The siege of Masada is well known, but other important sieges during the Great Revolt, including those of Gamla and Yodfat (Jotapata) much less so.
Naturally, PaleoJudaica readers are better informed. I have posted on the siege of Jotapata/Yodfat with reference to the Josephus Problem, the little algorithm tha Josephus claimed he used to escape having to commit suicide as the Romans approached.
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Background here, here, and here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
I tracked the Dura-Europos: Crossroads of Antiquity Exhibition at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College back when it was showing in 2011 (see here, here, and here). This is the first I've heard that the informative and well-illustrated exhibition volume is available at archive.org.
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For more on Champollion's decipherment of hieroglyphic Egyptian using the Rosetta Stone, see here.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
“Legend of Destruction” is filmmaker Gidi Dar’s latest creation. Made entirely of still drawings, the movie was written by Dar and actor Shuli Rand, and drawn by Michael Faust and David Polonsky of “Waltz with Bashir” fame. Actors Moni Moshonov, Yael Abecassis, Igal Naor and Amos Tamam also provide voices in the film.The 90-minute film tells the story of the Jewish revolt against Rome in 70 CE, from the perspective of Ben Batiach, a good-hearted scholar who turns zealot, leading to the Roman siege on the city and the destruction of the Second Temple.
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Jonathan Price, Katell Berthelot, The future of Rome: Roman, Greek, Jewish and Christian visions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. ix, 315. ISBN 9781108494816 $99.99.I noted the publication of the volume here.Review by
Michael Girardin, UniversitĂ© du Littoral – CĂ´te d’Opale. michael.girardin@univ-littoral.fr
The volume itself is in English, but the review is in French.
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.
Volume 8 of Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History (2021) is just published. This is a special issue entitled “Scholars, Priests, and Temples: Babylonian and Egyptian Science in Context.” It consists a handful of papers falling in the scope of ancient Iran.There are lots of other papers in the volume too. Many are of background interest to ancient Judaism. One involves Talmudic traditions directly.
You can read the abstracts for free. Most of the articles are behind a subscription wall.
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For more than 160 years people have disagreed over whether the Newark Holy Stones are authentic. These carved stones engraved with Hebrew letters were found in and near the Newark Earthworks in the 1860s. Two of the Stones are in the collections of the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum in Coshocton.No specialist argues today that the Newark Stones are genuine ancient artifacts. They may have been created in the mid-nineteenth century as emancipationist propaganda aimed at preventing a civil war. It has also been suggested that they are stolen European medieval Jewish artifacts. To my knowledge, no peer-reviewed study has been published defending either hypothesis.[...]
In any case, they are remarkable objects. They are on display at present at the Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum in Coshocton, Ohio. If you happen to be in the vicinity, do go and have a look.
For PaleoJudaica posts that go over this ground in much more detail, start here and follow the links.
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.
More Papyrus Roll Vocabulary: frons, cornua, umbilicus. The terms seem to refer, respectively, to the decorated top and bottom borders of a scroll and the wooden rod the scroll was wrapped around.
Stands for Holding Open Papyrus Rolls? The title is self-explanatory.
I noted an earlier post in this series here.
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Madaba is, of course, the home of the famous late-antique Madaba Map mosaic of the Holy Land. More on it here and links.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
The Ninth of Av is not specifically a biblical holy day. Rather, it commemorates a number of disasters that happened to the Jewish people, traditionally all on that same day. These include the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Babylonians, the destruction of the Herodian Temple by the Romans, and the fall of Betar during the Bar Kokhba revolt.
Last years Tisha B'Av post is here, leading to many links. Subsequent Tisha B'Av-related posts are here, here, here, here, here, and here.
UPDATE (19 July): More here and here.
UPDATE (20 July): More here.
UPDATE (26 July): More here.
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The volume includes an article on Judeo-Persian literature and another on the oldest dated document in the Cairo Geniza (dated according to the Seleucid era).
You can read the abstracts for free, but the full articles are behind a subscription wall.
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Egg Whites or Turnips?
Archaeology and Bible Translationby Paul J. N. Lawrence
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
178 Pages, 5.00 x 8.00 x 0.00 inPaperback
9781725260351
Published: June 2020
$23.00 / £18.00 / AU$32.00Hardcover
9781725260344v Published: June 2020
$43.00 / £33.00 / AU$59.00 v eBookv 9781725260368
Published: June 2020
$23.00 / £17.00 / AU$34.00DESCRIPTION
Why are Bible translations so different from each other in places? Don't Bible translators know whether it was peacocks or baboons that King Solomon brought into Israel? Why has "sapphire" been replaced by "lapis lazuli" in some more modern versions? What animal provided the leather for the tabernacle? A badger? A sea cow? Or did the term in question simply mean "leather"? Can archaeology tell us what David's harp looked like? What is the evidence for leprosy in Bible times? Is there evidence for cotton, silk, and chickens at the time of the Bible? Answers to these and many other questions are given in this book. But how are such questions to be answered? Essentially the answer is "from the ground"--what can be called "archaeology." This book explores how, over the past two centuries, archaeology has shed its light on the text of the Bible.
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Published in German.
Daniel Maier examines concepts of happiness in Second Temple literature. By analyzing different traditions of understanding the good life in Ancient Judaism, he opens up fresh perspectives on concepts of happiness in the New Testament that cannot be identified without their Jewish background and have been largely overlooked in the scholarly study of this field so far. This work was awarded the Manfred Görg Juniorprize 2021.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
This Bethsaida is the site of et-Tell. Regular readers will be aware that there are two main contenders for the site of the ancient city of Bethsaida near the Sea of Galilee. The other is el-Araj. Both excavations seem confident of their identification and they tend to call their site "Bethsaida" with little qualification. That can be confusing.
For the ongoing controversy over which site is the actual ancient city of Bethsaida, start here and follow the many links.
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At most this is hyperbole, which everyone uses. It is unremarkable.
That said, I think "on every side" is an over-translation of סביב, whose basic meaning is "around." As the article indicates, it is reasonable to read the verse in a way that does not imply that all the wall was broken down everywhere.
It's also worth highlighting the small finds of the excavation. The article has nice photos.
Inside a building abutting the new wall section, remains of rows of smashed storage jars were discovered, bearing “rosette” stamped handles, indicative of the final years of the Kingdom of Judah. Also near the wall, a stone Babylonian stamp seal was found etched with a figure standing in front of symbols of the two Babylonian gods Marduk and Nabu.One of the jar handles was also inscribed with LMLK, "For the king."Likewise, the team discovered a clay bulla (stamp seal impression) inscribed with the Judaean personal name “Tsafan.” It is one of dozens of seal impressions and seals from this era uncovered in Jerusalem.
The name Tsafan appears in other bullae (see the article for details) but not in the Bible. But it looks like a short form of the biblical name Zephaniah.
Background here. Also relevant for Tisha B'Av.
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By identifying biblical intertexts and parallel phrases, we can better understand the flow, the imagery, and even the core message of Eichah, Lamentations.Reminder: Tisha B'Av (the Ninth of Av) begins on the evening of 17 July.
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Nicola Spanu, Proclus and the Chaldean oracles: a study on Proclean exegesis, with a translation and commentary of Proclus' Treatise on Chaldean philosophy. Routledge monographs in classical studies. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, 2020. Pp. viii, 199. ISBN 9780367473143 $124.00.Review by
Graeme Miles, University of Tasmania. graeme.miles@utas.edu.auFor readers of late-antique Platonism the Chaldean Oracles are both inescapable and, in their details at least, often mysterious. The approximately two hundred fragments of the Oracles which survive come to us through their citations by Platonists for whom they were an authoritative text. The most fertile source of fragments, and the subject of this monograph, is Proclus, who makes frequent use of these verses to connect his own arguments with the words, as he sees them, of the gods themselves. ...
The goal of Spanu in the current work is not to produce a new edition of the fragments, though he does consider this a desiderandum, but rather to determine the extent to which Proclus alters the Chaldean Oracles in integrating them into his own philosophical system. ...
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On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to journalist and author, Ariel Sabar, about his new book Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. Sabar’s book exposes much about the bankruptcy of contemporary theology and the yearning by academics to be lionized by the mass media and popular culture, even at the expense of truth.I don't have time to listen to this. (I rarely listen to podcasts. Even at double speed they are too slow.) But perhaps you will want to.
For PaleoJudaica posts on Sabar's book and the whole Gospel of Jesus' Wife saga, start here and follow the many links.
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Coins bearing the inscriptions “Herut Zion” (Freedom for Zion) and “LeHerut Yerushalayim” (To the Freedom of Jerusalem) were recently discovered during an archeological survey conducted in Wadi er-Rashash in eastern Binyamin by the Institute of Archeology at Bar-Ilan University.This discovery also relates indirectly to the upcoming commmemoration of the Ninth of Av (Tisha B'Av) (see the two preceding posts). According to tradition, the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans on the Ninth of Av and Bar Kokhba's stronghold Betar fell on the same date. The dates of these events may be approximate, but that is the tradition.One coin, from the Great Revolt, was discovered on the ground at Hirbet Jib’it and the second, from the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, was found in a cave on the nearby Wadi er-Rashash cliffs about a kilometer north, according to Dr. Dvir Raviv, who heads the survey on behalf of the Bar-Ilan Institute.
[...]
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This year the Ninth of Av (Tisha B'Av) begins at sundown on 17 July.
UPDATE: Incorrect link now fixed!
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
An emotionally evocative window into the suffering experienced by the victims of a siege.
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Biblical Narratives, Archaeology and HistoricityEssays In Honour of Thomas L. Thompson
Emanuel Pfoh (Anthology Editor), Lukasz Niesiolowski-Spanò (Anthology Editor)
Paperback
$39.95Hardback
$130.00Ebook (PDF)
$35.95Published Nov 14 2019
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 328
ISBN 9780567686565
Imprint T&T Clark
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Series The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
Publisher Bloomsbury PublishingDescription
This volume collects essays from an international body of leading scholars in Old Testament studies, focused upon the key concepts of the question of historicity of biblical stories, the archaeology of Israel/Palestine during the Bronze and Iron Ages, and the nature of biblical narratives and related literature.
As a celebration of the extensive body of Thomas L. Thompson's work, these essays enable a threefold perspective on biblical narratives. Beginning with 'method', the contributors discuss archaeology, cultural memory, epistemology, and sociology of knowledge, before moving to 'history, historiography and archaeology' and close analysis of the Qumran Writings, Josephus and biblical rewritings. Finally the argument turn to the narratives themselves, exploring topics including the possibility of invented myth, the genre of Judges and the depiction of Moses in the Qu'ran. Presenting an interdisciplinary analysis of the historical issues concerning ancient Israel/Palestine, this volume creates an updated body of reference to fifty years' worth of scholarship.
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Ms. Borschel-Dan has published a characteristically thorough article. It covers the original report. It includes interviews with the excavator, the epigrapher, and other epigraphers. It discusses the epigraphic context of the inscription, the site of the discovery, the dating of the object, and the readings of the inscription.
The first letter is damaged. Not everyone is convinced that the name has to be Jerubbaal.
Background here (with my commentary) and here.
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Tears abound in Lamentations: the poet cries, the people cry, even the city cries, but God does not. In contrast, the gods and goddesses of ancient Near Eastern city laments, cry along with their people. Midrash Eichah Rabbah, seemingly uncomfortable with such a callous depiction of God, rereads Lamentations to include God weeping.
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JJAR is a peer-reviewed online journal dealing with studies related to the archaeology of the Levant and adjacent relevant regions, from the Protohistoric era to the end of the Hellenistic period (6th - 1st millennium BCE). It is distributed free of charge via the Internet.The first article listed for this new journal is Christopher Rollston's on the Jerubbaal inscription:
Rollston, C., et al., 2021. The Jerubba‘al Inscription from Khirbet al-Ra‘i:A Proto-Canaanite (Early Alphabetic) Inscription. Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology , 2 , pp. 1-15.More on that here.
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The Gospel of Thomas and PlatoHT the AWOL Blog.A Study of the Impact of Platonism on the “Fifth Gospel”
Series: Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, Volume: 93
Author: Ivan Miroshnikov
Now available in Open Access thanks to the support of the University of Helsinki. In The Gospel of Thomas and Plato, Ivan Miroshnikov contributes to the study of the earliest Christian engagements with philosophy by offering the first systematic discussion of the impact of Platonism on the Gospel of Thomas, one of the most intriguing and cryptic works among the Nag Hammadi writings. Miroshnikov demonstrates that a Platonist lens is indispensable to the understanding of a number of the Thomasine sayings that have, for decades, remained elusive as exegetical cruces. The Gospel of Thomas is thus an important witness to the early stages of the process that eventually led to the Platonist formulation of certain Christian dogmata.
Prices from (excl. VAT): €121.00 / $146.00 Hardback
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-36729-6
Publication Date: 12 Jun 2018
Copyright Date: 01 Jan 2018Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-36728-9
Publication Date: 28 Jun 2018v Copyright Date: 01 Jan 2018
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For the first time, an inscription from the time of the Biblical Judges, and even relating to the Book of Judges, has been recovered from excavations at Khirbat er-Ra‘i, near Qiryat Gat. The rare inscription bears the name ‘Yerubbaal’ in alphabetic script and dates from around 1,100 BCE. It was written in ink on a pottery vessel and found inside a storage pit that was dug into the ground and lined with stones.I doubt that this jug belonged to the Gideon of the Book of Judges, assuming there was such a person. But this discovery does show that the name, which is applied only to him in the Bible, does roughly fit into the chronological and geographical context in which the Book of Judges places it.[...]
In the Bible it appears only in Judges 6-9 and in 1 Samuel 12:11. It appears in bowdlerized form as Jerubboshet - "The shame strives" in 2 Samuel 11:21.
Jonathan son of King Saul had a son with the similar name Meribbaal, "Baal is striving." It too is bowdlerized into Mephiboshet, something like "one who spreads shame," in 2 Samuel, especially chapter 9, but in the correct form survives in 1 Chronicles 8:34. In general, Israelite names containing "Baal" got the "shame" treatment from later scribes.
The name Jerubbaal means "Baal strives." Judges presents it as a nickname of Gideon which disrespects Baal. It was always more likely that it was a perfectly good Canaanite name in honor of Baal. This inscription confirms the latter view.
In fact, I suspect Jeribai, the name of one of David's mghty men, in 1 Chronicles 11:46 is a nickname abbreviation of (otherwise unattested) Yeribiah, "YHWH strives." Likewise the name "Jarib" in 1 Chronicles 4:24 (cf. Ezra 8:16, 10:18). A god "striving" was a good thing.
The names Meribbaal and Ishbaal (e.g., 2 Samuel 2:8//1 Chronicles 8:33) may even indicate that Israel's God YHWH was sometimes known informally as Baal, "the Lord," in early Israel. If so, Jerubbaal may have been a normal Israelite name. The fact that we found it on an extremely rare inscription from the period of Judges implies that it was pretty common.
Cross-file under Onomastics.
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Israel is among the five candidate countries for the prestigious annual International Archaeological Discovery Award "Khaled al-Asaad" for an excavation conducted in the Western Wall Tunnels in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Tuesday.I noted the discovery of this underground complex here and here last year. For more on the Western Wall Tunnels excavations, see here and follow the links.A dig headed by Israeli archeologists Barak Monnickendam-Givon and Tehila Sadiel discovered a hidden underground complex that experts think was used by the Jews to prepare for religious services during the Second Temple period before it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
[...]
This is the first I remember hearing of the Khaled al-Asaad award. It is named after the antiquities chief of Palmyra, who was murdered by ISIS in 2015. Background here and links.
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Not mentioned in the essay (I haven't seen the article), but the first route, through Samaria, brings to mind the the story of the rejection of Jesus by the Samaritan village as he traveled to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51-56). I assume the article discusses the passage.
The essay also made me think of the parable of the "good Samaritan" (Luke 10:29-37). A Samaritan saves a Jewish man who was waylaid by bandits on his travels between Jerusalem and Jericho. The story is obviously meant to overturn stereotypes about the Samaritans. Was Jesus underlining the point by making a Samaritan (one of the dangerous people on the first route) the rescuer of someone assaulted on the supposedly safer second route?
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To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Religion and the Arts, James Najarian has compiled a jubilee anthology of 25 articles – one from each year of the journal’s life. This exciting Editor’s Pick is available for free downloading until the end of 2021.The volume is weighted toward the modern. But there are articles on Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, and women in the ancient synagogue paintings at Dura-Europos.
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A Bull For Pluto: A Slave's Story, Book 2 Paperback – June 17, 2020I noted a review by Phil Long of A Rooster for Asklepios here. He also reviewed A Bull for Pluto here. And at the Bible Places Blog, Todd Bolen has reviewed A Rooster for Asklepios here.
by Christopher D. Stanley (Author)A slave without a past. A master without a future. A journey of discovery that will forever change the lives of both men. The ancient world comes alive in this vivid and engaging trilogy by an expert on Roman social history.
What if you suddenly discovered that you were not who you thought you were—that your true family history had been hidden from you since birth? What if the truth about your origins would cause others to despise you? What if the man who had arranged the deception was seriously ill and needed your help? What if you were a slave and that man held your life in his hands—and you his? These are some of the questions explored in the first two volumes of the new historical trilogy, A Slave’s Story.
The story centers on a slave named Marcus who manages the business affairs of a wealthy Roman citizen in central Asia Minor in the first century AD. The first volume, A Rooster for Asklepios, narrates his eventful journey to a famous healing center in western Turkey following a dream in which the god Asklepios appears to promise that his master will be cured there of a nagging illness. The second volume, A Bull for Pluto, relates the aftermath of this journey. .
Along the way, both men encounter people and ideas that undermine everything that they have ever believed about themselves, one another, and the world around them. Societal norms are challenged, personal loyalties tested, and identities transformed in this engaging story that brings to life a unique corner of the Roman world that has been neglected by previous storytellers.
Christopher D. Stanley is a professor at St. Bonaventure University who studies the social history of early Christianity and the Greco-Roman world. He has written or edited six books and dozens of professional articles on the subject and presents papers regularly at conferences around the world. The trilogy A Slave’s Story, which grew out of his historical research on first-century Asia Minor, is his first work of fiction. . For more information please visit https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001H6EUCA
The author's website for the series (a projected trilogy) is here.
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As some of the most important archaeological finds in the world, the Dead Sea Scrolls have provided an unparalleled look into Israel’s past. Yet, despite their significance they are rarely mentioned outside of academic and research settings.I could quibble about some of the details in this article. But it is an adequate overview of the Scrolls aimed at the novice.So, what exactly are the Dead Sea Scrolls and why are they important? The following answers the questions you might have about the Scrolls and what they mean in terms of Jewish history.
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What does this phrase, found in Numbers 32:38, mean?
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The Town of Maaloula is one of the last places where Aramaic is (or at least was recently) still a spoken language. It was ravaged by ISIS in the war, then presumably shut down for pilgrims during the pandemic. But now it is preparing to reopen for pilgrimages.
The Saint Taqla mentioned in the current article is better known as Saint Thecla, whose traditional tomb was in Maaloula. It was reportedly descecrated during the war. I don't know its current status.
For PaleoJudaica posts on Maaloula (Ma'aloula, Malula, Maalula - there seem to be endless spellings), start here and follow the links.
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Who thought the topic of the Dead Sea Scrolls could be so entertaining? Natural story-teller Kenneth Hanson, Ph.D., as done just that. In addition to being an associate professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Central Florida, he is a brilliant actor who brings to life academic topics such as archeology finds in Israel and the Dead Sea Scrolls through his characters known as Jerusalem Jones and Menachem the Essene, also known as the 2,001-year-old man.Don't miss the link to the video teaser.[...]
This is a long-running gig. I see that I noted Professor Hanson's show back in 2005.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
The Copper Scroll from Qumran sends its reader on a quest to uncover hidden treasures. Is this treasure hunt for real or a symbolic journey? Is this dichotomy even fruitful? Maybe the most important thing is that the text sends the reader’s mind on a quest.This essay gives a good overview of the history of the study of the Copper Scroll and the current questions still surrounding it.[...]
One question it does not address is, if the Copper Scroll is entirely fictional, why did someone put in the extensive effort and expense to engrave it on copper sheets and then hide it in a cave? I would not say that is a compelling refutation. After all, someone carved the obviously fictional Treatise of the Vessels on a stone plaque as an addendum to an ambitious stone-plaque presentation of the whole book of Ezekiel. But even so, I would have liked to see some discussion of the question. But presumably he addresses this in his book.
For Professor Høgenhaven's recent book on the Copper Scroll, see here. And follow the links from there for many PaleoJudaica posts on the Copper Scroll. And for more on the Treatise of the Vessels (which I translated into English for the first time in 2013) and the Ezekiel Plates, see here and here and links.
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By Karen B. Stern. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2018. Pp. xxiii + 283. $35. ISBN 978-0-691-16133-4 (cloth).HT Rogue Classicism. The review is an electronic preprint from the October issue of the American Journal of Archaeology.Reviewed by Haggai Olshanetsky
For more on the book and the author's work, see here and links (cf. here).
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Bruno Jacobs, Ancient information on Persia re-assessed: Xenophon's "Cyropaedia". Proceedings of a conference held at Marburg in honour of Christopher J. Tuplin, December 1-2, 2017. Classica et Orientalia, 22. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2020. Pp. xxxii, 407. ISBN 9783447112833 €98,00.I noted the publication of the book here and here. It addresses a wide range of topics. Of particular interest are the articles on the relationship of the Cyropaedia to the Greek novel and to Esther and Judith.Review by
Nicholas Sekunda, University of Gdansk. nicholas.sekunda@ug.edu.pl
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Twenty-eight years ago yesterday John Sanders and I launched the ANE mailing list at the OI Chicago. ...That was 7 July 1993. I was a charter subscriber!
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According to Dr. Shlomit Weksler-Bdolach, Excavation director on behalf of the IAA, “This is, without a doubt, one of the most magnificent public buildings from the Second Temple period that has ever been uncovered outside the Temple Mount walls in Jerusalem. It was built around 20–30 CE. The building, which, apparently, stood along a street leading up to the Temple Mount, was used for public functions – it may even have been the city council building where important dignitaries were received before entering the Temple compound and the Temple Mount.”The building is going on display as part of the Western Wall Tunnels complex. For more on the latter, see the links collected here and also here and here.
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Even before Israel receives laws at Sinai, Exodus tells how Jethro the Midianite advises Moses to establish judges, a unique origin story for the judicial system with no parallel in ancient Near Eastern law collections. Deuteronomy revises the story to credit Moses with this idea after the revelation at Horeb.
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I thought this "divine edibles" exhibition was going to be on cannabis at ancient Arad. But the Arad temple used cannabis as incense (mixed with dung!), not as an edible, so that doesn't work. It turns out to be about "a look at the portrayal of maize, cacao, and maguey (agave, a sweetener also used to make tequila) in artworks ranging from pre-Columbian to contemporary art."
The exhibition on the magical use of the Shema sounds interesting.
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On Tuesday Israeli Col. Golan Vach worked alongside local rescue teams to locate the bodies of a Jewish couple buried in the pile of rubble where the Champlain Towers South condo once stood.The photo is touching. All strength to the surviving victims and the families involved in this terrible tragedy.Vach, who heads a specialized search and rescue unit of the Israel Defense Forces, started to gather personal belongings near the couple, mostly shreds of paper, notes and books. He noticed that many books were texts from the Talmud, a compilation of Rabbinical discussions, debates and the teachings of Jewish religious law.
Someone, Vach doesn’t remember who, snapped an image of Vach in an orange helmet and red gloves, handing the small stack of dark blue books to a South Florida Urban Search and Rescue team member.
[...]
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Another in the series On Becoming a Jewish Bible Scholar. I noted some of these here. There have been many others, so have a look. I am only highlighting the ones of particular interest to PaleoJudaica.
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Write That They May Read
Studies in Literacy and Textualization in the Ancient Near East and in the Hebrew Scriptures:Essays in Honour of Professor Alan R. MillardEdited by Daniel I. Block, David C. Deuel, C. John Collins and Paul J. N. Lawrence
Imprint: Pickwick Publications
538 Pages, 7.00 x 10.00 x 1.00 inPaperback
9781725252103
Published: July 2020
$61.00 / £45.00 / AU$88.00Hardcover
9781725252080
Published: July 2020
$86.00 / £63.00 / AU$124.00eBook
9781725252097
Published: July 2020
$61.00 / £44.00 / AU$88.00DESCRIPTION
Write That They May Read is a collection of essays written in honor of our mentor, friend, and fellow scholar, Professor Alan R. Millard. Respectful of his contribution to our understanding of writing and literacy in the ancient biblical world, all the essays deal with some aspect of this issue, ranging in scope from archeological artifacts that need to be "read," to early evidence of writing in Israel's world, to the significance of reading and writing in the Bible, including God's own literacy, to the production of books in the ancient world, and the significance of metaphorical branding of God's people with his name. The contributors are distributed among Professor Millard's peers and colleagues in a variety of institutions, his own students, and students of his students. They represent a variety of disciplines including biblical archeology, Egyptology, Assyriology, Hebrew and other Northwest Semitic texts, and the literature of the Bible, and reside in North America, Japan, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Germany. ...
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Introduction to the Apocrypha
Jewish Books in Christian BiblesLawrence M. Wills
Format: Paper
Price: $38.00Description
An ambitious introduction to the Apocrypha that encourages readers to reimagine what “canon” really means
Challenging the way Christian and non-Christian readers think about the Apocrypha, this is an ambitious introduction to the deuterocanonical texts of the Christian Old Testaments. Lawrence Wills introduces these texts in their original Jewish environment while addressing the very different roles they had in various Christian canons. Though often relegated to a lesser role, a sort of “Bible-Lite,” these texts deserve renewed attention, and this book shows how they hold more interest for both ancient and contemporary communities than previously thought.
Lawrence M. Wills is visiting professor of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies at Brown University. His books include a commentary on Judith in the Hermeneia series, Not God’s People: Insiders and Outsiders in the Biblical World, and The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World.
ISBN: 9780300248791
Publication Date: June 22, 2021
328 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
18 b/w illus.
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For more recent archaeological and social developments at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holy Sepulcher), see here and here and many links. Notable in particular is the 2016 restoration of the first-century tomb (of Jesus?).
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Within the [Kew’s Economic Botany] collection we found an ancient Egyptian artefact made of plaited date palm leaves.The object is from the late Ptolemaic period. The researchers were able to extract DNA from it and gain some insight into the relationship of the ancient palm to modern varieties and what that tells us about the history of its cultivation.The unusual archaeological object was found 50 years ago at the ‘west dump’ in the temple complex of the animal necropolis of Saqqara, 20km south of Cairo and adjacent to the Nile Valley.
The article does not mention the similar work on Methuselah and Resurrection Genomics in Israel. That involves the cultivation of comparably ancient date palm seeds from Masada and other Judean Desert sites and their successful genomic sequencing.
There is no indication that anyone wants to try to clone the Egyptian palm. But who knows what is coming?
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Alan Bowman, Charles Crowther, The epigraphy of Ptolemaic Egypt. Oxford studies in ancient documents. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 384. ISBN 9780198858225 $115.00.This sounds like a wonderfully comprehensive volume. Several articles deal with religion, including Judaism, in the Ptolemaic-era inscriptions.Review by
Stefano Caneva, UniversitĂ di Padova. stefano.caneva@unipd.it
Julien Dechevez, Université de Liège. julien.dechevezsv@gmail.com
The volume would go nicely alongside the online Corpus of Ptolemaic Inscriptions (CPI), on which more here. Follow the links there for more on the Ptolemaic dynasty and its importance for the study of ancient Judaism.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Saint Cyril (827-869) and Saint Methodius (825-885), known as "the Apostles to the Slavs," were two Greek brothers from Thessalonica. They translated the Holy Scriptures into Old Church Slavonic, and designed a Slavic alphabet called Glagolithic. Its descendant, called Cyrillic, is still used by Slavs in the Orthodox Church.This celebration took place yesterday, 5 July 2021.They came to the Great Moravian empire in 863 AD.
July 5th is the Day of Saints Cyril and Methodius and a national holiday in the Czech Republic.
The day is celebrated on 24 May in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Russia, and on 5 July in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The Roman Catholic Church celebrates their saints' feast day on 14 February. It is celebrated on other days in other churches.
Their work preserved some ancient literature that otherwise would have been lost, including some intriguing Old Testament pseudepigrapha.
For many PaleoJudaica posts on (Old) Church Slavonic, start here and follow the links.
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
What we have here is a picture that combines topography and religious tradition, and that eliminates the gaps between past and present. The inscriptions create a narrative that seemed to have two aims: to place the past of the Scriptures in the geographic space of the land, and to conceptualize that land as a sacred space.PaleoJudaica posts on the Madaba Map are here and links (cf. here).
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The teeth were found buried in material used to fill in a basement before conversion to a large Iron-Age house. The house itself was situated in the City of David, one of the oldest parts of Jerusalem, found nowadays in the largely Palestinian village of Silwan. They were found together with fish bones thrown away as food waste 2900 years ago, and other infill material such as pottery. Intriguingly, they were found together with hundreds of bullae—items used to seal confidential letters and packages—implying a possible connection with the administrative or governing class at some point. ...But the teeth are 80 million years old.
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Unusually, the full BAR article is available for free. Special deal. For you.
For Dr. Mykytiuk's list of externally verified New Testament persons, see here and links. For his list of externally verfied persons mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, see here and links.
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QUICK — what was the Lycian League? Not many of us know, but Alexander Hamilton and James Madison knew! ...There is an indirect connection with the Apostle Paul too.
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.
The Archaeology of Daily Life
Ordinary Persons in Late Second Temple Israelby David A. Fiensy
Imprint: Cascade Books
388 Pages, 7.00 x 10.00 x 0.00 inPaperback
9781532673078
Published: January 2021
$49.00 / £36.00 / AU$65.00Hardcover
9781532673085
Published: January 2021
$74.00 / £54.00 / AU$97.00eBook
9781532673092
Published: January 2021
$49.00 / £35.00 / AU$64.00Description
Have you ever wondered what it was like to live in the past? Did they experience reality in a much different way than we do now with our media, our fast travel, our fast food, and our leisure? Do you especially think about what it might have been like to have lived in Bible times? What would your childhood have been like? How would you have chosen a marriage partner? How would you probably have made a living? What sort of house would you have lived in? What diseases would have threatened your daily existence? How long would you have lived? How would you have practiced your religion? These are a few of the intriguing questions answered by this study. The book takes you on a journey into the past to view daily life through the lenses of not only texts but archaeological finds. The information from the past is also filtered through ethnographic studies of more contemporaneous, yet traditional, societies in the Middle East. The result is a presentation that may surprise you--even shock you--at times, but always will interest you.
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Suffering Time: Philosophical, Kabbalistic, and Ḥasidic Reflections on TemporalitySeries: Supplements to The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, Volume: 30
Author: Elliot R. Wolfson
No one theory of time is pursued in these essays, but a major theme that threads them together is Wolfson’s signature idea of the timeswerve as a linear circularity or a circular linearity, expressions that are meant to avoid the conventional split between the two temporal modalities of the line and the circle. The conception of time elicited by Wolfson from a host of philosophical and mystical sources—both Jewish and non-Jewish—buttresses the contention that it is precisely structural invariability that engenders interpretive variation. This hermeneutical axiom is justified, in turn, by the presumption regarding the cadence of time as the constant return of what has always been what is yet to be. The telling of time wells forth from the time of telling. One cannot speak of the being of time, consequently, except from the standpoint of the time of being, nor of the time of being except from the standpoint of the being of time.
Prices from (excl. VAT): €160.00 / $192.00
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-44934-3
Publication Date: 25 May 2021
Copyright Date: 01 Jan 2021Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-44933-6
Publication Date: 03 Jun 2021
Copyright Date: 01 Jan 2021
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David in the Desert
Tradition and Redaction in the “History of David’s Rise"In: Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fĂĽr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 514
Edited by: Hannes Bezzel and Reinhard G. Kratz
De Gruyter | 2021
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110606164About this book
In the course of the last two decades, both the historical reconstruction of the Iron I–Iron IIA period in Israel and Judah and the literary-historical reconstruction of the Books of Samuel have undergone major changes. With respect to the quest for the “historical David”, terms like “empire” or “GroĂźreich” have been set aside in favor of designations like “mercenary” or “hapiru leader”, corresponding to the image of the son of Jesse presented in I Sam. At the same time, the literary-historical classification of these chapters has itself become a matter of considerable discussion. As Leonhard Rost’s theory of a source containing a “History of David’s Rise” continues to lose support, it becomes necessary to pose the question once again: Are we dealing with a once independent ‘story of David’ embracing both the HDR and the “succession narrative” are there several independent versions of an HDR to be detected, or do I Sam 16–II Sam 5* constitute a redactional bridge between older traditions about Saul on the one hand and David on the other? In either case, what parts of the material in I Sam 16-II Sam 5 are based on ancient traditions, and may therefore serve as a source for any tentative historical reconstruction? The participants in the 2018 symposium at Jena whose essays are collected in this volume engage these questions from different redaction-critical and archaeological perspectives. Together, they provide an overview of contemporary historical research on the book of First Samuel.
Hardcover £91.00
Formats
eBook
Published: May 10, 2021
ISBN: 9783110606164Hardcover
Published: May 24, 2021
ISBN: 9783110604061
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The Cambridge Companion to the Apostolic FathersPart of Cambridge Companions to Religion
EDITORS:
Michael F. Bird, Ridley College, Melbourne
Scott Harrower, Ridley College, Melbourne
DATE PUBLISHED: June 2021
AVAILABILITY: Available
FORMAT: Paperback [also hardback & eBook]
ISBN: 9781108454452£ 26.99
PaperbackDescription
The Cambridge Companion to the Apostolic Fathers offers an informative introduction to the extant body of Christian texts that existed beside and after the New Testament known to us as the apostolic fathers. Featuring cutting-edge research by leading scholars, it explores how the early Church expanded and evolved over the course of the first and second centuries as evidenced by its textual history. The volume includes thematic essays on imperial context, the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, the growth and diversification of the early church, influences and intertextuality, and female leaders in the early church. The Companion contains ground-breaking essays on the individual texts with specific attention given to debates of authorship, authenticity, dating, and theological texture. The Companion will serve as an essential resource for instructors and students of the first two centuries of Christianity.
- A cutting edge, thematic introduction to the Apostolic Fathers, a forgotten era in the history of the early church
- Integrates New Testament studies and the study of early Christianity (Patristics)
- Contains ground-breaking essays on the individual texts with specific attention given to debates of authorship, authenticity, dating, and theological texture
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His book is Bouncing Back – and Forward. From Immigrant Household to Cambridge Fellowship (Vallentine Mitchell, 2021).
Some PaleoJudaica posts on Professor Reif and his long career directing Cambridge University's Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection are here, here, here, here, here, and here.
For many, many posts on the Cairo Geniza and its priceless hoard of manuscripts, start here and follow the links.
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.
Blood has a significant role in many biblical stories and rituals, most prominently in the atonement sacrifices of Leviticus. With the destruction of the Temple and the loss of sacrifices, Judaism and Christianity took very different paths to achieving atonement.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Mika Ahuvia, On My Right Michael, On My Left Gabriel: Angels in Ancient Jewish Culture. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2021.Excerpt:
We need not look to “foreign influence” to make sense of Jewish belief in angels—there is plenty of biblical material on angels for Jews to draw on. That said, angels became very popular among the inhabitants of the Mediterranean in late antiquity, and Jewish thinkers had to find distinctively Jewish ways of conceptualizing them. My research shows that Jewish poets, practitioners, mystics, and rabbis rose to the challenge.Cross-file under New Book.
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The Idea of Semitic MonotheismThe Rise and Fall of a Scholarly Myth
Guy G. Stroumsa
Description
The Idea of Semitic Monotheism examines some major aspects of the scholarly study of religion in the long nineteenth century—from the Enlightenment to the First World War. It aims to understand the new status of Judaism and Islam in the formative period of the new discipline. Guy G. Stroumsa focuses on the concept of Semitic monotheism, a concept developed by Ernest Renan around the mid-nineteenth century on the basis of the postulated and highly problematic contradistinction between Aryan and Semitic families of peoples, cultures, and religions. This contradistinction grew from the Western discovery of Sanskrit and its relationship with European languages, at the time of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Together with the rise of scholarly Orientalism, this discovery offered new perspectives on the East, as a consequence of which the Near East was demoted from its traditional status as the locus of the Biblical revelations.
This innovative work studies a central issue in the modern study of religion. Doing so, however, it emphasizes the new dualistic taxonomy of religions had major consequences and sheds new light on the roots of European attitudes to Jews and Muslims in the twentieth century, up to the present day.
£75.00
Hardback
Published: 20 May 2021
320 Pages
216x138mm
ISBN: 9780192898685
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Cosmologies of Pure Realms and the Rhetoric of PollutionBy Yohan Yoo, James W. Watts
Copyright Year 2021
Hardback £120.00
eBook £33.29
ISBN 9780367712051 Published May 31, 2021 by Routledge 178 Pages
Book Description
This collaboration between two scholars from different fields of religious studies draws on three comparative data sets to develop a new theory of purity and pollution in religion, arguing that a culture’s beliefs about cosmological realms shapes its pollution ideas and its purification practices.
The authors of this study refine Mary Douglas’ foundational theory of pollution as "matter out of place," using a comparative approach to make the case that a culture’s cosmology designates which materials in which places constitute pollution. By bringing together a historical comparison of Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean religions, an ethnographic study of indigenous shamanism on Jeju Island, Korea, and the reception history of biblical rhetoric about pollution in Jewish and Christian cultures, the authors show that a cosmological account of purity works effectively across multiple disparate religious and cultural contexts. They conclude that cosmologies reinforce fears of pollution, and also that embodied experiences of purification help generate cosmological ideas.
Providing an innovative insight into a key topic of ritual studies, this book will be of vital interest to scholars and graduate students in religion, biblical studies, and anthropology.
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Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon bar YohaiRabbi Shimon bar Yohai (Yochai) is the traditional (pseudepigraphic) author of the Zohar, the premier book of Jewish mysticisim.Translated and explicated by W. David Nelson
Edward E. Elson Classic Series
1100 pages
Hardcover
November 2006
978-0-8276-0799-6
$75.00About the Book
A timeless collection of midrash never before available in English.
The Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai is a collection of classical midrashic interpretation of the biblical Book of Exodus. Lost for centuries, the text was reconstructed and recovered in the 19th and 20th centuries by both German and Israeli scholars from a variety of source materials, including medieval manuscripts of the text and midrashic anthologies. As one of the first collections of rabbinic biblical interpretation, the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai is an indispensable source for understanding the history, beliefs, and practices of the earliest rabbis. This edition, translated and explicated for the first time in English by W. David Nelson, is The Jewish Publication Society’s latest contribution to making ancient Jewish literature accessible to modern readers. A critical introduction provides the reader with a firm grounding in the historical setting of the text, as well as its source material, reconstruction, subject matter, and significance for understanding the history of Judaism. Set in a modern, readable typeface, the Hebrew text faces the English translation with the author’s annotation beneath. Indexes include scriptural verse citations and rabbinic sages named in the text.
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Baur put his finger squarely on the problem: There are four different “Pauls” in the New Testament, not one, and each is quite distinct from the others. New Testament scholars today are generally agreed on this point.
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Grace Emmett, “Becoming a Man: Un/Manly Self-Presentation in the Pauline Epistles.” PhD diss., King’s College London, 2021.... This continual process of reinterpreting Paul shows that in some ways he is also a man forever in the process of becoming.
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But what was the situation across the River Jordan, where the kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom were flourishing? Many fewer excavations have taken place there than in ancient Israel. Nonetheless several cultic complexes have been unearthed: three in the Jordan Valley (part of ancient Ammon), four in Moab, and one in Edom. What do these tell us about cult practices among Israel and Judah’s rivals?For more on the Balaam inscription from Tel Deir 'Alla (Deir Alla), see here and links.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Renz, Thomas. The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. NICOT; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2021. xxxix+703 pp. Hb; $56.00.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Amos and Zechariah mention an earthquake in the time of King Uzziah. Its effects were uncovered in the excavations at Tel Agol in the Jezreel Valley: It turned the city, fortified for centuries to defend against the Assyrian threat, into a poor squatter town that could not recover.For more on the archaeology of Amos' earthquake, see here.
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Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.
Shul GoingThe term "synagogue" is used pretty loosely for the earliest period. Nevertheless the book collects a good array of primary texts.
2500 Years of Impressions and Reflections on Visits to the Synagogueby Charles Heller
Imprint: Resource Publications
178 Pages, 5.00 x 8.00 x 0.00 inPaperback
9781532667152
Published: July 2019
$23.00 / £18.00 / AU$32.00eBook
9781532667176
Published: July 2019
$23.00 / £17.00 / AU$34.00Hardcover
9781532667169
Published: July 2019
$53.00 / £40.00 / AU$72.00DESCRIPTION
Covering 2500 years, here are the impressions of synagogue worshipers and visitors, Jews and non-Jews, told in their own words, from Jeremiah to George Washington, Liszt, and Yossele Rosenblatt, from the slums of Rio to the shtetls of Ukraine to the temple in Jerusalem. Here is the Jewish experience--tragic, comic, and inspiring by turns.
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A Manichaean Church at KellisCross-file under Manichean Watch (Manichaean Watch) and Coptic Watch. I noted a book on the documentary texts from Kellis here and a PhD dissertation on the the Manichaeans of Kellis here.Series: Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, Volume: 100
Author: HĂĄkon Fiane Teigen
This volume offers a comprehensive account of a Manichaean community in fourth-century Roman Egypt. The study analyses papyrological material from Kellis, a village in Egypt’s Dakhleh Oasis, and their implications for Manichaeism as a socio-religious movement.
Drawing on social network theory and engaging with current trends in the study of lived ancient religion, Teigen explores how lay families at Kellis cohered as a religious community. Whereas recent scholarship has seen the laity here as largely detached from distinctively Manichaean traditions, he argues that the papyri in fac reveal a community immersed in Manichaean ideas and practices. The book thereby shows how new religious identities were deeply entangled in everyday social life in late antiquity.
Prices from (excl. VAT): €125.00 / $151.00 Hardback
E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-45977-9
Publication Date: 08 Jun 2021
Copyright Date: 01 Jan 2021Hardback
Availability: Not Yet Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-45976-2
Publication Date: 10 Jun 2021
Copyright Date: 01 Jan 2021
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Martti NissinenPaperback £18.00Reste altorientalischen Prophetentums in der Bibel
Remnants of Ancient Near Eastern Prophethood in the BibleIn: Julius-Wellhausen-Vorlesung, 9
De Gruyter | 2021
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110748253About this book
Current research has revealed that biblical prophecy was part of Ancient Near Eastern prophecy. The properties typical of Ancient Near Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean prophecy are clear to discern in the Old and even in the New Testament. This includes, for instance, the concept of the word of God, the writing down of prophecy and its political significance, the temple as the "spiritual home," gender inclusivity, and prophetic ecstasy.
Formats
eBook
Published: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 9783110748253
Paperback
Published: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 9783110747188
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Published in English.
Within the context of the Torah, the Joseph story can be read as a transition that explains why Jacob and his family came to Egypt. However, if one looks at other texts of the Hebrew Bible, there is no mention of the Joseph story; instead, the arrival of the Israelites is said to be the result of the decision of a »father« or of »fathers« to go down do Egypt. Indeed, there are very few references to Joseph at all in the whole Hebrew Bible. Apparently, the Joseph story is not necessary for explaining why the Israelites found themselves in Egypt. The question therefore arises: Why was this story written, when, and for what audience?
This volume offers an overview of the current discussion on the origins, composition, and historical contexts behind the Joseph narrative. There is a tendency to date the story (or its original version) to the Persian period, but this volume includes divergent voices about this issue. The volume also shows that scholarly discussion about the historical location of the Joseph story requires to bring together Egyptologists and biblical scholars.
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