How reliable are oral traditions about ancient Nazareth?

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

How Much Did They Really Know? Long-Term Memory, Archaeology and The Topography Of Nazareth

Prompted by his recent book on the Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth, the author explores a historically plausible example of the long-term preservation of topographical knowledge from 19th century Nazareth, and its context in recent research on the archaeology and anthropology of memory.

See also The Archaeology of Jesus’ Nazareth (Oxford University Press, 2023).

By Ken Dark
Professor, Kings College London
April 2024

Sometimes centuries-old oral traditions can transmit accurate historical information. Sometimes.

For more on Professor Dark's work on the archaeology of Nazareth, see here, here, here, here, and here. Cross-file under New Book.

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Linjamaa, The Nag Hammadi Codices and their Ancient Readers (CUP)

NEW BOOK FROM CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The Nag Hammadi Codices and their Ancient Readers Exploring Textual Materiality and Reading Practice

AUTHOR: Paul Linjamaa, Lunds Universitet, Sweden
DATE PUBLISHED: January 2024
AVAILABILITY: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
FORMAT: Adobe eBook Reader
ISBN: 9781009441445

$ 110.00 USD
Adobe eBook Reader

Description

Since their discovery in 1945, the Nag Hammadi Codices have generated questions and scholarly debate as to their date and function. Paul Linjamaa contributes to the discussion by offering insights into previously uncharted aspects pertinent to the materiality of the manuscripts. He explores the practical implementation of the texts in their ancient setting through analyses of codicological aspects, paratextual elements, and scribal features. Linjamaa's research supports the hypothesis that the Nag Hammadi texts had their origins in Pachomian monasticism. He shows how Pachomian monks used the texts for textual edification, spiritual development and pedagogical practices. He also demonstrates that the texts were used for perfecting scribal and editorial practice, and that they were used as protective artefacts containing sacred symbols in the continuous monastic warfare against evil spirits. Linjamaa's application of new material methods provides clues to the origins and use of ancient texts, and challenges preconceptions about ancient orthodoxy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

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Tov, Studies in Textual Criticism: Collected Essays, Volume V (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Studies in Textual Criticism

Collected Essays, Volume V

Series:
Vetus Testamentum, Supplements, Volume: 197

Author: Emanuel Tov

Twenty-eight rewritten and updated essays on the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, and the Dead Sea Scrolls mainly published between 2019 and 2022 are presented in the fifth volume of the author's collected essays. They are joined by an unpublished study, an unpublished "reflection" on the development of text-critical research in 1970-2020 and the author's academic memoirs. All the topics included in this volume are at the forefront of textual research.

Copyright Year: 2024

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69002-8
Publication: 06 Feb 2024
EUR €160.00

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-54935-7
Publication: 31 Jan 2024
EUR €160.00

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Review of Mastnjak, Before the Scrolls

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Before the Scrolls: A Material Approach to Israel’s Prophetic Library (Ethan Schwartz).

Nathan Mastnjak’s Before the Scrolls: A Material Approach to Israel’s Prophetic Library is a bold, programmatic attempt to account for how the biblical prophetic literature developed. Building on New Philology and book history, Mastnjak argues that the historical-critical study of this literature must begin with—and answer to—the material realities of textual production in ancient Israel and the Second Temple period. ...

Regarding this:

In Chapter 2 (the first main chapter following the introduction), he builds upon Menahem Haran’s influential claim that in the Persian period, Judahite scribes shifted from short papyri to long parchment scrolls. Mastnjak affirms the shift but pushes it later, to the Hellenistic period. The (modest) empirical evidence and internal hints from the Hebrew Bible itself suggest that in the Persian period, discrete papyrus sheets or short papyrus scrolls were still the Judahite scribal standard.

I wonder about this. In Egypt there were very long papyrus scrolls many centuries before the Persian Period. For example, the Book of the Dead manuscripts noted here, here, and here. In addition, Papyrus Amherst 63 (cf. here) is another substantial (12-foot-long) scroll which came from Egypt toward the end of the Persian Period. It looks as though its contents originated in Babylon and Israel.

Both the Book of the Dead and the Amherst Papyrus are anthological works. I haven't read the book, but I would be interested in what Mastnjak has to say about them and how they affect his thesis.

PaleoJudaica posts noting the publication of the book and another review of it are here and here.

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The Haggadah counters an intermediary angel at the Exodus

PASSOVER IS COMING: I (God) and Not an Angel: The Haggadah Counters Jesus and the Arma Christi. (Prof.Steven Weitzman, TheTorah.com).

The Haggadah’s insistence that God, without an intermediary, saved the Israelites from Egypt is a veiled retort to the Christian belief that God relied on Jesus as an agent of redemption. Moreover, the midrash replaces the Arma Christi tradition of recounting the weapons Jesus used to save humanity during the Crucifixion with its own distinctively Jewish arsenal of redemption: pestilence, a sword, the Shechinah, the staff, and blood.

The author argues that this Haggadah tradition could go as far back as late antiquity.

I don't doubt that the passage as we have it offers a counter to Christianity. The essay deals with many things outside my expertise, but I can add some background to it.

The basis of the idea of an angel leading the Israelites to the Promised Land is Exodus 23:20, 23, which say so in so many words. Of course, the meaning of the passage is open to various interpretations, but a literal understanding of it seems also to have been taken up in Jewish tradition.

In the Hekhalot literature, the main passage about the high-priestly angelic figure called "the Youth" (הנער) quotes Exodus 23:20 in relation to him. Apparently he is that angel. In addition, the hand of the Lord rests upon him and the Shekhinah is present before, or in the midst of, God's throne of glory. The Youth passage appears in various places in the texts.

It is even possible that the mysterious priestly figure Mechizedek, mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 14 and Psalm 110, was identified with this angel in the Qumran Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. This is based on its use of the odd term קרוב, "sanctuary," which arguably is based on the phrase "my name is in the midst (קרב) of him" in Exodus 23:21.

It is therefore possible that the Haggadah is countering both Christian and Jewish interpretations of Exodus 23 which posit an intermediary figure in the Exodus from Egypt.

For a detailed discussion of the evidence concerning the Youth and Melchizedek, see:

James R. Davila, Hekhalot Literature in Translation: Major Texts of Merkavah Mysticism (SJJTP 20; Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 345-47, 366-69 (cf. 408-9) (the Youth passages)

Davila, “Melchizedek, the ‘Youth,’ and Jesus.” Pp. 248-74 (esp. p. 263) in Davila (ed.), The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity: Papers from a Conference at St. Andrews in 2001 (STDJ 46; Leiden: Brill, 2003).

Davila, Liturgical Works (Eerdmans Commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls 6; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 98, 147-49.

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The Motza mosaic replica

DECORATIVE ART: Motza mosaicists: Putting an ancient Roman mosaic floor back together. Residents of a village near Jerusalem piece together an ancient Roman floor (SARA MANOBLA, Jerusalem Post).

Friday, February 23, was a day of celebration. Our team of Motza mosaicists welcomed the villagers to the dedication ceremony. Deeply moved, [project organizer Shauli] Yossefon, assisted by his family, unveiled the mosaic, thanking the many people who had contributed to the project, supporting him in the creation of the Motza Mosaic replica. It was a moment of general rejoicing, a feeling that something important had been accomplished.

Most of the media coverage on Tel Motza (Tel Moza, Tel Moẓa, Tel Moẓah which I have seen involves Iron Age discoveres, especially the Canaanite temple. For PaleoJudaica posts on the site, start here (second article) and follow the links.

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On the clay tokens from the Temple Mount

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Temple Mount sifting: What were these ancient clay tokens used for? Jerusalem archaeologists are still trying to understand the nature of a 2,000-year-old mysterious clay token found in dirt sifted from the Temple Mount (Israel National News 7).

Two months after the discovery of the Greek token, another very similar token was found in excavations at the drainage channel under Robinson's Arch (below the southern part of the Western Wall) directed by Eli Shukrun and Prof. Ronny Reich of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

This token bore an Aramaic inscription readingדכא/ליה , initially interpreted as "pure to God" by the excavators. However, Hebrew University Talmudic scholar, Prof. Shlomo Naeh, later suggested that the token was used by pilgrims ascending to the Temple as a token to receive their offerings after payment, with the writing on the sealing intended to prevent forgeries by including the abbreviations of the sacrifice type, the day, the month, and the name of the priestly division of that week.

PaleoJudaica followed this debate in 2011 and 2012. See here, here, and here. It sounds as though the token's interpretation remains debated.

This is the first I have heard about that Greek token that bears an amphora image.

The underlying article by Dr. Yoav Farhi, mentioned in the article, has been posted on the author's Academia.edu page here.

UPDATE (19 April): the Temple Mount Sifting Project Blog now has a post on the story: A 2,000-YEAR-OLD MYSTERIOUS CLAY TOKEN (Zachi Dvira).

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... Chronicling the Legacy of Gary N. Knoppers (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: The Formation of Biblical Texts. Chronicling the Legacy of Gary N. Knoppers. Edited by Deirdre N. Fulton, Kenneth A. Ristau, Jonathan S. Greer, and Margaret E. Cohen. 2024. XI, 494 pages. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 176. 164,00 € including VAT. cloth ISBN 978-3-16-160741-7.

Published in English.
Questions concerning the composition and formation of biblical texts have dominated many of the current discussions in biblical studies, especially relating to the relationship between the Pentateuch and the (so-called) Deuteronomistic History, how these texts may have functioned as a corpus (or related corpora), and interconnections among these texts and those of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. As appreciation has grown for the potential text production in Judah and Samaria during the Persian and Hellenistic periods, the discussion has expanded to incorporate explorations of the way that textual criticism – particularly as it relates to the relationships among the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint, Qumran corpus, and the Masoretic Text – and literary criticism intersect. In this volume, leading voices come together to tackle questions about the composition and formation of the Hebrew Bible and the future directions of such studies in honor of Gary N. Knoppers.

For more on the late Professor Knoppers and his work, see here and links, notably here, plus here.

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On Biblical Hebrew

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: What Is Biblical Hebrew? Exploring the language of ancient Israel and Judah (Clinton J. Moyer).

I missed this one when it came out last December. I have already noted the corresponding BHD essays on Aramaic and biblical Greek.

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Review of Gomelauri, The Lailashi Codex

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: The Lailashi Codex: The Crown of Georgian Jewry (Golda Akhiezer).

The Lailashi Codex: The Crown of Georgian Jewry, Thea Gomelauri with a contribution by Joseph Ginsberg. Oxford, UK: Taylor Institution Library, 2023. (ISBN 9781838464158; ISBN 9781838464141), 210 pp., hb £49.99, pb £34:99.

The pioneering study of Thea Gomelauri unfolds the history of the Lailashi Codex, and presents the paleographical and codicological description of one of the most ancient Bible codices. ...

I noted the publication of the book here. For more information on the Lailashi Codex, see there.

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On the Greek language

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: What Is Biblical Greek? Exploring the language of the New Testament and classical literature (John Drummond).

Another good, brief, historical introduction to a biblical language.

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Sifting Project finds chancel screen fragment

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT BLOG: FIND AND FINDER OF THE MONTH: BRAD SCHWARTZ FROM SEATTLE FOUND A MARBLE CHANCEL SCREEN FRAGMENT (DANIEL SHANI). Probably from the Byzantine era.

For a possibly related Sifting Project find, see here.

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Using AI to reconstruct damaged Hebrew & Aramaic inscriptions?

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Beersheba researchers use AI to read illegible words in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic. This study is the first attempt to apply a masked language modeling approach to corrupted inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic languages (Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, Jerusalem Post).

Now, students in the software and information systems engineering department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Beersheba have approached this challenge as an extended masked language modeling task where the damaged content can comprise single characters, character n-grams (partial words), single complete words, and multi-word n-grams.

This study is the first attempt to apply the masked language modeling approach to corrupted inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic languages, both using the Hebrew alphabet consisting mostly of consonant symbols.

Just to be clear, this project did not analyze any actual ancient inscriptions. It used passages in the Hebrew Bible, with parts randomly masked, to test in principle how well it worked in reconstructing the missing bits. It worked pretty well.

Will it work as well on damaged ancient inscriptions outside the Bible? Maybe. That would be pretty hard to test. You would need multiple copies of the same inscription with damage in different places. Possible in principle, but very rare.

What about the technology's promise in principle?

On the one hand, used judiciously, it could well serve as a useful tool for scholars working on deciphering damaged ancient inscriptions. So all respect to the researchers who developed this technology. They are doing good and constructive work.

But on the other hand, its usefulness is limited. Overuse of it could even harm the field. The so-called (and I would say, mis-named) "AI" that has come into vogue in the last few years is just glorified autocorrect. It can catalogue and compare what we already know, which can be very helpful, but it can't add anything new.

The danger with regard to ancient Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions is that the reconstructions could make them over in the image of the Bible, just because the comparison corpus is the Bible.

Human judgment and creativity are still required to make sense of any results a computer algorithm produces. And AI technology is nowhere near replicating human judgment and creativity. It if ever does, it won't be through the "AI" that we have now.

A fair counterpoint (I've run out of hands) is that human scholars, using those "time-consuming manual procedures to estimate the missing content" can also remake the inscription in the image of the Bible. I've seen it happen and I've also seen it called out when it did. (I'm going to be nice and not give examples.)

But the danger remains that results from AI will be received as somehow more infallible because they are computer generated and we tend, naively, to trust computers not to make mistakes. A final critical assessment of the results by human judgment is still essential.

The underlying article is available for free in the ACL Anthology, March 2024:

Embible: Reconstruction of Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic Texts Using Transformers
Niv Fono, Harel Moshayof, Eldar Karol, Itai Assraf, Mark Last

Abstract

Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions serve as an essential source of information on the ancient history of the Near East. Unfortunately, some parts of the inscribed texts become illegible over time. Special experts, called epigraphists, use time-consuming manual procedures to estimate the missing content. This problem can be considered an extended masked language modeling task, where the damaged content can comprise single characters, character n-grams (partial words), single complete words, and multi-word n-grams.This study is the first attempt to apply the masked language modeling approach to corrupted inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic languages, both using the Hebrew alphabet consisting mostly of consonant symbols. In our experiments, we evaluate several transformer-based models, which are fine-tuned on the Biblical texts and tested on three different percentages of randomly masked parts in the testing corpus. For any masking percentage, the highest text completion accuracy is obtained with a novel ensemble of word and character prediction models.

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On cats in ancient Judaism

PROF. JOSHUA SCHWARTZ: The Curious Case of Cats (TheTorah.com).

Cats were known and domesticated in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, but are absent from the Bible and Second Temple literature. The Persians despised cats, but the Talmud tolerates them.

Lots of interesting information here, especially about the Talmudic period.

One detail: cats do appear once in Second Temple literature. Epistle of Jeremiah 22 describes cats perching on the idols in pagan temples. These are presumably domesticated cats if they are hanging around in temples.

That shows that Second Temple Jews knew of cat domestication, but not necessarily that they kept cats themselves. (A Greek manuscript of the Epistle of Jeremiah was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls [7Q2], so its Second Temple Jewish origin is secure.)

For more on cats in antiquity and the ancient biblical world, see here and links, plus here and here.

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Gaza archaeological collection safe in Geneva

GAZA ARCHAEOLOGY: Gaza’s archaeology experts say enclave’s historic treasures saved by ‘irony of history’. When Gazan collector Jawdat Khoudary loaned his treasure trove of artifacts to museums in Europe in 2006, he never imagined they would still be stored in Switzerland (AP & TOI).

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You're gonna need a bigger Bible?

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: And The Rest Of The Bible…. Philip Jenkins laments the loss to Protestants of the "apocryphal" and "noncanonical" books in the Bibles of other traditions.

The Protestant Old Testament is the same as the Hebrew Bible. These books are not in the Hebrew Bible. That's why Protestants don't have them. But all of the books he mentions are ancient Jewish works that are of considerable interest on their own terms. Wherever you put them, they should not be forgotten.

This doesn't even touch on the question of New Testament Apocrypha, some of which remained quite influential in Christianity into the Middle Ages. Professor Jenkins has dealt with that topic in detail too. See the links collected here. Also, related post here.

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Was leprosy yellow or shiny in the Bible?

PROF. RABBI PHIL LIEBERMAN: Is Yellow a Biblical Color? (TheTorah.com).

If a man or woman suffering from tzaraʿat, a skin disease, has hair that turns tzahov, they are impure. In modern Hebrew, tzahov means yellow, but what does it mean in the Bible?

For PaleoJudaica posts on language and ancient color perception, see here and links.

For the difference between modern "leprosy" (Hansen's syndrome) and biblical "leprosy" (tzaraʿat), see here.

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Review of Beitzel, Lexham Geographical Commentary on the Pentateuch

READING ACTS: Barry J. Beitzel, ed. Lexham Geographical Commentary on the Pentateuch (Phil Long).

Beitzel, Barry J., ed. Lexham Geographical Commentary on the Pentateuch. Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2022. xxvi+915 pp.; Hb. $49.99 Link to Lexham Press

Barry Beitzel has a well-deserved reputation in scholarship for his contributions to biblical geography. He edited The New Moody Atlas of the Bible (Moody, 2009; reviewed here). He edited the first volume of this projected six-volume series, Lexham Geographical Commentary on the Gospels (Lexham, 2017; reviewed here) and Acts and Revelation (2019; reviewed here). Like the two New Testament volumes, this new collection of essays on the geography of the Pentateuch is a joy to read and will be an excellent addition to the library of any Bible student.

[...]

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On the new noncanonical gospel fragments from Oxyrhynchus

NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA WATCH: Early Christianity, fragment by fragment. A new published volume of ancient papyri contains sayings, attributed to Jesus, that were previously unknown—including a dialogue with a disciple named Mary ( Elizabeth Schrader Polczer, The Christian Century).

Last summer brought big news for scholars of early Christianity. Three previously unknown gospel fragments were published for the first time as part of an ongoing series, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. These three Greek manuscript fragments, which scholars date between the second to the fourth centuries CE, all purport to preserve otherwise unknown sayings of Jesus.

[...]

This article gives a good introduction to the Oxyrhynchus papyri and an excellent overview of these three noncanoncial gospel texts.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the new Jesus sayings fragment P.Oxy. 87.5575 (a.k.a. P.Oxy. 5575), see the links collected here.

Cross-file under Oxyrhynchus Watch.

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Han on "Beyond the 'Cessation of Prophecy' in Late Antiquity"

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Publication Preview | Beyond the "Cessation of Prophecy" in Late Antiquity (Jae H. Han).

Jae H. Han, Prophets and Prophecy in in the Late Antique Near East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.

... At the end of the day, the book is an experiment. I wanted to see how much I can get away with. If we believe that “context matters” as a or even the basis for contemporary knowledge of the past, then we should also ask up to what point does context matter? In practice, whether we like it or not, we answer this question every time we write since there is always something more that can be brought into the discussion. ...

Everything is connected to everything else. And I really do mean everything to everything. There is always more context to explore. That's a good thing.

Cross-file under Manichean (Manichaean) Watch.

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A Database of Post-2002 Dead Sea Scroll-like Fragments

UNIVERSITY OF ADGER: A Database of Post-2002 Dead Sea Scroll-like Fragments Version 1.0. Produced by Ludvik A. Kjeldsberg; Årstein Justnes; and Hilda Deborah.

Since 2002, more than a hundred "new" Dead Sea Scroll fragments have appeared on the antiquities market. Most of these fragments are tiny and deteriorated and have later been revealed as modern forgeries. Nonetheless, they have been big business. In this database, we have catalogued all of them, providing information about their content, owners, alleged provenance, their place in the biblical corpus, size, and publication history. (2023-09-01)

HT Todd Bolen at the Bible Places Blog.

For PaleoJudaica posts on the post-2002 Dead Sea Scrolls-like fragments, see here and links, plus here and here.

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

How are babies made according to the Bible?

PROF. MARIANNE GROHMANN: Biblically, How Are Babies Conceived? (TheTorah.com).

Does a woman simply receive and nourish a man’s seed? Or does she also produce her own seed to conceive a child?

With reference to evidence from many other ancient sources.

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What Is Aramaic?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: What Is Aramaic? Exploring the rich legacy of a biblical language (Clinton J. Moyer).

A nice, concise, historical survey.

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

Two solar eclipses (yes, one today)

THE HOLY LAND PHOTOS' BLOG: A Solar Eclipse and Old Testament Chronology (Carl Rassmussen).

Here in the United States, there is much excitement about the total solar eclipse that will take place on April 8, 2024. But did you know that the solar eclipse of June 15, 763 B.C. holds the key to the chronology of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible)?

[...]

This is a recycled post, but today is a good day to get it out again.

As always, if you are in a position to observe today's eclipse, please stay safe!

For PaleoJudaica posts dealing with (or debunking stories about) solar and lunar eclipses, start here and here and follow the links.

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

The Academic Work of Tal Ilan

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: In Order to Arrive at Historically Correct Conclusions, One Needs Complete Databases: The Academic Work of Tal Ilan (Tal Ilan).

My work on the name-database has alerted me to the importance of corpora. I realize that most academics believe that their major contribution to world knowledge is their brilliant theses, in which they demolish the work of their predecessors and suggest new understandings of history and the sources that tell it. And indeed, theses are important and new thinking makes us think hard and keep history alive (albeit in a more “modern” or updated version). However, most theses, as brilliant as they may appear at the time they were composed, tend to have a short shelf-life. Soon new scholars, proliferating new theses, sometimes even based on new sources, will demolish our brilliant ideas. This is different with databases. They too will, eventually be replaced, but first of all not so soon, and secondly, actually when they are replaced, they still serve as the basis for the new database. The work done in creating a database is not so soon lost.

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Carvalho (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ezekiel

NEW BOOK FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS:

The Oxford Handbook of Ezekiel

Edited by Corrine Carvalho

Oxford Handbooks

£107.50
Hardback
Published: 05 March 2024
640 Pages | 4 b/w illustrations
248x171mm
ISBN: 9780190634513

Description

The current state of scholarship on the book of Ezekiel, one of the three Major Prophets, is robust. Ezekiel, unlike most pre-exilic prophetic collections, contains overt clues that its primary circulation was as a literary text and not a collection of oral speeches. The author was highly educated, the theology of the book is "dim," and its view of humanity is overwhelmingly negative. In The Oxford Handbook of Ezekiel, editor Corrine Carvalho brings together scholars from a diverse range of interpretive perspectives to explore one of the Bible's most debated books.

Consisting of twenty-seven essays, the Handbook provides introductions to the major trends in the scholarship of Ezekiel, covering its history, current state, and emerging directions. After an introductory overview of these trends, each essay discusses an important element in the scholarly engagement with the book. Several essays discuss the history of the text (its historical context, redactional layers, text criticism, and use of other Israelite and near eastern traditions). Others focus on key themes in the book (such as temple, priesthood, law, and politics), while still others look at the book's reception history and contextual interpretations (including art, Christian use, gender approaches, postcolonial approaches, and trauma theory). Taken together, these essays demonstrate the vibrancy of Ezekiel research in the twenty-first century.

I am pleased to note that three of my University of St. Andrews colleagues are contributors.

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Isaiah and Intertextuality (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: Isaiah and Intertextuality. Isaiah amid Israel's Scriptures. Edited by Wilson de Angelo Cunha and Andrew T. Abernethy. 2024. XIV, 284 pages.Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe 148. 109,00 € including VAT. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-163233-4.

Published in English.
Intertextuality is a valuable interpretive tool that provides a rich understanding of Isaiah in its complex relationship with the larger witness of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. With essays by leading and upcoming scholars, this volume moves sequentially through the tri-partite Hebrew canon to showcase the interconnections between Isaiah and books within the Torah, Prophets, and Writings. It becomes evident that Isaiah is like a »prism« that refracts strands of tradition in ways that neither supersede nor exhaust the riches of the prior tradition and that are neither superseded by nor exhausted by the subsequent uses of Isaiah. The Book of Isaiah employs these traditions for its own rhetorical purposes, offering a message that is both unique in comparison with and interrelated to the wider web of biblical, textual traditions. Isaiah is to be read as a book amid Israel's Scriptures.

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Blau Festschrift (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

“An Inspired Man”

Studies in Judeo-Arabic Culture Dedicated to the Memory of Joshua Blau

Series: Études sur le judaïsme médiéval, Volume: 97

Volume Editors: Miriam Frenkel and Phillip I. Lieberman

This volume is dedicated to Professor Joshua Blau, of blessed memory. The articles included therein, written by his students and fellows, all deal with the Judeo-Arabic language and its associated culture. Among them are articles dealing with language, lexicography, cross-cultural relations, biblical translation, prayer, law, and poetics. The wide scope of material in this volume attests to the richness and breadth of Judeo-Arabic as well as to the expansive range of fields studied by Professor Blau himself.

Copyright Year: 2024

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-68657-1
Publication: 19 Feb 2024
EUR €149.00

The essays are in English and Hebrew. For more on the late Professor Blau, see here and here.

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Tomorrow is Assumption of Saint Methodius Day?

OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC WATCH: A Memorial to the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius will be a unifying international centre in the Spanish city of Malaga (Gergana Mancheva).

The first Bulgarian monument in the Kingdom of Spain will be inaugurated on 5 April, the eve of the Assumption of St Methodius for all Slavs and Bulgarians. It is dedicated to the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius and is located in a special place - in the park of the city of Málaga. It is located in a special place in Malaga.

The monument was erected in Malaga on the occasion of two anniversaries: the 1160th anniversary of the completion of the first Slavonic alphabet, the Glagolitic alphabet, and the 43rd anniversary of Pope John Paul II's declaration of Saints Cyril and Methodius as co-patrons of Europe (30 December 1980). In the words of the Pope, the two Slavic apostles are a bridge between East and West and have made an outstanding contribution to the cultural growth of the Old Continent and to the education of many generations of Europeans.

[...]

The monument is good news and I am always happy to see the two inventors of the Slavonic (Glagolitic) alphabet get some recognition. But what struck me in this article is that Saint Methodius had an assumption. Really? I didn't know that. Enoch would be proud!

The brothers Cyril and Methodius invented the Slavonic alphabet in the ninth century, thus not only converting the Slavs, but also preserving much ancient literature that otherwise would have been lost. That literature includes some intriguing Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Not least among these is the book of 2 Enoch.

For more on the two saints and their feast days, and on Old Church Slavonic, see here and links.

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Nongbri on the Crosby-Schøyen Codex

VARIANT READINGS: The Upcoming Sale of the Crosby-Schøyen Codex (Just How Old is this Book?).

In my recent post on the upcoming sale of the Coptic Crosby-Schøyen Codex, which contains 1 Peter and Jonah, I noted that it was "dated to 300 CE ±50 years (and such dating may still be overly precise)." In this post Brent Nongbri mentions that it has also be subjected to radiocarbon dating and that some evidence points to date being at the late end of that range. So this may be an unusual case when we can narrow the range of an undated ancient manuscript to within a couple of decades.

The articles on the sale claim that this codex contains the earliest copies of the two biblical books. Maybe so for Coptic translations. But I pointed out that there are earlier fragments of the original Hebrew of Jonah among the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QXII^a, 4QXII^f, and 4QXII^g).

Add to those Murabba‛at 88, which includes fragments of the Hebrew text of Jonah, and the Nahal Hever Scroll, which contains a Greek translation of the Minor Prophets, including part of Jonah. More of the latter scroll was found a few years ago in the Cave of Horror.

Now Brent notes that P.Bodmer 8 is arguably an older copy of 1 Peter in the original Greek.

He has many other observations about the codex, as well as photos, so do have a look at his post.

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2024 LXX Summer Course at Trinity Western

WILLIAM A. ROSS: 2024 WEVERS INSTITUTE SEPTUAGINT SUMMER COURSE.

I’m very glad to post information today about the upcoming Septuagint Summer School that will be held at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia, not too far away from Vancouver. As you can see if you scroll down to the very bottom of the Institute’s website here, it’s truly a beautiful place — and there’s good scholarship to boot!

This year, the course is from 24-28 June, just after the Montreal Septuagint Symposium, and focuses on translation and legal concepts in the Greek Pentateuch.

[...]

Follow the link for additional links and details.

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Review of Bird, Jesus among the gods

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: Jesus among the gods: early Christology in the Greco-Roman world.

Michael F. Bird, Jesus among the gods: early Christology in the Greco-Roman world. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2022. Pp. xi, 480. ISBN 9781481316750.

Review by
Riemer Roukema, Protestant Theological University. rroukema@pthu.nl

... To Bird, the similarities between portrayals of Jesus and various intermediary figures are undeniable, as well as the differences. He notes that no single figure can be regarded as a progenitor of early christology or can be considered the hermeneutic key that explains its development. He sees early christology as innovative since it puts Jesus on the level of the god of Israel. Provocatively he calls Jesus “a Jewish deity of the Greco-Roman world,” or more precisely, “an embodiment and expression of the God of Israel’s person and power.” ...

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Another attack on the (traditional) Tomb of Esther and Mordechai

VIOLENT VANDALISM: Ancient Jewish Mausoleum In Iran Attacked With Molotov Cocktails (Iran International).

A newly released video depicts Molotov cocktails being thrown on the ancient mausoleum of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan during the early hours of Tuesday, a key archaeological site in both Jewish and Christian history.

[...]

For more on the tomb, including a previous fire attack, see the Purim-related post here.

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A mouse, a cat, and a chicken walked into a Neolithic farm ...

AVIAN (AND FAUNAL) ARCHAEOLOGY: Why Did the Chicken Cross the Silk Road? A few thousand years ago, somewhere in Southeast Asia, chickens moved in with us. And then we noticed that they were really good and so were their eggs (Ruth Schuster, Times of Israel). Good as in good to eat. And there's this:

How did we come to embrace the chicken? According to Spengler, Peters and the team, the chicken appeared in the central Thai archaeological record together with the appearance of rice and millet cultivation.

"The production and storage of these cereals may have acted as a magnet, thus initiating the chicken domestication process," they say.

What a coincidence. The house mouse also seems to have appeared in human habitats more or less simultaneously with the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, closely followed by the cat. It's become fashionable to say cats "domesticated us" though they didn't selectively breed us, as far as we know. They moved in with us because they wanted to eat the rodents congregating to share our crops and crumbs, just like the chicken would several thousand years later – apparently.

De haan, de kat en het muisje

As for ancient Judaism:

The Israeli archaeological record also features the odd eggshell, including in Jerusalem from 2,600 years ago and a whole egg from 1,000 years ago, which survived the ages intact only to be broken by accident in the lab.

For those two eggshells, see here and here. For more on the domestication of chickens in ancient Israel (Idumea?), see here.

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Ancient Coptic biblical codex up for auction

FOR SALE: One of the oldest books in existence expected to fetch over $2.6 million at auction (Christine Kiernan, Reuters).

The Coptic Crosby-Schoyen Codex, dated to 300 CE ±50 years (and such dating may still be overly precise):

The 104 pages (52 leaves) were written by one scribe over a period of 40 years at a monastery in upper Egypt and are preserved behind plexiglass. The codex contains the first epistle of Peter and the Book of Jonah.

This may be the earliest copy of Jonah in Coptic translation, but there are substantial earlier fragments of the Hebrew original among the Dead Sea Scrolls. See the three Minor Prophets scrolls 4QXII^a, 4QXII^f, and 4QXII^g, published by Russell Fuller in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XV.

The earliest surviving codex (book with bound-together pages) may be the El-Hiba papyrus (Graz, UBG Ms 1946), perhaps dating as early as the mid-third century BCE. See here, here, and here, but with some cautionary comments by Brent Nongbri here.

These details aside, the Crosby-Schoyen Codex is quite important. If it must be put up for sale, I very much encourage the buyer to donate it to a museum, preferably one in Egypt. For precedent, see here.

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Herodium region declared "State Land"

POLITICS AND ARCHAEOLOGY: Israel appropriates 42 acres in West Bank’s Etzion Bloc, declaring it state land. Gush Etzion mayor hails move that will allow tourism development at Herodium site; Smotrich orders demolition of three illegal Palestinian buildings over terror shooting (JEREMY SHARONand SAM SOKOL, Times of Israel).

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced Monday that the Civil Administration, an agency in the Defense Ministry, has declared 170 dunams (42 acres) of land surrounding the Herodium archaeological site in the West Bank region of the Etzion Bloc as “state land,” meaning land that is not privately owned and can be used for various purposes, including settlement development.

[...]

As you might imagine, reaction to this development is mixed.

For many PaleoJudaica posts on Herod the Great's palace-fortress, Herodium, and its excavation, start here and follow the links. For the archaeology of the Gush Etzion region more generally, see here and links, plus here and links, here, and here.

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Cordoni, Reconfiguring the Land of Israel (Brill)

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Reconfiguring the Land of Israel

A Rabbinic Project

Series:
The Brill Reference Library of Judaism, Volume: 76

Author: Constanza Cordoni

This book is about ways in which the land of Israel, the homeland of the most paradigmatic of all diasporas, was envisioned in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages in the literature of the sages. It is about the Land according to the redefined Judaism that emerged in the centuries following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE. This Judaism replaced the temple cult with Torah study - a study that pertained in part to that very temple cult, that became a portable homeland, and that reconfigured the Land.

Copyright Year: 2024

E-Book (PDF)
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69676-1
Publication: 01 Mar 2024

Hardback
Availability: Published
ISBN: 978-90-04-69675-4
Publication: 01 Mar 2024
EUR €145.00

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Isaac Luria, businessman

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH (MARCH 2024): Lionising Luria: Mosseri III.232 (Ben Outhwaite).

In fact, it is only the professional, commercial activities with which Luria supported himself and his family that leave a few traces in the Genizah, wholly from the period of his life spent in Egypt. For now I’m focusing on the autograph letter by Luria preserved in the Mosseri Genizah Collection, which is the sole document written by Isaac Luria himself that we have identified among the Cambridge collections ...

For PaleoJudaica posts on the sixteenth-century mystic Isaac Luria (Ha'ARI) and on Lurianic Kabbalah, start here and follow the links.

Past posts noting Cairo Geniza Fragments of the Month in the Cambridge University Library's Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit are here and links, plus here, here, here, here, and here.

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

Biblical Studies Carnival 215

ZWINGLIUS REDIVIVUS: The March Carnival Featuring The ‘Jewish Scriptures in Earliest Christianity’ Conference (Jim West).

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

Scratched Tsade for April 1st?

New Hebrew letter from Dead Sea Scrolls announced in Language Academy April Fool's joke. While assumed to be a light-hearted joke, the post provides a practical solution to a sound that the current Aleph Bet doesn't cover (Jerusalem Post).

The new letter, titled a "scratched tsade," appears as a mirror image of the Hebrew letter tsade (which makes the "ts" sound) and supposedly represents the "ch" sound, which, until now, was represented by a tsade followed by an apostrophe.

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More on that Coptic Psalter

VARIANT READINGS: The Mudil Psalter. Brent Nongbri provides some background, including why the manuscript is nicknamed the Pillow Psalter.

My first post on the psalter is here.

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

Sara Japhet (1934-2024)

SAD NEWS: Passing of Prof. Sara Japhet (Shalom Berger, H-Judaic).

H-Judaic mourns the passing of Sara Japhet (1934-2024) , the Yehezkel Kaufmann Professor of Bible, emerita at the Hebrew University, an Israel Prize winner, former director of the National Library of Israel, head of the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University and of the World Union of Jewish Studies -- one of Israel's leading Bible and Judaic Studies scholars, and one of the first women ever to hold many of the positions she attained.

[...]

May her memory be for a blessing.

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Did Nadav and Avihu die of an incense overdose?

DR. SHEILA TULLER KEITER: The Cause of Nadav and Avihu’s Death: Incense Smoke? (TheTorah.com).

Immediately after the death of two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, YHWH warns Moses that priests are prohibited from consuming wine before serving in the Tabernacle. Is their mysterious death the result of some form of intoxication?

I would file the story of Nadav and Avihu (Nadab and Abihu) in Leviticus 10 as fiction. But it's fair to ask how the author intended the readers to think that they died. An overdose? Maybe.

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Who was Saint Salome?

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Saint Salome’s Resting Place? A Converted Cave Chapel in the Judean Foothills.

At the site of Horvat Qasra in the Judean foothills, between the fifth and the eighth centuries, Byzantine Christians frequented a small tomb chapel cut into the limestone hillside. Repurposing what was originally a multi-chambered Judean burial complex, these visitors converted the space into a memorial shrine dedicated to Saint Salome, a figure mentioned in the Gospels as one of Jesus’ disciples. On the interior walls, they carved prayers to “Holy” or “Lady” Salome, titles that implied her saintly status. But who was Saint Salome, and how did this site come to be associated with her?

[...]

This is a rare case where the full Biblical Archaeology Review article (Spring 2024 issue) is also available for free online:

Joan E. Taylor and Boaz Zissu, The Cave of Salome—Tomb of Jesus’s Disciple?.

Unfortunately, we likely will never know the true identity of the first-century Jewish woman whose name and remains were commemorated at Horvat Qasra. She could possibly have been Salome, the disciple of Jesus, but it’s also possible she was another Salome who, like many wealthy Jewish women of her day, was buried in a monumental cave tomb on the grounds of her family estate. But whoever this Salome was, archaeology shows she certainly had a remarkable afterlife.

The article fully surveys who the candidates are for the cave-tomb's occupant.

I noted the excavation of the cave last year.

Cross-file unde Speluncic Archaeology.

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The mocking Of Carabas revisited

THE ANXIOUS BENCH: The Mocking Of Carabas, And Of Christ (Philip Jenkins). The story of the mocking of Carabas, from Philo of Alexandria, is strikingly parallel to the account of the mocking of Jesus by the Roman soldiers. I noted the post some years ago, but Professor Jenkins has expanded and reposted it this week.

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High School student finds oil lamp at Late Roman fort

CERAMICS: Student discovers a unique 1,600-year-old oil lamp used by Roman soldiers. The lamp Yonatan found is identical to one discovered in the same place 90 years ago by the late Reform rabbi and archaeologist Dr. Nelson Gluec (Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, Jerusalem Post).

“We know that between the Nabataean-Roman town of Mamshit and the copper mines of Feinan (biblical Punon) in the Central Arava – not far from present-day Moshav ‘En Yahav, a trade route was in use in the 4th-6th centuries CE. In order to secure the shipments of copper and possibly even gold from the mines, a series of forts were built between the head of the Scorpions Ascent and Mezad Hazeva, and Mezad Tsafir [where the lamp was found] was one of these. Mounted patrols guarded the important road. It is easy to imagine the lamp lighting up the darkness in the lonely, isolated fort manned by Roman soldiers, said Erickson-Gini.

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The Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia

DATABASE: OCIANA: ancient North Arabian inscriptions gathered in online corpus (Saeb Rawashdeh, Jordan Times).

The vast majority of the inscriptions in OCIANA are, and will continue to be, in the Ancient North Arabian [ANA] scripts, it will also contain the texts in Akkadian, Old Aramaic, Imperial Aramaic, local forms of the Aramaic script, Nabataean, Palmyrene, Greek and Latin that have been found in Arabia, north of Yemen, noted [Michael] Macdonald, adding that the ANA scripts are varieties of the “South Semitic script-family”, which is separated from the North-West Semitic (Phoenico-Aramaic) branch shortly after the invention of the alphabet, and developed in parallel to it.

I noted the database with reference to the Old North Arabian dialect called Safaitic. The link there is now dead, but you can find OCIANA here.

Cross-file under Aramaic Watch.

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Another $7M ruling for Hobby Lobby against Obbink

THE ETC BLOG: Court Rules that Obbink Owes Hobby Lobby $7m (Peter Gurry).

The news is out that the civil case between Hobby Lobby and Dirk Obbink has been decided. The ruling is a “default judgment” in favor of Hobby Lobby for an incredible $7,085,100 plus interest. (A default judgment means that the defendant never showed up to court.) Keep in mind, this is a civil case not a criminal case. ...

There was already a default judgment for $7 million against Obbink from a New York federal court back in 2021. I noted a Christianity Today article giving details here. This post also has links to earlier posts on the Oxford missing-papyri scandal.

For some reason I don't understand, the case was moved to an Oklahoma court. It just issued this ruling. Peter Gurry links to a post at the Art Crime Blog by Lynda Albertson which gives details on it, but does not refer, as far as I can tell, to the 2021 ruling.

I am not a lawyer and, as I said, I don't understand what is happening. But now you know as much as I do.

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Review of MacDonald, The Making of the Tabernacle and the Construction of Priestly Hegemony

THE BIBLE REVIEW BLOG: Review: “The Making of the Tabernacle and the Construction of Priestly Hegemony” by Nathan MacDonald (William Brown).

Nathan MacDonald. The Making of the Tabernacle and the Construction of Priestly Hegemony. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023.

In The Making of the Tabernacle and the Construction of Priestly Hegemony, Nathan MacDonald examines how the Pentateuch, especially the Priestly material, evinces a social hierarchy. In particular, he shows how different textual layers and connections evince that scribes carefully negotiated priestly power and authority through key Pentateuchal portions. ...

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Jester Bes vessel recycled for Purim

YET ANOTHER PURIM-RELATED STORY: In honor of Purim, Israel Antiquities Authority unveils Persian-era find. The fragment bears a human face and was discovered in 2019 (Israel HaYom).

The artifact was unearthed during archaeological excavations carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority in collaboration with Tel-Aviv University at the Givaty Parking Lot site, located in the historic City of David, Jerusalem. The jar, embellished with exaggerated facial features including two large, wide-open eyes, a nose, one ear, and a fragment of the mouth, presents a unique find from this era.

The discovery of the fragment, which bears the face of the Egyptian god Bes, was reported in 2019. I noted it here.

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West Bank Second Temple Jewish site made into a parking lot

APPREHENDED: Palestinians demolish Jewish archaeological site in West Bank. Aerial footage shows how Palestinians turn remains of Second Temple Jewish settlement into a parking lot; Israeli authorities arrest perpetrators (Elisha Ben Kimon, Ynet News).

Dozens of Palestinians vandalized the archaeological site of Umm ar-Rihan, a historic site from the Second Temple period, located on state land in Area C of the West Bank. The Palestinians completely flattened the archaeological site and built a parking lot on top of it.

[...]

HT the Bible Places Blog.

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New books on the Achaemenid Empire

INDIRECTLY PURIM-RELATED FROM BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA:

The Old Persian Inscriptions. Notice of a New Book: Schmitt, Rüdiger. 2023. Die altpersischen Inschriften der Achaimeniden: Editio minor mit deutscher Übersetzung. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag.

Architecture and Archaeology of the Achaemenid Empire. Notice of a New Book: Dan, Roberto. 2024. Studies on the Architecture and Archaeology of the Achaemenid Empire. Dynamics of Interaction and Transmission Between Center and Periphery. Roma: ISMEO – The International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies.

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How many Achaemenid Persian kings according to the Bible?

BELATEDLY FOR PURIM: Persia’s Achaemenid Dynasty—If You Read the Bible Without History (Dr. Rabbi Zev Farber, TheTorah.com).

Ezra-Nehemiah mentions only four of the twelve kings who ruled the Persian empire: Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes. The book of Daniel also speaks of four Persian kings, and adds a fictional Darius the Mede as their precursor. Historically, the Achaemenid period lasted 220 years, but using only the kings mentioned in the Bible, rabbinic texts reconstruct a 52-year Persian period.

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Purim-related

BELATEDLY FOR PURIM:

How the Bible – and the Purim story – helped form a nation from an exiled people. In his bestseller ‘Why the Bible Began,’ theology Prof. Jacob L. Wright challenges conventional thought on the holy book’s history, positing that it was not all about religion (RICH TENORIO, Times of Israel).

This article is mostly a review of Prof. Wright's book (on which see further here and here). But it also does touch on the Esther story.

Israel or Iran? The quest after Esther and Mordechai's final resting place. The Bible doesn't specify the final resting places of the Purim Megillah's protagonists, but conflicting Jewish traditions emerge: one asserts that their tombs are located in Iran, while another steadfastly maintains they are in Israel (Yogev Israely, Ynet News). Perhaps the key point in the article:

"Since no documentation of the Purim story exists in other sources and the story resembles other regional myths, Mordecai and Esther aren’t considered historical figures, so this debate is entirely theoretical," she notes. "But assuming the event did take place, it’s more logical they died in the summer and were buried near Ecbatana."

For lots more on the traditional Tomb of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan, Iran, start here and follow the links. The site has been subjected to vandalism and various kinds of protests. This year is no exception.

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Harris, Holy War Discourses in 1QM and John's Apocalypse (Mohr Siebeck)

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK: David Chapman Harris. Holy War Discourses in 1QM and John's Apocalypse. A Comparative Study. 2024. XI, 248 pages. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 604 94,00 € including VAT. sewn paper ISBN 978-3-16-162428-5.

Published in English.
In this study, David Chapman Harris compares the Qumran War Scroll with John's Apocalypse through the lens of the literary and ideological theme of Holy War. Using sound literary analysis, close exegetical readings and comparison, historical analysis, and hypothetical reconstruction, the author justifies reading Revelation as a War Scroll, providing grounding to an ongoing debate. He argues that Revelation's Christological dimension has a distinctive impact on Holy War discourse, inflicting the martyr theology of Revelation.

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Purim 2024

HAPPY PURIM to all those celebrating! The festival begins tonight night at sundown.

Last year's Purim post is here, with links.

UPDATE: Additional Purim-related posts this year are here, here, here, and here.

UPDATE: Sadly, also here.

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Review of Levine, Ancient Synagogues Revealed 1981–2022

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Review: Ancient Synagogues Revealed 1981–2022 (Reviewed by James Riley Strange).

It turns out that more than archaeologists and scholars of early Judaism and Christianity care about these things. For this reason, in 1981 the Israel Exploration Society published Ancient Synagogues Revealed, edited by Lee I. Levine, a luminary in the field of synagogue origins. It has taken 42 years for the companion volume to arrive: Ancient Synagogues Revealed 1981–2022, edited by Levine and two other noted archaeologists, Zeev Weiss and Uzi Leibner.

I noted the publication of the book here.

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Shorthand Aramaic?

GENIZA FRAGMENT OF THE MONTH (JANUARY 2024): More about less: A New Shorthand Targum Manuscript: Oxford MS Heb. f.56/1-12 (Dr Kim Phillips).

Several years ago I stumbled across yet another ‘shorthand’ Targum fragment, raising the total number of currently known such manuscripts to five.5 This fragment is described and transcribed below, and its surprising relationship to one of the Taylor-Schechter shorthand Targum fragments is discussed.

The shorthand system is the "first-letter-Serugin method," in which only the first letter of each word is written.

Cross-file under Aramaic Watch.

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AJR (SBL) on E. P. Sanders

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW has published the papers from a 2023 SBL session in memory of E. P. Sanders.

E.P. Sanders In Memoriam (Adele Reinhartz)

Through his studies, he became convinced of four main points: (1) New Testament scholarship then (as now) paid too much attention to theology and not enough attention to religion. (2) To know one religion is to know none. The human brain comprehends by comparing and contrasting, and consequently comparison in the study of religion is essential, not optional. (3) New Testament scholars ought to study Judaism. (4) Scholarship on the New Testament, second temple, and rabbinic Judaism must be conducted on the first-hand study of the primary sources in their original languages.

E. P. Sanders and His Impact on the Study of Second Temple Judaism (Annette Yoshiko Reed)

Sanders did much to update the scholarly discourse to fit these shifts, recognizing that mere revision would not suffice. On the one hand, he criticized many of the common habits and assumptions in the practice of studying Judaism within the ostensibly academic but fundamentally Christian frame of New Testament Studies as embodied by Schürer. On the other hand, Sanders worked to construct an alternative, writing synthetically in a manner that was equally comprehensive but framed around a different set of questions.

Paul the Apostle and Sanders the Critic (Matthew V. Novenson)

For the purposes of this short essay, I would like to reflect on two words that sound like they should be synonyms, but are not, both of which figure prominently in Sanders’s argument in Paul and Palestinian Judaism, namely: legalism and nomism. ...

E. P. Sanders and the Historical Jesus (Helen Bond)

In contrast, Sanders shifted the focus from what Jesus said to what he did. He started with a list of eight “almost indisputable facts” about Jesus, and then - with impeccable and unrelenting logic – worked outwards from what was most secure in the tradition to what was more debateable. Sanders realised that where the investigation starts has a profound effect on where it ends up, and he chose to begin his analysis with one of the most secure of his “almost indisputable” facts, the Temple controversy. ...

E.P. Sanders: My Guide in the Field of Rabbinics (Yair Furstenberg)

Ultimately, I was captivated by Sanders’ original vision for advancing the study of early Jewish law, which challenged my own scholarly traditions. This included a novel approach to rabbinic source criticism; social contextualization of current legal discourse, and the consideration of the actual real-life experience of Jewish law. In what follows I will briefly relate to these three aspects, which amount to a new image of Jewish Law in practice, resonating with his concept of “common Judaism.”

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Yadin's birthday

WELL, YESTERDAY'S: Today’s Jewish Birthday: Yigael Yadin (San Diego Jewish World).

Thereafter, Yadin devoted himself to archaeology, winning the 1956 Israel Prize for his doctoral thesis on seven Dead Sea Scrolls, three of which his father had purchased in 1947 from a Bedouin goatherd and four that Yadin purchased in 1954 in New York. He excavated such sites as the Qumram Caves, Masada, Hazor, Tel Megiddo, and the Judean Desert caves where artifacts from the Bar Kokhba revolt were found.

For more on Yadin, and his father Eliezer Sukenik, see the links collected here, plus here.

(And, no, the Hazor archives have not yet been found. Amnon Ben-Tor, who took over the Hazor excavation after Yadin's passing, is also no longer with us.)

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Christians, Jews, and Biblical Archaeology

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Biblical Archaeology—Between Christians and Jews

There is a built-in tension between religious studies and academic ones in the humanities, including archaeology. The students in the yeshivas see themselves as protected within “the tent of the Torah” and any egress to the academic world opens one up to the dangers involved in exposure to opinions and worldviews that are contrary to the religious world.

See also, The Changing Landscape of Israeli Archaeology (Routledge, 2023).

By Hayah Katz
Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee
March 2024

Cross-file under New Book.

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Review of Allen, Coptic: A Grammar of Its Six Major Dialects

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Coptic: A Grammar of Its Six Major Dialects (David Mihalyfy).

James P. Allen. Coptic: A Grammar of Its Six Major Dialects. Eisenbrauns imprint of The Pennsylvania State University Press: University Park, 2020.

... Egyptologist James P. Allen’s new Coptic dialect grammar is therefore useful for anyone beginning to grapple with language variation, with the proviso that the study of Coptic dialects is a relatively underdeveloped discipline whose present state and shape do not yet allow for the creation of the more effective tools that should one day become possible. There does remain a justifiable frustration to studying Coptic dialects, but this is often attributable to the nature of the texts and the underlying disciplinary research. ...

It is fascinating that, even in a relatively small geographic area like Egypt, isolating six dialects is not fine-grained enough to capture the linguistic diversity of an ancient language. "Dialects" are, of course, artificial slices of a continuous linguistic field that varied from village to village, from neighborhood to neighborhood, and ultimately from person to person.

Cross-file under Coptic Watch.

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Male hair from ancient Jerusalem

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: The Only Ancient Jewish Male Hair Ever Found Biblical scholar James Tabor examines a rare ancient Jewish male hair specimen from the "Tomb of the Shroud."

The poor guy was a leper too! For more on the Tomb of the Shroud at Akeldama near Jerusalem, see here.

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Review of La Babylonie hellénistique

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW: La Babylonie hellénistique.

Laetitia Graslin-Thomé, Philippe Clancier, Julien Monerie, La Babylonie hellénistique. La roue à livres, 98. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2023. Pp. 336. ISBN 9782251454139. Review by
Gregory Crane, Tufts University. gregory.crane@tufts.edu

... Summing up, this is a wonderful collection that begins to make more accessible an extraordinarily rich and understudied world where Greek and Mesopotamian cultures interact.

For more on Babylonian scribes in the Second Temple era, see here.

This volume sounds like a treasure trove of information on Hellenistic-era Babylon, which is of no small interest for the study of Second Temple Judaism. See, e.g., here, here, and here.

And for more on Hellenistic-era Babylon, see here, here, here, here, and here.

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Ancient underground complex in the Galilee

SUBTERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY: Bar Kochba Revolt era hiding complex revealed near Sea of Galilee. The area is mentioned in the Book of Joshua (Joshua 19:34) and has been settled since ancient times (Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, Jerusalem Post).

The excavation also revealed that, as part of the preparations for the First Revolt in 66 CE and the Bar Kochba Revolt in 132 CE, the residents of Huqoq converted the water cistern that had been dug during the Second Temple period into a hiding complex. In addition, at the time of danger, they broke one of the walls of the mikveh and dug a tunnel into other cavities.

Several tunnels allowed maneuvering in narrow, low spaces underneath the houses. In this underground system, which was the largest and most impressive discovered at the Galilee, there are about eight hiding cavities. The connecting tunnels are dug at 90 degrees make is difficult for the heavily armed Roman soldiers to chase the rebels. The excavation also yielded hundreds of broken clay and glass dishes, an impressive ring for a precious stone (the stone itself was not found), and other fascinating finds.

Huqoq, the archaeological site that keeps on giving. Background on the ancient synagogue and mosaic is here and many links.

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The Mount Ebal curse tablet/fishing weight as "The First Ancient Postmodern Inscription?"

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION: The Mt. Ebal Tablet: The First Ancient Postmodern Inscription?

This is not the decipherment of an ancient text written by a scribe, but the creation of a new, artificial text by Galil. It is a purely academic (though very imaginative) exercise. Galil and his coauthors believe in this experiment: they spent much time and resources, and the results confirm their underlying ideological convictions. But this does not change the conclusion that this experiment has no historical value for the ancient world.

By Raz Kletter
University of Helsinki
Faculty of Theology
Docent for Near Eastern Archaeology
February 2024

An interesting assessment of the supposed inscription, its announced discovery, and the response to it. Read it and see what you think. I too am not persuaded that there is any writing on this object.

For background, start here and follow the many links.

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Heal on Genesis 37 and 39 in the Early Syriac Tradition

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Pursuing Joseph in Early Syriac Literature (Kristian S. Heal).

Kristian S. Heal. Genesis 37 and 39 in the Early Syriac Tradition. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2023.

... The Syriac Joseph texts include some of the finest works in the early Syriac tradition, but also produced some of the most derivative. I would suggest that only when we recognize both ends of the spectrum do we start to see the full scope and range of a literary culture. This is perhaps my way of confessing that the book presents as a contribution to the history of exegesis, and it certainly is that, but my highest hope is that I contributed to better understanding the Syriac literary tradition, especially the tradition’s creative, dynamic, and prolonged imaginative engagement with biblical stories.

This is the first of two volumes.

Dr. Heal contributed a translation of a Syriac Joseph text to MOTP volume one. See n. 7 of the current essay.

Cross-file under New Book.

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Levy, The Dawn of Agriculture and the Earliest States in Genesis 1-11 (Routledge)

NEW BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE:

The Dawn of Agriculture and the Earliest States in Genesis 1-11

By Natan Levy
Copyright 2024

Hardback £104.00
eBook £31.19

ISBN 9781032446882
218 Pages 10 B/W Illustrations
Published November 29, 2023 by Routledge

Description

This book invites a close textual encounter with the first 11 chapters of Genesis as an intimate drama of marginalised peoples wrestling with the rise of the world’s first grain states in the Mesopotamian alluvium.

The initial 11 chapters of Genesis are often considered discordant and fragmentary, despite being a story of beginnings within the context of the Bible. Readers discover how these formative chapters cohere as a cross-generational account of peoples grappling with the hegemonic spread of domesticated grain production and the concomitant rise of the pristine states of Mesopotamia. The book reveals how key episodes from the Genesis narrative reflect major societal revolutions of the Neolithic period in Mesopotamia through a three-fold hermeneutical method: literary analysis of the Bible and contemporary cuneiform texts; modern scholarship from archaeological, anthropological, ecological, and historical sources; and relevant exegesis from the Second Temple and rabbinical era. These three strands entwine to recount a generally sequential story of the earliest archaic states as narrated by non-elites at the margins of these emerging state spaces.

The Dawn of Agriculture and the Earliest States in Genesis 1–11 provides a fascinating reading of the first 11 chapters of Genesis, appealing to students and scholars of the Hebrew Bible and the Near East, as well as those working on ecological injustice from a religious vantage point.

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Dead Sea Scrolls horoscopy

ANCIENT ASTROLOGY: Ancient 'horoscope' scroll unveiled: A glimpse into the mysterious sect of the Judean Desert. This ancient text unveils a worldview where an individual's birth date doesn't just hint at their zodiac but dictates their physical traits and the balance of light and darkness within their soul (Jerusalem Post).

The "Horoscope" scroll, distinguished by its reverse Hebrew writing and incorporation of Greek, Aramaic, ancient Hebrew, and cipher symbols, is believed to have been accessible only to those initiated into its mysteries. Dr. Oren Ableman, a researcher at the Israel Antiquities Authority's Dead Sea Scrolls Unit, emphasized the exclusivity of its content. "The writing style suggests the text was intended solely for those in the know," he stated. "It appears the writings were secret, understood only by the sect's leadership."

I'm not sure why this scroll is suddenly getting so much attention in the media and on Facebook (IAA page). It is 4Q186, a long-known Dead Sea Scroll, published by Allegro in the 1960s.

It does have astrological connections, but it is more of a physiognomic tractate, a work that claims to deduce what a person is like on the basis of their physical characteristics (length of fingers and toes, eye color, height, voice, etc.). 4Q561 and 4Q534 have related traditions in Aramaic. Such tractates also circulated in Hebrew in the Middle Ages.

For whatever reason, it's nice to see some notice taken of this remarkable text.

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Roman roads in Israel

ANCIENT INFRASTRUCTURE: Roman Roads Connected Gaza, Hebron, Jerusalem and Tiberias. What Is Left of Them Today? Israel used to build its main arteries on top of or parallel to the great roads of antiquity. New technology has changed this, but the Roman routes remain an unexploited tourist opportunity (Moshe Gilad, Haaretz).

In the 1970s, Tel Aviv University professors Israel Roll (archaeology) and Benjamin Isaac (ancient history) surveyed the Roman roads here and produced a map of their finds. The map bears a striking resemblance to the layout of roads we use today, but now a great change is taking place: Israel's new roads don't follow the network that crisscrossed the country for two millennia.

The most obvious reason, as Hebrew University geography professor Rehav Rubin says, is that until 50 years ago, when road-construction technology allowed for leveling, tunneling and excavating, natural topography dictated the route. Now that routes can be shortened by blasting and tunneling through mountains and/or leveling steep grades, the topography issue is almost a thing of the past.

For more on Roman roads and milestones, see here and links, plus here, here, here, and here.

For the obligatory Life of Brian reference, see here.

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CFP: Worlds Above and Below Conference

CALL FOR PAPERS:

Click on the image for a larger version. Note that the deadline for proposals is in a week.

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