Sukkot 2014

THE FESTIVAL OF SUKKOT (BOOTHS, TABERNACLES) begins this evening at sundown. Best wishes to all those observing it.

Biblical background to the festival is found in Leviticus 23:39-43 and Deuteronomy 16:13-15, with mentions also in Deuteronomy 31:10, Zechariah 14:16-18, Ezra 3:4, and 2 Chronicles 8:12-13. And there is one mention in the New Testament in John 7:2.

Past posts dealing with the historical background of the festival are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Herman, "The Babylonian Talmud and the Paikuli inscription"

ARASH ZEINI: The Babylonian Talmud and the Paikuli inscription. A new article in Zion by Geoffrey Herman.

New Jesus document? Sadly, no.

BOGUS: Newly-Found Document Holds Eyewitness Account of Jesus Performing Miracle.

In case you happened to see this article, which has been making the rounds on social media, it is a rather well-done, playful hoax on a site that likes to publish playful hoaxes. That pretty much sums it up, but Snopes has some more details: Miracle Witness.

Anyone who knows about Historical Jesus research would have been pretty sure it was a hoax as soon as they saw it. A real thing like this would have been all over the media with extensive responses from specialists. Think of the response to the Gospel of Jesus' Wife back in 2012, only more so.

Shanks on the Ivory Pomegranate inscription

HERSHEL SHANKS: First Person: A New Target (BAR). That target being Mr. Shanks himself. Paleographer Ada Yardeni has convinced him that the Ivory Pomegranate inscription may be a forgery. Most specialists think that, although the artifact itself is a genuine antiquity, the inscription is a modern forgery.

Background here, here, and links.

"Four species" coin on display

FOR SUKKOT: Rare ‘Four Species’ Coin from Bar Kochba in Display in Israel. The exhibition includes the largest gold medallion with Judaic symbols known in existence (The Jewish Press).

A rare silver coin with an inscription from the period of the Bar Kochba revolt is on display at the Israel Museum through the week-long Sukkot holiday, which begins Wednesday night.

The rare cache of Byzantine-era antiquities discovered in 2013 will be on display through the Sukkot holiday.

The writing on the coin with a depiction of the Four Species used on Sukkot indicates that it was written by Bar Kochba or in his name and illustrates the effort spent to supply the Four Species to Bar Kochba’s soldiers in the rebellion against the Roman conquerors.

The exhibition includes the largest gold medallion with Judaic symbols known in existence. Among the archaeological finds on view are gold coins and silver and gold jewelry, in addition to the sizable medallion, measuring four inches in diameter.

[...]

The report of the discovery was noted here last year. The gold medallion was also recently on display in the Jerusalem of Gold exhibition, noted here.

"When the Greeks Ruled Egypt"

EXHIBITION: Multiculturalism: Nothing New.‘When the Greeks Ruled Egypt’ Highlights the Diversity of Cultures in Ptolemaic Egypt (John Noble Wilford, NYT).

For the three centuries from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra, Greeks ruled Egypt not so much as foreign conquerors but as the next dynasty in the long line of pharaohs. It was not out of character for Alexander himself to assume the power and status of a pharaoh, not to mention the promised fringe benefit of a grand afterlife and kinship to the Egyptian gods.

[...]


Their overriding policy was not to demand assimilation but to accept many ways of life. No official language was imposed for all purposes. Government affairs were often conducted in Greek, but also in Demotic, the local everyday language derived from the more formal hieroglyphs. Jewish and other immigrants often spoke and wrote Aramaic.

[...]

The diversity of cultures in Ptolemaic Egypt is the subject of an exhibition opening Wednesday at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, affiliated with New York University. Curators said the exhibition, “When the Greeks Ruled Egypt: From Alexander the Great to Cleopatra,” from 323 B. C. to the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 B.C., “shines a light on the fluidity of the very idea of specific cultural identity.”

[...]

There is a certain amount of idealization and cultural projection here. Ptolemaic Egypt did not lack for Greek cultural imperialism, but the rulers were also very pragmatic and they accepted a great deal of cultural variety as long as the taxes got paid.

In any case, sounds like an interesting exhibition.

Mikveh discovery

CHRONIC OFFENDERS: Second Temple Period Mikveh Unearthed in Valley of Elah. Archaeologists stunned to find inscription by Australian soldiers from World War II alongside 1,900-year-old Jewish ritual bath (Ornit Etzer, Ari Yashar, Arutz Sheva).

Israel Antiquities Authority excavations in the Valley of Elah's Tzomet Haelah, funded by the Netivei Israel state transportation company, made a rare discovery recently in unearthing a mikveh (ritual Jewish bath) from the Second Temple period.

In an interesting intertwining of time periods, on the roof of an adjacent massive water cistern inscriptions were found, made in the rock by Australian soldiers who were on the site during World War II.

The 1,900-year-old mikveh and 1,700-year-old water cistern were unearthed in explorations ahead of the construction of Highway 38.

"We found a mikveh with five steps quarried into the rock, with the fifth step serving as a bench to sit on the lip of the ritual immersion pool," said Yoav Tsur, the Authority's director of excavations.

Elaborating on the find, Tsur noted "at the site we found intricate pottery shards from the second century CE, including candles, red burnished vessels, a jug and cooking pots. It appears that during the second century CE the mikveh fell out of use, possibly in light of the events of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE)."

[...]

Nowadays you get busted for leaving graffiti on ancient ruins.

I pinched the opener of this post from the title of a science fiction story by Spider Robinson.

On the Loeb Classical Library

WELCOME TO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: Ancient to Modern. The Loeb Classical Library goes digital (Susan Kristol, The Weekly Standard)

What is the connection between Morris Loeb, the eccentric but brilliant scientist, and the Loeb Classical Library, a collection of more than 520 Greek and Latin volumes published by Harvard University Press and now entering its digital age? Morris’s strong-willed decision to go into chemistry instead of joining the family investment-banking business reportedly led to increased pressure on his younger brother James (Harvard ’88) to become part of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. with their father, Solomon. James, a sensitive lover of literature and music and a gifted cellist, reluctantly gave up a potential career as an archaeologist or a classicist to join the family business. But he never lost his love of Greek and Latin. And one result of his thwarted passion for antiquity was his decision to create the Loeb Classical Library in 1911.

A fun article on the background and history of the LCL, inspired by its recent digitization and full of interesting details.

HT Ellen Birnbaum. For more on the LCL and its digitization, see here and links.

Vintage resurrection

IMPORTANT RESEARCH: Israeli wine researchers aim to revive ancient libations. Matching indigenous grapes with archaeological finds, Elyashiv Drori hopes to recreate the drinks enjoyed by King David (Ben Sales, JTA/Times of Israel).

ARIEL, West Bank (JTA) — The small cardboard box in Elyashiv Drori’s palm looks like it’s full of black pebbles.

Closing the box quickly, he explains that it cannot be open for long. The pebble-like pieces, which were uncovered in an archaeological dig near Jerusalem’s Old City, are in fact remains of a kilo of grapes stored nearly 3,000 years ago. They were preserved under layers of earth from the era when David and Solomon ruled over the Land of Israel.

Next to his laboratory at Ariel University, Drori — an oenophile who has judged international wine competitions — already has barrels of wine made from grapes that have grown in Israel for two millennia. Finding a living sample of the 3,000-year-old grapes will be the next step in his years-long quest to produce wine identical to that consumed in ancient Israel.

[...]

A recent potentially relevant story is noted here. And for similar efforts to resurrect ancient beer, see here and links.

Review of Anton, Enchantress

VOLUME TWO: Anton’s Newest Book Enchants (Sybil Kaplan, The Jewish Journal).

An enchantress is usually defined as a magician, sorcerer, enchanter or wizard.

For author Maggie Anton, an enchantress is also a sorceress or a woman who practices magic. Anton explains on her blog that when she was preparing to write “Enchantress,” (the sequel to “Rav Hisda’s Daughter”), she and a rabbi colleague went through “the entire Talmud again, tractate by tractate, searching for every mention of demons, magic, and enchantresses. We found far more than I expected; some stories were quite fantastic.”

“Empress” features Hisdadukh, the daughter of Rav Hisda, and is set in Babylonia from 299 C.E. to 359 C.E.

[...]

I think "Empress" is a typo for "Enchantress."

More on Anton, this latest book, and her earlier novels is here and links.

Shishak in Jordan?

INSCRIPTION: Pharaoh-Branded Amulet Found at Ancient Copper Mine in Jordan (Megan Gannon, LiveScience).

While exploring ancient copper factories in southern Jordan, a team of archaeologists picked up an Egyptian amulet that bears the name of the powerful pharaoh Sheshonq I.

The tiny artifact could attest to the fabled military campaign that Sheshonq I waged in the region nearly 3,000 years ago, researchers say.

[...]

That military campaign being the invasion of Sheshonq I ("Shishak") mentioned in 1 Kings 14:25-26 (cf. 11:39). Here we have a tantalizing potential link between a contemporary epigraphic source and a story about the Judean kingdom just after the United Monarchy. We don't get those very often.

Review of Waters, Ancient Persia

BMCR:

Matt Waters, Ancient Persia. A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire, 550–330 BCE. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. xx, 252. ISBN 9780521253697. $29.99 (pb).

Reviewed by Catherine M. Draycott, British Institute at Ankara (cdraycott@biaatr.org)

Excerpt:

Matt Waters’s book should now be the first stop for those wanting an introduction to the Achaemenids and the study of them. It is a traditional history handbook, a chronological political narrative punctuated with social themes, but a thoroughly enjoyable one: well written and stimulating, the chapters pull the reader along through the book, and while concise it is packed with information and satisfyingly detailed, lucid discussions. A few typos aside, the copy is clean and well-illustrated with images and good maps.3 It shares with the books mentioned above the approach of the ‘New Achaemenid History’, wherein biases in the preponderance of Greek literary sources are made explicit and balanced with the different quality of information available from Near Eastern sources.4 Waters's book is a great success in these terms. The author displays equal control over the Greek and the myriad of non-Greek sources, which range from trilingual monumental royal inscriptions, clay tablets, Babylonian chronicles and the Bible to inscriptions and private letters from Egypt. From these he deftly weaves the story of this first Persian Empire, from their origins in the early Iron Age groups of Iran through to the take over of their vast territory by Alexander the Great, integrating into it the character of the sources.

Yom Kippur 2014

YOM KIPPUR, the Day of Atonement, begins this evening at sundown. An easy fast to all those observing it.

The biblical precepts for Yom Kippur appear in Leviticus 16 and 23:26-32. Some additional historical background is collected here and links.

Nikolsky and Ilan (eds.), Rabbinic Traditions between Palestine and Babylonia

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

Rabbinic Traditions between Palestine and Babylonia

Edited by Ronit Nikolsky University of Groningen and Tal Ilan, Freie Universität Berlin

In this book various authors explore how rabbinic traditions that were formulated in the Land of Israel migrated to Jewish study houses in Babylonia. The authors demonstrate how the new location and the unique literary character of the Babylonian Talmud combine to create new and surprising texts out of the old ones. Some authors concentrate on inner rabbinic social structures that influence the changes the traditions underwent. Others show the influence of the host culture on the metamorphosis of the traditions. The result is a complex study of cultural processes, as shaped by a unique historical moment.

Welcome to two new St Andrews colleagues

WELCOME TO DR. JUDITH WOLFE AND DR. SANDRA HÜBENTHAL, two new colleagues in the School of the Divinity at the University of St. Andrews.

Judith comes to us from Oxford University and has just taken up a Lectureship in Theology and the Arts here. Her research currently focuses on theology and literature, which special interests in epistemology, eschatology, and the Inklings, and she is the editor of The Journal of Inkling Studies. But she also did her undergraduate work at the Hebrew University, where she studied with, among others, Rachel Elior. So she has a considerable interest in Second Temple Judaism and related matters.

Sandra comes from Basel University and is here as a Teaching Fellow in New Testament Studies for 2014-15 (this post). Her research interests include the New Testament and social memory theory, and biblical traditions and economic thought. You can read more about her work in this post at the Jesus blog.

Judith and Sandra, delighted to have you both here.

Review of Brody, Mishnah and Tosefta Studies

LIKE REVENGE: Straight-up Philology, Served Cold (Amit Gvaryahu, The Talmud Blog).

Robert Brody, Mishnah and Tosefta Studies, (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2014)

Brody might be writing in English, but the book is decidedly Jerusalemite: a crash-course in straight-up philology, clearheaded and free of jargon, served cold.

Noted earlier here.

Salome in the arts

SALOME (daughter of Herodias, not the disciple of Jesus) is getting some attention in the theatre and in a musical production inspired by an earlier opera and graphic novel.

With Salome, Al Pacino returns to London stage after 30-year wait (Ben Beaumont-Thomas, The Guardian).

Al Pacino has said he’ll return to the London stage in 2016 in a production of Oscar Wilde’s play Salome, over 30 years after he last appeared in the West End.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Pacino promised there would be a full production of the play that he’s already performed in New York and Los Angeles, the latter filmed in 2006 for a cinema version that is currently on release. Describing Pacino’s filmed performance, the Guardian’s Mike McCahill said that “Pacino’s vulgar, ethnically indeterminate Herod furnishes this banquet with easily digested ham: if he can’t quite bring all of Wilde’s often florid imagery into focus, he’s given it a good shout – literally so, in places.”

[...]

I'm sure Mr. Pacino makes a fine Herod. Salome herself was played by Jessica Chastain in the Los Angeles production, but she has yet to be cast for the London one.

Opera music, comic book art tell story of Salomé’s Dance (Webster Post).

Greece, N.Y.

To most of us, Salomé is a salacious symbol of sexual excess — but that wasn’t always the case. A striking new production combines the illustrations of famed comic-book artist P. Craig Russell with music to tell the biblical story of a beautiful and sensuous young dancer. Russell’s evocative graphic novel, based on Richard Strauss’s opera Salomé, will be accompanied by a reworked instrumental rendition of the opera in presentations at the University of Rochester and its Eastman School of Music next month.

[...]

In the New Testament, Salomé is not identified by name, but simply as the daughter of Herodias, the wife of King Herod. When the girl’s dance pleases the king, he promises her anything she wants. Prodded by her mother, the girl asks for the head of John the Baptist, who had condemned Herodias and Herod for their unlawful marriage.

The ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus also recounted the story, naming the young girl Shalome. Over the centuries, Salomé came to represent the dangers of the life of the flesh as opposed to John the Baptist’s life of the Holy Spirit, and was depicted as an alluring, lustful, and dangerous female.

[...]

Close, but not quite. The New Testament tells the story about the unnamed daughter of Herodias. Josephus tells us the name of Herodias' daughter, but he does not tell the New Testament story and he gives a different reason for John the Baptist's execution by Herod (i.e, to prevent him from fomenting a rebellion). By combining the two accounts, we infer that the girl in the New Testament story, whatever its historical merits, was meant to be Salome.

Sources Chrétiennes

FOR YOU, SPECIAL DEAL: 50 % off for 518 Sources Chrétiennes Volumes (Alin Suciu).

Aramean nation?

MODERN ARAMAIC WATCH: Op-Ed: Is There Really an Aramean Nation? Are the Israeli Christians part of the ancient Aramean people rather than Arabs? (Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Arutz Sheva).

One of the last things Israel's Interior Minister Gideon Saar did before resigning from the Knesset was to recognize the Israeli Christians as members of the Aramean nation. The decision caused a media uproar, especially in the Arab sector, with most critics saying that there is no Aramaic nation and that the real reason for this step was an attempt to cause a split in the Arab population of Israel so as to "divide and conquer" and gain control of the Arab sector.

This calls for an investigation and an investigation into the veracity of an Aramean nation's existence must be conducted on two planes: the historic-lingual-religious one and the civilian one.

[...]

He argues that it is valid to think in terms of an Aramean nation. Background here. There are very complicated historical and linguistic issues involved, not to speak of the political ones, and more than a newspaper article or a blog post would be necessary to address them properly.

Past posts on speakers of Aramaic in Israel are here (scroll down to third story from bottom), here, here, and links.

The PhDiva on the Jobar Synagogue

DOROTHY KING: RIP the Jobar Synagogue, Syria. With pre-destruction photos.

Background here and links.