LXX prize

IOSCS: The John William Wevers Prize in Septuagint Studies.

The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies (IOSCS) offers an annual prize of $350 to be awarded to an outstanding paper in the field of Septuagint studies. The prize has been named in memory of John William Wevers to honor his many contributions to Septuagint studies.

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For (academically) younger scholars only. The deadline for submission is 15 August. Follow the link for further particulars.

UNESCO vs. Israel

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: UNESCO set to condemn Israel for ‘endangering’ Jerusalem’s Old City. Foreign Ministry slams Arab-led resolution as ‘completely one-sided,’ says it ‘deliberately ignores’ Jewish and Christian ties to city (Times of Israel/AP).

The CNN piece mentioned in this article was noted here and here.

Roman camp discovered near Megiddo

EXCAVATION: In first, imperial Roman legionary camp uncovered near Megiddo. Archaeologists unearth remains of 2,000-year-old Galilee garrison of Sixth Legion Ferrata, where 5,000 men kept order at time of Bar Kochba Revolt — the only permanent Roman military camp ever discovered in region (ILAN BEN ZION, Times of Israel).

The number of Roman military camps of this type found in the eastern half of the Roman Empire “is zero,” said Matthew J. Adams, head of the Albright Institute and co-director of the dig: “Our entire understanding about Roman military architecture, and especially Roman legionary bases for this particular period… comes from the western empire — Germany, Britain and Gaul.”

St Mary's Church in Mosul reportedly destroyed

Mosul: Isis Blows Up Another Ancient Church in Iraq, 4 Children Killed Accidentally (Johnlee Varghese, International Business Times).

The Islamic State (Isis) militants accidentally killed four children while blowing up an ancient church in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

The historical St Mary's church was destroyed by the Isis on Monday, Kurdish news source - Rudaw reported.

The four Iraqi children were near the church and were killed in the explosion, Saeed Mamuzini, media officer of the Mosul branch of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK), told Rudaw.

Mamuzin added that the church located in central Mosul was "thousands of years" old.

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I cannot find any information on how old the Chaldean Catholic Church of the Virgin Mary in Mosul is (was?), but this article seems to indicate that there is a tradition that it is ancient.

More on ISIS's assault on the past is here and here and many links.

Jewish studies teaching fellowship at KCL

JOB: Teaching Fellow in Jewish Studies.

King’s College London is seeking an outstanding Teaching Fellow in Jewish Studies (0.4 FTE). This is a permanent post with a start date of 1st September 2015. The successful candidate will teach in the field of Jewish Studies with a particular focus on rabbinic literature. S/he will have a track record or potential as a researcher in the area of specialisation. Expertise in related areas, such as Jewish history and culture in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Jewish-Christian or Jewish-Muslim relations, and Jewish Thought, will be welcome.

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The search closes on 30 July. Follow the link for further particulars

Aramaic Studies on the Babylonian incantation bowls

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Studies on Aramaic Magic Bowls and Related Subjects. A special issue of the Journal Aramaic Studies.

Vows and teaching fees in the Talmud

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Is It Fair To Charge Fees for Religious Education? This week’s Talmudic debate is centered on the perceived and real benefits of study, teaching, and sacrifice.

As summer rolls on, Jewish parents everywhere are getting ready for the annual tradition of writing tuition checks for Hebrew school or Jewish day school and the accompanying tradition of complaining about the high cost of Jewish education. But is it, in fact, permitted under Jewish law to charge for the teaching of Torah? This week’s Daf Yomi reading raised that interesting question, in connection with the core subject of Tractate Nedarim, the taking of vows. The most common form of vow-taking, the Talmud has shown over the last few weeks, is vowing to forbid a certain individual from “deriving benefit” from oneself—or vice versa, to refuse to derive benefit from a given person. This kind of one-on-one excommunication is frowned upon by the rabbis, since it involves God in what is usually just a personal dispute. But once such a vow is taken, the Talmud asks, what is its scope? What sorts of actions are defined as “benefits” in a legal sense?

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Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Jacobus on 4Q208-4Q209

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Reconstructing 4Q208–4Q209 as an Astronomical Artefact

It is probable that 4QZodiac Calendar may be a Jewish-Aramaic descendant of similar late Babylonian zodiacal calendar texts with which it bears close structural similarities.

See Also: Zodiac Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Reception (Brill Academic Pub, 2014).

By Helen R. Jacobus
Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies
University College London
July 2015

Her book was noted earlier here. Related posts are here and here.

Eilat Mazar

PROFILE: Dr. Eilat Mazar: Biblical Archaeologist (Prof. Livia Bitton-Jackson, The Jewish Press).

Past posts on Dr. Mazar are here and here. She has been mentioned often at PaleoJudaica.

CNN and the Temple Mount

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: CNN is coming under severe criticism for including the Old City of Jerusalem (with mention of the Dome of the Rock) at the top of its list of endangered historical sites, while leaving out another obvious one. It does seem like an odd list.

Dome of Rock tops CNN list of sites on ‘verge of extinction'; no place for Palmyra. Jerusalem holy place at No. 1 on ‘Last chance to see’ list. Syrian city, whose iconic 2,000-year-old lion was smashed last week, misses out (Times of Israel/JTA).

CNN Claims Jerusalem’s Old City Endangered But Has No Room for Palmyra (Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary Magazine).

Cross-file under Palmyra Watch. Background on the CNN story is here. Background on Palmyra is here and links.

Kurdistan's Jewish heritage

EDITORIAL: Kurdistan needs help to preserve its Jewish heritage. In present-day Kurdistan, the Jewish heritage and its stories are almost forgotten (JUDIT NEURINK, Jerusalem Post).

A main feature of the synagogue is the tomb of the biblical prophet Nahum, who correctly predicted the end of the Assyrian Empire – although his bones have for safety reasons been moved to a nearby church. Until the Fifties, Jews from all over the country would come here on a yearly pilgrimage during Shavuot. “He who has not made the pilgrimage to Nahum’s tomb has not yet known real pleasure,” the common saying was then.

Al Qosh now is a Christian town. Once it was a mixed town, where Christians and Jews lived in harmony, like in so many other places in Iraq. The key to the synagogue’s gate is now guarded by the son of an old Christian friend of the last rabbi, who was one of the last to leave in the early ‘50s, when after the creation of the State of Israel Jews were made to feel they were no longer welcome.

Yet Jews in Iraqi Kurdistan – where Al Qosh is situated from a geographic point of view, although politically it is part of the Iraqi government of Baghdad – were very much part of the fabric of the society. They were mainly farmers and craftsmen, living side by side with the Kurds, and in the process taking over many of their habits. Although intermarriage was not common, friendships were.

Background on the (traditional) Tomb of Nahum in Al Qosh is here and links. And more on Aramaic-speaking Jews in Kurdistan is here and links.

New World Heritage Sites

UNESCO has released a list of newly declared World Heritage Sites, some of which are of PaleoJudaic interest:

Ancient Jewish necropolis named World Heritage Site. UNESCO adds Beit She’arim’s Roman-era catacombs, where author of Mishnah is buried, to list of protected locales (Stuart Winer, Times of Israel).

The World Heritage List enshrined Beit She’arim because its catacombs contain a “treasury of artworks and inscriptions in Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew” and bear “a unique testimony to ancient Judaism under the leadership of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, who is credited with Jewish renewal after 135 CE.”

Some past posts on Beit She'arim (Beit Shearim) are here, here, here, here, here, and links.

Susa, of Purim story fame, becomes World Heritage Site. Ancient city known in the Bible as Shushan is said to be where dramatic events in Scroll of Esther played out (Times of Israel/AFP).

A couple of past posts pertaining to Susa are here and here.

Jesus baptism site and France champagne hillsides get Unesco heritage tag (Jayalakshmi K, International Business Times)

The Jordanian site where Jesus was baptised is among many new places added to Unesco's heritage list.

"Bethany Beyond the Jordan" (Al-Maghtas), situated on the eastern bank of the River Jordan and 9kms north of the Dead Sea, encompasses Elijah's Hill and the area that houses remains of churches of Saint John who baptised Jesus of Nazareth.

The site features Roman and Byzantine remains including churches and chapels, a monastery, caves that have been used by hermits and pools in which baptisms were celebrated.

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This is a possible site of the baptism of Jesus, but not the only possible one. Background here and links.

ISIS execution video in Palmyra

PALMYRA WATCH: IS video shows mass execution in Syria’s ancient Palmyra. Jihadist group releases footage of teenagers shooting government soldiers at the city’s Roman amphitheater (AFP). The story of the amphitheatre executions was first reported at the end of May.

A reminder that the barbarities of ISIS go far beyond the destruction of antiquities.

More background on Palmyra is here and links.

No reports of Talmud burning

NAZIS. I HATE THESE GUYS. London 'anti-Jewification' demo dwarfed by anti-fascist counter-protest. Lines of police keep two groups apart as neo-Nazis stage demonstration against Jewish neighbourhood watch group (Damien Gayle, The Guardian).

This story has taken various twists and turns, but I don't like to give these people any more media oxygen than absolutely necessary, so I haven't posted on them. You can read the article above, if you are curious. The only point of interest for PaleoJudaica is that there is no indication so far that the planned private Talmud burning ever took place. I hope the threat of it was just a ploy for attention.

Meanwhile, this revolting story reminded me of a post from some years ago which remains timely: The futility of book-burning.

CNN's 25 structures to see before they are destroyed

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: CNN lists Dome of the Rock among 'magnificent structures on the verge of extinction.' The Temple Mount structure makes the number one spot on the list of places to see before they are destroyed. (RO YEGER, Jerusalem Post). To be a bit more precise, the list begins with the Old City of Jerusalem and mentions the Dome of the Rock and has a photo of it. Petra and Pompeii are also on the list.

Dissertation on Rabbinic agricultural spaces by John Mandsager

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Dissertation Spotlight: John Mandsager.

Mandsager, John. To Stake a Claim: The Making of Rabbinic Agricultural Spaces in the Roman Countryside. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 2014.

This dissertation spotlight column in AJR is a great idea. I hope we'll see more of them.

Review of Seland (ed.), Reading Philo

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Torrey Seland (ed.), Reading Philo: A Handbook to Philo of Alexandria. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2014. Pp. xvi, 345. ISBN 9780802870698. $45.00 (pb).

Reviewed by Sami Yli-Karjanmaa, University of Helsinki (sami.yli-karjanmaa@helsinki.fi)

Preview

“I’m afraid of him.” This comment about Philo by an established biblical scholar which I once heard in an international gathering is, I think, reflective of the reasons why Philo is still used so little in both biblical and classical studies. The “fear of getting him wrong,” so the scholar specified, is understandable given the large size of his corpus, the complexity of his allegories and the (largely unfounded) reputation of inconsistency. Given this state of affairs, every opportunity should be seized to make the Alexandrian exegete more accessible. My perception of this need informs this review: seasoned scholars who have yet to embark on the study of Philo differ little in this respect from the M.A. and Ph.D. students at whom Reading Philo is aimed. There are not too many handbooks on Philo, and additions are warmly welcome. They should have clarity, consistency and comprehensiveness as their aims.

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There's more on the book here and here.

Axum

TRAVEL: Axum: Chronicles of Ethiopia’s long history (Adie Vanessa Offiong, Daily Trust). A nice, brief overview of the history of Axum (Aksum), which came up most recently in the story of the Ethiopian Sleeping Beauty, but has also featured in PaleoJudaica posts dealing with the Queen of Sheba, legends about the Ark of the Covenant, and other stories. Follow the latter link for specifics.

Review of Müller, Pakkala, and Romeny, Evidence of Editing and Pakkala, God’s Word Omitted

MARGINALIA REVIEW OF BOOKS: Signs of a New Age in the Study of the Formation of Biblical and Other Ancient Texts – By David M. Carr. David M. Carr on Reinhard Müller, Juha Pakkala, and Bas ter Haar Romeny’s Evidence of Editing and Juha Pakkala’s God’s Word Omitted.

Study of actual evidence of editing, then, may contribute to convergence between the different cultures of biblical scholarship in Europe and North America. Though Pakkala and (in Evidence of Editing) Müller and Romeny inveigh against North American colleagues for their skepticism about exact reconstruction of editorial layers, Pakkala himself uses documented examples of editing to argue for more such skepticism in God’s Word Omitted. Pakkala and colleagues remain more confident about literary reconstruction than most North American colleagues, including myself. Moreover, their assumptions about Israelite history remain quite different from scholars like myself, whose conclusions (my own characterized in some American discussions as “European”) Pakkala deems “rather conservative.” Nevertheless, a review of these two works shows both the importance of scholarly audience in framing an academic message, and the possibility that a body of data — in this case documented cases of literary growth — might undermine divides between scholarly cultures on what is methodologically possible and necessary.

Ahmadi, The Daēva cult in the Gāthās

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Ideological archaeology of Zoroastrianism. A note on a new book: Ahmadi, Amir. 2015. The Daēva cult in the Gāthās: An ideological archaeology of Zoroastrianism (Iranian Studies 24). New York, NY: Routledge. It addresses the origins of Zoroastrianism.