Archaeology of Mind in the Hebrew Bible (De Gruyter, open access)

NEW BOOK FROM DE GRUYTER:

Archaeology of Mind in the Hebrew Bible / Archäologie alttestamentlichen Denkens

Edited by: Andreas Wagner , Jürgen van Oorschot and Lars Allolio-Näcke
Funded by: Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (SNF)
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110742428

eBook
Published: April 27, 2023
ISBN: 9783110742428

Hardcover
Published: April 27, 2023
ISBN: 9783110742183

OVERVIEW
About this book

Open Access

Research into the Hebrew Bible, Ancient Near East, Philosophy and History have long considered whether thought in the cultural area of the ancient Middle East differs from that in the western Mediterranean. The inclusion of neurobiology, psychology, brain research and evolutionary research will widen this horizon and allow new approaches. This volume provides in depth insides into this Archaeology of Mind in 22 contributions.

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The Coronation

THE CORONATION OF KING CHARLES III today has roots in ancient Israelite and ancient Near Eastern traditions, with many fascinating and sometimes surprising cultural pathways and byways. Here is some coverage:

The Jewish traditions behind pomp of Charles III’s big day. The coronation of King Solomon provides the template for Saturday's ceremony (Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, The Jewish Chronicle).

The coronation this Saturday will no doubt be seen around the world as an example of British pageantry and pomp at its best. But few will realise its quintessential Jewish roots.

From Saul to David, Jews always did a good coronation. Charles will emerge, as did King Saul, no longer the man he was (Howard Jacobson, The Jewish Chronicle).

Will they play Zadok the Priest at the coronation? Origins of the Champions League anthem and who wrote it. ‘Zadok the Priest’ was composed by George Frideric Handel for the coronation of King George II in 1727 (Alex Finnis, i news)

Long live the King… of Kings! Accession ritual in ancient Persia. As we look towards the coronation ceremony that will unfold in Westminster Abbey on Saturday 6 May, Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones considers how other monarchs in history have been ordained and explores the enthronement rituals of ancient Persia (The British Museum Blog; for the author, cf. here and here).

The Christian symbolism in the coronation regalia is laid out in detail here:

Coronation rite imbued with ancient symbolism. William Gulliford explains the significance of the coronation regalia (Church Times)

Congratuations and best wishes to King Charles and the British people.

UPDATE (13 May): More here. Aramaic at the coronation.

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More on the Negev wine grapes

ANCIENT VITICULTURE: Modern Israeli grapes linked to grapes in the Bible - study. The seeds were found at archaeological excavations led by Prof. Guy Bar-Oz and colleagues from the University of Haifa’s School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures (Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, Jerusalem Post).

Seeds that provide a genetic link between two modern varieties of red and white grapes cultivated over 1,100 years ago – and apparently were mentioned in two different books of the Bible – have resulted in an “extraordinary and thrilling discovery” by archaeologists at Tel Aviv University (TAU) and the University of Haifa.

[...]

I noted the underlying article here. This Jerusalem Post article is more reader friendly. For more on the same archaeo-botany project, see here.

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Llewellyn-Jones, Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther (Bloomsbury)

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther. Notice of a New Book: Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd. 2023. Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther: Achaemenid Court Culture in the Hebrew Bible. London: Bloomsbury.

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Bay, Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity (CUP)

NEW BOOK FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity
The Historiography, Exemplarity, and Anti-Judaism of Pseudo-Hegesippus

AUTHOR: Carson Bay, Universität Bern, Switzerland
DATE PUBLISHED: November 2022
AVAILABILITY: Available
FORMAT: Hardback
ISBN: 9781009268561

£ 90.00 Hardback

Description

In this volume, Carson Bay focuses on an important but neglected work of Late Antiquity: Pseudo-Hegesippus' On the Destruction of Jerusalem (De Excidio Hierosolymitano), a Latin history of later Second Temple Judaism written during the fourth century CE. Bay explores the presence of so many Old Testament figures in a work that recounts the Roman-Jewish War (66–73 CE) and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. By applying the lens of Roman exemplarity to Pseudo-Hegesippus, he elucidates new facets of Biblical reception, history-writing, and anti-Judaism in a text from the formative first century of Christian Empire. The author also offers new insights into the Christian historiographical imagination and how Biblical heroes and Classical culture helped Christians to write anti-Jewish history. Revealing novel aspects of the influence of the Classical literary tradition on early Christian texts, this book also newly questions the age-old distinction between the Christian and the Classical (or 'pagan') in the ancient Mediterranean world.

• Offers extensive English translations of key portions of Pseudo-Hegesippus (De Excidio Hierosolymitano) with extended analysis and comparison with source texts and comparanda from Biblical, Classical, early Christian, and Jewish literature (all for the first time)
• Provides a comprehensive analysis and exhaustive overview of the Old Testament figures in a rarely-studied Latin history from late antiquity
• Shows how the Christian appropriation of biblical figures could and did fuel anti-Jewish history-writing in the first century of Christian empire

For Pseudo-Hegesippus' De excidio Hierosolymita see here, as well as here and here.

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An Akkadian translation algorithm

ALGORITHM WATCH: Israeli experts create AI to translate ancient cuneiform text - study Researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Ariel University have developed an artificial intelligence model that can automatically translate Akkadian text written in cuneiform into English (Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, Jerusalem Post).

It is impressive for an algorithm to produce even approximate translations of Akkadian into English. But this one still requires significant human intervention:

When they developed the new machine-learning model, they trained two versions – one that translates the Akkadian from representations of the cuneiform signs in Latin script and another that translates from unicode representations of the cuneiform signs. The first version, using Latin transliteration, gave more satisfactory results in this study, achieving a score of 37.47 in the Best Bilingual Evaluation Understudy 4 (BLEU4), which is a test of the level of correspondence between machine and human translation of the same text.

Trust me, that first stage of transliterating the cuneiform signs, or even identifying them for unicode, would be a lot of work.

This is amusing:

The program is most effective when translating sentences of 118 or fewer characters. In some of the sentences, the program produced “hallucinations” – output that was syntactically correct in English but not accurate.

Back in my postgraduate days, my fellow students and I were well acquainted with Akkadian translation "hallucinations."

I have noted other algorithm projects for cuneiform studies here and here.

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

Power, The Significance of Linguistic Diversity in the Hebrew Bible (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Cian Power. The Significance of Linguistic Diversity in the Hebrew Bible. Language and Boundaries of Self and Other. 2022. XIX, 345 pages. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 138. 99,00 € including VAT. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-159324-6.

Published in English.
Cian J. Power explores how the biblical authors viewed and presented a fundamental human reality: the existence of the world's many languages. By examining explicit references to this diversity – such as the ambivalent account of its origins in the Tower of Babel episode – and implicit acknowledgements that included the use of strange-sounding speech to portray alien peoples, he illuminates ideas about Aramaic, Egyptian, Akkadian, and other ancient languages. Drawing on sociolinguistics, Power detects a consistent link between language and – ethnic, political, religious, and divine/human boundaries, and argues that changing historical circumstances are key to the Bible's varying attitudes. Furthermore, the study's findings regarding the biblical authors' ideas about their own language and its importance challenge our very notion of Hebrew.

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SBL review panel on Carlson, Unfamiliar Selves; Carlson responds

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW has published another essay in its SBL review-panel series on Reed Carlson's book, Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena (De Gruyter 2022). This one is the author's response to the earlier essays.

Response to the Forum on Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible (Reed Carlson)

... The respondents made many more excellent points, not all of which I have the space to address and contemplate here. I can say with complete honesty, however, that this panel has given me yet more to think about on this topic, which has been, for me at least, an unending well of delightful curiosity. ...

I noted the earlier essays here and links.

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Exhibition: the late-antique glass factory at Jalame

ANCIENT MATERIAL CULTURE: How Did the Romans Make Glass? A Hill in Israel Knows. The Romans were famed for their glass – all made using raw glass manufactured in ancient Israel, Lebanon and Egypt. A new exhibit at New York's Corning Museum sheds light on the process and why the ancient glassmakers had to move shop every 10 years (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

Why is Corning now celebrating the glass industry of yore based on a workshop from the middle of the story of glass? And the workshop was an unremarkable one at that, operating on a remote hilltop in northern Israel during the sunset of the Romans.

Well, the excavation and the historical record at Jalame have become a textbook for scholars of ancient glass manufacturing, say Yael Gorin, head of glass at the Israel Antiquities Authority, and Katherine Larson, curator of ancient glass at Corning.

For more on ancient glass and glass production, including another glass kilns workshop discovered in Israel in 2016, see here and links (cf. here, here, and here).

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The New Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation

NEW BOOK FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The New Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation

Part of Cambridge Companions to Religion

EDITORS:Ian Boxall, Catholic University of America, Washington DCBradley C. Gregory, Catholic University of America, Washington DC
DATE PUBLISHED: December 2022
AVAILABILITY: Available
FORMAT: Paperback
ISBN: 9781108796675

£ 26.99 Paperback

Description

This Cambridge Companion offers an up-to-date and accessible guide to the fast-changing discipline of biblical studies. Written by scholars from diverse backgrounds and religious commitments – many of whom are pioneers in their respective fields – the volume covers a range of contemporary scholarly methods and interpretive frameworks. The volume reflects the diversity and globalized character of biblical interpretation in which neat boundaries between author-focused, text-focused, and reader-focused approaches are blurred. The significant space devoted to the reception of the Bible – in art, literature, liturgy, and religious practice – also blurs the distinction between professional and popular biblical interpretation. The volume provides an ideal introduction to the various ways that scholars are currently interpreting the Bible. It offers both beginning and advanced students an understanding of the state of biblical interpretation, and how to explore each topic in greater depth.

• Provides discussions of different areas of biblical interpretation by leading scholars of that approach
• Includes authors from diverse backgrounds and commitments
• Devotes substantial space to methods, frameworks, and the history of reception

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SBL review panel on Carlson, Unfamiliar Selves, part 4

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW has published another essay in its SBL review-panel series on Reed Carlson's book, Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena (De Gruyter 2022):

Jewish Spirits and Christian Specters (Ethan Schwartz)

... This book is a crucial entry in the study of biblical spirit phenomena. I am confident that it will play a prominent role in future work on the topic. Yet in some ways, what I want to suggest is that the most significant and wide-ranging contribution of Carlson’s book is how he invites us to think about what it means to contend with problematic intellectual-historical genealogies in the discipline—even, and perhaps especially, when those contentions are messy and not entirely successful. ...

I noted the earlier essays here and links.

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More on the Moroccan "genizas"

ARCHAEOLOGY AND POLITICS: Abraham Accords allow Israelis to excavate two huge ‘genizas’ found in rural Morocco. Normalization lets Israeli researchers formalize ties with Moroccan experts to investigate remnants of Jewish life – with aid of Israelis who once lived in those abandoned villages (MELANIE LIDMAN, Times of Israel).

One of the challenges with archaeological excavations in southern Morocco is that all of the buildings were made from mud, which makes them very difficult to unearth and exceptionally susceptible to destruction from the elements afterward. It requires a painstaking process of slow excavation and immediate conservation by using local artisans and materials to rebuild the buildings in the same manner, explained [BGU archaeologist Professor] Yuval Yekutieli.

“When we got there there was no roof and the columns were tipping over, the walls were falling apart,” recalled Yekutieli. In Akka, just before the Jews fled they dug a hole in the bima, the central prayer platform, and buried letters, magical charms written on parchment paper, and sacred texts including Torah scrolls. In Tamanart, they placed their holy objects in a hole in the wall.

I noted this discovery last year here. The sites date from the seventeenth century to living memory, far outside PaleoJudaica's usual range. But as an archaeological and manuscript treasure trove the excavation deserves some attention.

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Olariu, Theodotion’s Greek Text of Daniel (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Theodotion’s Greek Text of Daniel

An Analysis of the Revisional Process and Its Semitic Source

Series: Supplements to the Textual History of the Bible, Volume: 7

Author: Daniel Olariu

This study advances our knowledge regarding the character of the version of Daniel attributed to Theodotion within the larger framework of the Theodotionic problem in Septuagint research. This is achieved in two ways. In addition to demonstrating the recensional character of Theodotion-Daniel and describing its revising techniques, it also breaks new ground on Theodotion’s Hebrew-Aramaic source. The findings compellingly argue for the theory that Theodotion-Daniel is a systematic revision of the Old Greek in conformity with a Semitic text form which often preserved original readings against the Masoretic Text and the Qumran scrolls.

Prices from (excl. shipping): €142.00

Copyright Year: 2023

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-52788-1
Publication date: 27 Mar 2023

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-52705-8
Publication date: 30 Mar 2023

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Biblical Studies Carnival 206

READING ACTS: Biblical Studies Carnival 206 for April 2023 (Phil Long).

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Exhibition on the Afghan "Geniza" manuscripts

UPCOMING: A glimpse into the mysterious Jewish community of Afghanistan. Nex exhibition will shed light on lost Jewish community largely erased by Gengis Khan and Mongol conquest 'we simply knew nothing about,' says curator (YItzhak Tesler, YNet News).

In a few months, with the inauguration of the new building of the National Library of Israel, millennium-old historical documents belonging to the lost Jewish community of Afghanistan will be presented for the first time.

[...]

Background here and links going back to 2011.

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Wold, Qumran Wisdom and the New Testament (CUP)

NEW BOOK FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Qumran Wisdom and the New Testament
Exploring Early Jewish and Christian Textual Cultures

AUTHOR: Benjamin Wold, Trinity College Dublin
DATE PUBLISHED: December 2022
AVAILABILITY: Available
FORMAT: Hardback
ISBN: 9781009305068

£ 85.00 Hardback

Description

In this book, Benjamin Wold builds on recent developments in the study of early Jewish wisdom literature and brings it to bear on the New Testament. This scholarship has been transformed by the discovery at Qumran of more than 900 manuscripts, including Hebrew wisdom compositions, many of which were published in critical editions beginning in the mid-1990s. Wold systematically explores the salient themes in the Jewish wisdom worldview found in these scrolls. He also presents detailed commentaries on translations and articulates the key debates regarding Qumran wisdom literature, highlighting the significance of wisdom within the context of Jewish textual culture. Wold's treatment of themes within the early Jewish and Christian textual cultures demonstrates that wisdom transcended literary form and genre. He shows how and why the publication of these ancient texts has engendered profound shifts in the study of early Jewish wisdom, and their relevance to current controversies regarding the interpretation of specific New Testament texts.

• Provides a systematic treatment of themes characteristic to the early Jewish wisdom worldview
• Analyses debated fragments and their translation that are significant for understanding Jewish wisdom in the period
• Introduces key debates in the study of Qumran wisdom literature

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Where did the money to build the Colosseum come from?

ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE: The Colosseum’s Jewish Connection. The building of the Colosseum was made possible by Rome’s destruction of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago (Dr. Yvette Alt Miller, Aish.com).

Visitors to the ancient Colosseum in Rome are awed by its sheer size. Measuring 620 by 512 feet, it’s a massive structure; six and a half football fields could fit inside its space, with room to spare. Rising four stories into the sky, the Colosseum has 80 entrances and used to hold more than 50,000 spectators who flocked to this landmark to watch games during the height of the Roman Empire.

But few guidebooks mention why the Colosseum was built or how its sponsors could afford to build what was the largest amphitheater in the ancient world. The Colosseum was built to commemorate the sacking and destruction of Jerusalem, and was funded by loot stolen from the ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

[...]

That's true.

For photos from my visit to the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and the Arch of Titus (etc.) in 2013, see here.

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Re-aedificanda est Carthago

PUNIC WATCH: German architect wins contest to remodel Carthage site (David Rogers, Global Construction Review).

Stuttgart firm Bez + Kock Architekten has received the €50,000 first prize in an international competition to improve two of the most important cultural sites in Tunisia: the Byrsa Acropolis and the Carthage National Museum.

I noted the prospective refurbishment of the Carthage National Museum and its environs in 2021. It is good to see that the plans are moving forward.

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

SBL review panel on Carlson, Unfamiliar Selves, part 3

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW has published another essay in its SBL review-panel series on Reed Carlson's book, Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena (De Gruyter 2022):

Selves, Spirits, and the Usefulness of Comparison (David Lambert)

... In short, I would suggest that the use of comparative studies as framing material for the biblical, alongside the synchronic approach, is conducive to making a general claim about the importance of “spirit”-phenomena but not to the actual identification of difference, which I see as essential to the comparative and critical enterprise. The suggestion would seem to be that spirit possession is a core, universal human experience, quite apart from the particularities of its social construction as a part of a broader engagement of political, economic, social, religious, and gendered concerns in specific local sites. ...

I noted the earlier essays here and here.

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The Buddha at Berenike?

SUPRISE ICONOGRAPHY: Buddha statue unearthed at temple in Egypt's Red Sea region. A newly discovered marble statue of the Buddha at a temple in Berenike on the red sea shows a connection between Egypt and India during the Roman Empire (Nevine El-Aref, Ahram online)

Berenike Trogodytika was a port on the coast of the Red Sea in Ptolemaic times. It is named after Queen Berenike I, the wife of Ptolemy I. The latter appears under the code name "king of the south" in Daniel 11:5. I have mentioned it here and links.

The site continues to produce interesting discoveries. This latest one, from the temple of Isis (a.k.a the "Great Temple"), illustrates the cross-cultural and eclectic nature of Egyptian religion in the "Roman era." (The article does not specify the date of the discovery any further.) A Sanskrit inscription dating to the mid-third century CE, some second-century CE coins, and some first-century CE jars underline the connection to India. For more on the excavation of this temple, see here and here.

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

Bumped with update and news: No news on the Mount Ebal "curse tablet"

ONE YEAR LATER: An Early Israelite Curse Inscription from Mt. Ebal? Questions abound following announcement of sensational new find (Nathan Steinmeyer, Bible History Daily).

Announced during a press conference in March 2022, the tablet comes from the West Bank site of Mt. Ebal, which was first excavated by archaeologist Adam Zertal in the 1980s. The site consists of two large stone installations, one circular and one rectangular. Zertal interpreted the site and the earlier circular feature to be the location of Joshua’s altar (Joshua 8:30), though many dispute this identification. The tablet was only recovered in 2019, however, when archaeologists with ABR began a project to sift the soil dumps from the Mt. Ebal excavation in hopes of identifying artifacts that had been missed during the original dig.

[...]

This is a reprint of a BHD essay published on 25 April 2022, which I noted originally here. It has just been posted again. I link to it not because it has new information, but to underline that it does not.

The object was first announced in late January of 2022. For more PaleoJudaica posts, start here and follow the links.

We were told a year ago that the epigraphic team hoped to publish an article about it in 2022. The article has not yet appeared. I have heard nothing more about the object in the last year. I would love to be wrong, but I remain skeptical of the claims about it. The Lottery Rule still applies.

UPDATE: I have just learned that according to Prof. Galil's Facebook account, an article on the tablet has been accepted "in one of the leading [peer-review] journals in the field." Which journal is not specified. I look forward to seeing the full evidence for the remarkable claims about the tablet.

UPDATE (13 May): The article is now published. See here for link and my initial assessment.

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A suppressed Roman campaign vs. the Nabateans?

NABATEAN (NABATAEAN) WATCH: Archaeologists Find Evidence of ‘Lost’ Ancient Roman Campaign in Arabia. The Romans tell that their conquest of the Nabateans was peaceful, but is that a tall tale of the victor? Or did they erase the memory of a fiasco in Arabia? (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

In the year 106, the Romans annexed the Nabatean kingdom and renamed it Arabia Petraea. The question is how exactly that was achieved.

Roman historians described this as a nonviolent process following the demise of the last Nabatean king, Rabbel II Soter. But now, in the barren desert of northern Arabia, archaeologists have detected what they believe were three Roman army camps. They're situated in a straight line between the Bayir oasis near the Nabatean capital of Petra and Dûmat al-Jandal in what is now northern Saudi Arabia.

[...]

If that's what they are, then something happened, but who knows what?

One possible explanation is that at the first camp the force was split in two and the second route hasn’t been discovered yet. Or maybe half the force split off and advanced ahead of the other half, and was responsible for ferrying water, the archaeologists postulate.

A grimmer possibility is that the size discrepancy holds clues about the soldiers’ fate: Half the force was lost en route from the big camp to the middle one. ...

But why be a downer? “This may not appear because nothing much happened! They started the campaign and halfway through the kingdom surrendered,” [archaeologist Michael] Fradley speculates. “If you’re being realistic, that may be why nothing appeared in the historic record. Or maybe the campaign was very small, run by a general who didn’t have a political career.”

History is written — or not — by the winners.

The underlying article in Antiquity is available for free with Cambridge Core:

A lost campaign? New evidence of Roman temporary camps in northern Arabia

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 April 2023

Michael Fradley, Andrew Wilson, Bill Finlayson and Robert Bewley

Abstract

Remote sensing survey in southern Jordan has identified at least three Roman temporary camps that indicate a probable undocumented military campaign into what is today Saudi Arabia, and which we conjecture is linked to the Roman annexation of the Nabataean kingdom in AD 106.

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BIAJS 2023 Student Essay Prize

BIAJS 2023 Student Essay Prize Deadline: 19th June

We are pleased to announce the launch of the 2023 BIAJS student essay prize. Two prizes of £400, ordinarily for one outstanding undergraduate and one postgraduate essay by students at institutions in the UK and Ireland, are awarded annually.

[...]

Follow the link for further particulars.

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The Ethnic Relations and Migration in the Ancient World Blog

THE ETHNIC RELATIONS AND MIGRATION IN THE ANCIENT WORLD BLOG, run by Philip Harland and collaborators, continues to publish many interesting posts with primary-text excerpts and commentary. They report that there are more than 325 of them. I noted the blog most recently here.

Some recent posts that deal with matters of interest to PaleoJudaica are as follows, more recent ones first.

Canaanites / non-Judean peoples: The Judean author of Jubilees on the Dinah story and intermarriage (mid-second century BCE)

Egyptians: The Judean tale of Joseph and Aseneth on rejecting Egyptian gods and on intermarriage (ca. first century CE)

Axumite perspectives: Inscription by the king of Axum on the Ethiopian and Arabian peoples he conquered (late-second or early-third century CE)

Ethiopians: Artapanos and Josephos on Moses, intermarriage, and the Kushites (second century BCE-first century CE)

Persians: Acts of Archelaos on Mani’s foreignness (early fourth century CE)

Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Phoenicians: Julius Africanus on competitive chronologies (ca. 222 CE)

Persians: Irenaeus on Marcus the Valentinian Magian (late second century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Diodoros, Pliny and Plutarch on Pompey’s subjugation of peoples of the world (mid-first century BCE on)

Judeans: Reliefs on the Arch for Titus depicting temple treasures and defeat (late first century CE)

Judeans: Hekataios, pseudo-Hekataios and Diodoros on Judean origins and migration with the exodus (first century BCE)

Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Celts, and others: The Cicero brothers on the nature and effectiveness of divination (mid-first century BCE)

Assyrian / Babylonian wisdom: Sibyl of Babylon on the superiority of the Judean people (second century BCE)

Babylonian perspectives: Bel-re’ushu / Berossos on the origins of civilization (late fourth century BCE)

Persians: Heresy-hunters on Simon Magus and other Magians (second-third centuries CE)

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Schiffman and The Collector on Dura-Europos

PROF. LAWRENCE H. SCHIFFMAN: DURA-EUROPOS.

In a museum in Damascus, the remnants of a shul from the 3rd century CE linger, telling secrets of our history.

This blog post leads to a reprint of an Ami Magazine article by Prof. Schiffman on the ancient synagogue at Dura-Europos.

The Ami article focuses on Jewish remains at Dura-Europos. The Collector has a new article out by Robert C. L. Holmes which surveys the history and archaeology of the site more generally: Dura Europos: The Unknown Pompeii of the Desert. Located in the western desert of modern Syria, the ancient city of Dura Europos was a Hellenistic, Parthian, and Roman border city. Its well-preserved ruins made it an Archaeological treasure.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on Dura-Europos, start here and follow the links.

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SBL review panel on Carlson, Unfamiliar Selves, continued

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW has published another essay in its SBL review-panel series on Reed Carlson's book, Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena (De Gruyter 2022):

Possession and Relational Moral Agency (Jutta Jokiranta )

Carlson has opened up a rich investigation that goes in many directions—and deserves to be continued. As seen by the many ideas it created, it is a spirited enterprise!

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Not Pontius Pilate's ring after all?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Pontius Pilate’s Ring Reexamined. Scholars contend Roman ring not connected to famous prefect (Nathan Steinmeyer).

This essay has a good brief summary of the background and issues. The underlying article by Werner Eck and Avner Ecker is in ‘Atiqot 110 (2023) (current issue):

Not a “Signet Ring” of Pontius Pilatus (pp. 89–96)
Werner Eck and Avner Ecker

Keywords: Roman Judea, finger ring, Pontius Pilatus, Roman administration, Latin, Greek, epigraphy

Gideon Foerster’s excavations at Herodium in 1968/69 yielded a simple ring, which was published only in 2018. The inscription on the ring was read as Πιλάτο(υ), i.e., ‘of Pilate.’ Various interpretations were offered for the inscription, all generally linking the ring directly or indirectly to Pilate. This paper shows that, apart from the problematic reading, everything we know about the Roman administration in the provinces speaks against such an assumption, especially the use of the Greek language in an administrative context in the first half of the first century. Alternative readings for the letters and other ways to understand them are discussed.

The pdf of the article is open-access (free).

PaleoJudaica posts on the discovery and discussion of the ring are here and here.

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Should Australia return a late-antique mosiac to Israel?

REPATRIATION CONTROVERSY: Untold story of how WW1 Diggers 'stole' a priceless mosaic from the battlefield that's now in Australia's most sacred memorial... but the 'real' owners want it back (Stephen Gibbs, Daily Mail).

• Shellal Mosaic was laid in 6th century in Palestine
• It was dug up by Light Horsemen during World War I
• Mosaic was shipped to Australia and put on display

... Now known as the Shellal Mosaic, this extraordinary artwork not only survived the battle but for the past eight decades has been housed in Canberra at the Australian War Memorial.

How the Shellal Mosaic came to be displayed 14,000km from where it was found in what is now southern Israel is remarkable enough. Where it really belongs has been debated for a century across three continents. ...

Cross-file under Decorative Art.

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Sasson on the Priestly Benediction

JACK SASSON, of Agade List fame (among his many accomplishments) has drawn my attention to his recent article on the Priestly Benediction (Birkat Kohanim):

"On Birkat Kohanim (Numbers 6:24–26) and its Citation." Jack M. Sasson. Pp. 379-402 in Richard Hidary, ed. Torat Moshe: Essays in Honor of Rabbi Moshe Shamah's Eightieth Birthday & the Jubileee of Sephardic Institute. Brooklyn: Tebah Educational Services & Sephardic Institute, 2022.

Background here.

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

The archaeology of trees in the Negev

ARCHAEO-BOTANY: Genetic Tests of Israeli Desert Olive Tree Reveal Roots of Ancient Agriculture. A first-of-its-kind study by an Israeli university seeks to uncover the information contained in ancient fruit trees (Gid'on Lev, Haaretz).

Bar-Oz started out as a biologist, and most of his years in academia were spent as an archaeo-zoologist, focusing on studying animal bones from archaeological sites. His entry into the world of plants was a novelty for him. “There are groups in Israel studying the country’s fruit trees, but they consist mainly of botanists who focus on the taxonomic differences between varieties. They don’t study the ‘roots’ of trees, their cultural history. As an archaeologist, I can see that trees are part of culture.”

Bar-Oz admits that this is a somewhat odd type of archaeology, since archaeological digs were never done on living trees, which hold historical data. Previously, this type of information was not studied. “In Israel, and in the entire Mediterranean basin, fruit trees have been nurtured for thousands of years. If we learn how to read them and understand the information embedded in them, we can learn about unknown chapters in the history of agriculture. We want to characterize the architecture of the ancient fruit orchard and how it changed over time. This is pioneering work which has not been done before, here or overseas.”

The living tree on which archaeology was done is a 1,500-year old olive tree, discussed at the beginning of the article.

For the DNA analysis of the Negev wine grapes, see here. For more on the archaeology of the late-antique Negev, see here and links.

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

Review of Coin hoards and hoarding in the Roman world

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Coin hoards and hoarding in the Roman world.

Jerome Mairat, Andrew Wilson, Chris Howgego, Coin hoards and hoarding in the Roman world. Oxford studies on the Roman economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 384. ISBN 9780198866381

Review by
David Schwei, Episcopal School of Jacksonville. schweid@esj.org

Coin Hoards and Hoarding in the Roman World is the first collection of studies resulting from the Coin Hoards of the Roman Empire Project (CHRE). ...

Essay #9 is of particular interest to PaleoJudaica: “Coin Hoards in Roman Palestine: 63 BC – AD 300,” by Joshua Goldman.

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

The ritual power of the Priestly Benediction (Num 6:24-26)

PROF. SHAWNA DOLANSKY: Birkat Kohanim: The Magic of a Blessing (TheTorah.com).

Why was the priestly benediction placed together with the laws of nazir and the laws of sotah?

This essay was published in 2016, but I missed it then.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on the priestly benediction of Numbers 6:24-26, mostly involving the Ketef Hinnom silver scrolls, start here and follow the links.

UPDATE (25 April): More here.

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

Screnock & Olivero, A Grammar of Ugaritic (SBL)

NEW BOOK FROM SBL PRESS:

A Grammar of Ugaritic

John Screnock, Vladimir Olivero

ISBN 9781628374513
Volume RBS 102
Status Available
Publication Date November 2022
Paperback $35.00
Hardback $55.00
eBook $35.00

A Grammar of Ugaritic is an accessible yet academically rigorous textbook for first-year students of Ugaritic. Eight digestible lessons include more than 150 exercises to strengthen readers’ understanding through translation and composition of not only vocalized Ugaritic but also transcribed texts and cuneiform script—strategies that develop language skills and provide a sound basis for classroom teaching. Short stories interspersed among the lessons help students consolidate their knowledge and bolster recognition of forms. An introduction to the language and its historical context, glossaries, paradigms, and a bibliography and guide for further learning supplement the lessons. Students who work through the grammar in the classroom or individually will be rewarded with the ability to read real Ugaritic texts in cuneiform.

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

Ancient Inscriptions from Israel / Palestine

THE AWOL BLOG: Ancient Inscriptions from Israel / Palestine.

I have mentioned the Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine Project a few times (see here and links). But since AWOL has just posted on it, it is worth mentioning again.

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

Was leprosy demonic for Leviticus?

DAVID BAR-COHN: Tzaraʿat Purification: A Vestige of Demonic Exorcism (TheTorah.com).

In Priestly law, impurity is stripped of its mythic origins in the demonic realm but still retains its dangerous, physical presence, and must be mitigated by specific acts of ritual cleansing and banishing, depending on the type of impurity. The final purification from skin disease, tzaraʿat (Leviticus 13–14), is the starkest example of such a ritual.

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Updated: Comprehensive Bibliography on Syriac Christianity

THE AWOL BLOG: A Comprehensive Bibliography on Syriac Christianity.

First noted by AWOL, and then PaleoJudaica, in 2012. But a great many entries have been added since then, so a reposting is warranted.

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

The coins of the Jewish revolts and modern Zionism

ARCHAEOLOGY AND POLITICS: The debt to the Jewish rebels against Rome - opinion. Brushing aside negative portrayals of the ancient rebels, the Zionists made an ideological connection to them because they had bequeathed an important legacy

The debt to the Jewish rebels against Rome - part 2 - opinion. The journey of the First and Second Jewish Revolts through coinage. Both articles are by Robert Silverman. From part 2:

In part one, I described two rebel concepts broadcast to the ancient Jews through coins, which were the most effective mass media of the day.

First, the rebels insisted on Hebrew as the language of the state and on their coins, at a time when Aramaic and Greek predominated. Second, the rebels named their new state Israel, though they lived in a Roman province called Judea. Israel was a connection to the First Temple and as the name for the entire people, was an attempt to internationalize the revolt and recruit Jews outside Judea in the rival Parthian empire.

Here we will discuss two other concepts on revolt coins. Together they define the political legacy of the rebels to all of us who live in modern Israel.

Cross-file under Numismatics.

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More on "The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel"

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST TODAY: The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel (Andrew Tobolowsky).

The centrality of the twelve tribes tradition to the vision of Israel is indisputable. But did the twelve tribes actually exist? Well, it’s complicated.

I noted the publication of Prof. Tobolowsky's book,The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, here (preview) and here.

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

SBL review panel on Carlson, Unfamiliar Selves

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: SBL 2022 Review Panel: Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible.

AJR is pleased to publish remarks delivered as part of a book review panel at the annual meeting of the 2022 Society of Biblical Literature in Denver. The panel was organized by members of the Religious Experience in Antiquity steering committee chaired by Frederick S. Tappenden (St. Stephen’s College, University of Alberta). The book is Unfamiliar Selves in the Hebrew Bible: Possession and Other Spirit Phenomena (De Gruyter 2022) by Reed Carlson and the panelists were: Jutta Jokiranta (University of Helsinki), David Lambert (University of North Carolina), Ingrid Lilly (Wofford College), and Ethan Schwartz (Villanova University).

So far, the essay by Ingrid E. Lilly has been posted:

The Critical Potential of Spirits: Hebrew Philology, the Poetics of Relation, and Unfamiliar Selves.

Reed Carlson’s book,Unfamiliar Selves, is hardly confrontational about its implications for Hebrew philology. And yet, in my view, Carlson’s philological project of comparative anthropology enters the inner-chambers of an academic assemblage where biblical philology has often figured as an unbiased epistemological practice that forms the lower-critical foundation for studying history and practicing historical criticism. These values are rather strange when you think about it: do objectivity and unbiased perception really best characterize communication in zones of language contact?

I noted the publication of the book here.

UPDATE (26 April): More here.

UPDATE (2 May): More here. Also, I just realized that recently I noted a relevant essay by Carlson here.

UPDATE: (3 May): More here.

UPDATE (4 May): More here.

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

More on that submerged Nabatean temple

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Submerged Nabatean Temple Found. Divers identify temple to Arabian god in Italy (Nathan Steinmeyer).

I have already noted this story here. But this BHD essay has some background and additional details.

Cross-file under Nabatean (Nabataean) Watch and Marine (Maritime, Underwater) Archaeology.

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

Review of Llewellyn-Jones, Persians

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Persians: the age of the great kings.

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Persians: the age of the great kings. New York: Basic Books, 2022. Pp. xiv, 431. ISBN 9781541600348

Review by
Farnoosh Shamsian, Leipzig University. farnoosh.shamsian@uni-leipzig.de

... “Persians” is not a tedious history book full of lifeless descriptions. With his literary abilities, Llewellyn-Jones has created an entertaining narrative of Persian history, so that reading “Persians” feels more like reading a novel than history. Excerpts and quotations are, however, used sparingly and without precise referencing, making it difficult to locate the source of information. ...

I noted the publication of the book here.

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Lanzillotta & van der Vliet, The Apocalypse of Paul (Visio Pauli) in Sahidic Coptic (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

The Apocalypse of Paul (Visio Pauli) in Sahidic Coptic

Critical Edition, Translation and Commentary

Series: Vigiliae Christianae, Supplements, Volume: 178

Authors: Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta and Jacques van der Vliet

The apocryphal Apocalypse of Paul (Visio Pauli) plunges us right into the heart of early-Christian conceptions of heaven and hell. Its vivid eyewitness account of otherworldly punishment and reward was translated into many different languages and inspired numerous later authors, among whom Dante. This book offers a re-edition and English translation of the ancient Coptic version. An exhaustive commentary makes the text accessible and situates it in the time and place where it was written, fourth-century Egypt. As this new study shows, the Coptic version is by far the best available witness of the original Apocalypse of Paul.

Prices from (excl. shipping): €168.00

Copyright Year: 2023

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-52647-1
Publication date: 28 Dec 2022

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-52646-4
Publication date: 22 Dec 2022

Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha and Coptic Watch.

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A Short History of Siege Coins

NUMISMATICS: Emergency Money: A Short History of Siege Coins (Mike Markowitz, CoinWeek).

Sieges of the Jewish War/Great Revolt (Jerusalem, Masada, Gamla) head the list.

For more on the Year 5 silver shekel, see here.

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DNA analysis of late-antique Negev-highlands wine grapes

ANCIENT VITICULTURE: Ancient DNA from a lost Negev Highlands desert grape reveals a Late Antiquity wine lineage (Pnina Cohen et. al., PNAS, April 17, 2023).

Abstract

Recent excavations of Late Antiquity settlements in the Negev Highlands of southern Israel uncovered a society that established commercial-scale viticulture in an arid environment [D. Fuks et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117, 19780–19791 (2020)]. We applied target-enriched genome-wide sequencing and radiocarbon dating to examine grapevine pips that were excavated at three of these sites. Our analyses revealed centuries long and continuous grape cultivation in the Southern Levant. The genetically diverse pips also provided clues to ancient cultivation strategies aimed at improving agricultural productivity and ensuring food security. Applying genomic prediction analysis, a pip dated to the eighth century CE was determined to likely be from a white grape, to date the oldest to be identified. In a kinship analysis, another pip was found to be descendant from a modern Greek cultivar and was thus linked with several popular historic wines that were once traded across the Byzantine Empire. These findings shed light on historical Byzantine trading networks and on the genetic contribution of Levantine varieties to the classic Aegean landscape.

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ASOR on the Neo-Assyrian Aramean gods relief

THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST TODAY: The Başbük Rock Wall Panel: Serving Empire, Honoring Syro-Anatolian Gods (Mehmet Önal , Celal Uludağ, Yusuf Koyuncu and Selim Ferruh Adalı).

Başbük’s divine procession uniquely combined different elements. Inscriptions reveal their Aramaic names. Anatolian and Syrian divine motifs as well as their unique features underscore the cult’s local character. Anatomical elements in the depictions, including definition of their muscles, hair and profile point to the early Neo-Assyrian period. The ear-of-corn barley held by the leading Hadad-’Attar‘ata couple and the ear-of-corn imagery on Sîn and Šamaš’s headgears point to the importance of fertility represented in this complex at Başbük. These features differentiate the Başbük rock-panel from other Neo-Assyrian reliefs in the provinces ...

I have posted on the discover of the Neo-Assyrian Aramean gods relief at Başbük, Turkey, here and here. Cross-file under Parietal Petroglyphs.

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

Schiffman on the claims about new Hezekiah inscriptions

PROF. LAWRENCE H. SCHIFFMAN: THE WRITING ON THE WALL? THE CLAIM OF A CONTROVERSIAL EXPERT TO HAVE DECIPHERED AN ANCIENT INSCRIPTION IS MET WITH DOUBT.

Just noticed this blog post by Professor Schiffman from the beginning of February. It is in response to an archaeologist's claim to have discovered a number of hitherto unnoticed royal inscriptions by King Hezekiah in Hezekiah's Tunnel in Jerusalem.

Other archaeologist received the announcement with skepticism. I noted the story here.

To my knowledge, no evidence for the claims has yet received scholarly publication. Schiffman summarizes the case for skepticism in an article in Ami Magazine.

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

What route did Jeremiah take to Egypt?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: The Egyptian Journey of Jeremiah in the Bible. The archaeological and geological evidence (Marek Dospěl).

In his article “Jeremiah’s Journey to Egypt,” published in the Spring 2023 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, James K. Hoffmeier finally confirms the route that brought the biblical prophet to Egypt.

I noted the discovery of the second stele of Pharaoh Apries (Hophra) in 2021.

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Online edition of Proverbs in Sahidic Coptic

THE CONSULTING PHILOLOGIST BLOG: The Proverbs of Solomon in Sahidic Coptic (Matthew Scarborough ). HT Rogue Classicism.

This post is about "a single third/fourth century manuscript containing a translation of roughly two-thirds of the book of Proverbs (Papyrus Bodmer VI)." It includes a link to photographs and a preliminary edition of the text by the author.

Cross-file under Coptic Watch.

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

Nabatean altars in a submerged Italian city?

NABATEAN (NABATAEAN) WATCH: 2,000-year-old altars found under water in Italy belong to ancient kingdom, experts say (Moira Ritter, Miami Herald via Yahoo News).

The latest discovery in the city [of Pozzuoli] includes a temple and two marble altars that once belonged to the Nabataean people, the ministry said. Experts dated the altars to the first half of the first century.

For more on the Nabateans, see here and here and many posts in the PaleoJudaica archive. They were a pre-Islamic, polytheistic Arab kingdom. They spoke Arabic, but wrote in a dialect of Aramaic.

For an ancient Jewish connection see the posts on the Babatha archive collected here (plus here), notably here and here.

Cross-file under Marine (Maritime, Underwater) Archaeology.

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

Amsler, The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture (CUP)

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: The Babylonian Talmud. Notice of a New Book:

Amsler, Monika. 2023. The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

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

The origin of Leviticus' dietary laws

PROF. ESIAS E. MEYER: Leviticus’ More Priestly Version of the Dietary Laws (TheTorah.com).

Deuteronomy and Leviticus drew on common Vorlage (source text) to develop their regulations about the consumption of land, marine, and winged creatures. While Deuteronomy only lightly modifies this Vorlage, the editors of Leviticus expanded the text in several stages to align it with Priestly ideology.

Could be. Some thoughtful redaction criticism for those who enjoy such things.

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This necklace took 5,000 years to make.

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT BLOG: A PIERCING INSIGHT INTO ANCIENT BEADS.

At first glance, one may think this is simply an artifact discovered in the sifting, which may tell a single story from a single period, but one important part of this item isn’t a recovered artifact – the string. What we have in front of us are in fact 35 different beads, discovered separately, each telling the story of a different necklace or other pieces of jewelry and articles of clothing.

Also, there is a specialist on the technology of drilling ancient beads? Of course there is.

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

Review of Hendin, Guide to Biblical coins (6th ed.)

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Guide to Biblical coins.

David Hendin, Guide to Biblical coins. 6th edition. New York: American Numismatic Society, 2022. Pp. 668. ISBN 9780897223706

Review by
Michaël Girardin, Université du Littoral – Côte d’Opale. michael.girardin@univ-littoral.fr

The review is in French. You can read a Google-Translate English version here. From the latter:

As we can see, the book is not a simple synthesis: it is innovative, well documented, very informed on many subjects. Thanks to this sixth update, it will accompany research for a long time to come and will remain one of the best books about the coins of Second Temple Judaism, to put in everyone's hands.

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

Jesus and first-century synagogues

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Jesus and Synagogues. The role of synagogues in Jesus’ ministry (Megan Sauter).

Summarizes an article by Jordan J. Ryan in the current issue of BAR. The article itself is behind the subscription wall. But this essay does inclue a list of sixteen known synagogues from before the Bar Kokhba Revolt, with some information on most of them.

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

Jerusalem's ghost Gennath Gate?

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: In Search of Josephus' Gennath Gate. Jerusalem's elusive Gennath Gate is mentioned only once by Josephus. Scholars have proposed many different locations for it, but all of them share a common geography (Chandler Collins, Approaching Jerusalem Substack). HT Rogue Classicism.

Josephus also tells us that the Gennath Gate served as the beginning of another wall that ran north, the so-called Second Wall. Although Josephus introduces us to the Gennath Gate in the context of the Second Wall, it is important to remember that it was actually a preexisting gate which was built into the First Wall. Conclusive remains of the Second Wall have never been found, but that has not stopped scholars from proposing many different hypothetical routes based mainly on the topography ...

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Who lived at Hazor? And where is their archive?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: The Ancient People of Tel Hazor. Who actually lived in ancient cities?

The article by Shlomit Becha in the Spring 2023 issue of BAR is behind the subscription wall, but you can get a taste of it here.

For almost forty years I have been awaiting the discovery of that elusive cuneiform royal archive at Hazor. PaleoJudaica has been following the news about the site for the last twenty.

Archaeologists thought they knew where to look for it. If it's there at all, I guess they didn't. But at least they are still looking.

I hope they find it!

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

Memorial to James Aitken

WILLIAM A. ROSS: IN MEMORIAM: JAMES K. AITKEN (1968-2023).

It’s difficult to know how to write a post like this one and what to say. Jim was widely recognized as an outstanding scholar. His untimely death is a tremendous loss to the field, of course. Rather than focus on that, I thought I would provide some more personal reflections, since Jim was not just a wonderful supervisor for me, but also a good friend.

I noted the passing of Prof. Aitkin here.

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

More on the script of that 10th-century BCE Jerusalem inscription

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Archaeological Evidence of Solomon and Sheba? Scholar identifies South Arabian inscription in Jerusalem (Nathan Steinmeyer).

I noted this story here. This BHD essay updates it with some responses. Christopher Rollston is skeptical that the script is early Arabian rather than Canaanite.

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

How many plagues on Egypt and what were they?

FOR PASSOVER: How Many Plagues Were There in Egypt? Surprise! The bible doesn’t actually mention plagues at all, and different sources cite radically different numbers. And what is arov, anyway? (Elon Gilad, Haaretz).

Scholars have grappled with reconciling these two accounts with the narrative in Exodus, which famously lists ten plagues: blood, frogs, lice, arov, disease of livestock, boils, hailstorms, locusts that destroyed crops, darkness that covered the land, and the death of the firstborn.

Their main conclusion has been that the story of the plagues went through various versions and transmission processes before being incorporated into the Book of Exodus, which given the differences between the three accounts was likely written only after Psalm 78, and Psalm 105.

As for the second plague: The Plagues of Passover: Blood. Toads… The second plague sent to afflict the ancient Egyptians who refused to let our people go was what exactly? (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

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

Prof. James K. Aitken R.I.P.

SAD NEWS: Word came this weekend of the passing away of James K. Aitken, Professor of Hebrew and Early Jewish Studies at the Cambridge University Faculty of Divinity. He was especially know for his work on the Septuagint and on Hebrew Semantics.

In an e-mail on 7 April, SOTS Membership Secretary Alistair Hunter wrote, in part:

“It is with immense sorrow that we write to inform you that Professor Jim Aitken died peacefully in the early hours of this morning, with his family by his side. A beloved colleague, scholar, teacher, supervisor, and friend, Jim was held in high esteem and affection by all who knew him. As Professor of Hebrew and Early Jewish Studies, he commanded an international reputation, while here in Cambridge he provided distinguished leadership as Faculty Chair (2019-22), particularly during the pandemic. As we mourn his untimely passing, we extend our condolences to the members of his family and to his fiancée, Diana. We will be in touch again as further details become available.

Requiescat in pace.

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Easter 2023

HAPPY EASTER to all those celebrating.

Last year's Easter post is here with links.

My 2016 Easter post contains links leading to biblical and related passages concerning Easter and to correct information on the origin of the word. And this post gives biblical references for the Passion narrative.

I don't see any current stories of interest, but you can review some past Easter-related posts here, here, here, here, and here.

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

Palimpsest fragments of the Old Syriac Gospels

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Fragment of a 1,750-year-old New Testament translation discovered (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, PhysOrg).

The small manuscript fragment, which can now be considered as the fourth textual witness [to the Old Syriac translation of the gospels], was identified by Grigory Kessel using ultraviolet photography as the third layer of text, i.e., double palimpsest, in the Vatican Library manuscript. The fragment is so far the only known remnant of the fourth manuscript that attests to the Old Syriac version—and offers a unique gateway to the very early phase in the history of the textual transmission of the Gospels.

The underlying article by Grigory Kessel in New Testament Studies 69.2 (2023) is open access:

A New (Double Palimpsest) Witness to the Old Syriac Gospels (Vat. iber. 4, ff. 1 & 5)

Abstract

Vat. iber. 4, a membrum disjectum of the manuscript Sin. geo. 49, contains on two of its folios the Syriac Gospel text as the lowest layer (scriptio ima) within a double palimpsest. Comparison with known Syriac versions of the extant text – Matt 11.30–12.26 – shows that the text represents the Old Syriac version, and is particularly akin to the Curetonianus (Sy^c). On palaeographic grounds, the original Gospel manuscript can be dated to the first half of the sixth century. The fragment is so far the only known vestige of the fourth manuscript witness to the Old Syriac version.

For more on the Sinai Palimpsests Project, see here, here, and here.

Cross-file under Syriac Watch.

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The Age of Persia (Oxford History of the ANE 5)

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: The Age of Persia. Notice of a New Book: Radner, Karen, Nadine Moeller & D. T. Potts (eds.). 2023. The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East Volume V: The Age of Persia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Follow the link for TOC and link to publisher.

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Yannai's poetry in the Passover Haggadah

PROF. RABBI LAURA LIEBER: It Came to Pass at Midnight—From the Amidah to the Passover Haggadah (TheTorah.com).

The seventh part of the qedushta for the ancient triennial Torah reading וַיְהִי בַּחֲצִי הַלַּיְלָה, “It Came to Pass at Midnight,” was preserved in the Haggadah. This is the only poem of Yannai’s (ca. 5th/6th cent. C.E.) to be retained in the liturgy.

For more on Yannai's poetry, see here and links

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Review of Despotis & Löhr, Religious and philosophical conversion in the ancient Mediterranean traditions

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Religious and philosophical conversion in the ancient Mediterranean traditions.

Athanasios Despotis, Hermut Löhr, Religious and philosophical conversion in the ancient Mediterranean traditions. Ancient philosophy and religion, 5. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2022. Pp. xi, 477. ISBN 9789004501768

Review by
Thomas Miller, Zalkind Duncan & Bernstein LLP. thomas.marshall.miller@gmail.com

The possibility of conversion fascinates, inspires, and frightens: could the basic boundaries of our identities be less stable than we think? This volume collects sixteen papers on the topic, originally delivered at a 2018 conference at the University of Bonn. The essays are organized into five sections, which give some notion of the volume’s range: there are two pieces on “Interdisciplinary Conversion Research,” four on “Conversion in Ancient Judaism,” three on “Conversion in Philosophical Traditions,” five on “Conversion in the New Testament,” and two on “Conversion in Mystery Cults and Late Antiquity.”

[...]

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Who founded the Christian Holy Land pilgrimage startup?

REDISCOVERY? The True History of Early Christian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Who were the earliest Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, and how did they know where to go? (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

The bottom line is that, apparently, proper Christian pilgrimage only developed after the identification of holy sites in the early fourth century, and whether their identification is accurate is a matter of faith.

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AJR: Fraade on "Multilingualism and Translation in Ancient Judaism" (CUP)

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Multilingualism and Translation in Ancient Judaism (Steven Fraade).

It became increasingly clear to me that ancient scriptural translation had to viewed within the context of a multilingual culture and society. In other words, what work does scriptural translation perform in such a multilingual environment? In short, targum is intended, at least partly, for those with varying degrees of literacy in both Hebrew and Aramaic. Most importantly, among Jews, it never displaced (quote the opposite!) the written Holy Hebrew text that it interpretatively accompanied, as happens eventually with the status of the Septuagint in later Christianity, with some notable exceptions.

Notice of a Forthcoming Book: Steven D. Fraade, Multilingualism and Translation in Ancient Judaism. Before and After Babel (CUP, June 2023).

The first part of this essay also amounts to a brief career retrospective for Professor Fraade.

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Jewish fish sauce in a Roman-era jar?

CUNLINARY ARCHAEOLOGY: Ancient Jewish Fish Sauce? (Brent Nongbri, Variant Readings). With a side-dish of culinary textual criticism!

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Passover 2023

HAPPY PASSOVER (PESACH) to all those celebrating! The festival begins this evening at sundown.

Last year's Passover post is here, with many links. Subsequent Passover-related posts are here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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Could Jewish soldiers eat kosher in the Roman army?

CULINARY ARCHAEOLOGY: Jews could have kept kosher, Passover in ancient Roman army, per new paper. The Roman military may have made dispensations on Shabbat as well (Menachem Wecker, JNS).

The paper suggests that Romans were aware that Jews, Syrians and Egyptians had specific dietary restrictions, and an ostracon (potsherd) dated 96 C.E. records a military man writing to a colleague about collecting wheat to send “to the Jews.”

“This ostracon is the only one to describe the sending of wheat to Jews, instead of the bread already issued to them or that was supposed to be issued to them,” Olshanetsky wrote. The shard dates to a time that Josephus interpreted to parallel the Jewish month of Nissan, during which Passover occurs.

The underlying Jewish Quarterly Review article: Keeping Kosher: The Ability of Jewish Soldiers to Keep the Dietary Laws as a Case Study for the Integration of Minorities in the Roman Army (Haggai Olshanetsky).

Abstract
The Jewish religion, especially its dietary laws, has been seen as an obstacle to Jewish military service in the armies of the Roman Empire and, thus, is used as a main argument by scholars who deny that Jews served in the Roman army in any considerable numbers. The current essay is the first to examine this claim. Its first part shows that Jews would not have been unique among ethnic army recruits in having dietary restrictions, while the second part presents the diet of the Roman soldier. The third part uses the Jewish soldier as a case study of the capability of any serviceman, no matter his faith or ethnicity, to serve in the army while keeping his customs and traditions with regard to food. Lastly, the article raises the possibility that the Roman logistical system was purposefully structured to ease the service of soldiers from different cultures and ethnicities.

Cross-file under Passover.

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Adler on the origins of Judaism and Passover

ARCHAEOLOGY AND MATERIAL CULTURE: What Matters Now to archaeologist Prof. Yonatan Adler: The origins of Judaism. Ariel University prof discusses his ‘excavation’ into the evidence for the practice of the Jewish religion – and points to when we know with certainty that Passover was observed.

I’m trying to be very precise here in what the data provides and what the data does not provide. So we know that lack of evidence is not evidence of absence or absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. What that means is the fact that we don’t have evidence for widescale Torah observance before the second century before the Common Era does not necessarily mean that Judaism began then. It could be that Jews were keeping the laws of the Torah on a wide-scale basis in earlier periods in the third century, the fourth century before the Common Era. But the evidence simply hasn’t survived.

What I do in the final chapter is look at contextual evidence from the period before our terminus ante quem. So I’m looking at the evidence surrounding this question to see what was going on with Judeans in these earlier periods. And what I find is that what’s commonly thought of as the beginning of Judaism in the Persian period, in the fifth century before the Common Era, not only do we not find evidence of wide cultural observance, we find negative evidence.

For more on Professor Adler's work, see here and links.

I take his point about the problem with citing the Passover Papyrus from Elephantine as proof of the observation of Passover in the fifth century.

But that said, the biblical evidence for its observance is not inconsequential. The Deuteronomistic History has King Josiah reviving Passover observance (reportedly neglected since the days of the Judges) according to 2 Kings 23:22-23. If Dtr was written within living memory of Josiah, as many specialists think, that implies Passover observance was happening on a wide scale in Judah, presumably as an innovation, just before the Babylonian Exile. Of course one could argue for a later date for Dtr. But in any case it shows interest in the festival from long before the first-century CE evidence that Adler cites.

Also, according to the Chronicler, King Hezekiah revived Passover observance (2 Chronicles 30). And the Chronicler much expands the story of the Josianic revival of Passover (2 Chronicles 35). Some would date Chr₁ as early as the fifth century. But even if we date Chronicles as late as the fourth or third century, the author seems to be disseminating pro-Passover propaganda much earlier than Adler's evidence. Does that imply "wide-scale" observance? Maybe. I don't know.

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Is the Jerusalem "(proto-)Canaanite" inscription actually Old South Arabian?

SOUTH SEMITIC EPIGRAPHY? Inscription on Sherd From Solomon-era Jerusalem Found to Be Ancient Arabian Script. Scholars have been squabbling over the inscription found on the sherd since its discovery 11 years ago – though according to a new interpretation, the script is Sabaean, from the time of the Kingdom of Sheba (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

I have posted on the "Jerusalem inscription" here (discovery in 2013), and here, here, here, and here. I noted a couple, by no means all, of the proposed interpretations.

I don't have the expertise to evaluate the claim that the script is Sabaean. The readings are quite different from the earlier ones I've seen, and the latter are not entirely consistent. In fact, Dr. Vainstub's Sabean reading has six letters and the ealier ones have seven.

Whoever may be right, if anyone, the main takeaway for me is that we really don't know much about alphabetic scripts from the tenth century BCE.

The Kingdom of Sheba in Yemen is one possible place of origin for the Queen of Sheba. The other is Axum (Aksum) in Ethiopia. This inscription, if (big if) the new interpretation proves to be correct, would show there was contact between Solomonic-era Jerusalem and the Yemenite Sheba. But that seems likely enough anyway, since Palestine was an unavoidable route for the spice trade.

Note: Old South Arabian Sabaean should not be confused with Mandaic or Mandean (Mandaean) Sabean (Sabaean/Sabian). The latter refers to a late-antique Aramaic dialect and the people who spoke and who still use it.

UPDATE (11 April): More here.

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How many Egyptian words in Hebrew and where did they come from?

PHILOLOGOS: How Many Egyptian Words Made It into Biblical Hebrew? And does their presence illuminate the book of Exodus—or is it simply a sign that ancient Egypt was a powerful nation? (Mosaic Magazine).

Not surprisingly, the answer is "It depends."

One point not raised in the essay is that even if the Israelites spent some generations as slaves in Egypt in the late second millennium BCE, the biblical texts were not written until late in Iron Age II, more than half a millennium later. They had lived in a context of neighbors who spoke Northwest Semitic dialects cognate with, and probably mutually intelligible with, Hebrew. That's a long time to readjust the language away from any Egyptian influence from that sojourn.

Cross-file under Passover.

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IAA exhibits ancient gold jewelry forgotten in a drawer

ANCIENT APOTROPAIC FUNERARY BLING: Spectacular Gold Jewels Worn Against Evil Eye in Roman Jerusalem Go on Exhibit, Finally. Found over 50 years ago and forgotten in a box at the Israel Antiquities Authority, the gold ‘moon’ pendant was probably worn by a girl as an amulet, archaeologists say (Ruth Schuster, Haaretz).

For the first time, gorgeous gold jewels discovered in forgotten drawers at the Israel Antiquities Authority will be going on display. The items, dating to the Late Roman period about 1,800 years ago, will be exhibited at a conference of the IAA, the Israel Exploration Society and the Israel Archaeological Association, the authority announced on Monday.

The newly unearthed treasures include gold earrings, a hairpin, beads made of gold, carnelian stone and glass - and a gold pendant called a lunula that is shaped like the crescent moon and named after the Roman moon goddess Luna.

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