New Jerusalem in Colorado?

OF COURSE HE DOES: Colorado man intends to build replica of Jerusalem. According to the report, the entrepreneur plans to include Jesus’ crucifixion site, Herod’s Temple and Palace, the Antonia Fortress, and the High Priest’s Palace (DANIEL K. EISENBUD, Jerusalem Post). Mind you, we're talking about a full-scale replica.

It remains unclear how he will garner the money necessary for the ambitious project.

I dare say.

Cross-file under Can't Make It Up.

Research Projects Coordinator with the Museum of the Bible

JOB: Museum of the Bible Job Posting (ETC, Christian Askeland).

Research Projects Coordinator

Beginning 01 August 2016, the research projects coordinator of the Scholars Initiative, located in Oklahoma City, OK, will coordinate with the executive and associate director to plan, implement and support collaborative work on innovative research projects, which advance the museum’s commitment to “invite all people to engage with the Bible through … scholarly pursuits.” In particular, the programming of the Scholar’s Initiative fosters research projects in which scholars include outstanding students in rigorous research projects relating to the languages and material culture of the New Testament and Hebrew scriptures.

The Scholars Initiative has previously organized collaborative research projects on Greek papyri from the Roman era, Dead Sea Scroll fragments and Medieval Latin manuscripts. Most recently, projects exploring the nature of the Old Greek tradition of the Psalter and the Greek minuscule tradition of the Pauline Corpus have been developed, with programs on Syriac patristic texts and the Lollard movement currently in active development. Where appropriate, participating scholars will publish their findings within a Brill series dedicated to the artifacts and research interests of the Museum of the Bible.

[...]

Follow the link for further particulars. "Review of candidates will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled."

Samaritan Passover a century ago

PHOTO ESSAY: The Samaritans on Passover 100 years ago. The Samaritans still sacrifice the Pascal Lamb (Lenny Ben DAvid, Arutz Sheva). There are lots of interesting photos of Samaritans c. 1899-1900 in the article, but you have to follow the American Colony link for photos of them celebrating Passover.

More on Samaritan Passover is here and links.

An Egyptian archaeologist on the Exodus

APPARENTLY IN HONOR OF PASSOVER: Senior Egyptian archaeologist: Israeli claim that Pharaoh was Egyptian is a lie. According to Director General of Luxor's Antiquities, Mustafa Waziri, king Pharaoh belonged to the foreign Hyksos dynasty that invaded Egypt in the 15th century BCE and ruled northern Egypt (MAAYAN GROISMAN, Jerusalem Post).

In an unprecedented declaration that challenges the story told in the Passover Haggadah, a senior Egyptian archaeologist said that ancient king Pharaoh was not Egyptian, as claimed in the ancient Jewish text.

In an interview with the Egyptian daily newspaper al-Youm al-Sabih, the director-general of Luxor's Antiquities, Mustafa Waziri, surprisingly argued that king Pharaoh belonged to the foreign Hyksos dynasty that invaded Egypt in the 15th century BCE and ruled northern Egypt.

The idea that the Hyksos dynasty is the historical reality behind the legend of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt is not new — a version of it goes back at least to the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and perhaps to the Hellenistic Egyptian writer Manetho. In itself the idea is not implausible, although the evidence for it isn't particularly strong. (More here.) And if it is correct, the legend is only a vague memory of the historical reality, and the point is that the Hyksos themselves were the primogenitors of the Israelites. The Theban Pharaoh who expelled the Hyksos, Ahmose I, was himself a native Egyptian.

"King Pharaoh who ruled Egypt during the epoch of our prophet Moses was not one of the kings who reigned in ancient Egypt as we tend to believe. He belonged to the Beduin Jabarin dynasty, which is called Hyksos," Waziri said.

I don't know what the "Beduin Jabarin" are, but this seems garbled. See above.

"This foreign dynasty ruled only in a part of Egypt.

Sort of. It's complicated.

One of its last kings was a dictator named Pharaoh, to whom Moses was sent by Allah to demand that he allow the sons of Israel to leave Egypt," Waziri explained.

We seem to have moved now to the Exodus story as told in the Qur'an.

The Egyptian archaeologist added: "the prevailing thesis according to which the kings of ancient Egypt were named Pharaohs is a false thesis promoted by the Jews to stick false accusations on ancient Egyptians."

"Due to his oppressive rule, the Jews have succeeded in transforming his name to a formal title of all Egyptians kings, which enables them to damage us by saying that we have raped women and slaughtered children. However, the Pharaoh title was never used to describe Egyptians, but was always attached to boorish people," Waziri said.

This is just goofy. The term "Pharaoh" orignally meant something like "big house," referring to the royal palace, and it developed into a title for the king of Egypt. No individual was named Pharaoh.

To prove his thesis, Waziri presented his conclusions from a study he conducted about the subject. He said that reviewing the Koran, he has not seen that the word "Pharaoh" is used to describe Egypt or Egyptians.

According to Waziri, the Koranic evidence that "Pharaoh" is a private name and not a royal title, as Israel alleges, is the phrase "Oh, Pharaoh", that refers to Pharaoh as a private individual.

The philological evidence from ancient Egyptian outweighs whatever the director-general's reading of the Qur'an is. I hope he is a better archaeologist than philologist. This is embarrassing to all of Egyptian archaeology.

More ancient glass on display

EXHIBITION: Dale Chihuly Chandelier Ushers in the Summer of Glass at the Crocker (ArtfixDaily.com).

World-renowned glass sculptor Dale Chihuly’s “Golden Teal Chandelier” has been installed in the entryway of the Crocker Art Museum’s Teel Family Pavilion, setting the tone for the museum’s Summer of Glass, featuring three exhibitions highlighting glass from the ancient to the present.

[...]

It is the third one that is of interest to us:

Finally, “The Luster of Ages: Ancient Glass from the Marcy Friedman Collection,” which runs July 17 through Oct. 16, explores the beauty of ageless glass from the 6th century BCE to the period of Roman rule in the eastern Mediterranean. The collection’s 50 pieces, which include brightly colored miniature amphorae and lustrous perfume bottles, reflect the forms and influences of Greek, Roman and Phoenician cultures in the Holy Land.

Some past posts, most pretty recent, on discoveries of ancient glass and museum collections of ancient glass are collected here.

The Talmud on mitzvot and theodicy

THIS WEEK'S DAF YOMI COLUMN BY ADAM KIRSCH IN TABLET: Crime and Punishment and Punishment and Punishment. The Talmudic system of laws assumes the adherent is eager to learn how to follow God’s commandment, not why to follow it—and that he has faith in an otherworldly justice not necessarily reflected in this life.

But in the Talmud, punishment is an elusive subject. Most of the time, the rabbis redefine the death penalty in terms of karet, the “cutting off” of the sinner from the world to come, thus turning a this-worldly punishment into a supernatural one. Often, when the Bible specifies a punishment that the rabbis seem to regard as excessive or barbarous, they will find a way to interpret the law so that it cannot be carried out. (One famous example concerns the biblical prescription for stoning a rebellious son.) We do hear about courts imposing fines and monetary settlements in civil cases. But in general, the question of punishment simply fails to arise in the Talmud: The same rabbis who spent many pages figuring out exactly what a law means have no interest in figuring out what to do with Jews who defy it.

Earlier Daf Yomi columns are noted here and links.

Egyptian scarab discovered by birdwatcher

ARCHAEOLOGY: Birdwatcher discovers ancient Egyptian scarab seal in northern Israel.

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) A rare scarab seal belonging to a senior Egyptian official of the 13th Pharaonic Dynasty (18th-17th centuries BCE) has been found at the Tel Dor excavation site in northern Israel.

The seal was discovered by Alexander Ternopolsky, an amateur birdwatcher, who handed it over to the archaeologists at the site.

[...]

A slightly younger Egyptian amulet bearing the name of Thutmose III was discovered recently by the Temple Mount Sifting Project.

Still more on the Bible and literacy in ancient Judah

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS (REALLY): From Tablet to Scroll: How Was the Bible Written? Many scholars believe the Jewish holy text was completed by the end of the fifth century B.C.E., but almost no manuscripts from the period survive (Philippe Bohstrom, Haaretz).

So how was the Jewish holy text first put in writing? What material was used and how did the text itself survive through the centuries to reach us?

The material upon which books were copied at the time, mainly papyrus and leather parchment, is perishable and particularly sensitive to the humid climate in the Jerusalem area. That any fragments of biblical manuscripts from antiquity have survived is quite remarkable when you think of what happened to the writings of other civilizations.

There follows a good survey of the Phoenician, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian writing systems. (A more or less related post is here.)

All these methods would have been available to the early Israelite scribes of the Bible.

“The majority of writing would have been done on papyrus, leather and wax-coated wooden tablets. The recovery of numerous clay bullae, which once sealed the papyri, attests to their existence,” says Allan Millard, professor of Hebrew and ancient Semitic languages at Liverpool University.

Millard is convinced that writing was widespread across the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.E. He argues that the number of sites, the quantity of ephemeral texts and the multitude of seals and impressions bearing owners’ names should dispel any notion that writing was rare. If scribes were employed for legal and administrative duties such as making lists, setting out legal deals and writing letters, he believes it is reasonable to expect some to have spent time writing other texts, as in Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Compositions among Hebrew ostraca and graffiti prove they could do so. One ostracon found in the desert outpost of Arad bears part of a literary text and another from the fort at Hovrat Uza is of prophetic nature. There are lines of a prophetic verse painted on wall plaster at Kuntillet Ajrud in the Sinai from the early eighth century B.C.E.

Millard contends that some parts of the Bible could date as far back as the 13th century B.C.E.

While many scholars take a much more conservative approach, most believe that by the time of the Neo-Assyrian and Babylonian period (the eighth to sixth centuries B.C.E.), large parts of the Hebrew Bible had already been written down.

This article is clearly inspired by the recent computer-aided study of Iron Age II Hebrew epigraphic texts, on which more here and links. More on the texts from Kuntillet Ajrud is here, here and here.

Speaking of Jewish-temple denial ...

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: EXCLUSIVE – Islamic Scholar Claims Jews ‘Fabricated’ Ties to Temple Mount (AARON KLEIN AND ALI WAKED).

TEL AVIV – Ignoring the historical record and mainstream archeological evidence, an Islamic scholar tied to Hamas and speaking during a Breitbart Jerusalem exclusive interview, completely denied Jewish ties to the Temple Mount, considered the holiest site in Judaism.

“The issue of Solomon’s Temple, or what the Jews call the Temple Mount, is nothing but a bundle of historically unfounded claims,” declared Khaled Elkhaldi, a professor at Gaza’s Islamic University.

“It’s a dream, a legend that the Jews made up to claim exclusive ownership of the land, which religion and history refute time after time,” added Elkhaldi, who serves on Hamas’s Shura Council (Majlis al-Shura), the terrorist group’s main consultative body.

“The historical and religious truth is that the Jews conquered Palestine as part of their religious perspective and so-called prophecy in the Torah around which the theory of the ‘Promised Land’ was built,” Elkhaldi claimed.

“The fabricated temple was invented to serve this narrative,” he stated, without a trace of irony.

Elkhaldi claimed, wrongly, that mainstream Jewish opinion is divided on the historic whereabouts of the Temple.

“Some say that it is in Nablus and not in Jerusalem, some say it’s in Beitin just north of Jerusalem, and others talk about other places. It only proves that all these claims are bogus.”

[...]

And so on. We've heard it all before, haven't we? For background, see here (immediately preceding post). Similar claims that the Jewish temple was actually in Nablus have been noted here, here, and here. I have not seen anyone try to place it in Beitin (Bethel) before this. For the Temple Mount Sifting Project, see here and many, many links. The illicit Waqf excavation on the Temple Mount in 2007 was noted here, here, and here (cf. here). And there's more on that UNESCO resolution here and links.

Priestly blessing at Western Wall

TEMPLE MOUNT WATCH: Worshipers and police crowd Western Wall for priestly blessing. Tens of thousands pack Jerusalem holy site for ceremony; security forces boosted amid holiday tensions (RAOUL WOOTLIFF AND TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF).

Tens of thousands of people thronged to the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City under heavy police guard for a twice-annual mass blessing ceremony Monday morning.

Police said tens of thousands of people packed the Western Wall plaza, as security forces were bolstered amid sky-high tensions over a fresh outbreak of violence connected to increased Jewish visits to the nearby Temple Mount holy site for the Passover holiday.

The blessing ceremony, which sees male descendants of the Kohanim priestly caste gather to bestow benediction, involves the raising of hands in a form similar to the “Vulcan salute” which Leonard Nimoy borrowed from Judaism for his “Star Trek” role as Mr. Spock. Those conducting the blessing also cover their heads with prayer shawls.

[...]

There's video at the link. For Nimoy's "Spock salute" see here and links.

I was surprised to see this in the article:

The Western Wall is the closest spot to the Temple Mount where Jews can pray. Though allowed to visit the Mount, where Jews believe the two ancient Jewish temples stood, Jews are not allowed to pray and increased Jewish visits often spark tensions.

My bold emphasis. Who slipped that in? This is not just a matter of a religious belief. For the record, no one who has any understanding of the ancient history and archaeology of the site has any doubt that two ancient Jewish temples stood on the Temple Mount. This (non-)issue came up recently with regard to an unfortunate article in the New York Times which was eventually corrected. See here and links for the story. And I have documented a great deal of propaganda from the Palestinian and Arab worlds which denies that the temples ever existed. For recent examples, see here and links. I assume that the sentence quoted above is just worded poorly, but it is disappointing to see the Times of Israel appear to flirt with Jewish-temple denial.

The priestly blessing comes from Numbers 6:24-26. Incidentally, the oldest surviving copies (c. 600 BCE) of any biblical passage are the silver amulets from Ketef Hinnom which contain the text of this blessing.

Ilan on Jewish customs in Judith

BIBLE ODYSSEY: Jewish Customs in Judith (Tal Ilan).

The book of Judith was composed sometime after the Hebrew Bible was completed. It came into being, however, considerably earlier than the books that canonized rabbinic law (the Mishnah and the Talmud). Thus, Jewish customs recorded in Judith were influenced by the Hebrew Bible and reflect an earlier Judaism than that practiced today. The Jewish customs in Judith relate to fasting, widowhood, kosher food, immersion, conversion, and slavery.

[...]

Syriac Summer School in Amsterdam

SYRIAC WATCH: On Academia.edu, Wido Van Peursen has posted the details of two study-abroad summer school courses on Syriac at VU Amsterdam.

The Bible in Syriac Tradition (16-23 July 2016)

Syriac Christianity in Context (23-30 July 2016)

More on ancient literacy in Judah

EPIGRAPHY AND LITERARY CRITICISM: Trying To Discover When The Good Book Was Written Is A Bad Idea (Ian Young, HuffPo). Perhaps not so much bad as just asking the wrong question. But Professor Young raises a very good point:

In fact, the whole discussion misses the really interesting breakthroughs scholars have made about the composition of the Bible since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Scholars have become aware that Old Testament books were not ever just written in one go. "When was the Bible written?" is the wrong question. Ancient books were fluid entities that were written and rewritten, each manuscript a different rendition of the community tradition that lay behind it.

We are used, in the modern world, to a book, once it is written, staying written. Also, modern books usually have an identifiable author or authors. The Bible is, on the contrary, community literature, reflecting community traditions that appear in different ways in different renditions of the same book or passage. Even within the Bible that we know, we find multiple versions of the same stories and traditions. Outside the Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient texts, like the earliest translations into Greek, show us yet further variant versions, all of which were likely considered to be valid representations of the tradition about great Biblical themes like God's relationship with the peoples of the earth.

So, for many of the familiar texts of the Bible, the answer to the question about whether they were written in 600 B.C., or earlier than that, or at a later date, may simply be "yes".

Background here and links.

When did sacrifice on Passover cease?

HISTORY AND POLITICS: Why Jews Stopped Sacrificing Lambs and Baby Goats for Passover. And why some have started trying to perform it on the Temple Mount again (Elon Gilad, Haaretz).

This ancient ritual [of sacrifice of Passover lambs in the Temple] abruptly came to an end in 70 C.E., when the Romans put down the Jews’ Great Revolt and destroyed the Temple. At this point, what remained of the Jewish population in Judea had to decide how Passover would be celebrated.

The task of adapting Judaism to its new Temple-less reality fell to Rabban Gamaliel II, head of the Jewish Assembly – the Sanhedrin. With regard to the Passover sacrifice, Gamaliel decreed that the sacrifice should continue in family homes, with each family sacrificing its own goat or sheep.

However, other rabbis believed that the Passover sacrifice, like all the other sacrifices, could only be conducted by the priests in the Temple and that, like the other sacrifices, should not be conducted until the Messiah comes and the Temple is rebuilt.

Some Jews followed Gamaliel and continued to sacrifice goats and sheep in their homes on Passover; others didn’t and saw the practice as apostasy.

Within about two generations, the practice ceased when the anti-sacrifice camp assumed control and threatened to excommunicate those who practiced it. So, sometime in the second century C.E., Jews stopped the practice of sacrificing baby goats and sheep on Passover. Until recently, that is.

The traditions about how exactly the Passover lamb ceased to be sacrificed were written down long after the event and should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt. But the sacrifice did indeed end sometime after the destruction of the Temple. As for the recent attempt to revive the practice, see here

Ancient Jewish kingdoms in Babylonia

HISTORY: A Jewish kingdom in ancient Babylon. Least known is the kingdom of Mar Zutra, that rose to brief prominence in the period after the redaction and editing of the Talmud. (ELI KAVON, Jerusalem Post). Excerpt:

In considerable territory of eastern and southern Arabia, before the rise of Islam, the elite of the Kingdom of Himyar converted to Judaism. This kingdom was powerful, twice succeeding in repelling domination by Ethiopia, and preventing the anti-Jewish Byzantines from passing through its territory to India to conduct trade. This Jewish kingdom came to an end with a final war with Ethiopia that resulted in its destruction.

A more well-known example of a Jewish Diaspora kingdom is the Khazars. Located in Eastern Europe, this kingdom’s leaders converted to Judaism and adopted the hallmarks of Jewish civilization.

The kingdom flourished from 650 CE to 1016 CE, but was eventually overrun by enemies and scattered. The Khazars were known as brave warriors and ignited the imagination of medieval Hebrew poet Judah Halevi, whose philosophical work, The Kuzari, uses the adoption of Judaism by the Khazar king as a launching point to delve into an analysis and understanding of Judaism, revelation and prophecy.

Least known, however, is the kingdom of Mar Zutra, that rose to brief prominence in the period after the redaction and editing of the Talmud.

And all this, of course, has almost nothing to do with the cuneiform tablet used to illustrate the article. The tablet is from the recently published collection of cuneiform texts written by Judean exiles in Babylonia (on which, more here and follow the links back), but it was written many centuries earlier than the kingdoms discussed in the article and the writers did not have their own kingdom. They were in the thrall of the Neo-Babylonian kingdom that exiled them there.

As for the article, which deals with three Jewish kingdoms from late antiquity: more on the Himyar kingdom is here, here, and here; and more on the Khazars is here and links. I can't find any past posts on the "least known" kingdom of Mar Zutra. And as for the political conclusions of the article, I leave it to you to do with them what you will.

Italian Talmud volume a bestseller

TALMUD WATCH: Italian translation of Talmud becomes instant bestseller. First volume of Italian translation of the Talmud sells out in three days. (Arutz Sheva/AFP).

Background here.

A Gibeon bulla

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: How Ancient Taxes Were Collected Under King Manasseh. Bulla inscribed in paleo-Hebrew provides evidence of Judah’s tax system. This was first posted back in 2012, but I seem to have missed it then. Cross-file under Epigraphy.

More on the Temple Mount Sifting Project is here with many links. The discovery of this bulla was noted here, also back in 2012.

New Philo book

PHILONICA ET NEOTESTAMENTICA: A New German translation of Philo’s Quod omnis probus liber sit (Torrey Seland). A notice of:

Reinhard von Bendemann (Hg.), Philo von Alexandria – Über die Freiheit des Rechtschaffenen. Kleine Bibliothek der antiken jüdischen und christlichen Literatur –Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 1. Auflage 2016. 89 Seiten kartoniert ISBN 978-3-525-53465-6. 10,00 €

Black & Cerone, The Pericope of the Adulteress

LARRY HURTADO: The Adulteress Narrative: New Book.

A new book is now the “go-to” resource on the text-critical question about the account of the adulteress brought to Jesus (in traditional texts, John 7:53–8:11): The Pericope of the Adulteress in Contemporary Research, eds. David Alan Black and Jacob N. Cerone (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016). The publisher’s online catalogue entry is here.

[...]

And Tommy Wasserman also has a post on the book here at ETC.

More on Snapshots

LIV INGEBORG LIED: Snapshots of Evolving Traditions – A Sneak Peek!

Background here.