I'M OFF to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with my son and his buddy. I'll let you know what I think.

LATER - Initial reactions:

Many chase scenes. Maybe too many. Dialogue was too predictable, as was some of the action. We noticed a number of bits nicked from The Mummy Returns. Indy is still in good form, but the mileage shows. The consensus of the boys was that it was a good movie, but not such a good Indiana Jones movie. In any case it was unquestionably the silliest of the four, which took some doing. I liked the ending. Do see it: whatever the quality, it's a cultural icon. Three stars of five.

THE ENOCH GRADUATE SEMINAR for 2008 now has its schedule posted on the Enoch Seminar website.

Also, Gabriele Boccaccini e-mails:

While we are preparing for the event, I am very pleased to announce you that the Third Enoch Graduate Seminar will be held in two years (July 2010) at the Catholic University of Budapest, Hungary, and will be chaired by Ida Froehlich, Armin Lange, Geza Xeravits and myself--a recognition for the leadership in Central Euroepe. Unlike the Enoch Seminar (which is a thematic conference), papers from ALL fields and subfields of Second Temple Judaism and Christian Origins (Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, Dead Sea Scrolls, New Testament, Philo and Josephus, etc.) are accepted at the Enoch Graduate Seminar. The deadline for submitting paper proposals will be in the Fall 2009 (we will pick up the best 24 ones). It is very important that we start "advertising" the event as soon as possible and have all most talented graduate students from all around the world attend the event.

The 2012 Fourth Enoch Graduate Seminar will be at the University of Notre Dame, chaired by James VanderKam, Hindy Najman, and myself.

PROMOTION: I am very happy to report that I have just been promoted to (Full) Professor. I did mention my blogging in the promotion application under innovative teaching, but I doubt it was the deciding factor.

LOOKING FOR A GRADUATION PRESENT?

Israeli artist inspired by Dead Sea Scroll vessels

BY: JENNIFER DADDARIO Staff Reporter [Cleveland Jewish News]

It was a normal visit to The Israel Museum in Jerusalem to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it changed artist Avital Sheffer’s life.

After Sheffer, 53, took a closer look at the vessels that held the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Sabra altered her career. Within a week, she was enrolled in a ceramics class, and soon after, she began making her own ceramic vessels.

[...]

The artist, who now lives in Australia, creates large, non-functional ceramic vessels inspired by ancient and Middle Eastern glassware and metalware. All are adorned with Hebrew text. “They are contemporary expressions of my interpretation of ancient classical forms,” Sheffer explains in a phone interview from Israel. The vessels are about 3 feet tall and range from $3,200 to $3,900.

[...]

Sheffer spends a great deal of time doing research and seeking out ancient manuscripts to re-create on her vessels. To find the ancient documents n anything from love letters to passages from the Bible or prayer books n Sheffer visits museums and libraries all over the world. “Because the Hebrew language is considered sacred, all manuscripts were preserved, even simple letters and documents,” she explains.

[...]

THE TIMBUKTU MANUSCRIPT DIGITIZATION PROJECT continues apace:

Project Digitizes Works From the Golden Age of Timbuktu

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD (New York Times)
Published: May 20, 2008

From Timbuktu to here, to reverse the expression, the written words of the legendary African oasis are being delivered by electronic caravan. A lode of books and manuscripts, some only recently rescued from decay, is being digitized for the Internet and distributed to scholars worldwide.

These are works of law and history, science and medicine, poetry and theology, relics of Timbuktu’s golden age as a crossroads in Mali for trade in gold, salt and slaves along the southern edge of the Sahara. If the name is now a synonym for mysterious remoteness, the literature attests to Timbuktu’s earlier role as a vibrant intellectual center.

In recent years, thousands of these leather-bound books and fragile manuscripts have been recovered from family archives, private libraries and storerooms. The South African government is financing construction of a library in Timbuktu to house more than 30,000 of the books. Other gifts support renovations of family libraries and projects for preserving, translating and interpreting the documents.

Now, the first five of the rare manuscripts from private libraries have been digitized and made available online (www.aluka.org) to scholars and students. At least 300 are expected to be available online by the end of the year.

[...]

Then there's this interesting aside:

Many documents in the graceful Arabic calligraphy are a visual delight. Although the writing is mostly in Arabic, quite a few manuscripts are in vernaculars adapted to the Arabic script, which is sure to pose a challenge for scholars.

Hmmm... Garshuni maybe? (Syriac written in Arabic script.) And who knows what else. Hebrew and Greek manuscripts are also known. Background here and keep following the links back.

(Via the Agade list.)

UPDATE (22 May): Bulbul e-mails:

The "quite a few manuscripts ... in vernaculars adapted to the Arabic script" NY Times articles mentions are almost certainly written in what is usually referred to as 'ajami'. This terms is used as a
designation of the practice to write African languages like Hausa, Yoruba, Wolof and many others and often as a generic term for various modifications of the Arabic script necessary to adequately record the various languages of East Africa. The website
[http://warc-ifap.wikispaces.com/Ajami] is a good overview of the subject. Confusingly enough, in some instances, the term 'ajami' is used as if it referred to a particular language (e.g. "Liste des manuscripts en langues arabe et ajami") which is bound to cause some confusio, just like it so often happens with karshuni/garshuni.

He then very tactfully points out that my definition of Garshuni above is wrong: it is actually Arabic written Syriac script. Oops! That was a silly mistake. Thanks for the correction. Bulbul has a post on Garshuni/Karshuni here.

PICTS AND COPTS in contact in late anquity? So says Magnus Linklater in the London Times:

Around the 6th century, the Picts converted to Christianity and some of their carvings show links with the Middle Eastern Coptic church. This image (left), of two hands receiving a loaf of bread from a raven, depicts StAnthony and StPaul the Hermit in the desert. It is found on a monastery wall in Egypt and a Pictish stone at St Vigeans, Dundee.

Unfortunately the online article has no image.

VIENNA JOB UPDATE: Armin Lange e-mails a link to a web page containing the advert I posted last week:

The Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies of the University of Vienna announces the position of a Full Professor of Jewish History, Religion and Literature in Rabbinic Times (70-1000 CE) (full-time permanent position under private law).

MORE ON THE ARCHAEOLOGY AND POLITICS of the City of David/Silwan from the AP:

The organization funding the digs, the Elad Foundation, is associated with the religious settlement movement and is committed to preventing Israel from ever ceding the area in a peace deal. It says it has a yearly budget of close to $10 million, nearly all of it from donations, and is buying up Palestinian homes in Silwan to accommodate Jewish families. Around 50 have moved in so far, living in houses flying Israeli flags and guarded by armed security men paid for by the Israeli government.

At the same time, the City of David digs have expanded through the neighborhood, carried out by respected Israeli government archaeologists with funding from Elad.
The site at the City of David is seen next to the Arab neighborhood of Silwan near Jerusalem’s Old City.

The site at the City of David is seen next to the Arab neighborhood of Silwan near Jerusalem’s Old City.

Fakhri Abu Diab, a neighborhood activist, said the Elad Foundation has made it clear that he and his neighbors are in the way.

“They want the land without the people,” he said.

None of the finds that the archaeologists highlight for the public are from the eras of Christian or Muslim rule. “They are looking only for Jewish ruins,” said Abu Diab. “It’s as if we’re not here.”

Elad denies having any intention of driving out Silwan’s Palestinians. “There will always be Jews and Arabs living together here,” said Doron Spielman, Elad’s international director of development. Dozens of Silwan Arabs are employed by Elad, he said, and the foundation’s activities include neighborhood beautification projects that improve life for Palestinian residents.

Still, he said, “We do not deny we have a Zionist dream — to reveal the ancient city beneath the ground and create a thriving Jewish neighborhood above the ground.”

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH (indirectly) - another quarry:

Another Second Temple quarry uncovered
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS (Jerusalem Post)

For the second time in the past year, archeologists have uncovered a Second Temple Period quarry whose stones were used to build the Western Wall, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Monday.

The latest archeological discovery was made in the city's Sanhedria neighborhood, located about two kilometers from the Old City of Jerusalem.

The quarry was uncovered during a routine "salvage excavation" carried out by the state-run archeological body over the last several months ahead of the construction of a private house in the religious neighborhood.

The quarry is believed to be one of those used to build the Jerusalem holy site because the size of the stones match those at the Western Wall.

[...]

Background here and here.

COMPUTER GEEK KEN FISHER, co-founder of Ars Technica, is a also a philology geek:

Ken Fisher, one of the co-founders of Ars Technica, may be just a pen-protector expression of the Condé Nast way. After we discussed our common interest in fourth-century Coptic texts — O.K., he talked, I listened — he said that he had been approached by a number of parties interested in buying the site. After talking to people at Wired.com and Reddit, he and his partners decided that the Condé Nast way left them the best chance of developing what had been a hobby on steroids into a business.

When I first read this quote in a NYT piece on Condé Nast's investments in tech publications, I figured that Fisher just meant that he had read one of the translations of the Nag Hammadi Library or the like. But when I found his brief bio at the Ars Technica site, I realized my error:

I'm currently a Ph.D. student in Religion at Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. I'm now working on my dissertation, and hope to be finished in a few years. I have worked in IT for most of my "career years," performing senior administrative functions at two different universalities, as well as running my own consulting business on the side. I tend now to focus all of my energy on my studies, but I still consult from time to time to pay the bills.

He's the real thing. Cool.

UPDATE: Brent Landau, Harvard doctoral candidate in NT and early Christianity, e-mails to say that Ken Fisher "is definitely the real deal" and that he is doing his dissertation on ritual practice in the Gospel of Philip.

MORE ON THE PSALMS SCROLL that was on display for the President's Conference in Jerusalem: The IAA has a press release.

(Via Joseph I. Lauer's list.)

THAT STORY ABOUT THE QUEEN OF SHEBA'S PALACE - supposedly excavated in Axum, Ethiopia - now has coverage by the London Times and Fox News. It recycles the earlier story, and repeats some errors (Menelik, Queen of Sheba's - ahem - "liason" with Solomon), but introduces a healthy note of skepticism.

The discovery, announced by the University of Hamburg last week, has stirred skeptical rumblings from the archaeological community.

[...]

Many archaeologists believe that their profession should not be in the business of myth-chasing. Even if the Ark were found, it would be impossible to establish scientifically whether it was the original receptacle for the Ten Commandments.

Iris Gerlach of the German Archaeological Institute in Sanaa, Yemen, believes the religious centre of Sheba is in present-day Yemen.

Although she does not go head-to-head with her colleague Professor Ziegert, the message is clear: A relic such as the Ark would have been stored in an important religious city rather than in Aksum.

[...]

There may an interesting story in this, but we're not there yet.

(Via Explorator 11.4)

HARRISON FORD has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Archaeological Institute of America. Now if they can just get Angelina Jolie signed up ... (Maybe they shouldn't have dissed Lara Croft!)

(Via the Agade list.)

Also, don't miss the link in that announcement to the article on crystal skulls by Jane MacLaren Walsh in the current issue of Archaeology Magazine. Alas, they are fakes - a multi-generational industry that began in the Victorian era.

Impressed by their technical excellence and gleaming polish, generations of museum curators and private collectors have been taken in by these objects. But they are too good to be true. If we consider that pre-Columbian lapidaries used stone, bone, wooden, and possibly copper tools with abrasive sand to carve stone, crystal skulls are much too perfectly carved and highly polished to be believed.

THE BOOK OF 2 SAMUEL has been made into a musical, with the Archangel Metatron as one of the characters:

Reconsidering a King as a Lord of the Dance
The Spirit That Moves Theater J's 'David' Comes From the Sole

By Celia Wren
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, May 18, 2008; Page M04

You might think of it as the original "Dancing With the Stars." The biblical book of 2 Samuel recounts how David, king of Israel, leaped and capered in worshipful jubilation as the ark of the covenant -- symbolizing God's presence -- progressed toward Jerusalem.

That scriptural episode has long fascinated Yehuda Hyman, a Los Angeles playwright and former professional dancer. With the gamboling-monarch anecdote at the back of his mind, Hyman found himself musing more broadly on the David story. The upshot is "David in Shadow and Light," a musical receiving its world premiere at Theater J. Boasting a libretto by Hyman and a Middle Eastern-flavored score by Daniel Hoffman (a klezmer violin virtuoso), the show runs through June 22 under Nick Olcott's direction.

"David" is a chronicle of the biblical hero, from his slingshot triumph to his exploits as army commander to the highs and lows of his reign over Israel. With a quarter-million-dollar budget, a four-person band and staging that runs to puppetry and other high-concept touches, the musical is the boldest, costliest and most time-intensive production ever for Theater J, according to Artistic Director Ari Roth.

The cast includes Matt Pearson (MetroStage's "tick, tick . . . BOOM!") as the young David, and Bobby Smith doubling as Saul and the older David. Will Gartshore portrays Saul's son Jonathan. Enlivening the musical's postmodern-frame tale (based on a legend from a midrash, a storytelling exegesis of biblical texts), Donna Migliaccio depicts the Archangel Metatron, who is screening a movie biography of David for Adam (Norman Aronovic), of Garden of Eden fame.

[...]

Note: it was a sling, not a slingshot. Also, in case you're wondering, Metatron does not actually appear in 2 Samuel. I'm not sure which midrash served as the inspiration. Anyone know?

Cross file under "Metatron watch."

UPDATE (17 June): More here.

VISION OF GABRIEL UPDATE: A technical glitch has been fixed and Israel Knohl's article "'By Three Days, Live': Messiahs, Resurrection, and Ascent to Heaven in Hazon Gabriel" is back up on the Shalom Hartman Institutute website. They send apologies for the glitch.

Background here and here.

UPDATE: N. T. Wrong brings in an Ugaritic connection (via Abnormal Interests).

ALON GOSHEN-GOTTSTEIN gave a lecture in Ohio on sacred space in Judaism and Christianity. Rabbi Goshen-Gottstein also publishes on Merkavah Mysticism and Hekhalot literature.

"IT'S HOT, IT'S DIRTY." A Berkeley professor reflects on archaeology after Indiana Jones:

"I don't know how he stands a big heavy jacket and hat in those climates," said UC Berkeley classics professor and unabashed Indy fan Kim Shelton. "But it looks good in movies."

Shelton spent 12 years as a full-time archaeologist at Mycenae, one of the great Greek city-states and home to legendary king Agamemnon, hero of Homer's "Odyssey." These days, Shelton directs the university's dig in Nemea, a site with links to the Hercules legend and the original Olympic games.

But Shelton has fond recollections of watching "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" with fellow archaeology students back in grad school. This time, she'll share the adventure with her own students, most of whom spent the semester exploring the myths and realities of archaeology and such topics as antiquities law, Trojan gold and "Whip or Trowel? Tools of the Trade."

It's not so much that the Indiana Jones movies are wrong, Shelton said, as that they depict "an old-fashioned way of doing things, a romantic version with traps and danger. You find things easily and sell them, which we don't do. And Indiana Jones never seems to publish. He gets his tenure from his good looks."

But Indiana Jones' greatest success has been in wooing students to archaeology and classics classrooms, Shelton said. The razzle-dazzle of Nazi fortune hunters and gleaming treasure lure them in. Science and history win their hearts.

Nonsense about archaeology and history can be used to reel in potential serious students. As I've remarked before, reading Erich von Däniken as a kid got me interested in this field.

Read the rest of this article to hear about Professor Shelton's coolest find ever. And about the "sudden avalanche of voracious, enormous red fox fleas," whatever those are. Ugh!

JOB IN JUDAISM IN RABBINIC TIMES at the University of Vienna:

The Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies of the University of Vienna announces the position of a Full Professor of Jewish History, Religion and Literature in Rabbinic Times (70-1000 CE) (full-time permanent position under private law).

As stated in its development plan (http://www.univie.ac.at/rektorenteam/ug2002/entwicklungsplan.html) the University of Vienna aims at strengthening its position as a major research oriented university. Key elements of this strategy include the provision of an attractive range of research-based study programmes, support for furthering the work of junior academic colleagues, and high-calibre professorial appointments.

The Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies of the University of Vienna announces the position of a Full Professor of Jewish History, Religion and Literature in Rabbinic Times (70-1000 CE) (full-time permanent position under private law).

The University of Vienna intends to increase the number of women on its faculty, particularly in high-level positions, and therefore specifically invites applications by women. Among equally qualified applicants women will receive preferential consideration.

The successful candidate will have a research record in one of the fields of Rabbinic epoch and will be able to teach Jewish history, religion and literature in Rabbinic times (70-1000 CE) at all levels (BA, MA, PhD).

Successful candidates will have the following qualifications: - PhD and post-doctoral experience at a university or other research institution. (Austrian or equivalent international academic degree in the relevant field)
- Outstanding research and publication record, with an excellent reputation as an active member in the international academic community (Habilitation (venia docendi) or equivalent international qualification in the relevant field is desirable)
- Experience in designing, procuring and directing major research projects, and willingness and ability to assume the responsibility of team leadership
- Experience in university teaching, and willingness and ability to teach at all curricular levels, to supervise theses, and to further the work of junior academic colleagues
The University of Vienna expects the successful candidate to acquire, within three years, proficiency in German sufficient for teaching in Bachelor programmes and participation in committees.

The University of Vienna offers:
- with its unusually broad spectrum of subjects, and the city of Vienna, with its libraries, archives, museums and other institutions, provide ideal surroundings for research and teaching in the humanities.
- Attractive terms and conditions of employment with a negotiable and performance-related salary, associated with a retirement fund
- A "start-up packageı for the initiation of research projects
- An attractive and dynamic research location in a city with a high quality of life and in a country with excellent research funding provision
- Support for relocation to Vienna, where appropriate Candidates should send an application containing at least the following documents:
- Academic curriculum vitae
- Brief description of current research interests and research plans for the immediate future
- List of publications together with a) specification of five key publications judged by the applicant to be particularly relevant to the advertised professorship together with an explanation of their relevance
b) PDF versions of these five publications provided either as email attachments or through URLs of downloadable copies
- List of talks given, including detailed information about invited plenaries at international conferences
- List of projects supported by third-party funds
- Short survey of previous academic teaching and list of supervised PhD theses.

Applications in English or German should be sent to:
The Dean of the Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies of the
University of Vienna
Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Ring 1
A-1010 Vienna

and submitted by e-mail to Guntram.Schneider@univie.ac.at, no later than June 15th, 2008 with reference 14/24-2007/08.

(From the Agade list.)

MORE ON THE ISAIAH SCROLL EXHIBITION: Art Daily has an article with a nice photograph.

Israel Museum Presents Great Isaiah Scroll For the First Time in Over Forty Years

TEL AVIV.- On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, the Israel Museum presents two major sections of the Great Isaiah Scroll – the most complete biblical Dead Sea Scroll document ever found and one of the world’s greatest archaelogical treasures – in a special installation in the Shrine of the Book. For the first time in over forty years, the public will have the rare opportunity to view the two longest sections of the Scroll, featuring Isaiah’s celebrated message of peace: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares…" (Isaiah 2:4). In order to illustrate this important message, artifacts from the days of the prophet Isaiah (8th century BCE), including a bent scimitar and agricultural tools, will be displayed together with the Scroll as part of this special exhibit. Swords into Plowshares: The Isaiah Scroll and Its Message of Peace will be on view in the Shrine of the Book at the Museum from May 19 through August 30, 2008.

“This special installation, held in celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary, provides visitors with a rare opportunity to view one of the oldest, most complete, and best preserved of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” said James S. Snyder, Anne and Jerome Fisher Director of the Israel Museum. “The Isaiah Scroll, housed at the Israel Museum in the Shrine of the Book, with its timeless message of peace, is one of the most important ancient biblical documents ever discovered.”

Swords into Plowshares presents the longest sections of the complete Isaiah Scroll: a 2.60 meter-long section comprising chapters 1-28, and a 2.38 meter-long section comprising chapters 44-66. Contextualizing the scroll, the Museum will also display ancient archaeological tools, including a bent scimitar and a newly excavated and never before displayed early Roman seal, depicting a dove-like bird carrying an olive branch. The exhibit is curated by Michal Dayagi-Mendels, Chief Curator of Archaeology, and Adolfo Roitman, Head of the Shrine of the Book and Curator of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[...]

There will also be a conference in July to go with the exhibition and the sixtieth anniversary of the discovery of the Scrolls.

"HOW MANY HOLY BOOKS HAVE YOU READ?"

Don't get me started.