STAND UP FOR HEROD! A site called "Anarkismo.net" has published an essay by Uri Cohen which offers us some more Herod revisionism. Cohen seems to want to rehabilitate Herod the Great and even to draw an analogy between him and the current president of the Palestinian Authority.

Stand up, stand up for Herod!
by Uri Cohen - 21st Century Socialism Thursday, Dec 28 2006, 3:41pm
uri.cohen@portman-aptus.com phone: UK 07968-859-322
mashriq / arabia / iraq / history / non anarchist press

Ancient Palestine

It is a seasonal story of ancient Palestine: the Arab Jewish king, the suicidal religious militants, the re-invention of God and the abolition of Jerusalem. The historical truth is both stranger and more familiar than the tales in the Gospel. It is a sound historical analysis of Palestine 37-4 BC.

Stand up, stand up for Herod!
A seasonal story of ancient Palestine: the Arab Jewish moderate king, the suicidal religious militants, the re-invention of God and the abolition of Jerusalem. The historical truth is both stranger and more familiar than the tales in the Gospel.

King Herod the Great, who ruled Palestine from 37 to 4 BC, is vilified by both Jewish and Christian traditions. Like more recent Palestinian leaders, King Herod enjoyed relative autonomy under the menacing shadow of the world’s most powerful empire and its brutal army of occupation. Like the current Palestinian president, King Herod was politically undermined by popular religious militants. The ancient Jewish fundamentalists denounced Herod as a Roman imperialist puppet and a corrupt heathen ruler.

But why stand up for Herod? Partly, for the sake of historical truth. For example, Herod’s massacre of the innocents as described in the Gospel of Mathew – which is the main thing that people today ‘know’ about the much-maligned monarch - certainly never happened. The event is not mentioned in any other contemporaneous account and cannot be reconciled with the date on which we are told that Jesus was born.

[...]

Yes, the story in Matthew doesn't have any verification and is generally taken to be a legend. But it's not correct that the supposed date of the event is irreconcilable with the date of Jesus' birth, since we don't actually know exactly when Jesus was born. It's true that it's widely recognized that if Herod was still around when Jesus was born, Jesus must have been born before Herod's death, which is generally taken to have been 4 BCE. But if the massacre of Bethlehem story is legendary, any connection of Jesus' birth with the reign of Herod becomes tenuous. Luke does place the conception of John the Baptist in Herod's day (1:5], but his chronology of Jesus' birth has its own problems.

Monotheism, the cult of the single invisible god, was imposed on the Jerusalem city-state by the Zoroastrian Persian Empire, at around 500 BC. The Persian invaders installed a priestly aristocracy who set out to merge a number of pagan deities into a single male god: called Jehovah. To achieve this spiritual task, the Jerusalem priesthood reformed the old Palestinian gods and goddesses.

In Palestine, the pagan pantheon of deities was dominated by the male god Jehovah and his female consort, the goddess Ashera, and another prominent male god El or Elion and his female consort Eilat. The Jerusalem monotheists divorced the female goddesses from their husbands, banishing the female side of godliness and violently repressing all female cults. Then the monotheists set about merging the remaining male gods into a single male, invisible, macho and homicidal God. This single God was called either Jehovah or Elohim (the Hebrew plural for Gods).

[...]

In 37 BC Palestine, Herod inherited a kingdom that was beset by social and religious strife. While maintaining the authority of the priestly aristocracy, Herod tried to rule in name of all Palestinians.

He was later vilified by Jews and Christians for tolerating pagan communities and promoting religious freedom. Herod was an Arab leader with a strong Jewish faith, who ruled in a secular way - he could perhaps teach current Arab and Jewish politicians a trick or two. But above all he had to please imperial Rome and its insatiable appetite for material tribute, new highways, forts, conscript armies and mineral riches.

[...]

Was Herod an Arab? One can make that case. He was three-quarters Nabatean (his mother was Nabatean and his father Idumean but with a Nabatean mother), but culturally he was Idumean. The Nabateans were an Arabian ethnic group that spoke an Arabic dialect originally, but adopted Aramaic language and culture, at least in educated circles. The Idumeans, however, were not Arabians; they were descendants of the Edomites, an ethnic group that spoke a Northwest Semitic dialect (i.e, closely related to Hebrew, Aramaic, and Phoenician) in the Iron Age II and had a polytheistic religion that included the worship of a god called Qaus. The surviving Idumean inscriptions in the Persian and Hellenistic periods are in Aramaic. (See here and here.) The Idumeans were forcibly converted to Judaism in the Hasmonean period and from that point on they seem to have considered themselves Jews.

So Herod was genetically three-quarters Arabian and presumably was exposed to some Nabatean language and culture from his mother, but he himself was vigorously committed to Judaism. There is no cultural or religious continuity between the polytheistic Nabateans of Herod's time and modern Palestianian Arabs, but some of the latter surely transmit some Nabatean genetic material, and modern Palestinians speak a variant dialect (coming from Islamic Arabia) of the language that the Nabateans originally spoke. Add all that up as you will. (For more on such questions, see here.)

As to Herod's personality and rule, whether or not Matthew's story of the slaughter of the innocents is true, it's typical enough of the sort of thing he might have done. (More on that here). By the standards of his own time he may not have been as bad as he looks to us, but he was nothing to be proud of. As despots go, he accomplished more than some, but I think a little standing up for Herod goes a long way.

Also, I'm a bit baffled by this "Jehovah" business. The name Jehovah is an erroneous form created accidentally by Christian Hebraists who didn't know that the vowels added to the name YHWH in the Masoretic text were meant to indicate that the name should be read as "Adonay," "My Lord." The name Jehovah never existed in antiquity, and it's odd to see it used repeatedly in an article that is so concerned with giving the true story of Second Temple era history. Incidentally, the origin of the word Elohim is messy, but is probably something like the following. It is actually a singular abstract noun formation rather than a plural and means "divinity" (cf. Hebrew Ne(uRiM [נערים], meaning the quality "youth"). Because its ending coincidentally resembles the masculine plural noun ending, it secondarily became the plural of the word El, "god" as well, which makes for some ironic confusion.

Otherwise, the essay presents an anti-Zionist, revisionist reading of the history of the Second Temple period. This is kind of interesting but it contains a good bit of wild speculation (e.g., the claim that monotheism was imposed by the Persian Empire or the confidently reconstructed polytheistic cults of Yahweh/Asherah and El/Elyon/Eilat).

Cohen appears to be inviting modern Palestinian Arabs to claim Herod as one of their own. I suppose they can have him if they want him. His Judaism credentials are debatable too and I don't imagine many Jews would mind sharing him. But the historical links to modern Palestinians are tenuous and the historical analogy to the present strikes me as weak. Be that as it may, if Palestinians want to adopt Herod, they will need to accept the existence of the Second Jewish Temple, whose renovation and rebuilding was his greatest achievement.

UPDATE (31 December): Reader E.K. e-mails:

On the subject of Herod's Arab background (and evaluation in early Judaism), it is worthy to note a stream of exegesis that saw in Herod the fulfillment of either Daniel 9:24-27, Genesis 49:10, or both (attested in Eusebius, Epiphanius, Slavonic Josephus, with echoes in Justin Martyr and Julius Africanus), which William Adler regarded as having an earlier Jewish provenance ("The Apocalyptic Survey of History Adapted by Christians: Daniel's Prophecy of 70 Weeks," by William Adler, published in The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in Early Christianity, 1996). In this reading, Herod would be the prophesied Gentile who would take the scepter of Judah away and/or come "to destroy the city and sanctuary". The Herodian interpretation of these scriptures would have then survived in Christian exegesis for some time.

EPHRAIM ISAAC cites the Ethiopic book of Enoch in an interview on the Ethiopic calendar:

Ethiopia: Scholar Says Ethiopian Calendar Neither Gregorian Nor Julian

The Ethiopian Herald (Addis Ababa)

December 29, 2006
Posted to the web December 29, 2006

ENA
Addis Ababa

A renowned Ethiopian born U.S scholar, Prof. Ephraim Isaac said that the Ethiopian calendar is unique in that it belongs neither to the Julian, nor to the Gregorian calendars.

He also said that close to 2,000 African-Americans living in the U.S have been organizing themselves to come to Ethiopia for the celebration of the New Ethiopian Millennium.
Oracle Content & Collaboration

Prof. Ephraim who is Director of the Institute of Semitic Studies in the United States, said that most scholars, including himself, believe Ethiopia has retained the old Egyptian system of calendar.

[...]

In addition to Mestehafe-Hissab, the professor said, there is a very famous book called, Mestehafe-henok, (The Book of Enoch) which is found only in Ethiopia with chapters that deals with some calculation of the years.

[...]

He's referring to the Astronomical Book, which was originally a separate and longer work, but now is found in chapters 72-82 of 1 Enoch. Extensive fragments of the original Aramaic Astronomical Book were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

INTERACTIVE MACCABEES FOR CHILDREN:

‘MACCABEES’ (Sunday through Thursday) Courtesy of a time machine (bet you didn’t know Brooklyn had one), children 5 and older can journey back to ancient Judea and experience the Hanukkah story as an interactive tour. (Through Jan. 7.) Sunday at noon, 1, 2:30 and 4 p.m.; Mondays through Thursdays at 12:30, 1:30, 3 and 4:30 p.m., at the Jewish Children’s Museum, 792 Eastern Parkway, at Kingston Avenue, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, (718) 467-0660, jcm.museum; $10; $15 includes museum admission. (NYT)

MUSSOLINI'S VILLA -- the one with the ancient Jewish catacombs underneath -- is back in the news. The Times of London has an article on its reopening to the public, but I don't see anything new in it.

Mussolini's Roman villa restored to glory
Paul Bompard, Rome
# Il Duce paid rent of one lira a month
# Interior ruined by Allies then vandals

The magnificent historic villa that was the home of Benito Mussolini when he was the all-powerful Duce of Italy has been reopened to the public after nearly 30 years of restoration.

The nine buildings and gardens of the Villa Torlonia, which were largely built in the 19th century by the Torlonia princes of the Vatican aristocracy, will now house an art museum dedicated to the Roman school of 20th-century painting.

The complex will also house a high-tech playground and a museum of the Holocaust, dedicated to the 2,000 Jews who were deported from Rome during the German occupation of 1943-44.

[...]

n 1919 it was discovered that the villa stood over an underground Jewish cemetery from the Ancient Roman period, and its main chamber, richly decorated, can now be visited.

After languishing for decades, the buildings and the gardens, set in peaceful tree-lined avenues with ornamental pools and fountains, are once more fully open to visitors.

VIN DIESEL'S HANNIBAL MOVIE is still in the works:

Diesel follows trend for dead languages with film in Punic
By Jonathan Brown (The Independent)
Published: 27 December 2006

For film students with a passion for archaic languages awaiting the release of Mel Gibson's bloodcurdling Mayan adventure Apocalypto next week, 2007 could prove to be something of a vintage year.

Following in the footsteps of the controversial star comes another movie tough guy with the desire to be treated as a serious artist.

Vin Diesel is hoping to replicate the success of Gibson's Aramaic-language film The Passion of the Christ and to a lesser extent the Yucatec Maya-scripted Apocalypto by starting production of his own adaptation of the life of Hannibal Barca in the original Punic.

The Hollywood rumour mill has been abuzz with talk of the forthcoming historical epic for months. But many have dismissed as little more than a bad joke suggestions of Diesel recreating the life of the man considered by many to be the greatest military strategist of all time.

However, the shaven-headed star with the gym-buffed physique insists that he is deadly serious. Having recruited the same academic who translated Passion for Gibson, he spent much of this year scouting Spain for suitable locations. Diesel has said that he will direct and star in Hannibal the Conqueror, which is expected to go on general release in 2008.

[...]

For more on Diesel's Hannibal project, see here and follow the links. And on a related note, this month's Archaeology Magazine has an article on Hannibal (abstract here).

GNOSTICISM SCHOLAR MARVIN MEYER has given a lecture on The Gospel of Judas at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles.

A FEW MORE ITEMS from Joseph I. Lauer's list in recent days:

First, from CNN: " Shortcuts: How to make it as an archaeologist"

An unflinching look at the profession. Excerpt:

Even Howard Carter, whose discovery, in 1922, of the tomb of Tutankhamun made him one of the few archaeologists ever to attain the status of international celebrity, endured decades of unrecognized penury before eventually hitting the big time (at one point he was so poor he was reduced to producing sketches for tourists to fund his work). If you are not utterly obsessed with the subject, to the exclusion of all else, then archaeology is probably not for you.

Second, Lauer writes the following:

The Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies has scheduled a very interesting program for its 12th Annual Meeting to be held at Bar-Ilan University on Thursday, December 28, 2006. The subject is "New Studies on Jerusalem"
Following is the English version of the day-long program.
I have also received the program in Hebrew and have it in Word document form. I would be happy to forward it to any interested person. [His e-mail address is josephlauer at hotmail dot com if you want to contact him.]

**************************************

The Ingeborg Rennert Center, The Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, The Faculty of Jewish Studies, Bar-Ilan University
in cooperation with:
The Center for the Study of the Land of Israel,
the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Jerusalem District

Invite you to
The 12th Annual Meeting of
the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies
"NEW STUDIES ON JERUSALEM"

8:45 gathering
9:00 opening remarks:
Prof. M. Orpali, Dean of the Faculty of Jewish Studies, Bar-Ilan University
Prof. J. Schwartz, Director of the Ingeborg Rennert Cetner for Jerusalem Studies

Session 1 – 9:15- 10:45
Chair: Joshua Schwartz

Avraham Faust
Jerusalem's Countryside during the Middle Bronze Age
Eilat Mazar
The Fortifications of Jerusalem in the Second Millennium BCE in Light of the New Excavations in the City of David
Gabriel Barkay
An Ancient Hebrew Weight from the Temple Mount
Boaz Zissu
A "Vanished Settlement" from the Iron Age: Excavations near the “Cave of the Ramban”, Upper Qidron Valley, Jerusalem

Session 2 - 11:15- 12:45
Chair: Moshe Fischer

Joseph Patrich
The Location of the Second Temple - A New Proposal
Orit Peleg
Architectural Decoration from Judea during the Second Temple Period in Light of the Finds from Jerusalem
Eyal Regev
The Ritual Baths Near the Temple Mount: What Were They Used For?
Yehoshua Peleg
The Meaning of the Word "Xystos" in the Writings of Josephus
Discussion

Lunch Break

Session 3 - 14:00 15:50
Chair: David Adan-Bayewitz

Ronny Reich and Guy Bar-Oz
The Jerusalem City Dump in the Late Second Temple Period: A Quantitative Study
Ehud Weiss, Ram Bouchnik, Guy Bar-Oz and Ronny Reich
A Dump Near the Temple? Two Difficulties Regarding the City Dump Adjacent to the Second Temple
Ram Bouchnik, Guy Bar-Oz and Ronny Reich
Faunal Remains from the Late Second Temple Period: A View from the Village of Burnat and Jerusalem City Dump Assemblages
Emmanuel Friedheim
Jerusalem in the Light of Greek and Roman Authors
Leah Di Segni
Epigraphic Finds Reveal New Chapters in the History of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Sixth Century.
Discussion

Break

Session 4: 16:20- 17:40
Chair Shimon Dar

Yuval Shahar
Was There a Civilian Settlement in Jerusalem between the Two Jewish Revolts?
Amos Kloner
New Dating for the Eastern Cardo of Aelia Capitolina
Ben-Zion Rosenfeld
The Attitude of the Sages toward Jerusalem after the Bar-Kochba Revolt
Oded Shay
The Museums and the Zoological Collections in Jerusalem in Late Ottoman Palestine
Discussion

The conference proceedings (app. 180 pp. including 2 articles in English and 17 in Hebrew, with English abstracts) will be on sale during the conference

For additional information, please contact the Ingeborg Rennert Center (jrslm1@mail.biu.ac.il) or Avi Faust (fausta@mail.biu.ac.il)

And finally, this IAA press release:

The Beit Ha-Kerem Neighborhood in Jerusalem: An Attractive Place in Antiquity Also (December 10, 2006)

In excavations being conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Beit Ha-Kerem neighborhood of Jerusalem, an archaeological site that was hitherto unknown is currently being uncovered. The site is situated in the heart of the built-up neighborhood and the remains there indicate that throughout a number of periods in antiquity the place was considered a desirable location to live in. In the excavations remains were exposed that date to the First Temple, Second Temple, Byzantine and Mamluk periods.
The Israel Antiquities Authority is carrying out a salvage excavation following the discovery of archaeological remains in a lot slated for construction on Ha-Satat Street in the Beit Ha-Kerem neighborhood of Jerusalem. So far remains from four periods were discovered: the end of the First Temple period (8th -7th centuries BCE), end of the Second Temple period (1st century BCE-1st century CE), Byzantine period (4th-7th centuries CE) and Mamluk period (14th-15th centuries CE).

In one of the excavation areas a cave was revealed that housed an olive oil extraction plant comprised of two phases. The first phase of the installation dates to the Byzantine period. The remains from this period include an especially large stone that was used as a press-bed for a screw-operated olive press from which the oil flowed into an adjacent collecting vat. In the second phase, in the Mamluk period, the floor of the cave was paved with flagstones that also covered the Byzantine press-bed and the collecting vat. Another press installation that was probably operated with weights was made in place of them. The press-bed and collecting vat of this later installation were preserved. A large stone memmel, used for crushing the olives prior to pressing them, was found in the cave.

In the second area a trial excavation was conducted in order to ascertain what antiquities exist there. Another large cave was discovered by chance in which there was a large concentration of masonry stones and numerous fragments of pottery vessels, glass vessels and tesserae from the Byzantine period.

In the excavations that were carried out along the edge of the lot numerous pottery sherds from the end of the First Temple period were discovered on the bedrock surface thus attesting to the presence of a settlement there or in the surrounding area during this period. Two hewn shafts were also exposed from which fragments of pottery vessels were recovered that date to the time of the Hasmonean dynasty (1st century BCE).

Ya’akov Billig, director of the excavations on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said, “If in the future additional excavations are conducted in the open areas that remain nearby we may learn more about the nature of the settlement that was here during the different periods”.

NORMAN GOLB takes the Seattle Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit to task for its bias in favor of the Essene hypothesis. For more on Golb and his theory see here.

(Via the Agade list and Joseph I. Lauer.)

SEAN KINGSLEY, the author of God's Gold: The Quest for the Lost Temple Treasure of Jerusalem (see earlier comments here and here) is interviewed by ABC National Radio.

(Via Explorator.)

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all those celebrating.

THE ANGEL METATRON has taken up professional wrestling in Mexico:

12/10 – Arena Coliseo de Guadalajara
1. Estrella de Jalisco & Exterminador beat Destroyer & Frayle de la Muerte by DQ when Frayle fouled Estrella.
2. Infierno/Magnum/Mr. Trueno defeated Golden/Idolo/Metal Blanco
3. Metatron beat Rey Trueno by DQ when Mr. Trueno ran in. Everyone else in the previous match also got involved and it was decided that there would be a steel cage match on Sunday where all 8 men would put up their masks.
4. Fabian el Gitano/Tigre Blanco/Tigre Metalico defeated Angel Blanco Jr./Hijo del Pierroth/Toxico
5. Dr. Wagner Jr./Gallo/Rey Bucanero beat Averno/Mephisto/Ultimo Guerrero

My emphasis.

NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA WATCH: In the Sunday Times, Peter Stanford has some mostly sensible observations on the New Testamet Apocrypha, largely in response to Robert Beckford's BBC4 program The Secret Family of Jesus. (I haven't seen this show yet, but Grant Macaskill has lent me a video of it and I hope to get to it during the break.) Excerpt:

So, the alternative versions really have the capacity to set pulses racing only if the Gospels in the New Testament are labelled as gospel truth. The church certainly used to label them as such. When I was growing up Catholic in the 1970s, children were strongly dissuaded from reading the Bible. We needed, we were told, a priest to interpret it for us. Just in case we came across awkward elements such as Mary’s other children.

But the reality today, as even a Jesuit professor from the Vatican’s Bible Institute admits on screen in The Secret Family of Jesus, is that the church long ago ceased to claim that every word and detail in the New Testament is sacrosanct. If you want to dispute almost any item of church teaching or dogma, you can find plenty of evidence in the Gospels we already have in the Bible to back you up. Christianity, for instance, is infamously uptight about sex, but Jesus utters scarcely a word about it in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.

This is not to say that the Apocrypha are not fascinating, tantalising and useful for building a more accurate picture about the circumstances and the factions that surrounded Jesus and the movement that turned his memory into a global force. But we need to be more precise about what they are and what they aren’t. What irks about Beckford’s presentation, therefore, is the underlying claim that, because more gospels have suddenly turned up, we can bin the ones we’ve already got. That is as manipulative of the truth as the early church fathers. Or even Dan Brown.

This is more or less what I've been saying and what any specialist in Christian origins will tell you: the New Testament Apocrypha generally tell us nothing about the time of Jesus, but are full of fascinating information about notions and controversies in early Christianity from about the second century on. The possible exception is the Gospel of Thomas, which may contain some early and useful information about the sayings of Jesus, but even this is contested.

One other point is worth a comment:

When David Jenkins, the erstwhile Bishop of Durham, caused headlines back in 1984 by questioning the literal truth of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection of Jesus, it was pointed out that he was only saying publicly what had been discussed in the common rooms of theological colleges for decades, some of it influenced by the Gnostic gospels, which often make no mention of Jesus rising from the dead.

I'm not sure which specific texts Stafford has in mind, but there aren't any apocryphal gospels that teach that Jesus was just a good man who died and that was the end of it.

PALEOJUDAICA is profiled briefly in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (January/February 2007). The article is entitled "Archaeology Enters the Blogosphere," but, ironically, the text is not given online. But I'm grateful for the publicity in any case. Welcome to any new readers who have found this blog through the BAR piece.

(Heads-up, G. R. Grena.)

ANOTHER REVIEW of Geza Vermes's new book, The Nativity: History and Legend, has appeared in the London Times. Excerpt:

In sum, it becomes evident, from Vermes’s account, that Matthew and Luke manipulated quotations from earlier texts, invented episodes and elaborated upon earlier myths to provide compelling narratives of Christ’s birth. Few people will be surprised or offended by his conclusions.

The “facts”, as we may call them, are not new. German biblical scholarship of the 19th century effectively dismissed the scriptures as documents of unimpeachable accuracy. But they are the next best thing. They are works of genius. They have enshrined the mystery, and the majesty, of Incarnation. There may not have been a star, or a flock, or gold, or frankincense, or myrrh. But they constitute the power of a compelling narrative that remains, for many millions of people, the source of inspiration and of comfort. That, in itself, is perhaps worth celebrating in this period of the year.

ARAMAIC WATCH -- Aramaic in Minnesota:

In Jesus' language

Aramaic, the ancient Middle Eastern tongue, is kept alive in churches in the Twin Cities.

By Jean Hopfensperger, [Minneapolis] Star Tribune

Last update: December 23, 2006 – 12:51 AM

The Rev. Rodrigue Constantin belongs to a rare group of Minnesotans who can carry on a conversation in Aramaic, the language believed to have been spoken by Jesus 2,000 years ago.

When he consecrates the bread during his Christmas services, Constantin's words, "Ho no den ee tow faghro deel," will carry an added authenticity, because this is how Jesus would have told his disciples: "This is my body."I find that people are really fascinated by the language; there's a mysterious aspect to it," said Constantin, of Holy Family Maronite Catholic Church in St. Paul. "There's a historic thread starting 2,000 years ago that has reached me."

He is among roughly 100 people in Minnesota who can order loaves and fishes -- or lefse and lutefisk -- in Aramaic. They are mainly immigrants from small Christian communities in southeastern Turkey, one of a few pockets of the Middle East where a dialect of Aramaic remains a living language.

Aramaic also lives on in Minnesota as a liturgical language, used during church services at Holy Family and St. Maron Catholic Church in Minneapolis.

[...]

Downstairs in the church social hall, Susan Youmes is having breakfast with her husband. The daughter of the Cans, she's among the next generation of Aramaic speakers, and proud of it. Listening to Aramaic prayers and songs in church, she says, "brings something to your heart."When I watched 'The Passion of the Christ,' I didn't have to read the subtitles," boasted the young mother from Burnsville.

Language of cinema

That comment brings a smile to the Rev. William Fulco, a Jesuit priest and Aramaic scholar who translated the dialogue in Mel Gibson's movie from English into the ancient language. He also was an adviser to producers of "The Nativity Story," released this month.

Syriac, the Aramaic dialect that Youmes and the Cans speak, is the modern language closest to what Jesus would have spoken, said Fulco, a professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

[...]

Well, maybe, but it's not all that close. Jesus spoke first-century Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, which was a Western dialect. Syriac is an Eastern dialect that was spoken somewhat later in Edessa (in modern-day Turkey) and which became the standardized language of the Eastern, Aramaic-speaking Church. The two dialects are not all that similar, although speakers of one Aramaic dialect can generally get the gist of what's being said in another Aramaic dialect.

THE PERSECUTION OF IRAQ'S RELIGIOUS MINORITIES has now (at last) been the subject of testimony to Congress:

Nina Shea Testifies Before Congress on Behalf of Iraq's Assyrians and Other Minorities
Posted GMT 12-22-2006 21:56:15

(AINA) -- The following testimony of Nina Shea, Director Center For Religious Freedom, was delivered on December 21 Before The US Congressional Committee On International Relations, Subcommittee On Africa, Global Human Rights, And International Operations.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, for allowing me to testify today on behalf of the Center for Religious Freedom.

Chairman Chris Smith has been a dedicated and passionate leader on human rights for many years, and I wish to commend him for all the important hearings held under his chairmanship in this subcommittee. They have held governments around the world accountable, including our own, and given hope and relief to millions of the world's oppressed. This hearing today is no exception.

Egregious religious persecution occurs in North Korea, Saudi Arabia, China, Vietnam, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan and several other countries officially designated by the State Department as "Countries of Particular Concern," and is being addressed by the other witnesses today. There is an additional country where religious groups of various faiths face some of the bloodiest persecution in the world today, a country that is not listed among the CPC's. It is Iraq, and it is on this country, and particularly on the persecution faced by Iraq's smallest, most vulnerable minorities, that I will direct my testimony.

We should view Iraq's smallest religious minorities -- the Christians, Yizidis, Mandeans, Baha'is, Kaka'i and Jews -- as we once did Soviet Jews. The persecution these small minorities face stands out against even the horrific violence now wracking the rest of the population. This is demonstrated by the stark statistic that an estimated half of the members of the small minorities have been driven from their homes in the past two or three years, either to other parts of the country or abroad. Their very survival as communities within Iraq is now threatened by what amounts to ethnic, or rather cultural, cleansing. The State Department's Religious Freedom Reports accurately depicts a defenseless non-Muslim population that is being pounded by all other factions. Al Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, Kurdish militants, and criminal gangs all persecute and prey on these small religious minorities.

[...]

Read it all.

UPDATES: I've posted a number of updates and corrections to posts from the last week, so scroll down and have a look.

KYLIE MINOGUE AND GNOSTIC APOCRYPHA? There is a connection, albeit indirect:

Can't get her out of his head

* Helping Kylie Minogue with choreography is just one of Akram Khan's unlikely collaborations, writes Clifford Bishop
* December 21, 2006 (The Australian)

DURING her long and incomparably pert career, Kylie Minogue has provoked some powerful responses in a wide variety of men, but it's a safe bet that no other straight man has responded in quite the same way as the Anglo-Bangladeshi dancer and choreographer Akram Khan. "It was like looking into a mirror at my ideal self," he says. "An image of what I would like to be. The kind of honest, humble human being that I just didn't expect."

Remarkably, he seemed to have just as profound an effect on her. They met this summer, when Khan was working with a different kind of diva, the imperious French ballerina Sylvie Guillem, on a show called Sacred Monsters. Khan, trained from the age of seven in the Indian kathak style of dance, and Guillem, who was even younger than that when she realised ballet would be her life, had grown up immersed in rigorous classical traditions and wanted to explore their feelings of being liberated and, strangely, profaned as they broadened their horizons. "Kylie came to a rehearsal," Khan says, "and afterwards we talked for hours. She was really moved." It was only a matter of months since Minogue's doctors had told her she was cured of the breast cancer that had been diagnosed in 2005. "She told me about coming through that," he recalls, "of how it felt like a second chance and made her want to do something more spiritual."

So, instead of the slow, therapeutic build-up she had planned to her tour, the singer threw herself into two gruelling weeks of learning dance routines based on kathak. ...

This year, he collaborated with minimalist composer Steve Reich. Next year gets even odder. He is creating a piece with the National Ballet of China and collaborating with Juliette Binoche on a two-handed play called Gnosis, loosely inspired by the same apocrypha as The Da Vinci Code.

"It's based on the idea that the body contains all the knowledge you will ever need," he says, "and the goal of your life is to find it. It looks as if I'm diversifying, but I think I started scattered and now, in a funny way, I'm moving towards my beginning, becoming what I want to be." So, in light of what he said earlier, does that mean he's turning into Kylie Minogue? To Khan's infinite credit, whether as an actor or as a human being, when he says "I hope so", you don't doubt him for a minute.

My emphasis. No word on whether Kylie might be cast as Eve. Or Sophia.

MORE ON THE QUMRAN LATRINE from Haaretz:

The hidden latrines of the Essenes
By Ran Shapira

[...]

The resemblance between the 1st century historian's testimony and the content of the Dead Sea Scrolls does not end with the law forbidding spitting into the center of a circle. Magen Broshi, former curator of the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem, where the Qumran scrolls are housed, says there are dozens of parallels between Josephus' writing and the content of the scrolls. One of the main similarities regards purification rituals and the Essenes' meticulous hygiene.

Anthropologist Joe Zias, of the Hebrew University Science and Archaeology Department, recently found positive evidence of the Essenes' adherence to these rituals. Together with Dr. James Tabor, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina and parasitologist Stephanie Harter-Lailheugue of the CNRS Laboratory for Anthropology in Marseilles, France, Zias found the latrines that were used by the Essenes in Qumran. The three researchers say that, in addition to shedding a great deal of light on the unique culture of the Essenes in Qumran, the discovery represents an archaeological bonanza: Additional proof that the Essenes wrote the scrolls. Zias explains that when feces are left on the desert floor, exposure to sun and wind quickly annihilates intestinal parasites. But when feces are buried in the earth, intestinal parasites may survive for many months and their eggs may be preserved for as long as 2,000 years, as in the case of Qumran.

The most interesting part of the article is Yitzhaq Magen's challenge to this interpretation of the site:

However, Dr. Yitzhak Magen, staff officer of archaeology in the Civil Administration of the West Bank, was not impressed by the new discovery. Last summer, Magen and his colleague, Yuval Peleg, published findings based on 10 years of excavation in the Qumran ruins. Both researchers reached the conclusion that Qumran was not a monastery but an enormous ceramics factory. They found fragments of clay artifacts at the site and many pools, which they believe were used to submerge the sediment that surfaces, to this day, when local rivers overflow to produce tremendous, winter floods. Magen maintains that this sediment provides excellent raw material for pottery production. According to Magen and Peleg, the pools were not ritual baths; nor were they used by the Essenes, who immersed themselves in ritual baths twice a day. "In addition," Magen says, "the Qumran area and particularly the caves surrounding the site, are full of predatory animals and animals that consume carrion, like foxes, hyenas, and leopards. People who lived in this area for years were well aware of that. They feared these animals and certainly would not leave their camps to relieve themselves. Thus, it is unreasonable to assume that the camp's latrine was located at such a distance."

"It was not the Essenes who buried the scrolls in the caves near the Qumran ruins," Magen adds. "The scrolls were buried by Jews who escaped from Jerusalem after the destruction of the Second Temple." One of the main escape routes from Jerusalem passed through Qumran. Jews, who were somewhat unfamiliar with the area and had no knowledge of its predatory animals, did not fear entering the caves to bury the scrolls, he proposes.

HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE to all those celebrating.

UPDATE (22 December): Reader Marcus Wood e-mails to point out that, according to the BBC, the solstice is today. I checked a couple of places, including the first link above, and got the 21st as an answer, but whatever. In cases of conflicting dates for sacred holidays (or opportunities to party), the sensible approach is to celebrate both.