AN ANCIENT JEWISH "TEMPLE" (SYNAGOGUE?) has been found in southern Turkey:

Jewish temple found in ancient port city at Lycian site

(Today's Zaman)

Ongoing excavations at the ancient port city of Andriake in Lycia -- located in Antalya's Demre district -- have uncovered a centuries-old Jewish temple.

Site chief Dr. Nevzat Çevik, an archaeology professor at Akdeniz University, told the Anatolia news agency that his team believes the temple is from around the third century. Located on a choice spot facing the sea, the temple was likely built following a law instituted in 212 that allowed Jews the right to become Roman citizens, Çevik said.

The find is important as it is the first archaeological trace of Jewish culture found in Lycia. ...

PHILIP DAVIES has an essay at the Bible and Interpretation website in which he calls for a Dictionary of Biblical Studies:

Watch Your Language!

By Emeritus Professor Philip Davies
University of Sheffield, England
August 2009

About twenty years ago, I gave a conference paper called “Do Old Testament Studies Need a Dictionary?”1 In those days, “Old Testament” was unselfconsciously used—but so were biblical categories of description. I was railing against “Academic Bibspeak,” in which key terms were not translated into meaningful modern equivalents but remained fossilized within biblical scholarship. My argument was that to be “critical” we had to analyze one kind of vocabulary by using another, and not in its own—and thus be able to offer a “judgment” by translating the vocabulary.

Rereading this old piece recently—for the first time since its publication, I think—I expected symptoms of youthful brashness and was not disappointed. Did I also recognize how far the discipline had progressed since? Just a bit.

[...]

I do take his points, but personally I think Ark of the Covenant has a much better ring to it than Treaty Box. But maybe that's just me.

I'M VERY BEHIND on noting TOCs of online journals (i.e., most of them, these days). I'll try to get started catching up. Here are some recent TOCs for the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha. A paid personal or institutional subscription is required to download the whole articles, although the abstracts are free.

September 2007, Volume 17, No. 1

J. Allen
Ezekiel the Tragedian on the Despoliation of Egypt
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2007 17: 3-19.

J.R. Dodson
Locked-Out Lovers: Wisdom of Solomon 1.16 in Light of the Paraclausithyron Motif
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2007 17: 21-35.

Brent A. Strawn
Why Does the Lion Disappear in Revelation 5? Leonine Imagery in Early Jewish and Christian Literatures
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2007 17: 37-74.

Sarah L. Schwarz
Book Review: KLUTZ, TODD E. Rewriting the Testament of Solomon: Tradition, Conflict and Identity in a Late Antique Pseudepigraphon. London: T&T Clark, 2005. Cloth. Pp. 176. USD 130.00. ISBN 0567043924. Paper. Pp. 192. USD 55.00. ISBN 0567081877
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2007 17: 75-78.

January 2008, Volume 17, No. 2

Micah D. Kiel
Tobit and Moses Redux
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 83-98.

Bradley C. Gregory
The Death and Legacy of Leah in Jubilees
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 99-120.

Kristine J. Ruffatto
Raguel as Interpreter of Moses' Throne Vision: The Transcendent Identity of Raguel in the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 121-139.

Dries De Crom
The Letter of Aristeas and the Authority of the Septuagint
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 141-160.

May 2008, Volume 17, No. 3

Arye Edrei and Doron Mendels
A Split Jewish Diaspora: Its Dramatic Consequences II
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 163-187.

David Shepherd
What's in a Name? Targum and Taxonomy in Cave 4 at Qumran
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 189-206.

Marcus P. Adams
The Alexandrinus Text of 4 Maccabees
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 207-231.

Carla Sulzbach
Book Review: FRANCES FLANNERY-DAILEY. Dreamers, Scribes, and Priests: Jewish Dreams in the Hellenistic and Roman Eras. SJSJ 90. Boston/Leiden: Brill, 2004. 327 pp. ISBN 9004123679
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 233-236.

June 2008, Volume 17, No. 4

David Rothstein
Text and Context: Domestic Harmony and the Depiction of Hagar in Jubilees
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 243-264.

Fiona Grierson
The Testament of Moses
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 265-280.

[Grierson's article started its life as a seminar paper in my and Grant Macaskill's Old Testament Pseudepigrapha course.]

Erkki Koskenniemi
Moses—A Well-Educated Man: A Look at the Educational Idea in Early Judaism
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 281-296.

James F. McGrath
History and Fiction in the Acts of Thomas: The State of the Question
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 297-311.

Jan Dochhorn
Book Review: J. TROMP, The Life of Adam and Eve in Greek: A Critical Edition. Pseudepigrapha Veteris Testamenti Graece, 6. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2005. Cloth, viii + 208 pp. Euros 77.00, $104.00 USD. ISBN: 9004143173
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 17: 313-319.

September 2008, Volume 18, No. 1

John Byron
Cain's Rejected Offering: Interpretive Approaches to a Theological Problem
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 18: 3-22.

Daniel M. Gurtner
The `Twenty-Fifth Year of Jeconiah' and the Date of 2 Baruch
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 18: 23-32.

Andrei A. Orlov
`The Gods of My Father Terah': Abraham the Iconoclast and the Polemics with the Divine Body Traditions in the Apocalypse of Abraham
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 18: 33-53.

Steven Richard Scott
The Binitarian Nature of the Book of Similitudes
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 18: 55-78.

December 2008, Volume 18, No. 2

Lorenzo Ditommaso
Pseudepigrapha Notes II: 3. The Contribution of the Manuscript Catalogues of M.R. James
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2008 18: 83-160.

March 2009, Volume 18, No. 3

William `CHIP' Gruen, III
Seeking a Context for the Testament of Job
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 18: 163-179.

David C. Mitchell
A Dying and Rising Josephite Messiah in 4Q372
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 18: 181-205.

Helen R. Jacobus
The Curse of Cainan (Jub. 8.1-5): Genealogies in Genesis 5 and Genesis 11 and a Mathematical Pattern
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 18: 207-232.

Daniel C. Olson
'Enoch and the Son of Man' Revisited: Further Reflections on the Text and Translation of 1 Enoch 70.1-2
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 18: 233-240.

June 2009, Volume 18, No. 4

Benedikt Eckhardt
Reclaiming Tradition: The Book of Judith and Hasmonean Politics
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 18: 243-263.

Ronald Charles
A Postcolonial Reading of Joseph and Aseneth
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 18: 265-283.

Michael Avioz
The Incineration of Saul's and His Sons' Corpses according to Josephus
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 18: 285-292.

Michael E. Stone
Two Unpublished Eschatological Texts
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 18: 293-302.

Robert Phenix
Book Review: DEBIÉ, MURIEL, ALAIN DESREUMAUX, CHRISTELLE JULLIEN, and FLORENCE JULLIEN, eds. Les apocryphes syriaques. Études syriaques 2. Paris: S. N. Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner S. A., 2005. ISBN 2-7053-3771-7. 231 + 2 pp. Paperback. 40 Euros
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 18: 303-310. [PDF] [Request Permission]

Noah Hacham
Book Review: JOHNSON, SARA RAUP. Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity: Third Maccabees in Its Cultural Context. Hellenistic Culture and Society, 43; Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: University of California Press, 2004. Pp. xix + 253. ISBN 0-520-233070-7
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 18: 310-315. [PDF] [Request Permission]

Matthew J. Goff
Book Review: COLLINS, JOHN J., GREGORY E. STERLING and RUTH A. CLEMENTS (eds.). Sapiential Perspectives: Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. STDJ 51. Brill, 2004. ISBN: 9004136703
Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2009 18: 315-319.

AN OBITUARY FOR GRAHAM STANTON has been published in the Telegraph.

(Via Mark Goodacre.)

ARCHANGEL METATRON WATCH: The angelic Enoch as cosmic eschatological scribe? According to TradingMarkets.com:

Metatron to acquire 100% of Just Data

Compare Jubilees 4:19-20:

And what was and what will be he saw in a vision of his sleep, as it will happen to the children of men throughout their generations until the day of judgment; he saw and understood everything, and wrote his testimony, and placed the testimony on earth for all the children of men and for their generations.

(I love this new company. They give me lots of material.)

THE RAMAT RACHEL EXCAVATION is getting some attention from Arutz Sheva:

Remains from Period of King Hezekiah Discovered

by Hillel Fendel

(IsraelNN.com) The most recent dramatic archaeological find in Israel is that of a luxurious administrative center from the period of King Hezekiah, over 2,700 years ago. The center was discovered in Kibbutz Ramat Rachel, just south of Jerusalem

Over 100 students and volunteers from Israel and abroad are taking part in the dig, which is a joint project of Tel Aviv University’s Archaeological Institute and Heidelberg University in Germany.

[...]

Apparently the dig has started a 2009 season, although so far there's no activity on its blog. Background here.

ARTIFACTS GALORE! One Million Archaeological Artifacts on Display in Israel.

BLOGGERS AT SBL are listed at the Hebrew and Greek Reader blog.

BREAKING NEWS: Barack Obama is not the Antichrist.

CONGRATULATIONS TO BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW, which is publishing its 200th issue this month.

THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE EMPEROR VESPASIAN may have been discovered in Italy:

'Roman emperor's villa' unearthed

(BBC)

Archaeologists at a villa in Italy believed to be the birthplace of the Emperor Vespasian, 5 August 2009

Archaeologists in Italy say they have unearthed the remains of a sumptuous villa thought to be the birthplace of the Emperor Vespasian.

The ruins were found in the Roman city of Falacrine, about 80 miles (130km) north-east of Rome.

The villa's location and luxury suggest it was probably Vespasian's birthplace, an archaeologist said.

Vespasian lived from AD9-79. He was emperor from AD69-79, restoring peace after a period of civil war.

[...]

He was also proclaimed to be the messiah by Josephus.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

IN THE MAIL:

Gesa Schenke (mit Beitragen von Gesine Schenke Robinson), Der Koptische Kölner Papyruskodex 3221: Teil I: Das Testament des Iob (Abhandlungen der Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Künst, Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia 33; Paderborn, Germany: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2009)

The long-awaited edition of the Coptic fragments of the Testament of Job. An English translation of the fragments will be included in the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project.

THE BYU-CUA SYRIAC REFERENCE LIBRARY has been updated with some 35 additional PDF resources. Note also the article and lectures on Syriac and the smaller collection of Coptic resources.

Via Kristian Heal on the Hugoye list. Mentioned earlier at PaleoJudaica here.

ROBERT CARGILL responds at the Bible and Interpretation website to Palestinian protests of the ROM Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition:

On the Curious Protests of the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibition in Toronto

By Robert R. Cargill
Center for the Digital Humanities,
Qumran Visualization Project

UCLA

August 2009

Excerpt:

The pro-Palestinian protesters outside the ROM claim that the Dead Sea Scrolls were “illegally moved” from the Rockefeller Museum to the Israel Museum. The PNA claims the scrolls are looted “Palestinian” artifacts. However, this claim intentionally overlooks the fact that prior to 1967, the Kingdom of Jordan controlled east Jerusalem and the West Bank, not the PNA, which wasn’t officially formed until the Oslo Accords of 1994. Thus, there could be no realistic “Palestinian” claim to the Dead Sea Scrolls, since they were discovered prior to the existence of any recognized Palestinian governmental body. If anyone other than Israel can make a claim on the scrolls, it is Jordan, not the PNA. The PNA’s claim that the scrolls belong to them is a creative attempt to politicize archaeology and interject an anachronous revision of history into the present day dispute between Israel and Palestine.

Further evidence that the Toronto ROM protests are not about archaeology, but rather politically motivated attempts to unfairly chastise Israel is the fact that there have been no such protests against the Jordanian government. The Copper Scroll is presently on display in the Jordan Archaeological Museum in Amman. Yet, we do not see pro-Palestinian protests against the Jordanian government across the street from the Jordan Archaeological Museum demanding the return of the “looted” Copper Scroll to the PNA. The PNA vociferously demands the return of scrolls in Jewish hands, but not of those in Arab hands. This double standard betrays the underlying reality that the Toronto protests are nothing more than a hypocritical attempt to use archaeology to advance the PNA’s agenda against Israel.

One small point: the bulk of the Dead Sea Scrolls remained at the Rockefeller Museum at least until the early 1990s, when I worked there on the ones I was editing.

Background to the protests is here.

For more background to the exhibition, see here, here, and here.

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: More on that new scale model of the Jerusalem Temple, with video:

World’s Largest Temple Model Inaugurated next to Temple Mount

by Yehudah Lev Kay

(IsraelNN.com) The world’s largest model of the Holy Temple was inaugurated Wednesday only a few hundred meters away from the Temple Mount, the site where the Temple existed up until 70 CE.

The model, built at a scale of 1:60, was built by Michael Osanis for the Aish HaTorah Yeshiva in Jerusalem’s old city, and is displayed on the roof of its new museum, which at seven stories above the Western Wall plaza has a breathtaking view of the Temple Mount.

[...]

Do keep in mind that our information about the architecture and appearance of Herod's Temple is limited and that a project like this would involve a considerable amount of inference and guesswork.

Background here.

UPDATES on the ROM Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition:

A scroll of the Ten Commandments is going on display for a short time in October:

ROM shalt not display it for longer than a week
Fall showing set for copy of 10 Commandments

Aug 06, 2009 04:30 AM

Adrian Morrow
Staff reporter (The Star)

It is older than the Declaration of Independence and the Magna Carta. It was written by hand before the printing press was invented. It is even thought to pre-date Jesus Christ by a few years.

For a single week, Torontonians will get a glimpse of one of the oldest copies of one of the most ancient sets of laws in existence.

The Royal Ontario Museum has scored the rights to add one of the earliest existing copies of the Ten Commandments to its Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition, the museum announced yesterday.

[...]

Dr. Hindy Najman is interviewed about the exhibition in the Jewish Tribune:

Similarities between ancient and modern Jewish communities evident at Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit U of [Sic]
Written by Atara Beck
Wednesday, 05 August 2009

TORONTO – The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) “shows that Judaism was as varied in its prayer, its interpretations and its politics then as it is now,” stated Professor Hindy Najman, director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at University of Toronto (U of T) and a scholar of ancient Judaism.

[...]

THE IAA is registering private antiquities collections:

Israel Antiquities Authority to register antiquities collections held by the general public in Israel
4 Aug 2009

Estimate: In Israel there are at least 100,000 people who can be considered ‘collectors of antiquities’.

(Communicated by the Israel Antiquities Authority Spokesperson)

The Israel Antiquities Authority is embarking on a first of its kind campaign to register the antiquities collections that are held by the general public in Israel. An individual that is listed in the state’s databank as the owner of an antiquities collection will be recognized by the state as a “collector of antiquities”.

Israel is one of the world’s richest countries in archaeological artifacts. As such, over the years private individuals have discovered thousands of archaeological finds during the course of development work, agricultural work, etc.

In 2002 the legal status of a collector of antiquities in Israel was regulated, which is defined as “one who collects antiquities otherwise than for the purpose of trading therein”. The law defines an antiquities collection as: “an assemblage of fifteen antiquities or more.” It is estimated that there are at least 100,000 people in Israel who can be considered by definition “collectors of antiquities”, but only several hundred of them are recognized by the state.

In February 2009 regulations took effect that will enable enforcing the law which was passed in 2002. The IAA is now calling on the public to comply in accordance with the law and report any antiquities they possess. An individual doing so will be granted the status of collector according to law and will be issued a certificate. The antiquities will be registered as the property of the collector and anyone who wishes to sell the collection they own can receive permission from the IAA to do so. Thus on the one hand, the collector can sell the antiquities he possesses, and on the other, the state will know to whom the object was transferred.

[...]

Overall, this sounds like a very positive development to me. I would, however, like to have a clearer idea how the new regulations have been formulated to avoid encouraging people to buy looted artifacts and then register them. Or is that battle now a lost cause?

(Via Joseph I. Lauer's list.)

LOST BOOKS MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE are noted by Daniel Hopkinson, the "Knoxville Evangelical Examiner" for The Examiner:

The other books mentioned within the Bible pages:
August 3, 5:07 AM

The very King James Bible (among other translations as well) that so many insist is complete and having no need of other books to be included in it, mentions several other books over the course of the 66 books contained in the official canon that at one time were evidently prominent in that particular author’s thought that mentioned it, a few of which may actually refer to books already included in the canon.

[...]

Mr. Hopkinson has been writing a lot lately about apocrypha and pseudepigrapha -- apparently unaware of even the most basic and foundational secondary literature (e.g., the Charlesworth edition of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha), so I haven't been noting his articles. But this one interests me particularly, since I've done a lot of research on these lost books and am publishing a translation of their surviving fragments for the More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project ("Quotations from Lost Books in the Hebrew Bible").

His list is fairly complete, but leaves out some things, such as the other two quotations in Numbers 21:16-18, 21-25; another possible quote from the Book of Jashar in the LXX of 1 Kings 8:53 (cf. 1 Kings 8:12-13 MT); a book by Samuel on the conduct of kingship in 1 Samuel 10:25; the Book of the Acts of Solomon in 1 Kings 11:41; the Book of the Chronicles of King David in 1 Chronicles 27:23-24; King David's plan from YHWH for the Temple in 1 Chronicles 28:19; and the Laments (over King Josiah) attributed to the prophet Jeremiah in 2 Chronicles 35:25. It is likely on various contextual grounds that the apparent prophetic books quoted in 1-2 Chronicles are actually references to passages in the Chronicles of the lost Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah, which in turn is likely a digest of the lost Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah cited in 1-2 Kings. It is interesting also that Ezra 6:18 attributes material to "Moses" which is not found in our Pentateuch.

There are also other references to lost OT pseudepigrapha in the New Testament: the Testament of Moses in Jude 9, and perhaps the Apocalypse or Apocryphon of Elijah in 1 Corinthians 2:9 and the book of Eldad and Modad in James 4:5. Richard Bauckham will be providing contributions dealing with all three of these in MOTP. The quote in Ephesians 5:14 may also be of a lost apocryphon. (There are other NT quotes of OT pseudepigrapha that are not lost, or not entirely so: 2 Timothy 3:8 refers to Jannes and Jambres and Jude 14-15 quotes from the Book of Watchers [1 Enoch 1:9]).

For more on all of this, see the relevant MOTP chapters, which should be going to press soon.

I am not a specialist in the Pauline letters or the NT Apocrypha, but those who are agree unanimously that the Epistle to the Laodecians is a forgery from well after Paul's time. As Mr. Hopkinson says, you can make up your mind for yourself.

For more on lost books, see here and follow the links.

THE ROM DEAD SEA SCROLLS EXHIBITION is reviewed in the Democrat and Chronicle:

Rare look at Dead Sea Scrolls in Toronto
Toronto museum offers rare look at the biblical writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Mary C. Kenessey • Contributing writer • August 2, 2009

The Dead Sea Scrolls bring us the earliest recorded writings of the Bible, as well as of the prophets and patriarchs revered by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So this major exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum, which runs through Jan. 3, affords us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view, firsthand, words that changed the world.

[...]

Located in the spectacular Lee-Chin Crystal extension, this important exhibit first takes the visitor on an absorbing and informative journey through the exotic sites and history of the Holy Land. It's a journey enriched by displays of jewelry, exquisite glassware, pottery, ossuaries, genuine silver shekels — and a breathtaking video re-creation of the magnificent Temple Mount.

Inside the actual scroll exhibition area, the ROM has taken extraordinary security and temperature-monitoring measures to ensure the protection and well-being of these delicate treasures, as evidenced by the controlled and dimmed lighting. Each scroll segment is ensconced in its own deeply recessed and specially illuminated case, backed by tall display stands clearly outlining the translated text. However, the truly amazing aspect of this exhibit is the tiny size and fragility of these remnants of writing, causing one to marvel how they ever managed to survive for so many centuries.

[...]