The watchers and giants in anime

REMNANT OF GIANTS: Julius Thompson’s Grigori Anime (Deane Galbraith). With a video trailer.

Mroczek on canon

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: Imagining Scriptures Before the Canon (Eva Mroczek). The second instalment of the AJR Forum on the biblical Canon. The first, by Timothy Lim, was noted here.

Mystery potsherd

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT: A Potsherd from the Temple Mount with an Incision that Resembles the Temple Menorah. The project is calling for help in identifying the design incised on this potsherd and determining its purpose:



I am not an art historian, but it looks to me as though it could be either a stylized menorah or a stylized palm tree. (If you look at the post above and its comments, you'll see I am not the first to make either suggestion.) The bent line at the bottom right could be the base of the menorah, so that seems more likely. For an example of each, see the photo of the Magdala Stone below. The menorah is on the front of the stone and the palm tree is on the top upper right. Both are known iconographically from the late Second Temple period on into late antiquity.


Image courtesy of www.HolyLandPhotos.org.

Click on both images for larger versions.

HT Joseph Lauer.

Again, timely. I wonder how long they have been saving this object up for Hanukkah.

UPDATE: Archaeologist and co-director of the Sifting Project, Zachi Dvira, thinks its a menorah and that it was produced in late antiquity.

Hasmoneans/Maccabees

YONA SABAR: Hebrew word(s) of the week: Hashmona’im/makabbim, Hasmoneans/Maccabees. Timely.

Hanukkah: It's complicated.

HUFFPOST RELIGION: The Real History Of Hanukkah Is More Complicated Than You Thought (Daniel Marans and Nick Baumann). The headline does not apply to regular readers of PaleoJudaica, but this is a good capsule history of the Maccabean revolt and its context.

Hurtado previews Blumell & Wayment, Christian Oxyrhynchus

LARRY HURTADO: “Christian Oxyrhynchus”: New Book. An earlier post noting the book is here. Peter Gurry flagged the blurb, but did not have a copy. Larry Hurtado has a copy but has not yet read it. We're making progress.

Assuming (and hoping) that the work embodies the exacting care that the project deserved, we have in this volume a singularly valuable go-to resource for anyone wanting to consult primary-text data about Christians and Christianity in Oxyrhynchus ca. 100-400 CE.

Finkelstein admitted to Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities

CONGRATULATIONS TO ISRAEL FINKELSTEIN: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities admits nine new members – including three women (JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH, Jerusalem Post).

Prof. Israel Finkelstein teaches in the archaeologic and ancient Near Eastern civilizations department at TAU, specializing in archaeology of the Levant in the Bronze and Iron Ages and the incorporation of the exact and life sciences into archaeological research and biblical history. Finkelstein is a laureate of the Dan David Prize and received other awards and conducted archaeological surveys and excavations in the Negev, Sinai and highlands. Since 1994, he has been the co-director of the Megiddo Expedition.

And, of course, congratulations also to the other eight new inductees.

The Magdala Stone as a snapshot of the Temple

ICONOGRAPHY: A Carved Stone Block Upends Assumptions About Ancient Judaism (ISABEL KERSHNER, NYT).

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — The carved stone block is about the size of an occasional table. It has held its secrets for two millenniums. Whoever engraved its enigmatic symbols was apparently depicting the ancient Jewish temples.

But what makes the stone such a rare find in biblical archaeology, according to scholars, is that when it was carved, the Second Temple still stood in Jerusalem for the carver to see. The stone is a kind of ancient snapshot.

[...]

I approached the stone, and I could not believe what I was seeing,” said Rina Talgam, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor specializing in ancient art of the Middle East. Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists had asked her to visit the site to view Magdala’s mosaics and frescoes, but when she first saw the stone, “they said I stood there for three hours.”

Ms. Talgam concluded that she was looking at a three-dimensional depiction of the Temple of Herod, including its most sacred inner sanctum, known as the Holy of Holies.

She has since spent years deciphering and interpreting the symbols that adorn the stone and researching the possible implications of the discovery.

[...]

One side of the stone has what experts say is an unusual feature for the time: a carving of a seven-branch menorah. A candelabra of that kind is described in the Bible and is believed to have stood in the Temple, and it emerged as a Jewish symbol of hope for redemption centuries later, according to David Mevorah, senior curator for Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine archaeology at the Israel Museum.

[...]

The reading of the Magdala Stone as a depiction of the Temple is not a new development (see here), but it is covered in more detail in this article, which doubtless was inspired by the current Hanukkah celebration. There's lots more on the Magdala Stone and the site of Magdala here and links.

Also: "millenniums?" Are proper Latin endings a thing of the past even for New York Times writers?

Cross file under "Temple Mount Watch (sort of)."

Paleography app from UCLA

THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT: New app helps students learn to read ancient Japanese writing form (Cynthia Lee, UCLA Newsroom). Although this is in itself an interesting story, it is not directly relevant to PaleoJudaica. But this aside in it is:

If successful, the app could serve as a model for similar tools to teach scripts used in a wide range of ancient and medieval manuscript traditions.

“For example, students might use apps of this kind to learn to read stone inscriptions from ancient Greece and Rome; or Greek papyrus fragments of the kind that have long been excavated in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt; or the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek of the Dead Sea Scrolls; or bronze inscriptions and bamboo texts from ancient China,” said Humanities Dean David Schaberg, a scholar of classical Chinese poetry and thought. “In every case, reading the handwritten versions of the language takes specialized skills that are not necessary for reading modern printed versions of the same texts.”

Cross-file under "Technology Watch."

The crucified man

OSTEOLOGY: This One Bone Is The Only Skeletal Evidence For Crucifixion In The Ancient World (Kristina Killgrove, Forbes).

The bioarchaeology of crucifixion is therefore a bit of a conundrum: it makes sense that finding evidence may be difficult because of the ravages of time on bones and wooden crosses, but the sheer volume of people killed in this way over centuries should have given us more direct evidence of the practice.

A lot of rather random chance is involved in the creation of the archaeological record – from weather conditions to cultural customs to rodent activity. Even though there are problems involved in the preservation of evidence of crucifixion, the case of Yehohanan ben Hagkol shows that skeletal evidence might some day give us more information about the practice.

This article is about the well-known skeletal remains of one Yehohanan ben Hagkol. But I am surprised that it doesn't mention a second skeleton found in Jerusalem in 1970 which also may be the remains of a crucified person. It is possible that Dr. Killgrove does not accept that this body was crucified, but it would have been helpful for her to discuss it and explain why. You can read about that case here, and follow the links for more on the crucified body discussed in today's Forbes article. See also here. And for past posts on the gruesome physiology of crucifixion, see here, here, here, here, and here, and links.

Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day 2015

IT'S THAT DAY AGAIN: Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day.

The Facebook page is here. Follow this link for past posts on the day and related links.

Don't do anything I wouldn't do.

Jews and Hebrew, Angels and Aramaic

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: What Language Do the Angels Speak? Must prayers be uttered in Hebrew? Plus: Were ancient Israelite spies the size of grasshoppers?

One of the heartening things about reading Daf Yomi, for me, has been realizing that this kind of alienation is not new to American Judaism; on the contrary, it has been the norm since ancient times. The average Jew even in the Second Temple period did not speak Hebrew at all, but Aramaic, or sometimes Greek. This fact is reflected in the Talmud itself: The laws of the Mishna are in Hebrew, but the commentaries in the Gemara are in Aramaic, a related but distinct language. In this week’s Daf Yomi reading, in chapter 7 of Tractate Sota, there was a brief reference to the targum, the synagogue official who used to translate the Torah reading sentence by sentence from Hebrew into Aramaic. “The translator is not permitted to begin the translation until the verse concludes from the mouth of the reader,” says Rabbi Zeira; clearly, the rabbis were concerned that neither reading nor translation get drowned out or garbled. I wonder why American synagogues never employ a similar method—perhaps because it would make the Torah reading too long?

If the Jewish people don’t speak Hebrew, the Talmud suggests that the angels in Heaven speak nothing but. “A person should never request in the Aramaic language that his needs be met,” according to Rabbi Yochanan, because “the ministering angels are not familiar with the Aramaic language.” This surprising statement reveals both the rabbis’ implicit belief in angels—a belief that has vanished without a trace from most contemporary Judaism—and their willingness to accept a pretty serious limitation on the angels’ understanding. (Some later commentators, feeling that an illiterate angel is a contradiction in terms, interpreted this passage as saying that the angels know Aramaic, they just don’t respect it.)

I suspect it is an exaggeration to say that "[t]he average Jew even in the Second Temple period did not speak Hebrew at all, but Aramaic, or sometimes Greek." The average Jew would likely have at least had some familiarity with the Hebrew Bible and there is some evidence that Hebrew remained a spoken language in this period. But our information is frustratingly limited. See the posts collected here.

Past post on the angels' knowledge of Aramaic are here, here, and here.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Michael Rostovtzeff

THOSE WERE THE DAYS: WILLIAM THEISS: Rostovtzeff at Yale (Yale Daily News). A brief and entertaining account of the career of one of the excavators of Dura-Europos. Excerpt:

The city they found, Dura-Europos, told Rostovtzeff what he already knew about the ancient world: It was a place of unbelievable cosmopolitanism and radical diversity. A Jewish synagogue, one of the earliest known, displayed Abraham and Isaac, as well as Moses fleeing Egypt. A Christian church contained the earliest painting of Jesus we have. The walls were inscribed with more ancient languages than many have ever heard of. Rostovtzeff, now well over 60, disturbed his colleagues by staring at the blinding white walls for hours, reading one item after another and placing each into his cosmic historical framework. In New Haven, the students and faculty of the Classics Department summoned their common expertise and published study after study, year after year, exposing for the first time material that had been hidden from the world since the third century A.D. (What is not in a museum is now gone again: Last year, ISIS raided the ancient city and demolished whatever they saw.)

The context of the essay is the recent controversy over Yale's use of endowment funds of the Classics Department, on which see Classics dept decries admin “raid” on funds (VICTOR WANG, Yale Daily News).

There are many, many past PaleoJudaica posts on Dura-Europos. Start here and follow the links. The posts here and here seems particularly relevant to the article above.

MOOC: Rome and the Menorah

TIMELY: Rome and the Menorah. New Online Course Led by Yeshiva University Faculty Brings Arch of Titus to the Global Classroom (YU News).

As Jews around the world celebrate the holiday of Hanukkah, a new massive open online course (MOOC) being offered through YU Global, Yeshiva University’s online initiative, and Coursera, an educational technology company, will provide interested members of the public with a once in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore the cultural impact of the Arch of Titus, a central artifact in both Jewish and Western history that depicts the golden menorah used in the Jerusalem Temple, among other Temple relics.

Titled “The Arch of Titus: Rome and the Menorah,” the free online course, led by Dr. Steven Fine, the Dean Pinkhos Churgin Professor of Jewish History at YU and director of its Center for Israel Studies, combines aspects of archaeology, art history and Judaic studies.

[...]

Lots more on the Arch of Titus here and links.

Robinson, The Manichaean Codices

WHAT'S NEW IN PAPYROLOGY: James Robinson, The Manichaean Codices.

The Manichaean Codices of Medinet Madi By James M. Robinson James Clarke & Co., LTD. Expertly researched and meticulously presented, this is the story of the 4th century Manichaean Codices of Medinet Madi, their discovery, acquisition and conservation.

[...]

Cross-file under "New Book" and "Manichaean (Manichean) Watch." Recent books by Robinson on other manuscript caches have been noted here and here.

More on the Acra

ARCHAEOLOGY: Overlooking the Mount. Where was the Akra, and how could it overlook the Temple Mount, which was higher than all the surrounding areas? (STEPHEN GABRIEL ROSENBERG, Jerusalem Post).

But just recently the archaeologists went deeper, and uncovered something else.

They have exposed the massive foundations of a large tower, the foundations of its adjoining stone walls and the remains of a fine neighboring glacis, a sloping protective rampart that was built to ward off, avoid and discourage enemy attacks. The archaeologists claim that the tower foundations are so massive that the tower could have risen to a great height, and that it was probably built to overlook the Temple site, located to the north and not far away. The original supporting ground on the site had been built up to give even greater height to the tower, which thus made it possible for the Syrian Greeks on the tower, if it was them, to keep their rebellious Jewish subjects on the Mount under constant surveillance, and at the same time under the likely threat of retaliation.

The archaeologists claim they have found the Akra, or at least its foundations.

So that is the archaeologists' explanation of how ruins at this elevation could overlook the Temple Mount. Again, this issue is outside my expertise and I am simply following the discussion. I have no opinion on the matter myself. Background on the excavation and its possible connection to the Acra (Akra) is here, here, and here.

Elad challenged by State on City of David National Park

POLITICS: State to appeal against Elad control of Jerusalem archaeology center (DANIEL K. EISENBUD, Jerusalem Post).

The Elad Foundation, also known as the Ir David Foundation, operates the City of David National Park, which draws more than 500,000 tourists annually.

Less than two months after the Jerusalem District Court approved an agreement to transfer management of the capital’s Davidson Center Archaeological Park to the right-wing Elad Foundation, the state attorney on Thursday requested permission to appeal the decision.

Emek Shaveh, a left-wing consortium of European-funded archaeologists representing Arab residents of Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood, which has unsuccessfully attempted to block the move, praised the development as a “step in the right direction.”

“The state’s decision to appeal to the High Court is a step… to safeguard the heritage of Jerusalem, and maintain the status quo in the area around the Temple Mount/ al-Aksa compound,” said spokesman and archeologist Yonathan Mizrachi.

[...]

It just goes on and on. Background here.

Hanukkah series

VIDEO: Walk In The Footsteps of The Maccabees with Arutz Sheva. Special eight-part series with Israeli historian Dr. Hagai Ben Artzi lets you follow the Maccabees' path from revolution to independence.

Part One: Feature: The ancient synagogue where the Hanukkah story began. Part One of Arutz Sheva's special Hanukkah series - In The Footsteps of The Maccabees - takes you to Modiin, where it all started. A somewhat romanticized account of the revolt which treats the dialogue in 1 Maccabees etc. as a transcript. But a good travelogue nonetheless. Some past posts on Modi'in and the archaeology associated with it are here and here.

No connection between Jerusalem and early Islam?

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Egyptian Muslim scholar: No connection between Temple Mt., Islam. Arab world outraged at latest research of renowned scholar of Arabic and Islamic studies Youssef Ziedan.

Renowned Egyptian scholar Youssef Ziedan, a specialist in Arabic and Islamic studies, has given a series of interviews to Egyptian television stations of late, the purpose of which appears to be to anger his Muslim colleagues.

His main point has been to say that there is actually no connection between Jerusalem and ancient Islam. When Islam was founded during the 7th century, he says, Jerusalem was a holy city to the Jews, while the Mosque of Omar was not even built until 74 years after Muhammed's death. The reason it was built, Ziedan says, is because the builder wished to detract from the centrality of Mecca in Islam.

[...]

There has been an important connection between Jerusalem and Islam for many centuries, at least from shortly after the time of Muhammad and perhaps going back to his famous vision, Al-Miraj. It's hard to say about the vision, since the references in the Qur'an (traditionally Surah 17.1, 62 and 53.13-18) are cryptic, but the earliest interpretations unanimously place part of the vision in Jerusalem. That is, Muhammad experienced being in Jerusalem in the vision, although he did not ever travel there in non-visionary reality. There is no reason to deny that Jerusalem and the Temple Mount have been important to Islam from very early on. The problem is when some Muslims claim (e.g., here and often) that there was no ancient, pre-Islamic, Jewish connection to the city and the site. That, of course, is nonsense.

Mr. Ziedan's novel, Azazeel has been in the news off and on for some years. See here and follow the links.

Athas on the Hezekiah Bulla

GEORGE ATHAS: A Seal of King Hezekiah.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has announced the discovery of an ancient ‘bulla’ (a clay seal with a personal stamp impressed upon on it) bearing the name of Hezekiah, King of Judah. This is not the first seal bearing Hezekiah’s name to come to light. Nonetheless, it is an exciting find, especially since it was found in situ.

Background here and links.