Happy 20th anniversary to Kfar Kedem

KFAR KEDEM: Recreated Ancient Galilean Village Celebrates 20 Years (Arutz Sheva).

I noted this site way back in 2003. It seems still to be going strong.

The fate of the James Ossuary and Jehoash inscription

A SOLOMONIC JUDGMENT on the James Ossuary and the Jehoash tablet?

Judge to decide fate of ossuary, Jehoash tablet

By MATTHEW KALMAN (Jerusalem Post)
29/05/2012

Scholars say items should be preserved; J'lem judge could order items destroy under "ruling of Solomon."

A Jerusalem judge will announce on Wednesday whether he has decided to order the destruction of a burial box that could have held the bones of the brother of Jesus and an inscribed tablet that could have come from the First Temple.

At a Jerusalem District Court hearing in April, Judge Aharon Farkash said he might exercise “the judgement of Solomon” and order both items to be destroyed.

[...]

On Wednesday, Judge Farkash will pass sentence on the defendant, Oded Golan, who was acquitted on 41 charges of forgery, fraud and other serious crimes, but found guilty of three minor misdemeanors of trading in antiquities without a license and handling goods suspected of being stolen.

At a hearing in April, the prosecution demanded a tough sentence including jail time and said that the ossuary, the tablet and many other items should be confiscated by the court, even though Golan had been acquitted of all charges related to them.

“Maybe I’ll order them to be destroyed and neither side will have them,” said Farkash in comments that were not recorded in the official court transcript.

It would be “the judgement of Solomon,” said Judge Farkash.

“Neither of you will have the ossuary or the Jehoash tablet. They broke once already; they can be broken again. Just destroy them,” he said.

The ossuary cracked into two pieces in 2002 while it was being shipped to an exhibition in Canada and was repaired by restorers at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. The Jehoash tablet broke along an existing crack in 2003 while it was being handled by investigators at the Israel Police forensic laboratory.

The judge also suggested that the items might be put on display for the public.

“Maybe they should be exhibited at the Israel Museum as items from this trial suspected of being fakes,” he said.

Experts who gave evidence for both sides last night urged Judge Farkash not to destroy the items.

[...]

Destroying the objects would be a terrible idea and I wonder if the judge's words are being quoted accurately and, if so, whether he was speaking tongue in cheek. The James Ossuary is itself an ancient artifact, whether or not part of the inscription is forged. Would it even be legal to order it destroyed?

I think the Jehoash/Joash inscription is a forgery, but it should be kept and at least studied to learn more about the techniques of modern forgers.

May I respectfully remind the judge that Solomon did not actually carry out that particular judgment.

Much background on the Israel forgery trial is here and links.

Romanian DSS smuggler?

MYSTERY: A Romanian Smuggler of Dead Sea Scrolls? (Exploring Our Matrix).

Classical Hebrew post at TAU

JOB IN CLASSICAL HEBREW:

From Hezy Mutzafi (yehezmu@post.tau.ac.il):
====================================

Tel Aviv University
The Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities
Department of Hebrew Culture Studies

Position in Classical Hebrew Studies

The Department of Hebrew Culture Studies at Tel Aviv University invites applicants holding a PhD degree for a tenured or tenure-track position in the field of classical Hebrew, to be effective as of October 2013.

The position requires competence in using Hebrew as a language of instruction and the ability to conduct independent research and scholarly projects in classical Hebrew and its affinity to cognate Semitic languages, as well as teaching courses which are affiliated with the study programs of Hebrew Language, Semitic Linguistics, Bible, Jewish Philosophy and Talmud at the Department of Hebrew
Culture Studies.

Salary and conditions will conform to Israeli University regulations. Appointment procedures will be carried out according to the rules and regulations of Tel-Aviv University and are subject to the approval of University authorities.

Applicants should send their Curriculum Vitae, samples of publications and/or other written work. Three letters of recommendation from senior scholars should be sent independently to Prof. Moshe Florentin, the Head of the Department of Hebrew Culture Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel

Applications should be received no later than July 15, 2012.

The position is open for candidates without any discrimination as to gender, nationality or ethnic origins. The appointment will be based solely on candidate qualifications and the department’s needs. The department, the faculty or Tel-Aviv University are not obligated to appoint any of the candidates who apply for the position.

From the Agade list.

KCL Biblical Studies and Jewish Studies Joint Day Conference

DAY CONFERENCE:

King's College London: Biblical Studies and Jewish Studies Joint Day
Conference with Professor Philip Esler, Principal of St Mary's
University College, London, June 8th

Room K0.16, King's Building

10.30 Arrivals: tea and coffee

11.00 Introduction and welcome: Revd Professor Richard Burridge

11.05 Reading Old Testament/Hebrew Bible Narrative: Why's and
Wherefore's
Professor Philip Esler
Chaired by Dr Andrea Schatz

12.30 Lunch (own arrangements)

14.00 Judean Ethnic Identity and the Origin of the Christ Movement:
The
Meaning of Matthew and Hebrews
Professor Philip Esler
Chaired by Dr Edward Adams

15.15 Formal Responses: Prof. Joan Taylor and Dr Adam Silverstein

16.00 Refreshments



No attendance charge, but please RSVP to trs@kcl.ac.uk


Dr Edward Adams
Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
King's College London
Strand, London
WC2R 2LS
Tel: 0207 848 2502

From the BNTS list.

Court ruling on gold cuneiform tablet

SOME NEWS ON THAT GOLD CUNEIFORM TABLET:

Nazi Victim’s Family Told to Return Artifact

By PATRICIA COHEN (NYT
Published: June 1, 2012

A state appellate court in Brooklyn has ordered the family of a Holocaust survivor to return an ancient gold tablet to a German museum.

[...]

Raymond J. Dowd, the lawyer who represented the museum and who has represented the families of Holocaust victims trying to recover lost art, called the decision historically significant.

“The principle that property taken unlawfully should be returned is consistent with the rights of Holocaust victims,” he said. “This precedent will help those seeking return of stolen works that are museums not only in the U.S. but throughout Europe.”

But a lawyer for the family, Seth A. Presser, said the decision had “caused a remarkably inequitable result” and that it would be appealed.

“We believe that the court has misapprehended certain facts and, as a result, misapplied New York law,” he said.

[...]

Via the Agade list. Background here.

Scholarships for TAU MA program in Jewish Studies

SCHOLARSHIPS:

From Emilie Levy:

Dear All,
I would like to inform you that few scholarships are still available for the 2012-2013 MA program in Jewish Studies at Tel Aviv University.

The program is the world's only one-year intensive MA in Jewish Studies taught in English in a Hebrew speaking environment and offers a series of comprehensive encounters with the classical texts of Jewish cultures. In addition, few more spots are still open for the Summer School in Rabbinic Literature, which aims to enhance textual, linguistic and philological skills for advanced students of Jewish and Religious studies interested in acquiring reading skills in Talmud and Midrash.

Both of the programs will expose the students to relevant historical sites, current scholarship, and leading Israeli experts in the field, as a well as meeting with international students.

For more details about our programs, visit our website or download our brochure I would be very grateful if you could forward this email to any person who may be interested.
Best Regards,

Emilie Levy
Program Coordinator
International MA in Jewish Studies
Tel Aviv University
TAU International

+972(0)3 640 65 03

http://humanities.tau.ac.il/jewish_studies/

From the SOTS List.

Review of Schäfer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism

BOOK REVIEW at H-JUDAIC:

Peter Schäfer. The Origins of Jewish Mysticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. xv + 398 pp. $35.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-691-14215-9.

Reviewed by Mark Verman (Wright State University)
Published on H-Judaic (May, 2012)
Commissioned by Jason Kalman

Early Jewish Mystical Literature

Peter Schäfer’s new monograph The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (hereafter OJM) is a magisterial tour de force. Owing to the breadth of the material that is covered and Schäfer’s consistently lucid, methodical, and incisive analysis, this book is an instant classic and will become the benchmark for all subsequent discussions of the topic. Schäfer’s lengthy and productive career has revolved around his incomparable contribution to the publication and scholarly analysis of that corpus of writings known as Hekhalot (Temples/Palaces) texts. An examination of these particular works constitutes the culmination of his current book. In fact, the basic agenda of OJM is an attempt to discover to what extent the pre-Hekhalot writings, biblical and post-biblical, can be seen as anticipating the mystical experience delineated in the Hekhalot corpus.

[...]

I reviewed this book at the 2010 Society of Biblical Literature meeting. A revised version of that review has recently been published in Dead Sea Discoveries (requires paid personal or institutional subscription to access).

Review of Sperber, Greek in Talmudic Palestine

BOOK REVIEW: Daniel Sperber’s Greek in Talmudic Palestine- Review by Yair Furstenberg (the Talmud Blog). Excerpt:

In his latest book, Daniel Sperber contributes to this endeavor by laying out some of the main findings of his two esteemed masters, Krauss and Lieberman, and by commenting on the challenges which, in his eyes, their works hold for future scholarship. Thus, in the first part, “Greek and Latin Words in Rabbinic Literature: Prolegomena to a New Dictionary of Classical Words in Rabbinic Literaute” (a reprint of two of his articles from the seventies), Sperber surveys the problems and methodological concerns which await the compilation of an improved dictionary, more than a century after Krauss. In the second part, “Rabbinic Knowledge of Greek in Talmudic Palestine”, he readdresses the fundamental question posed by Liebermen: “How much knowledge (and we may add, and of what nature) of the world which surrounded them did the builders of Rabbinic Judaism possess?”. To that end, he adds to Lieberman’s exposition some further examples of his own, relating to regional differences, knowledge of pagan ritual, rabbinic acquaintance with Roman legal and military terminology, and the use of Greek in magical texts.

Ancient synagogues vandalized

TWO ANCIENT SYNAGOGUES have been vandalized in recent days, one in Jericho and one in Tiberias:

Jewish worshipers: W. Bank synagogue vandalized
Police dispatch unit to area to investigate reports of Nazi swastika symbols and Arabic writing scrawled on ancient synagogue.

Vandals damage mosaic floor at ancient synagogue
Oldest known synagogue mosaic at Hamat Tiberias National Park damaged, walls spray-painted, apparently in protest of archaeological digging at Jewish grave sites.

Both articles are from the Jerusalem Post. More on the Na'aran synagogue in Jericho here and links. The Tiberias synagogue has been mentioned here and here.

Coptic biblical and apocryphal manuscripts to be auctioned

ALIN SUCIU notes an upcoming auction of Coptic manuscripts: Christie’s Auction of an Early Christian Papyrus Document. They include fragments of 1 Kingdoms/1 Samuel and of a psalmic work that may be a biblical apocryphon and which may or may not be Manichean (Manichaean). Both manuscripts have been published previously.

As always, the ideal would be for a philanthropist to buy the manuscripts and donate them to a museum. But if that is too much to hope for, I do encourage any buyer to make the manuscripts available for scholars like Alin to study.

The 7 Most Terrifying Archaeological Discoveries

CRACKED.COM has produced another archaeological list: The 7 Most Terrifying Archaeological Discoveries.

Stories previously covered by PaleoJudaica include the dead babies at Ashkelon and chemical warfare at Dura-Europos. The Buckinghamshire dead-baby cache is just as horrifying as the Ashkelon one.

Tony Burke awarded F. W. Beare Prize

CONGRATULATIONS TO TONY BURKE: Infancy Gospel of Thomas Edition Wins Book Prize.

Review of Bagnall (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Papyrology

THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF PAPYROLOGY, edited by Roger Bagnall, is reviewed by Edgar Ebojo at the Reviews of Biblical and Early Christian Studies website. Excerpt:

This magnificent Handbook is a very rich resource for those who are interested in the science and art of papyrology. Closer to home, this will definitely be a “textbook” for many years to come that will be constantly consulted by postgraduate researchers dealing particularly with biblical manuscripts, either in a roll or codex format, or whether written on a papyrus or parchment. This Handbook is definitely for everyone who recognizes that the past is a very certain guide for the future. Let me end this humble review with how I would like to see the future of papyrology–similar to how Peter Van Minnen (p. 659) ends this Handbook–with a high sense of optimism, “The past will continue to surprise into the distant future as far as the eye can see”.

Bird, Jewish Jesus discussion

MICHAEL BIRD responds to James Crossley: James Crossley on Mike Bird’s Jewish Jesus. Nazis are involved, or, more precisely, not involved. Alcoholic content comes up too.

A new boundary inscription at Gezer

BIBLE PLACES BLOG: New Gezer Boundary Inscription. That makes 13, plus the same expedition rediscovered the lost number 4.

One more time: PaleoJudaica miscellenea

I'M BACK IN MY OFFICE and trying to catch up with everything. Here, briefly, is what I have found from the last five days or so which seems blogworthy.

First, belated happy Shavuot to all those celebrating. It began on the evening of the 26th while I was in transit. More here.

The Steinsaltz Talmud is being translated into English: Steinsaltz Talmud available in English. The first volume of Steinsaltz’s Koren Talmud Bavli is being launched in conjunction with Shavuot (JTA/Times of Israel). Background here and links.

Canaanite bling: Archaeologists find rare trove of 3,000-year-old jewelry near the ancient city of Megiddo (AP). People sure liked gold earrings in ancient Palestine. Lots more ancient bling here and links.

A Hebrew inscription from 390 CE in Portugal: Evidence of early Jews in Portugal found. It is reportedly the earliest surviving remnant of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula and the earliest Hebrew inscription from the area by two or three centuries.

An Iron Age II extrabiblical reference to Bethlehem: Ancient Bethlehem seal found; first reference to city outside Bible. Reservations about the reading were initially expressed by George Athas (et al.), but (see update to the post) he has provisionally withdrawn them and I am not currently aware of any other epigraphers who question the reading.

A project to digitize Samaritan manuscripts is covered in detail by Ofer Aderet in Haaretz: Using cutting-edge technology, researchers unearth the history of Israel’s Samaritan community. A pioneering digitizing project led by American experts will now enable members of the community – numbering just 750 – to glance at their past.

Financial problems in the small Samaritan community in Palestine in the 19th and early 20th centuries forced its members to sell their ancient texts to buyers in Europe and the United States. A pioneering digitizing project, developed by Dr. Jim Ridolfo from the University of Cincinnati, will now enable members of the community - 750 people, who live in Holon and on Mount Gerizim, near Nablus - to see what they have been missing.

Ridolfo is collaborating with a team of researchers from Michigan State University, as well as several other academic institutions.

The 32-year-old American scholar, who is in Israel conducting research at Tel Aviv University and visiting the Samaritan community, explained the vision behind the project, which he says goes beyond the boundaries of academia.

"Our goal is to enable the Samaritan community in Mount Gerizim and Holon to have access to ancient Samaritan manuscripts in libraries, archives and museums abroad," explains Ridolfo, an assistant professor of composition and rhetoric, who is writing a book on the project. "This project differs from similar digitization projects, in that we're primarily interested in tailoring the archival interfaces not just to scholars but also to the Samaritan community."

Cool. For many more manuscript digitization projects, see here and links.

Efforts to revive spoken Aramaic in the Holy Land: Christian villages attempt to revive ancient Biblical language. In both the Galilee and the West Bank, Christian communities are putting a new focus on Aramaic, with a little help from a Swedish television channel. (AP). Somewhat related story here.

Temple Mount Watch: Netanyahu - "Fatal mistake" to concede sacred sites.

(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday it would be a "fatal mistake" ever to give up control over Jerusalem's holy sites.

And finally, the Daily Mail is trying to flog the story of that bogus Gospel of Barnabas manuscript back to life: Seized from smugglers, the leather-bound 'gospel' which Iran claims will bring down Christianity and shake world politics. Background here and links.

Home

I'M BACK IN ST. ANDREWS. As usual, more later.

Off to Scotland

I'M OFF TO ST. ANDREWS AGAIN. I expect to be there Sunday evening and, as usual, I will check in when I'm home. But guess what? My first week back in Scotland looks to be almost as busy as my last two weeks in California. So blogging may continue to be less than consistent for a while, but I will blog as much as time permits. Meanwhile, have a good weekend.

PaleoJudaica miscellanea

SORRY FOR THE LIGHT POSTING. Extremely busy here, and likely to stay that way the rest of the week. But here are some recent headlines, on which I don't have time for much comment.

In Jerusalem: Cabinet Advances Bible Museum (Arutz Sheva)

A harbinger of the higher education bubble in Israel? Budget-pinched women’s Talmud program to close. Program was first course to provide stipends to women scholars in order to facilitate long-term study of Talmudic texts (Jerusalem Post).

More on the Arabic Talmud, with some commentary from an Israel National Library curator: Introducing: Talmud in Arabic. Over 90 Jordanian researchers spend six years translating Babylonian Talmud into Arabic; demand across Arab world said to be strong (ynetnews.com).

Meawhile, the ADL has had a look at the introduction to the translation and what they found is not encouraging: New Arabic Translation of Talmud Promotes Anti-Semitic Narratives (via the Talmud Blog FB page).

Background on the Arabic Talmud is here and links.