The Harrak Collection

SYRIAC WATCH: Destroyed Iraqi Holy Sites Find New Life Online (Owen Jarus, LiveScience).

[Professor Amir] Harrak told Live Science that, in the years before the 2003 American invasion, the country was suffering from economic embargoes; but the security situation was stable and he could move freely. "I traveled north, south, east and west without any hindrance," when carrying documentation from the university and permission from Iraqi officials, he said.

He worked to photograph as many inscriptions as he could. Some of the inscriptions were already in poor shape and he had to clean them carefully before photographing them. "There [is] dust in my body from those inscriptions to make them really clear [so that] I could photograph," Harrak said.

The inscriptions were written in a variety of languages. Many of them were in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic that was commonly used by Christians in Iraq from ancient to modern times. (Harrak is an expert in this dialect.) There are also many inscriptions in Garshuni, a script that records the Arabic language in Syriac letters.

"The Harrak Collection (of photographs) is the largest corpus of Iraqi-Syriac and Garshuni inscriptions in the world," [ Canadian Centre for Epigraphic Documents (CCED) Colin] Clarke said.

I noted this project last September here. The current article gives additional information and has some good photos. And a related LiveScience article by Owen Jarus, with additional photos, is here. For more on Garshuni, see here and links.

Ancient commentaries on the Genesis Creation narrative

A USEFUL LIST: COMMENTARIES ON GENESIS: THE BIBLICAL CREATION NARRATIVES & ADAM AND EVE. This is provided by one Center for Byzantine Studies, run by Dr. Clement A Kuehn.

Tools for Studying the Hebrew Bible

AWOL: Tools for Studying the Hebrew Bible. A useful collection of material by Prof. Marc Brettler at Duke University.

Review of Martín-Contreras and Miralles-Maciá (eds.), The Text of the Hebrew Bible

REVIEWS OF BIBLICAL AND EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES: ELVIRA MARTÍN-CONTRERAS, LORENA MIRALLES-MACIÁ, The Text of the Hebrew Bible. From the Rabbis to the Masoretes. Review by Pieter B. Hartog, KU Leuven.

To sum up: this volume is trying to do something novel, as it aims to bridge the gap between the Rabbis and the Masoretes and to develop new approaches to the study of the biblical text in this era. As such, it is generally successful. Its essays raise many intriguing questions, which will no doubt inspire further research and reflection.

Tal and Taxel, Samaritan Cemeteries and Tombs in the Central Coastal Plain

NEW BOOK FROM UGARIT VERLAG (EISENBRAUNS):

Oren Tal and Itamar Taxel
Samaritan Cemeteries and Tombs in the Central Coastal Plain
Archaeology and History of the Samaritan Settlement outside Samaria (ca. 300–700 CE)

Printed edition 2015 (ISBN: 978-3-86835-153-8): XVIII + 291 pages, 98.00 €

Printed edition + e-book 2015 (ISBN: 978-3-86835-154-5): XVIII + 291 pages, 125.00 €

This book discusses Samaritan burial customs outside Samaria based on the finds of yet unpublished tombs excavated in the second half of the 20th century in the central Coastal Plain of Israel (within the northern city limits of modern-day Tel Aviv, which forms part of the southern Sharon Plain). The burial sites analyzed here include the cemetery of Khirbet al-ʻAura / Tel Barukh, a burial cave at Khirbet al-Ḥadra / HaGolan Street and another one at Tell Qasile. The burial caves excavated at these sites are associated with Samaritan rural populations because of their location and the finds discovered, which include elements of Samaritan material culture (non-epigraphic and epigraphic alike). Our study constitutes a full report on the excavations of these burial sites and offers an archaeological re-evaluation of Samaritan settlement history and material culture. The appendices complete this study by bringing forward small-scale unpublished excavations of probable Samaritan settlements or revising published material that normally bears relevance to research on this subject. Our re-evaluation is holistic in nature, based upon the sites we studied in full, as well as other published Samaritan sites that have been excavated and surveyed in the central Coastal Plain. This publication contributes to our understanding of daily habits and afterlife beliefs of the Samaritans outside their heartland in the heyday of their expansion to the Palestinian lowlands.

Batten on Galilean fishing economy

ALICIA J. BATTEN: Fishing Economy in the Sea of Galilee (Bible Oddyssey). HT AJR.

Rabbula Gospels

SYRIAC WATCH: Rabbula Gospels online! (Adam McCollum, hmmlorientalia blog).

e-ktobe

PETER J. GURRY (ETC): Online Database of Syriac Manuscripts. The e-ktobe site was also noted here a few years ago.

Miller, At the Intersection of Texts and Material Finds

NEW BOOK FROM VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT:

Stuart S. Miller
At the Intersection of Texts and Material Finds
Stepped Pools, Stone Vessels, and Ritual Purity Among the Jews of Roman Galilee

1. Auflage 2015
423 Seiten with 22 fig. gebunden
ISBN 978-3-525-55069-4
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Journal of Ancient Judaism. Supplements - Band 016

Stuart Miller examines the hermeneutical challenges posed by the material and literary evidence pertaining to ritual purity practices in Graeco-Roman Palestine and, especially, the Galilee. He contends that “stepped pools,” which we now know were in use well beyond the Destruction of the Temple, and, as indicated by the large collection on the western acropolis of Sepphoris and elsewhere, into the Middle and Late Roman/Byzantine eras,must be understood in light of biblical and popular perspectives on ritual purity. The interpretation of the finds is too frequently forced to conform to rabbinic prescriptions, which oftentimes were the result of the sages’ unique and creative, nominalist approach to ritual purity. Special attention is given to the role ritual purity continued to play in the lives of ordinary Jews despite (or because of) the loss of the Temple. Miller argues against the prevailing tendency to type material finds—and Jewish society––according to known groups (pre-70 C.E.: Pharisaic, Sadducaic, Essenic; post 70 C.E.: rabbinic, priestly, etc.). He further counters the perception that ritual purity practices were largely the interest of priests and argues against the recent suggestion that the kohanim resurfaced as an influential group in Late Antiquity. Building upon his earlier work on “sages and commoners,” Miller claims that the rabbis emerged out of a context in which a biblically derived “complex common Judaism” thrived. Stepped pools, stone vessels, and other material finds are realia belonging to this “complex common Judaism.” A careful reading of the rabbis indicates that they were acutely aware of the extent to which ritual purity rites pertaining to home and family life had “spread,” which undoubtedly contributed to their intense interest in regulating them.

One God, One Lord, 3rd edition

LARRY HURTADO: One God, One Lord”: Third Edition Forthcoming. I read the first edition back around 1991 or 1992, when the SBL Divine Mediator Figures Group was starting up, and it has influenced my thinking a great deal.

Swenne, Démons iraniens

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: . A notice of a new book: Swennen, Philippe (ed.). 2015. Démons iraniens: actes du colloque international organisé à la Université de Liège les 5 et 6 février 2009 à l’occasion des 65 ans de Jean Kellens. Liège: Presses Universitaires de Liège.

The Story of Melchizedek

THE STORY OF MELCHIZEDEK, translated recently in Bauckham, Davila, Panayotov (eds.), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures vol. 1 (Eerdmans, 2013), is profiled by Tomas Garcia-Huidobro in his Spanish-language blog, Experiencias Religiosas y Escrituras: La Historia de Melquizedek (apócrifo cristiano).

I usually just link to English-language blogs, but I do follow this one and it is worth a look. The masthead gives its subject matter as "temprano misticismo judío, cristiano, y gnóstico como medios para iluminar los orígenes del cristianismo."

Penn, Envisioning Islam

NEW BOOK FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS:

Envisioning Islam
Syriac Christians and the Early Muslim World
Michael Philip Penn

320 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth Jun 2015 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4722-0 | $59.95s | £39.00
Ebook Jun 2015 | ISBN 978-0-8122-9144-5 | $59.95s | £39.00
A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series

"A sophisticated and well-conceived study of the evolving depictions of Muslims in Syriac texts that will shed new light on the socially complicated history of early Islam."—Sydney H. Griffith, the Catholic University of America

The first Christians to encounter Islam were not Latin-speakers from the western Mediterranean or Greek-speakers from Constantinople but Mesopotamian Christians who spoke the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. Under Muslim rule from the seventh century onward, Syriac Christians wrote the most extensive descriptions extant of early Islam. Seldom translated and often omitted from modern historical reconstructions, this vast body of texts reveals a complicated and evolving range of religious and cultural exchanges that took place from the seventh to the ninth century.

The first book-length analysis of these earliest encounters, Envisioning Islam highlights the ways these neglected texts challenge the modern scholarly narrative of early Muslim conquests, rulers, and religious practice. Examining Syriac sources including letters, theological tracts, scientific treatises, and histories, Michael Philip Penn reveals a culture of substantial interreligious interaction in which the categorical boundaries between Christianity and Islam were more ambiguous than distinct. The diversity of ancient Syriac images of Islam, he demonstrates, revolutionizes our understanding of the early Islamic world and challenges widespread cultural assumptions about the history of exclusively hostile Christian-Muslim relations.

Cross-file under Syriac Watch.

Gardner, The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism

NEW BOOK FROM CUP:

The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism

AUTHOR: Gregg E. Gardner
DATE PUBLISHED: June 2015
AVAILABILITY: In stock
FORMAT: Hardback
ISBN: 9781107095434

£64.99

Description

This book examines the origins of communal and institutional almsgiving in rabbinic Judaism. It undertakes a close reading of foundational rabbinic texts (Mishnah, Tosefta, Tannaitic Midrashim) and places their discourses on organized giving in their second to third century CE contexts. Gregg E. Gardner finds that Tannaim promoted giving through the soup kitchen (tamhui) and charity fund (quppa), which enabled anonymous and collective support for the poor. This protected the dignity of the poor and provided an alternative to begging, which benefited the community as a whole - poor and non-poor alike. By contrast, later Jewish and Christian writings (from the fourth to fifth centuries) would see organized charity as a means to promote their own religious authority. This book contributes to the study of Jews and Judaism, history of religions, biblical studies, and ethics.

Non-Muslim contributions to Islamic civilisation series

JAMES MCGRATH: Mandaean Contributions to Islamic Civilization. James says:

I received word about the new book series below, and wanted to share it here, since it explicitly mentions the Mandaeans!

And so it does, but also many other traditions. The series is "Non-Muslim contributions to Islamic civilisation" from Edinburgh University Press and the background traditions it proposes to explore include the following:

The series examines the contributions of Jews, Christians (including Armenians, Copts, Ethiopians, Georgians, Mozarabs and Syriacs) Samaritans, Mandeans, Hermetics, Harranians, Zoroastrians and peripheral cultures such as the Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, “Shamanist” and African traditions to the intellectual, ideological, legal, economic and technological development of Islamic civilisation.

I look forward to hearing more.

Lamp workshop at Shikhin

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: An Ancient Jewish Lamp Workshop in the Galilee.

GSI Greek Psalter Project

TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY: TWU scholar to lead significant Septuagint project.

TWU professor and Septuagint scholar Rob Hiebert, Ph. D., has been invited to serve as a supervisor for the Green Scholars Initiative’s (GSI) Greek Psalter Project. Hiebert, who has served as a Professor of Old Testament studies since 1998, is the Director of the University’s John William Wevers Institute for Septuagint Studies.

The GSI Greek Psalter Project is a collaborative undertaking focused on an important, well-preserved papyrus containing the text of Septuagint Psalms. Papyrus Bodmer XXIV, dating to the third or fourth century, contains Psalms 17-118 (according to Septuagint numbering) in a text form that is proving to be immensely valuable for reconstructing the original text of the Greek translator. A key aspect of this GSI project will be to prepare and publish a new edition of the papyrus text, one that both corrects the errors that appeared in the first edition in 1967, and that includes new material that did not make its way into that first edition.

[...]

Although the project is sponsored by the Green Scholars Initiative, the subject of study, Papyrus Bodmer XXIV, is not part of the Green Collection. Background on the Green Collection is here and here and many links.

CORRECTION (18 July): Michael Holmes has written to tell me that Papyrus Bodmer XXIV is in fact in the Green Collection. Apologies for the error.

Gignoux, Mazdéens et chrétiens en terre d’Iran à l’époque sassanide

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Zoroastrians and Christians in Sasanian Iran. Notice of a new book: Gignoux, Philippe. 2014. Mazdéens et chrétiens en terre d’Iran à l’époque sassanide. (Ed.) Matteo De Chiara & Enrico G. Raffaelli. (Serie orientale Roma 3). Roma: Scienze e Lettere.

Judean Desert flyover video

JAMES MCGRATH: Dead Sea Drone. Amir Aloni presents us with another of his excellent, unnarrated flyover videos, this one including the Dead Sea region and Masada. More here and links.

Ellis, The Hermeneutics of Divine Testing

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

The Hermeneutics of Divine Testing
Cosmic Trials and Biblical Interpretation in the Epistle of James and Other Jewish Literature

Nicholas Ellis examines the interplay present in early Jewish literature between authors' theological assumptions on divine agency in evil and their readings of biblical testing narratives. Ellis takes as a starting point the Epistle of James , and compares this early Christian work against other examples of ancient Jewish interpretation. Ellis shows how varying perspectives on the divine, satanic, and human roles of testing exercised a direct influence on the interpretation of popular biblical testing narratives such as Abraham and Isaac, Job, and the Trials in the Wilderness. Read in light of the broader Jewish literature, Ellis argues that the theology and hermeneutic found in the Epistle of James as such relate to divine testing are closely paralleled by the so-called 'Rewritten Bible' tradition. Within James' cosmic drama, God stands as righteous judge, with the satanic prosecutor indicting both divine integrity and human religious loyalty.