Sukkot 2015

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

Biblical and other background to the festival is collected here in last year's Sukkot post.

Also, there is this good news: Super blood moon on Sunday will not usher in the end of the world (and other failed predictions) (JAKE ELLISON, SFGate.com). This is the last of the four "blood moons" corresponding with four successive major Jewish holidays, on which more here and links. When the world doesn't end tonight (assuming it doesn't), we should have some peace on the matter again for a while.

Israel Beer Museum

IT KEEPS A LOW PROFILE ONLINE, but I just learned from a photo caption in this article that Carlsberg has a brewery in Ashkelon and its Visitor Center includes a Beer Museum. (This website caption places it in Eilat, but that seems to be an error. See the directions in the right-hand column.)

The visit includes the following: a spectacular audio-visual display in a unique auditorium; tour of the brewery, a prize-winning state-of-the-art plant; visit to the museum which describes the story of beer production in ancient times, with an exciting archeological display of authentic tools on loan from the Israeli Antiquity Authorities. Unique pub museum in which the visitor can taste the brewery’s products - unlimited!

Background on ancient Near Eastern and biblical beer is here and links.

Lied on Codex Ambrosianus B.21 marginalia

LIV INGEBORG LIED: Details in the margin – not marginal details: A liturgical annotation in the Syriac Codex Ambrosianus.

A small annotation such as this one may seem (literally) a marginal detail. However, it may turn out to be an interesting detail, since it sheds some additional light on a hypothesis that has been repeated in scholarship ever since Ceriani published the facsimile edition of the codex in 1876/1883. In the Praefatio of this edition, Ceriani suggestes that the codex was probably not produced for ecclesiastical use, since it includes neither liturgical notes, nor an index of lessons. He notes, though, that the occasional liturgical note occurs in the columns of some texts, but suggests that this is due to the fact that the scribe copied the texts in question from an exemplar that contained such notes (p. 8).

Details matter.

More on manuscript Codex Ambrosianus B.21 here and here (cf. here). Cross-file under Syriac Watch.

Workshop on ancient Nabataean rituals

NABATEAN WATCH: Ancient Nabataean rituals uncovered and explored at IFPO workshop (Saeb Rawashdeh, The Jordan Times).

AMMAN (JT) — Under the patronage of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, the French Institute for the Near East (IFPO) held on September 17th a workshop titled “Offerings to Gods, Offerings to Man — Archaeology of Rituals in the Nabataean World“.

Ancient Nabataean heritage, language and rituals were at the forefront of the discussion, as nine distinguished scholars gathered from global universities to present their findings.

Archaeologists, historians and anthropologists specialising in Nabataean legacy covered the territories of southern Jordan and northwestern Saudi Arabia in order to reconstruct life in this ancient kingdom.

[...]

Seen on Facebook. For some past posts on the Nabateans (Nabataeans), the Nabatean (Nabataean) language, and Petra, see here and links.

Biblical and African manuscripts at the University of Jos

IN NIGERIA: Uni-Jos pushing boundaries on ancient manuscripts collection (Hir Joseph,The Daily Trust).

A research work on ancient manuscripts - now lasting two years so far - has brought the University of Jos (UNIJOS) in Plateau State pushing boundaries in the collection of original, unpublished documents especially about Africa.

The university is on its way to breaking the record among universities in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to Professor Danny McCain, an American author who is leading a research group made up of a dozen scholars from five universities in Nigeria on a work called “Ancient Manuscripts Project.”

[...]

Ancient manuscripts project:
The ancient manuscript project, brought the university linking up with Ancient Manuscript Group based in Grand Haven, Michigan, according to Professor McCain, who is also a professor of Biblical Theology in the department at the university.

McCain has lectured continuously at UNIJOS since 1991 and has had significant experience creating academic projects and coalitions in Africa. He is also the founder and Chairman of Board, Global Scholars, a group of Christian professors in universities worldwide.

He said the Ancient Manuscripts Group has been visiting the country every three months to do workshops with scholars.

“We have about 12 to 15 scholars involved in this project. These are ancient biblical manuscripts and other manuscripts which are important to the Christian faith because they are the foundation of the bible,” McCain said.

“Now, we have a 600 year old Hebrew scroll with us; we have been analysing for the last three months. We have also analysed 800-year old Latin manuscript. We have one of my PhD students doing works on 4th Century Coptic document.”
He said the group of scholars has spent a good deal of time looking at the Papyrus document; that is one of the earliest papers from 1600 years old to over 2,200 years old.

“For example, I have a picture of the Vice Chancellor holding a document in his hands; a letter from Ptolemy II, son of Ptolemy I, Alexander the Great’s general who ruled Egypt.

[...]

The article doesn't specify this, but it sounds as though these manuscripts may be from the Van Kampen Collection, which was originally located in Grand Haven, Michigan, but is now in Orlando, Florida, associated with the not uncontroversial Holy Land Experience theme park.

A new fragment of the Epic of Gilgamesh

CUNEIFORM SURPRISE: The Newly Discovered Tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh (Osama S. M. Amin, Ancient History et cetera). The fragment, which was recovered from the antiquities market in 2011 and published in The Journal of Cuneiform Studies in 2014, contains new material from the Cedar Forest episode. You can read the JCS article at the link in Mr. Amin's post. Somehow I missed the story last year, so I am happy to catch up with it here.

Mr. Amin tells the story of the identification of the tablet and summarizes its contents:

• The revised reconstruction of Tablet V yields text that is nearly twenty lines longer than previously known.
  
• The obverse (columns i-ii) duplicates the Neo-Assyrian fragments which means the Epic tablet can be placed in order and used to fill in the gaps between them. It also shows the recension on Tablet V was in Babylonia, as well as Assyria and that “izzizūma inappatū qišta” is the same phrase that other tablets being with.
  
• The reverse (columns v-vi) duplicates parts of the reverse (columns iv-vi) of the late Babylonian tablet excavated at Uruk that begins with the inscription “Humbāba pâšu īpušma iqabbi izakkara ana Gilgāmeš”.
  
• The most interesting piece of information provided by this new source is the continuation of the description of the Cedar Forest:
  
• Gilgamesh and Enkidu saw ‘monkeys’ as part of the exotic and noisy fauna of the Cedar Forest; this was not mentioned in other versions of the Epic.
  
• Humbaba emerges, not as a barbarian ogre, and but as a foreign ruler entertained with exotic music at court in the manner of Babylonian kings. The chatter of monkeys, chorus of cicada, and squawking of many kinds of birds formed a symphony (or cacophony) that daily entertained the forest’s guardian, Humbaba.
  
• The aftermath of Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s slaying of Humbaba is now better preserved.
  
• The passages are consistent with other versions and confirm what was already known. For example, Enkidu had spent some time with Humbaba in his youth.

The Second Temple Jewish Aramaic Book of Giants (also adopted as scripture by the Manicheans [Manichaeans]) remembers both Gilgamesh and Humbaba (Huwawa), and perhaps also the Flood hero Utnapishtim, as antediluvian giants.

Bit by bit, a letter at at time, whatever it takes. Until we're done.

YCAS 2015

TONY BURKE is currently holding this year's York Christian Apocrypha Symposium at York University. It has an excellent lineup of speakers and papers. Tony has been blogging speaker profiles etc. over at Apocryphicity and James McGrath, who is one of the presenters, has been blogging the conference over at Exploring Our Matrix. The Twitter hashtag is #YCAS2015. Good times.

Review of Rapp, The Sasanian world through Georgian eyes

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Review: The Sasanian world through Georgian eyes. Notes a review by Adam McCollum of Rapp, Stephen. 2014. The Sasanian world through Georgian eyes. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.

Old Georgian language and literature has been receiving a lot of attention lately, not least through Adam's efforts. Background here and links.

Another persecuted Egyptian blogger

FREE SPEECH INTERLUDE: Convicted Egyptian blogger posts Israel fan vid. Sherif Gaber, dodging a one-year jail sentence for atheist activism, says Arab world is envious of Jewish state’s achievements (Stuart Winer, Times of Israel blog).

Gaber made headlines earlier this year when he was sentenced to a year in prison for “contempt of religion” after authorities at the Suez Canal University in Ismailia where he was studying reported him in 2013 for setting up a pro-atheism Facebook page.

Bail was set for about $130 until an appeal could be heard but Gaber went on the run and has been in hiding ever since.

Dear me, Egyptian governments come and go, but this sort of persecution keeps happening. I have not heard of Mr. Gaber before today and I flag this story not because he posted a pro-Israel video, but because I support his right to express his religious and political views, whatever they are.

Hey, General Sissi's Government: the world is watching. Just saying.

Background here and here, sadly, with many links. To be fair, none of come from the time of General Sissi's Government, until now. Let's see them do better than this.

Jewish Studies Visiting Chair at the College of Charleston

H-JUDAIC: JOB: College of Charleston, YNorman and Gerry Sue Arnold Distinguished Visiting Chair in Jewish Studies. Follow the link for further particulars. The application deadline is January 15, 2016.

3000-year-old seal found in Temple Mount rubble

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT: Special Media Release: Rare 3,000-Year-Old Seal Discovered within Earth Discarded from Temple Mount.

Rare 3,000-Year-Old Seal Discovered within Earth Discarded from Temple Mount

Seal, dating to period of the Biblical kings David & Solomon discovered at Temple Mount Sifting Project

JERUSALEM, September 21, 2015 — A rare 3,000 year-old seal dating to the period of the Biblical kings David and Solomon of the 10th century BCE was recently discovered at the Temple Mount Sifting Project in Jerusalem.

“The seal is the first of its kind to be found in Jerusalem,” stated Dr. Gabriel Barkay, the co-founder and director of the Temple Mount Sifting Project. “The dating of the seal corresponds to the historical period of the Jebusites and the conquest of Jerusalem by King David, as well as the construction of the Temple and the royal official compound by his son, King Solomon… What makes this discovery particularly significant is that it originated from upon the Temple Mount itself.”

[...]

Alas, it is an anepigraphic seal — no writing. But if the suggested early date holds up, it could have implications for our understanding of the level of administrative sophistication in Jerusalem around the tenth century BCE.

Many, many previous posts on the Temple Mount Sifting Project are here (cf. here, here, here) and links. Cross-file under Temple Mount Watch. A post on the 2014 discovery of some anepigraphic bullae (clay seal impressions) from the same period in the northern Negev is here.

A Hellenistic-era Christianized mikveh

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

A Unique Mikveh in Upper Galilee

A mikveh in the Holy Land which shows a cross on its wall

By Eldad Keynan
Bar Ilan
Israel
September 2015

Hebrew/Jewish Studies job at NYU

H-JUDAIC: JOB: NYU, Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Follow the link for further particulars. The rank is open and there is no mention of a fixed term for the post. The deadline for application is 15 October 2015, so don't dawdle.

Sukkot

YONA SABAR: Hebrew word of the week: Sukkot. Timely.

Airstrikes at Palmyra

PALMYRA WATCH: Syria government airstrikes pound IS-controlled Palmyra (AP).

Background here and here and links.

Electrum coins from Carthage

PUNIC WATCH: Electrum coins weren't just issued early on: Ancients Today. Cities still use alloy after switch to pure gold and silver (David Vagi, Coin World).

As the production of electrum coinage in Asia Minor died out in the 320s, it is most curious that the tradition was then taken up at the other end of the Mediterranean by Carthage, a Phoenician settlement on the shore of North Africa, just southwest of Sicily.

The earliest precious metal coins of Carthage, dating to about 350 B.C., were made of pure gold, but by about 320 B.C. they were substituted with staters of electrum.

These were issued in very large quantities, along with multiple and fractional denominations that were produced only occasionally and in relatively small quantities. The standard design for the Carthaginian stater was the head of the goddess Tanit and a standing horse.

They mainly appear to have been issued from circa 320 to 270 B.C. After that prolific era, Carthage also struck electrum coinage during its three wars with Rome: the First Punic War (264 to 241 B.C.), the Second Punic War (218 to 201 B.C.), and the Third Punic War (149 to 146 B.C.).

It's good to know these things. Cross-file under Numismatics.

Judaic Studies Chair at UT

THE HUGOYE LIST: Job Ad: Judaic Studies. The job is an Endowed Chair in Judaic Studies and Program Director in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Follow the link for further particulars. Review of applications begins October 21, 2015.

Jewish-Temple denial and "extremist" Talmudic rabbis

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: The current conflicts at and about the Temple Mount have led to some predictable, but still disappointing, rhetoric. First, from the Egypt Independent/Anadolu Agency: Palestinians warn of extremist plan to demolish Al-Aqsa.

Palestinian activists warn that extremist Jewish groups in Israel — which they say enjoy the tacit support of Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government — are now openly calling for the destruction of occupied East Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque to make way for a "third Jewish temple".

Recent weeks have seen large groups of Jewish settlers, usually accompanied by Israeli army troops and police, forcing their way into the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex — which Jews already refer to as the “Temple Mount” — with increasing frequency.

I have commented with some concern about some of the rhetoric coming out of groups that advocate the rebuilding of the Temple on the Temple Mount, so I don't blame Palestinian groups for being concerned as well. But Jews already refer to the site as the "Temple Mount" because there were Jewish temples there in the past, not because some groups want to (re)build a temple there.

I'm not going to comment on the various claims and counterclaims about what has recently been happening on the Temple Mount. I wasn't there and I can't judge. But I do note that this article cites and approves of some unhistorical denial that there ever were Jewish temples on the site. The bold emphasis is mine.

According to Ziad Hammouri, a Palestinian expert on these extremist Jewish groups, the current Israeli government uses these right-wing organizations “to stage incursions by settlers into the Al-Aqsa compound”.

He went on to cite groups such as Rabbis of the Temple Mount, Women of the Temple Mount, the Temple Mount Faithful, Kahana Chai, Kach and Lahiva.

“These organizations openly call for the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque to make way for what they call the ‘Temple of Solomon’, which they claim was destroyed in 586 BC during the Babylonian Captivity,” Hammouri told Anadolu Agency.

[...]

Hammouri went on to explain that these groups adhere to an ideology laid out in the Talmud, which – as opposed to the Torah, the Jews’ traditional holy book – was compiled over the centuries by extremist Jewish rabbis.

Extremist Jewish rabbis? Who compiled the Talmud? What does that even mean?

For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world's third holiest site after Makkah and Medina. Jews, for their part, refer to the area as the “Temple Mount,” claiming it was the site of both Solomon’s Temple and a second temple built during the reign of King Herod (destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD).

Mr. Hammouri seems to want to cast doubt even on the existence of the Herodian Temple, which goes farther than even Yasser Arafat and, more recently, one Dr. Jamal Amer have been willing to go. Evidence for the existence of the First Temple and the Second and Herodian Temples on the the Temple Mount is collected at the links.

The United Nations, for its part, seems not to be helping matters with its own rhetoric: U.N. Can’t Even Say ‘Temple Mount’ (Stewart Ain, The Jewish Week).

Now, on the eve of the annual gathering of world leaders for the U.N. General Assembly and smack in the middle of the High Holy Days, Jewish leaders are saying the world body came up with another doozy. This time, it couldn’t even bring itself to use the term favored by Jews to refer to the area housing the Western Wall and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The U.N. Security Council issued a statement last Thursday expressing “grave concern regarding escalating tensions in Jerusalem, especially surrounding the Haram al-Sharif compound, including recent clashes in and around the site.” It went on to call for “restraint, refraining from provocative actions and rhetoric and upholding unchanged the historic status quo at the Haram al-Sharif — in word and in practice.” It added that Muslims “must be allowed to worship in peace, free from violence, threats and provocations.”

If the U.N wants to be taken seriously as an honest broker, it would do well to use terminology that reflects the positions of both sides. No one disputes the title "Haram al-Sharif," the Noble Sanctuary, which refers to the Islamic shrines on the site. But "Temple Mount" refers to the past presence of Jewish temples on the site, which is a matter of historical record and is important to Jews (and Christians).

Likewise, if the Palestinians want their concerns to be taken seriously, they should stop denying that Jewish temples once stood on the site and, indeed, that they were the original reason the site was regarded to be holy.

Conservation at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Precious pigments and high-tech solutions: unlocking Chester Beatty texts. Library conservators combine science and creativity in protecting and restoring the collection of 20,000 objects (Dick Ahlstrom, The Irish Times).

There are few places where sticky goop made from fish meets mass spectrometry, other than in the conservation unit of a museum. The old and the new sit easily together, however, when in the hands of experts.

The conservation unit of the Chester Beatty Library is just such a place. It has some of the oldest documents in Europe and one of the world’s finest collections of Qur’ans. There are rare and precious objects, such as imperial robes from ancient China and surgical tools dating back a millennium.

The collection includes more than 20,000 objects, of which only 1 per cent of which are on display at any one time. It was assembled by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, an Irish- American mining millionaire, who was born in the US, was naturalised British in 1933, and was granted honorary Irish citizenship in 1957.

[...]

A number of projects are described, including these two:

[Chief conservator and head of collections Jessica] Baldwin referred to a conservation challenge, the Manichaean papyrus that she describes as “the sod of turf”. It suffered from repeated floodings by the Nile river before being acquired by Beatty and is in poor condition.

Yet it may hold the last text of the Iranian prophet Mani who founded the Manichaean religion. It thrived during the third to seventh centuries, spreading from the Mediterranean across to China, and rivalled Christianity at the time.
She is studying ways to retrieve the texts it holds, unlocking a text that has been closed for centuries.

[...]

Conservator Julia Poirier is working on the Samaritan Pentateuch dating from 1339, part of the Hebrew collection at the library. She applies ancient Japanese techniques to conserve the pages. She uses “washi”, a form of tough paper made from the mulberry tree to strengthen cracks and breaks in the pages. She dyes it with “yasha” made by boiling up alder tree cones, to achieve a good colour match with the parchment.

She sticks bits of the dyed washi to reinforce the parchment using “isinglass”, a kind of glue made from the swimming bladder of the sturgeon fish.

Yet high tech enters in a collaboration with University of York where cells are lifted from the parchment for DNA analysis to determine what animal provided the original skins and to measure any deterioration.

More on the Chester Beatty collection is here and here.

UPDATE: Broken link now fixed!

Fixed-term post at Colby College

H-JUDAIC: JOB: Colby College, Jewish Studies (sabbatical replacement). A one-year position. Deadline for full consideration is 1 November 2015.