The case for vellum

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: James Gray: The case for vellum. As MPs prepare to debate whether to abolish vellum, Conservative MP James Gray writes about why the arguments against it are getting his goat (Politics Home). In this case the technology in question is a traditional one that, MP Gray argues, should remain in use to record Acts of Parliament. Excerpt:

Second, vellum is a great deal more durable than paper. It cannot be torn or crushed, it is somewhat resilient to fire. It needs very little special maintenance as the vellum scrolls in the parliamentary archive attest to. It lasts for up to 5,000 years, by comparison with a few hundreds of years by the best archival paper. Who could be confident that paper documents, even less those stored electronically, would be as long-lived as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Lindisfarne Gospels, or Domesday Book? If Magna Carta had been written on paper it would have been lost around 1465, some time before the birth of King Henry Vlll. The oldest complete bound book in Europe, the St John’s Gospels put in the coffin of St Cuthbert in the year 687, can still be read as clearly today as when it was written. That is because it was written on vellum. The use of vellum guarantees that no matter what may happen in the future – wars, riots, floods, fires – our acts of parliament will be preserved for all time.

I can see his point. Sometimes older technologies are more robust than newer ones. Just the other day I was arguing in a university committee that we should not start preserving doctoral theses only in electronic format. All it takes is one big solar flare or one EMP attack and all those electronic records are gone. (But I was proposing that we keep printed copies or at least microfilm copies. Vellum did not come up.)

Background to the vellum story is here and here.

The Talmud on women shaving

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Men: Thank God We’re Not Women! In this week’s ‘Daf Yomi,’ Talmudic rabbis have a hard time explaining gender differences in commandments and blessings, including whether women can shave their beards.

Can women grow beards, and if they can, are they allowed to shave them under Jewish law? That was just one of the questions that arose in last week’s Daf Yomi reading, as the rabbis pondered the implications of gender in halakhah. One of the fundamental principles of Judaism is that men are subject to more commandments than women are. There are many mitzvot that women are not obligated to perform, such a wearing tefillin and tzitzit, sleeping in the sukkah, and studying Torah. One might think that being excused from these obligations is a positive thing for Jewish women, making their lives that much easier. But in Judaism, the opportunity to do a mitzvah is a blessing, not a burden. Indeed, as Pirkei Avot puts it, “the reward for a commandment is another commandment”; since following God’s orders is the best thing a human being can accomplish, a mitzvah is its own reward. This means that, spiritually, a Jewish man is better off than a Jewish woman, since he can do more mitzvot than she can. That is why, in the traditional morning prayer, men thank God “shelo asani ishah,” “for not making me a woman.”

[...]

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Flesher on literacy in ancient Judah

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION: The Handwriting on the Sherds (Paul V.M. Flesher). He's not convinced either that the epigraphic material has any great bearing on the dating of the literature of the Hebrew Bible.

Background here and links.

"UNESCO urges 'respect and dialogue'"

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: After angering Israel, UNESCO urges ‘respect and dialogue.’ UN cultural chief says Jerusalem sacred to three monotheistic religions after body adopts resolution ignoring Jewish ties to Temple Mount (AFP and Times of Israel).

Background on the UNESCO resolutions that caused the anger is here and links.

Paid internship in Coptic studies

ALIN SUCIU: Internship – Digital Edition and Translation of the Coptic Old Testament.

The Digital Edition and Translation of the Coptic Old Testament at the Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Göttingen is dedicated to digitally describe, edit and analyse the transmission of the Coptic Old Testament with a focus on the Sahidic tradition. The long-term project has an opening for a (paid) internship, to be filled at the earliest possible date. This internship will give the successful applicant the opportunity to expand his or her knowledge about the Biblical tradition in Coptic and to receive further hands-on training in editorial methods, manuscript studies and digital humanities, as applied to the Coptic Bible and Coptic literature.

[...]

Follow the link for further particulars. The deadline for applications is 15 May 2016. Cross-file under Coptic Watch.

Boccaccini and Segovia (eds.), Paul the Jew

NEW BOOK FROM FORTRESS PRESS:

Paul the Jew: Rereading the Apostle as a Figure of Second Temple Judaism
Author: Gabriele Boccaccini (Editor) Carlos A. Segovia (Editor)

Description
The decades-long effort to understand the apostle Paul within his Jewish context is now firmly established in scholarship on early Judaism, as well as on Paul. The latest fruit of sustained analysis appears in the essays gathered here, from leading international scholars who take account of the latest investigations into the scope and variety present in Second Temple Judaism. Contributors address broad historical and theological questions—Paul's thought and practice in relationship with early Jewish apocalypticism, messianism, attitudes toward life under the Roman Empire, appeal to Scripture, the Law, inclusion of Gentiles, the nature of salvation, and the rise of Gentile-Christian supersessionism—as well as questions about interpretation itself, including the extent and direction of a "paradigm shift" in Pauline studies and the evaluation of the Pauline legacy. Paul the Jew goes as far as any effort has gone to restore the apostle to his own historical, cultural, and theological context, and with persuasive results.

Hardcover
ISBN: 9781451479805
Price: $79.00
Ebook
ISBN: 9781506410401
Release date: May 1, 2016
Pages: 386
Width: 6
Height: 9

Follow the link for TOC and ordering information.

What did the Philippians know about the Pharisees?

JAMES MCGRATH: Philippians and Pharisees (Exploring Our Matrix).

Pokemon, Saddam, and Syriac?

SYRIAC WATCH? Saddam Hussein tried to ban Pokemon (The Week: scroll down, third headline).

Spies loyal to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein were deeply suspicious of the Japanese children's TV hit Pokemon, according to documents captured by US troops in 2004. An analysis of the papers shows that the General Security Directorate, the feared domestic security force, thought the name in Syriac was too similar to the phrase: "I am a Jew". The note reads: "Beware my brothers in Islam and protect the sons of the Muslim nation." As a result, Hussein apparently wanted to ban the show.

This story has been showing up in various places. I set it aside until I could fact-check it and, surprisingly, it seems to be more true than not. In about 2000-2001 there were wild rumors in the Arabic-speaking world that the game Pokemon had pro-Jewish and anti-Islamic references in the names of the game and the characters and that these were either in Japanese or Syriac. For details, see this Los Angeles Times article from April of 2001: Arabs See Jewish Conspiracy in Pokemon.

At around the same time, Saddam's henchmen were fretting that the name Pokemon meant "I am a Jew" in Hebrew. For details see the 2003 document A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam's Senior Leaders produced by the US Joint Center for Operational Analysis (JCOA), p. 5 and n. 22. A captured Iraqi document really does provide this information.

For some reason, some of the media (e.g., the Mirror too) have just picked up versions of the latter story about Saddam's regime which involve elements of the rumors circulated in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. I don't know whether Saddam's henchmen brought in Japanese and Syriac as well in sources I haven't found or – not particularly unlikely – the media has become a bit confused in this game of telephone and is conflating elements of the story that were originally independent.

Anyway, for the record, "Pokemon" and "Pikachu" do not sound like "I am a Jew" in Hebrew or Syriac. I don't know about Japanese.

Cross-file under Can't Make It Up.

Joan Taylor and "Brian" in Aukland

ON THE CONFERENCE ON THE SAME TOPIC: Lecture explores Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Jesus (Voxy.co.nz).

Monty Python's film Life of Brian is known for its brilliant satirical humour. Less well known is that the film contains references to what was, at the time of its release, cutting edge biblical scholarship and life of Jesus research.

Professor Joan Taylor of King’s College London will present a public lecture on how the film can be used to explore the historical Jesus, at the University of Auckland on Wednesday, 27 April.

Titled "Jesus and Brian: Exploring the Historical Jesus and His Times via Monty Python’s Life of Brian" the lecture will focus on the conference, ‘Jesus and Brian’, held at King’s College London in June 2014. The conference was a chance to discuss the historical Jesus as a Jew who needed to be understood within the context of his time. The film is used as a means of focusing on key themes, and Professor Taylor will particularly consider the Brian character.

[...]

More on the Jesus and Brian Conference and the book that resulted from it is here and links.

More UNESCO resolutions

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: UNESCO says no Jewish history on Temple Mount; Hebron and Bethlehem 'Integral part of Palestine' (NOGA TARNOPOLSKY/THE MEDIA LINE, Jerusalem Post).

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Association, announced a number of resolutions just before the weekend started.

One, submitted by the Russian Federation, called for defining UNESCO’s role in safeguarding and preserving Palmyra and other Syrian World Heritage sites. Another was about “Enhancing UNESCO’s contributions to promote a culture of mutual respect and tolerance.”

A third was simply entitled “Occupied Palestine” and addressed the Jerusalem Old City hotspot that Jews refer to as the Temple Mount and Muslims call Haram Al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. Except that the Jewish link to the site, considered the holiest place for Jews, went unmentioned.

In the context of Jerusalem’s Old City, the document refers to Israel solely as “the occupying power” and refers to the site itself, the world famous esplanade flanked by the Western Wall - considered by many experts to be the last existing retaining wall of the mount that once held the ancient Jewish temples - only by its Islamic moniker.

The decision refers to the plaza fronting the Western Wall only in quotation marks, except when using one of its Arabic names, Al-Buraq, a reference to the Prophet Mohammed’s ascent to heaven.

The Israeli government responded with fury.

“This is yet another absurd UN decision,” an incandescent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement released late on Saturday. “UNESCO ignores the unique historic connection of Judaism to the Temple Mount, where the two temples stood for a thousand years and to which every Jew in the world has prayed for thousands of years. The UN is rewriting a basic part of human history and has again proven that there is no low to which it will not stoop.”

[...]

I have not been able to find the text of the draft resolution(s) online. The earlier resolution mentioned in the article was noted here and links.

Schiffman on the United Monarchy

LAWRENCE SCHIFFMAN: THE UNITED MONARCHY: REREADING THE BIBLE AND THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE.

This lecture was presented at the Center for Jewish History’s event entitled “In the Valley of David and Goliath: Digging Up Evidence on the United Monarchy,” sponsored by Yeshiva University Museum, American Friends of the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem, Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU.

New Greek fragment of Ezekiel

ETC: P.Vindob. G 31289 A Newly Published Fourth/Fifth Century fragment of Ezekiel.

Review of Taylor, Antiochus the Great

BOOK REVIEW: Antiochus the Great, by Michael Taylor (A.A. Nofi, Strategy Page). Barnesley, S.York.: Pen & Sword / Philadelphia: Casemate, 2013. Pp. xviii, 190. Illus., maps, appends., notes, biblio., index. $39.95. ISBN: 1848844638.

Taylor writes well, often adding interesting detail. He takes note of the limitations of our sources, goes into some detail on special topics (such as war elephants) and often gives alternative interpretations of events. This is an excellent work for anyone interested in ancient history; informative, lively, and quite readable.

From Plato to Moses?

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

From Plato to Moses: Genesis-Kings as a Platonic Epic

Article from Biblical Interpretation Beyond Historicity (Routledge, 2016).

By Philippe Wajdenbaum
University of Brussels
April 2016

Well that's something different. I find the idea that Classical Greek literature influenced the Hebrew Bible philologically very difficult. I would expect to see considerable Greek-language influence on the Hebrew. But in any case, this sounds like an interesting new volume.

Review of Kratz, Historical and Biblical Israel

RELIGION AND LITERATURE OF ANCIENT PALESTINE: Review of R. Kratz, Historical and Biblical Israel: The History, Tradition, and Archives of Israel and Judah (2015) (Ryan Thomas).

Despite these disagreements over literary history, Kratz can only be offered fulsome praise for his daring attempt to construct a synthetic reconstruction of the origin of the Hebrew Bible and to make it available to a broader readership. His writing is compressed and yet clear and accessible, and the glossary at the end of the book will assist those less familiar with the technical terminology of academic biblical studies. Finally, although the book is strictly historical in its interpretation of the development of the biblical tradition, the author ends with an eloquent postlude directed at those who may have concerns that the conclusions reached in the book undermine religious faith.

Did Jesus see his death coming?

JAMES MCGRATH: Philippians 2 and the Historical Jesus (Exploring Our Matrix).

One may be skeptical of whether Jesus spoke about his death in advance. Or one may be skeptical of the capacity of religious experiences to turn a failed messiah into one vindicated by God. Neither seems inherently more preferable or more critical than the other.

That sounds about right. For some of my own thoughts concerning the historical Jesus, see here and here and links. As for this question, I would say that Jesus may well have seen his death coming while he was still alive and given his disciples some perspective on it. But if not, he could just as well have done so (within the ancient social construction of reality) after his death as their shamanic mentor spirit.

Jesus and intel

THE ASOR BLOG: Jesus as a Security Risk: Intelligence and Repression in the Roman Empire (Rose Mary Sheldon).

Intelligence personnel tend to have a view of events that differs from historians, even other people in government, and certainly from the general public. They are often accused of being realpolitikers or just plain cynical. Although crude jokes are made about the lack of morality in the intel game (the world’s second oldest profession — with far fewer morals than the first, etc.), the fact is that these are men and women serving their country. Their goal is to keep their own country safe, or in a colonial situation, to keep control of their country’s possessions. Insurgencies are their worst nightmare. They have to provide intelligence to decision-makers in a timely manner in what may turn out to be life and death situations. Like historians they never have as much evidence as they would like, but unlike historians they don’t get to ruminate on issues for a long time with 20-20 hindsight.

[...]

I would like to discuss some of the assumptions about messianism in first-century Judaism and about the historical Jesus, but nevertheless an interesting perspective.

Requires free registration to read the essay in full.

Kessel and Pinggéra, A Bibliography of Syriac Ascetic and Mystical Literature

SYRIAC WATCH: Gregory Kessel's and Karl Pinggéra's book, A Bibliography of Syriac Ascetic and Mystical Literature (Peeters, 2011) is now available for free as a PDF scan on Academia.edu. For you, special deal!

Giants built Stonehenge?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Did Satanic Giants Build Stonehenge? (Brian Tashman, Right Wing Watch). The Nephilim built Stonehenge? That's a new one, at least to me. It seems that the watchers myth is alive and well.

This one is really for Remnant of Giants. Over to Deane.

The historicity of the Exodus story

PASSOVER IS COMING: Were Hebrews Ever Slaves in Ancient Egypt? Yes. Ancient Egypt had intimate relations with Canaan, and most of the Semitic peoples migrating there would have been Canaanite. But not all. (Philippe Bohstrom, Haaretz). At best the main headline is misleading and at worst it is simply wrong. I don't hold the author responsible for that: he has a quite nuanced discussion of the evidence. But this is a not unusual example of a headline asserting something rather different than the article it heads, with the full knowledge that a lot more people will see the headline than click on it, let alone read the full article carefully.

This sums up the situation pretty well, although that indirect evidence is pretty indirect:

There is no direct evidence that people worshipping Yahweh sojourned in ancient Egypt, let alone during the time the Exodus is believed to have happened. There is indirect evidence that at least some did. What's for sure is that thousands of years ago, Egypt was crawling with Semitic-speaking peoples.

From there we move on to the usual suspects: Amorites (speakers of early Northwest Semitic dialects) in Egypt, the Hyksos, Josephus and Manetho, Akhenaten, some questionable exegesis of Egyptian texts such as the Admonitions of Ipuwer, the argument from silence (the ancient Egyptians suppressed unflattering stories), and so on. None of it adds up to an Israelite sojourn in Egypt or an Exodus with ten plagues, or anything like. That said, it is not implausible that some vague memory of the Hyksos is behind the Exodus story, but if so, it is very vague. The conclusion is pretty reasonable:

At the end of the day it the story of the Exodus is all matter of faith. This article does not aspire to prove the historicity of the Passover Haggadah, or that the Land of Israel was promised to slaves coming out of Egypt. It just proves that there were historical figures and events that could have inspired the Exodus account. So as we lift our cups and recite the “The coming out of Egypt,” let us think about the story that has captured the imagination for millennia and remember that sometimes, truth is stranger then fiction; and think back on Aper-el, a Hebrew slave who did not disappear in the mud along with the Yahweh-worshiping nomads who settled in Egypt.

If you want to read the whole article, do it now before it goes behind the subscription wall. Also, a free registration with Haaretz will allow you to read a limited number of premium articles each month.