The Talmud and sexual coercion

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Can a Woman Rape a Man, as Shia LaBoeuf Claimed? The Rabbis Have a Say. This week’s ‘Daf Yomi’ Talmud study is NSFW.

Often in the Talmud, however, the intention behind an action matters as much as the action itself. We saw a good example of this in Tractate Rosh Hashanah, where we learned that a Jew does not fulfill his obligation to hear the shofar blown on Rosh Hashanah if he simply happens to be walking past a synagogue and unconsciously takes in the sound. To be effective, the listening must be a conscious effort to fulfill the commandment. Does the same hold true for levirate marriage? Is the sex act alone enough to validate the marriage, or does that act have to be undertaken willingly and deliberately by both partners?

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Some Hekhalot Rabbati set to music

MUSIC: Jewish Devotional Songs for the 21st Century (Aromero, World Music Central.org)

Pharaoh’s Daughter

Dumiyah (Magenta, 2014)

Pharaoh’s Daughter album Dumiyah presents a series of devotional Jewish songs with a mix of traditional music and cutting edge electronica. The band is led by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Basya Schechter, who sings in Hebrew and has a sweet folk-pop style.

Dumiyah features ancient and modern liturgical poetry and prayers with new arrangements that blend trip hop, world music and new age. ...

Tzu Vemen (To whom can we attribute?), a mystical text from Hekhalot Rabbati, origins in the days of the Talmudic Sages, angels expressing in aleph bet order the attributes of God (sung on Shabbat).

There's lots more on the Hekhalot literature, including the Hekhalot Rabbati, here and here and links.

Syriac manuscripts in Chinese caves

SYRIAC WATCH: Dunhuang exhibition reveals China's multicultural past. Religious and cultural relics from Dunhuang's ancient grottoes are on show at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum (Enid Tsui , Life).

They may not have achieved the global renown of the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors, but it could be argued that Dunhuang's ancient grottoes are China's most important cultural relics.

These caves, hewn by hand out of cliffs that descend into the great Gobi Desert, chart the development of Chinese art for a thousand, uninterrupted years. They are also depositaries of a multicultural past that adds fluidity and colour to China's national identity.

Fourth-century devotees started carving meditation cells in the cliffs above the Dachuan River after a Buddhist monk named Le Zun had a vision at nearby San Weishan. Dunhuang's reputation as a sacred site grew and master craftsmen, both Chinese and from Central Asia, venerated the caves and added frescoes and statues until the Yuan dynasty. Silk Road travellers left Persian coins and Bibles written in the Syriac script, a close cousin of the Aramaic tongue of Jesus. Monks, Buddhist and Taoist were living in this remote spot until the 1930s.

[...]

Time and visitor number will continue to take their toll - which is why the Dunhuang Academy and its international partners have been pouring their efforts into digitisation projects and travelling exhibitions such as the one that opened at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum on Friday.

It will feature more than 200 genuine artifacts that have been discovered in the caves, including the Book of Psalms in Syriac and the only surviving copy of Essential Mantras in the Tanguy script.

[...]

More on Syriac in China here (also on the Dunhuang Library), here, here, here, and here.

Biblio

ARAMAIC WATCH: Shine Tom morphs from crook to prof in another fantasy (Radhika C Pillai, The Times of India).

It seems fantasy bug has bitten actor Shine Tom Chacko. After delivering a stellar performance in the fantasy movie Ithihasa, the actor is all set to take the audience for a fantasy ride again with his upcoming movie Bibilio. And this time he will don the garb of a physics professor who makes in-depth studies about death and its different realms.

[...]

The language he speaks in the movie is mostly English. "Gabriel and Lucifer, the Biblical characters, have importance in the movie. And Lucifer will speak Aramaic," he says. Actor ARK and Mohan Padre play the two angels Lucifer and Gabriel, respectively. The filmmaker has also roped in many foreign actors to play keys role in the movie.

[...]

Traditionally angels don't know Aramaic, but apparently this movie considers Lucifer to be an exception.

Illegitimacy and conversion in the Talmud

LAST WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Talmudic Rabbis Ponder Sexual Relations That Are Prohibited by Jewish Law. Plus legitimate and bastard offspring, slaves, and distinctions between Jews, non-Jews, and half-Jews.

The names of the Talmud’s tractates are not always a sure guide to their contents. Tractate Yevamot is primarily devoted to the laws of levirate marriage—the obligation of a man to marry his deceased brother’s widow. But chapter 4, which Daf Yomi readers finished this week, also spent a good deal of time on the laws of illegitimacy and conversion. These may seem like totally unrelated topics, but in fact they emerge fairly naturally out of the main Talmudic discussion. In Yevamot 44a, for instance, the mishna states the law that a man who divorces a woman may not remarry her if she has been married to another husband in the interim. This rule comes directly out of the Torah, in Deuteronomy 24, where such a remarriage is described as an “abomination.”

[...]

The Talmud always has a lot going on.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Ancient military installation at Netiv Haasarah

Second Temple Era Military Outpost Discovered, Possibly Destroyed by Alexander the Great (The Algemeiner)

Archaeological excavations in Israel’s Netiv Haasarah have uncovered a Persian era military installation.

Netiv Haasarah is a town in the “Gaza envelope” with a population of about 700. The dig, headed by Dr. Yael Abadi Rice, found a fortified town and a military tower from approximately 2,100 years ago. This time period was when the Second Temple was standing in Jerusalem.

[...]

Something is garbled here. If the town was destroyed by Alexander the Great, the ruins would be a little over 2,300 years old, not 2,100.

IAA app

THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT: New App Puts Dead Scrolls on iPhone and iPad. A new App lets children and adults become virtual archaeologists (Jewish Press).

The Dead Sea Scrolls are now available on iPhone and iPad, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Thursday with the launch of its first App featuring archaeology games and puzzles for kids.

Genesis 1:1 (the account of creation), the Ten Commandments, Psalms, and 11 other 2,000 year old manuscripts are featured in the ”Dig Quest” App that introduces kids ages 7-11 to archaeology with a suite of unique games, featuring beautiful artifacts from the National Treasures of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The App transforms a kid’s iPhone or iPad into an archaeological tool and lets them play games to hone their skills, discover secret meanings, solve puzzles, and piece the past together like true archaeologists. Along the way, they unlock ancient artifacts and create their own personal collection.

[...]

ISIS: UNESCO takes notice

ARUTZ SHEVA: UNESCO Debates ISIS Erasing of Jewish History. Special Paris session featuring Israeli expert to discuss ways of saving ancient Jewish sites that have come under ISIS's cruel grasp (Shimon Cohen, Ari Yashar).

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is to hold a special session on preserving Jewish historical sites that have fallen under the iron grip of the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization, which has been looting and wrecking ancient non-Muslim relics.

Prof. Shmuel Moreh, a Middle Eastern Studies expert of Hebrew University who was born in Baghdad and serves as Chairman of the Association of Jewish Academics from Iraq, is invited to the special conference to be held in Paris, reports Israel Hayom.

[...]

I hope it does some good. More on the (traditional) Tomb of Ezekiel and Tomb of Jonah and related matters is here and links.

Back home

I'M BACK IN ST ANDREWS. Got in last night, after an excellent SBL conference and a nice Thanksgiving holiday. Now back to work.

Dicken, Herod as a Composite Character in Luke-Acts

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Frank Dicken
Herod as a Composite Character in Luke-Acts

Frank Dicken offers a new perspective on the three rulers who appear in Luke-Acts with the name “Herod,” contending that in light of their similar narrative depictions they may be construed as a composite character, i.e., a single character in the narrative. Viewing the Lukan Herods alongside other composite characters in Jewish and early Christian literature, the author then compares and contrasts the portrayal of the Herods in Luke-Acts with what is known about the Herods historically. Thereby he highlights two unique features – the title “King of Judaea” at Luke 1:5 and the name “Herod” for Agrippa I in Acts 12 – that result in construing the Herods as a composite. A reading of Luke-Acts focusing on each passage in which composite “Herod” appears demonstrates that understanding “Herod” as a single character is possible. Finally, Frank Dicken examines the characterization of composite “Herod” as an antagonist who embodies satanic opposition toward the spread of the gospel in the Lukan narrative.

Brettler on misconceptions about the HB

MARK ZVI BRETTLER: Seven common misconceptions about the Hebrew Bible (OUP Blog).

Background here.

Bibliographies of biblical law and Ugaritic grammar

TWO FROM AWOL:

John W. Welch: Biblical Law Cumulative Bibliography

Mark S. Smith: A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF UGARITIC GRAMMAR AND BIBLICAL HEBREW GRAMMAR IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Thanksgiving

HAPPY AMERICAN THANKSGIVING to all those celebrating!

Hollander on Josephus

WILLIAM DEN HOLLANDER: Josephus Reconsidered (The ASOR Blog). There's been a lot of useful reconsidering of Josephus in recent years. This post summarizes the argument in Dr. Hollander's book, Josephus, the Emperors, and the City of Rome (Brill, 2014), noted earlier here and (review) here.

Collins, Scriptures and Sectarianism

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

John J. Collins
Scriptures and Sectarianism
Essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls include many texts that were produced by a sectarian movement (and also many that were not). The movement had its origin in disputes about the interpretation of the Scriptures, especially the Torah, not in disputes about the priesthood as had earlier been assumed. The definitive break with the rest of Judean society should be dated to the first century BCE rather than to the second. While the Scrolls include few texts that are explicitly historical, they remain a valuable resource for historical reconstruction. John J. Collins illustrates how the worldview of the sect involved a heightened sense of involvement in the heavenly, angelic world, and the hope for an afterlife in communion with the angels. While the ideology of the sect known from the Scrolls is very different from that of early Christianity, the two movements drew on common traditions, especially those found in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Follow the link for TOC and ordering information.

Brill books on ancient Judaism

NEW BOOKS FROM BRILL:

Creation, Covenant, and the Beginnings of Judaism
Reconceiving Historical Time in the Second Temple Period

Ari Mermelstein, Yeshiva University

This study examines the relationship between time and history in Second Temple literature. Numerous sources from that period express a belief that Jewish history began with an act of covenant formation and proceeded in linear fashion until the exile, an unprecedented event which severed the present from the past. The authors of Ben Sira, Jubilees, the Animal Apocalypse, and 4 Ezra responded to this theological challenge by claiming instead that Jewish history began at creation. Between creation and redemption, history unfolds as a series of static, repeating patterns that simultaneously account for the disappointments of the Second Temple period and confirm the eternal nature of the covenant. As iterations of timeless, cyclical patterns, the difficult post-exilic present and the glorious redemption of the future emerge as familiar, unremarkable, and inevitable historical developments.


Zodiac Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Reception
Ancient Astronomy and Astrology in Early Judaism

Helen R. Jacobus, University College London

The ancient mathematical basis of the Aramaic calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls is analysed in this investigation. Helen R. Jacobus re-examines an Aramaic zodiac calendar with a thunder divination text (4Q318) and the calendar from the Aramaic Astronomical Book (4Q208 - 4Q209), all from Qumran. Jacobus demonstrates that 4Q318 is an ancestor of the Jewish calendar today and that it helps us to understand 4Q208 - 4Q209. She argues that these calendars were taught in antiquity as angelic knowledge described in 1 Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. The study also encompasses Babylonian, Hellenistic, Byzantine astronomy and astrology, and classical and Jewish writings. Finally, a medieval Hebrew zodiac calendar related to 4Q318 with an astrological text is published here for the first time.

Review of Relics

AMUSING: 'Relics' sees the present as the past, set in the future (Graydon Royce, Star Tribune).

It is the year 2314 and we are ushered through exhibits that purport to show what life was like back in 2014. Something called “The Great Wipe” had destroyed all life on Earth and these future historians are proving to this audience that there was once an advanced culture.

So, a skeleton fossil reveals the ear buds still hooked up to an ancient device we know as the iPod. A hooded sweatshirt, it was assumed, was worn with the hood in front, a “trough top” that can be filled with popcorn (now, that’s actually not a bad idea).

Dumpsters in the 21st century are interpreted as personal cisterns as three actors do a riff reminiscent of Beckett’s “Endgame.” And the car brush/scraper so essential this time of year was understood by these researchers as a scrubbing utensil for humans. An actor demonstrates how “ancient peoples” used what we know as cake frosting as hand and body cream.

If “Relics” has any lasting impact, it will be to provoke a smile next time you walk through an exhibit like “The Dead Sea Scrolls” or “Tutankhamun.” Just how do we really know that the ancient Egyptians used cosmetics made of clay?

It's good for ancient historians and archaeologists to be reminded of this sort of thing from time to time.

Burt, The Courtier and the Governor

NEW BOOK FROM VANDENHOECK AND RUPRECHT:

Sean Burt
The Courtier and the Governor
Transformations of Genre in the Nehemiah Memoir

1. Edition 2014
230 pages
ISBN 978-3-525-55076-2
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

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The Nehemiah Memoir, the narrative of the royal cupbearer sent to rebuild Jerusalem, is central to Ezra-Nehemiah’s account of Persian Judah. Yet its emphasis on one individual’s efforts makes it a text that ill-fits the book’s story of a communal restoration. Sean Burt analyzes the nature of this curious text through the lens of genre criticism and identifies the impact of its use of genres on its early reception in Ezra-Nehemiah. Drawing upon contemporary theorists of literary genre, within the field of biblical studies and beyond, he builds an understanding of genre capable of addressing both its flexibility and its necessarily historical horizon. Burt argues that the Nehemiah Memoir makes use of two ancient genres: the novelistic court tale (e.g. Esther, Ahiqar, and others) and the “official memorial,” or “biographical” genre used across the ancient Near East by kings and other governmental officials for individual commemoration. This study contends that the narrative subtly shifts genres as it unfolds, from court tale to memorial. Nehemiah the courtier becomes Nehemiah the governor. While these genres reveal an affinity to one another, they also highlight a central contradiction in the narrative’s portrait of Nehemiah. Nehemiah is, like the people of Jerusalem, beholden to the whims of a foreign ruler, but he also simultaneously represents Persia’s power over Jerusalem. Burt concludes that the Nehemiah Memoir’s combination of these two ultimately incommensurate genres can account for how the writers of Ezra-Nehemiah modified and corrected Nehemiah’s problematic story to integrate it into Ezra-Nehemiah’s vision of a holistic restoration enacted by a unified people.

Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Corpus of Mesopotamian Anti-witchcraft Rituals (AWOL).

Hurvits et al., A Concise Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew

NEW BOOK FROM BRILL:

A Concise Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew
Linguistic Innovations in the Writings of the Second Temple Period

Avi Hurvitz in collaboration with Leeor Gottlieb, Aaron Hornkohl, and Emmanuel Mastéy

The Hebrew language may be divided into the Biblical, Mishnaic, Medieval, and Modern ‎periods. Biblical Hebrew has its own distinct linguistic profile, exhibiting a diversity of styles ‎and linguistic traditions extending over some one thousand years as well as tangible diachronic ‎developments that may serve as chronological milestones in tracing the linguistic history of ‎Biblical Hebrew. Unlike standard dictionaries, whose scope and extent are dictated by the contents of the ‎Biblical concordance, this lexicon includes only 80 lexical entries, chosen specifically for a ‎diachronic investigation of Late Biblical Hebrew. Selected primarily to illustrate the fifth-century ‘watershed’ separating Classical from ‎post-Classical Biblical Hebrew, emphasis is placed on ‘linguistic contrasts’ illuminated by a rich collection ‎of examples contrasting Classical Biblical Hebrew with Late Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew with Rabbinic Hebrew, and Hebrew with Aramaic.‎