JOE CATHEY has published "A Short Note on Recent Forgeries" at the Bible and Interpretation website, in which he calls for "a marriage between chemical/geological and epigraphical/palaeographical analysis" of inscriptions. I think he's right.

NEWS ABOUT THE JOURNAL HENOCH: I've been meaning to mention this, but Mark Goodacre has beaten me to it.

AGAIN?

Report: Russian nationalists ask court to probe Jewish leaders
By The Associated Press

MOSCOW - A group of Russian nationalists has asked a Moscow court to order an investigation of Jewish leaders over the abridged halakhic guide Kitzur Shulhan Arukh, an ancient text that the nationalists say incites hatred, a news agency reported Tuesday.

The reported request was the latest move in a months-long campaign aimed at banning Jewish organizations in Russia, an effort that has raised fears of a resurgence of anti-Semitism and questions about the government's commitment to fighting racism.

[...]

More details here. These guys are persistent, aren't they? It appears that anti-Semitism is all too alive and well in Russia.

MORE ON THE NEW UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES IN ISRAEL: YNetNews has some information on the process of choosing the sites:

Preserving world's biblical heritage

Israel hopes UNESCO selection of ancient archeological areas as world heritage sites will encourage international tourism
By Tamar Treblisi Hadad

IS THE ISRAEL MUSEUM NEGLECTING THE BIBLE? Suzanne F. Singer of Biblical Archaeology Review expresses some concerns in the Jerusalem Post ("Dont sell the Bible short"):

Here's what worries me. Museum deputy director, Dor Lin, says in the supplement that next year changes will occur in the archaeology exhibits. "Every artifact will be a piece in the archaeological puzzle that influenced man." My concern is that in the service of what is perceived as greater universalism, meant to entice people for whom the Bible is not important, the Israel Museum is embarking in a direction that is neither good for attracting more visitors nor fulfilling its potential as the only national museum prepared to tell the story of the Jewish people in its land.

Focusing strictly on marketing, it's a mistake to conclude that secular people from all over the world who come to the museum will not be fascinated to discover that places and events in the Bible can be linked, even if with uncertainties, to sites and artifacts in Israel. And needless to add, the many Christian visitors as well as Jews who already care about their Bibles – both Hebrew Bible and New Testament – will be eager to discover connections they can see in the land.

I don't have any particular view about what the Museum is doing, but I agree that it is a mistake to assume that secular people aren't interested in biblical subjects. No matter where I go or whom I talk with, when I mention that I work on the Dead Sea Scrolls, people are always interested.

WELCOME to the 150,000th visitor to increment PaleoJudaica's counter! The visit came at 11:11:08 PM GMT from a Google referral that leaves me pretty sure I know who the visitor was. I won't mention a name, but the service provider is in Connecticut. Drop me a note if you want to confirm who you are.

For comparison, it took from 24 March 2003 to 7 May 2004 to get the first 50,000 visitors; then to 1 February 2005 to get the next 50,000. And now less than six months more for the next 50K. That's progress!

CONSENSUS AGAIN: Mark Goodacre has a post that collects links to the discussion so far and then he adds his own comments. I agree with nearly everything he says (and his point 1 fills out nicely the point I made briefly in my first post in reply to Michael's original fourth point). But I do want to nuance Mark's reply to Joe Weaks's defense of the necessity of trusting the consensus in areas on which we are not experts:

That's a useful corrective, but I don't feel so negative. Our field is not that huge. It only feels that way because of the increasing specialisation. And this is all a good reason for post graduate students to become minor experts in as many topics as possible. After all, one has to teach across a range of subjects; some intensive course work on a given topic can persuade one of how to approach a consensus well.

In the nature of things we're stuck with increasing specialization for the foreseeable future and the only way to work around it is to keep an eye on what other people are doing and start from the consensus position, if there is one, when moving outside one's immediate research specialty either for teaching or research. We've even reached the point of specializations within specializations. It used to be that Qumran studies was a subfield of biblical studies. Now it is not only an independent field, it's one that itself contains various subfields. I can't form an expert opinion on every question in Qumran studies even though it's one of my areas of specialization. I don't have expertise at all on the archaeology and even for the texts I don't have time to do the necessary intensive study of each text to have off-the-cuff fully-informed opinions about all the problems associated with it. I just try to look at some of the secondary literature and to focus on specific problems when my research requires it. When I teach -- even honours seminars on Qumran, let alone introductory Bible classes -- I rely very frequently on consensus positions rather than my own intensive research. I expect Mark does the same. If not, my hat is off to him.

UPDATE: In an update to the same post, Mark replies, "Actually, I research everything I teach on in infinite detail and that's why I never sleep." Oh, okay. I thought he never slept because of all the blogging.

Seriously, read his whole update, which has some good advice on how to stay on top of your field. Let me add that you should be sure not to miss the beer (yes, and whiskey) drinking after the conference seminars. It may impair your judgment, but it's a good opportunity to hear experts summarize what they're thinking about current issues in the field.

Just noticed I had forgotten to link to Mark's post above. Now remedied.

A CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTION FROM SIDON:

Archaelogists [sic] discover link to Lebanon's commercial past

By Mohammed Zaatari
[Lebanon] Daily Star staff
Saturday, July 16, 2005

SIDON: Archaeologists at the "Freres" excavation site near the fortress in Sidon have unearthed a plate that holds exciting clues to Lebanon's linguistic and commercial past.

Archaeology expert and field supervisor Dr. Claude Serhal announced the discovery of a small plate with cuneiform writing dating back to the fourth century B.C. She said it is the first discovery of its kind in Sidon and the third in Lebanon. The writing proves that cuneiform was used in Sidon for trade operations, contracts, and correspondence.

According to preliminary studies by the British experts, the clay plate was made locally. It is five centimeters long and three centimeters wide and has writing on both sides. Deciphering has not yet been completed.

[...]

This is very interesting. It's unusual to find cuneiform in this region at all, and especially this late, since it was dying out in the fourth century BCE. I wonder what it says.

(Via Archaeologica News.)

DEAD SEA DISCOVERIES has a new issue out (12.2, 2005). Here's the table of contents:

Articles

4QPseudo-Daniela–b (4Q243–4Q244) and the Book of Daniel
pp. 101-133(33)
Author: DiTommaso, Lorenzo

New Fragments from Qumran: 4QGen^f, 4QIsa^b, 4Q226, 8QGen, and XQpapEnoch
pp. 134-157(24)
Authors: Eshel, Esther; Eshel, Hanan

Were the Priests all the Same? Qumranic Halakhah in Comparison with Sadducean Halakhah
pp. 158-188(31)
Author: Regev, Eyal

Gen 24:14 and Marital Law in 4Q271 3: Exegetical Aspects and Implications
pp. 189-204(16)
Author: Rothstein, David

Reconstructing and Reading 4Q416 2 ii 21: Comments on Menahem Kister's Proposal
pp. 205-211(7)
Author: Wold, Benjamin G.

Book Reviews

Also, I think I missed an earlier issue last year (11.3, 2004). Table of contents:

Articles

Reading Wisdom at Qumran: 4QInstruction and the Hodayot
pp. 263-288(26)
Author: Matthew J. Goff

More on the Qumran Roundel as an Equatorial Sundial
pp. 289-292(4)
Author: George M. Hollenback

Did John the Baptist Eat like a Former Essene? Locust-eating in the Ancient Near East and at Qumran
pp. 293-314(22)
Author: James A. Kelhoffer

Methodological Problems in Reconstructing History from Rule Texts Found at Qumran
pp. 315-335(21)
Author: Sarianna Metso

The Temple Scroll Courts Governed by Precise Times
pp. 336-358(23)
Author: Barbara Thiering

Reply to Dong-Hyuk Kim's Paper on "Tov's Qumran Orthography"
pp. 359-360(2)
Author: Emmanuel Tov

Books in Debate

Books in Debate
pp. 361-372(12)

Book Reviews

Requires a paid personal or institutional subscription to access.

ANOTHER LOOTING ARREST IN ISRAEL:

Hundreds of stolen relics found in northern home
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

Hundreds of ancient artifacts believed to have been stolen from scores of archaeological sites across the country have been found in the home of an Israeli-Arab in northern Israel, Israel's Antiquities Authority announced Sunday.

The antiquities, including coins, jewelry, and makeup utensils, have been impounded by police, said Amir Ganor, head of the Authority's anti-theft division.

[...]

There have been a number of looting arrests lately, which seems like a good sign.

THE NEW LEVITICUS SCROLL gets some thoughtful commentary in the biblioblogosphere. As noted by a number of others, Tyler Williams has a thorough analysis of photographs of two fragments. Ed Cook has some scattered thoughts. Both Tyler and Ed think the scroll is probably genuine, but Joe Weaks counsels caution. I would be cautious too. The question is, would it be cost-effective to go to the trouble of making a convincing forgery of some scroll fragments in return for $3,000? I'm not sure. The seller was asking for $20,000, which may mean he was expecting to get much more that $3,000. Would a forger and an allied middleman make (or think they would make) a good enough profit on this if it were a scam? I'm not quite willing to rule it out. It looks as though a lot of Hebrew seals and ostraca were forged (at least there are way too many of them around to be accounted for by genuine chance discoveries). How much money and efffort does it take to forge a seal, bulla, or ostracon, and how much would it take to forge such scroll fragments? How much did a forged seal or ostracon sell for? Those are the sort of question we should be asking.

I think Ed is wrong on one point:

This scroll is not very sexy (c'mon — Leviticus?), and therefore it is probably authentic. A fake scroll would have mentioned Jesus or Paul and been offered for sale to the Israel Museum for $5 million, after a breathless article touting its importance had been published in BAR. But I'm glad they're doing tests on this one.

Anything to do with the Bible is sexy and any biblical manuscript at all is very sexy. The potential market for forgeries isn't limited to Christians, and Leviticus is a foundational document for Judaism. And it might seem like a better strategy for a forger to make a quick, smaller profit on fragments of a biblical book than risk more attention and more vigorous reprisals from a faked blockbuster.

I hope the scroll is genuine, but I'm keeping an open mind right now. I do know that Hanan Eshel would not be easily fooled, so if this scroll is a forgery, it's a very good one. We'll see.

UPDATE: In an update to the same blog post, Ed Cook grants my point about the sexiness of Leviticus and adds the following:

I am wondering, though, if ancient animal skin suitable for forgery can be easily found. Other forgeries on stone, ceramic, or papyrus are less easily detectable since uninscribed ancient pieces of these materials are common. But truly ancient animal skin suitable for forgery must be rare (but I speak under correction). I agree that we should be cautious.

Agreed about the ancient animal skin, but do we know yet that the skin is ancient? It doesn't sound as though the fragments were authenticated before the sale. The seller has the money. Can he be traced if it turns out to be modern leather? How difficult is it to make modern leather look ancient?

If the leather does turn out to be ancient, I'd say it's extremely likely that the scroll is authentic. I truly hope that I'm just being a pessimist and that the tests will show this to be the case.

Ed continues:

Speaking of unauthenticated scrolls, whatever happened to the so-called "Angel Scroll"?

I e-mail Stephen Pfann in March to ask if there was any news. I did not receive a reply.

UPDATE (19 July): On the g-Megillot list Joe Zias comments on the precedent being set by paying the looter for the fragment. He is not pleased.

Also, and I just knew this was going to happen, Google is now referring people to PaleoJudaica via the search term "sexy."

A GILGAMESH PLAY AT UCLA:

UCLA Live Announces Theatre Festival Lineup (Backstage.com)

By Nicole Kristal

UCLA Live will present six compelling works at its Fourth International Theatre Festival, to take place October through December on the UCLA campus, including Los Angeles-based Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine's one-man show about a military man in Uganda infected with AIDS, French actor Isabelle Huppert's take on Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis, and Polish theatre company Song of the Goat performing a work based on The Epic of Gilgamesh. The festival is the only of its kind in Los Angeles.

[...]

The next play in the festival, Chronicles: A Lamentation, makes its West Coast debut at the festival. Described by [UCLA Performing Arts Director David] Sefton as possessing a faintly religious or ritualistic quality, the internationally award-winning piece is based on the ancient Sumerian poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and is presented by Polish theatre company Song of the Goat. Sefton booked the play after seeing the performance last summer in Edinburgh. "It's virtually impossible to describe. You could just as easily put it on the dance series. Its use of text is the way a lot of dance companies would use text. It's extremely physical," said Sefton.

The play also features a number of ethnic traditions, including numbers sung in Albanian and Greek, as well as dialogue in ancient Aramaic. "You're not meant to understand the actual spoken and sung language. It's more about the sense it conveys," said Sefton, who described the mood of the play as "wistful."

[...]

Actually, the Epic of Gilgamesh is written in Akkadian, although it is indeed based on Sumerian sources.

Albanian, Aramaic, Akkadian, Sumerian, what's the difference? Right?

NEW WORLD HERITAGE SITES IN ISRAEL: 17 have been added to UNESCO'S list this week.

The inscribed sites in Israel included three tells - prehistoric mounds that conceal layers of ancient settlement - from more than 200 such sites in Israel. Megiddo, Hazor and Beersheba all contain archeological evidence of cities with biblical significance.

Four towns along the ancient incense route were also added to the list: Haluza, Mamshit, Avdat and Shivta, along with their associated fortresses and agricultural landscapes. All are located in the Negev.

THE KEBRA NEGAST has been novelized. The novel's author, Anna Morgan, has an article from the National Post reprinted in the Sudan Tribune. Excerpt:

It was over 20 years ago that I wandered into the Ethiopian Church in Jerusalem and became interested in the connections between Ethiopia and Israel. The incredible history of two ancient kingdoms -- both known for their tremendous achievements -- intrigued me.

My interest led me many years later to the Israel Association of Ethiopian Jewry, where I met Shula Mola, one of the Beyta Yisrael. The story she told me formed the basis of my recent work of historical fiction, Daughters of the Ark.

The book begins in ancient times, when King Solomon ruled over the Israelites and Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, governed over the Ethiopian Axumite kingdom. However, the second and third parts of the novel take place in modern times.

As I wrote the book and travelled back and forth to Ethiopia, I couldn't help but wonder how a place with such a rich cultural heritage had become so poor --how a country that had once attracted immigrants was now a place that so many people were so anxious to leave.

Legends abound as to how Jews arrived in Ethiopia in the first place. Some look to an Ethiopian cultural narrative called the Kebra Negast for answers. That epic tale attributes the Jewish presence in Ethiopia to Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, who made a trip from Axum, the centre of ancient Ethiopia's great civilization, to Jerusalem, the capital of the Israelite Kingdom in 961 BCE.

A NEW DEAD SEA SCROLL! Small Hebrew fragments of Leviticus from a cave used during the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE), discovered by the Bedouin and bought by Hanan Eshel.

(Via Biblical Theology.)

UPDATE (16 July): MSNBC has more details and a photograph. This is exciting news, assuming the scroll turns out to be genuine.

MORE ON CONSENSUS: Ken Ristau at Anduril weighs in with "Bibliobloggers debate the meaning of consensus." He corrects a typo in my previous post (thanks, Ken) and dowdifies Mark Goodacre. As for his statement, "There is a general consensus among experts and non-experts that beer impairs judgment," if that's true, then judging by its annual conference, the British New Testament Society is in big trouble. And the Society of Biblical Literature isn't in great shape either.

UPDATE (16 July): Christopher Heard weighs in over at Higgaion.

UPDATE (18 July): a member of the British New Testament Society e-mails to point out that a reference to whiskey would be appropriate as well. Indeed.

MORE ARAMAIC PHILOLOGY from Ed Cook, who gives us another good instalment in his series of posts critiquing Maurice Casey's Aramaic retroversions of Mark's Greek.

NEWS FROM SINAI:

Save central Sinai (Al Ahram)

There are few locations in Egypt where evidence of Ancient Egyptian, Semitic and Nabataean culture overlap. Sinai's varied heritage should be given due consideration, says Jill Kamil

The Supreme Council of Antiquities has launched an LE10 million project to upgrade the temple of Serabit Al-Khadem and the nearby turquoise mines in Sinai for what is loosely called "safari tourism". The vagueness of the term is disquieting. "Safari" suggests excursions, either by camel caravan or four-wheel drive; "tourism" brings to mind paved roads and a visitors' centre; while upgrading a temple leads one to suspect an attempt at reconstruction -- a difficult and totally unnecessary exercise.

At this early stage, Al-Ahram Weekly appeals to the project planners to give serious consideration to minimum intervention in the Ancient Egyptian temple, limited intrusion on the environment, and to consider taking advantage of this unique opportunity to present the divergent and overlapping cultures of central Sinai.

Few places on earth have played so decisive a role in the history of mighty nations as this triangular peninsula that juts into the northern end of the Red Sea. Before the construction of the Suez Canal it provided a land-bridge to western Asia. As such it saw the passage, along the "Way of Horus", of the Pharaohs' armies to and from the Levant, the Assyrian hordes, the Persian army of Cambyses, Alexander the Great with his mercenaries, Antiochus and the Roman legions, the Arab army of 'Amr, Crusaders, and Ottoman Turks.

[...]

The article continues with a very good overview of the history and legend associated with the Sinai peninsula. Worth a read.

ANOTHER DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBIT is coming to the USA next year, this one in Seattle.

Dead Sea Scrolls set for Seattle exhibition next year

By Sandi Doughton

Seattle Times staff reporter

A portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls, considered the most important archaeological find of the 20th century, is coming to Seattle next year.

At least 10 of the ancient manuscripts will be on display at the Pacific Science Center for three months beginning in September 2006. The exhibit also will include scores of artifacts, from ink wells and coins to leather sandals, that illuminate life in the Middle East shortly before the dawn of Christianity.

"We'll tell a story, based on these historical documents and artifacts, about life 2,000 years ago," said Bryce Seidl, president and CEO of the Pacific Science Center.

[...]

The Pacific Science Center still needs to raise quite a lot of money to bring in the Scrolls. The exibit goes to San Diego after Seattle.

(Heads up, Rick Brannan.)

FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF COSMIC SYNCHRONICITIES: There are news articles today about two present-day replicas of the Tabernacle, one in Timnah Park, near Eilat, and the other in Arkansas.