference.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
In the New Testament, Christ is mankind’s divine mediator and intercessor, their high priest in the heavenly temple, the Holy One who sits at God’s right hand, and the saviour who descends to earth at the end of the age to vanquish Satan. But this multifaceted, cosmic identity wasn’t introduced by an itinerant Galilean preacher, nor did it originate with the teachings of the early apostles, for the notion of a divine saviour described in these terms was already widespread in Judaism before Christianity was born. He went by many names, but the one he was known by most often was Michael. In this article, I want to explore his development and his importance to both Judaism and Christianity.Today, incidentally, is the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel.
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The Akedah (binding of Isaac) takes place on a mountain in the obscure land of Moriah. When a Judahite scribe later revised the story to have the angel of YHWH stop Abraham from killing his son, he connected Moriah with the Jerusalem Temple, thereby giving it a new hieros logos—a sacred founding legend, to compete with the northern worship site Beth-El.For more PaleoJudaica posts on the Aqedah, see here and here and follow the links. For additional evidence, not mentioned in the current essay, that the Aqedah was originally part of the Elohistic source, see here.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Self-affliction and fasting heightens awareness of our bodies; at the same time, it helps us to transcend our immanent selves. This tension was embraced by the 6th century poet Yannai in his qerova, who beseaches God to forgive Israel both out of pity for their wretchedness and on account of their resemblance to angels.Yom Kippur 2020 is today.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Giorgos Papantoniou, Christine Morris, Athanasios Vionis, Unlocking sacred landscapes: spatial analysis of ritual and cult in the Mediterranean. Studies in Mediterranean archaeology, 151. Nicosia: Astrom Editions, 2019. xviii, 279 p.. ISBN9789925745548 €68,00.This is a thoughful review, but the extended culinary metaphor is overdone.
Review by
Jeremy McInerney, University of Pennsylvania. jmcinern@sas.upenn.edu
The experience of reading the volume edited by Papantoniou, Morris and Vionis is a little like being a carnivore at a vegan smorgasbord: the offerings are often excellent yet still leave one feeling vaguely unsatisfied. ...
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Published in English.
Countering the traditional belief that Jews in antiquity were predominantly disinterested in the popular entertainments of the Greek and Roman world, Loren R. Spielman maps the varieties of Jewish engagement with theater, athletics, horse racing, gladiatorial, and beast shows in antiquity. The author argues that Jews from Hellenistic Alexandria to late antique Sepphoris enjoyed and exploited, or alternatively resisted and scorned, popular forms of public entertainment as they adapted to the political, social, and religious realities of imperial rule. Including references to ancient Jewish actors, athletes, promoters, and plays alongside analysis of rabbinic and other early Jewish critique of sport and spectacle, Loren R. Spielman describes the different ways that attitudes towards entertainment might have played a role in shaping ancient Jewish identity.
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Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah, Aelia Capitolina - Jerusalem in the Roman period: in light of archaeological research. Mnemosyne, supplements, 432. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2019. xxv, 244 p.. ISBN9789004407336 €106,00.Excerpt:
Review by
Jan Willem Drijvers, University of Groningen. j.w.drijvers@rug.nl
This volume offers a very useful overview of the development and transformation of the urban landscape of Roman Jerusalem between 70 CE and c. 400 CE based on its archaeological remains. Questions remain, such as the function of the Temple Mount in the cityscape, and the relative absence of archaeological data for urban dwellings and pagan sanctuaries. Nevertheless, the archaeological vestiges laid bare in the last decades have added significantly to our knowledge of Roman Jerusalem and it is to be expected that in the future that knowledge will increase with new finds.I have collected past PaleoJudaica posts on or involving Aelia Capitolina here.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Erich S. Gruen
Ethnicity in the Ancient World – Did it matter?
De Gruyter | 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110685657
FROM £59.00
DETAILS
Language: English
Format: 23.0 x 15.5 cm
Pages Roman: XI
Pages Arabic: 265
Publisher: De Gruyter
Year: 2020
Keywords: Ancient Near East; Greeks; Romans; Jews
FORMATS
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-3-11-068478-0
Published: 21 Sep 2020
ISBN: 978-3-11-068565-7
Published: 21 Sep 2020
EPUB
ISBN: 978-3-11-068580-0
Published: 21 Sep 2020
OVERVIEW
This study raises that difficult and complicated question on a broad front, taking into account the expressions and attitudes of a wide variety of Greek, Roman, Jewish, and early Christian sources, including Herodotus, Polybius, Cicero, Philo, and Paul. It approaches the topic of ethnicity through the lenses of the ancients themselves rather than through the imposition of modern categories, labels, and frameworks. A central issue guides the course of the work: did ancient writers reflect upon collective identity as determined by common origins and lineage or by shared traditions and culture?
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In 553 CE the Emperor Justinian forbade the use and study of the Mishna, known as the Oral Torah, leading to Jewish scholars to compose piyutim, the liturgical poems used in religious services and a major part of the High Holy Days’ services. As the focus of Byzantine Palestine moved toward Christianity from Judaism, the center of world Jewry gradually switched from Judea to Babylon, which had the largest Jewish community in the Diaspora and it was there the Babylonian Talmud was composed. The land of Israel would not return as Judaism’s major religious center (although it would always remain a central tenant in prayer) until the 20th century.
Jerusalem and the Holy Land also fell to the Persian Sassanians and then to the Muslims in the early 7th century, marking the end of Byzantine Palestine, leaving only a diaspora of communities dotted throughout the Eastern Mediterranean.
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During the Second Temple period, the scapegoat was tied with a crimson thread. While the Torah requires a crimson thread as part of the purification ritual for tzaraʿat (skin disease), it does not mention it by the scapegoat. Nevertheless, parallel practices found in 2nd millennium B.C.E. Hittite texts of Luwian origin imply that the use of a crimson thread is not a late innovation but an ancient part of the rite.
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A masthead found in a shipwreck off northern Israel sheds light on sailing and shipbuilding during the Late Antiquity period, according to a paper just published in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.For more on the Ma’agan Mikhael B shipwreck see here. And follow the links from there for more posts on marine (maritime, underwater) archaeology and on the archaeology of ancient shipwrecks.
Maayan Cohen, a PhD candidate at the department of maritime civilizations at the University of Haifa, and Dr. Deborah Cvikel, a researcher at the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies and a senior lecturer at the department of maritime civilizations – both at the University of Haifa – are the authors of the paper, titled, “Rigging of the Ma’agan Mikhael B shipwreck (7th–8th centuries AD): new finds.”
[...]
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The Department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies at The University of British Columbia, Vancouver campus invites applications for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor in Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies to commence July 1, 2021. We seek a candidate who specializes in Hebrew Bible within its Iron Age or Persian Period contexts (i.e. pre-Hellenistic era), and demonstrates knowledge of the reception of the Hebrew Bible in later Jewish traditions. ...Follow the link for further particulars and application information. "The deadline for the receipt of applications and reference letters is Oct 31st, 2020."
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Dozens of hidden Syriac manuscripts were recovered by Iraqi security forces late on Tuesday following the arrest of a suspected ISIS member in the northern Nineveh governorate.No word on the contents of the manuscripts. The photo indicates that they are bound books and the bindings look recent. That doesn't necessarily tell us much about the manuscripts, though.
The manuscripts were stolen from Assyrian churches in Mosul after the city became the extremist group's de facto capital in the country between 2014 and 2017.
[...]
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Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman AntiquityBack in 1999 I co-edited a volume on much the same theme: The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus (ed. Davila, Newman, Lewis. Brill). It was reprinted by Baylor University Press in 2017.
Series: Novum Testamentum, Supplements, Volume: 180
Editor: Matthew V. Novenson
In Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity, Matthew V. Novenson brings together thirteen state-of-the-art essays by leading scholars on the various ways ancient Jewish, Christian, and classical writers conceive of God, Christ, Wisdom, the demiurge, angels, foreign gods, and other divine beings. In particular, the book revisits the “early high Christology” debates of the 1990s, identifying the lasting contributions thereof as well as the lingering difficulties and new, emerging questions from the last thirty years of research. The essays in this book probe the much-touted but under-theorized distinctions between monotheism and polytheism, Judaism and Hellenism, Christianity and paganism. They show how what we call monotheism and Christology fit within the Greco-Roman world of which they are part.
Prices from (excl. VAT): €124.00
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-43808-8
Publication Date: 25 Aug 2020
Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-43797-5
Publication Date: 20 Aug 2020
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
BAJS is pleased to announce that the 2021 BAJS Book Prize competition will open shortly. The book prize initiative was launched by BAJS in 2018 to recognise and promote outstanding scholarship in the field of Jewish Studies. We will be inviting submissions focused on topics relating to the early modern or modern period. Volumes with a copyright date of 2019 or after will be eligible. Details of the competition will be announced later in 2020.The current topic range is not of interest to PaleoJudaica, but I include it for information.
Congratulations to both winners!
- Dr Lindsey Askin (University of Bristol), for Scribal Culture in Ben Sira published with Brill in 2018. Full details about the book are available here.
- Professor Sacha Stern (University College London), for The Jewish Calendar Controversy of 921/2 CE published with Brill in 2019. Full details about the book are available here.
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The base of the church is inscribed with nine lines of Estrangelo, or Ancient Syriac, script, Tarkan said. "The mosaics also show depictions of animals, geometric shapes and human figures, as well as scenes depicting people hunting," he said. "The months of April and June are also inscribed on the human figures.”There is a photo at the link.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Paul’s Three Paths to Salvation
Gabriele Boccaccini
Foreword by David Bentley Hart
HARDCOVER; Coming Soon: 9/29/2020
ISBN: 978-0-8028-3921-3
Price: $ 30.00
200 Pages
Trim Size, in inches: 6 x 9
DESCRIPTION
“We no longer need to separate Paul from Judaism in order to claim his Christianness,” writes Gabriele Boccaccini, adding, “nor do we need to separate him from the early Jesus movement in order to state his Jewishness.” With this guiding principle Boccaccini unpacks the implications of Paul’s “belonging” simultaneously to Judaism and Christianity to arrive at the surprising and provocative conclusion that there are in fact three means of salvation:
Paul’s Three Paths to Salvation is an attempt to reconcile the many facets of Paul’s complex identity while reclaiming him from accusations of intolerance, and Boccaccini’s work in reestablishing the figure of Paul as a messenger of God’s Mercy to the sinners is an important contribution to the ongoing conversation about Paul’s place in the contemporary pluralistic world.
- For Jews, adherence to Torah.
- For gentiles, good works according to conscience and natural law.
- For all sinners, forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ.
"I find much to admire in Gabriele Boccaccini's attempt to reconstruct Paul's own vision of salvation ... This is a splendid and necessary book." (David Bentley Hart, from the Foreword)
"Thanks in large part to the efforts of Gabriele Boccaccini, New Testament scholarship today is busy interpreting Paul within Second Temple Judaism. The interesting work is now in details: sorting out which features of traditional interpretations can stand and which need to be revised or jettisoned. In this fascinating book, Boccaccini threads this needle in his own inimitable way. Anyone interested in the Paul-within-Judaism debates really must read this book." (Matthew V. Novenson, University of Edinburgh)
"Gabriele Boccaccini's expertise in Second Temple Jewish apocalypticism, Enochic traditions in particular, combined with a commitment to read Paul within Judaism, warrants reconsideration of the potential relevance of 'salvation' in Paul's texts for both Christian and Jewish research." (Mark D. Nanos, University of Kansas)
"In this very accessible book, Boccaccini opens up a fresh angle for discussions on Paul. His wide knowledge of Second Temple Judaism and his focus on Enochic traditions helps to overcome the impasses of the current debate of 'Paul within Judaism.' He wisely avoids any ideological one-sidedness and helps to perceive the tensions in Paul's thought." (Jörg Frey, University of Zurich)
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Shiyanthi Thavapalan, The meaning of color in ancient Mesopotamia. Culture and history of the ancient Near East, 104. Leiden: Brill, 2019. 524 p.. ISBN9789004415379 €163,00.For more on language and color perception in antiquity, see here and links. And for recovering the original color on an ancient monument, see here and links.
Review by
Ulrike Steinert, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz. usteiner@uni-mainz.de
[...]
In conclusion, The Meaning of Color in Ancient Mesopotamia is a ground-breaking, methodologically innovative, and insightful work. It makes an important contribution to the fields of color studies, historical semantics, and to the history of technologies, enriching our current understanding of Mesopotamian worldviews, languages and material culture. The book will be a valuable resource not only to Assyriologists, but, due to its comparative perspective, also to historians, linguists, and readers interested in the interrelations between language, thought, and culture.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
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Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, Cynicism and Christianity in antiquity. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2019. xvii, 278 p.. ISBN9780802875556 $75.00.
Review by
Etienne Helmer, University of Puerto Rico. etiennehelmer@hotmail.fr
This English version of Dr. Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé’s French book[1] is a scholarly monument on the complex relationships between Cynicism and Christianity—and Judaism as well—in Antiquity. It aims at determining the possible impact of Cynicism on Christianity since the early Jesus movement, as one of its earliest literary artifacts known as the Q Gospel source—a hypothetical collection of alleged Jesus’s sayings assembled after his death—as well as apparent close similarities in their ways of life. ...
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Essays on Babylonian and Biblical Literature and Religion
Series: Harvard Semitic Studies, Volume: 65
Author: Tzvi Abusch
In this volume, I. Tzvi Abusch presents studies written over a span of forty years prior to his retirement from Brandeis University in 2019. They reflect several themes that he has pursued in addition to his work on witchcraft literature and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Part 1 includes general articles on Mesopotamian magic, religion, and mythology, followed by a set of articles on Akkadian prayers, especially šuillas, focusing on exegetical and linguistic (synchronic) studies and on diachronic analyses. Part 2 contains a series of literary studies of Mesopotamian and biblical classics. Part 3 is devoted to comparative studies of terms and phenomena. Part 4 examines legal texts.
The Harvard Semitic Studies series publishes volumes from the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East. Other series offered by Brill that publish volumes from the Museum include Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant and Harvard Semitic Monographs, https://hmane.harvard.edu/publications.
Prices from (excl. VAT): €240.00
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-43518-6
Publication Date: 31 Aug 2020
Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-43517-9
Publication Date: 03 Sep 2020
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Ancient Jew Review is pleased to host this panel, first presented at SBL 2019 in San Diego as “ A Beginner's Guide to the Masorahs of Four Great Early Manuscripts as Represented in Recent Printed Editions.”This is part two of what sounds like a four-part series. I noted part one here. Past posts on the Leningrad Codex are here and links.
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Tales of RoyaltyThe ToC lists no articles specific to ancient Israel, although ancient Aramean kingship is represented. But many of the issues covered (legitimation, shepherd imagery, righteousness, building activities, martial valor, etc.) are of obvious background interest for Israelite kingship.
Notions of Kingship in Visual and Textual Narration in the Ancient Near East
Edited by: Elisabeth Wagner-Durand and Julia Linke
De Gruyter | 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501506895
Language: English, German
Format: 23.0 x 15.5 cm
Pages Arabic: 325
Illustrations BW: 31
Illustrations Color: 19
Publisher: De Gruyter
Year: 2020
FORMATS
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-5015-1555-2
Published: 20 Jul 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5015-0689-5
Published: 20 Jul 2020
EPUB
ISBN: 978-1-5015-0685-7
Published: 20 Jul 2020
OVERVIEW
The volume sheds light on Ancient Near Eastern kingship by focusing on its constant urge for legitimation. Thus, it highlights specific aspects like royal building activities, warfare and wisdom and frames these into material and textual expressions that take the powerful form of narratives.
The contributions made in this volume look for specific topoi of kingship and examine which shapes they took and why. The publication determines which narrative topoi have once been selected to legitimize kingship, which media have been chosen to transmit these narratives, and what kind of narrative strategies have been applied. To consider both, texts and images, in the same margin, the book is based on a dual approach: referring to certain narrative themes both philological and archaeological material will be presented.
By joining diverse perspectives of scholars of material culture and texts and their various approaches the publication promises new and special insight into the connection of narration and legitimation in Mesopotamia. It reflects Ancient Near Eastern kingship and its narrative strategies from a interdisciplinary and transmedial point of view and gives new insights into the matter of royal legitimation.
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In Deuteronomy, YHWH chooses Israel to be his holy (kadosh) and treasured (segulah) people. What does this mean in its original context, and can it be reconciled with contemporary universalist notions?
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To return to the metaphor of the dinosaurs and the tiny furry animals from which we evolved, we could say that Hellenistic Judaism with its zodiac mosaics was like the dinosaurs: great at the time but destined to go extinct – in the calamitous Early Middle Ages. It was the small, at the time almost imperceptible, Rabbinic Judaism that survived these disasters and became the Judaism of later periods, much like the rodents that survived the dinosaur-killing disaster from which we eventually evolved.The article offers a high-flyover overview of the development of Greco-Roman and late-antique Judaism, as summarized in the quoted paragraph. I don't necessarily endorse everything in the article. I have no opinion about some parts. But the general idea is sound.
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The New Year was celebrated on the festival of ingathering of grapes, accompanied by a sacrificial meal and wine. YHWH was declared to be Israel’s king and judge, and his presence, as it was manifest in the ark, was paraded before the Israelites by the king.Rosh HaShanah begins at sundown tomorrow evening. This essay is the best overview discussion of its historical and cultic background that I have ever seen.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Hebräisch
Hebrew: Instruction in Biblical Hebrew Grammar
Biblisch-Hebräische Unterrichtsgrammatik
Edited by: Michael Pietsch and Martin Rösel
De Gruyter | 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110697377
Edition: 5th improved edition
Language: German
Format: 23.0 x 15.5 cm
Pages Roman: XXII
Pages Arabic: 376
Publisher: De Gruyter
Year: 2020
FORMATS
Paperback
ISBN: 978-3-11-069483-3
Published: 07 Sep 2020
ISBN: 978-3-11-069737-7
Published: 07 Sep 2020
OVERVIEW
This book is designed as an accompanying textbook for Hebrew instruction. It provides the student the greatest number of options for selecting and applying different teaching methods. The student's tasks of learning, looking up words, and reviewing are expedited through clear organization of the learning material. The work has a consistent two-color design, making unusual features easier to remember.
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43 Now Eleazar, called Avaran, saw that one of the animals was equipped with royal armor. It was taller than all the others, and he supposed that the king was on it. 44 So he gave his life to save his people and to win for himself an everlasting name. 45 He courageously ran into the midst of the phalanx to reach it; he killed men right and left, and they parted before him on both sides. 46 He got under the elephant, stabbed it from beneath, and killed it; but it fell to the ground upon him and he died. 47 When the Jews[m] saw the royal might and the fierce attack of the forces, they turned away in flight. (NRSV)Unfortunately for Eleazar, it turned out that King Antiochus V was not riding the elephant he attacked.
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Moses extends the covenant to all of Israel, “from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water” (Deut 29). The midrash connects this group with the Gibeonites of Joshua 9, creating an anachronism which later rabbinic commentators try to resolve.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Ancient Jew Review is pleased to host this panel, first presented at SBL 2019 in San Diego as “ A Beginner's Guide to the Masorahs of Four Great Early Manuscripts as Represented in Recent Printed Editions.”
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Phoenician lime for Phoenician wine: Iron Age plaster from a wine press at Tell el-Burak, LebanonIt looks as though you can access the article from Cambridge Core for free.
Adriano Orsingher (a1), Silvia Amicone (a2), Jens Kamlah (a1), Hélène Sader (a3) ...
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2020.4Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 September 2020
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