THE BOOK OF GIANTS receives attention in some recent blog posts:
Philip Jenkins at The Anxious Bench:
The Book of the Giants;
Mani and the Giants.
Deane Galbraith adds some comments at Remnant of Giants:
The Book of Giants: Ancient Jewish Literary Creativity beyond the Bible.
Both refer to my online page on The Book of Giants.
Wednesday, December 02, 2015
Yoram Tsafrir z'l'
SAD NEWS: Prominent Israeli Archaeologist Yoram Tsafrir Dies. In addition to his archaeological exploits, Tsafrir was noted for his strong opposition to the politicization of archaeology (Nir Hasson, Haaretz).
Prof. Yoram Tsafrir, one of the most important archaeologists in Israel, passed away Monday [23 November] in a Jerusalem hospital. For years, Tsafrir excavated the old city in Beit Shean, researched Jerusalem and the Land of Israel in the Roman and Byzantine periods and was frequently at the forefront of battles against damaging archaeological sites. Last year he was awarded the EMET prize for Art, Science and Culture.A new book co-authored by Professor Tsafrir has just come out and I noted it last weekend. Other past posts mentioning him are here, here, and links. May his memory be for a blessing.
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ZooMS peptide mass fingerprinting of parchment
TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Getting Under the Skin of Medieval Bible Mystery (University of York/Breaking Israel News).
A simple PVC eraser has helped an international team of scientists led by bioarchaeologists at the University of York to resolve the mystery surrounding the tissue-thin parchment used by medieval scribes to produce the first pocket Bibles.And yes, they were able to answer the question. Again and again, non-invasive and non-destructive technologies are the way of the future in archaeology and history. Recent more-or-less related stories are noted here, here, and here.
Thousands of the Bibles were made in the 13th century, principally in France but also in England, Italy and Spain. But the origin of the parchment — often called ‘uterine vellum’ — has been a source of longstanding controversy.
Use of the Latin term abortivum in many sources has led some scholars to suggest that the skin of fetal calves was used to produce the vellum. Others have discounted that theory, arguing that it would not have been possible to sustain livestock herds if so much vellum was produced from fetal skins. Older scholarship even argued that unexpected alternatives such as rabbit or squirrel may have been used, while some medieval sources suggest that hides must have been split by hand through use of a lost technology.
A multi-disciplinary team of researchers, led by Dr Sarah Fiddyment and Professor Matthew Collins of the BioArCh research facility in the Department of Archaeology at York, developed a simple and objective technique using standard conservation treatments to identify the animal origin of parchment.
The non-invasive method is a variant on ZooMS (ZooArchaeology by Mass Spectrometry) peptide mass fingerprinting but extracts protein from the parchment surface simply by using electrostatic charge generated by gentle rubbing of a PVC eraser on the membrane surface.
[...]
The Carmel Forest terraces
ARCHAEOLOGY BY FIRE: 2,000-year-old terraces restored 5 years after Carmel Forest fire (SHARON UDASIN , Jerusalem Post).
Uncovering the terraces has been a part of a much larger process of rehabilitating both the Carmel Forest and creating buffer zones to protect nearby communities from future fires.
Five years after the Carmel fire tragedy that killed 44 people and burned some 2,550 hectares of land, a series of 2,000-year-old terraces have been exposed and restored in the region.
While the fire proved disastrous to both the people and wildlife in the Carmel area, the burning of the thick forest revealed the ancient agricultural terraces, which were then restored by Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund.
[...]
Tuesday, December 01, 2015
Review of Litwa, Iesus Deus
LARRY HURTADO: “Jewish” and “Hellenistic” in Recent Scholarship on Christian Origins.
In some recent studies of early expressions of Jesus-devotion, there are some issues that need clarification. One of these recent studies is Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God, by M. David Litwa (Fortress Press, 2014).
[...]
The Talmud and ... bestiality?
THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Does the Talmud Condone Bestiality? Literal interpretations of misogynistic and gossipy fidelity laws leads to a surprising logical conclusion. The short answer to the question is no.
Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.
Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.
Jordanian Lead Books Centre website
FAKE METAL CODICES WATCH: Last March I noted the report of the founding of a Centre for the Study of the Jordanian Lead Books, chaired by Margaret Barker. The Centre now has a website here.
As I said in March, I think it is a positive development to have a group of serious scholars evaluating the Jordan codices. I still think the objects are modern productions, but how, why, and exactly when and where they were made remain potentially interesting questions for someone (other than me) to follow up. I certainly have no objection to people studying them, if they want to. And, as I have said often already, if anyone still wants to argue that some of the codices are genuine artifacts from antiquity, the case should be made in the peer-review scholarly literature. That has not happened — I think because there is no such case to be made. But if someone wants to prove me wrong, that is the place to do it.
PaleoJudaica posts pertaining to the Jordan codices published after the announcement in March are here, here, here, and here.
As I said in March, I think it is a positive development to have a group of serious scholars evaluating the Jordan codices. I still think the objects are modern productions, but how, why, and exactly when and where they were made remain potentially interesting questions for someone (other than me) to follow up. I certainly have no objection to people studying them, if they want to. And, as I have said often already, if anyone still wants to argue that some of the codices are genuine artifacts from antiquity, the case should be made in the peer-review scholarly literature. That has not happened — I think because there is no such case to be made. But if someone wants to prove me wrong, that is the place to do it.
PaleoJudaica posts pertaining to the Jordan codices published after the announcement in March are here, here, here, and here.
P134 at SBL
SBL 2015 REPORT: New Papyrus (P134) of John: A Report from SBL (Tommy Wasserman, ETC Blog).
Background here and here.
Background here and here.
Textual criticism at the SBL
SBL 2015 REPORT: SBL 2015 - Part 1, SBL 2015 - Part 2 at OTTC: A Blog for Old Testament Textual Criticism (Drew Longacre).
Monday, November 30, 2015
The GJW is back in the news
I'M STILL SKEPTICAL: Is ‘The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ a revelation or a hoax? (Lisa Wangsness, Boston Globe). This is a good summary of the current state of the question, with a couple of pieces of new information. There are already blog posts noting the article and commenting on it:
Mark Goodacre The Gospel of Jesus' Wife Latest: Boston Globe Update;
Peter J. Gurrey: ETC Blog and GJW in the Boston Globe.
Recent PaleoJudaica posts on the GJW are here and here, and follow the links for lots more. I note one peculiarity of the new article: Mark Goodacre cites the title as "The Case of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife Still Isn't Closed" and that title remains in the URL, but the title in the article has been changed to the one given above. Either title seems to reflect the content of the article, so I'm not sure of the reason for the change.
Another current Boston Globe article also deals with the debate over the GJW: Five questions about ‘The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’. It too has an earlier title remaining in the URL: "Is the Gospel of Jesus's Wife a Fake?" Again, no explanation is given for the change in title.
Beyond that, I see no reason at present to add to the comments I've made in my recent posts linked to above. We are still waiting for the publication of some tests on the ink and I doubt that the discussion will make much progress before they are published.
Mark Goodacre The Gospel of Jesus' Wife Latest: Boston Globe Update;
Peter J. Gurrey: ETC Blog and GJW in the Boston Globe.
Recent PaleoJudaica posts on the GJW are here and here, and follow the links for lots more. I note one peculiarity of the new article: Mark Goodacre cites the title as "The Case of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife Still Isn't Closed" and that title remains in the URL, but the title in the article has been changed to the one given above. Either title seems to reflect the content of the article, so I'm not sure of the reason for the change.
Another current Boston Globe article also deals with the debate over the GJW: Five questions about ‘The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’. It too has an earlier title remaining in the URL: "Is the Gospel of Jesus's Wife a Fake?" Again, no explanation is given for the change in title.
Beyond that, I see no reason at present to add to the comments I've made in my recent posts linked to above. We are still waiting for the publication of some tests on the ink and I doubt that the discussion will make much progress before they are published.
Jenkins on the Gospel of Barnabas
PHILIP JENKINS: The “Secret” Gospels that Have Been Hiding in Plain Sight (History News Network). Did the Gospel of Barnabas know ancient Gnostic sources? Professor Jenkins seems to think so.
Some past PaleoJudaica posts on the Gospel of Barnabas are here, here, and here. More on Jenkins's recent book on the apocryphal gospels, The Many Faces of Christ, is here and here.
Some past PaleoJudaica posts on the Gospel of Barnabas are here, here, and here. More on Jenkins's recent book on the apocryphal gospels, The Many Faces of Christ, is here and here.
New oracles of Metatron
ARCHANGEL METATRON WATCH: Happy Birthday Curtis Armstrong: Best Metatron quotes from Supernatural (Mangala Dilip, International Business Times).
You have been around since scaly things crawled out of the muck, would it have killed you to read a book?Background here and links.
More vintage resurrection
WINE MAKING: Israel Aims to Recreate Wine That Jesus and King David Drank (JODI RUDOREN, NYT).
HEFER VALLEY, Israel — The new crisp, acidic and mineral white from a high-end Israeli winery was aged for eight months — or, depending on how you look at it, at least 1,800 years.As usual with anything to do with Israel and the West Bank, the politics are complicated. Potentially related stories are noted here, here, here, and links.
The wine, called marawi and released last month by Recanati Winery, is the first commercially produced by Israel’s growing modern industry from indigenous grapes. It grew out of a groundbreaking project at Ariel University in the occupied West Bank that aims to use DNA testing to identify — and recreate — ancient wines drunk by the likes of King David and Jesus Christ.
Eliyashiv Drori, the Ariel oenologist who heads the research, traces marawi (also called hamdani) and jandali grapes to A.D. 220 based on a reference in the Babylonian Talmud.
“All our scriptures are full with wine and with grapes — before the French were even thinking about making wine, we were exporting wine,” he said. “We have a very ancient identity, and for me, reconstructing this identity is very important. For me, it’s a matter of national pride.”
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Sunday, November 29, 2015
Review of Spiró, Captivity
BOOK REVIEW: (Adam Kirsch, Tablet).
Captivity, the newly translated novel by the Hungarian writer György Spiró, offers a good reminder not to judge a book by its cover. When I first saw this particular cover, with its black background, stark white typography, and surreally floating sculptured bust, the imagery—combined with the book’s Central European provenance, gloomy title, and Jewish focus—made me think that this would be a brooding modernist enigma of a book, perhaps along the lines of Imre Kertész’s Holocaust fictions. In fact, Captivity turns out to be just the opposite—a sprawling (more than 800 pages), picturesque, old-fashioned historical novel about the Roman Empire, in the showy tradition of Ben Hur and I, Claudius. In fact, both Jesus and Claudius, the main characters of those books, make cameo appearances in Captivity, as do other boldface names of the 1st century CE, including Caligula, Pontius Pilate, and Philo of Alexandria. What sets Captivity apart is that it makes the rare attempt to view all these historical phenomena—from the rise of Christianity to the flamboyant vices of the emperors—through a distinctively Jewish lens.Another recent review was noted here.
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Di Segni et al., The Onomasticon of Iudaea
NEW BOOK FROM THE ISRAEL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES:
The Onomasticon of Iudaea · Palaestina and Arabia in the Greek and Latin Sources
Volume I: Introduction, Sources, Major Texts
Author/s:
Leah Di Segni
Yoram Tsafrir
Judith Green
Date of publication: 2015
Division: Humanities
Subject/s: Archaeology
Mediaeval Languages and Literatures
General Humanities
Classical Studies
Ancient Languages and Literatures
Series: Publications in the Humanities
Language: English ISBN 978-965-208-201-5
Price: NIS 240.00
The Onomasticon, a monumental endeavor begun in the 1960s by the late Prof. Michael Avi-Yonah, collates all the known Greek and Latin literary and documentary sources mentioning geographical and ethnic names attested in Iudaea, under the Hasmonaean and Herodian dynasties, and in the Roman and Byzantine provinces of Palaestina and Arabia - an area today spread over Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Sinai and southern Syria.
The source texts, dating from the fourth century BCE to the seventh century CE, are culled from over 1,300 texts by more than 750 separate authors, and from papyri, inscriptions and coins. The individual place names are arranged in alphabetical entries, each presenting a comprehensive collection of excerpts from the texts in which that place is mentioned. Where possible, the places are identified and described on the basis of up-to-date archaeological and bibliographical research.
Volume I contains an annotated bibliography of the primary source texts, a collection of major texts from which many of the sources in the alphabetical entries are excerpted, and a listing of all the place names covered in the series. Volume II, in two parts, will contain the entries for geographical names beginning with the letter A, including the massive entry for Arabia.
456 pp., two foldout maps. 18 × 27 cm. Hardback (Cloth).
Zfatman, Jewish Exorcism in Early Modern Ashkenaz
NEW BOOK FROM MAGNES PRESS:
Jewish Exorcism in Early Modern AshkenazExorcism traditions in Judaism go back to David and Saul, are well-known from the Second Temple period (mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls and by Josephus and the New Testament), come up in the rabbinic literature, and extend to modernity.
By Sara Zfatman
Printed book $ 46.00 $ 41.40
Online book & Download $ 34.50
Publisher: The Hebrew University Magnes Press
Categories:
Folklore, Yiddish, Jewish Studies
Publish date: November 2015
Language: Hebrew
Danacode: 45-341100
ISBN: 978-965-493-804-4
Cover: Hardcover
Pages: 597
Weight: 1400 gr.
An exorcism which took place in 1696 in Nikolsburg, Moravia (today Mikulov, Czech Republic) is the focus of this book. The description of this grandiose magic event reached us in two different versions: one well-known, in Hebrew became a model for this folk-genre in the 18th century; the other in Yiddish, remained unknown until now and is published here in full for the first time .The analysis includes a thorough comparison between these two competing descriptions, the identification of the participants – with special emphasis on their Sabbatean background and connections, as well as an identification of the specific ‘manual for exorcism’ used in this event (also published here in full, along other esoteric manuals of its kind).
Through a thorough examination of the paradigmatic exorcism which took place in Moravia in 1696 and of its deep influence on the exorcism tales of the following generations, this book sheds new light on the central role magic in general and exorcism in particular played in the rich and multi-faceted cultural life of Ashkenazic Jews in the early modern period.
Review of Cumont, Les mystères de Mithra
BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:
Franz Cumont, Les mystères de Mithra (volume édité par Nicole Belayche & Attilio Mastrocinque avec la collaboration de Daniela Bonanno). Bibliotheca Cumontiana. Scripta maiora, 3. Savigliano: Nino Aragno Editore, 2013. Pp. xc, 258. ISBN 9788884196101. €70.00 (pb).
Reviewed by Matthew M. McCarty, University of British Columbia (matthew.mccarty@ubc.ca)
Preview
An era when even the whisper of terms like “doctrine” or “belief” sends historians of Roman religion scurrying may seem like a strange time to re-issue Franz Cumont’s turn-of-the-twentieth-century synthesis of Mithraism. After all, it was Cumont who forged disparate textual and visual remains related to Mithras into a coherent system of ideas and spiritual content, into something that resembled a nineteenth-century, Protestant-looking “World Religion.” Yet this volume, with its rich historiographic introductory essays and inclusion of Cumont’s previously unpublished essay on the spread of Mithraism, offers much to those interested in the historiography of Classical and religious studies, as well as a chance to reflect critically on the method and practice of ancient history.
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Smith's Jerusalem online
OLD BUT STILL USEFUL: George Adam Smith’s “Jerusalem” (2 Vols) online (Biblical Archaeology Blog).
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