St. Andrews Divine Sonship Symposium

ST. ANDREWS SYMPOSIUM FOR BIBLICAL AND EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES: Schedule and Final Call for Registration. The final date to register is 1 May 2016. Looks like a terrific lineup of papers.

An incantation bowl in the British Museum

ARAMAIC WATCH: The British Museum collection online: incantation bowl 91713.

Pottery incantation bowl: a wheel-made hemispherical bowl with a simple rim. The base has been pared, and oblique strokes and scratches are visible. The bowl is inscribed in a spiral from the centre outwards. The Aramaic text based upon Aram Refrain A. No client is named in this incantation. The bowl has been repaired.

© Trustees of the British Museum. Used with permission. Click on the image for a larger version.

Follow the link for a transcription and translation. It's always nice to find another Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowl. This one is H/T Krista N. Dalton (via AJR). For the many past PaleoJudaica posts on such objects, start here and follow the links.

The Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: The Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud at SBL 2015 (Alyssa Gray).

The skillful and learned textual work presented in the session teaches a lesson that bears repeating: discerning all that the Mishnah and Bavli have to say about women and gender requires digging deep into manuscripts, and the careful wielding of the scalpels of source-, redaction-, and form-criticism. Not philological-historical method or critical theory, but philological-historical method plus critical theory.

(Bad) news about the Palmyra Museum

PALMYRA WATCH: GRIM NEW DETAILS OF IS DESTRUCTION IN SYRIA'S PALMYRA MUSEUM (ZEINA KARAM, AP). But a small piece of good news is that the Lion of Allat statue appears to be reconstructable.

Background on Palmyra is here, here, and here, with many links.

Hannibal biography as Latin textbook

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEWS:

Bret Mulligan, Cornelius Nepos, Life of Hannibal: Latin Text, Notes, Maps, Illustrations and Vocabulary. Dickinson College commentaries. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2015. Pp. xii, 156. ISBN 9781783741328. £17.95 (pb)​. ISBN 9781783741359. (epub).

Reviewed by Rex Stem, University of California, Davis (srstem@ucdavis.edu)

Preview and pdf

This title is a textbook for intermediate Latin students. It came to BMCR as a printed title from Open Book Publishers, but it was originally written and designed to be used on the web through Dickinson College Commentaries. Since the printed book reproduces the pages on the web, this review treats both formats.

Mulligan explains in his preface that Nepos’ common vocabulary and straightforward style, as well as overall historical interest, make his Hannibal a good choice for the intermediate Latin student (and I agree). The commentary, accordingly, offers lucid comments about Nepos’ syntax and fills in the historical background, while the design of the online format renders the study of Nepos’ vocabulary easy and effective. Largely absent, however, is an assessment of the structuring and content of Nepos’ biography. Instead, Mulligan devotes half of his introduction to providing an overview of the Punic Wars, and reading Nepos’ Hannibal as a history of the Punic Wars makes for an awkward fit. In sum, this commentary is a strong resource for learning Latin but a weak one for assessing the figure of Hannibal within the biography of Nepos.

[...]

Cross-file under Punic Watch.

Passover 2016

HAPPY PASSOVER TO ALL THOSE CELEBRATING! The festival begins this evening at sundown. See this post for the relevant biblical texts.

The Ophel golden menorah medallion

REMINDER FOR PASSOVER: The Menorah Treasure Discovered in the Heart of Jerusalem (Ariella Mendlowitz, Breaking Israel News).

General Sir Charles Warren initiated the first excavations in the Ophel area in 1867, but it wasn’t until 1968 under Benjamin Mazar that remains from the First Temple period (from 957 to 586 BCE), such as water cisterns, tombs and parts of Robinson’s arch, were unearthed. Carrying on her father’s legacy, Dr. Eilat Mazar first tackled the site in 1986 and returned three years ago to continue.

Dr. Mazar’s persistence was well rewarded. Just five days into the summer dig [in 2013], the team of Hebrew University archaeologists was astonished to uncover a trove of archaeological goodies: 36 gold coins, as well as several pieces gold and silver jewelry. But the prize find was the now-famous Menorah Treasure, a 10-centimeter golden medallion with three sacred Jewish motifs etched into it: a menorah, a shofar (ram’s horn), and a Torah scroll.

The gold cache was discovered in a Byzantine structure which archaeologists say was constructed in the sixth century CE. Dr. Mazar believes the trove was carefully hidden by a group of Jews during the Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614 CE. The collection itself is only the third of its kind ever discovered in Jerusalem.

According to the Hebrew University report, the medallion was “hanging from a gold chain” and is “most likely an ornament for a Torah scroll.” If indeed it is meant to adorn a Torah scroll, “it is the earliest Torah scroll ornament found in archaeological excavations to date.

[...]

The original menorah itself was first constructed by the Israelites, at God’s instruction, for use in the Tabernacle services as they sojourned in the desert.

[...]

I noted the discovery of the medallion and gold hoard here back when it was announced in 2013.

Machinist on Moses

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Who Was Moses? Was He More than an Exodus Hero? The full Bible Review essay by Peter Machinist (April 2000) is available at the link. This BHD post was first published in 2012, but I missed it then. Timely for Passover.

Samaritan Passover 2016

PHOTO ESSAY: In Pictures: Samaritans perform sacrificial Passover ritual. "The ceremony has not changed and it will not change," says 67-year-old participant (TOVAH LAZAROFF, Jerusalem Post).

He was one of several hundred Samaritan men of all ages, dressed in white, who participated Wednesday night in the Passover ritual of slaughtering and sacrificing sheep to symbolize the ancient people of Israel’s journey from slavery to freedom.

On Friday night, Jews around the world will symbolically mark the animal sacrifices once conducted by priests during Passover when the Temple stood in Jerusalem less than 2,000 years.

Many Jews do this by placing a roasted chicken wing on their Seder plate or the roasted leg of a lamb, the actual animal that was slaughtered at the time.

But the Samaritans, a small sect of some 800 people that claim direct descent from of the tribes of Ephraim and Menashe, still engage in the ritual slaughter of sheep according to the instructions set out in the Book of Exodus.

The Samaritans celebrate Passover, but on a slightly different schedule from Jewish Passover. This year Samaritan Passover appears to have begun on Wednesday 20 April. Past posts on Samaritan Passover are here and links.

The Golem, Passover, and the X-Files

GOLEM WATCH: Passover and the Legend of Golem (Geek Dad).

The Golem has popped up in a multitude of places in pop culture, from TV to books to games. Some of the treatments have been more respectful while some show a basic familiarity with the legend but distinct disinterest in getting the facts about Jewish life right. Season 4 of X-Files, I’m looking at you. Episode 15 of the fourth season, “Kaddish,” opens with a man reciting kaddish. This entire scene is completely off (if you want details let me know in the comments), but the truly egregious part of the episode is the very premise, the creation of the Golem. It’s the X-Files, so we’re going to run with “Sure, random Jews totally know how to make a Golem.”

The truth is out there.

There are many past PaleoJudaica posts on the Golem legend. Start here and just follow those links.

Chaldeans in El Cajon, Ca.

MODERN ARAMAIC WATCH: Closed in this box of El Cajon: East County Middle Easterns (Siobhan Braun, San Diego Reader).

Downtown El Cajon is classically American. Main Street is a wide, two-lane road with a rundown western vibe. A quaint bakery, a dress shop, and a café vie for attention. An old hand-painted typewriter-repair sign remains etched on one building. During the summer months, Main Street hosts weekly antique car shows.

On those days, downtown El Cajon looks like a midcentury time-warp. But perhaps what aids the most in making Main Street authentically American is the multicultural vibe. Most notably, the steady stream of Middle-Eastern owned restaurants and grocery stores. Many business signs are written in Arabic — not surprising, as El Cajon is home to the largest population of Iraq War refugees in the world. It hosts the second-highest population in the United States of Chaldeans — Aramaic-speaking Christians from Iraq.

Roughly 50,000 Chaldeans live in El Cajon. With an influx of refugees fleeing their homelands due to religious and political persecution, those numbers are growing.

The article continues with an interview of Ben Kalasho, "founder and president of the Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce."

Regular readers may recall that San Diego is my home town. I grew up near Lemon Grove, which is some distance from El Cajon, but I was there fairly often over the years. El Cajon was known for its hot and humid climate — probably not dissimilar to that of Iraq. So that may be why it has attracted so many Iraqi Chaldeans (Chaldaeans).

Incidentally, the Mandaeans (Mandeans) also have an Aramaic-speaking community in San Diego. The Mandaean American Association is likewise based in El Cajon.

Yam Suf

YONA SABAR: Hebrew word of the week: Red Sea/Yam Suf. Timely.

More fallout from that UNESCO resolution

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: UNESCO Director Distances Herself From Temple Mount Decision. Irena Bokova distances herself from UNESCO statement disregarding Temple Mount religious significance for Jews. 'This decision was made by UNESCO management, not me' (Yoav Karny, Haaretz). That is perhaps a prudent move. Excerpt:

Bokova said in her letter that the decision to thus define the Temple Mount was a political decision and that Bokova herself was opposed to it.

“This decision was made by the economic council and the management council of UNESCO which are both management bodies, and was not made by me,” she wrote.

The letter continues, “I published a statement immediately after the council meeting ended where I said, ‘Jerusalem is a Holy Land of the three monotheistic religions, a place of dialogue for all Jewish, Christian and Muslim people, nothing should be undertaken to alter its integrity and authenticity. It is a mosaic of cultures and peoples, whose history has shaped the history of all humanity. Only respect and dialogue can build the trust we need to move forward – this is the strength of UNESCO, for the benefit of all.'”

Related: The Day the UN Downgraded Judaism’s Holiest Site to a Stable. In new resolution, UNESCO ignores Jewish links to Temple Mount and backs Islamic tradition that Western Wall was 'hitching post' for Mohammed’s steed (Ariel David, Haaretz).

If you thought the Western Wall was the main visible remnant of the ancient Jewish Temple and the closest spot where Jews could pray at their holiest site, the United Nations has news for you.

According to a resolution passed last week by UNESCO, the UN’s cultural heritage agency, the Western Wall is first and foremost the revered hitching post for a mythological horse and a holy landmark of Islam.

[...]

The name Buraq refers to a mythological winged horse, which, according to hadith literature, carried the Muslim prophet Mohammed on his Night Journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and then on to Heaven.

While Buraq’s story dates back to the eighth century, almost at the dawn of Islam, the precise identification of the Western Wall as the spot where Mohammed tethered his mighty steed while he prayed on the Temple Mount is a much more recent tradition, dating to the late Ottoman period.

[...]

This resolution apparently does include the name "Western Wall Plaza," but only in quotation marks. I see no problem with acknowledging the Islamic tradition associating Muhummud's night-ascent vision (the Miraj) with the Western Wall, whatever the date of that tradition may be. But the historical connection of the site with the ancient Jewish Temples needs to be acknowledged fully and completely at the same time.

Background on the latest UNESCO statement and its predecessor is here and links. More on the title "Al-Buraq Wall" is here (end of post) and here and links. And for a tangentially related story, see here, here, and here.

Kudos for Carol Newsom

EMORY NEWS: Four Emory faculty named to American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Elaine Justice).

Four Emory University faculty members are among the world's most accomplished scholars, scientists, writers, artists and other leaders who have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

[...]

Carol Newsom, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Old Testament at Emory's Candler School of Theology, also serves as a senior fellow at Emory's Center for the Study of Law and Religion. She came to Candler in 1980, only the second woman to hold a tenure-track position. Her research focuses on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Wisdom tradition, the book of Daniel, apocalyptic literature, and theology and the environment.

Newsom has written and edited 13 books and scores of articles, book chapters, translations, encyclopedia articles and reviews. She is co-editor of the acclaimed "Women's Bible Commentary," now in its third edition, which explores the implications of and challenges long-held assumptions about the Bible's portrayal of women and other marginalized groups.

Newsom holds honorary degrees from the University of Copenhagen, Birmingham-Southern College, and Virginia Theological Seminary in recognition of her scholarship in Old Testament theology and her innovative work in transcribing, translating and providing commentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

She has received several prestigious research fellowships, including grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Henry Luce Foundation, and has won several awards for excellence in teaching and mentoring, including the university's Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award.

Newsom is past president of the Society of Biblical Literature and an honorary member of the Society for Old Testament Study. She served as director of Emory's Graduate Division of Religion from 2012 to 2014.

Congratulations to Professor Newsom, as well as to the other three members-elect.

Calls to raze the Temple Mount

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Participants in paschal lamb ceremony voice hope to one day raze Temple Mount. The ceremony reenacted ancient Temple rites prescribed by the Torah, when kohanim – members of the priestly caste – ritually slaughtered a paschal lamb. (JEREMY SHARON, Jerusalem Post).

At a “Passover sacrifice” ceremony held Monday at the Beit Orot Yeshiva on the Mount of Olives attended by some 400 people, several public figures expressed the hope that the Dome of the Rock shrine and al-Aksa Mosque would soon be removed from the Temple Mount.

Far-right Jerusalem city council member Arieh King said he hopes that the Temple Mount would soon be free of what he termed “the abomination” currently at the site, while Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, head of the Temple Institute and a former Knesset candidate for the banned Kach Party, said the event was preparation for when the Temple Mount would be “flattened and cleaned,” and the Temple rebuilt.

The ceremony reenacted ancient Temple rites prescribed by the Torah, when kohanim – members of the priestly caste – ritually slaughtered a paschal lamb.

[...]

Two comments, neither of which is new. First, leave the destruction of ancient monuments to the likes of ISIS. Second, no construction or excavation on the Temple Mount. None. At all. Leave even archaeological exploration of it until we can apply non-invasive and non-destructive technologies to do the job.

Related posts are here, here, here, here, and here,.

New study on Ashkenazic genetics and Yiddish

THE GEOGRAPHIC POPULATION STRUCTURE: Yiddish may be a TURKISH dialect: DNA study suggests it was invented by Jews as they traded on the Silk Road (SARAH GRIFFITHS, Daily Mail).

• Yiddish was thought to have originally been an old German dialect
  
• A new genetic study, however, has pinpointed origin of Yiddish speakers
  
• Suggests it was invented by Iranian and Ashkenazic Jews on the Silk Road

It may have been spoken for 1,000 years, but the origins of Yiddish – the language of Ashkenazic Jews – has been a bone of contention between linguists for years.

Now researchers say the DNA of Yiddish speakers may have originated from four ancient villages in north-eastern Turkey.

And they believe the Yiddish language was invented by Iranian and Ashkenazic Jews as they traded on the Silk Road, challenging the popular idea it is an old German dialect.

Scientists at the Universities of Sheffield and Tel Aviv used a tool dubbed the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) to convert DNA data into ancestral coordinates.

This enabled them to identify the ancient villages - Iskenaz, Eskenaz, Ashanaz, and Ashkuz – close to the crossroads of the Silk Roads, which were a historically important international trade route between China and the Mediterranean.

They believe the villages names derive from the word 'Ashkenaz' and may have existed as long as 1,500 years ago.

[...]

The genetic claims of this study are quite significant and seem to imply some variation of the Khazar theory of Ashkenazic Jewish origins, although this theory has up to now not found support in genetic studies. This area — along with the linguistic origin of Yiddish — is far outside my expertise, so I will say no more. But I will be very interested in seeing the responses to the published paper, which you can read here. The abstract is as follows [UPDATE: bad link now fixed. Sorry!]:

The Yiddish language is over one thousand years old and incorporates German, Slavic, and Hebrew elements. The prevalent view claims Yiddish has a German origin, whereas the opposing view posits a Slavic origin with strong Iranian and weak Turkic substrata. One of the major difficulties in deciding between these hypotheses is the unknown geographical origin of Yiddish speaking Ashkenazic Jews (AJs). An analysis of 393 Ashkenazic, Iranian, and mountain Jews and over 600 non-Jewish genomes demonstrated that Greeks, Romans, Iranians, and Turks exhibit the highest genetic similarity with AJs. The Geographic Population Structure (GPS) analysis localized most AJs along major primeval trade routes in northeastern Turkey adjacent to primeval villages with names that may be derived from “Ashkenaz.” Iranian and mountain Jews were localized along trade routes on the Turkey’s eastern border. Loss of maternal haplogroups was evident in non-Yiddish speaking AJs. Our results suggest that AJs originated from a Slavo-Iranian confederation, which the Jews call “Ashkenazic” (i.e., “Scythian”), though these Jews probably spoke Persian and/or Ossete. This is compatible with linguistic evidence suggesting that Yiddish is a Slavic language created by Irano-Turko-Slavic Jewish merchants along the Silk Roads as a cryptic trade language, spoken only by its originators to gain an advantage in trade. Later, in the 9th century, Yiddish underwent relexification by adopting a new vocabulary that consists of a minority of German and Hebrew and a majority of newly coined Germanoid and Hebroid elements that replaced most of the original Eastern Slavic and Sorbian vocabularies, while keeping the original grammars intact.

Background on the Khazar theory and on Jewish genetics in general is here, here, here, here, here, and links.

More on the Western Wall compromise

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Should ancient stones topple Netanyahu’s Western Wall deal? Excavating the effects of a planned egalitarian prayer pavilion on the archaeological site intended to house it, The Times of Israel sifts through remnants of ancient civilizations — and modern power struggles (AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN, Times of Israel). A very thorough article that sets out the background and interviews many of the people involved in the discussion. Some of the comments from archaeologist Gabriel Barkay:

Archeologist Barkay leans on the rickety temporary prayer platform grafted onto the archeology site. It rests on the ancient stones in the park much like how temporary bleachers are set up along a street ahead of a parade. It is, he says, a “barbarically built foreign entity in this place… In an area designated to demonstrated and explore ancient glory, we have modern ugliness.”

He deplores the plan that will create a platform double its size, which will lead up to the Western Wall and hide more archeological remnants. The compromise, said Barkay, is “politically, an escape. The problem is over there,” he said pointing to the other side of the Mughrabi Bridge.

“I’m not against worship; on the contrary,” says Barkay, who is a member of a Conservative synagogue in Jerusalem. “I am somebody who regards the worship at the Wall as important. Everybody has to be allowed to express their views and way of worship in his or her style.”

But this is an archeological park, says Barkay, and solving political problems in the State of Israel shouldn’t be at the expense of archeology.

“The ancient people are not represented by any party; archeologists are not influential. There must be a way politically to form a solution of a separate place that will pacify American Jewry and maybe avoid clashes. This [the park] is the easy solution. It is more complicated to force everyone to pray together.”

“The whole thing is a disgrace,” says Barkay.

Background here and links.

Palmyra arch now in London

PALMYRA WATCH: Syria’s Palmyra arch, destroyed by IS, recreated in London. Egyptian marble replica of 2,000-year-old relic made using 3D imaging technology (Agencies). But so far there's no sign of Baal coming through.

Background here and links

Egyptian amulet sifted

THE TEMPLE MOUNT SIFTING PROJECT: Rare Egyptian Amulet Bearing Name of Ancient Pharaoh Found in Earth Discarded from Temple Mount.

JERUSALEM, April 19, 2016 — A rare amulet, more than 3,200 years old, bearing the name of the Egyptian ruler Thutmose III, Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty who reigned from 1479 – 1425 BCE, was discovered at the Temple Mount Sifting Project located in Jerusalem’s Tzurim Valley National Park within earth discarded from the Temple Mount, and was only recently deciphered by archeologists. The project is conducted under the auspices of Bar-Ilan University, with the support of the City of David Foundation, the Israel Archaeology Foundation, and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.

[...]

This story is receiving a lot of media attention, and rightly so. And the relevance of the discovery for the upcoming Festival of Passover is not lost on the press release. There are a great many past PaleoJudaica posts on the Temple Mount Sifting Project. Start here and just keep following the links.

Syriac Seminar at Baylor

SYRIAC WATCH: Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion Hosts Syriac Seminar.

WACO, Texas (April 18, 2016) – Baylor ISR will host a one-day seminar on the Syriac Christian Churches that will bring together leading scholars of Syriac history, literature, theology and culture.

"The Syriac Christian Churches: Rediscovering the Church’s Eastern Roots" will help Western Christians understand an often-overlooked part of their common heritage. The seminar will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 20, in the Cox Lecture Hall of Armstrong Browning Library.

[...]

Professor Philip Jenkins, regular contributor to The Anxious Bench and often cited by PaleoJudaica, is involved.