I'm BACK IN ST. ANDREWS. The conference went well. Too tired to say more now.

AZUSA PACIFIC UNIVERSITY has acquired some Dead Sea Scroll fragments:

Azusa Pacific University Acquires Five Dead Sea Scroll Fragments and Rare Biblical Artifacts

Azusa, Calif. (Vocus) September 4, 2009 -- In its most significant holding to date -- and possibly ever - Azusa Pacific University acquires five Dead Sea Scroll fragments and a collection of rare biblical antiquities.

Joining Princeton University and the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, APU becomes only the third institution of higher education to own original Dead Sea Scroll fragments. These earliest known texts of the Hebrew Bible, dating back to roughly 150 B.C., were discovered in the caves of Qumran, east of Jerusalem, between 1947-56. Today, many of the estimated 15,000 known fragments are held in private collections. With this acquisition, APU can study, research, and share these fragments with scholars and the public while carefully preserving the history of Scripture.

"This acquisition allows us to tell the remarkable story of how humanity came to have the Bible, and how Scripture has been preserved through history," said President Jon R. Wallace, DBA. "Having these documents also reinforces APU's history and commitment to a high view of Scriptures. This is a milestone for APU, and we are deeply grateful to Legacy Ministries International for allowing us to continue Legacy's devotion to protect these ancient documents that mark the very beginnings of the written Bible."

Four of the fragments were obtained from Lee Biondi of Biondi Rare Books and Manuscripts in Venice, California. The fifth fragment came from Legacy Ministries International, a Phoenix, Arizona-based nonprofit committed to telling the story of the Bible and assembling artifacts, objects, Bibles, and documents tracing the history of Scripture.

[...]

"Since their discovery, many Dead Sea Scroll fragments have been known only to their owners, and many are becoming impossible to read since they are no longer accompanied by the low humidity, thick ozone layer, and coverings that protected them for almost 2,000 years," said James H. Charlesworth, George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary and director and editor of the PTS Dead Sea Scrolls Project. "Now, thanks to the president and scholars at Azusa Pacific University, these fragments have been recovered and will be scientifically protected. Each one preserves priceless data from the beginnings of Western Culture and is a unique witness to documents in the Bible of Jews and Christians." Charlesworth will be working closely with several APU faculty to publish these fragments.

[...]

No further specifics are given about the contents of the fragments. In any case, it is good that they have found a home where they will be properly cared for and published.

I'M OFF TO ABERDEEN for the British New Testament Conference, which starts late this afternoon and goes until Saturday lunchtime. I have noted program information here. I'm giving a short paper in the New Testament and Second Temple Judaism Seminar, "The Book of Revelation and the Hekhalot Literature," the same paper I gave at the SBL meeting in Boston last November. I'm pretty sure there will be no overlap in audience - apart from the online one, that is. If you have not read it yet, you can download the paper and the accompanying handout here.

I expect to have Internet access at Aberdeen University and to continue blogging more or less as usual.

TOP TEN DISCOVERIES: Biblical Archaeology Review, in honor of its 200th issue, has selected "ten excavated finds from our first 199 issues that are undeniably important to our understanding of the Biblical world." All of the discoveries in the list are important and interesting, and most have been found since BAR started publishing in the 1970s and were covered at the time of their discovery in BAR. But I'm still scratching my head over the exception, the Coptic Gnostic library from Nag Hammadi, and trying to figure out why it is included and the Dead Sea Scrolls are not.

MORE ON GEZA VERMES'S LECTURE TOUR in the United States:

Dead Sea Scrolls talk opens Jewish Studies series

(The Chapel Hill News)

A talk by a pioneer of Dead Sea Scrolls research will kick off a series of community events sponsored by the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill.

The events for the 2009-10 academic year will begin with the Sept. 14 lecture by Geza Vermes, emeritus professor of Jewish Studies at Oxford University. He will discuss the scrolls and evaluate their contribution to the study of ancient Judaism and early Christianity.

Vermes' talk will be this year's Eli N. Evans Distinguished Lecture in Jewish Studies at 7:30 p.m. at the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education. It is free to the public.

[...]

Background here.

Also, Professor Vermes e-mails the following:

As you kindly posted the notice of my talk at ULM on the historical Jesus, you may like to note that during my American escapade I am also lecturing on the DSS at UNC Chapel Hill on 14 Sept., Johns Hopkins in Baltimore on 22 Sept. and at ULS in Baton Rouge on 29 Sept. Furthermore I am scheduled for a graduate seminar at Duke on 17 Sept. on History in the DSS.

ANOTHER REVIEW of The Sisters of Sinai, better than the one in the WaPo, but still needing some clarifications.

The Sisters of Sinai

How a pair of wealthy identical twins made one of the most significant scriptural discoveries in history.

By Carmela Ciuraru | August 31, 2009 edition (Christian Science Monitor)

The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels By Janet Soskice Knopf 304 pp., $26.95

Margaret and Agnes Smith were identical twin sisters born in Scotland in the mid-19th century. They suffered tragedy early on when their mother died two weeks after giving birth; their father died when they were just twenty-three, leaving them wealthy but alone in the world.

How Margaret and Agnes made one of the most significant scriptural discoveries in history is the subject of The Sisters of Sinai, the latest book by author Janet Soskice, a fellow of Jesus College at Cambridge University. She recounts how the intrepid women found and deciphered one of the earliest known copies of the Gospels – written in ancient Syriac, the dialect of Aramaic, which was the native language of Jesus.

[...]

The last sentence could be phrased a little more clearly: Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic and Aramaic (not that dialect) was the native language of Jesus.

The women were keenly interested in ancient biblical manuscripts (and Agnes’ husband had been a scholar of Jewish and early Christian archaeology). With the help of a generous Quaker scholar who was intrigued by these audacious Scottish sisters – and who remained a steadfast supporter – Margaret and Agnes learned how to use camera equipment so they could photograph any important discoveries for later study. He also told them of a “dark cupboard” beneath the archbishops’ rooms at the library that contained chests of Syriac manuscripts – possibly some of the earliest texts of Christianity. Agnes had recently steeped herself in studying Syriac, in preparation for what she might find, and Margaret learned the language later on.

It was in that neglected cupboard that the women found a palimpsest: beneath a manuscript on the lives of women saints was the “yellowish-red underwriting” of the four Gospels, which they had to steam apart with a tea-kettle. The texts were small – just 8-5/8 by 6-1/4” – and nearly impossible to decipher. Agnes noted that some delicate pages “could only be discerned by letting the noon-day sunlight shine through,” to fully reveal their marks.

Despite this revelatory find, the painstaking work of transcription and translation had just begun, and Margaret and Agnes lacked sufficient knowledge to take on the entire project alone. Along with some Cambridge scholars, they toiled away at their task, eventually learning that this text dated to the late second century, which put it “very near the fountainhead of early Christianity,” Soskice writes. (The twins ended up making four trips to Sinai in five years.)

[...]

It's debatable whether the text dates to the late second century. The manuscript itself (the underwriting with the Syriac Gospels) was written in the late fourth century. It is possible that the Old Syriac translation was done as early as the second century, although this is not certain. Follow the first link above for more information.

Manuscripts from St. Catherine's Monastery are getting a lot of attention today.

A NEW FRAGMENT OF CODEX SINAITICUS has been discovered:

Fragment from world's oldest Bible found hidden in Egyptian monastery

Academic stumbles upon previously unseen section of Codex Sinaiticus dating back to 4th century

By Jerome Taylor, Religious Affairs Correspondent (The Independent)

Wednesday, 2 September 2009

A British-based academic has uncovered a fragment of the world's oldest Bible hiding underneath the binding of an 18th-century book.

Nikolas Sarris spotted a previously unseen section of the Codex Sinaiticus, which dates from about AD350, as he was trawling through photographs of manuscripts in the library of St Catherine's Monastery in Egypt.

[...]

Only a quarter of the fragment is visible through the book binding but after closer inspection, Father Justin was able to confirm that a previously unseen section of the Codex had indeed been found. The fragment is believed to be the beginning of Joshua, Chapter 1, Verse 10, in which Joshua admonishes the children of Israel as they enter the promised land.

Speaking to The Art Newspaper, Father Justin said the monastery would use scanners to look more closely at how much of the fragment existed under the newer book binding. "Modern technology should allow us to examine the binding in a non-invasive manner," he said.

Mr Sarris said his find was particularly significant because there were at least 18 other book bindings in the monastery's library that were compiled by the same two monks that had re-used the Codex. "We don't know whether we will find more of the Codex in those books but it would definitely be worth looking," he said.

[...]

Indeed. Bit by bit, a letter at a time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.

Lots more on the Codex Sinaiticus here.

MICHAEL F. BIRD has an essay at the Bible and Interpretation website arguing that Jesus himself made messianic claims:

The Messianic Jesus Makes a Come Back

While his earliest followers should have been convinced by an ignominious death that Jesus was a false-prophet and pseudo-Messiah, they quickly came to the conviction that he was not only the Messiah, but was more than the Messiah, and was now to be identified with Israel's "Lord" in some way.

Essay based on Are You the One Who Is To Come? The Historical Jesus and the Messianic Question (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009)


By Michael F. Bird
Highland Theological College
UHI Millennium Institute
August 2009

I've been moving house since yesterday and have not had much time for blogging today.

APOCRYPHA WATCH: The Wisdom of Solomon was quoted at Senator Kennedy's funeral on Saturday:

The senator's stepson, Curran Raclin, gave the first reading from the Book of Wisdom. "The souls of the just are in the hand of God," Raclin read, "and no torment shall touch them."

The reference is Wisd. 3:1.

ARAMAIC-SPEAKING CHRISTIANS IN TURKEY face legal challenges and challenges from emigration according to Today's Zaman:

Arameans search for roots and rights in mardın

Father Malki Gümüşsoy raises his hand toward the heavens and starts to pray in front of the locked iron door of one of the eight closed churches of Dargeçit, Mardin, a city in southeastern Anatolia famous for its multi-religious and multi-ethnic character.

Gümüşsoy represents one of these colors of Mardin; he is an Aramean priest. Also known as Syriacs, Arameans speak a Semitic language that dates back 3,000 years and was used by Jesus Christ. However, 80-year-old Gümüşsoy worries about the young generation of Arameans in Turkey. They face a lack of teachers and schools in which to teach even basic literacy.

He also worries about Turkey's Aramean population, which has diminished sharply due to mass migration -- primarily to Europe. In fact, two of his four children have opted to move to Europe.

[...]

A POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP AT YALE:

2010-2012 Postdoctoral Associates in Judaic Studies

The Program in Judaic Studies at Yale University is offering a two-year Jacob & Hilda Blaustein postdoctoral fellowship that will begin on July 1, 2010. Candidates for the fellowship must have a Ph.D. in hand by July 1, 2010 and must have received the degree no earlier than 2007. The Program seeks a specialist in Ancient Jewish History/Judaism who will work closely with appropriate members of Yale’s faculty.

The Judaic Studies Blaustein Fellow will be expected to be in residence, to conduct research in Yale’s library and archival collections, to participate actively in the intellectual life of the university, and to teach three semester courses over two years. The annual stipend will be $50,000 plus health benefits. Candidates should send a cover letter, CV, project proposal, three letters of recommendation, and a list of proposed courses to:

JACOB AND HILDA BLAUSTEIN POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP

JUDAIC STUDIES PROGRAM

P.O. BOX 208282

NEW HAVEN, CT 06520-8282

EMAIL: renee.reed@yale.edu

The deadline for receipt of application materials is

Monday, February 8, 2010

For a list of recent and current postdoctoral associates in Judaic Studies, click here.

(Via the H-JUDAIC list.)

BOOK REVIEW by Matthew Shaer in the Washington Post:

A Sister Act of Perseverance

Sunday, August 30, 2009

THE SISTERS OF SINAI

How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels

By Janet Soskice

Knopf. 316 pp. $27.95

In early 1892, twin sisters Margaret and Agnes Smith, unschooled in paleography but possessed of keenly rebellious spirits, traveled from England to St. Catherine's Church, at the foot of Egypt's Mt. Sinai. There, in a "dimly lit little room below the prior's quarters," they discovered "an unpromising brick of parchment," its surfaces coated with dust. Despite the state of this "grimy codex," Agnes, the older of the sisters, was convinced that she had made a great discovery, and after 40 days of study she emerged with proof.

As scholar Janet Soskice reveals in her luminous new study, "The Sisters of Sinai," Margaret and Agnes had nosed out nothing less than the earliest known copies of the Gospels -- an account written in Syriac, the language likely spoken by Jesus himself. At the time, Soskice writes, "the Bible remained an unquestioned compendium of truth, its immutable word conveyed supernaturally through the generations." And yet this codex -- so different in content from the modern edition of the Gospels -- indicated that scripture was actually the product of years of careful revisions. The Bible, in other words, had evolved.

[...]

The second paragraph has a number of errors. Codex Syriacus is the earliest copy of the Gospels in Syriac, not the earliest known copy in any language.Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, not a language in its own right. Jesus spoke Galilean Aramaic, a Western dialect. Syriac is an Eastern dialect of Aramaic which originated in Edessa. And the content of this manuscript is not all that different from modern editions. Actually, it's closer than the traditional Greek text in that it leaves out the longer ending of Mark. But it also has its own odd secondary readings. For details see here and scroll down to "The Old Syriac."

Some even worse garbling of the subject is noted here. The book under review sounds interesting, though.

UPDATE: Reader Meg Dea e-mails::

Most disappointing about that review is that it fails to mention the writings these 2 Victorian sisters left behind. Agnes Lewis Smith's books Eastern Pilgrims: The travels of three ladies and In the Shadow of Sinai are both still in print, as far as I know, and most entertaining reading.

GEZA VERMES will be lecturing in Louisiana in September:

ULM to host eminent scholar Géza Vermes
September 23-24
Géza Vermes
Vermes

Géza Vermes — one of the first scholars to examine the Dead Sea Scrolls after their discovery in 1947 — will be a distinguished guest of the University of Louisiana at Monroe in September.

Vermes will visit ULM Sept. 23 to meet with students of a master’s level history class focused on biblical lands. He will deliver a free public lecture from 7 to 8 p.m. in Biedenharn Recital Hall on Sept. 24.

[...]

Via Joseph I. Lauer and Jack Sasson's Agade list.

THE BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY has announced this year's publication awards:

The Biblical Archaeology Society 2009 Publication Awards

The 2009 Biblical Archaeology Society Publication Awards recognize the best books published in 2007 and 2008. The biennial BAS Publication Awards for books about archaeology and the Bible have been presented since 1985. These prestigious awards are made possible by a grant from the Leopold and Clara M. Fellner Charitable Foundation, through its trustee Frederick L. Simmons. Winning authors receive an award of $1,000.00 and an honorary certificate. BAS congratulates the recipients of the 2009 Publication Awards and extends heartfelt thanks to the panel of judges.

MORE JEWISH-TEMPLE DENIAL from the PA according to Arutz Sheva:

PA Sheikh Denies Existence of Holy Temple

by Hillel Fendel

(IsraelNN.com) Once again, the Palestinian Authority denies that the Holy Temple ever existed – despite a Waqf pamphlet from 1925 boasting proudly that the Temple Mount once housed Solomon's Temple.

The latest denial came on Wednesday when the PA’s Chief Islamic Judge, Sheikh Taysir Rajab al-Tamimi, condemned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, as well as "all Jewish rabbis and extremist organizations,” for lying and asserting that Jerusalem was a Jewish city.

Al-Tamimi nearly caused an international incident this past May when he disrupted Pope Benedict XVI's interfaith meeting in Jerusalem with a vicious verbal attack on Israel.

In his latest rampage, the PA’s highest Islamic authority said – following Netanyahu’s remarks in London declaring the eternal Jewish connection to Jerusalem – that his claims “are baseless and untrue. Jerusalem is an Arab and Islamic city and it always has been so.”

[...]

More on that Waqf pamphlet here.

ALEXANDER THE ITSY BITSY. Wish I'd thought of that one.

(Via David Meadows on Facebook. Background here.)

PROPHECY MEETS THE ROMANCE NOVEL. Why not?

Rabbi-Novelist Mines Ancient Treasure

by Rachel Heller, Contributing Writer (JewishJournal.com)

Of all the prophets, Jeremiah has always been the personal favorite of Rabbi Zoë Klein. So in a series of two fictional works, the prolific pulpit rabbi and fiction writer did him a favor: She gave him a lover.

“He’s a brooder; he’s the most autobiographical of the prophets, and there’s something so desperately lonely and sad about him that I wanted to reach back in time and comfort him somehow,” said Klein, 38, senior rabbi at Temple Isaiah in Los Angeles. “I wanted to provide someone who is just mad about him and loves him as a man, not as a prophet.”

Faith and the healing property of love are themes Klein explores in her recently released novel, “Drawing in the Dust,” which follows fictional archaeologist Page Brookstone as she unearths a startling ancient treasure that challenges traditional theological beliefs in Israel and beyond.

Brookstone, a Catholic American excavating at Mount Megiddo, has spent her life hiding underground from personal demons and is haunted by the early death of her father. But when she begins a dig beneath an Arab couple’s home and discovers Jeremiah’s grave — his remains clasped in the arms of a mysterious woman — Brookstone begins to confront her fears and embrace love’s ability to transcend time.

The mysterious woman turns out to be Anatiya, a fictional contemporary of Jeremiah that Klein created for her first book, “The Scroll of Anatiya,” published earlier this year. Anatiya, who is mute, falls in love with the prophet after hearing him preach and spends her life longing for a man too consumed by holy work to return her devotion. One of the artifacts Brookstone finds near Jeremiah’s tomb in “Drawing in the Dust” is Anatiya’s scroll, whose 52 chapters, written in the poetic style of an ancient text, mirror the events narrated in the Book of Jeremiah.

[...]

THE SYNAGOGUE OF DURA-EUROPOS is mentioned in a brief Christian Science Monitor article on archaeological sites in Syria:

But on a cliff overlooking the Euphrates less than 30 miles from Iraq, where Roman soldiers once watched for invading Persians, it’s possible to imagine life in the fortified desert city of Dura-Europos 2,000 years ago. Founded in 300 BC by Seleucus, one of Alexander the Great’s generals, it was a cosmopolitan outpost; first Hellenistic, then Roman – home to Greeks, Syrians, Christians, and Jews.

The synagogue on a side street by the still-standing mud-brick walls was preserved under sand, like so much of Dura, for more than 1,500 years. British soldiers coming from recently occupied Iraq stumbled upon the city in 1920; an American archaeologist excavated the synagogue in 1932.

Shipped to Damascus, where it was rebuilt, the synagogue is one of the oldest and most unique Jewish monuments in antiquity – on display at the Syrian National Museum. Its frescoed walls depict such vibrant biblical scenes that it was originally thought to be a Greek temple.

Today a Syrian guide, while prohibiting flash photographs to preserve the murals’ original colors, happily explains the scriptural stories and the history of the synagogue’s discovery.

Palmyra and Mari are mentioned too.

ROBERT R. CARGILL is back at Bible and Interpretation and administers a thorough and well-deserved fisking to a Copper-Scroll crank:

Pseudo-Science and Sensationalist Archaeology: An Exposé of Jimmy Barfield and the Copper Scroll Project

Members of the academy must take individual responsibility and make conscious efforts to rebut examples of obvious disinformation whenever and wherever they arise. Likewise, archaeologists must band together and coordinate their efforts to meet these misleading claims as strongly and consistently as possible. For in a world where Wikipedia allows anyone to say just about anything, scholars must move beyond their comfortable arenas of peer-review and professional conferences, where they talk only to one another, and redouble our efforts to reach out to the public directly. We must counter irresponsible claims with measured responses, debunk and discredit them, and offer alternative theories from a spectrum of reliable scholars who, while they may at times disagree, can support their various claims with scientific facts, tangible data, and sound reason.

By Robert R. Cargill, Ph.D.

UCLA Center for Digital Humanities

UCLA Qumran Visualization Project

August 2009

MORE ON THAT TOMB IN SEPPHORIS/TZIPORI:

Despite objections, dig will go ahead at 'mystical' grave

By JOSIAH RYAN (Jerusalem Post)

An agreement struck between the Tiberias Magistrate's Court and a Tzipori land-owner on Monday will allow the excavation of a tomb that may contain the remains of famed 3rd century Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi to begin next month.

The work at the site, which features a clear inscription of the rabbi's name on the lintel and reportedly contains a terra cotta sarcophagus, may trigger significant opposition throughout the religious community, experts and religious authorities said on Tuesday.

"This is an important site," Antiquities Authority director Dr. Uzi Dahari, who personally holds the license to the dig, told The Jerusalem Post after the court's decision. "We don't know what's in there yet, but it could be very, very, significant. It may be Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, but it's impossible to know for sure until we dig."

[...]

(Via Joseph I. Lauer's list.)

Sounds like a messy, complicated situation. From earlier coverage of the Aramaic inscription, it seems far from clear that this is the grave of the third-century rabbi. Background here.