Nag Hammadi murder trial update

NAG HAMMADI MURDER TRIAL UPDATE: Prosecutors call for death sentence for Naga Hammadi murder suspects. But the conclusion of the trial has now been rescheduled to 18 December.

Background here.

Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls

THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS is coming out in the UK in a week, and a couple of weeks later in the USA. Follow the link for details. The Amazon link is here. Professor Timothy Lim, co-editor of the volume, also has sent the table of contents. I have contributed an article on the Scrolls and mysticism.

Introduction: Current Issues in Dead Sea Scrolls Research
Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins

PART I ARCHAEOLOGY OF KHIRBET QUMRAN AND THE JUDAEAN WILDERNESS
1. Khirbet Qumran and its Environs
Eric M. Meyers

2. The Qumran Cemetery Reassessed
Rachel Hachlili

PART II THE SCROLLS AND
JEWISH HISTORY
3. Constructing Ancient Judaism from the Scrolls
Martin Goodman

4. The Origins and History of the Teacher’s Movement
Michael O. Wise

5. Women in Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Tal Ilan

PART III THE SCROLLS AND SECTARIANISM
6. Sectarian Communities in the Dead Sea Scrolls
John J. Collins

7. The Classical Sources on the Essenes and the Scrolls
Communities
Joan E. Taylor

8. Sociological Approaches to Qumran Sectarianism
Jutta Jokiranta

9. Qumran Calendars and Sectarianism
Sacha Stern

10. The Book of Enoch and the Qumran Scrolls
James C. VanderKam

PART IV THE BIBLICAL TEXTS, INTERPRETATION, AND LANGUAGES OF THE SCROLLS
11. Assessing the Text-Critical Theories of the Hebrew Bible after Qumran
Ronald S. Hendel

12. Authoritative Scriptures and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Timothy H. Lim

13. Rewritten Scripture
Molly M. Zahn

14. The Continuity of Biblical Interpretation in the Qumran Scrolls and Rabbinic Literature
Bilhah Nitzan

15. Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek in the Qumran Scrolls
Jan Joosten

PART V RELIGIOUS THEMES IN THE SCROLLS
16. Purity in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Jonathan Klawans

17. Apocalypticism and Messianism
Michael A. Knibb

18. Exploring the Mystical Background of the Dead Sea Scrolls
James R. Davila

19. Wisdom Literature and Thought in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Armin Lange

20. Iranian Connections in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Albert De Jong

21. Was the Dead Sea Sect a Penitential Movement?
David Lambert

PART VI THE SCROLLS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY
22. Critical Issues in the Investigation of the Scrolls and the New Testament
Jo¨rg Frey

23. Monotheism, Principal Angels, and the Background of Christology
L. W. Hurtado

24. Shared Exegetical Traditions between the Scrolls and the New Testament
George J. Brooke

PART VII THE SCROLLS AND LATER JUDAISM
25. Halakhah between the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Literature
Aharon Shemesh

26. The Contribution of the Qumran Scrolls to the Study of Ancient Jewish Liturgy
Daniel K. Falk

27. Reviewing the Links between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Cairo Genizah
Stefan C. Reif

PART VIII NEW APPROACHES TO THE SCROLLS
28. Rhetorical Criticism and the Reading of the Qumran Scrolls
Carol A. Newsom

29. Roland Barthes and the Teacher of Righteousness: The Death of the Author of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Maxine L. Grossman

30. The Scrolls and the Legal Definition of Authorship
Hector L. Macqueen

More on Google's planned Dead Sea Scrolls archive

GOOGLE'S PLAN with the IAA to put the Dead Sea Scrolls online (noted here) has received endless media coverage, most of it repetitive. But here's an interesting little photo essay from National Geographic.

UPDATE: Reader Luke Richards calls my attention to a glaring error that I should have noticed myself:

Discovered in caves near the Dead Sea in the 1940s and 1950s, the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek scrolls date to between 150 B.C. and A.D. 70. They include copies of nearly every book in the Old Testament as well as others that are not part of the traditional canon, such as the Gospel of Judas (time line of early Christianity).

That'll teach me to skim a source before linking, even if it's the normally reputable National Geographic Society. The Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic Christian text in Coptic which was apparently found in Egypt. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls. It seems that someone at the National Geographic Society has been reading too much Dan Brown.

More on the planted graves at Mamilla cemetery

MORE ON THOSE PLANTED GRAVES at the Mamilla cemetery in Jerusalem:

Arutz Sheva Report Leads Court to Check Out False Arab Graves

by Elad Benari
Follow Israel news on Twitter and Facebook.

The Jerusalem Magistrates Court held a discussion on Wednesday regarding the ancient Muslim cemetery in the city’s center. The Muslim Waqf had asked the court to force the Jerusalem Municipality to stop the actions it has taken to remove the false graves that had been planted in the area, in an attempt to add property to the cemetery..

[...]

Background here amd here.

Daniel Matt on the Zohar

DANIEL MATT is lecturing in NYC on the Zohar:

Daniel Matt: Revealing the Secrets of the Zohar

Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Mark Pearlman (The Jewish Week)
JInsider

Kabbalah – the ancient study of Jewish mysticism – continues to be one of the spiritual movements du jour in Hollywood and around the world. If you are interested in exploring why Kabbalah is relevant today, you should attend one of the lectures by world-renowned author and lecturer Dan Matt when he makes a rare visit to NYC on Halloween Weekend (10/29 - 10/31). To experience Matt’s thoughtful wisdom, below are highlights from an interview with him about various teachable moments from the Kabbalah.

[...]

I have been following Professor Matt's progress on his Zohar translation for many years. Background here, here, here, and here and follow the links.

The Tomb of Ezekiel in the NYT

THE TOMB OF EZEKIEL (traditional) gets some coverage in the New York Times. Article here. Excerpt:

The historic core includes not only Ezekiel’s tomb and the synagogue around it, but also a precariously leaning 14th-century minaret of a mosque long since destroyed, and a vaulted T-shaped bazaar built in the 1800s under Ottoman rule, when Jews and Muslims lived in relative tolerance, if not exactly harmony.

All are at the center of Kifl’s redevelopment plan, still under consideration and very much contested. A copy of the plan, hanging on the wall of the mayor’s office, depicts modern hotels, restaurants, shops, parks, parking lots and even a boat launch on the Euphrates shore: Kifl in 2030.

“We hope everyone who visits Iraq comes to Kifl,” said the mayor, Khalid Obeid Hamza.

His ambitions are as grand as the Malaysian city he improbably cited, when asked, as the inspiration for the plans.

“Kuala Lumpur,” he said. “It’s a very nice place.”

The plan, like the restoration work, has been greeted with deep suspicion by Kifl’s residents, including the tailors, shop owners and restaurateurs who work in the covered bazaar. Last month Kifl’s residents staged a protest, fearing the redevelopment would force them out.

“If it’s good for my work, but hurts others, I won’t accept it,” said a baker, Malik Ali, expressing fears that hotels and restaurants for tourists would ruin the town’s historic, albeit worn, charm.

He then echoed a familiar Iraqi lament: “I wish the restoration work would start with electricity and water and sewage.”

In fact, the restoration of the tomb and its environs had barely started before it came under attack. News reports early this year that the project aimed to turn Ezekiel’s tomb into a mosque, removing architectural details like carvings in Hebrew, provoked a fury in Israel and beyond.

The reports were false — the carvings remain in place, as do the wooden balustrades that separated the men’s and women’s sections and a carved cabinet that once held the Torah — but the fears were not without some foundation.

Modern plaster, including some with painted Hebrew words and designs, was removed, ostensibly to expose the original stone walls, which have their own designs.

Photographs here and video here. Some of the Hebrew inscriptions appear in both.

I have been following the fate of the Tomb of Ezekiel for some time. Start here and follow the links back. I am very pleased that the site has been getting some renovation funding and some attention from the international media.

John Dominic Crossan interviewed

JOHN DOMINIC CROSSAN is interviewed by the Religion News Service about his new book on the Lord's Prayer:

10 minutes with … John Dominic Crossan

By Ron Csillag

(RNS) John Dominic Crossan is arguably the world’s foremost scholar of the historical Jesus. Twenty-five years ago, Crossan co-founded the Jesus Seminar with Robert Funk, a group of mostly liberal scholars who decide on the historicity of the deeds and sayings of Jesus.

A former Roman Catholic priest and professor emeritus of religious studies at DePaul University, Crossan newest book—his 26th—looks at the Lord’s Prayer, or the Our Father. In “The Greatest Prayer,” Crossan argues that Christianity’s best-known invocation is misunderstood and undervalued in today’s society.

[...]

Back in St. Andrews

BACK IN ST. ANDREWS. More tomorrow.

Heading back to Scotland

HEADING BACK TO SCOTLAND later this morning. Look for me again late on Wednesday at the earliest.

Junk History Watch: Algerian Paper Claims Torah Scroll Includes Name of Mohammed

JUNK HISTORY WATCH: Algerian Paper Claims Torah Scroll Includes Name of Mohammed. The word in question is actually a Hebrew adjective in the Song of Songs. It would be great if a second-century CE scroll of the Song of Songs were discovered in Jerusalem, but I certainly haven't heard this from anywhere else.

Dead Sea scrolls to go on Google archive

FROM CAVES TO COMPUTERS: Dead Sea scrolls to go on Google archive.

Review: Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611-2011

BOOK REVIEW:

Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611-2011 by Gordon Campbell – review

A history of the King James Version celebrates the Bible's stunning scholarship – and drunken misprints

* Daisy Hay
* The Observer, Sunday 17 October 2010
* Article history

Part way through this history of the King James Bible, Gordon Campbell turns his attention from the 17th century to our own age. "It would be difficult now," he writes, "to bring together a group of more than 50 scholars with the range of languages and knowledge of other disciplines that characterised the KJV translators. We may live in a world with more knowledge, but it is populated by people with less knowledge."

Campbell's book demonstrates that this conclusion is depressingly accurate. The King James Version was, first and foremost, an unbelievable feat of scholarship: its translators were fluent in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Ethiopic, as well as being expert theologians and Bible historians. It was also an organisational feat, which brought together Britain's leading scholars in tiers of companies and committees, and which entailed a concerted effort by cohorts of printers, typesetters and bookbinders.

[...]

This seems to be turning into one of those media memes that journalists mouth without bothering to check the facts. That's the depressing part. I don't know if Campbell is being quoted in context, but if he is, he should know better. Briefly, yes it would be a challenge to organize such a project, but not an overwhelming one, and no it would not be hard to find the requisite number of specialists. The More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project has an international team of scholars about the same size as the one that produced the King James Bible and the MOTP contributors cover a much wider range of languages and specialties. Mercifully, we don't have "tiers of companies and committees." My comments here also apply.

Phoenicia reaches Lebanon

THE GOOD SHIP PHOENICIA has reached Lebanon:

PHOENICIA MAKES LANDFALL IN LEBANON

(Gibraltar Chronicle)

After 20,000 miles and two years at sea, Phoenicia has arrived at the ancient Phoenician port of Sidon in Lebanon

Nearing completion of a voyage to circumnavigate Africa the replica 600 BC ship has been warmly received in Lebanon by the coordinators of www.phoenicia.org.uk - a website dedicated to furthering knowledge about Phoenician history and culture. In Lebanon the ship will stay for a few days in port Sidon before sailing north to the capital, Beirut, where a ceremony is planned to mark the 2,600 year anniversary of the Phoenicians original circumnavigation. Mr George Faddoul from www.phoenicia.org.uk is coordinating the ship’s visit to Lebanon and the events in Beirut taking place between 15th-20th October.

[...]

Background here. After the ceremony the ship sails to Syria.

The Mesha Stele and President Ahmadinejad

THE MESHA STELE is invoked by Arutz Sheva in response to President Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon:

Ahmadinejad spoke before thousands of supporters in the afternoon at Bint Jbeil, the scene of a battle between the IDF and Iranian puppet militia Hizbullah in the Second Lebanon War. As predicted by expert Mordechai Kedar on Arutz Sheva, Ahmadinejad told the audience: “You fought at the front line against the aggressors and Zionist occupiers,” adding: “You proved that no country will succeed in breaking the Lebanese resistance.”

He predicted that “the Zionists will go back to the place they came from.”

Bint Jbeil, he said, “is “the capital of freedom, the capital of resistance.” The town, he said, “holds its head high and will hold out until the last moment” whereas “the Zionists will not last long.”

[...]

The nation of Israel has a long history of facing enemies who swear to annihilate it, as Ahmadinejad does. The Passover Hagaddah recounts that “in every generation, they arise to destroy us, and the Holy One, Blessed Be He saves us from them.”

In the Mesha stele, a tablet discovered in what is now Jordan, the king of ancient Moab declares that he fought against a Jewish king, but was victorious, adding: “And Israel suffered everlasting destruction.” The tablet dates from the 9th century BCE. There are no traceable Moabites in the world today..

The article might also have noted a similar premature claim in the thirteenth-century BCE Merneptah Stele, which says, "Israel is laid waste, its seed is not."

New Book: Kabbalistic Manuscripts and Textual Theory

NEW BOOK:

Cherub Press is proud to announce the publication of
the 26th volume in the book series, “Sources and Studies in the Literature of Jewish Mysticism”

Kabbalistic Manuscripts and Textual Theory
Methodologies of Textual Scholarship and Editorial Practice in the Study of Jewish Mysticism

by Daniel Abrams
foreword by David Greetham

* * *

Kabbalistic Manuscripts and Textual Theory: Methodologies of Textual Scholarship and Editorial Practice in the Study of Jewish Mysticism, by Daniel Abrams, foreword by David Greetham, SSLJM 26; 2010, 761 pp., hardcover, ISBN 1-933379-18-9, in English, $49. Kabbalistic Manuscripts and Textual Theory uncovers the unstated assumptions and expectations of scribes and scholars who fashioned editions from manuscripts of Jewish mystical literature. This study offers a theory of kabbalistic textuality in which the material book – the printed page no less than handwritten manuscripts – serves as the site for textual dialogue between Jewish mystics of different periods and locations. The refashioning of the text through the process of reading and commenting that takes place on the page – in the margins and between the lines – blurs the boundaries between the traditionally defined roles of author, reader, commentator and editor. This study shows that kabbalists and academic editors reinvented the text in their own image, as part of a fluid textual process that was nothing short of transformative.

Via the Agade list.

Roitman lecturing tonight on DSS

ADOLFO ROITMAN is lecturing tonight on the Dead Sea Scrolls in Springfield, Missouri:

Adolfo Roitman, curator of the Shrine of the Book and guardian of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Israel, will present a public lecture, "The Dead Sea Scrolls -- Myth and Reality," this evening.

A video produced by the Israel Museum that portrays life among the Essenes, often called the Dead Sea Scrolls community, will introduce the presentation, which will be followed by a question-and-answer period.

Dr. Roitman is on a North American tour.

Pictures: King Herod's VIP Box Excavated

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: Pictures: King Herod's VIP Box Excavated.

Off to San Diego

I'M OFF TO SAN DIEGO to visit family. I'll be busy, but I'll try to keep up some blogging. Look for me late this evening San Diego time or, more likely, on Wednesday.

UPDATE: Unplanned overnight stay in Amsterdam due to a technical glitch in Edinburgh which made us miss our connection. Could be late Wednesday evening or Thursday before I can get back to blogging.

Things look pretty quiet right now, but here's something via the Agade list.

From Cook, Edward M. (COOKE@cua.edu):
==================================

The Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, announces a public recital, "An Evening of Neo-Aramaic Literature: Readings in Neo-Aramaic Poetry and Proverbs," with department member Dr. Shawqi Talia, Reader in Arabic and Neo-Aramaic. The event is open to the public.

The recital will be held Thursday, Oct. 28th beginning at 4:30 pm in the May Gallery of the Mullen Library on campus. Please direct enquiries to cua-semitics@cua.edu for more details.

Exciting New Books

EXCITING NEW BOOKS are noted at the Talmud Blog. And notice also this post at Hagahot on a new book on Automatic Writing in the Zoharic literature. The latter makes me think of Ezra's reception of the 94 lost scriptures in 4 Ezra 14:37-48.

UPDATE: More new books from the SBL:

THREE NEW TITLES FROM THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

The Bible in Theory: Critical and Postcritical Essays
Stephen D. Moore

The sixteen essays assembled in this volume, four of them co-authored, chart the successive phases of a professional life lived in the interstices of Bible and “theory.” Engaging such texts as the Song of Songs, 4 Maccabees, Mark, Luke-Acts, John, and Romans, and such themes as the quest for the historical Jesus, the essays simultaneously traverse postmodernism, deconstruction, New Historicism, autobiographical criticism, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, masculinity studies, queer theory, and “posttheory.” Individual essay introductions and periodic annotated bibliographies make the volume an advanced introduction to biblical literary criticism.

Paper $51.95 • 480 pages • ISBN 9781589835061• Resources for Biblical Study • Hardback edition www.brill.nl

Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from Iron Age
Christopher A. Rollston

Ancient Northwest Semitic inscriptions from Israel, Phoenicia, Syria, Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Philistia enlighten and sharpen our vision of the Old Testament world in various ways. Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel focuses on this epigraphic evidence in order to broaden our understanding of the techniques and roles of writing, education, and literacy during this biblical period. To that end, the volume systematically covers scribal education; scribal implements; writing media such as stones, potsherds, and plaster; and the religious, administrative, and personal uses of writing. Its “handbook” format makes it easily accessible, including for use as a textbook in courses addressing the cultural context of ancient Israel.

Paper $21.95 • 192 pages • ISBN 9781589831070 • Archaeology and Biblical Studies • Hardback edition www.brill.nl

Scribal Habits in Early Greek New Testament Papyri
James R. Royse

In textual criticism, the “scribal habits” in a manuscript (tendencies to make various sorts of changes) must be known in order to evaluate its testimony. Colwell analyzed the scribal habits in P45, P66, and P75, by examining their singular readings. This book expands on Colwell’s work by studying P45, P46, P47, P66, P72, and P75, the six most extensive early New Testament manuscripts. All the singular readings in these papyri are studied along with all the corrections. The results, which incorporate many revised readings of these papyri, make possible the more precise use of these papyri in textual criticism. Among the important discoveries is that the general tendency of these early scribes was to omit rather than to add.

Paper $89.95 • 1088 pages • ISBN 9781589835221 • Brill Reprints • Hardback edition www.brill.nl

Review of Alter, The Wisdom Books

ROBERT ALTER'S THE WISDOM BOOKS is reviewed in Jewish Ideas Daily:

Englishing the Hebrew Bible

By David Curzon

All translators of the Hebrew Bible into English work in the shadow of the genius of the King James Version (KJV), done in the 17th century and still in wide use today despite its thee's and thou's. The diction of the KJV has been modernized in the Revised Standard Version (1962) and the New Revised Standard Version (1989). Jewish translations, following the sequence and other features of the Hebrew Bible, and guided by rabbinic understandings, have been brought out by the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) and others.

In the 1980s, the American literary critic and scholar Robert Alter began publishing original studies of the Hebrew Bible that yielded, among other books, The Art of Biblical Narrative and The Art of Biblical Poetry. In 1987 he co-edited, with the late Frank Kermode, The Literary Guide to the Bible, a volume of essays by diverse authors on the books of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Since then he has been publishing his own translations into contemporary English of, to borrow his titles, The Five Books of Moses, The David Story, and The Book of Psalms. The newest addition to this ongoing project, just published, is The Wisdom Books, consisting of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. All of these translations, informed by both scholarly understanding and literary sensitivity, are accompanied by detailed commentaries free of jargon. Anyone interested in the Hebrew Bible should become familiar with Alter's undertaking.

[...]

Earlier review noted here.