The "Widow's Mite"

COIN WEEK: NGC Ancient Coins: Redefining the Biblical Widow’s Mite (Numismatic Guaranty Corporation). Excerpt:

The point of this discussion is to demonstrate how broad the definition of the Biblical Widow’s Mite should be if one is willing to break from a tradition that in truth has no solid footing whatsoever.

We believe the strength of tradition assures that the issues of Alexander Jannaeus will remain the generally accepted candidate for the Widow’s Mite. However, NGC Ancients now willingly extends that designation to any small Hasmonean (Maccabean) bronze coin issued from 135 to 37 BCE, as we consider any of them to be legitimate candidates.

The same could be said for all Herodian and Roman procuratorial bronzes of small size that predate about 27 BCE. However, these coins are scarce (or rare) in comparison to the massive issues of the Hasmoneans, and they typically are collected with other goals in mind.

The phrase "widow's mite" comes from the KJV translation of the story in the Synoptic Gospels of the widow who put two small coins (lepta) into the offering box at the Temple treasury. A past post noted another Coin Week article that dealt with this coin in less detail.

BHD: Burke on the Christian Apocrypha

BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: Christian Apocrypha: The “Lost Gospels”? Apocryphal texts and early Christianity (Ellen White). This essay summarizes an article by Dr. Tony Burke in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, the full text of which is behind the subscription wall. I noted that article here. Excerpt:

“Today scholars of the Christian apocrypha are challenging this view of the loss and rediscovery of apocryphal texts,” explains Burke. “It has become increasingly clear that the Christian apocrypha were composed and transmitted throughout Christian history, not just in antiquity.”

Cross-file under New Testament Apocrypha Watch.

Hurtado on the Bauckham Festscrift

LARRY HURTADO: A Tribute to Bauckham: New Volume. Professor Hurtado summarizes part of his own contribution to the volume. Then in another post he takes issue with the arguments in Philip Alexander's contribution: Alexander’s Ineffective Critique.

Background on the Festscrift is here and links.

Texan Mandean

JAMES MCGRATH: A Mandaean Song from San Antonio. Cross-file under Mandaean (Mandean) Watch and Modern Aramaic Watch. I would like to know about that restaurant too.

As James notes, PaleoJudaica has a recent thematically (i.e. Aramaic music) related post here.

Animal bones and the Jerusalem Temple

THE ASOR BLOG: Animal Economy in a Temple City and Its Countryside: Iron Age Jerusalem as a Case Study (Lidar Sapir-Hen, Yuval Gadot, and Israel Finkelstein).

Iron Age Jerusalem is the subject of perennial interest, but archaeological understanding of how the city functioned economically has grown more slowly. Our paper is an effort to understand aspects of life in Jerusalem and its hinterland in the first millennium BCE. In it we compared the animal economies of two sites that are part of one system: elite building at the capital city of Jerusalem, and an administrative center located several kilometers to its west. The results enabled us to gain insights into rural-urban relationships and socio-political mechanisms in the Iron Age Levant. These include understanding regional economic connections, the centralized temple economy and the class system.

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This in particular caught my eye:

The reported assemblages differ in the prominence of various livestock animals and in patterns of their exploitation. We found that while the Western Wall Plaza’s inhabitants focused on meat consumption and did not engage in actual herding, the inhabitants of Tel Moza focused on agriculture and producing caprines’ secondary products, probably supplying sheep and cattle to Jerusalem.

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Finally, our study reveals a class system within Jerusalem. When comparing our results to previous results from several locations, our study also demonstrates socio-economic stratification. People living in locations close to the Temple Mount show a higher economic standing of their inhabitants compared to those in a neighborhood on the southeastern slope of the “City of David” ridge. The higher-status neighborhoods seem to have received meat through a redistribution mechanism, possibly also through the sacrificial refuse from the Temple. While those residing next to the Temple enjoyed prime meat-cuts and were not engaged in actual herding or agriculture, lower-status groups showed some level of agriculture and working of secondary products. The “City of David” ridge is the only area within the city suitable for conducting small-scale agriculture. That Temple and palace’ elite of Jerusalem had specialized herders of caprines is well attested in other studies, showing herding of “royal” herds in the Judean Desert.

This looks like it adds up to indirect, but pretty clear, archaeological evidence for the existence of the First Temple on the Temple Mount in the late Iron Age II. This sort of statistical analysis of biological material remains has a lot to contribute to our understanding of antiquity. Cross-file under Temple Mount Watch.

Azar on the reception history of "the Jews" in John's Gospel

THE BIBLE AND INTERPRETATION:

Stereotyping Exegesis: The Gospel of John and “the Jews” in Ancient and Modern Commentary

Undoubtedly, there is much in the Christian past that warrants recognition and repudiation in the service of rectifying Jewish-Christian relations. The history of interpretation of John assuredly will not reveal many irenic readings. But to assume that the entire reception history—especially the early history that was so formative for Christianity—uniformly bears the same hostility of more recent periods oversteps the evidence (whether or not such hostility fairly characterizes the vast majority of the tradition). When closely examined, there is much in the early reception of John’s gospel that reveals significant problems in the way that that reception is so often portrayed and dismissed.

See Also: Exegeting the Jews: The Early Reception of the Johannine Jews (Brill, 2016).

By Michael G. Azar
Theology/Religious Studies
University of Scranton
September 2016

Messiahs of history and faith

REMNANT OF GIANTS: Can we distinguish the Christ of Faith from the Man of History? (Deane Galbraith). Indeed. PaleoJudaica has many past posts on Rebbe Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson, some of which are relevant to Deane's post. Start here and follow the links. See this one in particular. And I have some similar reflections about Shabbetai Zvi, the seventeenth-century mystical messiah of sin, here.

More on those cuneiform cookies

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How in the World Did Cuneiform Cookies Become a Thing? (Aviya Kushner, The Forward).

Ms. Kushner follows up her earlier essay on the importance of dead languages like Akkadian with an interview with the originator of the cuneiform cookie recipe, Penn Museum Keeper Katy Blanchard. Excerpt comment from Ms. Blanchard:

I suppose it simply comes down to this: We have an amazing collection here at the museum, a collection that often inspires the people it works with. I’m incredibly lucky to work with amazing objects from amazing cultures. And not everyone gets a chance to work with this material and have it be part of their everyday life. So I wanted to give other people a chance to share it. For me it wasn’t just for the language, but for the cookies, that was what made it fun. If it’s cuneiform cookies, or a brownie ziggurat, or I recently cross-stitched our famous bull-headed lyre from Ur: I want these things to be part of everyone’s everyday life.

National Humanities Medal for Pagels

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Historian of religion Pagels awarded National Humanities Meda.

Princeton University faculty member Elaine Pagels, an authority on the religions of late antiquity and the author of "The Gnostic Gospels" and "Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas," has been named a recipient of the 2015 National Humanities Medal. The announcement was made today by the White House. The medal will be conferred by President Barack Obama at a ceremony at the White House on Sept. 22, which will be webcast live.

The medal honors an individual or organization whose work has deepened the nation's understanding of the human experience, broadened citizens' engagement with history and literature, or helped preserve and expand Americans' access to cultural resources. Pagels was among 12 recipients of the award.

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Congratulations to Professor Pagels.

"Sacred Journeys" at Baylor

RELOCATION: Baylor museum to offer ‘Sacred Journeys’ exhibit (Harker Heights Herald).

WACO — Each year, more than 330 million people around the world journey to sacred places to perform acts of devotion, express faith or seek enlightenment or healing.

From Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, visitors to Baylor University’s Mayborn Museum Complex will learn about those pilgrimages through the exhibition National Geographic Sacred Journeys. The exhibit, created with National Geographic photography, recreates places, spaces and events so visitors can observe, discuss and learn about the history and beliefs behind spiritual travels around the world.

This marks the only time the 7,000-square-foot exhibition will travel from The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, where it opened in 2015.

The eight featured sites replicated in the exhibition include:

The Western Wall of the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, Israel

Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem, the site of Muhammad’s ascent to heaven

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, site of Jesus’ crucifixion

The Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to which all Muslims are expected to make a pilgrimage, or Hajj, once in their lives

Tepeyac Hill and the Roman Catholic Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, Mexico

Allahabad and Sangam at the confluence of three rivers sacred to Hindus at the Ganges River in India, site of some of the largest gatherings of humans on earth

Bodh Gaya, birthplace of Buddhism, and the Bodh Tree, where Gautama Buddha achieved enlightenment in Bihar, India

Caves in the bluffs along the Dead Sea in Qumran, Israel, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered

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The second one requires a bit of clarification. The story of Muhammad's night vision (Al-Miraj) is based on later interpretations of a couple of very allusive passages in the Qur'an. I have no reason to doubt the correctness of these interpretations, but what they claim is that Muhammad had a vision of ascending to heaven from Jerusalem. The "from Jerusalem" element was part of the vision. He never visited Jerusalem in non-visionary reality. More on this here and here.

The Sacred Journeys exhibition also includes fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls and a large stone from the Western Wall. The Indianapolis exhibition was noted here and here. Still no indication of which Dead Sea Scroll fragments are on display.

Ramat Rachel

ANOTHER ARCHAEOLOGICAL GARDEN IN ISRAEL: The kibbutz outside Jerusalem built atop an ancient palace. Ramat Rachel’s Archaeological Gardens tell the story of the Roman legionnaires, Judean kings and Assyrian conquerors, and others who lived and built there (AVIVA AND SHMUEL BAR-AM, Times of Israel). Excerpt:

Along with its other attractions, Ramat Rachel boasts a fantastic archaeological site that is open to visitors all day, every day. Developed by the Jewish National Fund, the Tourism Ministry and Ramat Rachel itself, it is the only one of its kind in the country in which a private enterprise like a kibbutz invested both time and money, yet refuses to take an entrance fee.

Called the Ramat Rachel Archaeological Gardens, the site was discovered in 1954 when the kibbutz decided to build a water tower on top of an overgrown hill. Because ancient shards and a Jewish burial cave were found nearby in the early 1930s, the Israel Antiquities Authority sponsored a salvage operation at the site. It was during these excavations that archaeologist Yochanan Aharoni unearthed artifacts dating back to the time of the Judean kings.

Over the next eight years more excavations were carried out, with findings that appeared to indicate that a royal citadel had been located on the hill way back in the 8th century BCE. Aharoni concluded that it had belonged to a Judean king – perhaps Johaikim; others believed that King Hezekiah’s palace had stood at the site. And for the next half century everyone assumed that they were viewing Judean remains.

Excavations were renewed in 2004, but with astounding results: the palace was found to be much larger than was originally thought, and had been variously inhabited by the Assyrians, Persians and Babylonians. Incredibly, despite the fact that there isn’t a major water source anywhere in the area, the site features a large collection of bathing pools and cisterns.

And read on for the remains from the Second Temple and Byzantine periods.

The other archaeological garden that was recently in the news is the new one at the IDF Kirya base in Tel Aviv. Past posts on the archaeology of Ramat Rachel are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The inscription on that ancient weight

EPIGRAPHY: Rare High Priest’s stone weight from Second Temple period found in Jerusalem. Asked how it felt to have the soot of one of Judaism’s most historic events on his flesh, Gutfeld paused thoughtfully for a moment. “It is amazing when you think about what you are digging.” (Daniel K. Eisenbud, Jerusalem Post).

This article has some new information on the discovery and decipherment of the inscription on the weight. On the latter:

“While I was digging in the burnt layer, I found a stone weight covered with soot, and only one of the 600 stone weights uncovered from the Second Temple period had a Hebrew inscription. So, I looked at it and smiled to myself thinking maybe it’ll have an inscription, and when I put it in a bucket of water and took it out I started to shiver.”

Immersion in the water, Gutfeld said, revealed two lines of inscribed text.

“The lower line had the name of the family of a high priest named ‘Katros’ written in Aramaic, but we could not understand the meaning of the upper line until recently, which is why we delayed publication of the find until now,” he said.

After years of analysis, Gutfeld said it was recently determined that the first line also was inscribed with the family’s name, but in ancient Persian.

“It was used to measure weight on a scale – maybe even for objects in the Temple,” he explained. “So it makes sense that the family name was inscribed on the stone.”

Moreover, Gutfeld said the family is criticized in the Mishnah for being corrupt and buying the title of priesthood.

“It was very popular during the Second Temple period to buy into the priesthood,” he said.

Background here.

Results of favorite museum survey

THE BIBLE PLACES BLOG: Survey Results: Favorite Museum (Todd Bolen). The quote on the Shrine of the Book is from me. I am surprised that no one mentioned the Chicago Oriental Institute Museum, which I also considered nominating.

Background here.

That Palmyra portal reconstruction again

DIABOLICAL PORTAL WATCH: Arch from Temple of Ba'al to Stand in NYC (Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, Breaking Israel News).

Despite initially cancelling plans to erect a reproduction of the Victory Arch that stood for 1,800 years in front of the Temple of Ba’al in Palmyra, the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) has announced they will recreate the arch destroyed by the Islamic State (ISIS) in New York City’s city Hall Park on September 19th.

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We've been through this before. The Arch of Triumph was not the entrance to the Temple of Bel. The Temple had its own portal, and presumably (not my area of expertise) that is what one would use to invoke Baal should one be inclined for some reason to do so. But the Temple of Bel also has been used as a church and a mosque in the interim, which I suppose would dilute any Baal-summoning powers considerably.

This current Breaking Israel News article seems to be aware of much of the above, but still tries to find something "disturbing" in the situation. But a connection between the Parthians and the lost tribes of Israel isn't persuasive. In any case, another copy of the Arch of Triumph has already been displayed in London and I have found no indication that anything bad came through.

Cross-file under Palmyra Watch. The many past posts pertaining to Palmyra are here and follow the links.

BAJS CFP: Jews on the Move

H-JUDAIC: CFP: 'Jews on the Move: Exploring the movement of Jews, objects, texts, and ideas in space and time', British Association for Jewish Studies (BAJS) Conference 2017, Edinburgh 10-12 July 2017.

From the earliest accounts travel and migration, movement across space and time characterise Jewish history. No less crucial than the movement of people is the movement of texts, objects, and ideas, which travel both physically and intellectually as generations in distant locations engage with these at different times and places. Jews themselves are associated with travel and migration, historically and in cultural production. This conference invites contributions of papers and panel proposals within the broad theme of the conference. What follows is a list of thematic headings which is indicative, but not exhaustive:

• Jews and migration
  
• Jews in / and the archive
  
• Texts which move
  
• Jewish journeys, journeys of Jews
  
• Literary explorations of travel, movements, and migration and their consequences
  
• Displaying Jews: museums, heritage, art
  
• Jewish objects: from vernacular and ritual to display and memory

As usual with BAJS conferences, papers on topics unrelated to the conference theme are also welcome, including proposals by graduate students wishing to present on their doctoral research.

Follow the link for further particulars. Professor Charlotte Hempel has a keynote address involving the Dead Sea Scrolls. The deadline for submission of paper and panel proposals is 31 January 2017.

Why Akkadian (etc.) still matters

PHILOLOGY RULES! Why Dead Languages Like Akkadian Still Matter (Aviya Kushner, The Forward).

I grew up hearing the Code of Hammurabi read out loud, in Akkadian, at the dining-room table. I did not know that my graduate-student mother was one of Akkadian’s few regular readers. The language of the ancient Akkad region, or modern-day Iraq, is considered a “dead language,” just like Ugaritic and Phoenician. All these dead tongues, however, fed into the Hebrew Bible, the most read book in history, and so they have a form of eternal life.

And so the language my mother read sounded familiar. Abum is like abba, the Hebrew word for father; imum like ima, or mother, and kalbum like kelev, or dog. For years I told myself that Akkadian, its strict legal code, and its dramatic descriptions of what would be done to losers in battle (hint: towering piles of body parts displayed for all to see) was my mother’s terrain, not mine. But the truth is that it is nearly impossible to avoid Akkadian’s influence on all of us.

[...]

Indeed. An entertaining essay that rambles from the Atrahasis Epic to the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary office to a recipe for cuneiform cookies. I also noted the latter here. Some years ago I wrote a blog post on the same theme in response to another essay in The Forward: Why we need Akkadian (and the humanities!).

More on the Bauckham Festschrift

EERDWORD BLOG: Honoring Richard Bauckham: In the Fullness of Time.

Background here and here.

NT position at UCLA

JOB ADVERT: Assistant Professor in New Testament and Early Christianity.

The Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures and the Program in the Study of Religion at the University of California, Los Angeles, announce a search for a new tenure-track position in New Testament and Early Christianity at the rank of Assistant Professor to be filled effective July 1, 2017. We are looking for applicants with Ph.D. in hand by July 2017. Applications are invited from scholars with research specialties in New Testament and Early Christianity, including its intersections with Second Temple Judaism, Rabbinics, and Eastern Christianity. Ability to work in relevant primary languages is expected (esp. Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac). Candidate will teach a range of classes including large General Education courses, small graduate seminars and demonstrate or likely commit to diversity related to teaching, research and service.

Follow the link for further particulars. The "recruitment period" is 14 September through 1 November 2016. It's good to see a New Testament post that emphasizes Hebrew and Aramaic alongside Greek.

INL acquires Jewish Afghan manuscripts

NEW COLLECTION: Rare findings from ancient Jewish community of Afghanistan. The Israeli National Library acquires massive and unique collection of ancient Jewish documents from Afganistan (Arutz Sheva).

The National Library of Israel in Jerusalem has acquired a one of a kind collection of manuscripts which will revolutionize our understanding about the history and culture of the legendary Silk Road's ancient Jewish community. The new collection, comprised of approximately 250 pages dating to the early 11th century, constitutes the largest body of original materials from the region prior to the modern era. Complementing the NLI's existing collection of 29 pages from the widely-reported "Afghan Geniza", Because of the widespread destruction during the Mongol Conquests, it represents virtually the only primary source for information about this once-thriving Jewish community, as well as the region's Islamic and Persian cultures prior to the Mongol invasion. This acquisition has been made possible through the generous support of the William Davidson Foundation and the Haim and Hanna Salomon Fund.

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The acquisition of the 29 pages from the Afghan "geniza" archive in 2013 was noted here. Follow the links there for background on the archive and see also here and here. The newly acquired manuscripts include more from that archive and also some additional texts from the early 13th century.

Who wrote the Book of Job?

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ("NO, REALLY" EDITION): Who really wrote the Book of Job? Job, possibly the strangest book in the bible, is based on legends going back thousands of years, and is written in a very unusual form of Hebrew (Elon Gilad, Haaretz).

I think Qoheleth and Job are both in the running for the strangest book in the Hebrew Bible. Ezekiel has his moments too. But be that as it may, this article gives a good overview of the scholarly state of the question concerning the origins of the Book of Job. The only thing I would add is to mention Bruce Zuckerman's theory that the poetic dialogues in Job are a satire of the original story, which is more or less the one found in the prose prologue/epilogue. I think his theory has some explanatory value and is worth keeping in mind.