John Ma on the Maccabees and Religious Persecution

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: John Ma | Part Two: The Maccabees and Religious Persecution.



Part one of the interview was noted here.

Gemeinhardt (ed.), Zwischen Exegese und religiöser Praxis

NEW BOOK FROM MOHR SIEBECK:

Zwischen Exegese und religiöser Praxis
Heilige Texte von der Spätantike bis zum Klassischen Islam
Hrsg. v. Peter Gemeinhardt

[Between Exegesis and Religious Practice. Holy Texts from Late Antiquity to Classical Islam.]
2016. VIII, 297 pages.
29,00 €
sewn paper
ISBN 978-3-16-153229-0

Published in German.
Holy texts shape the lives, thoughts and deeds of religious individuals and communities. This collection of essays highlights this fact from various angles, illuminating the exegesis of such texts as well as their practical application. What foundation exists for the authority of sacred texts? In what way do they communicate divine knowledge to human beings? And how can their messages be expertly revealed? The relationship of holy texts to literary, philosophical as well as scholarly writings and corpora also play a role in the process. Judaism, Christianity and first millennium Islam are all taken into account along with contemporary Greco-Roman religion.

Follow the link for TOC and ordering information.

Butts, Language Change in the Wake of Empire

NEW BOOK FROM EISENBRAUNS:

Language Change in the Wake of Empire
Syriac in Its Greco-Roman Context
by Aaron Michael Butts
Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic - LSAWS 11

Description

Just arrived, April 11

It is well documented that one of the primary catalysts of intense language contact is the expansion of empire. This is true not only of recent history, but it is equally applicable to the more remote past. An exemplary case (or better: cases) of this involves Aramaic. Due to the expansions of empires, Aramaic has throughout its long history been in contact with a variety of languages, including Akkadian, Greek, Arabic, and various dialects of Iranian. This books focuses on one particular episode in the long history of Aramaic language contact: the Syriac dialect of Aramaic in contact with Greek.

In this book, Butts presents a new analysis of contact-induced changes in Syriac due to Greek. Several chapters analyze the more than eight-hundred Greek loanwords that occur in Syriac texts from Late Antiquity that were not translated from Greek. Butts also dedicates several chapters to a different category of contact-induced change in which Syriac-speakers replicated inherited Aramaic material on the model of Greek. All of the changes discussed in the book are located within their broader Aramaic context and analyzed through a robust contact linguistic framework.

By focusing on the Syriac language itself, Butts introduces new – and arguably more reliable – evidence for locating Syriac Christianity within its Greco-Roman context. This book, thus, is especially important for the field of Syriac studies. The book also contributes to the fields of contact linguistics and the study of ancient languages more broadly by analyzing in detail various types of contact-induced change over a relatively long period of time.

Product Details

Publisher: Eisenbrauns
Publication date: 2016
Bibliographic info: Pp. xvii + 293
Language(s): English

Cover: Cloth
Trim Size: 6 x 9 inches
ISBN: 1-57506-421-9
ISBN13: 978-1-57506-421-5

Cross-file under Syriac Watch.

Iranian Studies 49.2 (2016)

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Iranian Studies: A volume in honour of Michael Morony. Notice of Iranian Studies, Volume 49, Issue 2, 2016. Special issue: “Sasanian Iran and beyond: A special volume in honour of Michael G. Morony and his contributions to late antique history“. Guest Editors: Touraj Daryaee and Khodadad Rezakhani.

Ancient Judaism makes an appearance.

ASJ Review 40.1

NEW ISSUE OF ASJ REVIEW: 40.1 (2016). Follow the link for TOC. Some of the articles and reviews have to do with ancient Judaism. You can view the abstracts for free, but the site requires a paid personal or institutional subscription to read the articles (or you can buy them individually).

Granerod, Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period

BIBLIOGRAPHIA IRANICA: Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period. Notice of a new book: Granerod, Gard. 2016. Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period: Studies in the Religion and Society of the Judaean Community at Elephantine. Walter De Gruyter.

Tropper, Rewriting Ancient Jewish History

FORTHCOMING BOOK FROM ROUTLEDGE:

Rewriting Ancient Jewish History: The History of the Jews in Roman Times and the New Historical Method (Routledge Studies in Ancient History)
by Amram Tropper (Author)

Half a century ago, the primary contours of the history of the Jews in Roman times were not subject to much debate. This standard account collapsed, however, when a handful of insights undermined the traditional historical method, the method long enlisted by historians for eliciting facts from sources. In response to these insights, a new historical method gradually emerged. Rewriting Ancient Jewish History critiques the traditional historical method and makes a case for the new one, illustrating how to write anew ancient Jewish history.

At the heart of the traditional historical method lie three fundamental presumptions. The traditional historical method regularly presumes that multiple versions of a text or tradition are equally authentic; it presumes that many ancient Jewish sources are the products of largely immanent forces of cloistered Jewish communities; and, barring any local grounds for suspicion, it presumes that most ancient Jewish texts faithfully reflect their sources and reliably recount events. Rewriting Ancient Jewish History unfurls the failings of this approach; it promotes the new historical method which circumvents the flawed traditional presumptions while plotting anew the limits of rational argumentation in historical inquiry. This crucial reappraisal is a must-read for students of Jewish and Roman history alike, and a fascinating case-study in how historians should approach their ancient sources.

Athas on the Bible and literacy in ancient Judah

WITH MEAGRE POWERS: No, those ancient Hebrew ‘sticky notes’ do not necessarily prove the Bible was written early (George Athas). In response to an article by Gordon Govier in Christianity Today on the recently published study on literacy in ancient Judah. One correction:

On the contrary, one of the documents in this collection includes a man protesting that he could read something for himself, which implies that literacy wasn’t widespread.

I believe this is Lachish Letter 3 (on which more here), not on of the Arad ostraca. But aside from that, this is a very good discussion of the issues. Note especially the following paragraph:

The study itself states that the kind of literacy levels that the Arad documents demonstrate only occurs again in c. 200 BC. The implication seems to be that it’s unlikely the biblical documents were written in the intervening period (600–200 BC) when literacy levels were lower. But there are so many problems with this inference. First, the claim relates only to the region of Judah. It says nothing about literacy levels outside of Judah. Second, the claim uses blank evidence (little apparent writing in 600–200 BC) as a warrant for reaching a positive inference (it’s unlikely the biblical documents could have been written in this period). But logically this is unwarranted. To state it another way, a lack of evidence is not necessarily evidence of lack. It could be that we just haven’t found all the other document caches like the one from Arad that date to this period. We just don’t know! Third, you don’t need most of the elite, let alone most of the population, to be reading and writing to create conditions conducive to the writing of texts like the ones in the Bible. You just need one competent literate person who can ‘put pen to paper’. And that person could write for themselves, or even for a whole group of people. One person can pen the imagination of hundreds! And fourth, since there evidently were biblical texts that were written in Judah between 600 and 200 BC (e.g. Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Ezra, Nehemiah), the very low literacy levels actually count for nothing.

Cross-file under Epigraphy. Background to the story is here and links.

More on Samaritan Passover 2016

ANOTHER PHOTO ESSAY: Samaritan Passover marked by slaughter of the lambs. The Samaritan sect celebrates the holiday of Passover in close adherence to biblical traditions such as sacrificing animals and donning long white robes (Haaretz).

More on Samaritan Passover is here and links.

Jewish catacombs in Rome

OPENING TOMORROW: They're not secret anymore! The ancient Jewish catacombs in Rome that have been off limits for decades will finally open to the public (JOHN HUTCHINSON, Daily Mail).

The Jewish catacombs in Rome are set to open to the general public for the first time this weekend, offering visitors a chance to explore the ancient underground tunnels and artwork.

In a bid to highlight the diversity of Italy's cultural attractions, the ancient Jewish burial site at Vigna Randanini, will no longer be off-limits.

The well-known Christian catacombs of Rome, of which there are 40, attract thousands of visitors every year, whereas up until now only private parties have been permitted to explore the second century Jewish burial site.

[...]

Not a new story, but this article has lots of good photos. Background here.

Glenn Alexander Magee (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook on Western Mysticism and Esotericism

THE FORBIDDEN GOSPELS BLOG: Finally, the Cambridge Handbook on Western Mysticism and Esotericism is published (April D. DeConick). It includes numerous chapters on ancient Western mysticism and esotericism. Cross-file under New Book.

Marx-Wolf, Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority

NEW BOOK FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS:

Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority
Platonists, Priests, and Gnostics in the Third Century C.E.
Heidi Marx-Wolf

224 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth Jan 2016 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4789-3 | $55.00s | £36.00 | Add to cart
Ebook Jan 2016 | ISBN 978-0-8122-9244-2 | $55.00s | £36.00 | About | Add to cart
A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series

"Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority is an original and thoughtful work, and one that will be of considerable interest to a range of scholars. Tracing the interactions among figures who have traditionally been perceived as operating within separate spheres—pagan Neoplatonists, Christian Platonists, Egyptian ritual experts, and gnostics—Heidi Marx-Wolf makes a persuasive and stimulating argument for how these thinkers used their expertise to establish their social authority."—James Rives, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

The people of the late ancient Mediterranean world thought about and encountered gods, angels, demons, heroes, and other spirits on a regular basis. These figures were diverse, ambiguous, and unclassified and were not ascribed any clear or stable moral valence. Whether or not they were helpful or harmful under specific circumstances determined if and what virtues were attributed to them. That all changed in the third century C.E., when a handful of Platonist philosophers—Plotinus, Origen, Porphyry, and Iamblichus—began to produce competing systematic discourses that ordered the realm of spirits in moral and ontological terms.

In Spiritual Taxonomies and Ritual Authority, Heidi Marx-Wolf recounts how these Platonist philosophers organized the spirit world into hierarchies, or "spiritual taxonomies," positioning themselves as the high priests of the highest gods in the process. By establishing themselves as experts on sacred, ritual, and doctrinal matters, they were able to fortify their authority, prestige, and reputation. The Platonists were not alone in this enterprise, and it brought them into competition with rivals to their new authority: priests of traditional polytheistic religions and gnostics. Members of these rival groups were also involved in identifying and ordering the realm of spirits and in providing the ritual means for dealing with that realm. Using her lens of spiritual taxonomy to look at these various groups in tandem, Marx-Wolf demonstrates that Platonist philosophers, Christian and non-Christian priests, and gnostics were more interconnected socially, educationally, and intellectually than previously recognized.

Zucker on the matriarchs of Genesis

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

The Matriarchs of Genesis: Seven Women, Five Views

Women’s voices in the Bible are limited, but they are not absent. Where they do appear they come in three forms. The most common is through the omniscient voice of the narrator, or where someone describes something about women, or women’s actions. “Sarah shall bear you a son” (Gen 17:19). “Then Rebekah and her maids rose up, mounted the camels, and followed the man” (Gen 24:61). Secondly, women speak, sharing basic factual information. “Rebekah said to her son Jacob, ‘I heard your father say . . .’” (Gen 27:6). Thirdly, and most infrequently, women describe their feelings. Sarah explains, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me” (Gen 21:6). When suffering through her pregnancy, Rebekah cries out, “If this is so, why do I exist?” (Gen 25:22). Later she will say to Isaac, “I abhor my life . . . if Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of the Hittites . . . what will my life be worth?” (Gen 27:46). Rachel plaintively says to Jacob “Let me have children; otherwise I am a dead woman” (Gen 30:1). Yet even with these examples, there remains the ultimately unanswerable question, are these women’s voices speaking, or are these examples of men representing women’s voices?

See Also: The Matriarchs of Genesis: Seven Women, Five Views (Wipf and Stock, 2015).

By David J. Zucker, PhD
March 2016

Hurtado videos on scrolls and codices

LARRY HURTADO: Codex & Bookroll: New Videos.

I announce two newly-produced, short videos in which I explain the basics of the ancient bookroll and the codex, and the curious early Christian preference for the latter bookform ...

Goliath's skull

REMNANT OF GIANTS: The Discovery of the Skull of Goliath: Scenes from Don Verdean. Important discovery.

Report: Palmyra can be restored

PALMYRA WATCH: Despite Islamic State plundering, ancient Palmyra can be restored (Riham Alkousaa and Rasha Faek, The Washington Times).

AMMAN, Jordan — Images of Islamic State militants dynamiting irreplaceable Roman ruins in Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra sparked anguish and outrage among scholars and archaeologists around the world.

But optimism is cautiously rising about the ability to restore the damaged sites despite the destruction of several World Heritage monuments in the complex, say some of the first outside specialists to reach Palmyra after Islamic State forces were wrested from the city.

“We still don’t know about the underground damage and the looting because of the mines planted by the Islamic State, but we can say that 80 percent of the archaeological architecture is undamaged,” Maamoun Abdulkarim, head of Syria’s Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums, said in an interview.

[...]

Despite the devastation, specialists say it could have been much worse.

“The photos of the archaeological site shows that we’ve been lucky,” said Amr al-Azm, an opposition-affiliated archaeologist and professor at Shawnee State University in Ohio. Mr. al-Azm also founded the The Day After Heritage Protection Initiative, a Syrian nongovernmental organization.

He pointed to the landmark Arch of Triumph — which was restored once before in the 1930s — as one monument that can be rebuilt using many of the original stones.

Mr. Abdulkarim, head of the state antiquities office, said he also believes damage to the castle and even the wrecked Temple of Bel can be restored without resorting to extensive rebuilding using modern materials that might destroy the character of the ancient ruins.

“We need to assess the status of the stones, how much could be restored and how much could be rebuilt,” he said. “We are not going to build a new temple. We will restore it.”

[...]

But the danger of an ISIS counterattack remains real.

Background on Palmyra is here with many, many links.

Review of Bayley, Freestone, Jackson (eds.), Glass of the Roman World

BRYN MAYR CLASSICAL REVIEW:

Justine Bayley, Ian Freestone, Caroline Jackson (ed.), Glass of the Roman World. Oxford; Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, 2015. Pp. xxvi, 204. ISBN 9781782977742. $70.00.

Reviewed by Thomas J. Derrick, University of Leicester (tjd14@le.ac.uk)

Preview

The volume reviewed is a Festschrift offered to Prof. Jennifer Price, an esteemed and respected scholar who has worked on glass from many regions of the Roman world and beyond (both temporally and geographically). In concordance with Prof. Price’s own wide-ranging publication history (listed xi-xxvi), the 18 contributions are on diverse and engaging topics. They are arranged in to three sections: 1. Technology and Production, 2. Vessels and their Forms, 3. Other Uses of Glass. Some papers present new material which adds to existing corpora, and others take more general approaches. The contributions are discussed in turn below, largely in the order they appear in the volume.

[...]

This was published before the recent discovery of the ancient glass kilns in the Valley of Akko near Mount Carmel, but the book does deal with ancient glass from the Land of Israel and it should provide useful background to the discovery. Another ancient glass exhibition was noted in yesterday's post here.

Teenage antiquities vandals out themselves

BUSTED: Teens vandalize ancient citadel for holiday ‘paint party.’ Israel Antiquities Authority gives high school students 48 hours to come forward before pressing charges.

Israeli high school students vandalized an ancient citadel in the coastal city of Ashdod during the Passover holiday this week.

The Israel Antiquities Authority on Wednesday said the 1,300-year-old citadel dating to the early Islamic period was defaced by colored paint leftover from a “paint party” thrown by a local high school. The damage is reversible, however, the IAA indicated.

Pictures of the party were uploaded to social media, allowing IAA investigators to identify the students responsible.

[...]

I suppose we should file this one under stupid teenage high spirits rather than anything worse. Presumably they would not have posted photos on social media if they had realized that they had committed a crime. Still, they deserve to have their little hands smacked and to have the fear put into them. News Israel Today has a follow-up report (HT Joseph Lauer):

On the evening of 27 April, the 0404 website.co.il reported that the father of one of the pupils who participated in the «party of colors» in the fortress Ashdod Yam, contacted the antiquities authority.

The man apologized for the incident. He said that his daughter and her friends were not aware that their actions cause damage to this historic structure. He expressed hope that this incident caused a great resonance, will serve as an example to other Teens.

[...]

Yes. Now hand them some brushes and set them to work cleaning up. The IAA seems to have handled this well.

John Ma on the Maccabees

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW: John Ma on the Maccabees.

The Ancient Jew Review interviewed Dr. John Ma of Columbia University about inscriptions and civic identity in ancient Judaea, specifically in relation to the accounts of the Maccabees. Dr. Ma is the author of the recent book Statues and Cities: Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World (Oxford Studies in Ancient Culture and Representation).

Mellon postdoc at Penn

POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS: Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Humanities (Penn Humanities Forum).

The Penn Humanities Forum awards five (5) one-year Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowships each academic year to junior scholars in the humanities who are no more than eight years out of their doctorate and who are not yet tenured (may not be tenured during the fellowship year). Scholars are required to spend the year (September–May) in residence at Penn.

[...]

This year's topic is "Afterlives." Note that this fellowship is for the 2017-18 academic year. Follow the link for further particulars.