The BBC on the CAD

THE COMPLETION OF THE CHICAGO ASSYRIAN DICTIONARY is celebrated by the BBC:

Dictionary of dead language complete after 90 years

By Cordelia Hebblethwaite BBC News

Five volumes of 21 volumes of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. Photo by Jason Smith The first volumes of the dictionary were published in the 1950s

A dictionary of the extinct language of ancient Mesopotamia has been completed after 90 years of work.

Assyrian and Babylonian - dialects of the language collectively known as Akkadian - have not been spoken for almost 2,000 years.

"This is a heroic and significant moment in history," beamed Dr Irving Finkel of the British Museum's Middle East department.

As a young man in the 1970s Dr Finkel dedicated three years of his life to The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary Project which is based at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

That makes him something of a spring chicken in the life story of this project, which began in 1921.

[...]

Background here. More on Dr. Finkel here.

Photo: Samaritans Celebrate The Festival Of Shavuot In The West Bank

PHOTO: Samaritans Celebrate The Festival Of Shavuot In The West Bank.

A Byzantine-era building at Acre

A BYZANTINE-ERA BUILDING AT ACRE:

Archaeologists unearth Acre church from the Byzantine Period

Discovery of public structure in north Israel city is breakthrough, first time Christian structure has been unearthed in Acre, a city said to have been highly influential in early years of Christianity.

By Jack Khoury (Haaretz)

The headline pretty much says it. But an earlier IAA press release was more cautious about calling it a church.

BMCR: Mason, Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins

BMCR REVIEW:

Steve Mason, Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins: Methods and Categories. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2009. Pp. xx, 443. ISBN 9781598562545. $34.95.

Reviewed by Livia Capponi, Newcastle University (livia.capponi@ncl.ac.uk)

This book collects various papers that were previously published in not easily accessible places. These papers have been rearranged by Mason in three parts, the first on the interpretation and historical use of Josephus, the second on Judean society, and the third on Christian origins and the Gospels. The concern for method and categories is present throughout the book. It is a lucid reappraisal of the earlier scholarship on these subjects, and its clarity and lucidity make it an extremely useful tool for both students and scholars in ancient history.

[...]

Happy 30th to Raiders of the Lost Ark

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK turns 30 today. In honor of the anniversary, Brian Mciver gives us Raiders of the Lost Archives - 30 things you didn't know about Indiana Jones. Note that number 7 has missing bits of number 14 in it.

UPDATE: The original cinema trailer for Raiders is here. And here's another Indiana Jones tidbit: Archaeology's Tech Revolution Since Indiana Jones. Cross-file under "Technology Watch" and take the part about the 17 pyramids with a grain of salt.

St Andrews Conference on Authoritative Texts and Reception History

CONFERENCE REMINDER: The 1st St Andrews Graduate Conference for Biblical and Early Christian Studies: Authoritative Texts and Reception History: Aspects and Approaches is on Wednesday and Thursday of this coming week at the Divinity School of the University of St Andrews. Follow the link for the schedule. I am one of the plenary speakers, as are Professor Kristin De Troyer, Professor N. T. Wright, and Dr. Mark Elliott.

Rufina the archisynagogos

RUFINA THE ARCHISYNAGOGOS:

His/Her Story: A woman 'head of the synagogue'

By RENÉE LEVINE MELAMMED (Jerusalem Post)
06/10/2011 16:55

As it turns out, the evidence available about women in the Greco-Roman Diaspora is distinctive and, at times, quite difficult to interpret.

Jews living in the Greco-Roman Diaspora in the period known as late antiquity (second/third centuries until the fall of the Empire in the fifth century) had experiences that differed considerably from those in the Land of Israel. This held true for women as well as men. As it turns out, the evidence available about women is distinctive and, at times, quite difficult to interpret.

One Greek inscription in particular has long attracted the attention of scholars in the field. This inscription is from Smyrna (modern-day Izmir), located in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), and was commissioned in the second or third century by a woman named Rufina.

While the name Rufina is Latin, the dedicator immediately identified herself by the Greek term Ioudaia. This term is unusual in inscriptions otherwise thought to be Jewish, and suggests that it was important for Rufina. It may even suggest that she wasn’t born Jewish, but converted at some point in her life. The second detail recorded was that she was the archisynagogos, the head (or possibly the president) of the synagogue.

[...]

PA researcher: Crusader first to say "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem"

CAN'T MAKE IT UP:

PA: "If I Forget Thee, Oh Jerusalem" First Said by Crusader

by Gavriel Queenann (Arutz Sheva)

Continuing its policy of denying Jerusalem's Jewish heritage the Palestinian Authority publicized the claims of an Arab researcher that the well-known ancient Hebrew psalm, "If I forget three, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill," is not Jewish at all, the Israeli research institute Palestininian Media Watch reports.

Instead, Dr. Hayel Sanduqa insists the words were uttered by a Christian Crusader, and have only recently been "borrowed" by Jews and "falsified in the name of Zionism."

[...]

The quotation is, of course, from Psalm 137:5 and dates roughly to the time of the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BCE.

The following are the words of Palestinian researcher Dr. Hayel Sanduqa on PA TV, claiming that the Hebrew Bible's psalm was actually first said by a Crusader:

"[The Israelis] have acted to change Jerusalem's character. Even the expression (Psalm 137:5) 'If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember thee.'

"This statement, said by the Frankish [Crusader] ruler of Acre shortly before he left, was borrowed by the Zionist movement, which falsified it in the name of Zionism," Sanduqa said. [PA TV (Fatah), June 2, 2011 -Ed].

Here's the video of the phone conversation. The context of the conversation is not given, but I have a hard time imagining how any context could make the claim less ridiculous.



Apart from this story, there's not much from Google on Dr. Hayel Sanduqa, but this 2008 PNN article refers to him as "the researcher of colonial affairs in Jerusalem."

CNN on the CAD

CNN ON THE CHICAGO ASSYRIAN DICTIONARY: What a Babylonian laundry list says about you. Despite the lame title, the article is quite upbeat.

Background here and links.

Pullman, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

IN THE MAIL:

Philip Pullman, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2010)

This was sent unsolicited, but maybe I'll get around to reading it. It looks kind of interesting. Earlier coverage is here.

Jared Calaway's dissertation is online

JARED CALAWAY: My Dissertation is Online! The dissertation is "Heavenly Sabbath, Heavenly Sanctuary: The Transformation of Priestly Sacred Space and Sacred Time in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and the Epistle to the Hebrews." Follow the link for the abstract and a link to the ProQuest document.

(Via Polumeros kai Polutropos.)

Roland Boer against "Reception History"

ROLAND BOER has an essay Against “Reception History” posted at Bible and Interpretation.

He makes some fair points, but there is a straw man in his argument as well. Historical-critical exegesis is not entirely unbiased and it cannot produce "one 'right' meaning" of the text, or even one original meaning. However, it does make a serious effort to look at the text the way the original author might have intended it or the original audience might have received it, drawing on philology, archaeology, and the like. This effort provides a narrower range of meanings than is found in the full history of interpretation to the present. Whether this range of meaning is somehow more primary than other, later ones, I leave to others to argue. Roland makes an interesting case against that view. But that range is valuable in itself as, for example, a resource for historians of the biblical period. Yes, the historical-critical method has its own limitations and biases, which constantly need to be interrogated by other methods and perspectives, but how interesting is this point really? It has been made endlessly already, and it applies to those other methods just as much. The hermeneutical spiral is a process, not a conclusion, but that doesn't mean no progress is possible in it. If every method is dismissed because it has inherent limitations, we stray from an asymptotic groping toward truth to a Gödelian infinite loop of prolegomena.

UPDATE (12 June): Chris Heard comments on the essay at the Blackwell Bible Commentaries website.

KJB@400: The Jerusalem Post on the KJB

KJB@400 WATCH: The Jerusalem Post on the King James Bible:

Sacred words, well spoken!

06/09/2011 22:25 By EMANUEL MFOUKOU AND MEREDITH HOLBROOK

Marking 400 years of the King James Bible.

CAD completion again

THE COMPLETION OF THE CHICAGO ASSYRIAN DICTIONARY is celebrated in another article:

Dictionary of Akkadian Language Links Modern Civilization with Ancient Origins

Greg Flakus | Houston, Texas June 09, 2011

“Better late than never” might be the motto scholars could apply to the completion of a comprehensive dictionary of a language that has not been spoken for more than 2,000 years. It took nearly a century, but scholars at the University of Chicago say they have now completed the definitive dictionary of Akkadian, which was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia during the time when the first civilizations began to flourish there.

[...]

Background here and links.

Real Gnostics: The Bogomils

BUT HERE ARE SOME REAL GNOSTICS:

Bulgaria, Bogomils and Italy

Author: Maria Guineva
Society | June 2, 2011, Thursday (Novinite.com)

Bogomislims (Bogomilstvo), often called the Bulgarian heresy, is a social and religious teaching, which appeared in Bulgaria during the first half of the 10th century.

Contemporary historians and scientists characterize Bogomilism as a dualistic teaching and an anti-feudal, reformative movement, born in the bosom of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, quickly spreading across Bulgarian lands during the tumultuous times in the eve of the Byzantine invasion of the country. Its roots can be found in the dualistic gnostic and the mass deportations of Armenians and Syrians from Byzantine.

[...]

A long, interesting article on the Bogomils and their influence. Not mentioned is that the Bogomils seem to have been involved to some degree with the transmission of the Slavonic Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. See the comments in Grant Macaskill's online essay, The Slavonic Pseudepigrapha: An Introduction.

Additional background here and follow the links.

Anthony Weiner, Gnostic?

A NEW TAKE ON GNOSTICISM from Christianity Today:

Anthony Weiner, Gnostic

The embroiled congressman's defense that sexting is not adultery reveals a mind-body dualism long resisted by Christian tradition.

I don't know that Gnosticism applies here: Karen Swallow Prior is the one who seems to me to be taking a decidedly Platonist position - the virtual world is as real as the physical. But more to the point, as she does imply in passing, if Jesus said that just looking is adultery (Matt 5:28), it's hard to imagine him thinking that sexting isn't.

I never expected to write the word "sexting" in this blog.

Anniversary of Nero's suicide

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY: On This Day in Ancient History - Nero's Suicide. But watch out for Nero redivivus imposters.

UPDATE: No, really, watch out.

Who’s Afraid of Abishag?

LEONARD GREENSPOON: WHO'S AFRAID OF ABISHAG? I am astonished that there are so many media references to her.

Conference in honor of Daniel Sperber

A CONFERENCE IN HONOR OF DANIEL SPERBER is being held next week at Bar-Ilan University.

And he knows Aramaic too ...

AND HE KNOWS ARAMAIC TOO:

The Renaissance Man: How to Become a Scientist Over and Over Again [Video]

By Ed Yong | Jun 8, 2011 07:57 AM | 2 (Scientific American)

Erez Lieberman Aiden is a talkative, witty fellow who will bend your ear on any number of intellectual topics. Just don’t ask him what he does. "This is actually the most difficult question that I run into on a regular basis," he says. "I really don’t have anything for that."

It is easy to understand why. Aiden is a scientist, yes, but while most of his peers stay within a specific field – say, neuroscience or genetics – Aiden crosses them with almost casual abandon. His research has taken him across molecular biology, linguistics, physics, engineering and mathematics. He was the man behind last year's "culturomics" study, where he looked at the evolution of human culture through the lens of four per cent of all the books ever published. Before that, he solved the three-dimensional structure of the human genome, studied the mathematics of verbs, and invented an insole called the iShoe that can diagnose balance problems in elderly people. "I guess I just view myself as a scientist," he says.

His approach stands in stark contrast to the standard scientific career: find an area of interest and become increasingly knowledgeable about it. Instead of branching out from a central speciality, Aiden is interested in ‘interdisciplinary’ problems that cross the boundaries of different disciplines. His approach is nomadic. He moves about, searching for ideas that will pique his curiosity, extend his horizons, and hopefully make a big impact. "I don't view myself as a practitioner of a particular skill or method," he tells me. "I’m constantly looking at what’s the most interesting problem that I could possibly work on. I really try to figure out what sort of scientist I need to be in order to solve the problem I'm interested in solving."

It’s a philosophy that has paid dividends. At just 31 years of age, Aiden has a joint lab at MIT and Harvard. In 2010, he won the prestigious $30,000 MIT-Lemenson prize, awarded to people who show "exceptional innovation and a portfolio of inventiveness". He has seven publications to his name, six of which appeared the world’s top two journals - Nature and Science. His friend and colleague Jean-Baptiste Michel says, "He's truly one of a kind. I just wonder about what discipline he will get a Nobel Prize in!"

[...]

Here's the Aramaic part:

"It turns out you can’t work everything out from first principles, because it seems like a lot of things have happened and I didn’t know anything about the universe before I was born in 1980," he says dryly. "So I thought I have to go and understand that stuff." To do that, he spent a year at New York’s Yeshiva University studying for a Masters in History. He took classes going back in time from the present day, reading forward from ancient history (he can now read Aramaic), and stopping when the two streams met in the 17th century.

I think the Aramaic was key to his success.