HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY to Dr. Cathey's Blog!

THE COPTIC GOSPEL OF JUDAS is to be published under the auspices of the National Geographic Society, with a documentary and article planned for the spring of 2006, followed by three books. John Dart (journalist and author of a good popular book called The Jesus of Heresy and History) has an article in the Christian Century in which Charles Hedrick describes the contents:

Long-lost Gospel of Judas to be published
by John Dart

[...]

Hedrick said the last six pages of the Judas document describe a heavenly scene in which Allogenes is being tested and tried by Satan, followed by an earthly scene in which Jesus is being watched closely by scribes. At one point Judas is told, "Although you are evil at this place, you are a disciple of Jesus." The last line of the text says, according to Hedrick: "And he [Judas] took money and delivered him [Jesus] over."

So, Hedrick said, "it appears that Judas is working at the behest of God when he betrays Jesus as part of the divine plan." When translations of the Gospel of Judas are released with accompanying analyses, Hedrick expects that "there will be a lot of sensationalism, but it will dribble out, leaving only the scholars interested."

Yet, in academic and religious circles, the text may stir excitement for years, according to a scholar from the University of Ottawa. "It is a major discovery not only for Coptic, Gnostic or apocryphal studies, but also for ancient Judaism and early Christianity," said Pierluigi Piovanelli in an e-mail to colleagues in 2004 when the first plans to publish were announced.

[...]

You can read Piovanelli's original announcement here, which was available at PaleoJudaica long before the press got wind of the story. And for more on the Coptic Gospel of Judas, see these links.

MORE ON THE TIMBUKTU MANUSCRIPTS -- The Toronto Star has an article:

The treasures of Timbuktu
Wealth of words | The belief that Africa had no written history has been disproven in the fabled centre that once was a seat of Islamic scholarship
Dec. 18, 2005. 01:00 AM
JOAN BAXTER
SPECIAL TO THE STAR TIMBUKTU, MALI

Time has not been kind to this once-great centre of civilization, which in the early 1500s inspired the Spanish explorer Leo Africanus to paint a picture of a learned, cultured and peaceful place where books were the main industry, where one literally walked on "gold."

Lured by this promise of riches, European explorers tried for centuries to find Timbuktu. By the time the first ones finally arrived in the 1800s, they found a desolate desert outpost not all that different from the sand-swept town of today, with no evidence of all the fabled wealth. Hence, the Western myth about a never-never place with little to offer the world — a myth that is about to be exploded.

Today, treasures are being unearthed here that are radically changing the way the world views Timbuktu, Africa and her history. They're called the "Timbuktu manuscripts" and they disprove the myth that Africa had no written history.

While many thousands have been recovered, there are still hundreds of thousands of manuscripts hidden away in wells and mud-walled storerooms in northern Mali. Huge collections have been passed down in families over many centuries, kept out of sight for fear that European explorers, and then French colonists, would abscond with them.

"Before, all the manuscripts were kept in our homes," says Abdelkader Haidara, who has inherited his family's collection of 9,000 written works dating back to the 16th century.

"Then, in 1993, I had an idea to open a private and modern library that would be open to everyone."

Thanks to funding from an American foundation, Haidara has been able to open his Mamma Haidara library and catalogue 3,000 of the manuscripts, some of which date back to the 1100s.

[...]

There's lots of interesting information in the article. For more on the Timbuktu manuscripts and their potential relevance for ancient Judaism, see here and here.

UPDATE: Bad link fixed.

RUN, SKEPTICS, RUN!

Jesus skeptics on the run (LA Times)
• Anne Rice's latest novel relies on a biblical scholarship more trusting of the New Testament.

By Charlotte Allen, Charlotte Allen is author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus." She co-edits the InkWell blog for the Independent Women's Forum.

ANNE RICE'S "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," her novel about the boy Jesus whose family has not gotten around to telling him that he is the messiah, is a national bestseller. That's not surprising. Rice is a seasoned storyteller whose 26 previous novels on subjects ranging from vampires to sadomasochistic erotica have sold more than 75 million copies. With "Christ the Lord," she transferred her flair for the supernatural to a new market of Christian believers who share the faith she has re-embraced.

What is interesting — and portentous — is that just as "Christ the Lord" was nearing release in early September, Robert Funk, founder of the Jesus Seminar, died. The Jesus Seminar is still going strong. But Funk's death and Rice's novel constitute a kind of symbolic marker of the passing of a brand of dogmatic hyper-skepticism toward the Gospels and the rise of a new and more generous biblical scholarship that holds, contra the seminar, that the Gospels and other New Testament writings constitute virtually our only record of what Jesus said and did. These scholars contend that there is no point in trying to deconstruct the Gospels to find the "real" Jesus. They maintain there is nothing in the historical or archeolological record of the 1st century that makes the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life inherently implausible.

[...]

I think that Allen is a little hard on Funk and the Jesus Seminar, but they can't complain that they haven't asked for confrontation. I come down somewhere in the middle of this debate, insofar as I have the right to an opinion at all. I'm skeptical of the historicity of much of the material in the Gospels but I don't think that it's inherently implausible that Jesus thought of himself as a messianic redeemer and/or a divine being. Such ideas were in the air.

UPDATE (19 December): Bad link fixed.

THAT VISITOR'S CENTER AT THE WESTERN WALL PLAZA, and the objections to it by the Palestinian Authority, are covered briefly in a Jerusalem Post article:

Palestinians slam Kotel visitors' center

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

The Palestinian Authority has lambasted a new visitors' center at the Western Wall plaza.

"Israel is constructing a heritage center dedicated to show a fabricated heritage that might help them to deceive the foreign visitor into believing Jerusalem is a historical place of the Jews," an article about the new center on the Palestinian Authority's official Web site read.

[...]

MORE ON THE MEGIDDO "CHURCH" EXCAVATION, including interviews with the prisoners who are doing the digging:

Morover / Dig they must (Haaretz)

Wednesday midday, Megiddo Prison
"I found it is all mosaic floor," Yehuda Batir says in his broken Hebrew. He is 25, born in Uzbekistan, has been in Israel only two and a half years and is already serving time in Megiddo Prison for domestic violence. Now he is working there as part of a "rescue dig" organized by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), which is uncovering what turned out to be a mosaic of perhaps the oldest church ever found anywhere, dating back to the fourth century C.E.

"First I found corner," Batir continues. "I go, dig with hoe, saw here a little, 10 centimeters, and I think to myself there is something here. There was plaster, shards, no pictures. After that I saw fish and I know it is Christian."

[...]

THE TWO ANCHORS FROM THE DEAD SEA are now on display in the Israel Museum:

Dead Sea anchors were carefully designed
By MEIR RONNEN (Jerusalem

Two remarkably well-preserved wooden anchors more than two millennia old, discovered recently on the shores of the Dead Sea, are now on view opposite the book shop at the Israel Museum, on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority.

[...]

The first anchor, approximately 2,500 years old, was found where the Ein Gedi harbor was once located, and may have been used by the Jews of biblical Ein Gedi. The later anchor, some 2,000 years old, was constructed according to the best Roman technology and probably belonged to a large craft used by one of the rulers of Judea. As the sea recedes further, we may yet get to see the ship to which this anchor belonged.

[...]

The article has detailed information on the materials and construction of both anchors. The Madaba Map mosaic and a lot of ancient coins are on display with the anchor.

MORE JEWISH-TEMPLE DENIAL, this time from the International Press Center, Palestine. A reader alerts me to the article "Israel Funds Construction Acts beneath Al Aqsa Mosque at the Cost of NIS 68 Million." The relevant passage reads:

The construction works are planned to be financed by several ministries; phased over five-year period. These include propping up what is called as "Heshmonaem Tunnel" - a tunnel that passes under Al-Aqsa mosque - and building a befitting infrastructure for it, in addition to air-conditioning installation; restoration works of Al-Buraq wall, setting up additional arrival halls to receive the tourists who come to visit Al-Buraq square; constructing a heritage centre - dedicated to show a fabricated heritage that might will help them to deceive the foreign visitors into believing Jerusalem as a historical place of the Jews; building a police station; carrying out a marketing project to encourage the Jewish soldiers and students visit the Islamic holy square of Al-Buraq along with Al-Aqsa mosque.

Also, an Israeli government statement mentioned that Al-Buraq wall which is allegedly called by the Israelis as the "Wailing wall" would be part and parcel of the Jewish religious and historical heritage.

My emphasis. I've posted on the tunnel excavation here and here, and here. The recent attempts to change the name of the Western Wall to the "Buraq Wall" (at the same time claiming that it is a Muslim-era artifact rather than a wall of the Herodian Temple Platform) have been noted here and here. Pointing out the constant repetition of this nonsense gets monotonous, but I don't think it should be ignored.

MORE SAD NEWS: I am sorry to note the death today of Israeli archaeologist Ruth Amiran, mentioned by Victor Avigdor Hurowitz on the ANE list.

IN THE MAIL -- my review copy of the long awaited 1-2 Samuel DJD volume has arrived:

Frank Moore Cross et al., Qumran Cave 4 XII: 1-2 Samuel (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 17; Oxford: Clarendon, 2005)

DEFINITIONS OF "APOCALYPTIC" (WRITINGS) AND THE GENRE "APOCALYPSE" are collected by Alan S. Bandy over at Café Apocalypsis. Looks useful.

ANOTHER CELEBRATION of the 1600th anniversary of the invention of the Armenian alphabet:

Armenians Celebrate Their Letters

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN (New York Times
Published: December 13, 2005

IT'S not every day you are invited to a 1,600th birthday party, let alone one for an alphabet.

But last week, that's exactly what brought more than 200 people to a parking lot in New Milford, N.J., across the street from a CVS and a karate studio, where they huddled together in a shivering herd, clapping their mittens and whispering prayers in frosty breath to the Armenian alphabet, created in the fifth century.

The Hovnanian School, a private day school that teaches the Armenian language, held the party and celebrated the occasion by unveiling an alphabet mural. ...

Linguists say the Armenian alphabet is one of the oldest in the world that is still in use. It has proved remarkably durable, surviving a carousel of empires, vast migrations and even genocide. Armenia is a small country with a big diaspora, and its language is valued as the glue that has held the community together. Today's 38 letters vary little from the original 36, which were first brushed by an Armenian monk around A.D. 405 in order to translate the Bible.

[...]

Harvard University held a conference in honor of the anniversary in October.

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS are coming to Seattle in 2006:

Pacific Science Center to Present Dead Sea Scrolls

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 14, 2005--Pacific Science Center today announced the upcoming West Coast premiere of Discovering the Dead Sea Scrolls, opening September 23, 2006.

This major new exhibition will feature 10 of the Dead Sea scrolls, including four scrolls never before seen by the public. Also included is a collection of artifacts from the ancient settlement of Qumran near the Dead Sea, along with interactive exhibits on the science behind the excavation, conservation, and interpretation of the scrolls.

[...]

And the Seattle Post Intelligencer has more:

Tickets go on sale today for the first show of Dead Sea Scrolls in the Northwest, which will open Sept. 23 at the Pacific Science Center. Bryce Seidl, the center's president and chief executive officer, said at a news conference Wednesday he hoped 250,000 people would attend during the 105-day run.

The exhibit will feature 10 scrolls and scroll fragments. Some are biblical in nature and others are what is being called "sectarian." The biblical scrolls and fragments, which represent the earliest versions of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, concern the books of Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Psalms. A handful of facsimiles on various subjects, including the book of Deuteronomy, will also be shown.

In addition, the show will include a collection of artifacts -- mostly pottery, wooden bowls and coins -- from Qumran, the area of the Judean desert where the scrolls were found, as well as displays of the technology involved in the discovery of the scrolls, their preservation and interpretation.

And there's still more from the Seattle Times:

Among the 10 scrolls or scroll fragments to be shown in Seattle is a text that relates the fourth to sixth days of the biblical creation story, with God dividing the light from darkness and creating humankind. Another parchment describes God speaking to Moses through a burning bush. Neither scroll has been exhibited before.

The exhibit also will include manuscripts that describe life in the Middle East shortly before the birth of Jesus Christ. One is a list of rules that spell out behavior and customs among a sect that inhabited the Judean desert where the scrolls were found in 1947. Spitting on the floor was frowned upon, latrines were supposed to be a certain distance from houses, and men were exhorted to use only their left hands when urinating.

This article also tells how the exhibition was arranged.

THIS IS KIND OF FREUDIAN, but I guess the Shrine of the Book does look like one. And it was for a good cause.

ROBERT ISRAEL AUMANN, recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, has also published on game theory and the Talmud. See his articles "On the Matter of the Man with Three Wives" [PDF file] (Paper 46, updated and revised [I think from a 1985 original - JRD] for the Rabbinic public), Moriah 22, 3-4, Tevet 5759 (January 1999): 98-107 (in Hebrew) and "Risk Aversion in The Talmud," Economic Theory 21 (2003): 233-239. (From his full list of publications here.)

FEMALE SCRIBES aren't any easier to find than female bibliobloggers, but Aviel Barclay-Rothschild is one (a scribe, that is), and she also has a blog: Netivat Sofrut: diary of a Soferet. I have no idea if she would want to be known as a biblioblogger, but she certainly talks about the Bible and also posts samples of her own biblical scrolls. She has a post on medieval female scribes here.

(Via Manuscript Boy, who has more on female scribes at Hagahot. He also has some good thoughts on the limits of the contribution of manuscripts to scholarship. Read the comments too.)

M. R. JAMES was a remarkably prolific and varied writer. He was a major contributor to the field of biblical apocrypha and pseudepigrapha in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He also wrote and published good ghost stories. Now Rick Brannan has run across another James work that is new to me:

Old Testament Legends: Being Stories Out of Some of the Less-Known Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament

This is republished online in Project Gutenburg's "plain vanilla text" format. The book appears to be a collection of stories from various Old Testament pseudepigrapha retold for children. Here's the table of contents:

ADAM
THE DEATH OF ADAM AND EVE
ABRAHAM
THE STORY OF ASENETH, JOSEPH'S WIFE
JOB
SOLOMON AND THE DEMONS
THE STORY OF EBEDMELECH THE ETHIOPIAN, AND OF THE DEATH OF JEREMIAH
AHIKAR

There's also a zip file with the full text of the book, page by page (the image quality is not great), and all of the illustrations. Here, for example, is "EPHIPPAS AND THE DEMON OF THE RED SEA BRING THE GREAT PLLLAR TO SOLOMON," a scene from the Testament of Solomon chapter 24:



Cool stuff. You can also read James's ghost stories online (again, through Project Gutenburg) here and here. And another seminal work of his is also online: The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament (noted here on PaleoJudaica a while ago). And see the first link in this post for still more. Plus Ed Cook has more yet in this Ralph post from some time ago.

I'VE UPDATED Saturday's Paul Mirecki post yesterday and this morning, and will continue to do so for a while as the situation develops.

ASSIMILATED TO THE BLOGOSPHERE: Here's a fairly new Brazilian blog, Observatório Bíblico, run by Professor Airton José da Silva. Welcome!

RABBINICS CONFERENCE: The Institute for the Study of Rabbinic Thought at Robert M. Beren College, Beit Morasha of Jerusalem, is holding its Eighth International Conference on Rabbinic Thought on Monday – Thursday, December 26-29, 2005. It will take place at the Kiryat Moriah Campus, 3 Ha'Askan, Jerusalem. Email: hazal@bmj.org.il; website: http://www.bmj.org.il. The program is as follows:

Monday, December 26th

9:30 Chaim Milikowsky (Bar-Ilan U.), Chair

Prof. Benjamin Ish-Shalom (Rector, Beit Morasha), Greetings

Prof. Moshe D. Herr (Hebrew U.), A Hundred Years of the Study of Rabbinic Thought: Problems, Achievements, Challenges

Prof. Rabbi David Weiss-Halivni (Columbia U.), Talmudic Research and the Breaking of the Vessels

12:00 Prof. Shlomo Naeh (Hebrew U.), Chair

Prof. Menahem Kahana (Hebrew U.), Numerological Consideration in the Study of Rabbinic Literature

Rabbi Dr. Benjamin Lau (Beit Morasha), On the Possibility of Biographical Study of Rabbinic Literature

14:00 Prof. Leib Moscowitz (Bar-Ilan U.), Chair

Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber (Bar-Ilan U.), Fundamental Ethical Values in Halakha

Dr. Cana Werman (Ben-Gurion U.), Contemplations on the development of Halakha

Rabbi Dr. Yehuda Brandes (Beit Morasha), Aggadic and Halakhic Representations of Levirate Marriage

Tuesday, December 27th

10:00 Prof. Jonah Frankel (Hebrew U.), Chair

Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein (Beit Morasha), The Two-Powers Polemic: The Textual Evidence

Prof. Yaakov Elman (Yeshiva U.), Theological Dialogue in Amoraic Babylonia

Prof. Steven Fine (Yeshiva U.), Jewish and Samaritan Houses of Study and Synagogues in Late Antiquity

12:45

Prof. Aharon Shemesh (Bar-Ilan U.), Punishment in Qumran and the Beginnings of Midrash

Ms. Avital C. Hochstein and Prof. Hanna Safrai (Hartman Inst.), Inclusion and Exclusion of Women in Halakhic Midrash of the Type “Ein Li Ela”

Dr. Noam Zohar (Bar-Ilan U.), From the Biblical Mishpatim to Mishnah Tractate Nezikin: Two conceptual Schemes -- One Adopted, One Rejected

20:00

Gala Evening in honor of Rabbi Dr. Yehuda Brandes's book, Applied Aggada

At Heikhal Shlomo, 58 King George St., Jerusalem



Wednesday, December 28th

9:30

Prof. Avigdor Shinnan (Hebrew U.), The Sources of Rabbi Akiba’s Wealth in the Aggada

Dr. Joshua Levinson (Hebrew U.), Stories of Confrontation Stories between Rabbis and Witches

Dr. Reuven Kipperwasser, “A King who Invited Guests” Parables

12:00

Prof. Menahem Fish (Tel-Aviv U.), Religious Polemics and the Prayer Controversy

Dr. Uri Erlich (Ben-Gurion U.), Prayer in Rabbinic Literature: A Developing Database

Prof. Shamma Friedman (Bar-Ilan U.), Innovation and Progress of The Saul Lieberman Institute’s Database of Textual Witnesses: Images of Fragments

Thursday, December 29th

10:00 Prof. Albert Baumgarten (Bar-Ilan U.), Chair

Prof. Marc Hirshman (Hebrew U.), Concepts of the Election of Israel in Rabbinic Thought

Ms. Yifat Monnickendam (Bar-Ilan U.), The Polemic over Resurrection of the Dead in Rabbinic Thought and the Church Fathers

Prof. Harry Fox (U. of Toronto), Socio-Linguistics as Identification of Status in Rabbinic Thought

13:00

Prof. Yair Lorberboim (Bar-Ilan U.), Holiness and Imitatio Dei in Tanaitic Thought

Rabbi Dr. Oded Yisraeli (Ben-Gurion U.), The Zohar of the Aggada